Choerry had always found peacefulness in having her headphones on while she slept. Since she knows herself too much and she knows that she sleeps like a log, the fear of turning over and possibly hurting herself and destroying her precious headphones (it was her mom's first gift for her) was not something that bothered her every time she puts on her pajamas and gets herself ready for bed.
The sereneness of everything, the peacefulness that music brings to her whenever it lulls her to sleep and makes her morning the greatest time she always has (Hyunjin doesn't believe her when she answers her this same thing every time in breakfast), it makes Choerry’s day.
But right now, she doesn't grab her headphone from its box, like she always does whenever the clock hits 10:43 pm and even her Chuu unnie gets weirded by it.
"Are you planning on staying up, Choerry-ah?" Chuu asks her from the vanity, wiping her face with her cleaning products.
"No unnie, I'm all ready for bed." Choerry pauses. "I think."
"You're not wearing your headphones, how would you sleep?" Chuu frowns in front of the mirror, scrubbing her face with the cotton pads Kimlip let her borrow since she just realized she ran out of her own.
"I know." Choerry shakes her head, stilling herself as she rests her back on the wall beside their bunk beds, her feet coming in contact with the railing on the other side of her bed that prevents her from falling. "I don't think I'm going to wear it tonight."
"Then how would you sleep?"
Choerry looks at Chuu from the mirror and shrugs.
"I'll try to find a way." She purses her lips. "My body doesn't seem to want me to wear the headphones and before you say anything, that's not me getting lazy. I just...don't want to wear it."
After Chuu finishes her business and had given everyone their goodnight kisses (that earned her shrieks coming from Kimlip, returned kisses from Yves, Choerry, and Heejin, a 12-minute wild goose chase with Olivia, Hyunjin and Jinsoul, a groan from Yeojin and Gowon, and a chuckle from Vivi), the penguin finally closes their door and turns off their light, immediately falling asleep on her bunk as she hugs her penguin plushie.
Choerry wishes the same.
"Maybe it was a mistake not wearing the headphones." Choerry thinks as she lies wide awake on her bunk, staring right at the ceiling where her worn-out ceiling stars were attached.
It was a bit late in the night when Choerry hears something. She turns on her side to look at the wall clock above the vanity, seeing the numbers 2:17 AM flashing in green light.
She lies on her back again and tries to listen hard.
"Was that a squeak?" She questions herself for a bit when she hears the sound again.
Unsatisfied and curious, Choerry gets off of her bed and walks towards their room's door, peeking her head out and looking around, seeing no light coming from the living room. She continues out of the room and stands in the middle of the hallway.
"It must be coming from one of the ro---" Choerry freezes when she hears the sound again, this time it was closer. When she hears it again, she finds herself staring at the door beside the door they were adjacent with.
And now that she's outside of her room, she realizes that the sounds weren't squeaks, but were sobs.
"Yeojin and Heejin unnie's room. Is Heejin unnie watching another anime?" Choerry chuckles when she remembers that instance where the whole group got woken up by loud crying. When they entered the living room, they found Heejin and Chuu watching Anohana.
She approaches the door and stops before it, contemplating whether she'd knock or not. She chooses the latter and slowly turns the doorknob.
She sees the big lump on her Heejin unnie’s bunk, but the sobs aren't coming from there. Her eyes automatically fly up on the top bunk, seeing Yeojin's shaking back as it falls in rhythm with the sound. Choerry sighs, slipping herself in the dark room through a very narrow path through the door, not wanting the light in the hallway to wake up anyone inside the room. As she slowly closes the door and pats her way towards the bunk, she doesn't notice the eyes peeking through the lump on Heejin's bed, following the slightly visible neon green pajamas that Choerry had worn earlier. When she feels the steps on the ladder, Choerry takes a deep breath and pulls herself up, getting an evident creak from the bunk bed. Yeojin, who wasn't aware that someone had heard her sobs, tenses when she felt something heavy being added on their bunk bed. She suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder, and she turns with her red swollen eyes to see visible neon green pajamas and she sits up quickly.
Someone she feels comfortable with.
Choerry gets shocked when Yeojin quickly hugs her, wrapping her arms around Choerry’s torso, burying her face on the crook of Choerry’s neck. The older girl's hand automatically flies and lands on Yeojin's back, rubbing her in a comforting manner as Yeojin continues crying.
"Yeojin-ah. What's wrong?" Choerry finds it futile to ask if the girl's okay, not finding the sense of asking a person if they're okay when they're crying.
"Is unnie ever going back to us?" Choerry freezes when the question left the maknae's lips. She and Yeojin both know who the girl was referring to.
And Choerry wishes she knows the answer so she can finally assure their youngest about her closest unnie’s situation.
"I miss her a lot. I miss her waking me up. I miss her making me fried eggs even if I nag her that I like boiled ones more. I miss her sitting beside me in the car." Yeojin finds comfort in rubbing Choerry’s clothing with her thumb, still hiding her face. "I know that she visits us and checks on us whenever she has the chance, and I do appreciate that," Yeojin lets out a pained sob when her emotions start getting the best of her. "but it just hurts so much every time she walks out of the practice room and I remember that she won't be here in the dorm when we come back."
"Yeojin-ah, we don't get to have a say in this." Choerry pulls Yeojin away from her neck, holding both of the frog enthusiast's cheeks. She wipes away the girl's tears. "We can't ask of Haseul unnie to come back to us. Not when she's still fighting a battle within herself. She asked for this because she knows it won't bring any good to any of us, to her, if she continued promoting with us while she's struggling with herself. The only thing we can do is wait for her patiently. Be there for her."
"Choerry unnie," Yeojin looks up. "What if Haseul unnie chooses to leave the group?"
Choerry sighs, not liking the idea but not entirely pushing it out of the scene.
It could happen.
"Then," Choerry holds Yeojin's hand. "we have to respect her decision."
The thought makes Yeojin cry again.
Out of ideas on how to cheer up the girl, Choerry settles on lying Yeojin back on the bed, facing the wall beside her, her setting herself up behind Yeojin and spooning the small girl. She wraps her arm around Yeojin's waist. "Whatever happens, I'll be here for you, Yeojin. Always remember that."
Yeojin continues to sob, holding onto Choerry’s hand resting on her waist. Soon enough, Yeojin falls asleep due to her crying, and Choerry follows her.
Choerry wakes up before Yeojin, looking up from the bed to see the sun peeking through the blinds. She slowly detaches herself from Yeojin, afraid to wake her up. She makes her way out of the room, not noticing that the lump on Heejin's bed was gone. She walks into the living room to see her Vivi unnie watching something on the TV with a very much wide awake Kimlip and a groggy Jinsoul on her side, the latter clinging on her Kimlip unnie. She says her good mornings and proceeds to the kitchen to fill her groaning stomach, seeing her Hyunjin unnie sitting on one of the chairs around the dining table. She sends a smile towards the older as she passes by her, going straight to the fridge in hopes to find something edible yet light to have in the morning. Probably an apple.
She cheers internally when she does find the fruit, grabbing two and closing the fridge with her hip. She washes the fruit when suddenly, she feels someone hugging her from behind.
She's about to utter Yeojin's name until she feels a chin on her shoulder.
Yeojin can't put her chin on her shoulder that comfortably because of their height difference, so wh---
"I can hear your brain gears turning."
"Hyunjin unnie?" The said girl hums when she hears her name.
"What is this for? You're not usually clingy when it's morning." Choerry states out a fact, earning her a tighter hug and a chuckle from the older girl.
"It's a thank-you hug."
Choerry frowns and drops her apples on a plate, turning around to face the cat girl. "What for?"
Hyunjin sighs and gathers her hands in front of her, grabbing Choerry’s hand at the last minute. "I know about what happened last night. I was in Heejin's bunk because she said she was having trouble sleeping lately."
"I wanted to console her too. She was crying way before Heejin got to sleep and for a while, when you hadn't shown up yet, Heejin and I just laid there listening to her sobs. We felt so useless. We wanted to comfort her, but we didn't know how to. We're not close to her, not like how close you, Haseul unnie, and Gowon are to her. We were scared that if we talked to her about it, she would dismiss it and hide it even more." For the first time since Haseul walked out of their door, Choerry sees Hyunjin's teary eyes once again.
"Thank you."
Hyunjin hugs Choerry again, this time the younger girl hugs her back. Steps come from the living room, and soon, most of the group are joining the ever getting bigger group hug, with the exception of Yves (cause she's hard to wake up) and Yeojin (Hyunjin had told the other members not to wake up the youngest unless needed).
Surprisingly, they even got Olivia joining the group hug, squished by Chuu who's the far happiest with the scene.
"Why are you hugging here? What's happening?" Kimlip asks after tightening her hug on Jinsoul who's hugging Heejin who's hugging Hyunjin.
"I'm just..." Hyunjin stops speaking, gathering her thoughts.
She smiles as she hugs Yerim tighter. "I'm just really really thankful that we have Choerry in our group."