Chapter 9
Gahyeon had been able to start therapy. Easing into everything and learning how to handle her emotions a lot better than before. She also had anger management days, going to her meetings and learning that a lot of people struggled with the same things. She was able to learn a lot of techniques, practicing them with Siyeon and learning what really worked for her and what didn’t.
Which also allowed her to get a new job. One that paid so much more but was further from home.
“Move in with me, it’s close to me,” Siyeon smiled when she saw the address of the building Gahyeon would be going to.
It was different. Different being in this kind of relationship. Full freedom of her own life while still being cared for and caring for someone else. It was brand new, liberating, and terrifying.
Not that they didn’t practice things behind closed doors, trying things and learning from each other in various ways every now and then but not consistently like how things were before.
“Does it hurt?” Siyeon whispered while tracing small designs on Gahyeon’s bare thigh.
“Not as bad as you think,” Gahyeon shrugged her shoulders, keeping her arms around Siyeon’s neck.
“But it’s an actual knife…” Siyeon frowned.
“And it’s not cutting into your skin,” Gahyeon chuckled. “Just gentle scrapes and knowing…” she shivered at the thought of the cool metal scraping against her skin. “It’s the experience,” she shrugged.
“You’re just a little fucked up… aren’t you?” Siyeon chuckled before kissing her neck.
“Can’t help I’m broken,” Gahyeon whispered.
“Not broken,” Siyeon mumbled before nipping at her neck.
“Broken,” Gahyeon repeated. She felt Siyeon’s mouth open, pressing teeth into her neck before she took in a sharp breath. “Go ahead, bite me,” she smirked.
“I’ll break you myself so it won’t be a lie anymore,” Siyeon muttered against her neck.
“Make it true then.”
It had been a total of seven months since the entire thing. Since Gahyeon had been shoved out of Handong’s life. She refused to make amends with her, watching her have just a great time with her new boyfriend.
It didn’t hurt nearly as bad, but it made her annoyed. Annoyed to think she spent that long with her just to be shoved out the second a guy stepped back into her life.
“I hope you guys don’t mind…”
Gahyeon had barely stepped into the practice room, seeing the same guy standing near the front. She stopped abruptly, causing Siyeon to stumble into her.
“What?” Siyeon frowned before seeing what Gahyeon was seeing. “Oh,” She whispered.
“I thought this was a closed practice,” Gahyeon spat.
“It’s not officially a closed one,” Bora frowned, not understanding why Gahyeon was so angry all of a sudden. “He can stay if he’d like,” She shrugged.
Gahyeon rolled her eyes, deciding to just attempt to ignore him before she blew up. She closed her eyes after setting her bag down, taking in a small breath before letting it slowly. She felt hands on her shoulders, massaging the tension out of her.
“Just ignore him,” Siyeon whispered.
“Hopefully he’ll stay quiet,” Gahyeon muttered.
“I don’t think he’ll have much to say,” She chuckled.
He was quiet for the most part, watching everyone rather than just his girlfriend. Gahyeon hated it. She hated the feeling of someone watching them in the practice space. It built up in her chest, causing her to miss just one step but was able to catch herself and keep up before it completely went off.
When the first round was over, she walked away from the group, listening to Bora talk about what needed to be changed and hearing what others had to say.
The youngest took in a deep breath, trying to calm her own angry nerves before she said something or did something, only for it to fly out the window rather quickly.
“I think you guys looked really nice!”
Of course, he would have an opinion. To think how they were. To just make a judgment based on one dance. How dare he.
“Thank you, but shush,” Bora immediately stated.
It went that way for an hour, Gahyeon trying to hold her tongue and actions inside while they practiced. It wasn’t for anything big, just a showcase at the end of the year and it was going to be just fun. Something to do outside of work for all of them.
Now it felt like Gahyeon wanted to set the building on fire with just him in it.
“Okay,” Bora sighed. “I think we made some great progress today,” she smiled. “I’ll work with Yubin on some things that we still haven’t mastered, see what we can do better or change it altogether.”
Gahyeon tried to listen, she really did.
“You guys make it look so easy!”
“It comes naturally to most of us,” Handong smiled. “Right, unnie?” She smirked while nudging Bora’s arm.
“You’re the one who’s a dance teacher so you tell me,” she chuckled.
Gahyeon was visibly tense, and Minji noticed before anyone else. The eldest walked over, wrapping her arms around the younger woman’s waist, holding her in place to try and calm her. She could feel her balling her fists, tensing and nearly shaking.
“It must be hard for Gahyeon right? With her knees?”
He was clearly trying to be quiet, only asking Handong, but she heard it. She heard it and she didn’t know why it made her so angry.
His entire presence just made her so angry.
“Don’t fucking say a word about me,” Gahyeon spat.
It had escalated, not much, but it had. He responded and it wasn’t something Gahyeon wanted to hear. In fact, she didn’t want to hear anything he said. She wanted him to stop breathing entirely and just disappear but that wouldn’t happen.
This was exactly why Minji held her back tightly, arms wrapped around the younger woman as she tried to wiggle out of her grasp.
“Get him out! She’s strong!” Minji shouted.
Once he was escorted out, the eldest let go, watching her run toward the door, only to be stopped by a furious Bora.
“No.” It was a firm tone. A glare and a firm barrier prevented her from leaving.
“Move.” Gahyeon’s voice was deeper, glaring at the older woman. She meant business. She was going to physically harm this guy.
“No, you can’t hurt him.” Bora scoffed at her.
Gahyeon balled her fists, ready to react to Bora’s words before Siyeon stopped her. The older woman winced at the pain she felt in her arm, taking in a sharp breath before dragging Gahyeon away from Bora.
She sat her down in the far corner of the room, letting her cool off while everyone settled down. Handong sent a message to Siyeon, letting her know everything was safe and Gahyeon could leave.
The second the couple left the practice room, the youngest heard talking. She glanced over to see Bora trying to keep her voice down, only for her face to show a very frustrated emotion.
“No, I told you. I told you if anything changed I wanted both of you out,” Bora hissed.
“Nothing’s changed.” Handong groaned.
“I can’t keep this up anymore. She almost hurt a stranger, almost hurt me, and hurt her own girlfriend because of her own anger. All because you had to bring your boyfriend here.” Bora let out a frustrated groan. “Everything’s changed these last few months and you’re treading on thin ice. Either she leaves or she leaves and you lose your job. The academy doesn’t have insurance for violence.”
Gahyeon didn’t know what to think. Something shifted in her mind and now it was all becoming too much.
“I don’t think this outburst should be associated with Handong…” Minji’s voice was heard, causing Gahyeon to nearly break. “Even if it was her boyfriend that sparked it… Gahyeon can’t be surprised like that. And he did talk about her…”
“It doesn’t matter Minji. I told Handong if this happened again she was out.” Bora glared.
“How about we do a mediation meeting then? Get to the root of the problem and we can just talk things out instead of firing people and kicking people out.”
Gahyeon left, finding Siyeon in the lobby with Yubin. The two older women gave her pitiful looks, which Gahyeon didn’t even register. Her mind was starting to cloud and now she couldn’t even think straight.
“Yubin was wanting to know if we wanted to go out for dinner together,” Siyeon smiled.
“I’m not hungry…” Gahyeon whispered. “You can go on without me. I’ll… I’ll go home,” She frowned.
“We can reschedule, not like we don’t see each other often,” Yubin chuckled.
“Yeah, we can reschedule.”
Gahyeon barely said a word on the way home, starting to be sucked into her own mind. She decided to shower to attempt to wash everything away but no matter how hard she tried the cloudy feeling was there and she couldn’t get rid of it.
Which was exactly why she was sitting on the couch at two in the morning, tears running down her face. She couldn’t wake Siyeon up. Siyeon was busy in the morning. She had a tough job and that meant she needed sleep.
She needed to stay quiet.
“We can be quiet…” Yoohyeon sniffed, head down as her mother held her arm.
“Good. Your father is sleeping and if you wake him up it’ll be him dealing with you.” Their mother hissed before roughly letting go of her older sister’s arm.
Gahyeon kept her mouth shut, clinging to her stuffed cat. Yoohyeon eventually made her way over, rubbing her arm gently which had visible and clear marks of a hand wrapped around it. She joined her sister on the floor, trying her best not to cry at the pain she was feeling.
Gahyeon gave her the stuffed cat, letting her sister cry quietly into the oversized plush. While her sister cried, she went to their shared toy box, finding a box that had a puzzle in it, deciding it was quieter than playing with their cards.
She sat next to Yoohyeon, opening the box slowly to ensure there would be absolutely no noise. She took each piece out one by one instead of dumping it like she wanted to.
They stayed hidden behind the couch, putting together the tiny puzzle as quietly as they could, trying to please their parents. Just trying not to exist within their sights.
Once the puzzle was completed, Yoohyeon had a tiny smile on her face, happy that they did something quiet. Gahyeon cleaned up, trying her best to be as quiet as possible, once it was all shut, she went to put the puzzle back, only to trip on her father’s work boots. She grabbed onto the toy box to try and stop the fall, but it had just tipped over, toys loudly spilling out onto the floor, Gahyeon landed on a few of the harder toys they had before she let out a pained cry.
Yoohyeon rushed over, worry written all over her face as she tried to cover her sister’s mouth and help her out of the toy box. All before their parents walked over.
But it was too late. Their mother walked over, anger surrounding her as she grabbed Gahyeon’s arm, yanking her out of the toy box. Gahyeon recognized the heavier step coming toward them, their father was awake now.
“What did your mother just say!” He shouted.
“I’m sorry!” Yoohyeon cried.
“I didn’t mean to!” Gahyeon sobbed. “It was an accident!” She cried before being shoved into the living room, hitting both of her knees against the coffee table in the middle of the room. She fell over in pain, landing on her side before rolling onto her back, sobbing while holding her knees.
Her father didn’t take kindly to that at all.
Yoohyeon sat with her sister in the closet, hiding from their parents. Gahyeon was quietly crying in their clothes pile, the back of her legs, knees, and butt hurting as she laid face first in the pile to muffle her sobs.
The older had watched what happened, her father grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be one of Yoohyeon’s slippers that somehow made it into the toy box. After everything happened, Yoohyeon made sure to grab her sister the second they weren’t looking and dragged her to their own tiny safe area.
Gahyeon had fallen asleep in the clothes pile, allowing Yoohyeon to feel more at ease with the quiet. She could hear everything. Hear her parents walking around, the muffled talking, and the muffled sound of the television.
Nothing made sense in their minds. All of their friends loved their parents. Their parents were nice. At least when they saw them at school they were nice.
“Unnie…” Gahyeon whimpered, causing Yoohyeon to shuffle closer to her, holding her hand.
“You have to be quiet…” Yoohyeon whispered, reminding her of what happened.
“I need to be quiet…” Gahyeon whispered as she stared into the dark living room. “I’ll be quiet…” She whimpered before pulling the blanket up to her chest. “Quiet… quiet… is safe…” Gahyeon whimpered as she sank further into the couch.
Her entire life had been nothing but staying quiet. Now it made sense why they hated her. The timer had quickly started with Bora and now it was over. No more. No more Bora. No more anyone.
All timers were done and alarms were going off. She couldn’t just apologize and reset. No. Not anymore. She had a loud outburst and now they hated her.
She needed to make things right. She needed to or else they were just going to keep suffering with her there.
It made sense. It made lots of sense actually. People didn’t like her. She was too loud. Too annoying. No wonder her birth parents hated her so much. She wondered if her adoptive parents hated her. She knew they tolerated her, but they wanted her right? They chose her… Right? Or was it just out of pity? Just a checkmark in the invisible book for religion. Do something good and get up in heaven.
She wondered if Yoohyeon was in heaven. She hoped she was. She was good. So good. Even if their idiot caregivers told them otherwise. She was the best. And she was gone. Gone forever.