None of Us Saw This Coming

December, 2017: White Christmas

Lisa was panting hard but she was trying harder to even her breath as she watched her member trying to even theirs too. It was a few days before their performance at Gayo Daejeon, their last event for the year and they had been practising harder than before.

Their CEO created a show for them called Blackpink House as their first-anniversary gift and they had started their shooting the previous week, so they were pretty cramped up with schedules that they had to concatenate all their supposed-to-be-practise schedules into that one day.

They were set to perform The Black Label remix version of So Hot that was popularised by Wonder Girls and it put a toll of pressure on the girls because the song was big and their sunbaenims were too. Although the remix version turned out brilliantly and they also had proven again that they were nothing but professional, they still could not ease their nervousness about performing the number.

Jennie, Chaeyoung, and Lisa were sinking in the pool of their own sweats during their 10-minute breaks when the practice room door slid open abruptly jolting the three easily scared girls—especially Jennie who accidentally let off a hitched shriek.

"Have you seen the news?" Jisoo who left for the washroom earlier got back slightly limping but it seemed as if it was not her main concern at the moment because she looked pale and it was clearly due to the mentioned news.

"And why are you limping?" Jennie asked curiously.

"Don't mind it, I just rolled down the bloody stairs. Just—just open your damn phones," she said dismissively and urgently while she was at it.

"You what?!"

"Phones!"

Jisoo's loud voice surprised all the four of them—yes, four, even Jisoo was startled at her own voice. The three younger girls scattered looking for their long-abandoned, long-forgotten phones. They had been practising for almost one day and it was almost close to midnight when they realised they had been isolating themselves away from the civilisations.

And when they opened their phone, a bunch of notifications with similar headlines popped up. The headlines were utterly shocking that they could not turn their eyes away; an unspeakable tragedy, it left them speechless. One that took a life away and their words along with it.

The first thing that rushed into Lisa's mind was Irene. It must have affected her at some point, considering how at some point, her life must have been touched by the one who got away as well. So she closed her browser and immediately punched a text to Irene with a wary heart. They were clearly bewildered and shocked that when their choreographer came back, he stared at them in confusion because although he left them breathless, he never expected to come back to them soulless—but at least he knew better.

It did not take long before Jisoo's manager fetched them all and brought them back to their dorm, telling them not to think about anything that night before he left. He also told them that he would come back the following day after discussing the matter with their PR personnel and the CEO, but their practice would definitely be postponed two days from then.

Lisa could not care less about when they would practise again or if ever, all she could think of was her silent phone that seemed to yet have any reply from Irene. Well, truth be told, it felt as if Irene had been avoiding her. Ever since their last encounter in Itaewon, that was. Lisa had been texting her but it seemed like the older was always busy and could not reply to her texts. So she knew that her last message would be left as was but there was a tiny voice inside her heart that somehow still wished Irene would send her a text back.

"Lili?"

A gentle voice knocked her out of her reverie. Lisa who had been just staring blankly at her room ceiling with running thoughts jolted and had all her staring moved to her door. There Jennie was with her tiny figure popped out from behind the door.