Shuhua's Sad

"We're home!" Yuqi shouted. The members of (G)I-DLE entered their dorm and Soyeon set the keys down softly on the door-side table to find the maknae not in the main room playing video games like they had all expected.

Miyeon stiffened when she heard crying in the other room.

Soyeon sighed heavily. "You guys start on dinner.. I'll go check on her." Soyeon, tired from the day, made her way to Shuhua's room anyway.

"Shuhua?" Soyeon knocked on the door, scared about what the maknae was crying about. What if she was hurt? Soyeon said goodbye to formalities and just opened the door, even though she didn't hear any form of "come in" from the girl on the opposite side. But the door didn't budge. It was locked.

"Shuhua I swear.." Soyeon muttered, shoving herself into the door with a lot of force. For once, she liked how crappy their dorm is. The door flew open, revealing a wrecked Shuhua curled up on her bed.

She looked up from her pillow, eyes red and puffy. "gO awAy!" She hissed, voice broken from sobbing.

"Hey, it's alright," Soyeon fixed a sympathetic frown on her face, coming to sit at the edge of the bed. Shuhua didn't respond, she just threw the blanket over her body.

"Shuhua, what's wrong?"

The other just stared at Soyeon. Her eyes were not moving, like she'd forgotten how to blink. She had bags under her eyes. Soyeon felt guilty knowing that the youngest member hadn't slept or eaten properly in days. That should be her main responsibility as leader of (G)I-DLE.

"Please don't call me a crybaby," Shuhua whispered, breaking down with sobs.

"Hey, hey, hey, I won't, okay?" Soyeon dared to come closer, rubbing soothing circles around the other's back.

"Who do I have??" Shuhua let out a cry-laugh, gripping the sheets with her hands tightly, her knuckles turning white from how hard her grip was.

"What do you mean?" Soyeon tilted her head slightly, trying her best to be comforting.

Shuhua cuddled up towards Soyeon. "Soojin's gone," she sobbed into the smaller girl's chest. Shuhua looked up. "Unnie, why did she have to leave us?"

Soyeon felt something crack in her heart seeing the maknae in such a broken state. She knew that Shuhua would take it hard when Soojin left the group, but she didn't think it would be this hard.

"You can still visit her all the time," The leader reminded her.

"It's not the SAME!!" Shuhua squeezed Soyeon's sides, but not hard enough to hurt her.

The door clicked open. "Is everyone okay in here?" Miyeon murmured, stepping into the room to see a sobbing Shuhua clinging to Soyeon. Soyeon mouthed the words "not really" to the oldest, and with that, Miyeon was gone, leaving Soyeon to care for Shuhua.

What she didn't expect was for Miyeon to come back with Minnie and Yuqi. All the members of (G)I-DLE gave Shuhua words of kindness, hugs, and kisses, and brought her dinner. And that's when Shuhua realized:

Just because she lost one of her best friends, didn't mean that she had lost all of them.