memories || stray kids

seven

🌻

"we're not friends anymore."

"... what?"

jaeyeon looks down at the bunch of photos, photos of close friends and then up at jisung again. "what do you mean, you're not friends anymore? even I can see how close we were, why the hell wouldn't you still be friends-"

"it happened after the accident," jisung cuts her short. immediately, jaeyeon has to swallow a heavy lump of nothing upon hearing this. realizing what he had just said, he shuts his eyes and sighs, "no, I don't mean it that way, it's not your fault..."

"then what is it?"

"listen up." jisung's hold around her hands tighten as he continues, "after the accident, you were in coma for almost two months, jaeyeon. these two months killed us, hell, we didn't know what would happen to you."

"... and why did that affect our friendship?"

"because-... because it broke all of us. the more time passed without you waking up, the more did the guys change. we had countless of fights and arguments and we just... stopped getting along and in the end, we decided we shouldn't hang out anymore... that also explains why you never found out about us after that."

"what do you mean?"

jisung has to first deeply inhale to go on. "you know how you were moving to daegu only two, three weeks after you finally woke up?"

"yeah, what about it?"

"well... when we found out you didn't remember any of us, we asked your family to not tell you about us. there wouldn't be any point in doing so when we weren't friends anymore, everyone knew it would only drag you down after moving to daegu."

instantly, jaeyeon pulls her hands back to herself, holding them to her chest. this startles jisung, becoming worried when he sees the disappointment written over her face. "jaeye-"

"are you serious?"

the outburst makes jisung raise an eyebrow at her, "what?"

"I can't believe you actually let the accident affect you like that... if it really had you all so depressed, why didn't you support each other instead? to begin with, how the hell could you ever come to a decision like that?!"

jaeyeon pauses but picks her outburst up when she notices how jisung is about to speak, "do you even know how much it hurt? I've been trying to figure out what the fuck I used to do those years before the accident and you just decided to keep it a secret?"

"jaeyeon, you don't understand..." jisung groans, watching as she stands up.

"what is it that I don't understand, jisung?" jaeyeon opens her arms in frustration, looking down at him, dismay in her eyes.

just like earlier, jisung doesn't answer, he can't answer and instead looks away, suddenly feeling ashamed of himself.

"you know what?"

the unexpected calm in jaeyeon's words makes jisung look up at her again, curious as of what else she had to say. hearing about it, his jaw practically falls to the floor: "I'm going to find the rest of the guys."

"what?! you can't do that! no one keeps in touch anymore, we all live different lives now!"

"what do you mean I can't, of course I can? if you stopped hanging out that easily, it should be just as easy to bring you together," she counters, crossing her arms over her chest. she's aware of how absurd it sounds but in the heat of the moment, she couldn't care any less.