Broken

6

"Why are you guys here? Not that I don't appreciate the visit, but I have an early shift tomorrow." Jihyo says as she enters the room.

"We were waiting for you. We are here for the weekend, so that shift of yours will have to be put on hold." Nayeon says, getting up to hug the girl.

"Well, you guys could stay the night, but I'm still working tomorrow, so just do your thing while I'm out." Jihyo answers, not wanting to be impolite.

"No deal. We are staying and you are staying with us." Mina declares in a definitive tone.

"Girls, I kind of have to work. You could all go out with your girlfriends for the day, and I'll come and have dinner with you when I get off." Jihyo tries to negotiate.

"Jihyo, we came to spend the weekend with you, and we can't do that if you are not here." Nayeon reasons.

"I'm glad that you three came by, but I'm sure you all have better ways to spend your weekends." The girl still tries to get the others to understand.

"Jihyo, you are not alright. We are going to stay, and you are not going to get out of this. Now, call your manager and ask for a shift change." Tzuyu says with a definitive tone, gaze unwavering and not allowing for discussion.

"Tzuyu, I already said I appreciate the visit, but I will be working tomorrow morning, until late afternoon. I could come by wherever you are all gathered to have dinner together, but I am not in a position to simply skip work." Jihyo uses a voice she never wanted to use with them, commanding and unaccepting.

"Fine." The youngest accepted and went back to being silent.

The night went on with superfluous conversations, Jihyo just brushes over her recent activities with the student council, how she has been getting back into singing, and steers the conversation away from her with practiced ease, not really allowing it to return. Tzuyu definitely noticed, but was too angry to trust herself to talk, Jihyo was running from them and the other two were allowing her, she wanted to rage, to scream, to demand Jihyo would just speak to them.

She didn't. Mina and Nayeon got steered along without noticing, and seemed to be enjoying the evening with their friend. The two were always a bit on the dense side, they wouldn't see through the small cracks Jihyo's façade had. Tzuyu was just getting hurt at some point, she asked herself why the girl wouldn't just trust her, trust them, and talk to them. She knew they had a special place for the girl in their hearts, but started to question herself, to question if they were so unreliable to the point where Jihyo would do this to herself instead of taking their hands that had been stretched out to her from the beginning.

As it got later, Jihyo asked them to just go to sleep as she had to be up early the next day. The girls did. Jihyo waited for them to be out and headed to her small balcony, her room was a former storage room (she had given her real room for her youngest sister when she was born), with low ceiling and a big window without blinds (those were too expensive) that went out to a small balcony that really just fit two people standing. Tzuyu, on the other hand, had been restless ever since she saw the girl that evening. So, she just followed Jihyo out, closing the door behind them so they could have a talk, for once.

"Tzu? I thought you were asleep."

"I know, if you didn't you wouldn't be out here. You'd still be in bed, pretending to have fallen asleep."

"I forget how perceptive you really are, sometimes."

"I know, those two make such a ruckus that one forgets the details."

"They sure do." Jihyo lets out a humorless chuckle.

"Jihyo, can we talk?"

"I thought we did? All night, to be precise."

"I mean, talk, not brush over some meaningless things and have you run away from the subject."

"I can try. No promises."

"Why do you hide so much?"

"I don't, though?"

"You hid the entire night, you have been hiding ever since Chaeyoung and Momo came along. You hide behind that sickening smile and those misleading words. Why do you hide so much? Are we nothing to you?"

"Tzuyu, calm down. They might wake up."

"Good, they want to know too. We all want to know, Jihyo. But you keep hiding."

"So do you want to talk tomorrow during dinner, then? Since it would be better to just let you all ask everything at once?!"

"IF you even show up, you mean. You come one time when we ask you to, then you get away again."

"It took you a while before you came by again, though."

"That's fair. But I can't just let this go like this."

"I know it's fair. And are you certain you want this? Do you really want me to show up, to talk about myself, let you know how my day is going? Are you honestly interested?"

Tzuyu kept mum.

"Thought so. I'm going to have dinner with you all tomorrow, take the time think it through. If you have a real answer by then, let me know, I'll be glad to give you whatever you decide on."

Jihyo just patted the girl's head and went back inside, she got to her corner of the bed, squeezing herself against the headboard to make sure she wasn't against any of the others, and willed herself to sleep, she would need any rest she could get the next morning. Tzuyu could only look at the older one, dejected, her heart breaking that bit more seeing the girl not wanting to risk leaning on any of them, not even by accident.

The next morning was.... Uncomfortable, to say the least. Tzuyu woke up when she heard Jihyo's alarm go off, she saw the other get out of bed, looking worse than the night before, and making sure she wouldn't touch any of the others still asleep. Once jihyo had picked up her clothes and left for the bathroom, Tzuyu made sure to wake the other two and headed out to the kitchen to make some breakfast.

The youngest, for the first time, opened the fridge at jihyo's house, and her heart was shattered, she moved on to open some cabinets, and the urge to break down and cry then and there was so overpowering that she returned to the bedroom and told the others they would just leave once jihyo was out of the bathroom. Nayeon tried to argue they should have some food before going, but Tzuyu's eyes were so pained that the older one just agreed.

Jihyo was ready to go to work soon enough, so the others just left for Nayeon's, as it was just two houses away, and the two older ones were worried for Tzuyu, who managed to swallow her tears long enough to send their host out to work. As soon as she stepped inside Nayeon's house, she started sobbing uncontrollably, once inside Nayeon's room, she just broke down, with the other two holding her tight, without understanding a single thing. The girl was never one to show so much emotion.