Since he had already caused enough trouble for the members on the day he died, the trouble caused that day was enough. Not wanting the members to suffer any more because of him, he covered his face with both hands and spoke in a trembling voice.
“Don’t do that.”
“……”
“He doesn’t exist in the world anymore. He’s someone who’s already dead.”
While Ka Jerim kept rambling that it was too wasteful to use time for someone who was already dead, Go Yoon, who had somehow approached right in front of Ka Jerim, grabbed both his wrists and slowly lowered them.
“He exists in my world.”
And Ka Jerim’s, no, Cha Hohyeon’s and Go Yoon’s eyes met.
“So don’t tell me not to look for him like that.”
As Go Yoon spoke, he slowly grabbed Cha Hohyeon’s wrists and collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down.
“Please.”
It was the first time seeing Go Yoon cry so pitifully like that. Cha Hohyeon couldn’t do anything and stared at him in blank dismay. Because if he comforted Go Yoon now, it felt like everything he had endured until now would become useless.
So Cha Hohyeon deliberately bit his lips hard and curled his trembling fingertips to dig into his palms. Strangely, his palms should have hurt, but his heart hurt too much. However, at Go Yoon’s words that followed, in the end.
“Hohyeon-ah, Hohyeon-ah, Hohyeon-ah……”
Unable to endure the sound of his name being called any longer, Cha Hohyeon grabbed Go Yoon’s wrist and lifted him up. After lifting Go Yoon up, Cha Hohyeon stared for a long while without saying anything at Go Yoon who was too thin and exhausted, bursting into tears to the point of being unable to control his body, then slowly reached out his hand to wipe the tears on Go Yoon’s cheeks.
“I don’t know the answer.”
“……”
“What if we hurt too much because of this choice and regret it.”
He clearly wiped Go Yoon’s tears. Yet even so, Go Yoon’s tears continued to flow over them.
Cha Hohyeon wiped them. Wiped and wiped. But Go Yoon’s tears didn’t stop. The tears continued to flow as if wiping them was useless. Cha Hohyeon, who kept rubbing the tear stains that wouldn’t be wiped away no matter how much he wiped, finally burst into the tears he had been holding back.
“Cha Hohyeon.”
Go Yoon tightly hugged the crying Cha Hohyeon. And kept calling his name. Cha Hohyeon burst into tears sorrowfully without being able to make a sound. The tears that wouldn’t be wiped away felt so cruel and so sad. As if knowing Cha Hohyeon’s heart like that, Go Yoon hugged him tightly and kept calling his name.
“I wanted to call you so much.”
After I died, your name that I called scattered in the air without a recipient. Unable to reach the owner of the name, the name kept colliding with the air, the walls, collapsing and disappearing. And each time, my heart shattered to pieces.
I should have treated you better then. I shouldn’t have said such things. I should have said pretty words instead of harsh ones.
And the biggest regret and question was that.
I was happy because of Cha Hohyeon, but was Cha Hohyeon happy because of us?
That thought tormented him every night. Each time he tried calling the name that had already lost its owner, but the name called without a recipient just came back like a boomerang and gouged him.
He didn’t know then how precious it was to call a name and have the owner of that name in front of him.
“Don’t regret it.”
Go Yoon slowly pulled away and smiled looking at Cha Hohyeon’s face that only shed tears sorrowfully.
“This time, regret is my share. You just be happy.”
The world without you wasn’t my world.
His eyes were saying that.
* * *
[Hello. Our loves.
Have you all been well? Fort’s eldest, Moon Ha Moon! It’s Ha Moon.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve written on the fan cafe.
It’s been a while, right? For almost three months, we haven’t given any updates or clear statement, so even though you don’t say it, I think you must all be very tired.
Actually, I secretly visited the fan cafe very often. While reading the posts and comments of you waiting for us without any promise, saying it’s okay even if we’re late so please just come, I cried a lot and gained a lot of comfort.
I’m really sorry. We should have told you our news first, but strange articles kept coming out, and the agency kept silent.
You must have all been very anxious, right? But actually, knowing all that, I think we were even more cautious about speaking.
Our 5th debut anniversary has already passed.
During that time, we cried and laughed…… It was so happy as much as it was hard. Thank you for always accompanying us through all those moments. Without you all, it wouldn’t have been easy to endure.
Because there were so many difficult things, too many to express in words.
Do you remember? The words we always said everywhere. At concerts, in award acceptance speeches, and at fan meetings too.
‘We’ll always show you only happy appearances. And we’ll make you happy.’
And you all answered with banners.
‘We’re already happy.’
Actually, there were many banners with many good words, but this one was the most impressive. The members each hung that banner on the wall. (Robi even put it under his pillow.)
But I’m sorry for not keeping that promise. We’ve already shown you too many sad appearances, and I think seeing our appearance gave you more sadness and pain rather than happiness. After seeing such appearances, we made a decision after a lot of consideration.
Let’s disband. And a three-month grace period began.
The agency told us to just package it by saying we’re supporting each other’s paths and parting with smiles, but I didn’t want to do that. Because it’s a lie. How can we summarize in one line that after walking together for 5 years, we’re each walking separately.
So the story I’m about to tell might disappoint you because it’s very different from what you thought of us, but I’ll tell it. If I talk about such specific details, it’ll probably become a big issue in articles too, and you might have a hard time again because of those comments and articles, right? And I’ll get scolded a lot by the CEO too. But so what if I get scolded.
After Hohyeon left like that…… and after Yoon belatedly woke up and a few days later, the four of us fought as if we’d never see each other again. Because we three told Yoon such a huge lie. Yoon was so angry and tried to cut ties with us. But we really couldn’t do anything. Because we wronged Yoon so much that even begging felt too shameful and we couldn’t look at Yoon’s face.
And after that day, somehow we ended up leaving the dorm and not contacting each other for nearly 3 months until now. Of course, Robi reconciled with Yoon in the middle, but Juno and I couldn’t. Because the wrong we did was so big that we were scared. So much so that we hoped Yoon wouldn’t forgive us, but rather hate us.
From the day we sent Hohyeon off last December until today…… March has already come. Time really flies. After that day, we all headed in different directions, but only today, no matter what, we all had to gather together and do something. That was the disbandment announcement.
So originally, we were going to post the following:
‘Fort has decided to each go our own way. Thank you for 5 years, and now we hope everyone will only have happy things elsewhere, and we’ll leave here now. Thank you for loving us all this time.’
The members couldn’t even look at each other’s faces properly because of guilt, we were struggling, exhausted…… didn’t trust each other…… so even if we gathered, it didn’t feel like we gathered. We decided to disband.
We’re not going to disband.
What. You said you were disbanding, but now what do you mean you’re not disbanding? It’s absurd, right? But I’m the same. Actually, all of this was decided an hour before posting this.
But I cried so much right now that I don’t really know what I’m writing…… I’m writing well, right? Robi doesn’t know any spelling so he can’t do it, and Yoon and Juno are hugging each other crying so they can’t do it, so I, the only one left, am holding back and writing. Wow, I’m good, right.
Anyway, what happened was we were going to disband, but Yoon who just arrived suddenly said let’s start again. Everyone was so flustered lololol…… No, right now whose feelings are we considering to disband!! The person who said let’s disband came in crying saying let’s not disband.
But crying Yoon and Robi, and me and Juno who were standing still. Ridiculously, we all had smiles of relief. Crying while laughing…… We said it was okay to disband with words and thought we felt that way inside too, but we didn’t.
I think we actually had too many lingering feelings. We just pretended to be okay to choose a path where we wouldn’t hurt each other, and somehow that became brainwashing so we thought we were okay. But inside was already full of lingering feelings. Just now we finally confirmed each other’s hearts, our own hearts.
Wow, this was too long, wasn’t it?
I’m sorry for how much your hearts will hurt hearing about us trying to disband, my loves. But I didn’t want to write ‘We’re all okay so we won’t disband and will continue activities,’ and I wanted to tell a really honest story.
Actually, we still can’t say we’re okay yet.
Hohyeon was a friend who occupied so much of us that it was really hard, and we’re still not okay. But if we keep saying we’re okay, it felt like we’d be lying to the fans who supported and believed in us for 5 years, so those words wouldn’t come out.
