At first, it was almost unbearable for Sulli to be in the same room with her daughter. Taewoo was a constant reminder of who had slipped out of her fingers, who had wormed her way out of her life, who had left her daughter on her doorstep to be taken care of. “I can’t be a mother,” Sulli remembers Krystal saying apologetically, holding out a swaddled bundle to her, looking a little bit sickly. “Take care of our child for us.” And then, Krystal was gone. Leaving Taewoo behind to follow her dreams as a singer in Korea. 

Krystal had fooled everyone into believing she was sick, instead of recovering from the effects of having a child. Her and Sulli’s child. Sulli stared at the little pile of folded comforters placed snugly in her arms. Left with a newly born babe and the fact that her wife had just left her and her baby for her fantasy in entertainment. Sulli swallowed her heart and began to unravel the blankets, but the tinkle of metal and the soft rustle of paper dropping to her kitchen floor stopped her cold. She felt her insides freeze when the glittering object met her gaze. The young woman fell to the floor, limp with devastation. 

Her fingers slipped over the wooden floorboards and found the cool material of Krystal’s ring. Tears stained her dress. The baby let loose a wail, and Sulli joined in with her own cries. Outside, a heart broken woman leaned against the door of Sulli’s home. The rain pouring down from the heavens mixed with the tears and dripping mascara streaming down her cheeks. Krystal bangs her head back on Sulli’s door, wishing desperately that it didn’t have to be this way, that she could’ve been able to be a singer and a performer with Sulli by her side and a ring on her finger and a child bouncing happily on her lap. A car pulls up in front of the house, and Krystal wipes the snot and water off her face, and rushes over and rushes inside. 

A man in the drivers’ seat turns around with a smug smirk on his face, “Glad you made the right choice, Krystal.” The woman barely hears him over the roar of her sobs, her head held between her heads, her body hunched over between her legs. Minho shrugs his shoulders and revs the car, “Don’t worry,” he murmurs as they departed from the neighborhood, “I was the same way when I left Taemin.” The dark haired man glances at Krystal in the rearview mirror and continues, “But it gets better,” he tries to reassure, “you forget them after a while, the schedules and the dancing and the fans’ll all take over your time and there won’t be any time left for you to think of anything else.” Krystal hears the words loud and clear, but she knows they’re not true. The sounds of Sulli’s cries burrow deep inside of her heart and cut at her every moment she’s separated with her. “You never forget a soul mate,” she whispers after the tears have dried up and she has nothing left to cry out. 

Minho clenches his jaw and they both jerk to a stop in front of the towering mass of SM Entertainment. “Ready for your new life, Soojung?” He asks as he swings open her door. There’s a hardened look of solid stone on her face as she steps out onto the sidewalk. “It’s Krystal,” she mutters with a harsh, cold edge evident in her tone, as she whips out a pair of Ray Bans and shoves them up the bridge of her nose. Minho can sense the way she’s changed during the car ride. There’s an iciness in her aura that flows over her and washes over the people around her. 

He knows the loss of Sulli has transformed her usual bubbly and easy going and caring personality. Somewhere, deep inside the catacombs of his heart, Minho knows he’s responsible for this change in his little sister. Because he’s just one out of the two elder kids Krystal looks up to. He’s one of the pairs of shoes Krystal has to fill. The door shuts quietly behind Krystal, sealing her fate. “Name?” The woman behind the receptionist desks asks politely. 

The expressionless woman lowers her sunglasses just enough for her eyes to bore into hers. “Krystal,” the voice comes sharp, like a shard of ice, or a knife, “Krystal Jung.” The only crack in her stony expression was the smirk that stretched across her thin lips when the receptionist flinched in her chair.