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They had been practicing for two weeks the same damned choreography.
Considering that practice lasted twelve hours, one thinks and hopes that an idol who has been active for eight years has already learned two or three choreographies of the new comeback to perfection, perhaps even starting to memorise the rest of the songs, right? Well it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all.
Because of Sana, the other members were still stuck on the title track's choreography because she did nothing but make mistakes and remake the same mistakes all over again.
Whether it was her mind going blank at some point in the middle of the song or the wrong detail of the hands or the delay of a beat or the fucking thousand other things that happened to made her do something wrong...
For two weeks that damned song had been resonating in the practice room and for two weeks the other eight members had been forced to rehearse it over and over again.
Sana couldn't forgive herself for this.
She was always like that.
For each comeback, the company would gave Twice several months more than any other JYPE artist, just because Sana couldn't keep up.
Even the MVs were now shot months after the recording of the title tracks, even tho any group would be ready in less than a week of practice for the choreography. After the first three delays for the shooting due to Sana's fault, the company had chosen to do it this way, they had chosen to give them months' notice.
It was horrible.
It was fucking disgusting.
She saw her members being loved and adored. Videos where they praised the girls and pointed out how amazing they were constantly went viral.
And Sana?
Well Sana... the fans had noticed, they had fucking noticed how much she sucked.
Her Instagram, TikTok and Twitter feeds were full of videos and comments pointing out her never ending saga of mistakes. Those were the viral videos of her. Every time she saw one, one more piece of her already completely destroyed heart, shattered.
She didn't show it. No. It wasn't something she would do.
Sana was Twice's happy virus. The goofy and clumsy little Sana. Always smiling and carefree. The one who cried only if she was happy and brought the members' mood up if they were down.
She could do it alone, she didn't need anyone helping her with her feelings.
She was enough.
Sana had her way to brighten up her mood and keep her grounded. It was a way closed in the drawer of her bedside table, hidden inside an old empty candy box, to not attract attention.
Every time she made a mistake, she laughed it off and then bent down and apologised to the members and the choreographer. By now they didn't pay attention, they didn't find it annoying as they would have at the beginning, they didn't yell at her to focus, no. Now they were used to it because of the eight years always filled with her disgusting mistakes.
They were used to it...
Another thing that every time that damn song started to play, killed her...
They were used to seeing her make mistakes.
God, she fucking hated it.
After the umpteenth fall, something broke inside her. Her eyes began to burn slightly, forcing Sana to look down to hide them letting her hair fall undisturbed on her face, covering her expression.
She still didn't understand if her ears were modded or the room had fallen into a dead silence. Honestly she didn't even want to know, she would have spared herself a humiliation.
She took a deep breath, casting back her tears and then raised her head looking in the mirror.
She was fucking disgusting.
There were deep dark circles due to the additional hours of useless solo practice she did to improve. Her eyes red from restraining herself from crying. The fatigue that impregnated her bones. Her face pale due to the feeling of constant nausea for to the lack of food and water.
Sana quickly looked away. No that wasn't going to work. They couldn't see her like that. She took a deep breath and forced a giggle out of her lips.
She had to leave. She couldn't take it anymore. She needed her distraction.
“Ah...” Sana tried to smile as best she could, but she knew she wasn't doing a good job. Almost involuntarily, she avoided the face of all the members.
“The last break we took was two hours ago, why don't we take a little one now?” Before she could say anything, Jihyo spoke with a tired smile. Having said that the woman ran to lie on the sofa in the room.
They were able to train for five straight hours, thanks to the fact that not always all members danced together having to learn different details. Two hours was nothing.
Sana hated it. She knew perfectly well that the break was not due to the fatigue of the members, but it had the function of helping Sana to regain concentration.
Everyone cheered, although not actually exhausted. A free break was still always accepted.
After a few minutes of chatter, half of the members left the room to go either the company's bar or the bathroom.
“I'm nauseous...” She murmured curling up in a little corner. It wasn't referred to anyone and she wasn't even sure she wanted anyone to hear it, it just slipped out of the lips.
“Do you want to take something?” Immediately Momo was sitting at her side leaning towards her, caressing her hair. The shadow of the other hand on Sana's belly, almost unsure whether to caress it as a small gesture of affection or not to avoid troubling her stomach further.
Avoiding eye contact, Sana rested her head on the older girl's shoulder. She didn't respond, she never took any meds when she was sick, but every time Momo would still asks.
“I'm going to the bathroom.” After a few minutes, Sana broke the silence. Momo nodded accompanying her to the door opening it for her, finding Dahyun on the other side.
She had been avoiding eye contact with her and Momo for hours and at all costs. They were her weak point, a look from one of the two was able to make her walls crumble.
But it was inevitable.
The face of the younger from relaxed immediately changed into a worried expression and Sana looked away quickly. She was really in that much of a pitiful state, wasn't she?
“I feel sick.” she said sighing, blocking any attempt at interrogation and breaking eye contact.
She left the practice room without looking back. Her goal was the exit of the building. She was without a coat, but she couldn't get it without the girls proposing to take her back home and stay with her. Even though it was the middle of winter, she didn't want anyone to get in the way of her alone time.
It took her a few minutes to reach the exit and before she could cross the threshold, her phone rang.
“Sana unnie, are you all right? We're starting, can you make it?" Mina's calm and sweet voice brought the tingling back to her eyes.
“I don't think I can continue today, I'm going home, go on without me.” Her voice wasn't as bright as always, but fortunately she managed to keep the emotion out of it.
“Do you want me to call manager unnie for you?”
“No problem, I can do it Dahyunnie, fighting!” Having said that, she hanged up the call and exited the building.
She couldn't afford to have someone accompanying her home and stay with her just because she didn't feel well.
The air was freezing and Sana could swear that the cold was almost tearing her skin off, but it was probably just in her head.
Within a few minutes she was at the dorm that the nine of them shared.
Sana quickly headed for her room. She didn't bother to lock the door, she knew perfectly well that for at least another five or six hours no one would enter the house.
She threw her bag on the bed. She opened the zip of her oversized sweatshirt. She didn't bother to take it off she just let it slip off her skin, hearing the little puff of the fabric entering in contact with the floor. She got out of the shirt she was wearing and took off her pants, simply remaining in her white underwear.
After a few seconds her teeth began to chatter furiously. Her body was shaking out of her control. She was freezing. And she couldn't care any less.
Sana had a goal.
She frantically searched inside her drawer until her hand touched the cold metal of the old candy box and a small smile formed on her face.
Finally.
She sat on the cold tile floor at the foot of her bed leaning her back to the mattress. She opened the box. Inside a steel shiny blade.
Her mind began to race.
A simple little object that was usually used to cut beard hair. Yet Sana made a different use of it. She used it to hurt herself, but could she really call it self-harm? Every time that blade cut her skin, part of the weight on her shoulders was lifted, sighs she didn't know she was holding back left her lips, control over herself and her emotions slowly came back. In one world, relief.
She slightly shook her head coming out of the vortex of her thoughts. She sighed heavily. Today wasn't going to be easy. Today Sana hated herself a little more than usual.
Without moving the box, she stood up just to be able to reach the kitchen. She opened the fridge and stared at the various bottles of soju for a few seconds, then grabbed one and returned to the room.
It had become a kind of routine, soju, cutting herself and then a healthy nap helped by alcohol.
She sat down again. Sana opened the bottle and unlike all the other days, she downed it in one go the taste of the alcohol making her grimace. But you know, faster it was the stronger the effect would be. A little plus to the already strong effect was the fact that she still hadn't touched food all day.
She went back to look at the blade, abandoning the bottle on the floor.
She was never happy to do it.
That would mean that once again she had hit rock bottom, deeper and deeper in her head. That meant that once again Sana had being a fucking disappointment, that once again she hated herself a little more than before, that once again she had hoped that her life would never start.
Sana didn't want to kill herself, no. Sure, she didn't want to live, but she wasn't that brave. She just wanted to stop existing and if making her own existence miserable would help, then why not?
The faces of Dahyun and Momo appeared in front of her eyes, like every time she found herself looking at the blade.
What would her Dahyunnie and Momoring have thought if they knew? They would hate her and think she's just victimising herself.
Why should they love a problematic person like Sana? They shouldn't.
And what was the best way not to be hated and just be loved as always? By not cutting herself and being Sana.
This helped her the vast majority of the time, but that wasn't one of those days, no.
Sana couldn't get out of her head the thought that it had been two weeks that they were on the same choreography because of her and that surely now that she wasn't there, her members were practicing other songs that because of her they couldn't try before.
She kept thinking about how they were joking with each other complimenting each other for memorising some new steps or laughing if someone made a mistake because it was the first day of rehearsal for the new song and not the second week.
She kept thinking about all the insults, all the people who mocked her, all those views to the hashtag 'ot8'. All the people who called her a 'filler member'.
Yes, Twice would be a better group without her.
Why would they want a person like Sana in the group?
A person who always got everything wrong. She got the choreography steps wrong. She got the lyrics wrong in her own songs. She'd lose her balance and fell on stage. Her voice would crack when she sang. All the songs she wrote would be rejected. All her behavior would be criticized by the agency. Jyp in person had pointed out to her a whole series of things in which Sana failed. She was criticised in every way and by anyone.
"Childish."
"She takes things too lightly."
"Talentless."
"Useless."
"Her only use is to make people pity her."
"She's bringing the group down."
At first she ignored these comments, after all they weren't true. But more and more people started saying the same things, so it would mean that after all they weren't so fakes, right? It would mean that Sana really sucked, she really was worthless.
The person who Sana was once, now was gone. Only the smiling shell was left, a smile no longer genuine but a forced one. She became a fake person.
Nobody wanted her, right?
Nobody even needed her.
Why would they?
She was just a stupid fucking little girl who dreamed way too big. She was really disgusting, wasn't she?
She hadn't even realized she was crying until warm tears fell on her hands. She took a deep breath, she didn't even bother to dry her cheeks, she knew it was useless.
With a trembling hand she grabbed the blade, while with the other she slightly lifted the right side of her underwear to make room. She was an idol, she knew well where she could cut herself and where she couldn't.
Her breathing accelerated. She pressed the blade against her skin piercing it. Warm blood began to drip slowly until it touched the floor, not a problem, she'd clean later, as always.
One, two, three... seven, eight, nine... Sana couldn't stop. She went over her old scars not caring about how long it had taken them to take that light color.
Slowly her crying ceased and a feeling of warmth made its way into her chest. She felt like she was regaining control of herself again.
But it still wasn't enough, she had a twisted desire to continue. That definitely must have been her most serious episode.
Usually a couple of cuts were enough and she'd already felt better. Not that time, no. Every time she thought she had enough, flash of those damn comments appeared in her head, flash of her happy members dancing to a song that was not the one they had tried with Sana only an hour before...
She wanted so bad to move to the left side of her hips, but it was already occupied by other cuts not yet healed.
Her gaze slowly reached her wrist.
She could afford to do it. Her tops for the promotions of the new comeback were all long-sleeved, no one would see anything before they healed.
She could do it.
She took yet another deep breath and quickly brought the blade to her wrist. Her skin burned on contact with the blade.
It was a different pain, more pungent, more satisfying.
A large trickle of blood slid down her arm to her elbow, dripping on the floor. Maybe she had cut too deeply, it was the first time on her wrist, she didn't know.
The alcohol finally began to hit her, making her lightheaded. Sana gave herself a few minutes to get used to the effect before continuing to cut herself.
It didn't take long before her struggle to stay conscious began. Aggravating? Being practically naked in the middle of winter. Drank a bottle of soju in one large sip. Not having eaten anything since the lunch of the day before. Her two miserable hours of sleep, followed by seven of intense practice. The cuts that led her to lose a considerable amount of blood, if not lethal.
All this at the same time.
Her head swirled and her vision flickered dangerously.
Sana thought that maybe dying like that wouldn't be that bad.
It didn't take long before the blade slipped from her fingers. The noises faded and everything turned black.