You were only six when Yoonchae left for Dream Academy. Watching your older sister leave everything she’d ever known behind to chase her dream, too young to know she was leaving—too young to know what it meant.

No longer having your older sister’s presence was a hard adjustment to say the least, even your parents were clueless on how to help. Days into weeks passed of tugging on your mother’s pant leg, pestering her constantly asking, ‘When chip come home?’ until eventually, you stopped asking. The night you’d watched Yoonchae win, the reality was broken that your big sister wasn’t coming back to you. Nights spent curled up in tears on Yoonchae’s bed wondering why she left turned into her door left solemnly shut, an unspoken gloom lingering around it as if she was dead rather than doing everything she was destined to. Whenever she came back while you were still in elementary it was always just a family dinner then running off with the rest of the Katseye girls, your parents had tried to get you to understand and slowly as you grew older a small part of you did—but it never made the feeling she’d abandoned you go away.

The gap never seemed to close between you two, only grow as the years passed. Yoonchae watched you grow up across the globe through photos her parents sent, small snippets about you through whispers of sentences that were never enough—‘she slept in your room again last night’ or ‘she asked to get your favorite for when you come back’. You never called or sent a letter, and time coming to her Korean home away from LA was spent in your room, out with friends, or a trip that just ‘happened’ to start and end exactly when Yoonchae would fly in and out. She couldn’t describe how gutted she’d felt when she’d read the last of your name from your parents, you had just turned 16 and your mother had texted her in Korean—’she doesn’t like when I tell you about her’.

She barely remembered Sophia holding her as she cried herself to sleep.

Slowly but surely you slipped through each other’s fingers, once sisters attached to the hip tethered by blood now just passing ships.

It was your graduation now, valedictorian of Seoul National University, a bachelor’s in aerospace engineering and a masters in naval architecture and ocean engineering. Without Yoonchae you’d buried your life in academics, graduating early and sitting snug with a masters at the young age of 19. You’d grown up, nothing like Yoonchae’s memory of before she’d left—now you had hobbies, friends, memories that never included her. Somewhere between debuting and keeping up with everything her idol life entailed, you had slipped between the cracks of what’s important to her, the thought of everything she’d missed in over a decade flashing through her eyes as she watched you take your diploma.

When you walked across the stage and gave your speech, Yoonchae hadn’t seen the young woman you’d grown to be without her, but her little six year old sister she’d left behind who tugged at her sleeve pleading her to spend time with you.

When the ceremony was finally over she stood off to the side waiting for you with your parents and the rests of the Katseye girls, identical brown eyes washing over the crowd in search of you. As you finally appear from the crowd she can’t help but approach you first, the others left behind to wonder where she’d just disappeared to. Finally coming face to face with just how painstakingly much you’d changed while she was gone, how she knew almost nothing about who you are, what you like, god, Yoonchae knew you weren’t six anymore but she’d give anything to go back and do it all over again. To have a life where she never forgot about her little sister, to be given a chance to take away all the pain she’d caused you, and herself in consequence.

“…축하합니다 막내, 우리 모두 네가 정말 자랑스러워(…Congratulations baby sister, we’re all really proud of you).” She mutters just loud enough to be heard over the bustling crowd around her, one of her hands reaching out to change your cap tassels over from the right to the left side.