August 26th, 2025

──

It had been months since the girls had truly seen her outside of concerts and rehearsals. Their unnie was always there when the cameras rolled, immaculate under stage lights, but as soon as the final bow was taken, she was gone. No late-night meals, no banter in hotel hallways, no shopping trips. She only existed in the spaces where work demanded her.

At first, Lisa thought she just needed time. Jennie assumed she was busy with personal projects. But months dragged on, and the absence felt too loud, too heavy. Jisoo, normally calm and level, finally voiced what they all felt one August afternoon.

“She’s not okay,” Jisoo said, her tone sharp enough to slice through the silence of the dressing room.

Jennie nodded. “She barely even smiles unless she’s on stage. Then it’s gone the second we step off.”

Rosé twisted the cap of her water bottle, hesitant. “Maybe we should talk to Jessica. She’d know, right?”

So the four of them went together, finding Jessica in a quiet corner. Their manager of over a decade, now 44, knew every one of their tells. When she looked up from her phone and saw their expressions, she sighed like she’d been waiting for this.

“You’ve noticed it too,” Jessica said softly.

Lisa, usually bold, asked in almost a whisper, “What’s going on with her? We hardly see her anymore.”

Jessica set her phone aside, her voice low. “She’s… existing. That’s all. She goes through the motions, but when the schedules end, she shuts down. Eats enough to function, sleeps too much, avoids everyone. You know why.”

Of course they knew. Everyone did. Her breakup with Ji Yong hadn’t been public fodder—it had been a quiet implosion, whispered through backchannels in the industry. Still, for the girls, the memory of April 2022 was seared into them. She had loved him for nearly a decade, since August 5th, 2013. They’d first met in 2009, when she was still a trainee and he was already three years into BIGBANG, untouchable, magnetic. Their romance had seemed inevitable. Until it wasn’t.

Jennie clenched her jaw. “Because of him.”

Jessica didn’t flinch. “Yes. He made the mistake, and she’s still paying for it.” She sighed, softer now. “But don’t misunderstand. He didn’t just lose her—he lost himself. She was the only one who grounded him.”

The girls exchanged glances. They didn’t hate Ji Yong. None of them did. He was stupid, reckless, and careless that night—but not evil. They knew he’d been drunk, knew he regretted it the second the haze lifted. They also knew how much he’d adored their unnie. That was why it hurt more—because the love had been real.

“She loved him so much,” Rosé whispered, tears stinging her eyes.

“She still does,” Jisoo added, voice heavy.

Jessica nodded, her gaze steady. “And that’s the problem. She can’t let go. She doesn’t let herself heal because, in her mind, there’s nothing to heal from—she still belongs to him.”

Across the city, in a dim studio filled with the hum of machines, Ji Yong sat hunched in his chair, a half-burned cigarette forgotten between his fingers. His birthday had just passed, 37 now, but he didn’t feel older—just emptier.

He stared at the lyrics on the screen, words he’d rewritten twenty times. Every line bled with regret, but nothing sounded right. He’d dated one other woman since—the Chinese pop idol Linh Zao—but that had been a disaster. She was jealous, controlling, painfully insecure about the ghost of his first love. She’d lashed out at him in private, chipped at his self-worth, turned affection into manipulation. When he finally exposed her earlier this year, the world sided with him. But public vindication hadn’t healed the private hollow.

Because no matter how many women he met, no one felt like her. No one laughed the way she laughed, loved the way she loved. No one undid him the way she had.

In quiet moments, he admitted to himself the most humiliating truth: he still loved her. Always had. Always would.

Back at the venue, the four girls sat with Jessica’s words hanging between them.

"She's probably in her studio." Jessica quietly said.