MCountdown studio, NCT 127 dressing room, March 3rd, 2018, 7:37am

Perrie was sat in the makeup chair, her stylist re-applying eyeliner to her eyes. Perrie figured it wasn’t easy for her stylist considering the fact that her head kept swaying side to side as a result of her tiredness from earlier rehearsals. On her sides, she could hear some laugher from her members and some snoring from others. 

They had to go on stage in about two and half hours but they had just finished pre-rehearsal and after that, exhaustion had hit Perrie at full force. However, she pushed through it in order to re-watch the rehearsal.

While many idols rewatched their performances, Perrie did it almost obsessively. Not because she thought she was good but because she needed to do better. Anytime she watched herself all she could see were her mistakes and where she could do better. To her, her expressions weren’t good enough, her moves weren’t smooth enough, her voice sounded odd, and many other things. All of these things ended up frustrating Perrie to no end. 

Being in NCT was a dream to Perrie, especially in the beginning. But, she didn’t realize just how hard people would come after her in every aspect of her life. Whether it was about her performance or just her regular off stage self. People just found anything to criticize. These thoughts kept her up all night, her mind running non-stop on what she could do to improve. It wasn’t the healthiest, Perrie knew that in the back of her mind, but she didn’t care. 

Even with these feelings, Perrie kept them to herself. She didn’t want to bother the people around her with her insecurities, no matter how bad they got. In her mind, they were her problem and she shouldn’t burden those around her with her problems. This mindset was drilled into her by a young age without her fully realizing it. 

However, despite her thinking this, she tends to forget just how well her members knew her. They knew it wasn’t easy being the only female in a male-dominated group and that people watched her every move just to point something negative out. It was like that with every idol, but seemed to be even worse for her. They also knew that it was affecting her more than she was letting on. She barely slept, had to be reminded to eat and sometimes the members had to watch her eat just to make sure she wasn’t lying and was actually consuming the food. Other times, she would spend hours in the studio, dancing herself ragged until someone - usually Johnny or Yuta - would have to drag her home. 

They would try to talk to her about it, but Perrie would either get very defensive or she would just brush it off and say she was fine. Other times, if they kept pushing, she would get overwhelmed and it would lead to her completely shutting down or going into a full blown panic attack. Therefore, they tried to help her as much as possible without being obvious. 

Now as Perrie was watching the rehearsal for the fourth time - or was it the fifth, Perrie had lost count - she was able to point out another mistake. She didn’t stop watching, until the phone was ripped out of her hands. 

“Yah, what are you doing?” Perrie turned her head around to face the culprit who was none other than Doyoung. 

“Yah? Is that the way to talk to someone who saved you your favorite sandwich?” Doyoung did in fact, in his hands, have a ham and cheese sandwich that he was holding out to her. 

Even with the food in front of her, she held her gaze on him. Her eyes glaring holes into his. Doyoung however, didn’t let up and basically forced the sandwich into her hands. 

“I’m not - “ Perrie started to speaking but Doyoung beat her to it. 

“Not hungry? You haven’t eaten at all today and barely ate anything yesterday.”

Doyoung noticed Perrie was about to interrupt him and quickly start to talk again. 

“You look lethargic okay. You need to eat something and before you say that you shouldn’t eat before going on stage. We still have two hours for it to settle - which it will. So eat.” 

Doyoung wasn’t lying either when he said she looked lethargic. Even with the makeup on, she still looked unnaturally pale, her eye bags still stood out, and she just looked completely exhausted. 

Perrie let out a sigh and glanced down at the food in her hand. Despite wanting to keep insisting she wasn’t hungry, her stomach made it very obvious once it let out a growl loud enough for both of them to hear. This lead to Doyoung raising an eyebrow and motion towards to sandwich. 

Perrie finally relented and started to unwrap the sandwich. She was thinking of eating a few bites and then throwing out the rest but Doyoung had pulled up a chair next to her and sat down, refusing to move until she finished it. 

Honestly speaking, Perrie understood why they did this, but it still pissed her off because it made her feel like a child who couldn’t take care of herself. If she didn’t want to eat the whole thing, she shouldn’t have to. That was what she thought. 

But with him right by her side, she slowly ate the whole thing piece by piece. Once she finished, Doyoung took the wrapped and patted her head. He then left and Perrie let her face drop. Even with that small sandwich, her stomach already started to act weird and she was starting to feel nauseous. Part of her just wanted to throw up because she knew that feeling would go away then but she decided just to sit there and hope that the feeling passes before she has to go on stage. 

It took about an hour of her just sitting there, for her queasiness to go away for the most part. By then, she had about another hour or so before heading to the stage. 

Perrie had moved to one of the couches in the waiting room and was going through her phone, which she had to basically beg Doyoung for it back and the only reason he gave it back was if she promised not to watch the pre-rehearsal again. So instead, she was going through social media. Usually she would play games with Haechan and Jungwoo but right now she just did not feel the need to interact with anyone - even her closest friends. 

While scrolling through her phone, their manager had entered the room with a somber expression on his face. He headed towards Perrie and asked for her to follow him. This was a bit odd because usually he spoke to all the members at once, but it wasn’t a huge difference that had the members noticing something was really wrong.

 Her manager had led her out to a private section in the hallway. She didn’t think much of it at first until she caught the solemn expression on his face. His eyes held a mixture of grief and pity. 

“Perrie, your grandfather called,” Was how he began and Perrie immediately became worried thinking something happened to him. 

“What? Why? Is he okay?”

Her manager just shook his head. 

“Your grandfather is fine, he called me to inform you about your mother and grandmother.” 

There was an instant dread that filled her. She knew her grandmother was battling cancer so her first thought was that something serious had happened. This was correct, but for the wrong reasons. 

Her manager continued. “There was an accident. Your grandmother didn’t make it and your mother,” he had to clear his throat. “your mother is in bad condition at the hospital. From what your grandfather told me, they aren’t sure she is going to last long.” 

Perrie remained silent. In a way, she heard what he said, but she couldn’t process it. It felt like it flowed into one ear than out the other. She could physically see her manager looking at her waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t formulate an answer. 

Instead of focusing on her emotions, she pushed the more negative ones in the back so that she could at least try and get some words out. 

“Did.. did my grandfather say anything else?” Her words came out monotoned and Perrie felt like she was in a daze. 

Her manager nodded. “He said he’s looking for a ticket back to France for the two of you...” Her manager had stopped talking but Perrie could tell there was something lingering on the tip of his tongue. 

“but?” Perrie questioned. 

“You’re performance is in less than an hour -” 

Her manager kept a firm look on her face in order to catch any changes but there were none. 

“ - There isn’t any time to fix everything. We have to be one stage in about 35 minutes and we cannot change the choreography or give your parts to someone else. At least not without prerecording backup vocals.” 

Perrie knew she should be pissed that they were forcing her to perform but honestly, she didn’t really feel anything at that moment. In the end, all she did was nod. 

“After the performance, we can get you a ride to your grandfather and figure out what your schedule will be afterwards. But, just get through this next half an hour, okay?” 

Again, Perrie just nodded.

Her manager seemed to since she wanted to be alone so he rested a hand on her shoulder and then went to pass. Before he left, Perrie reached out for him. 

“Don’t tell the others. At least not now.”

In all honesty, Perrie knew she should lean on those who would support her. But all she can think about is the pity and the looks she would receive and that was the last thing she wanted to deal with. Getting those looks and words of comfort would make it feel real to Perrie and she didn’t want to feel those things - at least not yet. 

The next 30 minutes, Perrie didn’t even realize they passed. The whole time all she did was stand in the hallways and then the next moment she was being ushered to the stage where she was getting her mic pack put on. The stylist was also going around and touching up everyone’s makeup. 

“Are you okay? Your eyes are a bit red?” Her stylist was the one to bring her attention back to the present. 

Perrie just let out a hum and then turned and looked at the small mirror the stylist was holding up. Her eyes were in fact red and Perrie didn’t realize that this entire time she was holding back tears until she saw them gloss up. 

However, instead of crying, she forced these feelings down and just walked away. It wasn’t a nice thing to do but she wasn’t thinking about that, all she was thinking about was getting through these next few minutes and then going to her grandfather. More than anything, he was the only one Perrie wanted to be around right now. 

After the countdown to the performance ended, Perrie was the first one off the stage. She didn’t stop to talk to the other members like she usually did. All she did was head straight to her manager so that she could get away from this place and go to where she was actually needed. 

The whole time she was on stage, she was wishing she was anywhere else. Even though no one except a few of people knew about what happened, she felt like all the eyes on her were filled with pity. 

Before she could get to her manager a staff member stopped her. If she was thinking straight, she would have realized that he was just stopping her in order to get her mic and mic pack but during that moment all Perrie could see was someone in her way and someone who was stopping her from being where she needed to be. 

Perrie didn’t mean to snap at the person nor did she mean to basically toss the mic headset at the poor guy, but like previously stated, she did not care about any of this and she wasn’t thinking straight. She didn’t even hear Johnny call for her or his apology on her behalf to the staff member. 

Before anyone else could stop her or try and talk to her, she managed to make it away from where the majority of everyone was. She found her manager and instead of him saying anything to her, he just motioned for her to follow him. Perrie realized that the path he was leading her down was to the outside and where all the cars were parked.

On the way down there, when they were finally alone, he had told her that they managed to get a flight booked to France that leaves in about 2 hours. She was going to meet her grandfather at the airport and then they would both leave from there. He made sure to try and keep it as low key as possible to lessen the chance of people spotting them and bombarding them at the airport but they both knew that these precautions will most likely fly out the window once people knew that Perrie was at the airport. 

The next hour to the airport was completely silent. Perrie didn’t do anything except look outside the window. About five minutes into the car ride, her phone started going off and instead of looking at whoever was messaging her, she just shut it off. 

When she got to the airport it was relatively quiet. She was given a cap and a mask but they are not a fool proof plan to prevent people from recognizing her. Eventually one person noticed her, then one turned into two, two into three, and so on. In less than 20 minutes, it was on the internet that she was at the airport. By the time the airport started getting crowded, she managed to find her grandfather which was a good thing because he was the only one who was able to prevent her from saying some rude things to the people around them.