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Chapter Text

Minjeong’s first impression of Yu Jimin is that she’s probably terrible at singing.

It’s obvious. Yu Jimin is too pretty with her long limbs and silky black hair and sharp eyes. It’s as if she was born to be the silent, brooding visual of a girl group. The type who doesn’t need to do anything more than halfheartedly hold a note. The type to get scouted for her looks alone—not because she deserves it.

Not the way Minjeong does.

Years of auditioning have chipped away at Minjeong's already fragile teenage self-esteem. She’s only fifteen years old, but she thinks she might hate herself already. It’s hard not to when you're in this industry. Or in Minjeong’s case, trying to claw your way into it.

Don’t take it personally, her dad assures her. They're only tough on you because they want you to improve.

But everything feels personal when it comes to the one thing she’s ever really wanted. It never gets easier to stand there when scary adults look her up and down, then shrug like she's wasting their time. When she's heard you’re too fat you’re too short you just don't have the look we're searching for more times than she can count. Becoming an SM trainee did little to assuage those insecurities; if anything, being surrounded by dozens of younger and more experienced trainees only compounded them.

Minjeong is sure of one fact, though—she’s a good singer. Great, even. Her voice is the one thing that makes everyone in the room look at her like she’s actually worth something. Nobody can take that away from her. Even if Yu Jimin is the prettiest trainee in the practice room, there's no way that she’s even remotely as good of a singer as Minjeong is.

“You're up, Jimin,” the vocal trainer calls out. His voice echoes in the practice room, reverberating around the space until it pricks at Minjeong’s skin. She’s up after Jimin. Four more minutes until Minjeong has to rise to her feet and stand in front of the circle of pretty trainees and prove that she belongs here. Bile threatens to rise up her throat. Minjeong swallows it down, flits her gaze to Yu Jimin and hopes it distracts her from her own unease.

Jimin raises the microphone to her mouth. The low murmur of conversation in the practice room quiets immediately. An air of anticipation settles over the room—it’s the prettiest trainee’s turn to sing. Then she parts her lips, inhales softly, and takes Minjeong’s breath away for the very first time.

The first surprise is the tone of her voice: low and gravelly, a stark contrast to how girlish she looks with her bright lip tint and meticulously ironed school uniform. Her eyes flutter shut as she sings along to the ballad. It’s a somber song about overcoming a breakup, which Minjeong is fairly certain that neither of them have much experience with at their age, but the way Jimin’s voice wavers with emotion at the chorus makes Minjeong wonder if she really has had her heart broken before.

The second surprise is how unrefined she is. Jimin seemed so intimidating at first glance, when Minjeong walked into the practice room to the sight of her surrounded on all sides by curious trainees. Unapproachable. Almost like a celebrity already. But standing alone in a room full of people who are evaluating her and waiting for her voice to crack, Yu Jimin looks like the sixteen-year-old girl she really is.

Her nail polish is chipped. The hand that isn't holding the microphone fidgets restlessly with the rough fabric of her skirt. Her vocal technique is poor; she’s straining to hit the high notes and she’s out of breath already. Her eyebrows are furrowed too hard. She isn’t making it look effortless the way idols are supposed to.

Still, Minjeong can’t deny that her voice is beautiful. That the raw tone of it, however unrefined, tugs traitorously at her heart. 

Jimin’s eyes flutter open once she finishes belting the last note. She blinks once and then twice, like she’s figuring out where she is. As she lowers the microphone, her gaze lands on Minjeong. Her eyes are wide and warm and curious. She tilts her head as if to ask was I good?

“Kim Minjeong. You’re up next,” the vocal trainer says.

The moment ends as soon as it starts. Minjeong’s stomach starts to churn again. Everybody’s looking at her. She rises to her feet too fast and stumbles on the way up. Her old sneakers squeak loudly against the polished wooden floor when she catches herself. A few girls around her snicker quietly, and despite her best efforts, Minjeong feels her face heat up in embarrassment.

Jimin strides over. The clack clack clack of her loafers echoes in the room, but Minjeong can hardly hear anything over the thrumming of her own heartbeat in her ears. Jimin stops in front of Minjeong and offers her the microphone with an encouraging smile. She’s even prettier up close. The dim overhead lighting washes over the tall slope of her nose and the swell of her lips. Their fingers brush, just slightly.

Minjeong’s stomach lurches. It must be the nerves.

Then Jimin closes her small hand into an even smaller fist, shakes it once, and mouths fighting! Minjeong tries to smile back, but it comes out looking more like a grimace. Her hands are trembling. She wraps both of them around the microphone like a prayer. It's the only one she believes in. 

The delicate melody of the piano instrumental flows into the room. It’s Minjeong’s favorite song these days, a gentle ballad that comforts her when she’s laying in the unfamiliar bed on the top bunk in the trainee dorm.

Minjeong closes her eyes and lets herself imagine it: her cramped bedroom in Yangsan with the peeling posters of her favorite idols taped up on the walls, the crumpled balls of notebook paper piled in the trash can from when she secretly practiced signing her own autograph and embarrassed herself, the tangled earphones that whisked her away into her own world every night. She pictures the water stain on her ceiling that her dad insists that he’ll get around to fixing one day, the broken slats in her blinds that leak sunlight into her irises every morning.

It’s easier to sing when she pretends like she’s somewhere else. A place that doesn’t demand perfection of her. Like she isn’t alone in a scary new city where she might never become anybody.

When Minjeong parts her lips and sings the first line, a strange thing happens. The melody escapes her like a sigh. It’s still frightening, being up here in front of all of these people, but in the way that rollercoasters make her feel. In the way that stirs her, makes her feel alive and like so much more than just a small girl from Yangsan.

She can’t get the Seoul dialect right yet or respond to the trainers without stuttering or muster up the courage to join in with the other trainees when they joke around, but this—this, she can do. She can sing. It’s the one thing that makes her feel like the most honest version of herself, even when her body freezes up or when words fail her. The one thing she knows how to do.

Four minutes pass like a heartbeat. That happens sometimes, when Minjeong is especially nervous to sing in front of other people. She blacks out until the moment that she lowers the microphone to her side. She can never really recall how well she sang or if she messed up. The comforting sight of Minjeong’s childhood bedroom washes away as she blinks her eyes open and cautiously scans the expressions of the other trainees and vocal trainer.

Her gaze drifts to Jimin. I guess I did something right, Minjeong thinks.

Because Jimin’s looking at her like that: lips breathlessly parted, warm admiration in her wide eyes, hands clapping together gently like she’s afraid of interrupting the moment. The same way she was looking at Jimin.

The practice ends soon after her performance. It was meant as an introductory session to gauge their skill levels, the vocal trainer explains before sending them home with a set of vocal warmups to memorize. Minjeong absentmindedly mouths the last one as she plants her palms on the floor to hoist herself up, taking care not to slip this time. A shadow falls over her.

It’s Yu Jimin. Jimin isn't much taller, but Minjeong’s habit of slouching in on herself makes it feel like Jimin towers over her. She straightens her back self-consciously. 

“Minjeong, right?” Jimin asks. She’s smiling like it comes easy to her. “You’re a really good singer.”

“Ah, thank you,” Minjeong responds politely. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “I thought you were great too, Jimin-ssi.”

“You said you were born in ‘01, right? I’m a year older than you. You can call me unnie.”

Minjeong blinks. Jimin remembers that? The circle of trainees introduced themselves one by one in the beginning of the practice, but Minjeong could hardly focus through the nerves about her impending performance. Jimin must not get nervous the way Minjeong does. 

“Okay… Jimin unnie,” Minjeong says slowly, testing the way the honorific feels on her tongue. It isn’t so bad. 

Jimin beams.

Minjeong isn’t adjusting to trainee life well.

Everything is new and scary. All of the other girls are skinnier, better dancers, better singers. The city is confusing with its big crowds and winding subway system and trendy slang that Minjeong can never quite keep up with.

Seoul makes Minjeong feel small in a way that she's never felt small before. Not in the good way, like how she feels when her dad wraps her in a bear hug or when her mom pinches her cheek or when her brother ruffles her hair. She feels invisible, out of place. Her voice feels quieter than it ever has.

She feels it the most on the weekends, when everyone else goes home to spend time with their families and she’s all alone in the empty dorm because Yangsan is too far to warrant weekly trips back. When the other trainees return from their shopping trips with the latest makeup products and trendy clothes and she has to ration her measly allowance to afford lunch. When she accidentally slips back into her thick, rough Gyeongsang dialect at the convenience store and the cashier takes a second too long to respond.

She’s different. That was exciting when she was that kid from Yangsan who performed at local dance festivals and traveled to Seoul for auditions. Now it feels wrong.

Minjeong takes so long to gather her courage to ask the vocal trainer questions that she misses the opportunity. Her stomach constricts with fear at every monthly evaluation, making her mess up dance routines that she’s practiced hundreds of times. She stutters when she introduces herself in front of the company staff and sees them exchange disappointed looks. It's all wrong, the way she isn’t like the others.

She isn’t like Jimin, who navigates the delicate social hierarchies of the trainee academy with what feels like effortless confidence and charm. What she lacks in skill, she makes up for with pure magnetism. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows she’s special, from the company staff to the other trainees. It’s no surprise that Jimin quickly becomes popular in their trainee cohort, especially given her storied ulzzang past.

What is a surprise is the way Jimin runs to greet Minjeong at the end of every practice.

“Minjeongie!” Jimin calls out, rushing towards her in a half-jog. Her long hair cascades behind her, swept away with movement. It always looks so shiny and soft. Minjeong inexplicitly feels the urge to reach out, run her fingers through the ebony wisps to see if it feels the way that it looks.

“Are you hungry? I have snacks if you want them,” Jimin says.

Minjeong’s eye twitches. Are they really on a nickname basis already? They’ve only known each other for two months.

Jimin’s already sifting through her backpack. How presumptuous of her. She pulls out a box of sour candy, the brand that Minjeong had off-handedly mentioned craving yesterday, and shakes it like she’s enticing a pet.

“No thank you, unnie,” Minjeong grumbles. “Weigh-ins are at the end of the month, remember? I still need to lose weight.”

“Oh.” Jimin blinks. Her eyes are big and round and honest. “Well, between you and me,” she whispers, linking their arms together and leading Minjeong towards the cafeteria, “you look really cute like this already.”

Minjeong just rolls her eyes and lets herself be guided. A tiny part of her thinks it kind of feels nice to make a friend, even if it’s the one person she can’t help but compare herself to. “So greasy, unnie.”

“What—I mean it!”

“Whatever. You say that to everyone.”

A cheeky grin spreads across Jimin’s face. “It’s SM. Everyone’s cute.”

Minjeong gives her an unimpressed look. Jimin takes that as an invitation to start excitedly telling her about the stray cat she befriended before practice. Keeping up with the meandering story takes so much of Minjeong’s focus that she doesn’t even notice when a piece of candy is placed into her hand. It’s only when the sour filling makes her tongue tingle that Minjeong realizes that she popped it into her mouth out of habit.

The post-practice chats keep happening. Sometimes they turn into mini adventures or group hangouts, but the one constant is Jimin's incessant teasing. Jimin teaches Minjeong how to use the subway and pretends to get on the wrong carriage just to see the split second of panic on her face. She helps Minjeong with her pronunciation, patiently repeating phrases the Seoul way, only to trick her into saying funny things. She introduces Minjeong to her big group of trainee friends with a ruffle of her hair and an empathic she totally looks like a puppy, right?

In her second month of being a trainee, Minjeong learns that Yu Jimin isn’t at all brooding and mysterious like she initially seemed.

She’s actually kind of annoying. But at least she’s nice.

It takes six more months for Minjeong to learn what she’s capable of when she stops getting in her own way.

It gets easier to speak up when she has questions. Her voice doesn’t waver as much anymore when she asks the vocal teacher how to support a note correctly or when she asks the dance teacher how to execute a movement.

Minjeong dutifully jots the answers down in a little notebook that she brings to practice and rereads her notes every night before she inevitably passes out from exhaustion. She arrives at the practice room an hour before practice begins, repeats the vocal runs and dance moves over and over until they start to feel like muscle memory. Like part of her DNA.

The trainers notice. They notice everything about the trainees—the roundness of their cheeks, the curved slouch of their spines—but this time, Minjeong’s getting the good kind of attention. The kind that gets her compliments and extra tips from the trainers. It starts to build her confidence, makes her even hungrier to improve. 

But Minjeong isn't the only one who's rapidly improving.

“Wow, Jimin. Did you really get scouted for your visuals?” The vocal trainer says in disbelief. “Keep this up and we might make a main vocal out of you.”

Jimin ducks her head to hide her smile. She’s never been great with praise, likes it too much to keep the whole polite and unaffected act going for long. “I'm not so sure about that, but thank you.”

Minjeong’s stomach twists with something ugly. Envy. That pervasive emotion, the undercurrent of nearly all of her experiences as a trainee so far. Singing is supposed to be her thing. Not Jimin’s. Jimin already has the striking visuals and natural charisma. She doesn’t need to take this away from Minjeong too. 

The thought immediately makes her feel disgusted with herself. Shame settles beneath her skin like a phantom itch. She clenches her fist at her side and forces a smile when Jimin glances back at her. She should be happy for Jimin. Jimin’s one of her closest friends at SM. She deserves the praise. Minjeong of all people knows how hard she’s worked for it.

Comparing herself to other people has become a compulsion. It’s partially a byproduct of their environment—the trainers feed into it, uplift certain trainees by tearing others down. Every trainee is assigned a ranking at each monthly evaluation. They say a little competition is good, that it'll motivate them to improve faster.

Minjeong thinks that all it’s teaching them is to view each other as threats. She feels it in the jealous looks from the other trainees, in the awkward pauses before they congratulate her on acing evaluations. It isn’t just the company that evaluates them. It feels like all of the trainees are constantly evaluating each other, maintaining their own internal hierarchies of skill and beauty and potential.

Everyone is cordial, for the most part. But the tension is always there, simmering under the surface.

Minjeong tries to suppress her own compulsion for comparison, but the proximity to Jimin makes it difficult not to see all of the ways that they’re different. All of the ways that Minjeong could be better.

The sensation of warm air on Minjeong’s ear makes her flinch.

“Hey, Mindoong.”

Minjeong spins around and clamps a palm over her reddening ear. “You scared me!”

Jimin purses her lips to suppress a laugh. It reveals the dimple on the right side of her face, which only seems to appear when she’s feeling especially mischievous. Minjeong’s gaze drifts to the little dip on Jimin’s cheek, the roguish curve of her lips, then the playful peek of her tongue over sanguine flesh. She doesn’t mean to stare. It just happens sometimes when she looks at Jimin. But that probably happens to everyone who looks at someone like Jimin.

“Sorry. I booked our favorite practice room for an hour. Want to get some more practice in before bed?”

Oh. Practice is over already. Minjeong glances around the room and sees the other trainees filing outside. She turns back to Jimin and nods, lets her feet guide her down the path to the familiar practice room.

Their favorite practice room is at the very end of the hall. It gets less foot traffic, which lowers the chance that prying eyes will peek through the little window on the door and see them goofing around. It’s also far enough from the main hall that they have enough time to hide their snacks and shove their phones in their pockets when they hear the approaching footsteps of the company staff.

They’ve been doing this lately, practicing together at the end of the day. Jimin says that it helps her review and memorize everything that they’re learning. It felt strange at first. Practice was always a solitary act for Minjeong, something to sneak in behind closed doors. She sang in the bathroom when her parents were at work, danced in front of the mirror in her bedroom with the lock fastened shut. It was a sacred thing, escaping into sound and movement, shifting into the version of herself that could only exist when no one else was looking.

So this is different, hearing the squeak of another pair of sneakers against the floor and the low timbre of another voice vibrating against the walls. Having someone in the room to giggle at her when she accidentally makes a weird face or trips over her own feet. But it’s kind of nice, too. It feels less lonely to share her deepest wish with someone else, to not be the only starry-eyed dreamer in the room.

Sometimes they don’t practice, though. Sometimes they just lay on the polished wooden floor and stare up at the flickering lights on the ceiling and talk. Jimin likes to ask about Yangsan, about what it was like to live so close to the ocean and about all of the regional specialties Minjeong grew up eating.

She likes asking Minjeong to teach her the Gyeongsang dialect, carefully repeating the shortened vowels with a serious look of concentration on her face. She sounds like a Seoul native, of course. It’s woven into the way that Jimin speaks—gentle and melodic. Like the songs that captivated Minjeong when she was a child, drawn to her father’s old radio like a revelation. The songs that brought her to Seoul in the first place. Jimin’s pronunciation is subpar at best, but Minjeong tells her it’s decent anyways.

When Jimin’s feeling really hopeful, she talks about the future. About all of the things they’ll experience if they debut. The bright lights, the screaming crowds, the tours around the world. Minjeong doesn’t let herself linger on the images too long, especially not the idea of them debuting together. Better to leave them as abstractions. Abstractions can’t hurt her the way expectations can.

Today doesn’t seem like it'll be a chatty day, though. Jimin flicks the lights of the practice room on and connects her phone to the speaker immediately. The opening notes of the latest song they’re learning fill the room.

“From the top?” Minjeong asks.

Jimin hums in affirmation. Her eyes are already focused on her own reflection. When they start dancing, though, Minjeong feels Jimin’s gaze flicker towards her. Feels Jimin watching her instead of her own shape in the mirror.

Something’s changed in the way Jimin looks at her too. The warm admiration is still there, but it’s sharper around the edges. More calculated. It doesn’t feel exactly like the way the other trainees look at her, with that complicated mixture of respect and jealousy and sometimes even disdain, but Minjeong isn’t sure what to make of it.

Not knowing makes her feel uneasy. It’s yet another thing in the growing pile of things that she doesn’t have control over: the songs and choreographies she practices, the classes in her daily schedule, the food she eats, what her future will look like in two and five and maybe even seven years. It makes her feel helpless, floundering around like this, living in a constant state of being completely at the whims of external parties.

What does Jimin see when she looks at Minjeong? Does she see a harmless younger friend, someone who isn’t worthy of being considered competition? Or does she see a potential threat? Minjeong isn’t sure which option she prefers.

They keep practicing. Over and over.

Jimin keeps looking at her with that unreadable expression. Over and over.

It’s been a long day. An average day of training spans ten hours, not counting the hours of individual practice that each trainee puts in on their own time. This day in particular has been packed with etiquette classes—Minjeong’s least favorite of the various classes the company deems necessary for trainees to master—and the exhaustion wears her patience dangerously thin. But maybe her patience has been wearing thin for a long time now.

Boldly, Minjeong makes eye contact with Jimin through the mirror. She huffs when Jimin averts her gaze and tries to pretend like she wasn’t staring.

“What?” Minjeong asks. It comes out sounding sharp. She pauses mid-movement and turns towards Jimin. “Are you mad at me or something?”

“Huh?” Jimin says, her voice twinged with confusion. She tears her gaze away from the mirror to face Minjeong. Part of Minjeong feels relieved that Jimin is finally looking directly at her instead of at her reflection. Another part of her feels terrified. “I'm not mad at you.”

“Then why do you keep looking at me like that?”

The cloyingly sweet pop song continues to blare through the speakers. Minjeong’s words slash straight through it, leaving behind a charged tension that crackles between them like a live wire.

Jimin creases her eyebrows. She’s bothered now too, feels slighted by the accusation in Minjeong’s tone. “Like what?

“Like…” Minjeong clenches her fists at her side. “Like you’re picking me apart.”

Get used to it, the company staff tells them. Idols are always being watched. That’s why you have to learn good habits now, so you don’t mess up after you debut. But Minjeong wonders if the sensation of eyes on her will ever feel any less discomfiting. She hates that she can’t escape that feeling, even when she’s alone with Jimin in their favorite practice room.

Jimin’s jaw tightens. “What? Why would you think that?”

There’s a lump in Minjeong’s throat. She digs her nails into her palms to distract herself from it. It stings, but not enough. “It feels like you’re—” Her voice breaks. Everything bubbles over: the pressure, the self-doubt, the fear. “Judging me. The way everyone else is.

The flash of vulnerability cuts through Jimin’s anger. Her eyes widen in concern. “I’m not!” Her hands instinctively dart out as if to comfort Minjeong, but pause halfway, afraid to close the distance between them. “Minjeong, please don’t think that.”

“Then what is it?” Minjeong asks. It comes out sounding petulant. She hates the way she gets choked up when she’s angry. It feels so juvenile to stand in front of Jimin like this, fighting the tears that threaten to stream down her face.

“Uh, well—” Jimin averts her eyes. She stares down at her dirty Converse sneakers, fidgets nervously with her fingers. “It's going to sound embarrassing.”

The song finally ends, leaving a heavy silence between them.

“It’s just…” Jimin takes a deep breath. “You're really good, you know?”

Minjeong focuses on steadying her breathing. Inhale, exhale. Don't start crying. Don't let her see you cry. Don't let her see how weak you really are.

“I never seriously sang or danced before I got here. You've been doing both for a long time.” Jimin’s voice wavers. She’s doing that thing she does when she’s nervous—picking at her nails, scratching absentmindedly at the cuticles. But she doesn't withdraw. She keeps talking. That's one of the things Minjeong admires the most about Jimin: her devastating, unyielding sincerity.

“You’re someone that I really respect. Someone I want to keep up with. That’s why I pay so much attention to you,” Jimin continues. “Not because I’m judging you. Because I want to learn from you.”

Minjeong blinks once, then twice. Something warm pools in the pit of her stomach. The admission hangs in the air, refuses to sink in. She stares up at Jimin in a daze.

She’s gotten used to watching Jimin from this angle. Chin tilted, gazing up, inching closer by the force of her own gravity. Jimin is a lot of things to her: a dependable older trainee, a subway guide, a Seoul dialect coach, a late-night-snacking buddy, a silly unnie. An outstretched hand, tugging her into the light.

So she never considered the way that Jimin might be looking back at her. 

All Minjeong manages to sputter is: “I didn’t know you thought of me like that.”

Jimin’s making eye contact with her now. It’s that look again, the one that made Minjeong uneasy before she had a name for it. But now she knows what it means, understands the full weight of it.

Jimin is looking at her like she’s special.

“I’m better when you're around,” Jimin says quietly. She takes a tentative step towards Minjeong, then another when Minjeong doesn't back away. “You catch the details I miss when we’re dancing. You always remember the right pitch. I want to be good enough to be your rival, good enough to—”

Jimin’s cheeks flush. The words come out in a rush, as if she’ll lose the courage to utter them if she hesitates for even a second. “To debut with you.”

A sob escapes Minjeong. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Chasing her dream with one of the very first friends she made as a trainee. Eating meals together in cramped dressing rooms. Sitting next to each other on plane rides all over the world. Watching the clouds together, from Seoul to London to Paris. Standing under the blinding lights with their fingers intertwined. The more she lets herself imagine it, the more she desperately wants it to be real.

Jimin reaches out and gently brushes a tear away from Minjeong’s face with her forefinger. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I won't ask you not to cry. But can I please hug you?”

Minjeong hesitates. She swipes at her tear-streaked cheeks with her sleeve, sniffles stubbornly, narrow shoulders shaking. It’s embarrassing enough to cry in front of Jimin. Her gut instinct is to flinch away, forcibly end the moment. Seeking comfort from Jimin feels like committing to the vulnerability that threatens to overtake her completely.

Then Minjeong looks up and sees the person who always gives her the window seat on the subway. The person who makes funny faces to distract her from her nerves when they’re backstage during tense monthly evaluations. The person who always waits for her after practice ends, even when their schedules don’t line up, so she doesn't have to walk back to the dorm alone at night.

Minjeong nods once, a brief, almost imperceptible duck of her chin that Jimin notices immediately.

Did Jimin always watch her like that? So intently, with the intention of anticipating her needs?

It only takes a single step for Jimin to close the distance between them. She takes Minjeong into her arms and holds her close, pressing the warmth of her body into Minjeong’s own.

“I'm sorry, unnie,” Minjeong mumbles against Jimin’s shoulder. She slumps against Jimin, struck askew by the force of her own emotions. Hot tears soak into Jimin’s shirt. She clutches the soft fabric between her fingers, anchoring herself to Jimin as sobs begin to ripple through her. “I'm so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jimin says in a soft voice. She rubs Minjeong’s back soothingly through the tremors. They stay like that for a bit: chins tucked into shoulders, arms wrapped around bodies, a tangle of limbs that obscures where Minjeong begins and Jimin ends. A Gordian knot of their own making.

When Minjeong’s ragged gasps for air stabilize into slow breaths, Jimin speaks again.

“Don’t you have anything nice to say back to me?” she asks in that familiar lilting tone.

Minjeong sniffles. She briefly considers wiping her snot on Jimin’s shirt, but decides against it when she considers the consequences. Namely, a loud whine from Jimin directly into her ear. “Your dancing is okay, I guess,” she murmurs, nostrils still congested from crying.

Jimin makes an offended noise, but doesn’t stop rubbing soothing circles into Minjeong’s back.  “Wow, not even one nice thing?”

A fragile quiet falls between them. The fluorescent lights above them buzz faintly. The clock on the wall ticks like a metronome, counting down to a deadline neither of them are aware of yet. This becomes the soundtrack to Minjeong’s first confession, the one she’ll regret the most years later. The one she can’t take back. The promise that becomes a death knell.

“I want to debut with you too,” Minjeong whispers. “Promise we’ll debut together?”

It’s childish, she knows. Nothing is guaranteed in this industry. It’s dangerous to have this much hope, to grasp so desperately at a future that could slip between her fingers at any moment. To believe, even for a second, that conviction alone is enough to steer her fate.

But Minjeong’s a dreamer, after all. They both are. It’s the reason their paths even crossed at all.

Jimin pulls away just enough to loop their pinkies together.

“I promise, Minjeong,” she whispers back. “Let’s debut together.”

“What are you staring at?”

Jimin hesitates a moment too long before responding. The pensive look on her face is quickly replaced with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she mumbles as she double-taps on her phone screen and shoves it in her pocket. “Just Instagram.”

It’s February. Congratulatory wreaths line the streets. Fresh-faced teenagers in long black gowns crowd the subway carriages. Restaurants bustle with celebratory parties and dinners. Hordes of families taking one too many photos congregate at the gates of local high schools. 

Graduation season. It’s impossible to escape it in real life or on social media. Minjeong’s own Instagram feed is so overloaded with the posts and stories and comments that she hasn’t opened the app in days.

Jimin seemed subdued around this time last year too, but it’s different this year. She’s been doomscrolling at any opportunity she gets: in the downtime between classes; in the seconds spent waiting for her turn to check out at the convenience store; in the little leisure time they have at the end of each day, her impassive face illuminated in the night by the cold glare of her phone screen.

This was the year that Jimin would’ve graduated with all of her friends, after all. 

Minjeong recognizes the look on Jimin’s face because she’s seen it on her own. Her friends are spending late nights at hagwon studying for entrance exams, optimizing their college application essays, and touring prestigious universities every weekend. Minjeong dropped out of high school like all of the other serious SM trainees. From the vantage point of the same old practice room, it feels like everybody else is moving on. Leaving her behind.

Sometimes she wonders if it was worth giving all of that up. The high school experiences, the security of taking a traditional path. Will she ever know, really, if it was worth it?

“Minjeong unnie, can you help me with this part of the choreography? I can’t tell what I’m doing wrong.”

Minjeong turns. It’s Jiwoo, a shy new trainee who’s barely in middle school. She flashes Jiwoo a smile. By this point, the motion is practiced enough to make it look convincing. “Sure. Can I see the way you’re doing it?”

They’re the senior trainees now, the ones that the new recruits gawk at and seek out for advice. Two years of experience doesn’t seem like much to Minjeong. But it holds weight in the practice room, where trainees suddenly disappear only to be replaced with fresh new faces every few weeks. Most of Minjeong’s first trainee friends have already left, returned to their old lives with bragging rights and a slew of interesting stories to share.

Minjeong hardly even remembers what her old life was like. A lot has changed in two years. She isn’t the quiet, withdrawn trainee in the corner anymore. Now she’s the trainee that the trainers call on to demonstrate vocal runs and dance moves in front of the entire class. She doesn’t need to prove to anyone that she belongs here anymore. Not even herself.

“You're extending your arm too far,” Minjeong points out as she watches Jiwoo dance. “Focus on making a ninety-degree angle instead. Like this.” She demonstrates it with her right arm.

Jiwoo mimics the movement. “Like that?”

“Yup,” Minjeong says, her tone distracted. Her eyes wander around the practice room. Where did Jimin go? They were supposed to get dinner together. 

“You were really cool at the last evaluation,” Jiwoo says. Her voice is earnest, and it draws Minjeong’s attention back to her. “I hope I can get as good at dancing as you one day.”

Minjeong’s lips curl up—a real smile, this time. She gives Jiwoo an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Thanks, Jiwoo. You're already doing way better than I was when I joined SM, so I'm sure you’ll be better than me in no time.”

“No way! You and Chaehyun unnie are too good.”

Minjeong’s eye twitches. Kim Chaehyun. Her new roommate and resident snack thief and probably the loudest snorer to ever exist. And the person who keeps snatching the number one ranking from her at the monthly evaluations.

Every month feels like a toss-up between which of them will get the highest evaluation score. Minjeong swears there’s a correlation between the frequency that she prevails and the rate at which her favorite snacks—which are clearly labeled with her name—mysteriously disappear from the shared fridge in the dorm. But that’s the least of her concerns these days.

Her main concern walks through the door: Ning Yizhuo.

Yizhuo has a breathtaking voice and cute accented Korean and what seems like a perpetually mischievous smile on her face. She became a trainee the year before Minjeong did, and due to being a child star or whatever, was immediately placed in all of the advanced classes despite her younger age. They only recently started taking classes together. Yizhuo is a celebrity among the trainees—she’s been officially announced as an SM Rookie, which basically feels like a guarantee that she’s going to debut.

And more importantly, she’s developed a real liking for Jimin.

Minjeong watches from across the room as Yizhuo skips directly to Jimin. Her eyes zero in on the physical contact: the easy loop of their arms, the warm press of skin against skin. It’s not that she doesn’t like Yizhuo. It’s just—does she really have to cling onto Jimin like that?

“Jimin unnie! I’m hungry. Treat me to dinner?”

Jimin’s mouth stretches into that lopsided grin. The one that makes Minjeong’s chest throb, even when it’s not directed towards her. “Sure. I was about to grab dinner with Minjeong—” Her head swivels back towards Minjeong. “You don’t mind if Ningning joins us, right?”

Minjeong’s stomach swirls with something unpleasant. It’s been happening more often these days, usually whenever Yizhuo inserts herself into her hangouts with Jimin. Minjeong figures it’s probably because she’s slow to warm up to people, and that maybe she’s a little envious that Yizhuo seems to have a sure shot to making it as an idol, and, well. She’s never really liked sharing.

She forces a smile. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

Dinner is fine. Yizhuo talks enough for the three of them, Jimin coaxes a few laughs out of Minjeong, and Minjeong even charitably asks Yizhuo a couple of questions about herself. She learns that they all love guobaorou and that it’s a regional specialty from the city that Yizhuo grew up in. It’s actually kind of fun debating which Chinese restaurant in Seongsu has the best rendition of the dish.

But she’s still relieved when they pay the bill and Yizhuo waves goodbye, swinging her bag of leftover fried pork by her side as she ambles back to the dorm she shares with the other SM Rookie girls. When it’s just them again, walking home together.

Jimin lets Minjeong shower first. When Minjeong walks out of the bathroom, though, Jimin isn’t waiting on the couch anymore.

She peeks into the room that Jimin shares with another trainee—pitch black. No Jimin-shaped lump under the covers. She pads over to her own room down the hall while towel-drying her hair and pokes her head inside. Chaehyun is sprawled out on the bottom bunk.

“Did you see where Jimin unnie went?”

“Oh yeah,” Chaehyun says as she scrolls through her phone, “she said she was going out for a bit.”

Going out at night? Jimin never does that. It’s almost 10PM. Between the two of them, Minjeong is the one who has a habit of staying up late. Jimin’s usually falling asleep on the couch by now.

Minjeong knits her eyebrows. Weird. She starts to leave, but Chaehyun’s voice cuts through the silence again.

“Hey, wait. Can you give me Jimin unnie’s number? I don’t have it yet.”

Minjeong stops in the doorway. She scratches her stomach idly. “Does she owe you money?”

“What? No, my friend thinks she's cute.” Chaehyun glances over and rolls her eyes when she sees the unimpressed look on Minjeong’s face. “He's a nice guy, don't worry. And he’s tall.”

Minjeong wrinkles her nose. “Ew, no. I don’t think she’d want me to give her number out to some boy she’s never met.”

The idea makes her skin crawl. Jimin texting some gangly boy with greasy hair who hasn’t even heard Visual Dreams (Pop! Pop!) by Girls’ Generation? Like they’d even have anything in common. Half of what Jimin pesters her about involves female idols in some way. What could a boy possibly say or do to interest her?

The next thought makes her stomach feel strange. That familiar feeling again. But what if he does interest her?

“Can you at least tell me what her type is? Come on, let me give him something to work with.”

“Her type?” Minjeong blinks. Does she know what Jimin’s type is?

“Don’t play dumb. Obviously you know.” Chaehyun’s giving her an incredulous look now. She sits up and places her phone face down on the mattress.

“Uh…” Minjeong trails off. “I mean. We never really talk about that kind of stuff.”

“Really?” Chaehyun raises her eyebrows. There’s a short pause, as if she’s still trying to deduce if Minjeong is intentionally withholding information from her. She narrows her eyes, scans Minjeong’s face, then flops back onto her bed when Minjeong stares back blankly. “Nevermind then, I guess.”

Minjeong considers it as she walks over to her closet. Maybe it is kind of weird that she doesn’t know what Jimin’s type is. It’s all that the girls around them seem to talk about—ideal types, crushes, boyfriends. Minjeong and Jimin have practically been attached at the hip for the past two years. She knows that Jimin loves cats even though she’s highly allergic to them, that learning how to ride a bike has been her new year’s resolution for the past five years, that she enjoys chocolate but doesn’t particularly like chocolate-flavored things.

So how does she not know this?

Well. Boys never really cross Minjeong’s mind in the first place. It never occurred to her that it might be considered strange for two teenage girls not to discuss them.

Her body moves on its own, sliding open a drawer to grab a pair of sweatpants, shrugging a hoodie over her sleep shirt. It isn’t a conscious decision. Part of her just knows that she should check on Jimin. Besides, she already has an idea of where Jimin might be.

“I’m going out too,” Minjeong calls out as she shuts the front door behind her.

The dorm is just a few blocks away from the company. On the walk there, a colorful display at Daiso catches Minjeong’s eye. She hesitates, checks the time on her phone. Five minutes before closing. The cashier at the register stares back at her impassively. Minjeong hates being that person who walks in right before a store closes, but… it’s for Jimin.

She ducks in, bows her head unapologetically when she pays, and shoves her spoils into her shoulder bag.

When Minjeong arrives at the company, she scans her ID card at the door and walks down the dimly lit hallways without turning the lights on. She doesn’t need to. At this point, she spends more time here than in her own bed. She could traverse the winding corridors with her eyes closed.

The SM building is never completely empty or quiet, but on a late weekday night like this one, it feels unusually still. Minjeong rounds the corner and arrives at the hallway that contains the practice rooms.

Only one of the rooms is occupied. The one at the very end of the hall.

The light coming from the window on the door casts a long shadow along the empty hallway. If Minjeong focuses, she thinks that she can make out the faint sound of a piano from the room.

She follows the sound until she’s standing in front of the door. The window frames the scene like a picture: a girl with long black hair sitting at a piano. It’s one of the flimsy electric pianos that the company lets trainees check out from the music room. Her back is facing the door, but Minjeong knows that silhouette.

She’s memorized the shape of Jimin, the curve of her shoulders, the spill of her hair over her back. She can see Jimin with her eyes closed. She sees Jimin when she’s half-asleep, wading through the mirages of her dreams, wandering towards the light. She quietly opens the door and steps inside.

A melody tumbles out towards her. It’s an unfamiliar tune that Minjeong doesn’t recognize. She clears her throat softly to make her presence known.

“What song is that?”

Jimin stops playing and turns around, her eyes wide like she’s been caught.

“Oh, it’s—” Jimin looks away sheepishly. “Nothing. Just a melody I’ve been playing around with.” She looks back, sees Minjeong’s bare face and wet hair. “Why are you here? You hate going outside after you shower.”

Minjeong glances down. Her hoodie is dark at the shoulders from soaking up the dampness of her hair. She closes the door behind her and leans against it. “I wanted to see what you were up to.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

Minjeong shrugs. “Just had a feeling. Why are you here?”

“Wanted to get my mind off things.” Jimin’s voice is softer at the edges. Quieter, like she doesn’t want to be heard. The wide expanse of the practice room swallows it whole, the way it must have swallowed the voices of innumerable faceless girls before them.

Minjeong hums and starts walking toward Jimin. Decides not to bring up said things. When Jimin’s ready, she’ll talk. “Did you write that?”

“Ah, yeah,” Jimin says. The second syllable catches on an awkward laugh. It’s kind of cute, the way Jimin gets bashful like that sometimes. “Just for fun.”

Minjeong’s standing next to Jimin now. She pokes Jimin’s shoulder. Jimin wordlessly scoots over to make space on the piano bench. It isn’t very wide, and definitely isn’t made for two people, but Minjeong squeezes onto it anyways. Their knees press together. 

“Can I hear the rest of it?” Minjeong asks.

A look flashes onto Jimin’s face. They’re better at controlling their expressions now, but Jimin has always been an open book. She’s nervous. Uncertain.

“Or not,” Minjeong says. She nudges Jimin’s foot with her own under the piano. Jimin kicks back, just barely. “But it’s just me, unnie.”

Jimin inhales. She raises her arms and delicately places her fingers onto the ivory keys. “Don’t laugh if I mess up, okay,” she mumbles.

Minjeong makes a noncommittal noise. Jimin elbows her, but starts playing anyways.

She starts hesitantly, pressing the keys so carefully that the notes are hardly audible over the sound of plastic thumping on plastic in the body of the piano. So hesitantly that the melody sounds like a whisper. It’s nothing like the way Jimin speaks, with her playful tone and carefree laughter. It’s nothing like the way Jimin is when she’s surrounded by other people.

This is Yu Jimin when no one is watching. The girl who dissects her own reflection for hours when she’s alone in the practice room. The girl who stays up too late scrolling through aspirational social media posts in the dark. The girl who can’t bear to make eye contact with Minjeong right now because she’s afraid that she’ll see disapproval on her face.

“Uh—sorry,” Jimin blurts out. She closes her fists together as if to strengthen her resolve. “I’ll start again.”

The girl who chooses to be brave, despite everything.

Her fingers are still unsteady, but she slowly gains confidence as she plays. The notes begin to ring out clear and true. It’s a simple arrangement, but the melody makes Minjeong’s chest ache—sweet and gentle, almost like a lullaby.

When Jimin stops playing, Minjeong claps her hands together softly. “I like it, unnie.”

Jimin makes a face. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

“No, I’m serious! I think it sounds really pretty.”

“Really?” Jimin turns, a smile spreading across her face. It’s funny how little praise she needs for her mood to improve. “Thanks, Minjeongie. I’ve been really stuck on what to do next, though.”

Minjeong pauses to think. She never learned how to play piano, but she’s taken a few songwriting classes at the company so far. Her voice memos are full of clips of her humming little tunes and singing cheesy lyrics that she scrawled in the margins of her notebooks. It’s an occupational hazard, she supposes, the desire to create something beautiful.

A melody rises to the tip of her tongue.

“What if you did this?” Minjeong asks. She hums a short tune. 

Jimin’s face lights up. She places her right hand on the piano keys again, experimentally mimicking the melody. “Like, uh… that?”

Minjeong purses her lips thoughtfully. “Yeah, and then maybe…” Another hum.

Jimin gasps. “Wait. That actually sounds good. Slow down, I need to figure out the notes.” Her eyes are shining. It’s the most she’s smiled in a week. The excitement radiating from her is so contagious that Minjeong’s skin starts to buzz with energy too.

The thrill of invention makes the next few hours pass in a flurry of creativity. By the end of it, they have a pile of crumpled-up paper from discarded composition drafts and numb legs from squeezing onto the hard piano bench for too long and thirty seconds, maybe, of actual music. Minjeong records Jimin playing it on the voice memo app on her cracked iPhone with the seriousness of a sound engineer in the studio.

Truthfully, the song is amateur at best. It’s hardly even a song yet—more like a patchwork of melodies. It probably wouldn’t get high marks in their songwriting classes. They certainly aren’t winning a Daesang any time soon.

But it’s theirs. And when Jimin finishes playing the final draft and turns towards Minjeong with that look on her face, that gorgeous medley of happiness and pride and awe, it feels like a greater honor than any award ever could.

It’s almost enough to make Minjeong forget about how sleepy she is. A wave of exhaustion suddenly washes over her. She yawns and rubs at her eyes, which prompts Jimin to finally check her phone. Her eyes widen once she does.

“It’s past midnight. We need to head back.”

Minjeong looks back at her. Adrenaline is still thrumming through her veins. Her body is tired, but she doesn’t want to go home, doesn't want the moment to end yet.

“What if we didn’t go back,” Minjeong says. The words feel alien on her tongue, as if uttered by a stranger. Is that how honesty is supposed to feel? Like the stranger inside of her is speaking? “What if we snuck out. Like right now.”

On a normal day, she would’ve never suggested that. And Jimin would’ve never agreed. They’re the definition of model trainees. It’s the middle of the night, and practice starts early tomorrow, and they’ll definitely hate themselves if they attend their modeling class with the extra strict teacher with no sleep at all.

Jimin bites her lip. Asks anyways. “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere,” Minjeong breathes.

They should really go home. Brush their teeth, wash their faces, prepare themselves to return to the endless routine of trying to live up to everybody else’s expectations.

Jimin closes her eyes, then opens them.

“What about the river?”

They’re going to miss the last train.

They both know it. But neither of them say anything. Jimin skips alongside the river, moonbeams streaming through her hair, the surface of the water behind her shimmering with the city lights on the horizon. The park is still at this hour, but the body of water next to them quietly pulses with movement. Water laps at the shore in tiny obsidian ripples.

It makes Minjeong think of low tide and seafoam, of the beaches she grew up on. Makes her wonder what Jimin would look like with her hair tangled in salted air and seawater lapping at her ankles like kiss after kiss.

Minjeong’s chest constricts. That’s been happening more often around Jimin. If she focuses, really focuses, she thinks she can identify what this feeling is. It isn’t the first time she’s felt this way towards a girl. But it is the most powerful, the way it makes her feel like her heart is constantly in her throat, the way it makes her too honest and too eager and too hopeful. Too much of everything.

“You should come home with me to Yangsan sometime,” she blurts out. It’s impulsive. But it’s worth it for the way Jimin whips around, white teeth bared in a smile so wide that her gums are visible.

“Really? You’d want that?” Jimin’s voice is too loud for the hour. Minjeong can’t bring herself to care.

“Yeah,” Minjeong says. Then, embarrassed at her boldness, she averts her eyes and continues walking. Cracks a joke. “Since your satoori is basically perfect now.”

“I told you all those lessons would be worth it,” Jimin says, eyes shining. “The grandmas at the market are going to love me.” She settles into step next to Minjeong. They bump shoulders, which jostles the lump in Minjeong’s bag. 

Right. That thing. Minjeong reaches into her bag. “I have something for you, by the way.”

She pulls out what she’s been hiding: a wrinkled, misshapen graduation cap from Daiso. It’s closer to a party hat than a proper graduation cap, with its miniature form and stretchy string to secure under a chin. It’s made of scratchy felt instead of the shiny, smooth silk of an actual graduation cap. The tassel definitely isn’t the color of Jimin’s high school either.

Jimin freezes. Her eyes go soft with recognition. When Minjeong raises the cap, she bows her head slightly so Minjeong can place it on her head.

“I know you technically didn’t get your GED yet,” Minjeong says. “But you deserve to celebrate too.”

She reaches into her bag again and feels around until her fingers grasp onto a familiar shape. When she pulls out the party popper, Jimin laughs, the sound bubbling out of her chest in that unrestrained way that Minjeong likes a little too much.

Minjeong aims the party popper at the night sky and wraps the cotton string around her index finger. The stars blink down at her. Then she pulls, releasing confetti into the air with a small pop. Colorful streamers drift down onto their heads, some swept away with the breeze, landing in the water. It’s no fireworks show, but it’ll do for a makeshift graduation ceremony.

“Congratulations, Jimin unnie.”

For a moment, Jimin just stands there. Nerves begin to creep up Minjeong’s spine. Was it too cheesy? Or presumptuous of her to assume that Jimin was hung up over graduation? Maybe she doesn’t even care about that. Maybe her mood has been down for other reasons.

Then Jimin steps closer, opens her arms, and wraps Minjeong in an embrace that knocks the air out of her lungs. Not because Jimin was too rough or enthusiastic—because Jimin is holding her like she’s something precious. A hand cradles the back of her head and strokes through her hair. Their bodies press together, warm and close.

Before Jimin, Minjeong never knew that hugs could feel like this. That a hug could make her knees feel weak and her chest feel like it’s been cleaved open. She isn't sure if it makes her feel alive or like she’s bleeding out on the concrete. Her arms hang uselessly at her sides until she remembers to return the embrace, circling her arms carefully around Jimin’s torso.

“Thank you,” Jimin whispers.

Minjeong doesn’t trust herself to speak. She just nods, breathes Jimin in, tries to etch the touch into her memory.

Maybe this is the closest she’ll ever get to Jimin. Maybe it’s enough.

They miss the last train. And the late night bus. The next bus isn’t due for another thirty minutes, so they decide to walk home instead.

Jimin’s still wearing the graduation cap. She’s humming their song. She looks ridiculous, and her hair is all mussed up, but there’s still a ghost of a smile on her face and it’s enough to make Minjeong hold off on teasing her.

But that nagging question still lives in the back of Minjeong’s head. It’s so late that she isn’t sleepy at all anymore, just a little delirious. Delirious enough to let curiosity get the best of her. “Hey. Can I ask you something?”

Jimin makes an affirmative noise.

“What’s your type?”

“My type?” Jimin stops and turns to look at Minjeong. “Why do you ask?”

“Uh, apparently Chaehyun’s guy friend wants to know,” Minjeong says. She stops too, avoids eye contact. It’s technically the truth. She leaves out the fact that she has no intention of sharing this information with Chaehyun. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“Hmm, my type…” Jimin wonders out loud, tapping her chin with her finger. Her eyes wander out to the empty expanse of concrete and streetlights in front of them. Then Minjeong feels eyes on her again.

She risks a sideways glance. She expects Jimin to be looking at her with that familiar cheeky smile, dimple peeking out, a teasing remark on her tongue. She isn’t prepared for the fondness in the dark pools of Jimin’s eyes or the thoughtful set of her lips.

Jimin reaches out. Maybe for another hug, Minjeong secretly hopes, even though she hasn’t done anything to earn it. Slowly, Jimin’s hand travels up, fingertips resting gently on the side of Minjeong’s head. Minjeong holds her breath, eyes wide.

Then Jimin roughly ruffles Minjeong’s hair and bursts into a fit of giggles.

Minjeong clicks her tongue in annoyance and shakes the strands out of her eyes. She instinctively darts a hand out to smack Jimin, but Jimin’s already preemptively jogging away. She knows that Minjeong hates it when she does that.

“It’s a secret!” Jimin shouts back. She’s further down the street now. Why is she running so fast?

Minjeong whines. Kicks her legs up to follow. “Hey, wait! Tell me!”

By the time they make it back to the dorm, exhaustion has fully seeped into their bodies. They tip-toe inside and brush their teeth next to each other silently in front of the bathroom sink. When they’re done, Minjeong trudges to the couch instead of her own room.

Jimin stops in the hallway. “What are you doing?” She whispers.

Minjeong’s already making herself comfortable on the couch, gathering the pillows that she likes to hug when she naps there during the day. “I have the top bunk, remember? It creaks really loudly. I’ll wake Chaehyun up if I try to get up there.” The last few words blend into a drawn-out yawn. It’s a miracle that she's even still conscious.

“But your back always hurts when you fall asleep on the couch.” Jimin’s eyebrows furrow. She walks towards Minjeong and wraps a hand around her wrist. “Just come with me.”

Minjeong makes a confused noise, but the sleepiness makes her pliant enough to follow. Jimin guides her down the hall and gingerly opens the door to the room that Jimin shares with another trainee. The soft sound of snores from the top bunk filters out into the hall. 

“She’s a heavy sleeper,” Jimin mouths. She steps inside and pulls her blanket open. Then she settles her hand on Minjeong’s back and nudges her forward. “You can sleep here. I'll take the couch.”

Minjeong turns back with a scowl. “What,” she whispers harshly. “You should sleep in your own bed.”

Jimin’s already slowly backing out of the room, but Minjeong grabs her wrist and shakes her head aggressively. Her hair flutters from side to side with the movement. Jimin huffs and starts yanking back, trying to break out from Minjeong’s grip. She’s strong, but Minjeong is determined. The noise from the tussle elicits a disgruntled but not-quite-conscious groan from the top bunk.

They both freeze. A rustle, as Jimin’s roommate tosses in her sleep. Then the snoring resumes.

Minjeong breathes a sigh of relief. She tightens her hold on Jimin’s wrist to drag her back, but then Jimin raises both of her hands in defeat and begins to walk towards her bed. Minjeong lets go. Smiles a bit, satisfied and smug. It falters when Jimin starts nudging her towards the bed too.

She opens her mouth to protest, but shuts it when Jimin raises a finger to her lips and motions up towards the top bunk pointedly. 

They've never done this before. But friends sleep in each other’s beds all of the time, right? It’s not weird. And it’s true. Her back does always hurt after she sleeps on the couch. Given the strange positions that they need to contort their bodies into for their modeling classes, it’s probably in Minjeong’s best interest to sleep on a more comfortable surface.

With her heart in her throat, Minjeong climbs onto the bed as quietly as she can. Jimin follows behind her, the mattress dipping slightly with her weight, and pulls the comforter over their shoulders. It’s a single-sized mattress that definitely isn’t wide enough for two people. Minjeong presses her back against the cool surface of the wall behind her and straightens her body out stiffly to create more space between them.

There’s still hardly any distance between their bodies. Minjeong can feel the heat of Jimin’s body emanating towards her. Jimin’s scent is everywhere: her shampoo on the pillowcase, her laundry detergent on the sheets, her woody perfume on the duvet cover. It’s overwhelming. Minjeong’s face burns. Suddenly, she isn’t sleepy at all anymore.

She closes her eyes and tries to count sheep anyways. It doesn’t make her any less alert, but it slowly helps her body relax a little. Enough for her heart not to jump out of her chest when Jimin speaks again.

“Can I tell you something?” Jimin whispers, so quietly that Minjeong can hardly make out the words.

“Yeah,” Minjeong whispers back.

Jimin shifts and pulls the comforter over their heads. The insulated material muffles her voice from the outside world. Under the covers, it’s just them.

“I’m scared,” Jimin finally confesses. It’s too dark to see what her face looks like. But even with her eyes closed, Minjeong can see the downturned frown of her lips. “I’m already eighteen. What if I don’t debut after all? Or what if I do, and everyone hates me?”

“That’s impossible,” Minjeong scoffs. Because it’s Jimin. Who wouldn't like her?

“I don't know about that. You know how people are.”

Between the two of them, Jimin’s usually the optimistic one. The one who talks about her dreams like they’re going to happen. The one who talks about Minjeong’s dreams like they’re going to happen. Jimin believes in herself so earnestly that the people around her can’t help but want to believe in themselves a little, too. Hearing her doubt herself like this makes Minjeong wonder how much of Jimin’s outward optimism is for the sake of others rather than her own.

Minjeong has never been great at comforting people. She never knows the right things to say. But tonight, the words spill out of her.

“You don’t have to be afraid of that. You’re one of the best performers I know,” Minjeong says. She pauses, almost stopping herself from saying the next few words. But then she remembers the dejected slump of Jimin’s shoulders, the subdued tone of her voice, and decides that it’s worth the potential embarrassment. “And you already have a fan.”

Jimin huffs. “Those weirdos who take pictures of trainees leaving the SM building don’t count. They don’t even know who I am.”

“I’m not talking about them,” Minjeong breathes. She’s glad that it’s completely dark under the covers. It makes it easier to be honest. “I’m talking about me.”

Jimin’s breath catches. There’s a rustle as she turns on her side to face Minjeong. Minjeong is afraid of what she’ll see if she looks. Of what she’ll imagine under the cover of the darkness. She keeps her eyes closed.

“I see you everyday. The way you dance, the way you sing. I’ve seen you do it all in sweatpants and without makeup and with greasy hair, and—” Minjeong’s throat feels dry. She swallows roughly, wipes her palms on her sweatpants. “I still can't look away.”

It feels like a confession. Maybe it is. Minjeong lets herself finish it anyways.

“No matter what happens, I’ll always be your first fan.”

This is the moment, she realizes later, that the knot tightens.

Chapter Text

Summer feels like it’ll never end in this place where the blue stretches on forever. 

Minjeong spends the sweltering days at grandma’s house in Busan by the sea, exploring seaside neighborhoods on the creaky old bicycle that used to belong to her mother.

The family house is humble, worn with time. Yellowed and crooked blinds hang above the windows. The sliding door to the backyard always gets stuck on the metal track. Nearly all of the appliances were salvaged from the side of the road or only purchased after serious haggling.

An orange haze covers the house, like rust creeping over the metal body of a well-loved bicycle. There’s only one object inside that isn’t perpetually covered in dust: the traditional Korean vase in the glass display case in the living room.

Minjeong doesn’t know if it’s a family heirloom or a gift from a wealthy family friend. She’s too young to care about how much it’s worth or which era it’s from. But she is old enough to understand that it’s beautiful. Her eyes gleam as she admires the sloping curves of the ceramic, the geometric incisions peeking out underneath the green-blue glaze.

Her hands are sticky. Today it’s because of the cherry-flavored popsicle she couldn’t eat fast enough, the melted sugary liquid that snaked down her wrist. Other days, it’s because of the mixture of dried salt and kelp residue on her skin from the beach. Her hands always seem to be soiled like that, with the evidence of life.

The kids aren’t allowed to open the glass display case. But Minjeong swiftly looks both ways and holds her breath and does it anyways, reaching up to trace a finger along the smooth ceramic. Just one touch, she thinks, just so she knows how it feels against her skin.

What she feels instead is a smack on her wrist, the cutting sensation of skin against skin. 

“Don't touch that,” her grandma chastises. “You’ll get it dirty.”

Minjeong withdraws. Keeps her eyes on the vase, watches the glint of the midday sunlight on the polished surface. Looks from a distance like she’s supposed to. Better not to sully something beautiful with her own flesh.

It isn’t the only lesson she brings home with her that summer, but it stays with her.

Aeri joins the trainee group on a cool fall day.

They're in the middle of dance practice when the door swings open and the tall dance teacher strides in with a teenage girl behind him. He nods and ushers her forward.

"Hello," the girl says, dipping her head down in a bow. "I'm Uchinaga Aeri. Nice to meet you.”

Her Korean isn't accented the way Yizhuo's is, but Minjeong can tell that she's a foreigner from a single glance. Her skin is tan. Her eyebrows are arched, meticulously shaped and filled in with dark eyebrow powder. Her eyeliner is thick. She’s a little intimidating.

When Minjeong squats down during a break to take a sip of water, Aeri approaches her. There’s a little smile on her face. Minjeong isn’t sure if it’s directed towards her or if that’s just Aeri’s resting face, but she unconsciously finds herself smiling back.

Aeri squats next to her. Her eyes dart back and forth between the two dance teachers. Then she motions for Minjeong to come closer and whispers into her ear.

“Are those teachers dating?”

The intimidation instantly melts away. Minjeong lets out a dramatic gasp and clutches Aeri’s arm. 

“Oh my god,” she whispers back loudly. “I’m not crazy, right? No one else sees it but me.”

Aeri laughs, the sound ringing out loud and true. They spend the rest of practice exchanging conspiratorial glances and quietly giggling at each other. It’s an unexpected friendship, but something about Aeri puts Minjeong at ease.

There’s an innocence to the way that Aeri speaks. A directness that comes with her inexperience with socializing in her second language. Maybe it’s because she really only spoke Korean with her mom growing up, or maybe it’s because that’s just the way Aeri is—warm and honest without pretense. Either way, it’s refreshing to have a friend like Aeri in an environment where Minjeong feels like she constantly has to read between the lines.

They spend most of their time together engaged in what Aeri likes to call “Korean practice.” (Minjeong just calls it what it is: gossiping.) Their favorite topic is the ongoing theory that their dance teachers are romantically involved. Aeri insists that it’s all for the sake of improving her Korean vocabulary. Minjeong rolls her eyes, but indulges Aeri’s curiosity anyways.

It’s still a surprise, though, when that curiosity is directed towards her.

"So," Aeri says one night, when she's dropping coins into a vending machine outside of the company building, "You and Jimin."

Minjeong opens her bottle of juice. "What about me and Jimin unnie?" She tilts her face towards the sky as she takes a sip, eyes following the blinking lights of an airplane.

There’s a pause, like Aeri is considering her words.

"Are you guys, like, dating?"

Minjeong chokes on her drink. "Huh? Of course we’re not.”

"But…" Aeri furrows her eyebrows. She vaguely motions with her hands the way she does when she can't think of the right word to use in Korean. “The matching AirPods cases. And matching phone charms. And matching—”

“Those were buy one get one free! And Jimin unnie has matching stuff with Ningning, too.”

Aeri narrows her eyes. “She calls you baby.”

“That's just an inside joke.” Minjeong shakes her head. It’s not like Jimin treats her particularly differently compared to the other girls. That’s just the way Jimin is towards everyone: warm, friendly, and affectionate.

"Oh. But you like her, right?”

Minjeong whips her head around so fast that her hair almost whacks Aeri’s face. “What?” 

Aeri blinks. “What?”

“What do you… what did you just—”

“I was talking about your big cheesy crush on—”

“Okay, stop!” Minjeong clamps a hand over Aeri’s mouth. Her ears feel warm. She looks from side to side to make sure no one else is within earshot before she lowers her hand.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “How did you know?”

Anxiety swirls in Minjeong’s stomach. She searches Aeri’s eyes for judgment, for any sign that the truth will change something between them.

But Aeri just looks back at her quizzically. “I could just tell.”

Minjeong’s had crushes on girls before. There was the tall upperclassman girl in the next classroom who she saw only in glimpses in school hallways, the kendo instructor with calloused hands who said nothing outside of instructions on striking technique.

She didn’t love them, not really. She was in love with the distance between them—the promise of possibility that came with everything she didn’t know. The distance felt safe. She could keep her feelings contained in that distance, let them grow and grow until they eventually dissolved into thin air. Wasn’t that better than the alternative of grasping for something and being responsible for ruining it?

That’s why this is new. The dizzying proximity to something that could be real. The terrifying experience of really knowing someone and wanting them anyways. She’s spent the past year pushing these feelings down, telling herself that it’ll pass like every other crush, convincing herself that it doesn’t have to mean anything if no one ever finds out. Hearing that her feelings are plain to see makes her blood run cold.

Minjeong is okay with being a girl who likes girls. But she can’t be a girl who likes her best friend.

Her voice is tremulous when she speaks again. “Is it obvious?”

Aeri’s eyes widen when she registers the fear in Minjeong’s voice. “No, you’re honestly really hard to read. It was just a hunch.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Aeri tilts her head. “Why would it bother me?”

It’s only been a couple of months since Aeri joined, but already she’s looking more like the other trainees. Her tan has slightly faded. Her makeup style has shifted towards lighter palettes, less dramatic eye makeup. It wouldn’t be a stretch if she started thinking like the rest of them too, with their subtle derision towards anyone they consider different. The casual disgust that Minjeong knows they’d direct towards her too, if they knew.

“Well…” Minjeong averts her eyes. She looks out at the busy intersection in front of them instead. “You know how people can be here.”

Aeri bumps their shoulders together. Instead of shifting away, she keeps their sides pressed together. “The only reason I’d care about who you like is if they’re mean to you.”

The sentiment settles between them. The night air is cold, but the comforting warmth of Aeri’s body seeps into Minjeong’s own. Part of her feels lighter now that the truth is out. That there’s at least one person who knows this about her. She nudges Aeri back, a relieved smile forming on her lips. “Thanks, unnie.”

Aeri hums. “Nothing to thank me for.”

A beat of silence passes. Minjeong taps her foot to the clicking sound of the crosswalk signal. “But can you keep this between us? I don’t want her to know.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

Because I’m scared of what she’ll say, of the way she’ll look at me. Because I’m scared that it’ll change everything. Because it’ll crush me if she thinks that’s the only reason I hang around her, if the friendship we’ve built is reduced to something as self-serving as desire.

There are so many reasons to list that Minjeong doesn’t know where to start.

“Because it’s just a crush,” is what she says instead. “I’m sure it’ll go away soon.”

It doesn’t go away.

The realization comes on an ordinary Wednesday, one of those days where nothing special really happens. The kind of day that you don't realize that you’ll miss until it’s long gone.

It’s four in the afternoon. The midday slump always hits around this time, making their bodies feel sluggish and heavy until even the model trainees are looking for excuses not to practice. This time, Jimin was the one who called for a snack break. They’re sitting next to each other on the little concrete wall in the parking lot behind the company, legs dangling, barely grazing, the touch still there nonetheless. A little too close, not close enough. Minjeong can’t tell anymore.

Jimin swings her legs idly. Her sneakers thump against the concrete wall in a steady beat. They’re practicing interview questions because Jimin likes playing pretend when she’s bored. 

“Minjeong-ssi,” she says, holding out her closed fist like a microphone, “what made you want to become an idol?”

The easy answer is that she loves music. They all do. It’s the palatable answer they’re trained to give. The explanation she’s rehearsed dozens of times rises on her tongue as she turns towards Jimin, but what she sees makes her pause.

Late afternoon light streams through the tree above them, dappling Jimin’s face in golden hues. Sunlight washes over the curve of her cheeks, nestles in the gaps between her eyelashes, embraces her skin so plainly that envy twists in Minjeong’s stomach. She feels it again, that urge to reach out and close the distance. It’s something she's never felt with any other crush. It’s how she knows that this is different.

The surge of emotion disarms her. It makes her honest.

“I can be anyone on stage,” she says. “I don’t have to be just Minjeong.”

Jimin raises an eyebrow. “Just Minjeong?”

Minjeong shrugs. “I’m not as brave in real life. Not as honest.” 

Singing has always been a way to access everything she isn't in real life. She morphs into a vision of confidence instead of someone who still stutters when she orders at restaurants. She projects her voice loud enough to fill an entire room instead of seeking permission to take up space. She belts love songs like her feelings are something to be proud of, not fear.

On stage, she can be someone who is in love with Jimin. Someone brave enough to hope that Jimin can love her back.

Jimin lowers her hand to rest on the concrete wall. She looks up at the sky beyond them.

When she speaks again, her voice is tender as if she’s sharing a secret. “When you're on stage, I don’t see a better version of Minjeong. I just see you.”

Sometimes the force of Jimin’s sincerity is overwhelming. Minjeong never knows what to do with it. She looks down and shyly nudges Jimin’s foot with her own. It’s as much of a response as she can muster. Jimin nudges back, leans closer so that their legs are pressed together.

“What about you?” Minjeong asks.

“I love being on stage. It’s the one place I feel the most like myself.”

It’s the opposite of Minjeong’s answer. They were always different like that.

“And I like that I don't have to do it alone,” Jimin adds. “Hasn’t it been fun lately? Practicing with Aeri and Ningning. It feels right with the four of us.”

“It's not the first time we've been sorted into a trainee group,” Minjeong points out.

“But it feels different this time. We’re practicing unreleased demos. We even took profile pictures together!”

Jimin’s right. Secretly, Minjeong feels like this might be the start of something too. She just hasn’t dared to say it out loud yet. The company is too unpredictable. She’s been burned by it too many times to get her hopes up.

But Jimin’s always been an optimist. When Minjeong shrugs casually, Jimin clicks her tongue and kicks Minjeong’s foot with her own. “Come on, don't act cool. You like being around them too. You and Ningning literally got in trouble yesterday for messing around in class.”

“You mean she got me in trouble?” Minjeong quips back. But there's no bite to it. Despite their one-sided rocky start, she's developed a soft spot for Yizhuo and her silly antics. The fun is almost always worth the trouble that Yizhuo drags them into.

“Don’t act like you don’t encourage it.”

Minjeong laughs. “Okay, fine. I guess it is kind of nice.”

Something about this group does feel different than all of the others. When they're all dancing together, the synchronized beat of their footsteps reverberating on the floor, Minjeong feels like she's part of something bigger than herself. There's a synergy to this combination of girls that feels special. When she glances over at Jimin, her eyes are shining like she’s already imagining their future together. Like she can already see it.

“What kind of group do you think we'd be?” Jimin asks. 

“We’ve been practicing cooler songs ever since Aeri unnie joined. Maybe a girl crush concept?”

“Ugh, that'd be amazing. Like Run Devil Run? Or The Boys?”

Minjeong smiles and shakes her head. “Do you have to make everything about Girls’ Generation?”

Jimin nods seriously, mostly to make Minjeong laugh. But when she speaks again, her voice is soft. “I’d like that too. Not just the girl crush part, but… debuting with you guys. With you.”

Minjeong’s heart skips. She thinks of the silly promise they made all those years ago when they first became trainees, before they knew how long and difficult the journey was going to be. She wonders everything they’ve worked so hard for is finally within reach.

“Me too. I really hope it happens.”

So much has changed over the past three years. Friends came and went. Dorm assignments changed so often that they stopped trying to make the barren spaces feel like home. Even this parking lot, which used to be rife with greenery, was bulldozed and filled with cement until only the tree above them remained.

The one constant in her life in Seoul has been Jimin’s presence. Maybe this is what really matters, Minjeong thinks, not how much she likes the curve of Jimin’s smile.

Minjeong is a girl who loves Jimin and a girl who is in love with Jimin—and maybe she can live with both of those feelings if it means keeping the best friend she’s ever had. The one person who really sees her.

Minjeong looks out at the parking lot. She’s seen this boring old sight countless times, but suddenly, the urge to commit it to memory washes over her. She tries to memorize it: the particular shade of late afternoon light at this hour, the sound of their sneakers bouncing idly against the concrete wall, the gentle breeze pushing Jimin’s long, dark hair away from her face to reveal her bright eyes.

It’s just another day of practice, but Minjeong hopes that she never forgets it. She hopes she never forgets being eighteen years old in this big city with her best friend, chasing the same dream together.

There was a time when Minjeong would imagine her future and see herself standing on stage alone. Now she can't imagine doing this without Jimin.

“Did you always see yourself debuting as part of a group?” Minjeong asks.

“Yeah. It’s more fun that way, don’t you think? I like singing with other people.” Jimin looks over. A cheeky smile spreads across her face. “But don’t worry. You're still my favorite person to sing with.”

Minjeong pretends to gag. “Whatever.”

She swallows the truth: You’re my favorite person to sing with too.

It starts, as it usually does, with a twinkle in Yizhuo’s eye.

“It’s Aeri unnie’s 100-day anniversary of being a trainee. We should celebrate!”

The four of them are in the convenience store. Practice is finally over for the day, and they’re in the middle of their usual pilgrimage for snacks and drinks. Except Yizhuo isn’t eyeing the colorful rows of fruity Mogu Mogu bottles this time.

They’re in the alcohol section. Green bottles of soju gleam at them under the harsh fluorescent lighting. 

Aeri laughs. “Hey, don’t use me as an excuse to drink again.”

Jimin’s mouth falls open in an expression of mock-surprise. “Again? Drinking with a minor is a crime, you know.”

“Like that ever stopped you,” Minjeong says with a roll of her eyes.

Jimin definitely didn’t wait until Minjeong was eighteen before introducing her to alcohol for the first time. Still, she’s glad that the first time she got drunk was in the relative safety of Jimin’s dorm room, because she promptly fell asleep after two shots.

Jimin raises a finger to her lips. “Shhh. They don’t need to know that.”

Yizhuo’s already leaning over the refrigerated display case, examining the different flavors. “It’s really not an excuse. It’s a special occasion.” She nudges Aeri as if to cue her.

“I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to a good time,” Aeri smoothly adds. “And it’s been a while since we went to noraebang.”

They both look at Jimin with wide, pleading eyes. Their nameless trainee group is still in its nascent stage, but the trainers are already encouraging Jimin to take the lead during practices and planning meetings. It makes sense—she’s the oldest out of all of them, one of the senior trainees, and she’s always had that type of charisma that others can’t help but follow. Naturally, the leader role bleeds into their casual interactions too.

Jimin balks. Glances back at Minjeong for help. But Minjeong’s already holding a bottle of peach-flavored soju in her hand.

“What?” Minjeong says. Her lips curl up in a playful smile. “It’s a Friday night, unnie.”

Jimin bites her lip. “We have to take our new profile pictures this weekend. Our faces can’t be puffy.” Her tone doesn’t sound very firm. It’s like she's trying to convince herself that it's a bad idea. Minjeong can tell that she’s torn between letting loose and playing the responsible leader that the company wants her to be.

“That’s Sunday,” Yizhuo interjects. “We have an entire day to de-puff. We can even go on a group run together.”

Aeri gapes and elbows Yizhuo pointedly. Yizhuo ignores her.

Jimin hesitates. “What if they see us drinking and ID you? I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Yizhuo’s face lights up because Jimin’s already entertaining the idea. She’s so easy. All she needs is a little push to give in completely.

Minjeong knows exactly what to say. “You were the one who taught me to pour the soju into an empty water bottle, remember?

A moment of silence. Then a groan as Jimin reaches into the refrigerated display case and grabs two bottles of soju for herself.

“I hate you guys. Everybody grab the flavor you want.”

Jimin takes the special occasion to heart. 

She leads them to the nice noraebang chain, the one with spacious rooms and couches and food service. They split the cost four ways.

When they enter the room, Jimin grunts as she sets her heavy crossbody bag down on the table. She pulls out the water bottles, which they emptied and refilled with soju in the alleyway next to the convenience store, and places them on the table.

Minjeong makes herself comfortable on one of the couches. She looks out the floor-length window on their right, the twinkling city lights below them. When she and Jimin go out, they’re usually crammed into the cheap single stalls at coin noraebang. It feels nice to have space to sit and spread out.

Aeri and Yizhuo take the other couch and start scrolling through the song catalogue on the TV using the remote. Loud previews of pop songs blare over the speakers. Jimin settles next to Minjeong and grabs the microphone.

“Leader’s orders,” she says, her voice echoing dramatically across the room. “We’re starting with a drink.”

By the second hour, they’re drunk enough to get sidetracked into a conversation instead of belting their favorite songs. They’re all squeezed onto one couch now. Yizhuo’s practically sitting on Aeri’s lap, but she’s never really had the concept of personal space anyways.

Minjeong does. That’s why the warmth of Jimin’s arm around her makes her face burn. 

Jimin has always been a touchy person. It’s like second nature for her to reach out to intertwine their fingers, rest her head on Minjeong’s shoulder when they’re waiting in line, poke Minjeong’s cheeks when they’re posing in photobooths. The couch is small enough that they have to press together to fit comfortably, and it’s not like they’ve never been this close to each other before, but it feels different tonight.

Jimin’s drunk. She’s slouched back on the couch, a heavy arm slung over Minjeong’s shoulders, holding her so close that Minjeong is nestled into her torso.

The room is warm. They’d taken off their hoodies once the drinks started flowing. Minjeong regrets wearing a tank top to practice, because the blistering press of Jimin’s bare skin against her own is all she can focus on. Jimin’s hand casually rests on Minjeong’s exposed shoulder, her thumb absentmindedly rubbing back and forth against the flushed skin as she bickers with Aeri about something stupid from across the couch. Each slow drag makes Minjeong feel more feverish.

Jimin doesn’t let go, even when she reaches for the bottle on the table and tilts her chin backwards to take a sip. The alcohol lowers Minjeong’s inhibitions, makes her indulge in ways she normally wouldn’t allow herself to. She lets herself watch. Her eyes trail along the swell of Jimin’s lips, the sinuous stretch of her long neck, the rhythmic bob as she swallows.

She’s been feeling something else for Jimin lately. Something more rotten than the butterflies she gets when Jimin smiles her way. A hunger that no amount of avoidance has been able to sate.

Minjeong doesn’t look away fast enough. Jimin’s eyes open, half-lidded but aware, and suddenly she’s staring back at Minjeong. Her gaze is searing. Then, for a split second, so brief that it could’ve been a trick of the light, her eyes flicker down to Minjeong’s lips.

“Jimin unnie! Did you hear me?” Yizhuo calls out.

Jimin blinks like she’s waking up. She jerks her head back to look at Yizhuo. “Sorry, what was that?”

“We’re talking about first kisses,” Yizhuo says with a sly grin. “You’re the oldest, so you should go first.”

Jimin wrinkles her nose. “You’re so nosy.”

“Come on,” Aeri goads. “I wanna know, too.”

“Uh, it was nothing special. Kind of awkward, actually.” Jimin laughs. “This guy I dated in middle school kissed me on Valentine’s Day. Then he got mad because I didn’t get him any chocolate.”

Minjeong’s heard this story before. Jimin practically got confessed to every month when she was in school. She dated a few of the more handsome boys before she became a trainee, but none of the relationships lasted more than a few months.

“Mine was in high school,” Aeri says. “Junior prom. We snuck out in the middle and kissed in the dark behind the school. Then we got in trouble because a teacher saw us and we had to beg her not to call our parents.”

Yizhuo whistles. “I hope my first kiss is that scandalous.” Then her eyes land on Minjeong. “What about you, Minjeong unnie?”

“Haven’t had mine yet,” Minjeong says. It’s not something she’s particularly embarrassed about. But when Yizhuo’s eyes widen in surprise, Minjeong feels something unpleasant begin to rise in her chest.

“Really? No way, you must be lying,” Yizhuo exclaims.

It isn’t judgment—just genuine surprise and disbelief. But it makes Minjeong bristle all the same.

So what if she hasn’t kissed anyone? Yizhuo hasn’t either, and they’re only a year or so apart. Minjeong’s been auditioning every week since she was thirteen and training twelve hours a day ever since she was fifteen. It’s not like she ever had the time to date.

“I’m not,” Minjeong says, her tone growing terse.

Yizhuo’s too drunk to notice the edge in her voice. She laughs and waves her hand dismissively. “Come on! Don’t be shy. Just tell us already.”

Her voice suddenly sounds too loud, like she’s announcing to the entire world how unthinkable it is that Minjeong hasn't had her first kiss yet. It makes Minjeong’s irritation boil over.

“I said I haven’t, okay?” Minjeong snaps.

The room goes quiet save for the low refrain of the pop song looping from the TV screen. Yizhuo flinches at the sharpness of Minjeong’s tone. Her expression changes immediately. She withdraws, sinks backwards into the couch and looks down at the stained carpet.

“Sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just curious.”

A tense silence stretches between them. Minjeong instantly regrets her outburst. She knows she should apologize, but the anger still feels too fresh for her to back down.

After a beat, Aeri breaks the ice instead. “Hey, at least Minjeong’s first kiss won't be as cringy as ours.”

“Yeah, maybe it'll actually be special,” Jimin adds. She gives Minjeong’s shoulder a gentle, coaxing squeeze. “Come on. Orange Caramel next?”

It's a little awkward at first, but the mood eventually recovers after a few extra swigs of soju and an impromptu performance of Catallena by Jimin and Aeri. Minjeong mostly watches instead of joining in. The lingering guilt makes her hesitant to participate. But spectating is entertaining enough, especially since the song choices gradually become sillier as the night progresses. By the time their booking ends, they're back to giggling and discussing random topics.

“Does anyone want to grab food before we head back?” Aeri asks. She’s slumped over on Jimin’s shoulder and still breathless from the last song.

Yizhuo perks up. “I’m down. Maybe tteokbokki? Or pizza?” She turns towards Minjeong and Jimin with hopeful eyes.

“Ah, I'm not really hungry,” Minjeong says. “But you guys should go ahead.”

Jimin makes an affirmative noise. “Same here. We’ll meet you guys back at home?”

It takes a little longer than it should to clean up the room. The lingering effects of the alcohol make them clumsy and chatty. Jimin and Aeri are engrossed in conversation on the other side of the room, which gives Minjeong enough time to muster up the courage to tug on Yizhuo’s sleeve.

“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier,” Minjeong quietly says. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I know you didn’t mean any harm.”

Yizhuo’s gaze softens. She pulls Minjeong into a tight hug. The force of it elicits a little oof from Minjeong, but it feels kind of nice to hug someone smaller than her for once. She tucks her chin over Yizhuo’s shoulder and lets Yizhuo nuzzle affectionately into her neck.

“It’s okay, Minjeong unnie. I’m sorry for putting you on the spot like that,” Yizhuo says as she pulls back. “I bet you’ll have the best story out of all of us once it happens.”

That draws a smile out of Minjeong. “You’ll be the first to know, trust me.”

They’re about halfway home when Jimin stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Her mouth curves up in that pretty smile as she motions to her left.

“Want to stop in for a bit?”

Minjeong glances over and sees the familiar entrance of the coin noraebang that they frequent when they need to let off steam after practice. A cacophony of off-pitch screams and laughter rings out from the doorway.

“You’re still in the mood to sing?” 

“Aren’t you?” Jimin’s head tilts to the side. “You barely sang tonight. And we didn’t even get to sing your favorite song.”

Minjeong’s favorite song hasn’t changed in the past three years. It kept her company on the nights when she felt especially lonely and uncertain, when her only comfort was singing by herself in the practice room after everyone else went back to the dorm. The first time Jimin discovered her in that state—throat raw, choking on the notes, swallowing the melody like a drowned woman coming up for air—she didn’t know what to say.

But she didn’t leave. She picked up a microphone and answered with her own voice. The song wasn’t meant to be a duet, but now Minjeong hardly ever sings it alone.

Minjeong’s hand twitches. She does still want to sing. Jimin notices, the way she always does.

“Come on,” Jimin urges with a grin. Her hand closes around Minjeong’s wrist, warm and inviting. “Just one song.”

They squeeze into their usual booth at the end of the hall. Jimin stumbles a bit on the way in. She’s drunker than Minjeong because she’s worse at resisting the playful goading from the other girls when they’re drinking, but she still instinctively reaches out to cover Minjeong’s microphone with the paper cover before her own.

Delicate piano notes begin to play from the speakers. They settle into position in front of the screen, but neither of them needs to read the lyrics displayed on it. They’ve sung this song so many times that it feels like following a script. Minjeong calls out and Jimin answers with her eyes closed, like they’re telling a story they already know the ending to.

Their arms press together in the cramped booth. Time should have worn the lyrics down like a river stone, smoothed away the ragged edges until they didn’t tear at Minjeong’s throat anymore. But her voice wavers at the chorus. Her chest aches. It feels too real, suddenly, this song about needing someone more than air, this friendship that Minjeong is desperate to keep, the growing feelings that threaten to jeopardize it entirely.

Minjeong does the only thing that she knows how to do. She closes her eyes and sings, even though her throat feels strained with emotion, even though this duet with Jimin hurts so much more now that she means every single word she's singing.

At the end of the song, Minjeong opens her eyes again. Jimin’s facing her, leaning against the wall, swaying slowly to the closing notes with her eyes closed. It’s dark in the booth. Her hair is messy and her zip-up hoodie is hanging haphazardly off one shoulder, but she still looks so pretty like that, unguarded like she has nothing to hide.

Jimin’s eyes flutter open. Her throat is hoarse when she speaks. “Were you upset earlier? About the kiss thing.”

The memory of the outburst embarrasses her. Minjeong presses her back against the wall behind her in an effort to create space between them, but the booth is too small for her to escape Jimin’s gaze.

“Not exactly, but…” Minjeong sighs. “I was just being dumb. I already apologized, if that’s what you're worried about.”

Jimin frowns. “That’s not it. I just wanted to check if you were okay.”

“I am,” Minjeong says. She glances out at the frosted glass door to her side, watches the amorphous shadows in the hallway expand and then shrink as strangers walk by. “I guess it just struck a nerve because I already feel behind. Everyone I grew up with is at college and I'm still here.”

“I don't think you're behind at all. Just on a different path.”

“Yeah, but…” Minjeong huffs out a laugh. “I'm a high school dropout with shaky career prospects and I haven't even had my first kiss. That's bleak, isn't it?”

It's mostly a joke. But Jimin isn’t laughing.

“Do you want to?”

Minjeong knits her eyebrows. “I mean, yes?” It should be obvious that this is a sore spot for her. It's not like wanting it is going to change anything.

When Jimin doesn’t immediately respond, Minjeong glances back in confusion. Her breath catches in her throat when she realizes that Jimin isn’t leaning against the wall anymore. She’s a step closer now. Her eyes are dark, searching.

“We could,” Jimin says in a low voice, “if you want.”

It isn’t the first time Minjeong has been at the mercy of Jimin’s drunken whims. But this is different. There’s no mischievous glint in her eye, no playful lilt to her tone.

“Don’t tease me, unnie,” Minjeong breathes. It’s supposed to come out sounding petulant. She’s supposed to follow their usual script, pretend like it’s all just a big joke so that they can both still back out of this. But the fragility of her voice betrays her.

Jimin reaches out to loosely intertwine their fingers. A calloused thumb brushes over the back of Minjeong’s hand. The contact doesn’t soothe as intended. It just makes Minjeong feel even hotter, even more like she can’t breathe.

“I’m not teasing, Minjeong.”

Minjeong blinks up at her. Jimin is too close, not close enough—and for the first time, Minjeong has the opportunity to close the distance.

A million thoughts scatter through her brain. About how best friends don’t do this kind of thing. About how this is a bad idea, how she might never get over Jimin if she lets it happen. About how soft Jimin’s lips look. About how badly she wants to know what Jimin’s lip gloss tastes like when it mingles with her own.

About how she doesn’t care, really, what happens after this, as long as she gets the one thing she only ever thought was possible in her dreams.

Minjeong tilts her chin up, eyes scanning Jimin’s face for any sign of hesitation. Then, against all logic, against everything she’s told herself over the past year of being in love with Jimin, she takes a step forward.

Jimin meets her halfway. She raises a hand to Minjeong’s cheek, thumb stroking lightly over flushed skin like she’s done it a million times before. Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips. Minjeong’s eyes flutter shut. Her heart feels like it’s going to burst.

Her best friend leans down. Their lips brush together, slow and gentle, the barest of touches that sears Minjeong’s skin forever.

When Jimin pulls back, her breath is hot against Minjeong’s lips.

“Now you can say you've kissed someone,” Jimin whispers.

When Minjeong tells the story of her first kiss, she says this: I was eighteen. We were still a little drunk from noraebang. It was sweet and innocent, barely just a peck. We walked home with our pinkies linked, quiet and shy, cheeks pink from the cold night air and something more.

The part she doesn’t share, the truth that she swallows, is that it hadn’t been enough. That once she tasted Jimin, there was no going back.

Chapter Text

“Do you think they found our stash of snacks, or my secret Instagram account, or maybe they had someone follow us and found out we gave Ningie alcohol—”

“Jimin unnie,” Minjeong cuts in sharply. “It’s probably fine. Stop freaking out.”

Jimin runs a shaky hand through her hair. Her cheeks are still puffy from the previous night of drinking. They hardly had time to get ready this morning before the text arrived from the teacher in charge of their trainee group.

Come to the main office as soon as possible. 

“Why would they need all four of us there, though?” Aeri wonders. Her hood is pulled low over her head in a futile attempt to obscure the bags beneath her eyes. “Either we’re all in trouble or we’re all going to get some really good news.”

“It has to be trouble,” Jimin mumbles to herself. Her Crocs squeak loudly as she strides down the hallway of the company building. Yizhuo makes a pained noise as she struggles to keep up. The frantic pace isn’t helping her worsening hangover, but Jimin’s too stressed to notice. “I knew I should’ve hidden the snacks in my underwear drawer.”

When they round the corner, Jimin nearly walks right into their teacher. Doyoon is a tall man in his mid-thirties with a stern voice, piercing eyes, and very little patience for their shenanigans. Luckily, Jimin stops in her tracks right on time. 

“Girls,” he says with a neutral expression. That’s his version of a greeting. He gives them a quick once-over and raises an eyebrow. “Out late last night?”

“Um, not super late, actually, just like a normal amount of late—” Jimin rambles. She yelps when Minjeong elbows her side to shut her up before she accidentally incriminates them.

Doyoon stares down at them impassively. He opens the door to the office. “Right. Well, you girls can head in first.”

They walk through the doorway in a single-file line. Doyoon follows behind and closes the door behind them.

A woman Minjeong doesn’t recognize is sitting at the head of the table. They look back at Doyoon for an introduction, for guidance on what to do or say, anything. The corners of his lips curve up in the closest approximation of a smile that Minjeong has ever seen on his face. She isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad sign.

Then he opens his mouth and changes their lives forever.

“This is your creative director. She’ll be in charge of your debut.”

Every waking hour is filled with debut preparations. There are the obvious things, like beauty treatments to sit through, company-approved answers for interview questions to memorize, supplementary classes to improve specific weaknesses or refine the skills that represent their roles in the group.

Then there’s the lore that they have to study, strange new words like Kwangya and Black Mamba and Armamenter that still feel way too awkward on Minjeong’s tongue for someone who’s supposed to sell the concept to the general public.

Minjeong sinks backwards into the couch. This is unfamiliar, too, the new couch in the new two-bedroom dorm that the company moved them into.

She’s squinting at the latest installment of the lore when Jimin steps out of the bathroom. Steam billows from the doorway. There’s a towel wrapped around her torso. Her wet hair is pushed back, a few stray strands falling across her face.

Minjeong stiffens. She averts her gaze as Jimin walks into her bedroom and shuts the door behind her.

They haven’t talked about it. Nothing has changed, really. Jimin is the same as she’s always been. They still practice together, sneak out to the convenience store together, sing at noraebang together when they’re feeling particularly stressed. Sometimes Minjeong wonders if the kiss even happened at all. If it meant anything to Jimin.

She thinks of the way Jimin’s eyes flickered to her lips in the noraebang booth, even before they started discussing first kisses. She thinks of Jimin’s voice, low and wanting. Jimin’s touch, gentle and familiar. Jimin’s casual flirtations, her not-so-casual fixations on female idols. Then she thinks of the glint of the rosary ring on Jimin’s index finger and her stomach twists and she doesn’t know what to think anymore.

Minjeong’s head hurts. Her mind feels jumbled with thoughts of Jimin, being good enough to debut, not being good enough to debut, everything that she needs to learn and unlearn to be the idol that the company wants her to be. She shuts her eyes and leans her head back on the couch.

“Don’t fall asleep yet.”

The couch dips as Jimin settles down next to her. The floral scent of her shampoo wafts into the space, disconcerting and soothing all at once. Minjeong makes an idle noise, but keeps her eyes closed. “Why? We’re done for the day.”

“Did you forget? It’s time for our ten-minute talk.”

Right. The ten-minute talk thing. Jimin suggested that they start doing it once a week, saying something about team building before their debut. Jimin’s always enjoyed this kind of thing—sitting around, talking about her feelings. It comes naturally to her.

For Minjeong, it’s just another obligation to get through. She exhales noisily and sits back up.

Before long, Aeri and Yizhuo amble out of their rooms. They sit on the floor so that the four of them form a loose circle.

“Alright,” Jimin starts, clapping her hands together. It comes off as a little awkward. She’s still getting used to the whole “leader” thing. It shouldn’t be charming to Minjeong, but it is. “Let’s start with a check in.”

“My brain feels like it’s going to explode,” Yizhuo says. “I’m taking so many Korean classes these days. Sometimes I even dream in Korean now.”

Aeri makes an affirmative noise. “Same. My schedule is full of Japanese and dance classes. My knees always hurt. And I kind of hate that I see the dance teacher more than I see you guys.”

“For me, rap classes have been fun. But kind of tough since I’m new to this,” Jimin says. “I keep stuttering when I'm supposed to be acting cool.”

Minjeong’s own schedule is full of media training classes. Her voice still trembles sometimes when she introduces herself at monthly evaluations. The remedy, the teachers decided, was for her to spend hours practicing interview questions every day. She dreads the classes almost as much as she dreads the weekly ten-minute talks.

The room quiets as the rest of the girls turn their gazes towards Minjeong.

“Uh, I’m taking a lot of media training classes. They’re fine, I guess.”

“Just fine?” Jimin prompts. It’s clear that she wants Minjeong to share more about how the classes are going, how she feels about them.

Minjeong shrugs impassively. “Yeah. Just fine.”

This is their push and pull these days. Jimin wants Minjeong to be more open with the other girls. Minjeong doesn’t understand why they need to know that she feels like throwing up every time the teachers barrage her with increasingly difficult interview questions and expect her to provide satisfactory answers on the spot.

There’s a short pause. An expectant, hopeful look from Jimin. Then her shoulders slump in defeat.

“Alright,” Jimin says, her voice twinged with disappointment. But she doesn’t push further. She knows Minjeong too well to expect that to be fruitful. “How are we feeling about the debut?”

No one wants to be the first to speak. It’s one thing to complain about classes and another thing entirely to talk about what keeps all of them awake at night.

The silence stretches further in this new dorm with just the four of them in it. It should feel luxurious to not have to come home to the chatter of ten other teenage girls, dozens of sneakers piled up at the entrance, days of old dishes stacked in the sink. But the unfamiliar environment just makes Minjeong feel even more unsettled. It’s yet another change that she hasn’t gotten used to yet.

It’s always been in Minjeong’s nature to be reticent, but the trainee environment only worsened the habit. There’s no sense of permanence in a place like this. No reason to let anyone get close enough for their eventual absence to hurt.

Jimin exhales and leans forward.

“I guess I’ll start,” she says. “Um, to be honest, I’m nervous. The concept’s a lot different from what we’ve been practicing.”

A murmur of agreement. They can all agree on that, although they have varying degrees of excitement about it.

Jimin pauses. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. It’s an old habit, something she does when she’s feeling shy and trying her best to push past it. “And I don’t know, I’ve never really seen myself as a leader,” she adds, quieter this time. “At least the type that my own idols have been. So I’m trying to figure out what it means for me to be a good leader.”

The rare moment of vulnerability takes them by surprise. It isn't often that Jimin speaks about her own insecurities.

Yizhuo is the first to respond, eyes flaring with the desire to defend Jimin against her own words. “I’ve always seen you as our leader, unnie. You don’t have to be like anyone else to be a good leader for us.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve been doing a great job with keeping us grounded,” Aeri says. “Not to mention the amount of times you’ve taken the fall whenever the teachers catch us fooling around.”

“You could thank me by, you know, not fooling around,” Jimin playfully retorts. Her lips curve into a hesitant smile as she glances at Minjeong. It takes a second for Minjeong to register that Jimin’s anticipating her response. Seeking her approval.

Isn’t it obvious already? Shouldn’t Jimin already know how Minjeong feels—her unwavering respect, her boundless faith in Jimin?

Jimin’s smile falters. Her teeth begin to worry into her bottom lip again. Minjeong can’t bear to see that uncertain expression on her face, to see Jimin feeling small on her behalf. Her own aversion to vulnerability suddenly feels trivial. The words come tumbling out of her.

“There’s no one who can do this but you,” Minjeong says. It’s the most honest she’s been all night. “I’ve never doubted that.”

Relief washes over Jimin’s face. She reaches out to squeeze Minjeong’s hand, intertwines their fingers and doesn’t let go even after the moment passes. Minjeong squeezes back, wonders when it was that Jimin started caring so much about what Minjeong thought of her.

Jimin’s admission breaks the ice. Yizhuo opens up about her guilt for debuting without her SM Rookie friends, who trained for over half of their lives to be idols. Aeri talks about the imposter syndrome she feels due to her short trainee period.

“Hey, at least you have a high school diploma,” Jimin jokes. “But I get it. I feel like I’m faking it sometimes too. Like eventually someone’s going to figure out that I snuck in here.”

Aeri cracks a smile. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

That’s the kind of leader Jimin is, Minjeong thinks. Not someone who leads with an iron fist. Someone who bares her own neck so that the bite of vulnerability might feel softer to the rest. To show that it doesn’t have to be a bite at all.

Their gazes fall on Minjeong again. She can’t help the way that she still hesitates. She isn’t used to divulging the inner feelings that she’s spent so long learning to suppress.

“I…” Minjeong trails off, unsure of how candid she should be. Each second of silence makes her more conscious of the eyes on her.

Having an audience has become a default state of being for Minjeong. She’s used to keeping the performance going long after she walks off the stage. It’s the only way to survive the scrutiny of the teachers, the cold stares from the company executives, the leers of the company fans who lurk by the back entrance to catch a glimpse of the latest batch of trainees.

But this is different, isn’t it? This is an audience that doesn’t want a performance from her. The one that remains when the song ends, after Minjeong steps out of the blinding stage lights and returns to being the starry-eyed girl whose first love was a melody.

Minjeong inhales slowly and takes it in: the encouraging smile on Yizhuo’s face, the softness of Aeri’s eyes, the sense of security in Jimin’s patient silence. Her eyes drift across the dorm, flitting to the photostrips of the four of them pinned to the fridge, the matching set of mugs in the drying rack that Jimin bought for the group when they moved in.

The personal touches are a new indulgence. One they never allowed themselves before, consciously or not. Dorm assignments changed frequently as the company shuttled trainees between cheaper complexes. Trainees constantly moved in and out. The possibility of not making the cut for the next group—and having to pack up and go home—always lingered in the back of their minds. Until now.

For the first time, the dorm is becoming more than just a place to sleep. The girls sitting around Minjeong are becoming more than just people she trains with. The prospect of having something that might last for once disarms Minjeong. It makes her want to be honest.

“I don’t feel ready yet,” Minjeong admits. “I don't know if I ever will. Or if I'll ever live up to my own expectations.”

She traces a finger against the soft fabric of the couch. Focuses on the layers of interwoven fibers instead of the girls in front of her, because suddenly the prospect of togetherness makes her throat feel tight. Because underneath the anxieties about debuting is a growing sense of safety that she’s never quite felt with a group of people before.

Minjeong lets the truth spill out of her. “But whatever happens, I'm really glad it’s you guys that I'm doing this with.”

It’s worth it, even when the others burst into a chorus of high-pitched awws and pile on top of her in a four-way hug that feels almost as ridiculous as it feels right.

“Winter,” Minjeong slowly says. The syllables feel strange on her tongue. “Do you think it suits me?”

She leans back against the base of the couch in the practice room. The cold of the wooden floor seeps into her aching legs. They went straight from their meeting with the creative director back to practice, but the excitement over their newly anointed stage names was too great to ignore.

“Winter,” Jimin repeats. She’s sitting above Minjeong on the couch, legs curled up beneath her. She connects her index fingers and thumbs like a picture frame, positions them to enclose Minjeong’s face and squints. “I like it. It’s kind of mysterious, but it still feels personal since that’s the season you were born in. What do you think of mine?”

Minjeong tilts her head backwards to rest on the seat cushion and looks up at Jimin. “Karina suits you. It sounds elegant. Like a princess or something.”

Jimin smiles. “Yeah? I wonder if that’s how people are going to see me.”

“Maybe until you open your mouth,” Minjeong teases.

“Princesses aren’t allowed to talk about dinosaur facts?”

“I was referring to your greasy old man jokes, actually.”

Jimin laughs, gives her shoulder a little shove. This is easy, falling back into their old routine. Pretending like nothing happened. 

When Jimin’s laughter fades, her eyes go soft the way they do when she’s feeling sentimental. Minjeong knows because she’s still looking at Jimin. She doesn’t know how to look anywhere else anymore.

“It’s starting to feel real now, isn’t it?” Jimin asks.

“Yeah. Two more weeks. I kind of never thought this day would come.”

It’s not like any of them would forget the recording date for their debut song, but just in case, Jimin wrote it on the whiteboard stuck to their fridge with a bright red marker and circled it twice. The empty space around the date slowly filled up with doodles over the past few weeks: hearts and sparkles by Aeri, five exclamation points by Minjeong, four stick figures holding microphones by Yizhuo. They even took group pictures in front of the whiteboard, faces screwed into exaggerated but sincere expressions of excitement.

It’s all they can talk about these days. Everything that they’ve sacrificed their youth and futures for.

“I used to imagine it all of the time, you know? How it’d feel to stand in the recording studio for the first time. How I’d greet the producers and all, but…” Jimin trails off. “Now that it’s so close, I almost don’t want it to happen.”

Minjeong blinks up at her in confusion. “You’re not excited?”

“I am, it’s just—” Jimin lets out a little embarrassed laugh. “I guess I just got used to this. Going to class with you guys. Wasting time playing around in the practice room. Getting our usual at that Chinese place on the way home.”

“You mean the one that always gets my order wrong?” Minjeong huffs. Still, she can’t fight the way her lips curl into a smile at the memory of how it seemed to annoy Jimin more than it annoyed her.

“I sent it back for you every time!”

“That was even more embarrassing! I can still eat shrimp!”

“But it makes your mouth tingly. And you hate that,” Jimin says with a tone of finality. As if she knows she’s won. Whenever Jimin casually demonstrates her knowledge of Minjeong’s preferences like that, it makes Minjeong’s stomach flutter.

“Yeah,” Minjeong acquiesces, cheeks warming. “I do.”

They spent countless late nights at that Chinese restaurant with the colorful booths and the extra-tangy guobaorou. Sometimes with Aeri and Yizhuo, sometimes just with each other, always bickering about nothing in particular from across the table. Just for the sake of it, not because they had any serious qualms. Just because that was something that they did.

The city felt different at dusk. Still and unearthly. They always walked home silently, shoulders bumping. Then Jimin would tilt her chin toward the night sky to search for stars, even though they never could quite make out any constellations over the glow of the city lights.

“I get what you mean,” Minjeong quietly says. “I liked our little routines too.”

She closes her eyes and lets herself sink further into the seat cushion. There’s a rustle, then the sensation of Jimin’s fingers running through her hair.

“Do you remember that song we wrote? Back in our first year as trainees?” Jimin asks.

“Of course.”

They played with continuations over the years, added to it incrementally, but never enough to turn the draft into a full song. Sometimes Minjeong thought she preferred it that way. She liked having something to work on with Jimin, a story that they didn’t know the ending of yet.

“We should finish it before we debut. It’s going to get way too busy once we do.”

Minjeong hums in agreement. “Yeah. We should.”

Their trainee days felt so endless back then, sometimes even like they’d never lead anywhere. They were never in a rush to finish that song or eat another plate of sweet and sour pork. Now Minjeong wonders if she should’ve savored the monotonous routines that made up her daily life a little more.

“Everything’s going to change,” Jimin murmurs. “I’ll miss this.”

Minjeong opens her eyes. Jimin is already looking at her, nails still lightly scratching against her scalp. Goosebumps cascade along Minjeong’s arms at the sensation.

It’s harder to handle Jimin’s inclination for physical touch now. Hard not to crave more now that she knows how sweet it tastes. Minjeong hasn’t stopped replaying the kiss in her head, even amidst the flurry of debut preparations.

Everything already changed for Minjeong that night in the noraebang booth. She can’t go back to pretending that the way she feels about Jimin hasn’t consumed her for years. Just like she can’t go back to being that little girl who was too shy to tell anyone that she dreamed of being a singer.

She has so many questions to ask. So much to tell Jimin. When Jimin is looking at her like that, eyes soft and achingly pretty, touching her like she knows it makes Minjeong’s skin burn, Minjeong feels like she might finally be able to.

“Jimin unnie,” Minjeong breathes. “That night at noraebang, why—”

The warmth of Jimin’s fingers disappears. Jimin withdraws, a smile drawn tight on her lips. Her voice is firm when she speaks again.

“We have an early start tomorrow. Let’s head back.”

It’s her leader voice, the one that doesn’t leave any room for discussion.

The recording date comes and goes.

Jimin crosses out the date on the whiteboard and scribbles the new one above it. She does it again when the next delay happens. When she runs out of space, she carefully erases and rewrites the date, taking care not to disturb the doodles the girls drew around it. Then they stop getting new dates at all.

The company explains that the producers are still refining the arrangement, that their creative director is reconsidering an aspect of their lore. But eventually, communication dries up completely. They stop getting pulled into meetings about Kwangya. Stop getting updates about when they’ll need to dye their hair for the music video.

When Jimin corners Doyoon and presses him for answers, he just shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, shoulders slumping. “They haven’t told me anything either.”

They cope in different ways. Jimin gets distant; physically present, but emotionally absent. Yizhuo retreats into her room. Aeri barely comes home at all.

Minjeong pours herself into practicing. She sings until her throat is hoarse, dances until her knees ache. Repeats the same melodies and choreographies over and over until she finally feels like the machine the company trained her to be. She doesn’t come home until the physical exhaustion quiets her brain enough for her to drift into a fitful slumber.

Her mom starts asking questions. They really haven’t given you any updates? Isn’t there someone you can talk to? What about Doyoon, or the performance director?

Then, a few weeks later, her voice gentle but firm over the phone: You can’t wait around like this forever.

She doesn’t say it outright, but what she really means is clear.

We can only finance your dreams for so long.

They were never wealthy in the first place. When Minjeong was a teenager, dropping out of high school and moving to Seoul felt like a personal risk. Now she understands that every year of adulthood that she sacrifices for this dream is another year of financial dependence that her parents never planned for. The burden weighs heavily on her.

After another night of meaningless practice, Minjeong drags herself back to the dorm and into the bathroom. She stares at her reflection in the mirror and wonders where the time went. 

She was five when a melody captivated her for the first time. Thirteen when she was brave enough to admit she wanted to become a singer. Fifteen when she dropped out of high school and bet her entire life on a childhood dream. At the time, it felt sort of romantic. Following your dream tends to feel like that when you’re too young to fully understand everything you’ll lose in exchange.

Now Minjeong is nineteen and looking pretty in front of a camera is the only thing she knows how to do. She can bare her teeth on command, starve herself until she’s hollow, practice until she’s reduced to a body that only knows how to entertain—and it still might not be enough to get the only thing she’s ever wanted.

It’s exhausting, being someone whose future is dependent on the approval of executives who could replace her in a heartbeat. It’s exhausting being someone who has to wait for permission to start her life.

Pursuing music always felt like Minjeong’s greatest act of courage. Now she wonders if true bravery would be knowing when to walk away from it.

“I’m sorry, girls. We’re going ahead with a different debut group.”

The fluorescent lights of the conference room are cold and harsh, making the skin of their creative director look pallid. Like an apparition sent to steal away something important from them. The sympathetic, pitying expression on her face makes Minjeong feel sick. 

Doyoon is wringing his hands at the head of the table. “It wasn’t anything you girls did, or didn’t do. Upper management decided that the concept was too risky. They want to go with a brighter and more innocent concept, and that just wasn’t a fit for this group. I’m sorry.”

Minjeong stares down at the floor. It isn’t a surprise that the company wants to go with a proven concept. Maybe it was dumb to believe that it would do otherwise and break over twenty years of tradition. Maybe it was dumb to believe anything the company told them.

“You all have so much potential. We’d be more than happy to let you continue training here, if you want,” Doyoon says. “But if you’d like to part ways with SM, I can personally help connect you with other agencies.”

Minjeong glances over at the other girls. Yizhuo’s eyes are glassy. Aeri’s hands are trembling. Jimin is completely stone-faced, jaw clenched.

Surely none of them are planning to stay, right? It’ll be at least another five years before SM debuts another girl group. At eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, they’re already considered on the older end for trainees. By the next cycle, they’ll all be well beyond the standard debut cutoff age.

They don’t have that kind of time to wait. At least Minjeong doesn’t.

The walk back to the dorm is silent. When they get back, Jimin brusquely says that she’s going out and slams the front door behind her. Yizhuo goes into their shared room and shuts the door. It does little to muffle the raw, broken sound of her sobs.

Minjeong and Aeri stand in the kitchen, numb and helpless. 

“What are you going to do?” Aeri asks.

“I’m not staying. None of us should,” Minjeong grits out. It’s insulting that Doyoon even suggested that as an option. Hasn’t the company wasted enough of their time?

“I mean after this,” Aeri clarifies. Her voice is soft. Defeated. “After SM.”

“I…” Minjeong averts her eyes. She’s agonized over this decision for weeks. Aeri of all people would understand, but vocalizing it still feels like a betrayal. “I think I’m done with this. I’m going to apply to college.”

Minjeong gathers the courage to look up. Tears are welling up in Aeri’s eyes. Aeri nods, tries to smile reassuringly, but the movement only makes her tears overflow.

The sight breaks Minjeong’s composure. A sob escapes her. She pulls Aeri into an embrace, clings to her like a child. Faintly, it occurs to her that underneath the layers of falsehood that she constructed to become the perfect idol is a child. The little girl who dreamed of the stage all those years ago.

“I'm sorry,” Minjeong cries. She isn’t sure if she’s apologizing to herself or to Aeri. The grief is overwhelming. It fractures her from the inside. It feels like she’s giving up on the group, giving up on herself, throwing away everything she’s worked so hard for. “It’s just—I can’t afford to do this anymore. I wish I could.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Aeri says, voice breaking. “I know, Minjeong. I know how long you’ve wanted this.”

A tremor ripples through Minjeong’s frame. That’s the thing, isn’t it? She’s wanted this for so long: the rush of performing under the spotlight, the catharsis of holding a microphone to her lips and letting the truth spill out. But what hurts more is losing everything that she didn’t know she wanted.

This is the only place where she’s ever felt like she belonged. In this little corner of Seoul, she learned how beautiful a melody could sound in a chorus of other voices. How validating it could feel to be surrounded by people who shared the same fragile dream. Sometimes the only thing that kept her going through those cruel years was the knowledge that she wasn’t alone.

Aeri’s holding her so tightly. Minjeong chokes out another sob into her shoulder.

She’ll miss Aeri’s hugs. She’ll miss everything.

When both of their breaths stabilize, Minjeong speaks again. “What about you?”

“I’m not sure. I need more time,” Aeri says. “I feel like I just got the hang of all of this. I don’t know if I’m ready to leave yet.”

Minjeong nods. Aeri only became a trainee nine months ago, after all. When Minjeong pulls back, she sees the difference between them. Aeri’s eyes are still bright, determined. She hasn’t given up yet.

“It’d be a waste for your songs to go unreleased,” Minjeong says. “I’ll be waiting for the day that they do.”

Aeri smiles faintly, but it falters when her gaze falls on the whiteboard stuck to the fridge. When she sees Jimin’s excited scrawl.

“Have you told Jimin yet?”

Minjeong’s stomach sinks. She’s been dreading that conversation, avoiding Jimin as much as possible over the past few weeks. But she knows she can’t delay it any longer. 

“I'll talk to her when she comes back.”

She runs into Jimin in the kitchen the next morning. Jimin’s eyes are bloodshot, eyelids puffy. Not that Minjeong is in much better shape.

“Hey,” Minjeong softly says. “Are you okay?”

It’s a dumb question. But she’s stalling. Delaying the inevitable.

Jimin shrugs. She still has it in her to shoot Minjeong a weak smile. So gracious, even the face of such incomprehensible grief. “I’ve been better. Are you?”

“I… I think I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah. I mean, this isn’t the first false start we’ve had.” Jimin reaches up to grab a mug. The cabinet door obscures her face, but not the hopeful lilt of her tone. “We just have to keep moving forward, right?”

Minjeong’s heart drops. Jimin swings the cabinet door shut. When Minjeong doesn’t respond, Jimin turns back to look at her instead of filling her mug with water. Her voice wavers as she repeats herself, less confidently this time. “Right, Minjeongie?”

“Unnie,” Minjeong breathes. The two syllables feel like supplication. If only Jimin knew that every call of her name was. “I can’t. Not this time.”

“What do you mean?” Jimin asks. A fearful edge spills into her voice.

Minjeong can’t bear to see the expression on her face. She stares down at Jimin’s hands instead, watches the way her fingers tighten around the handle of the mug. Then she parts her lips and breaks her best friend’s heart. 

“I’m leaving,” Minjeong confesses.

The truth rouses Jimin. When she looks up, Jimin’s eyes are fiery. It’s the same look that Jimin gets in her eyes during trainee showcases when she has something to prove.

“We were so close. You were so close,” Jimin grits out. “You’re the top trainee in our cohort. Any other company would be dying to debut you. You can’t give up now.”

Jimin’s choice of words strikes a nerve. Give up makes it sound like this decision stems from a lack of resolve. It makes walking away feel like a personal failure instead of the hardest thing that Minjeong has ever had to do.

“Do you think I want to give up?” Minjeong snaps. “You know how hard I’ve worked for this. But I can’t sit around waiting for a miracle forever.”

“It’s not too late. Doyoon said he’d help connect us to other companies, and I’m sure the other teachers would write us recommendations as well—”

“Then what?” Exasperation bleeds into Minjeong’s tone. “I join another company and waste another few years trying to convince them that I deserve this? Until it’s too late for me to do anything else with my life?”

“You do deserve this!” Jimin shoots back. “I know you do. We just need to find someone to give us a chance.”

Minjeong clenches her jaw. Doesn’t Jimin understand? That’s the exhausting part. The waiting. The lack of agency. Everything she can’t control.

“I'm tired of waiting for other people to decide that I'm ready to start my life. I’ve spent the last four years trying to be good enough by their standards, and—” Minjeong exhales shakily. “I want to decide that for myself now. I want to figure out who I am when no one’s telling me what to do.”

Even if that includes you.

Jimin’s gripping the handle of the mug so tightly that her knuckles are white. Her chest rises and falls heavily. When she speaks again, her voice is bitter.

“Are you really doing this? Quitting?”

Quitting. The word slices straight into Minjeong’s heart. Anger and shame blend into one, making her hands tremble. “I am. I’m going to cancel my trainee contract next week.”

Jimin shakes her head in disbelief. “What? That’s so soon. Are you sure this isn’t too rash? How long have you been thinking about this?”

“I’m sure, unnie. I’ve been considering it since the recording date got delayed for the third time.”

Betrayal washes over Jimin’s face, twists the pretty lines of her eyebrows and mouth. “It’s been weeks. Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

“Because—” Minjeong pauses. The truth lodges itself in her throat: Because I care too much about what you think. Because I would’ve let you convince me to stay. She tells a half-truth instead. “This was something I had to decide on my own.”

She waits for the comfort that she’s grown used to receiving from Jimin. For any sign that Jimin can at least respect her decision, even if she doesn’t agree with it. But the silence stretches on. And Jimin won’t stop looking at her like she’s a traitor.

They’ve never argued like this before. Minjeong is the one with the short temper and stubborn streak; at her worst, Jimin is usually only ever sullen and distant. But even during their most intense fights, Jimin was always considerate of Minjeong’s feelings.

Minjeong knew this conversation wasn’t going to be easy. That Jimin would be hurt. But she didn’t expect this level of apathy from the one person she trusted to understand her. Jimin knows exactly how painful this decision is for her. It feels like she’s twisting the knife, weaponizing that knowledge to make sure it hurts.

Jimin was always the person who knew Minjeong best, after all. It used to be a comfort to have someone who knew exactly what to say to put her back together. If only Minjeong knew that meant Jimin could just as easily tear her apart.

“Is this really all you have to say to me?” Minjeong asks, eyes burning with angry tears.

Jimin stares back impassively. Her jaw flexes. The apology never comes.

Minjeong scoffs. She thought that their friendship went beyond circumstance. She liked to imagine that even if they never became trainees or potential group mates, their paths might’ve crossed anyways. That they’d find each other and wonder where the other had been all this time.

But maybe she was wrong about that.

She’s walking away when she hears it: a shaky, quiet whisper.

“You promised that we’d debut together.”

It’s such a low blow that Minjeong whips around angrily. “God, I was sixteen! I didn’t know anything.”

“Well,” Jimin says, turning her head to the side so her hair obscures the tell-tale glassiness of her eyes, “I meant it. All of the promises. Everything I said.”

Minjeong hates that she knows that habit. She hates everything she’s been forced to commit to memory over the past four years: the vocal warmups, the lyrics, the choreographies, the Seoul way of pronouncing things. Yu Jimin.

The dorm is suffocatingly quiet for the next week as Minjeong slowly packs up her life and makes the final preparations to leave. Jimin doesn’t speak to her once. The longer the cold shoulder goes on, the angrier Minjeong gets. This is their last week living together. Can't Jimin set aside her personal feelings and just be there for her as a friend? Is this really all their friendship amounts to?

Aeri helps her pack. Yizhuo does too, when she isn’t crying. They sort through Minjeong’s drawers together and examine all of the little trinkets she’s accumulated over the past four years of living in Seoul.

Yizhuo holds up a stamp card. It’s for the Chinese restaurant that they spent all those late nights in, gathered around steaming plates of sweet and sour pork. “I’m guessing you won’t need this in Yangsan, right?”

Minjeong huffs out a little laugh when she sees Yizhuo’s hopeful eyes and realizes that she was only one visit away from a free plate of fried rice. “You can have it. Consider it a parting gift from me.”

“What about these?” Aeri asks, pointing to the pile of battered notebooks that Minjeong used to keep track of her notes from practices and evaluations. Somewhere along the way, she started documenting her life on the yellowed pages as well. Between the pages of practice notes are diary entries about her daily life, sentimental mementos like movie tickets and karaoke receipts taped down with cheap Daiso stickers.

It’d be impractical to take the notebooks home. It’s not like she can get any use out of them now. But it feels too cruel to throw all of those memories away.

Minjeong places the pile of notebooks into her luggage. She returns her attention to sorting through the contents of her dresser. When she tugs the last drawer open, her breath catches. It’s full of gifts from Jimin.

There’s a cheap phone charm that Jimin brought back after a trip to Sapporo with her parents. Look, Jimin had said, holding up her own phone with a lopsided grin, we’re matching now. 

A fluffy puppy plushie that Jimin insisted on winning her after a rough day of practice despite being terrible at claw machines. I didn’t really need my allowance this week anyways, Jimin sheepishly said when Minjeong pressed her on how much she had to spend to win it.

A faded amusement park ticket from the first time that they snuck out together, when Minjeong convinced Jimin to go on a rollercoaster and Jimin screamed so loudly that she lost her voice. Not worth it, Jimin had croaked, even though she let Minjeong drag her into the haunted house minutes later.

The memories are bittersweet now. It’s unfair how many firsts Jimin has claimed from her: her first time sneaking out, her first time drinking, her first kiss. Those parts of her will always belong to Jimin. Her own story is so interwoven with Jimin’s that Minjeong wonders if she’ll ever be able to completely loosen the knot.

She can't stomach looking at everything else she carefully stowed in the drawer when things were different. When she used to imagine her future and see Jimin in it.

The whole point of leaving was to move on, wasn’t it? It doesn’t matter how she does, whether she loosens the knot or cleaves straight through it.

Minjeong gathers the contents of the drawer into her hands and tosses them into the trash. 

The moment that her parents arrive outside the dorm, Minjeong crumples into their arms like she’s fifteen again, leaving home for the first time. The only difference is that this home in Seoul won’t be waiting for her if she ever returns. 

They pack the family van in silence. When the last box is stacked in the trunk, her parents get inside the van first.

“Go talk to your friends,” her father says. “Take as much time as you need.”

Aeri and Yizhuo gather by the front door to say goodbye. This time, there aren't any tears. They’ve cried enough over the past week, eaten enough Chinese food and drank enough soju to temporarily sate the grief.

“Good luck with everything,” Aeri says, hugging her tightly. “I know you'll do great out there.”

“I'll see you around, unnie,” Yizhuo murmurs into her ear when it’s their turn to hug. “Promise you'll visit Seoul every once in a while.”

Minjeong doesn't want to make any more promises she can't keep. So she just holds Yizhuo closer and hopes that it’s enough to convey how badly she wishes she could stay. How badly she wishes they never had to part ways.

When they separate, Minjeong glances in the direction of Jimin’s room. The door is still pointedly shut even though Jimin is home. She huffs. After everything they’ve been through together, Jimin can’t even be bothered to say goodbye?

She turns to leave, but a warm hand on her wrist tugs her back.

“Don’t you think you should say bye to her?” Yizhuo gently asks.

Minjeong hesitates. Part of her just wants to leave. It would be so easy to play by Jimin’s own rules, so gratifying to return even a fraction of the hurt that was inflicted on her.

The past week has been full of uncertainty. It feels like there are a million questions that she doesn’t know the answer to. What is she going to do with her life now? How does she move past a loss like this? Is she even worth anything if she can’t do music?

The one thing that Minjeong is still sure of, that she’s always known, is that she loves Jimin. Before she was a girl who was in love with Jimin, she was a girl who loved Jimin. And that emotion has always been more important than the jealousy, insecurity, and anger that this place imposed upon them.

She trudges over to Jimin’s room and knocks on the door.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Minjeong mumbles through the wood. “But I don’t know when I’m ever going to see you again.”

A few seconds pass. For a moment, Minjeong thinks Jimin really isn’t going to say goodbye. 

Then the door swings open. Jimin’s face is streaked with fresh tears. She must have been crying in her room as she listened to Minjeong slowly remove all traces of herself from the dorm.

Jimin pulls her into a hug. She buries her face in Minjeong’s neck to stifle the ragged sounds of her cries. When they met all those years ago, Jimin’s shoulders seemed so wide. So reliable and strong. Now, cradling Jimin in her arms, Minjeong wonders if she should’ve protected Jimin a little bit more.

They never did get to finish that song. Or visit Yangsan together. Or stand on the stages that they always dreamed of.

Maybe they were never meant to. Maybe this is where their stories were always meant to diverge.

“Don’t forget me when you’re selling out stadiums,” Minjeong whispers. “If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you.”

Jimin lets out a choked sob.

“I could never forget you, Minjeong.”