Chapter Text
「 2021 」
The lights were shining on her, suddenly blinding her. The person, who was to her left, jumped and their shoulders met. She heard a lively voice announce the news that everyone was waiting for on stage:
“... Huntr/x! ”
It was as if she was underwater. Around her, the cries of joy were heard. She barely felt Mira take her hand and Zoey snuggled against them, shaking them with the renewed energy that the announcement had given her.
Her gaze was still fixed in front of her.
She saw neither the cameras nor the stage managers, nor Celine, who stared at her with a satisfied expression.
She didn’t realize.
The other trainees moved towards them, congratulating them. She felt their hands tapping her back and shoulders, as a sign of encouragement. To say that these people didn’t care about her, a few minutes before...
And all she could do was to turn her head to her right, seeking his presence on stage.
He was still standing where he was, before the results were announced. Two boys had stayed by his side, sadly patting his back.
Their eyes met.
And he only gave her a smile, which didn’t really reach his eyes, before lowering his head.
──── ∗⋅✯⋅∗ ────
「 2024 」
“I swear on my life that I have never been so happy to enter this apartment.” Mira complained as she pushed the door of what their group could call their 'home'.”
This made laugh the two girls who accompanied her. The suitcases were dragged along the corridor, bumping into those that had been previously dropped off by their team earlier in the day. The door closed behind them and the group let out a deep sigh.
“I have only one desire: to lie down on this couch, and not move for the next two weeks.” She continued, taking off her shoes.
“Don’t need to say that twice.” Zoey replied.
“To say that we could have been here hours earlier…”
Rumi dropped Mira’s keys into the jar in the entrance, before taking off her jacket and tearing off the hair tie that held her hairstyle. Before she could say anything, the younger one was already by her side, running her fingers through her locks to undo the long braid she wore. Rumi glanced at her friend, who threw her shoes in the closet with rage.
“You know it wasn’t Bobby’s responsibility…”
“Oh, I know that.” Mira exclaimed. “But I still think that locking us in meetings for three long hours, just after our first world tour, was exaggerated. We didn’t even have time to set foot outside the airport that the company’s cars were kidnapping us to talk about the tour results .
“Mira is not wrong.” Zoey responded. “It could have waited until tomorrow.”
“I know. But Celine insisted and Bobby couldn’t refuse.”
The two girls sighed in unison at the mention of Celine. Former idol herself, she could have avoided that to them. She knew how exhausting tours could be.
After the dissolution of her group, because of internal issues , she had started a solo career. She was appreciated by the fans and had no trouble finding a place in the soloist market. At least, until the accident happened...
One day, she was a star at the height of her glory, the next day, she was the adoptive mother of a five-year-old Rumi. She hadn’t been able to continue her career. Choosing to respect the wish of her late friend and take care of her new daughter, she had instead embarked on marketing. Joining the agency that once managed the Sunlight Sisters was child’s play.
And she had finally found herself at the head of the marketing team for women’s groups in Hunt Ent., to the girls' great regret.
“She’s really tyrannical, when she starts.” Mira pointed out.
“I still have nightmares about monthly evaluations…” The youngest whispered.
“Tell me about it. When she came to judge all the trainees in our group... She always argued with me for my expressions.”
“And lectured me for my approximate Korean…”
Rumi clapped her hands to get their attention and take them away from their memories of this painful period.
“Look on the bright side. The trainee period is definitely behind us, just like this meeting. The only thing we have to take care of, for the next two weeks: it’s to do nothing and rest. So... Couch!”
“Yes!” Zoey shouted, bouncing. “Couch! Couch!”
“Couch! Couch!” Mira chanted by her side.
“But before that... shower!”
Rumi rushed towards the corridor that led to their night space. Footsteps immediately began to follow her, as protests rose in the apartment.
“I am the eldest! I have priority for the shower!” Rumi laughed as she locked the bathroom door behind her.
A loud noise rang out an instant later, as the bodies of her friends were knocking on the door.
“It’s not fair!” Zoey complained.
“Really not fair…”
“I promise, I won’t take long.”
“You’re going to wash your hair. It’s going to take an hour!”
Only the laughter of Rumi answered them.
Despite a complete skincare as well as several shampoos and hair care products, Rumi kept her promise. She left the bathroom twenty minutes later, dressed only in a bathrobe, her damp hair running down her back.
Mira having lost the second race for the bathroom – had Zoey pushed her against the wall to gain the last necessary meters? Absolutely –, she resigned herself to help Rumi with her hair.
It was only an hour later that Mira could sit next to Zoey on the couch, letting out a long satisfied sigh.
“It was the best shower of my life.”
“Isn’t it!”
“Right. What are you watching?”
“A documentary about sea turtles. They are so beautiful…”
“Hmm... Perfect.”
Mira pulled out a cushion, and lay down on the sofa. Zoey greeted her legs on hers without even caring, too focused on what was happening on the screen. It was only once settled comfortably that Mira noticed that her second friend was with them in the room.
Rolled into a ball on one of the chairs, she wore an old worn-out gray hoodie – which Mira would recognize between a thousand – with the hood pulled over her head. Her hair stuck out on both sides of her neck, creating a purple river around her. The young girl had her headphones half put on and was focused on the computer that balanced on her laps.
“You still have this old hoodie? It must be full of holes given the frequency at which you wear it. »
Rumi’s eyes didn’t move from the screen, but the redness that appeared on her cheeks was enough to indicate to Mira that she had perfectly heard her.
“Of course she still has it, Mira! She wears it all the time, when we are at home.”
“She hadn’t taken it for the tour. I thought she might have thrown it away.”
“Stop talking about me as if I were not there…”
Rumi removed her headphones and hood. Despite her perfectly calculated expression, the redness didn’t want to diminish.
“It was dirty and I didn’t have time to do the laundry before leaving…”
“So you would have taken this old hoodie on tour?”
“It’s comfortable…”
“It’s all worn out.” Zoey interjected while grabbing her phone. “I’m sure we can find you a new super comfortable one to stay at home!”
“I-”
“Zoey” Mira cut her out, moving her eyebrows. “You know she won’t want another one.”
“Oh. Is it because someone lend it to you? But it was more than three years ago. I am sure he wouldn’t blame you if you threw it away. What was his name again?”
“Girls!” Rumi stopped them.” Stop. It has nothing to do with it. And I don’t care if it’s worn out, it’s just to stay here.”
The two girls exchanged a look. The teasing smiles emerging on their faces didn’t escape to Rumi. Preferring to end the conversation as soon as possible, she pulled her headphones over her ears again, starting what she was doing on her computer.
“Are you watching a movie?” Mira asked to change the subject.
Rumi pinched her lips. Mira could recognize that guilty look of "I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing" between a thousand.
“Rumi. Are you working?”
“No…”
“Rumi! We’re supposed to be on break and resting!” Zoey complained as she tapped her feet on the carpet.
“Zoey is right. Shut down this computer.”
“I had some inspiration in the shower! I was just making a draft of the track, so as not to forget.”
“Rumi…”
“I promise that I will close it as soon as I have finished putting the elements here and there to have a correct draft.”
Sighing, Mira went back to the couch. Rumi was stubborn. Insisting would just be creating a pointless argument over, once again, her inability to rest. Mira was just going to watch the time and remind her to shut down the computer in an hour or two.
She grabbed her phone, listening to the documentary with an unattentive ear. Next to her, Zoey was raving about the marine animals on the screen, telling stories out loud from time to time.
Mira went through the latest news as well as social networks, something she had not been able to do since they left Europe last night. By reflex, she opened Hunt Ent.’s Instagram profile, looking at the latest posts. Her thumb stopped on the last post. Her mouth opened.
“Girls-”
Zoey and Rumi raised their heads from their occupations, turning to their main dancer. The young girl straightened up. Without taking her eyes off her phone, she grabbed the remote control to pause the documentary. Zoey pouted.
“A new group debuted while we were on tour.”
“What?” Rumi whispered while removing her headphones again. “No one talked about it in the team. Even Bobby and Celine didn’t say anything about it during the meeting…”
“They were announced the day before yesterday, according to the Instagram post.”
Zoey leaned towards the screen to look at the photos.
“It’s a boy group. Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard about it? It’s not within Celine’s purview.”
“Even! A new group under Hunt Ent. ! We should have been informed. We couldn’t even make an official post to congratulate them on their debut. The public will believe that we were deliberately ignored them-”
Rumi brutally breathed. The panic was clear on her face as she flung herself onto her phone.
“No scandal. No scandal.” She whispered while tapping on her phone.
“It’s only been two days. The fans know that we were at the end of the tour, they must think that we haven’t come home yet. Moreover, it might be necessary to make a post on this subject, tonight or tomorrow…”
“I’m texting Bobby about the new band. I will ask him to write an official message for congratulations and for the thanks of the tour, so that we can post it quickly.”
Zoey was still leaning over Mira’s phone, scrolling through the photos.
“They are called the Saja Boys... Nice name.”
“Hm. A bit run-of-the-mill if you ask me. The image of the lion, it’s really giving macho man vibes.”
“Oh. Mira, look.”
Zoey showed her the group photo that had been used for the promotion. She pointed to a particular face.
“Isn’t it the trainee who spent his time flirting with you?”
The redhead narrowed her eyes, zooming in on the photo.
“Wait... I think you’re not wrong. I didn’t recognize him with his pink hair. He gained muscle…”
“I remember him on the survival show. He had tried to rap, but he’s definitely a vocalist.” She laughed. “Oh! And him there. I’m pretty sure he participated in the survival too.”
“Maybe... I don’t remember a lot. However... I remember the one in the middle very well.”
Mira looked up at Rumi.
“Your friend Jinu has finally made his debut.” She said with a teasing smile.
“Jinu! That was his name.”
The news stopped Rumi in her tracks. She slowly raised her head, looking at her friends. Mira handed her the phone, displaying the photo of five boys with colored hair. The only one whose hair had remained black was the one in the center: Jinu.
Rumi did not reach for the phone, just looking from a distance.
“Do you still have his number?” Zoey asked. “You should send him a message to congratulate him. I’m sure it would make him happy.”
A trembling breath left Rumi’s lips. Then, she pinched her lips.
“I don’t have his number. And he’s not my friend.”
Mira raised an eyebrow, as Zoey’s gaze alternated between her friend and the gray hoodie she wore. Rumi’s expression was mastered, displaying a perfect neutrality, very far from the panic she showed a few seconds before. The young girl looked away, putting her headphones back on her ears.
“We’ve never been friends.”
The two girls exchanged a look again, ignoring their tortured leader in his corner.
“Not friends? My ass.” Mira declared.
“I remember that it was always him who dropped her off at the girls' dormitory at night. He was the only one who could take her out of the training room... By the way, I think they were the only two crazy people still being there at four in the morning.”
“Yeah, I remember that. Since he wasn’t allowed to enter the dormitory, he had asked me for my number. He always sent me a message to ask me to go down and pick up Rumi, otherwise she would return to train as soon as his back was turned.”
“It was the good old days…”
“Hm... But now that we’re talking about it... It’s true that Rumi never spoke of him again after the survival.”
Zoey shrugged.
“It was a complicated time for everyone. And then, after that, we followed directly with our debut album and everything that went with it: compositions, recordings, choreographies, rehearsals again and again, photoshoot... I have never been as tired in my life as during this first album. They had to get some distance at that moment.”
“Hm. Maybe.”
“Anyway, now that they are no longer part of the trainees, they will change buildings and move into the one of the product groups. We’re going to run into them again.”
“Oh no... Please, that this guy has forgotten my existence.”
That made the maknae laugh. She play again her documentary about turtles, comfortably settling back in.
« You are a world-famous idol of his agency. The chances are low.”
“Please…”
“Who will live will see!” She exclaimed.
“Who will live will see…” Mira repeated, taking a look at Rumi, curled up in the chair, her head bent over her editing software.