starchild ;

perhaps it’s hypocritical of her to comment on sana’s looks when she isn’t all too fond of such herself, but it simply blurted out before she could think it through. though it can surely be nice receiving compliments alike, yoohyeon has unfortunately had her fair share of experiences to which the situation depended heavily on her features, rather than her skills– her previous job, specifically, where they hired her purely because she had a cute face. not she she complains, because she needed the job, but ultimately she didn’t think it was fair to others.

after all, she had absolutely no knowledge about comic books, and she caused more distress than actually helping the customers. luckily, she is out of that café though, even if it’s sad that they went broke and had to permanently close their doors. finally sitting opposite to sana, she smiles brightly when dismissing the compliment with a small wave. “ah, gosh~ you’re too kind right now, but yes, it’s yoohyeon!” with her purse tucked comfortably atop her lap, she slightly scoots closer to the table to prevent from taking up too much space behind her. 

“i know, right? i have watched a good handful of your videos now and i have to say, you really know how to engage with your viewers! you record them so nicely,” she says, genuinely. with that in mind, she wonder if she should post more vlogs in the future, so that her little youtube family can get to know her better, and vice versa. sure enough, she does talk and reveals her personality through her gaming account, but since it’s seperated from her singing one, there’s not too many that know about it. "i’ve found your makeup tutorials super helpful!” 

honestly, it’s nice to be known for her youtube channel and streams, rather than being recognized as a former member of k.arma. sana loves k.arma and misses the stage fiercely, but since she’s come back to korea she’s quickly grown tired of being recognized for it, even in a positive capacity. it’s nice, of course, to know that she has fans, but it’s also depressing, to know that she disappointed them so thoroughly. of course, none of them say that to her -- so far, all the fans she’s met who have mentioned her departure have done so by providing encouraging words, or telling her they hope she’s doing well. somehow their well-wishes only make her feel worse. 

but this -- this is nice. she even met yoohyeon after she left k.arma, but the other girl doesn’t follow idols much at all, and so hasn’t even recognized sana. or at least, if she has realized then she hasn’t said anything about it -- there’s plenty of k.arma fans who comment on her videos and streams, so it’s entirely possible yoohyeon has seen those and decided to disregard the fact that sana debuted under one of the most prestigious companies in the country. it’s nice to be recognized for things that she believes she’s good at -- being an idol is fun, and sana knows she must be better than average to have debuted, but she doesn’t feel that way. part of the reason she left is because she felt so inadequate on stage next to the other members. 

but video games and makeup? well, sana’s been good at those for years. 

there’s a moment of no sound. but she hears the breathing on the other line. sohee is tense, hand gripped on her phone for dear life. what she’s so scared of, she isn’t sure. sana wouldn’t have called her to do anything like curse her out, right? (it would make sense. sohee wouldn’t blame her.)

she’s seen the post on instagram. sana was back in korea. why, she’s not sure. she had ended up staring at the post for quite some time. she couldn’t bring herself to like the post nor to comment on it. she’s sure sana wouldn’t have wanted her to do such a thing. after a few moments she had scrolled past it but it became a photo sohee wouldn’t frequently look at just so she was sure she wasn’t making it up. sana was back in korea and she seemed happier without them.

at least, that’s what she told herself. it’s the only thing that stopped her from doing something like text her or comment on the post.

hearing sana’s voice again smacks her in the face with all emotions she’s been trying to move on past since. it comes rushing back like an unstoppable wave; a tsunami of pent up emotions and unsaid words that almost make sohee sob in response. instead she sniffles, forcing her voice to steady.

( when she hears sana’s sob she can’t hold it anymore. it was a vain attempt. )

“n-no we’re…” home. what used to be their home. she breaks off mid-sentence. her mind is flooded with the thoughts that sana should be here with them. that this was wrong. there’s an ache in her chest. it had grown dull over the months but it felt like someone ripped off the still-new scab off a wound. it hurts more than ever now. she rubs her eyes, muttering a whispered, “oh god” as she attempts to regain some composure. “we’re back at the dorms. done for today.”

vanessa was still in the bathroom. sohee had some time before she comes out and questions why she’s on the phone crying. though it was better for it to be vanessa, who at least is aware of sana and sohee’s first interaction. it’s a shameful secret she carries from the rest of the girls. she doesn’t doubt if word ever got out, the girls would change their opinion on her immediately.

even as sana apologises…sohee can’t accept it. it feels so wrong. she shakes her head in response although she knows the other can’t see. it’s soon followed by soft, “no, no no,” because it’s not right. “you shouldn’t be apologising.” she sniffles. hearing sana apologise and grovel for something that she isn’t at fault breaks her. sohee takes a moment to breathe. to gather her thoughts.

“it’s not your fault….” she says with a suppressed sob. “i shouldn’t have been so mean. i know what i said bothered you. i’m so sorry. it wasn’t fair of me.” sohee has to stop. any more and she knows she’ll break down loud enough for the other girls to hear and grow curious. the last thing she needed was everyone in here, asking too many questions.

“i know you left because of what i said during pre-debut.”

[ CALL : 📲 tinkerbell 🧚🏻‍♀️ ] 00:07:36

sana is already shaking her head when sohee denies her apology and tries to apologize instead -- sejeong hadn’t accepted it right away, either, so she isn’t surprised that sohee’s initial reaction would be to brush it off, to tell her it’s not her fault when sana knows that there’s no one else to blame it on. 

when sohee continues, though, sana’s emotions morph into confusion. “what you said...?” she mutters, her entire thought process thrown off. she has no idea what sohee could be referring to, what sohee thinks she could have said that would have made sana leave. there was their first conversation pre-debut, but sohee knows that sana wasn’t bothered by that. it was what made her trust sohee more, what helped her get her footing among the chaos of being thrown into the debut project late and so soon after becoming a trainee. 

or at least, sana thought sohee knew her feelings on that. 

her mouth drops open into a shocked ‘o’ at sohee’s words, and she realizes that she’s been even worse at communicating than she thought, which she wouldn’t have thought was possible, considering the circumstances of her departure from k.arma. 

“unnie, no, i -- it’s not your fault! i’m so -- i’m so sorry for whatever i did to make you think that,” she babbles, her voice a bit stronger now. the stuttering she does now is because she can’t find the right words to say, not that she can’t speak around her sobs, so there’s that, at least. “i didn’t think you....i thought you knew i wasn’t upset by that. i told you then, you helped me feel better back then. you were the only one whose reaction to me i understood. it helped me get my feet under me when i was really out of my depth.”

it was k.arma’s first performance with hyuna. of course they would make some buzz with a new member in the lineups. especially when they didn’t do an official announcement of hyuna’s addition like other groups have. just a surprise: here’s a new person in the lineup.

but they had fun. the concert was great. it was the first time doing group performance in some time. sohee knew their comeback was just around the corner but they didn’t have any official works just yet. so for now they could laze about in their dorms after performances like these and not have to jump to the very next schedule. (sohee wasn’t sure if she was excited for comeback season or secretly dreading the early hours and long days.) but she wanted to be active. she wanted to give the fans something to look forward to.

mostly, she just didn’t want speculations regarding hyuna being added to the lineup.

nowadays it’s harder for sohee’s mind to drift to sana. the other left, with only a note left behind of her departure and her empty side of the dorm. naturally sohee blamed herself. she continued to blame herself for quite some time. sana had gone inactive on social media and sohee had been too torn up to even send a text message. she figured sana hated her. that she wanted nothing to do with k.arma since she left.

her mind tries not to focus on that time. sohee was near inconsolable during this time. vanessa tried her best but sohee knew it was hard to deal with her. eventually the guilt ebbed away into a suppressed memory. sometimes it leaks through, reminding her with a twist of the stomach of what transpired. of the empty feeling when ticket and news played. an emptiness in her heart, feeling and blaming herself for sana’s departure.

like a sick twist of fate sana’s contact pops up on her screen. but it wasn’t a trick of the light. it was a phone call. for the first time in god knows how long, sana was contacting her. she lets out a choked sob. her finger trembled over the touch screen of her phone. she ultimately picks it up.

“h-hello?”

[ CALL : 📲 tinkerbell 🧚🏻‍♀️ ] 00:00:01 

as soon as sana puts the phone to her ear she wants to hang up. what was she thinking? why would she call sohee, especially when their relationship started out as rocky as it did? she wouldn’t blame the other if she didn’t pick up at all, if she deleted sana’s number completely. but the iqs video is paused on sohee’s smile, on her leaning against vanessa as the two of them laugh at something, and sana misses them all so much it feels like it’s going to tear a hole in her chest with the force of it.

as she’s debating whether or not to hang up and chicken out, the line picks up, and sana freezes at the sound of her unnie’s voice.

“s-sohee?” she asks, her voice coming out as barely more than a whisper. she clutches the phone tightly in one hand, the other coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes instantly fill with tears. just like when she saw sejeong again, the sudden rush of emotion at the reconnection with a k.arma member hits her like a tidal wave and sana can’t keep back the tears.

nosing with @rksxna​ !!

she probably shouldn’t, but siyeon’s never really listened to reason. it’s sitting there on the table, almost begging to be read. that is, if notebooks could speak, it’d be calling her name in a sweet, high voice, promising her of the secrets within. at the very least, she should open the cover to see if there’s a name or phone number, right? so she can reunite it with its owner like an upstanding member of society would. because that’s what siyeon is — a kindhearted good samaritan. of course… just… one little peek won’t hurt, right? 

she dashes around the counter, the queue empty anyway, and to the abandoned table before anyone else can beat her to it. the feet of the chair scrape on the floor but she pays it no mind, reaching out to gently drag the book across the surface and closer to her. it’s just an innocent peek. no one’s looking, anyway, right? no one will ever know she looked in it. she slowly opens to the first page. 

the journal almost never leaves her person — she started carrying it and using it every day once she moved to japan in november, and it’s become her lifeline ever since. it’s the one place she can release all her thoughts, unfiltered and raw, and not have to worry about consequences or a negative impact on k.arma or just causing her parents to worry. the journal helps keep her sane, so she keeps it with her at all times.

or at least, she tries to. she’d been struck with a lyric idea as she walked home that she wanted to write down, so she’d stepped to the edge of the sidewalk to pull out her journal and write it in the margins somewhere before she forgot. she’s still standing there now, frazzled and harried as she rifles through her bag despite having already confirmed three times over that her journal is not there.

she rushes back the way she came, barely dodging around other people, some of whom make noises of annoyance, but sana barely pays any mind. within a minute and a half, she’s bursting back into the cafe she left five minutes ago and making a beeline for where she’d been sitting — and she instantly recognizes the book in a stranger’s hands.

“yeah, sure!” yiren responds cheerily, quickly paying for the articles of clothing she had found at their current stall before the stranger can walk too far. “ah, you just have to have determination,” she smiles, “it’s like finding a needle in a haystack- if that makes sense.” yiren quips, though she’s unsure if the more american phrase would actually translate the intended meaning.

“here, it’s right up here,” she points to a larger stall about five booths ahead on their right, a sizeable crowd going in and out. it hadn’t been this crowded in the area when she was there earlier, so yiren wonders if more people had learned of the deals that this particular seller was having. 

her thoughts are pulled from trying to find a good entryway when the ever-familiar stranger introduces herself. “ohhhhhh,” she drawls, and for a moment yiren feels absolutely silly for not recognizing someone as pretty as the sana. “i voted for you once on the mgas,” she responds after a moment, hoping that maybe now she won’t make a fool of herself as she usually does. “i’m yiren, and it’s really nice to meet you!”

sana walks along behind the other girl, and she’s tempted to hold her elbow or the back of her shirt to make sure she doesn’t lose her in the crowd, but they are still complete strangers, and that would probably cross one too many boundaries for both of them. so she doesn’t do that, instead doing her best to dodge around people haggling for deals and looking for their next target while still staying close enough to the other girl’s side. 

the sound of realization catches her attention, as sana has already forgotten about her previous worry over being recognized. the mention of voting instantly has her heart skipping a beat, though, and she looks away from yiren, humming a bit in response to give herself time to come up with something to say. 

after the tension that she undoubtedly made within her own group of friends, yoohyeon felt the intense urge to try something new– a new game, to be specific. instead of making yet another riot account to start grinding league of legends she decided that it’s time to give overwatch the chance to win her over and boy, did it win her over. it took her only a day to get used to it all, it took her another few days to actually get a hang of it, but before she knew it, she was hooked.

while she is used to play both alone and with friends, yoohyeon has grown accustomed to the luxury of live updates through discord and chat systems– that is precisely what she did in this new game also, which ultimately resulted in an occasional friend request. some she sent, and some she received. now, there was a major skill difference between sana and herself, but that didn’t necessarily matter, they clicked regardless and yoohyeon honestly found relief in that.

she needed something like this to keep her mind from spiraling, catastrophic thinking isn’t her trait usually, but it has become so as of late. eagerly, as eagerly as she can when she is stuck inside a dark place, she greets the other female. “hey! i hope i didn’t keep you waiting,” she is smiling as she gesture towards the empty chair as to ask if she can sit down. “may i? wah, it’s weird to see you in the real world~  you are out of this world, so pretty!” she says, genuinely.

she can’t help but chuckle at the other’s choice of words – she’s heard that exact phrase from someone else recently, a high school-aged boy who recognized her as a former k.arma member and couldn’t help himself from commenting. it was a great interaction with a fan, and sana even took a selca with him, but it’s interesting to hear the same phrase now, just a few days later, but in such a different context. it doesn’t seem like yoohyeon recognizes sana at all – she probably just recognizes her from her twitch streams rather than the photoshoots she’s done, which is kind of a nice change.

                                                                                      ━      ♘  ┊  @rksxna      、

jaemin isn’t one to pry  –  he really isn’t  –  but if all he can hear are whispers of a certain someone, even someone as nonchalant as him couldn’t help but grow curious as to why those whispers began in the first place. he’s not one gossip ; but it’s sickening how malicious those words were beginning to sound as they circled like vultures ready to strike their prey. not like he’s been faced with this type of dilemma before  –  sure people in his high school talked frequently about him, but never to this scale.

never enough to warrant any type of emotional rise from him.

so, jaemin sighs  – casting one last glance at the group who continued to spout unreasonable nonsense ; he moves from where he had originally been standing to linger at the side of the girl who’s been at the attention of these gossips since the moment he had stepped into the shop. “hey – sorry it took me so to get here, i got lost.” he leans in close, hoping the invasion of personal space isn’t one that alarms her ; voice dropping to a volume only she can hear, “hey – just pretend you know me and let’s go, yeah?” 

the girls in the coffeeshop are downright cruel, and they seem to pay no mind to the fact that their whispers can hardly be classified as such, since they carry in the mostly-empty shop well enough for sana to make out every word. “isn’t she an idol?” “she was in k.arma, but she left. i heard she got kicked out because she wasn’t a good enough singer.” “she’s not even that pretty.” [ tw: racism ] “and it’s weird that she was the only japanese one in the lineup, right? the group is much prettier without her. i bet she doesn’t even speak korean.” [ end tw ]

sana clutches the strap of her bag with both hands, hard enough that her knuckles turn white. the comments are a cruel repetition of the anxieties her own mind has been providing for months, and it’s disheartening to hear fans of k.arma speak so poorly of her -- how many other fans think the same way? was it really best for the group that she left? would she have only continued to drag them down if she stayed? 

she jumps slightly at the sudden voice behind her, turning to meet eyes with a total stranger, though his own seem to apologize and implore her to trust him. sana’s heard plenty of horror stories about girls walking around with strange boys, but she really wants to get away from those girls. at the same time, what if they took a picture of her leaving with a boy? the reason she hasn’t snapped at them yet is because she doesn’t want to damage k.arma’s reputation -- if a rumor starts up about her dating (or yelling at some random girls in a cafe), it could harm both her career and k.arma’s by association.