#sol;

“where are the other members? i think they should be back at the dorms by now.” meiqi glances at the door that everyone disappeared through a while earlier. “i decided to stay back to talk to you guys and impress you with some dancing! i’ll wait a little longer though, so more of you can join.”

she answers random questions for a few minutes, things like what’s your favourite starbucks drink? (cotton candy frappuccino) and dogs or cats? (both). then, there’s a fan requesting drama recommendations, and meiqi can’t help but promote one of her best friends.

“have you guys watched revenge note 1? isn’t the actress for ho goohee so cool?” meiqi, herself, has been keeping up with the episodes as they come out, watching them before she falls asleep. “everyone, please support eclipse’s anna and watch the webdrama! i promise it’s good!”

meiqi leans in closer, squinting to read the comments. “are you and anna close? yes! me and yerim-ie went to school together and we still talk a lot.” as she speaks, meiqi unlocks her phone and scrolls through her photo album. finding a cute selfie of them, she turns the phone around to show it to the viewers. “this is from the time i went to visit her at a photoshoot for a chicken cf. security almost kicked me out because they thought i was a crazy fan!” 

she shows a few other pictures of her and yeri, some from high school and others from the rare times they were able to meet up. she also shows pictures of the food truck she had sent yeri on set of her webdrama, and the selfies with gourmet ice cream that she had received in turn.

after rambling about how much she loves her friend (and probably boring most of the viewers), meiqi remembers what she had initially promised she would do and quickly stands. “right! i said i was gonna dance for you guys. why didn’t you remind me?! you guys just let me go on and on about yeri!”

her laughter rings out as she disappears off camera to plug her phone into the speakers. meiqi presses play and then runs backwards as the first few notes begin to filter through the practice room’s speakers. she takes a few steps back to make sure her entire body is in the frame, and then she’s doing the infamous point dance of up and down.

she’s seen some idols get shy after attempting the dance, but meiqi doesn’t falter once. she’s in her element with this song, this concept. she knows the dance considerably well for someone who hasn’t formally practiced it. that’s not to say meiqi wasn’t blasting it around the dorms for a good week, singing into her toothbrush and dancing in her bed. 

she performs it up until the end of the first chorus, before approaching the camera once again with a proud grin. “what do you think?” she asks the viewers as she settles onto the floor again, tilting her head inquisitively. meiqi reads the comments as they come: as expected of meiqi! and jfkdjsjkdg QUEEN. she laughs loudly, basking in the compliments that come in every language. “ah, wait, what did you say? dance meiqi-ne? i like that!”

“are you an olympia? yes, i love luxe! i’ve been following them since they debuted!” meiqi clasps her hands in front of her chest dreamily as she thinks about her favourite group, and now her seniors in the industry. “they have really good music and i think they’re all so pretty! one time, i met ella—i think it was last year during the halloween party. we both dressed up as royalty and she approached me first! it was kind of embarrassing though because i was still technically a trainee and i kept stuttering… but she didn’t make fun of it even once. still, i hope she doesn’t remember that.” 

meiqi presses a hand to her forehead, embarrassed that she’s shared one of her weak moments. she’s still smiling, though, giggling even, because she holds the memory dear. 

she remembers that she’s doing a vlive and removes her hand so that the fans can get a proper look at her rosy cheeks, and so that she can keep reading the comments.

“what other groups do you like?” meiqi strokes her chin, pretending to think. “and*roma?” she chuckles at her own (poor) joke. truthfully, she doesn’t know if there are other groups that she’s really a fan of; she might like their music or know the members, but no one can compete with luxe. might as well promote herself—though it’s stupid, considering 99.9% of the people watching this live must be fans of the group already.

“show us more dance covers!!! wow, so you guys don’t wanna talk to me, huh?” she purses her lips to hide the teasing smile, but it doesn’t quite work when she reads the onslaught of incoming messages that protest and promise that they enjoy talking to her. 

to appease the fans, she pushes herself off the floor and dusts off her shorts. meiqi reaches for her phone and presses shuffle on the playlist she had prepared beforehand. it’s filled with the latest songs that she’s learned and a few older tracks that she likes.

she starts with she’z. to anyone who knows her personally, it might come as a surprise because meiqi has never been a fan of the group. their concept was always too cute for her liking, but their recent releases were right up her alley. unfortunately, she only knows the chorus for dumhdurum, so she fast-forwards the song until then, and starts dancing.

dolls by k.arma is next, another group that meiqi likes. the sophisticated sexiness of the song caught her attention almost immediately upon release. to a lesser extent than luxe’s songs, meiqi has replayed it many times, and after only a handful of times watching the dance, she had picked up on most of it. so, she performs from the beginning until the end of the chorus just as she had done with up and down.

she lets the rest of the song play at a lower volume as she returns to read comments. compliments, compliments, compliments. god, she really loves this. “so cool~ do you know any convex songs? yeah! one sec!”

meiqi searches through her music library and clicks on boom boom. she doesn’t know the choreography as well as the other songs she’s performed, but she thinks she can make it work anyways. besides, she knows the point dance exceptionally well, so she exaggerates that part with a laugh.

she’s having fun. after practicing high heels all of last month, a part of meiqi dreaded being in the practice room. she just associates it with a bad time now, but being able to dance freely to songs she actually likes is oddly liberating. and maybe she just enjoys being praised by faceless strangers who love her.

“oh! there’s also this new group,” meiqi starts once she’s completed the chorus. she taps on gorilla, and raises her voice to be heard over the music. “do you guys know de:code? i went to meet them backstage during promotions because i’ve known seonho since…” meiqi counts on her fingers, but it’s useless. “i actually don’t know. but it’s been a long time! he’s like a little brother to me, so i was shocked when he debuted with such a cool concept!”

cupping her hands around her mouth, meiqi shouts out, “a.c., i’m your biggest fan!” before launching into the chorus’s choreography. 

she’s been dancing so energetically for the past half an hour or so, that she’s finally broken a sweat. her breathing is irregular and heavy now, so she rushes to turn off the music. meiqi plops down in front of the camera, making an x with her arms. “no more dancing, guys! i’m so tired!”

catching her breath, she reads through more comments. “what about per_se? i’ll learn their dances properly and show you guys next time, okay? sorry everyone, and sorry to my seniors.” she presses her hands together and bows her head in an apology.

it’s getting late now, and meiqi really needs to return to the dorms. as much as she doesn’t want to leave, wants to continue talking to fans and dancing to her heart's content, she wasn’t lying about being tired.

“i think it’s time to go, everyone. no, don’t leave? what? you guys have to sleep too, you know! not just me!” she runs a hand through her hair, all oily from the sweat of a long day spent practicing. ugh, is it obvious to the fans that she really needs a shower? she sure hopes not.

“i promise we’ll see each other again soon,” she says earnestly. even if she doesn’t plan on going live again for a while (they’re far too busy right now), and*roma is preparing for a comeback. the fans may not know it, but she can assure them that it won’t be long until they’ll see her again. 

“goodnight, everyone!” just like she’d started the live, meiqi ends it with a wave and a smile. the manager confirms that it’s over before meiqi falls back onto the floor, letting the day’s exhaustion take over her body. “that was fun,” she says aloud, not listening to whatever the manager responds with. probably something about getting ready to go back to the dorms, or maybe scolding her for talking so much (has it really been over an hour since she went live?).

she hadn’t noticed so much time had passed, a stark difference to recent practices where all meiqi did was count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until they could leave.

curious, she types the group’s name into the search bar and waits for the results to load. there are their official videos like music videos and dance practices, a few special stages from festivals, and surprisingly, there's a variety of fan-made contents.

meiqi skips over a compilation of wendy’s singing (she saves it for later though), and a video that claims to introduce the newest maknae of and*roma, landing on a peculiar title, only uploaded a few hours ago: learn the alphabet with and*roma: sunmi's birthday vlive edition!

the video starts.

a is for — “aaaAAAAHHHHH” (the members scrambling around, everyone is screaming, rip headphone users) b is for — birthday girl (a picture of sunmi holding a cake, taken from juhee’s instagram post, there are hearts drawn around her and a caption that says “happy birthday gf <3”) c is for — candles (zoomed into the couch aflame in the corner, courtesy of the candles on the fallen cake right beside it) d is for — “don’t eat cake off the floor!!” (sunmi yelling at meiqi) e is for — “expensive cake" (a screencap of the cake before it was dropped, sparkle emojis and money bag emojis are edited around it) f is for — “floork” (seulgi saying the word she’s just created while crouched over the fallen cake) g is for — G7 (wendy’s scream as the cake falls, the caption says “she just naturally hits a g7 note??? the g in kpop stands for gyeoul,” rip headphone users part 2) h is for — "happy—" (everyone starting to sing happy birthday, but it’s cut off after the first word as the cake starts to slip) i is for — “i’m going to make tiramisu!” (sunmi starting the baking process at the beginning of the vlive) j is for — juhee falling (juhee tripping over air and dropping the cake, the caption says “PROTECT THE MAKNAE”) k is for — kaeun is a firefighter (kaeun throwing a cup of water to put out the fire) l is for — like the office (sunmi looking into the camera like in the office) m is for — meiqi soap opera queen (meiqi falling to the floor dramatically with a loud wail as the cake also falls) n is for — “new york” (sunmi saying she’s from new york, the caption says “mrs. worldwide” with the earth emoji and pitbull superimposed beside her) o is for — “of course i know how to speak english” (sunmi talking to the camera in english) p is for — per_se (sunmi talking about how and*roma and per_se were together for her birthday last year, the caption says “we love brother-sister groups supporting each other”) q is for — queens (a clip of the cushion mv, the caption says “stream cushion btw”) r is for — really fucking loud (a montage of the loudest moments from the vlive plays, rip headphone users part 3) s is for — sunmeow (meiqi telling sunmi to say meow and calling her “sunmeow”) t is for — talented sisters (sunmi saying luxe’s ashe is her sister, images of the two keep piling on top of each other until sunmi is completely covered, the caption says “stan luxe”) u is for — unbelievable (a montage of the girls trying to salvage the cake, the caption says “does nova not feed their artists??? SAVE AND*ROMA!!!!”) v is for — video silently (sunmi saying they’ll do the vlive quietly to not disturb the other members’ sleep, followed by the clip of them yelling, the caption says “so quiet!” rip headphone users part 4) w is for — “we are clean women!” (meiqi trying to argue with seulgi and sunmi about eating the cake from the floor) x is for — xcited (the group cheering when the clock hits 12am) y is for — younggi really wants to eat cake off the floor (seulgi’s initial recommendation to eat the part of the cake that didn’t touch the floor, followed by her final words of the vlive again talking about eating the floork) z is for — zfamily (everyone happily making the tiramisu together, the caption says “they really do love each other so much T____T they’re so cute”)

meiqi is laughing herself to tears by the end of the video. when they had planned to surprise sunmi on her birthday, she had no idea that the night would have gone the way it did. the memory itself is enough to reduce her to a hiccuping laughter, but the way the fan had edited the clips together and added commentary, it’s just... it’s pure gold.

she’s also a part of another special stage, this one with three other and*roma members. it’s strange, though, that they keep having to do these cute stages: first, the collaboration with eclipse, and now this. meiqi wonders when they’ll be able to do something different, or if they’ll ever be able to do anything that isn’t cute (because, seriously, deja vu… was that a one-off?)

she doesn’t care. to be honest, meiqi is in a good mood today. she spots her girlfriend backstage sometime throughout the day, and she doesn’t hold back when she goes to greet her. meiqi embraces chungha tightly, praising the girl for her hard work and for her stage after she finishes it. chungha’s solo stage has to be the best of the night (meiqi is 100% biased and will admit it). 

it’s nice to have her there, even if they’re not performing together or allowed to spend too much time together. the fact that they can be near each other as they see the decade end, is enough to make the night bearable.

by the end of the night, 2019 is almost over. meiqi stands with and*roma as every group gathers on stage for the new year’s countdown. before it starts, she can’t help but dwell on the year that has passed by in a whirlwind. meiqi has achieved so much; 2019 has been the best year for her, hands down. she’s found love, she can be on stage, she has fans. what more can she ask for?

and*roma’s first win. she knew they couldn’t get it with their debut, but that’s her one wish for 2020. for her group to succeed, and maybe to spend more time with her girlfriend.

in 2020, meiqi will conquer the world. mark her words.

the best part about the special stage is that she gets to perform with yeri (among others, but—and no offence to sunmi or blue—yeri is the one she cares most about). they’ve been dreaming about this together since… maybe it goes as far back as before even yeri debuted. finally, it’s real.

when they’re practicing together, it feels just right. yeri isn’t meiqi’s best friend (that title is reserved only for her girlfriend, of course!), but she’s one of meiqi’s longest and closest friends. it doesn’t feel awkward or like they’re colleagues. they goof around, but they know when to get serious too. 

the performance isn’t too complicated. a couple of months ago, maybe this would have pissed meiqi off. a cute concept, an easy dance, mediocre lines—it’s like they’re underestimating her. but the fact that she was chosen out of her entire group of talented girls, along with their leader, means that they’re not underestimating her at all. they’re giving her a chance to shine, just as meiqi has always wished for!

in addition to the special stage, and*roma performs a mashup of deja vu and pepe, meaning meiqi is allowed to showcase multiple sides of herself: the fierce meiqi that comes with one track, the playfully sassy and cute side that comes with their title track, and the elegant and cute side that comes with the special stage. 

in hindsight, she should have known. meiqi has seen these festivals on tv, has seen groups spend day after day performing on music shows. it’s an idol’s literal job, so she doesn’t know what else she expected.

as soon as and*roma’s promotions ended, they had to start preparing for the year-end festivals. to be honest, meiqi doesn’t mind the hours of practice; she might have, if she didn’t get along with the other members (she’s watched a drama where group-mates hate each other. it made for great entertainment, but she’d hate to have to deal with it herself). meiqi also likes the fact that they don’t just have to perform the basic stage that they have been doing since november; a remix is the perfect change of pace to keep her from getting bored.

the thing that she hates, though… is having to spend christmas like this. going through the motions of getting ready, rehearsing, watching other groups’ stages and performing her own. it would be fine, on any other day, but it feels cruel to have to work on christmas. hell, even her uncle, the absolute work-a-holic that he is, gets the day off. 

since her family is back in hong kong, meiqi should be spending christmas with her girlfriend. they could be sitting in a blanket fort, watching christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate. maybe they could get caught under the mistletoe, or go to a fancy dinner, or throw a festive party for close friends. it’s their first christmas together, as a couple, but instead of celebrating it like a couple should, meiqi can only text her when she goes to the washroom every few hours.

she tries not to look miserable all night, despite feeling that way. meiqi wouldn’t trade her job for the world, but it’s days like these where maybe, just maybe, she considers it.

but choreographing with the rest of the dancers in the group reminds her of her love for dancing. they don’t go for boring and repetitive moves; they incorporate careful hand movements, interesting transitions, opportunities to focus on each member, different levels and floorwork—god, does meiqi love floorwork. most of and*roma aren’t exactly fans of their concept, it seems, so when they work together to create their own content, their true colours are able to shine brightly.

it also helps that the music doesn’t irritate her despite the countless times they’ve replayed it, both while choreographing with sunmi and seulgi, and while teaching the dance to the rest of and*roma. ariana grande is always a pleasure to listen to, and her music has the perfect vibe to match meiqi’s dance style. whereas with and*roma’s discography, she finds herself getting annoyed with it the more she listens.

the set up for their video is more mature, too. rather than colorful dresses and high heels against a vibrant background, they’ve decided to dim the room and add in neon lights to illuminate the matching white outfits and sneakers.

everything about this video is more comfortable than anything they’ve done before. maybe because it’s just a gift for their fans and therefore there’s less pressure to get something in return (like a music show win). maybe it’s because it’s not a live viewing but something recorded, or maybe because the girls themselves had more of an input. either way, this is the most fun meiqi’s had since debuting, and she wishes it would never end, that they’d continue down a more mature path like this in their career.

but meiqi tunes it all out, dropping her head so her disappointment can’t be captured by the cameras. to viewers, it might just seem like she’s praying to herself for the win, but she has no hope. they’ve been here before, waiting to hear if their hard work has been worth it, if people like them and their music enough, if they’re good enough to be considered winners.

last time had been a reality check. it’s not that easy to win a music show award. someone will always be better them them in every single way, and they’ll have to settle for second place: a simple title, with nothing to show for the efforts that earned them the placing.

meiqi doesn’t want to feel that mortification again, thinks that if she just doesn’t pay attention, it won’t hurt. but it’s hard to consciously ignore the world around her (something so easy when she’s not trying), and she can still hear the drumroll, the quiet pleas of her members beside her, and—AND*ROMA.

her head snaps upwards in surprise, and she glances around at her group to make sure she’s hearing it right. she wasn’t just imagining, right? her hope hadn’t manifested into some crazy, unbelievable vision of their first win with what she thinks is their worst concept and album ever? that’s impossible… that’s…

she’s crying. she’s crying because they’ve won and because she hates what she’s won with, but they’re still winners regardless. for once, they’re winners.

meiqi is grateful for the eloquence of her members that leaves no room for her to attempt a speech (not that they have much time for all of them to speak). at some point, she reaches for the trophy from whoever has it at the moment, just to feel if it’s real and if it’s actually theirs, and then she cries even harder. she forgets that there are cameras and fans and other idols probably congratulating her (or judging, in this case). she’s just so emotional.

the encore stage is hard to do when an ocean is streaming down her face. meiqi can feel her eyes swelling, and her sniffles are full of snot. whenever she opens her mouth to sing, another wave of tears wreck her plans and she has to put the microphone down to bury her face in her elbow.

she doesn’t stop even once they’re offstage. it takes a packet of tissues and the comfort of multiple people before she can speak without choking on a sob—and then, the only thing she can say is “we won.”