que sera, sera
que sera, sera
~10,000w; pg-13 (minha-centric)
nine muses suddenly isn't nine anymore.
a/n: written for the unnideul 2015 spring fic exchange. this was a taxing fic for me to write, but i'm glad i got to write it!
warnings: brief mentions of emotional abuse and sexual harassment, talks a little bit about ZE:A and the tweets by lee hoo/junyoung from last september. this is purely fiction.
January
Minha doesn’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing that pounds in the confines of her skull and a numbness that bleeds outwards from her arms - and that’s it. She inhales sharply.
Eunji looks tired - flat-out exhausted and thin. Eunji’s always been thin but not to this extent - gaunt and pale and tired - and the scariest thing is that Minha can’t remember when this became the norm. After their promotions for Wild? Or when they were recording their album? Hyunjoo stands beside her, tall with her head held high, like always, as if she’s marching into battle. Never half-assed when she set her mind to it. Minha wonders when Hyunjoo stopped trying on stage and why she couldn’t have done something about it. But then again, no one could ever convince Hyunjoo to do anything she didn’t want to do herself.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Hyunjoo says, trying to meet eyes with each and every one of her group members in the room. “And Eunji physically can’t. I can’t deal with another four comebacks next year.”
Eunji’s eyes shine even under the dim lights. She looks at her feet and when she speaks, her voice shakes. “I’m sorry guys. I’m so, so sorry.” Sungah, sitting closest to her, wraps an arm around Eunji’s slight (too slight) shoulders and lets Eunji lean into her. Kyungri starts to cry beside them and Erin looks down, like there’s a hole in ground waiting to swallow her up and spit her back out into the time when this wasn’t happening.
“I can’t live my life like this,” Hyunjoo continues. Minha’s lip quivers. She bites it to keep it still, to keep the things she wants to say in, to keep something together. It’s not her place to interrupt with a complaint - they’re all tired, and they shouldn’t even be awake right now with the schedules they have tomorrow. “I love all of you, but - ” she pauses, like she doesn’t want to say it, “I’m not happy here and I’m afraid I won’t be if I stay.”
But isn’t being with us enough? Hyuna reaches for Hyunjoo’s hand. She considers it before grasping it firmly, meeting eyes with Hyuna, who nods at her. When Hyunjoo faces them all again, her eyes are wet but no tears threaten to fall. “I want to go until the end with you guys.” Her voice is softer now. “But not here.”
The numbness tingles in Minha’s fingertips. She looks at Hyemi, who looks to Sera. Hyunjoo looks at Sera. Minha looks at Sera.
Sera pushes the palms of her hands against her eyes. She’s crouched on the floor, elbows on her knees, almost a shadow in the dark room with her black hood pulled over her head. She sighs - once, twice - Minha lets out the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding - three times.
Her voice is small, but deafening when she finally speaks. “Ok.” Inhales a shaky breath. Releases it and repeats, “Ok.”
Minha sees Eunji finally look up from her feet to look at Sera. They’re all looking at Sera, who's almost a shadow in this dark room.
They have always looked to Sera.
Changing dance formations is easy enough. After the dance instructor manages to rearrange them into new lines for Glue, Minha almost forgets where Eunji and Hyunjoo used to stand, and then she sees the gaping holes.
“Your line is so empty now, Gangie,” Sera jokes to Kyungri in the mirror, set in their respective positions. Kyungri narrows her eyes and sticks out her tongue in mock-retaliation. Sera only laughs in response. Minha feels her lips pull up into a smile at that, even though the corners of her mouth feel like they're weighed down by lead.
What’s harder is figuring out what to do with Eunji and Hyunjoo’s lines. Remembering to sing the new parts given to you even when the tiny voice in the backtrack isn’t yours. Hyemi struggles, half-asleep, to at least mouth Hyunjoo’s lines and Erin doesn’t even try to cover Eunji’s raps.
Erin clings onto Minha after a long day of practice, Kyungri laying her head on Minha’s knees. They’re scheduled to perform in few days with minimal mistakes in their new formations and the staff keeps yelling at everyone for not “putting in enough effort,” even when they’ve stayed in the practice room until dawn, going over the songs again and again on loop. Hyemi’s sitting in the corner by herself, earphones in, training herself to instinctively remember that Hyunjoo’s lines are hers now. Hyuna goes between watching her and watching Sera, who’s discussing something with their manager.
Erin motions Minha and Kyungri to lean in closer, like she has a deep secret to tell. Minha rolls her eyes, but Kyungri does so willingly so she follows suit. Erin’s eyes twinkle. “I’m not gonna do it,” she whispers, giggling after they pull away with confused expressions.
“What are you talking about?” Kyungri asks, readjusting her ponytail. Minha brings her legs toward her chest so Kyungri won’t lay over them again. Erin is still smiling, humored, but Minha doesn’t get what’s so funny anymore. Then again, Minha doesn’t always get what’s funny to Erin.
Erin quiets down again. “Eunji’s lines.”
Oh. “The ones manager oppa keeps scolding you about?” Minha quips. Erin motions to pinch her arm. She squeals and scoots closer to Kyungri instead.
“I mean, they’re not mine,” she goes on to say, picking at the hem of her shirt. Kyungri takes the chance to shove Minha off her. “It just...doesn’t feel right that Eunji isn’t the one rapping them. That Hyemi has to sing Hyunjoo’s lines.” Erin leans back against Minha. She wants to tickle the other girl off her shoulder, but it’s probably not time to be playful with Erin now. Minha remembers the slumps Erin went through in the past - the states where nothing Minha did could cheer her up - but she always snapped back on her own. Maybe this is one of those slumps.
“It’s just not right,” Erin sighs. Kyungri leans onto Minha’s unoccupied shoulder. Hyemi keeps singing Hyunjoo’s lines.
The ride to the venue is quiet. Usually, someone’s deep breathing from sleep cuts through the background traffic or Minha starts picking a fight with Hyemi that she knows she’ll win, but today, even though all seven of them can fit into one van now, it’s absolutely silent.
Hyemi tries to prod her into something by poking her sides. Minha glances at her in response, but doesn’t retaliate. Sorry, Hyemi mouths, sensing her bad mood. She shakes her head and leans further into her seat.
Sera’s in the passenger seat, plugged into her headphones, eyes closed. Sera hasn’t done this for a while - and only ever once in a blue moon - when the stress and pressure from the company are too much for her to handle. She’s relaxing, Minha told Kyungri one time when the other girl wanted to throw tissue wads at the back of her head. Minha doesn’t know what Sera’s really trying to do when she’s like this - Sera never talks about - but she knows not to bother her.
When they’re almost at the venue, Sera finally takes out her headphones. She turns around to face the rest of them, seatbelt cutting into the side of her neck.
“Let’s just have fun today,” she says. An unsure smile holds on her lips. “Don’t worry about mistakes,” Sera glances at Hyemi specifically, “let’s just do our best and have fun, ok guys?”
Sungah sits up from where she was leaning her head on Hyuna’s shoulder. “Of course, unnie!” Hyuna smiles with her. Kyungri blinks, half-awake, and nods.
The rest of them chorus in some kind of agreement and Minha watches Sera’s smile grow brighter and brighter until she turns around to face the front again.
Sera’s always been Nine Muses. Even when the staff took away her title as leader, Sera still covered for Jaekyung when she was late to practice and piped up before any unfortunate silences wormed their way in after interview questions were asked. “Habits die hard,” Sera said, nonchalantly, the one time Minha asked. “It’s like how you refer to all of us as your ‘unnies’ in that special tone of yours. Can’t stop doing that now, right?”
Minha wrinkled her nose. “It’s not like that,” she insisted at Sera’s over-the-top imitation. Sera just smiled one of her strange, knowing smiles and dropped the subject.
Even though Sera’s not leader in name, she’s their representative who attends most of the staff meetings with Junyoung. Sometimes, but more often than not, when Minha waits up for her so they can drive home together, Sera walks out with a closed expression on her face and her eyes cast down.
Minha knows - they all know, from when the CEO decides to meet them all as a group - how they treat Sera. You’re not taking care of the group, a higher-up will say, and Minha always has to bite back the will the lash out - look at how we’re still together! We still get along. Doesn’t that mean something besides sales and profits?
Sera just smiles and shakes her head when Minha asks how the meeting went. “Ah, tired…” she’ll supply instead, leaning heavily on Minha, laughing when the other girl whines in response.
But it’s never just nothing.
Someone slaps her butt once they get back into the waiting room. Minha scowls, but Sera proceeds to attach herself around Minha’s neck. “Yah, Park Minha! You didn’t have any fun on stage, did you?”
Hyuna joins in, sandwiching Minha between her and Sera. “Every time I saw you, you looked so unhappy.” Minha rolls her eyes and tries to tickle her way out of her confines. Hyuna and Sera shriek but keep holding on.
Sera clicks her tongue. “After you promised, too! Park Minha!” she says on the top of her lungs, which should cause the staff to stare at them, but they, for some reason, don’t.
“Is it because you messed up?” Hyuna asks, trying to meet her eyes. Minha tries to dodge them, but Hyuna reaches to hold her face in place, only to have Minha shake off her fingers. “It’s ok! Sera messed up. I saw it.”
Sera sighs. Her arms slacken around Minha for a moment, like she’ll let her go, then, as if she thinks better about it, tighten again. “I just hate not knowing where to go. You know that feeling when you can’t remember where your spot is? I really hate that.” She pauses. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “It’s weird, you know? No matter how much we practice those songs without them, their voices are still there and it’s just - ” She buries her face into Minha’s shoulder.
Minha knows. She remembers meeting eyes with Eunji on stage during promotions, her unnie smiling that dimpled smile at her for a brief moment before they had to switch formations again. Bumping into Hyunjoo countless times during practice and when they were on stage and laughing about all the close calls when one of them almost fell over -
“Yah,” Minha whines when Hyuna follows Sera’s lead. Sungah and Erin soon join in on surrounding her, then, Hyemi and Kyungri, too. “Guys!” she whimpers and the burning sensation in her nose and the wetness she felt in her eyes gone now that six other girls are keeping her from going anywhere. Even though her shoulders are starting to ache and the clump of people surrounding her is missing two girls, Minha thinks she’ll be ok. She’ll live.
The company doesn’t just want them to live.
Sajangnim walks into their practice room a few days after the event has aired, and Minha can’t help but stare at him during his slow procession to the lone folding chair their manager usually sits on. Once Glue, which they were practicing to ends, the air in the room turns still and thick. Erin can’t look up after she bows in greeting. Minha feels Hyemi step closer over to her, reaching for her hand.
“Are you guys practicing hard?” he asks. It’s a loaded question - every time they meet, he asks so many of them - and Minha doesn’t want to answer. She mutters a yes along with everyone else’s. Sera’s voice is the loudest.
The silence returns as he seems to consider their response. He already knows what he’s doing here. “If you guys are actually practicing hard, you would’ve all answered loudly.” He flicks his eyes over at Erin, who still hasn’t looked up from her feet. “So, were you or not?”
Sera looks at the rest of them, pleading, with a desperation in her eyes. Minha looks at a spot above their CEO’s head as they all chorus yes again, louder this time.
He hums in content, drumming his fingers on a knee. “You guys made a lot of mistakes at that event though. So do you think you practiced hard enough?” He looks behind her shoulder at Hyemi. “What do you think, Hyemi?”
Hyemi’s grasp on her hand tightens like a vise. “I think we did our best, but with more practice, we’ll make less mistakes,” she says, voice level despite her clammy fingers twined with Minha’s.
“But I don’t think your best is enough?” he counter quickly after she finishes choosing her words. Hyemi swallows but doesn’t drop her gaze. “And if your best isn’t enough, should I keep sending you out there?”
In the corner of her vision, Sera looks down at her feet, arms holding herself as if they could shield her. He looks at them all. “We’re still discussing what to do with Nine Muses,” he states, back to drumming his fingers on his knee, as if his words aren’t a thinly veiled threat. “Keep working hard.”
“Yes,” they say again, bowing again as he gets up. He starts walking, but stops and turns to lock eyes with Minha.
“Pay attention to your dancing, Minha,” he says. She barely manages to force out a polite-enough yes before he leaves. She keeps staring at the door. Sungah later tells her she looked like she was burning holes into his soul.
They do better at their next events. Minha thinks of it as “getting good at pretending the gaps don’t exist.”
Hyemi frowns when Minha tells her this at one of the photoshoots they get. Kyungri is taking her solo shots and Hyemi keeps blinking her eyes because they’re itchy, don’t laugh at me, Park Minha! “Were you always this pessimistic?” she asks as a stylist adjusts the collars of her blouse.
Minha matches her frown, half-taunting, half-serious. “I’m not lying though, am I?”
Hyemi sits down after the stylist leaves. “At least we’re still getting work. I was worried last time sajangnim came into the practice room,” she fiddles with the cuffs of her sleeves, ignoring Minha when she clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “I swear my blood went cold.” She shivers to prove her point.
Minha crosses her arms and stares at the outfits hanging on the clothes rack nearby. A frilly white blouse catches her eye that reminds her of one of their stage outfits. “That would look good on Hyunjoo unnie,” she says, pointing. Hyemi follows her gaze.
“Sera unnie says talks aren’t going great,” Hyemi continues. They both still stare at the blouse. “But I mean, we’re still getting work, right?”
Someone calls them over to get ready for their group shot. In between their jingling jewelry and the employees retouching their makeup, Minha nudges her and mutters, “When did Pyo Hyemi become so optimistic?” to Hyemi’s defensive whines.
Sera is always, always first to practice. Hyuna, Minha, and Hyemi usually rotate as second, but Minha has never managed to beat Sera to the company building, despite how early she sets her alarm.
Still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she climbs the stairs to the dance studio, she can hear Hyuna’s voice float down from the floor above. So she’s third today. She’s feeling proud of at least beating Hyemi today when she hears Hyuna’s voice gain a little bit of edge.
“No, Sera,” Hyuna says. She hears someone - Sera? - sigh. “Sera, don’t say that.” Her tone turns softer, almost pleading.
“I just - ” Sera starts. “They keep telling me it’s my fault. But how do you stop people that don’t want to get away from us, but from here? Hyunjoo wasn’t happy. Eunji - Eunji hadn’t been healthy for a while and we knew it. We knew it.” A shaky breath. “So how can you stop them?”
Silence. Minha knows that Hyuna’s wrapping her arms around Sera in comfort, patting her back and holding her in that way that makes all of Hyuna’s hugs different from everyone else’s. “You can’t,” Hyuna replies, voice shaking, but words full of conviction. “We couldn’t stop them. No one could. Don’t take what sajangnim says - ”
“I know it’s not,” Sera cuts in. She gasps for breath in between watery words and something in Minha’s chest clenches. “That’s the worst part, you know? I know it, but they keep telling me I could’ve done something, and then I start to think about it, and then maybe I could’ve done something, you know?” Another gasp for breath.
“Don’t say that,” Hyuna says again. “Don’t say that. Sera, it’s not your fault. Ok?”
“I’m so sorry,” Sera tries, the words small. There’s nothing to apologize for, Minha wants to tell her, but she can’t bring herself to climb the next flight of stairs. Hyunjoo and Eunji should be more sorry than Sera is - the ones that left them, the ones that could’ve stayed but didn’t, but Minha can’t hate them for anything, Eunji still calls her sometimes after practice and she laughs at all of Minha’s tired attempts at wit and her voice sounds so much stronger -
“I’m so sorry,” Sera repeats, but Minha doesn’t even know what they can be sorry about anymore.
April comes with empty schedules. Something in Minha’s stomach sinks to her toes when their manager says they’ll be focusing on “individual activities” for the time being, grounding her to the floor. Sungah and Kyungri shoot each other nervous glances. Hyemi shoots Minha with hers.
“I’m worried,” Hyemi says on their way home. Her voice sounds muffled and far away, like her mind. Knowing Hyemi, she was probably imagining all the possible outcomes their company’s statement could bring.
Minha loops her arm into Hyemi’s and leans her head on her shoulder. Hyemi squirms for a bit before relaxing against her. “It’s - ” she continues. Pauses, like she needs to put her thoughts into order. “I don’t know. Been like this before, but there was always a promise of a comeback. But this time,” Minha looks up at her from where she’s resting her head on Hyemi’s shoulder. The older girl’s voice catches a bit before she finishes the thought aloud. “I don’t know. And that’s scary.”
Traffic lights cut through the dark. They wait at the crosswalk, arms still looped together, silent for a while. “I don’t know, either,” Minha finally says. “But as long as we still want to be together as Nine Muses, it’ll be ok.”
Hyemi sniffles a little. Minha pats her back and the sign goes green. Some part of her doesn't even believe her own words.
They keep walking through the night.
It’s weird not going to the company building every day. After a year of non-stop dance practice, recordings, and practicing lyrics, waking up three hours after she’s gotten home and peeling herself off the sheets to take a morning shower have become the norm. Minha, half-asleep, almost hates herself when she sees the time before realizing they don’t want us there right now, anyway. She lets her head fall back into her pillow.
The group chat is uncharacteristically untouched, aside from Sungah’s emoji filled: i miss you guyssss ~~~ ㅠㅠ and pictures of all the food she ate by herself that she wants to share with the rest of them. Once a week, Hyuna insists that at least some of them meet up for lunch. Sera, who usually sends “one encouraging quote a day” when they don’t see each other, hasn’t sent anything at all, which makes Minha raise her eyebrows.
She finally sees Sera again a few weeks later, arriving just after they’ve ordered their food. “Sorry, sorry!” she says loudly to appease Kyungri, who’s trying to flick her on the forehead.
“Sungah got you what she’s getting,” Hyuna mentions when Sera’s finally made a peace treaty with Kyungri, and they cling onto each other.
Sera’s smiling but it doesn’t look like her usual smile - the one that brightens up her whole face. “Is it the largest thing on the menu?” she jokes and Minha wants to smile, she really does, but Sera looks more tired and thin than Minha remembers - like during their predebut days when she lost so much weight that her ribs protruded.
“Unnie!” Sungah whines. Erin imitates her. Hyuna imitates Erin. Hyemi kicks Minha under the table from laughing so hard. Sera’s laughing like nothing’s wrong.
But it’s never just nothing.
The next time Minha goes to the company building, ZE:A are in the dance studio. She watches them, somewhat jealous and somewhat wistful, from the glass door. They’re monitoring themselves in the mirror with an intense, though somewhat weary, determination.
Minha doesn’t want to say that the boys don’t deserve a comeback, because they really do. She’s seen how Kwanghee fought to showcase his fellow members on shows that didn’t want anyone but him, how Siwan and Hyungsik look like walking zombies these days, and glimpses of Dongjun working out more than he has to at the gym just to get first place in some athletics competition. Four years in and they were still individual names to the public, not a group. She’s just...jealous.
The music stops blaring. Minha hears Junyoung telling Heechul and Minwoo that they need to get into their spots faster. She almost forgets she’s standing in front of the door when Kevin almost slams into her, face flushed from practice.
“Sorry, Kevin,” she says, stepping to the side. Her movements feel slow, as if this isn’t her body - her real self is still thinking, thinking about when she and her unnies will be standing in the dance studio again, too. He smiles, wide but shy, and shakes his head in reply.
Hyungsik bounds after him. “Hyung, what’s the fuss - ” He pauses and his face brightens when he sees Minha. “Oh, Minha! It’s been a long time!”
Hyungsik looks more pale than she remembers - still as tall as a tower but he has this sleepy look on his face, like he’s been living perpetually half-awake. She remembers the days when he waved off the staff’s diet threats and worked through two hamburgers instead. It’s funny how long ago their trainee days feel. Does he still do that?
“Are you guys practicing next?” Hyungsik goes on.
Minha can’t hide the frown that tugs at her lips. “No. I’m just here to see the staff.” Hyungsik nods in understanding.
“‘Individual activities?’” Kevin asks, noticing her disdain. She tries not to scowl.
Hyungsik sighs, “It’s not as bad as you think it’d be. You know? Keep your name out there.” He looks at this spot on the wall behind her head before meeting her eyes again. “I hope you guys will do well,” and he really means it, even when he looks like he’s about to fall asleep.
“We can only hope,” Kevin agrees, smile still present on his lips, but smaller now. Minha regrets ever feeling jealous.
Minha’s never been particularly great at anything but she’s been enough. She can’t sing like Sera, Hyemi, or Hyuna, charm people instantly like Kyungri and Sungah, and her personality isn’t made for variety shows like Erin’s, Hyunjoo’s, or Eunji’s. That’s why they send her onto shows where she just has to sit there, laugh, and look pretty.
But she’s always been content sitting through recordings that mean little to her but the world to the rest of them. She’s never wanted to be the star - the stars are her unnies, and she’s happy to be the darkness between them so they can shine even brighter. Minha doesn’t care if she gets only a split second of screen time - her name shows up, the words “Nine Muses” coming before it, and that is enough for her.
So when one of the employees asks her, “Do you want to act?” at the meeting, Minha doesn’t know what’s happening. Her thoughts go to people like Kyungri and Sera, who emote far better than she ever will, when it took her long enough pre-debut to manage to school her default expression into “somewhat amicable.”
“Me?” is all she can respond with. The employee gives her a look, no shit, who else, impatient. “I think some of the unnies would do a better job than I would.”
Some of the others consider her words, expressions not quite neutral but not quite unhappy, and start discussing among themselves. The employee that asked the question sighs, “It’s not a big role. You’ll show up enough that maybe people will know your face. It’s not a small production, either.” Someone taps her on the shoulder. Minha watches as they discuss more amongst themselves.
“We’ll call you in again when things are confirmed,” one of the others tells her. One of the higher-ups, Minha recalls, his expression rather stiff. They're all looking at her like that. She bows and takes her leave, half-wishing she said something they wanted to hear but half-glad that she didn’t.
It’s Hyemi who tells them about their next event through the group chat. Minha can hear her screaming through her all exclamation marks: GUYS WE GOT AN EVENT! and Sungah and Kyungri respond with various crying stickers before typing some variation of i’ve missed you guys so much. Minha’s smiling before she even realizes how long it’s been since she actually felt this happy. She hides her face in her covers.
Hyuna probably worries about Sera the most. Partly due to the fact that Hyuna tends to worry about them all more than she should, but it’s Sera. She smiles when Minha runs into her outside the company building before practice starts. Hyuna hugs her and looks happy to see her, but the smile on her face is tight.
“What’s wrong, unnie?” Minha asks as they start walking up the stairs.
Hyuna presses her lips together. Releases them. Presses them together again until she starts to speak. “Sera’s been in a lot of meetings recently,” she says, tone light, but Minha feels the heaviness of her words. She doesn’t look away.
Hyuna takes this as a cue to keep going. “I’m worried. She’s been so,” she has to search for the right word, “quiet lately. First with the group chat, and now she hardly comes over to see Moya and Hoya. It’s just...not like her.”
The pained look on Hyuna’s face makes Minha grab her hand. “We’ll see her today, unnie,” she tries. Hyuna smiles a little, lips still tight.
“I missed you, Park Minha,” Hyuna sighs, pinching her side. Minha yelps but she can’t find it in her to pretend to be annoyed. She laughs and hugs her unnie instead.
Sera is there at practice, physically there, but her eyes are glassy. She barely avoids stepping on Minha’s foot and keeps forgetting where she’s supposed to stand next. No matter how many times she insists on stopping the music so they can slowly go over the formation transitions, she keeps making mistakes. Minha can’t help but watch Sera’s reflection instead of her own in the mirror, trying to figure out what’s wrong. At some point, she sees Hyemi’s doing the same thing - and Hyuna, and Kyungri, and Sungah, and Erin - after they lock eyes for a brief moment in the glass.
No one says anything about it. They should, but what can they say? There’s been times of palatable silence - when they should confront each other about something, but ultimately can’t bring themselves to do so - ever since Eunji and Hyunjoo left and their individual activities started. Minha can feel the words on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t know what they are and how to say them. She only knows that something should be said. But she keeps quiet.
“Sera unnie,” Minha starts during their water break. Sera’s still standing in her position, staring at herself in the mirror, eyes vacant, going over the moves. “Sera unnie,” Minha repeats when Sera doesn’t respond. This time, she glances at Minha until she finishes the part she was reviewing.
“Mm?” she hums, walking over to get her water bottle. Minha follows her, still not really sure what she should say.
“You look really distracted today,” Minha tries. Sera hums again, mouth full of water. Minha leans on her back with all her weight, tipping her over, just as Sera takes another sip.
She groans in response. “Ok, ok, Park Minha. I got it, I’ll pay more attention!” She turns around and pokes Minha’s cheek in retaliation. “Our maknae is so heavy,” Sera sighs, the upturned corners of her mouth giving her away.
But nothing changes. Sera’s still distracted for the rest of practice. Eventually, their manager sighs and tells them to call it a day. Minha sees her unnies shoot Sera worried glances before they go home.
“It’ll be ok,” Minha says to Hyemi, when Hyemi glances at Sera again. “She does better at the actual event, anyway, remember?”
“I guess so,” Hyemi agrees, reluctant.
Sera makes a number of mistakes at the actual event, but her smile and interactions with the fans make up for it. When she does an extra body roll, the screams grow deafening and Sera’s smile is so wide that Minha doesn’t know how it fits on her face. Sera was always fascinated by fan reactions, Minha remembers, shooting her a small smile as they pass each other to walk to their next spots.
Backstage, Minha’s blood is still pulsing in her veins with the thrill of their performance, each beat throbbing in her ears. Kyungri imitates Sera’s embarrassed grin after she walked to the wrong spot, and the way she tried to hide it behind her hair. Sera just shakes her head with one of her strange, knowing smiles resting on her face, tired like the adrenaline of the stage did nothing for her.
Minha arrives the earliest to practice on a Tuesday, for once in her life. She sits on the floor, waiting to hear Sera’s sneakers squeak up the stairs, but the silence roars instead. She starts stretching. Everything in her body still feels tense when she’s done.
Hyemi shows up twenty minutes later. Then, Hyuna, Kyungri, and Sungah trail in just on time. Erin’s panting when she runs into the studio - traffic got me - but Sera’s not there. Sera, who should be yelling, let’s go! or telling them to bring their hands in for a cheer. There’s confusion on Kyungri’s face and Hyuna bites her lip.
“Where’s Sera?” Hyemi asks their manager when he walks in. His cap is pulled low over his head, shading his face and expression so Minha can’t tell what he’s thinking.
He doesn’t meet any of their eyes. Minha swallows just as Sungah prods for her hand, but her throat is dry. “Just start without her,” he says.
They don’t see Sera at all that day.
Sera’s ditched practice before. During their predebut days, when everyone and anyone yelled at her - why can’t you get everyone here on time, you call yourself a leader, this is not acceptable, you’re failing - and Minha’s seen her run, run far away from the blame that shouldn’t have been placed on her in the first place and from them.
But she always came back. I have nothing else left, she told them all in the practice room. Minha only remembers this moment specifically because it was captured on-screen, in that documentary they filmed before debut - Sera crouched on the practice room floor with her hands over her eyes, like things would be better when she saw the world again. She looked smaller projected on the huge screen than she did in real life.
This time shouldn’t be any different. Minha lies awake at night, ceiling staring back at her in the complete darkness. Nothing much has changed, she tells herself, but she doesn’t know why she has to. If something wasn’t different, she wouldn’t be awake right now with a heaviness sinking in her stomach - the kind that only weighed her down when apartment bills were due and when the CEO talked to them about their album sales. But Minha doesn’t know what to think this time, and that terrifies her more than anything else.
Sera doesn’t come back to the practice room.
A couple mornings later:
Ryu Sera left the group chat
Hyemi calls her first. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asks as soon as Minha picks up the phone.
“No one knows what’s going on,” Minha says. Hyemi goes so silent on the other line that Minha almost hangs up until she hears her breathing again.
They don’t say anything more. Minha wishes Hyemi was physically with her, sitting on her floor that desperately needs vacuuming, holding her hand. No one knows what’s going on. Minha thinks that’s the scariest part.
A couple hours later, Hyuna calls. “They want to talk to all of us tomorrow.” The amount of static in the call does nothing to hide the nervousness in her voice.
Suddenly, Minha thinks it’s better if they don’t know.
She doesn’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing that pounds in the confines of her skull and a numbness that bleeds outwards from her arms - and that’s it. She inhales sharply.
There’s Sera, sitting close to the head of the table, sajangnim’s spot. Hyuna sits next to her, head in her hands. Erin’s stare is vacant. Kyungri can’t even look up. Sungah sobs beside her and Hyemi is starting to sniffle.
Leaving Nine Muses. Sera. Sera’s leaving Nine Muses. Sera, Sera, Sera’s leaving Nine Muses. Sera’s Nine Muses.
She can’t feel anything.
“I’m sorry,” Sera says at the end of it all. Her voice, the way her breath hitches when she tries to continue, everything, rings. Like when they were in the practice room after their debut performance, Sera singing as hard as she could, trying to prove something when no one was watching. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry - broken record, broken voice, broken person -
Tears burn in her eyes. She feels them roll down her face. She wants to burn holes into souls, she wants to rewind the past hour and play something over it, she wants -
She doesn’t wipe them away.
Everyone’s eyes are puffy at practice the next day. Kyungri bursts into tears again when Sera’s voice blares through the speakers. Minha feels her arms move, her legs move, but it’s all just muscle memory.
Sera’s line comes on after hers. She’s still standing in the middle. Oh. She tries to shuffle into place when she remembers. Yours now. Sera’s voice, ringing - I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you guys first -
She can’t even mouth the lyrics. These aren’t my lines, she wants to tell someone, anyone. I can’t do this.
The chorus comes. Now she’s in the wrong spot.
The next few events they perform at are a blur. Minha goes through the motions, tired but awake enough to pretend she’s fine. Still can’t bring herself to sing Sera’s lines.
Hyemi, Kyungri, and Hyuna smile on stage. They’re convincing, convincing enough. Only they and the staff have to know about the silences in the van, how Minha stretches out her legs because she finally can, but takes them back because Hyunjoo should be sitting there, Eunji should be resting her head on Sera’s shoulder -
Minha wonders one day if the end would be this silent, and this empty.
They bring up the drama again. It takes all of her willpower not to walk out of the room.
Is it even worth anything anymore? Minha thinks about their dismal to nonexistent paychecks and the way Hyuna just laughed when they got them so they all started laughing - her and her unnies, and she was ok with it. But now she hasn’t seen anyone but Hyemi in weeks, and only because Hyemi showed up on her doorstep a few nights after their last performance, pink veins showing in her eyes, and hasn’t let herself out since.
The same employee stares her down with harsh, narrowed eyes. “This is a good opportunity for you. For Nine Muses.”
She doesn’t protest aloud. Do we even still exist? but she bites her tongue, bites it back, so hard that she tastes iron in her mouth.
Two days later, they send her details about the audition.
Hyuna chews on her nails. Minha raises an eyebrow. Hyuna doesn’t chew nails.
Moya sits near Minha’s feet as she tries to read her script. None of the words register in her mind. She rolls it up and throws it onto the table nearby, almost missing. Moya scurries away at the sound.
Hyuna’s staring at her computer screen, occasionally scrolling down, then back up, then down again. Minha asked her what she was doing two hours ago, when she decided to show up at Hyuna’s door. Hyuna had let her in without a second thought.
Writing a book, she said. Minha didn’t really know what to think about that, but Hyuna hadn’t kicked her out yet, so she guessed that she was still welcome. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in nearly a month.
Hyuna tears her eyes away from the screen to pick up Moya, who struggles in her lap before Hyuna sighs and lets her go. “How’s your script-reading going?” she asks, walking over to pick up the papers that didn’t quite make Minha’s target. “Do you want me to practice with you?”
A month without Sera. Minha doesn’t know what they are without her - why they’re called Nine Muses when they’ve only really been nine twice, and both times they fell apart. She shakes her head, but Hyuna keeps looking at her, and Minha doesn’t know whether she should say something about it or not.
She does, eventually. She can’t bring herself to keep quiet and bite back the subject any longer. “Who do we blame?”
Hyuna gets up. Minha thinks she’s trying to avoid the question, but then she returns with two mugs of orange juice. She puts one in front of Minha. Her reflection, tangerine and pulpy, stares back at her with tiny eyes.
“Who can we blame?” Hyuna replies, challenging. Minha shakes her head but Hyuna continues, “I don’t think I could’ve stopped her. Any of them. From leaving.” Her voice doesn’t waver.
Minha chews her lip. Hyuna’s right, but her anger won’t dissipate. “But we’re not the same anymore,” she says. “Doesn’t that scare you?”
Hyuna runs a hand through her hair. Moya brushes against Minha’s bare shins underneath the table before settling back into the position near her feet. “I’m going to trust that sajangnim knows what he’s doing,” she says into the lip of her mug.
Minha looks back down at her reflection in the orange juice. It doesn’t agree with Hyuna, either.
Her character is this “love-desperate office worker who thirsts after the main guy but ends up alone because he doesn’t care about her,” as she puts it to Sungah, who’s apparently started working at her parent’s restaurant to pass the time.
“I don’t like her,” Minha says, knowing how ungrateful she sounds, but she can’t help it. “If we met in real life, I would probably hate her.”
Something clatters on Sungah’s end of the phone. “But you still have to play her,” she reminds her, and Minha feels the guilt create a lump in her throat. At least you’re getting paid, is the thing Sungah won’t say, but Minha knows she thinks it.
“I miss you, unnie,” Minha says, and she does. She misses Sungah’s warm hugs and the smell of her dried cuttlefish that she liked to eat in between schedules when they were in the van. “When can we see each other again?”
Sungah laughs. It’s charming - the carefree Sungah laugh, Sera liked to call it. Minha feels something in her fingertips tingle. She busies them by picking at the edges of her script.
“Whenever Gangie and you are free,” she replies. Minha’s seen Kyungri at the company building more often these days, on account of Kyungri being part of the new subunit with Kevin. Kyungri still wasn’t thrilled about it.
Her eyes were a little puffy the last time Minha saw her. Minha let her play with her hair as she tried to figure out what to say and how to say it. “It was supposed to be his solo,” she said. Minha nodded. “And now there’s me. And Sojin.”
“How’s Sojin?” Minha asked. Kyungri looked at her. They weren’t oblivious. Knowing their CEO, if Nine Muses was going to make a comeback (and that idea was already foggy and far away), it wouldn’t be as six.
“She’s,” Kyungri trailed off, thinking. “Calm? Compared to us. But maybe we’re just loud. Talks when you talk to her. Nice.” Minha slapped her hands away from her split ends. “Works hard. You know,” Kyungri looked at her, serious, “she’s had it hard, too.”
Minha didn’t doubt that. But then she remembered Sera, Sera and her lethargic smile with her protruding ribs, lying on the floor next to Jaekyung, both of them laughing in front of a camera - Hyunjoo sitting by herself in the corner, quiet, and Eunji making ridiculous faces at herself in the mirror. She met Kyungri’s eyes and hummed in agreement, and then Kyungri went back to practice, leaving Minha alone with her memories.
“I want to see all of you guys again,” Sungah whines in her cute nasally voice. Minha laughs but it sounds hollow, like it’s lacking heart.
All of you guys. She can’t help but think about how that’s referring to three less people now.
The cast and crew are polite to her. Filming isn’t unpleasant, but Minha feels stifled and like she’ll forget her lines at any moment. She thinks about talking to her co-stars, especially Youngkwang (after joking with Erin that she’d put in a good word for her), but even when he shoots her a small smile whenever she walks by him, no words come to mind.
Minha’s shy, Hyemi cooed when Hyuna tried to befriend her after she just joined the group. Minha responded by stepping on Hyemi’s foot and barely making eye contact with an amused Hyuna before averting her gaze.
“I’m from Nine Muses,” Minha replies the one time Soojin asks her about her career as an idol. Soojin nods.
“That must be hard,” Soojin says, trying to sympathize. “I mean, splitting a salary nine ways.”
Minha catches her tongue between her teeth before she says something that could possibly be disrespectful and nods instead, pasting a small smile on her face that she doesn’t really mean. She’s not an idol, Minha has to actively remind herself so she won’t lash out. Soojin tells her to keep working hard, oblivious to the hostility growing behind Minha's silence, and Minha thinks that maybe she’s a better actress than their acting teacher said.
“When’s your next comeback?” someone else asks her some other day, after filming, and Minha’s caught between wanting to slap them and wanting to lean on one of her unnies - because she should know (They keep your schedule packed, don’t they?), but she doesn’t. She doesn’t fucking know, and she hates that the only thing she knows, the only real constant in her life right now, is playing some pining office-worker who should really just give up.
The first time she talks to Youngkwang is during one of her last scenes in the drama. Her character, smitten with Youngkwang’s, who doesn’t return her feelings, kisses him by surprise and consequently, gets rejected. They’re on standby and Minha experiences one of her strongest impulses to punch whoever wrote her character in the face as the director goes over the scene again.
“Nervous?” Youngkwang asks. It takes Minha a moment before she realizes he’s talking to her.
She wonders what kind of answer he’s expecting. He gives no hint with his polite smile. Actors are shady because you can never read their expressions, she remembers telling Sungah once, attempting to dissuade her from crushing on some rising flower boy. The statement was a generalization, but it held true for Youngkwang. “No,” she says.
“Ah,” he laughs, sounding disappointed. Minha thinks the confusion shows on her face when he continues. “That’s a good attitude to have.”
“It’s just work,” Minha states. Youngkwang laughs a little at that, too. “Well, were you nervous about kissing all the people you’ve had to?” she tries, because she doesn’t get what he finds amusing about what she’s said.
He considers before looking at her pointedly. “Well,” he starts, still smiling. “I’m always excited about kissing a girl group member.”
Something sour settles in her mouth, digging beneath her tongue - by the end, Jaekyung barely came to practice because there was always that higher-up waiting for her outside, Sera comforting her as they whispered about something after practice and all Minha could hear was - no, no, I don’t want to go -
“Oh,” she says instead, narrowing her eyes. He starts to talk about something else but she’s not listening anymore.
When they start shooting, Minha makes sure to slam her lips against his during the first take so their teeth clack painfully together. The director yells cut instantly.
“Nervous first take,” Minha smiles, as sweet as she can. The director nods and tells them to go again.
Youngkwang doesn’t smile at her after that. Minha considers this a victory.
August passes and they still haven’t all met up as a group. Minha’s seen them all individually, though at varying frequencies - Hyemi, Hyuna, and Kyungri the most, Erin the least (she always sleeps in a little too late for lunch). But if she has to see all six of them at once, Minha’s afraid that all she’ll see are the gaps and how tentative their smiles will be - what do we do without Sera? The numbness begins to bleed outwards from her arms again at the thought.
Hyemi’s at her apartment, sticking her feet onto Minha’s comforter again even after she told her to stop. She knocks Hyemi’s legs onto the floor this time, sticking her tongue out when Hyemi whimpers in response.
“I like, keep expecting to see Sera whenever I go to the company, you know?” she starts after she’s adjusted to her place on Minha’s floor. She hasn’t talked about Sera ever since the day they learned about her leaving, and even then, she was crying too hard to really say anything. Minha mutes the television that was already on low volume and turns to look at her.
“She used to practically live there, you know? And I don’t know...how can I go back to the practice room if I know she’s never going to be there again? It’s like, I tell myself we have to move on, but it’s so,” her voice narrows into a small squeak, “hard. They just can’t be gone, you know? We have to move on, but I can’t and management’s said nothing about a comeback and I’m just worried - ”
She reaches for Hyemi’s hand, rubbing her fingers against her palm. “Yeah,” she echoes, and Hyemi’s face is pinched, like she’s trying not to cry again. Minha doesn’t know why she feels detached from her body, numb - maybe they’re really not there right now, going through this - maybe it’s one of those foggy and far away dreams -
“Yeah,” escapes her mouth again. She doesn’t even feel herself say the words. “I know.” Hyemi gives her this weird look - like she’s expecting Minha to keep talking, but she doesn’t. She keeps looking at her like that.
She wakes up to the news articles before anything else. There’s three missed calls from Kyungri, two from Sungah, and five from Hyemi.
They’re not happy, Hyuna told her when she brought up meeting with management last month. Ever since Sera’s departure, Hyuna’s taken her place and attended most of the staff meetings, even if Kyungri or Hyemi have gone in her place once or twice.
Have they ever been? Minha quipped back, but Hyuna only frowned more. She took that as a cue to drop the subject. Three weeks later, they sent Taehun into the cage to bleed.
She scrolls through Junyoung’s tweets and the words are all there, everything’s spelled out, but nothing processes in her head. She feels her heart pounding so loud in her skull that she swears it’ll burst out. He’s angry and he has the right to be, and she’s angry too and she doesn’t - she doesn’t and she doesn’t know what’s happening to her group and everything she used to know, working with her unnies - they were tired but they were happy, weren’t they? - doesn’t really exist anymore.
Minha throws her phone somewhere. Nothing fucking makes sense anymore. Been months since they’ve been stuck in this in-between. She wants it to break, but it’s still quite intact when she picks it up a few hours later.
“They haven’t said anything about us.”
Hyuna looks at her hands, folded on her dining table, thin fingers and prominent veins. No one looks up. Kyungri’s not even there, recording for some music program with Sojin and Kevin, who probably hasn’t slept at all after all the meetings ZE:A’s been put through. She remembers his smile, wide but shy, that day they almost crashed into each other outside the practice room. He’s probably not smiling now.
Hyuna runs a hand through her hair and keeps going. The strands fall back in front of her face. “It’s mostly between them and sajangnim, so they’re not going to do anything to us - ”
Erin laughs, and the sound is caustic and vulnerable. “Have we been doing anything, anyway?” Sungah moves to put a hand on her shoulder, but Erin shakes her head. “They haven’t said anything for months!” Her words feel louder than they actually are. “Are we even still together?”
“Do you not want to be?” Hyuna retorts immediately, voice sharp and biting. Her eyes are red when she glances at them all. “Don’t say things like that, Hyemin.”
Erin slumps back into her seat, expression unreadable. “It sucks, but we really can’t do anything right now,” Hyemi tries. There’s a truth in her words that Minha hates and wishes were a lie. But you can’t be angry, it’s not us, it’s them, we’re all suffering, it’s not Junyoung’s fault, it’s not Sera’s -
“We can only hope.” Too bad it’s gotten them nowhere so far.
The practice room is empty. Minha turns on the lights and sits on the ground, cross-legged, and breathes. The air still smells vaguely of sweat. Probably from Kyungri, Sojin, and Kevin’s last practice. Whenever that was.
Nothing’s changed - it’s still the same old practice room, same rules, same dance-until-you-can’t-anymore practice regimens from five years ago. It was always her, Hyemi, Hyebin, and Sera - on time and waiting for the others to come, or starting without them when they didn’t. Hyemi, crying in the corner when the staff weren’t looking with the cast on her arm, hurting but I have to practice, they’ll just give me a painkiller and make me keep dancing, Jaekyung, staring off into space right before debut, Hyunjoo, helping everyone out. The day Sungah got cut from the original line-up and Minha felt tears prickle her eyes. Eunji, stretching in front of the mirror, trying to keep the smile on her face but it wouldn’t stop slipping. Sera, their leader Sera - and then she wasn’t anymore. This is that place, Minha thinks. She lays herself down on the cool floorboards and stops moving.
They were preparing for their comeback around this time, just last year. Almost twisting her ankle more than a couple times when she stepped down from the chair, half-asleep. Erin and Hyunjoo leaning on her with their sweaty bodies during a water break - I’m tired, Minha. And I’m not? she tried with a scowl but then Sera had that mischievous glint in her eye and soon everyone else was crushing her with their weight, too. When did that all change?
She sits up. Hyemi’s staring at her from where she’s sitting, maybe two feet away, chin on her knees. Minha almost screams.
“You scared me!” she says instead and Hyemi just gives her one of her shit-eating grins. “Why are you here?” she pouts, settling down onto her back again. Hyemi scoots over to meet her eyes.
“Why are you here?” she stalls, poking Minha’s side. Minha curls up and kicks her back in retaliation.
“You know I come here when there’s nothing better to do.” Hyemi hums at that, infuriatingly wordless. Minha kicks her again, not as hard this time.
“Yeah,” Hyemi starts again, after she’s had time to think. “But not to sit on the practice room floor like this.” She imitates Minha’s drooping shoulders and the frown etched deep on her face. Minha thinks about kicking her again, raising a leg, before deciding it isn’t worth it. “So...are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
Minha turns to her side instead. The hard floor presses against her ribcage uncomfortably - stiff and cold. “You already know what’s wrong,” she snaps. Hyemi doesn’t even budge.
“Come on,” Hyemi prods, scooting over to her again. “You haven’t talked about anything for months now, Park Minha. Like, really talked.”
She thinks about rolling away from Hyemi again - maybe that’ll get her to drop the subject - but she’s tired and nothing’s changed and Hyuna’s worried about what’s happened to Junyoung and they’re all worried about Junyoung and something in her throat burns. She turns her head to look at Hyemi, who’s watching her, concerned, before turning back with a sigh.
Hyemi slams her hands down on the floor and crawls over to her, impatient. “Tell,” poke, “Me,” another poke, “What’s,” this time to her other side, “Wrong.”
“I’m angry, ok?” she says, exasperated, caving.
Hyemi backs off and sits down again. “At who?” Minha purses her lips - she doesn’t want to say it, but then Hyemi leans over her again -
“Management, sajangnim,” she blurts out. Hyemi looks at her expectantly. “Hyunjoo, Eunji, and,” she swallows. “Sera.”
A hand reaches for hers. Minha lets it hold hers, but keeps her fingers limp in its grasp. “Hey,” Hyemi’s fingers tighten around hers, “Hey. It’s ok, you know. You can be angry.” Hyemi’s voice is softer now. Minha almost want to cry.
“At Sera?” She sounds choked to her own ears. Sera is, no - was Nine Muses, from staying later for more practice, to always covering for them, closing her eyes when their CEO slapped her in the face with a rolled up copy of their schedule. But he made us, and Sera knew it too, they all knew it, but she still left and they remained and Minha didn’t get it but she did. This is the way things are now, even if you didn’t want them to be.
“I think we were all kind of mad at her,” Hyemi says, leaning on her elbows. “But I don’t hate her for leaving. Could you hate her for leaving?”
Could she ever hate Sera? Sera, who pinched the corners of her mouth up into a smile when she thought Minha looked too tense and terrified during one of their first performances. Who laughed when she whined unnie! in response. She shakes her head.
“She loves us - this, you know. Even when they made it really hard for her.” And Minha knows. “She didn’t leave because of us. Hyunjoo unnie and Eunji unnie didn’t leave because of us, either.”
Minha finally turns to face her again, feeling more lost than she did before they started this conversation. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Hyemi considers for a moment. “I don’t know.” She picks at a hangnail on her index finger. “But we’ll be ok, I think.” Minha drags herself up and puts her arms around Hyemi’s waist. “We’ll be ok, Minha.” Hyemi hugs her back and Minha feels everything all at once, washing over her.
Tears prickle in her eyes. Hyemi laughs, her eyes wet too. She wipes them away for her this time.
November
It’s the first time they’ve all showed up early to the company. Their manager raises his eyebrows but says nothing, settling for a silent fascination instead.
Sungah has her arms around her before she even realizes it. “I missed you so much,” she whispers into her ear and Minha tries to shake her off her shoulders at the tickling sensation.
“She did that to me, too,” Erin laughs, joining in on the hug. Minha scrunches her nose, but she doesn’t really mind. “I watched your drama! You did good, Park Minha!”
“Are you going to be our company’s next big thing?” Hyuna teases, grinning from where she’s sitting on the only folding chair in the room. She shakes her head at Minha’s silent pleas to free her from her other unnie’s vise-like grasp.
“No,” Minha pouts. “That’ll be Gangie.” Kyungri visibly brightens from where she’s sitting on the floor, checking her makeup in the mirror. Hyemi makes a sound in between disapproval and doubt and tries to hide behind Hyuna as Kyungri hisses.
They’re filming for their own variety show, for the first time ever. You know what that means, Kyungri had said after their first meeting about it and Sungah squealed beside her in response. Minha had to fight to keep the smile off her face the whole way home.
She and Hyemi sandwich Kyungri between them when they get into the van. Kyungri yells in mock-annoyance, while Hyuna, Sungah, and Erin settle comfortably in the row before them. They all fit into one van and there’s space for her legs that Minha’s still not used to, but she feels Kyungri’s arm against hers and Hyuna’s laughter is still loud enough that it sounds like she’s sitting right next to her.
The gaps are still there in the places where Hyunjoo, Eunji, and Sera should be. They’ll always be there; they can’t do anything about that.
But then again, there are gaps between stars - those deep, dark spaces that make them shine more - and Minha, Minha likes to think that like those spaces, they have a purpose.
~10,000w; pg-13 (minha-centric)
nine muses suddenly isn't nine anymore.
a/n: written for the unnideul 2015 spring fic exchange. this was a taxing fic for me to write, but i'm glad i got to write it!
warnings: brief mentions of emotional abuse and sexual harassment, talks a little bit about ZE:A and the tweets by lee hoo/junyoung from last september. this is purely fiction.
January
Minha doesn’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing that pounds in the confines of her skull and a numbness that bleeds outwards from her arms - and that’s it. She inhales sharply.
Eunji looks tired - flat-out exhausted and thin. Eunji’s always been thin but not to this extent - gaunt and pale and tired - and the scariest thing is that Minha can’t remember when this became the norm. After their promotions for Wild? Or when they were recording their album? Hyunjoo stands beside her, tall with her head held high, like always, as if she’s marching into battle. Never half-assed when she set her mind to it. Minha wonders when Hyunjoo stopped trying on stage and why she couldn’t have done something about it. But then again, no one could ever convince Hyunjoo to do anything she didn’t want to do herself.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Hyunjoo says, trying to meet eyes with each and every one of her group members in the room. “And Eunji physically can’t. I can’t deal with another four comebacks next year.”
Eunji’s eyes shine even under the dim lights. She looks at her feet and when she speaks, her voice shakes. “I’m sorry guys. I’m so, so sorry.” Sungah, sitting closest to her, wraps an arm around Eunji’s slight (too slight) shoulders and lets Eunji lean into her. Kyungri starts to cry beside them and Erin looks down, like there’s a hole in ground waiting to swallow her up and spit her back out into the time when this wasn’t happening.
“I can’t live my life like this,” Hyunjoo continues. Minha’s lip quivers. She bites it to keep it still, to keep the things she wants to say in, to keep something together. It’s not her place to interrupt with a complaint - they’re all tired, and they shouldn’t even be awake right now with the schedules they have tomorrow. “I love all of you, but - ” she pauses, like she doesn’t want to say it, “I’m not happy here and I’m afraid I won’t be if I stay.”
But isn’t being with us enough? Hyuna reaches for Hyunjoo’s hand. She considers it before grasping it firmly, meeting eyes with Hyuna, who nods at her. When Hyunjoo faces them all again, her eyes are wet but no tears threaten to fall. “I want to go until the end with you guys.” Her voice is softer now. “But not here.”
The numbness tingles in Minha’s fingertips. She looks at Hyemi, who looks to Sera. Hyunjoo looks at Sera. Minha looks at Sera.
Sera pushes the palms of her hands against her eyes. She’s crouched on the floor, elbows on her knees, almost a shadow in the dark room with her black hood pulled over her head. She sighs - once, twice - Minha lets out the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding - three times.
Her voice is small, but deafening when she finally speaks. “Ok.” Inhales a shaky breath. Releases it and repeats, “Ok.”
Minha sees Eunji finally look up from her feet to look at Sera. They’re all looking at Sera, who's almost a shadow in this dark room.
They have always looked to Sera.
Changing dance formations is easy enough. After the dance instructor manages to rearrange them into new lines for Glue, Minha almost forgets where Eunji and Hyunjoo used to stand, and then she sees the gaping holes.
“Your line is so empty now, Gangie,” Sera jokes to Kyungri in the mirror, set in their respective positions. Kyungri narrows her eyes and sticks out her tongue in mock-retaliation. Sera only laughs in response. Minha feels her lips pull up into a smile at that, even though the corners of her mouth feel like they're weighed down by lead.
What’s harder is figuring out what to do with Eunji and Hyunjoo’s lines. Remembering to sing the new parts given to you even when the tiny voice in the backtrack isn’t yours. Hyemi struggles, half-asleep, to at least mouth Hyunjoo’s lines and Erin doesn’t even try to cover Eunji’s raps.
Erin clings onto Minha after a long day of practice, Kyungri laying her head on Minha’s knees. They’re scheduled to perform in few days with minimal mistakes in their new formations and the staff keeps yelling at everyone for not “putting in enough effort,” even when they’ve stayed in the practice room until dawn, going over the songs again and again on loop. Hyemi’s sitting in the corner by herself, earphones in, training herself to instinctively remember that Hyunjoo’s lines are hers now. Hyuna goes between watching her and watching Sera, who’s discussing something with their manager.
Erin motions Minha and Kyungri to lean in closer, like she has a deep secret to tell. Minha rolls her eyes, but Kyungri does so willingly so she follows suit. Erin’s eyes twinkle. “I’m not gonna do it,” she whispers, giggling after they pull away with confused expressions.
“What are you talking about?” Kyungri asks, readjusting her ponytail. Minha brings her legs toward her chest so Kyungri won’t lay over them again. Erin is still smiling, humored, but Minha doesn’t get what’s so funny anymore. Then again, Minha doesn’t always get what’s funny to Erin.
Erin quiets down again. “Eunji’s lines.”
Oh. “The ones manager oppa keeps scolding you about?” Minha quips. Erin motions to pinch her arm. She squeals and scoots closer to Kyungri instead.
“I mean, they’re not mine,” she goes on to say, picking at the hem of her shirt. Kyungri takes the chance to shove Minha off her. “It just...doesn’t feel right that Eunji isn’t the one rapping them. That Hyemi has to sing Hyunjoo’s lines.” Erin leans back against Minha. She wants to tickle the other girl off her shoulder, but it’s probably not time to be playful with Erin now. Minha remembers the slumps Erin went through in the past - the states where nothing Minha did could cheer her up - but she always snapped back on her own. Maybe this is one of those slumps.
“It’s just not right,” Erin sighs. Kyungri leans onto Minha’s unoccupied shoulder. Hyemi keeps singing Hyunjoo’s lines.
The ride to the venue is quiet. Usually, someone’s deep breathing from sleep cuts through the background traffic or Minha starts picking a fight with Hyemi that she knows she’ll win, but today, even though all seven of them can fit into one van now, it’s absolutely silent.
Hyemi tries to prod her into something by poking her sides. Minha glances at her in response, but doesn’t retaliate. Sorry, Hyemi mouths, sensing her bad mood. She shakes her head and leans further into her seat.
Sera’s in the passenger seat, plugged into her headphones, eyes closed. Sera hasn’t done this for a while - and only ever once in a blue moon - when the stress and pressure from the company are too much for her to handle. She’s relaxing, Minha told Kyungri one time when the other girl wanted to throw tissue wads at the back of her head. Minha doesn’t know what Sera’s really trying to do when she’s like this - Sera never talks about - but she knows not to bother her.
When they’re almost at the venue, Sera finally takes out her headphones. She turns around to face the rest of them, seatbelt cutting into the side of her neck.
“Let’s just have fun today,” she says. An unsure smile holds on her lips. “Don’t worry about mistakes,” Sera glances at Hyemi specifically, “let’s just do our best and have fun, ok guys?”
Sungah sits up from where she was leaning her head on Hyuna’s shoulder. “Of course, unnie!” Hyuna smiles with her. Kyungri blinks, half-awake, and nods.
The rest of them chorus in some kind of agreement and Minha watches Sera’s smile grow brighter and brighter until she turns around to face the front again.
Sera’s always been Nine Muses. Even when the staff took away her title as leader, Sera still covered for Jaekyung when she was late to practice and piped up before any unfortunate silences wormed their way in after interview questions were asked. “Habits die hard,” Sera said, nonchalantly, the one time Minha asked. “It’s like how you refer to all of us as your ‘unnies’ in that special tone of yours. Can’t stop doing that now, right?”
Minha wrinkled her nose. “It’s not like that,” she insisted at Sera’s over-the-top imitation. Sera just smiled one of her strange, knowing smiles and dropped the subject.
Even though Sera’s not leader in name, she’s their representative who attends most of the staff meetings with Junyoung. Sometimes, but more often than not, when Minha waits up for her so they can drive home together, Sera walks out with a closed expression on her face and her eyes cast down.
Minha knows - they all know, from when the CEO decides to meet them all as a group - how they treat Sera. You’re not taking care of the group, a higher-up will say, and Minha always has to bite back the will the lash out - look at how we’re still together! We still get along. Doesn’t that mean something besides sales and profits?
Sera just smiles and shakes her head when Minha asks how the meeting went. “Ah, tired…” she’ll supply instead, leaning heavily on Minha, laughing when the other girl whines in response.
But it’s never just nothing.
Someone slaps her butt once they get back into the waiting room. Minha scowls, but Sera proceeds to attach herself around Minha’s neck. “Yah, Park Minha! You didn’t have any fun on stage, did you?”
Hyuna joins in, sandwiching Minha between her and Sera. “Every time I saw you, you looked so unhappy.” Minha rolls her eyes and tries to tickle her way out of her confines. Hyuna and Sera shriek but keep holding on.
Sera clicks her tongue. “After you promised, too! Park Minha!” she says on the top of her lungs, which should cause the staff to stare at them, but they, for some reason, don’t.
“Is it because you messed up?” Hyuna asks, trying to meet her eyes. Minha tries to dodge them, but Hyuna reaches to hold her face in place, only to have Minha shake off her fingers. “It’s ok! Sera messed up. I saw it.”
Sera sighs. Her arms slacken around Minha for a moment, like she’ll let her go, then, as if she thinks better about it, tighten again. “I just hate not knowing where to go. You know that feeling when you can’t remember where your spot is? I really hate that.” She pauses. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “It’s weird, you know? No matter how much we practice those songs without them, their voices are still there and it’s just - ” She buries her face into Minha’s shoulder.
Minha knows. She remembers meeting eyes with Eunji on stage during promotions, her unnie smiling that dimpled smile at her for a brief moment before they had to switch formations again. Bumping into Hyunjoo countless times during practice and when they were on stage and laughing about all the close calls when one of them almost fell over -
“Yah,” Minha whines when Hyuna follows Sera’s lead. Sungah and Erin soon join in on surrounding her, then, Hyemi and Kyungri, too. “Guys!” she whimpers and the burning sensation in her nose and the wetness she felt in her eyes gone now that six other girls are keeping her from going anywhere. Even though her shoulders are starting to ache and the clump of people surrounding her is missing two girls, Minha thinks she’ll be ok. She’ll live.
The company doesn’t just want them to live.
Sajangnim walks into their practice room a few days after the event has aired, and Minha can’t help but stare at him during his slow procession to the lone folding chair their manager usually sits on. Once Glue, which they were practicing to ends, the air in the room turns still and thick. Erin can’t look up after she bows in greeting. Minha feels Hyemi step closer over to her, reaching for her hand.
“Are you guys practicing hard?” he asks. It’s a loaded question - every time they meet, he asks so many of them - and Minha doesn’t want to answer. She mutters a yes along with everyone else’s. Sera’s voice is the loudest.
The silence returns as he seems to consider their response. He already knows what he’s doing here. “If you guys are actually practicing hard, you would’ve all answered loudly.” He flicks his eyes over at Erin, who still hasn’t looked up from her feet. “So, were you or not?”
Sera looks at the rest of them, pleading, with a desperation in her eyes. Minha looks at a spot above their CEO’s head as they all chorus yes again, louder this time.
He hums in content, drumming his fingers on a knee. “You guys made a lot of mistakes at that event though. So do you think you practiced hard enough?” He looks behind her shoulder at Hyemi. “What do you think, Hyemi?”
Hyemi’s grasp on her hand tightens like a vise. “I think we did our best, but with more practice, we’ll make less mistakes,” she says, voice level despite her clammy fingers twined with Minha’s.
“But I don’t think your best is enough?” he counter quickly after she finishes choosing her words. Hyemi swallows but doesn’t drop her gaze. “And if your best isn’t enough, should I keep sending you out there?”
In the corner of her vision, Sera looks down at her feet, arms holding herself as if they could shield her. He looks at them all. “We’re still discussing what to do with Nine Muses,” he states, back to drumming his fingers on his knee, as if his words aren’t a thinly veiled threat. “Keep working hard.”
“Yes,” they say again, bowing again as he gets up. He starts walking, but stops and turns to lock eyes with Minha.
“Pay attention to your dancing, Minha,” he says. She barely manages to force out a polite-enough yes before he leaves. She keeps staring at the door. Sungah later tells her she looked like she was burning holes into his soul.
They do better at their next events. Minha thinks of it as “getting good at pretending the gaps don’t exist.”
Hyemi frowns when Minha tells her this at one of the photoshoots they get. Kyungri is taking her solo shots and Hyemi keeps blinking her eyes because they’re itchy, don’t laugh at me, Park Minha! “Were you always this pessimistic?” she asks as a stylist adjusts the collars of her blouse.
Minha matches her frown, half-taunting, half-serious. “I’m not lying though, am I?”
Hyemi sits down after the stylist leaves. “At least we’re still getting work. I was worried last time sajangnim came into the practice room,” she fiddles with the cuffs of her sleeves, ignoring Minha when she clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “I swear my blood went cold.” She shivers to prove her point.
Minha crosses her arms and stares at the outfits hanging on the clothes rack nearby. A frilly white blouse catches her eye that reminds her of one of their stage outfits. “That would look good on Hyunjoo unnie,” she says, pointing. Hyemi follows her gaze.
“Sera unnie says talks aren’t going great,” Hyemi continues. They both still stare at the blouse. “But I mean, we’re still getting work, right?”
Someone calls them over to get ready for their group shot. In between their jingling jewelry and the employees retouching their makeup, Minha nudges her and mutters, “When did Pyo Hyemi become so optimistic?” to Hyemi’s defensive whines.
Sera is always, always first to practice. Hyuna, Minha, and Hyemi usually rotate as second, but Minha has never managed to beat Sera to the company building, despite how early she sets her alarm.
Still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she climbs the stairs to the dance studio, she can hear Hyuna’s voice float down from the floor above. So she’s third today. She’s feeling proud of at least beating Hyemi today when she hears Hyuna’s voice gain a little bit of edge.
“No, Sera,” Hyuna says. She hears someone - Sera? - sigh. “Sera, don’t say that.” Her tone turns softer, almost pleading.
“I just - ” Sera starts. “They keep telling me it’s my fault. But how do you stop people that don’t want to get away from us, but from here? Hyunjoo wasn’t happy. Eunji - Eunji hadn’t been healthy for a while and we knew it. We knew it.” A shaky breath. “So how can you stop them?”
Silence. Minha knows that Hyuna’s wrapping her arms around Sera in comfort, patting her back and holding her in that way that makes all of Hyuna’s hugs different from everyone else’s. “You can’t,” Hyuna replies, voice shaking, but words full of conviction. “We couldn’t stop them. No one could. Don’t take what sajangnim says - ”
“I know it’s not,” Sera cuts in. She gasps for breath in between watery words and something in Minha’s chest clenches. “That’s the worst part, you know? I know it, but they keep telling me I could’ve done something, and then I start to think about it, and then maybe I could’ve done something, you know?” Another gasp for breath.
“Don’t say that,” Hyuna says again. “Don’t say that. Sera, it’s not your fault. Ok?”
“I’m so sorry,” Sera tries, the words small. There’s nothing to apologize for, Minha wants to tell her, but she can’t bring herself to climb the next flight of stairs. Hyunjoo and Eunji should be more sorry than Sera is - the ones that left them, the ones that could’ve stayed but didn’t, but Minha can’t hate them for anything, Eunji still calls her sometimes after practice and she laughs at all of Minha’s tired attempts at wit and her voice sounds so much stronger -
“I’m so sorry,” Sera repeats, but Minha doesn’t even know what they can be sorry about anymore.
April comes with empty schedules. Something in Minha’s stomach sinks to her toes when their manager says they’ll be focusing on “individual activities” for the time being, grounding her to the floor. Sungah and Kyungri shoot each other nervous glances. Hyemi shoots Minha with hers.
“I’m worried,” Hyemi says on their way home. Her voice sounds muffled and far away, like her mind. Knowing Hyemi, she was probably imagining all the possible outcomes their company’s statement could bring.
Minha loops her arm into Hyemi’s and leans her head on her shoulder. Hyemi squirms for a bit before relaxing against her. “It’s - ” she continues. Pauses, like she needs to put her thoughts into order. “I don’t know. Been like this before, but there was always a promise of a comeback. But this time,” Minha looks up at her from where she’s resting her head on Hyemi’s shoulder. The older girl’s voice catches a bit before she finishes the thought aloud. “I don’t know. And that’s scary.”
Traffic lights cut through the dark. They wait at the crosswalk, arms still looped together, silent for a while. “I don’t know, either,” Minha finally says. “But as long as we still want to be together as Nine Muses, it’ll be ok.”
Hyemi sniffles a little. Minha pats her back and the sign goes green. Some part of her doesn't even believe her own words.
They keep walking through the night.
It’s weird not going to the company building every day. After a year of non-stop dance practice, recordings, and practicing lyrics, waking up three hours after she’s gotten home and peeling herself off the sheets to take a morning shower have become the norm. Minha, half-asleep, almost hates herself when she sees the time before realizing they don’t want us there right now, anyway. She lets her head fall back into her pillow.
The group chat is uncharacteristically untouched, aside from Sungah’s emoji filled: i miss you guyssss ~~~ ㅠㅠ and pictures of all the food she ate by herself that she wants to share with the rest of them. Once a week, Hyuna insists that at least some of them meet up for lunch. Sera, who usually sends “one encouraging quote a day” when they don’t see each other, hasn’t sent anything at all, which makes Minha raise her eyebrows.
She finally sees Sera again a few weeks later, arriving just after they’ve ordered their food. “Sorry, sorry!” she says loudly to appease Kyungri, who’s trying to flick her on the forehead.
“Sungah got you what she’s getting,” Hyuna mentions when Sera’s finally made a peace treaty with Kyungri, and they cling onto each other.
Sera’s smiling but it doesn’t look like her usual smile - the one that brightens up her whole face. “Is it the largest thing on the menu?” she jokes and Minha wants to smile, she really does, but Sera looks more tired and thin than Minha remembers - like during their predebut days when she lost so much weight that her ribs protruded.
“Unnie!” Sungah whines. Erin imitates her. Hyuna imitates Erin. Hyemi kicks Minha under the table from laughing so hard. Sera’s laughing like nothing’s wrong.
But it’s never just nothing.
The next time Minha goes to the company building, ZE:A are in the dance studio. She watches them, somewhat jealous and somewhat wistful, from the glass door. They’re monitoring themselves in the mirror with an intense, though somewhat weary, determination.
Minha doesn’t want to say that the boys don’t deserve a comeback, because they really do. She’s seen how Kwanghee fought to showcase his fellow members on shows that didn’t want anyone but him, how Siwan and Hyungsik look like walking zombies these days, and glimpses of Dongjun working out more than he has to at the gym just to get first place in some athletics competition. Four years in and they were still individual names to the public, not a group. She’s just...jealous.
The music stops blaring. Minha hears Junyoung telling Heechul and Minwoo that they need to get into their spots faster. She almost forgets she’s standing in front of the door when Kevin almost slams into her, face flushed from practice.
“Sorry, Kevin,” she says, stepping to the side. Her movements feel slow, as if this isn’t her body - her real self is still thinking, thinking about when she and her unnies will be standing in the dance studio again, too. He smiles, wide but shy, and shakes his head in reply.
Hyungsik bounds after him. “Hyung, what’s the fuss - ” He pauses and his face brightens when he sees Minha. “Oh, Minha! It’s been a long time!”
Hyungsik looks more pale than she remembers - still as tall as a tower but he has this sleepy look on his face, like he’s been living perpetually half-awake. She remembers the days when he waved off the staff’s diet threats and worked through two hamburgers instead. It’s funny how long ago their trainee days feel. Does he still do that?
“Are you guys practicing next?” Hyungsik goes on.
Minha can’t hide the frown that tugs at her lips. “No. I’m just here to see the staff.” Hyungsik nods in understanding.
“‘Individual activities?’” Kevin asks, noticing her disdain. She tries not to scowl.
Hyungsik sighs, “It’s not as bad as you think it’d be. You know? Keep your name out there.” He looks at this spot on the wall behind her head before meeting her eyes again. “I hope you guys will do well,” and he really means it, even when he looks like he’s about to fall asleep.
“We can only hope,” Kevin agrees, smile still present on his lips, but smaller now. Minha regrets ever feeling jealous.
Minha’s never been particularly great at anything but she’s been enough. She can’t sing like Sera, Hyemi, or Hyuna, charm people instantly like Kyungri and Sungah, and her personality isn’t made for variety shows like Erin’s, Hyunjoo’s, or Eunji’s. That’s why they send her onto shows where she just has to sit there, laugh, and look pretty.
But she’s always been content sitting through recordings that mean little to her but the world to the rest of them. She’s never wanted to be the star - the stars are her unnies, and she’s happy to be the darkness between them so they can shine even brighter. Minha doesn’t care if she gets only a split second of screen time - her name shows up, the words “Nine Muses” coming before it, and that is enough for her.
So when one of the employees asks her, “Do you want to act?” at the meeting, Minha doesn’t know what’s happening. Her thoughts go to people like Kyungri and Sera, who emote far better than she ever will, when it took her long enough pre-debut to manage to school her default expression into “somewhat amicable.”
“Me?” is all she can respond with. The employee gives her a look, no shit, who else, impatient. “I think some of the unnies would do a better job than I would.”
Some of the others consider her words, expressions not quite neutral but not quite unhappy, and start discussing among themselves. The employee that asked the question sighs, “It’s not a big role. You’ll show up enough that maybe people will know your face. It’s not a small production, either.” Someone taps her on the shoulder. Minha watches as they discuss more amongst themselves.
“We’ll call you in again when things are confirmed,” one of the others tells her. One of the higher-ups, Minha recalls, his expression rather stiff. They're all looking at her like that. She bows and takes her leave, half-wishing she said something they wanted to hear but half-glad that she didn’t.
It’s Hyemi who tells them about their next event through the group chat. Minha can hear her screaming through her all exclamation marks: GUYS WE GOT AN EVENT! and Sungah and Kyungri respond with various crying stickers before typing some variation of i’ve missed you guys so much. Minha’s smiling before she even realizes how long it’s been since she actually felt this happy. She hides her face in her covers.
Hyuna probably worries about Sera the most. Partly due to the fact that Hyuna tends to worry about them all more than she should, but it’s Sera. She smiles when Minha runs into her outside the company building before practice starts. Hyuna hugs her and looks happy to see her, but the smile on her face is tight.
“What’s wrong, unnie?” Minha asks as they start walking up the stairs.
Hyuna presses her lips together. Releases them. Presses them together again until she starts to speak. “Sera’s been in a lot of meetings recently,” she says, tone light, but Minha feels the heaviness of her words. She doesn’t look away.
Hyuna takes this as a cue to keep going. “I’m worried. She’s been so,” she has to search for the right word, “quiet lately. First with the group chat, and now she hardly comes over to see Moya and Hoya. It’s just...not like her.”
The pained look on Hyuna’s face makes Minha grab her hand. “We’ll see her today, unnie,” she tries. Hyuna smiles a little, lips still tight.
“I missed you, Park Minha,” Hyuna sighs, pinching her side. Minha yelps but she can’t find it in her to pretend to be annoyed. She laughs and hugs her unnie instead.
Sera is there at practice, physically there, but her eyes are glassy. She barely avoids stepping on Minha’s foot and keeps forgetting where she’s supposed to stand next. No matter how many times she insists on stopping the music so they can slowly go over the formation transitions, she keeps making mistakes. Minha can’t help but watch Sera’s reflection instead of her own in the mirror, trying to figure out what’s wrong. At some point, she sees Hyemi’s doing the same thing - and Hyuna, and Kyungri, and Sungah, and Erin - after they lock eyes for a brief moment in the glass.
No one says anything about it. They should, but what can they say? There’s been times of palatable silence - when they should confront each other about something, but ultimately can’t bring themselves to do so - ever since Eunji and Hyunjoo left and their individual activities started. Minha can feel the words on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t know what they are and how to say them. She only knows that something should be said. But she keeps quiet.
“Sera unnie,” Minha starts during their water break. Sera’s still standing in her position, staring at herself in the mirror, eyes vacant, going over the moves. “Sera unnie,” Minha repeats when Sera doesn’t respond. This time, she glances at Minha until she finishes the part she was reviewing.
“Mm?” she hums, walking over to get her water bottle. Minha follows her, still not really sure what she should say.
“You look really distracted today,” Minha tries. Sera hums again, mouth full of water. Minha leans on her back with all her weight, tipping her over, just as Sera takes another sip.
She groans in response. “Ok, ok, Park Minha. I got it, I’ll pay more attention!” She turns around and pokes Minha’s cheek in retaliation. “Our maknae is so heavy,” Sera sighs, the upturned corners of her mouth giving her away.
But nothing changes. Sera’s still distracted for the rest of practice. Eventually, their manager sighs and tells them to call it a day. Minha sees her unnies shoot Sera worried glances before they go home.
“It’ll be ok,” Minha says to Hyemi, when Hyemi glances at Sera again. “She does better at the actual event, anyway, remember?”
“I guess so,” Hyemi agrees, reluctant.
Sera makes a number of mistakes at the actual event, but her smile and interactions with the fans make up for it. When she does an extra body roll, the screams grow deafening and Sera’s smile is so wide that Minha doesn’t know how it fits on her face. Sera was always fascinated by fan reactions, Minha remembers, shooting her a small smile as they pass each other to walk to their next spots.
Backstage, Minha’s blood is still pulsing in her veins with the thrill of their performance, each beat throbbing in her ears. Kyungri imitates Sera’s embarrassed grin after she walked to the wrong spot, and the way she tried to hide it behind her hair. Sera just shakes her head with one of her strange, knowing smiles resting on her face, tired like the adrenaline of the stage did nothing for her.
Minha arrives the earliest to practice on a Tuesday, for once in her life. She sits on the floor, waiting to hear Sera’s sneakers squeak up the stairs, but the silence roars instead. She starts stretching. Everything in her body still feels tense when she’s done.
Hyemi shows up twenty minutes later. Then, Hyuna, Kyungri, and Sungah trail in just on time. Erin’s panting when she runs into the studio - traffic got me - but Sera’s not there. Sera, who should be yelling, let’s go! or telling them to bring their hands in for a cheer. There’s confusion on Kyungri’s face and Hyuna bites her lip.
“Where’s Sera?” Hyemi asks their manager when he walks in. His cap is pulled low over his head, shading his face and expression so Minha can’t tell what he’s thinking.
He doesn’t meet any of their eyes. Minha swallows just as Sungah prods for her hand, but her throat is dry. “Just start without her,” he says.
They don’t see Sera at all that day.
Sera’s ditched practice before. During their predebut days, when everyone and anyone yelled at her - why can’t you get everyone here on time, you call yourself a leader, this is not acceptable, you’re failing - and Minha’s seen her run, run far away from the blame that shouldn’t have been placed on her in the first place and from them.
But she always came back. I have nothing else left, she told them all in the practice room. Minha only remembers this moment specifically because it was captured on-screen, in that documentary they filmed before debut - Sera crouched on the practice room floor with her hands over her eyes, like things would be better when she saw the world again. She looked smaller projected on the huge screen than she did in real life.
This time shouldn’t be any different. Minha lies awake at night, ceiling staring back at her in the complete darkness. Nothing much has changed, she tells herself, but she doesn’t know why she has to. If something wasn’t different, she wouldn’t be awake right now with a heaviness sinking in her stomach - the kind that only weighed her down when apartment bills were due and when the CEO talked to them about their album sales. But Minha doesn’t know what to think this time, and that terrifies her more than anything else.
Sera doesn’t come back to the practice room.
A couple mornings later:
Ryu Sera left the group chat
Hyemi calls her first. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asks as soon as Minha picks up the phone.
“No one knows what’s going on,” Minha says. Hyemi goes so silent on the other line that Minha almost hangs up until she hears her breathing again.
They don’t say anything more. Minha wishes Hyemi was physically with her, sitting on her floor that desperately needs vacuuming, holding her hand. No one knows what’s going on. Minha thinks that’s the scariest part.
A couple hours later, Hyuna calls. “They want to talk to all of us tomorrow.” The amount of static in the call does nothing to hide the nervousness in her voice.
Suddenly, Minha thinks it’s better if they don’t know.
She doesn’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing that pounds in the confines of her skull and a numbness that bleeds outwards from her arms - and that’s it. She inhales sharply.
There’s Sera, sitting close to the head of the table, sajangnim’s spot. Hyuna sits next to her, head in her hands. Erin’s stare is vacant. Kyungri can’t even look up. Sungah sobs beside her and Hyemi is starting to sniffle.
Leaving Nine Muses. Sera. Sera’s leaving Nine Muses. Sera, Sera, Sera’s leaving Nine Muses. Sera’s Nine Muses.
She can’t feel anything.
“I’m sorry,” Sera says at the end of it all. Her voice, the way her breath hitches when she tries to continue, everything, rings. Like when they were in the practice room after their debut performance, Sera singing as hard as she could, trying to prove something when no one was watching. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry - broken record, broken voice, broken person -
Tears burn in her eyes. She feels them roll down her face. She wants to burn holes into souls, she wants to rewind the past hour and play something over it, she wants -
She doesn’t wipe them away.
Everyone’s eyes are puffy at practice the next day. Kyungri bursts into tears again when Sera’s voice blares through the speakers. Minha feels her arms move, her legs move, but it’s all just muscle memory.
Sera’s line comes on after hers. She’s still standing in the middle. Oh. She tries to shuffle into place when she remembers. Yours now. Sera’s voice, ringing - I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you guys first -
She can’t even mouth the lyrics. These aren’t my lines, she wants to tell someone, anyone. I can’t do this.
The chorus comes. Now she’s in the wrong spot.
The next few events they perform at are a blur. Minha goes through the motions, tired but awake enough to pretend she’s fine. Still can’t bring herself to sing Sera’s lines.
Hyemi, Kyungri, and Hyuna smile on stage. They’re convincing, convincing enough. Only they and the staff have to know about the silences in the van, how Minha stretches out her legs because she finally can, but takes them back because Hyunjoo should be sitting there, Eunji should be resting her head on Sera’s shoulder -
Minha wonders one day if the end would be this silent, and this empty.
They bring up the drama again. It takes all of her willpower not to walk out of the room.
Is it even worth anything anymore? Minha thinks about their dismal to nonexistent paychecks and the way Hyuna just laughed when they got them so they all started laughing - her and her unnies, and she was ok with it. But now she hasn’t seen anyone but Hyemi in weeks, and only because Hyemi showed up on her doorstep a few nights after their last performance, pink veins showing in her eyes, and hasn’t let herself out since.
The same employee stares her down with harsh, narrowed eyes. “This is a good opportunity for you. For Nine Muses.”
She doesn’t protest aloud. Do we even still exist? but she bites her tongue, bites it back, so hard that she tastes iron in her mouth.
Two days later, they send her details about the audition.
Hyuna chews on her nails. Minha raises an eyebrow. Hyuna doesn’t chew nails.
Moya sits near Minha’s feet as she tries to read her script. None of the words register in her mind. She rolls it up and throws it onto the table nearby, almost missing. Moya scurries away at the sound.
Hyuna’s staring at her computer screen, occasionally scrolling down, then back up, then down again. Minha asked her what she was doing two hours ago, when she decided to show up at Hyuna’s door. Hyuna had let her in without a second thought.
Writing a book, she said. Minha didn’t really know what to think about that, but Hyuna hadn’t kicked her out yet, so she guessed that she was still welcome. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in nearly a month.
Hyuna tears her eyes away from the screen to pick up Moya, who struggles in her lap before Hyuna sighs and lets her go. “How’s your script-reading going?” she asks, walking over to pick up the papers that didn’t quite make Minha’s target. “Do you want me to practice with you?”
A month without Sera. Minha doesn’t know what they are without her - why they’re called Nine Muses when they’ve only really been nine twice, and both times they fell apart. She shakes her head, but Hyuna keeps looking at her, and Minha doesn’t know whether she should say something about it or not.
She does, eventually. She can’t bring herself to keep quiet and bite back the subject any longer. “Who do we blame?”
Hyuna gets up. Minha thinks she’s trying to avoid the question, but then she returns with two mugs of orange juice. She puts one in front of Minha. Her reflection, tangerine and pulpy, stares back at her with tiny eyes.
“Who can we blame?” Hyuna replies, challenging. Minha shakes her head but Hyuna continues, “I don’t think I could’ve stopped her. Any of them. From leaving.” Her voice doesn’t waver.
Minha chews her lip. Hyuna’s right, but her anger won’t dissipate. “But we’re not the same anymore,” she says. “Doesn’t that scare you?”
Hyuna runs a hand through her hair. Moya brushes against Minha’s bare shins underneath the table before settling back into the position near her feet. “I’m going to trust that sajangnim knows what he’s doing,” she says into the lip of her mug.
Minha looks back down at her reflection in the orange juice. It doesn’t agree with Hyuna, either.
Her character is this “love-desperate office worker who thirsts after the main guy but ends up alone because he doesn’t care about her,” as she puts it to Sungah, who’s apparently started working at her parent’s restaurant to pass the time.
“I don’t like her,” Minha says, knowing how ungrateful she sounds, but she can’t help it. “If we met in real life, I would probably hate her.”
Something clatters on Sungah’s end of the phone. “But you still have to play her,” she reminds her, and Minha feels the guilt create a lump in her throat. At least you’re getting paid, is the thing Sungah won’t say, but Minha knows she thinks it.
“I miss you, unnie,” Minha says, and she does. She misses Sungah’s warm hugs and the smell of her dried cuttlefish that she liked to eat in between schedules when they were in the van. “When can we see each other again?”
Sungah laughs. It’s charming - the carefree Sungah laugh, Sera liked to call it. Minha feels something in her fingertips tingle. She busies them by picking at the edges of her script.
“Whenever Gangie and you are free,” she replies. Minha’s seen Kyungri at the company building more often these days, on account of Kyungri being part of the new subunit with Kevin. Kyungri still wasn’t thrilled about it.
Her eyes were a little puffy the last time Minha saw her. Minha let her play with her hair as she tried to figure out what to say and how to say it. “It was supposed to be his solo,” she said. Minha nodded. “And now there’s me. And Sojin.”
“How’s Sojin?” Minha asked. Kyungri looked at her. They weren’t oblivious. Knowing their CEO, if Nine Muses was going to make a comeback (and that idea was already foggy and far away), it wouldn’t be as six.
“She’s,” Kyungri trailed off, thinking. “Calm? Compared to us. But maybe we’re just loud. Talks when you talk to her. Nice.” Minha slapped her hands away from her split ends. “Works hard. You know,” Kyungri looked at her, serious, “she’s had it hard, too.”
Minha didn’t doubt that. But then she remembered Sera, Sera and her lethargic smile with her protruding ribs, lying on the floor next to Jaekyung, both of them laughing in front of a camera - Hyunjoo sitting by herself in the corner, quiet, and Eunji making ridiculous faces at herself in the mirror. She met Kyungri’s eyes and hummed in agreement, and then Kyungri went back to practice, leaving Minha alone with her memories.
“I want to see all of you guys again,” Sungah whines in her cute nasally voice. Minha laughs but it sounds hollow, like it’s lacking heart.
All of you guys. She can’t help but think about how that’s referring to three less people now.
The cast and crew are polite to her. Filming isn’t unpleasant, but Minha feels stifled and like she’ll forget her lines at any moment. She thinks about talking to her co-stars, especially Youngkwang (after joking with Erin that she’d put in a good word for her), but even when he shoots her a small smile whenever she walks by him, no words come to mind.
Minha’s shy, Hyemi cooed when Hyuna tried to befriend her after she just joined the group. Minha responded by stepping on Hyemi’s foot and barely making eye contact with an amused Hyuna before averting her gaze.
“I’m from Nine Muses,” Minha replies the one time Soojin asks her about her career as an idol. Soojin nods.
“That must be hard,” Soojin says, trying to sympathize. “I mean, splitting a salary nine ways.”
Minha catches her tongue between her teeth before she says something that could possibly be disrespectful and nods instead, pasting a small smile on her face that she doesn’t really mean. She’s not an idol, Minha has to actively remind herself so she won’t lash out. Soojin tells her to keep working hard, oblivious to the hostility growing behind Minha's silence, and Minha thinks that maybe she’s a better actress than their acting teacher said.
“When’s your next comeback?” someone else asks her some other day, after filming, and Minha’s caught between wanting to slap them and wanting to lean on one of her unnies - because she should know (They keep your schedule packed, don’t they?), but she doesn’t. She doesn’t fucking know, and she hates that the only thing she knows, the only real constant in her life right now, is playing some pining office-worker who should really just give up.
The first time she talks to Youngkwang is during one of her last scenes in the drama. Her character, smitten with Youngkwang’s, who doesn’t return her feelings, kisses him by surprise and consequently, gets rejected. They’re on standby and Minha experiences one of her strongest impulses to punch whoever wrote her character in the face as the director goes over the scene again.
“Nervous?” Youngkwang asks. It takes Minha a moment before she realizes he’s talking to her.
She wonders what kind of answer he’s expecting. He gives no hint with his polite smile. Actors are shady because you can never read their expressions, she remembers telling Sungah once, attempting to dissuade her from crushing on some rising flower boy. The statement was a generalization, but it held true for Youngkwang. “No,” she says.
“Ah,” he laughs, sounding disappointed. Minha thinks the confusion shows on her face when he continues. “That’s a good attitude to have.”
“It’s just work,” Minha states. Youngkwang laughs a little at that, too. “Well, were you nervous about kissing all the people you’ve had to?” she tries, because she doesn’t get what he finds amusing about what she’s said.
He considers before looking at her pointedly. “Well,” he starts, still smiling. “I’m always excited about kissing a girl group member.”
Something sour settles in her mouth, digging beneath her tongue - by the end, Jaekyung barely came to practice because there was always that higher-up waiting for her outside, Sera comforting her as they whispered about something after practice and all Minha could hear was - no, no, I don’t want to go -
“Oh,” she says instead, narrowing her eyes. He starts to talk about something else but she’s not listening anymore.
When they start shooting, Minha makes sure to slam her lips against his during the first take so their teeth clack painfully together. The director yells cut instantly.
“Nervous first take,” Minha smiles, as sweet as she can. The director nods and tells them to go again.
Youngkwang doesn’t smile at her after that. Minha considers this a victory.
August passes and they still haven’t all met up as a group. Minha’s seen them all individually, though at varying frequencies - Hyemi, Hyuna, and Kyungri the most, Erin the least (she always sleeps in a little too late for lunch). But if she has to see all six of them at once, Minha’s afraid that all she’ll see are the gaps and how tentative their smiles will be - what do we do without Sera? The numbness begins to bleed outwards from her arms again at the thought.
Hyemi’s at her apartment, sticking her feet onto Minha’s comforter again even after she told her to stop. She knocks Hyemi’s legs onto the floor this time, sticking her tongue out when Hyemi whimpers in response.
“I like, keep expecting to see Sera whenever I go to the company, you know?” she starts after she’s adjusted to her place on Minha’s floor. She hasn’t talked about Sera ever since the day they learned about her leaving, and even then, she was crying too hard to really say anything. Minha mutes the television that was already on low volume and turns to look at her.
“She used to practically live there, you know? And I don’t know...how can I go back to the practice room if I know she’s never going to be there again? It’s like, I tell myself we have to move on, but it’s so,” her voice narrows into a small squeak, “hard. They just can’t be gone, you know? We have to move on, but I can’t and management’s said nothing about a comeback and I’m just worried - ”
She reaches for Hyemi’s hand, rubbing her fingers against her palm. “Yeah,” she echoes, and Hyemi’s face is pinched, like she’s trying not to cry again. Minha doesn’t know why she feels detached from her body, numb - maybe they’re really not there right now, going through this - maybe it’s one of those foggy and far away dreams -
“Yeah,” escapes her mouth again. She doesn’t even feel herself say the words. “I know.” Hyemi gives her this weird look - like she’s expecting Minha to keep talking, but she doesn’t. She keeps looking at her like that.
She wakes up to the news articles before anything else. There’s three missed calls from Kyungri, two from Sungah, and five from Hyemi.
They’re not happy, Hyuna told her when she brought up meeting with management last month. Ever since Sera’s departure, Hyuna’s taken her place and attended most of the staff meetings, even if Kyungri or Hyemi have gone in her place once or twice.
Have they ever been? Minha quipped back, but Hyuna only frowned more. She took that as a cue to drop the subject. Three weeks later, they sent Taehun into the cage to bleed.
She scrolls through Junyoung’s tweets and the words are all there, everything’s spelled out, but nothing processes in her head. She feels her heart pounding so loud in her skull that she swears it’ll burst out. He’s angry and he has the right to be, and she’s angry too and she doesn’t - she doesn’t and she doesn’t know what’s happening to her group and everything she used to know, working with her unnies - they were tired but they were happy, weren’t they? - doesn’t really exist anymore.
Minha throws her phone somewhere. Nothing fucking makes sense anymore. Been months since they’ve been stuck in this in-between. She wants it to break, but it’s still quite intact when she picks it up a few hours later.
“They haven’t said anything about us.”
Hyuna looks at her hands, folded on her dining table, thin fingers and prominent veins. No one looks up. Kyungri’s not even there, recording for some music program with Sojin and Kevin, who probably hasn’t slept at all after all the meetings ZE:A’s been put through. She remembers his smile, wide but shy, that day they almost crashed into each other outside the practice room. He’s probably not smiling now.
Hyuna runs a hand through her hair and keeps going. The strands fall back in front of her face. “It’s mostly between them and sajangnim, so they’re not going to do anything to us - ”
Erin laughs, and the sound is caustic and vulnerable. “Have we been doing anything, anyway?” Sungah moves to put a hand on her shoulder, but Erin shakes her head. “They haven’t said anything for months!” Her words feel louder than they actually are. “Are we even still together?”
“Do you not want to be?” Hyuna retorts immediately, voice sharp and biting. Her eyes are red when she glances at them all. “Don’t say things like that, Hyemin.”
Erin slumps back into her seat, expression unreadable. “It sucks, but we really can’t do anything right now,” Hyemi tries. There’s a truth in her words that Minha hates and wishes were a lie. But you can’t be angry, it’s not us, it’s them, we’re all suffering, it’s not Junyoung’s fault, it’s not Sera’s -
“We can only hope.” Too bad it’s gotten them nowhere so far.
The practice room is empty. Minha turns on the lights and sits on the ground, cross-legged, and breathes. The air still smells vaguely of sweat. Probably from Kyungri, Sojin, and Kevin’s last practice. Whenever that was.
Nothing’s changed - it’s still the same old practice room, same rules, same dance-until-you-can’t-anymore practice regimens from five years ago. It was always her, Hyemi, Hyebin, and Sera - on time and waiting for the others to come, or starting without them when they didn’t. Hyemi, crying in the corner when the staff weren’t looking with the cast on her arm, hurting but I have to practice, they’ll just give me a painkiller and make me keep dancing, Jaekyung, staring off into space right before debut, Hyunjoo, helping everyone out. The day Sungah got cut from the original line-up and Minha felt tears prickle her eyes. Eunji, stretching in front of the mirror, trying to keep the smile on her face but it wouldn’t stop slipping. Sera, their leader Sera - and then she wasn’t anymore. This is that place, Minha thinks. She lays herself down on the cool floorboards and stops moving.
They were preparing for their comeback around this time, just last year. Almost twisting her ankle more than a couple times when she stepped down from the chair, half-asleep. Erin and Hyunjoo leaning on her with their sweaty bodies during a water break - I’m tired, Minha. And I’m not? she tried with a scowl but then Sera had that mischievous glint in her eye and soon everyone else was crushing her with their weight, too. When did that all change?
She sits up. Hyemi’s staring at her from where she’s sitting, maybe two feet away, chin on her knees. Minha almost screams.
“You scared me!” she says instead and Hyemi just gives her one of her shit-eating grins. “Why are you here?” she pouts, settling down onto her back again. Hyemi scoots over to meet her eyes.
“Why are you here?” she stalls, poking Minha’s side. Minha curls up and kicks her back in retaliation.
“You know I come here when there’s nothing better to do.” Hyemi hums at that, infuriatingly wordless. Minha kicks her again, not as hard this time.
“Yeah,” Hyemi starts again, after she’s had time to think. “But not to sit on the practice room floor like this.” She imitates Minha’s drooping shoulders and the frown etched deep on her face. Minha thinks about kicking her again, raising a leg, before deciding it isn’t worth it. “So...are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
Minha turns to her side instead. The hard floor presses against her ribcage uncomfortably - stiff and cold. “You already know what’s wrong,” she snaps. Hyemi doesn’t even budge.
“Come on,” Hyemi prods, scooting over to her again. “You haven’t talked about anything for months now, Park Minha. Like, really talked.”
She thinks about rolling away from Hyemi again - maybe that’ll get her to drop the subject - but she’s tired and nothing’s changed and Hyuna’s worried about what’s happened to Junyoung and they’re all worried about Junyoung and something in her throat burns. She turns her head to look at Hyemi, who’s watching her, concerned, before turning back with a sigh.
Hyemi slams her hands down on the floor and crawls over to her, impatient. “Tell,” poke, “Me,” another poke, “What’s,” this time to her other side, “Wrong.”
“I’m angry, ok?” she says, exasperated, caving.
Hyemi backs off and sits down again. “At who?” Minha purses her lips - she doesn’t want to say it, but then Hyemi leans over her again -
“Management, sajangnim,” she blurts out. Hyemi looks at her expectantly. “Hyunjoo, Eunji, and,” she swallows. “Sera.”
A hand reaches for hers. Minha lets it hold hers, but keeps her fingers limp in its grasp. “Hey,” Hyemi’s fingers tighten around hers, “Hey. It’s ok, you know. You can be angry.” Hyemi’s voice is softer now. Minha almost want to cry.
“At Sera?” She sounds choked to her own ears. Sera is, no - was Nine Muses, from staying later for more practice, to always covering for them, closing her eyes when their CEO slapped her in the face with a rolled up copy of their schedule. But he made us, and Sera knew it too, they all knew it, but she still left and they remained and Minha didn’t get it but she did. This is the way things are now, even if you didn’t want them to be.
“I think we were all kind of mad at her,” Hyemi says, leaning on her elbows. “But I don’t hate her for leaving. Could you hate her for leaving?”
Could she ever hate Sera? Sera, who pinched the corners of her mouth up into a smile when she thought Minha looked too tense and terrified during one of their first performances. Who laughed when she whined unnie! in response. She shakes her head.
“She loves us - this, you know. Even when they made it really hard for her.” And Minha knows. “She didn’t leave because of us. Hyunjoo unnie and Eunji unnie didn’t leave because of us, either.”
Minha finally turns to face her again, feeling more lost than she did before they started this conversation. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Hyemi considers for a moment. “I don’t know.” She picks at a hangnail on her index finger. “But we’ll be ok, I think.” Minha drags herself up and puts her arms around Hyemi’s waist. “We’ll be ok, Minha.” Hyemi hugs her back and Minha feels everything all at once, washing over her.
Tears prickle in her eyes. Hyemi laughs, her eyes wet too. She wipes them away for her this time.
November
It’s the first time they’ve all showed up early to the company. Their manager raises his eyebrows but says nothing, settling for a silent fascination instead.
Sungah has her arms around her before she even realizes it. “I missed you so much,” she whispers into her ear and Minha tries to shake her off her shoulders at the tickling sensation.
“She did that to me, too,” Erin laughs, joining in on the hug. Minha scrunches her nose, but she doesn’t really mind. “I watched your drama! You did good, Park Minha!”
“Are you going to be our company’s next big thing?” Hyuna teases, grinning from where she’s sitting on the only folding chair in the room. She shakes her head at Minha’s silent pleas to free her from her other unnie’s vise-like grasp.
“No,” Minha pouts. “That’ll be Gangie.” Kyungri visibly brightens from where she’s sitting on the floor, checking her makeup in the mirror. Hyemi makes a sound in between disapproval and doubt and tries to hide behind Hyuna as Kyungri hisses.
They’re filming for their own variety show, for the first time ever. You know what that means, Kyungri had said after their first meeting about it and Sungah squealed beside her in response. Minha had to fight to keep the smile off her face the whole way home.
She and Hyemi sandwich Kyungri between them when they get into the van. Kyungri yells in mock-annoyance, while Hyuna, Sungah, and Erin settle comfortably in the row before them. They all fit into one van and there’s space for her legs that Minha’s still not used to, but she feels Kyungri’s arm against hers and Hyuna’s laughter is still loud enough that it sounds like she’s sitting right next to her.
The gaps are still there in the places where Hyunjoo, Eunji, and Sera should be. They’ll always be there; they can’t do anything about that.
But then again, there are gaps between stars - those deep, dark spaces that make them shine more - and Minha, Minha likes to think that like those spaces, they have a purpose.