The song was on repeat, and the six girls were sweating like crazy. Hayoung placed her hand in the wall to support herself while asking Namjoo to stop the music for a while.

“I need a break.” The maknae’s cheeks were red in exhaustion. The leader nodded in agreement, also flushed.

Bomi took off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. The sleeveless t-shirt she wore underneath emphasized her abs, and she tied her hair up in a high ponytail. Chorong walked towards her and pushed a loose lock of hair behind the younger girl’s ear.

“Are you okay?” The older girl asked. Bomi nodded slightly, and smiled at Chorong’s concern. The older girl always took care of her.

Naeun approached the small fridge they had in the corner of the room and opened it in search of a water bottle to satisfy her thirst. She groaned when she saw there was only one left.

“We’ve ran out of water,” she said out loud. All sorts of sounds of complain were heard around the room, shared among the tired members.

“I’ll go fetch some,” Bomi said.

“Let me go with you,” Eunji quickly volunteered to go with the older girl.

Bomi nodded, and the two girls left while Hayoung and Namjoo sat in the wooden floor with their backs against the mirror that covered the entire wall.

The corridor was silent except from the two girls’ intermittent breathings. They were walking fast on mutual accord, because they didn’t want the other members to wait too long for them.

Suddenly, Eunji looked at the spot Bomi was supposed to be in, and the other girl had disappeared. Eunji turned around swiftly, and saw Bomi leaning into the wall for support.

“Bomi-ah!” Eunji, alarmed, ran towards her friend. “Are you okay?”

Bomi was obviously trying to smile, reassuringly, but she was in pain. Her breathing was ragged, and sweat covered her forehead.

“I’m alright,” she tried to convince Eunji of it, but the first thing she needed to do was convince herself.

“No, you’re not,” Eunji responded sharply. She would not let her friend damage herself through denial. “You stay here. I’ll go for water.”

“But...”

“Just do it. Shout if something happens” Bomi ended up agreeing, and Eunji made sure her friend could breathe properly before leaving. “I’ll be right back.”

~

“I am so tired...” Naeun complained while waiting for water. They had decided to share the one they had in the fridge before Eunji and Bomi came back, exhausted as they felt.

“Remember we promised to work hard in exchange for the two weeks of vacation,” Chorong reminded. They had to be grateful and show that they could still practice hard.

Hayoung stood up to fetch her phone and sat next to Naeun. Chorong was stretching in front of the two girls, while Namjoo was fixing her hair right next to them.

“So... unnie,” Hayoung began, looking at Chorong. “I’ve heard you and Bomi will be leaving a day earlier?”

Chorong remained silent for a moment. She had nothing against telling the other girls, but she had felt sort of shy and didn’t know how to tell them.

“How did you...?” Everything suddenly made sense when she thought of their vocal trainer speaking to Hayoung outside the practice room earlier. “Hayoung-ah, you’re not involved with...”

“Of course not, unnie!” Hayoung interrupted her while Naeun started laughing. The maknae looked at her friend coldly, and Naeun shut up while still smiling slightly. The two friends were the closest, and they told each other everything.

Hayoung’s cheeks flushed under her unnies’s stares. There was nothing going on, but her crush was obvious to her older friends. And, being the youngest, she knew she was about to go under a lot of teasing.

“It is true that Bomi and I are leaving earlier while you’ll be leaving on the next day.” Chorong tried to move the focus of the conversation back to her to help the maknae. “We asked for some time alone, if that’s alright with you. I just feel this need to be with her, you know?”

Namjoo lifted an eyebrow mockingly and laughed while the other girls smiled.

“Of course, unnie.” It was Naeun who spoke.

“You should’ve told us, Chorong-unnie,” Namjoo added while Hayoung nodded in agreement.

Chorong blushed under her friends’ gaze. She did not feel like she was the oldest one there. Sometimes even Hayoung, the maknae, seemed more mature.

“It’s just that we haven’t had much time lately to be on our own,” she explained.

“We don’t really need more details,” Hayoung rushed an answer. She wasn’t asking the leader to talk about her private relationship, not if she didn’t want to. Bomi was more open; she’ll ask her other unnie if she was curious.

Chorong shrugged and blushed even more. Those girls... they acted like high school gossipers sometimes.

~

“How are you feeling?” Eunji was back with Bomi, and she gave the older girl a concerned look when she saw how pale she was.

“It’s okay,” Bomi answered. “It was just a momentary dizziness. I’m better now. I just need some water and to sit down.”

Eunji nodded, still worried.

“Let’s go,” she said. 

The two girls got into the practice room just when Chorong was all flushed and the other girls kept laughing at her leader. As soon as the older girl saw Bomi, she stood up.

“Are you okay?” She asked. “You look pale.”

Bomi tried to play it down, smiling and giving her girlfriend a bottle of water while grabbing one for herself.

“I’m fine,” she said. The two girls sat down against the mirror.

“We were just talking about how our unnies are leaving a day before us to spend some time on their own,” Naeun told Eunji the news, and the latter shared a complicity look with Bomi.

“Oh, really?” Eunji tried to sound surprised.

Chorong hid her face on Bomi’s shoulder, and muttered something to her.

“They just like to tease you, unnie,” Bomi laughed.

They soon felt better and started practicing again. Bomi couldn’t stop seeing the worried glances Eunji was throwing at her, and she kept smiling reassuringly. She truly felt better, and she tried to show that, even though she didn’t believe it much herself.

Their manager came to check on them a while later, followed by the president. Since it was the last day before their holidays, they had to show their progress so the company could be sure that the girls could manage two weeks off their schedules.

The CEO kept nodding in approval, so the girls felt really happy by the time they left. As soon as they were dismissed, they picked their stuff up to go back to the dorms and shower.

“You know, I think it’s time for us to start packing,” Chorong said, under her friends’ happy expressions.