Yerin was going to debut. She was finally going to debut and then everything just falls apart right before her eyes. Next thing she knows, she’s thrown into a survival show with fifteen other girls to fight for a spot she should already have in a group that she should already be in, and Yerin can’t help but hate it- hate JYP for this, hate Lena and Cecilia for abandoning her, abandoning the group, and above all else, she just hates this entire mess she’s forced to go through. Again. But she will debut- even if it’s the last thing she does. Yerin will debut because she deserves at least that much.

.

    After the first evaluation- or whatever JYP likes to call it- Yerin is moved from her original spot in the Majors to the Minors and it’s a huge blow to her confidence. “You can sing,” JYP compliments. “And you can dance but you’re lacking that… star quality,” he reasons, almost apologetically but it’s not enough for Yerin to hate him any less. He directs her towards the Minors and Yerin gives a polite strained smile only because she can’t cry- at least, not like this, not in front of the cameras. Later, after filming has ended, Yerin buries herself under the covers and makes sure no one can hear her.

.

    “Do you think we can make it?”

    Momo laughs and turns to Yerin who’s seated against the mirror in the dance practice room. “Don’t you think it’s a little too early to be doubting yourself already?” Momo had also been pushed down into the Minors- by a 12 year old no less, which Yerin thinks is more embarrassing than losing to Jihyo but she decides to keep that to herself unless she wants to listen to Momo whine about it all night. Again.

    “I’m not doubting myself,” Yerin replies defensively. “I know I’m good. It’s just that-” Yerin cuts off and bites her lip. “PD-nim wants more than good and I have no idea what that means but what if I’m not able to give him that?”

    Momo crouches down in front of her, and it’s one of the only times Yerin has ever seen her look so serious outside of practice. “It doesn’t matter what he wants,” she says with a fierceness that burns in Yerin’s chest. “He’ll take what you give him because you’re the best he has and you will debut.”

    In her demotion to the Minors, JYP had mentioned that Yerin didn’t have a certain “star quality” and Yerin hadn’t known what that meant, but now, looking into Momo’s bright eyes, she thinks she understands. But Momo is more than that, Yerin thinks, less star quality and more like made out of the stars themselves. She shines with an intensity that demands attention, with a brightness that makes Yerin want to follow her to the ends of the world, and Yerin doesn’t have to wonder because she knows: Momo will debut. And hopefully, Yerin will get to debut with her.

    “Promise?”

    “Promise.”

.

    She survives- at least the first round of eliminations. Another girl is eliminated and Yerin hates herself for feeling relieved when the girl’s baby sister starts crying into another contestant’s embrace. But Yerin has worked too hard for too long to not debut. She needs to debut, even if it’s at the expense of other. She deserves it, Yerin repeatedly tells herself as she watches the eliminated contestant leave the stage, she deserves to debut. She’s just another contestant, Yerin consoles herself, watching as the contestant’s back grows smaller and smaller. (She’s just a kid, replies a small part of Yerin’s mind. They all are.)

.

    Back in Yerin’s first year in junior high, there was a two week unit on astronomy that lasted longer than two weeks- more due to her teacher’s personal interest than a change in the curriculum, but Yerin had liked it. And in that two week unit that lasted longer than two weeks, her teacher had taught about the death of stars, and now, as Yerin stands there watching as Momo dims more and more as criticisms are piled on her, she thinks this is what a dying star looks like.

    How dare they, Yerin thinks as she watches as the judges criticize Momo’s dancing and her lack of emotions. What right do they have to criticize her- criticize them- when all they do is sit behind a desk and judge while she’s the one who’s practicing until sunrise. Yerin stares at Momo and waits for her to collapse on herself and explode into a supernova of anger, to provide a release for the contempt clawing its way up Yerin’s throat. But she doesn’t. Momo stands tall, shoulders square, eyes calm, and quietly thanks them before walking off. In some ways, this is better. And in some ways, it’s worse.

.

    The filming is over. Another contestant is eliminated, Yerin moves back up into the Majors, and Momo- Momo is dying a star’s death.

.

    “Do you think you’ll debut?” It feels like deja vu- with Momo practicing and Yerin pressed up against the mirror, watching her.

Momo stops and had it been two weeks ago, she would’ve answered the question confidently and unhesitatingly but this time- there’s a long pause. Yerin watches as Momo’s jaw clench and her muscles tense before she answers. “Yes.”

“Can you promise me that?”

There’s no hesitance before Momo’s answers this. “Yes.” Yerin believes her.

.

Momo's name is called and it feels like the floor was ripped out from underneath her. It's like Yerin had entered an alternate dimension because there is no way that Momo- bright, talented Momo who's equal parts softness and steel- can be eliminated. It has to be a dream.

Yerin watches as the other contestants pool around Momo, all gripping hands and teary eyes, but she can't get herself to move. She stays rooted in her spot on the other side of the stage. Out of the corner of her eyes, she can see JYP trying to say something but she can't hear it above the sound of her blood rushing and the ringing in her ears. It's not until she sees Momo gasp out a sob that Yerin's daze is broken.

"Unni," Yerin croaks out. She rushes over and squeezes in between some of the other contestants, hands outstretched and grasping at the thin material of Momo's shirt. She pulls Momo away from the other girls and closer to her, and feels as Momo gently tucks Yerin's face into the crook between her neck and shoulder. "Unni," Yerin utters again into Momo's skin, the older girl's shirt bunched up tightly in Yerin's hands. The ringing in her ear has quickly progressed to a piercing screech, like really bad feedback that just won't stop, and Yerin desperately hopes she wakes up from this dream soon because she doesn't like it.

"Yerin," Momo mumbles, lips brushing against the younger girl's temple. "Yerin," she says again and the way her voice cracks makes Yerin try to pull her in even closer. "I'm sorry I can't debut with you." And in that moment, Yerin realizes that it's not a dream.

.

    On the ride back to the Majors dorm, Yerin hides herself in Sana’s embrace. “I hate this show,” Yerin mumbles into the older girl’s shoulder. Sana’s grip on her tightens before she softens with a tired sigh.

    “I know,” Sana replies somberly and the gap between the bright unni Yerin sees on camera and the exhausted girl who exists behind the scenes jars her, and Yerin is reminded that she’s not the only one who’s lost a friend tonight, not the only one who has suffered because of this show. She’s not the only one who’s been beaten down by all of this unnecessary emotional trauma, and that makes her hate everything even more.

    “She should’ve made it,” Yerin says bitterly.

    Sana looks out the window of the van and watches as the streetlights streak past them. “That’s not up to us to decide.” Yerin knows, and she thinks that’s what she hates the most.

.

(It doesn’t take Yerin long before she learns that she doesn’t deserve to debut- at least not anymore than any of the other contestants. How can she deserve to debut more than any of the other girls when they work just as hard as she does, when they’re all just as stressed as she is, when they all hate this as much as she does?

Yerin learns that the right to debut isn’t deserved through how many years she trains or how hard she works. It’s earned through the favor of the public and the company staff by having the right looks or saying the right words or doing the right actions. It takes more than sincerity and hard work, Yerin learns, more than ambition and want. It takes more than Yerin can give, and that scares her.)

.

No one really has time to sulk over Momo’s elimination. JYP had immediately given them a new mission and everyone is scrambling to not become the next person to be eliminated. Yerin hates it.

    At three in the morning, Yerin stands in front of the Minor dorms and huddles deeper into her jacket. Luckily, Momo’s the one who opens the door, and she welcomes Yerin in with a warm smile. There are bags under Momo’s eyes and she’s a bit worn down around the edges, and Yerin wonders how long has it been since she had seen her energetic Momo unni. “Hey,” Momo greets softly, trying to not wake up the other contestants, “What are you doing here?”

    “You’re leaving,” Yerin says and blushes. Way to state the obvious, Yerin scolds herself, but Momo doesn’t mind. At least, Yerin hopes she isn’t wrong when she takes Momo’s quiet laugh for fondness. “I-,” Yerin starts and then cuts off, suddenly shy again. “I wanted to help you pack,” she mumbles out quietly and immediately berates herself. It’s not like her- to beat around the bush like this- but she also can’t bring herself to say what she wants to because that means she’ll have to admit that this is really happening, that this is the end.

    “Then why didn’t you get here sooner?” Momo whines and Yerin breaks out into a laugh purely out of shock because Momo would do something stupid like this to break the sombre atmosphere. “I’m already almost done packing,” she says, showing Yerin her almost fully packed luggage, and Yerin immediately sobers, the sight of it bringing a loneliness that echoes in her chest. She doesn’t think that even Momo’s silly antics can remedy this.

    “That’s okay,” Yerin mumbles out. “I just-” she pauses and toys with the zipper of her jacket. “I just didn’t want the elimination to be the last time I saw you.”

    “Yerin-ah,” Momo smiles softly before gently ruffling the younger girl’s hair, “You’re still going to see me, you know. I’m still going to be around; it’s not like they killed me off.” Yerin lets out this embarrassed laugh because of course, how can she be so silly. But even if Momo says that, even if she knows she’ll see the older girl again, Yerin can’t help but miss her already.

    “Why aren’t you angry?” she blurts out and immediately recoils back into the depths of her jacket.

    Something akin to fire flashes in Momo’s eyes before it dies out, leaving behind only a calm exhaustion. “Of course I am,” Momo admits in a strained tone, trying not to wake up her current roommate (or maybe it’s ex-roommate now, Yerin thinks). “But I have to believe that this isn’t the end for me, that even if I won’t get to debut this time, there’ll still be a next time. And that hopefully, I won’t screw up the next time as well.”

.

    Yerin will probably regret this decision in the morning when she crashes the second she returns to her own dorm, but in this moment, as she’s curled up in Momo’s bed for what’s probably the last time, she can’t bring herself to.

    Momo shifts until they’re face to face under the cover of Momo’s blankets and Yerin holds her breath at the closeness of their faces. “The distance between us may seem like a lot right now,” Momo says. “But I’ll catch up eventually. It may take a little bit longer than expected, but I’ll catch up,” Momo promises and despite the darkness, her eyes glint with nothing but light and determination.

    Even if Momo’s promise seems more fairytale than it is realistic, Yerin still holds her to it because a small part of her, the part of her that’s still young and child, that still hadn’t had to grown up just yet, wants to hope that everything will work out. Because Momo is still the Momo who Yerin grew to look up to, is still the Momo who’s b at the edge with starlight no matter how much that light has been dimmed, and even if there’s a universe universe between them, Yerin wants to believe that the speed of light is fast enough to cross it. Yerin wants to believe that Momo is enough to cross it.

.

    Yerin gets paired up with Sana and Mina for their next mission, and scoffs at the cruel irony of it all. They have all been closer to Momo than they were to each other and with emotions still raw from Momo’s elimination only a few days ago, Yerin can’t help but feel as if there’s a gap in their group. She tries not to think about it.

    The dance isn’t too hard- Yerin has done harder choreographies before but for some reason, she keeps on messing up. Missed steps, wrong timing, stumbling- rookie mistakes that she usually doesn’t make too often, and it frustrates her the more she practices, the more she screws up.

    “-erin, Yerin, Yerin!” Yerin’s concentration breaks and she comes back to reality. The music has stopped playing (she wonders how long has it been off), and Mina is staring at her from across the room with concerned eyes, hesitant to move because they had never been all that close. Sana’s hand moves from Yerin’s shoulder to cup her cheek as she examines the younger girl’s face. “Are you okay?”

    “Yeah,” Yerin breathes out as she steps away from Sana’s concerned looks.

    “You know, it’s okay to be a bit,” Sana pauses and bites her lip before tentatively choosing the right word to use, “off-center.. about Momo being eliminated.” Yerin brushes Sana off and just walks over to grab at her water bottle. “Maybe talking to Momo will hel-”

    Yerin scoffs, suddenly angry. She’s unsure whether it’s at Sana for lecturing her or Momo for being eliminated or just the entire situation for being stupid, but at this point it doesn’t matter. “I don’t need Momo to debut,” she blurts out. And she doesn’t. Yerin had survived without Momo before and she will continue to do so. Whether it’s with or without Momo, Yerin will debut- she’ll make sure of it.

    “I never said that you needed her,” Sana appeases, but there’s a sternness to her voice, and nothing but steel in her eyes. “But you do need to sort out your emotions if you want to debut- if any of us wants to debut. Your mind is somewhere else whether you want it to be or not, and I’m not going to let you drag down the group just because you can’t screw your head on straight.” There’s a tense pause before Yerin nods her head in understanding because even if she hates it, Sana is right, and Sana relaxes at the motion. “Take the day off,” she sighs, running a hand through her hair. “Cool off and come back to practice tomorrow.”

.

    Momo is practicing when Yerin finds her, but immediately stops once she spots the younger girl. “Hey,” Momo greets once she spots Yerin awkwardly standing by the door of the practice room. “What are you doing here?” She pulls the younger girl into a hug and even if Momo is sweaty, Yerin still tucks her face into the crook of Momo’s neck because god, she misses her. “Shouldn’t you be the one practicing and me the one who’s wandering around at night?” Momo teases but it falls flat. “Ah geez,” Momo complains jokingly, “It’s going to be something serious isn’t it?” At Yerin’s hesitant nod, Momo sighs before dragging her out of the practice room. “Come on, let’s go get some food. I can’t talk serious on an empty stomach.”

    They end up on a park bench with some warm snacks Momo had bought from a nearby night market. Yerin likes it, she decides as she looks around the park. It’s quiet and there’s this calm that sits still within the chaos of the city. She only wishes she can take that calm with her.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Yerin mumbles out. “Because you’re still dealing with your elimination and…” Yerin trails off once she sees how Momo’s face had fallen. She said the wrong thing again, didn’t she?

    “I am,” Momo says somberly, looking down at her feet. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have time for you. So? What’s wrong?”

    Yerin doesn’t say anything and just falls sideways into Momo’s unready embrace, head landing on the older girl’s shoulder. Momo smells a little from practice and that’s kind of gross but Yerin misses her despite it barely being a couple of days. She’s so used to seeing Momo everyday, in the practice room, in their dorm but- (Momo’s not going to be there anymore, is she?) She fumbles to grasp at the older girl’s shirt and scoots closer to her at the thought. Momo lets out a soft laugh as if she knows what Yerin is thinking and maybe she does. “I’ll miss you too,” she says affectionately and it makes Yerin feel better and worse at the same time. Momo always had a weird effect on her.

    It’s not until later, when Yerin’s back in her dorm, wrapped up in a blanket that doesn’t feel quite as warm as Momo, that she realizes that even if she debuts, she doesn’t want it to be without Momo. It doesn’t matter, she thinks bitterly. (Yerin lost the right to want a long time ago.)

.

.

    Yerin somehow makes it to the finale. She’s both surprised and not at all at the same time.

.

Even as Yerin is getting ready for the filming of the finale (“The moment of truth,” Nayeon had nervously breathed out as they were leaving their dorm.), she has to resist looking to the makeup chair on her left, as if Momo is going to be right there, ready with an awkwardly worded tease and a quick squeeze of a hug, instead of Chaeyoung. It’s stupid, the more logical part of her criticizes, to think that they were ever going to debut together because Momo’s long gone, her story ended before it could even start, and Yerin’s somehow still here, still holding on. Even as Momo texts her that she just got into the studio, Yerin has a hard time swallowing the emptiness in her chest because the distance between them feels less like just a stage and some cheap LED screens, and more like a universe.

.

    When JYP announced the final lineup, Yerin’s name gets called, sandwiched between Nayeon’s and Jungyeon’s, and her breath hitches at the sound of it. A part of her knew she was going to debut, being the best vocalist among the trainees but JYP was never one to put much weight into considering vocal talent. Yerin only knew how to sing, much in the way that Momo only knew how to dance, and it scared her; she hadn’t wanted to end up like Momo.

    It doesn’t matter anymore because Yerin’s finally going to debut and it’s like a dream come true. (But then she sees Momo in the crowd, waving her arms and shooting thumbs up directly at her with an irresistible grin on her face.) (Somehow, the moment doesn’t feel as satisfying as Yerin had thought it would be.)

.

    But then Momo’s name gets called and it’s a homecoming more than anything. Yerin remains frozen in her place as she watches Momo walk up the steps to the stage with tears streaming down her face, and the emptiness she has been carrying around in her chest bloom into something warmer.

    Momo pulls out from a hug with Sana and Mina, and walks over to Yerin before collapsing into her awaiting arms. The moment feels like home, and whether Yerin knew it or not, it was the moment she has been waiting for. “I made it,” Momo sobs out and the sentiment echoes in Yerin’s own heart.

    Yerin lets out a watery laugh as she presses her forehead against Momo’s. “Of course you did,” she mumbles as she tries to muffle her own crying. Just moments ago, it seemed like there was a universe between them, but Momo has crossed it in a way Yerin hadn’t dared to imagine and now- Yerin tugs her closer and buries her face into Momo’s shoulder. The distance doesn’t seem so vast now.