Xiening keeps a diary. It’s part of her Korean homework, to write an entry every day to practice her writing skills. She understands the necessity of it and diligently keeps up with at least an entry per day, even when they barely have time to sleep or eat.

Her writing looks childish and block-like, a result of the multiple practice worksheets she had done, copying out endless vowels and consonants before finally building them into words. It reminds her of elementary school back in Shenzhen, practicing her writing and arithmetic – here, she suppresses a smile, remembering learning jiu jiu jue, the word she would forever remember as Gugudan now, no matter what language she was speaking.

“What are you writing about today, Jelly?” Sejeong asks.

“Is it me?” Bora calls from across the room. “You’re writing about me, right?”

Mimi snorts. “You wish.”

Bora pouts and says something to Mimi that Xiening doesn’t fully understand. She can pretty much imagine though.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Xiening says truthfully.

“You could write about food,” Sejeong suggests. “I can think of a lot of topics related to that.”

“I wrote about food the other day.” Xiening flips through her diary. “On—Tuesday. About dakdoritang.”

Haebin had made them some; it was delicious, but a lot spicier than Xiening expected. She had to drink two cups of water, and Sejeong kept talking about how cute her red face looked.

“That was really good,” Mina says. “Can we ask Haebin unnie to make it again?”

“You should ask her, maknae,” Mimi says. “Just flash your dimples – she won’t be able to resist.”

“Is that what you do?” Bora asks, amused.

“You know it,” Mimi says, striking the pose from her music video. It makes them all laugh.

“When are you going to cook for us, Jelly?” Sejeong asks. “You said you’d make mapo tofu. I’m still waiting for it.”

“I couldn’t find doubanjiang at the grocery store,” Xiening says. “It’s a, a—” Her brain fizzes momentarily, unable to conjure up the right word. “It’s something I need.”

“Necessary?” Bora supplies, at the same time Sejeong suggests, “Crucial?”

“What’s doubanjiang?” is Mina’s question.

The front door opens – the other four returning. Nayoung almost trips over a stray pair of sneakers and has to clutch onto Sojin so she doesn’t fall over. Haebin almost walks into them, and Hyeyeon has to tug her back by the back of her shirt so they don’t all end up as a fallen pile.

None of the other five even blink at the scene.

Xiening doesn’t really want to explain doubanjiang, so she searches it up on her phone and shows Mina, who says, “Oh, it’s kind of like doenjang and gochujang had a child.”

“Who and who had a child?” Nayoung asks. “Anyone we know?”

“Bora and I,” Mimi says, throwing an arm around Bora.

Nayoung looks at Bora with an expression of utter betrayal. “How could you cheat on me?”

Bora just sighs and looks at the ceiling like she’s asking what did I do to deserve this? Xiening sees this expression quite a lot.

“Unnie, can you make dakdoritang again?” Mina asks Haebin with her puppy dog eyes out. Not that she really needs them – she’s cute enough that they all call her maknae, even Hyeyeon at times.

“That was delicious!” Hyeyeon says, and then Haebin has two maknaes looking at her with pleading expressions.

“Are you working on your diary?” Sojin asks quietly, having made her way to Xiening’s side among all their members’ shenanigans.

Sojin has a strand of hair hanging over her nose, and Xiening reaches up to brush it away. “Yeah, and the unnies and Mina were helping me come up with ideas but somehow it turned into—this.” She waves a little, gesturing at the scene around them.

Sojin smiles a little. “It always turns into this eventually.”

It’s not Xiening’s lacking Korean that’s preventing her from describing ‘this.’ When her parents call they always ask about how the members are, if she’s getting along with them, if they’re including her in everything, as if they’re worried she’s an outsider. Xiening understands their worry; she had the same one at the beginning. It was far from easy moving to a new country with a new language, new faces, even a new name. It was far from easy being the only foreigner in Jellyfish, trying to keep up with dancing and singing and Korean lessons, while watching girls prettier than her, thinner than her, better than her leave one by one. Being a trainee isn’t about multiplication; it’s about subtraction.

However, things are different now. She’s Xiening, Sally, Jelly, Xiong Wa Wa, she’s part of Gugudan’s dance line and maknae line, she’s surrounded by eight other girls who she can no longer imagine life without. She’s far from alone.

“Xiening?” Sojin’s voice breaks her out of her thoughts. Sojin had insisted on learning the proper pronunciation of her name when they met, and although she struggled with the x sound a lot, she says it perfectly now.

“I know what I’m going to write.”

Sojin smiles, the soft smile that the cameras can never quite capture. The one that Xiening had written about in her diary, not the homework one but her personal one, in fumbling Korean and then finally in Chinese when she couldn’t manage the words. Sojin, Soyee, Zhaozhen.

“What are you going to write about?”

“The story of us,” Xiening says, and although she doesn’t even know exactly what that means, Sojin looks at her like she does. Like they’re writing it together.

A/N: I don't really know how this turned into a feelsfest hahhaa. I was thinking of writing Hana/Sally or Hana/Mimi but then Xiening's POV just took a life of its own. Which is a okay with me.

Jiu jiu jue is the Chinese name for Gugudan. Xiong wa wa (little bear) is Sally's nickname, as well as Jelly, because according to the members she looks like a bear and Sally sounds like Jelly. (Does that mean she should be Jellyfish's mascot?) Nayoung is really clumsy and trips a lot, according to the members. They voted for her as the member most different on- and offstage and gave that as a reason.