Perhaps closing your eyes--tight shut with your hands over your eyes--and wishing hard enough--with all of your head and heart, Kyungwon-ah - wouldn't work this time around. Much like it hadn't worked that time when she was woken up in the middle of the night, sleep threatening to pull her back to bed and eyelids sruggling to keep themselves open, and was told by the old, tired, graying man that she called 'father' that she had not made it past the night like she had been wishing every night before she put herself to bed.

Perhaps then she should have finally had the smallest ounce of courage to kill, slaughter all of those hopes that she had buried far away in the corner of her conscience under the harsh reminders and truths that her brother always spoke outloud defiantly with the reddened mark sported proudly on his cheek. Perhaps then she should have realised that not everything you wanted from the world, you would get. Not even the slightest of mercy to let her mother live another day to give her the chance to change her last words, or to change the last image of her into a smiling one, or to finally get to tell her 'thank you' and...

Yes, she should have realised then. That--wishing upon a star would get you all your heart desired--would never work. After all, the response she always recieved was silence. And silence is what swallowed her up and she eventually grew affectionate to it, falling in love with the way how it would allow her to not answer a question but answer it all the same.

"Kyungwon unnie?"

Yet here she was again, with her hands clasped together tightly over her eyes that screwed shut because it hurt to look, and putting what was left of her worn mind and erroded heart into wishing, wishing and wishing that she would get her way. And faintly peering from the washed up memories came a voice: that's it, Kyung-ah, you're doing great.

In the darkness that she consentedly had decided to drown herself in, she felt the soft pads of slim fingers firmly press against the brim of her hands and insistingly tug them down, allowing the light to hit her eyelids and cause the light to be a bothersome color and stinging the back of her eye.

"Kyungwon unnie," She heard the light laughter in the voice trying to mask the concern that was really there. "what are you doing here? You're meant to be in the practice room, we have a performance evaluation comming up..."

Kyungwon's muscles tightened as she strained to fix themselves into a tight-lipped smile, feeling awfully sadistic when her gaze found those of her donsaeng. She knew exactly what she looked like. And it was no wonder that the warm, brown eyes of the younger girl soon became full of tears as pity overrode her entire body, entirely too obvious in the way her shoulders slacked in shock and her jaw secured.

"Unnie." The girl gingerly inched towards her, then boldly engulfing as much of her body as she could with her smaller one. "Why are you like this, unnie?"

All Kyungwon could do was sigh as much of the toxic air that was beginning to tear up her lungs and therefore bring on an onslaught of fresh tears that fell the same way she had answered. In silence.

"Where were the two of you?" The tall girl standing at the front of an incomplete formation turned from the mirror that had tattle-taled on them and snapped with an authoritive tone that was estranged from her usual way of speaking.

"Sorry, Nayoung-unnie, unnie wasn't feeling well when she went to the bathroom so I took care of her like the great donsaeng that I am." Eunwoo grinned at the intimidating girl that was making her way over to them, seemingly calming down from her previous state and instead being replaced with concern as she looked at the uncharacteristically quiet girl.

Kyungwon smiled instantly, although being more obvious than she had liked, and wrapped her arms around the older girl, affectionately snuggling up to her. "I'm sorry unnie, I'll make up for it and stay behind to practice more."

There was a pause as Kyungwon avoided Eunwoo's curious gaze and patiently waited for the answer. "Okay, you'll have to catch up with everyone else," Nayoung hugged the girl back briefly before pulling away and giving her a firm stare. "if you're feeling off, come and talk to me, alright?"

Nodding, Kyungwon eagerly found her position amongst the other girls who had taken the brief break as a time to catch their breaths and hydrate themselves with the water bottles that had been previously lined up like the front line of a batallion, simply due to the fact that the young one's liked encouragement, even if it came from inanimate objects. She wasn't stupid, so she knew that the older girl she had been alongside with for a couple of years now had noticed that something was unusual, and that her behaviour was that of something she had never seen before. She briefly scolded herself and focused her attention back to the poppy music blaring from the speakers and sending vibrations because of the powerful base.

Even though she had only been gone for approximately thirty minutes, as Eunwoo had informed her, everyone else had evidently already gotten further ahead of her, causing her competitive side to take over as she added more strength into her movements. She would not let a simple breakdown to put her or her team behind, and she would do everything in her power and time to become better for them.

As Nayoung finally gave the cue to start to pack up and leave, girls releaved the tension of their bodies and Kyulkyung moved to her bottle that was almost empty now. "The evaluation is in five days now, so if we want to get a good score and increase our chance of debuting, practice is the way to do it." The oldest in the room reminded what was left of this round's trainees.

The young ones respectfully chorused a reply and scattered around the now half-lit practice room, seeing as night had already snuck up on them and most had school to go to the following day--though really it was only a couple of hours of sleep away.

"Good night, unnie." Kyungwon smiled back at the still energetic girl through the small sips she was trying to ration.

"Study hard, Yewonnie." She called playfully, handing the girl her bag that was among a pile of similar luggage lazily strewn beside her.

After bidding goodnight to Kyla and Sungyeon, the more Korean-articulate girl taking the lead seeing as the other shyly stood behind her, she let a soft scowl appear on her face when she found Eunwoo slowly, tentatively making her way over to her, careful as if not to set her off into another breakdown. The thought made the playful scowl turn into a real, harsher one, deep down feeling hurt by it but quickly discarding all feelings.

Eunwoo pouted, looking down at her. "Yah, why are you making such a scary face?" She whined and nudged her with the tip of her running shoes that she had used to dance. "It's such a turn off."

Normally she would've played along with her, snapping back a clever comment that had already poised itself at the tip of her tongue simply out of habit, but the exhastion that hung off her psychologically and physically impeded it and instead she awkwardly grinned up at her. "Sorry."

An uncomfortable expression played on the younger girl's face as she crouched in front of her, placing her hand on her knee to steady herself when she almost lost balance. "Unnie, I don't know what happened earlier but I know it's not good to keep it inside," she almost scoffed at the platituded sentence that had been overworked so much in the dramas and internet novels that she read, but restrained herself as she reminded herself that this was Eunwoo she was talking too. The girl was literally harmless and one of the sweetest human beings she had ever met, she wouldn't want to hurt her. "please talk to me."

"Eunwoo, it's okay," Kyungwon rubbed the girl's arm, smiling her most comforting smile. "I've been feeling stressed out about the evaluation and I guess I've been lacking confidence lately."

After a long, conflicted stare, the young school girl finally backed off with a not-too-entirely convinced face. "Okay, if that's what you say it is, unnie."

She laughed, genuinely, when she practically heard what Eunwoo was actually trying to say with that, which managed to get a relieved smile from her and a tight hug that felt very awkward due to the position they were in. When she left, she realised that the only other prescence in the room was a the tallest girl among them leaning over to fix something with her bag.

Kyungwon knew who Minkyung was and even had had several conversations with her, mostly because they were the same age and that dillusional Siyeon had thought they would make such a 'visual couple'. However, their talks never went further than the common small talk about how the weather was acting up lately or how they needed to wear masks because of the fine dust that kept getting worse, so in reality she knew very little about the other. She knew that Yebin, the small girl that was striving to be a rapper, had taken a particular liking to this unnie, and so had everyone else in the team. In the practice room, she seemed to be a very calm, well kept-together person and to be honest, intimidating at times. It's a shame it was this way between them, because she was curious as to why everyone was so hung up on her.

"Not going home?" Minkyung glanced at her through the strand of hair that had escaped the now messy ponytail, grabbing a new bottle of a blue energy drink and easily opening it with her slightly sharp nails.

Kyungwon hesitated, only because the sudden attention had surprised her and caught her off guard. "No," she pushed herself up, using the wall as support to help her body that was beginning to feel sore. "I need to make up for what I missed."

There was silence between the two as she moved in front of the mirror. The back of the room was darkened by the lack of light, the only source being the row of lights in front of the mirror that cast an ambience similar to the one from the stage. She scanned over the way her eyes were slightly red from the lack of sleep, also shown by the bags and shadows that was practically her body calling out for more rest, and the way her eyebrows were hidden by the fringe matted with sweat to her forehead. "Good, we can practice together."

Briefly glancing at the taller girl, she scanned the way she intentionally refused to meet her gaze and instead focused steadily on the reflection in front of her.

"Tch." She let out, smiling gently at the girl beside her in the mirror.

Looking slightly startled, Minkyung frowned at her with judgemental eyes that met her playful ones, and she soon dissolved into a smile that used her eyes, hiding the way the warm, chocolate brown color twinkled with the dim lights still left on in the room. They continued to practice in silence, the music playing on Minkyung's phone that lay between them as they didn't want to disturb anyone still left in the building with the same song that had already played over and over for hours previously. Kyungwon let her gaze glance over to the figure beside her and she observed the sharp, precise movements that had been well thought out with just the right amount of strength or lightness in them, and the way the girl's eyebrows were scrunched together in concentration and fatigue, how her eyes were trained soley on herself to see where she could improve, how would part to let out huffs of breath and then her teeth would bite on her lower lip as if dancing was causing her pain.

There was a particular moment in the song where the coreography meant that they would have to get on the floor, so when they both fell to their knees in total syncronisation Kyungwon couldn't help but get a sense of overwhelming pride as she realised she had chosen the right path in her life. Her hair was shorter than the other dancer's, but she still ran her hand through it and swept it to the side like it was recquired, tilting her head back and turning it only to then glance once more at the girl.

Their gazes met through the mirror, and there was a small tug at the corner of Minkyung's lip that attractively made her rosy cheeks rise before her expression changed in the span of less than a second and was back to focused.

After that moment, Kyungwon stayed on the floor simply staring at how Minkyung carried out the coreography even though they had already revised it fully more than six times. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that she had finished all of her water or the fact that Nayoung and Kyulkyung had been devils and created such an errotic dance, but her tongue felt dry and uncomfortable in as she ran it along her chapped lips and bit it when her gaze met Minkyung's directly as she made a turn.

She was sure that her style of dance had changed from when they began. Minkyung wore a small but playful smirk on her face as her eyes seductively moved across the mirror, teasingly making its way over to where she sat before tearing away and adding more impact to the next move that involved rotating her hips. Kyungwon wasn't stupid, for sure, but she was doubting herself now as she tried to decide if the other was flirting with her or not.

The song came to an end and Minkyung finally collapsed beside her, ignoring how the song played replayed from the beginning again.

Kyungwon leaned back on her arms as she avoided the gaze of the cat eyed girl, once again her lips after feeling them dry uncomfortably. The two remained where they were, attempting to labor their breathing and both thinking very different things. The silence was comforting, as always, for Kyungwon as she let her thoughts drift away.