She had signed a contract with the devil. That was the only truth Becky knew at the moment. She had signed a contract with the devil and she was in the deepest, hottest hell.

Everything had happened so quickly. One moment she was signing the (slightly more humane than expected) contract, the other they were dragging her for vocal and dancing assessment. And then the hell had begun.

“Bootcamp”, that Cheolmin proclaimed. It was a camp alright, just not the kind were you got training. They starved her, they forced her into countless hours of unpaid labor... Bloody hell, they were actually trying to change her singing voice, and when she protested they sent her to her “manager” like she was some delinquent that needed scolding from the principle. She was not. That was so not cool, and she made sure to tell everyone about it.

Apparently, her members found it cute. Adorable, even. Becky didn’t do adorable. She was a fierce warrior on a mission, and she did not appreciate being asked to do the gwiyomi, whatever the that was.

Oh yes, she had members now. She was “lucky enough”, as the CEO lady had told her, to be included in the lineup of their new girl group, scheduled to debut in less that three months. Initially, that was good news - her plan to Make Korea Not was speeding up and Becky was more than happy. Then she was into the world of training, and absolute hell followed. She had to learn how to dance. She had to learn to speak Korean without an accent, and apparently not talk at all unless she had something nice to say during an interview. She had to learn how to sing like an idol, or so they ing told her as they forced her through various technique lessons (or at least they said it was technique. All Becky knew was that they were trying to make her to sing higher and like her vocal chords were made of bubblegum. Gits). And after she was absolutely exhausted and done with life, they took her to her new dorm.

That was an... awkward meeting, to say the least.

Apparently, that girl who did the whale mating calls at the cafeteria was in the group. Kang Chaerin, as it turned out, was a specialist of making animal sounds, as well as dancing and being “the absolute best” - her quote, not Becky’s. Another girl was named Yoonji, their leader. The darkness of her soul contradicted the bright pink of her hair, a dissonance of the  Tsundere that she was. At least she was healthy-looking. Good on her for not looking like an actual stick… Which couldn’t have been said about the third girl, Minjae.

“Bollocks, you’re from UK too!” The older girl said in what must’ve been the most elegant exclaim Becky had ever heard. If people love her accent, they must’ve worshipped this Minjae girl. “Where are you from?”

“Eh… London.” She replied, trying her very best not to rub her head like she always did when she felt awkward. If there was one thing she learned from Biology class (during the little time she actually bothered to listen), it’s that animals used weaknesses against each other. Becky was smarter than to show any weaknesses to the new pack. She had to establish her territory.

“Would you look at that, me too!” Minjae clapped her hands together. “That’s amazing!”

“Um… yes. Yes, it is.”

“Quick, Chaerin-unnie, add Becky to the Kakaotalk chat. We should throw a dinner party to celebrate the new addition to the group! Chaerin, ask Shiha if she’s available today. Come on, Becky, I’ll show you your room.”

All she could do was follow like a lost puppy, hating every single moment of which this Minjae girl bosses her around (even though she felt rather thankful to have another Brit. God knows she would’ve killed herself if she had to hang around with only mindless Koreans for the next five years). The dorm itself wasn’t that bad - she shared a room with Minjae, and the room was quite nice and had enough space to it to have some privacy. Nothing violating the Geneva Protocol, at least.

Boy, was everything so very ing awkward. Minjae, the one who was the closest in age to her, was three years older, and didn’t really like talking about politics (Becky tried asking her about the opinion of the mindless brainwashing the people of Korea were subjected to by the evil corrupt government that only sought money and power. Minjae - or Janey, as was apparently her English name - only rolled her eyes in what was the best ing resting face Becky had ever had the (dis)pleasure of experiencing). Chaerin was either being way to ing cheerful for her own good, or completely lost in her own world with a desperate look on her face that made Becky wonder what was going in her head to cause such drastic mood swings, and Yoonji was weirdly sarcastic and cynical about everything and mostly kept to herself, sipping a questionable liquid from her mug (it looked like coffee but smelled like wine and Becky was very, very confused about it all) and endlessly scribbling in a worn out notebook. Becky was never really one to try and engage in conversations, as most people and didn’t really deserve her attention, but even she felt awkward sitting in the living room and looking at TV without any conversation to fill the air around them.

If any of the other girls seemed to mind, they didn’t comment, so there was nothing Becky could do than endure.

When sleep came to rescue her from the land of awkwardness and nerves, morning came, and with it training hell all over again.

By the first week Becky was tired. By the second, she was exhausted. By the third, she was cursing everyone and everything that had ever made her go through that ing hell. At some point she started imaging an unfamiliar female voice in the wee hours of the morning, talking about promotions and someone that kept grabbing her s. That was when Becky knew that she had lost it.

“Hey…” She began one evening, after the silence had been so awkward she had to do something, anything to make it go away. “So, is there someone else that lives here or something? Because I keep hearing voices at night, and I swear the other bed in my room looks different every time I wake up.”

Yoonji snickered from behind her notebook. “That would be our wonder girl Bae Shiha.”

“She’s the fifth member of our group.” Minjae explained. “We’re sharing a room with her. Why did you think we had three beds?”

“I don’t know, maybe it was a spare or something.” She grumbled in response, ignoring the desire to hug her knees to her chest and roll into a defensive curl. God, why did she even bother starting a conversation? Why did they have to be such twats about it?

“It’s okay, Becky, if I wasn’t there when she moved in, I wouldn’t have known she lived here either.” Chaerin said, eyes momentarily drifting from her phone, fingers stopping vigorously typing for a second. “Honestly, if 365 Fresh wasn’t all over everything, I would’ve forgotten what she looks like.”

Yoonji mumbled something that might’ve been “How could you ever forget” - it was too quiet to tell - before clearing . “Well, at least we know that … what did Cheolmin call it? Our introduction to the entertainment scene is going as planned. Everyone knows 365 Fresh. No one will ever think that we’re named after the song and not the other way around.”

“What? Our group is named after a song?” She asked incredulously.

“Sure is. Cheolmin said it’s a tactic to generate buzz around our debut, but that’s not going to backfire on us at all. Nope.”

“That’s… that’s so… Are they daft?” Becky gaped. “That is the dumbest plan I have ever heard. Who the is going to believe this? It sounds like some bull fanfic.”

“I wouldn’t judge too quickly if I were you.” Minjae said in her usual regalness (holy how did she manage to look like an actual princess!?). “Sure, it might appear stupid, but Yuri has a plan. She always does. No one thought MBX was going to make it, but look at them now, touring all over Asia.”

“Dude, no offense, but you’re not exactly an unbiased party.” Yoonji said. “Yuri is just a woman, she’s not Dumbledore with a 12 year plan on how to conquer the entertainment industry, plus she’s not the only one that’s making the calls. Companies have had worse promotional campaigns. We just drew the short stick.”

“You’re just grumpy that they didn’t ask you to compose our debut songs.” The other Brit waved her off with a careless (but elegant, how was she even real) wave of her manicured hand. “I’m sure they’ll let you do that next time.”

Yoonji’s grumpy face turned into a full-blown scowl. “I had an agreement with EM when I became a trainee. I went through all this training so that I could compose.”

“But you were a trainee at JYP too, unnie, with Namhoon-oppa, right?” Minjae asked. “You want to be an idol, it’s not like you did them a favor. If anything, EM helped you by funding your degree. That’s something you should be very grateful for, I don’t think a lot of companies do that.”

“Partly funding, thank you very much. And you’re ignoring my point.”

“And you’re ignoring mine.”

Becky didn’t try to start a conversation again. She just slept and trained and ate (if what they served in the cafeteria could’ve been even called food) and trained some more, all while feeling her sanity slipping further and further away.

Civil rights were apparently a foreign term to entertainment companies in Korea, no matter how expertly they masked everything with a nice dorm, and a nice company building, and a bloody gorgeous angel that was way too ing beautiful for his own ing good.

How could she had been so utterly stupid!? It was all him. That demonic angel. Kim Seokmin, may he burn in the sweetest of hells. She couldn’t believe she let her hormones control her mind like that. She barely even remembered what was in that contract she signed, and that was really, really not good. Bad ing , even. She basically gave away her mind and soul to the devil (a very polite, educated devil that spoke really well and looked really nice in a suit), and she had no idea how much of it she gave like a mindless monkey. That Seokmin was at fault. If it wasn’t for his handsome… everything, her mind would’ve been in the right place and she would’ve flipped Yuri Lee like she initially wanted.

That being said, the more she thought about, the more she concluded that EM Entertainment was the lesser of two evils, and perhaps even could use it for her grand plan. It was… It was fine. She could use the situation in her favor. The group gave her the perfect opportunity to get all the exposure she needed to make her words reach every corner of this country. The idol culture in Korea was almost as ridiculous as the brainwashing of its citizens, and every teen here looked up to idols. It was bloody weird, but it worked in her favor. Becky knew there was no way in hell for her to convince the older s to listen to her - they were long gone, and their hatred for anything foreign was too much for even Becky to conquer. But the teens… the teens were curious, and the teens weren’t gone. The teens could be saved, and with the teens, so could the country. Becky wasn’t all that impatient. She could wait, she didn’t need results right now… as opposed to her frigging teachers.

God, she hated those little twats so ing much. Them and their stupid ing method for teaching (she could bet they took inspiration from the 1940s), and their “if you’re not improving that just means you’re not working hard enough”. She hated how they tried to change every single part of who she was, and she hated how the other girls (even Janey) took it all for granted. Like it was totally okay for them to reprogram them as people and set them out as the perfect product for the mindless consumers to devour.

When she voiced her opinions again, she was sent again to that of a manager. , she was tired of him already, and they didn’t even properly debut.

By week four Becky was just about done with life, with the company, with the Korean entertainment industry. But Becky saw a purpose, a mission in front of her. And Becky was going to play the nig martyr if it meant she would achieve it and make Korea Not …

… right after she browsed through more gifs of Seokmin eating like the perfect angel that he was.

Bloody hell, she was doomed.

On any other occasion, being summoned to the office of the CEO of EM Entertainment was considered a good thing, at least by Minjae’s standards. She knew that Yuri’s bias for her was as much of a secret around the company as Chaerin and Kiyong’s relationship, and she couldn’t say she wasn’t pleased being the favorite of the boss. Even if Yuri wasn’t a total badass that was a delight to spend time with, Minjae was a fairly practical girl - being the favorite meant getting more offers and opportunities, which is how people got money in this line of job. She was every bit the businesswoman her father was, even if she chose a slightly different career path. Becoming the teacher’s pet was a combination of her natural charm and like for Lee Yuri and hard work and dedication. You reap what you sow, and Minjae had worked tirelessly for two years. She was going to enjoy the sweetness of her fruits.

So yes, on any other occasion, being summoned to the office of Lee Yuri would’ve been no big deal. But Minjae had a sense for trouble, and Minjae knew when something was off. When she was approached by one of the assistant managers of the company and got called to the office of the CEO of EM, she knew that something was off.

She still kept her cool and smiled most charmingly as she sat in the same chair she had spent countless hours on. This was going to be a long day, she just knew it.

“Minjae, do you know why you’re here?” Yuri asked, rolling her eyes when Cheolmin coughed rather dramatically from his usual spot - the very far dark corner of the office. What an actual tsundere. Yoonji would’ve been proud.

Minjae had a pretty good guess about where it was all going, but she was not going to give them the satisfaction. She smiled angelically and settled comfortably in her chair. “Is it because I look especially cute today?”

While Yuri raised the tips of her upper lip ever so slightly, Cheolmin’s eyes narrowed into slits. Tough crowd.

“It has come to my attention that you have been posting, uh, sensitive material on the group’s official instagram.”

“I did put those unicorns there.”

“You did.” Yuri agreed. “But not all people got that. Some people thought it was vulgar and inappropriate.”

“And do these people’s names rhyme with Yeolmin by any chance?”

Yuri fixed her an unimpressed look in return. Tough crowd indeed. “I’m serious, Minjae.”

“Fine, fine.” She crossed her arms on her chest. “I won’t put unicorns on anyone’s s again without asking you first.”

Yuri sighed deeply. “You know it’s not just that. Do you remember what we talked about? Picking our battles?”

She nodded, trying not to show any reaction on her face, bracing for what was to come.

“You’re debuting now, and you need to think about the consequences of  what you’re doing. You need to think about what people will think, because right now what they’re thinking is that this group that hasn't even debuted thinks it can act inappropriately and disrespectful. Now, before you say anything, I know that’s not what you meant, but that’s what netizens think, and frankly right now that might be more important. We can invest as much money, work, and time into 365 as we want, but in the end the consumers are what will determine if you’re successful or not. We have to be mindful of them, all of them.”

“Didn’t you say yourself that we’re here to shake the industry and bring change and all that?” Minjae retorted bitterly.

“I did, but picking battles means setting priorities straight and knowing that changes take time and dedication. We do it slowly, one thing at a time.”

It was a losing battle, Minjae knew, and so instead of arguing she nodded and choked down the wave of betrayal that rocked th