"Disbanding?" Lee Hanae frowned at her screen, where a Naver article still sat open in the browser. "That can't be right. BaBi is at their peak right now, it makes no sense for them to disband!"

The twenty-three year old was a recent university graduate as well as the current president of the BaBi official fanclub. And she would be damned if her girls split up under her watch.

She quickly fired off a comment questioning the article and it's validity before switching over to the fansite to post a notice about it. No need to get the younger Darlings worked up over an unfounded rumor after all.

As expected she spent the rest of the afternoon fending off frantic questions from the rest of the fanclub, giving her no time to actually check in with any of her sources before it was too late to do so, and she retired for the night feeling rather frustrated at the general lack of work she'd accomplished.

As she lay in bed, though, she found herself unable to sleep for the questions pounding against the inside of her skull. Eventually she gave up on sleep and decided to try her hand at the old fashioned method of snooping: internet searches.

She powered up her laptop and returned to the original Naver article and started at the sources. There were only two, which already said to her that the information probably wasn't very reliable, especially since she didn't recognize either source as one of the reliable ones.

Nonetheless she follows up with both, having to pull out her Korean-to-English dictionary to check a few words. The fact one of the sources is in English does even more to put her nerves at ease. The European and North American fans very rarely had access to anything worthwhile before the Korean sites, and they certainly never got information concerning her girls before she did.

Three hours later she was well and certain that she'd been worried for nothing. She made another post on the fansite detailing her confidence in her findings and calmed down a few more worried fans before finally returning to bed, making an alert on her phone to remind her to check in with her own contacts in the morning.

The morning was a flurry of checking her messages on the site, preparing for work, and grabbing whatever granola bar happened to be at the front of her cabinet to substitute for breakfast.

She was on the train by the time she had organized her thoughts enough to press one on her speed dial.

"Hello?"

The male voice that answered was blearily and slightly confused, and she couldn't help but grin.

"Bad time? I can call back later if you like."

There was shuffling at the other end, and someone swore, before she finally got a reply.

"No no, now is fine, Kwangsoo would have my head if he knew I was still talking to you after last time. What's up?"

She knew that would be his answer, but she always offered the option regardless. It was more habit than anything at this point. "Naver posted an article saying BaBi would be disbanding this year. I just need confirmation that it's a load of bull."

There was a worryingly long pause before he responded. "Honestly I don't have an answer for you Hanae. I haven't heard anything concrete that they're leaving, but I also haven't heard any plans past the contract expiration date which suggests there's nothing confirming that they're staying either. I can try to ask around a bit more if you like but that's my take."

It wasn't what she wanted to hear. ". Okay. Okay this is fine. Don't worry about asking around, I've got it."

"Hanae-"

"I'll text you." With that she hung up, heart rate increased and brow furrowed.

That had not gone the way she'd expected. Clearly more digging was in order.

She fired off a text to her boss, pleading sick, and got off the train at the next stop. If her best source didn't know anything for certain, then she'd need to do a lot more than internet searches to get any satisfactory answers.

Ten minutes later she was heading for Gangnam, and the MoonRay Entertainment headquarters.

Hanae really isn't a character until late in the story when she actually becomes president of the BaBi fanclub, aka the Darlings, and even then she's secondary at best. This is more to show how the fans react to the first stirrings of something being amiss. And also to introduce the fanclub name. The Darlings are a little intense, but most fanclubs for big groups are (I actually can't think of one that isn't, so I guess being big means having slightly crazy fans. That's the price I suppose!). For the sake of the timeline this occurs around late March/early April 2018.