The manager hands them books on how to speak Korean and leaves the three alone with their books, their CDs and a ty internet connection. Mina, Momo and Sana look at each other and then, at the books.

“What, excatly, do they expect us to do with those?” Asks a baffled Sana, and Mina picked a book at random, turning her nose at it. “Just… Learn ? No help offered at all?”

They’re on the dorm room Mina and Sana share with Jihyo and Nayeon (Momo is to sleep in the same room as Jeongyeon, and with the girl on the bedroom, she’s not ready to face this almost stranger whose language she doesn’t even share), the other two girls out doing who knows what, and the books are sprawled between them. Sitting on the bed that belongs to Sana, they take almost no space in a room that isn’t theirs, strange and aggressive in a way only an undecorated room could be.

“Guess so.” Momo replied, opening a book and turning the glossy, shining new pages. She eyes the surrounding room, stopping at the door. “Do you think they’d help?”

The  they was clear: the other members of the group they had just formed, Momo entering through what felt like sheer luck. They were virtual strangers, just like the other girls in the show (what a farce), just like the girls in the room right now, but they at least could speak to each other.

“They’d already be here if they wanted to help, wouldn’t they?” Mina said, and the silence that befell the group was telling enough. With a sigh, she gestured to the book pile in front of her. “Let’s… Just get this over with.”

---

The language was hard. They read the books and did the exercises in trembled calligraphy - Sana was better than the other two - in the living room, sprawled over after practice, tired but in need to communicate (with who? Fans? The other girls on the same group? Management? Who?). Sometimes, one of the girls - duos and trios excluding them - would pass by, water bottles in hand, give them a look, and mutter something under their breath. 

Mina and Momo still stumbled in Korean, Momo more than Mina, but Sana was soon furious, teeth gritted and eyes wild. She was the better of the three in the foreign language, and it showed.

“Why - why won’t they just - help?” She says, looking at the door where one of the others had gone to. Mina touched her gently, one hand in the girl’s shoulder, and Momo nodded. “They keep correcting us, but they just…”

A wave, angry - Mina and Momo nodded, understanding clear between them in the silence that followed.

“Don’t sweat it.” Momo said, at the same time Mina spoke up.

“They’re looking down on us.”

Silence fell between them again, and Sana, with a heavy sigh, picked up the books once more.

“Better make them eat their words.” Mina said, a terrifying smile on her face.

---

At night, Momo cries, curled up in the bed she had for herself. Her room is the smallest one - the motive behind why she only had one roommate -, and Momo muffled the sobs with her blanket, scratchy and uncomfortable. It did not do enough to quiet her down, to not make her sniffles echo in the walls closing down around her.

She was tired - of practicing, endlessly, of saying words with the wrong pronunciation and having the singing teachers scold her because of it, tired of dancing until her legs fell out. To sum it up: she wanted to quit, but she couldn’t, right? Because if she left, then Sana and Mina would be alone, and as much as she hated to say it, they were her friends, three people against the world (or, at least, the group they were in).

On the other side of the room (which wasn’t far away), Jeongyeon mutters something angry, and rises from her bed. Momo curls up against herself, trying to make herself smaller, hoping to not be noticed. 

All for naught, though: Jeongyeon stops by the side of her bed, her shadow darker than the half-lit room, and Momo stares at it, eyes wide.

“Move.” She says, in a trembled Japanese, careful, and Momo tries to not cower. Jeongyeon was either glaring at her or looking at her with contempt, and Momo did not know which option was worse. 

She obeys out of fear, making space for the girl - who slid in bed, burying her face in Momo’s back, arms going around her. It was calming, it was warm, and Momo kept crying, silent, unsure if she could trust this near-stranger to not tell anyone on the morning that was to come.

---

A forgotten conversation during a warm night, around 3 in the morning, when two of them couldn't sleep:

“Hey, Mina?” Starts Sana, slowly unraveling the words from her sleep-addled tongue. Mina, wide-awake, turned her head to face the girl. The two slept on each other’s line of sight, a small comfort. “Do you think it’s going to get better?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m just…” The sound of sheets rustling as she sits down, yawning a little. “Do you think it’ll work out? This whole group thing.”

“I don’t know.” Mina sits down as well, hands in her lap, ever the polite lady of high society. “I mean, I like dancing. I like singing. But if we have to be friends with them, and be together for the next five or so years… Maybe we should join AKB48 or something like that.”

Sana turns her nose at that, and Mina laughs, dry. The prospect of just being in the same room as a bunch of erted men who saw them as girlfriends-to-be made her want to dry-heave, claw off her eyes and never open again.

“Yeah, same.” Sana sighs, and then lays down in bed, staring at the ceiling, the paint peeling itself off, like it also did not wish to be in that room. “At least we have each other.”

Mina smiled at her, lays down in bed as well, stretching her hand. She knew she wasn’t able to touch Sana, not as far as she was, but it was worth a try. Sana, looking at her, smiled and did the same.

“At least we have each other.” She echoed, heart drumming too fast on her ribcage, and Mina smiles at her feelings.

---

They learn Korean anyway, no help from outside sources other than themselves needed, the books they had been given threadbare and with pages ripped from erasing and writing and erasing until it was right. Sana, a sponge for languages, learned it best, and stood in between the world and Mina (who could speak, but not as fluently) and Momo (who could speak, but heavily accented, and shyness stops her from saying more). 

The more they learn, the more the trio realized that they did not like their coworkers. Sure, there was fan service, stages, and all that jazz idols had to do, which they did smiling, playing and loud like children. In front of the cameras, they were a group of nine best friends, forever tied together by a strong string of fate.

(when they Made It - fame and success easy and certain with each and every comeback, fans loving their every move and breath and money, finally, coming their way -, if the three cry a little, knowing that now they won’t be so easily let go, will have to deal with these people for the rest of their lives because they’re Famous now, tied by a string of fate nothing could break: it wasn’t a happy occasion to realize this, as many other groups would’ve have. For them, it was the beginning of a lifelong sentence with no foreseeable end in sigh)

When the cameras were turned off and sent away, the other girls tried . Bless them, they tried, but to Sana, Mina and Momo, it was too little too late, the three already deeply entrenched together, eyeing the others with deep resentment and mistrust, whispering in hushed Japanese before politely, ever so politely, turning their offers down in their careful, hard earned Korean.

Jeongyeon could breach the wall they had erected out of their own volition, sometimes, but only with Momo, when the night was deep and dark. They’d share a bed more often than not, and it was okay, Momo guessed. It hurt, it was bad for her, but Jeongyeon’s skin was warm, inviting, and Momo had always a hard time saying to to the (ever softening, ever gentler, like she was something easily breakable) “ move” order Jeongyeon would bark. How could she say no, stop her body from scooting over and letting Jeongyeon bury her face on the nape of Momo’s neck? There was no way she could do that, sleep alone in her own bed again: she’d miss Jeongyeon’s heat, her kisses and quiet love, too much.

But that was alright: she wasn’t alone, not anymore. She had Jeongyeon, and she had Sana and Mina. She wasn’t too alone, nor lonely anymore.