“Thank you for the 60 years we’ve had together, Chaewon.” Hyejoo gives a bittersweet smirk.

“Thank you, too, Hyejoo.” Chaewon equally smiles back.

Hyejoo takes one last glimpse at the green pill in front of them. Everything is finally hitting her. “For the time we have, let’s have fun together.” She gives one last look at the woman she’s devoutly called her soulmate.

“Let’s have fun, one last time.”

--

The two say their thanks to their caretakers before placing the pill in their mouth and drinking the provided water.

It’s difficult to describe but it’s a surging feeling. Hyejoo feels her blood rush and her muscles tense up. For a second, she’s worried this is all a hoax and that she would not make it.

Her eyes start to blur and her ears ring. She tolerates the pain at first, but when it all becomes too much, everything goes black.

Well, .

That stupid pill didn’t work.

So much for that research. 

The surging doesn't go away. In fact, it pulses multiple times.  It starts in her chest and it moves across all her limbs. Maybe she's being resuscitated. Maybe this was it. 

There's a choking sensation and Hyejoo panics. The newfound energy wasn't reaching to her head and was stuck at .

Was this how everything was going to end?

Grabbing at her neck, she tries to relieve tension somehow. Hyejoo inhales sharply.

Suddenly, everything is clear. 

“You finally woke up!”

Her eyes shoot open. That voice is too familiar. 

Was that… Jiwoo?

Didn’t Jiwoo pass away from—?

The pill.

It worked!

“Come on, sleepyhead! We’ve got an evaluation today! Are you ready?”

Hyejoo slowly rises up, she turns to her left, expecting to see a small blonde.

Gowon.

The princess is sleeping peacefully. Hyejoo hopes she made it.

“You can wake her up. I know she won’t budge if it’s me.” Jiwoo leaves her bed.

Hyejoo finally sits up when Jiwoo leaves. She steps up to the mirror.

Draped over her shoulder is thick black hair. Her cheeks were still full and there wasn’t a wrinkle in sight. She turns around, inspecting her physique.

When was the last time I was this skinny?

She twists around and stretches. 

And flexible?

She turns to her lover's bed. “Park Chaewon!” She shakes the bed.

Gowon lets out a whine. She wakes up much more gracefully than Hyejoo.

They link their eyes. It takes a while for Gowon to register everything. Hyejoo has a fat smirk on her face.

“Come on guys! The sooner we head to the practice rooms, the sooner we can possibly go home!” Haseul’s voice booms through the halls.

“Then barbecue after!” Yeojin’s voice is almost twice as loud as Haseul’s.

The two look at each other in excitement. There’s a beeping sound, causing them to both look down to examine a watch on Hyejoo’s wrist. A timer for 24 hours starts counting down.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d see Hyejoo so awake and excited to go practice.”

They both turn around to see their old yyxy leader. Hyejoo wants to tackle the girl into a hug, especially after knowing the painful end to her story,

“Come on! Let’s go!” Jiwoo shouts.

------------

22:20:20.01

------------

Hyejoo doesn’t necessarily think that the practice room is somewhere she wants to spend her last 24 hours in, but she won’t question it. 

Sooyoung started playing music and instructed the group to warm up. Everyone went into their respective cliques. (Hyejoo doesn’t know what era they were in since everyone was scattered around.) Gowon grabs onto her arms, skipping as they went to a section of the room.

“I don’t remember when was the last time I had this much energy!” She whispers rather loudly.

Yerim and Jinsol sit next to them and chat. Hyejoo and Gowon try their best to fit back into their youthful selves again. Thankfully, they’re just talking about dieting and how practices were going.

Suddenly, the liquid strings of Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” booms through the system.

From across the room, Yeojin makes eye contact with the two. Gowon’s mouth is wide open in excitement. She stands up, causing Yeojin to come towards them.

The two are in the middle of the dance room, rapping to the song. Jiwoo and Yerim join them. Sooyoung and Vivi smile from the sides.

It’s another 15 minutes of just messing around and exploiting all the energy they had. Heejin holds a video camera, most likely filming a Loona Kick.

--

Practice goes on as usual. Hyejoo and Gowon realize that their current memory was taken sometime after Butterfly promotions where they were doing a lot of dance covers and preparing performances.

It takes a while for them to remember the choreographies of all the dances. Sooyoung and Haseul scolded them, but their youthful brains allow them to catch up quickly. Gowon is enthralled by being able to dance with her members again. During breaks, she recalls many future memories they would all share. There's a sour taste with that recollection because in a few comebacks, members would start to drift and their levels of energy would start to recede with more promotions.

A panel of 4 adults walk in the room. Someone sets up a camera. Hyejoo remembers this. It’s another evaluation. She recognizes a choreographer and their CEO. A wave of nervousness rushes over her, but Gowon is quick to grab her hand.

It starts with individual evaluations. Hyejoo and Gowon mentally scrambled to prepare anything. When the time came for them, they managed to fly by with covers they've performed before. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) for them, no one made any comments.

There's are few unit evaluations, which makes Hyejoo panic because she was not prepared to do a single unit performance, but it seems that her, Yerim, and Yeojin were not included in any of them since they were still attending school.

The group evaluation comes and goes. As usually, they perform their prepared pieces about 3 times. 

There are a few comments from the panel, but most of them are positive. For a moment, everyone thinks they passed because the CEO nods in approval and leaves the room, but the dance teacher explains that they're going to upload a cover on YouTube so they have to stay a little longer to get in a few more shots. 

After half an hour of recording, they’re sent home. "Thank you for the hard work," everyone chants before they scurry off to their belongings! Everyone is excited for the rest of their day off.

------------

17:30:01.18

------------

They’re back at the dorms. Deciding to rest before “celebrating”. The leader line manages to conk out while the rest of them congregate around the common room. Vivi and Heejin are in the connected kitchen, putting together some snacks. The kids are fighting whether to play mafia, the penguin ice-breaking game (which was very new to them at that time), or sing karaoke. They knew they were eventually going to do all 3 of them and more, but the girls would always bicker.

Despite being technically more experienced, Hyejoo, Gowon, and Yerim managed to get killed off early in mafia. While waiting for the 5 other members to get eliminated, they played PUBG on their phones. Hyejoo now thinks the game is stupid, considering how in the future, they will be playing a different First-Person Shooter game involving virtual reality (with better mechanics, might I add). Gowon just thinks Hyejoo's being a sore loser because she doesn't have any upgrades, so she offers a kiss on the cheek as consolation.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with Jenga, the Lie Detector game, and more. Jungeun and Sooyoung eventually come out after their power naps to join a few rounds of Just Dance. Even Haseul found energy to play miscellaneous games with them, even if it was just a little.

Hyejoo is starting to feel a little groggy. Even though her energy levels depleted over the years, she was already a rather weak person as a new-ish idol. Five hours of practice and four hours of playing around was draining. She checks her watch to see that there were more than 16 hours left. Is it actually possible to get through the rest of this day?

Gowon giggles from across the room. They were playing the penguin ice-breaker game and Jiwoo was complaining about how it was inevitable for