CHAPTER ONE

MAY 1ST, 2021
Shortly after being debriefed by Ryu Kyunghee, it was officially time for the girls to start their hard schedules for the next couple of months. First things first for Girls Zone: moving into their new dorm a couple of blocks away from the company.

The members of Girls Zone had just entered into their new dorm and were assigned their rooms and roommates. The process of the company choosing roommates was loosely picked at the last minute as the members didn't really have much time to get to know each other beforehand. So, the roommates were chosen randomly.

After the long and painful deliberation at the practice room back at SM, the girls officially moved into their dorm, as it would be the first time they would see the dorm.

They were anticipating how the dorm looked, as it was paid in full by SM themselves. The members who had been blindsided by the idol life expected the best. But, of course, the other members knew that it would just be a simple apartment; and it was by SM standards.

Upon entering the dorms, Girls Zone's manager, Jang Seonye informed the members of the room arrangements: Saya, Maya, Bonnie, and Crystal in the first room; Tubtim, Chaerin, and Mirai in the second room; and finally Daon and Miranda in the third room. She then let the girls go see their new bedrooms.

Judging by the personalities of the girls that resided in the first room; it was a little bit chaotic already, even with the language barriers. The four girls already started to unpack and make the room feel more like home for each of the girls.

"I'm hungry." Crystal bluntly sighed, dramatically laying on her bed.

"Me too!" Bonnie chimed in, sitting on Crystal's bed for support. "What foods do we have?"

Saya went into the kitchen to see if they had any food. "None!" Saya called out, coming back into the bedroom. "We should go grocery shopping."

"Yea, let's!" Maya exclaimed, already getting ready for the outing. "Do any of you have money?" The three others collectively said that they didn't. "That's fine. I'll just ask another member."

For the second room, it was much more relaxed than the previous room, and luckily for the three of them, they found some common ground.

Mirai had been trying to pick up one of heavy suitcases to put onto her bed, but was having troubles picking it up due to her dainty stature.

Chaerin noticed the younger one having troubles and decided to help. "_JHere Mirai, let me help you with that!_J"

"_JOh, you can speak Japanese?_J" Mirai guessed, since she had been feeling a little insecure about not speaking Korean as well as the other foreign girls.

Chaerin nodded. "_JYes, I do, I'm not that good enough, but I do try and study hard._J"

"_JThat's cool!_J" Mirai acknowledged. The two exchanged some conversation in Japanese as Tubtim walked into the room. "_JWhat about you? Can you speak Japanese?_J"

Although she was studying some Japanese, it took Tubtim some time to respond to Mirai's question. "_JUh, just a little bit; not that good._J"

"_JHmm. Okay._J" Mirai responded in a dry tone, wanting to drop the conversation off entirely.

Daon grabbed her guitar to bring back to her room, and just as she was at the doorway to the room, she stopped in her tracks. Though the door was open, Daon didn't want to intrude due to the fact that Miranda was on the phone. She couldn't make out majority of the words that Miranda spoke, but did have some concerns with what the younger one was talking about, as it seems to her that Miranda was talking about training and debuting soon.

Miranda was talking to one of her friends back home, at first chatting about life in general before the topic of training and debuting came up. Daon caught the eye of Miranda, waiting in the doorway. "_EHave to go, we'll talk soon._E" Miranda hung up the phone, allowing Daon to come in. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much." Daon entered the room, putting her guitar away in a secure location. "Hey, uh, by any chance, were you talking about training to your friend just now?"

Miranda sat up on her bed, curious as to why Daon was curious. "Yeah, a little bit. Why?"

"I just... I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, including the groups." Daon admitted. "The staff clearly told us to keep this preparation period under wraps, so I just want to make sure you weren't going around telling your friends about Girls Zone."

Miranda crossed her arms, taken aback by Daon's somewhat accusatory words. "Calm down, okay? I was talking about the training prior to today. And it's not like my friends care about this or anything for that matter." Miranda justified herself. "But if it will make you and everyone else sleep through the night, I won't talk about it anymore."

"Alright, thanks." Daon took a sigh of relief. "I really don't want rumors about Girls Zone just before our debut."

"_ELike there weren't any rumors before._E" Miranda sarcastically said under her breath.

Chaerin heard some commotion from the living room, so she and Mirai decided to check to see what's going on. "Where are you guys going?" Chaerin asked.

"We are going grocery shopping since there's nothing here." Maya responded. "Oh, and we really don't have that much money; do you have some that we can use?

"Ooh, I do! Just one second." Mirai exclaimed, running to her room get her wallet. She then came back and handed Maya around 240k won. "Here you go! I don't really care if you pay me back or not."

Maya looked down at her hand with the stack of won Mirai just handed her in shock. "Um, thanks..." She awkwardly thanked the younger girl, since they wouldn't need that much for a quick grocery trip. But it's the thought that counts, right?

"Anyways... text the groupchat if you need anything else!" Saya called out on their way out of the dorm.

Saya, Maya, Bonnie, and Crystal entered a local grocery store around the block from the dorm. It was the first outing since forming the group, and despite the company not revealing anything to the public except for the fact that all members arrived, the four roommates were curious what idol life was like, and this quick trip to the store was the first layer of it. Because of this, the four of them decided to stick together as to not get lost.

With Maya searching for items off the list plus Bonnie and Crystal looking at the different Korean snacks, Saya found two teenage girls suspiciously looking at the group and whispering to one another. On high alert, Saya was preparing for what was about to happen.

Just then, the teenagers approached the four girls, and started to talk. "Hey, by any chance are you guys-"

"Nope, sorry." Saya blankly dictated, ushering her groupmates to hurry up with the shopping.

While on the walk home with a bag full of groceries, Maya started to wonder about Saya's behavior back at the store. "Hey, what was that all about?" Maya asked.

"I would like to be bombarded with the public after we debut." Saya shrugged.

The walk home continued as the roommates talked about their excitement for the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, the people back at the dorms were having their own little moment. "AHH! SOMEBODY KILL IT BEFORE IT KILLS ME!" A voice echoed throughout the dorm. Seonye came running through the place to find Mirai up on the counter of the bathroom, pointing at something.

Addressing the situation, Seonye saw what Mirai had been screaming about but quickly backed out. "Ew, no. I don't do bugs." She said, walking away from the room quickly.

"_EWhat the- Jesus Christ._E" Miranda uttered, coming to see what all the yelling was about. Without hesitation, she grabbed a paper towel and picked up the bug, a daddy long leg, squashing it with the towel and throwing it in the trash.

"...Should we call someone?" Tubtim suggested. Miranda shook her head.

"For a daddy long leg? Nah." Miranda responded, gesturing Mirai to get off the counter so she could wash her hands.

"Anyways," Daon said after all the screaming. "we should prepare for dinner, the girls are going to be back soon."

A few minutes later, the said girls came back to the dorm and the nine girls all started to prepare for dinner; whether it was preparing the ingredients, cooking, cleaning, or even taste testing, all of the girls had some part in the dinner process.

After setting up the living room table as their dinner table was still being shipped to the dorm, the girls started to eat without a word to one another since they were still in the awkward phase of their relationships.

Chaerin, Bonnie, and Crystal were the ones who tried to make some conversation with the others and to test the waters but it was no use.

This left the nine girls of Girls Zone wondering how long this awkward atmosphere would last, or if it would be like this for the next three years.

MAY 7TH, 2021
With the past couple of days being vocal and dance practices, it was finally time for the girls to record their two songs for their debut extended play "Fun Zone": their title track 'FUN!' and another song, '22 Century Girl' as well as a track that just got added last minute, 'Unnie'.

Just before the girls started to train at SM, Riel went to the producers to approve of a song called 'Dream of You', a simple jealous love pop/R&B song. This routine is something she had done in the past but never got approved. Since then, she didn't hear back from them.

It was only recently that Riel was notified that the song she submitted got approved, finally, but not without major changes. For one, the genre of the song was changed to more pop and upbeat music, and many alterations to the lyrics to have it seem more like a friend rather than a lover.

And even though it was majorly changed from the original version, Riel was still somewhat grateful that her efforts were finally being seen by the company she had been with for a little under a decade of her life.

The girls entered the recording studio early in the morning as it was mostly likely to take half of the day to record. For the first half hour or so, the members learned the basics of the studio by a well known Korean-Japanese producer, Nozoa.

Problems did not start to arise seriously until the recording of 'FUN!', in which nearly everyone was starting to show their true colors. Thus, creating a domino effect for the next couple of months.

"Okay, let's try this one more time, Mia." Nozoa sighed, leaning back into her chair. For the past ten minutes or so, Nozoa has been guiding Mia to rap for the song. However, Mia wasn't quite getting it as she was still in the process of learning Korean.

"Okay..." Mia cleared and tried the verse for the nth time. 'In my imaginati-'

"No, no, no! You're just not getting it right. It's not a tongue twister, it's a rap verse." Nozoa snapped, immediately cutting Mia off in the middle of the verse. "You know what? Let's take a break for now, Mia. Chaerin, let's go, you're up next." Mia awkwardly went back to her seat. "Alright, Chaerin. Actually let's see if you can do that rap verse instead." Nozoa suggested much to both Chaerin and Mia's surprise.

The producer then proceeded to ask this with the rest of the girls up until Angel's turn in the booth. 'In my imagination I'm Ariana Grande, But someone might say "What's wrong with her?"'

Nozoa smiled at Angel's try at the verse. "Perfect! Let's change Mia's part to yours!" Nozoa exclaimed to Angel, leaving Mia confused about what just happened.

A couple hours later, the girls were finally done recording both songs and left the studio; all but one.

Mia couldn't stand the thought of having one of her parts taken away from her, and wanted to do anything in her power to get back her verse from Angel. Mia had put in so much time and effort into being an idol, even if it was for a little over a month to not get her chance to shine. After all, she had been humiliated by Nozoa in front of her members, and she couldn't bare the thought of being humiliated by her parents or worse: literally anyone else.

Mia waited for the right time to think of a speech to give to Nozoa. "_JHey, Ms. Nozoa? Would you mind if we could try to re-record th-_J"

"_JThe verse that was originally for you but I gave to Angel instead? Yes, I do mind._J" Nozoa interrupted Mia coldly, going through her papers as she was getting ready to leave. "_JYou're not the first person to ask if you can re-record a verse that was already given to someone else. I've worked with all sorts of idols who thought that they had an unfair distribution. And almost always, I've said no. Do you know why? Cause they're just not ready; you are not ready._J" The producer turned around to face Mia.

"Mirai!" A voice called out from the hallway, followed by a knock on the door, allowing Mia to not be able to defend herself. The door opened to reveal Suryang. "Mirai? Are you in- oh, sorry." Suryang said, but only before she realized that she was interrupting something.

The two in the room looked at Suryang. "Oh, it's okay! We were just talking. Mia, we'll talk later, alright?" Nozoa settled with a smile and left the room. Shortly after, Suryang and Mia did too, walking awkwardly through the hallway to catch up with the rest of the girls.

"...Are you all right, Mia?" Suryang asked after a few moments of silence to break the ice. Mia strategically said nothing, not wanting to be bombarded with fake sympathy from her members. All Mia wanted to do is lay down comfortably in her bed and sleep, but she knew that she wasn't going to be able to do that for hours.

Thankfully, the two met with the other girls to go to their next schedules. "Hey, where did you go?" Bonnie asked curiously, linking arms with Mia as they walked together.

"Nowhere." Mia simply acknowledged. "Just talked to the producer about something." Bonnie hummed in response as they reached the company car to go to a quick photoshoot and interview.

As soon as they all sat in their seats and the car started, one by one the members of Girls Zone went off to sleep for a quick nap before their first photoshoot and interview as a group.

"Remember, girls," Seonye started to advise them from the passenger seat about the upcoming schedules. "be sure to- oh, never mind, I guess." The manager mumbled after realizing that the nine girls had fallen asleep peacefully.

JAC SAYS Oh my god I ZOOMED through this?! I honestly didn't think I had much motivation for Girls Zone until this month, so here is the first chapter! Not gonna lie I feel as though the chapter is a little shorter than I would like it to be, but I couldn't really write anymore, so I hope the length is all right.
Also, I decided to ditch the color coded languages because it still seemed a bit off to me, so I just indicated the different languages with a smaller font, the language key on the noticeboard has been changed so you could know what language is being spoken.
One last thing, I was thinking of ways for you guys to help with the Girls Zone universe a little bit? And by "help" I mean with things that would usually go on the miscellaneous story: VLives, lives, interviews, articles, maybe even variety shows? I thought of this just in case one of you also has some inspiration/motivation/time to write some Girls Zone content, though I highly doubt it, but I'm just putting it out there that it exists!
With all that being said, thank you so much for your support and patience with Girls Zone!