Prologue: Then

She falls through layers of sleep to the sound of someone hammering on her door.

“Stop hitting me, ow,” Hakaze mumbles, flailing to try to make the noise go away. It gets louder instead; over and over until she has to shove the rug over her head to muffle it, screaming. “Go away!”

“You have to be at makeup in ten minutes!” A voice screams back. “Hakaze Shinomiya, I swear to god if you’re late—”

She screams again. Her head hurts, and her mouth feels like something crawled in it and died. What’s a girl to do, in these circumstances, but scream? She gets a mouthful of rug for her efforts.

“Fine, I’m coming out!”

She rolls over on the floor and hoists herself up on to her bed. It’s way too fucking bright outside: she screams again, but sexily, like a vampire would.

Her manager glares at her when she stumbles out of her room at last. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit. Go wake up Reina, she threw things at me when I tried to wake her up— why are you looking at me like that?”

“Gotta pee,” Hakaze manages, crashing through the dorm to the bathroom. The door’s closed; when she hammers on it, Hina comes out, her eyes bloodshot and her face pale. “Hakaze,” she moans. “I’m so hungover.”

Hakaze pats her on the back before she locks the door behind her.

As she disassociates on the toilet, she hears the rest of the group come to life, like miserable zombies. Hina is crying as she eats whatever hangover cure their manager feeds her; Hiyori is snoring at the dining room table. Reina, their deepest sleeper, is emerging from their room, saying, “Good morning, everyone! Did everyone sleep well?”

“How many times have I told you girls not to go out the night before promotions,” their manager is saying. “Even if you did, you could have taken it easy! What will your fans think if they find out their precious idols are drinking like fish every night?”

“We could start selling tickets for them to drink with us!” Reina laughs. “Come on, Hina, drink this, it’ll make you feel better. Is our fearless leader alive?”

“In here!” Hakaze calls. She laboriously gets up and sticks her toothbrush in her mouth. In the perfect world, the costume people would power-wash her before cramming her into her outfit for the day, but bravely she dunks her head under the shower instead. Five minutes later she’s walking out of the bathroom, shaking herself off like a dog.

The rest of the group turn their eyes to her. She raises her fist weakly. “Let’s do well today!”

They look unimpressed.

“If we do well today, I’ll buy everyone’s drinks.”

They cheer. Even baby Hina, who stops crying and chews the rest of the protein bar in her mouth.

*

By the time they’re out of wardrobe, everyone’s awake. The outfits are cuter today, which accounts for why Hina’s bouncing around the green room taking selfies. Hiyori wanders over to where Hakaze’s doing her vocal warmups, and leans heavily into her shoulder.

“What do we have after this?”

“Photoshoot,” Hakaze hums. “For that fried chicken brand.”

“Hm.”

She goes quiet, and Hakaze does more vocal trills. Hiyori never started conversations out of the blue for no reason, but it always took her a minute to get to the point.

“Reina’s checking her phone a lot,” she finally says.

“Probably social media.”

“More than usual.”

“You think she has a boyfriend?”

Hiyori blinks at her like she’s stupid. Hiyori’s only two months older than Hakaze is, but sometimes it feels like it’s twenty years. “It could be about those rumors.”

“You think so? It’s been months.”

“People on the internet don’t let go of things that easily.”

“I’ve been trying to keep her distracted. The CEO said that would be best. Do you think I should talk to her?”

Hiyori shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. It can’t help if she’s thinking about it all the time.”

“Standby,” their manager calls. “You’re on in five minutes.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hakaze promises Hiyori, as they stand. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Aye aye, leader.” And then she smiles, and they’re both the same age again: twenty years old, with years and years of history shining behind them. “Let’s go kill it so you can buy us infinite soju.”

They change into different outfits for the shoot; to Hakaze’s disappointment, the brief doesn’t include dressing up in chicken onesies.

“Why do they always give me dresses,” Jeonghwa is fussing. “I wanna be cool and wear a suit like Hiyori and Hakaze too.”

“Because you’re too cute for words,” Reina coos, framing her face with her palms. “Do you see a shred of cuteness in those two?”

Obligingly, Hiyori and Hakaze do wrestling poses.

“I guess not,” Hina subsides. “But I could pull it off, right?”

“Of course you could,” Reina says indulgently. “We all can do—ah.”

A noisy cloud of chatter passes the studio, and Reina bows as a group of trainees don’t even pretend they’re not gawking. “Hello there! Hope training’s going well.”

They quake. It’s a group of boys—they’re set to debut soon, if Hakaze remembers the meetings correctly. They’re baby-faced and awed, bowing violently when Reina addresses them. Hakaze bows back, which makes them bow more, which in turn makes Hakaze embarrassed and bow again.

“Stop it,” Hiyori drawls, grabbing Hakaze by her collar. “When you debut, make sure to get more social skills than this one.”

“We will, senior!” the boys chant. Whoa. Youthful vigor was no joke.

“Ah, before you go. These are for you,” Reina says, taking the big bags full of fried chicken they’d been gifted by the company. Hakaze hastens to help. “We know how we used to starve as trainees. Tell your instructors it was a gift from us, they won’t complain then.”

They look positively dazzled as she smiles down at them, like they’re looking at a goddess. Hakaze knows the feeling; Reina, as the oldest trainee, had been the reason Hakaze debuted in one piece instead of crashing like a comet in the first few months of training. She feels fond of these trainees too, out of nowhere: she’d been a sprout like this once, anxious and ambitious and perpetually hungry.

“Hit us up when you debut, we’ll take you out to celebrate,” she winks. “Train hard, all of you.”

“We will,” they chant.

“Now shoo,” their manager says. “Girls, it’s time for your next schedule.”

As the rest of the group files out—makeup reapplied, because there was more paparazzi than usual waiting outside—movement catches Hakaze’s eye.

One of the trainees is scowling at them. Head-on, his eyes as hard as thumbtacks. He’s got the kind of face that would make the whole industry flip out, but his expression—whoa. Did she secretly kick his dog, or something? The frown on his face should technically mar his good looks, but he’s one of God’s favorites where even a pissy expression suits the sharp angles of his face.

There were all kinds of trainees these days, huh.

Hakaze winks and gives him a big thumbs-up. His expression goes slack and confused, before one of the other trainees hurries him away. Hakaze herself feels a nudge on her shoulder.

“Out, out, out!” their manager says. “In the car, now!”

*

“Cheers!”

Their glasses clink together, spilling soju over their takoyaki. Hina shrieks in protest, but then they’re all downing their first glass in one shot.

They’re at their usual spot: a bar owned by the CEO’s family, no risk of being seen or overheard. Hakaze had wheedled out the location when they’d first started getting popular.

“Why can’t you girls be normal and go to cute cafes,” their manager had lamented, but gave them the company card anyway. “If you break something you’re paying for it with your own money, though.”

The industry’s best-kept secret was that popular girl group ECLIPSE drank like fish; a lot of people failed to notice because of their image, but also because despite being in the industry for years, Hina had only reached drinking age last year. Their nights out were explosive, crazy, and ruthlessly self-contained: their manager had an alert on her phone for if they left the building.

Hakaze knocks Reina’s shoulder with hers, and she looks up from her phone and smiles. “Drunk already? Lightweight.”

“Mm, not really,” Hakaze says. “Seeing those trainees was so nostalgic. Remember all the times we snuck out to get fried chicken?”

“You and Hiyori snuck out. I don’t break rules.”

“So perfect,” Hakaze croons. “That’s our goddess, alright. Remember when we fought about who would be leader?”

“You really are in a maudlin mood tonight,” Reina laughs. “Usually you’re daring Hiyori to do ridiculous things when you’re tipsy.”

“What are you talking about, sake always makes me this way,” Hakaze says. Doesn’t say, you looked so far away. Doesn’t say, why are you pulling away from me. “Indulge me, please. Just because I’m not as cute as Hina doesn’t mean you have to be mean to me.”

“Okay, okay. What does my precious Hakaze have to say.”

“What do you think we’ll do after this?”

“Sleep?”

“No, I mean. After the whole idol thing. After we retire.”

For a second, Reina freezes. Headlights from passing cars wash over her beautiful face, the face on ramen packages and billboards alike, the face that made Hakaze tongue-tied the first time they met. Her beautiful, beloved older sister.

In something like fear, Hakaze leans forward to touch her face. Her skin is smooth and cool.

“Dumb question,” she mumbles. From very far away, she can hear Hiyori and Jeonghwa halt their conversation to listen in. Mostly, all she can hear is the ringing in her ears. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course we’re just going to be together forever.”

She hears Hiyori snort.

But more importantly: a smile breaks over Reina’s frozen face, like a sunrise thawing ice. “Of course, Hakaze,” she says. “Forever.”