Excerpt – "Between Noise and Light"
The clock above the mirror blinked 1:47 a.m.
The bass still pulsed through the practice room floor, trembling up my legs until I couldn't tell if the shaking was from the speakers or from me.
We'd been rehearsing the same two counts for nearly an hour.
Outside, the city had fallen asleep. Inside, we were still chasing perfection.
Rosa sat cross-legged by the wall, humming into her phone's recorder, hair plastered to her forehead. Jisu massaged her ankle, pretending it didn't hurt. Jenna paced in front of the mirror, her reflection multiplied—four of her, all impatient, all flawless.
"Again," she said.
Her voice carried that calm command the rest of us had learned not to question.
The music started. We moved.
Bodies remembering even when minds wanted to forget.
When the final beat hit, we froze.
No one spoke for a moment, the silence loud enough to feel.
Then Jisu exhaled a shaky laugh. "If I close my eyes, I can still see the choreography."
Rosa tossed her a towel. "Then don't close them."
We laughed, a small release of air and exhaustion.
Jenna smiled but didn't sit down. "The company wants a live check tomorrow. Full set."
The room groaned in unison.
I met her eyes in the mirror—brown meeting brown through glass.
Something flickered there: fatigue, pride, guilt.
Maybe all of it.
---
Later, when the others drifted out to the dorm, I stayed behind to stretch.
The mirrors were fogged, the floor cool beneath my palms.
For a moment, I imagined the old practice room in Bangkok—paint peeling, fan squeaking, my mother waiting outside with bottled water.
Back then, dancing felt like breathing.
Now it felt like holding my breath.
"Still here?"
I turned. Jenna stood in the doorway, hoodie pulled low, makeup wiped off. Without the lights, she looked younger—softer somehow.
"You left your notebook," she said, holding it out.
I reached for it, but she didn't let go immediately.
Her thumb brushed the edge of the paper where my handwriting had bled from sweat.
"You write a lot," she said.
"It helps me think," I murmured.
"Or remember?"
I hesitated. "Both, maybe."
She nodded slowly, then looked at the mirror, our twin reflections watching us.
"You don't talk much during practice."
"I'm just tired."
"Everyone's tired," she said gently. "You look… somewhere else."
I didn't know what to say to that.
How could I explain that half of me was always stuck between languages, between homes, between the girl I used to be and the image I was becoming?
Jenna finally released the notebook. "Get some sleep, Lina."
When she left, her perfume lingered faintly in the air—something citrus and stage-ready.
I stood there for a while, notebook pressed to my chest, heart uneven.
Somewhere down the hall, laughter erupted; Rosa must have said something ridiculous again.
For a moment, everything felt almost normal.
---
The next morning, the headlines weren't.
A blurry backstage photo—four silhouettes, one turned away.
Fans worry about tension within the group.
I stared at it on my phone, the pixels too small to hold the truth.
"Don't read comments," Jisu warned, sliding me a cup of coffee.
Rosa peeked over her shoulder. "They'll forget by tomorrow."
But I knew they wouldn't. The internet never forgot.
Jenna entered the room last. She didn't say anything, just placed her phone face-down on the table. Her jaw was tight, the way it gets when she's deciding between anger and control.
"Let's just work harder," she said.
Her voice cracked on harder.
No one argued.
---
That night, after the live check, I found her again—alone in the corridor, back against the wall, eyes closed. The stage lights from the empty hall painted gold lines across her face.
"You okay?" I asked.
She opened her eyes but didn't look at me. "I'm fine. Just tired of pretending everything's fine."
There it was—the truth none of us dared say.
The one that hung between us like smoke.
"Jenna—" I began, but she cut me off with a small shake of her head.
"Don't," she whispered. "If we start talking about it, we might not stop."
Her laugh was brittle, but her eyes softened when they met mine.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go home before Rosa eats all the leftovers."
And just like that, the moment folded in on itself—unspoken, fragile, alive.
I followed her down the hall, the echo of our steps keeping time with the song still looping in my head.
**********
Back in the dorm*
Lina – pov
(The email came at dawn.)
Just like that, our lives split into "before" and "after."
I was still half asleep, face pressed into my pillow, when Rosa's scream jolted me upright. "It's real! Lina, it's finally happening!" she shouted, waving her phone like it was a golden ticket.
Jisu appeared in the doorway, a toothbrush in her mouth and disbelief in her eyes. "Already? They didn't even warn us."
Jenna was the last to appear, calm as always, phone in hand, her hair still damp from the shower. "Pack light," she said with a small smile. "We're leaving for rehearsals in two hours."
Two hours. That was how long I had left to feel like a normal twenty-something before the world swallowed me whole again.
---
The Stars Tour was supposed to be our triumph — twelve cities, three continents, sold-out arenas. The fans called it a dream come true. For us, it was more like stepping into a storm with open arms.
Rehearsals started before sunrise and ended long after the moon rose. The mirrored studio walls reflected four exhausted girls and a thousand versions of who we used to be.
Rosa practiced with fire in her eyes, chasing every high note until her throat turned raw.
Jisu smiled through the pain of a twisted ankle.
Jenna... she carried everything. The timing, the tone, the weight of our expectations.
And me? I just tried to keep up.
There were moments when my body felt like it was burning from the inside — but I never said a word. Not when my knees buckled. Not when my heart ached. Not even when Jenna's voice cut through the music during one of our late-night rehearsals.
"Lina, again. You're half a beat off."
Her tone wasn't cruel, but it hit harder than it should have. I nodded and started over, focusing on the rhythm, the steps, anything but the heat rising in my chest.
When the music stopped, she walked toward me, softening. "You're overthinking. Don't chase the beat. Let it chase you."
Her words landed somewhere deep, and for a heartbeat, our eyes met in the mirror. Her reflection looked tired but steady, while mine looked like it was learning how to breathe again.
---
By the time the Stars Tour opened in Osaka, our exhaustion had turned to adrenaline. The screams outside the stadium were louder than thunder. The moment we stepped on stage, I felt my pulse sync with the rhythm — thousands of people shouting our names, the lights cutting through the dark like fire.
For two hours, we were invincible.
Until I missed a step.
It was barely noticeable, a fraction late — but Jenna saw. She always did. Her gaze found me mid-dance, not angry, just sharp enough to pull me back. I caught up instantly, pretending it never happened.
When the show ended, we bowed as the crowd roared, the floor vibrating beneath our feet. I smiled so wide it hurt, waved until my arms trembled. And then, when the lights dimmed, the silence hit like a wave.
Backstage was chaos. Rosa was giddy, filming a live stream with her makeup half melted. Jisu was icing her ankle. Jenna was standing alone by the exit, staring at her phone.
I walked over, bottle of water in hand. "You were amazing out there."
She looked up, a faint smile tugging at her lips. "So were you. That recovery was fast."
I shrugged. "Didn't want to mess up your perfect record."
Jenna laughed quietly, the sound soft and tired. "It's not perfect. Nothing about this is."
She took the water from me, our fingers brushing — a spark, fleeting but real.
For a moment, I wanted to tell her how terrified I'd been out there. How my heart still hadn't slowed down. But she looked so composed, so unreachable, that I swallowed it all.
Instead, I said, "At least the fans were happy."
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "That's the job, right?"
Then she turned away, her silhouette framed by the dim glow of the stage lights.
---
The tour rolled on — Manila, Bangkok, Sydney. Every city blurred into the next. Hotel rooms, airports, cameras, makeup, exhaustion. Sometimes I forgot what country we were in until I saw the language on the signs outside.
I started keeping a notebook again. Not lyrics, not poetry — just pieces of thought.
> "The noise feels alive. Like it knows our names."
"Love and loneliness sound the same when the lights go out."
Rosa teased me for being too dramatic. Jisu said the notes sounded like a song. Jenna never said anything about it, but once, I caught her reading a page when she thought I was asleep.
She didn't tease. She just whispered, "Beautiful," and closed the notebook gently.
---
In Berlin, things started to change.
We'd been performing for months, and the exhaustion was visible now — in the cracks of our smiles, in the way we stopped laughing between takes.
During soundcheck, our manager walked in, pale-faced, holding his phone. "A rumor's going around," he said. "They're saying one of you plans to leave after the tour."
The silence that followed was worse than the shouting that could have replaced it.
Rosa gasped. Jisu frowned. Jenna just stared at the floor.
"It's not true, right?" the manager pressed.
"Of course not," Jenna said finally, voice flat.
But something in her tone made me look up. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
---
That night, the show was electric.
Maybe it was anger, maybe fear, but we gave everything.
By the bridge of "Gravity Bloom," Jenna and I were singing back to back, our voices intertwining like a promise neither of us could make out loud.
When the last note faded, the crowd erupted. The noise was deafening, but in that chaos, I could only hear her breath behind me.
Backstage, Rosa was laughing, Jisu was crying, and Jenna was nowhere to be found.
I found her outside, sitting on the curb behind the stadium, her jacket wrapped tight around her.
"You disappeared," I said softly.
"Just needed air."
Her voice was small. The kind of small that only came from carrying too much.
I sat beside her, knees brushing. Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Then she said, "Do you ever feel like we're running so fast that we forgot what we were chasing?"
I didn't know what to say. So I said the truth. "All the time."
She turned to me, her eyes softer than I'd ever seen them. "You keep us alive out there, Lina. Don't let this place kill you."
My throat tightened. "You're the one holding us together."
She smiled faintly. "Then maybe we're both pretending."
The wind picked up, carrying the faint echo of the crowd still screaming inside. For a second, the world was just us — two exhausted girls sitting beneath a sky full of noise.
And in that moment, something shifted.
Not love, not yet.
But the space where love could live if either of us ever dared to reach for it.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep. The sounds of the city crept through the hotel window — cars, laughter, distant music. I opened my notebook and wrote one line before the ink ran dry:
> "Sometimes the quiet feels louder than the crowd."
I didn't know then that it was the beginning of something that would change everything.
---
End of Chapter Two – "Between Noise and Light"
Guys this is not related to the real character this just a fanfic please learn to separate real life event and fanfic