Prologue

=====REALITY #5920851823125=====

=====ENTRY #317151620112111144181415=====

With one hand on the wheel and the other on the knob of the radio, Yujin squinted her eyes and kept her focus on the road. While they were almost at their destination, she knew from the maps she had seen online that this part of the journey was filled with sharp turns. The last thing she wanted was to get into an accident within one week of getting her license—let alone an accident where it was just them. Just the girls.

The radio rippled with noise before settling down on a proper channel.

“—positive bright sunny day today is all I can say! Back to you Mr. Han for more news.”

“Thank you Mr. Lee. Now, let’s move onto the music and K-POP industry. A hot topic in the past few weeks has been the fourth generation girl group—IVE. They recently just had their comeback following numerous strong entries to their discography, but it seems many are dismayed by their lackluster performance on the charts this time around.”

Yujin’s clutch on the wheel tightened as she clenched her teeth.

“Critics and fans alike are stumped as to how they flop—.”

Before she could even react to the cliffhanger, she felt a hand push hers away and turned the radio off. “It’s not good for you, Yujin. You should read the room as well.”

Unable to really fully turn to meet her, Yujin took sideways glances at the girl to her right and sighed, nodding gently. “You’re right … I … I’m sorry. I just … I just wanted to know.”

Gaeul nodded in acknowledgement and placed a hand on her thigh, squeezing it gently to not distract her so much from the road. “Take it easy. Even just for this trip. That’s the reason why we’re here in the first place, right?”

“Right,” Yujin muttered under her breath. “To rest. To relax. Just to … just to forget for a bit.”

As Yujin blinked, she could already hear the voices inside of her head screaming and raking against the back of her mind, desperately clawing their way out of the mental prison she had learned to place them in, begging to be set free to occupy the forefront of her consciousness.

IVE can’t sing. Isn’t that why they rely on backup vocals so much?

Amateurs! They debuted too young. Look, they barely have any stage presence when they perform!

Their chemistry is super off~. They have no energy whenever they’re on varieties. No charisma~.

Honestly, IVE is only popular because of Yujin and Wonyoung—scratch that, only Wonyoung LOL!

IVE is just a cookie-cutter group with nothing to make them standout.

IVE just acts like coworkers with each other, it’s so painful to watch.

Literally just Wonyoung and friends XDD.

IVE is the reason IZ*ONE disbanded, so pathetic.
IVE flop era.
IVE should just disband!!!

IVE 

IVE

IVE

BANG!

Slamming on the brakes, Yujin screamed as she heard the noise. Gaeul did the same and grasped tightly on the handlebar above her. Glancing behind her, Yujin watched as the other girls, who were previously idling and asleep in the other two rows, were now slowly rousing and wondering what happened.

Cursing under her breath, Yujin unbuckled her seatbelt and kicked the door open, hopping onto the ground. Leaves and twigs crunched underneath her shoes, and the sound of moving stones under each step she took lead her to believe that this really was the outdoors—the wilderness beyond the city.

Squatting, she checked each of the tires. The first three were pretty thick and solid, but by the time she got to the wheel on Gaeul’s side of the car—right next to the passenger’s seat—she was surprised to find a wedge and a cut near the bottom of the wheel.

Bending lower, she caressed the rubber surface and felt an odd bump. Yujin gripped it with her bare fingers and yanked the large jagged stone out from the tire, hearing a bit of air come out.

Shaking her head, she tossed the stone behind her and dusted her palms together. Rising up to eye level, she shrugged at Gaeul and mouthed the words ‘flat tire’ through the tinted window.

The sliding door to her left suddenly moved as it slid open to the side. There, a groggy looking Wonyoung peeked out of the vehicle and raised a brow. “Did something happen, Yujin? Why did we stop?”

Yujin shook her head and swatted a hand at her rapidly. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Are the other girls safe? It’s just a flat tire.”

“Unnie! That scared me. I really thought we ran something over,” Leeseo exclaimed in relief upon realizing what had happened, sighing and leaning onto Wonyoung’s shoulder. “Can the car still move?”

Jogging back to the driver’s seat, Yujin pulled the door open and kept it there as she removed the handbrake and pressed her foot gently against the gas pedal. The vehicle managed to lurch forward somehow for a bit before the busted tire made its presence felt all too well. Within a few moments, the entire car shuddered and shook awfully to one side, leading Yujin to stop pushing their luck and stop driving entirely.

From her seat, she glanced over her shoulder at the other girls and pursed her lips. “We’re almost there, but I think we’re going to have to push this thing on our own.”

In unison, the other four girls all groaned and cursed their terrible luck as they slowly complied and began exiting their ride.

With Yujin and Gaeul on either side of the front of the car near their seats and the other four girls at the back of the car, they managed to build up a smooth rhythm of pushing it forward and up the small hill that prefaced their supposed vacation house. One hand on the wheel, Yujin steered clear of the more rugged parts of the terrain, using her remaining strength to help push the car forward from the outside. She glanced over at Gaeul, who was struggling to do the same, which she found a little adorable as her lither frame clashed against the heavier trunk of the vehicle. Meanwhile, the other four girls were also doing all that they could to desperately drive the car they were supposed to be riding up the hill.

After what felt like about half an hour, they managed to at least get the car into the designated parking slot just before the front porch. And, almost all at once, all six girls crashed onto the leaves and twigs and let out a tired sigh.

Once they had rested a fair bit, they all began moving their things out from the trunk and into their abode for the next week.

Yujin wasted no time lifting all of her belongings. She didn’t even want to think about how they were going to get that tire fixed—not yet, not now. She slung a few bags over her shoulder and picked up one of the larger black shared suitcases that they had packed many of their shared essentials in. Alongside another larger blue duffel bag that was bulging at the seams, the fearless leader of the group lugged all of that weight upon her as she stepped up the wooden stairs leading to the front door.

“Yujin? Yujin! Let me help with that,” Gaeul beckoned, hurrying her own unloading to catch up to the wobbling Yujin. But the stubborn girl forced her way in through the door without needing anyone else’s help, managing to slowly make her way inside.

Wonyoung followed suit with her own belongings, needing to hold them up with both hands as her frailer constitution didn’t help make things any easier. Leeseo trailed her, carrying her own possessions with both hands in a sort of underhand carry, keeping an eye out on her unnie in case she needed help.

Rei and Liz were the ones who took the initiative to carry the more furniture-esque items they decided to bring in, which included two smaller mahogany tables more akin to stools and a mini-grill for cooking. Rei kept constantly looking behind her to see if Liz could manage the heavier grill, and when she nearly collapsed forward with it, she quickly lowered the two tables and caught the other end of the machine, awkwardly shuffling inside with it together.

Lastly, Gaeul double-checked the car to make sure they didn’t leave anything important behind. Once she spotted that Yujin still left the keys slotted inside, she shook her head and chuckled, turning of the engine and making sure all the brakes were applied before locking the doors.

It was a large vacation house to say the least, right in the middle of nowhere. But for a group of six tired girls who were just as deflated as the tire that just bursted, it didn’t feel that way. They each got their own rooms apart from the shared bathroom, living room, dining room and kitchen, and both the front and back porches, but despite that, each of them couldn’t help but feel uneasy over what was to come in the succeeding days.

Everything had been so sudden. Everything had been so rushed and spontaneous. One moment they were on a downward spiral trying everything they could to promote their comeback, and a moment later, here they were, escaping the big city, escaping all their troubles and leaving them behind for a few days, escaping the harsh realities of idol-hood that they had opted to forget for just a moment. For just a while longer.

“Let’s, um, let’s all meet back here in the dining room in an hour or so. Let’s figure out, uh, what to have for dinner,” Yujin announced, nodding at the other girls. Almost as if it were scheduled, her stomach made a loud rumbling sound, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten prior to and during their six-hour travel to their current destination. “Make that an hour or less.”

Leeseo and Rei managed to let out small chuckles here and there, which lightened up the atmosphere, but the general mood seemed to be that of confusion, deflation, and wistfulness nevertheless.

Sighing, Yujin nodded a final time and gestured to the stairs. “I’ll go find a room. You girls do too. And um, let’s … let’s all find the time to rest in the next few days. Let’s … let’s not think about it.”

“It?” Wonyoung asked, her single-worded question pierced through the silence like a sharp blade.

Yujin pouted, hoping Wonyoung already understood what she was referring to so she didn’t have to discuss the elephant in the room. “It. The comeback. The EP.”

An even tenser silence filled the room as the girls all struggled to find a response to any of it.

Gaeul clasped her hands together before pressing a hand against the small of Yujin’s back. “Yujin’s right. Let’s not dwell on things too much, ok? At least … not for now. Leeseo ya, you said you wanted to share a room with me, right? I think there’s plenty of rooms for each of us to take individually, but how about we find two rooms next to each other?”

Leeseo looked shocked as she pointed at herself. “Me? Unnie, I never said—.”

Without giving her much time to respond, Gaeul grabbed her hand and lead her all the way up the stairs. As she brushed past Yujin, she winked at her and tilted her head to one side as if signaling something before disappearing into the floor above.

Yujin understood and turned to the other three girls. “Let’s get going. Pick your rooms now.”

It wasn’t hard for Yujin to pick hers. She went to the room that no one even bothered to check out. 

The room was on the third floor, pushed towards the front side of the house. The only other room on this floor seemed to be some kind of storage room, which Yujin thought was probably the main reason why no one chose this room to begin with. Sighing, Yujin decided to deal with it and lugged her stuff inside one at a time.

It was very dark. There was only a small lamp placed on an ominous looking nightstand to light the room. Aside from that, a rather aged circular window dominated most of the wall of one side of the room. Since it was already past sunset, the only light that came in through the glass pane were colors and shades of purple, which didn’t help to brighten up the already gloomy mood of Yujin’s living quarters for the next week.

She could have just swallowed her pride and crashed onto the bed, but the bed itself wasn’t set up either. It was a folding bed whose mattress was leaned up against the wall. Grunting in dismay, Yujin ripped her bags open and yanked some of her bedsheets and pillow covers out. She wrestled the mattress and pinned it against the now laid out metal frame before forcing the tight covers around it and the solitary pillow provided alongside it.

After what felt like a lifetime of just trying to fix her own bed, what once was a chaotic and lively room now fell completely silent once more.

Taking a deep breath, Yujin swapped between the shambling bed and the lonesome window, staring at the faded wallpaper and the creaky floor. She bit her lip and collapsed onto the ground, slamming her butt against the wood and pressing up against the corner of the room. She threw her red hood up and yanked on the strings to tighten it as she curled up into a ball and made herself smaller.

And then, the waterworks came.

She wasn’t sure why she was crying. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the long drive here, the popped tire, the fatigue from all the pushing and lifting, the look of sorrow and defeat in the eyes of the other girls, the depressing room, the difficult bed, or the sheer and utter silence that she was presently living in that made it all the more difficult to keep the voices at bay.

Whatever it was, Yujin wanted to stab it and rip it apart, to curse at it for making her cry like a little girl.

Sobbing and sniffling, wiping the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie, she leaned on one side and sighed. “So much … s-so much for being a leader, huh, An Yujin …?”

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down, not realizing she had been leaning a little too far.

Crash.

Before she knew it, the sobbing girl had fallen onto her side, landing on her left shoulder. It didn’t hurt as much as she had thought, which Yujin was thankful for, but it was enough to leave an annoying sting on her arm.