The first room they were given as ROSIES wasn't a stage.
It was a studio.
Small. Windowless. Stale with trapped air, old carpet, and coffee that smelled like punishment. Their group name had been slapped onto the door with black tape and a printer label that was already peeling at the edges.
ROSIES — Vocal Room A
Susu stared at it for a second, then looked offended.
"They couldn't even center the text?"
Bella leaned in. "That's crazy. We haven't even debuted and they're disrespecting us."
Joanne pushed the door open. "You two are getting cocky for people with no official album yet."
Bella grinned. "Confidence is free."
Leah, standing behind them with her arms folded, said flatly, "For now."
That made Mili laugh under her breath.
It was the first time Bella had heard it.
The First Take
The producer sat behind the glass with the kind of expression that suggested he had been disappointed by people professionally for years.
"We are not chasing perfection," he said into the mic. "We are chasing color."
Leah frowned immediately. "That sentence means nothing."
Susu snorted.
Mili, who was flipping through the lyric sheets, said quietly, "I think he means don't sound polished. Sound real."
The producer pointed at the speaker. "Her. That. Exactly. Thank you."
Bella leaned toward Joanne and whispered, "I'm scared of him."
"He can smell fear," Joanne whispered back.
Susu heard both of them and rolled her shoulders. "Fine. I'll go first."
She stepped into the booth like she had something to prove. Which, Joanne thought, she probably did.
The first take was technically clean. Very clean.
The producer pressed the talk button. "Again. Less performance. More confession."
Susu blinked. "That sounds fake-deep."
"Maybe," he said. "Do it anyway."
Bella made a strangled sound trying not to laugh.
The second take changed everything. Susu softened the end of the lines, let a little air stay in her voice, and suddenly the chorus felt less like a polished demo and more like someone opening a door they had kept locked.
When she came out, Bella clapped automatically.
Then paused. "Was that allowed?"
The producer didn't even look up. "It is now."
Susu tossed her hair over her shoulder. "As expected."
Joanne muttered, "You've been waiting your whole life to say that."
"I really have."
Leah at the Mic
When it was Leah's turn, she stepped into the booth and adjusted the mic stand once.
Then again.
Joanne watched through the glass. "Too high?"
"Too close," Leah replied.
Mili stood up and slipped into the booth without making a fuss, adjusting the stand by barely an inch.
Leah looked at it. Then at her.
"That was the same height."
Mili shrugged. "Emotionally, it wasn't."
Bella choked.
Even the producer looked amused.
Leah stared at all of them for a long second, then leaned toward the mic and sang.
Her voice was lower than Susu's, quieter too, but there was something unnervingly intimate about it. She didn't project. She pulled the sound inward, as if the song had caught her in a private moment and she was annoyed to be overheard.
When she finished, the room went still.
Susu tilted her head. "You sound like you're arguing with your own thoughts."
Leah took off the headphones. "I usually am."
Bella slapped Mili's knee. "Why is she accidentally cool?"
"Accidentally?" Leah repeated.
Bella didn't even flinch. "Yes. On purpose would be embarrassing."
For the first time, the corner of Leah's mouth moved.
Not a smile. Not quite.
But close.
Break Room
Their first meal as a group was instant noodles eaten on the floor because there were only two chairs and one of them was broken.
Bella stared into her cup like she had been betrayed personally. "Why do these noodles taste like unpaid rent?"
Joanne, sitting cross-legged against the wall, blew on her broth. "Because your standards are too high for trainee life."
"I'm not a trainee anymore," Bella said. "I'm a future star. I deserve seasoning."
"You deserve humility," Joanne replied.
Susu laughed so suddenly she spilled broth onto her shoe.
Mili handed her tissues before she even asked.
Leah sat slightly apart from them at first, one knee up, cup balanced in one hand.
She watched Bella talk with her entire body. Watched Susu laugh with her head thrown back. Watched Mili fold wrappers neatly into squares even when she was tired. Watched Joanne make space for everyone without making it obvious.
"Do you always sit on floors?" Leah asked eventually.
Bella looked up. "Only when we're hungry. Or tired. Or emotional. Or when there aren't enough chairs."
"So," Leah said, glancing at the room, "always."
Bella stared at her for one beat too long.
Then she broke into a grin. "I like you."
Leah looked genuinely caught off guard. "That feels premature."
Susu nearly dropped her noodles again.
The Dance Room, Again
If the studio taught them how each other sounded, the practice room taught them how each other broke.
The mirrors were cruel. They reflected everything — bad posture, bad timing, bad moods.
The choreographer clapped once. "No mirrors today."
Bella looked horrified. "That feels unsafe."
"That means you rely on them too much," he said. "Again. From the second verse."
They started.
Joanne was sharp and grounded, every move hitting exactly where the beat wanted it. Susu danced with more power than people expected, especially after hearing her sing. Mili was clean, precise, almost elegant even when she was exhausted. Bella was fast, bright, a little reckless at the edges.
And Leah—
Leah moved like the choreography had offended her and she intended to win anyway.
She kept pulling half a step ahead.
Not enough to be obvious. Enough to matter.
Joanne caught it on the third run.
"Stop."
Everyone froze.
Leah straightened. "What?"
"You're moving ahead."
"I'm on count."
"You're on your count."
Bella made the worst possible decision and whispered, "Oh, this is getting good."
Susu elbowed her.
Joanne stepped closer, not angry, just steady. "If you go first, the line breaks."
Leah folded her arms. "Then keep up."
Silence.
Mili's eyes widened. Bella looked between them like she was ringside at a championship fight. Susu slowly lowered her water bottle.
Joanne didn't raise her voice.
"That's not how groups work."
Leah held her gaze. For a second, something hard flashed in her face — not arrogance, not exactly, but habit. Survival. A way of moving through the world without waiting for anyone.
Then she looked away first.
"Fine," she said.
The next run-through, she adjusted. Not much. Just enough.
Mili caught her eye in the mirror and gave the smallest nod.
Leah pretended not to see it.
Stretching, Talking, Waiting
They collapsed onto the floor in a messy circle, all sharp breaths and aching limbs.
Susu stared at the ceiling. "If we weren't idols, what would you be?"
Bella answered instantly. "A ceramic artist. Or I'd run a café with one ugly dog and one expensive coffee machine."
"That's too specific," Joanne said.
"I have a vision."
Mili wiped sweat from her neck. "A teacher, maybe."
Bella turned to her. "That makes so much sense it's almost annoying."
Mili smiled. "You say that like it's an insult."
"It is not. It's envy."
Joanne flexed her sore hand. "A translator. Or maybe a lyricist."
Susu pointed at her. "See? That's sexy."
Joanne blinked. "Please never say that to me again."
Bella was laughing too hard to breathe.
Then all eyes turned to Leah.
Leah kept staring at the ceiling.
"A runway model," she said at last. Then, after a beat: "Or nothing."
The mood shifted.
Susu rolled onto her side, propping her head up. "That is the saddest answer anyone has ever given to a casual question."
Leah shrugged. "It's efficient."
"That's not a personality," Bella said.
Leah turned her head slowly. "Neither is being loud."
Bella clutched her chest. "She stabbed me."
Mili muffled a laugh in her sleeve.
And somehow, that was better than pity.
The Dorm Assignments
The dorm arrangement had been decided three days earlier, and Bella still talked about it like it was a national crisis.
"How," she demanded, dragging her suitcase across the hallway, "did I end up with both the leader and the cleanest person alive?"
Susu, already unpacking her skincare into perfect little rows, didn't even look up. "Because fate knows you need supervision."
"I don't need supervision," Bella said.
Joanne walked past carrying a folded blanket. "You left one sock in the freezer this morning."
Bella spun around. "That was one time."
"It was this morning," Joanne said.
From the other room, Mili laughed softly.
Leah stood in the doorway beside her, one hand resting on her suitcase handle. Their room was quieter already. Smaller, somehow, even though it was the same size.
Bella pointed between them dramatically. "And of course those two get the calm room. The mysterious room. The room where nobody throws things."
"I do not throw things," Leah said.
Bella folded her arms. "You throw emotional damage."
Susu nearly choked laughing.
Mili looked between the two rooms and smiled. "I think it makes sense."
Joanne nodded. "Bella needs people around her or she'll start narrating her own life out loud."
"I already do that," Bella said.
"We know," Joanne replied.
So it was settled that way:
Joanne, Susu, and Bella in one room — louder, brighter, always in motion.
Leah and Mili in the other — quieter, steadier, the kind of room where lamp light stayed warm late into the night.
And somehow, the arrangement suited them immediately.
Bella brought energy to every corner she entered. Susu softened Joanne's edges without even trying.
Mili made silence feel comforting instead of empty. And Leah, though she said little, never made Mili feel like she had to fill the quiet.
It was the first domestic thing they had that felt real.
Not a schedule.
Not a label.
Not a performance.
Just toothbrushes beside each other. Bags on the floor. Voices through thin walls.
A beginning.
The Food Boxes
By the time they dragged themselves back to the practice room that evening, they were sweaty, annoyed, and halfway through an argument about counts.
"It is five-six-seven-eight," Bella insisted.
"No, it's six-seven-eight-and-breathe," Susu argued back.
"Breathing is not a count," Joanne said.
"It is if you want me alive," Susu shot back.
Mili was trying to mediate, which was useless, and Joanne was already reaching for the door when they all stopped.
There were boxes on the floor.
Brown paper. Tied with string. Neat enough to look expensive.
Bella gasped. "Are we famous already?"
"We are not famous from two practice clips and an argument over noodles," Joanne said, crouching down.
"There's a note."
She unfolded it and read aloud.
To my Leah — and the girls who take care of her when I cannot.
Eat well. You cannot bloom on an empty stomach.
— Grandma
The room went quiet.
Leah, who had been tugging her hair out of its tie, went still.
Susu turned. "Your grandma sent us food?"
Leah nodded once. "She does that."
"When?"
"When she thinks I'm not sleeping enough."
Bella knelt and began untying the string with ridiculous care. "I already love her."
Inside were still-warm containers wrapped in kitchen towels, packed tightly so they wouldn't spill. Rice. Soup. Side dishes. Marinated vegetables. Rolled omelet. Braised meat. Everything arranged with such precision that even Joanne looked impressed.
Mili stared. "This is homemade."
Leah glanced down at it. "She wakes up at five."
Susu put a hand over her heart. "I'm about to cry. This is so emotionally aggressive."
They sat in their usual circle on the floor, except now there were real bowls and actual food and the room smelled like sesame oil and home.
Bella took one bite and shut her eyes. "That's it. I'm moving in with your grandmother."
Leah huffed. "She'd have you doing vocabulary drills before sunrise."
Bella pointed her spoon at her. "Joke's on her, I'm charming under pressure."
"She would eat you alive," Joanne said.
Bella considered that. "I still think we'd bond."
Susu looked at Leah over the rim of her bowl. "She really made you learn all those languages?"
Leah nodded. "She said the world doesn't open for people who only knock on one door."
Mili smiled softly. "That sounds like something written in calligraphy on a wall."
"It probably is," Leah said dryly.
Joanne watched her for a moment. "Is that why you hate wasting time?"
Leah was quiet long enough that Bella almost jumped in to save the conversation.
But then Leah said, "My parents were always somewhere else. Meetings. Flights. Events. Important things." She stirred her rice once, though she wasn't really looking at it. "My grandmother stayed. She said if I had to be alone sometimes, I should at least know how to stand on my own."
Susu's expression softened. "So she made you strong."
Leah gave the smallest shrug. "She made me capable."
Bella tilted her head. "That sounds lonely."
Leah's mouth curved faintly, but there was no humor in it. "It was efficient."
"No," Susu said. "That's your favorite word. It still sounds lonely."
That landed.
Leah looked down at her bowl, then away.
"I don't talk about her much," she said. "I don't like sharing what I'm afraid to lose."
Nobody rushed to fill the silence after that. For once, even Bella let it sit.
Then Susu gently nudged Leah's knee with hers.
"She's not losing you," she said. "She's sending you out into the world."
Leah stared at her for a second, surprised by the softness of it.
Then she said, very quietly, "She texts me every morning. Even when I don't answer."
Bella put a hand dramatically over her chest. "That's it. I'm crying. Somebody fight me."
This time Leah actually smiled.
Small. Real. Gone too fast.
But there.
More Than Distance
They were still eating when Bella, chin propped on her hand, asked, "So… were you always with your grandma?"
Leah looked up from her bowl.
"Mostly," she said. "But not only her."
Bella straightened a little. "You talk about your grandmother like she raised the moon."
Leah's mouth twitched. "She would like that."
Susu smiled. "What about your parents?"
For a second, Joanne thought Leah might close off again.
Instead, she leaned back slightly, bowl in her hands, and let out a slow breath.
"My mother is warm," Leah said. "Very elegant, very composed, but warm. She notices small things. If my hair was tied differently when I was younger, she'd notice. If I was quieter than usual, she'd notice that too."
Mili listened carefully.
"And my father…" Leah paused, then smiled faintly. "He's harder to explain. He's not cold. People think men like him are cold because they're busy, but he isn't. He just always seems like he's carrying ten worlds at once."
Bella blinked. "That sounded like poetry."
Leah ignored that. "He used to bring me strange gifts from trips. Books in languages I couldn't read yet. Music boxes. A fountain pen once, even though I was too young to use it properly."
Susu's voice softened. "You love them a lot."
Leah looked down at her bowl, then nodded once. "I do."
The room stayed quiet in that gentle way that meant no one wanted to interrupt.
"And your brothers?" Mili asked.
Leah's expression changed then — not softer exactly, but touched by memory.
"My father has two older sons," she said. "They're fully German. Much older than me. When I was little, they felt…" She searched for the word. "Gigantic. Like they belonged to a world I was always arriving late to."
Bella smiled. "That's such a younger sibling thing to say."
Leah huffed a laugh through her nose. "Probably."
"Are you close?" Susu asked gently.
Leah was quiet for a moment.
"Not in the easy way," she admitted. "Not in the way people imagine when they say family. We've lived in different places. Different schedules. Different lives." She traced her thumb along the rim of her bowl. "There's distance. But not absence."
Joanne looked at her.
Leah continued, voice low and even. "They always remembered my birthday. They sent gifts I never asked for. One of them used to send me postcards from wherever he was, even when we hadn't spoken in months. The other called me once just to ask if I was eating properly in Korea." Her mouth curved, small and private. "Which felt very insulting, actually."
Bella laughed. "That's brother behavior."
"It is," Leah said. "They're not expressive. Neither am I. But the love is there."
Susu rested her chin on her knee. "That's enough sometimes."
Leah nodded. "Yes."
Then, after a pause, she added, "I don't think distance always means people love each other less. Sometimes it just means life got complicated before anyone knew how to fix it."
No one said anything for a few seconds after that.
Because there was nothing to improve.
It was already true.
The Photo
After they finished eating, Leah pulled her phone from her bag.
She looked at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering.
Then she turned it toward them.
It was an old photo. Leah younger, all long limbs and serious eyes, standing beside a small silver-haired woman in a neat blouse with one hand resting on Leah's shoulder like she had every right in the world to keep her there. They were smiling — not politely, not for a camera, but openly. The same smile, on both faces.
Bella blinked. "You smile like that?"
"Only with her," Leah said.
Mili leaned closer. "You really do look alike."
"In the eyes," Susu said.
Leah glanced at the screen. Her lighter eye in the photo caught the flash differently, hazel where the other stayed dark.
"My grandmother says one eye thinks too much and the other feels too much," Leah murmured.
Bella stared. "That is the coolest thing anyone's grandmother has ever said."
Joanne looked at Leah for a beat, then nodded once. "Then we'll make sure you have reasons to smile like that here too."
Leah looked up.
Usually, when people said kind things, she dodged them. Let them pass. Pretended not to need them.
This time, she didn't.
She just held Joanne's gaze for a second and said, "Okay."
It was a tiny word.
It felt enormous.
Late-Night Confessions
Past midnight, everybody became more honest and less guarded. Maybe because exhaustion stripped the performance out of them.
They were waiting on the bridge recording, sprawled across chairs and floor and tangled charger cords.
Bella yawned so wide Joanne looked concerned. "You're going to dislocate something."
"I miss my mom," Bella said, out of nowhere.
No one laughed.
Susu hugged her knees to her chest. "My sister sends me voice notes. I listen to them before I sleep."
Mili nodded. "My brother texts me every day asking if I've eaten. Even when I've clearly posted food."
"That's love," Joanne said.
"That's surveillance," Bella replied.
Joanne snorted softly. "My siblings keep asking when I'll be on TV. As if I personally schedule broadcasts."
Then, inevitably, they looked at Leah.
She was staring at the blinking red light above the booth door.
"My grandmother doesn't watch the evaluations," she said.
Bella frowned. "Why?"
Leah's voice was even. Too even. "She says if I keep looking back, I won't move forward."
Susu looked like she wanted to ask more, but didn't.
Joanne understood that sometimes mercy was silence.
So they sat there together in it.
Not awkward.
Not comfortable either.
Just real.
The Demo, Again
When the producer finally played the updated demo, no one spoke at first.
Bella's foot tapped before she realized it. Susu closed her eyes. Mili leaned into the sound like she was trying to hear the spaces between the notes. Joanne nodded along, analyzing structure, timing, energy.
Leah listened differently this time.
Not for flaws. Not for herself.
For them.
For the way Susu's voice warmed the chorus. For the steadiness in Joanne's rap. For Mili's harmonies tucked under the melody like they'd always belonged there. For Bella's brighter tone catching light at exactly the right moments.
It was messy in places. Uneven in others.
But it was theirs.
"That's us," Leah said, almost to herself.
Joanne heard her anyway.
"Yeah," she said. "It is."
The First Real Laugh
The silence lasted exactly four seconds.
Then Bella squinted at the speaker. "Wait. Is that me?"
Everyone looked at her.
Bella pointed accusingly. "Why do I sound like a cartoon squirrel with ambition?"
Susu broke first, laughing so hard she folded in half. Mili tried to hold it in and failed immediately. Joanne covered her mouth but her shoulders gave her away.
Leah laughed.
Not polite. Not quiet.
A real laugh, sudden and bright and completely unplanned.
The room froze.
Bella sat upright so fast she nearly kicked her bowl over. "She laughs."
"No," Leah said at once, still smiling, which ruined the denial.
Bella pointed at her like she'd discovered a national secret. "SHE LAUGHS. SOMEBODY DOCUMENT THIS."
Mili was wiping tears from her eyes. "Too late. It's already in my files, Mili was always with her phone or camera recording little things everyone noticed
Leah groaned and dragged a hand down her face. "You're all insufferable."
Susu grinned. "And yet you're stuck with us."
Leah looked around the room — at Bella's dramatic outrage, Mili's soft smile, Susu's warmth, Joanne's quiet watchfulness.
Then she said, "I'm starting to notice."
Joanne looked down, hiding the small smile that followed.
After
They walked back to the dorm with jackets thrown over sore shoulders, steps uneven from exhaustion.
The city was loud in the way only late nights could be — distant traffic, flickering signs, the occasional burst of laughter from people who had lives outside practice rooms and deadlines.
Susu bumped Leah's shoulder lightly. "You walk too fast."
Leah slowed without arguing.
Bella noticed and gasped. "Character development."
"Say that again and I'll speed up," Leah said.
Bella looped an arm dramatically through Mili's instead. "She threatens because she cares."
"She threatens because you talk too much," Joanne corrected.
"Both can be true," Mili said.
They kept walking.
Five girls under streetlights, not graceful, not polished, not finished.
But closer.
For the first time, ROSIES didn't feel like a name printed on a door or flashed across a screen.
It felt like something alive.
Something with roots.
Something beginning.