“Past the stars! We are Cosmos!” Ina choruses with the other members, watching as Solbi smiles avidly into the camera and winks. Forcing a laugh, Ina pulls the other girl back before waving coolly at the camera man herself. Eunhwa walks forwards at that point, an idol-like smile plastered on her face, before bowing to greet the soon-to-be viewers.

                “Okay team, so here’s what we’re going to do,” Eunhwa starts off, leaning down slightly to read the card pasted on the wall. “Welcome to Music Bank! With a variety of idols and groups performing today we’ve decided to hold a poll and the results will be determined by the artists themselves!” Eunhwa reads off, and everyone politely claps afterwards. The staff members leans forward to hand Ina a package of stickers which she quickly distributes to everyone else. “Alright, first choice,” Eunhwa taps the chart beside the camera. While the camera slowly pans towards it, she continues reading, “Which team has the best fashion sense? Wonder Girls sunbaenim, NCT 127 sunbaenim, Seventeen sunbaenim, or Sistar sunbaenim?”

                “NCT 127 sunbaenim for me,” Solbi declares, snickering slightly as she places her sticker underneath the group’s name. “Have you seen their style? It’s amazing.”

                “Definitely,” Eunhwa raises an eyebrow at Solbi’s declaration before looking back at the choices. “I don’t know though, I wouldn’t wear anything they’ve worn so far.”

                “But that’s the point unnie,” Ina points out, also placing her sticker beside Solbi’s. “You have to be a leading trend in order to be stylish right?”

                “I wouldn’t want that kind of style to trend,” Liqin mentions quietly. “I like Sistar sunbaenim’s outfits the best, the skirt makes a very cool choreography.” Liqin reaches around Eunhwa, placing her sticker on Bora’s leg, before retreating behind the leader once again.

                “I’ll vote for Seventeen sunbaenim,” Eunhwa announces. As she sticks her sticker on, she winks at the camera. “I like suspenders, and I’m sure their fans would agree with me.”

                “Oh definitely,” Ina grins, before pointing at the next question. “Hey! We’re a candidate for this one! Which team has the best choreography? Sistar sunbaenim, Cosmos, KNK sunbaenim, or Astro sunbaenim?”

                “Do we even have to ask? I’m voting for Cosmos of course,” Solbi smiles cheekily into the camera before plastering her sticker on the board. “I mean, whoever made the choreography must have been so talented. Only a geniuscould think of such a stylish and modern dance right?”

                “Exactly, good job to me then,” Liqin announces, putting her sticker on top of Solbi’s picture. “There you go; it looks a lot better now.”

                “Liqin!” Solbi whines, pouting at the fact that her face was now covered in the picture underneath their name.

                “I like Astro sunbaenim’s dance,” Eunhwa giggles, putting hers underneath the group. “It’s really refreshing and the ending is especially nice.”

                “Oh! The ending with the guy twirling around was really spectacular,” Solbi nods. “But our dance was farsuperior,” she jokes, winking at the camera. “I’m sure our fans agree right?”

                “Anyways, I’m voting for Sistar,” Ina rolls her eyes. “Like Liqin unnie said, the skirt was really cool. It sticks in your head. I didn’t really like the song at first but after seeing the choreography it grew on me.”

                “Exactly,” Liqin nods.

                “Then why didn’t you vote for them?” Eunhwa raises an eyebrow, causing Liqin to blush and cover her face. The shy girl runs behind Solbi, only to be dragged forwards by said member.

                “Answer for yourself! This court is now in order! The defendant is one Yang Liqin! Her charge?” Solbi begins with a flourish, forcing Liqin to stand in front of the camera. “Uh... what’s her offense?” Solbi blanks, causing some of the staff members to laugh.

                “Confusing us!” Ina announces, placing her hand on Liqin’s shoulder. “For contradicting herself and causing people around her to be confused, she could easily manipulate us into doing the wrong thing! Isn’t that right?” Ina twirls Liqin around and stares into her eyes for a few seconds before standing up. “See! No response – she’s definitely guilty!”

                “I don’t think that’s how it works Ina,” Eunhwa stifles her laughter as Liqin sends her a pleading gaze. “Anyways, let’s let Liqin off this time. Shall we move onto the next question?” Nodding, Liqin soon escapes to the back of the group once again and stays there for the next couple questions, only stepping forwards to press her sticker on the board.

                “We’re another candidate here!” Solbi announces a few answers later. Pointing at their picture, Solbi reads the caption, “Rising aspiring visual group! Which one of the following rookie girl groups has the best overall visuals? Cosmos, A.DE, Gugudan, or Sonamoo? I don’t know about this one, some of us aren’t very pretty,” Solbi jokes, coughing into her fist before shooting a pointed look at Liqin.

                “Is this because I covered your face with a sticker,” Liqin deadpans, glaring jokingly at the other girl while Solbi shrugs innocently.

                “Maybe, but then again, Aspen unnie is really pretty so she accounts for our... losses,” Solbi grins, patting the leader on the back before examining the pictures again.

                “But Gugudan is really pretty too,” Eunhwa points out, slightly embarrassed by the compliment. “As are Sonamoo and A.DE.”

                “But we have a kind of, mature beauty,” Solbi declares simply before placing her sticker on their own picture.

                “I’m not going to vote for us because I’m humble,” Ina smirks at Solbi’s offended look before placing her sticker under Gugudan’s name. “Gugudan sunbaenim are all really pretty and cute, they looked really good in their MV.” Looking over at Liqin, the Chinese girl nods before she places her sticker underneath A.DE’s picture and Eunhwa puts hers on Sonamoo’s. “Wow Soleil unnie, you’re really narcissistic huh?”

                “You, you planned this!” Solbi whines, childishly sticking her tongue out at Ina – who flicks her gently on the forehead in response. “Hey! I’m your unnie!”

                “Oh right, sorry unnie,” Ina teases, bowing. “My apologies.”

                “You’re such a brat,” Eunhwa comments, before the team goes back to filming. Maybe twenty minutes later, the girls finish up, bowing towards the staff members, before going back into their respective waiting rooms. “I heard we’re sharing the waiting room today,” Eunhwa starts off as the girls walk down the hall. They had arrived a bit late (luckily they had gotten their hair and makeup done before), and had quickly changed in the bathroom before going to film in their stage outfits. They hadn’t yet made it to their waiting room which was probably good since they were sharing. Ina wasn’t too keen on changing in front of strangers just yet.

                “Do you know who?” Liqin asks, slightly nervous. Ina sends her a sympathetic gaze. Liqin, while comfortable enough on camera and on stage, was still a bit awkward in dealing with other idols backstage.

                “Nope, but it’s a bunch of people so we’re probably just going to get a secluded corner or something,” Eunhwa shrugs, patting Liqin’s shoulder comfortingly before opening the door to the room. The first thing Ina notices is the sound. Luckily, Cosmos had been able to snag their own private waiting rooms so far – albeit they were extremely far from the stage – and seeing as there were only four of them, it had mostly been quiet. Now however, with two other groups scrambling around the room, Ina almost laughs out loud at how loud it is.

                “I’m,” Liqin bites her lip, staring at the multitude of people in the room. “Going to go to the bathroom.” Without another word, Liqin scampers away, causing the rest of the members to exchange slightly worried looks before making their way to their corner of the room. Looking around, Ina recognizes the groups around her, mainly Seventeen and Brave Girls. Or well, Brave Girls was supposed to be there, but judging by the lack of activity around their area, Ina could only assume they were either having rehearsals or off doing some sort of activity.

                “Well this is going to be fun,” Solbi announces before dropping down in a conveniently placed chair. Snorting, Ina settles down on the ground beside her while Eunhwa takes the only other chair not occupied by a stylist or equipment. Grumbling about being the youngest from the ground, Ina peers around the room, watching as stylists and staffs alike run around trying to get all the idols in the room ready for camera. She chuckles to herself when she spots some of the Seventeen members teasing each other before settling in for a short nap.

                Closing her eyes, Ina finds her mind naturally drifting towards the song she was currently making. It’s not it was new, Ina had made several songs on deadlines for certain monthly assessments, and she was pretty much almost finished, but she found herself constantly hearing the song whenever she had a moment to rest. Given that she had been working it almost obsessively for the past week, Ina had pretty much memorized everything, from the baseline to the melodies and harmonies, if she had to, Ina could probably remake the song from memory. But it was beginning to get tiresome. The more she listened to it, the more insecure she got. It was a completely different feel from 4 Walls, a more bright song to match the summery season, but Ina was afraid netizens would compare Mirae’s song and hers. 4 Wallshad gotten recognition due to its unique sound, and a lot of international fans had taken interest in them because of it, seeing as there were many English and Vietnamese comments on their YouTube channel and MV. However, it hadn’t taken so nicely with the Korean fanbase and although they still had fans, it wasn’t exactly what the public wanted. So, after meeting up with Hyeri and Xiuxin, they decided that their comeback song should be more Korean-esque. Although Ina had been slightly at a loss at this term, Jinhyuk told her to make it less stylish and more poppy – which was definitely not something Ina liked to do. If she made a pop song it was because she wanted to, she wouldn’t change one of her own creations to match the public’s wants. Luckily enough, one of the songs in consideration for their comeback was apparently poppy enough and was the one Ina had been working on most of the time she was in the studio.

                It’s not like Ina didn’t agree. She knew that they should get a stable, Korean fanbase first. Of course, international fans were important, but the majority of their votes and revenue would come from those inside Korea. So it would make sense to play along to what they wanted. In addition, Jinhyuk had reassured Ina that once they had carved a niche for themselves, Cosmos could start experimenting and finding their own style – which was pretty much the only reason Ina continued producing at this point.

                “Hey Ina,” Eunhwa’s voice interrupts Ina’s slumber – if you could call it that, it was more of a state in between consciousness and sleep. Opening her eyes, Ina blinks to see Eunhwa and Solbi surrounded by a couple of the boys from Seventeen. “Do you remember if someone was coming to visit us?”

                “No?” Ina blinks voice slightly scratchy from sleep. She clears , “I don’t recall anything like that?”

                “Are you sure? I swear Yoo-nim said something about it,” Solbi shrugs, before turning back to their visitors. “Anyways, you knocked out within like, two seconds so you didn’t even get to say hi to our roommates – can I even call them that? This is Woozi ssi, Seunggwan ssi, Hoshi ssi, and Mingyu ssi from Seventeen.”

                “Ah, hello,” Ina straightens up, bowing politely as the boys greet her. “I’m Ina, as you can probably tell,” she gives Solbi a look, to which the girl blinks before pouting and whining about being picked on again. “Is Liqin not back yet?”

                “No, she’s here,” Eunhwa answers, pointing at the quiet girl. She was sitting in a chair, looking at her phone, and having her hair and makeup touched up by a stylist. “Came back a couple minutes ago actually.”

                “Alright, so why... did you wake me up again?” Ina asks. “Is it only to ask if someone was coming because that’s a really lame reason to wake me up.”

                “Uhm, maybe?” Solbi smiles sheepishly, causing Ina to groan and Jihoon to snort. “But now you can join our conversation,” Solbi remains optimistic, dragging Ina closer to the group from her spot on her chair – it involved much bending over and work on Ina’s part. “What were we talking about again?”

                “School,” Soonyoung remembers.

                “School?” Ina raises an eyebrow. “You guys were talking about school? Eunhwa unnie hasn’t even been in school in like, a hundred years–”

                “Thank you Ina,” Eunhwa narrows her eyes, and Ina shuts up immediately. A seemingly cold aura enters the room; causing Solbi to shift back slightly from their usually calm leader, before Eunhwa smiles and the feeling disappears. “They were talking about graduating actually. Seeing as Mingyu ssi finished school this year. Do you remember your graduation Ina?”

                “Yup,” Ina winces slightly, thinking back to the troubles she had in school. “It was full of relief, thinking that I finally made it and all that.” The others laugh, emphasizing with the terrors of school, but Ina finds herself nodding along for a completely different reason. It really had been hard for her to finish school. Between figuring out who she was as a person and trying to understand that she didn’t need to impress anyone else but herself, it had taken a lot of bad events before Ina decided to graduate – or re-enroll into school for that matter. Nonetheless, Ina was happy she at least managed to complete high school.

                “It felt kind of weird for me,” Mingyu speaks up. “Like, I had already debuted at that point so I was involved with more idol things so something as normal as graduating was different. A lot of people probably thought that day was special but it was even more so for me you know? Since I didn’t even attend school that much it was nice to spend the day with friends.”

                “Like you have any friends,” Seunggwan teases, patting Mingyu on the back reassuringly. Laughing as Soonyoung begins to join in on the teasing, Ina secretly feels pleased at the fact that she finished school before becoming a trainee. She hadn’t realized how hard it was, juggling her normal life along with her training, and she could only imagine the added stress of having to go to school as well. In a sense, Ina was almost glad of the hardships she had to face. After all, people say everything happens for a reason and Ina ended up being able to debut anyways so there wasn’t really anything much to lose – for now at least.

                “We do have a visitor!” Eunhwa announces suddenly, just as the door opens. “I remember Yoo-nim saying that for our final broadcast–”

                “Yohoo!” a cheerful voice interrupts Eunhwa’s monologue, and Ina’s eyes widen in shock as she looks up to see Mirae, Daehoon, and the recent addition to the duo’s squad, Kim Sora. The three skip up to the Cosmos area, well, mostly Daehoon and Sora skipped, Mirae shook her head bitterly and walked, but they made it there anyways. “Did you guys forget about us?”

                “No?” Ina says, only half lying. Now that they were here and Eunhwa had her outburst, she did somewhat remember Mirae mentioning that they’d come to visit as to wish them well on their goodbye stage. Well, that’s what Ina assumed they were doing. What Mirae had really said was something along the lines of, “I’ve been too busy to come but seeing as it’s your last 4 Walls stage I want to come and see if you’ve butchered my song.”

                “Kinda?” Solbi says at the same time, making Daehoon laugh and Mirae scowl. As Liqin makes her way over to greet the trio, the meeting is interrupted by a, much louder, reunion.

                “Sora!” Soonyoung practically screams, causing Ina to wince and Mirae to step back slightly. The young girl whips her head away from bothering Daehoon to smile brightly at the other boy. Running up to him – which was completely unnecessary seeing as they were literally metres apart – Sora launches herself into a hug which was soon joined by the other Seventeen members in their midst. “I was wondering where you went!”

                “Hey oppas!” Sora grins, looking at the four members. “Haven’t seen you guys in a long time huh?”

                “How have you been?” Seunggwan inquires as they break the hug. Jihoon grumbles something about personal space but remains rooted next to Sora.

                “Good! Training and all that is tiring me out – as is school god you won’t believe what I had to do the other day, a whole three page essay on some stupid book and get this, I had to write it in English. Like, why? I’m in Korea when will I ever have to write an English paper on some stupid old poem when I could be like, I don’t know learning about science or math or something else that’s extremely boring and also not worth my time?” Sora rambles.

                “Didn’t you graduate though?” Mingyu asks, patting the shorter girl on the head. 

                “My mom is making me take cram school for university in case the whole trainee business doesn’t work out,” Sora sighs. “Which is boring and stupid and I have no idea what I’d even go to university for you know? So what’s the point really it’s kind of a waste of money if you ask me.”

                “Sorry to interrupt,” Eunhwa breaks into the circle in a polite yet assertive way only she could pull off. “But how do you know each other if you don’t mind me asking?”

                “Oh unnie,” Sora scrambles over to give Eunhwa a hug as well. “I used to be a trainee at Pledis before I came to Yunrae you know? So I met all these losers over there along with some other trainees and I was even on their dorky show – the pre-debut one where they completely ruined their image – so we’re pretty close I’d think. Don’t ask them though because they’ll definitely say otherwise because they’re petty and can’t admit that I’m awesome but that’s beside the point – what was the question again?”

                “You still talk too much Sora,” Jihoon laughs. “Mind introducing us to your other friends?”

                “Oh right, this is Mirae unnie and Daehoon oppa, they’re trainees like me but they’re really cool and musical and wow do I learn a lot from them,” Sora begins.

                “Hush you,” Mirae rolls her eyes. “Don’t you guys have a rehearsal to get to or something?”

                “Maybe?” Solbi shrugs, she cranes her head to try and look at the schedule posted around the room but to no avail. The only thing she manages to accomplish is almost falling out of her chair – only to have it stabilized by Daehoon.

                “We don’t but they do,” Liqin speaks up for the first time, shyly nodding at Seventeen. “We’re two acts after them.”

                “Oh right, we have to go now,” Soonyoung jolts up, “we’ll talk to you guys later okay? I want to hear about how you thought up that choreography. Until then, see you later!” Soonyoung and the other bow, leaving to join their original group before the team slowly get ready to go record.

                “Do you have something to ask Sora?” Mirae raises an eyebrow as Sora bites her lip and rocks on her heels. The rest of the group looks at the maknae, varying in levels of amusement and confusion, before Mirae sighs. “If it’s okay with Cosmos I guess you can go watch Seventeen sunbaenims rehearsal if you really want to.”

                “Really? I can? Oh gosh thanks I haven’t seen them in so long you know and we were really good friends back at Pledis and you know I haven’t gotten around to saying hi to all the members and they’d get really mad at me if I was here and didn’t say anything – especially Jeonghan oppa oh he’d be livid if I didn’t say hi – and I’ve been missing Chan and Hansol for a while so,” Sora bounces up and down on her toes, head turning from side to side to watch Ina and the rest before looking over at Seventeen about to leave.

                “Just go oh my goodness I’m going to get sick just watching you move so much,” Ina smirks at Sora’s indignant glance before the young girl shouts a thanks and races off to catch up to the last member of Seventeen. She taps him on the shoulder – Ina squints and realizes after a painful second that it’s Jisoo – before Jisoo lets out a happy shout and grabs Sora by the hands and drags her towards the rest of the group which had already left the room.

                “It’s so quiet now,” Liqin comments, sighing happily which causes Solbi and Daehoon to laugh at her. She scowls, blushing slightly, before glaring at the two of them. They merely stick their tongues out in response.

                “Anyways, was it hard to find the room?” Eunhwa asks in order to get the conversation up and going once again. She settles back into her chair, while the newcomers sit on the ground along with Liqin and Ina.

                “They need to get more chairs,” Ina mumbles to herself as she pushes an unplugged hairdryer away from her spot.

                “Agreed, and no, we just looked at the list out front,” Daehoon replies. “Although we had to get in with Sanghee ssi at first because the security guard looked at us like we were crazy when we said we wanted to go in – he probably thought we were crazy fans or something.”

                “Which isn’t surprising seeing from the way Sora acts like, all the time,” Ina comments, and the group shares a quick laugh.

                “She’s refreshing though,” Liqin says in a way to berate Ina’s teasing.

                “Yeah, none of us are as naturally cute as she is,” Solbi shrugs. “I don’t know how we’re going to do aegyo if they ask us to.”

                “We’ll just make Eunhwa unnie do it she’s good at that,” Ina replies.

                “You’re getting along well,” Daehoon observes, smiling.

                “It’s not hard when you see these kids every day,” Eunhwa pretends to give a tired sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I might have to invest in headache pills though – they’re a handful in the practice room especially.”

                “We are not!” Solbi and Ina exclaim, before looking at each other and exchanging high fives. As the group continues their playful banter, Ina feels Mirae drift away from the conversation. Giving her friend a closer look, Ina notices that Mirae is maintaining a stiff yet neutral distance away from the rest of the members. It wasn’t like she didn’t like them, Ina knew for a fact that she admired Eunhwa and Liqin – Solbi was another story however – it just seemed as if she didn’t know how to act around them. And it was true, Mirae, much like Ina, was more of a lone wolf. And if anyone else could understand how out of place Mirae felt in a group setting it was Ina.

                She herself had been slightly awkward with everyone the first couple weeks of living and performing together. Of course, you would never have been able to tell on camera, but the minute the screen turned off, Ina would run away and retreat into herself. Liqin was the same way, although the Chinese girl was merely naturally quiet. She had still managed to connect to Eunhwa and Solbi despite her shy nature, while Ina, despite her best efforts to try and remain thankful for being able to debut, couldn’t help but feel annoyed at times at her other members. After a month around them however, Ina felt herself growing closer to them. They weren’t the closest people in the world, but Ina now saw them as a bit more than just coworkers. It helped, like Eunhwa said, that they lived together as well. Seeing Liqin sleepily trip over her clothes in order to turn off the alarm clock, observing Eunhwa race through the dorm trying to put clothes on before someone else could see her (which failed because Ina was watching) because she forgot to bring clothes into the shower with her, and trying to help Solbi cook some kind of dinner for the four of them had helped Ina to break down their walls and, in turn, have her own walls broken down.

                It was probably for that reason, Ina muses as Sanghee appears in the doorway to call them up for their last 4 Walls rehearsal, that companies made their groups live together. Getting up and walking towards the stage with Cosmos and Daehoon and Mirae, Ina finds herself appreciating the living arrangements. While disliking the thought of continuing to live in a dorm (Ina had assumed after they debuted she’d be able to live away from the other girls for some reason) at first, she could now see the logic behind it. Maybe in the future, she’d even miss the other members when they did move away from the dorm.

                “I broke my mic,” Solbi blinks, holding the shattered microphone in her hands sheepishly.

                “That’s going to cost a lot of money,” Liqin comments, snickering softly from behind her hand. 

                “At least she didn’t break the ear piece,” Eunhwa says unhelpfully but optimistically. Sighing, Ina takes Solbi’s microphone and exchanges it with her own before going to find another one.

                Scratch that. There would be nothing in the world that would make Ina miss living with the three other walking train wrecks that called themselves Solbi, Liqin, and Eunhwa.

I didn’t know who to make them room with other than Seventeen so I just picked a random group and said they were out so I wouldn’t have to write about them lol. Also Seventeen my children, my precious babies, oh my dear husbands. <3 There’s more info on Sora in this chapter kinda you just get to see her rambling but that’s it, that’s her character really- 

And with this the 4 Walls era ends. I wonder what song they’re going to comeback with... I gave you hints in this chapter aha and it’s a pretty recent song from a not very popular group so there’s that. ^_^

Hope you're smiling!

~ Yun