Dahyun sat just off the side of the set, mindlessly consuming fruits that didn’t really do much to quell her hunger, and replaying the compliments she has received thus far. Everyone had been laying them on thick, and she wanted to have more faith in her seniors, but she doubted that they genuinely thought she was that amusing.

Hell, she didn’t think she was that amusing.

Dahyun stuffed down a rising scoff with more sliced apples while she distracted herself with her phone. She unconsciously went to the Twice group chat and reread all of her member’s encouragements from before. A small smile began to grace her face as the simple messages brought back memories of the night before. Dahyun’s appearance on this show was one of Twice’s biggest collective gigs yet, and so they might have celebrated a little bit (although, Dahyun is sure that the girls just wanted to have a party so they could eat good food until they couldn’t eat anymore; comeback preparations were driving them a bit crazy after they have had some time off).

Dahyun would say that the party started off normal, but before the food even arrived, the girls had set up a karaoke machine in their living room and were singing like it would be their very last time.

Dahyun thought about how her senior hosts complimented on her sly humor and well-balanced reactions, and then she thought about the her at the dorms. The real her. The one that exploded at even the slightest ignition of one of her members. It was in the way Chaeyoung handed her the microphone excitedly; in the way Nayeon and Jihyo hyped her up while Jeongyeon chose her favorite song; even in the way Sana and Momo simply began cracking up expectantly, while Tzuyu and Mina stayed behind while shaking the instruments they bought along with the machine. As soon as the song began, Dahyun began her outlandish performance, setting the room alight with laughter as the other girls tumbled down into each other and to the floor.

“Dahyun-ssi, time to come back to the stage!” A staff had called out to Dahyun, bringing her out of her thoughts. She left the fruits uneaten in her manager’s care before heading back onto the stage. She goes back over her well calculated jokes and gags, and her well-balanced reactions (although, honestly, they’re nothing less than overreactions). And as she sets herself back into the mindset of a pristine idol that isn’t afraid to get a little “4D”, she only thinks back to how she can’t wait to get back to the dorms and let herself loose for real.

Because, if she were being honest in an uncharacteristically poetic kind of way, Dahyun would compare herself to something like a firework—a beautiful display compacted into a small container, just waiting for the spark to set her in motion. And her spark? Well, Dahyun’s not sure if the eight other girls could really be considered a spark, more like explosive displays of their own, but either way, they sure do get the job done.