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The bathroom is too bright for what’s happening in it.
The overhead light turns everything clinical—the sink, the paper towels, the faint smear of foundation on the counter like someone tried to erase a face. Sophia’s reflection is a stranger: eyes too wide, jaw clenched. Manon stands a few feet away, arms folded tight across her chest.
“Manon, I don’t want this any more than you do.”
“That’s some bullshit,” Manon says, and her eyes shine instantly. “You knew. You knew that they were going to—”
“I begged them not to,” Sophia says. “Please, you have to believe me.”
“For months I thought it was all in my head. I went to you, and you said it was all in my head,” Manon says.
“Because I didn’t know that it was escalating like this,” Sophia says, her voice cracking.
“I’m fucking done, Sophia.” Manon’s hands tremble at her sides. She curls her fingers into fists anyway. “They’re pushing me out. I’m not going to stay somewhere I’m not wanted.”
“You are wanted,” Sophia says. It comes out like a plea before she can shape it into anything else. “The fans still want you. The girls. I want you here. Please, Manon. Don’t do anything rash.”
“Rash?” Manon laughs once, sharp enough to cut. “I’m being rash? They called me in before a fucking interview to tell me they’re putting out my hiatus media statement in a couple of hours, Sophia. Who treats a person like that?”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing!” Manon snaps, and it cracks at the end, the anger failing to keep her steady.
“Sophia, Manon.”
They both whip their heads to the bathroom door, where one of the managers, Rachel, is standing.
“Megan and Lara just arrived. Yoonchae and Dani are about 5 minutes away,” she says.
Sophia drags a breath into her lungs and feels it snag halfway. She looks at Manon, searching for something that isn’t fury—anything that isn’t distance. Manon’s face is locked down now, jaw tight, eyes bright but dry. A switch flips when she hears their names.
“Manon, please,” Sophia says again, softer this time.
“Please what?” Manon snaps. “Please make this easy for the company? For you?”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” Sophia says, and there’s a hot flash of anger—brief, ugly, not proud of itself. Not at Manon, not really. At the implication. At the years they’ve survived together being reduced to this moment where Manon thinks she’s part of it. Thinks she could want it.
“Then what?” Manon challenges.
Sophia opens her mouth and finds nothing. Every answer sounds like a defense. Every defense sounds like betrayal.
Rachel clears her throat softly, almost apologetic. “We can talk after the interview.”
“No.” Manon’s voice is immediate. “I’m going home after the interview.” Her gaze flicks to Sophia, knife-sharp. “We’ll do it now. When Yoonchae and Dani get here. It shouldn’t take more than five minutes.” Her mouth twists, humorless. “That’s how long the bosses took to tell me, anyway.”
Sophia’s chest tightens. She wants to stop her, to pull her back, to say please don’t do this alone—but Manon’s already moving.
She slips past Rachel without looking at her and disappears down the hallway like a door closing.
Rachel exhales. “Sophia—”
Sophia turns on her without meaning to. The look is sharp. Then it softens immediately into regret, because Rachel is staff, and Sophia knows that doesn’t mean nothing, but it also doesn’t mean control.
“I should go,” Sophia murmurs, voice flat, and follows Manon out before the words in her throat turn into something she can’t swallow.
Manon makes it easy for the company.
Sophia can’t understand why—not at first, not really. Not when Manon’s hands are shaking. Not when her eyes are red-rimmed and furious. Not when her body looks like it’s vibrating with the effort of staying upright.
But it’s a decision she comes to unilaterally when she tells the girls, “The company’s gonna put out a statement later today. I’m gonna be on hiatus. It’s something we decided on together. I know that’s not fun to hear, I’m sorry for springing it onto you guys like this, but that’s what’s happening.”
She looks at Sophia once—half a second, maybe. Not long enough to invite conversation. Just long enough for Sophia to feel it as a deliberate choice: don’t ruin this.
Yoonchae leans forward, eyes bright. “Sophia, did you know?” she demands, and there’s hurt under the anger.
“She found out the same time I did,” Manon lies, quick, clean.
“Wait, you said it was something you decided together. What do you mean, you found out?” Daniela calls out.
Manon’s jaw tightens. For a moment, the mask slips, just a hairline fracture. “I mean…it’s something I had talked about with the company for a while, and we came to a decision today. We had a meeting earlier. Sophia was there.”
“For a while?” Megan repeats, disbelief rising. “You’ve known for a while and you didn’t say anything?”
Manon’s hands flex once on her thighs, then still. “I didn’t want to—” she swallows. “I didn’t want to worry you guys before anything was final.”
“It’s just—it’s all so sudden,” Lara says.
“I know,” Manon says, and the words come out softer. Likely because it’s the truest thing she has said since they all sat down.
Megan’s eyes narrow. “Will you be with us for Latin America?”
Manon shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” Daniela cuts in, frustrated now—not at Manon leaving, but at how slippery the truth feels. “What do you mean you don’t think so? Why isn’t there a timeline? Why—”
“You’ll be with us for Coachella, though,” Lara says over her, urgent. “Right?”
Manon’s throat works as if swallowing something sharp. “We’ll see,” she says, barely above a whisper.
Lara’s face collapses. “What?”
“Manon, what the fuck is happening? Are you okay? Like, are you sick with something? Are you hurt?” Megan asks, her frustration turning her eyes wet at the edges.
“No,” Manon says quickly. Too quickly. “No, it’s not like that. I’m healthy, physically. I just… this is a break. I haven’t been showing up like I should—”
Sophia flinches. Not because she believes it. Because she recognizes the lie as a sacrifice.
Daniela hears it too. “Bullshit,” she says, turning immediately to Sophia. “Is that what this is about? Sophia, is that what the company’s doing?”
All eyes swing to Sophia.
Sophia’s mouth goes dry. “N-no,” she stutters. “I don’t—I don’t know.” It’s the truth in the smallest, most useless form.
Manon tilts her head at Sophia—just slightly. For the first time all day her eyes soften, and the softness is what finally grows the lump in Sophia’s throat.
“The fact is,” Manon says, turning back to them, “I need time to get my head on straight and come back to you guys at a hundred percent. I don’t want us to fight over this. I’m not asking you to be okay with it. I’m not even asking you to understand.” She swipes at her face, but tears keep coming, stubborn and humiliating. She turns away so they won’t see her mouth twist.
Everyone watches with shame, guilt, helplessness. They let her words hang in the air for a second, no one speaking until she takes a deep breath to continue:
“I just need you all to know that I love you guys, and nothing will change that.”
Lara reaches her first. Always. She puts a hand on Manon’s arm and squeezes—steady, gentle, not demanding anything back. “We love you too,” Lara says, voice cracking.
Megan shakes her head, chin quivering, tears finally spilling. “I don’t get it. This feels like goodbye.”
“It’s not,” Sophia says fast, too loud. The helplessness comes out as certainty. “It’s not. It’s temporary, Mei.”
Megan looks at Manon for corroboration, but Manon stays quiet. Her breathing goes shallow. She can’t get words past whatever’s closing up her throat. She just blinks hard, trying to keep her face from caving.
So Megan stands up abruptly, head bowed because she doesn’t want to make this about her. “I think I need some air,” she says, voice thin with frustration and grief. “Text me when the Zoom call is about to start.”
Yoonchae rises a beat after, eyes flicking between the door and Manon. She’s worried about Megan, but her body stays oriented toward Manon like a compass that can’t lie. “I’ll go check on her,” she whispers, then bends to hug Manon quickly—careful, as if Manon might bruise. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t trust her words enough. The hug is what she can give.
Daniela’s gaze flicks again—Sophia to Manon, Manon to Sophia—like she’s tracking an invisible thread. She wants to pull it. She wants to ask what’s being hidden. But she sees Sophia’s face, sees how close she looks to splintering, and she swallows it down. She shifts closer instead, a small choice that says later. Not now. Now, she puts her hand on Manon’s knee and squeezes—firm, grounding. “You’ll tell us if there’s anything we can do, right?”
Manon nods, biting the inside of her lip so hard it must hurt. Lara doesn’t let go of her arm. She stays close, like warmth is something you can lend.
Five minutes later, they’re touching up their faces.
Concealer over tears. Powder over swelling. Mascara over red rims. The motions are automatic, almost absurd. As if they can paint the room back into normal.
Megan returns with puffy eyes, settles into the chair in front of Manon for the call. Before it starts, she turns around and nervously murmurs an apology for walking out. Manon squeezes her shoulder and says it’s fine. Megan wishes she’d just yell at her instead. Give them something to keep fighting about.
Then the radio station calls, and the interview starts. Six faces in a little frame on a screen, speaking in practiced voices with a heaviness no media training can hide.
Everyone will just have to accept it. Their managers, the company, the fans. Their last appearance as six—for an indefinite while—is going to look like that.
When the call ends, Manon stands.
She goes around the room and hugs them one by one. Lara first, longer than necessary. Daniela next, a squeeze that looks like a promise. Yoonchae, gentle and shaking. Megan, who clings like she’s trying to hold her in place.
And finally, Sophia.
Manon pauses in front of her like she’s deciding whether to do it at all. Her eyes flick up—quick, guarded—and Sophia can’t tell if it’s apology or warning or just exhaustion made visible. The room has gone oddly quiet around them, as if even the others can sense that whatever happens here matters in a different way.
Sophia doesn’t move. She doesn’t trust herself to. Manon steps in anyway.
The hug is careful at first—an arm sliding around Sophia’s shoulders, the other settling at her waist with a lightness that feels practiced. As if Manon is afraid of putting too much weight into it. As if she’s afraid Sophia will feel it and crumble. Sophia’s body responds before her mind does, arms coming up, hands flattening against Manon’s back like she needs proof that she’s real.
Manon is warm. Smaller than Sophia remembers whenever she gets close like this—all bone and heat, the faint scent of her shampoo threaded through the sterile sting of setting spray and the room’s lingering stress-sweat.
She feels Manon’s touch and thinks of all the times she has searched for her backstage before a show, just to give her their ritual arm squeeze—because without it, Sophia can’t be sure she won’t mess up a run or forget choreography.
She thinks of holding Manon’s hand on planes, sensing her anxiety from across the aisle, letting their fingers slip together in the most awkward position possible in a private jet, and it still doesn’t matter. To Manon, she is safety. Was safety.
She thinks about finding Manon at the beginning of My Way, holding onto her until it’s time to sing the first chorus because she needs someone to ground her. Sophia loves her other four baby sisters so much, but Manon is the one who settles her the fastest. Manon makes her calm.
Sophia breathes it all in and hates herself for how much her chest aches at something as simple as her smell, as if she’s memorizing it for later.
Because later feels uncertain.
Manon shifts slightly, pulling back just enough to look at her. Sophia’s hands slide from Manon’s back to her arms, thumbs brushing absentmindedly over the fabric there—another habit, another wordless check-in. Manon’s eyes are soft, tired, clear. There’s sadness, yes, but no accusation. No distance. The fire of their earlier argument in the bathroom is extinguished, and Sophia doesn’t know if she likes that.
Sophia finds one sentence that won’t make her voice break.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
Manon’s mouth twitches, barely. She shakes her head once—small and sure—like she’s correcting Sophia gently. Then she lets go.
The cold rushes into the space she leaves behind. Sophia’s arms fall to her sides like they’ve forgotten their purpose. She watches Manon lift her bag, walk toward the door, and pause just long enough to send one last glance toward the room.
Then Manon leaves.