Work Text:
hey
your pronunciation of my name was a little off
jk
Sophia stares at the text for a full minute, maybe longer, her head going a little light at the sight of Manon’s name in her notifications. She’s had to scroll through old messages to see that name since 22 February. To have it appear at the top of her screen now, bright and alive and recent, feels almost unreal. A name, apparently, she said wrong. Where?
hey
where?
we miss you. hope you’re doing okay.
Manon taught them how to pronounce her name the day after she arrived at the dorms after overhearing Megan and Karlee playfully bicker about it. Sophia nailed it on her first try. “You’re good. It’s exactly like that,” Manon had beamed at her.
Sophia liked doing things right the first time. Sophia liked being told she was good. Sophia liked the way Manon’s eyes seemed to light from within when she smiled like that.
The message gets read but the reply doesn’t come, and she wants to bang her head against a wall. She thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said that last part because she made it heavy when Manon was trying to keep things light. As light as it can be at a time like this.
Sophia’s all alone in the bottom bunks of the tour bus that had taken them up to Coachella Valley. The Beautiful Chaos tour was done via planes and private jets. Apparently the company crunched the numbers and decided it was more cost-effective that way given how much ground they needed to cover in a month, so they’ve never had to take a tour bus like this before. Their more experienced staff had warned them that it would be cramped and uncomfortable and that privacy would become a precious, laughable concept. The girls, of course, had squealed the second they climbed on board. Life on the actual road, even if the road mostly ended in a dusty parking lot in the Coachella desert, still sounded glamorous when you said it fast enough.
“Oh, this is perfect!” Daniela had declared as soon as they stepped inside. “One, two, three,” she said, pointing at the left column of bunks as she counted them. “One, two… three,” she said again, counting the right side. Then she stopped. No one said anything. No one looked at each other too long. No one made it more than a slip of the tongue. That was how they handled everything these days: by stepping around the shape of who was missing and pretending not to trip over it.
While the other four scrambled for the top bunks like they were still children at a sleepover, Manon would have wanted the bottom bunk across the aisle from hers. She would have said it was safer, a shorter distance to fall if anything happened in the middle of the night.
“You mean it’s safer because you’re a shorter distance away from me,” Sophia can hear herself teasing.
Yoonchae would gag. Lara would tell them to get a room. Daniela and Megan would immediately start some stupid kiss chant.
They’re not together. Not in the way Daniela and Jonah or Lara and Orlando were. If they were, it would be weird they haven’t really talked to each other for two months now.
Sophia turns onto her side, phone screen turning with her, and finds herself doing the thing she is too embarrassed to admit she’s been doing every few nights. She scrolls up through her messages with Manon.
She reads line by line. She swallows laughs at old jokes like she’s seeing them for the first time. She smiles at the little compliments Manon never forgot to send her after every show. She feels her heart flutter stupidly, helplessly, every time she sees I love you. She doesn’t know what she’s hoping to find here. It’s not like there is one message hidden somewhere that explains how they ended up like this.
getting coffee. you want anything?
whatever you’re getting. tell me how much
don’t worry about it bbg
yay thank you mommy
megan’s in a mood today. think i’ve used up my one question limit with her
what did you use it on
are you okay
lmaoooo????
can you talk to her or not
yeah i’ll go see what’s up
yoonchae home? i found these dubai chocolate cookies and got you guys some [image attached]
there’s already nothing in her bloodstream but dubai chocolate and you’re enabling it further
i think we could shred some chicken and vegetables and disguise it as dubai chocolate to trick her into hitting all the food groups
another parenting win for us
She’s all the way back to August 2025 when her finger slips and the thread jumps down again, landing brutally on we miss you. hope you’re doing okay.
If Manon hadn’t already read it, Sophia could still edit it. Leave it at we miss you. Change we to I.
Then the bubble with the ellipses appears, and Sophia feels her breath hitch.
zane lowe show
idk who muh-non is
Sophia mutters fuck before she can stop herself. She didn’t think Manon would have listened to that. But it’s everywhere, so maybe she should have known better.
She fumbled most of it. Her head physically hurt trying to make sure she got out all the lines their PR team had told her to say—about how hard they’ve been working, how they always want to show up for their fans. Her throat burned worse with every word she uttered. She heard the way her voice shook, knew it was going to be picked apart by fans and haters alike later. She hid her trembling hands under the table, and thanked god the show was audio-only.
But no, she couldn’t have messed up Manon’s name. Manon was probably messing with her. Because they’re the kind of whatever they are that can still mess with each other like that even after two months of mess. Right? Right.
Sophia goes to check. She opens Apple Music, finds the show on the homepage, and clicks on the latest episode. She drags the slider all the way to close to the end, and listens.
No, she decides. No, she definitely said ma-no, like she was taught. But she runs it back again. And again. And again. And okay—maybe, in her rush to get through the sentence without cracking, the beginning and end blur together with the words sandwiching it. She could hear what Manon might have heard. What Manon would hear if she was already scared of being forgotten and cast aside by the girls who—as Lara had proclaimed on the show—were her sisters.
i definitely said ma-no
i always get it right
i didn’t think you’d listen
yeah
been trying to stay offline these days
but a friend sent it to me
Manon has many friends. Sophia can’t keep track of all of them most of the time. Manon told her when they first got to know each other that a lot of them were from when she came to Los Angeles for an exchange program when she was in high school. Then those friends introduced her to their friends, and those friends did the same to their friends, and on and on. People collected around her without effort. People loved her that way.
The thought comforts Sophia a little. It helps to imagine Manon surrounded by those people now, held up by them, distracted by them, loved by them. It would comfort her much more if she were still one of the people Manon sought out first. Possessive, maybe. But that’s why she doesn’t share that thought with anyone.
how have you been?
Sophia watches the blank screen, then the typing bubble, then blank again. By the time the reply comes, she’s already invented seven worse versions of it.
doing well, as you apparently already know
Sophia flinches like the snark was a literal fist reaching out the phone and taking a swipe at her.
i was genuinely asking
i know
it’s been a lot. but i’m ok
you guys look good
i hope you’re taking care of yourselves
especially you, leader
thanks
hope you’re taking care too
i’m sorry for saying all that on zane lowe
i know it’s not fair
gotta do what you gotta do
life goes on
She’s not wrong, too. Life does, in fact, go on. Rehearsals still happen. TikToks still need to be filmed. Promotions still need to be done as five, because that’s what they are now, at least for the indefinite future. And Sophia isn’t miserable every second of every day. Sometimes she genuinely laughs at something the social media manager tells her to do. Sometimes she gets through a rehearsal and forgets, for thirty whole seconds, that there is someone missing from the line.
Then she thinks about how Manon would have laughed too. Or what she would have said under her breath. Or where she’d be standing. And then the sadness comes back all at once, meaner for the brief relief that came before it.
Being happy at a time like this feels ugly. She hates pretending. She hates, almost more, the moments when she isn’t pretending and still catches herself smiling. Rationally, she knows it doesn’t mean she’s happy because Manon isn’t there. It means she’s happy sometimes, and Manon isn’t there to be part of it. Still, that’s not how it feels. And that’s not how it looks to online spectators, whether they’re crucifying her for it or using it to put Manon down and point out how much happier everyone is without her around. Sophia cares more about how it looks to Manon.
She wants to ask. Wants to know what Manon really thinks. Wants to ask if she hates her. Wants to ask if she misses her. Wants to ask if any of this can still be salvaged.
But before she can type anything, the three dots appear again.
don’t wanna get in the way of your rest
hope everything goes well
this was nice
good night sophia
good night manon
Sophia stares at the screen for a few more seconds after sending it, as if another message might still come. When it doesn’t, she turns the phone off and slides it under her pillow.
She rolls onto her back again. Optimal sleeping position—it encourages the drainage of the nasal passages, neutral spine alignment, evenly distributes bodyweight so there’s no concentrated pressure on specific parts of the body. All little things that may or may not make a difference for their biggest festival appearance yet.
If Manon was across the aisle, none of that would have mattered.
She’d probably sleep facing the curtain. She’d pull it back a bit, just to see if Manon had hers pulled back a bit too. She probably would. She’d open her eyes because she could feel Sophia staring. She’d wink.
“Good night, Sophia,” she would say.
“Good night, Manon,” Sophia would get to say back.