Chapter Text
They’re doing press for the documentary movie, fifteen interviews blurring into one in Yoonchae’s head when the picture is shown.
The picture flashes quickly—some old red carpet photo taken during their debut era, all six of them not in their best looks smiling brightly at the camera—and the interviewer is asking them something like what do you guys think about this and Yoonchae’s eyes drift to her automatically.
Manon.
Yoonchae doesn’t know what it is about the picture that makes her chest tighten. She’s been doing so well the last seven months, can usually stare at Manon just fine, can stalk her Instagram and pretend she’s not waiting for updates, can watch those stupidly sad fan edits that play Purple Rain and show Manon like a dead wife.
Maybe she was just tired. Sophia sometimes says that staring at old pictures of Manon felt like you were scratching a scab—it felt good until it didn’t.
“I can’t believe we wore those outfits,” Daniela groans, answering the interviewer.
Next to her, Lara makes a funny face, gagging at what they’re wearing. “They used to put me in the worst shit, I swear to God.”
Megan grimaces and tells the interviewer, “next picture please, my toes are literally curling.”
The interviewer laughs and clicks to show the next photos.
Yoonchae doesn’t answer any more questions for that interview. The best thing about everyone assuming you’re having a hard time with English is that they never pressure you to answer.
She zones out, Manon’s face hovering in the back of her mind like some phantom limb she can still feel.
Because Yoonchae isn’t in New York anymore doing press for WILD, suddenly it’s not 2026.
It’s December. It’s 2025. It’s the first time.
They’re in the van, still on the road for some performances and Dani leans in to say, “we should do a live countdown for Yoonchae turning 18.”
“We’re all gonna finally be adults, holy shit,” Megan says from across from her.
Yoonchae stares at her own phone and she can’t believe it—she’s turning 18 soon and she couldn’t be further away from everything she knows. From Korea, from her family, from her friends.
Growing up feels a lot like growing apart from yourself.
Manon squeezes herself in the gap between Lara and Yoonchae’s seats. She rests her head on the Korean’s lap and blinks at her, smiling wide. “You’re finally joining the old lady club.”
“Not as old as you,” Yoonchae replies. She knows she’s funnier in Korean, but her reply still earns her a warm laugh from the older girl.
“Yeah, try being twenty, it’s downhill from there,” Manon says.
“Manon’s turning twenty four soon, old as fuck,” Lara adds.
Sophia turns on the livestream, and they all greet the Eyekons one by one. The girls talk over each other, and Yoonchae watches them do that—she wishes she could cut in now and then, but her English is still improving and sometimes the other girls talk too fast. Too fast for Yoonchae to be able to say the things she wants to.
Manon rests her head on Yoonchae’s lap from where she must be uncomfortably squatting on the floor.
“You can sit in your chair,” Yoonchae tells her.
Manon shrugs. “After your birthday live, I will.” She gets this mischievous look in her eyes. “You should commit a crime. While you’re still 17.”
Yoonchae laughs at that and Lara cuts in. “Girl, you want her to go to jail when she turns 18?”
“I’m adult soon,” Yoonchae says, staring at the countdown on her phone.
“You’re not a baby anymore,” Megan says.
“17 is not baby.”
“You’re gonna be 18 and look back at 17 and realize you were a kid,” Megan insists, giving her a knowing look.
Yoonchae doesn’t understand that—doesn’t know how to dismantle what Megan means by that.
The girls countdown noisily and the clock strikes 12, and the Eyekons are flooding the comments, and Sophia is yelling her name over and over again that makes Yoonchae’s ears hurt, and Lara is next to her singing Happy Birthday, Megan is behind her shaking her shoulders, and Dani is patting her head while saying “she’s grown she’s grown she’s grown”, and Manon.
Manon smiles up at her, eyes crinkling, eyebrows furrowed like—like she can’t believe it.
Yoonchae turns eighteen, and the first thing she says is, “I’m not cute anymore.”
The girls all laugh and start singing that TikTok audio: I’m not cute anymore oh oh oh over and over again, but Manon doesn’t know that song, thinks Yoonchae genuinely believes she's not cute anymore.
“No!” Manon says.
“What’s your favorite fashion trend?” The interviewer asks, and Sophia has to elbow Yoonchae back into the present.
The leader knits her eyebrows in concern and Yoonchae clears her throat, schooling her face into an unreadable expression. “Hair,” is all Yoonchae replies.
The interviewer and the other girls laugh at the monosyllabic answer, except Sophia, who has gone strangely quiet and is watching Yoonchae with something the Korean can’t decipher.
After so many interviews Yoonchae has lost count after the fifteenth, they can all finally go home and rest. She beelines for the exit, giving the other girls a hasty goodbye, eager to avoid Sophia’s prying eyes.
Yoonchae gets into her car—and wow, she can’t believe she can actually drive now; she still remembers telling the Eyekons about her license on WeVerse, how happy she’d been, how adult-like it felt—she puts on the whole petal album by Ariana, and heads towards her apartment.
Or home. Or whatever you’d wanna call it. It never felt like home to her. The last place she’d called home was her family’s house in Korea, and if she digs far enough in her chest, then maybe the time all six of them lived together in the Katseye dorm.
She feels unmoored, the image of Manon playing in the background louder than Ariana’s vocals, sort of fading in and out of her mind as she goes through the god-awful LA traffic that always happens late afternoon.
“What is that?” Yoonchae asks, sixteen and small and curious.
Manon laughs and lifts up the bottle. “Rivella.”
“What?” Yoonchae asks again, blinking owlishly at her. “Ri-what?”
Manon shakes her head, a fond expression on her face. “Here. Try it. It’s my favorite.” She hands the bottle to Korean girl.
Yoonchae takes a sip—and what the fuck. She’s never tasted that before. Milk and something else. She’s not sure. It’s good.
“You like it?” Manon gently asks her. The older girl is always like this. Gentle with her, but loud with others.
Yoonchae doesn’t have the words in English to describe how much she likes it, so she nods and wracks her brains for the proper explanation. Manon patiently waits, because Manon is like that.
She doesn’t interrupt her, she doesn’t talk over her, she doesn’t explain for Yoonchae. She lets her be—lets her become.
“Good,” is all Yoonchae can really say.
She settles a lot in the English language. Perfect becomes okay, delicious because nice, devastated becomes ‘a bit sad’.
“Okay,” Manon tells her, still smiling. “Good.”
Yoonchae organizes her things when she gets home. She takes off her shoes, properly undresses and places the clothes neatly in the basket, and then starts walking around fixing anything that might be misplaced.
It’s a tick. A tick she got from living with Sophia for so long back then. The Filipina always said: fix now or suffer later.
Her apartment is nice. Lara said it was, at least, and Megan sometimes comes over with friends here because her own place is a mess. Dani doesn’t come at all, usually preoccupied with Jonah on her days off, but she keeps telling Yoonchae that Sophia gushes about how nice it is, how neat it is, how she designed it.
Yoonchae tries hard not to think about how Manon hasn’t seen it either, how Manon would have fit in her apartment—maybe sprawled across the couch, or walking back and forth in the living room because she was restless like that.
She opens her phone and scrolls on TikTok. Brainrot, whatever. All that. She likes a couple of edits of herself and the other girls, and then she gets fucking Rick-rolled (Megan had taught her this term) by a Manon video.
It starts off with a viral meme completely unrelated to KATSEYE, and then Purple Rain comes on, and Manon’s words filter through the phone and Yoonchae is already watching before she can look away.
She sees the birthday stream for her birthday in the edit, the one where Manon is resting her head on her lap and insisting Yoonchae is still cute—still her baby.
But that’s not true is it?
You don’t kiss your baby. You don’t take her first kiss.
Yoonchae isn’t a crier, but when it comes to Manon, nothing has ever been logical in her head.
She’s crying.
“Here,” Manon says, sheepishly handing her a plain white paper bag. It isn’t designed like the other gifts Yoonchae had received from the other girls.
It’s weird to see Manon like this: shy and small.
The maknae blinks up at her. “What is that?”
“Gift. For you. I know it’s late.” Manon sits in front of her on the floor where Yoonchae is charging her phone next to a socket.
“Oh. Thank you.” Yoonchae gingerly takes the bag. “You didn’t have to.”
Manon shrugs. “You’re eighteen. That’s a big deal. I remember being eighteen.”
Manon is 23, an age that feels far to Yoonchae, like there’s a chasm between them of experience and everything else.
“Open it,” Manon insists, biting her lip. “I wanna see your reaction.”
Manon cares about that—about how Yoonchae feels about things. Sophia does too, but in a different way. It feels different, the way Manon cares.
Like she’s trying to see more parts of Yoonchae. Like everything is a test, somehow.
Yoonchae doesn’t have to rip the bag apart, it’s not even stapled or taped together, and she pulls out what’s inside. Three bottles of Rivella and a letter. Nothing fancy—which is fine, because Yoonchae is tired of the designer stuff. Of the expensive gifts and having to sit there and say thank you one million times because the gift is expensive.
“I remember you liked it,” Manon tells her as if she hadn’t just put her hand in Yoonchae’s chest and pulled her heart out.
Remember. Manon remembers a lot of things about her. Yoonchae just has to tell her once and Manon remembers.
“Thank you,” Yoonchae replies, voice soft. She sort of feels like crying, but doesn’t. “No alcohol?” She jokes. It would be funnier in Korean.
Manon laughs regardless. “I guess you are 18 now. I should have gotten you soju or something.”
Eighteen. It doesn’t feel different from seventeen, but somehow it is.
“I don’t feel like I’m eighteen.”
Manon tilts her head to the side and watches her. “Why?”
“Haven’t…done eighteen.” Yoonchae knows that her words don’t make sense, but she’s hoping Manon will understand.
Yoonchae hasn’t done anything different from the time she was seventeen to eighteen. Hasn’t done the grown-up stuff everyone says she can.
“Mm. Okay. Haven’t done eighteen. Like, you haven’t—like grown up stuff?”
“Yeah,” Yoonchae replies. “Grown up stuff.”
“Well. You work. That’s pretty grown up.”
Yoonchae shrugs. “Doesn’t feel.”
“Okay.” Manon claps her hands and leans in a bit too close, eyes curious. “What do you want to do? We can, maybe, cross something off your bucket list right now.”
“Bucket list?”
“Like—you know. When you have a list of things you wanna do in your life, that you haven’t. We can do that.”
“Oh.” Yoonchae thinks about that, but it’s hard to think when Manon is beautiful and their faces are so close to each other. Without meaning to, her eyes trail down to Manon’s lips—plump and pretty, and Yoonchae finds herself thinking of how Megan said her first kiss has been bad. That her first kiss was with some stupid boy.
Yoonchae’s never had a first kiss. She doesn’t want her first kiss to be bad like Megan’s. With some stupid boy she won’t like anymore.
“I’ve never kissed,” Yoonchae states, staring at the older girl.
Manon laughs then, a full bellied laugh, throwing her head back and everything. “Holy shit. That caught me off guard.”
“Don’t tease,” the Korean admonishes her, crossing her arms.
“No, no. It’s fine that you haven’t, that’s just not what I expected you to say,” Manon says, still chuckling, still not taking her seriously.
Yoonchae stares at her, unblinking. “Serious.”
And Manon finally stops laughing and looks back at her, as if seeing her for the first time in some sort of way.
“Okay,” Manon says. “Serious.”
Yoonchae nods, but she doesn’t know what she’s asking of the older girl really. She just knows that Manon is pretty, and here, and Yoonchae is eighteen.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” Manon asks, tilting her head.
Yoonchae knows how to say yes in English, but she says yes a different way. She leans forward.
Manon gives her this soft gentle smile, and lifts her hand up to cup her face. She runs her thumb across Yoonchae’s cheek. It’s delicate—and Yoonchae is tired of delicate.
Tired of being handled with care, like she is a kid that doesn’t know what she wants.
“Kiss,” Yoonchae finds herself saying.
Manon nods, and mumbles, “okay, birthday girl,” and then she adds on, “don’t tell Sophia, she’ll kill me,” and then she’s leaning in and kissing Yoonchae.
Yoonchae closes her eyes, and doesn’t know how to move her lips but Manon leads and Yoonchae is pliant under her touch. It’s nothing like how Megan described it. It isn’t sloppy or messy or disgusting.
It’s nice. Because Manon is nice, and Yoonchae is eighteen, and her first kiss is the prettiest girl she knows.
Manon pulls back after a second, her own eyes wide like she can’t believe she did that. Yoonchae mirrors her expression.
“There,” Manon says after a few seconds of silence. She’s still holding Yoonchae’s face. “You’re an adult now.”
Yoonchae never drank the last Rivella. One she had when she was craving something sweet three months ago, and the other had broken because Lara and Megan had visited her after a night out, drunk out of their minds.
The last one is under her bed. Untouched.
Yoonchae is afraid that if she drinks it, she’ll lose the last thing she has of Manon.
It’s been months since she last saw her, and even longer since they’ve spoken, and sometimes Yoonchae watches their old interviews so she can remember her voice.
She doesn’t want to forget Manon. She doesn’t want to forget what it feels like to be around her.
Yoonchae finds herself opening their last message—it was when she greeted Manon happy birthday. Manon had heart reacted it, and that was it.
That was all she had of Manon of the last seven months.
She wonders if it really did mean nothing, then—maybe eighteen and twenty four are a chasm apart like that—maybe what tilted Yoonchae’s world on its axis was just a passing moment to Manon.
She falls asleep like that, sort of pathetic on the couch, exhausted from the day and the last few months.
meretmanon is calling you on Instagram.
Yoonchae jolts awake as her phone vibrates. She sleepily stares at the time and sees that it’s now 10PM and she’s napped for four hours, and fuck.
And wait. Wait, wait, wait.
You have missed a call from meretmanon.
Yoonchae is pressing the call button before she can stop to wake up properly.
It rings once only, Manon picking up on the second ring.
“Hey, sorry, that was a butt dial,” Manon says. No hi no hello, no how are you.
“Oh,” Yoonchae breathes out. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. “Oh, okay. Sorry.”
“No, no. I’m glad you rang back,” Manon replies, “all things considered.”
Yoonchae’s English is good now. She has that SoCal accent she had picked up from Karlee, Lara, and Megan. She has all the words now, but for some reason she can’t say them.
Instead, she says, “I forgot your voice.”
There’s a long pregnant pause that passes before Manon speaks again.
“Your accent,” Manon says. “It’s good.”
“Was it really an accident?” Yoonchae asks her, because she’s blunt and she wants to know, and she doesn’t know when she’ll ever hear from her again.
Manon doesn’t answer for a long time. Such a long time that Yoonchae wonders if she’s dropped the call.
“No.”
No. It wasn’t an accident. No, Manon had meant to call her.
“I like your blonde hair,” Manon says after awhile. “It looks nice. You look good.”
“You saw?”
“I saw. I looked.”
Manon looked for her—had maybe searched her up just to see, just to know like Yoonchae does every week. Like Yoonchae checks in on Manon’s videos and picture through her friend Sophie’s account.
“Thank you,” Yoonchae says. For the compliment, and also for remembering.
Manon remembers her, still.
“You’re old now,” Yoonchae adds, smiling.
Manon laughs then—and it’s been so long since Yoonchae’s heard it that she sort of wishes she could bottle it up and hide it under her bed with the last Rivella.
“I am,” Manon replies. “You’re still eighteen. Cross off anything else on your bucket list?”
Yoonchae’s chest hurts in a good way. Like what Sophia said—scratching a scab felt good until it didn’t.
Manon remembers the kiss.
“I drive now,” Yoonchae tells her. “And I go to parties sometimes.”
“Good, good.”
“Do you have a bucket list? Even if you’re old?”
Manon laughs again. “I knew it. Knew you’d be a menace once you got English.”
Yoonchae is smiling so wide it hurts her cheeks. “Told you I’d be good at it.”
“You did. You are.” Manon pauses. “My bucket list, huh? Yeah I guess I did.”
“What have you done?” Yoonchae asks, because Manon is well-versed and well-travelled, she can’t imagine her not having done things yet.
“I called you,” Manon replies.
Oh. Yoonchae doesn’t know what that means but it feels important somehow.
“Are you in LA?” Yoonchae finds herself asking, wanting.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“A week, but that—“
“—is it on your bucket list to come see?” Yoonchae whispers, even though she doesn’t have to.
Manon’s answer is honest. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“It’s on mine,” Yoonchae says, eyes closed. “It’s on mine to see you again.”
She wonders if Manon still cares the way she used to, in the way that she would show up, or come just because Yoonchae asked.
“Okay,” Manon says after a few seconds. “I’ll come see you.”
Okay—because Yoonchae is eighteen, and she doesn’t feel stupid anymore for holding on to that Rivella.