Work Text:
Megan had been watching TikToks— a lot of it were edits of her or Yoonchae, or both of them—for the better part of an hour, when Sophia had dropped down beside her all energetic, as though there was news bubbling up from underneath her pores and she’s about to combust. An exaggeration maybe, but well, this is a theatre kid we’re talking about.
"Okay, so," Sophia said, not bothering with preamble."I found this song."
Megan didn't look up from her phone. "You find like forty songs a day."
"This one's different." Sophia was already pulling up Spotify on her own phone, and Megan could hear the certain frequency that dictated determination in her voice. "It's Filipino. OPM—that's Original Pilipino Music—and it's called 'Sundo.'"
"What's it about?" Megan asked, finally glancing over, because this sounds… honest? Whatever Sundo means, Megan could already feel it tugging her closer.
"That's the thing." Sophia bit her bottom lip, the way she did when she was trying to find the right words in English for something that lived more naturally in another language. "Sundo means... like, the person who comes to pick you up. Like when someone comes to get you and bring you home. There's not— there’s not really an English word for it."
The song started playing, and Megan found herself actually paying attention now, phone forgotten in her lap. It was beautiful although that is an understatement for most pieces of art—acoustic guitar and a woman's voice that sounded like honey and heartbreak had gotten together and decided to ruin everyone's day.
"I can't understand what she's saying," Megan said after a moment, which was obvious but needed to be said anyway.
"I know." Sophia smiled, her eyes still closed, swaying slightly. "That's why I'm gonna translate it for you."
"Kay tagal kong sinusuyod ang buong mundo," Sophia murmured along with the lyrics, and then, almost to herself, "I've been searching the whole world for so long."
Megan sat up a little straighter. There was something about the way Sophia said it, the weight she gave each word, that made it feel important. "Keep going."
"Para hanapin, para hanapin ka," Sophia continued, her voice barely above a whisper now. "Just to find you, to find you." She paused the song, and in the silence that followed, Megan could feel her heartbeat getting louder, like it knows something her brain hasn’t caught onto yet. How wonderful it was, to be united by feeling despite the barriers of language. "The word she uses—sinusuyod—it's like... you know how you use a fine-tooth comb to search for lice?"
"Ew, Sophia."
"No, wait, listen." Sophia laughed, but she was serious too, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "The word comes from that. It means to search really, really carefully. Painstakingly. Like going through every single strand." Sophia traced her finger along the lyric. "So it's like, 'For so long I've combed through the entire world.'"
"To find what?"
"'Para hanapin ka.'" Sophia's voice softened. "'To find you.'"
Megan felt everything within her rearrange. "That's kind of intense."
The song continued, and Megan found herself leaning in closer to Sophia's phone, watching the words even though they meant nothing to her eyes but everything to her ears through Sophia's voice.
"'Nilibot ang distrito ng iyong lumbay,'" Sophia continued. "'I wandered the district of your sadness.'" She looked up at Megan. "Isn't that such a beautiful way to say it? Not just 'your sadness,' but the district of it. Like sadness is a place you can walk through."
The chorus hit, and even without understanding the words, Megan felt them in her bones. There was something about the way the singer's voice wrapped around the melody, so certain of her conviction. It was inspiring, but as what Megan had just learned, there are certain times that words fail to capture the true essence of feelings. So, stop with the feelings, right? Enough with I feel this, I feel that, and something about I’ll do this for you, I’ll stay, I’ll—
"Pupulutin, pupulutin ka. To pick you up, to pick you up."
"Pick you up," Megan repeated, testing the words in her mouth. "Like..."
"Like you're something precious that fell on the floor," Sophia said quietly. "Like you're something worth bending down for… or— and— worth gathering up in your hands and keeping safe."
It was beautiful. Megan felt something twist in her chest, unfamiliar and uncomfortable as meaningful things often were. She thought about districts, about wandering, about the geography of feelings she didn't know how to map.
"'Pupulutin ka,'" Sophia said. "I will pick you up." She paused, considering. "Actually, more like 'I will gather you up.' Like picking up pieces."
"'Asahan mo, mula ngayon, pag-ibig ko'y sayo,'" Sophia translated, her voice almost a whisper now. "'Count on it, from this day on, my love is yours.'"
Megan swallowed. "That's... woah."
"It is, right?" Sophia's eyes were bright. "But listen to this part—'Sa akin mo isabit ang pangarap mo.' 'Hang your dreams on me.'" She laughed softly. "I love that. Hang them. Like they're heavy things, and I want to carry them for you."
They sat in silence for a moment, the song building toward its bridge, and Megan thought about dreams as tangible objects. For someone who had always chased her dreams and got into so many extracurricular activities (well, to be fair, she was homeschooled so she had so much time on her hands), she never really imagined them that way. Perhaps they were heavy enough to need carrying. Precious enough to entrust to someone else.
"'Di kukulangin ang ibibigay,'" Sophia continued. "'What I give will never lack.'" She looked at Megan. "Then it says, 'Isuko ang kaba, tuluyan kang bumitaw.' 'Surrender your nervousness, let go completely.'"
"Let go of being nervous?" Megan frowned. "Isn't that kind of impossible? We literally have our first tour in a few days. Very life-changing!"
"Maybe that's the point." Sophia shrugged, her shoulder bumping Megan's. "Maybe it's not about whether you can do it, but about having someone who wants you to feel safe enough to try."
The song swelled into its final chorus, and Sophia translated the layered ending: "'Handa na sa liwanag mo, sinuyod ang buong mundo, maghihintay sa'yong sundo.'" She paused on the last word. "This is the title. 'Sundo.' It means... the person who comes to pick you up. To fetch you. Like when you call someone to come get you because you can't get home by yourself."
"There's a specific word for that?" Megan asked, fascinated.
"Yeah." Sophia smiled. "There's a word for the person who comes for you when you need them. The one who says 'I've searched the whole world, and now I'm ready to wait for you.'"
"So it's a love song," Megan said, but it came out more like a question.
"It's a promise," Sophia corrected, and there was something knowing in her eyes that made Megan feel suddenly, acutely seen. "It's about being willing to search everywhere, through everything—even through someone's sadness—to find them. And then promising to hold them up once you do. To be their sundo. The one who comes to get them."
Megan picked at a thread on the couch cushion. "That's a lot to promise someone."
"Yeah," Sophia agreed. She was watching Megan with that particular attention she had sometimes, like she could see all the things Megan wasn't saying and was politely pretending not to notice them. "But I think that's kind of the point. Love is supposed to be a lot. It's supposed to be big enough to search the whole world for. Big enough to walk through someone's sadness to reach them."
The song was ending now, the final "asahan mo" fading out, and Megan felt oddly bereft at its absence. Something had been building in her chest and now it had nowhere to go.
"Why are you telling me this?" Megan asked, even though she thought she maybe knew the answer. Even though she'd been thinking about Yoonchae more than was probably normal for two people who were just friends. Just groupmates. Yeah.
Sophia smiled, soft and a little sad, a little hopeful. "I don't know. I just thought you should hear it." She stood up, stretching her arms above her head. "Tour starts in three days."
"I know."
"It's going to be different after," Sophia said, and it wasn't a question. "We're all going to be different."
Megan nodded, because yeah, that is true. The long-awaited tour was starting in a few days. They had been preparing for months, she caught Yoonchae yesterday standing alone in the practice room after everyone else had left, just staring at her reflection in the mirror with an expression Megan couldn't decipher. Today was a streak it seems, Megan was running out of words.
She was nineteen years old and about to do something huge and terrifying, and somewhere in this same hotel was a girl who'd looked so lost yesterday that Megan had almost—almost—walked into that practice room and asked if she was okay.
"The end of the song," Megan said as Sophia started to walk away. "What does it say at the end?"
Sophia turned back, and her smile was gentler now. "Handa na sa liwanag mo. I'm ready for your light. Sinuyod ang buong mundo. I've searched the whole world. Maghihintay sa'yo ng sundo." She paused. "Waiting for your sundo. Waiting for someone to come and bring you home."
After Sophia left, Megan sat there for a long time.
She had always wandered the world through different versions of herself. None of those was ever really a romantic. Thrill-seeker was perhaps a good way to describe Megan. The rush of talking to someone new. That adrenaline you get from performing in front of thousands upon thousands of people. Going to parties and meeting new girls and guys. She had wandered the world, every nook and cranny, and she had stumbled upon a girl who liked to live in comfortable and familiar boxes.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Yoonchae took up space in the strangest way—by not taking up any space at all.
Megan had gotten up for water—or that's what she told herself, as if her body hadn't developed this inconvenient habit of waking up around midnight and immediately wondering if Yoonchae was still awake.
She was.
The practice room light bled out from under the door like an accusation, and Megan stood in the hallway,holding her empty water glass like a prop in a play she hadn't auditioned for.
She could walk past. She could go back to bed. She could mind her business like a normal person who didn't have Sophia's song translations echoing in her head at quarter to midnight.
Nilibot ang distrito ng iyong lumbay.
I wandered through the district of your sadness.
"Shit," Megan whispered to no one, and opened the door.
Yoonchae was sitting alone in the center of the practice room floor, which was somehow worse than if she'd been dancing. If she'd been dancing, Megan could've made a joke about Korean work ethic, could've teased her about making the rest of them look bad. But Yoonchae was just... sitting there. Staring at the wall of mirrors that reflected her back at herself infinity times, a recursive loop of foreign girl who looked like she'd forgotten how to remember what came next.
Yoonchae could be holding tours in Korea right now, had she never given Dream Academy a chance. Probably. Megan always believed in Yoonchae. She had also entertained this thought countless times — Yoonchae is a lethal beauty who could do a lot of things and excel at it.
If you think about it, Yoonchae didn’t really need Dream Academy, nor did she ever need KATSEYE. But now, she’s sitting here alone in a cold practice room. Megan finds herself feeling grateful for these circumstances. The world could have had a K-POP idol Yoonchae, and her spark would’ve been crushed by the industry. Thank goodness that she landed here, though it was silly to have maknae as her role. Everyone knows she could very well be an all-rounder with Megan. But well, the industry can want it wants. Megan wants only want thing right now.
"Hey," Megan said, and her voice came out softer than she'd intended. Gentler.
Yoonchae's head turned, and for a second—just a flash—there was something raw on her face before she rearranged it into something resembling normal. "Oh. Hi, Megan-unnie."
The honorific shot through Megan, in a bad or good way, she does not know. Yoonchae had been using it less lately, had started defaulting to just "Megan" the way the others did, and the fact that it was back now felt significant in a way Megan didn't want to examine too closely.
"You know we have that whole 'sleep is important' speech from management memorized by now, right?" Megan stepped into the room and let the door close behind her with a soft click that sounded too loud in the quiet. "Pretty sure we could recite it in our sleep. Which is ironic."
"I know." Yoonchae's voice was small. This sight of Yoonchae took Megan back to when they were just training. She looks so small. She looks 15-year-old Yoonchae, a girl who most probably felt alone in a sea of culture shocks. "I was just... thinking."
Megan set her water glass down on the floor and, in a moment of commitment that surprised even herself, sat down next to Yoonchae. "About tour?"
"About everything." Yoonchae pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them. In the mirror, Megan could see both their reflections—herself, long-limbed and uncertain, and Yoonchae, compact and contained like a secret. "About what happens if I mess up. About what happens if we're not... if people don't..."
She trailed off, but Megan heard all the words she didn't say. What if we're not good enough. What if I'm not good enough. What if I came all this way just to fail where everyone can see.
"You're not going to mess up," Megan said, and then, because that felt too easy, too much like a lie they'd both see through, she amended: "I mean, you might. We all might. But that's kind of the deal, isn't it? We mess up together. We figure it out together."
Yoonchae made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple," Megan agreed. She was very aware of the space between them, of the way Yoonchae's shoulder was close enough to touch if Megan just leaned a little to the left. She didn't lean. "But it's also not as complicated as your brain is making it at midnight in a practice room by yourself."
This time Yoonchae did laugh, quiet and surprised. "How did you know I've been here for a while?"
How did Megan know? Yeah, she never found the exact answers for things like these. That’s Megan for you, always doing something. As bad as it sounds, she does things before she thinks of them. She dances to the music without overthinking what looks good. She just does.
"Because I know you." The words came out before Megan could stop them. "You kind of... disappear into yourself. Like you're trying to solve everything alone in your head before anyone else notices there's a problem."
Yoonchae turned to look at her then, and Megan felt suddenly exposed under that gaze. Like Yoonchae could see all the things Megan had been carefully not thinking about for weeks now. They are so, so so different. Once again, Megan always did things. She modeled. She acted. She produced. Yoonchae here? Yoonchae’s biggest dream was to become a K-POP idol. Though she didn’t get exactly what she wanted, she admitted that she would not change anything if it meant living this life.
That didn’t mean she was immune to fear. When you’ve dedicated yourself to one thing for so long, it becomes sacred to you. To have it shatter would shatter you completely. Megan sympathizes despite living a life full of backup plans and backup identities.
"I don't want to let anyone down," Yoonchae said finally, quietly. "I don't want to be the reason we're not perfect."
And there it was—the district of her sadness. Megan could see it now, mapped out in the slump of Yoonchae's shoulders, in the way she wouldn't quite meet Megan's eyes in the mirror. A whole geography of worry and pressure and being so young and far from home and terrified of not being enough.
Pupulutin, pupulutin ka.
To pick you up.
"Okay, first of all," Megan said, shifting so she was fully facing Yoonchae now, "we're never going to be perfect. That's literally impossible. We're humans, not robots, despite what the industry wants from us sometimes." She waited until Yoonchae met her eyes. "And second, you couldn't let us down if you tried. You know why?"
Yoonchae shook her head, and she looked so young, so uncertain, that Megan felt her heart do something acrobatic and inconvenient in her chest.
"Because we're not just a group," Megan said. "We're not just six girls who happened to end up in the same lineup. We're—" She paused, trying to find words for something she'd been feeling but hadn't articulated. "We're like a constellation, right? Remember those? We all shine on our own, but we're better together. We make patterns. We make sense. And if one of us dims a little, the others shine brighter to compensate. That's the deal."
"That's really cheesy, unnie," Yoonchae said, but she was smiling now, just a little, and Megan counted it as a victory.
"Yeah, well, it's almost midnight and I'm running on like four hours of sleep and Sophia made me listen to a sad Filipino love song earlier, so you're getting cheesy Megan." She bumped her shoulder against Yoonchae's, gentle. "But it's also true. You know it's true."
Yoonchae was quiet for a moment, and Megan watched their reflections in the mirror, and this is the type of moment that is usually captured in films and photographs to convey a certain kind of emotion. Her eyes travel back and forth to their reflections in the mirror. In here, they’re just two performers shedding their costumes.
"The tour starts in three days," Yoonchae said.
"I know."
"I'm scared."
"I know that too." Megan took a breath. "Can I tell you something?"
"I'm scared too," Megan admitted, and saying it out loud felt like releasing something she'd been holding too tightly. "I'm terrified, actually. What if I can't hit the notes? What if I freeze on stage? What if people realize I'm just... making it up as I go?" She laughed, but it came out shaky. "But then I think about you guys. About all of us. And I think—okay, at least I'm terrified with the best people."
Yoonchae's expression shifted, something softening in her face. "Really? You're scared?"
"Are you kidding? My Lexapro might run out if I keep this up!"
That got a real laugh, and the sound of it did something to Megan, warm and bright that spread through her chest like sunrise. She wanted to collect that laugh, bottle it up, keep it somewhere safe.
"Come on," Megan said, pushing herself up and extending a hand down to Yoonchae. "We're going to bed. Both of us. No more midnight sadness spirals."
Yoonchae looked at Megan's outstretched hand for a long moment, and Megan could see her thinking, processing, deciding something. Then she reached up and took it, and Megan pulled her to her feet, and for a second they were standing too close, hands still connected, and Megan could— their faces were so close to each other— if she wanted—
She didn't want to. (She wanted to.)
"Thank you," Yoonchae said, and her hand was still in Megan's, warm, small and perfect, and Megan knew she should let go but couldn't quite figure out how.
"For what?"
"For coming to find me." Yoonchae squeezed her hand once, quick, and then let go, and Megan felt the loss of that touch immensly. "For not just walking past."
I wandered through the district of your sadness. To pick you up, to pick you up.
"Yeah, well," Megan said, trying for casualness but it came out as fondness, "someone's gotta make sure you actually sleep sometimes. Might as well be me."
They walked back to their rooms together, and the hallway was dark and quiet, and Megan thought about promises and tours and the way Yoonchae's hand had felt in hers. Sophia, you were trying to tell Megan something, weren’t you?
At Yoonchae's door, Megan hesitated. "Hey, Yoonchae?"
"Yeah?"
"I meant it. About the constellation thing. About all of us." She swallowed. "But especially you. You're not going to let anyone down. You're going to be amazing."
Yoonchae's smile was small but real, and it hit Megan like a physical thing. "Goodnight, Megan-unnie."
"Goodnight."
Megan walked to her own room, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling for a long time, that melody still playing in her head.
Asahan mo, mula ngayon, pag-ibig ko'y sa'yo.
Count on it, from now on.
All my love is yours.