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Zoey’s favourite thing about finishing up a dance practice session is the meal that follows.
Her muscles are in tight knots from all the exertion, sweat has long since beaded and dried on her forehead, and the faint scent of weariness clinging to her suggests to her gently that she might want to take a shower before doing anything else. Mira and Rumi beside her are the same. Exhausted and a tad bit stinky as they make their way out of the practice room together. But no. The shower can surely wait thirty minutes longer; after all, today is one of Huntrix’s cheat days! A break from the usual low-carb healthy stuff so they can eat absolute junk.
Rumi pivots on the ball of her foot and gives the two a bright smile, ever radiant even with hours of hard work making themselves known in the lines on her face, her slick hair sticking to her skin. “I hope you guys are ready for dinner!”
“I was born ready,” Mira answers, returning the grin. Exhaustion might be weighing on her, too, but the prospect of something delicious can never be overlooked.
Zoey nods enthusiastically to supplement the verve. She cannot wait to get her hands on whatever’s being served tonight. The trek to the dining room is long and arduous…by which she means it takes thirty excruciating seconds to weave through the long hallways and get to the destination of her dreams. Her stomach growls, a crouching tiger ready to pounce. Luckily, neither of the other girls can hear, occupied in small idle chatter about what dance moves need more work.
She is…a different beast entirely when it comes to food. Where one might eat chips one at a time, or perhaps four or five at a time if they’re feeling particularly rambunctious, Zoey can inhale ten without batting an eye (choking be damned, if it hasn’t happened before, then it will never happen). Should the day come where the Golden Honmoon drives away all demons for good, the next targets might be people who devour their food a little too uncannily.
She plops down at the table eagerly, eyes darting around all the covered dishes, wondering to herself which one she can maul first. Without waiting for Rumi or Mira’s first pick, she reaches for the one closest to her. “Come to mama!”
The lid is lifted, and the golden-brown beauty that is gamjajeon—spicy potato pancakes—sizzles delightfully within, all crispy edges and the fluffy middle just beckoning for her teeth.
She can’t help herself—wiggling with all the enthusiasm of a child on a leash in a candy store, she lunges for the gamjajeon, stuffing a whole slice into her mouth before the other two can even register that the dish is indeed gamjajeon.
Rumi and Mira blink at her, mouths agape.
Zoey stares back at both of them, slowing to chew her food carefully (she might be voracious in her ways, but she certainly has some shreds of etiquette. She’s a beast, not a barbarian). She chews and chews, cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk’s, her own soft noises the only thing filling the cavity of silence that’s descended awkwardly upon the girls. Only once she’s swallowed her piece of jeon, which had been the best thing her tongue’s been acquainted with all year, does some semblance of shame creep up into her cheeks, pooling in a loud pink hue that could rival Mira’s hair.
”Um,” she starts finally, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin to gather up whatever shards of ladylike dignity she has left. Still they watch her with an embarrassing raptness. “Sorry. Looks like I, uhh, got a little carried away.” She giggles nervously.
Then she burps, because that is what occurs when one eats too fast (no matter how properly they chew and swallow).
The silence stretches and folds, soundless gymnastics that makes Zoey want to sink into the crevices of the earth and never resurface.
But then Mira’s face breaks into a wide Cheshire grin. “That was hella cool to watch, I’m not gonna lie.”
”Right?!” Rumi laughs and reaches for a gamjajeon slice, wolfing it down in the same manner Zoey had (but with less decorum). Spurred on, Mira follows suit, scarfing the thing in a way that may have all their ancestors clutching their pearls.
Zoey looks back and forth between the two, awe-struck. Neither of them made fun of her. Neither of them chided her for her poor table manners, something she had forgotten to tamp down tonight.
“Check out how fast I can take down a whole bibimbap,” Mira says to her cheekily, preparing to deepthroat the long seaweed-wrapped delicacy with no care for her wellbeing. And Rumi, whom Zoey had initially assumed was the level-headed leader, is busy cheering her on.
Zoey smiles. Relaxes. She’s in good hands here. Slightly unhinged, like her, but good.
Songwriting is one of the factors having led to Zoey being scouted for idol training. Her mastery over words flowing like a fountain on a summer’s day bolsters her appeal. It also helps that she’s cute and can carry a verse better than most idol rappers out there.
The hardest part about songwriting, though, is—well—writing. Getting those words on paper, filling in that void of white and ruled lines and sheer blankness. And then, once the ruled lines have been relieved of their blankness with words and ideas, the next step is to actually wrestle those words into becoming appealing verses. One has to be mindful of flow, word choices, and poetic consistency. It would not make sense for the first half of a song to sound straight out of a children’s nursery rhyme album and have the second half suddenly plunge into the deep and philosophical. (Well, technically it can be done, but that’s a little too experimental for a group that still hasn’t made their debut yet.)
Zoey wets her lips for the umpteenth time this hour, twirling her pencil around as she stares at everything she’s scrawled down in her notebook so far. She squints at each word, as if suddenly a new meaning will burst forth from them. Or maybe they’ll crawl out of the page, slink back into her mind and pull something better out to take its place on the paper.
The eraser on the back of her pencil is hollowing out fast. If she keeps up her indecisive yo-yoing between ideas, the ferrule will be the only thing scraping against her notebook. And then she’ll still be short of a catchy verse for their first song.
With a loud groan, she rolls over and stares up at the ceiling fan dutifully carrying on spinning. “Man, I’m all out of creative juice…”
“Need some help, Zoey?”
She glances up from her position on the floor to see Rumi’s kind face watching her from the edge of her bed. She offers a friendly smile, her head tilted subtly, eyes crinkled pleasantly in wait for a response. Her long purple hair has been let loose, falling around her form in silky segments. Oh, even just lounging around like this, Rumi’s just so perfect.
But Zoey pushes that meddling thought from her mind to focus on what’s at hand. “Oh, don’t worry too much about it,” she says lightly, pushing out a big smile. “I don’t need help, exactly. I think the general idea is here. Just kinda…need some motivation to see it through.”
Mira, who had been sitting at her desk listening to music, takes her headphones off and swivels her seat to face her (a perk of this dorm is that they all get those nice spinny chairs). “I’m down,” she announces. Had she been listening to the music or to this little exchange? “What gets your gears going?”
Zoey sits up on her haunches. Her usual source of motivation has always taken her a long way, but that’s an ask that’s new to these girls. She takes the venture regardless. “Can I, um.” She fidgets, twiddling her thumbs and staring down at the floor. “Can I get some head pats?” Her face grows hot right after the words tumble out of her mouth, a bucket of instant regret washing over her. “Sorry, you can forget I said anything-”
But Rumi smiles, stretches her arm out and pats her head without a moment of hesitation. “You’re doing so well, Zoey,” she adds in, ruffling her hair affectionately. “You can do it. I know you can.”
”Oh!” Zoey bites her lip, her face growing hotter by the second. Rumi’s doing the thing she loves, where her fingernails lightly scratch her scalp in a way that can have her buckle and fall to the floor—that is, if she weren’t already on the floor right now.
Even Mira’s padded over to her. She crouches, joining in the head pat session with her own little bout of affection. Petting her like a puppy. “Good girl, Zoey. You’re such a good girl. You’re gonna write the best songs known to mankind. They’ll be so good, even demons will turn over a new leaf and become our fans.”
Zoey has to do her best not to keel over and die a happy good girl right then and there.
Puppies are wont to wiggle about when they’re excited, vibrating at high frequencies when experiencing intense emotions. In fact, they might vibrate so much in their joy, that they might begin to propel themselves into the air like mini helicopters.
Alright, maybe the bit about high frequencies may be inaccurate—but not when it comes to Zoey. At the slightest bit of good news, she finds herself doing a wiggly jig of enthusiasm (not enough to be a one-woman helicopter, unfortunately).
And when in training to debut as a K-pop group ready to shake the world, there’s developments abound on that path. Setbacks, good news, challenges, even greater news.
So when the trio’s group name is finally decided by upper management and pinned up on the bulletin outside their dorm in bright and snazzy lettering, Zoey can barely conceal her elation. She squeals, rushing back into the room where the girls still sleep peacefully in their beds.
“Guys!” she exclaims, bouncing on her heels. “Wake up, wake up! We got our group name confirmed! You have to come see! Eeeeek!
”Wha…?” Mira hasn’t comprehended a word of what the short woman said, in all her sleepy daze, but the infectious energy has her scrambling out of bed and slipping on her fuzzy sliders. “Yippee. Did you say breakfast hash browns?”
Rumi, who’d miraculously been pulled out of her sleep with those words and understood them, is already bounding out the door with bare feet and a sparkle in her groggy eyes.
“Come on!” Zoey drags Mira out, the latter still under the impression that hash browns are what is stirring up all this morning excitement, and she stops before the board and brandishes her finger beneath the technicolor words beautifully embellishing the plain bulletin. Huntrix.
All grogginess fading in real-time from Rumi’s eyes, a smile stretches upon her lips. “Oh my gosh,” she whispers, laughing to herself. “Oh my gosh, we’re gonna be Huntrix.”
”Huntrix!” Mira repeats, immediately snapping to attention, the feigned notion of hash browns finally dissipating. She whoops and pumps her fists in the air, having found her energy again. “I like it! We’re Huntrix girls!”
But most jubilant is Zoey—she hops around, clapping her hands and laughing unabashed. Huntrix. It’s so perfect. She has a place she finally belongs, and now she even has a name she can ascribe to it. Huntrix, Huntrix, Huntrix…oh, she will never tire of hearing that name!
Laughing, she dances about, shaking her hips and kicking her feet like she’s just won the jackpot in life (and she has, truly). “We…are…Huntrix!” she sings.
And then falters when she realizes she’s the only one reacting like this, the other two watching her with amused smiles on their faces.
”Oh…hehe…” A degree sheepish, Zoey rubs the nape of her neck.
There’s Rumi, all polished poise and easy charm, evident even in just the way she carries herself with a quiet grace. It’s no wonder she’s been assigned the leader, with the elegance that comes not just with her powerful voice, but also in every manner of her being. She knows what she’s doing, and because of it, she carries her responsibilities with the smoothness of a river rushing through a mountain. Peak girl-crush.
Then there’s Mira, whose sharp edges and sheer charisma lend her an energy on a league miles above anyone else. Self-assuredness oozes from every inch of her being, a radiant confidence that blinds all nay-sayers until all they can see is just her, in all her raw, jagged charm. She’s a hawk in a prairie of crows, but that’s what makes her stand out. Peak girl-crush.
And then there’s…Zoey. She’s all manufactured effervescence and exuberance packed into a short and hyper bundle, a sore thumb sticking out next to two tall, cool queens. Sure, she has her lyricism as her weapon of competence, and her rapping skills offer a daggered contrast to her soft appearance, but…she just doesn’t have that girl-crush energy, does she? Heck, now that she thinks about it, even the name Huntrix doesn’t sound like it’s willing to accommodate someone like her into its mold. It’s intensity and power, and Zoey is…well, Zoey. Not very girl-crush.
She looks up at both of them, flushing furiously. Darn it. She just had to go and act like a five-year-old, didn’t she?
But by now she ought to know her points of self-contention are well-cared for here, even expanded upon, because even Rumi and Mira glance at each other for a moment before breaking into dances of their own, cheering and hooting at this step of progress in their journey.
Rumi shakes her butt with all the vigor she has in her, throwing it back like she’s never done before, while Mira drops to the floor in a breakdance, chanting their new group name over and over like a mantra.
Laughing and shaking her head in relief, Zoey joins in on this eccentric mating ritual, holding their hands to do a celebratory jig together, jabbing their limbs about in a manner that may be quite un-idol-like, but right now, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care at all.