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The dance part of the bridge was only four measures long, so it took the choreographer just thirty seconds to ruin Lily’s whole week.
“This’ll be a pair section,” said the choreographer, marking it casually. “Lily’s singing, so she’s center. But it’s hard to do the floor work and do all that singing at the same time. So she gets a partner. They do some movement, Lily belts, partner holds her. Clean, easy, very pretty.”
“Who’s her partner?” Haewon asked, taking a long drink of water.
“Kyujin.”
“RIP Lily,” Jiwoo said out the side of her mouth, earning her Haewon’s water bottle in the face.
The section was simple, but so was falling off a cliff. The first four counts were mirror work, Lily and Kyujin face to face, close enough to share air. On the fifth count, Kyujin turned behind Lily, who would fall backwards into her arms. Kyujin would guide Lily in an arc back up and on count eight, Lily would rise up into her belt, as Kyujin held her from behind.
The choreographer placed them like furniture. “Kyujin, hand on her waist for the mirror. Lower. There. Think 'longing,’ not ‘miming.’”
“I’ve always wanted to learn how to mime,” whispered Lily. “Maybe I should go to clown school.”
“You’re already a clown,” replied Kyujin.
They drilled the mirror work and it was fine. Lily hadn’t been the best dancer as a trainee, but a decade later, she was more than competent. And the mirror counts were mostly emoting, and Lily could emote: she could move her face like she moved her voice, instantly, on instinct, tugging on heartstrings or giving attitude as the song demanded. Side by side in the glass, Lily and Kyujin looked like they’d always belonged together. The choreographer said so.
Then they got to the fall.
Kyujin turned on five, Lily started to fall and —
— she caught herself. She didn’t decide to. Her right heel just appeared behind her, the way it had been trained to do for twenty-three years to stop a sometimes clumsy Lily Morrow from falling victim to gravity. And so what reached Kyujin’s outstretched arms was the polite suggestion of a falling Lily, a mime of a fall, mere centimeters of trust in a move that asked for all of it.
“Again,” the choreographer said.
Lily caught herself again.
“I’m not going to drop you,” Kyujin said. “I get here way before you.”
“I’m warming up to it.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I’m trying to!”
They reset. Kyujin rolled her shoulders out and looked her over.
“Did you stretch? You have to stretch at your age.”
Lily reacted with mock offense. “I’m only three years older than you.”
“Three years is a lot in idol years.”
“What’s an idol year?”
“Stretch, unnie.”
“Unnie” was a weapon and they both knew it. Lily had never once heard Kyujin say it like she meant it.
They ran the catch nine more times. Kyujin’s arms were always there, always on the count, catching only the ghost of Lily. Around the fifth attempt Lily stopped being embarrassed and started being annoyed, which at least was familiar territory, and around the eighth the rest of the group started discussing what they should have for dinner.
“What if I flatten you?” Lily asked, as Yoona produced a list of sixteen different bulgogi restaurants.
“You don’t know what I can lift.”
“You don’t know what I weigh.”
“I would if you’d stop catching yourself.” And Lily fell, and caught herself, and Kyujin looked at Lily like she owed her money.
The choreographer called it at the top of the hour, saying in her kind voice, her careful voice, the one that was so much worse than being yelled at:
“The mirror work is there. The trust isn’t.” She pocketed the phone. “Fix the trust. The rest is easy.”
Packing up, Lily kept her eyes on her bag. The group filed out in twos — Jiwoo chatting with Jinsol, Haewon ranting about something to Yoona. Kyujin passed behind her, hoodie half on, and paused.
“Sorry you got stuck with me,” Lily said, feeling a way she hadn’t felt since she was a trainee.
“Stuck?” Kyujin pulled the hoodie the rest of the way on. “I volunteered.”
She left. Lily stood there holding that, and found it had no flat side to set down.
💙
By Tuesday it was worse, because now Lily was thinking too hard about it.
The mirror work still gleamed. The trust seemed more tenuous than ever. They reviewed the run on the studio monitor with everyone watching, and there it was in high definition: her own right heel, dropping back, quiet as a pickpocket, while her face up top merely performed a woman in free fall. The group was kind about it, which was unbearable. Haewon said it would click. The choreographer wondered if they should change the choreography.
“The choreography is fine,” Kyujin said, to no one in particular, arms crossed at the monitor.
Nobody responded, because that was just a Kyujin thing to say. Lily saw the arms crossed and felt it directed at her like harsh sunlight.
Kyujin began texting her that afternoon.
- MadderMakz 2
- Kyujin
- let’s practice. tonight
- 3:34 PM
- LIly
- 3:43 PM
- Can’t, vocal session
- Kyujin
- tomorrow
- 3:43 PM
- LIly
- 3:56 PM
- We have dinner with our manager
- Kyujin
- thursday
- 3:56 PM
- LIly
- 4:12 PM
- Busy
- Kyujin
- with what
- 4:12 PM
- LIly
- 4:34 PM
- Things
- Kyujin
- name one
- 4:34 PM
- LIly
- 5:05 PM
- Flossing
Tuesday, March 15, 2026
Kyujin
Kyujin
Kyujin
Kyujin
Kyujin
No reply. Lily stared at the screen for a while before the typing indicator jumped to life.
- MadderMakz 2
- Kyujin
- you should floss every day, you know
- 5:05 PM
- LIly
- 5:06 PM
- But then Thursday wouldn't be special
- Kyujin
- make it special by practicing with me
- 5:06 PM
Kyujin
Kyujin
Here was the thing Lily could not text back: she knew the problem was hers. Kyujin’s job was to turn and catch, and Kyujin had been there every single time, so many times, metronomic, while Lily committed small treacheries with her right heel. There was no point to— there was nothing for Kyujin to fix. Asking Kyujin to spend her nights standing in a studio with her hands out, catching nothing, watching Lily fail to trust her at point-blank range, over and over—
No. She would drill it alone, and arrive Monday repaired, and nobody would have to waste their time but Lily.
She rescheduled with her vocal coach. She’d head to the practice room after dinner.
💙
Lily had packed an entire set of bedding and laid it on the practice room floor, with the full knowledge that the floor was more sweat than vinyl at this point, and would therefore cause a headache in the laundry room later, because the washing machine wailed when it was given anything bigger than a hoodie, and the pitch would give Lily a migraine for hours.
But sacrifices had to be made in the name of art.
Lily pressed play on her phone, and started the mirror work, which felt awkward and weightless without Kyujin. All Lily performed to was her own reflection in the practice room mirror, giving attitude to an audience of none. Then she willed herself to fall, thinking about how if she could trust anything, it would be her bedding.
She caught herself anyway.
Cursing, Lily restarted the track, started the mirror work again, and stopped, turning the music off entirely. The mirror work was pointless without a mirror. She’d just practice falling instead.
Her right heel saved her again and again, and she stood there in the bright lights, her nervous system congratulating her body on saving Lily Morrow from a danger that did not exist.
Her plan was simple: Lily would simply try to fall a little further each time, teaching her body that Kyujin would be there to catch her. Except, of course, Kyujin wasn’t there, because she hadn’t invited her, and her body knew this. And so there she fell and stopped and fell and stopped, being caught by nobody but herself.
With any other circumstance, Lily would have called this dedication. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was, instead, the most pathetic activity she’d done since debut. A grown woman trying and failing to fall into bed.
Lily had just started her tenth fall when she heard Kyujin’s voice cut through the room.
“I can’t believe you’ve replaced me with your bed.”
Lily jolted so hard that she almost fell perfectly by accident. Kyujin leaned against the doorframe in sweats, hair slightly wet, a water bottle hanging from two fingers.
“How long have you been there?”
“Three or four falls.” Kyujin pushed off the frame. “You caught yourself every time.”
“Nobody else was here.”
“So you’d have let me catch you?”
Lily looked at her phone, pretending she’d just gotten a text. Heat climbed her neck with a thoroughness she couldn’t hide, because how could she hide it? She’d been caught practicing a duet by herself, which confessed everything at once: that Lily knew she was the problem, that Lily would rather fail alone than ask for help, that Lily still needed to trust.
“I was going to invite you,” Lily said.
“No, you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Kyujin set her water bottle down and walked onto the vinyl flooring, approaching Lily. “Why not?”
“Because,” Lily said, more impatiently than she wanted. “It’s not your problem. You’ve got your part down. You’d just be standing there all night catching nothing.”
“I’d be standing here all night for moral support,” Kyujin replied, unfazed. “It’s a pair section. We’re a pair.”
Lily didn’t smile, but something in the vicinity of her mouth tried to. Lily tamped it down before it could succeed.
“Why are you even here?” Lily asked.
“To practice.”
“Why would you need to practice?”
“You think I’m just naturally good at this?”
“That’s not what I—” Lily started, and ran out of sentence.
Kyujin held her arms out, ready to catch Lily. “Since I’m here,” she said, insufferably.
💙
They started small, because Kyujin had a system in mind, and Kyujin ran the night all according to that system, with a military economy that still somehow suggested care more than combat. Kyujin would catch Lily even before her heel came out, getting her used to being caught. A few centimeters at first. Then a half meter. Mirror work, turn, fall, hands under her shoulder blades, arc back up, hold. Reset. Again. Each time a little bit lower.
“Your hands are cold,” said Lily, during the lowest catch yet. She’d fallen into Kyujin’s arms several times now, and she could feel her nervous system beginning to rely on her. Lily didn’t know what to make of this.
"My hands will warm up.”
"Just don’t drop me.”
"Say please.”
"Please don’t drop me.”
“Okay.” Kyujin lifted her out of the fall. “You’re doing great, by the way.”
“Do I get a reward?” Lily blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that. The unnie asking the maknae for a reward. What was she, Nayeon?
Kyujin raised an eyebrow. “What kind of reward?”
“Never mind,” Lily mumbled.
“If unnie does a very good job —” Kyujin said, a diabolical smile tugging at a corner of her lips, “— then unnie can have a reward.”
“Unnie just wants to do it again,” said Lily, ready to walk into the ocean.
Lily fell again, a full meter of trust, the most she’d managed all week, and Kyujin’s arms were there, on the count, as promised, and the world conspicuously failed to end. Kyujin arched her down and up, graceful but sharp.
The next attempt, Lily’s right heel filed a protest, having been out of a job for several tries. Kyujin walked a slow circle around Lily, crouched down, and addressed Lily’s heel directly.
“I know it’s not your fault,” she told it. “You were raised this way.”
“Please stop talking to my foot.”
“I’m negotiating with it.”
“It doesn’t speak for me.”
“Pretty sure it’s been speaking for you all week.”
“Get up,” Lily said, pulling her foot away.
The next fall, Lily’s whole body staged a mutiny, as if her right heel had started a revolution. Lily somehow tripped over herself, staggering sideways, and she took Kyujin down with her, ending up on the bedding in a heap of elbows, Lily pinning down Kyujin, staring right at her. Kyujin’s arms were already around Lily. She’d still tried to catch her.
“That,” Kyujin said, breathing hard, “was your best one.”
“I fell on you,” said Lily, staring back at her.
“Exactly. Good job.”
Lily laughed, and her laugh rolled through her body into Kyujin, as Lily buried her head into Kyujin’s shoulders to avoid looking at her. The two of them lay on the floor of the practice room laughing at nothing, or at the best and worst fall in recorded history, and Lily eventually turned her head back and found Kyujin’s face mere centimeters away, looking back at Lily, flushed, open, kinder than her reputation. The laugh ran out of Lily’s body all at once, like water finding a drain.
“This isn’t part of the choreography,” Kyujin said quietly.
“Feels better than the choreography,” Lily said, and she heard herself, and knew Kyujin had heard it too, and Lily got up so fast she almost pulled something. “Water break.”
“Water break,” Kyujin said to the ceiling.
💙
They sat against the mirror and passed Kyujin’s water bottle between them, which Lily drank from without letting herself think about it.
“Question,” Kyujin said. “How old do you think you are?”
“How old do I— I know how old I am.”
“But like, mentally.”
“I'm twenty-three years old.”
“That’s literally. I meant how old do you feel?”
Lily turned her head. “How old do you think I feel?”
Kyujin considered this, the way she read choreography, like the answer had counts and steps. “Sometimes you do feel just three years older,” she said. “Not so much older that it feels too different, but still my unnie.”
Lily looked at Kyujin sharply. She’d said “unnie” differently that time.
“But sometimes you feel my age.” Kyujin looked at Lily, half smiling. “Or even younger. Especially when you’re live. You really need media training.”
“I do have media training!” Lily yelped. “Why does everyone think I need media training?”
“It’s endearing,” Kyujin shrugged. “It’s better than feeling older. Having the energy of someone with a mortgage and a retirement plan.”
“Well, that I know about,” Lily said. “Like for stocks—”
“Please don’t give me investment advice.”
“It’s just math.”
“I’m supposed to trust Lily Morrow with math?”
Lily laughed and hated it and laughed anyway. Kyujin handed her the water bottle and Lily paused before taking it, suddenly aware of whose lips had just been on it.
“Why didn’t you trust me?” Kyujin asked.
Lily swished the water bottle around without drinking it.
“I do trust you,” Lily said. “I just— I don’t trust myself.”
Lily could feel Kyujin’s eyes on her face. She stared at the water bottle as she talked. “When I first started here, I was not a good dancer. Ask anyone.”
“You’d never danced before.”
“That’s what Chaeyeon and Tzuyu would say,” Lily said. “They helped me when I first got here. But they had to, because I was bad, Kyujin. I was terrible. I was twelve years old and some of the other kids already had private lessons, or they’d had each other. Some of them already had friendship bracelets.” She picked at the barcode sticker still stuck on the water bottle. “I had my voice and that was it. Everyone knew it, including me. And it got to me, I guess. Even after I knew I’d become a good dancer.”
“The bracelets are itchy anyway,” Kyujin said.
Lily exhaled something that was mostly a laugh.
“You’re a great dancer,” Kyujin added, getting to her feet. “For what it’s worth.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Do I ever lie about dancing?” Kyujin held out her wrist. “Let’s run it again, unnie.”
💙
Lily fell.
She fell and fell, longer than her nervous system should have allowed, longer than her heel should have authorized, long enough for her whole biography to object, each year of frustration and embarassment and defeat shouting at her to catch herself, by God, do something— and then Kyujin’s hands were there, under her shoulder blades, taking all of it, taking her, and the floor swung away and the room turned over and she was moving through a low arc, kept tight in Kyujin’s arms, carried like a baby, a sensation Lily had assumed her whole life she would never feel again.
She came up on the eight count with Kyujin’s arms wrapped around her.
“There,” Kyujin said. The word came out rough, as Kyujin’s chest lay against Lily’s back. Neither of them moved. “That one.”
“That was—” Lily began.
“It was good.” Kyujin confirmed.
“It was good,” Lily echoed, not moving, hyper-aware of Kyujin’s arms around her.
Kyujin pressed a kiss to Lily’s cheek, quick, natural, like it was part of the choreography, and released Lily, already walking back to her mark.
Lily’s nervous system shut down immediately. She opened her mouth. Closed it.
“Let’s run it again,” Kyujin said, arms out.
“That— that wasn’t part of the choreography,” Lily managed.
“Unnie asked for a reward,” Kyujin said, staring at her arms. “I gave unnie a reward based on her performance.”
“Performance— so that means—” Lily’s nervous system was having a hard time rebooting.
“It means you should try even harder,” Kyujin said, staying on course. “Come here already.”
💙
“Let’s see that fall again,” Kyujin said, as Lily finally walked over, in a daze.
Lily fell and her heel came back like it had never left. In fact, she stepped out of the fall entirely, barely making it even five centimeters.
Kyujin watched with her arms still out, her face carefully arranged into something neutral.
“Interesting,” Kyujin said. “Full regression.”
“You threw me off,” Lily complained.
Lily reset, breathing through her teeth. Kyujin watched her shake the nerves off.
“I’m sorry,” said Kyujin.
“You should be.”
“Sorry for making you fall in lo—”
“Stop it,” said Lily, and she threw herself into the next fall almost out of spite, and it came down clean, no heel, all weight, straight into Kyujin’s waiting hands.
“You fell for me again,” Kyujin said, a smile all across her face. Lily rolled over, falling into the bedding.
💙
On the last reset Kyujin said, “Sing it this time.”
“I haven’t practiced.”
“It's just us.”
So on the last run Lily sang, falling and rising up out of the catch and opening her throat into an empty practice room at full voice, no marking, nothing saved, the full voice she’d been lacking for days, delivered whole to an audience of exactly one. It rang off the mirrors. It was, she heard with some surprise— but not too much— already very good.
Neither of them stepped apart. Kyujin’s arms were still around her. They stared at the mirror, looking at their reflections.
"Why did you volunteer?" Lily asked the mirror.
A beat.
“Because it was eight counts a day where you’d have to let me hold you,” Kyujin said, as steady as she ever was. “Best deal in town.”
“You’re serious.”
“Would I lie to you?”
Lily turned her head sideways, straining to look at Kyujin. Kyujin turned Lily around to face her, like they were doing mirror work, almost sharing the same breath.
“How long have you—” Lily started. “You know.”
“Since we were trainees. You sang and you were beautiful and that was it.” Kyujin considered. “Though tonight was better.”
Lily gaped. “That’s— that’s years, Kyujin.”
“Well, if tonight’s proven anything,” Kyujin said, with just the barest of smiles, “it takes a while for Lily Morrow to fall for someone.”
This close, Lily could see herself in Kyujin’s eyes, and she could see Kyujin’s pupils flicker down to her mouth and come back up like a fall and a catch.
“About that reward,” Lily said.
“I gave you one.”
“That was just on the cheek.”
“And you want more?” Kyujin tsked. “Greedy.”
Lily’s nervous system offered a host of reasons not to want what Lily wanted. The comeback in two months. Four other members, one shared bathroom, a company full of opinions. Lily knew the list. But she had spent a whole night falling for someone and nothing, neither her right heel nor her nervous system, would stop her from falling again.
“Then Kyujin,” Lily said, leaning forward. “Unnie will give you a reward.”
It turned out Lily kissed as well as she fell. She caught the corner of Kyujin’s mouth first, in the half dark, and Kyujin laughed, turning her face to correct the angle, the way she’d corrected angles all her life, and Lily made a small sound that she wanted Kyujin to draw out of her all night. Kyujin’s hand came up flat between her shoulder blades, the way she’d finally caught Lily that night, pulling her in. And Lily, who had spent twenty-three years catching herself, gave Kyujin all of her weight at once, letting herself fall for someone on purpose.