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It is the fifth-year anniversary of Katseye disbanding, and Sophia is eating instant ramen in her bra and an old pair of boxers she thinks she stole from Daniela, at some point, lifetimes ago. Her hands have started shaking, recently, slight tremors in her movements. It makes it kind of hard to eat. She is alone, and it is quiet, except the gentle rustle of the wind through the trees and the occasional chirping of crickets.
She does not call her former members. They do not call her. Sometimes she thinks she is the only one who remembers anything at all.
Sometimes Sophia thinks that choosing the quiet life was the wrong move. That maybe she could’ve held on to stardom a little longer, and be happy with it, like Megan did with acting. And Lara’s still a singer. Sophia has every one of her solo records lined up on her shelf, next to the grammy they all won for their second full-length album, and a framed copy of the first photo of them, when they were announced on that stage in those schoolgirl outfits all those years ago. Every now and then, she gets the urge to put all of it in a box and chuck it in the river that runs parallel to her backyard, but then she’s slammed by a wave of sadness so intense it makes her want to throw up, so she keeps it all put. She dusts everything three times a week.
Sophia knows though, that deep down, it was her time. They’d achieved everything they could have ever dreamed of – awards, fame, international support, being able to represent their separate cultures and heritage – and then, it was all over. Yoonchae matured, wanted to start fresh. Lara wanted to go solo. Megan wanted to try acting, real acting, not Disney, and Daniela wanted to be a choreographer. And Sophia was never truly sure what Manon ever really wanted, ever. Sometimes Manon wanted to leave it all and go back to Lucerne, and like, become a writer. Sometimes she wanted to write and produce an entire album for them, before giving up halfway through every time. Sometimes Manon wanted Sophia so, so badly, and other times she barely spoke to her at all.
So Sophia let go. Moved to the Japanese countryside, of all places (Lara had asked her, once, before she moved, if she had stuck a bunch of random places on a dartboard and threw. blindfolded. Sophia did not say anything, because yes, that is basically what she did, and Lara had looked at her so judgementally), and settled down. By herself. To be quite honest, she doesn’t know how time passes around her. Five years, already? She could’ve sworn it was only three, or maybe three and half, but her phone tells her otherwise. The headlines tell her otherwise, and Megan’s obligatory instagram post tells her otherwise – she’s the only one who still bothers doing it, but Dani and Yoonchae and Lara always like and comment, so Sophia does too.
They have not seen or heard from Manon in two years. No one has. Occasionally, when Sophia’s feeling particularly insane, she thinks that maybe Manon was a figment of her imagination the entire time, a personification of Sophia’s id, always fighting or contrasting her need for discipline. When that happens, she has to take the picture down from its place on the shelf and stare at it, really hard, and resist the pull to do something insane, like, call Manon.
She’s refusing to look at that shelf now, all withered and creaky. It’s due for a dusting, but she can’t bring herself to get up, because then she’d have to listen to her knees crack as she stands and she does not want to feel old right now. It’s almost midnight, and in a few minutes, it will be just like any other day. Sophia will wake up in her twin bed, water the plants in her small garden, and make a coffee with half and half. She will sit on her couch and read her book, and then fall asleep, and wake up in the early evening and maybe take a walk, and it will not be Katseye’s five-year disbandment anniversary.
A bright light beams through her windows. She never bothers drawing the curtains, so it’s quite disorienting. There’s a ringing in her ears and spots in her eyes, as the screech of brakes sounds, echoing through the silent night. It’s… a train?
Sophia goes to the window, forcing herself to look past her own reflection and into the backyard. It’s definitely a train, seemingly hovering a few inches off the ground, wheels brushing the tops of the blades of grass. It’s an old-timey looking locomotive, the kind from, like, the industrial revolution, with the coal chimneys and everything. It’s stopped, but the wheels are still turning, and the engine still rumbling. Sophia puts the nearest shirt on (merch from their third world tour), a pair of dirty sweatpants, and her slippers, and eases herself out the back door, ignoring the ache in her feet.
She thinks that ache has been there since she first moved from LA.
“Ticket, please?” A voice asks. A figure pops its head through the window of the front car, gloved hand outstretched. Sophia finds herself giving it the pair of chopsticks she was using to eat, a singular noodle still dangling stubbornly to the end. The figure harrumphs, but takes it. Sophia doesn’t see its face. “Good enough. Get in.”
The door to the second car hisses open, and Sophia looks to her left. The train itself is shimmering, almost like fabric, in such a way that Sophia can’t tell if it has five cars or a hundred. Something compels her to turn around for a second, and pluck a flower from her garden, a red carnation. Her hand trembles. She goes back to the train, grips the rail and hoists herself up. The door closes behind her, and the dark night of her back yard turns into just black.
The train car is nice, with compartments and red velvet seats and wooden tables and big windows. There aren’t too many people, maybe eight or nine in a car that could probably fit 40. The people do not look up as Sophia walks in. All of them are in separate compartments, even though the compartments are built for four. All of them are quiet. Sophia walks past them, slowly. Excuse me, she almost wants to say. Where are we going? But she doesn’t. She can’t remember the last time she actually spoke, out loud, to a real person. Are these people even real?
She goes into the next car, which is more or less the same. One person has food at their table, a platter of sushi and some rice. When Sophia looks up, she sees that it’s a young girl who’s ordered it, maybe 20 or so, and Sophia gets this ridiculous urge to like, shake her shoulders and tell her to be so sure of her future before she makes any decisions she can’t undo. The girl does not even flinch as Sophia halts right in front of her, before shaking her head and moving to the next car. And the next, and the next. Outside is no longer pitch black. They’re travelling through a city, now, though Sophia can’t say which. Everything is nondescript, building after building, with some squares lit up. There are no billboards, and no streetlamps, and no people, though Sophia thinks she maybe sees some shadows flit about, if she squints hard enough and focuses on one spot.
By the time Sophia reaches car #12, she decides she should probably find a place to sit. Maybe take a nap as she waits for the train to stop… wherever it’s meant to stop. They do pause now and again, but never for more than a few seconds. Sophia presumes it’s picking up more passengers. Just as she’s about to sit down, she hears it.
“Sophia?”
It’s barely audible over the steady thrum of the train moving over nonexistent tracks, so quiet that Sophia thinks she had to have imagined it. But then,
“Sophia, is that you?”
She whirls around, and.
There she is.
“Manon?”
Manon is wearing this sleek, black raincoat. Her makeup is perfect, as always. Her hair is in butterfly braids. Sophia is wearing their old merch and pants that haven’t been washed in two weeks. She’s hit with insecurity she hasn’t felt in years.
“How are you here?” Manon asks, an emotion Sophia can’t put a finger on lacing her tone. Manon’s approaching her slowly, like she might dash away any second, and she’s not blinking either, like she’s afraid she’ll disappear. “When did you get here?”
“I don’t know,” Sophia whispers. Her voice is cracked, dry, nothing at all like how it used to be. She runs her tongue over the chapped skin of her lips. Manon’s eyes follow the movement. “I got here tonight, I think,” but she’s not sure how much time she spent wandering through the cars, now that she thinks about it. It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours. Sophia hasn’t been good at keeping track of time, lately.
“What’s the date?” Manon asks, still inching closer. The question gives Sophia pause.
“You don’t know?” Sophia says. Now that Manon is like, a foot away from her, Sophia is having a hard time focusing. She looks almost the exact same as the last time she saw her, four and a half years ago, when they all signed their last NDA with Missy about what they could and couldn’t share about their life as idols. The only thing that Sophia can tell is different is that she now has a lip ring, and the way she holds herself, like the weight of the world is gonna come crashing down on her shoulders any second.
“Do you?”
“It’s September. 2037.” She does not say that it’s their disbandment anniversary. A part of her thinks Manon already knows, that she can feel it, deep down. The string that forever ties their souls together tugs between them, gently pulling after being dormant for years.
“Fuck,” Manon says softly, under her breath. Her face falls.
“Why,” Sophia asks, “What’s wrong?”
There’s a pause of silence. “Nothing,” Manon says, but Sophia has heard her say that in the exact same cadence a million times over the years, so she kind of knows she’s lying, but she has no idea where she stands with Manon right now, so she doesn’t fight it. She thinks Manon used to hate her, a little, for always fighting anyways.
Have you ever tried to, like, not nag? Manon had said once, and Sophia said, I’m the leader, it’s my job to know everything. Daniela walked in then, so Sophia was all like Right, Dani? And Dani walked right back out.
“What is this place?” Sophia asks. Manon has stopped coming closer, but she’s still only a few inches away. If Sophia breathes hard enough, Manon’s clothes will flutter, a little.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Manon says. Her eyes have this faraway look and she bites her lip. “It’s definitely not, like, in this plane of existence. I know that sounds stupid.”
Sophia laughs, softly. It seems to surprise the other girl, who lets herself smile a little too. “Not stupid. It actually sounds pretty on par with how my life has been recently.”
“And how exactly has that been?” Manon slides into the seat, raising a perfectly straight eyebrow. Sophia sits across from her, rolling the carnation stem between her fingers.
“Like, not interesting,” she says. “I moved. You know. Nothing else has really happened since.”
“Sophia Laforteza, living the quiet life?” Manon teases. “Who are you and what have you done with my Sophia?”
My Sophia. The phrasing makes her breath stutter.
Sophia hasn’t been Manon’s anything in a long, long time. But she used to be her leader, her groupmate, her chingu. At times, her best friend; at other times, something more. Katseye might have belonged to Sophia, but Sophia always truly belonged to Manon. And Manon knew it.
“Is that for me?” Manon asks softly, gesturing towards the flower. Sophia offers it without thinking, and Manon plucks it from her fingers. The carnation seems to brighten in Manon’s grasp, perking up and petals preening. Or maybe it’s just Sophia’s imagination.
“It’s from my garden,” she blurts out, not really knowing why. She wants to know everything about this new Manon, if there is anything new at all, so maybe she will start by doing the same. Her throat is already kind of sore from talking more than she’s used to, though.
Manon smiles at her. Sophia feels a flicker of emotion she has not felt since her pop star days. It kicks her heartbeat up a good 10 bpm. “Tell me more.”
Sophia can’t say how long they sit in that booth, catching up and shooting the breeze. The scenery out the windows blur as the train speeds by, but it’s mostly just pitch black, and Sophia’s not sure that they’d be able to see anything even if the train wasn’t going fast.
Manon wound up on the train some time ago, but she’s not saying how long. She says she never feels hunger or sleepiness or the need to pee, ever, but she does the first two sometimes just to do something. The train has every kind of food, Manon explains, and all you have to do is think really hard, and a figure that’s hard to look at dead-on will appear with a flourish and set it down in front of you, on one of those old fancy silver platters. Sophia doesn’t believe her, at first, so Manon tells her to try it. She thinks really hard about sinigang, and within the minute, the figure poofs out the shadows. It startles Sophia, which makes Manon laugh, and Sophia hasn’t heard that sound in a while so she thinks she’s okay with it.
Over the stew, Manon shares stories from her modeling career back in Lucerne. She says how it was not very fulfilling, and that she always felt hungry for something more. She says that it was not interesting and that she was always bored and how she missed her family.
That has to be them, right? Because Manon’s mom and dad and sister were also in Lucerne, and Sophia’s not sure where Sophie was, but that girl would probably go to the ends of the earth for Manon, so she can’t imagine that she was very far. So who else would Manon be referring to as family, except them?
Sophia tables that information away for later and forces her mind to fall quiet. Manon’s moved from across from her to right next to her, and they are both not talking, so Sophia tentatively leans her head on Manon’s shoulder. Manon tenses for a millisecond, before melting into the touch and leaning her head on Sophia’s own. Sophia kind of wants to take her hand, too, but she’s not sure they’re ready for that again, yet, so she lets the moment settle.
She’s not sure when she notices, but her hands are laying on the table, and they are perfectly still.
Time passes. It’s not the same way that it passes back home, though it’s quite similar. Everything is a blur, but Sophia doesn’t really feel like she’s waiting for a second shoe to drop all the time. She and Manon talk, and sleep, and eat, and stare at each other for so long their eyes go blurry. There is no routine, no shelves that need dusting and no garden that needs watering. It is just her, and Manon, and this train and the odd realm of comfort it provides.
But there is only so much food to eat and stories to tell before it gets a little strained. Sophia forgot what it was like living with another person, if one could call this living. Of course they fight and of course they make up, but they never really talk about it.
Actually, there are many things they don’t talk about: when Manon got on the train, the behind-the-scenes of their group’s disbandment, and anything that ever happened between them. Sophia doesn’t want to try, lest she break whatever unspoken agreement they have to not bring up taboos.
So, many of their days (or what seem like days) are filled with silences that get progressively more uncomfortable. They pass through fields of tall grass that go on forever, over shallow rivers filled with colorless rocks, under hazy clouds and starry night skies. Sometimes, Sophia will zone out and the view out the window just looks like an endless void, with hundreds of tiny shimmers in the distance. She barely bothers to think about where they might lead.
On one such occasion, Manon’s leg brushes against her own, just for a split second. It sends several jolts through Sophia’s entire being, an involuntary reaction she scolds herself for doing. It’s fucking stupid, she used to sleep next to Manon almost every night, their bodies as close as humanly possible, yet this one tiny touch tweaks her out?
“Sorry,” Manon whispers, but she doesn’t sound too honest.
“Don’t be,” Sophia replies, and she thinks Manon will go back to her own side and continue staring out the window, or lie down on the chair and close her eyes (sleep isn’t, like, a real thing here; it’s more of a dreamless, prolonged rest). But Manon takes her response to slide their legs together, and hold them there.
It takes every still-working neuron in Sophia’s brain to not flinch. She holds Manon’s stare, unsure of what she’s thinking. Sophia doesn't even know what she herself is thinking. The only thing she knows is that Manon’s eyes are still the same, her gaze is still the same, and that the power she holds over Sophia has not diminished.
It’s Sophia who moves first, lunging across the table to clutch at Manon’s raincoat and pull her in. Their lips meet as their bodies bend at an awkward angle, before Manon actually climbs over the table, bootprint stomped into the surface and all, to collapse on top of Sophia, all without breaking contact.
It’s not soft or polite. It’s something neither of them should be doing. It’s something neither of them want to stop doing.
Manon bites at Sophia’s lips. Sophia hisses as the sting of Manon’s canine pokes her mouth. She draws back, fingers to her lips. Blood comes back.
“I’m sorry,” Manon says. She sounds breathless and her eyes are blown wide, in fear or in shock, Sophia doesn’t know.
“It’s fine,” Sophia says. Manon sits back on her heels, which is a little unnatural because she’s still wearing shoes and balancing on a velvet seat. She looks like a kicked puppy. “We should stop,” Sophia says.
“Okay,” says Manon. “If that’s what you want.”
She says it so soft, so concerned, that Sophia kind of snaps.
“What do you want, Manon?” Sophia yells. “Actually tell me what you wanted out of this. Out of modeling, out of Katseye, out of us.”
“I don’t know,” Manon whispers. “I never knew.”
“Then what was any of it for?”
“At first it was for fun, and then… and then it was all for you. After the disbandment, I didn’t know who to live for. I didn’t know how to live for myself anymore. It was all for you.”
“Why?” (Sophia knows why.)
“Because I’m– I was in love with you!”
(Sophia knew. Sophia knew and didn’t ask. Sophia knew and didn’t want to risk their existing relationship. Sophia knew and didn’t want to ruin their greatness.)
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You know why.”
She does.
“Why did you ever let me kiss you then? That night, after we won Dream Academy? And any night after?”
“If that was all you wanted to give me, then I would gladly take it. I would’ve done anything you wanted me to, Sophia.”
“Then why didn’t you talk to any of us after the disbandment?”
Manon gives her a look, she’s asking stupid questions now. Sophia knows.
“You never loved me back. Not like that.”
Sophia’s words get caught in her throat. A lot of things do, actually, as the sob threatens to escape. “I did,” she whispers. She loved Manon, she was sure of it. She still loves her.
“What?” Manon’s eyebrows pinch, and Sophia hates the look on her face so, so much. “But all those guys, and– and girls, and what about your long-term boyfriend? Were you in love with me then, too?”
“Always,” Sophia confesses. “Since the beginning. Always.”
“Even now?”
“Yes,” Sophia says, closing her eyes. “Even now.”
“...woah.”
“Manon, how long have you been on this train?”
“Since December. December of 2034. I got on the night of your birthday.”
Sophia’s jaw drops. Nearly three years? And that’s if it’s still 2037 now. “Manon–”
“Just, stop,” Manon says, raising her palm. “You have to… you have to give me some time to think.”
So Sophia stops.
It’s quiet for a long, long time after that. They sit across from each other still, but they don’t eat together anymore. They don’t even look at each other, or at least Sophia never looks at Manon when Manon is looking at her, if she ever does. It’s horrible. Sophia’s heart sinks lower with every passing second. Manon looks more and more distant over time, and Sophia is truly starting to go insane.
There’s one moment, though, when Manon grazes against her pinky finger when she’s opening her platter of food, and Sophia thinks she sees the briefest of sad smiles painted on the other girl’s face. She can never tell if Manon is lost in thought or just dazing off into the distance.
Sophia’s hands are starting to shake again, a little.
“I want to get off,” Sophia says, after days of not speaking. Or minutes, or years, or whatever meaningless time measurement she doesn’t bother to think about too hard. Tears are threatening to build; she’s so sick of existing like this, in this train, with the same windows and the same velvet seats. “Manon, when do we get off?”
And Manon’s had this furrow to her brow, this glint in her eye, for a little while now. It deepens when Sophia asks. “I think it’s less of a when,” she says, raspy, looking up. Sophia’s breath catches in her throat. “And more of a how.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve been thinking. What if we just… get off?”
“Like, jump out the train? Are you crazy?”
“No, we go up where we came in and ask to get off.”
Sophia stops, ponders. Would it really be that easy? “I guess it can’t hurt to try.”
They both stand, stretching their legs. Sophia lets Manon leave first, falling in behind her. With every step she takes, she feels a little lighter. When Sophia’s fingertips brush Manon’s, the older girl grabs her hand and interlocks them. Sophia thinks her hands have never been more steady.
They seem to speed up, and Manon’s gasping with laughter, dragging Sophia with her down the train hallway, tables and windows and red velvet chairs blurring together. Sophia thinks she sees the other passenger’s heads finally turning, finally noticing, as she and Manon sprint down, down, all the way to that very first car. Manon knocks on the door.
“Hello,” she says, a little breathless. Sophia’s never been more in love. “We’d like to get off, please.”
The little window on the door slides open, causing a scraping sound. An eye peeks out, suspicious. It’s the figure Sophia saw on that first night, the one she gave her chopsticks to. It slams the window shut and opens the door, stepping out. Looking at it directly makes Sophia’s head hurt; it’s flickering in and out of light and probably time and reality too, but she catches glimpses of a few familiar faces: her mother, Yoonchae, her brothers. Megan and Lara and Dani, too, for a second. Whatever the thing is doing, it’s not doing out of malicious intent. If anything, Sophia thinks it might be trying to comfort them, as a large grin spreads across its face(s).
“Of course, madams,” it says. Its voice is a mixture of all of them, too. The train slows to a stop, knocking Sophia off balance, a little. Manon catches her around the waist. She feels a sensation of floating down, before the door opens, revealing a dimly lit bus stop with an ad plastered to the side, in Korean. Get the Samsung Universe 300X, Sophia thinks it says. Her Korean is very rusty. Maybe she should pick it up again.
Manon inclines her head to the conductor, who does the same in return. Sophia follows the other girl out, smiling at the conductor on the way.
“I hope your trip was fulfilling,” it says before the door closes. Sophia and Manon stand on the sidewalk, fingers interlaced, facing the train. Sophia can count the number of cars, now. It’s 18. Huh. She could’ve sworn there were many more. “May you never need to return.”
It gives them one last polite bow, before the train screeches again, shooting off into the night, or wherever it is transdimensional trains go. Sophia’s other hand lifts in a wave, but the train and its conductor are long gone, and already, the memories of it all grow a little hazy.
Sophia isn’t sure how long they stand there, holding hands, but eventually the sun begins to rise and people slowly but surely fill the streets. Sophia could cry with relief.
“What now?” she asks, clutching Manon’s arm. Manon turns to face her, mirth and galaxies and love dancing in her eyes.
“We live.”
fin.