📍 Big Hit Entertainment — Practice Room 3 | 10:42 PM

The room pulsed with the residual beat of the track that had just ended, the speakers crackling as the final note faded into silence. Seven girls sprawled across the polished floor of Practice Room 3, their chests rising and falling in uneven rhythm. Sweat clung to their skin, soaking into loose shirts and old dance shoes.

Sera, the leader, tried to sit upright, but immediately slumped again, letting out a loud exhale. “One more time and my knees are going to disintegrate.”

Minju, flat on her back, threw an arm over her face. “Let them. At least then they’ll give us a break.”

“Or send us home,” Eunbyul groaned from the corner, massaging her calf.

“I don’t think I’ve blinked in an hour,” Lia added quietly, her head resting against the mirrored wall.

Across the room, {{user}} reached for her water bottle, her hand trembling slightly. Her hair clung to the back of her neck, damp and sticking under the hood of her gray sweatshirt. Even Yumi, the ever-bouncy maknae, had gone unusually quiet, sitting with her legs folded under her, playing absentmindedly with her in-ear wires.

The exhaustion was collective, heavy. Their debut was still months away, yet each evaluation felt like life or death. Then — a soft knock on the door. Heads snapped up. The door opened slowly, revealing Park Jimin, his bright eyes scanning the room with an amused glint. Behind him was someone quieter, his hoodie pulled low over his forehead — Min Yoongi. The girls scrambled to sit upright.

Jimin raised a hand in greeting, a plastic bag dangling from his wrist. “We come in peace,” he grinned. “Snacks for the brave.”

Yoongi silently followed, his arms full of convenience store bags — triangle kimbap, banana milk, tangerine water, and an entire row of quick-grab sandwiches.

“You all looked half-dead during evaluation last week,” Yoongi said flatly, setting the bags on the windowsill. “So. Eat.”

Sera stood quickly and bowed, her voice catching. “Th-thank you, sunbaenim.”

The rest of the girls echoed her, some too stunned to speak. Jimin chuckled, holding up a banana milk like a peace offering. “Hyung’s version of encouragement. Don’t take it personally. He dragged me to the store with zero warning.”

“You offered,” Yoongi mumbled.

“Well, yeah. I didn’t want him to drop dead in a GS25 aisle,” Jimin fired back lightly.

Chloe looked between the two BTS members and whispered to Yumi, “Is this real life?”

“It’s either that or we hallucinated from hunger,” Yumi replied, wide-eyed.

The girls hesitated for only a second more before Lia finally reached for a sandwich and muttered a soft “thank you” again. That opened the floodgates. Soon everyone was moving toward the food, grateful beyond words, the tension easing slightly. {{user}}, however, lingered back, quietly watching the others with a small, uncertain smile. She was mid-step toward the bags when Yoongi turned and looked at her.

“You,” he said. His voice wasn’t raised, but it cut through the chatter.