Archive of Our Own

It’s an impulse decision.

Really, it’s the result of Lara and Megan being left alone in their shared hotel room for too long, still buzzing from the final show on this leg of the tour, a little too wired to get to sleep when they probably should.

The delusional, loopy energy starts to set in around three a.m., both girls lazily leaning up against their respective headboards cracking jokes about whatever show is on the tv. They’ve got a flight from NYC back to LA booked for early afternoon, the first of many studio sessions to begin work on their next body of work booked for early evening.

“We should road trip back,” Megan suddenly suggests during a lull in their commentary, giving the poor, unsuspecting character they’d been roasting for the last hour a short bit of relief. “All 6 of us. Before they lock us in the basement for the next, like, 6 months.”

Lara snorts. “With what car exactly?”

Megan shrugs, undeterred. “We rent one. Duh.” Lara hums in response, seemingly thinking it over.

It’s not a bad idea; they’ve got no upcoming shows booked at the moment and another break while they record their next batch of songs followed by learning and perfecting the new choreography is indeed on the horizon.

They won’t be entirely cut off from civilization; TikToks will still be made and posted and maybe even some YouTube videos, but it’ll be a while before they’re really back in the public eye for their next comeback, and, more importantly, before any of them are allowed to leave Los Angeles again.

“We’ll have to convince Missy,” Lara says after a couple of minutes, the room silent besides the show still playing low on the tv, “and then the girls too. Especially Soph.”

Megan’s already off her bed and halfway to her suitcase by the time Lara finishes the first half of her sentence, fishing out her laptop. She climbs into Lara’s bed with it instead of her own, laying backwards across her older friend’s lap as she loads up PowerPoint.

“We can call her into the conference room we saw earlier, but we have to make sure we’re prepared.”

-

Lara’s not even sure if the sun is up by the time she finds herself in said conference room, a throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders, fighting against her heavy eyelids that are trying their hardest to drop down and stay there.

Megan’s got her laptop hooked up to a projector now, hair unbrushed and pajamas a little twisted, 17 different slides explaining why they should be allowed to do this road trip queued up and ready for when Missy arrives. She’d set the meeting up the first chance she got, and all parties had, for whatever dumb ass reason, Lara thinks, agreed on this god awful time to meet.

Lara hadn’t had a choice, really, her roommate calling all of the shots on this pipe dream and even physically dragging her out of bed to come do this with her. United front, moral support, something like that.

It’s maybe ten minutes before Missy and a few other members of their team get to the room and take seats around the large brown table, all looking ridiculously awake and put together at this hour. 

Lara can physically see Megan lock in as silence settles over the room, amused looks on the faces of the occupants of the table. Missy’s bun bounces as she leans back in her chair, raising an expectant eyebrow at the two girls without a word.

Megan clears her throat, straightening her posture further and motioning to the wall where the projector is showing her laptop screen. “As you can see, we have a very serious, very important ask of you guys. The Katseye Summer Road Trip of All Road Trips Ever in History. Working title.”

She hits the space bar, the screen displaying a flashy transition as it moves from the cover to the next slide. Said slide features a collage of images of all of the girls either crying or looking sad.

Lara steps in then. “This is how we’ll feel if we don’t get to go. Dismayed. Crestfallen. Depressed. Despondent. Dis-”

“It’ll actually be the end of the world, and we won’t be able to give good vocals in the studio nor will the social media videos give what they need to give and the fans will pick up on it, you know they will,” Megan shoots a pointed, knowing look at Missy before moving to the next slide. “Which brings me to our next point, the fans. You know they’ve been harassing you guys about more variety content of us. We’ll vlog every second of the trip.”

“And I mean every second, like we’ll send you guys a week of nonstop footage if you want,” Lara adds. “I’ll personally make sure the cameras are charged at all times.”

Lara watches their team’s facial expressions as Megan continues with the next slide and the next, trying to get a feel of if they’re convincing them or not, but they keep their poker faces on the entire presentation. She knows this is a big ask, not only because they’re getting bigger and bigger and it’s frankly a little unsafe having them traveling alone but because they’re also no good all together with no supervision.

Missy and the other team members ask for a moment alone to discuss the presentation after the girls finish, so they step out of the room, gently closing the door behind them.

“We totally killed that,” Megan says the second they’re in the hallway, professional demeanor falling away to make room for a grin. “I have the camper picked out already and everything.”

Lara chuckles at that, adjusting her blanket. “Hell yeah, just gotta get the girls on board next.”

Megan swats at the air, scoffing. “Oh please, that’s the easy part. I know they’re fiending for some freedom too.”

“Manon and I have joked about running away and just disappearing together,” Lara laughs again. She doesn’t miss the look Megan gives her but ignores it, continuing. “Like it’s so bad sometimes.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Lara rolls her eyes, but there’s no real annoyance behind it. She’s accustomed to it by now. “Don’t start your shit.”

Megan throws her hands up in mock surrender, opening her mouth to respond as the door to the conference room opens again. Missy pokes her head out, motioning for them to come back inside.

They take seats now, Megan unhooking her laptop and closing it, setting it on the table in front of her.

Missy just gets a good look at them for a few moments, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “If we approve this, there’s going to have to be some strict rules and conditions. No negotiations.”

-

Unsurprisingly, Sophia’s the hardest to convince out of the four. Yoonchae always loves the idea of spending time with her big sisters, Dani is easily enticed by the idea of the content they can make traveling from state to state, and Manon… can’t say no to Lara, even if she might not want to admit it.

Sophia’s already in leader mode by the time Megan and Lara pick up the van, parking it in the underground parking structure of the hotel. She’s sent a million texts to the group chat, checklists and such, trying to make sure no one leaves anything behind before they get on their flight.

They’re all gathered in Dani and Manon’s room after Megan’s called a group meeting, split up amongst the two beds and the couch in the corner. Lara has half a mind to give Sophia the same PowerPoint presentation the team got as she stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed, seemingly not impressed by the idea in the slightest.

“I’ve got the whole route planned out already,” Megan offers easily from Dani’s bed, like it’ll change Sophia’s mind. She plays with Yoonchae’s hair, the youngest’s head lying in her lap with her lower half lazily draped across Dani. “And I’ll do the majority of the driving, you guys will basically just be along for the ride and experience.”

“You’re supposed to be convincing her,” Manon snickers from her bed after she and Dani lock eyes quickly before looking away, “not scaring her right onto the first flight back to LA.”

“I’m literally a good driver, Manon!”

Dani and Manon share another skeptical look, holding back knowing laughs. “Yeah, totally,” Dani nods enthusiastically.

Megan’s flipping both of them off as Lara hops up from the couch, walking over to Sophia and capturing her hands in her own. “What can we do to get you excited? It’ll be fun! We haven’t done anything like this just the 6 of us in… well, ever, really.”

They stand like that for a bit, the gears in Sophia’s mind obviously turning as she takes in Lara’s hopeful expression.

“I guess I’m down,” she reluctantly agrees, squeezing Lara’s hands before letting them go and looking around at the girls as she speaks. “But we have to take turns on the driving, Megan can’t do all of it. And I want to see the route before we leave.”

“You can’t, actually, it’s a surprise… but y’all can trust me, I swear!” The whole room groans at that. Megan’s head snaps down to look at the girl on her lap, betrayed. “You too?!”

Yoonchae giggles, unbothered, getting more comfortable. “Sorry,” she apologizes, not the least bit apologetic.

-

They find themselves in the parking garage early the next morning, all staring at the camper van. It was one thing to hear Megan talk about it, and it’s another to actually be looking at the ugly thing.

Megan drags her suitcase to the back of it, opening the back doors and tossing it in. The other girls follow suit, each loading their bags without a word.

Manon moves back around to the side, taking a few steps back to get another look at the vehicle. She’s got the vlog camera in her hand like they’d promised their team, not even sure if she’s getting good footage. “This is really… something.”

“Cool, right?” Megan beams, all but skipping to the passenger door and pulling it open. She motions for them to enter. “All aboard!”

Dani is the first to step up, one foot in the door when Lara suddenly yells from where she stands at the back of the van, causing them all to jump. “Guys, wait! First rule of a roadtrip,” she starts, digging through her bag for her polaroid camera and waving it with a smile once she finds it, “we need a selfie.”

Yoonchae groans exaggeratedly, pulling a few giggles from the other girls, but they’re all moving to stand with Lara anyway. “We don’t want to.”

“Too fuckin’ bad,” Lara retorts with no hesitation. “Come on, chop chop! And smile like we’re not up before the sun, please!”

They all find a place behind Lara as she extends her arm in the air, (hopefully) getting the best angle. It doesn’t take long for her to snap it, handing the polaroid over to Sophia once it’s printed so it doesn’t slide out of the camera and straight onto the ground. Megan double checks that the back doors of the camper are closed securely before they enter, all heading for the main area in the back.

The rock, paper, scissors championship game Megan, Dani, and Lara had had before they’d left the hotel room has Lara dropping down into the drivers’ seat a loser, gently grabbing Manon’s arm as she tries to pass by with the others.

None of them really wanted to drive first, there’s no chance of getting any more sleep before the first destination if you’re having to keep your full attention on the road to keep your best friends alive behind you.

“Not gonna keep me company up here?” Lara asks with a raised eyebrow, pulling her hand back slowly and starting to put on her seatbelt. There’s not much question in her tone, like she already knows the answer.

Manon rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the stupid tingle in her arm where Lara’s hand had been. She takes a seat in the passenger seat, setting up the vlog camera on the dashboard. “I guess I’ll humor you. But I choose the music.”

-

Sophia snaps a photo of the polaroid with her phone camera once it’s developed, adding a laughing emoji and a purple heart as she sends it to the girls.

Dani is somehow the only one that looks decent, happy grin betraying how obscenely early it is; Lara’s face is halfway out of the frame even though she’s the one that took it, Yoonchae and Manon both look like they’d gotten caught mid-sentence, mouths open, Sophia is looking towards the two of them instead of the camera, and Megan’s eyes are closed.

More laughing emojis and ‘oh my god’s flood in along with promises of physical harm if anyone posts it, but it still gets made the display photo for the chat anyway. Very disastrous, very them.

-

The first three hours pass by fairly quickly. The sun is finally starting to rise, painting the sky in pinks and oranges. The radio, some random top 40 station, plays low and staticky with them not being close enough to any radio towers to pick up a clear enough signal.

Megan had come and stolen the vlog camera some time around hour two, disappearing somewhere in the back with Yoonchae. Last Manon had looked behind them, Dani was sprawled across some of the seats with a blanket on top of her, already asleep, while Sophia had her headphones on, completely engrossed in something on her phone.

“I spy,” Lara starts, “something… black.”

Manon hums in acknowledgement, eyes scanning the road before her. There’s honestly not much to see besides the surprisingly extensive amount of vehicles in front of them at this hour, some trees, and the occasional few buildings they’re able to see from the freeway, so they’d tweaked the rules of the game to be less of what the person is seeing and more of how quickly the other can find the correct colored car.

Her eyes eventually find a darker, tiny car wedged between two semi trucks. She furrows her eyebrows as she squints.

“Lara, I swear that’s navy blue?”

Lara groans loudly in response, and Manon is shushing her immediately. They’ve got the curtain separating them from the rest of the van drawn, but it likely isn’t providing much of a sound barrier and she doesn’t want to be too loud and wake any of the others up.

“We’re not doing this again.”

“It’s deadass not black!”

Lara just rolls her eyes. “Okay, we’re done playing then since you’re blind.”

“Fine, whatever,” Manon scoffs, reaching for her phone and loading up her music playlist. She puts her earbuds in as it starts playing on shuffle, resting her head backwards against the headrest and closing her eyes.

She only has a few seconds of peace before Lara sees what she’s doing and pushes her shoulder.

“Hey! You signed up for this,” Lara reminds her, glancing between her and the road a few times. She sticks her hand out, palm outstretched, “gimme one or put it away and we find something to talk about.”

Manon knows better than to try to argue. She bites her cheek in annoyance, pausing her music, wordlessly placing her left earbud in Lara’s hand and watching as a smug smile spreads across the younger girl’s mouth. She wants to kiss it off her stupid, pretty face.

“Might as well put you on to some fire shit while I unfortunately have the chance, I guess,” she grumbles.

Lara just laughs as she merges into the next lane, patiently waiting as Manon scrolls down her list of songs trying to decide where to start.

-

When they reach Niagara Falls, everyone’s awake again. The other girls still have the vlog going in the back, passing the camera around as they play Uno on the small dinner table in the corner. Best of 3, Manon thinks she’d heard Dani say. There’d been a lot of screaming, as expected.

They hurriedly all slip their shoes back on, almost tripping over each other trying to be the first one out. The drive had been nearly seven hours long with only one little break in the middle at a random gas station, and they’d all become antsy as hell in the final stretch.

Megan had finally told them where they were headed in the last 30 minutes or so of the drive, an excited buzz washing over them as most of them have never been, and the ones that have haven’t been since they were kids.

They head straight for the Top of the Falls restaurant for lunch once they’ve gotten tickets scanned and they’re allowed into the park. It’s still early afternoon so it’s not terribly busy, but it’s not exactly empty either.

Sophia throws an arm over Yoonchae’s shoulders as they all walk, connecting their foreheads with a smile when they make eye contact. They all know this trip is especially going to be new and exciting for their youngest, which makes it even more exciting for them.

Lara links her arms with Megan and Dani, who grabs Manon’s hand and pulls her to walk alongside them too. They stumble a bit before their footsteps naturally start to line up, but it’s not that long before they arrive.

They get seated fairly quickly, their waitress pulling an additional two chairs over to the table to accommodate all of them. It’s a squeeze, and more rock, paper, scissors is played to determine who sits where, but they eventually make it work.

-

It’s many hours later after they’ve finished eating, zigzagged around the park a couple times, and spent an embarrassing amount of time in the aquarium for six grown women when they remember they’re supposed to be documenting this for their fans. Bits and pieces had been recorded here and there but probably not nearly as much as they should’ve.

They’d gotten recognized quite a bit, taking a couple pictures, but it seems that it’s common sense to not turn a casual day out into a big, impromptu meet and greet and they’re grateful they’d been given that much respect.

Dani fishes the vlog camera back out of Megan’s bag while Lara gets her polaroid camera out of her own. They’re all clad in oversized, park-branded sweatshirts watching as the colorful lights paint the waterfalls different colors.

“Selfie time!” Lara announces, and they’re all a lot happier to comply this time.

They stand with the illumination behind them; Manon wraps an arm around Yoonchae, leaning her head on hers with a smile. Sophia is way too amused with herself, beaming as she childishly puts bunny ears on Megan who hops up onto Dani’s back, both girls laughing. Lara angles the camera a little different, hoping to get her whole face in the frame this time.

Her finger is barely off the shutter button before Manon’s calling dibs before anyone else can even think about it, carefully grabbing the photo once it’s printed to make sure she doesn’t smudge it.

They ooh and ahh at the fireworks show like little kids, cracking each other up and getting side eyes from the people around them. They clutch at their aching stomachs with one hand, wipe at the tears forming in their eyes with the other, not even caring.

Yeah, the six of them together? This is home.

-

They split into two rooms at a hotel near the park; Megan, Lara, and Yoonchae in one, Manon, Sophia, and Daniela in the other. They don’t realize how exhausted they are until they’ve dragged their suitcases from the van to their rooms, all almost immediately passing out the second they’re in their beds.

When Lara wakes up, Megan is already awake and sitting up in her own bed, blanket across her lap with her laptop sitting on top. She has the vlog camera connected to it via a short black cord.

Lara stretches and yawns at the same time, vision going a bit blurry. It doesn’t even get the chance to clear back up post-stretch-yawn before Megan’s got Lara’s own camera pointed at her, quickly snapping a picture before she can process what’s happening.

“Morning, sunshine!” Megan grins, holding up the developing white square for Lara to see before laying it down on an empty spot on her laptop so she can write on it with a metallic Sharpie from Lara’s pack. “How much you think I can get Manon to pay for this one?”

Lara stares in disbelief for a few moments then gets out of her bed to kneel in front of her suitcase, careful not to wake up the still-sleeping Yoonchae next to her. “It’s too early for your shit, Megan.” She unzips her bag, pulling out her toiletries bag, her makeup bag, and an outfit, and heads into the bathroom.

By the time Lara gets out, freshly showered with her bedhead tamed and makeup fairly decently done, Megan’s back to clicking away on her laptop. Lara slides into the bed next to her, leaning her head on Megan’s shoulder to see what she’s doing.

“Just getting the footage we have so far imported so I can send it over to the editing team,” Megan explains, reading Lara’s mind. “Really don’t need them on our asses.”

Lara nods with a quiet chuckle, still mindful of Yoonchae across the room. “You’re so responsible. You sure you’re not meant to be in granny line?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Megan fires back, no bite in it as she laughs beside herself. “Those old ass bitches.”

The air conditioning in the room clicks on automatically on full blast, immediately sending a chill through Lara’s body. She shifts so she can slide under Megan’s blanket with her without even asking, cuddling more into her side as they continue to crack jokes and watch the upload progress bars on the video clips slowly fill up.

-

It’s less than a four and a half hour drive to their next destination, Sophia now in the driver's seat with Megan as her passenger.

Megan had found a paper map at a rest stop, using it to navigate and tell Sophia which turns to take instead of her phone.

More of a real road trip this way, she’d insisted.

-

“Cedar Point!” Yoonchae squeals into the vlog camera, flipping the screen so it switches to the back lens and she can show the large blue sign. “I haven’t been to an amusement park since Lotte World.”

They can already hear the screams as one of the coasters passes right over the entrance. Manon’s stomach flutters, nerves settling in immediately. She doesn’t do brave. But she also can’t admit that.

Megan leads them over to the fast pass booth, already knowing waiting in long lines is not going to work for them. The employee wraps the bands around all six of their wrists and sends them on their way.

They stop in front of the sign, getting a random stranger to take a group photo of them on Sophia’s phone in exchange for a photo with their small, bouncing child who obviously recognized who they are. Fair enough trade off.

“Where to first?” Dani asks, linking her arms through Megan and Sophia’s and tightening her hold when they try to pull away.

Manon can feel Lara eyeing her from her left, studying her as she scans the park. Not a single one of these rollercoasters looks appealing to her, and she knows Lara can tell.

Lara speaks then, practiced nonchalance in her voice but Manon can still hear a hint of amusement. “Carousel?” She points over to it with a shrug, not far from where they stand.

“Hell yeah,” Megan agrees, still trying to separate her arm from Dani’s vice grip. She eventually gives up, letting Dani pull them with her while Yoonchae follows, speaking quietly into the camera as she continues recording her surroundings.

Manon and Lara walk too, falling back just the smallest bit.

“Don’t,” Manon says with a raised hand and an eye roll before Lara can even get a word out, already knowing.

Lara laughs at that, loud and easy and unrestrained. “We’re starting easy for you, you baby,” she teases anyway, lacing their fingers together like it’s second nature, “come on.”

-

Manon stalls. Hard. She tries to be subtle with it, but all of the girls pick up on her tactics pretty quickly.

They ride the carousel four times before she lets them move on. Megan’s got the park’s app open on her phone, a map of all of the open rides on the screen, and she’s already chosen where they’re going next but Manon just won’t let them.

When they finally put a stop to her dictatorship, all refusing to get back on the mechanical horses, she swears they need to go eat at one of the restaurants, because it’s going to be a lot of walking and they didn’t eat breakfast before they left the hotel. Which, they can admit, she’s not exactly wrong about. They humor her, all heading over to some barbecue spot that turns out to actually be pretty good.

Then, it’s so hot that they need to go get souvenir drink cups, and she spends at least five minutes debating between the neon orange and the neon green, like it’s the biggest decision she’s ever made in her life. And then another five minutes at the drink machine choosing between blue raspberry, cherry, and Mountain Dew flavored icee to go in her ugly green bottle.

Before they know it, it’s been an hour and a half and they haven’t even so much as set foot in the line of a real ride.

Lara watches, still amused, as they all walk out of the shade of the drink station into the summer sun and Manon’s eyes immediately start scouting the area for her next distraction.

“I know you’re fuckin’ lying,” Megan says the second she realizes what she’s doing, a no-nonsense hand latching onto Manon’s arm. “We’ve played your games since we got here. Let’s go.”

“Huh?” Manon exclaims, feigning innocence after she swallows the sip of slushy in her mouth. She lets Megan drag her over to the line for the sky ride anyway, not having much of a choice. “What games?!”

Megan ignores her while the other girls follow with snickers and giggles, all holding the carrying handles of their dumb cups. The line moves quickly and it doesn’t take long for them to get to the top of the bright blue structure.

The worker informs them it’s only four people per car, so they split up three and three. Megan shoves Manon onto the bench across from her, Dani sliding in with them.

The take off is the tiniest bit rough and even that has Manon reaching for something, anything, to steady herself, one hand settling on the side of the cabin and the other on Dani’s knee. She relaxes once they’re actually gliding across the park, letting out a breath as they overlook everything; the water, the rides, the restaurants and theaters. She notices some kind of oversized pendulum ride and a bunch of carnival games off to the side.

She digs into her bag for her phone at the same time as Dani, both sharing a quick look and smile while Megan’s already recording the view. She snaps a few pictures before putting her phone down and just taking it in, enjoying the breeze giving her slight relief from the heat and the simplicity of the whole moment.

She crashes back to reality not long after, their cabin skidding to a stop at the other station in the back of the park. Daniela’s grabbing her hand this time to keep a leash on her, much gentler than Megan before, though, as they head down the stairs and wait for the rest of the group.

They’re actually not far behind; the sound of them clattering down the steps reaching before they see them.

The path they’re standing near splits in two directions, and Megan points to the left. “We’re getting on the Iron Dragon down there. Low intensity but still should be fun,” she informs the group, glaring at Manon. “All of us.”

Manon opens her mouth to say something, likely a protest or another excuse but shuts it when they all send her the same look, fed up. She pouts instead. “Fine.”

Dani tightens her hold on Manon’s hand as she and the other four cheer. Manon swears the yellow and red coaster is taunting and laughing at her as they start to walk to it.

-

Manon loosens up the more they force her on, each coaster a little more intense than the last but, admittedly, also more fun. She still fights them the entire time though, refusing to give them the satisfaction of admitting that this may not have been the worst idea ever.

Megan and Yoonchae dip off with the vlog camera to ride a few more rides while the other four call it quits, the Magnum XL-200 being their limit. It didn’t look that crazy before they’d gotten on, but all of their legs are a little shaky as they get off, trying to catch their breaths from the screams of pure, absolute terror that’d just been ripped out of their throats.

The sun is just starting to set as they walk toward the front where the arcade and boardwalk games are. It’s a really beautiful park now that they’re seeing it with the lights illuminating everything.

They stop at the ticket counter to load their cards, the arcade mostly digital. There’s no traditional token coins, and most of the games have digital payouts instead of dispensing physical paper tickets like they usually do.

“We need to find a claw machine. Just watch, I’mma show y’all I’m a master at them,” Daniela promises as they weave through the vast number of games around the room.

They eventually settle on one with rings of tickets for them to win. They’d seen a mini Monopoly and mini air hockey table on the prize wall, and decided they need them for the long drives.

“Okay, watch this. I’m getting that 500 ring.” She lines up the claw with the ring after pointing to it, then steps to the side of the machine to make sure it’s far back enough too. When it’s sufficient enough for her, she hits the button and the others watch with bated breath, leaning forward slightly to watch as it drops down but is a centimeter or so off, just missing the ring. “Wait! Y’all, wait!”

Lara lets out a disappointed ‘ooh’ as Sophia and Manon grimace dramatically with a ‘yikes’ and a low whistle. Dani shushes them, already swiping her card again for another try. She’s more determined this time, locking her full attention on the game, lining up the claw with the prize she’s gunning for again. She taps the button. “Voila!”

They watch as the crane lowers, actually grabbing the ring this time and dropping it into the prize chute. All of their arms shoot in the air with excited shouts, no care in the world for who might hear them.

Dani beams in the spotlight, reaching down to get the ring out of the machine before posing with it like a purse. Sophia hurriedly pulls her phone out of her pocket, taking a few pictures of her with a loud laugh.

Daniela Avanzini: crane game pro.

-

They find Dance Dance Revolution tucked off in the back of the arcade in surprisingly good shape, and once they’re on it, it’s damn near impossible to get Dani, Sophia, and Lara off. They take turns; winner stays on, loser gets off. Manon plays a few rounds with them too but quickly realizes it’s not exactly her cup of tea so she mostly just watches, losing count of how many songs she sees them do and who’s in the lead with the most wins.

“I’m gonna go check out the carnival games, call or text if you need me,” she informs them, chuckling when they essentially just wave her off, barely acknowledging that she’d even spoken to them.

It’s cooler outside now. Still warm, especially compared to the cold air inside of the arcade, but the sun going down has dropped the temperature considerably. She rounds the corner to the boardwalk area, bright lights spotlighting all the booths with giant prizes suspended on them.

She surveys the different games, trying to decide which one she thinks will scam her the least. Ring toss seems like a safe enough bet; there’s around fifty bottles on the table and it costs seven dollars for a tub of thirty rings, her odds seem pretty decent.

In reality, thirty is not enough.

She doesn’t land a single one around the necks of the bottles.

In fact, it’s actually a little embarrassing how many don’t even come close; a good half being thrown too far and missing the entire table, or not far enough and landing right on the ground in front of her.

The booth worker tries their hardest to keep a straight face watching how bad she is and ultimately can’t, covering their mouth to conceal their laugh when it becomes too much, but Manon still sees and hears it.

Lights flash as someone wins Bank-A-Ball at the next booth a few feet away from her and she decides that’s her next endeavor. Throw the ball against the board, it bounces into the basket underneath, bam, she wins. Easy peasy.

She waits for the next few people in line to go, paying the six bucks when her turn comes and getting into place. She tosses the first ball as a test, getting used to the weight of it and the spring of the board. She must use too much force because it bounces right back at her, making her flinch.

She tries again, and again, and again but the only time she gets even remotely close is when she accidentally hits the orange bar at the top of the board and the ball falls down into the basket, knocking the bottom orange bar down too on its way, disqualifying the throw.

One round isn’t enough, and before she knows it, she’s on her third.

“You’re doing it wrong,” a voice whispers into her ear. Manon jumps about ten feet into the air, and the ball she’s currently holding goes flying over the entire board and lands in the box underneath the one behind it. She turns to see Lara who just laughs at her reaction, shrugging. “Couldn’t third-wheel anymore,” she says simply. She motions toward the game with her head, “Come on, finish this and I’ll show you how to do it the right way.”

Lara pays for her turn as Manon throws her last ball carelessly, and for a second, it actually looks like it might go in.

It doesn’t.

“Alright, watch.” Lara gently pushes Manon a little further down the side of the booth so she can stand in the middle. She leans forward, resting her elbow on the edge of the counter and letting her arm rest lazily too, bending it a few times for emphasis as she continues, “Hang your arm over like this, aim a little bit down from the top, and then, boom.”

She explains it like it’s just so simple, and Manon watches skeptically as she tosses the ball. It hits about an inch or two under the orange bar at the top, dropping into the bucket but bouncing out.

“Too much power,” Lara says, like she has the entire world figured out. She does it again, lighter this time, and it falls right into the box like it’s nothing. Manon’s jaw drops and Lara sends her a stupid smirk that makes her stomach twist a little.

Good at everything and ridiculously attractive, absolutely unfair.

Lara finishes her turn, landing another in the box just to rub extra salt in the wound. She takes a few steps back to get a good look at her prize choices and then leans over to whisper to the worker, who disappears into the back to get it.

Manon takes another look at the booths while they wait, competitiveness firing up in her blood. She has to win something. There’s a basketball game not too far from this one, it can’t possibly be that hard. It’s just basketball. Or maybe the darts, or the water shooting game. Or maybe the one where she has to knock all the blocks off the ta-

“For you, m’lady,” Lara says, pulling Manon out of her thoughts. When she turns to look, Lara’s holding out a giant stuffed cat.

Manon is pretty certain she actually stops breathing for a couple seconds, her heart skipping a beat as her eyes drop to the toy. She grabs it hesitantly, hoping her voice doesn’t betray her as she speaks. “Why?”

“I can tell you wanted it, plus I think the dragon suit is cute. Reminds me of that interview back in London,” Lara giggles, reaching over and toying with one of the wings. “I want you to have it.”

It’s silent between them for a few moments, the only sounds being the screams coming from the nearby rides and the faint music from one of the game booths.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to charm me, Lara Raj,” Manon says quietly, squinting up at her, willing her heart to calm the fuck down. There’s supposed to be a hint of a joke in her voice, but it doesn’t quite hit.

It’s just a stuffed animal, she tells herself. Not to mention this is her friend and bandmate, nothing more.

“I mean, depends,” Lara leans forward a bit, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Did it work?”

Manon hugs the cat closer to her chest, watching as Lara lets herself fully smile at the action. “Maybe a little.”

Lara just looks at her for a few seconds, unreadable, before standing up straight and reaching down to slot their fingers together. It’s muscle memory at this point for them, both of them knowing exactly how perfectly they fit. “C’mon, let’s go find the maknaes. They’ve been gone way too long, which only means trouble.”

Manon willingly follows, no smart comments on her tongue for once, tightening her grip on both the cat and Lara’s hand as they begin their search for Megan and Yoonchae.

-

Once they finally leave, it’s still Sophia’s turn to drive. They’ve got both the Monopoly and the air hockey, a huge bag of candy, and a giant funnel cake to share as they all load back into the van.

Dani and Megan are already challenging each other to the air hockey so Manon drops into the seat next to Sophia with a smile. They don’t always get as much time together as they would like, so she takes the chance gladly.

They’re heading straight to an Airbnb in Chicago instead of crashing in another hotel overnight. It’s the first city they’ll be in for multiple days, so it’s best to just get the driving out of the way now, they’d all agreed.

(Mostly all. Sophia had been the only one to disagree, and majority ultimately ruled. She’d still tried arguing that leader votes should override everyone else. It didn’t work.)

They talk casually for a while, too worn from the day to play I Spy like she’d done with Lara, or anything else extensive. At some point, Sophia’s playlist on the aux switches to Let it Go and they do find the energy to sing along to that, the girls in the back chiming in here and there.

Manon catches Sophia’s eyes dropping down to the stuffy kitty sitting in her lap for what feels like the twentieth time when she finally cracks. “Just say it. And don’t piss me off.”

Sophia doesn’t waste a second, too quick for the casual act she’s trying to play off. “Lara won you that?”

“Yeah, after she got tired of third wheeling you and Dani,” Manon fires back, pivoting before Sophia can really grill her.

Manon knows Sophia isn’t blind and is well aware of something being there between her and Lara. She hadn’t forgotten the time she had to catch herself during one of the M.I.A. outros on tour and snap out of the moment before she did something stupid. Sophia had just laughed at her right there on stage, knowing exactly what had happened.

Unluckily for Sophia, Manon’s not exactly oblivious to Sophia and Daniela either. It’s payback of sorts.

The leader flushes at the call out, her fingers tightening on the wheel the teeny tiniest bit, but Manon sees it. She chuckles, continuing. “How y’all manage to turn Dance Dance Revolution into a date, huh? And leaving your own bandmate out? A sham-”

“Just shut up,” Sophia gives up, knowing she’s by far the more shameful of the two. Manon laughs again, taking it as a victory.

-

The Airbnb Megan had chosen is pretty nice. From the outside, it looks like a normal, slightly worn brownstone, but once you enter you’re met with one of those well-lit, gorgeously decorated modern homes with fancy furniture and tall windows that you usually only see on television.

Lara has the vlog camera on as they bring their stuff inside. There’s three bedrooms; two with king beds and one with two bunk beds, likely intended to be for children.

It’s funny. Normally, they’d all gladly take their own bedrooms, often needing breaks from each other to just breathe, but instead they find themselves in another rock, paper, scissors showdown trying to decide who gets to sleep in the bunk bed room.

In the end, Yoonchae and Manon end up with their own rooms. Manon leaves with an endeared head shake and a slight pang of disappointment sitting in her chest as the rest of the girls launch into a rather intense argument about who deserves the top bunks the most.

-

Even after all of that, they end up camping in the living room instead.

An empty pizza box sits on the coffee table that’s been pushed off to the side of the room, some random horror movie plays on the tv screen, and six girls lay tangled together in a sea of blankets and pillows on the floor of a random Chicago home.

-

Some time in the middle of night, Lara claws her way out of the mess on the floor and up onto the couch with a blanket and a pillow. She wakes up in the morning to voices, feeling around for said blanket when she notices it isn’t on top of her anymore. 

She looks for it around the couch and then around the room like it can teleport, eventually spotting Yoonchae wrapped up in it along with her own. She stares over at her for a few moments, debating whether or not to use her pillow to smother her.

A yawn pulls her out of her murderous thoughts and she stands up to stretch. It takes a few moments for her to remember what woke her up in the first place, her senses still waking up too. 

Her attention is pulled back over to Megan and Manon standing in the kitchen area attempting to make breakfast, she assumes. Heavy on ‘attempting’.

She walks over to the island, hopping up onto one of the stools and straining her neck to see what they’re making. It looks like it’s supposed to be pancakes but some of the batter is splattered around the pan and dripping off the sides. Megan holds the mixing bowl but Manon has the spatula, so she isn’t exactly sure who the culprit is.

“Good morning?” Lara tries, skeptical of these two accomplishing this and actually making something edible.

“Lala!” Megan’s face lights up instantly, looking up from the pan to Lara’s face. “Did we wake you up? Manon doesn’t listen so I had to yell some sense into her.”

Manon scoffs, fake British accent strong as she speaks. “I told you, I am a professional chef from Essex, Gordon Ramsay is basically my cousin.” She goes to flip the pancake in the pan to prove her point but it’s not ready yet and more of the batter splatters once it lands. “Fuck! That was your fault, Megan, you distracted me!”

Megan’s nostrils flare and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I told you you have to wait for the damn holes! That’s the third one you fucked up!”

Lara just watches, amazed they’d decided to do something requiring teamwork with one another in the first place. It’s not surprising that it’s a total disaster, it’s like putting two stubborn ass seven year olds in the kitchen together.

Megan sits the bowl down on the counter and snatches the spatula from Manon, ignoring her protests, walking with the pan over to the trash and scraping the ruined pancake into it. She grabs a clean pan out of the cabinet after sitting the dirty one in the sink.

“Let me show you how it’s done, Manon,” Megan says, now using her own British accent. It’s always infectious with the three of them. “Maybe a live demonstration will help for the culinarily challenged like yourself.”

Manon slides onto a stool next to Lara, nudging her knowingly, both of them snorting at the confidence. Megan is by far the worst cook out of all of them but it’s always funny to watch her try to prove otherwise.

Lara lets her burn exactly one more pancake before she banishes them both from the kitchen. She decides she’ll just do it herself, fanning the smoke alarm with a random piece of the homeowner’s mail to get it to stop going off.

-

Sophia and Lara stand leaning over the dinner table, a slew of polaroids from the day spread haphazardly across the surface in front of them.

They’d all been hesitant about going on a bike tour when Megan told them over Lara’s breakfast that that was on the agenda for the day, but by the end of it, none of them had wanted it to end.

Manon and Dani are gone to a nearby pizza place to get dinner, a deep dish this time now that they’ve seen the city and feel like proper Chicagoans, while Megan and Yoonchae lounge on the couch playing some random trivia game they’d found in the apps on the tv.

The tour had been so informative. They hadn’t gotten the chance to really explore when they were last here for Lollapalooza and it really is a beautiful city. It’d been cool to see a lot of the famous landmarks and buildings they’ve heard so much about throughout their lives.

“I should’ve brought my album with me,” Lara mumbles, picking up the furthest top left photo to write something on the back of it with her Sharpie. “We’re going to have a billion of these by the time we get home.”

Sophia scans the rest of the polaroids, smiling at some of the sillier ones that’d been captured; Dani crouching behind a bust in one of the museums they’d stopped at with her ponytail sticking out at the top, Megan frowning standing in front of an albeit kind of ugly painting Yoonchae said resembles her, Yoonchae and Sophia trying to pose like a couple of statue sculptures in a park, Lara pouting looking down at her half melted ice cream cone that’d fallen on the ground, Manon’s silhouette pushing Megan’s away in front of the ocean at the beach during sunset.

She slides one of the only full group polaroids to the middle of all of them, pulling out her phone to take a picture of it. It’s the six of them in front of Buckingham Fountain, Dani is on Yoonchae’s back while Sophia is reaching down to Manon to help her off the ground after getting knocked down in the process, Megan and Lara watching the scene from a little bit off to the side. It’s messy, but they’re all absolutely dying laughing and it’s perfect.

Sophia starts to draft a new post on her Instagram story for the photo she took, it’s clear the image in the middle is the focus but you can still see parts of some of the others on the sides. Just dumb and goofy and happy.

She captions it with mine <3 and closes the app before the interactions start rolling in.

-

They actually sleep in their rooms that night, the middle members somehow having come to an agreement on who gets what bunk.

Yoonchae refused to let them drag her into it not wanting to have to essentially choose sides, while Manon happily stirred the pot to make it worse. She could still hear them arguing through the wall while she took her shower and got ready for bed.

There’s heat blowing out of the vents and the bedding is seemingly high quality, but Manon’s room still feels cold. It’s nothing like last night when they’d all been lying every which way across the living room floor while they watched movies and argued over the sizes of pizza slices and the best toppings to go on them.

She’s never really considered herself the clingy type but damn, does she miss her friends.

After a while of tossing and turning, she pushes her cover off of her, slipping out of bed and into her slippers. She grabs her phone off the charger and a throw blanket off the chair in the corner and walks out of the room.

If she’s going to be awake, she might as well spend her time overlooking the city. She tiptoes through the hallway, hoping none of the floorboards will creak and wake the others. It’s dead silent in the house, which means they’re all likely sleeping like normal humans do at this hour.

Manon unlocks the sliding doors leading out onto the patio, pushing them open to walk through them and shutting them gently behind her. She walks up the stairs to the rooftop and immediately has her breath taken away by the sight before her; the skyline is lit up completely at these hours and absolutely stunning.

She leans on the railing, it’s late but the city is still bustling, the sound of cars honking mixing with faint music she can’t really make out from where she is.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there but it’s the chill from a breeze that pulls her out of her daze. She grabs the blanket she’d brought with her and wraps it around herself, the warmth very welcomed against her exposed arms, and kicks back in one of the loungers.

She’s watching the lights on one of the taller buildings change from yellow to purple to green to blue and back to yellow when the chair next to her is sat in. She doesn’t even bother to look, already knowing who it is.

“Thought you were asleep,” Manon says after a short while of her and the intruder sitting in silence. It comes out so soft she’s not even sure if she was heard, especially when it takes a bit for a response to come.

“Could say the same to you, insomniac,” Lara chuckles. Her voice is quiet, too. Anything louder would feel like a disturbance. “How long you been up here?”

Manon shrugs. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly, lifting an arm to point. “Long enough for that building to cycle their colored lights a good ten times, I guess.”

Lara hums, tugging on her blanket after a moment. “Share. It’s chilly.”

Manon doesn’t have it in her to protest right now, unwrapping herself and tossing it over the both of them. They have to move their chairs closer to really make it work since it’s not a full size.

They’re quiet for a while longer, still not really keeping track of the time. The music in the distance eventually stops, the car honks a little less frequent.

“Smile,” Lara whispers, holding her phone up with the front camera open. Manon has half a mind to defy her knowing she’s not exactly selfie ready at the moment but once again doesn’t, leaning her head towards Lara’s with a grin.

She watches as Lara sends one in her Weverse direct messages and uploads another to Instagram, typing up cheesy captions for both. She already knows those are gonna be everywhere in approximately five minutes but she can’t bring herself to care, messy hair and no makeup and all.

The lights in some of the buildings are starting to turn off by the time they speak next.

“This was a good idea, Lara.”

Manon’s not sure if she means the road trip, or their current situation with the shared blanket and their shoulders pressed together, or them being on the roof in general, or what, but she means it.

Maybe all of it. All of it’s a good idea.

“Yeah?” She can hear Lara smiling even without looking at her.

Manon just scoots impossibly closer, leaning into her even more.

-

Their time in Chicago isn’t nearly long enough. There’s unmistakable dread settling in their stomachs, a sad aura growing amongst the whole group as they prepare to leave the Airbnb. 

The feeling of all of them basically living together was something they’d just started getting used to again; the movie nights and the mornings where they’re all gathered around the table eating whatever subpar, barely edible breakfast Megan cooked up and the fighting over who gets to shower first and the ever looming threat of someone flipping the table over as they play board games. It’s been years since they’d all stayed in the same house at the beginning of their time as a group, they’d forgotten how much they loved it.

They’ve got close to an eight hour drive to the next destination, and they’ll only be staying one day there before they’re on the road again. It’s a later departure than they’re used to for once, the time nearing three p.m. currently, all of them wanting to preserve their time here as long as possible.

Manon stands nearby as Lara does her usual; laying out the photos she took at the Warriors basketball game the day prior and uncapping her marker to write captions on the backs and bottoms of some of them.

She hasn’t gotten the chance to look at them herself yet and choose which ones to steal, but she makes a mental note to do so once they’re back in the camper. She knows there’s at least one of them all grinning ear to ear as they pose with a random mascot, and another of Yoonchae looking at them in pure disbelief and excitement with a basketball in her hands that had bounced onto the sidelines and nearly smacked her in the face.

Manon double checks the room she slept in to make sure she isn’t leaving anything, and then checks the other rooms as well because the other girls are even more likely to do so than she is. Nothing sticks out to her so she flicks the light switches in all three rooms off and heads to the living room with her bag in hand.

“Ready?” She questions into the silence. She’s nowhere near ready herself but they can’t stay here forever, they really do eventually have to make it back to LA before Missy is sending plane tickets to their emails.

Everyone either voices an agreement or nods, so Manon walks to the front door and opens it, allowing them all to exit before she does herself.

-

They stop at a gas station some time later for gas, snacks, and another breather. Dani’s been driving for around four hours, so they’re maybe halfway to the next stop on the route. Megan thinks they’re in… Minnesota? Wisconsin, maybe?

Manon goes to pay for and pump the gas while Yoonchae, Dani, and Lara offer to get snacks for everyone. Megan’s about to do her daily scroll through social media when Sophia turns the radio volume all the way up and uses Megan’s arm to lift her to her feet, dragging her out of the camper instead, phone forgotten.

“Come on, this is my song!” Sophia exclaims over the loud music. She pulls Megan to the side of the van where the ladder is, climbing up and offering a hand to help her do so as well. “You’re spinnin’ round and round and round in my head, head,” she sings loudly with her fist to her mouth like it’s a microphone, slightly off key but beaming like it’s the performance of her life anyway.

Megan throws her head back with a laugh, trying to remember the lyrics to the song. They’d just watched this movie in their last marathon before they left Chicago, and had all agreed this song was top 3 on the soundtrack. Sophia finishes the chorus and then holds her hand-mic out to Megan. She stumbles over most of the verse, getting maybe half of the words correct, but she at least has the flow.

“-apologizin’ for disguising who I am.” She actually remembers that part, watching as Sophia’s face lights up at her fully going along with her dumbness. Sophia sings the next couple lines to the people coming out of the store, like she’s performing a concert and they’re her audience, every single one of them ignoring her.

She turns back to Megan after, dramatic as ever, pointing off to the side at no one in particular and then to herself. “Did you do it all for him? Or were you only playin’ me?”

“I did it for you, but I couldn’t see it through,” Megan drops down on her knees like they’d seen Cyrus do in the movie. “Sophia, I’m sorry!”

Manon comes out at some point during it, stopping to take in what’s happening before shaking her head with a smile and walking to the gas pump.

Megan has her own fake mic ready by the time Cyrus’s next part comes up, a surprised look flashing on Sophia’s face for a moment before it morphs into another blinding smile. Her lyrics are still nowhere close to what he really says but it makes Sophia and Manon laugh so she counts it as a win anyway.

The rest of the group exit the store with a good ten bags between the three of them, and they put them inside the camper before coming back out.

Megan and Sophia end their performance standing face to face and trying to look serious, having to take a step back as they instantly double over instead, bursting into laughter.

They’re too busy fanning their hot faces to notice Give It Up from Victorious starting to play until Dani and Manon are climbing up to do their own duet, not even giving the other two the chance to get down first.

They use the front windshield and hood to slide down instead of the ladder, now taking their places as a makeshift audience along with Lara and Yoonchae, cheering them on and dramatically reaching their hands up for them to touch.

A gas station concert wasn’t on the radar of what they thought they’d be doing this evening, but it continues until the cashier’s finally had enough and requests they take it elsewhere. Lara’s in the middle of a This Is Me solo and Yoonchae’s queued up Honeymoon Avenue on Dani’s phone for her and Sophia, though, so he has to wait a little longer.

-

They’re still practically radiating with energy when they get to the campground near Lake Okoboji in Iowa.

Their karaoke-of-sorts continued as they got back on the road, all taking turns DJing using Dani’s phone on the aux cord. It’s easily the most fun they’ve had in the camper yet; no one falls asleep, all of them sitting close together, cell phones and social media and board games far from their minds.

It’s almost ten p.m. now, so it’s dark and most of the other occupants of the campground have gone to sleep but they’re far too wired to do so. They stop by the welcome building and then by their cabin just to check it out before beelining to the lake. It’s a rather warm night, so they know they can swim without any worries of getting sick, fully clothed and all.

Manon doesn't keep track of how long they stay out there, but she does know that she and Yoonchae beat the other two teams consisting of Lara and Dani and Sophia and Megan in a few chicken fights and, obviously, that’s the important part.

-

Megan drags Yoonchae out of the cabin early the next morning. She leads her toward the lake with a folded comforter in her free hand, barely even giving her time to wake up and process what’s happening.

Yoonchae’s a little confused and honestly a lot scared until they walk right past the deck, allowing herself to let out a quiet sigh of relief. They continue their trek, eventually stopping at a wooden bench that overlooks the seemingly never-ending body of water.

“I heard the sunrise is gorgeous here,” Megan finally explains once they’re sitting down. She unfolds the blanket and tosses one side around Yoonchae’s shoulders.

Yoonchae just nods, adjusting the blanket to cover them both better. She loops her arm through Megan’s and leans her head on her shoulder as they watch the sun rising higher and higher in the quiet comfort of each other’s presence.

-

They can all admit that the campground’s pretty cool. Once it’s no longer the middle of the night or the crack of dawn, there’s actually quite a lot for them to do. Jet skiing, kayaking, even indoor ice fishing which Sophia is especially geeked about.

Before they know it, though, the day is over and they have to get back on the road.

Sophia and Dani keep Lara company up front as she drives, while Megan and Yoonchae sit at the dinner table in the back sifting through the new round of video footage on the camera’s SD card, connected to the hotspot on Megan’s phone so they can send it over to the editing team.

With no stops, the five and a half hour drive seems so much longer than the two sets of four they did on their way to the campground. Lara swears up and down she’s a big girl who can drive the full way, so they don’t argue it.

They’re getting to the point in the trip where everything is starting to blur together and they can’t even tell where they are until they hit a landmark. As Manon looks out the window, she just sees grass and more grass and the occasional cows eating said grass. It’s a rather relaxing sight, actually, but she doesn’t know the last time she’s seen a house, a building, or another human besides the rest of the band.

Suddenly, Dani’s playlist shuffles back to Give It Up and she looks back at Manon with a grin from her place on the floor between the driver and passenger seats. Manon forgets all about the endless green outside the van’s window, clearing her throat as she prepares to sing her part.

-

“Pick something other than scissors this time or I swear to God, Megan,” Lara threatens, left hand open with her right resting in a fist on top. “Come on.”

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” They chant together, both stopping the movement of their hands on ‘shoot’, ten fingers folded into fists.

Lara groans, the sound echoing in the small hotel room. “Are you fucking serious?”

“What?! I picked something else like you said!” Megan defends, fighting to keep the corners of her mouth down. “It’s your fault you picked the same thing as me.”

“It was reverse psychology,” Lara whines, running an exasperated hand down her face. “The one time you don’t want to be a stubborn brat and do whatever the hell you want.”

She turns to Manon then, eyes begging for help. Manon almost wants to just shrug and let them keep going, the whole ordeal being funny as hell to watch.

She’s glad she called dibs on the bed with Sophia and Dani the second they got to the hotel room. Lara and Megan, on the other hand, have been trying to amicably decide for at least twenty minutes now who gets the couch and who has to share the second bed with Yoonchae the blanket hog, who’s currently in the shower.

“Just go again.” Manon doesn’t even hide her laugh when they both narrow their eyes at her words. “Surely this time someone will win.”

“Wait, why aren’t you in the options here?” Megan asks. “Maybe I wanted to share with Sodani.”

Manon blinks, trying to come up with an excuse on the fly. They hear a beep at the door and then it’s swinging open and she’s grateful for it.

“Fifi! Dani!” She exclaims.

Dani gives her a look but continues walking over, dropping the McDonald’s bags she’s carrying on the bed opposite the one Manon currently sits on. Sophia places the cup holder filled with drinks on the dresser, carefully removing the one she had to balance on top along with the one she’s holding in her free hand that wouldn’t fit. How she didn’t drop any of them is a miracle.

“I didn’t get anything you guys asked for. We downloaded the app and they had specific deals on there so I got those instead,” Sophia says, reaching into the biggest bag. She looks around at three unamused faces. “I’m kidding, jeez. Tough crowd.”

Lara rolls her eyes. “Matter of fact, Sophia can sleep in the bathtub and I’ll take her spot.”

Sophia gasps. “Take it back or half of your nuggets are mine.”

They stare at each other, challenging. Sophia pulls out the cardboard box in question, raising an eyebrow and slowly moving her hand to where it opens up at.

Lara dives at her instead of retracting her previous statement. Sophia’s loud, goofy laugh instantly fills the room as she throws herself back onto the bed and tries to hold the food out of Lara’s reach. The sound is contagious, making everyone else laugh too.

Manon shakes her head and reaches over the wrestling girls to grab a bag, passing out what’s hers, Megan’s, and Dani’s while the other two fight. She places Yoonchae’s order off to the side for her.

Eventually, Lara calls a truce and Sophia relinquishes the box to her, but not before quickly reaching in and popping an entire nugget into her mouth with a grin.

They forget about their original predicament until they’re all done eating and the bed situation reemerges. This is the first time they haven’t been able to get two rooms with multiple beds, nearly the whole hotel being booked for whatever reason. They’d asked for a cot at the front desk but the worker, young and bored and obviously uninterested in their job, claimed they didn’t have any. They didn’t push.

“One more.” Megan sounds reluctant, hesitating to position her hands properly even though it’s her own idea. “Our brains have reset, we’re bound to pick different things and get a winner.”

Yoonchae counts them off this time, now out of the shower happily tucked under the blanket on her bed. The other girls watch intently as they both stretch out their hands, laying them flat against their other ones. Paper.

Lara sits silently for a few seconds while Megan just giggles. “You can have the couch,” she says, voice dangerously calm.

“Have fun waking up with no cover on you because Yoonchip took it all during the night,” Megan teases, dropping down onto the couch where there’s already a folded comforter and pillow waiting. She kicks her feet up on one of the arm rests, leaning back with her hands behind her head. “Ahh,” she sighs exaggeratedly, smiling up at the ceiling with her eyes closed like she’s in absolute bliss. She misses the pillow being thrown at her because of her dramatics, getting smacked square in the face.

Sophia reaches up the wall to kill the lights now that everyone’s settled.

The room is quiet save for Lara and Yoonchae whisper-arguing about something and the quiet hum of the air conditioner. Manon leans closer to Dani then, whispering herself. “You know, Lara left the keys out in the open over there on the dresser. We could totally ditch everyone once they’re all asleep.”

Dani laughs quietly. “Hell yeah, I’m down,” she agrees. They both know she isn’t.

“Shut the hell up,” Lara calls, “I’m trying to sleep!”

Dani rolls her eyes while Manon grins, the sight still stunning even in the near-dark of the room. When she speaks again, she’s not whispering anymore.

“What, Dani? You’re crazy! We cannot jump Yoonchae. Lara, on the other hand, we totally could. You’re so right.”

The other bed creaks as Lara gets out of it, walking the few feet over to theirs and sprawling herself across the top of Dani and Manon. “Huh? What was that?” They squeal and try to cower away as she climbs further and further into their bed, laughter filling the quiet room again.

-

Somewhere between the Badlands and Mount Rushmore, it really all starts to blur together. There’s just so many rocks everywhere they look and there’d be no indication they’re visiting different places if there wasn’t an hour drive between both.

Lara makes good use of her polaroid camera anyway, but they’re just typical tourist-y photos where they stand in front of the big ass rocks and, like, jump, so Manon doesn’t try to steal any of them when Lara spreads them out across the table in the camper with her rusty trusty Sharpie uncapped, getting ready to scribble words on some. She can have them, the next batch will be Manon’s.

-

The next time they stop for gas, they’re on their way to Cody, Wyoming according to Megan.

She bounds out the door to pay and pump, and before Manon knows it, Lara’s pulling her out of the camper and leading her to the side where the ladder is.

She’s hit with the most insane wave of deja vu as she climbs up, getting flashbacks to the gas station in Wisconsin (Minnesota?). Lara isn’t blasting any music and starting a duet though, just wordlessly having Manon follow her onto the top of the van. No explanation at all, full trust anyway.

“You wanna know a secret?” Lara asks after a few seconds of silence. “I used to be a huge space nerd when I was younger.”

Manon looks at her, clear surprise on her face. “Huh?”

Lara looks down, blushing a bit. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but look,” she motions with her head upwards toward the sky in front of them. “We’re in the middle of God knows where so this is probably one of the best places to do this.”

Manon hadn’t been paying much attention before but now that she is, it’s a pretty breathtaking sight. There’s no manufactured light polluting the night sky and preventing her from seeing what’s naturally up there. The moon seems especially bright too, even brighter than that night at the lake.

“I memorized a bunch of constellations as a kid,” Lara continues, excitement starting to almost pour out of her. She grabs Manon’s arm, running her hand along it until she reaches Manon’s hand and she can guide it where she wants. “Stick out your index finger.” Manon does, waiting for the point of this and ignoring the stupid pounding of her heart in her chest. Lara moves it a little bit to the left. “Okay, there. That blueish star? That’s Spica. And if you look up further left, you can see Vega too.”

Manon’s never really been into space or stars at all, but suddenly, she could sit here and learn about every constellation in the solar system if it makes Lara this happy.

Lara leans back on her hands. When Manon looks at her, she’s already looking at Manon, offering her a smile that quickly morphs into a smirk. “Alright, your turn. What else is up there?”

Manon cackles, looking back towards the sky and pointing somewhere on the right to a random cluster of stars. “The… Big Slipper’s right there. You see it?”

Lara laughs so hard she has to lean her head on Manon’s shoulder for a few seconds for support. When she recovers, she moves Manon’s hand back near where Spica was. “The Big Dipper,” she puts extra emphasis on the word to make a point of her messing it up, stifling another laugh, “is actually there. It looks like a soup ladle.”

Manon sees it clearly now and she should be embarrassed, but it’s just Lara. She almost can’t believe she’s sharing something like this with her in the first place. She would’ve never guessed Lara was into space, but now she’s the only person who knows she is.

She hadn’t even noticed everyone coming back out of the gas station and loading into the camper but Megan honks the horn obnoxiously and leans out of the window to yell at them to hurry up as Manon’s learning all about Arcturus, Polaris, and Regulus. Lara playfully rolls her eyes, climbing back down and helping Manon after, promising to teach her more once they’re back on the road.

Maybe it’s the way she ducks her head shyly after the offer like Manon’s going to suddenly start making fun of her, or maybe she really is starting to grow an interest, but they end up in the back of the camper sharing earbuds again, only this time Lara’s introducing her to Lyra and the Little Dipper, the sparkle in her eyes rivaling the stars in the sky.

-

Something switches in Megan, Dani, and Lara the second they step foot on the soil of Old Trail Town in Cody. It’s an old cowboy town from the late 1800s and they immediately snap into southern accents, ending every sentence that comes out of their mouths with “brother”.

They head straight for the gift shop first thing, buying what they deem to be the cutest cowboy hats and boots and forcing the other girls into wearing some too, but not without protest and a few short arguments.

They spend a ridiculous amount of time in the town, and even Yoonchae seems genuinely interested in learning about the different outlaws and cowboys that once resided. The aged style of Lara’s polaroids has never felt so appropriate.

Her favorite has to be the one she managed to take just as Sophia pushed Dani off the counter in one of the saloons, the shorter girl flailing while Megan, Manon, and Yoonchae laugh and Sophia tips her cowboy hat at the camera, a charming smile on her face.

(Dani gets her getback a few hours later while they’re visiting Yellowstone; she pretends like she’s going to push Sophia while they’re leaning against the railing in front of the Morning Glory Pool, but doesn’t. Sophia almost sends herself over in her panic, frightening a few bystanders. She gives Dani an impressed smile at the successful retaliation. A silent truce between the two.)

-

Maybe they’re just biased towards the early days of their road trip, but they all agree the Niagara Falls were a lot better than Shoshone. They’re still very pretty, sure, but the only thing to do is to look at the waterfall which is probably the whole point but… Niagara had an aquarium.

They use the time to reconnect with the real world, spreading out. Some of them make calls to their friends and family members, some hop on a quick Weverse live, feeling comfortable enough to reveal their current location in real time because, genuinely, who the hell is about to show up to the damn Shoshone Falls?

-

There’s a golf course nearby that, surprisingly, they all agree to go to. Maybe it’s because they were only able to stare at falling water for about fifteen minutes before Dani started whining about how boring it was. Or maybe because this trip is all about trying and experiencing new things together.

Sophia’s the only one that has ever golfed in real life, going a few times with her dad and brothers back home, and Lara’s done it on Wii Sports with Rhea, which she thinks has to count for something.

“Is this really necessary?” Manon asks aloud to no one in particular as she slowly walks around the pro shop. They’d been directed to stop here first by the receptionist at the front, saying they’d need equipment. She stops in front of a rack of golf shirts and grimaces checking the price tag of one. “Why can’t we just wear what we’re already wearing?” She looks down at her Old Trail Town branded t-shirt she’d gotten the day before.

“You’re not serious right now,” Sophia chirps from a few feet away, looking for her size in a rack of light purple shirts. “This is why you’re going to lose. How do you expect to be good if you don’t dress the part?”

Yoonchae bounds up to her holding the hanger of a hot pink and white striped polo in her hand then, grinning ear to ear. “I found mine!” She holds it up a little more for Manon to see. “They have red and white stripes over there too.”

Manon blinks. “Like a candy cane,” she deadpans. Everyone laughs including the cashier and she has to fight her own smile. “Fuck it, where is it? Might as well.”

They have to get a 8-seater golf cart to fit all six of them and their brand new bag of clubs. They load up and ride out to the first hole, all clad in a different colored collared shirt. They squeeze in behind Lara, camera high in the sky like clockwork. Manon frowns while everyone else smiles.

“I look ridiculous,” she mumbles, pulling a random club out of the bag and turning back towards the group.

Megan offers her a soft smile, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You look no dumber than you usually do, it’s okay.”

She just giggles when Manon glares, takes off running when she starts chasing her around the green with the golf club.

-

“An escape room,” Yoonchae repeats, deadpan.

They look up at the storefront they currently stand in front of skeptically. A red and white keylock decal is plastered on the wall next to a large window, above the door reading The Escape Game. Lara’s honestly never heard of this place but apparently they have locations all around the country, even one close to Los Angeles.

The group is good for vibes and fun but they only have about three combined brain cells left between them on a good day, and two and a half belong to Yoonchae. An escape room sounds a lot like a euphemism for ‘nightmare on Earth’.

Megan nods her head excitedly. “I saw this place on YouTube and I think it will be good for us. It’s time to prove once and for all that we have brains.”

“You know what? Yeah! You’re right!” Lara shouts, the sound echoing in the expansive building. The Forum Shops, she thinks she saw before they walked in? “We can do this!”

“Hell yeah, Lala! That’s what I’m talking about! Let’s go!” Megan’s excitement seems to have gotten stronger having someone back her up, practically running through the doors and to the check-in desk, leaving the rest to follow her.

Manon isn’t entirely convinced and, judging by the looks on their faces, neither are Sophia and Dani. They follow behind with Yoonchae anyway.

Even if they fail, surely someone’s done worse than them? Like, children or actual old people or something.

“Skiendiel, party of six,” Megan grins at the person behind the desk. They smile back kindly, nodding and typing something on the computer in front of them.

“Ah, got you right here! The Heist, right?”

“That’s it, yeah.”

They click a few things on the screen then wave someone down from not too far away. “These are our new agents who will be attempting The Heist.”

“Oh, great! Follow me,” the new employee grins, their voice kind and chipper. They lead the girls down a hall and into a room. “This is actually my favorite one, you’re going to have so much fun.”

They’re handed a brochure each and a video on the tv screen on the wall suddenly starts playing. It gives them some information on the room and what their goal is, the video cutting from Vincent Hahn – curator and ‘Master of the Arts’ for the “Barclay Museum of Historical Art” – to someone giving them their mission. They learn that Hahn is actually not the stand-up guy the art community thinks he is, but rather the suspected thief of a priceless painting. They all gasp.

When the guy in the video gives them the chance to back out and asks, “you in?”, they all yell back like he can actually hear them, yeahs and hell yeahs ringing loudly. The employee chuckles at their antics, but they’re excited now. Ready to recover this extra important painting from the locked office.

They’re allowed in through another door that leads to the actual escape room, gold framed paintings and busts around it. Their hour starts to count down on the wall.

Vincent Hahn, you’re toast.

They get out with well over two minutes to spare, the painting held securely in Lara’s hand as they all cheer. They’re given “I Escaped!” bumper stickers in exchange for the poster, holding them up with grins on their faces for the employee to take a photo for their social media pages. They stop by the merchandise shop after, proudly sporting their brand new blue escapee t-shirts and enamel pins on the way back out into the Las Vegas streets.

-

It’s hours after the escape room, after they’ve visited and snuck the underaged members into an ice bar Sophia saw on Dance Moms once (which they all hated) and gone indoor skydiving (which they all loved, so, not too bad overall), when they’re checking into their hotel for the night.

From the moment they step into the lobby, Manon can just tell the place is ridiculously expensive. They could be staying in one of the smallest, cheapest rooms in the entire building and probably still paying a couple hundred dollars for the night. When she hears Megan say something to the front desk clerk about the penthouse, she’s positive she misheard. But then she hears it again and Megan’s being handed a keycard with a polite smile, and her doubts are gone.

Megan’s entirely too casual about it like it’s one of the run down, ugly rooms they’d gotten stuck in a couple times on the trip already. They all load into a shiny gold elevator.

None of the others question it, engaged in some random conversation she can’t really get the topic of from eavesdropping even from a few feet away, so she doesn’t either.

Even when Megan scans the keycard and they walk in and there’s a living room and a kitchen area with a grandiose dining table and a whole ass spiral staircase leading up to where the bedrooms are, she still stays silent. 

The absolute, pure, unadulterated awe on her face probably gives her away anyway.

-

She doesn’t expect to be the first one awake in the morning. Sophia and Yoonchae are still snoring quietly next to her when she blinks her eyes open, and there’s no one downstairs when she winds around the staircase, so she assumes the others are still asleep in their room too. 

The view out of the large windows on the first floor is insane. It feels like she’s overseeing all of Vegas from right where she stands. The sun isn’t fully up yet so she checks her phone for the time, a yawn forcing its way out of her mouth immediately once she sees the 6:54 at the top of her screen.

She lays across the couch, reaching for the remote and turning the tv on. There’s not much good stuff on this early, so she just turns to a random movie channel and opens up the TikTok app on her phone.

It’s been a couple days since she’s been on it, so she knows there’s probably a lot of catching up to do. Her algorithm is unfortunately very tailored to her and the girls, immediately being met with a clip from the live at the Shoshone Falls. She scrolls past; another clip from the live, Marz edit, Sodani edit, two tour edits back to back, a random Danon clip from the S.I.S. era, another tour edit, like clockwork.

Manon nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels breath on her neck, turning in a hurry to see Lara who stares at her like she’s shocked for a second before bursting into laughter.

“I didn’t even get a word out,” she giggles. “You should’ve seen your face.”

“Good morning to you too, Lara Raj,” Manon huffs with an eye roll. Her heart beats a good five times as fast as usual.

Lara smiles, then stands up from her crouched position next to the armrest of the couch. “Morning, Manzie! Get up, let’s go get breakfast.”

“You don’t wanna wait for the other girls?”

Lara shakes her head, offering her hand. “They’re all dead to the world, who knows how long it’ll be until they’re up. I’m hungry now. Let’s go.”

“Ugh, so bossy,” Manon whines playfully, taking Lara’s hand and being pulled up from the couch. She slips back into her slippers, heading towards the staircase. “Two minutes, I’mma get dressed real quick.”

“Nope!” Lara yanks Manon back gently, turning her to face her again. “We’re going just like this; pajamas and bedhead and all.” She starts pulling her towards the door, grabbing the keycard off the table on their way out.

Manon smiles to herself, wholly amused by this despite herself. She starts walking willingly within a few seconds, but Lara’s grip on her hand doesn’t loosen at all. She’s not complaining.

“So…” Lara stops walking after a few minutes, looking down at Manon sheepishly. “I don’t actually know where I’m going,” she admits.

Manon snorts. She starts laughing shortly after and then Lara’s laughing too. She can only imagine what they’d look like to strangers passing by; probably like two underdressed, obnoxious dumbasses in some random hallway in an overly fancy hotel they really have no business being in in the first place.

-

They pretend not to notice, but the closer they get to LA, the more frequent the stops seem to get.

They’re refreshed from Vegas and the van has plenty of gas when they get back on the road, but Megan still makes multiple stops at random stores and signs they pass on the way, extending what’s supposed to be a four hour drive to closer to six. She suggests they take pictures in front of the signs, or stop and get snacks and water, or just get out of the camper and stretch and breathe in fresh air, appreciating nature and the beauty of the Earth. As if that’s ever been a thing.

It’s obvious what she’s doing, but maybe they’re all feeling the same way as her now that they’re officially back in California because no one calls it out, going along with it all like it’s nothing out of the norm.

-

They’re parked in the Disneyland parking lot when Megan finally rips open a package she’s been carrying around since Chicago. They’d all questioned her on it many times, and every time she just waved them off and dodged answering. The vlog camera is set up on the table in the corner, getting stationary footage because no one felt like holding it.

When Megan pulls the first item out and shows it to them all, grinning, they know exactly why she’d put off doing this until just minutes before they’re about to enter the park.

Manon tries not to cringe looking at it; the Disney castle is printed inside the silhouette of Mickey Mouse’s head, “The Kats” and the year both printed in one of his ears each, and Yoonchae's name sits in cursive underneath it all.

Megan’d gotten them cheesy, personalized shirts to walk around in.

It’s so quiet in the camper you can hear a pin drop. Lara shoots a quick glance at the camera like she’s in an episode of Abbott Elementary.

On the bright side, at least the shirts are black?

-

They only take one picture the whole day, barely even pull out their phones except to check the time here and there. It’s the first day they really, really live in the moment, Lara feels like.

There’s a whole swarm of people in front of the castle, and they have to take a short break from their mission to find a good spot for their group selfie to take pictures with a slew of fans that recognize them.

They eventually find a semi-clear area and a moment. Lara is holding the camera, of course, and everyone’s huddled up behind her, grins plastered on their faces as they cling to one another in the childish personalized Mickey ear hats Yoonchae had convinced them all to get.

There’s sadness weighing in Lara’s chest but she hopes her smile reaches her eyes anyway because she genuinely is happy. Happy they did this. Happy they (for the most part) got to step away from being a world famous global girl group and spend time just the six of them with no worries and no expectations. Happy they got to heal some of their inner children in the process of all of this. Really. She’s happy.

They wait for the picture to develop right there in the same spot, warmth flooding her chest as their faces slowly show up. It just might be her favorite of them all.

They all link arms, continuing their trek through the park. They still need to try the famous churros, and get balloons, and Sophia is adamant she needs to meet her twin and namesake Sofia the First. It’s not over yet.

-

The Tiana ride ends up being the last one they get on for the day.

It feels like they’ve come full circle as they watch the fireworks shoot into the sky behind the castle, all clad in Disney-branded sweatshirts to combat the chill on their bodies from the night air mixing with the water they’re still drenched in from the ride.

It’s nothing short of amazing, and they all ooh and ahh as the show goes on and the songs change from movie to movie.

Manon thinks she loses it some time around the Tangled section, Rapunzel showing up on the top of the castle as she and Flynn sing I See The Light. It’s so stupid that this stupid show is making her emotional, she’s appalled at herself.

She tries to subtly wipe her tears away before any of the other girls see but Megan catches her, laughing and pulling her into a tight hug as the lanterns move around in the sky.

Manon leans into Megan, hoping it’s at least an hour long show because she knows once it’s over, they’re leaving and Los Angeles is not all that far away. Then it’ll be back to reality, back to responsibilities and a world where there’s more than just Lara, Megan, Manon, Dani, Sophia, and Yoonchae.

It’s a bittersweet line of thought because she still loves their life and their jobs and she’s excited for their future, there’s no doubt in her mind about it. Still very much excited about them being on their way to complete and utter world domination together.

She decides to just focus on the present, gently shrugging Megan’s arms off and instead turning to Dani to sing along to Under The Sea.

Dani joins in immediately with no hesitation. Forever her duet buddy.

They all sing the rest of the songs after that together, not caring how obnoxious they are to the people around them.

Yeah, the six of them together? This is home.

-

They make one last stop somewhere between Anaheim and Los Angeles.

Lara has zero idea where they are exactly, but Sophia sees a random field swarming with slow-flashing fireflies and pulls the camper over without even thinking twice about it.

She uses her empty neon orange Cedar Point souvenir bottle as a replacement jar to catch the bugs in, and Lara and Manon watch in amusement from the top of the van as the other three girls run around trying to help her do so. They’re still free from real life and everything that comes with it until they officially cross back over into LA, taking full advantage while they still can.

Lara laces her fingers through Manon’s, bringing the back of her hand up to her lips to press them against it. Like it’s nothing, like it’s casual. They stay like that for a while, soaking up the last little bits of all of this.

“This was a good idea,” Lara says quietly after some time, dropping their joined hands into her lap, and Manon’s instantly transported back to them on the roof in Chicago when she’d said the same thing herself. “This just might be my favorite part yet.”

“Yeah?” Manon is the one to confirm this time, scooting the tiniest bit closer. Dani stands not too far away trying to convince Yoonchae to cup her hands together in a certain way so she can catch one of the fireflies herself.

Lara hums, smiling to herself when Manon lays her head on her shoulder. She shifts enough to kiss her head just as Megan seems to remember they exist, eyes locking on them from next to Sophia who’s peaking into her cup to count how many insects she’s collected.

“Oh brother,” Megan scoffs dramatically, making sure they know how disgusted she is. “Please wrap it the hell up. Save the gay shit for Time Lapse, thank you.” They both laugh and Manon opens her mouth to reply but Yoonchae’s squeal cuts her off.

Four sets of eyes snap over and land on Dani doubled over in silent laughter while Yoonchae stands with wide eyes, frantically shaking her hands like she’s trying to get something off of them.

“I caught one,” Yoonchae says. She sounds equally horrified and amazed, like she can’t settle on which emotion she’s feeling.

Manon and Lara slide down the windshield and onto the ground then, knowing they’re going to have to save her from Dani who’s gone bright red and is wiping at her tears from how hard she’s laughing.

Lara takes random polaroids as they goof around for the next hour or so, laying them each on the hood of the camper as they develop. They take one final group selfie before loading back on to finish the drive to LA.

They’re in the same order as the first one from the beginning of the trip, but this time they’ve got it together; everyone’s mouths are closed and their eyes are open. Sophia’s even looking at the camera.

Manon moves through the different radio stations from the passenger seat while Lara drives, close enough to civilization for the music to actually play clearly. She stops on one playing their song, stifling a giggle when someone groans loudly in the back, turning it up loud. Everybody sings along, not caring which part belongs to who.

-

Sophia and Megan are in the booth freestyling some random song the next day, their engineer playing with the style effects on the console for shits and giggles as they waste time. 

Lara sits on the couch leaning over a coffee table, chuckling offhandedly at her friends’ antics. She’s patiently waiting her turn to actually record her adlibs for one of their new songs, using the time to organize and put the polaroids from the trip into her photo album.

They haven’t said anything to the fans about being back from their trip, and they learned that the vlogs are only just now getting to them at the campground in Iowa.

Lara knows they were supposed to act like the first selfie doesn’t even exist outside of the group chat but she takes it out of its sleeve anyway, laying it next to the last one they took and snapping a quick photo with her phone.

Megan hits a high note that echoes with reverb and actually doesn’t sound half bad for a joke as Lara goes to her Weverse app, tapping her DM thread and sending the image without much thought.

Lara RAJ💜

📷 x1

WE HOMEEEREEEEE 🥹