The downfall didn't stop.
It settled in.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into a routine OG never imagined they would live. Their schedule, once packed so tightly that sleep felt like a luxury, now had long empty gaps—white spaces on calendars that no one bothered to fill.
The practice room became unbearably quiet.
Before, music blasted from the speakers even during breaks. Laughter echoed. Now, the girls practiced in near silence, the sound of shoes hitting the floor louder than the song itself. Mirrors reflected tired faces, dark circles, forced determination.
"Again," the choreographer said one afternoon, not unkindly, just… distant.
They danced.
But something was missing.
It wasn't skill. It wasn't effort.
It was the fire that comes from knowing someone is watching, waiting, believing.
Online, the numbers told the same story.
Views crawled instead of soaring. Comments slowed. Fan edits that once flooded timelines appeared only occasionally, buried beneath posts about newer, trendier groups. Algorithms moved on faster than people ever could.
Hana scrolled through her phone one night and whispered, "They're forgetting us."
No one replied.
Yuki stopped opening social media altogether.
Aiko became sharper, quieter, her smiles disappearing the moment cameras turned away. She trained harder than ever, as if perfection alone could reverse fate. But even perfection couldn't change the silence of rejection emails.
Sakura felt it in the smallest moments.
When stylists brought reused outfits instead of custom designs.
When their waiting room snacks were reduced.
When staff members avoided long conversations, as if distance would make the inevitable easier.
The company meetings grew colder.
"We'll wait and see," executives said. "Market trends change."
But their eyes already looked elsewhere.
At a smaller venue one evening, rain poured heavily outside. Only a fraction of the audience showed up. Staff suggested canceling.
Sakura shook her head. "No."
They performed anyway.
The stage lights reflected off empty chairs, making them glow like ghosts. Sakura sang through the lump in her throat, her voice steady even as her heart cracked. She bowed deeply at the end—lower than ever before.
A fan in the front row cried.
Afterward, that same fan waited outside in the rain, holding a soggy lightstick.
"Please don't quit," she said, voice shaking.
Those words stayed with Sakura longer than any award ever had.
But hope alone couldn't stop reality.
Another endorsement dropped.
Another show replaced them.
Their name slipped lower on charts, then disappeared entirely.
One night, as they walked back to their dorm, no one recognized them. No whispers. No cameras. Just streetlights and footsteps.
Hana laughed suddenly, broken and soft. "Remember when we couldn't even buy convenience store snacks without being mobbed?"
Yuki smiled sadly. "Yeah."
Sakura looked up at the dark sky.
She thought of Koharu—not with anger now, but with complicated guilt. Of power that vanished the moment it was withdrawn. Of how fragile success really was.
OG wasn't crashing anymore.
They were slowly fading.
And the scariest part wasn't the loss of fame—
It was the fear that one day, even their own voices would stop believing they deserved to be heard.