Shivley: A Now United Story

Ch 49: Fat Funny Friend

3 months later...

A lot happened in 3 months. Shivani's parents, Now United, Hina, Noah, Bailey, Kinjal...everything was different now. For one thing, Shivani had a boyfriend. 

For another thing, her parents were still not completely on board with her performing, but they were surprisingly opening up to the idea that Shivani might not want a traditional academic career. Though Noah and Bailey had plotted to help Shivani out with her parents, they had this change of heart because of her, not because of them. She had called them every single day and had sent them videos from rehearsals and performances. Even though her parents were disappointed with her decisions, they still loved her, even if they didn't trust her right now. She couldn't blame them, but she also didn't regret her decision.

Being in Now United was everything she ever dreamed of. For 2 months, the entire group had gone through rigorous boot camp in LA. They learned new dance routines from Willdabeast and Kyle, prepared for the press tour with Shawn, and took music lessons in the studio. From time to time Simon would pop in to check in on the progress, and it was clear that he was surprised at how well the group was coming together. 

Hina was still her best friend in the group, that hadn't changed, but something had changed in their friendship. Ever since the names of the Now United members had been released, all of their Instagram followers had drastically increased. Shivani had never cared about how many followers she had before, but it had been the topic of conversation in their meetings with the higher-ups for the past 3 months. She soon realized that everyone on social media loved Hina, but for some reason, they questioned why Shivani had made it into the group. They also constantly compared Hina and Shivani's dance styles, making edits of the two dancing side by side in old Instagram videos. All the comments under these videos would say that Hina deserved to be in the group, but Shivani didn't because she was the worse version of Hina.

Shivani knew she shouldn't let those comments get to her, but she couldn't help it. It hurt her when people said she didn't deserve this opportunity because she wanted people to be proud of her the same she was proud when she saw Indian people being represented in international media. As a result of these comparisons, Shivani had to constantly fight the urge to not resent Hina because even though she knew it wasn't Hina's fault, she couldn't help but resent her a little bit. 

At the same time, Hina was also Shivani's biggest support system in the group and she never intentionally did anything to make Shivani feel inferior. That was the work of Shivani's brain and thousands and thousands of Instagram comments.

And then there was Noah. Everyone loved Noah. He was the Harry Styles of the group and his bromance with Josh, famously called Nosh, was one of the biggest topics of conversation in the Uniter fandom. #Nosh had trended in the top 10 Twitter in Brazil almost every day for a month and Shivani could not scroll through TikTok without seeing edits upon edits of their friendship. He was also an amazing singer and his weekly Instagram live jam sessions were wildly popular. 

If Noah was the Harry Styles of the group, then Bailey was the Zayn Malik of the group. He was the exact definition of tall, dark, and handsome mixed with the brooding and mysterious. To top it all off, he was an amazing singer who already had a fan base in the Philippines so the response to him being in the group was nothing short of overwhelming. #Nosh had been in the Top 10 in Brazilian Twitter, but #BaileyMay had been Top 10 in Filipino, British, and Brazilian Twitter for 2 months. 

It was hard to not resent Hina, Bailey, or Noah for their instant popularity with the fanbase. They seemed to have the "it" factor, but Shivani had sacrificed too much to give up now...including her former best friend Kinjal.

Since Shivani had seen her in India briefly 3 months ago, Kinjal had gone completely dark. She'd deleted all of her social media accounts and according to Shivani's mom, she would disappear for days on end without telling her parents. Shivani tried calling her and texting her, but eventually, Kinjal blocked her number. Every day Shivani had to convince herself that she wasn't the worst person in the world for not dropping everything and helping her best friend. If it weren't for Hina and her boyfriend, she might've just left.

Right now she was resting in her bedroom of their Los Angeles Airbnb. It was a 15 bedroom mansion that they'd been living in for the past three months which was nice because it meant everyone got their room. Shawn was also living with them to make sure everyone was safe and the house stayed intact. They were taking a bus to San Francisco tomorrow where they would have their first performance and give their first interview to kick off their group officially. After that, they would fly to each of the members' countries where they would film a music video for the song they recorded in the city. The first country they were visiting was the Philippines which was Bailey's home country. 

She heard a knock on her door and went to open the door. She smiled when she saw her boyfriend's face.