Chapter Text
They’re filming some cross agency competition. Or so their manager tells them. The details aren’t really important. It’s their chance to be on screen.
When Mina first tells them, it’s a horrible jumble of words until Hana intercepts and calmly relays the news piece by piece. By the end, Sejeong’s brimming with excitement. Hyeyeon has been yelling in her ear the whole time.
That other agency in the competition, it’s YG. When you’ve got a headline as juicy as JYP vs. YG, it’s enough to make anyone excited.
Headlines, Sejeong thinks, their names in the spotlight, actual tangible proof that their years of training amounted to something other than wasted youth.
“We have to do well,” Hana reminds them.
They rally around that thought, like they always do with Hana’s guidance.
In the back of her mind, smothered behind her excitement, is an inevitable anxiety. There’s expectations, agency pride, her own pride -- it’s a lot to think about.
Debut, it has to be worth it , she thinks.
--
It’s a really nice building, is their first thought.
The rivalry’s already started, with them comparing facilities and square footage. Hyeyeon shrieks at the Big Bang cutouts and Sejeong takes a few selfies with their manager’s phone.
They’re all holding their breaths, arms linked together like schoolgirls. The cameraman gestures for them to enter the room.
It’s smaller than she expected, and rather intimate for this many people. It gives her a chance to see her opponents up close and just -
“Really pretty,” she blurts out, without realizing. Mimi jabs her in the side, for the second hand embarrassment probably. One of the YG trainees cracks a laugh.
It’s awkward smiles and greetings all around as they drag out introductions for the camera. Sejeong tries to act natural (just be yourself, Hana reminds her) but fumbles over her initial introduction. She catches the same YG trainee making a terrible attempt at hiding a smile.
Her makeup is probably the lightest of the group, and her hair the longest. When her group member throws out a badly crafted joke, she throws her head back and laughs.
And maybe it’s that one gesture that makes Sejeong watch her the most of all. Or maybe it’s the way her hair flips in all the right angles with her dance movements, the way her eyes beckon at the camera, or the scratchy tonality of her vocals. When their performance ends, Sejeong’s maybe a little enchanted with her.
But Hana’s words echo in her mind.
She has to do well.
The acapella comes first, and Sejeong loses herself in it, like she always does. There’s no time for distractions, and too much time spent training for mistakes. It starts and ends with a winning performance, and she lets out a sigh of relief.
She moves back for the dance performance -- it’s the others’ time to shine -- but still executes every move with accuracy and practiced effort. When they turn around as part of the choreography, Sejeong locks eyes with that same trainee. She breaks into a silent giggle and turns her head away. It’s almost jarring, compared to the fierce performance she put on just moments earlier.
It’s also really, really cute.
They re-introduce themselves before they wrap up filming. Sejeong listens carefully this time.
Kim Nayoung , she says.
--
Luck must really come in waves because the next thing they know, they’re being courted by some upcoming audition show. Upper management doesn’t want to reveal too much, so they just send her and Mina.
Mina cries when she finds out it’s just the two of them. Haebin runs her fingers through her hair and tells her it’s okay. Sally reassures her with a firm squeeze of her hand, and Hana reminds her that her dream is all of their dreams.
Sejeong also chimes in and tells Mina not to cry, tells her that they’ll just have to carry the torch for all of them. She says this, smiles and all, and pushes down the lump in her throat.
--
There’s evaluations and eliminations and the whole show is dramatic enough to qualify as an actual drama. Everyone’s trying to scope out a feel and Sejeong doesn’t realize how many 101 trainees actually is until she steps into the room. There are four seats left and 97 pairs of eyes watching as they make their entrance.
It’s the first time she hears JYP not whispered in a song intro and she could almost see the tension it creates. She tries to ignore the stolen glances and Mina tightens the hold on her arm.
I saw you on that YG audition show, someone says.
She almost blurts out “which show” when she remembers. It seemed like ages ago.
Before she has time to thank the other trainee properly, YG flashes on the big screen, and the whispering starts again. Sejeong grips the edge of her seat.
It’s the same trainee, from that YG audition show Sejeong barely remembers. Walking hand in hand with that other trainee that dances really well. It’s only when they start making their way up that Sejeong realizes the last two seats are next to her.
The girl takes a seat beside her and dips her head in a bow. Sejeong reciprocates.
She wonders if Nayoung still remembers her name.
--
Their first evaluation goes surprisingly well. She swallows her nerves and both her and Mina are sorted into the A group. The excitement is only temporary, as their spots are re-evaluated in a few days’ time.
That other YG trainee, Chungha, she learns, is vastly more talented than she’d bargained for, showing off an impromptu dance that wows the audience and the judges.
But for Nayoung, there’s something different, something off. She almost doesn’t recognize this Nayoung. This Nayoung that looks at everywhere but the camera, her limbs matching the dance through pure muscle memory and completely stripped of its previous fluidity. When she sings, her voice creaks with an unfamiliar instability.
She still gets into A group and so, people talk. Sejeong hears the hushed whispers of YG favoritism between takes, how Nayoung wasn’t really as good as any of them expected. It surprises her when she feels a defensive energy surfacing, not this Nayoung, she wants to shout.
None of it matters though because they still win. At the end of the week, Nayoung and Chungha rank head and shoulders above the rest of them, with the YG popularity to their name.
Sejeong skips meals and sleep so not to embarrass herself on the dance, and Nayoung –
She gives a half-assed, lackluster performance for the re-evaluation and drops to B group, to nobody’s surprise, and to her own apparent indifference.
It pisses her off, this version of Nayoung, and she’s struggling to figure out why.
--
She catches Nayoung slipping away from dinner later that night.
She follows her, out of instinct and to Mina’s confusion (I’ll be right back, Sejeong assures her). Nayoung’s pace is abnormally fast and Sejeong has to break out into a half jog.
“Hey,” She half shouts to catch her attention. It works and Nayoung turns around. “I’m Sejeong.”
It sounds stupid and sheepish and she’s seriously starting to regret this line of action.
“Ah, right,” Nayoung squints. “We’ve met, I think.”
It’s somehow more awkward than the first time they met because Sejeong hasn’t really prepared what she wanted to say and Nayoung was starting to do this weird tap dance thing with her feet.
“What do you think of the program so far?”
It’s terribly cliché and so forced sounding that even Nayoung catches on.
“Did you follow me out here just to ask me that?”
No. And at this point, Sejeong should really just turn around and go back to minding her own damn business. But it’s been killing her, keeping this inside.
So she asks.
“What happened to you?” She talks fast because her courage is slowly diminishing and she’s afraid if she doesn’t get it all out at once she’ll never say it. “You were amazing the last time I saw you. Like, seriously amazing. What happened to you, I mean, now you’re…” Sejeong gestures vaguely at her.
“Garbage?” Nayoung helps her out, tossing out a wry smile. “You can say it, everyone else is.”
In the heat of the moment, in this whole spontaneity thing she’s currently trying on, she forgets that she barely knows the girl.
“No it’s worse. You don’t care that you’re garbage.”
The words had already left her mouth before she even had time to process them.
But Nayoung laughs, loud and unexpectedly and it catches her off guard.
“Aren’t you like, a year younger than me?” Nayoung points out wrly.
“Yeah,” Sejeong answers a bit too quickly. “Wait, how’d you know?”
“I looked you up,” Nayoung counters, and Sejeong can feel her cheeks flaring.
Normally, Sejeong’s pretty good with her words (she didn’t MC all those late night pajama parties for nothing). But she finds it hard to enunciate while also being flustered.
“Ok….let’s talk more later,” Nayoung cuts the conversation short. “This was fun.”
She starts leaving in brisk strides. Sejeong yells after her. Nayoung never answered her question.
“Where are you going?”
Without turning back or slowing down, Nayoung yells back.
“I have to pee.”
--
She chooses Nayoung for their first group evaluation. She doesn’t mean to, it sort of just slipped out.
There’s a collective oooh and ahhh across the board at the gathering of the JYP and YG trainees. Sejeong tries to focus on that instead of how Nayoung’s arm barely graces her own.
Her choice pays off, Nayoung’s a better dancer - that’s obvious from the speed with which she learns the routine. So it’s probably out of pity that she takes the time to help Sejeong with the choreo.
“You never watched the full show did you.” Nayoung stops Sejeong mid-movement and adjusts her arms into the correct angle.
“What show?”
“The YG audition show we were in. Well, I was in, and you guested.”
Sejeong starts to shake her head but Nayoung’s hand gently holds her neck in place.
“Focus on the steps,” Nayoung whispers, possibly too close for comfort. Sejeong bites back a how.
Nayoung moves her body with her own hands, showing her how the movements should be replicated, and Sejeong tries her best to move in tandem and not bump against her awkwardly.
“I was set to debut with some of the other trainees in the show. I got cut in the last episode.”
Sejeong pulls away immediately, startling her.
“Oh,” is all she can muster.
Nayoung shrugs, arms at her side. “I thought you knew, everyone else did.”
“I didn’t really have time to watch,” Sejeong admits.
“You also apparently live under a rock.”
They both laugh at that. Sejeong cracks her knuckles absentmindedly.
“Did Chungha get cut too?”
“Yeah,” Nayoung replies. “But she’s stronger than me.”
“It’s okay to be disappointed.” Sejeong tries a hand at comfort, but it’s just regurgitating the same useless words she’s been told by others. Concocted by people who were probably more concerned with feeling important than actually giving a shit about the person on the other end.
Nayoung gives her a look that matches the scowl on her face.
“Yeah? For how long?”
And it’s something about the way she talks that all but forces Sejeong to look away. Nayoung, she speaks without a veil. Not blunt like no-filter Mimi, but with an undertone of sincerity that intimidates Sejeong. Sejeong, who wraps her emotions together and tucks it away deep under, and plants a million illuminating smiles on top.
But Nayoung with her words sweeps that all away, laying her bare.
She can’t answer.
--
Everyone probably think Nayoung’s a deadweight, not that it matters because she still manages to scoop up all the votes. But Sejeong knows better. The lights are still on in one of the practice rooms when she heads back for the night.
And sometimes it’s still on when she’s back in the morning.
“Did you sleep here?” She asks, incredulous, and startling Nayoung who wakes from an uncomfortable angle against the wall.
“Oh, crap, sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep here.” She rubs her eyes several times and squints at Sejeong. “Oh it’s just you.”
“You know, the viewers think you’re a grade A slacker,” Sejeong remarks, as Nayoung tries to fix her hair with her fingers.
“They’re not wrong,” Nayoung mutters, and then a where’s my other sock.
“You clock more hours in the recording room than me, a main vocal. And you’re basically living in the practice rooms now,” Sejeong points out. “You know the viewers would eat this up. This hard working side of you.”
“You’re acting like I’m an underdog,” Nayoung sighs, massaging her temples. “You know how this works. Doesn’t matter what people think of me, I’ll get the votes anyways.”
“And you’re just okay with people shitting all over you?” Sejeong’s voice raises a few decibels. She’s trying hard to stay on the other side of furious here. “Wouldn’t you rather show people how hard you work?”
Nayoung has ears, it turns out, and probably senses her pent up frustration because she raises one eyebrow and looks at her strangely. “What does it matter to you?”
It shouldn’t. Really, it’s better for her if Nayoung tanks and drops off the grid entirely. But it’s been bugging her, ever since Nayoung’s first appearance on this godforsaken show. She hates the way the other trainees look at Nayoung, like she’s lesser than she is or something.
And maybe it’s because she’s seen that other side of Nayoung, the one that inspired with her performance and enchanted with her laugh. The real Nayoung with real skills, the one she wants to show off to everyone.
She sounds insane, really.
“You’re pretty,” Sejeong tries to make a lame but not entirely untrue joke. “And I like to help pretty girls.”
Nayoung makes a sound that’s a cross between a snort and a laugh, and kicks her in the side. “You’re gross.”
Sejeong laughs, and kicks her back.
She sees Nayoung in pieces. The mopey one that everyone else sees and envies because she steals all your votes despite her apparent mediocrity. The Nayoung who seems impervious to the instructors’ wrath, your high rank is a reflection of your popularity not your skill, they tell her. She shrugs.
But it’s this Nayoung, she thinks, the all smiles, toothy grin and bulging cheeks Nayoung that she wants to pull to the forefront. It’s this Nayoung she wants to put in front of everyone and yell in her loudest voice that, hey this is Kim Nayoung, really .
--
She thinks they’re doing okay, making good progress. Their group learns the choreography with surprising ease, and Sejeong would guess their vocals are a lock for top three.
And Nayoung’s making more of an effort of being present in their practice. She impresses the other trainees with her clear head voice and smooth harmonizations. She’s still holding back, Sejeong thinks, but it’s a much welcomed improvement.
She also jokes more, not just with Sejeong but with the rest of the trainees as well. And it’s nice just seeing that face split into a smile, laughing instead of holding onto that usual scowl. Sometimes she even giggles, usually at terribly unfunny jokes or at Sejeong’s expense when she’s woken up in the middle of the night.
“C’mon, get up,” Nayoung whispers between restrained hiccups of laughter.
It’s the dead of night, and Sejeong reminds her of that.
“Are you crazy? We have evaluations tomorrow,” She accidentally drops her speech in her blurred state but Nayoung ignores it and just makes a pleading face that has Sejeong wishing the room was darker than it is.
She lets herself be dragged into a practice room. Nayoung quietly closes the door behind them, and doesn't bother to turn on the lights. Thank god for windows.
“Did you seriously wake me up just so we could sit in the dark,” she has to ask.
“Just sit.” Nayoung pats the space beside her.
“Nayoung…”
“I think I’m going to withdraw from the show,” she blurts out. “Quit, whatever.”
She turns to Sejeong, and it hits her -- that’s why she’s here.
Nayoung’s asking for her opinion, her reaction, her input on her quitting. She should probably say something nice and helpful and standard like don’t but when she reaches for words all gets is anger.
Sejeong supposes she should feel proud or honored that Nayoung chose to ask her at all, her, and no one else, but unfortunately, she’s not that good of a person.
“What a fucking coward.” She all but snarls.
Sejeong leaves her alone in the dark.
--
She doesn’t usually hold onto regrets, doesn’t think they’re worth her time. But Sejeong wakes up the next morning with an apology stuck in her throat.
Not for what she said, she stands by that. But for the part where she just leaves Nayoung behind. It surprised herself also, how quickly she fled that room.
What she should have done was talk Nayoung out of it, or at least offer some half-assed analysis of her situation. Anything really, short of walking out on her. It’s escapism at its best and Sejeong really hates how Nayoung brings out the worst in her.
So she sort of spends all day hunting her down. But between practice and evaluations there’s not much downtime in between and Sejeong ends up dragging her out of her room after dinner amidst confused looks from the other trainees.
“Hey, Sejeong,” She struggles rather ineffectively against Sejeong’s vice grip on her arm. “Where are we going.”
“It’s your turn not to ask questions.”
She drags them both into a practice room, the same one probably, she can’t tell. Sejeong flips on the lights. She needs to see her face for this.
“Look, I didn’t mean to act like a twat yesterday it’s just, you woke me up out of nowhere and sprung all that on me and I just – look, I’m sorry okay. I just wanted to apologize.”
She’s more sincere than she probably sounds and she’s hoping Nayoung can pick up on that. But instead, Nayoung’s laughing again. She tosses her head back in a familiar gesture.
“You know, I wanted to be a schoolteacher once.”
It’s a little random, when Sejeong’s kind of trying to set a tone here with her earnestness.
“Not because I love children or anything,” she continues, essentially ignoring her apology. “It’s just mundane enough, normal, you know?”
Sejeong used to dream of that kind of normality. A world away from the pity of others. Not having to explain to the no-dad situation, not being embarrassed of her non-branded clothes, and not being pathetically useless to her mother who works three shifts to feed her and her brother.
She used to pray for that dose of normality until she realized no one was listening.
“And you’re probably laughing at me now because I know, why would I choose to do this if I just wanted something normal,” Nayoung shakes her head, in disappointment? Resignation? Or maybe just simple exhaustion. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It was supposed to be easy, and I don’t even know how I got here.”
Is it supposed to be this hard, is something she remembers Mina asking over and over. Sejeong would just reassure Mina that it’d get better, that it was hard for her too also. Reassure, lie, same thing really.
But some strange force prevented her from extending this same courtesy to Nayoung.
“I haven’t been able to visit my grandparents yet,” Sejeong pipes up. She could feel Nayoung’s eyes on her, even though she couldn’t reciprocate the gesture. “Not once since I started my life as a trainee. And it’s killing me because they’re growing older and sicker and who knows how much time we have left together.”
She takes a breath because her voice is starting to tremble and honestly she hates talking about this so much, because she can feel those carefully wrapped emotions threatening to burst at the seams.
“And every time I think about how I could be spending time with the people I love instead of starving myself of food and sleep and a normal childhood, yeah it’s hard.”
“And you don’t regret it at all?” Nayoung asks.
“Sure I do,” Sejeong admits. “But it doesn’t matter, because I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
She pauses, for some sort of reaction or response from Nayoung, but she’s quiet. Sejeong doesn’t actually want to keep talking, because talking about herself, seriously talking about herself, was never something she enjoyed.
But she thinks it might be okay, to show Nayoung a carefully wrapped piece of her.
“I’ve wanted to be a singer ever since my grandmother introduced me to trot. I was four then, and that hasn’t changed. And to be honest, my academics were going nowhere,” Sejeong laughs. “But I already gave up everything for this, there’s no going back.”
“Sejeong-ah.” Sejeong’s heart skips a beat at the implied intimacy. It’s the first time Nayoung’s addressed her without formalities. “The reason I wanted to quit was because that conviction you have, that everyone here has, I don’t have it,” Nayoung explains. “I wish I did, I mean I really really wish I did. And at some point I’m pretty sure I had it, but not right now. And I feel like I’m wasting everyone’s time just being here.”
Sejeong wants to touch her, rub away the creases of the pained expression on her face. She probably shouldn’t, but her hands are already cupping Nayoung’s cheeks before she can give it a second thought.
Her skin is soft, a nod to the effectiveness of their skincare industry no doubt, and she doesn’t pull away when Sejeong rests her palms against the sides of her face.
“It feels like, an emptiness probably.” It’s hard for Sejeong to describe, and even harder to match it to Nayoung’s exact feelings, but she feels Nayoung give a slight nod. “And you feel like you’ll never get out from under it, unless you give it up.”
“But it’s just a slump.” Sejeong knows, because she’s lived a whole life of valleys. “It’ll pass. But if you give it up now, that’s it. There’s no takebacks.”
Nayoung sighs. And the sudden brush of her breath on Sejeong’s face reminds her of their proximity. Or rather emphasizes it, because she doesn’t remember their faces being this close.
It suddenly occurs to her, that she wants to close the distance.
“Thank you,” Nayoung whispers and Sejeong doesn’t have time to ask what for because Nayoung lunges into a hug, almost toppling her over in the process.
It’s a surprisingly good fit, Nayoung’s head on her shoulders. Sejeong runs her hand through her hair, down her back.
She whispers reassurances into her ear, similar to the ones she told Mina, it’ll be okay, it’ll get better, except she means it this time, and anything really, to take her mind off the thundering in her chest.
--
Nayoung doesn’t quit, not yet at least.
They score well in the evaluations, like Sejeong thought they would. She’s praised by the instructors for her improvement and Nayoung gets called out for having the emotional range of a dead rat. Change doesn’t happen overnight, Sejeong reminds herself.
Changes in ranking though, is another story. To nobody’s surprise, Nayoung drops to fourth. And in a turn of events, Sejeong ranks first.
There’s applause all around. She doesn’t need to look to see Mina tearing up probably (she barely made it through her own speech). And for all Sejeong said about not crying, she has a hard time keeping her voice even during the speech.
She looks for Nayoung though, because she wants to tell her -- this is it. This is what’s at the end of the tunnel, years of long overdue validation, spilling forward, into that void and consuming it whole. This feeling, right here, is what makes it all worth it.
She wants to say all of that, but when she spots Nayoung smiling, that full on smile that scrunches her cheeks into tiny round puffs, her mind draws a blank.
And she feels that familiar pounding in her chest, spreading, rising in her throat like a buoy to the surface, echoing in her ears like the forward beat of a drum.
Shit.