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Eunwoo's future is uncertain. She's always known this; because to make it as a singer in this industry, there's never a guarantee that things will work out, there's not a golden opportunity that just falls right into the palm of her hands (such small hands, she thinks, can she even hold herself up under the weight of the pressure?), there's not a single chance that anyone would just willingly give her without proving her worth first.
So the first step to making it big as a singer is to prove herself: something she is still working towards, still trying to achieve. She has seen failure firsthand and it sucks—Eunwoo knows she's worth something, knows deep in her heart that this is what she's meant to do and has what it takes, but her past experiences have told her otherwise, and she starts to question it herself. Am I good enough to do this? Am I worth their time?
Before the doubt settles for too long, Eunwoo starts to work harder. She's signed up with a company now, something she has put off for some time. It's time to get better, because she is lacking, still, and she has so much to offer. She knows this. Her time will come.
The days are long, and they are tiring. Eunwoo is tired. There is only so much she can do before her energy is drained, the life sucked right out of her. At the end of practice, she separates herself from the group and moves to sit against one of the walls of the practice room with her water bottle loose in her hands, on the brink of falling out of her grasp.
She's exhausted. The sleep deprivation is catching up to her. Her head starts to fall forward, eyelids heavy and Eunwoo knows that this hour break they have in between lessons will go by too fast if she falls asleep now. She wills herself to stay awake, but she just wants to close her eyes, just for a little bit... It won't hurt to take a nap...
When Eunwoo stirs, she feels someone's warmth next to her. She rubs at her eyes, tries to blink away the sleepiness. Glancing to her right, she looks to see who's there.
“Hey, sleepy head,” Jieqiong offers her a kind smile, “We've got a little bit more time until break is over.” Her hand rests at the back of Eunwoo's head, and soon enough she brushes her fingers through Eunwoo's hair.
“But, practice...” Eunwoo mumbles, sleepily, can feel how heavy her eyelids are again. They slowly start to close.
“It can wait. Go ahead,” the other girl murmurs, leans her head against Eunwoo's and continues to pet her hair. “I'll be here when you wake up,” she reassures her.
The warmth of Jieqiong's body next to hers and the comfort of someone running their hand through her hair is more than enough to lull Eunwoo back to sleep. She nods into Jieqiong's shoulder, nuzzles closer and yawns.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
As her eyes flutter open, sure enough, Jieqiong is there.
-
While Nayoung and Jieqiong are away, Eunwoo makes sure to call them as often as possible. She thinks it's often enough, anyway, considering how busy her two company-mates are with their new gig with 9 other girls and how packed her own schedule is trying to prepare for weekly concerts.
Eunwoo doesn't want to admit that she's lonely—but she is, in a way, because every weekend she puts on a face and sings her heart out for a small following of fans, she remembers that this is only a fraction of the life that her two friends are living. What she does now is something so small in comparison, and she can't help but wonder if this is what it's going to be like for the rest of her life. Nayoung and Jieqiong are getting so far ahead. Eunwoo wants to know what it feels like to be them.
Some days, she doesn't feel like herself. A week flies by and soon enough she is on stage again, small and somewhat cozy, standing next to 7 other girls. For a little while, she feels like she's at home, but something still feels off. This isn't the sort of stage that she's always imagined, not quite the ideal scenario of singing in front of an audience, but Eunwoo knows that this chance should not be taken for granted. She knows this.
So why does she still empty inside?
Into a pile of pillows and blankets, Eunwoo flops into her bed unceremoniously. Another week passes, another concert finished, and she still feels like something is missing. She doesn't know what it is, though. Out of habit, she thumbs through her phone's contacts and pulls up Jieqiong's information. She presses video call.
“Hello...?”
“Yah,” Eunwoo tiredly grins into the camera. She holds her phone up away from her face to look for a good angle. Her arm is tired from dancing tonight, but if it means looking acceptably presentable in front of Jieqiong, she'll do whatever she can. “I didn't think you'd pick up this late at night.”
“You're the one who called me, you idiot,” Jieqiong rolls her eyes, and Eunwoo tries to stop smiling to herself. “I woke up just to answer your phone call.”
“Oh,” she looks closely at the camera to take a good look at Jieqiong's face. There are bags under her eyes, dark purple that is distinguishably different from the rest of her pale skin. She's seen Jieqiong this tired before, but they've always endured the sleep deprivation together. Eunwoo's eyebrows furrow as she looks at her, mildly concerned. “You were asleep? Sorry.”
Jieqiong yawns in the camera. Eunwoo feels a little bad for waking her up. It's one thing to bother her when she's awake, it's another to have disrupted her much, much needed sleep. She watches Jieqiong shuffle in her bed, getting comfortable laying on her side. “It's okay. We haven't talked for a while, so I can spare a few minutes.”
“You sure? I'll hang up like, right now—”
“It's fine, Eunwoo.”
They settle into comfortable silence after that. Eunwoo wiggles around in her bed and decides to lay on her side, mirroring Jieqiong, lets her hand with her phone in its grasp rest on top of a pillow she places under her arm to keep it propped up. Hair falls in front of her face but she doesn't bother to push it back into place.
Her eyes don't move away from the camera screen. She wants to see Jieqiong. Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun. Jieqiong's face is bare; there is no sign of make-up on her face but Eunwoo is more than sure that she'd been wearing make-up all day, probably. She knows how hard it must be to stay awake right now, can see it in the way Jieqiong's eyes want to flutter close but she blinks a few times to stay awake.
Jieqiong doesn't look her best right now, but Eunwoo likes seeing this side of her: bare, transparent, vulnerable, a side of Jieqiong that she wants to keep to herself.
“You can sleep,” Eunwoo whispers, lets her features soften as she tries to usher Jieqiong to let her eyes close, “keep the camera on? I don't mind.”
“Doesn't sound half bad...”
She giggles quietly. “I never have bad ideas.”
“That's a lie, you're full of them.”
They could go on forever with their bantering, and Eunwoo has half a mind to sound incredulous and offended at Jieqiong's claim, but there is silence once again that falls over them that stops her from doing so. Jieqiong's eyes have finally closed.
The low hum of the air conditioner blowing cold air into her room mixes with Jieqiong's even, soft breathing. Eunwoo plugs her charger into her phone and props it up on her nightstand. She takes one last look at Jieqiong; feels something warm spread inside of her chest that even makes its way up to her cheeks.
Eunwoo curls up in bed. She falls asleep with the comfort of knowing Jieqiong will wake up to see her in the morning.
-
It's one day until their debut, and the girls are in a frenzy.
Everyone's on edge. There's too many things going on. Late night practice, last minute touches to their showcase's costumes, the midnight ramen that they share while talking about their feelings about this moment in time, about all the things that will happen tomorrow, and all the things they are worried about that comes with debuting. They're all nervous. They try not to be.
They practice until it's nearly dawn. When Eunwoo finally passes through the dorm's door, she goes straight for the bathroom. Wipes her make-up off, even offers to help Minkyung dry off her wet hair after a shower but it seems like Yebin (a suck up, as always) gets to it first. She needs something to distract herself with, to get her mind off of things.
Eunwoo claims space on the couch in the living room. Kyla and Sungyeon are watching a movie like it's any other night. It's something foreign, in English, and not that Eunwoo couldn't figure out what's going on just from watching the film, but she's too tired to make the effort. It makes for good background noise, at least.
Pulling her phone out, she doesn't know what else to do other than opening her social media. She's already checked everything so often today, nothing incredibly new or pressing shows up on her feed. Eunwoo swipes through Instagram posts of her favorite celebrities for a couple of minutes.
There's someone sitting on the couch with her. Eunwoo bounces as the person moves closer, and she looks up from her screen to see Jieqiong in her pajamas, ready for bed.
“I barely managed to get out of the bathroom alive,” the younger girl sighs with exasperation, “Kyungwon unnie and Siyeon are fighting for it now. It got messy.”
She snickers. “They should just chill out, it's not like our life's ending.”
“Not ending,” Jieqiong hums, nestles closer to Eunwoo and loops her arm through hers, rests her head on Eunwoo's dainty shoulders, “but just beginning.”
Ah.
Her shoulders tense up.
“Just the beginning,” Eunwoo repeats to herself. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth. She looks down at her phone, but doesn't bother to interact with any of the applications. It's there to keep a hold onto something, if anything. “Tomorrow's just the beginning.”
She doesn't want to turn her head, because if she does, she'll see Jieqiong's face and Eunwoo's not sure if she wants to let her see the worry on her face. Not that she hides it, either; and Jieqiong knows her so well that she doesn't have to look to know that she's so worried about their debut.
“I don't know if any of us will get any sleep tonight. We've all got our nerves bunched up.” Jieqiong's voice remains soft. Despite the loud volume of the television, Eunwoo can only hear—wants to only hear—Jieqiong's voice next to her. It's soothing, in a way that is unlike some of the other members. They don't have the same effect on her that Jieqiong has. She feels Jieqiong squeeze her arm reassuringly. “We should try to sleep, though,” she gently reminds.
“I don't think I can,” Eunwoo's hands clutch her phone. She finally turns her head to look at Jieqiong. “There's so many things going through my head about tomorrow. My head won't listen to my body, you know? I want to sleep and get some rest but I feel like everything I'm worried about is just going to keep me up.”
She's frank with her worries—Eunwoo has no secrets to hide or keep to herself—but worries is such a vague word. There are a lot of things that are worrying her, a lot of things that she's worried about. Tomorrow is their debut day, something that Eunwoo has dreamed of ever since she was a little girl, something that she yearned for back when she was on national television over and over again, a dream that she had felt go out of reach with every failure that came her way. The idea of putting herself out there for the first time as a professional is scary. She's had her fair share of failure—what if there's only more to come once tomorrow arrives?
There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot at stake, too. Eunwoo thought she'd be ready for this day whenever it comes, but here it is in just mere hours and suddenly she's not sure about it anymore.
Everyone must be worried about the same thing though, she thinks, decides she wants to try and rationalize why she shouldn't be so caught up in everything that's weighing down on her shoulders tonight. They are a group of 10 girls, a family made up of friends that are like sisters to her; they share the same dreams and fears. There isn't a reason why she should be letting herself down like this.
“It's okay,” Jieqiong's voice pulls her out of her thoughts and she looks back to her, sees the warm smile that she gives her. Eunwoo's heart races inside her chest. It's a look in her eyes that says she understands, doesn't need her to say any more about the things that make Eunwoo vulnerable. Jieqiong's hand finds hers in her lap. Her thumb runs over her knuckles and then she laces their fingers together, keeps close.
“I'll stay with you until you sleep. Even if it takes all night.”
And Eunwoo, with her heart worn everywhere on her body, trusts her.
In the morning, the manager shakes her awake. Eunwoo blearily opens her eyes and she listens to the sound of the other girls running around the dorm trying to gather their things for the day. She has no recollection of how late she stayed up or when she fell asleep. Her body is sore from sleeping on the couch, but one half aches worse because there's a weight that keeps her from getting up.
Jieqiong snores lightly with her lips slightly parted, her head tucked into the crook of her neck and shoulder. Her arms keep their hold around her waist. Her hair is a mess now, a mass of black against Eunwoo's light brown hair.
“Can't we sleep just a little bit more, manager-nim?” Eunwoo asks quietly, looks at the staff member with a little pout. “I mean, I can't just wake her up when she's sleeping this peacefully, right?”
For fun, she pokes Jieqiong's cheek and tries to hold back a giggle when she stirs, mumbling something incoherent before snuggling closer into Eunwoo's side.
(Jieqiong decides she won't tell Eunwoo how much sleeping by her side helped her keep her cool the rest of the day. She doesn't need that big of an ego boost this early on in the game.)
-
It's dark when Jieqiong returns to the dorm. The sun has not peaked over the horizon yet, but her phone clock reads 5am and she knows it is morning. She's managed to beat the sun here, and all she had to do was sit on a place after having her flight delayed for four hours.
She yawns as she steps out of her shoes, doesn't slack when it comes to putting them away properly in the shoe holder even though her eyes are closed and she just wants to sleep the whole day. She feels heavy. It takes everything in her not to just go lay down on the couch in the living room because it'd be faster than walking down the hallway to her room. The couch is much better to sleep on than stiff airplane seats, but the thought of slipping under her blankets and tucking herself into her own bed sounds much better.
With sluggish steps, Jieqiong makes her way to the last room down the corridor, practiced footsteps now that they have lived in this dorm long enough to navigate the place in the dark and half asleep. Sungyeon is already asleep, and she hates to be disturbed, so Jieqiong does her best to be as quiet as possible when she enters.
As she strips off her hoodie and finds something else to change into, something pulls on the back of her shirt. She has half a mind to shriek, caught off guard, stops herself by covering her mouth fully with her hands when she sees Eunwoo curled up in her bed.
“Eunwoo, oh my god,” Jieqiong whispers hastily, sits on the edge of her bed so that Eunwoo doesn't have to keep holding onto her shirt. She can't quite see Eunwoo's figure, but her eyes adjust enough to see her bundled up in her blankets. Even one of her favorite hugging pillows is in between Eunwoo's arms.“What are you doing?”
“Heard you come in,” Eunwoo mumbles, though she can barely make out her words. “Missed you.”
She feels her warm up. Jieqiong's glad that it's dark right now.
“Yeah?” she lays her hand gently on top of Eunwoo's head, brushes some of her hair out of the way of her eyes. She pets her, slow movements meant to soothe her. It seems to do the job, Eunwoo leans into her touch. She always looks like a puppy or kitten trying to get their owner to pet them more. “Well, I'm back now.”
She thinks the petting has gotten Eunwoo to fall back asleep. Jieqiong is about to stand up and finally change out of her clothes when she gets pulled into the bed, a sudden fall that she doesn't expect to take but Eunwoo is there to catch her, arms wide open. Jieqiong's enveloped in her blankets and the warmth of Eunwoo's embrace as the other girl rustles a bit, tries to find a position that is comfortable for the both of them.
“... Eunwoo?”
The other girl does not say anything, fast asleep again as if nothing happened.
What to do now? She's still in a graphic t-shirt and her jeans press into the side of her leg. These aren't exactly bedtime clothes, but it seems like she has no choice now. All she wanted to know when she got home was to strip out of her every day clothes and get into something soft and comfy (like the pajama set Nayoung gifted her), fall right asleep as soon as her head hit the bed.
Coming home to Eunwoo in her bed, pulling her in without saying much of anything at all, it's not exactly as she planned; but the way Eunwoo's wrapped her arms around her waist securely is a sign that this night has gotten better, not worse.
Jieqiong moves so that Eunwoo is flush against the front of her body, feels soft, even breathing against her collarbone. She syncs her breathing with Eunwoo's, calming her mind and letting her heartbeat match with the other girl's. Keeping her head tucked in between her neck and shoulder, she presses a light kiss to Eunwoo's forehead, lets her lips linger as she smiles against her skin.
She gets the best rest she's had in a long time.
They are a tangled mess underneath the blankets. Eunwoo is the first to stir, yawning awake and burying her face into the pocket of warmth of Jieqiong's shoulder. She's comfortable where she is now, doesn't want to get up because that means leaving this nice feeling, decides that she will just lay here a little longer and pretend she hasn't woken up yet.
What's a few more minutes, anyway?
She peeks one eye open to look up; she gets an eyeful of Jieqiong's sharp jawline, but sees how softly her eyelashes brush against her cheekbones and how pretty her lips are when they are parted slightly. Purple colors the skin around Jieqiong's eyes, a sign of sleep deprivation and exhaustion that she is familiar with herself, but feels strangely guilty when she sees how rich the color is on Jieqiong's pale skin. Eunwoo leans in to press the faintest kiss on her cheek, out of an act of comfort and just because she's feeling awfully affectionate this morning.
Jieqiong's back home after a couple of days of being away. To say that Eunwoo's been lonely is an understatement—she's missed Jieqiong terribly.
Eunwoo takes in all the wonderful details of Jieqiong asleep that she can't experience unless she's this close to her. The way her cheeks are just the tiniest bit pink, flushed from being so warm under the covers and taking in the heat that Eunwoo radiates when she's asleep, how her hair falls over her shoulder and covers her eyes but is a messy black mass behind her. She pulls her hand away from Jieqiong's waist, brings it up to tuck a lock of hair behind her. Then her fingers caress the side of her face.
She's not purposefully trying to wake her up, but Jieqiong seems to stir even more after the affectionate caress. Eunwoo grins stupidly to herself.
“Hey, sleepy head,” she whispers, scoots up on the bed so that she is eye level with Jieqiong. “Are you gonna stay asleep forever?”
“Mhmm...” Jieqiong leans into her hand. Eunwoo can't stop her heart from doing flips inside her chest, feels happiness bursting inside. She continues to let the pads of her fingers run across Jieqiong's cheek, gentle motions but full, full of love.
“Fine. I guess I'll let you sleep a little longer.”
The sun is well past the horizon now, bright daylight coming through the curtain's. Eunwoo suspects they are alone in the room, now. Sungyeon must have gotten up hours ago. Alone, it feels like their own little world right now. A world where they can forget about everything beyond the scope of the bedroom door. She has Jieqiong right here in her arms. She wouldn't have it any other way.
The spot next to Jieqiong, no matter where they are, will always be for her.
And for Jieqiong, she'll be right there beside her. Always.