Work Text:
“Yujin-ah!”
Yujin looks up from her cubby, hands zipping up her backpack. It’s been a long day of practice, and honestly, as fulfilling as it is to make progress on memorizing a routine, she can’t wait to go home and scrub away the grossness accumulated from hours and hours of dancing.
(She has a math assignment she needs to complete as well, but she shoves that thought as far away in her mind as she can.)
Gahyeon lightly jogs over with a bounce in her step, leaning comfortably against the adjacent lockers once she reaches her destination. She leans in close, hiding her mouth with her hand as she whispers, like what she’s about to say is some sort of life-changing secret, and she absolutely has to tell Yujin right now or else she’ll like, die or something. Yujin holds her breath and tilts her head down, angling her ear closer to Gahyeon.
“I heard we’re getting a new trainee soon.”
Yujin blinks, subtly exhales as she leans back.
That’s it?
Gahyeon stares at her expectantly.
“...Oh, really?” is what she responds with as she slings her backpack over her shoulders, adjusting her jacket hood presentably over the straps. She gently closes her locker, moving away as she takes a step in the direction of the building exit. Gahyeon pushes herself off the lockers, stepping in line with Yujin.
“Yeah,” she continues, “I heard she was streetcast. Apparently she’s really tall.”
God, I’m so ready to shower.
...
I wonder what we’ll have for dinner tonight. Should I get tteokbokki to eat on the bus? Oooh, that sounds so -
“Ya, did you hear me?”
Oh. Oops.
“I'm really tall.”
Gahyeon snorts, playfully bumping into Yujin as they walk. “Yeah, I know. Everyone can see that.”
“Do you know when she’s coming in, if there really is a new trainee?”
“No clue. I only overheard from the managers that she’s like, thirteen and really tall.”
“Thir- whoa, she’s younger than us. We won’t be the youngest anymore?”
“Yeah... I wonder how pretty she is, if she really was streetcasted…” Gahyeon’s voice trails off until it’s quiet enough to mutter under her breath. “Wonder how long she’ll last before she quits.”
Ah. Yujin pretends like she didn’t hear Gahyeon, like she doesn’t notice the way Gahyeon’s eyes shroud with skepticism and mistrust.
(She wonders how many trainees quit during the time Gahyeon has been at Starship, wonders how many Gahyeon considered a friend, a teammate, how many left -
Maybe she should think about her math homework instead.)
“We’ll just see,” she says lightly, optimistically, and pats Gahyeon on the shoulder. A new trainee, a younger trainee would mean - “Hey! We’ll be the cool sunbaes for once!” Yujin’s smile grows, and she shakes Gahyeon’s shoulder playfully until her friend is smiling, too. “The cool unnies!”
“Shut up, you’re like, two months old!”
“That’s still two months more experience than the new kid!”
“Let’s see how qualified you’ll feel after this month’s evaluation -”
“Pssh,” Yujin rolls her eyes, smiling with the confidence of today’s successful practice, “I’ll be fine. The new girl will be totally impressed and in awe of me.”
-
A few weeks pass, and Yujin almost forgets that conversation with Gahyeon.
Almost , because when she hears a manager say, “... and it’s this way to the main practice room,” she looks over her shoulder and spots what appears to be a mother, a father, and, oh -
Wow, this girl is tall. Yujin stands a tad straighter, swings her backpack over her pink hoodie, adjusts her hood.
“This is where our trainees store their belongings,” the manager explains as the group approaches. He gestures over to the wall of lockers beside Yujin, and her eyes catch the auntie’s. She looks young, looks regal, almost, and it’s instinct that takes over as Yujin immediately bows as deep as she can.
“Hello! My name is Ahn Yujin, and I’m a trainee here at Starship Entertainment!”
She remains in her position for a few seconds before moving back up, neatly tucking her hands over her stomach. She makes sure to smile, makes sure her dimples are on full blast as she makes eye contact with everyone.
The manager nods approvingly ( Yes! she thinks), the parents smile, and the girl, whose gaze meets her at eye level -
- is cute , wow. She shyly smiles at Yujin, bowing gently in return, and her eyes are brimming with excitement, with nerves, with happiness, and Yujin thinks Gahyeon has nothing to worry about.
-
It’s early morning, and everyone’s stretching to prepare for the day’s dance lesson.
Yujin feels the burn in her calves as she bends over, fingers stretched out and desperately straining to touch her shoes, because come on, it’s been months and her flexibility has not improved at all, come on, I’m so close to touching them oh my God please -
She hears the practice room doors open, footsteps approaching the center of the room, and Yujin sadly stares at her fingers hovering just barely over her worn sneakers. Maybe if I just - ow owowow okay, no - tomorrow… tomorrow I will touch my toes when I do this stretch. She heaves a sigh and slowly rises, ready to greet their dance instructor.
Except it’s not their dance instructor.
It’s one of the trainee managers and the girl from days ago, the one with the bright eyes and the round face, the one whose eyes meet hers easily without Yujin needing to look down, who’s - already staring at her? And kind of smiling? And, uh, it’s kind of cute-
Yujin’s cheeks heat up with the realization that the New Girl definitely saw her struggling to touch her toes.
(“We’ll be the cool sunbaes for once! The new girl will be totally impressed and in awe of me.”
Yujin wants to smack past Yujin for jinxing her.)
“Everyone, gather around!” Their manager claps, waving all the trainees over.
“Yujin!” Gahyeon approaches from behind, linking their arms and tugging Yujin closer to the rest of the group. “I was right! That’s the new trainee!” she whispers excitedly. “What did I say, huh? Tall and pretty!”
New Girl isn’t looking at Yujin anymore, so - “Yeah,” Yujin responds, looking at the girl’s profile, thinking about her smile just earlier. “She’s pretty.”
“Starting today,” the manager announces once the room has gathered, “we have a new trainee with us at Starship Entertainment. Please introduce yourself.”
“Hello, everyone. My name is Jang Wonyoung, and I look forward to training together! I’ll work hard. Please take care of me.” The girl clasps her hands together and bows, her long, black hair falling in waves over her face.
Yujin looks at Wonyoung, looks at her nervous smile, looks at all the other trainees who stare at Wonyoung with awe, with excitement, with contempt - all of them staring like Wonyoung is different.
“Gahyeon,” Yujin whispers, noticing the way Wonyoung fidgets under everyone’s gazes. “We have to be her cool unnies.”
The manager drones on a bit, something about the importance of teamwork or whatever. Yujin knows she should be listening, but Wonyoung’s shy gaze meets Yujin’s, and all she can focus on is smiling in the most reassuring way she can.
“Please take care of me.”
-
(“Hey!”
“Oh, hi, um -”
“What year were you born?"
“Ah, 2004 -”
“I was born in 2003! You can call me unnie, then, okay? I’m Yujin unnie!”
“Are you sure -”
“Yep! It’s nice to meet you, Wonyoung.”)
-
Jang Wonyoung takes Starship by storm.
Between her height and proportions, her face, and her oddly endearing lisp (that Yujin won’t admit to anyone else), it’s no wonder that Wonyoung’s popularity skyrockets as soon as she joins the company.
It’s always a flurry of hushed gossip and not-so-subtle staring whenever Wonyoung is around, but it worsens tenfold when Wonyoung and Yujin share practice days.
“They’re so intimidating together,” the other trainees say, their backs turned to Yujin and Wonyoung. “They’re definitely going to debut together.”
“Yeah, it’s like, why am I even here? I’m not going to debut, not with them around.”
Yujin frowns, torn between confronting the group or simply ignoring it, because it’s not right to talk about people like that, it’s not right to talk behind others’ backs, but that would cause a scene, and she’s not close with those trainees anyway, so -
“Unnie, c’mon, stretch with me,” mumbles Wonyoung.
Yujin snaps out of her thoughts and glances down at Wonyoung, who’s bending forward in a simple stretch. (Yujin pouts at the way Wonyoung’s fingers easily grip the front of her sneakers. When will she be that flexible?)
“Maybe you’ll be able to touch your toes today,” Wonyoung teases when she notices Yujin’s stare. “You won’t know unless you stretch, unnie.”
Yujin rolls her eyes, a smile playing at her lips.
“I miss the shy, lanky girl I met months ago,” Yujin jokes as she leans down, stretching her fingers towards the ground. “Kids these days, so rude now.”
“Hah,” Wonyoung scoffs. “One year isn’t that long, unnie. You’re just as much a kid as me.”
“It could be way more than a year! What if you were born at like, the end of 2004 and I was born at the beginning of 2003? That’s almost two years.”
“Well, I was born in August.”
“...Oh. I was born in September.”
“Unnie, that’s not the beginning of 2003, anyway...”
“That’s not the point I was making!”
“Sure. What day in September?”
“September 1st.”
“...”
“Wonyoung?”
“No way.”
“...Wonyoung?”
“I was born August 31st!”
-
wonyoung:
unnie i keep thinking about how our birthdays are a day apart!!
yujin:
??
go to sleep??
it’s 12am??
wonyoung:
do you think they’ll have TWO cakes for us at practice
wait does our company celebrate trainee birthdays??
also you’re not asleep yet either!!!
yujin:
i was falling asleep when you messaged
wonyoung:
OMG SORRY!!
yujin:
lol it’s fine
wonyoung:
ok ok
i’ll try to sleep too!!!
but before i do
unnie
unnie
unnie
yujin:
yes wonyoung
wonyoung:
unnie… our birthdays… one day apart… our birth years… one year apart..
yujin:
yes…
wonyoung:
we
are
DES
TIN
Y!!!!!
-
“What do you think they’ll talk to us about?” Wonyoung whispers nervously to Yujin as they sit at their manager’s desk.
“I don’t know,” Yujin responds, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans. “I don’t think we did anything wrong. Did we? I thought our monthly evaluations went fine, right?”
“Yeah, unnie, you were so good, everyone liked your cover -”
“Hi, girls, sorry I ran late.” Their manager steps into the office and shuts the door with a soft click .
They sit up straight immediately, nervously smiling, bracing themselves for the worst possible news, and when the manager notices how stressed they look, he clarifies why he called them into his office earlier in the day.
“You’re not in trouble,” he assures them. “We just have an… assignment for you two!”
-
They need to take more selfies, is what he told them.
“It’s an important skill for an idol to have. Being able to take selfies takes a lot of confidence! I think you both would benefit from taking at least three selfies a day.”
Yujin tilts her head left.
“Fifteen degrees,” the manager says, as if she has the ability to calculate that and emulate it and - “No. You’re doing it wrong.”
It feels wrong. It feels unnatural. Seriously, where did he get this advice from?
She looks over at Wonyoung - for help, or just to know she’s suffering too, but Wonyoung is holding her phone like some sort of professional , rapidly pressing the shutter every second, cycling through various expressions like she just knows how to do this.
She’s so pretty. She’s so, so pretty -
“Yujin!”
“Ah, I’m sorry! I’ll work harder!”
Yujin internally sighs, stiffly raises her phone up, and ignores supermodel Jang Wonyoung - a far, far cry from the demure, quiet girl who greeted her in this very same hallway months and months ago.
This… This is how you smile, right?
“Unnie… this picture is…”
“Yes… I’ll delete it…”
-
yujin:
wonyoung-ah
wonyoung:
unnieeee
yujin:
[image]
does this look okay…
wonyoung:
oh
um
it’s a little blurry?
yujin:
that’s just you nicely telling me i look terrible huh
wonyoung:
NO!!!!!!!!
UNNIE YOU ARE SO PRETTY!!!!!!!!
manager-nim said taking selcas is a skill and he’s right!!
you just need to practice
just like dancing and singing and everything else we do at practice!!
yujin:
[image]
wonyoung:
cute
-
Cute. She called me cute. Uh, okay, how do I take another cute selca -
-
yujin:
[image]
???
wonyoung:
you are
SO
PRETTY!!!
-
Yujin’s face warms at Wonyoung’s neverending compliments. She’s probably just saying all that, right?
-
wonyoung:
unnie
i think the problem is that you’re just camera shy
which idk why you would be!!
you’re like the prettiest unnie i’ve met
-
Okay, yeah, she’s definitely just saying that - but…
-
yujin:
[image]
wonyoung:
okkkk getting there… getting there!!!!
your dimples are so cute, seriously
-
Her tummy feels kind of weird. Like, fluttery? Whatever, that’s not important -
Yujin angles her head - making sure the birthmark on her neck is hidden - smiles, pokes her dimple, aaand - image sent.
-
wonyoung:
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES!!!
unnie!!!!!
do you feel your confidence building up!!!!!!
yujin:
um
i guess so?
wonyoung:
good!!!!
then keep sending me selcas!!!!
yujin:
[image]
wonyoung:
[image]
yujin:
[image]
wonyoung:
[image]
don’t be shy unnie!!
keep sending them!!
-
Ah, Jang Wonyoung, you're too much, Yujin thinks as she snaps another picture, hoping her blush isn't obvious.