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Once, when they were trainees, Nayeon brought over some embroidery floss to the agency.
She was in crisis-management mode: 6mix been dashed to the rocks two weeks prior, leaving their whole debut situation in serious peril. Jeongyeon had practically one foot out the door; earlier in the week Jihyo had overheard her talking with her parents about dropping out of the agency to take school and her part-time baking job more seriously. The whole scenario was extremely awful in such a unique way that the unfairness of it made Nayeon’s teeth ache, a feeling unexplainable to anyone but those of them left behind.
Nayeon didn’t hold the fact that Jeongyeon didn’t want to be there anymore against her. When she tried to picture what being a trainee would be like without Jeongyeon, without Jihyo, she felt so awful it was like her heart wanted to climb through her oesophagus and out her mouth.
Nayeon needed them to stay more than anything, hence the embroidery floss. The night before, her younger sister showed her how to make a genuine, bonafide friendship bracelet—the special kind, the kind that would grant wishes. The idea was you would wear it until it fell off naturally, and then you could supplicate yourself to the cosmos and make a polite request. The longer the band had stayed on your wrist, the longer it lasted, the more likely the universe was to grant your desires. Or something.
In the afternoon Nayeon blocked out for arts-and-crafts purposes Jihyo found herself otherwise preoccupied, so it was only Nayeon and Jeongyeon sitting in the middle of one of the small individual practice rooms, alone together, making friendship bracelets. Both found the whole thing to be a little silly, but their streak of tough luck in the last few months had left Nayeon itchy with superstition. She didn’t say it with words, but she felt convinced her whole world might fall apart if she didn’t make these bracelets. Jeongyeon complained incessantly and with much annoyance, but seemed to see how important it was to Nayeon and concentrated on her task, even amidst all her griping.
It was hot in the practice room. They were sitting close enough that their knees touched, bare skin on bare skin. Jeongyeon wore these nylon shorts that rode up terribly on her thigh. It had been a while since Jeongyeon’s last company-mandated haircut, and whenever Nayeon looked at her she felt the inexplicable urge to take all of it and tie it up into a ponytail for her. Jeongyeon would swat her away whenever Nayeon moved to push her hair back, but she couldn’t help it.
By the end they both had come up with something, with differing results. Nayeon’s looked much better than Jeongyeon’s—probably because she had practice, but she claimed it was because she was more naturally gifted anyway.
Jeongyeon didn’t say anything, only rolling her eyes in response, but Nayeon’s strange mood had seemed to rub off on her too. Her touch was gentle and hands slow as she wrapped her bracelet around Nayeon’s wrist, fingers double-knotting and cinching tight. Her knuckles brushed against the inside of Nayeon’s wrist, and for a reason unnameable as-of-that-moment Nayeon felt her heart beating so loud and fast she felt close to passing out.
Years later, a guy brings flowers for Jeongyeon to their waiting room at a music show.
Well, not really. He brings flowers to his manager who brings the flowers to their manager who brings the flowers to their waiting room.
“From your friend,” manager-unnie tells Jeongyeon, her head tilted in some wise, all-knowing look. Friend, she says, an obvious misappropriation.
Uwah, Chaeyoung actually says, crawling across the floor to where Jeongyeon sits, cross-legged and hunched over in embarrassment. Chaeyoung’s on her hands and knees when she inspects the flowers, head tilting this way and that. It’s a lovely arrangement, for sure, maybe a little bit cliché—chrysanthemums and snapdragons and some foliage, all tied up in a bouquet good enough to get married with.
Nayeon feels sick.
“Wow,” Jihyo says, sounding genuinely impressed, “he’s got some serious guts.”
All of the staff in the waiting room are on the JYP payroll and therefore definitely likely to stay mum about the whole thing—but still, flowers? At a music show? If anyone in this room was unaware that Jeongyeon had something going on with somebody, now they do. What happened to subtlety? What happened to finesse? What happened to keeping the godforsaken peace?
Jeongyeon doesn’t even like romantic gestures like that. Too public. She definitely prefers something private, something that could be shared between just her and whoever she’s with.
Nayeon’s friendship bracelet had fallen apart only two weeks after they made it. Publicly, she blamed Jeongyeon’s poor craftsmanship as the root cause, but she knew and Jeongyeon knew the truth: she wore the thing to its absolute limit. She refused to take it off. She would wear it everywhere: in the shower, to bed, during dance practice, even during evaluations.
Jeongyeon reprimanded her: It’s supposed to last, you dumbass. That’s the only way your wish can come true. But she seemed pleased anyway.
The day before the death of her bracelet they both had gotten good feedback on their evaluations, and as a reward been given a weekday afternoon off. The both of them were too tired to go out, so instead they watched a movie at Nayeon’s house, huddled together on her bed, laptop perched precariously on their two knees. Nayeon bought one singular cranberry bran muffin from the company canteen for them to split. She managed to needle Jeongyeon into feeding her bites until there was nothing but crumbs.
Later Jeongyeon would fall asleep on her shoulder, and Nayeon would feel such a nauseating mix of fondness and dread that it felt like she was dying.
Jeongyeon had taken better care of her bracelet—she would take it off during company-related things but left it alone otherwise—and it had lasted almost a year until it hit a snag and the whole thing unraveled.
A week after that the company announced that the two of them, along with Jihyo and thirteen other girls, were slated to participate in an upcoming survival show where they would compete to debut.
After they received the news, they both broke down sobbing in a public park right by the agency building. Nayeon had pressed her face into Jeongyeon’s shoulder and thought please let me be with you forever. Nayeon tried not to believe in superstition anymore because it fucked with her head, but she had taken Jeongyeon’s hand and wrapped it around her wrist, right where her bracelet once was, holding it there even as the other girl stared at her, confused.
“Thank you,” Nayeon had said, and kissed her.
That was the first and last time they ever kissed.
Jeongyeon places the flowers next to her things, face absolutely on fire. “No words,” she says, pointing an accusatory finger across their entire group, “from any of you.”
The group looks sincerely ready to take the whole situation and run wild with it, but Jeongyeon’s expression somehow manages to cower them all. They all go back to their previous conversations with reluctance. Nayeon positions her body so the flowers are no longer in her line of sight.
Jihyo taps her knee. You okay? her face says, eyebrows pinched in the middle, telegraphing clear concern. Nayeon just shrugs.
After their performance, when everyone’s out of costume and ready to brave the early morning chill back to their dorms, Nayeon catches Jeongyeon talking to a boy by a vending machine in some shadowy hallway off the commonly trodden path. Nayeon only knows this route because it’s the route to the only machine in the building that offers pre-packaged chewy gummies. Jeongyeon knows this too—it’s their post-show ritual to go there together.
Jeongyeon and the boy are speaking to each other like any pair of friends would, comfortable but not too close, smiling but not too much, talking but not too enthusiastically. At least, that’s what Nayeon thinks, until Jeongyeon’s leaning up to press an awfully sweet kiss to his cheek. Then she repeatedly knocks a fist into his chest, scolding him.
Nayeon stays and watches as the guy takes Jeongyeon’s wrist in his hand, playfully holding off her attacks until they come to a standstill, and then she simply can’t watch anymore. She walks away, and keeps on walking until she’s sure she’s far enough, and then focuses on her breathing until she’s sure she’s not dying anymore.
Jeongyeon sits next to her on the car ride home. Nayeon can’t look at her, so she doesn’t. A long moment stretches out between them, something Nayeon guesses is Jeongyeon just trying to figure her out.
Eventually, instead of saying anything, she passes Nayeon a packet of sour gummies, her favourite kind, the kind the vending machine sells. Nayeon deflates, too touched by the gesture to stay hurt by something that’s not even completely Jeongyeon’s fault.
“Thanks,” she says, ripping open the packet and letting Jeongyeon take the first pick.
“I’m sorry,” Jeongyeon says.
Nayeon looks at her then, wondering how she could ever be able to say I wouldn’t have made it this far without you with the depth she knows it deserves.
“I’m okay,” she says instead. Maybe it doesn’t matter she doesn’t know how to say it out loud. In Jeongyeon’s apartment her friendship bracelet sits in a jewellery box on her dresser. That’s enough. “It’s really alright.”