Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Im Nayeon is just a pretty face who can flirt on screen. That’s why all she does is romantic comedies. I’d love to see her try real acting for once,” Nayeon reads aloud to Jihyo, who as usual just ignores her. “There isn’t a talented bone in her body and people need to stop worshipping the ground she walks on.”

She thinks the harsher comments after her last film probably stem from the fact that the second female lead had been Jung Eunbi who was better known for her drama performances and had even been nominated for the actress of the year award last year. (It had gone to Kwon Bo-ah instead but people seemed to agree it was only a matter of time before Eunbi got it). 

“How could anyone compare Eunbi to Nayeon. Eunbi was nominated for actress of the year and can do many different genres. Nayeon can only do romantic comedies and she’s not even that good,” Nayeon reads another comment. “I am good. Fuck this guy.”

Jihyo rolls her eyes but otherwise doesn’t look up from the forms that she’s filling out. 

“The comparison between Eunbi and Nayeon is pointless. Eunbi could do Swipe of Love but Nayeon could never do The Girl in the Mist,” Nayeon scoffs. “I totally could do The Girl in the Mist. And I would love to see Eunbi relax enough to do Swipe of Love. She’s so uptight.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Jihyo says, finally looking up at her. “You know Eunbi is talented and you enjoyed acting across from her so stop acting like you don’t respect her. And in their defense it’s not like you’ve ever branched out at all.”

It’s true, Nayeon supposes. The first few offers she’d gotten as an actress, before she’d been able to really prove herself, had been romantic comedies that no one had expected to do particularly well. Nayeon had taken that as a challenge and her performances had gotten nearly full credit for saving the films from near obscurity. After that, she’d taken the jobs that promised her the most fame and the most money because, why not? She wanted to be rich and famous after all. This, of course, had lead to her being type-cast as the bubbly pretty girl that anyone would fall in love with in every movie she’d landed afterwards. 

“No one wants to take a chance on paying you millions of dollars in a genre that you might not excel in,” Jihyo had explained to her once. 

At the time she’d just shrugged because she was happy to act in anything. Enjoyed the process regardless of the genre, but she knows she can do anything she sets her mind to and now she feels like she has something to prove. 

“I want to branch out,” she tells Jihyo firmly. 

This makes Jihyo give her full attention. After all, as Nayeon’s manager, it will be her job to find the auditions and negotiate her contracts. 

“Are you sure?” Jihyo says. “They’ll pay less.”

“I don’t care how much they pay,” Nayeon replies firmly. “I have enough money for now. I just want to show them what I can do.”

She turns down five scripts in three weeks and Jihyo is about to have an aneurism but Nayeon is not going to bet this stage of her career on something that isn’t 100% perfect. So she bides her time and tries to ignore how Jihyo gets more and more agitated. 

“These are all dumb,” Nayeon says throwing the newest script down on the couch next to her with a huff. 

Jihyo has to take a slow, calming breath before answering.

“Nayeon, you said you wanted to branch out. That’s not actually going to happen if you don’t ever audition for anything. If you want to just go back to doing your old stuff, fine by me, but you have to actually be a bit flexible if you are going to try something new.”

Nayeon huffs in annoyance. 

“These scripts are so basic. It’s the same thing every year with a slightly different plot and different actors. If I’m going to do something different I want to do something really different.”

“Well then maybe I should look into more indie directions,” Jihyo says musingly, the wheels in her mind already turning. “You’ll definitely get paid a lot less and it won’t reach as wide an audience as the major studio films but I think that’s probably the best place to find something like what you’re describing.” 

Jihyo pulls out her phone and a couple days later, there’s a script entitled Spring Flowers in Nayeon’s inbox from one of Jihyo’s contacts. She reads it once, twice, and then emails Jihyo back with a single sentence. 

“Let’s do it.”

Nayeon blows through the audition because of course she does. Not only would this low-budget independent film highly benefit from her name in the headline (most likely sweetening the deal in accepting her for the role) but Nayeon is also damn good actress when she puts her mind to it. The director, Son Chaeyoung, who Nayeon had met briefly at the audition, was a friend of Jihyo’s from high school. She had apparently only given Nayeon the opportunity to audition as a favor to Jihyo because she, like everyone else, had thought Nayeon was only good for one thing. By the end of the audition, Chaeyoung had been smiling ear to ear, eyes wide with excitement and Nayeon had been offered the job on the spot. 

When Nayeon arrives at the table read, Chaeyoung gives her a hug that startles her with its friendliness. Nayeon returns it, a little smug that she’s gotten the director entirely on her side already. She sits down in the seat labelled with her name with Chaeyoung directly to her left and she starts to skim through the script casually. It’s a movie about two women meeting in college and falling in love. On it’s face it’s very simple, but under the surface there’s a lot more nuance. Each is struggling with their own problems, and these are as central to the plot (if not more so) as the romance itself. There’s tension and passion and love and it dances the line between lighthearted and dramatic every step of the way. It’s this balance that made her fall in love with the script in the first place and Nayeon knows that it will also be the greatest challenge. It will be up to her, her co-star, and Director Son’s talent to maintain the balance and not let the movie fall too far into dark or light.  

“Hey, Director Son,” Nayeon says, leaning over to talk closely to Chaeyoung. “Who’s going to be playing Park Eunji?”

Park Eunji is the love of Nayeon’s character’s life and the person that Nayeon will be working most closely with. 

“Oh, Jihyo didn’t tell you?” Chaeyoung says casually. “I sent her the cast list yesterday. She’ll be played by an upcoming actress named Kim Dahyun. She’s fresh but her audition really impressed me.”

Nayeon freezes in her seat, hand tightening against her will and wrinkling the script as her nails dig in. She’s used to playing across people who’s name she already knows. Normally, the spark of recognition comes from reading their name in a magazine or in the credits of some film or having crossed paths in the industry before. The name Kim Dahyun has a familiarity that comes from farther back. Far enough that, for a second, Nayeon can’t quite place it. 

“I like you, Nayeon.”  

These words echoing in Nayeon’s mind are for some reason the first thing she associates to the name. 

“Will you go out with me?”

It comes back slowly, slowly. A memory pulled from nearly eight years ago when she was still in high school. A round face - pale skin, wide smile, bright hair - with mismatched colorful clothes and an always sunny disposition. The memory of Kim Dahyun comes like a puzzle slowly being pieced together and what forms sits heavy in Nayeon’s chest. 

“Nayeon, wait up!”

Nayeon searches the crowd of the green room to find the source of the call and sees Dahyun jogging towards her, face still flushed from the adrenaline of the performance. 

“Congratulations!” Dahyun says as she pulls up in front of her. “You were incredible.” 

Jennie and Joohyun stand at Nayeon’s shoulders and roll their eyes at Dahyun’s enthusiasm. 

“Thanks, Dahyun,” Nayeon replies, casually. “You did well too.”

Jennie shifts next to her impatiently as she stares at her phone and Joohyun glances at Dahyun in mild annoyance and Nayeon is reminded that she’s already kept them waiting for quite a while.

“Nayeon, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” Dahyun continues, glancing anxiously between Jennie and Joohyun and then back at Nayeon. 

“Uh, sure,” Nayeon replies, a little distracted by Joohyun tapping her feet with impatience. “Just keep it quick.”

Her best friends had waited the whole time that Nayeon had hung around after the musical to get thanks from the director and the cast and had waited for her to finish talking to her parents and accepting the flowers from Jackson, and Nayeon had promised them they’d leave for the party half an hour ago. 

“Oh,” Dahyun says, smiling anxiously. “Well, I was hoping I could talk to you just the two of—“

“We’re kind of in a rush,” Nayeon says, aware that her friends are starting to look at her in a way she doesn’t like. 

Dahyun’s eyes widen in surprise at her tone. It’s probably because Nayeon hasn’t spoken to her like this in a long time. Dahyun hasn’t seen Nayeon with Jennie and Joohyun at her side recently. Nayeon is different around them, but that’s normal right? Everyone is different around different people. And when Nayeon is around Jennie and Joohyun, she knows her role. She’s the most popular girl in the school and Dahyun is… well, she’s nobody. A theater geek that fate had thrust into Nayeon’s life. Nothing more. Which is why she should know better than to say what she says next. 

“I like you, Nayeon,” Dahyun says quietly, as if trying to keep the words between the two of them despite all the people surrounding them in the green room.

That drags Jennie’s attention away from her phone and Joohyun scoffs. The while green room seems to get a little quieter. Nayeon just freezes. She likes Dahyun. She does. The sophomore had been a huge help during her preparation during the play and had always been the kind of soft and sweet that Nayeon didn’t get much of in her life. But she doesn’t like her like that. She wonders if she should have seen this coming. People get crushes on her all the time. Nayeon has had to turn down more people than she can count. But usually the geeks and nerds know better than to even try. 

Jennie is standing at one shoulder, all but sneering at Dahyun and Joohyun is only barely trying to hold back a laugh while Nayeon struggles to figure out what to say. 

“Will you go out with me?” Dahyun says, even more quietly but otherwise undeterred by Nayeon’s silence. 

“Ha,” Joohyun finally lets out a laugh. 

“Why would she go out with you?” Jennie sneers. 

Dahyun pulls back into herself, and Nayeon hates it a little bit. For just a half second, she hates her friends but then she remembers that she’s Im Nayeon and news travels fast in high school and her best friends, in their own way, are just looking out for her. She takes control of the situation. 

“Look, Dahyun,” Nayeon says, trying to find a way to let her down gently but also quickly. “I know that we worked together a lot on this play, but that’s all it was.”

“But, Nayeon,” Dahyun says, looking at her a little helplessly. 

Nayeon doesn’t let her finish. 

“I don’t like you like that,” she says, a little more harshly than she means to. “You’re not really my type.”

“Nayeon doesn’t date nerds,” Jennie adds a little unhelpfully while Joohyun not so subtly tries to muffle her giggles behind her palm. 

Nayeon rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue with them. They’re right after all. Nayeon would never date a nerd. She knows her worth, knows that she’s beautiful and popular and she should date someone who will, at the very least, match her status, if not elevate it. 

“Look, we have a party that we need to get to,” Nayeon says, now just wanting to get herself out of this situation as soon as possible. “I’m sorry, but good job on the performance.”

And with those last words, Nayeon turns away dragging a giggling Jennie and Joohyun with her though the now dead silent crowd. 

The memory makes Nayeon wince. There are certain things she regrets from her past. The way she acted in high school, well… there are some memories she’d rather not drag up. This one though… this one may be one of the ones she’s least proud of. She hasn’t thought about it much since it happened but if she thinks about it now, she knows that she had been cruel to someone who had only ever been kind to her. 

But there’s no way it’s the same Dahyun, right? There have to be a few million Kims in Korea and Dahyun is a pretty common name. The odds of it being the same person are slim, Nayeon convinces herself, but the itching shame that comes with the memory sits heavy in her chest. She turns back to the script in her hand and starts to read it again, needing something, anything at all to keep her mind from spiraling. She only gets about half a page in before she hears the director speak. 

“Oh, Dahyun is here.”

Chaeyoung stands up quickly to greet her other lead and Nayeon looks up from her script nervously. When she sees Kim Dahyun there are two thoughts that appear in her mind simultaneously: First, this girl is nothing like the Kim Dahyun that Nayeon went to high school with and second, this girl is definitely, absolutely the Kim Dahyun that Nayeon went to high school with. 

Gone is the brightly colored hair, replaced by her natural black that falls in soft waves across her shoulders and back. It looks healthy now that it’s clearly no longer being subjected to frequent bleaching. Gone are the mismatched and awkwardly layered clothes, replaced instead by a white off the shoulder top that hugs her figure and jeans that manage to both look comfortable and expensive at the same time (Did she just come from a photoshoot? Why does she look so good?). And gone is most of the baby fat that had lined her cheeks, giving her the soft, round, innocent look she’d worn all throughout high school. Instead, Nayeon’s eyes are drawn to high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. 

The smile is still there though, bright and wide. The porcelain skin that had earned her the nickname of Dubu among the theater kids remains as well. And the eyes are the same too. Sharp and intelligent but soft around the edges. Nayeon can’t help but remember that the last time she saw them, they were welling up with tears.

Nayeon is paralyzed. It’s not often she encounters a social situation where she is unsure of herself but the intersection of high school with her adult life leaves her flailing. After getting to college, she had firmly left those years behind and hadn’t so much as crossed paths with any of the people that knew her back then. What will Dahyun do when she sees her? Her manager must have also been sent the cast list so she probably knows that Nayeon will be here, right? She still agreed to do the movie, so that’s a good sign. Does she hate Nayeon? She’d have every right.

Nayeon watches Dahyun smile happily at Chaeyoung who gives her a hug and then watches as Chaeyoung turns to Nayeon and gestures at her while saying something. Nayeon wants to look away in shame. But she can’t. Dahyun turns to her in what feels like slow motion and then their eyes meet. 

Dahyun smiles softly, politely and waves to Nayeon who, on instinct, raises her hand and waves back. Dahyun leans over and says something to Chaeyoung that makes her eyes widen and Nayeon thinks 'this is it'. She’s telling Chaeyoung that Nayeon is a bitch. That she’s rude and callous and shallow and only cares about herself. Which, as far as Dahyun knows, is actually the case. But Chaeyoung is smiling and laughing and that doesn’t seem to be the right response if Dahyun is insulting her.

Then they’re walking over and Nayeon is on the verge of panic again. 

“Nayeon!” Chaeyoung says. “You didn’t tell me that you and Dahyun went to high school together. What a coincidence. It’s like this was meant to be.”

Nayeon hears what Chaeyoung is saying but almost as if it’s through a filter. She doesn’t take her eyes off Dahyun. She’s trying desperately to read the younger girl but her expression is aggravatingly smooth. Just a soft, polite smile that makes the corners of her eyes narrow just a little. 

“I, uh, yea,” is all Nayeon can manage to stutter out. 

“It was years ago, Chaeyoung,” Dahyun says calmly. “And I was two grades below her. I’m not surprised Nayeon doesn’t remember.”

“I do!” 

Nayeon feels compelled to defend herself. She may have been a bitch but she’s not so heartless to forget this girl who she spent a nearly a whole year in the theater with. This girl who had bared her heart to Nayeon, let herself be vulnerable, only to have it stomped on the ground publicly. 

“I do remember,” Nayeon says a little more quietly. 

Dahyun’s smile seems to deepen a bit and it lights up her whole face and Nayeon is left breathless. She has the thought, one she immediately feels guilty about, that if Dahyun had looked like this, well-dressed and beautiful, when they’d been in high school, she and Nayeon probably could have been proper friends. And she probably wouldn’t have turned her down. At least not so harshly. It’s a thought she does everything she can to banish. 

“We did theater together Nayeon’s senior year,” Dahyun explains. “I had only a minor roles but she was the lead, of course.”

Nayeon’s head is spinning. To hear Dahyun talk so casually about a time in her life that Nayeon had assumed would have been at least somewhat scarring for her makes her wonder if she’s inflated the whole situation. If what she assumed was a terrible memory for Dahyun was just a brief moment of unhappiness barely worth mentioning. But she remembers Dahyun’s tears, remembers the single broken sob she heard before she escaped the green room and she remembers the way Dahyun’s best friend had glared at her every time they crossed paths for the rest of the year. She remembers how she never saw Dahyun herself again as if the younger girl had been doing everything she could not to appear in front of her.

“You did well too,” Nayeon says. “And I heard you got the lead your senior year.”

Dahyun looks at Nayeon in clear surprise. Surprised, maybe, that Nayeon would have cared enough to find out. The truth is that she found out only by chance, a newsletter from the school with a picture of Dahyun on stage with bright purple hair and a bright grin on her face. At the time, Nayeon had taken it in with detached interest and hadn’t thought about it until just now. She’s surprised that she remembers at all, but she’s glad that she does, because maybe in this moment she can make herself look slightly less like the total bitch that Dahyun most likely assumes she is. 

“Oh yeah!” Dahyun replies. “I was really proud of that.”

Nayeon smiles at her because she has every right to be proud. It’s no small feat to go from Villager 3 her sophomore year to the lead by her senior year. Dahyun had always worried about her skill as an actor, but she’d always been a hard worker. It was heartwarming to see it pay off. 

“Well, it’s great that you know each other already,” Chaeyoung interjects, while gesturing at Dahyun to sit to Nayeon’s right. “Hopefully that will translate into great chemistry for you on screen.”

Nayeon doubts it. Dahyun may be acting polite right now and maybe she wants to leave high school in the past (which Nayeon is happy to do) but Nayeon thinks it will probably be very hard for Dahyun to pretend to be in love with someone who rejected her so harshly. And Nayeon knows that she herself is going to struggle to forget. 

Chaeyoung checks to make sure that the whole cast has arrived. It’s a small group, the movie centering so solidly around the two leads that very few other characters have speaking lines. To Dahyun’s left is Myoui Mina, a Japanese actress that Nayeon knows has had a lot of success in Japan, but this is her first step in trying to break into the Korean market. She will play Dahyun’s best friend. Next to her is Hwang Hyunjin, who Nayeon has never heard of but she can appreciate that he’s very pretty. He’ll be playing someone interested in Dahyun. Not quite an antagonist, but certainly a foil to Nayeon’s character. Next to him is Lee Minho. He will play Nayeon’s boyfriend at the beginning of the movie and only gets a couple lines before getting broken up with, though he makes a reappearance later in the movie. Nayeon knows she’ll have to get somewhat familiar with him and gives him a friendly wave when they catch each other’s eyes.  

“Alright!” Chaeyoung says, “Let’s get this started.”

Everything goes smoothly at the start. There’s very little pressure to actually act during table reads, everyone more focused on just getting to know each other and getting to know the story. Still, most actors will put a little emotion into it just to try to get a better feel of the characters, and acting is second nature. 

The movie opens with Nayeon breaking up with Minho’s character and he sounds close to tears as he begs her not to. It’s then followed by a scene between Mina and Dahyun that serves just to introduce their characters as they walk from class to class on their university campus. Hyunjin joins them soon after, talking to both of them, but more noticeably turning his attention to Dahyun. Dahyun’s character seems to be happy and carefree in a way that reminds Nayeon of Dahyun herself. Nayeon surreptitiously watches her as she acts out the scenes. She’s good, Nayeon has to admit, her tone natural and smooth and her face expressive. 

The scene changes again to Nayeon, this time alone. She barely has any lines but the scene is laid out by the set designer who reads the stage directions in an impassive tone. Nayeon imagines her character through this lens. Alone, lost, unsure of herself, directionless. The stage directions describe her wandering through the streets of Seoul without a particular destination in mind, just a need to stay moving. Nayeon can understand the feeling more than she’d like to admit. It makes her a little melancholy as she falls into her character’s mindset a little bit. 

And then she and Dahyun’s character meet meet. Nayeon’s character, Kim Hana, is drenched by the rain and stumbles into a coffee shop in the evening, nearly colliding with the server there, Park Eunji. 

“I’m so sorry,” Nayeon reads from the script. 

“Hana looks up and meets eyes with Eunji,” the set manager reads. “Focus on Eunji’s eyes. Music slows then swells. Eunji smiles.”

Nayeon looks at Dahyun as the manager reads the directions and catches her eyes and for a second, she’s trapped. It’s just like it should happen in the script. Dahyun’s eyes are dark and wide and as Nayeon watches, her lips spread into a gentle smile. It’s not happening in slow motion, Nayeon knows that, but she feels like the world has slowed around her a little. 

“It’s alright,” Dahyun reads from her script. “Are you okay? You’re looking a little… wet.”

Nayeon doesn’t say anything for a second. Distracted by Dahyun’s face, the line of her nose, the way her pink lips are curling at the edges and her eyelashes brush against her smooth, pale cheeks when she blinks. It’s only when Dahyun tilts her head to the side curiously that Nayeon remembers what she’s supposed to be doing. 

“Oh, I’m- I’m fine.” she reads from the script, surprising herself with how breathless she sounds. “Just got caught in the rain.” 

Dahyun - no, Eunji - laughs. Nayeon is captivated. 

“I can see that. Can I lend you a sweatshirt? I have a clean one in the back office.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to -“

“It’s fine,” Dahyun replies, smile never leaving her face. “Let me help.”

“Eunji puts down the tray she’s carrying and goes to the back office. While she’s gone Hana looks around casually, shivering. She doesn’t move from where she’s standing. Eunji returns after a minute or so," the set designer reads. 

“Here you go!” Dahyun says, holding her hand out as if actually handing Nayeon a sweatshirt.

“Oh, I- Thank you,” Nayeon says. 

“Hana peels off her soaking wet jacket and holds it, unsure of what do with it for a second before Eunji takes it from her and hangs it on a coat rack in the corner. In the meantime, Hana quickly puts on the sweatshirt.”

“Thank you so much,” Nayeon says. 

“It’s no problem,” Dahyun replies. “I’m Park Eunji by the way.”

“Kim Hana,” Nayeon replies. “Nice to meet you.”

For a second there’s silence and Nayeon just looks at Dahyun. Her eye are sparkling brightly. Nayeon can’t look away. 

“Alright!” Director Son says, clapping her hands together loudly and making Nayeon nearly jump out of her skin. “That seems like a great start. Let’s take a quick break and then if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the scenes we went over we can talk about them.”

Nayeon is shaken. She looks around feeling as if she’s just woken up from a dream. She sometimes feels this way after acting out an intense scene where she really has fallen into her character. But it’s never happened during a table read before. She wonders if it’s because she feels a sort of kinship with her character or if it’s because of something else entirely. 

Nayeon glances quickly at Dahyun and finds her bent over the script. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulder, half obscuring her face and Nayeon has the urge to brush it out of the way so that she can see her a little better. The urge catches her by surprise and she’s suddenly overwhelmed and stands up quickly muttering ‘bathroom’ to Chaeyoung and rushes off. 

When she catches sight of herself in the mirror, she is flushed. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and splashes some water on her face. Then she calls Jihyo. 

“Why are you calling? Aren’t you at the table read?” Jihyo asks, before even saying hello. Nayeon is used to Jihyo’s straightforward nature. Needs it right now. 

“Yes,” she replies. “We’re on a break.” 

“Are you okay?” Jihyo asks. 

“I... There’s a lot happening right now. I’ll tell you about it later. For now, I just needed to hear a familiar voice.”

“Nayeon,” Jihyo says, and Nayeon can hear worry rolling through her tone. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Nayeon says quickly. “No, I just… there’s intense feelings in this movie. I just got carried away.”

She hears Jihyo hum sympathetically on the other end of the phone. This won’t be the first time she’s had to talk Nayeon out of an acting induced hole. 

“This will probably be good for you then,” Jihyo says, soothingly, always trying to make things positive for Nayeon. “If this movie is that intense and different from your other ones it will give you good chance to prove yourself. Just do your best not to get too lost in it today. It’s just a table read, remember?”

Nayeon takes a deep breath and nods. Jihyo is right. She’s always right. This is a good opportunity. It’s a good thing Nayeon is feeling so much. It means she connects well with her character and it’ll make her job easier in the long run. Just don’t get lost. 

“Thanks, Hyo,” she says. 

“Anytime. You probably need to get back now. Good luck!”

Nayeon rejoins the cast at the table, taking a long drink of water to clear her throat. Lee Minho comes up to her and introduces himself properly. He cracks a joke and it makes Nayeon laugh. They chat casually about their scenes a little bit. He will crop up again later in the movie as one of the main antagonists and Minho says that he almost wishes his role would end after getting broken up with so that he could be remembered as just some poor sod who got his heart broken instead of the asshole he’s going to turn into. 

“But then I wouldn’t get paid as much,” he amends and Nayeon laughs again. 

He’s nice and she does need to get comfortable with him at some point, but she finds her eyes keep getting dragged to Dahyun. She’s talking to Mina quietly about the scene that they have coming up and despite Minho telling her about what he’s thinking for his character, Nayeon finds that she can’t listen.  

“What’s the point of a table read anyway?” Nayeon mutters under her breath. 

She’s exhausted. She’d gone straight from her last class to the theater where now she and the rest of the ragtag cast of the fall musical were huddled together on the stage with their scripts in front of them and a variety of snacks and far too sugary sodas spread out between them. She’s been sitting there for the last hour and half and they’re only about half way through the script. The five minute breaks they’d gotten between acts had not been enough to stop her butt and lower back from aching and Nayeon has been trying to avoid eating processed sugar which unfortunately encompasses all of the provided sustenance so she’s also hungry.

“It’s so that we can all get familiar with the script,” a voice to her left says cheerfully. 

Nayeon hadn’t expected an answer to her muttered complaint but she turns to the voice anyway. It’s accompanied by a girl with a round, young face, bright eyes and a big smile. The underside of her hair is haphazardly dyed a now-fading pink and she’s wearing a patterned scarf over her graphic t-shirt even though it’s still hot as hell outside. She looks so aggressively geeky and awkward that Nayeon is embarrassed for her. 

“That way later when we actually act we know what kind of emotions we’re going to try to convey and to make sure everyone is on the same page about their characters and how they interact. For instance, you’re playing the princess. She breaks the prince’s heart in the first act, right? You might interpret that as an act of kindness since she knows that she’s not right for him but Mr. Park or Jackson might think that you should play it as her breaking it off with him because she thinks she’s better than him. That difference changes the way you act, and it changes the scene and how you interpret the rest of the play. So at the table read we try to hammer out differences like that.”

The girl seems to talk in one long breath and Nayeon feels a headache starting to prick behind her eyes.'T his is why I doesn’t talk to nerds,' she thinks with a sigh. 

“I’m Kim Dahyun, by the way,” the girl says, bowing slightly at the waist in greeting. “I only have a minor role in this play but I’m helping the stage crew as well with costuming and the music so we’ll be seeing each other around.”

“Im Nayeon,” Nayeon says back, and then turns away. 

She knows it’s rude but she doesn’t want to give this girl any excuse to keep talking to her. She joined this play because she likes to be the center of attention and receive praise and because she knew that if she got the lead (she would have dropped out if she’d gotten any other role, luckily Mr. Park could see talent when it was in front of him) she’d be acting across from Jackson. Despite being deeply involved in theater, Jackson was well-known for being the most popular guy at school and Nayeon knew that if she could get him to like her they’d make a hell of power couple. Did she say if? She meant when.  

It’s this thought and the fact that every time she and Jackson share a scene, he grins at her with a wide, easy smile, that keep Nayeon from quitting this whole thing entirely. She hadn’t really considered how much boring stuff would come with being in the play. She thought she’d just get to hang out on stage with Jackson every day after school. She should have known better. 

Their short break ends and they dive right back in. In between scenes, she catches sight of Dahyun scribbling notes in the margins of the script. Nayeon wonders what she could possibly be writing when she has only a grand total of four lines in the whole play but then she remembers that she doesn’t actually care.  Still, she finds herself watching Dahyun as she leans over her script, brow scrunched and tongue poking out from between her lips in concentration. It’s better than watching Mr. Park purse his lips any time anyone does anything he doesn’t like or watching BamBam stuff his face with doughnut holes. 

Nayeon hates feeling like she’s back in high school. She’s grown. She’s changed. She shouldn’t have to rehash those years now. And she shouldn’t be feeling so young as she sits in this room. She’s the damn lead of this movie. If she’s not exuding confidence, then who will? The answer to that question seems to be Dahyun, who, when the table read resumes, breezes though her next scene with Mina smoothly. She’s so confident in her delivery. It’s a stark contrast to the bumbling, awkward girl that Nayeon had known in high school.

When that scene ends, it’s her and Nayeon's turn again. This time, Nayeon focuses her attention on her script and avoids looking at Dahyun too much. They have five scenes in a row, a montage of Kim Hana and Park Eunji getting to know each other and by the time Chaeyoung calls for another break, Nayeon feels like she’s drowning again. 

“Nayeon,” Dahyun says softly, shaking Nayeon out of her reverie. “Are you alright?”

Her words shake Nayeon even further. Nothing is making sense to her right now. Dahyun should hate her. She should want nothing to do with Nayeon but here she is noticing that Nayeon is going through something, checking in on her as if they’re old friends. They were kind of friends at one point Nayeon supposes. She doesn’t understand how Dahyun can act like they still are. 

“I…” she starts, and then catches herself. 

She’d been about to tell Dahyun about how college seems to be hard for Kim Hana and that it was hard for Nayeon too and she’s relating to this character in ways she didn’t know she would. How the transition from high school to college had, for a while, left Nayeon with this deep emptiness and she’d felt so lost for a really long time. How she’d put that time behind her once it passed, because what’s the point of living in the worst moments of your past, but now she feels like she’s being forced to relive it. Had she not stopped herself she might have also said something about how every time she looks at Dahyun there’s another feeling as well, of familiarity even though they haven’t spoken in nearly eight years that makes her feel vulnerable in a way she can’t explain. 

“I’m fine,” is all she says. 

Dahyun looks at her like she knows that she’s lying but doesn’t press and just smiles instead and turns back to her script and Mina. Nayeon drinks until her water bottle is empty. 

The rest of the day goes the same. With Nayeon doing her best to stay grounded while getting swept up into her character and having to deal with that vulnerability combined with the weirdness that comes with Dahyun sitting next to her. When the day finally wraps up, Nayeon is exhausted. She gives Chaeyoung a hug and internally pats herself on the back when Chaeyoung compliments her. Then she politely bows to Mina, Dahyun, and Hyunjin. She texts Jihyo that she’s done so that she can pick her up and then makes sure that her hat is low and her mask is covering her face before heading out of the building.

Jihyo doesn't arrive quickly, though she had promised to be there in five minutes, so Nayeon finds herself just standing, scrolling through the missed messages on her phone when she sees a motorcycle roll up in front of her. For a second, she thinks it’s the paparazzi and she gets ready to go back inside because the last thing she needs is more pictures of herself on the internet in sweatpants but then the woman on the motorcycle takes her helmet off and Nayeon immediately recognizes her. She is definitely not the paparazzi. 

Minatozaki Sana. Also, Kim Dahyun’s best friend back in high school. She looks a little different now from the last time Nayeon saw her, but not as different as Dahyun. She’s also lost some baby fat around her cheeks, and her hair is now dyed a dark brown that suits her very well but she still seems to favor leather jackets like she did in high school. Nayeon can’t help but appreciate just how attractive she is. How attractive she’d always been. 

“Dahyunnie! What’s taking so long?” 

“Oh! Sana!” Dahyun says, a wide smile breaking out across her features. “Just one second, I’m helping Nayeon with the stage directions.”

Dahyun had offered to teach Nayeon what stage left meant (it apparently was not the left from the audience’s point of view and upstage was further from the audience which made no damn sense to Nayeon). 

“Hmm, well, don’t take too long. We’ll miss the movie,” Sana says and then takes a seat in the second row of the theater, propping her feet up on the seats in front of her. 

Nayeon knows Minatozaki Sana. Everyone knows Minatozaki Sana. Nayeon had tried to be friends with her when she first transferred from Japan. After all, it was in Nayeon’s nature to seek out rich and beautiful people, people who would elevate her own social status. But Sana, despite being both of those things, had no interest in being friends with Nayeon. She had no interest in being popular at all it seemed. Instead, she dyed the tips of her hair a deep purple and walked around all in black with an edgy leather jacket around her shoulders. Instead of spending her time with Nayeon, Jennie, and Joohyun, she seemed more interested in the crew of theater kids, in particular, one Kim Dahyun. 

Nayeon doesn’t like Sana. She doesn’t like how she completely disregarded Nayeon’s attempts at friendship. Doesn’t like how pretty she is, how she could have the whole school in the palm of her hand if she ever, for even a second, decided she wanted to. And she doesn’t like the way Sana looks at her now, eyes sharp and intelligent, as if she can see exactly who Nayeon is and isn’t very impressed. Nayeon does her best not to squirm under her gaze and focuses instead on the diagram of the stage that Dahyun is drawing for her on a piece of paper. She explains slowly and clearly pointing out the stage, the backstage, the lights, and different parts of the theater that Nayeon will need to know in her role. 

“Does all that make sense?” Dahyun asks Nayeon, eyes wide and imploring. 

Nayeon is starting to get used to the way Dahyun is so earnest. It had put her off at first, made her wonder what she could possibly be hiding. She still wonders that a little now. Why would Dahyun offer to stay late after noticing that Nayeon was struggling? After all, it would have been easier for her to ignore her and chuckle behind her hands like Yeri had. But Nayeon can’t find any ulterior motives and is starting to come to terms with the idea that maybe Dahyun is just that nice. It’s not something Nayeon is used to. 

“Yeah it does,” Nayeon says. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!” Dahyun’s expression softens into an excited smile. Nayeon, despite herself, feels the urge to smile back. “I’m glad I could help. Sana, give me a minute to grab my bag from the green room and we can go!”

“Sure, take your time, Dahyunnie,” Sana says and she watches Dahyun dash off with a soft expression. 

Nayeon goes over to her own bag and pulls out her script, reading through the stage directions to make sure that she understands where she’s supposed to go after Dahyun’s explanation. She tries to ignore Sana’s eyes on her but immediately finds it’s impossible. 

“Can I help you?” she says, turning to face Sana. 

Sana doesn’t react at all, her expression still mostly neutral except for a small downturn of her lips. 

“Dahyun’s really sweet, don't you think?” Sana says. 

It’s Nayeon’s turn to frown, this time in confusion. 

“Yeah, sure,” she replies. 

And it’s true. Dahyun has proven herself to be nothing short of sunshine to Nayeon and the rest of the cast, offering to help out where she could and always bright and positive. Sana stands up and all too gracefully climbs up on the stage to glare at Nayeon at a closer distance. 

“She can’t tell when she’s being manipulated,” Sana says. “She can’t tell when people are being petty or are making fun of her behind her back.”

Nayeon’s frown deepens. She knows that she’s being insulted right now, can feel the insinuation that she’s the kind of person that would do those things dripping from Sana’s tongue. Well, it's not like she's wrong but Nayeon hasn't done that to Dahyun yet. Has no plans to, either. 

“That’s why I have to protect her,” Sana continues. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Nayeon does. Dahyun may not be able to pick up on social subtleties but Nayeon is used to it, the people she surrounds herself with are experts at veiled words. Sana is threatening Nayeon. If she does anything to hurt Dahyun… well Nayeon wonders what Sana thinks she could possibly do to her. But there’s a dark edge to Sana’s expression that tells Nayeon that maybe she doesn’t want to find out. 

“Yeah, I get it,” Nayeon says, making sure to inject a little bit of sass into her voice so that Sana knows she’s not intimidated. “And you don’t need to worry. The only reason I’m hanging out with her is because of this stupid play.”

Sana’s frown deepens and the her eyes take on an even darker edge but before she can say anything Dahyun is waltzing back into the auditorium with her bag over her shoulder. And just like that Sana’s expression clears. The darkness is gone, replaced only by a fond smile. 

“Ready to go?” she asks, her tone bright and happy again. 

“Yup!”

Sana gets off her bike, tossing her hair over her shoulder and glances at Nayeon. She doesn’t seem surprised to see her and Nayeon figures that Dahyun probably mentioned that she was going to be here. If there’s anyone that Nayeon doesn’t want to see right now, feeling as vulnerable and torn apart as she does today, it might be Minatozaki Sana. Nayeon just looks back down at her phone and hopes to god that Sana is as uninterested in her as she’s always been. 

It seems she’s in luck because Sana doesn’t do anything. Just leans against her bike and crosses her arms, waiting for Dahyun to appear. But her presence frays at Nayeon’s nerves. Once again Nayeon feels like she’s in high school, re-living her some of her worst hits. Like the time Sana caught her telling one of the freshmen that liked to follow her around that her hair looked like it had been braided by chimpanzees. Or the time Nayeon had tripped a girl that was flirting with Jackson and Sana had been the one to help her up. Or all of the times that Nayeon caught Sana’s eye after rejecting Dahyun, and had seen the pure, unadulterated hatred in her expression. Nayeon was certain that there was no one in the world that had ever hated her the way Sana had hated her. Probably still does. 

It’s a relief when Dahyun comes breezing out of the building and all but runs into Sana’s arms. Nayeon takes the chance to glance up at her phone, just in time to see Sana pull Dahyun into a tight hug and plant a warm kiss on Dahyun’s cheek. 

They must be dating, Nayeon thinks. It was bound to happen eventually. If they are dating, Nayeon wonders how Sana must feel to know that Dahyun is going to have to kiss her for this movie. A girl who Dahyun previously liked. A girl who Sana must hate. Her question is partially answered when Sana does look up from over Dahyun’s shoulder and catches Nayeon’s eye. Her expression turns sharp, just the way Nayeon always remembered it and her lip curls just slightly in something that could be disgust or anger. 

In the past, Nayeon might have stared back, done her best to match Sana’s expression with her own of disdain. But she’s not the same person she was. She doesn’t have the pride that she did back then, nor the callousness. She knows she deserves this hatred. She thinks maybe Sana knew her better than she knew herself in high school, saw through all the dazzles that Nayeon always surrounded herself by and actually saw into Nayeon’s soul and knew that it was ugly and twisted. Nayeon likes to think she’s not like that anymore, but she turns her face away in shame regardless. She doesn’t look back up until she hears the roar of the motorcycle pulling away. 

“Hey,” Jihyo asks, gently as Nayeon climbs into her car. “Are you alright?”

Nayeon doesn’t have an answer to that question. She doesn’t say anything and Jihyo doesn’t push.

Shooting goes well at first. They start with the early scenes where it’s just Nayeon and Minho. She likes Minho. He’s the good kind of loud, similar to her in some ways and he’s nice. A good acting partner too, taking everything Nayeon gives him and giving right back. It’s a fun push and pull, and when they chat between scenes she finds he has a similar sense of humor. She takes him out to drinks with some of the crew after their scenes are wrapped up and she finds that he, like her, is a lightweight, but that’s okay too. They somehow manage to both get home in one piece and the next morning she sees a text from him telling her how glad he is that they don’t have to shoot anything that day. 

She has a couple of days break afterwards as Dahyun and Mina shoot their scenes and Nayeon takes the time to prepare for the next batch of scenes she has to shoot. They’re a little dark and introspective. She has to show Kim Hana as being deeply, deeply lost and lonely. This will be a challenge. Not an acting challenge but an emotional one. She makes plans with Jeongyeon for later in the day because she knows she’ll need a pick me up and then she slowly lets herself think back to her own college days. 

There’s no queen-bee in college. It’s just not a thing. Or at least the queens are different this time. Business and policy majors who run their sororities with iron fists and whose connections and networks draw people to them, not in hopes of popularity, but in the hopes of better job opportunities. Nayeon doesn’t fit in with them.  She doesn’t know where she fits in, if she’s being honest. She tries to make friends with the other economics students but she finds out quickly that they don’t like her at all. They’re all driven, focused, ambitious. Nayeon is doing this because it’s what her parents said was the best option for her make money as an adult. Join their company and work for them as CFO eventually. She hates economics. 

Jennie and Joohyun went to different colleges. They haven’t texted her in weeks and she has too much pride to reach out first. Has a feeling that they would know that she’s struggling and she knows that they would judge her for it. She hates that she expects more from them. 

It’s during her first few months that she realizes that her previous tactics of making friends, flaunting her wealth and batting her eyes, won’t work. When she asks a boy from one of her classes to go out with her, just wanting to pass the time with someone, and he turns her down, she’s so taken aback that she can’t stop the “why?” from escaping her lips. 

“You’re kind of rude,” he says, no bite to the words, just honesty and Nayeon wishes he’d called her a bitch instead. 

It’s after this far too honest assessment of her personality and the realization one Friday night that she has no one to hang out with, that Nayeon slowly starts to realize that maybe she needs to change a bit. This leads her to the worst semester of her life. The second half of freshman year nearly kills her. She’s completely alone for the first time in her life and hating herself, coming to terms with the fact that maybe everything she knew about the way the world works might be wrong. She spends more time studying than she usually would, just to have something to focus on, but it makes her realize even more that she hates her major and her classes. When it’s time for her to register for classes for the next year, she signs up with a heavy heart but when she notices that she has one free slot where she can choose an elective, she remembers spending her time in the theater during high school and how she had been so effortlessly good at it and how the attention had made her feel and signs up for an acting class. 

This is where she meets Yoo Jeongyeon. 

“Im Nayeon,” Jeongyeon’s loud voice, pulls Nayeon out of her memories. 

She’d been running through the scenes for the last couple hours and the emptiness that she’d been trying to convey seems to have sunk all the way into her bones. Jeongyeon’s voice on the other hand, fills her with a warm feeling of annoyance. 

“Why the hell are you yelling?” she asks, throwing her front door open to show her best friend standing on her doorstep with a shit-eating grin. “Are you trying to get me another noise complaint?”

“The last time was your fault and you know it,” Jeongyeon says, brushing past her carelessly and plopping herself down on Nayeon’s couch. 

“Tch, whatever,” Nayeon says, far too tired to aruge, and sits down next to Jeongyeon, curling herself into her best friend’s side immediately. 

“What’s up with you?” Jeongyeon asks, immediately picking up on Nayeon’s mood. 

“Practicing for my scenes tomorrow,” Nayeon mutters. “Some stuff hitting too close to home.”

“Hmmm, can I see the script?”

Jeongyeon reads the scenes that Nayeon points out to her quietly, brow furrowing as she does. As she reads, she slings her arm a little more securely around Nayeon’s shoulders and tightens her grip. 

“How can I help?” Jeongyeon asks quietly, running her hand soothingly along Nayeon’s arm. 

“I need… There’s other stuff too, other than this scene. I… Can I vent?”

“Ha!” Jeongyeon says. “When have you ever asked before?”

Nayeon rolls her eyes but appreciates that she’s doing the best to lighten the mood. 

“I… this is stuff I haven’t told you before,” she says. 

Jeongyeon nods. 

“Okay, so tell me.”

Nayeon starts to talk slowly, cautiously because she feels like this is going to make her feel worse before she feels better. 

“My co-star is a girl I knew in high school,” she says. 

“Oh, were you close?”

“No, I mean, we were kind of… I… I wasn’t very nice in high school. I don’t like who I was back then. Dahyun… she was someone who was very nice to me with no strings attached and I… I wasn’t very nice to her in the end.”

“Oh, so was it awkward on set today?”

“No… that’s the thing. She was polite. If I didn’t know any better I would think she didn’t remember. But there’s no way she doesn’t.”

“Well maybe you’re remembering it worse than it actually was, maybe it wasn’t that bad for.”

Nayeon closes her eyes for a second. She thinks back again to the green room that day. To the second before she turned away from Dahyun to never see her again. She remembers the broken expression, tears welling in her eyes. 

“There’s no way it wasn’t bad for her. I… I turned her down in front of like thirty people. My friends laughed at her and I didn’t stop them. I just… I didn’t care back then about other people’s feelings. I thought that only mine mattered, and my friends.”

“Yeah,” Jeongyeon says. “I remember how you were when we first met.”

“I was worse in high school believe it or not,” Nayeon admits with difficulty. 

Jeongyeon doesn’t say anything but she squeezes Nayeon’s arm. They’re silent for a really long time. Jeongyeon knows Nayeon better than anyone. Probably has already fully understood why this characters college experience is making her spiral.

“Damn, I feel like we’re back in college,” Jeongyeon says eventually. 

“What are you looking at, coconut head?” Nayeon says. 

She immediately regrets it. Her quest to be nicer to people has been harder than she thought it would be. Especially in moments like these. It’s instinct to lash out when she’s uncomfortable, and waiting for class to start in this room with a bunch of theater nerds who probably will hate her is definitely uncomfortable.

“Coconut head?” the girl in question asks, with an affronted tone. “What the fuck? Are you five?” 

“It’s not my fault you can’t afford a hairdresser,” Nayeon snarks back. 

She hates that this is her response. She knows that she started this, that this girl is only responding to her tone and her words, but Nayeon has never been one to back down, and in this case it means she has no idea how to deescalate. 

“Well, I was just thinking that you’re really pretty,” the girl says, “but if you’re this much of a bitch then I suppose it hardly matters.”

Without meaning to and in a single sentence, this girl has summed up all of Nayeon’s insecurities: that beneath her looks and money there is nothing desirable about her at all. It hits Nayeon so hard that she’s left speechless and all of her fight leaves her. She feels tears welling in her eyes, and, oh boy, that is embarrassing. To start a fight and then end up crying? Nayeon will never live this down. 

“What the f-? Are you crying?” the other girl says. 

“No!” Nayeon replies, doing her absolute best to hold her tears in. “Of course not.”

The girl stares at her silently for a minute and then bursts out laughing. Nayeon is not used to being laughed at and ends up glaring at the girl who’s cheeks are turning red as she struggles to breathe through her giggles. On the bright side, it makes Nayeon stop crying. 

“Dude, what the fuck? You call me coconut head, which is the least creative insult I’ve ever heard by the way, and end up just crying? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Nayeon mumbles but her cheeks are flaming red because this girl is still laughing at her and Nayeon truly has nothing to defend herself with. 

The other girl only settles down when the teacher walks in and starts talking. Nayeon spends the whole class wanting to bury herself in her chair. Why is this so hard? Is she really so fundamentally broken that she can’t be nice to anyone ever? Will her instincts always be to lash out at anyone who so much as looks at her?  As the class goes through introductions, Nayeon feels tears starting to well in her eyes again and has to do everything in her power to push them down. She pulls out her phone surreptitiously under her desk and opens an incognito browser because she knows if anyone ever finds out what she’s about to google, she’ll die of embarrassment. 

‘How to be nice’

Most of the answers google provides are completely useless. They are more suggestions on how to ‘appear’ nice and Nayeon knows how to do that. She can act, can get people on her side when she needs it. But she eventually stumbles upon an article that seems to be what she’s looking for. Stuff like ‘don’t assume you know how someone else is feeling’ and ‘make an effort to listen more’ sound useful so she tucks them away for later analysis. But at the bottom of the article she reads something that catches her eye. 

“Apologize when you’ve done something wrong. It’s impossible to be perfect all the time. Everyone makes mistakes. But the important thing is owning up to them and apologizing when you realize that you’ve done something wrong or hurt someone’s feelings. While apologizing cannot right all wrongs, it can be a first step in repairing a damaged relationship.”

Nayeon glances at the girl next to her, who is focused on what the professor is saying. She seems nice, offering the girl next to her an eraser when she can’t find her own, and she definitely didn’t deserve what Nayeon said to her. Nayeon’s going to have to see her twice a week for the rest of the semester because of this class. This class was supposed to be the one breath of fresh air Nayeon got among all the talk about money and stock markets. 

She listens to the teacher with only half her brain for the rest of class, the other half entirely focused on formulating an apology that she may or may not have the guts to say out loud. She’s not used to apologizing, isn’t sure she’s ever done it before but she wants to be better, desperately.  When class ends she trails behind the other girl as they head outside the class. She follows her all the way out of the building before she’s able to build up enough courage to call out to her. 

“Hey,” she says, moving so that she’s in the girl’s periphery just in case she didn’t hear her. “Hi.”

The girl raises her eyebrows at her. 

“What?” she asks, rather unkindly, and Nayeon has to bite back the urge to snap back.

“I just wanted to… apologize,” Nayeon says, and she says it through gritted teeth because holy shit this is embarrassing.

Why is apologizing so hard? There are people that do this all the time? What the hell?  The girl just stares at her as if waiting for her to continue and Nayeon realizes that she should probably say more than that. She wants to hit something instead, but takes a deep breath and does her best to continue. 

“I shouldn’t have said that and I didn’t mean to snap at you.” 

The girl just raises her eyebrows as if she’s expecting more but Nayeon is truly unsure of what else she should say. She flounders for a bit, getting more and more annoyed. 

“I’m sorry, alright?” she finally says, knowing that her tone right now does not sound particularly apologetic. “I just wanted to say it.”

The girl stares for a half second longer before bursting out laughing again. 

“That was a terrible apology,” she says. “Like really, really awful.”

“Okay, fuck you,” Nayeon spits back. “I’m trying, okay?”

The girl does her best to pull herself together though it’s all too obvious that she’s still laughing a little. 

“Okay, okay,” the girls says. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was a terrible apology but I appreciate the attempt. Apology accepted.”

“Thank you,” Nayeon says. 

Silence falls between them and Nayeon feels so awkward she hopes the floor will open up and swallow her whole. 

“I’m Yoo Jeongyeon,” the other girl says, finally breaking the silence. 

“Im Nayeon.”

“So,” Jeongyeon says, a grin spreading across her face. “Are you always a bitch to people you’ve just met? Or am I just special?”

Nayeon would love to say that after that meeting with Jeongyeon and her first attempted apology, she finally figured out how to be nice. The truth of the matter is that she owes Jeongyeon a hell of a lot more than she would like to admit for sticking around with her even when she was being a bitch. She credits Jeongyeon with helping her get better and in some ways teaching her how to be more caring, more thoughtful, how to express herself in ways that wouldn’t leave the other person pissed or in tears.

By their senior year, Nayeon had developed enough social skills to make a steady contingent of good friends but among all the people she got close to, Jeongyeon always remained her first, most steadfast, and best friend. It’s reassuring to think that Jeongyeon stuck with her through all her bullshit early on. It means that there’s likely not much Nayeon can do now to ruin their relationship. 

“You know,” Jeongyeon says. “The past… I won’t say it doesn’t matter because it shapes us and it affects people that still are around in the present. But the past is in the past. All you can do is improve and continue to be better and you’ve done that. You haven’t called me coconut head in years.”

“That’s only cause you grew out your hair,” Nayeon mumbles, but she’s joking and Jeongyeon laughs accordingly. 

“You put in the work to get where you are, and you put in the work to become a kinder and better person, that's all you can do,” Jeongyeon says. "So just make up for the past by being the best version of yourself now.”

The scenes that Nayeon shoots the next few days are harrowing because they involve her delving deep back into her college mindset which made her feel terrible at the time and it makes her feel terrible now. But she powers through, making sure she has Jeongyeon or Jihyo on call after shooting to pull her back when she gets too far into her head. Chaeyoung sings her praises at the end of each day so Nayeon supposes that rehashing some of the worst years of her life may be worth it for that. 

“See your expression in this scene?” Chaeyoung says as they monitor her performance. “It’s so poignant. The subtle emotions you are expressing are beautiful. Keep this up throughout the rest of the movie and we’ll be golden.”

It’s the praise that Nayeon needs so earnestly in this moment and she goes home with a smile on her face that Jeongyeon immediately makes fun of her for. 

When Nayeon walks onto the set on Tuesday evening, just as the sun is starting to set, she’s already anticipating being miserable. It’s her first scene with Dahyun, and it involves her getting absolutely drenched by ‘rain’. This means that Nayeon is going to spend most of the evening shoot cold and damp and she’s still going to have to put on the performance of a lifetime. This scene, a meet-cute of sorts, has to set the tone of Hana and Eunji’s relationship for the rest of the movie.

Oh, and it’s going to be her first time acting across Dahyun, who she hasn’t seen since the table read. It frays her nerves. Reliving college the last few days had already been emotionally exhausting. If she has to relive high school as well, she might actually go insane. But Dahyun won’t arrive on set until later. First, Nayeon has to shoot herself getting soaked by the rain. She walks the same half a block over and over again as the fake rain showers down on her from the rain rig. First she walks too fast. Then too slow. Then she looks too comfortable in the rain. And then she looks too miserable. 

“I want you to put yourself in the mindset that you were in a few days ago,” Director Son says. “You’re obviously not happy about being caught in the rain, but you also have had this feeling recently that you don’t really care about anything. You don’t care about your hair or your clothes, you don’t really care that you’re wet. Does that make sense?”

Nayeon takes a deep breath and wills herself to inhabit that role. It does make sense. She’s been there before. Not so much with rain, but with other things. Not bothering about what she ate, skipping meals and eating whatever was on hand when she finally got so hungry it couldn’t be ignored. Not bothering with showering as often because the effort seemed monumental some days. Not sleeping even as exhaustion ate at her because she was going to feel like shit either way. She’s gotten past those feelings in her adult life (with lots of yelling from Jeongyeon) but it’s almost too easy to fall back into them now for this role. 

She walks through the rain again, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, but not walking particularly quickly. As if trying to shield herself from her problems, while making no concerted moves to fix them. 

“Cut!” Director Son says after Nayeon has walked into the coffee shop. “That was perfect. Go ahead and dry up a little, get your make up fixed. We’ll pick up again inside the cafe in thirty.” 

Nayeon doesn’t get to fully dry up. She shrugs off the sopping wet raincoat, knowing full well that she’s going to have to put it on again soon enough but doesn’t bother taking off the rest of her wet clothes, instead crouching in front of the space heater that the crew had brought specifically to keep her warm in these moments between scenes. The make-up artist comes over and gently dries off Nayeon’s face and touches up the make-up a bit so that she still looks like a mess, but a very purposefully designed mess. 

They make idle chit-chat as she fixes the blotches of mascara around Nayeon’s eyes, making them blotchier. Nayeon is just about to explain why she can’t have a dog as much as she really, really wants one when her attention is caught by Dahyun walking on to set. Nayeon’s voice catches in her throat. Dahyun has clearly already been through hair and make up and Nayeon blames that for why she feels like the other girl is being followed by a spotlight, bright and shining in the dimly lit cafe. 

She talks for a little bit with the set manager who points out whatever Dahyun will need to know for the scene. Dahyun listens attentively, nodding every once in a while. Nayeon doesn’t, can’t look away. This moment feels dangerous somehow. She can watch Dahyun without the other girl having noticed her yet. She can’t help but wonder how the other girl’s expression will change when she finally sees her. 

“Alright everyone!” Chaeyoung calls out and Nayeon stands. “Bring it in. We’re going to be setting up for the next scene. We’ll start with Nayeon entering the restaurant. Your camera is here. Try to maintain the same feeling you had earlier okay? Dahyun, you’ll be walking from left to right here. Don’t go too fast, you’re moving at a normal pace.”

Dahyun finally looks at Nayeon and her expression doesn’t go through any dramatic changes like Nayeon expected. Instead, she just gives Nayeon a polite smile. Nayeon smiles back shakily before turning away to exit the cafe and get ready for her grand entrance. A costume designer follows her with a spray bottle to get her face wet again as if from the rain until she’s nearly as soaked as she was thirty minutes before. 

“Alright, positions everyone!” Nayeon hears Chaeyoung say from inside the cafe. “Action!” 

Nayeon takes one deep breath, letting herself settle back into her character, feeling the cold of the water on her skin and how it’s running down her cheeks and then she pushes into the cafe. 

The nice thing about location shooting as opposed to a set is that it's easier to immerse herself. The warmth that floods over her skin when she enters the cafe is real and it helps stave off the shivers that are wracking her frame. She takes one step, two steps forward and then feels herself collide with something soft and warm. She stumbles, letting the momentum of the gentle collision carry her back. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” Nayeon says, remembering her lines in the script, and putting her hands up as if to steady herself. 

She looks up and her eyes meet Dahyun’s. It’s the closest they’ve been in eight years and Nayeon feels something in her throat catch. She’s reminded that Dahyun is grown now, and has grown well. The lighting in the cafe highlights her creamy white skin, how smooth it is, and makes her eyes glitter a little as she smiles. 

“It’s alright,” Dayhun says. “Are you okay? You’re looking a little… wet.”

“W-what?” Nayeon stutters out. “Oh, no. I- I’m fine. I just got caught in the rain.”

Dahyun laughs. Her smile is so nice. 

“I can see that,” the way Dahyun eyes her makes Nayeon feel small but not necessarily in a bad way. “Can I lend you a sweatshirt? There’s one in the back office.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want-“ 

Nayeon tries to convince herself that the stuttering and the tremble in her voice are on purpose, an acting choice rather than her reaction to Dahyun smiling at her. 

“It’s fine,” Dahyun says, soothingly. “Let me help you.”

Dahyun turns away to go grab the sweatshirt and with her eyes no longer on Nayeon, she feels like she can breathe again. She remembers her role here, to look pathetic and lost, and it’s not hard in her current flustered state. She looks around the cafe as if it’s her first time seeing it until Dahyun comes back, a sweatshirt in hand. Nayeon shrugs off her coat and slips the sweatshirt on. It’s warm and soft. 

“Thank you so much,” Nayeon whispers, pulling her sleeves over her hands and curling them across her chest to warm them. 

“No problem” Dahyun says. “I’m Park Eunji by the way.”

“Kim Hana,” Nayeon replies. “It’s nice to meet you.”

They linger for a second, just staring at each other, Dahyun with that sweet, sweet smile still spread across her face and Nayeon still trembling from the cold and from how destabilized she’s feeling right now. 

“Cut!” 

Director Son’s voice pulls Nayeon and Dahyun both out of the scene. Nayeon watches the way Dahyun blinks a few times, pulling herself back to reality. 

“That was damn near perfect,” Chaeyoung says. “Let’s run it again just a couple more times to make sure. But that was great. I mean, really, the chemistry between you two is fantastic. Those high school days must have been something.”

Nayeon feels herself pale as the guilt rips through her again. This is too, too much right now. 

“Hey,” Dahyun says, stepping forward to place a far too warm hand on Nayeon’s arm. “Nayeon, are you alright?”

“I…” 

Well, Nayeon is nothing if not an actress, and with that comes being a very good liar when she needs to. 

“Just a little cold from the water,” she says, smoothly. “Let’s just get this scene over with.”

“You can’t go on like this,” Jeongyeon says as she helps Nayeon into bed. 

Nayeon, after her long day with Dahyun, had immediately texted Jeongyeon to meet her at a bar and drank her weight in expensive wine. At first she had avoided her problems, talking about anything except work and Dahyun, but as the alcohol loosened her tongue, the words had come flowing out almost too easily. Eventually, Jeongyeon had cut her off and dragged her home. 

“If you feel that guilty,” Jeongyeon says as she caresses Nayeon’s hair, “the rest of this movie will be hell. You can’t work under those conditions. It’ll affect your performance and your mental health. You need to talk it out with her. Apologize, ask for forgiveness, and then hopefully you can both move forward.” 

Nayeon is still too drunk to really process what Jeongyeon is saying, but the words still instill themselves in her mind enough so that she dreams of them and when she wakes up with a terrible hangover, they are the first things on her mind. The thought of talking to Dahyun about her past makes her feel even more nauseous on top of the hangover itself and Nayeon barely manages to choke down a quarter of a bagel before making it to set. 

It’s another day with Dahyun at the cafe again. A series of scenes that involve Nayeon walking into the cafe in different outfits to signify the passage of time. The first scene is easy. This time, Nayeon is dry, just coming in to return the sweatshirt. Just a simple ‘here’s your hoodie thank you’ and then settling down to study in the corner. The heft of the scene is on Dahyun who needs to stare at Nayeon with growing interest as she works. Nayeon just gets to keep her head down and pretend to give a shit about calculus. 

They get an okay on that scene and both girls are sent to change into new outfits for the ‘next day’ as the lighting and design crew move around some of their their lighting to try to indicate that time is moving forward. The next few scenes are similar to the first one. Just simple conversations in which Park Eunji is the only one aware that she’s falling while Kim Hana is too involved in her own problems to notice. Normally, between scenes Nayeon would talk to her co-stars but since she has to change clothes to mark a new day and have her make-up re-touched, there isn’t as much time. It’s probably for the best. It’s only when they break for lunch that Nayeon has any time to talk to Dahyun. 

Of course, she’s not the one who starts the conversation. 

“You’re really an incredible actress,” Dahyun says casually, as they wait for their food to be delivered. 

The compliment feels out of left field and wholly undeserved to Nayeon who hasn’t really had to do anything hard today so it stuns her out of an immediate response. But Dahyun either doesn’t notice or just doesn’t mention the momentary pause. 

“Thank you,” Nayeon replies. “You as well.”

She flinches as she speaks, realizing how canned the response must sound, even though she means it wholeheartedly. 

“I mean, it surprised me,” Nayeon continues. “I didn’t know you could act this well.”

This also sounds awkward, and a bit backhanded and Nayeon wants to shake herself for not knowing how to just give a basic compliment. Dahyun though, as gracious as she is, just chuckles a little. 

“Thank you, Nayeon.”

Silence falls between them. It’s a little awkward, but Nayeon thinks that maybe she’s the only one that feels that way because Dahyun’s expression is calm. It’s the silence, more than anything else, that makes Nayeon feel fidgety and uncomfortable. She needs to say something, so she blurts out the only thing on her mind. 

“I’m sorry about-“ she cuts herself off as she realizes what she’s about to say and wants to smack herself for starting this apology without thinking about it first. But she’s caught Dahyun’s attention now and she knows she has to finish the thought. “I’m sorry for… the last time we saw each other. In high school.”

It’s the closest she can get to saying ‘I’m sorry I turned you down rudely in front of a million people and let my friends say mean things about you’. She knows it’s not really enough, but despite years of practice she’s still really not good at apologies. 

“It’s okay,” Dahyun replies. “You didn’t like me like that. I understand. I would never hold that against you. It’s not like you control your feelings.” 

“No, I mean, I’m sorry for how I handled it. It was… very rude of me. I regret it and I just wanted to say, I’m sorry.”

Dahyun’s whole face softens into the most gentle expression that Nayeon has ever seen. It makes her want to cry a little. 

“I forgive you,” Dahyun says. “I admit, it didn’t feel good at the time but I all but cornered you and I probably made you uncomfortable and-“

“What?” Nayeon says, confused that somehow Dahyun has decided that she was in the wrong. “No… I… You didn’t do anything wrong. I mean it. I just… I was a bitch in high school.”

Whether it’s the sudden curse word or the admission itself, Nayeon doesn’t know but it makes Dahyun burst out laughing. 

“It’s okay,” she says, placing a hand on Nayeon’s. “Really. It was years ago and neither of us is the person we were back then. So let’s start over. Im Nayeon, international movie star,” Nayeon rolls her eyes, “And Kim Dahyun, recent acting school graduate, very excited to be working on her first movie.”

“Alright everyone, that’s a wrap!” Director Son says. “I’ll see you all tomorrow!”

They finally finished up the last scene of the slowly falling in love montage they they’d been working on. The next day is Dahyun’s turn for some solo introspective scenes and Nayeon only has a costume fitting in the morning before the rest of her day is free. So when Chaeyoung invites everyone out for drinks after work, Nayeon doesn’t really have a good reason to say no. 

There’s something so transient about being an actress. Every few months the people she spends time with, the cast and crew of the movies she works on, changes almost entirely. Sure, there are repeats every once in a while and she’s always overjoyed to see them again and when she finds someone that she really connects with on set, she makes an effort to keep in touch, but for the most part, she’s always meeting new people and making new friends and she loves it. 

So going out with the cast for drinks is always something Nayeon enjoys but tonight her focus isn’t on them. When they arrive, the only open seat for Dahyun is right next to her and she ends up staying by Nayeon’s side the whole evening. Nayeon can’t help but be amused that, while Dahyun seems to have grown and matured in nearly every facet of herself since high school, she still is the same kind of drunk. 

The winter play had wrapped up smoothly. With a smaller cast and crew compared to the fall, it was decided that they would all go to a karaoke bar instead of partying at someone’s house. Courtesy of Jackson’s fake ID they were able to get a whole lot of alcohol to go along with it. 

On the side, nursing her third beer Nayeon was on the verge of a splitting headache because most of this cast was not made up of singers and the alcohol only made it worse. And in the middle of it all was Kim Dahyun. 

Nayeon wasn’t sure if the dance she was doing could legally be called popping since that would be an affront to actual dancers everywhere but it certainly was… something. Normally this kind of display would have Nayeon cringing so hard her shoulders would cramp but she’s just drunk enough and there’s something just genuine and ridiculous enough about Dahyun that Nayeon just ends up laughing along with everyone else.  Dahyun may not have gotten a role in the winter play, being relegated fully to backstage crew, but she certainly knows how to shine in the spotlight. And she definitely knows how to make people laugh. Nayeon included apparently. It’s nice. 

It occurs to Nayeon in that moment, though it’s a thought that she’ll banish for a long time, that she’s never laughed out loud like this before. It feels kind of nice to be so carefree in this moment. When she wakes up in the morning she’ll blame it on the alcohol, but now she just watches Dahyun make a fool of herself and instead of laughing at her, laughs with her. 

Drunk Dahyun hasn’t changed a bit. Day to day on set she seems so demure, so happy to just fade into the background any time she isn’t in the middle of a scene. But Nayeon suspects that she has at least a little bit of the same desire for attention that Nayeon thrives off of because when she’s drunk, she’ll do anything to keep people’s eyes on her. Including but not limited to: the dumbest jokes that Nayeon has ever heard, cheesy pick-up lines that make people laugh and cringe at the same time, and the downright silliest facial expressions. Nayeon thinks that if Dahyun were standing she’d be dancing too. 

As it is, she’s able to pull peals of laughter out of everyone and Nayeon finds that she can’t take her eyes off of her. She looks so in her element here, so happy and bright and joyous and Nayeon feels lucky to just be able to bask in it a little bit. 

As the night goes on, people start to trickle out. Most of them do in fact have to work tomorrow even if Nayeon’s day is relatively clear.

“Oh,” Dahyun says, standing suddenly when her phone rings. “My ride’s here.”

Everyone says bye to her with smiles on their faces. Dahyun has managed to absolutely win over the entire crew and it’s not really a surprise, but for some reason it makes Nayeon happy. Dahyun deserves to be liked, Nayeon thinks, even if she herself did a terrible job of it in the past. Her own eyes track Dahyun as she walks about of the bar. It seems that once again Dahyun’s ride is Minatozaki Sana. She greets her with a hug like last time and receives a kiss on the cheek before she climbs on the back of the motorcycle, wrapping her arms tightly around Sana’s waist and leaning her head against her back. 

Nayeon doesn’t look away till Sana’s bike is out of sight. 

The next round of scenes Nayeon shoots should be easy. Kim Hana is finally getting around to realizing her feelings for Eunji. This part, the part of being in love, Nayeon can play well. She’s done it in every movie she’s performed in so far. So why does Director Son hate everything she’s doing?

“Nayeon,” there’s starting to be an edge to Chaeyoung’s voice that Nayeon has not been on the receiving end of before. “I want you to try something different. Every attempt has been like the last. Kim Hana is not as one dimensional as the characters that you’re used to playing. It’s not as simple as falling in love. You’re conflicted still. Confused. You rely on Eunji for support. You’re not sure if your feelings are real or if she’s just making the days less boring. You just got out of a relationship a month ago. Try to put some depth into it, okay? Let’s take a break. We’ll get back to it in 5.”

Nayeon fights back the urge to snap at Chaeyoung. It wouldn’t do her any favors to rile up the director even further especially since the crew is starting to get antsy at their lack of progress. Nayeon instead nods with her jaw clenched. She turns back to Dahyun who gives her a sympathetic smile and a gentle pat on her arm. 

“It’s okay, Nayeon,” she says quietly so no one can hear. “You’ll get it soon. Just get into the mindset.”

It feels patronizing and Nayeon has to force herself to remember that Dahyun is too earnest to mean it as anything other than comforting. 

The issue is that Nayeon isn’t sure she’s ever felt this kind of love before. She’s felt the easy kind of young love that goes over well in romantic comedies. Love where she got the butterflies and the happy feelings. There had been Jackson for a little bit and then a girl in college who had made her giddy every time they hung out but they’d been easy and conflict free and Nayeon had been the one to end it with few regrets both times.  

She isn’t used to associating love with difficult emotions like this. Hasn’t needed to before. But she’s not going to go down without a fight. She may not have felt exactly this feeling before but she’s an actress and it all comes down to imagination. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, tries to picture a scenario where she might feel this way. She pictures comfort (Jeongyeon, Jihyo) and she pictures love (Jackson with his bright smile and tousled hair, Momo with her soft hugs and even softer kisses). Fundamentally, when she strips away the attraction, the feelings are similar, nearly impossible to distinguish. Both warm, gentle. Romantic love is just another form of love after all.

Nayeon opens her eyes and sees Dahyun in front of her, she catches Nayeon’s eye and gives her a soft smile. Nayeon thinks she’s trying to be comforting right now, encouraging. Could Nayeon mistake this feeling for love? It’s almost too easy to picture actually, mistaking a kind word, a gentle touch as something other than friendship. It’s easy to imagine sinking into the feeling of being cared for. And she can imagine wanting to come back to that feeling every day, wanting more and more, and wanting to give as well, to reciprocate as much as she can. And isn’t that love? 

It would be easy to get confused, Nayeon thinks. If she lets herself, Nayeon can imagine taking the warmth that she feels in her chest from Dahyun’s friendly smile and misinterpreting it as love. And once that misinterpretation has arisen, how difficult would it be to see the relationship through any other lens?

“Alright, let’s try it again,” Chaeyoung says after the lights have been re-set and Nayeon takes a deep breath before trying to fall into it. 

“You got this, Nayeon,” Dahyun says, her voice soft and her gaze steady, and Nayeon thinks that she might do something foolish right now. 

She needs this scene to work, needs to get rid of the edge to Director Son’s tone, needs to prove herself to all of the haters that think she can only act one way and to Dahyun, whose acting has been perfect this whole time. So she lets herself get immersed. When Dahyun reaches out to rest her hand on Nayeon’s forearm, she lets herself feel the warmth of Dahyun’s palm against her skin and she imagines tingles running from her finger tips (it’s not hard, she barely has to try) until they warm her heart itself. She lets herself stare at Dahyun, at the light blush forming across her cheeks and at the sharpness of her eyes. She lets herself fall a little bit for her cast-mate. 

“Places,” Chaeyoung says. 

Nayeon knows what love feels like and she lets herself feel it now, and it’s warm and comfortable and soft. But then she forces herself to remember that Dahyun is just a cast-mate, that her hand on her arm she placed on her arm for comfort is just because she wants to get this scene done and go home, forces herself to remember that if there’s anyone in the world she doesn’t deserve to fall in love with it’s Kim Dahyun. 

“Action!” Chaeyoung says. 

Nayeon is too deep into it. She knows she is. Can feel her pulse rushing unsteadily in her chest as the imagined love she’s feeling for Dahyun gets mixed with the fear and uncertainty she’s been feeling since she reappeared in her life. It’s a dangerous feeling, one she’s not sure she’s felt before properly but that she’s certainly feeling now. It makes her chest hurt. 

“Let me get you something warm to drink,” Eunji says, “You look exhausted.”

She stands up to move around the counter of the cafe to make something. Probably hot chocolate. It’s Hana’s favorite. But Hana grabs her wrist to stop her. Nayeon’s arm is cold where Dahyun’s hand had warmed it a second ago. 

Don’t go, Nayeon thinks, Stay by my side please.

“Hmm?” Eunji (Dahyun) says in surprise, looking down at where Hana’s hand is holding her with a light blush to her cheeks. 

I don’t understand why I feel this way, Nayeon thinks. I’m feeling too much. 

“Oh, sorry,” Hana says, letting go of Eunji’s wrist as if it was on fire. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Eunji tilts her head and then sits back down next to Hana, brushing a stray hair out of her face. The skin on her forehead burns where Eunji’s fingers touch. Hana looks up at her and her breath catches. 

I should not be feeling like this, Nayeon thinks. It’s just… she looks so beautiful right now. And she makes me feel… good, warm, happy. 

“It’s okay, Hana,” Eunji says softly. “It’s alright. I’ll stay with you. I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”

She’s so nice, Nayeon thinks, I just want to stay by her side. 

“I’m sorry, I’m such a mess,” Hana says, voice trembling and vulnerable, both unable to pull her eyes away from Eunji’s face and at the same time, completely unable to meet her eyes. “I swear I’m not normally like this.”

Eunji cups Hana’s face gently and her palm is so warm. She tilts Hana’s chin up just slightly and the angle is just so that for a minute it feels like they might kiss. The idea catches her mind like a storm and it’s suddenly the only thing she can imagine.

Kiss? What the fuck am I thinking? Why would I want to kiss her? Nayeon thinks. She ducks her head down in shame for even thinking that it might happen. 

She misses Eunji’s disappointed expression, the slight downturn of her lips and the furrow of her brow. Nayeon knows how this movie will end, knows that even though right now their characters are barely even friends, everything will fall into place. And yet… despite knowing that, something about the moment feels so uncertain. 

And with that thought, Nayeon knows she’s sunk. She knows that if Chaeyoung doesn’t call cut on this scene and say it’s perfect and a wrap, that she will go insane feeling Dahyun’s palm against her cheek like this. The questions she’s asking no longer feel like they’re about Eunji and Hana. They’re now about them. Dahyun and Nayeon. Or really just Nayeon because she knows for damn sure that she’s having this internal confusion all on her own. Dahyun is just doing her job.

“It’s okay,” Dahyun repeats, and she’s close enough that her breath brushes softly against Nayeon's cheeks. “I don’t mind. Whenever you’re like this, I’ll take care of you, so it’s okay.”

The words settle like hot stones in Nayeon’s mind, making herself feel dizzy and lost and she can feel real warmth in her cheeks as the blood rushes in. She can’t help but ignore the thought that Dahyun’s lips are right there, pink and soft looking, and that she could just tilt her head up and catch them if she just-

“And, cut!” 

Nayeon tries her best to pull herself back out of character, out of Kim Hana’s mind, but there’s real pressure on her chest that won’t let go. She’s struggling to breathe and she feels the need to run. Without even glancing at Dahyun again, Nayeon stands up to walk outside the cafe to get some space from the scene. One of the assistants comes up to her in concern and offers her some water. Nayeon takes a sip but doesn’t move, her eyes glued shut. A few second later Chaeyoung comes out of the cafe like a whirlwind. 

“Nayeon, that was perfect. That’s what we’ve wanted all along. I don’t know how you switched it up in one take like that, but well-done! I’m going to review the footage now, but we likely won’t have to do another shot unless you feel like you have to.”

It’s a relief, one that allows Nayeon to open her eyes just enough to look at Chaeyoung and nod. Director Son must see something in them because she frowns but doesn’t say anything about it instead stepping forward to pat Nayeon gently on the shoulder. 

“Well done,” she whispers and heads back inside to check the tapes. 

Acting is fun, Nayeon thinks happily about halfway through the winter play. It’s something she’s naturally good at and that she doesn’t really feel she needs to put much effort into. Something that just comes when she wants it to. It’s nice having something like that. But… The play this time is a little darker than the fall play was and there are moments that leave her feeling off.

“You lazy, ungrateful brat!” Seungwan shouts at her. “I work so damn hard every day and you just come here and eat my food. You good for nothing little-“ 

A slamming door cuts off Nayeon’s fake mother’s tirade and in strides BamBam, looking serious for the first time in his life. 

“Minji,” he says, tone cold. “The school called and said you skipped class again. Is this true?”

Nayeon (Minji? They’re starting to blur a little in her head) bows her head. She doesn’t really have an excuse except that school sucks and she’s failing either way so may as well go have fun somewhere else. 

“This in unacceptable,” BamBam’s voice is lower than Nayeon thought possible. It sounds dangerous. “If you think you can get away with doing whatever you want under our roof, then you are wrong. You have two options. Shape up, or get out.”

The scene ends and Mr. Park claps for them. 

“That scene looked good, we’ll move on to the next after a 5 minute break.”

BamBam and Seungwan immediately stride off to the chairs at the edges of the practice room and slump down to grab their phones. Nayeon can’t move. Her feet are rooted into the spot. There are shouts echoing in her head. 

“Seoyeon can do this math in her sleep and she’s three years younger than you, Nayeon! Why are you getting a B in calculus? If your grades aren’t up by the next exam, you can forget about your birthday!”

Nayeon feels it as if she’s experiencing it in real time, her mother in front of her, brows in a sharp V and mouth wide as she hurls insults at her daughter. 

“You are the oldest, Nayeon, you have responsibilities. You think you can just run off and play around with boys? You should be studying instead of acting like a whore!!”

Nayeon’s breath is caught in her throat and she feels numb all over. 

“Is it so hard for you to be responsible every once in a while instead of acting like a stupid-“

“Nayeon?” 

The soft voice and even softer hand on her arm pull Nayeon back into the present and the next thing she knows, she’s looking into Dahyun’s sharp eagle eyes. 

“Are you alright?”

Nayeon hates being caught in moments of vulnerability. Hates showing sides to her that are anything less than perfect. She’s defensive by nature, has been trained to be that way by a family that expects only perfection and friends that are cutthroat to the core. She yanks her arm back from Dahyun and glares at her. Dahyun barely flinches. 

“Did you get caught up in the scene?” Dahyun asks. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nayeon growls. 

Dahyun doesn’t react and that pisses Nayeon off even more. The fact that this girl doesn’t seem intimidated by her makes her feel threatened in a moment where she’s already vulnerable and she’s about to lash out in a way that she knows Dahyun won’t be able to ignore when- 

“It’s normal, you know?” Dahyun says calmly. “It happens to good actors when they get caught up in an intense scene that it’s hard to pull themselves out of it. You should try taking a few deep breaths. It wasn’t real and what you’re feeling isn’t real either. It’s just a mirage.”

It halts Nayeon. The realization that what she’s feeling right now is a manifestation of the play, a reflection of Minji’s character amplifying her own feelings, helps calm her a little bit. When Nayeon closes her eyes and takes three deep breaths she finds that Dahyun is right. She opens her eyes again, the feeling of panic has faded a little and she feels present in the moment again. Thanking Dahyun would be admitting that she’d been feeling out of it so Nayeon does her best to brush it off. 

“What are you talking about? I’m fine.”

Dahyun tilts her head and frowns a little. 

“Okay Nayeon, whatever you say.”

Nayeon doesn’t notice Dahyun walking out of the cafe to sit next to Nayeon until their shoulders brush. She yanks back in surprise and Dahyun immediately blushes. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Nayeon can’t speak, her breath is still caught in her throat and she’s still caught in her feelings. Feelings that are very unfortunately still very much tied up with this girl. Feelings that feel so, so very real in this moment even though she knows she’s just feeling the remnants of the scene. 

“Got caught up?” Dahyun says casually. 

The words spark a memory from high school, and it takes her back to the first time she ever felt like this, lost in emotions that were both hers and not hers at the same time. She remembers that back then Dahyun was the one who saved her as well. She still can’t speak but she nods carefully. 

“It’ll be okay. It’s just a mirage. It’ll pass soon.”

Nayeon looks at Dahyun and sees in her a reflection of the past. 

“You really haven’t changed at all,” she manages to croak out though her throat still feels a little like it’s closing. 

Dahyun cocks her head in question. 

“You said the same thing in high school,” Nayeon clarifies.

“I did? Hmmm, I don’t remember that,” she says pensively, and a small smile blossoms across her lips. 

Nayeon feels and feels and feels the aftershocks of her immersion. Maybe that’s why she’s disappointed that Dahyun doesn’t remember that moment when Nayeon does so clearly. Maybe that’s why her heart skips at beat at the gentle upturn of Dahyun’s mouth. Maybe that’s why she has an urge to both reach out to her and run. She doesn’t do either. 

“Deep breaths always help me feel better,” Dahyun says, as if it’s the secret to the universe. “And cold water. It’s like a shock to the system. Like a reset button.”

“I can’t let go too much,” Nayeon says. “If Chaeyoung wants me to do it again…”

“Okay,” Dahyun says, replying immediately and reaching out to hold Nayeon’s hand. “I get it. Then I’ll just stay with you until we’re done.” 

And, oh boy, that does not help at all. Nayeon doesn’t think she’s ever held Dahyun’s hand before and the new sensation is sending her wired brain into overdrive. Her hand is so soft and small compared to Nayeon’s, pale and gentle and smooth just like the girl it belongs to. And the sparks that Nayeon had forced herself to imagine earlier between them are there still, setting her whole body aflame. She feels like she’s going to pass out when Chaeyoung comes back with a grin. 

“The take was perfect. Nayeon, I don’t know what you did, but whatever you changed, just remember that. That’s the feeling we’re going for. Okay? That’s a wrap for the day. I’ll see you both bright and early tomorrow.” 

Nayeon nods and extricates her fingers from Dahyun’s grip. She takes three deep breaths, ones that originate from her toes and travel through her whole body, collecting the feelings she’s been holding onto until she can expel them out with each breath. It helps and she feels calmer bit by bit. 

“Better?” Dahyun asks, eyebrows raised. 

Nayeon nods. The panic is no longer flooding her system and breathing is easier. It’ll be a few hours before she feels all the way back into herself and she may need to have a couple of beers with Jihyo to fully reset but the pressure on her chest is already fading almost into nothing. 

“It’s really amazing how you can immerse yourself into scene like that,” Dahyun says. “I mean, the change before and after was insane. It was like you were a different person almost. I thought… This is so stupid,” she mumbles, “But I kind of thought when we got cast together that maybe I’d caught up to you in skill, but you’re still so far ahead of me.” 

Nayeon is shaking her head before Dahyun can even finish talking. 

“Hush,” she says. “You’re amazing. And you know what they say. An actor is only as good as their scene partner.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Dahyun laughs and she stands slowly, brushing off her pants as she does. “You’d be good even if I wasn’t there.”

Nayeon feels a flutter in her stomach at the compliment. She’s used to being told she’s good (because she is) but this feels different somehow. Feels better, and more poignant. She tucks the compliment away and stands up herself. 

“Thank you.”

Once Nayeon expects the feeling, it gets a little easier to manage. She didn’t know how hard or far she could fall into Hana’s character and had done nothing to slow her descent. Now she mentally prepares herself before scenes with Dahyun, immerses herself into Hana slowly so that she can pull back before she hits the point of no return. Scenes now require 3, 4, 5 takes but that’s normal so Nayeon doesn’t push herself harder.

Despite feeling like she has a better balance on herself and Hana’s character, she still finds herself reacting to Dahyun, as if Hana refuses to leave her enough for Nayeon to not see Dahyun as Eunji. Her heart skips a beat whenever she and Dahyun make eye contact, even before they’ve started acting. When they cross paths on the way to the make-up trailer and Dahyun gives her a smile and a, “Good morning,” Nayeon nearly trips over herself. 

It’s confusing. Very, very confusing because she hadn’t even started thinking about Hana yet, scenes the farthest from her mind as she was still only barely half awake. It was an early call that day, where she’d had to roll up to set at five in the morning while it was still dark out. She’d been grumpy, sipping her coffee like it was water, and hoping to catch a few minutes of shut-eye after getting her make-up done. But then she’d seen Dahyun and gotten a smile from her and she suddenly felt a lot more alert.  

It’s disconcerting but Nayeon can’t complain too much. It certainly makes her scenes easier. Since that day, Nayeon has never fallen under Chaeyoung’s annoyed gaze again. Instead, the director seemed to be getting happier and happier with her, insisting on buying her drinks every time the cast goes out and praising her whenever she has a chance. Nayeon is trying her best not to let it get to her head. 

They have a few days apart as each of them shoot some scenes separately. College is still hard for Hana. She still feels lost and desperate and confused and Minho’s character’s sudden reappearance in a bar with his friends, calling her worthless, heartless, a bitch has her spiraling. A phone call with her mother a few days later only makes it worse. 

A week later Nayeon is shooting across from Dahyun again, Hana is looking desperately for comfort. She crawls onto Eunji’s bed with a mug of hot chocolate in her hands as Eunji tries to find a movie to watch. They don’t say anything for a bit. Hana gets lost in her thoughts, staring into her mug. 

“Is everything okay?” Eunji asks. 

Nayeon glances up from the mug to look at Dahyun. Her expression is way too familiar. Caring in a non-obtrusive way. Gentle and cautious and curious.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, taking a sip from her mug.

It’s only half a lie. In the grand scheme of things Hana is not okay. The scenes Nayeon had shot yesterday alone would be more than enough to show that Hana is desperately not okay. But in this moment, she is. It’s calming to be around Eunji. And so Nayeon plays it that way. It’s not hard. Dahyun herself makes Nayeon feel calm. Calm and something else, because as they adjust so that their shoulders are touching as they lean back against the pillows to watch the movie, Nayeon feels a flutter of something in her chest. She ignores it. Just like Hana does. 

She keeps ignoring it when Dahyun leans in closer, ignores it even harder when their hands brush accidentally. 

The scene is short. Just a few exchanges of dialogue in front of a laptop as they watch a movie. Nayeon knows the point of the scene. It’s to show that Eunji has become Hana’s safe space, a place of comfort in a dark, harsh world. The lighting in the scene is a warm yellow, a stark contrast to the harsh grey that Nayeon has seen at the last few shoots. It feels like this room is almost detached from the world around it.  

It’s not a hard scene. The emotions are light and everything they do is casual. She doesn’t need to think about it too hard. And yet… and yet she finds herself thinking, falling. It’s getting harder every day for Nayeon to distinguish her own feelings from Hana’s when it comes to Dahyun. She can’t help but find it concerning that in other scenes, no matter how dark or personal they get, she can pull herself back with a few deep breaths, the feelings waning by the time she gets home, but when it comes to Dahyun, she feels herself falling into Hana’s feelings even while actively trying not to. 

And this scene doesn’t help, because as she leans her head onto Dahyun’s shoulder she can feel how warm she is, how her hair smells good and her hand, now gently holding hers, is so, so soft. Her heart is racing, against her will. And it’s concerning, but Nayeon can’t fight it for fear of ruining the scene. So she takes the opportunity, just a second of indulgence, to burrow in a little closer. 

“It’s really confusing. I almost feel like I’m becoming Hana. I’ve never felt that way with a character before. Not that intensely, at least,” Nayeon says, capping off her long explanation on how she’s been feeling recently, in particular around Dahyun. 

Jeongyeon and Jihyo share a look and Jihyo takes another shot of soju. 

“Have you considered,” she says, clearly choosing her words carefully. “That what your feeling is actually your own feelings?”

“Huh?”

“Let me rephrase. Have you considered that maybe… it’s not Hana’s feelings for Eunji that you are experiencing, but your own feelings for Dahyun.”

Nayeon blinks. Of course she’s considered it. There have been moments during shooting where she’s felt so, so deep into her character that she couldn’t tell where she stopped and Hana began. But at the same time, that’s normal. Or at least… it has been normal during this shoot. She has to admit that, while she has developed feelings of at least fondness for her co-stars in all the romance movies she’s done, she’s never found herself falling this deep. She chalks it up to just generally relating to Hana’s character a lot more than most of the other characters she’s played. After all, she and Dahyun barely know each other. They’ve only had a couple of conversations that didn’t revolve around work. It would be ridiculous for her to fall for Dahyun just like that even if Dahyun has been wonderfully kind and sweet and has proven herself to be a wonderfully talented actress. Right? Nayeon starts to feel uneasy. 

“Nayeon?” Jeongyeon says, pulling her back in from her thoughts. “Where’d you go?”

“Nayeon!” 

Nayeon turns to see a bright smile waving at her from across the room, gesturing her over to sit next to her. Momo is an angel Nayeon thinks, hasn’t ever said it out loud but thinks it nonetheless. Their overlap in the faculty of the arts has been minimal due to their different concentrations but the dance studios are right next to the small blackbox theater that the acting students use for their rehearsals so they started crossing paths more and more often and Momo’s face always lights up like sunshine when she sees Nayeon. She’s so expressive Nayeon never has to guess as to what the other girl is thinking and it’s a reassuring feeling. 

She makes a bee-line over to her and takes a seat on the bench next to her to lean over her shoulder and look at the phone she’s holding out for her. Nayeon knows what it is immediately. Momo had been selected to choreograph the finals performance for the Hip-Hop Dance class she’s taking this semester, a huge honor bestowed on her after she got the highest grade in the individual choreography examination a couple weeks before. This must be the finalized version.

“Will you let me know what you think?” Momo asks. 

“Of course,” Nayeon says, and watches carefully as she presses play. 

Momo is an incredible dancer. Anyone with eyes and half a brain would be able to tell. She’s both fluid and sharp, controlled but not stiff. And it’s incredibly attractive. Watching the video of her dancing, Nayeon can’t help but remember that she’s been slowly but surely developing… a crush sounds childish but certainly an attraction towards this girl. She watches carefully, drinking in every opportunity to just watch her in her element. The video ends and Momo looks at her with nervous eyes. 

“So, what do you think?”

“You’re so talented Momo,” Nayeon says. “Really, really, I just… I think it’s great. I can’t wait to see the full thing with the whole crew. It’s going to be so great.

Momo’s smile breaks like sunrise across her face and Nayeon itches to kiss her. She doesn’t because they’re in a hallway, but she thinks with absolutely certainty, ‘one day I’m going to kiss this girl.’ 

She’s right, it turns out even though she isn’t the one to initiate it. After going to Momo’s dance performance, hopped up on adrenaline and happiness at a well-completed performance, Momo pulls Nayeon in by the collar and kisses her until neither of them can breathe. Nayeon feels butterflies for three full days later. 

“I’ve fallen for people before,” she says. “I know what it feels like. I’ve always just… known. This feels different.”

“Falling for someone doesn’t always feel the same,” Jeongyeon says gently. “Sometimes it’s hard and fast and sometimes it’s gradual, sneaks up on you. People are different and circumstances are different.”

“What do you feel when you’re with her?” Jihyo asks. 

Nayeon shrugs. She’s starting to not like where this conversation is going because Jeongyeon is looking at her like she knows something that Nayeon doesn’t and Jihyo’s questions are leading as if she’s trying to guide Nayeon to a conclusion that she’s already reached herself. 

“Come on, Nabongs,” Jeongyeon pushes. “You can’t push this off. If this becomes a problem down the line it could mess with the shoot. I know you’ve had good luck on your sets before, but I’ve been on sets where things went downhill and let me just tell you it sucks. Like really, really sucks. You need to figure this out.”

Nayeon frowns. She remembers last year where Jeongyeon had come over to her apartment twice a week to rage about her co-stars who had gotten romantically involved far too quickly and then one had cheated leading to a very, very awkward last two months where they were still contract bound to spend time together and pretend to be in love on screen. Jeongyeon had been the second female lead and her days that should have only been seven, eight hours long and stretched into eleven, twelve hours because they couldn’t get it together long enough to act out a single scene together. She has absolutely no plans on falling into a similar situation with Dahyun but Jeongyeon still has a point.

“I just… I don’t know. I feel happy when I see her and she makes me smile and I think she’s so, so beautiful and her laugh gives me butterflies. But I didn’t start feeling that way until we started acting together so I feel like it’s just residuals from acting. That’s how Hana is supposed to feel about her.”

“To be clear, have you been feeling like that since the day you met her again or since you started acting together?” Jihyo asks, clearly another leading question. 

“Well, the day we met was the table read.”

“So you didn’t feel any of those feelings at the table read?”

“Well, I did but-“ Nayeon says, and then hears what she’s admitting to and cuts off quickly.

“But what?” Jeongyeon presses. 

“I was still acting. I mean… Hana was supposed to fall for her.”

“Nayeon,” Jihyo says gently. “I remember you called me that day. You sounded really shaken up. I’ve never heard you like that from just a table read before. Are you really sure that it was acting?”

Nayeon knows what she wants the answer to be. She wants to confidently be able to say, yes, it’s just acting, that she wouldn’t fall for someone just like that. Though they’d technically known each other in high school, the eight year gap means that it would be almost like love at first sight. But as much as she wants to just brush if off, she knows she can’t because right now, just imagining Dahyun, picturing her - dark hair falling in gentle waves, that soft smile of hers, the smooth skin - gets Nayeon’s heart racing. She feels this desire, this itch to just see her again, to just get to run her eyes across her features and memorize them. 

It’s an intense feeling, one far too intense to just be a mirage. She buries her face into her hands and groans loudly. This is stupid. In all her time doing movies about love and romance across any number of beautiful co-stars she had never once fallen for them. Not even enough for a one night stand, something that was as common in the industry as breathing. She’d prided herself in it. That she’d managed to pretend to love and kiss so many people but also managed to keep her feelings her own. It’s better than a lot of actors she knows who fall in love with their co-stars every movie, thriving off the attention and simulated love. These, of course, lead to short relationships with tumultuous ends, so she had leveraged a certain degree of smugness at being able to avoid it herself. 

It would be just her luck that the person to break that streak would be Kim Dahyun, someone that Nayeon has absolutely no business falling for. It’s humiliating to fall for someone after turning them down and it's so unfair to Dahyun. Nayeon buries her face into her hands and immediately Jeongyeon and Jihyo move to either side of her, rubbing circles into her shoulder blades. 

“There, there,” Jeongyeon says soothingly. “It’s going to be alright.”

Nayeon resolves to do what any sane person would do in her situation and just wait it out. She and Dahyun are only contractually bound to spend time together for the next month and a half and after that Nayeon never has to see her again if she doesn’t want to. She doubts Dahyun will be the one reaching out. So all she has to do is live out her days, falling in love with Dahyun on screen and just ride that wave until shooting is over. Simple. Easy. (She doesn’t let herself think about the pang she gets in her chest at the idea of never seeing Dahyun again. It’s better if she just doesn’t consider it at all.)

“Dahyun,” Chaeyoung says gently, and her tone is warranted because Dahyun has been getting more and more frustrated by the second. “I’m still not getting the right tension from you.”

Dahyun exhales sharply, and there’s clear stress in her shoulders. But the moment the scene resets and she looks at Nayeon, the stress flows out and she relaxes. Too much, Nayeon thinks. Because Eunji is hopelessly in love with someone who is doing everything she can to not love her back. Hana is scared, so, so very scared about her feelings for Eunji and in the last few scenes she has swung drastically between putting as much space between them as possible and clinging to the other girl for comfort. Eunji is starting to reach her limit. In this scene, Hana is in the middle of the two feelings having literally leaned on Eunji for comfort after a very difficult phone call from her mother but then Eunji says something and… 

“I’m sorry Hana. But I hope you know that no matter what your mother says, you are a wonderful, smart, beautiful person. Anyone can see it.”

Hana (Nayeon) jerks back at the words. It’s overwhelming for Hana. For Nayeon too, who knows what it’s like to dream of hearing those words from someone, and the feeling courses through her even as she tries desperately not too fall too deep into the scene. It makes her pull away a little too sharply, a little too fast. 

Eunji is supposed to look hurt, is supposed to be on the verge of tears, is supposed to be getting tired of the push and pull but the best Dahyun manages is a sort of sad understanding and it has Chaeyoung sighing and calling for a cut again. Nayeon sighs in frustration as well but immediately regrets it as Dahyun’s face falls even further from it’s already semi-devastated state. 

Her frustration isn’t at Dahyun, just at the situation. After all, Nayeon has been the cause for hold ups on set any number of times before. Her memories of only a couple weeks ago are still fresh in her mind. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s tired, and that this is the last scene they need to wrap up before she can go home today. Still, she does her best to change her expression to a more supportive smile. A little too late. Dahyun isn’t looking at her anymore. 

“Let’s take five,” Chaeyoung says, clearly seeing that Dahyun is going to need a minute to compose herself before trying again. Dahyun wanders off with her shoulders bowed. It’s the first show of anything other than calm positivity that Nayeon has seen from her since shooting started. 

“Do you think I’ll get a role in the spring play?” Dahyun asks cautiously as she helps Nayeon get into costume for the dress rehearsal. 

She has three pins tucked between her lips in case they notice any last minute changes that need to be done on the dress that is hugging Nayeon’s frame (already tailored perfectly by Dahyun’s nimble hands) so it’s a little hard to understand. 

“Sure, why wouldn’t you?”

Nayeon’s answer is a little distracted because they’re about to do the first dress rehearsal of the winter play and while she knows she’s perfect, she certainly has no desire to watch Mr. Park’s upper lip curl in displeasure because of her. She looks over her script with half a mind, making sure she’s got all the lines down.

Dahyun shrugs. 

“I’m not as good as you or BamBam or Yeri. I think that probably Mr. Park would pick other people than me.”

In the short time that Nayeon has known her Dahyun has never really shown any insecurities. She’d always had such a positive and upbeat demeanor that Nayeon had kind of assumed that she didn’t have any. But maybe getting fully relegated to back stage crew this round has managed to draw them out. It takes Nayeon by surprise and she finds herself wanting to wipe away the little furrow that has appeared between Dahyun’s brows. 

“I think…” Nayeon says carefully, unsure if it’s the right thing to say, “I think that you can do anything you set your mind to.”

Dahyun looks up at her, eyes wide. 

“Really?” she says, sounding a little breathless. 

“Yeah,” Nayeon replies, surprised herself that she actually means it. “You’re really… determined. And focused. Maybe you don’t have the same innate talent for acting but you do have a talent for hard work and that’s even better. So I think you can do anything.”

Nayeon watches as red flows into Dahyun’s cheeks, and the way she bites back a smile. It gives Nayeon a weird sense of satisfaction to think that she made the younger girl feel better. Nayeon has never had the reputation of being kind or nurturing but maybe she can change that. 

“Thank you, Nayeon,” Dahyun replies, voice soft. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Nayeon goes to find Dahyun after she doesn’t return in the five minutes allotted to them for rest, brushing off Chaeyoung’s aide trying to get them to hurry. Nayeon knows how much it would bug her to have someone who didn’t understand what she was feeling try to rush her through the process. She’s had enough directing aides up her ass in her life to never want to deal with them again. 

She finds the younger girl sitting against the wall around the corner with her head tilted back, staring up at the ceiling. She isn’t crying, but her eyes have a sort of dullness to them that Nayeon hasn’t ever seen before. Her stomach drops. 

“Are they looking for me?” Dahyun says, her voice a little raspy, clearly trying to hold back tears. 

“Yes,” Nayeon replies honestly, but then sinks down to sit next to her. “But we don’t need to rush. It doesn’t do anyone any good to rush in this situation.”

Dahyun nods slowly, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. But Nayeon is watching, doing her best to catch every twitch and shift in her expression to try and read how best to help her. 

“I’m sorry I’m holding things up,” Dahyun says. 

“Don’t be. It happens. Acting doesn’t come immediately all the time. There are scenes where we kill it and scenes where we struggle. And most fall in between. If you were perfect all the time I’d assume you were a robot. Or an alien or something.”

Dahyun chuckles slightly under her breath but the sound dies quickly. 

“Do you want to talk it out?” Nayeon asks. 

“Talk it out?” Dahyun asks. 

“Yeah, to get into the right headspace and understand what Eunji is feeling.” 

“I think I understand,” Dahyun says. “I just don’t think I’ve ever felt that way before.”

“How do you think she’s feeling?” Nayeon asks, doing her best to guide her. 

“She’s in love with Hana,” Dahyun says confidently. “And Hana is keeping herself from loving her back.”

“Do you think Eunji knows that Hana loves her back?” Nayeon asks. 

“Of course she does,” Dahyun replies. “It’s obvious.”

Nayeon hums a little, just a small sound to show that she’s not sure she agrees entirely with Dahyun’s assessment.

“What? Do you think she doesn’t know?”

“Well…” Nayeon says cautiously. She really doesn’t want Dahyun to think she’s looking down on her. “You know your character better than I do and you should play her in a way that feels true to her. But you also have to remember that Eunji hasn’t read the script.”

Dahyun blinks. 

“What?” 

“It’s something my acting teacher in college used to say all the time. Your characters haven’t read the script. Eunji hasn’t read the script. You have to be careful to distinguish what you know from what your character knows. You know that Hana loves her. You know what Hana is doing when she’s not with Eunji, you know what she’s thinking, and you know how I’m playing her, the choices that I’m making, but all Eunji sees and knows is what’s in front of her. Do you think that it’s enough for her to know that Hana loves her back?”

Dahyun frowns and Nayeon can practically see the gears turning in her head and steam coming out of her ears. 

“I mean, there are signs,” Dahyun says slowly, carefully. “There are signs but she could be misinterpreting. Hana is a little hot and cold, I guess. Sometimes when you like someone and they’re friendly with you, you read too much into it. It’s like how I felt with you back in-” 

Dahyun cuts off abruptly and looks at Nayeon with wide eyes. Nayeon feels the air get caught in her throat. She knows what Dahyun is thinking back to. She hadn’t thought that she’d lead Dahyun on. Liking Dahyun had been so far from her mind when they’d spent time together back then, that now she’s having trouble even imagining what she might have done to make Dahyun think that way. But there probably was something, she surmises, something that her immature and self-centered mind would have never paid attention to. It does explain why Dahyun was brave enough to ask her out despite their social differences. 

The idea that she hurt Dahyun back then, tears at her heart. She had started to forget, to put it in the past, getting caught up in her current feelings and the fact that Dahyun herself seemed to have moved on. But this conversation is a stark reminder that Dahyun’s first memories of her are unpleasant at best. She remembers that she wasn’t really a good person back then and the high school version of her is still the Nayeon that Dahyun knows best. 

“Sorry,” Dahyun mumbles after a few seconds of silence from Nayeon. “I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

“No,” Nayeon says, using every acting bone in her body to sound neutral. “It’s okay.”

She absolutely refuses to let Dahyun feel bad for bringing it up. She has every right to, should have done it from the start. Nayeon needed to be reminded of it, have it shoved in her face so that she doesn’t forget, no matter how much she wants to, that she hurt this kind, wonderful girl. Dahyun hasn’t forgotten either. 

“It’s fair,” she continues, forcing her voice to stay steady. “I hurt you a lot back then.”

Dahyun looks anxious and she twists her hands together. 

“I don’t hold it against you,” she says. “Really, I just-“

“It’s okay,” Nayeon repeats. “If you wanted to hold it against me that would be fine. If you don’t that’s also fine too. It’s your choice. But let’s not worry about that stuff right now. Let’s get you back into the Eunji mindset.” 

Dahyun examines her carefully, as if trying to gauge what Nayeon is feeling right now. Guilty and off-kilter is the correct answer, but Nayeon can act when she needs to and right now, she wants only one thing which is to help Dahyun. She needs to concentrate on this scene and not on Nayeon. 

“Okay,” Dahyun whispers at her knees. “I think I’ve got it now.” 

“Yeah?” Nayeon says. 

“Yeah. Thanks for the pep talk,” Dahyun says, speaking more to her shoes than to Nayeon. 

“Anytime.”

They walk back to set together and Chaeyoung brightens when she sees them. 

“All good?” she asks Dahyun. “Ready to knock this out of the park?”

Dahyun nods and then she and Nayeon take their places. It’s different now. The air around them feels heavy with their conversation. Dahyun is always quiet before scenes start but somehow she seems even quieter now. Nayeon feels a little sick to her stomach.

“I’m sorry, Hana,” Dahyun says, her tone much more cautious than the previous time they shot. “But I hope you know that no matter what your mother says, you are a wonderful, smart, beautiful person. Anyone can see it.”

Nayeon jerks back, away from Dahyun’s words, away from her gentle hand. It’s even easier to fall into this role than it was before the break because she hates herself right now. She’s not wonderful and she’s certainly not smart. Not smart enough to realize sooner that whatever peace Dahyun had been trying to make with her wasn’t forgiveness. It was just peace so that they could work together and get this movie out the door. Just politeness and respect owed to a sunbae in the industry. As soon as it’s over Dahyun will probably never want to see her again. After all, who wants to relive their worst memories? Nayeon hates herself for feeling disappointed by this. It feels selfish to want anything at all in this situation. She doesn’t deserve the kindness that Dahyun had offered her so far, and to think that she, even for a second, thought she deserved to love her is so entitled. So she pulls back quickly, harshly.

This time, Dahyun’s expression is perfect. The heartbreak is so clear on her features that Nayeon has to tense all her muscles to not give in to the impulse to run away. She knows what Dahyun is imagining, knows that this expression is the same one she saw all those years back, eyes filling with hurt and unshed tears. 

“Hana,” she says, reaching out futilely towards Nayeon, but Nayeon jerks back again. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I can’t do this.” 

And then Nayeon stands up abruptly and leaves. The scene is finished with all cameras on Dahyun. Nayeon watches in from the wings as a single tear falls down Dahyun’s face. 

It’s dead silent for a split second before Chaeyoung’s voice rings loud and clear obviously relieved. 

“Cut! Alright guys! That was perfect. That was the take I’ve been waiting for. Let’s run it a couple more times from the top and then we can all go home.”

Nayeon walks back in slowly. Watches the make up crew rush back to wipe the tear running down Dahyun’s face and fix up her mascara quickly. Nayeon silently takes her seat again. They run the scene two more times before Chaeyoung calls it a day. 

“Man,” Chaeyoeng says to Nayeon right after they wrap, “Whatever you said to Dahyun was magic. She absolutely nailed.”

Nayeon can’t answer and just nods and excuses herself to her trailer. Nayeon changes out of Hana’s clothes and back into her own well-worn hoodie, jeans and baseball cap and quickly leaves to walk towards her car. 

“Nayeon, wait!” 

She wants to run. Hiding is always so much easier than the alternative. But she owes Dahyun this much at least, much more than this if she’s being honest, so she stops and turns to face the younger girl. 

“I didn’t…” Dahyun starts and then stops, clearly not having fully thought out what she was going to say. Nayeon does her best to wait patiently, but she feels the weight of guilt like an elephant foot on her chest. 

“What I said earlier, about you,” Dahyun tries again. “I didn’t mean… I mean, that’s in the past. It wasn’t that big a deal, just something I remembered in that moment. But I don’t… it’s fine. It was a long time ago and I got my hopes up on my own back then and it’s not your fault.” 

It was a big deal, Nayeon thinks. If now, eight years later that moment is still the first thing that Dahyun thinks about when thinking about heartbreak. It’s obviously a big deal. Did she not meet anyone later in high school or college who also broke her heart? Or was Nayeon the only person callous enough to mindlessly toss aside someone as kind and gentle as Dahyun? 

“I know I hurt you," Nayeon says, her voice sounding hollow even to herself. "You don’t have to downplay it or pretend that I didn’t.”

“I’m not,” Dahyun says, desperately. “It really is in the past. It was ages ago. We can just forget about it.”

“Dahyun," Nayeon sighs out. "It's okay if it upset you, you can get mad at me or yell at me if you need to. I just-"

“Is everything okay here?”

Nayeon jolts at the sound of a new voice entering their conversation. She had been so tied up in her own feelings and in listening to Dahyun that she hadn’t even noticed Sana approaching. It seems Dahyun hadn’t either, also jumping a little as Sana’s hand wraps protectively around her waist. 

“Yes,” Dahyun says quickly, trying to soothe her. “Everything’s fine. We were just talking about the scene today and-“

Sana doesn’t really seem to be listening to Dahyun, her sharp eyes intently searching Nayeon’s own. There’s a clear and distinct frown to her features. Here is someone who, unlike Dahyun, does not want to forgive and forget. In some ways her gaze is easier to deal with. 

“You look upset,” Sana says, the words clearly intended for Dahyun, but eyes still focused on Nayeon. 

The question is obvious in her eyes. What the fuck did you do? 

Nothing new, Nayeon wants to answer. Just reopening old wounds. But she doesn’t get a chance. 

“It was just a rough scene today,” Dahyun replies. “Really, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

She tugs at Sana’s arm until she looks at her and the change in her expression is immediate. All of the cold, hardness that had been directed at Nayeon fades away into only gentle warmth. It’s the expression Sana has always worn when looking at Dahyun. Nayeon is suddenly hit with the reminder that Dahyun has someone already. Someone to love her, someone who has always loved her even when Nayeon was too stupid to see it. I really am pathetic, Nayeon thinks. 

“I should be on my way,” she says, wanting to escape the way Sana is looking at Dahyun and the way Dahyun is still looking at Nayeon, eyes wide and pleading. 

“Wait, Nayeon,” Dahyun says, reaching out as if she would try to physically stop Nayeon. 

“It’s fine, Dahyun,” Nayeon says. “I should go.”

And before Dahyun can try to stop her again, she turns on heel and walks away with her head hanging low. 

Coincidentally, and thankfully, just around the time Nayeon needs some space from Dahyun, Hana starts avoiding Eunji which means scenes shot separately. The scenes get dark quickly because without Eunji in her life, Hana only sees in shades of grey, the sun never breaking through enough to give any sort of hope. Minho’s character comes back again, this time at her apartment door, drunk and angry and shouting. Hana curls up against the wall in her apartment with her hands over her head until he goes away. She fails a test, with a warning from her teacher the another low grade will mean failing the class. Her mother calls, voice angry before Hana has even said hello. 

Nayeon gets off work early each day, apparently playing depression and utter hopelessness so well that she barely needs to do two takes. Chaeyoung is singing her praises again, but Nayeon doesn’t really feel like she deserves it. She’s not acting right now so much as just feeling. 

She gets home after the fourth day straight of this to find Jeongyeon on her couch already waiting for her. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, though she has an inkling. 

“You aren’t okay,” Jeongyeon says. 

She’s so direct sometimes. Normally Nayeon appreciates it, likes that she speaks her mind and Nayeon is never left guessing. But, as always, her defensiveness is crawling up into her throat in response to her vulnerability. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Jeongyeon says firmly, making it clear she won’t accept any bullshit from Nayeon right now. 

Nayeon sighs and just chooses not to respond, moving around her kitchen to prepare herself something resembling a meal. Jeongyeon waits for a little but eventually realizes that Nayeon isn’t going to start this conversation herself so she stands and joins her in the kitchen. 

“What exactly happened?” she asks. “I know shooting is going well, so it’s not that. Did your mom call you? Or does this have to do with Dahyun?”

“Leave me alone,” Nayeon says. 

“I won’t. You aren’t okay and I gave you space for a bit to come to me or to see if you started to feel better but you haven’t so I need to know what happened so that we can get around to fixing it because right now you seem depressed. And exhausted. Jihyo is worried about you too. So, let me help you fix this.”

“It can’t be fixed,” Nayeon snaps so sharply that Jeongyeon flinches. “It can’t be fixed okay? The damage was done. I can’t undo it.”

“Nayeon,” Jeongyeon says hands held up in front of her in a placating motion. “You can fix it. There isn’t anything that’s unfixable.”

“There is,” Nayeon says with finality. “Some things you can’t take back.”

Jeongyeon stays silent for a second and then grabs Nayeon’s wrist and pull her down on the couch next to her and into her chest. Nayeon fights against it for a second, not wanting to be comforted, not feeling she deserves it but eventually, when it becomes clear that Jeongyeon won’t let her go and when she starts carding her fingers through Nayeon’s hair, Nayeon finally relaxes into her. 

“You told me, way, way back, that back in high school you… weren’t very nice to Dahyun,” Jeongyeon says. “Is that what this is about?”

Nayeon whimpers and buries her face into Jeongyeon’s neck. Jeongyeon keeps playing with her hair and waits. 

“We had a scene,” Nayeon starts. “Where her character has to be heartbroken… and she told me that she thought about me when getting into character. She didn’t mean to tell me. It just slipped out. But she meant it.”

Jeongyeon hums and waits some more. Nayeon takes in a shaky breath.

“I broke her heart,” Nayeon whispers eventually. “And I did it so cruelly. And now I like her? What right do I have? I feel so fucking selfish.”

Jeongyeon hums thoughtfully, continuing the comforting movement of her hands through Nayeon's hair. 

“I don’t think it’s selfish,” Jeongyeon says, slowly. “I think you’ve changed as a person. Back then you were someone else. You're better. I've seen you change and grow.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” Nayeon snaps, glaring at the girl in front of her who's holding a coffee cup with the brown liquid running down the side, dripping over her hand and onto her shoes. 

Nayeon could care less about the girl’s shoes. It’s her own damn fault for not watching where she’s going and her cheap shoes are far less important than Nayeon’s sweater which has a stain nearly the side of her palm by her hip. 

“I’m so sorry,” the girl says, eyes anxious and remorseful. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Watch where you’re going!” Nayeon continues. “This sweater is expensive.”

“I’m really sorry,” the girl repeats. “I- I can pay for the dry cleaning. If you give me your number I’ll just-”

“How the fuck does that help me now?” Nayeon asks angrily. “I have to go to class you fucking-“

Nayeon is cut off by a sharp yank of her arm and she turns to see Jeongyeon looking at her with a severe expression. Jeongyeon turns and bows slightly to the girl who looks to be on the verge of tears before pulling Nayeon away. 

“What the fuck, Jeong? What are you doing?”

“I’m saving that poor girl from you,” Jeongyeon says. 

“Saving her? What about saving me? My sweater is fucking ruined. You know that coffee stains!”

“Yes, what happened to your sweater is regrettable,” Jeongyeon says. “But you are being a real bitch about it.”

Normally, the insult would have only made Nayeon madder. From anyone else, it would have tipped her over the edge from pissed off to furious. But in the last couple of months, Nayeon has found herself relying on Jeongyeon as the true north for her moral compass. She’s weird and a dork but she seems to be universally liked. If Jeongyeon is calling her out right now, Nayeon has to consider that she might be in the wrong. 

She doesn’t understand how though. 

“She ruined my sweater, Jeong,” she argues, trying to get Jeongyeon to understand her point of view. 

“It might not be ruined,” Jeongyeon says calmly. “Also, she offered to pay to clean it, which was the only thing she could do to fix the issue. And despite that, you still bit her head off.”

“Because it doesn’t fix the fact that she should have been paying attention and put a lid on that travel cup! If you’re going to walk around with an open cup of coffee, watch where you’re fucking going!”

Nayeon’s outburst draws the eyes of people around them and Jeongyeon sighs deeply. 

“It was a mistake,” Jeongyeon explains with waning patience. “It sucks for you. I know it does. But you treat every inconvenience that happens to you like it’s a personal affront. While she was careless, she never meant to spill the coffee on you. She fucked up, yes, but she apologized and offered to fix it in the way that she could. There is no going back in time. She can’t undo her mistake. But she can do her best to make amends and learn from it.” 

Nayeon scowls, but doesn’t interrupt Jeongyeon. 

“If I hadn’t accepted your apology when you first were a total asshole to me - which wasn’t even an accident by the way, you did that shit on purpose - we wouldn’t be friends. I could have chosen to be a dick at that time. I could have thought ‘she’s the worst and I hate her and I won’t accept her apology because she already hurt my feelings’. But I didn’t. Because you seemed sincere and you wanted to make up for it. Do you understand?”

Nayeon feels like a child having to have basic things explained to her. She hates the feeling of being patronized, even if Jeongyeon is not trying to be patronizing, and she hates that she knows that Jeongyeon is right.

“The past is the past,” Jeongyeon says. “And everyone makes mistakes. If we aren’t given the space to redeem ourselves, we would all stay bad people. But if we are given some kindness and a chance to fix our mistakes or at least learn from them, then we can all get better.”

Nayeon can’t help the tears that run down her face. 

“I don't know if it's enough," Nayeon says. 

Jeongyeon nods and hugs Nayeon closer. 

“It's just so confusing," Nayeon continues. "She saw me at my worst and still liked me. I was such a bitch back then and she somehow saw past all that and found something to like. But she was the same back then as she is now, at least her personality, but I didn’t see it… I superficially decided I was better than her and didn’t even give her a chance. If I was like that... does it even matter what I'm like now?”

Nayeon stops talking as she feels her throat start to close up and then lets out a single broken sob. And then the dam breaks and Nayeon can’t stop crying, tears free flowing down her cheeks while Jeongyeon whispers soothing words in her ear. 

When Nayeon wakes up the next morning, curled up in bed against Jeongyeon’s shoulder with a massive headache courtesy of her cry fest, she doesn’t feel better per se, but she does have a clearer mind. She can’t change her past but she can control her present. All she needs to do is treat Dahyun with the kindness and respect she deserves and make it through the shooting. There’s only a couple weeks left of shooting and then Nayeon can get out of Dahyun's life forever if that's what she wants. 

She probably should have expected a nervous Dahyun standing in front of her trailer when she arrived to their next shooting day but she’s still surprised. She gives her a friendly smile though, and tries her best not to think about high school. 

“I’m really sorry about last week,” Dahyun says before Nayeon can even say hello. “I didn’t mean to imply that-“

“It’s okay, Dahyun,” Nayeon interrupts. “I get it. We all have things that we pull on for your performances.”

"Right," Dahyun agrees quickly. "But just because I pull from it doesn't mean that I still... I've moved on. I'm not upset about it anymore. I promise." 

Nayeon regards Dahyun so carefully, trying to ignore the bittersweet feeling blooming in her chest. She's too nice for her own good, Nayeon thinks, too kind, caring. She's so, so concerned about Nayeon, and for what? But she seems earnest, not like she's just trying to make Nayeon feel better. It soothes Nayeon's nerves a little. And it's true, she does understand. She's pulled enough heart-fluttering feelings from her past relationships that have long since run their course. Just because she remembers Jackson when she thinks of young love doesn't mean that she's still in love with him. 

"It's okay," she reassures again. "I promise. I'm not offended. It's just acting right?"

It's rewarding when Dahyun's taut expression clears. It's even more rewarding that Nayeon thinks that she might actually mean the words. There's something healing about Dahyun saying she's moved on. At least the hurt that Nayeon inflicted on her in the past hasn't left anything permanent behind. (There another part of her that aches at the idea that Dahyun's moved on. It's the deeply selfish part that wishes that she could still hold Dahyun's heart after all these years.)

Dahyun nods and the topic is dropped. They chat briefly about their scenes for the day, before Nayeon excuses herself so that she can get her hair and make-up done and Dahyun bids her goodbye with a cheerful ‘see you soon!’.  

The set for today is a constructed backdrop of a street. Since they’re only going to be shooting in one place, without moving too much, it’s easier and more cost-effective than having the city shut down an entire block. There are a ton of extras milling around and Nayeon doesn’t mind extras per se but these days she’s a bit of a known entity and many novice actors like the ones being paid to be stand around today look up to her. That means that when she walks on set, she gets a lot of stares. 

It’s always the same. They want to approach her, talk to her, let her know that they like her and admire her, maybe get a picture or an autograph too so that they can say that they met The Im Nayeon. There’s always one brave one, usually a younger man (they are usually the most brazen), who decides to take the plunge and then the others creep forward. They’re trying not to seem too green by rushing her like teenage fans, but they want to be close so that they don’t miss out. 

Nayeon takes it graciously. She’s gotten used to this part of the job, has a mental script that she follows that manages to make everyone feel special and unique without her having to try too hard. She signs what they ask for, gives advice to the best of her ability, smiles and thanks them when they praise her. Still, she’s relieved when Chaeyoung calls them over to give directing notes. 

“Is it always like that?” Dahyun asks, suddenly standing at Nayeon’s shoulder. 

“It’s kind of a more recent development in the last couple of years I guess. I’m used to it at this point. And it’s kind of nice to be reminded of how awesome I am.” 

She shoots Dahyun a wide grin and waggles her eyebrows. 

“Do you forget often?” Dahyun asks, playfully. 

“Oh, never. But it’s nice to hear it from others.”

“Well, I think you’re awesome,” Dahyun replies. “Just in case you forget.”

And it’s only because the compliment is so unexpected that Nayeon nearly chokes on her next words. 

“Thanks, Dahyun. You’re also pretty great.”

Dahyun seems to have caught the strangeness of her voice and there’s a slight frown forming on her lips but before it can come fully to bloom, they’re being called over to take their places on opposite sides of the set. Hana’s head is bowed low, as always, her phone in her hand as she tries to find the right song to drown out her emotions. Eunji is too busy staring wistfully at the sky to notice what’s in front of her. 

As she settles into place, Nayeon takes a few breaths to settle into her role. It takes her a little bit to fall into it and when Chaeyoung asks if they’re all ready, Nayeon asks for a second longer to compose herself. Hana is feeling so, so, so much the days that it’s hard to imagine the full depths of it in the few minutes that Nayeon has, but she pulls her black hoodie over her head, ducks her shoulders and puts in her ear buds and tries to just let herself feel. The intensity of the self-loathing, the hopelessness, and the soul aching sadness that she feels when she takes away the limiters she’s put up around Hana almost takes her legs out from under her. She trembles just once but then looks up at Chaeyoung and gives her a nod, letting her know she’s ready. Chaeyoung calls action and Nayeon starts walking. 

She doesn’t look up, trusting the directions that the set designer had given her earlier on where to walk to take her straight where she needs to be. When she collides with Dahyun, Nayeon really does almost fall over. Only Dahyun’s hands circling around her waist stop her from hitting the ground. Hana glances up to mumble an apology that dies in her throat before it’s uttered when she notices who is standing in front of her, one hand still on her waist. She’s frozen under Eunji’s eyes. 

Nayeon pulls herself out of Dahyun’s arms, ducking her head to continue on her way but Dahyun grabs her wrist. 

“Hana, wait,” she says. “Please. Can we talk? I don’t… I don’t know what I did wrong but please, I miss you.”

Nayeon is tense, not looking back but unable to pull her arm out of Dahyun’s grasp. She’s hyper aware of the softness of Dahyun’s hands, of the gentle but firm way she holds onto her wrist. 

“Please,” Eunji says, the word split by a sob. 

Nayeon is brought back with alarming clarity to walking away from Dahyun in the green room all those years ago. That sob the last thing she heard or saw from the other girl. She knows she shouldn’t, that in her quest to try to be normal with Dahyun she should not think about it, but right now as immersed as she is in Hana’s character, all her defenses are down. Nayeon can only wonder if that’s the moment that Dahyun is thinking about to conjure this emotion. Hana turns slowly back to her, staring at the ground instead of her face. Eunji doesn’t let go of her wrist, but steps closer so that there’s only about a foot of space between them. 

“I miss you,” Eunji breathes out. 

It’s everything Hana wants to hear and even in this moment where she’s scared and rattled by the sudden appearance of the other girl, this is the first ray of sunshine that she’s felt in the last few weeks. 

“Please tell me how to fix this,” Eunji continues. “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.”

Hana shakes her head, tears already streaming down her cheeks. 

“Hey, don’t cry,” Eunji says, holding her face and brushing her tears away. “Don’t cry. It’s going to be okay, please, please just tell me what I did wrong.”

Hana shakes her head even harder, dislodging Eunji’s hands from her cheeks. Nayeon doesn’t really look at Dahyun but she hears the disappointed sigh that comes out. 

“Do you want me to leave you alone then?” she asks, sadness flooding her words. 

This isn’t Eunji’s fault. Hana knows it. It’s hers for being a coward. She’s making Eunji sad. Eunji has only been kind to her, sweet and wonderful and Hana is making her sad. 

“No,” she manages to choke out. “I’m sorry. I don’t want… I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She’s crying more than she’s talking now but it’s enough for Eunji apparently, who pulls her into a tight, tight hug.

“I won’t go then,” she says. “Please, let me stay with you.”

Nayeon tries to avoid wiping her tears on Dahyun’s coat (it’ll be annoying for the costuming folks to have to deal with that every time they re-set a scene) but she buries her face into her neck and Dahyun runs her fingers through her hair. Though Nayeon is deep in her character, she can't help but feel the lingering rush from her touch. 

“Cut!” Chaeyoung calls. “Alright that was good! Let’s run it a couple more times!”

Nayeon extricates herself from Dahyun’s grip, wiping her tears away, trying to stop crying so that she can reset. It’s a little hard today but Dahyun reaches up to catch some fresh tears before they fall and Nayeon’s heart stutters at the action.

“These scenes are hard,” Dahyun whispers and it feels intimate, too intimate if the way Nayeon's cheeks heat up is any indication, but she knows that right now, in this room, Dahyun is the only person who truly understands what she’s going through. 

“Yeah,” she replies, voice scratchy. “So let’s kill it and go home early.” 

“You got it,” Dahyun replies. 

Nayeon, in the midst of her mental breakdown over everything Dahyun, had somewhat lost track of the plot of the movie, only prepping each scene right before shooting and never bothering to look ahead. In some ways it’s a blessing that she hadn’t remembered that this moment was coming, hadn’t had time to dwell on it, worry about everything that it would entail and the possibly disastrous consequences that might arise. On the other hand, she thinks that maybe having more than twenty-four hours to mentally prepare for the fact that she is going to have to kiss Dahyun would have been nice. 

It’s actually less than twenty-four hours at this point because they only finished up at the shoot at around six and after getting home and showering and eating it’s now nearly eight for a seven a.m. call the next day. Which means Nayeon has only a couple hours to actually memorize her lines before she really needs to sleep. 

The bright side is that she doesn’t have many lines. Most of the scene that she’ll be shooting with Dahyun the next day involves her mouth being preoccupied with other things. Nayeon feels herself blushing just thinking about it. 

“Does it bug you having to kiss people for the play or do you like it?” Momo asks Nayeon as they lay in bed together, legs tangled under the sheets. 

Nayeon thinks that maybe there was a better time to ask her this than right after they had sex and she can’t help but wonder for how long Momo has been thinking about it. She frowns and turns to her girlfriend. Momo doesn’t seem upset though, and for someone who wears her emotions on her sleeve, that’s reassuring. 

“Neither really,” Nayeon replies honestly. “It’s just something I have to do, so I do it. I mean, it’s not like it’s a sex scene. It’s just a kiss. I guess it depends on how my acting partner reacts.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, if they’re weird about it then it makes me feel weird. If they’re too enthusiastic then I feel uncomfortable as well. The guy I’m acting across this time, Jungkook? He’s a pretty good partner honestly. He treats it like a job, so that’s that. There was this guy in high school though who always looked so excited before we kissed. It made me feel gross.”

Momo frowns and nuzzles a little into Nayeon’s neck, pressing soft kisses there. 

“I can’t say I blame him,” she mumbles. “I’d be pretty excited to kiss you too.”

It pulls a happy laugh out of Nayeon who takes the opportunity to tuck her chin a little to capture Momo’s lips. Momo smiles into the kiss and presses into her a little more firmly because she always likes feeling closer to Nayeon. 

“I think it’s weird to be excited to kiss anyone when you’re acting,” Nayeon replies eventually when they’ve broken apart for air. “It’s just such a weird environment. You have to think about the kiss so much, because there’s timing and angles and it has to look a certain way and give a certain feeling. So it usually isn’t even a good kiss because both sides are overthinking. And there are always so many people watching this awkward-ass kiss. Ugh… I can’t imagine ever finding that moment attractive in any way.”

Momo takes the pause in Nayeon’s monologue to give her another kiss. 

“Does it bother you?” Nayeon asks. “That I have to kiss other people?”

Momo stops to thinking about it, lips pursed thoughtfully. 

“No,” she ultimately decides. “if it’s just a job, then it’s just a job, right? I think… If you were enjoying it I think I’d get jealous. Because if you enjoyed it then it probably means something more.”

In the four years that Nayeon has been acting professionally, she has had to kiss more people than she can count. Romantic comedies always feature kisses between the two leads and often times with other side characters as well. Often there are exes involved or random people pulled into the plot to stir up jealousy or just funny comedic moments where an unfortunate kiss is the punchline. At this point, kissing has almost lost its meaning to her. 

But kissing Kim Dahyun? 

Nayeon can feel her heart racing in her chest just at the thought of it. It won’t be a simple kiss either. The script uses words like ‘passionate’, ‘hot’, and ‘tongue’. Nayeon feels her hands shaking as she reads. She calls Jeongyeon. 

“Have you ever had to kiss someone you had feelings for for a role?” she says without even letting Jeongyeon finish her hello. 

There’s a long pause on the other side of the phone, a pause that somehow manages to feel incredibly judgmental and worried at the same time. 

“Yes, once,” Jeongyeon says. “But she had feelings too and we ended up dating for nearly a year.”

Nayeon drops her face into her hands and groans. Jeongyeon is always so unhelpful.

“I take it you have a kiss scene with Dahyun tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Nayeon mumbles. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“You kiss her,” Jeongyeon says. “You’ve kissed people for your job a hundred times. This is just another job, treat it as such and just… do it and then move on.”

“Do you really think it can be that simple?” Nayeon asks, voice trembling a little. 

“It has to be that simple,” Jeongyeon replies. “This is your job. Whatever other feelings you have don’t matter. You signed a contract. No matter what, you have to kiss her tomorrow. So, you can either freak out about this or just do it and move on.”

Jeongyeon is right Nayeon realizes. No matter how worried she is about the fact that if she kisses Dahyun she'll never be able to think about anything else, she doesn’t have a way to escape this, doesn’t have a way to make it easier in any way. Nayeon tries to brainwash herself. Dahyun is just another co-worker. A beautiful, kind, wonderful co-worker with skin that looks incredibly soft and has bright intelligent eyes and a wonderful, wonderful smile that looks very, very nice to kiss. But all of that aside, she’s just a co-worker.  

She’s also a co-worker with a very scary girlfriend. 

Nayeon wonders if it’s coincidence that the first time she sees Sana drop Dahyun off is the morning of their kiss scene. Usually Dahyun makes it to set on her own, either driving herself, or having her manager drop her off. But this morning, as Nayeon pulls her own car into her parking spot, she sees Sana pull up on her motorcycle, Dahyun’s arms wrapped firmly around her waist. Nayeon gets out of her own car, trying to be surreptitious about it but she still catches their eye by accident. Dahyun gives her a friendly wave with a smile that Nayeon returns politely. Sana just watches her with a blank expression on her face. 

This is good actually, Nayeon thinks. It’s good to be reminded that this, like every other aspect of this production, will be a job for Dahyun. Maybe that will help her from falling any further even after she's felt Dahyun's lips on hers. She has someone that she would rather be kissing, someone who she likely will be thinking of instead of Nayeon in that moment. If Nayeon can’t control her feelings for her own sake, then she’ll do it for Dahyun’s sake. She just needs to make it though the scene. 

After running into each other in the previous scene, Eunji had offered to take Hana up to her apartment just so that they could speak. The scene has a few parts. Eunji leading Hana into the apartment, an awkward conversation about Hana’s avoidance that will lead to a clumsy confession from Eunji. And then a kiss. 

The first part is easy enough. Dahyun holds Nayeon’s hand tightly as she leads her though the door to the apartment, not even letting go as they kick off their shoes. It’s a studio apartment, appropriate for a college student like Eunji, so they go straight to the bed to sit, hands still intertwined. They are facing each other silently, preparing for a conversation. A conversation that neither of them knows how to start but Hana is feeling so much guilt that there’s really only one thing on her mind that she can say. 

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Eunji asks, leaning in closer, hand tightening around Hana’s. 

Hana shrugs. 

“Everything,” she replies. “Avoiding you and…”

This scene isn’t too bad to shoot. Nayeon doesn’t have to look at Dahyun at all. Hana is far, far too terrified to look Eunji in the eye so Nayeon gets acquainted with the flowery pattern on the comforter. 

“Can you tell me why?”

Hana isn’t good at talking about her feelings. Nayeon, as with many other parts of this character, can relate more than she’d like to. The shrug that Hana gives, the best compromise she can manage between wanting to give Eunji an answer and her desire to just run out of the room, is one that Nayeon has given a thousand times. Eunji’s responding sigh of disappointment is also something Nayeon has heard more times than she can count (mostly from Jeongyeon). But something about hearing it from Dahyun is different. Nayeon really hates disappointing Dahyun, thinks that she’s done it enough for a lifetime. Hana must feel the same because she tries to talk again. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, wanting to reassure her friend first and foremost. “I just… I… got overwhelmed.”

“Because of me?” 

Dahyun sounds hurt. No, Eunji sounds hurt. 

“No,” Hana says, frustration rising in her voice at her inability to express herself properly. “No, I just… I feel…”

“I don’t want to overwhelm you,” Eunji says, still sounding a little hurt.

“You don’t,” Hana reassures. “You don’t. You’re… you’re the only thing that makes it better.”

There’s a pause. Nayeon wonders briefly what sort of expression Dahyun is making. Hana still is hiding so she can’t look up and see. She kind of wants to know though. This might be the closest she’ll ever get to seeing Dahyun react to a confession by her. Fake, of course. But still, Nayeon wishes she could see, wishes she could see what expression Dahyun would have made if Nayeon had made a different decision all those years ago. 

“You make things better for me too,” Eunji says quietly. “You’re… the best part of my life. I really…” 

Nayeon is finally allowed to look up as Eunji pauses her thought. The expression on Dahyun’s face takes every atom of air out of Nayeon’s lungs. Dahyun is an incredible actress, to be able to play this sort of heartbreaking love so purely and wonderfully. Her expression is open, clear, beautiful. Love distilled into the pure brown of her eyes and in the minuscule way her lips part. Nayeon feels a tremble run through her that is embarrassingly all her and not Hana in the slightest but it fits the moment and the character so she just rolls with it. 

“I really like you,” Eunji continues. 

Hana freezes, Nayeon does too. Nayeon hears the words like a mirage of the past and there’s a part of her that feels like this is a second opportunity for her. She can fix her mistakes and give Dahyun an answer that she actually deserves. Something that will put a smile on her face instead of tears. 

“Hana?” Dahyun says, acting concerned at the way Hana has stopped moving. 

Hana owes Eunji an answer. She knows that, but words are escaping her and they’ve failed her in the past. And there’s something else that she desperately wants to do instead. So she leans forward and gently presses her lips against Eunji’s. There’s a light gasp, a parting of lips and Nayeon forgets everything. She forgets Hana, she forgets Eunji, she forgets Sana. She only knows Dahyun. The way her lips are softer than Nayeon could have imagined, the way she breathes into the kiss, warmly, cautiously. The way she trembles under Nayeon’s hands just a little, betraying her nerves. 

Nayeon doesn’t think about the set, about the fact that there are nearly twenty people watching, Director Son, the lighting and camera staff, even the make-up staff who are on call to fix the lipstick that they are currently ruining. She doesn’t think about whether the kiss will look good on camera, whether she’s blocking Dahyun’s face too much with the hand that she’s slipped against her jaw. She kisses Dahyun, relishing in the way Dahyun kisses her back until a sharp call for ‘Cut’ pulls her back to the present. 

She pulls away from Dahyun in a daze and finds the other girl looking at her with a similarly clouded expression. And then it all comes crashing back in. There’s a make-up artist in her face, wiping around her mouth to clean up the lipstick, and re-apply. Someone else is doing the same to Dahyun. The lighting folks are discussing changing some of the lights. Chaeyoung is replaying the clip. Nayeon remembers everything she wasn’t supposed to forget. Sana’s face flashes through her mind and the guilt she feels makes her nauseous. 

“Okay,” Chaeyoung says. “That was a decent take. Let’s re-do the conversation. Dahyun, I want you to sound a little more hesitant. Remember that Hana has been avoiding you, so you have a reason to be nervous about this confession. Let’s take it from Nayeon’s first line.” 

Nayeon is a wreck right now. She needs a minute probably if she’s going to do this well but she cannot bring herself to have to explain why she’s feeling as shaken as she is so she speaks her next few lines shakily at the comforter. Dahyun delivers her lines as well, but whether she’s better or not Nayeon isn’t sure. She can’t really focus on that at all. She just knows when she needs to look up, when she needs to reach out and pull Dahyun into herself again. She kisses Dahyun with everything she can manage though she feels like crying and she feels the guilt welling in her chest. 

She’s fucked. She so, so fucked. She can tell because even now, even with how much she knows that she shouldn’t be feeling this way, even with Sana’s cold expression flitting across her mind, she can’t help but sink into Dahyun’s touch, into her warmth. Despite her best wishes, she gets pulled in and by the time the kiss ends she’s breathless again, lightheaded with how much she likes this girl. 

They do four more takes, Chaeyoung giving small pointers here and there and Nayeon doing her best to put them into action despite the pure chaos in her brain. By the time Chaeyoung calls for the final cut, her lips are swollen and bruised and her heart is racing painfully in her chest. Nayeon wants to run, desperately. Every cell in her body is screaming mayday at the impending heartbreak she can feel on the horizon now that she knows what Dahyun tastes like. 

But Nayeon can’t run. Their day has only just started and they have more scenes to shoot.

Later, Nayeon lies on the bed, head against Dahyun’s chest, doing her best to not listen to her heartbeat, though it is there and present and steady. There’s something that’s just a little too intimate about it that Nayeon wants to avoid. But it’s harder to avoid the gentle way Dahyun’s fingers are trailing up and down her spine, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up pleasantly. She tries to control her own breathing and heartbeat, afraid that with them so close together, Dahyun might be able to feel it racing.

“Can you tell me why you ran away?” Eunji asks, breaking the silence between them gently. “A couple of weeks ago.”

Nayeon wants to just sink into Dahyun, to not have to think about these feelings that she’s having but instead just indulge in the warmth that she feels from her gentle touches and soft words. Hana wants the same. But she’s realizing that honesty needs to happen if their relationship is going to work. She takes her time formulating a response and then reaches her arm to grab the hand that Dahyun is resting on her stomach and hold onto it for comfort. 

“I got scared. I… I like you,” she says as a soft confession. She hears Dahyun’s heart pick up in her chest. “I just… I’m not sure I deserve it. For you to like me, I mean. I wanted it but I wasn’t sure I deserved it.” 

Dahyun (Eunji, Nayeon reminds herself) shifts her grip so that they can hold hands a little better and then presses a kiss to her forehead. It’s so soft Nayeon feels her heart break. 

“You do deserve me,” she says softly. “If anything the inverse is true. You deserve better than me. And anyway, love isn’t about deserving. It’s just about how you feel.” 

Nayeon pulls away and looks Dahyun in the eye because the script tells her to. She’s scared though, afraid of what she’ll see. Dahyun’s eyes are wide, watching her cautiously, but so, so lovingly. Nayeon wants to kiss her again. That thought nearly makes her pull away and she’s glad that the camera’s are trained on Dahyun and not her. 

“Love?” she asks, cautiously. “You love me?”

“Well,” Dahyun clears her throat nervously. “Yeah. I do. I guess… maybe it’s fast but I really, really do love you.” 

Nayeon feels tears forming in her eyes but she presses down anyway to press her lips to Dahyun’s the way the script calls for. Gently but steadily, an expression of reciprocated love in a single kiss. God, it’s so stupid. Nayeon has kissed so many people for this job but this kiss, this one kiss beats all of them combined, unwinds her in a way no one else has been able to. Despite all her misgivings, Dahyun’s gentle touch makes her fall apart so easily. She pulls away. 

“I love you, too,” she says, and she means the words, unfortunately. She can’t help but mean them. 

Dahyun (Eunji, Eunji, Eunji, Nayeon reminds herself in a loop in her mind) pecks her on her lips and then grins that bright, wide, sunshine smiles of hers. Nayeon smiles back despite herself. 

“So are we dating then? Can we be dating?” Eunji asks brightly, excitedly. “I want to take you out.” 

Hana buries her face into Eunji’s chest as she nods, a blush rising all the way to her ears. 

“Cut! Good work everyone. That’s it for the day.”

Nayeon quickly extricates herself from Dahyun’s grip but gives her a smile and a ‘good work today’ before making her escape.

Nayeon doesn’t do one night stands. As a rule. She doesn’t need a tabloid picking up some random rumor that would almost certainly trend on social media, doesn’t need any of the mess. But she all but runs from set into the nearest warm arms she can find at a local club. Luckily the girl doesn’t seem to recognize her, doesn’t seem to care who she is beyond the fact that she’s pretty and a little desperate. Nayeon doesn’t care who the girl is either. It doesn’t matter as long as she can wipe the feeling of Dahyun’s lips from her mind. It doesn’t work. She’s not bad, but she’s not Dahyun, isn’t as gentle, as warm, as soft. Nayeon’s heart doesn’t race no matter what she does. 

The next morning Nayeon wakes with a pounding head in an unfamiliar room and has to call a very disapproving Jihyo to pick her up. Jihyo doesn’t ask and Nayeon doesn’t tell, doesn’t explain that she’s fucked beyond repair. That she barely remembers what it felt like to kiss the girl last night, but that the feeling of Dahyun’s lips against hers seems to be burned into her skin. Her mouth tingles even now when she thinks of it. Dahyun is magnetic. Inescapable. Nayeon was a fool for even trying. 

There's only two weeks left of shooting. Two weeks in which Nayeon slowly, slowly is losing her mind. They don't have any more kisses that are as passionate as that first one but there are others sprinkled throughout. Each one, no matter how chaste, undoes Nayeon in ways that leave her reeling. She does her best not to fall into it, to remind herself it's a job, it's a job, it's a job. But how can she not fall into it when Dahyun is so pretty, and so soft, and when she looks at Nayeon like she hung the stars in the sky every time they pull apart. Sure, she's just acting. It's just how Eunji's supposed to look at Hana but it's hard to remember that when Nayeon's lips are still tingling and her heart is still racing. 

If Dahyun is affected by the kisses she doesn't let it show. She's her normal goofy, wonderful self as soon as the scene is called and Nayeon tries not to let herself feel disappointed. After all, it's not like she has a claim here. She had a chance and she lost it and now it's been years and Dahyun has moved on. The dichotomy of these feelings - the racing heart and the knowledge that she has no chance - is excruciating. But Nayeon doesn't have a choice but to live it until they can finish filming. 

On the last day of shooting, Nayeon breathes out a sigh of relief as the final cut is called. She pulls away from where she had her arms wrapped around Dahyun’s shoulders and joins in with the crew’s cheering. Their happiness and Chaeyoung’s grin is heartwarming and despite the trepidation and conflict that Nayeon has suffered internally throughout the project, she can’t help but feel it too. She’s proud of what they created, proud of her performance. She’s done what she set out to do when she took this project. She’s put on a performance of a lifetime. She’ll find out after the movie is released if the critics think the same, but she knows that regardless of their opinions, she’s done something worthwhile. 

“It’s over,” Nayeon hears Dahyun say and she turns to see her looking around with a bittersweet expression. 

Nayeon remembers suddenly that this is Dahyun’s first movie. Her first time going through the feeling of the end of shooting. It’s such a complex feeling, even for Nayeon after years of doing this, but she remembers the first time vividly. The feeling of accomplishment of having made something worthwhile, something that she poured her soul into. The feeling of early nostalgia, an acknowledgement even before it’s fully passed, that this moment will rest heavily in her memories for years to come. Looking around and knowing that this project, which had taken up the majority of their lives for the last few months is just… over. There’s relief that it’s over, the long days and longer nights, 5 am calls or hours spent memorizing lines. But there's also sadness looking at the people around them, knowing they may or may not work together again, may never see each other again despite being together nearly every day of the last few months. And the characters they they’ve gotten so attached to are gone now, only to be savored on the big screen once the film comes out. It’s all done. 

“Yeah,” Nayeon answers. “How do you feel?”

Dahyun just stares at her for a second, expression blank like she’s trying to process the question. Nayeon understands, she’s still not sure she has the words to explain it either. Dahyun looks around at everyone as they chatter happily around them.

“I don’t know,” Dahyun answers eventually. “I think… I’m happy but also sad, I guess.” 

“That’s normal,” Nayeon says. “You did a good job.”

She means the words more than she thought she would. Not that she hadn’t thought Dahyun was doing an incredible job, but she had admittedly been a little distracted by her own emotional turmoil. If Nayeon thinks past it all, she can recognize that Dahyun has been a truly amazing actress. Far more than anyone could reasonably expect from a rookie like her and certainly bounds away from the girl Nayeon had known in high school. Nayeon is so, so happy for her that this will be her first project, and that she’ll be able to show the best of herself right off the bat. She’s certain that the audience will fall for her immediately. Who wouldn’t?

The next thing Nayeon knows, she’s in Dahyun’s arms, reciprocating the sudden hug on instinct alone. She’s hit like a wave with the smell of Dahyun, something she’s gotten so familiar with over the last few months, feels the usual warming in her chest. She’s not caught off guard by it anymore and with the time that she and Dahyun will be forced to spend together coming to an end she doesn’t really fear it anymore either. 

“Thank you, Nayeon,” Dahyun mumbles in her ear. “I couldn’t have done this without you.” 

Nayeon feels like she could argue but she knows what Dahyun would say if she tries. Instead, she just pulls away and gives Dahyun another smile, this one a little tighter as she tries to ignore the way her stomach is flip-flopping at the feeling of having Dahyun this close to her. 

“No,” she says. “Thank you. I couldn’t have asked for a better co-star. I’m glad we were able to do this together.” 

Any further conversation is cut off by Chaeyoung shouting suddenly. 

“All right everyone, let’s get cleaned up here and I will see all of you at the party later tonight. Let’s celebrate!”

Nayeon brings Jihyo with her to the cast party. Plus ones are always invited and Jihyo’s favorite way of being thanked for her hard work is with free alcohol. And Nayeon has a lot to thank her for: getting her this role, taking care of her when she fell apart emotionally, for just dealing with her generally. It’s also comforting to have her by her side, knowing that tonight will be the last time she sees Dahyun until the premiere in a few months. Hopefully Jihyo will keep her from doing something stupid. 

Dahyun also brings a plus one, Nayeon notices with a jolt as soon as she walks into the private room Chaeyoung had booked for them. Sana sits next to Dahyun, shoulder to shoulder, whispering something in her ear that Dahyun nods along to. The crew’s loud cheering upon Nayeon’s entrance catches their attention and they both look up at the same time. Dahyun’s expression lifts into a smile immediately and she gives Nayeon a wave. Sana is expressionless as usual but she gives Nayeon a simple nod of acknowledgement. 

Nayeon is saved from having to go over to them by Minho who appears in front of her with two shots already in hand. He hands her one and links arms with her. 

“To our star Im Nayeon,” he shouts before they both lift their locked arms to knock it back. 

The crew cheers again and Nayeon hears the clink of glasses sounding around her. She looks around at everyone, smiling to herself. They’re a good group - she’s going to miss them. Knowing that this is the last time they’ll all be together, she resolves to enjoy their company as much as possible.

“Where’s my drink?” Jihyo asks. 

“Right here!” 

Chaeyoung appears suddenly, with a bottle of soju and another of beer. She sets them down, and grabs a couple of glasses for somaek. 

“Jihyo,” Chaeyoung says, as she measures out shots of soju and dumps them into the beer. “I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for connecting me with Nayeon, but thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I am forever in your debt.” 

All three of them raise their glasses and give cheers and take a long pull for their drinks, sighing happily as the cool drink slides down their throats. There’s another round of cheers as the lighting designer comes in, and another when the script-writer arrives. Nayeon doesn’t hold back and a couple hours into the party, her head is spinning. 

When she starts leaning into Jihyo a little too much, Jihyo tells her to get some water and fresh air and to leave her alone. Nayeon, somewhat reluctantly, knowing that she’s going to miss Hyunjin’s break dancing if she leaves now, but feeling too dizzy to stay without Jihyo to lean on, grabs a bottle of water and makes her way out to the balcony. She forces herself to drink it though she doesn’t want to and stares out over the evening nights of Seoul. 

After a few minutes of silence, her head stops spinning and Nayeon is about to turn to go back inside when she hears footsteps approaching. She knows who they belong to immediately and she curses internally. She had been avoiding Dahyun all night. Not that she’d had to try hard. There was always someone else to talk to, something else to do and Dahyun was just as preoccupied as she was. But now… out here there’s no one to intervene, no one to save her and Nayeon is very aware of the way her mind is a little slow with alcohol. 

“Hello, Nayeon.”

Dahyun’s voice is soft against the rumbling traffic on the street below. Nayeon takes a deep breath to steady herself and turns to face her. 

“Hello.”

Dahyun smiles and regards her with a fond expression that Nayeon still isn’t sure she deserves. 

“You look a little tipsy,” Dahyun says. 

“I’m well past tipsy,” Nayeon says honestly. 

Dahyun laughs and Nayeon notices some pink on her cheeks and a little haziness in her eyes. Maybe Dahyun isn’t that sober either. 

“What are you doing out here alone?” Dahyun asks. 

“Just getting some water and air.”

Dahyun nods. 

“That’s good. I needed some air too,” she says. “It’s getting a little wild in there and Sana got distracted talking to Mina. Apparently they’re from the same town in Japan. Isn’t that crazy? Small world.” 

“Yeah,” Nayeon says, trying not to let her tone sour at the mention of Sana. 

“Like us meeting again,” Dahyun says. “That’s also crazy.”

Nayeon nods but doesn't say anything. It seems like Dahyun is angling for something but Nayeon cannot for the life of her figure out what it might be. She tilts her head a little to regard Dahyun a little more carefully. Dahyun looks back at her with that gentle, serene expression of hers that Nayeon loves. 

“I’m glad,” Dahyun says when Nayeon doesn’t answer. “I’m glad we got to meet again.” 

It feels good to hear those words from Dahyun, better than Nayeon could have even predicted before the syllables landed on her ears. Even though Dahyun had been saying all along that Nayeon didn’t need forgiving, it still feels like forgiveness. Nayeon feels glad that at least this time she was able to make Dahyun happy even a little bit.

“Me too,” Nayeon says, the words heavy with feeling. “I’m really glad, Dahyun. And I hope I’ll be leaving you with better memories than last time.” 

Dahyun grins at her and it’s like the morning sun breaking across an ocean of glittering waves the way it manages to blind Nayeon completely to anything else. 

“Of course,” Dahyun says. “But my memories of you before weren’t bad. Except that last one maybe, but the rest… I’ve really treasured them. I... I thought about you often since high school.” 

Nayeon is so confused. She’s been confused from the day she met Dahyun again, at how this girl can’t hate her, how she could even like her in the first place back when Nayeon was by her own estimation a terrible, terrible person. If she were more sober, she would be sticking to her plan of just pretending the past didn’t happen but she’s drunk and she just wants answers. Despite her better judgement she lets a single question flow past her lips, unable to hold it back anymore. 

“How?”

Dahyun tilts her head and scrunches her nose. 

“How what?” 

“How could you… how could the memories be good when I was a terrible person to you? And not just to you, but to everyone. I don’t… I don’t understand how you even liked me back then,” Nayeon says. “Looking back on it I didn’t even like myself.” 

Dahyun sighs and leans back against the railing, looking out over Seoul with a soft smile on her lips. She looks content even as she seems to think, considering her words carefully before saying them.   

“I never thought you were terrible,” Dahyun says. “Even though Sana would say stuff, like that I should stay away from you and that you weren’t very nice. And it’s true, you weren’t nice really but you were never terrible. At least with me. And back then, I felt like you were the only person who had faith in me. Even Sana… she loves me, I know she does, but sometimes I feel like she doesn’t have faith in me. She always feels like she has to protect me and be gentle with me and sometimes she even lies to me because she thinks I can’t handle the truth. A lot of people are like that with me. I don’t know why.” 

Nayeon thinks she understands a bit. Dahyun is soft and small all around. With her round cheeks and smooth, pale skin, she looks like a porcelain doll that could break in an instant. And it’s true that Dahyun’s openness and willingness to trust has probably gotten her into trouble before. But Dahyun is right. Nayeon never thought of her as someone that needed protection. She can see how strong Dahyun is, how her gentleness is actually her greatest strength, how it bonds people to her, how it gets them to love her before they can even think of doing her harm. But that’s just how she sees her now… Back in high school she didn’t worry about Dahyun simply because she didn’t care. She thinks Dahyun is giving her too much credit. 

“I was on the verge of quitting theater, you know?” Dahyun says, still staring off into the distance instead of looking at Nayeon. “I really was. I kept getting these background roles and no matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to improve. You might not even remember this, but you helped me. You told me to keep working hard and not to worry about what other people think.” 

“Dahyun,” Mr. Park says. “You’re as stiff as a board. Loosen up. This whole scene is failing because of you.” 

Nayeon looks over at the younger girl and sees the way she bites her lower lip in a clear effort not to cry. Nayeon doesn’t really want to see her cry, but it’s not like she disagrees with Mr. Park. Honestly, she didn’t know that someone could be this bad at acting. Maybe she should be a little more grateful for her own god-given talent. 

“Let’s just move on to the next scene for now. Dahyun make sure to practice this well tonight, we’re going to run over it again tomorrow and I want to see improvement.” 

Dahyun nods and moves off backstage so that they can set up for the next scene. She’s not in that one. She’s only in three short scenes in this play. Only has a grand total of six lines. There’s a rumor going around that Mr. Park only gave her a role to reward her for the hard work she’d been doing behind the scenes and because not enough people had auditioned. Nayeon is inclined to believe the rumor. 

Nayeon also isn’t in this scene, despite being the lead. It’s one of the few where she gets a break and she gratefully makes her way backstage and sits down on one of the chairs to scroll through her phone. It just so happens that she ends up next to Dahyun. It was a miscalculation on her part. She hadn’t noticed when she sat down that Dahyun was crying. It's not obvious. The girl is clearly doing her best to hide her face by tucking her chin so that her hair falls like curtains around her face, but even though she’s clearly trying to muffle them, she can’t stop the small sobs coming out of her mouth. 

Nayeon feels the urge to walk away. It’s awkward to sit here without acknowledging her but at the same time… she doesn’t really want to be responsible for cheering her up. That seems like a lot of effort and what could she say? It’s not like Mr. Park is wrong. Nayeon isn’t going to lie to her just to make her feel better. What would that solve? 

Just as Nayeon is about to make her escape, she notices Dahyun wiping her eyes on her sleeve and okay, that’s gross. That, Nayeon simply cannot abide by. She’ll start wiping her nose on her sleeve soon too, probably. Nayeon gets up, finds some paper towels, the best next thing to tissues that they happen to have back stage, and hands them to Dahyun. 

“Thanks,” Dahyun mumbles. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Nayeon says. “Just stop crying.” 

Nayeon expects Dahyun to get more upset at those words. They certainly hadn’t helped when Nayeon had said them to Jennie last week after her boyfriend broke up with her, but somehow they seem to work. Dahyun’s sobs slow down and her eyes begin to dry. 

“I’m sorry,” Dahyun says. “I just don’t know what to do.” 

Nayeon shrugs. It’s not like she knows either. She’s just naturally talented. She didn’t have to work for her skills at all. She doesn’t know how to fix Dahyun’s problem. But to be crying over this… to be crying over some guy like Mr. Park. That’s just dumb. 

“Just keep trying,” she says. “And don’t let Mr. Park’s words affect you. Don’t let him make you cry. It’s not like he’s winning Oscars out here.” 

Dahyun lets out a wet laugh. 

“He’s right though,” Dahyun says. “I can tell I’m stiff. I just… I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve been trying. I’ve been practicing and practicing and trying to figure out the facial expressions and what to say and the timing. I practiced this for like four hours yesterday in front of the mirror and I thought I got better but… he says I’ve gotten worse and I just don’t know what to do anymore.” 

Four hours? Nayeon is flabbergasted. Dahyun’s lines today consisted of a grand total of like twenty words. How could she possibly practice for that long? What could she even be doing in all that time? Nayeon barely took the time to memorize her lines before getting on stage today, much less practice them. 

“I can’t believe you practiced for that long. I barely practice before going on stage. Maybe that’s your problem actually,” Nayeon says, a sudden epiphany hitting her. “You’re overthinking it.” 

“What?”

“You’re overthinking. It’s hard to come off as natural when you’re planning out every single move. That’s not how people talk in real life, y’know? It’s not like I’m thinking right now about every single word I’m saying and how I’m saying it and what to do with my hands and my feet and where to look. I’m just doing it. It’s the same with acting. I don't think that much when I'm stage, I just let myself feel.” 

Dahyun blinks at her twice, three times and then her entire expression shifts. Dahyun seems to be having an epiphany of her own. Nayeon watches her curiously as her expression goes though a number of changes in a second before setting into something determined. She stands up suddenly, causing Nayeon to stumble back in surprise. 

“Thank you, Nayeon,” Dahyun says. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“Hah,” Nayeon lets out a laugh as Dahyun’s words conjure a memory. “I wasn’t even thinking of it like that. I just wanted you to stop crying.” 

Dahyun laughs softly.

“Well, in some ways it doesn’t matter how you meant it,” she says. “It still helped me. And I just… I liked you because of that. And because you were pretty.” 

Nayeon blushes at the sudden compliment, feeling how it warms her face and ducks her head.

“Thank you,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry that I-“

Dahyun’s phone rings, the shrill sound cutting off Nayeon’s apology. She pulls it out and answers it. 

“Hey,” Dahyun answers smoothly. “Yeah, I’m outside… Just talking to Nayeon… Yeah, everything’s fine… I’ll head back in soon, okay?… Love you too.” 

She glances at Nayeon apologetically. 

“Sorry. That was Sana. She worries too much.” 

Nayeon waves her apology away though she feels something unpleasant swirling in her stomach. God, feelings are so stupid. It's not like she has a claim here.  

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad that you have someone that cares about you. You deserve to be with someone like that.” 

Dahyun turns to look at Nayeon, confusion clearly written in her eyes.

“Be with? Sana and I aren’t together.” 

“Huh?”

“We aren’t dating,” Dahyun says, a smile now spreading across her cheeks. “Though you aren’t the first person to think so. But I’m pretty sure Sana is trying to get Mina to go home with her tonight.”

Nayeon feels her face flush. 

“Oh god, I'm sorry. I just assumed…” 

“No, it’s alright,” Dahyun says. “As I said, you’re not the first. Probably won’t be the last. I love Sana. I really do, but I couldn’t date her.”

There’s a stirring in Nayeon’s chest, a traitorous, annoying hope that wriggles against her ribcage at learning that Dahyun is single. There are a number of walls that Nayeon had built between her Dahyun, but this revelation causes one to crumble and Nayeon feels suddenly, fearfully like the others might come down after it. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and tries to quash the feeling. 

But it’s hard. She’s still drunk, though she thinks maybe she’s starting to sober up a bit, and there’s a voice whispering in the back of her head that she won’t see Dahyun again. At least not until the premiere and even then it’ll just be for the press event. This might be the last time they hang out like this one on one and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Nayeon says some of the things that are rattling around her brain, fighting to get out. 

“I should head back in soon,” Dahyun says. “Before she comes out looking for me.” 

Dahyun moves to leave and Nayeon knows that if she doesn’t say something right now, she’ll regret it. She’ll have to hold onto these feelings inside of her with no resolution at all and it’ll drive her crazy. So she decides on the words she hopes will be the safest. 

“For the record,” she says and Dahyun pauses to glance back at her. “If the current me had met you back then, I would have been nicer. I would have liked you properly.” 

Dahyun freezes and in her pause Nayeon considers her own words and realizes what she just said. She hadn't meant for it to come out like that. She'd only meant that they could have been friends. 

“You would have… liked me?” Dahyun asks, as if trying to clarify.

“Um,” Nayeon stutters, backtracking desperately. “I mean, as a friend. I would have liked you as a friend. I would have been friends with you, properly.” 

Dahyun looks at her and then nods slowly. She seems to consider something carefully before taking a step closer to Nayeon. 

“Well,” she says softly. “For the record, if the me from back then had met current you, she still would have liked you. She probably would have liked you even more.” 

Nayeon feels her mind go blank as the words get processed, leaving her feeling stupid because they’re simple words. Nayeon’s grasp of her native tongue is still in place she thinks but that doesn’t explain why she doesn’t understand what is being said. It just doesn’t make sense. 

“What?” she croaks out. 

Dahyun sighs and steps in close again. She’s shaking a little Nayeon notices and frowns as she tries to curb the urge to reach out and steady her. 

“Maybe I’m stupid for saying this,” Dahyun says, eyes not quite meeting Nayeon’s, gaze steadily focused just above her hairline. “They say that doing the same thing again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. But I have this feeling… like if I don’t say something tonight I’ll never get the opportunity again.” 

“Say what, Dahyun?” 

Dahyun looks at her properly. 

“Nayeon,” she whispers. “I’ve said this once before and it didn’t go well but I-“ 

Nayeon’s eyes widen as her brain all of sudden catches up with what’s going on. The last of the walls that had been holding back the wave of feelings start to crumble as she realizes that she was wrong. She’d thought she'd lost her chance, that turning Dahyun down in high school had closed a door to her that would never open again. She had come to terms with it. But here is Dahyun - earnest, kind, wonderful - opening herself up again, about to repeat the words that had caused her so much pain last time. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Nayeon says, holding up her hands in a panic. Dahyun’s expression drops but Nayeon needs to understand before she can hear what Dahyun’s about to say. “What? I don’t… how can you? Why don’t you hate me, Dahyun? Before you say anything else please tell me: how can you not hate me?” 

Dahyun looks a little sad but she grabs Nayeon’s raised hands and pulls them down gently so that the marginal wall they had built in front of her disappears. She holds them gently, thumbs running along her knuckles. 

“I was sad, when you turned me down,” Dahyun says. “But I never hated you. How could I? I liked you too much back then and it wasn’t your fault you didn’t like me.”

“But I was so cruel, Dahyun,” Nayeon says. “How could you see that side of me and still… I don’t understand.” 

Dahyun shrugs. 

“Maybe I’m naive,” Dahyun says. “Or maybe you’re just not as evil as you think you are. Does it matter? I still liked you. Whether or not you realize it, you changed my life back then. You gave me confidence and direction. I wouldn’t be here without you. How could I not like someone who gave me all of that?” 

Nayeon inhales and exhales shakily. She’s still struggling to process this but there are waves of happiness crashing inside of her, filling her whole self with this warm, mushy, exhilarating feeling. She’s torn between feeling that she doesn’t deserve this and wanting it more than anything. 

“Nayeon,” Dahyun says, “You don’t owe me anything, but please let me say this. You can turn me down again and this time I promise no matter what happens next time we meet, I won’t say it ever again, but please let me get this off my chest.” 

Nayeon considers and then she shakes her head. 

“No,” she says. 

Dhayun’s face falls and she moves to pull her hands away but Nayeon won’t let her, tightening her grasp around her fingers and pulling her in until there’s barely and space between them. 

“You don’t have to say it this time,” Nayeon whispers. 

Nayeon watches as Dahyun blinks in confusion.

"Wha-“

“I like you, Dahyun,” Nayeon says, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “I feel selfish, liking you now when I treated you so poorly back then. I’ve been holding myself back because I didn’t think I deserved this. But I… I do like you. If you can accept someone like me then-“

Her words are stopped by Dahyun's lips on her own. Nayeon has kissed Dahyun before, on set with the lights surrounding them and a script in her mind. It had been heart-stopping then, but now it’s just them and Nayeon isn't sure her heart is even beating anymore. Dahyun’s lips are move deliberately against hers, not because of some stage directions in a script, but because Dahyun herself chose it. She wants this, maybe as much as Nayeon does and Nayeon feels her mind to go numb with it. 

She lets go of Dahyun’s hands, exchanging the feeling of Dahyun’s fingers for the soft curve of her waist and Dahyun’s hands creep up her arms to slide against her shoulders and pull her in closer. Nayeon gasps into her mouth when she feels a tongue against her lower lip and, god, she would rather die than stop this. She turns them a little until she can press Dahyun up against the railing. Nayeon might be the luckiest person in the world, she thinks as she tugs Dahyun closer to her by the hem of her shirt. She doesn’t deserve this. But maybe it doesn’t matter because Dahyun is pulling her closer, closer and mumbling her name between kisses and Nayeon won’t deny her a goddamn thing right now. Not if it means she gets to have this thing she’s wanted so desperately for months. 

“Nayeon,” Dahyun whispers again when Nayeon draws back for air. 

“Dahyun,” Nayeon responds, pressing a kiss to her cheek and then jaw and then her neck. 

“I like you too,” Dahyun says, maybe somewhat unnecessarily. 

But it makes Nayeon flush to hear it, makes her heart flip in her chest and god, those words. Those words are so dangerous. She slides her hands back around Dahyun’s waist, moving them until they can press against the small of her back and pull her into a make-shift hug, as she tucks her face into Dahyun’s collarbone. Dahyun holds her closely and Nayeon thinks she can hear the racing of Dahyun’s heart in her chest. 

“The last few months have been torture,” Nayeon mumbles. “Pretending to like you on screen while pretending not to like you off-screen. It was driving me crazy.” 

Dahyun chuckles. 

“Me too,” she says. “Every word you said to me as Hana, I heard them in my dreams as if it was you. After that kiss scene, I dreamt of you every night for a week.” 

Nayeon nuzzles into her neck and presses a kiss to wherever her lips meet Dahyun’s skin. She feels Dahyun shiver under her and she pulls back to look at her properly. 

“I think I’m dreaming right now,” she says. 

“I hope I’m not,” Dahyun says. “I don’t want to wake up if I am.” 

Nayeon leans in to kiss her but is cut off by the sound of Dahyun’s phone again. Dahyun looks at her sheepishly but moves to answer it. 

“Sana, stop worrying,” Dahyun says as soon as she presses the phone to her ear. “Yes, we’re fine… Yes, I promise…” Nayeon leans her head against Dahyun’s shoulder as she talks and melts into the feeling of Dahyun’s fingers carding through her hair. “Okay, fine. I’m coming in now. Stop whining.” 

She hangs up the phone with a sharp jab of her thumb and a frustrated sigh. It’s the most annoyed that Nayeon has ever seen her and she thinks it’s cute that it’s because they’re getting interrupted. Dahyun pockets her phone and pushes up to finish giving Nayeon the kiss that had been interrupted. Nayeon lets her kiss her for a little bit (how the hell could she deny her?) but eventually, she has to pull away. 

“We should go inside.” 

Dahyun whines. She tugs Nayeon closer by the shoulders as she tries to step away entirely. 

“Believe me I feel the same,” Nayeon says, sneaking in a kiss between her words. “But I don’t need Sana to hate me more than she already does. If we’re going to… do this, I can’t have your best friend hating me.” 

“She doesn’t hate you,” Dahyun says but she allows Nayeon to pull away. 

Nayeon grabs her hand to keep her close, enjoying how soft it is and how small it feels in her own. 

“Oh, she definitely does.”

Not that it matters. Sana can hate her as much as she wants. Anyone can think whatever they want of her, as long as Dahyun likes her, then that’s all that matters.