Chapter Text

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Monday

If you ask Haewon, Mondays are actually fine.

Yes, they’re the farthest day from Friday. Yes, it means that Haewon is once again dancing until she’s drenched in sweat, only to film endless mandatory short videos and figure out interesting things to say on Bubble until both her head and fingers hurt. (The worst part is watching Yoona do this with no problem at all.)

But Monday also means Haewon gets to watch Lily stretch.

So Haewon sits in the mirrored practice room, doing what she always does on a Monday: pretend to check the group schedule on her phone while flicking her eyes up and across the room to a sight that still makes something come loose inside of her, even after years of training and performing together.

She sees Lily stretch. She sees Lily open her body into positions that are mundane, technical poses, arms over legs and knees, neck tilting left and right. They’re positions Haewon has seen ten thousand times, motions Haewon has watched Lily go about dutifully every day in this particular practice room for four years.

Lily stretching is not new. It is Lily preparing for choreography. It is Lily working.

It is also Haewon fighting for her life.

Because Haewon is the leader. She can’t be here watching Lily’s weight shift when she changes sides, seeing the specific bend of her neck when she rolls her head and her hair falls across her face and she pushes it back.

So every Monday, Haewon looks away, which is a motion Haewon has practiced since debut, since Lily stretching in the same room became a daily occurrence. She looks away and she picks up her water bottle and she drinks and the drinking is once again a cover for watching Lily stretch. If anyone asks, Haewon thinks, NMIXX’s leader is just drinking water. She’s allowed.

So Haewon gulps down her water and checks the schedule again, which she has not actually read yet. “Five minutes,” Haewon calls out, hoping her voice reads more “fearless leader of NMIXX” and less “extremely thirsty twenty-something.”  The room responds. Monday begins and Monday is fine.

Haewon is not fine.

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Tuesday

On Tuesday, Haewon sits in the JYP cafeteria at the NMIXX table by the window. Kyujin's drinking her fourth liter of water of the day, with Jiwoo slumped on her shoulder. Jinsol's filming a short. Yoona, as always, is on Bubble, while eating what appears to be an entire rotisserie chicken.

Haewon puts her phone face down on the table. She’s trying something new. Being active in the moment, unhindered by KakaoTalk or her secret social media accounts. So she looks across the table instead and sees Lily eating bibimbap.

Lily is eating bibimbap with the specific idol-trained focus she gives things, the impenetrable illusion that she’s paying exclusive attention to you and you alone. She mixes the rice and vegetables with her spoon, lifts some up to her lips, parts them wide and —

And Haewon looks away, because she’s decided that starting today she’s giving herself only 10 seconds of Lily-watching per Lily-event, which is stingy, but necessary lest Haewon stop eating her own lunch entirely. More than once Haewon has thought that Lily ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning. Warning: Watching Lily Jin Park Morrow is a highly addictive activity, resulting in embarrassing familiarity with specific body parts and extreme attachment.

So Haewon looks down on her own lunch, which — great. It's also bibimbap, which reminds her of Lily's bibimbap, which reminds her of Lily's lips, which defeats the whole purpose of the ten seconds. She should have gotten something else. Why didn't she get something else?

"Are you okay?"

Haewon looks up from her bibimbap and sees Lily staring back, her spoon halfway up to her face her mouth her lips her — did she say something? She said something, didn't she? Haewon, it's your turn to talk. But what did she say? Quick, something, anything —

"Bibimbap," Haewon says, pointing to the bibimbap.

Lily furrows her eyebrows as Haewon's subconscious files away the past ten seconds. A delightful memory it'll remind Haewon of later, probably at a variety show, causing her face to contort for just a second, long enough for annoying YouTube commenters to point it out.

"Yes," Lily says slowly. She lifts the spoon to her mouth.

Haewon looks at her bibimbap.

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Wednesday

Usually, Haewon enjoys being in the booth, because it means Haewon gets to slip into a t-shirt and sweats and grab an Americano and simply become her best self, which is perfectly competent.

And she is perfectly competent. Haewon's not under any illusions when it comes to how technical her vocals are, how clean and crystalline her voice is on "High Horse" or "ADORE U." She knows what people write about her on Twitter, how she's framed on NamuWiki. She is precise. She is controlled. She's who you bring in when it's important for someone to actually understand the lyrics, and that is always an honor.

Today, however, the sound engineer has requested that Haewon advise him on recording, which means Haewon gets to sit in a nice chair, inspect all the lights and knobs on the console, and stare through the glass right at —

Lily. Right at Lily, who smiles and waves. God, it's already been 10 seconds. Haewon's going to go way over budget.

But then the sound engineer nods and Lily turns around, ties her hair back, and puts her headphones on, shuffling closer to the mic. And Haewon decides that Lily's back doesn't count, and resets her mental 10-second timer.

Then the engineer says "From the bridge, Lily-ssi," and Lily sings.

Lily singing is, like Lily stretching, not new. Haewon's heard Lily sing this particular bridge about sixty times across rehearsal, demos, scratch vocals, the works.

But Lily's voice during practice is one thing. It's entirely different when Lily's voice is being transmitted into Haewon's ears through $5,000 headphones, with hardly any air in between. It's somehow even more intimate than when Lily whispers into Haewon's ears in variety shows that Haewon secretly wishes would happen more often.

Back in school, Haewon was top of her class in Korean language. Haewon still has no words for how this feels.

Haewon listens to Lily and Haewon hears the bridge and Haewon has notes. In fact, she has several notes, because Haewon is the technician, the specialist, the one the sound engineer asked for specifically for this bridge. And when Lily lands the last note — a quiet, emotional beat after a powerhouse belt — the sound engineer glances up at Haewon.

"What do you think?"

Haewon opens her mouth to speak, a bulleted list forming on her lips, when Lily turns back around.

"It's good," Haewon finds herself saying.

The sound engineer waits.

Haewon is supposed to say more. Just ten seconds ago, she had composed an entire slide deck in her head about how Lily overshot a particular run, going sharp on the way up, clipping a bit on the way down.

But looking at Lily — four seconds, five seconds, six — Haewon's brain is erasing every single slide, throwing them into an irrecoverable trash bin.

"The—" Haewon starts, clearing her throat. "The run coming down. Maybe open it up a little more. You stop a little short."

That isn't the note. It's close to the note. But it isn't the note. Haewon sees Lily tilt her head slightly, her eyebrows furrowing exactly the way they did on Tuesday. She can tell Lily is deciding whether to say something. Then, she just nods.

"Got it," Lily says, and Haewon almost drops her Americano as she hears Lily through her headphones again.

Lily sings it again. The run is good. Lily's voice unfolds and Haewon, who has spent her entire adolescence training her ear to catch minute differences in breath and timbre, simply lets herself enjoy the sound of Lily's voice crisscrossing through her body.

The bridge ends. The sound engineer looks up.

"Better," Haewon says.

Through the glass, Lily smiles, and Haewon smiles back. Ten seconds.

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Thursday

On Thursday morning, Haewon sleepily escorts NMIXX to the van, which shuttles six equally weary idols to the CJ ENM building to pre-record M Countdown. Then they're sent to hair and makeup, which is six chairs in a row, which is six oppressively lit mirrors, which is a hostile environment for a person whose only hope for surviving the day is not looking at Lily.

Haewon is in chair 3. Lily is in chair 5. Only Kyujin, in chair 4, can possibly prevent Haewon from combusting in this room.

So Haewon looks directly at Kyujin and gives her what she thinks is a neutral smile. Kyujin stares back at Haewon for about two seconds, then looks at her phone.

Kyujin does not look up for eleven more minutes. Looking at Kyujin is safe. But looking at Kyujin is also boring.

In the practice room, which also has mirrors, Haewon can turn her head 90 degrees and look at the wall instead. In the hair and makeup room, as Haewon learns, her stylist will catch Haewon's face mid-turn and gently but firmly turn it back, as if to say we have done this hundreds of times what is wrong with you.

So Haewon, who suspects Kyujin is deliberately not looking up, makes a decision.

Haewon is not going to look at Lily.

Haewon is going to look at a wall.

That the wall happens to have a large mirror that has Lily's reflection in it is not Haewon's fault. Haewon will stare at this wall that happens to have Lily on it and Haewon will be fine.

At the moment, the Lily on the mirror on the wall — Haewon is intently compartmentalizing this particular Lily — appears to be having her eyeliner done, which means she is holding very still with her chin up, her stylist tipping Lily's face into the light. As Lily opens her eyes wide, Haewon looks closer. Her stylist tells her to please stop moving her head. Haewon stops moving her head, watching the wall from the corner of her eyes.

Haewon is experiencing this Lily-event without counting to ten, because technically she is looking at the wall, not Lily, and her rule does not apply to walls. Many seconds pass. Who's counting?

"Unnie," Kyujin says without looking up from her phone.

"Hmm?"

"You're so obvious."

Haewon's stylist, who has just begun to apply lipstick, says please stop moving your mouth. Haewon, who has just stopped breathing, finds this easy.

Kyujin's thumb does not stop scrolling. Her face is casual. Her voice is light. She could be talking about anything. Maybe about a question Haewon answered on Bubble. Maybe about an interview Kyujin saw online. Maybe—

No. Kyujin is clearly talking about how Haewon is looking at the wall.

"What do you mean?" Haewon asks, with what she thinks is leader energy and is in fact the energy of someone eviscerated by a nineteen-year-old. Her stylist clears her throat loudly.

"Nothing," Kyujin says, closing whatever app she's looking at. "Just, you know. Obvious."

Kyujin pauses for a length of time Haewon experiences as roughly the length of time it took her to debut.

"Don't worry. I don't think she's noticed."

Kyujin says this with the faintly tired competence of someone who has been forced to manage people much older than her since middle school.

Haewon spends the next five to ten minutes thinking about this. I don't think she's noticed. "Noticed" is doing a lot of work in this sentence. What's there to notice? Just a leader checking on her member every now and then. Just a leader examining Lily's stretch form, making sure Lily is eating, giving notes for Lily's singing. This is simply what a good leader does.

If there's anything else to notice, Haewon thinks, that is strictly between her and possibly God. Well, between her, possibly God, and apparently a disgruntled maknae.

Lily, in chair 5, turns and Haewon sees her on the wall. Lily's eyes crinkle when she beams. Haewon beams back.

"Obvious," mutters Kyujin.

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Friday

Backstage on Music Bank, Haewon is documenting evidence.

Haewon is good at documentation. Haewon takes notes, marks them up in different colors, and writes reports with appendices. Haewon is the leader of NMIXX, and she is going to apply that competence to answer the question: what the hell is Lily doing?

While Kim Jae-won natters about something with whoever's on stage, Haewon examines the evidence:

Exhibit A

6:42 AM. On their way to Yeouido-dong, Lily sat next to Haewon in the back of the van. Lily historically sits in the front, next to Jiwoo, because Jiwoo is usually still asleep and Lily finds this comforting.

Today, Jiwoo was indeed asleep. But Lily sat next to Haewon. Why? Haewon continues her examination.

Exhibit B

6:56 AM. Lily fell asleep on Haewon's shoulder for approximately three (3) traffic lights. This is not unusual per se. Every member of NMIXX has fallen asleep on someone's shoulder hundreds of times by now, four years after debut.

But.

When the fourth traffic light changed, Lily lifted her head, yawned, and put her head back on Haewon's shoulder, completely awake.

This lasted for approximately 16 minutes until a pothole jolted Lily back into sitting position. Haewon knows this because she counted every second.

Exhibit C

9:14 AM. Hair and makeup. A pillar blocked Lily's reflection in the mirror, which annoyed the part of Haewon that wanted to look at Lily-in-the-wall, but relieved the part of Haewon that wanted to stay perfectly competent.

Haewon was about to slip out of the chair to go to the restroom when Lily passed by, brushing Haewon's hand with two fingers.

"Brushing" is the word Haewon finally settled on when reviewing this evidence, having rejected "touching," "grazing," and, God forbid, "caressing." "Brushing" because it felt clinical. "Brushing" because Lily did not say anything; Lily did not look at Haewon; she simply brushed her fingers against Haewon's and that was that.

It could have been an accident. It could have been simply an "excuse me, coming through." The fact that Lily said nothing was very unhelpful. Haewon does not have the cognitive ability here at Music Bank to investigate further. 

Exhibit D

9:45 AM. The green room. On August 29, 2019, JYP Entertainment held a trainee showcase where Haewon and Lily covered a song called "Speechless." It was a good cover, and if Haewon wanted to she could draw a direct line from that cover to where she is now. But she doesn't think about it much because that was years ago and Haewon is the kind of person who keeps moving forward.

Yet there she was in the green room, listening to Lily hum the chorus of "Speechless."

Haewon has no idea why. Haewon's not sure she even remembers the melody to "Speechless." But Lily was humming it, a song from before she debuted with NMIXX, mere hours before performing with NMIXX.

Why? Nostalgia? For what? Trainee days? Couldn't be. The only thing that makes any sense is if Lily were nostalgic for —

No. It's inconclusive. The evidence is not so neat, Haewon thinks. Correlation does not imply causation. Haewon's professional recommendation to herself is therefore "please stop, please, please, you are performing live in six minutes."

The performance goes well. Haewon is perfectly competent and so is the rest of NMIXX. Haewon's eyes meet Lily's multiple times, the way they do at every performance, because that is the choreography and that is the job.

That doesn't prevent Haewon from spending the entire van ride home reliving every look into Lily's eyes.

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Saturday

There is no schedule on Saturday.

As a general rule, Haewon needs a schedule. She didn't before. But four years into leading NMIXX, Haewon without a schedule is Haewon without a purpose. And Haewon without a purpose is Haewon in the kitchen at 5 AM, holding a mug of lukewarm coffee, in pajamas she's worn since she sang "Speechless" with Lily, staring at the time on the microwave, because time is the only thing she can trust.

Without a van lurking in the parking lot, the dorm is still asleep. Lily is asleep in the room two doors down from the kitchen, which is an image the perfectly competent part of Haewon refuses to entertain.

Because here's the thing: this whole time Haewon has operated on the assumption that Lily is a superficial problem that she can simply solve. Despite everything, Haewon knows how Lily affects her. Hence the looking away and the ten-second rule and the evidence analysis. Haewon is trying to manage the Lily-events so that she can focus on Haewon-events instead.

But what if the Lily-events weren't just Lily-events? Could there be a possibility, however scant, that the Lily-events could become Lily-and-Haewon-ev—

Haewon drinks her coffee like she's covering for watching Lily stretch. Why would she even— there's nothing there. Lily is simply— Haewon just thinks Lily is good-looking. And that she has a good voice. There's nothing else, there's nothing else, you are the leader of the group, you cannot be feeling this, you have to—

In the kitchen, away from the practice room and the cafeteria and the sound booth and the mirrors and the music shows, with no one to perform for, no water bottle to hide behind, and no one to look away from, Haewon flinches like she's been struck upside the head and thinks: oh.

That's it.

That's what it always was.

Haewon stands there for a while, as the sun rises and spills light across the stove. Something inside the walls creaks and settles and is quiet again. Haewon wonders if she should go back to bed, but immediately shuts that down. In the bed she will only lie there, staring at the ceiling, and the oh will have nothing to do but get louder and louder.

She is still standing there when the hallway light comes on.

It isn't Lily. Thank God it's not Lily. Haewon is genuinely grateful it isn't Lily because if there's one thing she's unprepared for in this shattered state of mind, it's the person she l—

At any rate, it's Kyujin, in an oversized shirt and bare feet, who looks at Haewon in the kitchen at 5 in the morning and says, "Unnie?"

"Morning," Haewon says.

Kyujin stares at her and Haewon can't help but feel cross-examined again. But Kyujin does not ask follow-up questions. She does not question why Haewon appears to be staring at a microwave that has nothing in it, why Haewon has not brushed her hair or done her morning routine or anything close to it.

Kyujin simply walks up to Haewon, takes another mug from the cabinet, pours herself some water, and drinks.

Then she stands next to Haewon, facing the microwave, and squeezes Haewon's hand.

This is worse than "obvious," Haewon thinks. "Obvious" is just a word. "Obvious" is defensible. The maknae realizing her leader is experiencing a particular flavor of emotional distress is not defensible. It is Haewon being seen when Haewon has barely begun to see herself.

But Kyujin stays and holds her hand and doesn't ask anything and doesn't say anything, and after a while — Haewon doesn't know how long, because Haewon does not count Kyujin-events — Kyujin squeezes again, nods, and walks toward the bathroom.

The bathroom door closes.

Haewon, alone again, finishes the coffee. The oh is still there. The oh will be there tomorrow. Haewon has spent the entire week trying to solve a problem and it turns out the problem is not technically solvable, because it is not a problem, but a situation.

You can't solve a situation. You can only be in one.

Haewon washes her mug. She puts it on the rack. She stares at the microwave a little bit longer, watching the time tick toward 6 AM, steady, honest.

Then she gets ready to start her day.

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Sunday

If you ask Haewon, Sundays are actually fine.

Yes, they're the end of the weekend. Yes, it means that Haewon is once again reviewing schedules, reconciling six calendars into a single document, only to edit last-minute when Yoona's called into some inexplicable meeting or Jiwoo has a shoot she forgot to talk about.

But Sunday is also the day before Monday, which is also actually fine. And this Monday, Haewon will be prepared.

Because Haewon has a new rule.

Five seconds.

Five seconds is half of ten seconds, which means five seconds is twice as disciplined, which means five seconds is the kind of rule that a person who can control her situation would impose on herself.

Lying in bed, Haewon is dimly aware that more rules, applied more strictly, with greater rigor, is exactly the same response she has had to every problem she has ever encountered. Haewon is also dimly aware that this might be part of the problem. Haewon is not in the kitchen and therefore will not dwell on this.

Five seconds per Lily-event. No exceptions. Not for Lily in a mirror, not for the back of Lily's head, not for Lily's voice in her headphones. No exceptions for the specific bend of Lily's neck, nor for Lily's head on her shoulder, nor for Lily humming something she has no business humming.

Haewon is in a situation. Haewon is managing it.

Five seconds.

In the dark, staring at the ceiling, Haewon already knows she's lying to herself.