im nayeon had felt alone since before she could remember. she thrived in the feeling, back when it was her against the world, the pressures of family and expectation and the friends she made at school, chasing the same dream, for whom entrance into jyp entertainment's trainee program was a miracle, it pushed her. but from the minute she stepped into the trainee practice room and laid her eyes on yoo jungyeon, everything changed.
*****
elementary school was rough. a pretty girl with buck teeth stood out like a sore thumb, and as she slept in class after staying up all night dancing in her room nayeon stopped expecting understanding from her classmates. she had tried to harden herself during those years, faced not with the derision of her peers, but the exclusion. she supposed she brought it on herself. not having those memories with close friends of eleven pm spicy rice cake runs after hours spent in cram school was the price nayeon paid for her dream, paid with bus rides to dance studios spent alone with just her music and thoughts as company. she told herself after every test that she just needed to get to drama school, the world didn't need seven billion doctors, or lawyers. she wouldn't let herself fail. never mind the voice in the back of her head that said the music industry didn't need another mediocre singer with a pretty smile.
nayeon didn't even notice at first. the me-against-the-world mentality she held like armour through elementary school had started to change. after years of forcing herself to keep her head up, something others often mistook for arrogance without knowing how much she cried in her room after park jinyoung first told her she looked too rehearsed, nayeon found herself factoring others into her plan. she'd always been friendly and relatively popular despite the distance she felt from her peers, but there was never a doubt in her mind that in the end all she could rely on was herself.
but when nayeon was exhausted physically and mentally from practicing the same routine nine hours a day every weekend, language classes, school and personality training (whatever the fuck that meant), jungyeon was there. of course, nayeon was close to the other trainees too – park jisoo in particular was steadfast and dependable, but she'd been raised in this environment, knew jyp entertainment like the back of her hand. she didn't get the quake in her stomach at the words “monthly evaluation”, her heart didn't plummet when park jinyoung dropped by to check on their progress like nayeon's did, like jungyeon's did, both believing they were one voice crack, one misstep away from going home in failure. park jisoo was strong, beautiful, talked back to jyp in a way that made nayeon choke with surprised laughter the first time she witnessed it, and was the best friend nayeon could have hoped to meet in this ultra-competitive environment that consumed their whole world, but she wasn't yoo jungyeon. jungyeon, who seemed so carefree and lighthearted, who cried in front of her mirror more times than she would ever tell anyone but nayeon, the consequence of what almost two decades of your sister is stunningly beautiful could do to a young girl's self-esteem.
when jyp announced they would be debuting soon as 6Mix, it took nayeon four days to calm herself down. mixed with the excitement was a feeling of dread - she'd been working for so long towards this particular goal, if it didn't go according to plan she didn't know what she would do. it made the implosion of the group easier to handle, in a way. when cecilia left, sana joined, then lena left, and finally park jinyoung sat the five of them down to tell them they’d have to rethink the group and their future with the company, nayeon was almost relieved despite her tears. it wasn’t until two months later that they got the news: the five of them would be placed in a survival show with eleven others, in full view of the entire country, subject to criticism and nasty attacks all for a chance to debut.
sixteen was an adjustment. nayeon knew all the trainees by face, if not by name, having experienced the same kind of cordial but distant relationship she knew too well from her school days. for her, the plan was always to debut with 6Mix, the younger trainees following at least two years later when they’d meet and exchange greetings in music show hallways, and maybe then they’d have the chance to forge memories together. she didn’t expect to be pitted against girls seven years younger than her, and the strange mix of competitiveness and concern for the other contestants took weeks for her to sort through. the first time she got demoted to the minor team, she could feel jungyeon’s eyes on her, watching like she always did to make sure nayeon was okay. jungyeon let her be, let her process, knew if she pushed nayeon would push her away. they knew each other too well, and nayeon was grateful. she woke up the next morning to a note folded under her pillow that read don’t listen to that old man. you were amazing yesterday, and he wouldn’t know true stage presence if it jumped in front of him wearing plastic pants , followed by a small collage of magazine clippings of jyp himself in all his most embarrassing outfits. tears welled up in nayeon’s eyes as she knew jungyeon would have had to go out to the convenience store late last night to get these pictures, as they didn’t have a printer in the shithole that was the minor dorm. her eyes travelled to the bottom of the page, where jungyeon had written in handwriting so small she almost missed it, i’m here for you. for anything you need. always.
*****
after debut and hours spent in music show waiting rooms unable to sleep for the humming in her chest, after meeting the fans who knew her name, her face, who laughed at her jokes little by little until she felt she could let go and be herself in front of others finally after all these years and that she could almost die of happiness, a fan, shy and nervous as most were, handed her a letter sealed with a heart sticker and asked nayeon which of her members she would marry if they were the only people left in this world. nayeon thought about the note she kept tucked in her phone case, mentally phrased her answer without the condition and gave her reply with a smile.
jungyeon. there are many reasons, but i cannot live without yoo jungyeon.