Kyulkyung only looks at her after picking pieces of confetti out of her own dark hair. "You're making it obvious," she points out, a little stern.
Nayoung blinks, coming back into herself. She belatedly claps along as the beginning beats of the winning song of the week flood through the sound system. She'd tried her best not to think highly of it when it was first released, but couldn't help humming the hook under the shower, when the running water was loud enough to drown her off-pitch high notes out. She meets Kyulkyung's eyes as they start shuffling off the stage and asks, "What do you mean?"
Kyulkyung tilts her chin toward the front. It was weird at first, and awkward, having to face each other years after their shared dream had been snuffed out. It was still weird now, knowing these past versions of each other so intimately and wholly, and not quite being old enough yet for time to scab over their old selves, and not far enough into the future where they could be completely removed from them. Frankly, sometimes when the light hit her face a certain way, Nayoung still saw the girl who'd put on a brave face when she'd walked into their old practice room for the first time and didn't speak a lick of Korean.
Now, Kyulkyung says to her in awkward phrasing, "You don't notice it, but you keep glaring at them." They bow to a junior artist who passes by. "You shouldn't hate them for what happened. They had nothing to do with it."
"I don't." Some part of her does, or wishes she did. She'd never admit it aloud, though. It sounded too petty and unjustified for being twenty-eight, and she should've long outgrown the trepidation of always coming second because the boys always had to come first. "That's just ridiculous."
Seventeen is standing in the spotlight with their backs to the rest of them, singing along to their encore. Jeonghan's holding the trophy up high in his hands, confetti caught in the crown of his hair. There's sweat shining on the back of his neck. Nayoung can hear the triumphant smile in his voice when Dokyeom lets him sing into the mic for the hook that's been stuck in Nayoung's head ever since she watched the music video on her phone under the covers of her bed, in the otherwise darkness of her apartment.
These things, Nayoung didn't miss about being an idol.
---------
"I can't wait to cut my hair," Jeonghan suddenly sighs from where he's laying on her couch. It's a sofa bed, actually. Nayoung ordered it online because she thought it'd be useful for having people over. And then when it arrived, she realized that she never had people over. She doesn't even know how to set up the mattress.
Seungcheol started his service maybe two months ago. She knows Jeonghan's planning to go soon, too, before February of next year. It makes it easier, knowing this thing between them has a definitive end date. "Don't let your fans hear you," she chastises from where she's reloading her hot water dispenser. "You'll break their hearts like that."
He cranes his neck to meet her eyes over the kitchen counter. "Do you think I'd be popular if I got a buzzcut?" He's grinning like he's up to no good.
She'd gone over to his place before, maybe three times. She'd walked over to grab something off his TV stand and then realized that she'd seen a picture of Joshua on Jeonghan's Instagram, taken from that exact spot. She never wanted to go over there again afterwards.
Nayoung considers and then concludes, "I can't speak for the public."
The thing is, she'd hated when he'd started growing out his hair back before debut. They'd cross each other in the hallways and she'd be polite, but it was like every inch of hair brought him closer to something she'd been working years for. Boiled down to that, it felt like all the time she'd spent in the practice room could be trivialized into something so easily cut off.
Jeonghan runs a hand through it, pensive. "All the more reason to get rid of it," he says as if she hadn't tangled her fingers in it at the nape of his neck when he kissed her ten minutes ago. And it was all so trivial, all over again.
---------
Nayoung asked for Jeonghan's number a year ago, when they guested on the same variety show. She'd done so mostly out of courtesy, and they didn't interact much during the shoot otherwise. A month later, she texted him for his birthday, and somehow that turned into regularly exchanging messages, and that turned into asking if he wanted extra persimmons her aunt had sent her that would go bad otherwise, and that turned into him gently brushing her hair out of her face, her fingers twisted in his cotton t-shirt.
For the most part, Nayoung assuaged their relationship by convincing herself it was just casual. They talked so little about each other to other people that it seemed like their relationship was nonexistent. They didn't have the same favorite songs, and they didn't have the same social circles, and Nayoung only knows for certain that Joshua figured it out, but only because he looked at Jeonghan's phone once.
"That doesn't count," she pointed out when Jeonghan told her. Some part of her foolishly wanted it to be more obvious, but when she thought about it further, she decided she'd hate that more.
They never took pictures of each other, or sent each other anything but plain-word texts. That's how Nayoung pretended how little this whole thing truly meant to her. Jeonghan laughed, "We're every PR team's dream," and then Nayoung shut him up by kissing him square on the mouth.
In hindsight, she regretted never asking Sowon about how it'd been when she and Jeonghan were dating, but Nayoung knew it'd been her own hubris. She hadn't bothered asking because she thought it'd be impossible, ending up in the same exact situation. And now here she was, in the same exact situation.
---------
"If you had a friend," Jeonghan begins, "and they liked this guy, but say the guy was going to do his military service soon. Would you wait for the guy if you were them?"
Nayoung tears the paper a little from where she'd been pulling at the dog ear of her script. "Can you say that again?" she says slowly.
Jeonghan leans forward to put his phone facedown onto her coffee table. Nayoung can't meet his gaze. "I mean me," he repeats. He clears his throat. "And you."
"Oh." Nayoung's ripped the dog ear off entirely at this point. She rolls the softened paper between her fingers anyway, not trusting herself with anything else, much less Yoon Jeonghan's heart. "You want me to wait for you?"
"If you want to." He sounds so earnest that Nayoung makes the mistake of glancing up. He looks at her, earnest too.
Earlier in the year, the kiss scene in Nayoung's last webdrama went semi-viral. It'd been with an up-and-coming actor five years younger than her, and their characters were arguing over why they should and shouldn't be together at a new year's party. It all came to a head when the crowd around them, oblivious to their shouting, counted down the last ten seconds, and Nayoung's character surged forward to kiss her love interest right as the confetti shot into the air to welcome in the new year, fluttering down around them. It'd been all anyone ever asked her about during their short IOI reunion promotions, to the point that Nayoung never wanted to talk about it again.
Jeonghan never brought it up with her once, and she'd dismissed the script early as fiction. And now, Nayoung chokes out over the want of such a picture-perfect ending for the both of them, "It can't be that easy. For us."
Jeonghan's mouth tilts into a smile. "It only sounds that way if you want it to." It looks like he wants to reach for her hand, the one folding creases into the dog ear. In case he's thought about it, she puts the paper down.
"I wasn't supposed to like you," she tells him, which is admission enough. Idly, she thinks about all the reasons she should hate him.
"I've liked you for a long time," he says so readily that it can't not be true.
He grinned at her brightly on the last day of her promotions, when he was a guest MC and IOI won, handing her the trophy. Their hands brushed briefly in the flood of the stage lights. Now, Jeonghan covers her hand with his slowly, like he's giving her the chance to draw away.
they assume you know nothing - nayoung/jeonghan - canon
Nayoung blinks, coming back into herself. She belatedly claps along as the beginning beats of the winning song of the week flood through the sound system. She'd tried her best not to think highly of it when it was first released, but couldn't help humming the hook under the shower, when the running water was loud enough to drown her off-pitch high notes out. She meets Kyulkyung's eyes as they start shuffling off the stage and asks, "What do you mean?"
Kyulkyung tilts her chin toward the front. It was weird at first, and awkward, having to face each other years after their shared dream had been snuffed out. It was still weird now, knowing these past versions of each other so intimately and wholly, and not quite being old enough yet for time to scab over their old selves, and not far enough into the future where they could be completely removed from them. Frankly, sometimes when the light hit her face a certain way, Nayoung still saw the girl who'd put on a brave face when she'd walked into their old practice room for the first time and didn't speak a lick of Korean.
Now, Kyulkyung says to her in awkward phrasing, "You don't notice it, but you keep glaring at them." They bow to a junior artist who passes by. "You shouldn't hate them for what happened. They had nothing to do with it."
"I don't." Some part of her does, or wishes she did. She'd never admit it aloud, though. It sounded too petty and unjustified for being twenty-eight, and she should've long outgrown the trepidation of always coming second because the boys always had to come first. "That's just ridiculous."
Seventeen is standing in the spotlight with their backs to the rest of them, singing along to their encore. Jeonghan's holding the trophy up high in his hands, confetti caught in the crown of his hair. There's sweat shining on the back of his neck. Nayoung can hear the triumphant smile in his voice when Dokyeom lets him sing into the mic for the hook that's been stuck in Nayoung's head ever since she watched the music video on her phone under the covers of her bed, in the otherwise darkness of her apartment.
These things, Nayoung didn't miss about being an idol.
---------
"I can't wait to cut my hair," Jeonghan suddenly sighs from where he's laying on her couch. It's a sofa bed, actually. Nayoung ordered it online because she thought it'd be useful for having people over. And then when it arrived, she realized that she never had people over. She doesn't even know how to set up the mattress.
Seungcheol started his service maybe two months ago. She knows Jeonghan's planning to go soon, too, before February of next year. It makes it easier, knowing this thing between them has a definitive end date. "Don't let your fans hear you," she chastises from where she's reloading her hot water dispenser. "You'll break their hearts like that."
He cranes his neck to meet her eyes over the kitchen counter. "Do you think I'd be popular if I got a buzzcut?" He's grinning like he's up to no good.
She'd gone over to his place before, maybe three times. She'd walked over to grab something off his TV stand and then realized that she'd seen a picture of Joshua on Jeonghan's Instagram, taken from that exact spot. She never wanted to go over there again afterwards.
Nayoung considers and then concludes, "I can't speak for the public."
The thing is, she'd hated when he'd started growing out his hair back before debut. They'd cross each other in the hallways and she'd be polite, but it was like every inch of hair brought him closer to something she'd been working years for. Boiled down to that, it felt like all the time she'd spent in the practice room could be trivialized into something so easily cut off.
Jeonghan runs a hand through it, pensive. "All the more reason to get rid of it," he says as if she hadn't tangled her fingers in it at the nape of his neck when he kissed her ten minutes ago. And it was all so trivial, all over again.
---------
Nayoung asked for Jeonghan's number a year ago, when they guested on the same variety show. She'd done so mostly out of courtesy, and they didn't interact much during the shoot otherwise. A month later, she texted him for his birthday, and somehow that turned into regularly exchanging messages, and that turned into asking if he wanted extra persimmons her aunt had sent her that would go bad otherwise, and that turned into him gently brushing her hair out of her face, her fingers twisted in his cotton t-shirt.
For the most part, Nayoung assuaged their relationship by convincing herself it was just casual. They talked so little about each other to other people that it seemed like their relationship was nonexistent. They didn't have the same favorite songs, and they didn't have the same social circles, and Nayoung only knows for certain that Joshua figured it out, but only because he looked at Jeonghan's phone once.
"That doesn't count," she pointed out when Jeonghan told her. Some part of her foolishly wanted it to be more obvious, but when she thought about it further, she decided she'd hate that more.
They never took pictures of each other, or sent each other anything but plain-word texts. That's how Nayoung pretended how little this whole thing truly meant to her. Jeonghan laughed, "We're every PR team's dream," and then Nayoung shut him up by kissing him square on the mouth.
In hindsight, she regretted never asking Sowon about how it'd been when she and Jeonghan were dating, but Nayoung knew it'd been her own hubris. She hadn't bothered asking because she thought it'd be impossible, ending up in the same exact situation. And now here she was, in the same exact situation.
---------
"If you had a friend," Jeonghan begins, "and they liked this guy, but say the guy was going to do his military service soon. Would you wait for the guy if you were them?"
Nayoung tears the paper a little from where she'd been pulling at the dog ear of her script. "Can you say that again?" she says slowly.
Jeonghan leans forward to put his phone facedown onto her coffee table. Nayoung can't meet his gaze. "I mean me," he repeats. He clears his throat. "And you."
"Oh." Nayoung's ripped the dog ear off entirely at this point. She rolls the softened paper between her fingers anyway, not trusting herself with anything else, much less Yoon Jeonghan's heart. "You want me to wait for you?"
"If you want to." He sounds so earnest that Nayoung makes the mistake of glancing up. He looks at her, earnest too.
Earlier in the year, the kiss scene in Nayoung's last webdrama went semi-viral. It'd been with an up-and-coming actor five years younger than her, and their characters were arguing over why they should and shouldn't be together at a new year's party. It all came to a head when the crowd around them, oblivious to their shouting, counted down the last ten seconds, and Nayoung's character surged forward to kiss her love interest right as the confetti shot into the air to welcome in the new year, fluttering down around them. It'd been all anyone ever asked her about during their short IOI reunion promotions, to the point that Nayoung never wanted to talk about it again.
Jeonghan never brought it up with her once, and she'd dismissed the script early as fiction. And now, Nayoung chokes out over the want of such a picture-perfect ending for the both of them, "It can't be that easy. For us."
Jeonghan's mouth tilts into a smile. "It only sounds that way if you want it to." It looks like he wants to reach for her hand, the one folding creases into the dog ear. In case he's thought about it, she puts the paper down.
"I wasn't supposed to like you," she tells him, which is admission enough. Idly, she thinks about all the reasons she should hate him.
"I've liked you for a long time," he says so readily that it can't not be true.
He grinned at her brightly on the last day of her promotions, when he was a guest MC and IOI won, handing her the trophy. Their hands brushed briefly in the flood of the stage lights. Now, Jeonghan covers her hand with his slowly, like he's giving her the chance to draw away.
She doesn't.