"And what the hell were we? Tell me we weren't just friends, this doesn't make much sense" Friends by Chase Atlantic

Warnings: injury (when the flashback starts) I won't write it too graphic but letting you guys know anyway.

Enhypen had to finish their promotions early because their anniversary was coming up but Evermore still had to promote one of their b-sides, so they weren't done just yet. Jaeyun was glad she had a distraction from the mess inside of her head. But even with the performances they had almost every day she couldn't sleep well, or just couldn't fall asleep at all.

She had fallen into a rabbit hole of binge watching Enhypen content, just now that their anniversary special videos were coming out, she was happy to have something to watch, but that also meant seeing Jay on her screen every five seconds. Even though it hurt her to see him, she had almost become addicted to watching videos of him.

But now she probably regretted it the most.

She remembered the filming of this behind the scenes, she did, that didn't mean the pain didn't grow again when she started to watch it.

"We are here today to record Jaeyun's part for Old Friendships, the song she wrote" Jay started saying to the camera, quickly being interrupted by herself, who was standing next to him.

"And produced by our amazing Jay Park from Enhypen" she said, pointing at him with her hands opened as she moved her fingers, almost like jazz hands.

He chuckled and put an arm around her shoulders "we did this together, even if you nagged me about what to do-"

"Oh my god don't start with that!" she laughed and smacked his arm playfully.

Jaeyun stopped the video, not being able to take any more and decided to scroll through the comments, if that was even a better idea.

"Omg they are so cute!" "They look like they're close" "I hope they get along well"

Most of the comments were positive, which she appreciated as she kept scrolling.

"Do you guys think something happened between them?"

ㄴ "What do you mean? Like dating thing?"

ㄴ"No, no, not that. Like, in here they look really close but now it kinda looks like she's ignoring him, it could be just me tho"

ㄴ"Well, not all idols get along, maybe HYBE forced them to make that small collab together for the album, when Jaeyun explained why they worked together on it she looked kinda nervous"

ㄴ"I see that too, but I think some trainees said they didn't really get along back then, it might be that"

Jaeyun doesn't know why she started panicking right at that moment. Maybe it was the fact that their fans were taking notice of how she was ignoring him, or maybe it was the mention of their training days, but she didn't know.

Even that mention brought some unpleasant memories.

[***]

"And... I won" Jaeyun said, sighing defeatedly and falling on the ground. Her muscles ached, a lot, she was tired and didn't even know how long they had been there. Her eyes almost closed for a moment, the lights blinding her.

"One more" Jay's voice brought her back he sounded as tired as she felt. When Jaeyun looked over at him, he was trying to get up to put another song.

"No, no" Jaeyun said, sitting up and turning her body to look at him "we're not doing it again, I won, see you next month Park" she spoke to him while getting up, finally untying her long black hair, feeling the light brushes of it on her shoulders. She should probably get a haircut soon; it was starting to get too long to handle.

"C'mon" he said as she walked over to her bag "just one more, I know I can beat you"

"I already beat you" she said, her phone in hand as she pointed at him "you can try next month" she smirked when he rolled his eyes at her response. Looking down at her phone, she finally realized what time was it "shit, it's so late" she whispered more to herself than to him, even though they were alone. Because there was no music in the practice room, Jay was able to hear her.

"Somewhere you need to be?" he asked.

"I should've been home by now" she answered "now I do need to go" she added, quickly texting her grandma that practice took longer than expected and that she was on her way.

She felt him behind her as she opened the door to step out of the practice room, quickly walking towards the stairs to leave. The cold air hitting her hot skin almost made her shiver.

"C'mon Kwon" Jay said, trying to catch up to her, his muscles aching too "just one more, it'll be quick and your parents won't even notice you were gone that long"

"I don't even live- No!" she snapped at him "just because you are so pressed over loosing doesn't mean you have to force me to do it again" she said "I won, you lost, now bye"

Maybe the mistake was being that close to the stairs, or maybe it was the way she snapped at him, because the next thing she knew, he had grabbed her arm to stop her from going down the stairs. She was going to scream at him, she was, but when she moved her arm so he would let go she tried to back away.

That was the mistake, because she tripped and fell down the stairs.

"Oh god" Jay exclaimed, muttering some curses under his breath and quickly going down the few steps to get closer to her "are you- are you-?"

"Shut up!" she snapped at him again.

"Can you walk?"

"Of course I can-" she cut herself off when she felt it, a sharp growing pain coming from her right ankle. She tried hiding it at first, panic growing inside of her next to the pain on her ankle, but it must've been way obvious because of the way she reacted.

She looked down at her ankle, it definitely had fallen and probably hit the ground on a weird angle. She tried moving it, maybe it was only twisted, but even the slightest of movements brought even more pain to it. Without even meaning to, she squealed in pain, already feeling some tears forming on her eyes. This can't be happening, not right now.

Jay muttered more curses "oh my god, oh my god, I-"

"You're not helping!"

"I know!" Jay yelled back, almost making her flinch "I'm gonna... God, I don't know what to do"

"Jay?" a male voice called for him from afar, making the two young trainees raise their heads to look for the person. Jaeyun saw another male trainee and as soon as her eyes focused on him, she recognized him. His name was Heeseung, right?

"Jaeyun?" the girl next to him spoke. Jaeyun and Raon had only spoken a couple of times, but they still knew their names "Are you guys okay?" the girl added, walking towards them.

"I- she... she fell and- it was totally an accident" Jay tried explaining, but just as Jaeyun, he was also panicking and could barely speak.

"Hey man it's okay" Heeseung tried to comfort him, but Raon cut him off.

"Oh god" the girl said, finally looking down at Jaeyun after walking up to them.

"What?"

"Her ankle- oh shit, I'm so sorry Jaeyun"

She didn't even know why that comment made her start to cry even more.

Raon turned towards the two boys "don't just stand there! Go get someone!"

"Who?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Raon exclaimed "I... a manager or someone" she said, her eyes moving quickly side to side, thinking of what to do. She looked at the boys again, who were still standing there "go!"

The two boys walked away fast, also talking between themselves about what to do. It was pretty late at night, neither of them knew if there was going to be many staff members or even managers to find.

"Okay Jaeyun" Raon turned towards the girl again "do you... do I help you get up or... get your shoe off?"

She didn't even know what to say, a million of thoughts running on her mind the same time. They had monthly evaluations in a couple of days, the stress of that was definitely not helping her calm down. And her grandma, oh her poor grandma is probably worried and is gonna be even more worried when she finds out about this.

"Jaeyun" Raon called her again "Jaeyun are you okay?"

"I just... I-" Jaeyun looked at the older girl "I'm... I'm kinda cold"

"Do you want me to hand you your jacket?" Raon asked as she pointed at her bag with her hand. Jaeyun nodded.

As the girl wrapped her jacket around her, she must've looked like she was about to start crying again, from the pain or from the situation, who knew, so Raon tried to distract her.

"Ugh these guys are taking too long" she stood up, looking through both sides of the hallway to check for any signs of the boys "it can't be that there's... no one in here" Raon turned back to the girl, who was still fully focused on her ankle.

"Hey" Raon called for her again, kneeling down to be at her height "everything's gonna be okay, I bet it's nothing" she tried to calm her.

Jaeyun wanted to answer, anything really, but just when she opened her mouth, they heard hurried steps across the halls.

"We found someone" Heeseung said, trying to catch his breath again.

The staff member walked over to Jaeyun and started asking her a bunch of questions, some of them she didn't even know the answer to.

"Can you get up?" the woman asked.

"I... I- I think so" Jaeyun mumbled, using the wall next to her to support herself while she tried getting up. She was standing on her left foot, but even the smallest pressure on the right one made her want to cry even more.

"I'll help you" Raon said, quickly grabbing one of Jaeyun's arms and putting it around her shoulders.

She saw Jay try to help them to, but she turned her head away. She didn't want to see him right now.

"It's okay Jay" Raon said after noticing the girl's reaction "we got this"

[***]

After that she had gone to the hospital, finding out that her ankle was fractured and had to stop her training for some time later that night.

The first few months were the worst, she barely got out of bed or spoke to anyone, not even her sister. Poor Nari had been so worried that almost planned an emergency trip to Korea just to see her baby sister, but her grandma convinced her that it wasn't the best idea at the moment. Yua would come around the house whenever she could, which was almost never considering her training schedule. She had never felt so alone in her life.

It wasn't until a cold afternoon that her grandma asked her to go for a walk around a park nearby that she started to feel better. She had been able to talk to the woman about how she had been feeling lately and how much she hated it, her grandma ended up offering to help her get back in shape for training.

When she got back though, everyone treated her like she was made of crystal, like if she was so fragile that one single blow of wind would break more of her bones, that pissed her off even more. Everyone kept calling her "Queenie" because of how fast she had gotten back to the top three trainees, saying she was going to "get her crown back" or something. She hated it.

She was about to click on the third "cute Jay moments on vlive" that night when a notification popped onto her screen.

"Friends by Chase Atlantic (Jay cover)"

She clicked on it without a second thought, almost regretting it as the video started playing, but it was too late now.

Jay walked into view, he was standing in a pretty dark looking room, the black walls almost making the speakers behind him disappear. He adjusted the microphone in front of him as he looked at the camera for a second before pushing his hair back, the first beats of the song slowly rising into full volume before he started singing.

Girl, tell me what you're doing on the other side

And tell, just tell me what you're doing with that other guy

'Cause I ain't got patience to slow down the pace

All your girlfriends are wasted

They need it, they chase it

Something about his voice, oh god, the butterflies on Jaeyun's stomach appeared again as she adjusted her earphones and kept listening to the song. She had heard this song a couple of times, on fan made edits of tv shows or even random tiktoks; either way, she had always thought the song was good, even thinking about making a cover herself, but never did.

As her thoughts kept rummaging around her head, he kept singing.

All of your friends have been here for too long

They must be waiting for you to move on

Girl, I'm not with it, I'm way too far gone

I'm not ready, eyes heavy now

Heart on your sleeve like you've never been loved

Running in circles, now look what you've done

Why were the lyrics hitting harder than before? Staring down at the screen, her eyes caught the sight of Jay signing to the microphone in front of him. One of his hands holding it while he made random gestures with the other. She noticed he was, again, wearing silver rings, and even that same heart earring he wore when he helped her produce the song.

The memory of it brought back the tingles on her fingertips when she touched his skin.

And what the hell were we?

Tell me we weren't just friends

This doesn't make much sense, no

But I'm not hurt, I'm tense

Okay that was- wait, it- did he made emphasis on the first lines or was it her own imagination? Her face changed to a frown as she stared at the screen, like if he could pop out of it and explain to her all of her confusing feelings.

God I'm just imagining things, she thought, I wish he felt the same. He probably doesn't, it's just a song. She brushed the initial thoughts away, the new and more realistic ones, according to her, filling her brain as she finally put her phone to charge.

She pulled the blankets of her bed up to cover her, closing her eyes so she could go to sleep, but her thoughts kept running around her head. Her grandma was right, sometimes she has too many thoughts.

Different phrases kept appearing on her mind, and she started arranging them without even realizing it.

Fuck, she thought as she opened her eyes, please not now.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Do you guys like the manip I did btw??? I normally don't edit text on photoshop but the photo editor I use kinda makes the pictures a lower quality? idk

I feel like the accident scene is trash, like I had an idea at first but the bitch ran off my head. Tbh writing this chapter was a mess (also I kept imagining Chaewon from lesserafim while writing the accident scene? like, her as jaeyun?)

Anyways, I hope you guys liked it regardless, comment if you want and I'll see you next update, bye!