"And I wake up in the middle of the night It's like I can feel time moving. How can a person know everything at eighteen. But nothing at twenty-two?And will you still want me when I'm nothing new?" Nothing new (Taylor's version) by Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers
It had been almost two years since they won I-Land 2 now.
They debuted in February of the following year, they got worried about having to wait too long for their debut (considering I-Land 2 ended airing in October) but their manager comforted the by telling them there were a lot of people waiting for their debut, so they were certain it was gonna blow up.
And it did.
Their debut MV "Starry Night" got into the top 10 most viewed kpop mv in 24 hours, it got close to being the second most viewed one, but sadly it didn't get there. The concept for that album and mv was a dark concept, which Jaeyun loved, but the mv also had some acting (because of the storyline) and even a dance break.
A lot of people had complimented the members too, talking about how good Raon's vocals were, Mari (aka Mary)'s visual, how well Yua fitted as the centre, Nara's cuteness and dance skills and Jaeyun's rap and dance skills, she was the main dancer and main rapper after all.
She was now on a phone call with her sister, they had just finish off promotions from their last comeback, so now they had a few days of vacation to visit their families, but both Jaeyun and Yua were foreign, so they stayed in the dorm while the rest of the members visited their families.
"How's everything there? How's mom and dad?" she asked her sister.
"Everything's cool, you do know it's 8 am in here, right?" her sister asked.
"Why are you awake?" Jaeyun questioned.
"I have class today" her sister answered, Jaeyun heard her bite onto something, probably toast "and to talk to you" she added with her mouth full.
"Don't talk while eating!" Jaeyun teased her sister "good luck in your class today, by the way"
"Thanks" she swallowed "anyways, what are you doing?" her sister asked.
"I'm waiting for Yua to come back from her grocery shopping, maybe I'll make dinner" she glanced at the clock on top of the table next to her, it hadn't been that much since Yua left, but she was still anxious.
"Where are the rest of the members?" her sister asked, she had kept her promise and was now their number one fan, Jaeyun smiled whenever she remembered it.
"Visiting their families, we have a few days off so they were allowed to visit them" Jaeyun said, she was a little bit sad that her sister wasn't able to come to visit her, or that she wasn't able to go see her, but she still had Yua, and was able to call her sister whenever she could, that was enough.
They didn't do much during those days, both Jaeyun and Yua could manage to cook some stuff, and now that they were out of schedules for a few days they mostly spend that time sleeping, a lot.
"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to go" Nari said, she sounded sad about it too.
"You don't have to apologize" Jaeyun said while smiling, it wasn't like her sister could see her "you're really busy with college, I get it" she was about to say something else but she heard how the front door started to open "I think Yua is here, bye"
"No, wait! I wanna say hi to her" her sister asked before Jaeyun could hang up, Yua was her favourite member (believe it or not Nari does love Jaeyun)
"Okay, fine" Jaeyun got up and put the call on speaker and started walking towards the door.
Just in that moment Yua walked in, smiled at Jaeyun, and walked towards the kitchen to leave the bags of groceries on the counter after noticing she was on a call.
"Hey Jaeyun" she said "why are you holding your phone like that?" Yua asked while nodding towards her.
"Because my sister likes you more than me" she teased with a smile.
"That's not true!" her sister yelled from the other side of the line "hey Yua, I just wanted to say hi!" this time her sister spoke in English to Yua.
"Hello Nari" Yua smiled towards Jaeyun's phone "how's college doing?" she asked, also speaking in English.
"College is kicking my ass, but things are good" Nari responded "anyways, I should go now, it was nice talking to you, have a nice dinner!"
"Bye!" both Jaeyun and Yua said and then the call ended.
"Why did you take long in the store?" Jaeyun asked after saving her phone on her back pocket.
"There was a really long line and the cashier was really slow for some reason" Yua rolled her eyes while remembering the cashier "I also ran into Jake sunbaenim" she added while opening the fridge and saving some stuff.
"What?" Jaeyun asked.
"I ran into Jake; did you know his Korean name is also Jaeyun?" Yua added.
"I... I think I didn't know" Jaeyun answered.
"Anyways, he was also at the store, that's why I ran into him" she closed the fridge "what do you wanna have for dinner? We should order something; I know we both don't feel like cooking today"
Jaeyun laughed at her friend's comment "I was craving tteokbokki, can we order it?" she asked.
"I literally just asked you if you wanted to order something Jae" Yua said with a warm smile "yes, I'll order it"
Jaeyun thanked her and they both went back to the living room to watch tv while waiting for the food. After it arrived, they kept watching tv.
"You know, I was thinking" Yua said while picking up some rice cakes from her bowl "tomorrow might be the last day we have free before the rest of the members are back and we have to work on the next comeback" Yua explained "so, what if we go out tomorrow? Just the two of us" she offered.
Jaeyun stared at her with narrowed eyes "I don't know, I kinda don't feel like it" she said.
"Oh c'mon, it'll be fun" Yua insisted "we can go to that café you mentioned from tiktok" Yua said, already knowing that's what was gonna convince her.
Jaeyun wanted to go, it was a café where you could make a keychain and she had thought about sending one to her sister, she liked to collect keychains. The place was called "cafeneulbo".
"Okay, fine" Jaeyun answered with a smile "we can go after lunch tomorrow?" she suggested.
"Sounds good" Yua said and went back to eating her food "we can arrange your instagram in the morning-" she wasn't able to finish because Jaeyun cut her off.
"You're still with that?" Jaeyun asked with a half chuckle. Almost all of the members, except Jaeyun, had instagram accounts. When their leader, Raon (also known with her stage name "Roan") told them about the idea, Jaeyun refused, she didn't like it then, but she couldn't deny that now she did want one. She loved talking to her sister on the phone, but she also knew how busy Nari was, so if she did make a profile, she could share part of her life with her sister without bothering her with a phone call.
"Oh c'mon, it's a good idea" Yua insisted for the second time that night.
"I don't know" Jaeyun argued "I don't really have pictures to post" she sighed.
"I can help you, we can take some pictures tomorrow" Yua rested her arm on the back of the couch while resting her head on top of her hand "I know you want to" she said.
"I do, it's just..." she stopped to take of her glasses and rub her eyes, letting a sigh leave her mouth "do you think it's a good idea?" she asked Yua.
"It's gonna be fine" Yua assured her.
"Okay" she said and turned to her friend "let's do it"
"Nice!" Yua clapped in excitement. She grabbed Jaeyun's phone, that was on the table in front of them, and started to unlock it.
Jaeyun snatched her phone out of Yua's hands "I can do it myself" she said with a serious tone, obviously joking.
They spent the rest of the night before going to sleep choosing photos for Jaeyun to post, they settled with four photos she had already posted on their twitter account, so at least she could have something in there before actually posting.
Before going to sleep, around 1 am, she texted her sister.
Jaeyun: Hey, I just made this instagram account, I thought it might be cool for you to see parts of my life that I can't share on our other accounts.
Jaeyun: I might add you on the close friends story 😉
She added the screenshot of the profile and then went to sleep, knowing her sister might scold her for being awake late.
[***]
The morning after both Yua and her had breakfast together and headed to the café after lunch.
They took pictures of each other, some they might post on the twitter account of their group, others they might never share (like the picture Yua took of Jaeyun while she was concentrated on the keychain for her sister, so much that she was sticking her tongue out without realizing)
After that, they both walked around other parts of the city while chatting about nothing in particular. Yua had brought an old looking camera from her collection back at the dorm and took some pictures of the sky while they were in, yet another, café (these two girls could never drink too much coffee).
While Jaeyun walked back to their table after ordering both of their drinks, she saw Yua looking out the window and decided to take a picture of her, but just when she was about to, Yua turned around and saw her.
"Oh wait!" she exclaimed with a smile after realizing Jaeyun was trying to take a picture of her. She grabbed her camera from inside her bag and pretended to take a picture of Jaeyun "take the picture like this" she said from behind the camera.
Jaeyun snapped the picture and sat down in front of her.
"You should post it on instagram" Yua said, clearly too excited to realize she said it pretty loudly.
"Do you wanna say it louder?" Jaeyun teased, she still opened instagram after checking if anyone was looking at them, they were both wearing masks anyways, so not that many people saw them, luckily.
"Sorry" Yua whispered and she looked at her phone again, a notification popping up "did you just tweet something?" she asked.
"I tweeted a picture of my outfit some time ago" Jaeyun answered "did you get a notification just now?" Jaeyun knew that twitter notification never worked right, so maybe that's what had happened.
"Oh wait, it's not yours" Yua said after a few seconds, just as their drinks arrived (both saying thank you to the waiter and pretending like they were talking about something else)
"Who tweeted?" Jaeyun could have checked it herself on her phone, but Yua already had hers there.
"It's from Nara" Yua turned her phone so Jaeyun could see too.
"Going back to Seoul!!!" the tweet read, with two pictures of the sky and one picture of Nara.
"She's already coming back?" Jaeyun asked "I thought she was coming back tomorrow"
"I thought so too, do you think everything's okay?" Yua asked, worried over their maknae.
"Yeah, everything must be fine, maybe we got confused" Jaeyun answered, grabbing her phone in the process and quickly opening the group chat all of the members had.
Jaeyun: Tell us when you get home if we're not there yet Nara-ya
She quickly texted to the youngest and looked again at Yua, who was drinking her coffee while her phone rested on top of the table and she was scrolling through their fans replies. She stopped sipping on her coffee and grabbed her phone quickly.
"She's on vlive now" Yua said, quickly opening the app on her phone, accommodating her position so both of them could watch.
Nara was on the car, probably their manager went to pick her up, and drinking something from a cup.
"Hello everyone!" Nara said while still holding the cup, her hair was still a little purple from their last comeback "what am I drinking? This is coffee" she said while looking at the cup.
Nara started talking about her few days off and answering questions the fans asked (some of them asking about the next comeback even though not even they knew when it was going to happen)
She looked at the comments for a few seconds before speaking "how did you meet the members as trainees? Oh, Mari eonni and I met during my first days, she was kinda... assigned to me when I first started" she took a pause to sip more of her drink "I knew the rest of them while we were trainees but we didn't really talk to each other, we got closer during I-Land" she explained "when I first started Jaeyun eonni wasn't there, she had to rest for some time, but when she came back everyone was surprised and I didn't understand. They were all like 'oh, queenie is back' and I had to ask-" she stopped for a moment, realizing her mistake.
Jaeyun swallowed hard after hearing that nickname, she hadn't heard it since before I-Land, and she hated it.
"I mean, everybody was surprised Jaeyun eonni was back, for what I know she was pretty famous between the trainees" Nara took another sip from her cup "anyways, that" she obviously didn't know what to say after.
Jaeyun closer her eyes and let her head fall down on top of her arms, the last thing she wanted was people finding out about her nickname, maybe if they never mentioned it again, she could just pretend it never happened. She lifted her head just in time to see how notification appeared on top of Yua's phone screen and she quickly clicked on it. Jaeyun recognized it as a weverse notification before Yua moved her phone closer to her.
"Did Raon eonni post something now?" Jaeyun joked, but when Yua didn't respond or even laugh, making Jaeyun frown "Yua?" she asked again.
"Oh? What?" Yua finally looked up from her phone "it was nothing" she pressed her phone against her chest.
"You grabbed your phone faster than Mari while answering our texts" Jaeyun said with one eyebrow raised "it didn't look like nothing" she took a sip of her coffee "did one of our sunbaenims posted or something?"
"No..." Yua, obviously, lied. She was now looking, again, at her phone.
Jaeyun realized she wasn't scrolling anything on her phone, which meant she was just staring at whatever picture she had seen on weverse.
"What is it?" Jaeyun asked again, a slight chuckle leaving her lips.
"You're not gonna like it" Yua said almost in a whisper.
"Can I see it for myself at least?" Jaeyun extended her hand, waiting for Yua to give her the phone, but when she didn't do it, she just snatched it off her hand.
"Hey!" Yua protested and tried to stop her, but Jaeyun was already looking at the picture, and regretting her decision.
The notification was from Enhypen's weverse.
The picture was a selfie from Sunghoon and Jay.
The same Jay she hated.
"You were right" Jaeyun gave Yua her phone back, the girl was already looking at her with worried eyes "I didn't want to see that" she took another sip of her coffee and pretended the window was interesting. Her hand almost went towards her ankle, but she stopped herself before she could do that.
Yua was still looking at her, Jaeyun could feel Yua's eyes drilling two holes on the side of her forehead, but she didn't want to talk about it.
Yua opened her mouth to say something, but a notification that sounded from both of their phones interrupted them.
Nara: In 30 minutes I'll be at the dorm eonnis
Nara finally answered Jaeyun's text.
"We should get going" Jaeyun said as she drank the last of her coffee and got up.
Yua did the same "you do know he apologized to you, I don't understand why you still hate him" Yua said as they headed out of the café and she put her mask back on.
"Yua, I don't wanna talk about it" Jaeyun said while also putting on her mask again "and I don't care"
And with that, they both headed back to the dorm.
[***]
That same night the rest of the members came back, and while all of them talked about their trips on the living room, Raon was in her room on a phone call.
Nara kept glancing towards Raon's room door while Mari talked about the things she did with her parents.
"Yah!" Mari smacked her arm "you're not listening to me" she complained to the youngest.
"Sorry eonni" she glanced again at the door.
"Are you waiting for Raon eonni?" Jaeyun asked her.
"It's just" Nara started while rubbing her thighs with her hands, she looked anxious "I brought you guys some gifts and I want you all to be here when I give them to you" Nara answered shyly.
The rest of the girls tried to hold back the urge to go "awww" because of how cute she looked, so they all smiled.
"I'll go get her" Jaeyun got up and walked towards Raon's room.
She was about to knock when she heard her speak with whoever she was talking through the phone "I told you already, you can't keep calling me, especially like this" Raon said, she sounded tired.
Jaeyun didn't want to do it, but she was worried over their leader, sometimes she overworked herself too much. She stayed quiet, hoping she was able to hear anything else.
"No, they don't know, which is gonna make it even more suspicious" Raon answered to the person she was talking to.
Who doesn't know? Jaeyun thought, but just when she started to get her ear closer to hear more, she heard Raon saying goodbye to whoever she was talking to, the next thing she knew was that Raon opened the door.
"What are you doing?" Raon asked Jaeyun, who for a moment forgot how to speak.
"I... mmm" Jaeyun scratched the back of her head and pointed at the living room "Nara she... she wanted to give us some gifts she brought from home" Jaeyun was finally able to explain "I came here to get you"
"Oh okay" Raon closed the door of her room "Let's go" she didn't even wait for a response from Jaeyun and started walking down the hallway towards the living room.
Jaeyun wasn't able to avoid wondering who she was talking to on the phone before.
"Nara you shouldn't have" Raon said while admiring the scarf Nara had gotten her. Jaeyun had a silver necklace, Mari got a bracelet and Yua a new pair of earrings.
"I just wanted to get you all a little something" Nara said "And you mentioned you needed a new scarf" Nara explained with a smile on her face. "Oh and, Jaeyun eonni" Nara said towards Jaeyun.
"What?" she asked to the girl. She tried not to cringe after Nara called her that.
"I'm sorry for mentioning your nickname on today's live" she said "I really didn't realize until I had finish saying it and I know you don't like it-" she wasn't able to keep apologizing because Jaeyun interrupted her.
"I appreciate your apology Nara" she said "but it's not necessary, I know it was just an accident so it's fine"
Yua scoffed after Jaeyun said that.
"What?" Jaeyun said towards her friend.
Yua pretended to cough "nothing" she said.
"What is it?" Jaeyun asked again, this time her tone was firmer.
"Nothing it's just..." Yua said "it's funny if you compare this with the other situation"
This time Jaeyun scoffed "you're still with that?" she asked, clearly annoyed.
"He feels sorry!" Yua argued back.
"Well, it's not like he told me!" Jaeyun said, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her head the other way to not look at Yua.
"It's not like you let him!" Yua shot back.
Jaeyun didn't know how to answer, it was true that, after the incident happened, she ignored Jay, but before she could even consider talking to him, he left for I-Land, so she never saw him again until she won I-Land, but even after that they barely even ran into each other on the Hybe building.
"Alright that's enough" Raon said while standing up, leaving her new scarf on the seat.
"Okay" Yua said "I'm sorry Jae" she apologized "I know you don't like to talk about it"
"It's okay" Jaeyun said, even though her only thoughts were no, it's not okay, she didn't want to fight with Yua.
"But, to be honest" Raon added "you should give him a chance"
Jaeyun only rolled her eyes, she didn't want to fight with her either.
They all stayed quiet for a while, which made it feel awkward, until Nara broke the silence.
"When are we supposed to go back to work?" she asked Raon, who was sitting down again "on Monday?" today it was Saturday.
"Yes" Raon said "by the way, about that" she started "our manager has to talk to us about something on Thursday" she explained "I was talking to her just now, it has to do with our comeback"
"Do you know anything else?" Jaeyun asked, if they were already preparing another album, she wanted to see if she could ask about putting a song she had been working on.
"I think it might be our first full album" she said "but other than that I don't know"
"Okay" Jaeyun responded, the rest of the members nodded.
"Anyways" Raon said as she got up "we should go to sleep, we're all tired" she started gesturing them to get up.
Before Jaeyun could go to her room, Yua grabbed her arm.
"I'm sorry, again" she said "I know you don't like talking about it and-" Jaeyun interrupted her.
"I said it's okay" Jaeyun said as she grabbed her shoulders "sorry if I seemed really angry"
"It's fine" Yua brushed it off "we should go to sleep" she smiled at Jaeyun as she put her arm around her shoulders.
"Yep"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(I just realized, as I'm editing this before posting it, that artists on weverse can't sign up to other artists weverses, let's just ignore that little plot hole, okay?)
Hello, this chapter is way longer than the other, but hope you guys are liking the story so far, here you have some manips I made bc I was bored.
Insta profile (ignore the followers thing)
Insta post
Second insta post
Final insta profile
Jaeyun's tweet
Nara's tweet
For the insta profile I used a png I found on google, the posts I used a screenshot from a social media au I found on tumblr (if I can find the au again I'l credit the author for the insta thing) and the tweets were originally screenshots from other enha tweets that I just edited.
Mari and Nara don't have insta profiles (yet) bc I kinda wanna make them later. Also, the usernames are based on the meanings of their names :)
I have other manips for future chapter and kinda wanna make more (tbh I'm proud of them bc they look really real) I hope you like them! See you next update!!