"Not all old friendships survive And we were the lucky ones who didn't We are so different, and I know sometimes that's good, but not for us" Old Friendships by Evermore (obviously fictional)
Monday rolled around faster than she would've liked to; but somehow, she was happy to be back to work and actually have something to do. She was happy she was able to sleep more, but that didn't mean she knew what to do with the rest of her free time.
Right now, she was trying to work on a song she had written back in her trainee days, more specifically right before she started training, but she was avoiding the lyrics as much as she could. If she read them again, she was gonna start crying.
She was happy to be back at their small studio, where at least she could work more comfortably. There was nothing wrong with the desk she had back at the dorm, she just preferred the type of privacy she had on the studio. She had asked the members if they could knock before coming inside, Mari and Nara (the youngest from the group) always did, but the others...
And that was the moment where Raon came in, without knocking.
"Jaeyun!" she said, very loudly.
Jaeyun panicked, considering the place was quiet before she came in, and took off her headphones before quickly closing the program she was using to create a beat for the song, even though she was about to delete it.
"Oh my god Raon eonni!" Jaeyun exclaimed "please knock before coming in"
"Sorry" the girl said as she walked towards the desk "what were you doing?" she grabbed a notebook from the desk before Jaeyun could stop her "Wha- 'not all old friendships survive, and we were the lucky ones who didn't'" Raon read out loud and then turned the notebook around to show it to her "what is this?" she asked that's when she realized which notebook she had grabbed.
"Nothing" Jaeyun said, quickly snatching the notebook out of her hand and placing it somewhere else "Did you come here to tell me something or to look at my stuff?" she tried distracting her.
"Ah, don't do that" Raon said "you are not changing this conversation" she crossed her arms over her chest.
Jaeyun stayed quiet for a few moments, staring at the notebook she had previously placed on the desk.
"Fine" she said, trying not to sound nervous. She had never showed anything she wrote to anyone, so Yua was gonna be the first "it's... a song I wrote before I started to become a trainee" she handed the notebook to Raon "I haven't checked it in almost two years, I wanted to see if it can be part of our new album" she explained.
Raon nodded as she opened the notebook and started reading. The silence that was followed after felt like torture for Jaeyun, her anxiety levels only rising with each passing second.
When Raon finished (an eternity later for Jaeyun) she placed her hand on Jaeyun's knee.
"Is this about that friend you told me?" she asked with a soft tone on her voice.
Jaeyun nodded, not trusting herself to speak without a voice crack.
Raon took a deep breath and gave the notebook back to Jaeyun "I know this is hard for you" she said "but this song is already amazing, the fans are gonna love it" she smiled at her.
"Thank you" Jaeyun said, also with a smile on her face, wrapping her hand on Raon's.
They stayed like that for some time, until Raon finally spoke again.
"I did come here to tell you we need to go practice though" she smiled again, this time it was an awkward smile.
"We could have saved so much awkwardness if you would've said that first" Jaeyun joked as she got up from her seat.
Raon did the same "I don't regret it though" she said "I was able to read your song"
Jaeyun smiled as a response and they both started to head to the practice room.
"You should show it to our producers" Raon said "it's pretty good"
"I don't know, it still needs some work done and-" she wanted to keep talking, but Raon smacked her in the arm.
"I told you, it's amazing" Raon said in a weirdly loving way, almost like if she was scolding Jaeyun "talk to them and they'll say if it needs any work done"
"Okay, fine" Jaeyun said, afraid of what might happen if she said no "I'll talk to them later... or tomorrow"
"Good" Raon said before getting inside of the practice room.
[***]
Jaeyun was laying on her bed back at the dorm when Yua barged into her room, without knocking.
"Holy shit" the girl exclaimed, placing her phone against her chest "Can you knock at least?" Jaeyun asked her, annoyed "I can't believe it, this is the second time I say it this day"
"I'm your best friend!" Yua argued back, jokingly of course.
"And?"
"If you wanted to hide something from me, I would know"
"Still" Jaeyun answered after rolling her eyes, realizing Yua was holding her phone a moment later "you wanted to show me something?" she asked while nodding at Yua's phone.
"Oh yeah, right" she looked at her phone while scrolling through something on it "I don't know if you're gonna like it but I still wanted to show it to you" she started to walk closer to her as she spoke.
"Why do you think I won't like it?" Jaeyun asked in response as she sat up on her bed to leave room for her friend.
The black-haired girl took a few seconds to answer. At first, Jaeyun thought she was just too concentrated on the searching of whatever she wanted to show to her, but she quickly realized that Yua wasn't actually moving her fingers to scroll on her phone anymore.
"What is it?" Jaeyun asked again.
"Nothing just-"
"Yua" her tone was firmer this time.
"It's... it's about Jay" Yua finally answered.
Jaeyun's playful smile slowly faded away from her face "then I don't want to know"
Yua quickly sat down on a chair that was next to Jaeyun "Oh c'mon, just look!" she tried showing her the phone screen, but Jaeyun quickly covered her face with a flower shaped pillow she owned.
"No"
"Please"
"No"
"C'mon, it's nothing bad" Yua explained.
Jaeyun uncovered her face "You said his name, of course it's bad!"
"Please" Yua made sure to drag out the word, making it sound cute.
"What is it about?" Jaeyun asked "tell me that and maybe, just maybe, I'll watch it"
"Okay" Yua adjusted herself on the bed before speaking "so it looks like Sunghoon mentioned you on one of their old vlives, I know it's not directly about Jay but he did react to it so engenes were talking about-" she wasn't able to finish her sentence before Jaeyun snatched Yua's phone out of her hands and looked at the screen.
A tweet from a fan account (clearly a multi fan one, considering the username was Enhypen themed and had a Raon icon) was open on the screen. Her eyes scanned the tweet before clicking the video.
"Guys do you remember when Jaeyun mentioned she had a nickname during trainee days? I think Nara mentioned it on her recent live and idk why it sounded familiar BUT I FIGURED IT OUT"
Before clicking on the video, Jaeyun immediately recognized the live, it was a 02z line live, she remembered seeing funny videos of Jake and Jay saying how weird it was to not use calculators during math class (she hated the fact that she agreed with it, because it meant she agreed with him)
"Yeah, the trainees had a nickname for Sunghoon and I" Jay said as he painted something with a marker.
"Oh yeah, I remember!" Sunghoon answered.
"They called us black and white" Jay kept explaining, but before he could speak more, Sunghoon spoke again.
"They also had a nickname for that one female trainee, remember?" he asked. Jaeyun could feel how her cheeks heated up.
"What?" Jay asked, she could see how he was pretending to not understand.
"Yeah, I remember" Jake said.
"Wasn't it 'queenie' or something like that?" Sunghoon asked him.
"Oh yeah" Jay said, quickly grabbing the I-pad next to him to check the comments, clearly looking for a distraction "I think I remember"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And now this chapter is short af, we love range (I normally like to write longer chapter so prepare for that I guess)
The part of a "song" that appears at the beginning is the song Jaeyun was working on on this chapter, is something I wrote some time ago and decided to include in the story, idk if I'll show it all but it is gonna be important in the story.
Hope you guys are liking the story and see you next update!!!
P.S (not Park Sunghoon): here's another manip from last chapter (bc timeline wise Yua posted this later)
(instead of "evermore" I read Vernon, maybe I should go to sleep)