"You're so gorgeous. I can't say anything to your face. 'Cause look at your face. And I'm so furious. At you for making me feel this way" Gorgeous by Taylor Swift

"What are you doing here?" he said, staring at her from the door.

"What are you doing here?"

"I asked you a question"

Jaeyun rolled her eyes "I asked one too"

"But I asked first" he said, a smirk growing on his face.

Jaeyun rolled her eyes again and pointed at the computer screen "Working" she said.

"Aren't you supposed to be resting?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

Jaeyun huffed in annoyance "I swear to God!" she exclaimed "everyone keeps telling me that! I had some stuff to..." she looked at the screen and then back at Jay "finish, so I came here because Raon eonni wouldn't let me" she turned her chair around to look at him, crossing her arms in the process "now, answer my question"

"So you snuck out" Jay answered, his smile growing wider.

Jaeyun opened her mouth in an offended gesture.

"No, I didn't!" she defended herself, even though she knew it was true "and, answer my question!" she quickly added.

Jay's face transformed; his lips now pressed in a fine line "I was also working on some... stuff" he answered, closing the door behind him. Jaeyun refrained from telling him that she never said he could come in.

When he turned around to close the door, she finally noticed he was wearing shoulder sling, probably to prevent the movement of his arm. Looking down at her own wrist brace, she couldn't avoid asking.

"Are you okay?" Jaeyun asked, nodding his head at him.

That question took him by surprise, making him turn around to look at her and humming, his eyes narrowed again.

God why does he look cute- NO, she stopped her thoughts and blinked them away. She raised her hand to show her wrist brace, Jay understanding instantly.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay" he said, slowly walking towards the chair on the other side of the desk, next to the wall "Can I sit?"

"Sure" after he sat down, she spoke again "Can I ask you something else?"

"You just did"

"Jay I swear to fucking god-"

He chuckled "yes, go one"

"How did you find me?" she finally asked.

"I saw you get into the studio, but I wasn't sure if it was you" he pointed at the door "I can see your pink hair through the door"

Jaeyun hummed in response, not knowing what to say. Looking down at her nails, she tried to pretend like the silence between them wasn't awkward.

She looked up to find him looking around the studio, that's when she realized he was wearing glasses. He also had a white t-shirt on and a grey sweatshirt with a zipper that was open, probably so he wouldn't move his arm from the shoulder sling, and black sweat pants. His recently bleached hair was swept back, but still looked messy, like if he had been running his fingers through it while working. As he turned his head to look around, a small silver earring dangled on his left ear. The pendant was the shape of a heart.

"Where did you get it?" Jaeyun asked, quickly realizing how out of nowhere that question sounded.

"What?" he asked, confused.

Jaeyun reached towards his ear with her right hand, touching the small dangling earring on his ear. Her fingertips brushed slightly against the skin of his neck, near his jawline, sending shivers through both of their bodies.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, bringing his hand to his ear too, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks.

Cute OH MY GOD STOP

"I- I don't remember" he answered "I bought it through instagram a few years ago"

"Oh, okay" Jaeyun nodded, both of them falling into silence again.

He suddenly leaned forward to look at the computer screen "what were you working on-?" he was barely able to finish the question before Jaeyun pushed his chest to send him back to his seat.

"Never said you could look" she said with a playful smile on her face.

He smiled too "Nothing ever pleases you, does it?"

"Nothing you do" she shot back, one of her eyebrows raised as she looked at him, that made him chuckle.

"That was a good one" this time it was her turn to chuckle.

After their laughs died down, she looked at the computer screen again "Just... working on a song" she finally answered "right now I was fixing some of the lyrics, but I've been having trouble with the melody" he nodded as she spoke "do you want... do you want to check them?" she asked him, suddenly feeling shy.

"Are you sure?"

"Do it before I regret asking you" she answered, sliding her chair away from the computer so Jay could get closer. As he leaned forward again, Jaeyun covered her face in embarrassment, not wanting to see him react to the lyrics.

God, she thought, I can't believe I'm letting him read them all.

A few seconds later, which felt like hours for Jaeyun, she heard the creak of the chair, meaning Jay was leaning against it again.

"Why are you covering your face?" he asked with a chuckle.

She opened her fingers first to find him looking at her, she then removed her hands from her face.

"I- I just..." she started, shyly tucking a strand of her pink hair behind her ear "none of my members have seen the lyrics" she said "well, Raon eonni read it, but it still feels weird when someone reads it"

"Oh" Jay exclaimed, suddenly feeling awkward "I'm sorry I didn't-"

"It's fine" she said, quickly dismissing his apology "I let you do it, so it's okay"

He whispered an 'okay' and started biting his lip, probably picking at some of the dead skin in there, just like Jaeyun does.

"You said you were having trouble with the melody?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Yeah" Jaeyun said, dragging out her words and throwing her head back "I just... don't know what to do"

"Do you want me to help you?"

"What?" Jaeyun asked, surprised by his question.

He got up from his seat "I think I know how to help you" he said, and before Jaeyun could answer him, he left the room, leaving Jaeyun too stunned to speak.

A few minutes later, Jay came back with his laptop in hand.

"I've been practicing with a program I found to produce songs" he sat down, struggling to hold his computer with one hand, so Jaeyun extended her left arm and helped him "thanks" he said.

"No problem" she smiled a little at him and looked down at his computer again "were you thinking about anything specific or...?" she trailed off so he could explain.

"What was your idea?" he said "for the song"

Jaeyun thought for a second "do you know the song Brutal by Olivia Rodrigo?"

Jay's eyes widen "you want that vibe?"

"I mean, yeah" she said, shrugging her shoulders "I think it kinda fits"

Jay looked at her computer screen and then back at her "but the lyrics are... sad" he said.

Jaeyun chuckled, for the first time laughing at something tha had to do with the song "yeah well, I was sad while writing them" she said, leaning back in her chair "but also... bitter"

"Why?" he asked with a frown in his face.

Jaeyun debated for a second if she should tell him or not.

"The song..." she started, trying to find the right words "the song is about how... bad I felt about the friendship" she explained "I spent years thinking that this girl and I were best friends, but I don't think we ever were" she started playing with a pen to have somewhere else to look "like, she always made me feel like I was the bad friend, the one that had to get better, but she wasn't an angel either" she added "she literally left me locked inside of a restroom stall-"

"WHAT?" Jay exclaimed, making Jaeyun jump a bit in her seat "sorry" he brought his other hand to cover his mouth "what?" he repeated, this time quieter.

"She didn't lock me inside, if that's what you were thinking"

"That doesn't make it better"

"Yeah" she turned her head to look at him for a moment, he looked worried "basically what happened is, I got inside of a bathroom stall but later couldn't open the door, so like any normal human being I let my 'friends' know, so they could go get help or something" she chuckled "but I only heard them laugh quietly and leave the bathroom, so I stayed there, waiting for them. A few minutes later, they came back and asked me why I haven't come out of the bathroom, so I told them, again, that I couldn't open the door" she looked at him again "they told me they thought I was lying"

"And you were still friends?" Jay asked.

"For like three more years" Jaeyun answered "I didn't even tell her when I moved to South Korea, it's not like she was going to want to hang out with me anyways" she shrugged her shoulder again and pointed at the computer with the pen in her hand "I wrote that while I was a trainee" she explained "at one point it felt like we were only friends because we had to, not because we wanted to"

Jay stayed silent for a second, but that was enough to make Jaeyun worry that she had shared too much "Oh god, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to make you uncomfortable-"

"No, no, it's okay" he quickly waved his right hand in front of him "I just didn't know... I didn't know you went through that"

Jaeyun chuckled, resting her head back on the chair and turned it around to look at him.

"Ah Jay" she said "I already told you, we never really knew each other well, don't feel bad for that"

She thought about playfully punching him with her fist, but maybe that was too much.

"You're right" he said, turning his head towards his computer and pressing his lips together.

She instantly knew what he meant.

"Look Jay" she reached towards his hand "you shouldn't be the one to apologize-"

"Why?" he asked, clearly confused.

"I-" when she started, she realized she never thought (or rehearsed) how to tell him that. Maybe because I thought about that 10 minutes ago "when... after the accident, when I was resting... no one.... No one could come visit me" she finally explained "Yua was too busy with the training and was also acting really weird, my sister was in a different country, I don't really talk to my parents. I felt... alone" she sighed and brushed her hair back "it was even worst when I got back, everyone treated me like I was made of glass, like I was going to break another bone again or something" she rested her elbows on the desk while covering her face with her hands "and then the stupid nickname-" she finally looked at him, finding out he was just staring at her, very focused on what she was saying "God this probably sounds like a half-ass excuse, or a really bad apology, I'm sorry you have all the right to be mad-"

"I'm not mad" he cut her off. Even though he did that, his eyes showed way more kindness than the one she had showed him during all of those years.

"What I want to say is, I'm sorry" she said "I only blamed you because I was... bitter" she chuckled at that word "It felt like everything was going wrong and I just needed to let it out, sadly I chose you" she pointed at him "you didn't deserve it, so you don't need to apologize" she looked down, a shy smile growing on her lips "and you don't have to"

Then, he did something she never thought he would do, he smiled at her.

And her heart melted.

But she also didn't know how much weight she lifted from his shoulders in that moment.

"To be fair" he started after a few seconds of silence "I liked the nickname, I thought it was fitting"

Jaeyun rolled her eyes with a playful smile on her face "of course you did" she grabbed the hair tie on her wrist and started tying her hair back in a low ponytail. She nodded towards his computer "are you gonna start working or not?"

He blinked a couple of times "yeah, yeah, sure" and quickly turned towards his computer.

As he started working on his idea, she kept re-arranging the lyrics, comfortably in silence next to each other.

[***]

"Oh fuck" Jaeyun exclaimed, blinking rapidly.

"What?" Jay asked, looking at her with wide eyes.

"I forgot to blink" Jaeyun brushed it off "it's fine, sorry"

"How do you forget to-?"

"Hyperfocus" Jaeyun cut him off

"Oh" he answered in understanding, but quickly realized he didn't "wait, what?" he asked

"Like" Jaeyun started "my brain decides to finally focus on something, but I focus for too long, so much that I forget to blink-" she got interrupted by a yawn.

"Or don't realize how tired you are, right?" he asked, a playful smile on his face.

Jaeyun smacked his thigh "I'm not tired" she said with a smile. Brushing some strands of hair away from her face, she turned towards the monitor again "we have work to do"

Suddenly, he got up and grabbed her forearm, forcing her to get up "you need to rest" he said, pushing her slightly towards the couch at the back of the studio.

"No, I need to-" he cut her off.

"You don't need to do anything" he said as she sat down on the couch "take a nap, I'll wake you up in a bit"

"What about you?" she asked him as he headed back towards his seat.

"Me?"

Jaeyun rolled her eyes "you're probably tired too"

"No, I'm not" just as he finished saying that, as if on cue, he yawned.

"See?" Jaeyun pointed at him "just finish fixing the thing I told you and take a nap with me" she said, and quickly added after seeing his wide eyes "oh my god Jay, we'll just be sitting next to each other" she teased.

He yawned again "fine"

He sat back down and started pressing some keys on his keyboard. Jaeyun laid back on the couch, using her coat to cover her legs and tried to get into a comfortable position while closing her eyes.

A little while after, she felt the other side of the couch sinking, so she opened her eyes to see Jay sitting next to her, also taking off his jacket and putting it on backwards, so it could cover his chest.

She chuckled slightly at the sight of that.

"What?" Jay said, a sleepy smile on his face.

"Nothing" Jaeyun answered, shifting her position to look at him "you know, you should've taken it as a compliment that I hated you so much back then" she said.

"Did you though?"

"What?"

"Hated me"

"It's not like you didn't either"

"What?" he asked "hated you?"

"Mmm" she hummed in response.

"Maybe I didn't"

Sleep got to her before she could answer anything.

[***]

At some point in the night, while still half-asleep, Jaeyun shifted her position towards the heat source next to her, nuzzling her head against it and falling asleep again.

[***]

A buzzing coming from the table made Jaeyun open her eyes. At first her vision was blurry, but after moving around, she realized she wasn't resting her head against the back of the couch anymore. Turning her head to the side to look at what she was leaning against, she realized she had been resting her head on Jay's arm.

As the warmth grew on her cheeks, the buzzing from the table kept going, forcing her to look at it and ignore the other situation.

Looking down at the table, she finally realized that the buzzing came from her phone. I was sure I left it on don't disturb, weird. Quickly picking it up and unlocking it, she was welcomed by all of the un-read messages from her friends.

Yua: where are you?

Yua: Jaeyun???

Yua:???

Raon: Jaeyun where the fuck are you?

*Missing call from Raon*

Raon: Jaeyun pick up your phone, this isn't funny.

"Oh shit" she cursed out loud as more messages kept appearing on her screen.

Nara: Jaeyun eonni, Raon eonni is getting worried, where are you?

*Missing call from Mari*

Mari: Jae eonni are you okay, why aren't you picking up?

Yua: We're all worried dude, where are you?

"Shit, shit, shit" she repeatedly cursed again.

Another buzzing came from the table, but not from her phone. As she looked down again, she found Jay's phone also on the table. She grabbed it without a second thought. It was obviously protected by password, so she wasn't able to check all of the notifications well.

Heeseung: bro where are you?

*Missing call from Heeseung*

Jungwon: Jay hyung why aren't you picking up your phone?

Jungwon:???

*Missing call from Jungwon*

Sunghoon: Jay-ya where are you???

Jaeyun started shaking Jay's leg to wake him up.

"5 more minutes" he mumbled and turned around.

"Jay" Jaeyun said, shaking his leg again "Jay c'mon wake up" she leaned over him and started lightly slapping him.

"Wha-" he asked confused, still half-asleep. He grabbed her hand to keep her from slapping him "you're not good at waking people up, you know?" his hoarse voice said.

"You are awake though" she said as she threw his phone on his lap.

While still blinking away sleepiness, he looked down at it, reading the messages even without glasses, eyes squinting on the screen.

"Oh shit" he said when he finally understood.

"That's what I said"

"We're fucked" he said, his eyes moving up and down while checking the messages.

"Yep"

Jaeyun was about to add something else when the door of the studio opened.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Raon screamed while looking at them, Heeseung behind her opened his eyes wide after hearing her curse "I know I didn't let you come in with me but that doesn't mean you had to sneak out!" she yelled.

"I'm... sorry?" Jaeyun answered while raising her shoulders.

Raon walked up to her, and at first Jaeyun got scared she might keep yelling at her, but the girl grabbed her shoulders and brought her into a hug.

"Don't ever do that again" Raon said against her shoulder "I was so worried"

Jaeyun's arms finally surrounded her "I'm sorry eonni" she said "I was gonna leave a note but I think... I think I forgot"

Raon backed away from the hug and looked at her, pretending to be brushing away some hairs when in fact she was cleaning some tears "It's okay, all I care about right now is that you're alive" she said "and well"

Jaeyun nodded.

"We made a song" Jay blurred out.

"WHAT?" both Raon and Heeseung said in unison.

"You were in here, alone, for hours, and didn't kill each other?" Raon said.

"And you were... working together?" Heeseung added.

Both Jaeyun and Jay looked at each other at the same time, locking eyes for a few seconds before looking at the other two again.

"We kinda... made up" Jay said while shrugging his shoulders.

"Yeah"

Raon looked at the with wide eyes and then shook her head "I'm gonna deal with that some other day" she grabbed Jaeyun's shoulder and pushed her a bit towards the door "grab your stuff, we're leaving"

"But we need to-" Jaeyun started, but Raon quickly cut her off.

"You need to rest, you slept in the studio, that means you need to actually sleep in the dorm" Raon grabbed her coat and her phone and started pushing her against the door.

"We can talk to our managers tomorrow" Jay offered "or in a few days"

"That sounds like a great idea" Raon said "c'mon we have to go"

"Yeah, about the managers talk" Jaeyun heard Heeseung say to Jay as they walked out "our managers are not gonna be happy about what happened"

"You guys told them?" Jay asked, worry could be heard on his voice.

Jaeyun chuckled as she looked back at them, walking down the hallway on the opposite direction than the other two boys were going.

Raon looked at her with narrowed eyes "Are you sure you don't have feel-" she started, but Jaeyun lifted a finger in front of her face as they walked out.

"Don't, I haven't had my morning coffee yet"

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

*takes a deep breath* nothing like questioning my writing skills while writing, we love that.

In other news I'M SO HAPPY I FINALLY WROTE THIS CHAPTER YAY!!! Originally I was gonna show the lyrics to Jaeyun's song in this chapter but 1: that would have been too long, 2: it's always awkward to read lyrics on fanfics/stories and 3: the song is based on something that actually happened to me (yes the bathroom stall thing did happen to me) and I don't feel fully comfortable with showing the song (even tho I don't think I would ever do anything with it). So, you don't have the song, but you do have me self-inserting my trauma on Jaeyun, we love that x2

Anyways, I hope you guys liked the chapter (I definitely did) and see you next update!!!

PS: enjoy a little dialogue I was gonna write in here but I couldn't

"Jaeyun: you know? When I was little I always wanted to get something to go to a hospital, but I obviously never thought it would hurt this badly, fuck!

Jay: *laughs while covering his eyes bc he's a cutie* wait, you really thought that?

Jaeyun: it looked fun! And I was a child!"

Bye