She claws against , choking back up a cough. With her eyes squeezed shut, her eyebrows crease in distress and her fingers press tighter around . There’s an unholy fantom that shifts into the room settling by her side. A whisper wisps by her ear brushing lightly against her scorching skin. It's getting harder to breathe by the minute, the feeling of the walls closing in–

It was simply suffocating.

The thought of continuing such a monotonous cycle everyday never fails to keep her awake, the idea of wasting time over one stupid survival show. The sight of her fellow trainees leaving, the sight of her friends being eliminated pits uncomfortably at the bottom of her stomach.

But from one single thought all trainees manage to motivate one another, the same words, I want to debut continues to stay engraved at the back of her head.

And today once more Nayoung lies down with her  eyes open, facing up towards the ceiling. She rolls back and forth across her bed, shuffling through the sheets before a helpless sigh slips past. (It’s been a common habit she’s developed during the few days on the show, sighing at every moment she’s breathing as Suhyun’s always telling her to stop). Her fingers tread against hem of the blanket, mounding into the palm of her fist until she bolts up from her spot. Unable to close her eyes despite her deprivation of sleep, Nayoung manages to function awake at the time.

It’s past midnight and Nayoung can’t sleep since everything’s becoming like hushed hazy voices at nighttime cityscapes.

3:02am

The sight of the digital clock batters dim as a dying light in the dark room. She looks down from the top bunk she’s on, checking if anyone else in the dorm was awake. Yebin’s back was seen on the bottom bunk, Mina’s light snores sound from the other side, and Pinky was curled up in the sheets on top. But it wasn’t till the last top bunk she checked she found vacant. Her eyes linger away from Sejeong’s empty bed, conflicted where the younger one would be.

Nayoung slips out of the covers, grumbling under her breath. She manages to climb out of bed, quiet enough so the others weren't woken up. Messily, she barely slips into a pair of her shoes, considering there were four more girls living with her. Reaching for the side, a light coat drapes across her shoulders, protruding the only warmth as she stepped outside.

The moment she escapes out from the dorm, her gaze fixates upon a figure sitting down by the steps of the entrance. “Why are you still awake,” Nayoung hisses.

A pair of eyes follow up, faintly curled to crescents. “I should be asking you that too.”

“You know why,” Nayoung says as she takes a seat next to her, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Aw, I was expecting something else than that.”

“What?”

“Y’know something along the line of, ‘I missed you,’ or ‘I was worried about you,’” Sejeong jokes, lifting a sleazy grin.

“Uh huh, as if you were actually expecting those words from me,” Nayoung gives a playful slap to Sejeong’s shoulder, earning a short and light chuckle.

It takes a second before Nayoung turns to face her again. “But tell me. Why are you still out here?”

Easily Nayoung spots Sejeong nervously fiddling with her hands, rubbing the sweat off her shorts. “I was practicing.”

“With your group?”

“No, just me and the practice room.” Sejeong shakes her head. “People expect too much out of me now. I need to get better.”

“Don’t push yourself just because you’ve become number one, “ Nayoung teases, “just be confident with yourself since forcing yourself won't do any good.”

A satisfied sigh fills the gaps and Sejeong looks up with a smile.

“I’m serious, get some rest.”  

Sejeong throws her arm over onto Nayoung’s shoulder, taking in a deep breath herself.

“You should too.”

–

Nayoung runs her fingers down along the dark purple blots staining beneath her eyes the next morning in front of the bathroom mirror. It taunts her, crawls up to her in all her insecurities and releases in a bellowing laugh. There was a sickly look Nayoung saw in herself, never leaving the sight of her exhausted expression.

Ugly. She hears the same voice taunt in an nonexistent cackle, but it withers away the moment she hears front door open. Nayoung backs off from the sink, removing her hands from the edges. Somewhere between the blur and mess of conversations, she hears Mina laughing explosively along with a mesh of Yebin and Pinky.

“You’re fine Kim Nayoung. You’re going to be okay.” Nayoung reassures herself like before a stage performance or like anything at all and opens up the bathroom door.

She finds Yebin surrounding herself with Pinky and Mina before she greets her. Nayoung gives a short wave as she climbs back onto the top bunk, wrapping round with the sheets.

A short lived gasp undeniably escapes Pinky and Nayoung when Yebin s her coat, filtering out a pile of snacks and sweets. “Where did you–” Pinky starts, eyes wide.

Yebin raises a hand, “no need to say a word. Let’s just say we got a through a deal.” Yebin and Mina sit around in a circle, fiddling with the bags of snacks to stash them under their sweaters.

“Quick put another one up there,” Yebin ushers to Mina, frantically shoving one up herself. “We can't get caught.”

A boisterous giggle leaves Mina as she’s holding up a largely noticeable bump sticking out from her shirt. They clearly were trying to avoid getting their snacks stolen, taken, or confiscated, but at this rate of hiding them under their clothes didn’t look like the right option. Regardless, Yebin pushed on  having Pinky laugh with a clap of her hands, pointing at the shady looking scheme her and Mina were planning out.

“Where are you even going to go with that,” Pinky questions with a narrow of her eyes.

“Shh,” Yebin shushes the other girl, “we’re going to to Siyeon’s dorm. They’ve got couple of instant noodles we could trade off.”

“To Siyeon?”

Mina feverishly nods. “Wanna come?”

There's a hesitant pause as she brings a hand under her chin. “Well...I guess I can't say no to noodles.”

“Great, more the merrier.” Yebin hands over couple of heavily artificially flavored chips, crinkling the wrapping in her hands. “Hold these then.”

Pinky casually grips onto the bags before shifting her eyes up to the top bunk on her right. “Nayoung?”

Nothing but the silence pools for a response.

“Hey? Nayoung unni?” Pinky calls once more

“You okay?” Mina peeks from underneath the bunk bed in a concerned expression of creased eyebrows and a frown.

With a halfhearted smile barely stretching across her lips, Nayoung waves a hand back and forth.”Tired.”

Mina responds with a click of her tongue. “Tired?”

“I barely got a wink of sleep last night.”

All the girls understood, heaving a goodbye before they left out the door in hurry.

“Take care, we’ll be back soon.”

–

Rubbing the stinging sore excruciating out from her eyes, she laid uncomfortably on the bed.

11:49pm

A loud frustrating shout muffled into her pillow with another pounding headache creeping up from behind. The same unsettling feeling swirls inside her, calling her to stay awake. Her lips press into a thin line, the urge to scream and yell gets caught in , pleading to be let out. Nayoung picks herself off the bed again, eyeing the digital clock perched by the bunk bed.

11:56pm

Time truly goes slow in the worst possible way.

Nayoung ruffles up her own hair, letting a subsequent weak whine. “ing–” She stops herself immediately, up the boiling pent up frustration sitting at the edge of her tongue. The rest of her roommates were still gone, probably meeting up with friends and partners for the next group mission. But her group had satisfyingly took time to practice individually while she’s laying in bed being neither awake or asleep. Chaekyung mentioned it being insomnia, or the temporary effects of the immense loss of sleep Nayoung experienced the past days.

No, it’s probably due lack of sleep.  

Probably.

Everything sits unreasonably quiet in the dorm and another second of it would driven her mad. Nayoung decides to go back to the practice rooms, best to prepare more for the performance coming up.

She opens up the closet, picking out the soft gray hoodie to slip on with her alleged number boldly printed on the front. Her white bleach sneakers were slipped on too and she quickly left the dorm on the flick of the light.

So many of the other trainees were awake, bustling alive together in the late night. (It wasn’t surprising). But there was something Nayoung wanted to avoid when stepped into the brightly lit studio.  

–

She finds a voice yelling, reverberating past the narrow hallway of practice rooms. A deepening chill cascades down her spine, eyes wide open in surprise. It’s the last room on the right, cornered down in the back of the hall. Nayoung runs stiff, taking quick heavy steps in pristine white kicks. There’s a moment of panic before nayoung reaches the room, hesitant to near closer.

She could feel her blood run cold, the color of her face gone pale when she peeks in from the small window of the door. It was only then Nayoung gathers a spurge of energy to fling the door open, and run towards the girl in the room.

“Sejeong, god, are you okay. What happened?!” Words spew out endlessly as Nayoung grabs stiffly onto Sejeong.

Giving out on a faltering laugh, she pulls Nayoung’s hands away. “It's okay, I'm fine. Nothing happened.”

“Why were yelling then?”

“I'm just so...tired,” she breathlessly says, plopping down onto the floor. “Screaming out seemed like the best option right now.” She collapses outstretched onto the ground, looking back up to Nayoung towering above her. “Sometimes the best thing is to just let out everything you’ve been holding in.”

“Oh how much I would love to do that,” Nayoung bitterly laughs. She bends down, taking a seat next to Sejeong before laying down.

“This is actually nice.”

“Nice? Laying down on the floor of the practice room is nice?” Nayoung questions in disbelief.

“Doesn’t it. I’d fall asleep here if I could.” Sejeong tiredly yawns, shutting her eyes.

“No. No. Don’t think about falling asleep here,” Nayoung protests, “I’m not willing to carry you back to the dorm.”

Sejeong opens her eyes, fixing her sight over to the side. “That would be nice though. You carrying me back.”

–

It’s past twelve when Nayoung drags Sejeong back into the dorm.

Yebin and Pinky are already seated on the floor the moment they step in, finding them splayed in a pile of music sheets. Both are dozing off with a nod of their heads and Sejeong glances over spotting Mina wrapped around in blankets, absolutely passed out. Nayoung pats Pinky head, after ruffling up Yebin’s. There an incoherent murmur that leaves Yebin’s mouth, something about killing the likes of Eunwoo when she shakes her awake. Nayoung decides to leave her alone after that.

The lights are off in their dorm as soon as everyone manages to climb into bed half awake. Again Nayoung stays wide awake, undeciding of whether she was to be asleep or not. But today’s early morning felt different when she felt someone else dip onto her bed. She shuts her eyes, pretending to be at least asleep, but the body comes flopping on top of her, knocking out a sense of her breathing.

“Holy shi–”

A voice hushes her quiet with vaguely similar eyes boring into her own.

“Sejeong?”

Sejeong gives a nod, before taking the spot next to her as Nayoung makes space.

Nothing about this was abnormal. It was common for the younger girl to sometimes curl up next to her when the sun has already risen in the morning, but lately she hasn’t been doing it, barely appearing in the dorm until late at night or early in the morning. And when Sejeong once again fell beside her with arms wrapped around her, something felt contently full.

And nothing's more special when sejeong traces patterns across her skin, slipping her fingers underneath the shirt she had on. Nayoung shudders at the touch, conflicted over to let them stay or ask if Sejeong’s hands were abnormally this cold.

“God, why are your hands so–cold?”

A sloppy shrug moves beside her, words nearly incomprehensible to make out. She feels Sejeong finally slip under the covers burying herself in the crook of her neck. Her fingers slowly tread along and under the soft lining hem of her sweater. With a hint of rosy petals lingering, the scent hugs tight around her body, the same fragrance Sejeong always wears, masking with her beauty.

Feels like she's falling in love–

–with a pile of flowers.

Nayoung turns over, picking off Sejeong’s hands. She looks into her eyes like hazy voices at midnight cityscapes, taunting whispers at night time, warm blue in the morning. For a moment there, Nayoung forgets how to breathe, into the galaxy of Sejeong’s eyes. It’s warmth that finally pricks her heart, soothing comfort spreading warmly like kaleidoscope of  butterflies fluttering inside one’s stomach. Unconsciously, her fingers graze against the pure white skin of Sejeong’s cheeks, then dropping down slowly to her nose, and finally her lips. Sejeong doesn’t do anything to stop her but close her eyes and lean a little closer.

Looming over Nayoung was a temporary solution. All she needed was the comfort of someone who was gladly there to share. Finally for once she could feel her drowsy eyes drop close, finishing sleep’s endless taunts. And an arm drags on top of Sejeong’s abdomen, pulling her into another embrace. She feels Sejeong slightly smile against her neck, leaving a quick peck.

A breathless rasp wraps around and Nayoung leaves an aimless kiss somewhere on Sejeong’s forehead letting her eyelids fall shut. It’s a temporary sense of content Nayoung has lingering, believing maybe today she’ll get to fall asleep, waking up a little better than before.

It’s 1:01am and Sejeong mumbles softly.

“Goodnight.”

With a sigh, Nayoung closes her eyes.

“Goodnight.”  

——–——

// thank you to all those who subscribed, up voted and commented.