My Heart is Unprepared
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Commentary in italics.

I'm going to mark this as completed since nothing more is going to come for a while. Thank you for following me on this journey. The following are snippets that I never managed to finish.

1.

The first time Sejeong says it out loud she is six going on seven and the elementary school classroom falls quiet at the exact wrong time.

“Oh,” says the girl who sits next to her, “that's weird.”

Sejeong doesn't think it's weird - she's never had one so she doesn't need one so how can it be weird that she doesn't have one?

The next day brings whispering and pointing and an art class where she makes a nice poster for her mother to hang up on the family fridge because not everyone has a dad that has a cubicle they can put Father's Day art up in.

---

The second time Sejeong says it out loud the middle school teacher had just asked her if she hadn't ever been properly disciplined by her father as a child.

This time she glares defiantly through her sweaty dusty fringe, dirt from the ground smudged across a cheek, knuckles bruised from hitting that rude boy's face after he said her mom was a .

“Oh,” says the teacher, brow creased.

She glares at him with as much anger as she can muster because that stupid boy deserved to be punched and she isn't wrong and doesn't need a father anyway.

Her mother has her change schools afterwards.

---

She laughs loudly with wide open so they can see it and can't possibly mistake it.

She grins broadly, toothily, showers girls with affection, learns to arm wrestle then thigh wrestle, gets strong, stronger than even the boys because you can't be missing something they have if you're stronger than they are.

She doesn't think she's missing anything and so she doesn't want them to think she is - doesn't want to give even the slightest impression that there is water flowing under the surface because why would you look under if there was so much more to look at above.

She gives up on math and starts to think about what she can do to help alleviate her mother's burden.

She walks past the first flyer as IU’s Good Day wafts out from inside the cake shop.

---

She is terrible. And useless.

But she has chosen her path so she will stick to it.

---

The third time she says it out loud is during a recording.

This is the first piece I wrote ever but as you can see it immediately took a nosedive with the angst so I don’t think I ever managed to come back to it. There are two main threads in here, one more specific and one far more general and for me it was hard to pick one to go with, but both could not coexist.

This story turned into Imposter Syndrome, but I never put it in because it wasn’t inspired by IOI events and I couldn’t quite make it fit the same short kind of scenes I was doing there. This one would have be a stand-alone one-shot.

2.

“You have to meet her,” Momo-unnie gushes, “I’ll arrange something with Chungha?”

Jieqiong nods, smiles. She’s heard of Tzuyu. Everyone has - political scandal notwithstanding - They do speak a common language but Somi did say that Tzuyu - no, Ziyu, is hard to get close to which is saying something because this is Somi.

This is the first non-Sejeong Jieqiong piece I started. Was going to imagine them meeting and what that would look like but eventually figured I’d be making too much up so this got abandoned. That and I haven’t watched enough Twice (I’ve only seen a few smatterings of VLives here and there) to know what Tzuyu is really like so I really didn’t feel comfortable taking this and running with it.

May resurrect this again once Pristin debuts.

3.

Nayoung is, understandably, a little taken aback when Chungha asks if she would be willing to trade places with Jieqiong for the night.

She says yes of course, because there isn’t a good reason why she would say no even if Chungha does not give her a good reason why she should say yes, though she is rather surprised that it is not Jieqiong bringing it up.

Which is why she is even more surprised when she appears in the Beagle room with her things to attempt to be asleep before the noisy kids get back (because she is a Nayoung and Nayoungs of all kinds require a lot of sleep) to find Jieqiong entirely unpacked, sitting on her own bed, smiling at her phone.

Jieqiong looks up from her phone, takes in Nayoung’s pillow and blanket, does a weird frown.

Nayoung stares back, acutely aware that Somi is in the living room horsing about with Yoojung and the others, that Sohye is in the bathroom and that there is no one else in the room with the two of them.

“What’s that, unnie?” Jieqiong gestures at the pillow in her hands.

“My pillow,” Nayoung says.

Jieqiong rolls her eyes, “I can see that.”

Nayoung shrugs, “I’m trading places with you tonight.”

“You are?”

Nayoung nods, “Chungha asked me to.”

“Chungha-unnie? She did?”

Nayoung shrugs again, waits for Jieqiong to say something that is not directly parroting back what she has just said.

Jieqiong frowns, “I’ll go ask Chungha-unnie.”

“There’s no need to,” Nayoung says, “Just grab your things.”

“B-But…”

“She’s waiting for you. Just grab your things.”

Jieqiong’s frown deepens but she reaches for her pillow and blanket.

Nayoung stands there and watches her.

The door edges open a little and Mina’s makes an entrance before the rest of the small Jellyfish girl, blanket, pillow and phone in her arms. Mina throws the bedding onto Sejeong’s now empty top bunk and grins cheekily at the two of them before scuttling out the room to the pumping beat of Blood Sweat and Tears and shrieks that definitely sound like the Fantagio duo and Somi.

The Pledis girls look at each other.

Nayoung shrugs but she gets it.

This is that thing that Jieqiong said way back in October during that one fan sign about the heated night with Sejeong and Chungha. She wonders if Jieqiong even remembers it now. (Though clearly one of Sejeong or Chungha does.)

She tosses her eye mask onto Jieqiong’s growing pile of stuff, “Tomorrow’s you’s going to thank me. My room’s pretty bright in the morning.”

Jieqiong her head to one side, looks at the mask but does not sweep it off her pillow.

---

“So,” Nayoung says to Jieqiong sitting at the kitchen table looking absolutely miserable the next day. She almost wants to giggle a little because their roles are usually reversed - she is not a morning person despite how quickly she gets ready in the morning and Jieqiong is usually bubbly and clingy from minute zero - but the way her fellow Pledis trainee (they are still trainees even though they have made their debut) is squinting into the sunlight makes her pause.

“Unnie~” Jieqiong’s head slumps to the table surface.

“Hm?” Nayoung keeps her voice low. She may not have had many experiences with hangovers (for multiple reasons, not all of them having to do with not-drinking), but she knows of people who really do not like the sunlight or loud noises after waking up the day after drinking.

“How many days do we have left?”

“Forty,” she says.

Jieqiong says nothing, just rolls her head to the side.

This was inspired by that line in the fansign about Jieqiong having a heated night with SeChung. It started to take a turn into angst so I left it at that. Also this was written in Oct which was wayyy far ahead of JQ’s actual birthday so I once again felt uncomfortable making up scenarios (that were then going to be angsty).

(And besides it turns out that Sejeong and Mina probably weren’t at the dorm then anyway, and it’s also possible that NaPink were at Pledis that night.)

This one probably will stay as it is although it was my first stab at Nayoung/Jieqiong interactions, so it’s something.

4.

“You’re scared of her,” Sejeong raises an eyebrow.

Jieqiong is trying to find a hole in the ground to hide in, manages, “She was so scary in school!”

Sejeong snorts.

“You don’t believe me but it’s true, unnie,” Jieqiong latches onto Sejeong’s arm.

“Have you,” Sejeong pats Jieqiong’s head, “I don’t know-talked to her?”

“Hey.”

“What?”

“We worked together on Full Moon,” Jieqiong sniffs, “of course we’ve spoken.”

Sejeong flops down onto the bed. Their Parisian hotel is nothing special but they are in a foreign land and that in itself is special.

“She’s not scary in the slightest,” Sejeong says.

“Nuh-uh,” Jieqiong shudders a little, “she’s not scary, she’s terrifying.”

This is inspired by that clip from Taxi where Jieqiong acknowledges that Chaeyeon is/was a goddess at SOPA and also scary.

Check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgNDG_wTldc

I was writing this at about the same time as Look at Me, which is about when I realized that ChaeKyul are the most awkward thing on earth.

A follow up scene that I typed out grew into Imposter Syndrome’s Chapter 5 but the tone was different so this scene never made it in.

5.

Chaeyeon is not an angel.

She is cautious with strangers, polite and innocent and halting.

This is literally my two line attempt at trying to write my way into figuring out Chaeyeon. The thing is that I have not watched many of her DIA videos so anything would be a half-truth. She’s definitely starting to grow on me of late though. This is such a short piece that it could end up nestled in something but could also never spawn anything.

6.

“You stole her phone to check her schedule even though we could just ask Nayoung-unnie.”

“Yup! Where's the fun in asking Nayoung-unnie?”

“The night before her birthday.”

“Yes.”

“When she's probably going to want to call her family.”

“Y-Yeah.”

“And we can't read anything from it anyway because it's in Mandarin.”

“...Ah.”

Chungha sighs, “Just go give it back.”

Somi pouts but prods at the phone. Sure enough, there are Chinese characters on the lock screen. Tapping around only prompts more foreign symbols. She sighs.

“Unnie, Jieqiong-unnie! Is this your phone?”

Jieqiong’s head jerks up from inside her backpack.

“Oh,” she says and the sheer look of relief on her face makes Somi feel just that tiniest bit guilty, “Thanks!”

Somi shuffles over, holds out the phone.

“Would have been hard to meet my family without this,” Jieqiong beams.

“Your family’s coming?”

Jieqiong nods as she continues scooping her things into her bag. A towel and multiple chargers and an extra change of clothes follow her toothbrush.

“Well, just my mom. Dad's busy and my siblings have school.”

“Staying out?”

“Yup! See you guys tomorrow!”

“Unnie, don't have too much fun without us!”

Jieqiong laughs out the door.

---

Jieqiong’s Gucci shoes are strewn by the door when they come back in after dance practice later that evening since Yoojung wanted to pick up her phone charger before dinner.

“Are those the ones that fansite…”

Chungha frowns and follows Somi into the beagle room. Sure enough there is a large fluffy pink blanket burrito on Jieqiong’s bed.

Chungha sits gently down, places a hand on where she imagines Jieqiong’s shoulder to be, “Hey.”

“The flight got delayed. There was no point. I'm not hungry,” comes the muffled voice, “you guys should go ahead to dinner.”

“You should eat,” Chungha says, “it's eight thirty.”

The blanket burrito moves.

Chungha is not sure but she thinks Jieqiong shook her head.

“I'm really not hungry.”

“At least come out with us then,” Somi pipes up, “you don't have to come out of the blanket.”

A snort, “I'm not leaving the house in a blanket. That's dumb.”

“Sheesh, way to shoot my ideas down, unnie.”

Another snort.

Chungha smiles, “we'll be waiting for you outside, alright?”

The blanket burrito twitches.

---

Jieqiong emerges in a hat and mask, sweatshirt and jeans, rubbing her eyes. Doyeon tosses a parka at her and Yoojung immediately attaches herself to Jieqiong’s arm, looks appropriately mournful and starving at the same time.

Again angsty. Started from that Pledis Girlz solo Vlive where she mentioned her phone was in Mandarin and then it took on a life of its own. I didn’t continue this because I felt guilty making up a scenario that would have been bad. Would have been fun to write the dinner scene - I wanted this to be a really feel good thing about the whole bunch of them bonding and being family but the guilt was a little too much and I don’t know if that would have been long enough.

Also again highly likely that NaPink may have spent this time at least partly at Pledis?

This one gives me feel-good vibes so I may return to this. Will probably explore her phone being in Mandarin in a piece in my Pristin collection in future - Even If the Rain Falls

7.

Yeonjung feels a little sorry for her team.

And a little pissed at Ki Heehyun, though there is a tiny part of her that is also kind of grudgingly impressed.

Jung Chaeyeon, Jeon Somi, Heo Chanmi and Pledis’ Jung Eunwoo. And not to mention Heehyun herself. That is kind of impressive.

Yeonjung finds it difficult to really hate people so although the other Starship girls tell her she should be really mad, she just channels that indignant energy into practicing. Her team is not shabby either - at the very least she has few F class members, and really, every girl group trainee nowadays has danced to Into the New World before (except for maybe Redline’s Kim Sohye, who isn't in her team) so it is fine.

Well, as fine as it can be anyway.

But what is done is done so she will do her best with the cards that she is dealt, and by that she means she is going to blow them away with Taeyeon-sunbaenim’s high note because that is what she came here to do.

And maybe that will be enough. She can and will hope.

Yoo Yeonjung will always hope.

---

She builds more grudging respect for Ki Heehyun as the competition goes on because damn, this is a popularity contest so it takes balls to not be super nice.

Also, Ki Heehyun is talented. She knows how to work the camera angles, knows how to show off what she knows.

Yeonjung really respects talented people, which is also how her eyes land on Jellyfish’s Kim Sejeong on day one.

Not that the other girls cannot sing - Kim Nayoung is also pretty good, Juna-unnie is really special and she could go on - but Sejeong sings with confidence. To be fair, Sejeong herself simmers with a quiet confidence tempered with humility and a little shade of emotional detachment, just enough for Yeonjung to gush about her skills but not enough for Yeonjung to feel immediately comfortable going up to her, so it makes sense that her singing voice reflects that.

Yeonjung does feel comfortable going up to Pledis’ Im Nayoung, though, which she is told is something very strange.

She does not see how that is strange. Nayoung-unnie is the most adorable thing on the planet, does not have a single mean bone in her body, which by the way is legs for days and hot as hell, and she is incredibly organized.

Being able to be organized is a talent, Yeonjung thinks.

Yeonjung really does respects talented people.

It also helps that Nayoung-unnie is cute when slightly flustered and being loud and happy around her makes her flustered, so clearly this is a match made in heaven.

Yeonjung babbles on happily next to Nayoung who laughs and covers and is happy and that is perfect.

---

Then Yeonjung meets the Fantagio kids and her world turns temporarily on its head.

Choi Yoojung should not be allowed to exist. No one should be allowed to be that cute and hot and be able to dance and sing and rap and be shy and humble and crazy all at the same time.

No one.

Yeonjung is a little lucky in that they are the same age so fangirling in person is easier.

Then she talks to Yoojung and

And Kim Doyeon just plain should not exist.

So I told someone that I was working on a Yeonjung piece. That was not a lie, but (and you’ll see a trend here), I have not watched all that many of WJSN’s videos so again I didn’t feel like I had a good finger on Yeonjung.

This was my way of attempting to write my way into the character but I couldn’t really pull up a good scene and I’d just finished writing Meet Me in the Sky, which was very similarly structured, and having to figure out Yeonjung’s relations to all the other 10 would be hard for me because she really isn’t with the girls enough. ><

Again, I think it’s mainly because I haven’t watched many WJSN videos. Maybe when I do that I’ll circle back around for this.

8.

Yoojung has actually never really set foot into SM Entertainment.

They are being led down corridors and around corners and then the door is opened in front of them. She clings to Chungha-unnie’s elbow, secretly relieved that they have not bumped into anyone that she could really embarrass herself in front of. Just thinking about going up the stairs and walking pass Yoona-sunbaenim gives her the shivers.

These are hallowed halls.

Yoojung’s role models were 2NE1 but really, which female trainee never watched Girls’ Generation pave the way? Which late nineties kid never did the fanchant to Mirotic? Meeting Jo Kwon through Golden Tambourine has been amazing and incredible. She thanks her lucky stars that both Yunho and Changmin-sunbaenim are in the army or she really might collapse into a squealing pile and Chungha would have to sweep little pieces of her up.

This all still feels like a dream, Yoojung thinks as the door closes behind her. So much like a dream.

They are the earliest, which makes sense, since they are the newest team and the youngest. That also means that they are all alone in that room, that one SM practice room with the cloud blinds in all the SM dance practice videos that Yoojung has spent hours pouring over. She puts her backpack down, sits down in a corner, tucks her knees to her chin.

Chungha rubs her shoulder and sits by her.

Yoojung leans in, rests her head on Chungha.

“They’re cool,” Chungha says.

Yoojung nods, “I know.”

“You’ve already met Momo.”

Yoojung nods, goes through the moves again in her head.

She knows that Chungha is excited to see Momo again. She is too, but she is far less familiar with the Twice senior and meeting new people is always a little nerve-wracking.

“And we're in a group chat with all of Gfriend.”

Yoojung nods again but group chats and meeting in person are a lot different and meeting in person without the rest of their teams are different too and they had mostly been chatting in general about things rather than one on one so there is something different there.

That and she has watched so many videos of both Seulgi and SinB-sunbaenims at this point that she knows she does not really know them but she feels like she might. People who dance the way she likes to dance, who make the moves powerful and clean and sharp and are not afraid to take on dances that people tend to think are too difficult for girls?

There may also be a little bit of worship there.

Just a little.

---

Chungha-unnie is not asleep but also clearly not entirely awake. Yoojung gets it. If this were any other day, she would already be sprawled out on the floor, cheek on the wood. But as it is now she is too nervous to properly relax and rest.

She cannot.

Their managers are sitting in another corner with their stuff, which leaves her sitting by Chungha, watching the door and counting down the seconds.

Yoojung is just about to give up on counting clock ticks and start counting the number of clouds on the blinds, or pull out her phone to frantically text Doyeon when the door opens.

She leaps to her feet, closely followed by Chungha, all but lunges into a bow, “Nice to meet you!”

“O-Oh,” SHINee’s Taemin peers in, face half in the door, “Nice to meet you too. Sorry, I think I got the wrong room.”

He grins sheepishly and Yoojung’s brain just shuts straight down.

The door slowly shuts.

Yoojung’s brain slowly boots up again after the immediate shut down. Ugh, Choi Yoojung, stop freezing whenever you see a celebrity. You have to get used to this or I don’t know how you’ll ever be able to function at music shows.

Another corner of her brain whispers that she has clearly been coping fine but they all know it is because she has had the rest of the girls with her.

She really does need to get better at this.

Chungha smiles, “I guess there are perks to coming all the way here after all.”

Yoojung barely manages a nod before the door opens again.

“Hey,” Momo grins, looks around, bounces into the room and gives Chungha a hug, “it’s so nice to see you again!”

Yoojung hovers behind them, smiles. She had not gotten the chance to properly greet the other performers at Hit The Stage, since she had been Chungha’s little secret so maybe Momo won’t really recognize her.

“Hi Yoojung!”

“Momo-sunbaenim,” Yoojung blushes, ducks shyly. Chungha smiles and gently nudges her.

“Just Momo is fine,” Momo beams, looks back over to Chungha, “I'm so excited!”

Chungha nods, “the song is fun.”

Momo laughs, “it could be any song and I'd have fun practicing with you bunch.”

Yoojung flushes.

“You're being silly,” Chungha snorts.

“A bit,” Momo smiles, “but it's true. You guys are fun.”

She turns to Yoojung and before Yoojung knows it, her own rendition of Wait-A-Minute-Let-Me-Take-You-There is being shown to her. Yoojung bites back a squeal and instead squeaks and tries to hide in the back of Chungha's shirt.

“Be nice,” Chungha laughs.

Momo pouts though her eyes twinkle, “I'm being nice! We loved it!”

Yoojung thinks she might faint a little when Momo-unnie says ‘we’ because she must mean Twice and although Somi keeps swearing Twice is just a whole bunch of dorks like them, Twice-sunbaenim are still Twice-sunbaenim and Yoojung has been rocking to Like Ooh Aah for a long, long time.

The door creaks open and SinB slides into the room.

All three of them leap up and they exchange greetings before sitting back down on the floor in slightly awkward silence.

Yoojung fiddles with her fingers, but not for very long because the door opens again, five minutes before the allotted meeting time and Seulgi enters in an oversized t-shirt, loose pants and a pair of tatty Converses.

Another round of greetings and they get straight to it, put the music and go through one round of the moves.

Pledis generally does not turn on the music while they are still mastering the moves, Yoojung knows, because that is how most of their practices with IOI under the watchful eye of Nayoung-unnie have gone. It is a little different here today since all of them have already practices the moves separately and the meeting is more to go over how the formations and the transitions.

The first round has them all standing in fixed positions with Chungha-unnie’s manager taking the video.

Yoojung never not-does her best, both her and Chungha have practiced this before today and Be Mine is one of those songs she learnt for fun in the past anyway so she should honestly have no worries about her performance but she squats next to manager-unnie, as close to the small screen as possible, eyes glued on her moves.

Yoojung realizes that she is so tiny next to Momo that even though she hits every move, something just looks a little different about it all. Chungha squeezes her shoulder.

“Looks good,” SinB says.

Momo nods, smiles.

Yoojung buries her face in her hands.

There is technically nothing wrong with her dancing - she just cannot help the fact that she is tiny and looks like a child. And she looks weird next to tall SinB and tall Momo, not to mention fit as all hell Seulgi. Even Chungha, who is also not the tallest, still looks relatively fine.

“Yoojung, are you alright?”

Yoojung’s head flies up and her eyes meet Seulgi’s, warm and full of concern.

“I’m really sorry!”

"There’s nothing to be sorry for,” SinB shrugs, “you did great. We all did good.”

Yoojung nods then shakes her head, “Yeah I mean, no, I mean yes. Ah, I don’t know! Sorry!”

Momo laughs, pats Yoojung on the shoulder, “It’s ok. We’re all in this together. You can just tell us what you think. We don’t bite.”

Chungha scoots closer to Yoojung.

“I just look really tiny,” Yoojung blurts out, “it makes this all look weird.”

I was going to finish this one.

I really was.

But I couldn’t figure out a good way to wrap it up and Yoojung makes me question everything I write about her. She’s a really hard one for me to put a finger on and I really don’t want to get her awfully wrong and my impression of Momo and Seulgi are really surface-level and I’ve basically seen like maybe 2 GFriend variety clips in my life so SinB could be totally wrong and I would have no idea. (Also I didn’t really know where they rehearsed so I took the liberty to assume it would be at the sunbae’s place which would be SM.)

But really I couldn’t figure out how to wrap this one up satisfactorily, what to leave the reader with in the end. If you guys have ideas, leave them in the comments and maybe I’ll actually finish this.

9.

Sejeong hoards snacks because she knows what it is like to be hungry.

This one was really recent, from that last clip of MBC Section TV where all the girls point to Sejeong when asked who has the largest appetite.

I will come back to this (and probably post it as a stand-alone) once I figure out who else I want in this story. Also probably after I watch Gugudan’s variety show.

Sejeong though - I cannot seem to get away from angst when I write her.

Once again, thanks for reading~ Leave comments to let me know what you liked and what you didn't, what you'd like to see me write more of. Perhaps a different style? A different setting? I don't bite, I promise.