Such Great Heights (1/2)
Nayoung/Jieqiong

Nayoung never wanted to be the leader.

She knows she is good at organizing and getting people to move around, so it does sort of make sense that she ends up being the leader but really Nayoung adores being doted on.

As the youngest child, Nayoung had always been able to easily rely on someone. As a trainee there were always seniors to look up to, parents and siblings a call or text away and friends of the same age in school.

It is different here.

Here Nayoung is the oldest and thus she is the leader. Simple as that.

Being strong and commanding and making decisions that no one likes are not things she is comfortable doing but their society rewards age and it would be so much more work and so much more to explain to have Sejeong be the leader (and besides Sejeong is so busy with all the other things she is doing anyway) that it naturally fell to Nayoung.

It has been difficult for many reasons, but the first and foremost has always been that there is no one she can physically talk to about being leader, no one that she can comfortably pour out all her worries about not being enough or not even being right for this.

Nayoung feels a little better.

She has known this for the longest time but being able to cry has just made her lighter. And the little ones. The kids. They make her feel amazing with their hugs and cuddle and snuggles - Nayoung never knew how much she missed hugging people before she joined IOI.

Yoojung snuggles up to her non-stop for the next two hours.

Even though she knows fully well why this is happening, Nayoung is enjoying it too much to want to stop her.

They get a break from practicing the new moves for the award show they will be attending the next day and Doyeon and Yeonjung are, unsurprisingly, at it again, shrieking about something she did not quite catch the beginning of.

“Yah!”

“Blehhh, serves you right!”

“Tell me!”

“Girls,” Chungha says where Nayoung would have said something, “keep it down?”

“A-Ah,” Doyeon says and Nayoung watches Doyeon’s eyes flick over to her, “sorry.”

Yeonjung nods and Doyeon elbows her in the ribs, eliciting a yelp but no other altercations. Somi does not leap into the fray like she usually would.

Nayoung knows Sejeong is watching her, can also feel other pairs of eyes on the back of her head.

“Unnie,” Sejeong says, “got a minute?”

Nayoung nods and follows Sejeong out the door.

“Are you alright?”

Sejeong says as soon as they are out of earshot of the rest of the girls, “You’ve been a little out of it.”

Nayoung nods haltingly.

Sejeong bites her lip, “I’m sorry. I didn’t, well, I know it’s dumb and you probably already know but I didn’t realize this would hit so hard. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I’d known. I just thought-I didn’t know-I’m sorry we didn’t know you were still so worried about this.”

Nayoung shrugs.

“Really though,” Sejeong puts a hand on her shoulder and the contact makes Nayoung melt a little because she has managed to get the time to text her mom and pour out her heart a little but not to someone in person, “we meant everything we said after, that you’ve done so much for all of us and that you’re the only reason why we’re still here and still functioning.”

Nayoung shakes her head, feels her eyes water.

“No,” Sejeong says, smiles, wraps her arms around Nayoung, “it’s true. We would have lost someone in France, in LA, in Busan, in Jeju, heck, even going from the practice room to the dorms. You keep us all together and you keep us on track and that’s really hard.”

Nayoung bursts into tears because she has been so tired and it has been so hard and not being able to talk to someone face to face about this has made it even harder and she just knows on the inside that she is not enough and has not been enough but they are so kind to her regardless of her flaws and someone is holding her now which is so much more than she has been able to have in such a long time.

“Aw, our Nayoung-unnie,” Sejeong says, rubs circles on her back with her hand, “you’ve been so strong for all of us, we’re sorry we haven’t been able to be strong for you too.”

Nayoung bawls for the second time that day.

The day ends and soon they are back in the dorm to rest because they will be performing live tomorrow. It sounds crazy now and certainly last year’s Nayoung would not have believed for a moment that she would be performing at the Melon Music Awards, least of all, leading a group nominated for one.

A shower melts a lot of the tension of the day away but the hustle and bustle of the girls busying themselves with washing up means that for the first time she is left to herself and her thoughts that start to wander.

Nayoung is, by nature, an organizer. She writes things down in lists, lines them up and squares them off so naturally she finds herself reaching back through her memories of the day. All of a sudden she knows she needs to be alone for a while so she climbs the stairs to the second floor, folds herself into one of the half-removed props from LAN Cable friends.

Nayoung knows she needs to work this out. The girls deserve better. She needs to be the better person that she has always known she needed to be, the better leader that they need.

She knows they said those were not true but she knows that she is not like them, was not open and bright and sharing like Doyeon, Yeonjung and Somi, not affectionate like Yoojung, Chungha and Chaeyeon, not a confidant like Sejeong. She is just the leader in title, the order-er of things and herder of kids.

Nayoung feels the tears welling up again but she has cried her eyes out twice today and a third time would be one too many so she looks up at the dark ceiling and blinks them back.

Then she feels a body sit down next to her. Hands wrap themselves around her waist.

If it were any other day she would lean into the contact - the younger IOI kids have taught her extremely well and nowadays she actively seeks out hugs - but not right now.

Right now the events of the day are sinking in and although she knows that Doyeon does not dislike soondae soup, Yoojung was never hurt by her leaving the table early, and Yeonjung’s spirit is impossible to bring down, the small nagging feeling that there are grains of truth to candid cameras does not leave. Certainly she knows that there lies a grain of truth at the heart of this one.

A face rubs itself on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Jieqiong says.

She is still not used to this. It is not as if the Pledis girls were not touchy feely with each other - they were just rarely touchy feely with Nayoung. Jieqiong has always hugged and been hugged freely but not her and not by her. They were friends, are friends, will still be friends but Jieqiong continues to inhabit some strange middle ground of being not quite old enough to be one of the unnies and not quite young enough to be one of the kids and that makes things a little strange.

Nayoung shakes her head.

“I should probably have said something,” Jieqiong says, “I knew you were worrying about this.”

Nayoung inhales sharply.

“You did?”

Jieqiong stiffens, “y-yeah.”

Nayoung is finding it difficult to place the reason for Jieqiong’s slightly stunned look, but she realizes that she both knows and has absolutely no clue about Jieqiong. They have been trainees together for a long time and so she knows what Jieqiong is good at and what she is bad at, how she interacts with people, how soft her heart is and how kind she can be. At the same time it is only through IOI that they have spent this much time together and while they are from the same company, it is precisely because they are from the same company that they have never had the need to have to break the ice.

“Ah,” says Nayoung, pulls away and is promptly released from the side-hug, lets words spill out that she knows are true, “It’s ok. It was for the show. Doyeon doesn’t hate soondae soup, Yeonjung wasn’t actually hurt, Yoojung would never say those words. It’s alright.”

They both know what is left unsaid.

“Y-You knew I didn’t mean it either, right?”

Nayoung pauses.

“I did,” she lies.

A/N: Wasn’t going to do another Nayoung piece for a while but she’s such a huge softie - see Pledis V App - and then the Knowing Brothers ep aired. These girls practically write their own stories.