***

The lights are dimmed and the electric panel has been shut. The ambience of the room at night (or is it the wee hours of the morning already?) is painfully contrasting to what happens during the day, when the sweat, tears, and false hopes of different trainees from different parts of the world would drip onto the wooden floor in hopes of a possible debut one day. Bones break and muscles are pulled. On more optimistic days, only limbs are strained.

Although it was definitely a painful sight to watch, Chaeyoung realizes she is one of them.

Chaeyoung, too, lives for her attempts at accentuating that one last syllable of a self-composed rap, belting that one last note out, even when her lungs are already begging her please, please let us breathe; and please inhale the oxygen your body’s been craving for the moment you’ve stepped inside this dungeon.

Chaeyoung is a mere speck of talent in the whole congregation of other trainees who seem to be more flamboyant, more charismatic, and more engaged than her – trainees who are taller, better, older. Undoubtedly, Chaeyoung needs a break, which is why she’s here, gone to the practice room at night with a pen and a piece of paper in hand – in hopes to turn her grieves and struggles and uncertainties into a lyrical, rhythmic, and even passionate beat.

“Hello... I suppose I have been given the wrong address, because I was instead dropped off here rather than the dormitory. Do you, by any chance, know where the dormitory is?”

So the last thing she needs right now is a disruption of her solitude.

Said disruption comes in the form of an unfamiliar face - a tan girl cautiously entering the practice room who dares speak to Chaeyoung in her broken and awkward Korean. Chaeyoung definitely doesn’t know who she is. (But about this girl being cautious with entering the practice room – Chaeyoung doesn’t blame her. Honestly.)

“….so I conclude this is the wrong place, and the guard told me to look for you to ask…”

Chaeyoung wants to laugh; of course you’ve gotten to the wrong place. But ‘Dropped off’? ‘Wrong address’? Plus, this girl’s awkward diction? Who is she and why is she here— Oh. It takes a couple of seconds for Chaeyoung to comprehend before she completely realizes - another lost foreign trainee. She eyes the girl from head to toe to confirm her suspicious, and she catches sight of the duffel bags hanging from her shoulders (it looks like they’re about to break her scrawny figure) and the handle trolley bag clutched by her left hand.

Chaeyoung replies, “Yeah, I do. Um, I live in the dormitory too, so we can walk there together, lest you get lost… or get hurt.”

“Lest?”

“To avoid the risk of.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you.”

The walk to the dormitory was awkward, least to say, especially with Tzuyu’s duffel bags occasionally slipping off her shoulders and her squealing “Sorry!” whilst she hastily picks them up from where they lousily hang on her elbows. But nonetheless, Chaeyoung makes a new friend.

(Her name is Chou Tzuyu and she comes from Taiwan. Chaeyoung learns that they are the same age.)

***

Dahyun’s eyes are narrowed and her thin lips are pursed. Chaeyoung ignores her, leaning against the mirror and slumping down when she pants from a particularly tiring dance routine. Dahyun sees a trail of sweat on the mirror above Chaeyoung’s head and she grimaces.

“What?” Chaeyoung finally asks.

Dahyun bites back, “You’re not telling me something.”

Chaeyoung wants to laugh, but she lets out a snort instead, “What do you mean ‘I’m not telling you something’?”

“You’re unusually happy today – I mean, you’re always happy – but today is different. I swear, there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you, okay? I met… I met someone cute last week,” Chaeyoung tells Dahyun, walks towards her and crouches down beside her where she is sprawled on the floor. She lifts her hand to massage one of Dahyun’s shoulders, reassuring her, “But we’re just friends. It’s okay.”

“Chaeyoung, you know –“

“Yes, unnie, I know that y-“

Dahyun cuts her off, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She cuts her eyes at Chaeyoung, daring her to say something else, “It’s always like this. You make friends with a trainee and then you end up watching them leave with tears in your eyes! I’m so sick of it, seeing you hurting like that.”

And Chaeyoung’s been told this countless of times, stop making friends so suddenly with new trainees, you’re just going to get hurt again.

Dahyun’s voice is so soft, so featherlike, when she whispers, “You still miss Lena-unnie, don’t you?” She sounds like she doesn’t really want to ask, but she wants to know.

Chaeyoung doesn’t answer.

“Nevermind. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, unnie.”

Stop making friends so suddenly with new trainees, you’re just going to get hurt again.

Chaeyoung thinks about it.

***

Son Chaeyoung is stubborn. Later, she would attempt to romanticize it and call her and Tzuyu’s first meeting “the works of fate”. She would imagine that there were invisible, magnetic-like forces bounded inside her and Tzuyu that caused the both of them to find each other; she would rewind the whole scene in her head, adding her own momentum, time intervals and frames, according to what she desired, and Chaeyoung imagined that it was “love at first sight” when she locked eyes with the girl who had irises as deep as the sea.

Chaeyoung sighs at the mundanity of it – she just happened to fall in love with the new trainee, the one who had lanky limbs and eyebrows seemingly too thick for her face. What was there to romanticize about that?

Nevertheless, that was the first time Chaeyoung fell in love with Tzuyu. Chaeyoung was technically correct; the first time she had seen Tzuyu was definitely the first time she had fell in love with her. So it was, indeed, love at first sight.

***

In present, Chaeyoung still isn’t sure whether she feels more scared than she is grateful that she was placed under the same survival reality show, let alone the same girl group with her.

However, in the back of her mind, Chaeyoung knows she’s supposed to be thankful, even joyous and ecstatic than anything. Of course. Anything with Tzuyu.

(Of course Chaeyoung should have been grateful. Not to mention, Tzuyu and her even share the same room.)

“Hey Chewy, you’re all over the front page on Naver again.” Chaeyoung informs Tzuyu, not bothering to look up from her smartphone screen.

(Tzuyu and Chaeyoung share the room with Dahyun as well, but truth to be told, Chaeyoung isn’t sure if Dahyun knows anything about her feelings towards Tzuyu, or the foolishness she often dabbles into, such as the one in present. (harmless flirting was considered foolish, was it not?) Perhaps Dahyun does, but she simply isn’t saying anything about it. Or perhaps she does want to say something about it, but in the race between her and fatigue, Dahyun loses, just like most of the girls. Chaeyoung momentarily pushes the thought aside.)

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, apparently you’re like, JYP’s next jewel, whatever that may mean,” Chaeyoung lightly laughs, “I don’t blame them for that though, you are pretty.”

“Are they serious,“ Tzuyu chokes up, “…even if I have tan skin, and… oh gosh, don’t you Koreans consider that… unattractive? Ugly?” She looks at Chaeyoung with uncertainty. It pains Chaeyoung to see Tzuyu like this.

She could not find a single flaw in Tzuyu (oh no, she really is in love,) and while she’s already first-handedly witnessed Tzuyu showcase her imperfections throughout the years they’ve been working together, Chaeyoung did not find her ugly.

“No, Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung replies. “Like I said, you are pretty… like, really pretty.”

Actually, Chaeyoung had not found a lot of things ugly; so conversely, she didn’t find a lot of things beautiful either. Chaeyoung had never had an opinion on beauty or attraction - but to Chaeyoung, Tzuyu was ethereal.

Tzuyu’s lips break out into a small grin.

“You should smile more often, you know? Instead of that dumbfounded look you wear half - I mean - most of the time,” Chaeyoung says. “You look prettier when you smile.”

Tzuyu laughs, the laugh that was so much more Tzuyu when she wasn’t dolled-up and such for the cameras to see.

And seeing Tzuyu like this, laughing (albeit temporarily) without a care in the world, Chaeyoung smiles, too.

This is the second time Chaeyoung falls in love with Tzuyu.

***

“Hey midget,” Nayeon slaps Chaeyoung’s as she passes by, “you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Although she won’t be able to admit it just yet, the other eight members meant everything to Chaeyoung. She still missed the other seven girls though. But in Chaeyoung’s opinion, there was nothing you could bring back but pain in reminiscence.

Jihyo had told her once that she could talk to her about it if Chaeyoung had still felt upset about the other girls leaving. She probably reassured the rest of the girls in private, too, but Chaeyoung didn’t mind. It was kind of comforting actually, because it signified Jisoo’s understanding of the unsaid apprehension within all of their hearts. Everyone understood, but Jisoo took initiative. Because Jisoo was the leader. Jihyo was your kind of leader.

They all shared the same sense of guilt, inevitably feeling that they had stepped on the other girls, most of whom they had considered their friends, in order to debut.

To be grieving together somehow tied them together in solidarity because they shared the same pain. But everyone looked especially worried for Chaeyoung. A few days after the final line-up of the group had been revealed to them and they had gotten over the internal gratification that cooed over their prides (or shock, surprise, whatever it was), the members had suddenly remembered: Is Chaeyoung okay? How is Chaeyoung? Does Chaeyoung still talk to Somi? How about Jiwon? Have you talked to Chaeyoung about it recently?

Actually, Chaeyoung was okay. She was just tired.

After all, when you run – you don’t look back.

***

Chaeyoung caught a fever today.

She feels so much better like this though, feels like it’s at least bearable, when Jungyeon envelops her into a hug. Her eyes feel like they’re on fire (she thinks her temperature had gone as high as 40C), and Jungyeon’s hug was in all parts playful, but Chaeyoung appreciated it nonetheless.

Sana pokes at Dahyun’s nostrils with a tip of a banana whilst the camera rolls at the side. Chaeyoung honestly isn’t sure if she’s caught in the frame, but lethargy takes over and she allows her body to slump even further into the corner of the couch. Laughter is supposed to enter her ears, but the former trainee director’s voice rings in her head: Girlgroup members sell their images, so you’re supposed to act like one! Chaeyoung snorts. Act like what, she taunts in her head. (She’d never be able to say that in front of him.)

But despite that, everything else still feels so surreal – that she was going to debut, not to mention with the girl she loved, and that she’d gotten this far. It felt like it was just yesterday when she was only thirteen and enrolled in a dance academy when she’d heard of the audition.

“I just can’t wait to buy furniture for our new dorm! I love looking at furniture, it’s so therapeutic…”

“Sana. Please.”

***

In the car ride going home, Chaeyoung falls asleep. The last thing she remembers is a pair of long arms encircling her waist. Probably Jungyeon again, who had been so previously worried about whether she took her prescribed pills on time.

Chaeyoung dreams of two women – one of whom she wants to be, all passionate and fierce belting out notes Chaeyoung could have never imagined she could reach. But the other, the one on the far right, she’s not quite sure.

The woman on the right is a mysterious, dancing figure, face blurred, unrecognizable, and undecipherable, but moves contrastingly fluid and precise. She somehow looks like a shadow like this. With each twirl of an arm, kick of a leg in the air, Chaeyoung feels liquid droplets splat on the expanse of her skin, as if this woman had bathed but immediately continued to dance even whilst she was dripping wet.

Chaeyoung feels the droplets run down to permeate her skin, from her back, to her arms, to the underside of her s. It’s feels equal parts euphoric yet exhilarating; she wants more of that liquid on her, and she’s never been this hungry or insatiable that it’s almost alarming - but she goes closer and closer.

Chaeyoung sprints towards the dancing figure. By now, her entire torso is damp; however, it’s still not enough – Chaeyoung wants more, wants her whole body soaked in it, wants to drown in it. However, a migraine suddenly pierces through her head, causing Chaeyoung to trip and crash onto the floor. She thinks she may have twisted an ankle or so but it doesn’t matter. Not right now. She gets up again.

This time, Chaeyoung starts sprinting, continues running and running, until everything is pitch black. The sight of the girl is now flickering as if she were a mere vision on a television screen and –

“I think I love you,” Tzuyu confesses. Chaeyoung wakes up.

Somewhere between deciphering whether this is reality or not, Chaeyoung murmurs (yawns) in reply, “I think I love you too.”. And somewhere between pulling back and feeling Tzuyu’s nose bump the crown of her head before pulling back, she feels Tzuyu's lips on her own. It's only a split-second, but it's enough to have Chaeyoung feel more of what she usually feels when she's with Tzuyu.

“Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung coughs, “I had a nightmare,”

Tzuyu tightens her arms around Chaeyoung even further. “You’ll be okay. I love you.”

This is the third time Chaeyoung falls in love with Tzuyu.

Chaeyoung didn’t have to restrict herself from loving anyone out of the fear of hurt and possible suffering anymore, nor did she have to dream any longer; this was the third and last time Chaeyoung would fall in love with Tzuyu within such a numerical range - because after this, Chaeyoung will fall in love with Tzuyu infinitely, perpetually – and Tzuyu was to do the same. Infinity did not have any numbers, nor did it have any limits. Tzuyu was the beat to the cymbal that was Chaeyoung’s heart, and Chaeyoung doesn’t think she would ever want to change that.

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a/n:

thank you for reading!!! um, i've been into twice lately and they're super cute and adorable so you should get into them too!!!

again, thank you for reading. comments and criticisms are vvvv much appeciated!! <333

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