Nayeon and Joshua meet up for dinner, at her behest. She’s jittery the whole time, talking herself into and then back out of what she’s about to do ad nauseum. She steels herself and reminds herself that Im Nayeon is intimidated by nothing and no one. She has nothing to lose here.

After mustering up an insane amount of courage, she confesses. She’s greeted with more surprise and less happiness than she’d wished for.

“I just… I see you as a friend, Nayeon-ah. It’s really sweet and I’m flattered, but I don’t think I’m the right person to be that for you.” He’s breaking her heart but why does he have to look so beautiful in his wavering, unintentional cruelty.

“Oh, yeah, totally. That’s fine. It’s fine.” She says, like repeating it enough will make it true.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you—” He apologizes. He always apologizes. He’s too nice and normally that makes her want to draw closer but it’s too painful right now. If only he were a jerk, then she could hate him.

“Oh no, you didn’t. It’s fine. Jisoo-yah, you made me realize: what was I thinking? It’s not good timing anyway. We should focus on our careers right now, anyway. Silly me.”

“Let’s not let this change things between us,” he says.

“We’re all good,” she replies.

They both repeat both statements like mantras, in different permutations until there’s an awkward silence. Saying and doing shouldn’t be so far removed from one another, Nayeon thinks.

Jisoo leaves not long after. They say that things haven’t changed between them and that they’re all good but it’s all empty platitudes; they both know that it’s not so simple and uncomplicated. The dull ache in her chest serves as a constant reminder that things can’t be the same, because it was all predicated on the fact that she was hiding the way that she actually felt.

In her blinding frustration and distress Nayeon picks up her phone and calls the only person who she thinks can understand what she’s going through right now, fully. The only person who she thinks can soothe her bruised ego and shattered heart.

She tries not to let her voice waver when she speaks, and succeeds only about halfway.

“Seungcheol-ah, are you busy?”

Nayeon uses a mask and a lot of concealer to look something approaching normal to meet him at a Norebang. His recommendation. Places where they can have real privacy are far and few.

They don’t sing at first. She just starts crying again when he walks in the room, having kept it together for longer than she thought she would already. He just holds her, which is closer than she’s ever been to him, but it feels like just about the only thing that’ll make her feel any better right now. Her tears soak through his shirt and her fingers curl into the already-abused fabric; Seungcheol’s glad he hadn’t dressed up at all tonight but thinks he wouldn’t mind her doing so even if he had.

Nayeon rests her head against his chest and finally speaks after crying to the point of exhaustion.

“I’m sure you know why I’m upset,” she says miserably.

“I do,” he replies, fingers weaving through her hair. She buries her face back into his chest, sighing dramatically.

“Jisoo told you,” she replies matter-of-factly, voice reverberating through him.

“Actually, no,” he says, and Nayeon sits back in question. Her face is puffy beyond compare and he swallows a laugh at her expense.

“Wae?”

“Nayeon, you’re like, the opposite of subtle,” he replies curtly, and Nayeon smacks him warningly on the shoulder.

“You’re supposed to be making me feel better,” she says sharply. She knows she shouldn’t be mean to him, since he did come here to comfort her, but she’s emotionally drained and her patience has been worn paper thin.

“I never said it was a bad thing.”

He forces her to sing a song with him, playing it before she can protest.

“You have to sing, Nayeon. This song was made for you.”

By the end of Fantastic Baby, she is shaking her hair and her body like her worries have evaporated. They do, for a fleeting moment.

“I’m sorry for being a ty friend.” She apologizes after they’ve exhausted themselves, both of them slumping back on the plastickey material of the booths.

“It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up too much,” he replies, a smile tugging at his mouth.

“You’re supposed to tell me that I’m not a ty friend,” she pouts, giving him her worst expression.

Seungcheol is many things, but he isn’t a liar.

Nayeon’s picture lights up on his phone as it rings. Hoshi gently teases him for it and his lips curl up at the corners but he ignores it otherwise.

“Nayeon-ah, who calls people these days?” He asks snarkily upon answering.

“Don’t be like that, Seungcheol-ah,” she huffs over the line.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” he backs down. “What’s up?”

“Are you free at all this week?”

Nayeon wants to get her tarot read, but is too much of a wimp to go alone. Seungcheol meets her in front of a chicken restaurant halfway between their dorms, the smell beckoning him and making him wish Nayeon would eat some with him, though she’s perpetually on a diet or something equally oppressive.

They enter the shop through a curtain of beads. There’s so much ornate decoration that Seungcheol can’t identify the tarot reader for a moment.

He holds the beads aside for Nayeon, who wavers on the threshold.

“What are you so scared of?” He asks in amusement, tugging her inside by the wrist.

Knowing Nayeon, it’s probably something to do with being out of control.

Nayeon meets Seungcheol for coffee the day after his last concert in Seoul. It’s been a while since they last saw one another. Half an hour into their conversation his phone rings, an unknown number.

“Just answer it,” she says, gesturing towards his phone with her coffee.

So Seungcheol takes the call, and his face drops the longer he listens.

“Seungcheol-ah?” Naeyon queries, but her words don’t seem to register.

“What do you mean, he's in the hospital? What happened? He’s—?” Silence. Seungcheol is looking at Nayeon, mouth agape for hanging on his last unsaid word, but she can tell that he’s looking past her, through her. “Where? I’m leaving right now.”

The urgency in his voice is unnerving.

“It’s my brother.” He says to Nayeon. “I have to go. I have to—I…” he stands swiftly, his chair teetering behind him.

“Let’s go,” Nayeon says, standing too.

“You don’t have to come, Nayeon-ah,” he says, flustered, his manners mixing with his panic.

“You don’t want me to?” She asks.

“You shouldn’t feel like you have to,” he says, but Nayeon is already leading him towards the door.

“I’m not going anywhere, Seungcheol-ah.”

Physically, yes she is. But leaving him? Not a chance.

They hail a cab and Seungcheol gives the destination; his voice is steel.

It’s frightening to Nayeon to see Seungcheol so fragile. He looks like a scared child and he doesn’t say anything on the ride over. The Seungcheol that Nayeon knows is brighter than the sun and never shuts up, so she doesn’t know what to do for him other than to let him squeeze her hand as he stares off, gaze unfocused and mind a million miles away from her.

They wait outside of surgery, in the ugly cracked maroon pleather seats of the waiting room.

“He came to visit me.” Seungcheol says, the first words he’s uttered in the last 2 hours other than asking the receptionist where his brother is.

“Don’t you dare even start blaming yourself, Seungcheol. He could’ve been anywhere doing anything and this could’ve happened. It’s not your fault. It’s not his fault. It’s the drivers fault. Stop it. Stop thinking that it’s your fault.” Nayeon says harshly. She thinks he needs harsh right now, to drive him out of that dark hole he’s visibly burying himself in.

His buggy eyes are shiny with threatening tears but he nods obediently at her. She knows he comprehends what she’s saying but can’t find a place to fit it in his head enough to really believe it. She suspects that Seungcheol will blame himself for things that are beyond his control until the day he dies.

After a few more hours she has to leave for a schedule but she calls Jeonghan to come wait with him. She knows Seungcheol needs someone to keep him from drowning in his own thoughts, but that he isn’t one to ask for help of his own devices. He doesn’t know well enough how to be needy.