Found You
Nayoung/Jieqiong

A hand on her is not nearly enough to wake Nayoung up - all the girls know this, so it comes as a surprise to Nayoung herself when her eyes crack open in the middle of the night to a patch of warmth on her shoulder just resting there.

Her eyes flick up in the darkness to find the silhouette of Jieqiong’s face as the younger girl sits by her bed, a single hand on Nayoung’s shoulder.

All the other girls sleep deeply so she does not have to be quiet but she lowers her voice anyway, “Is something wrong?”

Jieqiong’s fingers were trembling slightly, Nayoung notes, though they still as Jieqiong shakes her head.

“Are you alright?”

Jieqiong nods rapidly, so rapidly that even groggy half-asleep Nayoung can see the lie. She props herself up on an elbow, reaches over and ruffles Jieqiong’s hair, pats her gently on the head.

Jieqiong’s head bows, her hair falls across her face and Nayoung can no longer even make out her features but that hand is still on her shoulder.

Something is definitely wrong and no matter how hard Nayoung thinks about the schedule they had the day before, nothing comes to mind. They had been up for many hours the previous day but all things considered everything had been alright. The fanchants had been great and the filming had gone well.

“Hey,” she says, sitting up, “I’m going to get some water.”

Jieqiong nods, slowly moves her hand down from Nayoung’s shoulder to her wrist then further down, letting Nayoung lace their fingers together to tug her out the room.

Nayoung slides the kitchen door shut behind them, flicks the lights on, dispenses herself a cup of water from the fridge all with her one free hand as Jieqiong makes no move to let go, letting herself be dragged around the kitchen.

“What happened?”

Jieqiong’s mouth twitches, she grimaces, her grip tightens on Nayoung’s hand.

“I had a dream,” she says.

Nayoung gently squeezes her hand, rubs small circles with her thumb.

“It’s dumb,” Jieqiong laughs softly, looks up to the ceiling, rubs her eyes with her free hand, “it was a dumb dream but I couldn’t find you.”

Nayoung takes in a deep breath.

It is 2012 and they are kids and Yejin-unnie has just debuted earlier that year so everyone has spent most of the summer practicing with a renewed sense of purpose.

Jieqiong smiles and waves at her from across the room.

Nayoung nods and Jieqiong’s smile widens.

There are a few new younger trainees as well whose names she learns briefly but who only really make Nayoung more nervous. The likelihood of her managing to debut with After School is growing more remote with every passing month - she knows she needs to get a lot better at performing than she is right now and the fact that Pledis is recruiting all these younger girls (and Junghyun who is twelve and practically a baby) can only mean that they want a younger group but Nayoung is five whole years on Junghyun and that might be stretching it.

She takes her frustrations out in dance practice, forces her body to snap to the movements, moves to the waves, dips her knee in then out, watches as tiny tiny Junghyun hits the moves with ease to her left, watches as Jieqiong inexplicably struggles.

Nayoung usually focuses more on her own movements but Pledis has been trying something out recently that involves groups. Again, whether that has anything to do with After School or not, Nayoung has no idea, but she knows they take notes at every evaluation and everything means something as a trainee.

The three of them have been grouped up for Genie this week, Nayoung, Junghyun and Jieqiong, that one Chinese trainee who is still learning Korean, is here during the summer, gets along well with Junghyun, always says “Hello, unnie” in the brightest tone, and beams at her.

The dance instructor frowns at them in the mirror as they turn off the music when Jieqiong only barely lifts her left leg for the kicks.

“Kyulkyung,” the instructor says.

Nayoung waits, knows that Jieqiong still sometimes takes a while to recognize her Korean name, then gently taps her on the shoulder.

Jieqiong whirls around, “Yes! Sorry!”

“Kyulkyung,” the instructor says again, “are you trying?”

Nayoung gets the full force of Jieqiong’s confused, sheepish, embarrassed look. The instructor just sighs and turns to Nayoung instead, “Can you make this work?”

Nayoung nods.

Jieqiong beams at her.

Sure enough, Nayoung knows she is going to regret this when it is two hours into practice and they have all the other moves down except for the fact that Jieqiong somehow cannot seem to do the kick with her left leg.

She does not get it.

She knows Jieqiong understands right and left, knows that Jieqiong can dance even if she is still awkward limbs, can at the very least copy what she and Junghyun are doing in front of the mirrors since the rest of the dance is perfectly fine.

“Is there a,” she gestures to her own kicking leg, “problem?”

Jieqiong’s mouth is set in a thin line but she frowns and shakes her head.

Junghyun frowns at her, “Then just kick already. You can do it.”

“H-Hurts.”

Jieqiong points at a spot by her left knee.

Nayoung frowns.

“We haven’t done nearly enough practice for you to be getting muscle aches,” the words come out before she realizes that saying this much is pointless.

She sighs.

“Just do it later during the evaluation, alright?”

Jieqiong nods rapidly and her eyes look a little brighter. Junghyun rolls her eyes in the background but she is eleven and that just makes her adorable instead of insufferable.

Nayoung should really have known better when they are stopped three seconds after the second kicking portion of the choreography.

“Kyulkyung,” the instructor says to the room full of trainees, “go stand in the back.”

Nayoung watches as she bows her head and shuffles off to the back of the room.

Junghyun and her complete the rest of their performance without any issues, the instructor nodding at them.

“Nayoung,” she says, clarifies, “Im Nayoung, I'd like to talk to you later as well.”

Nayoung nods.

Nayoung cannot hear what the instructor is saying to the other trainee but their body language speaks volumes. She has not been at Pledis for that long but there have always been rumors that they would kick people out for not wanting it enough - and while Jieqiong is literally in a foreign land, this past practice session does not help.

Jieqiong is still folded in a corner, head hanging over her knees. Nayoung feels a little bad for her but at the same time she does not quite understand.

Clearly neither does the frustrated instructor.

“Does she just not get it? Does she even understand what I told her?”

Nayoung stays quiet.

“Nayoung, can you please try and get her to get this right? The CEO is coming to next week's evaluation so she either needs to get it right or not perform at all.”

“I can try,” Nayoung says with confidence she does not