The first time he sees her cry, it’s an accident. He stumbles into a practice room thinking it’s empty, only to hear sniffling in the back corner. 

“Nayoung?”

“Don’t look at me,” she utters through her curtain of tears.

Seungcheol furrows his eyebrows and walks toward her anyway, his feet on autopilot. It’s always been like this - a certain gravitation toward this girl: budding charisma flowing through her veins and a steady head on her strong shoulders. 

Which is why his heart clenches all the more when he gets a glimpse at her puffy eyes, her reddened nose hidden behind a crumpled tissue. He briefly entertains asking her whether she is okay, but she is clearly not. He doesn’t know what would be the best in this situation, so he doesn’t say anything at all. Simply grunts and squats next to her as she cries.

After a minute of silence, she finally speaks, pain etched in her creased forehead. “I guess - I just miss home.” She forces a smile of apology, as if these words weren’t enough to explain the heart-wrenching sobs he had just seen.

Seungcheol returns her smile, but it’s strained in its own regard. His eyes growing distant, he nods. “I understand.”

There comes a flash of recognition in her eyes, her hand flying up to cover her gaping mouth. “I’m s-sorry - I must look so selfish right now - especially when your hometown is much farther away - no, I didn’t mean -”

Of its own accord, his hand reaches up to gently bring her hand back down to her knee. “Nayoung, you don’t have to apologize. It’s okay to miss home, you know.”

She stares at him, not quite believing his words, but all Seungcheol can register is how beautiful her eyes are even though they are slightly swollen. There’s a haphazard beauty in the way she bites her lips in thought, the ceiling lights casting shadows on her face just so. 

“I just wish I could be stronger,” she breathes. “For the girls. For myself.”

Seungcheol nods. He’s lost count how many times he’s thought the same thing for himself and the rest of the boys. Searching for the right words, he clears his throat. “There’s strength in weakness. When we are weak, we aren’t alone.”

It sounds cryptic, and he almost wants to slap himself for being cliche, but he sees relief in her eyes and her lips curl up into a small smile. He almost wants to tell her everything right then and there, how even though he misses home like crazy, this is now his second home and sometimes it’s not half bad. He almost wants to tell her that home isn’t necessarily a place either, but it can be a feeling too. He almost wants to tell her that, out of his control, his heart kind of - maybe, sort of - wants to find his home in hers.

Someone down the hallway yells for Seungcheol, to which Nayoung pats him on the knee to get him to leave. “I’ll be okay, I promise,” she says when she notes his reluctance, his limbs more stiff than usual. She has to stand up and practically pull him up from where he’s sitting, but not without a couple failures and bruises that are sure to blossom later, much to Seungcheol’s pain.

“Be careful, what a klutz,” she squeals through her laughter. There’s an undertone of seriousness to her light-hearted jab. 

“You too, Nayoung,” he returns, forcing himself to finally break eye contact. “Take care.”

(And just like that, he walks down the hallway, a certain heaviness in his heart but a marked lightness in his steps. Heavier, because what in him wouldn’t break when he sees Nayoung cry? Lighter, because despite that, it’s given him a window into her heart, and he wouldn’t trade that for the world.)

The second time, she comes to him first. It is almost like any other time they hang out on their own: she comes with two plastic bags in tow from the convenience store, filled to the brim with snacks that amount to empty calories and lots of sodium. “We’re supposed to watch our diet, but, what choice do we have with this budget?” she grumbles under her breath, and he finds it oddly amusing just because she puts up such a responsible front when she’s with everyone else.

“What’s so funny?” she asks while ripping a sausage wrapper with her teeth, only to immediately burst out in her own raucous laughter. It sounds a bit forced, but Seungcheol doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll go get hot water,” Seungcheol starts, pointing to the ramen bowls on the floor. He almost gets up but feels her fingers encircle his wrist. He shoots her a questioning gaze, soon getting caught in the nebulous tension between them as her grip tightens. Still looking at her, he slowly sits back down and gulps.

This time, he watches in real-time as her eyes start to water, and he feels his heart starting to crack. This time, there is no stumbling in during the peak of her cries, but instead he witnesses the quiet beginning, when they’re finally alone with just their thoughts to overwhelm them. This time, he holds her hand - which clings to him strongly, as if for dear life - and gently positions her head on his shoulder, the snacks and ramen bowls long forgotten.

The sobs finally escape her lips, and soon his shirt grows damp with her tears. All he can do is her hair, fingers tangling between the long strands. “Just let it out,” he keeps saying, humming a tune his grandma used to sing to him whenever he was down. Once in awhile he hands her a napkin with which to blow her nose.

Then, through shaky breaths:

“Thank you.” It’s so soft that the words nearly disappear into thin air. 

It kind of jolts him out of his daze from painstakingly drawing circles on her back. He stutters, “Uh, you’re welcome?”

She leaks a smile at that, and then continues, “I don’t know why I cry. There is just so much heaviness in here.” Nayoung presses a finger to where her heart is. 

Seungcheol wants to tell her that there doesn’t need to be a particular reason. Sometimes it’s enough to just let out whatever she doesn’t want the younger girls to see in her brokenness.

“Maybe it’s just the stress and the pressure. You know I don’t like being evaluated against others. It’s not really a great feeling, either ending up on top or on the bottom.” 

“Mmm,” Seungcheol murmurs.

Her lips tighten into an ironic smirk. “Funny, that it’s precisely what our future careers are built upon.” If it even happens - the italic fine print.

“Sometimes life is just one big paradox after another,” he agrees. He squeezes her hand. “Do you feel a little better now at least?”

Nayoung settles back into the crook of his shoulder, and he feels her chin pressing into his shirt when she nods. “Let’s stay like this for a bit,” she whispers, reaching out momentarily to grab a bag of chips. “Want any?” she waves the open bag in front of his face.

(They leave the studio that night with full hearts and full stomachs - although with empty calories and lots of sodium - but full all the same. She apologizes for making him stay up this late just because of her. He tells her that he’s just glad that he can be a place where she can rest for even just a little bit. What he doesn’t tell her is that he probably would have stayed up this late regardless, unable to sleep because she’d be on his mind anyway.)

The third time, he’s the one who makes her cry. It’s not on purpose, but Seungcheol supposes that despite his age, he must be more dense than he thinks. Something is clearly off today but for the life of him he cannot pinpoint what is going on. 

“Nayoung, are you okay?”

Maybe that is his first mistake. He knows that’s a stupid question to ask when she’s obviously not. She avoids his gaze and continues playing with her phone. This time he had brought the snacks but she wasn’t even sparing them a second glance.

He’s about to ask something else instead when she suddenly lies down on his lap, her hands reaching for his. Seungcheol’s heartbeat quickens as she examines his right hand, and the fingers on his left hand subconsciously massage her scalp. As much as he appreciates the closeness, this is not like the Nayoung he knows. His eyes distractedly search hers, but all he sees is emptiness.

“Am I worth it?” she whispers, after a few more minutes of quiet.

He blinks.  It is such an obvious answer that he’s sort of bewildered. Her gaze is trained on the ceiling, looking right past him. “Nayoung, look at me,” he says, voice low. He sees Nayoung clench and unclench her jaw, then finally tilt her chin up to make eye contact.

“Am I worth it?” she repeats.

He draws in a breath. He realizes that this is a loaded question: the answer is yes, always yes, but it means different things in different contexts. “Yes.”

A pregnant silence.

“Yes, why do you ask?” Seungcheol ventures.

She averts her gaze. “It’s just been a really long time… I like to think I’m a patient person, but sometimes there seems to be no end to the tunnel.”

Seungcheol notes that she has the tendency to speak in vague metaphors. Does she mean her training period? Or…?

“Look, you’re going to debut soon, Seungcheol. I sometimes just doubt that I’m good enough,” she adds, but it only deepens his confusion. 

He prods her a little more, putting a hand on her shoulder, but she just turns away. 

“I don’t get it,” he utters. Does she feel like she’s being left behind? “You’re not alone, you know. I’m right here.”

Tears start welling up within her. “But sometimes,” she whispers as she untangles herself from the mess of limbs on his lap, much to Seungcheol’s dismay, “Sometimes it just feels so lonely. I don’t know if it’s enough anymore.”

“Oh,” is all he can muster. But she is. She is enough. The words can’t escape his paralyzed tongue.

There is a certain coldness in the space that she’s left empty now, an unexplainable distance between them though she sits mere inches away. Her shoulders droop in resignation, but he doesn’t know what’s wrong. She’s trying to hold back her tears, but now it feels like it’s not his place to comfort her anymore.

“I need to go,” she mumbles, when the gates can’t hold back the flood of tears any longer. And she runs out of the room, leaving Seungcheol to make sense of the pieces left behind.

(It all happens in a blink of an eye. He doesn’t know what hurts more: knowing that somehow he had been the cause of her tears - or knowing that she was no longer okay with him seeing her cry. Just as this season is a turning point in his career, he also finds that it is a pivotal moment of sorts for Seungcheol-and-Nayoung, whatever they’re labeled as. Looking back, he marvels at how he’d known that this would be it - nothing would ever again be the same. And as such, the excitement for what’s to come is dampened, for he can no longer share it with her.)

There is no fourth time, no fifth. 

There is no grip on his wrist to hold him back from keeping his distance, even as his feet still want to go on autopilot toward her. There is no plastic bag full of convenience store snacks with empty calories and lots of sodium, no tracing circles on the small of her back, no apologies for staying up late when he would've been thinking about her anyway.

Instead, the chasm between them has widened to the point where he only sees her through the screen of cable TV. Instead, he watches clips of her crying on stage, mixed emotions of joy, relief, and regret. Instead, his lips twinge in a conflicted smile when he sees the other girls rally around and hug her through their own film of tears. The whole concept of this show, this career they’ve chosen, is indeed bittersweet. A bittersweet triumph over the italic fine print. Just one big paradox after another.

There are some nights when the memories flood back, and he has to put pen to paper to channel his heartache into lyrics. Funny, how heartache stems not from a messy fall-out but more from the slow fizzling out of what they once had - her fingers slipping through his own, grasping onto thin air, so many questions but no answers, or at least not the answers that mattered. 

He decides that part of the excitement of life is the chase. The quest for answers, or at least the assurance that it's okay to not have them. 

The heartache doesn't disappear, but it's not as raw anymore, and perhaps that's the beginning.

(“Hello?”

“Seungcheol?”

His breath hitches in his throat. “Nayoung?” How did she get his new number?

A tinkle of laughter. “Yeah.” Pause. “Mingyu gave me your number, in case you’re wondering.”

Seungcheol grins. “It’s been awhile.”  - an understatement of sorts.

He listens to her sigh heavily on the other side. “I guess,” she begins to say, and his heart quickens a beat. “I guess - I just miss home.” The words fall out of all at once, and there’s a quality of breathlessness to it that makes his chest tighten.

The wheels start turning in his head as he processes the implications of her words. Nayoung and her vague metaphors, he thinks as a smile spreads upon his lips. It feels like home. 

Seungcheol gulps. “I miss you too, Nayoung.”

“It’s okay to miss home, you know,” she quips back, and it sounds light-hearted but they both know it means so much more. He knows it means the warmth in the cold space she had left behind, another tangle of limbs that’s here to stay, and the emergence from the end of the tunnel - finally - into the light.

And for some reason, they laugh so much that he doesn’t even notice the wetness on his cheek from tears of relief and joy. It’s always been like this - a certain gravitation toward this girl: budding charisma flowing through her veins and a steady head on her strong shoulders. Yet not only that, there is a strength within her when she admits her vulnerabilities, an ongoing reminder of her resilience that he loves so much. For when they are weak, they are not alone. 

It sounds cliche, but she’s worth every bit of it: Im Nayoung, the girl in which he finds his home.)

author's note: thanks so much for reading! i know people may be surprised because seventeen and pristin have such light-hearted images but i can't shake the idea out of my head that despite that, for seventeen especially, there seems to be so much bittersweetness in their music. this one was inspired by seventeen's hip hop unit song "lean on me" <3 don't worry, i will eventually deliver on the ~fluff~ aspect, so stay tuned!