Not Quite So Far

The cool glass behind her back, the smooth wooden floor beneath her feet, the soft whirring of the AC. It is all so familiar but today it does nothing to reassure Nayoung. Her thoughts flit back to the conversation she had with the trainer earlier that day after the last other female trainee did not show up to practice.

Nayoung bites her lower lip, slowly let herself sink down until she sits, chin to her knees, hair falling down like a curtain.

Over the past few months she has watched the company turn their focus entirely towards boys and deep inside her heart she knows, knows, knows what she does not want to believe is true, but she knows and she knows that it is over.

Perhaps she should have joined another company, taken up that other offer before it was too late but now she is 21 and still there are no plans. It is not impossible, not impossible that they might be able to find some people and scrape together-

No.

It is done. This is over.

It wasn’t the right time. There weren’t the right people. Not the right set of circumstances. The universe did not will it. Sometimes the stars do not align. Sometimes people don’t get what they want.

Nayoung knows that is not all though, because there are always ways.

She just wasn’t good enough.

She still returns to the company - the trainers are so used to her, and she so used to heading there after classes that her feet take her back. She starts out slowly, attends fewer of the classes, stands further and further back in the room until they stop noticing her.

She stops attending vocal training then one day she just does not bring her gym bag.

No one notices so she just troops in with her book bag, finds a corner of the building, spreads her homework out and does it there even if her heart is not in it in the slightest. Some of the boys shoot wistful glances at her when they emerge from dance practice though they do not really talk to her.

“Nayoung,” a voice catches her in the hall three weeks in, “do you have a moment?”

She puts her book bag down, misses the weight of her gym bag in her hands, follows them into a room.

“So uh,” they at least have the grace to look a little uncomfortable, “We know that it’s been pretty rough for you lately.”

Nayoung nods.

“Everyone really does like having you around though,” they scratch the back of their head, “so we were thinking, and we know this is going to be a difficult decision to make, and we’re kind of asking a lot of you, but well, would you like to stay here with us to be a manager?”

They smile wryly.

Nayoung thinks about her grades, thinks about a small cubicle in an office far away, of a world that is so vastly different from what she has spent so long trying to achieve, thinks of the world whose doors she could now take a peek into.

She nods.

The look she gets in return is not quite pity but it slips a soft sinking feeling into her stomach that she does not manage to shake for a while.

Her days get busy really quickly - so much so that college classes become nothing more than a distant afterthought. The boys that she now accompanies around as a manager-in-training demand a lot of attention but they are kind and thoughtful and bashful, many having trained with her at one point.

Seungcheol shoots her a look she cannot quite place once when she passes him a bottle of water but they do not have time to speak, and honestly have nothing to talk about so the moment passes and Nayoung instead settles with making sure that they have the right seating arrangement, that all the fan gifts make it into the second van.

She is jostled by an overly large sign and a large plush falls on her head but she remembers the boys’ grateful smiles and for the first time in a while, Nayoung feels like things might be alright.

“So uh,” she turns around from making sure the last signed CD for the PDs makes it into the bag, “have a moment, Nayoung?”

She passes the bag on to the main manager, slides off into the side. He shoots her a strange look and Nayoung feels her palms begin to sweat.

It has been almost two years now that she has been working with the boys - she is so used to life on the road, grabbing a snack here and there while she can, waking up early to drive the car over to the dorm, getting whatever sleep she can in shifts with the other managers. She cannot think of a reason why she would be getting fired even though they did just bring in another male manager-in-training two months ago and he has been doing a good job.

She swallows as they close the door behind her.

“So,” they say, “Main Manager Kim says you’ve been an absolute asset to the team, that they can’t really do very much without you nowadays, so I’m not surprised that he’s kind of mad at me about this.”

Nayoung feels her blood run cold.

“But we’re thinking of debuting Jieqiong this fall and were wondering if you’d like to be her main manager?”

Nayoung’s first thought is who?

But instead confusion just shows on her face.

They smile warmly, almost fatherly, “You’ve been doing an amazing job, Nayoung, and this isn’t a demotion in any sense - we think you’re the right person for this. She’s going to need help and from what the boys tell us, you’ll be just the person to help her.”

Nayoung nods haltingly.

“We won’t be starting for a while but I’ve already asked Main Manager Kim to get someone to take over most of your duties for the next few days. You’ve worked hard, Nayoung. You deserve a break.”

Nayoung nods again, feels as if the world has suddenly changed around her.

She has never had free time in the day before.

She must have, somehow, sometime in the distant past when she was a child with no care in the world but to be honest, Nayoung remembers nothing of this sort. She remembers going to school, going to practice, going to school, back to practice, then driving the boys around and suddenly she does not have to be anywhere in five hours and the night is longer than she has ever remembered.

She wakes up in her bed, sees the light stream in through the windows, has a moment of sheer panic - doesn’t she need to be driving Jihoon to- oh.

She sinks back into her pillows, rolls over to see the clock say 10. A corner of her gym bag peeks out from under her bed.

Nayoung gets up.

No one even bats an eye when Nayoung slides into the gym, changes into practice clothes that she last put on years ago and hits the treadmill hard.

She knows she doesn’t need to - running around after the boys has made sure that she has been keeping in ridiculously good shape, but it helps distract her from thinking since she dislikes running so much. She used to be fit, used to have the stamina but now that she has neither trained nor practice in such a long time…

She shakes her head in an attempt to clear it of the thoughts that threaten to break in but they enter anywhere.

Not a demotion, they said, and they said that she would be better paid