Speak to Me in Words

The preparations ramp up immediately.

Nayoung shuttles Jieqiong to the company building before being accosted by the others to settle schedules, prepare to send CDs out to various music shows, arrange meetings with various potentially interested shows.

Through this all she hears snippets of the song, catches part of the choreography as she walks in and out of practice, finds herself humming it in the car while Jieqiong sleeps.

It feels a little different than with the boys whose songs are upbeat and fast-paced and super slick coordinated moves, feels a little different because this could have been a song that she could have sung in a different life, in a different world.

Jieqiong sighs in her sleep and her head lolls slightly and Nayoung finds the corners of her lips turning upwards.

Nayoung returns to the waiting room after one last check for the debut showcase to find Jieqiong with her head in her hands.

“Hey,” she says softly, sits down next to her, “What’s the matter?”

Jieqiong sniffs, mumbles something into her hands.

Nayoung waits patiently for her to repeat herself.

“I’m scared,” Jieqiong mumbles, “What if I make a mistake? What if I screw it up? What if this is the one chance and it’s just going to disappear if I-”

“Hey,” Nayoung says, pats her arm gently, “You’ve practiced for months. You know this song inside and out. You’ve sung it in your sleep. You can do it.”

Jieqiong looks up at her with wide, watery eyes, “But-”

“You’ve sung it so many times in your sleep in the car that I can probably sing it in my sleep,” Nayoung says.

Jieqiong’s lips quiver.

Nayoung smiles.

Jieqiong deflates, sighs, “You’re right.”

Nayoung’s smile widens, “I tend to be.”

The lights flick on, the beat starts and Nayoung watches the monitor, transfixed, finds herself able to sing softly along to the words and wiggle her fingers to the moves, having seen them so many times and heard the song pretty much constantly for the past few weeks.

She has been trying her darnedest not to do this but for a moment, just for a fraction of a second when her eyes close and she blinks, just for that one single breath it feels like it could be her stage, her song, that it could all be hers.

The moment passes, leaves a bitter aftertaste she cannot shake even as she watches Jieqiong’s gaze catch the camera and hold it captive.

Jieqiong bounds off the stage with a wide grin after the music stops and as Nayoung passes her a bottle of water and bundles her away for their next schedule, she can still feel the shiver run down her spine from that first opening beat.

The rookie life is tiring, a lot of waking up super early for crazy early rehearsals, waiting for forever before shows, and then performing before small-ish groups of curious fans. The song never cracks anything above a 90 on most charts which means Nayoung spends a whole bunch of time scrambling around with a single in her hands, trying to get them into recordings or radio shows, constantly treads the fine line of ‘she’s foreign, that’s different’ and ‘she’s fluent I swear’.

(It is not a lie in any sense, because Jieqiong is foreign and is fluent enough in Korean, though the moments where she presses her cheek to Nayoung’s shoulder, points at something and asks how that is said in Korean still somehow have not decreased.)

She can see, however, that the idleness of just waiting between the music show recordings makes Jieqiong that fractionally uneasy though the fansigns they pepper between them on the weekends make her smile and calm her down.

Nayoung has noticed the number of fans with large cameras increasing, thinks briefly back to her days with the boys and is glad.

Then it comes.

“Hey,” she turns, bows immediately to the casting director who pauses, “you're Zhou Jieqiong’s manager, right?”

Nayoung nods, scrambles in her bag for the extra copy of the single she knows she has.

He holds out a hand, “No, it's alright, we already have a copy but can you put me in contact with her? What’s she doing on Monday?”

Nayoung pauses, remembers that the show records on Fridays.

“She has an existing schedule, I’m sorry.”

“A-Ah,” he says.

The doorbell rings and Jieqiong rolls over, checks her phone.

It is Monday.

She has no schedules on Monday, no music shows to record for, just well, nothing. She pushes her face into her pillow, wiggles it around for a bit to see if the thoughts will go away, or if whoever is pushing the doorbell will go away but neither do so she eventually gets out of bed, makes sure she has pants on (she does) and wanders out of her room.

And shrieks because someone is in her kitchen and oh god she does not have anything she can use to defend herself with and she really should have taken at least some level of wushu or taekwondo like her mother told her to and-

“N-Nayoung-unnie?!”

Nayoung-unnie waves a plastic bag weakly.

Jieqiong admits that she has quite a loud high voice, feels a little guilty for shrieking but to be honest she is never going to get used to someone just being in her kitchen.

“Is there a schedule? Am I late? I’m so sorry I d