*~*

 

Snapshot I: Son Naeun

Words: ~3226

Pairings: Implied Narong

Summary: A Pink’s comeback has been pushed back another two weeks, and Naeun blames herself, building a wall between her and those she holds dear. But it seems impossible to keep the distance between her and A Pink’s leader.

Author’s Note: Yay, the first one-shot! XD I had the outline of this Narong fic on the backburner since Hush came out, so I’m super excited to open with this as the first chapter to this one-shot collection ^^ This snapshot takes place before/during Hush promotions, so Chorong still has her red hair, etc. Enjoy!

 

*~*

 

Naeun’s downward spiral begins two weeks before A Pink’s anticipated comeback with ‘Hush.’ Music blares from the speakers as the girls practice the choreography for the fifth time that day.

 

“Ah!”

 

Naeun squeaks as her foot twists unnaturally on a turn, pain flaring up her ankle. With a smack, she hits the ground, her fellow groupmates watching in horror.

 

“Naeun-ah!” Chorong gasps as their dance instructor shuts off the music. “Are you okay?”

 

More than anything, Naeun wants to say, Yeah I’m fine—anything to divert the attention away from herself. But she can’t speak, only managing ragged breaths as pain shoots up her ankle.

 

“Eunji-ah, get some ice,” A Pink’s leader immediately takes action and Eunji nods, running to the back room. Chorong then turns to their dance instructor. “Unnie, can you call the hospital?”

 

Dread grips Naeun at the word ‘hospital,’ and she begins to squirm in the arms of her leader, protesting. “I-I’m fine—ah!”

 

Her ankle objects to the sudden movements, and Naeun can’t help but yelp at the sharp pain. The members of A Pink hover around the injured girl worriedly, Naeun’s cry enough evidence that she is in fact, not fine. The black haired girl curses herself, why did she screw up at such a vital time?

 

As if able to read her thoughts, Chorong Naeun’s back, reassuring her, “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.”

 

Despite the firm resolution in Chorong’s normally delicate voice, Naeun can’t help but feel that things won’t be alright at all.

 

*~*

 

When Naeun goes to see a specialist, Chorong insists on accompanying her. Somewhat begrudgingly, the younger girl complies, knowing that as A Pink’s leader, Chorong deserves to know what’s happening first.

 

“This is exactly what we thought would happen,” the balding doctor shakes his head grimly. “We told you to stay off your left foot, Naeun-yang.”

 

Naeun remains silent, nodding mildly.

 

“But, as an idol…” Chorong starts quietly.

 

“—As an idol, I don’t how much of a career she can make with this weak ligament,” he replies bluntly, slapping the scans of Naeun’s ankle, and Chorong shrinks back. “Her ligament could give out at any point with just one more injury, and dancing around in heels everyday will not help lower those odds.”

 

Turning to Naeun, he gives her a severe look.

 

“I advise you to really think over your future as an idol, for it’s likely that you will have to quit soon if you don’t take serious precautions.”

 

From the corner of her eye, Chorong can tell Naeun is desperately trying not to break down on the spot.

 

Her voice wavers as she replies the only way she can. “Yes, I understand.”

 

*~*

 

Naeun looks down at the skin-colored tape covering her left ankle. It blends in almost perfectly, giving off the illusion that she never injured herself in the first place.

 

No one will know, she repeats to herself as a mantra. No one will know, because they don’t know. As far as they know, nothing’s wrong. That’s right. Nothing’s wrong. It doesn’t hurt.

 

It kills her to see her groupmates gaze at her with such worried expressions. Naeun doesn’t want to burden anyone else with her failure, her mistake. So she buries the pain deep into her heart, ignoring the dull throb of pain that laughs at her with each step she takes.

 

*~*

 

Chorong lies awake in bed, staring into the darkness. Her lips are curved downward into a frown—it’s happening again. A short sniffle confirms her suspicions. Naeun is crying again. A Pink’s leader can tell the younger girl is trying desperately not to wake anyone with her sorrow.

 

But Chorong knows. She knows that every night for the past week Naeun has waited until the depth of the night to release her hidden grief. It breaks Chroong’s heart, knowing that Naeun has chosen to suffer in solitude, blaming herself for the two week delay in A Pink’s comeback.

 

Don’t cry, Naeun-ah, she wishes she could say. It’s not your fault that things turned out this way.

 

But A Pink’s members have already tried that, with Naeun responding with a silent nod of the head. Saying it now would only serve to make A Pink’s visual bottle up her feelings even more. So Chorong remains silent, feigning slumber as Naeun cries to herself, whimpering softly.

 

When the quiet hiccupping finally ceases and Naeun’s breathing settles into a steady rhythm, Chorong turns to her side, her arm dangling off her bunk. She stares at the silhouette of her outstretched palm. It clenches into a fist, and with it, A Pink’s leader gathers her determination.

 

I won’t let you hurt yourself anymore, Naeun-ah.

 

*~*

 

A small grunt escapes from Naeun as she stumbles, her crutches slipping across the sidewalk. The members of A Pink fly towards her, stabilizing the crippled girl. Naeun keeps her head bowed as they help her balance herself, trying to conceal the pain contorting her face.

 

“I’m fine you guys,” A Pink’s center smiles faintly as they watch her readjust her crutches, concern painting their expressions.

 

They know that she’s far from fine—that she’s hiding the emotional and physical pain her ligament has caused—but they remain silent, their gazes lingering on her before they resume walking, chatting lightly amongst themselves.

 

A Pink’s leader, however, stays by Naeun’s side, humming softly to herself. Naeun turns to Chorong, confused.

 

“I said I’m fine, unnie,” she presses. “It doesn’t hurt.”

 

“I know,” Chorong merely smiles at her junior. “Can’t I hang out with my cute hoobae?”

 

“Oh,” Naeun mumbles in surprise. “Right.”

 

Chorong giggles lightly at Naeun’s awkwardness and the younger girl flushes, embarrassed.

 

*~*

 

The flashes of bright, incandescent photo bulbs are blinding, causing Naeun to squint as she takes a seat that the signing table. She sighs heavily, relieved to finally take the stress off her ankle. Remembering that queuing Pink Pandas are watching, she straightens her back, plastering a neutral smile on her face.

 

Naeun’s surprised when Chorong takes a seat next to her, even sliding her chair closer so that they are mere inches apart.

 

“Unnie?” she asks, puzzled. “Aren’t you going to sit next to Bomi-unnie?”

 

It is well known amongst the A Pink girls that their leader has a special relationship with their main dancer. Although not as obvious on camera, Chorong and Bomi are almost inseparable, a fact that often causes jealousy to manifest in Naeun’s chest. Not that she would ever admit it.

 

Naeun looks at the girl in question, who is two seats down from Chorong, practicing slight variations of her signature on the tablecloth.

 

“She’s next to Eunji,” the auburn-haired girl pouts cutely as she links an arm around Naeun’s. She lays her face against the table, facing the younger girl with a lovely smile. “Anyways, I wanted to be with you today, Naeun-ah.”

 

Naeun’s glad that their stylists put extra foundation on them earlier, or else Chorong would undoubtedly see the red tinting her cheeks.

 

It’s not fair, the amount of affection that Naeun has been receiving from her leader lately. The excessive contact and spoiling is enough to bring butterflies to Naeun’s stomach, but not enough for her to claim that Chorong is pushing any boundaries as a groupmate. As the leader of A Pink, Chorong isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.

 

She turns her head away from the older girl, unable to keep eye contact with her. Naeun reminds herself that there is no way that Chorong could know of her blossoming attachment to her leader.

 

A silence falls over them, but Chorong doesn’t mind, ignorant of Naeun’s inner turmoil. She chalks off her junior’s quiet behavior as her usual, more reserved nature. An amused smile lights her features when Naeun's hand lightly fumbles around for Chorong’s—all while facing the other direction. Slowly but surely, Naeun is opening up again.

 

*~*

 

Naeun has always been one of the more reserved members of A Pink, her introverted nature leading her to stay on the sidelines with a good book when Bomi summons A Pink for a dance party or Hayoung invents a game that involves -slapping and rubber ducks. However, she is always present no matter how crazy the atmosphere is—enjoying the quality time she can spend with her groupmates. Even if she refuses to expend energy on the madness.

 

So when Naeun stops coming to the living room for scary movie nights and impromptu sessions of Bomi’s Pang Pang Radio, Chorong knows something is very, very wrong.

 

On the third night marking Naeun’s absence from A Pink’s living room fun, Chorong slips away during a heated rap battle between Bomi and Namjoo.

 

“Naeun-ah, aren’t you going to come and play tonight?”

 

Naeun shifts her gaze from her novel towards the head peeking out from behind the door.

 

“It’d take too much work to get up with my crutches,” Naeun mumbles lamely. “And I’m really comfy here in my bed.”

 

Chorong lingers in the doorway, hardly satisfied with her junior’s half-hearted excuse. But Naeun says nothing else, her eyes almost pleading the older girl to leave.

 

“…Okaaaay,” Chorong drawls her voice out as she slowly begins to close the door. “Come play tomorrow then, ‘kay?”

 

“Mm,” Naeun hums a noncommittal response, already drawn back into her story.

 

*~*

 

The next night, Naeun is tucked into her sheets, listening to music in order to drown out her thoughts and the laughter from the other side of her wall. A guitar riff is interrupted by a piercing shriek and Naeun jumps, her eyes growing twice as large. Hesitantly, she pulls her headphones off, tilting her head towards the wall.

 

“Yahhh~~! I’ve had enough!!” She hears Chorong strain her soft voice from the living room. “Play without me, you little cheaters!”

 

“Wait unnie, come back!”

 

“We promise to play fairly…”

 

“Unnieeeee~”

 

“Ah~Forget it! I’m going to bed early.”

 

Chorong’s loud footsteps rapidly approach the room until the door is wrenched open. Naeun merely stares at A Pink’s leader, speechless.

 

Naeun’s jaw nearly drops when Chorong’s scrunched, flustered expression fluidly shifts into a triumphant and mischievous look. The red-haired girl smiles cheekily, bringing a forefinger to her grin, gesturing a ‘shhh’ sign. Cunning is the only word Naeun can use to describe her leader at the moment. A Pink's leader puts on a very convincing show.

 

“Scoot over, Naeun-ah,” Chorong commands cheerfully as she skips lightly to the ladder propped against their bunk bed.

 

“What?”

 

Before A Pink’s visual can process what’s happening, Chorong is climbing into Naeun’s bed. Naeun dumbly shifts over to make room, and the older girl happily burrows into the sheets. They lie shoulder to shoulder, and Naeun tries to calm her increasing heartrate. Chorong turns a beaming face towards Naeun.

 

“Let the secret sleepover with Park Chorong and Son Naeun commence!” She bellows just loud enough that only she and her roommate can hear.

 

Before Naeun can even think of protesting, Chorong begins to babble about her childhood. She launches into a comic retelling of the time she stabbed herself with a spear trying to look cool during her first black belt test. Things didn’t turn out so well, and Chorong went home that day crying, with her exam incomplete and a nasty scar on her right arm.

 

“I was wondering where that scar came from,” Naeun notes between her light laughter.

 

“It still hurts to remember it,” Chorong jokingly pouts, before turning to Naeun with sparkling eyes.” Your turn! What’s an embarrassing moment from your childhood?”

 

“I had a feeling you were gonna ask that…”

 

But Naeun complies, recounting a time when she mistook a scout from a modeling agency as a stalker and locked herself in a mall’s bathroom stall for two hours. It was only after she encountered him again in front another store and tried to kick him in the pants before she learned that he was just trying to give her the business card for his agency.

 

And so they continue sharing stories for hours, laughing hysterically at the moments that were undeniably hilarious more than embarrassing and wincing at the more painful memories.

 

When they finally check the time on Naeun’s phone, it is midnight, the other girls already retired to their own rooms, fast asleep.

 

“We should get to sleep too, huh?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

Chorong climbs out of Naeun’s bunk and shuts off the lights. Naeun sighs inwardly, missing the warmth of her senior’s presence already.

 

To her surprise, the older girl returns to her spot next to her roommate on the top bunk.

 

“Uh unnie, aren’t you…” Her voice trails off when Chorong shakes her head firmly.

 

“Nuh uh, it’s not a secret sleepover unless we’re sleeping in the same bed,” the auburn-haired girl replies as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Or else it’d be like any other night.”

 

“…Okay,” Naeun doesn’t push it, for secretly, she enjoys her leader’s warmth. “Good night, Chorong-unnie.”

 

“’Night, Naeun-ah.”

 

Naeun laces her fingers between Chorong’s, smiling lightly when the older girl squeezes her hand back. She exhales deeply through her nose. With Chorong at her side, she can genuinely forget about the incessant pain in her ankle and in her heart.

 

Randomly, Chorong begins to hum April 19^th, a song A Pink recently released. Naeun shifts her gaze towards her roommate questioningly, but Chorong’s eyes are closed. She stares up at the ceiling until the comfort of her leader’s presence and her soft melody begins to lull the younger girl to sleep. Gradually, her eyelids begin to droop, and a fleeting thought enters her mind.

 

She couldn’t know, could she?

 

She dismisses the thought quickly, knowing that Chorong should have been sleeping soundly throughout the last few nights, ignorant of the hours Naeun spent crying herself to sleep.  As she succumbs to her fatigue, her mind answers back.

 

She definitely knows.

 

But for some reason, the thought doesn’t bother Naeun.

 

And for the first time since her accident, Naeun sleeps peacefully.

 

*~*

 

During the next day’s practice, the dance instructor pulls Chorong aside after noticing several of the leader’s clumsy mistakes. All are due to Chorong’s sleepiness, as she stayed awake the whole night in order to ensure that her roommate slept soundly. But she doesn’t mention this, almost glad to receive the scolding when she sees Naeun standing straighter, eyes bright and well-rested.

 

So that night, A Pink’s leader finds another reason to retire early from A Pink’s nightly activities, spending the rest of the night talking with Naeun. It quickly becomes a routine for the last week until A Pink’s comeback.

 

Surely, the other girls have noticed their leader’s tendency to leave the living room at the same hour every night. But they play along when Chorong jokingly rage quits a game in exaggerated fury, knowing well that she is the only one who Naeun will presently allow into her heart. With no other way to support their injured sister, the A Pink girls send their strength to their leader.

 

*~*

 

A Pink’s first comeback stage for ‘Hush’ is flawless, with not a single mistake or accident. Pink Pandas cheer wildly for them as they exit the stage, breathless and buzzing with leftover energy.

 

“Waah, that was daebak! Perfect!” Bomi cries out happily as they re-enter their dressing room.

 

“I’m so happy unnie!” Hayoung hugs her excitedly.

 

As the girls continue to gleefully chirp amongst themselves, Chorong notices Naeun staring forward with a vacant expression. The girl falls onto the couch, half crossing her left leg over her right knee.

 

Chorong smiles and bends down in front of the younger girl, who blankly looks at her.

 

She places one hand on the skin-colored tape wrapped around Naeun’s ankle and the other on Naeun’s cheek.

 

“You did well, Naeun-ah.”

 

Her words are slow to enter Naeun’s consciousness, and the younger girl merely brings her hand up to grasp Chorong’s. Slowly, Naeun’s expression twists with grief, and she hangs her head down. Sobs begins to wrack her body as her tears begin to flow.

 

Her crying grows in volume as Naeun finally releases the pent up frustration she’s held in her heart. She grips Chorong’s hand like a lifeline as she trembles in sorrow.

 

“This who-whole time,” Naeun whimpers. “I was so afraid……” She tries to explain, but her grief is too overwhelming.

 

I was so afraid that I would have to quit being an idol—that I would have to leave A Pink.

 

The words remain unsaid, but A Pink's leader already understands. Chorong shushes her, bringing the crying girl up into an embrace. The other members of A Pink join them, silently tearing at their center's pain.

 

“Don’t worry,” Chorong whispers softly. “It’ll be alright.”

 

And this time, Naeun believes her.

 

*~*

 

As the sun sets, A Pink is still pumped on adrenaline from their first comeback stage in six months. They devour their dinner as soon as they return to the dorms, chattering about their performance as they stuff their faces with celebratory chicken feet.

 

They are cleaning up the plates when Naeun suddenly speaks up.

 

“Why don’t we hang out at Han River tonight?”

 

The other girls freeze momentarily, before their hearty shouts of approval follow. When Naeun goes into her room to change, her groupmates share relieved glances. Things are changing for the better.

 

Like most of A Pink’s trips to the park next to the river, the group splits into two teams by age. While the older girls look to goof off on the playground, the kids decide to walk along the boardwalk.

 

As they are breaking off at the base of their apartment complex, Naeun tugs on Chorong’s sleeve to hold her back. The older girl turns towards her junior with a curious expression.

 

“What is it?”

 

She raises her eyebrows when Naeun’s slender hands cup hers. Despite the darkness that surrounds them, Chorong can make out the nervousness on Naeun’s face.

 

“Thank you, Chorong-unnie,” Naeun says quietly, bringing up her eyes to meet Chorong’s gaze. “For everything.”

 

Chorong smiles softly, giving her junior’s hands a reassuring squeeze. “Anything for you, Naeun-ah.”

 

Suddenly, soft lips press against Chorong’s cheek, and the auburn-haired girl’s eyes widen in surprise. She can smell the flowery scent of Naeun’s shampoo. Then, as quickly as it comes, the warmth on Chorong’s cheek disappears.

 

It all happens in a split second. When Chorong recovers from her surprise, she turns to see Naeun skipping towards the boardwalk, a stray streetlight illuminating her figure. As if she is anticipating Chorong’s gaze, Naeun twirls around, a dazzling smile lighting her features. A small blush tints her cheeks, and she brings up her thin forefinger to her lips, cryptically acknowledging a secret between the two of them.

 

Then, she spins around and play tackles Namjoo and Hayoung from the back. Chorong chuckles when their alarmed shrieks echo throughout the neighborhood.

 

“Rong-mama~Get your over here!”
 

Bomi and Eunji are hollering and waving at her from a sandbox. The leader can’t help the wide grin from forming on her face. She runs towards them, before leaping dramatically into the sandpit, spraying sand over her juniors. She laughs boisterously as Bomi and Eunji scream and whine at the sand particles in their shirts.

 

Chorong shouts out cheerfully, for she feels as though nothing can stop A Pink now. Hundreds of wonderful emotions swell in her heart as A Pink’s leader laughs with her groupmates. Happiness, anticipation—and when she thinks back to Naeun’s radiant smile and twinkling eyes—maybe even something a little like love.

 

*~*