I KNOW I'M DANGEROUS

"for a second there, i was worried you meant that the tea i made for you tasted weird." she half-jokes, letting out a crinkle of a laugh. even if it was, she wouldn't feel offended—she'd say nayoung had bad taste though, just because. "not too hot, at least?" she questions, despite not really fishing for compliments or criticism in the first place.

"honestly, i can't tell how serious they are with this sudden drama, especially with their best actresses busy. or maybe they're using this as a stepping stone? then again, they are looking to cast from the entire axis labels roster, not just sr media." she hums, wondering what's going through the heads of the authorities. she's curious, they haven't exactly revealed the contents of the script of even a premise of the drama either. how mysterious.

at nayoung's question though, claudine let's out a sigh as she leans back against her chair. "i'm currently battling the pettiness inside me. you know, since it's sr media who will be spearheading the production... and they didn't sign me." to say claudine can hold a decade-long grudge is an understatement. "i still don't know what lime saw in me that sr didn't. but i guess i'm not supposed to!"

nayoung half-nods, half-shrugs. she agrees with claudine, ultimately. it's hard to know what axis labels are thinking with this move. maybe sr media is trying to raise their next generation of idol-actors. still, she can't help but feel bitter. what's the point of all those acting lessons she went through during training if she doesn't even have the option to show them off when the opportunity comes for everyone else? it doesn't feel fair. it's stupid.

she realizes, though, that it's only really because the novus girls are busy preparing to potentially debut. sacrifices must be made, one opportunity for the other, apparently. she supposes in the grand scheme of things, she'd choose to debut over being in a drama. she's here to be an idol, after all – not an actress. she wishes she could do both, though. nayoung has always been greedy – always had the utmost faith in her abilities, even when she probably shouldn't.

nayoung is about to tell claudine it's a good opportunity to prove sr media wrong for overlooking her, but she comes to the conclusion herself. nayoung lets a huff of amusement out of her nose. claudine is always so enthusiastic and determined. it would've been fun to train with her. nayoung thinks she suits lime, but she's sure she could've found success under sr media, too.

"good," she says with a nod. she's glad claudine will audition. she deserves the chance to show off her skills. it would be a little ironic if she manages to star in a drama spearheaded by sr media as a lime trainee, but wouldn't that sort of be the best of both worlds?

with the debut project slowly progressing, yuji's getting more and more into the groove of things. focusing more on the things that matter and prioritizing what she needs, lest the company decide to axe her at any point. sure, they said fixed members-- but that could always change.

the bootcamp is hard and it's intensive. yuji doesn't find a lot of it super difficult, but rather trying and challenging. it also doesn't help they're in the midst of summer-- where the heat always make yuji more irritable. she's trying her best to bite her tongue more often though-- keep her complaints minimum, or at least minimize the amount of complains that leave her.

until then, there's plenty to do, starting with their bootcamp. everything surrounding their debut so far is promising. sr media is really investing in their skills to make sure their concept is hard-hitting. she should've expected nothing less from a company so proud of their artists' concepts, but nayoung never really knows.

it should be fun, especially if martial arts will be part of their debut. will they be doing stunts? it kind of seems like it, doesn't it? nayoung is on board if they do. she feels at her best when she's physically engaged in what they're doing. maybe it's the figure skater in her.

yuji seems to be the opposite. nayoung only looks at her out of the corner of her eye as she collapses to the ground in exhaustion. nayoung is fine. a little winded, sure, but she'll be good to go in a few minutes. she takes a sip out of her water bottle, and finally gives yuji her full attention when she addresses her.

"not in a traditional sense, but i've done boxing and kickboxing for a while, so it's not too far out of my comfort zone," she answers. she doesn't feel a need to explain that she started as a means to curb some of her anger and irritability.

* ❁┆snack attack

she sighs softly, vision shifting to the person sharing the aisle with her as they move to take something off the shelf. it turns out she recognizes her. it's seira. she hasn't seen her since halloween. "seira, hey," she greets her, more warmly than nayoung greets most people. she turns to look at the snacks again. "i'm trying to buy snacks for my...friends...but nobody told me what they actually wanted, so i'm just kinda..." she makes a vague gesture with her hands. "do you have any recommendations? is there something that almost everyone likes?" nayoung admittedly doesn't pay enough attention to other people to know that.

seira used all of her money on food. she payed rent and basically all that was left after that was used on food. seira was always hungry, she basically couldn’t ever feel full, she just ate and ate, looked forward to breakfast, then lunch and then dinner, and in between the waiting time she’d eat snacks. she couldn’t exactly eat as much as she wished to since being a barista didn’t really make her rich. seira knew it already, did she ever become rich she wouldn’t use her money on luxurious items, but on food. 

she finds herself once again in the convenience store, looking for some more snacks, because she had eaten all of her snacks already without managing to realize. seira came here often and she knew the place like the back of her pocket, she knew where she needed to go, where the different things she needed were.

that being said, it doesn't hurt to have some snacks around for all the girls. she'll pick out some healthy ones also, but surely she'll score bonus points with them if she brings back popular and tasty snacks instead of just...seaweed and rice cakes.

she listens as seira lists off her recommendations, nodding along. choco pies. that's right. of course she should buy choco pies. she'll buy the chips too. "i think i'll pass on the ice cream this time," she decides. choco pies will fill their sweet treat criteria, won't they?

if anything the snacks she buys will give her a good opportunity to find out more about the other girls. if they don't like what she buys, she can't be faulted for that if they didn't tell her what they wanted, right? and surely they'll tell her what they do like, and she can make a list.

she wanders toward the chips section in the store, searching for seira's recommendations. once she finds them, she puts a bag of each into her basket, nodding once to herself in satisfaction. "ah, thank you," she says to seira, realizing she forgot to say so.

directing her attention back to their worksheets, yuji's frown deepens. "yeah." she answers, scanning her eyes back over the words and exercises. "i marked a couple of spots i need to revisit, but..." yuji shrugs. she'll cross that bridge when she gets there-- and some of it is situational, anyway. "i'm focusing on the exercise portion now...coming up with ways to get us out of a difficult situation." she reads off the sheet.

resting her chin in her palm, fingers curved over her mouth to hide it, her eyes stare down at the worksheet in thought. half of her mind is focused on the workshop at hand, and the other is thinking on ways to make this not as awkward with nayoung. her difficult situation is handling nayoung now, so how does she get through this? can she put what she's learning now to the test?

she doubts those in charge of project novus would be pleased with that thought process, though. even in this workshop, they've touched on the importance of collaboration and compromise in leadership. good leaders listen to those they're leading and adapt accordingly, taking what they want into account, blah, blah, blah.

to yuji's credit, she tries to play nice despite nayoung's initial hostility. it feels like a toss-up when she talks to yuji. they either fight or feel like something close to friends. they're in more of a fighting phase these days, but all the times they got along are proof that they can at the very least tolerate each other. they have to work together now. they don't have to like each other – they just have to be able to work together.

the way yuji taps her finger against the desk is annoying, but nayoung tries to ignore it and focus on the leadership styles part of her notes. "pacesetter and autocratic, i'd say." she realizes autocratic leadership styles are usually frowned upon, and that she probably shouldn't be so rigid, but someone has to take the lead strongly and be able to make decisions. nayoung isn't sure someone with the democratic and coaching leadership styles could stand strong under the kind of pressure that comes with being a kpop idol.

it's been a hot minute since claudine has seen most of the sr girls. funnily enough, despite not being in the same company, claudine thinks she gets along well with them more than she does the trainees from lime. she doesn't dwell on it for too long though, she doesn't exactly have the time and luxury to properly ruminate the fact that she should probably try a little harder with her fellow lime trainees. maybe it's because she sees them as future co-workers, it gets harder to not see them under anything other than a professional light?

she does wonder how the friends she had have been doing lately though, she hasn't had an opportunity to speak to any of them. @benayoung had always been someone with amazing work etiquette that can't be broken, so catching the other girl outside of the axis building is tricky. especially in recent days, what with nayoung being so busy ( claudine can probably guess why, seeing as how hush hush everything related to the mysterious project has been ). it's the perfect time to offer reprieve from the business though!

"you should really drink this herbal tea," claudine suggests, setting her concoction on the table with a smile. "it's a homemade recipe! well, passed down from my mom, and then her mom... you look like you need some modicum of rest." she has no idea what nayoung has been going through the past few weeks, but she can tell she needs a moment of relaxation from her features. "i promise it's not poisoned, i wouldn't want to poison one of my favourite models!"

and it is really nice to get out of the dorm and axis building and be somewhere else for a change. she almost misses her job at the convenience store, because at least it offered a change of scenery.

nayoung can't help but frown a little when claudine says she looks like she needs rest. does she really look that tired? she supposes she still doesn't sleep as soundly as she did in her apartment, and she's working harder than ever.

funnily enough, nayoung didn't consider claudine poisoning her – normal behavior for anyone other than nayoung, really. instead, she just lets out a small huff of laughter and takes a sip from the mug.

the drink is warm. comforting. somehow it reminds her of her grandparents, and she randomly feels a little melancholic.

"i'm good," she replies regardless. of course, she can't share too much about her whereabouts these days, but that much is the truth. at the mention of the drama auditions, she lets out an, "ugh," of distaste. "it's weird, isn't it? i don't know what they're thinking." she feels safe enough with claudine to speak her mind on this.

"yeah, rapping definitely wasn't my forte, though i had to do it once on next gen," she admitted with a chuckle. jueun's had to do almost everything on next gen, but she's thankful looking back at it now. that experience had really helped her realize where her strengths and weaknesses were at.

listening to nayoung's idea, she tried to recall who the soloists under sr media were. goeun was, of course, probably the most prominent, but jueun always thought the performances of soloists shined as much because of everybody they worked with. could they pull off that same stage with just the two of them?

she can't help but recall her own history rapping, though. back when she was fairly new to it, on the very first survival show she participated in, they assigned a song with a difficult rap to her. she was eliminated afterwards, and always wondered if the producers set her up to fail. surely they knew she wasn't equipped to succeed in that situation.

since then, she's had a love-hate relationship with rapping. for a long time, part of her never wanted to do it again. another part of her wanted to practice hard, improve, and prove to everyone that she could succeed as a rapper. ultimately, the latter has won out more often than not. it's especially true now, after being assigned a significant amount of rap parts at the christmas concert, and realizing she's a much better rapper than any of the other project novus girls. someone has to do it, so it should be her.

now this task was a little more difficult but in line with what jueun had in mind when they were first told of the project. they wanted an idol group, so shew knew that such a mission would be heading their way. nevertheless, she didn't think they'd have to come up with the song and everything on their own.

truthfully, she was a little more excited about getting to style themselves, but that was an afterthought. for now, she and nayoung would have to figure out what they wanted to perform as a duo.

"was there anything you wanted to focus on specifically for this mission? like do you want to show off your vocals, your dancing or maybe your rapping?" unlike herself, she was aware that nayoung was a much stronger rapper, so she had an assumption that the other would want the trainers to know that.

nevertheless, she and jueun are tasked to prepare a performance together. when it comes time to perfect a performance, nayoung is a team player. whoever she's performing with needs to be successful, or else it reflects badly on her as well. in this way, it's easy to work together and be a good partner. sure, maybe not friends, but it's better than nothing, isn't it? and who knows – maybe jueun will crack nayoung's shell. it's not like she's opposed to it. it's just difficult for her – harder than anything she's ever done as a trainee, maybe.

when it comes to song selection and showing off their strengths, it requires careful thought. nayoung's primary strength is that she can do just about anything, and from what she knows of jueun, she's similar, though maybe not as rap-inclined. "i think what sets us apart is our ability to execute just about anything well," she replies. is it arrogant? maybe, but as far as she's concerned, it's true enough. "so i think we should show that off, and sing, dance, and rap. i know you aren't the strongest at rapping, though, so you can leave that to me if you'd like."

she's quick to school her features to appear otherwise though, not wanting to offend the other after she had been the one to ask her for help so instead she smiles a bit wider and thanks nayoung first. "it's more like i wanted to review things, maybe try out different poses and get your opinion on them. or even just-- do you have any tips? what do you usually think about when posing?"

at the core, photoshoots are more or less the same but maybe sr media does theirs a bit differently or maybe there's little things that can help that she wouldn't know about because she hasn't been a trainee here that long. to hanna, it seemed logical to ask nayoung, who she knows has been under this company longer than herself, and had a higher chance of knowing the ins and outs as a result.

she hums in brief consideration of hanna's question. what does she usually think about when posing? in truth – and perhaps embarrassingly – she hasn't modeled much in her mostly-failed-thus-far career. her mother is a model, but also not a successful one, so nayoung has always taken her tips with a grain of salt.

"let's go in one of the practice rooms so you can see yourself in the mirror," she decides. thankfully the closest one to them is unoccupied, so she leads the way into it, keeping the door open for hanna to enter.

there, she takes a seat on the floor, crossing her legs. does she have any tips?

although hanna largely feels like a fish out of water whenever she shows up to the company for training or practice, she feels it even more when she looks at the girls around her who form project novus with her. even after a couple of months, she still wonders how she made it here, especially after she's gotten to know the other members a bit more thanks to all that bonding and testing they basically ordered them do when they first moved in together. hanna thought it was a little forced, to be honest, as she would've preferred things to develop more naturally but she understands why they had to and thankfully, it didn't end too bad--

well, she could say that applies to most of the girls at least. there was one she wasn't too friendly with yet, not in a they-hate-each-other kind of way, but things just hadn't clicked yet like hanna had accomplished with some of the others. maybe that's why when she finds nayoung outside the practice rooms on her own, hanna ends up approaching her to talk. obviously, they don't have to be close but if they were going to be in a group together for the foreseeable future and however long that might be, she'd like to be on decent terms at the bare minimum.

until then, they don't know how large the group sr media will want to debut is. any of these girls could be the reason she just barely misses out on debut, again. she needs to make sure she's better than them in every possible way.

thankfully, that shouldn't be too hard to do with hanna. nayoung can give credit where credit is due: the girl is pretty...but that's about it.

so when hanna approaches her for help with the modeling workshop, nayoung is a little surprised. usually pretty girls can make it through modeling exercises on raw "talent" alone, even if they have no understanding of their angles or expressions. of course, it's better to perfect every aspect of modeling regardless. if hanna really needs help with the content of their workshop, it's a little sad. she should at least be able to shine here, right? otherwise she truly has nothing to contribute.

nayoung decides helping her is fine, if only out of pity. maybe it will even make sr media happy – lee nayoung helping one of the other girls out of the goodness of her heart, even though it would benefit her for hanna to botch this mission altogether.

"is-" he interrupts quickly, as if his haste might negate the thought entirely, only to second-guess the thought a fraction of a second later, deflating back to his newfound default state just as instantly, "i think. i hope. i don't know."

but she continues, in that mercilessly, brutally honest way that endeared her to him from the first time they played a competitive overwatch match together. in any other circumstances, it feels like something of a godsend, the voice of reason he needs to steer him out of his own dissociative fugues. he likes to joke that if he ever got to hear god's actual voice, he wouldn't be surprised if it sounded exactly like hers.

presently, however, every word stings him in a way it probably shouldn't. he will contemplate her reprimand over and over for the next several nights every time he sets his head down on his pillow to sleep, and eventually, he will learn to see the reason in them, might even learn to agree. but his wounds are too fresh, and his heart still cares for the person he should hate, and she is the salted lemon-scented hydrogen peroxide squeezed into fresh cuts to cleanse them of infection.

"what was sarang to you, other than alex's boyfriend who let you fuck him? what makes him so special?"

and that splash of cleansing truth hurts the most. it is one of the rare times ren's own internal monologue seems to align with nayoung's, but it's this fact that makes his stomach turn violently. how many times had he had to fight to quash this thought in his own mind, only for it to be tossed back over him like a bucket of ice water. he can't hide the way his brow wrinkles, or the way his jaw tenses; the way he glances down at his almost-empty cup, or the way his fingers cause deeper divots in its side.

no, goddammit, he is not going to cry in this stupid coffee shop.

in this case, it's similar. ren is clearly unsettled by her words, and nayoung isn't surprised in the slightest. ren is soft. he tries to be sharp but he's not. he is only so offputting to try to disguise this fact and protect himself from being devoured, but that is exactly what sarang has done. sarang, apparently the love of everyone in south korea's lives. probably more across the world who watched next gen, too. she resists the urge to roll her eyes at the mere thought.

maybe nayoung should feel bad, but she doesn't. she sees herself as the one that will always be honest with ren and try to get him to see reason. she isn't here to be nice about it. ren knows this about her, and if he didn't want to experience it, he shouldn't be hanging out with her in this fragile state.

her eye twitches in response to her teammate, sua taking a long moment to process her feelings as she stews in aggravation from that. her chat's moving so fast next to her screen, but she doesn't want to see the emoticons or the laughter that's sure to follow. they love when she gets flamed. and by a girl? what happened to girls being girl's girls or whatever?

sua could say a lot of things. she could rage quit and disconnect and avoid confrontation all together-- but her pride won't let her. also she doesn't want to. especially now.

she stares at the screen, looking at the change hero option for a long moment. sua exhales. moves her character of spawn screen, still the cute robot man she chose before. "thank you," sua says after she's tapped into voice, her tone so saccharine sweet it's nauseating to hear on her ears. "you can chill out, though. it's just a game."

it's hypocritical, when sua's been white-knuckling the keyboard the entire time she's played.

####: THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTINGGGG ####: lmfao don't pop a blood vessel queen ####: at least u can avoid as teammate after this! ####: :feelsbadman: :feelsbadman: :feelsbadman: ####: nah let ur bastion cook u got this

she's so annoyed. she's silent as she walks out of spawn, ducking out of way of someone shooting, moving to turret form or whatever it is and just letting it rip. it's loud in her ears, matching the same aggravation that's been building since she loaded the game.

she dies again. begrudgingly, she switches characters-- choosing torbjorn-- torb, whatever the flying fuck his name is.

"dude," she mutters to herself, reaching up to rub at her eye as her character yells to himself and runs out the door. she doesn't even bother checking the controls, borderline throwing at this point. sua tosses down a turret haphazardly, walking away from it and letting it go. it doesn't do anything for a moment, and sua bounces behind a wall, peeking the team and then ducking back when bullets and projectiles fly towards her. she still feels like her teammates aren't really helping her, but at least someone's healing her once she lives for longer than two minutes.

a red notification pops on her screen, a death notification that has her name on it, with the widowmaker who called her out's assist on it. sua doesn't even know who was killed, or what was happening, the turret symbol staring back at her.

she gets distracted by their fuckass bastion dying again, and she's caught off guard when the enemy winston dives on top of her. thankfully, she's able to grapple away and to cover, but not without losing a good chunk of health. she taps the need healing button a couple times, and thankfully one of their supports comes to her aid without her having to yell again.

finally, the trash player on her team swaps to torb. at least she's not so fucking stubborn that she makes the game impossible to win. all she really needs to do is keep her turret up and not die every 5 seconds and they can probably win. maybe.

nayoung peeks her widowmaker around the corner and fires a shot at an enemy. it's a bodyshot – not enough to take them out entirely, but enough for her teammate's turret to finish them off.

of course, said teammate needs to goad about it. nayoung rolls her eyes, but makes sure she pays enough attention to the game to not make a stupid mistake when she speaks into voice again: "congrats on your first kill of the game," she mocks her, pulling up the menu that shows the teams' stats. "one step closer to having less than double the amount of deaths as kills." it's weird, though – the other girl almost sounds familiar.

he sips his coffee as if he has a grudge against the straw, then stares unfeeling at the sad tea light flickering desperately between them in a lilac-tinted jar as if it were a collaborator in his misery.

"it's not about 'mindfulness,'" he stage whispers with a defensive edge, in english to ease a little bit of his eavesdropper-induced anxiety.

he should eat something, even if it's just a few bites of a scone or half a croissant. but even that feels like a heavy, burdensome task when every little thing he encounters reminds him of every not-so-little thing he's lost. and he was doing so well. he can imagine his therapist will be just as disappointed at his emotional relapse as nayoung is now, if not more.

"it's about my heart being ripped out of my chest and burned, and then scattered into little itty bitty pieces that are both somehow in canada and in the same building as me at least twice a week."

he adds before nayoung can, "I know that's dramatic. I don't care. that's how I feel and I'm gonna feel it and it's shitty and I hate it and I want to die."

nayoung wasn't going to say ren was being dramatic. she was thinking it, but she doesn't really have anything to say at all. she honestly can't relate to this. she has never been heartbroken – at least not by another person. she was heartbroken losing her dream, so maybe it's something like that.

"okay," is all she says in response, taking a sip of her own drink. does she need to say anything? she honestly doesn't like either of ren's ex boyfriends – or at least she pretends not to like alex – but she suspects bringing that up won't be particularly helpful. not that she cares that much about being helpful, but still.

she sort of brings it up, though. "honestly ren, neither of them are all that. i know alex was, or is, whatever, your best friend, but sarang is like..." she doesn't know how to explain this. nayoung absolutely does not understand the appeal of ren's former manic pixie dream boy. sarang, who won next gen without trying – who became a coach without trying – who coached without trying. he's charming, sure, but what is he beyond that? why is that enough for everyone to love him? how did alex and ren both fall victim to him when he's ultimately so useless? from nayoung's point of view, all sarang has ever one is butter them up and hurt them – especially alex. it's unfortunate that ren got wrapped up in all of their bullshit.

"nothing. like, he's charming. everyone loves him so there's probably some appeal in getting him to love you, but what even is he beyond charming and shallow as fuck? like...do you know how much alex cried about him to me? i had to babysit him at your next gen victory party because sarang fucked him over. and that was far from the first time. i'd honestly be surprised if it's the last time, too."

she realizes she's mostly just rambling now, but maybe it'll help ren somehow. who knows. she shrugs. "alex was a good friend to you, so i get that much. that makes enough sense to me. but..." she pauses. she can't formulate her thoughts into anything that makes sense aloud. she doesn't really mean to shit-talk ren's ex. she just wants to be honest.