young & wild | chaeyu

first ; downpour

first ; downpour

1418

Outside, rain fell in a whirling torrent, a waterfall, a young hurricane sent to plague the quickly emptying streets. Chaeyoung laid her head on her desk, watching the outside storm go on in a rage. Thunder crackled, making her shiver involuntarily. She'd never quite fully gotten over her fear of thunderstorms from when she was small.

"Miss Son," asked a familiar voice from behind her. Chaeyoung raised her head off her desk, suppressing her yawn, and blinking quickly, trying to seem more alert than she'd been acting.

"Nayeon?" Chaeyoung couldn't help but be surprised. She'd thought most people had gone home earlier, but it appeared she was mistaken. "Why are you still working?"

The older girl sighed and sat in the unoccupied chair besides Chaeyoung. Nayeon was breathtakingly beautiful, at least in Chaeyoung's eyes, but lately she'd been more and more tired, and it showed in her empty eyes and dull skin.

"We're in a crisis, Chae," answered Nayeon simply. Normally a bright, bubbly, and cheerful girl, she sounded uncharacteristically drained and tired.

"I know. But why are you telling me?" she asked, confused. "I'm still pretty new here, and I'm not even part of the management... or the managed, actually."

Nayeon shrugged. "You auditioned, didn't you?"

Red came onto Chaeyoung's cheeks as she remembered that disaster. "Let's not think about that, please. I thought we agreed to let everyone think I was hired as secretary because it's what I wanted to do, not given the job out of pity."

"For the last time, it wasn't out of pity," Nayeon sighed. "We weren't in the position to support another trainee, you just showed up. And we needed a new secretary after the other resigned. It was just how things worked out. Understand?"

Chaeyoung nodded. "Yes. I understand."

Nayeon looked up towards the ceiling, where dark shadows engulfed the spiralling writing on the ceiling. It said their company's motto in all the languages it was engaged in, and was one of the unique features of the building Nayeon had planned years and years ago, even before she met her eventual co-founder, Yoo Jeongyeon. It had only been seven months since the second two languages had been added. The paint, which had seemed so beautiful and vibrant just days ago, had dimmed in her eyes with the information she'd received.

"We only just got that partnership that allowed us foreign headquarters," mentioned Nayeon vaguely.

"Yes," confirmed Chaeyoung, uncertain about where Nayeon could be going with this. Chaeyoung had done quite a bit of the post-partnership paperwork, since she had arrived not long after the foreign headquarters were established.

Silence swallowed them. Nayeon leaned back in her chair, head tilted upward, staring at the ceiling, unspeaking.

Chaeyoung wondered what she going to do. Nayeon was known for being resourceful-- she'd made an entertainment company out of nothing and was able to negotiate with other companies in Taiwan and Japan to allow a young inexperienced group from said entertainment company set up headquarters miles and miles away from home. Of course, it wasn't only Nayeon's burden to bear-- she was technically only the manager of trainees and trainer, but she held a large influence due to her position in creating the company. And to the public's eye, she was the managing face of the company, similar to how people saw the founders of each company in the Big Three as the CEOs, even if they were long retired.

After a long, tense minute of silence, Chaeyoung turned to Nayeon, still staring at the ceiling. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked, her voice seeming unusually uncertain.

Nayeon slowly snapped out of her dazed reverie, turning her gaze away from the ceiling and to Chaeyoung. "I've just been thinking about a lot of things. How long has it been since you started working here?"

The shorter girl answered in a hesitant, slow way. "Ten months. Why do you ask?"

"I think it's time your duties here changed."

Chaeyoung furrowed her brow. "How so?" she asked, feeling a wave of uncertainty overtake her. While being a desk secretary for YW Entertainment wasn't what she really aspired to be, it had given her enough money to make a life for herself, and had given her friendships she would have never thought possible. She didn't want to leave South Korea either. After mention of the foreign headquarters and Chaeyoung's knowledge of the unusually short-staffed branches, she couldn't help but feel like Nayeon wanted to send her to a different area. No, she told herself. That would be stupid. I'm just another untalented staff member, nothing special. You're not going to be sent away to a different place, Son Chaeyoung. You'd need actual skills for that to happen.

Nayeon took longer than Chaeyoung would have liked to take to answer. Finally, she answered in a carefully measured tone that Chaeyoung wasn't sure quite how to judge.

"With the state the company's in after we invested so much into Jamie's last comeback and it didn't give as much back as we needed, I think we'll have to eliminate the foreign branch plan."

Now Chaeyoung understood why Nayeon had been looking up at the ceiling for so long. It had only been half a year or so since they'd added the motto written in Japanese and Taiwanese Mandarin to quietly celebrate the brief success of their expansion. But it had evidently failed before it even truly began.

"I..." Chaeyoung trailed off before she even said anything. She knew how much this meant to Nayeon, how much the older girl had prayed for it to succeed. Nayeon tended to put up a cheerful, child-like front to keep other people's spirits up, but she'd opened up to Chaeyoung during her time working at the company. Chaeyoung's passion for music and listening skills meshed well with Nayeon's serious side, and Chaeyoung had learned a lot about how much Nayeon felt she needed to succeed to somehow become more valid, more important. That, and Chaeyoung had approached her in need of advice about a girl she liked, knowing that Nayeon had a girlfriend. That certainly had helped Nayeon see Chaeyoung a bit clearer, and the two became rather like sisters, to both their surprise.

Nayeon sighed, staring outside. Still the rain poured down. She stood up reluctantly, lingering at the desk, eyes lististly scanning over a scribbled on piece of notebook paper.

Chaeyoung stood up abruptly and engulfed Nayeon in a hug. She had to lean forward a bit on her tiptoes because of the small size difference, but it didn't matter. Nayeon hugged her back tightly, and Chaeyoung knew she was close to tears by the way she tucked her head into the crook of Chaeyoung's neck.

"Jeongyeon broke up with me over the phone," confessed Nayeon, her voice cracking slightly. "Three days ago. Said... Said we didn't feel the same as we used to. Spewed all that stupid stuff about how it's not me, but it is, isn't it? I'm one half of our relationship, of course it has to do with me. I didn't realize we had become different."

"It's okay," murmured Chaeyoung gently, trying to suppress the urge to go find Yoo Jeongyeon and punch her in the face. It wasn't okay, she knew that-- Nayeon's company, everything she'd worked to build, was suffering financial difficulties. And it wasn't just that. Now Chaeyoung had learned that Nayeon's girlfriend had broke things off. They'd always been a bit on and off, but this didn't sound good.

"And I just sent her financial information in regards to the foreign branches-- she's manager of foreign models, but you already know that. She hasn't answered yet, of course, but, I feel like she's going to be even angrier when she sees it. She'll think I've influenced the team into making them come back for my own selfish purposes, since she said it was because of distance that we weren't doing good. But Chaeyoung, we made this decision a week ago. I just didn't announce it yet."

Nayeon continued to cry in short, stifled sobs. Chaeyoung wished she could help her, but she couldn't speak, and she two began to cry, and the rain outside continued to pour bucketloads.

The empty, otherwise abandoned building echoed gently with their crying. Even the hard-working trainees had gone home to rest, and the building felt like a faint shell of it's normal, busy state.

If not for each other, both of them would be alone.

a/n: first chapter :D who's your bias in twice? mine's jihyo <3