the lonely hearts club [saida, minayeon, jeongchaeng]

Chapter 16: on bad parenting and choosing love

"Nayeon, you're gonna break your neck," Mina tells her between giggles, with what is probably very broken English.

Nayeon doesn't seem to care much. She's the wildest fourteen year old she's ever met; she sneaks out of class, out of her house just to come see her and she's always doing everything Mina's (and probably Nayeon's) parents taught her not to do. Mina knows both of their parents don't like the fact that they hang out so much, but Mina doesn't really care. Nayeon is the prettiest, coolest girl she's ever met.

Mina doesn't care how many times her father insists that the Ims are rotten apples and not worth a penny, Nayeon proves him wrong every single minute Mina spends with her. Sometimes Mina worries that the fact that they are so fundamentally different will eventually drive them apart – Mina's drawn to Nayeon's confidence, to her fearless attitude, to the way she demands everyone's attention. Sometimes she thinks about her more than she should, sometimes she feels her heart skip when she sees her smile.

It's not the way friends feel about each other. It's a bit scary, but Mina doesn't mind. She can keep a secret, even from Nayeon.

Nayeon shrugs from the swings. "I don't care. Don't you want to study medicine? You can cure me if I do."

"I haven't gone to med school yet," Mina says, slightly horrified. "I don't know how to sew your head back on your head."

"You'll figure it out," Nayeon is quick to reassure her. "I believe in you."

Somehow, even fourteen year old Mina understood how deep those words went.

It's Wednesday, and Nayeon is supposed to be yelling a Chaeyoung, rolling her eyes at Sana and glaring at Tzuyu inside the school's lab, but instead she's at home, going through old pictures on her phone.

There's one of her and Sana in the earlier days when it was just the two of them, Sana's making a peace sign with her fingers and Nayeon's smiling for ear to ear; another one of Chaeyoung holding up one of her drawings and Nayeon pointing at it, then another one of Tzuyu using her fingers to put horns on Nayeon's head on this one selfie which makes her smile almost immediately.

She's fixated on one, though. It's a picture she didn't know she had saved. It's a picture of the lab, probably in one of their meetings, probably taken by Tzuyu – Sana is talking about something that's making Nayeon crack up, hitting Chaeyoung across the shoulder, who's flinching even as she smiles. They look like friends. They don't look like friends, they are her friends.

Nayeon starts to think about maybe texting their group chat, about apologizing to Tzuyu and most especially Chaeyoung, but she's so embarrassed. She's mean, but she's never that horrible. You're not enough, she had told Chaeyoung. Nayeon's heart feels heavy.

She gets a notification from another group chat before she can further spiral, the one she shares with Jeongyeon and Jihyo; It's from Jeongyeon, who sends a picture of her and Chaeyoung, Chae is kissing her cheek with her eyes closed and Jeongyeon captions it as 'Guess who got her shit together'. Nayeon almost squeals, honestly, her and Chaeyoung might have fought the last time they spoke but she finally got the girl. She texts back, 'JeongChaeng finally got their shit together' And laughs when Jeongyeon sends her a selfie with an offended expression.

Chaeyoung is not in the picture, and Nayeon starts to wonder if she's still too mad at her to respond until her train of thought cuts short as her phone starts to ring. It's Chaeyoung. Nayeon's not so sure why she's so horribly nervous (probably because she regrets so much), but she still manages to let it ring three times before picking up – picking up 'fashionably late' as she likes to call it.