Chapter Text
“I’m a natural,” Jooyeon says, preening.
Hyeongjun doesn’t look up. His geology homework is due in two hours and he’s barely started it because he couldn’t get that solo out of his head, like an itch that wouldn’t go away until he scratched it. He got the solo down and it sounds sick, but now he’ll have to scramble to get this problem set turned in on time. Excellence in one area at the expense of another; the story of his life. So he says, “Mhm,” and keeps trying to calculate the proper carbon-dating of a hunk of petrified wood.
“I mean, I don’t mean to be arrogant or anything,” Jooyeon adds, and even out of the corner of Hyeongjun’s eye, he can see the way Jooyeon flips his long, glossy hair. “Buuuut.”
The oldest geological sediments can be found in _____, dating to _____ BCE.
“What’s that thing people say? Born for the stage? Isn’t that me? I can sing, I can play, I can dance…” He wiggles demonstratively. “And everyone says my facial expressions are perfect. Interesting to look at, but not too much. And nobody even taught me that! I just do it naturally! Isn’t that amazing?!”
Jooyeon has been like this ever since the fanchants started getting as loud as they are this comeback. Hyeongjun knows he doesn’t mean anything bad by it; he’s just excited, happy, having a good time. Hyeongjun is excited and happy and having a good time, too. But it’s like Jooyeon can’t keep it inside—he’s overflowing with it, all the time, he can’t contain it or himself, and yes, Hyeongjun has seen all the posts and comments about how cute Lee Jooyeon’s nonstop onstage smiling is. It is pretty cute. What does Jooyeon expect him to say? Hyeongjun agrees with him; who could challenge such an obvious truth? Of course Jooyeon is a natural. That’s why he’s the frontman, the center. And why Hyeongjun is at the back. Still intent on his notebook, Hyeongjun says, “Yeah. How could the rest of us mere mortals ever hope to compare?”
There is a pregnant silence, and Jooyeon makes a sudden odd noise like a broken string and crosses the practice room in two big lopes. “No,” he says with unexpected vehemence, “no, Hyeongjun-ah, that’s not what I meant. You’re amazing. You’re just as good as me. Yah, stop writing for a second and listen to me!”
Hyeongjun had literally not been paying attention to him, but now that there’s a big knobbly hand firmly smushing in the way of his pencil on the paper, he has no choice but to look up, startled. “What, sorry?”
“You’re amazing,” Jooyeon repeats firmly. “You’re a star.”
Hyeongjun blinks. “Um… Thank… you…?”
“I can’t believe you would ever think otherwise,” Jooyeon says. He’s still leaning over him, eyes so intense they’re verging on unhinged, no hint of that boyish charm he loves showing off onstage or in private, even, when he wants something. Hyeongjun doesn’t know if he’s ever seen him like this before, and it’s a little concerning. He doesn’t even know how they ended up alone together—he’s still here in his usual corner because he was comfortable and he’d thought to bring his school stuff along with him to band practice, but why is Jooyeon still here? Was he just having that much fun looking at himself in the mirror? Unwittingly, Hyeongjun starts to grin a little at the thought, but that only incenses Jooyeon further: “I’m serious!” he practically wails, flinging himself down to sit next to Hyeongjun.
“Okay, you’re serious,” Hyeongjun permits; he thinks it might be better to just agree with Jooyeon until he can figure out what’s even going on. He also leans to the other side, just a little bit, so they won’t be quite so close. Jooyeon is always a lot, but he’s very a lot from up close.
And he’s extra a lot now: wide-eyed, distressed, flamboyant. “You know how much I admire you and look up to you,” he’s saying, talking fast. “When I say you could be center, I really mean it! It just breaks my heart that you don’t see yourself that way, it really does.”
Hyeongjun’s blinking eyes narrow briefly. What is this conversation about? Natural skill? Self-esteem? There’s nothing wrong with Hyeongjun’s self-esteem, though. He opens his mouth, frowning, to try to say this, but it’s like he’s a squirrel in front of a bulldozer—all he can do is be steamrolled. Jooyeon continues, “So never think you’re not good enough, or that you have to hide in the shadows. Or—or! Like people wouldn’t love you if you showed them more of yourself! Because that’s so not true. I mean, look at us! The more we know you, the more we love you.”
The smile Jooyeon has on is like what a children’s TV show host would wear after teaching a five-year-old the alphabet. It clicks: Jooyeon thinks Hyeongjun’s stage fright (the elephant in every room the band is in together) is actually just low self-esteem. He thinks Hyeongjun is too self-conscious to be a rockstar or idol. It’s honestly such a ridiculous notion that it leaves Hyeongjun speechless; he realizes that he wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining stage fright to Jooyeon. It would be like explaining a cave to the sun—what do you mean, there’s no light? All he can really say, bemused and a little mortified, is, once again, “…Thank you.”
Jooyeon sighs. He slouches down and drops his shaggy head on Hyeongjun’s shoulder. “I wish I could explain it better. How much I look up to you. Sometimes I even feel like it’s wrong that we’re the same age. You know? Like, you should be my hyung. Don’t you think so?”
This kid goes too fast, Hyeongjun thinks, then thinks that yeah, that kind of is the sort of thought a hyung would have about his playful dongsaeng. “I guess,” he says.
“I think about that a lot,” Jooyeon says. He’s still slouching so he can nuzzle Hyeongjun’s shoulder, and if Hyeongjun were to lean any further away, they’d both fall over. “I wish you were my hyung! I’d take such good care of you.”
No, that’s not right, Hyeongjun thinks. If he really were older than Jooyeon—the month between them stretching into years—he would be the one taking care. He’d protect, and keep an eye out, and give motivational speeches. Like Gunil, basically. Why does Jooyeon have it so backwards? Maybe because they’re both only children, so neither of them truly understands what that kind of dynamic is like; the band—the members—has been their first taste of brotherhood. But still. If he really were older, he’d take care of Jooyeon very well, he thinks. “If you say so,” he says.
“I do,” Jooyeon says and moves up, and for a bewildering and terrifying second Hyeongjun thinks Jooyeon is going to kiss him on the cheek, but all Jooyeon does is send him one of those blinding heart-shaped smiles before pulling back and flicking his hair out of his face once more. “I mean,” he corrects, “I do, hyung.” Formal speech and everything. He’d been so grave a second ago, and now it seems like a joke—he’s all twinkly and silly. Hyeongjun raises his eyebrows as Jooyeon leaps back up and prances over to his former spot by the mirror. He can’t keep up, and he can’t tell if Jooyeon is serious. Jooyeon is pretty much never serious. They catch each other’s eye in the mirror, and Jooyeon beams at him, and everything is so easy for him, it comes to him so naturally, and maybe it’s a little bit infectious. Hyeongjun smiles back.
###
On his way to the smaller practice room, Hyeongjun swings by the larger one to grab Jooyeon, who’s been complaining about the bass line in the Fall Out Boy song they’re covering next; it’s too repetitive, he says, he can’t find a way to make it sound interesting. Hyeongjun wanted to get some extra practice in on his solo, anyway, so they agreed to go together and see if they could help each other out. Hyeongjun assumed Jooyeon would have forgotten about that, hence going to pick him up. And sure enough, when he sticks his head into the practice room, he sees a very active card game—Jiseok got everyone’s phone privileges taken away last week, so they’ve been making do with what they’ve got—and Jooyeon at the epicenter of it, merrily yelling about how Seungmin is cheating.
“I’m not cheating, you just suck!” Seungmin laughs.
Jooyeon throws himself forward in a whirlwind of hair, pretending to sob on top of the table. Hyeongjun can’t help but marvel at him; he is always on, or maybe it’s just that he’s never off—the persona he puts on for the stage or camera is just his real self. Isn’t that a very vulnerable way to live? Doesn’t that leave no room for change or growth? Hyeongjun couldn’t do that. He watches as Jungsu deals out new cards and Jiseok—who really is cheating, Hyeongjun can tell—peeks over at Seungmin’s hand, and then Jooyeon looks up and sees him in the doorway, and lights up like a neon sign. “Hyung!”
Everyone else, expecting Gunil, looks over, but when they see it’s not him, they relax and go back to what they were doing. “Hey,” Hyeongjun says, a little embarrassed. He’d thought Jooyeon would have forgotten about that, too. It’s funny that nobody else seems fazed. Jooyeon is just Jooyeon. “You still want to go practice?”
“Yes! I’m ready,” Jooyeon says, and flings his cards at Jiseok. “You can take over for me, my hand’s better than yours.” He smacks a kiss to Jiseok’s cheek—Jiseok tries to bite him—and bounces up. Now Hyeongjun sees what he’d overlooked upon coming in: Jooyeon’s bass is indeed packed up in his gig bag, like he’d been waiting. So he has it slung over his shoulder and he’s ready to go in seconds, smiling at Hyeongjun and apologizing—formally—for keeping him waiting as he pushes past to hold the door open for him.
“That’s okay,” Hyeongjun says, his face heating up. He’s relieved nobody called Jooyeon out on his antics yet—he doesn’t want to be the center of attention, even if it would only be through Jooyeon as a proxy—but that doesn’t mean they won’t. The quicker they can get out of there, the better, so he sets off down the hall, knowing Jooyeon will catch up.
Sure enough, he does, long strides getting them shoulder-to-shoulder in seconds. Hyeongjun is wary—he doesn’t want to talk about that again, their weird conversation last week. They haven’t been alone since. To preempt Jooyeon bringing it up, Hyeongjun asks, “Who was winning?”
It works. Jooyeon is all too happy to fill Hyeongjun in on the intricacies of the game and how he was winning until Seungmin started cheating, which then naturally transitions into him telling Hyeongjun all about his day, what he had for breakfast, how Gunil made him clean their room twice this morning even though he was running late for a vocal lesson, the vlog he filmed, and so on, and so on. He’s still talking when they’re going into the practice room, taking out their instruments, tuning up. Hyeongjun hasn’t gotten more than a couple words in edgewise, but that’s okay, he doesn’t have much to say. He’s ghosting his fingers over the chorus to “Dance, Dance,” half-listening to Jooyeon, half-thinking about himself, as always. So he nearly misses it when Jooyeon says, “And what about you, hyung? How was your day?”
“Fine,” Hyeongjun responds on automaton, blinking. What’s there to say? It was a normal day. “Um, I dreamt we all went on a cruise. And I finally turned in that paper I kept procrastinating.”
Jooyeon cheers in all sincerity and stretches all the way over, arm and hand extended for a high five. “Nice, hyung! I know that was really weighing on you!”
“Yeah,” Hyeongjun says, mystified, and high-fives him. If Jooyeon is mildly to severely overwhelming even for Hyeongjun, who lives in the same tiny apartment as him, what must it be like to be his fan, to only get him in thirty-minute bursts at full power? He genuinely can’t imagine. “Okay, should we start?”
“Let’s go,” Jooyeon says in English, and Hyeongjun kicks one of his pedals to start the metronome at 114 BPM. It’s Jooyeon’s intro, a thick and dirty bass line—Hyeongjun honestly doesn’t get his problem with it. The song sounds empty and strange without drums, let alone vocals, so after the first sixteen bars of nothing but bass, Hyeongjun starts quietly humming along; he doesn’t know the words—Seungmin and Jiseok will start this one off before it goes to Jooyeon and Jungsu in the chorus—but he knows the melody, a little. And in he comes on guitar, at which point he has to stop humming; the song is deceptively fast, even though repetitive, and there’s only so much he can focus on at a time. Jooyeon starts singing, then. And Hyeongjun loses himself.
He wakes up at the end of the song, his ears ringing. Jooyeon is out of breath but deliriously happy, even after all his hemming and hawing about the song being boring. “What did you think?” he asks, shaking out his wrists and bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “How do we sound?”
“Good,” Hyeongjun says. “On the second prechorus, why don’t you try slapping it? They always really like that.”
They being the fans, and Jooyeon understands right away, practically vibrating out of his skin with delight at the prospect. “Yes! Let’s do it! Can we start from the second verse?”
Hyeongjun counts them in and they’re off. Jooyeon nails the prechorus on his first try, and they end up playing to the end of the song anyway, buoyed by his energy. It’s the same whenever the band is all together—Hyeongjun remembers hearing idols talk about each other as the vitamin or energizer of the group, and he never understood until he met Jooyeon, at which point it all unfolded with startling and immediate clarity. At the end of a long day of practice, all it takes, sometimes, is a rallying cry from Jooyeon, and they’ll pull themselves together one last time to get the job done. Jooyeon comes over to Hyeongjun’s side after Hyeongjun’s solo so they can play back-to-back, leaning on each other. Hyeongjun doesn’t know why and can’t put it into words, because it’s so antithetical to what he usually needs or likes, but he loves it when Jooyeon does that. It makes the energy transfer physical, feeling the action of Jooyeon playing, shoulderblades and elbows working, and the position is precarious, they really have to collide and stay in place to keep each other upright, but that’s what makes it all the better—that little edge of danger keeping them sharp. Jooyeon bursts away after another two measures, but the energy lingers. This time, they’re both panting at the end, but they know they don’t need to go through the song again—that was it. They’ve got it.
“Maybe it’s not that boring,” Jooyeon concedes with a grin.
Hyeongjun shakes his head, fingers sliding over his fretboard. “It’s a great song. I really look up to Fall Out Boy, I’m glad we’re doing this cover.”
Jooyeon nods earnestly, wide-eyed. “They’re so good!”
Hyeongjun knows Jooyeon had definitely never heard of Fall Out Boy before their label had suggested this cover, and Jooyeon definitely knows that Hyeongjun knows that. Hyeongjun quirks up an eyebrow. “Really? What’s your favorite song by them?”
“This one,” Jooyeon says confidently.
Hyeongjun laughs. Well-played, Lee Jooyeon. He really is a natural. “Actually, when they told us we should do ‘Dance, Dance,’ I thought of another song by them that we would be great at. It’s not as popular. But I’ve learned it before. The solo is really…”
“Play it!” Jooyeon urges, and he’s unplugged and sitting on Jungsu’s spinny chair in seconds, prim top-of-the-class posture, one hand reaching for his phone before he remembers he doesn’t have it anymore. “Ah, I was going to type Han Hyeongjun and hold it to my forehead, you know, how they do it.”
Hyeongjun rolls his eyes. He’s only seen that sort of thing in videos of their performances after the fact, never in the moment; it always makes him feel so sad, so apologetic, that he can’t look up and see them cheering for him. Even the thought of Jooyeon doing it makes his stomach twist. But he knows once Jooyeon has made up his mind about something, it’s impossible to make him back off until he gets what he wants, so he goes over to Seungmin’s synth setup, where the laptop is open and lit up as always. “I don’t even know if I remember it,” he warns over Jooyeon’s cheering.
He types in the name of the song—“27”—and scrolls through the results until he finds it; there’s no intro, so it starts as soon as he hits play. He quickly falls back and swings his guitar into place, trying and failing to find the right chord on time—he gets it after a second, though, and from there it’s muscle memory.
Jooyeon starts singing along, quietly, on the second chorus. He doesn’t know the words at all; he’s never heard this song. He’s just that good. He sounds lovely. But Hyeongjun, internally apologizing, has to tune him out, because here comes the solo—and now he remembers another reason why he didn’t bring it up in the conversation about covers they could do: the solo is long, 25 seconds, more than twice as long as his solo in “Hellevator,” and yes, he’d have had Jiseok backing him up on this last part, but still—he’s no showman. He’s not Jooyeon. He’s not Jiseok or Jungsu or Seungmin or even Gunil, who manages to put on an enjoyable performance even from behind a bulky drum set. It sounds good—it aches in his fingers with how good it sounds—but it doesn’t look good; why would anyone want to watch him standing still when there’s something so much more interesting happening at the front of the stage? Or, as it were, on Jungsu’s spinny chair, twirling his hair as he listens?
After the solo, there’s less than a minute left in the song, but Hyeongjun is suddenly restless and, yes, self-conscious. This isn’t really Jooyeon’s type of music. He silences his guitar with a palm across the strings and leans over to pause the song on Seungmin’s computer. The room is ringing and Hyeongjun feels a little warm and shaky—like he’d just auditioned for a strict producer, or like he’d just had a mini-recital. Or—worse—like he was onstage. Normally, he doesn’t feel this way when he’s just playing for the rest of the members, even one-on-one. He’s breathing fast and he can’t meet Jooyeon’s eye. Behind his guitar, he clenches and squeezes his hands, tries to focus on his heartbeat rather than the persistent thrumming drumbeat of the song, demanding he put his hands back where they belong and keep playing until he physically can’t play anymore. That’s what he’s good at; that’s what he knows how to do. Not performing, not hamming it up for an audience. Stick to what you’re good at, and leave the rest to the professionals. “So, yeah,” he mumbles.
“Hyung,” Jooyeon says very, very quietly, and Hyeongjun thinks, ugh, here we go. “Let’s do it. As a band. We have to do it. Are you kidding me?!” His voice rises as he speaks, until it lifts him out of his chair and onto his feet, until he’s stomping over to grab Hyeongjun by the shoulders and shake him. “Will you teach me? Please? I want to sing it, I want to play it with you. You are so fu—I mean, you are so good.”
“Really?” Hyeongjun says, shaken.
“Yes, really,” Jooyeon says, almost sounding like he’s scolding. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, hyung! Why don’t you think it’s good enough for us? We should do it, and you should be in the front, next to Jiseokie and me, since it’s your song.”
“It’s Pete Wentz sunbaenim’s song,” Hyeongjun tries to say, but Jooyeon won’t hear it; he’s squeezing Hyeongjun’s shoulders way too firmly and then letting him go so he can scamper over to grab his bass and get into position to learn. And Hyeongjun only likes teaching marginally better than performing, but Jooyeon is a quick study, and God, he’s right, it really was like he was born for this—there’s no one he can’t outsing. He has it down after three play-throughs, singing the whole thing by himself without getting tired or hoarse. Hyeongjun had tried to whisper-sing a little harmony for him at first, just for guidance, but he’d had to stop, because it’s like trying to retouch the Mona Lisa sometimes, being in the same band as Jooyeon. Or shining a flashlight at high noon. Or lighting a match in a forest fire. Or just being in the presence of something genius, something bigger than any of them, and the worst part is—Jooyeon is just a kid. Same as Hyeongjun, same as any of them. It’s too much responsibility for one kid to bear, but it’s all on him. Anyway, Jooyeon nails the song. They play it again and again, until the practice room door is swinging inwards and the rest of the band piles in.
“What’s this?” Gunil says, eyebrows raised, but they’re good eyebrows, not bad eyebrows.
Jooyeon gushes, “Hyeongjun-hyung was teaching me a new song! Wanna hear it? It’s so good!”
The confidence Hyeongjun had just built up wrinkles a little bit, and Gunil does notice—of course he does, his eyes flickering instantly to Hyeongjun. But he doesn’t comment on that. Yet. He just repeats, “A new song?” as he heads over to sit at his kit, and as the rest take their places, too.
Hyeongjun checks the manager in the doorway as Jooyeon explains what the song is and why he likes it; no cameras this time. His spine marginally relaxes, and he cuts in over Jooyeon’s rant to tell them what key the song is in, and that seriously, if no one else likes it, they don’t have to do it.
“I want to hear it,” Jungsu shrugs. “I like Fall Out Boys.”
“It’s Fall Out Boy,” Jooyeon corrects snobbishly, as though he’d have been able to make that distinction even an hour ago.
“Okay, here you go,” Seungmin says, since he’s back at his station, hands hovering over the spacebar on his laptop to start the song. “Five, six, seven—”
Hyeongjun and Jooyeon scramble into place as the recorded drums kick in, and then they’re playing—they’re rocking out. That tense, nervy feeling from earlier is returning, especially the closer and closer they get to the solo, and Hyeongjun does what he always does whenever he happens to feel this way and he’s with the rest of the band: he looks to Jooyeon. He tries to borrow some of his shine, just a tiny bit, not steal it, he’s only using it for a little while. Jooyeon has so much to spare, an abundance, he’s overflowing. Jooyeon is looking at him, too, sharing it freely, and he’s not nervous at all, not even when he flubs a couple lines since the English words are still unfamiliar. La la la will do just fine.
If anything, and kind of as expected, Jooyeon is even more amped up than he’d been when it was just him and Hyeongjun; he’s showing off, performing, even though it’s just for their friends and bandmates, no one else. Of course Hyeongjun is more comfortable fading into the shadows. It would be too bright otherwise. Jooyeon is very nearly blinding on his own. Hyeongjun plays the solo. He doesn’t miss a note. He hears Jiseok say, “Fuuuck,” under his breath, and then he blacks out the rest of the song.
He wakes up to applause. Gunil is even giving it a little extra sauce by tapping on the cymbals. Jungsu tries a couple of the chords on his piano, Jiseok starts tuning up, and Jooyeon turns pleadingly to Gunil and says, “So we’re doing it, right? Right?”
Gunil does a quick glance around the room; everyone’s nodding. Hyeongjun is holding his breath, and Jooyeon rushes back over to him to hold his hand for emotional support (whose, Hyeongjun isn’t totally sure). Hyeongjun’s fingers curl hesitantly around Jooyeon’s, and Gunil shrugs and says, “We’ll have to take the cuss word out of the first line, but otherwise—”
Jooyeon’s shriek of delight is so loud that Hyeongjun winces and tries to duck away. It doesn’t work; Jooyeon’s grip on him is too tight, squeezing his hand and exclaiming, “You’re the best, hyung!”
“Thanks,” Hyeongjun and Gunil both say, and make the most uncomfortable eye contact of Hyeongjun’s life. But no one else notices: Seungmin is downloading sheet music and AirDropping it to Jungsu, Jooyeon is looking over the lyrics again and pronouncing some tricky words a few times (“orphanage” and “anchor” are giving him trouble), and then Jiseok comes over to Hyeongjun to start working on the tail end of the solo, since that’s more of a duet, really. And although Hyeongjun can occasionally feel Gunil’s assessing eyes on him as he gradually teaches the band how to play the song, he can also feel Jooyeon’s beaming adoration and support, and somehow, that makes it all a little bit more bearable.
###
“What are you doing with Jooyeon?” Gunil asks, pausing the living room TV.
Hyeongjun looks up from his homework—history this time—and blinks a couple of times, wondering if he’d misheard. “Sorry?”
“With Jooyeon,” Gunil says. “What are you doing?”
Now Hyeongjun looks around as though Jooyeon is hiding behind a curtain and will pop out at any second to yell, “IT’S A PRANK!” But he doesn’t, and it’s still just Gunil and his calculating, serious gaze. Like he’s asking a rhetorical question, and if Hyeongjun says the wrong answer, he’ll be out of the band or something. Nervously, Hyeongjun swallows and puts his pencil down. “Practicing ‘27,’ mostly…?”
“Sure,” Gunil says, “but what about the other stuff? Why is he calling you hyung?”
Hyeongjun colors. “Oh. That.”
“I mean, he talks formally to you more than he does to me, these days,” Gunil continues, a little amused. “What’s going on?”
“That’s his thing,” Hyeongjun says desperately. “I didn’t ask him to do that, he just started doing it.”
Gunil is laughing. “You’re not in trouble,” he reassures Hyeongjun. “He’s a troublemaker. Trust me, I know he is.”
Hyeongjun is still finding it difficult to relax. This whole situation is just so weird. He hates that he has to talk about it—that anyone outside of him and Jooyeon is even aware of it. It’s only mildly encouraging that Gunil is the only one who’s actually commented on it; although Jooyeon has been frighteningly consistent with it, Jiseok and Seungmin and Jungsu never bat an eye. Hyeongjun doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse, less special or more. He doesn’t know if he wants it to be more special. He doesn’t know anything. “I think Jooyeon doesn’t understand what stage fright is, or why I have it,” Hyeongjun finally says, which is difficult to get out, especially to his leader, but on the other hand, he knows Gunil won’t judge him; he just wants to help. “So he got it into his head that I, like, don’t think I’m very good at guitar.”
“You’re the best,” Gunil says simply, with a shrug.
“I know,” Hyeongjun agrees, then colors deeper and shrugs, too, scrambling to amend himself: “I just mean—I’m not self-conscious about my playing. I don’t doubt if I’m good enough to be in the band or not, which doesn’t mean I’m not always trying to get better, but—”
“I get it, I get it.”
Hyeongjun takes a deep breath and tries to return to the topic at hand. “And I just don’t know how to explain it to him, and he thinks he’s teaching me to love myself or something. Not really sure how the hyung thing factors into it, but that is part of it, somehow. Honestly, I thought he would get bored of it, but he’s really, really latched onto it. But it seems… harmless? Right?”
“He’s a good kid,” Gunil says after a considering pause. “And it’s good of you to let him think he’s helping.”
Hyeongjun nods silently. It would be too difficult to explain, even to Gunil, that in a way, Jooyeon is helping. That he always was, even before he decided to take an active role in it. He doesn’t mind the hyung thing. It’s goofy and kind of embarrassing, but it makes Jooyeon really happy, so it makes Hyeongjun happy, too. He doubts flighty Jooyeon will keep it up for much longer, so Hyeongjun will enjoy it while he can.
“Anyway,” Gunil says, shrugging again and turning the TV remote over in his hand, “thanks for explaining. Honestly, you really are the most mature out of all the ’02s. If anyone else had to be promoted to hyung status, I’m glad it’s you.”
If Hyeongjun blushes any harder, he’ll explode into tomato sauce. “Oh. Thanks.”
Gunil gives him a small smile in response, which is a little awkward—he gets embarrassed around sincerity, too. He hits play on the TV and Running Man starts again, so Hyeongjun, figuring the conversation is over, clears his throat and directs his attention back to his homework. A few minutes later, though, just as Hyeongjun is returning to the swing of things, Gunil speaks up again: “Just keep your head on your shoulders, though. He’s sweet, he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, but being Jooyeon’s hyung can be hard, too. And since you don’t actually have to be, well…”
Hyeongjun gets it—or thinks he gets it?—and nods quickly, but Gunil doesn’t say anything else. And that’s certainly a troubling note on which to end the conversation. What does Gunil mean by that? Does he actually not approve after all? Does he think something else is going on? It’s a grim reminder, too, that Jooyeon is just playing a game, one that only he knows the rules to. He really could stop at any time, and probably will. Hyeongjun shouldn’t get too invested. He shouldn’t. Right?
###
Everything is easy for Jooyeon. So on a fundamental level, maybe they’ll never understand each other.
He could sing as soon as he could talk, and the sound has always been beautiful. He picked up the bass not because he’d seen any particularly interesting bassists on TV—Hyeongjun, the second or third time they met, had asked him first about Jaco Pastorius and Victor Wooten and then, despairing, Flea and Paul McCartney, while Jooyeon sat on his amp and twirled his hair and said “umm…”—but because that was what made the girls at his school giggle and blush the most. Sure, he’s taken lessons, as many as the rest of them, and yes, he works hard, but fundamentally, naturally, it’s just easy. He just has it, the elusive X-factor, that thing record label execs have been trying to bottle and inject for decades—he was just born this way.
And that’s just what’s on the inside. The outside is just as compelling, too. The first time Hyeongjun had walked into the JYP building and seen Jooyeon, he’d thought, right away, he must be here for the band, and then, I’m screwed. Straight from central casting, he naturally looks like a rockstar from a movie. Not even on purpose; he would still look like a rockstar even without the shaggy hair, expensive outfits, or the bass itself, and, indeed, he did. Frankly, Hyeongjun has had the thought, once or twice, that it’s actually kind of unfair for Jooyeon to have all the talent along with all the outrageous looks. He’s tall (and getting taller) and bouncy and he has expressive eyebrows and a big dorky smile and perfect bone structure and Hyeongjun can’t even think about the hair without feeling a little insane. (Jooyeon would even look outrageous with short hair, though. Everybody knows it. The beauty pageant trophy is his to lose no matter what he does.) If he weren’t a rockstar, he’d be an idol. If he weren’t an idol, he’d be a model. But he’s chosen this, because he likes it and he’s so good at it and it’s so easy for him.
The overlap between the inside and the outside is how he interacts with the people around him. That’s the part that Hyeongjun wistfully envies the most—how easy it is for Jooyeon to be around people. Hyeongjun had been cautioned by staff, teachers, and family members pretty much right from the beginning that it would be difficult for him to make it in this business with his personality. He can imagine Jooyeon’s life as the perfect inverse—everyone he’s ever met encouraging him to go into the public eye. When they were all introduced to each other, Jooyeon was everyone’s best friend within five minutes. It took five weeks for Hyeongjun to get past the first base of eye contact, to the point they all thought he hated them. And they’ve all been so patient with him, and he’s so comfortable with them now, and they’re his brothers, his family, but sometimes, he wonders what it would have been like if it had been easy for him, too—how much he missed out on in those formative early weeks. How much he’s missing out on even now.
Seungmin and Jungsu knew what to expect. They’d been trainees, real trainees, primed for idolhood, bubblegum, cookie-cutter. Gunil has his prestigious American training; he’s the most pretentious out of all of them, sure, but also the most experienced, and he can play anything from jazz to classical and back again, and nothing really surprises him. They don’t talk about it, but he’s also the most ambitious of them all. He’d do anything to get them to the top. Jooyeon is just Jooyeon—eager, affable, happy-go-lucky, there’s nothing he can’t pick up on the fly. And Jiseok has no boundaries to speak of. So when they were all brought into a room with some representatives from the label, ten months before their first stage, and given an incredibly detailed presentation about what exactly they would be expected to do if they wanted to debut with JYP, Hyeongjun felt like he was the only one who was caught off-guard. Behavioral and moral regulations aside, there was a whole slide just about skinship. Hyeongjun, shocked, had laughed, then quickly disguised it as a cough when nobody else did; Gunil had very seriously said, “Would you be able to give me a printout of this slide, so I can keep track of what is and isn’t acceptable and course-correct as I see fit?” And then the printout had hung in their living room for the next five months or so, until it had fallen off during a particularly lively game of freeze tag, and nobody bothered to put it back up; they all knew the rules by then.
Hyeongjun still isn’t used to it. It’s been so long now and he doesn’t know if he ever will be. He jumps when Jiseok headbutts him like a cat; he twitches when Seungmin, sitting next to him, drops a hand to his knee and squeezes. Jungsu and Gunil are more reserved, seeing as they’re older, but they’re also still known to hang onto someone’s shoulders during a variety show, to snuggle in for a selca. And then there’s Jooyeon. Who does it the most. Who does it the worst. Who took to it so easily, slinging his arm around Hyeongjun’s shoulders on the way out of that excruciatingly long and awkward JYP meeting. And although Hyeongjun had shrunk instinctively, withdrawing into his shell like a hermit crab, Jooyeon hadn’t let go—he’d only held on tighter.
Sometimes Hyeongjun feels trapped in that moment. Jooyeon’s arm around his shoulders—a boy he barely knew. Hyeongjun’s stomach had flipped so hard he’d thought he might be sick. Later, he pinned the sensation down as butterflies. It’s been a while since then, of course. A lot has happened. On a good day, he can dish it out, too—grab arms and bump hips and lean in way too close to speak. So of course it figures that now Hyeongjun is finally something closer to comfortable, Jooyeon finds a whole new way to throw him off and leave him feeling dizzy.
The hyung thing. It’s crazy. Jooyeon has committed to it with a feverish devotion. If they’re drinking bubble tea together, he’ll look away for every sip. He’ll fill Hyeongjun’s dish with noodles first. He’ll stand only after he stands, he’ll follow him around. It’s crazy. Gunil had downplayed how much Jooyeon speaks to him informally, actually, and Hyeongjun only noticed the disparity because now Jooyeon speaks formally to him one hundred percent of the time. And everyone else has finally cottoned on, too. The other day, Jiseok had wanted to switch straps with Hyeongjun just to see if he liked the cushioning of Hyeongjun’s better, and due to a lost bet, Jooyeon had been his errand boy for the day—and Jiseok had told him, “Go take this to your hyung.” And Jooyeon had. Just, like, in front of everyone, even their manager. Hyeongjun had wanted to lie down and die then and there, but instead, they had to run through “27” for the 27,000th time, and life, somehow, went on.
Jooyeon does skinship with everyone. Everyone’s used to it. It clearly doesn’t mean anything to Jooyeon, or to anyone else. If he does it when there are cameras present, he’s doing it for the cameras. If there are no cameras, he’s doing it to practice for when there are. He just gives it out for free, lighting up everything he touches. He’d be all over their fans if it weren’t for the plastic barriers—he’s just affectionate, he has so much love and light to give. Hyeongjun tries not to take it personally. That it’s not just for him, or that it doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes, he even succeeds. But the hyung thing. That is just for him, and it does mean something. What is he supposed to think?
Tonight, he’s in the studio late. He’s been working on a song, but it’s not very good. Once, Gunil had told him that it’s better to get down something that’s not very good than to get down nothing and to stagnate, and it’s tough, but Hyeongjun tries to live by that. He’s just made it to the bridge, his least favorite part of songwriting. Each time he tries to write a bridge, it just turns into a Day6 song that already exists, and he has to scrap it and start over. It’s frustrating and slow going. He hasn’t eaten since lunch. Or spoken to anyone, for that matter. So when there’s a quiet knock on the door, he ignores it at first, until it tries again, louder, so he can’t ignore it over the music. He makes a muted noise of frustration, tears his headphones off, pauses the playback, and raises his voice to snap, “What?”
Fuck, mistake, it could be a member with a vlog camera. The door handle turns and Hyeongjun swallows anxiously; when is he going to get used to performing all the time, even when he’s least expecting it? But it’s just Jooyeon. With a little paper bag, a little wave, and a big smile. He’s bare-faced and in comfy going-home clothes; he must be on his way out. Hyeongjun had no idea he was even still here—he wonders what he’s been up to. “Hi, hyung, sorry to interrupt you,” Jooyeon hums, shuffling into the small studio and holding the bag out to him. “I just wanted to bring you a snack. Okay, that’s it, bye, fighting!”
Hyeongjun feels so bad. All the time, these days. “Wait,” Hyeongjun blurts out, fingers crumpling the paper of Jooyeon’s snack bag. “You can stay. I mean, if you don’t—if you’re not—busy. Stay. Please.”
Jooyeon had literally just passed the bag over and then immediately turned to scurry back out, but he halts, his big smile getting even bigger as he closes the door and comes in properly. His hair is loose and wavy—he almost never wears it up, although he could. He must really love the way it moves when he does. “What are you working on? Those are buns,” he says, gesturing to the bag, as he grabs the other chair in the studio and straddles it backwards—like a rockstar. “I saved you as many as I could.”
Hyeongjun opens the bag and looks inside; his stomach rumbles. One of the buns has a small chunk bitten out of it, and he holds it up, eyebrows raising. Jooyeon is watching him, and his smile turns sweet and sheepish.
“That’s my favorite kind. Sorry. Like I said, I saved you as many as I could!”
“It’s okay,” Hyeongjun says, “really, it’s okay. Thank you.” He puts that one into the bag for now, and starts with another, unbitten. Since Jooyeon had asked, Hyeongjun hits play on the computer so his shitty little demo can begin, and he eats the bun while they listen, Hyeongjun mostly motionless and chewing, Jooyeon bobbing his head, his leg, and then his whole body to the beat. He’s really into it. Wary, Hyeongjun keeps an eye on him, expecting his expression to change or strain—but Jooyeon isn’t really capable of artifice. What he feels, he shows. And the sheer disappointment all over his face when the demo abruptly ends just before it could go into the bridge—that’s impossible to fake.
“Where’s the rest?” Jooyeon says, antsy; like any true musician, he hates an unfinished chord progression.
Hyeongjun, mouth full, glumly taps the side of his head. When he’s swallowed, he says, “I just can’t make it sound right. As usual.”
Jooyeon frowns, and Hyeongjun regrets saying anything at all, but especially something that’s going to set Jooyeon off. He’s been very strict about Hyeongjun’s “self-esteem” lately. “Hyung,” Jooyeon begins sternly, “I love the songs you write. Sometimes, they might take a little extra work, but that doesn’t make them bad, you know? It just means you care.”
“Okay,” Hyeongjun concedes—God, he’s too hangry for this. “But it’s still not turning out, and that’s okay, but I figure I should quit while I’m ahead. We don’t need another song by me, anyway.”
“Would you say something like that to me?” Jooyeon challenges stubbornly. “That we don’t need another song by me?”
Jooyeon doesn’t participate much in the writing process—his music taste doesn’t quite match the group’s textural identity—but when he does, his contributions are usually pretty good. “No,” Hyeongjun says slowly, “but—”
“Then you shouldn’t say it to yourself, either,” Jooyeon says, with a firm jut to his chin. Decisive. Inspiring. If he’d been able to wait a few years, he could have made a good leader. “So come on. Eat, then get back into it. What’s your usual songwriting process?”
Hyeongjun sullenly takes another bite of the bun. “I usually just get something stuck in my head,” he says. “An idea, or a melody. And then I do it until it’s done.”
“But you don’t like bridges?”
“But I don’t like bridges.”
Jooyeon looks thoughtful, scooting his backwards chair forward. “Can you play it again? Just from right before it goes into the bridge.”
Hyeongjun washes down the bun with a sip of stale studio water and sighs. “Jooyeon-ah, you really don’t have to help me—”
“Play it again,” Jooyeon insists.
Hyeongjun makes a face, shoves another bun in his mouth, and clicks back a few measures in the track so he can start it from where Jooyeon’s demanding. “Here you go, but—”
“And hyung, think about your idea,” Jooyeon says. “Whatever idea got stuck in your head that made you start writing this song. Okay? And listen.”
Hyeongjun hits play. They’re both listening. He can hear every unfortunate twang, every missed note, and the hesitant murmur of his voice singing nonsense syllables to a simple melody makes him cringe. It’s a very rough demo, and the best part about it is that it ends eventually, ends soon, and he’s expecting the silence as a balm, winding up for that relief, but—when the music cuts out, the room doesn’t get any quieter, and that’s because Jooyeon is singing, effortlessly, easily, naturally picking up where Hyeongjun had left off.
Hyeongjun had thought the bridge needed to be low, but Jooyeon takes it high. His notes soar and swoop, and though the melody he’s riffing is simple, it’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. Think about your idea. Hyeongjun has been thinking of nothing else. He folds, his head burying in his arms on the table, forehead just shy of pressing into the wooden surface, as he listens to Jooyeon singing his song, turning it from something raw into something brilliant, wrapping up his improvised bridge and taking it back into the chorus Hyeongjun had jotted down already. He’s made it so much better—he makes everything so much better—but he’s also thrown into sharp relief Hyeongjun’s own inadequacy, and all Hyeongjun can do is squeeze his eyes shut, listen to him, and try his very best to breathe.
Jooyeon sings to the end. He stops. Even his silence sounds pleased. Hyeongjun can’t bear it. “Or something like that,” Jooyeon says with cute faux modesty. “See? Don’t give up!” But he must have finally noticed Hyeongjun’s condition, because immediately after, he gasps, and his chair’s legs scrape on the floor as he scoots closer. “Hyung—hyung? Are you okay? What is it? You didn’t like it?”
His hands go to Hyeongjun’s back, his shoulders, pulling to try and get him to sit up. Hyeongjun can’t resist, he can’t fight him anymore, he goes. Jooyeon is closer than he’d thought, and it’s easy, finally, to give in, to let Jooyeon tug on him and guide him and coax him until Hyeongjun is all wrapped up in him, Jooyeon’s lanky arms bundling tight around Hyeongjun’s much slimmer shoulders and holding him tightly. Hyeongjun’s eyes are still closed, and although the position is awkward because of their chairs getting in the way, it still works, and it’s so nice, like when they’re performing and Jooyeon comes over so they can play back-to-back. The energy transfer, the warmth. Jooyeon smells like a boy. He’s patting Hyeongjun’s back and making soothing noises. Hyeongjun knows Jooyeon doesn’t understand what’s going on, and honestly, Hyeongjun barely understands himself. Full stop.
God, he’d better be careful, or he’ll start crying. He extricates himself, shivering. “Sorry,” he says, stilted. “No, I loved it. It was perfect. Can I use that?”
“Of course,” Jooyeon says, not pulling any further away and looking searchingly at Hyeongjun, scanning every inch of his face, so troubled, so earnest. “Hyung, are you okay, though?”
Why isn’t he going away? What does he want? If it doesn’t mean anything to him, why does it feel so much like it does? “No,” Hyeongjun admits, hardly above a whisper.
Jooyeon takes it on the chin. Surprisingly patient, he just nods, returning his hands to Hyeongjun’s shoulders, like if they were standing up, they’d be about to slow dance. “Okay. That’s okay. What is it?”
Hyeongjun can’t, not when Jooyeon is looking at him, not from so up close, not at all. He shuts his eyes tightly again. “You.”
“Me?” Jooyeon repeats, audibly confounded. “What about me?”
Hyeongjun inhales. What, indeed. “Everything,” he admits. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand how you make me feel. I’m—I’m jealous of you, and I want to be more like you, and I want to know if I—if it means anything. To you.”
For the first time in a while, Jooyeon is quiet—truly silent. His hands are still, too, on Hyeongjun’s shoulders. The moment drags on and on, and finally Hyeongjun risks opening his eyes and sees that Jooyeon has been looking at him this whole time—maybe waiting. Jooyeon’s expression is a little hurt, a little curious. He says, “Hyung, of course it means something to me. And I’m jealous of you, too.”
“What?” Hyeongjun chokes—it’s not quite a laugh. “What do you have to be jealous of?”
“You’re the best musician I’ve ever met,” Jooyeon says simply. “You’re better than anyone else in the group or the world.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re better than…” Jooyeon screws up his face, thinking, and carefully pronounces, “Jimmy Page. And—what was it. Polyphia!”
Hyeongjun splutters a little. “How do you even know who that is? But also—take it back—”
“You mentioned them one time as your idols, so I looked them up, and you’re better,” Jooyeon says with a light shrug. “I wish I could be half as good as you. But I’m not! That’s why I don’t ever want to go back to guitar. I’ll stick with bass, you’ve got the rest covered. And since I’m not even half as good, I make up for it by doing everything else, y’know? The whole…” He flips his head from side to side to make his hair fly, and pulls a goofy rocker face. “That thing. But you don’t need a gimmick. You’re just fucking cool.”
Hyeongjun is speechless. Jooyeon is wrong on so many levels. He tries to shake his head, but Jooyeon’s hands move quickly to hold him still, palms curving over his cheeks, squishing him a little. A playful touch, a welcome respite from all this seriousness. Hyeongjun raises his hands, too, to cover Jooyeon’s on his face, and instantly regrets it, because all of a sudden, it goes from playful skinship, the kind Jooyeon would do on camera, to something else. Something private and maybe even intimate. And that’s truly what frightens Hyeongjun the most—that he’ll take this thing, this light-hearted game they’re all supposed to play, and he’ll play it wrong, he’ll take it too seriously, it won’t be a game to him, he’ll be the only one to fuck it up. That’s why he mostly abstains, why it still freaks him out either to participate or witness. Because he doesn’t hate it, like the rest of them sometimes do. Because actually, he likes it way too much. Especially with Jooyeon. The energy transfer.
He shudders and breaks away, pulling Jooyeon’s hands off his cheeks. “Sorry, could you just—”
“Hyung,” Jooyeon murmurs. So stubborn, when he wants something. Hyeongjun should have known better than to try and pull away. Jooyeon puts his hands back on Hyeongjun’s face, and Hyeongjun flinches and tries to pull away again, but he’s never seen Jooyeon this serious. Not even during that first bewildering ‘hyung’ conversation. It’s not a joke or a game. He’s looking right into Hyeongjun’s eyes and holding him still so Hyeongjun will look at him, too, and they’re just looking at each other, seeing each other. Sometimes they make eye contact onstage. It always gives Hyeongjun a jolt, like—that once-in-a-generation talent, baby gorgeous rockstar? Yeah, he’s my friend. It never lasts this long, though. Sometimes he fears he won’t be able to look away. Right now, he supposes he doesn’t have to, and he’s grateful to Jooyeon for giving him the space and time to look his fill.
Jooyeon’s face is just amazing. It’s changed so much, even in the time Hyeongjun has known him, and only for the better. Hyeongjun suddenly feels the weight of the passage of time—the long aching stretch of the future. What will Jooyeon look like next year? In five years? In ten? Will they still be together, will they be more popular, will they still be friends? Will they still—Hyeongjun, blinking because his eyes were drying out, also swallows, because his throat was dry, too—will they still be allowed to touch like this, and by then, will he know what it means? Jooyeon once again gives his face a little squeeze, but not playfully—affectionately. Hyeongjun’s blink slows, and he feels the beginnings of a smile starting on his face.
“There you are,” Jooyeon says, his own smile all too eager to return. “I really like your new song, hyung.”
“Thanks. It’s about you,” Hyeongjun says, very little left to lose, and Jooyeon laughs, rolling his eyes, like, oookaaay, hyung, you’re so funny. But Hyeongjun isn’t laughing. It strikes him—it’s possible that just as Hyeongjun assumes Jooyeon is joking about everything, the inverse is also true; the thought is suddenly unbearable, and Hyeongjun copies him, lifts his hands to cup Jooyeon’s cheeks so they’re holding each other the exact same way. “No. I mean it. I wrote it about you.”
Jooyeon’s smile flickers out like a candle. Before, at Hyeongjun’s previous confession, he’d been wounded but intrigued; now, he just looks lost. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yes,” Hyeongjun says. Not just for him, but about him. About the way he sees Jooyeon, about the way Jooyeon makes him feel. Maybe that’s why the song is so confusing and unfinished: because he hasn’t figured any of that out yet. But now Jooyeon has made his input, and, as if by magic, it all came together. And it’s not as bad or scary as Hyeongjun had thought.
“Oh,” Jooyeon says. He fidgets infinitesimally, but makes no move to pull away. Actually, he’s leaning a little closer. “No one’s ever written me a song before.”
“Come on,” Hyeongjun says, and now he’s the one rolling his eyes. “You might not have known it at the time, but are you kidding? They definitely have.” His thumbs are right on Jooyeon’s amazing cheekbones, which are such an optical illusion, making him so masculine and so pretty at the same time. The cheekbones alone have probably inspired at least an EP’s worth of material. And Jooyeon is still looking right at him, maybe even through him, and Hyeongjun feels no urge to hide or turn away. He didn’t know Jooyeon could be quiet like this. Was that all it took? Flattering him so profoundly that he’s shocked into silence? Funny.
Then Jooyeon does something Hyeongjun has definitely never seen him do before: he blushes, and he’s the one squirming away to hide his face. He stays close, though, clearly can’t bear to go far, and actually leans over his chair to press into another hug, his warm cheek burying in Hyeongjun’s neck. “No, hyung, you’re the first,” he says, muffled. “Thank you. I really love it.”
Hyeongjun puts his arms around him. This is all so weird. He hasn’t felt normal for a single day since he met Jooyeon, he thinks. What can he even say to that? Thank you, I really love you? He just leans his head on top of Jooyeon’s and looks at the blinking light of his recording software, waiting to be engaged again.
He never thought he’d meet anyone like the other members of the band, who took down his walls with such determination and efficiency that sometimes, Hyeongjun can barely remember they were even there. But even among them, Jooyeon stands out. They were so young when they met. They’re still so young. They’re growing up together. He doesn’t have to have it all figured out right now; there’s still time. And Jooyeon will be there with him, through all of it. Sometimes, when Jooyeon looks at him, the tangle of emotions in Hyeongjun’s chest is so viciously snarled that he fears he’ll never be able to extricate himself. Other times, Jooyeon looks at him, and he feels like he can do anything. And, rarer but with increasing frequency these days, Jooyeon looks at him, and Hyeongjun wants—he wants—
Later. He’ll figure that out later. He’s terrified of losing this. He holds onto Jooyeon tighter, and Jooyeon makes a happy noise and snuggles in closer, too. Hyeongjun doesn’t think about whether this belongs on Gunil’s skinship printout. He doesn’t wonder about whether Jooyeon does this with anyone else, or what it means. He just enjoys it.
Sometimes, things just come naturally.
Notes:
thank you for reading!! comment and let me know if i should write a chapter 2 where they kiss lol (and also please comment and tell me your thoughts!!! i thrive on feedback hehe!)
Chapter 2: this kind of rush
Summary:
Jooyeon has been trying his hardest to understand Hyeongjun’s perspective, but it’s like they live on two different planets, and all the rules are opposite on Hyeongjun’s. An upside-down world. But maybe Jooyeon could convince Hyeongjun to get on a spaceship and come live on his planet instead?
Notes:
thank you all so much for the lovely and completely unexpected response to chapter 1!!! by popular demand -- chapter 2, where they kiss :)
title from kiss you by one direction lol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“But what’s scary about that?” Jooyeon says, floored. “That’s the best part!”
Hyeongjun blinks a couple of times from underneath his fluffy bangs. “I’m not actually scared, you know that, right? It’s called stage fright, but I’m not, like, scared of anything.”
“Not even ghosts?” Jooyeon says thoughtfully.
“Uh…” Hyeongjun says.
Jooyeon laughs and sticks out a leg to kick at Hyeongjun’s ankle; Hyeongjun side-steps to dodge, so Jooyeon relents and backs off, legs returning to their polite, un-kicking places. “I’m kidding. I get what you’re saying, hyung. I just don’t get it!”
Hyeongjun’s face pinches unhappily for a moment, and his fingers slide over the intro to Jooyeon’s song—the song Jooyeon thinks of as his, anyway, because Hyeongjun said he wrote it for him, which means it’s his. Theirs might be right, too, but. It’s his. Hyeongjun says, “You don’t have to get it. I just don’t want you to worry about it.”
“Too late,” Jooyeon says. Of course it’s worrying to think about Hyeongjun being made uncomfortable by the thing Jooyeon loves the most: standing in front of dozens or hundreds or maybe even—someday soon!—thousands of people, all of whom are looking at you, listening to you, and loving you. It’s the best feeling. No rollercoaster could ever compare. If he could be onstage all the time without ever needing to eat or sleep or stretch his hands, he’d do it. But it sounds like Hyeongjun would rather be anywhere else.
More than worried, it makes Jooyeon sad. He knew Hyeongjun was shy or something, but he didn’t know it was like this. Jooyeon loves being in the band, and sure, sometimes it’s hard, but the performing is the easiest part. He thought they all felt the same way, and that’s why they were all there. But what Jooyeon loves the most, what keeps him there no matter how hard it gets, is what Hyeongjun wishes he could do without; he says it’s distracting, and stressful, and keeps him from ever being able to relax and get lost in the music. So why is Hyeongjun there? What if he leaves?
Still, Jooyeon won’t be a pessimist. It must have been very difficult for Hyeongjun to admit all of this to Jooyeon. He doesn’t seem to really like talking about his feelings, and the fact that he could open up like this is a good sign. Jooyeon has been trying his hardest to understand Hyeongjun’s perspective, but it’s like they live on two different planets, and all the rules are opposite on Hyeongjun’s. An upside-down world. But maybe Jooyeon could convince Hyeongjun to get on a spaceship and come live on his planet instead?
“Seriously,” Hyeongjun says, quieter, looking down at the floor now as he presses a couple of pedals on his board with his foot. “It’s not a big deal. I’m working on it, okay? It’s gotten a lot better since debut.”
“It has,” Jooyeon agrees. He smiles at Hyeongjun, proud, and the way Hyeongjun crumples, all bashful, is so cute. He’s been very cute lately. That’s been one of the best parts of spending so much time together, is seeing how cute he can be. In the most random ways, at the most random times. Even his antisocial tendencies are cute, like when Jooyeon caught him painting his own nails black—frowning so hard it looked painful, lips pressed tight together in concentration; he should have just asked someone to paint them for him, it would have been easier, but he’d been trying his hardest on his own. It was so cute that Jooyeon had cooed loudly, which had startled Hyeongjun so bad that he spilled the nail polish everywhere and then they’d spent two hours fruitlessly researching how to get nail polish out of bedsheets and trying different strategies in the kitchen, and Gunil had stormed out to scold them both for making so much noise so late at night. Jooyeon had tried to hide behind Hyeongjun’s back, clinging to him, and Hyeongjun had been laughing, his shoulders had been shaking under Jooyeon’s hands, and it had been so cute.
“…What?” Hyeongjun says, self-consciously rubbing at his own face as though he’s worried there’s mud on it. “What are you looking at…?”
Jooyeon realizes he’s just been beaming at Hyeongjun this whole time. Whoops. Kind of creepy? “You,” he says and sticks his tongue out at him. “Brave hyung.”
Hyeongjun face-palms. “Can we just rehearse, please?”
“Braaave~ hyung,” Jooyeon sing-songs like the intro to “Rollin’” that goes braaave~ girls. Does Hyeongjun even understand that reference? It’s only the most popular song of all time. He’s so funny. Jooyeon is still giggling to himself a little as he twists the volume on his amp back up so they can, indeed, just rehearse.
He really likes rehearsing with just Hyeongjun. Maybe it would make more sense for him to practice more with Gunil, the rhythm section. Or for Hyeongjun and Jiseokie to practice together, the two guitars, the way Jungsu and Seungmin are always practicing together. But he does plenty of stuff that doesn’t make sense. It’s part of his charm. And this is such a win-win: his playing gets better and he gets to spend time with his favorite hyung? What’s not to love?
But as they go through the song, Jooyeon’s song, he’s distracted. Troubled, even. He keeps looking at Hyeongjun in the mirror, trying to imagine what’s going on in his brain, and his fingers get twisted up and he flubs notes. Hyeongjun notices, head tilting to the side, and after Jooyeon’s fifth or sixth bent string, he stops playing and says, “Should we just take it from the top—”
“Hyung,” Jooyeon whines, “I’m worried about you.”
Hyeongjun looks like a mouse that ate a lemon. “Well, stop,” he says. “I’m okay. Really. I just shouldn’t have told you, I’m sorry—”
“No, no,” Jooyeon rushes to say, and he quickly unplugs his bass, sets her down on the stand, and lunges toward Hyeongjun, who, alarmed, takes a couple of steps back, his guitar still protectively between them almost like Captain America’s shield. “No, thank you for telling me! I just really, really want to help!”
“Jooyeon-ah—”
“Because before, I didn’t get it, right? I thought you were just self-conscious, remember? And I guess that’s not it, sorry, but it’s great that you told me what it really is, because now I can actually help in a helpful way. Right?” Jooyeon says hopefully.
Hyeongjun still seems very uncomfortable and doubtful, and Jooyeon makes a sad face, reaching out for him more slowly, as though attempting to show a wild bunny he’s not a threat. This time, Hyeongjun doesn’t flinch, so Jooyeon grabs the opportunity—and Hyeongjun’s shoulders—with both hands. “I don’t know if you can help,” Hyeongjun admits softly, letting Jooyeon sway him from side to side; his legs are so stiff. “I might just have to get used to it, with time.”
“Why don’t you trust me?” Jooyeon chides. “Even though I was on the wrong track before, I still helped a little bit. I mean, we finished the song together! I did your history essay for you! I can help you, hyung. You just have to tell me how.”
It’s a stare-down, a stand-off. Jooyeon widens his eyes as far as they’ll go because sometimes that makes Hyeongjun crack up, and although Hyeongjun’s frowning now, Jooyeon can see it, it’s starting, the corners of his eyes are crinkling, his lips are twitching, and Jooyeon strains and strains his eyelids for just another second and there he goes, ducking his head with a huffed laugh. Jooyeon grins, too, relieved it worked, and squeezes Hyeongjun’s shoulders, and Hyeongjun’s hands relax a little bit on his guitar, not holding onto it for dear life anymore. He says, “Thanks. I’ll, um, think about it.”
“Think about it right now,” Jooyeon insists, “and we can start today. You said it’s gotten better since debut. Okay, great. What’s made it better?”
Hyeongjun expels a puff of air, looking up at the ceiling instead of up at Jooyeon. “Practice, I guess. If I have a song memorized so well I know I could play it in my sleep.”
“Practice”—Jooyeon takes one hand off Hyeongjun’s shoulders and gestures broadly around the practice room—“check. What else?”
“Playing to empty rooms when we debuted,” Hyeongjun says, with some bitterness.
Jooyeon goes blah! “That was so horrible,” he laughs. “You liked that?!”
Hyeongjun nods miserably. “But I know that won’t happen again,” he mumbles. “So other than that… I guess seeing our sales numbers. How they keep going up.”
“Let’s sell some freaking albums,” Jooyeon agrees readily. “What else?”
“And—” But his mouth snaps shut and for a second, he looks very embarrassed, then tries to play it off like nothing, giving a casual shrug. “That’s it, I guess. Just time. Doing it over and over.”
He won’t be getting away with that on Jooyeon’s watch. “And what?” Jooyeon prompts, but when Hyeongjun is still stubbornly playing dumb, he drops his grip from Hyeongjun’s shoulders to hold both of his hands instead, peeling them off his guitar and interlacing their fingers. “C’mon, hyung, you can tell me. We can even trade if you want, and I’ll tell you what helps me if I ever get nervous.”
“You don’t get nervous,” Hyeongjun scoffs. His hands are limp and cool in Jooyeon’s hold. “Not like me.”
“Okay, maybe not,” Jooyeon concedes, “but there are things I do to get myself hyped up. Like, if I’m ever feeling sluggish and I need a boost. Wanna hear?” Hyeongjun nods, so Jooyeon gives his hands a little press and starts listing: “Watching my own fancams, listening to my favorite songs, doing jumping jacks, having a snack, cuddling the members, watching Stray Kids sunbaenim fancams—”
“Oh,” Hyeongjun says, and his hands are warming up a little bit. “Me too, I think.”
Jooyeon perks up. “Which one?”
Hyeongjun’s shoulders roll, which he does when he’s starting to get uncomfortable. Jooyeon won’t torture him for much longer, but he feels like they’re close to a breakthrough, so his expression is eager as Hyeongjun hesitantly starts, “Well—maybe not just what you said. But the members—yeah. I do get a lot of strength from you guys.”
Jooyeon melts into goo. He could swear there are hearts popping and fluttering above his head and out of his eyes. He’s gripping onto Hyeongjun’s fingers so tightly that Hyeongjun mouths ow, but Jooyeon won’t let go. “Really?” he breathes, adoring.
Hyeongjun, visibly getting embarrassed, nods. “Yeah. A lot.”
“Even… me?” Jooyeon prompts coyly, sparkling, and he thrills at the way Hyeongjun’s ears start to turn pink.
It’s a trick question, because he already knows the answer. They haven’t actually talked about the recent-ish change in their friendship, but it’s undeniable at this point; for one, they never used to practice this much alone together before, and now it’s practically daily. Jooyeon isn’t quite sure when things started to change, or exactly why, but he wouldn’t trade it or stop it for the world.
He likes spending time with Hyeongjun. He likes making him smile. He likes it when they sit together in the back of the van on the way to and from schedules and Hyeongjun falls asleep on his shoulder. He likes Hyeongjun’s reactions when Jooyeon is playing around or showing off. He likes Hyeongjun’s music—the songs he recommends, the songs he plays, the songs he writes. He likes holding Hyeongjun’s hands or poking him in the sides or messing up his hair. He just likes Hyeongjun.
And he thinks Hyeongjun might like him, too. Hyeongjun is too shy and private to spend this much time with someone he doesn’t like. So far, he hasn’t told Jooyeon to back off or give him space. And if he does, Jooyeon will! But Hyeongjun hasn’t. Which kind of makes Jooyeon think he won’t. For instance, right now, he’s just just steadily turning redder and redder, and his thumbs are shyly curling around Jooyeon’s knuckles so he’s also an active participant in the hand-holding. “Yes,” Hyeongjun says quietly, “especially you.”
“Like… what about me?” Jooyeon continues, delighted at this chance to hone his flirtation skills, and tilts his head to make his hair tumble attractively to the side. “When we look at each other onstage?”
Hyeongjun twitches a little, but he doesn’t pull his hands away. “Yeah.”
Jooyeon is extra delighted. He’d just said that because that’s what gives him energy, but to know Hyeongjun feels the same way? Amazing. A very good sign. “Because seeing me reminds you that if you mess up, I’ll just distract everyone?” he teases, and that does make Hyeongjun start to draw back, but Jooyeon holds him tighter, entreating. “No, hyung, I was joking. I know you’d never mess up. Okay, what about when we do our group huddle before we go on, and if we’re next to each other, does that help?”
Hyeongjun nods immediately, eyes fixed now on their linked hands, which Jooyeon swings a little. Jooyeon opens his mouth to tease him for claiming to not like skinship when clearly, he really likes it, but—for some reason, he thinks better of it. It’s not nice to tease someone when they’re putting themselves out there. Brave hyung.
“So what about this?” Jooyeon asks, lowering his voice but getting no less flirtatious. He flexes his fingers in between Hyeongjun’s demonstratively. “Does it make you feel like you can handle it? Going onstage?”
Hyeongjun swallows; Jooyeon almost hears the click of his throat. “It would make it better,” he admits in a whisper.
“Okay, that’s great,” Jooyeon praises. He lets go of one of Hyeongjun’s hands and reaches instead to push Hyeongjun’s hair back from his face so he can actually see it. So cute. He moves his hand back further, curling around the back of Hyeongjun’s head; once there, he waits until Hyeongjun peeks up at him, and then smiles, patient and encouraging. “How about this?”
Better, Hyeongjun mouths.
Jooyeon loves this game. The second Hyeongjun breaks away or tells him to stop, he will, but he won’t stop a second before that; he’ll just keep upping and upping the ante. It makes his heart beat faster, too, like a small dose of performing, when he can make Hyeongjun shy like this. His cheeks are pink and his eyes are big and bright as he looks up at Jooyeon, and Jooyeon wishes he could be this happy all the time, this brave all the time. Can Jooyeon do that for him? Can Jooyeon make sure he’ll stay? “And what if I—” Jooyeon says, and, moving so quickly there’s no way Hyeongjun would be able to dodge, swoops in to give Hyeongjun a kiss on the cheek.
Hyeongjun instantly flares fluorescent red and jerks back. Jooyeon holds his breath, about to respectfully apologize, but Hyeongjun’s hands fly onto his guitar and he wrenches his eyes shut and plays the craziest, fastest, screamingly loudest lead line Jooyeon has ever heard.
Jooyeon bursts out laughing so hard he falls down. Still laughing on the floor, he looks up, giggly tears in his eyes, and sees that Hyeongjun is laughing, too, his fingers slowing on the guitar to turn his screaming solo into a wail, the kind of strutting, dynamic playing Hyeongjun never shows off normally even though everyone’s always asking him. He’s still bright red, all over, his face and ears and neck. It’s so fucking cute and it makes Jooyeon want to bounce right back up and give him another kiss, on his other cheek this time, and then on the first one, and then on the second one again, and then on the beauty mark by his eye, maybe, and then on the tip of the nose, and maybe just keep going from there. Hyeongjun is slowing down and his lips are pressed together tightly, but he can’t stop himself from smiling. Jooyeon catches his eye, and that sets them both off giggling again.
Eventually, when they’ve both caught their breath and Hyeongjun is giving his fingers a rest, Jooyeon twirls up to his feet and leans on the back of Jungsu’s chair until he stops feeling dizzy. “Well?” he asks Hyeongjun. “How was that? Do you feel like you can do anything now?”
Hyeongjun is still red around the edges, but he’s standing taller. Confidence suits him. “Pretty much,” he says, his lips twitchy like he’s still fighting a smile.
Jooyeon beams. He’s proud of them both, and he picks his bass back up, pleased as punch with his own outstanding achievement in the field of cheerleading. “If you ever need a boost…” He puckers his lips like a cartoon princess and taps them to demonstrate. “You know where to find me!”
Hyeongjun throws a guitar pick at him, but when they play through the song again, it’s the best they’ve ever sounded. It’s magic.
###
“—three, four, five—where’s Hyeongjun?” Gunil says.
Everyone looks around. They’re onstage in ten minutes, and, indeed, Hyeongjun is nowhere to be seen. “Bathroom?” Seungmin suggests.
“Hair/makeup, probably,” Jungsu shrugs.
“Maybe he ran away,” Jiseok says and yawns.
Jooyeon doesn’t say anything. He’s horrified that he hadn’t noticed that Hyeongjun was missing, and he’s doubly horrified because he knows Hyeongjun definitely isn’t just in the bathroom or getting touched up; in fact, Jiseokie’s guess is closest. “I’ll go find him,” Jooyeon volunteers, but Gunil stops him.
“Let’s give him a minute. Maybe he’ll come back on his own.”
Gunil holds Jooyeon’s eyes for a second, sending some sort of telepathic message that Jooyeon barely understands. It figures that Gunil is the only other one who knows what’s going on. Kind of weird that he knows Jooyeon also knows, but oh well. Jooyeon, sulking a little and impatient, sits down and retunes his bass for the third time just so he has something to do with his hands, but he’s watching the clock—they all are. Nine minutes until they’re on. Jungsu had been relaxed, but Jooyeon sees that he’s starting to get tense, too, until finally he stands up with eight minutes left to spare and says, “Jooyeon-ah, let’s go look for him.”
“Just one of you, please,” Gunil says, raising his voice sternly. “We can’t afford to lose half our members at once.”
“Why not? We could replace them with puppets,” Jiseok says, and Seungmin agrees that no one would notice.
After a tense (and rigged) game of rock-paper-scissors (Jungsu has a very obvious tell and always plays scissors first), Jooyeon runs out of the cramped dressing room and into the hallway. With no real ideas for where to look, he just sets off down the hall at a fast clip, calling, “Junhan-ssi? Hyeongjun-hyung?”
He peeks into a couple of other dressing rooms and finds them empty. One is closed, but the sign on the door says Bibi, and Jooyeon doesn’t want to risk her wrath, so he continues onwards. If he were Hyeongjun, where would he go? Where’s quiet and private, with no mirrors or other people? (Other people are starting to notice him—a couple masked employees and other rookies make eye contact with him and do double takes because of how pretty he looks, but he doesn’t have time for any of that right now.) He reaches the end of the hall and starts to despair, looking around desperately, and then—he sees it: the final door of the hallway is labeled “supply closet,” and the handle is very slightly crooked, like someone had recently gone in.
Gotcha. Jooyeon approaches slowly, but doesn’t knock first to announce his entrance, just takes a risk and tries to go in. The door’s not locked—maybe he wanted to be found? But what if he’s not in there? Jooyeon puts on a polite smile and prepares to excuse himself in front of whatever janitor he’s likely to find within, but—there he is, startled like he’s a bug under the log Jooyeon just flipped over. Headphones in, eyes wide, hands a little trembly. “Oh,” Hyeongjun says, just a little too loudly because of the headphones, and fumbles to pause the music. “Are we—what—how—”
“We have to go, hyung,” Jooyeon coaxes, reaching out for him. “Come on. We’re on soon, let’s go, everyone’s waiting.”
Hyeongjun was shaking his head the second Jooyeon started talking. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t, Jooyeon-ah, I’m sorry.”
“What’s different about this? The audience doesn’t matter. We’ve done it a million times,” Jooyeon pleads. He tries to catch a glimpse of the screen of Hyeongjun’s iPod to see the time, but it’s gone dark already, and he can’t remember how many minutes he had left when he set out on this journey. Damn it. Hyeongjun is practically cowering against the shelves of soap and dustpans and paper towels, and his eyes are dark and afraid. Jooyeon wants to help him, he really does, but he’ll drag him out of here bodily if he has to. Again, he reaches out, but Hyeongjun mutely shakes his head again and doesn’t take his hands.
“It’s the solo,” Hyeongjun bites out. “I can’t do it.”
“You can,” Jooyeon promises, “you can do it, hyung, you could do it in your sleep. It’s not even the hardest solo you know! You told me that!”
“I can’t—”
“You can do anything,” Jooyeon insists. He takes a step closer, then another one. Hyeongjun shudders, shrinking back. “Please come with me.”
“Just do it without me,” Hyeongjun whispers.
“No,” Jooyeon says firmly, “we can’t do it without you. I can’t. Hyung, please.”
He needs to get Hyeongjun out of there and onto the stage—he needs to help his hyung be brave—he needs to remind Hyeongjun that he’s done it before and he’ll do it again, and that Jooyeon will be there with him no matter what, and the rest of the boys, too. Jooyeon is all adrenaline and instinct right now, getting hyped up for the stage. There’s no time to overthink. There’s only time to go.
So his reaching hands go up, curling around Hyeongjun’s distressed, pale face, and he leans in so fast, so fast Hyeongjun would never be able to dodge. And he kisses him, not on the cheek or eyelid or nose but on the mouth.
Hyeongjun goes bolt-straight and stiff, but his hands are suddenly clutching at Jooyeon’s sides, and the iPod clatters to the floor. Jooyeon doesn’t pull away. It’s a firm kiss, urgent, Jooyeon trying to convey as much faith and support and strength and energy as he possibly can just through his lips. Hyeongjun is quivering. Jooyeon might have gone too far. But Hyeongjun’s mouth, which had been so tense and tight, is starting to soften—he’s starting to give in. Jooyeon has forgotten how to breathe. His lungs burn like he’s holding a high note—it feels good. And Hyeongjun’s hands are gripping Jooyeon’s shirt, until they turn from a grip into a push. Pushing Jooyeon back, away, off.
In the dimly-lit supply closet, Hyeongjun’s eyes are no longer scared—they’re ablaze. Jooyeon’s tongue can’t even turn to apologize, but he tries anyway, and finds that he still kind of can’t breathe. He definitely went too far. “Hyung—”
“Come on,” Hyeongjun says, loud and clear, and grabs Jooyeon by the wrist and hauls him out of the supply closet and into the hall.
Jooyeon stumbles, blinded by the brightness, but after a second, he’s running after Hyeongjun, so shocked that he starts laughing. “Hyung,” he calls, “you’re so cool!”
Hyeongjun’s ahead of him so Jooyeon can’t see his full face, but by the curve of his reddened cheek, Jooyeon knows he’s smiling.
They tumble into the band’s dressing room with probably sixty seconds left to spare. Jungsu says, “Oh, thank fuck,” and a manager hisses at him.
“There you are,” Gunil huffs, drumsticks brandished threateningly like daggers. “I was about to tell the staff to cancel the stage.”
“I got lost, sorry,” Hyeongjun explains, panting, and lets go of Jooyeon’s wrist. He claps his hands together once, rubs his palms, then springs forth to grab his guitar. He’s buzzing—Jooyeon is, too. “Let’s do this, come on, fighting!”
“Jooyeon-ah, who is this impostor and where’d you find him?” Jiseok says, eyes narrowed.
“This is sus,” Seungmin agrees.
“No, no Among Us,” interjects another of their exhausted managers. “Please. We’ve talked about this a million times.”
Jooyeon sees Hyeongjun and Gunil have a ten-second whispered conversation: Gunil concerned but stern, Hyeongjun apologetic but bold. Then Gunil starts herding everyone out of the room. Final count, final check, and polite bows to everyone they see in the hall on the way to the backstage area. Hyeongjun’s cheeks are glowing pink and one of the makeup noonas is jogging by his side with a blender sponge, daubing more foundation onto him. Jooyeon can’t believe they’re about to perform; he feels like he just stepped off the stage, that’s how hard his heart is pounding. They do a huddle just before they go on. Jooyeon and Hyeongjun are next to each other, sides pressed together tightly. Hyeongjun’s hand ends up on the back of Jooyeon’s neck and his grip is strong, not wavering. They all say fighting! together, and it resonates through Jooyeon so deeply—and he really does feel like he can do anything, too. Not that he ever doubted it.
###
Jooyeon’s fancam from the “27” performance goes viral, crossing a million views in a day, their first ever fancam to hit that number. The ‘most replayed’ part, more than the high notes or into-the-camera wink, is when Hyeongjun’s solo starts, and Jooyeon is smiling so hard his cheeks hurt just watching it back.
###
He’s never had a secret like this before. He likes telling everyone everything, which is both part of his charm and, ultimately, his downfall. He got away with a lot of stuff when he was a kid because he could rely on his honesty and his cuteness to help him out of sticky situations. Would that work in this case?
They all have their own pre-show rituals. Gunil drinks a protein shake (gross). Jungsu does mouth stretches (also gross). Seungmin plays Für Elise (boring). Jiseokie recites math formulas (seriously messed up, like, he’s a psychopath). Hyeongjun used to go off by himself and do whatever he did alone; Jooyeon used to do yoga stretches he learned from their choreographer, thinking of it as the last moment of calm before the chaos, forcing himself to relax since he’s so 4D the rest of the time. Neither Hyeongjun nor Jooyeon does either of those things anymore. They’ve found a better ritual.
It’s almost freaky, how quickly they fell into the new routine. It only took one more performance after the “27” stage. Jooyeon had been keeping a closer eye on Hyeongjun that time so he wouldn’t try to bolt again, and when he’d seen how Hyeongjun was looking longingly at the door, he’d stepped in and sweetly said, “Hyung, come refill my water bottle with me?” And then he’d pulled him into the bathroom and Hyeongjun had said, “But what about your water bottle,” and Jooyeon had giggled and said, “Silly hyung,” and kissed him right away. Hyeongjun had melted faster that time. He’d played just as well. The next performance after that, Hyeongjun had been the one shyly making eyes at Jooyeon until Jooyeon could find an excuse for them to leave the room, and they ended up in a supply closet again, Hyeongjun’s hands hesitantly holding onto Jooyeon’s hair as they kissed chastely against one of the shelving units. It had almost fallen over, and they’d clutched at the shelves and each other, breathless from trying not to laugh out loud. They’d returned to the rest of the group still red-faced and giggly, but nobody noticed: one of Jiseokie’s earrings had gotten stuck in Seungmin’s sweater during a tickle fight, and Gunil and Jungsu were doing surgery to disentangle them with minimal casualties. And so they got away with it. And so they kept going.
All these shows they’ve been doing, special stages and university festivals, are in preparation for the new comeback. It’s perfect timing; Hyeongjun has really been blossoming, both onstage and off. The other members have noticed, and Jooyeon always feels so smug when one of them remarks on it: “You’re so noisy today, it’s interesting,” or “I can’t believe you went up to Yeji sunbaenim to ask for a selfie first.” The fans have noticed, too: “OMG JUNHAN IS SO OUTGOING NOW AHHH!!!” or “IM SO PROUD OF JUNHANNIE HE’S REALLY BEEN COMING OUT OF HIS SHELL LATELY!!!!!” The difference is obvious and it’s awesome. And Jooyeon is walking on air all the time, because only the two of them know the reason—that he’s the reason.
If he’d known a little kissing would cure Hyeongjun’s stage fright altogether, he would have just started kissing him the first time they’d ever met. He’d kinda wanted to, anyway. And now he gets to, at least once a week, but usually more if they have a lot of schedules. It’s awesome. They’ve started going earlier, so they don’t have to rush, and so the effect lasts longer. If the other members have noticed how they suspiciously disappear together for five to fifteen minutes at a time before performances, they haven’t said anything, and odds are they haven’t noticed—Jooyeon certainly doesn’t keep track of where anyone except Hyeongjun is.
And right now, Hyeongjun is here: between Jooyeon and Jooyeon’s arm, where he fits very nicely. They’re in a dressing room this time, empty for the next hour according to the schedule on the door. Hyeongjun is pressed very close to him and his soft breathing brushes Jooyeon’s face between slow kisses. Sometimes, Jooyeon likes to open his eyes just a tiny bit while they’re kissing, just so he can check on Hyeongjun. Although the view is blurry because of how close together they are, it’s a good one: dusted pink cheeks, concentrating eyebrows, gently fluttering eyelashes. He takes it very seriously. It’s so cute. A kiss like this will last Hyeongjun for three songs, maybe five. Jooyeon wonders how this will work when they inevitably go on tour—will they have to take kissing breaks to help Hyeongjun recharge? He hopes so.
Hyeongjun sighs quietly, tilting his head up a bit, and Jooyeon had just been inhaling, so their teeth accidentally knock together. “Ouch,” Jooyeon says, then goes in for another.
“Ah—sorry,” Hyeongjun whispers shakily, having also just tried to press in again but ending up causing another collision. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“What do you mean? Yes, you do,” Jooyeon smiles, giving him little kisses on each word. “K-I-S-S—”
“I mean, I’ve never done this before. Um, before you,” Hyeongjun explains. He’s blushing. His well-kissed cheeks are warm. “So I’m sorry for being so—anyway.” He leans in, still hesitant but infinitely less hesitant than the first couple of times, for another kiss.
Jooyeon kisses back, but he’s amused now. “Hyung,” he says reasonably, adjusting his arm around Hyeongjun’s shoulders, the one keeping him tucked in nice and tight against his chest. “Yes, you have. We all kiss each other all the time. You’re an expert! Don’t be so modest.”
“Haha,” Hyeongjun says, and then they don’t talk for a little while. And eventually, they go put on the best fucking show ever.
Lately, they haven’t had much time for their duo practices, which is probably for the best because Jooyeon is 100% sure that it would just turn into kissing practice and their playing would suffer. But recently, he had the brilliant idea that maybe kissing would give Hyeongjun confidence in other areas of his life, too, so sometimes he’ll just plant one on him when they’re alone in the kitchen cooking breakfast for everyone else, or he’ll peck him on the cheek right before they start piling out of the van at the next filming location for their show, or he’ll just give him a little drive-by smooch on the top of the head while Hyeongjun is doing homework. It works like a charm; Jooyeon has never felt more powerful, and it seems like it’s really doing it for Hyeongjun, too, who is overall happier and more energetic than Jooyeon has ever seen him before. As for the rest of the band and if anyone has caught on, he wasn’t kidding, they all really do kiss each other all the time, so honestly, it usually just comes across as another day in the life.
###
“Before we leave today, please straighten up your side of the room,” Gunil adds from the doorway.
“Or what?” Jooyeon says, focused on his game of Pokémon.
“Or—huh?” Gunil says, exasperated. “What do you mean, or what?”
“What’ll you do if I don’t?” Jooyeon says snidely. Raichu is kicking Charizard’s ass right now, but it’s gonna be a close battle—Gunil better leave him alone before Jooyeon loses.
“It’s… not about what I’ll do. It’s just good to have a clean room.”
“Why should I clean it? It’ll just get messy again,” Jooyeon says, incredibly reasonably. He should have been a lawyer; his mom always did say he makes great arguments.
Gunil sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Clean up or I’ll… take Hyeongjun away, okay? What do you want me to say? Please just clean your sh—”
“How would you take Hyeongjun away? He lives here,” Jooyeon scoffs. He’s definitely going to win.
“I’ll make you sit at opposite ends of the van,” Gunil threatens. “And I’ll put you on opposite teams when we play games, all day—no, all week. And no cuddling during movie night.”
“Hyung,” Jooyeon gasps, sitting straight up in bed and flinging his Switch onto the covers. Raichu wails and faints. “You can’t—that’s child abuse—”
“Just clean your room, Lee Jooyeon. You have one hour,” Gunil says and leaves.
Jooyeon whines and drags himself out of bed, grumbling and glowering and huffing and puffing. Who does Gunil think he is? What gives him the right? Worst leader ever. Still, the threat is a compelling one, so, still pouting and sulking, Jooyeon reluctantly starts cleaning up: putting his socks in the hamper, throwing away all the empty soda bottles, sorting the sheet music scattered across his desk into folders.
While he’s doing that, he spots something out of order on Gunil’s otherwise pristine side of the room, and makes a haughty, disdainful noise: ha! So Gunil preaches tidiness and commits heinous crimes against Joomanity, while he himself lives like a pig?! Right in the middle of Gunil’s tidy desk is a laminated sheet of paper, askew, and that’s definitely not where it’s supposed to go. Smirking evilly, Jooyeon approaches with his phone out to document the evidence, but right before he snaps the picture, he sees the big headline across the top of the page and stops, curious.
SO TWO OF YOUR MEMBERS ARE “TOGETHER” … NOW WHAT?
Jooyeon sets his phone down and picks the paper up. It’s on JYP stock, and it has three holes punched into the side—it must be from Gunil’s leadership binder. Snickering a little to himself, Jooyeon reads it:
Given the proximity and lifestyle of living with other males, it can sometimes happen for two of your members to take things to the next step and begin to form a romantic relationship. We understand this can be uncomfortable, jarring, or even unpleasant for you at first, but since it is a reality of the entertainment industry, we have compiled this brief guide to help you navigate this confusing phase.
First, please inform your manager immediately if you suspect that your members are in a relationship.
Second, please know this is not necessarily a cause for immediate concern, and it does not necessarily mean that the members in question are homosexuals.
Third, please understand that this is common. Believe it or not, but nearly every group leader has been through what you’re going through now. Even though it’s embarrassing, don’t be afraid to reach out to a senior for advice!
At this stage, you know your members best. Does this relationship seem like a temporary arrangement, or does it resemble a codependent or unhealthy connection? Work with your manager and other company staff to come up with a solution together that fits the relationship.
We recommend two courses of action depending on your assessment: WAIT IT OUT or SHUT IT DOWN.
If the members are generally typical in their other behaviors, and the relationship seems to be in response to external situations—for instance, a group hiatus leading to a lot of free time—then WAITING IT OUT might be the best option. They will likely get bored and move on. Just notify your manager and keep an eye on the relationship until it stops. Be prepared to provide additional emotional support to your members so there isn’t any lingering tension in the group after the breakup.
If the members are acting more like “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” choosing to spend time with each other alone instead of rehearsing or participating in group activities, or otherwise indicating a more serious interest in a relationship, we highly recommend SHUTTING IT DOWN. Management is here to help you with this; we have years of experience and will be able to make the process as smooth and painless as possible, so please reach out to your manager immediately. If a serious romantic relationship arises between members, it could jeopardize the future of the group—and the entire company. So don’t wait until it’s too late!
If you are ever confused or concerned by something you see, your manager and the rest of the company staff are here for you any time. Don’t hesitate to reach out.
On the reverse of this page, you will find some fictional scenarios about your members, followed by multiple-choice questions regarding what to do. Read carefully and good luck!
And in tiny font at the bottom: *We highly recommend against the leader entering into any romantic relationships with members under any circumstances.*
Jooyeon mumbles, “Eww, who would date Gunil,” and flips the paper over. The scenarios and questions are all completely bizarre: Your members get drunk and someone suggests a game of spin-the-bottle… Two of the members have started sleeping in the same bed… You find a package of condoms in the bathroom… All the multiple-choice questions are tricks, because the correct response in every situation—Jooyeon turns the page upside down to check the answers—is “Inform your manager.”
Jooyeon narrows his eyes in thought as he sets the paper back where he found it. Gunil is a very orderly and clean person who’s very careful about his belongings; why would he just leave this lying around? Gunil’s random messiness aside, though, it’s so weird and funny that JYP has to warn leaders about this. He can’t imagine Bang Chan sunbaenim, for instance, with this paper, but it’s hilarious to think about. He wonders who from other groups is dating. And isn’t it better than having a dating scandal with someone outside the company?
Or—he gasps, suddenly suspicious again—is someone within the group dating? Who? Just the thought of it is such a profound betrayal—why wouldn’t they tell him?!—that he has to sit down and catch his breath. Who could it be?!?!?! Unable to keep anything to himself, he texts Jiseokie’s secret second phone (which he has to use now that everyone else has gotten their phones back except him): IS SOMEONE IN THE GROUP DATING????
Jiseokie instantly texts back: lmao
Wat do u mean “lmao”
i mean lmao
JUST TELL ME
But Jiseokie leaves him on read, and Jooyeon is no less confused. Does everyone know something he doesn’t know? Are they leaving him out just because he’s bad at keeping secrets? But he’s keeping such a big secret right now and no one except him and Hyeongjun has any idea!
This is a mystery. And Jooyeon’s no detective, but he’s persuasive and persistent. This is a mystery he can solve.
###
They’re in the van, Jooyeon’s fifth-favorite place to be. Sometimes—like now—long rides are boring, but for the most part, it’s this weird space where rules don’t apply: neither the outside world, nor totally private. He likes looking out of the window and wondering if any of the people they’re passing know who he is. Maybe someday, he’ll know they all do. For now, he just wonders.
By his side, Hyeongjun is listening to music—their music—and rereading his guitar tabs for their setlist for the millionth time today. In the next row up, Jungsu is massaging his own cheeks with a jade roller, and Jiseok is pressing seemingly random buttons on a calculator. Jooyeon can practically smell Gunil’s protein shake from here. They might not have time for their pre-show rituals at the university once they get there, since they’re up first. But there’s still another hour left of the drive, and Jooyeon is in grave danger: he’s getting bored.
“Hyung,” he whispers, gently nudging Hyeongjun’s side. “Hey, hyung.”
Hyeongjun doesn’t jolt anymore, but he does blink heavily and somewhat resentfully over at Jooyeon. He takes out one earbud. “What?”
“I’m bored,” Jooyeon says.
Hyeongjun offers the earbud to him so they can both listen. That definitely won’t be enough to keep Jooyeon entertained—he’s heard all of their songs approximately two hundred million billion times, each—but it’s okay for now, and he scoots down so he can rest his head on Hyeongjun’s shoulder. The van jostles them the most, since they’re in the back row, and Hyeongjun is pretty bony, but Jooyeon doesn’t mind. He likes when he and Hyeongjun get to sit in the back together; sometimes they hold hands. It also means he has a good vantage point to spy on everyone else. He still hasn’t been able to solve the mystery of who in the group is dating.
But just listening to their own music and feeding his own conspiracy theories isn’t enough for long. Jooyeon’s restless again after two more songs. He sits up, takes the earbud out, and taps Hyeongjun on the shoulder. “Hyung,” he says, and bats his eyelashes. “Are you nervous about today?”
“Am I—Jooyeon-ah,” Hyeongjun says, cheeks reddening, voice lowering into a mumble. “It’s my first solo stage, of course I’m—”
“But it was your idea,” Jooyeon reminds proudly, shimmying closer to him.
“Okay, my idea was for all of us to have solo stages,” Hyeongjun disagrees. His cheeks are even redder and Jooyeon coos quietly and tries to swoop in to kiss one, but Hyeongjun, frustrated and shy, happens to look down into his lap at that exact moment, so Jooyeon misses and kisses the air instead. “I still don’t know why you all voted for me to be the only one who actually does it.”
Jooyeon makes up for his missed kiss by giving Hyeongjun’s hair a light ruffle. “You know why,” he murmurs with a small smile.
“…I know your opinion as to why,” Hyeongjun corrects even more quietly, his hand coming up to smooth his hair back down. “Doesn’t mean I agree.”
He’s blushing too much. Normally when Jooyeon starts goading him like this, he’s faster to crack, but his shell seems thicker than ever. He must be really, really nervous, and Jooyeon’s heart jumps with sympathy. The stakes are higher than usual; he won’t have Jooyeon onstage to back him up, for starters. Jooyeon’s no Jiseok, but he can do a little mental math, and some quick calculations result in a formula: five kisses equals one group song, and one group song is six members, so that’s a kiss for each member excluding Hyeongjun himself, and if they’re gone, then that’ll be five kisses times five to make up for it? So twenty-five kisses? Well, shit, Jooyeon better get a move on, then.
But when he’s leaning in, puckered and ready to kiss all Hyeongjun’s worries away, he gets fingers instead of lips: Hyeongjun has put up a hand between them, and his eyes are startled. “We’re not—can you—”
“What?” Jooyeon says, glancing around to follow Hyeongjun’s gaze. “Oh, you mean we’re not alone? So? I told you, everyone’s always kissing—”
“Are they, though?” Hyeongjun says. His voice gets a little higher when he’s distressed, and although it’s cute like everything about Hyeongjun, Jooyeon kinda hates that he knows that—that Hyeongjun is distressed often enough for Jooyeon to recognize the signs. “Like this? Are you?”
“Huh?” Jooyeon blinks. “What?”
Hyeongjun is holding the earbud that Jooyeon had just been listening to, squeezing it so tightly his knuckles are white. After an uncomfortably long pause, he says, “Sorry. Never mind. It’s not a good time to talk about this, right now. Just—I’m just being dumb.”
“Hyung,” Jooyeon scolds, “you know the rule—” And goes in for a kiss.
Fingers, again! Jooyeon is considering taking a leaf out of Jiseokie’s book and biting, but he doesn’t want to risk injuring Hyeongjun’s fret hand. So he just pulls back, confused and a little worried. It’s fine if Hyeongjun doesn’t want to make out in front of everyone, that’s perfectly alright—but if something’s wrong, he wants to know, so he can help. Hyeongjun is still way too red, and his shoulders are hunched up, and he isn’t making eye contact when he softly says, “Jooyeon-ah, I really—I don’t think I can keep doing this.”
He’d said it so quietly that Jooyeon had barely heard him over the bump-rumble of the van’s tires. Then Jooyeon thinks he’d just misheard. But the unhappy expression on Hyeongjun’s face, the way he’s biting his lips, how he’s shrinking away—that has to be what he’d said, even though it makes no sense. Jooyeon’s face falls, too. What did he do wrong? All he wants is to make it better. “Why not?” he tries.
Hyeongjun looks miserable in a way Jooyeon hasn’t seen in a very long time, if ever. “I just—I don’t know what we’re doing,” he mumbles. His eyes dart toward the front of the van, the other members. “And if it’s okay. I don’t even know what you’re getting out of it. Um. Do we have to do this right now?”
“Yes,” Jooyeon says, starting to frown. He pulls his body back a little bit from Hyeongjun so he doesn’t overflow into his space, but he keeps his head close so they can continue their whispered conversation. “What do you mean, if it’s okay? Of course it’s okay. Everyone else is—”
“You keep saying everyone’s always doing it, but I really don’t think they are. What does that even mean to you?” Hyeongjun asks, sounding more frustrated by the second. “Are you kissing everyone else like this? Because if you are, then I really, really can’t do it, Jooyeon-ah, I couldn’t handle—”
“Hyung, what?” Jooyeon huffs. He’s so confused. “No, I’m not, obviously, but—there’s another couple in the group, so it’s not even an issue—”
Hyeongjun chokes. “Excuse me?”
“Gunil-hyung,” Jooyeon says, raising his voice to get his attention from two rows back. “Can we have a band meeting? Right now? I’d like to discuss the topic of relationships—”
“Shh,” Hyeongjun hisses, panicked.
“—because I know someone is dating, and I think it’s unfair to the rest of us to not know who it is!” Jooyeon concludes bombastically.
His dramatic accusation is met with far less, well, drama than he’d been expecting; Gunil turns around to stare at him, mouth a little bit ajar, while Jiseok mutters a curse under his breath and Jungsu, for some reason, smiles kindly at Hyeongjun.
“I think we all wish we knew a lot less,” Seungmin, up front with Gunil, says dryly.
Jooyeon’s frown deepens into a universal glare. “Well?” he demands. “Does anyone have anything they’d like to share, since clearly everybody already knows?”
“Jooyeon,” Hyeongjun says weakly, and Jiseokie starts cackling to himself.
Gunil closes his mouth, then opens it again and says, sounding creaky, “You mean other than you and Hyeongjun?”
“Yes, obviously,” Jooyeon fumes. (Hyeongjun is making feeble squeaky noises next to him; Jooyeon ignores them.) “I found that paper in our room! All about relationships within a group! I know you wouldn’t have had it out for no reason. So who is it?”
Hyeongjun’s hands move to cover his red face tightly. Jooyeon can’t tell if he’s face-palming in despair or delight. They usually go together, when it comes to Hyeongjun. Gunil is also looking with concern at Hyeongjun, but then he looks at Jooyeon, clears his throat, and says, “Lee Jooyeon-ssi, the paper was for you. I deliberately left it out so you would know that I know, which I hoped would come across loud and clear as a hint to be careful.”
Jooyeon’s jaw drops. “Ohhhhhhh,” he says.
“I guess that’s on me for assuming you knew how to be subtle at all,” Gunil continues, faintly amused. “It’s probably only a matter of time before it gets back to the company.”
Beside him, Hyeongjun stiffens anxiously, peeking through his fingers, and Jooyeon would never let anything bad happen to his hyung; that’s the exact opposite of what he’s here to do. He puts his arm around him, and although Hyeongjun doesn’t lean in, he doesn’t pull away, either. Jooyeon, a determined look on his face, holds Hyeongjun tighter. “Are you gonna snitch?” he challenges Gunil.
Gunil sighs. “We’ll consider this your… second warning.”
Jiseokie starts complaining about how it’s unfair that Jooyeon gets away with everything while he gets in trouble just for a minor Minecraft infraction, Gunil retorts that telling other players to kill themselves in a voice chat is hardly a “minor infraction,” Seungmin loftily tells Jiseok that Minecraft is for babies anyway, Jungsu reaches over the seat to unplug Seungmin’s headphones to reveal that he’s been listening to Justin Bieber’s very cringey old-old pop music where he himself sounds like a baby, and as Seungmin and Jiseokie start squabbling over whether that’s cool or lame, Jooyeon turns to Hyeongjun, who is slowly lowering his hands from his face.
“Hyung,” he says gently, not leaning in but staying at a respectful distance. “Are you okay?”
Hyeongjun is watching the unfolding chaos; he seems relieved it doesn’t involve them. “I think so,” he says. “They took it pretty well.”
“Told you they wouldn’t care,” Jooyeon shrugs.
Hyeongjun nods a little. His hands are folded tensely in his lap and he’s unevenly pale and red, but he doesn’t look unhappy anymore, at least. Jooyeon waits patiently. “A relationship, huh?” Hyeongjun finally says.
“What else would you call it? We can call it whatever you want,” Jooyeon says earnestly.
“No, a relationship is fine, I just—I didn’t know that’s what it was to you,” Hyeongjun mumbles, pale spots fading into blushing ones. “I didn’t know you cared that much.”
Jooyeon narrows his eyes. How? All Jooyeon ever does is show Hyeongjun how much he cares. He kisses him, and he plays with him, and he distracts him when he starts getting tangled up in the sticky webs of self-doubt, and he cooks with him, and he writes songs with him, and he just sits with him quietly (as quietly as he’s capable of being, anyway). He’s not sure how Hyeongjun could have missed it; Jooyeon has never been very good with secrets. Maybe if Hyeongjun couldn’t see it, it’s not because Jooyeon wasn’t showing it enough—maybe, like with his stage fright, he just needed a little help. “Well, now you know,” he concludes happily.
“Now I know,” Hyeongjun echoes softly, and this time, when Jooyeon goes in for a small kiss—small, honest! Keeping things respectful!—he lets him.
###
Hyeongjun’s fancam is the one that ends up going viral, this time. His solo stage. It even gets a few write-ups: SEE THE TALENTED YOUNG GUITARIST WHO’S TAKING THE K-BAND SCENE BY STORM.
“You did this,” Hyeongjun tells him, his eyes shining a little bit, cheeks pink, lips puffy. “It’s all you. I could never have done it on my own.”
“But you did,” Jooyeon reminds. He grins, hitting ‘replay’ on the fancam again, even though it makes Hyeongjun groan and hide his face in Jooyeon’s arm. “Don’t forget about me now that you’re famous, okay, hyung?”
“Never,” Hyeongjun says, muffled. The fancam plays on for a minute, Jooyeon watching, enthralled, and Hyeongjun just listening. Quietly, Hyeongjun adds, “You, too.”
“Never,” Jooyeon promises, and kisses him to seal the deal.
Notes:
I JUST ... I JUST THINK THEY'RE NEAT!!!
thank you so much again for reading, please leave a kudos/comment and tell me what you thought! <3
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