Chapter Text
His eyes stung. Wooyoung exhaled sharply, checking if he could breathe right. He focussed, felt his ribcage moving and the fabric against his skin. His shoulders and arms felt tender, like he had had an extra workout session the day before. He flexed his fingers and brought them into tight fists, feeling for the tendons and muscles in his wrists to move under his skin. Rolling his shoulders, he felt for the muscles in his back, letting the movement roll all throughout his body; his upper and lower back, chest, stomach, hips. His legs felt heavy, as if they were somewhere between non-existent and split into a thousand parts. He tried to reverse the routine: checking for his toes first. Better. He curled them individually, and then turned his whole feet at the ankles, rolled them each way and lastly also zeroed in on the feeling in his calves as he flexed and stretched. He could move, but it felt like little razors snapped at his tendons. Next in line came his knees. Concentrating on his thighs and glutes he pulled his legs up, the movement was exhausting like a boulder had been dropped on him. He bent his knees to ground his feet flat on the mattress.
A soft mattress. And a heavy sheet that covered him. He was also clothed and dry. Alright.
Images of working out with San and Yeosang flashed his mind. He remembered: endless dead lifts, almost twenty minutes on the stair master and seven kilometres on the treadmill for the cool down. Sounds of clanking weights, footsteps, and the bright lights reflecting from the mirrored walls everywhere flooded back into him. Yeah, made sense his legs felt like they had been cut open for the tendons to be braided like hair.
He opened his eyes and blinked the burning away. The ceiling looked like it was moving for a minute, swirling and shifting, and his brain needed some time to catch up on determining the distance to it. Lights seemed to flicker behind his eyes, like neurons throwing sparks as they fired new information towards one another. But the room itself was barely lit, dark grey surrounded him and he could only make out San in the other bed because Wooyoung already knew he was there: asleep curled into himself, clutching his pillow like a loved one, phone charger blinking green on his bedside table.
“But do you think we’ll have to submit individual requests for holidays or that’s already implied when they say we’ll have a break from schedules?” Hongjoong asked, pausing before taking another sip from his Americano, to which Seonghwa shrugged, disinterested, “Could be either.” Hongjoong frowned at Seonghwa who kept his eyes down politely while eating his breakfast; he wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Of course not. He asked for an opinion to weight out his options, and was told they were equal. “Vocals have a little gap in between dance practise and recording. I can hunt down manager-nim and ask. Or well,” he shrugged again. Wooyoung couldn't tell why. “Suggest it, maybe that’ll do something.” Wooyoung watched the older grin; his eyes figuratively sparkled as Hongjoong gave him a tired smile.
Why did Seonghwa shrug if he knew what he was going to say, and already expected the other’s reaction?
Shrugging would usually imply cluelessness. Seonghwa wasn’t clueless.
“Why do you need to know, hyung?” Jongho asked, poking around in his chicken rice bowl. Why do you need to know, Wooyoung squinted slightly at their youngest.
“My family’s been bugging me about a vacation and said they want to plan soon and I’d like to join, if I’m being honest,” Hongjoong vented a bit.
Wooyoung didn’t really listen. Hongjoong was fond of his family, but he didn’t enjoy talking about them or to them, Wooyoung concluded from the way Hongjoong usually slumped a little and huffed and frowned when he did.
“How is your brother, by the way, Wooyoung?” San caught his attention. “He’s fine,” Wooyoung answered thoughtlessly.
Whoever this brother was, he was probably fine. It earned him several raised eyebrows if he noticed it. “Didn’t you visit him because he was so deadly sick a few days ago?” San added, as if to explain himself. Wooyoung shrugged, “It’s alright. It was probably just the full moon or something,” he ended with a smile.
Something he learned early on: blame it on the moon, or the weather, or say it has been going around lately – people loved to say that. “It’s not a full moon,” Yunho laughed, almost spitting out his mouthful of food, “We’re barely past a new moon if anything.” Mingi joined him in his amusement, squeezing his eyes shut and slapping his thigh.
Another thing Wooyoung learned: blame those who cannot be falsified. “They were his words, not mine. He’s dramatic like this, you know,” he crossed his arms on the table top casually and sighed, as if he were inconvenienced by the non-existent memory of his brother. “Late effects,” Yeosang muttered, and earned another round of giggles.
Wooyoung liked Yeosang like this; quiet, lurking in the background, but quick-witted at any time. It meant Yeosang was smart and attentive, as well as quite literate. He knew many things, random things that seemed unconnected, but were still held together by a distant pattern. He could sometimes see things others didn’t. But it sometimes made him appear out of place or slow to follow, while he actually focused on details no one else noticed.
“Guys, this is the fourth break we’re taking already. It’s barely been two hours,” the man next to the sound system shouted. “Wooyoung-ssi, sit out from here. You’re disrupting the routine,” he pointed to the side, signalling Wooyoung to sit down.
He felt a surge of something in his chest. Though it wasn’t from nausea or exhaustion, it wasn’t physiological at all. But something held him in place, burning his eyes into the man’s skull for a moment. Then he let up, and slowly limped towards the wall to sink down. His full body weight slumped against the wooden panelling and caused crunching noises to ripple through the room. “Don’t break the wall, Wooyoung-ssi, you couldn’t even coordinate left and right a minute ago,” the man added and made another heat flare up in Wooyoung, but no one reacted verbally.
His legs weren't working well.
This wasn’t normal.
Was it the moon, after all? He almost huffed in sarcasm. It was probably a full moon somewhere. His legs felt weird and heavy - like they had been shredded into pieced and glued back together. And now they didn’t belong to his body anymore. They felt like an abstract mosaic sculpture. Something that was made of so many random pieces that only fit together with more gaps and cracks to fill the space instead. They felt distant and unfamiliar. He couldn’t coordinate his movements; he couldn’t estimate his proximity and space. So he kept stumbling, and twisting the wrong way, or moving too far, too little to the side, whatever. There was an itch in his hands, in his fingers, to do something. There was a train of thoughts consisting of insults against whatever caught his eye, all while critically watching his legs as if they would then fall off and a new pair would grow back on.
A better pair.
Like new legs, but ones that already knew everything.
San giggled, which made Wooyoung look up and he saw the others were breathing heavily, sitting down or taking a drink.
“Masked technology,” Jongho said with clear pronunciation as if he were repeating it. “And what is that?” Hongjoong squinted. “Some brain washing thing. Don’t bother, hyung,” Yunho cut in and made Jongho pout at him in annoyance.
Something he did often and believed to hide well, but didn’t hide it at all. It was part of his non-verbal manners. As the youngest he wasn’t really allowed to scold the others when he deemed them wrong, even though as a group amongst themselves they had established to ignore the hierarchy by age in favour of correcting and improving. “It’s not brain washing, hyung, I already told you,” Jongho whined, “It’s neuroscience and focuses on ways to study and interfere with brain activity at an intercellular level. It’s highly modern,” he explained with his eyes growing big. “So it’s brain washing,” Hongjoong and Yunho concluded simultaneously, at made the others laugh again.
“There’s no brain-activity going on for this guy. How do you deal with him?” the choreographer interrupted them. Wooyoung’s eyes shifted towards him.
This man was mean. He was strict, of course. And everyone else described him as someone who was usually nice and considerate. But for Wooyoung he was just a nightmare. Wooyoung didn’t know how to act around him, how do react to his insults. He could handle criticism for dancing, advice for singing and understand when someone told him that his personality seemed distant and lifeless sometimes. But plain condescendence, somewhat personal, it seemed, Wooyoung couldn’t understand. “He can’t dance,” the man stated simply. “I’ll have another talk with the executives and call them in for another monitoring, because I really can’t believe they want to pull through with this,” he loosely pointed in Wooyoung’s direction.
With this.
With him.
With Wooyoung.
The mention of him out of this man’s mouth had become a euphemism for an admittedly surprising decision to add Wooyoung to the group when they had been established as seven people even before a dancer from KQ discovered them during an underground dance competition. He had suggested finding them and at least hiring them as dancers.
And then Eden had been hooked when Hongjoong randomly played foreign melodies on the keyboard in his studio when he confessed he would also be interested in composing and producing.
The next day they had been invited to singing classes and the head casting agent was convinced they found KQ’s very own gold mine.
Then they were put under contract for training and soon the first lyrics were handed out and recorded for test-runs. Not fully one year later, their debut was almost on the horizon.
And then Wooyoung showed up.
And set them back for another six months at least.
Or - he was put in front of them and introduced as the eighth member. Within the industry they would call it the “missing piece,” the last member that was added to the line-up who then perfected their harmony.
But Wooyoung had been met with frowns and judging eyes. No one really could make sense of another member, especially someone completely new to the field, since the word range was barely fitting when he explained his expertise.
Wooyoung was eager to prove he was talented, though. He quickly caught up to their level, surprising everyone - even himself. He stood against all judgement and harsh challenges – Hongjoong had smiled in reminiscence and recounted how Eden had also tested him beyond the usual standards. Wooyoung had overcome each hurdle.
At least that’s how the others always told it when prompted. How much truth it held Wooyoung couldn’t say. He barely remembered his training period aside from that it was exhausting beyond his expectations. Not that he had had any to begin with. But the fact that the others only talk about him when asked about it told him that they also weren’t honestly happy with the change.
And he admitted that he also still wondered why he was added at last, not to be ungrateful, but still curious. He just let himself be, dance, sing, and enjoy the development that the others seemed fond enough of him by now.
San and Yeosang had warmed up to him rather quickly, he reminisced, curious and playful; they still asked about his well-being and invited him to tag along wherever they went.
Yunho and Mingi had been in their own bubble from the beginning, and usually included him in their height comparisons every other week.
Along Mingi and Jongho, Wooyoung made it into the so called dongsaeng-line, the cluster of the youngest members of a group, although he didn’t really fit the behaviour. He wasn’t as bubbly and mischievous, even though he still helped them plan pranks and jokes, since he had a gift of exactly calculating the reactions they’d receive. It made Hongjoong wary of him, and he had to answer to many more interrogations about magic and witchcraft than Wooyoung deemed playful anymore.
Seonghwa was light-hearted and sweet, perfectly balancing the motherly love and fatherly control of following rules; Wooyoung always felt protectiveness oozing from him, and it lulled him in every time he felt discouraged.
Sometimes his place felt off and wobbly, like it was synthetically crafted to fit him, but he had no reason to tap out. Why would he now? He hadn’t stolen someone else’s chance or spotlight; he still put in lots of effort to keep his place and made sure to prove he deserved it. Expect for that one dance teacher, everyone seemed to be fine with his work.
“I swear there’s something else with you every two weeks. Don’t even look at me like this,” the man scolded and a heavy silence settled in the room. “Hyung-nim, Wooyoung-ssi was with a sick family member during the weekend and-“
“And now he brought that over here? You’re set to travel half the globe to shoot your music videos next week - are you aware of that, Hongjoong? The debut is set. You’re supposed to keep your members in check. It is careless to put the work of not just you seven, but also the company’s investment in you on the line because – what? His father had a little cough? Get over it,” he spat at them.
Wooyoung wanted to become invisible the moment when some members turned their head to look at him. He knew they all had lingering doubts about him. Now they just manifested again. Why couldn’t someone else of his family take care of his father? The frustration was overwhelming, the dance teacher was right.
He shouldn’t have gone.
The weekend had gone by so fast, like any other day, really.
It all blurred together. Sometimes days bled into on another and weeks went by and Wooyoung had no sense of time anymore.
He just woke up, tagged along with the others to schedules and appointments and went to sleep again.
San was holding his hand and rambling as he found himself sitting on his bed. Wooyoung eyed it closely, feeling the warmth seeping into his own skin.
He looked more upset than Wooyoung. Probably because he was. San usually felt and showed his emotions intensely, which already earned him a title throughout the dance community since he quickly learned to put it to use during performances.
Wooyoung was the opposite. He showed facial expressions only while dancing. Actually he just learned to make facial expression for dancing. Otherwise he held a stone cold gaze with his lips relaxed into a straight line. He was often described as apathetic and rude because of it, people would say he wasn’t even trying to pretend to pay attention.
But it never held any truth, which gave him an easy way to ignore those rumours. He liked to listen and pay attention to details, notice patterns and then forecast what people would do or say; he only didn’t show it on his face. Why would he? He could express himself with words if needed.
“But he doesn’t need to pit us up against you,” San reasoned, sounding annoyed almost. “Your brother was sick. Where does he take the right to hold it against you if you’re taking care of your family? He would have praised any other member to still be so thoughtful even throughout busy schedules, I promise.” Wooyoung knew San was right. A knock on the door drew their attention away from each other, yet San held onto Wooyoung’s hand as they sat on his bed. Hongjoong had poked his head inside. “Are you talking about dance practise?” he guessed. San nodded. “I’m kinda more upset than Wooyoung though, no need to console him.”
Wooyoung almost grinned at that comment. He just thought San was more upset than Wooyoung, too, but it didn’t mean Wooyoung wasn’t upset at all and didn’t need consoling. San meant well. He knew Wooyoung didn’t like to lay his feelings open and talk about them, but he still enjoyed when others considered that he still had feelings. At least that’s what he told himself. He had long accepted that he didn’t just hide his feelings, but he actually might not feel any most of the time. San sometimes slipped up and also assumed Wooyoung didn’t need any sort of emotional attention. As long as the atmosphere remained somewhat light-hearted and no one cried, it was fine.
“I assume San already told you not to break your head over it. Yujin-hyung is strict with the newbies. They also put me and Yunho through the most random bullshit drama to see if we were going to quit,” Hongjoong added.
He also never grew tired of talking about his first few weeks at KQ, when he was barely the first trainee under the label since the others hesitated before signing in as well. It made him feel especially strong and resilient, as if it were his origin story to be chosen as their leader.
Wooyoung only nodded. Aside from his latent self-praise, Hongjoong was right. The teachers and coaches definitely liked to play favourites, and the newest additions or the least talented ones filled the roles of their enemies. “Just know you’re very hard-working and that your dad can be happy to have such a caring child to count on when he’s unwell.”
Wooyoung noticed San kept looking between him and Hongjoong as if he were waiting for more words to be said. Hongjoong smiled at them, and winked at San, which Wooyoung couldn’t make any deeper sense of.
Winking usually implied either flirting or another type of subtext. Either explanation seemed unsatisfying so Wooyoung dropped it from his mind. Hongjoong left, but a stagnant silence stayed. San shifted a few times, Wooyoung didn’t comment. “So, um… Hyung is right. Caring is never a fault. The company’s probably on edge because they’re investing a lot in us as their first group. They have high expectations.” Wooyoung nodded. It was true.
“Do you know when you’ll be visiting Nowon-gu again, Wooyoung-ah? The news said they’re expecting a huge traffic jam,” Hongjoong asked casually, not even looking at Wooyoung in favour of picking out the vegetables from his breakfast. “It’ll be alright. It’s usually like that,” Wooyoung answered. He had no idea what Hongjoong was talking about. Judging the curious eyes of everyone else neither did any of them, but no one said anything. “They said because all the students will leave the campus after their exams so public transport will be completely overfilled,” the older added.
Wooyoung tried not to stare. He wasn’t that close with Hongjoong, but he knew, especially for that very reason, he wouldn’t just start to chat him up like this.
He was onto something.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Wooyoung agreed either way. “Give your brother my best. I know my sister was taken apart by her exams,” Hongjoong kept rambling.
His brother?
“It’s a ton of lectures he has to work through. I don’t envy him,” Wooyoung lied. When he looked up, Hongjoong eyed him sharply, like he wasn’t surprised that answer but wasn’t happy about it. He wore that same look as when they schemed out a dance routine or a concept, but still unimpressed.
He looked convinced, though; like he had made up his mind.
Wooyoung could feel his heart beat faster in his chest, as if he was getting ready to run. His legs started sizzling. When he tried to shift they felt cold and heavy.
He couldn't run.
But he should.
Just-
Do something.