Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Even before he exited his car, he could already hear the screams, the chants of his name, the shutters of the cameras going off at a speed that it was bound to be blinding the moment he stepped out.

The noise lights his blood on fire, exhilaration flooding his veins. He offers his driver a smile, taking a last-minute glance at the rear-view mirror to fix his bangs and opens the car door.

Immediately, the noises increase ten-fold, and he has to turn his head to prevent the flashes blinding him. Pulling his lips up in a smile he knows will have his fans swooning, he starts making his way down the red carpet, waving at the crowds and cameras.

The MC calls his name, his voice drowned by the screaming crowd. Usually Mu Qing hates red carpet interviews, having to answer the same few questions of how glad he is to be here, no he still doesn’t have someone special in his life, yes, he is working on a new solo project but can’t say anything about it—it’s always the same routine.

But today, even the horrors of impromptu interviews can’t dim the spark of joy in his heart, even when Pei Ming is the MC. He takes the offered mic with a smile, nodding at Pei Ming, who looks ecstatic to finally be able to needle him in public.

“Mu Qing!” Pei Ming starts, pausing to let the fans stop screaming before continuing. “Long time no see!”

Mu Qing laughs into the mic, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He turns to where Pei Ming is stood, “I didn’t expect you to be MCing today.”

Pei Ming offers a laugh of his own, “What can I say? I heard you are finally back in China and attending a public event, and I just had to take the opportunity to be the one to welcome you back.”

He looks at his cue card, “There is so much catching up to do, but first, for your Chinese fans, how have you been? How is Korea treating you?”

Mu Qing hums into the mic, “I have been good, pretty good. Korea is lovely, but I am so busy that even after all these years, I have yet to properly sightsee. I will say though, as delicious as Korean dumplings are, they don’t hit the same as the ones from home.”

“Aww, and I was hoping you’d give me some recommendations for my next getaway.”

“As if you haven’t been to Korea enough times already!” Mu Qing answers, tone flippant and coupled with a teasing eye roll. It earns him a chorus of giggles from the crowd and a contained laugh from Pei Ming.

“Still, living there must give a different perception.” Pei Ming points out before he continues per the script. Mu Qing is honestly shocked that he is following the script so well instead of just jumping in and asking the scandalous questions he knows is brewing in his stomach.

“Holidays aside, I hear huge congratulations are in order! Not only did your new release break charts in China, but it also topped charts in Korea and news has it that it just entered Billboard 200!”

The screams resulting from that announcement almost deafens Mu Qing, and a thread of pride unfurls in his chest. “Thank you.” He smiles, unable to contain that pride, that joy. “I am very, very thankful to all my fans for their hard work. All this success is purely because of their dedication and unbridled love. Thank you for giving so much love to this album.”

Pei Ming smiles at him, this one much smaller, “It is also your relentless hard work that has made it possible. After all, handling two careers in two separate countries and still being able to show your utmost best is no easy task.” He nods at the crowd, “Your sincerity and dedication has touched so many people that they had no choice but to reward that sincerity.”

Mu Qing’s throat constricts at those words. He did not imagine to ever hear them, let alone from Pei Ming.

“Thank you.” He says after a while, turning to the crowd to avoid Pei Ming’s soft sincerity. “I promise to continue to be just as diligent and show new sides of myself and return the love everyone has given me.”

“I am sure you will,” Pei Ming glances at the cue card again, “I look forward to your new projects. Now, seeing as this is Weibo nights and it’s all about us actors, I hear you are considering some scripts to make your acting debut in the Chinese industry. Tell us something about it.”

“Well, there isn’t much to say yet since nothing is decided. But I have been quite homesick recently, so it would certainly be nice to return to China, even for a few months. I will keep everything else a secret for a while longer.”

“A wise decision!” Pei Ming laughs, turning to the crowd and whispering conspiringly, “It seems that he is keeping the cards close to his chest, what secrets might he be hiding?”

Mu Qing rolls his eyes and offers Pei Ming a sweet smile he knows can send shivers down the spines of even the most headstrong people, “You will be the last to know when the secrets are revealed. I will make sure of that.”

Pei Ming groans, clutching his chest is faux hurt, “The betrayal!”

The exchange earns them the crowd’s laughter.

After they quiet down, Pei Ming speaks again, “Good luck on your future projects. Whatever you do, I am sure it will be amazing, but one thing is for certain. We would certainly love for you to return to China and formally promote here again. And I am sure, the debut of actor Mu Qing on Chinese television will be just as successful as your music career.”

Mu Qing smiles, “Thank you.” Turning to the crowd and bowing, “I promise to live up to your expectations.”

As he walks off the red carpet, Pei Ming offers him a one-armed hug, and usually Mu Qing would decline, but high on the exhilaration of success and the joy of finally being home, he reciprocates, laughing at Pei Ming’s dumbfounded expression.

If Mu Qing was honest, when he left China to re-debut in Korea, he was almost certain that he will never return again. China was nothing but a reminder of everything that has gone wrong, an open gash on his heart that he could only hide by leaving.

The blood was still fresh when he boarded that plane, recently orphaned, alone, lost, a goodbye half-way up his throat.

Korea was not easy. Living there with the barely any knowledge of the language, being treated as lesser by producers and other trainees alike, being looked over in favour of worser candidate simply because they were Korean, and he was not.

He worked hard still, kept at it diligently despite the many excuses for why he couldn’t debut.

They said he was too old to debut with boys barely on the cusp of adulthood; he was too mature for the concept the company was looking for; he already had a career so it’s better to give this opportunity to others; his name was already tarnished and investing in him won’t be a wise decision.

Some days, it felt as though he was floating in the open sea, sinking into its unknown depths, the suitcase holding the remnants of the life he left behind too heavy yet too fragile to hold his weight.

Some days, all of it felt useless, the sleepless nights he spent pouring over Korean textbooks, the long days that strained his muscles in a way he feared he would never be able to walk again, the lonely afternoon as all the trainees filed out, chattering amongst themselves, and leaving him behind with an exhausted body, a tired mind, and a heavy heart.

More than once, he opened the suitcase that contained all his life and wondered if all of it was a mistake. More than once, his hands would brush against the picture frame he could not bear to throw away, and he would find himself spawled on the ground, shaky fingers tracing the edges of three equally bright smiles. More than once, he wondered if the boy smiling in that picture was really him. More than once, he wondered if the other two boys would smile the same now if he was still there. More than once, he wanted to pull out the phone hidden behind piles of dirty clothes and call home.

Then he would remember that he no longer had a home, that for him, home was only this old, torn suitcase that was once his father’s and is now his. Who would he call? His mother was all but ashes on a countertop back at the broken-down house he could not find in himself to sell. He no longer had anyone to turn to nor anywhere to go.

The two boys in that picture with him would no longer pick up even if he were to call, the friendship bracelet that still carried no longer had its companions, the counterparts torn and scattered on the same playground they were made.

There was nowhere for Mu Qing to go but forward, into the bleak darkness of the unknown. He had no other choice but to walk and keep walking, even when he was falling apart at the seams, even though his body felt so heavy that he could barely stand.

He had to keep walking because he did not have the option to stop and rest.

As he is guided to his seat, for the first time that day, Mu Qing finds the tendrils of dread climbing up his spine, curling around his lungs. Although it had been at the back of his mind since his manager confirmed his attendance to this event, with all the hustle bustle of wrapping up his activities in Korea had kept him busy enough that Mu Qing hadn’t had the time to truly consider the other implications of his attendance tonight.

Implications that include facing the people he left behind, being faced with the past he has tried moving past.

Implications that have him bumping into a familiar shoulder and stumbling to a stop.

Mu Qing, despite all the media training and iron-clad grip on his expressions and emotions couldn’t help but freeze on the spot. Eyes wide, jaw slack, he knows he must look like a joke, nothing like the elegant and sophisticated persona he has hammered into every cell of his body. Faintly, he sees those familiar brows crease as the man recognises him, sees golden-brown eyes widen in shock and the flash of a kaleidoscope of emotions run through them. Faintly, he recognises the logical, professional part of him trying to move him, trying to get his expressions to shift into something more indiscernible instead of just gaping like a fish.

But his body remains frozen, stuck in-between a fight of flight response.

He needs to move, but the only part of him that seems to be in motion are his twitching fingers that ache to reach out and trace the cut of the man’s jaw, so much more refined than the last time he saw him.

The man opens his mouth, and that seem to finally unlock Mu Qing’s limbs. The ice in his brain melts and a cacophony of thoughts rush in, making him almost stumble again.

But his manager is finally here, scolding him for pausing in the middle of the room like that, and then he is being pulled away with a grip around his arm and he has never been more thankful that his manager has always been so ruthlessly focused on the task at hand.

He mumbles out a sorry for bumping into the other person, vision fixed to the ground lest he look up to those golden eyes and freeze up again.

If the man says something, or tries to, Mu Qing doesn’t hear, the rush of his blood and the pounding of his heart drowning all the other noise around him.

If he looks visibly shaken, his manager doesn’t say it, only holds him by the arm and guides him to his seat and passes him a bottle of water.

As he takes a sip, everything he had worked hard to push to the back of his mind, to forget, rushes back to him in such speed that it leaves him gasping, head spinning.

And Mu Qing has had issues with his company’s training system, but he has never been more appreciative of their initiative to hammer in the art of a blank face in every idol who has trained with them than he is right now.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, willing his heart to stop trying to climb out of his ribs. All the memories that came rushing back with that brief encounter is shoved back into their boxes and the locks are decisively clicked shut. When he opens his eyes again, anything amiss with his bearing has been absorbed into the sophisticated indifference of his usual demeaner.

He is the only one in his row currently, seated in the middle with direct view of the stage. Although he is still filled with trepidation, the names assigned to seats either side of him are familiar and furthest from any connection to his dreaded past.

Before the emptiness can cause his mind to wander again, he is pulled into a cheerful hug, and Baiheng is conspiringly whispering in his ear.

“Why is Feng Xin staring at the back of your head like it holds the answer to all the secrets of this universe?”

Mu Qing flinches at the name and it takes everything in him to not look back to confirm Baiheng’s intel.

Instead, he pats her arm and whispers, “If you don’t let go now, we are going to wake up tomorrow to a marriage and three kids.”

Baiheng’s snicker is airy in a way that tells Mu Qing he definitely caught her off-guard with that comment, and it brings a small cheeky smile to his lips as Baiheng takes a seat. She leans in, nudging their shoulders together, “Are you going to be carrying those kids, because I am going to be too busy on a world tour to do much of the childbearing.”

Mu Qing snorts, shaking his head and pushing away from her. “Please,” He rolls his eyes, “I already have too many problems in my life, pregnancy might just kill me.”

“You say that like you can get pregnant.” Another voice joins in, laughing when Mu Qing startles, “And if you get my girlfriend pregnant, I will make sure to hang you upside down in your underwear in front of Inkigayo for everyone to see.”

“Jingliu!” Baiheng cackles out loud, sobering up when the noise attracts the attention of some of the staff loitering around. She continues at a lower voice, “You and your threats! Look at the poor boy, he looks like you just sucked all the blood off his face.”

“Instilling some fear in him is never too bad.” Jingliu huffs, hugging her girlfriend. “He is too feisty for his own good.”

“I really don’t know if I am being complimented or insulted right now.” Mu Qing grunts with a roll of eyes as before he is roughly dragged into Jingliu’s arms.

Jingliu shrugs, stepping away from the hug and moving to her seat beside Baiheng, “Take it as you will. At least your habit of rolling your eyes is still there.”

“It’s a Mu Qing-staple,” Baiheng laughs, “If he isn’t rolling his eyes every two sentences, he’s either hasn’t slept in a week or so deep in his head that he hasn’t processed the conversation.”

Mu Qing opens his mouth to rebut their claims, but twin knowing looks has him pausing and looking away, ears burning in embarrassment when both women snicker at that.

“How is your shooting going?” He asks Jingliu instead, changing the topic further away from himself, “I hear you almost made some of the kids cry.”

Jingliu huffs, “It’s fine. The ones that can dance can’t sing, the ones that sing don’t have a single coordinated muscle in their body, and whoever said judging a reality show is easy because all the trainees are prepared for the camera was a liar because some of these kids make me want to shoot myself in front of them.”

“Take it easy,” Baiheng soothes her girlfriend, “You don’t want to traumatise those kids even before they stepped into the industry.”

“Most of them haven’t gone through the horrors of the Korean trainee system,” Mu Qing adds on, shuddering at the reminder of his trainee days.

“Some trauma might be good for them, you know, character building.” Jingliu scoffs, before she sighs, crossing her arms, “The disqualifications are the hardest to get through. The kids, especially the ones that were in Produce are desperate for debut, but the desperation only makes them more nervous and prone to more mistakes. I can overlook them, but the audience is unforgiving.”

Baiheng nods, lips pressing into a sad line, “Being scrutinised in front of others is already pathetic and demoralising, to have that broadcasted for the world to see is a whole different level of pressure. No matter that they chose this, it feels cruel having to see it. The desperation and passion rarely translate over on TV screens, and no matter how pitiful they are, if they can’t catch the attention of producers, and of the audience, they are bound to lose.”

“They all have potential, but they don’t have the training needed to fully utilise that potential yet. Even their skills are lacking to be able to survive in the industry.” Jingliu sighs, “Looking at them go from these hopeful, bright-eyed kids to looking exhausted and hopeless…I am either constantly reminded of the nightmare of my trainee days, or constantly irritated that these companies keep sending kids who are barely able to hold a note and forcing them into unhealthy habits.”

Mu Qing nods in understanding. He had featured in one of the special episodes of Produce some years back, either the second or third season, and it was really a testament of his media training that he didn’t flip a table when he found out that some of the kids stayed up for 3 nights straight perfecting the song for presentation. He did get his fill yelling at them to never do that again. Later, he had felt too guilty taking out his frustrations on kids already on the verge of collapse and had taken some of his free time to treat them, all thirty-two of them, to some homemade bulgogi and kimbap.

The memory still makes him smile—the way the kids lit up when the food arrived and then froze when it was announced that he had handmade them, hesitating to open the containers until Mu Qing sat down and opened one himself.

When the eventual group debuted, they brought some ill-shapen wonton to his waiting room as thanks. Mu Qing still has the container stored somewhere in his cabinet.

Even now, after the group’s eventual disbandment, after they re-debuted solo or in their new groups, every time their comebacks align with Mu Qing, they make sure to pop in to say hello, often with some food as offering, as if Mu Qing is some God that they need to pray to for good luck and a successful comeback.

It seems that he isnt the only one that remembers that incident because Baiheng nudges his shoulder with a smile. “You really did get yourself some lifelong fans with those gimbap. I have never seen anyone train as enthusiastically as those boys did after they ate your food.”

“Did you see what they were serving in the cafeteria,” Mu Qing shudders at the memory, “No wonder those kids could barely move a limb.”

“Should I make them something too?” Jingliu asks in lieu of an answer.

“Please don’t,” Baiheng gasps, eyes wide in terror.

“You will kill those poor kids, jie-jie.” Mu Qing replies, “Just take them out for some hotpot.”

“You bastard,” Jingliu huffs, shoving at him, “My cooking is fine! You people just have a weak stomach.”

“I had to cancel my fan meeting the day after eating your food.” Mu Qing mourns, “They made me pay five million won for cancelling so last minute.”

Baiheng joins in, “I had to sit out on the encore stages in Korea too.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jingliu accuses, “We are literally in the same group, darling.”

“I still felt off that entire week!”

Jingliu offers them both a chilling glare, but relents nonetheless, “Fine, no one will be privy to my culinary skills.”

Baiheng and Mu Qing let out a chorused sigh of relief, earning Mu Qing a hard smack on his shoulder and Baiheng a hard look.

Engrossed in their conversation, Mu Qing had almost forgotten that the encounter from earlier. And he would have really preferred for it to have remained that way; alas, Jiang Xing takes this time to take his seat on Mu Qing’s other side, leaning over inquiringly.

“Mu-ge, not to creep you out or anything, but why is Feng Xin staring at you like he’s seen a ghost?” He asks, shooting a discreet glance behind him.

Immediately, Mu Qing is hyperaware of the stare that is burning through his hair, unmoving. He fights the urge to turn around, but Baiheng has no such qualms.

“Wait, is he still—”

It’s only because of Mu Qing’s quick reflex that she is barred from turning around fully and making it obvious that Mu Qing has noticed the attention.

“Don’t turn around!” He hisses, face flaming at the dumbfounded look on the faces of the three he is seated with.

Jingliu raises a knowing brow, but the questioning looks from Baiheng and Jiang Xing tells he will be cornered later to cough out the details of his visceral reaction.

“Ooh,” Jiang Xin waggles his brows, “Is Mu-ge hiding something?”

Mu Qing immediately wants to throttle him; scandalous headlines be damned. For someone so smart, Jiang Xing is really fucking dumb at times, and its only Jingliu’s infamously terrifying glare that has him retracting his words, moving away with his hands held up in surrender.

“Sorry, Mu-ge.” He says, not sounding sorry at all, “If you want, I can pour some wine on him during the after-party.”

“Jiang Xing.” Mu Qing mutters, “If you don’t look forward and act like nothing happened, I will make sure Lin Qingyu breaks up with you.”

“Don’t go that far, don’t go that far,” Jiang Xing immediately cowers, following his instructions with perfect posture, “I didn’t see anything, or hear anything, or say anything.”

Mu Qing ignores him, instead fixing his tie. He corrects his posture and lets the icy coldness he usually wears outside slip into his visage. Baiheng knocks her shoulder into him but doesn’t say anymore.

The darkness did not have an end, and Mu Qing was tired. The exhaustion was deep seated in his bones, and in the little time he had to himself, Mu Qing often found himself wondering if all of this had been for naught, that perhaps this was his deserved karma, biting him now when he is down.

The further he walked, the faster he ran, the deeper the oblivion got, and Mu Qing was tired of marching into a tunnel with no end.

There was no end to this darkness, and Mu Qing’s walls were eroded by a loneliness so deep that it would not have surprised him if doctors cut him up and all that would leak from him would be an empty void, skeleton degraded to dust, muscles turned black with festering rot.

He had never belonged where he was, not when he was young, not now. He had always felt as if he a misplaced puzzle piece, an unnoticed mistake that left him with no place to call his own in the grand schemes of life. When he was a toddler, he was the only child without a father; when he was a teenager, he was the only person who attended a renowned private academy and yet did not have enough money to even try and scrape up to buy a new uniform.

When he debuted in China for the first time and riding the highs of success, he felt out of place among all bright lights the glamour of celebrity life, his voice too small, his hands too scarred, his skin too pale, hair too dark, someone who somehow fit the beauty standards of this cut-throat industry yet was unnoticed and unwanted by those who bothered sparing him a glance.

When everything fell apart, he felt out of place, unimportant and discarded when the others had each other to lean on, to help bear the fall from glory, and Mu Qing was just there, cast aside, having never even belonged.

 When he left, when his mother died, when he decided to grasp onto that thin sliver of light that promised a restart—during all of it, Mu Qing had felt as though his body was a separate entity than the chaos and jumble that he was, going through the motions of life, yet so disjointed from all of it, wanting success and working for it only to return empty-handed and missing more of himself than before, carving out his meat to fill that hollow in his soul, cutting away his muscles and skin to fit more of whatever would allow him to stand out, anything that would make him indispensable.

He felt out of place in Korea, his eyes too sharp, his jaw too square. Among the sweaty, tired trainees with big goals and bigger dreams, he felt out of place because his enunciation was all wrong, and his tone was too cold, not respectful enough, and why would anyone spare the time of day for a disgraced former celebrity when they had so much potential to hone themselves.

He was tired, the exhaustion seeped into the very marrow of his existence and yet, no matter what he could not stop himself from chasing his ambitions, the dream that formed in an empty classroom, with a brush of fingers against strings of a guitar that was not his own. He wanted to lay down, to pause and breath for once, but he was terrified that if he stopped, he could never get up again. If he were to slow down, the dream that is already so far away will be even more unachievable, and so, he kept walking, dragging his achy bones and heavy heart, pushing the loneliness back, back, back, until he could feel nothing but the pounding headache of overwork.

Despite trainees joining later than him, despite some of them being less skilled than him, they still got to grasp on to debut before him and all Mu Qing had to show for all his efforts were the few Won, he made singing the backing vocals or filling in for a backup dancer.

Mu Qing had learned early on that Korea was not kind to its natives, let alone to foreigners. He had understood long ago that the only way to get to where he wants to, if he wants to debut, and for that debut to be a success, he needs to debut with a group, as the token foreign member who will pull in the single-minded dedication of Chinese fans while always getting the short end of the stick.

And so, early on, sometime around the second year of his training, after yet another failed promise for debut, Mu Qing had made the impulsive decision to take the CSAT, just to ensure he was not left completely empty-handed if something went wrong.

Somehow, by an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, not only had he had passed, but he had done so with a high enough mark that he was able to get a full-ride scholarship to Baekseok Arts University. All of it, he had to navigate by himself, stumbling along the way, until he was at the front gates of the university, and it felt like the air in his lungs were crisp for the first time in a long, long while.

For the first time in twenty years, after having to claw his way into places that never considered him, Mu Qing felt at peace with his decision, no guilt clawing at his ribs and holding his heart hostage, no second thought of unbelonging. As he walked through the halls, he did not feel as though he was undeserving of being here, that it was a privilege that he was here.

Of course, ultimately, it was a privilege. He was a Chinese student in what was an exclusively Korean arts university. Except for their exchange programs inviting foreign students, this university did not have any non-Korean students. For him to be given a spot here was privilege, and yet, it was a different privilege from the ones he was a beneficiary of in the past. This privilege of his was earned by his blood and sweat, this privilege was a pure show of his skill, and no one here would deny it in favour of someone’s kindness. He was here because he earned it, irrespective of anyone’s compassion, irrespective of his status or his bank account.

Ultimately, that insecurity of his was minute in the grand scheme of things. Naturally quiet, it was difficult for Mu Qing to find friends—not that he needed any. It was only worrying when they were assigned a group project and Mu Qing had no one to work it, eventually being stuffed in a random group that did not have their quota full.

That was where he had initially met Baiheng, who was there at the time as an exchange student in her final year. Although, they barely had anything in common at that time, the group project forced them into contact, into meeting each other. He believed the end of the group project would be the end of their momentary friendship, but even weeks after, Baiheng kept finding him at every step, sitting beside him during the lectures they shared, pestering him in the few free moments he had in the library, and even situating herself in front of him at lunch.

It would be a lie to say it did not annoy Mu Qing, having to entertain this constantly cheerful person who seemed as though she had never thought of the future past dinner, he got used to the constant chatter, even finding it a great distraction from his ever-present self-destructive train of thoughts.

Mu Qing had learned to keep to himself, and while he was friendly with the people he trained with, a mask he had to learn to screw to his face lest they see find anything unfavourable, they were never really his friends. Mu Qing had believed himself content with that, and it wasn’t until the first day Baiheng had pestered him until he agreed to hang out outside of campus that Mu Qing realised that he was searching for companionship all along. And although Baiheng wasn’t exactly who his heart yearned to meet; her presence was still a soothing balm that relieved the ever-present ache in him.

It was through her that he got to know Jingliu who, similar to him, had already debuted in China once, but had given up that career to train at a Korean company instead. She was much more established than Mu Qing was, already being well-respected within the entertainment circles as a well-rounded and accomplished dancer.

Her popularity came from the dance group she was a part alongside Baiheng. The dance group had fell apart at some point, and while Baiheng had decided to take that opportunity and switch to musical theatre, Jingliu had stuck with her dancing, and had been scouted to train in Korea.

Meeting them hadn’t made life any easier at that time, especially when he had to manage training and classes at the same time, especially when the instructors took their friendship and twisted it to threaten him, to curse at him, but it had made the hardships a little more bearable. For the first time, he had felt wanted in a way he hadn’t since his mother’s untimely death. For the first time he had felt seen and appreciated without any second meaning attached to it.

Hell, he had never known that he missed speaking Chinese but hearing those familiar tones had pacified some of the chaos in his mind. Baiheng’s cheerfulness and Jingliu’s stoic strictness tethered his self-imposed perfectionism and shaped it into a weight that did not feel like a nail trying to pin him in place.

When Baiheng graduated and returned to China, Mu Qing had thought that it will go back to how it was before—he will need to wade through the never-ending darkness by himself, losing and finding himself in a continued game of push and pull. He had prepared himself for it, opened yet another iron box at the back of his mind where he had shovelled up every memory from that past year.

But he had been wrong, and he had never been more at peace, more relieved, at being wrong. Two weeks after Baiheng had left, he had some rare free time to spend by himself. His feet had taken him to their usual spot before he even realised, and Jingliu had been there, with two cups of ramen and some tteokbokki from the vendor outside the university.

They didn’t know which one of them was more surprised at the other’s presence, but they had both acted as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. Jingliu had asked him about his final year project selection, giving suggestions from her limited knowledge of musical performances. Mu Qing had kept the conversation going by asking about her new choreography routine and had made her teach him the killing point.

The simplicity of their interaction, the ease with his Mu Qing had reached out for a hug before they parted, had only clicked after he had reached his dorm. Mu Qing did not know what to feel when his thoughts turned those hours around, analysed it in every angle and yet only left a small tendril of joy and nothing else. For once, it was as though his mind was incapable of nitpicking, of overthinking, a cat finally comfortable enough to lay and show its belly.

 It weighed on him, this comfort, and the fear of it being snatched away as everything else had before. He waited for the last string to snap and for this weight to squash him, but that final thread never frayed, keeping this weight secure and out of sight until he forgot it even existed. It wasn’t until his bones felt lighter than he remembered ever feeling did he realise that the weight had disappeared entirely.

Through the entirety of it, Jingliu’s presence from his life never once disappeared. They went days, weeks, sometimes even months without seeing each other, each busy with their own duties, and yet, never once did Mu Qing feel abandoned, never felt used and discarded. He could not pinpoint why this relationship he had was so different from any other he had before, why Jingliu’s scoldings and criticisms never felt like bruises on his tender skin.

Maybe, if he had some spare time, he could find a flaw or two, but he was already overwhelmed as he was with his accelerated graduation, with his final project, with singing and dancing, and dealing with everything his company threw at him.

And so, the only way to deal with this strange feeling was to throw it at the back of his mind to let it fester until he had time. Yet, for some reason, some wonderful twist in Mu Qing’s horrible karma, the festering never came, and by the time he could pick at that string of thoughts, it was already absorbed into his bones, leaving only acceptance in its space.

Jingliu’s presence wasn’t a balm to his wounds as Baiheng’s was but the ice in her voice, in her eyes were soothing all the same. Mu Qing sometimes felt as though they were the same person, people who had to fight and claw their way out of everything, people who could be silent and still understand what was left unsaid. They never spoke the right way, tone always harsher than they meant, never knew how to comfort or calm someone, words too sharp, only being able to prick.

Maybe that was why it was so easy being around her. Maybe that was why it never felt offensive when she criticised the way his arms did not make the right angles, when his facial expression twisted more than necessary. Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to accept that he stood on equal ground with her, even though her skills far surpassed his.

Maybe that’s why, even when life kept getting in the way, he found himself finding pockets of time to spare, and he found himself spending those rare moments in her company. He never believed himself to have the capacity to reach out to someone else, but for once, it was not a chore to remain in contact with someone.

Maybe it was because of the many moments before this one—the one where he was the first to text a meeting spot—when Jingliu had kept reaching out regardless of the response she got. Mu Qing never understood why she had been there on that day, just after Baiheng had left, why she had bothered texting him once a week without fail, even though it was a monotonous report of her week. He never truly managed to figure out what she had seen in him to continue to seek him out, even though he did not return the favour for a long while.

He was very familiar with his tendency to lock himself out of anyone’s reach, to completely remove himself from any situation, every time he felt his grip on himself slipping. It happened with a frighteningly increasing frequency the longer he spent training.

Somehow, every time without fail, Jingliu had known. Maybe she hadn’t known the full extent of what happened in his mind, all those spiralling thoughts, but she had known always known when something was wrong. He didn’t know how she figured it out, with frightening accuracy at that, nor why she bothered at all, exerting such effort even though Mu Qing pulled away time and time again, nor how she did it, easily pushing her way past every mental boulder Mu Qing had placed her way, but he was grateful for it all the same, for the patience and dedication she showed.

Sometimes it was just a mundane text update of her week, a paragraph of complaint about her fellow groupmates if she was feeling particularly petulant. Sometimes, it was a horrifyingly old-fashioned meme with a dry statement attached to it, something that made Mu Qing scoff and smile without fail.

Sometimes it was an invitation to sit at their usual spot if they had enough time to spare. They would just sit together, working on their own things, basking in the comfort of their companionship in silence.

Sometimes, they would walk along the Han River, and sometimes, if the nights were dark enough and the moon was hidden, Jingliu would allow herself to lose some of that discipline instilled into her bones and allow herself to voice the worries about not being fast enough to memorise the lyrics, about struggling to pick up the language, about how she feels that no one in her debuting group likes her.

Sometimes, she would allow herself to get a little more private, open a side of her usually hidden by layers of icy calm and admit to missing home and the freezing air of Harbin.

Sometimes, she would confide about her dance group, the one she built with the people she loved the most, the one had the potential to be so much yet the misfortune of it all falling apart, worrying about the boys who she was no longer in contact with and yet loved all the same.

Mu Qing never liked being indebted, never liked favours done out of goodwill, and so, on those nights when Jingliu would let her thoughts run free, he would return the favour by peeling the gauze around his heart and picking out the glass shards containing a decade of memory.

He would tell her about the rich heir whose dream was 4to do good, even at the expense of himself, who made Mu Qing so envious yet was so gentle that Mu Qing could only find him admirable, who was naïve enough to fall to ruins yet headstrong enough to never be ruined.

He would tell her about a boy who viewed friendship as duty, whose loyalty ran so deep that he would ruin himself than let his friend suffer alone, who stayed even when Mu Qing left, who was much more selfless than Mu Qing could ever bring himself to be.

He would tell her about how he could never see eye to eye with them, how they never understood just how deep poverty ran in his veins. He would tell her about how he never belonged with them, how he loved them yet could never find himself to stay. He would tell her about the selfish choices he made, about how he left, about how he never regretted any of it.

It never got easy, that process of digging his fingers into wounds that never healed, but it was an obligation he owed her. Jingliu never asked him to, and yet Mu Qing picked at his flesh for an offering of equal exchange. She never enquired nor pushed when he pulled out a bone to show her, never tried to sooth the ache. They were people who were alike in their thoughts, people who understood that it was an ache that could never disappear.

So, she let him pick at himself by his own will, until all the scabs were bloody, and then she offered him a drink, and called him a cab. Those days, those conversations never ended fittingly, always leaving more to be said, but neither of them ever tried to peer deeper than what was offered, and that silent understanding was enough. After all, grief could never be encapsulated in words, no matter how well-versed one is in literature, and they both felt grief that were embedded their marrows, forming the very core of their existence. So, once the bottle was emptied and the wounds were concealed, they would say their goodbyes, offer well wishes and move on to the next day.

Come morning, Mu Qing would wake up with an ache in his heart that stung deep yet was easier to bear than the day before. He would go to the dance studio and practise till his bones ached and eyes watered, and the ache in his heart would be forgotten in the greater scheme of things.

The last time Mu Qing attended Weibo night was a year and a few months into his first debut, just before everything started falling apart. Eighteen-year-old Mu Qing would have never imagined that next time he would step on to the same red carpet, it would be twelve years later, by himself. He would have never imagined that he would be here not as a nominee nor a performer but an honoured guest.

It was jarring to sit at the very front seats of this award shows, beside big names in the industry he used to idolise. It was jarring that the people on either side of him were not the ones he imagined back when he was still a child with big dreams and bigger aspirations.

Perhaps, the most jarring of it all, was the familiar presence, somewhere in the third or fourth row behind him, still so familiar despite the years long gone.

Feng Xin had been forced to take his eyes off Mu Qing once the ceremony started, but every once in a while, Mu Qing would feel those eyes return to the back of his head, and it was as distracting as it was painful.

Baiheng and Jiang Xing did not know any of the late-night secrets he shared with Jingliu, but they did know of the falling out that had led to his exit from the Chinese industry all those years back. He had shared a few crumbs of himself here and there, but he had not divulged into the full history of himself, unable to bring himself to open those wounds yet again.

They never tried prying deeper, even though it was easy to see that they wanted to know more, wanted to understand him and those complex mismatched puzzle pieces that built him. Some things Jingliu let slip when Mu Qing spiralled out of touch with reality, however rare those incidents now were, but they respected his wish to move past his past and never asked him about anything he did not divulge first.

They would notice the times Mu Qing would open Weibo during one of their hangouts and would freeze at the front page, at the sight of a familiar face and would say nothing but pass him another bottle of soju to drown his thoughts out.

They are all protective of each other—it would be foolish of Mu Qing to even try and deny it anymore, after all these years—and have been since the nightmare trainee days when all they had were each other. There was never an exclusive moment where they clicked, never a moment where they found themselves openly proclaiming each other as friends, but before they had known it, they had learned to rely on each other, to seek each other for solace, for comfort, to share news that were joyous and sombre.

Mu Qing did not realise how much he had changed until he was standing under the bright lights of the stage, and his first thoughts were to mourn the loss of his first paycheque to Jingliu’s ravenous appetite.

It was strange, to have people to blurt things out to without having to worry about the consequences, without having a rising tide of doubt threaten to devour him. It was stranger still to imagine himself a stranded island, a lonely existence, and then to look back and see two wide grins aimed at him to tether him, to grasp onto an icy yet firm palm when the tides threatened to drown him.

He had never voiced it out loud, the gratitude that alighted his veins whenever they were nearby, and yet, he found that he never needed to voice it for they already knew. Once upon a time, Mu Qing had yearned for this, this unspoken understanding; he never thought that he would find it one day, in three people he never even intended to meet.

The train of his thoughts reminded him of two certain people, and like the crash of a tidal wave, he felt memories of a long-forgotten past rise up at the back of his mind. He had met one today, having frozen up the moment their eyes met, but he did not know where the other was, had never managed to find anything since that incident all those years back. It would be a lie to say that Mu Qing had forgotten them—after all, he still had the childhood promise of friendship accompanied by a yellowed photograph from decades ago, all of it tucked underneath his bed, in a shoebox he no longer opened.

He certainly loved this ragtag group he had found for himself, loved them like he loved his own ambitions, and yet, the feeling of feeling incomplete never dissipated, the lack of closure following him around, tainting every achievement of his like a particularly vengeful ghost. Usually, those thoughts could be boxed away, brushed off in favour of his busy schedule. Usually, a good drinking session with his friends would carry those thoughts away, but today—

Today, he was without a drink, without a schedule to think of. Instead, his shoulder burned with the imprint from when he had brushed against a ghost of his past. Today, he missed them.

He missed them. Right now, in this moment that he dreamed of sharing with them years and years ago, he missed them so much that the ache in his heart felt as though it was ricocheting of his bones, revibrating in the hollows of his flesh.

As if sensing his thoughts, Jiang Xing leans in, whispering in that carefree tone of his that did not truly show the judgement it carries, “I thought MAMA camerawork was shit, but this is really some next level…”

Mu Qing was grateful for the intervention, pulling himself out of the haunted mansion of his mind. It was particularly therapeutic to criticise Jiang Xing and his inability to hold his tongue whenever he resurfaced from the depths of his mind.

So, he let the words sink into his bones, replacing the years-old ache with exasperated annoyance. Really, this boy was sitting here, in the front seat of what is possibly the biggest event of Chinese entertainment, with about twenty cameras trained on him at all times, complaining about camerawork. Not only that, but he was also actively calling disaster upon himself by comparing it with Korean award shows of all things.

Mu Qing closes his eyes to offer a prayer for his self-preservation to any deity who might be listening before turning his eyes to pin Jiang Xing with a particularly nasty glare.

Jiang Xing straightens up with a guilty look on his face. Petulantly, he pushes an elbow onto Mu Qing’s arm, “Ge, you need to stop acting like I broke your fine China collection.”

“If you keep whispering this bullshit in Chinese, one way or another you will wake up to a scandal tomorrow morning.” Mu Qing sighs in exasperation, unable to hold onto his annoyance at the face of Jiang Xing’s sullenness, “I can already see the headlines, ‘Lin Qingyu’s fiancé, a traitor to his own nation.’”

“Qing’er’s fiancé has such a nice ring to it,” Jiang Xing sighs dreamily, “Doesn’t it, ge?”

Baiheng chokes on his other side, hiding her face behind an elegantly lifted palm and covering her consequent chuckle behind a cough. She shakes her head, taking herself out of the situation by immediately turning her body to face Jingliu’s as Mu Qing stares at Jiang Xing in disbelief. “That is what you took from what I just said?”

“I mean I heard the other bits too,” Jiang Xing shrugs, “But being called Qingyu’s fiancé is simply the best part of it.”

Mu Qing lets out a long-suffering sigh.

One thing sitting through 5-6 hours of award ceremonies in Korea has taught him is the ability to zone out impeccably without it being noticed by anyone else. This skill comes in handy especially now when the winners for Outstanding Actors of the Year are announced because one of the names is one that he has been trying to avoid since he stepped inside the ceremonial hall.

Baiheng leans closer again, bumping their shoulders together in an attempt to comfort him. Mu Qing is grateful for it, but he can barely bring himself to keep his eyes on stage as Feng Xin walks up, as he offers the audience a winning smile.

Mu Qing keeps his eyes set on the edge of the stage, refusing to look directly because he knows the moment he does so, it will be game over—not that he is playing any games, but it feels as though his career and sanity is hinging on this very moment, as though the vulturous cameras are waiting, baiting him to make a mistake, make an unsavoury expression—something, anything.

He had already frozen up once today, and he knows tomorrow he will wake to it making rounds on Weibo and Twitter alike. His fans, the ones that were there from the very start, would know who Feng Xin is, what he meant to him once upon a time. The ones that don’t will only look at their beloved idol look like a gaping fish and wonder about the history that lied between them.

And Mu Qing would ignore it all, as he had done so till now, for the last ten years since he left, like all the questions about his first debut, about his first groupmates. He will ignore it and then a few days later, the announcement of his hiatus from K-industry would cause the whole thing to be forgotten in favour of anticipation for his next moves.

For now, Mu Qing keeps his eyes on the edge of the stage, face as impeccably stoic as he could muster, and hopes that the cameras are not focusing on him now that Feng Xin is walking up to the microphone to give his thank you speech.

He wonders if he looks up and stares into the stage lights for a minute or so, could he blind himself for long enough to not notice things about Feng Xin— the squared shoulders, the curve of his jaw, the way his hairstyle had remained the same and yet gives off a completely different aura now that he is no longer a teen. With Feng Xin’s figure projected across every single screen inside the arena, it’s impossible to not see him but Mu Qing is a lot of things, but he is not a quitter.

Feng Xin was always handsome, tall and broad and athletic with a smile that made him look surprisingly soft and malleable. So, it does not surprise him that Feng Xin is still just as handsome and, having grown into those awkward spaces in between his bones, looking especially breathtaking with that sun-warmed honey skin and those glittering honey golden eyes and his shining honey brown hair—it’s not his fault that everything about Feng Xin is so irrevocably golden, so undeniably brown that it reminds him of freshly harvested honey at every step—but the vision of him onstage, under those golden lights, still shocks him.

His looks were one thing, Mu Qing was used to him looking good even with disgustingly styled wigs, having seen his face plastered on Weibo hot search every time he bothered opening the app, but even all the mental preparation couldn’t stop his expression from stuttering as he hears Feng Xin’s voice for the first time in a decade.

Even at gunpoint, at the cusp of death, Mu Qing would deny it vehemently, but inside that tiny chamber in his mind that he still can’t control, he finds himself giving into the admittance that Feng Xin’s voice had been one of his favourite sounds for a long, long time.

When he wasn’t arguing or yelling at Mu Qing for a thing or two, his voice would carry a deep, comforting lull. When he sang, his voice would rumble from within the deepest crevices of his ribs, somewhat rough yet carrying a unique current of melody that would flow and wrap around you like a blanket on a snowy morning. When he spoke, it was always with confidence, voice loud yet not unpleasant, and when he would talk to people he liked, his voice would gentle into an uncharacteristic softness, with an uncanny ability to soothe any nerves.

Mu Qing never had that softness directed at him; it was always angry shouting, voice strident, always thick with an anger Mu Qing could not trace back to any incident. In the rare occasions where they didn’t dissolve into arguments as soon as they exchanged words, his tone was always flat, flippant, and disinterested, as if he was only talking to Mu Qing because he had to.

That’s why they had so many fights growing up; it was better to be the recipient of all the anger and frustration over flat disinterest, he preferred getting yelled at and accused and villainised than feel any more unwelcome than he already was, being faced with that neutral, forced flatness.

On stage, ten years later, Feng Xin’s voice still carries that same comforting timbre. It lost some of its loud confidence, the bright excitement of adolescence replaced with a muted maturity that only comes with age and experience. He has always been polite and courteous to anyone not Mu Qing, but now his words carry a certain weight to it, as if the courtesy and respect is not something he freely gives, something people must earn.

As Mu Qing has done, Feng Xin too, has grown up in the ten years, going from the boisterous and annoying boy Mu Qing had grown up with to this calm and collected man that is still so achingly familiar.

Mu Qing, unwisely, shifts his eyes to look at Feng Xin’s figure, bent down to be able to speak into the mic properly. Golden brown eyes meet his, and Mu Qing’s carefully crafted façade splinters.

Feng Xin is looking at him. He is thanking the crowd and his agency and the crew, but his eyes are fixed on Mu Qing with a burning, scalding concentration. Mu Qing wants to look away before he truly, really cracks but he can’t seem to take his eyes off the swirl of gold in Feng Xin’s eyes.

Mu Qing considers if he can just cancel every plan he had made to return to China and just stick to his stable career in K-pop. It sounds especially appealing now, as he feels smaller than he ever has under Feng Xin’s ferocious stare, insecurities breaking free from their chains and rearing their heads up, guilt slithering into the folds of his alveoli and choking his breath.

Almost as soon as that thought crosses his mind, some part of him that still remembers having to claw with bleeding hands and bleeding feet to where he is now, rears up its head, baring its teeth.

Just like that, the trepidation in his bones, the dread in his muscles, melts away and is replaced by ice-cold fury at himself. How dare he, even for a flash of a moment, ever allow such a thought to cross his mind? When has he ever let anything stop him from reaching his goals, following his ambitions?

What is he so fearful of? Didn’t he already say that he had never regretted any of the decisions he had made? Feeling the old wound ache is one thing, having it bleed through the gauze is one thing, those he has carried with him so far and will carry further, but if the hurt didn’t stop him then when it was still fresh and raw and festering, why should he let it affect him now, a decade of healing later?

He has already lost everything he had to lose, has already accepted those losses the moment he climbed those stairs of Chongqing’s airport, has already cried and ripped himself at the seams for it.

He has rebuilt himself from scratch, from the ground up. There is nothing left in the unexplored space between himself and Feng Xin. He already burned that bridge when he left, stomped on the remaining few planks until they fractured and fell into the unknown abyss of his mind when he started anew, thousand miles away.

He closes his eyes, lets the ice in his veins freeze the jackhammering heart of his until he can feel the frost in his veins, running through his face until he is certain that his expression has returned to that of jaded, cold indifference.

He meets Feng Xin’s eyes head on, meets that scalding stare with icy obsidian, daring and haughty, but the moment is merely fleeting as Feng Xin’s speech ends and he moves back, away from the mic and away from Mu Qing’s line of sight.

Whatever was amiss within him since their shoulders bumped into each other cowers from the cold, retreating further and further into his mind until it can be locked away and forgotten.

Mu Qing met Jiang Xing few months before his graduation, a new trainee personally scouted by the CEO himself. He called Mu Qing into his office and pushed the boy forward, asking him to introduce himself.

The boy hesitated, and Mu Qing knew why. They could only talk in Korean on company grounds. It was a heavily instilled rule, to get foreign trainees to pick up the language as fast as possible.

 Finally, the boy closes his eyes, mouthing the words before pushing them out.

“Hello,” the boy says in stuttering Korean, hesitating over the syllables until the word is fully out and sounds right. His expression brightens immediately, and he continues more confidently, “I am Jiang Xing from Guangzhou.”

Mu Qing nodded, “Mu Qing, from Chongqing.”

The boy stared at him for a moment, recognition lighting up in his eyes when Mu Qing meets his stare. “Mu Qing…Mu Qing from XIAN LE?”

The reminder made Mu Qing flinch and whatever must have shown on his face had the boy stuttering, trying to find the words in Korean yet failing. Mu Qing shook his head, slipping his expression into one of indifference.

“Yes,” he had said, glancing at the CEO. Noticing he had already busied himself with a phone call, he continued in Chinese, “The one from XIAN LE. I would like it if you don’t mention it ever again.”

“Of course,” Jiang Xing had sworn, eyes wide and sincere, “Of course. I am sorry if I overstepped. I am—was—a huge fan, I had all your albums. But, yes, I’m sorry I—”

“It’s alright.” Mu Qing cut him off, “You didn’t know.”

When the CEO dismissed them, Mu Qing had assumed that was the end of this interaction. Jiang Xing was a new trainee, one that could barely speak Korean, and so he would be put in separate classes with some of the other foreign trainees. He was much younger than Mu Qing as well, barely even sixteen from what the CEO had mentioned so his dorm would also be separate.

Yet, despite all that, Jiang Xing came to find him at every opportunity, and Mu Qing, despite being exhausted from training and his final project rehearsals and recording the backing vocals for another artist, found himself indulging the boy every time.

Mu Qing was not a good person, nor did he do things for the sake of it, but something about Jiang Xing made pull his walls down and offer a steady arm for him to hold on to. Jiang Xing felt like a responsibility, one that was not pushed on to him, nor one he wanted, but one he ended up accepting anyway. It felt important to care for the boy, ensure he was settling well.

Perhaps it was the memory of his own loneliness, of bone-crippling homesickness, of feeling excluded and looked over in a way he never had before, too shy, too damaged to really approach anyone, but wanting someone to converse with, someone to speak into the canting tones of home.

Perhaps it was the boy’s easy-going attitude, his carefree outlook on just about everything. Maybe it was the fact that despite taking everything casually, Jiang Xing was still dedicated and diligent, giving his all despite the fact that he did not hold any particular passion for singing or dancing, despite the fact that he was only here by a stroke of luck.

Jiang Xing was nonchalant about everything, whether it be the food he ate for dinner, the song he danced to during monthly evaluations or the criticisms of the instructors. He shrugged it all off, unbothered and unhindered, but Mu Qing still noticed the raw skin of his knees, the callouses of his palm, the way his eyes would follow choreographers with a single-minded focus.

Truly, it was obvious to see how much he yearned to do well, yearned to be perfect not unlike Mu Qing, and it endeared him to Mu Qing fairly quickly. It didn’t help that his temperament and characteristics reminded him of someone he once knew.

Perhaps that was why, by the time graduation rolled around Mu Qing felt close enough to the boy that found himself inviting him to the ceremony. Although much, much later, Mu Qing would regret introducing them together, at that time, Mu Qing felt strangely happy seeing Jingliu and Jiang Xing get along like cogs of a well-oiled machine.

Jingliu, as she usually did when meeting new people, threw question after question that Jiang Xing answered with ease, hands behind his head as he strolled along to their seats.

“I am sixteen, almost seventeen.” Jiang Xing answered when asked about his age.

“I finished high school early and took my gaokao before I became a trainee.” He explained when she asked which high school he had enrolled in, “In fact I initially got casted outside my exam centre.”

“I already told him it was a stupid decision to become an idol when he could be studying at a top university.” Mu Qing responded when Jingliu opened her mouth, stealing the exact words she would’ve said.

“I don’t like studying.” Jiang Xing laughed, easy-going despite being the subject of microscopic scrutiny, “I am too lazy to do anything really, but studying especially is horrible. My dad said as long as I passed the gaokao, I could do anything and since I got so relentlessly casted in front of my exam centre, I decided to give this a try. I mean if I don’t like it, or don’t debut in a few years, I can just leave and go to university or something.”

It was fortunate that Mu Qing was graduating in about an hour because despite knowing the boy for months and knowing his carefree attitude, the nonchalance with his Jiang Xing spoke sent him reeling for the nth time.

As he had whenever the conversation had steered in this direction before, he felt the prickle of the age-old feeling of envy at the boy’s nonchalance, at the ease he carries himself with. Not having to plan years in advance was a jarring thought, entirely foreign, and Mu Qing was jealous that some people can live like that, taking a leap of faith and letting the wind take them whichever direction it flows.

Mu Qing has wished he could also just do things, take a leap of faith instead of having to spend hours and hours planning through everything, nitpicking even the tiniest of details until he feels wholly in control of any direction a situation could go.

Mu Qing knew it was a concept wholly out of his comfort zone, but even then, he wanted to try it for once, just to see if the exhilaration was worth it.

If Feng Xin had any intentions of approaching him after the award ceremony, Mu Qing gave him no opportunity to do so. Or more so to say, Baiheng and Jingliu accosted him on both sides like well-trained bodyguards, as if protecting him from some great evil, dragging him around even as people came up to speak to either of the three of them. Regardless of the curious glances they received from acquaintances, neither budged, and so Mu Qing also made his peace with being dragged around like some stubborn bull on a leash.

If Mu Qing was feeling better, he would’ve laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Being surrounded by two women while trying to avoid Feng Xin was really the peak of hilarity. Mu Qing didn’t know if Feng Xin had ever really gotten over his fear of women, but the whole situation was just so much funnier when imagined the fifteen-year-old boy who was terrified to even share a seat on the bus with a girl still retaining that same fear at thirty and trying to approach him but being deterred by two very determined women hounding him around and whispering gossip like some middle-aged aunties at a mahjong table.

It made Mu Qing chuckle, biting the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from cackling outright. He had already given the tabloid enough tonight, losing it over nothing in the middle of socialising with random celebrities while being pulled around by two well-established names would send both him and them into hysterics.

At least it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, him hanging around with Baiheng and Jingliu that is. Their fans were already used to their shenanigans to not even blink at such an interaction anymore. They knew making a big deal out of it will only result in petty silence from their idols until one of them gets on live to passive aggressively give them a reality check.

Mu Qing had raised his fans, and Jiang Xing, Baiheng and Jingliu’s by extension, nicely, much more well-adjusted than the average idol fan. He should be proud of that actually.

It was no secret that they had all met in their trainee days and had stuck to each other ever since, finding each other to at least share a quick hello at every event. At least he could be at peace knowing no tabloid will accuse him of two-timing, a shudder running through him at a memory of a particular article from a few years ago.

Since that fateful article, they have gotten into the habit proudly sharing anecdotes from every time they hung out, creating a bridge between themselves and their fans and avoiding any chances for rumours to crop up.

(It was mainly Baiheng’s constant urge to document everything. For the memories, she shrugged every time Mu Qing asked why she needed twenty-different photos of the same box of Korean fried chicken. At this point, Mu Qing just lets her do whatever she wants since she takes enough pictures to use for all of their Instagram feeds.)

“We should take a selfie,” Baiheng comments, watching managers take pictures of the other actors and singers, “To commemorate your return to the home industry.”

Mu Qing rolls his eyes, huffing. “What is the big deal? Everyone is acting like I am the first person to redebut in Korea and return. Jingliu-jie is literally the same.”

Jingliu elbows him, “Unlike you, I still kept up activities in China. You, on the other hand, completely disappeared from the scene, then redebuted with a completely different concept in a different country and refused any and every offer to promote here.”

“Anyways!” Baiheng claps her hands, “This is still the first time we are together on a home-event! And that is enough to document it.” He passed her phone to Mu Qing, “Now, where is that lovesick maknae of ours?”

“Probably sucking faces with his fiancé, somewhere.” Mu Qing scoffs, fixing his bangs in the camera, “He disappeared the second the lights dimmed.”

Baiheng knocks her hip into his, “Don’t be mean, Mu Qing, he has been very busy recently.”

Mu Qing rolls his eyes again, out of habit more so than disagreement, but didn’t say anything more.

“If we take pictures without him, he will whine about it nonstop.” Jingliu sighs, looking around, “See if you can see an obnoxious head of bright red hair anywhere. Really, that boy’s fashion choices make me question what Qingyu sees in him.”

“Hey,” Baiheng starts, an instinctual response to their usual teasing but pauses and sighs defeatedly, “Seriously, I can’t even say anything to defend him anymore.”

That makes Mu Qing choke, hiding his face in his hand and he tries to cover it as a cough. It truly was a lost cause if even Baiheng didn’t come to his defence.

“One doesn’t have a single stylish bone in his body,” He laughs, “Another doesn’t know how to cook.” Jingliu elbows him again, but Mu Qing is busy wiping under his eye, “Baiheng-jie, we are really holding up the fort here.”

“You don’t get to say shit,” Jingliu scoffs, “At least I don’t have the communication skills of a prejudiced pigeon.”

Mu Qing opens his mouth to retort before the words sink in, confusion overrunning any defence he could possibly provide.

“What does that even mean?”

“You know exactly what it means, Mr-I-can’t-rely-on-anyone-but-myself.”

“Now you are just using my insecurities against me, jie.” Mu Qing rolls his eyes, “And anyways, I am working on it, aren’t I? Can I same the same thing about your japchae?”

“Oh you—”

“Mu Qing!” Pei Ming’s loud exclamation cuts her off as he saunters over, hand in his pocket and posture laid back. He looks exactly like one would expect a nonchalant philanderer to look. It immediately makes Mu Qing roll his eyes. “C’mon now, you were just laughing so freely just now, and you were so nice on the red carpet, gave me a hug and all, and now you are rolling your eyes?”

“What do you want, Pei Ming?” Mu Qing asks instead of deigning him with a response.

“Just coming to talk,” Pei Ming holds his hands up in surrender, “C’mon man I haven’t seen you in like three years.”

“We already talked plenty,” Mu Qing responds, rolling his eyes again. “What else have you got to ask?”

“Well,” Pei Ming’s eyes trail to where Baiheng’s arms are interlocked with his, and then to the other side where Mu Qing had made room for Jingliu to lean on him. “I didn’t expect you to become a ladies’ man since the last time I saw you. And—”

“What the fuck are you on?” Mu Qing exclaims, feeling his ears heat.

“Well—” Pei Ming motions to Mu Qing’s position in between Baiheng and Jingliu.

Jingliu rolls her eyes while Baiheng chuckles, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Despite knowing its merely teasing, Mu Qing feels the heat travel from to his face, cheeks flushing. He tries to dislodge his arms on instinct, but Jingliu only grips him together, leaving him faltering awkwardly.

“Yah!” He hisses instead, “Not everyone is a womanizing bastard like you!”

Pei Ming does not seem even a bit phased by the insult, throwing his head back and laughing. “Still, considering how uncomfortable you used to be around women, it’s a surprise to see you so comfortable.”

Mu Qing scoffs, glaring. “That’s Feng Xin. Are you confusing us again?”

That seems to sober him up a bit as he straightens his posture, sheepishly running a hand through his hair, “Old habits really do die hard. You two were always stuck to each other that it’s hard to remember who had which quirk.” His lips twist up in a smirk, “Hope Mu-xiong can forgive this humble one.”

A pang goes through Mu Qing, all his nerves firing up like live wire at the reminder. He coughs, rolling his eyes as he responds, “Humble? You?”

“Hey, I am plenty humble!” Pei Ming protests, “You said I changed!”

“I meant your narcissism wasn’t as obvious anymore,” Mu Qing quips back, “Not that you were any humbler than you were previously.”

“Your sharp tongue really knows no bound,” Pei Ming laughs, “And here I thought you had undergone such character change to be willingly returning my hug.”

“That was just him high on adrenaline,” Jingliu interjects, “He is still as hissy as a mean black cat.”

“Jingliu!” Baiheng protests, “C’mon he’s improved now. He doesn’t freeze up when anyone hugs him anymore at least.”

“Hey—”

“I am glad you are doing good. I know I see you here and there, but it’s still good to know you are doing fine.” Pei Ming voices out, smiling at him, “And really, I meant it when I said I was glad you were returning.”

“Uh…” Mu Qing is rendered speechless at the sincerity. Since when had Pei Ming learned to speak so earnestly, “Thanks?”

“Don’t say anymore, or he will explode.” Jingliu huffs, “For someone with an ego the size of his, he has a pea-sized capacity for retaining compliments.”

“Can you please stop insulting me?” Mu Qing groans, trying to shove her off, “I will nevertalk shit about your japchae again.”

Before the conversation can derail into another one of their petty arguments, Pei Ming raises his hand and calls for his attention.

“Let me know if you are free anytime soon so we can do a proper catch up. We can do what we did last time in Korea, go for hotpot and drinks.”

Mu Qing nods in agreement, mentally making a note to free up a weekend. He was gonna ask Pei Ming to meet him sooner or later anyways, get some insider insight on the current state of the industry before he makes any announcements.

“Ling Wen wanted to meet you for something too, call her when you can.” Pei Ming looks at his watch, eyes widening. “On that note, I gotta go, my flight is in two hours and Ling Wen will really have my head this time if I miss it.”

They watch Pei Ming high tail out of the hall, leaving his managers gasping for breath as they chase after him, pitying his team for having to deal with such an eccentric employer. At least, they were well-paid and well-accommodated. That has got to count for something, seeing as the team sticks around even after all these years.

“I think that’s more than enough socialising, I need to take my heels off, or my feet are gonna be fucked,” Jingliu announces the moment Pei Ming is out of earshot, leaning more heavily on Mu Qing.

“I am not taking off my shoes,” Mu Qing responds immediately, remembering the last time Jingliu intimidated him into swapping shoes, and he went platinum on Twitter for pulling off six-inch heels like a pro. It felt good to see the praise, but having to catwalk in high heels for every single reality show for the next two months after was terrible. “See, if you two weren’t hounding me like I’m some misbehaving toddler, we would have been done hours ago.”

“Don’t act like you haven’t noticed that Feng Xin still glare at you with the intensity of a thousand suns in his eyes.” Jingliu rolls her eyes, “That’s some crazy determination, he’s been at it since before the ceremony started. I’m not even the recipient of it and I feel uncomfortable.”

Mu Qing has nothing to say to that because there really is no denying the looks Feng Xin keeps shooting him. Despite the distance between them, and despite being engaged in separate conversations on different ends of the room, the more Mu Qing avoided him, the more intense Feng Xin’s stare got.

He is certain that if there was an opening, Feng Xin would’ve approached him, cornered him. He doesn’t even know what Feng Xin intends from all this staring. After so long, with everything between them burnt to ash, what would they talk about? Surely, Feng Xin has better sense than to start cursing at him in such a high-profile event.

He knows he can’t avoid it forever, especially when he does make a formal return to the C-industry. He knows that the tabloids will be digging up every inch of his past to make headlines, and that will mean confronting everything he had left behind.

He knows there is no legitimate reason as to why he feels so desperate to avoid Feng Xin—it’s been a decade since they last saw each other, they have both changed now. He knows it all, but coming face to face with Feng Xin today had made him realise how unprepared he was for meeting him, for seeing the reminder of his past so up close.

He will have to face Feng Xin eventually, will have to answer Feng Xin’s questions, and ask his own. In due time, he will break the decade long silence between them, meet his burning hot glance without having to turn to icy indifference to protect himself from scalding.

He isn’t the same boy as he was when he left, doesn’t have the same insecurities, has worked through his issues, unlearned behaviours that controlled him more than he controlled them. He knows Feng Xin is also not the same boy he had left behind. Time has probably helped him the same way it has Mu Qing.

Even then, until it’s time to burn that bridge, he would prefer to avoid it.

“You should swap over to our company,” Jingliu told him one day, halfway through a bottle of sake, and it wasn’t a request nor a suggestion. She wasn’t recommending the option because Jingliu never did things by half. If she thought something needs change, something isn’t right, she said it outright.

In that moment, half a bottle of sake later, and slightly tipsy, she still didn’t mince her words.

Behind Mu Qing, the mirror felt cold, an icy reprieve from the heat of his body, exhaustion weighing in his muscles. The private dance studio they were in was small, the ceiling chipping at the edges and one of the lights overhead flickering on and off. Jingliu paid an extortionate amount of money to buy it, even in its rundown condition, just so she could have a place to destress when really needed.

“I can’t,” Mu Qing had replied, eyes closing. “I can’t restart. Not anymore.”

“Mu Qing.” Jingliu had said in turn, voice firm, disapproval clear in her tone.

“I am too old.” Mu Qing continued, pushing his back against the mirror, “There’s no company that will accept a twenty-five-year-old. It’s too late to start from scratch.”

“You are not starting from scratch though,” Even without opening his eyes, Mu Qing knew Jingliu is staring at him, determined in a way Mu Qing had barely ever seen. “You have trained for five years already, almost six. Eight, if you count China. Ten when you add your debut years.” She sighed, shuffling closer, pressing a can of coke to his cheeks.

He accepted it, taking a sip, silent still.

“You are not a bright-eyed newbie trainee who’s just starting out.” She continued, “You have experience, more than you need really.”

“I don’t want your pity.” Mu Qing had bitten out, the words harsh, scraping against his throat. “Jie, I already did pity once, I can’t again. It will break whatever I have left in me.”

“I am not offering you anything. You are already at a dead-end.” Jingliu replied after a while, “You know it too, Mu Qing.”

Mu Qing couldn’t even deny it, couldn’t say that she was wrong because she wasn’t. He came to Korea five years ago, when he wasn’t even twenty.

Five years had passed since then.

Five years of training had yielded nothing, and now he was pushing twenty-five, still training, still trying, still working a dead-end part-time job that was just enough to pay for the management course he had enrolled in recently.

There was no rebuttal to her statement that Mu Qing was stuck at a standstill. In these five years he had been training, the company debuted three groups with moderate success. They had placed him in the lineup for each of them, had given him hope that there was light at the end of the tunnels, and each time, they had pushed him out at the last moment, after he was done memorising the dance, after he was done reviewing the lyrics, and each time they promised him that the next time would be the end.

Each time they went back on their words and left Mu Qing without ground under his feet, drowning on solid land.

Mu Qing was sick of it, was tired of their excuses. He knew his time was limited, knew that the company’s refusal to debut him was a hint, a pathetic attempt at giving him the illusion of choice, a way to tell him that it was time he left his dreams and aspirations behind, exited the company on his own without having them throw him out.

He knew it, and yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to accept it because the second he gave in would be the end of it all, all these years of suffering, the betrayal, the guilt, the shame, everything that he carries with him, all of it will amount to nothing.

He had nowhere to go but forward, but the more he walked the further behind he fell, and it felt suffocating, as if the walls were closing in on him. He didn’t have a home to return to, no family to make proud. It was just him, just him and his stubborn, worthless pride.

This useless pride of his refused to let him back down, refused to admit defeat, refused to cower, and Mu Qing was a spiteful person to begin with, the more the company tried to push him out, the tighter he hung on, the harder he tried, even when his skin chafed, and muscles tore.

He considered all the options.

He could leave his current company, leave these five years of relentless work, and start over. He could stay in this company that has known him for the past five years, knows his strengths and weaknesses, knows exactly what concept suits Mu Qing, which songs he likes to perform during evaluations, and pray that next time they would be kind enough to see his worth.

He was tired of running and if he moved, the timer would restart. If he stayed, the timer would inevitably pause.

He wanted to feel the brush of strings on his calloused fingers, wanted to feel the heat of the stage lights, wanted his muscles to burn not in a dim training room but under a bright stage.

He wanted, wanted, wanted.

Taking Jingliu’s suggestion meant he would be under the same company as her and Baiheng, would see them more regularly. He liked that thought. Taking her suggestion meant leaving Jiang Xing behind, and while he had no doubts that boy would cope just fine, somehow, he still felt responsible for him. It was not like him to care so much about someone else, but he didn’t want to leave Jiang Xing alone, not when he knows the taste of loneliness so intimately, not when the boy had grown to become an irreplaceable part of Mu Qing’s routine and life.

Maybe even that was an excuse, maybe it was him who feared the loneliness that came with having to restart. Jingliu and Baiheng has already debuted a year ago, already had their third comeback—they couldn’t spare much time for him than they already do. It was already a miracle that Baiheng was in Korea, scouted on the street and put into the debut line as soon as she accepted.

Taking Jingliu’s suggestion meant walking a dark, narrow road, one that was not familiar to him as the tunnel he was running in currently. Taking her suggestion meant leaving familiar solid ground, taking a dive without knowing the temperature of the water.

Taking Jingliu’s suggestion meant taking a leap of faith not knowing what lies ahead. Hadn’t he spent nights wondering how it felt, jumping into the unknown and letting the wind guide you?

Mu Qing tipped his head back, skull thudding against the mirror.

He was out of options, the tunnel was only getting narrower, the darkness more unbearable.

“Mu Qing,” Jingliu had called again, something in her voice so unlike herself, gentle and sweet—more Baiheng than herself. “The next auditions are being held next Saturday, 11 am, SOPA main auditorium.”

She met his eyes, usual strictness dissipated in favour of awkward comfort, “Consider it. Maybe it’s time you let yourself run before planning the entire course out.”

“What if I…” Mu Qing paused, didn’t want to finish that sentence.

“Whatever you do, we will be here for you.” She said, emptying the bottle of sake in her hand, “It’s been long enough. If we didn’t disappear already, why will we now?”

That made Mu Qing smile, small yet genuine.

“Good luck on your comeback, jie.” He said in lieu of an answer.

Jingliu stood up, rolling her shoulders, “Keep it,” she snarked, “You will need it more than me.”

(Mu Qing closed his eyes, took a deep breath, letting the air reach deep within his lungs, expanding his ribs, let the exhale stutter out of his chest.

He opened his eyes to the clear skies of an unremarkable Saturday.

And took the leap of faith.)

(The crash never came.)