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When they meet, Seungyoon is nineteen and he doesn’t believe in love at first sight. He knows the great irony that lies in that—how the song that created him, turned him from just another boy with dreams into a name with a voice and a face, is about something that he personally thinks would be nice if it were reality, if it were possible, but it just isn’t.
They are introduced to each other under the bright lights of a training room that Seungyoon has come to spend more time in during the past two years than his own home—than even the dorm that he now lives in. Because of the nature of the system—trainees constantly being eliminated during monthly evaluations and trainees constantly filtered into replace them soon afterwards, always a game of mix and match—their team was never officially assigned a leader.
Today, they are given one.
Everything about Song Minho is sharp. His gaze is piercing and hard, his posture is defensive, and his expression is closed. He looks like a leader, Seungyoon thinks. He also looks precisely like the sort of rapper he is introduced as. He looks and feels different than Seunghoon and Hanbin and Jiwon, who are all outstanding when they need to be, but soft and open otherwise. Or—perhaps that isn’t fair, perhaps Seungyoon has known Jiwon and Hanbin too long and perhaps Seunghoon is naturally more outgoing, perhaps Seungyoon was always biased to be more welcoming to someone from his hometown.
Minho is told to rap in front of them beneath those bright lights, immediately after he has just arrived, and the four of them stand there, watching him in silence while the trainer turns the sound system on and Minho puts the microphone up to his mouth.
He’s obviously good, that much Seungyoon can hear. He has himself learned enough about rapping simply through exposure after joining this agency to discern when someone is good, bad, decent, and extremely good. His presence and aura when performing, the way he moves, is different than each of them, and each of them are already so different from each other. It’s good—Minho is good, as a performer and an artist clearly, and that becomes the extent of Seungyoon’s judgment of him that first day.
As far as his coherent opinions—the thoughts that run through his mind that he can explain to himself as to why the occur—they don’t reach further or deeper than how Minho will be as a leader and how he’ll affect the music they’ll make, the performance evaluations they have to do, their team dynamics overall. Seungyoon has always been of the philosophy, after all, that he shouldn’t judge anyone’s personality simply by first impression—so he doesn’t.
He has absolutely no idea why, then, when their eyes meet, when they clasp hands to greet each other—individual introductions—Seungyoon feels a strange clench in his stomach, and an even stranger feeling in his chest that he could only ever describe as an ache.
Most possibly, he thinks serenely, as he lets go of Minho’s hand and lets him move on to shaking Jinwoo’s hand, it was the coffee from this morning—too much coffee and not enough milk, and coffee never did sit well with Seungyoon.
Seungyoon is twenty when he and Minho are invited to collaborate with the man who helped make Seungyoon who he is today. Before the small project surrounding the song is introduced to them, Jongshin takes them out for a meal. All of the usual topics are covered in conversation—everything that Seungyoon would expect. The food is good, the drinks are good, and the company leaves Seungyoon feeling warm and light. It’s odd to see someone from a previous stage of his career laughing and speaking with someone who is already a great part of the current stage of his career, and will likely be an even greater part of his future career in years to come.
Once Jongshin had asked enough introductory questions to Minho, and questions about their looming debut and the survival show they had finished up to both of them, somehow Minho begins asking a series of questions himself that make Seungyoon’s chest ache an ache he hasn’t felt in nearly a year. The expression on Minho’s face is purely teasing when he inquires to Jongshin about the boy Seungyoon was off-camera on the show that turned him from boy to celebrity, but even though Seungyoon smiles back every time they exchange glances around Jongshin’s fond joking, Seungyoon’s chest continues to ache more and more.
“I think it’s much better the way you sing it,” Minho says, grinning right at Seungyoon as he does. Seungyoon rolls his eyes as Jongshin laughs at both of them. “Seungyoon clearly hasn’t felt the right feelings—you know—he just wouldn’t know.”
“Well, he never talks to me about anything other than work, so I wouldn’t know either,” Jongshin lets Seungyoon refill his glass as he raises his eyebrows with amusement at him.
Seungyoon snorts, smiling slowly and leaning back in his chair. He glances first at his mentor and then at his teammate. “There wouldn’t be anything to talk about anyway,” he shrugs, turning his own shot glass slowly in his fingers. “I don’t really think love at first sight makes sense.”
“Give back the royalties then,” Minho says, jerking his head, only for Seungyoon to nudge him hard enough in the side that the rapper makes a sound of exaggerated pain.
“It isn’t my song so I only got the recording fees anyway, actually,” Seungyoon says, as Minho laughs loudly in the quiet of the nearly empty restaurant. Jongshin chuckles with him.
“You know,” the older man says, looking out at both of them once the smiles have subsided and they’ve returned to nursing their drinks and moving the few pieces of meat left on the grill back and forth—picking at what’s left. “It doesn’t have to be love—that’s rare, I’d say, unrealistic most probably, you’re right. But what I think is pretty common is a feeling—not even a fully-formed emotion, just—you know, just a feeling .”
Seungyoon thinks he does a fairly decent job at masking how his breath has caught in his throat, heartbeat stuttering and his ears probably reddening beneath his hair and beanie. He doesn’t even know why—it’s a simple explanation of the lyrics of a song he sang years and years ago. Furthermore, he knows from experience and training that while it heightens the ability to effectively sing a song, no one needs to have felt the emotions a song conveys to sing it well. Seungyoon sang it just fine four years ago, and it’ll sound just the same—definitely better, perhaps, now that his voice has been honed properly—four years later, were he ever to sing it again.
He ignores any small voices prodding his thoughts, suggesting that perhaps the reason it would truly sound better sung by him now is because he’s experienced what the song entails.
“That’s the intro, hyung,” Minho says suddenly, almost breaking the spell of silence that had followed Jongshin’s words. “You just said Swings-sunbaenim’s intro—only in Korean.” The rapper’s expression is sheepish but almost daring, and Jongshin only looks surprised at Minho’s gall for a split second before it dissolves into something between impressed and amused.
Jongshin makes a noncommittal sound around the rim of his glass. “Hyunsuk’s boys always have nerve,” he says in a tone that makes Seungyoon laugh hard enough to, just for that moment, lock soundly away that feeling.
Minho is twenty-one when the public gives him a name, a representation, a work, that can never be taken away from him. In exchange, all he needed to give was a piece of himself for them to shred apart and devour. Seungyoon watches it all happen the summer of that year—on his laptop, on the television in their dorm—and he watches the pieces that Minho didn’t give away as forced compensation return through the door of their apartment some nights, tattered and hanging together only by the threads of the sheer determination and willpower that Seungyoon has come to associate with his teammate, his friend.
Seungyoon would like to think, at some level, that he offers at least some comfort. He has no way of knowing if Minho is being honest with him whenever the rapper thanks Seungyoon for being there, on sleepless nights through those few months of hell—although, having known Minho for two years now, Seungyoon supposes it is far more likely that Minho was honest than not. Regardless, Seungyoon wants to know in a way that he is certain comes from the most selfish of places that he has been a source of comfort to Minho.
He also knows, in a way that he sorely wishes he didn’t, why he wants that—why he wants to have been of comfort and relief, a confidant despite how many Minho must have already.
Selfish.
The night Minho comes back to the dorm after everything is finally finished—the filming itself and the after-parties that come naturally with it—he walks into his room and, Seungyoon assumes as there is radio silence for the next entire day, passes out for a solid eighteen hours. Jhonny takes to following Seungyoon around at times when he’s at home and Minho isn’t, or is otherwise out of commission, and this time is no different.
He lets her into his room while he works there, opting out of going to the studio today, and when he pops out to heat up any delivery leftovers he might find for a lunch late enough to be dinner, she runs out around his legs in a way that tells him she clearly senses her owner has risen from the dead and is himself scavenging for food.
Minho is at the counter, moving the cold contents from a take-out container onto a plate. He’s in a ratty t-shirt and boxers, eyes bleary and squinting down at the food as he portions it out, chopsticks trying to fork through the congealed mess to get it out. Jhonny flits around her owner’s ankles and then passes by Seungyoon’s as the vocalist joins Minho at the counter, looking over his shoulder to see exactly which leftovers he was using up.
Minho pops his plate into the microwave and then picks up Jhonny, cradling the cat in one arm and using his free hand to push the take-out container towards Seungyoon. The vocalist grabs a plate for himself from the cabinet and begins dumping the rest of the food out onto it.
“I lost,” Minho says lightly, over the soft clinks of Seungyoon’s chopsticks against the plate.
As if he hadn’t sat on the edge of his seat watching the entire live broadcast finale last night, Seungyoon hums in response. “D’you feel like you lost?” he asks after a pause. The microwave announces that Minho’s food is ready, and Seungyoon turns to take it out and place his own plate in.
“Yeah,” Minho pulls the plate towards him and lets Jhonny down, picking up his chopsticks and digging in. Seungyoon doesn’t know what to make of the rapper’s expression or tone, so he looks away as Minho begins to eat.
Seungyoon leans on the counter, elbows on the cool marble top as he scrolls idly through the messages he hasn’t answered yet—a few from his mother from this morning, and some from the other producers in the agency, asking when Seungyoon will be at the studio this week. When the microwave beeps again, Minho is the one who crosses over behind Seungyoon and takes the vocalist’s food out.
As Minho places the plate in front of Seungyoon, the rapper’s arm brushes against Seungyoon’s, and in a low, playful voice, Minho says, “Second place is higher than fourth, though.”
When Seungyoon glances over, there is a small, crooked smile tugging at one corner of Minho’s mouth. The look in Minho’s eyes when his gaze connects with Seungyoon’s further tells the vocalist that while Minho might not be completely okay now—not yet, not after everything he’s gone through—he will be, in time, and Seungyoon doesn’t need to worry.
He takes his chopsticks in hand, the tip hovering over the pile of battered pork and vegetables, and his eyes run over Minho’s profile—over the hair he shaved and dyed to hide how much of it he’d lost from the stress, over how Minho’s clothes hang just a bit too loose because of the weight he’d lost as well, over the shadows beneath his eyes that couldn’t be chased away by just a single full night’s worth of sleep.
Seungyoon wonders when that feeling, the vague ache in his chest that had once simply been a sensation that was neither pleasurable nor uncomfortable, had grown into a sharp pain that squeezed at his his heart and stole the breath right from his lungs.
Seungyoon is twenty-two, and he no longer knows what he does and doesn’t believe in. All he knows is that, when Minho pins him to the wall of the studio and presses their mouths together, Seungyoon’s heart tries its damnedest to crawl up his throat. He still doesn’t know, even as Minho pulls back too soon and looks Seungyoon in the eyes truly for the first time in months, if he should have followed that feeling sooner or ignored it longer—he doesn’t know if he’ll ever have that figured out.
However, he thinks—as he pulls Minho’s body closer against his and sees the flash of relief on the other man’s face—that he at least is beginning to understand what that feeling was trying to tell him, and why it was so desperate to let Seungyoon know.
“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky