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“Do it again.”
Dongju took a deep breath, moving back to his starting position despite the fact that his knee was starting to ache. Dongju had only been back at dance practices for a few days after his knee injury; it had taken a while for his physical therapist to be okay with allowing him to start dancing again, which meant that he was pretty far behind in learning the dances for their next comeback. His hyungs had helped him with the group’s title track, because that choreographer hadn’t been able to come back to help him, but their manager had arranged for a few one-on-one sessions with the choreographer that had worked on their primary B-track so that Dongju could learn that dance as well while his hyungs worked on other aspects of preparing for their comeback.
The choreographer made Dongju feel uneasy; there was something about the man and the way he spoke to Dongju that just felt off, and Dongju couldn’t quite place why he felt like something wasn’t right. All Dongju knew was that the man really didn’t have any patience for his struggles with the dance, which made the whole experience far from positive.
Dongju knew that he wasn’t the best dancer in his group; if anything, Dongju was probably the worst. Dongju had the least training in dancing prior to debut, and he had always struggled the most out of the group with memorizing the choreography. Even Dongmyeong was a better dancer, in Dongju’s opinion, and sometimes Dongju wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if his twin had been the one to debut with ONEUS. The fact that he’d missed more than two months of training and rehearsals due to his knee injury certainly hadn’t helped Dongju’s dancing abilities, especially given the fact that his knee was still somewhat stiff despite all of the physical therapy he’d been through. But the new choreographer didn’t seem to care about any of that.
“Can’t you do anything right?” the man asked, turning off the music and storming over to Dongju. The man grabbed his arm, harshly forcing it into the correct position and physically moving Dongju’s body into the correct positions as he counted out loud. It was far from the way any of their other choreographers had ever corrected him, and Dongju felt uncomfortable with the man’s touch. The red finger marks on his wrist when the man finally let go made Dongju feel sick to his stomach. “Try it again.”
The next run didn’t go any better , and Dongju flinched as the choreographer threw his hat at him. Dongju wasn’t sure what was happening as the older man crossed the room, grabbing him by the throat. “Are you trying to fuck this up? Or are you just that hopeless of a dancer? How the hell did you even become an Idol?” The choreographer squeezed Dongju’s throat as he spoke - not enough to completely cut off his oxygen, but enough to definitely make Dongju uncomfortable. It took the man a moment to let go, pushing Dongju back so that he stumbled in a way that made the ache in his injured knee flare into actual pain for a brief moment. “Go again. And get it right this time.”
“My knee…” Dongju began.
“I don’t give a fuck about your knee… what I care about is making sure you don’t embarrass all of us when they put you back on stage,” the choreographer replied. “Go. Again.”
Dongju managed to make it through a full run without any major issues, and he smiled as he finished without getting cut off. Unfortunately, the choreographer didn’t seem as pleased with his progress. “You think that was good?”
“I…” Dongju began, shutting his mouth when he realized that the choreographer was moving back over to him.
“You’re useless.” Dongju wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but the harsh smack as the man’s hand made contact with the side of his face definitely wasn’t it. “Get out of my sight.”
Dongju was too shocked by the fact that the man had hit him to even question what was going on, rushing to grab his bag from where he’d left it by the wall and exiting the room as quickly as possible. He hurried down the hall, ducking into the nearest bathroom to check and see whether or not there were visible marks on his skin.
Dongju sighed as he realized that his entire left cheek was bright red, and there were obvious red marks on his neck as well. He sighed, splashing water on his face to try and calm the redness down a bit before anyone else saw it.
Logically, Dongju knew that it wasn’t a good idea to keep this a secret; abuse was something that happened all too often in the industry, and it was something that he knew he shouldn’t just ignore. But at the same time, Dongju had seen what happened to the few people who had spoken up about their experiences, and he really didn’t want to screw things up for his group any more than he already had.
“Yah… Doongdoongie, are you okay?” Dongju looked up at the sound of Hyungu’s voice, grabbing a paper towel and starting to dry off his face before he turned to force a smile for the older man’s benefit. “Why’s your cheek so red?”
“Walked into a door…” Dongju replied, shaking his head. “I’m just really tired… catching up on all of the dances is exhausting.”
Hyungu didn’t look convinced, but the older man just nodded. “You should go home and get some rest… and probably ice your knee, too. Is it hurting?”
“It’s fine,” Dongju replied, shaking his head. “You’re right, though… I should head home and try to gt some sleep. Gotta do it all again tomorrow.”
Dongju forced a smile, starting to leave the bathroom until Hyungu grabbed his arm loosely and stopped him from moving any further. “Hey… you really are okay, right? Nothing weird going on?”
Dongju shook his head. “It’s fine, hyung. Really.”
***
It was not fine. Dongju wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told Hyungu the truth about what had happened in his dance lesson the previous evening, but he was regretting it less than twenty minutes into his next private lesson.
“Did you learn nothing last night?” the choreographer asked, as he pushed Dongju back into the mirror harshly, pressing against his windpipe in a way that was incredibly painful. He winced slightly as his head bumped against the glass, gasping for breath against the man’s tight grip. “Why didn’t you practice harder, huh, brat?”
Dongju couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs to respond to the man, which only seemed to make him even angrier. “Answer me, damn it!” Dongju could see spots dancing in front of his eyes by the time the man let go of his throat so that he was finally able to force air back into his lungs, so quickly that he couldn’t stop himself from coughing loudly. Dongju’s knees gave out on him as soon as the man let go of him, sinking to the floor. “Get off your ass and get to work.”
Dongju lost track of how many times the choreographer had grabbed or struck him by the time their two hours was done. All he really knew was that his throat was still hurting, along with his head from several repeated attempts at cutting off his breath as punishment for the various “mistakes” he’d made. Dongju was just thankful that it was time for lunch, which meant that he would be able to get away from the choreographer and back to the safety of being with his hyungs.
Unfortunately, Dongju found himself struggling to actually swallow anything from the lunch box that their manager had brought for him. “Yah… Doongdoongie, you need to eat…” Seoho began, as the older man noticed that Dongju wasn’t really eating.
“I’m not really hungry…” Dongju lied, suddenly realizing just how hoarse his voice sounded at that moment. Dongju could see that his hyungs noticed, too.
“Aish… your voice sounds awful… what have you been doing?” Youngjo asked, as Seoho moved to press a hand against Dongju’s forehead.
“He isn’t running a fever…” Seoho began.
“Dongju-yah… why is your neck so red?” Gunhak asked carefully. Dongju turned to look at the man, but instantly regretted it as Gunhak’s eyes widened for just a second before his whole face began to turn red. “What the… who did that to you?”
“Hyung…” Dongju began, shaking his head. It was clear that Gunhak had figured out exactly what was going on, even though Dongju hadn’t admitted to anything.
“No… no way, you are not going to tell me that it’s no big deal,” Gunhak replied. “They could have killed you…”
“What the hell is going on?” Youngjo asked.
“Those red marks on his neck are from someone’s hand… someone’s been choking him,” Gunhak replied. “And don’t you dare lie to us and say I’m wrong, because I’ve seen it before and I know what that shit looks like…”
Dongju looked down at the floor, feeling the tears starting to sting at his eyes. “Keonhee-yah, go get manager-hyung…” Seoho began. Dongju felt Hwanwoong moving closer to him, hesitantly putting an arm around Dongju’s waist and gently pulling him into a gentle hug.
“What happened, Doongdoongie?” Hwanwoong asked softly.
“I don’t know… he just got so angry at me…” Dongju began.
“It’s probably better if you don’t try to talk right now,” Gunhak interrupted, his voice much softer than it had been a moment earlier. “We don’t know what kind of damage has been done…”
Dongju closed his eyes, letting his head rest against Hwanwoong’s shoulder as the older man rubbed small circles on his back. His head was spinning, with entirely too many thoughts going on at once. All Dongju wanted was to pretend that nothing was happening, but he knew that there was no way he would get away with ignoring that day’s events.
“Dongju-yah, let me see…” Dongju opened his eyes at their manager’s words, surprised to see the man kneeling next to him. He hadn’t even realized that Keonhee had come back with the manager, and Dongju closed his eyes as the older man gently lifted his chin so that he could get a good look at the red marks on his neck. “Aish… who did this to you?”
“The choreographer…” Dongju replied softly, not looking at the man.
The manager sighed audibly. “Right… the first thing we’re going to do is take you to the hospital…”
“No, hyung…” Dongju attempted to protest.
“No arguments… your voice sounds damaged, and we need documentation of your injuries before we can do anything else,” the manager replied, shaking his head. “We don’t know for sure what kind of injuries you might have that we can’t see.”
“Does he have to go alone, though?” Hwanwoong asked. “He got hurt because we left him alone with that choreographer… he shouldn’t be alone…”
“I’ll go,” Seoho replied. “If that’s okay with you, Doongdoongie?” Dongju nodded slowly, reaching up to wipe away his tears.
“Right… the sooner we go, the sooner we can get you back to the dorms to rest,” the manager commented, moving to help Hwanwoong guide Dongju to his feet. Seoho was quick to take Hwanwoong’s place, wrapping an arm tightly around Dongju’s waist to guide him out to the manager’s car.
***
“Right… we’ll leave you to get some rest for tonight.” Dongju nodded slowly, closing his eyes as the police detectives that had been sent to interview him packed away their notepads. “I’m going to leave you my card, just in case you remember anything else that might be helpful. I know your voice is going to take some time to heal, so feel free to text rather than call if that’s better for you. My work cell is on the back of the card.”
“Thank you,” Dongju replied softly, taking the card from the man’s outstretched hand and flipping it around in his hands for a moment as the detectives left him alone in the small room. While he was still in the emergency department of the hospital, Dongju felt fairly certain that it was only a matter of time before his doctor came in to tell him that he was being admitted for the night. It wasn’t what Dongju wanted; he wanted to go home to his bunk, where he could just sleep and pretend that nothing had happened. But the way things had gone all day, Dongju had a feeling that he wasn’t going to get his way.
Seoho was the first one into the room once the detectives left, immediately moving to sit next to Dongju and putting an arm around his shoulders. “Are you okay, Doongdoongie?” the older man asked. Dongju nodded slowly, closing his eyes and letting his head rest against his hyung’s shoulder.
“Right… Son Dongju-ssi?” Dongju immediately sat up at the sound of his doctor’s voice, nodding to confirm that the man was back in the right place. “If we could have a moment, gentlemen?”
Dongju grabbed onto Seoho’s hand before the older man or their manager could move to leave the room. “No… it’s okay,” Dongju replied. “I want them to stay.”
The doctor nodded, smiling at him. “Of course. The good news is that there is no evidence of fracture in any of our imaging results,” the doctor replied. “The swelling, however, is somewhat concerning. Our best course of action right now is going to be to admit you overnight for observation, to make sure that your airway doesn’t become compromised…”
“That could happen?” Seoho asked softly.
“It’s a possibility,” the doctor replied. “Because there are obvious signs of trauma, he is at a higher risk of complications. These injuries can also progressively worsen over time. The best thing we can do right now is keep him under observation until tomorrow.”
Dongju nodded, closing his eyes and letting his head rest on Seoho’s shoulder. “Okay,” Dongju replied.
“And after he’s released?” their manager asked.
“He needs rest, first and foremost. With all of the swelling in his throat, I would highly recommend complete vocal rest for at least a few days, until the swelling goes down and the condition of his throat can be assessed by a specialist,” the doctor replied. “I would be willing to allow him to dance as soon as he’s feeling up to it, but singing will definitely need to wait a bit longer.”
“Right… I’ll make sure that he’s able to take off the necessary time to recover,” their manager commented.
“Do you think his voice will recover?” Seoho asked softly.
Dongju opened his eyes at Seoho’s question, looking at the doctor’s face to see what the man actually thought. “That’s a question we’ll have to put to a specialist,” the doctor replied. “Complete vocal rest is the best thing for him right now, until a specialist can look at his throat. If he doesn’t already have an ENT, I can add a list of recommendations to his discharge paperwork tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Seoho replied, stroking a hand through Dongju’s hair.
“Someone should be in shortly to take him upstairs and get him settled in for the night,” the doctor replied. “Try and get some rest.”
Dongju nodded slowly, closing his eyes again and curling into Seoho’s side as the doctor left the three of them alone. There was a brief moment of silence, before their manager finally spoke up. “I’m going to call the company and give them an update on what’s going on. If anything happens, Seoho-yah, I’ll be right outside.”
Seoho rubbed small circles on Dongju’s back as they sat in silence, lulling Dongju closer to sleep with each moment. “Dongju-yah… did the choreographer touch you yesterday, too?” the older man finally asked, keeping his voice soft. Dongju nodded slowly. “Did he choke you yesterday?” Dongju slowly held up one finger, hoping that Seoho would understand what he meant. “Did he do anything else?”
Dongju sighed, sitting up slightly to mime that he’d been slapped. “Aish… he slapped you, too?” Dongju nodded again. “Why didn’t you tell us last night, aegi? Maybe we could have stopped him before it got this bad…”
“I didn’t want to cause problems,” Dongju replied softly.
“You… Doongdoongie, if someone is hurting you, you aren’t the one causing the problem,” Seoho replied, changing how they were laying so that he could look Dongju in the eye. “If someone is hurting you, that’s something you need to tell us about. This could have become so much more serious… aish, if we hadn’t found out, and something had been broken or something had happened later tonight…” Dongju closed his eyes, suddenly realizing just how bad things could have gotten. “You don’t worry about that, okay? You come to us, and you let us help you deal with whatever’s going on. Do you understand?”
Dongju nodded slowly, relaxing as he felt Seoho pressing a kiss against the top of his head. “Sleep, aegi. I’m not going to leave you, okay?” Dongju nodded slowly, letting himself relax in Seoho’s arms.