Chapter Text
Despite lying in his bed with the door closed, music playing through his headphones, trying to sleep, Dongpyo could still hear Hyeongjun’s loud voice in the hall on the phone with his mom, “Hi mom!”
“Hi baby, I miss you.”
“I miss you too!”
“Did you eat?”
“Of course I already ate, it’s so late, did you eat?”
Why did they have to be on speaker?
“I made kimchi stew, your dad made sure there was no left overs, per usual.”
Of course his mom had a beautiful bright laugh, just like Hyeongjun’s.
The dancer’s laugher echoed in the hallway, “Ohhh, you guys finished all of it even without my help? I miss when you would make it for me.”
“I’ll try to make it the next time you get to come home. I’ll make anything and everything you want me to. So you can keep growing.”
Dongpyo can’t remember the last time his mom offered to cook what he wanted for him.
“Really? Ahhh~ I miss your food so much.”
“And you should! I've cooked for you for the past 17 years!” Dongpyo swears that even through the shitty cellphone speaker and thin walls he can hear the smile on her face, “So how are you today baby?”
“I’m doing really good, I miss you guys a lot today but I got to spend almost all day dancing,” there’s a soft plop, Dongpyo knows its probably Hyeongjun sliding down the wall to sit while they talk.
“That makes me so happy baby. You’ve always loved to dance.”
Ugly, violent jealousy disguised as anger grows in Dongpyo’s chest and he can’t take listening to the phone call anymore. He pulls his headphones out and jumps off his bed, stomping to the door and cracking it open to snap, “Could you stop talking on speaker? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Even as the words leave his lips, guilt for the way he says it is settling on his shoulders. Hyeongjun’s smile disappeared in a fraction of a second as soon as Dongpyo had said the word stop.
“Oh, sorry Dongpyo-ah,” Hyeongjun pressed the speaker button to turn it off before raising the phone to his ear.
All Dongpyo could do was glare and click the door closed again. He wishes he could open it again, apologize for the way he spoke; apologize for the glare he sent at the other who hadn’t earned the cold gaze. But he was his father’s son and apologies didn’t come to his lips as easily as they should.
It wasn’t fair.
He’d always know his family wasn’t picture perfect but it was okay, it didn’t matter to him. He was more than his upbringing; he was more than what they had said he would be. But hearing the other members talk to their parents hurt. The pain lingered in ways he’d thought had stopped when he left elementary school.
The worst part of it all was how often Hyeongjun spoke with his parents; it was almost constant, at least once a day. Sure the other members talked to their parents but not nearly as often as Hyeongjun did and it made it all the worse.
It made Dongpyo angry with jealousy. He hadn’t spoken to his parents since he started Produce X 101. He couldn’t remember the last time his parents had said comforting or encouraging things to him. When he thinks of their final words to him before the show had started they stand as the dramatic opposite of the words Hyeongjun’s parents repeat as if routine.
“Don’t embarrass me.”
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to go on this show, you’re not going to make it into the final.”
“I'm sure you're going to be sent home the first episode and when you do, I don’t ever want to hear about any of this music bullshit again.”
“You should be going to school not some stupid show about dancing this is ridiculous.”
“Why couldn’t you do something even vaguely worthwhile?”
Why? Why him? What had he done wrong? Why had they never tried to show him the type of love everyone else seemed to get? Why weren’t his parents calling him?
The night of the final episode had been like a dream… until he lay in bed waiting for the phone call that never came. He thought there was no way they wouldn’t call him. He did something good. He made it. He hadn’t embarrassed them. He was going to debut in a group guaranteed success. People liked him; they wanted to see him perform for the next 5 years.
It seemed like everyone he’d ever known had texted, or called, to tell him they were so happy. So proud of him. But how could he be happy when he’d never been congratulated by the only people he wanted to hear it from.
That night was the first time he’d heard Hyeongjun on the phone with his parents. The first time he’d felt so much jealousy and anger towards Hyeongjun. The first time the boy he should have seen as nothing more than a band mate truly became a rival he had to compete with every chance he got. Throughout the show he knew they competed but no more than he competed with Eunsang or Jinwoo or any of the other cute trainees. But now whenever he looked at the taller boy his only thoughts were of beating him, how and in what? he’s not really sure.
He needed to be funnier. Be cuter. Learn the choreography quicker. Be a better singer. Have more lines. Get more screen time. Collect more fansites. He needed to be more than he was.
If he was being honest, when Dongpyo first saw Hyeongjun he didn’t think much of him. He was cute and he was from a bigger company. But the Starship trainees audition was a mess, (not that the judges had helped them calm down) and he couldn’t even show them his solo dance.
Dongpyo had killed his audition song, done a solo dance and charmed them all the second he winked, earning himself a B ranking. And then Hyeongjun has gotten graded X. So Dongpyo dismissed him, he was leaving the show. He wasn’t a threat to his strategy; Dongpyo would be the small, cute, confident one of the season.
When he watched the Wanna One season he’d felt as though it was something he could do. He was likable and funny and cute and talented, there was no way people wouldn’t vote for him. He watched the older season over and over again taking note of who did what and how many votes they got. He wanted to make it, to be successful, to debut.
Debut. His whole felt like it had revolved around this and only this for the last 2 years of his life. It was all he could think about. Debut meant success. It meant his work was worth it… he was worth it.
If he debuted it would show his family that he wasn’t as bad as they thought, to get them to love him. Make them believe that what he wanted to do with his life wouldn’t be a disgrace. His parents hated everything he did. They saw music as a hobby, a waste of his time and their money. When he first started dancing he had lied about where he was going, saying the money he used for dance lessons was for an after school academy. They day his parents found out the truth was tattooed in his memory as one of worst days of his life, second now only to the day he waited for the phone call that never came.
He should have known that nothing would be good enough for them. Maybe his desperation for debut was meaningless the whole time when it ended the same way it began. Him, begging for approval or any amount of affection at all. His parents, denying him both and drowning him in silence. Their silence had been enough of an answer to the unspoken question: Do you care about me now?
Hyeongjun would never know how lucky he was, he would spend hours on the phone with his mom and she would spend the whole time praising him, telling him she loved him. Dongpyo had once overheard a call between Hyeongjun and his dad, and even he was supportive.
“You really are so good son, your dance to that English song was really impressive.”
“You and your friend are so cute! You might be the cutest idol ever. And your accent is so cute on TV, I never noticed it until now.”
The starship boy’s ignorance to the extent of his blessings made Dongpyo’s stomach twist and knot itself into a million different shapes, made his chest ache and burn with anger.
Hyeongjun’s response from fans had seemed to be the exact opposite of Dongpyo’s. Where Dongpyo had done so so well, people turned their nose up to him, called him fake, claimed that he cheated. People loved Hyeongjun, despite his not so great audition and reevaluation he was showered with praise from everyone.
The fans all loved Hyeongjun, they collected clips of him crying and talked about how cute he was. It seemed like all Dongpyo saw about himself were comments that he didn’t deserve to be in X1, he had cheated somehow, he didn’t earn his spot, he wasn’t manly enough, he tried too hard.
It didn’t feel fair; Dongpyo was just as cute as Hyeongjun, just as talented. Dongpyo was the center, the one who had earned it, why did he get the same appreciation? He’d thought that coming onto Produce would be it, he would finally have people support him. Evidently he was wrong.
He just wanted to be loved, was that too much to ask?