Chapter Text
“I just feel like I’ve been living inside a plane lately.”
Baekhyun looks up from his phone to give a concerned look to Lucas, then to Kai, who just shrugs.
“We all are, y’know,” says Mark before patting Lucas’s shoulder, “I wanna go home,” he adds in a whisper, looking down as if he were just talking to himself. Lucas smiles softly because he understands, maybe more than the others (apart from Ten) how it feels like to be away from your home country for so long - even though South Korea is their country now - at least in some way. Lucas is rather glad to be part of WayV anyhow, because he gets to be closer to his real home, but he cannot imagine how Ten must be feeling about all this (sometimes Lucas looks at him and Ten’s gaze seems to be lost somewhere really far anyway, and there is even some sadness in his eyes.)
“Wow, hey, why is everyone so depressed all of a sudden?” Taemin exclaims suddenly, he wears a smile, wants to cheer them up. “What’s happening? You guys are feeling homesick?”
Mark gets back his smile right away but Lucas can tell it is a fake one this time - Lucas notices that he has been really good at telling how fake their smiles are lately, and the more time they spend together, the more he can tell, like how Baekhyun fakes his laugh when someone asks about how he manages to be the leader, how Kai pretends to be okay with taking picture half-dressed when he’s usually so self-conscious about his body, and how Taemin hides how much he worries for Shinee’s members that he hasn’t seen for so long.
But Lucas doesn’t make any comment about it because he knows there is no place for him to do such thing: he’s the younger member of SuperM, and the less experimented compared to Mark who debuted four times already. Therefore Lucas keeps his thought for himself and sometimes he texts Hendery to have his opinion on some matters, or just to have someone else to talk to.
He misses Hong Kong.
He knows it’s not so good to go there at the moment, that’s why he’s not sure he wants to go, but still. He misses China. He misses home. He misses his parents and his brother and, really, he just wants to get some rest. He just feels like he hasn’t had one minute to himself during the whole year, always in a country or another to promote one album or the other. Don’t get it wrong, he loved promoting albums, he loved performing with the others, and he loved the other members as well - he was just tired. (And he could tell he wasn’t the only one.)
Apart from Taemin, they all had a comeback with their respective group, either earlier during the year, or one coming later on. Mark and Taeyong had worked for Superhuman, Ten and himself had been involved in WayV’s promotion most of the year, and Kai and Baekhyun had worked on Exo’s November comeback as well. However, they all had managed to give everything they had for SuperM as well, and now they were exhausted.
Taemin is right, they all look pretty depressed, Lucas can tell from the looks on everyone’s face, so he decides it’s up to him to cheer them up this time. He exclaims with big gestures, clapping his hands and trying to look excited. “Guys, c’mon! We’re going on the Ellen Show, it’s gonna be amazing! She’s so cool!”
Mark is the first one to join him in his cheer up session, he nods vigorously and adds: “Yes! I heard she’s an adorable lady, I’m sure we’re going to have a good time!”
Ten snaps back to reality, eventually looking away from the window he was staring at for the past fifteen minutes. Taeyong - who was watching him - does the same, almost naturally, as if they were connected in that weird spacing out moment.
“She looks… intimidating,” Taeyong whispers. Baekhyun hears him and nudges him with a smile. “It’s okay, I’m here to protect all of you.”
“You’re saying that because you’re the supposed leader of this group or because you actually plan to fight her?” asks Kai with a grin and they all laugh, thinking about Baekhyun trying to fight Ellen DeGeneres.
Lucas is glad to see that the mood is lighter already. They will go through this day once more, together, no matter how tired they are inside.
“What the fuck were we supposed to answer to that?”
Taeyong looks furious as he never does. Ten is next to him, trying to appease him, apparently failing.
“Taeyong calm down I’m sure no one noticed anything-”
“The hell they didn’t, it’s already trending on twitter,” says Kai, his phone in hands. Lucas appears right next to him, ready to grab the phone.
“Seriously? Show me.” Kai handles him his phone and Lucas can check all the tweets that have been sent about their appearance on The Ellen Show tonight. Of course, fans are going crazy over their reactions when Ellen asked them if they were all single. That was so… unexpected, they all had been taken aback by the sudden change in the conversation. Taeyong the most among them: he had just not answered anything, too surprised and not even sure about what had been asked. Mark hadn’t been able to hide his nerviness either and Lucas had seen him struggle not to protest against the question, saying what they all thought probably (that even if they weren’t single, they wouldn't be allowed to tell, because the fans, because the company, because they had no privacy whatsoever and announcing something like this while promoting the first album of the group was not going to help at all.)
But instead, Mark had laughed, nodding without really saying yes, asked why everyone would ask that to hide his discomfort and they all had laughed and that was it, end of the story.
Lucas felt his phone buzz in his back pocket and took it out to check his text messages, expecting one from WayV’s group chat already making fun of him and Ten.
But it wasn’t.
23:46 - From Jungwoo
Of course you’re single.
Lucas felt his heart flutter. Suddenly, the room he is in seems really far away and he’s very aware of his own thoughts and emotions. He bites his lips and tries to think really fast about what he’s going to answer to this text.
He starts typing.
I’m sorry I
He deletes it.
Then he tries again.
Well it’s not like we’re dating anyway
He deletes it again.
He doesn’t know what to write. For five minutes, he’s just lost, lost within his own feelings, looking blankly at his phone screen, waiting for the right words to come, vainly.
“Lucas? Are you okay?”
Lucas snaps back to reality and sees Mark facing him, smiling softly, a spark of concern in his eyes. Lucas gets back his smile right away and puts his phone back to his pocket without answering anything to the text.
“Yeah, I’m fine! What about you? Did Donghyuk call you out for your reaction already?”
Mark’s eyes widen and Lucas can see his cheeks reddening a little, it’s rather cute and it makes him laugh because Mark tries to act like he doesn’t know what Lucas is talking about.
“No why would he?”
“Oh c’mon,” Lucas wants to joke about it, but a part of him knows that this idea comes from the fact that he got that text from Jungwoo, and his resentment is already driving him. Hopefully, he has enough self-control not to let his negative feelings take over his mood, and he tries to forget about that text quickly. He puts an arm around Mark’s shoulders and puts on a dramatic look, obviously exaggerated. “Mate, you were so cool tonight, we gotta celebrate!” He turns to the others and exclaims: “Guys, we should be enjoying our trip, we should be partying all night!” And he seems so convinced, so happy about his own idea that the others can’t help but laugh and join him when he suggests asking for a bottle of champagne to the hotel service.