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They never really thought that they’d be releasing a full album together, so when SuperM’s comeback plan is announced, everyone is excited.
Even though the extra work was never exactly something to look forward to, time together with his seniors was always interesting for Ten. He was still too nervous to say much around them, no matter how many times they insist he can act comfortable around them, but at least they can all joke around comfortably.
But soon, the comeback isn’t a time of excitement, and every mention of it brings another sense of dread to Ten. In between planning for Awaken the World, he and Lucas are being dragged to filmings, recording, and everything in between for the SuperM comeback. But Lucas never seems to complain, his energy seemingly never ending. He’ll still come back to the dorms after a day full of practice and filming and run over to Bella and talk with Xiaojun and Hendery in Cantonese while enjoying dinner that Kun made.
Ten can’t even bring himself to properly undress afterwards, flopping into bed in his practice clothes and makeup, ignoring the nagging voice that reminds him of how annoyed the stylists will be at him. He can hear Louis scratching at his closed door, and Sicheng’s quiet voice urging the cat to go since Ten was sleeping.
Except when Hendery slipped into the room hours later, quietly shutting the door behind him, Ten just squeezes his eyes shut until he hears Hendery’s breathing settle as he falls asleep. Then he just sighs and goes back to staring at the blank ceiling, with nothing but his thoughts to fill up his mind.
Everyday seems to continue with this same pattern, and somehow, literally everyone is handling it better than Ten. But that’s okay, because at least he and his hyungs are getting closer the more they end up practicing together. And soon enough, these practices end with Taemin offering to treat everyone to dinner, and if everyone else was going, Ten couldn’t just say no, could he?
So they all go to dinner together at least once a week now, even if they really can’t fit in their schedules. It seems as though everything is going well, even if all their plans are slightly different from what they envisioned for the year, at least they’re still able to enjoy each other’s company.
But then the company tells them their comeback has been delayed “indefinitely” and Ten’s heard that word before. He had been on hiatus “indefinitely” before WayV’s debut, and so now he’s basically given up hope that he will be hanging out with the SuperM hyungs more, considering they have no reason to see each other.
To his surprise, Baekhyun invites everyone out for dinner anyway that night–”Taemin’s treat!” “Hyung!”–and well, Ten figured one last dinner as a group couldn’t hurt. And he was right, after that dinner, everyone’s schedules are seemingly filled with activities. Without SuperM, everyone seems to be focusing more on themselves, their seniors working on their solo activities while the rest of them go back to group activities.
June passes, and Awaken the World is a bigger success than Ten could have ever imagined. The fans seem to love the album, with comments coming from everywhere talking about how After Midnight was Love Talk 2.0 and discussing their favorite B-sides off the album. They do a lot of interviews for different Chinese music companies, and Ten freezes every time their manager tells them about a new one.
He makes sure to sit next to Yangyang during all of these interviews, even if everyone says his Chinese was practically fluent at this point. Wouldn’t help anyone if he embarrassed their group on a major interview; it definitely wouldn’t be the first time, and he had barely escaped a lecture then.
The Korean version of Turn Back Time comes out, and suddenly Ten’s nights are no longer spent wide awake alone in bed, but crammed into the dorm’s living room with everyone else pouring over Korean workbooks. Sure, they all know some basic Korean, but when it comes to backstage interviews they know all these music shows have, their Korean wasn’t nearly good enough.
Ten keeps finding himself reaching for his phone to text Taemin a question about Korean verbs or about how music shows work again because it’s been so long, but every single time his finger just hovers over the contact before he slips his phone away. It’s fine, they weren’t really that close anyway. It wasn’t worth bothering Taemin over something as trivial as his anxiousness over a music show when he was preparing for his solo comeback.
Soon enough, they were performing in front of empty music halls and doing awkward backstage interviews with each other, trying to remember what type of content they were supposed to create. They all keep whispering Korean phrases to each other, all of them just a little unsure. Kun asks him in Korean if Ten could pass him his phone, and Ten reflexively responds in Thai and it isn’t until Kun just stares at him instead of picking up his phone that he realizes his mistake. Maybe he was just a bit more tired than he thought.
Even Lucas seemed tired nowadays, so there was the small comfort that he wasn’t alone in his exhaustion. Apparently reality shows were exactly what WayV needed, and somehow at the same time SuperM needed to create brand new content. There still wasn’t any sort of release date for the music yet (when would this reality show even air if there wasn’t any music to promote with it?) and the words “indefinitely postponed” keep floating around in his head.
They just barely finish with recording and filmings when Taeyong announces that he’s going on a break. Ten isn’t too surprised, the young leader had been working overtime since the beginning of the year, and deserved to take a break. He replies to Taeyong’s announcement in the SuperM group chat with emojis and positive encouragement, and it’s only after he sends it that he realizes it’s in Mandarin. He quickly resends the same message in Korean, and thankfully the hyungs only laugh about it for a moment before talking with Taeyong.
For the next couple of days, as NCT goes on to perform without Taeyong on Music Bank and Ten and Lucas are suddenly told they were going to record another version of Bad Alive, the SuperM group chat is more active than it had ever been, supportive messages from his seniors periodically streaming in.
Ten isn’t sure how to respond to those, because what is the appropriate reply to “How’s it going?” when everything just seems to be falling apart? He replies with brief messages, simple ones that he knew no one would look into too much.
Every night he’d return to the WayV dorms from their hours long dance practices, where he was supposed to be taking the charge with Sicheng in leading them all through the choreography. It was difficult to practice even lip syncing with this song when the song switched between three languages. Sometimes he wished he could just go to sleep for days, with nothing to do, but that was never an option. When it wasn’t dance practice, it was photoshoots for teaser concepts and album covers.
Even outside of all those obligations, the different members asked him for help with their English lines, seeing as he was the most fluent out of them all. Ten himself only understood the lyrics to a certain extent, not able to fully comprehend exactly what he was saying when he was explaining the words to the other members, and just hoping what came out of his mouth was inteligible.
He takes to cutting out meals in his days, though he’s not entirely sure why. It’s not as if he doesn’t have time to eat, they have allotted times for meals, and Kun still cooks them dinner every night while promoting. His appetite just doesn’t seem to exist, even when it came to his favorite foods.
One night, he opts to not even pretend to try dinner and hides in his room, drawing aimlessly on his iPad. Drawing wasn’t even the word for it, he just ran the pen along the screen, creating random lines with absolutely no intent behind them. He had too many drawings like this on his tablet.
He puts his tablet aside when Kun quietly slips into the room, a small tupperware container in his hand. He puts his hand on Ten’s shoulder, and Ten hates himself for how much he leaned into it. Kun gently scoots in next to Ten, and opens the tupperware, and the rice inside is cooked with the exact spice combination that’s always Ten’s favorite, but at that moment, all it did was make Ten’s stomach turn.
But Kun is so gentle and caring and understanding, and how can Ten tell him that he didn’t think he could eat a single bite? Somehow, Kun holds up small bites to his mouth, and Ten finds himself eating a couple before taking the chopsticks in his own hands and shakily bringing up another bite to his mouth.
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Kun let out a relieved breath at his eating, but he didn’t mention it. Ten finishes barely half of the small container before he’s absolutely sure he couldn’t eat more, but Kun doesn’t press this time, just setting the container on the night table and then wrapping his arm around Ten’s thin shoulders.
The two of them just sit here for awhile, Ten’s hand aimlessly moving the pen across the iPad screen the whole time.
Kun asks him if he’s okay, and Ten doesn’t respond.
Kun doesn’t press, but Ten almost wishes he did as he watches Kun leave the room.
Somehow, it’s turned into August and Ten’s not entirely sure how that happened. And then Taeyong quietly returns back to the SM building, and even though no one outright says it, he looks much better. His bright smile greets Ten warmly, and Ten finds himself willingly entering Taeyong’s comforting embrace. He wishes he could do what he used to back when they were both rookies, cry into Taeyong’s comforting arms about how nothing was okay, but Taeyong was doing so good right now, Ten couldn’t do that to him.
So he just holds him for a few extra seconds longer than everyone else before letting go.
But then, just as everything seems to be settling down for a moment, SM calls SuperM into a meeting and informs them of their comeback date. They explain all their plans, plans that make absolutely no sense to Ten. Taemin had just released his solo, shouldn’t he be promoting his music, not SuperM?
But Taemin says nothing at the announcement, just nodding along at the announcement. But Ten watches as Taemin’s thin smile turn sad when the directors turn their back, when he thinks no one is looking.
And when SuperM are ushered into a room to do an impromptu live, Baekhyun is fast asleep and Taemin looks as though he was going to cry, and honestly everything seemed to be falling apart in pieces with just one announcement.
Baekhyun says he’s getting enough sleep every time Jongin asks him, but whenever Ten sees him, he can’t help but notice the bags under his eyes that makeup couldn’t hide. But soon, they release their first pre-release single, and it’s going well.
They wished it could’ve gone better, that’s always what someone says after they release a song, but for them, it’s as though they’re being told to carry the entire company’s reputation on their shoulders.
Ten scrolls through the comments on his phone late at night as he hears Mark’s quiet snores from the other side of the room; the SuperM dorm was rarely used, but with all of them having schedules together for a few days, it was convenient.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to look at comments, good or bad, but he couldn’t help to look at what they said, or what they implied. Even all the positive ones seemed negative to his eyes, the ones that praised his outfits, his dancing, his makeup.
He tells himself that he could do better, and the next day, he starts out with a bright smile on his face that he never lets drop. Whenever anyone asks something of him, he makes sure there is a certain element of chipper in his voice and ensures any tiredness is completely hidden.
When the group goes out for dinner again, Ten doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to say no either, because everytime he does that, he can just feel everyone’s concerned looks on him and he doesn’t need them to be burdened with his issues. So this time he says yes, but then fakes a call from Kun just a few minutes after their food arrives, and sneaks outside for the rest of dinner.
It helps that Kun likes to talk with Ten on the phone while he is cooking, so they are actually conversing when everyone leaves the restaurant, and he can see Baekhyun’s shoulders relax slightly at him talking on the phone and he knows he’s doing a good thing. He’s making sure that no one else worries about him; that’s what he’s supposed to do right?
The company tells them they’re going on Knowing Bros, and that genuinely is exciting for everyone. The seniors are excited because of their previous experience on the show, and the rest of them are excited because it’s their first time on such a popular show. Ten and Lucas spend the night before reviewing their Korean phrases, and Baekhyun just laughs when they see how dedicated they are, and tells them not to stay up too late.
Ten didn’t exactly listen to that, but at least his Korean was going to sound great.
Then the show actually happens, and Ten panics in the bathroom because that was the Kim Heechul, one of his most successful sunbaenims and he had to make a good impression.
It starts out easy enough, and Ten is able to make everyone laugh with the joke about his grandmother. Heechul seems to enjoy their jokes too, and makes everyone laugh when he replaces Taemin as a member.
When Heechul asks how old he is, Ten flushes when he points out the age difference and laughs awkwardly to cover it up. Performing Sorry Sorry in front of Heechul had to be one of the most nerve wracking things Ten has ever done, and he just hopes that he hit every move accurately otherwise he would never live it down.
Then they get to the introduction part of the show, and honestly, Ten loves to see people try to pronounce his real name. He knows it’s bad manners to laugh at others misfortunes, but it’s always amusing how they look at him as if to ask “Excuse me are these even words?”
When he hears Baekhyun quietly say that he didn’t know that was Ten’s name, it hurts a little. But just a little, and by the time they’re back to playing games, Ten’s over it.
And before he knows it, days have passed and everything seems to be passing by in a blur. Stage after stage, practice after practice. The days seem to run into each other, and he thinks the only reason he realizes it’s a new day is when he sees the new pictures of Louis that Yangyang sends him.
Taemin pulls him back after dance practice, asking Ten how he’s feeling. And Ten knows why he’s doing it, because he wants to make sure that Ten isn’t going to pass out again, but Ten hasn’t stayed after in practice for a couple of days now, and he tells Taemin just that. Seeing the smile on Taemin’s face makes the lie almost worth it.
Jongin comments on Ten’s lack of social media activity, and Ten just jokes about how he forgot his Instagram password and doesn’t want to have to go through resetting it. The elder nods understandingly, and tells him of the time he forgot his Instagram password for over a month and had to ask Ravi to post a message to the fans explaining it to them. Ten laughs, recognizing Ravi’s name as someone who was a friend of Taemin’s, and says that he’s not that desperate yet.
He wasn’t that desperate because he hadn’t actually forgotten the password, but rather every picture he took, there seemed to be something wrong. Somehow, without even posting the photo, he could hear the negative comments in his head. And even the pictures that Lucas commented were amazing, Ten still couldn’t bring himself to post. He knows the password lie won’t buy him much time, but maybe by then he’ll have some official photos he could post instead.
Lives were always interesting with the rest of SuperM, and Ten isn’t entirely sure what’s going on. When Lucas asks Mark what they’re doing, Ten laughs along with everyone else even though he is also clueless. When Baekhyun gently corrects his Korean mistakes, Ten yells at himself in his mind for making silly mistakes like those. He was supposed to be above those by now, having spoken the language for so long now.
The language word games do nothing to help out his mindset, and he goes back to the dorm with everyone else with a heavy mind. Sometimes, he wonders what he’s done wrong to deserve this. Was it because he made fun of the one kid in high school for not wearing the proper school uniform? Was it because he teased the other members so much? Why was it that he couldn’t even enjoy the best parts of his life anymore.
Even though it’s barely evening, Ten burrows underneath the bed covers without even changing. He pulls his phone out his pocket and throws it somewhere behind him, hearing it land on the carpeted floor. Then he closes his eyes and tries his best to close off his mind, ignoring when the door opened, ignoring Taeyong’s questioning if he was asleep, and ignoring Taemin’s gentle shoulder rub.
It doesn’t work. Nothing seems to work.
Tomorrow was another day, another day where he’d have to pretend to be the same Ten he always was.
What was Ten supposed to do when he could no longer pretend?