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jihoon knows all the stereotypes about busan men—blunt, curt, standoffish. cold, hard to read. attractive, but from a distance.
the problem is, he's not any of those things, really, other than the first one. he doesn't care much to beat around the bush.
yet somehow he's managed to give off the impression that despite his short stature and generally youthful appearance, he's scary. not to be spoken to unless he speaks to you first. he'll bust your kneecaps open with his guitar if you look at him funny.
like all kids these days, he learned standard korean in school, and he wouldn't say he has the strongest of acccents—not like his uncle in the countryside whose accent is so thick that even jihoon's dad can barely make out what he's saying at times—but it's enough that people seem to know where he's from shortly after he introduces himself. at the very least, there's something about it that makes people nod their heads in understanding when they ask him where he's from. the male trainees wonder if he's got any fighting spirit in him, the way gyeongsang men are supposed to have, while the female trainees try to reconcile their mental pictures of a cool, masculine busan man with all one hundred and fifty-eight centimeters of lee jihoon and his soft cheeks.
the only one that's never really treated him differently was choi seungcheol. from daegu, jihoon learns early on, a little farther north but close enough to have grown up with the same stereotypes. seungcheol's been in seoul two years longer than he has—plenty of time for the rolling hills of his daegu accent to settle into the smoother lines of their new home, but jihoon hears it slip when seungcheol calls his parents every two weeks, letting them know that he's training well, eating well, and sleeping well.
only the first one is true. they'd split a single pack of ramyun last night with the luxury of a single egg apiece before crashing out to try and get three hours of sleep before going to school.
"eomma, i'll come for hyung's graduation," he says, voice filled with aegyo that only the baby of the family could have, and jihoon's not supposed to be listening to this conversation but there's only so much he can ignore in their shoebox of a room, bunk beds for four in a space meant for one. at least only the two of them are in there for the time being.
jihoon ignores the homesickness in his chest, pushes it down and swallows it like the good gyeongsang man he's supposed to be.
it's not that his mother doesn't call him. she loves him, like every mother loves her son, asking him how he's doing, if he wants her to send him any money, and if he can send her a selca every now and again to show his grandparents. but he's an only child, and his family is a little more reserved, not like seungcheol's, who seem to be thoroughly endeared by the pouting he does over the phone. jihoon's pretty sure that if he did that to his father, his parents would ask if he needed to see a doctor.
jihoon tells seungcheol as much one night, after seungcheol's made his fortnightly call. the elder chuckles, rolling over to face jihoon from the neighboring bunk.
"for as much as you say you're not a gyeongsang man, you really are," he teases, poking at jihoon's cheek.
jihoon swats his hand away, grimacing. "look at you! what kind of gyeongsang man are you supposed to be, acting all cute to your mom? hell, you do that to the other trainees, too, and you're older than them."
"i'm the maknae at home," seungcheol says, as if that's supposed to explain everything. "it's what i'm used to. i'm not used to being someone else's haengnim, you know?"
they're not speaking in dialect, so jihoon's caught off guard when seungcheol throws the word casually into the sentence. jihoon doesn't know what seungcheol meant by it—maybe just trying to be friendly, or show off that he is actually from gyeongsang-do and not some poser—but he clings to it like a lifeline. a piece of home some three hundred kilometers away from home.
"i'm an only child," he replies, mouth dry, "so i've never really had a haengnim."
"that explains a lot," seungcheol chuckles, "so i'll be yours, then." he smiles at jihoon, the divot of his dimple sinking into his cheek, as if jihoon had suddenly gifted him the universe.
(if only seungcheol knew that he was the one giving jihoon something worth the world and then some.)
they end up speaking in dialect more when they're alone, with no pretenses to uphold. it's comforting, somehow, in a way that jihoon can't quite explain. he doesn't put up a front with the other trainees (not consciously, at least), but there's a something to the way seungcheol asks him "bab mutna?" instead of jonghyun's "meogeosseo?" that sets him more at ease, drops the tensions from his shoulders more quickly.
gradually, he starts spending more time with the other trainees outside of practice, tagging along when they make convenience store runs or joining in with movie nights in the living room when he'd usually go to bed. seungcheol nudges him subtly towards doyoon, minki, and minhyun, and jihoon realizes that he hadn't been nearly as alone as he'd thought. they may not have the same kinds of memories that his neighborhood friends have, but they understand him the same way seungcheol did.
by the time a new group of trainees join them, seungcheol jokes that jihoon's almost an entirely different person from the kid he'd met just a few months ago.
(jihoon threatens to whack him with his guitar. seungcheol just sticks his tongue out at him. kim mingyu, a new kid, watches this exchange with wide eyes and tries to curl his too-tall body into the gap between a filing cabinet and the wall.)
the company lets them all go home for the chuseok holiday—a small miracle, given how they've discussed and thrown out several plans for seungcheol and jihoon's potential debut. maybe this is their way of apologizing.
they take the ktx together, since they're heading home in the same direction, commiserating over having to stand for the two-plus hour ride since they'd barely been given a few day's notice that they had days off and the seated tickets were predictably pre-booked weeks in advance. they don't talk much, since it's too crowded and noisy for them to really get a proper conversation in, but they share a pair of earbuds and take turns picking songs off of seungcheol's ipod touch.
after what seems like a surprisingly short time, the announcer calls that the daegu stop will be coming up shortly; jihoon hands seungcheol his side of the earbuds, and seungcheol wraps the cord around his ipod before tucking it into his pocket and reaching down to grab his duffle bag from between his legs.
"see you on the ride back," seungcheol grins, ruffling jihoon's hair and sticking out his tongue when jihoon glares back at him. "have a good chuseok."
"you too."
the train pulls up to the stop, seungcheol nudges his way through the people standing in the aisle, and jihoon is left to the rest of the ride with his own music, both earbuds in.
(he doesn't have anything against being alone—prefers it, most of the time—but something about seungcheol's absence hits him suddenly. after months of spending nearly every waking and sleeping moment side-by-side, it almost feels wrong to be apart.)
predictably, his mother fusses over him when she greets him at the station, fretting over his slimmer frame and overgrown bangs. his father falls into step beside them silently, but claps a warm hand on jihoon's shoulder, the same as he always does.
"eomma," jihoon sighs, shaking his hair out of his eyes. he really ought to get a haircut, but he'd been forbidden to for the past month in case they needed to cut and dye it at a moment's notice.
he follows his parents out of the station to the parking lot, his mom chattering about their neighbors in the apartment complex and some of what her friends' kids were up to. he doesn't mean to, but he tunes out a little bit, tired from getting up early for the train, letting her voice fade into comforting background noise until she nudges him pointedly. she must've asked him a question.
"eomma, mwora kaessanno?"
the moment the words leave his mouth, his mother raises an amused eyebrow. "''kaessanno?' aigo, jihoon-ah," she chuckles, a smile gracing her lips. "you've been hanging out with someone from daegu?"
to be honest, jihoon hadn't even thought about it, only realizing the change after seeing his mother's reaction. he'd noticed the differences between his and seungcheol's dialects when they'd first started using it more frequently around each other, but like most things when they become familiar, the details became less important—what did it matter if he said eudi galkkigo? or eodi galkkindae? when seungcheol understood that either way, jihoon was asking where he's going?
perhaps they'd become closer than he'd thought.
he makes a noncommittal hum. "i guess."
"who've you been spending so much time with?" she asks, as she makes a grab for his bag. he pulls it back, puffing his chest out a little. he may be his mother's child, but he's fifteen years old and will not be having his mother put away his bags for him."aigo, look at you, trying to be a man," she scolds, voice warm. she lets him put it into the trunk of the car himself, but demands a cheek pat for her troubles.
"ah, just another trainee. seungcheollie-haengnim."
"haengnim? ah, jihoon-ah, i'm glad you found someone who can understand you. i worry about you, up there all alone."
jihoon almost laughs. if only she knew. "don't worry, eomma. i'm not alone."