Chapter Text
“Okay,” Soonyoung said. “Final runthrough. If we nail it this time, we’re done for the day, okay?”
The members of performance unit nodded, determination on all their faces. They had been practicing for hours. This was their song, their spotlight dance, and they were going to do it perfectly.
Soonyoung started the music and took his spot in the formation. The first strains of “Highlight” filled the air, and they launched in.
As the vocals began, Soonyoung felt the energy building around them and grinned. He could feel it like it was a tangible thing—the energy created by a performance. Usually, it was strongest when they were onstage, but this practice was special. Right now, with just the four of them and no audience, not even a camera, they were creating the energy of a real performance.
He lost himself to the rhythm, to the familiar choreography and the surging energy around them, not coming back to himself until the final chord and their last pose. He felt the music cut off like a physical impact, leaving him panting.
He had never felt it quite like that. Usually there were small mistakes or variations, no matter how much they practiced, but this time was nothing like that. Every step in sync, every beat hit in time, every movement forming a whole bigger than any of them…perfect.
Chan and Minghao promptly dropped to the ground, breathing hard. “Did you guys feel that?” Chan asked breathlessly.
Junhui and Minghao nodded wordlessly, still trying to catch their breath. Soonyoung stared at them. They had felt it too?
Chan looked up at him. “Did you not feel it, hyung?”
“Feel what?” Soonyoung asked. He had to know for sure what they were talking about before he said anything.
Chan gestured vaguely. “The…tension. Atmosphere. Something. We were all in sync, and I could tell we were doing it perfectly…even when I couldn’t see you guys. You seriously didn’t feel it? I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
Junhui and Minghao nodded, confirming that they had felt the same.
“No, I felt it,” Soonyoung said. He couldn’t believe it. He had always been alone in this. He had tried explaining it before, but no one ever seemed to get it, and here Chan was, describing it as closely as it was possible to get with words.
“Then why didn’t you say you did?” Minghao asked. “If you felt it, you would’ve known instantly what he was talking about.”
“He had to feel it,” Chan argued. “Come on, you felt it. Our synchronization was flawless, hyung. How could he have fit so perfectly if he couldn’t feel it? No one dances that well, not even Soonyoung-hyung.”
Junhui nodded. “He was right there with us. Every move.” He glanced at Soonyoung. “So…why are you confused about it?”
“I always feel it,” Soonyoung confessed. “I had to be sure—no one else ever does. You guys never have before. It’s always been just me.”
The other three stared at him.
“I’ve tried to tell a few people in the past. They never knew what I was talking about. They’d claim to get it—you know, like all dancers talk about energy. But you guys felt it this time. You know it’s different. Whenever we perform, that energy is there. It’s usually weaker during practice, especially with new choreography, because we’re not confident in it yet. But when we get it right and when we’re onstage, it feels like that.” He sat down next to them. “That was way more intense than usual, though.”
Minghao’s brow furrowed. “So why did we feel it this time?”
Soonyoung shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know what it is? How it works?”
“Nope. I’m used to it, so I can do some things with it—I use it to pick out mistakes and rough spots in practice—but I don’t know what it is or why I can feel it.”
Junhui finally joined them on the floor. “So that’s how you do it? I always kind of wondered. You can always spot mistakes, even when you’re dancing with us and you shouldn’t be able to see everyone.”
Soonyoung’s lips quirked. “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty sure Mingyu and Seokmin think I’m actually psychic.”
“Aren’t you, though?” Minghao pointed out.
Soonyoung shrugged. “I don’t think of it that way. It’s not a superpower. Besides, you guys can feel it now, so it’s not like I’m special.”
The other members traded doubtful looks at that, but they let it go. Junhui stretched his arms and changed the subject. “Aaah, I don’t want that to be our last runthrough now,” he said. “That felt incredible. You think it’ll be like that every time?”
“We’ll find out,” Soonyoung said with a shrug. “But not today. Look at us, we’re exhausted. We can do this again tomorrow.”
0o0o0
Junhui burst into the studio, buzzing with excitement. “Let’s do this!”
“Hyung, we need to stretch,” Chan reminded him.
Junhui pouted. “I know.” He leaned down and pressed his hands flat against the floor. “Come on, you can’t tell me you’re not excited.”
Soonyoung laughed. “I figured we wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the new choreo until we tried ‘Highlight,’ so we’ll start with that.”
They stretched and limbered up, preparing for a long session. Soonyoung cued up ‘Highlight.’ “One time through, then we’ll work on other choreo,” he warned. “We’ve got this down, so we can’t justify spending a lot of time on it today. We have too much to work on.”
His unit nodded seriously, but he could see them getting excited. He smiled and started the music.
The energy swirled around them as if it had been waiting for them to begin, building quickly as they went through familiar motions. They were in perfect sync from the first chord, matching each other exactly, like a well-oiled machine.
When the music faded, it left them breathless and grinning. “That was even better than yesterday,” Junhui said, eyes glowing. “This is amazing.”
0o0o0
Soonyoung surveyed his unit. “Are you guys sure you’re okay?”
“We’ve only been here for four hours, hyung,” Chan said, but the way he slumped against the wall spoke volumes.
“I don’t understand,” Minghao said. “We go for longer than this all the time. Why are we so tired?” He looked up at Soonyoung. “You’re fine.”
“It’s the energy,” Jun mumbled from where he was sprawled out on the floor.
“What about it?” Minghao asked.
“It’s pulling us in.”
Soonyoung’s eyes widened. “It’s because you aren’t used to it yet! You’re working harder than usual. It’s firing you up, pulling you into giving your all. No wonder you’re exhausted.” He plopped down on the floor next to them. “I’ll cut practice short today.”
“We have so much work to do, though,” Jun said.
“Don’t worry about it. We can’t have any of you getting hurt, and besides, today has been really productive. The energy may be tiring you out, but it’s also making you better. We got at least as much work done as we usually do.”
“Did we really?” Chan asked. He slid down the wall to join the others on the floor.
Soonyoung nodded. “You guys don’t have anything to compare with, but I can feel how much quicker we’re going. There aren’t as many mistakes, and you can feel how I’m doing it, so it takes less time to get the moves right. We’re right on track.”
0o0o0
Chan grabbed his water bottle and wandered over to Soonyoung and Junhui. “It feels so different with all of us,” he said, pitching his voice low so the other members wouldn’t hear.
They nodded. “We’re more synchronized than they are,” Soonyoung murmured. “I’m going to have to drill them pretty hard to keep the formation from looking strange. If we’re perfectly matched and the other units are off, it’ll be obvious to the audience. Since we’re performance unit, some differences are acceptable, but we can’t be too much better than the others.”
Minghao grimaced. “I can feel every mistake. It’s like wrong notes.”
“I’m sure we used to be like that too, Hao. Cut them some slack. They’re not psychic,” Jun said.
“We’re not psychic, either,” Soonyoung said.
“Well, it is extrasensory perception, hyung,” Chan pointed out. “We can feel things other people can’t. I’d call that psychic.”
“It’s not like we hear thoughts,” Soonyoung grumbled.
“We can feel each other’s movements,” Minghao said. “You can track everyone’s mistakes even when you can’t see us.”
“I am not psychic.” Soonyoung opened his water bottle with more force than necessary. “Anyway, you guys can help me weed out the mistakes. Correct the wrong notes. It’ll never be perfect, but they’ll get close. They’re good dancers.”
The other three traded looks, but they let him change the subject. “How close to perfect do you need?” Minghao asked.
Soonyoung raised his eyebrows. “What, you don’t know? Same as always. As close as possible. Trust me, if I could get them perfect, I would. I actually, literally can’t. I’ve tried. We get damn close, but it never quite clicks.” He sighed. “We’ll have to settle for good enough.”
0o0o0
Mingyu nudged Minghao with his shoulder. “Do you know this one?”
“Nope.” Minghao nudged him back, a little harder. Soonyoung was jamming away to the girl group song, but it wasn’t one Minghao was familiar with.
Mingyu knocked their shoulders together again. Minghao scowled and shoved him. Mingyu stumbled a few steps, laughed, and draped his arm around Minghao’s shoulders.
Minghao shook his head, letting a smile slip onto his face.
“Performance unit dance!”
Minghao looked up just in time to be dragged into the middle and shoved into a formation next to Junhui and Chan. “I don’t know—”
“Just follow along!” Soonyoung called brightly, launching back into the choreography as the song reached its catchy chorus.
Minghao almost backed out of the middle, but then he felt the energy swirl over his skin. Experimentally, he mimicked Soonyoung’s movements, slightly behind him.
It only took a few seconds to fall into the rhythm of the dance, the energy around them telling Minghao how to move next. Just like with their own choreography, he could feel the other three beside him, moving in sync.
“Formation change!” Soonyoung called with an elated laugh, and the energy shifted to reflect just that. Minghao chuckled himself as they effortlessly swapped places. They all hit the last pose together with a dramatic flourish.
The sound of the other members cheering and catcalling faded into his hearing.
Minghao stepped back from the center, trying to tame his smile. The energy from dancing left him exhilarated, riding high on a buzz only the performance unit could feel.
Mingyu appeared next to him, smirking. “Thought you said you didn’t know that one.”
Minghao shrugged. “I don’t.”
“You sure? That looked pretty practiced.”
“I don’t even know that song.”
“Are you saying that was just following along with Soonyoung?” Wonwoo asked, disbelief coloring his voice. “That’s insane. You can do that?”
“When you’re a really good dancer, you get psychic powers, hyung,” Chan explained very seriously. Wonwoo rolled his eyes and swatted him lightly.
“My unit’s just that good, Wonwoo-yah,” Soonyoung said, draping his arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders. “It’s okay, you can say it. Performance unit is way cooler than hip-hop unit.”
Mingyu scoffed. “As if, hyung.”
0o0o0
Junhui laughed and reached in to grab another piece of meat, but he paused with his chopsticks halfway to the grill as a whisper of familiar energy traced through the air around him. He glanced up, not entirely sure what he was looking for, and immediately zeroed in on Soonyoung, who was doing a little dance next to the other table. Nothing big, not even anything that Junhui would call freestyling, just a little sway and bop of his shoulders.
Soonyoung looked up, as if he could feel Junhui’s eyes on him. Then he glanced to the side. Junhui followed his gaze and saw Chan and Minghao both looking Soonyoung’s way, just as Junhui had.
Maybe this would finally convince Soonyoung that they were psychic. Surely there was no other way to explain being able to sense when one of them started dancing? This wasn’t just “enhanced spatial awareness” or whatever Soonyoung kept trying to tell them. Junhui hadn’t even known what he was looking for.
Soonyoung’s eyes flickered back to Junhui. Then he straightened his shoulders and determinedly focused on his food.
Junhui sighed and glanced back to Minghao and Chan, finding them looking his way. Minghao looked exasperated. Chan just looked surprised.
Junhui shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about this with Soonyoung so determined to ignore it.
Still, when they finished their meal and left the restaurant, Junhui danced along the sidewalk next to Jihoon, who just rolled his eyes and smiled fondly. A ripple of energy fluttered in the air, and Chan materialized next to them a moment later, giggling and falling into step with Junhui.
When Junhui looked ahead for Soonyoung’s reaction, all he saw was a determinedly still set of shoulders walking next to Wonwoo without looking back.
0o0o0
“Hey, Soonyoung-hyung—oh.” Chan abruptly dropped his voice to a whisper. “He’s asleep.”
Hansol poked Chan. “We should let him sleep. Come on, let’s go.”
“No, let’s put it online,” Seungkwan said, pulling out his phone. “Carats like to see that we’re resting, and he’s already in makeup and everything. Channie, go pose behind him.”
Chan sighed. “Pose how?” he asked, already resigned to a demand for aegyo.
“Three set aegyo,” Hansol said instantly.
“Why? I don’t want to,” Chan whined.
“Then just dance or something. I’ll do a video,” Seungkwan said, derailing the argument before they got too loud.
Chan stepped behind the couch and, at Seungkwan’s signal, rolled his arms through a wave before shifting into a casual popping sequence that let him throw in some robot moves. He grinned when he heard Hansol giggle.
Suddenly, Soonyoung moved, and Chan ducked down to hide. “Channie?” Soonyoung asked groggily.
“Wow, our Hoshi-hyung is so tuned to leading our dancing that he wakes up when it happens around him,” Seungkwan whispered loudly.
“Are you filming?” Soonyoung complained, awake enough to play along. “Yeesh, Seungkwannie, hyung needs sleep.”
Chan sighed to himself and poked his head over the back of the couch with a wide-eyed look plastered on his face. Soonyoung looked up. “Aha, there you are.”
“How did you even know it was me?” Chan put a little bit of a whine into his voice for the camera.
“Performance leader dance-sensing powers,” Soonyoung said easily.
Oh. The energy from Chan’s dancing had woken him up.
Chan laughed and shook his head. “Go back to sleep, hyung, we still have some time.”
“Aaaaand cut,” Seungkwan said. He tapped away at his phone. “I think Carats will like that a lot.”
“If we still have time, I really am going back to sleep,” Soonyoung said.
“We have at least another half hour,” Seungkwan confirmed. “Don’t worry. We’ll come back and make sure you wake up. Go to sleep, hyung.”
“Sorry,” Chan murmured.
Soonyoung yawned. “It’s fine. Just don’t do it again.” His head dropped back against the couch, and in a minute he was out again.
0o0o0
Minghao glanced up at the whisper of energy against his skin. Chan ambled through the door, looking down at his phone.
Minghao blinked and looked around. Junhui and Soonyoung were nowhere to be seen. It was definitely Chan that Minghao was sensing, but Chan wasn’t dancing.
Chan paused, fingers going still against his screen. He looked up. “Hyung?”
“You feel it too, right?”
Chan nodded. “But we’re not dancing.”
“I don’t know.” Minghao raised his hands and ran through a quick series of finger-tuts. The energy strengthened around them. “Hmm.”
“Minghao?” Soonyoung asked. A moment later, he stepped through the door. “Felt you dancing.”
“You could tell it was me?”
Chan twisted through a fluid movement, and the energy in the room took on a different vibe. “Whoa. Has it always been like this?”
“I mean, probably? I don’t know why it would change…but I’ve never noticed it before.” Soonyoung grooved a little, adding his own signature to the energy. “When I felt it, my brain went ‘oh, that’s Minghao.’ It took me a second to realize it was weird that I could tell.”
“He sensed me when I came in, too, even though I wasn’t dancing,” Chan said.
“So…we’re getting more sensitive? Or it’s getting stronger…” Minghao mused.
“Or we’re learning how to use it,” Soonyoung said. There was an odd edge to his voice. “We’ve been practicing with it almost nonstop. Is it a surprise that we’re getting better at it?”
“You’ve had it your whole life, but it hasn’t done this before, right?” Minghao asked.
Soonyoung shook his head. “But I’ve always used it alone. There’s never been anybody else to feel, and it’s different with all four of us. Together, we’re stronger.”
Chan grooved in place, making the energy shift again. “This is so cool,” he breathed. “And so weird. Hyung, we’re psychic.”
Soonyoung sighed. “We’re not psychic,” he grumbled, but he didn’t sound sure anymore.
0o0o0
“Hey, hyung,” Chan said without looking up.
“Hey, Channie,” two voices responded.
Chan looked up, mildly surprised. “Oh, Wonwoo-hyung, hey.”
Wonwoo gave Chan an odd look. “You knew Junhui was here, but not me?”
Chan just shrugged. It wasn’t like he could say he’d sensed the change in the air as Junhui entered. The energy didn’t respond to Wonwoo the same way.
Wonwoo was perceptive, and he had definitely noticed the changes in the performance unit’s behavior as they got better at reading the energy. He knew something was up, but the truth was too strange to guess. His curiosity was obvious, but Chan wasn’t going to tell him anything without discussing it with the rest of the performance unit, especially not when Soonyoung was actively trying to hide it.
Chan didn’t know for sure why Soonyoung was so reluctant to tell the rest of the group, but he suspected it was because Soonyoung didn’t want to be treated like he had superpowers. Whenever any of the performance unit implied that he was special, he reacted badly. Truthfully, Chan wasn’t eager to tell them either. He didn’t mind the idea of being psychic, but he wasn’t sure how the rest of the group would react. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t be able to feel the energy. They would only be clued in on exactly what made them such outsiders to the performance unit. Was it better to let them know just what they were missing, or to keep the secret?
There was nothing for it. Chan wasn’t going to tell them. The truth would come out eventually, but it wouldn’t be today.