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With such a large group you'd think that he would have no trouble finding someone to confide in. And normally he wouldn't. It wasn't that Eric didn't think he had anyone available to him. He knew that if he had any worries that any one of his group mates would be willing (eager, even) to listen to him vent, maybe offer whatever advice they could give if he asked for it. No, it wasn't that he couldn't find anyone to help him. It was that he didn't really want anyone to help him.
The feeling went against everything he'd been taught as a kid. Everything he'd been told since he met the members, if you wanted to go there. For as long as he could remember, he was told that if you had a worry the worst thing you could do was bottle it up. Not letting it out would only push the problem off for so long. It would just keep everything inside as more and more got added, and before you knew it the cap was blown off and the bottle was overflowing.
Getting hate wasn't new to any idol. It was just a sad reality of the business that no matter what you did or how hard you tried, there would always be someone determined to dislike you. It was unavoidable, and also one of the hardest things for Eric to accept both before and after debut. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to have that mindset. But it was just one of the things you had to get used to in order to make it without breaking entirely, so he did.
He reluctantly forced himself to get used to the fact that some people, people whom he'd never met before in his life, hated him. It wasn't a very fun thought, to say the least. With the members, it became more bearable. If he had ten other people who seemed to like him quite a bit, he was probably doing pretty good for himself.
So he wasn't surprised when he came across people blatantly criticizing the group, or even just him specifically. He read the comments often, he liked seeing people's opinions on music videos or performances. Finding hate luckily wasn't as common for him as it was for other artists, but it was still disheartening.
Like right now. He was scrolling through Twitter after a recent stage. They had decided to go for something different with the outfits and dances. They had all been nervous going into it. It wasn't something they had ever done before and they were worried about how it would be received, even though they tried to seem confident about it for the sake of the others. But they knew each other too well to be fooled.
As it turned out, they were worrying for nothing. Deobis all seemed incredibly excited, praising Kevin's vocals and Changmin’s dancing, along with every other member. It was looking like they really hit the jackpot when it came to reviews. For once, everyone had at least respected the effort they put in. Until he came across his first hate comment of the night. Once he got the hint that it wouldn't be of much use to him, he usually just moved on. But this one had a focus on him, Eric, above the rest of the group.
idk,, normally im a fan of these guys performances but this one seemed kinda off to me. the member at [time stamp] stood out to me as lacking a bit, like he wasnt trying as hard as the other members ://
**edit: ive been told that the one im talking about is eric. thank you for telling me!!
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[User] unfortunately i have to agree with you there
[User2] lets be real here guys, it's not like we weren't expecting this. we all know that eric is hardly the best dancer in the group
[User3] ^^^ exactly. he's known for messing up like this. if you really need more proof watch this: [ link ]
Against his better judgment, Eric clicked on the link. It led him to a video compiling almost every mistake he'd ever made on stage, be it fumbling the choreo, or being off pitch or off beat. It even included things that were out of his control, like wardrobe malfunctions or his voice cracking. He watched the whole thing through with wide eyes. The worst videos he'd seen of himself were the ones of him crying. I mean sure, the members teased him about it for days afterwards, but it wasn’t like they'd never shed some tears of their own. It was fairly easy to get back at them for it.
This, though. He had no idea how to react to this. If he wasn't so hurt by it, he would be impressed that someone took the time to find all of these clips.
Now there was the question of what to do about it. His immediate first thought was that he would just continue doing what he was doing. What else? Tell someone? He would look like a crybaby. None of the others complained when they saw hate about them.
Because they haven't seen anything like this.
He shook his head. There was no need to tell the hyungs.
Getting on their nerves by whining like a toddler who had to go to bed wasn't something that he wanted to do.
You know, looking back on his past performances, he really wasn't doing very well. Not when he was standing next to the others, at least. How could he ever hope to compare to Juyeon or Changmin, two of the best dancers he knew of, period?
Maybe the video was good for something, after all.
The next day they had another recording. Afterwards he monitored it closer than ever before. His face was leaned in until his nose almost touched the screen. His eyes strained.
Hyunjae batted him back impatiently. "Other people wanna watch too, you know."
Eric snorted, making room for Hyunjae and Younghoon to sit on either side of him. The latter patted him on the back.
"You did really well today, Eric. We all did, of course, but you especially."
Juyeon, who happened to be walking behind them, stopped. "You must've put in a lot more effort than normal. You almost outperformed me!"
On the outside Eric laughed, giving back a snarky reply of, "It's not like that's too hard to do." Inside, his heart crumbled a little. So the members thought that he was lacking, too. That hurt more than he'd like to admit.
It's effort they want, huh? I'll show them effort.
In order to improve, Eric needed to, like everyone said, put in more effort.
No practices were casual. Even when he was just learning he wouldn't do the moves half heartedly like the others. He put his all into it from the get go. With this method it was a lot more tiring and he ran out of breath the fastest, but he figured that would get better over time. His efforts were bound to pay off.
Of course, dancing wasn't the only thing. The video made it evident that his rap was also in need of some tending to. In the beginning he tried to work on it in the dorm.
He was practicing a verse in the living room, Sangyeon sitting on the other end of the couch reading a book of some sort. It was meant to be under his breath, but somewhere along the way his volume must've increased without him realizing.
"Can you be quiet for once?"
Eric looked at him in shock.
"Please, I don't want to listen to you right now. If you need to practice so badly, do it somewhere no one can hear you."
And Eric knew that Sangyeon was just stressed, that the leader would never say that on a normal day. He walked out of the room, head bowed.
The next time he wanted to practice, every place in the dorm had someone in it. Younghoon was even hanging out in their room for some unknown reason. There was nowhere he could go that wouldn't bother someone.
He grabbed his dorm keys and put on his jacket. His plan to quietly sneak out the door was foiled by none other than Jacob.
"Where are you going?" He was standing behind Eric, arms crossed over his chest.
"...Nowhere."
"I'm sure."
Eric sighed. "I was just going down to the studio."
"Without telling anyone?"
"I left a note!" he defended.
"Fair enough," Jacob acknowledged. "Why are you going anyway?"
"Just to get some work done," he stated, inching his way to the door.
"What kind of work? Hey-"
But Eric was out the door.
The studio was only a few blocks away, an easy ten minute walk. A chilly breeze blew head on, limiting his vision. Luckily the building he was going to always kept its lights very bright. He let the door slam shut behind him, gratefully inhaling the warm air.
The recording booth was left unlocked unless they were in session. There he practiced over and over again, doing all of the parts he'd had in their own songs before moving onto songs by other artists. After finishing one he would go out and listen to it back, making sure to delete it once he was satisfied.
He walked back home deliberately slowly, finding any way he could to stall. He knew that running out like that wouldn't be appreciated, and he wasn't looking forward to the inevitable lecture from Jacob. Maybe if he was feeling particularly kind today Jacob wouldn't tell anyone else about the incident.
Much to his surprise, when he opened the door to the dorm (only after standing outside for five minutes, bracing himself), there was no one waiting for him in the living room. Granted, it was already dark outside. But it was only ten p.m. Usually someone was awake at this time.
Eric wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He did his nighttime routine as quietly as possible, cringing when he accidentally dropped his keys on the hardwood floor. No light shone through the cracks at the bottoms of doorways; everyone must've actually been asleep.
He closed the door into his room softly behind him. Tucking himself under the blankets, he sighed happily.
"Eric? 's that you?"
Eric jumped.
"Yeah, it's me," he whispered back, holding his hand over his racing heart. "Why are you still awake?" Of all the members, Younghoon was most reliably asleep by now.
"I had to... make sure you got home. We were all worried about you, y'know," came the slurred voice from the bed next to him. Even though he couldn't see his roommate, Eric could tell that Younghoon was just barely conscious.
The knowledge warmed Eric's heart.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know," he murmured, his voice dying a bit at the end. It was more for himself, though; Younghoon was already snoring.
No one ended up confronting him about it.
Judging by Younghoon's word choice, Jacob did tell them what happened.
But no one seemed to really care. The most he got was a pat on the back of his neck from Kevin and some strange half-concerned looks everyone else.
Being the king of tricking himself into believing that everything was fine, he took that as the go-ahead to just go down to the studio to practice his vocals. At first it wasn't that often; he would head there maybe once a week, at most. And then it transitioned to two, three, up to four times weekly that he would spend the evening in the recording studio but not actually recording.
This behavior didn't go unnoticed.
Oh, no.
They all saw what was happening right in front of them. It wasn't like Eric was making an effort to hide it at all.
Sunwoo was the one who finally decided to deal with the elephant in the room. Eric had skipped out on movie night, a once-monthly occurrence, which made it all the more cherished, to "do some work", as he put it. They watched him walk out, his puffer jacket making his back seem wider.
Sunwoo turned to the rest, scowling.
"What's gotten into him? We barely see him outside of schedules anymore."
"Sunwoo’s right, guys. I don't buy that 'work' excuse," Juyeon input. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
“I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to practice more? That doesn’t make it right, but I can’t blame him,” reasoned Chanhee. He couldn’t help but feel for Eric, having had his own bouts of practice sprees.
“Whatever,” Sunwoo muttered. He sat down, turning back to the TV. “Just put on the movie already.”
Sangyeon gave him a worried glance but complied, settling down to watch The Princess and the Frog.
About halfway into the movie, he felt a weight on his shoulder. He looked down, putting his neck in an uncomfortable position, and found Haknyeon snoring. The boy never did have a long enough attention span to get through a whole movie.
The movie ended, and some of them decided to retreat to their rooms. Others (read: Haknyeon, Sangyeon, Hyunjae) let themselves fall asleep on the furniture in the living room. They had a rest day tomorrow anyway; it wasn’t like they needed to get the best sleep of their lives.
Younghoon woke up the next morning, relieved that he got to sleep in. Sunlight shone in through the curtains, blinding his early-morning eyes. After messing around on his phone for a few minutes, he sat up on his bed. He could hear the TV running in the living room. The clock said it was 10:12 a.m., already several hours later than he normally had to awake.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Eric’s bed, and more importantly, the absence of Eric himself.
He stayed out at the studio late last night , Younghoon mused, I thought he would’ve slept in pretty late.
He went to the bathroom and washed his face, opting to wait until after breakfast before brushing his teeth.
Kevin greeted him as he walked out. He nodded back.
“What time did Eric get up?” he asked, opening the fridge.
“Oh, Eric’s still asleep.”
Younghoon turned around slowly, eyebrows furrowed.
“No… he’s not. What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t seen him all morning,” Kevin replied, equally confused.
“Well he wasn’t in his bed…”
The two poked their heads into the living room. The dorm wasn’t very big so it was no wonder that their conversation didn’t go unheard.
“What happened to Eric?” Changmin asked right away.
“We don’t know,” Kevin responded grimly.
Chanhee raised his hand from the end of the couch.
“You guys don’t think he’s still at the studio, do you?” The others thought it over for a moment. Hyunjae slapped himself on the forehead.
“Oh god. We’re idiots, aren’t we?”
“No, he’s the idiot. What was he thinking, staying down there all night?” Sunwoo answered his own question. “Obviously, he wasn’t.”
“You’re saying that like we know for sure that’s where he is,” Haknyeon said, but he didn’t put much heart into it. They all preferred to believe that he was at the studio than the alternatives. Haknyeon shuddered just thinking of it. Hurt, kidnapped…
“Well, who’s gonna go get him?” Jacob asked. “I volunteer myself and Sangyeon.” He looked around, daring someone to argue. No one did.
The two left as quickly as possible, almost forgetting to put on their coats. The weather would be bad enough just considering the fact that neither of them had changed out of their pajamas yet; they hadn’t been expecting to leave the dorm at all.
The door closed behind them. Chanhee sighed, standing up and stretching. This certainly hadn’t turned out to be the ideal day off he wanted.
“Hak, you go wake up Juyeon. He’ll be pissed if he finds out he slept through this.”
Eric woke up to someone gently shaking his shoulder. He groaned, raising his forearms to cover his eyes.
“A few more minutes, please.”
The person chuckled, but for some reason it sounded tense.
“Can’t do that for you, sorry bud.”
And that sucked, because Eric really didn’t want to get up. His lower back ached, and he could tell from the redness that he saw that the lights in his room were way too bright.
“Come on, Eric, don’t make this any harder.”
Eric groaned again. He cracked open his eyes, immediately determining that his earlier prediction had been correct. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he had a feeling that would upset whoever was waking him up.
He craned his neck, spotting not only Jacob, but Sangyeon, too. That was odd. Why did they send in two people?
Then he became aware of every detail of his surroundings all at once. The lights were brighter than normal because this wasn’t his bedroom, and his back hurt because this wasn’t his bed, it was an office chair. He was slumped halfway down in it, his feet resting on a second chair just a few feet away. All in all, it was a very awkward position to sit in, much less sleep.
He looked at the two people next to him.
Oh. Oh no. They did not look happy.
“Do you know how stupid a stunt this was?” Jacob hissed. It was the angriest Eric had ever seen him. Sangyeon set a hand on his shoulder, sending him a warning look. Jacob was pacified just as quickly as he was angered. He grabbed Eric’s hand, pulling him to his feet.
“Let’s get you back to the dorm.”
For the first time since he started making these visits, he didn’t have to walk back. There was a company car waiting for the trio outside the building, containing both a driver that looked like he could not care less what they were up to, and a blessed heater.
The two oldest let Eric ride shotgun so that he would be nearer to the air vent. He huddled into his jacket. His mother always told him that shutting your eyes was as good as falling asleep, and he heeded that advice whenever he could. But as much as he wanted to drift into unconsciousness, the pain in his back wouldn’t let him. It came in waves; there would be nothing, and then a pulse of pain, followed by a brief respite, and the cycle continued.
Sangyeon and Jacob seemed to sense this, whether it was from the discomfort on Eric’s face or their instinct to care for their dongsaeng. They helped him out of the car, bidding the driver a goodbye and twenty bucks compensation for the trouble.
Eight people were waiting for them. Eric was guided to the couch, a space cleared for him to lay down. He was uncomfortable, though you wouldn’t be able to tell if you didn’t know him. Luckily, they all did. Juyeon ran off and came back with Eric’s pillow from off his bed, much more comfortable than the sheets of paper they got as accent pillows on the couch. Kevin sat on the armrest where his head was, brushing the hair out of his face.
“I’m gonna give you a chance to explain first,” he said, sickly-sweet dripping from his tone.
Eric gulped and nodded.
“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I went down to do some work, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the time, and I fell asleep.” The words tumbled from his mouth.
Kevin softened.
“I understand that. But you really scared us, Eric. We didn’t know where you were.”
“I’m sorry, hyung. I’m sorry to all of you. You shouldn’t have had to worry about me. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble.”
Hyunjae frowned.
“You didn’t cause any trouble, Eric. That’s not what we’re upset about.”
Eric shrunk back. So they were upset.
“What Hyunjae means is that we’re upset that you have so little regard for your own wellbeing. You need to start taking better care of yourself,” Younghoon interrupted. After a while of being roommates, he knew that you needed to be clear with Eric that you weren’t mad at him. He only had that knowledge because of one too many incidents involving stolen clothes or borrowed belongings.
Eric looked relieved by the reassurance.
“Actually, all of this reminds me of something,” started Changmin. “What are you working on every time you go to the studio by yourself?”
“Oh, you know… songs, stuff like that.”
“Really?” Sangyeon perked up. “I didn’t know that you were interested in producing. You have to show me what you’ve made some time.”
The smile that had appeared on Eric’s face after Sangyeon seemed to believe him slowly fell. Sangyeon’s face reflected the change.
“What’s wrong?”
“You probably wouldn’t want to hear the things I made. They’re not very good.”
“Then I can help you. Besides, they can’t be any worse than the first things I produced.” He laughed lightly, and then took in the look on Eric’s face, the one that they all knew showed up only when he was lying about something. “But that’s not what the problem is, is it?”
“Eric, what are you actually doing when you’re ‘working’?” Haknyeon asked slowly.
“Funny thing, that…” Eric pondered how to word it in. “I’m, uh, practicing. My vocals, rapping, all of that-” he waved his hands above his head.
“And you need to do that every day of the week?”
“Well yeah. I need practice. I don’t work as hard as I should,” he said in a ‘duh’ kind of voice. He was met with incredulous stares. “What?”
“You work plenty hard, Eric. As hard as all of us, if not harder,” said Younghoon. He stretched the sentence out, making it last longer than it should’ve in Eric’s opinion.
“But I’m always goofing off during practice.”
“So what? So are Hyunjae-hyung and Chanhee and Hak,” said Juyeon, “but you all get everything done, and done well, too.”
“I join you in making mischief, but we’re still both awesome rappers,” added Sunwoo, nodding solemnly. He was willing to throw himself under the bus just this once. For Eric’s sake.
“Where did all of this come from? You’ve never been this unsure before.” Chanhee was suspicious.
“Netizens said that-”
“Already off to a bad start! Eric, you should know better than to take what they say seriously,” Kevin scoffed.
“You didn’t let me finish. You guys have said it too!”
“When?” asked several people at once, followed by nervous laughter.
“You’ve all said that I don’t put in enough effort.”
Suddenly, every single one of them felt guilty. Sure enough, they all remembered at least one occasion where they mentioned Eric putting in less of an effort than someone else. At the time they hadn’t thought much of it. It was clearly a joke, right? There was no need to look into it. Eric laughed with them, so he knew that they weren’t being serious, right?
Obviously not.
“I’m so sorry!”
“I can’t believe-”
“You’re right-”
There was a flood of apologies from every direction.
“Okay, I get it! Jeez…” Eric exclaimed, covering his ears with his palms and instantly shutting everyone up.
“Seriously, though, it’s important that you know this, Eric. You don’t need to do anything more than you have been, especially not if it’s at the cost of your health. Nothing is worth that.”
“We love you just as you are, Eric. I don’t know what I would do if you became a stick-in-the-mud like,” Haknyeon leaned closer, stage whispering, “Juyeon-hyung.”
Ignoring the complaint from Juyeon, Eric smiled at Chanhee and Haknyeon.
“Thank you.”
They smiled back. “Don’t mention it.”
Hyunjae turned to face Eric, furrowing his brows.
“Why didn’t you just practice your rap here? I get that you had to dance in the practice room, but there was nothing stopping you from rapping in the dorm.”
“I didn’t want to bother anyone,” Eric stated simply.
“But Jacob-hyung sings all the time, why-” Changmin was interrupted by an increasingly upset looking Sangyeon.
“It’s because I yelled at you, isn’t it?” He didn’t give Eric a chance to answer. “I’m so sorry, Eric, I shouldn’t have said that, you don’t bother me at all-”
“Hyung, calm down. You’re rambling.” Eric put up a hand. The leader nodded slowly. “That’s better. It’s fine, hyung, you don’t have to lie to me. I would get tired of hearing myself constantly, too.”
“I’m not lying though.”
“What are you two talking about?” Juyeon asked the question all of the observers had wanted to ask.
“It’s really nothing-”
“No, Eric, it’s not nothing.” Sangyeon took a deep breath. “A while ago I yelled at Eric for being too loud. I- I told him that if he wanted to practice, he should do it somewhere no one could hear.”
Before Jacob could scold him for it, Eric spoke up.
“But I forgave him for it as soon as it happened. It’s understandable.”
Kevin took a minute to breath, wondering how to go about this. Eric clearly wasn’t inclined to believe anything they had to say that was in his favor, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t try.
“You have a great voice, Eric. We messed up not telling you earlier.”
The maknae looked unconvinced.
“He’s not lying to you. None of us are. We all agree that we’re very lucky to be able to listen to you every day,” Younghoon tried.
He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t even exaggerating. On multiple occasions they’d discussed how glad they were that Eric was as animated as he was. He truly did brighten everyone’s day without intending to. Anything less than bubbly was not a good sign when it came to their youngest member.
“Being loud isn’t a bad thing, baby. It’s part of Hyunjae-hyung, and Sunwoo, and Changmin, and it’s a part of Eric. We wouldn’t want any more or less.”
The words from Chanhee were the final nail in the coffin that had been slowly closing up, the final scoop out of the grave being dug.
Ok, so maybe he wasn’t as annoying as he thought. If he was, surely they wouldn’t put this much effort into convincing him otherwise, right? Effort. Ha. Eric snorted.
“What’s so funny? We just poured our hearts out to you,” Changmin pretended to be offended. Eric waved him off.
“You wouldn’t get it.”
They all looked at him strangely, but Eric didn’t mind. Some things weren’t meant to be shared.
Eric chose to bask in his newfound knowledge that no, he didn’t annoy his hyungs, that he put in just as much effort as he was supposed to, if not more, and most of all, that the comments had no idea what they’re talking about.
As Sunwoo triumphantly turned on Looney Tunes (he spent quite a bit of time convincing Younghoon to let him), Eric idly wished that he had an ice pack or something for his back. A mischievous grin crept onto his face.
“Hey Chanhee-hyung,” Chanhee looked over, “can you bring me an ice pack? Oh, and get me some ramen too, while you’re at it.”
He ignored the affronted look he received, and the proud ones from almost everyone else, in favor of watching the antics of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.
You better believe that he would be milking this for all it’s worth.