Work Text:
“Myungho-ya, can you get Jun?”
It makes sense, Seungcheol’s request. Minghao’s the first one out of the makeup chair - serious accusations had been levied about the rock-paper-scissors outcome, and Minghao, who hadn’t realized they’d started playing and was therefore both ultimate loser and ultimately innocent, became a sort of Swiss compromise - and so is the only one with nothing better to do.
Plus, in the year and a half since he’s joined Pledis (soon he’ll start marking the befores and afters by debut, but right now it’s so new he sometimes forgets it already happened) Minghao’s become the unofficial Junhui wrangler. Everybody both has and is one, combinations determined by constantly shifting politics Minghao still doesn't understand. He came on board too late to see where the connections begin and end, how the knots form. It takes too much energy to try and figure out why a five year old fight about shoes means Mingyu doesn’t trust Hansol to tell him that it’s time for hair. People try to explain it, but at this point the whole thing’s just noise, which for now Minghao’s content to let wash over him in a wave of sound and hormones.
Sometimes, when it comes to Junhui, Seungcheol will ask Wonwoo or Soonyoung. The job used to belong to a trainee who was cut before Minghao joined, who Junhui used to talk about more (although lately not so much). But usually, they look at Minghao, and he knows he shouldn’t complain.
He can’t see how the strings connect him to Junhui. All the other members tell him it’s obvious, look at him when he asks like he’s a little slow for not understanding - or worse, not a team player. They don't - they would never force anything (aside from an escalation in pointed group bonding nights, like during the Seungkwan-Soonyoung Rift of '14), but the little comments, Junnie's been so happy since Myungho got here, hyung and Myungho stand over here, over here; the sweet smiles when Junhui helps Minghao organize his thoughts in interviews or pushes him to the front during fanmeets- the message couldn't be clearer.
So he accepts it quietly, the way halfway through his first month his name became Myungho-and-Jun, the way people look for Junhui first when they need to talk to him. They’re tied together so tightly, he is told, it’s impossible to slip loose. Some days Minghao would do anything for a pair of scissors.
“Sure, hyung,” he tells Seungcheol, and makes his mouth look like it’s smiling. In return he gets a thank you which is so sincere it makes him need to leave the room. So he does.
He still hasn’t gotten used to the MBC basement (or the Pledis building, or their dorm, or anywhere outside the dingy, safe practice room). He sticks to the dressing room most of the time, only venturing out with Jeonghan or another member who doesn’t mind being clung to. He can’t sight-read as fast as Joshua or Junhui, and the people who work down here, PDs, cameramen, professional speedwalkers, don’t have time to draw clueless rookies maps.
Seungcheol had to know that by sending Minghao, there was a significant chance that both he and Junhui were lost for good.
Junhui won’t care. When Minghao fails and Seungcheol has to tell a manager, who will tell a PD, who will bring the whole Show Champion staff to a halt to mount a search and rescue, Junhui will be mortified more at the individual attention than the trouble he’s caused.
He might not even realize that it was an Incident until they get asked about it on some radio show months from now, by which point he’ll have forgotten about the whole thing. He’ll look shocked when somebody brings it up, blinking rapidly as looks back at Minghao, waiting to be told the whole thing is a big, elaborate joke. The host will find it charming, Junhui’s pleasant confusion, his nervous laugh.
But the rest of them won’t. So Minghao keeps looking.
They did get lost. Last week - in the long wasteland between dress rehearsal and camera, which made the situation less dire than it is right now, but Minghao still kicked himself the whole way Junhui was dragging him up to the roof.
They’d be scolded, Minghao had protested, and they were, but as usual future consequences didn’t factor into Junhui’s present. The world was full of more exciting things to think about.
Like the roof, which is usually locked but look, there’s a brick wedging it open, so it’s fine, it’s fine. Why would you have a roof if nobody’s allowed on it? (Skittish laughter, which didn’t dull at all against Minghao’s expressionless face.) He’d wanted to show Minghao what it looked like up there when the sun was setting - and that's why they'd had to go right at that exact moment, and why it didn't matter how angry Seungcheol would be.
(Very angry; the brick came loose, the door slammed shut. They both promised to do better. At least one of them meant it.)
The whole thing had been beautiful, which is annoying. It was too high up for the city smog to do anything but smudge the pinks and the oranges together, and the shadows, dyed brilliant, stretched across Junhui’s hands and arms as he reached towards the skyline, like he could scoop up and cradle the whole of Seoul in his arms. He leaned out over the edge, laughing at the colors and the wind on his cheeks, and smudging his makeup, which was camera perfect - but why would anyone worry about something like that?
This is what he came here for, he will explain to Minghao not that day, but later: the chance to stand at the top of the world, and laugh into the wind.
At that point, Minghao will know Junhui better, and himself, too, and so he’ll understand - as much as he will ever understand Junhui, which is always going to be a matter of inches, not miles. But at that moment, it mostly felt like Junhui was suddenly speaking a third language and expected Minghao to understand it just as fluently, for the simple fact that Junhui could and so Minghao must, too.
Sometimes Minghao wants to start screaming at the top of his lungs, so loud even Junhui won’t be able to hear himself think. Sometimes he drifts off to the memory of Junhui chattering away inside his mind, the best night’s sleep he’s had in weeks.
Junhui had made Minghao come up to the edge, grabbing his hand to drag him forward, laughing when he flinched - not meanly, but because he thought the face Minghao made was funny. He squeezed Minghao’s hand twice to show that there were no hard feelings. And then he didn’t let go.
Junhui touches him a lot, they all do, personal space became a fond memory about three days into Minghao’s tenure at Pledis Entertainment, but there’s something about the silence up here, the absence of anything to hold onto which isn’t connected to Wen Junhui, which makes Minghao’s head go blank for a reason entirely unrelated to the drop.
Unaware, smiling, Junhui held him in place by their joined hands throughout the sunset’s full bloom. Minghao’s flushed cheeks were made invisible against the deep pink sky.
It would be pointless to question Junhui as to why he’d chosen Minghao, of all people, to show this to. He wouldn’t accept the premise.
Minghao hears him before he sees him: drifting through the hallway, a vinegar-y voice going so fast the words trip over themselves to get out, then galloping forward in that panicked cadence Minghao knows better than his own.
“Just tell him, you have to tell him, if he doesn’t agree he’ll say so. No,” hiccuping laughter which repeats after a short pause as if Junhui’s afraid whoever he’s talking to didn’t hear, “it’s not desperate. -Or, no, no, it’s cool! Being desperate! People like it when you show your heart! Show your heart!”
He’s pitched his voice into that fake-dramatic octave he uses when he’s making a bad joke. He only does this around the other members and his friends from back home, so Minghao isn’t surprised to turn the corner and see Junhui sitting in the stairwell alone.
He’s already wearing his stage outfit, but his face is bare, acne spots and all. He regifted the skincare set he got for his birthday to a Chinese SM trainee he hangs out with; Seungkwan still hasn’t forgiven him. But if you shoved a camera in his dry, undermoisturized face right now he’d still be the most handsome person on any given channel.
“Everybody thought he was super mysterious when he joined,” Seungkwan told him once in the voice he uses for gossiping. It was the first time he’d ever talked like this to Minghao, and so even though Minghao doesn’t like talking about other people he’d leaned in, interested. “You know, with his face, and the child actor thing! We thought, you know, we were getting this really cool guy… But then,” he’d sighed, as if the next sentence was a great tragedy, and it was, kind of, “Mun Junhwi opened his mouth.”
Minghao had laughed, and then felt guilty about it for the rest of the day.
Junhui’s mid-speech when he spots Minghao, so his mouth is open when it turns into a big, dopey grin. On anyone else it would look dumb. It still does, but Minghao’s used to it.
“Ah, you’ll never guess who - Minghao come sit, come sit - you’ll never guess who came to see me! Yeah, Minghao! - One of my members, mhm, that one I told you about. Come, come.” He’s speaking too quickly for even Minghao to understand. But apparently his phone friend can, because there’s an explosion of laughter which Junhui obligingly joins in on.
His eyes crinkle as he looks at Minghao but not, fully, for Minghao.
A few days ago Soonyoung had said, “It’s so good that you’re here, for Junnie.”
He’d immediately clarified, horrified by Minghao’s silence (it was 4am, Minghao could barely understand his own thoughts, let alone Soonyoung’s), that Minghao was good for other things: Best bboyer in the galaxy! Top Pledis dancer! King of China! The world!
(“Which comes first,” Minghao asked, “galaxy or world?” Soonyoung had cooed, “You get them all!” which didn’t answer his question, which he’s learning to expect from Soonyoung.)
But Minghao would’ve known what he meant regardless. Minghao likes other people, but silence is good, too, sometimes preferable. Junhui, on the other hand, needs something to cling to, a liferaft, a steady arm. It doesn’t matter that the other person isn’t giving him their full attention: the warm presence is enough. Until it isn’t, and he’s jumping away like a loose spark, landing on whatever else catches his attention, regardless of the smoke and discomfort which accompanies him.
Except Minghao. Minghao, who Junhui orbits without trying to break course. Minghao, who Junhui calms down enough to explain the jokes that went over his head, the nuances he doesn’t realize he’s missed. Minghao, who Junhui says is his favorite. Favorite what? Just favorite.
He didn't ask to be this person. It was assumed, by all of them, by Junhui. Junhui is adrift when he's alone, and needs someone to steady him. Mingming is gone, Minghao is here. It fit so easily it could have been prewritten.
Minghao knows where he stands with Soonyoung, he knows where he stands with Chan, he knows where he stands with all of them. He never knows anything about Junhui, except that he’s always, always, always there.
He doesn’t know what he would have said, had he been asked.
The man on the phone is still laughing. Junhui is still laughing, even as he sees that Minghao is not.
Minghao has been dancing since before he could register that other people’s legs didn’t move like that. He knows his body better than his mind, certainly his heart. But for the first time something has severed between his brain and his limbs, something fundamental: he doesn’t know where to put his hands, his legs, how to stand normally and appear disaffected by Junhui’s sudden disregard.
But long before managing emotional or existential crises on the fly, Minghao was taught to be polite. He mimes out the message he was given: tapping his hand to his wrist, and then, when Junhui tilts his head like a well-styled cat, frowns intently until it clicks.
“Oh, right!” Junhui holds a hand up to cover the phone like it's one of those old-fashioned ones with a receiver. "Sorry, sorry, sorry! My friend is going on a date and needs some confidence! ... Do you want to say hi?" And he turns the phone, as if he thinks the Xu Minghao he's known for a year and a half would ever want something like that.
Minghao twists the ends of his sleeves over his fingers, but behind his back so that Junhui can't see. "We don't have time. We have to go back now. That's why they sent me out. To get you."
"Okay, okay!" Junhui says blithely, Minghao's irritation something that’s happening around him, not to him, and therefore is of no real concern. He smiles a private smile when he begins speaking to the phone again, one Minghao has never seen before. "Bye, ge, I'll call you later?" He adds something in Cantonese which makes the man on the other end laugh.
Minghao stares at the wall above his head.
This is what people do. This is how people behave. Minghao spent an hour this morning jabbering to Mingyu about some art exhibit he might go to this weekend, it's students that Hansol's mom teaches and it’s the first time he’s done something like that alone, his mom used to take him to art museums but this is like, it's different, grown-up, kind of and that's - weird, feels pretentious to talk about in front of the other members but Mingyu nodded along the whole time, as excited as Minghao, maybe even more.
Junhui was stretched out on the couch next to him, poking away at whatever fruit app he’s been obsessed with lately. He doesn't care about art, says that his favorite paintings are the pencil drawings Minghao makes in the margins of his Korean textbook. Five minutes ago he'd been across the room playing piano scales for Jihoon, which he abandoned the second Minghao sat down in favor of pillowing his head in Minghao's lap, without even asking. Mingyu had laughed. At Junhui, at Minghao, who scowled but still let Junhui do it, started petting his hair to keep him from wriggling too much.
The whole time Minghao barely looked his way, only sparing a glance when Junhui huffed excitedly and tilted his phone to show them both his new high score. Anyone else would have found it unbearably rude, and so with anyone else he wouldn’t have dared. But Junhui didn’t care, just burrowed deeper into Minghao, grumbling whenever he had to readjust, ignorant of or ignoring Minghao’s disinterest.
Junhui comes when Minghao calls, comes when he doesn't, too. And that was - that’s normal. That’s normal.
The churning in his stomach isn’t. This sour taste in his mouth, at the way the man in Junhui’s phone makes him laugh the loudest Minghao’s heard all week, isn’t.
(The flash paper glower when Junhui eventually got distracted enough to bound away, peering over Chan’s shoulder into the camera, wrapping his arms around his waist, squeezing tighter when Chan, snorting, tried to wriggle free. The nails digging sharp into his palm. The confusion on Mingyu’s face, which was really concern.
Nothing about this is normal.)
“That was my friend,” Junhui explains unnecessarily when the screen goes dark. He still hasn’t gotten up, leaning back and connecting each part of his palms to the stairs. “He’s from Shenzhen, too, and his- this ... person he’s seeing, well, they’re not really seeing each other, although he wants to... It started last January, oh, do you remember how cold it was? Anyway-”
The inside of Minghao’s mouth is itchy and mean. “You can’t wander off like that anymore,” he interrupts, and Junhui immediately shuts up. It feels good, this power he has to stop Junhui short.
Junhui’s face goes blank, long enough that the petty high curdles. But when the smile returns, as it always does, it’s only slightly dimmed. “Oh?”
“They told us a million times,” Minghao says. “We’re professionals now.”
He could soften it, the rules are so strict, it’s unnecessary, tell me about your friend; but Junhui’s phone is lighting up with a text Minghao can see is in Chinese, and when he glances down at it, away from Minghao, the edges of his mouth soften. So Minghao stays silent.
His arms are swelling. His heart is swelling, too big, too fast. Look at me. Look at me, look at me, look at me.
Eventually, a thousand years later, Junhui looks at him. He seems to realize that the silence has swelled to flood the stairwell, or maybe it’s the way Minghao of all people is standing, awkward, too-tight. He’s standing the way Junhui does everywhere except a stage, as if he’s suddenly found himself in a stranger’s body and can’t make their feet move straight. Minghao’s never not known how to make his body listen. Except now, when he couldn’t if he begged.
When Junhui speaks his voice is pleasant, but softer than it normally is, which makes it come out strange and distorted. “I forgot. About the new rules, I mean! I forgot.” Like you can just do that sort of thing.
"But I'm the one who reminded you-" he's saying before he can stop himself.
Junhui's phone buzzes. Junhui doesn’t look at it.
He’s looking at Minghao.
Minghao will never be able to read Junhui’s mind, let alone his face. Not even later on, when things are better, if not easier, and he knows how to vocalize the words he hasn’t yet realized are gunking up his throat. When things aren’t so tight between them, or if they are it’s because Minghao’s pulling Junhui closer of his own accord, and Junhui, laughing wildly, comes tumbling forward into his arms.
He’s here now, though. The concern, and, worse, understanding - in Jun’s expression is too much, too much, too much. So he frowns a little more and - he' s not a coward, but even heroes flee the battlefield - turns to walk away.
Message delivered. Mission complete.
- But not quickly that he can’t hear the movement behind him; not so fast that before he reaches the end of the hallway there’s warmth at his back, an arm around his shoulders, grabbing him close. Engulfing. Endless.
“Minghaooooo,” Junhui sings, “don’t be mad, don’t be mad!”
“I’m not.” He flushes - he sounds young - but Junhui just laughs harder, pulls Minghao tighter into him so it’s like they’re competing in their own stupid three legged race. Normally this is where Minghao would push him away, let Junhui trail behind him the whole way back, tail between his legs but still thumping away. But he doesn’t mind it right now, the touch, the laughter. Junhui looked away from his phone; Junhui looked back at him.
“You can’t do that anymore,” he says, enunciating his words so that Junhui will hear them over the little song he’s humming in Minghao’s ear. “Disappear."
"On you?"
"- On everybody. Come on."
“Haha, what, did you miss me?”
“Shut up.”
He wiggles out of Junhui's hold, just long enough for Junhui's mouth to fall open a slight frown - and then reaches down to lace their fingers together, pulling Junhui even closer than he had been before.
In that near-distant future which isn't so much rushing towards them as making its own way, slow, but steady, he'll realize that it feels good like this. When the strings go so tight he can feel every twitch on the other end, every movement, every breath. When he knows that there's somebody on the other end who can time their heartbeat to his own. Sometimes it's better to be wrapped up tight, because at least that means there's something keeping him in place.
Junhui cackles - delighted, content - and then starts singing even louder, his voice bouncing through the MBC halls so that eventually it’s the only thing that everybody, not just Minghao, can hear.