Archive of Our Own

i. chemistry

It was quiet in the dorm for once, which meant everyone else had already left. Which meant Jiseok was running late, which meant he’d be staying late to practice tonight to make up for it, which meant he wouldn’t get back to the dorm until late, which meant a high chance of oversleeping again tomorrow. It was a vicious cycle.

Still, it was a rare day that he was the last to leave the dorm. Jooyeon was the infamous oversleeper, and even if he no longer shared a room with the ever-fussing, dutiful Seungmin, Jiseok did. While he knew he wasn’t half as bad as Jooyeon, he found himself needing to be coaxed out of bed more often than he would like to admit.

No such coaxing had occurred today, however. He vaguely remembered waking up earlier that morning, making eye contact with Seungmin as the latter picked out his accessories for the day, and then rolling over and going back to sleep.

Now it was late morning, and the dorm, for once, was quiet.

Jiseok sighed, brushing his hair out of his face (only for it to immediately flop back over his eyes) as he perched on the edge of Seungmin’s bunk to pull on some hopefully clean socks (they smelled okay, at least).

For a mercy, there was nothing pressing today that he absolutely needed to be at the company early for. In the brief reprieve of post-promotions and pre-comeback, their schedule was a little more flexible and easy-going. He didn’t even have any lessons until after lunch. There was just something about being the last to leave the dorm that didn’t feel great, like an apologetic little stone in the pit of his stomach.

As he bustled out of his and Seungmin’s room, Jiseok glimpsed movement through the partly open door to Jooyeon and Gunil’s room. A vague sense of relief came over him, and a grin crept up his face. It seemed he was not, in fact, the last to leave the dorm.

He bounced across the hall, sticking his head through the door. But if he expected to see Jooyeon—which he did—he was left puzzled.

“Hyung?”

Gunil was sitting on the edge of his bunk, a distinct crease between his eyebrows and his thumbnail between his teeth. His expression smoothed out as he looked up, surprised.

“Jiseok,” he said, “I didn’t know you were still here.”

“I didn’t know you were still here,” Jiseok returned. He swept a hand through his hair again, suddenly feeling awkward. “Slow morning, huh?”

Gunil smiled. “I guess.”

“To think I was worried about you chewing me out for being late…”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing to be late for, not for another couple hours.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

It wasn’t much of a conversation, and it died an unceremonious death. Jiseok was reminded of the early days of the band’s formation, when he and Gunil had struggled to hold a conversation that went beyond pleasantries. Even the others had commented on how awkward their dynamic was, relative to everyone else—even after their debut. And it was true, Jiseok thought, that Gunil had been a little different towards him than towards the others. Not a bad different, just different. More… serious, for reasons that Jiseok had never figured out and didn’t care to dredge up.

He liked to think that they’d been through enough and knew each other well enough now to be completely past all of that. But suddenly, standing in the doorway as Gunil sat on the edge of the bunk, blinking up at him, Jiseok felt almost like he’d been vaulted back in time by a year.

Then Gunil stood, clapped Jiseok on the shoulder, and turned to unplug his phone. “Well, at least neither of us has to walk to work alone.”

Jiseok smiled. “There is that.”

Still, the awkwardness seemed to creep back in as soon as they left the dorm and set off en route to the company, with masks and glasses and messy, bleach-fried hair. They looked no part the idols they were supposed to be but most days didn’t much care to resemble, especially if they weren’t expected to be in front of a camera. The usual traffic flowed through the Seoul streets, both on foot and on wheels, and even if their faces had previously been blown large on posters in this very area, no one glanced twice at them. Late morning on a tired, overcast weekday did not feel like idol hours.

Jiseok hadn’t even had breakfast—he figured he’d probably grab something once they reached the company—but that wasn’t really at the forefront of his mind. The silence between himself and Gunil stretched on as they walked.

Hanging back a step and observing, it was pretty obvious that there was something on Gunil’s mind. The crease between his eyebrows was back, and while he stared straight ahead, he didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular.

Come to think of it, this was the exact expression he’d been wearing when Jiseok had come across him in the dorm, and it was unusual in the first place that Gunil of all people—their eldest, their leader, who always led by example even if he had to grit his teeth to do so—should still be at home when almost everyone else had already left.

“What’s up?” Jiseok asked, the words falling out of his mouth before he knew they were going to.

Just like earlier, Gunil seemed startled that Jiseok was there.

“Oh,” he said. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not being very good company right now, am I?”

“Well, I’m not an enemy of silence, like certain others I could name,” said Jiseok. “But you just seem… preoccupied?”

Gunil shot him an amused glance. “You don’t need to worry,” he said. “If you want to know, I’m thinking about the comeback. It seems far away for now, but there’s less time between then and now than between now and our last comeback, and it feels like we’ve barely had time to catch our breath. I keep thinking about what’ll happen if someone gets sick or hurt again.” He shook his head. “Did any of us ever tell you how much it sucked to perform without you? Just as an example of what I’m worried we might face again.”

“Might have mentioned it once or twice,” said Jiseok. Not like that had been a walk in the park for him, either—even now, remembering it, he could feel a shadow of the tight, painful knot that had coiled into his chest as he'd watched his friends and bandmates through a screen, performing, while he was coughing and sniffling and shivering under a blanket in a quarantine facility.

It was somehow even worse when the others started getting sick, too—at least when it was only Jiseok down, they could still function as five, with minimal extra difficulty. But then it was Jungsu and Seungmin, then Hyeongjun, and Jooyeon, and then that was it: the unceremonious end to their Hello, World promotions. No more stages, no Immortal Songs. What could be postponed was postponed, what couldn’t was cancelled. Jiseok knew it wasn’t really his fault, but he’d felt awful about it nonetheless. And still sort of did.

“Maybe it’s just because of the weather,” Gunil sighed. “But I keep thinking about everything that could go wrong, and how I can, I don’t know, maybe make sure it doesn’t?”

Jiseok bumped his shoulder against Gunil’s and grinned. “Even your big strong arms can’t protect us from everything, Hyung. Whatever happens, happens. Although, if you could maybe flex your muscles a little if that pesky coronavirus ever comes by again? Y’know, just to scare it off? That would be a big help.”

“Oh, of course,” Gunil said seriously. “I’m certain that was why I managed to dodge it last time. The virus must have known I eat protein for breakfast.”

Jiseok squinted at him. “Was—was that a spike protein joke?”

“Just for you, my little chemistry nerd,” Gunil said, punctuated with a wink.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have ears.”

Gunil giggled, far too pleased with himself, but quickly sobered. “You’re right, though. What happens, happens. I don’t even really know why I’m worrying so much—I am looking forward to the comeback, it’s just…”

“Yeah,” said Jiseok. “I get it. Believe me.”

Gunil nodded, and slung an arm over Jiseok’s shoulders, giving him a friendly squeeze in a brief side hug before releasing him. They lapsed back into silence for the short remainder of the walk to the company building, but there was no awkwardness this time, imagined or otherwise.

ii. mother hen

Jiseok knew his guitar well enough to be able to play it without needing to think about it. That was sort of the point—it wasn’t enough to simply play a song until he got it right. He needed to play it until he couldn’t get it wrong. It wasn’t just him—they all strove for perfection. In band practice, in individual practice; separately, together; with vocals, without. In the dark, blindfolded, in front of a mirror. It was part of their job, and sometimes it was hard, and gruelling, and exhausting. It was also uniquely rewarding, and for now there was no job Jiseok would rather be doing.

But being able to play all their songs in his sleep didn’t mean that he was immune to having off days every now and then. On some off days, like today, it was hard to even place what was so off about it. His fingers felt stiff, but they obeyed him just the same—they played the right chords, held his pick the right way, strummed and plucked the right strings. His legs felt tired and his spine felt weary, but they held him up just fine. None of these symptoms of exhaustion were new sensations, anyway, and he’d soldiered through them on countless days without suffering the feeling of offness that plagued him on this one.

There was just something… missing. He was playing right, but he wasn’t playing well. He urged his hands to inject as much feeling into the music as it needed, but they were inert and uncooperative, and the sound that came to him through his monitors wasn’t literally flat—it was perfectly in tune—but it fell flat in his ears, as empty and lifeless as a paper bag in the rain.

It was frustrating. He tried to channel his frustration into focus, standing in one place for once and honing in on his guitar, on the feeling of it under his hands, on the magic he knew he was capable of coaxing from it. In his periphery, he glimpsed Jooyeon shooting him an occasional glance, and somehow that just made it all worse.

“Really good stuff today, guys,” Gunil told them as they finished up practice for the afternoon. “Man, we’re like a well-oiled machine.”

“Like a music box,” added Seungmin. “Wind us up and watch us go?”

“That works,” Gunil agreed. “And speaking of boxes, I think we’ve definitely earned lunch.”

“Hear, hear!” Jooyeon hollered. At the mention of food, the strap of his bass was free from his shoulders in the blink of an eye. He turned to Jiseok with a wide grin. “I think they have fried chicken in the cafeteria today. Man, I am starving.”

Jiseok returned the smile. “Save me some?” he said. “I think I’m gonna hang back for a while. Few things I wanna go over real quick.” It was a watered-down way of saying that he intended to stay here until he could finally diagnose what was wrong with his playing, or until the growling of his stomach made it impossible to focus—whichever came first.

Jooyeon’s face melted into a briefly puzzled expression, and then he shrugged. “Well, I make no promises, so you better hurry up.”

He filed—practically skipped—out of the room after Gunil and Seungmin, followed shortly by the ever-calm Hyeongjun. Jungsu, for his part, was perched on the stool behind his keyboard, frowning down at his fingers still arrayed over the keys. There was something viscerally familiar in his expression, as if Jiseok were staring into a mirror rather than at his bandmate.

“Not hungry, Hyung?”

Jungsu looked up, face openly troubled. More than any of them, he wore his heart on his sleeve—and on his face—but was somehow still reluctant to admit when he was having a hard time. “No, I ate too much yesterday,” he mumbled. “You should go eat, though.” His eyes went from Jiseok’s face to his guitar, still fixed on his person like an extra limb (it sort of was), and back, brow furrowing “What’s wrong?”

Jiseok blinked. He shoved his guitar to one side and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hey, that’s not fair, I asked first,” he said.

“No, you didn’t, you asked if I was hungry, and I answered. Come on, what’s up?”

“I—” Jiseok threw up his hands. “Nothing! Not really. Just wanted to get in some extra practice.”

Jungsu continued to appraise him, lips pursed.

“Off day?” he guessed.

“Yeah,” Jiseok sighed. “You, too?”

Jungsu nodded.

“Well… for what it’s worth, you sounded fine to me.”

“Thanks,” said Jungsu. “You sounded fine to me, too, but, to be honest, I wasn’t really paying much attention to what anyone else was doing.”

“Neither.” Jiseok smiled, just briefly. He looked down at his hands, flexing them. “I swear my fingers just don’t work right today. They’re like office workers who clock in for the day, do the bare minimum, and then go home in the evening to feed their fish and drink a whole bottle of soju before going to sleep and doing it all again the next day.”

“Uh… what?”

“My fingers,” said Jiseok very seriously, “have no souls, Hyung.”

Jungsu snorted. “Right. Whatever you say.”

“You get what I mean, though, right?”

“Unfortunately, yeah.” Jungsu’s gaze drifted back down to his keyboard with a faint air of distaste. He sighed heavily. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Jiseok again, and there was a certain… glint in his gaze.

Jiseok took a step back. “What? Hyung, I don’t like that look, what is it?”

Jungsu got up. “Come on,” he said, holding his arms out. “This is for both of us.”

It was Jungsu, after all.

Well, Jiseok wasn’t actually going to protest and they both knew it, but he let out a dramatic groan as he shifted his guitar further out of the way. Jungsu closed the distance between them, folding around Jiseok like a blanket and letting out another sigh, his ribs deflating under Jiseok’s hands, a puff of breath fluttering through his hair.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was a serial hugger, really something of a hug-whore, but Jungsu did give good hugs—his hold was tight but not too tight, cheek pressed against the side of Jiseok’s head, rocking very gently from side to side. Their height difference had a lot to do with it, but Jungsu’s hugs made Jiseok feel so very small. Not in a bad way. It was sort of like being a kid again, safe and protected and with nothing worth worrying about.

Eventually, Jungsu let go, one hand coming to rest on Jiseok’s shoulder and the other fixing his hair. “Thank you.”

Jiseok patted his waist. “Feeling better?”

Jungsu smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Should we go get you some chicken, then? Jooyeon will have saved you some.”

“He better have,” said Jiseok.

“I’ll tell him off if he didn’t,.” Jungsu stepped back so that Jiseok could separate himself from his guitar, then wrapped an arm over his shoulders and steered him towards the door.

Jiseok had the self-awareness to feel a little bad about what Jungsu was very obviously doing—using Jiseok’s troubles to deflect his own. But he also knew that was just what Jungsu did, as if caring for others was a proxy for caring for himself.

Back when they used to share a room, it hadn’t been an uncommon occurrence for Jungsu to climb up into Jiseok’s bunk, whisper words of comfort, and then fall asleep beside him. This happened even if Jiseok was feeling totally fine. He’d figured out pretty quickly that this habit of Jungsu’s often said more about his own state of mind than anything. He kept plush toys on his bunk to cuddle up to, but it seemed they weren’t always enough, and Jiseok was the next closest cuddly thing.

After a while, Jiseok had begun to recognise the signs. If ever in an evening Jungsu was unusually quiet and reserved, if ever he began to actually resemble the introvert he supposedly was, Jiseok would remember to leave some space on his bunk when he went to bed that night. Sure enough, shortly after turning out the lights, there Jungsu would be. And the next morning, he’d be back to his sweet, cheerful self—unless he was really struggling, which was a different situation in the first place.

So, Jiseok was inclined to let Jungsu mother-hen his way into feeling better.

As they walked down the hall, he wormed an arm around Jungsu’s waist. Jungsu gave his shoulders a little squeeze in acknowledgement.

Nothing needed to be said.

iii. bracelet

Under normal circumstances, having six young men living together in a small Seoul apartment was perhaps… not ideal, or even really a good idea, but, to be fair, the state of being an idol band under one of the biggest entertainment companies in South Korea automatically disqualified them from “normal circumstances.”

It wasn’t so bad, especially given how they spent most of their time at the company building rather than at the dorm, anyway. A bit crowded? Sure. Noisy? Usually. But it was fun. Jiseok was endlessly glad that they all got along so well with one another; that he got to live together with five close friends whom he loved like family. Some of his favourite memories since this whole wild ride had begun had been made right here in the dorm.

He’d long gotten used to the lack of personal space and the death of the concept of privacy, and since they were together practically twenty-four/seven, accommodating each others’ presence had become second nature. The foremost role to living together peacefully was simply to, well, live—and let live.

So, Jiseok didn’t really pay much mind when Seungmin started tearing their room apart one evening. In fact, he hardly even noticed he was there—he was busy, thank you very much. He had an urgent appointment with Netflix and a new type of peach gummy that Gunil had found for him at the convenience store (they were pretty good). But as Seungmin continued to agitatedly displace everything in their room, from clothes to books to blankets, he became progressively harder to ignore.

He was decidedly impossible to ignore when he popped his head up over the side of Jiseok’s bunk, eyes scanning the messy blankets and snack stash with a sort of feverishness. His hair was sticking up every which way and he appeared to be breathing a little heavier than would be normal for an unhurried Friday night, which was mildly concerning.

“Can I help you?” Jiseok asked, offering a peach gummy.

Seungmin took the proffered sweet, chewing it furiously. “You haven’t seen my bracelet, have you?”

“Which one?”

“The red one. With the treble clef charm.”

Jiseok couldn’t honestly say he remembered seeing any such thing ever in his life. If he were to see it, he would probably recognise it—and even recognise it as Seungmin’s, if only by virtue of the fact that a good ninety percent (or more) of the jewellery floating around the dorm originated from him—but he couldn’t summon its visage off the top of his head.

“Can’t say I have, sorry.”

Seungmin let out a weary sigh and dropped back down to the floor, pacing up and down with his hands on his hips.

Officially concerned, Jiseok set his phone aside, pulled his earphones out, and sat up.

“Why? Did you lose it?”

Seungmin nodded tersely.

“Well… maybe one of the others has it?”

“No, I was wearing it today.” He sighed and turned towards Jiseok, anxiously scrubbing one hand through the back of his hair (which explained why it was such a mess). “I know I definitely had it on when I left my rap lesson today, but I can’t remember if I still had it when we got home.”

Jiseok frowned. He’d had his own rap lesson right after Seungmin, then they’d had a meeting to be briefed on the timeline for their next comeback. After that, they’d all headed home at the same time—which was rare—and ordered in a late dinner.

“I’ve already searched the kitchen, the lounge…”

“You probably lost it at the company then, no?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin said blankly. “Probably.”

Jiseok would have been happy to leave it at that, as a problem for tomorrow, but suddenly Seungmin was pulling on his jacket, shoving his phone into his pocket, and checking his key card.

“You’re going now?”

“Yes I’m going now. It’s one thing if I lost it in the practice room, but if I lost it in the meeting room I’ll probably never see it again.”

It was a fair point. Not only did the meeting rooms see a much wider variety of foot traffic than their band practice room or the private rooms they used for lessons and independent study, but they were cleaned every morning. If he really had lost it in the meeting room, then maybe Seungmin’s bracelet would end up with lost property—but it would more likely end up inside a vacuum cleaner.

“W-well—hold on a sec, I’ll come with you,” said Jiseok, scrambling down from his bunk.

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t mind going by myself.”

“Hey, you already have me invested in the fate of this bracelet. Plus, it’ll be quicker with two of us, right? Divide and conquer?”

Seungmin raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.”

If he was being honest, Jiseok wasn’t entirely sure why he felt the urge to go along on this venture. It wasn’t like it was a more interesting thing to be doing with his evening than watching Netflix until he passed out, and it wasn’t like Seungmin really needed someone with him. It was a safe neighbourhood, and Seungmin was prone to going out for solitary late-night walks as it was.

There was just something in the look on his face, or maybe the set of his shoulders, or even the edge in his voice, that made Jiseok reluctant to let him go alone.

Out in the lounge, Hyeongjun was busy replacing one of his guitar’s strings. He looked up as Seungmin walked in, trailed by Jiseok.

“Still no luck?” he asked.

“No. Gonna check at the company,” said Seungmin.

“And I’m coming for moral support!” said Jiseok.

“Alright. Have fun.” Hyeongjun’s attention was already back on his guitar. “Don’t get murdered or kidnapped.”

“We’ll try our best,” said Seungmin.

It wasn’t like they never left the company absurdly late, sometimes well into the small hours of the morning, but it was another thing entirely to be arriving at such an hour. The lobby was completely empty and only dimly lit. Their footsteps echoed softly and the beeps from the security gate seemed sharp and wincingly loud as they scanned through. The elevator dinged open immediately when Seungmin pressed the call button, which was something that could only ever happen when the building was either empty or close to it.

It was almost… eerie. Jiseok couldn’t help but shiver slightly. He rubbed his arms as they stepped into the elevator. “Kind of a chilly breeze tonight, huh?”

Seungmin frowned at him. “Do you want my jacket?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m fine.”

“Right.” Seungmin continued to stare at him, squinting. “Don’t tell me you’re scared to be here at night when no one else is around.”

Jiseok forced out a short laugh. “What? Of course not! That’s ridiculous. This building is practically our second home! Why would I be scared when there’s literally nothing here to conceivably be scared of, like, at all and at any point?”

And that was when they reached the meeting room’s floor and the door slid open to reveal an utterly dark corridor. The fluorescent light from the elevator spilled over the colourful JYP carpet before being swallowed into blackness.

“Where,” said Jiseok, “are the lights?”

“They’re motion-activated,” said Seungmin, with saint-like patience. “You really didn’t have to come…”

“Let’s just find this bracelet quickly, okay?”

Jiseok let Seungmin go first, since, you know, this was his errand and all, and definitely not so he could hide behind him as they stepped out of the elevator. He held his breath, waiting for the motion detectors to sense their presence and turn on the lights.

The elevator clunked shut behind them, and they were plunged into darkness.

Jiseok’s heartrate shot up by a modest increment and he found himself with Seungmin’s sleeve in his hand, though he didn’t remember reaching for it.

Seungmin’s voice, when he spoke, was drenched with uncertainty. “I guess… the motion sensors aren’t working?”

“So it would appear,” Jiseok said tightly.

The bright oblong of Seungmin’s phone screen flared, followed by a flood of blue-white from his camera light. He aimed the light at the motion sensor on the ceiling and waved at it.

Nothing.

Jiseok sighed as he fumbled to turn his own phone light on. “I should have stayed home,” he grumbled.

“Actually,” Seungmin said, so very casually, “I’m kinda glad you’re here.”

To that, Jiseok wasn’t sure how to respond, so he just tightened his grip on Seungmin’s sleeve and nudged him onward.

They shuffled down the corridor, their phone lights more than enough to illuminate the space and yet still managing to feel insufficient. Perhaps it was a side effect of the horror tropes that had entered the collective conscious, but there was just something about long, windowless corridors that immediately made them terrifying once the lights were off.

Fortunately, they reached the meeting room without incident, and fortunately, the lights here were operated by a switch.

Jiseok let out a long breath and released Seungmin, who immediately began scanning the floor and under the table where they’d been sitting that afternoon.

“What is it about corridors? Why are they so spooky when the lights don’t work?”

“They’re not,” called Seungmin from the other side of the room, crouching down as if to crawl under the table. “It’s all in your head.”

Jiseok scoffed. “As if you weren’t freaked out, too.”

“Well, I would never lie to you.” Seungmin re-emerged, grinning brightly. “Found it!” He jogged back over, holding his hand out to show Jiseok the bracelet. As Jiseok thought, he did recognise it on sight: a double band of red cord with a silver treble clef hanging off it. Seungmin wore it semi-frequently. The clasp had come loose, which explained how it had fallen off—nothing that couldn’t be fixed with some needle-nose pliers.

“Nice,” said Jiseok. “So now we can go home, right?”

“Yeah,” said Seungmin. “We just have to go back down the spooky corridor of darkness to get to the elevator.”

“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” said Jiseok.

“I guess it wouldn’t be worth it if it were?”

Nonetheless, locating the bracelet had apparently alleviated a very tangible tension from Seungmin’s shoulders, to the extent that he now seemed unfazed by the spooky corridor of darkness. He strode down it quite confidently, phone light bobbing in time with his steps, forcing Jiseok (who was not unfazed, on top of having shorter legs) to hurry to keep up.

They made it back to the elevator without being murdered or kidnapped—just as Hyeongjun had instructed—and they’d found Seungmin’s bracelet in good time. All in all, it was a successful outing.

“So,” Jiseok began, as the elevator dutifully carried them back down to the lobby, “I’m guessing that bracelet means something to you?”

Seungmin nodded, with a soft, abashed smile. “Yeah. My brother gave it to me after I told my family that our debut date had been confirmed. I think he probably just got it for a few won from a street vendor, but…” he trailed off.

“I get it,” Jiseok said quietly. Even if he didn’t habitually wear bracelets himself, if his own brother were to give him such a gift, it would mean just as much to him. That was the strange thing about gifts—their giving could turn the cheapest trinket into the most priceless treasure. “I’m really glad you found it.”

“So am I,” Seungmin laughed. “And, really—thank you for coming with me. I’ll buy you some jellies tomorrow.”

Jiseok grinned. “I’ll hold you to that.”

iv. superglue

Han Hyeongjun was known to be quiet. It was a key component of his whole persona—the singular island of calm, introverted silence in the otherwise chaotic ocean of Xdinary Heroes. But Jiseok wasn’t sure that people who had never spent an extended amount of time with him truly understood just how quiet Hyeongjun was—or exactly what calibre of silence he engaged in.

It was sometimes, Jiseok thought, like Hyeongjun was so quiet that he was barely there at all. Like he was so completely in his own head while somehow being tuned to the same frequency as the earth’s atmosphere that he just… melded passively into the air. It wasn’t a bad thing; it wasn’t to say he had no presence, because that simply wasn’t true—on stage, of all places, he was Jun Han, rockstar, superstar, guitarist extraordinaire (or perhaps… xdinaire). Elsewhere, he was simply Hyeongjun, quiet enough to disappear, and Jiseok both worried for him and envied him because of it.

When Hyeongjun had first been slotted amongst them as the sixth piece of their tentatively assembled team, Jiseok had thought for a good while that Hyeongjun hated them—or perhaps hated people in general. But it wasn’t that he didn’t like people, he just didn’t necessarily need them. And what a foreign concept that was, an impossible thing to wrap the head around for someone like Jiseok who needed other people like he needed air. He needed friendship and needed love and the validation that came with both of those things; the true justification for life on this planet beyond anything he could ever achieve alone. He envied Hyeongjun, because sometimes it was so exhausting to be so reliant on other people, whom Jiseok so needed but didn’t always know how to reach for unless they reached for him first.

But surely everyone needed love, right? Humans were social creatures by nature. Sometimes, when it seemed Hyeongjun was on a quiet, invisible plane so far away from the rest of them, even if he was right there among them, Jiseok thought that wherever he was must have been awfully lonely.

In any case—as an example of how quiet Hyeongjun could be, and how his quiet sometimes made him disappear, today marked the second time in as many days that Jiseok had simply waltzed into what he was sure was an unoccupied practice room, only to find Hyeongjun blinking owlishly at him from the corner.

Jiseok blinked back. “I—” he furrowed his brow. “I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.”

Hyeongjun laughed mildly. “It’s alright.”

Before he turned to leave, Jiseok couldn’t help but notice something: Hyeongjun was sitting with his ankle up on his knee, guitar on his lap, and forearms resting on its body as he looked at something on his phone. But it was an acoustic guitar.

“Oh?” He couldn’t help himself. “Honing the acoustic skills, are we?”

Hyeongjun pursed his lips and nodded, which told Jiseok all he needed to know about how well it was going.

He tilted his head to one side. “What are you having trouble with?”

“Well…” Hyeongjun was silent for a long moment before continuing. “I don’t know, I think it’s just the feel of it. I don’t have the right muscle memory. So I don’t press the strings down hard enough, and then I keep making mistakes.”

Jiseok nodded understandingly. “It’s different from an electric.”

Hyeongjun put his phone down, sighing. “I was trying to look up ways to make it easier until I get used to it.”

“I think most people learn the acoustic before moving to electric, so they don’t really have the same problem,” Jiseok reasoned. He ran his thumb over the rough calluses on the fingertips of his left hand. “When I first started learning, the upperclassman who was teaching me brought in superglue to put on my fingers. Kinda like fake calluses to make it hurt less until I built up real ones. It made it easier to press down the strings.”

“Superglue?” Hyeongjun’s eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I mean… I still have fingers, so it can’t be that dangerous.”

Hyeongjun still looked sceptical, warily examining his own calluses. His hands were long and elegant, which Jiseok thought surely must contribute to the issue, even if he couldn’t explain why—except that his own hands and fingers were shorter and he had no trouble at all with an acoustic guitar. A clear correlation, obviously.

“Superglue…” Hyeongjun repeated. “I guess it could be worth a try.”

“Sure,” said Jiseok.

“Do you have any?”

“Superglue? No? Wouldn’t it be kinda weird to carry that around?”

“It was your suggestion!”

“It was something I did years ago!”

Hyeongjun let out a little huff.

“Don’t be like that,” said Jiseok. “Why don’t we walk to the convenience store? I’m sure we can find some there. Seems like you might need the fresh air, anyway.”

Quietly, as ever, Hyeongjun considered this. “Yeah.” He carefully set the guitar aside. “Let’s go, then. We can ask the others if they want anything.”

So it was that Jiseok and Hyeongjun set out on their great adventure, their afternoon convenience store expedition, after ducking around all the practice rooms to track down their keyboardists and rhythm section to see if they wanted anything. Jungsu and Seungmin claimed to already be set for provisions, but Gunil kindly requested an iced Americano, while Jooyeon demanded chocolate milk, which made Jiseok want chocolate milk, too.

It was a beautiful day in Seoul, such that it seemed a particular shame to be spending most of it in windowless rooms practising until they were too exhausted to continue. As they stepped outside the building, Jiseok took a long, deep breath, which smelled mostly of exhaust fumes and the treated cotton of his mask, but the simple fact of being able to see the blue of the sky above them and feel the sun on his skin made the air sweet nonetheless.

“Nice weather,” Hyeongjun remarked.

“Really nice,” Jiseok agreed. It was almost unfortunate that the convenience store was practically right across the road; that they couldn’t prolong this little errand just to enjoy the day a bit longer.

Jiseok had a strange feeling like he was forgetting about something, but he was sure it was just the mild guilt he always felt when he knew he should have been practising rather than messing around with the members or inventing reasons to get out of the building for a little while. Not that this was an invented reason—it was a genuine errand, and he had a genuine interest in helping Hyeongjun become confident with the acoustic guitar. It would be the coolest thing to be able to do acoustic duets, and he was certain the fans would love that, as well. They unfailingly went wild for Hyeongjun’s guitar skills, and Jiseok was always happy to be the canvas that helped them stand out. Hyeongjun deserved the praise—not just for his talent, but for his hard work—and if praise helped bring him ever further out of his shell, then all the better.

They greeted the convenience store clerk as they stepped over the threshold, then headed towards the drinks section. Hyeongjun picked out a brand of bottled Americano they knew Gunil liked, while Jiseok grabbed two chocolate milks for himself and Jooyeon.

“You don’t want anything?” Jiseok asked.

Hyeongjun shook his head. “I have tea in the break room fridge.”

They drifted over to the stationery section next—concise compared to the shelves upon shelves of food and drinks, with brief stocks of various staples. Pencils, pens, notebooks, craft glue, glue sticks, and, finally, superglue.

“Does it have to be superglue?” Hyeongjun asked. “Couldn’t you create a fake callus with craft glue?”

“Well… I’ve only ever done it with superglue,” said Jiseok. “Wouldn’t craft glue get all over the fretboard?”

“Maybe. But wouldn’t superglue increase your chance of getting stuck to your guitar?”

“You’re practically stuck to it anyway,” Jiseok said. “And that’s why you wait for it to dry first. Obviously.” He bopped Hyeongjun on the head with the blister pack of superglue.

As they were ringing up and paying for the goods, the feeling that he was forgetting something crept up Jiseok’s neck once more. The clock behind the counter told him it was five minutes before three in the afternoon. Three in the afternoon…

“Oh!” The realisation was like an electric current down his spine, causing him to jolt ramrod straight and almost knock the bottle of Americano off the counter. He turned to Hyeongjun, eyes wide. “I totally forgot! I have a vocal lesson at three!”

Hyeongjun glanced at the clock and back. “You should probably hurry, then,” he said calmly.

Jiseok’s brain was malfunctioning, mouth working wordlessly like a fish as he looked back and forth from Hyeongjun to the store clerk laggardly placing their purchases in a bag.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Hyeongjun, taking Jiseok’s shoulders, turning him around, and giving him a little push towards the door. “Just go.”

“I’m—I’m going! Sorry! Thank you!”

And he went, darting out the door and practically sprinting down the road, lips already formulating an apology for the few minutes he’d be late—and the few more minutes they’d have to wait before he caught his breath enough to begin the lesson.

Fortunately, their vocal coach was perfectly kind and understanding and merely kept Jiseok a few extra minutes to make up for those they’d lost at the beginning of the lesson.

The result was that he was a little late returning to the band room for their late-afternoon practice, which was hardly a big deal since it usually took them several minutes of tuning and adjusting and chatting and plugging things in before they were ready to go.

Hyeongjun tossed something at him as he walked in, which he only just managed to catch. It was the chocolate milk they’d bought earlier, the one he hadn’t gotten to drink—and wouldn’t get to until after practice, since he still needed to sing and dairy tended to gum up the vocal cords.

“Thanks,” Jiseok said. At least he could look forward to drinking it once they were done. “Did you try the superglue? Did it work?”

“Yes. And no,” Hyeongjun said, laughing slightly. “I couldn’t feel where I was putting my fingers… I spent like twenty minutes in the bathroom trying to wash it off.” He held up his left hand to show Jiseok the splotchy patches of white on his fingertips.

“Oh,” said Jiseok, finding himself genuinely disappointed. “Damn. Well… it worked for me when I was a beginner, but I guess it’s probably different if you already know how to play.”

“I think the only solution is really just to practice more,” said Hyeongjun. “I appreciate you trying to help, though.”

Jiseok smiled widely. “Well, we can practice together, then.” He put a hand over his heart. “I’m eagerly awaiting the day we can do that Depapepe cover. I know you won’t let me down, Hyeongjunnie.”

“Please don’t expect too much,” Hyeongjun said warily.

“Yo, guitar boys!” Gunil called to them from behind his kit. “Chit-chat time’s over, let’s get started soon.”

“Gotcha!” Jiseok threw him a thumbs-up. He turned back to Hyeongjun. “I believe in you! Fighting!” he said brightly, then scurried off to get Snoopy plugged in and ready.

v. playground

Being in Xdinary Heroes gave Jiseok many things he’d never had before. A stable career and a decent income; a team of stylists for his hair, clothes, and makeup; a bright limelight, at times harsh and others euphoric; and… fans. That absolutely unfathomable concept, that he, not so long ago a science geek with good grades and good university prospects who played guitar as nothing more than a beloved hobby, should—practically overnight—find himself adored by people he’d never met. And not just people in Korea, but from all over the world, in a dizzying array of cultures and languages.

Any time Jiseok paused to consider the true enormity of the fate he’d been swept up into, his head began to spin and he was filled with either immense gratitude and wonder that he should be so lucky or suffocating anxiety and the distinct sense of being neither good enough for nor deserving of it all—along with the insidious fear that soon enough everyone would realise it. He’d been told this was called impostor syndrome, and that it was perfectly normal, but somehow that knowledge didn’t help much.

Something else that Xdinary Heroes gave him was a best friend. Not that he’d ever lacked friends before—he’d even thought he’d had a best friend or two, at a couple of points in his life. But it wasn’t until Lee Jooyeon that he realised how pale those friendships had really been.

Lee Jooyeon. Now there was someone who was undoubtedly more than good enough for and more than deserving of all the praise and attention that came with being a celebrity. He had talent practically oozing out of his eyeballs, and he seemed to know it—he’d shown Jiseok just what he was made of, from the very first moment they’d met, on Jiseok’s very first day at the company. Dragged him into his room and showed him videos and songs. Jiseok had been impressed, but also a little intimidated. This was what he had to contend with? What JYP trainees were capable of? If Jiseok was expected to display the same level of brilliance, he feared he’d be sent home with his tail between his legs in a matter of days.

Jiseok had briefly wondered, after that first whirlwind meeting, if maybe Jooyeon had been trying to intimidate him. He’d heard stories like that about other entertainment companies, heard that the top trainees would assert their dominance from the get-go every time someone new showed up. But it wasn’t like that at all—and it was a ridiculous notion now, knowing that not only had Jooyeon been a fairly new trainee himself, but he was about as intimidating as dandelion fluff. Whatever it was about Jiseok, Jooyeon had just latched onto him immediately and refused to let go.

Jiseok had sat in the cafeteria alone to eat lunch that first day, wanting to make friends, but having no idea how to go about it in this entirely foreign environment. And Jooyeon, somehow having already started to cultivate some sort of Jiseok-ometer, had spotted him, detached himself from his fellow trainee friends, and loped over to invite Jiseok to join them.

That had been the start.

These days, Jiseok liked to think he had as much of a Jooyeon-ometer as Jooyeon’s Jiseok-ometer, which was how he knew that Jooyeon wasn’t quite as invincibly confident and laid-back as he appeared. It was sort of a part of his image, to pretend to be slightly lazy—in matching with his corpse-like sleeping habits—while also being so damn naturally good at everything that he could get away with it. But he was as much a perfectionist as the rest of them. It took effort to look so effortless.

He wasn’t invincible. Even if hardship seemed to roll off him as if it were rain and he was kitted out head-to-toe in an oilskin, there were holes in that oilskin, and sometimes the rain came down too heavy and for too long. He always seemed to bounce back easy enough, at least, with a little sunshine and due course, and Jiseok was grateful for that.

“Jiseok.”

At the calling of his name and the tugging on his sleeve, Jiseok slowed to a stop and turned back. The others continued down the hall towards the band room, still idly discussing dinner plans. The cafeteria was looking the most likely option—convenient, low-effort, low-expense. Appealing criteria after today’s particularly long and exhausting pre-recording.

“What’s up?”

Jooyeon looked uncharacteristically sheepish, releasing Jiseok’s sleeve and shifting his weight from one side to the other.

“I was kinda… I kinda suddenly wanted a burger, you know? How about you?”

“A burger?”

“Yeah. Like, McDonald’s? Heard of it?”

“Oh, sure, once or twice.”

“Wanna go, then?”

It wasn’t that Jiseok would say no to McDonald’s. More that they would have to leave the building and walk several blocks to reach one, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength in his body after the day they’d just had. Plus, they would look especially strange walking the streets and rocking up to a McDonald’s with pristine hair and makeup and the rumpled sweats they’d thrown on after wiggling out of their stage costumes. But it was odd in the first place that Jooyeon had pulled him aside like this to ask, rather than declaring his whims to the group at large and whining until someone (Jungsu) inevitably gave in.

So Jiseok found himself shrugging and saying, “Why not?”

“Great!” Jooyeon grinned and grabbed his arm, pulling him along to catch up with the others.

In the band room, they unburdened themselves of their instruments and equipment and Jooyeon casually informed the rest of the group of his and Jiseok’s imminent McDonald’s date.

“You’re going to McDonald’s? Now?” Hyeongjun asked in utter disbelief.

“What, you’ve never craved a McCrispy Deluxe after a long day?”

Hyeongjun just gave him a dour look.

“Ah, the kids have so much energy,” said Seungmin, despite literally being younger than Jiseok. And Jiseok didn’t bother to correct him that he did not, in fact, have all that much energy right now, but since he had already agreed to Jooyeon’s McWhim, there was no way for him to un-agree.

“Just don’t be gone too long,” Gunil told them. “Or you’ll turn into a pumpkin or something.”

Jooyeon wrinkled his nose at that one.

Only Jungsu stayed quiet, catching Jiseok’s eye with a questioning look. Jiseok offered a slight shrug and a shake of his head, and Jungsu replied with a tiny, understanding nod.

They set off from the company in comfortable relative silence. As they got further away from the building, they began to chat—about meaningless things, like Pokémon, or cute dogs they passed, or weird ads on billboards and the sides of buildings. It was late enough to be most of the way dark but not yet late enough for the night to have come alive. The evening was warm and the moon was out, the air spiced with the mixed scents of local cuisines.

Jiseok had begun to forget some of his tiredness by the time they actually reached McDonald’s, both of them giggling giddily at Jooyeon’s impression of a man in a very large billboard advertising car insurance. They ordered burger combos with fries and coke and—for the meme—a ten-pack of chicken nuggets each.

They continued to talk about everything and nothing as they ate. Jooyeon had a good laugh when Jiseok tried to take a bite of his burger and somehow pulled the whole chunk of lettuce out at once. In retribution, Jiseok threw a fry at him, not realising there was ketchup on it, hitting him right in the middle of his forehead and leaving a red smear on his skin. Jooyeon, being Jooyeon, did absolutely nothing about it, until Jiseok got sick of looking at it and leaned over the table to wipe it off—very narrowly avoiding knocking his drink over in the process.

Night had fallen in earnest by the time they were finished eating, and at Jooyeon’s insistence, they took the sidestreets back towards the company building.

Jiseok very quickly saw why—on their route was a children’s playground, at this hour abandoned and cast in long shadows by the streetlights. As it came into view, Jooyeon let out a gleeful sound and broke into a demented little run towards the swings. Jiseok laughed and jogged to catch up.

“Man, I can’t remember the last time I played on a swing,” said Jooyeon, already seated and swinging his legs to cast himself higher and higher.

Jiseok took the swing next to him. “Neither.” The feel of the hard plastic and the smell of the rubber grips on the chains was almost chokingly nostalgic.

“Back in primary school,” said Jooyeon, his voice growing louder and softer as he and Jiseok passed each other in midair while they swung, “we used to see who could jump off the swing and land the furthest.”

“Oh, we did that at my school, too!” said Jiseok. “Although they banned us from doing it after one kid broke his wrist.”

“Aw, that’s no fun. That kid should have just had stronger wrists.”

“Right?”

“Hey! Whoever jumps furthest has to buy the other hot chocolate?”

It was probably not a good idea to be risking injury in the middle of promotions. “You’re on!”

Jooyeon whooped and laughed, and then at the height of his next forward swing let go of the chains, slipped free from the seat, and sailed through the air. His shoes clapped loudly on the concrete as he landed, bending practically all the way into a crouch in an attempt to absorb the impact. He threw back his head and let out a very loud, pained “ACK.”

“You okay?” Jiseok called, still swinging; half-laughing and half-concerned.

“I’m fine, I’m fine! Holy shit I forgot how much ground shock hurts.” Jooyeon straightened, shaking out his legs with a massive grin on his face. “Okay, go!”

Jiseok felt the tiniest trill of apprehension, holding his legs still to lose some momentum before following Jooyeon’s terrible example and throwing himself off the swing. A moment of exhilarating flight, and then the shock of the landing jolted through the soles of his feet, into his ankles, and up his shins. He careened forward, losing balance.

Jooyeon’s arms shot out to grab him. He instinctively grabbed back, and somewhere in the interim their feet got in each other’s way, and, together, they slowly but inevitably toppled to the ground with disturbingly harmonized shrieks.

“Oww,” Jiseok laughed, rolling onto his back. “That hurt! Why did you make me do that?”

“I didn’t make you do anything!” Jooyeon giggled, smiling so wide that Jiseok could almost count his teeth. “You owe me a hot chocolate, though.”

Jiseok groaned. “I’m not gonna be able to walk tomorrow,” he complained. “I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to walk now.”

“That’s okay,” said Jooyeon, “I’ll carry you back to the company.”

“With those arms?”

Jooyeon poked him in the side. “You’re one to talk! And I can beat you in arm wrestling, that’s a fact.”

Well, all the members except Hyeongjun could beat Jiseok in arm wrestling—but the odds were pretty unfairly stacked, to be honest.

“Ah, yes, my apologies, oh great arm wrestling champion,” he said.

Jooyeon made a noise of approval.

Neither of them had moved to get up, so they were simply lying on their backs in the middle of an empty children’s playground at night, gazing up at the foggy half-moon.

“So,” Jiseok began, turning his head to look at Jooyeon, “are you gonna tell me why we’re out here?” He was sure he didn’t need to specify what he meant.

For a long moment, Jooyeon didn’t answer; he just stared up at the sky with no particular expression on his face. “I guess I just needed to get out for a while,” he finally said. Then, after another moment, “It was a long day today.”

“It was a long day today,” Jiseok agreed. “That’s really it, though? Everything’s okay otherwise?”

Jooyeon turned his head to meet Jiseok’s eyes, a warm smile spreading across his lips. “That’s really it.” He reached out and tapped the tip of Jiseok’s nose. “Everything’s okay.”

Jiseok smiled back. “Well, good. I’m glad”

“Me, too.” Jooyeon leapt to his feet, then groaned, doubling over. “Everything also hurts.”

“Help,” said Jiseok, holding out his arms. “Carry me, oh great arm wrestling champion.”

Jooyeon snickered, grabbing Jiseok’s wrists and pulling him up. “Why, Kwak Jiseok,” he said, “it appears your legs are still in working order. You don’t need to be carried, after all!”

“Oh, thank god,” said Jiseok. “I don’t have to put my life in your hands.”

“I would have taken good care of it!” Jooyeon insisted.

“Yeah, I know,” Jiseok laughed. “I know you would have.”

∞. tomorrow

There were days of waking up late, and then there were days when it felt like a struggle to wake up at all. There were off days, and then there were just plain bad days—and the line between them was fine but distinct, dependent on an intricate, precarious array of internal and external factors.

The difference was this: on an off day, when things weren’t going Jiseok’s way or something was less than ideal, it was frustrating, but he could still find a way to shrug it off and accept that life couldn’t be smooth-sailing all the time. He could never actually be perfect, even if that was the pinnacle he was shooting for. On a bad day, everything piled so impossibly heavy on his shoulders that there was no shrugging it off. Every minor inconvenience, small mistake, tiny imperfection; every word said to him that could possibly be twisted to be negative. Every insidious thought that crept into his head, circulating through his cranium before slipping down his spine and winding tightly around his chest.

That kind of bad day.

That was today.

It started ominously—with Jiseok waking far too early, long before the sun began to lighten the sky, with a searing headache. In his somewhat delirious state, the tight band of pain at his eye level reminded him of a video he’d once watched of someone stretching rubber bands around a watermelon until the pressure grew too great and it split clean in two in an almost gory splatter of red. His head was feeling an awful lot like how that watermelon must have felt in the moments before it burst.

The pain wouldn’t let him roll over and go back to sleep, especially not after that thought, so Jiseok got up for a glass of water and some painkillers. Turning on the kitchen lights shot hot agony through his eyeballs and straight into his brain. He opted to fumble in the dark rather than endure it. Every sound was far too loud in the black predawn—the clack of cups against one another as he grabbed one at random, the hiss of the tap, the metallic crackling of the blister pack of painkillers. He wasn’t sure how much of it was the headache and how much was anxiety about waking up the others.

The others except Jooyeon, he supposed. He could have led a marching band down the hall and Jooyeon would still have slept peacefully. The thought was oddly comforting, and Jiseok took it back to bed with him, carefully making his way back up the ladder (because Seungmin, on the other end of the spectrum, was liable to wake up from any noise louder than the beating of a mosquito’s wings).

As he finally drifted back to sleep, grey light had begun to seep through the curtains. In what felt like the space of a long blink, the room was filled with watery sunlight and he was being shaken awake, Seungmin’s face looming before him.

“Twenty-five minutes until we need to leave,” he was saying. “I think Jungsu-hyung is just finishing up in the bathroom if you want to go next.”

Jiseok knew this drill too well to not react immediately, trying not to slip on the ladder and stumbling blearily towards the bathroom. His headache wasn’t completely gone, but it had certainly loosened its grip—a watermelon with only three or four rubber bands.

After brushing his teeth and washing his hair, Jiseok felt a little more like himself. The six of them left the dorm together, stepping out into the cool, early air. They had a recording session scheduled for this morning, mostly just ad-libs, harmonies, and group vocals. After lunch, the rest of the day was dedicated to band rehearsal, to practice not only their own songs but also a cover performance for a variety show scheduled to be filmed two days from now.

Jiseok made it through the morning’s recording just fine, if with a little less pep than usual, and he made it all the way to their third hour of band practice before his headache began to reassert itself with a level of violence that would have been appropriate in a slasher horror.

Playing in a rock band was not a headache-friendly activity.

He could feel his playing start to deteriorate—slurring some riffs, flubbing some rhythms—and trying to sing well was a pointless endeavour. Staying on-key was one thing, but he could feel, and hear, how every note at the upper limit of his vocal range was strained and thin, and the effort made his head throb—just to add insult to injury.

No one commented, or asked, or even really looked at him, and somehow that was almost worse than if they’d called him out for how much of a weak link he was being.

They took a brief break after the fourth hour. A few of their instructors were due to join them to oversee the last hours of their rehearsal, to check on their progress and offer advice on the finer points of their performance.

They played paper/scissors/rock to decide which of them had to go to the break room to fetch everyone a bottle of water, and with his track record so far today, of course Jiseok lost. The bright side was that he had a good excuse to leave the room for a while. And almost a good excuse to stand with his head in the fridge for several moments, the cold air a tantalising but insufficient salve against the lava-hot ache holding his skull in a vice grip.

Back in the band room, the others were discussing what they’d rehearsed so far as Jiseok handed out the bottles, starting with Jungsu, who thanked him distractedly before returning to his conversation about the exact dynamics to use on the arpeggios in the bridge of the new cover.

Hyeongjun, not as engaged in the conversation, furrowed his brow at the proffered bottle and glanced up questioningly. Jiseok knew why. He had a slight hand tremor that was typically better or worse depending on his physical (or often mental) state, and today it was bad enough to register on the Richter scale.

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed, and admitted, “I have a really bad headache.”

Hyeongjun’s frown deepened as he finally accepted the bottle. “Have you taken painkillers?”

“Not since this morning. I don’t have any with me.”

“Jungsu-hyung usually has some.”

Jiseok just shrugged and moved on, handing water to Gunil, Jooyeon, and finally Seungmin.

“Thanks,” said the latter. “Oh—you weren’t here when we were talking about it, but on the second verse, I think you might be coming in a little bit late.”

“Late?” Jiseok repeated blankly. He wasn’t sure what was worse; the idea that he could be making such an egregious mistake without realising it, or the fact that his bandmates were discussing it in his absence. “How late?”

“It’s not major,” Gunil assured him. “Half a beat late—it’s a tricky rhythm, to be fair. Something to be aware of, perhaps, but far from make or break.”

“Am I not supposed to come in at the same time as Jooyeon?”

“There’s some weird syncopation going on in this song,” Jooyeon explained. “I come in on the offbeat—that could be what’s throwing you off?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jiseok mumbled, opening the lid of his own water and taking several tiny sips. Late? He was coming in late?

“Don’t overthink it,” Seungmin added kindly, if belatedly. “It’s really not a big deal—none of us even noticed until now.”

Telling Jiseok not to overthink was like telling the sun not to be hot.

The instructors arrived. They greeted them and prepared to get stuck back into practice. Jiseok’s mind was stuck somewhere else as he adjusted his in-ear monitors and slung his guitar back over his shoulder.

Coming in late. It didn’t seem possible—generally, missing your cue could have an exponential ripple effect, causing you to rush to catch up while becoming increasingly desynchronised. Jiseok knew that wasn’t what was happening. So the only way he could be coming in late without completely screwing himself over for the rest of the section was if he was rushing the entry or leaving something out. But he was sure he hadn’t changed anything in all the time they’d been rehearsing this song, so did that mean he’d had it wrong the whole time?

It just didn’t make any sense. None of it. Day by day, he witnessed the other five improving around him, each becoming a force to be reckoned with, as much on their own as with the group. Gunil was a multi-instrumentalist and the best drummer Jiseok had ever seen. Jungsu, aside from being an emotive pianist and insane vocalist, had perfect pitch and the most incredible musical sense. Seungmin was a fast learner with keen ears, infinite charisma, and an indomitable sense of rhythm. Hyeongjun played the guitar with such enviable ease and his own unmistakeable style. Jooyeon was just… brilliant, in every way.

And Jiseok? Every time Jiseok felt like he was improving, like he was really getting somewhere, he began to notice all the ways in which he wasn’t. Sometimes, he was afraid that he was even regressing, that all the lessons and practice were for nothing, that he’d already reached the feeble extent of his potential. It was unfounded and illogical, but fear was a sticky thing.

He felt a tap on his elbow and had barely turned around before Jungsu was pressing something into his hand—a pair of pills; painkillers.

“Hyeongjun told me,” he said in a low voice. “Drink lots of water, okay? And don’t be afraid to speak up if you need to get some air.”

Inexplicably, the gesture—on the parts of both Hyeongjun and Jungsu—made Jiseok feel strangely guilty.

“Thanks, Hyung,” he said quietly.

Jungsu gave his shoulder a rub before returning to his keyboard. Jiseok caught Hyeongjun’s eye as he picked up his water bottle to down the pills, exchanging a nod.

They got back to practising.

As was usual with supervised rehearsals, they went through their songs one by one, receiving feedback (mostly positive) and repeating sections as necessary to iron out the details. Jungsu’s painkillers seemed to do their job, fading Jiseok’s headache into something more easily ignored, even if the net result was that his brain felt like tightly-packed cotton.

Finally, they reached the last song on the agenda—the new cover. An anxious knot twisted in Jiseok’s stomach. It would be typical of him to ricochet from a headache to a stomach ache, he thought, knowing that wasn’t what this was. He was already thinking about the entry into the second verse.

As casually as he could, he turned up the click track in his in-ears as they started the song.

Towards the end of the first chorus, the knot in his stomach twisted again, and his hands began to tingle in a way that was cold and almost painful. He focused intently on the metronome, waiting, waiting—three and four and—

There it was. The beat, his entry point, right before Jooyeon came in. Seungmin was right. This time, having done it correctly, it was suddenly so obvious that Jiseok had had it slightly wrong this whole time. How had that even happened? Worse than that—Jiseok had been practising for so long with the wrong timing that it was now muscle memory, which meant that in the short time they had left before filming the cover, he would need to rewrite that muscle memory. Otherwise, in the nerves and adrenaline of being on set, he would surely revert back to doing it wrong.

Maybe he really was regressing. Maybe his fear wasn’t so unfounded and illogical after all.

He was so caught up in his own crisis that it took him a moment to notice that no one was singing. With an uncomfortable jolt, he realised that it was his part. He was supposed to be singing.

His heart sank straight through the floor and he stared helplessly at his mic as if he’d never seen it before.

One of the instructors was already holding up a hand to get them to stop. Everyone was looking at Jiseok—even if he couldn’t see half of the other members, he knew the feel of their eyes on him.

“I’m really sorry,” the words tumbled clumsily from his mouth before anyone else could say anything. “I just—I…” He swallowed hard and hung his head. There was really no excuse. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Jiseok hasn’t been feeling very well today,” Jungsu piped up. Jiseok wanted to be grateful, but mostly he just felt ashamed.

“It’s alright,” said the instructor. “You’re tired, I understand. You should keep in mind, though—you’re never going to be able to do every stage fully rested and in top condition, but you still have to fight through it and give a good performance. That goes for everyone. Okay?”

Jiseok nodded, and heard the others give their own murmurs of understanding.

“Okay,” said the manager. “Let’s roll it back to the end of the chorus.”

Predictably, Jiseok reverted back to the wrong timing on his entry cue, and made several other mistakes before they finally reached the end of the song. At this point, both his arms and legs had that strange pins-and-needles sensation and his chest felt chokingly tight. He barely heard anything the instructors said, just thanked them and bowed to them as they left.

He divested himself of his guitar and untangled himself from his in-ears practically the second the door swung shut behind them. Maybe he heard his name as he hurried from the room, or maybe he didn’t.

The bathroom was empty and smelled faintly of lemon-scented bleach. Jiseok’s hands were shaking as he splashed water on his face, leaning on the counter and taking deep breaths.

What was wrong with him? Cognitively, he knew it wasn’t a big deal to make a mistake or two. Cognitively, he knew he wasn’t in the best condition, his headache at this very moment threatening to break through the haze of painkillers, and of course it was affecting his ability to concentrate.

But it wasn’t just one mistake, or even a couple of mistakes, and he couldn’t blame it all on the headache or just pass it off as a bad day. They’d been practising this cover for weeks. He would have surely learned to play it the correct way, initially—so at what point did it go wrong?

Why couldn’t he just get it right? Why wasn’t he better at this? He could accept being the least talented in the team—someone had to be—but he couldn’t accept being so insufficient as to drag the others down with him. They deserved better.

An uncomfortable pressure was building behind Jiseok’s eyes. He splashed water on his face again rather than letting himself cry.

The door squeaked open, and he jumped. It probably wasn’t advisable to be warding off his mental breakdown in a semi-public bathroom where anyone who had access to this floor could walk in on him—any of the staff, Studio J or otherwise, or even one of the Stray Kids members. How humiliating would that be?

But it was only Gunil, with a concerned crease between his eyebrows, and that was bad enough.

They made eye contact in the mirror, just for a second, before Jiseok looked away and pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands to dry his face.

“You doing okay?” Gunil asked softly as he approached. “Hyeongjun and Jungsu told me about your headache.”

“It’s better now,” said Jiseok, staring down at the sink. His throat felt thick. “Sort of.”

Gunil sighed, reaching out and placing a hand on Jiseok’s shoulder, rubbing gently up and down. “About the late cue thing—you really shouldn’t worry about it. Seungmin only caught on to it because he was looking at the ensemble sheet, but no one else noticed anything until he pointed it out, and probably wouldn’t have.” He paused. “If you want to change it, that’s up to you, but if it’s too much pressure, then don’t. Really.”

“I can’t just keep doing it wrong,” Jiseok said, in an uncomfortably choked voice. “I don’t understand how it happened, and how I didn’t notice sooner. It seemed so obvious once I actually paid attention to it. But then in paying attention to that, I stopped paying attention to everything else, and I know missing a vocal cue is the worst thing I could ever possibly do, so I just… I… I don’t know. I’m really sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for. It’s just a rehearsal,” Gunil said softly “It doesn’t matter.”

Jiseok squeezed his eyes shut, breath catching in his chest. “But it’s not just rehearsal—it’s not just today. It does matter.” A hot tear escaped the prison of his eyelids, abseiling slowly down his cheek.

“Hey.” Gunil’s voice was stern. He stopped rubbing Jiseok’s shoulder and gripped it instead, giving him a slight shake. “I know where your thoughts are, and they have no reason to be there, okay? I’ll tell you as many times as I need to until you believe it—you’re as worthy of being here as any of us.”

Jiseok bit his lip hard to keep from sobbing. This was humiliating, truly.

“I mean, logically speaking, if you weren’t worthy of being here, you wouldn’t be,” Gunil continued, “no matter what your impostor syndrome tells you. Just tell it to shut up. Shut up, impostor syndrome.”

“Shut up, impostor syndrome,” Jiseok said weakly.

“That’s the way.” Gunil squeezed his shoulder again. “Do you want to be alone for a bit? I can guard the door to make sure no one comes in.”

It was such a ridiculously kind notion that the urge to sob uncontrollably made a brief resurgence. It was also quite a mortifying idea, to have their leader and eldest stand outside the bathroom and say to anyone who came near, “Oh, sorry, you can’t go in right now, our rhythm guitarist is having a mental breakdown and wants to be alone.”

“No, no,” Jiseok said quickly. He wiped his cheeks dry and turned to face Gunil. “Thank you. But. I’m okay now.”

Gunil was giving him a look that suggested he saw right through Jiseok’s lie, but rather than saying anything, he pulled him into a tight hug, rubbing comforting circles on his back.

Jiseok sighed shakily and wound his arms around Gunil’s chest. Compared to Jungsu, whose picture was in the dictionary beside the word “soft”, Gunil was solidly built—pure muscle, practically—and his hugs were solid, too. But that was exactly what Jiseok needed right now: solidity. An anchor, a pillar, a grounding force.

“One day, Jiseokie,” Gunil murmured into his hair, “you’ll be able to see yourself the way everyone else does.”

Jiseok wasn’t quite ready to face the others just yet, or even set foot in the band room, so he parted ways with Gunil in the hallway and slipped into the break room.

In here, he could be assured of at least as much privacy as their band practice room. It was really just a kitchenette and small living area that always, inexplicably, smelled of instant coffee and floral air freshener.

The fridge was kept well-stocked with basic refrigeratable amenities, so Jiseok helped himself to another bottle of water and slumped onto the long, L-shaped couch as he downed half of it in one go. His headache still throbbed, and whatever storm had overtaken him from within had left him hollowed-out and exhausted. The clock on the wall told him it was almost seven—right now, the others were probably thinking about what to get for dinner as they all split off for independent practice, whether that entailed instrumentals, vocals, songwriting, reviewing, or whatever else they felt most compelled to work on until it grew too late to focus. Jiseok felt like he was already far past that point.

He flopped over on the couch, cheek pressed against the plush upholstery. He wasn’t hungry enough for dinner. More than anything, he wanted to just go home and go to sleep and let this day end already—but he couldn’t do that without drawing questions and concern from the members and staff both.

The obvious solution was to take a brief nap, just enough of a recharge to get him through the rest of the evening. Yes, that was definitely his idea; it certainly wasn’t that almost immediately after lying down, exhaustion began to tug his eyelids shut and sleep crept out of the couch cushions to take the decision out of his hands.

Sometime later, he woke in slow increments, first becoming aware of the fingers combing through his hair, then the weight on the couch cushion by his head, then the jacket placed over his shoulders.

He opened his eyes blearily. The hand in his hair paused.

“Oh,” said Jungsu. “Sorry.”

Jiseok offered a tiny smile. “S’okay,” he slurred.

Jungsu returned the smile and resumed his ministrations. “How’s your head?” he asked. In his half-asleep state, Jiseok wasn’t sure if Jungsu meant physically or mentally, until he added, “I have more painkillers if you need them.”

“It’s not so bad now,” Jiseok said truthfully—the headache had faded to little more than a band of pressure around his head. It wasn’t painful. “Thank you, though.”

“If you change your mind,” said Jungsu, “I’ll leave my bag in the practice room. They’re in the front pocket.”

Jiseok nodded, although given that he was lying on his side it probably looked more like he was rubbing his cheek against the fabric.

They stayed there in silence for a moment, Jungsu still idly petting Jiseok’s hair as if he were a cat, and Jiseok was on the verge of slipping back into sleep, when—

“You did well today.”

Jungsu said it with such assertion that it was almost funny.

“You and I have a different definition of ‘well’,” said Jiseok. “You don’t have to comfort me.”

“I’m not just saying it for the sake of saying it,” said Jungsu. “I mean it—you did well because you kept going and didn’t give in, even though you were hurting. Being able to push through the bad days, no matter how bad they are, is a lot harder than being perfect all the time. It takes a lot more strength.”

Jiseok chewed on this for a moment. It was an appealing perspective, perfectly tailored to his personal beliefs—the value of resilience and persistence and hard work over something as transient and ill-defined as perfection. But…

“It just doesn’t feel like enough,” he said quietly.

“I know,” Jungsu responded in kind. “But it is. It is enough.”

When next Jiseok woke, Jungsu was gone—though he’d left his jacket behind as a makeshift blanket. It smelled like him. The older boy was almost painfully kind.

Jiseok did feel a lot better after his impromptu nap, if groggy, and he’d maybe slept a little longer than intended—it was already after eight—but that was alright. He could just stay late to make up for lost practice time.

As he left the break room, he could hear Jooyeon’s bass from somewhere down the hall, playing something bright and upbeat that Jiseok didn’t recognise.

He didn’t necessarily expect the band room to be empty, but he was still mildly surprised to find Seungmin in there, perched on the stool behind his keyboard and synths with one leg crooked up, scribbling in a notebook leaned against his knee.

He looked up, as if just as surprised to see Jiseok. “Oh. Hey.”

Jiseok held up a hand in greeting. “Hey.”

As Jungsu had promised, he’d left his bag in a very obvious spot where Jiseok could find it if he needed to—and he did, not to pilfer painkillers but to put Jungsu’s jacket with it.

“Jiseok?”

He looked up.

Seungmin pointed to the side of his own head. “Your hair’s a bit…”

Jiseok spun towards the mirror. Indeed, the hair on the side he’d been sleeping on was sticking up in a way that seemed to defy all known laws of physics. He frowned and tugged a hand through it in a weak attempt to get it to behave. But there were days when it took at least three stylists to whip his hair into obedience, so of course his clammy fingers were no match for it.

“It’s a new look I’m going for,” he said, turning back to Seungmin.

“Right, of course. It suits you—just-got-out-of-bed couture. It’ll be on runways in Paris come spring.”

“Exactly. You get me.”

Seungmin laughed. “Have you eaten yet?”

Jiseok shook his head. “You?”

“No.” He checked his watch. “When did it get so late? I completely lost track of time.” He paused, peering at Jiseok as if there were something he really wanted to say. In the end, he raised his eyebrows and asked, “Wanna see what they have at the cafeteria?”

To be completely honest, Jiseok still didn’t feel super hungry, but he knew he needed to eat. No matter how poorly he felt, it would be a slippery slope if he let himself start skipping meals.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

They didn’t say much to each other as they took the elevator to the cafeteria. Jiseok was honestly still a little fogged over from his nap, and Seungmin seemed to have something on his mind—as to what that was, precisely, Jiseok had an uncomfortable notion.

Today’s cafeteria offerings included kimchi jjigae, samgyetang, and tofu bibimbap, all of which looked mouth-watering enough that Jiseok’s appetite finally reared its head. He didn’t think they gave out awards to companies for their cuisine, but if ever they did, JYPE surely deserved the daesang. Not that he’d ever sampled the facilities at other companies, but they’d have to be staffed by, like, celebrity chefs to be better than this.

It was when they were sitting down for their food that Seungmin seemed to think it was a good time to speak his mind. “Listen,” he began, “about earlier, I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop.” Jiseok pointed his chopsticks at him threateningly. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t apologise.”

Seungmin pressed his lips together, clearly unsatisfied. “I just wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if I’d noticed sooner that you were having a rough time. It’s pretty inconsequential.”

Had Gunil said something to the others, or had Jiseok’s declining mental state been that obvious? He wasn’t sure which of those options was less embarrassing.

He shook his head and swallowed a mouthful of chicken. “I’d rather be told when I’m doing something wrong. So I can fix it. No matter how inconsequential.” This conversation was already depressing him. It would have been better to just not be wrong in the first place.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Seungmin mumbled. “I just feel bad that you’re feeling bad.”

Jiseok laughed humourlessly. “Don’t,” he said. “There’s no point in both of us feeling bad. I feel a lot better now, anyway. By tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.”

Seungmin eyed him sceptically as he delivered a sliver of tofu to his mouth. Another downside to being with his members practically twenty-four/seven was that they knew him far too well—knew that Jiseok’s “normal” was to mask insecurity with energetic bravado.

“Well maybe normal isn’t, like, completely ideal,” Jiseok conceded. “But it’s better than this shitshow of a day. I woke up at like dawn with the worst headache imaginable, so I think it was just doomed from the start.”

“So that’s what that was,” said Seungmin. “I woke up around the same time and thought I heard someone in the kitchen, but I fell back to sleep before I could go check.”

“We weren’t being robbed, it was just me getting water. And drugs,” said Jiseok.

“Good to know. Especially about the drugs.”

Jiseok snickered. They fell silent as they finished their food. Jiseok could tell that Seungmin’s concern hadn’t been fully resolved, if the looks he kept shooting Jiseok’s way were anything to go by, but he appreciated that he wasn’t pushing the issue. And anyway, it was in Seungmin’s nature to be excessively worried about all of them at all times. He was worse than Jiseok’s mother, for real.

After they returned their trays and headed back to the elevators, Seungmin made his own attempt at taming Jiseok’s hair. It must have been bugging him to look at the whole time they were eating.

“It’s a lost cause,” Jiseok warned him.

Seungmin shook his head and continued to tug his fingers through the misbehaving locks. “It just takes patience.”

By the time they got back to the band room, Jiseok’s hair wasn’t neat—but it was almost presentable.

It was one thing for Jiseok to tell himself that he would just put in extra practice hours to make up for lost time, or resolve himself to fix his timing issue on this cover at any cost, but it was another thing entirely to actually do that. It wasn’t even just that he kept making mistakes or doing it wrong. It was also that, with the day he’d had and the mood he was in, even the sight of his guitar filled his mouth with acrid distaste.

Even this much was normal, he knew—they’d discussed it in passing before, the love/hate relationships they all had with their respective instruments. It was rather a fairweather relationship, Jiseok thought. When things were good, he loved his guitar and he loved playing it. When things were bad, he wanted a divorce. Sometimes he got so frustrated that he wanted to throw his guitar, or smash it against a wall—then he immediately felt awful for ever imagining doing such a thing to poor Snoopy.

He had already spent nearly an hour alone in a practice room—with his guitar, a laptop with YouTube open, and the sheet music for the cover arrangement—and he already kinda hated everything. If he paid very close attention to the click track and remembered to be aware of it, he could do the timing correctly, but most of the time he couldn’t hear the click track very well unless he turned it all the way up (on set, he would have to ask the sound techs to do that for him), but turning up one track meant hearing the others a little less—and he was playing music as part of a band, not as a duet with a metronome.

Gunil’s drumming was generally a reliable indicator of rhythm—backbone of the group and all—but after the chorus, every instrument dropped out except the piano and built back up again during the verse. Using the piano as a cue seemed like the obvious answer, but the piano was following the same rhythm as the bassline, because of course it was, so if he did that, Jiseok would be running into the same problem all over again. God, who wrote this song? Who wrote this arrangement? Why did they have to be so musically gifted and make things so difficult for everyone else?

Maybe he had simply made the wrong choice in joining an idol band. If he’d ignored the casting offer a second time, where would he be right now? In a dorm room of another sort, most likely, tearing out hair over exams, assignments, inexplicably malfunctioning code, and uncooperative classmates in group projects.

There was just no winning in this world.

So deep into his black mood was he that the door swinging open made him jump. Hyeongjun paused in the doorway, as if Jiseok being startled had startled him, as well.

“Sorry,” Hyeongjun said quietly, slipping in and closing the door.

Jiseok cocked his head. This felt familiar, and yet backward. “Are we fated to always find each other like this?” he joked weakly.

“What?” said Hyeongjun. “No, Seungmin told me where to find you. I thought you might need these.” He dropped a packet of sour gummy worms on the table. “Did your headache ever go away?”

“It’s long gone,” said Jiseok, picking up the packet to examine it. It was one of his favourite brands. “Thanks, Hyeongjun,” he said. His voice wobbled strangely. He ripped open the packet to shove a gummy worm in his mouth before he did or said something embarrassing.

Hyeongjun shrugged and pulled a chair over to sit down. “Are you still wrestling with that second verse?”

“Yeah,” Jiseok said miserably around the gummy worm in his mouth. “I think it might be doomed.”

“Don’t say that,” Hyeongjun admonished. “You know when Jooyeon comes in, and now you’re aware that you need to come in half a beat before him—maybe you can anticipate when he’s about to come in and use that as a cue?”

Jiseok thought about this. It seemed so simple when Hyeongjun explained it.

“Just try it.” Hyeongjun leaned over and pulled the laptop across the table, scrubbing through the already-open YouTube video of the original song. The original wasn’t a one-to-one match with their arrangement, of course, but it was a good enough guide to follow along with.

Reluctantly, Jiseok positioned his hands on his guitar, and Hyeongjun hit the space bar, playing the song from the middle of the first chorus.

Anticipate… right. The chorus ended, all instruments except the piano dropping out. Jiseok anticipated where he would usually come in, and started playing a beat before.

Which meant he was half a beat early.

He pressed his right hand flat against the strings to cut off the sound and slapped the laptop shut with his left hand. He closed his eyes and sighed tightly through his nose, lifting his face towards the ceiling.

“I really think you’re just overthinking it,” Hyeongjun said gently.

Jiseok lowered his head to look at him. “You’re not gonna tell me it doesn’t matter?”

“Well… it seems to matter to you.” Hyeongjun frowned. “But, if you want my opinion, I actually think it sounds better if you and Jooyeon come in at the same time. It has… more impact? I guess?”

“You guess,” Jiseok intoned. He shoved a pair of gummy worms in his mouth.

“It’s just what I think,” said Hyeongjun. “I also think you should practice something else for a while and come back to it later.” He patted Jiseok very softly on the knee and then made to get up. “I should get back to my own practice. Good luck, Jiseok.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

The door swung shut, leaving Jiseok alone with his roiling thoughts once more.

Was it too much to hope that maybe Hyeongjun was right? That the way Jiseok had been entering the second verse was better than the “correct” way of doing it? Was it too much to hope that that was how it had ended up this way in the first place—because, instinctively, it felt better? More impactful, as Hyeongjun had said.

Maybe. Maybe not. But Hyeongjun’s other suggestion—that he should practice something else for a while—was the most appealing advice Jiseok had been given all day.

It wasn’t quite accurate to say that Jiseok would have gladly stayed until midnight to practice, but he would have stayed until midnight to practice. It was coming up on eleven, however, when Gunil burst in to declare that practice time was over and it was now time to go home. The others had already left, it appeared, and Jiseok thought that Gunil was probably reluctant to leave him at the company by himself. To be honest, Jiseok also didn’t much like being left at the company by himself.

The dorm, when they reached it, was quiet, everyone having already retreated to their respective rooms. Jiseok wasn’t the only one who’d had an exhausting day—hours upon hours of band practice, and that was after this morning’s recording session, were enough to leave anyone stripped to the bone. Surely Gunil was tired, too, though he didn’t show it.

“You go wash up first,” he said, with a pat on the small of Jiseok’s back as they removed their shoes in the entryway.

“Thanks, Hyung,” he said, hurrying into the bathroom to shower and clean his teeth.

The light was still on in his and Seungmin’s room, so when he was done, he didn’t bother being stealthy. Seungmin was still awake, lying in bed scrolling through his phone. He looked up when Jiseok walked in, offering a smile as a greeting. Jiseok smiled back, then busied himself getting changed into pyjamas. He tugged a comb through his hair, even though it would just get messy again while he slept, but he’d learned better than to let a bird’s nest be built on top of another bird’s nest.

Climbing into bed—literally climbing, because ladder—felt like the greatest blessing the world had ever offered. He’d been ready for this day to end since the second it began. He pulled the duvet over himself, shoved his face into the pillow, and felt like a deflating bouncy castle as he finally breathed out.

“Night, Jiseok,” Seungmin called quietly.

Jiseok lifted his face from the pillow to reply. “Goodnight.”

The light went out. Jiseok settled in and waited for sleep to steal him as it had on the break room couch this evening.

And waited. And waited.

This was why it wasn’t a good idea to take a nap at seven in the evening. In certain video games, there were spells and abilities that had long cooldown periods before you could use them again. Apparently, sleep was one of those spells. As tired as Jiseok was, sleep merely looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and said, weren’t you just here a few hours ago? How much rest does one person need?

A lot more than he tended to get, and a lot more than he’d had recently, but extenuating circumstances seemed to win him no mercy. He should have guessed that this day would refuse to end peacefully. It had started with hellfire, and would end with a flood.

The worse he rested, the worse he would feel tomorrow. He couldn’t afford to let tomorrow be a continuation of today. Tomorrow they had lessons and practice in the morning, a series of interviews in the afternoon, and then more practice in the evening. Aside from staying on the ball for the media circus, Jiseok would need to, at some point, decide whether to keep the incorrect verse timing as an artistic choice or stay by the book and do his best to play the written timing. His perception of the issue had been darkened and warped today, so tomorrow he needed a clear head—because by the day after, it would be too late.

These thoughts spiralled dizzyingly in his head, and an anxious knot began to form in his stomach. His pillow and mattress began to feel too hard, too irregular, and an uncomfortable energy skittered along his limbs, demanding that he move. He rolled over, once, twice, to no avail.

He heard the door creak, and everything paused.

Footsteps on the carpet. The sound of skin on ladder rungs. A weight on the end of the mattress.

Jiseok wasn’t sure how he knew who it was—whether by his footsteps or his breathing, maybe just the specific feel of the weight that flopped down beside Jiseok, at his back, slinging an arm over his waist.

“I think you have the wrong room,” he whispered. “Yours is across the hall.”

Jooyeon laughed quietly, breath tickling Jiseok’s ear. “No, I’m definitely in the right place.” Then, “I knew you’d still be awake.”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that. Jiseok just sighed.

As if the lack of objection were an invitation, Jooyeon wormed his way under the blanket, winding both of his arms fully around Jiseok’s waist and hugging him close as if he were a teddy bear. Normally, Jiseok would pretend to protest, pretend like Jooyeon’s clinginess was an inconvenience, even if he knew, and Jooyeon knew, and probably even JYP himself knew that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The truth was that Jiseok had come to rely on Jooyeon’s clinginess the way he relied on air to breathe.

Now of all times, he couldn’t bring himself to protest, even jokingly.

“I sort of feel like I should sing a lullaby or something,” Jooyeon whispered.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know, it just seems right.”

“Well… don’t, you’ll wake Seungmin.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s already awake. Hi, Seungminnie!”

“Jooyeon!” Jiseok elbowed him, and Jooyeon flinched back, giggling, tightening his grip on Jiseok as he squirmed. An extremely masculine squeak escaped Jiseok’s throat; toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube, and he was the tube.

“Hi, Jooyeon,” Seungmin’s wary voice sounded from below. “Please just go to sleep.”

“Sorry,” Jooyeon and Jiseok said in unison, both struggling not to laugh.

“I told you,” Jooyeon breathed once they’d calmed down. Jiseok could hear the grin in his voice.

“Congratulations,” Jiseok whispered. “You woke up Seungmin and nearly broke me in half.”

“I did not nearly break you in half.” Jooyeon squeezed him again—lightly. “You’re made of stronger stuff than that. I know you are.”

There was something different in the way he whispered that last part. Something that hinted at the deeper reason Jooyeon had decided to invade Jiseok’s bunk.

Jiseok sighed. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“I am,” Jooyeon insisted. “Sometimes…” he trailed off, hesitant. “Sometimes, I look at you and wonder how we got so lucky to have someone like you on our team.”

Jiseok’s breath caught in his throat. “Are you sure you’re not just looking in a mirror?” he forced out.

Jooyeon poked him in the side. “I’m being serious. Look, I don’t want to repeat what you’ve probably already heard a million times, that you’re an amazing guitarist, and a great singer, and a talented songwriter, and really good-looking, because even though all those things are true, I know they mean less and less every time someone says them.”

There was no way Jooyeon couldn’t feel how Jiseok’s heart was beating harder than Gunil’s bass drum.

“You’re our centre,” Jooyeon continued, “and that’s not a meaningless title. I don’t know how to explain it—you’re the one who always knows what to say, or when it’s better to say nothing. You’re really dumb sometimes, but you’re also the smartest person I’ve ever met. None of us would ever dream of trading you for someone else, even if that person was, like, Korean Brian May.”

It was probably just that he was overtired, because Jiseok couldn’t think of any other reason why this was the thing to break him; why there was pressure building behind his eyes and nose and a strange bubble rising up his throat.

“You’re my favourite person,” Jooyeon murmured into his ear. “And I wouldn’t want to be here if it wasn’t with you.”

Damn it.

Jiseok clasped his hand over his mouth as, for the second time today, tears spilled over his cheeks. This time he let them. His shoulders were shaking. Jooyeon moved one hand to grip Jiseok’s arm, rubbing circles with his thumb, and pressed his cheek into Jiseok’s hair.

They stayed like that for several moments, Jiseok’s breath escaping in gasps and judders. A faint part of his mind was lamenting how mortifying this was—sobbing in Jooyeon’s arms, with Seungmin probably still awake and hearing everything—but mostly, as all the feelings he’d fought down today surged up his throat and escaped, he was overcome with an immense sense of release. A breath taken after being held too long. A weight put down after growing too heavy on his shoulders. Rubber bands cut free from the watermelon.

Eventually, the flood abated, Jiseok’s breathing became slow and even, and all he felt was warm and overwhelmingly tired.

Jooyeon squeezed his arm. “Better?”

“You did that on purpose,” Jiseok accused weakly, using the pillow to dry his face, and then turning it over so he wasn’t lying in a puddle of his own tears.

“I know you too well,” Jooyeon replied, which could have meant many things. Under the blanket, he nudged Jiseok’s foot with his own. “Tomorrow will be better. I promise.”

Jiseok hummed noncommittally, no longer possessing the energy to so much as keep his eyes open. Trust Jooyeon to make an impossible promise, the keeping of which was entirely up to chance.

But even so, as Jiseok drifted off to sleep, the notion stuck tenderly in his mind—

Tomorrow would be better.