Work Text:
They talked about it once, on some promotional interview that Seonghwa doesn’t actually remember all that well. As inconsequential as it may have been.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Seonghwa-hyung get angry, right?” San comments, looking around at all the other members for confirmation.
There’s a resounding chorus of “yeah”’s and “I don’t think so”’s and acquiescent nods, followed by Wooyoung’s more enthusiastic agreement while he reaches over to take the mic from San.
“Yeah, it’s not like we’ve never fought with him or anything,” Wooyoung starts animatedly, looking in Seonghwa’s direction where he’s met with a characteristic, patient smile. “He’s just calm about it. He’s never lashed out at us or anything.”
There are synchronized nods and hums of agreement again as Wooyoung passes Seonghwa the mic, allowing him to speak for himself. Seonghwa takes it appreciatively, smiling at the camera in front of them to further everyone’s point.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much correct.”
The rest of them laugh at how on-the-nose it is, the calm, polite way that Seonghwa addresses the camera with crinkled eyes and a kind smile. Seonghwa doesn’t even remember how that had come up in the first place, but most of what was said was true anyway. Seonghwa only turns his head towards the front row when Hongjoong raises the other mic to his own mouth to speak, looking right at Seonghwa with a playful expression on his face.
“I think I’ve seen you angry, though, haven’t I?”
Seonghwa laughs, teeth showing. San has his eyebrows raised in curiosity when he chirps out a question of “Really?”, and Seonghwa is the one who speaks again before Hongjoong can answer that himself.
“No, you haven’t.” Seonghwa answers with a bashful grin, a little shy about being put on the spot. Nonetheless, he shakes his head and waves a hand, leveling his tone in a way that he hopes is more lighthearted than actually intimidating. “Trust me, you haven’t.”
He gets a reaction out of all of them for that remark, hands over mouths or lips parted around interested ‘o’ sounds. Seonghwa laughs it off and they move onto the next question, and Seonghwa doesn’t think he’d be thinking about it again after the fact.
1.
Maybe Seonghwa was a little bit wrong.
“I keep telling you that you should clean this place up,” Seonghwa sighs exasperatedly, gathering up the sweaters on Hongjoong’s studio couch that had started to pile up after continuously forgetting to bring them home. Seonghwa eyes the messy stacks of paper in the corner with a grimace, along with all the indiscernible clutter around the laptop on Hongjoong’s desk. “I honestly still don’t know how you work like this.”
Seonghwa doesn’t really mean it in any inflammatory way, and luckily, Hongjoong doesn’t take it as such. Seonghwa knows perfectly well that not everyone has the same eye for tidiness as he does, and he doesn’t hold it against Hongjoong beyond passive clicks of his tongue or constant nagging. Hongjoong has learned to handle it well over the years, so it doesn’t faze him when Seonghwa crouches down to literally untangle the wires below his work desk.
“Hwa, don’t bother with that. They’re just going to get messed up again.”
Seonghwa huffs, but gets up off the floor anyway. “This is a fire hazard.”
“Every studio in this building is like this, and nothing has burned down yet.”
“You shave at least five years off my lifespan every time you make me worry about you, you know,” Seonghwa pouts, turning his back to go back to folding the old clothes on the couch. He fully intends to bring them back to the dorm and throw them right in the laundry when he steps through the door—like he does every month—because Seonghwa thinks Hongjoong’s studio is stuffy where Hongjoong thinks it’s cozy, and this is how they meet in the middle because Seonghwa doesn’t ever stop worrying about him, as he said.
“I told you, I’m fine,” Hongjoong sighs, turning his swivel chair around to face Seonghwa’s back. “Stop fussing over me. You came here with Yunho and Yeosang, right?”
Seonghwa’s pout only worsens as he continues folding clothes, but he doesn’t turn back to let Hongjoong see. It hurts his feelings a little how Hongjoong disregards his concerns sometimes—in this exact way—but Seonghwa knows rationally that that’s not ever what Hongjoong intends, so he lets it go. He’s a patient person, after all, and he can deal with the mild annoyance that settles uncomfortably in his throat.
“Are you coming home tonight, at least?” Seonghwa asks flatly, ignoring the previous question and looking back at Hongjoong after the few seconds it takes him to wipe the stupid pout off of his face. He doesn’t mean for it to sound threatening, but he can’t do anything about it after realizing that maybe that’s kind of how it came out. Softening his tone, he asks, “We’re gonna be here a little bit later than usual, too. Should I come get you when we’re done?”
Hongjoong considers it for a second, looking back and forth between Seonghwa and the laptop on his desk. “I’m making some really good progress on this track, I’m not sure when I’ll be done…”
Hongjoong taps his fingers anxiously on the armrest of his chair as he trails off, courageously not breaking eye contact, at least, and Seonghwa has half a mind not to raise a brow or roll his eyes or just scoff—anything that would give away his building frustration. He pushes it down instead—he’s good at it, always has been—unfurrows his brow, softens the hard line of his lips, grounds himself with some calming breaths. It’s not like Seonghwa to get mad, so he doesn’t. He knows that Hongjoong loves working on music like this, even if it’s late in the night and at the expense of sleep or seeing sunlight or spending time with his literal boyfriend, and Seonghwa’s not going to take that away from him, if he can help it. The two of them just work— because in the places where they know they’re different, they always make the effort to understand.
So Seonghwa pushes down whatever fire threatens to boil and spill out of his mouth, conceding with a small smile and understanding nod of his head instead. “Okay.”
Nothing more is said after, so Seonghwa takes it as his cue to leave. He turns back to the sofa to grab the stack of now-folded sweaters, carrying them in his arms to bring to the practice room they’d reserved and then back to the dorm when they were done. He smiles curtly in Hongjoong’s direction as he walks towards the door, but he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder before he can leave.
“Hey,” Hongjoong seems to say nervously, voice soft and eyes earnest when Seonghwa turns his full attention back to him. “Are we good?”
Seonghwa laughs. It’s soft, barely more than just a smile, but it’s genuine enough. Hongjoong looks so serious when he says it and Seonghwa is weak, so he tells himself to fall for it, even when the slight sting of disappointment still exists within his gut. Voice softening, he breathes out, “Yeah. Just stressed out, that’s all.”
“I can see that,” Hongjoong muses, gesturing at the pile of clothes in Seonghwa’s arms and the overflowing trash can, a product of Seonghwa’s spontaneous decluttering. “Have fun tonight, but you should rest as soon as you can.”
“Yeah,” Seonghwa concedes, softening up even more with every passing second. Hongjoong leans up for a kiss, a smile on his lips and quiet apology in his gaze, and Seonghwa leans in to give him a quick peck. It’s quite stubborn, his bleeding heart. For this one moment, at least, it seems to overpower the blood just previously rushing into his ears. “See you at home.”
Hongjoong lets him go after that. Seonghwa walks briskly once he’s out in the hallway, clothes in his hands as he goes to take the elevator to the practice room floor. Yunho and Yeosang are waiting for him and have probably already warmed up, and Seonghwa fidgets with his clasped hands while he waits for the elevator to arrive.
He’s left alone with his thoughts the whole way up, too, and the split-second flash of annoyance ripples mildly through Seonghwa’s whole body now that Hongjoong’s out of sight, but the words they’d said weren’t yet out of mind. Seonghwa lets out a long sigh, all too familiar with the feeling under his skin. His mind cycles back to that interview all of a sudden, recalling the words that his teammates had said.
Seonghwa wouldn’t say that he isn’t an angry person—it’s just that when that particular emotion creeps up on him, he never expresses it in the loudest of ways. He’s calm, as they had said. Patient, and soft, and pure. He strives to understand things before complaining about them, and if something’s upset him, he tries his very best to solve it without the need for explosive conflict. Seonghwa’s the one they turn to for comfort and gentleness, and Seonghwa doesn’t mind at all; he loves being there for them, unconditional love and support and everything in between.
That isn’t to say that he doesn’t get upset often. He does—though he’s never quite admitted that to anyone except Hongjoong, and even so, it had taken a long time before that for him to admit it to himself. Seonghwa’s only human, too. There come those times when he’s on edge and not so keen on maintaining his outward calm, when he’s sick and tired of just smiling and nodding. Even then, something always manages to bring him back from teetering off the edge of that cliff, whether it’s the strength of his own resolve or the yielding consent of whoever was riling him up in the first place. Seonghwa would say that everyone has a fair gauge of his limits most times, which he’s thankful for—though he’s not quite sure if he himself really knows sometimes. It’s true, what he said in that old interview: they’ve never seen him angry. Really angry. He doesn’t think he’s even seen it himself, and he prays that they won’t ever have to.
(Because oh, if they knew the darker side of the thoughts that Seonghwa has sometimes, none of them would be calling him calm or soft or seeking him out as a place for comfort.)
It’s why Seonghwa tries to be careful about himself in times like these, when he’s stressed out and more on edge than usual. He’s annoyed that Hongjoong’s brushing him off again, and Seonghwa has learned not too long ago that annoyance is just another type of anger, and so are all these other words he’s used over the years to pacify himself and avoid snapping back and unleashing everything that’s festered in his bones. He lets Hongjoong off the hook because it was clear enough that Hongjoong was aware that he’d upset him at least a little, and Seonghwa trusts him enough to know that he’ll reflect on it enough to apologize properly later. He’s the only other person that Seonghwa lets in on these less-than-saintly thoughts he has sometimes, and he’s lucky it brought them closer instead of making Hongjoong completely recoil away like he’d feared.
Right now, Seonghwa just makes his way mindlessly to the practice room instead. This is always what he does when he needs to blow off steam—Yunho and Yeosang must know it, too, at least subconsciously, even though they never mention it when Seonghwa asks them if they want to go dance with him at this hour of night. It’s a welcome distraction for Seonghwa, and while Hongjoong may be the best at dealing with Seonghwa’s anger, Yunho and Yeosang have always been the best at quelling it. Yunho is agreeable and Yeosang is no-nonsense when he needs to be, and Seonghwa enjoys running through choreo with them because it’s simple and straightforward and they remind Seonghwa that he loves what they all do.
It’s impossible that they don’t notice Seonghwa’s dejected expression when he plops the stack of folded sweaters down onto the bench beside their bags, or how it changes immediately into the practiced, soft smile when he walks towards them. Nonetheless, neither of them say anything about when Seonghwa goes to stretch in front of the mirror, and Seonghwa lets the tension drain from his body while he gets himself in the mindset to dance, and nothing else.
“Have you started already?” Seonghwa asks coolly, noticing the beginnings of sweat on Yunho’s forehead.
“We actually had an idea for a little choreo change in the chorus,” Yunho responds naturally, gesturing to Yeosang as well. “It’s a less natural transition than the original move, but both of us thought the silhouette looked better. Wanna try?”
Seonghwa smiles fondly in the mirror, always satisfied when he sees them in their element like this. He already knows that whatever they had come up with was going to be good, and he’s ready to do his absolute best to give it justice.
Yeosang runs Seonghwa through the new move when he’s done stretching, and both he and Yunho marvel and guffaw exaggeratedly at how much better the silhouette looks indeed, when it’s reflected in the mirror by Seonghwa’s curvy figure. They fluster Seonghwa enough to make him playfully swat them on the shoulders between runs, chasing them around the practice room, every negative emotion going down enough to return to its dormant state in a lockbox at the back of Seonghwa’s mind. They flow naturally, Yunho and Yeosang cheering him up as if they know that he needs it. It’s more than enough for now.
It’s just enough to keep Seonghwa afloat even after they’re done for the night, when Seonghwa goes back down to Hongjoong’s studio’s floor and sees lights still seeping out from below the door, and decides to just leave it alone and go home with Yunho and Yeosang and his armful of new laundry. It’s enough as Seonghwa deposits said laundry into the washing machine when they get back home near midnight, letting Yunho and Yeosang take their showers first.
Seonghwa’s high on the feeling of a job well done, the gratitude he has towards his teammates and friends, and it’s enough to keep him from teetering over the edge when Hongjoong still doesn’t come home in the three hours that it takes Seonghwa to drift off into a lonely sleep.
2.
“Okay, we’ll do the first run for today from the second verse!” Yunho calls out when everyone’s done stretching, gesturing for them to get into their respective positions. They all follow naturally, Seonghwa included, though his mind has been a little absent so far on this particular day. He simply watches as Yunho stands by the speaker to put on the track, quickly jogging to his own position after he presses play.
They get into it easily enough. They’d been practicing and polishing up this choreo for a relatively long time now, so the moves and formations are already engraved solidly into their muscle memory. For Seonghwa, at least, his body moves of its own accord, and it’s enough for him to allow his mind some more room to wander off somewhere far away. He moves to the music, all the movements rolling satisfyingly off of him as he regards his figure absently in the mirror, in perfect sync with the others even if his thoughts are somewhere else.
The stress he’d been feeling had gotten worse before it got better, as it often does during the hectic days leading up to promotions. Seonghwa eyes Hongjoong in the mirror and recalls the mostly-silent altercation between them that—thankfully enough—was solved faster than it had ensued, because that’s just the way that they are. It had taken a fairly long time for Seonghwa before to work up to the whole no bullshit, no sugarcoating style of communication that Hongjoong needed from him if they were going to make it work, but in fairness to him, Seonghwa’s comfortable enough now with not brushing off questions of What’s wrong? or Are you mad at me? just for the sake of preserving Hongjoong’s pride. A simple, ‘You upset me,’ and Hongjoong had conceded his apologies the other day and by noon, they’d worked it out. Simple as that.
Seonghwa wishes he had the resolve to be that way with everyone else, too—but he’s only just gotten used to it with Hongjoong, his literal boyfriend, as it is.
The thing is, by the time the song reaches the chorus and they go all-out on their dance, Seonghwa’s mind is still in some faraway land and he hadn’t even noticed that he did something wrong until Wooyoung’s chiding voice rings out and echoes in the room.
“Seonghwa-hyung!” Wooyoung whines, turning to him with both hands on his waist as Seonghwa finally snaps back to attention. “What are you doing?”
“I— uh, sorry,” Seonghwa concedes, hands held up in apology because he’d been checked out enough not to know what he actually did wrong, but if Wooyoung was that upset, it probably really was Seonghwa’s fault anyway. It frustrates him even more, on top of every other indiscernible thing that’s been fucking with his focus these days, and something about the way Wooyoung is looking at him only makes him feel worse. “What… what did I get wrong?”
That… expression on Wooyoung’s face deepens, and his tone takes on a sharper edge when he asks, “Hyung, what’s up with you today?”
Seonghwa feels something dangerous bubble up inside his chest, a flood of a million not-so-nice thoughts suddenly taking up his brain—but they dissipate in a second when Jongho swoops in in their place, promptly walking up to Wooyoung’s side and smacking him in the arm for his not-so-curt choice of words. And tone. And probably everything else.
“Don’t be so rude!” Jongho says, tone warning but still fairly playful, and Wooyoung makes a big reaction of clutching his arm and letting muttered apologies tumble out of his mouth in Jongho and Seonghwa’s general direction.
And Seonghwa, of course, defaults back to his usual, smiling self. He breaks out into a laugh and it lightens whatever tension had been left in the air by him not telling them what was up with him today, and, well. After all of it—that’s that.
Seonghwa’s just glad it didn’t escalate.
(And maybe he’s also starting to wonder if that signature patient, bright smile of his is also just muscle memory at this point, too.)
“Ah, sorry, we forgot to bring this up,” Yunho says not long after, looking between Seonghwa and Yeosang before addressing everyone else again. “Yeosang had an idea to change that part in the chorus, and the three of us practiced that version a few nights ago, so I think Seonghwa-hyung just got used to it and did it that way.”
Ah. So that’s what he did wrong. Makes sense.
“Oh, okay! Show us, then!” Wooyoung jumps up enthusiastically, and something about the quick 180 makes Seonghwa’s stomach twist—though he really can’t pinpoint the reason. He tries not to let his face fall too much when they all get back into formation and someone pushes Yeosang to the front to demonstrate the new move, all looking with interest and mirroring the action with their own bodies at the same damn thing that they’d scolded Seonghwa for not even seconds ago.
Fuck, no. Seonghwa tells his inner voice to shut up . He’s not this petty. It’s not like anyone is actually at fault.
Either way, Seonghwa forces his mind to be fully present for the rest of practice, although he mostly minds his own business, doesn’t say quite that much after the fact.
Seonghwa appreciates it when Yeosang stands beside him during a break, just to casually remark that Seonghwa was still the best out of all of them at doing that newer, more difficult move. He appreciates it when Mingi asks him earnestly how to make the transition look easier on the eyes. He appreciates it when Hongjoong corners him to tell him how pretty he looks today, with a hand on the small of his back that’s somehow suggestive and grounding at the same time.
The rest of dance practice goes by quickly enough from there—Seonghwa managing to keep his cool, gentle demeanor amidst all the business-as-usual chaos—even though he still leaves with that same, bad taste in his mouth.
3.
Seonghwa’s used to them fighting.
It’s unavoidable, really, pretty much par for the course. Eight guys, all around the same age, but with different dispositions and needs and thresholds—there’s absolutely no way it’s going to be peace and harmony all the time. Seonghwa—(and, granted, Hongjoong as well)—always does his best to take it in stride, is no stranger to being the one mediating these fights, or at the very least letting the members come to him to vent or find refuge in his comforting presence after Hongjoong tells them off. Seonghwa knows that maybe he puts an undue amount of pressure on himself to never be the one fighting with anyone else for that reason, because even though they aren’t his children, Seonghwa would rather not be playing favorites—and this does wonders for his own sanity, he’s sure.
Today’s fight is pretty much the same as usual: it’s petty, easily solvable, and didn’t even really start out as a fight. They’re all home for once after a long day of dance practice, no one staying back to run through more choreo or stay in a studio after hours. Most of them had already bounded off into whatever bedrooms to sleep or do whatever they get up to at this time of night. Seonghwa’s pretty sure he can hear Yeosang and Yunho in the latter’s room playing games, which means San’s either passed out through all that noise, or, more likely, curled up in Wooyoung’s bed. Seonghwa had already heard the sound of Hongjoong coming out of the bathroom and into their own bedroom around fifteen minutes ago, and honestly, for all his tiredness, there’s nothing he’d like to do more than follow him into that bedroom and curl up into his boyfriend’s side.
But Jongho and Mingi are in the living room, and Seonghwa doesn’t even remember how their conversation had managed to fill the air so thick with tension, and it’s not technically his responsibility but he’d rather not risk leaving them alone until they get mad enough to go for the kitchen knives.
“Stop sulking, hyung. You should just talk to him,” Jongho says flatly. Mingi sighs.
“He’s mad at me. Should I really go talk to him?”
Jongho laughs in frustration, “That’s literally what I just said.”
Seonghwa’s holding his breath, not really knowing if and when he should interject. They seem fine enough talking by themselves, besides the fact that Mingi sulks even more.
“But we’re all super stressed out. I don’t want to bother him more, or anything.”
Jongho rolls his eyes at Mingi’s pout. “Aren’t you and Yunho-hyung best friends? Just talk to him, it’s not gonna be that bad.”
“Jongho,” Seonghwa warns when he observes Mingi curling up a little tighter on the other end of the couch. Seonghwa tries keeping his own expression as neutral as possible, enough to calm Jongho down without seeming too much like he’s trying to influence the outcome.
A glorified referee, he’d tell Hongjoong sometimes. Not that he ever stops doing it.
“I can’t even tell if anything’s wrong,” Mingi mutters, “I mean, you can hear him and Yeosang playing right now, right? It probably doesn’t even matter to him.”
“What did you even fight about?” Jongho asks. “You’ve been like this the whole week, I kinda hate it.”
Seonghwa quirks his lips up the slightest bit, fond. Well, Jongho’s trying, at least.
Mingi shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Jongho asks, clearly annoyed. “You should stop overthinking it, then—”
“I didn’t even ask you, Jongho-yah,” Mingi rolls his eyes, a sharper edge to his tone.
Jongho scoffs, suddenly turning towards Seonghwa. “Seonghwa-hyung, tell him he should stop sulking.”
Seonghwa parts his lips, lets out a short sigh. He puts down the phone in his hand, leveling his tone in his own, practiced way.
“I don’t think you really have to worry too much, Mingi-yah,” Seonghwa says soothingly. In Jongho’s direction, he adds, “Don’t be so harsh.”
Jongho nods his consent, though there’s still a hint of exasperation that Seonghwa just decides to brush off. On the other hand, he has no idea what more he can say for Mingi at this point, considering they’ve been through this dance more than a few times before and Seonghwa always tells him the same thing—which is pretty much the exact same thing that Jongho had been trying to get through Mingi’s skull, except a little nicer, and definitely much more patient. In the back of his mind, Seonghwa thinks that Yunho and Mingi should know by now how to work their own shit out, really, but he’s not the type to bang their heads together and do it by force. it’s not Seonghwa’s job to figure out for them where the line is between Yunho giving Mingi his space and just ignoring him for days on end without an explanation. It should be simple, solvable enough for them on their own, but this somehow still ends up happening over and over again.
“Song Mingi,” Seonghwa says in his general direction, tone taking on something more… motherly, as they like to call it. “We already talked about this, you know?”
“I know, hyung,” Mingi whines, and, yeah. Of course Seonghwa’s weak for it. “I’m just…still… really nervous, what if it’s nothing after all and he gets annoyed at me for overreacting?”
Jongho just stares at him, unimpressed. “Oh my god, this hyung. Seriously.”
Mingi furrows his brow. “Why are you being such a dick?”
“Why are you being so—”
“You know Yunho,” Seonghwa interrupts, expression and tone more firm now than before. Jongho doesn’t try to finish his sentence. “If something’s bothering you this much, don’t you think he’d want to know?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“You really don’t have to worry too much, okay?” Seonghwa says sweetly, and he means it. If there’s anyone who knows just how much Yunho cares for Mingi, it’s Seonghwa—and, well, okay, maybe everyone else besides Mingi, most days. He wonders a lot about how much longer it’s going to take before Mingi really figures that out. “You’re his best friend. It probably is nothing, so isn’t it better to just clear it up?”
“But what if it’s not nothing?”
Jongho sighs and gets up from the couch, stomping his way to his room.
Seonghwa stares at his retreating back in defeat, but decides against pursuing that battle for now.
“Mingi, you’ll stress yourself out too much like this.”
“I don’t know what to do, hyung.”
Seonghwa’s shoulders slump, lips parted around a protest that dies on his tongue. As gently as he can, he reiterates, “Talk to him.”
“But I’m scared…”
Seonghwa looks at him, stone-faced. “Fine, then don’t.”
“Hyung…” Mingi gulps, the rest of the words seemingly dying off before he can say them, perhaps shocked as well by the shift in demeanor. Seonghwa can’t really fathom what expression is on his own face right now, but he hopes it’s simply stern at worst. He’d rather not foster animosity, lest they actually stop coming to him for things like this.
“Mingi-yah,” Seonghwa says, and it comes out more seriously than he had intended. Regardless, he pushes on. “Why ask me for advice if you’re not even going to listen to it?”
Mingi’s eyes widen, and some vague sense of realization seems to flash across his face. Seonghwa feels strange immediately after hearing the phrase leave his lips—because did he really just say that? —and he immediately makes an effort not to let anything else slip through the cracks.
It’s quite difficult, though, with what Mingi says next.
“Why are you getting mad at me?”
Seonghwa just sits there for a few seconds, stunned. As far as he knows, his face remains expressionless, eyes not giving a single thing away. In his head, he scoffs, laughs in disbelief, says a string of sharp expletives that don’t leave the confines of his mind—but on the outside, he stays calm.
It’s in times like these that Seonghwa learns more and more that just because he is a patient person, that doesn’t mean that he can’t also be an angry one. It’s times like these that make him recall that stupid interview, we’ve never seen Seonghwa-hyung get angry, or whatever whoever said, and, yeah, damn right. They never see him angry because Seonghwa-hyung isn’t allowed to get angry, and maybe that’s for the best. But maybe that’s also what so inclines them to keep pushing his fucking buttons.
But Seonghwa is a patient person, and this is his precious Mingi. And when his precious members drive him up the wall to near madness, Seonghwa has never, not even once, chosen to lash out at them in anger, no matter how much of it had already started to boil.
He’s not in his right mind to offer comfort, and loves Mingi too much to let himself properly snap—so he does the next best thing.
He gives up.
“I’m not mad at you, Mingi-yah,” Seonghwa says gently, and it’s like a superpower at this point, how his voice remains melodic, honey-sweet, even with the lump forming at the back of his throat. He stands up from the couch, and with a gentle hand on Mingi’s shoulder, he says, “I’m just tired, okay? Let’s get to bed.”
Seonghwa doesn’t wait for a response before leaving two reassuring taps on Mingi’s shoulder and leaving the living room to go and do exactly as he’d said. He’s fuming on the inside, but he keeps a stoic face. After a gentle knock on Yunho’s door to ask him and Yeosang to quiet down a little bit, Seonghwa walks into the darkness of his and Hongjoong’s room.
Seonghwa slumps his forehead against the door after he closes it, letting a deep, frustrated sigh slip past his lips now that he was in the comfort of his own space. It’s quiet enough that Hongjoong doesn’t hear—but then Seonghwa hears rustling from the bed nonetheless, a familiar voice ringing out just as Seonghwa tries to get his eyes to adjust to the dark and take a look.
“Seonghwa?”
“Fuck, you’re still awake,” Seonghwa says, too fast, caught like a deer in the headlights while Hongjoong stands up, scrutinizing him with his gaze. “Sorry, sorry. You can go to bed now, don’t mind me.”
Hongjoong ignores it, zeroes in instead on the tiredness on Seonghwa’s features, the unusual set of his jaw. Hongjoong always knows, and Seonghwa really doesn’t have the capacity to deny that anymore, after all this time. Certainly not after Hongjoong had definitely seen him in the beginnings of basically banging his head against the wall, among other things. “What’s wrong?”
Seonghwa looks at him when Hongjoong takes one of his hands, and suddenly he can’t speak. He doesn’t know. He’s reaching some kind of limit within himself, his patience is running thin—but it’s been that way for a long time. Seonghwa can’t pinpoint exactly what’s different nowadays, but it’s eating away at him more and more. Hongjoong knows of these aches and grievances that fester deep in the recesses of Seonghwa’s mind, settle forebodingly in his bones, and he doesn’t ever force Seonghwa to face them if he isn’t ready. It’s how he takes care of Seonghwa, in his own way, a part of how the two of them have always shared their burdens alongside their worries and sacrifices and difficult, but unwavering devotion.
Hongjoong registers Seonghwa’s lack of an answer, so he smiles patiently and squeezes his hand, and changes the question. “Did something happen outside?”
That, Seonghwa could answer. “Jongho was being a dick, and Mingi should stop fucking asking me for advice if he’s never going to listen to me anyway.”
Hongjoong nods, patient, unfazed by the uncharacteristic words tumbling out of Seonghwa’s mouth. “Yeah?”
Seonghwa squeezes their hands together tighter. “I’m still a glorified referee, I wonder what they’d do when I get tired of being so fucking nice all the time. Am I really just the person everyone thinks they can dump all their problems on? It’s fucking pissing me off, Hongjoong.”
“Yeah,” Hongjoong soothes, scrunching his nose in sympathy. He rubs circles with his thumb on the back of Seonghwa’s palm, smiling softly at him as his boyfriend’s distressed face becomes clearer in the dark. “I’d say you’re hot when you’re mad, but I know what you mean.”
Seonghwa doesn’t laugh at that, but it makes him smile a little before he scrunches his face, leans forward into Hongjoong’s arms when he’s pulled in for a hug. Tears don’t come to Seonghwa’s eyes, but he shuts his eyes as tight as he squeezes Hongjoong into the hug, as if it’d be enough to take them to someplace other than here.
And they fall asleep together later that night, cuddled up in Hongjoong’s bed after he let Seonghwa talk shit for about an hour and a half, just to get it out of his system. Seonghwa knows it’s a temporary sort of relief at best—but for now, it’s enough.
Seonghwa presses a kiss onto Hongjoong’s temple before dozing off himself, and it’s a reminder that there’s enough love and patience in him yet for eight people and a lifetime.
4.
Seonghwa had learned a long while back—from Hongjoong’s brief obsession with all things space—that it only takes a few seconds for a star to become a supernova. A few seconds, unplanned but not unanticipated, when that ball of fire finally gives in to rising heat and dropping pressure and forms something colorful and cosmic and massive, a pocket of wonder in the vastness of celestial space.
For how much they love to call Seonghwa their star, he doubts it will be that pretty when it happens to him.
Seonghwa isn’t dense. He’s aware of how much he keeps bottled up inside, constantly boiling but never being enough to spill over—at least not yet. He voices these thoughts out sometimes, to Hongjoong or to empty rooms. He doesn’t do anything about it, because there’s nothing to be done. Seonghwa hides away his huffing and puffing and does his best to believe it doesn’t turn into resentment deep within him, no matter how much more often the snarkier, darker, more malicious and intrusive remarks play in his head without hesitation as of late. Stray thoughts of I wonder how far they’d push it, wonder exactly how nice they think I am, wonder if they’re scared to see the day that I finally fucking snap—I wonder if they know that they should be. They should be scared.
Seonghwa is honestly a little scared, too. He didn’t think he’d ever, in his lifetime, know someone who was genuinely capable of holding on to so much unnamed, steadily-growing contempt. He certainly didn’t think he’d find it in himself.
He doesn’t tell anyone, and he doesn’t make it obvious enough for them to pick up on it. They’re all tired, and it makes littler things like that a lot easier to miss. For all they know, Seonghwa simply needs to rest, too, stays quiet more than usual just to save his energy. Seonghwa doesn’t concern himself with anyone else’s problems as much as he usually does, and he somehow feels simultaneously relieved and wronged at the same time that they can actually go that long without doing stupid shit to test Seonghwa’s patience, and maybe he’s just been going about this whole eldest hyung thing all wrong from the start.
He’s just glad that the moment he had started thinking about supernovas that he decided, rather resignedly, to take some time to quietly cool off. Come to think of it, after all, Seonghwa’s not really angry at any of them specifically—he’s just… angry, that’s it, and because the anger has festered for so long he’s just lost track of any of the reasons why. There’s not much else he knows to do besides let it sit there and lie dormant like he always does, except now he’s more aware of just how much it’s starting to eat away at what he used to think was his endless supply of patience.
He decides to do something nice for the members on a night when the thoughts become a lot more apparent, because despite himself, the juxtaposition of all of his resentment against his supposedly warm demeanor leaves the uncomfortable feeling of dissonance pounding too loudly in his head. Seonghwa doesn’t mean to act cold towards them—it just comes as the side effect of not wanting to misplace any aggression—and whether they’ve even noticed or not is lost on him when he decides he wants to go back as soon as possible to being their reliable, attentive, soft-hearted Seonghwa-hyung.
He checks the time, 6:56 PM. Perfect. Most of them were home already, and Hongjoong and Mingi promised they’d be home before dinner. Seonghwa had gone out to take a walk and clear his head, so he stops in his tracks by a bus stop bench before pulling out his phone.
8 MAKES 1 TEAM
seonghwa
> what does everyone want for dinner? i’m buying ^-^
Seonghwa sends the message, and waits.
And waits, and waits, and waits.
Five minutes pass without a reply, despite four of them at home apparently having already read the chat.
8 MAKES 1 TEAM
seonghwa
> i can see u guys reading my msgs
> hurry up it’s freezing out here
Seonghwa sighs. It’s not actually that cold out yet, but the frayed edges of what sweetness he thought he had left in him were starting to rip apart even more at the seams, and he resists the urge to be petty about it and achieve the exact opposite of what he was trying to do by offering to get them all whatever they wanted in the first place.
8 MAKES 1 TEAM
seonghwa
> @yunho @sannie @hehet @Captain @mingi @Choi Jongho @woooooooo
> last chance.
But eight more minutes had passed, he’s still standing stupidly at this bus stop, and Seonghwa has been getting worse and worse at resisting his urges.
Both Hongjoong and Mingi haven’t opened the chat yet, so Seonghwa chalks it up to them being busy in the studio, or maybe already on the way home. So, fine. Forgiven.
Everyone else has opened the messages, though, and by the time Seonghwa’s about to completely throw in the towel, Yeosang’s bubble thankfully pops up.
8 MAKES 1 TEAM
hehet
> can you get fried chicken hyung?
> thank you :)
seonghwa
> ok
Seonghwa pockets his phone. He knows how rude that might have come off, and in hindsight, he should have known it was a preview of what would happen if he continues to let these feelings fester, coming out in short bursts towards the wrong people and at the wrong time. Yeosang had been the last to read the group chat and yet the first to reply, and Seonghwa appreciates it, but it’s overshadowed by the annoyance he’s harboring for literally everything else.
He knows this is not going to end well. He sends Yeosang a private message to ask what flavor he wants specifically, both as an apology and some kind of petty spite for everyone else who, in Seonghwa’s head, didn’t give a fuck anyway. As overdramatic as that sounds.
He drops the chicken a little too loudly on the dining table when he gets back home, hiding his chagrin with a smile that’s more instinctive than really fond when everyone on the couch walks over to start digging in.
Seonghwa walks into his room before he can hear if they thank him or not, stays there and chooses not to eat with them for fear of what might slip out of his mouth.
He knows someone’s going to drag him out of there eventually, but he lets it marinate for now.
5.
“I can’t seem to get that one part down, though.”
“I think you did fine, though?” Yunho shrugs, trying to ease the furrow in San’s brow. “I mean, you always do it in your own style anyway, and it works. So I don’t know what you’re worried about.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” San replies, smiling bashfully at the praise. “Still, I mean, it kinda looks weird especially when I’m not at the center, and I just can’t get the timing right.”
Wooyoung pipes up, abandoning Yeosang’s side where he’s searching with Jongho for something to put on Netflix. “San-ah, I’m the perfectionist here, and honestly, it was fine.”
“Me, too,” Yunho agrees.
San pouts. “I think I wanna run through it more, though.”
“Sure, I guess,” Yunho shrugs noncommittally. “If that’s what you want.”
“Guys, it’s our rest day,” Hongjoong says, in the way Seonghwa knows is in an attempt to be placating. “Don’t think so hard about that now.”
“Look who’s talking,” Jongho jokes.
“Okay, I get it, but still.”
Seonghwa smiles softly at the exchange, at Hongjoong’s defeated tone as the conversation continues to play out. Seonghwa’s not exactly in a good mood, but it’s not bad enough for him to want to check out of their movie night, either. It was their rest day, after all, and Seonghwa’s just thankful for the opportunity to not think about work for at least one day as the comeback inches closer and closer, because honestly, it’s been stressing him the fuck out. If Seonghwa had his way, he’d chide San for still talking about dancing and choreo much like Hongjoong had just done, but Seonghwa knows how passionate San is and so he decides to let it lie, as long as he doesn’t have to participate. Soon enough they’ll have a movie or some random drama on the TV anyway, and Seonghwa can forget about how much more draining dancing has been for him than fun or fulfilling. The thought makes him uneasy, so he’s tried not to let himself be alone with it for too long.
Unfortunately for him, Yeosang and Jongho take longer to choose something to watch that he thought they would.
“Seonghwa-hyung,” San starts, all innocent and curious and round eyes. “There’s that part with the—” San mirrors some action that vaguely resembles the part of the choreography he’d been fussing over, “—this. I can’t get the isolation down, how do you do it so cleanly?”
Seonghwa parts his lips, and closes them again with an unusual set to his jaw.
On any other night, he would’ve blushed at the implied praise, answered that question for San gracefully. But Seonghwa’s tired—just a smudge irritated, too, maybe—and he really doesn’t want to talk or think about any of this right now. So, that’s what he says.
“I don’t wanna talk about it, San-ah.”
Somehow, by some miracle of his own disposition, Seonghwa does still manage to say it with his usual air of patience. With the benefit of the doubt given to San in the assumption that he’ll respect that, and then shut up.
San doesn’t.
“But hyung, I just thought I should do it like this, right, but—”
“San,” Seonghwa says, his tone more firm, his facial expression a little less measured. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
The tension in the room starts to thicken after San asks the question, eyes still sparkling and genuine and clueless, and Seonghwa… doesn’t want San to look at him like that. Seonghwa doesn’t want to feel guilty that he feels like he’s about to explode on this kid, just for asking him a question so innocent and well-intentioned. Hongjoong seems to pick up on Seonghwa’s building distress, and but in the moment when he’s deciding how to chime in and try and diffuse the air, Seonghwa beats him to the punch.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it, San. I just want to rest.”
San pouts at him, huffing when he realizes that everyone’s eyes are on him, too, and he probably feels chided by all of this. Great. “Okay, sorry. I was just asking.”
Seonghwa knows he shouldn’t push. Knows he should leave it at that. But there’s something in the way San inflects on that last word that makes Seonghwa’s blood boil—and before he knows it, he’s pushing back—an uncharacteristic scene for everyone in the room, something that Seonghwa himself can’t get a handle on before he starts losing control.
“Okay, well, I’m sorry I didn’t answer the way you wanted me to.”
“Hyung…” Yunho says softly from the side.
“What?” Seonghwa snaps his head in that direction, doing his best to avoid everyone else’s eyes across the room. “I said I was tired, I don’t want to talk about work on our day off. Can’t I have one day of peace—”
“Okay,” San interrupts, eyes glassy when Seonghwa turns back to look. Fuck. “I’m sorry, hyung.”
Seonghwa feels his heart break a little in his chest—but that’s not what does it for him. Honestly, he was just about ready to drop it and apologize back and comfort San in a momentary flash of recognition that his members always, always come first—but Seonghwa takes his time to look around at everyone and sees the same looks plastered on all of their faces.
Seonghwa doesn’t know the name for it. Disappointment may be the closest thing. Clear dismay in the way they refuse to meet Seonghwa’s eyes. The message is clear and simple: Look what you did, Seonghwa-hyung. That was too harsh, Seonghwa-hyung. You should say sorry, Seonghwa-hyung.
This time, no one does anything to subdue what threatens to boil over in him, bring him back down to earth into his usual sense of calm. Because it seems like it’s such a small thing to get upset about if they think about it—but that barely really matters.
Seonghwa is tired of this fucking shit.
Against his better judgment, he doesn’t respond to San’s words, and gets off the couch to walk into his room instead. He doesn’t even storm his way there, footsteps surprisingly light and his face lacking any emotion, the only indication of what threatens to boil inside him the uncomfortable heat that he can literally feel in the front of his forearms, climbing right up into his wrist to the tips of his fingers. Seonghwa doesn’t even feel like he’s in his own body right now—it’s almost as if he watches himself from above, waiting, knowing what destruction is imminent and doing absolutely nothing to stop it. The collapse of a star. He feels incredibly disconnected, his body moving on its own accord while his mind goes into overdrive trying to stop it, put a cap back onto all the emotion that’s waiting to overflow. He manages to keep himself from screaming at the very least, because Seonghwa is not a yeller, and he doesn’t want any of the people in this house to see or even think of him that way. Seonghwa is love, because love is patient and love is kind and all that bullshit.
Seonghwa doesn’t have anywhere to put all the anger, and he’s so frustrated that his face burns, but he can’t even cry.
He doesn’t even slam the door when he gets into his and Hongjoong’s room. But when he’s alone, his first instinct is the need for some kind of release, so he grabs a pillow from Hongjoong’s bed and slams it into the bed frame.
He stops for a second, mind registering what he had just done. The sound wasn’t that loud, but it was solid, and satisfying, and fuck. Seonghwa doesn’t think anymore. He’d already started and his body wouldn’t let him stop.
He does that a few more times, lashing out on Hongjoong’s poor pillow until all the stuffing is messed up and bunched in random places, and yet still, still, it doesn’t feel like enough. Seonghwa’s vaguely aware that he’s in complete fight or flight mode right now and some primal part of him won’t let him choose anything other than fight, and the part of him that’s watching over himself from outside his body is frightened, so scared of himself, because what he’s doing is fucking scary right now, and he won’t stop because he knows he won’t be satisfied until he feels something break. Seonghwa throws the goddamn pillow onto the floor in frustration, breaths ragged and heavy because it’s just not enough, and he wants to fucking scream but he can’t. So he grabs whatever he sees first when he turns around and then he throws it towards the window, soul jolting back completely into his body when he hears the sound of shattering glass.
“Fuck,” Seonghwa curses under his breath as he comes back to himself, walking over to where he had thrown the object—a white, ceramic mug that Hongjoong had been planning on customizing, he now realizes—and sees that he’d made a substantial crack in their bedroom window, too. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—”
The wave of rage reaches its climax there, and that’s when Hongjoong appears through the bedroom door, shutting it behind him just as Seonghwa had moved on instinct to pick up the pieces of broken ceramic with shaking hands.
“Seonghwa.”
“Fuck,” Seonghwa curses again, startled, immediately dropping the sharp piece of the broken mug after a sharp edge had dug into his palm. At the sight of Hongjoong, he freezes, eyes widening and Seonghwa holding up his bleeding hand in a sign for Hongjoong to stop, stay at arm’s length, not come any closer. “Don’t come near me.”
Everything about this, Seonghwa hates. He hates the way that Hongjoong looks at him, wary and concerned, uncertain of how to act after he’d witnessed what Seonghwa had just done. Seonghwa looks at Hongjoong and first and foremost doesn’t see someone that he loves first, but someone that he’s afraid of hurting. Seonghwa had an idea that he’d be scary if someone had made him mad, but nothing could have prepared him for the magnitude of the desire he has to just break things, in the crudest of terms.
The lump in Seonghwa’s throat gets harder to bear at the thought that though he’s never thought himself to be a destroyer—he might have been one all along.
“Seonghwa.”
“Don’t,” Seonghwa warns as Hongjoong gets closer. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” Hongjoong says with so much certainty, carefully slipping his hand into Seonghwa’s outstretched one, careful not to touch the cuts from the ceramic, pulling him gently away from where the shattered parts had landed. “Come here. I’ve got you.”
Seonghwa finds himself following easily anyway, despite his mind’s protests and his body’s fatigue. He can barely feel the depth of the cut on his palm even as Hongjoong starts to fuss over it, concerned with the amount of blood covering Seonghwa’s palm. Hongjoong is talking, but none of it registers as words to Seonghwa as he looks around at the small corner of their room that was devastated by the hurricane that was him, all his anger. A star collapsing into a supernova—but Seonghwa is only human, and the aftermath is not as pretty.
Seonghwa sits on the floor, back against the side of the bed, catching his breath and vaguely registering Hongjoong sitting beside him, putting Seonghwa’s injured hand into his lap and working with what seems to be a bottle of iodine and a cotton swab. Seonghwa remains expressionless, hearing coming back into focus as he settles in a frightening, too-calm sense of what feels like clarity, as the trouble he had caused dawns on him in seconds. Surprisingly, Seonghwa barely feels it. He barely feels anything. He’s barely processed the fact that he and the monster from just minutes ago—they’re just one and the same.
“I’m scared.” Seonghwa says it in a whisper, swallowing hard, gaze pointed straight ahead. “I didn’t know I could… do that.”
Hongjoong seems to be bandaging his hand now, movements soft and delicate, lips curving up into a careful smile. “Again, I’d say you’re hot when you’re mad, but it doesn’t seem like the right time.”
Seonghwa snaps his head in Hongjoong’s direction at the overused joke, clicks his tongue, and it’s a little surprising how much relief floods him when he sees that Hongjoong doesn’t flinch away.
“Okay, okay,” Hongjoong says instead, raising his hands up in surrender after taping the bandage on Seonghwa’s hand. “It’s okay, Hwa. You’re okay. We’re gonna have to clean up that hand later, but you’re fine. Yeah?”
Seonghwa just looks at him, doesn’t know what to say. Is he okay? Has he been? “I hate them, Hongjoong-ah.”
Hongjoong sighs, long and steady, light with the patience he’s ironically only been able to hone after years of being by Seonghwa’s side. “Do you mean that?”
“No,” Seonghwa responds instantaneously, shaking his head. “I love them. I don’t want them to think I’m gonna go out there and kill them or something because of this stupid fucking temper.”
“They don’t. This happened once, it’s not like they’re gonna think it’s who you are now.”
“But maybe it is,” Seonghwa says resignedly, hissing as Hongjoong takes his injured hand and mistakenly squeezes it in an attempt at reassurance. “Ow.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Hongjoong says, bordering frantic, loosening his grip at once. “Next time I’ll take you to one of those places where we can pay to break plates,” he laughs, “or something. Don’t worry too much, Hwa. We’ll work this out.”
“San didn’t even do anything wrong,” Seonghwa thinks out loud, the sinking feeling in his stomach getting even worse. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Everyone gets sick of being nice at some point,” Hongjoong supplies, playing idly with Seonghwa’s fingers in his lap instead. “I know there was more to it than just that. I don’t think they blame you. I think they—we—know, deep down, actually. We’re not always easy. I know.”
Seonghwa exhales. He wants to argue further, but all the wind is knocked out of him, and all he can do is hope that Hongjoong’s right. He wonders absently what the aftermath’s like in the living room, how much they had actually picked up on Seonghwa’s outburst besides the shattering of ceramic that they’d most definitely heard. He wonders if they’re all even still there, or if they’d retreated in silence to their rooms after Hongjoong left to go check on Seonghwa. The rest of their day off was ruined, that’s for sure. Seonghwa tries not to dwell on it too much when Hongjoong presses a kiss to his cheek and to the back of his hand, patient as they sit on the floor in silence, letting the minutes simply pass.
They go to sleep beside each other that night, after Hongjoong sweeps up the broken ceramics and assures Seonghwa through hushed apologies that it’s okay, and Seonghwa washes his face with the bathroom door open to light up the otherwise empty hallway. The dorm stays eerily quiet the whole night, and Seonghwa feels terrible about it, but fatigue wins him over at the end of the day when he settles into Hongjoong’s arms.
It takes long for sleep to find Seonghwa that night, but eventually, it does. Hongjoong pets his hair the whole two hours that he struggles to fall asleep, pressing feather-light kisses on Seonghwa’s temple until the creases in his brow disappear.
(+1)
“Good morning, sunshine.”
Seonghwa blinks sleepy eyes awake, adjusting to the light wash of sun that makes its way through the blinds. The first thing he sees is Hongjoong, and then the broken window, right before Hongjoong turns his face away from the latter to look at him again. Seonghwa laughs softly, kisses his cheek. When his eyes fully adjust to the light, he finally replies, “Good morning.”
Seonghwa peels himself away from where he’d been settled into Hongjoong’s chest, begrudgingly, wincing at the realization that his hand was still bandaged from the night before. It’s only the start of the worries that flood Seonghwa’s mind for the day, considering the fact that they did have to go and practice all together again, and Seonghwa definitely needs to do the responsible thing and apologize for his behavior the night before if he wants things to get better before they get worse. He’s not looking forward to that, but he’ll do it, for the sake of the team. The rest, he can deal with later.
“Seonghwa,” Hongjoong calls out all of a sudden, taking him softly by the wrist when he moves to get out of bed. Sheepishly, as if reading his mind, he explains, “So… I may have told the guys to apologize to you before we leave today. Just a heads up.”
Seonghwa parts his lips in mild exasperation, fixing his boyfriend, and their too-dutiful leader, his best placid, but wary look. “Are you serious.”
“Yes,” Hongjoong smiles, sitting up himself and letting go of Seonghwa’s hand. “Look, I know you, and I know you’re already thinking of apologizing to them and taking all the blame, so I made sure to explain it to them. Sorry, but also, you’ll thank me later. Love you. Stop looking at me like that, just go outside and get it over with.”
Seonghwa just stares at him for a second, bewildered, rolling his eyes but smiling nonetheless. The threat is empty when he says, “I’m gonna get mad at you for real, you know.”
“I hope not,” Hongjoong just laughs it off as Seonghwa glares, getting out of bed to follow him out the door.
And just as Hongjoong had said, Seonghwa finds the rest of the group all gathered in the living area, scrambling to get into a line before Seonghwa can stop them and before Wooyoung can stop Hongjoong from joining them.
Before he can even say anything, all seven of them go into a firm chorus of, “We’re sorry, Seonghwa-hyung!,” bowing ninety degrees as Seonghwa stares at them in bewilderment. Seonghwa’s a bit flustered at the formality of it, all seven of them radiating sincerity, including Yeosang who probably hasn’t even upset him since, like, 2018. Seonghwa’s embarrassed, too, admittedly, guilt setting in upon remembering his own fault in the matter, speaking out immediately in a soft voice when they look back up.
“It’s okay,” Seonghwa says, smiling gently, and he means it. “I’m sorry, too.”
Seonghwa goes to hug San immediately after that, and is relieved when he lets him, whispers reassurances into Seonghwa’s ear instead of the other way around.
Seonghwa’s heart still feels a little heavy, but little by little, the seven of them ease the weight.
It’s enough for now. Seonghwa loves them, and knows they all love him enough to work through it, too.