Chapter Text
“Yah!” Changbin immediately stands up from the folding chair and throws his arms around Seungmin, attempting to grab his phone back from his hands. “That’s mine, you punk”
Seungmin gets rid of the big arms wrapped around his frame, distracting as it is, and wiggles off his friend’s half-weak embrace; he barely registers the side of his hip colliding with the makeup counter. Seungmin’s laughter pours out like water from a fountain and it sores through the otherwise still air inside the changing room.
“Kim Seungmin, give me my phone back” Changbin’s words come out like a parent chastising his son, though he doesn’t even make a solid attempt to get said phone back.
He’s not really upset, that much is obvious, but something in his stilted tone indicates that Seungmin might be walking the fine line between playfulness and annoyance. So far Changbin seems to be willing to entertain him, but if he pushes too far—that would be another story.
Instead of thinking too much about the outcome of his stupid ‘prank’, he takes a look at what the device is displaying: the cover art of that Newjeans’ catchy single. He giggles to himself, no longer worried about teasing Changbin but genuinely endeared by his musical choice. Perhaps the context is actually funnier than the choice itself, him looking all melancholic and poker-faced in his chair while listening to a cute song about crushing on someone.
Luckily, Seungmin can’t relate.
“Aw hyung, do you have a little crush on someone?” He sing-songs.
“It’s a good song! And you don’t necessarily have to enjoy music because you relate to it” Changbin rolls his eyes, his deadpan face telling him to cut it.
“So you do relate to it” Seungmin presses on with a smirk, his head tilted to the side.
“Mind your own business, will you? Come on” He extends his hand towards him, and this time he doesn’t look too willing to keep up with Seungmin’s shenanigans for much longer.
“Fine, I’ll give you your phone back” He reaches the device near Changbin’s hand but pulls it away just when he’s about to grab it. “Only if you tell me who your crush is”
Changbin, as the odds may have predicted, finally stops Seungmin’s hand mid-air, no longer holding back on his strength as he easily frees his phone from his grip.
Seungmin huffs, leaning on the side that tells him to keep things lighthearted despite the sudden shift in atmosphere. A very noticeable one too.
“You’re no fun” He turns away from Changbin’s partly judgemental and partly concerned face. He knows what’s coming, and he doesn’t like it.
Changbin doesn’t say anything for a while, his silence strikes Seungmin as him just being in a weird mood these last few minutes. But it’s just not usual for Changbin in this specific setting, plus he’s a loud and outspoken person naturally. Whatever could be happening under the surface can’t be that bad, right? Yesterday he was being Changbin, classic Changbin; laughing with crinkled eyes and his mouth wide open, teasing the members and play-punching them when they fired back, dancing and moving and making sure everyone was comfortable and the energy levels were top-notch. Seungmin couldn’t take his eyes off him.
But right now, an hour or so before their show in Manila, he’s not even pretending to be okay.
“Hyung-”
“Yo” Jisung enters the room with a smile, Hyunjin laughing while trailing behind him, probably because of some joke they didn’t get to hear. Jisung looks back and forth between Seungmin and Changbin, his face goes blank. Hyunjin frowns too. “Is everything cool?”
Changbin nods, not looking at anyone in particular, and it’s quite surprising he even heard the question in the first place since he’s got his earbuds plugged in again, nibbling on his lower lip and scratching his left bicep, right below the end of the short sleeve Maniac t-shirt.
Seungmin sits on the long leather couch on the opposite side from him, practically ignoring the recently arrived duo, he sneaks another short glance at Changbin before taking his own phone from his pocket. He could use some mobile gaming right now, especially before the rest of the members come in and he’s inevitably brought back to reality.
Grumpy man, he wants to huff again. Whatever.
***
The heavy droplets puncture through the surface of the hotel swimming pool. It was kind of interesting watching the staff–one boy and one girl, both very young–folding the long plastic deck chairs and shutting the striped parasols in preparation for the rain. From the high view of his room they looked like little Sims.
Seungmin has nothing better to do so here he stands, he’s had nothing better to do for at least five minutes. And the imagery of the once populated pool now empty and washed over by the rain is pretty soothing. A looped image. Like one of those monitor backgrounds from the early 2000s, the ones that would appear once the computer hadn’t been used for a long time.
He walks away from the main window at last. Perhaps he should go downstairs and order a coffee at the hotel bar disguising itself as a temporary caffe, sign some autographs for daughters and nieces, take some pictures. But his feet don’t move towards the door.
All eight of them barely had a minute to do anything that deviates from the usual schedule, and even if they did, it was usually an activity coordinated by the production team. Today they were finally let go for the afternoon, an entire afternoon bloated with free will and opportunities of gaining back some sense of agency, and yet here he is.
Knowing his bandmates they’re all probably asleep, using their sweet free time to nap and recharge energies for the day. That would be fine for Seungmin too if his mind wasn’t so damn distracted, his brain chemicals pushing him to stay awake and wonder about nothing in particular.
He checks his phone, charging on the bedside table. Changbin hasn’t responded to his message about going for a coffee, the chat bubble still unattended even though he sent the message barely an hour and a half after they all had lunch together. Some kind of fancy but still region-appropriate meal at a restaurant nearby the hotel.
Looking back at it, Seungmin didn’t have to plaster a forced smile or laugh at jokes that he didn’t find funny; his bandmates are his family after all, they all know each other way better than they probably need to. They can also read each other’s physical cues like it’s an art, but by the time dessert was served no one seemed to care much about keeping the conversation alive, leaving Seungmin free to tune out for good. All too tired and worn out, trying to seek comfort in the steamed rice cakes.
Changbin looked like he had gotten rid of his strange mood, sure, he was technically acting like himself again, from the outside no one could spot the difference. But Seungmin can see through him in a way he almost prides himself on, and something was off still. He has no idea of what it could be, but sitting on the bed while staring at the cream-colored wall of his hotel room won’t give him any answers either.
That’s how he convinces himself to physically go and talk to him. Changbin’s room, if he remembers correctly, is on the far side of the floor, right next to the elevators. He’s not sure if he’ll be awake or not, or whether he’s inside his room in the first place, but it’s still worth the shot. He has nothing to lose after all.
Thirty two minutes go by and he doesn’t get a response from the other side of the door. By the ten minute mark he decides to sit cross-legged on the gray carpet floor, by the twenty minute mark he takes out his phone and plays with the idea of sending manager-nim a message asking about Changbin’s possible whereabouts. But later, he hears the familiar steps of combat boots and a throaty laugh echoing off the walls, coming from the opposite side of the corridor.
Changbin comes out of Hyunjin’s room muttering something Seungmin doesn’t get to hear. Instead he stares, unnoticed, as he tries to give Hyunjin a peck and the latter dodges it while shaking his head, they both laugh. See, the thing is you don’t have to be one of those body language experts to realize that whatever thing the two of them have going on is a special kind of dynamic where Changbin really likes Hyunjin. And Hyunjin likes Changbin too, but he’s almost always just that, the pursued and the pursuer.
Seungmin has seen it, the way Changbin is willing to drop anything within a second to direct his attention to Hyunjin. He has observed the way the two have this explosion of chemistry inside their little game of cat and mouse. He has even witnessed a brief lip-to-lip contact, followed by Hyunjin fake-gagging and running off to the bathroom with the excuse of ‘needing to wash his mouth’. Everyone was losing it, even Changbin. Seungmin didn’t laugh.
He’s an idiot, and a ridiculous one too for waiting here for Changbin to come and give him attention; but he gets up anyway, his body feeling heavy and tired, right when the duo five doors away take notice of his presence.
“Seungmin-ah?! What are you doing there?” Hyunjin laughs while approaching him. Changbin, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be too amused by the image of Seungmin standing right in front of his hotel room like an actual abandoned dog.
“Visiting” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.
Hyunjin snorts.
“Sure, do you believe this man?” He turns to ask Changbin.
They both look at him expectantly, but Changbin clenches his jaw and adverts his gaze from them. Long gone is the sparkle of joy he seemed to emanate just seconds ago, and Seungmin definitely feels like a loser now. So Seungmin appears in his field of view and suddenly he seems like he’s dreading his existence? Because it certainly looks like it.
“I was just about to leave anyway” He shakes his head, now he’s the one looking anywhere but at his friends.
“Wait, but why were you here though?” Changbin suddenly asks, and when they lock stares for a second, his mind tricks him into thinking Changbin is hopeful about something.
Crazy. Seungmin is going crazy.
“I needed to borrow a charger” He lies, already making his way to the other side of the hallway where his room is.
“Don’t you have an iphone?” Hyunjin asks.
“Whatever” Seungmin says before entering his room. His glance briefly meets Changbin’s again, by pure coincidence of course, but neither of them say anything else.
Back to staring at the hotel pool it is.
***
“Seungmin” Manager-nim says one day. “I need to talk to you, follow me”
He had entered the changing room with that air of urgency he puts on every time he handles business. It unnerves Seungmin so much he actively tries to avoid his presence when he has to switch that facade on. It’s his job, understandably, but he nonetheless gets an ick whenever those topics are brought on to him.
Despite how he feels about the prospect of discussing something potentially serious, Seungmin nods once, deciding in the moment that he does not wish to extend this conversation longer into the future if he can just deal quickly with it now.
Plus, the rest of the people in the room, most of his bandmates and some makeup noonas, seem to be too busy getting ready for the concert-to-be; and he didn’t have much to do anyway after being the first one to get done with the preparation.
Seungmin follows him to a secluded room, dimly lit with a single fluorescent tube and smelling like chlorine, dust particles fly right into his nostrils when he opens the door for him. He sneezes once, then again. Manager-nim hands him a tissue from the pocket of his gray linen blazer.
“An interesting proposal was brought to my attention recently. Now, I understand if your first instinct is to turn it down but I think it would be wise of you to let me explain everything in detail first” He says right away, like he knows how much Seungmin tends to squeeze out of these types of conversations.
“Okay, tell me” He nods, back straightened and chin up, ready to turn down anything that he could possibly throw at him despite his manager’s best wishes.
“Look, I’m gonna be honest with you. I have a friend of mine who’s also a manager, he recently started working with a relatively new girl group, it’s called Peach Soda, you probably heard of them already” He gestures vaguely.
“I haven’t” Seungmin deadpans.
“Well, it turns out that I owe this guy, I owe him big time. So he asked whether we could make some kind of…mutually beneficial arrangement between our groups” He smiles, but Seungmin knows that behind it there’s at least a day’s worth of stressing over this.
Nope. Not in a million years. He knows where this ‘proposal’ is going and he will not take part in that.
“Is this about a PR relationship?” He asks just to confirm his suspicions, arms crossed in front of his chest.
“Look, I asked you to listen to me, right? He offered the possibility of one of his girls going on a little date with one of you guys, just that”
“And what after?” He fires back.
“After that we’ll see, the truth is that you’re not forced to do anything you don’t want, Seungmin-ah. But it would be just this one public date to help out a friend of mine, yeah?” He says.
“I don’t-”
“No,” He makes a shushing gesture with his index finger pressed to his lips. ”don’t say anything yet, just entertain the idea for me, will you? You can get back to me about this after we land in Singapore”
“Wait” Seungmin says before he can get ushered back to the changing room. “You said it’s a new girl group”
“Yes” Manager-nim says in a way that makes it sound like Seungmin is a dumb little kid.
“How old are they?” He asks in the most serious tone he can convey.
“Oh no, don’t even worry about that! The youngest one is sixteen but you would be matched with Junghyun, she’s twenty”
Surprisingly, that does manage to make it easier for him to breathe. The least thing he wants is to be put in the position of a predator.
“Seungmin-ah don’t worry too much, okay? Like I said, you just give the idea some time to brew and then we can talk about it with a cold mind” He pats his arm affectionately, Seungmin blinks at the point of contact.
When he’s left alone in the small dusty room, his bandmates come to mind. Most likely, none of them would take up this offer; it sounds so silly, goofy even. Perhaps he should talk to Chan about it. Wait, no. Chan is way too busy to be involved in this shit. Changbin would tease him to no end if-
If he behaved like he did before with Seungmin. Right.
“What was that about?” Felix asks him when he comes back, their gazes meeting through the mirror where he’s currently fixing his blonde curtain bangs.
“Manager-nim asked me about my workout routine” He says, the joke is there but his tone doesn’t bother to sell it.
Felix smiles anyway, like he understands Seungmin’s reasons for keeping that stuff private.
When he turns his head and is met with Changbin’s examining stare, he gives him a thin-lipped smile. He doesn’t return it.
At this point, though, he’s no longer surprised.
***
The plane ride to Singapore invades Seungmin with a plateau of sensations; they pull and push inside of him, they come and go and tangle with each other, leaving him with no accomplished outcome at all. It’s weird. He’s got his shit together most of the time, he likes the ideas going around in his head neat and organized, taken care of in some way or another. He usually carries a journal for this specific purpose, to transfer the mess in his head into the cream-colored paper sheets of the leatherbound notebook his eomma got him for his twenty-second birthday. But the plane ride is too short anyway and he usually needs a more private ambience to write his thoughts and ideas down.
So instead he just recoils in the padded seat he was assigned, in absolute silence too. A light and stilted one, but silence nonetheless.
Once they make it to the airport, with the paparazzi snapping their flashes left and right, he feels someone glue to his side. A sturdy and strong figure dressed mostly in black and with his head covered with the hood of his jacket. Then a hand, slightly dry and smaller than his, that knocks his own wrist once. But Seungmin keeps walking with an unbothered pace, he swallows, it’s fine. His face is mostly covered by the sterile face mask he put on as soon as the wheels of the plane touched ground.
The hand of the person–now walking close beside him, so close that he can feel the breezy fabric of his gym shorts occasionally brush against his jeans–knocks against his own hand again.
He notices Changbin’s side glance directed at him, but he will not break. He keeps staring so intently that Seungmin has to pull him by the arm to avoid him running into a trash can as they make a turn.
Seungmin might have caught him, but Changbin keeps chasing and wanting to linger their eye contact, and when he doesn’t get that he goes straight for Seungmin’s hand again. Except this time he fully grasps the tips of his fingers.
He stops thinking, altogether. But he lets it happen nonetheless, he even wraps his thumb around the side of Changbin’s hand. He reciprocates the contact, partly because he knows people are watching and it would be mildly suspicious to let go of his hand so curtly, and partly because he’s frankly a bit too stunned to pretend he doesn’t like it.
They hold hands all the way through to the airport, waving at the people calling their names with their free hands, and they only separate when it’s their time to get into the cars that would take them to the hotel.
Seungmin doesn’t even get to say or ask anything to him before their manager gently pushes them apart and sends Changbin to the other car. In return, he doesn’t even spare him a glance.
Changbin is already not the most open person when it comes to his feelings and private thoughts, and Seungmin respects that. But the problem comes when he leaves him in the dust with no explanation at all.
Their dynamic lately consists of kind acts, like passing each other water bottles or those little hand towels during a concert; and some playful stares or a joke here and there but that’s because they’re surrounded by the rest of their friends, absorbing their energy, but it’s not like it comes from within. It just doesn’t feel like them anymore.
He just wants to know why. He wants Changbin to look at him with that joy in his eyes again, to playfully hit each other and mutually trash-talk and to have his strong arms pull him against his chest. He could rest there with his back pressed to the firm muscles below his t-shirt and feel protected, cared for, only if he allowed him to. Only if he wanted him there.
“Hey” Chan rests a hand on his knee once the four of them are seated on the back of the SUV. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
Jisung and Jeongin are there with them but too busy talking to notice them.
Chan’s frowning, his lips pursed, leaning forward like he needs to examine Seungmin further, or to offer some sort of comfort by proximity. Seungmin almost smiles, Chan does like to do that sometimes, like he could transmit good vibes and comfort through osmosis or something.
Instead of answering his question with words, Seungmin rests his head on Chan’s shoulder. Not something he does often. He seems to understand the message almost immediately, making a ‘tsk’ sound, he wraps an arm around his shoulders. And Seungmin remembers he still has people that care.
***
Back in the hotel, he throws himself on the fluffy bed almost immediately. This time he has company. He gets to share sleeping space with none other than Lee Minho himself.
But Minho doesn’t follow him to the room, instead giving him a vague comment about wanting to check something Jisung told him about. Plus, coming to the hotel was mostly an excuse to have a little break, wash up quickly and change clothes, before they have to get back to the cars that will take them to the venue for soundcheck.
So Seungmin gets around 1,5 minutes to close his eyes and rest. Then he’s off to the shower. When he rubs his scalp with his own coconut scented shampoo (because hotel shampoo and conditioner are awful most of the time), he remembers Minho disappearing somewhere with Changbin for a good while as they waited to board their flight.
He stops. Maybe this could be his way to break in if Changbin refuses to talk despite Seungmin’s efforts.
Is it difficult for Minho to open his mouth about a private matter? Yes, absolutely yes. But Seungmin has his ways.
“Hey, look who’s finally back. Did you two have a good makeout session?” He asks Minho once he steps out of the steamy bathroom fully changed.
Minho looks up from his phone and frowns.
“Someone needs to get laid” He responds instead, sighing. Classic Minho style.
Seungmin throws a mini Snickers bar at him from the candy display on the desk nearby, aiming for his head. Minho dodges it easily and starts throwing a string of curse words at him.
And despite everything Seungmin smiles.
***
The concert goes fine, or actually, a little more than fine. It’s always an experience when they get to perform in front of so many fans that shout their names and scream-sing the lyrics to their songs, surely risking a sore throat the next morning. Seungmin’s heart gets filled with warmth when spending time with stays almost every time he gets the opportunity. It’s like a reward for all the time and effort they put in every day, picking up the fruits of their hard work. Of course, it can be tiring sometimes, but those moments feel like gold when he comes down from the stage and he gets hit with a new wave of refreshment and motivation to keep going.
When they arrive at the hotel it’s a little over midnight. Seungmin begs Minho to let him go to the bathroom first, and luckily for him, he concedes. As he’s flossing with his teeth in the central display on the mirror, he starts psyching himself up to try and get Minho to open up about Changbin’s whole deal.
He needs to be quick, start introducing the subject preferably as soon as Minho steps out of the bathroom and before he can get into bed. He also needs to be very careful with his words, practice patience and really make him listen. Minho may show a tough exterior but he really is a very compassionate person. He’s also the third person in his whole life, and the only one of his bandmates, to have ever seen him cry for extremely personal reasons. He still gets jittery every time he remembers when Minho had comforted him after he broke down the day he came back from holidays at home.
Truly, it can’t be that difficult to make him understand his point and help Seungmin with this.
“All yours” Seungmin says when he finally exits the bathroom.
Minho mutters a tiny ‘thanks’ and makes a beeline to the secluded room with his bag of toiletries and a small pile of clothing in his arms.
“Minho” He can’t help himself when he sees him open the door.
He’s an anxious person when it comes to these conversations, okay? He just hopes to rip the bandaid off sooner than later, and also not ruin Minho’s illusion of getting some sweet rest right after getting cleaned. He deserves it just as much as the rest of them.
“What?” He asks with a roll of his eyes. “If this is about the butt incident in the concert-”
“It’s not about that!” He quickly says. ”It’s just, well, can I ask you something?”
Minho sighs.
“Do I need to put this down for a moment?” He motions with his chin to the small bag and his pile of clothes.
“You might” Seungmin says. Guilt creeping into his head faster than he thought it would, but hopefully this would only take a couple of minutes.
“Okay. Spill” He says after depositing his stuff on top of his bed.
“I know that what I’m about to ask you can come off a bit too invasive and I understand if you don’t want to talk but I just need you to let me say what I need to say and listen. Please”
His face shifts into a surprised face before quickly fading into a more serious expression. He nods.
“I know that no one really seemed to notice this but recently Changbin has been acting weird, especially when I’m around. He either avoids me completely or just acts like he doesn’t know me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. I just want an explanation, and when I ask him to talk he has a new excuse every time. I just want to know what I did wrong, if I could do anything to make things right again. This…” He averts his gaze. “It just hurts”
Minho looks down, glances from side to side, he lets out a sigh and sits on the bed closer to the door.
“Seungmin-ah, I know this must be a hard thing for you but I don’t think it’s my place to intervene between you two” He says the words like it hurts him to speak.
“Hyung, I know that” He also sits on the bed across from Minho. “I wouldn’t have come to you with this if I thought there was a better alternative. I just want to understand, and we both know that Changbin only talks about what he truly feels with you and with Chan”
Minho tilts his head back and groans like he’s letting out a caged beast from his lungs.
“I’m really sorry, Seungminnie, but I just can’t” He shakes his head.
Seungmin stares down at the pristine white duvet, with its delicate threads tying it all together into a cohesive and warm object. Minho’s words create a void in his chest, a void that works like a vacuum, sucking everything he could be feeling, sensing, and thinking into a plane of nothingness.
“At least–can you tell me why he held my hand today at the airport? Why he kept grabbing me and pulling me into an embrace during tonight’s concert?” His words dry and prickly like straw.
Minho gets up then grabs his stuff back again from the desk.
“Just don’t take it personal, Seungmin-ah. The fans and the people, they could start speculating” He visibly cringes through the words.
Huh.
“So he’s just doing it for show? To pretend that nothing changed?” He also stands up, facing Minho straight on.
“I don’t know” He drops his arms, a half-shrug. “I can try talking some sense into him but that’s all.”
A pregnant silence grows into the room like an inflated balloon.
“I’m sorry” He adds again.
And with that, he disappears into the bathroom, leaving Seungmin with more questions than answers. He’s once again at the starting line.
He pockets his phone, grabs a copy of the card key and steps out of his room. One last thought hanging on his mind.
He needs a distraction.
***
“Seungmin?” Manager-nim opens the door with groggy eyes and sleep written all over his features.
“I’ll do it” He deadpans. “I’ll go on that date”