Chapter Text
Ricky had a bad feeling.
It had been pestering him all morning, a fly buzzing around his room that he just couldn't quite catch. It couldn't be about the elimination, those were too far away, and his rank was pretty secure. And it wasn't the feeling that his team was screwed, because he had that feeling since the second they started rehearsing. No, this feeling was different. A familiar feeling, but different from anything he'd felt on the show. A feeling he only got at Yuehua.
The second that he'd entered the quiet practice room that morning, he realized that things were very wrong.
"Hey Ricky—woah, what's wrong?"
Ricky whirled around to grab Takuto's shoulders. "Where's the LAW team?"
He felt a little bad for the other, who seemed terrified, because he knew that he was a bit intimidating when he wanted to be, but this issue was far more important. The younger shook slightly in his grasp. "Uh, they never showed up. Can you, uh, let me go now?"
Ricky was too deep in thought to hear the other's quiet pleas for him to let go. The LAW team was gone, and he had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before it was his turn—
"Ricky? Someone's waiting outside for you. And let go of Takuto, the boy looks terrified."
Ricky snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Sungmin, who looked way too exhausted (oh, how he felt bad for the leader, but it wasn't his fault that Ma Jingxiang was a complete asshole in every way, and they couldn't stop arguing every five seconds). "Oh. I'll be back, then." He could only hope that those words were true.
He didn't consider himself much of a religious person, but at that moment, he prayed to every god he could think of that it wasn't who he thought it was, because if it was, he might've never been able to go back to his team.
Exiting the practice room, he was met with the face of someone who instantly relieved all of the other's worries. He was an angel, with the ring of gentle, warm, glowing light above his head and soft, pale, fluttering wings. Yes, an absolute perfect bringer of good news, in the form of Park Hanbin.
'Oh Ricky, there was nothing you had to worry about—'
"Ricky, something's wrong with Yujin."
With those five words, Ricky watched as the glowing halo shattered into thousands of millions of tiny pieces.
Ricky raised an eyebrow at the sight before him in the LAW team's room. Before him, Yujin was strangling Ollie with a hug, yelling, "Ollie Wonka can't go!" Keita pulled on his teammate's arm while Ollie himself was gasping for breath. On the bed furthest from them, Kamden, Yedam, and Zihao stared at them in utter concern, not even bothering to help either side out. Yedam even held a popcorn bag. Hanbin looked absolutely mortified, so Ricky assumed that things weren't that bad when he'd left them.
"What's wrong with him, Ricky? Is it too late to save him?"
Ricky gave a long sigh and clicked his tongue. "This definitely isn't a sight I missed. Well, dear LAW team, our Han Yujin is sick. Welcome to cuddling hell. Enjoy your stay."
At that moment, Keita finally managed to pull Ollie away, and all hell broke loose.
Keita always wondered what it was about maknaes. Everyone seemed to adore them. He once wanted to be a maknae, to experience the adoration they did. But Yujin was different. Yujin was like no other maknae before, no. He was much more powerful. Other maknaes couldn't control their hyungs like Yujin could. He had his hyungs wrapped around his pinky finger, the staff at his feet, the world in his palm. He had power that he could enforce with the slightest tilt of the head. That power, he'd never seen that in anyone else.
And maybe that power was what got him where he was: full of regret even though Yujin told him that everything was okay and forgiven, that he was just overreacting.
Okay, in his defense, he wasn't thinking much. He hadn't had situations like Yujin back in Treasure Box or Ciipher. They weren't as clingy as this (literally) sick Yujin. So when he needed Ollie, he saw nothing wrong with pulling him away. But Yujin held on, which made Keita panic a little, so he began desperately pulling Ollie away. And he succeeded (honestly, anyone could take anything away from the Yuehuaz without much of a problem. They were pretty weak).
But then Yujin burst into tears—no, those weren't tears. Those were pained sobs, ripped from the deepest parts of the younger's being. Keita rarely ever heard such heart-wretching cries from anyone, much less a sixteen-year-old.
Within five minutes, almost the entirety of the trainees were peering into the room to see what was going on. I mean, it's not every day that you see the calmest, sweetest kid on earth sobbing as if the world just ended.
Later that evening, Yujin had forgiven Keita and bashfully apologized for his overreacting. But that didn't mean that Keita wasn't walking on eggshells. He feared that telling the younger "no" would lead to his demise.
If Yujin was to cry, it would be on someone else's accord. But Keita's hands? They were crystal clean.
Gyuvin didn't understand why Matthew, Jiwoong, and Seowon looked so odded out (well, Seowon seemed more in awe. Jiwoong and Matthew looked genuinely scared).
Then he remembered the giant koala on his back. And of course, the three weren't at Yuehua. They wouldn't know of Yujin's other side.
"Gyuvin hyung, you're such a great hyung," Yujin muttered, his voice muffled from the older's shirt. "Much better than Ollie and Keita. You don't leave me for other people. Never leave me, m'kay?"
The other simply nodded in response as Jiwoong and Matthew shared a glance. At this rate, no practice would get done. Of course, nobody wanted another Keita accident, but still...
"Yujin-ah," Matthew started slowly. Yujin's eyes opened, and the older almost shuts down, because how could the Yuehua trainees manage to say no to this little bundle of sweetness and loveliness? How could Keita have even tried to reject him of anything? His half-open eyes held the galaxy. How could anyone so young have such pretty eyes? How does anyone ever say no to that face, to those eyes—
Jiwoong crouched beside them. "Yujinnie, we need Gyuvin to practice, baby."
Matthew was extremely grateful for the other, because he wouldn't have been able to do the same. And then Yujin burst into tears.
So fifteen minutes later, the Love Killa team hadn't rehearsed at all, and a sniffling, red-eyed Yujin sat in the lap of Kim Jiwoong, who whispered sweet apologies in the younger's ears.
That day, Matthew learned that, when armed with a cough, a pout and a few tears, Han Yujin could single-handedly take over the world.