Archive of Our Own

Zheng Renyu’s bad luck begins as soon as he sets foot onto Boys II Planet.

To be more precise, it had begun as soon as he had set foot into South Korea. He had hoped for no harder obstacles than flight turbulence before the landing and a lost luggage wheel afterwards, but it had only taken two days before he had to drag himself to practice with a throbbing head and stuffed throat. He nearly topples over when he does a spin, and he only avoids faceplanting into the floor thanks to a steadying hand from his audition partner Guo Zhen.

“Are you sure you’re okay, ge?” says Guo Zhen, his played-up frustration failing to hide the worried flutter in his voice. Renyu had expected him to be more flippant about it, but he supposes that Guo Zhen’s concern comes with their five years of shared history, half of which they had spent in the same survival show and the boy group S.K.Y. The fresh-faced seventeen-year-old he had first met is now a few months away from twenty-three, weighed with all the responsibility that comes with his second decade. Of course, according to the show, they are just audition partners now. Guo Zhen is no longer Little Student Guo from long ago, or even Manager Guo, an inside joke from their S.K.Y days. In the same vein, Renyu is no longer Teacher Zheng for his vocal prowess, or CEO Zheng, assigning Guo Zhen his pet projects.

“I’m not feeling that good,” Renyu admits, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Not good enough for the show, at least.” When he last had a vocal mishap on television, it was in a friendly environment. As if the Korean air is eager to prove his point, he starts choking on some dust or mote. Guo Zhen throws his hands up.

“Don’t push yourself. Sit.” He pushes Renyu towards the nearest chair and flounces onto the floor next to him in a huff. “Seriously, didn’t you bring two dozen packs of Chinese medicine with you?”

“I can’t take them before the show even begins in earnest,” says Renyu. “I’m thinking of going to the hospital.”

“You can’t speak Korean at all.”

“I’ll manage.” Renyu rummages for his phone. “Papago.”

Guo Zhen’s eyes flick up, then down, over Renyu. Even through his practice fatigue, they glisten in the sterile lights of the practice studio. The room is airless, suffocating with the harshness of midday, even though it is already evening.

“In a foreign country, everything is unfamiliar,” he says. “Let me go with you.”

That is the first strike of Renyu’s misfortune, forming part of a greater ordeal he does not particularly want to remember.

Renyu likes to think that he is pretty prepared for the audition. Hospital visits aside, he is confident in their dance, ninety percent of which was choreographed by Guo Zhen, and singing is second nature to Renyu. The main vocalist and the main dancer—S.K.Y has sent their best, even though S.K.Y no longer exists, even though they had applied separately to audition. He remembers their mutual surprise when Guo Zhen had called on him to record a cheering message for his new survival show journey. Renyu had said, Are you going to Boys Planet? Because I am too. In this way, they had recorded cheering videos for each other. Guo Zhen must have told the others about it—told everyone about it. Lin Mo had not been surprised to hear it from Renyu, nor had Li Xikan.

It had been fortuitous that they were placed in the same audition group afterwards. If You Do, their audition song, is from Guo Zhen’s list of potential songs, and not Renyu’s. Maybe the programme knew they had an interesting background, and would be kind enough to tell it to the world. Renyu can afford himself some hope, even if hope is dangerous. To share a stage with Guo Zhen is a chance he cannot squander.

They practice just like they once did, though the room is colder without five other bodies. They take photos afterwards, and once, they upload a short video to Douyin together, like they just happened to meet on the street. Whatever is left of S.K.Y’s fans go crazy, because Guo Zhen and Renyu are in plaid and stripes respectively, and they apparently look dressed for a couple announcement video. Renyu gets a rush of adrenaline every time he scrolls through the comments. Renown is renown no matter how you market it.

“You know, with the last bit,” says Renyu, as they are finalising their ending poses for the audition, “My hand should just go for your throat.”

Guo Zhen stares him down from the bridge of his nose. The raised chin is for dramatic effect, because Renyu is half a head shorter. “My what?”

“Like this,” says Renyu, placing a palm on the collar of Guo Zhen’s shirt. “Just like Trouble Maker.”

Guo Zhen flushes. “Again with that!”

“I can’t help it,” Renyu says. “It’s a fond memory. A warm one.”

“Last year’s November was very cold,” Guo Zhen retorts. He does not catch Renyu’s meandering hand until it reaches the nape of his neck. “Get off me!”

Renyu grins as he feels raised hairs graze his palm, even as Guo Zhen bats his arm away. “Come on, it’ll look good.”

Guo Zhen tosses his head. “Not everything has to be fanservice. ”

“You were the one who agreed to start the performance with your hand on my shoulder.”

“Well, it’s a pair dance!”

They remain locked at an impasse, Renyu’s hand a breadth away as he stands akimbo, Guo Zhen with his arms crossed over his chest.

“We have to end the way we started,” Renyu cajoles. “And not everyone can do this. Zihao said we have to show them everything we’ve got.”

Guo Zhen scowls at the mention of Boys Planet alumni and Renyu’s sometime co-worker Wang Zihao, but his arms fall to his sides. “In the thirteen years of my dancing career, I have never met as stubborn a performer as you.”

“You don’t see the vision.”

“You and your old-fashioned visions.”

“It’s something the youth don’t dare do anymore.”

It takes some more coaxing and lots of pushing, but Guo Zhen relents in the end. “Just the shoulder,” he warns Renyu. “I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

Renyu stretches his arm out, cutting a slow but steady flight path through the air. He thrusts forward at the last moment, landing on the soft flesh between an exposed collarbone and throat. Guo Zhen looks away just a second too late. Once the obedient maknae, ever the obedient maknae.

“Good,” Renyu says quietly.

In the practice video they film later, their bodies move in sync, as if they had never left the old days.

“I have no words.” Guo Zhen stares at him, hands placed on his head. The smile curling on his lips suggests horror rather than happiness. “No words at all.”

The second strike of Renyu’s bad luck had come just a few days later. He had been disputing the details of the choreography with Guo Zhen, differing opinions on finishing touches. Sometimes, all they seemed to do was bicker.

“Are you sacrificing your pronunciation for a better spin?”

“Look who’s talking,” says Guo Zhen. “You don’t know a lick of Korean.”

“Neither do you. Look, if you do this—” Renyu spits out the syllables as he jumps in the air, before landing with an audible crunch. “Ow. That wasn’t part of it.”

“All Star, All Star.” Guo Zhen claps his hands in mockery. His applause quickly dies down as Renyu does not get up, replaced by his wariness. “What’s wrong?”

Guo Zhen has a sharp eye and a keen mind, and Renyu does not want to worry him too much. He rubs his waist and pretends that his muscles are not being assaulted by poker-hot needles as he manoeuvres himself up. “It’s fine, just a bit of pain. I’ll put a medicine patch on it tonight.”

This is how they end up going to the hospital the next night, because it transpires that Renyu can barely do any of the choreography without doubling over. Renyu had the good sense to film the journey for a vlog, and their knack for variety kicks in, preventing both of them from going insane with anxiety.

“We’ve made such a mountain out of a molehill that I need corticosteroid injections now,” Renyu says to the camera. If working in the Korean idol industry means living half the time in the hospital, then perhaps he still has time to reconsider. None of his work in S.K.Y had necessitated this.

Guo Zhen leans back and shakes his head, the adorable didi again. “Who gets us, guys? We’re starting filming at two in the morning. They just told us we’re going directly to film at two in the morning.”

The journey to the hospital is not bad. They collect several names for the vlog—Guo Zhen disagrees with Renyu coining it Boys II Planet: Complaint Convention Edition, instead offering Boys II Planet: Suffering Edition—and venting their disgruntlement keeps them calm all the way through a relatively short waiting time. Guo Zhen shoulders them through the reception with his extant English, and the medical officer types out ZHENG RENYU in large English letters. It is the aftermath that is worse.

“Poor, pitiful Renyu,” Guo Zhen sing-songs. He is aiming the camera at Renyu’s bottom half only for no conceivable reason as Renyu hobbles back to their accommodations. Renyu gives him about three seconds before he breaks character, and sure enough, there it comes. “Ah, it can’t be helped. Ah, I can’t do much for you with my pair of good legs, can I?”

“My legs are fine,” says Renyu mildly. “It’s my ass that hurts.”

“Right, your ass hurts. He just got a shot to the ass,” says Guo Zhen, rejuvenated. He pans the camera directly over the affected area.

“We’ll have to edit that out,” says Renyu, to immature snickering.

“Any hopes for your ass?” presses Guo Zhen.

“I hope it doesn’t affect the stage, that’s all.”

Guo Zhen sweetens the air with choppy laughter, its cadence as familiar as a childhood song to Renyu’s ears. He has always laughed through their misfortunes to keep them going, and tonight is no different.

The production team is not lying when they say participants are to start filming at two in the morning. By the time Renyu and Guo Zhen get to the auditions venue, both of them are running on adrenaline and caffeine. They still make a respectable showing—Guo Zhen claims the fourth place seat through a leg-locking game—(“It’s my rightful place”, Renyu can hear him saying—)until he gets unjustly ousted by those with “K-pop experience”, whatever weight that holds.

“Hey, Zhen-ge, can’t you stay?” one of the trainees below him asks. “You were in a boy group.”

It takes a second for Renyu to realise the trainee is referring to Guo Zhen as an elder brother. Guo Zhen stands up, jacket slipping to reveal a bare shoulder as he spreads his arms in annoyance. “What experience do I have with K-pop? It’s C-pop I have experience with.” He pronounces C-pop like it is a name for some medal of valour, but pride alone does not save him from a fall from the debut seat. He settles for sitting at Renyu’s right, which feels wrong in six different ways. Renyu looks at the camera in front of them, trying to find their reflection. If he pretends that the lens is not mirrored, then they could have been back in any boy group variety show or interview, Renyu flanking the wing of the group, Guo Zhen’s shoulder a resting place to his left. Rank order dies hard.

The auditions are torturous to sit through with Renyu’s sprained waist, and they have to film it for two days. He almost wishes for the cushion of the number six seat, but he is determined not to let a simple hard plastic surface best him. Guo Zhen’s chattiness is a good distraction and a tried-and-true tactic of getting screen time.

“Lin Jie?” Guo Zhen exclaims, once, when another duo appears on the overhead screen to cheers of Jack! from the participants. He turns to Renyu with a grin and a twinkling eye. “ You know Lin Jie?”

Renyu sees a certain Zuo Linjie in his mind’s eye and nods, tamping down his own smile. “Let’s hope this ‘Lin Jie’ does well.”

Lin Jie hoots and hollers on the stage, a surprising, if endearing, contrast to how Linjie was when he was eighteen. Renyu would not be surprised if Guo Zhen ends up liking him, too.

“I bet he would kill this,” says Guo Zhen. His legs bounce to an unseen beat, as if he is sitting on the audition stage with Zuo Linjie, five years back.

It takes an age for them to be called by the staff, so long that they have a meal break before. The food is decent, but it is cold. Guo Zhen seems nonplussed by their upcoming audition. He makes friendly overtures to Chen Kaiwen, sitting across from them on the table, and delights in conversing with a fellow hip-hop dancer, Chen Zishuo.

“What year are you?”

“I’m 2003-born,” says Zishuo. He has a long face and small features that make him look shy, ripe for older fans to adopt.

“So many of you are younger than I am,” says Guo Zhen with wonder. “Except Ruize here, and Renyu next to me.”

“So you’ve put yourself between us to appear younger,” quips Renyu. Guo Zhen slams down his chopsticks so quickly that they clatter. He lunges at Renyu, and Renyu can feel an ever-familiar headlock coming, but Guo Zhen settles on giving him a shoulder punch instead. That is just as well, because it would not do for the show’s representative C-pop idols to start wrestling like schoolboys. Kaiwen still blinks twice, though, as if to ask: Is this what happens when you enter the entertainment industry?

“I’m alright,” Renyu tells him. “It’s team-bonding behaviour. Builds muscle.” This induces Kaiwen’s artless laughter.

As mealtime comes to a close, Renyu stretches his hip, stiff from hours of sitting. He tries rolling his body, just to warm up, and is punished by an audible crack.

Guo Zhen cuts his conversation with Zishuo short and turns towards Renyu. “What’s going on? Did it take you just an hour to become an old man?” he jokes.

“I don’t think old men move about their entire left side numb,” Renyu jokes back. His voice comes out hoarse, and he coughs into his fist. There is something lodged in his throat, maybe a grain of rice. Guo Zhen’s expression changes just like that, his cheerfulness shuttered.

“I’ll go get some pain relief patches,” he says. He pushes his box of food away and leaves the canteen without another word. Renyu, for his part, slurps up the last of his salad.

“Someone’s grown up,” remarks Ruize. A Youth With You 3 veteran and fellow disbanded boy group member hopeful, he is not as much of a stranger to Guo Zhen as the others. Renyu laughs. He supposes Guo Zhen’s duality, particularly his conscientiousness, can be surprising.

“Let me go after him.”

He finds Guo Zhen in the dressing room, rummaging through the supplies they have. Renyu shrugs off his heavy faux-leather jacket, which provides a second of relief. In the next, his entire back begins throbbing. Renyu takes a patch from Guo Zhen with shaky hands, trying to apply a patch without twisting his waist either way. The patch gets about as far as a handspan from Renyu’s back before it is snatched out of his hands.

“Don’t move!” Guo Zhen clucks irritably. “Just hold up your shirt. Let me do it for you.”

“Right, thanks.” Renyu faces forward again, trying not to crease the folds of his shirt. The air conditioner blows bare across his skin, and it prickles.

“Where is it?” The pads of Guo Zhen’s fingers trace his spine and wander left. Renyu shivers when he hits the sore spot.

“Yeah, right here.”

Guo Zhen’s palms press downwards, gentle but firm. Renyu leans in, savouring its warmth through the fabric of the patch, how Guo Zhen’s thumbs smooth the adhesive tape over his clammy skin, taking care not to leave creases.

“I’m lucky that you’re here,” says Renyu. It is easier to say when he does not have to look at Guo Zhen.

Guo Zhen gently pats the patch once more before leaving it be. His fingers linger on Renyu’s shirt, pulling at the creases, tugging the tie straight. “Well,” he says, voice soft, “Let’s try to keep it that way.”

When they finally go on stage, they are greeted with raucous applause. Renyu hears excited whispers of a previous survival show, of the name S.K.Y. Compared to private concerts and birthday meetings, the roar of this stage is deafening.

“Reaching for higher skies! We are S.K.Y.” They are off to a strong start: their introduction is in sync, each Mandarin word enunciated with clarity. They even do their signature pose: two fingers outstretched in a victory sign, scissoring once at the level of their eyes.

“Can you tell us who you are?” says the only Chinese mentor, Shen Xiaoting. Boy Story, who had gone before them, did not get such an opening, but the K-pop industry does not exactly keep up with Chinese idols. It is a fair question for now.

“We’re a C-pop group,” says Renyu. “Or, well, we were.”

“It—it was a project group,” says Guo Zhen. “Now the group has disbanded, and we’re all scattered, but we haven’t let that dampen our feelings for each other.”

One of the other mentors, the handsome one with hair dyed grey, leans his head forward. “Did you come together to recapture a bit of your lost past?” he says, via the translator staff.

“We actually didn’t mean to meet,” says Renyu. “It was a bit of a surprise.”

“We want an opportunity to perform on stage together again,” Guo Zhen finishes, resolute. “And we want to show ourselves before larger audiences.”

Who knows when we will perform on the same stage again, Renyu had said, one cold November. Who knew that fate had a funny way of working for them.

The mentors coo and tut their sympathy in Korean. Renyu glances to his left out of habit. Guo Zhen’s face is schooled in careful neutrality, but his eyes betray the storm in his mind. His body is tense, a tightly wound spring. Renyu mouths, We’ll be fine, and waits for the mentors to run out of consoling words. He wonders if he is trying to reassure Guo Zhen or himself.

When the mentors finally give them the okay to perform, Shen Xiaoting says, “Good luck. Let’s see what fate has in store for you.”

They do fine. That is the problem—Lim Hanbyul can compliment Renyu’s professional and singer-worthy tone all he wants, but they only do fine, if the Two Star rank they are awarded is anything to go by. There is feedback about how their dance is off, words that make Guo Zhen stiffen but go over Renyu’s head. Renyu believes his evaluation is deserved. A debut team will always need a vocalist like him, but he has never been supple enough to match Guo Zhen’s body rolls, and his sprained waist has not helped matters. However, if they had been exceptional, the production team would have been forced to air them. Or maybe the production team does not care either way, if the complete lack of staff fussing over them afterwards is an indication to go by.

“It’s a bit neglectful, don’t you think?” comments Guo Zhen, as he watches a stylist touch up Dang Honghai’s makeup. Another fusses over He Xinlong, making sure his nose is contoured to perfection. Such is the difference between an idol trained in K-pop and one trained in C-pop.

“It’s starting to prove the rumours right.” Renyu says with a twinge of secondhand regret, “The last time we had a break, they didn’t even do close-ups on you freestyling to music.” It seems impossible that the production team does not see the value of the countless competitions and dance shows Guo Zhen has conquered back in his home country to get to the level that he is at now, but Renyu has come to South Korea prepared with reservations. If their luck holds, at the very least, their audition will be aired. If not… Renyu remembers the fate of the unfortunate Wang Zihao.

Guo Zhen leans back with a hum. “You didn’t even get a chance to show your song-making abilities,” he says. “Do they not want self-producing idols anymore?”

“I suppose a keyboard and mic stand are a bit out of budget for the programme,” says Renyu, and Guo Zhen lets out a bark of laughter.

“It’s not even their focus, I bet.”

The staff do insist that Guo Zhen and Renyu lead the Two Star trainees to their camp, so maybe they are the best of the second-best. No other debuted idols from the C-pop survival shows are on this programme, after all. Guo Zhen amuses himself by swinging his arms around and humming lullabies, ever a child at heart. Renyu joins in for a short while, bopping up and down, and Li Zihao suppresses a snort behind them.

“Do you think they’ll give us the same room?” says Guo Zhen, as they stride into their dorms.

“I expect so. With another person, maybe.”

“Chen Kaiwen would be nice. He must be lonely, with his Chromosome xiongdi separated from him.”

“We’re about to find out.” Renyu points at one of the doors to the left side of the hall, where he can make out the distinctive characters of Guo Zhen on a plaque.

“Aha!” Guo Zhen puts a hand to his forehead. “I see the character for ‘yu’ above mine!”

Another figure waits by the door. “Perhaps our roommate,” says Renyu, raising a hand in greeting. Guo Zhen is all smiles as he bounds towards the figure, but he comes to a screeching halt inches away from the door.

The door has two names on it. The one below is Guo Zhen. The first, above, is Jia Hanyu.

It is almost comical how Guo Zhen’s joy shatters in the face of three neat characters. “Hah?” His voice is harsh. “So that’s how they’re playing?”

“They found the wrong fish,” says Renyu, lowering his hand—the wrong yu. Not a mermaid, a homonym to Renyu's name, but a regular fish. “Still a good fish, though.”

The leader of Boy Story, whose childlike face is a stark reminder of his debut age, is hard to forget. He sizes up Guo Zhen, idol to idol, even if he has to crane his neck a little. “I’m Jia Hanyu.”

“Zheng Renyu,” says Renyu, then points to his left. “Guo Zhen.”

“What are they doing?” Guo Zhen says tersely, still fixated on the plaque. “There are three beds in there, right? Did they forget a name tag or something?”

Hanyu opens the door a sliver, as if poking his head indoors will change anything. “There’s nothing else in there,” he reports. “I think we just got the odd room in Two Star.”

“Right. Of course.” Guo Zhen exhales. He pieces his face back together in a matter of seconds. This is still a programme, and they are still professionals. “I’m an ’02. What year are you, Hanyu?”

“I’m an ’04,” says Hanyu, sticking out his hand. “Pleased to be in the same room, Zhen-ge.”

A melodramatic gasp punches the air out of Guo Zhen. “No, no,” he says, and Renyu can taste the ironic tang in his steel-sharp voice, “I should be calling you ge. You debuted in 2018, right? My senior.”

“Don’t bother.” Hanyu smiles wryly. “Boy Story, S.K.Y—we’re all just trainees here.”

Renyu cuts in before Guo Zhen can produce another contrived comment. Best not to let their emotions spiral before they have even moved in. “Well, I look forward to relieving my adolescent days,” he says. “Guo Zhen, we’ll just have to visit each other. I’ll come and find you.”

Two days later, when walking back from the showers, Renyu hears a soft, high voice at the end of his corridor. He is familiar with that voice, that childish tenor that had never entirely disappeared in its tone, that plaintive whine when events aren’t going its owner’s way.

“Please, jiejie, there are twenty-three Two Stars. I did the math. My room has an empty bed.”

“We still can’t change it,” says the voice of a translator. “The room arrangement is part of the programme.”

“I was rooming with him before, when we did our audition together. That was also part of the programme!”

“It’s a different part of the programme now.”

“I’m begging you.” Guo Zhen’s voice breaks into something soft, stone ground into dust. “There’s no point in separating us. I’m pretty sure they’re not even going to use my dorm recordings—”

“When the producers said no, they meant it. I’m sorry.”

Renyu’s throat closes up, and he is suddenly aware of post-shower moisture dripping down his back in the blue, blue air. South Korea’s May is colder than he is used to, and the wind bites at his marrow.

Renyu must admit that, between We Are Young in 2020 and Boys II Planet now, things have changed. For one, he is the oldest of the lot in Planet C, including his roommate Xuan Hao, whose year of birth is written incorrectly on his passport. Taking into account the standards of age in South Korean idolhood, it means that Renyu is not expected to make the cut, and it shows. He has never visited the confessional booth, and he rarely has a mic clipped onto his training clothes. His voice, his greatest weapon, will never be heard directly on film, even if he evenly belts out all the notes of the signal song. Not that he is in any condition to belt out anything, anyway. The day he had been expected to learn the music, his voice had completed its vanishing act. What else can he expect from eighty bodies crammed into a single space, shared water bottles and makeup and clothes?

“Don’t get too close,” he croaks to Guo Zhen during practice. The trainees have clustered up into little groups to socialise before the production crew wrangles them into straight lines ready for class. Renyu revisits a mental inventory of his luggage, trying in vain to remember where he put his throat lozenges. “You might catch my bug.”

Guo Zhen raises an eyebrow. “You’re hardly the only one with a bug here.” Even so, he keeps a safe distance, an eerie reminder of the pandemic days of 2020. “Don’t worry. I have a strong constitution.”

Renyu opens his mouth to make a reply, but no sound comes out. Beside him, Xuan Hao makes a sympathetic noise.

“Our poor main vocalist,” he says. Another industry insider, he knows Renyu’s status better than the fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds around them. “You’ll miss out on the vocal classes. Teacher Lee Seokhoon was really good, from what I remember.”

Renyu groans, disappointment carving a frown onto his face. Lessons with the mentors were part of the reason he had decided to apply to the programme. Dance and song transcended language, and one-to-one lessons would have made up for the constant difficulty in communication.

“Look how he’s suffering,” says Guo Zhen, glad to find a fellow commiserator. “First, he twisted his waist during the audition, and now this!”

Xuan Hao shakes his head. “It’s like the world is out to get old things like us. I’ve been to the hospital a couple of times myself.”

The loss of his voice might be the third strike of bad luck on Renyu’s body, a testament to the harsh conditions of Korean boy group training. Mentally speaking, perhaps the number of strikes has exceeded that. It is not that he has not expected his age to catch up to him. Every time the youngest Planet C member, Zhang Shunyu, calls him Renyu-shushu, uncle, it is simply a confirmation of what he had feared, and it is a miracle that Shunyu is the only one to do so. Still, every time someone defers to him as ge, or tells him they are ten or more years younger than him; every time someone speaks in Korean to the production team rather than Chinese, the air turns colder and whispers in his ear: you are not welcome here.

By the saving grace of being six years younger than Renyu and perhaps by having a pretty face, Guo Zhen gets a mic for his collar. Still, there are differences. Even in Planet C, Korean fluency reigns supreme as a determinant for boy group candidacy. What’s more, the distinctive branding Guo Zhen has had for his idol career no longer works for this show. No longer is Guo Zhen the cocky street dance scamp of We Are Young, or the put-upon youngest member of S.K.Y to tease and order around. Interviews for Guo Zhen are few and far in between.

Guo Zhen’s friends, however, are plentiful. The Two Stars congregate around Guo Zhen for the signal song practice, because, for all that Guo Zhen had flubbed it in the face of Baek Kooyoung when learning the dance, he knows how to execute choreography properly. Han Ruize, now the Two Star leader, is another technical dancer. It is not uncommon to see Guo Zhen and Ruize clustered around a training tablet or leading little practice groups on their own. Plenty of Zhen- ge this and Zhen- ge that abound, with the median age of participants being significantly lower. For his part, Guo Zhen seems to take it in stride. Dancing is his element, and it makes sense for him to have the authority to run drills and correct details into the late night. Renyu certainly does not. He can memorise lyrics well enough, but mastering a K-pop dance is a pipe dream for someone who began dancing after twenty.

“So, ‘Zhen- ge ’,” says Renyu, during one of those group practice sessions that seem to stretch on for hours, “Teach me the hand movements again.”

His cheek earns him a glare. “Since when was I your ge.”

“It’s this, right?” says Renyu lightly, seeing Guo Zhen move towards the mirror nonetheless. “Can’t quite get this right. Hola hola baam baam baam ?” He raises his elbows, moves them right and left, and makes a bunching motion with his hand: not awkward enough to betray his foundational skills, but slightly off the beat in the way that a professional would notice. He does not even need to exaggerate the difficulty of the dance to hook Guo Zhen into helping him. His legs are a tangle of jelly beneath him, and he will be fortunate if he does not need a pain relief patch on his waist tonight.

“You’re uneven and behind.” Guo Zhen gets into the stance, a professional despite his sullenness. Renyu moves sideways, lining himself up. “ Hola -one side, hola -other side, baam baam baam goes with your fist, like this.” As he demonstrates, his hand stretches out towards Renyu, and sinker —Renyu’s right hand closes over Guo Zhen’s left. 

“Got you,” Renyu says, looking Guo Zhen square in the eye in the mirror.

Guo Zhen’s indignant squawk rings in Renyu’s ears, but he doesn’t move, to his satisfaction. “We don’t have time to play around!”

Renyu smiles. He lets his fingers slip in between Guo Zhen’s digits, threatening to intertwine them. Guo Zhen snatches them out of his grasp just in time.

“Are you done?” he huffs. His high tone cuts through the practice room, turning a few heads.

“What’s with Zhen- ge ?” says Kaiwen, with naive curiosity. He wanders towards their section of the room with a couple of others as Guo Zhen turns Renyu around by the shoulders to face them.

“He’s not being serious.”

“I’m being very serious,” says Renyu.

“Is Renyu- ge bullying you?” Kaiwen jokes.

“It should be the other way around, actually,” says Renyu, and Kaiwen suppresses a giggle. “I’m usually the one being bullied.”

Guo Zhen’s fingers dig into Renyu’s shoulders. “Can we all focus on practice?”

But the damage is done. Kaiwen shakes his head, delighted as a cat who has got the cream. Sang Lin, a tower of a man, wags his finger at Renyu. “If he gives you any problems, just tell me, Zhen-ge.”

“I don’t need protection,” Guo Zhen sighs.

Renyu pats him on the arm, warm contentment spreading in his chest. “We all need a bit of spoiling, sometimes.”

To his credit, Guo Zhen does not shy away. Once the put-upon maknae, ever the put-upon maknae.

Sometimes, Renyu dreams. He wishes that he were anywhere but Planet C, being able to sleep for more than four hours straight. He is grateful that he does not dream about Planet C in his sleep, but if he does, it would go something like this.

Renyu wakes up one late morning with the smell of cooked food wafting through the room, a scent almost unfamiliar at this point in the programme. Food in Planet C is often cold dishes with the exception of rice. Heavens know that the kids had complained about it, unused to the difference in cuisine. This smell, conversely, almost tastes like home, though affected by a pungency that only comes with watered-down gochugaru.

Renyu pulls himself up and gets dressed. A quick scan of the room shows that neither Xuan Hao nor Chen Jinxin, his roommates, is the perpetrator of the mouthwatering aroma. Trance-like, he follows his nose straight out of the corridors, bypassing the closed doors of late risers. Before he knows it, he is standing in a living room that he had half-expected to arrive at.

“Renyu-ge,” a chorus of voices greet him: Ruize, Hanyu, Kaiwen, Chen Bowen—one of the kids—and other blurred faces. Renyu blinks to get the last traces of sleep out of his system.

“Where’s—?”

“There you are,” says Guo Zhen, hands around a metal dish, fingers pressed against a pair of wooden chopsticks. He wears an old shirt with several red stains, and his carmine earrings shine in the morning light, lightening the dark brown colour of his eyes. He sets the dish down on the table to the oohs and ahs of the others. “Have you seen Zhang Shunyu?”

“Am I not the fish you’re looking for?” says Renyu, a perfect picture of innocence.

Guo Zhen squints and points the chopsticks at him. “Keep it up, and you’re ending up steamed and seasoned, mermaid.”

That induces laughter from the peanut gallery, entertainment Renyu is happy to provide. He makes a show of looking through the rows of identical doors, but at heart, he knows which room belongs to Planet C’s resident fifteen-year-old. They all do. “Probably still asleep in there,” he says, pointing backwards.

Guo Zhen does not need to check twice before he marches to the door and yanks it open. “Shunyu, food’s ready!”

“Coming,” says a groggy voice.

“Hurry up, it’s getting cold.”

Before long, a mop of red hair emerges from the doorway, prevented from tripping on the floor tiles by the steady arms of Boy Story member Li Zihao.

“I heard there was food,” says Zihao.

“You’re more than welcome to join us,” says Renyu.

Guo Zhen bristles. “Hey, I was the one who cooked this!” On seeing Shunyu, though, his voice softens. “Come in quickly, both of you.”

There are enough hungry customers here for a round table in a restaurant, and a comparatively meagre amount for breakfast. Renyu must admit that Guo Zhen has done the best he could. The rice cake and stew before him had been made from last night’s ferreted-away leftovers, simmered to tenderness with someone’s yet-unconfiscated rice cooker. In the eyes of hungry boys with nothing to eat but chilled food, it is nothing short of perfection. Renyu, too, finds no reason but to dig in. His Chinese doctor had cautioned him against eating anything cool, and unlike Kaiwen, he cannot survive on the camp’s rice portions alone. He is not fond of Korean spice, but a kick of chili is better than none at all.

For a short while, nothing but the knocking of chopsticks is heard. Chatter slowly filters in, most of them an ode to the first real food Planet C has seen in days. “You’re my god, Zhen-ge,” someone says. “I almost don’t feel homesick anymore,” says another.

“It’s damn good food,” says Ruize, scarfing down his portion.

“I know, right?” Guo Zhen preens at the praise. He is seated in a place of honour next to Shunyu, who has not stopped eating yet. “Here, have more.” He refills Shunyu’s bowl, then moves onto his next charge. “Bowen, you’re too thin. Give me your box.” He tops Hanyu’s bowl to the brim, then Kaiwen’s. His chopsticks lie on his plate, untouched.

Renyu scrapes some of his portion onto Guo Zhen’s plate. He sips on hot stew, letting the sounds of homemaking wash over him. If he closes his eyes, he might be able to imagine seven voices bickering and bantering their way through dinner. He can still taste the braised chestnut and chicken that Guo Zhen once cooked for them, long ago.

GUO ZHEN, the screen reads in two red, sharp hangeul characters. Renyu claps and cheers with the rest of the Two Stars for their de facto dance captain. It helps boost morale, especially when Han Ruize, their leader, is undergoing signal song evaluations in the other location. Renyu claps Guo Zhen’s outstretched hand and pushes him towards the stage.

“Go kill it,” he murmurs, just for those around him—once again, the programme has not bothered to clip a microphone onto his collar today.

“You got this,” Xie Yuxin shouts above Renyu. He does have a mic, perhaps by virtue of having been on a Korean survival show.

Guo Zhen bows once before the mentors, who give him the okay without much comment. He checks his position, centres himself, and takes a deep breath.

As soon as the first note of the music hits the speakers, Guo Zhen stretches his arms out, drawing all eyes in the room towards him with a self-assured nod and smile. Each movement that follows is crisp on the beat. He delineates details in a pop of his shoulders and the rolls of his hips, individual parts digested so cleanly that effort seems like an afterthought. That is the hallmark of Guo Zhen’s dance: he makes it look so easy. His intention flows through each shape he strikes, such that even viewers uninitiated in the ways of dance can understand his every move. There is no excess flailing and contrived showmanship. With the fat trimmed from the meat, all that remains is a relaxed breakdown of a complicated, tiring dance, matching a youthful voice that shines through the fatigue of the atmosphere. For a moment, he is once again a fresh bud sprouting on the signal song stage.

It is easy for Renyu to find other details to appreciate: the way Guo Zhen’s sweet tone is at odds with the punch it packs in the chorus, the playful bounce of his head juxtaposed against the way he kisses his smoking fingers after they fold into the form of a gun. He can take solace in how his younger compatriot’s dance skills have not declined. He can take pride in the raucous applause everyone gives Guo Zhen after he finishes, how Shunyu mimics Guo Zhen in homage by blowing smoke off his fingers as he does a body wave. But what matters is that Guo Zhen’s gaze never leaves the front of the room, holding each mentor’s attention, compelling each trainee to silence.

From beginning to end, Guo Zhen has been looking at the camera, and his eyes glow bright in his domain of the stage. The All Star rank that is awarded to him afterwards is a simple courtesy.

On the day that Renyu receives his signal song evaluation, he keeps his two stars. “Ah,” he says, getting a flash of deja vu. He had been sick on another programme, too, competing for his group, and gotten last place. That did not cost S.K.Y their place on the programme, like it might have in more cutthroat environments. You did well, his leader Li Xikan had said afterwards. All the same, it had been a blow to Renyu’s pride, an unavoidable humiliation.

The night before they have the signal song tests, Renyu coughs up a storm. His throat is all pins and needles, and the Korean throat lozenges he had scrounged up have done nothing to help. He is certainly not prepared to entertain a phone call in his current physical state, but the prospect of talking to his parents is worth the strain. At least the calls are timed to three minutes. Enough for remembrance, not enough to do his voice in.

“ Career injuries, ” his mother sighs when he brings up his poor vocal condition. The payphone distorts her voice, but not her disapproval and her thinly-veiled concern. “ Are you taking your Chinese medicine? ”

“I don’t think I should, because I can’t even eat what the doctor told me to.” Chinese medicine promotes holistic wellness, and just drinking the medicine will not be enough.

“ Come back if it gets too hard, son. You’re not young anymore. ”

Renyu closes his eyes. All these years, he has been repeating the same song, the same dance, to what seems like no avail. The embarrassment of telling his parents he is flying off to Boys Planet when he is pushing thirty stays fresh, a scab constantly picked at by other trainees’ indiscretions. With nothing better to say, he can only offer, “I’ll leave it up to fate.”

The call ends with a click without Renyu having managed to say, I missed you. Renyu puts down the phone and exits the booth. Guo Zhen waves at him on the stone steps near the booth, where the other Two Star trainees are clustered.

“Did it go well?”

“As well as it could.” Renyu pats Guo Zhen on the shoulder and gestures towards the booth. “Your turn.”

Dim clouds cover the night sky, and a trace of wind brings a mild chill. Renyu waits on the stone steps, legs crossed. In the bright red frame of the payphone booth, Guo Zhen’s back shifts as he talks. Renyu can almost hear a woman’s affectionate Henanese dialect filling the air with the warmth of home, letting them claim a small sliver of belonging in this foreign place. Home would be tempting to return to with its familiarity, from the sensible lay of the streets to the intricacies of the music industry. At home, the stage does not require dancing like a dog to impress the masters and the masses. However, the path Renyu is taking has the prospect of a bigger stage, and that is a path he will always run towards, thorns and all.

“Are you heading to bed?” says Guo Zhen, as the Two Star trainees walk back towards their rooms.

“Might practice for a bit,” says Renyu. He coughs and rubs his throat self-consciously. “I won’t sing, but I have to get the dance down.” It would be an affront to his pride if he scrambles it up in the middle of the signal song evaluation.

“Why don’t you let me see it?” says Guo Zhen, old habits taking over. “We can have one last practice together.”

They file towards Guo Zhen’s room, leaving their shoes by the door. Jia Hanyu joins them shortly after they begin running through the song, working hard to the last. Amidst the last checks of choreography, with Guo Zhen chiding Renyu that one part of the chorus is solar solar and not hola hola, they whittle the moon away. They each dance until they burn, hands firing up into flames, fists grappling with the sun to place it in the sky. They dance towards the day of doom and opportunity with pounding feet and twisting bodies, trying to become more than their plain selves.

On the day of the signal song test, Renyu manages to keep his Two Star. If he were fully recovered, perhaps he would have gotten All Star. All the same, Guo Zhen’s hands find his shoulders, massaging feeling into them: you did well with what you had.

With a new class ratio, the production team rearranges their roommates. Xuan Hao leaves Two Star, replaced by Krystian, and their room of three is completed by the friendly Hong Zihhao. The rearrangement is more or less meaningless, because they will be on break in the next few days. For a case in point, Renyu is heading to Xuan Hao’s new room, the latter claiming to have found a stray bead from a bracelet that Renyu had broken during practice.

“Wait in the living room for a bit,” says Xuan Hao, greeting him by the door. “The young people are hyping themselves up right now.”

“What?” says Renyu, following Xuan Hao indoors. He is greeted by the count of five six seven eight, and the slapping noise of footwork against the floor. In the centre of the room, two figures are practicing a distinct choreography, and one of them is a familiar face. With sweat slicking his hair back and a heaving body, Guo Zhen could have been in S.K.Y’s practice room again, mastering the nuances of the choreography.

“I’ll go get the remains.” Xuan Hao ducks a flailing fist as he makes a beeline for his room. The owner of that fist quickly retracts it with a scratchy apology. Guo Zhen stops too, with the sixth sense that a teammate has fallen out of sync, and catches sight of Renyu.

“You’ve come at the right time!” he says. “I’m giving Ruize a look at our BURN.” He slings an arm around Ruize, who waves in greeting at Renyu.

Renyu shakes his head in amusement. Trust Guo Zhen to spend every spare moment of his time dancing. “Are you that bored?”

Guo Zhen rolls his eyes. “What else am I supposed to do,” he says, and Renyu recognises in that statement the youth who had uploaded a video dancing to all of S.K.Y’s choreography after their disbandment, who had kept his Douyin name as S.K.Y—Guo Zhen for at least a year afterwards.

“Renyu-ge, do you want to join us?” asks Ruize.

Renyu rubs his back ruefully—best not to overdo it for his future performances. “I can sing BURN for you.” It is as much as he will commit with his own free will.

“Let’s welcome the big vocal.” Ruize claps.

Guo Zhen, however, has no such reservations. He waves Renyu forwards, pushing a chair out of the way as he does so. “Just join us. We’re about to hit the chorus.”

Renyu has always believed that there will be a place for a main vocalist in a boy group. After being told that his dance is not up to par by the programme and the instructors, that he will never be the best fit for a group riding the Korean wave, perhaps a part of him had begun to believe otherwise. Even so, Guo Zhen’s resolute call compels him to fall into formation with the others. When Guo Zhen points out where he should stand after so long, when he patiently demonstrates each movement to sync up his interlocutors, when they sing each line of BURN, one after another, Renyu stands in his rightful place: preparing for the stage with fellow members of a group, sharing the joy of performance. This, too, is a memory to savour, even if it does not last.

The rest of the days pass in a blur: filming introductory videos, extra content, even a collaborative shoot with Planet K. After that, Planet C officially goes on break in the June heat. Guo Zhen flits to and fro, from social group to social group. He goes out to buy food at the Korean wet market with Shanghai Theatre Academy student Zhang Yuxi at six in the morning. He invites Jia Hanyu, Li Zihao, and He Xinlong to eat his cooking. An army marches on its stomach, so the chef of Planet C has friends in many places. It is only the Haidilao raids that he is unable to have much effect on.

If Renyu were more superstitious, he would have been reminded of the days when S.K.Y was a boy group all but in name, when each member had branched off to do solo activities, when the only time they got to meet each other was through livestream screens and short-lived concert collaborations. He too busies himself with his own activities. Zheng Kun, who saved himself from signal song elimination with his soulful singing, invites him to meet up once. Zhao Guangxu—Lynnlynn, who had once asked Renyu for singing lessons, texts him from time to time. There is also Yang Chrisen, a trainee from Renyu’s label who had signed on for the show. Renyu has not seen much of him due to the latter staying in One Star, but he has some obligation to take care of his company’s juniors. Above all, anyone born before the millennium is fair game to hang out with. They discuss what might happen during the open stage showcase, just the coming week, or possible first stages. They are all waiting with bated breath for what is to come, like the mystery surrounding the distant Planet K, or the next step for Planet C.

The open stage day at Sangnam is chaos. There are never enough makeup artists, and they never spend enough time on each person. It falls onto the more makeup-savvy trainees to do the heavy lifting, and Renyu has never been more grateful for the trainees who make their appearance their entire brand. Sun Jiayang sets his hair and touches up his makeup, even if he has to put in his contacts himself. Chrisen sticks to him like glue throughout the day, because, as he jokes, “I have to take care of my seniors.”

As they line up to see the fans, Guo Zhen stands behind Renyu. As the center of their little group, he keeps them grounded by initiating signature gestures and proactively seeking the camera. He has moments of nervousness, too, like when the crowd reaches for their handwritten banners, but his expression clears when they are directed to the terraced platform, and they can interact at a distance. Renyu falls out of formation from looking around. The dais is choked with moving bodies half a head taller than him, burying him in shouting and screams. Chrisen has vanished, nowhere to be found.

“Renyu!” Guo Zhen’s voice parts the crowd. His long fingers wrap around Renyu’s wrist, pulling him towards the back of the platform. “I found your fan.”

“Where?”

Guo Zhen points. A girl waves at him, though her face does not stick out in Renyu’s mind. Still, Renyu waves back, glad to be seen. He keeps an eye on Guo Zhen, who finds a few fans of his own and is delighted to recognise them. Somehow, they end up standing next to Lim Jack—Lin Jie. Guo Zhen’s face lights up as he points out one of his fans and gets Lin Jie to wave. Lin Jie, that smart boy, follows up with a heart that Guo Zhen completes.

“Let me do it too,” says Renyu, reaching his hand out in a heart shape. Jack changes tack, fingers folding into a crooked V. Boy group instincts kick in, and Renyu begins to match the shape even in his confusion, but Lin Jie pulls apart slightly. He touches Guo Zhen’s hands and makes a V shape at the bottom. Understanding unfurls in Guo Zhen’s eyes. He stoops a bit to complete the sign: Lin Jie, Guo Zhen, Renyu; two, four, six. They make a three-way heart, or three-sided wings. Renyu sees the fan nearly shake her hand off her wrist in an attempt to reciprocate and wonders if she had followed them from We Are Young. Guo Zhen nods at her, wearing the biggest smile Renyu has seen on him in weeks.

“I can’t wait to see them again,” says Guo Zhen. “I can’t wait to stand on stage.”

“Soon,” says Renyu, already counting down the days. Perhaps he should select a team with Guo Zhen for the first performance, for old times’ sake.

For many in Planet C, their long-coveted first performance never comes.

They have been corralled into the large gymnasium according to their class when the mentors reveal the news. It is not necessarily new news. The mentors have said previously that fan support will determine their fate of joining Planet K or leaving the programme. What they have not mentioned is the number of demotions that occur and the number of eliminations that will take place. All Stars such as Jiang Fan and Li Zihao, the great dancers, end up in Two Star. Chen Bowen ends up breaking down, although he retains All Star. Renyu’s unease is piqued through Ko Mingchieh, who is lowered from All Star to One Star. It turns into outrage when Guo Zhen receives his rank and walks to join him.

Renyu’s exclamation of surprise is matched by the others. It seems impossible that Guo Zhen would advance to the next stage ranked so low: Guo Zhen, who has thirteen years of dance experience and counting, Guo Zhen, who has solidified his singing skills and fanbase through years of idol activities, Guo Zhen, who is quick to tease and comfort the younger trainees, who gets along with anyone and cooks for everyone. Renyu catches Guo Zhen’s eye as he settles onto the platform. “What happened?”

Guo Zhen spreads his hands and shrugs his shoulders, carmine earrings swaying. He wears a peculiar smile, the one that is fixed for the camera and does not reach his eyes.

C group barely has time to recover when they are yet again presented with open mockery. Huang Hsinyu takes his card and only gives it a quick look. Then, he breaks into a huge smile that makes Renyu ask and others echo him, “Going to All Star?”

Hsinyu walks straight past all the class zones straight into No Star—Hsinyu, who had once trained as an idol in South Korea at a big three company, who has been the spiritual leader of One Star and Two Star, who helps translate between the staff and trainees—Hsinyu, who is but twenty years old, who is the right age to pass first muster. This is when the farce starts. Two Stars begin getting eliminated en masse. Renyu’s heart sinks, mentally going over fancam statistics, likes, and views. Compared to the Koreans, even compared to Hsinyu, his chances are small and insignificant.

When it comes to Renyu’s turn, he walks up to the table and grabs his card. He does not have particularly high hopes. When he turns it, a blank back greets him, and he cannot help the murmur of disappointment that escapes him, or the sudden taste of salt at the back of his throat. His juniors must have all seen how his hand covers his mouth, because they begin spouting desperate platitudes. Surely you aren’t leaving. One Star at best, right? That’s our oldest brother; they better treat you with respect. Renyu-ge, if you leave, who’s gonna help us with singing?

The worst thing about walking the gangplank to the No Star zone is not the humiliation of a public execution, although that comes pretty close. It is the after that hurts most, when Renyu finds out how many of Planet K made it through: the cold, hard finality of a production team labelling you as unsuitable. What’s more, the production team that judges you leaves after the show, relinquishing control to Planet K’s production team, as if you were a side project on the supposedly joint programme. Even on your programme, your elimination is the only time they show you on screen. You are too old, you are too Chinese, you cannot dance like the young ones do. It hammers home the point that your disqualification is because you are not Korea-trained. As such, you are not even remotely worthy.

The other worst thing is hearing Guo Zhen’s ringing cry, his high-toned voice breaking in two, the way he runs parallel to Renyu from his place on the stage. Renyu does not dare look. He lets himself be swarmed by the others, carrying a filled heart that is leaking sand.

“You come right over, Renyu,” says Guo Zhen, a frantic edge to his voice. “Don’t joke with me.”

Renyu raises his head. Guo Zhen’s long limbs are splayed in open angles as he gesticulates on the edge of the platform, as if he has lost control over his dancer’s body. All traces of his smile have vanished from his face. Renyu stays at the edge of No Star, closest to the platforms of One Star. “This is the best I can do,” he says. Guo Zhen swallows, looking up and away. On the same row, Guangxu shields him from view, giving Renyu a solemn thumbs up.

After the announcements, Guo Zhen is the first to find Renyu. He does not hesitate to crush him in a hug. His shallow breath knocks against Renyu’s chest, and Renyu hears a freshly eighteen-year-old boy making his thank you speech upon ranking fourth. When Guo Zhen hugged him under the blazing stage lights and confetti five years ago, it was a brief acknowledgement. Now, his arms are a vise, refusing to let go.

“Zhenzhen-zi,” he murmurs. Student Guo, Manager Guo. Zhen-er. He has a thousand nicknames to choose from for Guo Zhen.

“Renyu-ge,” is the quavering response. Guo Zhen calls him ge and Renyu, rarely Renyu-ge.

“It’s okay,” he says, even if he has to blink back tears. “I’m Zheng Renyu here, but I’m CEO Zheng when I return home.”

“You’ve worked hard, CEO Zheng,” says Guo Zhen. Then, quieter, as if the words would be broadcast: “I don’t understand.”

Renyu does not say that hard work, in Planet C, does not mean a thing, not if the editors have anything to say about it. “You also worked hard,” says Renyu, patting Guo Zhen on the back. “You have to go further.”

At the end of the day, Renyu’s misfortune is this: the fact that he wanted to stand on the stage with members of a boy group again. It is a misfortune that China does not have a platform for a boy group to perform on. It is a misfortune for him to have thought it fortuitous to meet Guo Zhen again, to have to see Guo Zhen tearing up as he says goodbye to Sang Lin, to see him sob on Ruize’s shoulder. It is a misfortune to have even dreamed of standing together, to have brought so much suffering upon himself, to have wiped the smile from Guo Zhen’s face.

From the end of that day and into the late night, Renyu stays by Guo Zhen. As he slings an arm around Guo Zhen, he can only hope that Guo Zhen will have the good fortune to shine brighter, burn hotter, and find a bigger stage.

When the lights dim, when the dust settles, what is left after a boy group passes its expiration date? When they had parted ways, they promised each other that a temporary group did not mean temporary feelings. They had held their promise for three years and let it span the width and length of their country. Still, it is not enough. Still, they had yearned to perform together.

This is how Renyu finds himself texting Guo Zhen last November. The exchange goes something like: When you guest for my concert, do you want to dance to Trouble Maker?

Guo Zhen had replied with a series of question marks.

It’s for the fans, says Renyu, thumbs moving faster than his mind can keep up with. He licks his lips, leans closer towards the phone, and takes the next point home. You can make it cool. And you’ll look handsome.

The bubble icon appears on Renyu’s screen as he waits with bated breath. For a fleeting instant, Renyu considers retracting the offer. The next instant, Guo Zhen has given him the thumbs up and a guileless response: Sure. Rehearse the day before?

Thanks, says Renyu. Let’s meet up after you arrive.

CEO Zheng works us hard, Guo Zhen snarks at him, but that is as much cheek as Renyu gets.

It is Changsha of all places that they meet. It is hard not to walk down the memory lane: here is the studio where they had filmed We Are Young VCRs five years ago, and here is where they had held one of their concerts, where they had travelled to by hugging the banks of the Xiang river.

Renyu lets Guo Zhen dance the man’s part of Trouble Maker without much persuasion. S.K.Y’s youngest still has his pride, and Renyu is not so inflexible as to insist on the younger bearing the burden. They run through a setlist: they add a few of Guo Zhen’s songs, and BURN is a must. The dance break is challenging after years of neglecting their condition, but Renyu insists on pushing through: they will not get many more chances to perform it.

The first time they come to grips with Trouble Maker in the gym of some nice hotel, they burst out laughing when they make eye contact. That said, Renyu is still a performing artist, and they had been professionals at this just a couple of years ago. They get to work. They do not even have to touch to perform Trouble Maker —the fans will scream and go wild regardless—but they both insist on doing it properly out of some dogged principle neither of them can name. Guo Zhen is obstinate and stubborn, but Renyu is demanding, and their desires clash. Guo Zhen calls any kind of fanservice Renyu suggests old-fashioned and accuses Renyu of being obsessed with his jawline. Renyu had shut him down with two points: it is Renyu’s concert, and Renyu is older. Guo Zhen grumpily concedes to the latter, but not before sneaking in some changes.

In return for Renyu’s invitation, they get to spend a few hours picking up choreography again. They get in sync backstage under Guo Zhen’s watchful eye. They engage in acts of banter that Renyu’s body remembers—pushing each other, making playful expressions during practice. Of course, Guo Zhen is hardly eighteen anymore, so he does not always fall for Renyu’s antics. When he does, though, they are just two young men mucking about, filling the room with their laughter.

Zheng Renyu will not forget that concert, the strobing red and blue lights, the heat of the stage. He will not forget dancing side by side in the smoke with Guo Zhen, alternating lines as they mirror each other in BURN, their clasped hands a testament to a shared history. He will not forget the audio visualiser pumping in the background as they break apart, the sound of a careless whistle seeking its prey. Embarrassment mingles with brazenness as he slides into the part of a woman, the chains of his costume chilled against his bare back. At the corner of his eye, he catches the gleam of Guo Zhen’s silver choker against his stark black clothes. Shouting fans join their counting fingers: one two three four.

Here are stark projections still reel through his cinema of memory: Guo Zhen’s shoulders moving to the beat of his knocking hand, the acquiescing smile that had played on Guo Zhen’s lips. The easy way he had matched Renyu’s rhythm when Renyu had made a mistake in the choreography, salvaging the messy affair that they had practised for about an hour. That one clean slap of Guo Zhen’s palm on Renyu’s ass, enjoying the part of a carefree man. How he had let Renyu push him away, mock-surprise in his eyes as Renyu had turned back to grab him, and how it had morphed into genuine mirth when Renyu’s grip nearly slipped.

At the end of the messy affair, they sport breathless, matching grins. Someone from the stage crew sends up more smoke spouts as a teasing congratulations. Ensconced in the wild whoops of the audience and the assurance of a familiar body, Renyu drinks in the hot air of that cold November. Time seems to stretch without end, and Renyu holds onto it until the knuckles of his fingers turn white on the handheld mic.

Until today, it has been a pleasure to have stood on stage as a member of a boy group.