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the skies had been sunny in seoul, but once they’d landed in france, it hadn’t stopped raining. donghyuck had never loved thunder, and now that it seemed to make the city look so dark, he disliked it even more.
it seemed to reflect exactly how he was feeling, which is what he hated the most about it. the rumbling of the sky and the grey clouds hanging over his head, his thoughts running a mile a minute. well, and feeling the cold bleach being combed through his hair, the chemicals working to transform the color.
the window of the temporary hair shop the team had set up showed was yet to have any sunshine streaming through it, the raindrops streaming across the glass panes. the hours dragged as his body stayed on korean time, and he yearned for some type of stimulation to help him fight to stay awake.
looking away from the gloomy expanse, he opened his kakaotalk and combed through the 103 notifications the app displayed. there were group chats with people he hadn’t spoken to in years and induvidual chats with people checking in, making empty promises to catch up with each other at one point, both parties knowing it might never get there.
the 127 group chat was filled with reels from taeyong and scattered responses from the other members; jungwoo, who seemed to use the chat as a place to practice his writing, tried his best to write some punchline in english. jaehyun sent a simple thumbs up to each message, mark actually gave cohesive responses and amusement. doyoung sent places to eat while dream was in the city of love, and yuta was yet to read or respond to them, probably on a flight or filming a scene for his latest acting project.
swiping out of the 127 chat, he clicked onto the dream chat room and was met with a mirror selfie jisung had sent, his visible hair damage making him look as if a latex balloon had been rubbed all over his head.
donghyuck snorted and informed the youngest as much, the replies from the other members streaming in in accordance. he is always the first to jump at an opportunity to make a comment, and the members indulging him each time was far from helpful for jisung’s case.
but it wasn’t like donghyuck could laugh for too long because in a few hours, his hair might look just as fried, if the way that the first round of bleach felt on his scalp said anything. it was a waiting game to see if the color would lift, and if they would be able to achieve a nice dirty blonde for the europe leg of the tour and for some teasers.
his scalp was itchy and he knew that if he tried to scratch it, the hair stylist noona might try and smack his hang again. last time, she had to ask him to stop squirming and stay awake to keep his head from dropping from exhasution. (his mom had given her permission to do so since she knew her son had a hard time sitting up straight for long periods of time, especially when he couldn’t be slouched over or curled into a lanky pretzel.)
it might not get to the exact color he wanted, but he’d make sure to reward fans with plenty of pictures. he knew how much they loved a major color switch, and he was planning on giving them the biggest shock they’d had that year (besides jaehyun’s curly blonde… no one could top that one.)
he’d even come to any agreement with jaemin that he’d set up a photography session with him and allow the younger to drag him wherever his little heart desired (or big heart as he should say, those gym sessions really had expanded his… arms.)
its both a blessing and a curse that asian hair is pretty dark, and even more one that donghyuck’s hair is able to withstand most of the perms or dye laid upon it. chenle and mark’s hair had been through battles since debut, especially throughout the tour, and donghyuck couldn’t help but wonder how taeyong’s hair stayed so thick.
the minutes continued dragging and he felt himself getting bored. he searched the mirror for anyone else that might be inhabiting the space and was only met with his own tired reflection. the hair stylist had stepped out with his manager for a smoke break, and his own lungs ached knowing he couldn’t even stand near one, let alone light one up himself, one picture from a lurking sasaeng strong enough to tarnish his entire career.
the other 5 had left the studio for the morning, let loose to explore the city a bit before the show. tours weren’t about sightseeing, and they certainly weren’t for resting. that was reserved for planes or cars, taking little breaks while their bodies ached, begging them to slow down.
the games on donghyuck’s phone were no longer appealing, none of his siblings had answered his messages asking for updates and his mom was also at a hair appointment, most likely gossiping with her hairdresser.
in times like these, renjun was the best person to bother. mark came in close second, but the canadian needed as much rest as he could or was focused writing lyrics and would swat like a cat when irritated. the older chinese boy was usually either asleep or ignoring him, his headphones tuning out the persistent singing and taunting from the younger.
even with the feigned ignorance, his presence brought warmth to one’s soul. donghyuck sighed at the reminder that the older was hundred of kilometers away, resting just a little bit before his eventual return to the stage.
donghyuck could picture him sitting on the other side of the room his small pout as he read over the concert script, lips moving and whispering the words to himself. he might’ve had the tip of his finger between his teeth slowly gnawing away, his tired eyes hidden behind a thin frame of glasses and darting over the lines of text. he never realized he picking at his skin until jisung or haechan grabbed his wrist, brining it away from his face, and even then his hand went right back, an anxiety habit too difficult to break.
during their last tour, renjun learned to say a few phrases from each countries native language. germany was the place he spoke the most in, enchanting them with his impressive vocabulary and pronunciation. fans posted their appreciation and admiration for his efforts weeks after the show, and had been even more ecstatic to find out that renjun had learned the phrases from yangyang, his taiwanese and german native friend still familiar enough with the language to teach him slang.
the chinese boys had an admirable bond that deepened on the basis of bonding over their distance to home and family. it didn’t diminish donghyuck’s own relationship with renjun, knowing that each respective bond was unique.
he often found himself learning about himself and his own relationships by observing renjun and yangyang or 127’s foreign line. he couldn’t imagine being no less than a 5 hour train ride from his closest blood relatives, and he knew how much value there was in connecting with someone while working endless hours.
just having him there was enough, even if there was no direct conversation.
hours later in the back row of a van, hearing the other members talking softly between themselves, he felt the renjun sized hole in the space.
jisung probably would’ve been giggling behind his hand, showing him a video he knew only renjun would find amusing and throw his head back in a jolly laugh. jaemin and his camera would have been invading his space and asking for advice on what filter worked best with the landscape, valuing his opinion and artistic ability tremendously, or smothering him with unwanted (well…) affection.
mark usually was asleep on any type of transportation, but when renjun was around, he gravitated towards the chinese boy, enjoying grabbing his cheek or rubbing himself on him like a cat. jeno was usually quiet, choosing to conserve his energy and let those around him speak their mind, but he always found a way to spark a conversation with his fellow 23. chenle was his typical loud self most of the time, talking a mile a minute, humming, or reviewing videos of his vocal performance from the show the night before. he relied on renjun’s thoughts and always wanted him to provide him with constructive feedback.
donghyuck struggled to find his own feelings of loss. their therapist hyung often encouraged him to sit and think about why those feelings were so strong and how this might be reflected in front of others. he was well aware the older boy was alive and recovering back in south korea, but each moment he wasn’t able to turn to the side and take renjun into his arms, was another his brain failed to conceptualize the gap in the open space.
he had been the one that had suggested staff incorporate renjun’s bridge in ANL, reinforcing that the older boy was the only one who should be singing it. each stop had him yelling him name, emphasizing the endless yearning they all felt from renjun not being there. their fans had created various projects to show their support, and all 6 of them scanned with crowd with pride in their eyes knowing renjun would eventually see it from his corner of the world.
unbeknownst to donghyuck, a rainbow had peeking out of a light grey cloud and mark instantly had mark begun animatedly slapping his arm. “haechan-ah. dude. dude. look at how beautiful the sky looks right now.”
since he was next to mark most of the time, he had gotten accustomed to his arm becoming the victim of the older’s attention grabbing punches, and usually only took a glance, the prospect of looking out at landscapes “romantically” never sparking any interest.
this time, donghyuck allowed himself to look up from his screen and squint through the van’s tinted glass to see that it was in fact, a very nice view. the looming darkness from the previous hours no longer hung over the city, instead the sun provided supple sunlight and a faint, growing rainbow.
he watched their manager ask the driver to stop for a few minutes off the side of the road, and moments later they tumbled out of the vehicle to peer up at the brightening sky.
donghyuck took his time to gather himself to stretch and shake some of the sleepiness away. in the corner of his eye he saw that jaemin had already pulled out his professional camera and was shoving it into jeno’s face, the other man not even flinching, too used to the younger’s antics.
mark and jisung had their own phones pointed towards the sky, chenle sparking up a conversation with their manager. the soft shutter of jaemin’s camera was accompanied by birds chirping and a cool fall breeze, the perfect atmosphere for a rare sight. a double rainbow had appeared, a lucky sign before a good performance and after a great exploration day.
donghyuck heard jisung offhandedly mentioned to jeno, “renjun hyung would’ve loved this.” and he really would have. the older boy had the incredible ability to turn even the most minuscule of details into a story, bringing out the beauty in the world around him.
fans always expressed their admiration and credited renjun for the way he transformed the way they viewed the big world around them; the way he showed them the little parts of his own life with pictures of trinkets or shared foods that brought him joy.
even when he’d experienced various hardships, enduring hurtful words and heavy burdens, he was always the first to encourage those around him to not take anything to heart and to love themselves.
so it was easy for donghyuck to pick up his own phone, snap a calculated picture, and send it to renjun. or so he thought.
his fingers hovered over the keyboard as he hesitated to send the messages he’d written.
‘this might seem a bit out of the ordinary for me’
‘but’
‘i saw this and i thought of you’
his fingers went right back to the familiar backspace and his cursor blinked, waiting for a sequence of characters to fill the space again.
he had constructed a similar structure of messages various times throughout this tour, but was yet to send any of them. whenever he would muster the courage to draft something, he would hesitate and erase it, too overwhelmed by the possible outcomes, the possible… rejection.
there were various places they’d gone sightseeing where the tan boy had become tempted to point his phone upward to capture the new space in a digitalized frame. the other members usually marveled at the sight of nature, not donghyuck.
his first instinct was to blame it on his MBTI, blaming the letter T or something as superficial as it for his inability to look at something further than the words that were written and refusing to look between the lines. sure, he was a T that was ‘sensitive’ to others, and in the past few months, the absense of his perspective best friend had left a gap in his routine of isolation and hotel rooms. instead of scrolling through pictures renjun had send of cute animals and petite flowers, donghyuck had to procure them himself.
he knew that renjun did not expect or desire such “romantic” texts from him. donghyuck usually only went shopping when someone else really wanted company, but usually during days off he was either at PC room with jising or at a korean restaurant, savoring the little taste of home far away from it.
sending that picture sparked a determination he didn’t realize he could have, and he challenged himself to go out and explore in the few hours they had left in the day. and he’d do it just as renjun would if he had been there.
after they’d pilled back into the van and over the loud bantering he badgered jaemin and mark for different places to visit and ignored jisung and jeno’s faces of confusion when he elected to stay out longer instead of heading into the safe space of the hotel.
the museum was his first stop and one of the shortest ones. he tried not to speed run through the exhibits, taking time to look at the paintings and sculptures in a nonjudgemental way. in the end, he left with a kaleidoscope of colors behind his sleepy eyes, and the decision to keep the art appreciation to renjun, johnny and mark. the type of art he was into the most was music anyways.
he next dove into food choosing a french restaurant to get dinner. the most unfamiliar item on the menu, river snails, and he contemplated getting some, knowing renjun and mark had enjoyed last time. he opted to get a pasta and a steak, which he barely finished due to lack of appetite from jet lag. he ended up swirling his fork through the leftover noodles, starting at his pinched reflection in the empty water glass.
the sun had long gone to sleep by the time that he left, and he felt the exhaustion hitting him all at once. taking a stroll near the river was out of the question because it was too cold and the chances of running into fans was too high. as much as he loved meeting them, and most of the time they respected his privacy and space, it wasn’t something he was feeling up to dealing with while so discombobulated. he looked at the late hour and sighed, asking his manager to take him to the hotel for the night.
on the way back he went through some of the pictures he had taken, and laughed at how bad most of them had come out. some were way too dark, some had people’s heads in them, a lot of them had his finger in it, and one had been taken by accident, a selfie, where his head peaked out in the corner his eyes were squinting to look at his screen. the rainbow was only faintly in the background, the rest too bright to see.
that silly photograph where you the colorful arcs were barely visible was the exact one he was actually able to hit send, the pixels being delivered across the ocean.
it was hours later when he was showered and in bed, watching a league match on his tablet when he almost missed his phone vibrating from a text.
wide shouldered injun
fullsun present ㅋㅋㅋ
21:27pm
lol
i guess it took putting you in the sky
to make the rain go away
*dancing cat emoticon*
22:37 pm
donghyuck smiled down at his phone, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest. he’d be alright. he didn’t need to change himself to fill the absence. he just needed to be himself and know that renjun would do the rest.
because in the end, they were walking down the same road, and everything they endured together or apart would permeate, to become the rainbow that appears after the coldest storm.