Chapter Text
ever since he was a child, dylan knew he was different from the others.
teachers had always looked at him with that particular kind of frustration that was reserved for the students who just ‘didn’t try enough’. they would sigh when he forgot instructions they had just given. they would mark him down for careless mistakes on tests that he knew the answers to, but missed half the questions because his mind had wandered three minutes in.
his parents echoed that same disappointment. they asked why he couldn’t focus, why he had to make everything so unnecessarily difficult. why he couldn’t be more like other children who sat still and followed instructions, the children who didn’t need to be told things twice.
he struggled to focus on anything for longer than 30 minutes unless the subject area had captivated him so deeply the rest of the world disappeared. in class, he’d sometimes zone out completely, his mind catching on a stray word or idea, and then spiralling into a tangent about a song he’d heard or a worry he had from a week ago. he would snap out of that zone and find the lesson had moved on without him, key instructions already given and lost.
then there was his anger, a fiery temper that burned at the tiniest of inconveniences- a sudden change of plans, a noise too loud, or a book being placed at just the wrong angle on his desk. the anger would erupt in an instant, and then just as quickly recede, leaving him feeling disgusted at his own lack of control.
worst of all was the hypocrisy he saw in himself. he would internally seethe if one of those friends was late or forgot a promise, yet he himself would forget to reply to messages for days. he would let notifications pile up until the guilt of responding felt so heavy that silence felt like the only option. he knew it was unfair; it was a double standard he couldn’t justify, but the rejection he felt in their actions felt different to his own identical failures.
his mind was always turned on. there was never a quiet moment in his head, even when the world outside was silent.
and people noticed, they always noticed eventually. they noticed how his attention would drift mid-conversation, or how he’d snap over seemingly nothing. he would see it in their faces. friendly warmth shifted to wariness. they’d stop inviting him out to places, stop texting him first, stop trying.
he had just learned to accept that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be understood. he had tried to change, he’d tried to fix everything that was wrong with him, but it never worked.
he’d get out a notebook and write out all the ways he was going to fix himself and do better. he would eat a better diet, he’d exercise regularly, he’d make to-do lists and actually follow them this time. usually, he’d last around 3 days before that whole life-changing plan would crumble. once, he even lasted a week, he thought he’d cracked it, but it failed once again after an intense burnout hit him.
so, that was it. he was stuck the way he was. that notebook had ended up shoved in the back of a drawer somewhere, pages filled with dozens of failed plans. he’d stopped bothering to open it after a while, there didn’t seem to be much point.
another thing he couldn’t get his head around was socialising. socialising didn’t come easy to dylan. he had tried so hard to make friends throughout his years at school. he was really good at making them initially, but it never lasted. he’d find someone who liked the same games as him, or the same movies, but then he’d accidentally ignore the text messages for a week, or blow up at them over something small, or he’d isolate himself because he was overwhelmed, and they would decide he was just too much for them.
but that was okay. if he was different from everyone else, then maybe he just wasn’t meant to have friends. besides, he didn’t need them anyway, he was very independent. and what was the point in getting close to others when they would end up leaving when they discovered the real him?
that was until he met the members of mars.
~~~
“five minute call.”
dylan’s hand stopped moving from where it had been adjusting his sleeve for the third time. it was a repetitive action he’d done since childhood, to keep the racing in his chest from becoming too much. it was a distraction.
he hadn’t realised he’d been doing it, he’d zoned out. he dropped his hand, straightened his back and slapped his mask on.
the other members around him shifted into position. nano and pepper were stood to behind him, whispering to check their stage formation. thame was somewhere to his left, but dylan couldn’t bring himself to look at him.
it had been two weeks since thame had told them he was leaving. the company had given him an ultimatum and he had chosen himself over mars. the last two weeks had been hell. casual conversations had turned careful and everyone was walking on eggshells. and now here they were, about to go on stage and smile like everything was just fine.
it was their first group performance after receiving that news, and it felt wrong. so wrong. this level of change had been unsettling dylan so much to the point he didn’t know if even his muscle memory would be able to carry him through this choreography.
he could hear the muffled roar of the crowd beyond the screen separating them from the fans. his mind started looping. this isn’t real, this is ending, you shouldn’t be here.
he tried to push those thoughts away, but they kept coming back. this performance was a lie. they were all pretending, pretending that thame wasn’t leaving, the group wasn’t falling apart.
his hands wanted to fidget, to move. he wanted to find a way to rid himself of the restless energy building beneath his skin. he fought to keep himself still. discipline. control. if he could just hold himself together for the next hour, he could fall apart later.
“you good?”
dylan looked sideways to see jun watching him with an assessing look. he’d definitely noticed something.
dylan nodded once definitively, not wanting to let jun see that something was wrong. he wasn’t about to become another burden for the group; they had enough going on. “fine.”
jun clearly didn’t believe him, but he didn’t push. he just smiled at him, hoping to give some encouragement even if he couldn’t fix whatever was going through dylan’s head in that moment.
dylan would never say anything, he didn’t deserve the attention of the others on him when he was upset over such small things like having to fake a smile for their fans. but he wished that just once, someone would be able to read his mind and know what was going on in there.
“screen up in three, two,” someone called.
dylan stopped his spiralling thoughts and moved into formation. he pulled his shoulders back, lifted his chin and became the version of himself that the cameras needed to see, the one that never faltered.
his heart was racing way too fast. he focused on steadying his breathing as best as he could, counting internally as he inhaled and exhaled.
“showtime.”