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Honestly, Sungho does feel sorry for the kid. Punctuality is a core value of his, but this guy—Kim Donghyun, the text message from the trainee developer reads—has an air that prods Sungho into the barest hint of sympathy, an hour and a half late as he is. His eyes are too big, too dark, darting around the room in a way that reminds Sungho of the goldfish in the tiny bowl kept in his elementary school classroom, his shoulders narrow and absolutely drowned by the worn shirt thrown over them. Pale, lanky, like he'd pass right through Sungho's hand if he were to reach out and touch him.
"I'm sorry," the kid says, pressing his lips together. "I got lost taking the subway." There's an accent there, straining at the seams of his attempt at politeness, tightening the tangle of annoyance and involuntary responsibility and pity in Sungho's chest. After all, there isn't a trainee who hasn't been that lost kid stepping right into Seoul's concrete maw.
But maybe Sungho is the only one feeling any kind of sentimentality, because the expression of the staff member next to him tightens in that adultish way, just enough to make his annoyance clear without actually verbalising it. He nods curtly at Sungho, teach him a lesson, before he turns on his heels and marches back into the bowels of the building, leaving Sungho alone with this rice stalk of a kid.
It's not like this isn't a common occurence, but recently Sungho is starting to feel like he should be getting paid a staff's salary. The next few years of his life flash before his eyes, god forbid he'd have to play babysitter forever… But there's no time to be any more irked, given that there's the imminent threat of Kim Donghyun being blown away—
—So Sungho sighs, claps his hand onto those bony shoulders. "Welcome to KOZ. I'm Park Sungho."
Kim Donghyun's cheek hollows as he chews on it. Now that Sungho takes a closer look at him, his face doesn't match his first impression at all. His features are the most prominent Sungho thinks he's ever seen on a human—no way he's been under the knife yet, right?—indeed, Zico seems to be chasing a certain look. "Should I call you…?"
"Hm? Oh, hyung is fine." Sungho pauses to consider it. "Well, what year were you born in?"
Ever so slightly, Donghyun slackens under his hand, even though he isn't really in a place to be at ease. "Two thousand and four."
"Hyung, then. I'm two thousand and three."
"Okay." Donghyun's fingers drift downwards to the threadbare hem of his shirt. "Sungho-hyung, are you mad at me?"
And that's just—right, so maybe this guy isn't as frail as he seems. Just what is he, to be able to be fortright to someone he's known for, what, five minutes at most, after knowing he hasn't exactly made a good impression? It makes Sungho feel—he's not sure, actually. Even more irritated at the levity? Envious at the self-assuredness? Curiosity as to how long he'll last? What would Sungho's life had been, if he had spoken every question he's ever had, he wonders.
In any case, it means that he deserves Sungho's total honesty. "Kinda. It's Trainee 101 to be on time." Again, he claps his shoulder, this time grips a bit firmer. "Are you scared?"
Donghyun turns to face him a that, just barely tilting his head up. There's a startling resolve in his gaze, his deeply set eyes glittering like marbles; Sungho has the strangest urge to roll his pupil between his fingers. "Not really," he says, tone bordering on flippant. "We'll probably annoy each other again anyway."
An entirely out of control snort escapes Sungho's nose. "Right. Just where did you come from, Kim Donghyun?"
"Dongnae-gu, Busan." Donghyun's lips tilt into a faint smile.
"I see," Sungho hums, as he guides him out of the lobby and into the beast's mouth. Says, in the interest of the total candor they've cultivated between them,"You have to work on that accent."
Donghyun bows his head. "I'll be in your care, Sungho-hyung."
"Are you an idiot," Sungho hisses as he drags Donghyun into the dorm building. "What is wrong with you. Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you."
Sungho presses the elevator button so hard, the raised arrow symbol on it prints itself onto his finger. There's a harsh ring as the doors open, Sungho cringes but promptly body checks Donghyun inside, then enters himself.
Donghyun's been afflicted with a terrible case of Asian flush: he leans his glowing cheeks against the cool wall, the mirror inside the elevator fogging over with his serene breaths. It would've been a quaint tableau, the contrast of Donghyun's round, pink cheeks against the sharp, glassy lift, if it weren't for the acrid scent of alcohol suffusing the air.
"Hyung, I…" Donghyun drawls, his voice muffled by the wall.
Pain spikes through Sungho's forehead. The things he would do to be drunk as well. "Just shut up. Please."
When they make it to their floor, Sungho unlocks the door to their dorm as quietly as he could, lest he wake up the other sleeping trainees. Somewhere along the way, Donghyun had started hanging off of his shoulder. Somewhere along the way, Donghyun has grown taller than Sungho, meaning that he'll have a crick in his neck tomorrow morning. If that's what it takes to make him learn, then so be it—he doesn't deserve a bed and so Sungho deposits him on the structurally unsound sofa without any mercy.
Sungho's phone vibrates with a message. He pulls it out of his pocket, slides to the ground against the side of the sofa like one of those downtrodden movie protagonists, doesn't click on the notification and only looks the message from the bar, despite the fact that leaving it unread is only adding to his list of transgressions. What's one more thing to be yelled at for? Team manager: We'll talk about this in the morning. Great.
Despite having just sat down, Sungho stands up again, nerves pulled too taut to allow him to recline. He looks down. Donghyun's eyes have shut, long limbs draped clumsily over the armrest. He can have all the neck pain in the world in the morning, but Sungho thinks about his future self and the headache he'd have to endure if Donghyun, his sober personality already tending towards irreverent, faced their manager hungover, and chooses to prioritise delayed gratification.
Sungho grabs the first hollow vessel he finds, which is a bowl drying by the sink, and fills it with water before roughly grabbing Donghyun's shoulders. They used to be bony, but he's been putting some effort into working out as of late, they've filled out a bit with muscle. He shakes, hard.
"Urghhg," Donghyun mumbles.
Just to be a little mean, Sungho digs his nails into his skin. "Get up."
Puffiness has already begun to creep into Donghyun's cheeks, no doubt thanks to the cheap barbecue he'd been eating before getting blackout drunk. It was one of his classmates, Sungho figures, that had called his phone when Donghyun's grasp on consciousness begun to leave him and the samgyeopsal began to leave his stomach. Which begs the question, what did he have Sungho saved in his phone as? Sungho-hyung? Park Sungho KOZ? Umma?
Donghyun weakly attempts to push himself upwards until Sungho gets impatient, hooks his elbow into his and pulls him upright against the cushion.
"So you can follow orders." Letting out a primordial sigh, Sungho shoves the bowl into Donghyun's hands. Obediently, Donghyun drinks, his Adam's apple bobbing with it. His neck is long and slim, it makes the lines of his dancing pretty. It makes him easy to strangle. "Why won't you follow the ones that matter most."
"I'm okay, Sungho-hyung." The water makes Donghyun's lips glisten like he's freshly applied lip tint. Everything he does is so ridiculously attractive, half-drunk and looking like he stepped out of a magazine page, voice hoarse but still laden with that smooth, rich quality. There is no one who is more cut out to be an idol, so why is Donghyun intent on jeopardising himself.
"That's what you think," Sungho mutters. "Wait until you wake up, you'll get exactly what you deserve. Did you have fun, you brat?"
Donghyun places the bowl on the floor, his hands on the hem of his shirt like he's about to fiddle with it, but his fingers are still. "Well, yeah."
"Yeah," Sungho repeats in disbelief. "Yeah, I bet it was." Like he'd scruff a cat, Sungho tugs at the collar of Donghyun's jacket, earning him a confused look that pulls out yet another sigh from the depths of his lungs. "Arms up."
Wrinkling his nose at the smell of smoke and burnt food wafting off of the zip-up, Sungho peels it off of Donghyun's sweat-sticky back, walks away to chuck it in the laundry hamper. As soon as his back is turned and he's tucked away in the hallway, words that he didn't even know he had in him roll out of his mouth uncontrollaby, fueled by the latent anxiety that seems to run through Sungho.
"It's gonna be fun, when the manager yells at you in the morning. It's gonna be fun, when you wake up with a terrible headache. It would've been fun if you woke up in the middle of who-knows-where, deserted by those classmates you haven't even known for three months. It would've been fun if they had photos, and then you debut and immediately get hit with an underage drinking scandal—"
"You think I'm gonna debut?"
Sungho pauses at that. Takes very careful steps into the living room, where he's faced with Donghyun peering at him from the sofa. The redness on Donghyun's cheeks have mostly subsided, save for on the roundest parts, and his eyes are very, very wide. There's no light, but they glimmer anyway. A random fact that comes to Sungho's mind: the moon only shines because of the sun behind it, does that mean Donghyun has a star in his cranium?
How's he supposed to answer that? There's too many factors that goes into whether a trainee debuts or not, there's no way to give him a clear, factual answer: Donghyun is good-looking but high maintenance, with his bouts of bloating and his lion's mane. Donghyun is a good dancer, but low on stamina. Donghyun is interesting, but hard to control.
But that's not even what Donghyun is asking him, is it. Sungho's established his honesty the day he slung his arm around Donghyun and escorted him into the beast's den, he's not afraid to give him feedback in the practice room whether he's asked for it or not. So, this means the question isn't Sungho-hyung, can I debut?, the question is Sungho-hyung, do you believe in me?
Which is an even more impossible question to answer. Objectivity is part of his role as the yoke of the trainee group, but it's far too easy to conflate it with cynicism.
Sungho should look at Donghyun objectively, them, free of the cynical lens that a few years of the trainee life tends to fit one with. Donghyun is objectively skilled, objectively attractive, objectively…interesting… Easy on the eyes even when he's not trying to be: just because the Seoul sky is murky with light pollution, it doesn't mean the stars aren't there. He's also, indubitably, seventeen, four hundred kilometers from home, surrounded by competitors for even the slimmest chance at that debut spot. His every move is assessed, of course he'd want a night of freedom. It's not like Sungho is in any position to tell him to get over it. Sungho is—as scared as he is.
Silently, Sungho pads over to the sofa, sits at the other end of the cushion. Doesn't look at Donghyun as he says, trying his best to unstick the words from his teeth, "There's no reason not to think so."
Sungho smells Donghyun exhale more than he hears it, the acidic, ethanolic stench. "Donghyun-ah, you've got something good going for you, so don't mess with it."
"Okay," Donghyun mumbles. Looking to his side, Sungho can faintly make out his eyelids fluttering. "Hyung, aren't you worried?"
Sungho shoots him a look of utter disbelief for what must be the nth time that night. "After all I've said, you're still asking that?"
"Not for me," Donghyun says, a hint of petulance colouring his voice. "For you. Aren't you gonna get yelled at?"
Suddenly, it's very hard to be next to him. Brazen, caring, Donghyun. Will Sungho ever know him fully, instead of trying to make out his face through the distortion of this fishbowl they live in. "—Uh," Sungho gets out. "The team leaders were gonna find some way to vent their frustration out on me anyway."
"I'm sorry, Sungho-hyung."
Sungho shuts his eyes. Yet another fact from his middle school education surfaces to his brain, stars can only be formed from high pressure and temperature. Is this really what it'll take for Sungho to become a proper idol? This unyielding psychological duress? Why can't Sungho just tell him it's okay, Donghyun-ah?
"Go to sleep, Donghyun-ah. Make sure you brush your teeth well in the morning."
Sungho is promptly shaken out of his waking daze by who he vaguely registers as Kim Donghyun rapping his knuckles rapidly on the shower stall. "Sungho-hyung. Sungho-hyung. Hyung."
With the sound of the running water, Sungho doesn't have to worry about the volume of his sigh, so he lets out a long, deep one, only to be cut short by, again, Donghyun pounding on the door. He turns the water off. "I'm in the middle of something here, what the hell do you want?" he says, the morning raspiness somewhat softening the annoyance in his tone.
"Sorry, just please let me in, it's important," Donghyun pleads, the pitch of his voice rising. Even through the opaque glass, the picture of Donghyun is clear in Sungho's mind: his eyes as wide as they can possibly be, his frizzy halo, his slightly swollen cheeks from the late-night ramyeon only he has the guts to eat so close to monthly evaluations.
Sungho steels himself. He has a duty to his juniors. And they're both dudes. It's kind of weird, but it's not that weird.
Hesitantly, he cracks open the stall door a sliver, only for one hundred and eighty centimeters of Kim Donghyun to barrel inside, eliciting an embarrassing yelp from Sungho, stumbling on the slippery tile before catching himself on the wall. One of Donghyun's hands reach out to hastily shut the latch-lock, the other arm stretches behind him to turn on the shower, and just as Sungho gets the first of what would've been a string of profanities out of his mouth, Donghyun urgently presses his finger to his lips as the door to the showers crack open.
Heavy footsteps Sungho recognises as their manager's shuffles against the linoleum, coming to a stop in front of his stall.
"Who's there?" he calls.
Sungho looks at Donghyun, Donghyun looks back at Sungho, and mouths silently, expression desperate. Please.
"Me." Sungho hollers over the sound of the spray. "Park Sungho."
"Hm. Everyone's left for school, right?"
Ah, so this is why. Donghyun shrugs, pressed up against the corner of the shower. The sneaky bastard is on his tiptoes, Dongmin is a terrible influence on him. "Yep," Sungho says thinly. "Just me."
"Alright," the team leader says. "Make sure you leave on time."
"Understood," Sungho says, watching the feet turn in the opposite direction through the small slit at the bottom of the stall. As soon as he hears the door swing shut, he immediately rounds on Donghyun, who is sighing in relief as he comes down on his soles.
"Kim Donghyun, how many times have I told you to set an alarm?"
In a situation like this, Donghyun would usually be pouting, trying to work his accuser over. This time, though, Sungho is met with a startlingly defensive expression, Donghyun's nose scrunching rabbit-like. "I did, I swear I did."
Sungho sucks his teeth, skeptical. "Right."
"I really did," Donghyun says. Gesticulating animatedly, his words bubble out of his mouth. "It's just, I stayed back to practice last night and it was going well so I went until really late…" As if that slender, swannish neck of his could no longer bear to support it, his head bows downwards as he speaks. Indeed, there are purple circles smudged under his eyes.
A wave of remorse suddenly washes over Sungho. He'd never thought of himself as a reactive person, but isn't making such an unfavourable assumption rather prejudiced of him? His fingers flush hot with shame, he searches for something else to say. "How did you know it was me in the shower?"
Donghyun tilts his head. They're only a year apart in age, but it's this kind of movement that makes Sungho stagger with the sheer guilessness of it. "You're the only one who carries his toiletries in a caddy."
Sungho glances at the rectangle of shadow casted by the small plastic box he left by the shower door. He takes a deep breath. Steps back, presses his back against the wall, gets a better look at Donghyun. He's naked—when did he manage that? He's lucky the manager didn't notice the extra set of clothes hanging outside. That, and… his physique is really idol-ish, wiry muscle lining his shoulders and upper body. A far cry to the bird-like kid that first entered the building. His clavicles form startling cliffs, water pooling in them, the bladed line of his jaw casting strong shadows. The producers would probably be happy about that. Sungho thinks he's pushing himself too far.
"Sit down," Sungho says.
This, it's this kind of thing: the docile way Donghyun sits on his ankles makes Sungho's ribs feel too big for his body. When does Donghyun choose to follow orders, and when does he choose to swim against the tide? Sungho grabs his conditioner as well as the comb sticking out of the small ledge mounted on the wall.
Donghyun flinches when the first of the conditioner hits his head. "What are you doing."
"You don't detangle your hair properly," Sungho mutters. He works the conditioner into the length of Donghyun's hair, raking his hands through the coarse curls. "The more you straighten it, the more damaged it gets. The least you could do is get rid of the knots."
"The staff tells me to straighten it…" Donghyun's shoulders slacken as he shifts his weight, unfolding himself to sit cross-legged.
"They've got such a narrow view of what what an idol should look like," Sungho says. He squeezes the hair in his palm, idly watching the glossy spirals fall through the gaps between his fingers. "As if Zico PD-nim doesn't look like a punk himself."
Donghyun snorts at that. Sungho can't really see his face when he's standing over him like this, but he can see his cheekbones rising as his face scrunches in amusement. "Well, what do you think an idol should look like?"
Humming, Sungho glides the comb through the ends of Donghyun's hair. "I think you're pretty close," he says, though he's not—really sure what possesses him to do so. The only thing stopping his body from escaping his skin is the constant pressure of the water droplets forcing it back. Just what is it about him, really? Everything he says is wrapped in reticence.
Donghyun's head may seem to be constantly under water, but his words aren't muffled at all, ringing crystal clear above all the noise. "Hyung, why won't you ever compliment me directly?"
Sungho rolls a knot between his fingers, trying to wriggle a nail between the strands. His stomach and heart are similarly tangled, pulling away from the rest of his organs and rising up, up, into his throat, until they spill out and he blurts out, "I suck at things too, okay?"
Languidly, Donghyun reaches a long arm out and shuts the shower off, and Sungho only realises then that he'd been humming, the indistinct melody obscured by the water. Tilts his head upwards, so he meets Sungho's gaze, droplets sliding off his forehead and ears. There's always been a certain elegance to his movements, but it's not daintiness. More lion than swan.
"Okay," he says. He's amused, his undereyes are creased and disarmingly endearing. "Does hyung think I'm handsome?"
Sungho swallows. The movement feels strangely telling. "Sure. Yes."
"Got it." Donghyun raises his hand, runs it along his head until it joins Sungho's, and he starts working at the knot too, fingers sliding between fingers. Hardly intimate, but Sungho startles a little, at the realisation that it's been ages since he'd shared such a small space with someone. "Does hyung think I'm cute?"
"Yes," Sungho says, like the words are being dragged out of his throat.
"Right." The tangle comes undone, Sungho's fingers running through the strands freely. Donghyun sits back upright, turns to face him, a knavish grin playing across his features. When he smiles, his entire face is involved. "You're getting better already, Sungho-hyung."
"You brat," Sungho gripes, working at the rest of his hair. Combs maybe a bit more roughly than necessary, which pulls a boyish giggle from Donghyun even as he swears from the sting. Truly incorrigible. "What did you just drag me into?"
"I'm only returning the favour, for the guidance you've showed me…"
"As if," Sungho retorts harmlessly. He glides to the comb through the last section of Donghyun's hair, then takes the shower head off the bracket, dousing Donghyun without any warning. There is, indeed, a tiny bit of glee at the way it causes him to sputter, he's less aquatic than one might think. Sungho wants to bully him a bit more, but he relents, directs the spray off of his face until the water running off his hair runs clear. "Get out, Donghyun-ah."
Donghyun smiles as he stands up, water cascading in delicate rivulets down his body. It's unfair that he looks like he just stepped off of a photoshoot when Sungho was essentially waterboarding him not even a minute ago. "Thanks for taking care of me, Sungho-hyung," he says with a lilt, absolutely wilelessly.
"Sure, sure," Sungho replies, waving him off. "Go to school, you delinquent."
Just as Donghyun walks out, a realisation strikes Sungho. Swiftly, he ducks out of the stall, and despite his nakedness, opens the door to the hallways, sticks his head out to catch sight of a slim, retreating back. Yells, "Hey, Kim Donghyun, don't get caught on the way out!"