Chapter Text
This truly was an experience like no other.
The high of their grandest tour yet. Incheon was spectacular, and even in the bitter cold of the night, Chan's heart burned and swelled at the thousands of people that filled up the stadium. Even he himself couldn't say that this wasn't in his wildest dreams, and it elates him to no end that even this was just the beginning of even wilder dreams.
As he looked around the audience, their phone flashlights turned on like stars against the dark sky, the lyrics to BLIND SPOT heartily sang back to them as loudly as it could possibly be, his heart still heavily heaved from the past two-hour effort and sheer love, and he couldn't help but be proud. Of Stay. Of himself. And especially of Stray Kids.
Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N. Chan looked around at the stage pedestals where they all stood, and sought their faces, going over each one of them. The lights overhead and around all shone on their faces, their expressions clear in the brightness. Chan could see the same joy on them. It's a good look, he thinks. This sort of relief. This sort of pride.
KARMA had been all about their journey to get here, and riding those same feelings and struggles brought them here, riding the crests of their first event stadium tour. The album had felt like the best they could ever do — the best that it could ever be because Stray Kids (they!) made it. The fact that this mark of their journey together deserved the raw, unbridled energy of the tour’s final acts made Chan feel... energized? Anticipating? He smiles wide at the thought — all this grandiosity, and yet their band still has so much to show. So, so much.
And the world better be ready until then. As Chan later looked over at the faces of Stay as he ran around the stadium, and back again at the gigantic LEDs showing his band members when they sang, he thought — Oh, the world better be ready until then.
When the long line of members and dancers bowed to bid one last farewell to the dominATE world tour, as they disappeared backstage and petered the concert to its last minutes, the energy remained high amongst the members as they walked in each other's company.
“It was so cold out there!” Lee Know cries as he shivers like a wet cat, skipping around until he's in front of the others to hurry out of the humid night air. The sight makes Felix laugh as he adjusts his pink jacket and the BbokAri slung over his shoulder.
“I can't believe we're done…”, Hyunjin says, gawking with his mouth in an O, “After a year of going around the world, and it's just… done…”
Seungmin gawks back at him with the same big-rounded mouth, mockingly like a puppy, before he wistfully looks at the floor as they all walk, and he responds, “It's going to take a while to stop feeling things about it, right?”
“I think I've gotten used to it as well. Touring and all,” Chan comments, and as they reach the end of the corridor, they all are greeted with applause and cheers from their crew and team in the dressing rooms. This post-concert hype is definitely one to miss, as people hug and high-five, pat each other on the back, and just overall dwell in the fact that it's all just finally, finally finished with.
Han exclaims excitedly with his right hand clenched into a fist in the air, “Okay, now about our next tour…”. Some people grumble and sigh and laugh about the joke, but Chan can't help but look forward to it altogether.
It's not like they have no exciting things prepared for the latter parts of the year, especially with the release of DO IT, as well as the many award shows to attend later on, along with the many hours of practice and filming that it all entails. Still, going around the world and meeting many people who appreciate and feel with your team's art is just something incomparably special.
At some point, Chan has just been sitting and staring at nothing, still only half-changed into more appropriate clothes for their leave. He can hear Felix from somewhere commenting about how fun the encore has been for the members as he is being filmed for Talker, then Hyunjin, then Changbin, as the surrounding chatter and clatter relaxes for the respite of the night. The calm settles in with Chan — like satisfaction, he thinks — as he mindlessly goes about the rest of his clothing.
“Hyung, hurry! Or we'll leave without you!”, Jeongin shouts from across the room, his foxy grin still clear even as his cap covers part of his head. Chan is finishing up with his casual clothing as he projects an equally fond smile, with similarly closed eyes, as he replies, “What, Iyennie wants to go back home with me?!” There is no response from Jeongin, as he leaves out the door with smiling eyes that betray the straight-faced look he was trying to give.
Chan bows at the rest of the staff cleaning up their concert effects when he finally looks for his things, thanking them for their hard work. Truly, the finality of it all has started to linger now when he finally walks out the door and towards the van with the members. There is a still tranquility in the air now as he walks over, like a calm before the storm — just a shadow of full-blown energy. Wow, they really are closing this chapter for good now.
Before the sentimentality gets to him as he sits down on one of the vacant seats, the bickering between Seungmin and Changbin gets loud enough to make him break into a small smile. He feels a grateful gladness sooth him, and lets himself wallow in the feeling as the background back-and-forth of the others keeps the melancholy from settling down inside.
“Maybe we should shut up a little though, it's past midnight already,” Changbin comments.
Hyunjin doesn't even turn to look in his direction, eye mask on as he leans back on the seat, “It's literally just you who's opening his mouth right now.”
———
Later in his bed, Chan flipped and turned restlessly, still dopey with leftover energy. Even as the world around him lay dead with the stillness of night, and even as his body vaguely ached all over from dance after dance after dance, he remained excited. Excited by the thought of more moments like today's concert, fiery and passionate. Excited by the thought of seeing more of their fans. Excited of creating more music and memories with his members.
His mind leapt back through the encore like a slideshow, moving images of picturesque views, panoramic and bright and sometimes too obscured by the confetti. Looking over at the thousands of people in the bleachers — a view he's come to get used to over time — he still just couldn't help the feeling of vigor to remain now, the dynamicity to give them a good show.
And this dynamicity felt good, their passion and power just bursting off and around the venue as they danced their hardest and sang their loudest. Even as he lied down, he felt his heart pound strongly on his chest, the phantoms of the energetic ordeal still clinging to him. And he feels this heartbeat throb up to his head, recalling moments of the members enjoying themselves, enjoying their performances and their antics and their interactions…
He feels himself smiling again; he really just can't help the joy despite the fatigue. He hugs his pillow tightly like he would have hugged Han or Felix if they were there, letting his tiredness catch up to his giddiness with the sudden burst of energy.
He clamps his eyes shut, and as if convincing himself to sleep, he reassures his weary mind and body that when he rises in the morning well-rested, he could finally do the things he wanted to do.
His thoughts drift and sizzle down to singular fragments of the past two shows, of Changbin's abs (finally!) and Seungmin's aegyo (finally!), of BLEEP and Half Time (finally!) performed live, all until his smile relaxes to a grin, until the fluttering feeling of contentment calms the blood in his veins and finally lulls him to sleep.
———
Chan's blood ran cold, as he awoke with a sweat, gasping a sharp inhale as he sat up on the bed. He feels disoriented and panicked somehow, like he had just woken up from a bad dream, and suddenly, a bad feeling creeps up on him. His eyes adjust slowly to the darkness, but when the pitch black fades into unfamiliar silhouettes all around him, his mind races, "Where the hell am I?! How in the world did I get here?"
His senses heighten with his sudden nervousness as if to quickly assess the situation, feeling the unfamiliar sheets around him, smelling unfamiliar cheap cologne in the air as his eyes register more of the place. The room felt stale with the distant whir of an air conditioner up above somewhere, and Chan quickly sizes up the place to be a modest space.
It takes Chan a moment, turning his head around and, just, looking at all directions in disbelief, before he quickly turns over his blanket and plants his feet on the ground. When his heel makes a weak thud on the wood flooring, he doesn't stand just yet and thinks, “Am I dreaming?!”
Is he dreaming? It doesn't feel like it. So if not, is he kidnapped?! Though even that thought felt a little too absurd. Does he have to be careful in moving around? Or maybe, this is for content? After all, why would a kidnapper put their victim in a decent room like this? How did they even move him here, and he didn't even wake up? And why — he notices now — would they change his clothes to different ones?
He closes his fingers around the seams of the shirt — did they really need to sell some illusion this badly? If so, then they did a very good job, because the moment was already a little disorienting (if the thought of being changed by someone else as he slept wasn't disorienting by itself).
“This is crazy,” he vocalizes softly, in consideration of the quiet of the night. His mind was really still catching up; what other reason could explain whatever is happening at the moment? He stands up, and with his eyes used to the darkness, he looks around if there are any cameras. Should he look for a light switch?
Even when his eyes could barely see anything in detail in the darkness, he can see that the room is sparsely decorated; a wooden desk with drawers is set up to the corner opposite the bed in the other corner. A large cabinet is set beside the desk, stretching just enough across the wall for a laundry hamper to occupy the other end, sitting at another corner of the room. The door, of which hangs some clothes and accessories off multiple transparent wall hooks, is at the last corner. A curtain covers a window over the bed, and the cloth is so thick that even the moonlight hardly penetrates into the room. That might be why it’s so dark, and why he can't find some cameras yet.
Chan walks over to the desk, and the clean tabletop allows him to make out his laptop in the darkness, an unfamiliar smartphone nearby. A chair with a backpack is propped against the desk. He reaches for the phone and presses the power on the side, reading the time and date: 1:29, March 4, Monday.
“That seems wrong,” Chan comments in a whisper, and before his mind could catch up with his mouth on why that is, he hears a flick of a switch from outside the door. Chan turns around and sees light pour from the crack below it. He hears someone tiptoeing — is someone else out there?
Now, Chan is a little scared of some things. Some things just really get to him, regardless of whether he knows some scary stuff is staged or not. Besides, it makes for good content anyways, but it doesn't make weird-ass situations like this easier for him. His heart gallops again in suspense as he walks without a sound towards the door. The phone in his hand is wielded like he would use it to smack someone — that's how uneasy he was.
Bracing himself, he opens the door inwards — now noticing the switch to the lights of his room just by the doorframe — and his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness outside. He is greeted with another door in front of his room, a little half-opened, and as he walks outside for a bit, he finds himself on the parquet flooring of a hallway, the fluorescent lights overhead leading the corridor towards some unlit area of the house.
Chan gulps, his mouth dry from his nervousness, remembering the vague memory of hearing someone tiptoe out here. Why did the place feel so liminal? Should he explore the opposite room, walk the hallway into the dark, or recluse back into his own room? He was just so dumbfounded and wondered if there was supposed to be some correct way to navigate this place, for whatever reason there could be.
And so he just stands there, paralyzed with indecision. If it was any indication, the time on the phone had signaled that the night was still young, which may be why he couldn't think straight yet. As he stared right on ahead, he figured his mind must be very hazy from its new surroundings that he doesn't register when suddenly along the end of the hallway, someone silently rounds the corner and walks towards him.
By the time his flight instinct compels him to quickly move the fuck out of there, he is startled to hell by the shrill shriek of the other person, making him recoil and shriek in reply as well.
“Hyung, what the hell are you doing just standing there?!”
Opening his eyes, unaware of whenever he had them shut close (and of how attached he has become to the walls of the hallway when he stuck to them in surprise), Chan is beyond relieved to see Hyunjin in front of him, now laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
“You scared me as well, you know?" Chan replied in zest, to which Hyunjin laughed at again animatedly. It’s a relief — a big relief — to know he wasn't actually kidnapped or something, and that he wasn't alone in whatever is happening right now.
He looks over in Hyunjin's direction, who replies, “I just got up to take a leak,” and Chan notes that he looks a little… different somehow? Like his face shows no mark of the busy schedules that had marred every day of this year so far. His hairstyle is also a little more fluffed up, the hair on his nape shorter than Chan remembers.
“W–Where are we anyway?" Chan asks, his voice confused.
Hyunjin looks back at him with that toothy grin he has, his eyes closed like crescents in amusement. As if fighting back a giggle, he comments, “Yah, hyung, are you still half-asleep?"
And when Chan still looks at him with a dumbfounded face, as if egging him on to explain, Hyunjin continues, his expression more entertained, “We're at the boarding house, hyung. Does it ring a bell now?”
No, it doesn't — Chan relents voicelessly. He just replies, “Oh, are we?" His brain is really still keeping up. Did he miss something? What boarding house?
Hyunjin slaps him playfully on the shoulder as he walks by to the door of his room, snorting a laugh as he says, “I'm going to bed now, okay? I think you need to as well.”
Chan looks at Hyunjin through the door opening, the younger's smile peeking through as he sing-songs a stretched out “Goodnight~” until the door closes shut and the lock clicks.
Left to his own devices, Chan pauses like a rock on the hallway, until he hears the emotional voices of K-drama leads from Hyunjin’s room. After a moment with Chan still more than confused about Hyunjin's answers, he raises his voice a little louder to ask over the door, “And what about the others, Hyunjinnie? Where are they?”
“The others? Uh, like Changbin-hyung?”
“Yeah?” Chan is unsure why he's replying like he's questioning it as well. Chan hears light footsteps approaching the door.
When it finally unlocks and opens, Hyunjin's face stares back at him with that amused look of his. Up close, Hyunjin really looks more youthful somehow, like he had reverted back to the first time that Chan saw him.
“Hyung, are you okay?” After a quick giggle, he continues, “You were the one who told me he was coming back later today.”
Chan felt like he really just lost the plot there somewhere. So he knew, but he forgot? He forgot that Changbin is still to come here, in this random-ass house he literally has no recent memory of, of all places? Chan didn't even know how he got here himself, and because asking such a deranged question like “How did I get here?” to Hyunjin really seemed just that — deranged — he sighed in resignation, “Wow, maybe I really do need that sleep then”.
“Go sleep, Hyung. I'm just finishing up just one episode anyways, and after that, I'm sleeping too afterwards.” Hyunjin looks at him reassuringly. “You should see that dumb look on your face, though.”
Chan didn't even feel like he still had the energy to roll his eyes as Hyunjin's giggles, a little muted due to the early hour. “Well, goodnight then, Hyunjin.”
“Goodnight~” And the door closes slowly once again. Muffled voices from the K-drama resume through the walls.
Chan resigns to the darkness of his room and lies on the bed. He thought of checking the rest of the house, but really, maybe he really does need to sleep. He did feel really, really concerned that the overwork and stress might have caught up to him, and bitten off quite a sizable chunk of his memory.
Perhaps everything will make more sense when he wakes up in the morning, maybe even to realize this was just some hazy dream. He sweeps the thick curtain with his hand to make the moonlight seep in, and sits up enough to see the suburban environment outside. Even this view felt unfamiliar to him. Is he on vacation with Hyunjin and Changbin in the city?
On his other hand was the phone he picked up from the desk, and as he pressed the power button again to see the time now displaced by a few minutes, he made note of the date again: March 4. That's crazy if that's true: the celebrATE encore was in October; did he really skip almost a half-year and forget an entire comeback season?!
He presses his thumb on the fingerprint sensor of the phone and watches the screen unlock. So this is his phone — the thought whiplashes him, because it's like he's rediscovering himself, like he doesn't know himself to begin with.
The homescreen is full of applications, some unfamiliar, and the number of notifications displayed for each is considerably less than it has ever been since he first had a work phone. He starts checking his messages first, and as he peruses them, he does not find many familiar names. He opens one chat thread and clicks away fast, the feeling like he's eavesdropping beginning to rise when he does not recall the exchange ever.
Confused, he clicks off and checks his contacts. He doesn't find their managers or any staff from the office, doesn't find other producers and writers and idols and artists — he doesn’t recognize anyone. Other than Changbin and Hyunjin, not even the other members were there. Why weren't they there? All he sees are a whole lot of new names, and Chan feels so lost.
What is going on?
He trudges through the phone's social media to look for familiar faces, and instead sees himself, like from an old memory, mingling with unfamiliar faces in numerous photos. And as he flips through his calendar application to see any familiar routine or schedule — anything — and sees a daily class schedule marked out through every week, displaying the current year as 2019, Chan feels himself slip, like something about reality is very, very off and askew, and something unpleasant throbs in his chest.
He feels uncertainty cloud his mind and vision, and it gets him badly nervous. He needs the comprehension of such a feeling to ground him somehow, because on the topic of everything else, he falls short — very short.
Where was he? Why was it like there wasn't a trace of the life he knows? The darkness around him starts to feel opaque and begrudging as he points his focus on the phone screen.
He opens up Naver, his mind trying to make sense of how everything has become so different. No signs of the life he knew, of the people he knew — was he forsaken? Were Changbin and Hyunjin, too? His chest hurts at the thought, and his head pounds as he tries to answer without any leads: “Why?!” Before he could even think of any one big, bad reason, like a disagreement, or a disbandment, or a scandal or a hiatus, he already has entered “Stray Kids” on the search bar. What happened?
And when he doesn't see any single trace of the found family he had shed blood, sweat and tears with, his heart drops. Chan freezes in the stillness of the night, in the persistent buzz and cold of the air-conditioned air. Stray Kids… Stray Kids didn't happen?
Again — where was he?
This truly was an experience like no other.
Because unlike the ones he'd ever had before, this was one he so desperately wanted to wake up from.
And so he tries. When he could finally feel himself able to move again, all he could do was fall hard on the mattress, a little shaken up. He clamps his eyes shut hard, and as if convincing himself to sleep, he reassures his weary mind and body that when he rises in the morning well-rested, he could finally do the things he wanted to do.
His thoughts drift and sizzle down to singular opaque images from his entire life, reminiscing and holding on to memories as if the mere act of remembrance could keep them true. And he holds on and on and on, until his mind is fatigued and is finally lulled back to sleep.
———
An alarm wakes Chan up to the same room. He sits up faster than he has ever sat up before, before he scrambles to find the source of the obnoxious sound. He finds the phone on the floor, picks it up and turns the screen on to disable the alarm. He looks at the time, 8:31AM, before he turns the phone back off and throws it at the sheets. Not even a full half-day in this place and waking up to it already felt like hell.
Dazed, he looks around as he absorbs new details of the room that were invisible at night. Still no cameras in sight. He thinks aloud, “So this is really it?", and lets the thought linger for the sake of lingering, because, really, what does he do then? Something tells him he should find a way to return to the life he knows, because if all of this had even a glimmer of a chance of actually not being real, it was starting to get harder and harder to find.
Maybe he should get out and see what's out there. He hasn't even seen the entirety of this house yet. Maybe the answer's out there.
He gets off the bed with wavering determination, and starts heading straight for the door, before he stops when he sees, at the corner of his eye, a small mirror hanging at one of the overhead panels of the cabinet. But what fully catches his attention is the reflection that stares back at him in it — it's him, but clearly younger than he remembers himself.
The year 2019 comes back to him as a recall of the confusion of last night, and when he recalls the dance practice rooms at JYP, practicing the high-energy choreography of MIROH, and he singles out a moment back then when the reflection of himself on the wall-sized mirrors was clearest in his mind, he subconsciously backs a foot behind the other as the memory superimposes itself well with the reflection staring back at him now.
It takes a moment for him to stop looking at the person in the mirror before he looks away momentarily. He looks back again, slowly, his eyes leading the turn of his head. And there it was again — that face on his face that he thought he'd grown out of a long time ago. When he smacks his cheeks lightly and his reflection follows, a frustrated groan unwittingly escapes him. That panicked, bad feeling is back on him again.
He's in utter disbelief, even when there's just no denying it now: he's gone back in time somehow. Not only that — he's also living another life, far from everything he feels he's ever known, from everyone he feels he's ever known.
Well, not everyone — Hyunjin.
———
Hyunjin is at the dining table eating delivery food leisurely, chopsticks at his lips as he scrolls on his phone. The messages from the group chat are calling for him to hurry up and show himself, but it's not like the calltime is even in the next hour yet so—
He is startled by Chan suddenly appearing into the room, a scowl on his face before he looks on in recognition when he finds Hyunjin. “Did he have a bad sleep?" Hyunjin wonders, a grin starting to reappear on his face when he recalls Chan seeming a little out of it around midnight, asking him some questions like—
“Hyunjin, how old are you again?" Chan asks like he's troubled, approaching and pulling a chair back to sit around the table beside Hyunjin, who looks at him surprised. After a pause, Hyunjin blinks and replies, “I'm twenty.” A pause again. “But eighteen when you're considering my— ”
Ah, is this what I think this is? Hyunjin stops abruptly and blinks twice, before smiling again, wider this time, picking at another piece of chicken from the food box with his chopsticks. Chan's eyes look at him for a while, before nodding slowly and opening his mouth, as if realizing or remembering something as he completes Hyunjin's answer in his mind.
Hyunjin laughs out two pronounced ha-ha's, putting the chicken in his mouth before he says with his mouth full: “I see, hyung.” Hyunjin felt so smart right now. Why else would Chan ask about his age — it's for his birthday present!
Pleased with himself, he pockets his phone in his sweatpants, stands up with the now-empty food box and goes to the trash bin near the sink. After he throws it in, he washes his hands on the sink and turns his head in Chan's direction, who looks like some gears were still turning in his head, staring at nothing.
Maybe he needs a little idea of what Hyunjin wants, a little push. So as Hyunjin closes the faucet and shakes his hands to dry, he starts, “You know how I'm a fine arts student, right?” He gauges Chan's reaction, and internally giggles when the older nods and lets his mouth open agape more, as if he registers it as new information.
“I mean, it's just the start of the school year anyways, but I heard that the courses for this semester are finally going to be on painting,” Hyunjin sighs dramatically as he leans on the sink counter before he continues, “I'm still looking for oil paints that I can use, but the good ones feel a little too expensive.” He has some nice ones already, but it doesn't hurt to have more — in fact, it would feel much better if he had more.
Again, Chan nods in acknowledgement, his mouth still hanging half-open. That should be enough, right?
“Well, what matters is that the things we do, or give, are from the heart, okay?" Hyunjin says, propping his hand over Chan's shoulder in reassurance. When Chan raises an eyebrow with that dumbfounded face of his, Hyunjin just laughs loudly and pats his back.
“I'm heading out in a while, by the way. We have practice for the opening fair later.” he says as he leaves towards the direction of his bedroom.
“Opening fair?” Chan asks in a low volume, as if he's asking the air.
“Yes, we're gonna dance!” Hyunjin turns around to face him and raises his hands in the air. “You should apply for the dance group, hyung. It's fun, I promise!”
Chan looks overloaded, and manages to just say, “I see, I see.” Oh, maybe he really is considering it? Since he's considerably less busy compared to last school year.
“So I'll see you later, maybe?” Hyunjin asks, teasing. He hadn't seen Chan dance before, or even if he knew how to. He’s a music person though, so maybe he might know how? Chan really looks deep in thought about it too…
Before he could turn around to head back to his room, Hyunjin remembers something and excitedly recounts, “Also! Someone finally dialed in for our posting for a roommate!” Chan seems surprised, and Hyunjin understands — finally the rent could be divided more and they could each pay less. Big win!
He rummages for his phone and opens the notes app. “He's going to come by our booth later at the university, and if we get along, I'll bring him here after.” He walks over to Chan and shows him the first note, “That's his contact info.” He taps the screen repeatedly, a smirk on his face, “See, it's real!”
Chan's eyes open up as wide as it could be, his gaze looking up at Hyunjin and back at the screen as if he couldn't believe it. Hyunjin finds it a little unnerving for some reason, like that expression had no reason to be so astonished. Is it a famous person, perhaps? Why would Hyunjin not know though?
“You know him?” Hyunjin turns the phone to himself and squints to read what he had typed down.
“Han Jisung?”
“Yeah!” Chan could not look any more enthused, nodding his head like he's rattling it. Hyunjin squints his eyes even more, turns his head slightly and asks, “Is he, like, famous, or something? He's the same year as me, and I don't know him.”
Chan looks like he's backtracking something in his mind before he replies playfully, pointing a finger at Hyunjin, “I just know him as our future roommate.”
———
The early March snow was thawing slowly, but the cold air was still crisp and fresh. However, the noon was approaching, and so with that knowledge in mind—
“I know it's still cold out,” Hyunjin trudges briskly on the path, kicking on the soft snow before he leans back to glance at Chan behind him, “But, wow… you really covered your entire face. Can you even breathe?”
Chan, staring right down at the ground as they walked, mindlessly hums a small “Mhm…” in acknowledgment of Hyunjin's comment, before grabbing onto his sunglasses and his mask and sliding them inside the side pocket of his bag. His cap loosely snuggled his head, and so he adjusted it firmly so that it wouldn't fall off easily.
He actually could breathe properly now, whew — his mind was so much in a whirl with new information left and right that he forgot he practically was a nobody now. He didn't have to hide himself anymore now to go around anywhere, and yet that sentiment lands the wrong way on him somehow.
“Snow blindness,” Chan retorts weakly, as if trying out just the first thought to cross his mind as an explanation, but Hyunjin doesn't seem to hear it. He looks up from the ground and looks at Hyunjin's back, just now comprehending the small of him, even as the large brown coat he wore concealed his lanky form as the cloth swayed slightly in the wind.
When Hyunjin turns around with his eyebrows downturned in apprehension, Chan feels light at the sight — aw, it really was Hyunjin from quite a while ago! He really was quite the stunner, wasn't he — just naturally handsome and thin like that.
“Hurry up, hyung, you're making me late!”, he whines in his signature dramatic flair, stomping his foot on the ground. Chan laughs, his eyes narrowed and teeth clenched as if bracing the cuteness aggression he was feeling. As he jogs to catch up, he couldn't help but wonder about seeing Han as well.
This was why he went along with Hyunjin to the university — to see the guy. Not only will he finally get to see the university he supposedly was attending now, but he also got to meet another member sooner.
Chan also did not trust Hyunjin to have a reliably fine first meeting with Jisung (given the history of his Han and Hyunjin), and so he made Hyunjin wait for him to get bathed and dressed just so he could come with. Chan really needed to get used to how he looked naked again though; it's all literally nothing he has never seen before.
Hyunjin notices this excitement to visit the university so clearly plastered on the other's face. “For someone you supposedly don't know, he has you very excited, doesn't he?” He points a finger, “Since you'll be at the booth, you better audition to dance!”
Chan smiled as he ruffled the younger's hair, “We'll see.”
Because they have started to pick up their pace, it isn't long before they turn a corner into the open gates of the university, the spacious main footpath crowded with students and adorned with various booths lined up at the sides. Even just one look at the booths was enough for Chan to deduce which club or organization has set them up, looking at all the sports gear, the band instruments, the cultural wear, the laboratory apparatuses.
What made Chan's mouth agape though was the grandiose castle-like architecture of the main hall of the university, right at the very end of the main footpath. He’d been to stadiums and arenas everywhere, but the now-familiar view of the 6-story centre tower just hits differently when it punches him weak with the thought, “I'm really going back to school, aren't I?” What program was he studying again in this life?
“W-well, where's your club's booth?” he stammers, trying to break from the daze he was in, looking around the campus. Hyunjin cranes his neck to see above the crowd, “We're stationed at the gymnasium, near the stage. So that we're not too far when we finally perform later on.” They wade through the people, Chan following Hyunjin from not too far behind.
Chan asks, “And when do you guys perform?”
“Some time after the freshman orientation.”
“And when is that?”
“At around 12,” Hyunjin puts a finger to his lips, “...I think?”
“You don't sound sure.”
Hyunjin rolls his eyes, “What do you know? You haven't known anything for a while.” A short laugh breaks through his annoyance.
Chan sighs; he really hasn't. He figures that Hyunjin's club had to wait for the freshmen to look around the booths to find the clubs they wanted to join. The dance presentation must be to increase interest for their club as well.
The crowd of people did not seem to wither down when they finally walked the entrance passageway and into the gymnasium, and Chan took in the new sight of the place. The centre of the place was a vacated basketball court, with booths lined up at the sides below the bleachers, all guiding his eyes towards the main stage, wide and sparsely decorated. Enormous LED screens were affixed onto the walls to the side of the stage, as if the large screen above it wasn't enough for a closer view of the performers.
“Wow, even those weren't here last year,” Hyunjin points to the side screens. Chan looks at him fondly and smiles — you've been in bigger ones before — before he feels a slight sadness prod at his heart.
Eventually, they arrive at the dance club's booth, posted right at the end of the line of stalls to the right of the gymnasium. Chan watches as Hyunjin meets up with his clubmates, high-fiving them and livening up the group with his arrival. He stands there awkwardly at the corner of the booth table, not a single face even slightly familiar to him, when a member suddenly acknowledges him with stars in his eyes, “Chan-sunbaenim, I see Hyunjin brought you with him! Will you be auditioning?”
Before he can get a word in, Hyunjin approaches and interjects loudly, “Yes, he is!”
“Woah, so you can dance too, sunbae?” Chan snorts at the question — because he better be able to, if the more than a decade’s worth of idol experience counted for something.
“I'll try out when I can make the time,” Chan reassures, but he felt unsure. He felt that any decision for now was too major, like a snowflake that might urge the start of an avalanche, especially when he didn't quite have a full picture yet of the new life he was leading now.
Their attention shifts abruptly when someone out of Chan's line of sight shouts over the chatter, “Everybody, let's gather quickly! They'll call us shortly for our dry run.”
“Hyung, see you later!” Hyunjin pats a hand on his shoulder, “You can hang out at our booth while we go.” He waves a hand at Chan before he joins the others. They make their way around the back of the booth and towards the back of one of the side LEDs, presumably backstage.
As Chan listens to their overlapping talk fading with distance — about how they spent their break, about members who have not arrived, and about members who have been excused, about the stage outfits they planned to wear later — Chan couldn't help but feel lonely, especially as he watches Hyunjin mingle with the others, his cackling laugh still loud and audible from afar.
It's strange, seeing someone he spent so much of his life with, just living their life now on a separate plane from his. Because Chan didn't even seem to dance in this life, it seemed like the house they stayed at became the primary point of connection of their friendship. He doesn't notice when his lips slowly turn down into a frown — was it like this with Changbin, too? What did the three of them even talk about in that house? Do they ever talk about making music, and without Han?
The gymnasium was packed with people, and with the nearing noon, Chan felt stuffy. He takes off his coat and splays it over the back of a chair before he sits on the seat. He picks his phone from his pocket, sees his new reflection again on the off screen, and pushes the power to see the time: 10:49.
He stared at the unfamiliar faces of the people passing by, not feeling the passage of time. Just acclimating. Even with the background murmur of the crowd talking and walking all around him, enjoying time spent together and laughing at jokes made together, Chan wallowed alone in the quiet of the booth.
Unlike the calm in a dressing room after a concert — of a team fulfilled and satisfied after a long, long effort — this quiet felt more like the silence that followed, when everyone had already left to go home.
The quiet that followed after a passionate show of love and labor, the quiet that could only wait — suspended, stagnant and stale — yearning for a way to return back to those moments of passion, when life felt like living.
And Chan could only wallow. Because as things were, as different as they are now, Chan didn't know how to move forward now. He just felt stuck.
———
Not really knowing what to do from then on other than wondering when the hell Han would finally show his face around, Chan lingered quietly in the dance group's booth. He finally removes the cap he was wearing, feeling his head breathe from the lost tightness around it.
After a while, Chan raised his head to see the dance group, or what little he could see of them unconcealed from his view by the large LEDs to the side, up on the stage from where he sat. “Of course Hyunjin is the center,” he commented as he watched the guy take on the middle as they rehearsed through their choreography, adjusting their formation swiftly to the space around them.
He watched for a while as they marked their positions around the stage, and let out a sigh. He missed performing — technically not even a full day yet since the encore closing, but the thought that that kind of performance was so drastically out of reach for him now makes him miss it, so much that it makes him breathless from the heartache.
Eventually, the dry run has to cycle through the rest of the performers and Hyunjin's group is back at the booth. Chan is able to make some small talk with some of the group, before they all decide to start getting into their dance outfits.
“What did you have prepared, Hyunjin?”
“You'll see, hyung.” A short snicker follows.
And when they all go together backstage, bringing their bags and makeup kits with them, Chan is once again left to his own devices. Like his phone, for example, which he starts perusing. He figures he needs to know more about himself if he has to live this life now, and to discern the extent at which he can continue to live the life he knows.
“Wow…”, he catches himself to pause, “I'm trying to adjust a little too fast to all of this, aren't I?” This really was all getting too real, too fast.
It takes a long while of looking around — getting to know the names and faces of the contacts in KakaoTalk, putting to mind his weekly class schedule, and learning that he's actually a graduating BA Music Production student — all before he gets a glimpse of the time again: 11:57.
He turns in the direction of the backstage passage and sees one of the dance crew members walk in, with three or four plastic bags of food boxes hanging around his arms.
“Yah, are they eating a lot for lunch?! Oh—”
Chan turns around surprised at the sudden voice, and his eyes go wide when—
In a sweetly polite voice, “Ah, sunbaenim. Hello there.”
“Ah, Lee Know!” Not even a pause, even Chan could hear the shock and excitement in his own voice, a little louder than he wanted it to come out.
The other laughs meekly and replies, adjusting the gym bag hung over his shoulder, “Oh, it's actually Lee Min-ho.”
Chan, still surprised, stumbles on his words, “Oh, right! It's just—”
“No, no, it's fine! I don't mind!” And when he laughs just enough to show more of that bunny smile that he has, Chan couldn't help but be fond and smile back as well. He looked visibly younger than Chan anticipated, his frame slender and his hair unparted in the middle, all unlike how Lee Know was since Chan last saw him.
Chan doesn't even realize he was staring too long, when Minho cuts off the awkward silence, “Um, well, were you waiting for someone? Hyunjin?”
As if just brought back to reality, Chan blinks his eyes rapidly and replies, “Oh, I wasn't— Well, I came here with him to the booth today and now— Well, the dance crew was rehearsing, and so they just left me here.” Wow, if he stammered one more time…
Minho stares at him blankly for a while before he side-eyes the direction of the entrance backstage, “So they just left you here alone?”
Chan blinks for a beat, “Oh, no, it's fine!”
“No, sunbae! Not when you came for the booth!”
Minho looked like he was starting to get ticked off, and Chan could feel his own fondness increase. The way Minho's eyebrows dip, the way his lips curl down, all only serve to make his irritation look exaggerated against his boyish features, like how a cat still looks adorable even when it gets upset.
“Some things really just never change”, Chan thinks, and laughs at the thought, which surprises Minho. Now awkwardly laughing along, he asks, “Why? What's funny?”
“Nothing. You're just cute,” Chan softens the remark with a small laugh. Was that too soon a comment to make to someone you just started talking to?
“Sunbae, are you flirting with me?” Minho asks mischievously, a finger pointed to himself. Chan laughs bigger now, the front rows of his teeth visible to the other. Good thing Minho was easygoing about it.
“You can just call me hyung, Minho.”
After a pause and a closed smile, “Ok, hyung,” and Minho heaves the bag higher over his shoulder, “And you can call me Lee Know-sunbaenim after you audition then, okay?”
Chan laughs before replying, “First, I'll do my best in your tryouts then, Lee Know.” Lee Know shoots him an enthused double thumbs up.
“Well, I better get to them then. I'll bring them out here so you don't have to look so lonely in here.” Lee Know beams brightly and waves at Chan as he starts heading for the backstage, “See you later, hyung! You better watch the dance later!” Chan waves back until Minho disappears behind the LED screen.
He bows down at the ground and massages his face, finally starting to feel his face hurt from smiling too widely. Chan couldn't believe it — Lee Know was here! That makes a majority of Stray Kids students here in this university. And he was in the same dance group as Hyunjin — because of course he would be. Now that Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin and Han were just actually around the corner at this place, he wondered about the other—
“Yah, hyung, were you really lonely here?” Chan glances to the side and watches as Hyunjin jogs towards him in the booth, food box in hand, with three other members from the dance group walking to follow behind him. They all seemed to be wearing black in different clothing styles, are these their dance outfits?
“Sorry, sunbaenim. To think we really just left you here at the booth, to be on standby on our behalf…”, one of the members, Chunghee, says. Or was it Jung-hee? Chan feels lightheaded at the swirl of names in his head; it's just the first day, he'll remember better soon, he consoles himself internally.
Hyunjin dramatically squats at the ground by Chan's side, “I'll eat here with you, hyung.” He places his food box at Chan's lap and uncovers it, showing the half-finished portions inside.
A silence hovers as Hyunjin eats his food, the other members in a low chatter at the back. At some point, Hyunjin looks up and stares at Chan from the floor with his cheeks full, Chan just staring blankly right back.
When he finally swallows, Hyunjin's mouth hangs agape. “Wait, you don't have food with you?”
As if on cue, Chan's stomach audibly grumbles.
———
“Let's hurry! I don't want to be late!”
“You knew that and still insisted?!”
“Well, I felt guilty leaving you alone back then so I wanted to come with you!”
Hyunjin pouts as he brisk-walks through the crowd, dragging Chan behind him by the arm. The freshman orientation had adjourned for everyone to eat their lunch, and so he and Chan had a lot of people to wade through before they could get back to the gymnasium from the school cafeteria where they ate.
Hyunjin sighed as the entrance of the gymnasium became more visible to them. “It’s so hot! Was it this crowded at school last year?” Hyunjin anticipated an answer to that question at least, but Chan seemed to be quiet about it. Lately he just seemed so out of it that he didn't remember some things, but maybe he went through some cleansing or whatever old people do during the break.
“Well, maybe you're stuffy because of that outfit you're wearing,” Chan comments after a while, getting closer to Hyunjin so that they don't separate in the throes of people around them.
“It's not that stuffy, I opened the first two buttons!” Hyunjin was wearing a sheen button-up polo shirt that draped loosely over the turtleneck underneath. Although the two articles weren't particularly tight at all, his leather pants and boots definitely were. Maybe he wasn't so much as excited to dance as to get back to wearing something a little more airy.
“Just open it all the way down then.”
Hyunjin lets go of Chan's wrist and jokingly shields his body with his arms crossed in front. “What are you saying, hyung?” He makes a high laugh before Chan juts a finger hard to his side, making him jerk and yelp.
“You're such an idiot”, Chan laughs out right as they finally arrive at the empty booth. By empty, Hyunjin means “unmanned” — because although not a single member of the dance crew wasn't there, there seemed to be visitors looking around the papers splayed around on the front table.
“Hello, are you guys freshmen?” Hyunjin asks them from behind, which surprises them as they turn around. Some of the group seemed to shy away and quickly walked over to check the other booths to the side, but a few of them stayed behind and bowed in greeting.
“Oh, hello sunbaenim. Just looking around.”
“Yes, we wanted to see if we could join!”
“What ‘we’? No, just you.”
Hyunjin pulls Chan inside the booth, the latter settling quietly at the corner, as he continues the conversation with the freshmen from there, taking a seat on a chair nearby and leaning over the booth table, “That's all very good to hear! We'll be having tryouts soon as well, so…”
No one had actually briefed him on what to do when someone passed by and asked to audition, but he figured there was a form somewhere to record whoever showed interest to do so. Hyunjin skimmed through the papers and flyers on the table, to no avail. “Wait, let me find…”
“That's fine, sunbaenim! We'll just get back when you're already—”
“Hyunjin? What are you still doing over here?!” Startled, Hyunjin looks to the side and sees Minho approaching, his gym bag hanging low on his arm like he had been rushing to get here. “The program is about to start, idiot, go backstage now!”
“But, Minho-hyung, there are some people who want to try out,” Hyunjin gestures his hand to the guests on the other side of the booth, who all nod in greeting. One of them wearing an oversized hoodie under his coat points to the person beside him, “Uh, just him.”
Minho looks over before he smiles excitedly at them, “Oh, so we have new people now?” He turns to his gym bag to open it, and grabs a clipboard and a pen from inside. “Well, I'd like to make note of you guys down then.” He sets the items on the table and aligns his pointer finger to the top of the paper, “Just write your name and contact details here, so we can reach you about the tryouts.”
As one of them happily approaches to write down his name, Minho quickly turns to Hyunjin with a glare that's easy to miss with the customer service kind of smile he was giving, “And you? What are you still doing here? Get over there now.”
Hyunjin gulps timidly — wah, Minho can really get scary sometimes. You'd think from how much he's messing around that it'll be easy to forget how he's one of the heads of the dance group.
Now a little frantic, Hyunjin rises from the chair and turns to leave, “Yes, hyung! I'll go now so—”
“Hello, is Hwang Hyunjin here?” A small voice asks. What now?
Minho and Hyunjin abruptly shift their attention to someone out the booth, and the sudden silence prompts the others to look in that direction as well. Hyunjin can barely make out his face from the cap he was wearing.
“Oh, sorry, was I interrupting something?” The guy in the cap fidgets from the unexpected attention.
Minho raises a confused eyebrow at Hyunjin, whose brain was still processing before he finally thinks, “Oh, right, he was looking for me.” Hyunjin clears his throat and replies, “Uh, can I help you? I'm kind of in a rush, so…”
When the other raises his head enough to talk, such that Hyunjin could now see his full cheeks and his doe eyes, he says, “Ah, I was checking in for the shared lodging?” The statement ends with a rising pitch like a question, like he wasn't sure it was something Hyunjin needed to hear right now.
“Oh, you're— ” Hyunjin points at him with widened eyes, trying to remember his name. “Jisung! Right?” Please be correct please be correct please be cor—
“Yeah!” Jisung smiles meekly.
“Perfect!” Hyunjin claps his hands excitedly, “Good thing I brought someone who can talk with you about it.” He turns on his heels and nudges Chan behind him, “Chan-hyung, it's Jisung.”
After a very brief pause, Chan replies breathlessly, as if not thinking straight, “Yeah, I can't believe it.” Hyunjin narrows his eyes — was there something about this that was even remotely unbelievable? Was having a new housemate unbelievable?
Because it seemed like even Hyunjin was stuck thinking about it, Minho sighs and interjects — as considerably polite as Hyunjin could imagine Minho could be, like he's really, really trying — “Chan-hyung, you've been staring into space since I got here. Can we have you to talk with Jisung-ssi over here, so Hyunjin can go?”
As if just now comprehending the situation, Chan nods, “Oh.” Looking over at Hyunjin's expectant look, Chan lets out a fake cough before replying, “Sure, sure,” to which Hyunjin makes a silent “Yes!” in relief.
Hyunjin quickly turns his attention back to Jisung, pulling Chan forward and patting his back, “Jisung, this is Chan-hyung, one of the other guys I live with. You can chat with him about the house, okay?”
Jisung replies with a relieved groan, his hands clasped together, “Thank you so much for meeting with me. You won't believe how much this helps me, really.”
Beside him, one of the freshmen suddenly exclaims, “Yah, Lix, why did you write down my name?”
“And my name?”
“Hehehehe.”
———
Chan hadn't expected to become overwhelmed at all, but he hadn't expected to see them all this soon as well (for some reason). On top of things just happening way too fast—
“Well, that's too bad for you now—”, Lee Know giggles and turns the clipboard to face him, “Kim Seungmin-ssi and Yang Jeongin-ssi, you'll have to try out with Lee— ” Lee Know squints, and in an unsure voice, continues: “Lee Pillikseu-ssi.”
Seungmin tries to protest, “But— Sunbaenim, I don't dance well!”
Lee Know laughs fondly, “Oh, so you do dance then?” Felix laughs at the remark, smacking Seungmin at the shoulder lightly.
Jeongin tries to protest as well, rubbing at his earlobe with his finger, “Well, I don't dance at all.”
Lee Know leans from behind the table to pat him on the shoulder, his smile growing more catlike, “There's still time to practice.”
Felix, happier than ever with a smile as radiant as Chan always remembers it being, hooks himself in arms between Seungmin and Jeongin. Vibrating from excitement, he proclaims, “We'll practice for it together!”, earning groans from the other two.
At some point, as if the moment itself needed time to process, Chan looks at the scene before him in slow motion. Han and Hyunjin are starting to wave each other goodbye, while Seungmin and Jeongin continue trying to reason with Lee Know so they can back out, all to Felix's chagrin.
Maybe it's because the others looked so much younger than when Chan had last separated with them on the hotel hallways, all before they each went to their own rooms. Or maybe — most probably — it’s because he really thought that he would never, ever see some of them again. But, wow, seeing them all like this in one place… He really missed being with them, didn't he? They'd have been completely eight here if only—
Hyunjin starts to walk out as he yells over his shoulder, “Bye, hyung, I'll get going now so—”
And the gymnasium suddenly goes dark. The crowd of people inside screams loudly in surprise, and yet all Chan can hear is Hyunjin's own shrill yelp. Has there been a blackout?
Chan reaches a hand out into the darkness until he can feel the cloth of Hyunjin’s polo shirt, “Hyunjin, you have to calm down.” With his other hand, he feels at his coat pockets for his phone so he could turn its flashlight on.
“Hyunjin-ah!” With the darkness heightening up all other senses, Lee Know's shout sounds more booming than necessary, especially since in the small of the booth, they were all actually not more than three steps away from each other. “You really have to get going now, the program is starting, you idiot!”
Chan finally finds his phone and quickly has its torch on, “Borrow my phone for a while so you can find your way up there, Hyunjin!”
“Thank you, hyung!” Hyunjin whines in gratitude before grabbing the phone and running away without a second thought. Chan shouts in his general direction, “Break a leg!”
Chan looks over at the booth front and watches as their booth guests frantically try to turn on their phone lights too. Chan couldn't help but be in awe as he looks over at the crowd of people behind them finally starting to become like a body of light, as everyone slowly turns the flashlights of their phones on. When Han has his phone finally glowing in the dark — the last among the six of them — Chan is reminded of the sea of lights at Incheon, the audience at the time singing just as loud as all the confused muttering around them right now.
Lee Know looks at his watch and clicks his tongue. Chan wonders — Is something the matter? Is he in a hurry, too? Suddenly, the large LED screens come to life, but only in that dull glow when the screen has nothing but black to show.
After a brief pause of thinking, Lee Know pulls on Chan's wrist and brings him to the table where the others were. With a glint in his eye, he leans in towards the younger ones and asks, “Do you guys want to see something cool that we do here?”
Felix nods excitedly, while Seungmin, trying to talk over the crowd that he's almost shouting, asks apprehensively as he leans over as well, “What is it?” Chan was wondering now, too.
Lee Know smiles wider now, and after grabbing his gym bag from the ground, he runs out the booth towards the others with Chan in tow. He gestures to them with the other hand holding his phone with the light on, and addresses them in a low voice, now audible — barely — from the proximity, “Follow me. Consider this my way of convincing you guys to join us.” The sound of a microphone feedback crackles through the speakers of the gymnasium, which prompts a few screams from the crowd.
The freshmen all look at each other in varying degrees of anticipation, as if considering the request. Lee Know looks over at Han and lets out that familiar bunny smile, “You, too. It'll be fun.”
“Me?” Han points at himself. His flashlight makes dark shadows against his cap that completely covers his eyes, and yet Chan swears he could still see the confusion in them.
Lee Know manages to let out a sweet laugh, and strengthens his grip around Chan's wrist, “Let's go then? We don't have much time now.”
Without warning, Lee Know dashes through the crowd, and Chan tries to keep up with his pace. Looking behind them, he sees the other four following closely, dodging through the people as they jog. In the dimly lit gymnasium, he could make out Seungmin’s and Jeongin's bemused expressions, like they were unsure why they were going through with this at all.
What was Lee Know going to show them, Chan wondered. They didn't even seem to be running in the direction of the stage; they seemed to be getting farther away from it. What about dancing was Lee Know trying to convince them with here?
Oh, are they going to watch?
Their pace slows as they squeeze through the multitude of people, now gathering as an audience as they flock to the stage. He looks back to check on the others, and grins when he sees that they have quickly caught up to them, now that they weren't really running.
A spotlight finally dawns on a figure onstage, and Chan watches the LED screens blare more brightly, the camera starting off blurry as it tries to refocus on the singular person standing. The anticipation swells in the crowd, squealing and howling with their arms up in the air. The program must really be starting now.
When they finally appear on the steps to a narrow makeshift platform of sorts, comparably uncrowded than the space around it, Chan looks on as Lee Know makes his way up to converse with the personnel on-scene. As they walk the steps slowly, Chan could see a large professional stage camera and a hand-on spotlight, wires going to and fro from all around them.
“Yeah, they're with me.” Lee Know points at all of them, looking over as if waiting for a signal from him. After an approving murmur from the staff, who then makes a brisk departure, Lee Know gestures for them to come up with him.
Chan doesn't miss the look of awe at the others as they run up to the top, and when he leans onto the railings, he sees that they were considerably well above the heads of the mass of people. They were in the middle camera platform — considerably the most panoramic view of the stage, of all the crowd and the LEDs.
Lee Know laughs as he positions himself behind the camera, “Now you get to enjoy the best view of the performances with me!”
Felix and Jeongin follow Chan to the railings in glee, while Han and Seungmin hang back in wonder. And in this view, Chan doesn't know how he would've missed it — maybe in their move towards the platform — but the camera really has finally focused on the emcee onstage in full detail. And Chan, for the nth time this day alone, feels his eyes widen and his mouth slack agape at the display of the large screens — or rather, at who is on display.
From the speakers is that familiar raspy voice, thunderous and commanding in its sheer presence as it bellows around the venue when he shouts, “Good afternoon, everybody! Are you all ready to rumble?!”
Lee Know giggles as he fiddles with the camera and tucks an eye behind the eyepiece, before shouting like he'd been waiting for this moment all day.
“Changbin-ah!”