Chapter Text
Keeho isn't sure when it became second nature to let his eyes roam across every room, looking for a small head, feline eyes, and large hands. He isn't sure when he started noticing such things either. Somewhere along the way, Jiung began carving himself a space inside of Keeho, a place where he nestles right next to Keeho's heart, bumping into all the wrong places.
Maybe it all began before they even debuted as a group, back when P1Harmony as it is now was nothing more than a mere idea, a possibility. Back then, it was a known fact that the only ones set to debut were Jiung and Intak, and Keeho was conflicted—part of him was envious of their certainty, felt that it was unfair that they had already received their "yes" when they were no more talented than anyone else, and yet, part of him was just glad to be considered for the final lineup, even if it all came down to a "maybe," then eventually a "no."
Keeho couldn't help the way his gaze followed the younger boy back then, tracking his every move in the mirrors of the practice room. He noticed the way the younger seemed to bounce with every step, dancing giddily even as the choreography strained his joints, a sheen of sweat covering his skin. The moves seemed to come to him naturally—their dance instructor demonstrated them once, sometimes twice, and he replicated it almost perfectly on his first try.
In comparison, Keeho struggled to keep up. He could blend in with the others, dance as if he was a natural at it, and smile through the exhaustion, but no amount of silent suffering would ever compensate for the fact that he wasn't. Even if the others didn't notice how challenging the choreography was for him, he knew, and that was enough for something ugly to bloom inside of him.
Envy was a very, very ugly thing. It hardened parts of him that used to be soft—made him snappy, bitter, spiteful. His relationship with Jiung was nothing like Jiung's friendship with Intak. Whereas Jiung laughed and bounced around Intak, he was reserved and amicable at best with Keeho. Whereas Jiung walked with Intak to their rapping class, chatting animatedly and bumping shoulders with him, he offered Keeho no more than a small, polite smile and a nod as their eyes met.
Keeho used to believe their relationship could’ve improved back when they were roommates, but all that sharing a space did was give him more of an opportunity to harbor negative feelings for the other. Even after Keeho had already received his own "yes" from the company, the thorn-covered vines didn't cease wrapping around his ribs and lungs. Every time Jiung was reprimanded by their vocal instructor, Keeho felt the spikes grow sharper. 'He might be better at dancing, but he's okay at rapping and singing at most,' was a recurring thought in his mind.
The thorns liked to reveal themselves when both boys were back in their room, where they were away from the world outside their bedroom walls, away from the pressure of being trainees. Even then, the thorns would twitch and poke at Keeho's lungs, resentment clawing its way up his throat with every snappy comment he sent Jiung's way.
"I don't understand why you can't just turn that light off," said Jiung, his fingers clasped tightly around his own covers, jaw set.
"This room is as much yours as it is mine," Keeho snapped back. "I don't understand how my lamp being on can bother you this much. Just fucking go to sleep."
"I can't! It's too bright!"
"Well, sucks for you then," Keeho replied in English, already reaching for his earbuds. Just as his fingers wrap around the case, though, he hears rustling behind him and then a hand is grabbing at his wrist.
"Don't," Jiung's voice was tight, as if it had been punched out of him. His fingers clenched around Keeho's wrist, a testament to how affected he was.
"Let go of me," Keeho tried pulling his wrist away, but Jiung's hold on him tightened. "I don't care if you can't go to sleep. If you're so bothered then go sleep somewhere else!"
"Didn't you say this room is as much mine as it is yours? Then how come you can't just turn off your light? How is it that I'm the only one trying not to be bothersome?"
"Excuse me?" Keeho stands up abruptly from his bed, making Jiung stumble backwards as a result. "You're complaining about me keeping my lamp on, but did I ever complain about you coming back to our room at midnight? If you were such a great roommate, then I wouldn't have woken up yesterday at one in the fucking morning!"
Jiung's eyes widen at his words, and he flounders for a second, unsure of what to say. Keeho feels a deep satisfaction at this, feeling justified in his anger and like a weight's been lifted off his shoulders.
“Why didn't you say anything? I didn't know I was bothering you," Jiung's voice was small now, as if it were retracting back into himself.
"Because not everybody is as uptight and irritable as you," he spits out, already putting one of his earbuds in. “Why even bother practicing so far into the night? It’s not like it’ll make that much of a difference.”
Keeho wishes he could say he felt remorse at seeing the other's expression crumble, but as Jiung retreated back to his own bed, Keeho just felt triumphant.
Although both boys tried to act as natural as possible following this argument, there was still a noticeable tension between them. The other members noticed, it was impossible not to. It was evident in the way both grimaced when their manager suggested going out for dinner barely two days later, in the way they sat at opposite ends of the restaurant booth, and how they avoided eye contact and refused to include one another in conversation around the table.
“What's wrong with you?” Taeyang asked bluntly, quiet enough that only Keeho heard it.
They were seated next to one another, with Keeho sitting next to the wall. Jiung was at the opposite side of the booth, seated at the very end of the bench with Intak to his right. Keeho had raised an eyebrow questioningly at how he had stood by, letting everyone else sit first before taking the last spot as his. As far as Keeho knew, Jiung hated that spot and much preferred to sit by the wall, so he had expected the younger to sit across from him instead.
“What do you mean?” Keeho took another bite of his food, avoiding eye contact with Taeyang and preferring to look down at the table instead.
“You know what I mean,” Taeyang rolled his eyes, kicking him under the table as he hissed out: “Are you two fighting? This close to our debut? Really?”
Keeho gulped, feeling guilt creep up his throat for the first time in a while. “It's not my fault.”
“Sure it isn't. A fight is rarely one-sided, especially when it involves you,” he sighs, putting his chopsticks down. “You two can be really immature sometimes. Aren't we supposed to be the hyungs? Why are you two fighting like children?”
“He just gets on my nerves,” Keeho admits lamely, feeling his neck burn with shame. He ignores the disappointed look Taeyang sends his way and eats with a single-minded determination, his eyes not once leaving his bowl.
He had considered talking to Jiung–not apologizing, no, just talking–and tried to muster up the courage to say something whenever they were both alone, but Taeyang is right–he can be immature sometimes. All it takes is one praise directed at Jiung and he's back to square one, drowning in his own resentment, the vines moving higher and higher up his ribs until they’re wrapped tightly around his throat. He couldn't bring himself to talk to the other boy knowing he didn't regret any of what he’d said. What's the point, if it would just lead up to another argument?
He risks a glance his way as he takes another bite, expecting Jiung to be just as focused on his own meal, but it seems like he just had the exact same idea as Keeho. Jiung’s eyes widen a fraction as their eyes meet and he begins to pull his gaze away when Keeho starts to choke embarrassingly loud around his mouthful of rice, making it quite impossible for anybody to look away.
“Genuinely, what is wrong with you?” Comes Taeyang’s exasperated response, inching his bowl away from the coughing boy.
Keeho is too busy hitting at his own chest to give that a proper reaction, trying to simultaneously free his airways and crawl into a hole, never to be seen again. His vision has gone blurry from tears, but he still sees something that resembles the shape of a hand reaching out to him from his right. The hand grabs at his wrist, stopping him from hitting his chest and a cup of water is unceremoniously shoved into it.
“Drink this. It'll help.”
Of course. Of course it'd be Jiung offering him water.
Keeho hesitates for no more than a second before taking generous gulps of it until he feels the rice go down his throat. He finally looks over at Jiung once more when he no longer feels like his soul is being ripped out of his body, and his eyebrows furrow at the concern in his eyes.
“Thanks,” resentful as he may be, he still has enough manners to thank someone for their help.
He can feel his face burning, and it gets progressively worse as he finally takes note of the dreadful silence that's fallen over their booth. One glance around and he sees both Intak and Jongseob looking like they're trying not to bust a lung, meanwhile Shota just keeps chewing at his food, although his eyes definitely show a hint of concern, or pity–maybe both.
“Sure,” is Jiung’s reply. Simple, straight to the point; dinner goes on.
Back at their room, Keeho tries not to think back on dinner, tries to ignore the feeling in his gut telling him to say something–apologize, screams the voice inside of him, loud enough to be heard but still too small to actually be listened to. The silence in their shared bedroom is suffocating, and Keeho can only take so much of it before cracking, the vines around his ribs unfurling the slightest bit.
“Hey…” Keeho cringes at his own voice. He sounds a little too unsure for someone who wanted to talk so badly just a moment ago. Jiung hums noncommittally, but Keeho notices the way his shoulders jump. “Thank you.”
“Is this about dinner?” Keeho hums. “You don't have to thank me. All I did was hand you some water.”
“Still,” he fidgets with the hem of his sleep shirt, looking at the foot of his bed instead of the boy across the room. “Thank you.”
Jiung sighs, closing the notebook he was writing on and placing it on his nightstand. “What do you really want to say, Keeho?”
“I don't know,” he admits, feeling a little like a child. He still doesn't regret what he said, but he feels as though it's not fair that he gets to insult someone and still get help from them. “I feel weird.”
“You are weird,” he switches his light off, turning his back to Keeho as he starts settling down for sleep. “You don't want to apologize, and yet you can't just leave me be” he scoffs, “you're probably the weirdest person I know.”
Keeho laughed. He doesn’t know what came over him at that moment, but for some strange reason, Jiung’s words were the most amusing thing he’d heard the entire day. Jiung himself seemed startled by his reaction, looking at him with an odd expression—something akin to wry amusement.
Maybe Jiung is right and he is weird.
The following weeks were easier on the entire group as Keeho and Jiung no longer avoided each other like the plague. Despite the fact that neither had brought up their fight, nor had either of them apologized for it, the tension between them had still lessened. They weren’t on good terms by any means, but they were better. This, however, proved to be short-lived.
As the days went by and they slowly approached their debut, things gradually started falling into place. P1Harmony is what they’d been told would be their group name. “Plus one harmony—one group assembled to achieve infinitely many harmonies,” is what their CEO had told them, to be exact. It was also during that same meeting that each member had received their official positions for the group.
Keeho - vocalist.
Theo - vocalist.
Jiung - vocalist, rapper, dancer.
Intak - rapper, dancer.
Soul - rapper, dancer.
Jongseob - rapper, dancer.
Keeho tries to ignore the sting as they read out his singular role. Listening as they call out “vocalist” shouldn’t feel like a slap to the face. It’s what he’s been aiming for, no? It’s what he’s been training relentlessly for, what he traded sleep for so many times—countless times. Still, as they call out Jiung’s positions, the sting only burns hotter. Everyone looks satisfied with what they were assigned, and it’s not like he’s the only one with a singular position. Taeyang is also just a vocalist, and yet he doesn’t seem like he’s getting all torn up over it like Keeho is. What is wrong with him?
Keeho’s hand is restless under the table, playing with the frayed ends of his ripped jeans and rubbing at his knee as if to soothe himself. Envy, guilt, disappointment—all of it burns inside of him, rolling and folding over itself inside of his stomach as nausea threatens to make him keel over right where he is, meeting be damned. He barely registers it as his name gets called again.
“—come to the conclusion that you’re the best fit for the role of leader. This position comes with great responsibility, therefore we hope you’ll treat it seriously and strive to do better each and every day. May your leadership bring P1Harmony to even greater heights, Yoon Keeho.”
The world comes to a halt at the CEO’s words. Suddenly, every nauseating feeling that’d been gnawing at Keeho’s insides vanishes and is replaced by confusion.
“I’m the leader?” He asks dumbly, floundering like a fish out of water. “Really?”
“Yes, why?” The CEO raises an eyebrow questioningly, as if daring him to deny the responsibility placed on him.
Keeho just shakes his head, his ears shining a bright red. “It’s nothing, sorry,” he brings his hands together and bows to the CEO and staff, offering them a shaky smile. “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”
The CEO seems pleased by his response, nodding approvingly. Everyone else wears the same placid expression, as if this outcome had been expected. Why is no one surprised? Had it really been that obvious that he’d be chosen for this role? Why was he chosen?
Keeho glances around the room when his gaze lands on Jiung, whose jaw is set and eyes are glued to the floor. His shoulders are pulled taut, and he looks two seconds away from exploding.
‘Oh,’ Keeho thinks to himself, ‘he’s upset.’
Keeho’s grin curls over his lips slowly, and it’s like Jiung can sense the ugliness in him, turning his head to the side sharply and immediately locking eyes with him. Jiung squints at him, and Keeho’s grin grows even bigger at the barely restrained anger behind those eyes.
Keeho’s grin doesn’t leave him for a long time. The members look at him funny, Taeyang even asks him what’s wrong (Keeho guesses he already knows, though, judging by his frustrated tone), but Keeho pays them no mind. He felt good, like he had finally been favored by the company.
The trip back to the dorms is accompanied by an unusual bounce to his step. He is so elated he doesn’t do anything for the rest of the day except reminisce on all the times he’s felt envious of Jiung for having an advantage over him. He was a good singer, but Jiung also knew how to rap. He was a good dancer, but Jiung was even better and even knew how to freestyle. ‘Jiung isn’t the leader, though,’ he reassures himself, dabbing his moisturizer into his skin as he gets ready for bed.
Just as he’s finishing up capping all his products back up, the bedroom door bangs open and Jiung storms inside, stomping his way over to his bed and not even sparing Keeho a glance. Keeho knows he’s upset, but he’s still startled by the sheer anger radiating off of him. It seems… excessive, in a way.
“What’s your problem?” Keeho’s voice is dripping with judgement, and it comes off more as an exclamation than an actual question.
Jiung, for his part, only glances at him briefly before burying himself under his covers. “Fuck off.”
Keeho’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open. “Excuse me?” He starts for the other’s bed, feeling his own anger taking over. “What is wrong with you? Are you really this mad that they chose me as the leader?”
“Fuck off, Keeho. I mean it,” Jiung pulls his covers tightly around his shoulders, burying his face into his pillow.
Keeho doesn’t let him leave it at that, though, and grabs his shoulder, turning him on to his back roughly. Jiung squawks at being manhandled and grabs at Keeho’s wrist, tugging it off of his shoulder just as roughly. It doesn’t take them much longer to start throwing punches, hitting at one another blindly, acting on nothing but instinct and frustration.
“Fuck you!” Exclaims Jiung, grabbing a fistful of Keeho’s hair and pulling. If Keeho weren’t actively trying to pry the boy’s fingers open while simultaneously kicking at him in order to get him off of his torso, he would’ve been shocked by the fact that Jiung fights dirty.
Keeho isn’t too sure of how long they were fighting for, but by the time they finally released one another, he had sore ribs, an aching scalp and a split lip. He’s leaning against Jiung’s bed, his chest heaving up and down from exertion, and Jiung himself isn’t faring any better—his left cheekbone is bruised and although his torso is covered, Keeho knows for a fact that his sides are beginning to bruise too from all of the kicking he’d done.
“They called me back to the meeting room,” Jiung breaks the silence, pausing mid-sentence to catch his breath. “They wanted to talk about you—us.”
”Huh?” Is Keeho’s dumbfounded response, utterly confused by what he’d just heard.
“Apparently the leader was either going to be you or me… they ended up choosing you, but they wanted to let me know that I’m still needed,” he scoffs, snapping his head away and staring out the window. “They want me to help you.”
“So what? There’s two leaders now?” Indignation flares inside of Keeho. So much for wanting to have the upper hand for once.
“No,” Jiung rolls his eyes, as if Keeho is stupid for not understanding yet what he means. “Your role is to lead the group, and apparently mine is to help you not get too stressed or overwhelmed.”
‘Well, that doesn’t make it any better,’ he thinks. He doesn’t know what exactly he said after that, but he knows that they both stayed up well into the morning going back and forth over this very topic. Neither apologized and their talk consisted mainly of curses and insults, but they still agreed on taking this—whatever it could possibly be—seriously as to not affect the group. Their debut was just around the corner; they couldn’t risk ruining it all just because they were unwilling to cooperate with one another. If not for themselves, then for their dreams and for the other members. They got various disapproving looks later once they arrived at the company for their album recording, as well as a firm scolding from their manager, which definitely helped them agree on a truce, too.
Looking back at how terrible they had been to each other in the past, Keeho remains dumbfounded by all of the growth their relationship has experienced throughout the years. It was all so slow and gradual that it felt natural to go from barely tolerating the younger man to purposely seeking him out every chance he got, his eyes bouncing from person to person until they landed on the right one.
Present-day Keeho now stares at himself in horror after catching himself smiling fondly at Jiung’s antics—most importantly, after noticing an odd, warm sensation spreading across his chest at the sight of the other man.
‘What the fuck,’ is all that crosses his mind as he watches all the color drain from his face. He doesn’t fully understand what’s going on yet, but he knows that independent of what it is, he is utterly and absolutely fucked.