Chapter Text
Seungcheol doesn’t tend to think too much about fate.
He knows the basics of it, of course — his parents met entirely by chance at a university seminar. They’d been assigned the same seat, and Seungcheol’s mother apparently fought tooth and nail to claim it. The rest had been history.
That was the extent of his experiences with fate. After enough red wine to make them sentimental, his parents used to tell him that fate had brought him into this world. Thus far, he isn’t sure he can forgive it.
He certainly isn’t thinking about fate after hours of straight rehearsing, when his ears are ringing from the crash of his own cymbals and the wood grain of his drumsticks are stamped into his palms.
What he is thinking about, though, is the crate of beers tucked under a coat rack upstairs. The studios are all basement rooms, hot with mildew and dust, and Seungcheol found the slightly damp walls upstairs functioned as a kind of lukewarm ice cooler.
The thought of one of those bottles — cold-ish, bitter, something to settle the hum still rattling through his bones — is the first clean desire he’s had in hours.
They’re for later. An after-rehearsal treat he has to wait to indulge in. Soonyoung tunes his guitar; Hansol frowns over a chord change in one of their newer songs. It’s the same routine as always, a quiet thrum they've followed for months now.
So when the basement door slams open, thick and heavy and creaking with lack of use, Seungcheol nearly jumps out of his skin.
Changwoo is red. Red and sweaty, his tie pulled loose in a knot across his chest as though he’d been strangling himself with it all the way down the stairs. He storms into the room without warning, his gaze hot and fierce as it lands on Seungcheol’s bemused face.
“Are you happy now?” Changwoo snaps. It echoes through the room, stilling Soonyoung’s hands over his strings. It’s a surprise it doesn’t thrum against the amps scattered across the room. Maybe they could sample the sound for backing on their next track.
For a moment, Seungcheol just blinks at him. Perspiration tickles the back of his neck, his brain thick with sludge as he tries to think of anything he could have done in the last hour to piss Changwoo off to such a degree.
He draws a blank, though, and just tips his head to the side.
That only pisses Changwoo off more. He huffs, striding towards Seungcheol with his fists clenched. If he weren’t a head shorter than Seungcheol and predisposed to high cholesterol, Seungcheol might almost feel threatened.
Instead, his eyes just widen slightly as he takes in Changwoo’s creased shirt and sweat-slicked face. His phone hangs precariously from his blazer pocket, screen glowing white through the thin material.
He can’t make out the full contact photo from where he’s sitting, but a flash of long platinum hair glares up at him, and Seungcheol suddenly remembers they’re missing a member.
Something uneasy tugs at him. He cuts through Changwoo’s huffs with a quiet hum of understanding.
“Jeonghan.”
At the mention of his name, Changwoo only grows redder. It’s a miracle steam doesn’t start blowing from his ears.
He bares his teeth, yellowed from tobacco and too much black coffee. “Yes.” He hisses. “Jeonghan.”
Jeonghan and Seungcheol fought every tour. It was a constant, given element of the band travelling anywhere, and everyone around them — both the other members and the crew — knew that if the two were left alone in a room for too long, somebody would start a row.
Which is why when Jeonghan stormed out of rehearsal a mere twenty minutes in earlier this evening, Seungcheol hadn’t thought much of it. Just like he hadn’t thought much of the microphone lobbed at his head, or the fact Jeonghan had cursed out every member individually and then unloaded a scathing tirade towards Seungcheol before leaving the tight studio with a slam of the door.
“Where is he?” Soonyoung chimes in, guitar now resting across his thighs, it’s tuning momentarily abandoned. “He walked out over an hour ago.”
It’s a relief when Changwoo’s gaze is temporarily diverted. Seungcheol lets out a full breath as Changwoo’s eyeline drifts towards Soonyoung, the glower on his face ever prevalent.
“He left.”
It’s Hansol who pipes up now. He’s frowning, his bass discarded behind him. He’s slouched down in a battered armchair to Seungcheol’s right like he’s got front row seats to some off-Broadway stage show.
“Left?” He asks. “What do you mean, left?”
Sweat is prickling at Seungcheol’s temples, guilt thrumming through his fingertips. He picks up his sticks again, just so he has something to do with his hands.
Changwoo doesn’t pay him any mind. “Left the band. Left the city. Left the country. Who fucking cares? He’s gone. Walked out.”
Hansol blinks at him. His mouth opens like he wants to say something, but upon seeing the now almost-purple hue of Changwoo’s skin, he seems to think better of it.
Soonyoung isn’t so smart. “He’ll come back.” He says, ever the optimist. “He does this all the time.”
“Yeah,” Seungcheol adds, trying to ignore the dampness coating his palms. “He’s just being dramatic.”
The look Changwoo gives him next could strip paint. He turns sharply, glowering at Seungcheol with such a rage that Seungcheol shrinks, cowering behind his kit like it may hide him.
“Is that so?” He snaps. “Because funnily enough, he said he’d rather burn his passport than walk back into a room with you in it. And that was before he threw his shoe at me and called me a coward and a sellout.”
For a moment, the room just hums quietly. The distant thrum of a fan whirring in the distance, a faint thud of heavy metal from the band practicing in the room opposite, and Changwoo’s heavy breathing.
Seungcheol’s never been any good at being scolded. He lost count of the amount of detentions he received for talking back in school. Several teachers refused to even have him in their classrooms.
He can feel that same rise of indignance rising up in him again. But it isn’t Changwoo’s stern gaze that triggers it — no, it’s Soonyoung — who turns to Seungcheol with such a strong disappointment that he looks almost close to tears.
“Tour starts tomorrow.” Soonyoung mutters, more to the floor than anyone in particular. He drops his gaze down to his guitar, fingers tightening around the neck of it like he’s considering ways to use it as a weapon.
Changwoo slumps into a chair with a nod, pulling out a cigarette and placing it between his lips like it could save him. The no-smoking signs scattered around the room can do nothing but watch as he lights it.
“That was my response.” He tells Soonyoung. He draws on the cigarette again as he relives the conversation, and shakes his head with a scowl. “He asked me to postpone it.”
Hansol perks up once more, his mind surely aching with unanswered questions. He hasn’t been with them long enough to experience this, yet. Seungcheol and Soonyoung were seasoned experts.
“Will you postpone it?”
Changwoo scoffs, smoke curling around his head like he were the remnants of a bonfire. “Of course not. I told him to go fuck himself.”
Hansol’s eyes go impossibly round. They flick towards Soonyoung, who is rubbing circles into his forehead as if to soothe a headache. If the headache were a physical being, Seungcheol’s sure it would be vaguely Changwoo-shaped.
He doesn’t pay them any mind. Seungcheol’s grip of his sticks is so tight he can almost hear the wood creaking beneath his fingers. He barely feels it. His skin is hot all over.
“So it wasn’t my fault.” He snaps, jaw tight. “It was yours."
The speed in which Changwoo’s expression shifts is almost comedic. His entire face contorts into something otherworldly — a comic book villain finally being unmasked. He stands, jabbing his cigarette in Seungcheol’s direction threateningly.
“Mine?” He exclaims. “It’s you! It’s always you! Your attitude. Your drumming. Your arrogance and your fucking… pig-headedness! Don’t think I don’t know who’s at the root of all these problems, Seungcheol. I get told more than you think.”
Seungcheol’s drumsticks clatter against the linoleum. For a moment, he isn’t sure what stings more — Changwoo’s words, or the slice of his cymbal cutting against his right arm in his haste to move out of the way of his kit.
It isn’t Changwoo that Seungcheol is aiming for, though. He scowls in Soonyoung’s direction, cheeks burning with hurt at Changwoo’s inference. Soonyoung just blinks at him. Then, briefly, his head shakes. A silent don’t that has Seungcheol turning on his heel and aiming for the exit.
Changwoo doesn’t falter as Seungcheol nudges past him. He’s shorter than him, but sharply dressed and stern — a harsh contrast compared to Seungcheol’s track pants and faded band tee, but Seungcheol has a fire in his chest now — one that isn’t easily doused.
“Well,” he snaps. All the eyes in the room are on him, and his cheeks burn.
It always got like this before a tour, tempers frayed from exhaustion, from nerves, and Seungcheol couldn’t pretend he wasn’t affected. “If it’s all my fault, as you say, I guess it’s up to me to fix.”
Changwoo’s leering good luck with that is lost in the slamming of wood against metal as the lock crunches shut behind Seungcheol’s back.
His hands are shaking as he climbs the stairs out of the dingy basement. They quiver as he tears open the crate of beers by the entrance, fingers trembling against two of the bottles as he slams the caps off of both of them. The receptionist doesn’t bat an eyelid as they click open the front door for him, his arms filled with lager and his free hand pounding angrily at his phone.
A number he didn’t realise he had memorised, punched clumsily into his contacts. When the night air hits his face, he takes a long sip from one of the beers and hastily presses call. Before he can change his mind. Before the fear can bypass the adrenaline.
It’s early summer, and the warm night air against his skin doesn’t do anything to alleviate the flush of fury. He crouches down by the side of the building, his hands damp with perspiration as he desperately rubs at his bleary eyes.
His phone ringer drones on by his side, the contact name cutting a bright white across his irises. With a trembling breath, he takes another sip of his beer. On the final ring he reaches for it, a curse on the tip of his tongue.
The line connects.
A crackle of static. The hum of an empty street. Then, a voice he would recognise even deaf.
“What do you want?” It snaps, tearing impatiently through the speakers before Seungcheol can even think of an answer.
For a moment, Seungcheol worries he may throw up in the middle of the street. He blinks, the ground spinning in front of him as saliva floods his mouth.
But no, he swallows down the sensation, pulling the phone timidly to his ear and staring at a scrawl of graffiti on the building opposite.
“Jeonghan’s gone.” He whispers finally. He swigs from the beer again, breathing in deeply through his nose.
“Gone?” the voice echoes, raspy with sleep. “Gone where? Really, Seungcheol, if you’ve woken me up to tell me he’s died, I’d rather you’d waited for the morning —”
“He’s left the band,” Seungcheol cuts in, the words fraying at the edges. “We need a singer.”
Another irritated huff. For a split second, Seungcheol braces for the click of a call ending.
Instead —
“Well, I’m a bassist. Have you tried Seungkwan?”
At that, Seungcheol scoffs outright, pulling the phone away from his ear so he can snarl directly into the mic.
“Don’t play dumb, Jihoon. This is serious.”
He can almost see Jihoon glowering through the speakers. “I’m playing dumb?” He snaps. “This has nothing to do with me anymore. You’ve just woken me up in the middle of the night to complain about something that you probably caused.”
There’s a rustle of bedsheets on the other end as he speaks, and Seungcheol’s guilt creeps in. Jihoon is a terrible sleeper, always has been. Tossing and turning until exhaustion finally dragged him under. Seungcheol has watched it a thousand times.
He bites down another jibe, ignoring the comment about Jeonghan with a grit of his teeth. He doesn’t want to beg — really, he doesn’t — but he has no other choice.
“Jihoon,” he starts, softer this time, swallowing down the ache that comes from saying his name, “you wrote most of the damn songs. You probably know the setlist backwards.”
The line hums again for a moment, like his phone is also considering his words.
Then, with that same stubborn jilt —
“Still a bassist.”
Seungcheol cups a hand over the mic as he lets out one long, irritated breath. He drains his bottle and picks up the second one, wiping the sweat off of his furrowed brow with the back of his hand.
“You’ve got the best voice of anyone I know.” He insists. “Hell, Jeonghan used to be terrified you’d replace him one day. I don’t want to call anyone else.”
Jihoon hums. The sheets rustle again, which Seungcheol interprets as Jihoon sitting up, running his hands through his hair and rubbing his eyes blearily.
The entire image is so visceral, so intimate, that Seungcheol almost jumps when Jihoon’s voice filters once more through his phone speaker.
“Flattery gets you nowhere, Seungcheol. You should know that by now.”
They’ve played this game a thousand times. Maybe not so outright — or so desperately — but it settles into a routine so startlingly familiar that Seungcheol almost feels twenty-one again. He sighs, audibly this time, and tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder as he massages his temples.
“Please, Jihoon.” He mutters finally, tone a hairsbreadth away from pleading. “I need you.”
A lone motorbike breezes down the street, its engine’s roar slicing through the silence of the night. Seungcheol flinches against the sound, his stomach a cesspit of nerves and cheap lager.
Jihoon hums thoughtfully. He’s teasing now, dragging out Seungcheol’s nerves until they threaten to unravel him.
Changwoo’s face swims in his head, surrounded by a cloud of red fury, his glower ever-present even in memory. And then Soonyoung’s — deep blue and coated with disappointment — the look of a second-in-command that has lost one too many troops.
Finally, Jihoon speaks again, his voice quiet. “Where are you?”
Relief surges through Seungcheol like a wave. “Hongdae. The studios. The same ones we…”
He trails off into nothing, like he can’t physically force the words out, but Jihoon knows. He already knows.
“Fine.” He mutters. “Give me an hour to… sort some things. You owe me, Seungcheol.”
Before Seungcheol can even respond — maybe thank him, or something — the line cuts out. Jihoon has already hung up, in that sharp, violent way he always does. Without ceremony.
The walk back to the studio feels more like a walk to Seungcheol’s execution. He can picture it clearly: Changwoo with one hand on the lever and the other holding a cigarette, grinning as he fries Seungcheol within an inch of his life.
He’d make it slow, too. Slow and painful.
And yet — when Seungcheol nudges his way back inside, there’s no electric chair waiting for him.
The studio looks almost exactly the same as he left it.
Soonyoung is still curled up in the corner, plucking aimlessly at his guitar. Hansol is chewing at a hangnail, staring blankly at his phone. And Changwoo is still red, still smoking — the only difference now is the pile of spent cigarettes at his feet and the way his tie hangs completely undone, looped around his neck like a dead snake.
All eyes turn to him as he steps through the door, and dread seeps into his stomach in one cold wave as he suddenly realises what he’s done is not only insane, but also absolutely guaranteed to send Changwoo off of the deep end.
He hasn’t thought this far ahead. Not really.
“So?” Changwoo snaps at the sight of him, spinning around non-threateningly in the office chair. “Have you saved the day?”
Seungcheol scowls. Changwoo just has a way of needling him until he snaps. The dread shifts into a sick kind of defiance, and he comes to a halt in the middle of the room with his arms crossed.
“Jihoon is on his way,” he says, the words dropping like a grenade. “So yes, you’re welcome, Changwoo. I’ve fixed your fuck up.”
Soonyoung’s strumming comes to a halt instantly. The final string hums on, echoing around the now silent room.
“Jihoon?” Soonyoung gapes, eyes wide with disbelief. “He — he agreed to that?”
Changwoo, on the other hand, has gone so white he looks as though he may faint.
“You called our ex-bass player — who, as I recall, left the band via me, over text — to replace our lead vocalist?”
He slumps back down in his chair, one hand fanning at his face like he’s suddenly spiked a fever.
“You’re going to send me to an early grave.” He mutters. “He’s not even a singer. He plays guitar, for fuck’s sake.”
“Jihoon can sing.” Seungcheol snaps. “He’s got a beautiful voice.”
To his surprise, Soonyoung pipes up, his mouth set into a thin line. “He’s classically trained,” he mutters with a shake of the head. “And he knows our songs backwards. He’s our best bet.”
He won’t meet Seungcheol’s eyes. He keeps his gaze down, murmuring something to himself like he can’t quite believe his ears.
That same cold dread seeps back in as Seungcheol considers the depth of what he’s got himself into. The fact that Jihoon is going to be here, at Seungcheol’s side for the next few months, suddenly hits like a fist.
In all his rage at Changwoo, he hadn’t once stopped to consider what seeing Jihoon would do to him.
The heavy-metal band across from them must have left, as the basement is so silent that he can almost hear the wheels of Jihoon’s uber trundling along in the distance.
Changwoo is still wide-eyed and pale, drumming something desperately into his phone — likely the PR rep — urgently trying to conjure up some reasoning behind bringing back an old, long-departed member.
He drops his phone down onto his lap, pulling out his final cigarette with a rasping breath. “He’s unreliable. Snappy, short and unreliable.”
Seungcheol receives one final withering look. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to make things worse. It’s a wonder I haven’t reached over and throttled you yet, Seungcheol.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Oh please. Think about your blood pressure.”
Soonyoung still won’t look at him. He’s watching his hands, the way they’re curled uncertainly in his lap like he’s losing his grip.
Seungcheol steps tentatively over to him, an apology on the tip of his tongue.
“Soon —” he starts, anxiety tugging at his chest.
“Is Jihoon taking my job?” Hansol blurts.
He flicks his gaze between both Seungcheol and Changwoo nervously, looking all too much like someone who has ignored every conversation up to this point.
Before Seungcheol can retort with something snarky, Soonyoung steps in. “No, Hansol. He’s taking Jeonghan’s. Jihoon doesn’t play bass anymore.”
The air in the room seems to grow thin. Seungcheol blinks in Soonyoung’s direction, his fingers twitching at his sides.
Hansol nods, digesting the reassurance, but Seungcheol cuts in before he can speak, voice sharp and clear.
“He quit? Since when?”
Finally, Soonyoung looks at him. His expression is cold, a stony look in his eye that doesn’t suit his soft features. “He hasn’t played for a while now.”
Jihoon without his bass was like Changwoo without his cigarettes — like Jeonghan without his sharp temper and ridiculously good cheekbones — it just didn’t make sense. His bass was practically an extension of him. It was like Soonyoung just told him Jihoon had amputated his own limb.
It’s ridiculous, the way the floor tilts under him.
It’s only an instrument.
An instrument Seungcheol spent the best part of ten years listening to Jihoon master. Both onstage and in the quiet of a hotel room, or played softly in a tour bus when everyone else was trying to sleep.
“But he — but — why?” Seungcheol stutters, deflating slightly under Soonyoung’s stern gaze.
“Well,” Soonyoung hums, turning his attention back to the guitar in his lap. “You can ask him that when he gets here, can’t you?”
Seungcheol falters. He can feel Hansol’s eyes on him, confused and perhaps a little unsettled from the sudden shift in his demeanor. He coughs once into his fist, steadying himself.
Before he can regain his composure, maybe level his concern with something snarky, his phone buzzes once in his pocket.
It’s Jihoon’s number. It lights up the screen like a flare, before fading back to black just as quickly. He knows exactly what it means.
“He’s here.” He chokes, stumbling back towards the door. “I’ll go — I’ll grab him.”
The stairs only spin slightly beneath his feet as he climbs them once more, and he barely even registers himself grabbing another beer from the crate until his fingers are wrapped around damp glass.
It’s a whole new anxiety. A nervousness at the prospect of facing Jihoon head-on. It’s been months since he saw him last. Maybe even a year.
He steels himself beside the door for one final, desperate moment, before nodding for the receptionist to open it once more.
The last performance they’d held with Jihoon in the back, bass slung between his arms like an extension of himself, Jihoon had a shock of white hair.
It had been bleached about three years prior, in a dingy hotel bathroom in Itaewon after one of their biggest gigs to date.
They’d all gone out the next morning — some swanky brunch place downtown — and when Jihoon walked in, hair bleached blonde from root to tip, Seungcheol had nearly choked on his mimosa.
From that day on, Jihoon had coloured his hair every shade of the rainbow. Seungcheol’s personal favourite had been the blue. When the stage lights had hit Jihoon’s profile, his face focused and intense from Seungcheol’s position behind the drums, it had painted him lilac.
The Jihoon before him is biting on a hangnail, with a duffle bag filled with what Seungcheol assumed was his clothes slung over his shoulder — a mop of deep black hair bobbing around his cheekbones gracefully.
Seungcheol falters for just a moment, fingers curling uncertainly around the bottle in his hand.
He looks, well, tired — for a start. Tired and thin, his face drawn in a way Seungcheol didn’t quite remember it ever being. But still Jihoon. Still the same tilt of his mouth, the same eyes that lift and find Seungcheol in the doorway. When they do, his expression shifts into a look of distaste that Seungcheol isn’t sure he could ever have forgotten.
It shocks some life into himself, and he meets Jihoon’s gaze with a similar look of contempt.
He seems somewhat uneven without his bass on his back. Brief memories of the battered guitar case flash through Seungcheol’s head — it stowed in some overhead locker on a European train, lumped on a couch in a pokey hotel room, slung across Jihoon’s shoulder as they staked out small stages for their first few gigs.
Without it, he’s smaller. Small and hunched and carrying something heavier than an old bass guitar despite the lack of it.
“Are you going to let me in, or what?” Jihoon asks haughtily, cutting Seungcheol from his thoughts. “Or did you invite me here in the middle of the night to perform some back-alley organ harvesting?”
When Seungcheol only blinks at him, he continues. “If it’s the latter — I’m sure there are more ethical ways to fund a failing band, Seungcheol. And I’d rather you didn’t wake me up for them, next time.”
Finally, Seungcheol regains some sense. The night air rattles his bones, colder than it had been when he’d made the call. He rolls his eyes, making no effort to stand aside and let Jihoon through the narrow doorway. To let him step through the threshold and resume the position in Seungcheol’s life that has been left unfilled for so long.
As always, Jihoon doesn’t pay him any mind. He just hikes his bag up higher and nudges past him, pushing through to the stairs with the same instinct that used to drive Seungcheol crazy.
“Ji —” his voice catches as he calls out, a long buried nickname threatening to choke him. He hasn’t said it in years, but his mouth still remembers the shape of it.
“Jihoon,” he corrects quickly, clearing his throat. “We’re in studio B this time. Second door on the right.”
Jihoon’s affirmative hum is lost to the drum of his footsteps. Seungcheol takes one final breath of fresh air, downs the rest of his beer in one, and steels himself as he steps back inside.
The receptionist is still watching him blandly, though their eyebrow quirks inquisitively as they catch a look at Seungcheol’s face.
Pale and clammy, like he’s just seen a ghost.
Though in some ways, it feels like he has.
Maybe it’s the three beers he’s downed in quick succession, but he wobbles down the stairs like he’s just stepped off of a merry-go-round, his knees trembling beneath him.
Jihoon is already in the room by the time Seungcheol catches up. Soonyoung’s face changes the instant he lays eyes on him — softening like butter, his eyes wide and kind as he takes Jihoon’s bag and places it beside his now-discarded guitar.
“You got here quickly.” He comments, voice tender for no real reason.
It’s a glib statement — probably just to buy time before Changwoo explodes in the corner — but Jihoon lights up with a sweet smile that makes Seungcheol feel a little like he’s being disembowelled.
“God bless public transport.”
Seungcheol nudges past Jihoon’s back to his kit, his eyes trained intently on it like Jihoon isn’t a person but just a shift in atmospheric pressure.
Changwoo gives him one cold look, before shifting his attention to Jihoon, his hands clenched in his lap as though readying for a fight.
“I’m surprised you actually showed.” He mutters. “I thought you only had a knack for running from things.”
If Seungcheol didn’t know any better, he’d think the comment was especially loaded. But given Changwoo’s seeming lack of interest in the internal affairs of the group, it’s definitely just a sharp dig that is entirely too on the nose.
Jihoon’s jaw twitches — the only sign he’s heard the jab — but he doesn’t bite back. Instead, he grins widely, false and snarky as he takes Changwoo in.
“Ah, Changwoo, how I’ve missed your unceasing optimism.” He says. “Always such a pleasure to see you.”
Changwoo huffs, but there’s no real bite behind it. He’s always had a slight soft spot for Jihoon, and Seungcheol suspected he’d been genuinely hurt by his departure.
Not anymore. He slips his undone tie off of his shoulders and curls it around one fist like a whip, before hoisting himself out of the chair.
“If you fuck up even one aspect of this tour, I’ll have your head, Lee Jihoon. Okay? No fucking around, no disappearing, and —” his gaze shifts to Seungcheol, and he raises his wrapped fist like a champion boxer “— no fighting. Any of you. My heart can’t take it.”
Jihoon just keeps up his easy smile. He shakes his head and wanders over the rudimentary setlist in the middle of the room — discarded in haste when Jeonghan had stormed out hours prior.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He scans his eyes over the songs — scrawled in Soonyoung’s tilted handwriting — before lifting his head to meet Changwoo’s eyes. “Best behaviour. I promise.”
For some reason, the vow makes Seungcheol feel slightly sick. The microphone is just meters away from him, and Jihoon’s proximity is already making his stomach twist. He nods at Changwoo, strangely solemn, and Changwoo seems to accept it.
“Our flight is at ten a.m. tomorrow.” He says finally, trudging towards the door. “If you aren’t rehearsed and ready to leave by seven a.m. sharp, I’ll kill myself and pose it as a murder. So unless you all want to spend the rest of your lives in prison — you best start practicing.”
And with that, he’s gone in a flurry of cigarette smoke.
The room doesn’t feel any lighter in his absence. In fact, the air only grows heavier. Everything unspoken weighs down on Seungcheol until his head threatens to crack in two.
Jihoon doesn’t seem to notice. He opens his mouth as if to ask a question, but then catches Hansol’s gaze and rapidly reconsiders.
Hansol — cool, calm, collected Hansol — is glowing a faint pink, his hands fumbling about uncertainly like he doesn’t know where to put them.
“Hi.” Jihoon greets after an uncomfortable pause. The silence lingers a little too long. “I’m Jihoon. You’re Hansol, I take it?”
With a timid nod, Hansol admits quietly, “I taught myself to play by listening to your demos.”
For the first time since stepping into the room, Jihoon falters. Just for a moment. His posture shifts minutely, but enough for Seungcheol to catch it. A crack in the armour.
And of course it has to be Hansol who causes it.
Hansol — whose mother had answered the ad on his behalf, claiming him to be an up-and-coming star that just needed his big break — a child prodigy turned bassist.
When he’d arrived at the audition for the role in dark skinny jeans and a pair of converse that were ripped at the soles, Seungcheol hadn’t been entirely convinced. Though, he’d also been blind drunk for a large majority of the auditions, and Hansol’s was the only one he was sober enough to be impressed by.
He was a few years younger than the rest of them, but calm and dedicated, and had picked up the songs and the band’s complicated dynamic with a cool detachment that Seungcheol admired.
He’d struggled to bond with him.
Not out of any fault of Hansol’s. He was a sweet enough kid — kind and funny and hard-working — in fact, he’d yet to miss a day of practice. But there was something missing that Seungcheol couldn’t quite figure out. An angst, a chaos that kept Seungcheol on his toes.
Jihoon was a beast on the bass. Multiple times during old shows he would go entirely off-piste, roaring off into his own rhythm and leaving Seungcheol behind, struggling to keep up and adjust to whatever new way he’d decided on playing for the evening.
The other members hated it.
Multiple times Jeonghan would turn to Jihoon mid-set, glaring at him ferociously when he’d suddenly decided to up the tempo to multiple songs. Jihoon would just grin back at him, before settling back into the usual rhythm smoothly as if nothing had ever happened.
Nobody ever minded for long. He wasn’t somebody that was easy to hate.
Well, he hadn’t been.
Seungcheol blinks himself back to the present as Jihoon digests Hansol’s statement. He wasn’t sure what mindset he’d come in here with — maybe hostility — ready to approach his replacement with some misguided arrogance.
He clearly wasn’t expecting a blushing kid that looks like he might want his autograph.
“Oh,” Jihoon says, “I didn’t even realise they still existed.”
Hansol shrugs. “Changwoo had them packed away somewhere. I couldn’t really make out your handwriting so I just listened to your demos and went from there. You’re really good. Like, seriously good.”
To Seungcheol’s surprise, Jihoon flushes. It makes him look more alive, somehow. Stripping away the stoney façade and shaping him into something slightly more recognisable.
“Well, thank you…”
“Do you really not play anymore?”
Jihoon blinks. Seungcheol can feel his anxiety underneath his own ribcage, and bites back his curiosity by dropping his gaze to the floor.
It’s Soonyoung who steps in, as always.
“We should probably get started.” He intercepts. Seungcheol is glad he misses whatever grateful look Jihoon shoots Soonyoung’s way. “Changwoo’s going to kill us if we don’t get at least some rehearsing done.”
Seungcheol nods affirmatively, trying to rein back a little control over the situation. He steps over to the setlist and scrawls a few notes under any songs Jihoon might be uncertain about.
“There’s a few from the new album, but it’s mostly old stuff. You should be able to pick it up fairly quickly.”
Jihoon looks up at him, searching his face. It makes Seungcheol nervous. He presses even closer, until his forehead is an inch away from Seungcheol’s mouth. Seungcheol doesn’t move. After a beat, Jihoon finally speaks.
“Wow,” he murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. “You look like shit.”
The moment breaks. Beside them, Soonyoung snorts. Seungcheol rolls his eyes and steps back. He places the setlist down with a little more force than necessary, before rubbing a hand over his tired face and pulling up the lyrics to the first song on his phone.
He thrusts it at Jihoon’s chest, dropping it into his hand before their fingers can risk brushing.
“There.” He snaps. “Shut up and sing. We don’t have all night.”
And so Jihoon does.
When he’d initially made the call, Seungcheol hadn’t thought about the last time he’d heard Jihoon sing. It was somewhat of a rarity — he kept his voice soft and low — humming out tunes in their shared bathroom as he showered, or in demos of lyrics he’d written played at a low volume in their old studio. Sometimes it would just echo through the walls of a hotel, or filter into Seungcheol’s room when they’d lived together in those first fitful months after Jihoon joined the band.
He hadn’t considered that Jihoon’s voice would wring him inside out like he’s an old dishcloth. How his lips around lyrics Seungcheol wrote when he was a teenager would still be able to make his chest ache in some deep, buried way.
It takes three songs for him to be able to actually focus on his drumming, and a full set for him to manage to block it out somewhat and focus entirely on the sheet music in front of him.
“Pitchy,” he comments halfway through the second run.
Jihoon stills, his back arching into one straight line, before turning around slowly and levelling Seungcheol with a harsh look.
“No it wasn’t.”
“It was.” Seungcheol insists. “Jeonghan sings it softer. You’re going too high on the final note.”
To his side, Soonyoung stiffens. He slides the strap of his guitar lower over his chest in one slow movement, frowning lightly.
Jihoon only winds himself tighter, body poised for attack. “Well, if you haven’t noticed already, I’m not Jeonghan.”
Seungcheol grits his teeth. “Believe me, I’ve noticed. Let’s do that one again.”
Jihoon doesn’t refute it, but he curls his fingers tightly around the microphone like he’s imagining it’s Seungcheol’s neck. He nods, posture taut and unforgiving, as the song loops round from the beginning.
It’s nearing three in the morning when Seungcheol decides to cut the session short. Mainly because he’s itching to finish off the crate of beers upstairs, and also because Jihoon’s voice begins cracking around the edges on their umpteenth run-through — hoarse with overuse like he hasn’t said a word in the months since he left.
Chords writhe around the floors like snakes. Jihoon stands in the middle of them, nodding blandly as Seungcheol suggests they finish up. The fight had seeped out of him around midnight, like reality had set in, and he’s been silent other than singing ever since.
Soonyoung wanders over to him, guitar already packed up, and murmurs something softly in his ear. So softly that Seungcheol doesn’t catch it. He keeps his gaze intently on his kit, shoving his sticks harshly into his bag with his head lowered so he doesn’t have to watch.
Whatever Soonyoung is saying, it’s kind. Kind and gentle, like Jihoon hasn’t just re-entered the band like a bomb and splintered everything around him.
When Seungcheol brushes past the pair of them, bag clenched tightly between his fists, they don’t move. Just stay in their bubble as he storms out of the door without so much as a goodbye.
Hansol trails behind him, traipsing up the stairs with his bass on his back like a shield.
He doesn’t even blink as Seungcheol shovels beers into his bag like a smuggler, just stands awkwardly at his side until his bag is full and clinking.
Their apartments are walking distance from each other, and most nights they would grab a cab together to save the taxi fee. Tonight though, Seungcheol can’t quite face a twenty minute journey by his side — no matter how silent and uncomfortable it may be.
No. He needs a beer and silence. An ambivalent cab driver that won’t notice his face shift through all stages of grief in between sips of lukewarm lager.
He shrugs his bag higher on his shoulder, wincing as the bottles crash against each other in the quietness of early-morning, and gives Hansol an awkward wave goodbye.
“I’ll pick you up in the morning, okay?” He says brusquely. “Be up and ready for seven. I won’t wait.”
Hansol’s reply is nothing more than an uncomfortable nod as Seungcheol walks away. After all this time, he still seems a little afraid. Maybe Seungcheol could’ve prevented that by speaking to him a little more eloquently than just the odd caveman grunt, but he’d lost the energy for that months ago.
He slides into the first cab he sees, leaving Hansol dawdling outside the studios like a lost puppy. The driver doesn’t comment when Seungcheol uncaps a bottle with his teeth, just eyes him warily in the mirror like he’s some rabid dog.
Something rustles in his pocket. He frowns, reaching in and pulling out a scrap piece of paper. He’d picked it up from atop his snare earlier, aggravated by its fluttering in his peripherals, and hadn’t thought much of it until now.
Jihoon’s handwriting, notes and lyrics scrawled across the margins like a vow.
For a second he just stares, thumb pressed to the page as if he could feel Jihoon through the ink.
The touch burns. He scrunches it up with a scowl, throwing it hastily onto the carpeted floor. The driver eyes him again, eyebrow quirked in warning.
Seungcheol just sighs, curling up smaller in his seat.
It’s going to be a long tour.