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Fuma got back to the dorm after EJ did, but made a point of seeking him out, finding him in the kitchen contemplating a potato on the counter and the slim contents of the fridge.
“Sorry,” he said without preamble or context.
EJ blinked and turned to him, working to shunt his mind from dinner onto this, whatever this was. “Um?”
“For putting you on the spot like that,” Fuma said. “On live. I didn’t realize it was your first time.”
“Yours, too,” EJ pointed out reflexively, some part of his mind more agile than the rest, feelings only catching up a minute later.
Had he wanted an apology? The gently carbonated warmth burbling beneath his breastbone suggested that he might have, yes. This meant something to him.
Fuma shook his head. “Sure it was, but you didn’t corner me into it. I did that to myself. I couldn’t make you do it and then chicken out myself.”
Which was true enough, and Fuma’s gentle refusal to let him carry any of the blame made the warmth in his chest deepen and spread.
Even though Fuma was speaking to him in Korean, as he almost always did, EJ couldn’t think of any suitable words, suddenly. “It’s… okay,” he said, the only ones he could find close enough to hand.
Fuma stepped closer, into his space, leaning on the counter almost in front of him so he could meet EJ’s eyes at close distance. His lenses were in, so EJ knew he could see acceptably well, but he still acted nearly blind sometimes out of simple habit.
“Is it, though?” Fuma asked quietly. “I’d be pretty upset, in your shoes.”
EJ thought about it. Slowly and carefully, since Fuma was explicitly giving him room to do so. The potato waited patiently on the counter behind Fuma’s back. It would keep.
The thing was, he’d made his entire life about overcoming challenges. Whenever he ran into something hard, something uncomfortable, something that didn’t come naturally to him, he’d trained himself until his first instinct was to lean in, not back away.
Yes, being pushed into singing on a livestream in front of tens of thousands of fans with nothing prepared had been one hell of an uncomfortable challenge. He’d nearly been sick with it, and yearned to dodge, but that instinct he’d honed had held up even then: lean in. He’d picked up the microphone and done it.
Painfully hesitant and self-conscious, at first. His ears had burned, his throat flushed, his upper chest squeezing so hard he could hardly get air past it into his lungs. But he’d done it, and then he’d followed through and done it again. Then done it some more with Fuma, after cornering Fuma into singing himself, and more yet after Fuma left. Quite a lot more after Fuma left, and though his nerves had never entirely relaxed, it had gotten easier, slowly.
And now, looking back on it, he was proud of himself. It had been hard, but he hadn’t backed down, or scraped by on the bare minimum. He’d faced it properly. He was stronger now, for it.
So was it okay?
EJ sighed softly. “Maybe don’t do it again,” he said ruefully, “but I’m not mad. It was… a valuable experience.”
Fuma huffed a laugh and squeezed his elbow briefly. He was rarely one to reach out physically, but he made a lot of exceptions for EJ. “Our brave leader,” he said fondly. “I won’t. Let’s sing together again sometime, maybe?”
EJ smiled. “I’d like that, Fuma-hyung.”
—