Chapter Text
Jisung
It was a stupid question to begin with. He never should’ve asked it. But that wasn’t the issue, really. The issue was his big fat mouth.
“Which one of us d’you think would be the main character?” Jisung said, spinning around in his chair, bored.
“The main character of what?” said Changbin from the couch. He had his feet propped up on the studio coffee table.
“Like if we were in a drama or something.”
“What kind of drama?”
Jisung shrugged. “I dunno. Whatever kind.”
“I think it matters what kind,” Changbin insisted.
“Not horror, please,” Chan said without looking away from the large monitors in front of him.
“I think you’d live pretty long in a horror movie,” said Changbin thoughtfully.
Jisung snorted. “If he doesn’t die of fright.”
“Nah. He’d piss himself, but his protective instinct is too strong. He’d lead everybody through hell then throw himself to the monster to save some puppies or something.”
“Yeah, but is that worth it? I’d rather die early on,” Chan said, finally turning away from the screen.
“Okay, then a coming-of-age story or something,” Changbin said.
“Chan is definitely the protagonist there,” said Jisung. “Scrawny kid with a dream tries to figure out how to make it. It’s basically his actual life.”
“Like you weren’t scrawny,” Chan muttered.
“I think Jisungie’s the main character,” Changbin said, idly tossing his phone from hand to hand. “He could use some poignant life lessons and a bad haircut.”
“Shut up,” said Jisung.
“Maybe Jisung’s would be a romance drama,” Chan said.
He perked up at that. “Why? ‘Cause I’m so hot and sexy?”
“‘Cause inexperienced idiots always blunder their way through those kinds of shows and still get happy endings,” said Changbin. Jisung threw a pen at him.
“Exactly what I was picturing,” Chan said. Out of pens, Jisung flipped him the bird. “Changbin, you can have, like, a sporty one. Or would you rather be a detective?”
“I want a romance drama, too,” Changbin pouted. “I’d be good at it.”
“Oh my god, or a reality dating show,” Jisung said, cracking up. “You would be good at it, you absolute cheeseball.”
Changbin grinned. “So you’re saying you would give me your rose?”
“No.”
Changbin’s face fell. He folded his arms and sulked. “Why not?”
Jisung rolled his eyes. “Just ‘cause I suck your dick doesn’t mean I’m gonna fall for your terrible lines.”
Changbin’s head whipped up.
“What?” Jisung defended. “They’re bad. You know this.”
“Just ‘cause you what?” came Chan’s shocked voice. His eyebrows were nearly in his hair, disbelief on his face.
Jisung clapped a hand over his mouth, realizing far too late. “I—uh—I didn’t mean, uh—” he fumbled, then fell silent, his stupid mouth failing him. Typical. Great at exposing extremely secret secrets, terrible at covering them back up.
Chan stared at him, then Changbin, who was glaring daggers at Jisung. “Somebody please say that was a joke.”
“It was a joke,” he said unconvincingly, drawing his legs up to protect from Changbin’s lethal stare. “We—I was joking. Ha ha.” His heart was starting to race. It had been a while since he fucked up this bad. The corner of Chan’s mouth twitched as he stared Changbin down like an indecisive tiger.
“He wasn’t joking,” Changbin said, sounding reluctant, finally turning away from him to answer Chan. Oh god. This was really happening. “He’s just stupid. We’re dating. I meant to tell you.”
Jisung tensed further, dreading what Chan was about to say, but also kind of extremely curious.
Chan shook his head. "No."
“No?”
“That’s not possible. You’re kidding, right?” Chan laughed weakly. “You wouldn’t—that’s insane.”
“I’m serious, hyung,” Changbin said.
“How?” Chan demanded. “Wh—since when? And fucking...why?”
Changbin shrugged. “Quarantine in March. It just happened.”
Chan turned on him next. “Is that true?”
Jisung nodded, afraid to speak in case his mouth got him in even more trouble.
Chan was silent for several seconds, looking back and forth between him and Changbin like he was trying to decide if this might be an elaborate prank.
“Prove it,” he said finally.
Jisung was startled into a laugh. “Like, right now?”
“Yeah. I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not sucking Changbin’s dick in front of you right now,” he said, an edge of panic filtering into his voice.
“No! No, god, not—” Chan grabbed the armrests of his chair, looking alarmed. “Just—I don’t know! Never mind!”
“Jesus christ. Here.” Changbin stood up and strode over to Jisung, cupped his cheek, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. A noise of surprise escaped him. Changbin sent him a quick smile as he pulled away.
Jisung looked nervously at Chan. His jaw was hanging open. He closed it. Stared blankly at the coffee table. Cleared his throat.
“Are you…” he started, with apparent difficulty. “Being...safe?”
“Oh god,” Jisung groaned. “I can’t do this.”
“Please, hyung, trust me,” Changbin said, looking rather pained. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There’s fucking plenty to worry about, I think,” Chan snapped, knuckles beginning to turn white where he was gripping the armrests. “What were you planning on doing if someone found out? Taking a little flight somewhere? Doing some digital detoxing?”
“It’s been months and you’re the only person who knows,” Changbin shot back. “We’re not idiots. If there’s an issue, we’ll handle it, okay?”
“I’m surprised there hasn’t been one already, with Jisung running around saying whatever he wants!”
“I don’t usually,” Jisung sulked.
“I think you need to calm down, hyung,” Changbin said coolly.
“Calm d—” Chan began incredulously, then shut himself up, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. There was a hardness to his eyes that made Jisung want to cower under a desk. The deadly control in his voice when he spoke again was worse than the anger. “You know what, you’re right. I need to—get some fresh air.”
“Good idea,” Changbin said.
Chan stood up mechanically, grabbed his jacket and his phone, and strode out of the studio, the door slamming behind him. They both stared at it.
“Fuck,” Jisung whispered, wilting in his office chair.
“You alright?” Changbin said, concern lining his features. He sat down and patted the spot next to him on the couch. “C’mere.”
He obeyed, sinking into Changbin’s side. “Why am I so dumb,” he lamented. “I can’t believe I said that.”
“You let your monkey brain control you, that’s why,” Changbin scolded him while wrapping a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Think for a second next time.”
He grumbled. “I try to, it just doesn’t always work.”
“Maybe this was for the best,” Changbin said. “I was too chickenshit to bring it up anyway.”
He sighed and laid his head on Changbin’s shoulder, and the warmth radiating off of him eased the hard knot of shame and discomfort in his stomach. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“Yeah. You fucked up. But he’ll get over it.”
“Why’s he so mad, anyway?”
Changbin shrugged. “Dunno. It’s a shock, I guess. You know how he is.”
Jisung wasn’t sure what he meant. “Likes to be informed?”
Changbin shook his head. “Dramatic and emo.”
—
Chan
Chan chucked another rock into the dark river. His wrist twinged. He ignored it. He was a little preoccupied.
Eight months. Eight months this had been going on, and he’d had no idea. He felt so unbelievably stupid that his chest hurt. His thumb was bleeding from where he’d picked incessantly at his cuticles on the way here. The night air numbed the sting. It was a bitter temperature out, the first cold snap of the year and a depressing portent of the winter ahead.
He racked his brain for any signs he might’ve missed, but didn’t come up with much. Jisung and Changbin were partners in crime one minute, worst enemies the next, and disgustingly flirtatious in between. They’d always been like that. Was he a complete idiot to have thought they were just joking around, when in fact it was leading up to this? But pretty much all the members were like that. Did that mean other people were dating behind his back, too? Surely not. No—he knew they weren’t. They would’ve told him. Changbin and Jisung should’ve told him.
Why hadn’t they told him? Were they scared of him, or scared he’d tell the company? Why didn’t they trust him? This was exactly the kind of thing he needed to know about if he was going to protect them all. He needed to be able to do damage control. But at the same time, he was so fucking angry it made a grim sort of sense that they hadn’t let him in on this little development.
Because he knew, he knew...he knew how it felt to want someone you weren’t supposed to. Another trainee, another member. He’d probably run the gamut at this point, crushing on various people at various times. Among his darkest secrets were fantasies he would take to his grave, thoughts that made him feel so guilty he would literally rather die than tell another human soul. But it wasn’t like you could help those kinds of things. Feelings were weird like that. You just ignored it until it went away. Folded it into a song, or fucked a stranger to get it out of your system. Forced it down until the teenage boy hormones wore off and you could breathe again.
You didn’t date them. That was against the rules.
Though his team had never been much for rules.
It was a slap to the face that it was Jisung and Changbin, too. The three of them knew everything about each other. He’d kind of assumed it would be hard not to, with how much time they spent together. Now a trapdoor was opening beneath him and he was falling, stomach lurching into a knot, watching his best friends get further and further away.
He suddenly remembered the day they’d come out of quarantine. Jisung and Changbin had been quiet, much quieter than he’d expected among the chaos of unpacking and laundry and last-minute meetings about their rescheduled comeback. He’d chalked it up to exhaustion thanks to the mind-numbing boredom of seven days of imprisonment, and given it no more thought. When in reality...
Changbin said it just happened. What just happened? What had they done in that hotel room? Made out, jerked each other off, other stuff—god, he hated himself for even wondering. Jisung’s words to Changbin, a casual joke—just because I suck your dick—skipped, a scratched CD, around and around in his head. His extremely unhelpful brain churned out lewd images like red carpet camera flashes. He tore them up viciously. He wanted to punch a wall. He wanted to yell at them until they understood exactly how much danger they’d put all the members in—but the frustrating part was that they’d hidden it so well he hadn’t even known, so what was there to complain about, really? Changbin said Chan was the only one who knew. Even though he was seeing red, he was grudgingly impressed. Jisung was usually pretty terrible at keeping secrets.
But it was still risky. Should he tell them to call it quits? Break up?
No. For a million frustrating reasons, not only was that a bad idea, it wouldn’t even work. Changbin and Jisung were too stubborn to listen. He’d be making himself their enemy and massively endangering their working relationship, tearing a huge rift in the team. Even though they had made the rift in the first place. He had no recourse here. He was absolutely stuck. He’d just have to grit his teeth and pretend it was okay. Find some way to work together, be normal.
Dating. Not just hooking up. Dating.
Like. With feelings.
He swallowed. Flames licked up his throat. He had never hated them more than this moment. And for that reason he hated himself the most.
“God damn it,” he said out loud, startling a nearby duck. It flapped its wings indignantly. “Sorry,” he added.
His phone buzzed. Changbin.
Are you coming back? We’re still at the studio, I think we should ta…
The message preview was telling enough. His fingers tightened around his phone as he briefly considered chucking it in the river.
It wasn’t worth the hassle. Mighty tempting though.
He ignored the text and hailed a cab home, where he did the only thing he could think to do when he felt this way, like he was too full of—something—anger, betrayal, hurt, like pure vibrating energy that leaked out of him at the elbows and fingertips. He changed into workout clothes, laced up his old, beaten running shoes, shoved Nas into his ears, and was gone into the concrete world.
He wasn’t proud of it, but over the next several days he avoided them very successfully. Avoided everyone, really, except when he absolutely couldn’t. He didn’t want to submit anyone to his blackened mood but didn’t feel like covering it up, either. Part of him desperately wanted to tell somebody why, if nothing else so he wouldn’t feel so insanely alone, like he was the only fish in the ocean who’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe water. But that was impossible. So he drowned by himself.
The timing for his pettiness was good; they were on a bit of a break after promotions. He ate lunch alone at restaurants he’d never been to before and only went to the gym in the middle of the night, in case the members were there. When he did work out he worked out hard—to distract himself. He gamed in his room. He walked to the studio and back, though it took far longer than sharing a car. He was supposed to be rearranging songs to fit end-of-year performances, which was a great excuse to beg off from group hangouts. He spent hours in his studio with the door locked and the lights off, fiddling around with aggressive dance breaks and writing old-school rap beats for no particular reason. Rarely did anyone bother him. One time, Changbin knocked, a familiar sharp double-tap, and Chan froze and made no noises, pretending he wasn’t there.
It was not his brightest idea. Listening to Changbin’s hesitant hyung? Are you in there? Hyunjin said you were heading this way, and after a long pause, a comment—a phone call?—to tell someone no, he’s not here either, made him feel like an absolute coward. Which he was.
And he went running.
He hated running. It felt like stabbing in his lungs, especially as winter swept across the country, and it made his legs burn and turn to jelly after an embarrassingly short distance. But the terribleness of it turned his brain off better than anything else. He suffered and swore and focused on his form, like his mom had taught him when he was trying out for the track team. Breathing split, two quick inhales, two quick exhales, relax the shoulders, hands loose. He pushed himself further each time, five, six, seven kilometers, freezing air stinging his nostrils and turning the tips of his ears numb. It was awful. But it was better than sitting around going insane, so he kept it up.
Despite all the exercise, he wasn’t sleeping well. Everything came back at night like a bad-take documentary in his head. An answerless Q&A. Even when he tried to shut it off it played on and on in a loop, complete with pictures. The worst double-triple-quadruple feature of all time. He knew it was stupid. He knew most of it was wrong. But it was a hurricane, and it dragged him into the spiral every time.
How could they do that? And how could they keep it from him? Was this some sick prank? If it was, it was way, way too far. And if it wasn’t, then—he could still hardly believe it. Those lying bastards. They must have lied to his face so many times when he asked what was going on lately, what they’d done last night, if they were dating each other, oh, wait, he forgot to ask that one because what the fuck.
He didn’t even know Jisung liked guys. Another lie for the top of the pile. The top. Out of the two of them, who—don’t think about that. How hadn’t Chan known? And if Han was bi the whole time, why—why—
Don’t be stupid, he thought coldly, a sour twist in his ribs. Of course he wouldn’t pick you. Neither of them would pick you.
Anyway, they definitely didn’t trust him. Maybe they were right, seeing how he was going so tunnel-visioned about it. He clearly wasn’t trustworthy. And neither were they. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again—don’t think like that. But honestly, this was a pretty big breach of trust. Right? Wasn’t it normal to be upset?
Maybe not this upset. This was a goddamn volcano. He was really fucked up. He was really stupid. He was really, really oblivious and naive and immature and sick and hurt and stupid. He was probably overreacting, right? This was not a normal amount of emotions for this situation. If he was a good leader he would be understanding and calm and thoughtful and blah blah blah. Instead he was tangled up, hiding like a snake in a hole, tense and twitchy and ready to bite. He wanted to bite.
No! No biting, he told himself with increasing desperation, too warm under the covers, staring at the sliver of light that snuck in around his blackout curtains. The one good excuse he had for refusing to face his problems was that he was pretty sure he was going to say some very mean things if he did. He told himself it was for their own good that he was avoiding everyone.
One night he came home from a run at midnight, nose freezing and legs shaking, and turned on the lights in the living room. There he found Changbin sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees, like a dad waiting for his delinquent son to sneak in after curfew. It scared the living daylights out of him.
After a raw yell and a few choice curse words Chan turned around and put his running shoes right back on.
“Where are you going, hyung?” Changbin sounded tired.
“On a run.”
“You just came from a run.”
“Yeah, well, I forgot to finish.”
“Chan.” In that goddamn dad voice. He could not do this right now. He’d just managed to get his mind off of it, and here it was staring him in the face again.
The burst of energy from being jumpscared was fading quickly, but having started putting his shoes on again he didn’t want to look even more stupid by stopping, even though he wanted nothing more than a hot shower and to collapse into bed.
“Hyung, it’s too cold, don’t go back out there. You’re hurting yourself.” Changbin sounded genuinely upset now. Chan’s hands paused on his shoelaces.
No, you’re hurting me, he thought fiercely, but it wasn’t true, so he didn’t say it. Changbin was right.
He pulled his laces tight and didn’t look behind him as he closed the door. When he came back an hour later the living room was empty.