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Heeseung didn’t entirely know how to react when he received the offer to become the brand ambassador for Joocyee. The email that sat there all innocent and unsuspected in his inbox, as he stared at the thousands of accumulated mails. He really ought to clean out his inbox at this point – he’d end up confusing company mails with the regular promotional stuff one of these days.
He didn’t want to draft a reply right away. He had time until the end of the week anyways – after all, it's not like he had much say in the matter anyways. It wasn’t uncommon news that their company would almost never turn down offers, especially well paying ones from foreign countries and this itself wasn’t a bad offer. He simply didn’t know what to think about it.
He sighed to himself, leaning back against the back of the rotating chair as he looked up at the clock. It was a little past one in the morning. He barely held back a groan at the knowledge that he needed to be up and about by six again the next morning. He wondered if he should just stay over at the company – they did have decent enough showers and at this point, he had about six sets of clean clothes stored in his locker here. It’s not like anyone would turn the electricity off through the night.
It wasn’t all that uncommon for idols to stay overnight sometimes.
In itself, he doubted he was alone in the HYBE building tonight.
He turned around in his chair, glancing at his phone which he’d left on charge on the other end of the recording room when it had died a while back. He clicked his tongue at the realization that given the time he was probably going to be sporting a number of missed calls from Jake, Jay or a combination of them both. They usually preferred at least knowing where he was before going to bed on nights he decided to burn the midnight oil. He remembered feeling particularly touched the first time he did that and they hadn’t had a system in place yet – he’d come back to Jay having reached phenomenal levels in his video game and Jake sleeping with his head on the kitchen counter.
He got up, ignoring the slight roll of dizziness in his head. He wondered if he’d missed his lunch that day but he immediately flashed back to the extra spicy ramen Soobin-hyung had brought down from the other floor during lunch and smiled a little. It wasn’t often that he managed to find friends that were close outside of his members – and he was always more than glad that Tomorrow x Together existed.
But he let out a sigh. Usually bouts of dizziness implied a flareup – one he really couldn’t afford given the schedule the agency had shoved down their throats. He couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed. He knew of course that this isn’t something which he could blame on anyone. He’d learnt to live with his condition over time, it sent shivers down his spine to think of the times he spent back in kindergarten sitting in a corner, wondering why the world seemed to have narrowed into nothingness.
Nowadays whenever he had a flareup of CFS, he found he’d do one of two things.
It would either be mild enough that he’d manage to push through without making too much of an upheaval about it. Given that the members had no clue whatsoever about his diagnosis, they mostly labelled those days where you didn’t poke Heeseung with a ten foot long stick. He was prone to snapping around those times, and that was something since he was by far, one of the hardest to piss off people in this building.
When it wasn’t mild enough, Heeseung would lock himself in his room and not even bother answering the door, even when Jay once threatened to break it down. Eventually with time, they learnt not to disturb Heeseung during his lows. He had enough sick days to use around work and his members had learnt to claim that Heeseung was dying from a bad cold – it was as it is, completely blasphemous to come anywhere near the company building with the cold. Their managers had been clear since day one – if any of them were to cause an outbreak of the common cold in a building full of idols needing to follow a strict schedule…
… Well, no one wanted to explore that possibility.
Plus, the company did already know about his condition. Yuki-nim being on the list of the few people who did. He’d once vaguely contemplated telling Jungwon, with him being their leader and all but eventually decided against it. This was something he could juggle on his own without involving the kids. Jungwon had enough on his plate as it was, without having to handle a bandmate’s personal issues. He was grateful though for how understanding most of them were, and if it got bad enough he always had the manager who offered to drive him to the hospital or bring him anything he needed.
He sighed, leaning his head onto his hands, letting the room stop spinning. He groaned again, wondering how exactly he was supposed to walk back at this hour with his head feeling like it was up in the clouds. Not for the first time he wondered if he should have gotten his license before they actually debuted, but again, he wondered if it would be safe to drive when his brain didn’t exactly comprehend right from left. Next thing he knew, he would be on the tabloids for having crashed into a lamppost somewhere on the way.
He instead chose to roll his chair over to where his phone was charging.
He didn’t need to unlock it to know that there were definitely messages waiting for him when he did. And indeed he did. A total of four missed calls, and seven messages. He sighed. It wouldn’t usually seem like a lot but both Jake and Jay were used to Heeseung being late, so seven messages meant that they were concerned. He swiped through them, not replying right away, especially since he couldn’t figure out a way to actually even get home. Worst case scenario he’d have to mask up and take a cab.
His finger lingered a moment on Yuki’s contact. Their manager had once told him that if he needed anything when he wasn’t feeling well to call him. Usually, he was grateful and he did cash in on that offer. But today from what he remembered was one of the very few days their manager had at home with his wife. Even though there was understanding between them regarding their lifestyle, Heeseung didn’t want to be the one responsible for taking those rare few days away from them. Yuki-nim did enough for them as it was.
He instead sighed again, finger moving back to hover over the rest of his favorites. He thought back on the company car they usually left in the dormitory – it wasn’t meant to be driven by the members, not at all. But they did leave a key in there in case of emergencies, which thankfully they’d had none until now unless you counted that one time Jake managed to burn his ramen down and set off the fire alarms.
But one thing was that that car had been the one Jay recently used to learn how to drive. While you could say he didn’t have a lot of experience, he was comfortable behind the wheel and had a license in his wallet.
And Heeseung was too exhausted to have to deal with a stranger right now.
He didn’t let himself think a lot. With brain fog settling in, for all he knew, he’d lose track of what he was thinking in a while and end up calling and disturbing poor Yuki in the middle of the night again. Plus… technically, Jay would still be awake, right? And he did care about Heeseung. He could only hope that this wouldn’t be too much of an issue for him. He clicked on the name “Jongseong <3” , letting the phone ring on speaker. He let himself relax a little under the unique caller tune. Jay had created different ones for each of the members, and like always Heeseung loved listening to Jay play the guitar, even when there was a plethora of other instruments alongside it.
Well, then again, it was the plethora of other stuff which made it the tune it was.
Before his mind could spiral much more in the direction of what the true definition of music was, the caller tune stopped and instead a deep voice piped up from the other end, sounding more annoyed than Heeseung liked.
“Do you even know what the time is?”
Heeseung gritted his teeth at that, losing track of what he was about to say for a moment. He looked back at the clock – it was closing two at this point, and he didn’t know how time could race so fast when he was distracted. He hummed instead in reply to Jay’s question, “I lost track,” he said slowly, his voice coming out thick and uncharacteristically tired, “I think… I didn’t have enough coffee to keep me awake.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“You know the amount of coffee you drink is unhealthy, right?”
“And the only way to stop that would be to throw out our coffee machine.”
“Do you want to be the one to handle an exhausted Riki in the mornings?”
Heeseung chuckled at that. Everyone knew that Riki got insanely grouchy without enough coffee to sustain him and he was too young to find rationalization in exhaustion. It was mostly Jake who decided to take charge of Riki when he got like that, but the new espresso machine in their dorm seemed to bring out the number of times you got to see that version of Riki in the month. He wouldn’t lie though – it was kind of cute seeing their youngest act like that without his usual walls up.
“What are you even upto this late? And when are you coming back?” Jay asked slowly, letting the silence sink in for a while, “Jake went to bed like fifteen minutes ago. Well, I think he sleepwalked but that’s a conversation for later.”
Heeseung chuckled. Sleepy Jake too was a sight to behold when he couldn’t entirely tell up from down. There was always a reason he was among the first to crash if all of them were at home together, “Well at least he didn’t try to stay awake until I showed up,” he said slowly, “Speaking of that by the way…”
He trailed off, not entirely sure how to word it. He wasn’t used to asking favors from the members. He was either self sufficient enough to figure things out, or if it was something obvious enough, Jay and sometimes the others too were perceptive enough to simply know what to do to help him. He never exactly had to ask for things from the members – that was something he loved and hated at the same time.
“Hmm?”
“I… I think I have a bit of a migraine brewing,” he said, choosing to lie in the moment, “just don’t feel like walking home. You down to put your license to some use?”
He hated how forced it sounded. He definitely wasn’t uncomfortable around Jay, but he was the older one in their relationship. The only one Jay had the grounds to rely on when it came to age. Heeseung was the last one who should be inconveniencing the younger in any way or form, which included sudden midnight calls asking for lifts. He closed his eyes, wondering if he’d be able to tell the annoyance in his voice when he spoke again.
The annoyance never came though.
“Are you alright?” he said instead, concern obvious in his tone, “You’re at the company, right?”
It took him a moment to digest that tone. He wasn’t entirely used to that concern being reflected much at him. He wasn’t one to cause a lot of trouble as a kid and even with his diagnosis, his parents had it under the bag enough that surprise concern wasn’t something they had to experience anymore. His brother, maybe to a certain extent… but Heeseung hated seeing his brother worry so much that eventually his mother made it a point to keep Heedo out of the room whenever Heeseung had one of his flareups.
“I’m fine…” he said, thankfully not betraying his own surprise at the concern which radiated from the younger’s voice. He had been in a relationship with him for a while… but none of them had involved Heeseung having to put himself in a position where he’d needed concern. Rules about his nature had been long established before they built the thing between themselves. Jay respected the times Heeseung chose to barricade himself… and in truth, he’d never actually seen how the members reacted when he was going through a flareup.
“Just… don’t feel upto walking right now, I’m exhausted,” he said. They all were really. They had almost six consecutive hours of dance practice today itself and with the flareup itching around the corners of his brain already, he liked the definition of the statement – exhaustion ran bone deep. The last thing he needed was to pass out in the middle of the street even though the distance wasn’t nearly as much as he made it out to be.
It would be a relaxing walk on most days after all.
“I’ll be over in like ten?” Jay finally said, once he seemed to get over the shock of the request himself too, “Are you sure you’re alright, jagiya?”
Heeseung couldn’t help smiling at the slip of the endearment there. It was one of the rules they set up for their own relationship – they didn’t use petnames, and they kept affection to a bare minimum. It was only when they built their norm like that that they could afford never to have a slip up on camera after all. He barely held back another groan when he looked at the clock, seeing that it was perhaps only another six hours before they’d be back under the spotlight of public scrutiny.
He liked it on most days.
But somedays, he just wanted to just give his body and mind the desperate rest he needed… and his boyfriend the affection he probably deserved.
“Thanks… and yeah,” he said, again, smiling even though no one could see him, “I’m fine…”
—
He’d underestimated the progression of his flareup because he was counting the minutes on his watch and seven minutes in, he was certain his legs were trembling. He held the paper cup in his hands which he’d picked up from the machine on the second floor, feeling the heat seep into his hands. He’d put on a jacket before leaving the building but somehow he was still kind of cold, even though the weather was in a comfortable warmth one could say.
He wasn’t unused to being on a different thermostat than other people though. It was pretty much why he and Jay had chosen not to room together when the initial offer came up. He and Jake always seemed to have similar preferences when it came to the air conditioner and Heeseung liked being in control of the temperature in his own space, without having to accommodate anyone else. Especially during a flareup when his discomfort didn’t let much in the way of empathy show for anyone else.
He adjusted the mask on his face, and pulled his cap down a bit. Given that he was still standing outside the HYBE building, he was pretty sure passerbys would still assume he was an idol, just not be able to tell who. He could only hope that he didn’t run into someone who cared… because respectful of boundaries or not, Heeseung didn’t have the energy to put his idol personality on right now. Admittedly, he wasn’t too different from usual either, but there was something draining about having to smile with the crowd when every bone in his body seemed to want to crucify him.
Thankfully though, true to his word, right before the eleventh minute passed, a black van with tinted windows drove into his peripheral vision, making him release a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He couldn’t see anything inside the vehicle, so technically it would be a good plan to kidnap him at the moment, but he liked to believe that that level of paranoia needed to be restricted to his mind.
No one knew that he was waiting to be picked up at the moment, except the one person he needed.
Sure enough the van with the familiar plate number (and yes, Heeseung did check) pulled over in front of him, and turned down the window. Jay didn’t look half as put together as he’d expected him to really. He couldn’t see much of the younger’s face beyond the massive sunglasses he’d put on his face, but his hair had barely been brushed, which again made sense because it was the dead of the night. Despite the high window, he could see the hoodie he wore, which was right out of the set of clothes they usually pulled on after a long day of work. Heeseung himself had occasionally stolen it from Jay, although he usually gave it back, unlike whatever Jake did with everyone’s clothes.
One of these days, he could swear he would find a fort in Jake’s room, solely built out of clothes which did not belong to him. But hey, at least he didn’t have it as bad as Sunghoon or Riki since clearly Jake had a thing for oversized clothes.
But what he couldn’t for the life of him figure out was how Jay managed to see anything with those sunglasses on top of the tinted glasses of the van. It wasn’t like the younger had the most stellar vision, although one could argue it was better than Heeseung’s. On cue, he ended up pushing his glasses further up his nose. The thin rimmed ones had gone loose in the long time he didn’t wear them, and the slight dizziness he’d felt ever since he’d stopped with the blaring music in his eyes made it clear that contacts wouldn’t be the best course for his head right now.
“Someone ask for a lift?” Jay said, sounding goofy as ever in his getup. Heeseung couldn’t help rolling his eyes but he also wore a smile on his face. He handed his bag to Jay through the window, before crossing over and climbing onto the passenger side while Jay dumped the bag into the backseat. There wasn’t much in there anyways – his earphones, his contacts and the sweaty clothes he’d changed out of after practice. It would be ok to drag it out of the car come morning anyways once they managed to convince Yuki not to kill them over the use of the vehicle without his “authorization”.
He barely sat down before Jay drew himself closer, pressing their lips together. For a moment, Heeseung didn’t do anything. He enjoyed the younger taking charge in their physical relationship at least. But only for a moment, before his lips moved in tandem to the rather pleasant greeting. Jay pressed their foreheads together, and hummed to himself.
“No fever,” he said slowly, smirking as though he’d been sneaky.
Heeseung playfully pushed him away, as though he was offended at being taken advantage of. He sighed, “I don’t have a fever, I know,” he said, dragging his tones out. It made him feel as though he was expending less energy when he spoke like this. He wondered if people picked up on it from the numerous flareups he’d had in the two years their group had been active. Jay frowned a little at his words, although at the moment he didn’t know which part of his sentence had him thinking.
“Are you planning another lock up?” he said slowly, giving a moment between the ‘another’ and the ‘lock up’ as though he needed a moment to term it as something. None of them really talked about it when he emerged, not even with Jay or Jake, the two he was closest with. This was another unspoken rule amongst all seven of them – to share a common space nearly twenty four seven meant that they all had to respect whatever minimal space they built around themselves.
For although everyone knew something was off about Heeseung, no one would push him to speak until he was comfortable and came forward with it himself.
“Not planning as much but…” he trailed off, shaking his head. He knew it was inevitable and he wondered if the others knew as much. Jay nodded slowly, letting his hand slide over to hold onto Heeseung’s for a moment. He squeezed back, letting them stay in the moment, “You wanna let me in this time?” He said, “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, of course… not until you want to. But maybe you don’t have to starve for those few days?” He chuckled to himself, “I’m a damn good cook, you know?”
Heeseung laughed at that, “I dare you to make a good ramen,” he said as he leaned his head into his seat. Jay shrugged, “I keep telling you to start investing in that ramen maker you know?” he said.
“Why would I do that when I have a perfectly good Jake at home?”
Jay shook his head, pretending to be exasperated as he squeezed Heeseung’s hand a little tighter, the other one coming to rest at the wheel. He gave it a moment before letting go of Heeseung’s hand and turning on the ignition. He was wearing a smile though, and that made Heeseung smile as well. For a moment the silence lasted as Jay drove, reversing the car to take the familiar road home.
“Maybe…” Heeseung said after a long while and for a moment Jay didn’t know what he was talking about. Heeseung looked over at him, not moving his head much, “You can stay over this time?” It was framed as a question but it wasn’t meant as much. It was more of a permission for Jay to see Heeseung at what he considered his lowest. There was a hint of embarrassment he felt in the back of head, a kind of fear that crept along with the exhaustion to reveal the fear of what he’d built a livelihood of trying to hide.
But with whatever clarity he had left, he put together that if there was anyone he’d be willing to share this part of him with, it would be Jay.
And for a moment he wondered if this was what the definition of music was – the tune of whom they built their lives around.