Coupling: - (Cho Jinho, SM The Ballad)

Prompt: -

Genre: Crack. 

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They began in a dark and small room, but that didn’t stop them from shining almighty. Twelve familiar figures stood upon the small stage with the spotlight glowing brightly upon them.

Sadly, he wasn’t one of them.

He’s had his time, he thinks, that project group, he was quite popular back then. But as the name suggests, he was only a project group, nothing more.

He recalls the first time it all went wrong, the first time it happened. It was a chilly autumn’s morning and he had just arrived at the academy with a long time friend and fellow trainee, Kyungsoo. It was not just an ordinary day for the trainees because it was the day that their management would introduce the new group via a red piece of paper on the notice board. Sometimes confirmed names would be listed, sometimes just the concept of the to-be group. Today, however, it listed the potential members of the twelve member group.

“Number one,” Kyungsoo read aloud, a smirk flushed his face, “Cho Jinho. Naturally.”

Later that night, he sits up in the shared bunk and sighed. He might’ve been placed as number one but ranking changes quickly, and his dancing was probably worse than Kris. As much as he wanted to debut, the competition itself was insanity at its best. He averts his gaze to a half whimpering half sleeping Baekhyun and wonders if his bunkmate feels the same too.

“Baekhyun-ah,” he pushes the sides of the stomach with his feet, “Wake up and talk to me. I’m worried.”

For a few seconds Baekhyun does twists and turns but he doesn’t wake up. He tries again, this time pushing his tiptoes harder into the bunkmate.

“Ouch,” Baekhyun yelps, finally awake but still dazed, “Hyung?”

He looks around for a minute or two and scratches his head, “I must be dreaming.” Blinking stupidly, Baekhyun goes back under his covers and begins to whimper once again. His eyebrow knit into confusion and he wonders if his bunkmate is feeling the pressure too.

He first noticed it the very next morning when it seemed like everyone was ignoring him. He shrugs it off, thinking that everyone was just tired after more than 12 hours of practice. But he quickly gets pissed off when he asked for the milk and nobody has even a glance towards him.

“Yah! Pass the milk,” he angrily says after the uncountable time of saying it.

The room quietens down and an array of confused faces look around for the strange voice.

“Hello? Why is everyone looking so confused?” he scoffs and stands to grab the milk off Minseok.

“Ahhh,” Minseok half chokes on the cereal and stumbles down to the ground once the milk strangely gets taken off his hand, “What the?”

“Jinho?” Junmyeon, a senior trainee turns his head toward the floating milk, “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me. Don’t be silly,” he laughs and pours the milk. As he did so, the whole room goes into a sort of panic mode as everybody runs around like cows infected with mad cow disease.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he steps back, a little shocked by the disorder, “What’s going on?”

“I knew something was weird because last night I heard his voice but I didn’t see him,” Baekhyun announces in between the chaos.

“I thought you were still sleeping,” Kyungsoo pipes in, agreeing to the bafflement, “Hyung? Where are you?”

“Here,” he waves his hand fanatically like a fan girl at a concert but none of their eyes turn towards him, “Here, next to Minseok hyung.”

All eyes automatically searches beside Minseok, who is more than startled and takes a few footsteps back. He wonders if everyone has gone nuts because of the red notice yesterday or was it just the long hours of training.

Luhan’s hand swoops around the thin air beside Minseok and slaps him in the chest. “Yah! What’s that for hyung?”

“Woah,” Luhan nods in a heavily accented Korean which often happens when he gets over excited, “You’re invisible.”

“What?” he laughs hysterically, “I am not invisible. Stop trying to pull my leg hyung.”

“How come we can’t see you?” Sehun asks and it makes him laugh even more.

“My birthday is long gone and April Fools has just passed,” he holds his stomach from the hilarity, “So we can stop the jokes now.”

“Hyung,” a weary looking Chinese, Tao, says seriously, “We can’t see you.”

Once he saw the seriousness in the younger one’s face, the laugh stopped and he looks around. Almost every eye is searching for him with a whole bunch of mixed confusion.

“It’s not funny anymore,” he says, a hint fear and panic heard in his voice, “You can stop it now.”

“Hyung,” Kyungsoo nods, “You’re invisible.”

So, he’s invisible but the day still goes on and the other trainees still have to go to practice. He sits quietly at the edge of the top bunk, dangling his stubby legs overhead. He sees the other rushing around, grabbing bits and pieces needed for a long hours of practice and he slightly feels scared.

“Kyungsoo,” he says quietly in an almost whisper, “What about me?”

Kyungsoo’s eyes wander around a while searching for the position of the voice but immediately gives up and tries to assures him instead, “You’ll be fine hyung. Have some rest. When we come back you’ll be normal again.”

He notices the hint of uncertainty in Kyungsoo’s voice but simply nods, “Remember to tell them I’m ill.” He shudders at the word ill because in a weird sense, he is quite ill.

Kyungsoo turned out to be very right because after 12 hours of training, they all come back with collective sighs of relief to the sight of him sleeping soundly on the couch. Most importantly, he was no longer invisible.

It gets the whole dorm about a week to finally realize that the condition was actually a semi permanent one. He appears one minute, he’s gone the next. He’s even getting used to the startled faces and the inward curses he gets after appearing and disappearing.

“Hyung,” Jongdae nearly bit his tongue just by seeing him reappear once again, “Please don’t do that.”

“Yah Jino,” Kris yells at him when he suddenly appears in the toilet while the former was showering, “I’m going to kill you if you do that once again.”

“Jino hyung?” Jongin looks around, “Please don’t disappear when I’m trying to teach you these dance moves.”

And he gets used to it, eventually.

After a month he decides that it would probably be best if the company knew. The worse they could do was kick him out of the company for probably being absurd but he reasons that it would be better to tell them right now before he officially becomes a final member of the new group.

“So,” he clears his throat and timidly looks at the beady eyes, the one behind the success of the senior in his company. Jino isn’t one for sugar coated words and so he bluntly says, “I’m invisible.”

The man opposite of him flickers his eyes a little but his face remains indifferent. Jino acknowledges how bonkers he sounded right that moment but decides to continue, “It’s been a month now. I can even show you.”

Silence ensues them, a tick of the clock and the quiet humming of the humidifier is heard but nothing more. It stays like that for a few minutes and he doesn’t say anything anymore in case he makes himself sound more daft and crazy as he already was.

“You’re a genius,” their teacher suddenly bursts into laughter and walks over the long table to reach him, “You, Cho Jinho, might be barmy but you are certainly a born Einstein.”

“Excuse me,” he turns his head towards the older man and shakes his head, “I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. I’m invisible. It’s like powers that I can’t control.”

“Superpowers?” the former nods and laughs, “You’re a genius.” Jino merely flashes a weak smile as he gets pushed out the door, still confused.

He finally understood what the company director meant the very next day when another red notice is stuck on the board and no one is more surprised than himself. It outlined the confirmed members (with his name once again at the very top) and the new concept.

“Beings from another planet?” his mouth left hanging and rubbing his eyes numerous times to see if he was actually reading it right, “Superpowers?”

“So, would we be like aliens?” Kyungsoo asks. He too was gaped at the notice, “I hope they don’t colour us green.”

When the contract comes the very next month, he confidently says no. No doesn’t mean never; it just means not yet. Not until he gets his powers into proper control. Until then, he’ll just be Cho Jinho, that invisible member, the missing link.

Because of superpowers, he’ll probably be the only one who understands. 

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This is real weird, I know. It isn't even a coupling, I know. I wrote this ages ago when Exo first revealed the superpowers concept. I was among those that were silently banging their heads against the wall because the lovely Jino didn't debut with them. Then all sorts of conspiracies on what had happened to our baby Jino. So, this is my weird crackish version of the conspiracy. If this is too weird, please just ignore my terrible attempt in crack.

Baekstal and Yoonkai coming up ^_^

Save our baby Jino from SM's Bermuda Triangle!