Jae Hwan was never as ignorant or apathetic as his lofty on-camera image or wide, cheesy grin suggested. In the team he was the one with the playful character and he never seemed to take things to heart. Be it in their dorm, at their practice studio or in their van travelling to and fro cities, whenever a camera was rolling he would always be cracking jokes and pulling off body gags and he was never once seen without his trademark cheery smile.

When reprimanded he would simply brush things off with a cheeky ‘Ah, hyung!’ and when faced with an awkward situation he would smooth things over with his toothy grin. There seemed like there was nothing that could bring the twenty-one year old down. He was the energiser that kept the members afloat when endless schedules, stresses and fatigue threatened to pull them into the dark waters and drown them in the deep end. His positive attitude was contagious whenever they were faced with an impossible-looking mission or challenge. Jae Hwan was the rain after an intense drought, the ray of sunshine piercing through smoky haze that bore enough hope to power the happiness meters of all the strained members that had long gone bone-dry. It was this optimism that radiated naturally that the others looked up to him for and sought solace in.

But there was a limit to which his carefree nature extended to. Jae Hwan wasn’t just a flat, two-dimensional character with no depth. He was human, and there were only that many negative emotions he can swallow and cover up before they all came spilling out. He already has enough of those of his own, with his insecurities about his identity – or the lack thereof – in the group and the constant pressure from the management for not performing on par with the others. He didn’t need the issues of others imposing on him as well or else he really thought he might drown from the weight of all those problems.

The day leading up to Valentine’s Day the group held a special event at Mango Six café instead of going through their fixed schedule. It provided Jae Hwan temporary relief from being chided for his performance by the manager again, even though he knew the older man was sure to have something to comment about the pre-recording for Show! Champion they’d done prior to the fan event. Pushing the thoughts aside, he’d fooled around with the members, dotting whipped cream on the younger ones’ nose and jabbing the elders with the mixing spoon and hadn’t taken the fierce glares from the leader seriously.

Sure enough though, ten minutes before the closing of the café the manager pulled Jae Hwan to the side and brought him into the storeroom out in the back, shoving the company iPad under his nose. His grubby fingers jabbed at different parts of the screen where the singer was and pointed out, in excruciating detail, exactly where the singer had gone wrong.

“I was monitoring the group’s recording today and Jae Hwan ah, you made so many mistakes!” Each tap from the pads of the manager’s fingers left an unsightly oily mark on the flat LED screen of the electronic device. “Look, you were misaligned at the beginning of your part, making the triangle formation look lopsided. And here, even with N blocking we can still see you because your moves were still out of sync with his! Also, at the bridge, Sang Hyuk narrowly missed bumping into you because you were so slow with your spins and moving out of the way.”

“If an untrained eye like mine can spot so many mistakes the fans can too! They’re going to post all sorts of comments on SNS again and you know the CEO doesn’t like that. And don’t get me started on your singing. You’re supposed to be the main vocal of the group, Jae Hwan, yet even the maknae can sing better than you live. What’s the point of having a great voice when you can’t show it off in front of others? No one’s going to stand outside the bathroom door and listen to you in the shower, you know.”

“I know it’s only a pre-recording and not a live show, but can’t you take it just as seriously too? Besides, it’s not as if your live performances are that much better. Let’s work harder, alright?” The manager patted him on the shoulder – albeit a little too harshly – before turning him around and giving him a slight nudge in the direction of the door. “Now get back in there, we have five minutes before we wrap this up and send you lot home.”

“Ne,” Jae Hwan responded meekly before trotting back out to the front to the café and regrouped with the rest of the members, hoping that Hong Bin, who had sidled up to him, would have noticed the dulled twinkle in his eyes and talked him out of his slump but abandoned that farcical thought when the visual slung an arm over his shoulder and casually asked if the singer wanted chicken salad or buckwheat noodles for dinner.

The details regarding the confrontation with the manager over his performing aptitude stuck with Jae Hwan. No one else had noticed he was visibly more subdued than his usual boisterous nature, having all been worn out by the day’s activities as well, and the tranquillity between the members remained for the rest of the way home and the rest of the night.

It wasn’t his fault his voice was more suited for ballads than auto-tuned dance songs and he couldn’t belt out high notes as pitch-perfectly as Taek Woon on live broadcasts. Nor could he help being the stiffest dancer amongst the six members, having no prior dance experience unlike Hak Yeon or Sang Hyuk before he joined Jellyfish Entertainment for a short one year crash course. He always tried his best but his awkward, not-that-huge-yet-not-lean-either build simply wasn’t made for the fast moves and flashy choreography.

What’s the point of having a great voice when you can’t show it off in front of others? The venom-laced words continued to repeat in his mind like a cassette tape that wouldn’t play right even as Jae Hwan tucked himself into bed and drew his futon to his chin and forced his eyes shut. Let’s work harder, alright? At the back of his mind Jae Hwan vaguely registered someone crawling out of bed silently and the sound of the door shutting but the singer didn’t reopen his eyes to check.

He was about to drift off into fitful sleep when he was startled awake by the commotion happening beyond the closed wooden door. It was the sound of people shouting. More specifically, the eldest two members of the group shouting. Their voices rose by the second. In the beginning Jae Hwan couldn’t really make out what they were speaking but after a few minutes the volume of their voices escalated to the extent that each and every single word could be deciphered audibly.

“You were so close to Jae Hwan today. You were all the way on the other end glued to Jae Hwan’s hip the entire time.”

What? Jae Hwan sat up awkwardly straight like a clockwork doll at the mention of his name and cocked his head to the side. He couldn’t tell if what he’d just heard was a mistake on his part or that his leader had just implied that– “You’d think that he was your boyfriend instead.”

Jae Hwan slapped his hand over his mouth and bit back the startled gasp that threatened to escape his lips. There was no avoiding it this time. As if the Man Above had taken him literally when Jae Hwan mentioned that he wanted to clarify what he’d just heard, the second sign came that told him that the two eldest ones in the group were… romantically involved with each other.

There. He’d finally said it and admitted it aloud in his head. The words were now etched in his brain for eternity and there was no way that poisonous thought could be eradicated anymore.

“Boyfriends,” It felt weird to even have the word roll of his tongue. It made sense if the nice, sweet and bubbly Hak Yeon was the only one who swung the other way, so to speak, but Taek Woon was the straightest guy Jae Hwan had ever met. The elder was strictly no-nonsense, hated skinship with men, and he was even religious, for crying out loud. How could a man like him ever be gay?

If Taek Woon hyung is gay, that would make me the queerest dude on the street. Jae Hwan snickered lightly at his attempt in cracking a joke to alleviate the tension radiating through the closed door. “They’re boyfriends. I… I can accept that. They’re boyfriends… And… And… And they’re fighting.”

“Because of me,” The epiphany struck him strong and hard and left him reeling in the aftershock. “I’m a burden.”

“I’m the burden.” It was one thing to be criticised by the higher ups and another to be ostracised by your peers, your members, people whom you thought were your friends. “I’m weighing everyone down.”

Suddenly, the manager’s words didn’t seem to sting as much as they used to anymore and Jae Hwan felt even worse than before. He wasn’t needed nor was he wanted even in his own group. He was supposed to be the mood maker and the smoother-over but instead of lifting the members’ spirits he was exacerbating their differences and creating discord amongst one another and being the cause of their fights.

Jae Hwan’s head spun and the sides of his temples hurt. He let out a soft-pitched whimper and clapped his hands over his ears. It drowned out the noise from his surroundings but only served to amplify the droning voices reverberating in his head.

Good-for-nothing bum.

Talentless idiot.

Unwanted child.

Palms clammy; heart rate erratic; thoughts running wild. Round pearlescent beads of perspiration trickled down the sides of his slick temples. They were the clear signs of one who was on the verge of a panic attack. Jae Hwan thought he was going crazy, having forced himself to the brink of insanity.

Relationship wrecker.

The happy-go-lucky person was drowning in his desolation; the people’s person was losing his mind all by himself with no one for company. How ironic.

You’re the reason Taek Woon hyung and Hak Yeon hyung can’t smile genuinely anymore.

Sleep had been a luxury he couldn’t afford that night.

~~~

Despite knowing that the other wouldn’t appreciate his presence that much – or rather, the older never really appreciated it all too much, seen evidently through the major argument he had with Hak Yeon – Jae Hwan figured that being there for Taek Woon would make the elder feel less lonely and had thus taken upon himself to be by his fellow main vocalist’s side for the following month. His presence wouldn’t fill the gaping leader-shaped void in Taek Woon’s heart, but the least it could do was keep the main vocalist grounded to reality. No knew better the deadly effects of letting one’s imagination run wild than himself.

Every waking moment of the day Jae Hwan would be glued to Taek Woon’s side, cheerily cracking jokes and making a fool of himself in front of the fans and the rolling camera (only to receive a roll of the eyes or a rap of the knuckles on his head in response), but once they went behind the scenes he would avoid Taek Woon as though he was the plague and loiter within the vicinity of Hak Yeon, wary of the severe interrogation he would be subjected to if Taek Woon ever caught hold of him.

It was the night after they returned to their dorm after the fan sign event in Daejeon when everything unfolded. Hak Yeon retreated into the bedroom and locked himself in the moment they reached home, feigning a lack of appetite for not gracing the simple meal Taek Woon was going to whip up for the group. Jae Hwan knew that this gave the perfect setting for his fellow main vocalist to confront him, and he wasn’t surprised when he was summoned into the kitchen to lend the other a hand in preparing dinner. The singer instructed the maknae line to wash up and sent the trio trotting off with a glare before trailing after the elder into the pantry.

Taek Woon picked up the carrots he’d taken from the fridge and removed three from the plastic bag, placing them in the sink to be washed and peeled. He stowed the rest back into the vegetable drawer and rolled up the sleeves of his button-down and got to work, blatantly ignoring Jae Hwan who stood awkwardly by the doorway of the kitchen looking on haplessly.

Feeling out of place and extremely unhelpful, Jae Hwan sidled up behind the elder and retrieved a second vegetable peeler from a drawer, creeping to the sink quietly to contribute his part. He picked up a potato from the sack and began de-skinning it. “H-Hyung? What are we having tonight?”

“I haven’t really decided.” Not bothering to lift his gaze from the chopping board to look at the younger, Taek Woon brought the sharp edge of the knife blade down on the peeled carrots with a seasoned hand, dicing them into even square cubes expertly before dumping the whole lot into a saucer pan. “Hong Bin’s favourite: Curry.”

“Oh.”

The next fifteen minutes was spent in uncomfortable silence as the two main vocalists retrieved the various required items from the fridge and the meat and vegetables were sliced and chopped up and stir fried before everything was thrown into a huge metal pot that sat on the stove. Adding in sufficient water to keep all the ingredients submerged, Taek Woon clasped the lid over the pot and set it to simmer on low heat.

“So?” It was an unorthodox way to start the conversation but Taek Woon was unfazed. He figured there wasn’t really a need for formalities because they both knew the real reason why he’d held Jae Hwan back from going off to freshen up, and it definitely wasn’t to help out with cooking a dinner that the elder could easily handle by himself.

“W–What?” Jae Hwan stuttered, taken aback by the elder’s sudden curt tone.

Taek Woon clucked his tongue in disapproval as he inspected the watery stew bubble and boil under the glass lid, the ingredients churning about in the waves. He moved away from the stove and to the sink, clearing the used utensils along the way. “You know what I’m referring to.”

Jae Hwan sighed at the resentment in the other’s voice. “I do know what you’re talking about, hyung, I just don’t know where to start. ‘So’ is a pretty vague prompt to begin with, if you ask me.”

Taek Woon paused momentarily before picking up a soiled plate and dipping it under the lukewarm soapy water. “How did you find out? For how long have you found out?”

That gave Jae Hwan direction to start speaking. He rested his hip against the marble counter but remained rooted to the spot by the stove as though he was afraid of approaching the elder. And he refused to make eye contact with the other. “It was… That… That night the two of you separated. I found out that night. I heard the both of you arguing in the living room after lights out. I was woken up by the commotion. And, yeah, I’ve known it since then.”

That was when Taek Woon knew he was right, that contrary to Hak Yeon’s adamant belief they’d been overheard that night and his frown deepened. He didn’t know why he was expecting anything else. But this piece of information wasn’t just member gossip or an account of dorm antics that could be brought up to lighten the atmosphere during an interview. This was going to end careers for everyone if it went beyond the four walls of the dormitory. It hadn’t even been a year since they’d debuted. VIXX had barely lasted beyond rookie status. They would never survive the backlash.

“What are you planning to do about it?” Clink. Another dish was dropped into the sink. “About what you’ve learnt?”

“Nothing…? Why would I be planning anything…?” Jae Hwan begun uncertainly before he realised that even up till now, his vocalist counterpart couldn’t trust him to keep a secret. Taek Woon didn’t have enough faith in him to know that he wouldn’t go running off in the opposite direction and spill the beans to their manager or CEO. His eyes shot up from the ground and found the elder’s, a masked ferocity burning in them. “You don’t trust me.”

Taek Woon sighed and immediately regretted phrasing his words in such a callous manner. “I can’t, not right now, I can’t. You don’t know the real implications of finding out something like this. Everything we have now hangs on this, Jae Hwan, and I do mean everything. All our dreams that we’ve slaved over and shed blood, sweat and tears for could very well be over if anyone even catches wind of it. That’s why Hak Yeon and I have never spoken one word before.”

“Yeah, but don’t you at least think that I know better than to run my mouth to every single living soul I meet? And I do know better, Taek Woon hyung. I can keep confidential things confidential without being instructed like a dog. That’s why you don’t see any of the managers sending either of you to the shrink. I genuinely want to help the two of you, hyung. I can’t help but feel terribly guilty because I was the catalyst that triggered the whole major breakup to happen. I want to make up for it by fixing your relationship.”

“You deserve to be happy, Taek Woon hyung, Hak Yeon hyung too. And the two of you make each other happy.”

Taek Woon sighed and ran a hand through his mussed locks, which had now faded into a darker shade of deep burgundy red. It had almost seemed like just yesterday when they started promotions for On and On and held the Mango Six fan event. Had it really been that long since he’d spoken with the leader? “It’s easier said than done, Jae Hwan. Things are so complicated right now.”

“Why?” The aforementioned man folded his arms over his chest and asked – no, demanded – crossly. “Have you fallen out of love with him? Or worse still, have you fallen in love with someone else?”

“No, of course not!” Taek Woon protested indignantly, chewing his bottom lip contemplatively before adding the next line. “Not in this lifetime. I would never fall out of love with him or even think about loving anyone else.”

Jae Hwan raised his eyebrow. “Then has he fallen out of love with you?”

This time Taek Woon faltered. His eyes darted from side to side uncertainly and he in the insides of his cheeks. “I… I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem to have. At least, I hope not.”

“The answer is no, Hak Yeon hyung has not fallen out of love with you.” Jae Hwan corrected haughtily in true Ken-jumma fashion. “Geez, I can’t believe you’re giving your boyfriend so little credit. I see the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention. His eyes burn with such a strong emotion that I was almost certain you were going to burst into flames. Flames of hot, young passion, that is.”

Taek Woon cringed at the other’s poor choice of words. “Ugh, must you make it sound so cheesy? I know you’re the member who has the most recent dating experience so you’re probably still revelling from all that lovey dovey, but what is with the cheesy language today?”

“I’m merely stating the facts in a no-holds-barred manner,” Jae Hwan shrugged nonchalantly as he stared at the boiling pot intensely. “Trust me, hyung, he definitely is still head over heels in love with you.”

“I just want to give you the courage you so desperately need to win Hak Yeon hyung back. You don’t have to worry about us. We will always have your back. It doesn’t matter if you fall in love with another idol, a commoner, a fan girl, a team member or even an animal. We wouldn’t judge you and we’ll still love you both and support you the same.”

“Well, okay if you fell in love with an animal then maybe not. That’s kind of creepy if you ask me.” Jae Hwan’s lightning-quick reflexes kicked into action and he jumped to the side, barely dodging the arm that came swinging in his direction.

“Good luck, hyung.” Jae Hwan bided the other goodbye with a mock salute before disappearing around the corner, only to pop his head back in three seconds later. “Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention this just now but Hak Yeon hyung seemed to be pretty upset during the fan sign just now and I’m certain you saw and know why. You should go comfort him. Give him some Taek Woon loving, if you know what I mean.”

Taek Woon groaned. “Why are you doing this?”

Jae Hwan sent a cheesy wink in the elder’s direction before ducking hastily as a handful of vegetable peels came flying in his direction. “I’m going to shower now. Bye hyung!”

A/N: So, I decided to take a really long break from updating because I was simply too tired.

To be honest, I was never planning to add in a chapter based on Ken's POV since this was, essentially, a N/Leo fic rather than an OT6 one. But after much pondering, I figured that it would be a refreshing change to have the story narrated from a different point of view. Also, I simply couldn't ignore the comments you all made regarding his potential involvement in N/Leo's relationship, can I? XD

I'd started working on this chapter from scratch without any inspiration (A fact that I would regret forever) and God it was the most painful thing to write ever. I had no direction in mind and I was merely toying around with ideas for a really long time, and thus the completed chapter that I was satisfied with came out so late.

But hey, at least I'm back, right? :)

Anyway, a random thought: Do you find my chapters too long and draggy? This story, somehow, brings out a different writing style where I rarely make use of dialogue to make the plot proceed but instead launch into bouts upon bouts of rambling to bring my point across. Is it too much for your liking? I know how draining it is sometimes to read lengthy updates, so would it help if I shortened my work to make reading easier or is this okay?

Do drop me a comment and let me know ^^

Oh, and last but not least, this chapter is dedicated to derpcheonsa, whose blog post dare game I read where she mentioned, in just a tiny little portion that this story was her Favourite Story of the Moment.

I'll bet you never expected this, did you? XD I know it may seem like a small, insignificant gesture on your part to highlight the story in your blog post but it really warmed my heart when I read it, knowing that my writing was appreciated. You really made my day :) Thank you so much, and here's a shout out to you! ^^ Hope you enjoyed this extremely belated update! :3