Practice
Where I Belong
“Can you believe it? We’re going to debut!”
“Stop bouncing Seobie. You’re going to fall off the sofa,” Doojoon chided, but there wasn’t any irritation to his tone.
Junhyung looked up in time to see Yoseob nearly do just that. Doojoon’s quick hands grabbed him and kept him upright, and the hyperactive boy giggled before flashing the band leader a sheepish grin. Junhyung sighed and turned his attention back onto his notebook, ignoring the childish apologies being granted to Doojoon.
“Where’s Hyunseung? He disappeared after the meeting.”
Kikwang’s voice broke through the room, bringing Junhyung’s attention away from his lyric notebook once again. Junhyung frowned, looking around the room and noticing for the first time that they really were the only four in there.
“Dongwoon isn’t here, either,” He noted quietly. That bothered him, surprisingly. Dongwoon was pretty mature for his age and Hyunseung had never really been one to speak a lot, but Junhyung didn’t like the idea that two of their members’ whereabouts were currently unknown. He set his notebook aside and pushed his chair back from the table he’d been sitting at. “I’ll look for them.”
Kikwang nodded uncertainly, his concern showing far more easily than Junhyung’s. On the sofa, Yoseob had paused in his antics to look with wide eyes at his bandmates. “You don’t think anything happened to them, do you?”
“I’m sure they’re just practicing, Yoseob,” Doojoon reassured quickly, hooking an arm around the small teen’s shoulders and giving a squeeze. “If Junhyung checks all the practice rooms and still can’t find them, we’ll all look, okay?”
Yoseob nodded but didn’t look very convinced as Junhyung left the room. “If you say so.”
---
“Not like that. Slow down a little and relax.”
“Like this?’
“Sort of. Just… There. And angle your knee.. Yeah. That’s it.”
Junhyung frowned. One of the voices sounded like Dongwoon’s, but the other he wasn’t really familiar with. They were in one of the practice rooms that trainees frequented, so they had to be practicing something, but it certainly sounded strange.
“That’s it, Dongwoon! Great!”
That was it. The pure joy in the unfamiliar voice made Junhyung’s curiosity go up several notches and he just had to see what was going on. More to the point, who was with Dongwoon.
Rounding the corner of the doorway into the practice room, he tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Here you are Dongwo-..”
Hyunseung and Dongwoon froze as they heard Junhyung’s voice, and both boys turned in unison to look at the newcomer. The excited smile had slipped off Hyunseung’s face instantly upon the realization that they weren’t alone, but Dongwoon’s lingered.
“Hyung! Look!”
Junhyung’s gaze had frozen onto Hyunseung at first when he saw him, but when Dongwoon started to pull off what had for weeks been an incredibly difficult dance sequence for him, Junhyung forced his eyes onto the group’s maknae. The pieces fell into place in seconds as he watched Dongwoon’s limbs flow through the moves with more ease than usual. He glanced briefly toward the quiet teen standing off to the side, but made sure to keep the majority of his attention on Dongwoon until he was finished.
When the youngest boy straightened from dancing and grinned hopefully at him, Junhyung cleared his throat and nodded, smiling slightly. “You’ve improved.”
Dongwoon’s grin widened and he looked at Hyunseung. “I’m going to go find the others and show them. Thanks hyung!”
Hyunseung’s eyes widened as Dongwoon raced out of the practice room and left him alone with someone he’d never actually spoken to before. Suddenly distinctly uncomfortable, he shifted a little on his feet and looked around the room.
“You know you’re going to have to get used to everyone, not just Dongwoon and Yoseob,” Junhyung murmured, and when Hyunseung’s eyes jumped to his face the rapper was smirking at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Junhyung said quietly, taking a single step closer to the older teen.
Hyunseung froze. Junhyung had been watching him. He knew Hyunseung only spoke to managers and Yoseob. Until today, when Dongwoon had spoken to him. That had happened surprisingly fast, really… They’d spoken on the way to the practice room about Dongwoon’s troubles with his dancing, and then Hyunseung had watched patiently while Dongwoon showed him what he meant. He’d liked him instantly upon first speaking to him. Dongwoon was like Yoseob - easy to like.
Still, the knowledge that Junhyung had noticed his hesitancy to be around people meant that he’d watched for longer than everyone else and had looked beneath the surface of his lack of interaction with the other trainees. It made Hyunseung feel uncomfortable, but he also felt a small comforting warmth at the same time.
“We should get back,” Junhyung said after a minute of staring at the indecision on the dancer’s face. He sighed and turned away, beckoning for Hyunseung to follow him as he headed out of the practice room.
Hyunseung hesitated…. But only for a moment.
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