For naturegal
~Infinite Secret Santa 2013~ *Santas Revealed!*10 Things I Hate About You
For naturegal
Couple: Myungyeol
Prompt: The nine things Myungsoo can't stand about Sungyeol, and the one thing he can't resist.
For a guy who left everything to pursue his dreams, hating something was not a luxury I could afford and hate wasn’t really an emotion that I am well acquainted with. That soon changed however, when the last two members of the group were introduced.
“These two will be added to your team starting today. Sungyeol, Sungjong, come here and say hello,” and just like that, our established five member team became seven. Looking back now, that was probably the turning point in my career. The moment that determined just how far and fast our group would rise in fame, but back then, we were all just teenagers who dreamt big dreams.
Being the youngest Sungjong had the advantage of never doing wrong. None of the hyungs could find fault with his actions no matter what they were. He was just too naïve, too nice, too simple to ever be scolded. That’s different now, but so are a lot of other things. We didn’t notice it straight away since Jungyeop hyung didn’t mention it, but Sungyeol didn’t seem to have any musical training. At the time, when debut was just around the corner, we all felt it was unfair that he was added to the group, me especially.
Sungyeol was an actor-in-training with not an ounce of musical inclination. It was hard enough practicing with the other members without him originally, but with Sungyeol around, we were constantly being compared.
“We can only have one visual in the group Sungyeol-ah, you need to practice your vocals more, you can’t just be a pretty face,” was a comment I often heard from our vocal trainers. Sungjong, Sungyeol and I used to get taught together since we had the weakest vocals out of the seven, but to hear that made me feel inadequate in so many ways. Did they think I had no talent and purely kept me for my looks? Were they expecting me to keep silent in all our songs to just appear during the MVs?
These were all questions that had never even occurred to me before the two had arrived and for that it made me resent him.
-
As we grew together from boys to men, I always thought that he had hit his growth spurt early, stop growing, and let the rest of us catch up…but apparently not. He just seemed to never stop growing and although Woohyun’s nickname was ‘namu’ it would probably have better suited Sungyeol. I envied his height. As an idol group, it was imperative that each member had a distinctive trademark to make us stand out from the rest of the rookie. Each of my members had their own distinct features but I had nothing but my lack of singing voice. It was certainly not something that I wanted to be known for.
Being the closest in age to me, Sungyeol and Sungjong would spend most of their spare time just hanging out in the dorm not really saying much of anything. Every time I looked at Sungyeol though, I was reminded that I had nothing going for me but my looks and that, in time, would certainly fade. It made me become even more conscious of my looks and made me paranoid about keeping my skin clear.
-
Not only did idols require distinct features and gestures, our managers warned us that each of us needed to be prepared with an individual talent. Through the ingenuity of our company, my talent was simply just staring at the camera; apparently it would make girls swoon. I wasn't too sure how effective that was but that was how they planned to ‘sell’ my character. Sungyeol on the other hand, just confidently stated that he had a personal talent down pat and that they didn’t need to worry about him.
We all soon learnt that if Sungyeol told you NOT to worry, then you should be very, very worried. Most of us had thought that as an actor-in-training, he would most likely have an impersonation as a talent and boy was it an impersonation. Well, I don’t know if impersonation is the right word for it seeing as how it wasn’t a human he was imitating. His owl face soon became a hot topic after he showed it in our very first TV interview. Afterwards, sajangnim had forbidden him from ever doing it again, but being Sungyeol, he of course just ignored the instruction.
I hated his owl impersonation with a passion. As rookie idols, we did everything in our power to be taken seriously. Woohyun’s fanservice was meant to capture the heart of the fans and Sungjong’s girl dances were meant to show just how diverse our talents ran. Sungyeol’s ‘personal talent’ served no purpose but to shoot down all our efforts at being considered a rookie group to contend with. We became a laughing stock in a matter of seconds and everywhere we went people asked to see his owl face. We could hear the laughter aimed at us before he even started.
I hated it. I hated how he could be so childish and not see just what he was doing to the group.
-
There was a reason why literally everyone calls him ‘choding’. Even the fans had taken to calling him ‘Choding Yeol’ and it definitely wasn’t a nickname to be proud of. Well in my mind anyway. He seems to lap up the attention bestowed upon him by middle graders that think he’s a same aged chingu. He really isn’t, but you couldn’t really tell from the way he acts.
Out of the seven of us, including the maknae, he behaved the youngest. He was the most annoying person when you didn’t pay him any attention and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who whines more than him. He whines when he’s hungry, when he’s bored…just plain old whines all the time. He never seems to run out of things to whine about and the best part is, note the sarcasm, who does he whine to? Why, me of course.
There are seven people in the dorm not to mention our managers who constantly come in and out and he decides to whine at me 24/7. The joys of being the closest in age to Lee Sungyeol meant that I was ‘blessed’ with his presence constantly as he always reminded me. I couldn’t stand his personality at first but over the years, I think we’ve all become immune to it. That doesn’t stop him from trying to act cute though.
-
He cements his choding personality with the accompaniment of his high-pitched voice and lisp when he’s anxious or angry. Which tends to be quite often since he doesn’t have much self-esteem. He likes to pretend he does but all the members know differently. We can hear him at night when he’s at his most vulnerable, thinking that everyone’s asleep, he mumbles about all his perceived failures and cries himself to the point of exhaustion. This makes things even worse when he doesn’t have the energy for practice the next day and gets scolded by the trainers, and so the cycle continues. Countless nights either myself, Sungjong or Hoya had to wake up and call in Sunggyu hyung. It seems that Sungyeol is inconsolable at those times and only the presence of hyung can calm him.
Normally we all make fun of Sunggyu hyung’s lisp because it’s more prominent than Sungyeol’s but we’re so used to hyung’s that it’s considered normal now. Whereas with Sungyeol, his lisp makes an appearance even worse than Sunggyu hyung’s that makes him barely understandable. His excitable nature makes it impossible for any of us to get him to calm down enough to understand. The more we try to relax him the harder to understand he becomes and the higher his pitch. The others gave up long ago and by some unanimous decision, I had been assigned the task of keeping Sungyeol in line.
I think at one stage I had even tried to buy earplugs for the moments that I had to deal with him when he was excited by something. It turned out to have been the wrong thing to do. He just ended up getting offended and went screeching into my ears about how bad of a friend I was to not understand him. That then led to a long lecture by manager hyung, through which I sat silently and just walked away. If they wanted me to be L on-stage and Myungsoo off-stage just so they could conveniently berate me, then they had another thing coming.
After that day I stayed as far away from Sungyeol as possible. I was tired of always being the one left to deal with his bi-polar personality. Without noticing, weeks had passed before Sunggyu hyung had approached me. With a sigh he had asked me to speak to Sungyeol again and that Yeol had promised to be on his best behavior from now on. It seemed that Sungyeol had gone begging to Sunggyu hyung for help when he thought that I had given him the cold shoulder. I had thought it would take longer before he noticed I was avoiding him, what with our long schedules and all but I failed to remember that we had spent nearly all our time together before. Well that was before either one of us had started to receive individual schedules.
-
I resent the fact that he managed to snag a leading role in a web drama and have the drama do well on his first try. When I first set foot into the acting world, all my efforts were for naught when every scene I had shot was edited out. From then it seemed, my fate was always to only gain supporting roles. I shouldn’t have been surprised really considering his specialty and training is acting, but it just rubs me the wrong way.
I know I should be happy for him but it’s hard. Especially when I remember just how disrespectful I was to Sunggyu hyung after a particularly bad day. I can still remember the day, even if the details are a little hazy from alcohol. Sunggyu hyung had decided to call manager hyung and I out to treat us to dinner. It was a rare occurrence that Sunggyu hyung would call members out individually, but he always had his reasons. That time was because he had noticed how depressed I was getting. In return for his kindness, I stabbed him straight through the heart with my remarks.
“You’re album isn’t doing well either hyung so I guess it’s okay that my drama isn’t doing so well.”
Alcohol was certainly not my friend, and since then, I had avoided it at all costs.
Seeing Sungyeol succeed in not only a drama but a variety show before that made me feel even worse about myself. I compared myself to him constantly. Why did I fail where he succeeded, why wasn’t my acting good enough, was I too emotionless, were just some of the questions that were constantly invading my mind.
-
It may seem like I hate nearly every aspect of his personality, but it’s what makes him unique and are certainly the reasons why I consider him to be one of my closest friends. I dislike the fact that he is so insecure about his own talents and looks but it is these insecurities that bring out the vulnerable and cute side. His choding personality grates on my nerves but it also balances my somber mood most of the time. It also, on rare occasions, brings out the child in me that the fans seem to love. They love our interaction so much that they’ve dubbed us as ‘MyungYeol’. That was another part of idol life that took a little getting used to, fan-service and OTPs.
At first I hated the fact that I was paired up with the choding. I always asked myself just what had I done to have to be linked permanently with the boy who was determined to be a man. As soon as management realized that OTPs could become a selling point for them, they emphasized the fact that fan-service was a requirement at every event we attended. Our usual group interaction sent fans into a tither, but any OTP action and the fans would send the skies soaring with their screams.
Fans don’t seem to realize that when we debut, we’re basically the same age as them, just teenagers barely entering adulthood. Teenagers who had our own idols and biases, so yes, we did know about the existence of OTPs and we knew our way around the net forums enough to see just what they thought of us. We read every comment they posted whether it was hate or encouragement. Some days it served as our tonic to work extra hard, others, it made us question just why we had given up everything for this life.
-
Comments were harshest if a scandal ever broke. Luckily for our group the only ‘scandals’ we had been involved in were pretty minor, that is until our world tour started. Of all people to be involved in a major scandal, no one in the group thought that it would be me. Everyone had assumed that Woohyun hyung would be the first to cause us trouble in that department.
However, it seemed that my gross misjudgment as to who I should choose as friends came back to haunt me. As celebrities, who we hang out with is greatly determined by our management. In terms of other celebrities, we only really see them at recordings or public events. As for our personal friends, well, the only time we saw them was during major holidays, or if we were devious enough, when we snuck out of the dorms.
Kim Do Yeon was someone that I would say was ‘forced’ upon me. She wasn’t the type of person that I would normally choose to hang out with but she didn’t seem too bad so I didn't mind striking a friendship with her. Her father was a big player in the industry so we were all told to play nice. Without realizing it, my ‘playing nice’ had led to the blossoming of a naïve and innocent relationship. Well at least I thought it was at the time until the reporters got a hold of the story.
Once it was leaked to the press and the fans became involved it just seemed too hard on the both of us to keep it going. By then, we had started drifting apart anyway. Months later, what Inspirits had sent via SNS would see Do Yeon come back and attempt to destroy not only me on a personal level, but the company as well. At the time, if Sungyeol wasn’t around, I don’t know what I would have done.
The members, company and fans showed unconditional support but that small minority of ‘fans’ that decided the words of an unknown girl were worth more than my own made heart ache. During that period I just couldn’t seem to muster the strength to even pretend that I was okay with everything that was happening. Sungyeol took it upon himself to be as comedic as possible in an attempt to get me to laugh again. I can’t really say he had been all that humorous to begin with but his efforts were appreciated. His jokes were never funny and it was the one thing that everyone agreed with but we couldn’t get him to stop. Everyone cringes when he starts a joke and it was getting to the point that we were all starting to hate his jokes.
-
It wasn’t until much later and after talking with Dongwoo hyung that I realized just how much Sungyeol was there for me. He would always be the first person I saw in the morning and he last I saw at night. He was always there when I was tired from practice or down from another newspaper article. Originally I felt that he was just being too clingy and snapped at him. Getting angry that he was following me everywhere and not letting me have my personal space, but I know better now.
That was another thing about Sungyeol that took a bit of getting used to. He was the type of person to wear their heart on their sleeve but found it difficult to express their emotions in a practical way. Over the years, we learnt that Sungyeol’s way of showing concern was to trail you everywhere. Being there at every corner regardless of whether he had the same schedule as you or not.
The managers used to get angry that he would disappear from schedule without telling anyone and we would all scold him as soon as we returned to the dorm. That was until Sunggyu hyung decided enough was enough and took Sungyeol aside for a chat. It was then that we finally realized that Sungyeol just didn’t know how to express his concern for us.
-
I wouldn’t change him for anyone else though and that goes for everyone in Infinite. Despite his personality flaws he makes me smile every time he laughs (because I secretly think he looks like a squawking bird…but don’t tell him I said that). His laughter is so carefree and full of childish awe. It’s innocent and encompasses all that is good in the world.
People say that Dongwoo hyung is the happiest of the group, but I say that he is the most naïve. The happiest would have to be Sungyeol because he understands and yet can still smile despite all the difficulties. I envy him his ability to laugh everything off. Even when he’s down at his lowest point, he is always laughing to make sure that the rest of us aren’t affected by his mood.
I wouldn’t change him for the world and you would be hard pressed to find any member that would.
ANr: Hi there! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Infinite blessings! I hope that my oneshot is okay =(. I’m not used to MyungYeol so this was a bit hard. I’m sorry if it wasn’t what you were expecting.
StarlightSpirit: I cried at this because Sungyeol is my ultimate bias and I know he's sad and insecure at times and I cried at the Do Yeon part and I cried because Yeollie is so flawed but that's what makes him perfect and I would normally have wanted this to be romantic Myungyeol but I adore this friendship fic anyway so I don't care and I love this. Thank you <3
Updates will be just me adding direct links as they come in and adding the santas to the chapters, don't worry too much :3
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