TWO

Luhan lifted his head when he heard the door creak open, but let it drop once more, seeing it was only Yifan. He kicked his legs back and forth a little harder, making Yifan pause, before slowly shutting the door. Luhan was sitting on the edge of his bed, between the railings, feet catching in the ladder with every swing.

He looked at his knees as Yifan approached him, expecting the other to slide into the bed beneath his, but instead the tall male stepped up on the side of his bed and lifted himself up, sitting next to Luhan with his legs dangling off the edge. He was tall enough to reach Luhan’s bed without even stepping on a rung, and quite frankly, it annoyed Luhan. The elder looked away, suffocating in the awkward silence between himself and the giant beside him.

“I heard what Junmyeon said during practice today.”

Luhan shut his eyes. Not Junmyeon again.

“You looked really upset.”

Of course I did.

Luhan felt Yifan’s hand gently touch his own, before the younger’s large grasp covered his own and their fingers intertwined together. He felt a lump forming in his throat, but Yifan’s comfort was too warm to pull away from.

“Luhan, don’t ignore me.”

“Leave me alone, Yifan,” Luhan whispered.

He squeezed Luhan’s hand reassuringly, and brushed their elbows together.

“Hey, don’t take it to heart,” Yifan said softly, “Junmyeon’s just worried about you. You know he’d never say anything to purposely hurt you. He cares about you a lot.”

Luhan kicked his legs against the side of his bed. “I’ve been working so hard, you know. I’ve been following my diet perfectly. Even my trainer tells me I’m losing weight fast but Junmyeon doesn’t think so. He doesn’t think I’m following my diet. He thinks I’m heavy.”

“He’s probably just having a bad day. We’ve all been stressed lately.”

“Why was it only me he was picking on?”

Yifan paused, then sighed. “I don’t know, Luhan. I don’t know.”

Luhan raised his head. “Am I fat?”

Yifan shot him a warning look, “don’t start. You know you’re not fat, Luhan. Don’t do this.”

Luhan looked at his feet.

He knew Yifan had been close with another trainee who’d developed an eating disorder from all the pressure of being skinny enough to fit the standards – the entire group had been aware of that right from the beginning. Yifan was sensitive about the subject of weight – the friend had ended up in rehabilitation after long periods of starving himself, before giving in and eating, and then purging everything back up again. It made Luhan sick to the stomach to think that someone could ever do that to themselves, but now, he was beginning to understand how hard it was to handle the burden of not feeling good enough.

It had only been a few hours, and Luhan already felt terrible, just from those two comments from Junmyeon.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t hurt yourself over this, Luhan, okay? It’s not worth it. You know that. You’re fine just the way you are.”

He sighed. “Does it look like I have an eating disorder, Yifan? I’m fine.”

“You’d be surprised how quickly a disorder can develop from just a small comment.”

Luhan was quiet. He didn’t want to think about that. He wasn’t going to do anything stupid, he didn’t want to listen to Yifan, but—

“He told me the same thing,” he whispered. “Someone told him he wasn’t skinny enough to debut. He told me he was going on a diet, but…but…”

Yifan’s voice broke halfway through the sentence, and Luhan’s head jerked up immediately. The latter was using the back of his free hand to wipe away tears that threatened to fall, and Luhan began to panic.

“Yifan—”

He shook his head, before letting go of Luhan’s hand and jumping off the bed, placing a palm to his forehead.

“I-I’m going to call him,” Yifan whispered, before quickly walking out of the room and shutting the door quietly behind him.

Luhan felt his heart sink. No, he wasn’t going to end up like Yifan’s friend; he couldn’t put the burden on the others like that. Starving himself was stupid, anyway; he’d only lose muscle and feel too weak to complete his schedules. He was scared of purging as well – the thought of making himself gag and vomit after every meal was terrifying to him.

He wasn’t going to do that. It was just a diet – a diet of a diet. A smaller diet. It wouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t end up crazy.

Would he?

Junmyeon and Luhan didn’t approach each other for the rest of the night and only came face-to-face in the morning. However, Luhan had slept off his guilt and pain, and felt a little better once he heard Yixing loudly shouting orders while frantically trying to cook breakfast. Ignoring Junmyeon, who was peering at him from behind his magazine, Luhan rested his elbows on the counter and watched Yixing cook, as Sehun tried to help with an enthusiastic smile on his face.

“Alright,” Yixing sighed, in accented Korean, “you can put it in now.”

Sehun beamed and jumped forward, holding a container above the boiling pot and pouring the contents in. Yixing shrieked and pulled him back, “too much!”

“S-Sorry!”

“What’s for breakfast?” Luhan chirped, fingers drumming on the marble bench-top.

“I’m making it!” Sehun cried, in terribly pronounced Chinese.

“I can see that.”

“Just the usual, Luhan,” Yixing sighed, “but it might be a bit watery and overcooked.” Sehun frowned at that.

“That’s alright.”

He watched the two for a bit longer, before speaking up again.

“Where’s Kyungsoo?”

Yixing shrugged. “Asleep. He told me he didn’t want to cook. He hasn’t been helping out for a while now, I don’t know why. He’s lost passion, I think. I guess the whole deal with cut meals and hectic workdays is getting to him.”

Luhan was surprised. “I thought he enjoyed cooking – as an escape from all the work and stuff, you know?”

“Yeah. He’s been acting kind of off lately. I think I’ll talk to him after breakfast, it’s making me uncomfortable.”

“What are you talking about?” Sehun whined.

Luhan smiled a little, and shook his head at Sehun’s amateur Mandarin skills. He knew the conversation was moving too fast for him to follow, but he didn’t want to worry the young one anyway.

He’d been noticing the isolated attitude Kyungsoo had been showing as well, and he was also curious. He didn’t think too much of it – of course, the schedules and pressure of debuting in a year had gotten to all of them – but Kyungsoo had never been the cold and uninterested person. His warmth had faded noticeably and he was acting surprisingly distant from everyone.

Luhan had assumed he’d get over it, but when Kyungsoo was turning down one of his favourite hobbies, something was obviously wrong.

“I can talk to him now, if you’d like.”

“Don’t bother.” Yixing smiled, “your Korean , anyway.”

“Not as much as yours!”

“Can you please speak Korean?” Sehun begged, “this is really confusing.”

“Sorry, Sehun.”

Luhan smiled again, before turning away to let the youngers cook breakfast, and collapsed down onto the sofa, yawning. He’d slept fine the previous night, but he was almost always tired from overworking himself every day.

He’d forgotten Junmyeon was already there, flicking the corners of his magazine and looking up and down between Luhan and the glossy pages.

Luhan jumped when he noticed him.

“O-Oh, sorry, I didn’t—”

“Luhan, can we talk for a minute?” Junmyeon said softly, lowering the magazine he’d been staring at for the past half hour, not a single word being taken in.

“…Uhh…”

“Please?”

Luhan was sceptical. He wasn't ready to have yet another lecture about his weight, not after his mild emotional breakdown, not after he’d woken up in such a good mood.

He blinked at the latter, strangely afraid of what he was going to say, before nodding slowly.

“Okay.”

Junmyeon bit his lip. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. Yifan was crying and told me he was scared you’d end up like Woosung – the bulimic guy from a few years ago – and I felt really guilty. I didn’t realise I’d affected you that much. I was too scared to confront you yesterday, because I thought you were mad at me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything I said.”

Luhan felt his heart soften. He had been worried all night that it was really his fault, that he was the one to anger Junmyeon, but hearing the reassurance made him feel so much better. He smiled, and made Junmyeon smile back.

“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.”

Junmyeon laughed a little, and took Luhan’s hand, much to his comfort.

“Please don’t end up like Yifan’s friend, Luhan. I wouldn’t ever want to see you in that much pain. And I’m sorry I was too cowardly to talk to you yesterday. I was really angry at myself when Minseok told me you’d fallen asleep crying.”

“I—Minseok heard me?”

Junmyeon smiled at him sadly, before edging closer and hugging his waist tightly, much to Luhan’s surprise.

“I love you, Luhan. Don’t end up with a disorder. Please.”

He smiled and hugged Junmyeon back, overwhelmed with solace that he knew Junmyeon didn’t hate him, that everything would be okay – at least, most things would be okay. It wasn’t as if he knew he’d been infected, had something imprinted onto his mind the moment those sentences left Junmyeon’s mouth, but he was content in his nonchalance. He was happy knowing that he had his friend back.

“I won’t.”

Junmyeon had quickly occupied the seat beside Luhan when breakfast was served, and grabbed his hand under the table, resting it between their knees. Luhan was taken aback, but assumed the latter was simply trying to make up for their little ‘incident’ the previous night, and accepted the offer gratefully.

The younger made sure to pile lots of food into Luhan’s bowl – not enough to go over the diet limit, but definitely enough to far cross the border of starvation. Luhan was unhappy with the unusually large portion size, his mind driving back to the sight of his reflection and the unlikeable body shape he was faced with, but Junmyeon was persistent, so he ate it all regardless. He was hungry, anyway, after skipping dinner.

The other ten members seemed to have forgotten the episode and didn’t take so much as a second glace at Luhan, but they did notice his left hand and Junmyeon’s right were nowhere to be seen. Jongdae had ducked his head under the table and spotted their small act of affection, and started the rounds of noticeable whispering around the table. Luhan, flustered, had tried to pull away, but Junmyeon held on tightly.

“Something happen overnight that we didn’t hear about?” Baekhyun blurted, after the long silences of clinking bowls and low whispers. The whole table erupted into laughter and Junmyeon finally blushed and detached their hands, but Luhan laughed along, relieved everything was back to normal.

✏ [ a/n ] another short-ish chapter. idk. the chapters will range in length. they're all over 1000 but under 3000 (except for like one or two) so uh yeah i hope that's a good length for you all! and hopefully this'll be enough to keep you guys happy? <3 thanks so much to all my new subscribers, upvoters, and especially the people who take the time to comment! i've had the best week seeing all the fantastic feedback and you guys have really made me happy. your support is everything to me and i really hope i won't let you down! i know i'm updating kinda fast but idk i'm just excited, i hope i don't annoy you guys with updates <3 i'll try and put them off for a bit longer~  thanks again guys, i love you all from the bottom of my esophagus to the top of my sternum <3 bonus points to the people that get the reference HAHA

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