chapter three

〈 ♞ 〉NIGHT CIRCUS
 
21 NOVEMBER 2014
2:13 AM
THE THIRD CHAPTER
 
Suhwan watches as Jiwool, Jaesun, and Seungheon continue to dance to whatever song comes up on the eldest man’s iPod. He’s sitting off to the side on the lone couch, sweat slowly drying on his skin from having finished practicing with them, and the page of lyrics for their newest song to practice and record lies on his lap. This new song is called ‘Soul,’ and he thinks the lyrics somewhat contradict their title song ‘Don’t Tease Me!’

He observes how the dancers’ arms move as they dance and he thinks the only reason he’s still watching them is because Jiwool slightly reminds him of the way Jongin from EXO and Boa dance combined. He doesn’t think he’s ever looked away when he sees them dance on television. His lips quirk to the side at the realization before he loses interest again and looks down to the page and softly mouths the words.

He doesn’t even know how long he’s been sitting there, hearing their demo track play a few times on loop before he feels someone plop down beside him. He looks over to see Seungheon panting, sweat dripping down his face as he chugs down the rest of his water bottle before crushing it in his hand. He flinches at the rough noise.

“Sorry, Suhwan,” Seungheon breathes after seeing the other flinch at his action.

“It’s okay,” Suhwan softly says, looking away from the discarded bottle on his group mate’s lap back to his paper.

There’s a beat of silence between them before Seungheon speaks up again. “So, you don’t go to school, right?”

“Huh?” Suhwan questions back, taking a quick glance at the other before looking away just as quickly seeing the other man staring at him. “No,” he answers back, barely seeing Seungheon nod out of the corners of his eyes.

“Do you miss it? I already graduated, but I’m really interested in going back for acting or something.”

Suhwan makes a small, barely noticeable noise of acknowledgment as he looks around in thought. He does feel a bit left out from his group of friends while they attend university without him. He misses his best friend Jaehyuk and his friend Kwangsun. He doesn’t think he’s seen them in a while, not since their one-week break.

“Suhwan?” Seungheon questions again, trying to pull him back into the conversation, “Are you sleepy? You’re here later than normal.”

“What?”

Seungheon sighs lightly at his attempts. “Are you tired? Do you want to go home?”

“Oh,” Suhwan immediately answers, sitting up straight before looking around for a clock.

“It’s close to 3:15 AM,” the other responds back, looking to his cell phone where he sees a message from his cousin Kyehoon, “I’ll probably be heading out soon too. I can walk you back home or wherever it is where we all split off.”

Suhwan looks at him, mildly shocked at the time, before looking away and nodding. “Yeah. I should probably go home.” He doesn’t see Seungheon smile at his long response but he sees Jiwool trying to do a flip before Jaesun immediately stops her from possibly breaking a bone by holding her by the shoulders and slightly pushing down so she doesn’t move. He watches, getting distracted again as the two members start to argue about doing new flips without padding or mats, and it isn’t until Jaesun looks over to call Seungheon that Suhwan snaps out of his little cloud.

Seungheon frowns before getting up and patting Suhwan’s shoulder. “Sorry, Suhwan. I’m staying a bit longer to help them.” He looks down at him next with a smile. “Text one of us when you get home, okay?”

Suhwan nods easily enough, getting up as well to get his stuff. “Okay, hyung,” he softly agrees as he slings his bag across his body. He jumps when he makes it to the door. He hears Jiwool’s voice first before he feels her arms surrounding his body from behind.

She’s warm.

“Are you leaving, Suhwan?” she questions before letting him go of her hug and turning him around, “Get home safely, okay?”

Suhwan blushes at her actions but nods anyways, looking down at first before timidly looking up to see Jaesun and Seungheon smiling at him too. He makes an incomprehensible, embarrassed sound before looking towards his feet again. “Okay, noona,” he mumbles out, feeling his ears heat up before he suddenly takes a step back and bows deeply, surprising the other three, and then quickly turns to grab his bike from the hallway and head out of the building.

“See you in the morning!” Seungheon calls out with a wave. Jaesun rolls his eyes at Seungheon’s carefree farewell, seeming not to understand what he thinks they need to do within the year before their debut. They really need to get Suhwan to open up a bit more or at least relax when he’s put on the spot. He internally sighs when Jiwool suddenly turns back to them with a bright smile.

“So, who’s going to help me learn these flips?”

“How many times do I need to ask this, Jiwool?” Jaesun questions back, obviously aggravated with the whole situation, “Do you really want to break your head? Or a leg or something before our debut?”

Jiwool frowns as she simply does a cartwheel towards them. “How much harder is it from that? I can already do handstands by myself too.”

Jaesun sighs as he steps back and gestures for Seungheon to take over. “He’s the one with more experience.”

“I really think you should wait until Sunday again, Jiwool,” Seungheon says simply before looking to Jaesun.

“It’s not safe here without any mats. We don’t want you getting injured,” Jaesun adds on, staring at his friend pleadingly, “Come on. What would Chanyeol do if he found out you suddenly injured yourself? You’d have to lie to him more about what you’ve been doing all this time.”

“Plus, it takes a lot of time,” Seungheon continues with a shrug, watching as the girl in front of them frowns at them. He doesn’t really understand why though. “I should at least be one of the people doing the flips though.”

“Hey!” Jiwool shouts out, pouting at her band mate, “I’m the one Minseok-oppa already gave the position to.”

“I’m just saying. I already know how to do what he wants you to learn.”

“Chai,” Jaesun warns, knowing the other’s slightly difficult personality where he can’t read the atmosphere of a situation around them at all.

“What?”

Jaesun just gives him a look before looking back to Jiwool. “How about we go home and look over the lyrics of the new song while it’s still early?” He shifts his gaze to the other man as Seungheon walks away to grab his cell phone. “I’m pretty sure it’s around the time we start heading home too.”

“Oh, Suhwan made it home safely,” Seungheon suddenly announces, taking the time to send a response back, “That seemed fast. Was it that quick?”

“And Hyemi, Min, and Sookhyun are already home as well,” Jaesun adds knowingly, going back to eyeing a pouting Jiwool. And then he starts to whine. “Jiwool.”

Jiwool sighs at the desperate tone in her friend’s voice. “Sookhyun’s already home because he has school in the morning.” She then frowns at the other. “But let’s go home.”

“Do you still go to the gym before practice starts?” Seungheon questions out-of-the-blue as he grabs his bag, “Because doesn’t that mean you only get like, one hour of sleep a night?”

“Nowadays, I only go about an hour so I can get at least three hours of sleep a night.”

Jaesun sighs in relief at the easy change in attitude in his friend this time around, going over to grab his bag and key as well before following the other two out only to see them staring through the window into the recording room to their left. Both of them are quiet and when he walks up to them and looks for himself, his gaze softens at seeing Min sleeping on the couch in there with what looks like their next song lyrics on the table in front of her. Her legs aren’t even propped up on the other side of the couch. “Is it because of Lu Han again?” he questions quietly, knowing very well both Min and Jiwool are still suffering from the consequences of his departure as well in some way, shape, or form.

Seungheon looks at him confused before looking to Jiwool when she speaks up. “I’m pretty sure she met up with him when she went back home – same with Kris-oppa.” He didn’t know Min and Lu Han were close, same with her and that guy. Were they even close? Isn’t that a bad thing now since they left their group and sued their company twice?

“How did that go?” Jaesun asks right when Jiwool slowly opens the door so as not to wake their friend abruptly.

“I don’t know,” Jiwool answers back, wincing when her bag hits the nearby shelf and she quickly drops it so it’s not in the way any longer.

“Is this why she’s tired all the time?” Seungheon suddenly questions, trying to keep quiet too despite the questions in his head, “Or is it because she’s the oldest of us?”

The sudden jab at the rapper’s age has the other two smiling and snickering even though the situation doesn’t call for it before she gently shakes Min awake. “Shimin-unnie?” Jiwool quietly calls, watching as the simple call and shake is enough to make the elder stir awake, “Unnie?”

“Baozi!” Min suddenly screams as she jolts awake and accidentally knocks heads with Jiwool. She groans at the pain, Jiwool falling to sit back on the coffee table and whimpering as she clutches her head. “Ow,” they both groan out, Min speaking in Mandarin, “What happened?”

The room goes silent at her question, nobody really understanding what she’s saying, especially since Jiwool only recently started taking lessons and she hasn’t learned many phrases yet. It’s Seungheon who blurts out a response – “What?” – followed by Jaesun who speaks in English because he’s very confused right now – “Did you just say EXO Xiumin’s nickname?”

“What?” Min questions back in the same language, looking at them similarly confused.

“Why did you attack me?” Jiwool whines right after, and it’s then that Jaesun realizes they can all speak English fluently.

“We should be the foreign line since we can all speak English fluently,” he suddenly suggests, “When we debut.”

“Oh,” Seungheon breathes out, realizing it as well and speaking in English, “That’d be awesome.”

Min still looks terribly confused before reaching out to gently rub Jiwool’s head. “Sorry, Yooji.” She then looks to the others. “What time is it?”

“Close to 4 AM,” Jaesun answers back, giving her a concerned stare, “Is something bothering you?”

“Huh?” Min asks back, earning a satisfactory smile from Jiwool at the attention before standing and stretching out her stiff body, “No? I just leaned back after singing the lyrics for ‘Soul’ and I guess I fell asleep while you were all still dancing.” She then looks at all of them again. “Why are we speaking in English?”

“Yeah, why?” Seungheon adds on, confused himself.

Jaesun shrugs, “It’s my default language.”

“Why did you scream ‘baozi’?” Jiwool questions.

Min looks at them similarly confused as before. “I don’t know?” She then looks up in thought. “Maybe I dreamt I was back home and wanted another one. They’re pretty good, you know. But I can’t remember.”

“That’s really weird,” Seungheon comments, “But if it’s food, I guess it’s understandable.”

“Food is very important in life,” Jiwool adds with a nod as Jaesun continues to eye Min to make sure she was really okay. He watches as she continues to talk to them, seeming like she really is okay, and maybe he should start asking more about Lu Han and EXO with Min and Jiwool to find out what’s really going on with them. It doesn’t seem to impede their work though. It just makes it look like they work harder to forget whatever is going on between them.

“You guys going now?” Min suddenly asks as she looks to him before shifting her gaze down to his keys, “We should go.”

Jaesun simply agrees with her as she quickly gets her stuff and they’re finally done with the day.



Suhwan is in the recording room singing his lines when Sookhyun walks in, straight from school. He looks to the other as he rushes to take out his own piece of paper before sitting with the rest of their band mates, but he doesn’t stop singing until his lines are done and he looks at Minkyung, waiting patiently for her comments. When she doesn’t speak immediately, he glances at the clock. It’s close to 3:45 PM.

He then continues to look around the room until he hears the intercom turn on and he shifts his gaze back to his mentor. “That was good, Suhwan,” Minkyung says, knowing how sensitive the boy is with comments, “Would you mind trying it once more? Make it a little more lively and carry out your notes.”

Suhwan listens intently to her words before nodding and looking back down to the lyrics in front of him. He thinks about how he should change his tone when she suddenly speaks again. “Go.” The music starts playing and he immediately opens his mouth to sing, trying to change how he first sang the lines. Technically, he and Sookhyun feed off of each other’s lines at the beginning, but until they have their own longer lines later in the song done, they can’t record the beginning together.

“That’s a lot better,” Minkyung says before Minseok suddenly takes over, just hanging around until they can finally get their two hours of dance practice done for the day.

“Once more, and you’ll kill it!”

“Kill it?” Suhwan questions back with wide eyes, and Minkyung rolls her own before slapping Minseok’s shoulder. He watches as they take their fingers off of the intercom and argue while the rest of his bandmates laugh and Jiho just watches his colleagues right next to him. He looks worriedly at his mentor when Jiho simply pushes Minkyung’s chair and puts a hand on her shoulder so he can reach the intercom.

“Once more, Suhwan, and then it’s Sookhyun’s turn.”

Suhwan nods before catching a glimpse of Hyemi who gives him an encouraging smile and a nod. He smiles softly at the sight and then he sees Jaesun giving a bright smile too with a thumbs-up right next to her. He sees Jiho about to start the music again even if Minkyung’s now trying to argue with him when Sookhyun suddenly leaps forward to talk into the intercom. “You can do it, hyung!”

“Sookhyun!”

Suhwan looks at his friend shocked before he laughs at seeing Minkyung trying to scold the laughing boy who ends up making her smile as well. He waits for the music to come back on and then he sings.
 
 
 
co-author's note: i'm able to now type with my left hand, but not so much since it still is sore. and it's weaker than my right hand because of how long i haven't used it. i have decided to update this story every first and third friday of the month so there is some consistency to the updates, and i think it'll still allow me to focus on my other stories and work and have free time with life ;u; ( i will include lyric details when these bbs debut, don't worry. it's already all figured out ;u; )

question of the day: how are you guys? are you doing well in general, in school, everywhere in life? ;u;

ps. EXODUS TEASERS OH MY GOD KIM JONGIN SLAY ME. the passwords too, man. some are clever: 10, 35AN ( who the hell could figure that one out ), and vereisung. if you wanted to know ;u;


updated: march 20, 2015
created by -catalyst
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Thank you!
-catalyst
〈 ♞ 〉i swear i'm going to spam this entire story with new chapters by september/october! ( 1 aug 2017 )

Comments

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AliceReverie
#1
Seriously one of my fave apply fics! ♡ TT.TT
-yinghua
#2
"〈 ♞ 〉i swear i'm going to spam this entire story with new chapters by september/october! ( 1 aug 2017 )"

THEM LIES
wsyoung
#3
Chapter 33: this chapter has made me realize that Night Circus are a bunch of really different people who somehow came together as a group. i really like how different they are yet they synchronize so well together!
about Suhwan, i don't know.. maybe cahange it with someone else and act like it was them all along?
AliceReverie
#4
Chapter 33: Loving the balance of comedic and serious moments! 8D
*will reply later with a more detailed comment*
wsyoung
#5
Chapter 33: an update!!! I'm gonna save this for later to read and comeback with a real comment lol
AliceReverie
#6
Chapter 32: Okay lots to comment about! 8D

First... Sleepy Sookhyun is too funny! XD And I was wondering who would be roommates for this trip! LOL trust Seungheon to be one of the last out (that "hairstyle is important" part XDDDD) And Poor maknae! Don't grow up too fast!!! D8 And lol~ lost Seungie is lost. And then Jaesun is lost! XD For some reason that whole part made me laugh more than I should have. ^^" But poor Min, having to lead pretty much all the crew as well as the group! >.< Why did Seungheon get switched to the other van though? To support Min? Honestly I feel like they have a good bond going since the whole getting lost incident before their debut performance. ^o^ TBH I liked Yongha & Jiwool's interactions a lot! Especially the "You're not all newbies" and "We're all rookies though" exchange. ^^

*another comment to follow*
Sidereal
#7
Chapter 32: I love the members' interactions with each other! They're so nice and caring it's so cute.
They're performing at a festival and filming! So exciting :D
I can't wait to see the depth of each character that you mentioned! It's hard to portray it, but you've been doing great. :3
And defiantly can't wait to see the website!
wsyoung
#8
Chapter 32: xDD totally loved how clueless Jaesun felt when Min and Soonwook were talking about the filming location! I mean, out of everyone, you would never expect Jaesun to not know something and he's a leader xD
Min got me worried :( hope everything is ok. It would be nice of the members teamed up to try cheer her up and get her mind off things a bit.
loving Jaesun and Hyemi <3 <3 i think it would be cool if Jaesun was Hyemi's to-go-for when she needs a guy advice^^
this way of texting is nice, i really liked it^^
one question, i didn't quite get it when Min said, 'Self-camera'. Did she mean that they should take a group Selfie together or something?
wsyoung
#9
Chapter 31: i just saw this! couldn't login to my account for a long time cause of my bad, bad browser :-( now i can! love the little min and hyemi moment <3 they're lovely together!! this trip is going to bring a lot of responsibility on Min so hopefully she can manage. i really loved how they all ended up sleeping in Min's room. it would be cute if the managers took a pic of them and posted it on they're facebook or twitter <3 <3 <3
AliceReverie
#10
Chapter 31: Happy new year! I like that we already get to see them debut in another country (because these days idols barely promote their first mini album before flying to Japan or wherever to promote). And BTW, lol at everyone crashing Min's room and taking over the phone convo! XD *will comment about the rest ASAP*