chapter four
〈 ♞ 〉NIGHT CIRCUS22 NOVEMBER 2014
11:52 PM
11:52 PM
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Sookhyun sighs as he pushes his notebook away from him on the coffee table, wondering if he can take a break now. He has a test next week over something he’s not entirely sure about and he has plenty of time considering he only has classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, but he can’t really focus for it long enough to save his life. He doesn’t understand the theory behind a thing or two and he doesn’t really feel like trying to figure it out when he’s so tired already.
It’s close to midnight and they finally finished their two-hour dance practice thirty minutes ago after recording for almost twelve hours, but he feels like he’s still sweating. He frowns as his gaze falls back from the clock where he’s been staring fruitlessly at it to his opened notebook again before looking over to Min sitting on the ground against the side of the bookshelf, reading over the lyrics of ‘Soul’ while checking her phone every few minutes.
Because of her and Suhwan, they still haven’t officially finished their recording of that song. According to Hyemi, only Min and Suhwan never had any formal vocal training or recording backgrounds, and it made it difficult for them to hit all the right tones and put in the right feelings according to the song and its lyrics. Sookhyun doesn’t mind though. He never usually does.
But he needs to study.
“Hey, noona,” Sookhyun quietly asks, watching as Min looks up from the lyrics and over to him, “Can you help me with my homework?”
“What?” Min questions back, confused and caught off-guard with his question.
Sookhyun pouts. “I don’t understand what this is trying to say,” he says as he points accusingly to his notebook where he has all the notes written down from class earlier that day, “And I have a test next week.” He watches as Min gives him a soft look before getting up and simply bringing her cell phone with her while she leaves the piece of paper on the ground.
“How are you doing in school besides that?” she questions, moving to sit down next to him and bring the notebook closer to them, “And what do you need help in?”
Sookhyun mumbles something incoherent before he says clearly, “It’s going okay.” He then shifts his gaze back to try and focus on the notebook. “Some history or theory about something.” He flushes when Min laughs softly at him.
“This page is opened to music literature.”
Oh. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t understand the theory behind it.
“Stop laughing, noona!” Sookhyun whines afterwards, reaching out to throw his arms around her to make her drop the notebook. “I’m tired!”
Min continues to laugh as she actually does drop the notebook and circles her arms around the taller male in return. Her cell phone is on the ground next to the booklet and they don’t hear it vibrate. “I know you’re tired,” Min quietly says, letting the boy snuggle in towards her, “We’re all tired.”
“How did all the other idols do this?” Sookhyun mumbles back, thoughts briefly flickering to Hongbin who also went to Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts. He flushes at the thought. He didn’t know the other also went there until Jaehwan told him after he informed him he got accepted. He doesn’t think he’s going to stop teasing him about it either.
“Hey,” Min softly says, pulling away to look the youngest in the eyes, “You were in school while you were with Jellyfish Entertainment, right? And you already graduated high school. It may be different, but fundamentally, it’s still the same concept of going to school and training almost every hour. You’ll be able to keep up with university life as well.”
Sookhyun frowns as he stares into Min’s eyes, seeing her looking at him reassuringly and he slowly smiles, seeing a bit of his own sisters in Min as well. She starts to smile at him as well, and it’s then that he hears vibrations again, somewhere around his feet. He looks down confused, seeing his notebook and then Min’s phone lighting up next to it. “Noona?” he calls out, “Your phone is ringing.”
“My phone?” Min questions, looking down as well. She laughs when she sees Lu Han’s dumb face and an equally dumb facial expression on the screen with his name ‘Lu Han’ on it before reaching down to grab her phone and slide her finger across the screen. She lets go of Sookhyun to get his notebook as well as she puts the phone up to her ear. “Sorry, Sookhyunie,” she mumbles before speaking into the phone, “Hello?”
“Hi,” Lu Han breathes out in Mandarin, and he sounds strangely out of breath, “Min?”
“You called me, right?” she questions back in her native tongue with a laugh before looking over to Sookhyun out of the corners of her eyes, “How are you?”
“Did you get my pictures? And small video?” he asks instead, and she’s confused again. She shouldn’t be so confused if she managed to get an IB diploma in school.
“What? Hang on,” she mumbles before pulling her phone away to search her messages. She laughs as Sookhyun suddenly pushes against her shoulder and leans on her. She speaks to him in Korean as she tilts her phone screen towards him. “Want to see?”
“See what?” Sookhyun questions back quietly, peering down at her phone only to see pictures of what looks like Lu Han with some large cartoon statue. His eyes widen in confusion. “What is that?”
Min bursts out laughing at the images she sees before quickly telling him, “I think it’s big Lu Han with a small Lu Han,” and then putting her phone back up to her ear and speaking in Mandarin, “What am I looking at?”
“A big Luhan with a small Luhan?” Sookhyun repeats, trying to peer around Min’s head again to see the pictures on her phone only for the screen to black out again, “Aw.”
“It’s cool, right?! My fansite in Beijing got this cute statue made for me!” Lu Han excitedly says, “And Lao Gao is here too! He got my pictures with my mini-me!”
“Are you sure that statue is the mini-me?” Min jokes back, earning a whine from the other.
“Hey! I’m the original!”
“Right,” Min answers back with a laugh before she feels Sookhyun tugging on her shirt insistently. She turns to look at him curiously. “Because you look like the smaller of the two in the picture.”
“It’s because that statue is a giant! I wanted to share the happy news with you before it got out everywhere else. Don’t ruin it for me.”
Min can hear the frown in the other’s voice and she laughs quietly some more, hearing a soft ‘Lao Gao. Why is she mean to me too?’ and then a ‘Come on. Stop complaining.’ She continues to give Sookhyun a questioning look and he finally says quietly in Korean.
“You sound different.”
And she does. When she speaks between Korean and Mandarin, it sounds like her pitch switches up or down a note or something and it makes her sound a little different whenever she speaks whatever language she knows. It’s interesting to say the least.
Min’s curious stare turns into a confused one and she restrains herself from laughing at the comment. It has Sookhyun smiling as well, thought flying away from him, and she returns to her phone call while the younger tries to focus back on his homework again.
“Hey, Min,” Lu Han opens up again as she hears shuffling in the background and Lao Gao talking, “When are you coming back home again?”
“Huh?” She’s caught off-guard again.
“Are you still trying to become an idol?” he quietly questions, and she can hear wind blowing into the speaker from his end. It’s cold out there. “Is that why you’re still there?”
Min doesn’t know what to say. She really doesn’t, so she stays quiet, unnaturally so that it even has Sookhyun looking up from his notebook to stare back at her again curiously. But then she sees his gaze shift into one of concern and she gives him a small, reassuring smile.
“I still talk to Minseok sometimes, you know?” Lu Han continues on when she doesn’t answer back, “Maybe you and Yixing should become friends too. You two will get along well together.”
Min’s heart constricts at the thought of Lu Han still keeping in touch with his closest friends in EXO.
“Minseok doesn’t know why you’re always busy whenever he has time to text or call you. I clearly don’t know either, but if you’re still trying to earnestly become an idol, you know we will support you, right?” Min feels her heart swell again. “Just don’t go audition for SM again. Go somewhere else where they will treat you better and allow you to go back home without feeling guilty for missing training days.”
“What are you talking about?” Min suddenly says, voice cracking mid-word at trying to get a word in before Lu Han starts to recount all his stories from SM Entertainment again.
“I remember your parents mentioning you’re with a company, whether that was a slip-up or you lied to them, I don’t know. But if you are training with a company or still trying and auditioning somewhere, make sure you will be treated respectively and will be given time off if you’re deathly ill. That’s a hard environment to find in that business, but I just wanted to warn you and make sure you’re still doing okay over there.”
Min sighs as she leans back into the couch, a small smile on her lips as she rubs Sookhyun’s back soothingly so he can go back to his homework instead of staring at her trying to decipher what she’s saying. “I’m okay over here,” she responds back, hearing the music get louder in the room next door, “I’m in good company.”
“Are you being sappy?” Sookhyun suddenly questions, hearing her tone of voice with whatever she just said, “Because you sound sappy.”
Min frowns. “I’m not sappy,” she answers in Korean, “I’m stating the truth.”
“Who are you talking to at this hour?” Lu Han questions, and he sounds bewildered.
“It’s not even that late,” Min responds back in Korean automatically, mind still switched to her second language, “I’m talking to my friend.”
“But wait. Were you being sappy?”
“I’m not sappy!”
“Is he being mean, noona?” Sookhyun questions, now trying to lean into her personal space and wrap around her so he can try and hear through her phone as well, “Should I get one of the other hyungs to talk to him?”
“Other hyungs?” Lu Han questions back, surprise evident in his voice, “What other hyungs? Does Minseok know about them? You know he has a protective streak when it comes to his younger siblings.”
“No,” she mumbles back slowly, starting to become confused with the two languages being spoken to her.
“No what?” both Sookhyun and Lu Han ask at the same time.
Min groans as she tries to silently tell Sookhyun that ‘no, he is not being mean’ and try to tell Lu Han that ‘no, nothing is going on.’ Why does this always happen to her?
Hyemi watches from the back as Jiwool gently helps Suhwan with his dance moves, going up next to him to move his arms where they need to be. Minseok had told them before he left that he thought of sudden changes for their title track choreography and that he was already thinking of what to do for the second song ‘Soul,’ believing that will be the song accompanying their title track when they finally debut. She doesn’t really understand why the others are still practicing the current choreography when it’s just going to be changed up in the next couple of days anyways.
Off to the other side of the room, Jaesun and Seungheon are dancing randomly, laughing and throwing back moves to each other to go along with each new song that comes on. They look like they’re having fun after spending hours in the recording room and she briefly wonders if Sookhyun and Min are still in there doing who knows what while the rest of them are in here. None of them had even had dinner yet.
Her gaze shifts back to Suhwan and Jiwool when she thinks she hears something being said between them and when she looks at their reflections, there’s a bright sparkle in Suhwan’s eyes as he repeats a dance move and Jiwool claps happily because he’s finally got it. She smiles at his reaction before suddenly flinching when Seungheon shouts at her.
“Hyemi!”
Hyemi lightly glares at the man. “What?”
Seungheon doesn’t pay her any mind, causing Jaesun to laugh because he knows the two are just awkward together but it doesn’t stop him from trying to talk to her. “Come join us!”
Hyemi grimaces at the invitation. She’s a pretty good dancer, but she still hasn’t improved enough to be able to dance without any type of choreography to back her up. She never knows what to do when they’re told to freestyle and she doesn’t like embarrassing herself like Min is prone to do when she’s put on the spot and tries to drag attention to herself when Suhwan’s put in the spotlight with her.
“Hyemi!” Seungheon calls again, laughing again happily before he does a sudden flip and Jiwool’s screaming out ‘Hey! I want to flip too!’
Hyemi rolls her eyes at the other girl’s comment before looking Seungheon in the eyes, as she says, “No, thanks.”
“Aw,” Seungheon and Jaesun chorus out loudly together, Jiwool doing the same simply to join in the group. Suhwan just looks mildly confused.
Hyemi flinches at their responses, slowly trying to back away when the two older males start taking steps towards her with Jiwool starting to join in the crowd. She glares at each one of them defensively. “What are you doing? I’m not dancing any more tonight.”
“But you need to practice too!” Jiwool answers back before wincing and retracing her steps back to Suhwan when Hyemi turns her glare on her too. “Yeah, okay.”
“You’re staying here for a reason, right?” Jaesun questions cheekily, stopping just a few steps away from Hyemi and pulling on Seungheon’s arm to stop him as well so she’s not actually backed up against a wall.
Hyemi frowns as she crosses her arms in front of her chest. “If you want a rap battle, I’d dominate.”
Jaesun laughs as he backs off, making sure to drag a frowning Seungheon with him. “If you want a dance battle, I’d win.”
“If you want a vocal battle, I’d win!” Seungheon answers back, causing the other two to look at him momentarily confused before they end up laughing as well. It isn’t a lie. Seungheon would probably win against them if singing is involved.
Hyemi glances at her group mates as she laughs, thankful that she’s actually friends with some of them and isn’t awkward or annoyed with all of them.
“But really,” Seungheon suddenly says, looking back to Hyemi curiously, “Are you going to join in our dancing fun? It’s a nice break to do so.”
“No,” Hyemi easily says, now thinking about escaping the practice room to go join Sookhyun and Min in the other room, “I don’t feel like dancing with you two.”
Jaesun frowns before using his thumb to point over his shoulder to Jiwool and Suhwan. “How about dancing with them?”
Hyemi fixes a playful glare on her friend. “Really?”
Jaesun shrugs. “Hey, you like Suhwan.”
“Do you like me?” Seungheon questions next earnestly, both of them forgetting that there could be double meanings to their statements and questions. He simply meant it in a friendly way.
Hyemi looks uncomfortable and Jaesun realizes his mistake with an awkward chuckle and running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, emperor,” he says, bringing out her card name as her nickname, “I didn’t mean it in that way.”
Hyemi relaxes after a few minutes of looking at him before sighing, turning to go out of the room and hang out with Sookhyun and Min for a while instead. “Yeah, it’s okay. I’ll just go sit with Min and Sookhyun in the other room. See what they’re up to.”
“Okay,” Jaesun calls back, both of them watching her leave before looking to Seungheon, “So, what now?”
Seungheon looks away when Hyemi disappears from sight completely and up slightly to meet Jaesun’s eyes. “Dance? Rap? Sing?”
Jaesun rolls his eyes as he lightly slaps him on the shoulder before turning to go join Jiwool and Suhwan still in the middle of the dance floor. “So basically, what we already do every day.”
“Isn’t that our jobs now?” Seungheon calls back, trailing after him.
“Yeah.”
“So we should enjoy it.”
Jaesun pauses mid-step to look back at his friend, mildly surprised at the comment. He sees a sincere look in his eyes and he smiles. Seungheon’s ability to change the atmosphere around them is amazing, and he doesn’t even really know when he does it either. It comes as a surprise and he’s still having trouble trying to keep the man out of trouble himself when he accidentally says the wrong thing at the wrong time.
“What are you guys doing?” Jiwool suddenly asks, causing both of the other guys to turn and face her instead, “You’re just standing there staring at each other.” Suhwan looks confused as well, constantly looking at them and then away quickly to not have to stare at each of them for so long.
“I think we were having a moment,” Jaesun jokes, looking back to Seungheon who laughs as well.
“Who wouldn’t want a moment with me?”
“I don’t,” Jiwool pipes up, just to annoy the other. And it works, Seungheon opening his mouth to argue back with her.
But then three more people from the other room enter and Hyemi makes a disapproving sound at them. “I thought you were going to practice some more.”
“How can you guys still practice?” Sookhyun whines afterwards, leaning against Min who’s struggling to support his weight with her short height, “Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve learned to bypass the barrier of fatigue by now,” Min answers back with a huff, earning some odd looks from some of her friends. “What?”
“Grandma Smarty-Pants,” Seungheon blurts out and then Suhwan and Sookhyun yelp when Min suddenly disappears from underneath the youngest’s arms to grab the nearest thing and throw it at Seungheon, almost hitting Suhwan in the process and causing him to duck behind Jiwool.
“I’m not that much older than you!”
It’s close to midnight and they finally finished their two-hour dance practice thirty minutes ago after recording for almost twelve hours, but he feels like he’s still sweating. He frowns as his gaze falls back from the clock where he’s been staring fruitlessly at it to his opened notebook again before looking over to Min sitting on the ground against the side of the bookshelf, reading over the lyrics of ‘Soul’ while checking her phone every few minutes.
Because of her and Suhwan, they still haven’t officially finished their recording of that song. According to Hyemi, only Min and Suhwan never had any formal vocal training or recording backgrounds, and it made it difficult for them to hit all the right tones and put in the right feelings according to the song and its lyrics. Sookhyun doesn’t mind though. He never usually does.
But he needs to study.
“Hey, noona,” Sookhyun quietly asks, watching as Min looks up from the lyrics and over to him, “Can you help me with my homework?”
“What?” Min questions back, confused and caught off-guard with his question.
Sookhyun pouts. “I don’t understand what this is trying to say,” he says as he points accusingly to his notebook where he has all the notes written down from class earlier that day, “And I have a test next week.” He watches as Min gives him a soft look before getting up and simply bringing her cell phone with her while she leaves the piece of paper on the ground.
“How are you doing in school besides that?” she questions, moving to sit down next to him and bring the notebook closer to them, “And what do you need help in?”
Sookhyun mumbles something incoherent before he says clearly, “It’s going okay.” He then shifts his gaze back to try and focus on the notebook. “Some history or theory about something.” He flushes when Min laughs softly at him.
“This page is opened to music literature.”
Oh. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t understand the theory behind it.
“Stop laughing, noona!” Sookhyun whines afterwards, reaching out to throw his arms around her to make her drop the notebook. “I’m tired!”
Min continues to laugh as she actually does drop the notebook and circles her arms around the taller male in return. Her cell phone is on the ground next to the booklet and they don’t hear it vibrate. “I know you’re tired,” Min quietly says, letting the boy snuggle in towards her, “We’re all tired.”
“How did all the other idols do this?” Sookhyun mumbles back, thoughts briefly flickering to Hongbin who also went to Dong-ah Institute of Media and Arts. He flushes at the thought. He didn’t know the other also went there until Jaehwan told him after he informed him he got accepted. He doesn’t think he’s going to stop teasing him about it either.
“Hey,” Min softly says, pulling away to look the youngest in the eyes, “You were in school while you were with Jellyfish Entertainment, right? And you already graduated high school. It may be different, but fundamentally, it’s still the same concept of going to school and training almost every hour. You’ll be able to keep up with university life as well.”
Sookhyun frowns as he stares into Min’s eyes, seeing her looking at him reassuringly and he slowly smiles, seeing a bit of his own sisters in Min as well. She starts to smile at him as well, and it’s then that he hears vibrations again, somewhere around his feet. He looks down confused, seeing his notebook and then Min’s phone lighting up next to it. “Noona?” he calls out, “Your phone is ringing.”
“My phone?” Min questions, looking down as well. She laughs when she sees Lu Han’s dumb face and an equally dumb facial expression on the screen with his name ‘Lu Han’ on it before reaching down to grab her phone and slide her finger across the screen. She lets go of Sookhyun to get his notebook as well as she puts the phone up to her ear. “Sorry, Sookhyunie,” she mumbles before speaking into the phone, “Hello?”
“Hi,” Lu Han breathes out in Mandarin, and he sounds strangely out of breath, “Min?”
“You called me, right?” she questions back in her native tongue with a laugh before looking over to Sookhyun out of the corners of her eyes, “How are you?”
“Did you get my pictures? And small video?” he asks instead, and she’s confused again. She shouldn’t be so confused if she managed to get an IB diploma in school.
“What? Hang on,” she mumbles before pulling her phone away to search her messages. She laughs as Sookhyun suddenly pushes against her shoulder and leans on her. She speaks to him in Korean as she tilts her phone screen towards him. “Want to see?”
“See what?” Sookhyun questions back quietly, peering down at her phone only to see pictures of what looks like Lu Han with some large cartoon statue. His eyes widen in confusion. “What is that?”
Min bursts out laughing at the images she sees before quickly telling him, “I think it’s big Lu Han with a small Lu Han,” and then putting her phone back up to her ear and speaking in Mandarin, “What am I looking at?”
“A big Luhan with a small Luhan?” Sookhyun repeats, trying to peer around Min’s head again to see the pictures on her phone only for the screen to black out again, “Aw.”
“It’s cool, right?! My fansite in Beijing got this cute statue made for me!” Lu Han excitedly says, “And Lao Gao is here too! He got my pictures with my mini-me!”
“Are you sure that statue is the mini-me?” Min jokes back, earning a whine from the other.
“Hey! I’m the original!”
“Right,” Min answers back with a laugh before she feels Sookhyun tugging on her shirt insistently. She turns to look at him curiously. “Because you look like the smaller of the two in the picture.”
“It’s because that statue is a giant! I wanted to share the happy news with you before it got out everywhere else. Don’t ruin it for me.”
Min can hear the frown in the other’s voice and she laughs quietly some more, hearing a soft ‘Lao Gao. Why is she mean to me too?’ and then a ‘Come on. Stop complaining.’ She continues to give Sookhyun a questioning look and he finally says quietly in Korean.
“You sound different.”
And she does. When she speaks between Korean and Mandarin, it sounds like her pitch switches up or down a note or something and it makes her sound a little different whenever she speaks whatever language she knows. It’s interesting to say the least.
Min’s curious stare turns into a confused one and she restrains herself from laughing at the comment. It has Sookhyun smiling as well, thought flying away from him, and she returns to her phone call while the younger tries to focus back on his homework again.
“Hey, Min,” Lu Han opens up again as she hears shuffling in the background and Lao Gao talking, “When are you coming back home again?”
“Huh?” She’s caught off-guard again.
“Are you still trying to become an idol?” he quietly questions, and she can hear wind blowing into the speaker from his end. It’s cold out there. “Is that why you’re still there?”
Min doesn’t know what to say. She really doesn’t, so she stays quiet, unnaturally so that it even has Sookhyun looking up from his notebook to stare back at her again curiously. But then she sees his gaze shift into one of concern and she gives him a small, reassuring smile.
“I still talk to Minseok sometimes, you know?” Lu Han continues on when she doesn’t answer back, “Maybe you and Yixing should become friends too. You two will get along well together.”
Min’s heart constricts at the thought of Lu Han still keeping in touch with his closest friends in EXO.
“Minseok doesn’t know why you’re always busy whenever he has time to text or call you. I clearly don’t know either, but if you’re still trying to earnestly become an idol, you know we will support you, right?” Min feels her heart swell again. “Just don’t go audition for SM again. Go somewhere else where they will treat you better and allow you to go back home without feeling guilty for missing training days.”
“What are you talking about?” Min suddenly says, voice cracking mid-word at trying to get a word in before Lu Han starts to recount all his stories from SM Entertainment again.
“I remember your parents mentioning you’re with a company, whether that was a slip-up or you lied to them, I don’t know. But if you are training with a company or still trying and auditioning somewhere, make sure you will be treated respectively and will be given time off if you’re deathly ill. That’s a hard environment to find in that business, but I just wanted to warn you and make sure you’re still doing okay over there.”
Min sighs as she leans back into the couch, a small smile on her lips as she rubs Sookhyun’s back soothingly so he can go back to his homework instead of staring at her trying to decipher what she’s saying. “I’m okay over here,” she responds back, hearing the music get louder in the room next door, “I’m in good company.”
“Are you being sappy?” Sookhyun suddenly questions, hearing her tone of voice with whatever she just said, “Because you sound sappy.”
Min frowns. “I’m not sappy,” she answers in Korean, “I’m stating the truth.”
“Who are you talking to at this hour?” Lu Han questions, and he sounds bewildered.
“It’s not even that late,” Min responds back in Korean automatically, mind still switched to her second language, “I’m talking to my friend.”
“But wait. Were you being sappy?”
“I’m not sappy!”
“Is he being mean, noona?” Sookhyun questions, now trying to lean into her personal space and wrap around her so he can try and hear through her phone as well, “Should I get one of the other hyungs to talk to him?”
“Other hyungs?” Lu Han questions back, surprise evident in his voice, “What other hyungs? Does Minseok know about them? You know he has a protective streak when it comes to his younger siblings.”
“No,” she mumbles back slowly, starting to become confused with the two languages being spoken to her.
“No what?” both Sookhyun and Lu Han ask at the same time.
Min groans as she tries to silently tell Sookhyun that ‘no, he is not being mean’ and try to tell Lu Han that ‘no, nothing is going on.’ Why does this always happen to her?
Hyemi watches from the back as Jiwool gently helps Suhwan with his dance moves, going up next to him to move his arms where they need to be. Minseok had told them before he left that he thought of sudden changes for their title track choreography and that he was already thinking of what to do for the second song ‘Soul,’ believing that will be the song accompanying their title track when they finally debut. She doesn’t really understand why the others are still practicing the current choreography when it’s just going to be changed up in the next couple of days anyways.
Off to the other side of the room, Jaesun and Seungheon are dancing randomly, laughing and throwing back moves to each other to go along with each new song that comes on. They look like they’re having fun after spending hours in the recording room and she briefly wonders if Sookhyun and Min are still in there doing who knows what while the rest of them are in here. None of them had even had dinner yet.
Her gaze shifts back to Suhwan and Jiwool when she thinks she hears something being said between them and when she looks at their reflections, there’s a bright sparkle in Suhwan’s eyes as he repeats a dance move and Jiwool claps happily because he’s finally got it. She smiles at his reaction before suddenly flinching when Seungheon shouts at her.
“Hyemi!”
Hyemi lightly glares at the man. “What?”
Seungheon doesn’t pay her any mind, causing Jaesun to laugh because he knows the two are just awkward together but it doesn’t stop him from trying to talk to her. “Come join us!”
Hyemi grimaces at the invitation. She’s a pretty good dancer, but she still hasn’t improved enough to be able to dance without any type of choreography to back her up. She never knows what to do when they’re told to freestyle and she doesn’t like embarrassing herself like Min is prone to do when she’s put on the spot and tries to drag attention to herself when Suhwan’s put in the spotlight with her.
“Hyemi!” Seungheon calls again, laughing again happily before he does a sudden flip and Jiwool’s screaming out ‘Hey! I want to flip too!’
Hyemi rolls her eyes at the other girl’s comment before looking Seungheon in the eyes, as she says, “No, thanks.”
“Aw,” Seungheon and Jaesun chorus out loudly together, Jiwool doing the same simply to join in the group. Suhwan just looks mildly confused.
Hyemi flinches at their responses, slowly trying to back away when the two older males start taking steps towards her with Jiwool starting to join in the crowd. She glares at each one of them defensively. “What are you doing? I’m not dancing any more tonight.”
“But you need to practice too!” Jiwool answers back before wincing and retracing her steps back to Suhwan when Hyemi turns her glare on her too. “Yeah, okay.”
“You’re staying here for a reason, right?” Jaesun questions cheekily, stopping just a few steps away from Hyemi and pulling on Seungheon’s arm to stop him as well so she’s not actually backed up against a wall.
Hyemi frowns as she crosses her arms in front of her chest. “If you want a rap battle, I’d dominate.”
Jaesun laughs as he backs off, making sure to drag a frowning Seungheon with him. “If you want a dance battle, I’d win.”
“If you want a vocal battle, I’d win!” Seungheon answers back, causing the other two to look at him momentarily confused before they end up laughing as well. It isn’t a lie. Seungheon would probably win against them if singing is involved.
Hyemi glances at her group mates as she laughs, thankful that she’s actually friends with some of them and isn’t awkward or annoyed with all of them.
“But really,” Seungheon suddenly says, looking back to Hyemi curiously, “Are you going to join in our dancing fun? It’s a nice break to do so.”
“No,” Hyemi easily says, now thinking about escaping the practice room to go join Sookhyun and Min in the other room, “I don’t feel like dancing with you two.”
Jaesun frowns before using his thumb to point over his shoulder to Jiwool and Suhwan. “How about dancing with them?”
Hyemi fixes a playful glare on her friend. “Really?”
Jaesun shrugs. “Hey, you like Suhwan.”
“Do you like me?” Seungheon questions next earnestly, both of them forgetting that there could be double meanings to their statements and questions. He simply meant it in a friendly way.
Hyemi looks uncomfortable and Jaesun realizes his mistake with an awkward chuckle and running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, emperor,” he says, bringing out her card name as her nickname, “I didn’t mean it in that way.”
Hyemi relaxes after a few minutes of looking at him before sighing, turning to go out of the room and hang out with Sookhyun and Min for a while instead. “Yeah, it’s okay. I’ll just go sit with Min and Sookhyun in the other room. See what they’re up to.”
“Okay,” Jaesun calls back, both of them watching her leave before looking to Seungheon, “So, what now?”
Seungheon looks away when Hyemi disappears from sight completely and up slightly to meet Jaesun’s eyes. “Dance? Rap? Sing?”
Jaesun rolls his eyes as he lightly slaps him on the shoulder before turning to go join Jiwool and Suhwan still in the middle of the dance floor. “So basically, what we already do every day.”
“Isn’t that our jobs now?” Seungheon calls back, trailing after him.
“Yeah.”
“So we should enjoy it.”
Jaesun pauses mid-step to look back at his friend, mildly surprised at the comment. He sees a sincere look in his eyes and he smiles. Seungheon’s ability to change the atmosphere around them is amazing, and he doesn’t even really know when he does it either. It comes as a surprise and he’s still having trouble trying to keep the man out of trouble himself when he accidentally says the wrong thing at the wrong time.
“What are you guys doing?” Jiwool suddenly asks, causing both of the other guys to turn and face her instead, “You’re just standing there staring at each other.” Suhwan looks confused as well, constantly looking at them and then away quickly to not have to stare at each of them for so long.
“I think we were having a moment,” Jaesun jokes, looking back to Seungheon who laughs as well.
“Who wouldn’t want a moment with me?”
“I don’t,” Jiwool pipes up, just to annoy the other. And it works, Seungheon opening his mouth to argue back with her.
But then three more people from the other room enter and Hyemi makes a disapproving sound at them. “I thought you were going to practice some more.”
“How can you guys still practice?” Sookhyun whines afterwards, leaning against Min who’s struggling to support his weight with her short height, “Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve learned to bypass the barrier of fatigue by now,” Min answers back with a huff, earning some odd looks from some of her friends. “What?”
“Grandma Smarty-Pants,” Seungheon blurts out and then Suhwan and Sookhyun yelp when Min suddenly disappears from underneath the youngest’s arms to grab the nearest thing and throw it at Seungheon, almost hitting Suhwan in the process and causing him to duck behind Jiwool.
“I’m not that much older than you!”
co-author's note: I'M BACK. kinda. my wrists tend to be sore at the end of the day because i haven't used the left one for so long and i overcompensate with my right. but everything is fine for the most part! i'd like to say the scar is healing nicely but apparently i was allergic to the dermabond glue they used to close it up (instead of stitches) so now there's a localized reaction and ;; anyways. here's the fourth chapter! i hope it doesn't sound so... choppy? ;; idk i'm sorry if i wrote too much about my character, i tried not to ;;;
the next chapter will be focused on shinsuke, hotaru, and soohyun and will mention night circus and maybe their thoughts of them or something. every fifth chapter will probably be focused on these three and other trainees, so just a heads up ;u;
question of the day: i just want to say hi guys! ;u;
ps. zhang yixing is slaying me so hard he needs to marry me right now// yeah idek anymore. exo is wiping me out.
updated: april 03, 2015
the next chapter will be focused on shinsuke, hotaru, and soohyun and will mention night circus and maybe their thoughts of them or something. every fifth chapter will probably be focused on these three and other trainees, so just a heads up ;u;
question of the day: i just want to say hi guys! ;u;
ps. zhang yixing is slaying me so hard he needs to marry me right now// yeah idek anymore. exo is wiping me out.
updated: april 03, 2015
created by -catalyst
〈 ♞ 〉i swear i'm going to spam this entire story with new chapters by september/october! ( 1 aug 2017 )
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