A/N: I really love group leaders, so this chapter is dedicated to them and everything they do through. Yunho, hwaiting!

A few other updates: I posted my new Yunjae blog awhile ago, but forgot to post about it here. You can check it out over in my blog! Also, a new Yunjae one-shot and multi-chapter story are coming your way from me soon! Keep your head down eyes out

FOLLOW MY WAY

When Son Gaeun arrived at C&M, there was almost no one else there. The office space was nice, indicating that they had decent seed funds, and there were a handful of people in management, as well as a stylish looking music producer who had previously worked in America. The only other trainee, though, was a younger girl named Saehee. Gaeun was shy, but Saehee was not at all. The day after she was accepted into the company, she took Gaeun to the salon with her and bleached her hair and dyed it pink. The open way Saehee spoke at first made her nervous, but after awhile, she began to feel more and more comfortable around her. Gaeun was close to no one else in the city, and other than her parents and the boyfriend she called home to every night, she felt a little lost in the wider world she had chosen for herself.

A few months later, another girl came. Soorin. This girl was as unlike Saehee as possible. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her voice was toneless and her expression never changed. No matter how you looked at her, she didn’t seem to be a part of the world around her, as if her mind and heart were somewhere else and her body disconnected from them both. At first, Gaeun had no idea how to talk to her, but after awhile, she realized Soorin didn’t particularly care how she was spoken to, as long as she wasn’t being outright ignored. So Gaeun spoke to her the most about music. Soorin had a beautiful voice, one that spoke eloquently and in ways Gaeun had never heard before. That part of her, at least, seemed to be connected to her heart, body, and mind all at once.

When they were still a trio, that’s when Gaeun found out she was going to be leader. The thought terrified her. How can I organize us three different people? She still felt a stranger the city, and still needed to be led a little herself. Saehee required a firm hand for when her strong personality got out of control. And Soorin needed… what? Attention, patience, and understanding, certainly, but Gaeun had no idea what she could do to make Soorin soft enough for the fans to feel the warmth that lingered in her.

A few months later, the last girl came. Brie. Her Korean was sloppy, but she had a determined look in her eyes and through herself into practice as if leaving her homeland behind was nothing to her. Gaeun had found her in the bathroom hours later, crying in secret. She barely knew Brie yet, but still she wrapped her in her arms and rubbed her back until the flood of homesickness had passed. That was the first time she felt she could be a leader. She didn’t want to see any one of the girls in her care crying again.

A few more months later and they had a name. Starkiss. And Gaeun didn’t feel shy or lost or scared any more. Saehee, Soorin, and Brie were as different as night and day, but they each gave her a familiar warm feeling. She wanted to take care of them, and being in a position where she could made her all the more determined to become stronger and do just that.

The moments when she couldn’t were the worst feelings in the world. During their second year, Brie had an accident during their MV filming and sprained her ankle, making it impossible for them to complete promotions with her. Gaeun had tried to insist that they cancel the single release altogether until Brie recovered, but Brie had stayed up all night arguing with her, insisting that since they were rookies, they couldn’t delay such an important comeback. So they’d gone on ahead without her. It still gave Gaeun a pang to watch their lives during that period. The place on the stage where Brie should have been seemed massive and incredibly lonely. She wished she had been able to catch Brie when she had fallen, but she had just stood their uselessly, watching in horror at something she couldn’t think or act fast enough to prevent.

A few years later, the always happy Saehee had called her, bawling about the article about her that had appeared in the Dispatch. “I’m so sorry, unni, I was careless and now I’ve ruined everything,” she’d sobbed. Gaeun had been on a date with her boyfriend, but had immediately sped back to the dorm. There wasn’t much she could do at first but hold on tightly to Saehee and let her cry. She’d already seen the comments on the articles written about her, and it was too late for Gaeun to protect her from all the hateful words, all the accusations of , , and . She called Hyunsoo nim as soon as she could and asked him what was to be done. “We go forward,” he said simply. “Keep her out of the public eye for now, wait for the storm to pass and the broken hearts to heal, and come back with music good enough to make them forget.”

“What could I have done differently?” she’d asked quietly. “As leader?”

“Have you set a good example to Saehee with your own relationship?”

“I’d thought so.”

“And have you gone over clearly with the other girls the importance of managing private relationships with care?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Then there comes a time when you have to hold Saehee accountable for Saehee. You are her leader, not her.”

Still, it was hard. The world didn’t understand Saehee’s stupid impulsiveness and thought she’d dated openly to rub it in the fans’ faces. Saehee repented for as long as they wanted her to do, but Gaeun repented along with her for allowing her to be so badly misunderstood.

When Soorin’s brief scandal with Jaejoong erupted, it was over before Gaeun had even known it had happened. She’d received a call from Hyunsoo nim that afternoon, explaining what had happened, how it had been handled, and the jist of what the truth was—that Jaejoong had been helping Soorin with a family issue, and nothing else.

“I don’t blame you entirely,” he’d said to her, trying to sound kind. “We’re all well aware that Soorin has her share of issues. But please try to keep an eye out for her. Her impulsiveness is even more terrifying than Saehee’s, because she gives absolutely no sign of what she’s thinking.”

Gaeun had quickly gone to find Soorin in her room. To her amazement, Soorin smiled at her widely. “I apologize to you and Starkiss and Jaejoong ssi,” she’d said firmly, hints of emotion finally coloring her voice. “I absolutely will never bring that kind of trouble down upon Jaejoong ssi again, after what he did for me.”

It was a short incident, quickly handled. But still, it made her feel inadequate. She’d known Soorin for years, but only Jaejoong had been able to open her up. Wasn’t that something she should have worked harder for, as leader? When she saw Yunho at their MV filming, she wasn’t bothered by his gruffness with her at having allowed her member to involve Jaejoong. She wanted to do better herself, and explained that plainly to him. She envied him a little for his single-minded devotion to protecting Jaejoong; she wished she could have had that for Saehee, Soorin, and Brie, who she’d never been able to do enough for.

At the end of her own scandal, she felt exhausted. She’d done a miserable job of handling herself, not only involving Starkiss, but Yunho, Jaejoong, and her own fiancé as well. Why did Hyunsoo nim make me leader?, she wondered. Every misstep I’ve made, he’s had to correct for me, and people outside of the group have had a better understanding of my members than me. It should have been Brie, who’s never had a scandal and puts the group before everything. I wanted to protect them, but I can’t even protect myself.

But still, at her wedding there were three beautiful bridesmaids smiling at her and wishing her well. “Can we propose a toast?” Saehee asked at the reception. “I just wanted to say that today is a very happy day for the three of us, as well as for unni. Seeing her, the very same person who has wanted nothing but happiness for the three of us from the beginning, happy herself is the best gift I could ever receive. Because she was put in charge of us, unni has shouldered so many burdens. Even the mistakes we ourselves made, she considered her own mistakes and suffered for them.” Saehee ducked her head and sniffed, passing the microphone to Soorin.

“But what we want unni to know is that it was because we love her and don’t want her to hurt again, that every day we try to be the best people we can be,” Soorin said in her soft and solemn voice. “And that was a beautiful thing she taught us, learning to be less selfish and to be more aware so that not only do we become stronger ourselves, but also better able to protect the people around us.” She passed the microphone to Brie.

“So now that Gaeun unni is finally getting married to the love of her life, we definitely want her to know it’s okay for her to put herself and her family first now, because we can help carry Starkiss with her now,” Brie finished. “She’s been carrying it so strongly for all these years, and it’s our time to step back and take those burdens off her shoulders and share it equally between us. So thank you for your years of hard work, unni. Now, we’ll be the ones taking care of you.”

Gaeun laughed through her tears. “Don’t be idiots, you guys. You are my family. My loving and very important family. How could I ever stop taking care of you?”

And she knew then, for the second time in her life, that even though she made mistakes, even though she failed at times, that she still wanted more than anything to lead these three beautiful women and protect them, not because of some bond of duty, but because she loved them, and even though she had not done nearly enough to show them that, they had loved and stayed true to her all the same.

0o0

The world shuddered, and Yunho’s head slammed against the taxi’s window. As a dancer, he had endured a lot of pain—muscles strains, exhaustions, sprains, windedness—but nothing had ever felt quite like this, like his skull was being nailed with a hammer, squeezing in on itself. He cried out, his entire body wincing at the terrible impact. What had happened? They’d been driving normally just a second ago. Had they wrecked the car or been hit? They’d been at a traffic light, so how could the impact have shaken them that much?

Yunho lifted his head, clutching his forehead. “Junsu?” he whispered. No answer. It hurt to move any part of him, but he managed to turn his head. Junsu was still beside him, his head also pressed against the taxi window. Yunho in his breath. There was blood on the window, and places were the glass had broken into sharp edges. Junsu wasn’t moving.

“Junsu ah,” Yunho said urgently. He grabbed Junsu’s shoulders and gently pulled him away from the window. Junsu’s eyes were unfocused, but he was conscious. “Hyung,” he murmured shakily. There was a long gash on his forehead, blood dripping from it steadily. Yunho yanked off his jacket and wrapped it around Junsu’s wound, pressing down on it as gently as he could to hold back the blood without hurting it further.

“Are you all right?” he asked Junsu, trying to keep control of the panic creeping into his voice. “Am I hurting you?”

Junsu didn’t answer coherently, which made Yunho feel like his heart was being kicked out. The taxi driver, who’d been fighting back the air bag, let out a dull groan. “Earthquake,” he explained in Japanese. “Is your friend okay?”

“I don’t think so,” Yunho said, holding his jacket close to Junsu’s forehead.

“They send out emergency response teams in these cases. The roads are a mess, and we can’t move from here. Will he be all right until then?”

Yunho looked down at Junsu. “It’ll be okay,” Junsu whispered in Korean. Yunho’s throat clenched. He dug through his jeans pockets for his cell phone and hit his speed dial. It showed for a single second that he was calling Jaejoong, but then the screen flashed. Call cannot connect. Yunho swore and tried grabbing Junsu’s phone, but the screen had completely shattered. What was he supposed to do? Jaejoong, Yoochun, and Changmin were far away, and would have no idea what had happened to them. Yongsoo and the rest of their Japan team, too. As soon as they heard about the earthquake, how frightened would they feel? How much would Jaejoong suffer, not knowing if he was safe or injured? He grabbed his own phone again, pounding the speed dial button in a panic. Nothing. He couldn't think clearly as he pressed it again, staring unseeingly down at the words telling him that his calls were not going through to Jaejoong. He had to talk to him. Leaving him in the dark was not an option. But the world was not listening to his pleas, and nothing happened every time he tried to connect to him.

Yunho rarely cried, but he wanted to right then. If it wasn’t for Junsu in his arms, in need of his help, he might have. He remembered, distantly, the time Hyunsoo had first told him he was going to be the leader of the male C&M trainees, and then of DBSK. It had seemed so strange, then. How could he be given responsibility over his own childhood friends, his own boyfriend? He thought he would be leader in name only, and they would all naturally organize themselves. But after a few months, he realized it was different than he was expecting. It wasn’t that the members needed to be told what to do at all times, but that they needed someone to talk to when they were going through something, someone who mediated for them and advocated when they wanted something. After awhile, he started thinking of them as more than just his childhood friends, and in Jaejoong’s case, his lover. They became like second souls to him, just as vital to him as himself, and he believed with all his heart that he was capable of giving anything for them if they were hurt, unhappy, or in danger.

But he’d felt it first when Yoochun and Jaejoong were injured because of Dami’s schemes. As superhuman as he wanted his love to make him, he was still only human. He couldn’t substitute himself for them and take the brunt of their pain. They still had to suffer as individuals, and he couldn’t always take that weight off them, much as he wanted to. It still broke him inside to have those things he couldn’t spare them from; it was like he had four additional hearts inside him, and he could feel their every throb and fracture as keenly as he did within his own.

It hurt sometimes. At times like this, it was almost unbearable to have five hearts inside him. For a moment, he wanted to forget the part of him that was leader, find his way into Jaejoong’s arms, and completely unburden himself and sob like a child. But Jaejoong wasn’t here and didn’t know what had happened to them, and he needed to find a way to get Junsu to the hospital so his forehead could be treated. He cradled Junsu’s head gently. “Hang in there,” he whispered, dabbing at the blood that had dribbled down his pale skin.

Junsu lifted a shaky hand to touch his cheek. “You too, hyung. You too.”

0o0

Jongwoo had started out at C&M with Yunho as the leader, so when Hyunsoo nim told him that Yunho was going to be a part of the newly debuting group and he was to take over mentoring the trainees, Jongwoo didn’t believe him.

“But Shinwon hyung and Chansik hyung are older than me.”

“And Jaejoong is older than Yunho, but clearly there would be some difficulties in the group if we put him in charge. Same goes for your group.”

Jongwoo couldn’t disagree with that. He liked Shinwon and Chansik, but putting either of them in charge of the other would result in year-long arguments between them and absolutely nothing would be accomplished. As for Haejin and Chaozhi, they were still much too young and inexperienced to think about leading anybody.

So there was nothing for Jongwoo to do but take the job. In the back of his mind, he always worried that he was ill suited for it. He was no Yunho who was nothing but selfless when it came to s, nor was he as collected as Gaeun when something went wrong. But he liked the four other members and wanted to form a great group with them, so he tried to do as much as he could.

At first it was challenging. Chaozhi would come to him sometimes saying things in mangled Korean which Jongwoo couldn't understand, Haejin went through a voice change and demanded extra time during their lessons, and Chansik and Shinwon were always going at each other and requiring mediation. Sometimes he went home in the evenings wondering if he was really capable of leading them or if it would always be out of his league. How did Yunho and Gaeun do it? How could they keep themselves from going crazy?

And then one day, Chaozhi came running in, showing his latest Korean Language Proficiency scores. “I got my best results ever, hyung!” he said, jumping up and down. “It’s all because you’ve spent so much time tutoring me that I was able to do this. My mother says she wants us to take you out to dinner to say thanks, please say you’ll come!”

And another day, the group was filling out special member profiles for their fan café when they debuted, and their manager showed him Haejin’s. Under the question of “which musician do you admire the most?”, he had written out Jongwoo’s name. Because he’s such a great teacher, always encouraging and patient, I was able to become a better performer. I’m really happy our group has such a great leader.

And then, after the shock of finding out about Chansik and Shinwon, Shinwon personally came to see him in the break room. “I don’t know if you want to hear this from someone like me, but thank you,” he said, wrapping his arms around Jongwoo’s shoulders.

“For what?” Jongwoo asked, surprised. “If Yunho hyung hadn’t been there, I have no idea what I would have said or done.”

“I know,” Shinwon said simply. “But you don’t hate us. You're supporting us, even though it will probably only bring you difficulties. Don’t you understand why that’s more than enough?”

Jongwoo blinked, then his face broke into a grin. Was this what being a leader was? Helping the members, giving them love and receiving their love in return? If that’s what it was, he thought he just might be able to handle it, being the leader of B.P.M.

So follow my way,
when I'm not leading anyone.
Open and frayed,
when you can see that I'm unsure.

So follow my way,
when I am falling from your heart.
When I'm the pain,
fever and sweet relief in one.
Out on my way,
though I'm not worthy of your trust.
Follow me down into a swan dive,
all eyes closed tight...