Seunghyun wonders why he’s feeling so nervous.

He’s a performer—T.O.P, one of the country’s absolute best—and being on a stage in front of thousands has never been stressful beyond a kind of thriving, positive thrill.

Therefore, it is quite bizarre to the rapper as to why he’s suddenly breaking a sweat in reaction to sitting comfortably in front of the stage this time around.

In response to his own uncharacteristic nerves, Seunghyun feels that the skin of his forehead is growing all clammy and he grimaces whilst tugging bits of blonde fringe downwards to hide it.

Not a minute later, his hand is swatted away. “Aish, I told you not to touch your hair, it was sitting perfectly before.” Soojoo, his stylist, is frowning as she runs some more wax gunk through it to keep it in place. “I want you to look absolutely, heartbreakingly -on-legs good—at least for the first episode. My pride is on the line here—”

“I don’t think I can do this.” Seunghyun cuts in to her rambling with a slight pout.

Soojoo pauses in her art and arches a brow in surprise, “Wow. So even Choi Seunghyun gets nerves, huh?” She reaches down to fix the collar of his shirt but the man avoids the gesture, leaning away and rolling his eyes.

“I’m not even good at talking to strangers. Why did I think this was a good idea?”

The girl tsks at him and presses at his collar once more, “Dude, just relax okay. You’re good at acting confident it’s practically your job.”

Seunghyun narrows his eyes at her until the action deflates in to a resigned sigh, his shoulders sagging, “I guess it’s kind of late for me to pull out now, anyway.”

After speculating his appearance for the last time, Soojoo hums in satisfaction before nodding. ”Just a bit, yeah. And if you do I’m pretty sure Daesung will have a heart attack, so.”

That cracks a bit in to Seunghyun’s anxiousness and he smiles in amusement whilst peeking a look at his manager over the shoulder. Daesung looks as if a bomb could explode any minute now and it has Seunghyun chuckling. “Okay, at least I know there’s someone more nervous than me right now.”

Soojoo snickers and pats his back twice for luck before walking off the set, leaving the superstar feeling a little more relaxed. He turns in his chair to smile at his co-judges awkwardly, as he isn’t all that close to either of them. JYP leans over and nudges his shoulder. “It’s scary the first time but it’s actually a breeze, don’t worry.”

“Just be honest about who you like and don’t, it’ll come naturally.” BoA smiles, and Seunghyun tries his best to take the advice in as he looks over the script for the hundredth time.

You can do this; it’s just a bunch of kids, nothing special. He takes in a deep breath and sighs it out, “Let’s do this.”

It ends up being a lot of fun.

Much more than Seunghyun had expected.

In fact, it has him on a high—most of these kids are talented as hell and Seunghyun didn’t even realize how much he’s missed music until he’s watching himself in the people auditioning, just like he was years and years ago, terrified and starry-eyed all at the same time.

It’s exciting to him; that he gets to be involved with these singers that could become something great, that he gets to witness it happening first-hand.

As Seunghyun listens and critiques all kinds of performances, he feels a kind of loss at the fact he’s been investing so much of his time in to acting for the past two years. Movies are great and he has a passion for playing the different roles but after a long time, Seunghyun feels inspired musically.

I’m definitely going to be back in the studio after this season is over, he promises to himself.

By the time recording is almost over, Seunghyun thinks that accepting this place at the judging panel is probably one of the smarter decisions he’s made in his career.

For the first time in a while, he’s actually enjoying his schedule and he wants to send YG a dozen roses for practically forcing him in to taking the job.

“Only two more left.” JYP says, looking down at the list of contestants in front of them.

Seunghyun hums, briefly looking over the remaining auditions for the day: one boy and one girl. He doesn’t really mind if they’re amazing or just average, he’s had his fill of good talent today.

The boy is first.

Seunghyun head shoots up at the loud clunking footsteps as the contestant walks to centre stage.

His brows raise up slightly at the boy’s choice of leather, platform boots, with the heel higher than any of the female singers that he could recall seeing.

As his eyes drag up to the face, Seunghyun finds himself holding in a gasp, his eyebrows only travelling further and further up on his forehead.

He’s gorgeous.

Seunghyun cannot even phrase it in any other way as he blatantly stares at the male. Cat-like eyes—rimmed with kohl and slightly skewed by the scruff of his black hair, a perfect button nose and a slightly pouty pink mouth.

Almost too pretty, Seunghyun thinks as he watches the boy respond to questions in a kind of awe.

“I’m Kwon Jiyong, 19 years old, from Seoul.” His accent is slightly twinged western, and his words a bit slurred as he speaks in a soft voice that sends tingles down to Seunghyun’s toes.

BoA comments on the boy’s unique sense of fashion with compliments and Jiyong smiles in a bashful manner that contrasts completely to his loud appearance—Seunghyun then realizes he’s watching way too closely and it must look bizarre and uncomfortable on camera.

He gathers his wits and clears his throat away from the mic, attempting to throw a casual smile the boy’s way afterwards. “So what song have you chosen to do?”

Seunghyun is mildly shocked at the feeling in his stomach when Jiyong meets his eyes, “Blackstreet’s No Diggity.”

The older is surprised. He’d expect the boy to be performing something grungey and obscure—not commercialized old school r&b and hip hop. He’s impressed.

 “That’s one of my personal favourites. I’m excited and scared at the same time.” Seunghyun comments and JYP agrees beside him.

Jiyong doesn’t seem too nervous apart from releasing a deep breath and wriggling his fingers as if to shake of the nerves. He looks completely at home on the stage, as if he were made to be standing on it.

When it’s time for Dre’s intro verse, Seunghyun is about to mentally rap along but something completely other reaches his ears as Jiyong spits in to the mic. He’s written his own verse.

And it’s good. Seunghyun’s head is bopping to the easy flow of it and his arms get goosebumps at the thin, whiny voice. His eyes never leave the figure on stage as Jiyong absolutely kills it—walks around as if it were his own concert.

Seunghyun has never, never witnessed an artist like this before. And that’s what he assesses the boy as immediately, an artist like himself who becomes one with the music playing around him.

Jiyong’s singing isn’t perfect, but it’s enough to have Seunghyun hanging on his every word and his imperfect falsettos send a resonating chill down the judge’s spine. They’re not going to get a better audition than this one. Kwon Jiyong is it, Seunghyun is almost positive.

When the mesmerizing boy closes his performance with a slip of self incorporated beatbox, Seunghyun wants to stand up and give him the applause he deserves—but the other two remain seated beside him, and the PDs reminded him about a hundred times before filming not to show much biasness.

Even still, the three judges, sitting, clap harder for Jiyong than they have for any other audition. Seunghyun thinks his grin might just break through his face if he smiles any harder.

Jiyong’s dominating confidence seems to have melted right off as he looks awe-struck whilst bowing his head in gratitude. It only makes Seunghyun want to applaud harder.

“Wow. Wow.” JYP struggles to find words, and Seunghyun completely understands as he finds himself quite speechless as well. “I don’t know what to tell you Kwon Jiyong, you’re really good.”

“One of the best we’ve seen today.” BoA adds.

The boy smiles wide and hides it behind the back of his hand, bowing again.

“You were amazing.” Seunghyun blurts, unable to contain his excitement, “I want your album out so that I can listen it. I’m not even kidding.” He grins as his compliment has the boy wide-eyed, the hand over his mouth now serving to cover his shocked expression.

“Thank you so much.” Jiyong’s voice is shaky as he stares at the judging panel with glossy, smiling eyes. Seunghyun is overjoyed for the kid.

He thinks that Jiyong could be the next big thing, wants to help him get there because someone with that kind of talent has to be.

Seunghyun can’t even help that the boy has immediately become his favourite act. He cannot even dream of another person on this show to leave such an impression on him as Jiyong has.  

After the judges go in to detail over his performance, making sure he knows exactly why he absolutely owned the stage, Jiyong walks back just like that and he’s gone, out of sight until the next round—yet Seunghyun can’t seem to shake the boy from his mind.
 

When the last girl finishes her ballad audition, Seunghyun is literally unable to critique her, simply because he hadn’t been paying attention at all.

He’s still basking in the after-effect of Jiyong’s performance, and the boy’s smooth verse and whiny tone replays over and over in his ear, like it’s taking over his system.

Seunghyun doesn’t worry about it too much, thinks it’s probably normal, like getting a good song stuck in your head after hearing it once.

The worrying begins once he’s gotten himself ready for bed, in his apartment, later that night.

Routinely, Seunghyun switches off the lights and closes his eyes as he lies down—yet he is not met with sleep, but the image of Jiyong’s effeminate face painted across the backs of his eyelids.

In shock, he sits up in the bed. “What in the world...” He runs a hand through his hair roughly as if to clear his thoughts. It doesn’t work.

He pictures Jiyong’s smile again and his eyes widen as that same strange feeling occupies his stomach.

Seunghyun has many inspiring musicians that he respects and admires greatly because of their music, actors because of their acting—he’d thought that Jiyong was someone who impressed him as an artist, like that.

And he certainly had, but there was something off.

With all of the other contestants today that had impressed Seunghyun greatly, not one other had caused the fluttering feeling reaching his chest at this moment.

It isn’t a feeling completely unfamiliar, in fact Seunghyun—who has acted in countless intimate scenes with some of the most beautiful women in Korea— has been in this situation enough to know exactly what this reaction to Jiyong means.

But he dismisses the idea as soon as it comes.

Seunghyun isn’t closed minded, however he has never been interested in men that way for the entirety of his existence and this just doesn’t make sense for him.

Jiyong’s exceptionally attractive and talented but Seunghyun is always surrounded by men like that, famous men of which some are twice as pretty and some he’s even gotten close to, but only as friends.

There is no way that Seunghyun is suddenly attracted to this kid, after twenty six years of living. Even if there is the slight chance that he might be, he simply shakes his head and clenches his eyes closed in determination to sleep away the ridiculous notion.

The memory of Jiyong’s slim legs wrapped in impossibly tight jeans immediately enters his mind.

“.” Seunghyun whispers, turning on to his back to stare at the ceiling. I’m going to have to sleep with both eyes open tonight. 

a/n - i hate starting stories it'll get better i promise