Pride, Prejudice, and Pretty Boys – Episode 2: Wishes

“I wish God would make N-hyung mute.”

We all laughed over that one . . . And I wasn’t completely joking, but . . .

“Oh, N-hyung! I wish he’d stop bothering Hyuk and let me sleep!”

And I really was thinking of you while pounding that rice cake into oblivion with the hyungs . . . but . . .

“I wish you’d just disappear.”

But I didn’t realize that you just might disappear someday . . .

It’s not we can’t go on without you, but . . . And we are; we’re all just as busy as we were before, and even though at least one of us makes sure to come to visit you for a few minutes each day . . .

I sigh, looking away from the comatose man. I stare at my feet for a bit, letting the low hum of the humidifier and machines drown out my thoughts. Raising my head, I feel knots forming in my throat and chest as I see him again; the man that I might have mistreated and pushed too far more than once . . .

Hakyeon-hyung is so quiet now; he’s sleeping, but he’s so quiet and still that Taekwoon-hyung thought his friend had died when we first came to visit him together. There’s a dark-grey knit beanie with a colorful Rovix pin attached to it over the bandages wrapped around his skull to keep his head warm. On the cluttered little stand next to the headboard is a photo of the six of us at Sunrise Peak on Jeju island; it’s from that time you became Dictator N and dragged us all out hiking bright and early in the morning merely because you wanted to. Next to the photo is a little box full of get-well-soon cards from your  fans; stacked neatly and obviously unread. Next to the cards is an untouched stack of three letters written to you—from Binnie-hyung, Ravi-hyung, and Ken-hyung—for when you wake up.

Opening my backpack, I took out a small white box, opening it and setting it with the rest of your gifts. Now, your ash-blond hair piece is with everyone’s get-well wishes; I convinced our stylists to let me bring it to you so you wouldn’t completely wig out about having no hair on your head when you wake up.

Getting up to leave as I heard one of our managers clearing his throat as he entered the room, I look over at Hakyeon-hyung one last time, swallowing hard to force that horrible “if you wake up” down. You have to wake up—

“I wish God would make Hakyeon-hyung wake up.”

Feeling my manager’s hand squeeze my shoulder reassuringly, I let myself be led away.

Glancing over at the door as I heard the key tone, I wait to see which hyung is returning from his schedules. And I heard a sigh from the oldest hyung as I felt my shoulders drooping. Returning my eyes to the home shopping channel, I drew my knees to my chin and numbly watched as the host introduced a robotic vacuum that could be programmed to clean on specific days at specific times.

“Lee Hongbin, the second,” a quiet voice remarks dryly.

Turning my head a little, I see Taekwoon-hyung standing at the kitchen counter with a large bowl and whisk.

“Cooking, again?” Because Leo-hyung had been so busy lately with individual schedules, we all only saw him once or twice every two days . . . But when he’s here and not sleeping or preparing for work, he’s cooking. And recently, our managers and staff all gained three to nine kilograms each . . .

He shrugs, staring into the contents of the bowl that he was beating. “It’s . . . his birthday soon, so . . .”

We both sighed. Hakyeon-hyung’s birthday already passed four months ago, but Taekwoon-hyung had turned the dorm into his master chef kitchen ever since the leader’s accident. He was so distracted and distraught that this was the only thing he could do to regain focus for his schedules, and while we all understand . . . We were having trouble keeping the fridge clean, so we enlisted our managers and staff to help us consume the chef’s creations. But it’s starting to feel like “game over” in Tetris . . .

And we passed two hours in silence; me staring at the TV, and hyung alternating his attention between the range and me. Then the key tone sounds again, and we both look over to see who was returning. He flicks a glance at me, and I just try to shrug and hide my disappointment as Ravi-hyung and Hongbin-hyung came in.

“Home shopping network, again?” Ravi-hyung asks, settling next to me the floor. He frowns. “I don’t get why N-hyung used to watch this all the time . . . who needs a vacuum cleaner that’s that expensive? It’s not like we’re that dirty—“

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Seven-second-showers,” Hongbin-hyung quips, tidying up the shoe closet before grabbing my waist to drag me backwards to the sofa. “Wonshikkie, you, too. Sitting too close to the screen is bad for your eyes.”

The rapper rolls his eyes before unfolding his legs and using them to push himself backwards a few feet without actually getting up. “There, happy now, snark-Bin?”

“Ecstatic.”

“You know, you’re really starting to get on my nerves lately. Stop nagging, you’re not our mom or whatever—“

“Then why don’t you actually start putting things back where they belong—“

“Hyung—“ I began, not wanting to be in a dorm where Hongbin-hyung and Ravi-hyung were fighting, since Leo-hyung rarely stepped into any of our conflicts these days.

“Kids, did you eat your red ginseng and vitamins yet?”

Looking up at the sound of that familiar voice, my heart almost skipped a beat. But then it just settles down as disappointment settles in; it was just Jaehwan-hyung imitating N-hyung as he came out of the bathroom. Something about my forced smile and the looks on Binnie-hyung and Wonshik-hyung’s faces must have pissed him off, because hyung just shook his head and went to his room without another word. Hongbin-hyung follows him after throwing one last death glare at his friend, and Ravi-hyung leaves after briefly discussing some staging details with Leo-hyung.

And the dorm goes too quiet again; Taekwoon-hyung had gone back into his shelled-up state, and the rest of us fight amongst each other nearly every day. The dorm is too quiet now, as it has been since N-hyung’s accident.

Since the accident I must have wished for . . .

Leaning my head against the tinted car window, I pretend to sleep as I hear the hushed voices of my hyungs arguing about Hakyeon-hyung and something else.

“Should we tell him?” I hear Binnie-hyung asking. And I get that foreboding feeling that the “something else” they’re discussing is me.

“Why? He’ll find out at the fan meet—“ Ken-hyung . . .

“Isn’t that why we should tell him now?” Ravi-hyung . . .

“But . . . our fans might worry if we tell him now. He’ll get upset.” Leo-hyung?

“He’ll feel crappy if he finds out now, but don’t you think it’s not right for him to find out at the fan meet? He’ll be upset either way, but as a member, shouldn’t he know before our fans?” What should I know, Binnie-hyung?

I heard a sigh, then Ken-hyung’s voice saying, “Fine, we’ll tell Hyukkie when he wakes up—“

“Tell me what?” I ask, stretching my neck before opening my eyes. Gripping the headrest of Leo-hyung’s seat, I pulled myself forward to join their conversation.

“Ravi is our leader; the company rep decided that would be the best for now.”

“Hakyeonie woke up and --”

Running up the stairs at the hospital because I couldn’t wait with the hyungs at the elevator, I burst into the ICU wing and raced to Hakyeon-hyung’s room. Once there, I saw him sitting in a wheel chair with his back to me. Looking over at the nightstand, I see that the letters and cards on the stand are slightly disheveled, the wig was left untouched, and the photo of the six of us was missing; it was in his hands.

“N-hyung—“

“It’s just ‘Cha Hakyeon’ now, ‘N’ is gone,” he says too cheerfully, not turning around. “I’ll swing by the dorms after I get discharged to gather my stuff—“

“N-hyung, what are you spewing now? You didn’t hit your head that hard when you fell from the rig, did you?” I find myself snipping more sharply than I had intended as I stood behind him. But then again, what had I intended to say?

“More like I didn’t hit it hard enough,” he snaps back. “Han Sanghyuk, get out. You, too, Taekwoonie. And Jaehwan. And Wonshik, and Hongbin. Get out. Leave me alone . . . please.”

Spinning around, I see that the hyungs had caught up with me. And I clenched my fists, storming out of the room before they could stop me.

“Ravi is our leader; the company rep decided that would be the best for now.”

“Hakyeonie woke up and . . . he can’t dance anymore,” finished Leo-hyung. “When he fell . . .”

“It’d be fine if just his legs or foot broke when he fell off the rig, but he damaged part of his spine, too,” said Ken-hyung.

“But . . . he’ll get better, right? The spine’s just a couple of bones just like his legs . . . they’ll mend, right?” I asked, knowing all too well what the answer was.

“He’s partially paralyzed,” Ken-hyung said flatly. “There’s nothing we can do about it, so we have to just keep going without him.”

“Ken-hyung!” Ravi-hyung growled, glaring at the main vocal as he looked away.

“I’m not happy about this either, dude. But it’s what he’d want,” snapped Ken-hyung, scrubbing at his nose as his voice quivered.

And the van went terribly silent after Leo-hyung sighed and plugged in his headphones.

After going through schedules like a zombie and fighting with Hongbin-hyung—he said I was unfocused at practice and kept asking us to go through the stupid drills three more times with him—I shut myself into my room and cried. Then Ravi-hyung dragged me out of the room to our first team meeting as five. Or four, actually, since Ken-hyung was still out at work.

Awkwardly—perhaps even more stiffly than the night I was first introduced to them—we all sat on the floor, and I sat as far away from Hongbin-hyung as possible. Until Taekwoon-hyung dragged me closer into the circle.

“Hakyeonie’s rule,” he scolds softly, reminding me of the rule that Hakyeon-hyung had set for us years ago. We were supposed to resolve any differences as quickly as possible, but . . .

“Who cares; he’s not here anymore,” I muttered, staring at my forearms.

“It’s Ravi’s rule, then,” Wonshik-hyung says simply, crossing his arms. “Hongbin, you were too hard on Hyuk at practice, and Hyuk, Hongbin is often too busy to practice choreography, so you should try to understand. And Hamjji, you, too. Stop glowering at Hongbinnie like you want to kill him when he asks for reruns.”  Seeing everyone staring at the floor and not willing to look at each other, Ravi-hyung lets out an exasperated sigh. Then it’s quiet again, and I flicked a glance at Hongbin-hyung, who was now absentmindedly scratching his shoulder while staring at the door.

“Binnie-hyung—“

He sighs, shaking his head. “Forget it, it’s OK. Is that all we needed to talk about? I have a schedule in the morning, so . . .”

“Not quite, but you can go sleep first, if you want.” Wonshik-hyung replies, his eyes sparkling with mischief or something else. “Jaehwan-hyung and I were talking earlier, and—“

Noticing the look on Ravi-hyung’s face, Binnie-hyung raises an eyebrow, pausing while pushing himself off the floor.

“—N-hyung is coming sometime tomorrow to gather his things. Jaehwan-hyung said that N-hyung would likely try to drop by when all of us are out, so . . .” he glances at Taekwoon-hyung, who’d let out an angry snort at that. “Leo-hyung, I’m not done yet . . . Anyway, Jaehwan-hyung suggested that we gather his things and hide them. We have four rooms that can be locked, and Raon-hyung agreed to let us hide some stuff in his room. And just in case N-hyung does manage to find everything, maybe we should each take something with us to our schedules, since this is the only way we can stall him until we have free time to talk to him together.”

Taekwoon-hyung stares hard at Ravi-hyung, and I think he’s contemplating whether or not to go along with the plan.

“Since you’re usually his roommate, yes or no, Hamjji? Don’t make me get a giant hamster wheel and have Hyuk help me lock you in it while we do this—“

“I’m not a hamster!” Leo-hyung reached over and lightly hit Ravi-hyung on the back of his neck, then hopped to his feet and went to his room.

“Do they even make hamster wheels that big, hyung?” I ask, following the hyungs as they all stood up.

“You’d be surprised at what you can buy online and have shipped within a few hours—“

“Wonshik, why would we buy a giant hamster wheel when we could probably just borrow it from a variety show?”

“Why would we borrow it when we don’t need it? Taekwoonie-hyung agreed, so—“

“Hyung—“

After Binnie-hyung left with one of our managers for his drama shoot, Ravi-hyung instructs Leo-hyung and I to detain N-hyung for as long as possible if he showed up. Then he left for the recording studio and Ken-hyung left with another manager to film a variety show. Two hours passed, and Taekwoon-hyung had to leave for a musical rehearsal, and he tells me to call him if N-hyung came.

Home alone. I thought, thinking about that ridiculous movie I watched on the plane to one of our US schedules. Maybe we should have y trapped the dorm . . . Getting off the sofa, I wander around the empty dorm to find things to make traps with. Returning to the sofa with no ideas, I recall what Ravi-hyung said last night about shopping online and open a browser on my phone.

“Human-sized mouse trap . . .” Typing into the box, I allow myself a small chuckle as I imagine a toon-version of N-hyung scurrying around a room and getting caught in the spring trap. Sighing, I closed the browser before it finished loading, thinking about the kinds of punishment Taekwoon-hyung would dole out if he walked into a tricked house. Not like that ever deterred me from pranking him these last few years, but it’d be a wasted effort if someone other than N-hyung stumbled into my rat trap—

And the key tone rings, and soon after, N-hyung limps in on crutches with his blond wig on. We study each other for a beat before he hobbles to the couch and seats himself next to me. And out of habit, I push him away as he tries to hug me.

“Aouu, our Hyokkie,” he laughs, sounding a bit fake. “Why are you here? Waiting for me?”

“No schedules for me until later, when the hyungs get back,” I replied stiffly, eying his crutches and wondering how fast he could hop around on them if I decided to run from or chase him around the room. “How’s . . . ?”

“I’ll be able to walk, eventually, maybe,” he says too cheerfully again. “But probably not more than that.” Pushing himself up, he picks up his crutches and hobbles to his room.

 Quickly, I sent out a group SOS in our chatroom.

Oops . . . should have just sent a one-on-one to Taekwoon-hyung like he told me to—

Mentally, I kicked myself as I heard his message tone go off. Because his ID was in our chatroom, too.

“Han Sanghyuk—“

And dear mother of all hamsters, who knew Hakyeon-hyung ran faster with crutches than without! I ran out the door and down the stairs to the garage after he chased me around the coffee table, hoping that I could catch a taxi or something that could take me to one of the hyungs to help me with N-hyung.

But of course I couldn’t get that far without my shoes or wallet, so N-hyung caught me in the garage.

“Ah, Hyo~okkie,” he sings into my ear, causing me to shudder involuntarily as his voice took on that cheerful, yet threatening edge that usually came before he completely blew his fuse like dynamite. His arms tightened around my shoulders, and I couldn’t even struggle. “Hyokkie, where did you gloomy kids hide my stuff?”

“Why would we do that—ow!” I flinched as he pinched my neck. “And seriously, hyung—“

Suddenly, Wonshik-hyung dropped down from the ceiling, pushing N-hyung away from me and towards Taekwoon-hyung, who tripped him. One by one, the hyungs appeared from behind cars and columns, surrounding Hakyeon-hyung. And Ravi-hyung tosses Hakyeon-hyung into a potato sack, slinging the squirming bundle over his shoulder. Grinning, he gives me a thumbs-up, and Jaehwan-hyung raises his hand for a high-five. Confused, I give him his high-five while staring at the other hyungs and the loudly protesting bundle on Ravi-hyung’s shoulder.

“Why are you guys here? I thought you had schedules before our Starlight yacht gala tonight—“

“We plotted with manager-hyungs and the company rep,” Ken-hyung answers. “And they flipped our schedules a bit. Sorry we didn’t tell you, but we gave you the most dangerous part of the mission. And N-hyung, stop squirming before Ravi drops you! But yeah, good job, Hyukkie.”

Hakyeon-hyung says some very incoherent things—he was probably swearing—but none of us really cared, since we got him back. And we’re used to ignoring him, anyway . . . Well, Taekwoon-hyung and Binnie-hyung took Hakyeon-hyung off of Wonshik-hyung’s shoulders when we got to the elevator, deciding to carry him like a not-really-dead-and-still-kicking corpse back to our dorm.

“Man, today is a good day. We got to sack N-hyung! Do you know how much I’ve wanted to do that over the last few years?” Hongbin-hyung says, rolling his neck.

“Should we be tossing him around like this, though? He just got out of the hospital—“

“Wonshik, who cares about that? We can always just send him back to the hospital—“

“Lee Hongbin, you—“ N-hyung snarled, still struggling to break free from Taekwoon-hyung’s vice-grip and trying get the burlap off his face.

“But Taekwoonie-hyung kicked him, not Hongbin. And you’re the one that sacked him, Ravi. So if he goes boom on anyone later, it’s LR’s fault,” added Jaehwan-hyung, ignorning Hakyeon-hyung.

“Hey! Quit talking about me like I’m not here—“

“Hyung, what do we do with him now?” I ask, poking the bundle where I supposed Hakyeon-hyung’s shoulder was. “And I think we accidentally left his hair behind—“

“Kids, what the hell are you—“

After the hyungs left for their schedules and locked Hakyeon-hyung’s crutches in our managers’ room, I reviewed the MC script for our yacht party with Starlight while watching over him. Hongbin-hyung, Ken-hyung, and Leo-hyung had hogtied him after taking off the burlap sack, and they’d dumped him on the couch . . . Thankfully, he’d gotten tired and stopped struggling and trying to get me go against the other hyungs and untie him. So he’s sleeping now, but . . .

Glancing over my shoulder at our troublemaker and eldest hyung, I sigh, gently tugging a bit of garage pebble out of his wig’s fringe. And I jump a bit as my phone suddenly went off; Leo-hyung had texted me, announcing that everyone was on their way back to pick us up. And he told me to wake up the troublemaker because the stylists were going to make him presentable to the fans, because everyone had decided that this fan party would not commence without our leader.

After the fan party, we finally sat down and talk to N-hyung. After the hyungs hashed out some of their differences and went to their rooms, I stayed behind to talk to Hakyeon-hyung, whose eyes were puffy and red from tears that he’d shed at the fan party and on our way home.

“N-hyung—“

“Go away,” he mumbled into his knees.

Pretending I didn’t hear him, I poked his shoulder. “N-hyung, did you eat yet?” No answer. “Taekwoon-hyung’s been cooking enough to feed the army, so anything you want from the fridge?” Still no answer. So I keep poking him, and it’s nice to be the one doing the bothering instead of the one being bothered for once—

“Hyokkie. Stop. It. Now.” He hisses, glaring up at me with his bleary eyes. He didn’t have to say it, but I heard that “or else” at the end of his sentence loud and clear.

“Chef Leo’s rosette pasta or kimchi stew?” I ask as meekly as I can manage, giving him a cheeky smile. And his stomach growls, causing him to look away sheepishly. Or about as sheepish as our Hakyeon-hyung can look.

“Both?”

Grinning and giving him a thumbs-up, I went to the kitchen, surprised to find Taekwoon-hyung already there and pulling a plate from the microwave. Setting it on the counter, he roughly knuckles the back of my head.

“Rules,” he mumbles quietly before going to the bathroom to wash up.

I frowned. What did I need to sort out with the hyungs that we didn’t already fix at our family meeting earlier? Pulling my sleeves over my hands to protect them from the hot plate, I waddled back to N-hyung.

While eating with him, I think about things for a bit. “Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry for . . .” I swallowed hard, recalling all the mean things I said and did, and not all of them were jokes. “I mean, I . . .” And I couldn’t bring myself to say more. Apologizing was hard, yet admitting to what I was apologizing for seemed that much harder.

“Forget it,” hyung says, swallowing a mouthful of stew while rolling his eyes. “At least you’re not the one that sacked me and hog tied me today. Although . . . you were in on it.”

Huffing out a laugh, I leaned back on my hands. “N-hyung?”

“What?”

“I wish that you’ll remain as Vixx’s leader forever. If you really need to dance . . . I mean . . . I’ll be your legs if you can’t. You won’t be our bean-sized or smaller-than-a-latte dwarf anymore, at least—“

“Hey, among normal kids, I’m usually the tallest—“ 

// End - Wishes

20160520 - 2nd story :) ChaSang pairing, kind of~
20160521 - typo fixes