He’s so bad but he does it so well

I can see the end, as it begins.

 

It was just another day.

Another day of nonstop practice, hoping the cries of our teeming sweats would reach management ears, let us debut, it says pleadingly. Will there be an end to this? A sense to everything we have been doing?

I realized I have no right to question these things when Seungcheol and my dongsaengs, who have stayed here far longer than I, believes in the fleeting word debut; more than anything.

Amazing. Everybody here is amazing and yet here I am stuck with nothing but love for my guitar and all these arrangements I managed to create but not good enough to be worth anything, “not original”, they say. I know they are just arrangements. It wasn’t something as ingenious as what Jihoon is doing. Which is actually making music from scratch. Nor am I blessed by the Gods of fluidity as to when Soonyoung, when he makes his choreographies with Jun, Chan, and Minghao.

Yes I know they aren’t worth anything. Yet I know this is mine. And I love doing this more than anything.

For me it was worth something.

Maybe?

I heard there would be another one of us. Apparently they are more into collecting boys as if our current number isnt’t enough; as if the practice rooms feels more of a dungeon than a training ground. How can they not see how much of a hodgepodge of a group we currently are and how they can barely fit in a room.

How young would the next trainee be?

How dissatisfied are they with our current team?

“Listen up guys, this is Jeonghan. He will be training with you from now on,” says a staff I don’t quite could remember the correct name. Korean is still tricky for me to grasp sometimes. I see majority of the members give their enthusiastic welcomes, some with over eagerness like Seokmin. I know it’ll be too overcrowded so I’ll sit this one out and I’ll just say my hellos later.

The welcoming group disperses as everyone went back to their own tasks, leaving the new boy to his own devices.

He catches my eye.

I give a shy wave.

He grins back.

I wonder how long he can hold that beautiful smile of his.

He’s tall and handsome as hell

Red lips and rosy cheeks

And this is getting good now

He doesn’t stand out much or rather I know he was intentionally hiding himself away. I hated seeing his lonely back.

It reminded me of myself.

I approached him with only the intention of friendship. But the trainings got harder, the criticism harsher, the nights longer and colder. The conversations grew into subtle touches, then into occasional sleep overs, that develops into two bodies sharing warmth.

When words weren’t enough,

when mint patches weren’t enough to soothe the aches,

when telephone calls only increased their loneliness.

They found each other.

That was just that, Jeonghan says.

Just needs, he says. We should hold on to the few things that feels good, whatever it might be. 

I didn’t know what feels good also feels like his chest is going to break open from the ache.Though I didn’t say such.

I only nod. That was how it started.

He say no one has to know what we do

His hands are in my hair,

his clothes are in my room

And his voice is a familiar sound...

I never knew that back then, when I accepted your hand in greeting, would be the start of a whirlwind that would turn into a storm, mellowing into something I do not want to bother naming.

It’s scary.

It’s warm, but it’s scary.

“I am scared, Jeonghan,” I would say but you always reassured me with your smiles.

Your warmth was a constant presence and I for once embraced being the shadow to a sun.

Those first stolen moments; the lingering touches, those innocent whispers. I didn’t read too much about it then.

Simply put, I never thought I would crave for your attention so much.

Your small attempts at invading into my personal space brings a chill down my spine but when I accepted how I cannot turn you down, that was when I felt time freeze.

I questioned my faith, Jeonghan.

So much that it tore me apart and there was nobody I could turn to or run.

As the trainings intensified, I know talking it out with the others would serve nothing but distraction, a hindrance to everything we have all tirelessly worked for. if I talked about it with my family they would have asked me to leave Korea thinking I was just playing around.

“ Are you playing with me, Jeonghan?” and you would simply smile again.

As if it was the answer to everything.

As if it was enough to erase everything that iñis wrong with what we are doing.

But I am naïve and maybe you saw through that.

You know I would accept it because you know how your smile can already overpower any logic I can come up with.

You know that amidst all my questioning, somehow I found you as the only answer. Nothing near as definite as 1+1=2 but the world made sense again whenever I held your hand.

With your coy grins and I melting hopelessly, you just somehow know that I would simply succumb.

He say, let’s get out of this town.

Drive out of the city.

Away from the crowd

I thought heaven can’t help me now

We go out, just the two of us.

Oftentimes discreet, but the inescapable cameras always manage to follow us somehow. A bit different from how we are back then yet somehow we managed to cope with our changing realities.

But we still manage to find at least one moment of peace, where we’re just Joshua and Jeonghan.

No expectations, no masks, no scripts.

And during one of those moments, I ask;

"Would you have given it up?"

You say you would but also you wouldn’t.

You speak of a lot of pros and cons; of words I didn’t bother listening to.

I have heard what is important.

You asked for my answer.

I said I would’ve.

See me in hindsight.

Tangled with you all night.

Someday when you leave me

Will this memory follow you around?

Fan: What do you want to say to Jeonghan?

Jisoo: I love you

The smile on Jeonghan’s face, that phrase that I said, somehow, he has never lit up so brightly. He shows the paper to the members, to the cameras, to the fans. Flaunting my feelings with such a big smile on his face. Do I dare hope?

And when evening comes, Jeonghan whispering sweetly into his ears how happy he was that day; Jeonghan gently him, holding him.

And Jisoo hopes.

And when we had our very last kiss

My last request it is.

The dream that you shared with me is the same dream I have been dreaming.

How can I forget.

And yet I did.

And I fell far too hard that I foolishly asked, “stay with me,” when we can’t.

We obviously can’t.

And when you gave another smile in reply, I knew it was one laced with a meaning far different than what I prayed it would be;

what I hoped it to be.

And when you bowed your head and gave me that forlorn smile, I guess this is the reality check.

“Josh, you’re very special to me. Please know you are, and I really mean that. I know in a perfect world I would love you. You know that right?”

But you didn’t say you do.

You never did.

Fan: Jeonghan who would you choose? Jisoo or Scoups?

Jeonghan: Scoups. Because I always choose Jisoo.

Say you’ll remember me, staring at the sunset

Say you’ll see me again, even if its just in your w ildest dream

 

Hey Jeonghan, do you remember when we first met? Was it just yesterday? It really did felt so.

There were us and then there were the others. We weren’t considered members then, we couldn’t even say we would debut.

We perform on stages with applause that are more polite than praise.

But look at us now.

Look at where we are.

As I look back to our stolen moments, will you recognize that they were real? That everything between us happened?

Because they did.

The memory of your touch and our nights together are as bright as these lights now shining upon us.

But we cannot do this anymore. I know that.

I know you, and I know myself.

We have worked and yearned for these lights and this stage, and the cheers. Everything is so defeaning at this point, so much that I wonder if you can still hear my voice.

We have talked endlessly about what ifs and now that it’s reality and everything is so surreal; as surreal as you, as surreal as us. Though I know it wont be the same again because the more we try to hide, the more we strain and hurt each other and I don’t want that.

When our hands lace together now, it was simply for our dream; funny how it is still warm.

I still dream though and hope. The only things we are allowed to do it seems.

Sometimes I wonder though was there really a difference before our debut and now. When we are just as chained and limited to where we are.

I do sincerely hope though for that future, whenever that may be. That by the time this all fades, when the lights dim, the stage closes, and the crowd disperses, you will let us go back to those time.

Our time.

Let us.