ONE LONG SHOT: FINAL

1.

Ju-ne dropped his pen and sighed exasperatedly as he rubbed his face against his palms. For the last couple of hours, he had been bulldozing his brain for rhyming words that would fit with the melody that’s flowing through his earphones but he hasn’t been able to get passed more than two lines.

He was hit with a writer’s block.

Ju-ne sighed deeper.

He teared his earphones from his ears away and slumped his body against the chair.

“When I can’t write and my brain stops working, I would go out for a walk, listen to other’s music or watch a movie. It usually helps and break the block,” he remembered Hanbin adviced him.

June looked out of his window. It was a late winter afternoon; freezing cold and dark – he definitely won’t be taking a walk outside besides he’s not very good with winter. And, listening to music, which usually is his main cure, would only remind him of his inability to write lyrics and therefore depressed him further.

Then…a movie… Ju-ne thought. Watch a movie on the laptop.

Ju-ne nodded to himself, happy with the idea, and began to save his word document and closed the pages on his laptop. As he opened the online movie web browser and search for his choice, he decided that he would like a company rather than watching it alone. Besides, he doesn't do well with being alone. Grabbing the laptop with his hands, he headed out from his room towards the room of the only other person, besides himself, in the dorm.

Chanwoo.

He knocked on the door and then swung it open, leaning against the doorframe.

A pair of large, brown and sparkling eyes blinked at his entrance. What?

“Chanwoo – watch a movie with me?”

Chanwoo, who was propped up on his bed while studying Chinese, nodded.

“Sure,” he said, closing the book he was studying from and slid it on the bedside table. “My brain can’t download anymore Chinese. I could use a break.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ju-ne mumbled as he walked across the room and climbed onto Chanwoo’s bed.

Chanwoo shuffled to the side till he was slightly pressed against the wall to accommodate Ju-ne so that he wasn’t daggling on the edge. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Writer’s block.”

“Oh.”

Ju-ne placed the laptop on his thighs and clicked the play button. Once the opening credits begun rolling, they both leaned back and half-laid, comfortably, next to each other; their shoulders and arms touching, and their long legs stretched equally on the bed.

Forty minutes into the movie, Chanwoo found his eyes drooping with heaviness. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, hoping that it would erase the sleepiness away, and yawned.

Ju-ne turned his head to Chanwoo and nudged his shoulder. “Yah, don’t fall asleep – you said you’ll watch the movie with me.”

Chanwoo shook his head, “I’m not going to fall asleep.”

They both continued to watch the movie in silence until the movie reached a dark night scene which created a black screen on the laptop and that’s when Chanwoo noticed the reflection. The reflection was showing that Ju-ne’s head was slouched to the left and his eyes were tightly closed. He was asleep.

Chanwoo sat up and leaned forward to confirm the image and Ju-ne was asleep. Sound asleep.

“Bwoya?” Chanwoo scoffed in disbelief. “He told me not to fall asleep but he fell asleep himself.”

Slightly amused, Chanwoo made a move to shake Ju-ne awake but stalled when he remembered the reason that Ju-ne wanted the movie in the first place and looking at Ju-ne’s sleeping face, he realised that he should just leave him be. Instead, he stopped the movie and turned the laptop off. Then, reaching over, he placed the laptop on the floor. Carefully, he adjusted Ju-ne to a more comfortable sleeping position before wriggling back in place next to him and pulled the duvet cover over both of them. Chanwoo closed his eyes and let sleep take over.

2.

Frustratingly, Ju-ne groaned inwardly and pulled his bed covers further over his head. Yunhyeong’s snores thundered mercilessly inside their shared hotel room. He had agreed to share the hotel room with Yunhyeong and knew he snored – Chanwoo would often complained to him about it – but he had never paid much attention nor did it bothered him before and would sleep just fine. But for some reason tonight it does and no matter how hard he tried to block the sound, it continued to shot through his eardrums making him restless and unable to sleep.

“Zzz!!”

Ju-ne shot upwards and tiredly glanced at Yunhyeong’s sleeping figure on the bed next to him. He fought against the urge to go over and woke Yunhyeong up because he knew that Yunhyeong only snores when he was tired and exhausted. But he was tired and exhausted too; they had done two concert shows in a day and he really just wanted to sleep it off.

“Zzz!!”

Ju-ne scratched his hair frustratingly and whimpered. “I can’t sleep here tonight,” he murmured to himself and quietly shuffled out of the room.

He walked to the room next door and knocked. A few seconds later, as he’d expected, a dishevelled-hair and sleepy Chanwoo opened the door.

Chanwoo blinked owlishly at him. “Ju-ne.”

“Yunhyeong hyung is snoring and I can’t sleep,” Ju-ne said as he pushed past the maknae and crawled into his bed.

Chanwoo whined and pointed to the other occupant in the room. “Sleep in Donghyuk’s bed.”

“Donghyuk kick and strangle people in his sleep,” Ju-ne mumbled with his eyes closed as he snuggled under the duvet cover. With a welcoming quietness, he felt sleep pulling its strings on him and he willingly accepts it.

Chanwoo sighed defeatedly, knowing well that there’s nothing he can do (and besides he’s too sleepy to fight back), climbed onto the bed and lied down next to Ju-ne.

“Don’t hog the cover,” Chanwoo said.

“I won’t.”

3.

“Ju-ne?”

Chanwoo peeked his head in through the door before pushing it open with his shoulders. The bedroom was cloaked in blinding darkness when Chanwoo stepped in and he had to take a moment of stillness to allow his eyes to adjust to the change. It was quiet too – unusually quiet.

“Ju-ne.”

Using the hallway light that filtered lightly in by the slightly opened door as a torch to scanned the room for the person that the name belonged to. His eyes, eventually, landed on a lone figure cocooned under a duvet cover on the top bunk bed. Hidden from the world. His back, instead, greeted Chanwoo.

“Ju-ne,” Chanwoo called. But just like the previous times he had called, Ju-ne didn’t respond.

“Chanwoo, when you go home, can you check on Ju-ne?” Jinhwan asked with a small smile.

Chanwoo frowned in concerned. “Is everything okay with Ju-ne?”

“His voice condition wasn’t so good today so the recording session didn’t go so smoothly and how he’d wanted it to be. And also, this morning when him, Hanbin and Jiwon were presenting the songs to Yang sajangnim, Ju-ne’s song got rejected.”

“Oh.”

“When he left the recording studio earlier, he was really down.”

“Sure, I’ll check on Ju-ne when I get home,” Chanwoo smiled and put a hand on Jinhwan’s shoulder reassuringly. As the eldest, Jinhwan took his responsibility seriously and would worry endlessly when one of them are in despondent mood, especially, he knew, when it came to Ju-ne. “Don’t worry, hyung.”

Jinhwan returned his smile.

Chanwoo bit his lip as he walked towards the bunk bed. He was tall enough to reach the top bed without needing to tip-toe, and rest his chin on the bed’s bar.

“Ju-ne, I’m home.”

Silence.

“I bought your favourite spicy tteokbokki,” Chanwoo said, hoping his favourite food would aroused Ju-ne from his dispirited mood.

“Thanks but I’m not hungry,” Ju-ne said. His voice was dry and hoarse, and Chanwoo assumed the cause of it was from crying.

Chanwoo nodded his head. “Okay, that’s fine. But, if you’re hungry later, it’s on the kitchen table, okay?”

“Hhmm.”

Chanwoo knew that it was the signal of the end of the conversation and that it was better for him to leave but he didn’t want to leave Ju-ne just like that so he reached out and pressed a hand gently on Ju-ne’s back.

“It’s okay, you know,” Chanwoo said, quietly. “It’s okay to have a bad day. Everybody has a bad day sometimes.”

Ju-ne didn’t respond nor reacted but Chanwoo knew he was listening, and hoped that his words were a comfort to Ju-ne’s troubled mind.

He patted Ju-ne’s back. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. If you need anything, I’ll be in my room.”

He patted Ju-ne’s back again and then slid himself out of the room. He left the door slight a jar on purpose.

As Chanwoo entered his room, his heart thumped with uneasiness and disappointment because he knew he had failed to comfort Ju-ne. He sighed to himself, realising that he can’t shake off the feelings on his chest easily either.

“Jinhwan hyung will do better when he gets home later,” Chanwoo thought as he began to stripped his clothes to shower.

It was an hour later, when he had showered, changed into his pyjamas and was comfortably lying on his bed while scrolling through his friends’ messages that Ju-ne came to his room.

“Chanwoo, can I sleep with you tonight? My room feels kinda cold.”

Chanwoo smiled softly at Ju-ne’s words. “Sure.”

He held the duvet cover up as Ju-ne climbed into his bed, and then draped it over him, tucking him in tightly. They lay in bed next to each other in soothing silence and the darkness of the room.

“Do you feel better?” Chanwoo asked, breaking the silence.

Ju-ne shuffled closer to Chanwoo and closed his eyes. “Hhmm…I feel warmer now.”

“That’s good.”

4.

It was around one o’clock in the morning and they were on their fifth hour of dance practice when Chanwoo got the call. His dad had called him: his grandfather had a heart attack and had passed away.

They immediately stopped the dance practice and went back to the dorm. Thirty minutes later, Chanwoo’s brother picked him up and drove them back to Yongin.

A couple of days later, they attended the funeral. They watched Chanwoo, in a black sombre suit, along with his brother and cousins carried their grandfather’s coffin from the funeral home to the funeral car.

They had seen Chanwoo cried before – once – but this time it was terrible. Chanwoo was crying for being in pain and broken-hearted; and with every tear that trickled down Chanwoo’s cheek, it felt like someone was twisting a knife in their heart. Ju-ne hoped that he never have to see Chanwoo cry like that ever again.

It’s been two weeks since then and Chanwoo had spent it with his family in Yongin; and this morning, he had returned back to their dorm, noticeably sorrowful and exhausted, emotionally and physically. After eating (forced fed by Jinhwan) breakfast cooked by Yunhyeong, he retired to his room and fell asleep as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

Ju-ne sat on Yunhyeong’s bed and watched Chanwoo sleeping. He found it hard to leave Chanwoo alone; concern weighed heavily on his mind especially since Chanwoo’s body temperature seems warmer than normal.

He had no schedules that day while the others did so the dorm have been emptied except for himself and Chanwoo.

As Ju-ne continued to watch Chanwoo sleeping, his mind flashed back to the image of a crying Chanwoo and immediately his heart ached. And when Chanwoo turned to his side in his sleep, Ju-ne got up and slid himself onto Chanwoo’s bed behind him. Being a light sleeper, Chanwoo stirred at his presence and craned his neck to glanced at the person behind him. Once he saw it was Ju-ne, he turned back to his original position and resumed sleeping. Ju-ne s an arm around Chanwoo’s waist and his hand gripped Chanwoo’s wrist gently.

I’m here for you.

Eyes still closed, Chanwoo slipped his hand under Ju-ne’s.

I know.

5.

Ju-ne was about to fall asleep when suddenly his bedroom door opened and Chanwoo stepped in. The entire action was done silently that if he had already been sleeping, he wouldn’t hear a thing. It seemed Chanwoo wasn’t aware that one of the room’s occupant was still awake, and Ju-ne narrowed his eyes as he watched Chanwoo tip-toed across the room to the desk at the other side and rummaged through it as if he’s looking for something.

“What are you doing?”

Chanwoo immediately jumped at Ju-ne’s voice and whipped his head around to the source with his hand pressed to his chest. “Kkamjjakiya!”

Ju-ne chuckled quietly at Chanwoo’s wide eyes and shocked face. Out of all the members, Chanwoo was the one that was always easily startled. Like a baby, Jinhwan would teased.

“What were you looking for?” Ju-ne asked as he pushed himself up slightly using his elbow as a stand to get a clearer view of Chanwoo from the position he was in. Ju-ne doesn’t care to lower his voice despite the fact that Hanbin was sleeping on the bed below him because Hanbin was a heavy sleeper – even if a bomb exploded near him, he wouldn’t wake up.

“Oh, I was looking for the YG building pass,” Chanwoo said, he too not minding to lower his voice volume (he lowered it a little). “I thought I’ll go and practice the new dance choreography.”

It was then that Ju-ne noticed Chanwoo’s clothes; he was wearing a dark-coloured jean, a black hoodie with the hood pulled up covering his head, and a simple t-shirt underneath it. It was his usual attire for dance practice or a recording session.

Ju-ne stole a quick look at his phone. 03:07AM. He sighed and instantly worriedness transformed onto his face. “Still can’t sleep?” he asked, his voice laced with obvious concern.

Chanwoo’s head dropped down a little and he pouted. “No,” he mumbled.

These last couple of weeks Chanwoo had developed insomnia. Their manager thinks it was because of Chanwoo’s hectic schedules of combination of filming a drama and iKON’s comeback. Unable to sleep has affected Chanwoo badly and not just physically (he looks exhausted almost everyday) but it had also affected his usual fun personality and dampened his mood. He doesn’t joke or teased the others as much and had become really quiet – just like the first time they met him. He was also losing his appetite rapidly, barely eating more than sufficent amount. Recently, his insomnia had got even worse.

Worry plagued the members extremely especially Yunhyeong and Jinhwan. They worried about Chanwoo so much to the point that they planned to spike Chanwoo’s drink with a drowsy cough syrup, convinced that it was the only effective way to help Chanwoo sleep since none of the other methods that they’d tried had worked. Their plan would’ve been put in motion if it weren’t for Donghyuk’s lecture on how dangerous it was on Chanwoo’s health.

“Chanwoo, it’s 3am,” Ju-ne said. “If you do dance practice now, you’re not going to have energy for tomorrow’s schedule. Besides, you’ve done it before – practicing dancing until dawn – and everybody knows that it doesn’t help you with your insomnia.”

Chanwoo looked at him with lost and desperate doe eyes, “Geuleom ottoke? I want to sleep but I can’t.”

Ju-ne felt a dull ache settling in his chest. “Come here,” he said. He lifted his cover up and nodded at it. “Come on, come here,” he coaxed.

Wordlessly, Chanwoo obeyed and climbed up onto Ju-ne’s bed, slipping under the duvet cover that was held open for him. Once Chanwoo had lie down next to him, Ju-ne wrapped an arm around him and began to pat his back softly. Soon afterwards, he felt Chanwoo slowly relaxing under his patted hand and his eyes fluttered close.

“How about I sing you a lullaby?” Ju-ne said quietly.

“Lullabies are for babies,” Chanwoo replied without opening his eyes. Ju-ne’s rhythmic pats on his back was hypnotising him into serene calmness.

“But you are a baby,” Ju-ne teased.

“No, I’m not! I’m an adult now.”

Ju-ne chuckled softly, “Fine, you’re an adult. Then how about I count 1 to 100 for you? I know! Instead, I’ll count the numbers by singing it.”

“Nobody count the numbers by singing it.”

“Well then I’ll be the first one to do it. After all, I’m all about being different.”

“Fine, just sing,” Chanwoo sighed in defeat.

“One…two…three…four…” Ju-ne began singing.

“…80…81…82…” Ju-ne gently trailed off to a pause. He looked down at Chanwoo and smile hugely.

Chanwoo was asleep. Finally.

Ju-ne screamed internally at his own success and praised himself for having such a powerful and charming singing voice. Not even winning the Best New Artist at the Japan Record Award could compare to this happiness at being able to lure Chanwoo into sleep.

The next couple of days, Ju-ne boasted to everybody at how he, single-handedly, cured their maknae’s insomnia. If it was up to him personally, he would boasted about it until his dying days.