side A: risking it all in a glance

2007

The light’s on in one of the practice rooms. Is it by mistake? At this late hour, someone could've forgotten as they stumbled off to bed. Which is what he should be doing. He goes to check it out it anyway.

When he opens the door, it takes him a couple of seconds of squinting to spot the figure lying against the far wall, sprawled out beneath the mirror. It’s a trainee - the foreign one that Donghae had gone to visit when he'd just come to Korea and was sitting in some hotel room. Brought him tteokbokki, he'd said. That was nice.

Ugh. What was the kid’s name? This is ridiculous. They’ve greeted each other a few times by now, he shouldn’t be forgetting like this. He stretches and blinks excessively in hopes of getting his brain to work after the extra practice that, apparently, they’d both had.

Henry, Ryeowook's tired mind finally supplies.

His footsteps echoing too loudly, he hikes his gym bag back up his shoulder, going over to Henry. The poor dear had fallen asleep right there on the hard wooden floor. An unseen force pushes him to come closer. (Step.) It looks like Henry’s been in the same sweaty clothes all day while he'd been practicing, too. (Step.) His shirt has huge damp patches and- (Step.) is riding up, showing a sliver of his stomach, revealing a... (Step.) trail of hair that Ryeowook follows with his eyes... (Step.) down to the waistband of his sweats-

Quite abruptly, he realizes what he’s doing, forcing his eyes back up to Henry’s face while his own burns. He’s a kid. You can’t be thinking about him like that. That’s so wrong. Putting his bag on the floor, he drops to one knee. He couldn’t resist the urge to brush Henry’s bangs off his face, but he quickly gets himself under control and gently pushes Henry’s shoulder.

“Henry,” he mutters. No response. The boy’s face remains slack in deep sleep, even as his body is contorted over his bag and case. His bag is under his head, holding his neck at an awkward-looking angle, and his knees are bent over the top of his case. That can’t be good for him. Ryeowook shakes him a little harder. “Henry, wake up.”

Henry stirs awake with a groan, throwing his arm over his eyes. His face scrunches up in a way that almost has Ryeowook cooing, the boy’s so precious.

Then he remembers himself. Has he eaten dinner? If he’s been in here all day again, he probably skipped, Ryeowook thinks with a frown, waiting with patience he didn’t know he had.

When Henry finally moves his arm off his face, he squints up at Ryeowook. “Ryeowook-hyung?” He slurs, sleep making his tongue fumble the pronunciation more than usual. Ryeowook’s so tired, though, that he’s less bothered by it than before. Which wasn’t much to begin with.

“Are you hungry? You missed dinner, right?” Ryeowook says. Henry only blinks at him in confusion. Skipping to the point, Ryeowook drops his bag onto the floor to rummage through it for some crackers, knowing how Henry keeps forgetting to bring a snack with him. At the sight of them, the boy’s stomach makes a loud rumble. He flushes deep red.

Ryeowook chuckles, holding out the crackers to him.

“Thank you, hyung,” Henry mumbles, accepting them with a sheepish grin. A comfortable silence took over as they sat on the floor, the only sound the quiet crunch of Henry nibbling on the crackers. Ryeowook didn’t want to find the sight cute. He wanted to go home and go to sleep. But the thought felt callous to him, just up and leaving.

Once Henry’s almost done eating, Ryeowook continues with what he wanted to say before. “You shouldn’t sleep on the floor like that, you know. You’ll catch a cold, with no blanket and your sweaty clothes on the cold wooden floor. All the extra practice in the world won’t do you any good if you get sick.” Henry blinks at him again. Ryeowook barely resists the urge to sigh. “And you probably didn’t understand a word I just said, did you.”

Henry’s expression falls; he must’ve heard the chastisement in Ryeowook’s tone even without understanding much of what he said. “My Korean is… not good. Still very bad,” the boy says, turning the almost-empty wrapper between his fingers. “Sorry.”

Ouch.

Ryeowook’s stomach turns, though he doesn’t quite know why. Henry’s downtrodden expression, though, makes him feel like he just kicked a puppy. With an air of dejection, Henry quietly finishes the last cracker.

He still looks exhausted.

The poor kid needs real food and a real bed.

This time, Ryeowook doesn’t hold back the sigh that bubbles up. He’s not sure what he’s getting himself into, but he’s diving in headlong. “Let’s go home, okay? If you want to debut properly, you need to sleep. Preferably in a bed.”

Though Henry probably only caught the word ‘sleep’, it doesn’t matter - his face perks up ever so slightly. Ryeowook’s stomach does another little flip, which, he refuses to think about the implications of that - that’s a road he does not want to go down. Instead, he drags Henry up onto his feet and out of the practice room; why he carries both their bags, one on each shoulder, he doesn’t quite know, but he does, while the boy carries his case. They both slump in the elevator, too tired for words even if they had any to share.

Though he knows he conveyed to the manager that Henry is coming with, he's forgotten the words that came out of his mouth as soon as he's said them. Whatever. It's obvious enough, when he loads Henry's violin case into the vehicle, and tugs the boy in so that they're both seated next to their bags in the back, hardly a hair of space left between the two of them. The manager meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, but says nothing. Good. Ryeowook's not up for any further discussion.

He’s so tired that it takes several seconds of the cool night air washing over his face before he realizes that means the door’s open and he’s supposed to get out and actually go into the building.

(And yet, he still takes both bags again.)

Since they have to be quiet, they leave their things by the front door. Ryeowook’s not confident he can sneak all that in without waking anyone up. It’s difficult enough to walk quietly to the kitchen to get something out of the fridge for Henry; they don’t have much that doesn’t need heating.

In the harsh light, Henry looks wide-eyed and grateful, asking very politely in a whisper if it’s okay. Far too politely despite them only being two years apart in age. Ryeowook again feels bad for him, which comes out as all but commanding him to eat.

After his lips, the boy devours what he’s been given in a couple of seconds. Ryeowook doesn’t have the heart to scold him for eating so quickly. He knows they’re both eager to sleep, and that’s the same reason that he doesn’t insist on Henry taking a shower, noise aside. Though he was drenched in sweat earlier, the boy looks like he’s about to fall asleep on his feet, so Ryeowook gives him his own spare sleep clothes to wear, then turns so that their backs are to each other as they change.

He’ll wash those tomorrow, he thinks. With everything taken care of at last, the day was catching up to him. He falls asleep with Henry right next to him, warm and strangely content.

*

Ryeowook’s excited, though he knows he shouldn’t be. The polite, adorable, hardworking boy he regularly sees in the practice rooms deep into the night is going to be joining them!

The stylists had changed Henry into a bright yellow shirt and a long, plain necklace. He looks better in that than the elaborate outfits they had on earlier, Ryeowook thinks, running his index finger over his right earring. (He’s not about to risk messing with his hair just to fidget.)

Still, because Henry’s only in a couple of the shots, most of his time is spent waiting. Ryeowook thinks he looks lonely.

Sticking to simple sentences as much as he can, he keeps Henry company during breaks and others’ individual and pair shots. Ryeowook asks him questions about his family, food, and whatever they can manage between them with gestures and Ryeowook’s very, very limited English, often dissolving into giggles at their elaborate efforts or things like his important questions about bears. (The only thing he knows about Canada is that it snows a lot. It made perfect sense to ask about bears.) They get into one of those loops where one of them laughing made the other laugh harder, to the point that when they do manage to stop laughing, just making bear claw hands at each other’ll set them both off again at the drop of a hat.

For that short span of time, Henry’s incredible shyness seems like a memory belonging to someone else entirely. It’s… kind of amazing to see him open up.

By the third short break, even that has reached its limit. Everyone there seems to start chattering at once, breaking off into twos and threes. Ryeowook’s eyes find Henry without meaning to. The boy is hanging back looking lost, so Ryeowook takes pity on him.

“Henry, come on!” He says in English, waving him over. He smiles when Henry takes the seat next to him. Henry smiles back even bigger, and all Ryeowook can think is, Wow, he is so cute. He pinches Henry’s cheek.

Henry pouts at that, which does not make him look any less cute. Ryeowook wiggles his foot, taps the chair leg with his heel, and generally vibrates with excitement at the thought of having Henry with them. But what to do to bridge the gap? Making him feel welcome would’ve been difficult enough without the added barrier of his poor Korean; Ryeowook remembers well the awkwardness of training with the group for only two months when the rest of them had known each other for years. Telling each other their favorite seasons could only do so much.

Then he got an idea. Something that needs no words.

Or, just a few words.

Ryeowook pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows it to Henry, who looks confused for a moment. “Good,” Henry says, making a thumbs up.

“Ah, no,” Ryeowook replies with a friendly chuckle, navigating to one of the games on the phone. “Here. You can use this,” he says, pushing it into Henry’s hand. The bouncy digital music looped while Henry looked at the screen, bringing it close to his face and squinting at it. Then he sits up, stiff as though he’s nervous.

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah, go ahead. I know how boring these are.” Though he suspects Henry didn’t entirely understand, the boy got the gist, pressing a couple of buttons to try to figure out the controls. He turns to Ryeowook for a second.

“Thank you very much!” He bows shallowly, three times in quick succession, before he starts a new game.

Though Ryeowook couldn’t help but feel a little competitive at the earlier spoiling Henry got from the other members, he’s happy to do a little spoiling of his own. Henry was so clearly grateful, and he’s smiling now, getting happily absorbed in playing for the next few minutes.

Between looking at the screen as Henry plays, Ryeowook steals sideways glances at him out of the corner of his eye. He found that Henry’s happiness made him happy too, the feeling far stronger than he thought it would be.

He also found that he likes the idea of having Henry around more, getting to help and guide and support him. The boy would likely move in with them, and though it’d be yet more crowded than it already is, at least he wouldn’t be lonely. Ryeowook thinks that joining them will be good for him.

Things didn’t turn out that way.

*

Extra one-on-one dance training has left him drained. He needs it - he knows he could be better, and he wants to be better, no, not only that, has to be, and with the China group’s debut coming up, he has to work harder than ever, somehow.

After so many hours, putting one foot in front of the other is a feat. Then he hears it, though he doesn’t know why he’s surprised, why his eyes fly wide open for half a second. He follows the sound of the violin, sneaking into the room and sitting down against the wall, trying not to cry at the beautiful music Henry is drawing out from the instrument. Ryeowook admires not only his talent, but his perseverance, too, how much he's gone through and is still going through, how he’s trying to get through it in the most positive way he can in this situation.

Though anyone with a shred of decency knows he shouldn’t have to, Ryeowook thinks with a scowl. He hasn’t been able to stop his flare-ups of anger on Henry’s behalf, only keep them largely concealed beneath the surface.

Taking a slow, deep breath, he lets himself get lost in the music once again.

Unnoticed minutes later, the dance part of Henry’s routine comes. The part that, even with Henry in sweatpants and disheveled and his bangs sticking to his forehead, makes Ryeowook feel something quite different from admiration for the beautiful melody, something wild and out of control that he tamps down fiercely. It's one thing to, say, feel this strange way about Donghae, but it's much worse in this case.

The sight makes him feel things he only allows into his thoughts when no one is looking, when he's alone or everyone else is asleep. He doesn't- that is- he won't- It's not right and he's not happy about it, but it's there all the same, blazing into his mind when he lets his guard down for a moment. He hates it, but he's given up on extinguishing it. Settling for pushing it aside for a time is the best he's capable of.

Before him, Henry’s smooth motions make him appear to be gliding across the floor. He dances as if on water.

Ryeowook sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. Nothing seems to entirely keep the desires at bay, or not for long. A day, perhaps. The whole subunit living and sleeping together in one giant room sadly does nothing to ward them off, though it certainly makes it easier to escape notice in the chaos.

How many times had he lain there in the dark, his eyes shut tight in defiance, willing his arousal to go away? Would he be doing so again tonight? There was nothing that could make sense of its persistence, yet it remained all the same.

A flourish. His heart is pounding in his chest. Never before had he felt so much like an intruder merely by watching Henry practice. But this feeling? Makes his watching something else entirely. Something it wasn’t meant to be. Surely, this isn’t how the audience is meant to react.

How shameful it is, to be a hidden audience of one feeling this way. Wanting… he’s not sure what.

He pushed it down harder still when Henry stood poised in the finishing move of his performance. The boy startles when Ryeowook claps, spinning around to look at him. Sweat rolls down the side of Henry’s face, his mouth hanging open to take deep breaths, his cheeks pink. He looks tired, and also something else, though Ryeowook can’t tell what. It might be wariness, or longing. Or he’s too tired himself and seeing what he wants to see and needs to stop thinking about it.

"Are you hungry?" Ryeowook asks. At that, the unreadable expression disappears, replaced with Henry's sweet, innocent smile.

He resolves to work twice as hard to help Henry become successful. The boy deserves to smile always.