31. Friendship
THIRTY-ONE
Soohyun loves all his friends.He loves his members the most. He would never want them to be sad. He'd rather be sad than them, and he's happy when they're happy.
It's just?—
This particular kind of happiness is apparently hard for him. He's embarrassed and angry with himself. Charis and Mouse aren't loud about their affection. They're consummate professionals and perfectly polite. And knowing Charis, Soohyun knows that he's trying to be careful of what he shows, for Soohyun's sake.
He had just run across them with their arms around each other. It wasn't a big deal. Skinship isn't strange or taboo for them—it's something they might have done for years, before they even got together, but that thought doesn't make Soohyun feel any better.
He'd made some lame excuse and hightailed it away. They were supposed to start interviews soon, and instead, he was ducked into one of the Gleam practice rooms, crying kind of pathetically.
"Hey," a boy says. No, not ‘a boy', Soohyun is sure he knows his name. He looks familiar, and Soohyun is pretty sure he's staff from Company P and not the contest show. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Soohyun says, embarrassed that he has to turn his face away so the staff member can't see him crying. It's probably obvious, but it's the best he can do. He turns to face the corner, braced on his forearm that comes up to cover his eyes. He quickly wipes his face and gets himself together before he turns around. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, must've got something in my eye."
There's a rummaging sound, and when Soohyun turns around, he finds the guy holding out a tissue.
"There are no cameras around," the boy says. "You're okay."
Soohyun nods a little stiffly and reaches out to take the tissue to clean himself up.
"Thank you," he says.
The staff member gives a little shrug. "I didn't really do anything. Do you need me to go and tell the others that you're going to be a little late?"
Soohyun is about to say no. It's right on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he blows out a quiet breath, feeling a little defeated. "Yeah," he says, sounding tired now that there's no one here to impress. "That'd be really good, if you don't mind."
The staff member nods his head and goes away, leaving Soohyun alone in the cold room to compose himself. Catching his own eyes in the mirror is unavoidable, although Soohyun regrets it as soon as he makes eye contact with himself. He doesn't look very good right now. Certainly not admirable or very leader-like.
He takes a few minutes to compose himself, leading his eyes along the grooves in the smooth wood floor panels to distract his mind and allow him the time he needs to get himself together. After those minutes have passed, his breathing returns to normal, and he feels like he can face the rest of his schedule.
Huh, he thinks to himself. He still can't remember the name of that staff member.
Qi gong is meditative to Charis. He doesn't always feel like doing it. Sometimes it feels like his mind won't calm down enough. He has too much to do—too much on his mind.
Fortunately, he's found the knack for handling himself over the years. It doesn't take a lot of willpower, just enough force applied in just the right place, like a thumb to a bruise.
He runs through the motions, loosening up his joints. He's wearing a loose, flowy shirt made of thin material that glides across his skin. Wide-legged, soft and stretchy pants cover his legs. He digs his toes unconsciously into the dark navy carpet, feeling the floor beneath him and finding his solid footing.
Xiao Yu was surprised the first time he saw it, Charis running through familiar forms.
"You do qi gong?"
"Yeah."
Xiao Yu never did it himself, but he remembers the aunties and grannies back home doing qi gong in the park. It's kind of… nice. The familiarity of it. He didn't know Charis well enough then to feel comfortable talking to him about it or to be able to say that he wanted to sit in on his practices.
But maybe Charis was more sensitive to other people's emotions than it usually seemed. He was working out in the empty top floor of their dorm, in the space in front of the window. The city of Seoul was all opened up to them down below. In the trees below, there were birds singing.
He cleaned up his stuff without saying any unnecessary words to Xiao Yu on the way out, but Xiao Yu still lingered.
Then, before he walked down the hallway, down the stairs, and back to his room, he turned to Xiao Yu.
He said, lightly, "Do you want me to text you next time?"
"I don't know how to do qi gong," Xiao Yu said automatically.
Charis shrugged. "I could teach you."
Peering into Xiao Yu's face as he looked a bit uncomfortable and shuffled from foot to foot, it was like he could see inside him. It was funny. He never really seems young to Charis, but in this moment, he did. It was even a bit cute.
"Or you could just come to watch," Charis added.
Xiao Yu turned an embarrassed shade of red.
…that was also quite cute.
"Yeah, maybe," Xiao Yu got out gruffly. He nodded jerkily and fidgeted with the short hair at the nape of his neck. "We'll see."
He beat a hasty retreat and disappeared sooner than Charis did. Charis fingered the edge of his cool, steel-grey phone. He would definitely text Xiao Yu next time.
Over time, it became something like a routine. Charis would text Xiao Yu every time he was going to practice. Xiao Yu didn't always come. Sometimes he was busy, or sometimes he just wanted to do his own thing. They didn't text each other often, and in fact, Xiao Yu and Charis were probably the two who used their group chat the least out of everyone.
Their private chat was quite funny to any outside observer. It eventually got streamlined into a hyperefficient list of locations and times.
Going to practice upstairs in 15
k
It's a nice day today. Thinking of going outside
can't. dance lesson
Practice room 5, half an hour
k
It might seem funny or even a bit cold to other people, but it worked for them. And anyway, Charis would have to be lying to say that he didn't appreciate it and hold it dear in some way. It was nice having… friends.
The practice room is cold when he gets there. Charis planned to shuck his outer layers, but instead he decides to keep his pink sweater on. He feels the slight discomfort of not only the temperature but also practicing in an unfamiliar place.
He isn't used to sharing space anymore. It's true that he's really liked rooming with Mouse again in a lot of ways, but it's equally true that he's gotten used to having his privacy. They both have, really. Probably all of their members are faring the same.
Charis knows that Mouse would never kick him out of the room, but he decided to give them both a break, and so he'd come to one of the Gleam facility practice rooms in order to run through his qi gong sequence. He'd booked it out ahead of time because with so many people here, he didn't want to run the risk of being interrupted.
He wonders if Xiao Yu will show up.
But he doesn't wait for him. It's kind of just how he and Xiao Yu operate. His texts are sometimes cryptic, and he'll come if he can and he feels like coming, and he won't if he doesn't.
Charis starts by warming up his fingers and wrists, facing away from the mirror in the chilled practice space that carries kind of a lonely and desolate vibe when it's him alone. Xiao Yu shows up while he's doing sea serpent exercises.
His eyes momentarily flicker to Xiao Yu, but he doesn't otherwise acknowledge him. He stretches his hands all the way up and lifts up onto his toes, breathing through the slight creaking stretch in his calves. He flows his arms back down and does it again, loosening up his spine that's stiff from a night of sleep.
Today, Xiao Yu strips off his windbreaker without a word. He puts it in a pile near the mirror next to Charis' things and starts in on his own exercises. He does a warm-up and then joins Charis for his next sequence.
They do the Five Animals Frolic, and Charis thinks how much better Xiao Yu looks doing it than he does. Xiao Yu has a dancer's body and a dancer's grace. Charis doesn't have anything like that, although he can sometimes fool people on the stage. He's lean and beautiful, with a graceful, slender body, but he has to work twice as hard to be half as good as the others.
Thinking about it, he loses his focus.
Xiao Yu makes even the lumbering Bear walk look graceful, but Charis soon calls himself back. He shakes off his constricting, uncomfortable thoughts and breathes into every movement.
"Hey, Xiao Yu, can I ask you something?" Charis asks casually when they're cleaning up.
Charis hadn't broken a sweat, but Xiao Yu sweats naturally more than he does. He has to mop the sweat off his temples when he's done, and Charis' question catches him when he has the terrycloth towel pressed up against his face. He looks up as he slings it over his shoulder.
"What's up?"
"What's it like, loving Kiki?"
It might be the first time anyone in their group has acknowledged it out loud. It momentarily gives Xiao Yu pause. He drinks from his water bottle with his beautiful, slender eyes cast low. Charis doesn't rush him as he thinks.
He caps the water bottle again and wipes the back of his mouth.
"Sometimes it's terrifying. But also, it feels like what I was born to do."
"I don't know what that means," Charis says.
"Don't you?" Xiao Yu asks, but he doesn't push it. He thinks, rolling the idea around in his head, like sweets over his tongue, mulling it over. Finally, he settles on, "It's terrifying because I want to protect him. Because I love him, you know."
Charis thinks that suits Xiao Yu. It's very beautiful, how much he wants to protect Kiki. And although Kiki would deny it to the heavens, Charis knows he equally appreciates Xiao Yu's protection. Maybe that's why he's asking what he's asking—Xiao Yu and Kiki seem so obviously made for each other, like they go together. He doesn't know if he and Mouse really fit like that. His face makes an expression like he's thinking hard.
He's pretty sure Mouse doesn't need protection. And if he did, he's pretty sure he isn't the one to be able to give it. The way he feels for Mouse is… something else.
"Does it bother you?" Charis asks. "That someone else touched him before?"
Xiao Yu looks at him sharply. "Now don't you start up with that."
Charis shakes his head lightly, not intimidated in the least by his junior's fire. However scary Xiao Yu might seem to other people, Charis knows that he's harmless. "I don't think anything bad of Kiki. You know that."
Xiao Yu is a hothead, even at the best of times. He does know that. He knows Charis, knows his team. It sounds dramatic, but it isn't an overstatement to say that he would trust them with his life. Even still, it takes him a little while to calm down.
The look Xiao Yu finally gives Charis is wry.
"Why would I mind?" he finally scoffs roughly. "Aren't I better than them? I only care because they hurt him. Kiki could have had consensual sex with everyone in the whole company before he met me, and I wouldn't have cared, as long as he was happy."
But now he's a little curious why Charis is asking. He knows Mouse has a reputation, and it's not much less than Kiki's.
"Why? Does it bother you?"
"No," Charis says, a little perplexed—at the question, at himself. At all of these feelings that are still so new to him. He's trying to work them all out. He's trying to figure out what is normal. "Should it?"
Xiao Yu snorts. "No, only weak, scared men care. It's good to let people be themselves."
Standing there in the sleek, cool practice room, in the quiet morning with no one else around, it finally hits Xiao Yu, that Charis might be asking because he actually doesn't know. That Charis doesn't know what he's doing. It hits Xiao Yu with a sudden pang of helpless, exasperated fondness for his hyung. He's like a wobbling baby lamb, even if he looks like a sleek fox.
He's not good at this. He's not good at comforting people, or talking. He has a moment of eyes-cast-heavenward wishing that Charis had gone to talk to someone else—someone who was better at this, who could give him better advice, like Soohyun or even Joon. Or—well, on second thought, he didn't think Joon was going to be giving advice to anyone. It wasn't that Joon-hyung wasn't smart, it's just that he's kind of weird. Xiao Yu doesn't have any kind of bad feelings toward Joon, or Miyong, but he honestly doesn't know what Miyong sees in him. They're so strange, the way they go together.
Xiao Yu curses inwardly and then says, tentatively, "Hey, hyung, maybe you should talk to Mouse about this. You know, since it involves him and all."
And there it is, too. Speaking these things out loud. It doesn't feel as strange as Charis thought it would, to have to acknowledge that he's with Mouse now, whatever it is that means.
Xiao Yu is treated to the fascinatingly rare sight of Charis flustered. He turns a faint shade of pink and starts to stammer.
"No, I couldn't do that," Charis says very quickly. He shrinks in on himself a little, like he's trying to make himself smaller.
Xiao Yu regards him for a while, and Charis squirms gently. In the end, Xiao Yu lets him off the hook. "Well, whatever. Up to you."
When Xiao Yu doesn't push it, Charis relaxes a little with a small sigh.
Xiao Yu yawns so wide it cracks his jaw, and Charis winces a little in sympathy for his joint.
"Man, I'm starving. If the cafeteria isn't open yet, I'm going to riot."
"I think it opens at 7," Charis says, and Xiao Yu swears.
Charis smiles a little where Xiao Yu can't see it.
When Xiao Yu looks down, Charis has pulled a protein bar out of his jacket pocket, and he's holding it out to Xiao Yu wordlessly. Xiao Yu is inexplicably touched, but he hurries up and gets over it, taking the neatly wrapped chocolate chip protein bar from Charis and thanking him in a hurry. It isn't even rumpled from being in his pocket.
"Hey, hyung?" Xiao Yu asks before he changes his mind.
"Yeah?" Charis asks.
"Why did you ask me about this stuff?"
Xiao Yu really can't help being curious.
Charis finds the question kind of funny. He looks at the ceiling that doesn't even look like it was made by human hands. It's perfectly smooth and white. Untouched and sterile.
"Because you're good at it," Charis shrugs. "You and Kiki have the best relationship that I know of. I just wanted to know if there was anything I should know." His voice gets a little smaller, like he's talking to himself. "I just really like him, and I don't want to mess anything up."
Xiao Yu is struck a little speechless in the wake of the sudden, unexpected praise, not to mention Charis' sudden vulnerability. It feels almost like being given a small, fragile baby animal to hold, with the same abject terror of fucking something up and hurting it by mistake of being rough and stupid.
Horrifyingly, he can feel his ears growing hot, and Charis stifles a small smile at his embarrassed little dongsaeng, pretending not to notice.