34. Young Fey

THIRTY-FOUR

Revolution isthe next to leave, and their exit is explosive. They're too far away, on the other side of the arena to hear what exactly is said, but they look upset. Their body language is sharp and jerky. It looks like some harsh words are said. Soohyun starts to worry that they won't be able to keep their shit together on camera, but in the end, they still manage to be professionals.

As Revolution takes their stiff, grave walk out of the Star Dome, Joon spares a worried look for Milla, who seems the most broken up about their defeat.

They hadn't gotten close. Milla probably still hates him, but Joon doesn't have any bad feelings toward him. He remembers that display in the practice room one night, and he hopes that Milla gets his stuff together. He's a talented dancer, and Joon hopes he figures it out before he hurts himself.

They do another round of special stages, this one with the highest budget and spectacle yet. They all train hard, and practice harder. The fluffy times of camaraderie and fun that characterized the early stages of the competition are long gone now. Everyone is far too focused on their next event. With the departure of two major groups and all their staff, and everyone buckling down, the Gleam facilities become quiet, as if they too are hibernating for winter.

When it's down to the final three, it's anybody's game. The competition starts heating up. Although no one in Fairytale will admit it, they each start to worry. 4QY and First Love are both powerhouses in their own right. It's true that Fairytale is well-loved, and they have a little bit of seniority on 4QY, but no one feels confident of their win.

So it's a shock when, in the third voting, First Love is the one to be sent home.

Fairytale turns to look at them, stunned, when the announcement is made. First Love takes their defeat with good grace. Even in defeat, they look gallant and regal. The way they sweep out of the Star Dome makes them look like winners still.

"So this is what it means to be a top idol group," Miyong murmurs under his breath.

Xiao Yu, sitting beside him, turns to glance at him.

They do exit interviews with all of the First Love members in the private recording booths set up for such things, and the boys of Fairytale go to catch them before their departure, at Miyong's insistence.

"Why?" Mouse asks. "Can't we just let them go?"

"You can stay if you want," Miyong says. "I want to go and say goodbye. They're my friends."

Of course Mouse isn't willing to leave their maknae alone with them, so he goes. They all go.

They all seem equally surprised to find Fairytale there. They find them still in the dorms, in a common room they haven't been in before, one specific to First Love. It's not any better decorated than theirs, and maybe there is still fairness in the world after all.

"Can't you help me carry it?" Bo says plaintively, looking up at Hyori. He's pitifully struggling with a piece of overstuffed luggage.

"You've got to be joking," says the incubus without looking up from his hands. He's got a hangnail that he's rigorously trying to file down. He tests the edge of his nail, displeased when it still catches, and takes the file to it again. "You're stronger than me. You do know that, right?"

He shoots Bo a tart look with his beautifully colored eyes, and the gorgeous effect is completely lost on his wild and rough junior. Bo only scowls. "Should it matter? What kind of hyung are you?"

"The smart and beautiful kind~"

Hyori won't budge, so Bo quickly finds his next victim. "Ttalgi-kun," he says sweetly. "Ttalgi, help your hyung carry his bags, hm?"

"Not on your fuckin' life," Ttalgi calls. He's behind on packing and still in his room. Every so often, there's a sound of a crash from his direction. Yeesh.

Amid so many rebuffs, there's nothing Bo can do but pout.

"Tough luck, little runt," Jewel says, cuffing him with a heavy hand dropped on his head.

Bo looks up and bares his teeth in displeasure.

This is what the boys of Fairytale walk into the middle of. It's a bit of a shock. It's so… undignified.

Meyemi sighs lightly, coming very close to rolling his eyes at his members.

"They're like a herd of puppies, aren't they?" he says to the boys of Fairytale as they walk in. He isn't comfortable with the rest of them—they make their displeasure and their hatred of them so obvious—but the little one, Miyong, at least, is comfortable enough to talk to.

Miyong giggles. "It reminds me a little of mornings at our dorm."

Meyemi smiles at him, relieved to find a friend.

"Did you come to watch us walk off in ignominy?" Jewel asks, crossing his arms. "If so, you should've brought a camera."

Soohyun raises an eyebrow, and when he speaks, his voice is the kind of bland and pleasant that can give people the chills. "Do we seem so badly mannered to you?"

"Guys, guys, let's not fight," Miyong says, looking between both parties nervously.

Meyemi only gives Jewel a look, but he subsides with a sigh.

"We just came to see you guys off. After all, you came to comfort us when our hoobaes left, right?"

In the end, Charis feels bad that Miyong is carrying the weight of the conversation alone. Even Joon isn't backing him up, which seems strange to Charis, but then again it's not like he knows how their relationship works.

Still, at the end of the day, they're all idols, right? It doesn't suit them to be so ill-mannered. Bygones can be bygones.

"Where will you guys go after this?" Charis asks, stepping forward by way of offering a small olive branch. Mouse has the sudden, panicked urge to reach out and grab him, to keep him from going, but he manages to rein it in and tamp it down at the last moment.

Jewel is probably one of the most easygoing among their bunch. The others aren't bad kids, but they're excitable and wild. Despite Jewel's own innate, wild nature, he's had a little more time to mature, and so he's more refined.

"Us? We'll probably go back on tour," Jewel says.

They're most comfortable on tour. There's nothing like the rush of soaking up the adoration from their fans, the thrill of being live on a stage. Plus, staying in one place in the human world always tends to get a little constraining after a while.

"Mm, I'm a bit jealous," Charis says after clearing his throat. His conversation with older strangers is a bit stiff, but he's trying. "It'll probably be a while before we can tour again."

"Well, that depends how the rest of the show goes, right? Don't count yourselves out just yet. After all, it would be appalling for us to lose to you only to have you not take the crown in the end."

Charis blinks. It takes a while for him to catch it because—was that just a compliment? It blindsides him a little, sudden and unexpected.

They chat for a little while, however awkwardly. Miyong is silent for a little too long. With everything else going on, nobody but Joon really notices it, and Joon just glances at Miyong, watching him a little curiously.

It's like Miyong is struggling with something.

The conversation is interrupted by a sudden loud sound—it's the sound of Mouse banging the side of his fist against a metal cabinet. The noise is shockingly loud and resounding, and at the sound of it, every halting conversation in the room suddenly peters off as all eyes in the room go toward Mouse.

Well fucking let them. It's not like he's afraid. He's played nice for so long—done it for the sake of his members, his family, but he just can't let this go anymore. It's not right, and it's pissing him off.

"So what the fuck was up with you sabotaging 4QY at the Christmas stage two years ago, anyway? Tal got really hurt, you know. They weren't even sure if he was going to be able to dance again. What kind of sick fucks are you?"

Charis' eyes widen a bit. "Mouse," he murmurs under his breath.

"Sorry, Pocky. I know you want to play nice, but I just can't."

Mouse's eyes are burning. He looks fierce and furious. There's the sound of chairs squeaking against the laminate floor. It almost seems like a fight is brewing in the air, that's how tense it is as every member of First Love stands to attention, and Soohyun stiffens.

"Hey," Miyong says out of nowhere, interrupting the sudden tense atmosphere. He raises his voice a little so everyone turns to look at him. "So you're probably, like, thousands of years old, right?"

The room goes so quiet that it's like you could hear a pin drop. No one speaks.

"That's a weird thing to say," Kiki tells him.

Miyong's eyebrows go up. "You mean nobody knew? Am I the only one who knew?"

Everyone is looking at Miyong like he's gone crazy.

Charis coughs lightly. "No, I knew, too." He glances at Mouse. "Sorry I didn't say anything. Jinho told me it was supposed to be a secret, and then, well." He shrugs. "I got busy."

"Jinho?Is Jinho a yojeong too?"

Kiki's eyebrows hike higher and higher. "Okay, someone's going to have to explain a whole lot of everything real soon."

Charis waves him off. "Later, I'll tell you about it later."

The members of First Love squirm a bit.

Now that the milk is all spilled, the story unravels in slow, weird, halting pieces. That the members of First Love are yojeong after all—real yojeong. With the exception of Ttalgi, who folds his arms and looks cross when it's pointed out.

He stabs a finger in Fairytale's direction. "My family was witching in the Goryeo dynasty. Don't count me out. I doubt you can say as much of your families."

"But you're much older than you look, right? That's why you're so good?" Miyong asks the question brightly, but there's so much determination behind it. The rest of Fairytale is too much in varying states of shock and confusion to bother to rein him in.

It seems—well, honestly, no one can tell if that's a rude thing to say. They're Koreans, too, aren't they, so it should be a perfectly normal thing to talk about…?

No one is expecting the way the atmosphere in the room suddenly falls. The members of First Love suddenly start shuffling around or looking at the ground, bashful. Only Ttalgi looks immune.

Ttalgi's smirk has a bit of a sharp edge to it. He gets his own back by answering Miyong's question, addressing him directly and sounding smug when he does it. "They're sensitive about this kind of thing. They're probably just about the same ages as you. Meyemi is the oldest, and he just made 24 in international age this year."

"Ah…"

This from the members of Fairytale. To be honest, it didn't make the atmosphere in the room any less awkward. Ttalgi perversely seems to relish it, basking in the glow of the uncomfortable situation he'd just helped to create.

The truth is, the members of First Love are startlingly young by fey standards. It's a hallmark of most of the fey of this generation—most of them are just newly born. They are the ages they appear to be, so Meyemi, Jewel, Bo, and Hyori are all babies in the cradle as far as the older fey are concerned. They really are adolescents, not centuries-old men pretending to be teenagers.

No one takes this as hard as Meyemi, who squirms uncomfortably.

He's not taken seriously back home. The fact that all his members—his closest friends—are kitsune, an incubus, and a witch, doesn't help. He's a very private person, and he feels very awkward to have this fact dredged out in front of his peers.

Still, he's the group leader, and he recovers first, coughing.

"Yes, well. Everyone has to start somewhere." He gives a wry, still deeply uncomfortable little twitch of a smile. "We're… sorry if we hurt anyone. It wasn't our goal. Jewel was fussing with the lighting setup, and he accidentally dropped one of them."

"Ttalgi only helped to cover it up," Hyori adds.

Mouse sneers, turning his face away with his arms still firmly crossed, and the message is abundantly clear—apology not accepted.

The rest of them are stunned until they recover.

Can this be for real? It was that kind of boneheaded accident?!

"You played a good game," Meyemi says, slowly stripping off one of his leather gloves and sticking his slim, peachy-pale arm out. Now that Charis is listening for it, with his mind stilled and every sense activated, he can hear it—the traces of a light, foreign accent.

The veins branch beneath the skin of Meyemi's outstretched arm that's as smooth and white as moonstone, spidering in vivid purple lines. He waits there for a heartbreaking moment that has Charis' breath caught in his throat.

A few breaths pass where everyone wonders what will happen—if this is a parting that will end well or poorly. Finally, Soohyun steps out in front of the rest of his members and reaches out his strong arm, his lean, tanned forearms on full display, and shakes Meyemi's hand firmly.

"Thank you," Soohyun says. "You as well."

"Hm," Meyemi says with a nod.

When they let go of each other's hands, Meyemi wipes his hand with a wet wipe and puts his glove back on. It comes off as mildly rude, but no one bats an eye or makes anything of it. It's no weirder than anything else that's gone on between them. Friendship and an accord means compromising on each other's eccentricities. They know that now.

"Well," Meyemi says. "If you're ever on our side of Seoul when we're not on tour, look us up."

He leaves first, sweeping out to the peculiar smell of lingering roses.

The rest of his group follows in his wake.

"See ya!" Bo says, pulling on Charis' arm and swinging it with playful exuberance one time more.

Hyori tips his head to them, his opalescent eyes dancing, and Ttalgi gives them a two-finger salute, and then they're off through the door, and the room is quieter in their wake.