8. Kiki

EIGHT

When they'dall joined the company and made their contracts, there'd been a mandatory disclosure period. They were required to tell the company anything that might come out and hurt their image later—anything that might hurt Fairytale or the company itself.

There hadn't been much. Although they hadn't been privy to each other's interviews with the company, they had all been close enough by that time that they'd talked about it in the dorm later that night.

"What exactly are we supposed to have gotten up to?" Mouse asks, crossing his arms. "Charis was 15 when he joined the company. Soohyun was even younger than that. Literally what do they expect a bunch of Korean teenagers to have done?"

It was winter at that time. You could feel the cold if you stood too near the window. The floor was cold if you stepped on the bare wooden parts that weren't covered by the throw rugs. They were all together in the living room that separated from the kitchen with a curtain haphazardly tacked up against the wall. They were bundled up and wearing sweatshirts, warm pants, and thick socks, like any other set of teenagers except for how alone they were without adult supervision, and how pretty they all were.

Kiki had made a pot of hot cocoa earlier, and there had been enough to pass around. He'd stood at the stove and carefully poured steaming hot liquid into each cup.

Miyong sits in the middle of one of the couches. On the other couch, Charis leans against Mouse.

"I dated before," Miyong says nervously. He picks at the pillow held in his lap, rotating it slightly and picking at its stitching.

"So did I," says Soohyun.

Kiki is especially quiet from his place on the far end of the couch. He's curled up in on himself with his legs tucked beneath him. He's wearing the blue knitted blanket that Miyong's mom had given them for the dorm, with cheerful fair isle socks covering his feet. He scrunches his toes in his grey socks.

Xiao Yu, often silent and dark, is sensitive to his mood. He suddenly jerks forward and sets his mug on the table a little too roughly. The force makes a banging sound, and some of the liquid nearly sloshes out of the rim of the cup. "Yo, why are we talking about this trash? It doesn't matter, right? The company knows what they ought to know, and so everything else doesn't matter. Why not just drop it?"

Unfortunately, Mouse latched onto that like a leech to a vein, his dark eyes sparkling. "Oh? Does Xiao Yu have something to hide? Were you a little punk back home?"

"I said drop it!" Xiao Yu growls.

Mouse isn't expecting his teasing to be met with such vehemence.

Kim Joon frowns. "Maybe we should stop it. This is getting kind of heated."

Kim Joon rarely speaks up, and when he pipes up now, it's in his slow, measured way. Unfortunately, it only serves to add gas to the fire.

"No, I want to know. Come on, tell us," Mouse presses.

When Mouse leans forward, he's careful not to jostle Charis from his perch. They're still getting used to their new names. Charis is still getting used to being Charis.

"Theft," Xiao Yu spits. "Shoplifting." He looks away. "When I was a kid, I stole some dumb toy from a store. My mom made me bring it back, and I worked off the debt sweeping for the store owner."

Mouse cackles and whoops at the admission of theft. Even Miyong's eyes widen.

"Stop," Kiki says eventually. He's been so silent this whole time that everyone had overlooked him. His knuckles are white where they're pinched together in his lap.

Xiao Yu hasn't enjoyed being put to scrutiny, nor having his young, dumb past dragged out into the light, but he can take it. That's what he tries to convey to Kiki with his eyes. His heavy eyebrows knit together in a furrow. "Kiki, it's fine?—"

"It's not," Kiki cuts him off, but not unkindly. He addresses the rest of them. "Mingyu is trying to cover for me. There was a scandal in my predebut days. There was a… handler, who liked me. He wouldn't let me rise to the top of the program unless I did some favors for him."

"We've heard the rumors," Kim Joon starts slowly. Miyong's eyes widen. He had no idea of these rumors—but Soohyun catches his eye and shakes his head slowly, and Miyong falls quiet and says nothing. "No one thinks they're true."

Kiki pulls the warm, soft blanket more firmly around himself, trying to take comfort from its soft touch against his skin. He pets it absentmindedly with his fingers and gives a wan smile. "I'm here to tell you that they're exactly true. It's amazing that the company let me debut at all, huh?"

Kiki swallows hard. He puts on a brave face despite the feelings of shame.

"So I understand if you're not willing to work with me," he says lightly. His voice sounds almost muted, as if it's coming from far away. "I think the company is going to tell you about the rumors officially in a few days. Their policy will be to ignore and deny them. So I guess there's no harm in me telling you first. It's not like it wasn't going to come out anyway."

For a while, silence reigns. It's so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and Kiki's incomparably beautiful face takes on a brittle cast. He doesn't cringe, but it's a near thing. His back is straight and stiff.

"Yeah, well," Mouse says, breaking the silence first. "I smoked pot when I was younger. How's that for a scandal?" He flips his long, black hair over his shoulder.

"I really did steal something," Xiao Yu mutters quietly.

"The dating thing, that's true too," Miyong says in a soft voice.

The brittle stiffness in Kiki's back doesn't flow out of him all at once. It melts by slow degrees. Charis wishes he had something to offer—some transgression of his own, but he has nothing.

This is what they have to offer Kiki—their understanding, their tentative willingness to stand by him, even though none of them really know each other yet. They fold their quiet support around him like a pair of wings, leaving him feeling shaky but held, buoyed aloft.

"Whatever happened, that's all in the past," Soohyun says firmly. "You're one of us now."

"Yeah, what would we do without our Beauty Prince?" Mouse asks lightly. "Who would the girls even look at?"

Later, in their dorm room, "Charis?" Miyong cautiously whispers into the dark.

His fingers grip the edge of his blanket, fidgeting lightly with its edges.

He can already hear the quiet sounds of Mouse's snoring. If Charis is asleep too, Miyong is just going to give up on the whole thing. He'll just roll over and try to get some sleep.

Even though he's the one who had called out, he still jolts a little with surprise when Charis answers, "Yeah?"

Charis is always so smooth… it's impossible to tell from his voice whether he'd been sleeping and Miyong had woken him up, or if he'd been lying awake like Miyong.

No, that feels silly. What would Charis-hyung have that would keep him awake? Unlike Miyong, he and Mouse are always so put together. It's like nothing in the world can shake them, and sometimes Miyong is so envious. Although he's usually happy and puts on a happy face for the group, he has his insecurities, too. Sometimes he feels like a big mess—like he's so woefully unprepared compared to everyone else. It makes it hard to feel like he belongs as an idol. Like maybe he's not really worthy.

The thing from earlier, about Kiki-hyung, is eating at him.

He bites his lip, about to apologize for bothering Charis and to try to just go back to sleep.

In the dark, he can hear the sound of Charis shifting below him. "What's up?" Charis asks in a quiet voice.

"Kiki-hyung…" Miyong starts. He trails off, and listens to the quiet sound of the sleeping room. It's a little intimidating. For some reason, even just saying Kiki's name makes the back of Miyong's throat feel hot, like he wants to cry, and he feels an unwanted stinging heat prickling at the corners of his eyes. "I feel so sad for him. He didn't… he didn't have to do that. He shouldn't have had to."

Before he knows it, Miyong is really crying. Wet tears pour down his cheeks, and no matter how hard he tries to choke back the noises, soon, the sound of crying fills the air, too. He presses one hand over his mouth, and when that doesn't work, another.

Below, in the bottom bunk, Charis pauses. He can hear Miyong crying and makes a quick decision.

"Miyong, I'm coming up there, okay?"

"Uh— uh-huh," Miyong finally chokes out. It sounds a bit pitiful through the sound of his crying. By trying to hold his tears back, Miyong might actually be making it worse.

He feels embarrassed for crying in front of his seniors and prays fervently that he doesn't wake Mouse up, too. Or worse yet, some of the boys in the other rooms. He doesn't want to make a scene.

"Shh, it's alright," Charis gentles as his face peeps into view.

The quiet, soothing words only make Miyong's tears flow harder. With his eyes adjusted to the dark, he can see the snowy top of Charis' hair peeking up from the edge of the bunk. It's quickly followed by Charis' eyes and the rest of his face as he pauses halfway up the ladder.

He looks up, gauging the distance to the ceiling in the dark, and then delicately clambers the rest of the way up.

Despite his crying fit, Miyong dutifully scootches over as far as he can, until his skinny frame is pressed against the wall, so Charis-hyung doesn't have to hover on the ladder, or worse yet, fall.

It is a tight fit, but Charis does his best, slotting in beside Miyong. He slips his arm comfortably around him—it's the only real way for the two of them to fit.

In the quiet dark, Miyong finds comfort from Charis' embrace, the soft sounds of his breathing beside him. Miyong had grown up with brothers. He was the youngest at home, too, and having Charis hug him like this feels familiar and comforting in a way that makes more hot tears sting at his eyes.

"Shh, it's okay. It's okay."

Charis pats him the way he might pet a small animal, hushing him gently. Miyong clings to him and cries, until eventually he's completely cried himself out. The sounds from down below get less desperate and hiccupy. Charis peels himself slightly away to check, although it's hard to see anything in the dark . And although Miyong's eyes are still leaking, he sounds quiet and calm.

Only after he's let Miyong cry himself out completely does Charis finally open his mouth to speak. The words he says are carefully considered.

"It's okay if you feel sad for Kiki," Charis says slowly, shifting to get comfortable in Miyong's bed. The bunks are very small, and there's barely room for two people, as skinny as they are. "But you should never feel sorry for him. Kiki did what he felt like he had to do, just like the rest of us. So if you care about him, don't give him your pity. Treat him just the same as before you knew, alright?"

Miyong ruminates on this. It's wisdom from a different angle, things he wouldn't have thought about. After a little while, he nods obediently.

"Okay."

"Try to get some sleep," Charis says.

He doesn't promise Miyong that it will feel better in the morning. Maybe he should; he doesn't really know. He isn't good at this. Still, he hopes that he managed to bring Miyong at least a little comfort, helped him to feel a little better.

Some things about their industry really are that ugly. Some things are just destined to make you feel bad, no matter what. He lets out a small, stifled sigh, wondering dimly if there's something wrong with him that means he doesn't want to cry. His heart feels heavy, but inside him, it's still very, very still.

Charis climbs down from Miyong's bed quietly, trying not to disturb their other roommate. He gets back into his own bed equally quietly, moving slowly and carefully.

In his bunk, Mouse stirs awake. He hears the quiet sound of Miyong crying like a child, and woven through it, the dulcet, low, comforting tones of Charis' voice. His back prickles for a moment, but then he merely rolls over and resolves to leave them to it. From the sounds of it, Charis has it covered.

A few days later, the company did call them all together for a session of disclosure, in order to standardize their message. It was part of their extensive media training. Some groups didn't do well at this part. The media PR team was used to outbursts and flares of temper, accusations and fights that would have to be carefully managed and smoothed over, but Fairytale took it exceptionally well.

Magda was especially worried about how they would take the sensitive info of Bae Ki's situation, so imagine her surprise when instead she was met with a row of serious-faced teenagers who didn't bat an eye at the shocking news.

"Anyone would be surprised," she said gently. The last thing she wanted was for them to bottle it up only for the problem to erupt in a bigger mess later. "It's okay to let it out and talk about it here. It's only when you go back outside that you should keep it to yourself. If you have anything to say, to me or to Bae Ki, now is the time."

She kept her words even and nonjudgmental.

Magda is trained as a mediator. Usually, the group's manager was present for all business meetings, but they'd left this one to her, with the other staff members waiting outside. It was supposed to let them all process their feelings in a safe and comfortable environment before they started talking about business strategies.

"We support you," Soohyun said firmly, looking directly at Kiki.

Kiki trembled faintly under the bright, harsh overhead lights in the conference room. It was invisible to the naked eye, but there. He was dressed beautifully, in a high-collared shirt with a cream-colored bow looped around his neck at the top. His reddish hair was swept to the side, and his lips were painted a subtle but warm peach.

It was one thing to hear those words in the quiet sequester of their dorm room but another thing to hear them out here, in the bright and unforgiving light of day.

"Whatever happens, we will always support you. We'll always support each other, as a team."

Quiet murmurs of affirmation went up around the room. Even Charis joined in. The group of boisterous boys looked especially professional and serious today, belying an unusual maturity that went beyond their age.

Magda waited for anything more, but it didn't come.

"Okay," she said finally. "Okay, well then. Now that we've cleared that up?—"

She moved on to other topics, and the group let out a collective sigh of relief. There was a faint hint of worried tension staining the corners of Kiki's eyes. Under the table, Xiao Yu reached forward and grabbed his hand. He held Kiki's fingers and gave them a squeeze, and he didn't betray it on his face when Kiki took his hand and squeezed back tightly.

It's a long day. They're all still getting used to the rigors of life as active idols soon to be making their debut. Each of them are used to the toughness of life as a trainee, but becoming real idols is another step up, a new level of business entirely.

Still, this day isn't as long as some others they've had, or ones they'll have still in the future. Despite that—the fact that all they really had to do today was sit in a series of meeting rooms to have meetings with their teams—Kiki is completely wiped out by the time they go back to the dorm.

"I'm going out to get some ice milk," Xiao Yu told Kiki as soon as they got back. "Do you want to come with?"

Kiki shook his head gently. "Bring me back a hot tea."

Xiao Yu nodded and told him that he would.

Kiki knows him well enough to know exactly what he's doing by now, that Xiao Yu is going out in order to give him space in the room they both share. It's well meant, and Kiki does appreciate it.

He manages to keep it together until the door to his dorm room shuts behind him. Some of the others give him different tenors of looks, ranging from concerned to curious. Kiki waves them off with a hand, saying an early goodnight as he turns in as soon as they get back.

As soon as the door closes behind him, it's like Kiki loses all of his strength. He sags against the door, crumpling to the ground. He almost doesn't recognize the sound of his own breathing at first. It comes in shallow, wet pants.

He doesn't talk to himself. He just hugs his arms around his knees and shuts his eyes, tipping his head back until it can lean against the door. He doesn't know how long he stays like that for—for a long time. Until his breathing evens back out and he can pick himself up off the ground on shaky legs. He's been working hard at dancing recently. He's pushed himself hard, but he doesn't feel like it right now. His legs feel weak and rubbery, not strong.

He picks himself up and puts himself on the bed, and he's reading something on his phone by the time Xiao Yu comes in. He looks cool and composed again, having had enough time to pick up all the sharp and jagged pieces of himself and arrange them back into some semblance of order.

"You good?" Xiao Yu asks as he comes back inside, with fingers a little chapped from the cold, ice milk in tow, hot tea for Kiki.

"Yeah," Kiki says.

Life goes on.

That's all old news. It's all water under the bridge until a really harmful exposé goes and digs old things up. This new comeback is turning out to be a real clusterfuck in terms of the assault and the speculation on Charis' health. Now this. At this point, they're just waiting to see which one of them will be the next to suffer some great and public humiliation. He really doesn't know how much more Fairytale, the entity, can take.

Kiki doesn't need Xiao Yu to go out to get ice cream in the middle of the night in order to give him space anymore. They all have their own rooms now, which means he's alone by default.

There's a light knock on his door, and Kiki swings it open to find a loosely tied head of light-colored hair beyond it. Charis is in his lounge clothes, and his signature long ponytail is a bit messy, the ropey length of it trailing down over his shoulder.

Of all the people that could have come to him, Kiki somehow wasn't expecting it to be Charis. Even Mouse seems like a more likely candidate, and Kiki and Mouse have never really gotten along.

Kiki leans languidly in his doorframe, sounding a bit unfriendly and looking aloof as he asks, "Can I help you?"

Charis isn't phased. He just gestures to Kiki's room and asks, "Can I come in?"

It's not even that there's friction between Kiki and Charis, because there's not. Charis doesn't really… have friction with anyone, and that's sort of the whole thing. Maybe some fans would find it strange, the natural alliance between the Beauty Prince and the Wild Prince, but Kiki has always liked people with strong personalities. He's known Charis long enough to know that it's not strictly true, but Charis never seems to have much of a personality at all.

Kiki stares at Charis with a hard look, which also doesn't phase him. Charis just lets him look, starting to shift from foot to foot in Kiki's doorway as if he's becoming a bit uncomfortable.

Kiki does play with the notion for a little while, the notion of just… not letting Charis inside. Of saying no and closing his door.

But the truth is, he really doesn't have anything against Charis, his present bad mood aside, so after a while, he swings open his door with an exasperated sigh. "Well, come in then."

The truth is he's not frustrated with Charis—not really. He's frustrated with himself. He's frustrated with the situation. He's frustrated that however hard he works and however well he reinvents himself, it somehow always, always comes back to this in the end. This same rumor, the same parts of his past coming back to haunt him again and again.

"Thank you," Charis says politely, stepping inside.

Kiki doesn't continue giving him a hard time. He gestures to the seat by the desk, indicating that Charis can have it. He pushes his hand through his hair and sighs again before taking a seat on his made but slightly rumpled bed.

"So what did you want to see me about?" Kiki asks with a wry, slightly pained smile.

Charis pauses. He's really not very good at this—good at comforting people. His face pulls into a very subtle frown. "The rumors have started up again."

"Yeah," Kiki says. "Really good of you to notice."

Kiki's reflexive prickliness makes Charis frown even harder. Kiki feels like he should apologize—he's about to. No matter how he feels, there's no need to take it out on other people, but Charis beats him to the punch.

Charis blows out an especially sharp breath through his nose and scratches a little agitatedly at the back of his head.

"Look," he says, "I'm not going to tell you that we're going to stand by you because I hope you already know. If I were you, I'd probably get sick of hearing it so many times too."

"No? Not here to give me another pep talk?"

Charis shakes his head. "I don't know you that well. I don't know what you think about it, if you think about it, so I don't need to put words in your mouth. I just want to tell you that no one else is any better than you. You're not worse. We're on even playing ground."

Kiki snorts. It's a gesture completely at odds with his ordinarily elegant persona. "No offense, but that's just about the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. This is the most uneven playing field on the planet. I mean look at me, and look at you."

Charis shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe that's the truth of it, that no one can win. But in that case, we're all losing together. You're so pretty they call you the face of the 4th generation, and maybe that means you're better than me. But it means you had to do things that made you weaker, so maybe being born with a more average face was the advantage after all. None of it matters in the end, though. That's my point, you see?"

"Not really…" Kiki says. He doesn't know if he's ever heard Charis talk like this, so openly and so frankly. To be honest, he's not sure if he's ever had a real one-on-one conversation with Charis at all.

Charis' eyebrows knit into an even deeper furrow, until even Kiki has to lean forward so he can reach out and press his finger into the deepest part of the divot.

"Stop making that face, you're going to give yourself wrinkles."

At the end of the day, Charis is not particularly good at being a hyung. A lot of the time, it seems like Kiki and Xiao Yu are older than he is—like everyone is older than he is. Still, it seemed like for all their good intentions and all their trying, no one was telling Kiki the right things. No one was really helping him. They were trying, but it was like Kiki was on the other side of some soundproof glass. All their well-wishing and all their trying could never reach him, and the distance only got more vast all the time. Like if someone didn't reach out and catch Kiki, he would eventually float away.

And Charis didn't know if he was helping, either, but it seemed like no one else noticed it. That no one else saw it, and so he was here, trying in his own way.

"Look," Kiki says finally. "It happened, and it's never going to not have happened. I did what I did, and now, it's going to hound me for the rest of my life. I'm never going to be free of it." He gives Charis a wry smile. "Isn't that just very stupid of me? You at least made better choices."

"Yeah, but," Charis says, folding his legs up beneath himself. "I didn't have to do what you did in order to get here. People think it makes me better than you— it doesn't. Because I would have done the same exact thing in your shoes. The only difference between us is that nobody asked me to. That's it."

That pulls Kiki up short.

Yeah, his members have tried to comfort him. They've tried a lot, and it isn't that he's ungrateful. He knows they mean well, and that they mean it, too. It's just… with the exception of maybe Xiao Yu, it's always felt like there's the sting of pity in it. People feel sorry for Kiki. Poor, damaged, beautiful Bae Ki who had to fuck some guy to get to the top.

This is maybe the first time anyone has ever talked to him about it like this—like they not only don't judge him, but they also understand.

"You?" he asks skeptically.

"Yeah, me. We're all the same as you. Don't forget that. We're all here because we wanted it the most, so—don't be too hard on yourself. Or if you have to be, think the same of us, too. Okay?"

The intense, charged silence holds. In the end, Kiki is the one who has to break it first, laughing sharply before turning away. But still, that was enough, that small moment.

"Never realized you're so fucked up."

Charis shrugs. "Aren't we all?"

And it doesn't solve everything that's wrong, not by a longshot, but it goes a long way. Charis stays for only a little while longer before leaving Kiki alone, and they're both glad for the space. It gives Kiki the strength to go find Xiao Yu later, to sit down and talk and just be for a while.

And life carries on.