[f.cuz] snow; yejun/kan; pg
Title: Snow
Pairing: Yejun/Kan
Rating: PG
Summary: Idols have a hard life. Yejun feels inadequate. Set in December 2010, after Midnight Sun promotions, when LeeU's still with them.
Word count: ~2,200
snow;;-
// i'm standing on the snowy path you left your footprints on //
The sun had already long set, and outside the streets were silent and covered in a thick layer of freshly fallen snow.
The average citizen of Japan would most likely be snug and safe in a warm blanket deep asleep at this hour, but Yejun was staring silently out of their practise room window on the third floor, eyebrows knotted in frustration. The sweat trickled down his forehead in slow drips, and he moved a hand to wipe it away. In the same room the other members of F.Cuz were sprawled onto the wooden floor in similar states of exhaustion. The room stank of musty sweat and shoes, and the single light overhead flickered and dragged out the shadows under their eyes until their faces looked sickly.
Yejun eyed the other members with a pained expression, then returned to tracing the path of the drifting snowflakes half-heartedly.
Rehearsal was always long and often lasted until daybreak, and of course they were completely drained by the time they were allowed to collapse in a big pile onto their dorm beds, but who were they to complain? All the members had to do was switch on the TV and lay their eyes on any other idol group and it was almost guaranteed that the group was more successful, had a larger fanclub, more shows, more contracts, more CF offers and in a twisted way, longer rehearsal hours than the four un-nameable members of F.Cuz who disappeared into the background. So really, who were they to complain? They could only grit their teeth and practise, longer and harder hours than they did the day before.
The frosted glass shimmered and Yejun felt a weight on his shoulders. He turned around to come face to face with a grim Seunghyun. Yejun smiled gently, weight heavy in his heart.
“What’s wrong, hyung?”
Seunghyun’s lips lifted slightly, but his eyes were solid and humourless. Yejun stared into them, well understanding what the his thoughts were, yet leaving them unvoiced, perhaps out of his own fear. It was an unspoken agreement between them, from the time of their debut.
“Let’s rehearse the revised choreography a few more times. We can’t let it go like this.” A voice from across the room sighed, and Jinchul scrambled up from his corner of the room, wiping off his sweat. For a room with no heating system in the middle of winter, it was abnormally hot from their excessive body heat. The main dancer Younghak eyed the leader, still flat on his back, only to be kicked at with a pair of sneakered feet belonging to said leader.
“I’m getting up, calm down,” he grunted as he jumped up to his feet. The corner of Yejun’s lips lifted slightly as he watched the exchange, and he took his hands up to remove Seunghyun’s heavy arms from around his shoulders and shook his cramped legs out.
“Shall we?”
Every day it was the same. Their hours of sleep would never be enough to compensate or heal their exhausted bodies and minds, nor was their group’s situation getting any better, at least, as far as the company was concerned.
Midnight Sun promotions had ended with no big issues or controversy apart from their risqué teaser video, yet, possibly for just that reason, their popularity remained scarily and staunchingly similar. Christmas season was meant for a period of busy end of year promotions, yet they had not been invited to a single end of year music show.
As a result, the company compensated by sending them over to Japan where at least their reception was slightly, if by a minute amount, warmer. Somewhere deep in their hearts they felt a sense of injustice when other idol groups, younger hubae groups who didn’t even bother to study the language properly advanced into the Japanese market and met with considerably more success than they did, but each of them kept silent and instead directed their complaints into working harder.
For Yejun, this meant extra vocal lessons to control his breath control problems, for Seunghyun it was pairing up with Jinchul and studying Japanese at a frantic pace, and for Younghak it meant he had to leave his camera alone for a while and stand on top of their Japanese company building sustaining high notes to improve his range until his throat felt raw.
Of course this was nowhere near healthy for any of them, but what did the company care about their health? They were the self-same company that had encouraged the boys’ diets until Yejun became scarily obsessed about what he put into his mouth to the point of anorexia. It was obvious that they were nothing but products to be displayed, marketed, and disposed of when their overdue date was passed.
And it seemed like their overdue date was just looming ahead in the not-so-distant horizon.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…and Yejun.
Why exactly he couldn’t get to sleep not even he knew, but it was probably, very, very likely, related to the scolding he received from the vocal teacher just a few hours ago.
“You still can’t sing this line in one breath? Where’s your breath control? How many times do I have to tell you before you can get it right? Is your head a sieve? Does everything I say pass through that skull of yours and disappear into thin air?”
Although he had brushed it off with a deep bow and an apology to work harder and “definitely get it right the next time”, a deep sinking feeling in his chest told him it wasn’t his stupidity but a physical constraint, and that it was hopeless. After all, he did have naturally weak vocal cords. It wasn’t that he was dumb and couldn’t learn. He wasn’t dumb, far from it actually. Although his attention span had less than prevailed through his high school life, he had never gotten below a B+ grade on anything but PE, and that was only because he was too lazy to move in the hot sun for any sport other than dance. Dance was the only sport he had an interest in, and it showed clearly to everyone. In his PE class, he was second only to Younghak, who dominated the dancefloor when the music turned on.
In any case, Yejun was definitely not stupid and if he physically could, he would be hitting perfect sustains every time like Seunghyun, but each time his vocal cords failed him and each time his pent up frustration grew. The anger he had built up inside, blaming all sorts of things but mostly blaming himself for having to make excuses and pushing the blame onto other things that he knew weren’t the actual root of the problems grew with each failure. He hated himself for it, naturally, but no one else needed to know, or at least, seemed to care enough.
Being in this industry, he had learnt quite well how to hide his emotions, even to his group members, but often (and this was getting more often) he just wanted to scream and have a huge cry in the corner of the room. He wanted to cling onto his hyungs, but he knew that they also had their own share of problems, and quite likely significantly bigger than his simple worries. On nights when they got the opportunity for a few quick hours of sleep, he could sometimes hear Seunghyun muttering jumbled sentences about his father, sometimes Jinchul grinding his teeth, or Younghak tossing and turning in the bunk below his, and his heart breaks a little, so he decides to keep silent.
To an idol, sleep was precious; every second was to be cherished, yet the abnormality of their schedules and constant over-fatigue caused them to develop bad habits and a peculiar type of anxiety insomnia, at least in Yejun’s case, striking at random times and especially when his frustrations grew.
After another two attempts at counting imaginary sheep jumping over imaginary fences and getting nowhere, he heaved a deep sigh and sat up.
From his top bunk he had a clear view of the streets from the window, and the beauty of the fresh white snow on the pavement, yet to be shovelled up by workers in the morning, lifted his down mood slightly. Checking to see if the others were asleep, he carefully climbed out of his bunk, wrapped two large coats over his thin body and tiptoed out of the building.
The blast of icy air as he pushed open the main door of the building hit him in the face and sent shivers down his body, yet the tingling sensation of fresh snow under his bare feet as he stepped out was refreshing and strangely calming. Yejun dug his feet in deeper, and kicked up, sending snow spraying into the air in mini-sized explosions. From the sky, fluffs of white sprinkled like confetti, landing on his hair and speckling it before melting into little trickles of icy water down his neck.
Yejun strode to the middle of the street. There were no cars in this secluded back alley of Tokyo at this time of the morning, and the road was most likely blocked up due to snowfall so essentially he had the whole street to himself. Glancing back towards the building to make sure the manager hadn’t woken up and followed him outside, he grabbed a handful of the crisp snow and started to pack it together into a wonky spherical formation.
He was lost so deep in the methodical process of grabbing and stacking that he didn’t notice the crunching footsteps behind him until a pair of hands reached out to help him, and in surprise he yelped and fell back onto his butt, sinking into the snow. He yelped again and proceeded to curse as the snow melted through to his underpants, and left a rather embarrassingly shaped stain on his favourite pyjama pants.
A deep chuckle from the other side of the half-constructed snowman drew Yejun’s attention back and he scowled and pushed the large mound of snow aside to come face to face with a widely grinning Younghak. Yejun narrowed his eyes and glared at him, only to be met by a toothy grin and a snowball in his face. He yelped girlishly again and stomped around, wiping the cold slush off his face.
“What the hell was that for?”
Younghak wiped his hands on his pants and stood up, stretching upwards and walking around nonchalantly. Yejun continued to glare at him, sulking slightly and feeling a bit unsettled, yet after a few moments his gaze softened.
“Did…I wake you up?”
Younghak shook his head.
“I couldn’t sleep either.” His lips curled into a grim smile, before his face brightened up again and he grinned toothily.
“But never mind that, we finally get to play together, right?”
Yejun hesitated for a split second before gulping and nodding hesitantly, but inside a bubble of joy pressed against his chest. Usually it would be Seunghyun who bothered to take time off to fool around and play with the needy maknae, but today was an unexpected change.
“Awesome, I’ll give you twenty seconds to hide,” Younghak bent down and picked up a handful of snow, eyeing his opponent gleefully. Yejun could only smile and sprint as fast as he could down the side and to the back lot of the building as he heard Younghak close his eyes and begin his countdown.
Yejun hid behind a large green dumpster at the back of the dorm building. It was a crappy hiding spot, but Younghak was pretty crappy at hide and seek anyway. He crouched down in the soft snow and hugged his knees tight.
His breath came out in small white clouds as he waited, and he thought of Younghak running around in the snow in the opposite direction, searching up trees, looking in all the wrong places, and he grinned a little to himself.
Younghak. He’d been through so much with him -- high school, the ups and downs of trainee life, their drifting apart, that time Jinchul got fed up with the two and locked them together in a pole dancing studio -- and their debut. Their late nights. Their rehearsals. The times Yejun almost couldn’t handle it and he’d been there, offering his silent support, like tonight.
Yejun has to smile a little in gratefulness, in nostalgia, at all the memories and little moments they shared.
Younghak’s face peered over the dumpster lid.
“Found you,” he beamed, and Yejun’s heart lightened just a little more, frustrations entirely gone. He stood up and brushed the snow off his pants, wrapping his arms around Younghak.
“I’m glad you found me,” he whispered playfully into his ear, and Younghak’s wide smile as he pressed a kiss to Yejun’s forehead was more than he could ever ask for.
Pairing: Yejun/Kan
Rating: PG
Summary: Idols have a hard life. Yejun feels inadequate. Set in December 2010, after Midnight Sun promotions, when LeeU's still with them.
Word count: ~2,200
snow;;-
// i'm standing on the snowy path you left your footprints on //
The sun had already long set, and outside the streets were silent and covered in a thick layer of freshly fallen snow.
The average citizen of Japan would most likely be snug and safe in a warm blanket deep asleep at this hour, but Yejun was staring silently out of their practise room window on the third floor, eyebrows knotted in frustration. The sweat trickled down his forehead in slow drips, and he moved a hand to wipe it away. In the same room the other members of F.Cuz were sprawled onto the wooden floor in similar states of exhaustion. The room stank of musty sweat and shoes, and the single light overhead flickered and dragged out the shadows under their eyes until their faces looked sickly.
Yejun eyed the other members with a pained expression, then returned to tracing the path of the drifting snowflakes half-heartedly.
Rehearsal was always long and often lasted until daybreak, and of course they were completely drained by the time they were allowed to collapse in a big pile onto their dorm beds, but who were they to complain? All the members had to do was switch on the TV and lay their eyes on any other idol group and it was almost guaranteed that the group was more successful, had a larger fanclub, more shows, more contracts, more CF offers and in a twisted way, longer rehearsal hours than the four un-nameable members of F.Cuz who disappeared into the background. So really, who were they to complain? They could only grit their teeth and practise, longer and harder hours than they did the day before.
The frosted glass shimmered and Yejun felt a weight on his shoulders. He turned around to come face to face with a grim Seunghyun. Yejun smiled gently, weight heavy in his heart.
“What’s wrong, hyung?”
Seunghyun’s lips lifted slightly, but his eyes were solid and humourless. Yejun stared into them, well understanding what the his thoughts were, yet leaving them unvoiced, perhaps out of his own fear. It was an unspoken agreement between them, from the time of their debut.
“Let’s rehearse the revised choreography a few more times. We can’t let it go like this.” A voice from across the room sighed, and Jinchul scrambled up from his corner of the room, wiping off his sweat. For a room with no heating system in the middle of winter, it was abnormally hot from their excessive body heat. The main dancer Younghak eyed the leader, still flat on his back, only to be kicked at with a pair of sneakered feet belonging to said leader.
“I’m getting up, calm down,” he grunted as he jumped up to his feet. The corner of Yejun’s lips lifted slightly as he watched the exchange, and he took his hands up to remove Seunghyun’s heavy arms from around his shoulders and shook his cramped legs out.
“Shall we?”
Every day it was the same. Their hours of sleep would never be enough to compensate or heal their exhausted bodies and minds, nor was their group’s situation getting any better, at least, as far as the company was concerned.
Midnight Sun promotions had ended with no big issues or controversy apart from their risqué teaser video, yet, possibly for just that reason, their popularity remained scarily and staunchingly similar. Christmas season was meant for a period of busy end of year promotions, yet they had not been invited to a single end of year music show.
As a result, the company compensated by sending them over to Japan where at least their reception was slightly, if by a minute amount, warmer. Somewhere deep in their hearts they felt a sense of injustice when other idol groups, younger hubae groups who didn’t even bother to study the language properly advanced into the Japanese market and met with considerably more success than they did, but each of them kept silent and instead directed their complaints into working harder.
For Yejun, this meant extra vocal lessons to control his breath control problems, for Seunghyun it was pairing up with Jinchul and studying Japanese at a frantic pace, and for Younghak it meant he had to leave his camera alone for a while and stand on top of their Japanese company building sustaining high notes to improve his range until his throat felt raw.
Of course this was nowhere near healthy for any of them, but what did the company care about their health? They were the self-same company that had encouraged the boys’ diets until Yejun became scarily obsessed about what he put into his mouth to the point of anorexia. It was obvious that they were nothing but products to be displayed, marketed, and disposed of when their overdue date was passed.
And it seemed like their overdue date was just looming ahead in the not-so-distant horizon.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…and Yejun.
Why exactly he couldn’t get to sleep not even he knew, but it was probably, very, very likely, related to the scolding he received from the vocal teacher just a few hours ago.
“You still can’t sing this line in one breath? Where’s your breath control? How many times do I have to tell you before you can get it right? Is your head a sieve? Does everything I say pass through that skull of yours and disappear into thin air?”
Although he had brushed it off with a deep bow and an apology to work harder and “definitely get it right the next time”, a deep sinking feeling in his chest told him it wasn’t his stupidity but a physical constraint, and that it was hopeless. After all, he did have naturally weak vocal cords. It wasn’t that he was dumb and couldn’t learn. He wasn’t dumb, far from it actually. Although his attention span had less than prevailed through his high school life, he had never gotten below a B+ grade on anything but PE, and that was only because he was too lazy to move in the hot sun for any sport other than dance. Dance was the only sport he had an interest in, and it showed clearly to everyone. In his PE class, he was second only to Younghak, who dominated the dancefloor when the music turned on.
In any case, Yejun was definitely not stupid and if he physically could, he would be hitting perfect sustains every time like Seunghyun, but each time his vocal cords failed him and each time his pent up frustration grew. The anger he had built up inside, blaming all sorts of things but mostly blaming himself for having to make excuses and pushing the blame onto other things that he knew weren’t the actual root of the problems grew with each failure. He hated himself for it, naturally, but no one else needed to know, or at least, seemed to care enough.
Being in this industry, he had learnt quite well how to hide his emotions, even to his group members, but often (and this was getting more often) he just wanted to scream and have a huge cry in the corner of the room. He wanted to cling onto his hyungs, but he knew that they also had their own share of problems, and quite likely significantly bigger than his simple worries. On nights when they got the opportunity for a few quick hours of sleep, he could sometimes hear Seunghyun muttering jumbled sentences about his father, sometimes Jinchul grinding his teeth, or Younghak tossing and turning in the bunk below his, and his heart breaks a little, so he decides to keep silent.
To an idol, sleep was precious; every second was to be cherished, yet the abnormality of their schedules and constant over-fatigue caused them to develop bad habits and a peculiar type of anxiety insomnia, at least in Yejun’s case, striking at random times and especially when his frustrations grew.
After another two attempts at counting imaginary sheep jumping over imaginary fences and getting nowhere, he heaved a deep sigh and sat up.
From his top bunk he had a clear view of the streets from the window, and the beauty of the fresh white snow on the pavement, yet to be shovelled up by workers in the morning, lifted his down mood slightly. Checking to see if the others were asleep, he carefully climbed out of his bunk, wrapped two large coats over his thin body and tiptoed out of the building.
The blast of icy air as he pushed open the main door of the building hit him in the face and sent shivers down his body, yet the tingling sensation of fresh snow under his bare feet as he stepped out was refreshing and strangely calming. Yejun dug his feet in deeper, and kicked up, sending snow spraying into the air in mini-sized explosions. From the sky, fluffs of white sprinkled like confetti, landing on his hair and speckling it before melting into little trickles of icy water down his neck.
Yejun strode to the middle of the street. There were no cars in this secluded back alley of Tokyo at this time of the morning, and the road was most likely blocked up due to snowfall so essentially he had the whole street to himself. Glancing back towards the building to make sure the manager hadn’t woken up and followed him outside, he grabbed a handful of the crisp snow and started to pack it together into a wonky spherical formation.
He was lost so deep in the methodical process of grabbing and stacking that he didn’t notice the crunching footsteps behind him until a pair of hands reached out to help him, and in surprise he yelped and fell back onto his butt, sinking into the snow. He yelped again and proceeded to curse as the snow melted through to his underpants, and left a rather embarrassingly shaped stain on his favourite pyjama pants.
A deep chuckle from the other side of the half-constructed snowman drew Yejun’s attention back and he scowled and pushed the large mound of snow aside to come face to face with a widely grinning Younghak. Yejun narrowed his eyes and glared at him, only to be met by a toothy grin and a snowball in his face. He yelped girlishly again and stomped around, wiping the cold slush off his face.
“What the hell was that for?”
Younghak wiped his hands on his pants and stood up, stretching upwards and walking around nonchalantly. Yejun continued to glare at him, sulking slightly and feeling a bit unsettled, yet after a few moments his gaze softened.
“Did…I wake you up?”
Younghak shook his head.
“I couldn’t sleep either.” His lips curled into a grim smile, before his face brightened up again and he grinned toothily.
“But never mind that, we finally get to play together, right?”
Yejun hesitated for a split second before gulping and nodding hesitantly, but inside a bubble of joy pressed against his chest. Usually it would be Seunghyun who bothered to take time off to fool around and play with the needy maknae, but today was an unexpected change.
“Awesome, I’ll give you twenty seconds to hide,” Younghak bent down and picked up a handful of snow, eyeing his opponent gleefully. Yejun could only smile and sprint as fast as he could down the side and to the back lot of the building as he heard Younghak close his eyes and begin his countdown.
Yejun hid behind a large green dumpster at the back of the dorm building. It was a crappy hiding spot, but Younghak was pretty crappy at hide and seek anyway. He crouched down in the soft snow and hugged his knees tight.
His breath came out in small white clouds as he waited, and he thought of Younghak running around in the snow in the opposite direction, searching up trees, looking in all the wrong places, and he grinned a little to himself.
Younghak. He’d been through so much with him -- high school, the ups and downs of trainee life, their drifting apart, that time Jinchul got fed up with the two and locked them together in a pole dancing studio -- and their debut. Their late nights. Their rehearsals. The times Yejun almost couldn’t handle it and he’d been there, offering his silent support, like tonight.
Yejun has to smile a little in gratefulness, in nostalgia, at all the memories and little moments they shared.
Younghak’s face peered over the dumpster lid.
“Found you,” he beamed, and Yejun’s heart lightened just a little more, frustrations entirely gone. He stood up and brushed the snow off his pants, wrapping his arms around Younghak.
“I’m glad you found me,” he whispered playfully into his ear, and Younghak’s wide smile as he pressed a kiss to Yejun’s forehead was more than he could ever ask for.