Always
Title: Always
Fandom: Super Generation
Characters/Pairing: Leeteuk/Taeyeon
Genre: Hurt & Comfort
Rating: PG13 for swearing.
Summary: She will always be there for him, always by his side, no matter how hard he pushes, no matter what happens.
A/N: This was written mainly to comfort me as well. I hate fan wars.
If there are times you find that you are feeling weak, lie next to me, I'll hold you until you fall asleep. Hold on to me, I'll steal you from the hardest days. Don't be afraid, you have me here to guide your way. Through storms I will be here, I will not disappear.
Jungsoo is tired. He's been tired for a long time now, but he's gotten a lot better at hiding it. From the camera, from the fans and from his members. Unfortunately his body isn't as easy to convince. He winces as a now familiar ache races up his spine as he goes to sit down against the mirror in the practice room. He sighs, stretching up in an attempt to loosen every stiff, unyielding muscle that has seized up on him. It's late and the room is colder than it should be when he's covered in a sheen of sweat, but he can't bring himself to get up and turn the air-con off.
It's a new thing he's doing, coming alone to this practice room after all his schedules are finished. The other members all have their own ways in how they like to unwind; for Jungsoo, he chooses to unwind by practicing more. He tells himself it's because he likes to dance, likes to know every move inside and out. He joked once to a worried and fretting Ryeowook that sometimes it's the only way he can look at himself as much as he wants without hogging the bathroom.
He closes his eyes against the ache that has absolutely nothing to do with his old wounds. Jungsoo is tired, but not just because of the killer schedule he's piling on himself to constantly occupy him. His emotions have been wrenched every which way and it's as if his very soul is utterly, bitterly spent.
He will never admit that he's practicing so much to fill the hole that's being left.
The group is his life, a little part of his heart entrusted to each member. It was meant to be forever. He (naïvely) trusted in forever. Now he can't see past the end of the year.
Only a few had gone. Only one gone forever. But the hole they left (in the formations, in the songs, in his heart) is too much to bear. They all feel it, it's hard to forget the sound of thirteen crammed in one practice room laughing too loud, but he doesn't just feel sadness, he feels guilt. As leader he should have tied together every one of them. As leader he should have foreseen each one about to leave and should have solved their problems. As leader he should have kept them all together.
And he has failed.
Jungsoo pulls his knees to his chest, burying his head in his arms. The remaining members are finding it just as hard as he is to smother their feelings on stage. He can see it every time he monitors a performance, the distance in their eyes and the fatigue in each step. Which makes it all so much worse, because not only could he not keep them together, he can't even support the remaining members enough to help them get through one performance.
When it's just him and his members he does anything he can to make them laugh, to see them smile. He can't bear to see anyone of them as miserable as he is so he pretends happiness, pretends lightheartedness to lift their spirits. He spends every last inch of himself to drag all of them out of the whirlpool of despair they find themselves slowly, but surely, sinking into.
Jungsoo is tired. Beyond tired. But he will continue forcing the energy out of himself if that means he will never see them hurting again. Even if doing so is slowly killing him. His doctor has pleaded with him to slow down, to stop driving himself to the brink every single day, but how can he? He will not let them down and he'll be damned if he doesn't prove that he deserves every one of his solo schedules.
But it's getting harder every day to convince his body that he's capable of doing this. Even now the chill is seeping through him and he can already feel where the pain will hit him worst tomorrow. He wants nothing more than to collapse into unconsciousness right here and now, against this mirror when-
“Jungsoo-oppa?”
He opens his eyes, and the sight that greets him is enough to instantly soothe away all the hurt he can feel on his skin. “Taeyeon-ah,” he exhales, and the way he says her name (half in gratitude, half in a plea) has her through the door before he can attempt to move.
“What are you still doing here?” She chides gently, walking towards him.
His eyes travel the length of her, noticing how she is not in casual wear, noting the makeup that is beginning to smear around her eyes and her hair which has only recently been loosed from it's cage of hair pins. “I could ask the same of you,” he replies, already worried about her. “Did you just finish your schedule?”
Taeyeon settles beside him, the warmth and size of him already a comfort to her tired body. “Ended early today actually.”
He breathes in her scent, sweet roses and vanilla filling his lungs and he can't recall how he could breathe without her. “Shouldn't you be heading back to the dorms?”
She looks up at him, something that looked a lot like anger flaring in her normally warm brown eyes. “Shouldn't you?”
“What's this?” He attempts to laugh off her accusation. “Questioning your sunbae about his choices, for shame.”
Just like that she's no longer tired, intense emotion galvanising her as she sits up, away from the mirror to look him full in the face. “I'm worried about you,” she says as she reaches out with one of her hands.
Her cool, soft skin is a shock to his hands and his nervous (unconscious) wringing immediately stills in response. “What made you think you should be worried about me? I'm fine,” he attempts to soothe, flashing her a smile that he hopes is comforting.
She looks down and he's temporarily mesmerised by the length of her lashes against her cheek. “Oppa,” she begins haltingly, “I've been... hearing. Things.”
And just like that Jungsoo's entire concentration is focused on her. He sits up despite the sudden flare in his back and he's staring intently at her. “What things?”
Taeyeon's flustered, unsure of where to look because god she really didn't want to have to confront him when she should be comforting, but if anyone was going to tell him he was being an idiot it had to be her. “Like how your doctor ordered you to take at least one day off but you ignored him and went on with your schedule as planned.”
“How did you-”
“And how you're refusing to turn down any request for your appearance on a show, even though you're still actively promoting.”
Jungsoo could barely tamp down his annoyance. “Taeyeon-”
“Or how you're still in this goddamn practice room awake when you should be resting.”
He loses his temper, shooting straight up so he's towering over her. “What are you doing here, Taeyeon? Surely you have better things to do than wander into practice rooms and scold people.”
Her eyes go wide in shock at his vehement reaction. “I'm worried about you-”
He turns away so he doesn't have to see how much she's hurting. “Well you don't have to concern yourself with me. Worry about people you should be worrying about, like your members.” He can practically hear his words slicing into her, drawing blood. “Don't you have a comeback soon?”
Taeyeon scrambles up, but even standing she's no comparison to his height. She attempts to swallow down the tears that are welling in her eyes, trying to ignore the sting of his words. He doesn't mean it, he's just saying it because he's angry, he doesn't mean it. “I know how hard it's been for you-”
He whirls on her and the emotions he's been bottling up for so long come raging out of him as anger. “You have no fucking idea how hard it's been for me. You don't know what it's like to have a member who doesn't contact you anymore. You don't know what it's like to have a member put on trial in front of a court and the whole world. You don't know what it's like to learn that under your leadership one of your members has been slowly suffering to the point that his only escape route is to cut ties with all of us without even saying goodbye.”
Jungsoo is already regretting what he's doing as the words come churning out of him. He's pushing her away, throwing her compassion back into her face as his angry, angry words force her back against the mirror.
“You won't have to experience going away for two years, all the while worrying and wondering if people are going to forget you and move on without you. You don't know what it's like to know that while you're gone, your group could break apart, shatter into pieces, slowly disintegrate until all you return to is a shell of what once was there. You don't have a clue, Kim Taeyeon, so don't go around pretending that you do.”
If he was expecting her to be silent with shock, he was dead wrong. She is livid.
“Don't go around acting as if you're the only one whose group has had any problems.” She doesn't even care that she's crying in front of him, or that she meant to calm him instead of rile him, she has to say this. “You will never know what it's like to have people chant for a different group while you're performing. You will never know what it's like to perform to an audience that will hurl light sticks at you to hurt you. You will never know that pain, that helplessness because so many people hate you and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Jungsoo is silent as she fights for air through her tears.
“I know that you're angry,” she finally says, “I know that you're hurting. But don't assume you're the only one who's ever felt that way.” Taeyeon looks up at him, heart rent into pieces and feeling more exhausted than she's felt in a while. “I love you too much to let you destroy yourself like this, oppa,” her words are soft, her power gone and she's laid bare. “I'm not going to let you push me away. But,” she adds quietly, shaking in the still, chill air of the room, “I guess now isn't the right time.” She moves past him, swiping at her cheeks with her arm. “I'll come back-”
She barely has time to register that his hand is gripping her shoulder before she's turned around and his lips are on hers. The kiss is slow, gentle, an apology, and she becomes aware that his arm is wound tightly around her waist while his other hand is at her nape, holding her close.
“I'm sorry,” he breathes onto her lips, tears slipping past his closed eyes as he inhales her scent deeper into him. Holding her like this, feeling her heartbeat, he can't believe that he'd almost let her walk away. “I'm sorry,” he repeats, kissing her again, the caress tender and loving. He pulls away only to bring her tighter still against him, pressing a kiss on the top of her head. “Forgive me,” he murmurs brokenly into her hair.
Taeyeon reaches up onto her toes, wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face into his chest. The material of his shirt absorbs the last of her tears as his warmth envelops her and she sighs. “You're such an idiot,” she mumbles and she feels more than hears his slight laugh.
“I didn't mean to shout at you,” he swallows, “It's been tough lately and I've been handling things like a child.”
She looks up at him, takes in the expression on his face and she raises a hand to rest on his cheek. “Hey,” she waits until she has his full attention before continuing, “It's okay.”
“It's not.” Jungsoo moves one of his hands over hers, leaning his face into her touch then pressing a kiss into her palm. “It's not your fault at all and I blew up at you. You don't deserve that. I'm sorry, Tae.”
Taeyeon recognises that look on his face and her heart skips in fear. She'd seen that expression before when he'd been so consumed in misery that he had frightened her. “Oppa, look at me.” His eyes when he raises them to hers are already darkening with self loathing. “None of this is your fault. You have to understand that. Nobody blames you for what happens yet here you are blaming yourself.” She raises her other hand to his face, forcing his gaze to stay on her. “And now you're driving yourself to death every day to make up for something that was never your wrong to right in the first place. You have to stop this. You're worrying everybody. You're worrying me.” She smiles softly at him. “I don't want to lose you.”
Jungsoo closes his eyes as he savours her words, her touch, her warmth - all a balm to the bruises and the wounds within him. “What did I do to deserve you?” He says in wonder.
She smiles. “You must have saved the president in your previous life.”
“I must have saved the country as well.” When he smiles at her, his eyes beginning to sparkle with that old good humour, the last of the strings pulling Taeyeon taut are cut and she relaxes into him.
“Thank you for coming to save me from myself,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss on her forehead. She presses her face against his chest, hearing his heartbeat.
“Always,” she replies.
At any time of day, there's nothing to explain. I'm always on your side.