SH 2013: for onyu
For: onyu
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Tangled Dreams
Rating: G
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Kai
Length: 8,000 words
Summary: Joonmyun lives a fairy tale, but all he wants to do is wake up.
Warnings: None
Notes: Predebut au. Very loosely based on Tangled.
Joonmyun has been training all his life. When he was younger, he was taught to bow to his elders and say his greetings properly. In school, he learned to keep a pleasant demeanour always, because people were so much more welcoming to a warm smile than to the frown that itched to burst out on some days. And when he entered the company as a wide eyed trainee, still disillusioned with the concept of fame and the taste of hope fresh on his tongue, he trained even more.
Vocals, dance, languages, acting, modelling; his days are filled with activities that promise to turn him from bland milk to smooth butter. With all the training that he’s received, he should be the perfect trainee, but somehow, something is lacking. He puts in so much effort but it comes out as mediocrity, shown in the disappointed expression of his trainers and the average marks at the monthly assessments.
“Joonmyun,” he’s been told one too many times. “If you don’t improve, debuting might be difficult.” They tsk at him and shake their heads, not noticing how Joonmyun shrinks with every comment, confidence trickling away but still clinging onto the last thread of determination.
When EXO was announced and Joonmyun named leader, Joonmyun had cried for two hours straight, greeting each person who came up to congratulate him with a tear-stained smile. He was ecstatic the whole day but the insecurities crept in during the night, an unseen devil whispering destructive thoughts into his ear. He wasn’t good enough then; how is he good enough now?
Ever since that day, he’s been living in fear.
He knows how to introduce himself in 5 different languages, but when he sees Yixing hunched over the keyboard with a tear stained song, he doesn’t understand. Yixing’s voice tends to go flat and he doesn’t know how to control his range yet, but his songs are genuine and somehow he breezes through the monthly tests easily while Joonmyun struggles. For someone who has been trained to note the difference between a sharp and a b flat, Joonmyun just doesn’t understand.
“Yixing sings like he means it,” Chanyeol explains, tucking his lanky legs under him.
Joonmyun smooths out the sheets on the piano in front of him and stares at the paper until the notes begin to dance. This month’s assessment has them in pairs and they’ve been running through the song for hours. He contemplates responding to Chanyeol but settles on a firm “Again.”
Chanyeol groans and drops his head into his hands.
After being in SM for so long, he has seen numerous trainees who were kicked out after being caught kissing another under the staircase that leads up to the practice rooms. All their dreams that they spent years honing and slowly building, gone in a passion-filled moment that they probably wouldn’t even remember three years down the road.
Love, he decides, is an option, not a necessary. Love is emotional baggage.
Perhaps that is Joonmyun’s biggest flaw.
Jongin is EXO's hope, but it’s hard to imagine that someone so frail and thin, that someone so young, is the one who will make or break the team. Joonmyun knows that Jongin is only one person, and EXO, as a team, is so much more. It’s unfair to weigh so much on the shoulders of one boy when the other ten have put in just as much effort. Baekhyun will be touted as the genius boy who debuted with less than a year’s training, but the news articles won’t talk about the countless mornings when Joonmyun walked into the practice rooms to find Baekhyun asleep on the wooden floor. The promotional materials that SM eventually sends out to various news media all over the country will gush about Lu Han’s pretty face and his angelic smile, but they won’t bring up how Lu Han came here almost penniless and worked his way up the trainee ladder to finally earn his place as a debuting member.
For now, Jongin is the one who is scheduled to appear first in a teaser. He is the one who is tasked with grabbing the public’s attention in one sultry smile and 15 seconds of a slick dance routine.
If Jongin is fine with all of this, why is panic knotting up Joonmyun’s throat, until every breath he takes and every mouthful of air he swallows tinged with worry?
Joonmyun is already 20, expiry date reaching in the idol world where the teens are celebrated and 20s a death sentence. His seven years as a trainee hasn’t turned him into the promised butter but instead into stale milk, and each passing year chips away at his self confidence until he wonders on the worst of days why he still trudges through the white arches of the company every day.
He envies Jongin’s easy confidence and undeniable talent. Dancing beside Jongin amplifies every mistake that Joonmyun does, until all he can see is how his own dancing skills are subpar compared to Jongin. His eyes stay glued to Jongin in the practice room’s wall length mirrors, watching Jongin’s changes in expressions and the subtle flicks of his wrist. He simply wants to learn from the boy, and the way Jongin throws his all into every dance makes it easy to fall into Jongin’s spell. Uneasiness settles like lead in his stomach and he can’t tell if it’s pure jealousy or something more.
They’ve barely had free time lately with the endless rounds of practice. Chanyeol swears he has heard Jongdae singing Mama in his sleep, and it comes as no surprise to everyone. Sometimes, Joonmyun jolts awake with the chants fresh in his mind and his arms mid-air, ready to execute that one move that Jaewon has been drilling into them.
Free time is a luxury hard earned. It’s only when Zitao’s ankle twists that the company lets them take a day off. Jongin decides to stay at home with a straight-to-video flick and starts working on getting members to stay in with him but none of them want to be stuck indoors after months spent in the recording studio and practice rooms. It doesn’t take much cajoling for Joonmyun to cave in because he’s just so tired, and the panic yarn ball in his throat hasn’t loosened.
His decision is made easier by the soft smile on Jongin’s face and the way he pats the pillows next to him invitingly. Jongin has made a little pillow cocoon in his bed and propped his laptop on the blankets. Joonmyun sinks down next to him, slipping under the covers and pulling the blankets up to his chin. The bed is meant for one so they fit snugly next to each other, Jongin’s warm stomach pressed up against the silver of skin exposed between Joonmyun’s pyjamas.
Just when the opening credits finish rolling and Joonmyun’s eyelids are drooping, Jongin reaches up and tangles his fingers in Joonmyun’s hair. "Your hair is so soft."
His knee-jerk reaction is to brush Jongin’s hand away but he manages to keep his hands to his side, fingers grasping at air. This is a level of intimacy that Joonmyun still struggles with getting used to, but they’re a group now. He will have many more moments with Jongin. With how closely they’re pressed together, Jongin still notices the way he stiffens and his grip loosens.
“You know they call you the rose?” Jongin presses his fingers to Joonmyun’s forehead, smoothing out the frown.
He doesn’t wait for Joonmyun to reply before he continues, “you’re so prickly.” This is rich, coming from the boy who has every new trainee quivering in their shoes with a steady glare. Jongin is a hedgehog, with spines up and hackles raised, but absolutely defenceless when approached. He’s a softie that tends to stick his nose into matters that are none of his business, like right now. Joonmyun is willing to bet that someone, maybe Kris, has pulled him aside and whispered about how Joonmyun’s smiles seem hollow. Joonmyun winces whenever he catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror, and Kris always notices. Kris notices everything.
"Joonmyun, it's okay to let loose." Jongin says quietly, moving on to pet Joonmyun’s hair now. It reminds Joonmyun of home and the way his mother used to sing him to sleep, and he feels the familiar threat of tears prickling at his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if you even give time to be yourself.” The conversation is suddenly yanked into uncomfortably personal territory and Joonmyun has to stamp down the instinct that yells for him to deflect all raw questions.
Joonmyun has picked apart and reassembled every part of himself so many times that he doesn’t remember what he used to be like. He vaguely remembers boasting about his future debut to his classmates and making them laugh with his over-the-top imitations of the cool TVXQ seniors, but that memory blurs between the constant nagging by the SM trainers to sit straight, talk right, smile more, don’t frown Joonmyun that’s unbecoming. His personality is stained with the tears of his mother and the cracks of too many cases of broken hope. Joonmyun has spent the past 6 year painstakingly crafting a perfect mold of what the company needs. Now he only needs to carefully colour within the lines.
The movie plays on, cheesy lines one after another in a badly lit room. Joonmyun wonders if the movie was all an excuse to get Joonmyun to rest, because otherwise they all know that he would’ve spent the day hunched over his desk scribbling out lyrics. It’s nice to know that Jongin cares enough to do this but it doesn’t squash the incessant worry in his heart.
Jongin rests his head on Joonmyun’s shoulder and lets his hand slip down to softly tug at Joonmyun’s sleeve, like a child holding on to a teddy bear. "Hyung, our careers will be over by the time we hit 30. If you're not living now, when will you?"
The entertainment world is a race, all flashiness, calculation and carefully timed speed, but even with the promise of debut looming, life is slow as a trainee. Jongin has a point. Once they debut, he won’t have another chance to be himself, whoever he is.
Joonmyun falls asleep before the movie is even half over.
Joonmyun is a manly, manly man. His nickname in middle school was Suho- the guardian.
(No one ever talks about how Joonmyun was only nicknamed the Guardian because he was a strict, no nonsense hall monitor that guarded the hallways with more stubborn determination than a puppy with a bone. His other nickname was Napoleon, more due to his size than his authority.)
Because he's such a manly man, Joonmyun does not let out an embarrassing shriek that would put banshees to shame. No, instead he lets out a grunt, not a scream in any way, and tumbles out of bed.
Even if he were, hypothetically, to scream like a baby, it is perfectly understandable in this situation, because when Joonmyun opens his eyes, all he sees is dark. Then he realises that he can’t breathe.
His hands fly up to his face and his horror, close around scales. Not screaming, he flings the thing and it lands on the bed on all fours. The lizard -a chameleon he realizes- blinks at him lazily, swishing its green tail around.
“What.” Joonmyun says at the chameleon on his bed.
The chameleon rolls its eyes and twirls its tail around, as if it’s urging Joonmyun to take a look. Finally, Joonmyun realises that this is in fact not his bed, because his bed sheets are blue with a huge dark red splotch from when Jongdae got a little too happy and spilled the wine.
He’s lying in silk sheets that are more luxurious than anything his skin has ever felt. The room he is in is made of bricks piled together so closely that no gaps are left between each stone. It has only one window and Joonmyun rushes out of bed to peek outside, only to stagger back because holy shit, the drop down must be 20 storeys high at least. Curiously, all he sees is acres of forest sprawling across a rugged terrain, little cottages with smoking chimneys scattered here and there. Wherever he is, this isn’t Seoul.
The room is barely bigger than the room he shares with Jongin and Kyungsoo back in the dorms, but it is sparsely decorated and has a certain Victorian charm to it, like it was lifted straight out of the pages of the storybooks that Kris hides under his bed.
Everywhere he looks, Joonmyun could easily imagine his members fitting into the scene- Chanyeol and Baekhyun having pillow fights on the bed, Kyungsoo at the desk bent across a book, Zitao by the window admiring the view. The thought catches him off-guard, because it’s a testament to how much the boys have permeated his life, to the point where they float to his mind unbidden.
One wall has a bookshelf that spans from ceiling to the stone ground, filled with books of every kind. If this isn’t a dream, Joonmyun decides, this must be heaven. Maybe the yarn ball got revenge and choked him in his sleep. Joonmyun marvels at the bookshelves, running his finger over the spines of the well-kept books, and sounds out the book titles to himself.
He’s so busy admiring the books that it belatedly occurs to him that there is no door. Almost immediately, he feels caged in, the previously absent claustrophobia rising up to lodge in his throat.
“I need to get out of here,” he says to himself, feeling along the walls in panic, hoping to find a latch or a hidden escape.
“I’d say,” agrees the chameleon.
In his wonder, Joonmyun has forgotten about the lizard, and he flattens himself against the wall in surprise at the sudden words. He gawks at the chameleon, watching its mouth, but all the chameleon does is stare back at him.
“I must be hearing things,” Joonmyun mutters. He runs his fingers through his hair and breathes out slowly, willing himself to stay calm and figure out this odd dream.
“Are you the princess?”
This time, Joonmyun does scream. He screams so loudly that the man, who somehow snuck in when Joonmyun didn’t notice, shouts along with him.
The sunlight streaming in frames the figure by the window perfectly, and for a brief moment, all Joonmyun can see is a silhouette, a silver of light obstructing the man’s face from his view.
"Jongin?" Joonmyun asks in disbelief.
Jongin stands there dressed in a simple emerald linen tunic and pants, a thick piece of rope tied around his waist as a makeshift belt. He has a duffel bag slung casually around his neck and clutches a paper scroll in his right hand. Even in his confusion, Joonmyun finds him devastatingly handsome. This outfit is a far cry from the tees and sweat pants that Jongin usually dons, and with his hair coifed up like this, Jongin looks beyond his years. It might be a trick of the light, but somehow Jongin’s shoulders seems broader and his jawline more pronounced, like Joonmyun is staring at a future, more mature version of Jongin.
”I came here to find a princess,” Jongin frowns. He unfurls the scroll in his hand and squints at the hastily drawn map. All Joonmyun can catch from his vantage point is a large x scribbled over a tower. “Are you just one of those tomboys?”
"Jongin, I need to wake up from this funny dream. Why are you acting so weirdly and what is that funny outfit?"
“I’m Kai,” Jongin corrects. He glances at his hands and then makes a squeezing motion in the general direction of Joonmyun’s chest. “The map says there should be a princess here, and it’s enchanted, so it can’t be wrong. Do you think I could-“
Joonmyun clasps his arms across his chest protectively. “Jongin, this isn’t funny.”
"Who is this Jongin you speak of?" Jongin barks, forehead scrunched in annoyance. "Impudent little brat, how many times must I tell you that my name is Kai?"
“Kai,” Joonmyun says carefully. If Jongin wants to play this game, so can Joonmyun. As Kyungsoo always says whenever Chanyeol and Jongdae get caught up in their farfetched schemes, never encourage the crazy. “Where are we?”
Kai looks at Joonmyun like he has grown a third head. “We’re in Neverland, of course.”
Suddenly the world spins and Joonmyun has to grab the edge of the table to avoid toppling to the ground. “I think I need a drink.”
Kai is so not amused that it would be amusing to Joonmyun, but Joonmyun is beyond finding humour in the situation, not when he has pinched, slapped and done everything to himself in order to prove that this isn’t a dream.
By the time Joonmyun has firmly established that Kai is not Jongin and Joonmyun is not waking up anytime soon, the other boy is already looking like he regrets scaling the wall of the tallest tower in Neverland to rescue a princess rumoured to be the most beautiful girl across the land.
"Let me get this straight. In your world,” Kai points at Joonmyun and Joonmyun nods encouragingly. “Me. Dancing. Boyband. This precious body?" His voice rises with each word until he sounds almost hysterical. The chameleon (Joonmyun names it Pascal after the unit, because it only seems appropriate under the amount of stress and pressure that he is facing) waddles up to Kai and pats him with its tail.
“Yes,” Joonmyun says, all earnest and pleading. “Wherever I am, I need to get back.”
Kai bites his lip, wondering whether to entertain this mad man or just high tail out of the place. “First, we need to get out of here.”
“We’re like twenty storeys above ground,” Joonmyun says exasperatedly. He punches a pillow in frustration and throws it at the wall for good measure. “How?”
This time, Kai’s grin is so feral that Joonmyun leans away instinctively. “The same way I got in.”
Last summer, a group of trainees went to Lotte World together. Lu Han refused to get on the Gyro Drop, and Joonmyun felt so bad for him that he volunteered to miss the ride as well, spending half an hour calming Lu Han down from his height-induced freak out.
Joonmyun finds out the hard way that Lu Han was right. Twenty storeys is a long way to fall.
“Whee!” Kai yells wildly, one arm thrown around Joonmyun’s waist and the other gripping the rope tightly. The rope (“Enchanted by the best wizard in Neverland,” Kai boasts, and Joonmyun bites down the urge to point out that the map enchanted by the same wizard brought him to not a princess, but Joonmyun) swings around wildly as they hurtle towards the ground, stretching magically to send them safety down the long fall.
Joonmyun clings onto Kai’s waist for dear life and swears that he will never, ever make fun of Lu Han for his fear of heights ever again.
“Stop being a baby,” Kai says. He slams a jug of beer onto the bar counter top so roughly that the drink sloshes out and splashes Joonmyun’s hair. The bartender glares at him and he shrugs, not caring about the mess he made.
“We almost died,” Joonmyun cries into the wooden surface where he is currently face planting. It’s actually quite comfortable and Joonmyun is happy to just stay here forever until he becomes one with the bar top. It wouldn’t be a stretch when he’s already living a nightmare.
“Death is not in your future, young one,” a familiar voice cuts in.
Joonmyun jerks his head up and gapes at the newcomer. Under the flowing black robes and what appears to be six months’ worth of facial hair lies an unmistakable person. Joonmyun leaps up and throws his arms around Yixing. “Yixing, oh thank god, Jongin just hurled us off a building and-“
"I'm a gypsy." Yixing speaks quietly and calmly, soft voice befitting his serene demeanour. Still, his voice commands enough power to stop Joonmyun mid-rant and make him step back. "You're not from around here," he observes, "You’ve lost something."
Joonmyun groans. Of course Yixing would be doing the crazy talk as well. "Excuse me?"
"No one comes here unless they've lost something." He walks a circle around Joonmyun as Joonmyun stands there awkwardly, sending pleading looks to Kai for help.
Behind them, Kai rolls his eyes and throws a couple of gold coins onto the table, not in the mood for more nonsense. He’s still a bit sore that he hasn’t found a princess, although bringing Joonmyun along promised an adventure, and he loves adventures. “We’re leaving,” he says firmly, and stalks out of the bar without waiting for Joonmyun’s reply.
“Hmm, yes,” Yixing says, rubbing his chin and nodding. "You can't leave until you find what you lost."
“Hurry up, Joonmyun, we don’t have all day!” Kai hollers, impatience dripping from his every word. He’s already saddled on the horse, looking as if he’s contemplating just leaving Joonmyun behind.
Joonmyun glances at the door hesitantly. He can choose to stay with Yixing, but his gut tells him that Yixing is not the key to escaping this world. “Can you tell me what I lost?”
“The answer will only come to those who have a pure heart,” Yixing says cryptically and sits down at the bar counter. “You will meet many that you trust, but trust not all.” To Joonmyun’s astonishment, he starts swaying and humming in his seat, not responding to Joonmyun’s frantic attempts to catch his attention.
“He won’t be moved once he’s meditating,” the bartender informs him sympathetically. “He’s recharging his chi.”
“Joonmyun, I’m giving you ten seconds!” Kai yells again and Joonmyun reluctantly backs off towards the exit, watching Yixing carefully in case the so-called gypsy decides to open his eyes and his mouth.
'Joonmyun," Yixing calls, just when Joonmyun is about to close the door behind him. Joonmyun turns his head and Yixing peeks one eye open, smiling mysteriously. "The answer lies in the notes." With that, he falls back into his hypnotic swaying, making it clear that he will offer nothing more.
“Thank you, Yixing, I’ll keep that in mind.” Joonmyun gives Yixing a quick bow and scurries after Kai.
“What took you so long?” Kai grumbles. He slips off his horse to help Joonmyun mount the stallion, and Joonmyun can’t help but note how Kai’s long legs swing effortlessly across the stallion’s back.
“Yixing said I can’t leave until I find what I lost, but I don’t know what I lost.” Joonmyun settles down on the horse and pulls Kai up to let him take his place at the reins.
Kai scratches the back of his head and flashes him that same smile that has a group of girls waiting outside the company every day for a glimpse of the infamous trainee. "I suppose I can help you find what you lost."
"What do you suppose he means?” Joonmyun lets his face turn impassive and mimics Yixing’s flat tone, “the answer lies in the notes.”
“Notes? The academy?” Kai tries with a shrug. He jerks the reins, sending the stallion into a trot. “There’ll be a festival of lights tomorrow night. The palace sets off a thousand floating lanterns to celebrate the kingdom’s scholars and symbolise our kingdom’s bright future. Our kingdom is known for its scholars; maybe one of the scholars will know the answer.”
At a small diner where they stop to grab lunch, they meet Sehun.
Unfortunately, they meet Sehun when Sehun has his hand in Kai’s pouch, trying to steal a bag of coins. Kai has Sehun in a headlock in a flash, easily overpowering the boy due to his larger size. Joonmyun recalls Yixing’s words about meeting more that he trusts and what Yixing really meant finally dawns on him.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were rich!” Sehun cries, rubbing his hands together.
From the feathered cap Sehun is donning and the bow strapped behind his back, Joonmyun guesses that he’s Robin Hood. He jumps in to pry Kai’s grip away, “Don’t kill the kid! He’s doing it for good!”
And that’s how they end up drinking ginger beer (because Joonmyun insists that Kai and Sehun aren’t old enough for alcohol despite alcohol restrictions not existing in this mystical world), with Sehun spilling about his exploits for a noble cause.
“No way,” Kai says in amazement, finally recognising Sehun. “You’re Booty Man!” He looks from the poster plastered on the wall to the unimpressed boy sitting in front of him. The poster depicts a caricature bearing startling likeness to Sehun and gushes over “Booty Man saving the day again!”
Sehun crosses his arms and huffs. "I stop a horse cart from crashing into the stalls and my nickname is Booty Man?"
"Maybe you shouldn't have worn those tights," Kai comments mildly. Everyone tips their head and checks out Sehun’s ass. It is a fine ass, indeed.
Sehun rips the poster off the wall and studies it closely. “At least get my nose right!” He jabs at the parchment angrily. “That’s way too big!”
As if on cue, Kyungsoo walks past holding a spatula and wearing a stained apron. If he made the pancakes that Joonmyun just ate, Joonmyun is very pleased to offer his compliments to the chef. "Did you see a talking frog?" Kyungsoo stops at their table and asks.
"I have a smart chameleon?" Joonmyun tells him, opening his messenger tote to show Kyungsoo the curled up lizard. Joonmyun had grown fond of Pascal during their brief encounter and he decided to bring the chameleon along.
Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose at Pascal. "No, no, I need to find my prince."
Joonmyun mentally runs through the list of members that he has met and tries to match the remaining boys with an amphibian. "Is it by any chance named Jongdae?"
Kyungsoo's eyes are so wide when he's surprised that Joonmyun is burdened by the weight of all that scrutiny. "How did you know?"
Joonmyun ponders this. If Jongdae was a frog that had characteristics reflecting his human self, where would he be? "You can find him looking into the nearest reflective surface," he decides. Jongdae is always near a mirror, whether to practice his expressions when he sings or to fix his hair.
"Thanks!” Kyungsoo brightens (his eyes remain wide) and hops along on his merry way.
“If I find Jongdae for Kyungsoo, will people stop calling me booty man?” Sehun asks hopefully.
“Maybe you should invest in a looser pair of pants,” Kai advises kindly.
Sehun makes an affronted little cry and gently throws the ginger beer into Kai’s face.
Joonmyun notes fondly that Sehun would’ve done the same thing in the real world.
“How did you know about the frog?” Kai asks curiously later, when they resume their journey. There was a whole situation in the bar where Joonmyun had to convince Kai that Sehun was best left alive for the sake of the villagers, but it was thankfully solved after Kai ripped Sehun’s shirt off his back and walked away with a nice, new outfit. “You were right about Sehun too.”
Joonmyun shrugs. "They were my memb- my friends back in my world." He’s been with them for years and even with the newer boys, three months of nonstop practice is enough to make anyone bond. By now, he can predict what Minseok is about to say, or tell what Chanyeol is thinking from just a twitch of the eye.
"You know them so well."
Joonmyun stares at the smooth pane of Kai’s back. The dark green shirt, loose on Sehun but tight on Kai, frames his shoulders perfectly. "Do I?"
"They must love you," Kai says so softly his voice is almost drowned out by the galloping of the horse’s hooves.
Do they? Joonmyun can’t think of an answer to that and stays silent for the rest of the trip, lost in his thoughts.
The city is a two hour ride, and Joonmyun falls asleep against Kai’s back. Kai is nice enough to not comment on the patch of drool on his back and shakes him awake when the horse trots through the city gates.
Joonmyun is immediately struck by the majestic size of the city. The castle rises over the city at the top of a small hill and watches over the hustle and bustle of the city like a guard tower. Preparations for the festival of lights are well underway with colourful banners hanging from the front of every store. The streets are packed with a stream of citizens, and Joonmyun has to hold onto Kai’s shirt to avoid getting lost.
“Let’s head to the stable to hand the horse over,” Kai suggests, and Joonmyun eagerly agrees because he wants to explore as much of the city as possible.
The stables is run by an old lady that has her hood pulled up over her face, until only a crooked nose and the hint of a smile are visible. Joonmyun is hesitant to hand over the horse but Kai assures him that the witch has been handling the stables for years.
“I’ll take care of him,” the witch lisps, revealing rotting, uneven teeth. She leans in to Joonmyun until their faces are a mere inch apart, “I will.” From her, it sounds enough like a threat that even Kai tightens his hold on the rein.
Joonmyun’s upbringing has trained him enough to not recoil, but there’s something familiar about the way the witch cackles, wide and unbridled. Those watery eyes, awfully young for someone of her age and appearance, tug at his memory, and he’s almost sure that he’s seen her somewhere.
Before he can open his mouth to ask, a commotion outside attracts their attention.
Joonmyun is not surprised to see Minseok pop up and trip into a pile of hay, but he is surprised to see him in a baby blue dress that puffs out around the hem, showing a hint of the lace bloomers underneath. It is a sight that he could have lived without.
“Hi,” Minseok says, voice breathy from the strain of struggling out of the pile of hay. “Did you see a rabbit around here? I’m late for something, but I don’t know what!”
“My, my, what big eyes you have,” the witch says, reaching her wrinkled hand out to stroke Minseok’s cheek.
Minseok smiles back at the witch without reservation. “Thanks! All the better to see the world with!”
“Little red riding wolf,” Joonmyun whispers in horror, recognising the ment. He can’t let Minseok be eaten even in this world, because he doesn’t know if it would reflect in the real world. Gritting his teeth decisively, he steps in between Minseok and the witch, cutting their conversation off. “Minseok, I think I know what you’re late for. How about you wait for me outside?”
“You’re so nice!” Minseok cheers and bows daintily, turning to skip out of the stables, leaving behind a faint floral scent.
It takes Joonmyun only two seconds to realise that he has made a mistake.
The witch reaches up to grab at his hair, yanking him back with a hiss. “What are you doing?” The change in her face is abrupt and she snarls, lips pulling back in a way that makes her look even more horrific.
If Joonmyun didn’t cling onto the door of one of the stalls in time, he would’ve knocked his head into the nearest surface. (That being Jongin- no, Kai’s chest, because his shoulders are so broad and it would be so nice to rest his head against the darned shirt Kai is wearing and-)
But when Joonmyun turns around to get Kai’s help, Kai isn’t there. “Kai?” He calls out but gets no reply.
Now he realises that the witch’s face is melting, skin peeling away like a grotesque. Her voice sounds deeper and distorted now, no longer the warm, motherly tone from before. Joonmyun is reminded of the grotesque horror movies that Kyungsoo marathons and starts backing away, too frozen with fear to make a proper getaway.
He can only watch in fascination and revulsion as the witch’s skin tears and starts to form a new face, but when the face rearranges itself into startling beautiful features, the fear dissipates.
"Lu Han,” Joonmyun deadpans. “You have got to be kidding me."
"I see news of my good looks has reached you, since you know my name," Lu Han says smugly. He jerks his head and flips his honey-blonde hair, the strands miraculously falling back into place. Lu Han slides the back of his hand down Joonmyun's face lovingly and sighs, petting Joonmyun’s cheek in the most patronizing way. "I'm the most handsome man in the world."
"Not with those eye wrinkles, you're not." these are the things that Joonmyun would never say to Lu Han, but has been itching to spew ever since they met. They are debuting in the same group but Joonmyun is terrified that he’ll cross the boundaries of some unspoken rule if he throws all reservations aside.
Fairy tale Lu Han, it seems, is infinitely more annoying than real life Lu Han. Real life Lu Han is annoying, a bit obnoxious at most, but this tiara- sorry, crown wearing Lu Han is insufferable.
Lu Han holds up a jewel-encrusted mirror and flashes it proudly to Joonmyun. “A work of art, is it not?”
Joonmyun isn’t sure whether Lu Han is talking about himself or the mirror, so he just nods uncertainly. The members that he has met so far are all a carbon copy of their real life personas, but with their strongest traits and characteristics magnified. Lu Han has always been a bit temperamental and unpredictable, and if this Lu Han is the same, he cannot risk angering him.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” Lu Han coos at the mirror, “who’s the most handsome of them all?” He brushes some dust off the handle carefully and angles it to capture his best side.
Zitao’s face flashes in the mirror, looking bored. He rolls his eyes and blows at his suspiciously shiny nails. “I told you. It’s Kai. That jawline could cut glass.”
Lu Han swings the mirror up high, like he’s prepared to throw the mirror onto the ground and Zitao shrieks loudly. Rolling his eyes, Lu Han slowly lowers his arm and sets the mirror face-down on the desk, muffling Zitao’s protests.
“Do you understand now, Joonmyun?” Lu Han sounds so cold and unlike his usual soft-spoken self, Joonmyun is acutely reminded that he’s merely facing a person with Lu Han’s face in an alternate dimension. That smile hints at cruelty, and the beauty that has launched his journey to debut is twisted into something almost ugly. “I almost had Minseok at the festival, but you came in and meddled.”
“So it was you!” Joonmyun cries. “I knew you were familiar.”
“It’s such a coincidence that you were travelling with Kai,” Lu Han snarls. “Now I can eliminate two birds with one stone.”
Joonmyun’s hands clench at his side at the mention of Kai and the yarn ball makes a comeback, bigger than ever before. “Where is he?”
“You’re that keen on finding out where your precious Kai is?” Lu Han says with a smirk. “Well then, I’ll just throw you in with him.”
He snaps his fingers and a glowing portal opens in the middle of the room. Joonmyun can feel the aura tugging at him, trying to suck him in, but he resists, desperately scratching at the cold, stone floor. The force is too strong and it’s futile. He can only curl up on himself and be hurtled into the rip in the dimensions as Lu Han cackles.
Joonmyun hopes to never see this version of Lu Han ever again.
Joonmyun is thrown into a dungeon lighted only by a few weak candles. He falls onto his knees and the portal disappears, letting the dungeon fall into darkness once again.
A searing pain that shoots through his body forces him to clench his eyes shut. He feels like someone is ripping him apart as he feels himself being pulled in every direction. Every part of his body is sore, worse than anything he’s ever felt from the endless nights of dance practice.
All he wants to do is lie on the ground forever but a muffled cry makes him snap to attention.
The sight that greets him twists his heart, because Kai is shackled to the wall, a bundle of cloth in his mouth. His head hangs low, but when he hears Joonmyun approaching, he jerks his head up, rattling the chains desperately. Tied up like this, the boy loses all his hot headed confidence, leaving him with a beautiful vulnerability. In a flash of confusion, Joonmyun no longer sees Kai; this is Jongin.
He wills himself not to panic and rushes forward to pull the gag from Kai’s mouth.
“The shackles are locked,” Kai gasps out, tugging at the chains in vain. “You need to find a key.”
Joonmyun shakes his head. “I think these shackles are enchanted.” He inspects the shackles and finds no key hole, confirming his suspicions. “We need to break the spell.”
When he was younger, Joonmyun dreamed of being a writer. He used to come up with elaborate storylines involving princesses and dragons to act out to his adoring audience of one- his mother. It was during these plays that Joonmyun discovered his dream of being a star, so he still keeps the faded copies of the scribbles in a box under his bed. From what he sees, this universe is made out of fairy tales and pans out like the stories do. Joonmyun has to think, if this was a fairy tale, what would the hero do?
The answer lies in the notes.
Yixing’s sage advice floats up in his mind and Joonmyun forces himself to calm down and slowly think over the words. Answer lies in the notes. Notes.
Of course! Joonmyun runs his fingers over the metal and feels the faded scratches that he dismissed earlier. The lines form a pattern he knows too well, music already forming in his head. Suddenly, the meaning of Yixing’s words comes to him easily. It lies in the notes, the musical notes.
Joonmyun almost scoffs, because of all songs, it’s this one. He hasn’t heard this song for years, but the lyrics ring fresh in his mind. “I’ll save you,” he says, nodding determinedly to reassure Kai. He’s not sure whether this will work, but it’s worth a shot.
“I trust you.” Kai’s words are so earnest that Joonmyun has to close his eyes and breathe out, too overwhelmed with nerves and the pressure of saving him, “Because it’s you.”
It’s so easy to imagine Jongin saying the same, and this is all Joonmyun needs to go on. Joonmyun closes his eyes and sings.
Can it be I'm not meant to play this part? Now I see that if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family's heart.
The chains on Kai's hands turn as golden as the rays of sunset across the seas and melts into a trickling of sparkling dust, but Joonmyun has the song engraved in his heart.
When he was young, the song meant nothing to him. He just liked it for the melody, and the way the animated Mulan brushed her hair behind her ear. Now, he sees the song for what it is and it resonates in him, hitting the chords that he has tried to suppress for so long.
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?
"You're glowing." Kai's voice is tinged with awe, but nothing compares with the wonder that fills his face, transforming the hard lines into liquid warmth, making him seem more magnificent than ever. The light shines off Joonmyun, framing Kai's olive skin and caressing him like the afterglow of a million sunsets. Kai looks like a Greek god, bathed in an ethereal glow, but as beautiful as he is, he is not Jongin. Jongin has a tiny mole on the inside of his wrist. Jongin scrunches up his face when he's embarrassed and covers his face with his hands. Jongin sleepwalks through early mornings and yawns throughout the afternoon. Kai is perfect, smooth lines and sculpted beauty. Kai is not Jongin, therefore Kai is flawed.
Somehow I cannot hide who I am though I've tried.
Kai takes a step towards him and reaches out, his hand fluttering near Joonmyun’s face like he’s afraid to touch. "You have the most beautiful voice."
A beautiful voice. Joonmyun has been praised for many, many things. He grew up with middle-aged ladies cooing over his looks and pinching his cheeks. In high school, girls used to flutter around him because they knew he was a trainee. When was the last time someone actually sounded so sincere?
He feels a surge of confidence building in him, and his voice grows stronger.
When will my reflection show who I am aside?
“It’s working,” Kai yells in excitement as the brick walls of the dungeon crumble.
Joonmyun barely even notices, caught up in the song. It has been ages, maybe years, since he has felt like this. He used to enjoy performing, but somehow he has lost that joy in the past six years. He isn’t singing a song; the song is moving him. It’s a euphoria that he severely misses. Joonmyun has treaded carefully for so long but maybe he’s tired of living like he’s afraid of life.
“Bravo!” A voice calls out, cutting into Joonmyun’s performance. Taken off guard, Joonmyun stops singing and whips around, his heart in his throat and a thundering in his head.
“Are you leaving already?” Lu Han asks, surprised. He’s holding Minseok by the elbow, who looks as bewildered as Joonmyun feels. “I was about to let him go anyway.”
Minseok beams and offers an explanation without being prompted. "Luckily, Lu Han here offered to bring me to wherever I’m late to.” It seems like Lu Han has found a new target to obsess over and no longer cares for Kai. It’s eerily similar to how Lu Han and Kai used to be really close until Minseok came into the company and stole his attention away.
“If you were about to let me go,” Kai rubs at the red marks on his wrist, rubbed raw by the metal shackles. “Then what about the whips and the burning coal?”
Minseok visibly shrinks back at the mention of the whips but Lu Han is faster, reaching down to link their fingers together. He smiles kindly down at Minseok and looks a picture of innocence. “Kai is being silly. There was no such thing.”
“There was such a thing!” Kai snaps back, absolutely indignant. “You threatened to leave marks down my handsome back.”
Lu Han appears too distracted to bother coming up with a reply. He smiles at Minseok and magically procures a red apple from his coat pocket, shining it on his sleeve. "Want an apple?"
Joonmyun eyes the apple warily and holds up a palm in warning. "Minseok, please, don't eat anything that Lu Han offers you."
"You can eat me," Lu Han continues with a leer.
Minseok, for some unfathomable reason, actually seems charmed.
“Okaaaaaay, time to go.” If fairy tale universe Lu Han is anything like real life Lu Han, this would be a good cue to leave. He hurriedly tugs a spluttering Jongin out the door, but in his haste, fails to notice the trap door that was left open.
“Watch out!”
He sees Kai’s hand stretching out to catch him and then-
“Wake up, we’re going to be late for the management meeting!”
Joonmyun’s eyes fly open. Gone are the sculpted muscles and medieval clothes, this is his Jongin standing in front of him with messy bed hair and the crease of his pillow embedded into his cheek, growing more annoyed with each minute that Joonmyun isn’t getting out of bed.
"Oh, thank god," Joonmyun sits straight up and pulls Jongin down onto the bed, clinging to him and threading his fingers into Jongin's hair. He clenches around the strands so hard that Jongin's head is pulled back, drawing a cry of surprise from the other boy. "You’re you. I’m so glad you’re you. Don’t be anything but you."
Jongin is understandably bewildered at the sudden confession. He pats Joonmyun’s back awkwardly. “I’m glad you’re you too? Now get up, hyung. We’re up first.”
“You seem different this morning,” Jongin comments. He bounces on the balls of his feet as they wait outside the meeting room. From what Joonmyun understands, they are meeting the board of directors in pairs, a mere formality and a confirmation of their debut. Jongin must have expected that Joonmyun would be a bunch of nerves, but Joonmyun is surprisingly relaxed this morning. After scaling a wall and escaping from a dungeon, mere humans, no matter how high their position, don’t faze him.
Joonmyun hums nonchalantly and places a palm on the door, prepared to push it open. “Ready?”
Jongin nods, biting down on his bottom lip cutely. “I was born ready.”
Predictably, Jongin wows the management. Jongin is socially awkward and shrinks in on himself, but anyone can see the star potential just bubbling beneath the surface. His nervousness only makes him more appealing, because the most successful stars are those who are relatable.
After a long lecture about the responsibilities that lies with debut, the head executive stops to ask, “Do you have any suggestions for stage names?”
"Kai,” Joonmyun says immediately, “for Jongin.”
"Sorry?"
"Kai," Joonmyun repeats with more conviction. "It's a good name for Jongin. Sounds strong and impactful. You can't forget a name like that," he pauses and catches Jongin's curious gaze, keeping his voice steady but letting his eyes soften around the edges, "just like no one can forget you."
Jongin's reaction is almost comical in the way he wrinkles his nose and shrinks in on himself in mortification. Jongin is always so bad with receiving compliments. It's something he has to learn to deal with when they debut. Jongin is the face; he will receive many, many more compliments and an infinite amount of attention.
The executive nods approvingly and scribbles the name down, drawing three quick stars by the name to make a note. "How about yours, Joonmyun?"
"Suho," he says without hesitation.
Jongin blinks. "As in the guardian?"
"I'm the leader." Joonmyun says it with confidence and more than a hint of pride, and Jongin looks at him in surprise.
“Good, good,” the executive murmurs distractedly, already dismissing them in his mind. They are crucial to the whole plan, but what they have to say is barely relevant, even if everything falls down to their shoulders.
“Can you believe it? We’re finally debuting?” Jongin slumps against the wall as soon as they exit the room, knees weakening from the experience.
Biting down a smile, Joonmyun tugs him down the hallway. “Come on, we need to call Chanyeol and Kyungsoo in. They’re up next.”
Jongin's hand sneaks into his and he entwines their fingers together. "Hyung, our lives has just begun."
“Yeah.” Joonmyun tightens his grip and looks up at Jongin, at the boy who will stand with him on stage and feature in so many more of his memories. “And I’m glad you’re here to start it with me.”
Joonmyun has trained for all his life.
He hasn't learned to love himself, or to love others, but that's okay because it's the one thing that comes naturally.
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Tangled Dreams
Rating: G
Pairing(s)/Focus: Suho/Kai
Length: 8,000 words
Summary: Joonmyun lives a fairy tale, but all he wants to do is wake up.
Warnings: None
Notes: Predebut au. Very loosely based on Tangled.
Joonmyun has been training all his life. When he was younger, he was taught to bow to his elders and say his greetings properly. In school, he learned to keep a pleasant demeanour always, because people were so much more welcoming to a warm smile than to the frown that itched to burst out on some days. And when he entered the company as a wide eyed trainee, still disillusioned with the concept of fame and the taste of hope fresh on his tongue, he trained even more.
Vocals, dance, languages, acting, modelling; his days are filled with activities that promise to turn him from bland milk to smooth butter. With all the training that he’s received, he should be the perfect trainee, but somehow, something is lacking. He puts in so much effort but it comes out as mediocrity, shown in the disappointed expression of his trainers and the average marks at the monthly assessments.
“Joonmyun,” he’s been told one too many times. “If you don’t improve, debuting might be difficult.” They tsk at him and shake their heads, not noticing how Joonmyun shrinks with every comment, confidence trickling away but still clinging onto the last thread of determination.
When EXO was announced and Joonmyun named leader, Joonmyun had cried for two hours straight, greeting each person who came up to congratulate him with a tear-stained smile. He was ecstatic the whole day but the insecurities crept in during the night, an unseen devil whispering destructive thoughts into his ear. He wasn’t good enough then; how is he good enough now?
Ever since that day, he’s been living in fear.
He knows how to introduce himself in 5 different languages, but when he sees Yixing hunched over the keyboard with a tear stained song, he doesn’t understand. Yixing’s voice tends to go flat and he doesn’t know how to control his range yet, but his songs are genuine and somehow he breezes through the monthly tests easily while Joonmyun struggles. For someone who has been trained to note the difference between a sharp and a b flat, Joonmyun just doesn’t understand.
“Yixing sings like he means it,” Chanyeol explains, tucking his lanky legs under him.
Joonmyun smooths out the sheets on the piano in front of him and stares at the paper until the notes begin to dance. This month’s assessment has them in pairs and they’ve been running through the song for hours. He contemplates responding to Chanyeol but settles on a firm “Again.”
Chanyeol groans and drops his head into his hands.
After being in SM for so long, he has seen numerous trainees who were kicked out after being caught kissing another under the staircase that leads up to the practice rooms. All their dreams that they spent years honing and slowly building, gone in a passion-filled moment that they probably wouldn’t even remember three years down the road.
Love, he decides, is an option, not a necessary. Love is emotional baggage.
Perhaps that is Joonmyun’s biggest flaw.
Jongin is EXO's hope, but it’s hard to imagine that someone so frail and thin, that someone so young, is the one who will make or break the team. Joonmyun knows that Jongin is only one person, and EXO, as a team, is so much more. It’s unfair to weigh so much on the shoulders of one boy when the other ten have put in just as much effort. Baekhyun will be touted as the genius boy who debuted with less than a year’s training, but the news articles won’t talk about the countless mornings when Joonmyun walked into the practice rooms to find Baekhyun asleep on the wooden floor. The promotional materials that SM eventually sends out to various news media all over the country will gush about Lu Han’s pretty face and his angelic smile, but they won’t bring up how Lu Han came here almost penniless and worked his way up the trainee ladder to finally earn his place as a debuting member.
For now, Jongin is the one who is scheduled to appear first in a teaser. He is the one who is tasked with grabbing the public’s attention in one sultry smile and 15 seconds of a slick dance routine.
If Jongin is fine with all of this, why is panic knotting up Joonmyun’s throat, until every breath he takes and every mouthful of air he swallows tinged with worry?
Joonmyun is already 20, expiry date reaching in the idol world where the teens are celebrated and 20s a death sentence. His seven years as a trainee hasn’t turned him into the promised butter but instead into stale milk, and each passing year chips away at his self confidence until he wonders on the worst of days why he still trudges through the white arches of the company every day.
He envies Jongin’s easy confidence and undeniable talent. Dancing beside Jongin amplifies every mistake that Joonmyun does, until all he can see is how his own dancing skills are subpar compared to Jongin. His eyes stay glued to Jongin in the practice room’s wall length mirrors, watching Jongin’s changes in expressions and the subtle flicks of his wrist. He simply wants to learn from the boy, and the way Jongin throws his all into every dance makes it easy to fall into Jongin’s spell. Uneasiness settles like lead in his stomach and he can’t tell if it’s pure jealousy or something more.
They’ve barely had free time lately with the endless rounds of practice. Chanyeol swears he has heard Jongdae singing Mama in his sleep, and it comes as no surprise to everyone. Sometimes, Joonmyun jolts awake with the chants fresh in his mind and his arms mid-air, ready to execute that one move that Jaewon has been drilling into them.
Free time is a luxury hard earned. It’s only when Zitao’s ankle twists that the company lets them take a day off. Jongin decides to stay at home with a straight-to-video flick and starts working on getting members to stay in with him but none of them want to be stuck indoors after months spent in the recording studio and practice rooms. It doesn’t take much cajoling for Joonmyun to cave in because he’s just so tired, and the panic yarn ball in his throat hasn’t loosened.
His decision is made easier by the soft smile on Jongin’s face and the way he pats the pillows next to him invitingly. Jongin has made a little pillow cocoon in his bed and propped his laptop on the blankets. Joonmyun sinks down next to him, slipping under the covers and pulling the blankets up to his chin. The bed is meant for one so they fit snugly next to each other, Jongin’s warm stomach pressed up against the silver of skin exposed between Joonmyun’s pyjamas.
Just when the opening credits finish rolling and Joonmyun’s eyelids are drooping, Jongin reaches up and tangles his fingers in Joonmyun’s hair. "Your hair is so soft."
His knee-jerk reaction is to brush Jongin’s hand away but he manages to keep his hands to his side, fingers grasping at air. This is a level of intimacy that Joonmyun still struggles with getting used to, but they’re a group now. He will have many more moments with Jongin. With how closely they’re pressed together, Jongin still notices the way he stiffens and his grip loosens.
“You know they call you the rose?” Jongin presses his fingers to Joonmyun’s forehead, smoothing out the frown.
He doesn’t wait for Joonmyun to reply before he continues, “you’re so prickly.” This is rich, coming from the boy who has every new trainee quivering in their shoes with a steady glare. Jongin is a hedgehog, with spines up and hackles raised, but absolutely defenceless when approached. He’s a softie that tends to stick his nose into matters that are none of his business, like right now. Joonmyun is willing to bet that someone, maybe Kris, has pulled him aside and whispered about how Joonmyun’s smiles seem hollow. Joonmyun winces whenever he catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror, and Kris always notices. Kris notices everything.
"Joonmyun, it's okay to let loose." Jongin says quietly, moving on to pet Joonmyun’s hair now. It reminds Joonmyun of home and the way his mother used to sing him to sleep, and he feels the familiar threat of tears prickling at his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if you even give time to be yourself.” The conversation is suddenly yanked into uncomfortably personal territory and Joonmyun has to stamp down the instinct that yells for him to deflect all raw questions.
Joonmyun has picked apart and reassembled every part of himself so many times that he doesn’t remember what he used to be like. He vaguely remembers boasting about his future debut to his classmates and making them laugh with his over-the-top imitations of the cool TVXQ seniors, but that memory blurs between the constant nagging by the SM trainers to sit straight, talk right, smile more, don’t frown Joonmyun that’s unbecoming. His personality is stained with the tears of his mother and the cracks of too many cases of broken hope. Joonmyun has spent the past 6 year painstakingly crafting a perfect mold of what the company needs. Now he only needs to carefully colour within the lines.
The movie plays on, cheesy lines one after another in a badly lit room. Joonmyun wonders if the movie was all an excuse to get Joonmyun to rest, because otherwise they all know that he would’ve spent the day hunched over his desk scribbling out lyrics. It’s nice to know that Jongin cares enough to do this but it doesn’t squash the incessant worry in his heart.
Jongin rests his head on Joonmyun’s shoulder and lets his hand slip down to softly tug at Joonmyun’s sleeve, like a child holding on to a teddy bear. "Hyung, our careers will be over by the time we hit 30. If you're not living now, when will you?"
The entertainment world is a race, all flashiness, calculation and carefully timed speed, but even with the promise of debut looming, life is slow as a trainee. Jongin has a point. Once they debut, he won’t have another chance to be himself, whoever he is.
Joonmyun falls asleep before the movie is even half over.
Joonmyun is a manly, manly man. His nickname in middle school was Suho- the guardian.
(No one ever talks about how Joonmyun was only nicknamed the Guardian because he was a strict, no nonsense hall monitor that guarded the hallways with more stubborn determination than a puppy with a bone. His other nickname was Napoleon, more due to his size than his authority.)
Because he's such a manly man, Joonmyun does not let out an embarrassing shriek that would put banshees to shame. No, instead he lets out a grunt, not a scream in any way, and tumbles out of bed.
Even if he were, hypothetically, to scream like a baby, it is perfectly understandable in this situation, because when Joonmyun opens his eyes, all he sees is dark. Then he realises that he can’t breathe.
His hands fly up to his face and his horror, close around scales. Not screaming, he flings the thing and it lands on the bed on all fours. The lizard -a chameleon he realizes- blinks at him lazily, swishing its green tail around.
“What.” Joonmyun says at the chameleon on his bed.
The chameleon rolls its eyes and twirls its tail around, as if it’s urging Joonmyun to take a look. Finally, Joonmyun realises that this is in fact not his bed, because his bed sheets are blue with a huge dark red splotch from when Jongdae got a little too happy and spilled the wine.
He’s lying in silk sheets that are more luxurious than anything his skin has ever felt. The room he is in is made of bricks piled together so closely that no gaps are left between each stone. It has only one window and Joonmyun rushes out of bed to peek outside, only to stagger back because holy shit, the drop down must be 20 storeys high at least. Curiously, all he sees is acres of forest sprawling across a rugged terrain, little cottages with smoking chimneys scattered here and there. Wherever he is, this isn’t Seoul.
The room is barely bigger than the room he shares with Jongin and Kyungsoo back in the dorms, but it is sparsely decorated and has a certain Victorian charm to it, like it was lifted straight out of the pages of the storybooks that Kris hides under his bed.
Everywhere he looks, Joonmyun could easily imagine his members fitting into the scene- Chanyeol and Baekhyun having pillow fights on the bed, Kyungsoo at the desk bent across a book, Zitao by the window admiring the view. The thought catches him off-guard, because it’s a testament to how much the boys have permeated his life, to the point where they float to his mind unbidden.
One wall has a bookshelf that spans from ceiling to the stone ground, filled with books of every kind. If this isn’t a dream, Joonmyun decides, this must be heaven. Maybe the yarn ball got revenge and choked him in his sleep. Joonmyun marvels at the bookshelves, running his finger over the spines of the well-kept books, and sounds out the book titles to himself.
He’s so busy admiring the books that it belatedly occurs to him that there is no door. Almost immediately, he feels caged in, the previously absent claustrophobia rising up to lodge in his throat.
“I need to get out of here,” he says to himself, feeling along the walls in panic, hoping to find a latch or a hidden escape.
“I’d say,” agrees the chameleon.
In his wonder, Joonmyun has forgotten about the lizard, and he flattens himself against the wall in surprise at the sudden words. He gawks at the chameleon, watching its mouth, but all the chameleon does is stare back at him.
“I must be hearing things,” Joonmyun mutters. He runs his fingers through his hair and breathes out slowly, willing himself to stay calm and figure out this odd dream.
“Are you the princess?”
This time, Joonmyun does scream. He screams so loudly that the man, who somehow snuck in when Joonmyun didn’t notice, shouts along with him.
The sunlight streaming in frames the figure by the window perfectly, and for a brief moment, all Joonmyun can see is a silhouette, a silver of light obstructing the man’s face from his view.
"Jongin?" Joonmyun asks in disbelief.
Jongin stands there dressed in a simple emerald linen tunic and pants, a thick piece of rope tied around his waist as a makeshift belt. He has a duffel bag slung casually around his neck and clutches a paper scroll in his right hand. Even in his confusion, Joonmyun finds him devastatingly handsome. This outfit is a far cry from the tees and sweat pants that Jongin usually dons, and with his hair coifed up like this, Jongin looks beyond his years. It might be a trick of the light, but somehow Jongin’s shoulders seems broader and his jawline more pronounced, like Joonmyun is staring at a future, more mature version of Jongin.
”I came here to find a princess,” Jongin frowns. He unfurls the scroll in his hand and squints at the hastily drawn map. All Joonmyun can catch from his vantage point is a large x scribbled over a tower. “Are you just one of those tomboys?”
"Jongin, I need to wake up from this funny dream. Why are you acting so weirdly and what is that funny outfit?"
“I’m Kai,” Jongin corrects. He glances at his hands and then makes a squeezing motion in the general direction of Joonmyun’s chest. “The map says there should be a princess here, and it’s enchanted, so it can’t be wrong. Do you think I could-“
Joonmyun clasps his arms across his chest protectively. “Jongin, this isn’t funny.”
"Who is this Jongin you speak of?" Jongin barks, forehead scrunched in annoyance. "Impudent little brat, how many times must I tell you that my name is Kai?"
“Kai,” Joonmyun says carefully. If Jongin wants to play this game, so can Joonmyun. As Kyungsoo always says whenever Chanyeol and Jongdae get caught up in their farfetched schemes, never encourage the crazy. “Where are we?”
Kai looks at Joonmyun like he has grown a third head. “We’re in Neverland, of course.”
Suddenly the world spins and Joonmyun has to grab the edge of the table to avoid toppling to the ground. “I think I need a drink.”
Kai is so not amused that it would be amusing to Joonmyun, but Joonmyun is beyond finding humour in the situation, not when he has pinched, slapped and done everything to himself in order to prove that this isn’t a dream.
By the time Joonmyun has firmly established that Kai is not Jongin and Joonmyun is not waking up anytime soon, the other boy is already looking like he regrets scaling the wall of the tallest tower in Neverland to rescue a princess rumoured to be the most beautiful girl across the land.
"Let me get this straight. In your world,” Kai points at Joonmyun and Joonmyun nods encouragingly. “Me. Dancing. Boyband. This precious body?" His voice rises with each word until he sounds almost hysterical. The chameleon (Joonmyun names it Pascal after the unit, because it only seems appropriate under the amount of stress and pressure that he is facing) waddles up to Kai and pats him with its tail.
“Yes,” Joonmyun says, all earnest and pleading. “Wherever I am, I need to get back.”
Kai bites his lip, wondering whether to entertain this mad man or just high tail out of the place. “First, we need to get out of here.”
“We’re like twenty storeys above ground,” Joonmyun says exasperatedly. He punches a pillow in frustration and throws it at the wall for good measure. “How?”
This time, Kai’s grin is so feral that Joonmyun leans away instinctively. “The same way I got in.”
Last summer, a group of trainees went to Lotte World together. Lu Han refused to get on the Gyro Drop, and Joonmyun felt so bad for him that he volunteered to miss the ride as well, spending half an hour calming Lu Han down from his height-induced freak out.
Joonmyun finds out the hard way that Lu Han was right. Twenty storeys is a long way to fall.
“Whee!” Kai yells wildly, one arm thrown around Joonmyun’s waist and the other gripping the rope tightly. The rope (“Enchanted by the best wizard in Neverland,” Kai boasts, and Joonmyun bites down the urge to point out that the map enchanted by the same wizard brought him to not a princess, but Joonmyun) swings around wildly as they hurtle towards the ground, stretching magically to send them safety down the long fall.
Joonmyun clings onto Kai’s waist for dear life and swears that he will never, ever make fun of Lu Han for his fear of heights ever again.
“Stop being a baby,” Kai says. He slams a jug of beer onto the bar counter top so roughly that the drink sloshes out and splashes Joonmyun’s hair. The bartender glares at him and he shrugs, not caring about the mess he made.
“We almost died,” Joonmyun cries into the wooden surface where he is currently face planting. It’s actually quite comfortable and Joonmyun is happy to just stay here forever until he becomes one with the bar top. It wouldn’t be a stretch when he’s already living a nightmare.
“Death is not in your future, young one,” a familiar voice cuts in.
Joonmyun jerks his head up and gapes at the newcomer. Under the flowing black robes and what appears to be six months’ worth of facial hair lies an unmistakable person. Joonmyun leaps up and throws his arms around Yixing. “Yixing, oh thank god, Jongin just hurled us off a building and-“
"I'm a gypsy." Yixing speaks quietly and calmly, soft voice befitting his serene demeanour. Still, his voice commands enough power to stop Joonmyun mid-rant and make him step back. "You're not from around here," he observes, "You’ve lost something."
Joonmyun groans. Of course Yixing would be doing the crazy talk as well. "Excuse me?"
"No one comes here unless they've lost something." He walks a circle around Joonmyun as Joonmyun stands there awkwardly, sending pleading looks to Kai for help.
Behind them, Kai rolls his eyes and throws a couple of gold coins onto the table, not in the mood for more nonsense. He’s still a bit sore that he hasn’t found a princess, although bringing Joonmyun along promised an adventure, and he loves adventures. “We’re leaving,” he says firmly, and stalks out of the bar without waiting for Joonmyun’s reply.
“Hmm, yes,” Yixing says, rubbing his chin and nodding. "You can't leave until you find what you lost."
“Hurry up, Joonmyun, we don’t have all day!” Kai hollers, impatience dripping from his every word. He’s already saddled on the horse, looking as if he’s contemplating just leaving Joonmyun behind.
Joonmyun glances at the door hesitantly. He can choose to stay with Yixing, but his gut tells him that Yixing is not the key to escaping this world. “Can you tell me what I lost?”
“The answer will only come to those who have a pure heart,” Yixing says cryptically and sits down at the bar counter. “You will meet many that you trust, but trust not all.” To Joonmyun’s astonishment, he starts swaying and humming in his seat, not responding to Joonmyun’s frantic attempts to catch his attention.
“He won’t be moved once he’s meditating,” the bartender informs him sympathetically. “He’s recharging his chi.”
“Joonmyun, I’m giving you ten seconds!” Kai yells again and Joonmyun reluctantly backs off towards the exit, watching Yixing carefully in case the so-called gypsy decides to open his eyes and his mouth.
'Joonmyun," Yixing calls, just when Joonmyun is about to close the door behind him. Joonmyun turns his head and Yixing peeks one eye open, smiling mysteriously. "The answer lies in the notes." With that, he falls back into his hypnotic swaying, making it clear that he will offer nothing more.
“Thank you, Yixing, I’ll keep that in mind.” Joonmyun gives Yixing a quick bow and scurries after Kai.
“What took you so long?” Kai grumbles. He slips off his horse to help Joonmyun mount the stallion, and Joonmyun can’t help but note how Kai’s long legs swing effortlessly across the stallion’s back.
“Yixing said I can’t leave until I find what I lost, but I don’t know what I lost.” Joonmyun settles down on the horse and pulls Kai up to let him take his place at the reins.
Kai scratches the back of his head and flashes him that same smile that has a group of girls waiting outside the company every day for a glimpse of the infamous trainee. "I suppose I can help you find what you lost."
"What do you suppose he means?” Joonmyun lets his face turn impassive and mimics Yixing’s flat tone, “the answer lies in the notes.”
“Notes? The academy?” Kai tries with a shrug. He jerks the reins, sending the stallion into a trot. “There’ll be a festival of lights tomorrow night. The palace sets off a thousand floating lanterns to celebrate the kingdom’s scholars and symbolise our kingdom’s bright future. Our kingdom is known for its scholars; maybe one of the scholars will know the answer.”
At a small diner where they stop to grab lunch, they meet Sehun.
Unfortunately, they meet Sehun when Sehun has his hand in Kai’s pouch, trying to steal a bag of coins. Kai has Sehun in a headlock in a flash, easily overpowering the boy due to his larger size. Joonmyun recalls Yixing’s words about meeting more that he trusts and what Yixing really meant finally dawns on him.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were rich!” Sehun cries, rubbing his hands together.
From the feathered cap Sehun is donning and the bow strapped behind his back, Joonmyun guesses that he’s Robin Hood. He jumps in to pry Kai’s grip away, “Don’t kill the kid! He’s doing it for good!”
And that’s how they end up drinking ginger beer (because Joonmyun insists that Kai and Sehun aren’t old enough for alcohol despite alcohol restrictions not existing in this mystical world), with Sehun spilling about his exploits for a noble cause.
“No way,” Kai says in amazement, finally recognising Sehun. “You’re Booty Man!” He looks from the poster plastered on the wall to the unimpressed boy sitting in front of him. The poster depicts a caricature bearing startling likeness to Sehun and gushes over “Booty Man saving the day again!”
Sehun crosses his arms and huffs. "I stop a horse cart from crashing into the stalls and my nickname is Booty Man?"
"Maybe you shouldn't have worn those tights," Kai comments mildly. Everyone tips their head and checks out Sehun’s ass. It is a fine ass, indeed.
Sehun rips the poster off the wall and studies it closely. “At least get my nose right!” He jabs at the parchment angrily. “That’s way too big!”
As if on cue, Kyungsoo walks past holding a spatula and wearing a stained apron. If he made the pancakes that Joonmyun just ate, Joonmyun is very pleased to offer his compliments to the chef. "Did you see a talking frog?" Kyungsoo stops at their table and asks.
"I have a smart chameleon?" Joonmyun tells him, opening his messenger tote to show Kyungsoo the curled up lizard. Joonmyun had grown fond of Pascal during their brief encounter and he decided to bring the chameleon along.
Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose at Pascal. "No, no, I need to find my prince."
Joonmyun mentally runs through the list of members that he has met and tries to match the remaining boys with an amphibian. "Is it by any chance named Jongdae?"
Kyungsoo's eyes are so wide when he's surprised that Joonmyun is burdened by the weight of all that scrutiny. "How did you know?"
Joonmyun ponders this. If Jongdae was a frog that had characteristics reflecting his human self, where would he be? "You can find him looking into the nearest reflective surface," he decides. Jongdae is always near a mirror, whether to practice his expressions when he sings or to fix his hair.
"Thanks!” Kyungsoo brightens (his eyes remain wide) and hops along on his merry way.
“If I find Jongdae for Kyungsoo, will people stop calling me booty man?” Sehun asks hopefully.
“Maybe you should invest in a looser pair of pants,” Kai advises kindly.
Sehun makes an affronted little cry and gently throws the ginger beer into Kai’s face.
Joonmyun notes fondly that Sehun would’ve done the same thing in the real world.
“How did you know about the frog?” Kai asks curiously later, when they resume their journey. There was a whole situation in the bar where Joonmyun had to convince Kai that Sehun was best left alive for the sake of the villagers, but it was thankfully solved after Kai ripped Sehun’s shirt off his back and walked away with a nice, new outfit. “You were right about Sehun too.”
Joonmyun shrugs. "They were my memb- my friends back in my world." He’s been with them for years and even with the newer boys, three months of nonstop practice is enough to make anyone bond. By now, he can predict what Minseok is about to say, or tell what Chanyeol is thinking from just a twitch of the eye.
"You know them so well."
Joonmyun stares at the smooth pane of Kai’s back. The dark green shirt, loose on Sehun but tight on Kai, frames his shoulders perfectly. "Do I?"
"They must love you," Kai says so softly his voice is almost drowned out by the galloping of the horse’s hooves.
Do they? Joonmyun can’t think of an answer to that and stays silent for the rest of the trip, lost in his thoughts.
The city is a two hour ride, and Joonmyun falls asleep against Kai’s back. Kai is nice enough to not comment on the patch of drool on his back and shakes him awake when the horse trots through the city gates.
Joonmyun is immediately struck by the majestic size of the city. The castle rises over the city at the top of a small hill and watches over the hustle and bustle of the city like a guard tower. Preparations for the festival of lights are well underway with colourful banners hanging from the front of every store. The streets are packed with a stream of citizens, and Joonmyun has to hold onto Kai’s shirt to avoid getting lost.
“Let’s head to the stable to hand the horse over,” Kai suggests, and Joonmyun eagerly agrees because he wants to explore as much of the city as possible.
The stables is run by an old lady that has her hood pulled up over her face, until only a crooked nose and the hint of a smile are visible. Joonmyun is hesitant to hand over the horse but Kai assures him that the witch has been handling the stables for years.
“I’ll take care of him,” the witch lisps, revealing rotting, uneven teeth. She leans in to Joonmyun until their faces are a mere inch apart, “I will.” From her, it sounds enough like a threat that even Kai tightens his hold on the rein.
Joonmyun’s upbringing has trained him enough to not recoil, but there’s something familiar about the way the witch cackles, wide and unbridled. Those watery eyes, awfully young for someone of her age and appearance, tug at his memory, and he’s almost sure that he’s seen her somewhere.
Before he can open his mouth to ask, a commotion outside attracts their attention.
Joonmyun is not surprised to see Minseok pop up and trip into a pile of hay, but he is surprised to see him in a baby blue dress that puffs out around the hem, showing a hint of the lace bloomers underneath. It is a sight that he could have lived without.
“Hi,” Minseok says, voice breathy from the strain of struggling out of the pile of hay. “Did you see a rabbit around here? I’m late for something, but I don’t know what!”
“My, my, what big eyes you have,” the witch says, reaching her wrinkled hand out to stroke Minseok’s cheek.
Minseok smiles back at the witch without reservation. “Thanks! All the better to see the world with!”
“Little red riding wolf,” Joonmyun whispers in horror, recognising the ment. He can’t let Minseok be eaten even in this world, because he doesn’t know if it would reflect in the real world. Gritting his teeth decisively, he steps in between Minseok and the witch, cutting their conversation off. “Minseok, I think I know what you’re late for. How about you wait for me outside?”
“You’re so nice!” Minseok cheers and bows daintily, turning to skip out of the stables, leaving behind a faint floral scent.
It takes Joonmyun only two seconds to realise that he has made a mistake.
The witch reaches up to grab at his hair, yanking him back with a hiss. “What are you doing?” The change in her face is abrupt and she snarls, lips pulling back in a way that makes her look even more horrific.
If Joonmyun didn’t cling onto the door of one of the stalls in time, he would’ve knocked his head into the nearest surface. (That being Jongin- no, Kai’s chest, because his shoulders are so broad and it would be so nice to rest his head against the darned shirt Kai is wearing and-)
But when Joonmyun turns around to get Kai’s help, Kai isn’t there. “Kai?” He calls out but gets no reply.
Now he realises that the witch’s face is melting, skin peeling away like a grotesque. Her voice sounds deeper and distorted now, no longer the warm, motherly tone from before. Joonmyun is reminded of the grotesque horror movies that Kyungsoo marathons and starts backing away, too frozen with fear to make a proper getaway.
He can only watch in fascination and revulsion as the witch’s skin tears and starts to form a new face, but when the face rearranges itself into startling beautiful features, the fear dissipates.
"Lu Han,” Joonmyun deadpans. “You have got to be kidding me."
"I see news of my good looks has reached you, since you know my name," Lu Han says smugly. He jerks his head and flips his honey-blonde hair, the strands miraculously falling back into place. Lu Han slides the back of his hand down Joonmyun's face lovingly and sighs, petting Joonmyun’s cheek in the most patronizing way. "I'm the most handsome man in the world."
"Not with those eye wrinkles, you're not." these are the things that Joonmyun would never say to Lu Han, but has been itching to spew ever since they met. They are debuting in the same group but Joonmyun is terrified that he’ll cross the boundaries of some unspoken rule if he throws all reservations aside.
Fairy tale Lu Han, it seems, is infinitely more annoying than real life Lu Han. Real life Lu Han is annoying, a bit obnoxious at most, but this tiara- sorry, crown wearing Lu Han is insufferable.
Lu Han holds up a jewel-encrusted mirror and flashes it proudly to Joonmyun. “A work of art, is it not?”
Joonmyun isn’t sure whether Lu Han is talking about himself or the mirror, so he just nods uncertainly. The members that he has met so far are all a carbon copy of their real life personas, but with their strongest traits and characteristics magnified. Lu Han has always been a bit temperamental and unpredictable, and if this Lu Han is the same, he cannot risk angering him.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” Lu Han coos at the mirror, “who’s the most handsome of them all?” He brushes some dust off the handle carefully and angles it to capture his best side.
Zitao’s face flashes in the mirror, looking bored. He rolls his eyes and blows at his suspiciously shiny nails. “I told you. It’s Kai. That jawline could cut glass.”
Lu Han swings the mirror up high, like he’s prepared to throw the mirror onto the ground and Zitao shrieks loudly. Rolling his eyes, Lu Han slowly lowers his arm and sets the mirror face-down on the desk, muffling Zitao’s protests.
“Do you understand now, Joonmyun?” Lu Han sounds so cold and unlike his usual soft-spoken self, Joonmyun is acutely reminded that he’s merely facing a person with Lu Han’s face in an alternate dimension. That smile hints at cruelty, and the beauty that has launched his journey to debut is twisted into something almost ugly. “I almost had Minseok at the festival, but you came in and meddled.”
“So it was you!” Joonmyun cries. “I knew you were familiar.”
“It’s such a coincidence that you were travelling with Kai,” Lu Han snarls. “Now I can eliminate two birds with one stone.”
Joonmyun’s hands clench at his side at the mention of Kai and the yarn ball makes a comeback, bigger than ever before. “Where is he?”
“You’re that keen on finding out where your precious Kai is?” Lu Han says with a smirk. “Well then, I’ll just throw you in with him.”
He snaps his fingers and a glowing portal opens in the middle of the room. Joonmyun can feel the aura tugging at him, trying to suck him in, but he resists, desperately scratching at the cold, stone floor. The force is too strong and it’s futile. He can only curl up on himself and be hurtled into the rip in the dimensions as Lu Han cackles.
Joonmyun hopes to never see this version of Lu Han ever again.
Joonmyun is thrown into a dungeon lighted only by a few weak candles. He falls onto his knees and the portal disappears, letting the dungeon fall into darkness once again.
A searing pain that shoots through his body forces him to clench his eyes shut. He feels like someone is ripping him apart as he feels himself being pulled in every direction. Every part of his body is sore, worse than anything he’s ever felt from the endless nights of dance practice.
All he wants to do is lie on the ground forever but a muffled cry makes him snap to attention.
The sight that greets him twists his heart, because Kai is shackled to the wall, a bundle of cloth in his mouth. His head hangs low, but when he hears Joonmyun approaching, he jerks his head up, rattling the chains desperately. Tied up like this, the boy loses all his hot headed confidence, leaving him with a beautiful vulnerability. In a flash of confusion, Joonmyun no longer sees Kai; this is Jongin.
He wills himself not to panic and rushes forward to pull the gag from Kai’s mouth.
“The shackles are locked,” Kai gasps out, tugging at the chains in vain. “You need to find a key.”
Joonmyun shakes his head. “I think these shackles are enchanted.” He inspects the shackles and finds no key hole, confirming his suspicions. “We need to break the spell.”
When he was younger, Joonmyun dreamed of being a writer. He used to come up with elaborate storylines involving princesses and dragons to act out to his adoring audience of one- his mother. It was during these plays that Joonmyun discovered his dream of being a star, so he still keeps the faded copies of the scribbles in a box under his bed. From what he sees, this universe is made out of fairy tales and pans out like the stories do. Joonmyun has to think, if this was a fairy tale, what would the hero do?
The answer lies in the notes.
Yixing’s sage advice floats up in his mind and Joonmyun forces himself to calm down and slowly think over the words. Answer lies in the notes. Notes.
Of course! Joonmyun runs his fingers over the metal and feels the faded scratches that he dismissed earlier. The lines form a pattern he knows too well, music already forming in his head. Suddenly, the meaning of Yixing’s words comes to him easily. It lies in the notes, the musical notes.
Joonmyun almost scoffs, because of all songs, it’s this one. He hasn’t heard this song for years, but the lyrics ring fresh in his mind. “I’ll save you,” he says, nodding determinedly to reassure Kai. He’s not sure whether this will work, but it’s worth a shot.
“I trust you.” Kai’s words are so earnest that Joonmyun has to close his eyes and breathe out, too overwhelmed with nerves and the pressure of saving him, “Because it’s you.”
It’s so easy to imagine Jongin saying the same, and this is all Joonmyun needs to go on. Joonmyun closes his eyes and sings.
Can it be I'm not meant to play this part? Now I see that if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family's heart.
The chains on Kai's hands turn as golden as the rays of sunset across the seas and melts into a trickling of sparkling dust, but Joonmyun has the song engraved in his heart.
When he was young, the song meant nothing to him. He just liked it for the melody, and the way the animated Mulan brushed her hair behind her ear. Now, he sees the song for what it is and it resonates in him, hitting the chords that he has tried to suppress for so long.
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?
"You're glowing." Kai's voice is tinged with awe, but nothing compares with the wonder that fills his face, transforming the hard lines into liquid warmth, making him seem more magnificent than ever. The light shines off Joonmyun, framing Kai's olive skin and caressing him like the afterglow of a million sunsets. Kai looks like a Greek god, bathed in an ethereal glow, but as beautiful as he is, he is not Jongin. Jongin has a tiny mole on the inside of his wrist. Jongin scrunches up his face when he's embarrassed and covers his face with his hands. Jongin sleepwalks through early mornings and yawns throughout the afternoon. Kai is perfect, smooth lines and sculpted beauty. Kai is not Jongin, therefore Kai is flawed.
Somehow I cannot hide who I am though I've tried.
Kai takes a step towards him and reaches out, his hand fluttering near Joonmyun’s face like he’s afraid to touch. "You have the most beautiful voice."
A beautiful voice. Joonmyun has been praised for many, many things. He grew up with middle-aged ladies cooing over his looks and pinching his cheeks. In high school, girls used to flutter around him because they knew he was a trainee. When was the last time someone actually sounded so sincere?
He feels a surge of confidence building in him, and his voice grows stronger.
When will my reflection show who I am aside?
“It’s working,” Kai yells in excitement as the brick walls of the dungeon crumble.
Joonmyun barely even notices, caught up in the song. It has been ages, maybe years, since he has felt like this. He used to enjoy performing, but somehow he has lost that joy in the past six years. He isn’t singing a song; the song is moving him. It’s a euphoria that he severely misses. Joonmyun has treaded carefully for so long but maybe he’s tired of living like he’s afraid of life.
“Bravo!” A voice calls out, cutting into Joonmyun’s performance. Taken off guard, Joonmyun stops singing and whips around, his heart in his throat and a thundering in his head.
“Are you leaving already?” Lu Han asks, surprised. He’s holding Minseok by the elbow, who looks as bewildered as Joonmyun feels. “I was about to let him go anyway.”
Minseok beams and offers an explanation without being prompted. "Luckily, Lu Han here offered to bring me to wherever I’m late to.” It seems like Lu Han has found a new target to obsess over and no longer cares for Kai. It’s eerily similar to how Lu Han and Kai used to be really close until Minseok came into the company and stole his attention away.
“If you were about to let me go,” Kai rubs at the red marks on his wrist, rubbed raw by the metal shackles. “Then what about the whips and the burning coal?”
Minseok visibly shrinks back at the mention of the whips but Lu Han is faster, reaching down to link their fingers together. He smiles kindly down at Minseok and looks a picture of innocence. “Kai is being silly. There was no such thing.”
“There was such a thing!” Kai snaps back, absolutely indignant. “You threatened to leave marks down my handsome back.”
Lu Han appears too distracted to bother coming up with a reply. He smiles at Minseok and magically procures a red apple from his coat pocket, shining it on his sleeve. "Want an apple?"
Joonmyun eyes the apple warily and holds up a palm in warning. "Minseok, please, don't eat anything that Lu Han offers you."
"You can eat me," Lu Han continues with a leer.
Minseok, for some unfathomable reason, actually seems charmed.
“Okaaaaaay, time to go.” If fairy tale universe Lu Han is anything like real life Lu Han, this would be a good cue to leave. He hurriedly tugs a spluttering Jongin out the door, but in his haste, fails to notice the trap door that was left open.
“Watch out!”
He sees Kai’s hand stretching out to catch him and then-
“Wake up, we’re going to be late for the management meeting!”
Joonmyun’s eyes fly open. Gone are the sculpted muscles and medieval clothes, this is his Jongin standing in front of him with messy bed hair and the crease of his pillow embedded into his cheek, growing more annoyed with each minute that Joonmyun isn’t getting out of bed.
"Oh, thank god," Joonmyun sits straight up and pulls Jongin down onto the bed, clinging to him and threading his fingers into Jongin's hair. He clenches around the strands so hard that Jongin's head is pulled back, drawing a cry of surprise from the other boy. "You’re you. I’m so glad you’re you. Don’t be anything but you."
Jongin is understandably bewildered at the sudden confession. He pats Joonmyun’s back awkwardly. “I’m glad you’re you too? Now get up, hyung. We’re up first.”
“You seem different this morning,” Jongin comments. He bounces on the balls of his feet as they wait outside the meeting room. From what Joonmyun understands, they are meeting the board of directors in pairs, a mere formality and a confirmation of their debut. Jongin must have expected that Joonmyun would be a bunch of nerves, but Joonmyun is surprisingly relaxed this morning. After scaling a wall and escaping from a dungeon, mere humans, no matter how high their position, don’t faze him.
Joonmyun hums nonchalantly and places a palm on the door, prepared to push it open. “Ready?”
Jongin nods, biting down on his bottom lip cutely. “I was born ready.”
Predictably, Jongin wows the management. Jongin is socially awkward and shrinks in on himself, but anyone can see the star potential just bubbling beneath the surface. His nervousness only makes him more appealing, because the most successful stars are those who are relatable.
After a long lecture about the responsibilities that lies with debut, the head executive stops to ask, “Do you have any suggestions for stage names?”
"Kai,” Joonmyun says immediately, “for Jongin.”
"Sorry?"
"Kai," Joonmyun repeats with more conviction. "It's a good name for Jongin. Sounds strong and impactful. You can't forget a name like that," he pauses and catches Jongin's curious gaze, keeping his voice steady but letting his eyes soften around the edges, "just like no one can forget you."
Jongin's reaction is almost comical in the way he wrinkles his nose and shrinks in on himself in mortification. Jongin is always so bad with receiving compliments. It's something he has to learn to deal with when they debut. Jongin is the face; he will receive many, many more compliments and an infinite amount of attention.
The executive nods approvingly and scribbles the name down, drawing three quick stars by the name to make a note. "How about yours, Joonmyun?"
"Suho," he says without hesitation.
Jongin blinks. "As in the guardian?"
"I'm the leader." Joonmyun says it with confidence and more than a hint of pride, and Jongin looks at him in surprise.
“Good, good,” the executive murmurs distractedly, already dismissing them in his mind. They are crucial to the whole plan, but what they have to say is barely relevant, even if everything falls down to their shoulders.
“Can you believe it? We’re finally debuting?” Jongin slumps against the wall as soon as they exit the room, knees weakening from the experience.
Biting down a smile, Joonmyun tugs him down the hallway. “Come on, we need to call Chanyeol and Kyungsoo in. They’re up next.”
Jongin's hand sneaks into his and he entwines their fingers together. "Hyung, our lives has just begun."
“Yeah.” Joonmyun tightens his grip and looks up at Jongin, at the boy who will stand with him on stage and feature in so many more of his memories. “And I’m glad you’re here to start it with me.”
Joonmyun has trained for all his life.
He hasn't learned to love himself, or to love others, but that's okay because it's the one thing that comes naturally.