(no subject)
Perhaps it’s a sign, then because knows he’s hit a button when Yugyeom laughs, a short, breathy sound that vanishes as suddenly as it’d come, before taking a deep breath and looking Jaebum straight in the eye, something dark and acidic simmering behind his eyes.
“Nothing,” he enunciates, perfectly clear and perfectly listless, then, like he’d etched out every letter of that word in his head and cleanly cut all emotion from it before permitting it to leave his lips. “Nothing, hyung. You did nothing.”
If it’d been anyone else, even without the undeniable hostility lining Yugyeom’s words, they would’ve left the situation as it was, satisfied with the insistence, several times, that they’d done nothing wrong, and it wasn’t their fault, because that’s inevitably all they’re concerned about. But Jaebum’s long learned that he has to listen to the words each of them blank out in every sentence, scratch off the tape they use to cover up what they really mean, and hear what Yugyeom means, not what he says.
So he takes a step back. Up to this point the leadership that’d been thrust forcefully upon him has been nothing but a series of manuals and sunbaes’ long-suffering advice, printed like instruction sheets on Jaebum’s mind till they’d been sure he’d never think of anything else, but now he fumbles for it, mind scrambling for directions and hitting dead ends every time he tries.
Nothing’s ever been said about what to do in a situation like this. No one’s ever told Jaebum what to do in the case that a team member lets slip a wound he’s been nursing since predebut, never taught him how to stop the blood and stitch the cut to make sure it never opens again. He’s teetering at the edge of a cliff, cornered, his only choices left to back down or take a step off the beaten path into the unknown.
Jaebum bites his lip. Maybe it’s good, then, for once, that he never backs down.
“Yugyeom,” he starts, and he can literally see the lights in Yugyeom’s eyes defuse, this terrible mixture of disappointment and fear and another sign he’s going to disappear again, further into that maze of his mind, lock himself in deeper down this time. So Jaebum reaches out, secures as firm a hold as he can manage before he lets that happen. “I have no idea what it is we’ve done that’s gotten you like this, but listen-…all I can say is I’m sorry, okay?”
Yugyeom looks ashamed, annoyed, and though Jaebum can feel the repulsion he knows that can only mean he’s getting closer.
“We were all idiots back then- we’re kids, just like you, and no matter how grown up any of us try to act we’re all still stupid and scared and people do really, really shitty things when they’re both of those combined,” Jaebum tries to phrase it properly- these are things he’s thought of but never said, not like Jinyoung, who can expound on the simplest idea in the most intricate ways. These are fears and regrets he’s kept at the back of his mind since the beginning of time because that’s what he does, that’s the only thing he knows how to do at times like these. “Look, whatever we’ve done- we’re not fit to be called your hyungs, we never deserved this title and we probably won’t for a long time. But we need you here with us. We’re not-…we’re not strong enough, not together and not alone, to face something like this, okay?”
“Then there’s nothing wrong, hyung,” Yugyeom says, voice level, calm, like it’s the solution to everything, because it has been for the past four years, for him, and for the rest of them. Pretend everything’s fine, pretend they don’t see the broken glass sticking out of skin or the twisted, broken bones so everything goes as smoothly as they need to pretend it to be.
Jaebum remembers, now, cornering Yugyeom half a year back, on a rare occasion like this, almost, about to demand an explanation for the blandness and lack of spirit Jaebum’d begun to feel spilling through his actions, and Jackson interrupting, halfway, troubled and tired and anxious.
“Just let him go,” Jackson had been muttering, eyes wide, like he was the one being scolded. “It’s such a small thing, he’s fine, why are you getting so hung up on this?”
But that was exactly what Yugyeom had wanted them to think, Jaebum realises. That he was nothing but a small thing, that he didn’t warrant any of their attention, good or bad, and the further they left him alone, the further he drifted into the periphery of their hearts and minds, rotting, comfortable and isolated.
So Jaebum doesn’t let him go this time.
“No, you can’t think that way, are you listening?” Jaebum keeps his voice down, channels the urge in his voice to concern rather than anger. “Things people leave unfixed for years and just let sit there, we can’t, you might think it’s fine and as long as you keep it to yourself it’ll be fine and it won’t affect anyone else but it will, get it? Because these things are going to just keep growing and one day they’re going to break us because we’re not strong enough to handle something like this okay?”
“This isn’t about any of you,” Yugyeom bites out sorely, because that’d been the driving point of his entire act, to make sure, all these years, that none of them ever had anything to do with him.
“No, it isn’t,” Jaebum says firmly. “It’s about us, Yugyeom. All of us. Predebut was different-…we’re here now. Things are different.”
“Okay,” Yugyeom deadpans. “That’s fair.”
“Fair?” Jaebum frowns. “Look, we promised each other, Yugyeom, we need all of us to pull through this together, remember? As long as someone’s not with us, we’re nothing, understand?”
“Could’ve thought of that three years ago,” Yugyeom almost spits it out, and though half of Jaebum’s anxious, tempted to rear up and bite back with his own arguments, the other half that’s concerned is relieved to finally get a reaction out of the maknae.
“Three years ago?” Jaebum presses on, unshaking. “What is this about?”
Yugyeom scoffs, a short, choking sound of disbelief, and it’s only because Jaebum’s watching carefully that he sees the way the younger boy’s gaze spins across the room, as if to say what do you think? why the hell do you think I’m here?
And in one sickening, trainwreck moment, Jaebum thinks he finally understands.
You did nothing.
Of course.
Of course, they did nothing. They hadn’t done anything after Yugyeom fell all those years ago, hadn’t done anything while their management shot frustrated, despairing looks in the maknae’s direction after the accident, barely bothering to hide annoyed sighs at the stress of reconfiguration and possibility of a delayed debut, hadn’t done anything about the bags that appeared under Yugyeom’s eyes after countless sleepless nights spent worrying about their future and how it was his fault, his fault everything was going wrong because he’d fallen and none of them had been around to pick him up.
It’s in this moment Jaebum realises Yugyeom hadn’t just fallen the night he broke his ankle- he’d fallen every day, every second after that night, hitting rock bottom and shattering every time someone else managed to convince him it was his fault for endangering the group, and the rest of them had done nothing about it.
(Maybe because they’d believed it was his fault too.)
It’d been easy to think that way, easy to stack one fear on top of another until it towered, then push it on the nearest excuse that came along so it crushed them, so with every bone broken in their body it felt like redemption.
And maybe it’d been the worst with Jaebum- the Jaebum of the past, whose temper flared painfully easily, who let nothing stand in the way of his pride and his dreams, who’d seen what would possibly be his second and last chance for fame snap as tangibly as the bone in Yugyeom’s leg had.
It’s such a crazy thought it winds Jaebum, leaves him reeling at the magnitude of it, and he wonders for a moment how that must’ve felt, must’ve tasted, recycled anger and confusion and hatred simmering silently for years at the back of your throat. In that moment he doesn’t have an idea what to say to something like that, because there’s no explanation to neatly tie up as frayed a knot as this, nothing to cauterise a wound that’s been torn open so wide.
“Is that what this is about?” he asks quietly, and Yugyeom flinches so visibly Jaebum feels the fear roll off his skin in waves.
Yugyeom isn’t afraid of isolation, Jaebum had realised long ago. He gets too much of that on a daily basis to still fear it with the same tenacity he’d had predebut- it must feel like a whip on old scars, by now. Instead, he’s afraid of intimacy, terrified of the idea someone might ever be able to understand his heart and mind with even half the clarity he does. People like Youngjae, Jackson, pour their souls out through their words and expressions, doors to their hearts wide open for anyone who might pass and be entranced enough to try and enter, but people like Yugyeom handle the interest of people in them like a flame in both hands, desperate to be rid of it and feeling dully bereft of its warmth when it’s gone.
Jaebum needs time to think, structure his thoughts, because one wrong word could send those doors, now forced open by a tiny crack, slamming back shut, locks tightening further than they’d been before.
So he gestures, the sign barely there, as he sits cross-legged on the mat, for the maknae to follow suit, and Yugyeom predictably obeys. He waits until they’re both comfortably seated before talking again, pulling thoughts one by one from the web in his head, trying to fuse them into a coherent idea.
“Hey,” he says it only after a while, dragging the pads of his finger along the rough surface of the mat, unsure if what he’s about to say next is right, or even acceptable. “You know what I felt about Youngjae, back when he first came in?”
Yugyeom shrugs, averting his eyes.
“I was pissed as hell he existed,” Jaebum lets out a rough laugh, lowering his head sheepishly. “I thought we were good as we were, you know? Heck, I thought I was good with Jinyoung. The idea someone else was going to come in, someone who hadn’t put in half the effort I did and was going to debut on the same platform, just pissed me off, you know?”
Yugyeom doesn’t move- this isn’t something he’s been programmed to respond to. But that just spurs Jaebum on all the more to keep talking.
“The thing is,” Jaebum leans back, letting his arms support him on the mat, as if talking about the weather or the food they’d had today. “I didn’t just hate him. I hated Mark when he got to act in Dream High 2 with us even though he didn’t have to go through the whole process of the Open Audition. I hated Jackson for getting along so well with the staff and the rest of you guys even though he couldn’t speak a drop of Korean and just got here from Hong Kong, and the fact he won an Olympic medal just made things ten times worse, you know? Hell, I hated Bambam for getting attention from all the staff wherever he went for his dancing and how cute he was. I was jealous of a kid, Yugyeom, that’s how far gone I was,” he rolls his eyes, glancing over to see Yugyeom eyeing him warily, wound further with every word, as if waiting for the catch. When he speaks next, his words come out slower on their own, softer, as if reminiscing a good memory. “And of course there was you, this crazy talented freestyle specialist with an underground crew behind you and a dance competition title at the age of fourteen and I hated that the most, because I felt like I was supposed to be the only one like that, you know?”
“I’m nothing compared to you,” Yugyeom says dutifully, but Jaebum sees him accepting the praise with a sliver of embarrassed happiness- dancing’s the only thing he can truly claim to be proud of.
“Please, you were a threat,” Jaebum scoffs. “The only threat. The stuff we do now is commercial garbage compared to what both of us did back then, and at the time we started training together I felt like-…like you were the only other one who actually got the whole art of it, of dancing, you know?” this is something he’d never imagined himself saying, something he’s never discussed good and proper with the other artists in the company, other than Junho and a couple of their choreographers. Jaebum sighs, picking a bit of lint off the mat. “All that time I spent pissed and sulking and hating everyone I was introduced to, especially you guys- I was an asshole.”
For a moment it’s like Jaebum can’t even hear Yugyeom breathe- forced into this terrible suspense for the conclusion that the older boy’s driving at with all these sudden confessions of hatred.
So sudden, in fact, that Jaebum’s still familiarising himself with the taste of this new idea when he speaks next.
“And now I’d give up my life for every single one of you,” the thought sounds funny in words, when it’s been nothing but a hum of a promise and a feeling at the back of his mind, the foundation upon which he operates on a daily basis to keep them all together, keep them pulling forward. Keep him reaching out to those who rush ahead too fast, burning themselves out, and to those who get left behind and don’t dare to say a word, not for fear that the rest won’t wait, but for fear that they will.
Yugyeom doesn’t speak, but Jaebum can feel his eyes on the side of his face, watching him cautiously, studying him for any signs of a lie. But for some strange reason Jaebum feels completely relaxed, and he wonders, for a brief moment, when he’d come to terms with that truth himself too, to be able to confess it so readily.
“What I’m saying,” he pulls together the threads of conversation they’ve been having, trying to wrap it all together with the coherency and thoughtfulness that takes grown adults years of struggling to hone. “People can change if you let them, you know? Things can change. For the better. I’m not asking you to suddenly find it within you to forgive us but at least-…” Jaebum winces, trying not to push too hard. “You could try to give us a chance?”
Yugyeom looks cornered, for a moment, and that’s the last thing Jaebum wants so he backpedals, takes the heat off him immediately.
“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” he says quickly. “Just, you know, give it some thought, okay?”
“No, I-…” Yugyeom says, looking surprised himself at how he’d refuted that statement, before he lowers his head in shame. “Thank you hyung.”
Jaebum looks over, surprised, feeling the hints of a relieved smile tug at the edges of his mouth.
“Thank you,” he says, after a minute or so, and Yugyeom barely looks up, peeking through the fading indigo strands of hair, damaged and dry from constant treatment. “For trying.”
*
It’s 2am when the two of them stumble in, shivering from the post-winter chill and sticky with drying perspiration and panting from the impromptu race up the stairs Jaebum had initiated. Jinyoung is concerned for about 0.2 seconds in which he hauls them bodily towards him to check if anyone’s sick or injured or not very sane, after which he hits them both hard enough to bruise on the shoulder.
“Where-were-you,” Jinyoung hisses, while both (notably more physically equipped to inflict pain) boys hang their heads in uncomfortable shame. “Im Jaebum, do you have any idea what time it is and what time we have to get up tomorrow-…”
“It was my fault,” Yugyeom says quickly, quailing slightly when Jinyoung turns the entirety of his furious gaze upon him.
“And you, don’t think that just because you’re turning eighteen, you get the right to go wherever you like whenever you like,” Jinyoung says in a harsh, low tone, before turning back to Jaebum. “Explain yourself.”
The two of them stand in awkward, shifty-eyed silence for about a minute more, before Jaebum (reaches up and) wraps an arm around Yugyeom’s shoulder, chuckling nervously.
“We were just,” he gestures vaguely, and Yugyeom winces, before looking aside to roll his eyes slightly. “Talking. About things.”
“You smell like gym mats,” Jinyoung squints, before the look in his eyes softens. “Oh.”
“That’s your cue,” Jaebum shoves Yugyeom towards the bathroom. “Don’t use up all the hot water, kid.”
“’M not a kid,” Yugyeom mumbles, turning for a moment to stick out his tongue in their direction, and Jaebum lets out a relieved, breathy laugh.
He’s glad Jinyoung waits till Yugyeom’s disappeared into the washroom and the sound of the shower’s started before turning to him, eyes wide with concern.
“Well, how’d it go?”
So much for keeping it a secret, Jaebum thinks, but Jinyoung has the right to at least know, if he’s picked up on what’d happened already.
“I think,” Jaebum tugs down his sleeves unconcernedly, before lifting the overshirt off his head and turning to face Jinyoung with a slight smile. “It turned out the best way we could’ve hoped for, I guess.”
“How did you do it?” Jinyoung folds his arms across his chest, lower lip jutting out in a pout. “I’ve been trying to get him to open up about that for the past year, he hasn’t said a word.”
“Maybe it’s just me,” Jaebum says, with a perfectly straight face, and Jinyoung slaps him hard, on the other shoulder this time. “Ow, what was that for-…”
“Pity, at this rate you won’t be able to wear all those sleeveless denim vests for that photoshoot we have to wake up early for tomorrow,” Jinyoung shoots back, before the shower shuts off, and he turns his attention back to the bathroom, voice considerably softer when he speaks next. “I’m glad he’s okay.”
“Glad to know I hold a special place in your heart as well,” Jaebum mutters, nursing his arm, and Jinyoung scoffs.
“Congratulations, hyung,” Jinyoung rolls his eyes, eyeing Jaebum’s expectant gaze with some level of derision. “And fine, thank you,” he glances over at the bathroom again, sighing. “I was really starting to get worried.”
“The kid’s tougher than he looks,” Jaebum lets out a soft laugh. “He’s going to be fine.”
There’s an etch in Jinyoung’s brow that doesn’t let up over the next few minutes, so Jaebum rests a hand on his shoulder, fingers rubbing soothing patterns into his back, smiling at the semi-annoyed, semi-pleased look on the other boy’s face, before speaking again.
“We’re all going to be fine,” he says absently, lifting his hand as the bathroom door opens and Yugyeom wanders out, rubbing a towel into his hair and blinking sleepily, mouth already opening in a yawn. “If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about a thing.”