moving on isn't forgetting (it's accepting)
moving on isn't forgetting (it's accepting)
1,449w; pg (kiseop-centric, soohyun/kiseop)
it was never kiseop's job to answer questions.
a/n: fail!angst feat. kiseop orz. this was supposed to be a drabble, but it got kind of longer than i thought it would be.
are you ready?
he hears it before every performance, every press conference, and every morning when they leave the dorm. it’s a question asking for an answer, but he’s never the one to answer it because it’s not his job. he doesn’t mind that he’s brushed off, just smiles and nods and pretends it never hurts.
it’s four years into his career, when soohyun asks him and only him the question for the first and last time that kiseop realizes he never really had an answer for it.
standing under the bright lights and putting the best foot forward was never how he envisioned his life ten years ago but he quite likes how it turned out. he likes the way the fans scream when he introduces himself, the way the spotlights blind him after three short minutes on stage.
sometimes he lays awake in bed at night, exhausted to the point where even sleep won’t help anything. he lays awake, trying to remember why he tried so hard to make it, why he almost gave up on life over it, when he only gets a handful of lines in their songs.
there are times when silence hangs over them all at night before they head to sleep. it’s not total silence, he can still hear the tv blaring, but noise is muffled and ignored next to the deeper and bigger things.
thoughts.
he wishes they could just keep talking and laughing and forgetting that there are two holes that were filled but never quite patched up, that there are take sevens and awards from taiwan but never one from korea.
he is usually the one who goes to bed first because he never was really good with tension, but sleep is hard to come by when his own thoughts plague him too.
there are never any windows in the practice rooms and it is a kind of torturous protection as they dance and dance and dance. seven sweaty boys and a manager who sweats with them all suffer but they keep pushing until everything is so sore that it doesn’t hurt anymore.
“they should’ve put some kind of ventilation system in here, at least.” kevin leans on eli and dongho even though that makes everything stickier. aj hands him a bottle of water and kiseop chugs the whole thing. his eyes are on soohyun, who insists he doesn’t need a break. it’s a lie, and one of the worst ones that he uses over and over again, to the point that it’s not really dishonesty anymore.
step. spin, spin, spin, right left right. “would it kill them to put some windows in here? we’re not really popular, anyway.” right - no. left right left left.
it’s a joke, but one of the worst ones. kiseop pretends that he didn’t notice soohyun’s misstep and that he doesn’t think that being number one is out of their reach.
(their eyes meet a little later when their toes accidently touch and they can’t really deny that they know each other’s minds a little too well for normalcy.)
he remembers a time when they didn’t really care, when he didn’t have to hurt by himself. it was when a boy with a crooked smile held his hand in his while they watched the polluted night sky for stars but couldn’t find any.
“can we stay like this forever?” he remembers asking soohyun. the sticky sweet of the summer air was almost gone, both heads of hair stiff and coarse from blonde dye. soohyun just turned toward him so there were no spaces between them and no doubts.
“forever.”
soohyun promises and runs a hand through the inky black sky. he threads it with kiseop’s and kiseop believes forever is all theirs in that moment.
(he points out a star blinking in the night sky and would like to claim it as their very own, but it turns out to be an airplane.)
they stopped caring about the sky after winter came and froze the breaths and beating hearts between them.
kiseop wakes up early somedays. earlier than soohyun, earlier than the sun, so early because sleep never comes.
sleep never comes but the pain does and kiseop hides in the cramped half bathroom no one likes to use because they can barely turn around in it.
“kiseop.”
he doesn’t know why soohyun’s talking to him now, why they need to talk, why he needs to care when he should be worrying about the comeback stage next week and singing his heart out. he smiles in reply and turns around to face the older boy, the handsome face that won’t dare to look in mirrors full-on creased with worried lines.
“is something wrong?”
everything.
“no. why do you ask?”
soohyun doesn’t tell him the reason and kiseop doesn’t know why everyone is giving him the same worried glance they usually reserve for dongho until he sees the bags under his eyes.
(dongho has a special glance for him now too and kiseop tells himself to be a little better though he’s not sure where to start.)
kiseop does not think he’s an unhappy person.
he’s happy a lot, actually. happy too much of the time to be seen as unhappy in his eyes. smiling and laughing aren’t things he finds hard so he does them often, genuinely.
the problem, he thinks, is that happiness isn’t hard to come by, it’s just hard to keep around.
“do you think we’ll win?”
aj sighs as he collapses onto the bed. kiseop thinks he’s ignoring the question as he watches him close his eyes and decides against repeating it when the younger boy answers.
“winning or not winning - it doesn’t matter to me.” his left eye is cracked open, meeting kiseop’s in a peripheral glance before closing it again.
the night passes and kiseop can hear quiet aj’s breaths settle into a deep slumber.
(he wonders why he cannot be more like aj, but then remembers that it’s not the same. aj is stronger and happier while kiseop only pretends to mirror it.)
next week comes and they wait, wait, wait.
the month ends. they do not win.
standing under the bright lights and putting the best foot forward was never how he envisioned his life ten years ago and he wonders if he’s wasting his time or chasing a dream. he wonders as the fans scream when he introduces himself, as the spotlights blind him after three short minutes on stage.
he lays awake in bed every night now, exhausted to the point where even sleep won’t help anything.
he lays awake and realizes that he’s had enough.
“this life isn’t really for me.”
he breaks the news to soohyun first because soohyun is their leader. he wishes he could call him something more, but the memories are only memories and worthlessly pale compared to the future.
soohyun isn’t happy. he can tell by the way his lips are pressed into a thin line, the way his eyes are wet though kiseop wants to ask him why they have to be when he was the one who did the breaking.
he asks questions (why do you want to do this? is it because you think we can’t win? is it because of the haters?). kiseop doesn’t reply.
(it never was his job to answer the questions anyway.)
“are you sure you want to do this?”
it isn’t until soohyun takes a shaky, watery sigh and puts his hand on kiseop’s shoulder that he bothers to answer.
“yes.”
(i just want to be happy.)
are you ready?
he’s heard it before every performance, every press conference, and every morning when they left the dorm. a probing question asking for an answer, but he was never the one to answer it. he never really did mind that he was brushed off, just smiled and nodded and pretended it never hurt.
he didn’t ask to give his own official statement or for the reporters and critics rolling their eyes with a here we go again. soohyun gives him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulders and kiseop wishes that he could borrow some of the older boy’s strength.
he realizes he still doesn’t have an answer for the question and feels a little regret because it is the last time he will ever have to hear it.
(but maybe that’s why he’s leaving. so he can find his own answers.)
kiseop smiles and steps out to greet the lights. it is the end of a beginning, but a beginning in an end.
he’s not sure, but he thinks that this might’ve been what he was searching for all along.
1,449w; pg (kiseop-centric, soohyun/kiseop)
it was never kiseop's job to answer questions.
a/n: fail!angst feat. kiseop orz. this was supposed to be a drabble, but it got kind of longer than i thought it would be.
are you ready?
he hears it before every performance, every press conference, and every morning when they leave the dorm. it’s a question asking for an answer, but he’s never the one to answer it because it’s not his job. he doesn’t mind that he’s brushed off, just smiles and nods and pretends it never hurts.
it’s four years into his career, when soohyun asks him and only him the question for the first and last time that kiseop realizes he never really had an answer for it.
standing under the bright lights and putting the best foot forward was never how he envisioned his life ten years ago but he quite likes how it turned out. he likes the way the fans scream when he introduces himself, the way the spotlights blind him after three short minutes on stage.
sometimes he lays awake in bed at night, exhausted to the point where even sleep won’t help anything. he lays awake, trying to remember why he tried so hard to make it, why he almost gave up on life over it, when he only gets a handful of lines in their songs.
there are times when silence hangs over them all at night before they head to sleep. it’s not total silence, he can still hear the tv blaring, but noise is muffled and ignored next to the deeper and bigger things.
thoughts.
he wishes they could just keep talking and laughing and forgetting that there are two holes that were filled but never quite patched up, that there are take sevens and awards from taiwan but never one from korea.
he is usually the one who goes to bed first because he never was really good with tension, but sleep is hard to come by when his own thoughts plague him too.
there are never any windows in the practice rooms and it is a kind of torturous protection as they dance and dance and dance. seven sweaty boys and a manager who sweats with them all suffer but they keep pushing until everything is so sore that it doesn’t hurt anymore.
“they should’ve put some kind of ventilation system in here, at least.” kevin leans on eli and dongho even though that makes everything stickier. aj hands him a bottle of water and kiseop chugs the whole thing. his eyes are on soohyun, who insists he doesn’t need a break. it’s a lie, and one of the worst ones that he uses over and over again, to the point that it’s not really dishonesty anymore.
step. spin, spin, spin, right left right. “would it kill them to put some windows in here? we’re not really popular, anyway.” right - no. left right left left.
it’s a joke, but one of the worst ones. kiseop pretends that he didn’t notice soohyun’s misstep and that he doesn’t think that being number one is out of their reach.
(their eyes meet a little later when their toes accidently touch and they can’t really deny that they know each other’s minds a little too well for normalcy.)
he remembers a time when they didn’t really care, when he didn’t have to hurt by himself. it was when a boy with a crooked smile held his hand in his while they watched the polluted night sky for stars but couldn’t find any.
“can we stay like this forever?” he remembers asking soohyun. the sticky sweet of the summer air was almost gone, both heads of hair stiff and coarse from blonde dye. soohyun just turned toward him so there were no spaces between them and no doubts.
“forever.”
soohyun promises and runs a hand through the inky black sky. he threads it with kiseop’s and kiseop believes forever is all theirs in that moment.
(he points out a star blinking in the night sky and would like to claim it as their very own, but it turns out to be an airplane.)
they stopped caring about the sky after winter came and froze the breaths and beating hearts between them.
kiseop wakes up early somedays. earlier than soohyun, earlier than the sun, so early because sleep never comes.
sleep never comes but the pain does and kiseop hides in the cramped half bathroom no one likes to use because they can barely turn around in it.
“kiseop.”
he doesn’t know why soohyun’s talking to him now, why they need to talk, why he needs to care when he should be worrying about the comeback stage next week and singing his heart out. he smiles in reply and turns around to face the older boy, the handsome face that won’t dare to look in mirrors full-on creased with worried lines.
“is something wrong?”
everything.
“no. why do you ask?”
soohyun doesn’t tell him the reason and kiseop doesn’t know why everyone is giving him the same worried glance they usually reserve for dongho until he sees the bags under his eyes.
(dongho has a special glance for him now too and kiseop tells himself to be a little better though he’s not sure where to start.)
kiseop does not think he’s an unhappy person.
he’s happy a lot, actually. happy too much of the time to be seen as unhappy in his eyes. smiling and laughing aren’t things he finds hard so he does them often, genuinely.
the problem, he thinks, is that happiness isn’t hard to come by, it’s just hard to keep around.
“do you think we’ll win?”
aj sighs as he collapses onto the bed. kiseop thinks he’s ignoring the question as he watches him close his eyes and decides against repeating it when the younger boy answers.
“winning or not winning - it doesn’t matter to me.” his left eye is cracked open, meeting kiseop’s in a peripheral glance before closing it again.
the night passes and kiseop can hear quiet aj’s breaths settle into a deep slumber.
(he wonders why he cannot be more like aj, but then remembers that it’s not the same. aj is stronger and happier while kiseop only pretends to mirror it.)
next week comes and they wait, wait, wait.
the month ends. they do not win.
standing under the bright lights and putting the best foot forward was never how he envisioned his life ten years ago and he wonders if he’s wasting his time or chasing a dream. he wonders as the fans scream when he introduces himself, as the spotlights blind him after three short minutes on stage.
he lays awake in bed every night now, exhausted to the point where even sleep won’t help anything.
he lays awake and realizes that he’s had enough.
“this life isn’t really for me.”
he breaks the news to soohyun first because soohyun is their leader. he wishes he could call him something more, but the memories are only memories and worthlessly pale compared to the future.
soohyun isn’t happy. he can tell by the way his lips are pressed into a thin line, the way his eyes are wet though kiseop wants to ask him why they have to be when he was the one who did the breaking.
he asks questions (why do you want to do this? is it because you think we can’t win? is it because of the haters?). kiseop doesn’t reply.
(it never was his job to answer the questions anyway.)
“are you sure you want to do this?”
it isn’t until soohyun takes a shaky, watery sigh and puts his hand on kiseop’s shoulder that he bothers to answer.
“yes.”
(i just want to be happy.)
are you ready?
he’s heard it before every performance, every press conference, and every morning when they left the dorm. a probing question asking for an answer, but he was never the one to answer it. he never really did mind that he was brushed off, just smiled and nodded and pretended it never hurt.
he didn’t ask to give his own official statement or for the reporters and critics rolling their eyes with a here we go again. soohyun gives him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulders and kiseop wishes that he could borrow some of the older boy’s strength.
he realizes he still doesn’t have an answer for the question and feels a little regret because it is the last time he will ever have to hear it.
(but maybe that’s why he’s leaving. so he can find his own answers.)
kiseop smiles and steps out to greet the lights. it is the end of a beginning, but a beginning in an end.
he’s not sure, but he thinks that this might’ve been what he was searching for all along.