[ys] Between The Lines
A/N: I have written this type of fic over and over and over again. But I just couldn't help myself, following the feeling. Enjoy.
P.S: Is everyone here as proud as I am of Seo-hyun for writing such a gorgeous song?
---
The call comes on a Thursday night, much too late.
Jung Yong-hwa is half-asleep when he picks up, the words of instinctive greeting catching and twisting on his tongue, but it is the sound of sobbing that wakes him up quickly.
“Hello?” He has a feeling who it is, but still he hesitates.
The sobbing gets faster, stronger and more out of control and he can’t hold back the instinctive name on his lips. “Joo-hyun?”
Her breath hitches as she evidently attempts to get a hold of herself but even over their poor connection, he can hear her burst out in spite of herself, coughing and choking and he sits up abruptly in bed, fully awake now. “Joo-hyun. Hey, hey.”
In the bed beside him, he can see Jong-hyun stir at his voice, eyes still closed, and he throws off the covers, heading for the bathroom of their hotel room. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the red illuminated numbers of the clock on the bedside. 2 am, Philippines time and 3 am, Korean time for her, and he imagines her schedule, perhaps a taping late at night.
All the while, she cries in his ear, and his heart clenches as he shuts the bathroom door behind him.
“Hey, hey, Joo-hyun.” He says this softly, and if the words come out tender, he can’t help himself. “Don’t cry.”
The words are laughably useless even to him, but he says them anyway, casting them out as a line, linking the two of them over the seas. He presses his back against the cool ceramic tiles of the bathroom, sliding down easily to sit in the floor and his fingers of his free hand curl into his palms.
There are not enough words in a song to describe how he would fly home, right now this moment, to be beside her, to touch her shoulder, to draw her into a hug, to smooth away her tears and so Jung Yong-hwa waits, helplessly.
He doesn’t even know what he says in the meantime over the line over her tears; nonsense words, soothing, murmuring, washing over her until her sobs subside into hiccups but his heart doesn’t relax.
“I’m sorry, oppa.” Are the first intelligible words he can make out from her, and he bites back a sigh-that is so Seo Joo-hyun, to apologize for breaking down, for actually being human. But he lets it slide, because he understands that this is Joo-hyun, and people will always be who they are. Besides, there is the faintest tickle of gladness and pleasure in the underside of his heart that it is him who Joo-hyun has chosen to call, to show the cracks in her normally imperturbable exterior to.
“You don’t have to apologize, Joo-hyuy.” He slips a little into his satoori, both consciously and unconsciously. He can’t help it; that hometown accent only shows itself under moments of great emotion and this is definitely one of those moments where he wants so badly to understand, to empathize as if that kind of empathy will link them, will take some of the pain away from her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
There is silence on her end of the line and for a brief heart-stopping moment, Yong-hwa is afraid that Seo-hyun will come crashing back down, that it will be Seo-hyun who will answer coolly that she is fine, who will apologize for the sudden outburst and the late night call and put down with a few good wishes for the concert in Manila. He doesn’t want that.
He wants Joo-hyun, who placed the overseas phone call to him at 3am in the morning, who cried hopelessly over a crackling connection, who didn’t care what she sounded like in front of him.
But then she starts to talk, hesitatingly at first, as if finding the words for herself and his heart relaxes.
It is nothing particularly serious-in the sense that it is not that anyone is sick or severely injured. But it is serious in its own right, and Yong-hwa listens to her intently for a few minutes.
“I’m afraid, oppa.” She says quietly. “I’m afraid one day, I’ll wake up and hate myself. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I get onstage and I look at it all and I wonder what I’m doing here. I’m afraid that someday in the near future, I’ll look at all I’ve done and wish that I had gone a completely different way-the normal way.” Her voice catches; she is becoming teary again and it feels like a fist is closing around Yong-hwa’s heart. “I’m afraid that I’ll regret this part of my life and… I don’t want that.”
What Joo-hyun is feeling is not uncommon. Yong-hwa has felt it before himself, and close friends in the industry have confided something similar to him. There is a term for this: a burn out, when the lights and screams become dull background noise and they begin to wonder what exactly it is they are doing. Different people deal with it differently; some people drink it away, some people take a break. For Yong-hwa, he tries to take it a day at a time, letting the little things like listening to a live concert or spending time with family and friends remind him of who he is and what he chose. It works for him.
He is sure Joo-hyun has experienced moments like this before; she is after all a sunbae to him in this industry. But he doesn’t question why she is turning to him. The important thing is that she is.
“I know the feeling.” He says. “Your fear is real, and I wish I could say more than I know, but I know.” He pauses to let the words sink in and her silence is proof that she’s listening. “But you don’t have to be afraid of yourself, Joo-hyun. Maybe in the future, you will wonder why didn’t you do something different. Maybe you will hate this part of your life. Maybe.”
“There’s so much we can’t know or control about the future. The important thing now is to do what you think is best.” He says slowly, thinking hard, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe in the future it will seem dumb and stupid. But to me at least, what matters is doing what I believe in, right now, so that I never leave room for regrets.”
She is completely quiet now, and he is grateful for that because hearing Joo-hyun cry is heartbreaking enough without even seeing it. He can practically hear her turning over his words in her mind and that provokes a smile from him, because that is Joo-hyun, giving her serious thought in everything, from song-writing to even insufficient, though heartfelt advice like this.
She makes a soft humming noise on her end of the line, and he grips his phone tightly, because he still wishes he could be there to give her that hug she deserves. He’ll probably never get that chance; the next time he’ll probably see her will probably be backstage at some international Korean music concert, too chaotic for him to do anything but wave at her briefly or do a fist pump to encourage her from afar.
It’s always distance between them, he thinks wryly. Physical distance, emotional distance like in mildang or in jondaemal. He is always too far from her, further than he likes.
It won’t stop him from trying though.
“Thank you, oppa.” He can hear traces of self-consciousness creeping back into her voice and he simultaneously wants to tell her to stop but also to stay silent, because that’s just what he likes about Seo Joo-hyun. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I know you have your concert in Philippines tomorrow.”
He bites back the it’s okay, I was awake anyway on the tip of his tongue. “No, I’m glad you woke me up. I’m glad you called.”
His admission is softly spoken, but it hangs there between the two of them, the blinding honesty and sincerity with which he has made that confession a physical weight between the two of them, but it is comfortable rather than awkward. He can practically hear her smiling over the line, and it makes him smile too.
“I’m glad I called too.” She hesitates, before taking the plunge, responding with the same kind of honesty. “You always know how to make me feel better.”
“That’s all I want.” He closes his eyes, resting against the bathroom wall. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine her better, sitting on her bed in her dorm, sitting cross-legged talking to him and he likes that image. “For you to feel better.”
P.S: Is everyone here as proud as I am of Seo-hyun for writing such a gorgeous song?
---
The call comes on a Thursday night, much too late.
Jung Yong-hwa is half-asleep when he picks up, the words of instinctive greeting catching and twisting on his tongue, but it is the sound of sobbing that wakes him up quickly.
“Hello?” He has a feeling who it is, but still he hesitates.
The sobbing gets faster, stronger and more out of control and he can’t hold back the instinctive name on his lips. “Joo-hyun?”
Her breath hitches as she evidently attempts to get a hold of herself but even over their poor connection, he can hear her burst out in spite of herself, coughing and choking and he sits up abruptly in bed, fully awake now. “Joo-hyun. Hey, hey.”
In the bed beside him, he can see Jong-hyun stir at his voice, eyes still closed, and he throws off the covers, heading for the bathroom of their hotel room. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the red illuminated numbers of the clock on the bedside. 2 am, Philippines time and 3 am, Korean time for her, and he imagines her schedule, perhaps a taping late at night.
All the while, she cries in his ear, and his heart clenches as he shuts the bathroom door behind him.
“Hey, hey, Joo-hyun.” He says this softly, and if the words come out tender, he can’t help himself. “Don’t cry.”
The words are laughably useless even to him, but he says them anyway, casting them out as a line, linking the two of them over the seas. He presses his back against the cool ceramic tiles of the bathroom, sliding down easily to sit in the floor and his fingers of his free hand curl into his palms.
There are not enough words in a song to describe how he would fly home, right now this moment, to be beside her, to touch her shoulder, to draw her into a hug, to smooth away her tears and so Jung Yong-hwa waits, helplessly.
He doesn’t even know what he says in the meantime over the line over her tears; nonsense words, soothing, murmuring, washing over her until her sobs subside into hiccups but his heart doesn’t relax.
“I’m sorry, oppa.” Are the first intelligible words he can make out from her, and he bites back a sigh-that is so Seo Joo-hyun, to apologize for breaking down, for actually being human. But he lets it slide, because he understands that this is Joo-hyun, and people will always be who they are. Besides, there is the faintest tickle of gladness and pleasure in the underside of his heart that it is him who Joo-hyun has chosen to call, to show the cracks in her normally imperturbable exterior to.
“You don’t have to apologize, Joo-hyuy.” He slips a little into his satoori, both consciously and unconsciously. He can’t help it; that hometown accent only shows itself under moments of great emotion and this is definitely one of those moments where he wants so badly to understand, to empathize as if that kind of empathy will link them, will take some of the pain away from her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
There is silence on her end of the line and for a brief heart-stopping moment, Yong-hwa is afraid that Seo-hyun will come crashing back down, that it will be Seo-hyun who will answer coolly that she is fine, who will apologize for the sudden outburst and the late night call and put down with a few good wishes for the concert in Manila. He doesn’t want that.
He wants Joo-hyun, who placed the overseas phone call to him at 3am in the morning, who cried hopelessly over a crackling connection, who didn’t care what she sounded like in front of him.
But then she starts to talk, hesitatingly at first, as if finding the words for herself and his heart relaxes.
It is nothing particularly serious-in the sense that it is not that anyone is sick or severely injured. But it is serious in its own right, and Yong-hwa listens to her intently for a few minutes.
“I’m afraid, oppa.” She says quietly. “I’m afraid one day, I’ll wake up and hate myself. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I get onstage and I look at it all and I wonder what I’m doing here. I’m afraid that someday in the near future, I’ll look at all I’ve done and wish that I had gone a completely different way-the normal way.” Her voice catches; she is becoming teary again and it feels like a fist is closing around Yong-hwa’s heart. “I’m afraid that I’ll regret this part of my life and… I don’t want that.”
What Joo-hyun is feeling is not uncommon. Yong-hwa has felt it before himself, and close friends in the industry have confided something similar to him. There is a term for this: a burn out, when the lights and screams become dull background noise and they begin to wonder what exactly it is they are doing. Different people deal with it differently; some people drink it away, some people take a break. For Yong-hwa, he tries to take it a day at a time, letting the little things like listening to a live concert or spending time with family and friends remind him of who he is and what he chose. It works for him.
He is sure Joo-hyun has experienced moments like this before; she is after all a sunbae to him in this industry. But he doesn’t question why she is turning to him. The important thing is that she is.
“I know the feeling.” He says. “Your fear is real, and I wish I could say more than I know, but I know.” He pauses to let the words sink in and her silence is proof that she’s listening. “But you don’t have to be afraid of yourself, Joo-hyun. Maybe in the future, you will wonder why didn’t you do something different. Maybe you will hate this part of your life. Maybe.”
“There’s so much we can’t know or control about the future. The important thing now is to do what you think is best.” He says slowly, thinking hard, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe in the future it will seem dumb and stupid. But to me at least, what matters is doing what I believe in, right now, so that I never leave room for regrets.”
She is completely quiet now, and he is grateful for that because hearing Joo-hyun cry is heartbreaking enough without even seeing it. He can practically hear her turning over his words in her mind and that provokes a smile from him, because that is Joo-hyun, giving her serious thought in everything, from song-writing to even insufficient, though heartfelt advice like this.
She makes a soft humming noise on her end of the line, and he grips his phone tightly, because he still wishes he could be there to give her that hug she deserves. He’ll probably never get that chance; the next time he’ll probably see her will probably be backstage at some international Korean music concert, too chaotic for him to do anything but wave at her briefly or do a fist pump to encourage her from afar.
It’s always distance between them, he thinks wryly. Physical distance, emotional distance like in mildang or in jondaemal. He is always too far from her, further than he likes.
It won’t stop him from trying though.
“Thank you, oppa.” He can hear traces of self-consciousness creeping back into her voice and he simultaneously wants to tell her to stop but also to stay silent, because that’s just what he likes about Seo Joo-hyun. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I know you have your concert in Philippines tomorrow.”
He bites back the it’s okay, I was awake anyway on the tip of his tongue. “No, I’m glad you woke me up. I’m glad you called.”
His admission is softly spoken, but it hangs there between the two of them, the blinding honesty and sincerity with which he has made that confession a physical weight between the two of them, but it is comfortable rather than awkward. He can practically hear her smiling over the line, and it makes him smile too.
“I’m glad I called too.” She hesitates, before taking the plunge, responding with the same kind of honesty. “You always know how to make me feel better.”
“That’s all I want.” He closes his eyes, resting against the bathroom wall. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine her better, sitting on her bed in her dorm, sitting cross-legged talking to him and he likes that image. “For you to feel better.”