Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every year for Jonghyun’s birthday, a couple of his fansites team up to get him a bunch of presents.

It’s something Jonghyun’s eternally grateful for, though he doesn’t really know how to thank them. Of course, that's never stopped him from trying—especially during fansigns and the like—to show his appreciation to those who have stayed steadfast in their love for Nu’est for however long they have.

One of the gifts from this year had been packed neatly in a bright blue paper bag, complete with a drawing of various pokemon stuck onto it. The wartortle in the middle was the only one wearing clothes, and it hadn’t taken Jonghyun long to figure out that it was supposed to be representing him. He’d loved it.

Inside the bag the drawing was on, had been a Nintendo 3ds, also blue in colour.  There were copies of two different games as well, and Jonghyun had instantly recognized one as a pokemon game, despite not being able to recognize the red, dinosaur-like creature on the box art.

However, the boys had been in the middle of preparing for a performance, so he’d kept the games safely away in his room’s closet in the hopes of getting to play them at a more convenient time.

It’s a Monday when he stumbles across the blue bag again, and it’s also been a good couple of weeks since they ended promotions for Canvas.

There’s not much going on in terms of schedules either, so Jonghyun charges up the 3ds for the very first time, fits the game cartridge for pokemon into its slot, and clicks start.

He’d only ever gotten the chance to play Pokemon Gold in the past, with him and his sisters sharing a single cartridge. Red and Blue might have never released in South Korea, but the second generation games had, and were reasonably popular. Jonghyun also used to watch the Pokemon anime rather diligently as a kid, so a part of him is looking forward to seeing exactly how many of them he can remember.

The game starts with a pokemon professor, who introduces himself as Professor Birch, talking about the pokemon world, while Jonghyun’s character sits at the back of what seems to be a moving van.

Jonghyun wonders why he’s sitting with the luggage instead of with his supposed parents, but maybe that’s just how things work in this world.

A couple of pokemon appear outside of the van on the screen as Birch continues talking—including a small grey one that Jonghyun’s almost certain he’s seen before. He’s then asked if he’s a boy or a girl, and Jonghyun chooses the former option before entering his name into the next screen that appears.

Birch seems to recognize him once he does that, and informs him that he’s moving to a place known as Littleroot Town.

“Your very own adventure is about to unfold!” says Birch enthusiastically, and the door of the van opens to a bright light engulfing the screen.

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The next few days pass by quickly.

It starts to rain outside more often, and Jonghyun finds that his pokemon game is a lot of fun.

He’s slowly learning the names of all the new pokemon he sees. He even looks up what the different pokemon available in the game are, especially after encountering one particular pokemon.

The pokemon in question is a skitty, and the moment Jonghyun lays eyes on it, he knows what he’s going to name it.

Minki is also in their bedroom when he hears Jonghyun chuckle to himself, and he asks what’s going on.

Once Jonghyun shows him the skitty and tells him that he plans to name it Baekho, Minki can’t help but burst into laughter. He takes a look at the other pokemon in Jonghyun’s party, and then leaves to tell Dongho about how he’s now the namesake of a cute, cuddly, cat-like pokemon.

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“So you’ve beaten the second gym. How many more of them did you say there are in total?”

“Eight. And then the elite four. Then the champion. Or at least that’s what it should be if it’s anything like the old pokemon games,” Jonghyun replies.

Minki’s face lights up for a second as he remembers something.

“Oh! Did you manage to catch your wartortle yet?” he asks, and Jonghyun smiles to himself wondering if the members will ever let the wartortle thing go. Then again, it’s not like it hasn’t become Jonghyun’s favourite pokemon by now, even if only due to its association with the fans.

“You can’t get him in this game normally,” he explains, “but,” and he opens up the menu with the pokemon currently in his party to bring out a different member of the wartortle family, “someone on the global trade system traded me a squirtle for a skitty!”

Minki excitedly takes the 3ds from Jonghyun and pokes the squirtle on the screen a few times with the stylus.

“What did you name him? Did you name him after yourself?” Minki asks as Jonghyun opens up pokemon-amie for him. He feeds the squirtle pokepuffs until it refuses to eat any more.

“I got him in a trade, so I can’t name him. His original trainer didn’t nickname him either, so I guess he’s just Squirtle. He’ll become a wartortle soon enough though. I’ve been training him.”

Suddenly, Minki looks up from the screen, frowns, and looks Jonghyun in the eye.

“Wait. Did you trade Baekho for this squirtle?”

Dongho, who had been sitting on the sofa across the room, immediately looks up.

“No,” Jonghyun says, amused at Minki’s concern, “I caught another skitty. Baekho’s still in the party with me, look,” and reopens pokemon-amie with his own skitty.

Dongho has walked over to them by this point, and he and Minki try feeding the skitty a dozen more pokepuffs. They’re both very clumsy with it though, and Jonghyun watches in amusement ad they end up dropping half of the pokepuffs.

Jonghyun eventually takes back the 3ds and continues to play while the other two watch.

He’s at Granite Cave, and after the first few wild makuhita, they encounter an aron.

“Ah! This pokemon!” Minki pipes up, “isn’t this the pokemon that a fan had said was called Aron in English?”

“You’ve got to catch him, JR-ah,” Dongho laughs, “and name him Youngmin-hyung. Minki, go call Aron-hyung, we’ll show him his counterpart in JR’s game.”

Minki leaves, and returns within minutes with both Aron and Minhyun in tow. Jonghyun is thankful; it’s been a while since all five of them did something together.

They all sit and watch as a newly-caught “Aron-hyung” (Aron manages to somehow convince the rest of the boys to not go with “Youngmin”) makes itself at home in Jonghyun’s pokemon team.

Dongho comments on how both the Arons have the same hollow-looking eyes and are the tiniest size-wise in their respective groups, and Aron enthusiastically retorts with a punch to Dongho’s shoulder, saying that Baekho the Skitty isn’t much larger. 
Jonghyun mentions that Aron-hyung will eventually evolve into one of the largest pokemon in the generation, earning a triumphant scoff from Aron upon googling what an Aggron looks like.

Dongho googles skitty’s evolution as well, and ends the aron vs. skitty debate with a “Hey, at least I still look cute when I evolve.”

Minhyun and Minki, in the meanwhile, loudly lament over the fact that they don’t have any counterparts in Jonghyun’s game yet, and that there’s a random bird and a discount raccoon in the party instead.

“Hey, don’t hate on my taillow and zigzagoon,” Jonghyun says defensively “they’re going to be useful later! Besides, they’re cute!”

Jonghyun doesn’t tell them anything, but he’s already done research on which pokemon he’s going to name after Minki and Minhyun, but he just won’t be encountering them until much later in the game.

He continues playing as a cutscene begins, and the other members all watch.

The first few shots are of cave paintings of what seems to be a significantly large pokemon breathing fire everywhere.

“Is that an Aggron?” Aron asks, but Minhyun shushes him.

The sprite of a silver-haired man appears on the screen, and introduces himself as Steven Stone. Jonghyun hands over something that a different npc had sent for this Steven, and the other members throw around comments, mostly about how good-looking this new character is.

“He looks like he’d have really suited our concept for Overcome, right?” Dongho says and makes a half-hearted attempt at the sword wielding step with his hands.

“I really like his rings!!” Minki nods, pointing at the screen, “his whole outfit is nice; I want his belt.”

Steven finishes his bits of dialogue and leaves, letting Jonghyun press onwards with his game.

Minhyun decides it’s time to run errands, grabs Dongho (who tries at first to object, but then gives up) by his sleeve, and they exit the room.

Aron and Minki sit by and watch Jonghyun play for a little while longer, until Jonghyun reaches the next city.

Chapter Text

Ever since Love Paint bombed in the charts, the Nu’est members have been unsure about getting another comeback. They still have dance practices though, and that keeps them waking up early in the morning to head to the Pledis studio, and they maintain some semblance of routine in their lives.

Jonghyun isn’t the type to let bad sales stop him from working his hardest. In fact, it makes him push himself even further.

He’s the leader of their group, but when he’s alone he gets doubtful about choices he’s made in the past. He thinks a lot of them may not have been right for Nu’est.

Overcome was their first Korean comeback after ages, and they had all taken part in the production of the mini-album, doing whatever they could. When it didn’t sell well, they tried again, and despite nobody wanting to address the elephant in the room, it really felt like it was their last time.
They knew that they probably wouldn’t be able to break into the music charts. They knew they probably wouldn’t suddenly bring tens of thousands of new fans to their side with it. But they gave it their all anyway.

How couldn’t they? It was what they’d been in love with doing for the last couple of years, and their determination to get back onto the radar only added to their drive to succeed.

But, as Jonghyun had learnt the hard way, that isn’t always enough.

Canvas flopped, and a feeling of dread sank down on the boys. Their contract with Pledis was closer to its end than it had ever been. They didn’t know what to do.

…They still don’t.

Jonghyun is the leader, and he sees the stress, weightier than ever, in the eyes of four of his closest friends, and he’s afraid they’re going to snap.

Jonghyun is the leader, but despite being so, he has no clue what he should do.

He searches for a last chance, a final opening. He’s scared he might not find it before someone gives up, but he keeps trying.

It isn’t as if it hasn’t been affecting him. For the past four years he’s been watching their dreams break into progressively smaller and smaller pieces. He feels like he’s failed them. He feels like he could have done things differently, and they might not have been in the spot they are now.

But he also knows for a fact that if there’s anyone who needs to keep their faith right now, it’s him. He knows that endlessly brooding over their situation will take a toll on his mental health even more than it already has.

So, when Jonghyun feels his insecurities creeping up higher than anyone needs, he tries to distract himself. Never during practice, of course—all it does for him during practice is tighten his resolve—but he often stays back later than the others, and when he’s returning to the dorm alone without anyone to keep him distracted, he ends up worrying a lot.

The Nintendo 3ds is a portable console, and as of late, playing pokemon has been an effective distraction when Jonghyun’s inexorable demons of self-blame raise their heads, so he carries the console around, occasionally even to practice.

He’s reached Mauville city, and it’s huge . He gets lost in its walls instantly. There a cutscene that takes place first, with Wally—a green-haired kid who had been introduced earlier on in the game. Jonghyun takes a mental note that the kid has some sort of an illness that prevents him from travelling around the world. Wally and his uncle (who is also part of the cutscene) then proceed towards the city’s gym, and Jonghyun is allowed to explore the area.

There’s a bunch of stores on one side, including a massage store, a bunch of move tutors, and a lady selling mirrors. An npc mentions that the second floor of the city (the entirety of which seems to be designed like a mall?) has residential apartments, but Jonghyun can’t get to them right now.

“Mach Bikes are for cyclists who want to feel the wild, blowing wind as they ride!” says the owner of the bike store he finds. Speed is an appealing concept but Jonghyun’s not a big fan of biking anyway. He takes the bike that ensures better control instead—the acro bike.

There’s a lot going on at the third and topmost floor of Mauville City. It seems to be a popular hangout spot for the various people who seem to enjoy playing truant from their jobs in the pokemon world. It makes Jonghyun speculate about what jobs might be like inside the universe of the game.

What would he be if he was part of the pokemon world?

He’d probably be a pokemon trainer, but what kind?

The “super nerd” trainer class enters his mind for a second, but he quickly disregards it with a shake of his head.

He doesn’t think he’s encounter any rappers in the game but that’s probably what he’d be, he guesses. Or a dancer. Anything goes really.

The whole pokemon contest situation he was introduced to in the previous city seems to be the closest thing pokemon has to the kpop industry in real life. Then again, Jonghyun has played only a single pokemon game prior to this, so maybe another title has something more accurate to offer. He knows that there’s a new pair of pokemon games that were supposed to be releasing sometime near the end of the year, but he doesn’t know when. He might check them out.

Maybe if he was suddenly put into the pokemon world, he’d introduce dancing to its inhabitants. He’d open up a studio for trainers and their pokemon alike. He’d teach the pokemon in his team to dance, and all of the pokemon in his PC box too. They could mentor other pokemon, and he could mentor the trainers. He could bring the other Nu’est members in on it, because they’d be just as passionate, he’s sure. It would help them get in a good amount of practice too, and the extra funds could help pay back the losses they made on their albums.

…Jonghyun supposes that even if he was put into the pokemon world today, he’d still want to come back to his own reality.

There’s still too many things here he needs to see to the end. Maybe if he had never known Nu’est— if he’d just been born in the world of pokemon to begin with— he’d actually stick around there. Maybe he’d just meet the members there instead, and they’d find success in the pokemon world.

But Jonghyun knows that that’s not what he actually wants. That would make all their hard work, all the effort they’ve put in, the sweat and tears they’ve shed in this world meaningless.

They’ve come so far; and if there’s anything Jonghyun has ever believed in, it’s that hard work pays off. They’ll just have to work even harder—until even the tiniest chance of it not paying off completely disappears.

For now, he continues playing the game.

Sure, Pokemon may have been serving as a healthy distraction for him these last couple of days, but Jonghyun supposes that being responsible for Nu’est is too intrinsic for him now to let go of it entirely.

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The first battle that Jonghyun loses is against the 5th gym leader— Norman— who also happens to be his in-game dad.

The loss surprises him a little, and when he challenges the gym again Dongho is also around for some additional support.

The little bit that Dongho knows about Pokemon is from when he sat and watched Aron-hyung being caught, so he has a lot of questions. He also doesn’t recognize a few of the new additions to Jonghyun’s team, and asks why Baekho the skitty (Jonghyun informs him that it’s now a delcatty) isn’t around for this gym battle.

“I bet that’s the reason you lost last time, because Baekho wasn’t there,” Dongho says with confidence.

Jonghyun tries to explain pokemon type matchups in a nutshell, and how a delcatty—a normal type pokemon—wouldn’t be too effective at a normal type gym, but Dongho still isn’t convinced, and forces Jonghyun to put his delcatty back into his lineup for the gym.

The battle starts again, and Dongho is suddenly extremely invested in the Norman’s backstory. Jonghyun tells him about how this game, its counterpart, and its originals are apparently the only pokemon games in which the playable character has a father.

The first two pokemon at Norman’s disposal are defeated with relative ease, and his last pokemon—slaking—delivers the move that singlehandedly ended the battle last time. It’s a move called Retaliate, and it’s at its strongest when used right after when a pokemon from the user’s team faints.

It had destroyed Aron-hyung during the last battle, but Jonghyun sacrifices his swellow to the move this time round so that Aron-hyung isn’t hit with it.

The battle eventually ends with Jonghyun winning, and Dongho cheers in spite of still not understanding the technicalities of pokemon battles. He makes Jonghyun pause for a bit as he runs and grabs two packets of potato chips from the kitchen, and opens them as he sits back down to watch what’s going on in the screen.

Jonghyun lets the game continue playing, and Norman talks about how he’s frustrated as a gym leader about losing, but how it makes him happy as well as sad as a father to see his child grow up.

He escorts the player outside his gym, where they run into Wally and Wally’s dad.

Wally and the player leave, and allow the two fathers to have a little heart-to-heart. Wally’s dad has the same bittersweet feeling about his son growing up. Norman agrees with him regarding the matter, but he says that regardless of anything, all he wants is to see his son keep growing happier and stronger.

Jonghyun faces Dongho to see him staring at the screen of the 3ds. He’s eating his chips, but he hasn’t said a word.

Jonghyun wonders what he might be thinking.

Chapter Text

It’s five minutes to four in the morning, and the meager light of a 3ds screen is all that lights up the room.

Jonghyun has his earphones hooked into the 3ds so he can’t hear Minki snoring lightly in the bed next to his. He occasionally glances at his back, rising and falling with every breath, and takes comfort in the fact that Minki doesn’t wake up when he shifts around in his bed to find a more comfortable position to lie down in.

Jonghyun has recently been falling in love with the Eastern coast of the Hoenn region that the game takes place in.

His pokemon are all either at or nearing the early 40s in terms of level, and he has defeated the Fortree City Gym. The battle had gone smoothly, with Aron (who is now an aggron) and Wartortle dominating their flying-type opponents. Wartortle was still a wartortle though, and not a blastoise, thanks to Jonghyun’s meticulous B-button pressing skills whenever Wartortle tried to evolve. Jonghyun knows that he could go and get an everstone from Granite Cave now that he had the HM for Fly, but he wants to get to the next city before doing that.

He travels down Route 120 battling trainers, and he can still only barely see his own trainer’s sprite through the tall grass native to the route. It starts raining after he crosses the bridge he’d met Steven Stone on before the battle at the Fortree Gym, and Jonghyun briefly wonders if there are any more invisible kecleon that he can use his Devon Scope on. There’s a maze of tall grass he has to go through, although it isn’t really much of a maze when you can run through the walls (although at the risk of encountering more wild pokemon). Once he’s out, it stops raining and he walks along another bridge.

It’s the same time in the game as it is in real life, and nothing prepares him for the beauty of the night sky in the game, reflected onto the water beneath the bridge he’s on.

It’s just pixels in a game—he knows this—but he pauses for a good five minutes just to stare at the screen. The water is perfectly still, unlike any other water body he’s seen in the game, and he sees stars and galaxies, and thinks about which pokemon might have constellations named after them.

The music lends to the atmosphere as well, Jonghyun doesn’t think he’d even noticed till this point how almost valiant it sounds, and how it still manages to suit the night sky and each of its stars.

Without any warning, the memory of an interview Nu’est had had years ago flashes into his mind, and he can’t remember when it was exactly, but he remembers their pink jackets and that Minki’s hair was still long.

“...My ideal type?...”

“…Someone who can lie down in a field with me to look at the sky…”

Jonghyun takes off his earphones and turns to face the other bed in the room.

“Minki,” he calls out, but he’s so soft he can barely even hear himself.

He hesitates for a second, but then gets off of his bed with his 3ds in his hand, and walks over to Minki’s bed. It’s cold without his blanket, but he knows that Minki wouldn’t mind sharing at least temporarily.

He puts a hand on Minki’s shoulder, runs it down his arm, and calls his name again.

Minki haphazardly turns to face Jonghyun, his eyes still shut, and somehow manages to bring out a sleepy “Hmm?” while the arm Jonghyun touched reaches out to loosely wrap around Jonghyun’s waist once he sits down.

“I want to show you something,” Jonghyun whispers, and Minki just barely forces his eyes open to look at him.

“Here,” Jonghyun places one earphone on Minki’s palm and puts the other one in his own ear, “there’s a really pretty route I’m on right now. In Pokemon.”

“Lie down,” Minki suggests in a voice still raspy from sleep as he shifts slightly to the side, still struggling to keep his eyes open, and Jonghyun allows himself to settle a little more comfortably on Minki’s bed.

Minki puts the earphone into his ear and places his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder as Jonghyun opens his 3ds screen back up and the game blinks back into action.

Minki’s eyes widen a little when he sees the reflection of the sky in the pond and he glances at Jonghyun for a second, but remains silent.

“Here, walk around a bit,” Jonghyun offers, and Minki takes the 3ds and fiddles around with the controls. He walks off the bridge and down the slope that leads to the pond, and presses the A button for Wartortle to use surf.

They both watch as the player’s sprite and Wartortle swim across the pond, and the ripples they leave behind cause the stars in the water to quiver. For a good while, that’s all Minki does—gets the player to glide across the water, and then stops to watch the stars tremble back into focus. His eyes don’t leave the screen until a particularly fond Jonghyun presses his lips to Minki’s cheek, after which he hands the game back to its actual owner.

“Keep playing,” he says, “I’ll watch.”

And he does, for much longer than Jonghyun had thought he’d be able to.

He watches Jonghyun fight an umpteen number of trainers, he watches him plant berries and water them, he watches a variety of pokemon pop up in the dexnav and lets out an “oh,” every so often when it’s one he can recognize.

It’s only around when they reach Mt. Pyre in the next route that he falls back asleep, with his arm still around Jonghyun’s chest, and his face buried in the crook of Jonghyun’s neck.

Jonghyun doesn’t know what the time is since his phone is still over on his bed, but he saves the game and puts it on the shelf next to them.

He doesn’t want to wake Minki up again by moving to get to his own bed, but that’s not why he falls asleep in Minki’s arms.

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He catches Minhyun the vulpix the next day, at the summit of Mt. Pyre.

He catches a duskull too, and spends the afternoon reading up about pokemon creepypasta. He knows exactly who’s likely to react to it the best.

Chapter Text

Recently, Aron hasn’t really been feeling like himself, or at least that’s the impression Jonghyun’s been getting from him these past few weeks. In addition to that, there’s his leg injury from a few weeks ago, and it’s been healing, but Jonghyun knows that not being able to attend practice as often as the others has been affecting Aron much more than just the discomfort of an injured leg.

Jonghyun also hasn’t had the chance to spend time with him enough, so on a day when Aron’s relaxing in his room, Jonghyun goes over to see if he wants to help him with his fight against the legendary pokemon of the game—Groudon.

Aron’s room is extremely cold. He leaves his a.c. running more often than he doesn’t, so when Jonghyun opens the door to his room a rush of cold air hits his face. He’s glad he’s wearing long sleeves.

The curtains to the room’s windows are all drawn, so Jonghyun sees the light of Aron’s ipad before he sees Aron himself. Aron has his headphones on, and Jonghyun wonders if he should just come at a later time, but Aron notices the light coming in from outside the door Jonghyun has just opened, and he turns around to greet Jonghyun.

Jonghyun asks him if he’s free to help catch a legendary pokemon, and Aron shuts his ipad and gets Jonghyun a chair.

“I’m not disturbing you or anything, right?” Jonghyun asks just in case, but is relieved when Aron immediately shakes his head.

“I was just watching some videos a friend sent me,” he laughs, “what’s up with the sudden concern with disturbing me? Are you feeling ok?”

Jonghyun nods and opens up his game as they both settle in, and they begin playing.

He’d last saved at the Cave of Origin, and his character is dauntlessly staring Groudon down.

Groudon transforms into Primal Groudon once the player interacts with him, and as its theme begins to play Aron recognizes it to be the pokemon from the painting on the wall back at Granite Cave.

“I thought it was an aggron before!” he says, and Jonghyun promises to show him Aron-hyung after the battle is over.

He runs out of pokeballs trying to catch Groudon.

The first time it happens he simply resets the file and tries again, and that’s what he does the next two times as well.

He takes the opportunity to tell Aron about how Groudon is relevant to the plot of the game—about how it created the landmasses of the pokemon world and how a group of pokemon trainers known as Team Magma is trying to harness its power.

By the fourth time all of Jonghyun’s pokeballs run out, both of them are growing weary.

“Aron-hyung definitely wasn’t this tough to catch, was he?” Aron asks.

“No. I think the catch rate for Groudon is really low.”

“Ah.”

The fifth time it happens, Jonghyun starts considering just knocking Groudon out without capturing it.

“It’s my fault; I should have bought more pokeballs before getting into the match,” he says, “I can’t even go back and buy some since I saved afterwards.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Aron reassures him, “I bet the next time’s going to be the one.”

It isn’t, and Jonghyun off-handedly notices Aron’s room getting even darker. The sun has begun to set outside.

After the sixth time, as they’re starting the battle for the seventh time, Jonghyun says that he thinks he should just knock out Groudon and get it in a trade from someone later if he really needs it. The rest of the game doesn’t really change much regardless of whether he has it or doesn’t, and he’s been taking up a lot of Aron’s time as it is.

Neither of them say anything for a second, and then Aron firmly goes, “Nah.”

Jonghyun looks at him.

“I mean, you’ve gotten this far anyway. It can’t possibly take much longer, right? See it to the end.”

Jonghyun lets out a “hmm,” and gives it another go.

He lets Groudon reach low enough health, and throws another bunch of pokeballs. On the sixth one, the ball wobbles thrice and finally fastens itself completely.

Jonghyun lets out a sigh of relief, and Aron pats him on the back.

“See? What did I tell you,” he says, “I guess listening to your elders every now and again helps out!” and he laughs at his own joke.

Jonghyun accidentally exits out of the nickname menu, and Groudon is sent to his PC box.

“Thank you,” he says to Aron, hoping the sincerity is apparent enough in his voice, “I don’t think I would have kept at it if it wasn’t for you.”

“Hey, what the hell, there’s no need to thank me.”

“No, really,” Jonghyun insists as he starts getting up to leave. He wants to let Aron get back to whatever videos he was watching.

Aron doesn’t say anything immediately, but as Jonghyun reaches the door he hears his voice again.

“You wouldn’t—“ Aron begins, but doesn’t continue the sentence. He starts again.

“Even without me, you’re not the type to leave things halfway. I don’t think any of us are,” he smiles, “I’m happy to have helped though. Call me if you need more.”

Somehow Jonghyun feels a part of himself being put at ease.

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After Groudon is caught, pokemon from other regions begin showing up in Hoenn. Jonghyun doesn’t know most of them, but there’s one specifically that he’s looked up on the internet and has his eyes on.

The weather in the game goes back to normal, and Jonghyun goes back to the Safari Zone in search of a buneary.

He finds it pretty easily, and he calls Minki over to his side while he battles the buneary, and once its health drops enough, he throws a luxury ball at it.

“Buneary evolves only when its friendship with its trainer is high enough, and this kind of pokeball helps with that,” he explains.

He doesn’t reveal to Minki that he knew close to nothing about all of this before playing this game. It’s been fun though, giving each team member a corresponding pokemon and figuring out how and where to get it. It adds a touch of familiarity, and lets him get just a bit more attached to them.

“What are you going to name him?” Minki asks, “You’re naming him after me, right? What are you going with? Minki? Choi Ren?”

“Those aren’t …personal enough.”

“Minji? Ashley? Mango. Mangwi. Mangoo.”

“Mango’s actually really cute. I might go with that,” Jonghyun considers, weighing out his options.

He finally goes with just Rennie though, since he wants to stick to the pattern of everyone’s pokemon counterpart sticking to their stage names.

They take Rennie to Mauville city, where it gets a massage to increase its happiness.

“Sounds like a great mechanic,” says Minki,” Just keep getting massages and all your problems sort themselves out…” and he trails off for a second before catching himself.

“Must be nice being a pokemon,” he continues, eyes still on the screen, “Other than the part where you’re knocking the consciousness out of other pokemon. That might be a deal-breaker for some,” he chuckles.

Jonghyun rolls his eyes, but leans into Minki’s side.

Rennie stays in Jonghyun’s team as a buneary for a long time, but evolves before they face off against the 8 th and final gym leader.

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The area that awaits Jonghyun as he steps into the final room of Victory Road is completely devoid of any background music whatsoever. The sound of running water is all that plays through Jonghyun’s earphones, and petals of spider lilies fly gently across the screen. It reminds Jonghyun of legends he’s heard that say that spider lilies bloom along the path to someone you may never meet again. He finds it interesting that the person at the end of the path here is none other than Wally.

A battle ensues, and when Wally loses, he graciously admits defeat and promises to keep practicing harder, until the day he can beat Jonghyun. Jonghyun guesses that he probably won’t actually get to fight Wally again during the remaining course of the game, but a part of him feels an odd sense of pride in the boy who’d started off as a frail beginner to end up as the final boss fight before the pokemon league.

Wally says he’s learnt a lot from Jonghyun’s player character, but Jonghyun thinks that Wally’s desire to keep trying is what is truly commendable.

Chapter Text

Jonghyun takes a break before facing the pokemon league.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to play anymore—far from it—he just doesn’t want the game to end yet. His team is trained to levels he thinks should be high enough. He might have even over-leveled them a bit, but it’s better than having them at a level lower than they should be.

He and Minki grab a bite to eat that evening at one of the nearby malls. Minhyun had originally wanted to tag along too, but had decided against it in favor of cleaning up the dorm. Jonghyun usually didn’t mind cleaning up after himself, but one of the reasons he tries to take his time eating while he’s out is because he hopes that Minhyun will have cleaned his room by the time they’re back. Minki also walks at a pace slower than usual, and Jonghyun thinks he might have the same idea in his mind.

The food court has some upbeat music playing, and the thought of one day hearing their own song playing in a public area again runs through Jonghyun’s mind. He doesn’t even feel bitter about it at this point— not really — he’s just genuinely curious.

He remembers hearing Sleep Talking, of all things, the other day at a café. It may have been a couple of months back, but it was Dongho who had pointed it out. Even though Sleep Talking may not collectively be the song from their discography that they like best ; it’s still theirs, and recognizing it had gotten them all exceedingly excited. Nobody had recognized them in the café, of course, but that was okay. It must have made their excitement look quite confusing though.

Jonghyun gets his tray of food and sits down at one of the tables near the stall Minki’s ordering from so that Minki notices him once his own food arrives. It takes a few more minutes, and then Minki sits down in front of Jonghyun with some sort of chicken preparation, and he starts digging in without wasting any time at all.

He offers Jonghyun a piece, holding it up to Jonghyun’s mouth with his chopsticks, his expression playful. He’s infuriating.

He’s adorable.

“Stuff like this is going to get us into trouble one day,” Jonghyun warns half-heartedly, as he laughs and pushes Minki’s hand away.He lets his fingers linger on Minki’s wrist for a second longer than he intends, and needless to say, Minki notices. He always does.

“It’s no big deal,” he grins, “if there’s anything good about never getting recognized by the public, it’s this.”

Jonghyun allows himself to laugh, although it’s a tinge sardonic.

He watches Minki eat while cutting his own meat. It’s a little funny. Nowadays, Minki doesn’t hold back when he’s hungry. He ends up eating the most when he’s worried about something, and he’s eating with quite a bit of gusto right now, but then that’s likely just because they’d all had a really early lunch.

Jonghyun picks up the piece Minki had tried to feed him earlier and puts it into his mouth. It’s a little too spicy for him, so he winces.

“You don’t know how to handle spice,” Minki says, waggling his chopsticks mockingly.

“Keep saying things like that and you’ll end up eating another dish as spicy as the curry that made you stop eating chili for half a year,” Jonghyun teases back, and Minki clutches his chest in pseudo-despair.

They finish eating, and pick up the fried chicken takeaway for the other members before they leave.

They consider taking the train, but the weather is nice and windy. They decide to walk back to the dorm. It isn’t too far away, anyway.

The alleyways are a lot quieter than the road the mall is at, and it’s a weekday, so there’s hardly anyone around. It’s a little on the chillier side as well, but not enough to make them feel uncomfortable.

A cat sits on the sidewalk, licking its paws. They almost don’t notice it because they alley is dark.

Jonghyun tries approaching it but it runs away almost instantly, much to his dismay. It’s very amusing to Minki, who covers his mouth with a hand as he breaks into laughter. He walks up to the scaffolding the cat is hiding under, but the cat doesn’t come out when he calls to it either.

“This cat doesn’t know what’s good for it,” Minki concludes, and he pulls out his phone to take a picture. He quickly turns around and snaps one of Jonghyun while Jonghyun’s guard is down.

Jonghyun voices his discontent and offers to let Minki take a better picture, but Minki just shakes his head.

“Your smile is too genuine over here,” he explains, revealing the picture.

It isn’t even a good picture. It’s blurry, and the streetlight behind Jonghyun leaves everything else in shadow. To add to that, whatever was left to be seen of Jonghyun’s face is covered by the shadow of his sweatshirt’s hood. It’s a little frightening, if he’s completely honest.

Jonghyun’s expression must have given something away, because Minki is quick to insist that it’s a great picture.

“I should have taken a video instead,” he says, “I could upload it online, and the fans could make a boyfriend gif out of it!” He puts two fingers on the screen and zooms in.

“I look more like a serial killer than your boyfriend. We’ll lose our remaining fans.”

“No. You just don’t know how to tell what’s cute and what isn’t. That’s why your selfies suck too.”

“I’m dating you though, right?” Jonghyun flashes his most winning smile, “I must have some sort of a right idea about what’s cute.”

Minki stops in his tracks to pout at Jonghyun.

“You really think flattery is going to work on me? After knowing me for over, what, six years now?” He pauses before he concedes, “I mean it’s true, but when you say it like that I know you’re pulling my leg!”

Jonghyun laughs and leans towards Minki.

“I love you,” he says, pressing their foreheads together so that they can’t look anywhere else but at one another. They’re too near to each other’s faces for Jonghyun to properly read Minki’s expression, but he can tell that Minki’s eyes are watching him closely.

“How’s that for sincerity,” Jonghyun states more than he asks, under the pretense of confidence, and both of them sputter into laughter.

“That’s even worse, to be honest,” Minki says, in between breaths, “save it for the fans.”

“You’re the one who goes over the top with the fans; don’t pin any part of that onto me !”

Minki sticks his tongue out, and Jonghyun deliberately bumps into his shoulder.

The cat has disappeared from beneath the scaffolding to who knows where, so nobody— human nor animal— notices the two boys who let their fingers intertwine as they walk back home.

Chapter Text

After he beats the elite four, the man who stands at the final room of the pokemon league— the reigning champion of the Hoenn region— turns out to be Steven Stone.

Steven says he’d like to see the bond Jonghyun and his pokemon share through their battle, everything they’ve learnt through their journey.

The battle starts, and Jonghyun notes to himself that Steven’s battle theme is rather snazzy.  Minki, who’s next to him on the bed, bobbing his head from side to side to the beat of the music, seems to agree.

Jonghyun has looked up Steven’s roster of pokemon beforehand, so when his skarmory is the first pokemon he throws out, Minhyun the ninetales is ready to battle.

Skarmory goes down easily with a couple of flamethrowers, and claydol is the next pokemon to show up.

Jonghyun sends out Baekho.

Baekho happens to be his highest leveled pokemon. That being said, it has a hard time breaking through claydol’s defences, and Jonghyun is constantly worried that claydol might use self-destruct. He’s pledged not to let any of his team members faint during this battle.

Thankfully, even though delcatty has pretty shit stats, it has great type coverage, and after using ice beam enough times, claydol is brought down.

Aggron is the next pokemon in Steven’s arsenal, and Jonghyun sends out his own aggron.

Minki, who has remained surprisingly quiet throughout the ordeal so far, nods at this selection.

They’ll show Steven that their aggron is better than his.

The match boils down to a test of speed. Aron-hyung knows Earthquake, which is super-effective against aggron, but Jonghyun’s guess is that Steven’s aggron knows it too. Whoever moves first will win.

Aron-hyung is at a higher level than Steven’s aggron, and ends up moving first. The turn however ends with both of them at one point of remaining health each, due to their abilities both being Sturdy.

Aron-hyung moves first the next few turns too though, and defeats the other aggron in spite of Steven using a full restore on it.

Cradily appears next, and Minki cheers when Jonghyun sends Rennie out.

Rennie is holding a mega lopunnite, and its mega-evolution is accompanied by even more of a commotion from Minki, who’s seeing a lopunny evolve for the first time.

Rennie disposes of cradily with a single high jump kick.

Jonghyun doesn’t have any pokemon that would be particularly strong against Steven’s armaldo, so he sends out Groudon, who proceeds to make short work of armaldo.

Steven’s last pokemon is his metagross, and it’s the one Jonghyun’s been dreading the most.  He mulls over which pokemon to send out next.

Minki hurries him up.

“I thought you’d already decided you’d use Wartortle.”

“I did, but …he isn’t a fully evolved pokemon. I don’t think he’ll be strong enough,” Jonghyun admits, and turns the stylus in his hand, “I think I’ll just use Rennie or Minhyun again.”

“No,” Minki says, and selects Wartortle before Jonghyun can do anything about it.

“You’re using Wartortle,” he says, and it almost sounds a little like he’s scolding Jonghyun, “you’ve trained enough and you’ve got a type advantage, right? You’ll be fine .”

Jonghyun has half a mind to waste a turn and switch to another pokemon, but Minki’s glare suggests to him that it’s better if he doesn’t. Jonghyun recalls Aron’s advice from earlier with the Groudon, and a part of him wants to laugh at the difference in the ways Aron and Minki go about handling a similar situation.

Metagross turns into mega-metagross, and it looks extremely intimidating.

Minki nudges Jonghyun by the shoulder and gestures for him to keep playing.

Jonghyun gulps. He isn’t too sure about which water-type move to use, but ends up banking on using surf multiple times.

Turns out he’d made an error in thinking that water is strong against steel, but Minki still refuses to let him switch out.

“You’re doing fine. Just heal if you need to. You’ve got to win with Wartortle, there’s no other choice.”

With equal amounts of determination and concern on his face, Minki nervously taps the bedcover with his fingers. Jonghyun finds that even though it’s his name on his saved file, he’s never really been fighting on his own.

When the need arises, he always has someone there for him egging him on. He likes it that way.

It’s what he loves about Nu’est.

The battle takes longer than Jonghyun had initially hoped for, but after enough surfs, meteor mashes and full restores being thrown around, metagross does indeed finally faint.

Minki mutters an “I told you so,” and they watch as the final cutscene begins, and Jonghyun and all of his pokemon are registered into the hall of fame.

The credits begin to roll, and the boys let the music play without uttering a word.

It’s strangely evocative: the scene starts off with piano music as the player bikes off into the distance with the rival girl. Jonghyun knows that this game is a remake of an older one that he’s never played, but something about the piano strikes a chord within him, like he’s heard it before.

There’s then a medley of different towns he’s visited, and different pivotal moments from the game. The pokemon he used to battle against the gyms show up against the backdrop of the Hoenn map, along with the gym leaders and their pokemon. The enemy team from the game is there too, and so is champion Steven.

Jonghyun sees his original starter—his mudkip— that he ended up not using as much as he should have. He sees Baekho the skitty, Wartortle, and Aron-hyung the aron. They evolve before Minhyun the vulpix shows up. Groudon appears next, finally after whom Rennie the lopunny appears, fighting Wally at Victory path. Then there’s finally the match that had taken place just now against Steven, and Jonghyun’s tiny Wartortle holds its ground against mega metagross.

The credits end, as does the music, and Jonghyun turns to see Minki looking at him.

“Are you crying?” Minki asks, and it’s a genuine question.

Minki, who cries often enough for the other members to good-naturedly poke fun at him, would be the last one to do the same to Jonghyun.

Jonghyun looks back at the screen but he smiles and shakes his head, and Minki kisses his shoulder.

“You can cry, if you want. You really liked the game, didn’t you?”

Jonghyun leans in to kiss him properly, and Minki hums against his lips.

“This is also okay,” Minki whispers, his eyes still shut while Jonghyun brushes his lips down his neck. Minki captures them with his own lips again, and cups Jonghyun’s face with one hand as they let the kiss deepen.

It’s still Minki, though, who notices that another cutscene begins to play in the game.

“Jonghyun,” he breathes, gesturing at the 3ds as they pause to catch their breath, “there’s something still going on. On your screen.”

It takes an incredulous amount of willpower for Jonghyun to tear his gaze away from Minki’s now reddened lips and flushed face, but he manages to, and the two of them begin the true final battle of Pokemon Omega Ruby’s main storyline.

Chapter Text

Minki falls asleep early the day Jonghyun decides to keep playing the post-game content of Omega Ruby.

Instead, it’s Minhyun who finds Jonghyun lying stomach-down, feet up, with his 3ds, on the sofa in the living room, and joins him with a bowl of snacks.

Jonghyun’s already in the middle of the delta episode, so he gives Minhyun an outline of what’s going on.

“She stole from Wally? The kid you said was your son?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

There’s a lot of running around from one place to the other, and Minhyun raises his eyebrows when they find Steven at Meteor Falls.

“Oh, he’s the guy from earlier. The cute one,” Minhyun comments, and pulls out his phone, “What was his name again?”

“Steven Stone,” Jonghyun says, and hears Minhyun type on his phone.

“What are you looking up,” Jonghyun asks, to have the search results for “Steven Stone Age” held up to his face.

“I see ,” Minhyun says when the results say twenty-five, and Jonghyun just gives him a look .

Steven tells them to head to Wallace, who was the 8th gym leader.

“You didn’t tell me the characters in this game were this good-looking,” Minhyun says jovially upon seeing Wallace, “Maybe I’ll play it too some time.”

Jonghyun gives him another look, but he's trying his best to keep the corners of his lips from turning upwards.

“Hey, are you telling me you would mind if, say, Minki dressed like that,” Minhyun retorts, and Jonghyun doesn’t dignify that with a reply, but the image is now in his mind.

Minhyun notices his expression and doesn’t hesitate to tease him.

“Jonghyunie, your smile is weird,” he says, and elbows Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“Shut up,” is all Jonghyun says, with way more bark than bite, and they continue playing the game.

They enter the tower that Wallace was blocking, where the girl who had stolen Wally’s keystone is waiting.

She tells them about a war that had apparently occurred in the pokemon world many years ago, and how there are quite possibly parallel worlds, one in which the war may have never occurred. There’s a meteor that’s threatening to crash into their current world, and doing anything that would affect the parallel worlds would be a bad idea.

“Woah,” Minhyun gasps and insists that Jonghyun should tell him more about what went on in the game prior to this point.

At the top of the tower, Jonghyun catches Rayquaza, the legendary pokemon that is supposed to rule the skies.

They fly into space in order to destroy the aforementioned meteor.

“This… definitely escalated,” Jonghyun says, and Minhyun nods understandingly.

Rayquaza slams headfirst through the meteor, and yet another pokemon shows up from inside of it. It’s one more that Jonghyun has never seen before. He’s surprised that there still is one this late into the game.

“Oh darn, that thing has tentacles like the stuff Aron had found on your laptop,” Minhyun laughs, and Jonghyun whacks him with the 3ds.

“For the last time, those weren’t mine, I swear,” Jonghyun defends, “he was trying to frame me!”

Minhyun simply keeps laughing.

The clock on the living room wall strikes midnight, but the boys continue to play.

Jonghyun wants to catch Deoxys, the pokemon that has tentacles for arms, but a single dragon ascent from Rayquaza kills it.

They return to Hoenn from space, and the cutscene of the npcs being relieved their planet isn’t going to be destroyed by a giant rock is actually quite pretty. The cutscene continues to let the player go on a stargazing date with the rival girl, and Minhyun laughs again.

“This is easily the most heterosexual thing you’ve ever done,” he states, and Jonghyun tries to look offended.

“Hey, no fair,” he says, “I’ve done heterosexual things before! What happened to when I was made to kiss Bora-noona in the music video for Hello?”

“You just used that as an excuse to practice kissing with Minki. That barely counts.”

Jonghyun huffs and keeps pressing the A button.

The delta episode ends soon after that, and Jonghyun saves his game.

He and Minhyun finish eating their bowl of snacks and end up chatting about various things. They talk about the new variety show one of their labelmates from Seventeen has been on, they talk about how the rains are finally letting up, and they talk about Aron’s leg injury.

By the time they wish each other goodnight and head to their respective rooms to go to sleep, Jonghyun can feel his eyes threatening to shut on their own.

-----------------------

A week passes.

The day is unbelievably hot but the remote to the air conditioner is nowhere to be found, and Jonghyun just doesn’t have the energy to get a chair to climb onto in order to switch the a.c. on manually.

He stares at the ceiling of his room while he keeps his finger pressed down on a button on the 3ds that lets his character continuously ride his bike around the island he’s on. It’s a grueling task, and admittedly not the most fun he’s ever had with the game— but he really wants a shiny squirtle, and google says the masuda method is the best way to hatch a shiny.

The door to the room is ajar, and Minhyun’s singing voice can be heard from the kitchen along with the clang of a frying pan. The only other sound is that of running water coming from the bathroom. Minki’s taking a shower. That’s also the main reason Jonghyun isn’t in the bathroom for a shower himself, right now. He could always go to someone else’s bathroom, but his favourite shampoo and soap are currently locked in this bathroom with Minki.

The egg in Jonghyun’s game hatches and it’s another ordinary squirtle. He sighs and collects another egg from the PC.

In the meanwhile, the door to the bathroom finally reopens, and Minki gets out of the shower in a fresh pair of Donald Duck printed boxers, toweling his hair.

“Oh hey,” he says, when Jonghyun looks up at him, “you’re still playing pokemon?”

Jonghyun nods.

“I thought you’d already defeated the champion? Wasn’t Steven Stone the champion?” Minki asks, his tone curious.

“I did. But that’s not all there is to the game,” Jonghyun replies, and suddenly thinks about the Delta Episode.

“Did you know Minhyun has a crush on Steven Stone?” he informs Minki, who sniggers in response.

“He would . Tell Dongho about it; that way Minhyun won’t hear the end of it.”

Jonghyun laughs, and continues his original train of thought.

“I want to catch every pokemon and complete my pokedex. And defeat the battle resort. That’s where I am right now. Although I’m not battling right now, I’m trying to hatch an egg.”

“An …egg?”

“Yeah. If you move around enough, you can hatch eggs. I’m trying to hatch a shiny squirtle. It’s a differently coloured squirtle.”

Minki looks perplexed momentarily, but he doesn’t question anything further.

He walks outside the room for a bit, and when he returns, Jonghyun registers the sound of the door being latched. The towel Minki was using is now missing. He probably left it outside to dry. He now pointedly looks anywhere that isn’t Jonghyun, but the smile he’s trying desperately to hide is what gives him away.

“I want to hatch this egg,” Jonghyun tries again, but Minki walks up to him with a touch of too much determination in his step and Jonghyun knows what’s coming. Yet, when Minki climbs onto Jonghyun’s bed, he still instantly moves over to give him space.

He keeps playing the game though, trying to prove that he’s tougher nut than that to crack.

“I’m so bored,” Minki complains, and gingerly touches Jonghyun’s chest. His fingers are still cold from the shower, and Jonghyun tries to will down his shiver when they brush over his nipple and move to his stomach.

“I’d watch you play but all you’re doing right now is literally making your character run around in circles,” Minki’s hand begins to trail daringly downwards. He’s dangerous when he gets like this.

“You just took a shower,” Jonghyun points out, but Minki just smiles at him. Jonghyun wants to turn his head back to character biking around the battle resort, but he can’t bring himself to look away.

“You haven’t taken yours yet, right? You need a shower, and I’ll need another shower after,” he pauses, “...we’re done, and we shouldn’t waste water,” Minki suggests.

Incorrigible.

“You’re the worst,” Jonghyun says as he pinches Minki’s arm with the hand that isn’t on the controls of the 3ds. “Give me a minute, I just need to get this egg to hatch,” is his last-ditch effort, even though he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. Minki doesn’t even bother replying this time.

All it takes is for him to run his fingers underneath the waistband of Jonghyun’s boxers and slowly lick along his jawline, and Jonghyun is immediately sliding the 3ds stylus back into its slot and shutting the screen. He doesn’t even save.

-----------------------

Meticulousness is a concept far from foreign to Kim Jonghyun, and he goes at hatching the squirtle egg with as much intensity he’d put into a dance practice.

He almost doesn’t notice when it finally hatches, on his 450-something-th egg, because it’s only a slightly different tint of blue.

It doesn’t make him any less ecstatic though, and he shows it to Minki as soon as it hatches.

“You were still doing that?” Minki says, playing with the squirtle on pokemon-amie, “you started days ago.”

“It takes a long time. I was actually really lucky, since I don’t have a shiny charm.”

“A what now?”

“Shiny charm. It makes shiny pokemon appear more often.”

Minki nods even though he probably understands little of it, and Jonghyun feels affection welling up inside him at how Minki has listened to him ramble about pokemon for the last few weeks.

“What have you named it?” Minki asks.

“I haven’t named it anything yet. I’ll do it right now,” Jonghyun starts, but after he gets to the name rater he hands the 3ds back to Minki.

“You do it.”

Minki taps his chin with the stylus for a good minute before he says anything.

“I could name him JR-ie”, he ponders out loud, “but that wouldn’t be cute enough.”

Jonghyun’s expression turns petulant.

Minki’s face lights up a second later though, and he swiftly types “Potato” onto the screen, clicks enter, and hands the 3ds back to Jonghyun, satisfaction practically radiating off of his face.

Jonghyun smiles at his newly named shiny squirtle. “Could be worse,” he says, and Minki wastes no breath in replying with a “if we were going with consumables, Tomato wouldn’t have been a bad choice either.”

Jonghyun’s eyebrows furrow in disapproval.

“Tomatoes are the food of the devil.”

Minki doubles up with laughter and Jonghyun can’t help the smile from reappearing on his face.

It’s a moment as seemingly trivial as this, and yet Jonghyun has never been surer about how much he loves Choi Minki.

Potato the shiny Squirtle quickly becomes a staple in his party

Chapter Text

Of course, collecting 721 different types of pokemon is no easy task.

Jonghyun hasn’t been playing the game as much as he did before becoming the league champion, or even as much as he did while trying to hatch pokemon eggs.  It’s good fun every now and then, but with a goal as seemingly indefinite as “catch every pokemon”, his drive to play for hours every day lessens.

Nevertheless, it’s still a comfort more than anything else, and as his pokedex slowly inches towards completion, the days also get progressively shorter and colder.

It’s a day just like that— cold and cloudy— when all five of the boys are sitting in the living room of their dorm, waiting for Jonghyun to tell them what exactly he’s called them for.

It’s around this time, right after dinner, when the sun has long since set and the sounds of traffic outside begin to die down, that the boys generally find him on the sofa, either playing games or watching anime on his iPad. They occasionally ask him if he’s having fun, or tell him to go to bed soon.

Today though--

There’s something a little more pressing that’s on the minds of the Nu’est members today.

The air is tense, mostly because everybody has an inkling of what the upcoming conversation is going to be about. They saw it happen during 2015, they saw people from within their own company obtain a chance to achieve something. They’ve heard staff from their company talking about it, and they’ve been wondering if it’ll finally become something they’ll have to possibly become directly involved in.

To put a long story short, they may have just located their last chance at getting their names out.

Jonghyun takes a breath.

“Produce 101,” he says, his tone resolute, and the other boys all share a quick glance at one another before looking back at Jonghyun, waiting for him to continue.

“Pledis has been asked to send people to participate. I think we should ask if we can be sent.”

Four pairs of eyes don’t leave him for even a second this time.

“They’re allowing people who have already debuted to join the show. There’s the auditions we’ll have to deal with of course, and we can’t bring shame to the company, but I think going would be a good idea.”

He knows it’s more than just unlikely that they’ll all make it to the end of the show. He knows that people are probably going to call them cheaters— what with them already having had five years to cement themselves into the industry. He knows that it’s going to be taxing like nothing else, both mentally and physically.

But he also knows, just as much as his four members do, that there isn’t much time left in their contract, and if they’ve got to do something, they’ve got to do it now.

Being part of Nu’est has been his life, it’s everything he has. He doesn’t want to lose it. Not like this, watching themselves fade into obscurity.

Jonghyun is the leader of Nu’est, and yes, he thinks that a lot of his choices may not have been right for the group.

But, more than that, he knows that he’s still going to be the leader for another two years at least, and he’s not going to let them go down without a fight.

Produce 101 has the potential to become the opening that they need desperately right now, and Jonghyun refuses to let his resolve waver.

“What do you think?”

The room feels colder than usual, and the apprehension in the atmosphere is almost thick enough to cut with a knife.

“When do we have to decide by?” Dongho is the first person to break this weird tension. Jonghyun doesn’t know how it happens, but just having someone else join into a conversation that has been one-sided till this moment is helpful. He carries on.

“A week, tops. The sooner the better, since we have to let the CEO know.”

“Have you already talked about this with the company?” Minki asks.

“They were they ones who told me about it, but I wanted to run it past you guys first before suggesting we join. Depending on what we decide, i’m sure they’ll tell us more about what we have to do and what we don’t.”

Minki nods. He looks uncomfortably at his feet, and Jonghyun can tell that he’s holding himself back from asking more questions. Jonghyun doesn’t know why.

“Will we still be able to promote with Nu’est if anyone does get in?”

Minhyun asks, and Minki and Dongho turn to look at him, and then back at Jonghyun.

“We might. I’m not very sure. The members of i.o.i got to do it, so we might get to, but I heard they’re changing a lot of things up this time around. There’s no telling what’s going to happen.”

Silence.

“I think ...I’ll pass. You guys should still consider it though.”

On turning to the source of the voice, Jonghyun finds himself looking at Aron. 
He can’t think of what to say. He knows what Aron’s reason is going to be, and it’s the only thing he has no idea what to do about.

“My leg might be healing, but it’s still nowhere near ready enough for me to join a reality show that needs me to dance.”

Aron isn’t looking any of them in the eye, and Jonghyun decides that it’s better for them all to be a little more hopeful.

“We can decide that later. There’s still time. Your leg’s condition might improve,” he says, and Dongho, Minhyun and Minki nod vigorously in agreement.

Jonghyun continues, “I just need to get an answer from you all. Should we go for it? As a team.”

Minki’s fiddling with his socks, Aron’s eyes are still on the floor, and Minhyun and Dongho are looking at each other in a wordless conversation.

Jonghyun waits. He knows he needs to give them time to think.

He’s going to ask them again tomorrow morning, even if they say yes now, and especially if they say no now.

Their eyes dart among one another, until someone finally opens their mouth.

“I’m in.”

“Me too.”

“Count me in too.”

And finally,

“...Same here. The CEO can stop me if he feels the need.”

Jonghyun only realises he’s been holding his breath once he lets out a sigh.

“I’ll let them know.We’ll have to get to work immediately. Even if we do make it into the show, it’s not going to be easy. We’ve done everything at our own pace so far, and even though I can proudly say we’ve done our best regardless of everything, this is going to be very different.”

“After you tell the staff that we’re ready to give it a try, what’ll we have to do?”

“Like I said, i’m not too sure right now, but we’ll find out. They’ll tell us,” Jonghyun pauses and looks at the clock on the wall, “it’s late today. We should head to bed. I’ll contact them tomorrow,” he says, and the other members end up all nodding in agreement.

They all clean up after themselves today, so Minhyun isn’t the only one washing the dishes. Jonghyun has a feeling it’s moreso because they want to be around each other for a little bit longer.

They don’t even need to be talking. They just want to take comfort in each others’ presence. It’s how they’ve dealt with tough situations till this point, and is possibly, as much as hopefully, how it’s going to be in the future.

This many years and counting, they’ve only ever had each other.

Sales have been unsure, fame has been unsure, even their style of music has changed, but the one thing that they’re sure of is that they have each other.

Through all the unsureties and the losses and the fights, they still have each other.

This is a big decision. It’s going to affect them like nothing else till date, and Jonghyun knows that the silence that has crept into the dorm is just a result of the boys reflecting on the same matter.

All the lights in the living room are turned off one by one.

Everyone is a little on the pensive side as they shut the doors to their rooms after their goodnight wishes, but Jonghyun knows that they need to be.

Minki’s already in the room, the lamp on Minki’s bedside table is turned on, so Jonghyun switches the main light to the room off. He leans back on the door for a bit, thinking about how he should phrase everything to the higher-ups of Pledis, and pulls at the bottom of his shirt.

Minki’s lying down on his back, his eyes facing the ceiling. He waits for Jonghyun to get to his own bed before saying anything.

“Mnet’s known for their evil editing. You know how it was last season,” is what he chooses to say, “we’ll be okay if we join, right? They won’t make us look like we’re being unfair or something?”

“We’ll be okay. If there’s anything I can trust you guys with it’s that you’ll do your best. You won’t even give them the chance to show a side of you that can be perceived as bad.”

Minki smiles on hearing that, but he can’t get rid of the worry in his voice all the same. He turns his lamp off, and Jonghyun’s eyes slowly adjust to the outline of his body turning to face him.

Jonghyun can swear he can see Minki’s eyes twinkling in the dark, and he instinctively sits back up on his bed to make sure Minki isn’t crying.

“This’ll be it, huh? Our very last chance to redeem ourselves. All or nothing,” Minki finally exhales, and Jonghyun knows immediately that it’s what he’s been afraid of putting into words this entire time.

Of course Jonghyun knows. It’s exactly the same as what he’s been thinking, after all.

But he knows that isn’t right. It’s what he’s scared is the case, but it doesn’t have to be; and when he comforts Minki next, he’s trying to reassure himself just as much.

“If this doesn’t work, we’ll find a different way. We’ll do something , we won’t go down like this.”

Minki says nothing, but Jonghyun takes solace in how he can make out that Minki’s nodding in the darkness.

The light from a passing car filters through their windows, and Minki’s tone is different when he speaks to Jonghyun again.

“What do you think we’ll have to do first after getting in? Prepare for our introduction videos?” he thinks out loud, “the ones from the first season were amazing. We’ll have to surpass even those.”

“Maybe? There’ll also be all the challenges before the show airs. Hidden box and stuff. I can’t imagine you being good at that one,” Jonghyun says, trying to lighten the mood, and Minki lets out a disconcerted sound.

Jonghyun sniggers.
“What do you think would suit me? For an introduction video,” he asks, and Minki purses his lips.

“What about a pokemon concept,” he suggests, and it’s actually not too bad an idea.

Jonghyun’s blue 3ds is still in the drawer next to him, and if they’re really going to be joining the next season of Produce 101, he has a feeling he might not get the time to complete his pokedex before that.

But he’ll come back to it.

He’ll come back to it, after they’re done with Produce 101, and he can’t help but let his thoughts wander. It’s a risk, they may not be accepted properly, being a group that’s already debuted. But there’s also the chance that they might fall under the public eye in a positive light again. People might realize that they exist.

And it’s the tiniest sliver of a chance, but,

...It’s enough.

Jonghyun is ready to do whatever it takes to get his group out there, and he’s just happy he isn’t alone doing it. That’s all there is to it.

“A wartortle concept. Wartortle Jonghyun,” Minki mumbles into his pillow, he’s already half asleep.

Jonghyun feels ambition thrum through his entire body.

It’s silly, but Professor Birch’s words from the start of his game echo through his head.

Your very own adventure is about to unfold!

Jonghyun breathes in, till he can’t take in anymore air, and then lets it out in one go.

He whispers a “goodnight” even though Minki’s already asleep, and covers himself with his blanket.

They're hard workers. They've got the talent, they've got the drive, and they might now be getting the only other thing they need:

An opportunity. 

Jonghyun falls asleep, brimming with hopes and dreams that he’d thought he’d completely forgotten about after their trainee days.

It’s going to be busy from here on out.