Chapter Text
When Jeongin had initially called his mom back early the next morning after managing to tell his hyungs everything, he tried to avoid the elephant in the room and talk about the inane happenings of the dorm. His mother listened patiently for a bit, before softly interrupting his anecdote about Minho chasing Hyunjin with tissues (which was really a lesson for Hyunjin not to disturb their second eldest hyung while cooking),
“Sweetie, I- what happened last night?”
Jeongin has always been unsure of how to define and explain love, despite being able to skim the surfaces of other’s consciences and grasp the breadth of such feelings of endearment. Although he knew the feeling was real and could feel it thrumming through his bones whenever his mother looked at his dad or when his neighbor’s wife gazed longingly at a man down the street, he couldn’t unpack the complexities of love even if he tried. After all, this simple four-letter word caused people to irrationally act in ways that they otherwise wouldn’t or pervert their desires in ways that were unforeseen.
However, the strength of such a feeling still wasn’t enough sometimes to abate the boiling tumult of other internal turmoil as evident by his father, since the pure love for his mother and Jeongin’s brothers was obvious and explicit in the shadows of his face. Nevertheless, love by itself wasn’t enough to provide shelter from the pounding storm of loneliness, helplessness, and loudness constantly grinding at the surface of his mind. Although Jeongin had to begrudgingly admit that their affection and love did manage to somewhat prolong his dad’s life, because otherwise (with the knowledge he unwittingly was forced to know) he knows that his father would have died before even reaching his twenties.
When he thought about such a concept in the context of his childhood, the hazy, blinding multicolored flashes always led him back to the innocent, dewy gazes of his younger brother’s eyes, the tainted shades of remorse on his mother’s face, and the snowflakes melting in the eyelashes of his classmates frantically blinking after Jaejoon’s retreating figure. As he grows older, he begins to recognize the blooming precipitate of such emotions in more and more contaminated versions. Such as when Chanwoo smiled so broadly after utilizing his dad’s position to coerce a talent agent into attending their school performances. A love of his once pure dream of performance that had twisted and mangled into a love of attaining his goal by any means possible.
Not that Jeongin could blame Chanwoo for such deception in this case, because he recognized the same flickering spots of love for the very same craft threatening to overwhelm everything else in his eyes whenever he looked in the mirror. And honestly, he scared himself sometimes with the sheer strength of his love, because he knew that, like Chanwoo, he wouldn’t let anything get in between him achieving his dream once the fire was alighted. Whether that meant using deceptive means, such as begging his makeup noona to cover his scars for years or hiding all evidence of his tainted past, he would do it. After all, this overwhelming love which had transformed into life-sucking passion was the only thing keeping him from falling and lacking the strength to ever rise.
Jeongin choked on his words, due to being caught off guard, and stared helplessly at his phone for a few moments. His mother seemed to sense that his tongue became sandpaper, because she took his silence as a cue to soldier on, “Why did you suddenly hang up? Oh- did anything happen with your hyungs? If so, don’t worry about it, I’m sure you will eventually sort everything-“
Her words were the balm to his thrashing soul and soothed the gnarled knots in his stomach like a heating pad. However, Jeongin could not help but continuing to bite gnash at his nails with blooming anxiety, while his mind flickered through all the repercussions of telling her that his hyungs knew.
Jeongin had always been unhappy.
No matter how frantically and thoroughly that Hyunjin overturned the depths of his memories in an effort to find evidence of their youngest being truly happy, all images of their past revealed smiles which never quite reached their youngest’s eyes or, even more terrifyingly, dull irises shaded with the scarlet haze of regret. He- they all noticed the signs from the very beginning really, after all rumors were entangled with the very essence of Jeongin and their maknae’s reclusiveness certainly did nothing but throw gasoline on an already burning inferno.
Sometimes Hyunjin found himself on the cusp of believing such rumors when trainees, who had been with him for much longer and supported him through the trials and tribulations of the evaluation period, whispered about dirtiness lying underneath the surface of Jeongin. When they bitterly murmured that the odd boy must have connections or, at the very least, a relative within the company, for why else would he immediately be chosen by Chan to be a part of the debut team when the older boy had only met him once? Chan had to have been forced by the company to place him in the lineup, because why else would he go back and forth between debating whether to add nearly prodigious trainees like Minho to the lineup yet choose Jeongin in a near heartbeat?
Why else would he uncertainly bite his lips and crease his eyes in the face of Hyunjin’s dance evaluation but immediately become transfixed upon Jeongin?
And he knew that he was not the only person who thought this. In fact, this issue was one of the very few where Han and him actually shared a collective agreement. That much was evident by the way the younger would begrudgingly join the trainees’ discussions to frustratingly tug at his hair and just wonder why? Why was he seemingly chosen faster than anyone, even Han and Changbin for debut?
What was so special?
After a few months of being a tenuous member of the upcoming debut group, Jeongin carefully examined all his member’s eyes and thoughts for any evidence of this airy, electrifying emotion in any parts of their internal self towards him. And at first, as Jeongin expected (with an unfamiliar and startling sting of disappointment), there was nothing. Such a fact really didn’t surprise him since he knew that other members, such as Han and Changbin, were already close to each other and really had no reason to overflow with affection to an outsider in their preestablished group. They didn’t feel any negative emotions towards him, so Jeongin could work with that at the very least.
So, he forced himself not to care or long for too much when Minho and Jisung exclusively left to go get food together without even a thought in their mind of inviting him. He bit down on lips and muffled his groans of frustration when Seungmin and Changbin seemed to barely glance his way sometimes. And he practices schooling his far too open expressions into something carefully blank in front of the bathroom mirror every morning, so none of the members would have any reason to doubt his placement in the group.
And this was fine. It was expected. He could handle it (and squash down the naïve voice in his heart that longed for more from everyone).
They knew everything and impossibly did not even think about leaving.
Nevertheless, his mother had always been fiercely protective of him after his hopes and dreams were nearly extinguished by a burning flame within middle school.; thus, Jeongin had reason to worry about her reaction.
After all, despite all the rumors that Chanwoo had spread and the suspicion flickering behind Jaejoon’s eyes, Jeongin’s extended family were many things, but never one to viciously expose the darkest and dirtiest secret underlying the behavior of the family oddities (After all, Jeongin thought viciously sometimes, their children might be the next cursed if he chose not to have children).
As far as he knew, this was the first time anyone outside their immediate family circle had been privy to such knowledge.
All this rot and resentment came tumbling out in an absolutely disgusting fashion when Hyunjin spotted Bang Chan eating with Jeongin, Han and Changbin during a break from practice. All the internal sirens within his head blared an absolutely bloodcurdling scream and told him that this was an absolutely terrible idea, yet like seeing a wreck in slow motion, he could not help himself and found his feet dragging himself over to their empty table.
As his pupils zeroed in on Jeongin in a corrupted version of tunnel vision (as if the younger was predator and he was prey), he desperately tried to wrangle his body posture into something inviting and lock up all his ugly feelings with a deadbolt. Never to be voiced or heard. (It was not Jeongin’s fault and Hyunjin would do anything to make sure the younger never had a reason to dislike him. After all, he was the one who approached first and refused to let go.)
The infamous and revered Bang Chan, who all trainees hoped to stay on his good side, did not seem so scary now as he was engrossed in his conversation with Jeongin. Whatever he was saying must have been interesting, for Chan’s eyes were practically glowing as he gesticulated his arms wildly, while Jeongin nodded intently on the side as he picked at his food. Han sat sulkily to the other side of Chan and was gloomily muttering something inane at Changbin, who seemed to be scrolling through his phone and nodding absentmindedly. Unfortunately, Changbin caught him off guard when the older spotted him approaching out of the corner of his eyes and eagerly stood up with a brightened face, while waving him over, “Ah- Hyunjin! It’s been a while, was it two or three weeks today? Ah well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Come join us!”
Hyunjin awkwardly smiled back at Changbin’s inviting attitude and suppressed the urge to hunch into himself when the others’ gazes burrowed into his face. Han was unsurprisingly unhappy to see him, but the same could be said likewise. Hyunjin would willingly walk into fire than attempt any civil conversation with the shorter trainee.
It was not his reaction that made him want to sink into the depths of the earth, but rather Jeongin. Because whatever miniscule happiness that had existed on Jeongin’s face before was long gone as his face visibly fell upon seeing Hyunjin come closer. (He knew. And that was the issue, right? Why did he have to see everything ugly about Hyunjin, when he only wanted Jeongin to see the best sides of him?)
His reaction did not go unnoticed by any means at the table, for Han raised his eyebrows to the top of his head in surprise. Meanwhile, Chan furrowed his eyebrows at the noticeable drop of the youngest’s mood, while Changbin seemed to connect the dots together by swiveling his head at Hyunjin with an accusatory gaze as if asking what did you do?
With no real answers beyond a set of suspicions that he was not close enough with the others to share yet, Hyunjin could only shrug helplessly and sit down quietly next to Changbin. At first, awkward silence and tension reigned and might have suffocated all of them, but Chan luckily had the grace to ask about Hyunjin’s week and break the barrier no one else was willing to touch. The conversation from there flowed naturally, although it was obvious to everyone that Jeongin would rather be anywhere but at the table.
He did not seem to like anyone there.