(no subject)
title: places where we've been before
pairing: chansung/jaebeom, chansung/wooyoung
rating: pg
word count: 2600
chansung loved everybody.
Chansung liked that small shredding of time when they weren't well-known or standing on the next step to becoming famous. He didn't know if the others remembered that period or reminisced about it often, but the memory was still treasured in his mind, and he liked to take out it out from the crate he kept it in, just in case he might die the next second.
Now, he felt as if he was dying every second and he had no idea how or of what time it would stop, but Chansung hoped that it would be soon. But in the meantime, he collapsed onto his bed, stretched every limb out, and waited by closing his eyes.
The one whose foot was in fame first, with the exception of Nichkhun, was Park Jaebeom. Or well, it seemed like he did to the rest of the other trainees who were under JYP.
The guy walked the halls like he owned them and in this case, he most likely did. He had been one of the more talented boys training in the building, and made Chansung dull in comparison. It made Chansung hold onto his looks in desperation, drowning in his hidden fear of being outshined. He had already been adjusted to his status, though. Some of his closest friends had the most beautiful voices.
Chansung didn't count on meeting Jaebeom, because he didn't even think they were placed in the same category of people, of entertainers. But when he walked into a studio that he thought was empty, he was astonished to see one body falling to its demise, until there was the sound of skin meeting floor to blur the vision. There he was, the well-known Park Jaebeom, trapped to the ground by the kind of tired they all carried and weren't used to.
It must have been exhaustion that kicked the guy down, but whatever sickness Jaebeom was under, Chansung wasn't buying it. From all the things he heard about the guy that people acknowledged, the guy seemed close to almighty. Chansung stepped past the obstacle, and came to a bench where he could keep his things.
But as he tugged down the zipper of his bag, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry inside. Just because he didn't know the guy didn't mean it would Chansung if he offered some help. Chansung was a nice person anyway, and he wasn't new to the act of making friends.
He shifted through all the things he stored in his bag, until he found a couple of bananas he grouped together. He ripped through the stack of them until he found one with a brown spot, because there was no way he could give up one of the fresher ones.
Like someone who didn't know what he was doing, which Chansung surely was, he crossed a line over to the fallen Jaebeom, and poked one end of the banana in his cheek. Jaebeom flailed for a second, made flopping motions that were similiar to a dying fish, and picked his head up to see a banana between his eyes. Seeing him at a closer angle, he didn't look so scary. Park Jaebeom looked kind of like a dark cousin to Jo Kwon.
Chansung fumbled with his words. "I think you could use this."
Jaebeom didn't blink, he stared. Jaebeom didn't talk, he breathed loudly. Jaebeom did everything but come off as welcoming. And when it seemed like all efforts went to waste, Chansung staggered to get back up.
But he stopped himself when the fruit was pulled out of his hand and into Jaebeom's open mouth, unpeeled. The only words he could understand from Jaebeom's muffled voice was "Thanks, man" and the next string of English words that came after just sounded like trash getting compressed. Chansung just needed the thank you, and he was good to go.
"What's your name?" Jaebeom asked. He looked better now, less like a drug addict who was off their meds and more like a person who could actually handle dancing for more than half a day.
Through a mouthful of his own banana, Chansung replied with his name. He was surprised when Jaebeom had responded.
"I've heard of you."
Chansung never thought he'd be talked about.
A bond came out of the day they talked, and Chansung had someone else he could run into and strike up a conversation with. It was nice to have someone else to be in a room with, and avoid feeling awkward around them. Also, the fact that Jaebeom was super short made it all the fun to hang around him. Chansung knew he was taller than everybody else, and had an aging face that caused people not to believe his true age, but since Jaebeom had been amongst the shortest, it gave him more happiness to use his head as an armrest. Of course, the anger that fumed from Jaebeom's pointed ears made it better, if his life already wasn't.
"Quit it," Jaebeom swooped his head out in time, and ran his hands all over his flat hair. "Or I will use some spiky hair gel that will poke holes in your arm next time you do that."
"Okay," Chansung said, but he never agreed to the first part, just confirmed that he got the warning. When Jaebeom forgot about it later, never able to hold a grudge, Chansung slid back his arm on top of Jaebeom's scalp. Jaebeom let themselves stay like that for awhile, until he silently got up from their sitting spot, moving Chansung's arm off his head.
Chansung blocked his face in case Jaebeom wanted to punch his shit-eating grin. But he didn't, never had the intention to, and faced Chansung with a serious face he knew he couldn't pull off.
"You are such a dick," Jaebeom said flatly, his smile breaking up all his the anger that never existed. All Chansung could do was smile.
"You know I love you," he replied with, and when Jaebeom walked out the door, he actually felt like he was telling the truth.
Chansung never thought he could love somebody who wasn't a woman.
They debuted in the same group, and even though it felt like Chansung hopped on a train to enjoy the free ride, it was an out-of-body experience that Chansung overheard from people's conversations. Performing was supposed to be a privilege, a job you worked and slaved over, but it became something that Chansung expected and couldn't wait for. It made smiling for the fans effortless.
Later, swamped by fatigue and sickening sweats, Chansung saw through the illusion. It stopped being fun and games when they were being drained of their sleep, and the fans that Chansung had welcomed at first, the fans he didn't know he had, would keep him up at night with their screams and chants still drilling inside his ear. He found smiling for people a lot harder than singing and dancing. But he found faith in the optimistic attitude he still carried, and knew he'd get used to it. Years from now, the lack of sleep would be something he'd laugh about.
Their new lives affected Jaebeom the most. He had been made the leader, and Chansung imagined it must have felt like carrying a burden everywhere you took a step, except it wasn't something a person could just toss aside and bury into a grave. It was adaptation, and Jaebeom had been through that cycle one too many times with a new country, a new language, a new culture.
He'd use his leadership as an excuse for people not to come near him when he was weary, but he'd eventually let his guard down to all the members, especially Chansung, who feigned needing it the most. Of all people, Chansung knew that Jaebeom was one of the easiest safes a thief could break into, but he could never take advantage of someone who'd been so important to him, and still served that position.
Maybe it were their busy schedules marking them down for new fears he never thought existed, but Chansung had gotten scared one night. With the days progressing, he wondered if they would still act the same: careless, unafraid, shameless; or would they be completely different people in the end? There was even that chance of all of them turning against each other, hating to have to breathe the same air as the other person, and all of this had gotten Chansung to crawl out of his blankets and seek closure.
He opened the door to Jaebeom's room, gathering all of his confidence before it would get eaten up the next day by either a variety show or a fan signing. He didn't want to lose himself in their new lives, so he wanted to keep it safe in Jaebeom, a smart and careful move he planned out for what the future might bring to them.
"Jae-" Chansung couldn't finish saying his name, because it looked as if Jaebeom had been lying awake for awhile. His eyes were half-closed and targeting Chansung's intruding presence.
"I can't sleep," he answered to a question that Chansung didn't ask. Chansung pulled Jaebeom's blanket over his feet because he'd forgotten to put on his socks, and now his toes were freezing. He fed off Jaebeom's warmth for survival.
"Too stressed?" Chansung guessed, but Jaebeom shook his head. The shorter man flipped over on his broad back and cradled the back of his head in his palms.
"I think I'm-what's the only English phrase that Junho knows-I think I'm excited," Jaebeom expressed. He sounded so sure of the words he was spewing that Chansung had started to look at him like a leader right then. Not that he hadn't already, but there was an effect to Jaebeom's words that single-handedly pulled in all the respect he deserved.
Remembering what he was in the room for, Chansung absorbed the same confidence seeping out of Jaebeom and tried to muster up all the words he wanted to piece together, to create into something that would make Jaebeom cry. He wanted to let it all out, to say how much he loved Jaebeom over the years, and how much he still did. But the words didn't drive off his tongue like they were supposed to when they came up his throat. Chansung forgot what he had been so scared of before because it seemed impossible that all of them, much less Jaebeom, would change.
"I look up to you, you know," he replaced instead, giving himself a make-believe pat on the back for doing the right thing, making the right choice.
Jaebeom looked confused, like his face couldn't pick which to wear: a proud expression or a squeamish, dumb one.
"I didn't know that," Jaebeom said, sounding a little suspicious.
You don't know a lot of things, Chansung thought before taking all the blanket for himself, the seams of fabric swallowing him up and a guilty smile he couldn't contain.
Chansung never thought of there being disasters.
He knew earthquakes happened in a place called California. He knew Taekyeon passed wind in his sleep, and it would stink up the room. But he never knew of showing up to Jaebeom's room to see it emptied out and stark clean. He could have been like everybody else and make up a lie to comfort himself, but it was too early in the morning for that.
Chansung went straight to the kitchen to make some breakfast for himself, but his fingers didn't know which plate to pick up, and so giving up, he collapsed onto a chair he pulled out from the table.
Chansung sat there for the rest of the morning, withering there until someone found him like that.
Chansung never thought one person could matter so much.
He'd seen it occur all the time in the company: Hyunah leaving the Wonder Girls when they were barely releasing their second hit song, Rain switching different companies, all the legendary groups disbanding. He'd seen it all, and he pondered over whether Jay's leaving was a strategy to test their well-beings.
He didn't want to take a test, he wanted to see his smiling leader beating the lights out of everybody in dancing practice, taking front and center where he belonged.
Chansung didn't want to be strong or a beast anymore, he wanted to be weak like the rest of his insides, the broken parts that didn't show on the surface.
They won their biggest award with only six people and perhaps the fans already knew that they weren't crying because they'd won, they were crying because this was a travesty. The award they really deserved was "Most Crippled Group," but they still walked up the red carpet to accept their award, because nobody wanted to see six grown men crying for something that wasn't for what they won.
Before it was his turn to step up to the podium, Chansung had carefully constructed a speech about all the people he had to thank: his family, his friends, JYP, his sunbaes; but when his time came to talk, his mind vanished into a blank slate. The only thing pounding in there was a single name.
"Jaebeom, we love you."
Chansung found a video of his speech and played it on repeat, jotting down every single thing that he found wrong with the picture. He looked tired, he looked scared, and he looked better if he was dead.
They all seemed better off dead with the trance in their eyes.
Chansung opened his eyes, letting go of what he was holding onto.
He woke up dreary, blaming himself for letting his eyes close. All the good memories had become stale for being left out too long, and he put them away again, deciding to only take them out everytime he was on the verge of losing them.
Chansung ran his index finger around his mouth, parting his dry lips for air. He needed food, energy. He shed himself from the blanket he was huddling under and darted out of the room to find something to eat.
On the way to the kitchen, he heard some shuffling noises that were loud enough to get his attention. He stopped at the living room from where he was standing, and glanced at the couch, spotting a lumpy blanket that was rolling around.
He took a stab at guessing who it was. "Wooyoung?"
Parts of the blanket flew down to the floor, revealing Wooyoung's head. His hair, usually neat and every strand in order, was messy and damp. Chansung thought it must have gotten that way from promotions, but changed his mind when Wooyoung choked back a sobbing noise in his throat.
Chansung didn't want to ask if he was crying because it seemed rude and would sting any man's pride, so he took his words in a different direction. "Trouble sleeping?"
Wooyoung nodded, his arms flailing around until they grabbed a random shirt and he answered Chansung's question while rubbing his face into the cloth. "Yeah, I can't sleep."
Chansung forgot about going to the kitchen and sat down beside Wooyoung, rooting himself to the couch. Wooyoung scooted aside for him, blankets piling up on his knees.
"I can't sleep," he repeated, and he made it sound like he wanted something from Chansung, or needed guidance. Chansung didn't know how to give it to him.
The best he could do was give Wooyoung a tired smile. "You're probably just excited."
It wasn't his own answer, but Wooyoung believed it.
Chansung faced the fact that he loved everybody. He had just been unlucky to have Jaebeom as one of them.
pairing: chansung/jaebeom, chansung/wooyoung
rating: pg
word count: 2600
chansung loved everybody.
Chansung liked that small shredding of time when they weren't well-known or standing on the next step to becoming famous. He didn't know if the others remembered that period or reminisced about it often, but the memory was still treasured in his mind, and he liked to take out it out from the crate he kept it in, just in case he might die the next second.
Now, he felt as if he was dying every second and he had no idea how or of what time it would stop, but Chansung hoped that it would be soon. But in the meantime, he collapsed onto his bed, stretched every limb out, and waited by closing his eyes.
The one whose foot was in fame first, with the exception of Nichkhun, was Park Jaebeom. Or well, it seemed like he did to the rest of the other trainees who were under JYP.
The guy walked the halls like he owned them and in this case, he most likely did. He had been one of the more talented boys training in the building, and made Chansung dull in comparison. It made Chansung hold onto his looks in desperation, drowning in his hidden fear of being outshined. He had already been adjusted to his status, though. Some of his closest friends had the most beautiful voices.
Chansung didn't count on meeting Jaebeom, because he didn't even think they were placed in the same category of people, of entertainers. But when he walked into a studio that he thought was empty, he was astonished to see one body falling to its demise, until there was the sound of skin meeting floor to blur the vision. There he was, the well-known Park Jaebeom, trapped to the ground by the kind of tired they all carried and weren't used to.
It must have been exhaustion that kicked the guy down, but whatever sickness Jaebeom was under, Chansung wasn't buying it. From all the things he heard about the guy that people acknowledged, the guy seemed close to almighty. Chansung stepped past the obstacle, and came to a bench where he could keep his things.
But as he tugged down the zipper of his bag, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry inside. Just because he didn't know the guy didn't mean it would Chansung if he offered some help. Chansung was a nice person anyway, and he wasn't new to the act of making friends.
He shifted through all the things he stored in his bag, until he found a couple of bananas he grouped together. He ripped through the stack of them until he found one with a brown spot, because there was no way he could give up one of the fresher ones.
Like someone who didn't know what he was doing, which Chansung surely was, he crossed a line over to the fallen Jaebeom, and poked one end of the banana in his cheek. Jaebeom flailed for a second, made flopping motions that were similiar to a dying fish, and picked his head up to see a banana between his eyes. Seeing him at a closer angle, he didn't look so scary. Park Jaebeom looked kind of like a dark cousin to Jo Kwon.
Chansung fumbled with his words. "I think you could use this."
Jaebeom didn't blink, he stared. Jaebeom didn't talk, he breathed loudly. Jaebeom did everything but come off as welcoming. And when it seemed like all efforts went to waste, Chansung staggered to get back up.
But he stopped himself when the fruit was pulled out of his hand and into Jaebeom's open mouth, unpeeled. The only words he could understand from Jaebeom's muffled voice was "Thanks, man" and the next string of English words that came after just sounded like trash getting compressed. Chansung just needed the thank you, and he was good to go.
"What's your name?" Jaebeom asked. He looked better now, less like a drug addict who was off their meds and more like a person who could actually handle dancing for more than half a day.
Through a mouthful of his own banana, Chansung replied with his name. He was surprised when Jaebeom had responded.
"I've heard of you."
Chansung never thought he'd be talked about.
A bond came out of the day they talked, and Chansung had someone else he could run into and strike up a conversation with. It was nice to have someone else to be in a room with, and avoid feeling awkward around them. Also, the fact that Jaebeom was super short made it all the fun to hang around him. Chansung knew he was taller than everybody else, and had an aging face that caused people not to believe his true age, but since Jaebeom had been amongst the shortest, it gave him more happiness to use his head as an armrest. Of course, the anger that fumed from Jaebeom's pointed ears made it better, if his life already wasn't.
"Quit it," Jaebeom swooped his head out in time, and ran his hands all over his flat hair. "Or I will use some spiky hair gel that will poke holes in your arm next time you do that."
"Okay," Chansung said, but he never agreed to the first part, just confirmed that he got the warning. When Jaebeom forgot about it later, never able to hold a grudge, Chansung slid back his arm on top of Jaebeom's scalp. Jaebeom let themselves stay like that for awhile, until he silently got up from their sitting spot, moving Chansung's arm off his head.
Chansung blocked his face in case Jaebeom wanted to punch his shit-eating grin. But he didn't, never had the intention to, and faced Chansung with a serious face he knew he couldn't pull off.
"You are such a dick," Jaebeom said flatly, his smile breaking up all his the anger that never existed. All Chansung could do was smile.
"You know I love you," he replied with, and when Jaebeom walked out the door, he actually felt like he was telling the truth.
Chansung never thought he could love somebody who wasn't a woman.
They debuted in the same group, and even though it felt like Chansung hopped on a train to enjoy the free ride, it was an out-of-body experience that Chansung overheard from people's conversations. Performing was supposed to be a privilege, a job you worked and slaved over, but it became something that Chansung expected and couldn't wait for. It made smiling for the fans effortless.
Later, swamped by fatigue and sickening sweats, Chansung saw through the illusion. It stopped being fun and games when they were being drained of their sleep, and the fans that Chansung had welcomed at first, the fans he didn't know he had, would keep him up at night with their screams and chants still drilling inside his ear. He found smiling for people a lot harder than singing and dancing. But he found faith in the optimistic attitude he still carried, and knew he'd get used to it. Years from now, the lack of sleep would be something he'd laugh about.
Their new lives affected Jaebeom the most. He had been made the leader, and Chansung imagined it must have felt like carrying a burden everywhere you took a step, except it wasn't something a person could just toss aside and bury into a grave. It was adaptation, and Jaebeom had been through that cycle one too many times with a new country, a new language, a new culture.
He'd use his leadership as an excuse for people not to come near him when he was weary, but he'd eventually let his guard down to all the members, especially Chansung, who feigned needing it the most. Of all people, Chansung knew that Jaebeom was one of the easiest safes a thief could break into, but he could never take advantage of someone who'd been so important to him, and still served that position.
Maybe it were their busy schedules marking them down for new fears he never thought existed, but Chansung had gotten scared one night. With the days progressing, he wondered if they would still act the same: careless, unafraid, shameless; or would they be completely different people in the end? There was even that chance of all of them turning against each other, hating to have to breathe the same air as the other person, and all of this had gotten Chansung to crawl out of his blankets and seek closure.
He opened the door to Jaebeom's room, gathering all of his confidence before it would get eaten up the next day by either a variety show or a fan signing. He didn't want to lose himself in their new lives, so he wanted to keep it safe in Jaebeom, a smart and careful move he planned out for what the future might bring to them.
"Jae-" Chansung couldn't finish saying his name, because it looked as if Jaebeom had been lying awake for awhile. His eyes were half-closed and targeting Chansung's intruding presence.
"I can't sleep," he answered to a question that Chansung didn't ask. Chansung pulled Jaebeom's blanket over his feet because he'd forgotten to put on his socks, and now his toes were freezing. He fed off Jaebeom's warmth for survival.
"Too stressed?" Chansung guessed, but Jaebeom shook his head. The shorter man flipped over on his broad back and cradled the back of his head in his palms.
"I think I'm-what's the only English phrase that Junho knows-I think I'm excited," Jaebeom expressed. He sounded so sure of the words he was spewing that Chansung had started to look at him like a leader right then. Not that he hadn't already, but there was an effect to Jaebeom's words that single-handedly pulled in all the respect he deserved.
Remembering what he was in the room for, Chansung absorbed the same confidence seeping out of Jaebeom and tried to muster up all the words he wanted to piece together, to create into something that would make Jaebeom cry. He wanted to let it all out, to say how much he loved Jaebeom over the years, and how much he still did. But the words didn't drive off his tongue like they were supposed to when they came up his throat. Chansung forgot what he had been so scared of before because it seemed impossible that all of them, much less Jaebeom, would change.
"I look up to you, you know," he replaced instead, giving himself a make-believe pat on the back for doing the right thing, making the right choice.
Jaebeom looked confused, like his face couldn't pick which to wear: a proud expression or a squeamish, dumb one.
"I didn't know that," Jaebeom said, sounding a little suspicious.
You don't know a lot of things, Chansung thought before taking all the blanket for himself, the seams of fabric swallowing him up and a guilty smile he couldn't contain.
Chansung never thought of there being disasters.
He knew earthquakes happened in a place called California. He knew Taekyeon passed wind in his sleep, and it would stink up the room. But he never knew of showing up to Jaebeom's room to see it emptied out and stark clean. He could have been like everybody else and make up a lie to comfort himself, but it was too early in the morning for that.
Chansung went straight to the kitchen to make some breakfast for himself, but his fingers didn't know which plate to pick up, and so giving up, he collapsed onto a chair he pulled out from the table.
Chansung sat there for the rest of the morning, withering there until someone found him like that.
Chansung never thought one person could matter so much.
He'd seen it occur all the time in the company: Hyunah leaving the Wonder Girls when they were barely releasing their second hit song, Rain switching different companies, all the legendary groups disbanding. He'd seen it all, and he pondered over whether Jay's leaving was a strategy to test their well-beings.
He didn't want to take a test, he wanted to see his smiling leader beating the lights out of everybody in dancing practice, taking front and center where he belonged.
Chansung didn't want to be strong or a beast anymore, he wanted to be weak like the rest of his insides, the broken parts that didn't show on the surface.
They won their biggest award with only six people and perhaps the fans already knew that they weren't crying because they'd won, they were crying because this was a travesty. The award they really deserved was "Most Crippled Group," but they still walked up the red carpet to accept their award, because nobody wanted to see six grown men crying for something that wasn't for what they won.
Before it was his turn to step up to the podium, Chansung had carefully constructed a speech about all the people he had to thank: his family, his friends, JYP, his sunbaes; but when his time came to talk, his mind vanished into a blank slate. The only thing pounding in there was a single name.
"Jaebeom, we love you."
Chansung found a video of his speech and played it on repeat, jotting down every single thing that he found wrong with the picture. He looked tired, he looked scared, and he looked better if he was dead.
They all seemed better off dead with the trance in their eyes.
Chansung opened his eyes, letting go of what he was holding onto.
He woke up dreary, blaming himself for letting his eyes close. All the good memories had become stale for being left out too long, and he put them away again, deciding to only take them out everytime he was on the verge of losing them.
Chansung ran his index finger around his mouth, parting his dry lips for air. He needed food, energy. He shed himself from the blanket he was huddling under and darted out of the room to find something to eat.
On the way to the kitchen, he heard some shuffling noises that were loud enough to get his attention. He stopped at the living room from where he was standing, and glanced at the couch, spotting a lumpy blanket that was rolling around.
He took a stab at guessing who it was. "Wooyoung?"
Parts of the blanket flew down to the floor, revealing Wooyoung's head. His hair, usually neat and every strand in order, was messy and damp. Chansung thought it must have gotten that way from promotions, but changed his mind when Wooyoung choked back a sobbing noise in his throat.
Chansung didn't want to ask if he was crying because it seemed rude and would sting any man's pride, so he took his words in a different direction. "Trouble sleeping?"
Wooyoung nodded, his arms flailing around until they grabbed a random shirt and he answered Chansung's question while rubbing his face into the cloth. "Yeah, I can't sleep."
Chansung forgot about going to the kitchen and sat down beside Wooyoung, rooting himself to the couch. Wooyoung scooted aside for him, blankets piling up on his knees.
"I can't sleep," he repeated, and he made it sound like he wanted something from Chansung, or needed guidance. Chansung didn't know how to give it to him.
The best he could do was give Wooyoung a tired smile. "You're probably just excited."
It wasn't his own answer, but Wooyoung believed it.
Chansung faced the fact that he loved everybody. He had just been unlucky to have Jaebeom as one of them.