That time in your life
Because happiness is so rare.
Seungho doesn’t quite know the reason behind his great good fortune. How could it be that all the right events came together at all the right points in his life? His grandfather’s operation to turn the tide of his mother’s fears. Dance skills solidifying from the theatre’s leftover nerves. A big time pop star’s wish to play puppeteer. His own face working itself out in time to audition. Actually, while the miracles occurred he had just taken them as a matter of course and he had just been happy over each one them and allowed himself a jacket here, an iPod case there to celebrate each accomplishment. Because it was a little bit of luck, here and there, coupled by good old hard work to take him where he had wanted to be; but this is really his parents’ interpretation of things, his father’s way of saying, now don’t lose your nerve, don’t screw up your fate.
Fate. Chance. This, Seungho sees in retrospect, is what has made an impossibility real. Now that his foot’s in the door and the world awaits, he can stop to look back and what he sees are quantum leaps and magical transformations, not the steady trek he had always imagined. And although Seungho has never been one for mysticism, he begins to think that good things and bad are bestowed by unseen stars. Work is just a way to hedge his bets a little tighter.
So even after dance routines and costumes are assigned, even after the pictures come out and people like them, Seungho wishes only to hold on tighter.
What with all the TV appearances and screaming fans and a group to call his own, Seungho is happier than he’s ever been. Ever. And that’s from a guy who didn’t do much stocktaking before now. But the happiness is precisely the reason why a small part of him looks on in dismay, from the mirror before bedtime, in his head in the dark. Because the days go by all too quickly, and there’s just so much in each moment he’s so afraid it’ll run out before he can catch even half of it in his hand.
Where there is happiness today, there’s fear that it won’t be there tomorrow.
Adult life, the fabled real big life that shadows every childhood, is finally here in its full complexity. He guesses he’s finally there where he’s supposed to be as he looks at himself backstage, examining the wingtips of shiny brown mascara, so subtly done that he might have been made with them, and his surreal blond halo. But nothing inside seems to have changed, he sees the bags piled into a corner and hears Thunder mumbling his rap like a prayer, no true sense of having arrived anywhere. The debut stage goes over like a dream, their performance is seamless and the crowd smiles and screams for them. He would almost be convinced that they-MBLAQ-are safe. But the same thing happens for every other group, and he knows the thrill and magic comes from rehearsals and good lighting, the audience’s marvellous love is a product of carefully perfected spin. Nothing guarantees forever.
The only certainty is now. So Seungho tries to make a grab for it all. It’s no mean feat really, trying to laugh the hardest, to show Sandara’s brother the most charity, to be an Amiable, Backslapping Leader while singing, dancing and playing the piano to accompany G.O’s singing or looking Cute yet Manly on a variety of variety shows. It helps, a little; maybe one day he’ll grow into the person he hopes to be, be so special that he’s truly unique and no one can do without him. Not the audience, not executives.
But it’s also incredibly Fake with a capital F (just the way Seungho liked to call out celebrities back in the day when he, too, was an armchair internet critic). And that makes him worried too. But even with this awareness, he’s too afraid to miss out on the moments just ticking by, so he sticks to this necessary evil of an act.
Byunghee, on the other hand, appears to be totally free of this private night of the noontime.
“What?” He lifts his head from the armrest and pulls out one of his earplugs. Seungho has been watching him again, trying to absorb what he can before an unexpected goodbye screws them all.
“No-“ he catches himself. “Why are you listening to music? Don’t you want to do anything?” The question is really quite an obnoxious one, it would be a chastisement ... if it hadn’t come out in such a clueless way. The thing is, these days, Seungho finds very little to say.
The other boy smiles. Slow and quiet. More like a friend-a real friend-rather than a colleague.
“I can’t think of anything else that I really want to do. And free time’s a luxury.” He turns the free earplug to Seungho.
“I ripped a CD a few months ago. You want to listen?”
“... okay.”
When Seungho settles on the floor beside the couch, he feels a weight rest on his shoulder and breath tickling his ear. The music isn’t exactly to his taste and Byunghee is likely to run off before the hour is up, but he’s tired and this feels as much like Home as home will ever be. Seungho leans into the couch and opens his eyes to the amber sunlight across the ceiling. Keeping happiness forever is impossible, and he knows now he didn’t understand the half of what he’d wished for.
I wrote this because I've been pretty depressed lately. And I also decided to write something about totally new characters as an experiment. Tell me if I have the characterization right because I don't know much about MBLAQ.