fic: Replay {Beast, Yoseob, Dooseob}
Title: Replay
Length: one-shot
Series: Re:Verse (second in the series, after Rewind)
Author: M_K Yujji
Rating: pg
Genre: drama, angst, romance
Pairing/Characters: Yoseob (Dooseob)
Warnings: RPS, Future-ish sort of fic, Strange happenings
Disclaimer: Though real people are used as characters, this fic bears no resemblance to Real Life and these people are not owned by me.
Comments/Notes: I have changed some of the dates to mesh more closely with reality, but in all honesty, I'm playing pretty fast and loose with Beast's real timeline. The problem is that I needed a year of time and all the stuff with them individually and as a group all happened so damned fast. There wasn't a full year between AJ's debut and then Beast's debut. Not even close. Talk about your whirlwinds... I did the best I could, but let's face it. The fic deals with rewriting time anyways, so.. ^^;; A little loose play with dates is hardly going to make it any better or worse than it already was.
Once again, the ending is a little abrupt, but don't fear~ There is one more fic in this series. ^^
Summary: What would you do if life had moved on without you?
~*~*~
October 16, 2009
Yoseob shivered and curled into himself as the wind seemed to blow right through his clothes. If he ever found out who left the dorm windows open…
“Hey! What are you doing out here, kid!”
Something poked his side and Yoseob swatted at it even as he tried to curl further away. “Yah, go away. ‘M sleepin’…”
“Freaky kids these days, hey!” Another poke, this one harder than the first. “A cemetery is no place for kids to be sleeping.”
“Hm?”
A cemetery.
Yoseob’s eyes flew open and he sat up, looking around to find that yes, he was in fact in a cemetery. His shiver this time had nothing to do with the cold. At least he seemed to have passed out on an unused plot? There was no headstone nearby.
The old man reached out to poke him again and Yoseob swatted at the offending hand with a scowl. “I’m awake, old man. Leave me alone.”
“Snot nosed little brats.” The old man huffed and stood up, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he wandered off.
Yoseob dropped his head into his hands and searched his memory. How the hell had he ended up in a cemetery? The last thing he remembered was dance training. He’d been dizzy and disoriented and then… nothing.
“Saa… I must have passed out.”
Which still didn’t explain why he wasn’t in the studio’s doctor’s office. Dropping him off in the middle of nowhere might have been Gikwang’s idea of a joke and certainly the singer might feel justified in doing it. They hadn’t been getting along very well lately. It was hardly Yoseob’s fault that ‘AJ’ wasn’t being nearly as successful as anyone had hoped. But perhaps he’d been a little harsh the last few times the topic had come up.
Doojoon wouldn’t have let that happen though.
At least… Yoseob didn’t think he would. Their relationship had been growing more strained recently, too, but Doojoon just wasn’t that petty.
Probably.
If his current situation was Gikwang’s fault, it must have been done without Doojoon’s knowledge.
Yoseob sighed and flopped back onto the ground for a moment. The disadvantage of having a secret relationship was that one’s partner didn’t really have an excuse to hang around and guard one’s body.
“I am so kicking Gikwang’s ass when I get back,” Yoseob muttered as he finally rolled over and got up. He glanced up and shook his head. It had been late afternoon to early evening when they’d been training and he was pretty sure it was morning now.
Everyone had to be going crazy wondering where he was.
Bad enough that he’d passed out during training, but to simply vanish and not show up the next day?
“If this ruins my chances at a solo career, I’m gonna do a lot worse than kick his ass,” Yoseob grumbled as he stuck his hands in his pockets and started the long trek back to the studio. “I’ll kill him.”
~*~*~
“Ahjussi! Ahjussi!”
The old grounds keeper sighed as the boy slid to a halt in front of him. “What? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
The boy panted and held up a hand, gesturing frantically as he tried to catch his breath. “Other… see? Blonde?”
“If you’re asking about that blonde kid, you just missed him.”
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Well yelling at me isn’t going to do you any good. He was on foot, he couldn’t have gotten far.”
The boy bowed low before darting back off again.
The old man shook his head. Kids.
~*~*~
As he climbed out of the car, Yoseob thanked the nice old woman who’d been kind enough to stop and give him a ride.
The activity around him meant nothing to Yoseob as he made his way towards the floor where he and the others practiced every day. He was late and he definitely looked like he’d gotten shit ass sleep out in the dirt, but at least he wouldn’t be too late.
“Yoseob! Hyung! Wait up!”
He turned to see a tall stranger running up to him, looking vaguely worried. “Yeah? I’m kind of in a hurry…”
It wouldn’t do to completely blow off the guy, just in case he was someone important, but Yoseob twitched at the necessity. He was late.
“Doojoon-hyung is worried sick. You didn’t even leave him a note.”
Yoseob paused at that, confused. “Why would I? He’s not my mother.”
The boy gaped at him for a moment. “No, he’s not. But even if he wasn’t your band leader, I’d think being your boyfriend would mean something.”
“What?!” Yoseob didn’t care how weird he looked, darting forward and pressing a hand over the stranger’s mouth to silence him. He glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.
“Who the hell told you that and when?” he hissed.
“…” The boy shrugged him off, looking confused and aggravated as he hooked a thumb towards the cork board of notices on the wall nearby. “You. Every fucking day since I met you. Geez, what's your problem today?”
Yoseob ignored the question, instead freezing at the sight of a string of photobooth style pictures tacked to the board. Doojoon was grinning more broadly than Yoseob had ever seen him, offering the camera a cheerful peace sign with one hand while the other was wrapped around his companion’s shoulders. His companion who looked an awful lot like Yoseob only with blindingly blonde hair and a sappy look the likes of which he’d never, ever sport.
He snatched the picture off the board and waved it in the boy’s face. “Who - When were these taken? Who put them up there?!”
“Yesterday and you. You put them everywhere, laughing and going on about how Doojoon was alive and you were alive and how awesome it all was. You’d have thought it was your birthday, the way you were carrying on.”
“My birthday is in January,” Yoseob muttered faintly, feeling dizzy. Yesterday…
“Umm.. Duh?”
Completely ignoring the other, Yoseob made a break for the nearest restroom.
He was still gaping at his reflection - and the gleaming white blonde hair that was mocking him - when the boy caught back up to him. “Look, Yoseob-hyung… Let’s just go find the others, okay? I’m pretty sure Doojoon and Gikwang-”
“Gikwang!” Yoseob whirled around, an accusing finger poking into the stranger’s chest. “He did this! He put you up to this! He dyed… and he…. I’m going to kill him!”
He shoved past the boy again, this time heading out. If Gikwang had gone so far as to dye Yoseob’s hair and dump him in a cemetary… One lone boy was probably not the only accomplice. He needed to get out of the studio building entirely, find someone sane.
He ignored all attempts to get his attention as he rushed out of the building and into the crowded street. His mind was focused entirely on going to find his mother.
At least he could trust that she wouldn’t be crazy.
~*~*~
Dongwoon stared after his band mate, a little concerned, a lot aggravated, and completely confused.
He’d apologized the the handful of people Yoseob had shoved in the mad rush to get away. He was a little afraid to go up to the dance studio and tell the others that he’d found - and lost - their singer. Doojoon really had been out of his mind with worry since he’d woken up them all up that morning with frantic questions about whether or not anyone had any idea where Yoseob had gone.
Somehow Dongwoon didn’t think that his own encounter with the blonde was going to be very reassuring.
“D-Dongwoon!”
He turned to see a familiar figure running towards him from the direction of the park and ride. He dropped his head in acknowledgement. “Hyung.”
“Have you seen Seobie?”
Dongwoon’s mouth tightened in a grimace. “Unfortunately.”
“Fuck. Don’t tell me he’s gone again?”
Dongwoon pointed in the general direction he’d seen Yoseob head. “The crazy jerk went that way.”
“Stupid little…. Why can’t he just sit still????”
Despite the situation, Dongwoon couldn’t help but smile a little. “Well… It is Yoseob, hyung.”
“Even so! This hard enough without having to chase him all over the damned city.”
“Hyung…” Dongwoon bit his lip, hesitant to speak of it to anyone outside the band that had become his family. But if his hyung knew anything… His run in with Yoseob had disturbed him. A lot. If his hyung knew anything about what was going on, then he needed to know. “He acted like he didn’t even know me… Or that he and Doojoon are… It was weird.”
The older man hesitated before sighing and shaking his head. “Don’t worry, Dongwoon. I’ll fix it.” Then he made a face. “If I can ever catch the little bastard.”
Dongwoon hesitated again before nodding.
He had no idea what was going on or why Yoseob was acting so oddly. All he could do was hope everything would work out in the end.
As he headed back inside, the care of Yoseob’s current insanity entrusted to someone older and hopefully wiser, he tried to decide what would be the easiest for his band mates to bear - the news that he’d found a slightly unhinged Yoseob who’d run off again, or silence that would insinuate that he’d found nothing at all.
~*~*~
Yoseob only made it a few blocks away before he found himself pounced by a gaggle of giggling school girls.
A dozen autographs and cellphone photos later, the girls had directed him to the nearest music store and he found himself standing in front of a display of albums.
Beast is the B2st.
His fingers trailed over the display board, the on-sale date mocking him.
“What a lame title,” he murmured, the words belied by the slight tremble in his voice.
“Maybe, but your fans certainly seem to agree with the sentiment.”
“…” Yoseob glanced over his shoulder. He’d never liked Seungho, but so far he was the only person Yoseob had run into that was in any way familiar. “Am I going crazy?”
He’d passed out one day, a frustrated back up dancer for an annoying guy he could barely stand with an on again, off again lover he was dangerously close to breaking up with for good and he’d woken up a year later in some kind of strange alternate reality where he was the lead singer of a band he’d never heard of, apparently out and proud, with girls begging for his autograph and strangers scolding him for worrying his boyfriend slash band leader.
Crazy was the best explanation he could come up with.
Seungho sighed and shrugged. “It’s not impossible, I suppose. But if you are, then I guess I am too. Come on. I need to take you home, let you adjust before you mess anything up out of ignorance.”
The drive was made in silence, Yoseob only barely taking in the unfamiliar route to the unfamiliar building. His mind was too busy spinning around trying to piece together everything he’d seen and heard since he’d woken up in the cemetery that morning.
He’d recognized everyone in the display picture - except the boy that he’d run into that morning - from the business. Failures, the lot of them, in one way or another. Who had thought putting them all into one band was a good idea? And what kind of idiot did the strange kid have to be to agree to join such a band? What kind of idiot had he become to agree to it?
As Seungho led him up and into a cluttered apartment, Yoseob glanced around and winced. There were more pictures tacked and pinned and taped in odd places.
Discretion had apparently been dropped from his vocabulary entirely somewhere along the way while he hadn’t been in control of his body.
“Why is it so messy?” Yoseob asked as they had to sidestep a pile of boxes that was leaning dangerously to make it into the small room that housed a trio of bunk beds pushed together.
“There are six of you in here, Seobie. And Beast’s fans are nothing if not generous.”
Yoseob twitched a little at the nickname. No one called him Seobie except for Doojoon. It implied an intimacy that he’d never been willing to accept from anyone else.
Seungho paused for a moment, seemingly to get his barings, then knelt down to fish a small laptop from somewhere out of Yoseob’s sight. “Ah, here it is.”
Then he offered it up to Yoseob. “Look. I don’t know a whole lot more than you do. What I do know is that you… the other you, left a message explaining everything. My job was to find you, bring you back here, and make sure you got this.”
He patted Yoseob’s shoulder and smiled. “You’ve been a good friend recently. To me and a lot of other people. And I know Doojoon loves you more than anything else in the world. I’m sure it’ll all be okay.”
Then he left.
Yoseob sighed and stared down at the laptop in his hands.
He hesitated for a long moment before heading back out to the tiny living area with its teetering, towering piles of boxes and small sofa.
He sat the computer down and peeked in a few of the boxes, eyebrow raising at some of the things he found. Generous indeed….
Curiosity warred with dread as he finally opened the laptop and began searching for the message that had been left.
Whoever had been steering his body for the last year knew him well, so it didn’t take long to find the video innocently titled A year in Review.
The bright blonde hair that assaulted his eyes was still an unwelcome surprise. Hopefully he could have it fixed sooner rather than later.
“Yah, Yoseob. I imagine you’re feeling a bit out of sorts right now, ne?” His mirror image grimaced slightly. Then he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing this at all, but if you mess things up… We’ll both be paying for it in the end, so if he gets mad, tough luck.”
Yoseob arched a brow, wondering who ‘he’ was.
“It’s been a year since I woke up here.” Another sigh as the Yoseob on the screen looked away, his expression bittersweet. “People don’t get second chances, but Seobie… We did. We got a second chance to fix everything that went wrong before.” He swallowed and even though Yoseob knew that he had to have been looking at the camera, it felt as if he was looking through it, straight at him. “I don’t have a lot of time to explain things, so I’m going to be short. I’m going to assume that your memories are still as if a year ago happened yesterday. Do you remember the argument we had with Doojoon?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Argument… That implies that we put any real effort into it, doesn’t it? Not really our style, though, to put effort into anything but our career.”
“He said… ’I love you more than anything, Seobie, and I know that if someone forced me to choose between you and my career, it wouldn’t even be a choice. I know which one I’d choose.’”
Yoseob winced and glanced away. Yeah, he remembered that. It had been yesterday. For him, anyways.
“And when we didn’t say anything-”
Yoseob murmured the rest of Doojoon’s words back with his doppleganger. “’But it’s the same for you, isn’t it? Except I don’t come out ahead in your choice.’.”
He hadn’t answered. He’d just grabbed his bag and left, muttering about training. Answering would have meant an end to things and while he’d known what his answer would be, he hadn’t been ready to deal with it just then.
He felt a little sick to his stomach and he clenched his eyes shut. It hadn’t been the sort of thing that either of them would have shared with anyone else. Which meant this entire crazy day was real and not some bad joke of Gikwang's.
“I made the wrong choice the first time around, Seobie. I gave him up and I threw everything into being successful and you know what? It wasn’t what I thought. It didn’t make me happy. I had everything. The solo career, the supermodel wife, the money… But I didn’t really have anything. No friends, no love, no… “ The digital voice broke slightly and the other Yoseob wiped the edges of his eyes. “Doojoon died. October 15, 2009.” He offered a bitter smile. “I didn’t even go to the funeral. Appearances, you know? My career was just starting to take off. Didn’t want to risk the rumors.”
Yoseob felt like he’d been sucker punched and he had to press a hand against his chest. Surely if Doojoon was dead-
“He’s alive, by the way.” The camera jostled and the entire screen went dark as the other Yoseob moved around. When it settled again, he could see Doojoon curled up around a pillow in one of the bunk beds. Even as he watched, the older man squinted and swatted out towards the computer, muttering something about get the damned light out of my eyes, seobie… come to bed, we have rehearsal in a few hours… Soft words settled him back down and the screen went dark again. It took another minute for Yoseob to reappear, settled back on the living room sofa again. “Safe and sound and tucked into bed. No dying today unless the roof caves in on us and then it’ll all be moot anyways, right?”
His heart rate settled back down to normal and Yoseob dropped his head in his hands. Scaring himself like that…
“You may not accept it at first, but this is better, Yoseob. Trust me. Life with the choices you were about to make… That I did make…” He shook his head. “Give this a chance. Get to know this band. They’re your family now. Stop being such an ambitious jackass all the time. Take a moment to just… enjoy what you have. Being with Doojoon isn’t hurting our career.” He glanced off to the side and sighed. “I know this is a lot to deal with, but imagine being me, ne? I have to go back to 2024 and hope that you haven’t somehow screwed everything up again.”
The video ended there and he turned it off before it could loop through again.
He was crazy.
He had to be.
Or, more likely, he’d hit his head when he’d passed out in dance practice last year and was only just now coming out of some strange trauma induced amnesia.
He stuck his hands in his pocket and pulled out the strip of pictures he’d taken from the studio building.
They both looked so disgustingly happy.
He traced over Doojoon’s smile. He’d never made the older boy smile like that before, had never even realized that he could.
Yoseob sighed and set the pictures aside as he picked up the laptop again and pulled up the internet.
Wrong or right choices would have to be set aside. He had a year’s worth of life to catch up on.
~*~*~
fin
Length: one-shot
Series: Re:Verse (second in the series, after Rewind)
Author: M_K Yujji
Rating: pg
Genre: drama, angst, romance
Pairing/Characters: Yoseob (Dooseob)
Warnings: RPS, Future-ish sort of fic, Strange happenings
Disclaimer: Though real people are used as characters, this fic bears no resemblance to Real Life and these people are not owned by me.
Comments/Notes: I have changed some of the dates to mesh more closely with reality, but in all honesty, I'm playing pretty fast and loose with Beast's real timeline. The problem is that I needed a year of time and all the stuff with them individually and as a group all happened so damned fast. There wasn't a full year between AJ's debut and then Beast's debut. Not even close. Talk about your whirlwinds... I did the best I could, but let's face it. The fic deals with rewriting time anyways, so.. ^^;; A little loose play with dates is hardly going to make it any better or worse than it already was.
Once again, the ending is a little abrupt, but don't fear~ There is one more fic in this series. ^^
Summary: What would you do if life had moved on without you?
~*~*~
October 16, 2009
Yoseob shivered and curled into himself as the wind seemed to blow right through his clothes. If he ever found out who left the dorm windows open…
“Hey! What are you doing out here, kid!”
Something poked his side and Yoseob swatted at it even as he tried to curl further away. “Yah, go away. ‘M sleepin’…”
“Freaky kids these days, hey!” Another poke, this one harder than the first. “A cemetery is no place for kids to be sleeping.”
“Hm?”
A cemetery.
Yoseob’s eyes flew open and he sat up, looking around to find that yes, he was in fact in a cemetery. His shiver this time had nothing to do with the cold. At least he seemed to have passed out on an unused plot? There was no headstone nearby.
The old man reached out to poke him again and Yoseob swatted at the offending hand with a scowl. “I’m awake, old man. Leave me alone.”
“Snot nosed little brats.” The old man huffed and stood up, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he wandered off.
Yoseob dropped his head into his hands and searched his memory. How the hell had he ended up in a cemetery? The last thing he remembered was dance training. He’d been dizzy and disoriented and then… nothing.
“Saa… I must have passed out.”
Which still didn’t explain why he wasn’t in the studio’s doctor’s office. Dropping him off in the middle of nowhere might have been Gikwang’s idea of a joke and certainly the singer might feel justified in doing it. They hadn’t been getting along very well lately. It was hardly Yoseob’s fault that ‘AJ’ wasn’t being nearly as successful as anyone had hoped. But perhaps he’d been a little harsh the last few times the topic had come up.
Doojoon wouldn’t have let that happen though.
At least… Yoseob didn’t think he would. Their relationship had been growing more strained recently, too, but Doojoon just wasn’t that petty.
Probably.
If his current situation was Gikwang’s fault, it must have been done without Doojoon’s knowledge.
Yoseob sighed and flopped back onto the ground for a moment. The disadvantage of having a secret relationship was that one’s partner didn’t really have an excuse to hang around and guard one’s body.
“I am so kicking Gikwang’s ass when I get back,” Yoseob muttered as he finally rolled over and got up. He glanced up and shook his head. It had been late afternoon to early evening when they’d been training and he was pretty sure it was morning now.
Everyone had to be going crazy wondering where he was.
Bad enough that he’d passed out during training, but to simply vanish and not show up the next day?
“If this ruins my chances at a solo career, I’m gonna do a lot worse than kick his ass,” Yoseob grumbled as he stuck his hands in his pockets and started the long trek back to the studio. “I’ll kill him.”
~*~*~
“Ahjussi! Ahjussi!”
The old grounds keeper sighed as the boy slid to a halt in front of him. “What? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
The boy panted and held up a hand, gesturing frantically as he tried to catch his breath. “Other… see? Blonde?”
“If you’re asking about that blonde kid, you just missed him.”
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Well yelling at me isn’t going to do you any good. He was on foot, he couldn’t have gotten far.”
The boy bowed low before darting back off again.
The old man shook his head. Kids.
~*~*~
As he climbed out of the car, Yoseob thanked the nice old woman who’d been kind enough to stop and give him a ride.
The activity around him meant nothing to Yoseob as he made his way towards the floor where he and the others practiced every day. He was late and he definitely looked like he’d gotten shit ass sleep out in the dirt, but at least he wouldn’t be too late.
“Yoseob! Hyung! Wait up!”
He turned to see a tall stranger running up to him, looking vaguely worried. “Yeah? I’m kind of in a hurry…”
It wouldn’t do to completely blow off the guy, just in case he was someone important, but Yoseob twitched at the necessity. He was late.
“Doojoon-hyung is worried sick. You didn’t even leave him a note.”
Yoseob paused at that, confused. “Why would I? He’s not my mother.”
The boy gaped at him for a moment. “No, he’s not. But even if he wasn’t your band leader, I’d think being your boyfriend would mean something.”
“What?!” Yoseob didn’t care how weird he looked, darting forward and pressing a hand over the stranger’s mouth to silence him. He glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention.
“Who the hell told you that and when?” he hissed.
“…” The boy shrugged him off, looking confused and aggravated as he hooked a thumb towards the cork board of notices on the wall nearby. “You. Every fucking day since I met you. Geez, what's your problem today?”
Yoseob ignored the question, instead freezing at the sight of a string of photobooth style pictures tacked to the board. Doojoon was grinning more broadly than Yoseob had ever seen him, offering the camera a cheerful peace sign with one hand while the other was wrapped around his companion’s shoulders. His companion who looked an awful lot like Yoseob only with blindingly blonde hair and a sappy look the likes of which he’d never, ever sport.
He snatched the picture off the board and waved it in the boy’s face. “Who - When were these taken? Who put them up there?!”
“Yesterday and you. You put them everywhere, laughing and going on about how Doojoon was alive and you were alive and how awesome it all was. You’d have thought it was your birthday, the way you were carrying on.”
“My birthday is in January,” Yoseob muttered faintly, feeling dizzy. Yesterday…
“Umm.. Duh?”
Completely ignoring the other, Yoseob made a break for the nearest restroom.
He was still gaping at his reflection - and the gleaming white blonde hair that was mocking him - when the boy caught back up to him. “Look, Yoseob-hyung… Let’s just go find the others, okay? I’m pretty sure Doojoon and Gikwang-”
“Gikwang!” Yoseob whirled around, an accusing finger poking into the stranger’s chest. “He did this! He put you up to this! He dyed… and he…. I’m going to kill him!”
He shoved past the boy again, this time heading out. If Gikwang had gone so far as to dye Yoseob’s hair and dump him in a cemetary… One lone boy was probably not the only accomplice. He needed to get out of the studio building entirely, find someone sane.
He ignored all attempts to get his attention as he rushed out of the building and into the crowded street. His mind was focused entirely on going to find his mother.
At least he could trust that she wouldn’t be crazy.
~*~*~
Dongwoon stared after his band mate, a little concerned, a lot aggravated, and completely confused.
He’d apologized the the handful of people Yoseob had shoved in the mad rush to get away. He was a little afraid to go up to the dance studio and tell the others that he’d found - and lost - their singer. Doojoon really had been out of his mind with worry since he’d woken up them all up that morning with frantic questions about whether or not anyone had any idea where Yoseob had gone.
Somehow Dongwoon didn’t think that his own encounter with the blonde was going to be very reassuring.
“D-Dongwoon!”
He turned to see a familiar figure running towards him from the direction of the park and ride. He dropped his head in acknowledgement. “Hyung.”
“Have you seen Seobie?”
Dongwoon’s mouth tightened in a grimace. “Unfortunately.”
“Fuck. Don’t tell me he’s gone again?”
Dongwoon pointed in the general direction he’d seen Yoseob head. “The crazy jerk went that way.”
“Stupid little…. Why can’t he just sit still????”
Despite the situation, Dongwoon couldn’t help but smile a little. “Well… It is Yoseob, hyung.”
“Even so! This hard enough without having to chase him all over the damned city.”
“Hyung…” Dongwoon bit his lip, hesitant to speak of it to anyone outside the band that had become his family. But if his hyung knew anything… His run in with Yoseob had disturbed him. A lot. If his hyung knew anything about what was going on, then he needed to know. “He acted like he didn’t even know me… Or that he and Doojoon are… It was weird.”
The older man hesitated before sighing and shaking his head. “Don’t worry, Dongwoon. I’ll fix it.” Then he made a face. “If I can ever catch the little bastard.”
Dongwoon hesitated again before nodding.
He had no idea what was going on or why Yoseob was acting so oddly. All he could do was hope everything would work out in the end.
As he headed back inside, the care of Yoseob’s current insanity entrusted to someone older and hopefully wiser, he tried to decide what would be the easiest for his band mates to bear - the news that he’d found a slightly unhinged Yoseob who’d run off again, or silence that would insinuate that he’d found nothing at all.
~*~*~
Yoseob only made it a few blocks away before he found himself pounced by a gaggle of giggling school girls.
A dozen autographs and cellphone photos later, the girls had directed him to the nearest music store and he found himself standing in front of a display of albums.
Beast is the B2st.
His fingers trailed over the display board, the on-sale date mocking him.
“What a lame title,” he murmured, the words belied by the slight tremble in his voice.
“Maybe, but your fans certainly seem to agree with the sentiment.”
“…” Yoseob glanced over his shoulder. He’d never liked Seungho, but so far he was the only person Yoseob had run into that was in any way familiar. “Am I going crazy?”
He’d passed out one day, a frustrated back up dancer for an annoying guy he could barely stand with an on again, off again lover he was dangerously close to breaking up with for good and he’d woken up a year later in some kind of strange alternate reality where he was the lead singer of a band he’d never heard of, apparently out and proud, with girls begging for his autograph and strangers scolding him for worrying his boyfriend slash band leader.
Crazy was the best explanation he could come up with.
Seungho sighed and shrugged. “It’s not impossible, I suppose. But if you are, then I guess I am too. Come on. I need to take you home, let you adjust before you mess anything up out of ignorance.”
The drive was made in silence, Yoseob only barely taking in the unfamiliar route to the unfamiliar building. His mind was too busy spinning around trying to piece together everything he’d seen and heard since he’d woken up in the cemetery that morning.
He’d recognized everyone in the display picture - except the boy that he’d run into that morning - from the business. Failures, the lot of them, in one way or another. Who had thought putting them all into one band was a good idea? And what kind of idiot did the strange kid have to be to agree to join such a band? What kind of idiot had he become to agree to it?
As Seungho led him up and into a cluttered apartment, Yoseob glanced around and winced. There were more pictures tacked and pinned and taped in odd places.
Discretion had apparently been dropped from his vocabulary entirely somewhere along the way while he hadn’t been in control of his body.
“Why is it so messy?” Yoseob asked as they had to sidestep a pile of boxes that was leaning dangerously to make it into the small room that housed a trio of bunk beds pushed together.
“There are six of you in here, Seobie. And Beast’s fans are nothing if not generous.”
Yoseob twitched a little at the nickname. No one called him Seobie except for Doojoon. It implied an intimacy that he’d never been willing to accept from anyone else.
Seungho paused for a moment, seemingly to get his barings, then knelt down to fish a small laptop from somewhere out of Yoseob’s sight. “Ah, here it is.”
Then he offered it up to Yoseob. “Look. I don’t know a whole lot more than you do. What I do know is that you… the other you, left a message explaining everything. My job was to find you, bring you back here, and make sure you got this.”
He patted Yoseob’s shoulder and smiled. “You’ve been a good friend recently. To me and a lot of other people. And I know Doojoon loves you more than anything else in the world. I’m sure it’ll all be okay.”
Then he left.
Yoseob sighed and stared down at the laptop in his hands.
He hesitated for a long moment before heading back out to the tiny living area with its teetering, towering piles of boxes and small sofa.
He sat the computer down and peeked in a few of the boxes, eyebrow raising at some of the things he found. Generous indeed….
Curiosity warred with dread as he finally opened the laptop and began searching for the message that had been left.
Whoever had been steering his body for the last year knew him well, so it didn’t take long to find the video innocently titled A year in Review.
The bright blonde hair that assaulted his eyes was still an unwelcome surprise. Hopefully he could have it fixed sooner rather than later.
“Yah, Yoseob. I imagine you’re feeling a bit out of sorts right now, ne?” His mirror image grimaced slightly. Then he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing this at all, but if you mess things up… We’ll both be paying for it in the end, so if he gets mad, tough luck.”
Yoseob arched a brow, wondering who ‘he’ was.
“It’s been a year since I woke up here.” Another sigh as the Yoseob on the screen looked away, his expression bittersweet. “People don’t get second chances, but Seobie… We did. We got a second chance to fix everything that went wrong before.” He swallowed and even though Yoseob knew that he had to have been looking at the camera, it felt as if he was looking through it, straight at him. “I don’t have a lot of time to explain things, so I’m going to be short. I’m going to assume that your memories are still as if a year ago happened yesterday. Do you remember the argument we had with Doojoon?” He scoffed and shook his head. “Argument… That implies that we put any real effort into it, doesn’t it? Not really our style, though, to put effort into anything but our career.”
“He said… ’I love you more than anything, Seobie, and I know that if someone forced me to choose between you and my career, it wouldn’t even be a choice. I know which one I’d choose.’”
Yoseob winced and glanced away. Yeah, he remembered that. It had been yesterday. For him, anyways.
“And when we didn’t say anything-”
Yoseob murmured the rest of Doojoon’s words back with his doppleganger. “’But it’s the same for you, isn’t it? Except I don’t come out ahead in your choice.’.”
He hadn’t answered. He’d just grabbed his bag and left, muttering about training. Answering would have meant an end to things and while he’d known what his answer would be, he hadn’t been ready to deal with it just then.
He felt a little sick to his stomach and he clenched his eyes shut. It hadn’t been the sort of thing that either of them would have shared with anyone else. Which meant this entire crazy day was real and not some bad joke of Gikwang's.
“I made the wrong choice the first time around, Seobie. I gave him up and I threw everything into being successful and you know what? It wasn’t what I thought. It didn’t make me happy. I had everything. The solo career, the supermodel wife, the money… But I didn’t really have anything. No friends, no love, no… “ The digital voice broke slightly and the other Yoseob wiped the edges of his eyes. “Doojoon died. October 15, 2009.” He offered a bitter smile. “I didn’t even go to the funeral. Appearances, you know? My career was just starting to take off. Didn’t want to risk the rumors.”
Yoseob felt like he’d been sucker punched and he had to press a hand against his chest. Surely if Doojoon was dead-
“He’s alive, by the way.” The camera jostled and the entire screen went dark as the other Yoseob moved around. When it settled again, he could see Doojoon curled up around a pillow in one of the bunk beds. Even as he watched, the older man squinted and swatted out towards the computer, muttering something about get the damned light out of my eyes, seobie… come to bed, we have rehearsal in a few hours… Soft words settled him back down and the screen went dark again. It took another minute for Yoseob to reappear, settled back on the living room sofa again. “Safe and sound and tucked into bed. No dying today unless the roof caves in on us and then it’ll all be moot anyways, right?”
His heart rate settled back down to normal and Yoseob dropped his head in his hands. Scaring himself like that…
“You may not accept it at first, but this is better, Yoseob. Trust me. Life with the choices you were about to make… That I did make…” He shook his head. “Give this a chance. Get to know this band. They’re your family now. Stop being such an ambitious jackass all the time. Take a moment to just… enjoy what you have. Being with Doojoon isn’t hurting our career.” He glanced off to the side and sighed. “I know this is a lot to deal with, but imagine being me, ne? I have to go back to 2024 and hope that you haven’t somehow screwed everything up again.”
The video ended there and he turned it off before it could loop through again.
He was crazy.
He had to be.
Or, more likely, he’d hit his head when he’d passed out in dance practice last year and was only just now coming out of some strange trauma induced amnesia.
He stuck his hands in his pocket and pulled out the strip of pictures he’d taken from the studio building.
They both looked so disgustingly happy.
He traced over Doojoon’s smile. He’d never made the older boy smile like that before, had never even realized that he could.
Yoseob sighed and set the pictures aside as he picked up the laptop again and pulled up the internet.
Wrong or right choices would have to be set aside. He had a year’s worth of life to catch up on.
~*~*~
fin