"Gwaencha nayo?" "Méiguānxì."
Title: "Gwaenchanayo?" "Méiguānxì."
Author: mianhaes
Rating: G
Pairing: Tao/Sehun [TaoHun]
Length: 3000+ words / oneshot
Type: Fluff (I think) / somewhat Tao-centric
A/N: Ultimately plotless. Seriously lengthy drabble. For zitaos.
Between Sehun's lisp and Tao's poor Korean, it was almost a miracle how the two even became friends.
Sehun still remembers the first time he met Tao. Or, well, the first time he had ever heard of Tao. It was Minseok that first met him in the group, and it was Minseok that Tao had called oppa. Repeatedly. It was hilarious to Sehun when Minseok first told the story, and became even more ridiculous when Tao told his side. Partly because Tao truly had the worst Korean of all four Chinese imports. But mostly because Tao confessed his love for Korean dramas.
“Who would have thought, huh?” Sehun says, his head shaking a bit. “Our kung-fu panda the drama fan!”
Tao remembers the first time he met Sehun, too. He was wandering around the SM building, pinching himself every now and then and making sure that he didn't simply fall asleep and dreamed of all of this. He heard some chattering, some footsteps coming towards his way. He immediately froze. His Korean was terrible. He knew it. Half the time he had to attach himself to Luhan or Wufan just to avoid being completely misunderstood, and the other half he had to result to hand gestures.
When Tao meets Sehun, though, Luhan was busy being lazy, and Wufan was... well, Wufan was absurdly tall, true, but for some reason, he was also absurdly hard to find. He was the type to just show up out of nowhere when the members desperately don't want him around to catch them being mischievous. Hence, Tao was alone. And when Tao was alone, Tao doesn't know what to do with himself.
Sehun was alone, too. But unlike Tao, Sehun was Korean and had an air of confidence about him when he walks. It's the home advantage, Wufan once explained to Tao. It's knowing you're in your own territory that makes you feel stronger.
Sehun stops when he notices Tao and greets him casually. Not that Tao would really know. He couldn't tell his polite syllables from his casual ones, so he just mimics the bow and racks his brain for the appopriate response. Sehun looks at him all the while, waiting for a response. When Tao say anything else and just gawks right back at him, Sehun moves on along, nonchalantly.
Tao watches him leave and disappear around the corner. Home advantage, he thinks to himself. Would it have been different if we were in China?
Just as Tao struggled with written Hangul, Sehun had a difficult time with Mandarin. Probably even found it harder because of the different inflictions on different syllables. It became all too obvious when he attempted to answer one of the workbooks Jongdae and Minseok were ready to cry over.
“But they're the same syllables, hyung! How... how am I supposed to say them differently?” Sehun whined after Luhan's tiny demonstration. He looked just as devastated as Minseok was.
Jongdae persistently tried copying the sounds Luhan made. Minseok tried it a couple of times, too, but ultimately gave up with a shake and a scratch of his head. Instead, he resorted to disturbing the equally frustrated Jongdae. He nudged him once, hard, and successfully distracted him from his enduring concentration. Jongdae responded with a grin and an even harder nudge.
Luhan just laughs at Sehun, choosing to ignore the Jongdae-Minseok tandem as if it were normal for the two to get into nudging competitions. “You guys just need to practice. ”
Sehun leans back on his chair, huffing a breath. “Aish, Mandarin is hard!”
“How do you think I feel?” Minseok snaps back, momentarily distracted from the nudging contest.
Sehun places a comforting hand on his shoulder and utters the only Mandarin he knows. “It'll be okay, Baozi-ge.”
Despite himself, Tao snorts. Loud. To the point where he was even heard despite Minseok's sudden scream and Jongdae's hearty laugh.
He had been standing not too far from them, just watching. None of them had probably realized that he was there, until his snort gave away his location. Immediately, all four pairs of eyes were on him.
He froze on the spot. Unable to find the right words to say without sounding like a total creep, he cleared his throat and walked as fast as he can to the kitchen. Flustered and feeling warmth creep up to his cheeks, he flings the refrigator's door open and nearly breaks glass bottles within. The sudden noise in the kitchen sends Sehun bolting from his seat in the living room to the kitchen.
Tao could see the panic in Sehun's eyes when he spoke. “Are you okay?”
“I'm okay,” Tao, somewhat transfixed by the expression on Sehun's face, responds mindlessly in Mandarin.
Sehun doesn't understand Mandarin. That much, Tao was certain of, but instead of furrowing his eyebrows like he always does when he hears Mandarin, he nods his head in relief. “Good,” he says, and Tao watches his back as he walked back to the living room with the others.
He hears them ask Sehun what happened, and Sehun explains it was nothing. There is a brief moment of silence between the four of them. But it doesn't last long before another joke was cracked, and their uneasy laughter developed into robust happiness again.
Tao would stay in the kitchen for a while, listening.
When the conversation in the living room was back to its original, obnoxiously loud level, Tao thinks it's safe to return to his room unnoticed. But he makes the mistake to meet Sehun's eyes, and from there it felt almost like he willingly stepped into his own grave, because then he noticed his smile. He avoids all other eye-contact during his journey to his room, but Tao was almost certain he could feel Sehun's eyes followed him on this journey.
“Hyung, I'm hungry!”
It nearly gives Tao a heart attack when Sehun suddenly opens the door to his room and announces his hunger. He was sprawled on his bed, on his laptop, leisurely laughing at crudely photoshopped faces of celebrities on various things. He wasn't really expecting anyone - especially Sehun - to come out of nowhere.
Unsure of what to do, Tao nods slowly. “What do you want me to do...”
“My aegyo is not working on Kyungsoo-hyung and I'm hungry.” Sehun confesses, pouting as he plopped himself next to Tao on his bed. He glances briefly at Tao's screen, then furrows his eyebrows when he sees Chinese characters. He turns his attention to Tao once again. “Let's go out and play, hyung!”
Sehun's face lights up at this, and Tao could only guess it's because Sehun has an idea. An idea that usually gets adamantly turned down by Wufan or politely put off for "next time" by Junmyeon. An idea that Sehun rarely shares with Tao. Now that he actually thinks about it, Tao doesn't remember Sehun ever sharing his ideas with him. After all, Sehun's favorite Chinese hyung is Luhan. Their close friendship and bubble tea outings were solid proof to this.
“What about the others?” Tao asks.
Sehun makes a face. One that reads weren't you listening? accented by his pout. “They're busy saying no to my aegyo.”
Tao wants to ask if Sehun was going to try his aegyo on him, but he doesn't. He knows better than to dig his own grave. He closes his laptop with a sigh, as if he was being forced to spend the day with Sehun.
“Okay,” he says as he stood up. “Let's get kimchi.”
Sehun rolled his eyes. “Hyung, kimchi is not the only dish in Korea.”
“Bubble tea is not the only drink in Korea.”
Sehun looks at him, surprised. To be completely honest, Tao is a bit surprised, too. He is unsure of where he got that comeback and is quite taken aback by how smoothly those words rolled off his tongue, but he welcomed it. They shared a brief moment of confusion before both of them cracked into a toothy grin.
Somehow, Tao feels as if they had gotten closer all of a sudden.
All twelve of them counted down the days to their official debut. It started with the release of information on Jongin. Immediately, everyone's eyes were on him. The twelve of them would always huddle in front a single laptop, gushing over the comments of netizens and repeatedly nudging Jongin. Tao would be one of the quieter ones as the rest of the Korean-fluent members would jeer their Kkamjong.
After that day, it was Luhan's turn. The entire dorm erupted in whoop-whoop's as they saw Luhan's pale skin, baby-like features and striking reddish hair on various sites. The netizens seemed to be so much more interested now, especially because of how much Luhan's face doesn't much his age. This time, Tao could join in the jokes. Partly because Yixing and Wufan were teasing Luhan in Mandarin.
The rest of the Korean members eventually became silenced as the Chinese members conversed loudly and laughed at jokes only they understood.
Chanyeol looked giddily at them, like a dog expecting a treat if he was behaved enough. Baekhyun nudged Minseok to tease his poor Mandarin. “Hyung, translate for us!”
And then they are all laughing together again.
They would huddle longer that night than they did in the previous night because they would make a game out of pronouncing Mandarin phrases and tongue twisters. It was not until their manager reminded them that they still had their rehearsals tomorrow that they would feel their exhaustion from the day and slowly move to their respective rooms.
Tao was on his way downstairs, to where he rooms with none of the other members, when Sehun pats him on the back. “You're on tomorrow, hyung.”
He turns and sees Sehun smiling, but the gravity of his words hits Tao like a train. He could feel his heart sinking into the pit of stomach. He must have turned pale, because Sehun's smile dissolved. His hand on Tao's shoulder tightens to a soft, encouraging squeeze. “It'll be okay, hyung. You'll be great.”
Tao nods, almost absentmindedly, as he watches Sehun follow Junmyeon into their room.
For the rest of the night, Tao stares at the ceiling. He doesn't get much sleep that night. His stomach keeps turning and turning, and his heart keeps on trying to lodge itself in places where hearts should not be. The only comfort he has is the smile that Sehun gave and the reassurance that everything would be okay.
Tao could only hope that Sehun is right.
The next morning came sooner than Tao would have liked. He felt as if he just blinked and all of a sudden the sun was up, and so were the members. They were all already huddled in front of a laptop, whoop-whooping at something. Tao almost forgets it was his teaser that was going to come out today until Sehun notices him walking towards them.
“Hyung!” He calls out excitedly. “Hyung, look at your spin!”
“It's called a flip, stupid.” Jongin interjects, tapping Sehun's head playfully. Sehun turns to him to complain, and since then Sehun's attention is lost to Jongin.
Tao walks over to the laptop and Wufan moves to give him space to see. Baekhyun is the one in charge of clicking this time around, and he replays the video from the start. Tao watches himself, and for a moment he is lost in the video. He doesn't believe it's him who he's watching. Doesn't even begin to comprehend that his dream was now coming true. All he could feel was pure happinesss.
But the reaction to their online debut with History had snowballed so quickly that Tao sometimes found it hard to believe that it is him he's watching on his laptop screen. That it is him who was rapping in Mandarin. That it is him performing those back flips only he can pull off. That it is him who would be doing all this and more, tomorrow, in front of a huge audience, in front of real people who would boo him as quickly as they would cheer for him.
The thought of failing was asphyxiating. He could feel himself choking on the very air he was breathing. He wasn't usually talkative, and he wasn't usually the type to smile, but the day before the EXO Showcase Stage, Tao might as well just had been a statue. He spoke very little, emoted very little, listened very little. His mind was elsewhere, even when the manager was talking to him in Mandarin.
He found it extremely hard to focus, especially when he could feel his old life slowly being replaced with the huge responsibility of being an idol. He's been wondering a lot lately about whether or not he could do this, about whether or not he would be able to pull it off. He would look around and observe his hyungs, like he always does, and he found them giddy with the adrenaline of finally debuting. Giddy with the adrenaline of having their dreams within arm's reach.
Tao supposes he should be happy, too. He wanted to be a singer. He loved to sing. He used to enter singing competitions, and he would keep on entering them despite the many losses. He was great in martial arts. He could easily win wu-shu tournaments if he wanted to. But he's decided that's not what he wanted now. He wanted to be a singer. He wanted to sing. He should be happy. But instead he feels his childhood withering away. Instead he feels like he's willingly walking into a trap. A prison where everyone is watching: waiting for him to miss a step, waiting for him to hit a wrong note.
“You're being paranoid,” Sehun says over a steaming bowl of bulgogi, after Tao confesses, with much difficulty, how he feels about debuting.
The rest of the members were back in the dormitory. None of them really had the appetite to eat because they were too nervous and too excited about tomorrow. Sehun, though... Sehun was a growing boy, and as a growing boy, he needed his food.
He dragged Tao mostly because he knew Tao wouldn't object, given his recent absentmindedness. But Tao was surprised for a bit to hear that he was going to take Sehun out to dinner, but Tao agreed anyways. A bit of fresh air and some hot soup wouldn't hurt, Tao thought.
The two of them, donned in loose hoodies and caps, walked in silence until Sehun was seduced by the smell of beef. Hurriedly, he drags Tao inside the tent as if his Sehun's life depended on eating at this place.
Tao only frowns at Sehun. He has spilled his heart, as clearly and as fluently as he can in Korean, and all Sehun could focus on was his bulgogi. His comforting words aren't even all that comforting. They were more like an insult, really. Something Tao did not appreciate at this time.
In his anger, Tao grabbed the nearest bottle of hot sauce and generously released its red fury in Sehun's bowl.
Sehun shrieks something indiscernbible in Korean. Tao could only guess it was some slang curse word that the Korean members were not supposed to teach the Chinese members, as mandated by Wufan and seconded by Junmyeon. He whimpers at his ruined bulgogi for a moment before his eyes flick up towards Tao.
To be honest, Tao had expected Sehun to get mad at him. Sehun took his food seriously. He once bet that if he could aegyo nonstop for an entire day, then Kyungsoo would have to willingly cook for him for three days straight. Needless to say, those were some of the best three days the group has ever had. Especially when they were spared from Yixing's cooking.
But Sehun doesn't get mad, he doesn't even look slightly annoyed. He looks straight back at him with the same amount of fear and paranoia that haunted Tao.
“I'm scared, too, hyung.” His voice is lowered, almost like a whisper, almost like Sehun didn't want to admit it himself, but here he is, saying it anyways. “I'm just as scared as you are. We all are.”
Sehun lets his chopsticks slide of his fingers and slide around his bowl. He's looking directly at Tao now. It was rare for the two of them to make eye-contact like this. They would always eat together, and that was how they mostly hung out. They ate together, mostly because eating didn't require any of them to say anything. And when neither of them said anything, the language barrier didn't exist. Nothing hindered their friendship when they ate together.
“But we knew this day was coming. We knew we were going to debut, and the day has finally come. One of these days, Manager-nim will tell you and the other hyungs to pack for China, and we won't be able to eat together like this anymore. One of these days, we'll be so busy we probably wouldn't even have the chance to eat, whether together or not. But isn't this what we've worked so hard for? Isn't this is what we want? Didn't we - - didn't you - - work so hard because you wanted to debut?”
Of course.
He's wanted this so much that sometimes he can't contain himself anymore. He's wanted to debut so much that everything he has done so far, everything he has suffered through, and everything that he has left back in China felt like it was worth it. He wants this, he knows it. He's just too scared about the consequences that come with it. Especially since they're going to be debuting under SM Entertainment. They were going to have to be able to keep up with the other hallyu idol groups that SM has already produced. They needed to match them, and the idea is just suffocating him.
He nods meekly in response.
“It's our fate, you know,” Sehun continues. “If we weren't destined to be on stage, then what else were we destined to do?”
Author: mianhaes
Rating: G
Pairing: Tao/Sehun [TaoHun]
Length: 3000+ words / oneshot
Type: Fluff (I think) / somewhat Tao-centric
A/N: Ultimately plotless. Seriously lengthy drabble. For zitaos.
Between Sehun's lisp and Tao's poor Korean, it was almost a miracle how the two even became friends.
Sehun still remembers the first time he met Tao. Or, well, the first time he had ever heard of Tao. It was Minseok that first met him in the group, and it was Minseok that Tao had called oppa. Repeatedly. It was hilarious to Sehun when Minseok first told the story, and became even more ridiculous when Tao told his side. Partly because Tao truly had the worst Korean of all four Chinese imports. But mostly because Tao confessed his love for Korean dramas.
“Who would have thought, huh?” Sehun says, his head shaking a bit. “Our kung-fu panda the drama fan!”
Tao remembers the first time he met Sehun, too. He was wandering around the SM building, pinching himself every now and then and making sure that he didn't simply fall asleep and dreamed of all of this. He heard some chattering, some footsteps coming towards his way. He immediately froze. His Korean was terrible. He knew it. Half the time he had to attach himself to Luhan or Wufan just to avoid being completely misunderstood, and the other half he had to result to hand gestures.
When Tao meets Sehun, though, Luhan was busy being lazy, and Wufan was... well, Wufan was absurdly tall, true, but for some reason, he was also absurdly hard to find. He was the type to just show up out of nowhere when the members desperately don't want him around to catch them being mischievous. Hence, Tao was alone. And when Tao was alone, Tao doesn't know what to do with himself.
Sehun was alone, too. But unlike Tao, Sehun was Korean and had an air of confidence about him when he walks. It's the home advantage, Wufan once explained to Tao. It's knowing you're in your own territory that makes you feel stronger.
Sehun stops when he notices Tao and greets him casually. Not that Tao would really know. He couldn't tell his polite syllables from his casual ones, so he just mimics the bow and racks his brain for the appopriate response. Sehun looks at him all the while, waiting for a response. When Tao say anything else and just gawks right back at him, Sehun moves on along, nonchalantly.
Tao watches him leave and disappear around the corner. Home advantage, he thinks to himself. Would it have been different if we were in China?
Just as Tao struggled with written Hangul, Sehun had a difficult time with Mandarin. Probably even found it harder because of the different inflictions on different syllables. It became all too obvious when he attempted to answer one of the workbooks Jongdae and Minseok were ready to cry over.
“But they're the same syllables, hyung! How... how am I supposed to say them differently?” Sehun whined after Luhan's tiny demonstration. He looked just as devastated as Minseok was.
Jongdae persistently tried copying the sounds Luhan made. Minseok tried it a couple of times, too, but ultimately gave up with a shake and a scratch of his head. Instead, he resorted to disturbing the equally frustrated Jongdae. He nudged him once, hard, and successfully distracted him from his enduring concentration. Jongdae responded with a grin and an even harder nudge.
Luhan just laughs at Sehun, choosing to ignore the Jongdae-Minseok tandem as if it were normal for the two to get into nudging competitions. “You guys just need to practice. ”
Sehun leans back on his chair, huffing a breath. “Aish, Mandarin is hard!”
“How do you think I feel?” Minseok snaps back, momentarily distracted from the nudging contest.
Sehun places a comforting hand on his shoulder and utters the only Mandarin he knows. “It'll be okay, Baozi-ge.”
Despite himself, Tao snorts. Loud. To the point where he was even heard despite Minseok's sudden scream and Jongdae's hearty laugh.
He had been standing not too far from them, just watching. None of them had probably realized that he was there, until his snort gave away his location. Immediately, all four pairs of eyes were on him.
He froze on the spot. Unable to find the right words to say without sounding like a total creep, he cleared his throat and walked as fast as he can to the kitchen. Flustered and feeling warmth creep up to his cheeks, he flings the refrigator's door open and nearly breaks glass bottles within. The sudden noise in the kitchen sends Sehun bolting from his seat in the living room to the kitchen.
Tao could see the panic in Sehun's eyes when he spoke. “Are you okay?”
“I'm okay,” Tao, somewhat transfixed by the expression on Sehun's face, responds mindlessly in Mandarin.
Sehun doesn't understand Mandarin. That much, Tao was certain of, but instead of furrowing his eyebrows like he always does when he hears Mandarin, he nods his head in relief. “Good,” he says, and Tao watches his back as he walked back to the living room with the others.
He hears them ask Sehun what happened, and Sehun explains it was nothing. There is a brief moment of silence between the four of them. But it doesn't last long before another joke was cracked, and their uneasy laughter developed into robust happiness again.
Tao would stay in the kitchen for a while, listening.
When the conversation in the living room was back to its original, obnoxiously loud level, Tao thinks it's safe to return to his room unnoticed. But he makes the mistake to meet Sehun's eyes, and from there it felt almost like he willingly stepped into his own grave, because then he noticed his smile. He avoids all other eye-contact during his journey to his room, but Tao was almost certain he could feel Sehun's eyes followed him on this journey.
“Hyung, I'm hungry!”
It nearly gives Tao a heart attack when Sehun suddenly opens the door to his room and announces his hunger. He was sprawled on his bed, on his laptop, leisurely laughing at crudely photoshopped faces of celebrities on various things. He wasn't really expecting anyone - especially Sehun - to come out of nowhere.
Unsure of what to do, Tao nods slowly. “What do you want me to do...”
“My aegyo is not working on Kyungsoo-hyung and I'm hungry.” Sehun confesses, pouting as he plopped himself next to Tao on his bed. He glances briefly at Tao's screen, then furrows his eyebrows when he sees Chinese characters. He turns his attention to Tao once again. “Let's go out and play, hyung!”
Sehun's face lights up at this, and Tao could only guess it's because Sehun has an idea. An idea that usually gets adamantly turned down by Wufan or politely put off for "next time" by Junmyeon. An idea that Sehun rarely shares with Tao. Now that he actually thinks about it, Tao doesn't remember Sehun ever sharing his ideas with him. After all, Sehun's favorite Chinese hyung is Luhan. Their close friendship and bubble tea outings were solid proof to this.
“What about the others?” Tao asks.
Sehun makes a face. One that reads weren't you listening? accented by his pout. “They're busy saying no to my aegyo.”
Tao wants to ask if Sehun was going to try his aegyo on him, but he doesn't. He knows better than to dig his own grave. He closes his laptop with a sigh, as if he was being forced to spend the day with Sehun.
“Okay,” he says as he stood up. “Let's get kimchi.”
Sehun rolled his eyes. “Hyung, kimchi is not the only dish in Korea.”
“Bubble tea is not the only drink in Korea.”
Sehun looks at him, surprised. To be completely honest, Tao is a bit surprised, too. He is unsure of where he got that comeback and is quite taken aback by how smoothly those words rolled off his tongue, but he welcomed it. They shared a brief moment of confusion before both of them cracked into a toothy grin.
Somehow, Tao feels as if they had gotten closer all of a sudden.
All twelve of them counted down the days to their official debut. It started with the release of information on Jongin. Immediately, everyone's eyes were on him. The twelve of them would always huddle in front a single laptop, gushing over the comments of netizens and repeatedly nudging Jongin. Tao would be one of the quieter ones as the rest of the Korean-fluent members would jeer their Kkamjong.
After that day, it was Luhan's turn. The entire dorm erupted in whoop-whoop's as they saw Luhan's pale skin, baby-like features and striking reddish hair on various sites. The netizens seemed to be so much more interested now, especially because of how much Luhan's face doesn't much his age. This time, Tao could join in the jokes. Partly because Yixing and Wufan were teasing Luhan in Mandarin.
The rest of the Korean members eventually became silenced as the Chinese members conversed loudly and laughed at jokes only they understood.
Chanyeol looked giddily at them, like a dog expecting a treat if he was behaved enough. Baekhyun nudged Minseok to tease his poor Mandarin. “Hyung, translate for us!”
And then they are all laughing together again.
They would huddle longer that night than they did in the previous night because they would make a game out of pronouncing Mandarin phrases and tongue twisters. It was not until their manager reminded them that they still had their rehearsals tomorrow that they would feel their exhaustion from the day and slowly move to their respective rooms.
Tao was on his way downstairs, to where he rooms with none of the other members, when Sehun pats him on the back. “You're on tomorrow, hyung.”
He turns and sees Sehun smiling, but the gravity of his words hits Tao like a train. He could feel his heart sinking into the pit of stomach. He must have turned pale, because Sehun's smile dissolved. His hand on Tao's shoulder tightens to a soft, encouraging squeeze. “It'll be okay, hyung. You'll be great.”
Tao nods, almost absentmindedly, as he watches Sehun follow Junmyeon into their room.
For the rest of the night, Tao stares at the ceiling. He doesn't get much sleep that night. His stomach keeps turning and turning, and his heart keeps on trying to lodge itself in places where hearts should not be. The only comfort he has is the smile that Sehun gave and the reassurance that everything would be okay.
Tao could only hope that Sehun is right.
The next morning came sooner than Tao would have liked. He felt as if he just blinked and all of a sudden the sun was up, and so were the members. They were all already huddled in front of a laptop, whoop-whooping at something. Tao almost forgets it was his teaser that was going to come out today until Sehun notices him walking towards them.
“Hyung!” He calls out excitedly. “Hyung, look at your spin!”
“It's called a flip, stupid.” Jongin interjects, tapping Sehun's head playfully. Sehun turns to him to complain, and since then Sehun's attention is lost to Jongin.
Tao walks over to the laptop and Wufan moves to give him space to see. Baekhyun is the one in charge of clicking this time around, and he replays the video from the start. Tao watches himself, and for a moment he is lost in the video. He doesn't believe it's him who he's watching. Doesn't even begin to comprehend that his dream was now coming true. All he could feel was pure happinesss.
But the reaction to their online debut with History had snowballed so quickly that Tao sometimes found it hard to believe that it is him he's watching on his laptop screen. That it is him who was rapping in Mandarin. That it is him performing those back flips only he can pull off. That it is him who would be doing all this and more, tomorrow, in front of a huge audience, in front of real people who would boo him as quickly as they would cheer for him.
The thought of failing was asphyxiating. He could feel himself choking on the very air he was breathing. He wasn't usually talkative, and he wasn't usually the type to smile, but the day before the EXO Showcase Stage, Tao might as well just had been a statue. He spoke very little, emoted very little, listened very little. His mind was elsewhere, even when the manager was talking to him in Mandarin.
He found it extremely hard to focus, especially when he could feel his old life slowly being replaced with the huge responsibility of being an idol. He's been wondering a lot lately about whether or not he could do this, about whether or not he would be able to pull it off. He would look around and observe his hyungs, like he always does, and he found them giddy with the adrenaline of finally debuting. Giddy with the adrenaline of having their dreams within arm's reach.
Tao supposes he should be happy, too. He wanted to be a singer. He loved to sing. He used to enter singing competitions, and he would keep on entering them despite the many losses. He was great in martial arts. He could easily win wu-shu tournaments if he wanted to. But he's decided that's not what he wanted now. He wanted to be a singer. He wanted to sing. He should be happy. But instead he feels his childhood withering away. Instead he feels like he's willingly walking into a trap. A prison where everyone is watching: waiting for him to miss a step, waiting for him to hit a wrong note.
“You're being paranoid,” Sehun says over a steaming bowl of bulgogi, after Tao confesses, with much difficulty, how he feels about debuting.
The rest of the members were back in the dormitory. None of them really had the appetite to eat because they were too nervous and too excited about tomorrow. Sehun, though... Sehun was a growing boy, and as a growing boy, he needed his food.
He dragged Tao mostly because he knew Tao wouldn't object, given his recent absentmindedness. But Tao was surprised for a bit to hear that he was going to take Sehun out to dinner, but Tao agreed anyways. A bit of fresh air and some hot soup wouldn't hurt, Tao thought.
The two of them, donned in loose hoodies and caps, walked in silence until Sehun was seduced by the smell of beef. Hurriedly, he drags Tao inside the tent as if his Sehun's life depended on eating at this place.
Tao only frowns at Sehun. He has spilled his heart, as clearly and as fluently as he can in Korean, and all Sehun could focus on was his bulgogi. His comforting words aren't even all that comforting. They were more like an insult, really. Something Tao did not appreciate at this time.
In his anger, Tao grabbed the nearest bottle of hot sauce and generously released its red fury in Sehun's bowl.
Sehun shrieks something indiscernbible in Korean. Tao could only guess it was some slang curse word that the Korean members were not supposed to teach the Chinese members, as mandated by Wufan and seconded by Junmyeon. He whimpers at his ruined bulgogi for a moment before his eyes flick up towards Tao.
To be honest, Tao had expected Sehun to get mad at him. Sehun took his food seriously. He once bet that if he could aegyo nonstop for an entire day, then Kyungsoo would have to willingly cook for him for three days straight. Needless to say, those were some of the best three days the group has ever had. Especially when they were spared from Yixing's cooking.
But Sehun doesn't get mad, he doesn't even look slightly annoyed. He looks straight back at him with the same amount of fear and paranoia that haunted Tao.
“I'm scared, too, hyung.” His voice is lowered, almost like a whisper, almost like Sehun didn't want to admit it himself, but here he is, saying it anyways. “I'm just as scared as you are. We all are.”
Sehun lets his chopsticks slide of his fingers and slide around his bowl. He's looking directly at Tao now. It was rare for the two of them to make eye-contact like this. They would always eat together, and that was how they mostly hung out. They ate together, mostly because eating didn't require any of them to say anything. And when neither of them said anything, the language barrier didn't exist. Nothing hindered their friendship when they ate together.
“But we knew this day was coming. We knew we were going to debut, and the day has finally come. One of these days, Manager-nim will tell you and the other hyungs to pack for China, and we won't be able to eat together like this anymore. One of these days, we'll be so busy we probably wouldn't even have the chance to eat, whether together or not. But isn't this what we've worked so hard for? Isn't this is what we want? Didn't we - - didn't you - - work so hard because you wanted to debut?”
Of course.
He's wanted this so much that sometimes he can't contain himself anymore. He's wanted to debut so much that everything he has done so far, everything he has suffered through, and everything that he has left back in China felt like it was worth it. He wants this, he knows it. He's just too scared about the consequences that come with it. Especially since they're going to be debuting under SM Entertainment. They were going to have to be able to keep up with the other hallyu idol groups that SM has already produced. They needed to match them, and the idea is just suffocating him.
He nods meekly in response.
“It's our fate, you know,” Sehun continues. “If we weren't destined to be on stage, then what else were we destined to do?”