为什么如此努力的我是一片狼藉？
100 fic challenge [#100.] Regrets, Zhoumi-centric
Title: 觅觅无敌 (Incomparable Mi Mi) Part 3
Length: 10,748 words
Author: shieldkitten
Beta: cynicalxcharm
Rating: G
Summary: Zhoumi strives to be better than average, because living his life any other way would only fill him with regret.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Author's Notes
拉紧.
(Pulled taut.)
Zhoumi thinks he will look back on the day of their debut and what he will remember, more than the lipsynched performance, more than presenting an award to Fahrenheit, whose 2006 album Zhoumi is sure he has tucked in a box under his bed back in Wuhan, what he will remember is the smile he has stretched taut over his teeth, like flayed skin left out to dry on a rack.
He smiles when they walk past the girls holding banners that say 'Only 13'.
He smiles when they're waiting backstage, and Donghae is repeating their dance over and over again.
"I keep going to do the old move instead," he says, hands on his hips. Then he shakes his head and tries it again.
He smiles when Hangeng realises he hasn't thought of a group cheer before they run up on stage.
He smiles when he looks over the audience from the corner of his eyes during Hangeng's dance solo and sees a banner that says 'ZM OUT', and smiles harder when he realises what the string of alphabets mean.
He smiles through the awkward, rehearsed introductions, smiles when Hangeng introduces him as a singer from Wuhan, smiles when he hears soft calls of '加油' for the other members, even Henry, but not for him. ('jiayou')
He smiles, a little less widely, when the reporters ask him how he feels about the negative response to the addition of two new members to Super Junior. The polite little smile remains on his face for the rest of the interview as they sprout carefully rehearsed answers, neatly scripted lines. He envies the members who don't understand, who can let the foreign words wash over them while they collect their thoughts. He understands all of it, of course, the Mandarin as well as the Korean, and the words jumble up in his head so he can't pull himself together.
He smiles when his mother calls him while he's in the car, claiming she can't wait any longer for her unfilial son to call and tell her how things have gone.
"你的儿子成为歌手了，妈," he tells her, and Kyuhyun beside him mouths '歌手' with a questioning look, so he smiles again and shakes his head.
(Your son's a singer, mom.) ('singer')
He smiles when he gets a text message from an overseas number that says You owe me big time! Paris, here I come!
He smiles through dinner, when Donghae re-enacts how he had a narrow shave on stage - he'd been so obsessed with getting the dance steps right that he'd almost lipsynched to the Korean lyrics.
"No one would've noticed," Siwon points out, but Donghae insists that Eunhyuk would have, and then he would have never lived it down.
"Was my Chinese okay?" Ryeowook asks. "Did I sing the song wrong during the interview?"
"No, it was good," Zhoumi assures him with a smile.
He's still smiling when he replies to the emails congratulating him on his debut - Daoping calls him a sellout and a lackey of the establishment, which Zhoumi takes to mean Daoping is so jealous he can't even see straight.
And then he makes the mistake of checking the Super Junior-M Bar.
It's still relatively new, but there are already a myraid of posts from both fans and anti-fans. Zhoumi checks the fan posts first, scrolls through thread after thread of fantaken pictures - most of them of Hangeng and Siwon. There's one of himself, standing ramrod straight, and he has a smile on his face, but he looks unmistakeably uncomfortable where he is.
Then, steeling his nerve, he clicks on a thread titled I've realised something about ZM.
So I was watching the press conference today, and I got to thinking, and I realised... ZM is basically superfluous. What does he bring to the group?
He's Chinese? Our 庚宝 is the original Chinese member of Super Junior, and we don't need another one.
(geng bao)
He can sing? 老么 and 小13 can sing better, and if they really wanted good singers then they should have put 云王 into SJ-M.
(youngest) (little thirteenth) (cloud prince)
He can write songs? He hasn't even written anything with his own melodies. Anyone can write cover songs. Can his songs even compare to the songs the Super Junior members have written?
Is he good looking? He looks like a sly fox to me. And anyway, 十块钱 and 海宝 are so much better looking.
(ten dollars) (hai bao)
At least H. can play the violin, and he's really cute, so he's not entirely useless. They can keep him in, but kick ZM out and put in 云王 so K.R.Y. can be together again.
Sorry if anyone feels offended, this is just my opinion. I want 庚宝's 5 year dream to come true, too, and I think SJ-M will do better without this dead weight around their necks, dragging them down.
唯爱, 唯13!
(Only love, only 13)
He's still staring blankly at the screen when Kyuhyun knocks on the door of the room they will be sharing and reminds him that they have to rehearse before turning in for the night.
"What are you reading?" Kyuhyun asks, peering at the screen, and Zhoumi has never been more grateful for the fact that Simplified Chinese is virtually unintelligible to anyone versed only in Hanja, and that the Chinese tutor has decided that it would be easier to teach pinyin rather than new Chinese characters.
"Nothing interesting," he says, smiling (again) and getting to his feet. "来吧，我们去排练."
(Come on, let's go rehearse.)
He avoids the others when they leave the interview studio, his gaze fixed on the floor of the corridor before him, or on the mildly interesting pattern on the back of their manager Seunghwan's shirt. He doesn't want to see the looks of sympathy etched on their faces, or to hear their encouraging words, because he knows it will only make him cry all over again. He's embarrassed, too, ashamed to admit that a few unkind words on Baidu are evidently enough to reduce him to tears.
完了, 完了, he thinks, 太业余了. 全都给我弄糟了.
(I'm finished.) (I was too unprofessional, I've ruined everything)
There's nowhere to turn, however, once they're piled into the car. Hangeng corners him in the back, where Zhoumi has wedged himself, making a heroic effort not to seem as though he's trying to corner Zhoumi.
"Zhoumi," he says casually, leaning back against the window.
"Ge," Zhoumi acknowledges him with a nod of his own.
Kyuhyun slides into the seat in front of them and turns. "Can we hold this conversation in Korean? I'd like to know what's going on."
"Me too," Siwon says, plopping down next to Kyuhyun.
"And speak up!" Henry calls from the seat up front.
Seunghwan puts his hands on his hips, watching Donghae squeeze in beside Ryeowook and Henry. "We hired two cars for a reason, you know." He shakes his head and shuts the door, calling to the driver to drive safely.
Zhoumi's ears are burning, and he wishes they wouldn't be so blatant about what appears to be an intervention, or that they would at least wait till they're back at the dormitory, so he wouldn't have to duck past girls with cameras, head down to hide red and puffy eyes.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Hangeng asks.
"No?"
"Ha, nice try," Kyuhyun snorts.
"Zhoumi, you've been looking at anti-fan messages, haven't you?" Siwon asks. Zhoumi feels the flush spread from his ears to his cheeks. "Jungsu-hyung gets the same look on his face when he spends too much time on Naver."
Zhoumi tilts his head back, staring out the back window at a blue sky tinted grey by the glass. He shoves his hand into his back pocket and pulls out a used piece of tissue paper, dabbing at his eyes. He can hear Ryeowook's explosive gasp of sympathy, and it makes him want cry a little harder, so he forces laughter to hide his small sobs.
"怎么了你?" Hangeng asks, wiping at Zhoumi's cheeks with the ends of Zhoumi's ribbon tie. "还想装酷吗?
(What's up with you?) (Still trying to act cool?)
"别哭!" Ryeowook calls from the front, and Zhoumi laughs, pushing Hangeng's hand away so he can blow his nose.
(Don't cry!)
"You're such a girl, ge," Henry reminds him.
"So what were they saying?" Kyuhyun asks, when Zhoumi manages to smear the last of his tears across his cheek.
"The usual," Zhoumi says. "I don't deserve to be in SJ-M, all that."
"And you believed them?" Kyuhyun arches his eyebrows, unimpressed.
"They were pretty convincing." Zhoumi ducks his head sheepishly.
"We should confiscate his computer," Donghae says. "We could use another one for our games, and-" He stops, grinning at Zhoumi's look of horror. "Someone's an internet addict."
"I think it's all right to see what people are saying about you," Hangeng says. "But you have to remember to check what your fans are saying as well."
Zhoumi shakes his head. "I don't have any fans."
"Weren't you at the same interview I was?" Hangeng asks, finger pointing back over his shoulder. "什么蜜糖, 觅糖的."
(What was it, Honey?)
"米汤?" Siwon's eyebrows knit together in his confusion. "Rice water?"
"What are my fans called?" Henry asks, straightening up to peer over Kyuhyun and Siwon's head.
"琴弦," Zhoumi says. "Violin strings."
"Oh." Henry sits back down. "Oh, that's actually kind of clever. I approve."
"You're so different off-camera," Ryeowook laughs, poking him in the side.
Zhoumi sits back, rubbing his eyes, rubbing away the last traces of moisture. Kyuhyun lifts the end of his scarf, offering it for his use, and Zhoumi grins, shaking his head. He leans forward, though, resting his head against Kyuhyun's shoulder, trying not to let the bumpy car ride jostle him off. Siwon massages the back of his neck, almost absently, as he talks to Hangeng about the nick names their fans have given them, and how strange some of them are.
He will find it, Zhoumi thinks, the reason he belongs in this group and no other. He may not have a talent as charismatic as the ability to dance or play the violin, and the talents and skills he does have may not be unique to him alone, but it simply means that he will have to work harder for his chance to shine.
If there's one thing Zhoumi does know how to do, it's how to work hard.
Later that night, he discovers his own bar on Baidu.
觅觅无敌 says: I have my own bar on Baidu!
(Incomparable Mi Mi)
道平平道 says: oh shut up.
(Dao Ping Ping Dao)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Author's Notes
Title: 觅觅无敌 (Incomparable Mi Mi) Part 3
Length: 10,748 words
Author: shieldkitten
Beta: cynicalxcharm
Rating: G
Summary: Zhoumi strives to be better than average, because living his life any other way would only fill him with regret.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Author's Notes
拉紧.
(Pulled taut.)
Zhoumi thinks he will look back on the day of their debut and what he will remember, more than the lipsynched performance, more than presenting an award to Fahrenheit, whose 2006 album Zhoumi is sure he has tucked in a box under his bed back in Wuhan, what he will remember is the smile he has stretched taut over his teeth, like flayed skin left out to dry on a rack.
He smiles when they walk past the girls holding banners that say 'Only 13'.
He smiles when they're waiting backstage, and Donghae is repeating their dance over and over again.
"I keep going to do the old move instead," he says, hands on his hips. Then he shakes his head and tries it again.
He smiles when Hangeng realises he hasn't thought of a group cheer before they run up on stage.
He smiles when he looks over the audience from the corner of his eyes during Hangeng's dance solo and sees a banner that says 'ZM OUT', and smiles harder when he realises what the string of alphabets mean.
He smiles through the awkward, rehearsed introductions, smiles when Hangeng introduces him as a singer from Wuhan, smiles when he hears soft calls of '加油' for the other members, even Henry, but not for him. ('jiayou')
He smiles, a little less widely, when the reporters ask him how he feels about the negative response to the addition of two new members to Super Junior. The polite little smile remains on his face for the rest of the interview as they sprout carefully rehearsed answers, neatly scripted lines. He envies the members who don't understand, who can let the foreign words wash over them while they collect their thoughts. He understands all of it, of course, the Mandarin as well as the Korean, and the words jumble up in his head so he can't pull himself together.
He smiles when his mother calls him while he's in the car, claiming she can't wait any longer for her unfilial son to call and tell her how things have gone.
"你的儿子成为歌手了，妈," he tells her, and Kyuhyun beside him mouths '歌手' with a questioning look, so he smiles again and shakes his head.
(Your son's a singer, mom.) ('singer')
He smiles when he gets a text message from an overseas number that says You owe me big time! Paris, here I come!
He smiles through dinner, when Donghae re-enacts how he had a narrow shave on stage - he'd been so obsessed with getting the dance steps right that he'd almost lipsynched to the Korean lyrics.
"No one would've noticed," Siwon points out, but Donghae insists that Eunhyuk would have, and then he would have never lived it down.
"Was my Chinese okay?" Ryeowook asks. "Did I sing the song wrong during the interview?"
"No, it was good," Zhoumi assures him with a smile.
He's still smiling when he replies to the emails congratulating him on his debut - Daoping calls him a sellout and a lackey of the establishment, which Zhoumi takes to mean Daoping is so jealous he can't even see straight.
And then he makes the mistake of checking the Super Junior-M Bar.
It's still relatively new, but there are already a myraid of posts from both fans and anti-fans. Zhoumi checks the fan posts first, scrolls through thread after thread of fantaken pictures - most of them of Hangeng and Siwon. There's one of himself, standing ramrod straight, and he has a smile on his face, but he looks unmistakeably uncomfortable where he is.
Then, steeling his nerve, he clicks on a thread titled I've realised something about ZM.
So I was watching the press conference today, and I got to thinking, and I realised... ZM is basically superfluous. What does he bring to the group?
He's Chinese? Our 庚宝 is the original Chinese member of Super Junior, and we don't need another one.
(geng bao)
He can sing? 老么 and 小13 can sing better, and if they really wanted good singers then they should have put 云王 into SJ-M.
(youngest) (little thirteenth) (cloud prince)
He can write songs? He hasn't even written anything with his own melodies. Anyone can write cover songs. Can his songs even compare to the songs the Super Junior members have written?
Is he good looking? He looks like a sly fox to me. And anyway, 十块钱 and 海宝 are so much better looking.
(ten dollars) (hai bao)
At least H. can play the violin, and he's really cute, so he's not entirely useless. They can keep him in, but kick ZM out and put in 云王 so K.R.Y. can be together again.
Sorry if anyone feels offended, this is just my opinion. I want 庚宝's 5 year dream to come true, too, and I think SJ-M will do better without this dead weight around their necks, dragging them down.
唯爱, 唯13!
(Only love, only 13)
He's still staring blankly at the screen when Kyuhyun knocks on the door of the room they will be sharing and reminds him that they have to rehearse before turning in for the night.
"What are you reading?" Kyuhyun asks, peering at the screen, and Zhoumi has never been more grateful for the fact that Simplified Chinese is virtually unintelligible to anyone versed only in Hanja, and that the Chinese tutor has decided that it would be easier to teach pinyin rather than new Chinese characters.
"Nothing interesting," he says, smiling (again) and getting to his feet. "来吧，我们去排练."
(Come on, let's go rehearse.)
He avoids the others when they leave the interview studio, his gaze fixed on the floor of the corridor before him, or on the mildly interesting pattern on the back of their manager Seunghwan's shirt. He doesn't want to see the looks of sympathy etched on their faces, or to hear their encouraging words, because he knows it will only make him cry all over again. He's embarrassed, too, ashamed to admit that a few unkind words on Baidu are evidently enough to reduce him to tears.
完了, 完了, he thinks, 太业余了. 全都给我弄糟了.
(I'm finished.) (I was too unprofessional, I've ruined everything)
There's nowhere to turn, however, once they're piled into the car. Hangeng corners him in the back, where Zhoumi has wedged himself, making a heroic effort not to seem as though he's trying to corner Zhoumi.
"Zhoumi," he says casually, leaning back against the window.
"Ge," Zhoumi acknowledges him with a nod of his own.
Kyuhyun slides into the seat in front of them and turns. "Can we hold this conversation in Korean? I'd like to know what's going on."
"Me too," Siwon says, plopping down next to Kyuhyun.
"And speak up!" Henry calls from the seat up front.
Seunghwan puts his hands on his hips, watching Donghae squeeze in beside Ryeowook and Henry. "We hired two cars for a reason, you know." He shakes his head and shuts the door, calling to the driver to drive safely.
Zhoumi's ears are burning, and he wishes they wouldn't be so blatant about what appears to be an intervention, or that they would at least wait till they're back at the dormitory, so he wouldn't have to duck past girls with cameras, head down to hide red and puffy eyes.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Hangeng asks.
"No?"
"Ha, nice try," Kyuhyun snorts.
"Zhoumi, you've been looking at anti-fan messages, haven't you?" Siwon asks. Zhoumi feels the flush spread from his ears to his cheeks. "Jungsu-hyung gets the same look on his face when he spends too much time on Naver."
Zhoumi tilts his head back, staring out the back window at a blue sky tinted grey by the glass. He shoves his hand into his back pocket and pulls out a used piece of tissue paper, dabbing at his eyes. He can hear Ryeowook's explosive gasp of sympathy, and it makes him want cry a little harder, so he forces laughter to hide his small sobs.
"怎么了你?" Hangeng asks, wiping at Zhoumi's cheeks with the ends of Zhoumi's ribbon tie. "还想装酷吗?
(What's up with you?) (Still trying to act cool?)
"别哭!" Ryeowook calls from the front, and Zhoumi laughs, pushing Hangeng's hand away so he can blow his nose.
(Don't cry!)
"You're such a girl, ge," Henry reminds him.
"So what were they saying?" Kyuhyun asks, when Zhoumi manages to smear the last of his tears across his cheek.
"The usual," Zhoumi says. "I don't deserve to be in SJ-M, all that."
"And you believed them?" Kyuhyun arches his eyebrows, unimpressed.
"They were pretty convincing." Zhoumi ducks his head sheepishly.
"We should confiscate his computer," Donghae says. "We could use another one for our games, and-" He stops, grinning at Zhoumi's look of horror. "Someone's an internet addict."
"I think it's all right to see what people are saying about you," Hangeng says. "But you have to remember to check what your fans are saying as well."
Zhoumi shakes his head. "I don't have any fans."
"Weren't you at the same interview I was?" Hangeng asks, finger pointing back over his shoulder. "什么蜜糖, 觅糖的."
(What was it, Honey?)
"米汤?" Siwon's eyebrows knit together in his confusion. "Rice water?"
"What are my fans called?" Henry asks, straightening up to peer over Kyuhyun and Siwon's head.
"琴弦," Zhoumi says. "Violin strings."
"Oh." Henry sits back down. "Oh, that's actually kind of clever. I approve."
"You're so different off-camera," Ryeowook laughs, poking him in the side.
Zhoumi sits back, rubbing his eyes, rubbing away the last traces of moisture. Kyuhyun lifts the end of his scarf, offering it for his use, and Zhoumi grins, shaking his head. He leans forward, though, resting his head against Kyuhyun's shoulder, trying not to let the bumpy car ride jostle him off. Siwon massages the back of his neck, almost absently, as he talks to Hangeng about the nick names their fans have given them, and how strange some of them are.
He will find it, Zhoumi thinks, the reason he belongs in this group and no other. He may not have a talent as charismatic as the ability to dance or play the violin, and the talents and skills he does have may not be unique to him alone, but it simply means that he will have to work harder for his chance to shine.
If there's one thing Zhoumi does know how to do, it's how to work hard.
Later that night, he discovers his own bar on Baidu.
觅觅无敌 says: I have my own bar on Baidu!
(Incomparable Mi Mi)
道平平道 says: oh shut up.
(Dao Ping Ping Dao)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Author's Notes