write the stars---

he nods his affirmative, a jerky motion of his chin made a little sharper by the tension now moving on from his jaw and into his whole body. he’s uncomfortable, he’s out of place, and he notices the subtle mocking the receptionist is putting him through. he reads into it beyond harmless jokes, feels like he’s being poked and prodded into some reaction, something that will give everyone here a reason to hate him. everyone hates him. even his friends don’t give him the time of day anymore-

no. that’s not fair. they’re just busy. woong has to take a deep breath and try to focus his thoughts elsewhere, maybe onto the list of drinks the annoying guy from the front desk is rattling off. he tries not to bristle too much at that last one. “i’m twenty,” he frowns. yeah, he lives with his mom and terrible stepdad, but it’s because he’s not going to leave her alone like her first husband did to both of them. he has more loyalty than that. “but if it’ll make you happy, i’ll have some water.”

it’s the attention. it’s this objectively attractive man who seems so intent on getting under woong’s skin. it’s a secret so well hidden that he can still sometimes fool himself into believing it’s not actually true, even though there’s other people who know about it now. only a select few, but still enough to make it real. walking into a salon for a hair cut and color should be no big deal, but it’s this salon in particular, for whatever reason, that makes jeon woong believe he is cursed.

he’s quite certain that he’s never going to try wearing pumps, but he feels the heat rising to his cheeks anyways. it’s his greatest fear, being nothing more than a stereotype, being obvious and predictable and never taken seriously ever again. woong doesn’t tell the man that he’s never going to try it, but his grimace should say so clearly enough.

“guess so,” he grumbles, eyes suddenly low and unwilling to meet the other’s. his gaze is a little too intense, like he sees right through him at moments. “no real occasion. just time for a change.”

“water,” he responds, in dramatically feigned surprise, moving to the miniature refrigerator behind the island counter, knowing full well the kind of reaction it might get out of the other. he can hear the amused lecture from the stylists already: stop scaring away my customers, just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean i won’t fire you. they won’t fire him, jeongha won’t let them, and he will happily remind them that he is, in fact, too charming to let go of.

he pulls two options out of the fridge, setting them on the counter with a bit of a flourish, anticipating this moment to be just as stubborn and difficult of the young man as the rest of their moments have been so far. god, i wish i could introduce him to sungho, is the thought that flits through his mind as he meets woong’s eye again, brow quirked to match the subtle smirk on his lips. now he’s shamelessly messing with the kid, determined to figure out what engraved that chip on his shoulder.

“still or sparkling?”

the similarities only make jeonghan more curious, more shameless in his incessant prodding. they’re only shoes, he wants to say, you won’t suddenly grow tits if you wear them, as exciting as that would be. but he’s noted his apparent youth, wonders if there’s more to the story than can be assumed from this superficial conversation, doesn’t want to damage the poor kid. it doesn’t mean he relents entirely, but it does make him a little more serious in his goal of figuring out why his very presence seems to offend the youth.

woong’s reticence doesn’t go unnoticed either, and it occurs to jeonghan that perhaps that is not an active decision as much as it is a default defense mechanism.

the flush that warms his cheeks is only partially embarrassment. the greater majority of it is indignation, frustration at being called a lost puppy, as if he’s something small and helpless. okay, he might be on the slight side as far as his height and build go, but he’s never been helpless. if he knew this man, even just his name in passing, he might argue and snap back. but he knows some manners, so he bites his tongue and tries not to let the discomfort show too strongly on his face.

he nods his affirmative, lips pressed tightly together until he can trust that only polite words will come out of them. two o’clock suddenly can’t come fast enough, when he’ll be surrendered into the hands of mina and able to never see this stranger ever again. and he can’t help but notice the way he looks at him, up and down oh so quickly, and a new tightness settles itself in his jaw. no, he’s just projecting. maybe even wishful thinking; the man running reception had a face better suited for a celebrity than whatever he’s doing here. even in all his discomfort, woong can’t totally ignore the objective attractiveness.

“i’m fine,” he answers stiffly, forcing a smile to his face to hopefully smooth out the sharper edges in his voice. there’s no point in being rude to staff, he knows this, but his nerves too often get the better of him. if he wasn’t honestly in desperate need of a good color treatment, he might run out the door right now. sparkly red pumps be damned, he knows how to get home.

“i’m not from kansas,” flatly now. he gets the joke, but he doesn’t find it funny in the slightest. “and i don’t wear pumps.” 

“you sure?” he prods, barely masking his own amused smirk. the boy reminds him of someone very familiar, as if somebody packaged a younger version of an old roommate and sat him down in the waiting area of the salon. but this one reads even more harmless, and perhaps even more lost. and though he doesn’t have the heart to tell the young man named woong yet, mina’s running at least thirty minutes behind schedule, so it leaves him plenty of time to stand on this kid’s nerves and dance.

“cappucino? latte? mocha? mimosa? arnold palmer?” he pauses for dramatic effect, quirking a brow at the young man as if assessing whether or not he might be skipping school or missing a guardian, “warm milk?”

i’m not from kansas. it makes jeonghan snort in genuine amusement, because it means not only did the young man understand the reference, he discarded it carelessly, as if that might distract from the fact that he understood the reference in the first place. he’s nervous and awkward, and what for? it’s almost as if he’s embarrassed to be in the salon he walked into of his own accord, as if he’s somehow out of place in a way that would put him so on edge, as if he’s only here because he’s running and hiding from something waiting for him outside the front doors. it only makes jeonghan want to pry further, curiosity wild and unbridled.

“no shit, dorothy,” he quips back easily, smartly, while typing out a quick text to let mina know her next appointment is both present and grumpy. then he glances back up from behind the small counter, prepared to look the taciturn client in the eye for his knowledgeable defense of pumps, “you shouldn’t knock it ‘til you try it. you never know, you could have the legs for it.”

he glances down at his phone, where the reply from mina reveals woong’s aesthetic plans for the day, and he doesn’t bother hiding his surprise.

@rkjeonghxn

it was time for a change.

for as inconspicuous and unassuming as woong typically likes to be, his hair is an exception. sure, there’s colors he stays far away from, each one more unnatural than the last, but it’s not like there’s much natural left about the blond in his hair. especially now that it’s grown out enough to warrant another trip to a salon. blond was fun while it lasted, but he doesn’t think he’d agree that they have more fun. it was kind of boring, actually; nothing at all changed his life or even the way he felt about himself.

today would be red. he had booked the appointment on the advice of a friend who had raved about this salon in particular, who eventually admitted to getting a discount if they referred someone new for an appointment. well, woong’s nothing if not occasionally helpful and the timing was convenient enough. he’s going for red this time; bright for now, but usually fades prettily enough that he won’t be too self conscious when it does.

entering a new place is a little nerve wracking for a typically anxious boy. he eyes the place as he pushes through the door, at least it looks clean, and approaches the desk with the same sort of quiet apprehension. he’s not afraid of bleach and dye, he’s done it a bunch of times before. it’s a little more complicated than that, a little less inclined to dive deeper or explain. judgement may be the root of the fear, but it’s to the stylist’s professional hands he has to trust himself.

“um, hi,” he greets the man behind the counter, perhaps already a little suspicious of why he’d be here when these sorts of businesses are so female-dominated. “checking in for an appointment, jeong woong.”

he’s picking up extra shifts, every shift he possibly can, trying, between work and school and rehearsals, to fill up every hour of every day as much as possible, because sleeping alone in his two-bedroom apartment feels a little bit like suffocating. there is bomul, and duchess,, to keep the boogeyman away, and there is eunwoo to keep him from swallowing shadows at any given moment, but, at the end of the day, there is nothing to keep the weight off his chest whenever he’s on his way home to an empty apartment. 

the shifts blur together. if it weren’t for his class schedule, he’d have no idea what day of the week it is, because he’s in the salon every day and he’s sure the chemicals in the air have started to rot his concept of time. so a boy entering through the glossy glass doors is a welcome anomaly, something interesting and out of the ordinary to break the fog of bouncy stylist gossip and bass-heavy runway music filling the air.

“you,” he greets with the same confident, casual air he naturally defaults to; he is relieved not to have to drench himself in camp the way he feels obligated to for some of the regulars, older women who who appreciate his exaggerated act for the sheer novelty, who eat it up with the same voracity they down their early noon mimosas and sweet spiced cappuccinos, “look like a lost puppy.”

he scans the roster of appointments for the day, spots the only distinctly masculine-sounding name on the list, and taps the paper with his forefinger, “you must be mina’s two o’clock. have a seat, she’ll come get you when she’s ready.”

he gives the young man a discreet once-over, taking stock of a stiff jaw and nervous posture, already denoting himself as wildly out of place.

“aww, you’re too nice to me,” naeun laughs at the compliment, linking arms with him as they make their way through the ever-pushy crowds. “in case you somehow did need to hear it, you look pretty great too.” she smiles, the hand resting on his arm squeezing gently in affirmation. she knows it’s been harder for jeonghan than it has for her lately, and even though all she can provide is an outlet, or a distraction from the darker depths of the mind, naeun intends to try her best for the person most important to her. 

their steps are in sync, and for a moment naeun almost feels like their presence alone parts the crowds in front of them- until another boy gets too close in the rush to catch up with his friends and nearly runs her over, to which she moves even closer to jeonghan for a moment, biting her tongue to resist yelling at the boy’s direction. 

one brow raises as he leans into her, though his words carry more like a stage whisper than an actual one, “hmm,” she offers a moment of contemplation, confirming his feelings with a nod. “you’re right. but better things are ahead for us,” right? she wants to add, but it feels too real- too close to spoiling the carefully crafted web that they’ve jointly created. they were here to ignore the reality a little while, in spite of the idols, some of them friends, walking during the week. 

it was something they did well together, the collective ignorance of a reality a little too harsh to face; if you put on a different pair of glasses, you could almost ignore the truth for as long as possible, though it still lingered in the back of the mind, waiting for an opportunity to remind the mind’s owner that it was in fact still present, and that there would be no option of not acknowledging it for much longer. 

“the day that i get to see you on one of those, i might simply die,” she declares, quickly attempting to salvage her mindframe, and beaming up at him.

“oh, you flatter me,” he returns her smile with a modest toss of his hair, placing his free hand on top of hers and squeezing back. he, standing alongside her as a surprisingly warm-hearted guardian, friend, brother even, is just as easily softened to her wordless promise of protection and support. he has always been able to hold his head high even when he faces his own formidable urges to bury it in the ground. but he can feel the world around him getting heavier as he gets older, his circle of nearby, trusted allies small as ever. with a simple squeeze, her affectionate gesture is a tether to grounded reality, a promise to help him stay afloat, to keep him from drowning.

sungho would hate this, seeing them close, even after jeonghan’s repeated assurance that naeun is a sister to him. sungho, whose protective jealousy is excessive, but does nothing but endear jeonghan to him even more, because nobody has ever so unconditionally needed him, loved him. but sungho is moving into a dorm, preparing to debut, leaving jeonghan with a half-empty medicine cabinet and a half-empty bed and a half-empty apartment and a heart overflowing with the need to hold onto him and never let go. certainly sungho will understand that he needs naeun to keep some of that emptiness from eating away at him from the inside out.

she is so optimistic while the reality of his age and his leg and his dwindling opportunities are so strong in his mind. he smirks thoughtfully nonetheless, tilting his head and glancing upward, as if considering it intently.

“hm, signs point to yes,” he eventually responds in a playfully contemplative tone, before smiling down at her again, “i see billboards and movie trailers and two-page spreads in our future. that one there?” 

he gestures with a glance to a bright screen plastered with an animated ad featuring some k-drama upstart and her favorite bb cream, all peach blush and strawberry lip tint and candy apple charm, “that one’s yours. i’d put money on it.”

“surprisingly, the lighting seems to be no good anywhere,” naeun teases, waiting patiently as jeonghan decides that his current frame-up isn’t the right position and moves again. she doesn’t mind it- in fact this is half of what they do, what they love to do- weird looks be damned. 

they both play photographer to each other, taking turns commanding each other into the best poses, the best expressions- commanding both digital and physical scenes as if they were the best of the best. she can’t help but laugh as he squints at her, and she wonders how  he’s actually managing to see properly. “i’m not mov-” no sooner than her retort starts to exit her mouth she hears mustache and grimaces. “ugh. definitely don’t need that.” she steps down quickly, thankful to have as honest a friend, more like a brother, really, as jeonghan.

her youtube channel has been sorely declined for a while, particularly ever since her third mga disaster, but with business for the boutique building, and being able to dance to her full extent again, she’s decided on reviving it- or attempting to. jeonghan gives her the thumbs up and her demeanor changes just for recording. “hello! we’re at fashion week today, studying the style icons of seoul and hopefully making some fun memories together.” naeun grins, walking down the steps carefully, as if hosting her own show instead of vlogging, making a ‘come here’ motion towards the camera when she hits the end of the steps. “so let’s get started!” 

she takes a moment to take a few steps out of the shot for continuity, before circling back to jeonghan. “was that good, or too cheesy? i really don’t know how most people do it.”

he can’t help but grin fondly from behind the camera as he watches her form on the screen. it’s easy in this moment to put aside his natural protectiveness of her long enough to film a few seconds of video for a blog, happy to help her get back into the swing of things, knowing how hard it was for him to even attempt to post a cover of himself singing after the mgas, let alone recording an entire vlog. he’s proud of her, and he’s blessed to have her, ready to put his life on the line for her as the little sister he never had.

“cute,” he declares with an encouraging chuckle once he’s stopped the recording. he means it. it managed to put a smile on his face in spite of his own storm cloud returning tenfold now that sungho’s absence at home is so inevitable. he can feel the hours ticking down. even from here he can feel the tenseness in sungho’s shoulders and hands, and the cold shockwave of not being there every night to work out the knots with his own fingers.

“it should feel a little cheesy. vlogs are always cheesy, i think it’s par for the course. you look amazing, by the way,” he adds, catching up to her in a few easy strides, and offering his elbow to her, ever the gentleman in a crowded avenue full of up-nosed fashion enthusiasts. he’s scanning the crowd again, an inherent habit, aesthetic judgment naturally coursing in his veins since he was a heartbeat and a pair of feet in his mother’s womb.

he watches jeonghan and he waits for it. he waits for the return of that dark cloud that had been haunting the other man for weeks upon weeks now, he waits for the inevitable storm, for this peaceful bubble to pop with a very un-peaceful vengeance. and it comes, but just barely. it’s only because sungho is looking closely, looking for this sort of reaction exactly, that he sees the way color drains from jeonghan’s face, the way he swallows down a frown as if he hoped sungho wouldn’t see it. he sees all the littlest things, the finer details that he wouldn’t notice anywhere else.

and he hates it when jeonghan pretends it never happened.

jeonghan leans in for a cheek kiss and sungho is still too stunned in place to lean back and avoid it. this isn’t what he wants; this isn’t them. in these walls they can be ugly, even at each other. he’ll never forget the way he resented jeonghan when he signed that trc contract, or the way jeonghan’s world fell apart when he lost it. surely that same feeling is making its home in jeonghan again right now. sungho doesn’t think he could be so noble to cover it up should these roles have been reversed; jeonghan doesn’t have to be either.

“is it?” he sounds hollow, distant, like the world he’s existing in isn’t quite real. and maybe it’s not, with the way jeonghan smiles at him like everything is going to be okay. it’s not. sungho knows it’s not. he’s not even excited for this, not even friends with enough of the boys he’s training with to think he can survive once they get to debut. he’s not excited to leave the person he cares about most, to drift further and further away until this oasis is an invisible speck on the horizon.

“stop,” he says suddenly, leaning away from jeonghan as if he doesn’t quite know who he’s sitting with anymore. “stop pretending. i know you’re upset, just say so.” he wants this to be real. he wants to be able to talk about this. of course there’s no promises yet, no confirmation that he’ll be leaving this little apartment to live with half a dozen boys or so who he can barely stand, but he needs something. he needs to know that if the worst (or best?) does happen, they will be okay. no one’s ever loved him as wholly, as unconditionally as yoon jeonghan. sungho doesn’t know if he can bear to let this go.

“i- yes?” he responds, as if he’s being tested, a pop quiz he wasn’t prepared to answer. his smile does falter then. he doesn’t like the cadence of sungho’s voice, distant and careless, dismissive of his achievement, like a puff of smoke. it didn’t work, jeonghan realizes. his attempt to make the moment good and good only, to put his pride for and love of sungho first, to set his own fatalistic envy aside, even for just a few minutes, if it means seeing him happy. but sungho doesn’t look happy or sound happy. sungho is very clearly not happy. and though jeonghan is, mostly, sure that he is not the cause of this unhappiness, he doesn’t, in the moment, feel like a remedy to it either, which is enough of a failure in itself to wipe the smile from his face entirely.

and then sungho is exposing him, stripping him bare, laying out before him the truth he has prepared so long to bury. no, he wants to say, don’t make me do this, don’t make me do this to you, to us. jeonghan is so prepared by now to take his own grievances with sungho’s career success and inter them in the grave he used so much effort to dig just for this moment, that the thought of leaving them out in the open to grow, to spore, to erode, to fester, is terrifying. but sungho can see through it all, and there’s nothing to be done about that.

“i’m sorry,” he finally admits, eventually taking one of sungho’s hands in both of his own, his gaze falling to where their bodies meet in physical space, his brows knit in a pained scowl. he is sorry for the way he feels, and he is sorry for lying about it, for trying to hide anything from the one person in the world who knows everything there is to know about him.  

“i am proud of you,” that much is true. he knows what sungho’s been through, has seen some of it firsthand, has a very good idea of the parts he hasn’t seen. he knows he’s earned it, that his talent is deserving of success, that the world isn’t deserving of his talent.

@rksungho

it feels like the first time in a while he’s had a day not shrouded in a dulling, invisible fog, weighing down on his lips and his lungs as if threatening him with a lifetime lacking in happiness. it’s nearly freezing outside, and there are clouds in the sky, but the sun is out and the sky isn’t all gray. it helps to know he has his sister’s support behind him, even after she witnessed sungho standing up to their mother for the lot of them, all crude and brutally honest glory, resembling something close to a knight in shining armor, if a knight in shining armor could have a short fuse and no patience.

he does still bear the weight of that horrendous christmas dinner; of sungho finding the ring jeonghan had set aside in secret, with every intention of keeping it hidden for months, if not years, and ruining what could’ve been a perfectly planned surprise; of watching junhee and eunji kiss at an altar, of having to be ecstatic for them while envying what he knew then he may never have. but it’s as if the weight of it all sitting on his shoulders has made his shoulders that much stronger, as if standing up straight and holding his chin a little higher is just a little less exhausting than it was a few months ago. just a little.

it’s why he’s up when sungho comes home, awake and alert, sitting up in bed with bomul curled up at his feet, caught up in youtube videos about women who didn’t know they were pregnant until they were giving birth, his slowly-improving english making subtitles redundant here and there. it’s why he’s a little giddy when he stands to greet sungho at the door, helps him out of his coat, leans in for a quick kiss as if it’s habit, eager not to be alone, to share the day with the person he loves, in what limited time they have together before he loses him to sleep, dreams, and then a silvery-pink high rise.

“good news,” he utters quietly, reaching over to stroke bomul between the ears to keep her lying contently in her spot on the bed, “i told off an evil witch at work today, i have a callback on tuesday, noona’s having a boy, and,” he pauses dramatically, with a suspenseful smile, as if it’s a riveting, life-altering headline, “i taught bomul how to play dead.”

tonight, he’s tense. he’s sure jeonghan can feel it even in the delicate touch of their lips in quiet greeting.

he tries to nod and smile at jeonghan’s recap of his day, tries to tell him he’s excited for him, for his callback, the bitch he told off, the nephew he’ll have in a number of months and bomul’s latest accomplishments. and he is happy about all of that; he wants to be eager and enthusiastic to mach jeonghan’s good mood. but all he can think is that there’s a chance, maybe a small chance but a chance nonetheless, that he might not be around to celebrate these things with the other man for much longer. by the time that baby is born, is sungho going to be able to come home every night like this? when jeonghan inevitably lands the role, will sungho be able to go to opening night? it almost makes him sick thinking about how he might not.

“nothing’s wrong,” he says, and it’s not a total lie. there’s nothing wrong. he didn’t have a bad day at kt, he didn’t get into a fight, he’s not facing sudden unemployment from being kicked out or anything like that. everyone else is probably celebrating the news he and a select few others received today. “just..” he sighs, dragging it out in anticipation for how poorly this may go. “let’s sit down. i’m tired.”

sungho kicks off his shoes, finds a familiar place sitting at the edge of the bed, and lets his hand pass over bomul’s fur. it’s not as soft these days, puppy fur growing out into her thicker adult coat. “kt’s putting together a preliminary debut group,” he says it to the wall, not looking at jeonghan just yet. he doesn’t want to see his reaction until he knows what he’s feeling himself, now that he has to say this out loud. “i’m in it. for now.”

he knows what this means. he's known what this means since sungho first signed a contract with kt entertainment, sold his soul to bubblegum pink with every promise of shedding jeonghan on his way up that candy-coated razor-sharp ladder of success. let's sit down now. i'm tired. jeonghan knows now he's not nearly as tired as he is something else, something else jeonghan doesn't want to think about, but can't escape. his hand doesn't move, his body still brushed up against sungho's, no physical sign of his distress.

but there are signs. there are signs in the way some of the fond redness drains from his cheeks, in the heavy way he swallows, in the subtle turn down of the corners of his smile, struggling to stay afloat.

"oh," is all he says at first, a heavy half-second hanging between them as his gaze flits to where sungho's hand rests in bomul's fur. then he acts, smile returning, shoulders straightening, hand gently squeezing the familiar curve of sungho's leg fondly.

"that's great isn't it? congratulations," he masks his terror with professional skill, leans in to lay a chaste kiss on his cheek, swallows back the pain of the knowledge that their kisses are numbered, just like everything else they have together: days, nights, dates, meals, sleeps, embraces, laughs, cries, vacations, holidays, gifts, kisses, kisses, kisses...

"I'm proud of you. you've earned this," that much is real, he is still almost nothing but real with sungho, even now, as his heart begins preforating itself at its weakest edges, in preparation for its inevitable breakage. it's harder, heavier, to hide behind a false smile when he finds himself hiding from the love of his life.