Long Climb Up

“shinwoo, when have i ever been wrong?”

“it’ll happen someday.”

“that’ll never get better. trust me.”

“oh? you old and wise now, andy?”

“you’ll survive.”

“yeah, yeah. whatever you say.”

“i love him so much but he’s so baffling sometimes.”

“we debuted close to eight years ago at this point, and i’m still baffled.”

“my poor, hopeless brother….”

“he’s definitely hopeless.”

“you’re capable.”

“no way. can’t do it.”

“I mean, technically Kaeun is the one who gets paid for it. Please don’t die, though.”

“kaeun doesn’t know you dumb fucks like i do. she wouldn’t survive without me.”

“I wouldn’t blame her if that was what happened,” Jei thought back to how painful that whole experience seemed at times, and that was just from watching the show. “It seemed like she was a little… preoccupied with Unpretty,” she finally said, watching him pull the end of her hair between his fingers absentmindedly. “I love you too, Shinwoo,” Jei replied softly. She wanted to return his smile, but somehow it was easier to just shake her head. “I probably would have actually tried to do that by now if Mercury was still there.” She laughed, “they still got to have a team the whole season, even if he just looked even more dead inside whenever they got referred to as ‘team DS.’”

“preoccupied is definitely a word,” sam said with a sigh, pulling her closer and acting grumpy to try to cover up how genuinely worried he’d been (and still was) about seyeon. she was just a kid, who was doing quite well and learning fast, but who also was getting so much criticism and hate left and right. that couldn’t be good for her. “why don’t you? you and jenny and haebi are all intelligent and talented enough to make it work. plus, you’d be control of your release schedule, so you could make it a lot more consistent. and you’d get to do more solo stuff if you wanted it,” he pointed out. “they both looked dead inside. they should have changed their team name like hyosang did.”

“donny’s never taught me anything.”

“fair. he’s hardly smart enough.”

“your dumbasses, though. and your responsibility.”

“don’t fuck me over, ryukji-- that’s a suicide mission.”

“Haein and Seyeon would’ve probably raced each other there,” she laughed softly, snuggling closer into him. “Thank god for Chaeneul, if DS had wanted me to figure out choreography for them as well, we would’ve all been screwed,” Jei replied. “DS still doesn’t know how lucky they are to have Sinhye. She and the rest of Juno seem to be doing well in spite of them. I’m not surprised they wanted her to be on Unpretty, though. She’s probably the only obvious choice for judges that DS has, they’re definitely not like Alpha when it comes to that.” 

“oh, probably. unless seyeon was too distracted by unpretty to notice,” he said with a little sigh, idly playing with her hair while he worked. “another great talent that they are dangerously close to wasting, really. you know how much i love you, but god, if i was under ds, i would break away just to help make another alpha.” he smiled a little. “they’re fortunate that their only choices were such good ones. even despite daeil leaving them halfway through the season.”

“considering i can’t, that’s a safe assumption.”

“what, donny never teach you how?”

“don’t insult her. she’s way more mature than adonis and kisu.”

“touché. they’re dumbasses.”

“i do want. of course i want. duh.”

“i’m assuming that i’m driving, then?”

“That’s why people talk about you so much, Shinwoo. It’s not because of any of the music, it’s just the fact that you died thousands of years ago but still are our leader.”

“if i don’t stay alive to raise your dumb asses, who else is gonna take care of you idiots.”