Chapter Text
“I think—” Yangyang stops himself before he can get past those two words. Because, in all honesty, he didn’t really mean to say anything out loud at all.
Ten hums in response before looking up from his phone when he notices that he doesn’t continue. Yangyang stares at him from where he’s lying down in Ten’s bed, bundled under the blanket while Ten leans back in the chair by his desk.
Louis and Leon are quiet. Asleep, probably. Curled up together on Sicheng’s bed while something close to private silence permeates the air for the first time in months.
Everything’s been busy, lately. Recording and practicing and filming and clashing schedules in what feels like tens of hundreds of hours of work being put into this year-end project. The summer heat’s barely been helping, but Yangyang hasn’t noticed in the adrenaline filled-rush of the growing anticipation for just. Getting everything out there.
Ten’s been busier as a result, and honestly, they haven’t had the chance to sit down and just enjoy each other’s presence for a while. Mostly because of how Yangyang’s been falling asleep almost the moment he gets home, walking up so late at night that Ten was verging on sleep, too.
It’s been a back-and-forth game of trying to sync up their sleep schedules, though it was only a game that Yangyang was playing. Today, he just happens to luck out. And today, his brain-to-mouth filter is just barely working.
“What’s up, baby?” Ten questions casually, his attention returned to his phone for a moment. Yangyang feels an unintended grin stretching over his face at the pet name before burying his face in the stuffed animal he’s wrapped around his arms, beat to shit after he’s been using it as a pillow and punching out frustrations.
“It’s…” Yangyang trails off. There’s this pit in his stomach where anxiety is pooling and stirring, working to muffle his words before they can even escape his lips.
He tries to settle down, wrapping a hand around his wrist and squeezing under the blankets before turning to lie down on his back so he doesn’t have to stare at Ten. “You can’t let things be, like, weird after this,” Yangyang warns preemptively.
If it were any other day, he probably would’ve backtracked entirely, unable to bring it up further. Maybe a few months ago, when he felt the first inklings of this—this crush creeping up on him, unannounced. Instead, he just wants to get it over with. He needs to say something before he cracks under the pressure of every word he can’t seem to squeeze out of his heart.
Yangyang almost jumps out of his skin when he feels weight sink down the mattress on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows to stare at Ten, who’s sitting cross-legged. His head is tipped slightly, and there’s a faint smile that projects friendliness but a hint of concern that makes it tight.
“What’s up, baby?” He asks again, though the words are more tender, this time. Yangyang thinks if he were in a romance novel, he’d hold his breath. Instead, he feels short of it, and his words come out in a rush.
“I think I like you,” Yangyang blurts. Then he blinks. And adds, “A lot.”
Ten blinks at this as well. Yangyang’s previous confidence disappears in the blink of an eye.
“Are you sure?” Ten replies, then startles slightly, as though he didn’t mean to say that aloud. Yangyang chews on the inside of his cheek and lets the sound around them get swallowed by the quiet ambience of the humidifier permeating the room. He suddenly feels much more flushed than he did a moment ago. The tips of his ears are burning slightly.
“Yeah,” Yangyang tells him quietly. Waiting.
When no response comes for a moment, Yangyang blinks back shame for a minute that feels like centuries before speaking up again.
“You don’t have to— like, you can just pretend I didn’t say anything—”
“I was kind of wondering how long it’d take you to say something, I—”
They both pause amid their sentences but it barely takes Yangyang a moment to process Ten’s words before he’s pushing himself up higher, blanket pooling around his waist.
“What d’you mean, you were waiting?” He questions. It’s just edging on sounding like a demand. Ten shrugs, but there’s a grin on his face that’s slowly untwisting the knot of anxiety that’s tangled itself in Yangyang’s stomach.
“You can’t tell me you thought you were being discreet, Yangyang-ah,” He teases gently, turning to face him properly.
“Well. I—You didn’t—” Yangyang tries hopelessly for a moment. Ten rolls his eyes before crawling closer, silencing Yangyang as he lets himself fall back to his elbows and his eyes widen a little.
A languid grin’s grown upon Ten’s face. Yangyang wants to call it catlike, somehow. The man’s exuding confidence in a way he hasn’t before, not so intensely between just the two of them. Yangyang thinks it might be making him a little crazy.
“So—So is that, um,” Yangyang pauses when Ten sits up properly, one hand on resting on his thigh overtop the blankets.
“I like you, too,” Ten replies easily enough. He seems to be taking pity on his inability to form sentences, now, which Yangyang is more than grateful for. “I just waited because I didn’t want to push you until you were ready. To tell me, I mean.”
“Oh,” Yangyang says dumbly, “Sick.”
Ten stares for a moment before laughing, loud and eye-catching before Yangyang joins, quieter in his snickering at his own words. There’s this tension in the air that Yangyang only notices once it’s disappeared and he doesn’t feel the weight of the world pressing down against his chest in an ugly way.
When they both quiet, Yangyang’s lying back against Ten’s pillow, boneless, and Ten is staring at him with something in his eyes that makes Yangyang want to tug him down and pull Ten as close to him as possible.
Instead, he forces himself to sit up. Then, in an awful mimicry of almost every confessional he’s recalled doing for variety shows in the past, for lack of a better move to make, he grabs both of Ten’s hands in his own.
The man’s palms are rough under his, more calloused than Yangyang’s own. They’re warm, a heavier weight over his own. He can feel the indents of his palm lines against his own and quickly gives up on his mission for a tender confessional to turn Ten’s hand over. He traces a thumb against the lines and just. Lets everything sit, for a moment.
There’s no need for any more large, emotionally-charged rambling speeches. Really, Yangyang thinks it was more of a need to make sure that Ten knew what he did, and now he knows that those feelings are returned, it’s just a matter of. Letting that all sink in.
Yangyang can’t explain it. He doesn’t think anything will change, particularly, besides his initial glee, which makes it hard to hide the stupid grin he has on his face.
When he looks up, Ten’s face is much closer than it was before. It’s barely a moment before the man speaks. “Can I kiss you? Or is that, like, too much for five minutes into whatever this is—”
Yangyang cuts him off by leaning forward, closing the short distance between them and pressing his mouth against Ten’s.
Almost immediately, Ten reciprocates, hands moving to Yangyang’s waist before he’s even realized Ten’s moved at all. There’s this longing for closeness that ignites under his touch, soothing something tender in Yangyang’s chest that’s been burning for weeks.
Maybe he’s living in some sort of a daydream, floaty and far from the world as he slips away under the sensation of eager anxiety twisting in his ribs and burning a hole through his heart. There’s this feeling in Yangyang’s subconscious, far-off and distant, that whispers savour this while it lasts that he ignores in favour of—of Ten. Just Ten.
It’s the feeling of Ten’s breath under his nose that has Yangyang pulling away, fingers tangled in his hair and keeping their foreheads pressed together. When Ten opens his eyes, Yangyang can’t hide his smile, and Ten rolls his eyes with a grin of his own before lightly pushing him onto his back and taking his lips once more.
It’s idyllic, really. Yangyang can’t think of a poetic way to describe it.
Everything is fast and passionate with Ten, like rediscovering the world through a different lens.
Yangyang’s always had a nasty habit of throwing himself entirely into relationships, maybe a bit more than he should’ve, in a haze of gleeful adrenaline that came with the high of being able to confess and have things go well. He’s never been a hopeless romantic but it was easy for him to get caught up in the passion of everything.
He doesn’t think he’s ever loved anyone before, really, but he thinks that the way he acts might make people think that he’s ready to die for them. Even now, Yangyang’s been closer with Ten, touchier, and more open with his compliments and sly remarks. Ten returns the energy easily enough in private, a little bit more subdued in public, and not pushing it at all in front of cameras.
With how much they’re on camera or in public, it feels like barely anything’s changed. All this does is make the post-confession haze that Yangyang’s been living in feel exacerbated. He’s had so much energy in the past few weeks he doesn’t know what to do with it, and it feels like he’s been living minutes in the span of a few hours. Maybe it was the intersection of such a large project coming up, alongside plans for another comeback in January and how everything just seemed to be looking up, for the first time in a long while.
Either way, time always flies when he gets into these types of hazes. It barely feels like a week before Ten’s mouth is on his neck for the first time and Yangyang’s flushed and panting in the dark of his room, fingers pressed into Ten’s back.
The only sound present is their breathing and the sound of skin against skin. Yangyang’s almost bitten through his bottom lip trying to stay silent and every sensation feels like a little bit too much. Despite this, quiet gasps spill from tight lips when Ten presses into him with hands wrapped around either side of Yangyang’s waist.
The closeness doesn’t burn—rather, Yangyang feels warmth in his stomach that soothes the frantic energy that’s been running his mind into the ground. His hands scramble for purchase when Ten yanks his head up by the hair to bury his face in the crook of his neck, teeth scraping against Yangyang’s skin in a way that makes him tremble.
“Fuck,” Yangyang pants. Apparently, he’s a little too loud, because Ten moves his hand from his hair to cover his mouth entirely. The weight is heavy against his lips and Yangyang pretends it doesn’t make something in his stomach twinge.
Ten is entirely overpowering. Yangyang never considered the difference in their experience until he’s coming unwound with just a few jerks of Ten’s wrist, Yangyang’s own arm used to muffle quiet whines.
Eventually, an indescribable time later that he spends in a haze, Ten pulls away and Yangyang catches his breath as the older man sits up. He feels spent, legs trembling slightly and the soft sheets against his skin lulling him into drowsiness.
Then, Ten gets up, pulling away from Yangyang completely. He would be lying if he said it didn't send a jolt of hurt through him, for just a second.
Yangyang’s eyes trail after him as Ten pulls his sweatpants back on, roaming his room before finding a towel. He looks back at Yangyang a moment after, a grin against his lips.
“I’ll shower first?” He asks. “Unless you want to share.” The words are clearly suggestive, and something in Yangyang’s stomach curls at them, but—
Yangyang just wants to shower with him and go to bed without doing much else. He’s already sore from practice earlier that day, and it’s only luck that gave Ten the day off to get himself so worked up for them to get up to anything in the first place.
But, Yangyang reasons with himself a little reluctantly as he forces himself to sit up, cool air stinging his skin slightly, he doesn’t know when he and Ten will be free next.
“Yeah, wait up for me,” Yangyang tells him with a gummy smile he knows Ten is endeared for. Ten answers with a nod before leaving and closing the door behind him. Alone in the dark, he’d probably feel more tired if not for the promise of Ten waiting for him.
When he swings his legs over the bed, he finds his own pair of sweatpants to pull on before finding a towel a moment later as well. For a moment, he stops before leaving the room, blinking hard to rub his eyes with the back of his hand.
Absently, Yangyang thinks he’s happier than he’s been in a long, long time.
Then, he opens the door and wanders to the bathroom, a smile creeping across his face at the sound of the water running from behind the closed door. Yangyang enters and barely closes the door behind him before Ten’s hands are on his bare skin again, and—
And for a few weeks, everything is just. Perfect.
Yangyang supposes that the beginning of the bitter end comes when Ten misses his call on a Tuesday evening.
The sun’s barely still floating in through the uncovered windows, little patches of light pooling on folds in the sheets that line Ten’s bed. It’s much, much messier than the man would ever allow his room to become, and Yangyang can only say that there’s a slight upside to his prolonged stay in China—a chance for him to clean properly before he came back.
Sweat-soaked clothes that have dried over thrice are thrown in the corner of the room, vaguely aimed at the laundry basket sitting behind the door. Sicheng’s side of the room is similarly empty, the man himself somewhere between Korea and China, nowadays. Yangyang isn’t sure if he’s going to be on his way back anytime soon. It’s just something to be expected. This vagueness to their lives always leaves him questioning what he thought was once set in stone.
Yangyang hisses as Leon digs his claws into his bare legs, shorts doing an awful job at protecting his shins from the cat’s protests. Without looking, he wipes further at Leon’s eyes with a tissue, cleaning his small face the way Ten was accustomed to doing so often.
Eventually, he figures he’s done the task well enough and lets Leon free, watching the cat jump and bound away, escaping Ten’s room to roam the hallways alongside Louis. Yangyang sighs, head dropping into his hands before he shakes his head once, hard. As if to chase something away.
Then, he takes the tissue he used for Leon and wipes down his leg without looking. When he brings it back to his face, he’s greeted with smears of red on white. His nose wrinkles. He repeats the movement and comes back with more red smears, this time turning his grimace into a frown.
Yangyang resolves to get up and go out to grab a bandaid—or five, it looks like—from the kitchen, but finds himself just. Wholly unmotivated to even try. Like there are sandbags tied to his feet and keeping him from pulling himself out of the small safe space he’s taken to occupying.
Honestly, Yangyang thinks he didn’t expect three months to feel as long as they did. In his recent memory, all passage of time goes by so fast that he feels like he’s running to keep up, sometimes. It’s like he’s riding on the coattails of the others so he can figure out where exactly he is. Like he’s awakened from a haze and it’s been weeks since he remembers being awake, properly.
He doesn’t think it’s, like, disassociation. Just a disconnect in his brain when it comes to his mind processing the idea of time as something that never quite stops or slows. Yangyang is well aware of what he does and chooses to do. He won’t dismiss himself of that responsibility.
Maybe it’d be easier if he lived in one of those societies where time wasn’t a commodity, he wonders aimlessly, pulling himself to his feet in a herculean show of strength.
When he steps into the hallway, it’s dim but there are muffled voices in the bordering rooms. He recognizes it as Hendery’s, assuming he’s on the phone with Dejun, ranting about a TV show they’ve both taken up watching whenever they’re not at work or entirely passed out. Yangyang doesn’t bother to join in on the usual dramatics.
The living room is silent. It’s desaturated with sunset sapping away the colours that clung to the tapestries an hour ago. The scene is painted in languid, dull blues that border on gray. Yangyang lets the feeling linger before flicking the lights on, clinical white muffling whatever was trying to creep its way out of the shadows.
Listlessly, Yangyang finds himself opening the fridge, and pantry, eyes bouncing over the contents for barely a moment before closing them again. He turns on the sink to fill a cup with water that he takes a sip of before pouring it down the drain, again.
The high that came from Universe promotions was finally wearing off, and Yangyang was left chasing the adrenaline rush that came with it. New years was quiet and there was little to be said between the group of them besides dinner and a wish to do better. Maybe there would be more to say if not for Sicheng and Ten’s absence, as well as another that no one wanted to bring up at all.
Yangyang finds the box of bandaids crumpled in the bottom drawer by their fridge, half-squished by a larger bottle of pain medication they had yet to open. He grabs himself a handful before retreating to the couch, bringing his leg up to rest on top of the other.
Maybe it was like this—Yangyang forgot how lonely he could get.
That always seems to be the crux of the issue. Yangyang is someone who’s built to be around people, speak to them, and get energy from at least their presence nearby him. Hell, he’s called Shotaro more in the past month than he has anyone else because of how sluggish he felt with little to do and everyone else cooped up in their rooms.
He can’t fault them for their coping mechanisms, really. There doesn’t seem to be a set way to react to the knowledge that the careers that they fought tooth and nail for would be stopped directly in their tracks for an indefinite amount of time. They had other things, of course, but the opportunity to make music for people to listen to with each other was slim, now.
Yangyang just wishes he had the energy to be angry. He finds himself incredibly lacking in most motivation for anything, instead.
He rubs his thumb over the ends of the bandaids to smooth them out when he’s done his half-brained patch-up job. He’s left with a total of six bandaids on his leg where Leon’s claws dug into his skin the hardest. He stares at his scratched-up calf and thinks to himself, at least I won’t be stressed about looking better for anything, soon.
It draws a short, puff of a laugh from his lips. Then, Yangyang stands to stretch, craving relief from some ache he can’t identify. He can’t even be sure that it’s anything, physical.
There’s just this overwhelming despair that Yangyang can’t seem to chase away. It permeates the air around him and it makes it hard for him to breathe. It’s as though the turmoil in the air has manifested as a solid figure wrapping a hand around his throat and choking him to the point that there’s little else for him to do but succumb to restless slumber.
If Ten were here, he’d berate Yangyang lightheartedly for being dramatic. Yangyang chews the inside of his cheek and resists the urge to scratch at his barrage of bandaids, driving salt-covered nails into an open wound.
When he finds himself back in Ten’s room, he resigns himself to the fact that it’ll most likely be another night spent here, in the quiet of solitude that seems to be characteristic of this dorm, now. He doubts that Hendery will mind very much. Yangyang’s sure that, even though he doesn’t say it out loud, he feels the loneliness in the dorms as much as Yangyang does. Maybe more, honestly.
It’s when he’s tangled in the blankets of Ten’s bed after the tiring process of cleaning the cats’ litter box does he pull out his phone from his pocket, squinting slightly at the brightness of his screen even with the room lit up.
It’s nearly eleven, barely late enough for him to assume that Ten would be asleep by now. The man’s notorious for the awful sleep schedule he has that somehow works for him, against all odds.
Yangyang doesn’t hesitate to dial his number, putting the phone on speaker to let his head loll back and hit the pillows, eyes already half-open as he listens to his phone buzz as he imagines Ten’s ringing about a thousand and some miles away.
The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and then…
“You have reached—010 538 12**—please leave a message after the tone.”
When he hears the tone, Yangyang pauses before hanging up entirely. His phone buzzes a moment later, and he looks to see a notification from Ten. He clicks on the message and reads it over thrice.
Sorry :( not up for talking tonight. Really tired. I'll make up for it tomorrow?
Which—
Yangyang understands. Of course, he understands Ten is busy. What type of person would he be if he couldn’t afford Ten the right not to speak to him?
don’t even stress, Yangyang writes back not a moment later. take care of yourself first. stay safe. hope you aren’t too tired from shattering the lil dancers’ hopes and dreams lol
:P, is all he gets back in return. Yangyang stares at the short thread of messages before clicking the lock button on his phone and willing himself to get up to close the lights.
Unsurprisingly, he finds himself too tired. He doesn't even know why. It’s not like he did anything today. He hasn't done anything in a while. Besides dance for mandatory practice, but, even that was less intensive than anything he’s worked on for the past few months.
Yangyang feels frustration bring tears to the corners of his eyes, wiping at them with rough hands and hoping his eyelids don't get caught on his nails. Everything feels raw. Sensitive. He can't even explain it in a way that makes sense without feeling like he's making an awful, huge deal out of nothing.
In the end, he turns over in bed and presses his face into the comforter and breathes in the months-faded scent of Ten’s cologne.
Then, he drifts.
The next day, things are on par with the course. Yangyang calls, Ten answers.
He’s eating dinner in the kitchen, this time, and Ten’s in the bathroom of his temporary home washing his face before proceeding to work through every meticulous step of his skincare routine. Yangyang’s impressed by the motivation to make it through the task at all. He knows he’s slowly been dropping away from it all.
Dejun’s usually his go-to partner for working his way through each step in the mornings, but the man’s been sleeping in more and more often, nowadays. Yangyang can’t bring himself to be upset about it. It’s just another part of his day where he’ll have to adapt to the loneliness that seems to be overtaking his life.
Ten’s usually his partner when it comes to getting through it in the evenings, so when their schedules happen to line up, they both sit together on FaceTime and pick away at their skin with lotions and moisturizers together. Yangyang usually drifts for a bit after putting his face mask on and gets awoken by the timers he sets.
Today, dinner is a packet of microwave ramen that he’s dumped into a bowl to keep Ten from worrying about his newfound awful eating habit. He’s working through it slowly, barely halfway through his meal before he feels uncomfortably full. Or maybe it’s just his lack of appetite speaking. Yangyang isn’t sure.
“You okay, baby?” Ten asks through the screen. Yangyang looks away from the spot on the wall he fixated on as he zoned out, giving him a bright smile that feels so far from anything he’s felt in the past week that it was almost funny.
“Yeah, just thought I saw a cockroach, or something,” He lies easily. It’s easier to get away with when there’s such a distance between them.
“Don’t tell me you guys aren’t cleaning up ‘cause I’m not there,” Ten scolds jokingly, returning to face his mirror as he opens up the plastic packaging for a face mask. Yangyang rolls his eyes.
“Like Hendery would let us,” He huffs. “He’s been keeping everything tidy, since you and Sicheng-ge left.”
“And you’re not helping?” Ten prods. Yangyang knows it’s a joke, mostly, but something under his skin bristles at the slight barb.
“I’m doing my best,” He replies. Yangyang tries to turn it into a whine, but there’s a hint of something in his tone that makes Ten fall silent instead of poking back at him like he usually does. Yangyang watches him smooth the face mask over his chin while chewing soggy noodles he wishes he could spit out before Ten turns to the phone, again.
“You know, you should be doing something now that me and Sicheng aren't there. Helping out, somehow,” Ten tells him. His tone is soft and it sounds like how he'd speak to Leon and Louis.
“I have been,” Yangyang stresses. “It's just, like. A lot. You know?” Ten sighs and something in Yangyang's stomach twists.
“Don't you think it's a lot for them, too?” He asks gently. Yangyang doesn't know why it irks him so much.
“I'm not saying it's not, I know that they're having a hard time but I have been helping and I have been doing things and it's still a lot,” Yangyang tries to explain calmly. His voice slips into a tone of frustration by the end of his short ramble.
“Have you gotten up before one in the afternoon a single time this week?” Ten questions. It sounds like a joke, something to clear the air, but it pricks against Yangyang’s skin.
“Can we just drop this?” He snaps. Ten falls silent at this. The noodles he ate feel like rocks in his stomach and Yangyang avoids looking at his phone screen to poke through them with his chopsticks.
“Maybe you need some sleep,” Ten says sympathetically, after a long moment of silence. “You get sensitive when you can’t rest.”
Yangyang wants to retaliate, but he doesn’t have the energy. He nods, propping his head up on his arm as he practically hugs his bowl of food he doesn’t want to eat closer to him. “Right,” He says. “That sounds like a good idea.”
“I’ll call back tomorrow, okay? Sleep well,” Ten tells him out of nowhere. Then, before Yangyang can say a word, he reaches for the screen and the image on Yangyang’s phone freezes for a moment before it returns to the video he was watching before Ten called.
Yangyang just stares, because— What was that?
When he meant he needed sleep, he meant so much later, maybe after his meal, or after sitting with Ten watching him and directing him through bits of his skincare routine that he’s been forgetting, lately.
Maybe that was on him, for not being clear with what he meant the first time. Or for starting a fight over nothing in the first place. Yangyang isn’t sure. All he knows is there’s something tugging at his chest with a fervour that he pushes down to take another bite of his stupid soggy noodles that he chokes on before spitting back into the bowl.
Whatever. Yangyang picks up the bowl and drains the broth before throwing the noodles in the garbage and leaving it in the sink. He turns off the lights and retreats to Ten’s room, again.
When he opens the door to see Louis sitting on his pillow, his mild annoyance turns into something closer to muted disappointment. He spends the night with Louis in his lap, dozing off as he stares at the wall, eyes tracing shapes in the dark.
Yangyang gets his answers the next day, though it’s not through a phone call. Rather, it's a series of short texts he wakes up to in the early morning, sent around eight.
He only gets up because of Leon, meowing loudly at the foot of the bed, crawling forward to knead his front paws into the blanket covering Yangyang’s legs. He pulls himself out of bed, barely, sitting up with sleep in his eyes and barely a will to get up and be productive at all. Before long, he’s opening up his phone to five messages from Ten, reading them slowly.
Heyyyy baby
Sorry but im going to be more busy lately
So i won't have time to talk as much
:( Hope you understand
Ily
He yawns, blinking hard. Then, he looks at his phone again, dropped in his lap with the messages open. Yangyang resolves to message back but gives up when his fingers mistype the words several times in his half-awake haze.
He settles on sending a voice message, halfway through another yawn when he clicks record.
“That's okay,” Yangyang starts off, bringing the phone up to his face as he holds it in one hand loosely. “Stay healthy, get rest or whatever. Make sure you’re eating enough, I don’t mind it if you’re too tired to talk. Love you, too.”
Idly, he thinks that might be the first time he's said anything close to I love you to Ten out loud. The more awake part of his brain files this away to never think about again and Yangyang clicks send once he's done. He flops back into bed a moment later, boneless.
When he wakes up hours later, his message is left unread.
“What did you get up to yesterday?” Yangyang asks a few days later, grasping for something to speak about.
“Nothing really,” Ten shrugs. “Just the usual, you know?”
“Ah,” Yangyang replies, nodding slowly. “Me too. I mean, with nothing going on.”
After a moment of silence, he adds, “Louis and Leon miss you.”
“Aw,” Ten replies. It sounds lacklustre. “Tell them I said hi. Send pics, too.”
“‘Course,” When he says that, the two of them fall silent again. Ten shifts where he’s laying in bed before sighing over the phone.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” He tells Yangyang. When he looks at the time, it’s barely twelve where Ten is. Yangyang knows he never falls asleep before two in the morning at this point.
“Okay,” He says instead of any of this. “Sleep well.”
Ten hangs up. Yangyang’s faced with his reflection on his phone staring back at him.
Yangyang considers himself someone who can overcome most difficulties, and it’s this that leads him to a practice room with Dejun, music blaring over the large speakers. The two of them are dancing so hard that he can feel sweat dripping down the bridge of his nose, almost two hours into what was initially a half-hour session to loosen up before going to the gym.
If it were up to Dejun, he’d probably be there already, lifting weights while Yangyang ran himself into the ground practicing choreography that they both knew they wouldn’t be performing for a long, long time. Maybe the man has a soft spot for him or something. Yangyang’s just glad he decided to stay behind, gym bag abandoned in the corner.
At this point, it’s been almost two weeks of these, just, lacklustre responses from Ten. There are some days when they don’t speak at all, Yangyang’s messages going unread for days before he sends back a one-word reply.
Yangyang honestly feels like he’s overreacting. He keeps telling himself he’s being overdramatic, that Ten is going through a worse time, probably, because he’s alone in China while everyone else here, minus Sicheng, has someone to rely on when it comes to dealing with this blow to their lives.
Yangyang keeps telling himself this, but every time, he finds himself more and more hurt by just how easily he’s getting dismissed, over and over. It’s like he’s barely worth the effort to talk to, and he isn’t sure how he’s even supposed to begin to deal with that on top of everything else.
He isn’t even sure why he feels so strongly about this now. Maybe it’s the back-to-back crisis that’s beating his self-esteem into the ground, or he just happens to be investing in self-hatred through constantly tormenting himself with hypotheticals and silence where he’d otherwise communicate.
Yangyang’s usually much better at this type of stuff, really. When he briefly had a fling with Renjun, he’d been the first to lay down boundaries, speak to him when things bothered him, and everything else. He doesn’t know what makes it so different when it comes to confronting Ten with these very same things. All he knows is that he just wants things to stop for a moment.
Maybe Ten wants the same and he’s decided avoiding any reminder of home is the best way to go about things. Yangyang doesn’t know. He just feels—lonely. Really, really lonely.
They finish up a sloppy rendition of 90s Love that Yangyang led Dejun through about half an hour earlier, Yangyang waving himself off by grabbing the hem of his shirt and flapping it back and forth about as violently as he could. He looks over to the side, where Dejun is going for his water bottle before jogging over to the speakers to pause the music. He grabs his phone before sitting down in the middle of the room.
By then, Dejun is making his way back, fixing the baseball cap on his head. He seems to pause for a moment when he sees Yangyang sitting cross-legged, but resumes walking and eventually settles down next to him. There’s a minute of silence before Yangyang decides to hesitantly break it.
“So,” Yangyang says, already cringing preemptively. “How’ve… you been?”
Dejun looks at him.
“Bad,” He answers simply. Yangyang isn’t sure if he’s more pleased or upset about the lack of sugarcoating. “You?”
“Well,” Yangyang pauses, then taps his fingers against his knee. “Also bad. Kind of stupid question to ask, I guess.”
This, at the least, cracks the slightest of smiles across Dejun’s face. He takes off his baseball cap, running a hand through his hair before he speaks again.
“How’re things with Ten-ge?” Yangyang’s face must reflect how he feels a little too well because Dejun’s half-grin is tugged into a frown before he’s even gotten a solid answer. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing, just the whole, like. Long distance, thing,” He dismisses immediately, waving a hand. “And everything else.”
Dejun’s face softens into something like understanding at this.
“It’s been weird for everyone,” Dejun offers in an attempt at sympathy. Yangyang snorts but there’s no humour behind it at all.
“Yeah, who could’ve seen it coming.” The words come out bitter, but it’s more resigned. Something akin to giving into the knowledge that there was just—no coming back from this anytime soon. Dejun hesitates at the tone before speaking again.
“We shouldn’t dwell on this—” Dejun tries.
“Why the fuck not?” Yangyang interrupts. His frustration is already hard to get a lid on, but now, it’s almost worse. He’s let slip that barely-there control that kept him from voicing any of his problems from the past few weeks. Somewhere in his head, he hates himself for lashing out at Dejun, of all people. “It’s not like everyone else isn’t talking about it. I think we should get a chance to be mad before we have to pretend like nothing’s up for all the stupid content they want us to film when half the group’s halfway across the world.”
Dejun stares at him after Yangyang’s finished, but he can't even find it in himself to feel satisfied that his words have apparently hit some mark. It’s just… sad.
“I’m not going to sit here and listen to you yell at me,” Dejun starts once Yangyang’s finished. He’s instantly hit with shame at the words, withering from his previous anger into just—exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” Yangyang says not a moment later. “It’s just—I’m not mad at you.”
Dejun nods, though he doesn’t look any happier. “When I said we shouldn’t dwell on it, I meant we shouldn’t spare it our energy anymore. Aren’t you tired?”
Aren’t you tired?
The words are simple, but they make Yangyang’s eyes sting slightly.
“Yeah,” He replies, quietly. “I am.”
“Have you spoken to anyone, recently?” Dejun asks, a little more concerned. Yangyang shrugs.
“I didn't really think to,” He admits. “You talk to Hendery and Kun-ge’s… I don't know, actually.” Dejun frowns at this.
“I think he's taking things harder than he's letting on,” He broaches the topic. Yangyang picks at his clothes, smoothing them over a moment later in an attempt to soothe his nerves.
“You think so?” Yangyang asks. Dejun nods.
“When I've spoken to him the past couple of days, he's been… Really collected,” Dejun tells him. “Too much to be believable, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Yangyang nods. He clicks his tongue once, index finger and thumb tugging on a loose thread by his knee. “Maybe the anniversary stuff will cheer him up?” He tries.
Dejun shrugs. “You could also try talking to him,” He points out. “Neither of you really talk to anyone, nowadays. You need someone to lean on, and he needs someone, too.”
Yangyang wants to feel affronted at the suggestion of the idea he's been avoiding everyone, but Dejun’s not wrong.
“I’ll try,” He agrees. If not for his own sake, then Kun’s. Dejun nods, satisfied.
“We have to stick together,” Dejun says, empathetic. The words sound cheesy to Yangyang, and he'd probably be making fun of him in any other context.
Today, he nods, and they commiserate in silence before Dejun offers to teach him another choreography Yangyang knows he'll forget as soon as he leaves the practice room.