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Sangwon really, really didn’t know what he was doing.
He didn’t know what he wanted out of his career, out of Boys Planet, out of anything. He had the want to debut floating around somewhere, but it was more of an abstract concept than anything else. It had been his dream for so long, and now it was just kinda…there.
What would happen, if the final episode of the show aired and Sangwon was sitting in the top seat? If he was sitting in any seat, actually? What then?
Would his group go on to bigger and better things? Would they fade into oblivion?
Would Sangwon have wasted yet another valuable time in his life on a stupid, fading dream?
He really didn’t know.
Leo always seemed so sure of himself. Even when nothing seemed to be going their way, it didn’t seem to bother him.
“Let’s just try,” he had said before successfully convincing Sangwon to audition for Boys Planet. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Sangwon would argue that being on this show was the worst that could happen. Really, he wasn’t having the best time in the slightest. And it sort of seemed like everyone thought otherwise.
“I wish I was as good as you, hyung,” Ching Yu had said. Sangwon just stared at him. Ching Yu was a better dancer than he could ever dream of being.
“Ya, Sangwon!” Heuichan and Harry June were always saying. “It should be a crime to be that talented!”
Clearly not talented enough, Sangwon wanted to say. Because only two of us in this conversation are actual idols.
The mentors had given him three stars despite his fuck up during the audition stage, which baffled him to no end. Trainees made so many small mistakes on this show and got scolded to no end for them. So why didn’t he? Why was he so special? It’s not like he was even the K-Group Center.
Sangwon felt like combusting every damn day he showed up to practice, and it didn’t help that everyone was always talking to him. It’s not that he didn’t appreciate the company, but sometimes he just needed to be alone.
Away from everyone trying to get close to him for reasons genuine or otherwise, and away from his teammates who claimed he was just made for this performance. It was too much.
And then Anxin, who actually seemed very nice, tried to reach out to Sangwon. And it sent him spiraling further.
Because then he heard whispers from trainees about how they could be the next Hanbin and Zhang Hao, the next iconic duo, THE pairing that voters would be rooting for. And it was all too much.
Sangwon didn’t want to be the next Hanbin. He didn’t want to be the next anybody. He didn’t even know what he wanted. But he sure as hell couldn’t pretend for a camera to be something he wasn’t anymore than he already had.
If the voting ranks were anything to go off of, Sangwon already had the viewers fooled. He had pretended to be worthy of debut, pretended to be talented, pretended to be good enough to draw the attention of nearly everybody on this damn show.
But it was all a lie. And Sangwon didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up.
He Zhongxing wanted to go home. He had wanted to go home since the very first moment he walked through those shiny doors, inside a room full of people he didn’t know who were all looking at him like he was some kind of show pony.
Too many people and too much staring. Still, he had stuck with his plan. He would stand out one way or another, and if sticking to his “sexy” concept did that, then he wouldn’t stop until it finally stopped working. Even if he was laughed at, at least he would be memorable.
But he really didn’t think he could keep it up anymore.
Every time Zhongxing stepped in front of the camera, it felt like the room was against him. Even when it was just a few PDs feeding him interview questions, it felt like they were deliberately trying to start drama, to get something juicy out of him to twist and manipulate for their own benefit.
“I don’t understand why they won’t give me a higher rank,” Zhongxing had said honestly at one point. “I’m as good as some of the people in All Star.”
He could’ve sworn he saw one of the PDs roll her eyes.
“Why can’t you just pay attention and keep up?” another one had asked him when he was stepping out of the Kill the Romeo practice room for the fourth time that day.
And Zhongxing really, really wanted to go home.
His feet hurt. Every inch of his body was sore. It felt like there was a million pounds dragging him down, but at the same time like he was light as a feather, seconds away from falling over. He didn’t feel like trying anymore.
Everyone already thought he was a lazy, rude, unmotivated dumbass who couldn’t do anything right. What was even the point in trying to prove them wrong anymore? He already tried, and failed.
Over and over again. Zhongxing’s own teammates never even tried to connect with him, so how was he supposed to be a team player?
How was he supposed to attend team practice when he felt like every single person in that room hated him?
It happened one day after filming went particularly late. Zhongxing pushed the door to the hallway open, maybe a little too hard, because he felt the door hit somebody, who yelped in pain.
Zhongxing winced. The last thing he needed was to add physical assault to the list of things he had been falsely accused of. He peeked to see who it was that he had hit, and internally cursed.
Lee Sangwon. Everyone’s golden child, the favorite of the other trainees, the one that the masters had praised endlessly.
Who was now rubbing his bruised elbow that Zhongxing had slammed a door against. Wasn’t that just perfect.
He decided to cut his losses.
“Sorry,” Zhongxing mumbled in Korean. “Didn’t…didn’t see.”
Sangwon looked up to meet Zhongxing’s eyes. He seemed to recognize him. “Ah, no, don’t worry about it. It’s okay,” is what Zhongxing was pretty sure he said.
Zhongxing nodded. “Okay.”
He moved to pass Sangwon, and mumbled one last “sorry” for good measure, just in case.
He could feel Sangwon burning a hole in the back of his head as he walked away.
“What happened?” Yumeki asked upon seeing the bruise on Sangwon’s elbow. It was turning into a gross yellow/purple splotch of color, and Sangwon was sort of surprised. The door didn’t even hit him that hard.
Sangwon shrugged. “I ran into a door.”
Leo cackled along with the rest of the team’s chuckles, and seemlessly launched into the story of how Sangwon once ran into an open door frame three years ago. Not his finest hour.
But instead of defending himself, Sangwon started to zone out. That tall blonde guy…Zhongxing. One of the Chinese trainees.
Sangwon had been seeing him around, but always alone. He didn’t think he’d seen the other trainee talk to another person or even smile a single time since the beginning of this portion of the show.
Sangwon thought back to when he saw Zhongxing peek his head out from behind that door. He could’ve sworn it looked like he’d been crying. Not unheard of, plenty of trainees came out of individual filming with red-rimmed eyes after talking about their struggles in front of strangers.
But something about it being Zhongxing bothered Sangwon. Maybe it was because he’d heard Zhongxing’s team complaining about him just a few too many times. Maybe it was because all he'd heard about Zhongxing was that he didn’t care about anything or anyone.
He would’ve left the show by now if he didn’t care. He probably wouldn’t have even joined the show in the first place if he really was as lazy and uninspired as his teammates seemed to believe.
It really wasn’t Sangwon’s place to wonder.
But a few days later, it seemed to become everyone’s problem.
Sangwon heard yelling from inside one of the practice rooms when he was taking a bathroom break, and stopped in his tracks to listen in. Noseiness had always been one of his many flaws.
It was mostly yelling in Mandarin, but he also heard “guys, stop fighting,” and vague shouts of “then why don’t you just leave” in Korean, before a very upset looking He Zhongxing stormed out into the hallway.
He saw Sangwon and stopped in his tracks, clearly not expecting anyone to be there. Sangwon really was an idiot.
Zhongxing blinked at him for a moment, then nodded his head in the slightest of bows to acknowledge Sangwon before moving to walk past him down the hallway. Sangwon watched him, and then heard, “he can’t just leave practice like that every time he gets mad. Someone go after him.”
He had the briefest of internal dilemmas where he remembered all the times that he just wanted to be alone. The times when it felt like everyone was against him, when he wanted nothing more but to be able to just leave for a moment.
Sangwon stared at Zhongxing walking away, and made a decision. He tapped him on the shoulder and when Zhongxing turned around, Sangwon just pointed down a different direction of the hallway.
“Follow me.”
Zhongxing looked thoroughly confused, but Sangwon just grabbed his wrist to gently pull him along while the former made noises of confusion.
They made it to their destination just in time, and Sangwon opened the door to the room around the corner right as one of Zhongxing’s teammates walked by.
When Zhongxing ran into Sangwon again, he wasn’t expecting the top-ranked trainee to drag him to some random dimly lit room with hardly anything in it, with no explanation and no reasoning given before quite literally pulling him away from the practice room he’d been in for hours.
Lee Sangwon was now staring at Zhongxing like he didn’t know how to initiate a human interaction, eyes darting around to avoid making eye contact for too long.
“Uh,” Zhongxing started. “Why?” he asked in Korean.
Sangwon’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. He looked down and said something, but Zhongxing could only really understand the word “here.” Which wasn’t very helpful.
Sangwon looked back up after some silence, like he was trying to read Zhongxing’s face. Zhongxing just shrugged. “I don’t know Korean,” he said in English. “Sorry.”
To his surprise, Sangwon didn’t seem frustrated or anything. In fact, he just seemed extremely apologetic and started trying to mime what he was saying earlier, which Zhongxing understood a little better, but it still wasn’t processing. But it was nice that Mr. “I’m Mnet’s favorite” didn’t seem like a stuck-up asshole or anything.
“Wait,” Zhongxing said, interrupting Sangwon’s frantic waving of his hands, and pulled out his phone. Sangwon’s eyes bugged out of his head, and he asked something that Zhongxing could only assume was along the lines of, “how did you get a phone in here” or “you’re not supposed to have that.”
Zhongxing just sat down, pulled up the translation app he had downloaded, set the settings to translate from Mandarin to Korean, and said, “It’ll be easier to talk through this. The translations aren’t always the best but it’s fine.”
Sangwon made an “ohhh” sound and slid down against the wall behind them to sit next to Zhongxing. He leaned over to see the screen, changed the settings to flip the languages, and spoke into it.
Zhongxing read, “I saw you and thought you needed to be alone. This room is empty and I found it last week. There are no cameras.”
Huh. A secret room. That Sangwon wanted to share with Zhongxing. Because…he wanted to help? Maybe?
“Oh,” he said instead of asking. “I see.”
The two of them sat there for a moment, not speaking. It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, but Zhongxing could hear the rustling of Sangwon’s clothes as he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.
“Do you have something to say?” Zhongxing asked.
Sangwon jumped at the sound of his voice, but leaned over to read the translation nonetheless. He hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
Through the shitty translation, Zhongxing understood he was asking about the argument, and maybe if Zhongxing was okay. He just shrugged.
“It’s fine,” he said. “My teammates just have different goals and ideas for this show, that’s all.”
Sangwon hummed, nodding. “I see.”
Zhongxing wasn’t sure what compelled him to keep talking. But for once, he wasn’t talking to someone who seemed to already be against him. He wasn’t in a small, confined area with PDs trying to make him look bad, and he wasn’t in a stuffy practice room with teammates who side-eyed him every few minutes.
He was in a cool, air-conditioned room. No harsh lighting and no incessant noise. Just Lee Sangwon of all people, who for some reason was sitting next to him and listening to him talk.
It was really, really weird.
So Zhongxing just blurted, “I don’t even know if I want to be an idol anymore,” and waited for Sangwon to read the translation and ask him why he was even on this damn show in the first place. He really hoped he wouldn’t. Because Zhongxing didn’t know how he would even begin to answer that question.
“Really?” he heard Sangwon say. A pause, and then, “how come?”
Zhongxing turned to him and found that Sangwon’s expression was still open, still free of judgement, and just full of curiosity. How about that.
Zhongxing still didn’t know how to answer that, but he did have a thought on his mind that he was afraid to say during any of his interviews. If Sangwon got upset or told anybody else about it, so what. It’s not like Zhongxing’s reputation could get much worse.
“The people who win these shows are the ones that lie,” Zhongxing said into the translator. Sangwon read the translation and frowned, and Zhongxing sighed. He wasn’t trying to attack Sangwon, and for all he knew, the translation minced his words.
“What do you mean?” Sangwon said in accented Mandarin, and Zhongxing physically jumped like he’d been shot. He stared at the trainee sitting next to him, eyes wide.
Sangwon let out a breathy chuckle and said into the translator, “I only know about 3 phrases in Mandarin, sorry.”
And it really shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. The bare minimum, actually.
But not a single person on this show had tried to meet Zhongxing at his level before. It was either assimilate, or be cut out. The fact that the show only had one Chinese master, temporary at that, was proof that nothing in the show moving forward would be forgiving to the Chinese trainees.
Sangwon’s pronunciation wasn’t even that good.
But still, Zhongxing smiled. A real, genuine smile. He looked back over at Sangwon who was now looking like he was the one who got shot. Zhongxing just raised his eyebrows and leaned over to speak into the translator.
“Idols lie all the time, right? They lie that they’re doing fine, they lie that they love their fans no matter what, and a lot of them lie about their real personalities. Anything for love and attention.”
He checked to make sure that Sangwon read everything before continuing.
“That’s what they want us to do, on this show. It’s what so many trainees do. I just got tired of lying.”
It was the truth. Zhongxing thought if he just stuck to his image, he would gain the attention of everybody. And, well, he did.
But now no one liked him.
Sangwon hummed. “I see,” he murmured in Korean.
“Yeah,” Zhongxing said.
For a few moments, they just sat there. Zhongxing stared at a speck of dirt on the floor. He heard Sangwon tapping his fingers against his knees.
Then Sangwon said something about lying, and Zhongxing turned to read, “So do you think I’m lying too?”
Without turning on the translator, Zhongxing hurriedly said, “No, no, that’s not what I meant—I mean, I didn’t—and I completely understand why people do it, it’s just—“
Sangwon laughed and grabbed Zhongxing’s wrists softly, stopping him from flailing his hands around while he tried to explain.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand.”
Zhongxing raised an eyebrow. “You do?”
Sangwon nodded. “Yeah.”
Sangwon didn’t know why he was sitting inches away from He Zhongxing of all people, talking through a subpar translation app about serious topics, but he found that he didn’t mind.
Zhongxing was picking at his fingernails, looking at anything other than Sangwon as another stretch of silence fell over them. He wondered yet again why Zhongxing was so hated.
“He’s always sleeping,” he had heard Sho whine to another trainee the other day. “We missed out on full group practice for almost the whole time because he was just sitting there in the corner.”
Sangwon knew what overworked and exhausted looked like. He’d seen it in the mirror plenty of times, and he saw it clear as day on Zhongxing’s face.
They made eye contact.
“You look at me…why?” Zhongxing said in uncertain Korean.
“Just thinking,” Sangwon said.
“Thinking?” Zhongxing tilted his head.
Sangwon tapped his finger on his forehead to illustrate his point, and Zhongxing nodded.
“What about?” he asked.
Sangwon paused. “…I don’t know,” he said in Mandarin to the best of his ability. Much to his surprise, Zhongxing started giggling, soft and quiet like the rest of him.
“Was that good?” Sangwon asked sheepishly, and Zhongxing just giggled some more. When he stopped, he looked at Sangwon, amused, and poked Sangwon’s cheek gently.
“Cute,” he said, grinning. Sangwon felt his cheeks heat up and tried to avert his eyes.
Zhongxing let out a few more chuckles, and then leaned back against the wall. Sangwon stared at him for a moment.
He never would’ve expected that the trainee who’d been painted as the most arrogant and stuck up one amongst them was really just…normal. Zhongxing talked softly and didn’t fake his smiles, spoke directly and honestly, and seemed like he just wanted to talk to someone who would listen, even if Sangwon was bad at giving advice and doing much more than just listening. The kind of person that Sangwon could see himself becoming friends with on the outside.
Or, he corrected himself internally, the kind of person he could see himself becoming friends with here. The producers definitely wouldn’t like that very much at all, but Zhongxing was right. Sangwon didn’t want to become the kind of person who was always pretending, the kind of idol who was too good for anyone else.
For the first time since this show started, Sangwon knew what he wanted. He wanted friends. He wanted genuine connections, and he wanted to keep talking to people like Zhongxing.
So he nudged him with his shoulder and when Zhongxing turned to look at him, Sangwon said into the app, “Good luck on your performance. If you ever need someone to talk to, just call for me.”
He hesitated and then added. “You’re really cool. Thank you for talking with me.”
He looked up to see Zhongxing already looking at him. “Thank you, Sangwon,” he said in Korean carefully, voice soft as usual. “You, me…friends?”
He looked and sounded cautiously optimistic and Sangwon couldn’t help it. He grinned.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re friends.”