Chapter Text
“Xiumin! Xiumin! Do you have a statement regarding the latest news?”
“Is it true your label is pushing for a Japanese debut in the wake of the scandal?”
“Xiumin!”
The urge to cover his ears is overwhelming as he walks through the horde of photographers outside the record company building, the bright lights and cannon-like sounds of the flash bulbs illuminating the late evening. He wants to duck his head down, pull his hoodie over his face but Joonmyun had forbidden it.
“Now more than ever” his manager had lectured him, fixing his collar before they stepped out of the building. “You need to look untouchable. Head up, shoulders back. Don’t let them get to you, Minseok.”
“Are you coming with me?” He catches hold of Joonmyun’s wrist, sending him a pleading glance.
Joonmyun shakes his head. “I have to get my instructions from the execs. I’ll meet you at the apartment later. Go now, Chanyeol’s waiting.” He gently pries Minseok’s fingers off and the latter takes a deep breath, steadying himself before pushing the door open.
They’re almost at the car now, Chanyeol pushing past the swarm of reporters, arm wrapped firmly around his waist as he herds him along and Minseok relaxes as the door of the car comes into view.
Suddenly a reporter appears in front of him, camera held high and vicious smirk on his face. “Xiumin, how does it feel to be dumped by China’s sweetheart?”
He wants nothing more than to reach over and throttle the bastard and it’s only Chanyeol pushing him into the backseat that prevents him. The paparazzi had gotten the shot though, of his face screwed up, eyes glinting in anger and he knows it’s going to be plastered over every major gossip website in a matter of minutes, more fodder for the vultures.
The ride to his apartment is silent, Chanyeol plugging in his ipod after a few failed attempts at starting conversation. They pull up outside his apartment, thankfully free from photogs and he climbs out, bidding the driver goodnight.
Chanyeol retires to his room early, after asking whether Minseok needs anything. The shorter man paces the length of the living room, gnawing on his bottom lip as he eyes the clock. Joonmyun is taking a while to get home and he feels a growing sense of trepidation. A long discussion with the executives, in the wake of current events, sounds ominous. He flops down onto the couch, fishing the remote out from between the cushions.
He flips through channels aimlessly, pausing at Jongin’s new drama. He grins as he watches Jongin try to pull off a convincing crying scene with limited success. The boy is one of the most talented dancers in the company yet the management keep forcing him into acting roles, much to his chagrin. Well the rating are always good.
There’s a commercial break and he chews idly on a handful of almonds, scooped from the crystal bowl in front of him when a familiar tune rings out from the television. Mouth suddenly dry, he watches as Luhan’s face appears on screen, painted pink mouth turned up in a smile as he sings the jingle to a beer commercial, Swallowing hard, he snatches up the remote, switching the tv off and narrowly stopping himself from throwing the remote through the screen, right at the bastard.
He showers, too antsy to sleep, relaxing against the tiles as the spray washes over his shoulder blades, almost scaldingly hot but he welcomes the burn. His skin is bright red by the time he steps out, fingers leaving white imprints when he presses down hard. He dresses in his nightclothes before wandering out to the living room.
Joonmyun is waiting in the living room when he comes back, eyes flickering up from his smartphone when he hears him enter. He frowns at Minseok’s appearance but doesn’t comment, instead patting the seat beside him. Minseok sits, wringing the hem of his shirt in his fingers. “How bad is it?”
Joonmyun doesn’t sugarcoat it. “They’re scrapping the album.”
Minseok stares at him, mouth dropping open in shock. “They can’t do that!” It comes out as a yell and Joonmyun hisses at him to be quiet, gesturing towards Chanyeol’s door. “I’ve put half a year’s worth of work into that. Winter was my scheduled comeback time.”
“Half a year’s worth of work with Luhan, which is going to look incredibly suspect after this breakup.” Jonnmyun rubs his face wearily. “He co-wrote practically every song, his agency will demand all the songwriting royalties and it’ll be too expensive and right now the label isn’t certain you could make that money back.”
“I can’t believe this.” He can feeling a tell-tale tightening in his throat, the feeling he gets when he’s a few seconds away from bawling his eyes out. “They can’t do this.”
“They can, Minseok. And they have.” Joonmyun takes his hands in his, rubbing them gently as Minseok sniffs. “But you still have some supporters amongst the executives, so I promise you, I’ll do my best to find another way for you to get an album out. Okay?”
Minseok nods tiredly and Joonmyun tells him to go to bed, voice soft as he guides him to the bedroom. Minseok lets himself be tucked in, straining his ears to hear the door close after Joonmyun.Only then does he let himself start crying, sobs breaking against the fist he has pressed against his mouth. Can’t let Chanyeol hear, can’t let the the neighbours hear him break.
***
All his schedules for the week are cancelled and he spends most of his time sleeping or shuffling around half-dressed. Chanyeol eyes him with worry and when he opens the door to find Kyungsoo staring back at him, he knows it’s his bodyguard’s doing. He tries to shut the door but Kyungsoo pushes back with more force, sending him sprawling.
“Go away” he moans, kicking out at Kyungsoo who sidesteps him neatly and heads to the kitchen. He hears the sound of the stove being turned on and the clanging of pots and pans in his cabinets. Kyungsoo emerges a few moments later and threateningly points a frying pan at him. “Get up. Go shower.”
When he returns, its to the sight of Chanyeol and Kyungsoo at the table, a full korean breakfast in front of them.Normally he’d balk at the idea of eating so many calories this early in the day but it’s not like he has a comeback to look good for anymore.He scoops rice into his bowl, stabbing in a boiled egg with more force than necessary.Kyungsoo rolls his eyes at him but stays silent as they eat through their meal.Once finished, Chanyeol taps him on the hand. “Joonmyun hyung has you booked for the studio today.”
“Why?” Minseok intones dully, picking up his water glass. “It’s not like I’m putting out any new material.”
He chokes on tea when he feels someone whack him upside the head. “Ow, what the fuck,Kyungsoo?” The shorter man glares at him and Minseok resists the urge to shrink back in his seat. Kyungsoo points a finger threateningly at him. “Enough with the pity party, Minseok. You got dumped and your album got canned but that’s no excuse for moping.” Chanyeol and Minseok both fix him with incredulous stares. Kyungsoo stands, collecting the plates. “Go change and we’ll head out.” His tone leaves no room for argument and Minseok knows better than to try.
The entrance to the record company building is thankfully free from paparazzi, although he does spot a few teenage girls with cameras milling around, most likely fans of the new boy group. He manages to sidle past without being noticed although Chanyeol gets his fair share of attention and a few shouts of “Oppa’s so handsome!”. He gives his bodyguard a playful nudge in the ribs once they’re inside. “Still not too late to consider that modelling career, Channie.”
“Hyung” Chanyeol whines, blushing. They reach the studio doors and he holds the door open for Minseok, giving him a small thumbs up. “Text if you need anything, hyung.”
Minseok mostly mills around the recording studio, puttering around with the soundboard, trying to figure out why Kyungsoo would think this was a good idea. He plays the unfinished album tracks, head on his arms as he listen to the songs he’d poured his soul into, scrutinizing every lyric and note over and over until his eyes burn as hot as the coffee he downed to keep himself awake through the studio all-nighters.Worst is how much of Luhan there is, every song has his essence interwoven, the cheeky jazz-inspired number from their trip to Louisiana, the slow ballad about making love to him in the moonlight, the duet with both of them doing an acapella, nothing but vocals and love. And all the while, the bastard had been lying to his face.
Suddenly furious, he turns the sound recording on before marching into the booth.The instrumental for one of the ballads plays, a soft piano melody.The original had been him singing in his lower register, whisper-soft confessions of love. He takes a deep breath before singing again, the same lyrics but sung with menace, fury in every syllable until the beautiful declarations take on a new shape, become ugly and rotten and useless, just like his relationship. Just like him.
He’s immersed in this so he doesn’t notice when the door to the studio opens, and a figure enters, pausing when he sees Minseok in the booth.Minseok waits for the last of the piano melody to fade away before addressing him. “What do you want?”
The man, tall and lanky with a sharp jaw and blonde hair merely stares at him in return. “Your pitch is off.”
Minseok blinks in surprise. “Excuse me?”
The man inclines his head towards the recording booth.”Your pitch.Emoting is important but you shouldn’t sacrifice technique for it.”
“Just who the fuck are you?” Minseok snaps, yanking the headphones off and exiting the booth.The man stares down impassively at him and Minseok curses his lack of height. “If I need your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” He knows in the back of his head that he’s being a douchebag but he can’t bring himself to care, not when there’s still an undercurrent of fury in his veins and he’s itching for a brawl.
He doesn’t get it. The other man scoffs slightly before turning to leave and Minseok swears he heard him mutter “idols” under his breath as the door slams behind him. Furious, he flings it open but the corridor is empty, save for a surprised Chanyeol sitting on the ground beside the door, starting at the loud bang from it being flung open. “Minseok hyung?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Minseok snaps at him. “Why the fuck are you letting random assholes into the studio while I’m working?”
“Randoms? Hyung, don’t you know who that was?” Chanyeol’s eyes are big with surprise and the sight just serves to piss him off more. He snatches his bag from the studio before stomping down the hall. “I don’t give a shit if he's Freddie Mercury reincarnated, he has no place in the studio.” He ignores Chanyeol’s protests as they round the corner and head for the entrance.Out of the corner of his eye he sees one of the executives and he knows he should go over and bow, greet him but petulance seems to be his go-to for today and he barges past the surprised man, Chanyeol muttering apologies and bowing frantically behind him. He dodges a horde of curious fangirls and unlocks his van, sliding into the driver’s seat as Chanyeol runs up to the car window. “Hyung, what are you doing? You can’t just ignore Kim sunbae-nim, it isn’t proper-”
Minseok ignores him, sliding on his sunglasses before starting the ignition. “You can get home on your own, right?” he asks the other, not waiting for an answer before he’s peeling out of the parking lot.
***
The world is blurring at the edges as he stumbles from his car, focused solely on making it up to his apartment building without collapsing.He’s oblivious to the snapping sounds coming from his right or the small dark-clad figure skulking in the bushes. The doorman moves forward to catch him as he stumbles and he slurs out his thanks, assuring him that he can make it to the elevators on his own.He slumps against the metal wall as the numbers light up, trying to steady his head some.He finally gets to the penthouse, fishing clumsily through his pockets for his keys.
The door opens before he can get to them and then there’s Chanyeol crying out ‘Hyung!” before he’s wrapping an arm around Minseok’s waist and helping him to the couch.Someone passes him a bottle of water and he takes a long gulp, grateful for the soothing liquid against his sandpaper throat. When he next opens his eyes, three faces stare down at him, Chanyeol’s expression is relieved, Joonmyun’s concerned and Kyunsoo’s murderous. He cracks a small smile. “What up guys?”
“Where” Kyungsoo begins, tone icy. “have you been?”
Minseok shrugs. “Drinking.There’s a bar near the record company. Nice interiors.”
“Minseok hyung, what were you thinking?”Chanyeol says, voice incredulous. “You could’ve been photographed.”
“Wait, how did you get back here? Did you call a cab?” Kyungsoo asks.
Minseok considers lying but they’ll figure it out anyways. “I drove.”
He’s alert for any movements from his right side so he’s caught off guard when someone hits him from his left, a sharp sound echoing through the room as Joonmyun slaps him across the face.He gazes up in shock, cheek burning as he looks at his manager’s furious expression. Joonmyun hit him. Joonymun.
“I have spent all day” Joonmyun begins, tone icy. “in and out of offices pleading for the executives to give you another chance, trying to convince them that you’re strong and capable enough to pull off another comeback well.And then you pull this shit. You could have killed yourself Minseok, you could’ve killed someone else, what the fuck is wrong with you.”
There’s silence in the room as they stare at each other, broken by the sound of Joonmyun’s phone ringing.He checks it, brow furrowing as he reads the message. “Someone got pictures. Perfect. I have to go deal with this shit.” He turns to Kyungsoo. “He doesn’t leave this apartment for anything short of a medical emergency.” Then he turns on his heel and leaves. Minseok sits on the couch, dazed in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol.He can vaguely feel someone gripping his arm before he’s ushered to the bedroom. He stands still as he’s stripped and obediently drinks when a glass of water is brought to his lips. Only when he’s being pushed onto the bed does he realise it’s Chanyeol who’s guiding him. He catches his bodyguards wrist, waits until he turns towards him before speaking. “Chanyeol I-” He swallows, the first tendrils of panic starting to creep up on him as he realises how badly he’s fucked up.” Will everything be okay?”
And Chanyeol, sweet, forever- optimistic Chanyeol, turns his head away, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t know, hyung. I don’t know.” He stands and makes his way to the door. ‘But I hope your little tantrum was worth it.”
Minseok has never felt so small.
***
Joonmyun manages to pull enough strings to ensure that the news site doesn’t publish the pictures. Instead Minseok wakes up to a front page splashed with pictures of Kai and the company’s it girl Krystal. A scandal for a scandal.Kai’s fans are furious and Minseok feels even shittier after he sees a news clip of the actor making his way to his film set, his normally cheery smile vanished. Yet another person who’s had to suffer for Minseok’s fuck ups.
Joonmyun is still not speaking to him, all his news going through Kyungsoo. The latter is the one in charge of enforcing Minseok’s house arrest and spends a copious amount of time knitting on the couch while the singer stress cleans. A week later his apartment is spotless down to the last tile and Kyungsoo’s managed to knit a sweater but Joonmyun still hasn’t given word on what will happen to him.
He finds out through the news, two weeks later.He’d been mindlessly scrolling through the front page of Naver when a banner pops up. EXCLUSIVE:SM entertainment confirms Xiumin will go on hiatus to prepare new album, rumored to be a career best.”. He almost knocks over his water bottle in his haste to click. The article isn’t much, just a few words on the album preparations and a faked qoute from him stating that he “anticipates showing a different side of himself.”. His blood does boil when he catches the ending, a reference to his breakup with Luhan and he slams the laptop shut with a harsh clang. Kyungsoo glances up from his phone to give him a bored glance. “So you’ve seen the news?”
“When was this decided? What do they mean hiatus? Who’s the producer they’re talking about?” Kyungsoo calmly folds his throw blanket, ignoring Minseok’s rapid fire questions.”Go get dressed. You can ask Joonmyun all that, he’s on his way to pick you up.”
Joonmyun doesn’t acknowledge him beyond a nod when Minseok slides into his seat across from him. A folder is deposited into his lap and Joonmyun instructs him to memorize the lines,It’s an apology to the investors and directors and Minseok almost blanches at how pathetic and sniveling it makes him sound but he keeps quiet and does as he’s told. He deserves it and so he follows Minseok into the building, into the boardroom.There he kneels on the pristine white carpet, head bowed and apologizes profusely and thanks them for giving him this chance to redeem himself. The way they look down on him, literally and figuratively, rankles him, makes him feel exposed in the worst way but he stays there until the CEO gruffly tells him to take a seat.
It’s only when he sits down and looks up that he recognizes the man across from him. “You-!” he blurts out before Joonmyun’s hand is squeezing his shoulder, grip hard and he shuts up. The blonde man is the same stranger who interrupted his studio session weeks ago and it seems that he remembers too. The way he smirks is infuriating and Minseok wants nothing more than to reach across the table and choke him with his ugly ass cross chain. The CEO interrupts his stewing by clearing his throat, effectively drawing all attention to himself. “Minseok, I take it you’ve been debriefed on the label’s new plan?”
“I know that I am to start preparing a new album but the other details were not elaborated upon, sir.”
The CEO addresses the investors then. “In light of the recent scandal, Xiumin’s image has taken a hit. Normally we could have manipulated this to our advantage but Luhan’s team is refusing to relinquish the tracks to us. Effectively, we have nothing to promote for Xiumin.The media would have had a field day with that.” He nods towards Joonmyun. “However, Xiumin-ssi’s manager suggested an alternative.”
Joonmyun clears his throat, stepping forward. “I received advance word from one of my journalist contacts on the angle Luhan’s team was pushing for. They would make it seem as if the songs he’d written with Xiumin, particularly those about their relationship were intended for his new partner and that Xiumin would be releasing them out of delusion.Essentially they wanted him to look pathetic.” Minseok flinches, the word hitting a bit too close to home. It doesn’t help that blonde asshole is still watching him, face impassive but his eyes seem to bore holes through him. “My idea is to not let them get that angle. Scrap those songs. We lose out on an album but Xiumin’s image stays intact.As an added bonus, Luhan-ssi can’t release them either.In the meantime we announce an artistic hiatus for our artist, heavily imply that it’s because he felt the material on his would-be album was not of the quality he wanted. It’ll be a nice way to strike at Luhan subtly.”
Hearing his relationship and breakup dissected like this, in cold, clinical marketing terms is humiliating but even Minseok can see the genius in Joonmyun’s idea. Except. He turns to face his manager. “But has it been decided on who I’ll be collaborating with for the new record?”
“That would be me.” Blonde asshole finally speaks up. Minseok gives a brief second to note that his Korean is accented before he’s twisting in his seat to give Joonmyun an incredulous look. “Him?”
The glare he gets in response had him obediently turning back to the table, making sure to avoid Blonde’s eyes. The CEO takes over then, gesturing toward the stranger. “This is Kris Wu, better known as N.i.He’s one of the top producers and songwriters in Asia currently.”
Oh fuck. Minseok knows this guy, has coveted his tracks for ages but N.I is notoriously selective with his artists and known for being a recluse.The fact that the man sitting across from him is the same producer he admires does not compute. N.I-Kris-looks bored by the proceedings, even as he stands to bow to the assembled room.He doesn’t go 90 degrees, Minseok notes with a sneer.
“Mr. Wu has graciously agreed to collaborate with our artist, despite the short notice. I have confidence that with his skills and Xiumin’s talents we will be able to regain his top position. It is too soon to write off Xiumin-ssi’s profitability just yet, This next album will be vital to let the public know that he is an artist to be reckoned with.”
The implied threat is clear:His future as an artist depends on this next record. He raises his head and meets Kris’ eyes. The man who holds his fate in his hands acknowledges him finally, just a short dip of his head. It’s arrogant, deliberately insulting. But Minseok says nothing, stands, smiles and bows to all the remaining investors and CEOs as they leave. Because he knows that this is his last chance.