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Like most things in Junhui’s life, it happens fast and at the suggestion of someone else.
One moment he’s clapping along with the rest of the room, and the next he’s somehow on his feet and Seungcheol is smiling paternally and slapping his back as they change places. A glass of champagne is pushed into his hand and he turns and the whole room is just eyes and eyes and eyes. Watching him, waiting.
“Uh,” he says. He scratches the back of his head. “Hi everyone. This is Seventeen’s Jun.” There’s a scatter of laughter and he laughs too, a second longer than everyone else. “But I guess you all knew that already.”
Seated at one of the tables to his left, Seungkwan groans like an old, arthritic dog. “Our Jun-hyung’s first ever toast, I can’t believe it. I’m going to cry.” He has his phone below his chin, camera trained on Junhui like he’s a parent at his elementary schooler’s first martial arts demonstration.
“Um,” says Junhui, mind blank.
He wants to keep looking at Seungkwan because it feels easier that way. Minghao sits beside him and for a second Junhui’s eyes catch on him too—the echo of a reliance that they haven’t relied on in years. Minghao just stares back, amused and unhelpful, and all that’s left is for Junhui to do things the hard way, like he always does.
He looks back up at the three long banquet tables of tour staff and dancers and members and– “I’ve, uh, never given a speech like this before. So I don’t really know what to say.” He can feel his shoulders curling inward as his body tries to make itself smaller, like if he can crumple enough he’ll fold in on himself like origami, again and again and again until there’s nothing left in the place where he stood. “Or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to say it properly. Uhh, anyway– first of all, I want to thank everyone here for all their hard work on this tour…”
ᓚᘏᗢ
“Jun-hyung is Seungkwan’s for sure,” Seokmin was saying, which made Junhui lift his head from the arm of the couch. “And Coups-hyung’s is Mingyu.”
“Or so he claims,” replied Chan ominously. When Junhui blinked, the overlay of his mobile game remained stamped on his retinas. When had the room cleared out? “Everyone knows it’s really Jeonghan-hyung.”
“Hey!” Mingyu yelled through the open bathroom door.
“Hey,” said Junhui, “what are you guys talking about?”
“And Jeonghan-hyung is easy, he’s a Horangdan,” continued Seokmin, at the same time as Joshua answered, “Who everyone’s favourite member is.”
“Oh? Oh.” Junhui held his hand out and waved it frantically, like there was a bad smell he needed to dispel. Which– Mingyu was in the bathroom but would he really? With the door wide open? This wasn’t even his room. “No no no, that’s not real. He just pretends for the camera.”
“Jeonghan-hyung?” asked Seokmin. He’d washed off his makeup and his eyes were bloodshot from the contacts he’d worn onstage today. “No way. He really likes him so much.”
“No, no, I mean Seungkwan.” There was a pause. “Liking me.”
Chan leaned forward and picked up his beer can from the fake marble coffee table. They stayed in this hotel every time they were in Tokyo. Every now and then, when Junhui woke up in Beijing or Hong Kong or even in Seoul, there was a brief, disorienting moment when his brain was somehow convinced it was here instead. “For the camera? Ah hyung, come on.” It was funny how all Seungkwan had to do to turn Chan into his fiercest defender was leave the room. “Seungkwan’s not like that.”
And of course he wasn’t, and Junhui was a little offended that Chan thought he would ever suggest he was. It was just that Seungkwan was so good at what he did that sometimes the wires got crossed. Going from world-class entertainer to regular person wasn’t as simple as going from room to room and flicking off each light on the way out of a house. It wasn’t on purpose, and Junhui was mostly just impressed. In over ten years he still hadn’t worked out how most of the lights turned on.
“Of course not, he’s…” The thought got stuck halfway out his mouth like a printer with a paper jam. “I just mean that– he obviously only does it for laughs.”
Look how he’s sleeping! Look at his little sweater! That was so cute. Wait, don’t move, I need to take a photo. And everyone always did laugh, which was a good thing because Junhui liked to make people laugh too, even when the joke wasn’t his.
“Who’s yours then?” Seokmin asked him with a jerk of his head. He must’ve already showered in his own room. His hair was falling soft and untameable over his eyes and his legs were unshaven in shorts. It always caught Junhui in unexpected moments, how much of a grown man he’d become.
“Me?” He pulled himself into a sitting position on the couch. “I don’t have a favourite.”
“Eh, come on,” said Chan, as Joshua started stacking the empty instant ramyeon cups on the table and said, inflammatory for no reason, “But if you had to pick.”
“No, really,” said Junhui. He leaned forward to help. “I can’t be anyone's fan. To me you guys aren’t like, famous or whatever. You’re just...” He swept the crumbs of a chip packet that had spilled into his bare hand then just held it, not sure what to do next. “You’re my friends.”
ᓚᘏᗢ
Footsteps approached from behind.
“Doesn’t seem like it’ll come out.” Wonwoo’s voice. “Some of the others were trying earlier.”
Junhui retracted his hand to flatten it under his cheek so he could rest the weight of his head. The concrete floor was cold and hard against the front of his body. “It will if I wait long enough.”
The cat was under a shelf in the corner of the warehouse they were filming in. It was a little grey tabby, an unremarkable but perfectly catty cat. Its eyes flashed yellow as it stared out at Junhui disinterestedly from the safety of the shadows.
Wonwoo watched Junhui watch the cat for a while longer, hovering conspicuously. It was one of those funny little Wonwoo-habits. He twisted the ring on his little finger when he was nervous (too many strangers). He took off his glasses when he ate cup ramyeon (the steam). He was never the second-last person to leave a room.
“Maybe it doesn’t like people,” Wonwoo suggested finally as Junhui crept his hand forward on the concrete again, one fingertip at a time. Don’t take it too hard, but maybe it’s time to stop trying. “Not every cat wants to be loved.”
“This one does,” Junhui told him, absolutely certain.
ᓚᘏᗢ
First of all, I want to thank everyone here for all their hard work, Junhui hears his own voice say.
Seungkwan looks up from his phone screen with tired eyes. His expression softens when he finds Junhui making his way down the aisle. He shuffles over and pats the empty seat beside him.
“Hyung, you were seriously so cute,” he says as Junhui sits. He tilts his head to rest against the tinted window, still watching the screen. “I’ll treasure this video forever.”
The others are slowly filtering into the bus in varying states of intoxication. Chan and Seokmin are in the back row freestyling an entirely stupid ode to shabu-shabu. Across the aisle Seungcheol is argumentative-drunk and has correctly identified Mingyu as an easy target.
“Seungkwannie, are you drunk too?” Junhui asks, laughing. “Stop saying nonsense.” He has that feeling again, like his bones have all turned to earthworms that are trying to squirm out of his skin, desperate to greet the rain. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Seungkwan looks up from the screen again. “For you to give a speech?” Junhui’s voice continues: I feel so lucky to be working with such amazing people. I’m so grateful to each one of you for your time and effort and... “You’re our member, of course it does.”
“No, I mean…” ...and it’s really... I really, I think Seventeen is my whole life. On my own I’m just no one. Everything I have is because of the people in this room. And my parents, of course. “It doesn’t make sense for you to like me this much.” Seungkwan tilts his head, eyes going round. It makes him look younger, more like the teenager who folded Junhui’s hand into his and told him he was from far away too, though not quite as far as him. Who dressed in unfashionable clothes and sang like an angel. “I think out of everyone in the world, Seungkwan likes me the most.”
Seungkwan laughs, silly and a little drunk. “And so what? I’ll like you if I want to. It’s my right.”
“I don’t need any of you,” Seungkwan huffed into his mic earlier that day, facing off against the rest of them in front of forty-thousand people. He was so good at this that sometimes Junhui couldn’t even believe it. His arms were crossed theatrically and the stage lights caught on the glitter under his eyes. “Moon Junhwi,” he added, “only you come here. I’ll be fine as long as I have you.”
Junhui reaches down and pats Seungkwan’s knee. “You don’t have to keep pretending,” he tells him. “It’s tiring, right?”
Seungkwan’s expression crumples, like he’s the one that’s been folded into origami and the creases remain even after he’s been all unfolded and smoothed out. “Yah, Moon Junhwi. How could you say that?” He’s just tipsy enough to let himself get swept up in the bit rather than the other way around. “Take it back or I’ll get really upset with you.”
Junhui laughs and pats his leg again. “Okay, okay, I got it.”
“Don’t do that! Why don’t you believe me?” And I... I want to keep doing this for a long time, so I hope... Well, what I hope for first of all is for everyone to be happy and healthy. Seungkwan sits up straight and glares at him, mouth sad. There’s a speck of glitter still caught in his lashes under one eye. “Jun-hyung, that’s so upsetting. I’ve never pretended anything when it comes to you. Not even once.” He makes another sad sound and lists over to Junhui’s side, temple coming to rest on the point of his shoulder. “‘Stop pretending,’ he says to me.” He scoffs. “Seriously. Can’t you feel my heart?”
Junhui holds himself still so he doesn’t jostle Seungkwan’s head. His still-styled hair is dry and scratchy against Junhui’s neck. “But why?” It’s loud in here but he doesn’t have to raise his voice at all. Seungkwan’s so close that he’ll hear him anyway. “I haven’t done anything. Why like me so much?”
Seungkwan hums. “I just do. I like everything about you. I don’t know why.” But if the thing that makes you happy is to continue on this path together for even a little while longer... Well, I suppose that’s what I hope for most of all. “I just know I’ll be Moonjun’s biggest fan forever.”
Junhui feels himself heat up, rising from somewhere near his stomach like the first few bites of a good spicy meal and terminating in his cheeks. The phone on Seungkwan’s lap plays back the sound of applause and clinking glasses. A stray wolf-whistle is cut off by the video ending.
Junhui fans himself with his free hand. “Oh wow,” he laughs, embarrassed, “it’s so hot in here.” December in Fukuoka is mild compared to Seoul, but at night the temperatures drop fast. The windows of the bus have fogged over with the heat of all of them combined. A manager stands between the front seats doing a headcount, then turns to speak to the driver. “Isn’t that strange? Whenever Seungkwan’s around, I always feel so much warmer.”
Seungkwan makes a soft, affected sound. “Really?”
That isn’t what Junhui meant, and Seungkwan knows that. But maybe that doesn’t have to make it untrue. Maybe there are no perfect words for some things. Only the imperfect ones that quietly unearth themselves like raw gemstones: rare, spontaneous, and only ever formed between people who have been side by side for a long, long time.
“It’s true,” Junhui tells him. A glimmer of light from a dark, hidden place. Please don’t come any closer. I’m sorry, I can’t bear it. Don’t come closer but don’t go anywhere either. Don’t forget that I’m here too. Please, don’t give up on me.
The doors hiss closed and the bus rocks into motion.
Seungkwan settles back into his seat, cheek finding a more stable resting place on Junhui’s shoulder. “Oh Jun-hyung, I understand.” He sighs, sleepy and content. “I understand perfectly.”