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It’s been a long day of filming, practice, and far too much social interaction, and Yunlong just wants to lie down and sleep for twenty years.
He doesn’t say anything as he weaves his way through the boys scattered up and down the hall, head down and feet set towards his room. Mercifully, no one tries to speak to him.
When he reaches his door, though, there’s commotion on the other side—loud voices, angry voices, muffled through the wall but still audible. Yunlong stops with his hand on the doorknob.
It sounds like Shuchen, saying something about independence, then Pinlin, saying something about teamwork and loyalty. There’s Yifan’s voice floating up between the two of them, pleading, only for it to be shouted down. They sound so bitter, so full of vitriol, so tired. Yunlong steps away, feeling sick.
He’s just about to turn around and walk right back up the hall when the door bursts open and Shuchen storms out, expression stony as he stomps past Yunlong to the room he shares with his other friends—his dancer friends—without sparing Yunlong a second glance. Yifan comes running out a moment later, looking thoroughly exasperated, followed by a red-faced Pinlin. The two scurry after Shuchen as he yanks his door open and vanishes into his room. Poor Long Honghao comes stumbling out holding a toothbrush, obviously having been kicked out by the altercating parties.
A cameraman seems to have materialized out of nowhere. Yunlong wants no part of it. He slips into his room and closes the door securely behind him.
When he turns his attention to the room, Haoyu is there.
He’s sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, staring blankly at the wall. He’s crying, silently.
“Uh. Hey.”
Yunlong wants to stuff his fist in his mouth the moment he opens it. He sucks at talking. Dear lord, he sucks at talking.
Haoyu barely so much as blinks. A tear drips from his chin into the folds of his hoodie. He keeps staring into nothing. He’s shaking, just the slightest bit.
Yunlong approaches slowly, tucking his hands into his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do with his arms. “Haoyu,” he says quietly. “Are you… are you okay?”
Another stupid thing to say. What a stupid question. Are you okay. Stupid.
It’s about now when Yunlong realizes that, despite the more-than-three years they’ve trained together, he really hasn’t talked to Haoyu one-on-one that much. So this isn’t ideal.
His hands have already found their way out of his pockets, settling sort of awkwardly on the mattress next to Haoyu. Yunlong sits gingerly on the edge of the bed and takes a couple seconds to debate with himself whether he should try to make eye contact. He opts not to.
“Sucks about Huadi and Pinlin,” he mumbles. He thinks Haoyu shifts the barest amount. “I mean, I don’t blame them, but, uh. It sucks. Not that you don’t already know that.” Pause. A heavy silence. No response. Yunlong continues, “When you think about it, everything about this sort of sucks, really. Which now that I said that I’m realizing isn’t helpful either. Ah, fuck. Haoyu, I don’t know how to talk.”
There’s a sort of broken-off snort from Haoyu as he ducks his head into his knees. Yunlong smiles hesitantly. This is a good sign, he thinks. A snort is basically a laugh, and laughter’s good. This is okay.
“Haoyu, help, I can’t talk,” Yunlong pleads exaggeratedly. “Aaaahhhh.”
That gets another stifled sort-of laugh from Haoyu, and he lifts his head up to look at Yunlong. His eyes are bleary and red, and the tear tracks on his face shine in the hotel lamp’s yellow light, but he’s smiling, however unsteadily, and that’s enough. Haoyu smiling is enough.
”Long-ge, you’re weird, you know that,” he says with a voice that breaks every few syllables.
“Yeah,” Yunlong sighs. He moves closer on the bed so half his ass isn’t hanging off the mattress, and Haoyu moves to accommodate him. “I guess it’s why people like me, though. I think?”
Haoyu hums. His eyes start to wander and the smile starts to fade, which is less good. Yunlong’s mind scrambles for something, anything.
“Hey- we’re gonna be okay,” he blurts.
“Yunlong…” Haoyu’s tone is doubtful, which is uncharacteristic, but not unjustified.
“We’re gonna be okay,” Yunlong repeats, more firmly. “I don’t really know how, but we’re gonna be okay.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Haoyu’s shoulder. “We survived the show, and the lawsuit, and everyone leaving—we can survive this.”
Haoyu looks at him for a long moment, his face impossible to read, then asks, “How can you be sure?”
Yunlong shrugs. “I dunno. Perspective?”
“Perspective,” Haoyu echoes.
“Yeah. Like- you know how I’m old- oh god I’m so old-”
“You’re 27.”
“Oh, man, I’m so old.” Yunlong can’t help but grin at the barely-laugh Haoyu exhales at that. “Anyways- I’m old, and looking back at everything from my many, many years, it looks like it all sort of just… works out.”
Haoyu’s eyes bore into him, and Yunlong sees them clearly now. They’re deeply sad, achingly yearning. “I just don’t want to be left behind anymore,” he says, so soft yet so heartbreaking.
Yunlong forgets how to breathe for a moment. He knows about being left behind. Oh god, he knows. It hurts to think about. And yet…
He repeats again, with all the conviction he can muster, “We’re going to be okay.”
“How do you know.”
“Well, it’s like. You know.” It’s evident from the look on Haoyu’s face that he doesn’t know. “Okay, look.” Yunlong takes Haoyu’s hands in his, clasps them tight. “Everything kinda sorta really sucks right now. We both know that. But things have kinda sorta really sucked before, and we pulled through. Shit, Haoyu, we both got kicked off Super Idol, and we came back and we stayed. This whole thing-” He gestures to the hotel room, to the door, on the other side of which lies so many prying eyes and crushing expectations. “This whole thing is just another bump in the road. And it’s a shitty, shitty bump, but so were a lot of other things. We weathered those and turned out fine. More than fine, even. We’re going to be okay because, at the end of the day, we’ve always been okay.”
It doesn’t feel complete. He knows he’s right, but it doesn’t feel complete.
Then: “And maybe we’ll still be an afterthought, tacked on behind Pinlin and Shuchen and Yifan and all these people who everyone just loves more but we’ll be here, and that’s enough. It has to be. We deserve to be okay, Haoyu. So we will be.”
And that’s it.
Yunlong realizes with some alarm that Haoyu is tearing up again, but he’s not shutting down, thank god. He doesn’t know what he’d possibly do if Haoyu shut down again.
“When did you become the motivational speaker?” Haoyu mumbles, voice thick with tears as he seems to examine Yunlong through a new lens. “Not that I’m complaining…”
“Someone’s gotta do it, even if they’re bad at it like me,” Yunlong replies. He nudges Haoyu good-naturedly. “I learned from the best, though.”
A faint blush rises in Haoyu’s cheeks. “Ge,” he says, almost admonishingly.
Yunlong just grins. He’s still holding Haoyu’s hands, and doesn’t make a move to disengage in the ensuing silence. The physical contact is just nice. An anchor to here, and now, however much it kinda sorta really sucks. It’s still their here, and their now, and Yunlong doesn’t want to float away from it. Haoyu doesn’t seem to mind.
Finally, though, Yunlong’s curiosity gets the best of him. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he says, “what were Pinlin and Huadi arguing about?”
Haoyu’s brows knit together. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I got too stressed and stopped actually listening pretty early on.”
“That’s fair,” Yunlong concedes.
“I don’t think it was anything actually that important, though,” Haoyu admits. “I think they’re just so wound up from everything that it all burst out at each other.”
“That sounds about right.” A flash of inspiration hits him—stupid inspiration, maybe, but inspiration nonetheless. “Hey, let’s promise never to blow up like that at each other. No matter what.”
Haoyu blinks, taken aback, then his eyes crinkle up as he smiles, sweet and warm. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
“Us leftovers gotta look out for one another,” Yunlong adds.
There’s a beat, then Haoyu leans forward and pulls Yunlong into a crushing embrace. He whispers something like thank you Yunlong, and I don’t know what I’d do without you into his shoulder, and, shit, now Yunlong’s crying.
God damn Haoyu, being so god damn sweet and so god damn loving. There goes Yunlong’s cynical nature, maybe forever.
So he just hugs him back and holds on tight. And they’re okay.
At the end of the day, they’re okay.