Chapter Text
-2016-
Inside the room it was always sunny. Fluffy white clouds and blue sky will welcome you no matter what. There was not such a thing like time.
It’s the same room that Yuta saw years ago, when he dared to dream big.
Yuta takes a long sip of water before turning back towards the mirror wall, the sunny day reflecting on it. Sweat is running down his temples. He lifts his shirt enough so that he can wipe his face and takes his phone lying on the floor to play the music again.
It’s indeed another sunny day.
*
Taeyong would tell Yuta that he felt like he knew Seoul more than him, even though he was the Korean one. Yuta would look at him and proceed to say something along the lines of: yeah, I actually like getting out of my room, you know to which Taeyong didn’t have a reply except pouting and making Yuta swear that next time that he felt like walking around the city, he would tell him so they could go together.
And he had done it but not always. Sometimes he preferred to be silent about his escapades because they were minutes and hours to be just by himself.
He walked places, went to parks and ran through small hills around the Seoul area and thought to himself people don’t know that I’m gonna be famous one day. It felt like he was holding a secret. The thought felt too pretentious to share it with any other trainee but Yuta didn’t have a doubt that everyone thought the same at some point. You have to believe you are the best and that you can make it. If you don’t believe in yourself people are gonna be able to tell.
Like he heard Johnny once said: fake it till you make it. Yuta had lifted an eyebrow at that time and then Johnny tried to explain it in broken Korean, basic English words and finally with google translator. In the end, Yuta understood: you are the first one you have to fool in order to fool others and then, eventually, you believe in your own delusions. Not only believe but live.
Other times, he felt just like a loser. A trainee of the bunch. Full of insecurities. A middle of the road entertainer. Those were the bad days. In those days, he would remember that his ex-classmates were in college, already working in their future. A more certain future. They had boyfriends and girlfriends. They could hook up with whoever. They could be young: drink, smoke and dance all they want. They could stay up all night. In those days, Yuta felt like an eternal child: still in classes, learning everyday a language that wasn’t his, learning how to move his body fluidly but yet in a precise matter, learning how to use his voice. Befriending only his fellow trainees since they didn’t have time to have a normal social life. Not having enough money to do anything really exciting.
So he walks around the city hoping that his mind takes away those thoughts.
*
Is when he is back to being all sweaty that he hears the door being open.
“Hey” then, Yuta looks up.
Johnny looks tired but they never really say the obvious. He knows that he looks tired too. Everyone is tired so no one really talks about it. It feels like overkill.
Is one of the things that you signed up when you become a trainee so it’s not a big deal. You have to suck it up and keep moving forward.
“What time is it?” Yuta asks. He hasn’t kept track of time.
“Around eleven” he pulls down his backpack in one of the corners of the room “what were you dancing?” Johnny says as he sits down on the floor, long legs stretch out in front of him.
“I’ve been dancing call me baby”
“How is it going?”
“So so” Yuta shrugs. He had been feeling frustrated but he knows he doesn’t have to say it for Johnny to pick up on his mood.
Johnny is that type of guy.
“Let me stretch a bit and then we can get on with it”
Yuta nods.
Wanting to be alone is a doble edged sword. Yuta likes to be by himself but he also knows that sometimes is not always the best move.
As he makes notes about Johnny’s dance on even the tiniest bit of detail, he feels like there is indeed people that understand him when Johnny’s face mirrors his own frustrations.
Is a face that tells a story of mixed feelings that become too entangled with time. Feelings that you hope get untangled and solved by the time you get to debut.
*
In the back of Yuta’s mind, he had started to notice tiny things that to everyone else could be meaningless except for him.
The last time he flew to Japan, the manager had said to him: enjoy yourself in such a manner that had unsettled him and then continued with you have a lot of work ahead.
Which it was very unnecessary given that his life for this last three years has been working hard for one goal only.
NCT is the name of the future SM boy group. All the SM rookies were told they were going to debut together in a concept that hasn’t really exist in the Korean industry before. Yuta had initially not liked the idea of sharing the spotlight with so many other men but the feeling faded as he felt comfort in it. The people he is going to debut are his friends, the guys that had been with him since the beginning.
The date is already settled but Yuta can’t help to feel uneasy. He can’t shake the feeling away, no matter how much dancing, singing and walking around he does.
It’s eating him alive. So much so that Taeyong eventually asks what’s happening and Yuta doesn’t have the strength to lie to him.
“I think I’m not gonna debut with you all” Yuta says. It’s a Thursday like any other. They are in the dorms, everyone getting ready for bed except for them.
“Nah” Taeyong says to then make a dismissive hand gesture to him “have they told you something?”
“No”
“Then?”
Yuta frowns “you know how it works”
His tone doesn’t leave space for any doubt. Taeyong looks at him with his big eyes “let’s not get ahead of ourselves here”
But maybe it’s too late for that because in his bed while listening to Taeil’s soft breathing, he starts to picture the life that he can have away from the idol dream.
And he kind of likes it.
*
Yuta laughs. Jaehyun just said something very dumb that made Yuta double take and then erupts in laughter. Jaehyun had look at him then, happy of making Yuta laugh and followed up with his own.
They have been talking for a while now. Their singing coach is running late.
“So, how you liked the debut song?” Yuta finally asks. NCT U, the first subunit, has already recorded their first song and he had been trying to play it cool. He hasn’t even asked Taeyong nor Doyoung. He hadn’t really wanted to know about it.
But Yuta felt safe with Jaehyun. The younger had always been confident in a non-threatening way so Yuta didn’t feel like he was bearing his soul open in front of him or, at least if he did, Jaehyun wouldn’t do any harm about it.
“I like it all right” Jaehyun says without any heat in his words. It’s sounds empty to Yuta’s ears.
“You don’t sound too sure”
Jaehyun looks at Yuta, face set into an expression between excitement and fear “I like it but this isn’t only about me”
“What do you mean?” Yuta frowns “it great that you like it, there’s more—” as soon as he says those words, he knows what Jaehyun is thinking about “ah—"
“It has to be a success” his eyes drop to his shoes “it feels so pointless if the song doesn’t do good”
There’s silence then. Yuta doesn’t know what to say.
Success is not guaranteed.
“You want to hear it?”
Yuta lifts his eyebrows “can I?”
“I don’t know” he fumbles with his bag “I mean, just be discrete about it, don’t tell everybody you hear it”
Yuta gives him a look. Jaehyun smiles cheekily.
Jaehyun doesn’t have many things that he carries around. There’s a small book that Yuta had seen already a few times but that he can never look up close enough to know what is it about. There’s obviously a case for his glasses that he is currently wearing and a t-shirt to get change if he gets too sweaty during the dance practice that he has later. Jaehyun reaches for his phone at the bottom of his bag and plays the song.
The 7th Sense.
Yuta likes it. He tells Jaehyun that. They talk about it.
It’s only later that same day that he feels envy eating his insides.
I could have done it better.
I would have fit the concept.
It could have been me.
But he understands. He understands that he struggles. That learning any choreography doesn’t come as easy for him as it does to Taeyong or Ten. That he doesn’t sing like Doyoung. That he isn’t as good looking as Jaehyun. That he can’t rap like Mark.
*
Yuta feels underwater.
Words flow around him. They don’t touch him. They don’t reach him.
He feels at the bottom of the pool, trying to swing up to get a good mouthful of air.
One thing is to get a feeling about something and a completely other thing is for that thing to happen.
It’s weird, he thinks. He hears everything that the man is talking. About needing more preparation, that he is valuable for SM and that they have another project for him. A project that fits him better.
He hears it but he feels numb.
Yuta promises that he would think about it and in a couple of days, they would discuss whatever decision that he ends up making.
The thing is that Yuta already made his decision.
He has the next days to feel guilty. He remembers that Johnny lived a similar situation too but Yuta isn’t that strong. Maybe he would have said yes if this would have happened two years ago but now Yuta is twenty and feels restless. He feels like he has accomplished nothing. Suddenly, an unknown loneliness and sadness settles in his bones, weighting him down. He feels anguish like never before. He doesn’t want to talk to anybody, doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want to feel ashamed. Doesn’t want to feel less.
Because deep down, he knows he is no less. He knows that he can make it. No matter what.
He has time to resent his parent too, for making him a dreamer. He hates that they never told him that it was impossible. He hates that they let him take a plane and fly to a country that he knew nothing about except random facts he remembered from history classes.
Years later, Yuta wouldn’t remember all the details. If someone would ask him how it was to say goodbye, he would reply with it was sad but at the moment, Yuta thought that the humiliation he felt would be branded all over his skin forever.
There are two things he would remember perfectly though. Taeyong’s teary eyes and his index finger poking at his chest while saying I’m not letting you get away from me, okay? And Jaehyun’s hug because it wasn’t out of pity. Jaehyun didn’t feel sorry for him. He was the only one that didn’t question his decision. That last hug was like any of the other hugs that they shared during the years that they knew each other and that left an everlasting impression on Yuta.
Shit can happen and you keep existing. The world doesn’t stop for you. There are not grand gestures or a celebration party for every milestone you accomplish. There is also no time for pity parties. You don’t need people making things into a big deal.