Chapter Text
Tokyo, December 2020
“I’ve got something for you,” Han Woojae says, when Fuma obeys his text and calls him.
“Yeah?” Fuma’s walking down one of Tokyo’s quieter streets, away from the rehearsal rooms that Produce 101 have hired for the would-be contestants for the 2021 series. He’s exhausted from dance practice, sweat dried on his skin, mouth tacky despite the Pocari he’s swigging. It’s been weeks since he ate anything that didn’t come from a convenience store microwave. But it was confirmed, today, that he made the cut. He’s going to be on the show, with a prize to debut in whatever project group it produces. That sits so big and so important in his chest that it’s almost painful. Did Woojae somehow feel the magnitude of it through the ether, triggering this contact after nearly a year?
But, “How would you like to come back to Korea?” Woojae says, and Fuma can’t control a brief snort of laughter. He takes another swig of Pocari and feels the chill of the December air biting into his cheeks. He didn’t moisturise enough before leaving the building, he can’t afford to be neglecting that now.
“Hyung, is this a joke?”
“Never,” Woojae says, with that same tone he’d use when Fuma was one of his dance pupils. Woojae had been the only person in Seoul Fuma had trusted with his dilemma over whether to go back to Japan when COVID hit. He’s blunt and opinionated, but Fuma’s sure he genuinely cares about the trainees he mentors.
“Listen,” Woojae continues. “Did you watch that survival show this year, I-LAND?”
“Of course,” Fuma fumbles around in his bag and comes up with a tube of hand cream, which is probably better than nothing. He winces as he takes one glove off, and quickly applies a little to one fingertip, then rubs it on the top of each of his cheekbones. In less than a month, he’ll be filming the show. He has to be ready, in every way. He’ll have his shot, his chance to be everything he’s dreamed of, and maybe, finally, it will be his turn. At last the impenetrable, whimsical rules of idol-hood, at once utterly subjective and coldly tied to the numbers, will be in his favour.
“I was talking to an old buddy who works at Big Hit. Lots of things in the works there - oh you would not believe,” Woojae gives a low whistle. “Anyway, he’s just been handed work on a new survival show. They’ve got some of the guys from the I-LAND final, or the last round or whatever, and they’ve signed them for a group that’s going to debut with them plus additional new members.”
“Another Big Hit boygroup?” Fuma thinks of it first, automatically, in competition with the Produce 101 debut team he’s hoping to be part of. Can be part of. He can, he’s got as good a shot as anyone, doesn’t he?
“That’s not the half of it, get this: they’re planning to debut them in the Japanese market first. You remember the guy, what was his stage name? K? Crazy talented, kind of an asshole? From I-LAND. He’s Japanese. They’re building a group around him, they’re specifically looking for Japanese trainees for this show.”
“Oh. I see.” Fuma gets it now. He looks back down the road towards the studio, the wind off his face as he turns but chill at the back of his neck. He’s got a rudimentary filming schedule for Produce 101, a hold in his calendar making him unavailable for both his freelance dance work and his family for the next three months and then a mental question mark for debut (it could happen, surely it could happen this time?) for the rest of the year. Fuma’s one of the better dancers in the contestant line-up, and if he’s been told he has to work on his likeability then that’s do-able. He’s always thought he was a nice enough person, but an idol has to be something more, something else. How do other people know how to be likeable?
Woojae clears his throat: “You didn’t get this from me, obviously, but I understand they’re actively looking for someone a bit older for this new group. Because of K.”
“To match his experience?”
“Something like that. To stand up to him, I think. And they can’t just have a bunch of kids, and him. Poor guy’s aging out of the would-be idol cohort. He’s the same age as BTS Jungkook you know.”
“Hey! I’m only a year younger than that!”
Woojae gives a dry chuckle. “Exactly.”
Fuma sighs. I-LAND had been a hard watch, trainees - some of whom he slightly knew – getting one of the biggest opportunities in K-pop. A cruel show, yes, but weren’t all survival shows like that? Those trainees had suffered, but they’d had a chance that Fuma could only dream of. He’d been too envious to concentrate much on individuals, but he can remember K’s trajectory well enough – one of the strongest personalities, with one of the most memorable narratives. Gifted, mercurial, driven, perhaps to a fault. He’d not come over so well by the end, of course, but that’s editing. And he could certainly dance… Fuma had been surprised that he wasn’t already debuted, honestly, and surprised the producers hadn’t chosen to debut him, and he could only assume K felt the same.
K has to have fans, after all that exposure, surely? Fans who would come ready-made for whatever group he does debut in, and for whoever the other members are in that group.
And the possibility of maybe debuting under Big Hit…
“Hyung,” Fuma clears his throat. Would someone with charisma share everything? Open their heart? Cry? Get angry? Give a heartfelt speech? “I’ve got some things going on here, just now.”
“I know. You think I don’t keep tabs on my pupils? And you’ve got a good chance there on Produce 101 Japan for sure. But I think this could be even better for you. And I think I’d be doing my buddy a big favour to get you involved.”
“Well, that’s very kind, you don’t have to say…”
“I don’t say anything I don’t mean about the music industry. You know me, right? And I know you, remember, Fuma-yah? They’re looking to tame an unstoppable force and I think you are the original immoveable object.”
“Thank you, but I…”
“Think about it! They’re putting out a soft-level audition notice to join the contestant contingent in about ten days. Could be you standing next to K for a debut bow at the end of all this, and with the biggest K-pop company on the planet!”
He hangs up. In the cold of the wind, Fuma can feel his cheeks heating.
-
Seoul, New Year’s Eve 2021
There are one hundred and forty-seven Grass type Pokémon. Fuma knows them in number order, obviously, so he’s trying to do them alphabetically instead. He bends forward as he sits on the practice room floor, bringing his nose towards his ankles, feeling the tightness in his hamstrings that definitely wasn’t as bad when he was a teenager.
It’s late, and most of the trainees have had to go back to the dorm due to laws on minors’ working hours. The trainees that are in the running for this new survival show are on the younger side – trainee demographics always skew young - and there had been a moment after his first try out when Fuma had emerged back to the audition waiting area, sweaty and tired, seen that half his competition had come accompanied by their mothers, and wondered what the heck he was doing, why he was always letting hope get in the way of experience. What had Woojae been thinking of? What had Fuma been thinking of, walking away from something so close to success, to risk it all on no kind of promise?
But maybe Woojae did know something, because Fuma had been taken on, by Big Hit – by HYBE – with the understanding that he was in the longlist for the new project group. Given a bed in a cramped Seoul dorm that at least had different problems (too noisy, too many teenagers who didn’t shower enough), to his cramped Tokyo dorm (too cold, pillow smelt of damp). And it’s not just teenagers in fairness, there are a handful of other trainees who are a bit older – trainees become thinner on the ground after twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two… there’s only so long anyone would wait to debut.
Today at the 2022 Weverse Con, looking ahead to the next year of HYBE content, there was a short film called ‘&Audition Boys’, in which Taki, EJ, Nicholas and K, stand in a subway station and – for reasons that perhaps will become apparent – turn into werewolves. The news went round all the would-be contestants at once, of course, and some of them had watched it in the break before their final practice session of the day. As far as Fuma can tell, not all the others are even aware that these four other trainees are the prize they’re working towards. Certainly, none have met them in person, and this film is the first sight anyone has had since the I-LAND final.
Taki has changed, inevitably, in the past eighteen months, puberty stretching him out and sharpening the lines of his body. The other three look, give or take a better haircut, much as they did on I-LAND, which Fuma has watched twice again this year, paying closer attention each time, and finding himself sliding from envy into dismay.
He’d not thought of K as a person, quite, when he’d watched it before. K was not one of the trainees he’d ever met, even briefly, and he’d been a character on a screen. Fuma has always been good at detail, at collecting and storing facts and slipping information into categories, and the gaps in the editing, once he’s approaching it scientifically, become stark. And the closer he comes to being on a survival show himself, the more he sees the things to fear as well as envy.
Had there ever been any possibility of K debuting in ENHYPEN? That’s the question Fuma would ask if he could get in the right room of these sprawling HYBE buildings with the right people. It’s a question he has tried to ask Woojae, who disclaims all knowledge. So Fuma is just left wondering, did Big Hit put K through all that just to tee him up for the next project? Or had it been unknown, could the world have turned differently? Were they waiting for chemistry onscreen, viewer reaction and other eldritch variables? There’s no doubt the producers of a survival show leave very little outside of their own control, but there’s something existential about this question to Fuma now: was there anything K could have done, on that show, that would have changed his fate? Was there any way he could have made it so that he was ringing in 2022 as an idol for real already, plastered over billboards across the city, rather than presumably somewhere else in the HYBE practice studios, waiting, as Fuma and all these other trainees are waiting?
There’s a photoshoot in three days for the would-be contestants for the show they now know is called ‘&Audition’. Fifteen slots at the photoshoot, of whom only some will go onto the show which starts filming at the end of this month.
Fuma could be one of them. He’s as good as any of the other older trainees, isn’t he? How do people know when they’re good, when the rules on who succeeds aren’t exactly what you’d expect, and certainly not whatever gets intoned by the MC in the start of any survival show?
The Produce 101 season two group, INI, debuted six months ago, and have already released an album. ENHYPEN have had two extended-plays and an album as well, and even charted on Billboard. K is in one of their music videos, very briefly. How did that feel?
It’s strange to be studying K this way, when K doesn’t even know Fuma exists. A classic parasocial relationship, if you like, or maybe how it feels to be an anonymous assassin. Obviously, it’s not like an actual idol, not the same as watching Taemin. But nonetheless Fuma feels the familiar satisfaction of knowledge accumulating in a little pile.
The fifteen-person shortlist gets announced tomorrow morning, and he ought to be ready. Fuma shifts his position to work on his left iliotibial band, and continues alphabetising Pokémon.
-
Seoul, January 2022
K is taller, in person, than Fuma had expected. Taller than him, although there’s a kid called Asakura Jo, who Fuma remembers from around the dorms, who is even taller than both of them.
How do people know how to be likeable? Fuma sits in the practice room with ten other contestants from the shortlist and four ‘debut group members’ and hopes that Pokémon imitations will cut it. He’d meant to make eye contact with K at some point during this – various Reddit threads he’s read have said this is a good way to create connection – but eye contact has never been his strong suit and it’s too embarrassing, so he looks at Yuma, who at least he knows well.
“Can you believe we made it here?” a trainee from his dorm – Yuma - had said to him excitedly on the ride over from the dorm this morning, buzzing with enthusiasm, and Fuma had wanted to point out that they hadn’t made it anywhere yet. But Yuma is young and eager, and maybe he’ll be someone who never has to experience being disappointed, so Fuma had just nodded and smiled.
He wishes he could talk to Yuma – or anyone – about this whole business of trying to bond with K. It’s so ludicrous that he’d think he imagined it, if it wasn’t for the odd text from Woojae checking in, making jokes, once, cryptically, unhelpfully, reporting I hear Big Hit likes you - I knew it! Now just turn on the charm so K does! But then maybe it’s good not to be able to say anything because the idea of trying to articulate that makes him wince.
It's almost as odd that K is actually in the room with him as if a real idol was. He’d smiled and welcomed Fuma during the intro section, but now he’s mostly talking to Taki and some others sitting near him – as well he might.
Fuma’s first real chance to speak to K is also being recorded by three cameras and watched by a producer, a script writer, a person holding a boom mic and the script writer’s niece on work experience. Each of the contestants does a session with each of the debut members. Fuma talks to Taki about Pokémon (easy), to Nicholas about Taemin (the producers have to tell them to stop due to lack of time, but Fuma is reassured in the quality of Nicholas’ opinions) and to Euijoo, who is probably more nervous than Fuma is, about the weather in Tokyo versus Seoul. The sessions aren’t private, but they are away from the other trainees, and Fuma wonders throughout how everyone else is doing with K. The K he saw on I-LAND was more likely to propose an impromptu wrestling match than start a conversation, but that was edited and anyway, people change.
When Fuma finally enters the small studio, K gets up and bows to him. Fuma is surprised again by how tall he is. K looks like an idol already, perfectly groomed. Fuma tries to imagine being friends with anyone with skin that good.
“Thank you for being part of this project,” K says, once they’re seated.
Fuma nods at him: “Thank you.” Which is a stupid thing to say because it’s not down to K that he’s here. Well, it is, but not in a way K knows about or had any input into, and that makes it weirder.
Does K know that Fuma might have been selected for this show with him in mind?
“Do you have any hobbies?” K asks now. Taki had asked the same thing; they’ve obviously had a stock list of suggestions shared with them for conversation-starters. And for Taki, Fuma had launched quite comfortably into his latest methods for storing his trading cards.
But what if K thinks that’s boring?
“I like dancing,” Fuma offers. Which. Obviously. His fingers are starting to turn chilly with adrenaline and there’s a pressure in his throat. He’s still full of thoughts about Taemin, but supposing K doesn’t like him? Or is offended by Fuma talking about another dancer? “And I work out!”
“I work out most days, when I can,” K smiles, leaning forward. “Which machines do you prefer?”
“…rowing?” Fuma manages to say, through a dry mouth. “I like the pull-down machine too, I like the way it’s like a seesaw, pulling down and watching the weights go up and down, as you pull them.” God, he’s so boring, he’s being boring at this moment, but how do you pick between being boring and being weird?
“That is really satisfying!” K says brightly, and the producer gets up and yells Cut! muttering about timing and schedules and enough material already thank God, we won’t use most of this, and a manager hurries in to summon K, instructing Fuma to wait in the room for the junior manager who will be collecting him and the other contestants for their minibus to the dorm.
Fuma stares at the joining point between two carpet squares on the floor, trying not to relive the past five minutes, and failing, and wincing all over again.
It occurs to him only when he’s in the bus, leaning against the window (no one on the street of Seoul knows or cares about seeing his face): that was a conversation you get when both parties are desperately, consciously, stiflingly, trying to be likeable.
-
“What’s he like to work with, then?” Woojae asks, and Fuma instinctively looks around who could be listening, even though it’s 6am and he’s out on a snowy street by himself on a convenience store run. “Best friends yet?”
“Hardly,” Fuma switches the food bag to the other hand so he can better juggle his phone. “There are fifteen of us, it’s a group project, and they have us working all hours - I’ve probably not spoken to any of them properly. We have the first recorded performance of this new song tomorrow and we’ve only had two weeks to prepare.”
“Is he as good a dancer as he looks on TV?”
“Yeah,” Fuma looks at the yellow-grey sky, coloured with the attempt at dawn. “For sure. Hyung, I’m sorry, I need to run back to the dorm before someone catches me out. Why are you up this early anyway?”
“My sister-in-law is here with her baby,” Woojae gives a short laugh. “Tell you what, let’s trade! You can look after this baby for a while, and I’ll court this K.”
“It’s not…” Fuma sighs. “Bye, hyung.”
He puts his phone in his pocket. The thing is, it’s not even hard to get friendly with K. Most of the others have. K is the kind of likeable so many boys can be, loud and cheerful and ready to bounce around and yell and play. To be all the things that Fuma struggled with enough that he spent his junior school breaks carefully rearranging his various, never-traded trading cards in a sheltered corner, hoping other children didn’t spot him. Whereas K probably was the same at school as he is now – forever scuffling and wrestling into a pile. But at least nowadays, when it’s time to work again K will switch, laser focused in a second and ready to drill his playmates. The younger ones don’t seem to mind. Would Fuma see the signs of some of the others being annoyed, if he hadn’t watched a carefully composed storyline where such annoyance had caused K’s downfall?
He finds K annoying himself, at times. And he’s pretty sure K has not particularly registered his existence.
When two Pokémon meet, they battle each other based on stats and strategy, and that’s the end of it. You know exactly who they are and how they’re supposed to relate to each other.
In rehearsals he’s seen K berate the trainees, pushing them further than they’re ready for, and then stop, suddenly, and tease them, like he’s catching himself in a habit he meant to break. People are many things at once. It’s not fair.
What is Fuma doing here? Who is he to think he can be relevant to this guy’s life? He loves dancing. He loves it as intensely as he’s ever loved anything in his life. Dancing gave him a life, gave him friends, gave him a purpose and a plan, but is that enough? It’s over a year since he left Tokyo, and what has he got to show for it? His mother asks him how he’s doing and she’s sweet enough to only ever want details on his health, but she has to be wondering too when any of this is going to make sense.
-
K had said he was going to the HYBE building cafeteria. He’d asked if anyone wanted anything, and agreed to bring Maki a honey waffle. So Fuma is surprised to say the least to find him braced over the line of sinks in the sixth-floor men’s toilet, shoulders heaving with shuddering breaths.
He looks up at Fuma, and horror ripples over his face; he didn’t want to be seen. Not by Fuma, anyway, which makes sense, because they still barely know each other.
“It’s bullshit,” Fuma tells him, because he’s sure he knows why K is upset. He’s been upset himself by it, on all the ‘debut trainees’ behalf. “The &Ball thing. Just fake TV tension.”
Is that what someone with charm would say? Should he have pretended not to have guessed why K was distressed? Too late now.
“Yeah,” K agrees, after beat. “Yeah. I know. It has to be. They wouldn’t…” he takes a shuddering breath. “They wouldn’t pay for this whole fucking thing and not debut someone at the end of it.”
“They’re…” debuting you, Fuma wants to say. You’re the thing this group is built around. But this time he does catch himself, because he does not want to talk about how he knows that and who told him and what else they said. And besides, nothing is certain, truly. “They’re very pleased with you today,” he says instead. “You heard them. The praise.”
“I’ve been praised before,” K says darkly. And then he shakes himself, and looks up, and it’s like watching someone shimmy into a long piece of clothing. He puts something else on, over the top of himself, and turns to look at Fuma, shoulders square now. K is not Taemin, but he does have it, whatever ‘it’ is, the thing idols can turn on inside themselves and become something more.
“But of course, yes,” K says now, in a different voice. “It will all be fine. I’m just surprised. It’s been a long fortnight.” He tilts his head to one side. “You’re a good dancer,” he adds, like that’s a logical next comment. But then, this is the first time they’ve had an actual conversation, just the two of them, since that awful filmed interview about rowing machines.
“Thank you.” Fuma doesn’t know how to answer that, or what to say next. He came here to pee but he’s not going to just walk over to a urinal and… would someone else do that? Would that be more normal than just standing here? He ought to be friendly, somehow, because that’s what he’s supposed to do and because he still wants K, the real K underneath the outfit, to feel better. “I enjoy being on stage with you.”
K blinks at him. The corners of his mouth twitch up, just a little.
Then he walks purposefully past Fuma, clapping his shoulder, and out the door, and Fuma goes to the urinal at last, closes his eyes and runs Evee moves until he’s relaxed enough to actually release.