Alien On This Earth

Maze of Memories (The demons that tried to suffocate the road to success)

The only thing predictable thing about life is its unpredictable ability. Anyone can be anything; you can be everything.

Han tapped it foot to the beat of alien as it flooded through his headphones. The soft rattle of the van was enough to lull most of the other members to sleep – this included Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin, who created a pile of bodies in the middle row. Han would have slept, even Hyunjin was drifting off beside him, but his mind was being a bit too loud to let the car ride or the music sooth him.

It was loud because of the comment. Which made no sense to him. The comment had been in passing. It was barely even a comment it was so unintentional. Han knew it was so miniscule there was no point in wasting any kind of brain power on it. It was just a few words from their dance instructor, not a big deal. At a certain point in their dance, Han and Changbin were center, and their instructor had casually told Changbin that his defining feature was his muscular figure and to try to show it off in this point of the choreography. And what was his tip to Han? His prominent feature was his chubby cheeks, so maybe he should smile to try to accentuate them.

It could have been taken as a compliment. It probably was supposed to be a compliment, but some tiny voice in Han's head really liked to replay the word "chubby" like a broken record. It was getting annoying. Enough so that Han had turned the volume so high up on his headphones his ears were aching with the sound.

He stared harder out the window, trying to glare away the word repeating in his head. Chubby. Chubby cheeks. Chubby. Chubby. Chubby. Fat. The switch in words almost startled Han. He blinked a few times, shocked his mind would so quickly go to that. He wasn't fat. He knew that. And just as soon as the word had popped up, it faded back to the annoying but tolerable Chubby replay.

Time for a new song, Han decided. Something that would really drown out his mind. He ended up playing Ponytail by Twice. That song made it almost impossible to frown while it was playing. And although the volume was so high, he was certain that Twice was actually singing in his head, he kept the song going.

It worked wonders until they made it back to the dorms. He clicked the volume down a few levels but made sure it was still loud enough that his thoughts had no chance of being heard. With that, they parked, and the members slowly started crawling out of the car.

"Are we here already?" Jeongin asked, rubbing his eyes as he lifted his head off of Felix's shoulder. "We just got in the car."

"Yeah, you fell asleep immediately." Hyunjin answered, unbuckling his seatbelt and using Jeongin's headrest to pull himself up. Reaching over he patted the maknae's head. "Can you move now? I have to use the restroom so bad."

Jeongin smiled and groggily pushed Seungmin out of the car door to make room for the seats to be leaned forward. Felix slid lazily out of his seat and then the back row was unloaded. Minho jumped over the seats and pulled the chairs down to let Hyunjin and Han out. 

Changbin, having occupied the front seat, was already at the door unlocking the dorm. Hyunjin pranced awkwardly beside him, mumbling about hurrying up. Han waved goodnight to the rest of the members as they loaded back into the car to drive to their dorm. Minho returned the gesture but Felix, Jeongin, and Seungmin were already asleep again.

"You coming, Hannie?" Changbin called and Han wipped around, just barely hearing him above the music in his ears. He nodded and hurried into the dorm after the older 3Racha member.

The dorm was empty – Hyunjin had already ran to the bathroom, and Chan was still at the studio working on a song he'd had bubbling in his head all day. Han and Changbin wanted to help but after their intense dance practice, the last thing they wanted to do was stay at the studio. Han resolved that he'd help Chan with it later and dragged his feet to his room.