Just a Thought

Park Chanyeol on Byun Baekhyun...

He nearly smiled at me. Almost, but not quite. His eyes were small and sunken and sleepy and curious. He seemed quite curious where he sat in his loose grey sweats and baggy white t-shirt that was half-drenched with his perspiration. It trickled down his temples like the chill down a bottle on a hot summer day, and he blinked when the brine stung his eye and almost smiled at me...almost, but not quite.

They told me his name was Byun Baekhyun, that we were of an age and would likely debut in the same group once we had completed our training, his being a quarter the length of my own. Byun Baekhyun... It happens unexpectedly, doesn't it? There's no forecast, no crystal ball for predicting when it might hit. It happens in between heartbeats, in that split second's silence when our hearts stop to catch their cadence. That's how it was with me: the sweat seeped into his small sunken eyes that were curious despite his sleep-deprivation and he blinked back the sting and smiled at me almost and somehow, maybe because my heart wasn't ticking in that split second, I lost it. I lost.

Byun Baekhyun on Oh Sehun...

His head was resting on his knees. He looked like an indolent cat with his creased eyes half closed and his mouth pursed into a pout which I read as uncertainty, though everyone said it was boredom. I think I must have smiled, or at least, I remember wanting to. He was pale and thin and rather ethereal. He didn't seem quite real to me and I wanted very badly to make sure he was.

Without moving at all, he peeped at me then, his small pupils glinting like black pearls; it made my skin crawl. He was young, younger than I, but that gaze had a kind of agelessness to it that made me feel a child by comparison.

They said his name was Oh Sehun, that he was two years my junior and that we would likely debut in the same group once we'd completed our training, his being four times the length of my own. Oh Sehun... It happens unexpectedly, doesn't it? The tilting of a head, the angling of an eye, the minute modulations that remodel our hearts. That's how it was with me: his unfocused pupils rolled to the right, fixing on mine that were transfixed on his form and I saw in them a thing that was unconstrained by time – the many ages of an ageless soul – and mine had always been greedy that I wanted to own them all. 

Oh Sehun on Kim Junmyeon...

People call it proper, but I call it proud. He was, you know, as haughty as he was horrified. In that orderly form I saw mostly fear and the strained determination to conquer it. He was stubborn. He lived by despites, in spite of it all. The others were laughing while he awkwardly popped and pirouetted in place, but he kept repeating that step and spin, using their sniggers for a metronome, until they grew tired of laughing and started leaving the practice room. Still he wouldn't stop.

I pouted at him and he blushed, blushed and practiced on.

They said his name was Kim Junmyeon, that he was three years my senior and was likely never to debut at all. He did though, four years later, having trained for seven in total, he got up on that stage as our leader, our guardian angel, Suho.

I have no expectations, so everything is unexpected where I'm concerned. I never expected to love him, no more than the others expected him to debut. But he did and I did and I don't quite remember anymore what it was like before he blushed at my pouting. I only know that in that moment that very particular shade of pink became my favourite colour.

Kim Junmyeon on Zhang Yixing...

I... I don't really know. He was...careful and polite and quietly alert. Ambitious too beneath that conformist exterior...we had that in common. He'd work himself to breaking, and having broken, work some more, this we had in common too. I respected it, resented it, I suppose I still do – everything he does and everything he does in order to do it all, I still do. That he puts himself above us, yet tears at those who dare doubt his place among us; that it isn't empty bluster, that he truly means his words; that he breaks himself to keep from breaking faith with us; that he wants me to forgive him though it isn't his fault I still do...resent and respect. I don't love him, I can't love him, he grates me to the core; but then nor can I hate him for being what I lack the courage to become.

His name is Zhang Yixing. He wears it like a badge, though I think it is his cross.

Zhang Yixing on Kim Junmyeon.

One day he'll smile back at me.

Maybe.