no regrets 。taekai 。

x

"calm down, it's only in four hours, we have time." chanyeol reassured an anxious jongin who couldn't stop pacing around the practice room.

"you don't understand, i barely got an ounce of sleep last night. i'm so fucking stupid." jongin grunted and finally threw himself on the floor, sprawling his limbs, the cold surface that touched his skin calmed him in some way.

"we already released the album, the fans love it. nothing can go wrong even if everything goes wrong. c'mon we've been doing this for years now." minseok said from the couch on the back of the room, facing the mirrors.

in jongin's mind, everything could go wrong. he was always very passionate about his dancing, confident in it and that is exactly what got him into the company in the first place. this wasn't new, he had to go through this pre-stage distress many times before and each time he felt even more guilty.

he knew minseok and chanyeol were nervous themselves, but when it came to it they knew how to suppress it and deal with it, for jongin's sake and that made the boy feel awful.

selfish, jongin thought, greedy, egoistic and all thats in between, that's what you are kim jongin.

the latter got up and to add to minseok and chanyeol's worry, he did what he knew best: practice once again and add up to his body's ever growing tiredness.

self-inflicted exhaustion was jongin's one and only solace.

。。。

exo did wonderfully that night. the fans went wild and the members were so ecstatic about it all. the rush of performing in front of hundreds of people while they cheered for you, your song, it truly never got old.

jongin felt relief wash over him, this time different than others he had perfectly finished off the stage with no 'mistakes'. usually he would nervously look away from the camera or miss a step but this time he did everything as he had planned.

"hey, do you feel like joining us for dinner?" chanyeol came closely, he spoke slowly as if he were already predicting what jongin would say and jongin couldn't really blame him.

the members always thought jongin's perception of 'mistakes' was too complex to understand, they never saw the boy making any major mistake during a performance, but jongin had set high standards for himself so they couldn't always see what went wrong and when they invited jongin for dinners like this one after a stage he would just politely brush them off and go back to the practice room to overexert himself to get a dance as close to perfect as perfect could be.

this time, jongin couldn't bother to think if he did any minor mistake because today he did his best and that made him proud.

"yeah, sure." jongin internally laughed at chanyeol's widening eyes. he couldn't bring himself to laugh as he tried to get his breathing back to normal, "let's go."

the restaurant was nearby and their manager was really pleased that he didn't have to get the van ready for the seven very messy boys.

it was very simple and they were already ordering food when yixing decided to change his seat from that was next to junmyeon and slide over to sit beside jongin who was just finishing a shot of soju.

"you're looking rather lonely here, might as well bless you with my presence." yixing smiled sleazily as he always did and took a plate to serve himself a bit of the food that was being placed on their table.

"make yourself comfortable, it's going to be a long night." jongin sighed and took another shot that yixing had serversd  him and looked and chanyeol and jongdae start to get up from their seats and start to sing some disney song together.

"if i'm not wrong those two will end up going at it the whole night, i won't be surprised even if kyungsoo joined them, he's looking kind of red isn't he?" yixing pointed at kyungsoo who was pouring a soju shot into his beer and indeed looking a little too red for comfort, he was now a timed bomb ready to explode at any moment and by exploding jongin meant singing the whole soundtrack of frozen with chanyeol and jongdae.

"oh shit, look up but don't make it too noticeable." yixing whispered to jongin, he himself making it very noticeable he was looking at whatever he was looking.

jongin lazily looked up and as he spotted what yixing was staring at he felt the food in his system threaten to seep out from the same way the came in and it wasn't pleasant at all.

the two men who made their way to a far away table in the distance, two men that jongin could recognize only by seeing their height difference after living with them for more than five years.

sehun and baekhyun, not aware by the fact the members sat all the way across the restaurant, sat down and ordered food, jongin watching their every move as he fought himself to stay still and not run to hug the people he most missed these couple of days.

he watched and watched as the happy couple held hands across the table and ignored the glances they got from tables near them, they just ate and talked for the rest of the evening.

knowing they were both much happier now than they had been the night they left made jongin's heart beat with bliss almost making him forget the nights he stayed up late crying because of them.

almost.