strange bedfellows

five: the lone dancer

Mornings at backstage waiting rooms were a whirr of doors slamming down hallways, production staff bustling about and yelling for the next act to come onstage, and overexcited young idols religiously chanting their few seconds of lines while being surrounded by an entourage of stylists. It was hardly the place for Jaehyun to get a shut-eye, even when he desperately needed one.

Having twenty-two others share his waiting room made any prospect of rest even more bleak. Taeil and Doyoung were engaged in a heated high-note battle, Mark and Yuta were quibbling like an old married couple over who should take the last piece of Pepero, Lucas was trying to impress the entirety of WayV with all the new Korean swear words he had picked up from Doyoung's vocabulary, Haechan managed to rip a hole in his sequined jacket and effectively piss off their entire team of stylists, and Taeyong was struggling to get everyone to please shut the fuck up so I can do a headcount.

In the past, Jaehyun would frustratedly stuff in earphones, eventually realizing that he was attempting to tune out noise with more noise. Over time, he came to understand that all their antics were a distraction to cope with the fact that there were hundreds of fans and cameras waiting outside to watch their live performance, and a single mistake would be burned into the online annals of time, etched irreversibly as the performers, the people that everyone of the future would remember them as.

So he just cocked his head back, leaned against his chair, and let his eyes droop to a close. When he woke up, he would be ready to be what everyone knew him as – the Valentines boy, eternal Prince Charming, and national first love, Jeong Jaehyun.

//

Seulgi ambled into the empty waiting room, clicking the door shut. Her stylists had left after her hair had been tousled, her microphone box had been nipped to the back of her leather pants, and the last puff of powder had been dusted on her nose. Her manager said he was going to check on the schedule one more time, and that she should get ready for a win. If they still remember me, she called, but he was too far down the hallway to hear her.

She had made her way to to NCT's waiting room in the open, under the guise of dropping a truckload of snacks for the boys. She caught the sight of Jaehyun snoring away, mouth wide open, in a between a bunch of noisy twenty-year-olds trying to outdo each other in a thumb-wrestling contest. They immediately stopped their racket and dropped into deep, polite bows, thanking Seulgi for her gifts and wishing her the best of luck for her solo debut, assuring her that they were all rooting for her. She swiftly prevented Doyoung from shocking Jaehyun out of his slumber, telling him to let Jaehyun get a few more minutes of sleep and that they could just let him know later that she had dropped by. Or not, either way would be fine.

On her way back, she felt a nagging feeling of envy creep over her. She had been a solo performer for so long she hardly remembered what it felt like to have too many people in a room. When was the last time she performed with anyone, let alone her group?

Irene was off holidaying with her family –and in-laws, Seulgi didn't know how– somewhere in Europe. Wendy said that she would drop by sometime in the week since Johnny was also making a comeback, but Seulgi knew Wendy hated the overzealous reporters snapping pictures of Youngran on her way in. Joy was neck-deep in filming her drama serial, and Yeri was busy trying to weed her way into a drama serial.

It's fine, Seulgi had texted in response to their profuse apologies, just send food over or something. Honestly, though, one person couldn't even consume that much food.