Strawberries & Cream

The Music In Darkness

The day after Yunho's rut, Seonghwa wound up skipping out on practice and stayed home in bed. Between how much he was practicing on his own and how rough Yunho had been with him, he couldn't even get to the bathroom without limping. There was no way he'd get through even one run of choreography so it was better to give his body the rest it needed. Besides, having the dorm to himself was rare and he was not hating having a bit of peace and silence while the others went off to the company building. Seonghwa did his best to force himself not to think about Ateez or the fucked up turn his life had taken, instead trying to focus on just taking care of himself for once. It'd been too long since he'd done anything for himself.

Seonghwa slept in a while after he heard everyone else leave, only stumbling out of bed when his clock was nearing 11am. He ordered food to be delivered to the dorm so he didn't have to cook, indulging himself in something a bit more expensive than he normally would. In an attempt to gain some muscle this comeback, Seonghwa had been on a particularly strict diet for a while but today was going to be a cheat day. He ordered extra servings of everything, two bottles of coke, plus a desert. It was probably the least healthy breakfast to start his day but he was determined to do whatever he wanted without regard for how it might affect his 'idol image'. If his face was swollen later or he didn't quite meet his weight goal in time for the comeback, oh well. He was craving salt and sugar and he was pretty sure Yunho helped him burn more than enough calories to deserve it.

Once his food arrived, Seonghwa set it up like a personal banquet on the table in the living room, put his current favourite drama up on the tv (instead of watching it on his phone like he usually did), and began unpacking the lego set he'd been too busy to open until now. The entire day was spent watching his show and putting together the lego set, successfully forgetting about the rest of his real life problems. There was no putting it off permanently though, real life came knocking again soon enough. Eventually there was no food left to eat, no more legos to click together, no more new episodes to watch, and no more hours left in the day before the members came home. As that time drew nearer, Seonghwa packed up the delivery dishes to be picked up, shut off the tv, and retreated back into his bedroom. He felt confident that he'd gotten away with his little vacation day when he heard the members arrive home and partition off to their own separate spaces, but tensed when he heard his own door open.

Hongjoong rarely came home when they were preparing for comebacks and, when he did, it was never this early. He stayed late at the studio working on music, sleeping there most nights, and still usually preferred sleeping on the couch when he was home. So Seonghwa had been confident he wouldn't have to face him and was apprehensive about what mood he'd be in when he came through the door. To Seonghwa's relief, though, it wasn't Hongjoong's face that appeared. Wooyoung poked his head into the room, caught Seonghwa's eyes, and broke out into his usual bright smile before letting himself the rest of the way into the room.

"I was worried you were sick!" Wooyoung plopped down onto Seonghwa's bed beside him. "You don't look sick."

"Not sick, just tired. I practiced too hard the other day and pulled something in my leg." Seonghwa explained, reaching out a hand to run through Wooyoung's hair. "When did this happen?"

When Wooyoung had left that morning, his hair was still a faded silver with black roots, leftover from their Hala-concept. Now it was all freshly dyed back to his natural colour.

"Today! You missed it!" Wooyoung grabbed both of Seonghwa's hands excitedly. "The manager grabbed us halfway through practice and we all went to get our new hair colours- come look!"

Without waiting for a response, Wooyoung was dragging Seonghwa out of the room to start parading through the other members' rooms so he could show him all their new hair. Which, as badly as Seonghwa had been trying to avoid everyone that day, was admittedly very cute and he didn't mind it as much as he thought.