Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 22

"I'm sorry I'm not very good." At that, he shot Chenle a disapproving stare, which had the boy flushing crimson. Forcing himself to loosen his jaw and soften his expression, he slung an arm around Chenle's shoulders.

"You sounded great," he insisted, not letting the other boy look away at the compliment. "I mean it, Chenle-yah." The boy in question started to shake his head dismissively, so Donghyuck pressed on. "It's the truth. Are you audition ready today? No." He wanted to be encouraging and supportive, but he wasn't a liar. He was a realist, first and foremost. "Am I? No. We've both got a lot of work to do, but we have nearly two weeks to practice."

"Okay." Chenle didn't sound completely convinced, but there was a hint of confidence in his voice that hadn't been there before. "Will you teach me?"

They spent the next hour learning--or, in both of their cases, relearning--basic breathing exercises and vocal warm-up techniques. It would take a lot longer than two weeks to get this voice even close to the condition he had come to expect from himself, Donghyuck knew, but he wasn't about to step on stage in front of twenty thousand people anytime soon. He was auditioning for a high school musical, and he was optimistic that he would manage not to embarrass himself too badly in the process.

Chenle, on the other hand, actually had a better handle on the basics than this reality's Donghyuck did, which would make things easier for both of them. He was rusty, and his voice tired quickly, but the fundamentals he had learnt before he and his mom had moved to Korea were still there, just waiting to be revived and put to good use.

"Hyung?" he muttered, folding his legs under him on the floor of the practice room as Donghyuck demonstrated one of the finer details of a more complex technique. Donghyuck paused mid-flow, blinking down at Chenle in surprise.

"Yeah?" It was the first time the boy had spoken in a while, aside from following Donghyuck's instructions without question or complaint, so it was probably important. "What's up?"

"This feels really familiar," Chenle told him, running a hand through his hair as he peered up at the older boy from his position on the floor. "I think I learned something similar back home in Shanghai, but I don't remember."

Donghyuck paused, thinking carefully through the specific exercise he had been explaining, before a small smile quirked his lips. He didn't answer for a long moment, struggling to think of a way to explain that, yes, it was probably very familiar to Chenle, because Donghyuck had originally learned it from him. Not this Chenle, obviously, but a fourteen-year-old from another time and place, one with endless enthusiasm and talent--a precocious teenager who knew more about performing at that age than most of the older trainees around him.

"Music is pretty universal," Donghyuck said finally. It sounded a little empty because he was being deliberately vague. If Chenle noticed, he didn't mention it, quickly turning his attention back to perfecting the exercise in question. Even without most of the experience that Donghyuck's reality would have offered the boy, his commitment and work ethic was commendable. That was something both Chenles shared, and it filled Donghyuck's heart with admiration to witness.

At the end of their session, after making sure that they both rehydrated and stretched out the muscles in their backs, the ones he knew from his early trainee days would ache in the morning, they made plans to meet up again the next day after school. Donghyuck knew he had a test on Thursday morning, so Wednesday night wasn't an option, but Chenle was keen and excited to practice and he didn't want to let the younger boy down.

"I promise I won't be late tomorrow, hyung," Chenle said, as the pair retrieved their belongings and walked through the empty halls of the main school building. Donghyuck could hear faint noises coming from somewhere nearby, so he knew they weren't completely alone after hours, but it was the most time he'd spent alone with Chenle since they'd met for the second time.