19_____
"You're kidding."
"Oh my God."
"Why didn't you check?"
"How was I supposed to know the hotel revamped their rooms?"
Jisung pinched the bridge of his nose, his face fully pointing down at his feet as he took in continuous deep breaths. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Inspire. Expire. His grip on his luggage tightened as he let out one more sigh before looking up at the guilty Minho.
"You know what? It's fine. It's not a big deal."
"Really?" he blinked. "Are you sure you're fine with it?"
"I'll sleep on the floor tonight."
"Don't be ridiculous," Minho slapped his face into his own palms, rubbing his droopy and fatigued eyes. "Am I that insufferable to be with that you can't handle sleeping in the same bed?"
"It's not that, Minho!" he gulped, awkwardly glancing at the wall, the flower vase, and anything else in the room that he could lay his eyes on, so long as it wasn't Minho's gaze. "You know... it's weird. Two men in one bed... That's weird."
"Jisung, the auditions are literally tomorrow morning. You need to rest well. We need to rest well. I'd be staying up all night in guilt if I just let you sleep on the floor," Minho sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back with his sturdy arms holding him up, a couple of veins evidently visible ever since he took off his jacket prior to their entrance into the hotel room. "And I, for sure, am not sleeping on the floor either. Besides, we've had sleepovers before. It's not something we should find weird, anyway."
The darker haired boy simply looked down at Minho, internally cursing at himself for panicking and letting his mouth run before him again. "Right."
Rolling over his luggage to the corner of the room, he almost stammered as he heard the bed behind him creak as Minho fully slumped backwards, letting out a groan and a yawn.
"I'll check out the bathroom," he quickly said, unzipping his small wheeled trolley to take out his clothes for the night.
"You do that. And try not to shower for too long, will you? I need to shower too. I stink of a barbecue restaurant, and particularly the garlic we decided to overload onto that grill," he yawned once more. "I don't know how much longer I can hold up without falling asleep."
"I told you we shouldn't have walked around the city for that long."
Jisung briskly locked the bathroom door behind him, his fingers almost clawing into the soft material of his fresh clothes as his gaze met in contact with the mirror. His eyes had gone puffy and his face had an obvious flush, the symptoms he wished he hadn't developed as a result of Minho ordering drinks for them both at the barbecue place they visited just across from the train station earlier. He insisted Minho shouldn't pay for any alcohol at all, reminding him once more of how embarrassingly over-confident or jittery they both could get once they had a taste, and surely enough, he was beginning to feel the effects of their order.
He felt completely detached from his body as he began to shampoo the brunette locks of his, kneading his fingers into his scalp almost a bit too aggressively, completely unable to rid the thought of having to sleep in the same bed as Minho, out of all people he could ever possibly have the opportunity to sleep in the same bed in - which wasn't exactly a long list at all, though that was besides the point. The sleepovers Minho mentioned were years ago, when considering the one time they actually slept in the same actual bed. They were probably twelve, or thirteen at most, far prior to when Jisung had discovered how he felt about Minho.
This time, just the thought of recreating the scenario had Jisung wanting to yank his hair strands out and avoid closing his eyes, since each time he did, he would vividly see the image of Minho being inches away from his face under the sheets - a horrifying and shame-inducing image that he would rather not have imprinted into his brain ever, and certainly not in the moment.
He genuinely felt as though he was sinking further into the never-ending sensation of shame the moment he left the bathroom, almost feeling as though the floor would ultimately consume him and spit him out, salivating his shuddering body just enough to be able to swallow him whole.
"Why are you wearing the towel like that?"
Jisung coughed and chuckled, "You don't wrap it around like this?"
Minho furrowed his eyebrows, awkwardly staring at the towel that covered him from his chest down, "It's womanly."
"Hah! It's also getting late," he threw the spare dry towels at Minho that were just hung outside the door to the bathroom. "You should get in that shower before the clock hits midnight. 'Long day tomorrow!"
The wet strands of his dark hair covered the pain in his eyes as he maintained an excessively wide grin at the boy who would stumble his way into the bathroom, and his overly-confident façade had completely been wiped out once Minho had locked the bathroom door behind him.
It was about to be a long night. Jisung knew that.
-----
Minho had a habit of hugging anything near him whenever he slept.
It left Jisung unbearably uncomfortable once five minutes had passed. They were silent, for the most part, once they had shut the lights off and exchanged nothing more than a "good night". Minho had clearly anticipated the moment he'd finally be able to fall into slumber, and so Jisung was rather hesitant in moving at all once he heard the shallow snores coming from the boy. His eyes were left fixated on the ceiling, his form resembling a soldier at attention whilst the boy next to him morphed into a koala, with his leg draped over Jisung's waist and his arm spread across his chest, on the verge of choking Jisung if he were to shift a few inches north.
Just to make matters worse, the single-sized bed cramped them suffocatingly close to each other, leaving Jisung to fear that if he were to roll over, he'd risk inheriting an injury from his collision to the floor. Cramped space combined with Jisung's nerves and frustration also left him sweating under the thick duvet, neatly tucked at the edge of the mattress, leaving them both to be even more enclosed.
But ten minutes had passed, and Jisung simply could not take the torture anymore. With great care and precision, he lifted Minho's arm off of him. That was easy, he thought. However, Minho's leg seemed to be the problem. It was tremendously heavy from all the muscle - the abundance of pure meat, and a whole unit of robustness that was a result of attending sports clubs and possibly working out in his spare time. Jisung's dainty hands just couldn't seem to hold the leg up.
Minho jolted as he felt the pinch on his thigh from Jisung's grip. He let out a yelp, and Jisung would do nothing but yank his hands away and keep them clasped together on top of his stomach. In utter confusion and a half-asleep manner, Minho suddenly moved away. Inevitably, he fell off the narrow mattress and onto the cold wooden floor, groaning.
"Shit," he muttered to himself, as he sat up to switch on the lamp.
As he sluggishly began to crawl back up onto the bed, his tired eyes met in contact with Jisung's wide set.
"Sorry."
"Did I wake you up?"
"No, I hadn't fallen asleep yet."
"Oh," he said, tucking himself under the duvet again. "I swear I felt something pinch me, or something."
"Yeah," Jisung's voice cracked as he felt his flushed face heat up even more, shortly after. "You were... kinda hugging me."
"Is that so?" he chuckled as Jisung nodded in response. "I didn't know I still did that in my sleep."
Minho yawned as he tried closing his eyes again, only to be met with disappointment once he felt that he wasn't as sleepy as he was previously. He opened them once more to squint at the clock just across the room.
"How long was I even asleep for?"
"Around ten minutes or so."
"Gosh," he sighed. "That's not long at all."
"I guess not."
"So, have I just been hugging you for ten minutes straight?" a lopsided smile crept up onto his face as he looked over at the, still, wide-eyed Jisung, whose eyes were now fixated at the ticking clock.
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Someone's lucky," he poked Jisung's cheek briefly, eliciting a grimace from the boy. "Countless people would die for Lee Minho to hug them like that, probably."
Jisung scoffed, "Sure thing."
"Absolutely, you mean?"
"Since when did you get so cocky?"
The pair had, by then, sat up straight, their backs resting against the headboard, with Jisung hugging the half of the duvet that once covered Minho.
"What's wrong with being confident?"
"It's weird when you're just pretending too hard."
"Pretending can be a good thing, right?"
It was Jisung's turn to look back at Minho this time, the crinkles by his eyes still remaining in their place.
"I don't see the point in putting effort in pretending you're confident if you don't really feel that way."
Minho emitted a gentle breath, the crinkles by his eyes disappearing, "I guess you could say that. But couldn't pretending to do that make you believe yourself eventually?"
He shrugged in reply, "I'm not sure."
"Did I ever tell you that Jaehwa and I broke up during that night of her birthday?"
"Oh," Jisung squeaked out, looking down and away from Minho, who let out a breathy chuckle. "I'm sorry."
"See, you're just saying that," Minho sighed, locking his fingers together, resting the back of his head against his palms and the headboard. "Pretending."
"No, I meant it, really," he paused, letting out a low hum briefly before continuing. "It's not easy to let go of someone you loved."
"You didn't like her. It wouldn't surprise me if you were happy I didn't want anything to do with her anymore."
"That'd be a selfish thought."
"That's what I meant. Pretending is a good thing."
He proceeded to look up at the ceiling slightly as Jisung fiddled with the edge of the duvet.
"I'm not following."
"You were pretending to feel sorry. You thought I'd go mad if you said anything different. So, the good thing to do would be to just say what anyone would say when they hear their friend go through a loss."
"It's the decent thing to do," Jisung scoffed. "I'd be a real asshole if I said something so unsympathetic."
"Do you find yourself doing that a lot?"
"Well, obviously, when it's necessary, yes."
"Do you find yourself pretending a lot when you're around me?"
The bedsheets rustled as Minho turned to his side, facing Jisung as he sat up to cross his legs. He wasn't sure if it was because of how dim the light was, but Jisung was struggling to find any sense of emotion in Minho's eyes - they were slightly puffy and lacking in expression, unlike the usual bright glint he'd find in them, or the wide mania when the screws in his head went loose. They were blank. Nothing more than two unanimated circles, like a pair of stagnant marbles.
"Why are you asking me this?"
"It's just the typical act people do when it's so late at night after having a few drinks, isn't it? Getting all philosophical, or whatever."
He let out a sigh as he pulled his half of the blanket from Jisung, resting it just below his waist.
"I try not to pretend, but you make it difficult for me not to do so, sometimes."
"What makes you say that?"
"A lot of things," Jisung chuckled, shaking his head as he looked down at his lap again. "And how about you?"
Minho let out a soft suppressed laugh in return. All had gone quiet again. Jisung began to mirror Minho, crossing his legs to face the lighter-haired boy this time, as he anticipated for an answer.
The pair had never spoken so intimately with each other before. In all of their years of knowing each other, they could never bring themselves to get into every nook and cranny of their thoughts without having to make a joke out of it, or switching the subject to something lighthearted. It was an unusual sensation for Minho especially, who began to almost squirm in response to the question, with a long awkward pause meeting between them.
"No. No, I don't."
Jisung leaned in closer, squinting his eyes to almost ridicule Minho as he pierced into his soul, "You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm serious."
"Just when I thought you were being genuine too," he shook his head, tutting.
"I am being genuine."
You literally pretended you saw nothing on my phone during that night of your birthday, Jisung thought, but restrained himself from saying out loud to avoid an embarrassing confrontation.
The pair noticed something again. They were awfully close to each other now. It was giving Jisung déjà vu, just like the night at his bathroom, with Minho's wispy locks of half-bleached hair significantly darker than they usually were under the dim light, and a set of images of the night sky placed into Minho's eyes. His face was still slightly flushed from their dinner earlier, leaving it a bit more swollen than usual too. That blush accompanied a set of plump and reddened lips, which Jisung usually noticed the top lip protruding outwards more than the bottom.
From Minho's perspective, Jisung was a seemingly heavenly sight. The light from the lamp reflected off of him almost perfectly, with his skin glistening from all the toner and moisturiser he had previously applied, a pink hue spread across his bloated cheeks, and the puffiness of his face making him appear as though he had stolen the youthfulness of an angel's face rather than developed any fatigue from staying up so late. Jisung's hair wasn't as perfect as it usually was, it had fluffed up and stuck out at different random points, but it suited him, the messy look. It made him seem softer and endearing. His warm brown eyes pooled honey around the edges, just like when he'd find them to rest in the gold rays of the sun, particularly familiar to the way his eyes looked during sunsets, widening as he watched Minho lean in closer, with his cherry pigmented lips slightly parting.
Jisung's breath hitched, watching Minho's face progressively grow darker as he had covered the light of the lamp by now, with the pair almost replicating a solar eclipse. It was overwhelming - Jisung could smell every product Minho had used, from the coconut-scented shampoo and conditioner, given as amenities by the hotel, and the sweet and almost floral whiff of his moisturiser. It was surreal.
Perhaps, too surreal for Jisung's liking.
Jisung muttered softly, "What are you doing?"
Minho stammered, his eyes fluttering up from Jisung's lips and up into his wide eyes. He noticed how the darker haired boy had begun to tilt himself backwards, before Minho felt embarrassed of how unashamedly desperate he appeared - leaning forwards so eagerly. He immediately moved back.
"Nothing. I'm sorry."
Jisung kept quiet, the pair continuing to stare deeply at each other. Minho was the first to make a move, simply letting out a quiet cough to clear the build-up of saliva at the back of his throat, before turning off the lamp and sending one final "goodnight" to Jisung.
They faced away from each other that night, with their backs refusing to even come into contact.
-----
"This is daunting."
"Yeah."
That was the first time the pair had spoken to each other since the incident they encountered in the previous night. The most they interacted that morning was through exchanged glances, and maybe a forced clearing of throat every now and then, during breakfast at the hotel, and during their short commute to the company's building.
The building in front of them, indeed, was worthy of causing such symptoms of apprehension - the whizzing of constant thoughts in their heads as their heartbeats were just ever so slightly erratic, their palms growing moist despite it being early January. It was looming over the pair, proudly standing several levels above them, as if the tower was seemingly never ending and stretching up beyond the grey clouds of the cold morning. Several security guards, robust and significantly taller than the two boys, were lined up at the entrance, constantly using their devices to check each and every person who would enter the building, and Minho and Jisung were only a few feet away before they'd be joining the process.
Its interior was far more intimidating, however. Once they had passed through the security, past the rotating glass doors, everything seemed beyond unimaginable. Almost all of the surfaces in the vast space of the lobby were a blinding white, with only the auditionees inside contrasting from it. Like a colony of ants, staff were scurrying along at every direction, travelling as fast as beams - up and down the countless and twisting flights of stairs, entering and exiting from left and right from several Authorised Personnel Only doors, with not enough time to spark up a smile or true conversation with any of their customers. They would furiously flick through their paperworks and repeat the same phrases, with only the change of each person's ID number - very robotic, without a difference in tone each time.
The pair had shortly navigated their ways to two empty seats among the sea of them hovering on the ground floor, once they had quickly received the sticky labels displaying their ID numbers. Jisung was sat next to a girl, who seemed slightly younger than the two, but no younger than fifteen. Accompanied by her mother, they were sat up all straight, posing with their right legs crossed over their lefts and their purses held to their chests, wearing their status with pride in their designer dresses and their pearls, snootily looking back at the two boys who had just sat down that it made Jisung feel heavily underdressed.
Minho, on the other hand, was sat next to a boy, who seemed slightly older than the two. He was likeminded to the mother and daughter, but was instead occupied with a Nintendo Switch and gloom bordering his face.
"What are you looking at?" he muttered to Minho, who had only stared for a brief second or two.
"Nothing."
He tsked.
The pair were left staring out awkwardly at the window for the remainder of their time in lobby. Small talk was as far as they went, simply pointing out anything that looked gaudy or out of the ordinary.
At last, just after twenty minutes, Minho was the first to be called between the two. After another five minutes, Jisung's head perked up.
"0325!" a woman in white called out with a speakerphone.
Without another word, once Jisung approached her, she guided them both up a flight of stairs, an empty hallway, and another flight of stairs, until they reached a black door. She left him there, throwing a "good luck" as she flicked through the pages clipped onto her board, her feet shuffling away from him and the tall heels clacking along the floor. There were two large guards this time, stood either side, who escorted Jisung in.
It was a small room, not much larger than a classroom, and the walls were covered in black acoustic foam panels, as well as a black backdrop just behind the judge panel. It felt more like an interrogation room rather than an audition room - Jisung was expecting something more elegant. There were only three of them sat along the extended table, the looks on their faces were fatigued, far more than they should be, on an early morning.
A stand-off was all that happened for the first few seconds, as Jisung stood in the centre of the beige floorboard, a square surrounded by black duct tape.
"What's your name?" the man in the middle asked.
"Han Jisung."
"And how old are you?," a woman on his right asked.
"Nineteen."
He yawned, leaning back in his seat, "What brings you here today, Han Jisung?"
"Uh," Jisung's voice trailed off as his eyes flickered between the three judges. "I'm here to show that I'm a good candidate for the company."
The nerves had begun to get to Jisung - he searched online about the company's reputation just a few days ago. It was always known for its extravagant promises and glamorous rewards for those who were successful in their ambitions, and to restrain himself from speaking too eagerly about everything he knew about the grandiose company was a painful experience.
The judge's eyebrows furrowed, another silence passing them as he rubbed his face in his palms. He took in a deep breath, exhaling sharply as he spoke, "Alright, we'll begin."
A sense of adrenaline had kicked in. The woman next to him shifted her glasses up and down, holding her clipboard an arm's length away from her. She squinted a bit, and rubbed the edge of her nose before her nasally voice echoed throughout the room, reading out his prompt.
He poured his heart and soul into every line he could improvise, taking deep breaths to avoid falling apart at their stern expressions. The emotions surged through him, his voice rising and falling with the intensity of the scene in hopes to capture the essence of his character, delivering every line of his monologue with passion and conviction. But Jisung was only met with stoic expressions behind the table, with all three scribbling in disinterest. Jisung tried to stay optimistic, he really did, though the dimly lit room started to feel as though it were caving in on him, and when he met eye contact with the male judge in the centre, he only exuded an air of arrogance and indifference.
A silence lingered again. The judges exchanged glances.
The man in the centre cleared his throat once more, and spoke in a measured tone. "Thank you, Jisung. Your performance was commendable, but it's not quite what we're looking for, in terms of the image of the company."
Jisung gave them a faint smile. Disappointment washed over him, but he tried his best to maintain his composure, thanking them and bowing as they guided him to the exit at the back of the audition room.
And like that, it was all over.
Minho was still waiting at the other side of the door, leaning himself against the wall behind him. He glanced over at Jisung, his eyes beaming in excitement having snapped out of his blank stare at the white wall in front of him.
"Jisung," he whispered, the crinkles by his eyes showing again. "How was it?"
"Wasn't as I expected," he shook his head, his voice soft and delicate, as if he were about to crack like glass at any given second. "Not great."
Minho's face drops, frowning, "Oh, Jisung. I'm sorry."
"How was yours?"
He shrugged back, giving a stiff and half-hearted smile, "I mean, yeah. It was good. I passed onto the next stage."
Jisung was wearing a delicate porcelain mask, delicately poised upon his face. He curved his lips upwards, his eyes betraying the ruse. He strained the muscles around his mouth, the warmth gone and the sincerity almost uncertain about where it should go. Feeling happy for Minho should have been the natural feeling, but lingering beneath the surface was the sheer willpower to hold the smile in place, in substitution of genuineness.
"I'm glad to hear that."
_____
author's note
major writers block moment 💀 i jinxed it when i wrote "weekly updates" in the story description tbh LOLLLL took it off now bc im not quite living up to that promise
also trying to cook up a new short minsung story but my brain is lagging so bad lately 😭
but ANYWAY IN OTHER NEWS im literally so giddy with the new skz comeback ugh we're being so well fed with content rn
q. Favourite track off the 5 STAR album?