After an eventful weekend, Donghyuck was looking forward to a quiet week, come Monday morning. He arrived at his homeroom classroom fifteen minutes early, at Renjun's insistence, and quickly regaled him and Jaemin with the minutiae of his trip--save for a few choice details pertaining to his meltdown in front of Dongyoung on Saturday afternoon. He likely would share that with them too, eventually, but decided that he needed a little more time to process the feelings it had dredged up inside him first.
As expected, Renjun quickly pulled out the list from his pocket as Donghyuck spoke--the folded paper definitely looked like it had seen better days at this point, but the words were still legible. The older boy ticked off Taeil and Jungwoo's names as they were mentioned, as well as scratching out a quick correction above Doyoung's name, reflecting the version of it that he used in this reality.
During their conversation, Donghyuck offered them his suspicions regarding Dongyoung's mystery crush, as well as mentioning how Ten's name had all but been confirmed by Yuta, but Renjun hadn't added any more markings to the sheet. He trusted Donghyuck's judgement implicitly, he assured him, but they wanted to be sure first. Besides, as Renjun helpfully reminded the other two boys, the list was meant to be for members that Donghyuck had actually met, and he definitely hadn't met Dongyoung's 'Mr Perfect' or the 'guy with a number for a name' yet. Neither of them could argue with that logic, so the list remained unaltered.
At lunch that day, Chenle cornered him outside the door to the drama studio, to ask if he would be free at some point to help him practice for the auditions the following week. Feeling more than a little guilty, having temporarily forgotten the promise he'd made to the younger boy, he readily agreed. Chenle was free every day after school, which made life easy, so they made plans to meet up after school in the music department, immediately following the end of afternoon classes.
The wide, beaming smile that Chenle flashed Donghyuck in response followed him through the rest of the day and, before he knew it, he found himself sitting behind the piano in Practice Room B, waiting for the freshman to join him. Chenle was running late but Donghyuck didn't mind, lazily pressing keys down on the Baby Grand in front of him, enjoying the soft notes that echoed off the walls of the small, mostly empty room.
He didn't play much anymore, not when others in the group played much better than he did, but he had always enjoyed the way that, when armed with a piano, you could easily create complex imagery with just a few simple flicks of the wrist. He had started to tease out the chords to a few of his favourite songs, the muscle memory coming back quicker than he might have expected, when the door slowly opened and a familiar head of dark hair popped in around the doorframe.
"I'm sorry I'm late, hyung," Chenle said earnestly, dropping his bag and blazer onto the floor next to the door. He hesitated, glancing from the messy pile of fabric to the piano and then back, before retrieving the jacket and folding it neatly. Placing it back on top of his backpack, he hurried over to where Donghyuck sat, sliding onto the bench seat beside him.
"It's fine," Donghyuck told him, shifting to give the smaller boy a bit more space. Then he turned to face him. "So, how do you want to do this?"
"What do you mean?" Chenle sounded confused, and Donghyuck smiled down at him affectionately. The boy was adorable when he pouted and puffed his cheeks out like that, Donghyuck thought.
"Do you have an idea of what you might want to sing for the audition," he clarified. Chenle let out a small gasp of understanding, then shook his head. "What about the part you want to try for? I'm guessing I still can't persuade you to try out for a main role."
"Not this time," Chenle agreed, reaching a hand up to play absently with a strand of black hair that had fallen into his eyes. He looked up, meeting Donghyuck's steady gaze. "I don't really know what I want. Are there any small parts?" Donghyuck wasn't sure himself, if he was honest, but he made a mental note to ask Jaemin, who was quickly becoming his walking encyclopedia for all things Les Miserables. That and the occasional Naver search, which wasn't proving to be all that helpful.
"I'll find out and we can discuss it next time," he said, standing up to retrieve his phone from where he had set it down on top of the piano lid. He quickly swiped away a long message from Dongyoung, hoping he'd remember to respond to the man later, and rolled his eyes when he saw the string of colourful memes that appeared under Jaehyun's name below it. He strongly suspected most of these were actually from Yuta and he resolved to ask his brother to pass his number along to the older man, so that he would more easily be able to distinguish between the messages he was receiving from each of his hyungs.
"Do you need to answer those?" Chenle asked softly, as Donghyuck finally navigated away from his lock screen, pulling up a music streaming app instead. The older boy smiled but shook his head, showing Chenle the screen as he answered.
"It's fine. They can wait." He tapped the device a few times, pulling up a list of popular music. It was a little odd, Donghyuck thought, seeing music from a few years in his past appear as current releases-- it reminded him once again just how alien this place and time was--but at least most of it was familiar. There were a few gaps, most notably those where he knew his own songs would have been charting at this point in his own timeline, but other groups he liked seemed to have continued to make music in NCT's absence. "Let's warm up with something easy first. Which of these do you know best?"
Chenle took a few moments but finally settled on a slow ballad by an artist Donghyuck had thankfully heard of. It was quite a well-known song, and Donghyuck was sure he remembered the basic melody, but he pressed play on the app anyway and set it down. He'd save his mediocre piano skills for songs he knew significantly better.
"Just sing along as you feel comfortable," he told a nervous-looking Chenle. The boy had his hands clasped tightly in his lap and was wringing them together, staring intently at the phone resting on the keys in front of them. "We'll sing together for this first one. Don't worry about it. It's just to get your vocal cords stretching and warmed up properly."
He suspected that Chenle wouldn't start singing alone, so he let the tenor voice on the recording produce the first few notes of the verse and then joined in softly. Donghyuck's voice wasn't as strong, or as smooth as he wanted it to be, as he was used to, but the basic principle wasn't hard. He let himself start softly, knowing that this much wouldn't cause him any difficulties, and relished the way that the emotions of the lyrics easily washed over him. He closed his eyes, maintaining the low volume, hoping that not making eye contact might encourage the boy beside him to join in.
For several minutes, there was nothing but a tense bubble of silence to his immediate left, even as the lilting strains of the ballad filtered through the space around them. Donghyuck was starting to worry that he had made a big mistake, and that Chenle had been made too uncomfortable by his request, when finally a third voice joined the mix. It was almost inaudible at first, only detectable because Donghyuck was so hyper-aware of the freshman at his side, but, as they sang, Chenle relaxed a little more into each word.
As the song came to an end, Donghyuck opened his eyes, ignoring the phone as it started to play an upbeat new-wave song, and turned to face a trembling Chenle. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Chenle laughed at that, and Donghyuck couldn't help the accompanying chuckle that left his lips.
"I haven't sung like that in a long time?" Chenle told him, shrugging. "I forgot how much I enjoyed it."
"Me too." Donghyuck wasn't lying--yes, he sang all the time, but it wasn't the same as this. Sitting in a practice room and just singing a random song for fun with one or other of his members wasn't something he had a lot of time for anymore. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed it, just like the boy beside him did in his own way.
"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.
"No worries," Donghyuck told him, pulling him into a loose side hug. The younger boy squirmed, trying to escape him with an easy laugh, and Donghyuck couldn't help but be reminded of the way that the other Chenle hated his attempts at affection most of the time these days. He was torn between happiness, as the similarities between the two physically identical boys emerged with each moment he spent with him, and a strange sense of melancholy, as he realised that the boy in front of him was already growing up--all over again--before his eyes. He wanted to hang onto the clingy, overly-affectionate Chenle for as long as he possibly could, before he was gone this reality too.
They reached the parking lot, where a car was idling just outside the main entrance. Chenle pointed to it and then turned to look at Donghyuck. "That's my mom." His expression was a little disappointed, like he didn't want to leave. "I have to go. Thank you for today, hyung." He started to walk away, waving at someone through the tinted windshield of the large sedan. "I'll see you after school tomorrow."
"Bye, Chenle-yah."
--
Tuesday's session continued in a similar fashion, with the two of them moving on to look at a few songs that Chenle had chosen overnight, which he thought might be suitable for an audition piece. Donghyuck had made sure to ask about parts for him at lunch and, with Jaemin's guidance, suggested to Chenle that he might be well suited to the part of Gavroche.
"It's a smaller part, but you would still get a few solo sections," he explained, once Chenle arrived and sat down next to him on the piano stool, just like he had the previous afternoon. "Gavroche is only eleven or twelve in the story, so the actor who plays him can have a much higher, breathier tone. I think that would suit you at the moment, until you have the chance to develop your lower register a bit more."
"How do you know so much about this?" Chenle asked in amazement, staring up at him with wide eyes. "It's like you've been performing all your life, even though you haven't." Donghyuck hesitated at that, considering the younger boy's words.
"I've done a lot of research," he answered, deliberately not meeting Chenle's eye. It was as close as he had ever come to an all-out lie with Chenle, and it didn't sit well with him. Instead, he chose to change the subject. "So, what do you think? Reckon you're up for the challenge?"
"I'll do my best!" With that, they settled in for another hour, selecting a song from Chenle's list and figuring out a suitable arrangement for the short time allocation he would have in the audition. Donghyuck had started out playing the piano, while he gave Chenle pointers on his vocal technique, but it quickly became clear that the younger boy had more skill on the piano than Donghyuck did--despite his education having been cut somewhat short.
"Here," Donghyuck offered, getting up from the seat and gesturing for Chenle to sit down. "You don't have to play during the audition, if you don't want to, but it might help you to relax." He'd noticed throughout the first half of the session that, whenever Chenle's hands were occupied by their swift, precise movements across the ivory keys, the boy was less focused on the flaws in his voice. His shoulders relaxed and he looked at ease, focused in a way that he wasn't when his hands had nothing better to do than worry at the hem of his shirt.
--
They didn't see each other at all on Wednesday, Donghyuck instead joining Jaemin in the library after school to study for their upcoming test. Time passed agonisingly slowly, Donghyuck finding that he missed the hour he might have otherwise spent studying music with one of the youngest members of his family. Eventually, however, Thursday afternoon rolled around and he found himself back in the small practice room once more, waiting for Chenle. He was late, again.
"Sorry, hyung." Rushing in, chest heaving at having raced through the building to reach the music department after class, Chenle came to a sudden, screeching halt as he took in the look of deep consternation on Donghyuck's face. "Are you okay?"
Donghyuck's gaze was fixed on the piano keys in front of him, and his fingers were curled into position over a chord that he'd played and replayed several times in the past five minutes. He almost didn't notice Chenle as he pressed a new combination of keys, frowning when the notes still didn't sound right to his ear.
"Hyung?" Chenle dropped his bag and neatly folded jacket into their usual spot and made his way over to Donghyuck, who had started playing a short, simple sequence of chords that sounded like the beginning of a song. It wove an expressive tapestry of sound around them both for a few moments, but then he hit that same series of keys as before and frowned again.
"It still doesn't sound right," he muttered. Chenle sat down next to him, laying a hand lightly on the older boy's arm. Donghyuck jumped, glancing up as though surprised to see that he was no longer alone. His hands jerked away from the keys so quickly he almost hit himself in the chest and he paled, eyes darting across Chenle's face.
"It sounded great to me," Chenle told him, and his voice sounded far too loud in the small space. He cringed a little as Donghyuck paled even more, blinking rapidly. "Did you write that?" He paused, seeing the uncomfortable look on his hyung's face, and backpedalled quickly. "I mean, you don't have to tell me. I should have knocked or, you know, something. I'm sorry."
Donghyuck blinked a few more times and then shook his head, focusing in on Chenle's face for the first time since he'd arrived. "No, it's fine." He smiled at the younger boy, before looking down at the piano keys once more. "And no, I didn't write it, but it's an important song to me." Chenle watched his expression soften for a moment, before becoming inscrutable. "It's called Coming Home. It's a song I rec--I used to like singing it with some old friends."
"It's nice. Pretty. Atmospheric..." It was all those things, but Chenle didn't quite understand why it was upsetting the older boy so much. Perhaps it reminded him of something sad, or of someone he missed. "Why did you stop there?" He pointed to Donghyuck's hands, which had settled back onto the keys he'd been obsessing over when Chenle had arrived.
"It's not the right chord." Donghyuck sighed, flexing his fingers slowly above the keys. "I was just playing around, singing some songs from--from my past. There's this one chord, though, that I really can't remember. I wish I could remember. Taeil-hyung would know." He cleared his throat. "I mean, he would have known."
Chenle wanted to say something to improve the heavy mood in the room, but he wasn't sure how to help Donghyuck. Instead, he went with earnestness, hoping it would make the older boy smile. "It'll come back to you eventually," he said, grinning at Donghyuck encouragingly. "If you don't think about it, it'll just pop into your head."
For a moment, Donghyuck stared at him, like he was looking deep inside his head and seeing something Chenle didn't even know was there to be seen. Then he nodded, ruffling Chenle's hair affectionately. "I hope so, Chenle-yah. I really do." There was more to his words than what existed on the surface, but Chenle didn't know where to start with deciphering it, so he was relieved when Donghyuck changed the subject. "Now, are you ready to work on your song?"
Despite his words, they mostly worked on Donghyuck's song that day, but Chenle didn't mind. He listened as the older boy sang along to the acoustic track he'd found on YouTube, adding feedback and offering suggestions whenever he felt comfortable. Donghyuck always seemed to appreciate his ideas, smiling appreciatively at him every time, and he used most of them. It made Chenle feel useful and valued and, by the end of the hour, both of them were feeling optimistic about their song choices and musical directions.
"Chenle, are you in here?" They were almost finished tidying up when a figure in the doorway caught his attention. Donghyuck startled beside him, before realising that it was just a sweaty, tired-looking Jisung. The boy had damp patches on the front of his gym shirt, and Chenle knew it was because he had come straight from the dance studio, but he had a small smile on his lips as he met Chenle's eye.
"Hey, Jisung," he replied, giving his friend a small wave. Turning to Donghyuck, who watched Jisung with curiosity, he offered the older boy an explanation. "My mom offered to give Jisung a ride home from school today." He glanced at Jisung again, whose expression had sobered a little as he turned his attention onto Donghyuck. "He had to stay late for rehearsals tonight so it made sense, since we're here for practice too."
"Are you rehearsing for the dance showcase next week?" Donghyuck asked Jisung, who startled visibly at being addressed by the older boy. "Jaeminie mentioned that you guys had rehearsals until late today. I didn't expect you to be finished yet."
"W--we're not," Jisung said hesitantly, as though he'd rather not be speaking at all. Chenle offered him an encouraging grin, so he steeled himself and spoke again. "I can't get home today unless I ride with Chenle, so I'm leaving early. Both my brothers are busy."
"Oh." The surprise in Donghyuck's voice was noticeable to both of them, from the way Chenle saw Jisung's lips purse, but he didn't say anything else on the matter. He just passed Chenle his bag and blazer up from the floor, holding them out to him when he didn't immediately move to take them from Donghyuck. "Same time tomorrow, Chenle-yah?"
Chenle glanced over at Jisung, seeing the younger boy shake his head almost imperceptibly. That answered that question, he thought. "I can't tomorrow, hyung." He turned to face Donghyuck, but he could still see Jisung's slightly worried expression out of the corner of his eye. He didn't need to be concerned. Chenle understood exactly what he needed to say. "Jisung invited me to stay over at his house tomorrow. We need to leave straight after school, so I can't stay." He smiled when Jisung visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping slightly as the tension drained from him.
"Monday, then?"
"Monday," Chenle agreed. "I'll be here."
Waving to Donghyuck as he moved to join his friend in the doorway, he smiled to himself as Jisung pulled at his arm almost possessively. They made their way quickly through the halls together, finding his mom's sedan parked up on the kerb where he knew it would be. He pointed to the rear driver's side door and Jisung pulled it open, placing his gym bag inside. Then the younger boy turned to Chenle, tugging on his sleeve to stop him from walking away.
"Thank you," Jisung said softly, a small smile gracing his features, "for not saying anything."
"Of course," he insisted, returning it with a blinding smile of his own. "That's what best friends are for." Jisung's smile grew immeasurably at that, and Chenle didn't think he'd ever get over how much it completely transformed the other boy's face.
--
On Friday afternoon, Donghyuck ended up back in Practice Room B again, hunched over the keys of the Baby Grand. He had finally figured out the chord he'd been fussing over the previous day, but a new sticking point towards the middle of the song was causing him fresh grief. He groaned, half tempted to smack a hand down onto the keys in frustration, but he restrained himself. It wasn't the piano's fault that he hadn't paid enough attention to the underlying harmonies when he'd first learned the song with Doyoung, Jaehyun and Taeil. He could argue that he hadn't thought he'd ever need to know them, what with the instrumental easily accessible on the company mainframe whenever he wanted it, but then he'd just be arguing with himself, which would be pointless.
With a sigh, he folded the heavy lid down over the keys and stood up, stretching out the ache in his lower back from all the diaphragm work he'd been putting in with Chenle that week. He knew it would get easier with time, but he'd forgotten how tiring practising after a prolonged hiatus could be. He'd experienced that once before, when he'd been out with an injury, but this was years of neglect instead of just months. The past week had been hell on his respiratory system, but he hoped it would be all worth it.
Glancing around the small room, he noticed all of a sudden just how empty it felt with just him in it. He wasn't a stranger to empty practice rooms, not by any means, but at SM they never seemed to stay empty for long. Be it a manager, choreographer, or one of his many members, there was always someone around to interrupt or wander in unannounced. He'd long ago gotten over the lack of privacy, and now this sudden isolation made him uneasy--not to mention more than a little lonely.
He knew that Jaemin was only a few hallways away, ensconced in one of the dance studios with the rest of his team, Renjun was in the library studying and Jeno was likely out on the soccer field for practice with Lucas, but, right then, Donghyuck felt the emptiness of this room so acutely it hurt.
"Go home," he muttered to himself, heading for the door. He grabbed his stuff, flicking off the light and shutting the door behind him. It didn't feel right to practice in there without Chenle, he mused. It just wasn't the same, so practising could wait until Monday. As sudden inspiration hit him, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Renjun, asking if he was still in the library. Without waiting for a reply, he headed in the direction of the main section of the school building, which housed the large repository of books.
He'd find Renjun, get some homework done while they waited for Jaemin to finish his dance rehearsals, then they'd spend the weekend together. He wasn't alone, no matter how alone he had felt in that practice room. He had people around him, the number growing each week, and he needed to remember that. He was never truly alone, not while he had them.