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He thinks he’s trapped, maybe he really is. Trapped in the men’s toilet with his hyung who’s supposed to be watching out for him. He’s stuck, not just trapped because no matter what he does, he can’t leave.
Kyuhyun takes his hand, holds it between his stiff fingers. He looks at him like the sun is blazing beneath his eyelids, like he has to squint to see Jino, maybe he really does. Somehow the once affection now solid loneliness lies simmering at the surface, like a layer of rain water splattering across his skin. Why does he feel so awkward suddenly? Why does Kyuhyun-hyung sound so desperate?
It’s not fair—Jino’s perfect, perfect in that he can sing and be happy and enjoy himself because the only thing he’s ever known is still the only thing he knows, untouched, unmarred. Kyuhyun is running an empty track, but he can’t win; faster and faster he runs, but the end means nothing if he can’t share it with someone else, anyone else.
“We shouldn’t—maybe we should go back hyung.” Jino tries to step around the older boy but he can’t. He’s trapped, this time against the sink counter.
Why are they doing this? Why is he doing this? “We probably should,” Kyuhyun says. Stoic. Calm. “How do you feel?”
Concerned. “A little tired,” he answers instead, maintaining the pretense of a casual conversant with his mentor. He doesn’t like this. What is Kyuhyun really asking him?
It’s still strange as Kyuhyun walks him back to the recording room. Framed records line the wall, all legends now immortalized behind a square of glass that Jino has the naïve ambitions to break. He has a good voice—a great voice, according to Jonghyun-hyung. He wonders if he’ll be good enough though. Idle aspirations mean nothing if he doesn’t have the entire multifaceted deal to obtain the ultimate goal.
What is the ultimate goal?
“Just…be happy, Jino-yah.” Kyuhyun rolls his tongue around his young friend’s name. It tastes like breakfast in the morning—dry, papery thin. He’ll live it up someday. When people are calling it out and opening their arms to the company’s newest debuted idol. And then the fun begins.
“You ready to start again?” Jay looks bored as he waits for the two remaining members to sit and prepare for instruction. Jonghyun is away with SHINee for his own group work—Kyuhyun misses that, having group work of his own.
“Ready!” and there’s happiness in Jino’s voice, elation he can’t control because he’s still young and green and hopeful for many years of selling records and making his name. Kyuhyun had been there once too.
END