#i'd be happy to see him as teenage rumple now

[rikiblues]

that's how it is

featuring. txt choi soobin x fem!oc contents. canon compliant, angst, anxiety

track. none word count. 1913

Starlit nights usually provide some amount of comfort to Choi Soobin.

There's something about the silver-white twinkling that gets him all the time. Certainly, he is no stranger to the fact that he isn't alone in that notion; stars have fascinated mankind for as long as it has been in existence. Soobin knows that he isn't the only idol who turns to stargazing as a form of self-healing, either. Not that he asked. It's just common sense, he thinks.

He heaves a sigh, raising a hand up to the sky where those stars twinkle dimly. Even this high up he can't see them very well, and he longs to go somewhere where he can gaze at those burning balls of fire even a little clearer. But he supposes that he should be happy he gets to see them, that he gets a little breathing room from the hectic life he chose when he didn't know any better.

He doesn't regret it, not really. He just wishes he knew what he was getting himself into before he signed that contract. At twenty-two, he knows more than he did at twenty-one; certainly so much more than he did at seventeen. He loves his career, he loves being able to do what he does, making a living out of it—but there are parts of it he wishes he didn't have to subject himself to.

"What are you thinking?" Minseo asks, nudging him. She looks worse than he does, having wiped off her makeup the minute all her group's pre-recorded performances had been declared over and done with. The rest of her members are currently getting undressed and changing into somewhat more comfortable clothes, but Minseo is up here still dressed in her rumpled stage outfit much like Soobin, who has another recording in half an hour. End-of-the-year performances are always so difficult in different ways.

"How different things would be if I'd listened to my mom," Soobin answers, stepping closer. Their arms brush together and he moves so that they stay connected. He needs something to keep him anchored to the present right now. "If I'd never gone to the call-back audition."

"Would we be still here?" Minseo wonders. "Not here on a roof, I mean. Would we still be together or would we never know each other?"

"I like to think we'd always find each other," a small smile plays on Soobin's lips. Minseo laughs at that. "But really. There are things I wish I'd done differently. Said differently."

"Like what?"

Soobin shrugs, turning his head away. Swallowing discreetly. He doesn't think he's ready to share it, not now. All of those small anxieties, little irritations and fears—they ballooned into something so much bigger, something that has him unable to breathe sometimes. Is this how grown adults really live? Scared of what comes next? Certainly, Soobin is not the only leader in k-pop frightened of what his abilities are doing for the group—whether it's for the good or for the bad.

Soobin has confidence that the members know he's always available to them, that he leads them in a way that is clean and organized, but he doesn't know if he's really living up to the standards that he set for himself. The members know that he tries his best, that he wants to be the best leader that he can be, but they don't know that behind closed doors, Soobin is close to falling apart more than not. Even on good days, the tiredness is so much. Too much.

He isn't like Minseo, who somehow always keeps a smile on even when she has to be tired to the bone. When her group's maknae is having her teenage angst phase that isn't a phase but very real problems she doesn't know how to handle. When the only member older than herself fractured her ankle and had to sit out of group promotions in the middle of a comeback, Minseo had twice as much to do.

When she and Soobin got caught alone, holding each other, it left no room for any doubt whether they were more than friends. When they both got into trouble for hiding the fact they were together and barely scraped through only because both of them were trustworthy—and they had been hiding it for six months by then.

Through it all, Minseo had kept her cool. She'd pulled through while Soobin panicked and cried; a lot of the time, he was an inch away from hyperventilating. He had been terrified and he should've been the one holding it together, not Minseo doing it for him. He had a year of experience on her; he'd survived the abuse the public had thrown at him and the other four for being from Big Hit. It didn't make sense to him that he was the one who most needed comfort.

A small part of him wondered if it was the very abuse and hatred thrown at him that made him the way he is, back then. But it's been a while since then. The group is thriving. Besides, it hadn't been a big issue, not until a while after it boiled over.

"You'll be fine," Minseo whispers, putting an arm around him. "You can do this. Don't worry."

"How do you know?" Soobin asks helplessly, swallowing the lump in his throat. His voice isn't at all steady; it wavers, it threatens to break. Once again, Soobin is scared of what could happen. He is terrified of the unknown, and he doesn't even know what brought this on, which is the worst of it. The way nothing even happened, and yet, Soobin is scared, close to falling apart again. He can't let that happen, not now. Not until the award show season is done—

No, wait. There's that comeback in January. He has to keep it together until at least that's over.

He will not break down and be forced to take a break when there isn't even anything physically wrong with him. His members need him.

"Because you have people by your side," Minseo whispers. Her almond-shaped eyes, usually brown but now a light blue because of the contacts she's wearing, catch his own round, watery ones with so much affection—so much sincerity and love that it hurts because he doesn't know if he deserves it, or anything at all. He promised he would become a leader to be proud of when they selected him, but really, what is he amounting to, at this rate? "Me. Your members. Your family."

Drawing in a shaky breath, Soobin's gaze returns back to the glimmering stars. He remembers that the stars he sees are stars which died long ago, and the twinkling is merely an echo of what they've left behind, traveling across light years incomprehensible to him. Who will remember him, when he dies? Will he leave behind a mark like an almost-everlasting flicker of light to remember him by?

Suddenly, he wants to go home. He wants to curl up in his mother's arms even though he's almost three feet too tall for that, and cry. He wants the familiar comfort and love that he grew up with, knowing it was forever—she might not have believed in him then, but there is truly no supporter of him bigger than his mother is.

"I want to go home," Soobin confesses, voice cracking, breaking. A shaky sob expels itself from his shaking body—and why is he falling apart? He shoves his hand into his pocket, searching for the tissue he used earlier to dab at his itchy eyes, and when he finds it, he dabs at the tears threatening to spill over before they ruin his makeup. The coordi-noonas will touch him up when he returns, but there's no sense in making them redo him entirely. "I want my mother. But I can't have that."

"Sure, you can," Minseo says, her hand drawing comforting circles on his hip bone. His own hands are gripping the railing hard enough that his knuckles are whitened. "Home is forever."

Is it? Soobin wonders. Is it really forever?

"I can't," he sniffles once. Swallows again. "There's all of these award show recordings, and we'll be busy practicing for our comeback until it happens at the end of January." Another shaky exhale. "I won't be able to even consider it until something like early March or at least, late February." And if I get permission, he doesn't tell her. She knows that much. Perhaps she knows too well.

"Call your mom, Soobin," she urges. "You're falling apart and you clearly miss her too much."

"It's too late to do that," he refuses. He hasn't checked the time in an hour, but last time he did, it was almost ten p.m. "She'll be asleep now."

Minseo knows better than to push her point, but she lets it go after saying, "call her tomorrow, in the morning, okay?"

"Yeah," he murmurs. The restless, anxious feeling won't go away no matter how much he reminds himself that he is anything but alone. "I promise."

He doesn't know why he says that. Maybe so that he'll actually have incentive to do it, instead of a solid ten minutes of staring at his phone before chickening out—like the last time he desperately needed a hug and an 'I love you' from his mother. He's been on his own for so long by now. Why is it that he is still incapable of handling things like this by himself?

The stars twinkle merrily. Soobin watches them, inhaling the cold winter-night air. Both of them are wrapped in just winter jackets, and it's barely just keeping them warm. Soobin tells himself that he clings to Minseo for warmth, not because he needs comfort. What does he even need that for, really? Nothing happened, so why is he being like this?

His phone dings. He doesn't want to see what it reads, but he has no other choice.

yeonjun-hyung: where are you? we have to be onstage in ten minutes

me: rooftop. on my way

"You have to go?" Minseo asks. Soobin nods. "Okay. You go on first."

It's their routine, for one of them to leave five or ten minutes before the other so that they aren't spotted together. Soobin wishes he could leave with her, but he doesn't even want to think about the backlash they'd get if they were caught. No, he has enough going on.

"See you later," Soobin presses a dry-lipped kiss to the top of her head and backs off, not letting her see the luminosity of his eyes as he walks away and heads downstairs. He takes deep breaths and he carefully dabs at his eyes before he makes his way back to the others.

When he returns, Taehyun frowns at him. "Are you okay?" he asks, concerned.

"I'm fine," Soobin brushes him off, following the makeup-noona to get touched up. Taehyun isn't convinced, clearly, because he follows Soobin and watches him as he gets his makeup done, but he also knows that Soobin won't give him any answers. He stays silent, but his piercing eyes remain on Soobin the whole time.

Soobin isn't lying. He will be okay.

Eventually.

He has to be. He doesn't have another choice. That's how it is in the industry—you have to act as if you are okay. Soobin is the leader, and what kind of leader would he be if he fell apart now?