Chapter 38

As long as I stay with my heart

I cut the car engine an hour later and looked over at Jeongin, making no move to get out of the vehicle even though I could see the dorm through the mirror behind him.

Jeongin had his forehead pressed against the window, staring up at the house. "A couple years ago during our Kingdom performance," he told me quietly, "I was singing out of my range and my voice cracked during the final part of the song."

"That wasn't your fault," I said immediately, my voice gentle.

He shook his head, his hair falling over his face. "That mistake caused a lot of people to hate on our performance as a whole. People spoke out, saying I was the weak link of the team because I was so young. I—those were the worst days of my life. Without question.

"Channie-hyung found me afterwards." He was speaking to the glass more than to me. "He found me, crying, alone, hating myself. I felt like a kid—like a child playing at grown-up games—but he hugged me and said, when did you get so big?"

I sucked in a breath, because---I knew exactly what Jeongin was talking about. I'd watched Kingdom that year; I knew the part Jeongin had messed up. Claire had shown me the clip of Chan and Jeongin talking afterwards, but to hear it now, from Jeongin.... 

There was something hot behind my temples, pricking at the backs of my eyelids in a way that felt suspiciously like tears. I held them in. They weren't for me.

I can't even hug you anymore.

"He's a good leader," I said, my heart burning for Jeongin, for Chan, for everything they'd gone through and sacrificed and every way they'd helped one another through it.

Jeongin blew out a breath, steel glittering behind his eyes like glass. "I know."

-Thankfully, when Jeongin and I got back to the dorm, the only people there to see us come in were Jisung and Hyunjin, who were watching something on the television, and Minho, who was prepping something in the kitchen. Jisung quickly paused the show, then tried to look nonchalant about it; Minho kept cooking, though his silence told me he was listening too.

Jeongin spoke first. "Hey."

"Hey," said Hyunjin.

"What are you watching?"

"The Good Bad Mother," Jisung said after a second. "You wanna watch?"

Jeongin smiled. "Sure."

"Yeji, help me with the kimbap?" Minho called, waving me over, and that was that.

-

Later, after the episode of the Good Bad Mother was finished, Felix stepped in to help Minho cook, prompting Hyunjin to suddenly remember he wanted to talk to Changbin about his rap for one of their songs. Felix's face fell as he left, but I knew he wouldn't go after him with the members all watching.

Seungmin walked into the living room moments later, his camera poised in his hand. "We are now in the most common habitat of the Stray Kid," he said in a deep British accent, snapping a picture of Minho. "Let's observe."

"Hyung, what are you doing?" Jeongin asked.

"Maybe he lost the braincell you all share," I suggested. "Wait, no, it was Chan who had it last."

"Very funny," Minho said dryly.

"Yeah, we all know Chan-hyung hasn't had the braincell in years," Jisung pointed out.

Minho opened his mouth to disagree, then instead decided to go back to cooking.

"Remember yesterday when Felix mentioned my a-day-in-the-dorm-life documentary?" Seungmin asked. "I've decided to resume it!"

"It seems like a bad idea," Jisung said with a frown.

Seungmin arched an eyebrow at him. "You would know a lot about those."

"Exactly. You should consider my expertise."

"Nah." Seungmin climbed onto the coffee table, crouching on top of it to get a good angle at Felix, who was currently wrestling with a chip bag. "Here we have a Yongbokie—a rare species of hyung—in its natural habitat," he narrated, holding the camera close to his face like a photographer in the wild. "Known in some parts of the world as Felix Lee, Brownie Boy or Bbokari, let's take a closer look as it attempts to open a bag of sustenance."

"Goddammit, who made Doritos so hard to open?" Felix shouted.

"It seems to be struggling."

"Fuck off!"

Seungmin paused, then hopped off the coffee table, making his way towards the rooms. "Let's move on to the wild Bangchan-hyung, who seems to have not slept in three days!"

Jeongin regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, definitely not the best idea."

A second later, Chan stepped into the living room, followed by Seungmin; he was wearing a sleeveless black shirt and his hair was rumpled, making me think he might have been asleep. "Okay, who broke Seungmin?"

"He's resuming his documentary from a year ago," Minho supplied, not looking up.

Chan blinked. "Felix, did you give him your special brownies again?"

Felix threw up his hands. "Look, I messed up the ingredients one time—"

"You put weed in them, Felix—"

"And then gave them to us," Jisung added.

"—I told you it was an accident!"

"That's it, I'm out," Minho said, wiping his hands on a towel and leaving.

"It seems the members are in some sort of commotion over brownies," said Seungmin—still in his deep British voice—zooming in the camera. "Will the Chan-hyung take up his role as leader and calm it, or will it get even more out of hand?"

Chan sighed. "I swear I'm the most mature person here."

"Hyung, the floor is lava," said Jisung.

Chan shrieked and leapt onto the armchair.

"An incredible maneuver we just saw here from Bang Christopher Chan," Seungmin narrated as Jisung looked into the camera alike he was in The Office, "made only possible by coffee for breakfast, being born in Australia amongst the kangaroos, and sanity so strained you could snip it like a welcome sash." He gestured with snippy fingers.

"I thought this was supposed to be a day-in-the-life thing, not a nature documentary," Chan said dryly, climbing off the armchair.

"I've shifted focus given how good my David Attenborough impression is," Seungmin replied, still squinting into the camera— "That explains the terrible accent," Jisung muttered—and shifted it towards the hall. "Also, this dorm resembles that of a wild savannah a little too well." On cue, Hyunjin bolted into the room with a shriek of fear, Minho chasing after him. "What a phenomenon!"Seungmin said, swiveling the camera to follow them as they tore through the dorm. "A Lee Minho, one of our most violent species of hyung, has just set its sights on a prey and is giving chase ... will the Hyunjinnie manage to escape the Rhino?"

"I'm not prey!" Hyunjin yelled, then slipped on the floor and went down.

Minho grabbed a handful of tissues and leapt for Hyunjin, grabbing his ankle before he could crawl away. Hyunjin fell but managed to roll away before Minho could stuff the tissues into his mouth. "This is such good material," Seungmin commented over Hyunjin's screams, adjusting the camera.

Changbin poked his head out of one of the rooms at the commotion, took in Minho pinning Hyunjin to the floor, Seungmin standing on the couch to record it, and all of us watching, and ducked back into his room, locking the door. 

Nobody noticed, as Minho was currently in the process of shoving a tissue into Hyunjin's mouth. "Stop—eating—all—my—orchids," he grunted.

Hyunjin spat the tissue into his face. There were bits of dirt on his clothes, I realized, and flower petals sticking from his hair. "I thought they were edible!" he shouted, ducking as Minho swatted at him again.

"They are, just not for you!" Minho snapped, raising the tissues.

"Well that's just rude," Hyunjin said with a frown, then yelped as Minho swung and grabbed the closest object available to him—a shoe—and flung it at his face. Minho was forced to block it, buying Hyunjin the time needed to escape and hide behind Jisung.

"Hey, are those my flip-flops?" Chan asked, looking down at the shoe Hyunjin had thrown. "Who put them here?"

Jeongin became very interested in the floor.

"To be fair, hyung, I thought they were for snacking too," Felix offered from the kitchen, watching as Minho tried to get around Jisung, to no avail.

Minho paused. "Wait, so it's not just Hyunjinnie who's been eating them?"

"They make a really good snack," Jisung offered. "I didn't realize you didn't want people eating them. Sorry, hyung."

Minho pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Everybody who's been eating the purple orchids in my garden as a snack, raise your hand."

As one, everyone's hands went up.

Minho cast me a betrayed look. "Even you, Yeji?"

"Jisungie is right, they're very delicious," I said apologetically.

Minho sighed. "You guys could've just asked me to include them in more of our meals."

Jeongin, Hyunjin, and Felix all spoke at the same time. "Hyung, can you include them in more of our—"

"Yes, okay, yes," said Minho, waving his hands. "I'll add them to the doenjang jjigae tonight." He cast a glare at Hyunjin. "If someone didn't eat them all off the vine."

"So you forgive me?" Hyunjin asked.

Minho frowned. "Maybe."

"A rare moment of affection from the Minho-hyung," Seungmin jumped in, "Hyunjinnie-hyung has escaped the tissue for today, but we'll see about when Minho realizes who it was that borrowed-without-asking his—" he was cut off as Hyunjin slapped his hand over Seungmin's mouth.

"Anyway," said Hyunjin too cheerfully, "What's for dinner?"

Minho watched him with narrowed eyes. "Doenjang-jjigae. Like I said ten seconds ago."

"Fun," said Hyunjin. He gave Minho a thumbs-up.

-

After Minho had been convinced not to kill Hyunjin, I helped him make dinner, and soon we were all sitting around the table. Doenjang-jjigae, a stew made with fermented soybean paste, is a warm, comforting meal, and it felt good to sit and eat heartily with the members. Once we were mostly done, Chan cleared his throat.

"Let's begin Talk Time," he said. "First, does anyone have beef?"

"Yes," said Minho. "My orchids are off-limits. Stop eating them."

"Easy to do," said Changbin, shuddering. "Those flowers taste gross. I hate them with every inch of my being."

"That's not a lot of inches," I said, then ducked as he flicked his chopsticks at me, spraying droplets of hot liquid.

"We hear you, Minho," Chan said. "Everyone understand?" He waited as we all nodded. "Okay, anybody else?"

"Someone's been using my shampoo," I said.

"Guilty," said Changbin. "It makes my hair smell like vanilla."

I sighed. "I'll buy you an extra once this one runs out. Does this mean you're the reason why my special banana hair clips have been mysteriously disappearing?"

Bin blinked. "No? My hair is too short for that."

I crossed my arms. "We'll see."

"Okay, moving on to schedule," said Chan. "Tomorrow we have choreography and media evaluations, and the day after that music video evals. On Friday, we'll have our full-group meeting with JYP, and if all goes well we'll have a week of down time before we start filming SKZ-Talker episodes."

"I'm going to visit my family next weekend," said Minho. "I haven't seen Soonie Doongie and Dori in a while."

"Maybe we can finally meet up with Yeonjun and Wooyoung," Changbin said, mostly to Felix.

Chan frowned. "Remember, no porcupines."

"We weren't planning on it," Felix pointed out indignantly. "Not this time, anyway."

Chan nodded. "This is the last couple days we have to put work into our album, so ... I'm proud of you all." He caught each of the member's eyes in turn. "You've all worked hard and pushed yourselves for this, and it's paid off; I'm confident we'll make STAY and our families proud."

Seungmin's gaze strayed to a point on the other side of the room, shadows flashing under his eyes, but they refocused when his gaze fell on me. He nodded, quickly enough none of the others noticed, and I offered him a flicker of a smile. However long it took, one day his father would realize how proud he should be of his son. I was sure of it.

"Chan-hyung," Jeongin said, and although his voice was quiet, everyone instantly fell silent to listen to him.

Chan nodded, his gaze resigned. "Go ahead, Jeongin."

Jeongin swallowed, taking a long breath. "I'm the maknae," he began. "I'm the youngest. Some of you never had a little sibling to take care of, so you take care of me." Hyunjin's gaze flashed, Seungmin looking away. "Some of you have a lot of little siblings so you take care of me because it's the only way you know how.

"I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being seen as a little brother. But I'm not okay with being seen as a child."

Jeongin looked up, darting to meet the members' eyes before settling on Chan's. "I won't ask you to stop taking care of me, because I know you can't. Just don't assume that I can't take care of myself."

There was a beat of silence as Jeongin's words hung in the air. And then they crashed down to the ground, and Chan clapped his hand over Jeongin's shoulder and said, "Okay."

Jeongin blinked. "Okay?"

"Okay," said Chan. The other members all nodded, speaking in a chorus of agreements.

And then Chan was hugging him, so tight Jeongin's face turned pink, and then Hyunjin was too and so was Seungmin and then they all were, one giant messy ball of members. None of them said anything; they didn't need to. The hug was enough.

And although Chan's lips didn't move, I could've sworn I heard the ghost of a voice in the air, Chan's quiet, comforting words.

When did you get so big? I can't even hug you anymore.

Of course, that wouldn't stop Chan—or any of them—from trying.