Blue And Red

Everyone in the practice rooms practically beams with happiness, but he doesn’t. A scowl threatens to bloom on his face instead. 

Now Sunghoon is pretty similar in values with the other boys around him- They all want to make it big in the music industry, make a change and even have their names as the first search on any social networking site (Sunghoon searches every night before it’s his turn in the shower, the self-proclaimed world’s-softest-tissue-paper pops up instead, he can’t blame them though, it looks soft too)

And like most of them he’s well-mannered, groomed to be the musician many teenage kids idolize. Not much different from the rest of the trainees. 

Until now, when he realizes he’s the only one with the unsettling feeling of dread making itself home in the pit of his stomach, bubbling into something ugly. 

Sunghoon’s eyes flicker to the white paper, The other boys around him have already moved to the other side of the room, chattering about their free time from vocal classes and dance sessions. His vision swims seeing the notice upfront.

The trainees had a month free as a break after vigorous training, as healing for them mentally. A time where they could catch up with the world they’d missed while training to dominate the music industry, to follow their dreams.

Sunghoon didn’t see it that way. Well, he couldn’t. He felt like someone feeling anxious about getting work done, but not doing anything. It was unsettling.

His mother used to pat his head gently when he used to scarf down his sandwiches after school, “Sunghoon-ah, learn to eat slowly”, which soon progressed to, “Sunghoon-ah, take a few breaks, okay?”, her voice on the phone in the two minute breaks classes “Sunghoon-ah, talk to me more whenever your free”. 

Now, he could call his mom . He could eat a meal without rushing himself.

His hand reaches of the phone with the recordings for the choreography he’s learnt. And he heads to the next room, away from distractions and begins to practice the choreography until he’s tired.

“Sunghoon-ah, remember to rest when you feel tired”

Sunghoon doesn’t think he ever gets tired.

It’s barely the fourth day of the break when Sunghoon feels the uncomfortableness churn in his stomach. He wakes up feeling he has so much to do, and sleeps feeling he hasn’t done enough. Even though he does twice the amount of work any trainee does.

Now his habits don't really stand out amongst other trainees, they’re all competitive by nature or grown to learn to be like that—after all to survive in an industry based on talents, the desire to grow is needed- so he makes friends. He has about 6 friends, all competitive but he learns how they’re all different. 

One major difference, was his itch to do something. 

He’s never had a slump in his life. Mostly because he beats himself up in a way that he will only catch himself in anything akin to a slump over his grave. He makes sure he doesn’t have more than an hour of rest and doesn’t give himself pity parties in fear of being unproductive.

Rest was important, but he could rest after he’s achieved his dreams. 

He swiped his sweaty bangs away from his eyes. He couldn’t afford to rest now though. He couldn’t afford to lose. He couldn’t afford to take a-

“Break?”

A voice interrupted his thoughts and his precious dance practice so he furrowed his eyebrows, ready to reprimand the trainee for barging in He falters.

His eyes fell on another trainee, not a part of his friend circle since he didn’t recognize him very well, but he’s seen him a few times. His name was Jack? Jim?

The light brown haired boy had an outstretched hand, a blinding smile. Oddly startling, because it has been so long since Sunghoon has ever seen a trainee this pure and happy. 

Sunghoon snapped out of his thoughts to reach out and shake his hand, a small smile robotically planting itself on his face after all, a public figure meant bringing up a smile at any time- no one cared if it was genuine or not. 

“I’m Jake” the boy’s smile somehow manages to grow impossibly bigger. Sunghoon flounders, if he ever tried to smile like that, he’d probably pull 23 facial muscles.

As interesting as the boy was, Sunghoon doesn’t introduce himself back; it’d mean time spent not practicing. And he’s pretty content with the friends he has now, so he remains quiet and awkwardly stares at the floor.

And really, Sunghoon doesn’t know whether this kid is stubborn or just really at bad social cues because Jake sits on the floor and continues (Sunghoon doesn’t know when the conversation really started).

 “So” Jake smiles and reveals a pink paper bag with tons of convenience store snacks—chips, biscuits, cookies and two bottles of chocolate milk, “I saw you practicing a lot, figured you needed a break”

It’d take half an hour to finish all that. Sunghoon feels a familiar itch.  

“So I ran downstairs to grab some food, it’s been a while since I’ve tasted these double chocolate cookies, so I thought I’d share-“ 

Sunghoon was still standing, unlike Jake who was cross-legged on the practice room floor. He wanted to so badly push Jake out and continue practicing. (A dance they’d probably never do, but Sunghoon still learnt it). Still, Sunghoon hated making others feel bad too.

He sat down opposite Jake, still sweaty and pink from harsh practice and grabbed a double chocolate cookie.

Jake beamed and opened up another cookie package, sliding the chocolate milk Sunghoon’s way as well and they ate in comfortable silence.

The itch didn’t die down, Sunghoon didn’t expect it to.

And that night, he lied down to sleep, guilt bubbling up all the way until his throat.

-

Sunghoon goes out of his way to avoid Jake. So far as to checking up which practice rooms were booked, when he happened to glance at the score sheet of the evaluations for the past few months. 

The evaluations. They were assessments of things like vocals, dancing and other entertainment skills. People were kicked out by the agency they were managed by if they weren’t up to the mark. It was a source of worry for others, but it’s what helped maintain Sunghoon’s sanity- it helped him examine whether he was doing well objectively. Sunghoon was always in the tops ranks. He glanced at Jake’s, it went up and down pretty frequently.

Sunghoon finds an empty practice room, far away from the rooms where trainees normally gather. He sits and pulls out a lyric sheet. 

No trainees find him, Sunghoon sees his phone light up a few times- probably notifications from his friends asking to hang out, so he didn’t bother.

Up until his throat started getting dry. He grabs his phone and glances at the time. Six hours passed.

Normally, Sunghoon would be proud for being able to sing this long, see Sunghoon wasn’t some workaholic monster- He had his worries and got into the habit of working hard in hopes he’d worry less.

It was a flaw of his. 

Everyone had flaws, right?

He didn’t want to dwell on that, it was a rhetorical question anyway but oddly his answer came in the form of a knock and chocolate hair.

“You…?” Sunghoon trails off. He wasn’t exactly displeased at seeing Jake opening the door of the vocal room he was in. He wasn’t sure whether it was because it was Jake or whether it was because he was already done with practice. 

It was the latter. Right.

The boy swung out baby blue bag and waved it excitedly, “I knew you were here! I was looking to find someone to try this boba tea with? Do you mind…?” 

Sunghoon usually very skilled at hiding emotions, gawked openly, “Jake, you…looked for me for six hours?”

A raised eyebrow and a soft chuckle, “No, that’d be weird, I decided to look for you…” he hums in thought, “maybe four minutes ago? But I knew to search in these dark, cold practice rooms, you’re like those tsundere anime dudes, y’know?”

Sunghoon did know. It was an image he didn’t mind since it meant less energy spent on making small talk. But here Jake was.

And as Jake arranged the boba on top of neatly placed tissues to avoid any mess, Sunghoon finally made note of his features, apart from his chocolate brown hair. 

Jake had sharp features that somehow ended up creating a soft, warm, aura. Or was that Jake’s kind personality bleeding through? Sunghoon didn’t know. Another thing, Sunghoon saw the calming colors the boy wore- purples, pinks, light blues.

“Your outfit” Sunghoon blurts. He had a habit of getting straight to the point. And a look of surprise flashed across Jake’s face, before a familiar warm smile slowly bloomed, “What about it?”

“It’s…You always wear those colors, why?” 

Jake flattens the tissues against the table and waves Sunghoon over. The dark practice rooms somehow creates brightens only around Jake. 

Sunghoon felt dressed like some sort of emo 11 year old with his black everything.

Jake pokes a stray through his drink and Sunghoon follows, “It’s comforting to an extent? I get nervous easily” and Sunghoon does too.

Sunghoon looks up from his drink, when he catches Jake looking at him. Knowingly. As though he expects Sunghoon to agree that yes, I’m scared too. Sunghoon remains quiet. 

But after a few moments Jake lets up and Sunghoon internally breathes a sigh of relief and they slowly fall into another easier conversation. Sunghoon feels relaxed. He wonders if it’s the boba or the pale colors doing its magic on him, whichever it is, Sunghoon’s glad. 

He gets a relatively better sleep. The guilt’s there but it feels blue. Baby blue like Jake’s sweater. Not angrily screaming at him, threatening to spill but instead the guilt is warm and gentle in his gut, present but not overwhelming.

Sunghoon thinks, just how he sees in numbers, evaluations and scores, Jake thinks in colors, feelings and emotions. 

For that night, Sunghoon feels scared of having no future -like always- but a second of comfort comes in blue. It lulls him to sleep.

-

Sunghoon quickly gets used to Jake popping up in the middle of practices—nearing to when he was ending though. And Sunghoon thinks it’s because Jake is mindful to not disturb his practice He says his thank you in the form of bringing Jake a bag of white chocolate to add to the food in the middle of their small snack breaks.

And soon, Sunghoon realizes he takes more breaks than usual, after his mother carefully asks why he ended up texting back so often. He isn’t annoyed.

 These days too, he can’t seem to rank his feelings out of a scale of 1-10, 10 being livid and 1 being content.

He feels orange.

Orange like the beanie Jake is wearing today. Like warmth that spreads to quickly that you don’t notice until everything it tingly all over.

Jake sends a small wave from the other end of the practice room, where the trainees are all gathered for a movie night. Sunghoon responds with a small nod and almost takes his leave from the room to practice, until another trainee- Jaebeom stops him.

“It’s movie night, Sunghoon, you can’t skip movie night” 

Sunghoon sees an 8. Closing to an 8.5 because it’s a movie. A waste of a good 2 hours on watching people 'do' things.

Sunghoon sees a flash of understanding on Jaebeom’s face who awkwardly backs off.

He sees Jake look confused. The number drop down to 4. Jake isn’t angry at him for leaving to work again, not annoyingly worried but instead confused.

Sunghoon feels out of place and moves towards the door.

Another glance at the warm colored boy, who surprisingly looks calm and mouths remember to eat a few snacks, okay?

Sunghoon nods and leaves, clutching the lyrics sheets tightly to his chest.

-

As much as Sunghoon loves not wasting time, he keeps a detailed diary. His mom told him to, forced a blue journal into his arms the day he was taking the train to Seoul. She told him to write anything and everything in it. 

It felt useless at first, seeing he could easily organize his though on a to-do list. But it grew into a routine. And Sunghoon loves routine, so he sets up a time between 5-6 and puts all his thoughts on paper, in two coloumns; a ‘productive’ things and an ‘unproductive’ things column.

For a good while, the unproductive things had two lines at the most consisting of a yummy pizza for dinner or got a new phone!!



It gets a few lines more eventually, talking about the new friend he’d made. But putting Jake under ‘unproductive’ was somewhat insulting, so Jake moved to a new spot in the middle of the page. 

Sunghoon smiles after finishing up his entry by putting down the date. Nearly most of the month passed with only 2 more days until break ends. His routine was relatively unchanged, but Jake was the just more frequent and the uneasiness wasn’t stirring up very often.

And those two days were still the same as the other days Sunghoon spent with Jake. There were frequent breaks with Jake, Sunghoon got to know how Jake was from Australia—moved here to follow his dreams. Also that he hated vegemite with a passion and loved all colors except red.

Sunghoon didn’t talk about his fears and Jake never pushed him to, but his care was shown through small energy drinks, a knock on the practice room door to check on him.

Sunghoon finally felt like he wasn’t committing some crime by doing things to ease himself, because people sure acted that way. He couldn’t help it, some met stress by taking a break from life and just focus of their mental health. Others had some sudden intervention that made them change their outlook on life and work.

Slowly filling up the pages of his diary, Sunghoon realizes his was a long drawn-out process—an accumulation of double chocolate cookies and warm colors.

Jake slowly, gently taught Sunghoon how to live with himself. With his coping mechanisms and routines.

The most change he has gotten in his life was the smallest addition of a seemingly insignificant trainee. Another guy running for his dreams. A boy who depended on colors just as he did with numbers.

The last day of the break arrived—bringing the monthly evaluations purely based on accumulation of the scores of previous tests. 

A large circle of trainees gathered around the sheet of paper stuck on the wall in the practice room, nervousness evident on each of their faces. Sunghoon was too, as he scanned the paper from bottom to top, eyes falling on his rank right at the top of the sheet.

He took breaks between practices and ended up ranking the same. The churning in his gut stood still, for once in the longest time—no, the churning lessened considerably over the course of the month. Now it was practically non-existent. 

A sigh of relief and his eyes flew to Jake who stood on the other extreme of the circle of boys, a small smile on his face. They met eyes and Sunghoon beamed, excited to tell until Jake's eyes fall back on the sheet. Then on the ground. Smile still plastered, but not as genuine as before. 

Confused , Sunghoon looked back at the paper.

If it was related to getting a low score, he’d definitely comfort Jake-

But, Sunghoon searched the paper. He couldn’t find Jake's name.

His heart stopped and he slowly turned to look at the sheet beside it: The list of trainees to move out by today.

The third name on the second column. And Sunghoon felt cold. Like a bucket of ice water drenched him. Like blue, but the dark, stormy unsettling kind.

A hand on his shoulder, Jake's, and the blue deepens, dark. “Sorry Sunghoon-ah, we couldn’t get the pretzels that just got out in the vending machine today" 

It was an attempt to brighten the mood.

But Sunghoon saw the trembling of his chin. The blue grew darker and darker by the second. 

In a moment, Sunghoon pulled him and hugged him closely. It was sudden and the air in both of their lungs get punched out in the smash of chests. But Sunghoon doesn’t let go and tightens his grips around the boy’s waist. He trembles.

“You-" Jake's voice is hoarse, choking with suffocating emotion, “You remind me of red, Sunghoon-ah"

Sunghoon wants to tell him to shut up and let them both cry in peace but the words don’t come out, so Jake continues,

“I hated red. It was fast, rushed, intense and extreme.” 

Sunghoon laughs wetly, “Why does that color fit me so well”

“But now, now I don’t mind it. It means change and excitement too. I approached you, wanting to help you get out of bad habits. But, it’s what fits blue best, and I realized changing red meant I wouldn’t be around for that long, so for me to remain blue, you remained red"

A pause, before Sunghoon murmurs softly.

“All that changed was me accepting myself"

Jake smiles and breaks away gently from the teary hug, patting him twice on the shoulder. Sunghoon gives him his widest smile.

-

Sunghoon writes in his diary as usual. The page significantly emptier but he had plenty of new snacks from the convenience store to add to his ‘unproductive ‘ side. He also gets a pen from there too.

A red one. He’s grown to love the color red. It matches his journal’s blue. And that night he sleeps with the anxiety pooling in his gut, ever present but also calm. He’s learnt to accept it.