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it’s been a long, hard day of promos and interviews — topped off with a major comeback stage, jisoo is worn out and ready to crash at the end of the day. fortunately for him, being a hyung liner in seventeen means he belongs to the first batch of boys allowed to take a shower in the constricted space they call the bathroom dorm, which is a privilege he gladly accepts. occasionally he feels bad for the other members, especially the maknaes, having to wait for a good 30 minutes before their turn but he’d learned his lesson the hard way. the one time he’d let seokmin take his slot, a soap fight that soonyoung had initiated with the younger had caused everyone’s wait to be further extended, causing much dissatisfaction amongst them.
ever since then, it was decided that it’d be best for everyone to keep to their regular bathing timetable (and for soonyoung to not be the first person to get a hold of the soap).
letting the cold water rinse away the sweat and dirt accumulated on his skin, jisoo recalls today’s performance, the ringing from all the loud screaming from their adoring fans still lingering in his ears. he smiles at the thought of nailing the new choreography, the new solos he’d gotten in their new song, the huge grin on seungcheol’s face after every successful show — the scrubbing on his skin halts as jisoo blinks through the water dripping from his eyelashes, confounded at the seemingly random direction his train of thought was heading towards.
“pass me the soap, why don’t you?” jeonghan’s yell can be heard over the gushing sounds of the shower faucets, exasperated and impatient, “and quit singing, you sound like a donkey on helium.” jisoo huffs out a soft laugh and shakes his head, knowing this to be untrue.
“heads up!” seungcheol calls out from the other side of the cubicle, and there’s the sound of the soap hitting the floor, followed by a grumble by jeonghan. “whoops?” he laughs, “and shut up. you know you love my dulcet tones. right, josh?”
the sudden acknowledgement startles jisoo, but he recovers quickly enough to respond, “right!” humouring the leader. the small smile on his face grows into a bigger one when he hears seungcheol continuing his singing, defiant against jeonghan’s wishes. it occurs to jisoo that his memory of seungcheol’s facial expression earlier wasn’t entirely random — even now, his excitement at having had a good day is infectious, his merry singing a mix of genuine exhilaration and delirium from the exhaustion. soon, though, the singing fades into a hum too low to be heard under the rushing water, and jisoo hears the faucet being turned off from seungcheol’s end. the cubicle door clicks open and as if on cue, jeonghan warns jisoo of the incoming soap, which he manages to catch in his hands.
not long after, jisoo hears jeonghan step out of his own cubicle, leaving his faucet the only one running. the door of the bathroom bursts open and the sounds of soonyoung and junhui’s chatter make him hasten, his body close to surrendering to the longing ache it has for a warm bed to collapse into and to let his tired eyes rest till morning.
oddly enough, jisoo remains wide awake long after the shower. every limb is gladly settled upon the mattress on his bunk, refusing to move even for the sake of getting a glass of water from the kitchen, but his mind is alert, wandering and wandering and wandering. he listens to the mumblings between seungkwan and mingyu from the opposite of the room he shares with them, not quite focusing on the words but more so on the cadence of their conversation, gradually slowing down as the night grows older. everyone else has presumably sunken into a deep slumber (chan’s snores can be heard from the other room, possibly because they’d left the doors open), and it’s almost completely silent apart from the whirring sound of the ceiling fan and the subsiding exchange between the two younger members, yet jisoo can’t seem to lull himself into well-deserved sleep.
deciding to at least be rid of his boredom, jisoo sits up and reaches to the foot of his bed to pull up his laptop and plug his earphones into it so as to not disturb the others. the light from the screen is the only thing illuminating the room, and as the device starts up he hears seungkwan whispering, “hyung, are you not sleeping yet?” and to that, he responds with a mere shake of the head.
“you go to sleep,” jisoo advises, “we have an early start tomorrow.”
his eyes return to the screen and he double-clicks the adventure time folder on his desktop, scanning the list of episodes as he tries to recall which ones he has watched and which ones he hasn’t. in the end, he settles for episode 7, sinking a little lower into his bed and slumping against the headboard as the colourful animation brightens up his view. casting a glance at seungkwan and mingyu, he sees them fast asleep. (the top bunk is empty.)
going on to immerse himself in about two more consecutive episodes of the animated series, jisoo finally starts to feel a weight on his eyelids, blurring out the images on the screen and distorting the sounds from his earphones, but a figure standing in the doorway jolts him out of his half-asleep state. he blinks at the person, mouth slightly open in surprise.
“seungcheol? why are you still awake?” he questions as seungcheol takes tentative steps towards him, hair mussed up, with tufts sticking up at the crown of his head.
“just couldn’t sleep,” seungcheol mutters, “i’ve been tossing and turning for the past few hours.” he sits on jisoo’s bedside, and jisoo promptly scoots over to make space for him to tuck his legs in under the sheets. “you don’t mind, do you?” seungcheol asks as he adjusts his position into something more comfortable, shifting the pillow to get his own share of it.
“no, not at all,” jisoo says, the new warmth pressed up against his side a pleasant feel, the skin-to-skin contact familiar and welcoming. he doesn’t stiffen the way he used to when seungcheol places his head on his shoulder.
“what are you watching?”
“adventure time. you wanna watch too?” jisoo unplugs one of the earphones and offers it to the other. seungcheol hums noncommittally but takes it anyway, and jisoo unpauses episode 9, resuming the ice king’s rendition of ‘something special’. the two of them watch the rest of the episode in silence.
it is when seungcheol sidles further up to the crook of his neck that jisoo becomes hyper-aware of the subtle flowery scent emanating from seungcheol’s hair — no doubt he’s been using jeonghan’s shampoo; the boy has had an obsession with it for quite a while now. jisoo rests his cheek against the top of the leader’s head, falling into the rhythm of this newfound routine. he loses focus on the vivid images on the screen, his senses instead picking up the steady rise and fall of seungcheol’s chest and the other boy’s fingers intertwined with his own.
he falls asleep like this — eyelids succumbing to the heaviness they’d long endured, head resting on the other’s. the screen of his laptop blacks out like the final flicker of a candle’s weak flame. he isn’t awake when seungcheol secures an arm around his waist, but the added proximity guarantees them both a restful sleep for the remainder of the night.
somehow or another, it becomes a routine.
jisoo’s not entirely taken aback by the change. he assumes it’s just seungcheol making an effort to bridge the gap between them, like he does with every one of the members. he sees the same kind of love the leader exudes in the corner of his eye when seungcheol randomly holds jeonghan’s hand in the middle of an interview; when seungcheol pulls minghao into his side in between photoshoot breaks, squeezing his shoulder affectionately; when he ruffles chan’s hair on the occasion in which the maknae decides to start a tongue-in-cheek banter with his hyungs.
so maybe sleeping next to jisoo every night is just one way seungcheol expresses his endearment for him. regardless of whether jisoo chooses to stay awake for an extra couple of hours or immediately slip into his covers to succumb to restful sleep, seungcheol stays with him like it’s his lifeline. and sometimes, it seems like his little dependency on the habit really is.
jisoo notices the anxiety lining seungcheol’s expression from time to time. it’s barely there, just a hint of downturned curves on the edges of his mouth and slight creases between his eyebrows. jisoo knows that making a comeback is stressful. it’s a make-or-break thing that keeps all of them on edge. seungcheol doesn’t say it, nor does he show any evident signs of stress, but he worries and if cuddling with jisoo is in any way helpful to soothe his nerves, jisoo’s alright with it.
they’re at episode 10 of adventure time when seungcheol quietly asks, “am i a good leader?”
pausing the animation on the screen, jisoo turns to look at the other. the expression on seungcheol’s face is akin to a child anxiously waiting for his parent’s reaction to his report card. jisoo takes hold of his hand, wrapping them with his own palms.
“of course you are. you’ve brought us this far, cheol.”
“i just…” seungcheol’s eyes are downcast, “i know that. but don’t you think jihoon would make a much better leader?”
“you’re talking to one of five members of the vocal team. of course i know how jihoon’s like as a leader of our unit,” jisoo says, smiling, “he is a good leader, i’m not gonna lie. but he’ll risk the chance of losing his mind if he ever has to be in charge of all thirteen of us.”
“you think i’m not?” seungcheol manages to joke, but it’s tinged with the same kind of melancholy he holds in his eyes.
“you’ve been doing good so far. in fact, i’d say you’re doing really well. i honestly don’t know how you’re so patient with all of us.”
seungcheol just shrugs. “you get used to it after a while.”
“exactly,” jisoo says, kneading seungcheol’s hand between his palms soothingly, “you adapt to us, no matter what kind of nonsense we get up to, and still manage to keep us in check at all times. that’s an important quality in a leader, i think.”
seungcheol remains silent. he gently tugs away from jisoo’s clasped hands, and examines the fine lines on his own, as if to interpret hidden messages within them. “you know, i don’t usually say this out loud but sometimes i wonder if this life wasn’t really meant for me after all.” he inhales sharply, and jisoo hears his voice waver as he continues, “i mean, i’m so, so grateful to be where i am now but… it can all be a little —”
“too much,” jisoo finishes the sentence for him when he can’t. he has a hand on seungcheol’s back now, rubbing circles on the wide span of it. “i know. i think of that when i start to miss home, too.”
“america’s so far away. how do you not have a breakdown every time you think of that?”
the question leaves a hollow feeling in the pit of jisoo’s stomach. an aching lump forms just at the base of his throat. he laughs it off, just for the sake of being the mood stabiliser between the two. “this is my coping mechanism,” he gestures to the screen, now in sleep mode. “hansol helps, too.”
“that’s nice,” seungcheol nods. he doesn’t say the remainder of his thoughts, the ones jisoo knows are circling in his head. he instead opts to place his head on the curve of jisoo’s shoulder, just like any other night before. “thank you,” he whispers.
jisoo starts to get an inkling of a tune stuck in his head the following night he decides to stay up with jihoon in the recording studio. he plays with the different chords on his guitar and hums it, a short melody that breaks the silence in the room. jihoon, fortunately, has on a pair of headphones, listening to demos on his laptop, so he doesn’t turn to give jisoo the dirty look he reserves for whenever anyone tries interrupting his creative processes. plucking the strings, he slowly finds the words to accompany the tune. he grabs a pen from jihoon’s work station and a piece of paper, jotting them down before they slip away from his consciousness. by the time jihoon stretches out his limbs and declares that he’s going to bed, jisoo’s got one verse and a chorus down.
he pretends to not notice jihoon’s curious stare as he pockets the paper and stow away his guitar before the studio lights go out. jihoon may be his confidant on quiet, sleepless nights in which their only companion besides each other is music, but jisoo doesn’t feel much like telling jihoon about how seungcheol had been the only thing on his mind as he’d worked on his newly conceived song.
when he returns to his bed, he finds seungcheol curled up under his sheets. he slips next to seungcheol, trying to be careful not to wake him up, but seungcheol’s always been somewhat of a light sleeper.
“where were you?” seungcheol mumbles, immediately pulling jisoo closer. he buries his nose into jisoo’s chest and jisoo feels his satisfied hum sending vibrations against his ribcage.
“in the studio with jihoon,” jisoo answers, rubbing along the edge of seungcheol’s side assuringly.
“i missed you.” seungcheol words are barely audible, muffled against the material of jisoo’s shirt, but jisoo manages to catch them and he can’t help but smile.
“i missed you, too.”
when seventeen gets their very first win on mbc, jisoo witnesses his members cry. they’re tears of joy, ones that fall down the unit leaders’ (and seungkwan’s) cheeks at the memory of giving their absolute all in pursuit of something as momentous as this. he laughs and hugs those closest to him, chest feeling close to bursting with exhilaration.
seungcheol can barely speak, passing the microphone to soonyoung and soonyoung has no choice but to splutter an almost incoherent acceptance speech on all their behalf through his sobs. the confetti rains down on them, and it’s a moment that’s sure to be remembered even far into the future. they’re supposed to do an encore stage, but no one feels up to it. they’re all too caught up in the moment to put up a good show for their audience. even then, jisoo watches seungcheol attempt to rap his verse of their song through his tears. it’s rare, the leader baring his emotions like this. jisoo knows this firsthand. seungcheol’s always had a tendency to bottle things up for the sake of his other members, turning to a select few members for emotional release.
in retrospect, it’s a little ironic how everyone’s so open with each other most of the time, but so reticent at other times. he supposes that’s the case when you have a large group of boys in the same group. while they all treat each other like family, there are always certain people that understand each member best. as for seungcheol, jisoo considers himself lucky to be one of the few the leader leans on for this very purpose.
later on, they tease each other for being crybabies on stage. (it’s all in good jest, of course.)
they stay out a little later after dinner, stomachs full with celebratory food they’d had and they share hearty laughter over playful jabs and conversation with each other. jisoo finds hansol sticking close to him, possibly because the younger boy had sensed the quiver in his voice earlier when they’d had their livestream to thank their fans. he rests his head on hansol’s shoulder as they all listen to minghao recount a funny story back when he was in china. everyone pays rapt attention to him, and there’s unanimous agreement among them all when seungkwan loudly coos over minghao’s improved korean.
seungcheol, just then, stands up to badger them all to make a toast to that.
jisoo thinks this is the happiest he’s seen the leader in a very long time.
the song jisoo crafts eventually develops into a demo that jihoon persuades him to record. it sits in one of jihoon’s many work-in-progress folders in his laptop, hidden away from the others until jihoon figures out what to do with it. jisoo’s quite sure that jihoon knows what, or rather, who the song is about, but he doesn’t question it.
it’s probably evident enough by the way jisoo welcomes seungcheol into his bed every night that jisoo’s a little in love with the way seungcheol loves everyone around him. wholeheartedly, unconditionally, selflessly.
seungcheol makes anywhere feel like home.