Chapter Text
Backstage is a deathtrap during showtime.
The last time Donghyuck stood there—root-like wires digging into the soles of his numb feet, eyes too wide for his chubby face and hope too big for this hoarse, pocket-empty dream—he witnessed Taeyong’s artistic downfall in three acts.
“You can always try next year, hyung,” he said once Taeyong left the stage with a sour twisted mouth, tongue ruminating behind his tight lips as if still chasing after unsaid verses.
Getting to him should’ve been easy. No one cut through Taeyong’s way because no one ever cares about a second place. Donghyuck still tripped over buckled cables and forgotten stage lights, his nose digging painfully into Taeyong’s shoulder when he fell face-first against that familiar chest.
Donghyuck tried again. “You can come back next year, hyung.”
Taeyong looked over his shoulder, eyes lit-up orange by the billboard-big screens that kept flashing a face that wasn’t his. Confetti sneaked backstage, glittery golden that stuck to Taeyong’s sweaty face like ripped gift wrap.
“I don’t think so, Donghyuck-ah.”
He smiled as if he wasn’t giving up, twinkling yellow getting between his parted lips.
“I’ll try for you, then, hyung.”
“You’re not ready, kid.”
I will be, Donghyuck thought, digging golden out of Taeyong’s mouth. For you, I will be.
- ROUND 1 -
first audition: acapella rap
The worst part about razor-pretty idols is that none of them know their place.
Every single year, boys with backs too straight and teeth too white walk along the audition queue, dragging their feet a beat too slow for it to be genuine. Bare faces, black hair, and snapbacks pulled down to their noses to conceal their privilege, they wear baggy clothes like a disguise and swear every two sentences through their pearly fake teeth.
If you’re gonna stomp over someone else’s turf to steal from the very center of their heart, the least you can do is do it quietly, do it humbly.
This year, Mark Lee rolls around in a shiny black van with tinted windows and doors that slide open sideways to make way for his high-brand shoes, doesn’t even have the decency to fake it.
“Hasn’t debuted yet and he already comes bragging,” Yangyang mutters into Donghyuck’s ear. He’s got an arm wrapped around his shoulders, additional sticky warmth to a day that’s already burning red, but it’s best to keep the crew under your wing when you’re about to step into the battlefield. “He could at least keep his fuckin’ chin to his chest.”
Ironed shirt buttoned up to his throat like an altar boy, well-known SM Entertainment trainee Mark Lee walks closer with two guys at his flanks as if he can afford bodyguards. Cupcake pink hair falling over his eyes, he stares at the long queue with jittery fingers dancing over expensive-looking rings, his bottom lip caught between perfectly aligned incisors. He probably picked black clothes so it won’t show once he sweats through.
“Hey, good morning,” he greets with arched eyebrows and a polite mouth. He’s got eyes that don’t quite fit on his face, big bright balls with small dark pupils like a snake bite. He jumps his glance over their crew as if trying to decide which one of them looks less likely to sting. He tilts his naive head towards Donghyuck. “Is this the audition queue for Show Me The Money?”
Not even plastic guys like him are this empty-headed, and Donghyuck hates few things more than stupid questions and useless small talk. Eyes rolling white, he offers Mark Lee nothing but his back and a scoff.
“Dang, Renjun,” Mark says to Donghyuck’s nape, whispering in that tone you use when you want to be heard. “And these are the rappers you like?”
The best way to deal with cocky outsiders is to pay them no mind until you’ve got the upper hand, chew them off on stage with wordplay they haven’t been trained to keep up with, but Yangyang’s got a big smile as flammable as his short fuse. He ruffles next to Donghyuck in half a second, turns around with his chest puffed out, tongue stuck into his cheek like a threat.
“You’ve got a problem now, posh boy?”
Hands up and palms out, pledging for a truce before the war has even started, Mark politely smiles his perfect-rich-teeth smile and takes a step closer. “An answer wouldn’t have hurt you, right, dude? You could’ve been civil, at least.”
“You were expecting us to be polite? To you?” Donghyuck chuckles, running his tongue over his crooked front teeth. He slides his eyes from Mark’s face to his fancy van, parallel-parked a breeze away from the curb. A black-suited driver with sunglasses leans against the closed door, waiting cross-armed for him and his friends. “Do your fuckin’ homework, Kirby.”
“Stop it, hyung.” Jisung grips Donghyuck’s wrist from where he stands behind him. His touch is sticky, the nervous kind, cold with sweat in the early-summer heat, a reminder that not everyone is as sure they will make it in as Donghyuck is. “Don’t start a fight when the cameras aren’t even rolling.”
Donghyuck is about to put his weapons down when Mark takes another step closer, slipping right through one of his friends’ fingers. It’s a short foreign guy, his friend—looks like someone Donghyuck could’ve seen before, but not remarkable enough to remember where. The tips of his fingers rub the smooth black fabric of Mark’s black shirt before his hand falls limp by his side, the skin stained grey as if smudged by cigarette ash.
Idol boys are too well-behaved to smoke, though.
“Wait, Kirby?” Mark asks, his head tilted to the side one more time, pale slender fingers reeling one of his silver rings around his middle finger. “So you think I’m cute?”
Yangyang is so easily winded up that the words only deepen his scowl. Jisung has the decency to hide his laughter. Jeno, though, laughs open-mouthed and squint-eyed, his head falling back when Donghyuck elbows him on the stomach. Mark’s short friend only gapes at them, but the other one laughs dolphin-like, high-pitched enough to have half of the queue turning heads.
Rolling his shoulders, Donghyuck’s the one taking a step closer now, standing broom-up-his-ass straight for once like all these little idol boys are used to do.
“Oh, sure, pretty boy,” he smiles sideways, slaps Mark’s cheek softly with taunt fingers. Mark walks out of his reach when Donghyuck goes for a second hit. “Whatever makes you feel better.”
He can think whatever he pleases for what Donghyuck cares—the lovelier his fantasies, the harder he will cry once real rappers drag his ass through the mud.
Razor-pretty idols never know their place, always standing bigger than they have the right to. Donghyuck will have to shove Mark Lee into shape.
---
Backstage is a deathtrap during showtime, but the stage is death-assured if you aren’t ready.
Three hours of waiting under the clear summer sun, sticky on the back of the knees from the heat or the nerves or both, only to perform for half a minute. Climbing up the stairs of the stage in an organized straight line as if walking to the death row, twinkle-golden necklaces hanging from the producers’ fingers like a noose.
Life-or-death for half a minute is worth the weight of four words hanging from Donghyuck’s neck, fake metal chains wrapping around his sun-burnt nape, cold seeping through until it hits spine.
Once it’s over, the ticket to the next round secured against Donghyuck's chest, Jeno runs down the stairs of the stage, three steps for each stride, golden shining on his chest in tune with Donghyuck’s.
“You fuckin’ madman!” He screams into Donghyuck’s face bordering delirious, spit getting into Donghyuck’s eyes as Jeno pulls him closer by the back of his neck with eager fingers. “You freestyled that shit, didn’t you? You are batshit, dude. Fuckin’ crazy.”
Donghyuck gifts him a full-belly laugh, nerves rolling off of him in waves, his body slumping forward into Jeno’s arms like a puppet with broken strings. “Gotta make the most out of my strengths, am I right?”
Jeno wraps his arms around his middle, squeezes tight enough to have Donghyuck grunting. The edge of the big plaque of Donghyuck’s necklace digs into his sternum and Jeno’s chain presses into his cheek when Donghyuck hides his face on his neck. He sneaks his arms around Jeno’s shoulders, squeezes twice as hard.
“You’re gonna eat everyone up, Haechan.”
The stage is death-assured if you aren’t ready. Donghyuck has been ready for five years.
---
Na Jaemin is the only person with idol blood Donghyuck fucks with.
He may be half-tied up to an idol company, but no one can run a record label on their own, least if you’re catering to the underground. He may waste money on useless jewelry, dress in high-brand clothes, and drive a car that’s worth more than Donghyuck’s one-piece apartment and everything inside of it put together, but at least he earned all of it with real talent.
At the end of the day, Na Jaemin left a fancy toy store to fight for the ragdolls. Born only two months after Donghyuck and he already gets the underdogs on the charts with every single beat he produces for a small-named sub-label.
Jaemin is the only person with an idol past Donghyuck could fuck with. That is until he stops before Mark Lee to judge his half-minute audition and smiles at him like he’s crew.
“I’ve heard they are old friends,” Jisung says, his leg rubbing against Donghyuck’s as it bounces up and down even though he secured his necklace half an hour ago. “Trained together when Jaemin used to sing, apparently.”
Donghyuck tenses, the edge of the top step biting into his forearms when he leans back, spreading his legs and squinting up at the stage with a stretched neck to steal a good look of Mark.
He’s smiling small and polite, his back set and his chin held high, but he keeps fidgeting with his rings, the two top buttons of his shirt popped open. He’s probably already wet between his arms and legs, buttery on the knees with inexperience after only ever having performed in front of the same people that feed him, those who dress him up with expensive clothes and sweet-talk him into believing he’s the next idol-rapper prodigy.
Nothing impressive comes past Mark’s lips when he finally opens his mouth. Nothing at all rolls off his tongue after the first three words.
Jeno snickers, falling shakily into Donghyuck’s side. “A blank when he hasn’t even started. What a joke.”
“I thought he’d be better,” Jisung mumbles into his fingers, hands interlaced in front of his mouth, trembling along with his leg.
But Na Jaemin isn’t moving to the next contestant right away as he should be doing. Donghyuck leans forward, trying to keep his expression neutral because the cameras are rolling and evil-editing never looks cute, Taeyong’s experience backs it up.
Yangyang, short-wired Yangyang, shoots to his feet like a rocket.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me,” he almost shouts, flapping Jisung’s hand away when he tries to tug him back down. “Guess they are all the same breed, right?” Yangyang spits, dagger eyes focused on Jaemin’s back as Mark starts rapping again. “Got that fancy company shit still in the veins.”
Mark Lee has cupcake pink hair and the guts to whisper-rap about breaking kneecaps five seconds after stumbling over his own soft, poorly trained tongue.
He also has the pretty privilege and expensive friends Donghyuck could never afford, as proven by the golden SMTM necklace Na Jaemin hangs around his neck like a prize instead of an undeserved gift, a robbery.
They smile at each other with twin fake pearls as teeth, and Donghyuck spits on the floor, foreground in front of a rolling camera.
---
Donghyuck shouldn’t have to spell it out for anybody.
The main difference between idol rappers and real rappers is that the idols only want the name, the underground need the money.
Mediocre idol rappers already own a big chunk of the music industry just by existing, get played on the radio for 10-second-raps in overly produced songs that always sound the same. Same flow, same metric, same wordplay for dummies, they still barge into underground spaces to try to reap a glory that should never be theirs. They have a paycheck assured at the end of each month, but they still use their privilege to walk all over people who have nothing but rap, just because they can.
Seeking a name amongst a crowd they don’t belong to, they run out of the scene as soon as the show is over and brag about it on TV once they get back onstage with their scalpel calculated groups.
The people in Donghyuck’s crew got nothing but words to get by.
Music can barely fill up your grumbling stomach when the only chances you get are scattered gigs in the darkest clubs of Hongdae at ass hours in the morning. They get a single golden chance a year to play on television, and only one out of hundreds get to make it.
Most of the time, making it only buys stability for a few months. And those who barely make it, blink once and they are gone.
“Did all of you make it in?” Taeyong asks, the metallic spoons in his hand clicking together as he washes them in cold water.
Donghyuck shakes his head, strawberry tongue plastered to the roof of his mouth, fingers getting sticky-cold around the cup of ice cream he’s holding.
“Lucas didn’t make it. Got a single syllable wrong and the producer was already moving on,” he grabs the disposable spoon between thumb and index finger, glares at the strawberry cream that slips down the transparent green plastic before he can get it into his mouth. “And Sungchan got cut off mid-verse. His flow wasn’t interesting enough or some shit like that.”
The stage is a deathtrap. Trip over your words once and it could be over. Get the beat wrong and end up with a deactivated SoundCloud account, an orange FOR SALE banner hanging from the door of your studio, and an ice cream spoon between your fingers instead of a microphone.
Taeyong hums, head bobbing absentmindedly to the bubblegum pop music that’s playing on the radio. “At least your boys got through, right? Jisungie, too?”
If the rest of the crew were here, they would already be turning heads and scrunching noses. Your boys, Haechan? Playing favorites isn’t pretty.
“Yeah, yeah,” Donghyuck says, muffled when he gets a sugar-stained finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the first knuckle until he can taste nothing but dull skin. “I knew we’d all pass. Told you we’re more than ready.”
“Always so sure of yourself,” Taeyong smiles, eyes still down on the sink.
The tiny plastic clatters against the bar when Donghyuck lets it slip from his fingers, mouth half-open as he brings the entire paper cup to his face. He licks and slurps until the cup is white-clean, his cheeks getting full and slick, mouth freezing cold and saccharine when he sucks at his own teeth.
“Myself and nothing else,” he says with a satisfied grunt, sliding the empty cup towards Taeyong. He burps loudly, leaning onto the bar with crossed arms, chin propped up on his wrist. “There’s this posh idol dude, though...”
With a high-pitched aha!, Taeyong lifts wide eyes to Donghyuck. “I knew it was coming,” he says, pointing at him with an accusatory soap-covered finger. “You weren’t complaining enough.”
“Shut up, hyung. I complain just enough,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes at him, his lower lip jutting out when Taeyong’s smile only widens. “Thing is, Na Jaemin gave him another run. He forgot his fucking lyrics and still got a second chance. And the necklace. How unfair is that?”
Taeyong looks at him with his eyebrows disappearing under his fringe, blond strands plastered to his forehead because his ridiculous topless company hat pushes his hair against his skull. “He must’ve been good, then.”
“Or he must have good connections,” Donghyuck chuckles, bare teeth wetting the skin of his wrist. “We all know Jaemin’s past.”
The worst part about the ice cream parlor is the lighting.
White neons zigzagging the ceiling and flickering as if possessed by a ghost from a bad horror movie, washed white falling over Taeyong and turning his skin corpse-grey, his own cheekbones casting shadows on his slim cheeks. Nothing but a pretty skull with hollow eyes, nothing left of that glow that used to buzz underneath his skin back when the stage was his main home.
“You know what I think?” he says, smiling softly at Donghyuck like he’s been doing since he took him under his wing, 8 years ago and counting. “You aren’t one to waste time, Donghyuck-ah. You wouldn’t spare him a thought if he wasn’t worth it.”
---
Define ‘worth it’:
Sufficiently good, enjoyable, or successful to repay any effort, trouble, or expense.
Mark Lee might be worth a moody night, three complaints, and the reluctant acknowledgment that whisper-rapping in a first audition takes a bit of courage and originality when it comes to idol rappers.
However, he’s not worth the chain around his neck, nor a nightmare night of rumpled sheets and sweated through pj’s where Donghyuck’s future keeps slipping away in his head, billboard-big screens flashing Mark’s face while Donghyuck chokes on glittery golden confetti.
Donghyuck jolts awake at four in the morning, wet on the cheeks, head reeling like a broken record: it should’ve been Lucas, it should’ve been Lucas, it should’ve been Lucas.