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genav0s · 5 months

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❪ ⌕ . ❫ ' OO. ㅤ ﹕ PRESSURE⠀!⠀⠀⠀[ . . . ]

i cannot make you understand. i cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside of me. i cannot even explain it to myself.⠀–—⠀from, "The Metamorphosis"

✶ . CHARACTERS: eun hwaseong & ian moon. ✶ . WORD COUNT: 2.2k ✶ . WARNINGS: swearing, jealousy, drug use, & fighting. ✶ . NOTES: seunghui & doyun are in my wip boy group. written in two hours instead of finishing the conclusion of my anthropology thesis, might be a little academic vocabulary-wise in the beginning. jarringly inconsistent usage of present & past tense.

There is something to be said about pressure. An all-consuming smothering that has the capacity to produce diamonds or dust.

Hwaseong loved the feeling of that smothering pressure.

He liked the duality of feeling trapped in his own head but protected by the knowledge that he’d come out on the other side.

He was raised on the adrenaline of everything being on the line— his mother’s entire career was revived in an instant with a carefully executed smile on Hwaseong’s behalf. He was performing on stage, entertainment for politicians and important celebrities, before he could properly assemble reliable memories and expressions of the rush of emotions he felt every time he stepped up into the spotlight.

Training at Apricus was a breeze compared to the level of perfection his mother instilled in him as she oversaw his tutoring sessions. Accustomed to the expectation of excellence and motivated by the tense scrutiny the executives placed upon potential debuts, in Hwaseong’s mind the only reason he hadn’t debuted sooner was because of how young he was.

Karin had a weird aversion to debuting anyone under the age of 16— the rule hadn’t been broken for a single artist under the label. He figured it had something to do with the contract she was under when she had first debuted, though he had never thought to ask.

Ending up on the survival show was a sigh of relief for the Seoul native. The gesture— he believed, was supposed to be a true show of their faith in his talents and marketability. Seven years of dedication at the age of 17 was more than most of the others on the show could boast about. Sure, he figured it would be just as much a challenge as it was a reward for his hard work. But he figured being chosen for the show was much more a formality than a true test of his charisma and bare minimum ability to carry a tune.

The offense he found in the selection of the other boys had been a selling point in his arc throughout the show. He was filmed scoffing at Sanghyuk’s long hours spent practicing over and over and over in the dance studio Hwaseong knew had the best acoustics. He rolled his eyes when Carter struggled to find the right words to thank the judging panel’s gracious oversight of his horrendous pronunciation. His teeth gritted in annoyance as he bit back insults directed at Jioh every time he hurled whatever it was he ate before his confessionals.

But none of them got under his skin the way Ian Moon managed to.

Their disdain for one another had been well documented throughout the show. In Hwaseong’s eyes, Ian was nothing more than a pretty boy who had only made it onto the show as someone else’s replacement. Hwaseong had never bothered to ask why Ian had similarly brushed Hwaseong off so early on, in truth he didn’t care much for the reason.

The two’s highly publicized mutual distaste had managed to pique the interests of the producers who incorporated the tension between the two into nearly every episode.

Genuine statements of “Thank you for the opportunity, I’ll try harder” from Ian were met with censored insults from Hwaseong. And as the distance between their rankings continued to grow throughout the first half of the series, Hwaseong only felt emboldened by his disdain for the Texan former athlete.

“I don’t get it. Yeah, he was put on the show ‘cause he’s pretty, but so what?” Doyun laughs as he watches Hwaseong’s careful surveillance of Ian’s revisioning behind the glass separating the two of them.

“Pretty sells,” Seunghui agrees, nodding at Doyun’s words, gently nudging Hwaseong’s shoulder. With a scowl, Hwaseong reverts his eyes from the sight in front of him. Turning to the other two instead.

“Dude’s a smug asshole. Trained for a few months— as a joke, by the way. And he ends up on the shortlist for a boy group because what— some middle school girl thought he was hot?” Doyun and Seunghui exchange a glance before dissolving into shared laughter, falling into each other as Hwaseong broods to himself.

“Careful, middle school girls are about to fund your whole career.” Doyun hums, lips downturned into a pout as he taps at Hwaseong’s cheek sarcastically.

“Isn’t your sister in middle school?” Seunghui chimes in curiously, finally catching Hwaseong’s attention.

“What if Dasom's part of the middle school girls that petitioned for Ian to be on the show?” Doyun muses, bouncing off of Seunghui’s good-natured teasing of their older friend. With a piercing side eye, Hwaseong chooses to ignore the two’s musings.

“He’s lucky Jaehee’s personally mentoring him,” He mentions off-handedly.

Doyun and Seunghui’s confusion is enough for him to continue fueling his own jealous ruminations.

“He’s in there with her right now, bastard—”

With a rumble of chuckling from the other two, Hwaseong’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, briefly releasing him from his ranting.

“Jaehee offered to give pointers to anyone who got to her during the break before filming resumed,” Seunghui explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

The corners of Doyun’s mouth curled in amusement as they watched Hwaseong try to run through the endless instructions thrown at them over the hours they had already spent filming that day.

“I—” He begins, only to be cut off by enthused Doyun.

“He’s not the bastard between the two of you either. His dad’s just dead, yours is a whore.”

The act of filming the show was quite possibly the most dreaded part of Hwaseong’s routine for the latter half of 2013. He concealed yawns and distasteful jokes behind the heads of the other contestants, only stepping into view of the camera when it came time for him to prove his worth to the judges seated in front of the remaining trainees.

Regardless of his intentional aversion to the camera, the producers always managed to find him when he and Ian were at their most heated. Volatile exchanges heightened into agitated bite-backs which bled into almost any mention of the one contestant that could unnerve Hwaseong at the mere sound of his name. He never thought it to be a coincidence that the two of them happened to find themselves within minimal feet of one another, entering confessionals as one exited, performing one before the other.

But the producers had never made their thirst for conflict more obvious than one of the last days of filming.

Against all— mostly Hwaseong’s— odds, Ian had managed to squeeze his way within reach of the final lineup. A final solo performance of each of the 10 trainees remaining would be the determination between debut and elimination. Doyun and Seunghui had been eliminated weeks ago. Hwaseong wasn’t surprised as much as he was peeved. For some reason, the show just couldn’t shake Ian.

“Yo, what’s your fuckin’ problem with me, dude?”

Hwaseong knew Ian had issues with his temper. It was a plot point emphasized over and over by the producers throughout the taping. He had a short fuse and a burning desire to get even. Hwaseong figured it to be leftover rage from the injury that removed the possibility of achieving the dream he’d had since he was a young boy. Sanghyuk had let it slip that Ian’s father was an abusive surgeon— an oxymoron that made Hwaseong’s head hurt so bad he brushed it off and never thought about it again.

“Does it matter?” Hwaseong snarks in response, the corner of his lip curling in his quip. Three words are all it takes for Ian’s eyes to light up brighter than Hwaseong had ever seen before. A fire suddenly erupted from a spark he didn’t know was there.

“Yeah, it does Hwaseong.” Ian hissed, fists and jaw equally tense, clenched in restraint. He glances at the other trainees who slowly begin to pay attention to the tension breaking between the two boys.

“Whatever Ian. The show’s almost over, you’ll be able to go home and forget about me in about three days.” His words are delivered with a scoff, a roll of his eyes following shortly after.

“Are you threatened by me or—” That was enough to set Hwaseong off. The fire spreading to his much darker eyes, launching him forward to stand eye-to-eye with the American.

“Threatened?” He all but spat the word out, as if an insult to his existence. “You’re so full of shit. We both know the only reason you’re here is because Jaehee wants to keep the pretty boy with the funny accent around.”

There isn’t a moment of pause before Ian grabs at Hwaseong’s shirt, throwing him to the ground before Hwaseong or any of the other spectators could react. As Hwaseong scrambles to rise to his feet from the frigid floor beneath him Ian smirks at the clear panic in his eyes.

“What’s it like to be so fucking pathetic that no one bothers defends you?” The amusement in his eyes sends a shiver down Hwaseong’s spine as he finds himself unable to tear his attention away from the vocalist towering over him.

“What’s it like to be so fucking cowardly you have to beat the motivation out of your competition to win at anything?” Hwaseong’s words are coated in venom as he returns the insult. “You’re not making the group, Ian. No one wants you here.”

With that, a blur of yelling and bodies shifting in Hwaseong’s vision clouds his perception. He barely registers the others struggling to restrain the older boy from grabbing at the younger. The ringing in his ears from the weight of the built-up resentment between the two of them culminates in a smirk that Hwaseong can tell infuriates Ian to his core.

Through gritted teeth, held back by both Sanghyuk and Carter, Ian musters a strained, “Fuck you.”

With a saunter to the door of the practice room, Hwaseong speaks up with one last taunt. “Take care of yourself, Ian. Send us a postcard from Texas.”

If Hwaseong believed in a higher power, he was sure God was enjoying making Hwaseong eat his words. Over the next three days, Ian had not only turned half of the other contestants against the show’s youngest trainee but had managed to squeeze his way into the final lineup.

As if by some sick twist of fate, Hwaseong watched the group’s final member claim the last spot in the quintet, that signature cocky smirk of his plastered across his praised features. When he catches Hwaseong’s eye from his spot at the other end of the line— Sanghyuk and Romeo providing a necessary buffer between the two with starry eyes and blinding smiles, Hwaseong can feel his stomach twist with a chill so nauseating his smile is wiped from his face. His knees buckle underneath him, catching Carter’s attention who finds the situation so gratifying he leans over to whisper a carefully enunciated, “How’s it feel, dumbass?” under his breath.

With disbelief etched into his expression, mistakenly read as gratitude, Hwaseong trends for the next week.

“Do you remember that fight we got into?” Ian chuckles lowly, slowly taking a hit from the lit blunt in his hand. He shakes his head as he remembers the moment that irrevocably changed the course of his life. He exhales after a moment, watching the smoke fill the empty air in front of his nose before slowly dissipating into the Seoul night sky. Ian shifts to take a second drag before passing the blunt to Hwaseong, sighing slowly.

“Yeah, made you eat shit in front of everyone,” Ian responds, a dimple coming to rest on his cheek, turning to watch Hwaseong as his lips closed around the blunt between his fingers.

“Shut up. You did not make me ‘eat shit’”. Hwaseong answers, the smoke leaving his mouth in a sudden stream.

“Yeah, I did. I beat your ass and made it into the final lineup.”

The younger man’s eyebrows furrow in disagreement, “You did not beat my ass, Ian.”

As he reaches for the blunt, Ian playfully hums, “Still made it into the lineup.”

Hwaseong scoffs with an eye roll, “Last.”

With an exhale Ian simply mutters, “How bad does your ass still sting?”

The two share a lazy chuckle, eyes drooping as they recall the memory differently. Rising with a grunt, Hwaseong brushes off the comment casually, “Whatever, dickhead.”

Mirroring with a grunt of his own, Ian gently soothes the younger man’s temperament, “You love me.”

Receiving a grumble in response, Ian watches Hwaseong turn to unlock the door of their dorm to reenter the shared space in the early hours of the morning.

Stopping him with a sudden urgency he asks, “Wait, do we look high? I don’t need Sanghyuk on my ass tonight.”

Hwaseong offers a snorted chuckle in response, receiving a furrowing of Ian’s eyebrows. “Doesn’t matter that you look high when you smell high.” After a brief moment of blank staring on Ian’s end, Hwaseong continues toward the door, fiddling with the door knob.

“I smell high?”

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