with the month still being rather empty for most of the members despite the news of their first comeback and new lines to learn, there hasn’t been much to do than regular practice, going through their already released songs and choreographies over and over again to burn them back into their minds. some lounging around back at the dorm has been an option too but not one that baekhyun likes much -- always scared of ending up slacking off too much. of getting lazy and adding to the weird mood he’s been in ever since their break. those post-debut blues. baekhyun wants to get out of it rather than sinking into it even more.
which is one of the reasons why he slips off the couch after mindlessly staring at the screen of the television, leaving the other members watching and dozing off behind to get back to his room.
one of his roommates is in there, the one he was actually hoping to find, and he throws him a smile despite it getting unnoticed with how kangjoon seems to be focused on the few papers in his hands, has baekhyun wonder if he’s preparing for his solo schedule. he sits down at the edge of his own bed, wiggling his legs a little. “seunghwanah,” he asks to get the other’s attention, “do you want to go out for a bit?” he knows that kangjoon has to prepare for stuff too, is going to be busier than him, but he’s the one baekhyun wants to spend time with right now. the best person to do this with -- “get some ddeokbokki and something to drink maybe?”
their break lasted for almost a month. long enough to fall too far after the high that debut gave him, after all those feelings of excitement and the nerves, after weeks of promotions and packed schedules that had them fall into bed in the latest hours of the night only to get back up for the same routine a few hours later. ( suddenly there was nothing. ) it almost felt for baekhyun like he was drifting back into a low that he never fully got out from and it’s why he’s having trouble getting back into the right mindspace after they’re shown the song for their first comeback. when they’re dismissed with new lines to learn and something different to practice after a long while.
baekhyun studies them, practices, but he doesn’t quite feel them.
his vocal coach complains about the lack of emotion when he sings, tells him that it’s a surprise when it’s usually one of his strengths together and that he should pull himself together, it beats him down a little. has him press his cheek against the surface of the kitchen table while everyone is using the rest of their night in their own way; relaxing and unwinding. recharging. baekhyun’s gaze slips to jaehyun in the seat next to him, playing on his nintendo switch in full concentration.
the desire to talk to him is strong. to spill what’s been weighing down on his chest all evening but he’s not sure if he can. he’s the leader, he has to be strong. “what do you think about our new song, jaehyunnie?” he asks out of the blue, instead.
for some reason he’s feeling quite nervous as he takes the cellphone their manager handed over to him when he dropped him off at the dorm after practice, positioning it on the floor in front of his bed in hopefully the right angle— or any angle that will make him look good and doesn’t end up cutting half of his face off. head tilting to the side in the direction he’s tilting the phone, brows furrowed in concentration. “you asked for it two days ago, didn’t you?” sohoon hyung said with a soft curl of his lips before pushing the phone into his hands and explaining how exactly the app he wants to use works, which settings he should use since usually it’s him or someone else from the company that sets these things up. baekhyun is doing it by himself this time, though.
completely.
without any staff members, without their manager. ( “i will watch, though. to make sure you’re not doing anything stupid,” he said. ) without his members. it’s going to be his first vlive alone. just b.mil and his fans on his birthday; a little surprise gift to thank them for all their birthday wishes.
once he’s decided on a title for the live, he starts it.
B.MILIE’S SECRET BIRTHDAY PARTY~~ 💖🎁
baekhyun leans forward to the screen with a curious gaze, crossing his legs underneath him and reaches for the phone to adjust it a little more now that he can actually see himself. “does this look good?” he asks, trying to sound as if he’s fully concentrated on the task. actually, he’s just pushing for more time to let fans see the notifications for his vlive on his phone. waiting for more fans to join and he can barely hide the smile that’s curling onto his lips when he sees the comments rushing past, viewer and heart count going up more than he expected it would.
leaning back against the end of his bed, he drops his hands in his lap and just stares at the screen, smiling.
the comment section is full of greetings and even more birthday wishes and there are a lot of crying emojis as well, fans expressing their surprise and happiness. baekhyun’s glad that he could make them this happy already -- he didn’t even do anything yet. so he raises his hands and waves them in front of the screen, “hello,” grinning at himself, “it’s b.mil! hello, hello.”
“i thought i’m going to surprise you, are you happy?” baekhyun laughs as the comments tumble in, “oh, i’m glad. thank you for all the birthday wishes. thank you so much, it made my heart all warm.” he runs his fingers through unruly locks. “shall we have a birthday party together?”
“just a little one because it’s late and i want you all to get enough sleep. you have school tomorrow, don’t you?” leaning in a little, he squints his eyes to read the comments. trying to see which one he can catch because they vanish again because of all the spam. “some of you have to work tomorrow? me too, i wish i could sleep in… i don’t like getting up early, but i’ll work hard for all of you!”
he falls silent for a moment, just reading through the comments and humming along to them as if he’s having a conversation with someone. as if he wasn’t completely alone in his shared room after nicely throwing his roommates out.
“oppa, please wish me luck for my exam tomorrow,” he reads out loud, “you have an exam tomorrow? isn’t it a bit early? ah, it’s for cram school? i see, i see. good luck then! just stay calm even when you don’t know an answer and don’t forget to read through everything once before you turn it in. i always forgot… i bet my grades would have been better if i did that each time.” laughter escapes him as fans ask him about school, his grades.
conversations moving along quickly and baekhyun finds himself more often than not staying silent. just trying to read what everyone’s writing.
fans ask him about it, whine about him being too quiet.
“ah, why? i’m trying to read everything you write but you’re all so fast. i thought i was quick at typing.” he chuckles. “you want me to tell you about my birthday?”
he does.
tells them how the whole group woke him up in the morning just for seonho to smash his face into some birthday cake -- the de:code tradition that he loves so much and considered banning forever in the very moment frosting and buttercream stuck to his cheeks and eyelashes. he makes sure to mention how he had an easy day when there was only practice in store for him and how he spent his breaks reading through their birthday wishes. “my mom called me really early to gratulate me. she even sent me some cake,” baekhyun says and smiles, “actually—” he goes on and gets up from the floor with a grunt before walking around the room to get the cake he just told everyone about. grabbing it from the desk he left it at before getting ready for the live.
“—i have it right here,” he continues as he drops back down in the spot he was in before, a plate with a cake in his hands. simple white frosting, strawberries and long, thin candles on top. of course, his mom sent him more than just that, something to share with the members and a birthday card. a bracelet as a small gift that he’s still wearing despite being in his pajamas. “i thought that it would be nice if we ate it together.” baekhyun chuckles, a sheepish expression on his face as he shows the cake from all angles, careful that it doesn’t slip on the floor.
“do you like that idea?”
another laugh comes from him at the overwhelming response and he lifts his fork up to point at the phone screen. “okay, then let’s sing for me first, hm?” he licks his lips. “one. two. three.”
he sings quietly to himself;
breaks out into shy laughter in between but goes on until his birthday song is over. “i hope you all sang with me! it’s not embarrassing since it’s for me, right? right? let’s eat now, my mom bakes really well so i’m sure it tastes amazing…” and right when he’s about to dig his fork in, the door to his room opens. without a knock, just like that. it startles baekhyun, makes him flinch a little.
“hyung—”
that whine is familiar and baekhyun can’t help but grin when he sees seonho standing in between the door frame with a pout on his lips and shoulders hanging low all while the chat is going crazy over the voice they just heard.
“hyung. the others are watching a horror movie even though i said i don’t want to see one because it’s scary and— wait, are you eating cake? without me—” seonho is walking over to him as he speaks, whines at him, before he notices the cake sitting in his palm. baekhyun can see the surprise all over his face, followed by his tongue swiping over his lips. ( seems like baekhyun won’t share this cake with his fans only. ) “why didn’t you call— oh,” the younger’s gaze falls onto the phone on the ground in front of him. “what are you doing?” he bends his body low to take a peek at the screen. “are you doing a vlive?”
baekhyun can hear the excitement in his voice.
“yeah. for my birthday.”
“hello! hello!” seonho’s already leaning towards the phone, not quite listening anymore, and waving wildly. baekhyun sees the wide, happy smile that’s spreading across his lips on the screen. “i missed everyone, how are you?”
and he can’t help himself but to laugh at the cuteness dripping from seonho’s voice as he sits down right in front of the phone, reading the comments and greeting everyone back. a stream of hello’s falls.
“yes, i threw the cake at hyung’s face. it was so much fun!”
“where is shion oppa? where is vici oppa? you’re asking a lot about everyone. they’re watching a movie in the living room but it was a scary one and i got scared..”
“why i’m still awake? why not, it’s not that late yet. because of school? i don’t want to go.. it would be a lot more fun if we all could go together, wouldn’t it?”
all of a sudden, seonho drops back into his lap and baekhyun lifts the cake up to keep it from being squished. “hyung, i want to eat cake with everyone too,” he says and baekhyun uses the hand with the fork to pat his head, humming at him.
“let’s eat it together.”
and it ends up with baekhyun feeding the younger in between snatching bites for himself as well. both of them telling the fans to keep this a secret from the other members, laughing, and baekhyun thinks that it’s a pretty neat birthday after all.
at the moment, all those long and drawn-out waiting periods are the best thing that ever happened to him. they usually sit in the broadcasting station’s waiting room for hours after finishing pre-recording their stages and pretty much only wait for the encore to happen which is kind of annoying and exhausting -- there really is not much to do. maybe there’s time for a nap but most of the time it’s really just that; waiting.
but with the release of a new game in one of his favorite series ever, baekhyun feels like the waiting period is too short actually.
how long they’re been in the waiting room today is a blur for him, has no idea what most of the other members are doing. jaehyun might be playing animal crossing himself somewhere in here and he thinks that kangjoon is sleeping on the couch in the other side of the room, but baekhyun can’t quite get himself to look up when he’s on a mission: finding a stringfish. he has no idea what’s the best time to catch them because he doesn’t want to cheat but he also had no luck in finishing one of them. even used up thirteen packages of bait already in the process.
it’s frustrating, really, but baekhyun’s also stubborn and wants that god-forsaken fish in his museum, so he’s not going to give up! ever! or he thinks so, at least. because when the stylist noona calls for him, he has no other choice than to pull his gaze away from his switch. he frowns, almost grumpy about having to interrupt his game, and that’s when he notices jihoon next to him on the couch. he didn’t see him before. “hey,” he says and pushes the console into the younger’s hands, “can you fish for me? i’ll be right back,” leaving without another word to get his touch up.
his birthday is coming up in over a week and he’s not quite looking forward to it. feels like he doesn’t care much about it despite it being his first birthday to celebrate with the group. with fans who are already planning birthday events and tweet at him that they’re going to bake a cake at him, whining about him not having a birthday party with fans.
it’s all cute, but he’s not quite.. feeling it.
interesting how a few weeks without anything to do can pull him down, pushing him into a low he didn’t think he’d fall back into this early. but after all that rush of debut, the overflowing schedules and promotions being at the dorm so much feels weird. going back to practice and spending the night at home seems unusually peaceful and it’s hard to adjust to it even though he thinks they deserve it more than anything. some rest, a full night’s sleep.
he sinks onto the couch next to seonho who’s watching some show on television, pushing his head into the younger’s lap for some affection that he rarely searches for -- usually, it’s the other way around. “what are you watching, seonnie?” he asks, “shouldn’t you be in bed already?”
A staff member leads you down Royal’s winding hallways to So Jiseob’s office, then opens the door and leads you inside, where the CEO awaits, sitting at his desk. He doesn’t look up as you enter; he’s too preoccupied with paperwork in front of him. Seated across from his desk, next to an empty chair, is a company lawyer whom you recognize from before; she’d been present when you signed your initial company contract. The staff member directs you to take the empty chair next to the lawyer and then leaves. You hear the door close and the latch click back into place just as your CEO finally looks up and offers the tiniest hint of a smile.
He folds his hands on the desk in front of him, eyes settling on yours. “When trainees first sign a contract with a company, they are devoting themselves to at least two years of training. They usually don’t expect the time to pass so quickly, but it does,” he ruminates mildly. “Years of training and hopes leads to one dream usually: debut.”
“But, you’re no ordinary trainee. Since our pre-debut project started in August, you’ve been groomed to be a member of DE:CODE, a debut group I have incredibly high hopes for. Since then, I’ve seen you grow a lot in your training. You’ve had your ups and downs, plenty of both good and bad.” He pauses, and diverts his attention back to his desk, where he shuffles paperwork until he sets one singular sheet of paper in front of him. “But you are their leader. I believe that, from this moment on, you’ll have what it takes to help turn these nine boys into a complete group. I’ve been proud of your growth here, and I trust you to do your best to continue to improve, even after debut. This, here,” he says, motioning towards the document, “is a contract exclusive to DE:CODE and will tie you to this group, and to Royal Entertainment, for the next six years.”
He finally becomes a little less stoic, and shows the glimpse of a real smile as he slides the contract toward you and hands you a pen. “If we share the same vision of making DE:CODE one of the top boy groups in all of Korea, and you wish to be a part of this journey, you know what to do.”
when he’s led down the halls to their ceo’s office, he’s prepared for once. has a hunch already what this is going to be about; no scolding. no contract renewal because it’s, like, half a year too early for that. it’s going to be about de:code, has to be. his future in the group.
but that doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking.
his posture is a little stiff as baekhyun takes a seat in front of their ceo, shoulders tense and hands clasping together in his lap, he has to force himself to not play with his fingers out of nervousness. barely able to look at the man sitting opposite of him, reminded of all those times he’s been in front of him like this – all those times during the mgas. his private audition shortly after where he has actually been present, where he was told one of the reasons why he got kicked out of the competition ( can you filter yourself for the sake of the company, words that are still ringing in baekhyun’s ears years later. burned into his mind ) and got handed his contract personally by him as well only moments afterwards. the renewal of his trainee contract almost two years ago and soon it’s time for another one.
this time, though, he’s getting a whole new contract.
one that makes him officially part of de:code for the next six years. so close. his dream, it’s so close. he just needs to take a pen and sign the document and it’s done. he’s an idol. going to be with debut almost in his grasp, the last few preparations ahead of them and he wants it so much, it brings tears to his eyes. the familiar sting in them flustering him and he can only stare at the contract in front of him.
ever since all of them got placed into the debut lineup, he’s been full of doubt. had a hard time dealing with all the sudden changes the news brought, the lack of future opportunities and freedom because he just couldn’t see all the new possibilities opening up because of this. because he couldn’t accept that he’s finally getting what he’s been working for all this time. he didn’t want to move out from home and into the dorm with eight other boys, didn’t want to stop being a trainee for some reason. not some reason – because he was scared.
he still is.
that probably won’t stop for a long time and that’s alright. he’s been doubting himself, all of this, so much but nothing has ever felt more right in this moment. this has never felt so right and it makes baekhyun’s throat feel all tight, his chest too. this is his dream, everything he’s ever wanted ever since he was a kid. everything he’s been training for and he’s finally going to get it. finally finally finally. he can’t quite believe it. baekhyun picks up the pen that has been offered to him, fingers shaking more than he’d like them to.
stares at the sheet of paper. leader…. it’s still a title that scares him, probably the most out of everything. a heavy weight on his shoulders now that it’s official, not him just wanting to take the lead and help the other trainees out. but it will be a burden he’s willing to take, not only a reminder but also promise to himself that he’ll always give his best for his members. for the company as well.
“thank you so much,” he says, voice a little choked up and he bows his head low, pen grasped tightly in between his fingers. he presses his eyes shut. “thank you—thank you so much.” and when he looks back up, he signs the paper with his name. byun baekhyun, de:code’s leader. their main vocal.
and it feels a little like he’s crossing the finish line but baekhyun knows that, from now on, it’s only starting.
OOC NOTE: First of all, congratulations to arriving at the final step before debut! I know it’s been a long and crazy journey, and I’m so glad you’ve stuck through it. When you are ready, feel free to post this prompt with Baekhyun’s response to it.
Should Baekhyun choose to SIGN the DE:CODE contract, he will be employed by Royal Entertainment without a need to renew a contract until the duration of this one has concluded. As a reward for making it this far, he will receive THREE WEEKENDS unpaid vacation time to use any time between now and the end of April, so long as it doesn’t clash with any special debut activities (such as music show appearances, meaning he can’t actually use his vacation time until after his music show performances have finished.)
Should he choose to REJECT this contract with Royal and DE:CODE, he will leave the company, effective immediately upon rejection. He will be able to keep all of his debut points, but will not be able to take any trainee workshops or earn any more debut points/workshop points until he becomes a trainee again. He will not have any special advantage over newer characters when he auditions for other companies in the future, and should he become a trainee at a new company he will be considered a junior trainee all over again, even though he will still have her debut points and would be eligible for debut right away. He WILL have the right to audition for Royal again, but the fact that he gave up a contract renewal, especially a debut one, WILL be taken into account in final casting decisions.
He will have up to one weeks to make his decision IC, meaning that if he does not make a decision by January 31st, he will automatically be cut from the company. Exceptions can be made for those on hiatus.
whenever he practices with minho there’s a sense of fatigue sitting in his limbs that he doesn’t get when he trains his dancing with any of the other members. an exhaustion that runs deeper than usual but it’s one baekhyun enjoys -- it means he trained well. that he practiced a lot and pushed himself to new limits and he can do that best with minho.
it means that baekhyun needs a few more breaks than usual as well, though.
he holds the door open for the other as they exit the cafeteria after grabbing a few more bottles of water for everyone, walking slowly to squeeze some extra minutes of rest out of this. the plastic bag with the water dangles in the air and baekhyun watches it. “has this always been your dream?” and baekhyun is a little surprised himself at how the question tumbled out of him out of the blue. just like that. but it’s something he’s curious about, always if he’s honest. “becoming an idol, i mean,” he adds. because he’s aware that a lot of people are not here because they always had the same dream as him. some see it as stepping stone for another path, some got onto it more or less by accident. he’s curious how it was for minho -- he was at the mgas too, after all.
they’re all waiting for their turn to record, some practicing their lines for one last time before they have to be performed flawlessly in the studio -- the others are at least, because he and kangjoon already had their turns, hongjoong and minho currently in the studio doing their parts, singing their lines. they were instructed to resume with training once they’re back but baekhyun prefers helping the others out while he can, when they need it or feel unsure, nervous. prefers to listen to the overlapping voices singing not quite in harmony.
it makes him smile, somehow likes the moments where he gets to watch the other members work hard the best. ( that, and seeing them getting their well-deserved rest after a hard day. )
baekhyun makes sure to get not too distracted from wonwoo despite all the voices in the practice room, all that singing that’s sort of meshing together. it’s good that the younger is sitting right in front of him, it makes it a whole lot easier to concentrate on him as he sings his lines a second time for him. once he’s done, baekhyun nods and a light smile curls onto his lips, he pushes his hands together to clap softly for him. “sounds good to me,” he tells him, “just listen to the producers instructions and i think you’ll have a good time in there,” his words fade out with a laugh. “are you nervous?” baekhyun tilts his head a little to the side, blonde strands of hair falling into his eyes and he brushes them away with a quick swipe of his hands. “you can not only dance but you can also sing well. ever thought about picking up rap as well?” he wiggles his eyebrows at him playfully.
