it hadn’t hurt as much as he thought it would, ten notes as he sits across from sicheng at the restaurant table, swirling his spoon around in his bowl of steaming kimchi jigae, pushing some tofu to the side to get some more beef in his spoonful. getting his belly button pierced had been something he’d though about doing for a while now. he’d not had it done because he’d wanted to get his tattoos out of the way first, and then he’d just not found the time to go get his belly button pierced.
that was until now. he’d been talking to sicheng about piercings, and how he wanted his belly button pierced, when somehow, the idea of sicheng getting his nipples pierced had come up as well. somehow, it had become less of a joke, and more of an actual idea he was considering.
so now, here they both sit, ten with one new hole and sicheng with two. they’d held each other’s hands through the process, and ten had been more than thrilled to see sicheng shirtless - he’d take any opportunity presented to him to ogle his friend when he was shirtless. it’d been, as expected, less painful for ten, or at least he thinks it was.
“how you holding up, big guy?” he asks with a laugh, glancing at sichengs chest and wondering whether his nipples are bothering him every time his shirt rubs against them. his belly button isn’t too bothersome really. “i was right though, they do look incredibly hot on you.”
eric rarely gets to play video games that aren’t cheap switch games or ones that he managed to get at a hefty discount. his switch lite wasn’t even bought by himself, but a gift by a far too generous friend. his laptop isn’t built for gaming either, so his ability to play games is incredibly limited. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love games though, in fact he really loves gaming when he gets the opportunity, but unlike a lot of guys his age he never had the chance to play console games growing up since they never had the money for them.
so, usually he watches playthroughs of games he’s interested in, trying to live vicariously through them. that is unless he’s invited over to play with someone - which is exactly what he’s gone over to see pj to do. they’re sat playing a particularly good game that eric’s wanted to play for ages, but the conversation has gone from lighthearted banter about the game, to eric’s current situation.
“i just... saw he had a picture with my dad in it in his house and was like ‘lol why do you have a picture with my dad?’ and... well yeah turns out he’s not just my dad.” eric explains. pj and jeno are friends, so it seems only right that eric explains what went down when they realised they didn’t just look strangely alike for no reason. it’s a weird thing to talk about - that mutual friend we had? yeah turns out he’s my half-brother and neither of us knew for twenty whole years of life. funny, huh?
“what do you mean its hard to dance in heels?“ he asked, head tipping to the side. the fun part in that question was that he had eunae staring at him as he was just sat on the floor, fixing said heels in order to get do the dance with the other, considering their schedules crashed the most. with a raise brow, jihoon looked at his feet and twisted one around, not really sure if he was doing something wrong or not.
“but its easy, like, you just need balance.“ he said and pushed himself up, took a few small steps back and front and just shrugged. maybe dancing just came natural to him, or the years in ballet made his pain tolerance quite increased, but still. jihoon found it extremely easy to be able to dance in them. “come on, you have a pair right? you can’t be that bad, i’ll help.“ he insisted, tugging at eunae’s arm with a pout. “we said we’re going all out on this, you can’t just betray me like that eunae.“ he said with a whine.
since sicheng moved in with ten he’s felt a lot more relaxed, as if having someone around to talk to has taken a weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying off his shoulders. he supposes that’s exactly what it’s done, though. he’s been trying to be more open about things he’s struggling with to those around him he feels comfortable enough to share with, and sicheng, being the closest in proximity usually, is almost always his go-to when he needs to talk about something that’s bothering him.
so, when he receives the news he didn’t make it through the audition at nova his initial instinct is to bottle it up and pretend it doesn’t bother him, even though it does, deep down. those worries that perhaps he’d gotten too old now to ever make it back to where he’d been seen almost validated by the rejection. but, remembering what his therapist had told him, ‘don’t bottle things up, they only fester’ he seeks out sicheng the evening after he finds out.
settling down on the couch beside him that evening he lays his head in the younger’s lap and sighs, taking his hand and pulling it to rest on his head, encouraging him to play with his hair as he’d done multiple times before. it soothes him, maybe because his mother used to do it when he was young and had had a nightmare.
“i didn’t tell you but i auditioned for nova the other day. i wanted to wait to see where it went before i let people know, but... i didn’t make it. got the news today.” he says softly, the disappointment clear in his voice.
the sun’s shining down on them as they head towards the tarot car reading tent set up across the park. eric was the one who suggested they go for a tarot card reading to ask about their futures. it had always interested eric, and he was wondering whether he could subtley slip in a question about his potential with romance without it being embarrassing.
“you excited?” he asks dongyoung, linking his arm through his as they walk, his other hand lifting his cup of ice water to his lips to sip it through the long straw. “can’t wait to find out if i’ll be famous or not.” he jokes, knowing full well there’s no chance of that ever happening. the best he can look forward to is a comfy nine to five office job with good benefits and a nice pension. hopefully he’ll have enough for a comfortable sized apartment and enough to support a small family in the future. it’s a lot to hope for, but it’s better than accepting the reality, which is that he’ll more than likely never have any of that.
“anything you wanna ask about? romance? career? health?” he’s curious as to what dongyoung’s natural interest in his fortune will be - some want to know about their potential for wealth, some want to know whether they’ll have good health, and some, like eric, secretly want to know if they’ll ever date someone.
whether this guy, junse, knows who ten is or not he’s come to the right guy. create a viral tiktok dance on the spot? easy, ten thinks. he’s got a tiktok, but he doesn’t post on it, he’s been meaning to, but his youtube comes first, and the community of teenagers on tiktok sort of scares him. but, if he’s doing it for someone else, then why the hell not, right?
but, ten knows he’s a pro at freestyling, so the request only makes him grin and stretch his arms out a little. “you ready?” he asks the guy with the camera, stretching his neck from left to right. he laughs, wondering what song the guy will have him freestyling to. hopefully it’s hip hop or pop, and not something contemporary since he’s more confident that he can create a catch, easy to follow but visually pleasing freestyle dance for hip hop.
the music starts and he vaguely recognises it. he smiles, knowing, pretty confidently, where the beats fall and the drop and shift. he starts to move to the music just a little, before he twists his hips, tapping his heels against the ground as his legs cross over his body. his hands raised up, palms facing the camera, he then snaps them in a criss cross over his chest and as one hand lifts up and out he closes a fist and snaps his head the opposite way, dropping into a half squat with his legs spread wide. his hands drop to the top of his thighs, gripping his sweats as he lens for side to side and lifts his feet to tap his heels on the ground each time he leans away from one foot. then he pops back into a standing position, and then with a hit to the side of his head on a beat he staggers out of frame with a cheeky grin.
“there. that good?” he asks the dude, junse, smiling at him. he was pretty pleased with what he’d done, and is sort of looking forward to see how it would do on this guys tiktok. “what’s ur tiktok username, so i can see it when you post?” he asks, then opens the app to go and find his account and follow him. he doesn’t really know what to expect from it, but he hopes people like it, since he doesn’t think he’s done too badly with the freestyle.
“i hope it gets you lots of followers, bro. can i see it?” he says with a light laugh, tucking his hands into his pants pocket and peering round at the camera screen. he watches the video back and hums with a single nod. “i hope you... tiktokers like it.”
hey brother, there’s an endless road to rediscover...
🍀 🌸
what are you meant to do upon finding out, after years of being an only child, that you aren’t in fact, an only child at all? there’s happiness, of course, from years of yearning for siblings, yet it’s marred by the guilt of feeling as though a perfect family has been tarnished by his very existence. before eric came into the picture, jeno’s family was perfect. a mother, father, and two children - a son and a daughter. yet now, with eric stumbling into the picture, knocking through the glass protecting their picture-perfect lives, everything’s stained. eric’s shone an uncomfortably bright light on the cracks shooting through their family, and he can’t help but think that had he never met jeno, their family could have stayed blissfully unaware of his existence.
but the cat’s already out of the bag as soon as eric asks why jeno’s got a picture with his father in it, in fact, multiple pictures with his father in. it’s stupid - he should have realised before he opened his mouth what it meant. but he hadn’t thought for a second that jeno’s family could have any skeletons in their closets. he shouldn’t have been so naive. but he was, and he’d opened his mouth and ruined everything for jeno and his family.
if eric didn’t exist at all they’d be so much better off.
he blames himself, even if it’s his dad’s fault for cheating on his wife. somehow, if eric had done something differently, he could’ve prevented jeno, someone he’s grown to care so deeply about, from being upset, disappointed, or pained at this situation. he thinks about jeno’s poor sister, too, who he barely knows. she must really hate him, coming into their lives and wreaking havoc by his mere presence in the world.
he expects jeno to be mad at him, after they figure out what the pictures all around jeno’s house, that show someone so familiar to eric, mean. expects him to tell him to get out and never come back. he expects jeno to keep quiet about it for his mother and sisters sake. but he doesn’t. he’s not angry at eric, or dismissive, or cruel, as eric fears he may be. he knows jeno well enough to know he’s not the type to be cruel, but this isn’t a scenario that you can predict what someone will do in.
but jeno accepts eric as his brother. much to eric’s surprise. in jeno’s eyes it isn’t eric’s fault, it’s their dad’s. so, eric accepts jeno as his brother, as he aches to do - he adores jeno, and has from the moment he met him, so finding out he doesn’t just feel like a brother to eric, he is his brother, is surreal. he’s got so much to learn about having a brother, and being a brother, but eric trusts that jeno will help him through it, even if things are a little strange at first. it’s not everyday you find out twenty years into your life that you’ve got a brother you never knew about.
even if they’ve got a lifetime of catching up to do, years of learning about each other in ways brothers should know about each other, eric simply can’t wait to confidently call jeno his brother.
