we stick together
date: late october 2018
warning/s: mentions of when hannah iced everyone out
notes from cia: a little junghan fluff :3 a bunch of hannah content for 2018 is coming up to catch up to yoonmi in the timeline so everyone will be aligned! that means seri timeline posts like this soon, too!
gif is from pinterest, not mine! dialogue in italics is spoken in english
word count: 2.2k
hannah gets jungwoo to have dinner with and talk to her
“How are you keeping up, Kitsune.”
“I’m pretty good, Yuta-san.”
Their tired comments towards each other were barely audible with the music reverberating throughout the practice room and eleven pairs of footsteps synching with the music. The tension was high, and the whole 127 was using the last bit of energy to do well before practice was passed over to the dreamies, who all happened to be cheering them on.
By the time the music ended, Hannah looked behind her to see Yuta on the ground huffing. Not to say that she wasn’t huffing either, but the victory was in the fact that she was still standing. The cheers of the dreamies filled the room while the 127 members caught their breath. She walked over to pull Yuta from the ground.
“You win this round.” It looked like he was going to put her in a headlock, making her flinch slightly, but he decided to fix her hair instead. “How do you have so much energy?”
“I’m young and fresh,” she flipped her hair at him, making him laugh.
Jungwoo, who watched from beside them, laughed. “I don’t understand what this whole competition is.”
“Just seeing who’s the weaker one,” Hannah smiled at him while poking Yuta’s side. “Clearly, oppa, you’re doing better than Mister Anime Character over here.”
“I have to keep up with you guys somehow, right?”
Jungwoo’s statement may have sailed over the other members’ heads, but it stuck with her. How could it not when that was the same exact thing she was thinking merely a few months earlier?
It was a darker place for her back then. She had pulled away from the members and almost literally worked herself to death just trying to “keep up” with everyone else. Because of that, Haechan and Jaemin had made it a point to sleepover in her and Mark’s dorm ever since then.
She’d think that after all that, everyone would have caught on to those kinds of statements after that whole fiasco, but apparently not. Then again, everyone was exhausted, and Jungwoo had said it so quietly that she wasn’t sure if even Yuta heard it despite him being right behind her.
“8 Dream, your turn!” Their dance teacher’s voice brought her out of her thoughts, along with Jaemin who was already next to her and placing an electrolyte drink in her hand. “Let’s just go over your formations again so the three can rest.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we have a fifteen-minute break?” Haechan asked hopefully, adding a bit of aegyo to his voice. He huffed when the choreographer gave them a look. “I know, I know. Tight schedule.”
“Let’s go,” she placed her drink down and got up, “because the sooner we start, the sooner we can finish.”
And the sooner she could talk to Jungwoo.
“I’m calling it,” Taeyong advised everyone as soon as he checked his phone, “we’re more than thirty minutes past our agreed ending time. Everyone wash up, eat, and get some rest. Haeeunie, Mark?”
The two who were fixing their bags next to each other both looked at their leader in attention upon being called.
“Yes, hyung?” Mark answered.
“Are you sleeping in the 127 dorms tonight?”
They exchanged looks before turning back to Taeyong. “Not tonight, hyung.”
“The kid’s just too shy to stay with us,” Johnny patted Hannah’s cheek, “which is why she knocks and waits for us to answer before going in. You know the passcode, princess. You can just go in, we know you aren’t some crazy person.”
She froze just the slightest bit at the mention of crazy people, but she laughed it off. “I don’t want to walk in and find any of you naked. Thanks, anyway, oppa.”
She accepted the shirt Johnny had handed her and slipped off the one she was wearing, leaving her in her sports bra for a bit. She laughed as most of her new unit members looked away, still not used to her doing that. Meanwhile, she handed Taeyong a towel as soon as he walked over.
“You do have to wait for a bit for your slippers,” Taeyong began as he helped her wipe the sweat off her back. “Sorry, the ones we ordered for you haven’t arrived yet.”
His words surprised her. They ordered her slippers? Specifically for her? That was strange. The dreamies tended to just wear whatever slippers they had around or just walk barefooted or in socks since they kept the floor clean anyway. No one had a set pair of slippers. Besides, she didn’t even live in the 127 dorms, so she didn’t think they’d get her anything for it.
“Stop giving that look,” Taeyong squished her cheeks into a forced smile, which she instinctively backed away from, making him laugh. “We ordered you a bunch of stuff for the dorm if you ever want to sleep over here during promotions. We know you Lee siblings just live in the building on the other street, but it might be easier for you, you know? My room’s always open for you.”
“Thanks, leader-nim,” she smiled at him before slipping Johnny’s shirt on and tying her hair up in a bun, “but we’re going back to our dorm. Hyuck, too. We have rehearsals in the morning before the Dream Show.”
“We won’t make a ruckus in the morning for you guys this way,” Mark added.
Taeyong looked at them worriedly, “Okay, babies. The three of you make sure to get proper rest okay? Kihyun hyung is my spy, so I will know if you don’t.”
She laughed at him as Haechan moved to stand beside her, taking her bag and throwing an arm around her and Mark’s shoulders, “I’ve got these babies, hyung.”
“You, too,” Taeyong lightly thumped Haechan’s forehead before walking away to check on the rest of the members.
Hannah simply laughed while Haechan gave a loud dramatic reaction to their leader’s actions. With one glance around the room, her eyes fell on the newest addition to the unit. She slipped from under her twin’s arm, leaving him for Mark to handle while she refilled her water bottle.
Jungwoo was already there, quietly filling up a small paper cup with his name written on it, uncharacteristically quiet. Jungwoo had been training with 127 for a while, learning the old choreographies alongside her, but this was his first time training with the exact same knowledge and experience with a song as the rest of the group. It must have felt as strange for him as it did for her when she first learned Cherry Bomb with the group despite not being in the actual comeback, and Touch as well.
“You know,” she smiled up at him while squatting to fill her bottle up after he retracted his cup, “I’d suggest bringing a water bottle to training. A big one.”
“What?” Jungwoo looked at Hannah in surprise as if he was broken out of his thoughts.
She just shrugged and gestured to the rest of the members around the practice room, “Unlike with the Boss unit, these oppas tend to take shorter breaks at longer intervals. You don’t get to drink or breathe as much when you spend time walking here, filling a cup, and all that.”
Jungwoo simply looked at her, as if trying to look into her thoughts. She simply got up and tilted her head at him.
“Oppa,” she called out, “do you want to have dinner with me? We can go to that small restaurant in the street behind the company?”
“That sounds nice,” Jungwoo nodded. “I’d like that.”
Hannah gave a satisfied smile as she walked over to Haechan, taking her wallet out of her bag that now hung on his shoulder. He gave her a curious look.
“Haeeun-ah,” his tone was serious, eyes narrowing slightly, “It’s almost eleven. Where are you going with your wallet?”
“Just the restaurant behind the building,” she told him. “Jungwoo oppa and I are just going to have dinner together and have a little 127 newbies time.”
Haechan’s eyes softened. She had told him before how she had wanted to be able to talk to Jungwoo about them both joining 127 at almost the same time, thinking it was a way for them to get even closer and for them to be reassured they had a companion. Haechan had encouraged this, but their busy schedule had kept her from finding the time so far.
However, it was late at night, and a few of the previous threats Haechan had read made him hesitant to let Hannah out without him by her side at this time. Hannah, knowing him inside-out, already knew how he felt.
“Jungwoo oppa and I will be together the whole time,” she reassured him, “and it’s just to the restaurant and home. We’re only three months apart, Hyuck. You don’t have to treat me like a baby.”
“You know I worry,” Haechan kissed the side of her head. “And I trust hyung. Just be back by 12:30. Mark hyung and I will wait for you at the 127 dorm so we can walk back together. Neither of you are walking alone at night. Oh, and bring me back some of the kimchi fried rice from there, I’d like that for breakfast.”
She just nodded at him, lightly shoving him away with a chuckle before heading to Jungwoo and holding out her hand for him to take. He smiled at her, taking her hand and looking around before quickly pulling her out the door. She laughed and jogged after him, shaking her head at Doyoung’s accusatory voice of her never wanting to hold his hand.
Laughter filled the small space as Hannah and Jungwoo exchanged stories of their time as trainees. The food in front of them disappeared quick as their hunger and exhaustion caught up to them, so they were left sitting and exchanging stories while waiting for the takeout Hannah had gotten for Mark and Haechan.
“It’s crazy, you know,” she told Jungwoo as their previous story wrapped up, “the day I met you, that was the day they told me I’d be in 127.”
Jungwoo met her eyes with a pleasant smile, gently pinching her cheek, “Now we’re both here.”
She instinctively swatted his hand away, making him chuckle. She filled their cups with water as she started speaking again. “I remember first training with the oppas and thinking I needed to do so much to catch up with them. You didn’t hear this from me, but I was maybe just a little bit scared.”
“They had your back, though,” Jungwoo noted.
“Yeah,” Hannah smiled to herself, “they helped me whenever I asked or when I looked confused about something, but still. I only ever spoke to Johnny oppa, Taeyong oppa, and Doyoung oppa out of the other 127 members. I trained with the girls before I trained with Dream.”
“Was it weird?”
“A little bit. I feel a little guilty to debut before the others, but most of them didn’t really like me, anyway. Being added into 127 with the oppas? Definitely weird. I had to take some time to learn the unit’s culture when together and how it differs from Dream.”
Jungwoo nodded in understanding. Training with other trainees was one thing. Training with the Boss unit was different. Training with 127 was another set of unwritten rules he had to figure out as well.
He pulled jokes and was friendly with the members, but he mostly stayed quiet during actual training in order to catch wind of how things work and to focus on being on par with the members to not burden them.
“It feels a little like I have to earn my spot in the unit,” she admitted.
The older boy looked at her in surprise. “You feel that, too?”
She shrugged, “127 achieved a lot in the past two years since debut. I felt like the odd one out for a while. Thus the whole icing-everyone-out situation a few months ago.”
“Right,” he nodded, “we were all worried. You were never the odd one out.”
“Neither are you,” she smiled at him, “I want you to know that. You deserve to be in NCT as much as any of us, and in 127, too.”
Jungwoo snorted before looking down at their table. “That’s why you wanted to get dinner with me, huh?”
“We 127 newbies have to stick together, don’t we?” She poked his head to get his attention. “I’ve got your back. We can gang up on everyone else. It’s you and me, oppa.”
He laughed, nodding at her. “It’s you and me, Hannah. I guess it’s nice to have someone who I can go through this with.”
“I think so, too.”
Before they could continue their conversation, the restaurant owner came, placing the takeout on the table and greeting them goodnight. Having already paid earlier, the two kids left the store with a grateful bow.
Hannah quietly watched a more relaxed Jungwoo chatter as they walked back to the dorm. She didn’t know if she could do it, but she’d try her damn best to make sure he didn’t feel the way she felt all those months ago.
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