The Conflict
Time skip~~~ 27th November, 2016
It's been 3 months since Chen had first joined the debut group, soon they were going to have their first ever Trainees Show in Thailand, Bangkok and after a month's time they were to have their official debut. Thus these days all the 18 members have been very busy with all the practices. As Chen was still new to all the hard choreographies and lifestyle of being an idol trainee, he was still having problems to keep up with his hyungs who were already trainees for 4-5 years.
Sometimes Jihun would help him but slowly as Chen started to get more knowledge about the Korean culture, he got to know that Koreans had great respect for their elder and as an Hyung to Jihun, Chen started to feel that he should do some things on his own as although he had agreed to be friends with Jihun but that still doesn’t change the fact that he is and always will be 3 months older to Jihun, thus he didn’t always wanna depend on the younger and be a thoughtful hyung.
As Jihun had his own solo stage to practice, Chen wanted Jihun to concentrate more on his own practices then Chen’s. So to prevent Jihun from getting all worked up for him, Chen started to stay back late till midnight and practice while all the others were at the dorm resting after almost 18 hours of practice per day.
They were gonna have their first predebut show on the 3rd of December in Thailand. Thus for practice and adaptation to the concert hall where they were gonna have their Trainees Show, they had to leave a few days early and soon it was their day of departure as time just flew away in hard practice sessions. The next day they had their flight to Bangkok at 7:45 am in the morning. As this was gonna be their first ever concert as Idol Trainees they all were excited and at the same time also nervous just like roller coaster rides.
But for Chen it was only nervousness and worrying as he was still unsure about his dance moves and would always start to tremble in fear when he thought how he would embarrass himself in front of such a huge crowd of thousands of fans, YES THOUSANDS cause they had received a very good news just a few weeks before they could flying over to Thailand which was them having sold out the whole concert hall of 50 thousands seats. So the pressure was starting to slowly feel real to them, although Chen had sung songs on even bigger stages from an even younger age but never had done any dance performances.
The next morning Chen was the first one to be out of bed as he was thinking about negative stuff all night. The whole dorm was upside down as all the 18 members in the dorm were running from here to there packing at the last minute, finding stuff, getting dressed, etc. It was already a mess early in the morning but when they heard the honking of a car they just took whatever they could, leaving all the remaining things and hurried down as they knew it was their Manager waiting with the car downstairs. Chen as usual sat next to Jihun like everyday they would whenever going to practice at their company’s building and that's when Jihun finally took notice of Chen since he had been awakened by Hajoon.
Chen literally had all that nervousness written on his face which was very readable. Jihun then shaking Chen who was lost in some deep thoughts asked “Chen you OK?? You look kinda pale, is everything alright??" Jihun had never seen Chen this worried, not even when he had joined their company. Chen was literally shaking like a leaf that would fly away with just one small rush of air.
When Jihun didn’t take the hint that all Chen wanted was to be left alone and just kept staring at the latter Chen in an irritated tone snapped and said " YAH!! LEAVE ME ALONE AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, I JUST WANNA BE LEFT ALONE, I ALREADY HAVE A LOT IN MY PLATE SO DON'T IRRITATE ME EVEN MORE AND FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO PLAY WITH SINCE YOUR OH SO GOOD AT DANCING THAT YOU'VE MASTERED YOURS LIKE SINCE FOREVER AND ME BEING THE POOR TRAINEE WHO IS STILL NEW TO THINGS, CAN'T EVEN PULL A MOVE PROPERLY. SO GO PLAY WITH SOMEONE ELSE CAUSE I'M SERIOUSLY IN NO BLOODY MOOD TO PLAY AROUND!!”
Jihun was shocked if nothing less as this was the first time his dear Chen hyung had shouted at him and he felt a crack being formed in his heart. All he could now think about was the words Chen oh so rudely threw his way, although he knew he shouldn’t dwell on it because they were just words said out of frustration and anger but he just couldn’t help himself questioning if that was the kind of image he had created of himself in Chen’s mind. Jihun's dance skills made Chen feel insecure and he felt inferior because he was not being able to dance at all. He started to think if he had done something wrong to make Chen angry at himself but came up with none as Jihun had been persistent in asking Chen if he ever needed help with the choreography but Chen used to just simply refuse to take any help.
Soon they were on the airplane and since the car incident which indeed Chen had no intention of bursting out on Jihun but just that Jihun’s stare was annoying him to the core and he somehow busted his dam that he was so eagerly keeping at bay. Thus Chen has been avoiding Jihun which made Jihun more sure of his misunderstanding that he had done something that had upset Chen cause it is not in Chen’s nature to shout or get angry at someone as he had always had this happy smile of himself that made others forget all of their worries and that very smile had Jihun falling even harder for him unintentionally, although Jihun tried numerous times to approach Chen but the latter as if had been determined to avoid him till dead never failed to avoid Jihun. It just turned into a game of Tom and Jerry where in this case Jihun was Tom and Chen was Jerry.
As Chen was unaware that in his worries and stress he had hurt the feelings of his beloved younger brother Jihun whom even he in return liked so much. But Chen was moreover focused on avoiding Jihun as he wanted to calm down himself first and then he would want to face Jihun cause he felt like just losing all of his control and bursting out crying like a baby and complaining about his troubles in life but he couldn’t as they had a big show right ahead of them for he was not at all prepared his thoughts not the others.
Soon they reached Bangkok and seeing a huge crowd of fans waiting for them at the airport to greet and welcome them, Chen was now even more worried but filled with energy for the cheerings of their fans at the same time that he finalized that he would have to practice even more when he gets to the hotel room. They were now seated in the car and to Chen’s misfortune his Young-ie hyung had Jihun sit beside Chen as the latter had begged for it. Knowing the kid well, Young happily agreed to it but Chen now had to go through hell for the next 2 hours. The atmosphere around the both of them was very awkward and this could even be noticed by the others in the car.
This awkwardness continued throughout the journey as Jihun just couldn’t come up with the courage even when given the chance plated on a golden platter to confront Chen as he was having double thoughts that whether he had actually made a mistake and what if Chen breaks their friendship. Thus till they had reached the hotel, it resulted with them making their hyungs even more worried for them. So Ren, who was worried about Chen who was tense since yesterday went to the leader of the group , Young and spoke all about the car incident with Chen screaming and then they were in awkward silence since then. Soon Young and Ten came up with a plan to pair the two youngest in one room to remove this awkwardness that had suddenly developed.
On hearing about this Chen got really frustrated that he literally entered the room first and banged the door on Jihun’s face, whereas Jihun who was also on his edge exploded and he just banged the door open and approached Chen who was already teary eyed seeing Jihun properly for the first time since their fight. As Jihun looked all tried with dark circles under his eyes and pale skinned.