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Sniggering as he pressed "Send" and let the rest of the world embrace some of his superior sense of humour, Qifang was planning on settling in for a lazy day of browsing through social media and watching TV. He did spend the previous night trying to squeeze in as many dance practices as possible, so yeah, his aching legs deserve a break.
Then Leo walks in through the door and yells his name. "What?" he yells back from the couch, grabbing the remote and lowering the volume to Sing! China. He leans forward and takes one look at the other boy before cringing exaggeratedly. "Wow, you look like shit." Shaking his head, he beckons Leo to sit down as he himself stands up. "Where'd you go? When I woke up you weren't here anymore," he asks, walking over to the kitchen to get them both some drinks and snacks.
"What do you want?" he calls out, rummaging around the kitchen. "We still have Coke, that leftover cake, Tetsuya's takeaway, uh... This box with "Bobby" written on it, whatever this is, and some hot chocolate."
With one quick glance around the sitting room, Leo has found his knight in shining armor watching a Chinese television show. "Wow, thanks," Leo answered, narrowing his eyes at Qifang, but not taking his words heavily. He knew he looked like shit, and he probably smelled like sweat, but he was glad to be at the dorm. "Practice. Five hours. New choreo," is all he can muster before he climbs over the back of the couch and falls on his abdomen.
He sighs at the thought of Qifang sleeping in, knowing just how much he wish he could have some extra sleep, but he knew that this would be how his day would go until the comeback arrived. Leo is an amazing dancer, one of the best in this era of K-pop, but does he really have to sacrifice peace and quiet to help their choreographer?
He hadn't noticed that Qifang left to the kitchen until he hears rummaging in the other room. "Um... get me a Coke and that leftover cake. I'm not in the mood to piss off the shorties because I stole their food," Leo tells him, barely lifting his head from the couch to share his response. He does, however, reach around to grab a hold of the remote control and raise the volume on the TV. "Anything exciting happen on the show?"
"Wow, this kid's hardworking," Qifang hums. He's probably only managed to stay in the shitty practice room for 3 hours at most before having to get out of there for fresh air. The choreographer, on the other hand, can probably only stand 3 whole minutes with Qifang in his face. And Qifang can't blame him, he does give the man a hard time. What? he remembers retorting, It takes a lot to get these long limbs under control. It's also why Qifang had to practice alone last night until he lost his mind from boredom.
"You come up with any cool tricks?" he asks over his shoulder. Pausing his rummaging to do the orange justice in the middle of the kitchen. Among the many things Qifang lacks - common sense, dancing skills, an actual sense of humour - shame comes out on top.
Nodding, Qifang grabs two cans of Coke in one hand and the plate of leftover cake in the other, but not before snatching a fry out of the takeout package and tossing it into his mouth. "They're going to kill me anyway," he mutters, rolling his eyes with fake resentment. "Might as well make the most of it." He strolls back to the couch and drops onto the floor. "Oh, this?" he gestures as the TV. "Nothing much. I'm only watching for Jay Chou."
Leo rose up, using his elbows to prop himself up, then flipping over to lay on his back, his hazy gaze trained on the ceiling. It wasn't an uncommon thing to see a member passed out on the couch. Leo had done it plenty of times. There was a sound in the midst of the silence, and he wasn't sure if it was his stomach rumbling or Qifang's rummaging.
Cool tricks. Other than a few failed trials of tumbling and reusing old moves but "modifying" them, they hadn't thought of any spectacular moves this time around, which meant that Leo would have to return to the practice room the following day and be stuck there for a few hours. "No," he answered simply, huffing. "Had some ideas, though. Choreographer said he'd think about it."
"They have a lot of rage in their small bodies," he commented with Qifang appeared in the room again with his beloved food. He grabbed a hold of one of the Coke cans, a loud pop ensuing as he opened it, and took a sip. "Bobby cursed me out in Spanish this morning, I think. Walked in on him when he was using the toilet." He took another sip, then peered down at Qifang sitting on the floor, wondering why he hadn't taken a seat on the couch beside him. Leo began to absentmindedly pat the other boy's hair, nodding at his response and shifting his gaze to the TV. "Yeah? He's cool."
Qifang scoffs. "Oh, he'd think about it, huh? He definitely likes you more than he likes me." Again, Qifang can't blame him, but that doesn't mean he's not going to be petty about it. "Yesterday I asked him to look over my dance for Wait A Minute and he watched me for forty seconds before he just said, 'Here's what's wrong: everything.' And then he left! Hmph!"
Once at the couch, he puts down the cake and cracks one of the Coke cans open for himself. "Closer to hell," Qifang said, tapping his temple before taking a large gulp. "I bet he's teaching Kit how to curse us too. What, puta this and mierda that," he scoffs into his drink. He notices the look Leo gives him and pats the empty spot on the couch, explaining, "You can just take up the whole thing." Then he pats the floor, "Lying on the floor's supposed to be good for me anyway."
"Mhmm," he hums in agreement. "A legendary singer I can never hope to beat," he says, stuffing his mouth full with the cake before offering it to Leo. "You think our next song's gonna be Mandarin? Or Japanese? Because I still suck at Japanese." He pauses for a moment before adding, in fake horror, "Or Thai?"
"Maybe because you're the same person that insists on dancing horribly whenever there's an opportunity to perform karaoke. You know he doesn't like that," Leo retorted nonchalantly, then took another sip from the can. He knew Qifang liked to sing and dance horribly when he was trying to piss off their leader, but he also managed to piss off their choreographer when he does that. "At least you're putting effort into showing off some dances."
At the thought of Bobby teaching their other teammates Spanish curse words, Leo cracked a smile and muttered, "He told me to call you a pinga the other day. Translates to dick." It wasn't that the term wasn't fitting towards Qifang, as there were days where he was a pain in the behind, but Leo didn't want to say it anyways.
Grabbing a hold of the plate of cake, he sat up so that he could properly scoop a piece of the dessert into his mouth. Before he did, he scowled at Qifang and muttered, "Don't talk with your mouth full." Then, he lifted the fork up and took a big bite. As he ate, he nodded at what was being said about their next song. "We've done a lot of Mandarin songs in the past. I wouldn't mind doing Japanese or Thai, because it means we'll get to practice the language more. Granted, we'll piss off Kit or Testu, but whatever." Leo outstretched his arm to hand him the plate.
"It's karaoke, you're supposed to go crazy," Qifang huffs. "Dance to express, not impress." Before, miming was practically the only mode of communication he had with the Japanese and Thai members and trainees, and, being the idiot he was, he liked to knock it up a notch and use interpretive dancing too. Now, he was better at both languages, but horrible dancing was still his go-to universal language. The rest of the team happened to not agree.
He chokes at what Leo says about Bobby and his Spanish curses. "Pinga?" he sputters, trying not to burst out into laughter. "At least it sounds cute," he says, slightly out of breath. He pauses for a short moment. "Suits me though," he muses, taking a sip from his can, "Should I make that my stage name?"
"Okay, okay." Qifang raises his hands in apology and swallows down the cake in his mouth. "True," he hums, rubbing his chin as he tries to imagine himself singing a Thai song. Yeah, they're gonna have to cut my lines for this one, he concludes. "You know what would be cool?" he ponders out loud as he receives the plate. "A Spanish song."
Leo pursed his lips. He was a bad singer, he knew that. When he was younger and he'd go with friends out to karaoke, Leo would genuinely sing along and his friends would afterwards ask him if he was playing around, because his voice sounded that bad. So when he did participate in karaoke, it was only to show off the new trending dance moves he'd learned. "Yeah, I know," he muttered with a small shrug.
"Pinga sounds like something completely opposite from a genital. Spanish is weird," he comments, taking a sip from the can then emitting a burp. He chuckled and took another sip. "Your stage name? You're going to get a lot of memes from fans, then. And it's similar to Pingu, the penguin cartoon-thing, so more memes." Leo vaguely remembering owning a plush of Pingu when he was in elementary.
For a moment, he considered what would happen if there was an opportunity for a Spanish song, but he couldn't imagine it. "Bobby would get all of the lines," he pointed out, chuckling once more. "Don't eat all of the cake!" Leo exclaims a second after, reaching out for the plate to take another bite before Qifang devoured it. "Food Monster."
"Thinking about it, I don't think I've gone out to karaoke with you or any of the other guys before," Qifang says, turning back to the TV to watch one of the contestants sing. "We should go some time," he suggests, "practice our Korean, have some team bonding time." He imagines them, the Team 48 members from all across the world, squeezed into a small karaoke room, trying to sing in a language they probably all suck in, and laughs out loud.
"Everything is weird. Mandarin is weird, Korean is weird, English is weird, everything. I think I'm going to lose my mind in this team," Qifang sighs, leaning back into the couch, only to jerk away when Leo burps. "Ew," he whines, pretending to cough intensely, "and you call me disgusting." Giving Leo a playful shove, he takes another gulp of Coke.
"Memes? I'm already the king of memes," Qifang snorts. Half of the pictures in his phone are memes of him he found on the web and the other half are ones sent to him by his teammates - usually to make fun of him, but hey, they're too funny not to save. "Wait, Pingu? Okay, never mind pinga, Pingu's demonic." He shakes his head violently. "Didn't watch the show when I was a kid and I'm glad I didn't."
"It's what he deserves, for putting up with all our shit," Qifang laughs. "God!" he gasps, snatching the plate back. "You could've just asked!" he huffs, digging into the cake and shoving a huge portion into his mouth. Pouting back at Leo, he mumbles with his mouth full, "I just woke up, I'm hungry."
Leo tried to picture the twelve boys, all from different corners of the world, tucked inside a single room and displaying their talents through screeching and yelling. "There should be a showdown between the two vocal gods – you and Bobby," he suggested with a teasing grin.
"At least you're fluent in Mandarin," he pointed out, referring to their mother language, which they were both speaking in at the moment. "I didn't call you disgusting!" Leo whined back, nudging Qifang's shoulder with his foot and chuckling. "It's better than feeling the burn in my nose."
At the idea of Pingu being demonic, Leo snorted and took another sip of the soda. "I used to watch it. I can't remember much of the show, but it's not demonic." He didn't have the privilege of watching too much television when he was young; his parents couldn't afford it. So there were only few cartoons that Leo watched and enjoyed, which is why he can be found watching Peppa Pig on the weekends. Which... "Did you know Peppa Pig was banned back home?"
He pursed his lips, reaching for the plate again so that he could take the last slice that was there. He chewed, nudging Qifang with his foot once more, then pretending to zip up his lips, trying to tell Qifang to not talk with his mouth full of food. Leo swallowed the last bits of the cake, then suggested, "I can make you something. Want to try a breakfast sandwich?"
"Hah," Qifang snorts. Bobby's talented. Qifang's... Not. He likes to think he is, but who doesn't? "Well, better start placing your bets now," he jokes, winking at Leo playfully. It's not like he has the cheek to imply he could possibly win against an actual vocal, but karaoke was never about actual talent anyway. It's about putting up a show, and Qifang can put up a show alright.
He shudders exaggeratedly. "Disgusting," he repeats, shaking his head and leaning back onto the couch once again. "Yeah, and it still messes with my head," he groans, rolling his eyes at the thought of always having to translate between traditional and simplified Chinese and then reminding himself to speak Mandarin, not Hokkien. "I really don't get how those polyglots don't go crazy," he mutters, before adding in, "I really don't get how 48 thinks we won't go crazy!"
"It is," Qifang insists. He whips out his phone and types in a search for "pingu scary walrus," then he shoves the screen full of nightmarish walruses into Leo's face. "Take a good look at this and tell me that show wasn't demonic." Sinking back into his position at the foot of the couch, Qifang takes a moment before he can conjure a vague image of a pink pig dancing to music from her tiny boombox. "Huh." The show seemed harmless to him. "Why?" he asks, feeling oddly out of touch with his home country all of a sudden.
Qifang swallows his cake down and then sticks his tongue out, continuing to pout as he considers Leo's offer. Finally, he accepts. "If you're not too tired, sure. I'll even help."
"Sometimes, I blank out with languages," he shares. The only language Leo is fluent in is Mandarin, but he's close to fluency in Cantonese and Hokkien, and he's learning Japanese and Korean. He can be in the midst of a conversation with someone, and then he forgets a certain word and it'll take him a few seconds before he can remember it and continue the conversation. "The company wants us to be the best."
When Qifang shows him the picture of the walrus, he snorts, then says, "That was the walrus from Pingu's dream. It only showed up once in the show." Truth be told, that scene had also scared the living daylights out of Leo, but he needed to win this argument so he didn't say anything. Leo tried to recall the article he had seen that discussed the banning of Peppa Pig. "People were photo-shopping her, and the government believed she promoted a gangster attitude," Leo answered, then chuckled.
He stuck his tongue back out at Qifang, then nodded. "If I don't faint while I stand, then I'm good." As he made a move to climb off the couch, he froze and let out a mock gasp. "Qifang? Helping? You must really be hungry," Leo teased, rising to his feet.
"It's alright, it happens to me all the time too," Qifang relates, patting Leo's leg. "The company is stressing me out," he hisses, massaging his temples with both hands. Besides dance practices and vocal lessons, he has to somehow make time for Japanese and Korean lessons too. And don't forget English. Sooner or later he's going to have to be fluent at that too. "Team 48 has it the worst," he groans.
Retracting his arm and his phone, he whispers, "Once was enough." He shakes his head like he just had a ghastly flashback. He considers whipping out more troubling sequences from Pingu but decides to let it rest. He doesn't need nightmares tonight. At Leo's explanation, he snorts. "Classic," he sighs, then taking the last sip out of his Coke can.
He gets up from the floor as well, brushing off some cake crumbs off his pants and onto the floor. I'll clean that up later, he promises the nagging Tetsuya in his head. He picks up the plate and the Coke cans and moves to the kitchen. "Yeah, I am," he says, rolling his eyes at Leo's surprised act, "I'm a growing boy."
