Chapter 5: Like a Flower Out of Season

After the awards ceremony, Yu Chu and the others had two days off. Yu Chu spent half a day of it wasting time at Xie Zhixing’s place, then chose to waste the remaining day and a half in the dorm. He even remembered to send Xie Zhixing a couple of voice messages to keep him off his back.

On the first morning after their break ended, Yu Chu woke to a blast of music.

Frowning, he opened his eyes and listened blearily. The song playing sounded like Rap God.

He slowly sat up, rubbed his eyes, and followed the noise to Hughes’s phone.

Apparently, Hughes had changed his alarm.

Hughes woke up in the bed beside him. Eyes still closed, he reached over and groped around on the shared nightstand between their beds. After a long search, he finally found his phone and turned off the alarm.

Yu Chu had only just gotten up and didn’t feel like talking. He sat still for a moment, then climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

Hughes ran a hand through his hair and followed him in.

As they brushed their teeth side by side at the sink, Yu Chu swished some water around his mouth, bent over to spit out the toothpaste, then said, “You should probably change your alarm.”

Hughes had his toothbrush in his mouth. He almost said why, but changed it to Chinese at the last second. “Why?”

Yu Chu didn’t explain. “Better safe than sorry.”

They’d been a group for a long time, and Yu Chu had almost never been involved in any kind of scandal.

Hughes and the other members all had a subtle sort of dependence on him. If Yu Chu told him to change his alarm, there had to be a good reason.

Hughes nodded. “I’ll change it.”

After washing up and getting dressed, Yu Chu left the room and saw that Jian Yuyang and the others were already ready to go.

Jian Yuyang leaned against the wall, head bowed, looking like he was still half asleep. Yuan Xiangdi and Qin Yun stood nearby, yawning.

It was early, and not one of them looked awake.

“If everyone’s ready,” Yu Chu said, “let’s go.”

The five of them took the elevator down to the underground parking garage.

A black van was waiting for them.

They climbed in one by one. When Jian Yuyang got in last, he saw that, sure enough, Hughes had taken the seat beside Yu Chu again.

Jian Yuyang sat in the remaining spot and joked, “How come you’re glued to Little Yu twenty-four seven?”

Yu Chu was the second-oldest in the group, just a month younger than their eldest, Yuan Xiangdi. Still, Jian Yuyang liked to call him Little Yu.

Yu Chu, the one being clung to, didn’t react. His eyes were closed, and he looked as if he’d already fallen asleep.

The van fell quiet.

Yu Chu hadn’t slept well the night before, so he took the chance to doze. He didn’t open his eyes again until they reached their destination.

They got out one by one. Yu Chu was last. He was just about to close the door when Hughes beat him to it, slamming it shut with a bang.

Yu Chu had half his face tucked into his scarf. He glanced at Hughes, then walked on at an unhurried pace.

The five of them took the elevator and pressed the buttons for two different floors.

Yuan Xiangdi said none of them had eaten breakfast. He’d go to the cafeteria to buy some while the others headed to the practice room.

“I’ll come too,” Qin Yun said with a yawn. “It’ll be easier with two of us carrying everything.”

Yu Chu and the others went straight to the practice room.

The company had moved into a new building the year before, with more practice rooms than ever. Some idols even had rooms of their own.

A silver plaque engraved with Solstice hung outside their practice room.

Jian Yuyang turned on the air conditioning, took off his coat, and tossed it aside.

Yu Chu set his scarf and coat on a chair, picked a song at random, then walked over to the huge mirror. He followed the music, slowly tilting his head back as he began to warm up.

The air conditioning had only just come on, so it would take a while for the room to warm up. Yu Chu felt a little cold without his coat, but he was warming up anyway. No time would be wasted.

The other two joined him.

By the time Yuan Xiangdi and Qin Yun returned with breakfast, Yu Chu and the others had already started dancing.

Yu Chu turned slightly to the side. As he lifted his leg, his right hand drifted down from beside his ear, the back of it softly brushing his cheek.

Then he reached out toward Hughes, who was waiting off to the side. Even that one gesture was enough to draw the eye.

He wore a simple cream-colored sweater, his face expressionless. During practice, the dance mattered most to him; managing his expressions came second. To match the song, his movements were softer than usual.

Hughes walked over, caught Yu Chu by the wrist, then wrapped an arm around his waist.

Yu Chu hooked an arm around Hughes’s neck and raised his leg again, leaning backward until his body seemed to fold in half.

Almost all his weight rested on Hughes’s arms. His dangling hand never touched the floor, only hovered above it.

It was the final move of the dance.

A few seconds later, the music stopped.

Hughes tightened his arms and lifted Yu Chu upright.

Yu Chu used the momentum to stand, then straightened his clothes.

He wasn’t someone who sweated easily. Even after the dance, his breathing was only a little faster than usual.

The theme of the variety concert they were performing at on the seventh was “Exchange.”

Yu Chu and the others had assumed it meant a regular exchange stage, where they’d choose a song with the company. Then the staff showed up with a draw box and a camera crew to explain that this year, the songs would be chosen by lottery.

Yuan Xiangdi drew the slip. The moment he saw what was written on it, he wanted to ask the crew to cut that part and film it again. But the whole point of the concert was to get this kind of reaction.

The staff held the slip up to the camera. Yuan Xiangdi had drawn a female soloist’s song.

Without a doubt, Yu Chu was the best fit in the group. Fortunately, he didn’t care much either way. “Then I’ll do it.”

The original song had a featured verse, and after they discussed it, they gave that part to Hughes. The original rapper was a man, so Hughes was a good fit.

Jian Yuyang, standing to the side, finally came back to himself.

He’d been dancing since elementary school, so he could easily see the difference between Yu Chu and Hughes just now.

They’d practiced this dance twice over the last few days. It wasn’t completely unfamiliar, but they weren’t exactly comfortable with it yet.

Watching Hughes dance with Yu Chu, Jian Yuyang figured that if the two practices had brought Hughes to eighty percent, Yu Chu was already at ninety-nine.

Hughes was certainly good. Yu Chu’s performance was simply frighteningly complete.

Jian Yuyang thought of Yu Chu’s old nickname, the All-A Trainee. That was what the other trainees had called him before his debut.

The company’s rating standards were brutally strict. An all-A rating across the board sounded almost impossible.

At Yu Chu’s final evaluation before his debut, his vocal rating had still been a B.

Before they debuted, Jian Yuyang had actually considered Yu Chu his biggest rival.

There were only so many debut spots, and a trainee like Yu Chu was guaranteed to make it. If Jian Yuyang could outperform him, then he had a shot too. Actually, he didn’t even have to beat Yu Chu—he just had to reach two-thirds of his level.

Yu Chu had already switched into rest mode. Seeing that Yuan Xiangdi and Qin Yun were back, he walked over to them. “What did you buy?”

Yu Chu picked up one of the sandwiches Yuan Xiangdi had brought back. It had tomato in it.

He didn’t like tomatoes, so he turned and handed it to Hughes. “Here.”

Hughes wasn’t picky. He ate anything, so he took it without a word.

Yu Chu bit into his tomato-free sandwich and sat down on the floor nearby.

Lately, he hadn’t had much interest in food. If people didn’t starve to death when they stopped eating, he’d probably skip the whole thing.

While Yu Chu quietly ate breakfast, his teammates chattered about the event coming up in a few days.

Worried, but with a hint of anticipation, Yuan Xiangdi asked, “Does that mean you’ll have to wear a skirt?”

He meant Yu Chu.

“Probably,” Qin Yun said around his straw. A male idol he knew had drawn a girl group song from his own company. The whole group would have to go onstage in women’s clothes.

Yu Chu remembered that all the members of that group were muscular, broad-shouldered idols built like double-door refrigerators. Just imagining the scene felt a little terrifying.

Hughes looked at Yuan Xiangdi. “Why didn’t you pull a different slip?”

Yuan Xiangdi could see Hughes was about to rub it in again. He immediately pressed his palms together and bowed to Yu Chu. “I’m really sorry! My luck is just terrible!”

Yu Chu didn’t mind, but Yuan Xiangdi looked so sincere that he said offhandedly, “Then you can buy me dinner next time.”

Jian Yuyang suddenly spoke up. “In the fanfics people write, you’ve worn one more than once…”

Yu Chu stopped mid-bite and looked at him. “Can you please read fewer fanfics?”

Yu Chu stood in front of the vanity mirror, bent over with one hand braced against the counter. With the other, he used his middle finger to gently smudge the lipstick on his lips.

Their stylist, Cody, rarely used such a vivid shade on him, but this color suited the outfit he was wearing tonight.

Yu Chu looked at his teammates in the mirror. The four of them had finished getting ready ages ago and were sitting on the sofa along one wall, all staring at him in perfect unison.

He finished blending the lipstick and turned to look at them.

Yuan Xiangdi, who’d been staring intently at Yu Chu just a moment ago, immediately turned his face away. He didn’t dare look any longer, and muttered, “This is a bit much…”

The others also looked away in unison. Only Hughes kept his eyes fixed on Yu Chu.

Cody came over to touch up his lipstick. There were two stylists assigned to their group, and she was one of them.

She was thrilled with the look she’d created for Yu Chu. She’d never been this pleased with her work.

This is so satisfying.

Yu Chu wore a long black-and-red dress, short in the front and trailing in the back. His legs weren’t bare: a black lace stocking reached up his right thigh, while a black satin ribbon wound around his left leg.

He wore a light gray wig that was almost the same color as his real hair.

The wig was so long that if he swept the strands forward, the ends fell against his chest.

Yu Chu pinched a lock between two fingers, thinking that the wig was remarkably well made. Even this close, it looked like real hair.

“Done.” Cody gave him a heartfelt compliment. “You look gorgeous.”

Yu Chu smiled. “Thank you. You worked hard.”

Cody took out a pair of black lace gloves. “And these.”

Yu Chu put on the gloves as he slowly walked over to Hughes and the others. He’d always been thin, but in a dress he looked positively delicate.

All four teammates made a racket as they crowded around him.

Before long, Yu Chu was surrounded.

He’d just been thinking that they looked like four male models he’d ordered at a nightclub. He’d never been to one, so he had no idea if you could actually order male models there. It seemed plausible.

All four looked eager, but none of them actually reached out. With Yu Chu dressed like this, they all felt as though they’d be harassing him.

Yu Chu helplessly told them to quiet down, then said, “Stop crowding me.”

He pushed his way past them and went off to find his phone. He took a few selfies. If he saved up some now, he’d have something to post later.

The other four stood nearby, staring at him like idiots while he took pictures.

Yu Chu lowered his phone. Their expressions made him laugh, so he took them through the basic onstage routine in the dressing room.

They were performing two songs tonight.

The first was a cover. People often joked that their group was Yu Chu and his four backup dancers. Tonight, the joke had come true: aside from Hughes’s featured verse, the others were pure backup.

The second song was one of their own.

They’d rehearsed during the day, so they only needed to run through the routine once.

When they finished, Yu Chu’s phone rang. He thought it was Xie Zhixing, but he was wrong.

He stared at the screen, tapping at it with his fingers, his face blank.

Jian Yuyang asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Yu Chu locked the screen. “Spam message asking if I want to buy a house.”

With the others’ help, Yu Chu started putting on his in-ear monitor and microphone.

His monitor had been sent in for repairs after it malfunctioned, and it had only come back today.

The equipment cables kept getting tangled in his wig. As the others helped adjust his monitor, he thought how inconvenient long hair really was.

The five of them waited for a while. Then a young man with an ID badge around his neck came into the dressing room and called out to Yu Chu and the others. “Sorry to interrupt! You can head to the wings now. You’re up soon.”

Yu Chu walked at the front, as usual.

After two steps, he felt the side of his dress catch on a cardboard box in the hallway. He pinched the skirt, lifted it slightly, and kept walking.

He glanced over his shoulder. All four teammates were following right behind him.

Now it really does look like I’m taking the male models I ordered out with me as bodyguards.