Work Text:
It’s this language that you build. That’s what you mourn for when you’re losing someone you love. This language you’re not going to speak with anybody else.
–
Céline Sciamma
🍂
Jeonghan breaks up with Seungcheol on a Wednesday night.
It’s not like he means to. The words slip out before he can grab them, and by the time Jeonghan realizes his mistake Seungcheol is jerking away from him, away from where they’d been curled into each other on the weird lumpy couch they’ve had since they moved in together. Neither of them had the heart to throw it out.
Seungcheol’s mouth is full of urgent noise but so is the space around Jeonghan’s ears.
He’s fucked up. He knows he has.
Jeonghan takes one look at Seungcheol and thinks, This is it.
It’s not what Jeonghan said, it's how he said it – with an air of finality that sucked everything out of the room and replaced it with sharp knives. Prickling, needling, leaving rips so small that alone, one measly cut shouldn’t hurt, but altogether, all at once, the pain is immeasurable. It becomes unbearable. It tilted the basis of their relationship sideways, on some invisible axis that Jeonghan couldn’t predict the trajectory of, only that it was going, going, going up and away from him.
In the seconds that passed between that and the apology uttered not too long after, it became something Jeonghan couldn’t take back.
“Do you really mean that?” Seungcheol asks Jeonghan, one last time.
Forgiveness sits in the crook of Seungcheol’s question. It’s far more than what Jeonghan deserves.
Jeonghan doesn’t have an answer, so he doesn’t say anything at all. Seungcheol gathers what he can in his hands and leaves their apartment, shaking every step of the way.
Everything in Jeonghan goes with him.
The last thing Jeonghan sees before he goes to sleep that night is Seungcheol’s face. Disappointment eclipses Seungcheol’s features. Something in Jeonghan – something terrible and masochistic, he’s sure – keeps that expression in his memory, working overtime to retrace every distraught line on that beautiful, wonderful face. Backwards and forwards, all over again.
Another part of Jeonghan – the vilest part, he’s always known – is relieved.
🍂
now
“Seungcheol-hyung called me last night,” Seungkwan says two weeks later, around a mouthful of morning coffee. There is absolutely no tact at all; it’s so obvious Seungkwan is baiting Jeonghan, with the way his eyes widen meaningfully.
Jeonghan doesn’t rise to it. Woodenly, distantly, like someone else has taken his body, Jeonghan manages to lift his shoulder in a shrug, despite the way his heart hammers desperately in his chest, flinging itself at the confines of his ribs. There’s a ringing in his ears that won’t stop. Hasn’t stopped since Seungkwan started his sentence with Seungcheol-hyung.
“Seungkwan-ah?” Jeonghan hates how broken he sounds, even to himself. “Stop it, okay?”
Seungkwan flinches. He doesn’t say anything, just returns to the cup cradled between his hands, lips pursuing in shamefaced apology.
Jeonghan closes his eyes. It’s only morning, but even he can tell that this is going to be a very long day.
It follows him to the breakroom, where Sojeong’s gaze pierces him the entire time, mouth pursed like she wants to say something to him. It never comes. The weight of it pricks at Jeonghan, prowling at the edge of his periphery. He grows more and more uncomfortable by the second, partially because he’s scared that his mind might be making this tension up in the first place.
Jeonghan makes a shitty cup of coffee and has a shittier time forcing it down while pretending like it doesn’t bother him. Things like this always have, though. When he and Sojeong make eye contact for what must be the 100th time in the span of ten minutes, he wiggles his fingers and gives a little grin for good measure.
Sojeong doesn’t get embarrassed. She’s just worried.
Jeonghan breaks first. He turns around and sighs as he rinses his cup, tilting it this way and that, watching as the water sloshes around in the ceramic. Sojeong’s a good friend. She’s one of his favorite coworkers, actually, right up there next to Seungkwan – not that Jeonghan would ever admit it. The two of them have been treading carefully ever since the break up, since they’re the only ones at the office who know about Seungcheol and Jeonghan and what they were. And, by extension: what they ended up becoming.
The break room door swings open.
“So this is where you were,” Seungkwan’s voice is pleasant and melodic, smile evident. “I couldn’t find you at your desk.”
Jeonghan keeps his back turned, suddenly very invested in the cleanliness of a chipped communal office mug. He turns it in his hands this way and that, wondering just how much money they’d paid for a cup that has a grammatically incorrect generic phrase printed on it. At least the cartoon bunny is cute.
“I’m about to head back out to work, Seungkwan-ah.” Sojeong laughs quietly, her hands up in surrender as her badge jostles, indicating to Jeonghan that she’s getting up and ready to head out. “Don’t tell Joohyun. She thinks I take long lunches as it is already.”
Jeonghan imagines she throws another worried glance his way, and there’s a brief silence in which they’re probably communicating wordlessly. About him. Or Seungcheol. Or both of them. Jeonghan doesn’t want to sound conceited or anything, but lately these days, he’s been all they can talk about.
The door closes behind her.
“He misses you,” Seungkwan says quietly, coming to stand next to him. He doesn’t say who “he” is, nor does Seungkwan sound reproachful or accusatory at all, which somehow makes Jeonghan feel a thousand times worse. “That’s all I wanted to say earlier.”
Jeonghan finally turns off the faucet and places the cup gingerly on the dish rack. Seungkwan purses his lips like he wants to say a million more things, but at the last moment decides against it. Hansol is rubbing off on him. Good.
Jeonghan blinks, realizing that Seungkwan is waiting for a verbal response. He’s been missing a lot of things lately, social cues that he’d usually be fantastic at catching. It feels like he’s dropping things, that life is moving a little too fast without him. Leaving him behind.
Honestly? Jeonghan’s a bit of a mess right now. But no one else needs to know that.
“Jeonghan-ah?” Seungkwan’s voice is loud in the quiet of the room. “You’d tell us, right? If something was wrong?”
Jeonghan tilts his head up towards the ceiling and closes his eyes. Counts the seconds he needs to finish his exhale, and then repeats the same routine before he opens his eyes.
Jeonghan smiles prettily at Seungkwan. “Of course I would.”
The day trudges on painfully afterwards. Jeonghan can’t focus, mind swirling with a million things and memories to replay. None of his work gets done. He cuts corners when he can and spends an hour rearranging the folders on his desktop instead of any actual emails he has to send. Then he fibs to make it look like he’s much further along on his projects than he actually is.
He promptly clocks out at five. Goes home and tries not to think too hard about what Seungkwan said earlier. What had Seungcheol said to Seungkwan, where had the conversation actually ended up spectacularly derailing into, If Seungcheol can’t sleep too well at night these days, either. Jeonghan stops himself before he goes down that rabbit hole any further. He isn’t entitled to that kind of knowledge anymore.
He wants to laugh when he opens the door to his apartment. If Seungkwan could see it now, he’d know, beyond doubt, how Jeonghan truly feels.
Everything in the apartment is alive with memories. Bits and pieces of a glittering past littered this way and that, pictures of days long lived. A shrine to what could’ve been. No matter how hard he tries, Jeonghan can’t bring himself to take anything down just yet, so instead of sitting docile and innocent on the shelf, they haunt him with a vengeance instead. Like trying to shake off an awful ghost.
Seungcheol, Seungcheol, Seungcheol.
When is Jeonghan never not thinking of him?
I miss you, he thinks about saying to the real Seungcheol when he thumbs over the cheek of the Seungcheol trapped in the picture frame, back when his hair tickled the curve of his jawline, the sunlight against his silhouette, smile wide and bright and happy.
The tears fall fast today. Jeonghan’s eyelashes are thick and heavy with wetness, the hot sticky feeling expanding – forever expanding – in his chest, sharp to the touch. There’s pain and guilt and a terribleness that Jeonghan never can find the right words for sitting in his heart.
He puts his head down and cries it all out.
🍂
then
The first time Jeonghan met Seungcheol, he was crying. Not Seungcheol, not like how Jeonghan will tell this story to other people for the years to come. Jeonghan is the one who cried, not Seungcheol. He had just been kind enough to let Jeonghan lie about it.
It goes like this: Jeonghan’s in the practice room, getting yelled at (like he always does) about his shitty footwork (which is always the problem). Jeonghan lets the words glide off his back, weathering all of it. Not once does he permit himself to break down. It’s only once their dance instructors leave that room that he lets out a tentative choked sob, testing the strength of the silence in the room. His voice echoes back at him – is that what he really sounds like? – and then, then – when he is truly sure that he is alone – everything spills out, everything everywhere all at once, the hurt so strong that it brings Jeonghan to his knees.
Seconds, minutes, hours pass like that – how long he spends curled up in a ball, back against the world, he’s not sure. Wracked cries work their way through his lungs, echoing throughout the empty practice room, when Jeonghan hears voices loud in the hallway.
He quickly jerks to attention, wiping away tears hastily with the back of his hand. Whatever his hands can’t catch he resorts to using the hem of his shirt, hoping to god the sweat gives him enough cover to get away with it.
A head peeks in, black fluffy hair and a pair of dark thick eyelashes. Choi Seungcheol. One of the oldest of all the trainees here at Pledis.
Jeonghan knows of him. Of course he does. Seungcheol is supposed to be the competition, but everyone knows better. Seungcheol is a senior, has been here for years and years; he goes into a room filled with people and walks out of it with everyone’s respect. There’s no competing with someone like that.
At this very moment, Jeonghan is more acutely aware of it than anything else — they don’t even exist on the same level.
Seungcheol doesn’t say anything for a moment, a befuddled expression working its way onto his face, mouth going slack into an ‘O’ shape.
“What,” Jeonghan says so crossly, so full of vitriol, that even he flinches at how mean it sounds to his own ears. “You’ve never seen anyone cry before?”
“No, I have,” Seungcheol’s voice comes quieter, kinder than Jeonghan expects. It stings, how much much more graceful Seungcheol is in handling this situation. Great. Just another thing Jeonghan needs to improve on.
“Then what?”
Seungcheol crosses his arms, silently sizing Jeonghan up. It makes Jeonghan straighten in return, tilting his chin up in defiance. “Just,” Seungcheol confesses. “I haven’t met you before. Officially, I mean. Usually us trainees, we get to chat a little, you know, exchange our names, and we usually get through three practices before anyone cries in front of each other. We haven’t even had one.”
Jeonghan scoffs in disbelief, a wheezy sort of laughter escaping out of him. It clears out the rest of the snot that’s sitting in his airways, oddly enough, lifting the heaviness off his chest. Only a little bit, but still – to Jeonghan, who feels it all the time, every time he steps out in front of the world, for evaluations, for other people, it means everything.
It’s quiet for a while longer.
“Bad joke,” Seungcheol acknowledges, dipping his head diplomatically. A smile slips out, quick and boyish. It gets overshadowed by two dimples, which makes the act all that much cuter.
Jeonghan snorts. At least Seungcheol has the decency to admit it. He swipes at his nose in what he hopes is a discreet manner and makes to move out. “Ah, if you’ve got the practice room, I’ll leave–”
“Don’t face things on your own,” Seungcheol tugs on Jeonghan’s wrists. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s enough to force Jeonghan into looking up. The steadiness of Seungcheol’s grip and the kindness in his eyes burns Jeonghan alive.
Jeonghan jerks his hand back, on instinct.
How can you be like that, Jeonghan wants to throw at him. We’ve just met.
He searches Seungcheol’s face for any sign of falsehood, any sort of sugary sweetness that is too good to be true. But Seungcheol is an open book, so genuine. Wide and earnest. Warmth radiates off of him so strongly that Jeonghan winces, chafed by it.
Jeonghan looks up at Seungcheol and tries to imagine a version of himself standing next to Seungcheol in the future. On a stage. In front of millions of people. Performing for an ocean of lights.
He tries to imagine a version of himself that is strong enough to fend off all the horrible things other people say about him now, a version of himself strong enough to not listen to any of the words that will get said about him many more years down the line.
He can’t.
But there’s something about the earnestness of the gesture, etched in the lines of Seungcheol’s face – so open and trusting and steady – that makes Jeonghan want to try. For now.
🍂
now
Jeonghan’s phone buzzes insistently next to him, jerking him awake. He recognizes the godawful ringtone, a motley of loud in-your-face noises complete with a bunch of autotuned tiger growls. Despite himself, he grins as he picks up.
“Jeonghan-ah,” Soonyoung coos through the line, dripping aegyo.
“Soonyoung-ie~! My favorite dongsaeng, just when I missed you most,” Jeonghan croons back through the speaker, hoping to god the croak in his voice is an aftereffect of waking up.
He presses the backs of his hands against his throat, his cheeks, then works his way up to his eyes, testing them for puffiness. It’s an afterthought of idol training, ingrained into him. Jeonghan jerks to a stop when he realizes it’s not something he has to care about anymore. No one’s watching him. No one’s paying attention. Something about that sticks hard in his chest, but he’s unwilling to examine it any further.
“Come drink with me?” Soonyoung asks, when Jeonghan’s attention floats back in.
Jeonghan snorts. “You can’t drink.”
Soonyoung pauses, as if considering this new information. “Keep me company, then.”
Jeonghan looks at the apartment in front of him and sees Seungcheol. “Yeah, okay,” he says softly, forcing himself to get up. His sad pathetic bony knees only crack once in protest, which is a victory in and of itself. He should really do yoga. Myungho is always harping on him to take a class together.
Company. It’s been a while since he’s allowed himself that. Since –
“I can do that,” Jeonghan says.
Turns out Jeonghan doesn’t have to walk far. Mingyu is waiting outside, hazard lights of the Carnival blinking furiously, splashing the stone brick walls of the alleyway with color. Soonyoung already has the passenger window pulled down, a wide grin on his face, like he knew Jeonghan’s answer before he gave it, which, yeah. Jeonghan never says no to Soonyoung when he asks.
“Stalker,” Jeonghan calls good-naturedly into the dark of the night, breath billowing behind the two hands he has cupped around his mouth. Mingyu bristles, mouth open to refute, but Soonyoung’s laughter cuts it down before the situation can get any more hostile. Not that it would’ve, since Mingyu is all bark and no bite.
“Climb in,” Soonyoung chirps happily. “This is a kidnapping.”
Jeonghan coos at him as he crawls in, the heaviness in his chest from earlier budging just a little bit. Not the same way that it would with Seungcheol, but Jeonghan can’t be too greedy. These days Seungcheol has made himself scarce around Jeonghan – not that Jeonghan particularly blames him for it.
“Take me away,” Jeonghan says, embellishing with a flourish of his arm. He makes it extra syrupy and slimy sounding on purpose, cherishing the scoff it earns from Mingyu in the driver’s seat.
For all that they squabble in the car over where to drink – Jeonghan being difficult because he can be, and Soonyoung because he’s actually quite terrible at navigating phone applications (“Isn’t that like, your job?” “Shut up.”) – they’re too busy laughing and giggling to actually be mad at each other. In reality, it’s simply a ploy to stretch out the time that they have together. Jeonghan hardly gets to see Soonyoung as it is these days.
Mingyu gets so annoyed at their indecision that he drives them to a place he knows neither of them will object, pulling the parking brake with particular relish. “Here,” Mingyu grinds out between clenched teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw pointedly.
“Thank you, Mingoo,” Jeonghan croons before he hops off. “You’re the best.”
Mingyu rolls his eyes so hard, Jeonghan feels the force of it far before he actually sees it in the rearview mirror.
“Remember this place, hyung?” Soonyoung grins so hard it reaches his eyes, bouncing up and down in excitement as he holds the restaurant door open for Jeonghan. The gesture is so familiar Jeonghan’s heart squeezes at the sight.
The thing is, he does. They used to go here all the time, when they were younger. There is a memory of him and Seungcheol here, too.
Jeonghan settles for squeezing Soonyoung’s arm in response as he walks by, who gleefully takes the opportunity to loop their arms together.
They get guided past peeling paint walls and smoke funnels until they end up at a tiny table, hidden just out of sight. Jeonghan murmurs their order to the ahjumma, who smiles and gives them a bottle of soju, on the house, before she goes back to the kitchens.
Jeonghan makes a whole fuss out of walking Soonyoung to his seat and depositing him there. Jeonghan even gives a funny little curtsy, embarrassed grin sliding across his face as Soonyoung claps and hollers, attracting the attention of other patrons.
“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” Jeonghan comments idly, reaching over for the utensils. Means, I’m so glad some things have stayed the same. He takes the time to carefully clean them with a napkin before setting them in front of Soonyoung.
Soonyoung orders enough to feed a small army.
“It’s bulking season,” he declares proudly as the dishes come forth from the kitchen, grabbing his chopsticks with much gusto. Jeonghan thinks it’s entirely made up and has more to do with the fact that Jeonghan offered to pay more than anything else, and Jeonghan tells Soonyoung that.
Soonyoung laughs, mouth full of food. A grain of rice has somehow made its way onto Soonyoung’s cheeks. Jeonghan gestures for Soonyoung to lean forward so that he can pick it off.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jeonghan murmurs good-naturedly, waving him away. “Eat up.”
While Soonyoung eats, Jeonghan picks at his plate here and there, appetite growing dimmer while Soonyoung gets brighter and brighter as the night goes on. Jeonghan maneuvers his chopsticks deftly, enough so that Soonyoung won’t notice that Jeonghan’s giving him mostly the best cuts of meat. Even the chuck tail flap. In the comfortable silence, apart from Soonyoung’s noisy chewing, Jeonghan pours their drinks.
“Cheers, hyung~” Soonyoung lifts the arm carrying his soju glass up so hard that he spills some alcohol in the process. Jeonghan meets him halfway, barely wincing at the taste as it goes down. He toys with the neck of the bottle, one flimsy grip from letting it go and shattering it all over the floor.
“Are you happy?” Jeonghan asks, when they’re deep enough into the soju. Soonyoung looks up at this, eyes bright and cheeks flushed pink with alcohol – he’d always been a lightweight, this guy.
It’s a question that Jeonghan has always meant to ask. When Kwon Soonyoung became Hoshi, Korea’s Beloved Hamster. Then Prince. Then Tiger. He’s worn many hats in the years since they met, but to Jeonghan, Soonyoung will be, first and foremost, one of his closest friends.
Are you happy? Such a loaded question. Jeonghan doesn’t think he could give a solid answer, if Soonyoung had been the one to ask.
What punches Jeonghan in the gut is the guilt that he finds there, etched on Soonyoung’s face.
“Yes,” Soonyoung confesses, lightning quick. His eyes are looking anywhere but at Jeonghan. “I am.”
A sinking feeling rears its head, ugly and familiar. Then, horribly enough, jealousy, burning and twisting and searing. Jeonghan is horrified. He hastily squashes the lump in his throat with another gulp of alcohol, wanting to scrub all traces of it away. Like maybe if he acts fast enough, he’d be able to erase it entirely, like it had never existed in the first place.
What a shitty thing, to be jealous of a friend. But that’s not particularly new either. Jeonghan’s done plenty of shitty things. This is just one in a long line of many.
Jeonghan reaches over the food to tilts Soonyoung’s chin up slowly with a gentle crook of his fingers. “Soonyoung-ah,” He says gently, much more gently than he actually feels, “Don’t you ever feel sorry for being happy.”
You deserve this, Jeonghan says, thinking of the boy Soonyoung used to be, all brace-faced and mean in the desperate way kids are when they’re unsure about the future. Jeonghan looks at the boy across from him and repeats it: You deserve this as much as anyone else.
Soonyoung twists his mouth into his classic pout. “Hyuuuung,” he whines, wobbling that fine line between drunk and sober.
“Besides,” Jeonghan soldiers on, wry grin overtaking his mouth, “There’s no way my body would have held up until now. You’d have to carry this old ahjussi with you, bones creaking and everything. I’d be no fun.”
The joke falls flat, even to Jeonghan’s ears. A dull muted panic begins to rise in the wake of the jagged silence that sits between them.
“I would’ve dragged you everywhere with me,” Soonyoung reaches across the table, clutching Jeonghan’s hand with a ferocity that simultaneously scares Jeonghan and pulls him back from whatever terrible dark place he’d been, just then.
Jeonghan hadn’t known how much he wanted this to be true. How much he actually needed to hear this answer, until Soonyoung had said it.
“I would have.” Soonyoung blinks determinedly, once, twice, all solemn.
“Aigoo, alright,” Jeonghan pats Soonyoung’s head, taking great care to adjust his beanie for him. His heart is climbing up into his throat.
“We would’ve been together,” Soonyoung whispers, slumping against the wall, seemingly more to himself now than anyone else. “That’s all that matters.”
Was it? Would that be enough?
Jeonghan desperately wants to ask Soonyoung, but the moment has already passed, and there’s not nearly enough soju in him to gather the courage to try again.
Jeonghan snorts quietly to himself, because what else did he expect? He was never that brave to begin with.
Mingyu drops Jeonghan off in front of his apartment complex.
Soonyoung is out cold, snoring up a storm, drool collecting in the dip of his shoulder. Jeonghan snaps a photo, for the memory. And the potential blackmail, later. One has to do everything they can to be prepared in this economy.
“Do you need someone to walk you up?” Mingyu asks to be polite, Jeonghan knows. It’s in the way Mingyu doesn’t really look him in the eye through the mirror, the way he keeps worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth, even in the way he keeps checking his watch, like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Jeonghan is nothing more than just another component of Mingyu’s job to him, which stings more than he’d like to admit.
A long time ago, he and Mingyu would’ve been friends.
In another life, Mingyu would already be unbuckling his seatbelt and groaning a multitude of complaints but shouldering Jeonghan’s weight all the same, frame solid and warm. Jeonghan would go limp in his arms, just to keep Mingyu humble, to check if he really goes to the gym three times a week like he says he does. They’d both laugh quietly to themselves the entire way up the stairs because Mrs. Park on Level 3 always chastises Jeonghan when he has guests over and they’re being loud after hours. Mingyu might stumble and nearly drop Jeonghan, but manage to stay upright in the end. In the end, Mingyu would die to deliver Jeonghan safely to his door. That’s how devoted Mingyu is. Loyal. Principled. So goddamned stubborn about it, too.
In this life, Mingyu has different loyalties. Jeonghan had drawn them himself, cracked cleanly down the middle, divisions drawn and quartered so neatly that there is no question about what is and what isn’t acceptable.
In this life, Jeonghan fumbles for the latch, wincing when the hard metal bites into his shoulder on release. The door is already open, has been since Mingyu parked; the winter air is cold on Jeonghan’s face. He shivers and tugs his coat tighter around his chest.
“Nah,” Jeonghan bears his grin like armor. An impenetrable shield. “I got it. I’ll be fine.”
That night, Jeonghan dreams of Seungcheol.
“Stop it,” the Seungcheol in his dreams chides him like he would have in real life. Shy smile, nudging shoulder, hands in motion – always in motion. So warm and full of love.
Here, in the dream, Jeonghan falls into Seungcheol easily. He lets himself indulge in the fantasy. What’s one more half truth?
“Stop what?” Jeonghan teases, but before he can get the rest of his practiced delivery out, Seungcheol is already draped over Jeonghan’s shoulders. Even in dreams the scent of Seungcheol lingers, unmistakable. It should sting Jeonghan’s nose, but instead there is something unfurling in his throat.
If he opened his mouth, would it all come spilling back out?
Jeonghan must be thinking too hard, because Dream-Seungcheol turns serious, brushing Jeonghan’s hair back from his forehead and tucking it neatly behind his ear.
“Are you eating well? Sleeping well?” Dream-Seungcheol frowns, very visibly giving Jeonghan a once over. It burns the pit of Jeonghan’s stomach. All of Seungcheol’s attention. Jeonghan had forgotten how precious it was to have it.
Jeonghan lifts one half of his shoulders up. The gesture is slow and syrupy. In this dream, they’re still together.
In fact, in all of the dreams that Jeonghan has had since they broke up, he and Seungcheol are still together.
“I get the bed all to myself,” Jeonghan tells Dream-Seungcheol. “It’s pretty great.”
“Stop lying,” Dream-Seungcheol laughs, before tilting his head up to the sky. “You’ve never slept well without me.”
“You hog all the sheets,” Jeonghan retorts. He knows it’s supposed to be a complaint, but it wavers too much. The fondness bleeds through.
“A calculated move on my part,” Dream-Seungcheol insists, his gummy smile sneaking out when Jeonghan shoots him a disbelieving look.
“What?” Ah, there’s the whining. Jeonghan hides his smile in the crook of his elbow. “It’s true! It’s so that you wake up curled up around me, you know.”
Dream-Seungcheol goes quiet. “I could spend all my mornings like that. With you.”
This isn’t something fabricated from the dream, built in some corner of Jeonghan’s subconsciousness and tossed into the light, it’s something that the real Seungcheol has said to Jeonghan in the spaces between the rays of an early dawn.
This? This is memory.
The realization knocks Jeonghan onto his back. There isn’t any fear in him right now, just something empty and hollow that he scooped out the day that the real Seungcheol left. Or, Jeonghan amends quietly, the day Jeonghan drove Seungcheol away. Semantics. Whatever.
Dirt digs into Jeonghan’s back. He’s sinking into the ground – or maybe the earth is swallowing him up. The sky is blue as ever, right above him. The sun is so bright it’s almost blinding. Everything hurts but he can’t quite pinpoint where the pain is coming. Maybe it’s all around him.
Maybe it is him.
I miss you, Jeonghan admits, testing the taste of it on his tongue.
Right before the dream cuts to black, Jeonghan is hit with the full force of how much it rings true, a startling clarity that knocks the breath out of his lungs.
He wakes up to tear stained sheets, hands clutching at them like a lifeline, heart seizing in his throat.
Jeonghan sighs.
After a long time spent staring up at the ceiling, he resolves to get up and do something useful with his life. He methodically strips his sheets and chucks them into the washing machine, relishing the clunk, clunk, clunk sound that they make as they bunch up.
Going around and around in circles, again and again.
Seungkwan is frantically knocking on Jeonghan’s door with two iced americano in his hands.
“I’m supposed to be asleep right now,” Jeonghan says ruefully, rubbing at his eye with a vengeance.
“You’re supposed to be meeting me at the station, so that we can take the subway to work.” Seungkwan swats at his hand. “Don’t rub too hard, you’re going to give yourself wrinkles.”
“That’s the point,” Jeonghan grins, much more cheerful than he feels. He keeps his hand up by his eye, pausing in his ministrations. “Hey, if I rub hard enough, do you think my eye will pop out?”
“Here,” Seungkwan shoves a drink into Jeonghan’s hand in lieu of engaging in ridiculous banter before seven in the morning. Jeonghan respects the decision. “It was 4800 won, so you have to drink it.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” is Jeonghan’s reply, but his mouth is already seeking out the straw, sipping.
Seungkwan takes a moment to look at him. Out of momentary kindness, or perhaps struck by what he sees on Jeonghan’s face, Seungkwan sniffs before turning away. “Clearly,” he says.
Jeonghan can’t help but trail anxiously behind Seungkwan, who’s taking Jeonghan’s lack of invitation to intrude upon and inspect every bit of Jeonghan’s living space. Jeonghan’s brain is railing with every cursory step Seungkwan takes, doing the mental acrobatics, trying desperately to figure out just what it is that Seungkwan is seeing.
Jeonghan knows what he sees – he’d seen it last night before he went to bed: towering stack of dishes stacked on top of each other in the kitchen sink, empty wrappers that didn’t quite make their way to the trash bin, his extensive collection of vitamin bottles in various states of disarray. He had stopped in his tracks, doing the mental calculations to figure out if he had the emotional capacity to engage in the warfare of household chores, especially when it was a big apartment, and he was all alone.
Spoiler – he didn’t.
And now Seungkwan is in his apartment, inspecting every last bit of it like he’s Jeonghan’s mother popping into the apartment for a “surprise visit” because “she missed him” and “wanted to check in on him”. He’s seeing all of it, all of what Jeonghan has left in his wake. It looks like a disaster. It looks barely fit for living in.
Jeonghan closes his eyes, feels the swell in his throat.
Does Seungkwan think Jeonghan’s pathetic? He sure feels like it. At least he managed to tackle the laundry late last night.
“Stop it,” Seungkwan chides gently, without even looking back. Jeonghan startles. Had he been too obvious?
Seungkwan turns back to look at Jeonghan, eyes wide and sad… and understanding. Jeonghan takes a step back. He feels like his resolve has been crumbling, all this time. He feels brittle and broken and hastily put back together, like he hadn’t been given the proper time to grieve. In a way, he really hadn’t.
But whose fault was that?
“Jeonghan-ah,” Seungkwan’s voice is so soft and kind. Jeonghan’s eyes start to sting. “Are you okay?”
Okay is a relative term, Jeonghan thinks.
Soft-boiled eggs are okay. Socks with sandals are okay, because Jeonghan understands what it is to be anemic with poor blood circulation and sometimes it’s hard to force yourself into stiff shoes, crimes on fashion be damned. If Jeonghan’s in a good enough mood, then even waking up early on Sunday mornings to enjoy a stroll along the Han river in the dead of winter is okay, so long as he has enough heat packs for his hands to leech warmth from. Or a certain someone to steal heat from.
There’s no use in being torn up over something if you can’t guarantee the outcome. Life has weird funny ways of twisting things around, and Jeonghan has lived enough of it to know that disappointment is one of his least favorite tastes. He’s taught himself to be okay with most things.
But living without Seungcheol, apparently, is not one of them.
“Jeonghan?”
Seungkwan is looking at him, expectant.
Jeonghan swallows. This is his opportunity. Maybe if he said it, it’d make it more visceral, his grief. How he feels the terribleness weigh down on him every single day, all of the tumultuous feelings that ricochet through his head, switching between relief and heartache and everything in between.
Everything hurts. Everything is hard. But above all else, he still has to carry on. Jeonghan is the one who did this, anyways – he’s the one who held the knife and pushed it in, all the way to the hilt. He should carry on like everything’s okay. He needs to, only he doesn’t know how.
Here’s his chance. It feels like the world has slowed to a stop. Waiting. Watching.
Say it, Jeonghan urges himself. Say it. Say it. Say it.
“I’m fine,” he hears himself tell Seungkwan.
“If you say so,” Seungkwan still sounds doubtful, but doesn’t push any further. Disappointment sits in Jeonghan’s throat, though he’s not sure who he holds it for.
They head to the station, hopping on the next train that slides in. They’re only two minutes late clocking in, the both of them having already mastered the art of pretending like they’d been there the entire time. Seungkwan immediately swings his phone into the crook of his shoulder, balancing it there, pretending to take a very important phone call, while Jeonghan fiddles with a stack of papers he’d conveniently left out on his desk for this very exact reason.
No one notices how hard Jeonghan is struggling to breathe.
His fault, again.
🍂
then
It’s just the two of them, in that cursed practice room – the same one that they met in all those months ago.
Seungcheol likes to tease Jeonghan about it every time that they meet in the corridors of the company. Jeonghan takes the teasing gracefully, of course, then turns around and steals Seungcheol’s convenience store snacks when he’s not looking.
Jeonghan is working on a piece of homework, choreography that the teachers had given all of them last week; Seungcheol is there for moral support, or whatever.
Jeonghan is here at this ungodly hour because Hyelim had threatened failure on his dance evals if he didn’t practice, which would mark yet another failure in a long, long line of others. Jeonghan likes Hyelim the best out of all the instructors, which isn’t saying much because he dislikes all of them, but when she nags at his footwork it’s not because she’s given up on thinking he can do better, but because she believes he can do better.
It’s a minute difference, but it’s one all the same.
The real reason why they’re both here is because Seungcheol had caught Jeonghan red-handed stealing snacks out of his locker.
Jeonghan had done it enough times – at first out of spite, because it felt like Seungcheol was always one step ahead. He’d had years of training, sure, which wasn’t what rankled Jeonghan, but how he managed to keep the distance infuriated Jeonghan to no end. There was always something new to learn, but even so, Seungcheol always had time to slip out when Han Seongsu wasn’t looking and head out to the convenience store. Seungcheol was that good, good enough to escape unnoticed, triumphant in the way he’d return with bags full of stuff for the younger trainees. Jeonghan was always the liability, the worry, the one to watch, the one to be careful of. He was jealous. Where’d Seungcheol even get the money from, anyway?
It was almost too easy: Jeonghan would watch the practice room empty out, boys reeking of stink and sweat and heads filled with other worries, like whose turn it was to use the shower first (Junhui always used up all the hot water) and what homework they had to do before seven in the morning tomorrow. It wouldn’t take long for everyone to disperse, and then that’s when Jeonghan would dart into the locker rooms, zeroing in on Seungcheol’s locker. The code was laughably simple – Seungcheol’s birthday, an even 0808, too predictable and blaringly obvious. Almost like Seungcheol was asking to be robbed, to be honest. Jeonghan was doing him the favor, really. It was better to be ransacked by someone you knew than a complete stranger, in his opinion.
The first couple times Jeonghan had fumbled with the lock, dropping the metal contraption and sending it skittering across the floor. No one came running in. It felt a little bit like waiting for a slap on the wrist that never came. So Jeonghan did it again. And again. And again, bolder and bolder every time, to see what he could get away with (a lot, it turned out), until Jeonghan had practically made himself a permanent subscriber to Seungcheol’s snack stash. Not once did Seungcheol seem to notice.
But this time, when he does it, hands twisting the dial with practiced ease — muscle memory locked to a tee — before slipping the lock off, Jeonghan’s completely unprepared for Seungcheol’s head to peer over the top as soon as he slides the locker shut.
Jeonghan lets out a garbled scream, barely remembering that he’s not really supposed to be here. It ends up sounding like a miniscule squeak.
Seungcheol jerks his chin up with a smirk. “Hey.”
Jeonghan, chip bag in hand, smiles back weakly. “Hey, yourself.”
“What have you got there?” Seungcheol asks, head swooping down closer to where the incriminating snack is being held. Jeonghan panics, swiveling his body in order to hide the very obvious.
“Nothing,” Jeonghan lies through his teeth, mind moving a mile a minute trying to find his way out of this one. The odds are very slim, but he’s done better with worse.
Seungcheol lifts a thick eyebrow in perfect isolation. Impressive. Their facial expressions class must really be doing wonders — Jeonghan resolves to pay closer attention the next time he’s in there.
Jeonghan expects to be humiliated. For Seungcheol to pull him out by the collar, to throw him up against the lockers until they rattle. To be mean to him. Just a little bit. Surely Jeonghan deserves it.
Instead, what Seungcheol says next shocks Jeonghan.
“If you had wanted some, all you had to do was ask.” Seungcheol says softly, “I’d have bought some for you.”
To his credit, Jeonghan is only knocked a little off-kilter by Seungcheol’s charm, freezing for a split second. He decides to be brave (and a little bit cheeky) in the face of shame: he grins and tears open the packet with his teeth. “This way is more fun.”
Amusement sneaks its way across Seungcheol’s face. “Really?”
“Really,” Jeonghan nods, tilting his chin up to look up at Seungcheol. It’s his first mistake. His resolve grows weaker the longer he stares into Seungcheol’s eyes. They’re way too warm and mischievous and forgiving for someone who caught a thief in the act pilfering their precious snack stash.
“Alright then,” Seungcheol’s grin grows wider, impish. Now Jeonghan has to give pause. He had forgotten that, for as much as Seungcheol was kind, he could be just as cruel. He was the younger sibling, after all, and Jeonghan’s fought enough battles with his baby sister to know they can be particularly brutal, exacting and demanding.
There’s a little spike of fear in the back of his throat that Jeonghan fights to quell.
“You owe me now.” Seungcheol declares. “Just remember that I gave you a way out and you didn’t take it, alright?”
“Yeah, okay,” Jeonghan scoffs. What could he have to give Seungcheol? What could Yoon Jeonghan possibly have that Choi Seungcheol would want?
This, apparently.
“Here?” Jeonghan looks around incredulously around the empty practice room, then at Seungcheol, who nods, gesturing for Jeonghan to follow him in.
“You’ve been having a hard time at practice,” Seungcheol winces as he says this. It’s gentler than how Soonyoung gets at times, more matter of fact than harsh opinion, so Jeonghan absorbs the critique a little better than he usually does. “I wanted to – I don’t know, make it suck a little less.”
“Thanks,” Jeonghan says drily. A part of him is vaguely touched, even though he feels like he should be offended. That Seungcheol would, on his time off, want to spend it working – with Jeonghan, no less – is kind of. Nice.
It’s disgustingly nice, actually.
The thing is: Jeonghan is trying his best. He is. It just – it just feels like everyone else is always doing better. No matter how many sleepless nights he has or late hours he works there is always, always something else to do.
They get to work. Seungcheol pulls up the audio file, connecting his phone to the auxiliary cord. Jeonghan shuffles into place, in front of the mirror. He messes up the first time, an aftereffect of having a second body in the room. Then again. And again. Jeonghan loses count of how many times they have to cut the music.
They go through the song over and over until it bleeds out of Jeonghan’s ears even after the stereo has been shut off. The bass continues to thrum through his body, reverberating and rattling his bones, muscles twitching of their own accord.
It feels like taking a battering ram to a wall that just won’t crack, no matter the pressure. Jeonghan can feel it building in his temples. One day, very soon, it’s going to be him or the wall that caves in.
Jeonghan doesn't like his odds all that much. He knows what it takes to win — he wouldn’t bet on himself either, right now.
Seungcheol’s eyelids are drooping, sweat soaking through his white t-shirt. The wet fabric clings to his back, illuminating far more of Seungcheol’s body than Jeonghan would like to see. There is something swirling, thrilling in the privacy that the quietness of this room affords them.
“I’m just never going to get this,” Jeonghan says quietly. “We should give up. You need your sleep.”
“No,” Seungcheol waves Jeonghan off, even though he’s clearly fighting back a yawn. Jeonghan’s frustration boils up once again, coupled with the guilt of being burdensome. Doesn’t Seungcheol know when to quit? “You’ve almost got it down.”
It’s two in the morning. They have evaluations in the morning, all the trainees, and it’s part fear and something inhumane, built off of the terrifying dizzying teetering feeling when you’re that age and everything feels momentous every time you’re slated to experience it.
They make all the kids line up this long corridor, so long that it’s hard to tell how far you’ll have to walk before you hit the end. Then it starts. You can’t hear anything but the low bass perforating the walls for an eternity of three minutes, the dregs of a pop song that made its way around on the radio four months ago. And then horrid, agonizing silence. When the door swings back open, everyone looks at your face. They can tell, without knowing anything about it, what exactly happened in that room. Then they call the next one in, the line gets shuffled down, and the entire time your stomach is curdling and trying to jump out of your throat.
Jeonghan knows how his turn will go. He’s not nailing any of the beats; his movements aren’t sharp the way Soonyoung likes it, exacting and precise to the touch. To be very honest, he’s tired. He has been for a long time.
This is a kindness at best, and they both know it.
Jeonghan’s fingers dig into the meat of his palms.
“Just stop,” Jeonghan pleads. At this point he’s not sure with who. He just wants all of it, every thing, to stop.
Seungcheol freezes, shocked. Has Jeonghan ever raised his voice like that before? He is too miserable to care.
“It’s not like it’ll matter anyway,” Jeonghan can’t bring himself to look at Seungcheol. “It’s not like I’m good enough to debut.”
There’s something that shifts in the air at that, a sharp frisson of fear and inexplicable sadness that shakes its way through Jeonghan at the admonition. Something clicks into place, in his heart, and it cements itself there, dragging him all the way down, down, down.
Seungcheol’s sharp intake of breath and the silence that follows thereafter tells Jeonghan all he needs to know about what Seungcheol thinks.
“You are,” Seungcheol protests, a beat too late. It’s half-hearted at best, and Jeonghan loves him a little bit more for that.
“You will be,” Seungcheol fixes hastily, brows drawn tightly together, fists clenched like he would personally take on the world to make it true.
Jeonghan knows better. There’s a reason why they’re here, in an empty practice room, sickly pale under the fluorescent lights, when they should be in their beds asleep like any other normal kid their age.
They’re not normal kids. And Jeonghan hasn’t felt like his age in a long time.
“I think,” Jeonghan says softly, “We should call it a night.”
Seungcheol makes a sound of disagreement from somewhere in the back of his throat. Jeonghan huffs out a laugh. Even like this, Seungcheol will still fight, will always fight.
“You’re tired.” Jeonghan points out. He lifts his head up and grins crookedly, blowing a piece of his bangs out of his hair. “I’m tired.”
“But you need to get this for evals,” Seungcheol protests. “There’s no other way you’re going to get this before tomorrow. We’ve got to do it now.”
Jeonghan screws his eyes shut. Maybe if he doesn’t see it, it won’t hurt him. Maybe he can pretend that he never saw it at all. It’s cruel, but this is worse. Maybe this will kill him.
“I won’t need it for tomorrow.”
The confusion is palpable on Seungcheol’s face.
Jeonghan feels the last bolt slide into place. Can feel it shuttering, locking in his decision. It’s the type of conclusion that shuts doors and builds walls; the kind of choice that changes lives, shunts them into entirely different directions.
(For the rest of his life, Jeonghan will go back to this moment. Only once will he gather the courage to ask, What if?)
“No more,” Jeonghan shakes his head, voice a hoarse whisper. “No more evaluations. I’m done.”
“You… don’t want this?” Seungcheol looks hurt, almost.
“This was never my dream,” Jeonghan whispers, a lightning bolt confession to the heart. He sees the moment it hits Seungcheol, wide eyed and lashes fluttering, shock filling out his entire features, taking root in his system.
Jeonghan is tired. So, so tired. Is this a life? He wants to shake Seungcheol’s shoulders. Who lives like this, shuttling from place to place, squeezing out every last minute, clutching at seconds, broken and bruised but smiling, always smiling.
Are you happy?
Jeonghan wants to yell, but there are so many pain patches on him the smell is reaching up and searing his nose, the sharp mint smell of it overwhelming, making him so nauseated. His muscles scream simply with the effort of keeping him upright. Jeonghan doesn’t have the strength to put on any more.
Is this a life?
“I just want to stand next to you.” Jeonghan lifts his head up, a desolate smile distorting his features. “But I don’t think I’m strong enough to do it. I don’t think I ever will be.”
Jeonghan quits the next day.
In all honesty, it’s anticlimactic. Jeonghan had a majority of his things packed away already. He’d never even fully unpacked his suitcase, like somehow, subconsciously he’d been able to be completely truthful with himself: somewhere deep inside he was always planning to run.
Everyone in the dorm room crowds around him before he goes, with well wishes and warm goodbyes. Seokmin and Seungkwan cry a river into his shirt. Jeonghan lets them.
Seungcheol can’t meet his eyes. Won’t. Some combination of both, probably.
“So this is it then?” Jeonghan tries to crack a smile as Seungcheol walks him to the door.
He’s reminded of that day in the practice room. Don’t do things by yourself anymore.
Seungcheol doesn’t say anything, just knits his brows tighter together, devastation making itself known all over his body.
“It’s not your fault,” Jeonghan says firmly. “I’m not your responsibility.”
“I didn’t —“ Seungcheol clenches his hands where they lie listless against his body.
Jeonghan reaches out and pats Seungcheol on the shoulder. “You didn’t have to,” he says with a crooked smile, and Jeonghan’s surprised to find that he doesn’t have to force any of it. “It’s written all over your face, Seungcheol-ah.”
It comes out a lot fonder than Jeonghan wants it to sound, but he supposes that the occasion warrants it, considering the circumstances. He readjusts the strap of his duffel, grateful for the way it bites into his shoulder. It makes it more real, the pain.
Jeonghan can feel Seungcheol’s eyes on him the entire time he walks away. A dream shatters behind him. He can’t tell whose.
Inexplicably, Jeonghan wants to turn around and explain. Redeem himself, maybe, in the eyes of Seungcheol, who’s always mattered a little too much to him.
Sorry, he’d say. I’ve always done things like this alone.
It wouldn’t make it any better, but maybe it would make things less worse.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Seungcheol never debuts. Neither does Soonyoung. Nor Seokmin or Seungkwan. Or Hansol. Not even Myungho and Junhui, who held their dreams in between their teeth and chin up high, who gave up all they knew to make a living in a foreign tongue. Not even Chan; that skinny little kid wanted it so badly he could have enough fire to keep all of them running and then some, just for himself.
None of them debut.
Jeonghan keeps his eyes peeled on music shows, almost manic, growing more and more desperate for whispers of anyone making it out of the green room. It never comes. They just keep making them younger and younger. By god, the talent. He doesn’t recognize a single face.
Seungcheol is the one who calls Jeonghan, voice shaky and quiet when he breaks the news. Jeonghan reads between the lines – that Seungcheol is one moment away from breaking, too.
He drives over. He drives over even though he hasn’t gotten his license and his parents will throttle him for taking the new Kia they’d just bought in the middle of peak traffic hour.
Seungcheol needs him. What else is he supposed to do?
Jeonghan learns that no one had bothered to change the lock combination after he’d left, which leaves him feeling simultaneously touched and a bit worried – what if some rando broke into the dorm? He briefly ponders this and then comes to the conclusion that he’s probably the rando in this situation, just before he opens the door.
“Who does that,” Seungcheol says flatly, when Jeonghan lets himself in. “Who lets other people’s dreams die right in front of them?”
What Seungcheol doesn’t say: Was this a mistake? I’ve poured my whole youth into this, and what do I have to show for it?
The world is a very cruel place. Jeonghan doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have anything to say at this moment that will make it any better, so he just holds out his hands to catch Seungcheol, who is already crumpling, who is already letting his heart bleed out in the space between them.
Seungcheol steps into his arms, and Jeonghan places his chin on top of Seungcheol’s head.
“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan confesses, though it sounds a lot like, I wish I could protect you. Seungcheol cries into Jeonghan’s favorite hoodie. Jeonghan only teases him a little bit for it hours later, when Seungcheol’s sobs turn into sniffles, permitting him to let out warbled laughter.
When Seungcheol asks, Jeonghan stays this time.
It feels like the only thing that he’s done right so far, when it comes to them.
Life does what it does best: it goes on.
The sun rises and falls. Days come and go. They pick up the pieces.
Jeonghan offers Seungcheol solace at his cruddy apartment, because it’s the only place where Seungcheol can get some rest from the barrage of questions that get sent his way everyday. The problem with being reliable is that everyone thinks you have an answer to their problems.
Jeonghan can see the way it hangs on Seungcheol, partly because of his pride and also partly because the stupid bastard takes all of the responsibility and more. Whatever he can carry in his hands. It all makes its way to his heart, anyway.
“Don’t you get tired?” Jeonghan asks, out of amazement.
Seungcheol, either purposefully misunderstanding or actually not getting it – Jeonghan has come to understand he likes to do a little bit of both – asks with wide, innocent eyes. “Of what?”
Dummy.
Jeonghan is starting to realize that Seungcheol is the strongest person he’s ever met – it’s something he’s noticed, sure, but the more time that he spends with Seungcheol, the more undeniable it becomes.
He’s everywhere: in Jeonghan’s room, at his door, at the dinner table, wrapped around Jeonghan in the winter months, a personal heater generating warmth. There’s always a smile to be handed out, an affectionate glance to be given, boyish hands busying themselves with combing through Jeonghan’s hair or occupied with given comforting rubs on the back. He always makes time for everyone, no matter what the occasion, always so silently folding back and letting in.
Jeonghan is currently at his apartment, where Seungcheol is supposed to be meeting him for dinner. There’s a frilly pink apron tied around his waist, because Jeonghan even splurged and bought the chuck tail flap.
There’s a knock on Jeonghan’s door. At first, Seungcheol used to be tentative and polite, always convinced that he was intruding. Now, he raps so sharply, surely, like his place has always been at Jeonghan’s front door.
“You again?” Jeonghan wrinkles his nose, but he’s already opening it wide enough for Seungcheol to dart in.
“Yes,” Seungcheol flops onto the couch with a loud satisfied sigh.
“Yah,” Jeonghan pretends to sound cranky. “When are you going to start paying rent?”
Seungcheol sulks from where he’s laying on the couch, hugging a throw pillow tighter to his body. “Can’t I mope a little longer?”
“The world waits for no one, Seungcheol-ah,” Jeonghan croons, shuffling over. “Not even you.” He flips his palm over, the universal sign for ‘gimme’.
Seungcheol gives Jeonghan one dastardly glance, barely any warning before he grabs on and tugs, pulling Jeonghan into him. The only way Jeonghan knows to brace himself is because he’s been victim to this one time far too many; that, and he’d hate to admit it, but he knows all of Seungcheol’s expressions inside and out now, just by virtue of spending all their time together.
“Hey!” Jeonghan protests, squirming.
“You weren’t asking for a hug?” Seungcheol asks innocently, eyes wide, arms locked around Jeonghan’s midriff.
“No,” Jeonghan mutters, muffled, cheek squished into the material of Seungcheol’s sweater.
Seungcheol takes this as his cue to squeeze tighter, until Jeonghan has to wriggle an arm out to forcibly whack him on the shoulder until he stops.
By then, they’re both laughing, smiles too wide on their faces.
Seungcheol pauses, eyes wide, finally smelling what Jeonghan has cooking on the stove. A man possessed by the smell of meat, he leaps up and runs into the kitchen, an amazed expression on his face. He looks years and years younger. He looks so lovely.
“Is this all for me?” Seungcheol marvels.
“Depends,” Jeonghan says cheekily. “What do I get in return?”
“My undying love and devotion,” Seungcheol says so instantly, unhesitatingly, that Jeonghan is stuck floundering for a moment. God, he can’t just say these things. What the fuck.
“If that comes in KRW, I’ll take it,” Jeonghan eventually settles on, making sure to put a teasing inflection into his voice.
Seungcheol pouts, mouth tugging downwards before he realizes that Jeonghan’s kidding, and by then his whines fill up the whole apartment with loud noise, warming it from the inside out.
I could get used to this, Jeonghan thinks.
🍂
now
Jeonghan stands in front of his living room, hands on his hips, surveying the battlefield. He can do this. He can do this.
The goal today? Getting rid of all the stuff in the apartment that reminds him of Seungcheol. Having those things there hadn’t been helping anyone (namely Jeonghan, because he was the only person that lived in the apartment now). He could do without the crying every single day. He was ready to Get Over Seungcheol. Or start to, at least.
His sister, Soobin, sits on the couch, lazily pouring herself shots of soju that she’d found in his refrigerator. She’d barged in earlier this morning and made a beeline for the fridge, only pausing when she realized that it was the only thing in the fridge. Jeonghan had made a tired grimacing face at her. All she had to say in response was “Don’t tell eomma I was here, and I won’t tell her about this either,” and then pulled out a cereal cup to take her alcohol with.
A serious menace. She’s almost as bad as him. The thought is simultaneously terrifying and brings Jeonghan an immense amount of comfort.
He starts with the shelves, where the pictures are on proud display.
“Where’s Cheollie?” his sister, Soobin, asks from where she’s laying on the couch, as if she’s just noticed. Jeonghan feels it all the time.
When he takes too long to respond, she starts to fiddle with the remote, flipping through random channels and videos and things; finally, she settles on an IU music video, something sad and soft and lonely, to fill the air.
“He’s not here,” Jeonghan settles on doggedly, tongue sticking out. The more he takes out, the emptier it looks, and he can’t quite tell if he likes it or not. He closes one eye and makes a frame with his fingers, testing out how it looks.
“Why?” Soobin asks, suspicious. “You had another one of your fights again?”
“We did,” Jeonghan says slowly. He doesn’t like it. Fine. Back the pictures go, for now. “We broke up for real this time.”
Soobin narrows her eyes. Tosses back another shot with hardly a wince. “It was your fault, wasn’t it…..”
Jeonghan is appalled. And slightly outraged. “What makes you think it was my fault?”
Soobin shrugs. “You’re dumb. It’s always your fault.”
“How are those two things even related? And stop drinking, it’s barely ten in the morning.” Jeonghan tries to use his Big Brother voice, forcing sternness into his words, but it hardly has an effect on her. That stopped working a long time ago, when Soobin had realized that Jeonghan would do anything for her, if she’d just asked.
Jeonghan would do a lot of things for the people he loves — they don’t even need to ask. It’s a huge part of the reason why he’s here, actually. But here he is trudging on bravely. Heartbrokenly.
His sister completely ignores him, coming up with a jaunty tune that starts with you’re no fun, and Jeonghanie is dumb~. It rhymes, which, begrudgingly, he has to give to her. Jeonghan counts to ten and pushes his fingers into his temples to resist the urge to throttle Soobin. A dead body would cost too much effort to clean up, not when he already has a pile of things that need attending to, and he hasn’t even gotten past the damn living room.
And, he supposes, he’d miss her.
Jeonghan doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he diligently starts his sweep of the room again – the one that Soobin had so kindly interrupted – for pieces of his relationship to toss away. Jeonghan can’t find a single thing that he doesn’t want to keep. He picks up a trinket here, a souvenir there, weighing it up against the grand scheme of things. All of it eventually makes its way back to where it was. He can feel Soobin watching him the entire time. Can’t help but wonder how it looks, from her eyes.
“Stop being stupid,” Soobin rolls her eyes, interrupting Jeonghan’s productive streak, which mostly consists of tossing one measly piece of lint into a trash bag that has remained empty for the better half of the hour. “He was the best thing that happened to you.”
Jeonghan stops halfway from putting another set of Seungcheol’s pictures from the cabinet, arms drooping.
“I know,” he whispers. His way of saying, I messed up.
Soobin looks up, giving him a sympathetic smile and cheers with the tip of her cereal bowl. The soju sloshes over the top and onto the floor; Jeonghan should probably take the bottle away from her. “Well, at least you know.”
🍂
then
Seungcheol pays the rent now, but only after he’d convinced Jeonghan to ditch his dingy apartment and settle into a more roomy, spacious place. Jeonghan can see the sun now from where it rises over Seoul; in the quiet mornings when he can sleep, he’ll pad into their (their!) living room, one hand curled over a warm cup of fresh tea, marveling about the kind of life that he’s living.
Jeonghan and Seungcheol are roommates, stuck in that kind of weird in-between, but there’s never a question as to what they are to each other. All the other labels are too complicated. When Jeonghan looks over at Seungcheol, Seungcheol is always looking back at him. That’s all there is.
They fell asleep watching a show last night. Jeonghan couldn’t tell you what it was about, because the entire time he’d paid closer attention to the curve of Seungcheol’s cheek when he laughed instead of the actual plot. Seungcheol’s head is pillowed on Jeonghan’s lap, and there’s a terrible crick in Jeonghan’s neck that is only going to get worse the longer he spends in this position. He takes extra care not to jostle Seungcheol, even as his leg begins to turn numb. There are worse sacrifices to make if Seungcheol can get a couple more hours of sleep; he’d been hitting the books extra hard lately at Jeonghan’s urging, studying to go back to school.
Jeonghan brushes the hair from Seungcheol’s eyes and watches him sleep. Jeonghan thinks about what else Seungcheol could have been, if he wasn’t a boy who loved Jeonghan and was tethered to the ground, in Seoul, in this apartment. He could have been on the stage, been around the world. More than one person would love him like the way Jeonghan does now. Seungcheol’s heart would be big enough to care for all those people.
If Seungcheol knew what he was missing, would he still pick Jeonghan?
Before Jeonghan has another moment to wallow, Seungcheol murmurs, discontented, as if hearing the loudness of Jeonghan’s thoughts. Jeonghan reaches out, unbidden, face screwed up in worry. It must be a terrible dream, with the way his teeth clench and his jaw locks.
Jeonghan hesitates, then reaches out.
The moment Jeonghan pushes his hand into Seungcheol’s, Seungcheol grabs on and immediately everything clears. The furrow between his brows eases up, disappears, and the peacefulness sweeps over the landscape of his face.
“Mm,” Seungcheol murmurs in his sleep, curling up so that Jeonghan’s hand is nestled close to his heart.
“Yah,” Jeonghan complains half-heartedly, lifting the arm that his hand is attached to. “I need this.”
“Mm,” Seungcheol makes a noise like he’s agreeing with Jeonghan, despite the fact that he’s not at all lucid.
“How am I supposed to get anything done with you around,” Jeonghan huffs. The gripe falls on deaf ears.
Seungcheol snores soundly, softly, in his sleep. Jeonghan tells him all the time, but Seungcheol never believes him. One of these days Jeonghan’s going to grab an audio recording for irrefutable evidence. But for now, he’s happy to just watch. It’s been ages since Seungcheol has been able to sleep well. Jeonghan won’t bother him, just yet.
“Should I stay here with you then?” Jeonghan asks, voice coming out terribly hoarse and fond.
He’s grateful, right then, that no one else is around to hear it.
Seungcheol snuffles, clutching Jeonghan’s hand tightly. Okay. Jeonghan stifles a smile. There’s his answer.
“What were you dreaming about?” Jeonghan prods, when Seungcheol finally stirs, drool already dried and collecting at the corner of his mouth.
Jeonghan expects a suave answer, the way that Seungcheol gets only with Jeonghan, when no one else is around.
Instead, Seungcheol blushes.
Of course, Jeonghan lasers in on this with scary precision. “Oh?”
“S’ nothing,” Seungcheol mutters, flapping a hand to shoo Jeonghan away.
“Hey, I sacrificed both of my legs for you,” Jeonghan wheedles, wincing at the way pins and needles crop up as soon as he shifts forward, trying to get into Seungcheol’s space. “I deserve to know what you dreamt about.”
“Nooooo,” Seungcheol whines, still covering his face.
“Yeeeeees,” Jeonghan grins, leaning in closer and closer, disregarding all proprietary. Their default is in each other’s space.
Seungcheol mutters something that Jeonghan can’t catch, which of course only spurs Jeonghan’s antics on.
“C’mon, Cheollie~” Jeonghan grins. “You’re not going to tell me?”
There’s a moment of begrudging silence. Jeonghan’s smile gets impossibly wider.
“Was it a weird sex dream?”
“What?” Seungcheol splutters, tips of his ears flaming. “No!”
Jeonghan muses. “What could it be then?” He goes down his list of possibilities – Seungcheol had developed a sudden taste for human flesh, carnivorous, and chomped on their dear friends as a result; Seungcheol had a dream where Jeonghan was a worm and then they’d have to cohabitate as human and invertebrate; Seungcheol was in the body of an old lady who could only age backwards, so he ended up being a baby by the end of the dream (Jeonghan is pretty sure this one is only on there because he’d watched the movie some days ago with Soonyoung).
Seungcheol says no to each and every one of them. It only piques Jeonghan’s interest further. He knows he doesn’t have to take it so seriously, but now the whole thing has become so ridiculous that he kind of needs to know, now. This is the same Choi Seungcheol who wormed his way into Jeonghan’s life and then some more; here’s where he gets shy? A dream?
“Tell me!” Jeonghan does all that he can to get it out of Seungcheol – it starts small, with fingers driving into the side of Seungcheol seeking to tickle him into a confession, but then somehow twists into a full body wrestling match (Jeonghan participates in it for all of threeseconds before he lets Seungcheol wrangle him into submission).
“Okay!” Seungcheol half-pants, half-laughs, one hand pushing Jeonghan at a safe distance from him. However, Jeonghan does note the way Seungcheol’s fingers curl into the fabric of his clothes, as if… as if he needs some strength.
Something in the air changes. Seungcheol is wearing a face of determination, like he’ll die if he doesn’t get this off his chest Right This Instant. Jeonghan automatically mirrors Seungcheol’s posture, worry sparking.
“I was just kidding,” Jeonghan quickly explains, laughing nervously. “You don’t have to. I was pushing too hard, wasn’t I?”
Seungcheol shakes his head. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a long time.”
Oh. Jeonghan’s heart is thumping loudly in his chest. Oh.
“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol’s voice is rough as he sits up. His eyes are closed but Jeonghan doesn’t need to see his eyes to know he’s speaking from the heart. Choi Seungcheol has always been all heart. There’s nothing he does without it.
“I.. I like you.”
The confession sits between them, fluttering, floundering on wobbly legs. Seungcheol’s lashes flutter when he lets out the last of the air in his lungs. His eyes remain closed. Jeonghan represses the urge to reach out and brush a finger against Seungcheol’s cheek.
It’s kind of perfect.
“You must’ve had one crazy dream,” Jeonghan whispers, leaning his forehead forward to knock against Seungcheol’s own, “to confess to me like that.” The one thing he can’t contain is his smile – how wide it feels stretching across his face, beaming like the morning sun, blinding and bright.
“For a really long time I —“ Seungcheol pauses, drawing back. Jeonghan keeps his fingers steady around the nape of Seungcheol’s neck. Keeping him there. “Wait, what?”
“Shut up,” Jeonghan huffs, laughing. “You’re so obvious about it.”
“Well?” Embarrassment rolls off of Seungcheol in waves, but not enough to curb his pout from growing bigger by the second. “What are you going to do about it?”
Jeonghan takes a deep breath and leans forward. “This,” he says resolutely, while everything in his body is trembling.
Seungcheol kisses with his whole heart, too.
This is a lesson that Jeonghan will be subject to over and over and over again.
Years from now, Jeonghan will still remember what it felt like the first time Seungcheol had kissed him. How Jeonghan fell into it, and for the first time in his life, he wanted to keep something. Hold on tightly with both hands and never let go.
It was simultaneously the most wonderful and terrible thing in the world – for someone who never wanted anything in his life, suddenly Jeonghan became someone who was greedy.
Choi Seungcheol was the only thing Jeonghan wanted in life. For now and forever.
🍂
now
Jeonghan is lying on his back, bored out of his mind. He checks the time.
Whatever. It’s late enough. He FaceTimes Jisoo.
“Do you know it’s seven in the morning here?” Jisoo’s voice is pleasant. Jeonghan isn’t fooled, knows him well enough to know there is boiling rage lurking just beneath the surface.
Jeonghan answers, positively gleeful. “Oh, great! You’ve been talking about trying to get into meditating, haven’t you? Myungho says early mornings are the best.”
“It’s Sunday,” Jisoo’s gritted teeth make their way into the sentence, which is delightful on all fronts.
“Amen,” Jeonghan nods to himself, tone entirely serious. He watches a vein in Jisoo’s neck jump. Jeonghan checks the time with barely concealed glee. It’s only been a minute since Jisoo’s picked up. A new record.
“Why are you calling me,” Jisoo sighs, shuffling so that he’s sitting up, already resigned to his fate. Jeonghan hears the rattling of something.
“Whatcha doing?” He asks, dipping his face nearer to the screen and squinting at the pixels. God, he’s getting old. Jeonghan hopes he doesn’t need glasses; he’s seen what they do to people. Wonwoo has it terrible enough.
“I’m not going back to sleep anytime soon,” Jisoo says pointedly. “‘Might as well be productive.”
Jeonghan tilts the phone this way and that. “Are those beads?”
“Yeah,” Jisoo bites his lip, in that bashful way of his, when he’s trying desperately to appear like he doesn’t care what people think when that’s exactly what he’s dying to know. “I’m trying something new.”
Jeonghan hums. “You make that too?” He asks, craning his head and pointing at a daisy chain bracelet on Jisoo’s wrist.
“Yeah,” Jisoo says in that cautious voice of his.
“It looks good.” Jeonghan tells him earnestly. Jisoo visibly relaxes at this, the veins in his forearms immediately disappearing. Jeonghan thinks Jisoo should take it easy, but Jeonghan figures he lacks the authority to tackle that. Besides, it’s too early in the morning to unpack any sort of shared trauma they have. Jisoo is already this close to having a conniption at their young and sprightly age, which Jeonghan feels is mildly concerning but also impressive.
“Thanks,” Jisoo sounds embarrassed. His toothy smile shows up, the one where his bunny teeth poke out slightly, crooked and visible, which lets Jeonghan know he’s tickled pink about it.
Jeonghan huffs a little laugh, grinning as he stretches his arms outward, tilting the phone at an unflattering angle. His heart grows a little fonder. Some things never change.
“Remind me again why we’re calling?” Jisoo grabs a pair of pliers and expertly snips the wire after making the purported measurements. Jeonghan watches him for a bit, mesmerized by the way Jisoo’s massive hands master such graceful, tiny movements, weaving tiny beads in and out.
“Seungcheol and I broke up,” Jeonghan mutters distractedly, even though it’s the entire reason behind the call in the first place.
Jisoo pauses in his beading at that. His dark eyes pierce Jeonghan, pinning him to the couch. There’s a part of Jeonghan that splinters at the confession. Sure, Seungcheol hasn’t physically been here in the apartment anymore, but somehow it’s worse admitting it out aloud. Like it’s more permanent, that way.
“Are you..” Jisoo looks slightly concerned, but also confused, grappling for the right thing to say, ““… okay?”
Jeonghan adopts a blasé tone. “I’m doing great.”
But there’s too much space between Jisoo’s question and Jeonghan’s reply, too many e’s and not enough a’s that it ends up sounding flat. Greeeeat (downward inflection included).
Jisoo is silent, not saying anything at all.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Jeonghan complains. “Like you pity me. Everyone is giving me the same look. I can handle it. I am handling it.”
“Not well, obviously, if you’re calling me about it.” Jisoo snorts.
Jeonghan pauses, offended. It’s always the ‘nice’ ones you have to watch out for, honestly. He contemplates hanging up, but that would mean Jisoo’s won. And Jeonghan can’t have Jisoo thinking that, because his head would get even bigger than it is already, having escaped to LA where it’s sunny and bright all the time. And where none of their friends can bother him unless he personally chose to pick up
Jeonghan thinks about that a little longer. Maybe Jisoo is onto something here. Maybe he should also move overseas suddenly. Jisoo’s house is huge, he’d probably be able to sequester himself away in some corner of their massive garage, or the pool house –
“Stop it.” Jisoo’s voice sounds tinny through Facetime, but it’s stern enough to jerk Jeonghan back into the present. “You’re so annoying.”
Jeonghan pouts. “I’m the one going through a life-altering breakup, calling you, my dear beloved friend, for advice and I’m annoying?”
“Yes.” Jisoo isn’t even paying attention, more invested in his stupid new hobby (beading) than his best friend suffering a multitude of miseries. Jeonghan dies a painful, mortified death.
“I hate you.” Jeonghan mutters.
“No, you don’t,” Jisoo laughs, teeth perfect and a bright snort of laughter. Jeonghan knows that laugh – they’d practiced it with each other.
“You’re a fake bitch,” Jeonghan complains, knowing perfectly well that this is like the pot calling the kettle black.
“I’ll take that,” Jisoo says, the jibe gliding off his back. His eyes are practically sparkling with mirth; the Los Angeles sun has done him good, and… he looks happy. He looks so, so happy. It’s… good. It looks really good on him.
Jeonghan’s heart squeezes a little more, but it doesn’t hurt. It feels like victory.
“Shuaaaaaaaa,” he wheedles.
“Jeonghanie,” Jisoo says back pleasantly. It does the trick of following social cues but does absolutely nothing to further the conversation.
Jeonghan huffs. Jisoo patiently continues to thread his fishing wire through another bead.
“Okay, you win,” Jeonghan throws his hands up.
“I wasn’t aware that this was a competition,” Jisoo blinks with perfect congeniality.
Jeonghan gives him a look and continues on.
“Fine,” Jeonghan grits, budging an inch. “Say, hypothetically, that I was avoiding it. Talking about breaking up, I mean.”
Jisoo looks at Jeonghan like he’s stupid. Which – he very well may be. That is not entirely out of the question, just yet. Jeonghan makes a face at his sad heap of laundry sitting wrinkled and unfolded in his dryer, just out of Jisoo’s view.
Jisoo opens his mouth to impart some important information, a kind of life-changing, world-altering advice that will most definitely solve (most of) Jeonghan’s problem. He sits up in anticipation.
“Well,” Jisoo ends up saying with a one shoulder shrug, “Just don’t.”
Jeonghan deflates, scowling. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“This is why I never call you for these things.”
“This is exactly why you call me for these things,” Jisoo scrunches his nose, evidently delighted by his joke. Jeonghan’s fingers twitch, hovering over the red END CALL button.
It’s stupid, but it works.
They spend the rest of the time catching up – what Jisoo has been up to, if he still does those guitar lessons after church for the kids. Jisoo tells him about a botched trip to the Philippines and Jeonghan makes fun of him for being stupid enough to be swindled into paying too much for a 10 minute taxi ride.
Jeonghan says his goodbyes and feels marginally better. He looks up and catches a glimpse of his latest obsession: a faded Polaroid of Seungcheol laughing, hands slung around a golden retriever who is licking Seungcheol’s face with unbridled glee. The breath catches in his throat.
Maybe he should talk to someone.
It’s Friday Night. It’s significant in the way that it’s the very first Friday night since the Break Up happened that Jeonghan has decided to go out.
Granted, it’s not entirely his choice, if he had to be honest. But Jeonghan is here, and he’s trying. That has to count for something.
“It’ll be fun,” Seungkwan had texted Jeonghan. “And we miss you.”
Though Seungkwan hadn’t specified who “we” were, Jeonghan’s heart still gave a little squeeze. Hope fluttered in his chest before he shooed it out, shaking his head as he sent his reply: “By fun you mean you’ll abandon me while you make goo-goo eyes at Hansollie over a fruity drink with way too much sugar.”
Seungkwan hadn’t responded for an hour after that, and when he did, it was only to send the address and a stern bear sticker with a frowny face, waggling its finger. For shame.
Jeonghan knows what that means, and so here he is, sipping on a drink that’s far weaker than what he usually gets. He does have a conscience. He thinks of the cartoon bear wagging its finger at him through the screen and stays where he is on the couch, fingers tracing circles into the plush.
The party consists of exactly thirteen people crowded into Seungkwan’s meager apartment. Given that there were that many of their bodies crammed in that small room, it felt like enough. Jeonghan had just never felt the need to branch out, even after they never debuted. Personally, Jeonghan just never really felt the need to make more friends. And for the most part, it turned out well enough.
Mingyu slides into the seat next to him. He’s not Jeonghan’s first choice of conversation partner, but he’ll do for the night. It’s not like anyone else is dying to talk to him. Seungkwan, exactly like Jeonghan had predicted, is currently making eyes at Hansol while Hansol is pretending like he is not afflicted. The entire time Hansol’s mouth is twitching, fighting a fond smile from spreading across his face.
Jeonghan snorts into his drink. Idiots. He loves them.
Mingyu looks up at the sound, startled, like he forgot that Jeonghan could do things like laugh.
Jeonghan curls his hand around his cup a little bit tighter. If Mingyu wants to pick a fight, he’ll just leave. Disappear into the dark of the night, leaving nobody better or worse off. It’s better this way, Jeonghan tells himself, even though there’s a part of him that looks over at Soonyoung and Minghao clinging onto one another, laughing uproariously at a joke that Seokmin most definitely forgot the punchline to but improvised his way through; Chan’s cackles bouncing off against the walls as his head leans in towards Wonwoo’s contorting one, all of their bodies pressing in insistently against one another. Even Jihoon is joining in for once, animated in his storytelling to anyone who will listen. Once he gets started there’s no stopping – Jeonghan had asked him about his favorite cartoons and they’d stayed up until dawn with elaborate diagrams and an official tournament bracket to decide the winner; he’ll forever hate Inuyasha for that.
The part of Jeonghan that yearns starts up again. He takes another mouthful of his drink to squash it back down. And then another, just for good measure.
Mingyu’s mouth quirks up at that, canines flashing. “‘S it any good?”
Jeonghan shrugs his shoulders. “Junhui’s special juice. Does the trick.” He’s not even the slightest bit tipsy. He and Seungcheol used to run laps around all of the other boys, their alcohol tolerance mighty and strong. They still do, if he’s being honest.
Jeonghan finally lets himself look at Seungcheol, who he’s been avoiding seeing all night – which is really fucking hard to do if you’re still in love with someone who you broke up with – who is dominating at the makeshift beer pong table. Seungcheol’s a little bit gone, because his sleeves have been rolled up hastily from generating too much heat in a tiny room. There’s a sheen of sweat that glistens under the neon lights, trailing along his neck and disappearing down the vee of his shirt.
Mingyu shifts his head so he can catch what Jeonghan is looking at.
“Don’t,” Mingyu says quietly. It’s not so soft that it gets drowned out by the thumping bass of whatever pop punk act Hansol is into these days. It slices straight through Jeonghan, drilling into his heart.
So it’s a fight Mingyu wants. Jeonghan tenses, starting to feel like the walls are closing in on him.
“Don’t what?” Jeonghan asks, voice neutral. He keeps his expression as placid as possible. Wonders what the distance is between him and the door, and just how fast he’d be able to grab his shoes and dart out of it, into the cold winter night.
“Don’t start,” Mingyu huffs on an exhale. The bitter stench of beer washes over Jeonghan, and he fights the urge to wrinkle his nose.
“I’m not starting anything.” Jeonghan’s voice sounds whiny, plaintive. Even to him.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Mingyu turns so that he’s facing Jeonghan, mouth twisted and brows slanted with determination. One finger is lifted at him threateningly, followed by the entire bear claw. “Don’t start anything again unless you mean it.”
“I mean everything I do,” Jeonghan huffs a laugh. It’s harsh and grating, indicating that there’s nothing he finds funny about what Mingyu has to say. He can be mean too, if that’s what Mingyu wants. Jeonghan can be whatever Mingyu wants to see, if it helps.
“Oh, do you now?” Mingyu snorts, lifting up his own drink for a sip.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mingyu doesn’t say anything, just lifts a perfectly straight eyebrow. Jeonghan wishes, viciously for a brief moment, that he could tell Mingyu that his hairline is receding. But the same thing is happening to Jeonghan, and the thought of having the insult thrown back at him just barely keeps him from dishing it out.
Whatever. He’ll let Mingyu sit on the high chair for a little longer.
Jeonghan drills his fingers on the couch, now visibly annoyed, which gnaws on his nerves even more, causing him to grow more irritated by the second. Mingyu usually isn’t this good at poking at all of Jeonghan’s defenses; Jeonghan’s just desperately out of practice, chafing the longer he sits here at this party.
Something itches underneath his collar. He needs to get out of here.
“I need to go,” he mutters mostly to himself, tucking his phone into his pocket.
“Why?” Mingyu’s face is mean, distorted by alcohol and pain and a terrible sort of longing that Jeonghan recognizes when he stares a little too harshly at his reflection in the mirror late at night. “Aren’t we having fun?”
Jeonghan gives a crooked smile. “You might be. Me? I’m all tuckered out.”
He gives a half-salute, mostly mocking, to Mingyu, whose mouth gets smaller and smaller with displeasure. Jeonghan should make his rounds at least, give awkward one-shoulder hugs and gruff pats on the back – yeah it was so good to see you, I had so much fun, let’s do it again sometime soon. When Jeonghan will get to Seungcheol, he probably won’t be able to meet his eyes. So he probably won’t do anything at all.
“That’s not right,” Mingyu blurts out, right as Jeonghan gets up from the couch. “So you just get to run away again?”
Jeonghan’s spine stiffens.
“W-what?” he croaks.
“You heard me,” Mingyu sniffs, plaintive, adopting that kicked puppy look. Like he’s the one being wronged. “Are you going to quit?”
Jeonghan shakes his head. “You don’t understand,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around himself. When did it get so cold? It feels like ice has lodged itself in his body. He can’t feel his fingers. He can’t feel his hands.
“I don’t understand what,” Mingyu says flatly. “You quit on us before, and you’re quitting on him now. Stop taking the easy way out.”
Jeonghan tries to find the right words for it. The only thing that comes up is a choking, sad sound that leaps from his throat and dies right in his hands.
Why — How— What — Is that what I look like? his mind settles on, a horrific realization dawning on his bones.
Mingyu closes his eyes. “He loves you. Don’t you know that? He loves you. That has to count for something, doesn’t it? Why would you want to walk out on that?”
It's only then that someone – Hansol, Jeonghan’s mind dimly registers – leaps in and restrains him, whispering words urgently into Mingyu’s ear.
But the damage has already been done.
🍂
then
Jeonghan ends up picking fights with Seungcheol just because he can. Because there’s something inside of him that sits restless, looking for holes and gaps that aren’t there, hypervigilant and a little bit paranoid and looking for everything to go wrong.
“What do you want me to say?” Seungcheol says quietly. This is it, Jeonghan thinks faintly. All of it, all this pointless circling, all the fights and the long sleepless nights and sharp barbs — all of it has been leading up to this very moment.
Seungcheol continues, “That it’s such a chore to love you?” Jeonghan flinches. It hurts even when he expects it. Maybe it hurts even more because he expected it. For once in his life, maybe he was expecting to be proven wrong.
“It’s not.”
“Then,” Jeonghan asks, struggling to understand. “Why?”
“Why do I love you?” Seungcheol laughs, half-incredulous. Jeonghan nods, too terrified to speak but still needing to know the answer.
Seungcheol shrugs, a laugh harsh and grating bouncing out of him. “I just do.”
“That’s not an answer,” Jeonghan points out.
“Why do you need one?” Seungcheol challenges. “Is it so hard to think that someone might love you?”
Jeonghan wraps his arms around himself. “Maybe.”
“Oh,” Seungcheol says, like he gets it. And maybe he does. But Jeonghan is too ashamed to face him, to look up, to see what’s there. It might be too much. It already feels like too much. He’s too much. He should go.
Jeonghan finally chances a glance up, and there Seungcheol is, filling up all of Jeonghan’s gaze, closer than he’d been before, all of the fight bleeding out of him.
“C’mere,” Seungcheol says gruffly, wrapping Jeonghan into a hug. Jeonghan tries his best to squirm out of it.
“Noooo,” Jeonghan says. He makes no effort to move though, and that’s what settles it. Seungcheol pretends to heave a sigh, his body growing heavier and heavier by the second.
Jeonghan struggles (he is not pretending).
“Stop it,” Jeonghan pokes Seungcheol in the side with a crooked finger.
Seungcheol’s laugh is immediate. And infectious. It’s perfect, actually. “What?”
“You’re annoying,” Jeonghan groans. But he burrows further into Seungcheol’s embrace. It’s nice. He’s so nice.
Jeonghan finds the ring when he’s busy pawing through Seungcheol’s dresser for a new sweater to steal.
They’re nondescript, two very thin bands. But Jeonghan knows what they are. He knows Seungcheol – there’s no doubt about what they are.
He holds them to the light and thinks about a future where he wears them. Where he and Seungcheol wear them.
Jeonghan has to tell someone. He has to – he can’t –
“Hyung,” Seungkwan whispers from where he’s on Facetime, eyes wide. “You’re panicking.”
“No, I’m not,” Jeonghan retorts, clearly panicking. He can feel it on his face, the way his features seize up, locking into place. His smile is too wide, eyes too wild to his liking. Maybe Seungkwan can see just how much he wants to flee. It feels like Jeonghan has always been built to flee; all bones and nothing that kept them together, skin that bruised too easily and flesh pale enough that you could see the blue of his veins running underneath if you looked hard enough. Maybe he’s just fulfilling a prophecy.
“You are,” Seungkwan sniffs decisively, brokering no room for argument.
Okay, so maybe the brat is right.
“But a ring?” Jeonghan hisses, horrified. Horrified because how could Seungcheol love him this much that he’d want to stay? They’d made the jokes, had already dutifully donned the ‘old married couple’ moniker their friends liked to give to couples that had been together a long time. He and Seungcheol had been together a long time, hadn’t they? Wasn’t that enough? Surely Seungcheol should have been sick of him by now.
Jeonghan had dropped the ring like a hot coal, hastily shoving it back to where he’d found it, buried deep in layers and layers of clothes. Even now Jeonghan can feel where the metal pressed against his fingers, branding him.
“He wants to spend forever with you.” Seungkwan purses his lips. “Is that really so horrible?”
What’s horrible is how much Jeonghan wants it to be true.
🍂
now
Jeonghan swings open the door to a very nice looking Mingyu, hair all coiffed up with some extremely expensive hair product – probably more than Jeonghan’s weekly salary – keeping it upright.
“Man, you didn’t have to dress up for me,” Jeonghan says wryly, leaning against his door. “I’m flattered.”
They both look down to what he’s wearing: pink threadbare cotton rabbit cartoon pajamas, various food stains washed out at varying degrees, so lovingly worn that there’s a hole right in the middle of Jeonghan’s chest.
Mingyu snorts and thrusts a bento box in Jeonghan’s general direction, complete with a large soup thermos. “Seungkwan said I should apologize,” Mingyu says quickly, tongue tripping over his mouth in hasty explanation.
“What for,” Jeonghan says airily, mouth already watering at the thought of eating Mingyu’s food again.
Mingyu narrows his eyes. “You know what for.” He hates stupid people almost as much as Jeonghan loves to play stupid.
Jeonghan forces his eyes wide, tone innocent and light. “Whatever do you mean?”
Mingyu just looks at Jeonghan, who looks back, keeping his expression as neutral and even as possible. His mouth turns downward as his brows draw together, clearly fighting a battle in his own head.
“Seungcheol’s at my place,” Mingyu releases in a breath of air. Something in Jeonghan’s stomach plummets at that.
“Oh,” Jeonghan says, a little more hollow than he’d like. “Good for you,” he remembers to say, at the last second, right before the silence washes them out. Well, he lost his chance – he shouldn’t be jealous. He should be a graceful loser, at least.
Mingyu huffs, like he can’t believe Jeonghan is making him say it.
“He’s at my place,” Mingyu says really slowly. “But all he can talk about is you.”
“Oh,” Jeonghan doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands.
“I meant what I said when I told you that he loves you,” Mingyu complains. “Is that so hard to understand?”
“For me it is,” Jeonghan mutters, picking at a bare thread. He can’t look Mingyu in the eye.
“Oh,” Mingyu says.
Jeonghan scowls, shoving at Mingyu’s shoulder. “Don’t go around feeling bad for me. I liked it better when you hated me.”
Mingyu laughs, hands up in surrender. He’s a good guy. One of the best, actually.
“I’m working on it,” Jeonghan tells Mingyu.
“Okay, well, work on it faster.” Mingyu bites his lip. “It kind of sucks, you know, watching it happen. Figure out what you want. Soon. Please. Seungcheol keeps stealing my ramen when I’m not looking, and I’m tired of him looking like a kicked puppy every time I come home and I’m not who he’s expecting.”
Jeonghan thinks this is absolutely monumental coming from someone whose default is kicked puppy. Mingyu falls silent, obviously having run out of the things that he came here to say.
They stand there for a bit in the foyer, watching the sun peek out from behind the clouds. It’s a new day.
“Seungcheol got a dog,” Mingyu offers awkwardly. “She’s way cuter than Aji.”
“That’s a skewed scale,” Jeonghan protests. “Anything is cuter than Aji.”
Mingyu puffs up his chest. “Okay, fine,” he relents. “That damn dog is pretty ugly.”
“I can see the resemblance,” Jeonghan says, solemn. He gets bowled over by a friendly shove.
They don’t spend that much longer talking. Mingyu sees the way that Jeonghan fidgets with his sleeves, and just smiles secretly before telling Jeonghan how to get into his apartment complex.
“You’re not coming with?” Jeonghan asks, head tilting.
Mingyu lifts up his keys, a dazzling grin adorning his face. “I’ve got a date.”
Jeonghan swallows. “Good for you,” he says.
Mingyu laughs, graceful as always. “Good luck, hyung. Go get him.”
Jeonghan closes the door, mind abuzz with all the information he’s just learned.
Figure out what you want, Mingyu had told him.
Jeonghan puts on his shoes and starts running. This time, he knows.
Jeonghan is heaving, cheeks flushed with exertion, fists banging on the door.
Seungcheol swings the door open, face twisted into a scowl and thick eyebrows drawn tightly together. Everything slackens when he realizes it’s Jeonghan at the door.
They’re stuck standing there for an eternity. Jeonghan drinks in the sight of Seungcheol greedily — there is a patch of fuzz that Seungcheol must have missed when he was shaving. Jeonghan will get it later.
Kkuma is barking at Jeonghan with mistrust. He deserves that.
“Hi,” Seungcheol says softly, a shy smile adorning his mouth. Jeonghan has never loved him more than this moment. He flings himself into Seungcheol’s arms and hopes that he knows, all of the things that Jeonghan wants to say, all of the apologies lined up and practiced in front of empty mirrors, empty halls, all of the pieces of his heart Jeonghan wants to give back to Seungcheol – Here, this belongs to you. It’s belonged to you all along.
Seungcheol’s hands are warm, a solid weight on Jeonghan’s back. “I’m never going to leave you again,” Jeonghan warns him, muffled.
Seungcheol’s arms tighten imperceptibly around him. “Good,” Seungcheol presses a kiss into the crown of Jeonghan’s head. “I’m holding you to that.”
“I’m a lot,” Jeonghan declares. “I–” he trails off, not knowing what else to say. He stares down at his feet.
“I know,” Seungcheol cuts in gently, chest rumbling. One gentle finger hooks itself underneath Jeonghan’s chin and tilts it up, so Jeonghan is looking at Seungcheol. Can see how honest and sincere and good Seungcheol is.
“Okay,” Jeonghan whispers, fingers entangling themselves fiercely with Seungcheol’s. “Okay. Just so you know.”
Seungcheol squeezes Jeonghan’s hand back, and laughs some more. “I do.”
🍂