Chapter Text
even though we walk on different paths, the time still passes
The living room is dark, shadows thrown by a setting sun, and only one corner of it is lit up by the remainder of the daylight seeping through the window. The blinds are drawn, but Minhyun reaches over and pulls them up, letting even more of the light in. A bit of dust swirls in the rays, and he surveys the flat in front of him.
There is a jacket haphazardly thrown on the couch, a pile of magazines lying on the coffee table askew, a balled-up napkin next to a mug, still with cold tea drowning the tea bag, and a Christmas tree tucked in the corner with its lights still blinking red and blue. Minhyun smiles and tugs at the handle of his suitcase, and breathes.
even though we see different things, we look at the same sky
His heart is pounding in his chest, and he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. The back of his shirt is still damp from his sweat, and his other members are still running on the performance high—laughing a little too shrilly, chatting a little too loudly. Minhyun clenches his jaw and grinds his teeth out of habit, gripping the edge of his chair so tightly his knuckles turn white.
Jisung notices his expression and leans over. He sets a hand on Minhyun’s shoulder, intending it to be comforting, but Minhyun can only hope that he doesn’t notice the slight trembles wracking his body.
The dark auditorium brightens, and the soft, first notes of “If you…” begin to play. Another tremor overcomes him, and Jisung’s grip on him tightens.
A terribly familiar voice begins singing, and even though Minhyun has had this song on replay every night for the past few weeks, he isn’t ready for the way Minki stands—a microphone held close to his lips—alone in the middle of the stage, white smoke like clouds billowing about him. Time lingers as the song hits a lull, but the moment ends faster than he hopes for. His heart skips a beat and suddenly, Jonghyun is on stage, clad in a simple white shirt, and Minhyun stops breathing.
Some time between Youngmin’s verse and Dongho’s chorus, Minhyun’s hands loosen their hold on his chair, and he wipes his clammy palms on his pants reflexively. The rest of the Wanna One members look like they could somehow be an extension to Nu’est W, dressed in pinstripe shirts tucked in on one side, but he’s dressed in an atrocious maroon shirt, a little loose on his shoulders. It feels large and clunky on him, like he’s playing dress-up in his father’s clothing again, but his stylist had forced it upon him.
“It shows off your pale skin,” she said flippantly, nimbly attaching a choker to his neck. He flinched at the way it rests under his Adam’s apple, but she patted him once on the chest and declared, “You look great.”
And so he wore the shirt and the choker, and performed on stage—the songs and choreographies already ingrained in him as if it had been written somewhere in his DNA. He’s heard “Burn it up” and “Energetic” more times than anybody could count, the songs blasting in the background as he swore to his sweaty reflection in the practice room after everyone else had left that he was going to make this debut stage perfect or else. Minhyun’s lucky he likes both songs—unlike Jinhwan who grumbles about dissonant harmonies and shoddy melodies—but he definitely prefers “Energetic” and its more melodic verses, catchy choreography, and vaguely familiar electrosynth beats.
Because it sounds like home.
Jonghyun had sent him the demo of “If you…” weeks before it was released. It had been the first time in a long time since they had texted, and Minhyun stared desolately at the gap in days between the last text and this one. His mood lifted a little when he saw the this is for you that followed the file attachment, and queued up the song on his phone as he laid down in bed and pulled the covers over his body.
The demo version had been messy—the melody already in place but the harmonies still working its way through the song. Minki’s verses were pitchy, his voice chasing the contours of the song, and Dongho trailed into da da dadi da’s at parts where the lyrics had yet to be finalized, but once the track had ended, Minhyun slid the scrubbing bar back to the start and replayed the song. As he waited for the song to begin again, he felt as if the night was pressing heavily onto his chest.
A few weeks later, Minhyun found himself waiting for the official song to drop, his bunk illuminated by the light from his phone screen. Daniel sat in the bed across from him and Jihoon leaned down from the bunk above him, and they both quietly watched Minhyun refresh the page until the song appeared. They let him listen to the song alone first, eyes trained on the way his fingers almost nervously fiddled with the cord of his earbuds, wrapping it around the index finger of his left hand until it cut off his circulation and unwrapping it again.
After the song ended and Minhyun resolutely kept his eyes down at his lap, Daniel gently tugged the phone out of his hand and unplugged the earbuds. Jihoon reached across his bed and flipped the lights on.
“It’s not like anyone was sleeping anyways,” he said, when Guanlin hissed at the sudden brightness.
Daniel snorted, before looking at the phone screen.
“I’m playing the song,” he declared, and pressed play.
There was a part of Minhyun that wanted to stop him—wanted to rip the phone from him and run away with it, clutch at the melody and the lyrics and prevent anyone else from hearing them because the song belonged to him, because the song was too private to share, because nobody else felt the tear down the center of his heart—but he let Daniel press play and laid back in bed.
The soft, synth melody began to sound from the phone speakers, and one by one, everyone sat up. A breath was held until even after the song finished, and Minhyun closed his eyes in the silence as if he was unwilling to stare it in the eye.
“Play it again.”
The command came softly from Jinhwan. Daniel shrugged and played it again, and again, and again, and Minhyun drifted to sleep with Jonghyun’s soft voice in his ear, gently telling him that he wanted to see him again, that he wanted to hold his hand again, that he didn’t want to let go, and that they could finally stop saying goodbye.
Jonghyun is saying the same thing now, eyes scanning the audience as if he is looking for someone, but Minhyun knows that he could barely see with the stage lights glaring in his eyes. Dongho sings the chorus once more, and then there’s another rap verse with a brief second where Jonghyun’s eyes seem to meet his, and Minhyun’s breath catches in his throat.
But his heart starts to ache as Minki begins the last verse, and he mourns at the fact that this song has to end, and that the four are going to walk off stage after, and that he will not be able to unabashedly watch him for such a long period of time until God knows when. His calendar is marked December 31st, and he feels a little guilty so he never tells Wanna One about it, but God, winter seems like an eternity and a half away.
The song ends, Nu’est bows, the lights dim as the tech members switch sets, and Minhyun lets his body fold and collapse into the chair.
“That was good,” Sungwoon comments to nobody in particular, but there’s a murmur of agreement that runs through the eleven of them.
There is a part of each of them that is nostalgic for the days of Produce 101, of nonstop practice and leaning on their old and new friends from body-shaking laughter late at night, but most of the time, they try to squash it down.
There is a part of Minhyun that is nostalgic for the days before Produce 101, but every time it tries to rear its head, he squashes it down because he knows that this is the second chance Jonghyun had wanted. The second chance all of them had wanted.
we are drawn on the same canvas
He’s putting his clothes away in an empty wardrobe when he hears the lock turn and keys jingling. There’s a mutter of, “Oh my God, literally every time you get the lock stuck, why are you like this” and a responding huff, and Minhyun finds his feet leading him out of his room and into the living room.
Minki is shoving Dongho as he toes off his shoes, grunting when Dongho pushes him back and he falls against the wall. Just as he grabs a shoe and is about to retaliate, Minhyun lets out a laugh—loud and ringing through the room.
Minki and Dongho freeze, and Minhyun laughs some more—maybe from hysteria, maybe from nerves, maybe from relief, but most likely because Minki looks a sight: paused in the middle of reaching for Dongho and holding an obnoxious pink sneaker in one hand.
“Oh my God,” Minki breathes, and he drops the sneaker.
Minhyun stops laughing as Minki takes a step forward.
“Are you real?” He whispers, and Minhyun has to bite back another wave of chuckles.
Dongho recovers first, huffing impatiently and nudging Minki aside so he could get through the foyer.
“No shit he’s real,” he throws over his shoulder as he strides resolutely over to Minhyun.
He’s looking at him intently, head lifted a little so he could look Minhyun in the eye. There’s a burn in his gaze, a furrow in his brows, a frown on his lips, and Minhyun wonders for a wild moment if he was going to punch him.
Instead, Dongho drags Minhyun into a tight hug and gruffly pats him on the back.
“Welcome home, Hwang Minhyun,” he says hoarsely as Minki joins the embrace.
Minhyun nods wordlessly, and the three of them stay like that, ignore the dampening edges of their eyes.
but yours isn’t filled with color
He wouldn’t call it awkward.
It’s more like—he’s re-learning how to be part of the family again. He had been gone for a year and a half—perhaps not long in the grand scheme of life—but he feels like he had lived at least three lifetimes during that period.
He wouldn’t call it awkward, but he still paced back and forth as he waited for Youngmin and Jonghyun to return. He tried to disguise his pacing as cleaning, and he kept up the show by muttering under his breath as he re-wiped the spot on the bookshelf he’d wiped at least twenty times already.
Minki and Dongho watched him from the couch, fingers clasped on their laps as their eyes comically trailed him from one end of the living room to the other.
“Should we…stop him…before he scrapes the paint off the walls….?” Minki stage whispered to Dongho, grinning at the glare Minhyun shot his way.
“Nah, we haven’t cleaned the house in like a year and a half, might as well just let him do it,” Dongho replied, leaning back against the couch.
He chuckled when Minhyun recoiled at his words and laughed even harder when Minhyun leaned close to the table to inspect its cleanliness.
“You guys suck,” Minhyun grumbled, and he genuinely contemplated throwing the feather duster at the two. Just as he was about to raise his arm, the door opened, and he froze.
His back was still turned towards the door, and his eyes were hilariously wide, and he couldn’t even respond to Minki’s snort.
There was a pause, and whoever just came through the door stopped in their steps. Another pause, stretching between Minhyun and the doorway, and then—
Somebody cleared their throat, and Minhyun shivered at the way he recognized the sound.
“What are you doing, Minhyun?” Jonghyun asked, voice carefully controlled as his socked feet padded softly over to him.
He had imagined a million times what he would say the next time he and Jonghyun spoke, but now that he’s heard his voice again, all the words seemed to slip and slide and crash on his tongue, and he could only remain silent—body rigid and heart racing. Jonghyun hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to tap the forearm that was still slightly lifted from when Minhyun was planning his revenge on Minki and Dongho. An electric shock is sent through his arm from where Jonghyun’s skin made contact, and he lowered it immediately. He swallowed and turned to face him.
Minhyun worked his throat, but no sound could come out, because Jonghyun was quietly, peacefully, truly standing there—strands of hair flopping into his eyes, eyes that were looking at Minhyun in a way they hadn’t since the summer of 2017—and his presence was as overwhelming as it always had been.
A moment passed, and then another, and he still had not found any words and was starting to panic. There was a sigh from somewhere behind Jonghyun, and suddenly, Jonghyun was being pushed to the side and Youngmin appeared in front of Minhyun.
“Welcome home,” he said, amusedly, and pulled Minhyun into a hug.
“Don’t forget I exist too,” Youngmin whispered into Minhyun’s ear, and Minhyun flushed.
“Never, hyung,” he replies earnestly, closing his eyes and squeezing him even tighter.
Oh God, he had missed them so, so, so fucking much.
When Youngmin stepped back from the embrace, Minhyun let him go reluctantly, fingers still clutched around the hem of his sweater.
Youngmin smiled up at him warmly and gently released himself, saying, “I’m freezing, I’m going to make some hot chocolate.” He leaned around Minhyun and addressed Minki and Dongho. “If you guys want some, you have to get it from the kitchen yourself.”
There was some grumbling, but all three of them shuffled out of the living room and into the kitchen, and then he was alone with Jonghyun.
With a momentous effort, he lifted his eyes from the floor to meet Jonghyun’s and with a start, realized that Jonghyun had been watching him the entire time. His heart leapt into his throat, and he could feel his hands begin trembling.
“Hi,” Jonghyun said softly, stepping forward.
Minhyun stumbled back involuntarily and watched helplessly as Jonghyun’s face fell.
“Welcome back,” Jonghyun added after a moment of uncertainty, smiling weakly. “Glad you’re ho—here.”
The words fell around them, crumbling at their feet, and something tore through Minhyun. He let in a sharp inhale and thought that somebody must have ripped the floor from his feet and that it was a miracle he stayed standing.
He smiled back, but the lift of his lips was utterly foreign on his face. Jonghyun must have noticed because his face shuttered close, and Minhyun ached to reach out and just touch him, but his limbs would not move.
“Thanks,” Minhyun replied, the monosyllabic work choking its way out of his throat and clawing its way past his tongue.
Jonghyun nodded and turned around. Minhyun watched him head into his room and after a moment, shut his door.
He wouldn’t call it awkward, but he wouldn’t call it home either.
And it hurt so much more than he thought it would.