Archive of Our Own

There was a door in front of him.

The door was like any other ordinary door though he had not observed a door for so long as he had this one and certain imperfections were starting to stick out. The metal was scratched slightly around the passcode lock, the hinges rusting, the base scuffed against the rubber sealant.

For the third time since he had arrived upon the doorstep, Yuta raised his hand to knock but for the third time his courage failed him and he let his hand fall back to his side, fingers nearly numb from cold. He never claimed to be brave, anyway.

Observing the shiny plastic that covered the number pad of the lock, Yuta considered pulling out his phone and calling for a taxi one more time to take him straight back to the airport. No one but the door would ever know he had been here.

Then said door jolted open and Yuta was staring straight into Taeil’s exasperated gaze.

“I was getting tired of watching you dither out here,” he said flatly. “I was wondering how long it would take you to knock but I figured you’d try to run away soon.”

“You have too much faith in me if you expected anything different,” Yuta rasped back, finding his voice finally. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in half a day. The ride to the airport, the flight, the taxi ride to Taeil’s apartment, all had been done in silence. No one seemed to expect much from a man covered head to toe in black athleisure with only his eyes showing through a curtain of too long bangs.

Yuta wasn’t delusional enough to expect anyone would recognise him here but anonymity was an addictive drug. The loss of cameras and crush of crowds at first disorienting and stinging, was now gratefully welcome.

Taeil waved him in, looking faintly put out at Yuta’s obvious aversion to being at his front door. For his part, Yuta thought it was quite miraculous for him to get this far without turning around. He’d lost track of how many times he’d browsed through flights before the usual dread took over and he took the tickets out of his cart, choosing instead, to rummage for the nearest bottle and drown himself in that, rather than think about long gone opportunities and lost friends and futures that would never be.

Yuta toed off his shoes carefully and stepped into Taeil’s apartment, looking around. It was pleasantly decorated, plants sitting by the balcony where a tabby was sunning itself, fast asleep. There were pictures everywhere and the living room held a bright yellow couch that took up a large amount of space. Speakers sat atop a floating shelf on either end, holding, in the center, Taeil’s awards and a couple of scribbles of a child’s art, along with a university degree that Yuta was sure wasn’t Taeil’s.

“Minsun’s in Seongnam this week to see her family,” Taeil said, picking up the toys that littered the floor and dropping them in the basket by the kitchen. “She took Areum with her so it’s just us two.”

“That’s too bad,” Yuta said truthfully. He liked Taeil’s kid. She was sweet and playful and the last time Yuta had seen her, she’d sat in his lap and played with his necklaces and the buttons on his shirt, bubbling nonsense at him for an hour straight. Yuta had ignored the rest of them and just watched her, transfixed. That had been nearly two years ago.

“How was the flight?” Taeil asked, showing Yuta his room and letting him drop his bag on the bed.

Yuta shrugged. Flights were all the same, whether you were traversing a foreign country on a worldwide tour or if you were a nobody, coming back to a place you once thought could have been home. You were more naïve back then—it’s okay, you know better now.

“It was fine. How’s Minsun?”

A faint smile graced Taeil’s features. Domesticity looked good on him. Fatherhood even better. His hair was slightly long and shaggy, and his thick rimmed glasses sat on the tip of his nose, in constant danger of falling off. He looked well worn, settled in, like a comfortable sweater that sat ready at the edge of your closet waiting for the weather to turn just cold enough.

“She’s good,” he said happily, leading Yuta back out to the living room. “Work’s been driving her up the wall these days but she thrives on it. I don’t understand it.”

Yuta didn’t point out that Taeil had been part of an idol group for eight years and that, at the very least, could be somewhat comparable to being an investment banker. He had been in the same rat race with them, scrounging every day for something that would keep them going, something to stop from quitting, from ending it all, and then he’d left and he’d been the same as he’d ever been. Unflappable and pleasant only now with a child and a wife.

“You like being a live-in husband then?” Yuta asked, sitting on the couch and immediately regretting it. He didn’t own a couch and it was too strange to sit upon it but it may be stranger still to sink straight on the ground. There would have been a time that Yuta wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But he stayed now, trying not to clench his fingers against his sweatpants.

Taeil laughed. “I really do,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when Areum starts going to school full time. Right now it’s a good balance of work and getting to be with her but I’ll probably have to go back to teaching full time when she’s at school all day.”

Yuta hummed, not knowing what to say to that. “How’s—“ He stopped abruptly.

Taeil eyed him over the rim of his glasses and Yuta was abruptly reminded that he and Taeil had shared a room for many, many years and there were just some things you couldn’t help but learn about a person when you were in such close quarters with them for so long. Even if they all tried to pretend otherwise.

“They’re all good,” he said, not unkindly when Yuta didn’t continue. “Doyoung’s musical is still going and I think Johnny’s still doing his variety show. We’ll see all of them tonight, of course.”

Of course. That was why Yuta was even here. Why he’d come back for the first time in nearly two years. Why he’d pulled on his best battle armour and forced half a shelf of bottom row liquor down his throat before booking a two hour flight across the ocean that seemed insurmountable sober. Because Jaehyun had gotten out of the military and they were all meeting to greet him. Doyoung had been out for a year or so but Yuta hadn’t been there for that one. He had been for Taeyong’s, both entry and exit, but he hadn’t been able to force himself to go back after that. Not again. Not so soon.

He knew Doyoung would understand anyway. Doyoung always did get him, even if he didn’t like Yuta very much all the time. A sentiment Yuta both appreciated and resented.

“Can I take a shower?” He asked abruptly to cast away all unneeded thoughts before they strayed to more unsavoury places.

Taeil blinked. “Of course,” he said, no surprise in his tone as if nothing Yuta did would put him on the back foot, and led Yuta to the bathroom. After explaining how to work it—the hot water is fiddly, don’t turn it too much to the right or left or you’ll end up scalding yourself—he left Yuta alone.

Yuta stripped down to nothing and turned the shower on, sticking his head under the spray as soon as it went marginally warm. He leaned his forehead against the tiled wall and looked down, sucking in a shuddering breath. He wasn’t sure he could do this. He wasn’t sure if he could handle this. There was very little he was sure about anymore.

The water turned blisteringly hot but Yuta stayed, letting it pound down against his back.

He didn’t know how to do this anymore. How to be part of a team that had long disbanded. How to act like he was part of their lives anymore. Not when he was across the ocean. Not when he was the only one who’d left. Even Johnny had stayed and that had been the biggest surprise, Yuta supposed. He always thought he’d have an ally when this ended, when the charade dropped. Maybe he’d been the only one who’d been too scared, too exhausted, too cynical, too... Everything to stay.

Yuta closed his eyes.

He wished he was anywhere but here.

.

By the time they pulled up to the restaurant in Taeil’s car, Yuta’s anxiety was shooting through the roof and even the little bobblehead of Elsa that Taeil handed to him did nothing to stop his dread from solidifying into a brick at the base of his stomach.

“It always helps Areum when she’s crying,” Taeil said blandly when Yuta held up the Elsa figurine to eye level and then gave Taeil an incredulous glance. “She doesn’t like car rides that much.”

“I am not a three year old,” Yuta managed, looking out the window at the restaurant’s glittering lights shining through the window.

“You sure do look like Areum when she’s about to throw up,” Taeil replied unhelpfully and got out of the car. Yuta slowly followed him, checking his reflection in the car window as Taeil made his way to the front door. He looked like death warmed over, and no number of rings or earrings he’d adorned like armour was enough to hide the bald terror in his eyes.

The bracing wind followed them inside for a moment before it was dispelled by the crush of heat and Yuta shivered, shoving his hands in his pockets. One of the hardest things to get used to had been the difference in weather when he’d moved back to Japan. The winters were less biting there, less cruel. In Korea, everything seemed ready to snap at every inch of exposed skin. Or maybe Yuta was just projecting.

The waitress was already leading them down the main room to a row of private rooms at the back of the restaurant and Yuta followed, a couple paces behind, looking around. The place was decorated elegantly, with dripping plants sitting atop high shelves and warm, golden lighting filling the whole room with a warmth that Yuta did not feel mirrored inside.

They were led to the very last room and when the sliding door opened, Yuta was greeted with the sight of Taeyong engaged in a slap fight with Doyoung for the last piece of rolled egg, Johnny sitting beside them, looking distantly amused and staying completely out of it.

“Well,” Yuta managed through a croaky, awful voice. “It’s good to know some things never change.”

Taeyong spun around, his large eyes widening further when he caught sight of Yuta.

“Yuta!” He exclaimed, joy radiant in his tone and instantly making Yuta feel ten times worse than he already did. Taeyong jumped up, wrapping Yuta up in a bony yet inexplicably warm hug and Yuta sank into it without meaning to and for half a second he was nineteen again, on the cusp of a debut he didn’t know would even happen and sitting at the back of a practice room, sweat pooling everywhere, hair sticking uncomfortably to the back of his neck, exhaustion blurring his vision, trying not to feel too homesick and failing, trying not to feel hopeless and failing, trying not to cry and failing; wrapped up in Taeyong’s hug that never felt like pity, just warm and steady, just like him.

Then Yuta stepped back and the mirage vanished. Taeyong was looking at him, dark eyes filled with an emotion Yuta didn’t want to engage with and so instead, he just said, in a dusty, cracked tone, “Hi, Yong-ah.”

It was paltry. Weak. Nothing close to what Taeyong deserved but Taeyong smiled anyway, broad and happy, like Yuta had given him the sun.

“It’s been so long,” he replied and as if on instinct, his hand came up to cradle Yuta’s cheek, the heat from his hand blisteringly warm and Yuta flinched.

Taeyong’s hand dropped and they stared at each other for an infinitesimally small moment before Taeil broke it, voice pleasantly cheerful as it ever was, “I’m here too, you know.”

Taeyong took a moment to look away from Yuta but when he did, his voice was bright as if nothing had happened. “You live thirty minutes from me, hyung. I see you all the time.”

“I’m just saying,” Taeil groused playfully, sitting down beside Johnny who made room for him, folding his long legs under himself. Taeyong hesitated then sat back down and Yuta followed, sitting opposite him, beside his next battle.

“Hi, hyung,” Doyoung said and Yuta took a steadying breath that was definitely noticed.

“Hey, Doyoung-ah,” he replied, forcing himself to look Doyoung in the eyes. “I saw the posters for Rimbaud, it looks really good.”

“You should come see it,” Doyoung said, arching an eyebrow at him, an undercurrent of challenge running beneath his words. “It’s still running for another few weeks.”

“Maybe I will,” Yuta said. Doyoung hummed but didn’t say much more. Yuta knew he was unhappy with him but that was a familiar emotion, especially when it came to dealing with Doyoung.

On the opposite side of the table, Taeil was showing Taeyong pictures of Areum and Taeyong was cooing over every single one. Yuta watched them, wondering how long he could sit here before he had an excuse to leave. Maybe he could get the next flight out. It was the cowardly thing to do but Yuta had never claimed to be brave.

“So, Yuta,” Johnny said, breaking into Yuta’s fog with ease. “What have you been up to? How’s Japan?”

Yuta blinked rapidly, drawing his attention back to Johnny with difficulty. “What? Oh, it’s good. I—um—yeah it’s been good.”

“What are you doing these days?” Doyoung echoed but before Yuta had to stumble through a vague explanation to disguise the fact that he hadn’t been doing anything—except to find himself at the bottom of a different bottle every night and sobering up just in time to get to his radio show in the morning—the door slid open with a bang and Donghyuck stood there, clutching a present to his chest with a garish bow atop it, hair long and shaggy, and a grin on his face.

“Your favourite has arrived,” he announced grandly to an unimpressed audience.

“Unless you’re hiding Mark behind that monstrosity, I feel you’re suffering from delusions of grandeur,” Johnny said sardonically and Donghyuck’s face fell into disgruntlement. He stepped aside to let a sheepish looking Mark step into the room first and then shut the door behind them, grumbling to himself.

“You’ll all pay for this,” Donghyuck warned before dropping down to squeeze between Johnny and Taeil and jostling the whole table in his attempt to rid himself of his coat.

“Hey, Yuta hyung,” he added, offhandedly and Mark spun around, looking at him with a surprise that stung.

“Haechan-ah,” Yuta replied, conciliatory. They had never been that close—not when measured up against some of the other friendships—and more—that had been forged in NCT’s blistering fire—and Donghyuck wasn’t the forgiving type to those who didn’t reciprocate his olive branches. Donghyuck gave him a beatific smile before he seized Taeil’s arm and demanded to see Areum’s pictures.

“You were just over,” Taeil groaned, already pulling out his phone again.

“A month ago, hyung!” Donghyuck exclaimed. “I need to see my goddaughter!”

“She is not your goddaughter—” Taeil’s exasperated reply was buried under Johnny’s booming laugh and it all faded into the background to Yuta when Mark sat down beside him.

“Hi, hyung,” he said, oddly shy. His eyes were just as big as ever. Just as expressive. “Been a while.”

“Yeah,” Yuta managed, voice still raspy. He took a swig of water and cleared his throat. “How are you, Mark?”

Mark nodded, a little bop of his head that was endearing when he was sixteen and still managed to be so now, a decade later. “Good,” he mumbled. “I’ve been writing a lot.”

“I heard,” Yuta said. He’d given Mark’s second solo album a listen when it’d first came out, had sent him a congratulatory text then had instantly deleted the album from his phone, too bogged down with bitter regret and an envy he didn’t want to acknowledge to handle any more. It was better to distance himself. Better to find an uneasy solace at the bottom of a bottle than in drowning in memories long oxidised in failure.

Mark fumbled with his sleeves, not looking at him, and Yuta felt a stabbing ache. How was he still so beholden to someone he hadn’t spoken to in a year? How did he still fall right back into the same traps he’d moved countries to avoid? He added, in a much softer tone that he hoped didn’t sound too strangled, “It’s really good, Mark-yah.”

Mark’s head popped back up and he gave Yuta a grin, his eyes crinkling up. Yuta cast desperately around for something to say, anything that would distract from the brightness Mark so regularly exuded and ended up with—

“How’s—um—Chae—Chaeyoung?”

“Chaewon,” Mark corrected. “We broke up.”

“Oh, I’m—”

Mark waved his apology away before he could even finish the sentence. “It’s no big deal,” he said, almost dismissive and Yuta nodded along, not sure how he should respond. He’d never dated anyone, not in three long decades and he wasn’t sure how it would feel to be in that place, to be discarded as no big deal. Even the few hookups Yuta had managed lived on in his head, but for very different reasons.

“Jaehyun’s two minutes away,” Doyoung reported, cutting into Yuta’s internal turmoil. Donghyuck beamed and retrieved his present from behind him, the bow obscuring half his face as he nestled it on his lap. Taeil and Johnny looked absurdly fond and Yuta thought about the fact that people often regressed to the age when they first met after not seeing each other for a long, long time.

This is why he’d left. To get away from temptation and wants that he was too old and too jaded to let himself have.

To escape bad habits.

Yuta looked around, heart thudding too hard in his chest to be considered normal. “Is this everyone?” He asked. “Where’s—” Not for the first time that night he cut himself off at the knees but it was too late. Every eye was fixed on him.

“He’s still in the army,” Doyoung said, after a beat. His tone was neutral but his gaze was hard on Yuta. “Marine corps, down in Pohang.”

Yuta whipped around to look at him. “The Marines?” He asked incredulously. “Jungwoo? In active duty?”

“Yes,” Doyoung replied, eyeing him. There was too much knowledge in that look. Too much shared history that Yuta despised him for knowing.

“It was a surprise to all of us,” Taeyong said softly, as if he knew what Yuta was thinking. “But Jungwoo’s always done the unexpected, I suppose.”

They were all looking at him as if treading on fragile glass hundreds of feet up in the air. As if one misstep could send the ground beneath him cracking, splintering, hurtling down to the unforgiving earth. Even Donghyuck’s childlike glee had faded and he was watching Yuta with an expression that abruptly reminded him how old they all were. How much they’d all weathered. That a thin veneer of cordiality was pasted over all their interactions—or maybe it was just Yuta, who felt so plainly out of place that it hurt to sit here, surrounded by people who he’d once thought could get as close as family.

“Jungwoo’s always been stronger than most,” Doyoung added, eyes still fixed on Yuta, whose stomach roiled. He looked away and seconds later, Jaehyun arrived, hair shorn short and dimples still deep as ever, a breath of fresh air replacing the lead ache that was suffocating Yuta’s lungs, taking all the attention for himself. Yuta gratefully gave it to him.

<<

Jungwoo had been the strongest of all them, in the strangest ways.

After that night, that night, that night that was never spoken of again, that Yuta was too cowardly to bring up again—he never, ever claimed to be brave—that Jungwoo never brought up again—he was always kinder than Yuta ever gave him credit for—they never touched again.

At his lowest, during his loneliest nights, when the the dark seemed to linger too long and dawn, with all its distractions, seemed impossibly far away, Yuta pressed himself against the wall and looked at the closed door on the opposite side of the room and considered all the decisions in his life that had led him to this point. That had made him who he was. Was he even anyone? Or had all the remaining dregs of his identity been stripped away under flashes of cameras stealing bits of his soul with every picture they took, with every carefully painted on smile he gave to adoring crowds adoring him for all the wrong reasons.

They went on a tour and they crossed countries and passed more roads and cities and faces than Yuta could ever hope to remember and every city that passed, every hotel room that blurred before their eyes, every soundcheck, every interview, every song they sung over and over and over and over—

The distance only widened and Yuta...

Yuta lay in his ever changing beds with the odd Western mattresses that hurt his back and the scratchy hotel sheets in a room that never contained Jungwoo no matter how often their room arrangements switched and tried not to think about it.

And through it all Jungwoo never once approached him again. Never once touched him, or pressed, or premeditated some reason to get them alone and... Just pretended it hadn’t happened.

If it hadn’t been for Doyoung’s frosty demeanour towards him, Yuta could have almost believed it didn’t.

Then in St. Petersburg on a sticky, hot summer’s night, with the air conditioner in his room broken and a mind that wouldn’t stop spinning no matter what he tried, Yuta wandered up to the rooftop of the hotel their bellhop had told them about earlier in the day and found Jungwoo there.

The wind was blowing soupy, warm air but it was so much better than being stuck in his stuffy room that Yuta stepped out not without a small amount of relief.

Jungwoo turned when he heard the door creak open and his mouth parted slightly in shock. The hot air wafted over his hair, ruffled the straw coloured bangs up and Yuta clutched the door handle at the base of his spine and forced himself to breathe.

“Hyung?” Jungwoo said, and there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

“What—what are you doing here?” Yuta asked.

Jungwoo’s lashes fluttered in mild surprise, perhaps at being spoken to. It was odd for Yuta as well, like unlearning a habit that had been unconsciously ingrained in his brain. So long had he gone forcing himself not to even look at Jungwoo that this seemed inherently wrong.

“It—our air conditioning broke,” he said quietly. “Donghyuck went to sleep in Johnny and Taeil’s room. “I wasn’t tired.”

Yuta nodded, not knowing what else to say to that. It would be too cowardly to turn around and go back downstairs so he stayed, hesitating by the door before moving towards the edge of the roof, looking over the torso high wall Jungwoo had been leaning against. “Me neither,” he mumbles, many moments too late but Jungwoo just seemed taken aback that Yuta had spoken to him a second time.

Yuta could feel Jungwoo’s eyes on him but he didn’t turn to look. Instead he leaned his elbows down on the wall and looked out at the city spread below them, lights twinkling, the sound of birds chirping faintly, the sprawl of such a place, inherently the same as any other down in its guts, in its bones but so different atop, sparkling with a different veneer that covered the last five, ten, fifteen cities they had visited in the last six months.

Yuta felt so very tired.

He heard the intake of breath from Jungwoo. “Hyung—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yuta said and immediately regretted it. It was too quick, a blunder that revealed more than he would have liked.

“We don’t have to,” Jungwoo said softly, after a beat, and Yuta stared down at a birch tree waving its branches in the wind. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Then what?” Yuta asked and his tone had a bite to it this time. He forced himself to look at Jungwoo, as if in penance for his words, for his behaviour. Jungwoo was watching him with that careful gaze, those big eyes, and inexplicably, Yuta was reminded of Taeyong despite the fact that they were nothing alike. “What?” Yuta repeated, quieter, partly because it felt hard to breathe again, like he was back in his stuffy room.

“I know… I know things have been weird,” Jungwoo whispered, haltingly. “And… I just wanted to say that you don’t have to worry about it happening again. I won’t—I won’t touch you again, hyung.”

Yuta stared at him, lost for words that weren’t coming, hadn’t been coming for six months, all that Korean training and it still failed him when it mattered most.

Jungwoo bit his lip and tried for a smile that seemed earth shatteringly sad, kind even when Yuta deserved none of it. “So… So don’t avoid me, okay? It’s forgotten.”

It should have given him relief. It should have cleared up all the misery and confusion Yuta had been feeling since that night, that night, that night when Jungwoo bestowed his touch upon him and gave him the absolution Yuta hadn’t known he’d spent two decades looking for, yearning for.

All it did was tighten the noose around Yuta’s lungs. It was already so hard to breathe.

“I…” Yuta started and then stopped. Once again, his words failed him and once again he felt himself on the back foot of a conversation he didn’t want to ever have.

Jungwoo was watching him, his hands interlaced atop the ledge, the long line of his body angled away from Yuta, as if expecting an explosion. It was that caution that prompted Yuta to speak, because that was simply not the way Jungwoo operated.

“Okay,” Yuta said because that was all he could say, that was the first word he’d learned stepping ashore, a minnow dropped in an ocean. That was all he could summon in the face of Jungwoo’s quiet expectation, the reminder of what had happened last time hanging between them like a sword on a rapidly fraying thread. Yuta never claimed to be brave. This was all he could give.

“Okay,” Jungwoo echoed and his chin dipped as he nodded, the planes of his face catching the glow of the streetlights. He shot Yuta a faint smile with such painful sincerity it made Yuta’s breath catch in his throat and then turned around and walked to the door, long legs stretching out under him in the moonlight. It was only then that Yuta noticed he was wearing shorts.

“Okay,” he said again, on the end of an exhale held too long at the top of his lungs, but it wasn’t loud enough that Jungwoo could hear it.

The door clicked shut and Yuta turned to look at the empty roof, not a single sign of survival up there save for the rapid beat of his heart, the tremble of his fingers as he tried to remember what breathing felt like and the lazy gust of the hot, summer wind which saw everything and spoke of nothing.

.

Things slipped slowly back to normal in and around dizzyingly packed schedules and too many flights where it felt like Yuta’s ears would never properly stabilise back to the proper pressure, and through it all, through the tentative jokes in front of thousands of people who could barely hear them over their own screaming, past the packed changing rooms in which his gaze was averted so pointedly, his eyeballs stung, through all the hectic changes and dusty dorms that they fell into without a moment's thought to catch precious moments sleep, through all of it, they never touched again.

A miracle, one might say, given how closely they were all packed together for upwards of six months. And, through it all, Yuta struggled.

Then Jungwoo left and Yuta felt like he could breathe again.

>>

Snow had started to float down from the skies when they all tumbled out of the restaurant, hours later.

Yuta wrapped his coat more firmly around his body, cinching it tight at his neck as he watched the rest of his members—ex-members—stumble out, laughing raucously, the evidence of alcohol pinking high on their cheeks.

He hadn’t drunk anything beyond the occasional sip of water, too queasy to trust himself with alcohol and being sandwiched between Doyoung and Mark the entire night hadn’t helped even if Doyoung’s faint disdain had faded in the face of Jaehyun’s arrival.

Mark giggled at something Johnny was saying in English, the words tumbling out rapid fire from either end, too quick for Yuta to even have a hope of making out. It was a miracle he’d retained as much Korean as he did anyway, there was no chance of him remembering any of the English half-heartedly studied for their world tours. On the other side, Jaehyun and Donghyuck were talking about his future plans, clutching onto each other as if letting go might make them fall face first onto the icy sidewalk and Taeil was watching them with an indulgent expression, having been the only other one who’d remained sober.

Their happiness seemed infectious, bouncing from one person to another, ping-ponging off each other until the smiles almost seemed to melt the chill away, steam rising from their clothes as they giggled, but it all seemed to miss Yuta completely.

Maybe it was just a product of being away for so long. Maybe it was just his own cowardice holding him, because he had never claimed to be brave, but Yuta couldn’t help but look at the people he once thought would be at his side forever and remember how much he’d longed to be in this very spot once, and look back at his life with nothing but fondness. To remember his past happily, to know that he’d lived it to the fullest, to be content that there was nothing left for him to want.

But none of that was true, now. He’d left everything behind, he’d escaped, thinking his home would give him what he craved, thinking that distance and time and a whole ocean between what he’d so desperately wanted with every fiber of his traitorous being, and what he should become, would help, would make everything better.

It hadn’t. It’d just left him like this, standing apart from the rest of the crowd, none of the contagious happiness, the cheerfulness at being back together, the fond memories everyone else seemed to carry, mirrored in him. All he felt was cold and tired.

He desperately wanted a drink.

Then Yuta, feeling someone’s eyes on him, turned and met Doyoung’s eyes. He was leaning against the wall, yawning and tipped his head in quiet challenge at Yuta.

“What?” Yuta asked, unable to keep the sharpness out of his tone as he closed the distance between them—mere feet rather than an ocean.

“You really didn’t know?” Doyoung asked and when Yuta blinked at him, he elaborated. “Jungwoo. In the Marines.”

Yuta stared at him. “No,” he said, after the longest silence. “I didn’t—we haven’t spoken since—since…” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jungwoo. Maybe it had been at Taeyong’s discharge celebration.

Doyoung hummed. “He’s changed,” he said. “I’ve seen him twice since he entered, and he’s changed a lot.”

Yuta looked at Doyoung, not sure why he was telling him this. It wasn’t as if Yuta would… But he would care. If he saw Jungwoo again, he would want to care.

Bad habits.

“Okay?” Yuta said and Doyoung straightened, looking back at him. That challenge was there again and Yuta wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. It felt a little like stepping off a staircase, not knowing if it ended or not. The silence stretched on for longer this time and then Doyoung broke it with a sigh, looking away, the strong line of his jaw showing how tightly he clenched it.

“Never mind, hyung,” Doyoung said finally and he slid off the wall and walked away. Yuta watched him go and got the sense that he’d disappointed Doyoung somehow. Once again.

It left a sharp ache in the pit of his stomach.

<<

Okay so Yuta lied. He does that. He’s extraordinarily good at that. He’s had a lot of practice.

Most of the time when he talked to his mom on the phone, he lied about being happy, about eating enough, about not losing weight.

He lied to his coworkers, to the journalists interviewing him for articles no one will read, to the rare fan who still came up to him in cafes or in grocery stores, nervously clutching their phones to their chest, with an expression that said clearly they never expected to find him here. Nakamoto Yuta, buying bulk ramen and ready to eat yakisoba on a Sunday night while snow piled up in the streets outside and the fluorescent lights overhead flickered, giving the occupants of the store a sickly hue.

When he left, he lied to everyone. Lied about the day, the time, the reasons. Only Taeyong had managed to catch up with him, as Yuta was leaving his empty apartment on the last day without any love lost—it had never been a home to him, not really. It had never been filled with as much laughter and noise as the dorms, never as much warmth as his family home—and he’d turned to find Taeyong worrying at his lower lip, staring at him with those damnably big eyes that still didn’t hold any hatred, just concern and an aching, awful empathy that clawed into Yuta’s lungs and hung there like an unwelcome body.

“You’re leaving,” Taeyong said. “Early.”

“My flight got changed,” Yuta lied, hitching his bag up onto his shoulder. “I—um—”

“Yuta,” Taeyong said softly. “You shouldn’t leave—not like this. This—what about everyone?”

A bitter laugh escaped Yuta, coating the inside of his mouth with an indelible taste that wouldn’t leave until a week later, in his new house, the floor heating broken and his breath frosting on the bathroom mirror as he desperately rinsed his mouth out over and over again with strong mouthwash that burned the insides of his cheeks.

“No one else really cares, Yong-ah. And that’s fine. We’ve all got our own lives now.”

Taeyong, if anything, looked even sadder than when he had first arrived and seen the evidence of Yuta’s cowardice firsthand. “What about—”

“You shouldn’t either,” Yuta interrupted because he wanted to leave. He’d wanted to leave for a very long time and now, he finally could. He wanted to get out and breathe something like freedom for once without that bitter tinge of envy carried on the downwind after it. He didn’t want to be here anymore. “I’m... We always knew it would end this way.”

Taeyong’s shoulders slumped and Yuta felt like the worst person in the world. It was never easy to say no to Lee Taeyong. It was why he’d lied.

“I’ll always care about you,” Taeyong said quietly and then gave Yuta a bruising, hard, warm hug that Yuta leaned into without meaning to. Taeyong always gave the best hugs. “He—others do too, Yuta. No matter what you think. You’re not alone in this world.”

Anyway, the point is, Yuta lied.

Again.

<<

It’s on the hottest night they’d experienced so far, in the muggy dark of a Singaporean night, the markets slowly closing around them, lights in the distance shutting down, and the rumble of tired voices speaking a language that was simultaneously foreign and yet explicitly relatable, buffeting them through the open air market like a wave carries treasures to its shores.

Yuta lingered behind the rest of the group as they wandered slowly through roads, pointing out food still sitting out on the roadside stalls and trinkets placed artfully on coloured carpets, pressed the soles of his feet deliberately onto every sharp rock and jut in the road and felt the points poke him through his shoes. It felt therapeutic, if vaguely masochistic.

Someone slowed down to let him catch up and when Yuta glanced up from toeing the ground with his muddy sneakers, he found Jungwoo beside him, not looking at him but instead turning his head in every direction as if to preserve the memory of this market in his mind before it disappeared.

Yuta did not say anything and neither did Jungwoo.

They walked along in silence, trailing far behind the rest of their group, now shadowy figures in the rapidly setting sun, and just as they exited the market, the main road hovering in front of them, Jungwoo’s pinky finger brushed against Yuta’s and then disappeared.

That was the first time.

And then Jungwoo went on hiatus and Yuta stopped contemplating cutting off one of his fingers so it stopped tingling whenever he got a glimpse of blonde hair and long legs in his peripheral vision.

>>

Taeil’s house was too damn quiet.

Not for the first time, Yuta turned around, trying to get comfortable in the strange bed, his back aching and his neck already sore in a way that he knows will come back to bite him in the morning.

Eventually, Yuta gave up and fumbled around for his phone, squinting at the time as the screen flared to life. The numbers ticked on slowly as Yuta flicked through his mail, text messages from his company back home, Instagram notifications from being tagged in Taeyong’s post.

Taeyong had dragged them into taking a picture before they’d left, all squeezed together, as Johnny stretched out his mile long arms and snapped a handful of pictures, their heads bunched together, cheeks pink and smiles stretched wide. Yuta looked at the picture and felt, that if anyone looked at him for more than a second, they could tell exactly how much he was faking. How little he belonged.

our jaehyunnie served well~~ Taeyong had written under the picture where Jaehyun was in the center, his cheeks bunched up, eyes crinkling with a simple joy. jungwoo-yah we miss you. be safe, work hard <3

There were hundreds of thousands of comments already, thousands of crying emojis, hearts, captions cooing over NCT coming back together, as if, because it were a tangible thing, it meant anything more than a false pleasantry.

Yuta closed his eyes and ran through everything. Was he content with this? Being bogged down in regret and too much damn cowardice that he would leave these shores again with nothing and go back to more nothings and a bottle.

How long would he have to run until the past stopped coming for him.

The memory of standing in the snow with his members laughing around him came back. They were all so happy even years after the end of everything and Yuta… Yuta hadn’t been able to feel any of it…

Regret was a funny thing.

He took a breath that felt too long in coming and picked up his phone.

Doyoung answered in two rings, in a clear voice that didn’t speak to the time, as if he had been waiting for Yuta’s call. “Yes, hyung?”

“Can you take me to see Jungwoo?”

The silence lasted a moment this time, then Doyoung finally said, as if granting Yuta clemency desperately, silently, craved. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

<<

It was a strange thing, to see someone change right in front of your eyes.

Yuta hadn’t really experienced anything of the sort for as long as he’d been part of SM because day in and day out seeing the same people didn’t really lend itself to noting all the minute changes that added up, like shedding a snake’s skin bit by bit to transform, not until he was looking back at old pictures from years and years ago and seeing, with the sharp dissonance of knowledge that time really did pass, how different they all were.

But it had been a long time since Yuta had last seen Jungwoo and his mutation from six months ago to now was… Jarring, to say the least.

In true SM fashion, none of them were told that Jungwoo would be arriving on the day that he did and all of them had been lazing around on the 10th floor dorm, comparing notes for the upcoming comeback when Jungwoo entered, a duffle bag on one shoulder and a suitcase behind him.

There was nothing outwardly unusual, Yuta thought, as Jungwoo was bombarded with people, Mark crowing at the top of his lungs that Zeus returns yoooo. There were no significant changes but the differences lay in the subtleties.

Subtleties that Yuta took more and more note of without meaning to as the days went on. Gone, was the cherubesque blonde hair and in its place was Jungwoo’s natural curly mess, dark and wild. The stylists would have a job of taming it before their next comeback. He no longer looked wide-eyed when faced with questions and his mask, now settled with an impenetrable veneer of placidity that very little was shaken by.

It was odd, even as they carried into comeback preparations and the world slowly started to shrink in on itself outside, that Jungwoo seemed to emerge from his own shell and built a different sort of armour around him. One that was confounding even to those of them closest to him.

Even Doyoung seemed disconcerted for a couple of weeks, and Taeyong clearly wasn’t sure how to circumvent acting as a leader to someone who had disappeared for six months after a draining world tour and debut and they all floundered around for a bit until slowly things started clicking into place.

Comebacks and came and went and, in a slow daze, 2020 rolled by in a fog of uncertainty, and Yuta found an odd solace in a rare-given opportunity, finding the storm in his mind relaxing as he sheltered in front of a mic and spoke to an invisible audience in a language that felt inherently at home on his tongue, felt comfortable rolling off the tip of his teeth.

He didn’t give more thought to Jungwoo than he had to. There was no need to. Yuta was a master at avoidance—nowhere near what Johnny could be of course but he could hold his own and so he did. He played his role, did his fanservice, latched onto an awkwardly giving Mark and let the craving that ached so badly, it dug a gaping hole the size of a fist in his stomach, be satisfied by the brief moments in which Mark accepted his affections and let Yuta don his cape and act his part.

Oddly enough, when Jungwoo did start approaching him again, when his hand started landing in Yuta’s hair, the high pitched chime of lion following him around from studio to studio, from host to indulgent, overworked host, Yuta felt no panic, no dread.

Maybe he had learned his lesson. Maybe his brain had realised that wanting something was not the same as wanting everything, was certainly not the same as getting a very different thing.

For a year, Yuta lay in a quiet room with Taeil snoring on the other side, and did not look at the door beside his head, did not wish it would open, did not hate himself for wanting because that want did not exist.

.

And then, as if nothing had happened, as if two years hadn’t passed in between, Yuta found himself drunk on the couch, head lolling against the cushion, looking at Jungwoo’s angelic hair, in an entirely different colour again, and felt, with a sharp agony, that same craving come roaring back as if it had never left.

He had no explanation for it. No sense of understanding.

If one were to defend Yuta, they would have pointed out that straight thinking did not often follow heavy drinking and karaoke. The occupants of the 10th floor dormitory had spent the better part of the third day of their week off, lounging around in the dorm, and watching increasingly confusing movies. Yuta was confused, and drunk and a little too hot from his sweatshirt and the soju and beer.

And now, he and Jungwoo were the only ones left in a dark living room, the only light coming from the TV, muted, flickering through advertisements. Jungwoo’s shoulder was heavy against Yuta’s, his fingers pulling gently at the hole in his sweats and when Yuta looked up, his eyes were fixed on him.

“What?” Yuta asked through a rough, disused voice, the leftover burn of soju still lingering in the back of his throat. He felt too hot. Without waiting for Jungwoo’s response, he sat up and tugged his sweatshirt off, feeling the brush of air against his abdomen as his shirt rode up. When he sat back against the couch, head spinning a little from the rapid movement, Jungwoo was still watching.

“Yuta hyung,” he said and the exhale of his breath on the edge of Yuta’s name felt like something close to a secret. Another moment slipped away into time and somehow, the space between them had closed to nothing. A minute separation.

“You’re different now, you know,” Yuta said without realising he was about to say it. The words had fallen out of his mouth unbidden and he opened his mouth to take it back but stalled.

Jungwoo’s lashes brushed against his cheeks in the slow blink. “You’re the same,” he said, measured. “You still…” He trailed off looking at Yuta sleepily.

“Am I?” Yuta asked, genuinely curious. His hand had landed atop Jungwoo’s and Jungwoo’s fingers twitched under his touch.

“Yes,” Jungwoo said. “Which is why when you kiss me now, you’re going to run away in the morning and pretend it didn’t happen.”

Yuta took this pronouncement and sat with it, let it seep into his skin, the outright declaration that he was a coward leveled at him like a gun. It didn’t hurt as much as Yuta thought it would. Maybe he was too drunk for it.

“You’ll let me do it anyway, though,” was all he said in return because maybe a year of wanting nothing had passed but before that he’d received the luxury of Jungwoo’s touch and it had felt too good, too dangerous, too much to allow himself again and he had waited for a year for that awful greed to fade.

Jungwoo looked at him. “I want you to want it,” he said and it was like they were propelled two years back, like being yanked around his navel and shot backwards in time, Yuta in his dark room, in a too small bed, drowning in the sensation of having a human body pressed up against him, of feeling wanted, of the terrifying ordeal of being known, being stripped apart by hands too knowing and a mouth too smart for its own good.

“I hate your games,” Yuta told him, frankly and the cruel curve of Jungwoo’s smile felt too sharp, like the edge of a razor blade slicing against skin, when he kissed him.

It felt like the way Yuta had felt when he’d entered the shrine before he’d left for Korea. His mother had taken him with her and Yuta, not one for religion, had held back, following a pace behind her, and quietly looked around, listened to the clink of coins in the donation box, the trickle of water in the temizuya, the soft whispers floating around in prayers not meant for his ears.

It felt holy, unholy, like too much and too little all at the same time. His body was trembling, on the fraying edge of a livewire, the simple, frugal movement of Jungwoo’s lips against him, sending him spinning out of control, all that want and craving so carefully locked away coming roaring back under the exhale of Jungwoo’s breath against his mouth. It felt like absolution and penance, like this was his payment for the indulgences that would pave his way to grace.

When Jungwoo’s hand landed on Yuta’s cheek, it was soft.

Yuta flinched.

>>

“You’re lucky I’m off the musical this weekend,” was all Doyoung said when Yuta got into the taxi idling at the curbside. Taeil waved them off, yawning sleepily in the early morning, his hair sticking up all over his head before he wandered back inside, sunglasses and house slippers still on. It would have been a sight for any news outlets, if any of them cared.

“Huh?” Yuta asked, after figuring out how to shove his bag between his legs so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable. He didn’t know why he’d bothered—the whole trip was bound to be excruciating in every way.

Doyoung glanced at him. “You wouldn’t have been able to get onto the base,” he elaborated. “Without a Korean citizen to vouch for you.”

“Oh.” Yuta wasn’t sure how to tell Doyoung he wouldn’t have even made it to the train station, let alone all the way to Pohang, if Doyoung hadn’t been right there, a manacle dragging Yuta along behind him. He wasn’t brave enough to do this without Doyoung buffeting him along.

So, instead of voicing this depressing thought out loud, he stayed silent and Doyoung did as well, both of them looking out their respective windows as the city, slowly waking up around them, trailed by inch by inch.

.

There was a KTX train leaving at eight o’clock to Pohang and they reached the station with plenty of time to spare. Doyoung was appropriately bundled up so his face was unrecognisable under a mask and a baseball hat Yuta was certain he’d bought the last time they were in Chicago. Yuta on the other hand, hadn’t tried to conceal himself, sure no one would notice or care that he was in Korea and getting on a train and was slightly regretting it as the wind nipped at his exposed nose and ears.

They boarded the train and Doyoung left Yuta to get settled, disappearing through the sliding doors. Yuta glanced after him and then dug around for his headphones, shrugging. If Doyoung wanted to abandon him on the train, he probably wouldn’t have left his bag on the seat beside Yuta.

Just as the announcements came back on, letting them know they were due to leave in five minutes, Doyoung came back inside, his long coat buttoned tightly up to his neck. Wordlessly he held out a slim cylindrical package wrapped in foil and Yuta took it, surprised to find it was a kimbap roll. It was a thoughtfulness he hadn’t expected directed at him. Not from Doyoung.

“Breakfast,” Doyoung said and then didn’t speak to Yuta again as they pulled out of the station.

Yuta didn’t bother with trying to keep up a conversation either, just leaned back in his seat, with his headphones firmly on and nibbled at the kimbap, watching Seoul give way to the countryside, the fields rushing by in a blur of gold and green. Beside him, Doyoung was flicking through a script, making notes in the margins.

Yuta tipped his head against the window and took a deep breath that shook a little on the exhale. He had forcefully stopped himself from thinking about what was waiting for him at the end of the train line but now, with two hours stretching out in front of him, it was hard to ignore the reality.

He was terrified. He had no idea what he was going to do when he saw Jungwoo, had no idea if Jungwoo would even want to see him, had no idea what to say, what explanation he could give—if he even had one. All his Korean seemed to be slipping off his tongue like soap suds as they sped towards his doom. He turned to look at Doyoung to find any kind of reassurance but Doyoung was still looking at his scripts and clearly refusing to look at him. Yuta glanced back out of the window and thought about how he must be going mad. None of the choices he’d made in the last twenty-four hours seemed particularly like that of a sane person.

It was nearing lunchtime when the train started slowing down and Doyoung finally looked up from his phone.

“Are we here?” Yuta asked, pulling his headphones out of his ears and in silent answer, Doyoung raised his eyebrows at the LED sign above them which clearly read NEXT STOP: POHANG in Korean, English and Japanese.

Yuta rolled his eyes and stuffed his headphones haphazardly in his bag and disembarked from the train, following Doyoung onto the platform and out of the station. He hung back while Doyoung went to get the rental car sorted and played with the scrap foil from the remnants of his kimbap, the foil scratching unpleasantly against the sensitive skin webbing between his fingers.

“Come on, hyung,” Doyoung said, drawing up to him, the line of his mouth severe in the bright afternoon light and Yuta pushed up off the column he was leaning against and tossed the foil into the nearest trash can.

According to Doyoung it was easily a forty minute drive to the base so, in silent agreement they stopped for lunch before heading out.

The restaurant they stopped at sat on the edge of the ocean, the stiff salty breeze wafting in through the open doors and swirling around their little cocoon of heat brought on by the hot plate sitting in between, atop which sat a bubbling pot of kimchi jjigae. The rest of the table was covered in a variety of side dishes, the likes of which Yuta hadn’t ever seen before, and some of which he hadn’t had in a very long time. Handmade bread sat in the middle, a specialty of Pohang, the owner told them while bustling around their table, apparently pleased that such handsome men had entered her restaurant when it was so early in the day. Along with it was the largest crab Yuta had ever seen, white flesh gleaming in glow of the heat lamp, several different kinds of kimchi, and rolled egg, along with pidegi and mulhoe which Yuta was pleasantly delighted by, the sashimi beautifully accompanied by the sharp sweetness of the pear.

He had single handedly finished most of it before he realised Doyoung was watching him, chopsticks frozen inches above his plate, the oddest expression on his face.

Yuta swallowed with great difficulty and took a sip of bracingly cold water. “Sorry, did you—did you want some?”

“What do you do, back home?” Doyoung asked, ignoring Yuta’s question entirely, placing his chopsticks back down atop his bowl of rice.

Yuta blinked. “What?”

“In Japan,” Doyoung clarified, sitting up straighter. “What do you do?”

Yuta stared at him. He hadn’t expected Doyoung to refer to Japan as his home. And then he didn’t know why he should have been surprised by it. “Um… Like for work?”

A faint moue of annoyance flitted across Doyoung’s face. “Yes, hyung,” he said. “Like for work.”

“Oh.” Yuta also laid his chopsticks down. “I do a radio show every morning. And a couple of variety shows here and there.” He shrugged. “I got opted for a drama a while ago but I didn’t take it up.”

“Why not?”

Yuta let himself sit for a second and think about it. “Didn't think it’d be worth the trouble,” is all he came up with in the end.

Doyoung’s expression is inscrutable. “And when did you start becoming afraid of everything, hyung?”

Yuta’s laugh surprised himself and Doyoung who blinked, thrown off by his reaction. “I’ve always been a coward, Doyoung-ah,” he said, smiling broadly. “Always. I was just good at hiding behind work… And then there was no more work to hide behind.”

“So you ran away.”

“I went back home.”

“And you… What? You go to your radio job and go back home and do what? Sit there in the dark?” It wasn’t an unfair assessment, but Yuta did not think it would make good lunch conversation to discuss his burgeoning alcoholism. Doyoung continued, looking pained, even as he picked up his chopsticks but did not continue to eat. “Do you have someone? Friends? Or do you just wallow in loneliness because you’re too afraid of facing yourself?”

Yuta shrugged. “Mediocrity breeds mediocrity, Doyoung-ah,” he said blandly.

“You are not mediocre,” Doyoung snapped, gripping his chopsticks so tightly against the edge of the table, they snapped in half. There was a beat of silence, where they both stared down at the splintered chopsticks and then Doyoung took a deep breath and went to go get another pair, profusely apologising to the restaurant owner for his mistake.

Yuta went back to eating, picking at the kimchi and the crab until Doyoung sat back down.

“Have you decided what you’re going to say to Jungwoo?”

Yuta did not look up at him. “No,” he said, popping a strip of crab in his mouth. It was delicious.

“Then what are we doing here?” Doyoung asked, frustration bleeding in his tone.

“Closure,” Yuta replied promptly because that was the one question he knew the answer to.

“For him or you?”

Once again, Yuta shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”

They did not speak again until they had finished eating.

.

It was easy to be blasé in the face of Doyoung’s disapproval because it was easy to rile up Doyoung and Yuta was marvelously good at it and Doyoung’s interrogation hadn’t come at a good time. Though, Yuta doubted if there would ever be a good time to bring it up.

Besides, Yuta ruminated, running his tongue over the front of his teeth and looking out of the window, at the ocean spread out beside them, even if he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say Jungwoo, he had the gist, clenched tightly in his fist, against his sweaty palm, gripping it tight to his skin so he wouldn’t freeze up.

Doyoung’s observations, like always, were a bit too on the nose.

The anxiety was still gripping at him. The want to run away still clenching tightly at his lungs, but there was no way out now. Not when they were in a car, running along the edge of a cliff, overlooking the ocean on the opposite end of the country.

Yuta leaned his head against the window and tried to breathe. He was overthinking this.

“You’re overthinking this,” Doyoung said quietly, turning down the radio.

“Oh, are you no longer angry at me?” Yuta asked, without turning his head.

Doyoung ignored this. “Stop being scared, hyung.”

Easier said than done. So much easier.

Yuta had been running away for a very long time. He still wanted to. Going back to Japan, going back home, had been a flagellant exercise in masochism, in trying to escape his past. Tried to wash the taste of Jungwoo out of his mouth with tens of different people. Tried to escape his singular wants with women who didn’t know who he was and some who did but didn’t care. And when that hadn’t worked, he’d turned to men, had kissed so many of them that it all blurred together into one meaningless cloud of regret. Had stumbled home late, so late it was nearly dawn, and rinsed his mouth out with stinging mouthwash, had tried to rid himself of every want and every need, had tried to eliminate the feeling of craving and pleasure and lived an ascetic life devoid of nothing but work and sleep and more work and when that hadn’t worked, he turned back to the first vice.

He’d tried every method under the sun to hide, to run, to never look back and none of it worked. Ultimately, he’d ended up back here. Waiting, in a fugue state of dread, for something to give.

Maybe, it was his turn to give in now.

“Okay,” Yuta said, finally, exhaling. His lungs ached, he’d been holding his breath for so long. “Okay.”

Doyoung nodded, and turned the radio back up.

.

When they got to the base, Yuta handed over his passport and old, unused ID with no small amount of trepidation, and when it was handed back to him, his hand shook as he placed it back in his bag.

Doyoung was watching him and then tipped his head slightly in the other direction. “Ready to go?”

“God no,” Yuta muttered and was surprised to see a small smile flutter over Doyoung’s face before he turned around.

The soldier they’re following escorted them to a cafeteria built atop a small plateau, overlooking a cliff and below, the icy blue ocean. They elected to sit outside, on the tables by the edge of the plateau, far away from any other figures and wait for Jungwoo. Yuta could feel his heart hammering in the back of his throat, feel the blood pulse under his fingers.

Then, “Jungwoo,” Doyoung said and Yuta’s head snapped up.

Jungwoo was standing there in full military uniform, his hair cropped short, short enough that no curls had time to grow back, and his cheeks were thinner than Yuta had ever seen them. But his mouth was stretched in that same smile and he folded Doyoung into that same embrace that he always had.

Jungwoo disentagled himself from Doyoung and glanced over to Yuta, and his expression didn’t budge, but the light faded a little from his eyes, replaced with a gleam of curiosity. “Yuta hyung,” he said.

It took three tries for Yuta’s voice to work again. “Long time,” he managed and Jungwoo’s eyebrow ticked up for a momentary second.

“Sit down,” Doyoung said, breaking the moment and Jungwoo glanced at him with that same smile and moved to sit opposite Yuta, spine ramrod straight, and hands folded on the table in front of him. “Do you want anything?” Doyoung asked. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” Jungwoo said. “Stop fretting and sit down, hyung.”

Doyoung made a face at him, and did as he said.

“How is it,” Yuta asked because he felt he should. He looked around at the camp. Dirt roads wound around the small hills and buildings sat nestled among the low brush. It looked entirely foreign to him, like something out of a movie.

“Good,” Jungwoo replied with that same caution in his tone as if he wasn’t sure how to broach the obvious elephant in the room. “It’s a good challenge. Though,” he shot a faint grin at Doyoung. “I’m ready to be done.”

“Almost,” Doyoung said, clapping Jungwoo on the shoulder.

The conversation wandered into Doyoung territory which was safe. Jungwoo asked about his musical and Yuta was safe to look at him, take in the minute changes in his face, the small silvery scar on his left temple, the way all the nervous energy he used to have, had faded, and find that oddly, for the first time, looking at Jungwoo did not ache.

“What about you, hyung?” Jungwoo asked, finally, turning to Yuta, who blinked, startled from his thoughts.

“What?” He asked blankly and Doyoung raised an eyebrow.

“I’m going to go get some food,” Doyoung said, getting up from the table.

“We just ate,” Yuta pointed out.

Doyoung shrugged vaguely and without responding, turned around and walked away, his coat flapping in the wind. Yuta watched him go and then met Jungwoo’s eyes with all the courage he could summon up.

“Hi,” he said.

A faint smile flickered over Jungwoo’s mouth. “Hello, hyung.” He tipped his head to the side. “Are you here to confess all your sins?”

“You can’t absolve me of anything,” Yuta said, with a huff of laughter. “Not even if I wanted it.”

Jungwoo looked at him and then leaned forward, ever so slightly and Yuta… “Then what are you here for, hyung?”

Yuta could see what Doyoung had meant. Jungwoo had changed.

<<

Here’s how it might have gone if you weren’t such an unbelievable coward—No. No. Let’s try that again without the self-flagellation this time.

Here’s how things might have changed if you had understood the difference between right and wrong. If you had realised that the burning at the base of your ribs when you looked at your friend (future member, future leader, future first love) was not envy or jealousy at the way he so quickly picked up choregraphies or was praised constantly by an ever-revolving rotation of teachers and vocal coaches and rap instructors, but rather the strange, good ache—like feeling your body stretch and twist with growing pains—of a first crush.

Here’s how it might have changed if you had allowed in the second boy to reach out to you. If you had accepted his clumsy but kind—always kind, no matter the day, the year, the reality, alternate or otherwise—reassurance that none of it was wrong. Not in the way that mattered.

You might have kissed him back. The third time, that is. You might have stayed. You might have realised that one decision, or two or three, don’t make or break a person. You might not have been so lonely.

But you were younger back then, more set in your ways, more scared of change—it’s okay, you know better now.

>>

“Exactly how did you see it playing out?” Yuta asked finally because that was the question that had been burning at the back of his mind for so long. For years and years.

Jungwoo tilted his head in silent question and Yuta gritted his jaw before forcing himself to explain. “What were you expecting to happen? That first time? Did you… What—did you think you had a convenient outlet for all your feelings and anxiety? Was that all it was?”

“Wow,” Jungwoo said, almost in faint admiration, though the light was still gleaming in his eyes, mutating from curiosity to a venomous knowing that frightened Yuta more than anything ever had. “You really haven’t changed, have you, hyung? Still the same asshole as ever.”

“Answer the question,” Yuta said.

“You answer it,” Jungwoo shot back. “What would you have wanted it to be? If you knew what you know now? A relationship?”

Yuta stared at him. “That’s…” He wanted to say no. He wanted to snap back, to let disgust play out on his face so that Jungwoo would know exactly how he felt. That it would have never been a possibility. That Yuta, as he sat here now, wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to find solace in someone else.

“That’s what I thought,” Jungwoo said and he was settling into it now, that casually cruel way he had of dismantling a person from the inside out. “You were too much of a coward to admit your feelings so you ran, hyung. You ran and you suffered and you realised how much that convenient outlet could have done for you. Maybe you wouldn't have felt so inadequate you had to freeze out your closest friends for three years. Maybe you wouldn’t have buried your feelings for Taeyong hyung so deep that you broke your heart and his without even realising it.” Yuta flinched. “And maybe,” Jungwoo continued, each sentence digging its way deeper under his skin, finding the chinks in his armour and piercing the unprotected flesh underneath. “Just maybe, you would have been actually happy.”

Silence fell. The wind roared around them and Yuta’s coat flapped, sounding nervous and jittery, like a bird about to take flight.

Jungwoo sat back, his lips pressed together as if he wanted to keep the rest of the words clamouring at the tip of his tongue back. Yuta didn’t know why he bothered to try.

“You’re right,” he said finally and Jungwoo’s eyes widened. He clearly hadn’t expected that.

“What?”

“You’re right,” Yuta repeated. “I made a lot of mistakes. I hated being here so I left. I came back and nothing had changed, I still hated being here. I couldn’t breathe from the moment I landed.” Unthinkingly, his hand clawed into the front of his shirt and he took a steadying breath, one that came full and unsullied, the fresh, crisp air of an autumn ocean flowing into his lungs. “And the only thing that had changed—the only thing I couldn’t fix—was you. My...My…” Friendship wasn’t the right word, because they had never been friends, not really. Neither was relationship. “My time with you,” Yuta said finally. “I wanted to fix it.”

Jungwoo was staring at him as if he’d never seen him before and Yuta managed to hold his gaze for a full five seconds before he dropped his eyes to his hands. They were starting to go numb in the cold air and he wished he’d had the foresight to bring gloves. Doyoung probably had.

“And how were you planning on doing that?” Jungwoo asked finally, his voice strangled.

Yuta shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”

Jungwoo stared at him for another beat and then laughed. The tension of the moment shattered and Yuta felt a small smile rise to his lips. Jungwoo kept laughing, soft and unending. It sounded like music, carried in on the wind from some far away place.

“It’s not the sort of thing you can do in one hour,” Yuta added quietly under Jungwoo’s breathless gasp as he covered his face with a shaking hand.

“Oh, Yuta hyung,” Jungwoo said, picking up his head. He looked on the verge of tears but there was still a smile still hovering there. “You’re right. It’s really, really not.”

.

The hour given to them passed by alarmingly quickly.

Eventually Doyoung came back to collect Yuta, empty handed, shamelessly standing there as if he hadn’t left under false pretenses and Yuta stood with him, feeling once again, as if he had failed.

It had gone better, much better than he’d hoped, but none of it was the same. It probably never would be again but there was a small part of him that had been hoping, wishing, that… That he could walk away from Jungwoo and have no regrets.

It seemed as if that would never happen.

Jungwoo followed them to the edge of the base, and Doyoung disappeared inside the guard gate to return their passes. Yuta stood there, watching the ocean beyond.

“It’s beautiful,” he said finally.

Jungwoo did not respond.

When Doyoung came back out, Yuta bit his lip and then stepped towards him, hands in his pockets. He’d made it barely ten feet when—

“Six months.”

Yuta froze and then turned, the Earth circling back around the Sun again and again, halfheartedly hoping for an ounce of its warmth, to keep it alive. “What?”

Jungwoo was looking down at him. “I’ll be discharged in six months,” he said. “Enough time to book another ticket, I think.”

A beat.

“Yeah...” Yuta said slowly, the words coming from somewhere deep within him, perhaps from that gaping cavern of greed that had never truly been filled, no matter what he’d done, no matter what he’d tried to forget or who he’d taken home. Maybe it stemmed from self-preservation, from the knowledge that nothing… Nothing would be as good to him as this. “Yeah,” he said again and Jungwoo started to smile, a sweet, vulnerable smile that was almost unrecognisable in its sincerity, that had almost faded in Yuta’s memory. “Yeah, I think it is.”

.

I got the good side of life

Travelled the universe twice

So many thoughts I wanted to share

But I didn’t call because it wouldn’t be fair

...

I sympathise

And I recognise

And baby, I apologise

That I got the good side

The good side of things