Archive of Our Own

The wind nearly knocks Jaemin’s cap off his head as he gets out of the cab. He turns to pull his bag from the seat and bows to the driver before shutting the door and looking up.

The house stands atop a hill, sturdy even though it’s buffeted by strong winds. Salt air from the sea whisks around him and Jaemin inhales, taking in a lungful of briny, fresh air. Lights are on, but the curtains are tightly shut and there’s nothing to be seen beyond them. Jaemin casts a glance around—there are no neighbours within a couple hundred metres of this place. But then again, privacy is a fickle thing.

The cab passes him on its way out of the dead end and Jaemin waves at the driver as he passes before shouldering the strap of his bag higher and unlatching the gate. The grass is thick underneath his feet and rocks dig into his shoes as Jaemin steps on the rocky pathway leading up to the house. One step, two, three and then he’s at the front door.

He inhales. Exhales.

Then he shakes himself. Stop being dumb. Jaemin’s never been afraid of this before and he wasn’t about to start now.

He knocks on the door, just once, before gripping his hand tighter around the strap of his bag. It isn’t to steady himself. It’s not.

There’s loud barking on the other side of the door and Jaemin blinks. He hears someone ordering the dog to sit, to stay and then—

Then—

The door opens, and Donghyuck stands there.

This close, Jaemin sees every minute expression that flickers across Donghyuck’s face. He can’t catalogue all of them and it takes him by surprise. It’s been too long. The innate memorisation that comes with living day in and day out in someone’s pocket has faded and the person in front of him is almost as good as a stranger. Donghyuck’s eyes are wide. His mouth is parted. He looks—

There’s loud barking and then a blur of black and white is lunging at the small crack Donghyuck has allowed in the door. Jaemin flinches back on instinct, but Donghyuck’s leg is between them, holding the dog back.

“Down,” Donghyuck orders, but the dog doesn't listen, barking loudly at Jaemin, its paws almost knocking Donghyuck’s leg down with its fervour. Jaemin would be slightly worried, except its tail was banging against Donghyuck’s thigh like a drumbeat. That has to be a good sign, right?

“Iseul, down—ugh, I swear to god—” Donghyuck abandons his white knuckled grip on the door and grabs Iseul’s collar with both hands, bodily dragging the dog back.

Jaemin hovers there uselessly, until Donghyuck casts a glance back and says in a breathless, slightly irritated tone. “I suppose you better come in. And shut the door behind you or she’ll keep trying to run out.”

Silently, Jaemin enters, loosening his stiffened fingers around his bag to shut the door gently behind him. Without saying a word, Donghyuck lets go of his grip on Iseul’s collar and she leaps at Jaemin, knocking him against the front door. She’s a fully grown Dalmatian, almost tall enough to put her front paws on his shoulders and slobbers at his chin, yelping excitedly, her full weight slamming him against the wood.

Jaemin pets her head, grimacing a little, but laughs when her tongue catches his cheek. “Oh, my god. Hello, there.”

Donghyuck lets him suffer for a minute longer before pulling Iseul off him. “Okay, you’re done,” he says, patting her back until she quiets down, long tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Jaemin spies a row of sharp teeth and is very glad she was friendly. “Come on now.” And without looking back, he leads Iseul into the house.

Jaemin waits a beat, wipes at his face with the sleeve of his damp coat and then follows, toeing off his shoes to fit neatly between Donghyuck’s sprawling sneakers. There are no extra guest slippers he can see, so Jaemin walks in with his socks, looking around as he does.

This already isn’t going the way he’d expected. Though he hadn’t had time to expect much. Mark’s call had come as a surprise, the plane ticket following soon after. On the drive up, Jaemin had purposely not let himself think about his mission at the end of the road, instead choosing to roll the window down and look out at the grey blue sea, listening to the cab driver loudly recommending all of his favourite haunts with great cheer.

Donghyuck’s house is beautiful. It’s not the type of house Jaemin would have expected him to buy; rather than high vaulted ceilings and monochromatic furniture, everything is a splash of colour. Things are scattered everywhere, dog toys all over the worn leather couch, a pair of woven chairs by the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the ocean, warm soft lighting filling the air. Controllers are are spread along the TV stand along with decorative pillows that look half-chewed lying on the floor.

Jaemin smiles at a pile of books decoratively stacked upon the coffee table. They look untouched.

On a thick white rug that takes up most of the living room floor sits Iseul, happily gnawing away at a massive bone. She looks up when Jaemin enters, tail thumping a handful of times against the floor before she quiets again.

“You can put your bag down,” comes Donghyuck’s voice and Jaemin turns to see him coming in from the backyard, shutting the door behind him. His hair is windswept and messy, sleeves pushed up to his forearms. He’s wearing shorts despite the freezing weather. In his hands, he holds a bright yellow ball that he tosses at Iseul. She bounds up to catch it with a joyful, ear shattering bark and then settles back down, the ball nestled between her paws.

“I’m assuming you’re staying for more than a minute,” Donghyuck adds, with a touch of acidity.

“Well, since I made the trip down,” Jaemin returns dryly. He takes his backpack off and pulls off his coat as well. It’s sprinkled with rain and the smell of the sea and Jaemin looks around for a closet or a hook only to have Donghyuck appear at his shoulder.

“Unasked,” Donghyuck says, taking the coat from Jaemin’s hand.

“You might not have asked me, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and disappears down the hallway, Jaemin’s coat in his hands. Jaemin and Iseul watch him go together and Jaemin only looks away when Iseul does, returning to gnaw at her bone with devotion.

He takes Donghyuck’s absence as a chance to look around. Windows comprise two out of the three walls that look out over the cliffs and down into the sea. Rain has started to spatter at the windows, growing from the mere suggestion of a drizzle that it had been before. The sky is so dark, Jaemin can’t even see the clouds anymore.

The other wall, behind the television, is covered in posters and prints, and pictures, all messily taped up. Jaemin moves closer to examine them. There are polaroids, posters of an old romcoms and—

Jaemin pauses.

There’s a picture at the very left, almost obscured by the curtain’s hem. It’s the seven of them, after some random performance Jaemin has no memory of, presumably backstage, going by the plastic chairs and clutter. They’re all squished together, sweaty and grinning up at the camera, clad in entirely too much black leather and harnesses that Jaemin’s sure have dubious origins.

In the center, Jeno’s in-ears are hanging off his ears, his eyes crinkled up in a huge smile. Chenle’s sitting between Renjun’s knees, smizing up at the camera, a hint of a smirk hovering over the corner of his mouth. Jisung’s leaning over Jaemin on the left, arms thrown over Jaemin’s shoulders and Jaemin’s hand is wrapped around his jaw, squishing his cheeks together. Mark and Donghyuck are sitting on the same plastic chair, legs thrown over each other, their hands a blur from shoving at each other. They look happy. Young.

“Did you eat?”

Jaemin turns. “What?” He asks, a little thrown off from travelling back in time to the days when the future didn’t really matter, not when there were twenty-two hours in a day to be the most perfect versions of themselves they could be, when the world itself felt like a blur of nothingness and hairspray.

Donghyuck is standing between his couch and the kitchen, empty-handed now. “Did you eat?” He asks again. “It’s almost nine. You must have been travelling for hours.”

Jaemin blinks at him, thrown off by the uncharacteristic thoughtfulness. Though, maybe that was uncharitable of him to think so. Donghyuck had always been kind. “No,” he replies.

Donghyuck nods and tips his head at the kitchen. “Come on.”

Despite there being hardly even ten feet of distance from the couch to the island in the kitchen, the difference in cleanliness is stark. Donghyuck’s kitchen is organised, and devoid of the clutter that blankets his living room. The counters are sparse, with only a handful of appliances and no dishes sit in the sink. Despite that, it looks well-used. There are pots hanging from hooks on the backsplash by the windows and the refrigerator holds a dozen or so different magnets from different cities around the world. Twin bluetooth speakers sit on opposite ends of the counter.

It looks a little like his own kitchen, Jaemin realises as he sits down at the island, hooking his feet around the rungs of the barstool. The realisation is even more unexpected. Jaemin had never thought of him and Donghyuck as having similar tastes.

“I like your house,” he tells Donghyuck finally as Donghyuck turns the stove back on. He must have been in the middle of cooking dinner when Jaemin showed up. Chopped vegetables are sitting on the cutting board and a pot half filled with broth is starting to simmer again.

Donghyuck doesn’t turn around. “You haven’t even seen half of it,” he says. Jaemin looks out the window at the backyard, now invisible in the stormy night.

“I guess I’ll have time now.”

Donghyuck snorts. “What makes you think I’m letting you stay?” He turns back around to face Jaemin, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the counter. His hair is curling up as it dries from the drizzle outside, soft and puffy black curls slowly coming back to life against the nape of his neck.

“Even you don’t hate me enough to toss me out into the night.”

Donghyuck blinks, surprised. “I don’t hate you.”

Jaemin laughs. “Yeah, right.”

“I don’t,” Donghyuck repeats, firmer this time. Insistent.

Jaemin mirrors his position, leaning against the island. “It’s been four years, Hyuck,” he says, and the nickname falls easily from his tongue. The familiarity of it feels odd, like it shouldn’t belong there. “I think you can admit to old school hatreds.”

Donghyuck smiles abruptly. “Old school hatreds is a bit rich considering we’re both high school dropouts,” he says, a brilliant grin drawing across his face out of the blue. Without meaning to, Jaemin laughs. Without meaning to, he relaxes.

Until this moment, Jaemin hadn’t realised how tense he’d been. He’d been approaching this whole day like a drive-by. Come and gone in a second, like standing on a train platform and forgotten as soon as the noise and the rumble of the tracks faded. In that second, it changes. In that moment, Jaemin realises he wants to stay, just a little bit longer than originally planned. That he doesn’t want to be here simply at the request of someone else.

“I found you annoying,” Jaemin admits in a silent compromise. It’s Donghyuck’s turn to laugh, bright and loud, just like he’s always been.

“I think a two year old could have picked up on that, Jaemin-ah. It’s not like you were trying to hide it.”

Jaemin smiles down at his hands and Donghyuck, still laughing slightly, turns back to the pot. He drops the chopped vegetables in there and covers the pot with a heavy lid.

“I didn’t hate you,” Donghyuck says, after a few minutes of quiet, glancing at Jaemin over his shoulder. His eyes are darker than Jaemin remembers them being.“I just… Didn’t understand you. Sometimes. A lot of the times.”

That could have been true for any of them. Ten years of working together didn’t mean they knew everything about each other. Four years of silence had made nothing easier.

“I could say the same thing about you,” Jaemin says before deciding to change the subject entirely. “What are you making?”

This causes Donghyuck to grin mischievously at him as he passes Jaemin to the refrigerator. He pulls out an enormous tub of kimchi and announces, with all the glee of a six year old discovering the ingenuity of the nair-in-shampoo prank, “Kimchi jjigae.”

Jaemin sighs, feeling himself slip back into the familiarity of old friendships and old jokes all over again, and Donghyuck’s answering cackle makes Iseul leap to her feet, barking loudly as a call and response.

Rain continues to lash at the windows and the wind picks up speed as the night wears on, but Donghyuck seems unconcerned with the weather and with living in a house that was comprised of so many windows on a temperamental island.

During dinner, Iseul sits by Jaemin’s knee and peers up hopefully at him as he spoons pork belly into his mouth, her tail slamming hopefully against the floor.

“Don’t give her anything,” Donghyuck warns when he notices. He nudges Iseul with his bare foot but she doesn’t move. “She knows she’s not allowed to ask.”

Iseul rests her head on Jaemin’s leg and whines up at him, and Jaemin doesn’t even mind as she drools all over his pants. When Donghyuck gets up to get more rice, Jaemin slips her a piece anyway. Donghyuck may be immune to his dog’s large, wet eyes, but Jaemin is not. He doesn’t have one of his own, despite always wanting to, and he’s happy to spoil Iseul for the small amount of time he’s here.

They finish dinner and Jaemin quietly takes over washing the dishes without being asked. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Donghyuck staring at him, startled as Jaemin rolls up his sleeves and pulls on the thick pink gloves hanging by the sink but doesn’t acknowledge it.

Donghyuck, again, does the unexpected and says nothing of it. Instead, he quietly turns on music and Jaemin realises Donghyuck must have installed speakers all over the living room and kitchen because the soft sound envelops them, encompassing and comforting, and the sound of the storm fades into the background. It’s a spot of familiarity in an otherwise unfamiliar landscape and Jaemin feels it settle against his bones, his shoulders loosening, tension he hadn’t realised was there slipping away under the soft lull. Long removed from the public eye or not, Lee Donghyuck will always love music.

“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?” Jaemin asks finally, breaking the comfortable silence between them. He hands Donghyuck a bowl to dry and chances a look at him.

Age has been kind to Donghyuck, in a way Jaemin hadn’t entirely expected. He holds himself differently, less arrogant than he used to be—though Jaemin wonders if it could have been called arrogance when Donghyuck always had the talent to back it up with—and his frame has filled out, ever so slightly, making him look bigger than he used to be. Taking up more space than he used to, despite having that voice and that presence.

This close to him for the first time in four years, Jaemin can see the minute differences. The tiny wrinkles creasing around his mouth, the smile lines deepening near his eyes, speckles of freckles spattered over his nose and cheeks. He’s far tanner than he ever used to be—previous stringent avoidance of the sun now gone, replaced with miles of dark golden skin. They’re all minor changes, nothing too drastic or overt, but the completed picture that greets Jaemin at the end of it is startling.

“I know exactly why you’re here,” Donghyuck replies. He looks up as well, meeting Jaemin’s gaze squarely. Whatever he sees there, in Jaemin’s face, makes his lips quirk into a tiny, wry smile. “What I don’t know is why he asked you.”

“I didn’t ask.” He had. Many times. Mark had refused to answer him, just shoved a plane ticket into his hand and told him to be nice. Jaemin smirks. “I assume it’s because we were such good friends for twenty years.”

Donghyuck laughs, taking the next dish from Jaemin’s hands.

They finish the dishes with Iseul winding around their legs, nosing at Jaemin’s legs again and again, as if curious about the newcomer who has stayed put. Only when Jaemin has finished washing his hands and is drying them on a towel does he look up to see the rain has stopped.

“Do you want to go outside?” Donghyuck asks, following Jaemin’s gaze out the window. “It’s beautiful here at night.”

Jaemin nods and starts to Donghyuck outside, pausing only to take the blanket Donghyuck holds out to him.

“I’d give you a sweatshirt but I honestly don’t think I have any that would fit you,” Donghyuck says wryly, looking Jaemin up and down, and Jaemin, for the first time that night, possibly ever, feels himself blush from Donghyuck’s words.

“Um—yeah,” he manages, dragging the blanket around his shoulders as Donghyuck leads them to the backyard. “I had a few roles that needed me to bulk up and it… Didn’t really go away after that.”

Donghyuck casts him another glance, this one lingering and considering before they walk outside. Iseul follows them, large, lean body bumping against Jaemin’s thigh as she drools up at him, her yellow ball clutched in her jaw. Donghyuck looks amused. “I think she likes you more than me.”

Donghyuck’s backyard is large, but it opens up onto a huge grassy plain, hundreds of metres away from the cliff side. Even the wooden fence that sits at hip level seems more like a suggestion than anything else. In this moment, the entire world seems to belong to Donghyuck, lays at his feet and waits for him to cross over.

The clouds are moving lazily across the sky and above, Jaemin can see hundreds of stars—a sight he’d never be able to see back in Seoul.

“Wow.” It slips out of him on the end of an exhale. Iseul yips at Donghyuck until he unlatches the gate and lets her go. They both watch as she bounds over the grass, yelping joyfully. Donghyuck picks up the ball she’d dropped and throws it for her to catch. She lunges up to catch it and snaps it out of the air before sprinting further away, ears flapping joyfully in the wake of her speed.

The frigid sea air wafts across Jaemin’s face and he takes a deep, bracing breath. The cold fills his chest, goosebumps prickling up his arms, and in that moment he can feel every part of himself, from the tip of his nose slowly going cold, to the bronchioles unfurling in his lungs, greedily sucking in the fresh air, to his ribcage expanding in the effort it takes to hold this breath.

He’s freezing—has no idea how Donghyuck is standing there in his shorts, hands shoved in his pockets, looking completely at ease as the wind whips around them—but he feels more at peace than he has been for a very long time. It’s an oddly unsettling feeling, like the very earth knows Jaemin is a stranger here, and the wind picks up louder as if in response to the vague realisation. He digs his bare toes into the grass and grounds himself in it.

“Okay,” Jaemin says after a few minutes of quiet, staring in wonderment at the place Donghyuck calls home. Jaemin curls the blanket tighter around himself, trying to stop cold from seeping into his bones. “Okay, I get it now.”

Donghyuck slants him a look and Jaemin elaborates.

“I get why you left now.”

Donghyuck laughs. It’s unexpected, startles the proprietary noise of the wind and the grass, and Jaemin stares. It’s a silly thing to realise, after so many years of knowing Donghyuck—knowing and never really understanding—but his laugh has a way of sparking everything alight, buffeting the threat of winter back with a stunning blaze that takes everything. Steals the very breath out of Jaemin’s lungs.

The rain comes again, within minutes, without warning, and a small noise escapes Jaemin when the first drop hits his cheek. He looks up at the sky and blinks, only to be met with a dozen more raindrops, spattering across his face in quick succession.

“Hyuck,” Jaemin says, slowly. “I think it’s—”

The heavens break open and flood them.

Donghyuck yelps and Jaemin flinches as icy rain pours down on them.

“Oh, fuck,” Donghyuck yells but when Jaemin looks at him, he’s grinning up at the sky, hair already sticking to his head.

“It’s so cold,” Jaemin says, voice raised to be heard over the thunder rumbling in the distance, and Donghyuck laughs, calling for Iseul to come to them.

“It’s nearly December. What did you expect?”

Jaemin sticks a hand out, watching the water drip between his fingers. They’re freezing. Donghyuck laughs again as lightning strikes the ocean in the distance and in the distance, Iseul responds. The rain slicks down in sheets, blanketing everything in a wash of grey and white and for a second, Jaemin is blinded by the sheer force of the water propelling down upon them.

He doesn’t want to leave this moment.

They traipse back into the house soaking wet, dripping all over Donghyuck’s polished floors.

Iseul bounds past them, shaking herself wildly and spattering them with more water, and Jaemin lets out a little laugh.

Donghyuck groans. “She’s going to get everything wet. Come on,” he adds, waving at Jaemin as he tiptoes across his floor, dripping as he goes. “I’ll get you some dry clothes.”

Jaemin takes advantage of the trek through Donghyuck’s house to look around, take in what little pieces of Donghyuck reveal themselves through his decor choices. There’s very little Jaemin recognises, things sprinkled here and there speaking volumes about Donghyuck’s years here more than the last few hours of conversation have.

The upstairs is even more cluttered than downstairs, and Jaemin draws short at the top of the landing to stare at the large shelf that sits against the far wall. All of NCT’s albums sit there, with Haechan’s awards in the middle, lofted above it all. Blown up pictures of NCT 127 and Dream are on opposite sides of it all.

“Jaemin,” Donghyuck calls from down the hall.

“Coming,” Jaemin says, staring at the tiny monument to NCT, to their shared past, for a beat longer before he tears himself away.

Donghyuck is wrestling a towel over Iseul’s body when Jaemin wanders into the bathroom.

“There are clean towels in the side closet,” Donghyuck pants, trying to clamp onto Iseul’s wriggling body with his legs to keep her still.

“Do you want help?” Jaemin asks, amused, shutting the door behind him so Iseul can’t escape. Donghyuck lets her go with a gasp and Iseul slams into Jaemin bodily, energy bubbling out of her. Jaemin laughs, letting her lunge up to lick at his face and holds his hand out for the towel. “Give me.”

When they’re finally done getting Iseul as dry as possible, Donghyuck opens the door and lets her out. They hear her scampering downstairs, claws clicking on the wood, and Donghyuck sags against the wall.

“I swear she’s the reason I don’t have unnaturally high cholesterol.”

Jaemin snorts, draping the used towel on the bar on the wall. “She’s got a lot of energy.”

Donghyuck nods, raking a hand through his hair. It’s completely plastered to his head again, all the curls having vanished under the sheer weight of water. “Usually I just let her run around outside, but the rain’s kept her inside the whole day.” He gives Jaemin a considering look. “You’re really good with dogs.”

“She’s a good dog,” Jaemin responds and then shrugs. “My mom adopted two dogs a few years ago. I got good at handling them. Well—better than I was.”

A strange smile passes over Donghyuck’s face.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Donghyuck shakes his head. “Come on, I’ll get you dry clothes.”

“I thought you didn’t have anything that would fit me,” Jaemin says, following Donghyuck into his bedroom. It’s rather sparse, especially when compared to the rest of his house.

Donghyuck shrugs. “I’m sure I can find something.” He disappears into his closet and returns moments later, holding a large white shirt and sweatpants. “I think these were Doyoung hyung’s when he visited.” He wrinkles his nose. “They’re clean though.”

Jaemin takes the clothes and deliberates saying the thought that immediately comes to his mind. Then he frowns at himself; he’s never hesitated with Donghyuck and he’s certainly not about to start now.

“You let Doyoung hyung come stay with you, but you haven’t seen the rest of us in years?”

Donghyuck’s back in his closet, presumably changing, so Jaemin has to wait in the silence that follows, trying not to fidget, until Donghyuck comes back out, towelling his hair, his dry clothes making him look absurdly soft. He tilts his head. “I saw everyone.” At Jaemin’s look, he amends. “Mostly everyone. You didn’t… We didn’t talk Jaemin-ah.”

“I’m not talking about me,” Jaemin says even though he is, just a little. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting when he decided to come here, to Donghyuck’s lonely haunt, all the way at the edge of the world.

He hadn’t really heard about Donghyuck’s on goings after NCT disbanded—just that he’d put out a few solo albums and then disappeared from the public eye. It’s awful to say but… Jaemin hadn’t really thought about him, after their disbandment, after Donghyuck had escaped the ever-present glare of camera lenses and reporters.

NCT had ended, and they’d never really been anything more than coworkers. Friends on their best days, but those were few and far in between. It hadn’t occurred to him to think about Donghyuck after the thin veneer of colleagues had disappeared into fragments of the past.

A faint smile graces Donghyuck’s features. He doesn’t look offended—hasn’t seemed so the entire time, no matter what Jaemin says, and it throws him off. He’s not used to a Donghyuck who doesn’t immediately jump at his every word, stalking every minute intonation, waiting for the fight to reveal itself.

“I didn’t become a hermit just because we stopped talking, Jaemin. We hardly ever talked, even when we saw each other every day.”

Jaemin blinks. “I know.” The uncomfortable feeling of his clothes sticking to him becomes more present and he frowns. He’s not quite sure how to articulate his thoughts; he’s not quite sure why he wants to.

Donghyuck laughs. “I’ll let you get changed,” he says, clearly backing off to give Jaemin space. He hands him a clean towel before ducking out of the room. It’s far more kind than Jaemin knows how to handle, especially coming from Donghyuck.

He gets changed slowly, dropping his wet clothes into the hamper sitting just inside of the closet and wonders, for an absurd moment, if one day Donghyuck will let someone else borrow his clothes, like he had Jaemin; if Donghyuck collects little pieces of everyone who visits his home by the sea only to give them away to someone else.

“So,” Donghyuck starts when they’re both back downstairs, warm and dry, the thunderstorm outside thundering louder and louder. Iseul is laying at their feet, under the couch, ears perking up every so often. Jaemin slants a look over at Donghyuck as he leans back against the couch, tucking a knee up against his chest. The loose fabric of his shorts droop lower, exposing the firm line of his inner thigh. Jaemin keeps his gaze deliberately upwards. “Why are you here?”

Jaemin allows himself a small smile. Donghyuck had lasted a lot longer than he’d expected. “I thought you knew.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Hard not to.”

“Careful,” Jaemin says lightly, his hands running over the smooth fabric of Donghyuck’s couch absently. “You almost sounded bitter there.” He finds a dog toy wedged in the couch corner and tosses it to Iseul, who snaps it out of the air before settling back down again.

Donghyuck gives him a flat glare before he subsides. “I’m not going,” he says finally. “I don’t care how many times Mark texts me.”

“And sends an ex-coworker to find you on the tiny island you’ve sequestered yourself on,” Jaemin points out. “Was being an idol not enough drama for you? Or does acting like an old school Hollywood actress who’s been betrayed by the industry just come naturally to you?”

“Careful,” Donghyuck replies, a faint smile playing around his lips. ‘You almost sounded like you cared about me for a second.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Right,” Donghyuck laughs. “Because that’s why this is the first time I’ve seen you after we disbanded. Four years ago.”

Jaemin shrugs, taking the proffered toy back from Iseul and tossing it to her again. “Phones work both ways.” He pauses and then asks, quieter, “Why are you missing Mark’s wedding?”

A muscle clenches in Donghyuck’s jaw. It seems this is the one thing that will shake Donghyuck’s near unnerving geniality. Jaemin doesn’t know why he’s surprised—Donghyuck could never be anything but emotional when it came to Mark. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“You don’t,” Jaemin agrees easily. “I honestly don’t care that much—”

“Lie.”

“—But I think you’ll regret it.”

Donghyuck stares at him. “You don’t know anything about me.”

It’s not acerbic like Jaemin was expecting. It’s just flat, a fact laid out in front of them. Jaemin knows nothing about Donghyuck. Not this Donghyuck anyway. He’s not sure he knew the old Donghyuck either, but that is a moot point now—the past is long gone, a minute kernel of sand in the hourglass of their shared history.

Jaemin tilts his head. “I kind of did.” He replies. “I’m extrapolating.”

Donghyuck is the one to break their staring contest first, looking away to Iseul, who notices his attention and immediately drops the slobbery ball into his lap. Donghyuck tosses it for her again, high into the air.

“I’m not airing my shit with Mark to you,” Donghyuck says finally, still looking at Iseul and rubbing her head when she comes closer to him, licking at his hand. “We had a fight and now we don’t speak. That's it.”

Jaemin observes his neutral mien for a long while. “Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck glances at him, the brown of his eyes flashing across the length of a couch like a warning. It feels like a bolt of familiarity and Jaemin’s pleased. “I don’t remember you being this annoying.”

“We would have had to acknowledge each other’s presence for that to happen,” Jaemin points out, a wry twist to his mouth.

Donghyuck exhales, half an exasperated laugh, half frustrated sigh, tipping his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “We had an argument,” he says flatly. “I wanted to leave. He didn’t understand why. The fight got ugly and… And we both said some—cruel things and now… Now we don’t talk.”

Jaemin takes that in, but before he can say anything Donghyuck explodes.

“He didn’t call me either, you know?” He says tightly, a small, contained fury bubbling up inside of him. Iseul picks her head up from the couch, eyeing him warily. Donghyuck shifts, curling in on himself as if to shield his fire. “Phones work both ways—I tried, I reached out, multiple fucking times, but Mark—” he huffs a humourless laugh. “Mark fucking Lee.”

“Mark fucking Lee,” Jaemin agrees. Mark has always been stubborn, has always had an iron will.

“He didn’t want to talk,” Donghyuck snaps. “Until it came to his wedding and suddenly he’s got all of this unresolved guilt that he wants to fix. ‘Let’s not let things end like this, Donghyuck-ah.’” Donghyuck mimics Mark’s voice with unnerving accuracy, pitching it high and whiney before he slumps against the couch, all the fight abruptly blown out of him in a millisecond. Iseul leaps onto the couch between them, turning around and blocking Donghyuck from Jaemin’s gaze before she settles down with her head on Donghyuck’s thigh, whining in distress. Donghyuck hums down at her, petting her head, rubbing an ear gently between his fingertips, soothing.

“Three and a half years,” he says finally, looking up at Jaemin. “And only now, he responds.”

“We didn’t talk for longer than that,” Jaemin points out and Donghyuck rolls his eyes.

“That was mutual. Don’t even try to conflate the two. They’re not remotely the same situation.”

“Fair enough.” Jaemin shrugs. “I get why you’re angry but…”

“But you still think I should go.” Donghyuck’s expression is unreadable. “Why?”

“I think you’ll regret—”

“No,” Donghyuck interrupts, shifting slightly, uncurling himself, that unfamiliar breadth coming back into play. “Why are you here?”

“Did you not want to see me?” Jaemin presses his hand to his chest and widens his eyes. “I’m hurt, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck remains unmoved. “Why did Mark ask you?”

Jaemin drops the act and shrugs. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Not happening,” Donghyuck says. He tilts his head and Jaemin smiles. He has no reservations in answering Donghyuck’s questions—he’s sure someone owes Donghyuck more than a few answers—but he has to ask the right questions first. “Why did you say yes?”

“Curiosity.”

Donghyuck stares at him, and Jaemin stares back, impassive, amused.

“About me?”

“Who else?” Jaemin raises an eyebrow. “Your dog?”

Donghyuck covers Iseul’s ears. “Don’t disparage my dog. She’s perfect.”

“She is,” Jaemin allows because of course Donghyuck would leave the career he had fought tooth and nail for to end up in a solitarily stunning house at the edge of the world with a lovely dog and still look gorgeous despite it all.

He freezes. Thrown off by himself. The realisation sputters chills down his gullet, almost as frigid as the Jeju air.

Donghyuck doesn’t press him for an answer, playing gently with Iseul’s ears as the silence swells around them.

“I realised,” Jaemin starts slowly, when his tongue starts working again after the horrible realisation that he finds Donghyuck attractive now. “When Mark asked me, I hadn’t thought about you in a long time.” He shrugs. “Probably since we disbanded, I think.”

“Ouch,” Donghyuck comments mildly, a wry smile offsetting any potential offense he might have felt.

“It wasn’t like that,” Jaemin clarifies anyway. “I just…” He grimaces.

“Adjusting was hard,” Donghyuck fills in quietly. Always quick to the jump.

Jaemin’s shoulders drop. “Yeah.” It’s not like they’d been promoting for fifteen years nonstop before they’d quit, but the loss was still strange. Like a phantom limb he’d woken up to find one morning, abruptly there, thrumming with a resounding ache that resonated through his entire body.

He shrugs. “And then I got swept up in life.” And the years had passed before he could count them.

Donghyuck smiles. “I watched your drama.” Jaemin makes a face and Donghyuck laughs. “You were terrible.”

“I know,” Jaemin grumbles, grimacing at the memories. He’s stringently avoided any screening of his drama, well aware of how awful his skills were. He’d been lucky that any subsequent roles were even offered to him after that fiasco.

“You’ve gotten better,” Donghyuck allows and Jaemin rolls his eyes.

“Don’t patronise me.”

“I would never,” Donghyuck says solemnly, but a smile plays around his mouth. “I mean it.”

“I know.” He’s avoided dramas since then, preferring the stylistic choices of movies. Jaemin knows he’s improved since then. He glances at Donghyuck. “I didn’t listen to your stuff.”

“I expected nothing else.” Donghyuck snorts. “Is that what spurred your… Curiosity?”

Jaemin thinks about it. “Kind of,” he says finally. “Really, it was just Mark hyung asking for me to realise I knew nothing about you—not since we disbanded.”

Donghyuck waves a hand, dismissing the mention of Mark as quickly as it had come. “You’ve seen it all now. What do you think?”

Jaemin looks around the house, at the picture of the seven of them, grinning and sweaty, flushed naivete glowing from their skin. “I like it,” he says quietly. “It suits you.” He pauses and then says, “I still think you should come.”

“Ugh.” Donghyuck makes a face. “Why are we still on this?”

“Because I think—”

“I’ll regret it, yeah, yeah,” Donghyuck brushes him off.

“And I think you should try,” Jaemin presses, leaning across the space between them. It’s so much closer than it used to be. Iseul opens her eye to look up at him and, satisfied that Jaemin isn’t trying to push her off, closes it again, her tail thumping against his arm.

Jaemin feels strangely breathless, as if the mere suggestion of proximity to Donghyuck is snatching the cool Jeju air out of his lungs. Donghyuck meets his gaze. His lips part just the slightest bit to take a careful breath.

“If it doesn’t work, at least you’ll have the knowledge that you tried,” Jaemin continues, his voice dropping decibels softer without prompting. “Trust me, standing back does nothing for you, not in the long run.”

“I guess you’d know everything about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Jaemin says frankly, and the honesty burns his throat on its way out. He’s not practiced at it. “I would. Which is why I’m telling you.”

A muscle jumps in Donghyuck’s jaw, but he doesn’t look away from Jaemin. It’s unexpected. Everything about this Donghyuck is unexpected. Finally Donghyuck exhales and slumps against the couch.

“I’ll think about it,” he says and Jaemin, knowing this is as good as he’ll get—tonight, at least—lets it go.

“Good,” he says simply.

Then, Jaemin lets his hand sweep across the back of the couch and drop onto Donghyuck’s knee and land there, weighty and warm. “I’m glad.”

It’s entertaining to watch Donghyuck’s expression transform from irritation to surprise to amusement. He looks down at Jaemin’s hand and then back up at him, an eyebrow raised, an incredulous smile playing around his lips. “You are not seducing me into sleeping with you right now.”

“Aren’t I?” Jaemin thinks about it, tilting his head and theatrically looking up at the ceiling. The position strains at his back, given how he’s stretched across Iseul, but it’s worth it, for the way Donghyuck’s looking at him now. “No, I think I am.”

“Now?” Donghyuck asks, but he’s grinning, a wry laugh twisting out of him. “You’ve got the worst fucking timing, Jaemin.”

“I’ve come to a few realisations.” Jaemin shrugs. “They’ve opened my eyes.”

“Enlighten me,” Donghyuck says, raising an eyebrow. He nudges Iseul off his thigh and she huffs, jumping off the couch to curl up on the dog bed by the window. Jaemin closes the gap between them without guilt. He’ll get her some nice ribs before leaving tomorrow.

“Unexpected,” is all Jaemin offers, hand sliding up Donghyuck’s thigh to finally press at that godforsaken muscle that’s been taunting him all night, thumb running along the tendon that stands out. It feels firm under his touch and Jaemin leans into it.

“Me or this situation?”

“You,” Jaemin replies. Donghyuck’s thigh falls to the side further and Jaemin presses his advantage. “You’re different.”

“I should hope so,” Donghyuck mutters. “Imagine being the same as when I was twenty-two. How embarrassing.” His head lolls to the side, and he eyes Jaemin. “You’re different, too.”

“I should hope so,” Jaemin echoes, ghosting his mouth along Donghyuck’s cheek, the line of his jaw, up over the shell of his ear. He has to fight the urge not to sink his teeth into the soft skin of Donghyuck’s neck. “I can’t imagine doing this ten years ago.”

“What else?” Demanding. In some ways, Donghyuck is still the same. Jaemin smiles.

“Handsome,” Jaemin offers, his hand sliding higher up Donghyuck’s leg. “More than I expected you to be.”

“If this is your way of getting me to fuck you, you are doing a terrible job,” Donghyuck says, but his voice trembles on the edge of his last word.

Jaemin pulls back, and the sight that greets him has the potential to bowl him over already. They haven’t done anything yet, but the sight of Donghyuck’s heavy-lidded eyes, the splay of his gorgeous honey thighs, has Jaemin shaking, the air knotting in his lungs.

“I was thinking more the other way around,” he says finally, looking at Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s pink mouth curves into a smile.

“Finally, what I wanted to hear.”

Morning greets them with cold, bright sunshine, dewy grass shining like pointed diamonds crushed under Jaemin’s shoes as he turns to look at the front door. Donghyuck is leaning against the doorjamb, an amused tilt to his still swollen mouth, arms crossed across his chest, his curly hair blowing gently in the wind. Iseul sits at his feet, drooling hopefully in Jaemin’s direction. Jaemin very much hopes he’ll be on a plane before Donghyuck realises he’d stolen half his meat from the fridge to feed Iseul early in the morning.

“You’ll think about it?” Jaemin asks, picking up his bag.

Donghyuck lifts one shoulder in a bare pantomime of a shrug. The neckline of his shirt slips lower, revealing the torrid spatter of blue-purple bruises that Jaemin knows wind down his neck, all the way down his chest to the base of his stomach, matching the pattern left on his thighs.

“I will,” is all Donghyuck says and Jaemin grins.

“Next time you come to Seoul, bring Iseul with you.”

A smile graces Donghyuck’s features. “Yeah,” he says, agrees. Promises. “Have a good trip, Jaemin.”

Jaemin turns and walks to the cab waiting for him at the gate, over the gravel crunching under his feet, away from the edge of the world.