Archive of Our Own

Past

Had MinHo really found no meaning in the chorus of the song JiSung made?

He thought it was a joke- confused MinHo was his favorite MinHo because he functioned as a little boy who ended up getting excited every time he understood what JiSung was implying. However, the character's attitude became his real person, and MinHo hadn't really understood the song.

How did he not understand it?

In his moments of lonely —real lonely, where his mind was his company and all his physical space was erased— MinHo entered indiscriminately to keep him company, embracing him with the warmth of Korean familiarity to give him some sense of belonging that a person who had migrated lacked.

He hated himself for forging that kind of bond with MinHo, of feeling. To love him as someone who loved flowers was terrifying and dangerous, especially because of the circumstance in which he found himself: being a kpop artist, a crude Idol who was the perfect figure of an adonis of the market made his act controlled - or it was by the company, or it was by the media, either he was for the public or he was for himself.

It had to be limited. That was the only way JiSung could get out of that whole circumstance alive.

However, the nature of JiSung was intense, dramatic, romantic. All that had to be present in him but the role he played in the group: composer, producer, lyricist, all those qualities would go to hell because he no longer felt. That is why, within the busy schedule of the great Kingdom competition, together with their eldest Chan and ChangBin they were able to compose a beautiful song about love.

The lyrics were simple, coming almost naturally from his fingers. The channel that was his tactical footprints was concretized in the quick words that appeared on the keyboard of his cell phone. His quick notes on the cell phone were filled as soon as his memories were simple enough.

"The feeling of being a child," MinHo had mentioned in that conversation, years ago.

It was intense, dramatic, and romantic. The edges of the structure of a good song.

And it happened.

"Can I ask you a question?" asked MinHo, entering the kitchen as JiSung washed the dishes of the Thai food they had dined on.

"What's up, hyung?" his intention was not to sound edge, so he channeled all his energy into washing chopsticks.

MinHo had completely omitted the dedication he had given her. Wasn't JiSung enough for MinHo? Why had he found his cheesy handwriting?

"Were you angry about what I said?"

No. I was saddened. "Hm? No, did I give you that impression?"

"Well, a bit...," he muttered, taking a seat in the kitchen chair. JiSung could feel MinHo's eyes stuck in his sword. "You were disappointed in my response."

"You always disappoint me," he escaped.

"I'm serious."

He took it as a joke. In disappointment, JiSung locked the key and turned to dry the eight pairs of chopsticks. Shouldn't everything work with communication? Come on, be honest. "I thought you would find meaning in the song, hyung, that's all."

It was partly true, but Oh didn't seem to be strong enough.

"But what kind of meaning? It's a silly love song, isn't it?"

"I mean, yes," JiSung agreed, "but I don't write those things out of inertia, you know?"

Of course, he knows.

Maybe that was the push MinHo needed to understand what was going on, because he got up from his seat abruptly as he approached him, with that excited smile that made MinHo's eyes shrink and look gorgeous. "Damn unhappy bastard! Why didn't you tell me that you felt this way?"

What? Maybe JiSung's reaction was too transparent because he had himself in his movement, feeling misunderstood by what MinHo had said. "Huh?

"You know I'm not a fortune teller, and you didn't have to hide that from me!" he took his shoulders, shaking him slightly to mix JiSung's neurons at the conversation. Are we talking about the same thing? "Why didn't you tell me you were in love with someone?"

Breaking the beautiful reality that JiSung had built, MinHo's innocent smile was the explicit answer to why he hadn't understood the chorus— he hadn't understood the song. All that time was nothing more than a beautiful illusion.

Everything was broken by one song.

His eyes watered and his legs faltered; he had to hold on to MinHo so as not to fall. If MinHo had broken his heart without even realizing it, that meant MinHo never noticed.

"Shit..., shit..., shit...," his breathing quickened, and he felt a passive fear running through his body, as well as a heavy shower of embarrassment that made him mix the words in his mouth with responses born of inertia. "Hyung, I’m- really, really sorry."

"What?" disregarded, MinHo looked at him worriedly. No... "Why?”

Appearing to be a superhero in the situation, Chan came in demanding to know what the scandal was, but JiSung only rambled on to one answer, unable to think.

"JiSung get crazy," MinHo charged, looking at the leader. "He looks like he's heard he's adopted."

"I'm fine," JiSung hurried. He was not allowed to break in front of both of them, nor to be vulnerable to MinHo. "Seriously. I think I'll go to sleep because tomorrow they will have the storyboard of the video and..., yes..."

JiSung didn't know what more excuse to make. He staggered out of the kitchen almost until he approached the bathroom, pulling ChangBin out of there so he could lock himself up and wait, patiently, for everything that had to come out.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to vomit. He felt as humiliated as he was dirty, as pathetic as he was a predator. MinHo always saw him as a friend while JiSung saw him as everything– and it was such a reality composed from the truthfulness that he believed, believed from the depths of his heart that, without that song, they would probably both have been happier.

But no, because a long time ago, since JiSung believed that they were both on the same page and that MinHo wanted him the same way he did, he realized the worst way that he was not the first choice.

As he left the bathroom and returned to his bedroom, he came across Chan sitting on his bed and JeongIn looking at him with the same countenance of concern that the leader had. JiSung couldn't do more than a smile.

Silently, JiSung sat cross-legged next to Chan and rested his forehead on his shoulder, closing his eyes and letting out long sighs so that, between each exhalation, his grief was a little stretched out.

The intensity. The drama. The romanticism. It all ended in a situation that which JiSung dazzled in one song.

Present

"Honey- Are you awake?"

JiSung, trying to open his eyes, denied.

"So sad," mercilessly, HyunJin took off the blanket layer that covered him. "Chan hyung ordered me to wake you up. MinHo hyung brought you some dinner."

Stretching out on the bed, he felt what was a piece of clothing roll up in his hand – a hoodie.

MinHo tended to take off his clothes when he felt it bothered him when sleeping (an act that the Sleepwalking MinHo committed). Maybe that night he had taken it out and JiSung hadn't noticed because he never made his bed, but that could be the explanation for why the afternoon nap was pleasant.

Carefully, JiSung clung to the hoodie and hugged it for a moment before he sat up and put it on. It was late when he noticed HyunJin's funny look on him.

"Shut up," he muttered.

"You are pathetic," HyunJin sneered, before leaving the dormitory.

Putting on his fleece socks, JiSung got out of bed and walked around the apartment, watching HyunJin wander around while brushing his teeth, while ChangBin found Chan chatting something about the last composition that had taken over the entire room.

It wasn't fair to HyunJin—or maybe it wasn't to the other three guys. When they arrived at that apartment, almost a month ago, HyunJin took over the terrace with his art studio that left the production line almost forced to take the entire room of the apartment to do their work studio.

It was totally HyunJin's fault.

"The other guys are bored and started listening to the old demos of ours," Chan told him when he saw JiSung leave the bedroom. "In case you want to join."

"How do you know?"

"SeungMin sent a message demanding the full version of I Am You," ChangBin replied, amused.

JiSung considered the words but ignored them. He carefully walked to the kitchen, where the small black bag rested on the inn- outstanding of the ordinary, JiSung assumed that it was for him, so he opened it and smiled at the sight of the plastic pot with the dinner that MinHo prepared; in addition, feeling his heart rise like that of a crude lover, he read what was written on the cover with permanent down – a nice 'eat well' along with the drawing of a cat was enough to leave it in the sky.

Taking the pot along with the metal chopsticks, he made his way to the couch to sit down with his other two elders and review whatever it was they were working on.

"Which shirt do you think looks best?" asked HyunJin, showing two different types of that.

"The one on the left matches your eyes," ChangBin commented sarcastically, without even looking at it.

"I like the one on the right," Chan said, looking at the boy intently. "It has strong colors, but not enough to stand out."

"I'm going with the one on the right," HyunJin decided, putting it right there. "I'll be back late."

"Promiscuous."

"It's just a date," he excused, before muttering with displeasure. "And it's not like I can spend the night somewhere else."

"In retrospect, you can do it," ChangBin encouraged, finally looking at him. "Those are not the problem – it's the paparazzi.”

"I can't even difference each other anymore," he reneged, checking annoyedly. "Anyway - I'll hang out and have a great time. I also deserve that crazy little thing called love."

"Are you sure?"

"I really hate you."

JiSung laughed and continued to watch the big screen where Chan was making certain arrangements on his laptop.

However, a doubt arose.

"What are the guys listening to?" he asked, eating from the prepared meat. "Only the ones on that record?"

"Uh?, ah- no...," Chan, unconsented, denied. "They asked me all."

"All?"

"All."

"Ah..."

Well, JiSung could understand it. The demos sometimes didn't even come out of the same 3RACHA production studio, so there were times when the rest of the group claimed to be able to listen to their original versions out of mere curiosity. However, the demo stayed that way for a reason.

A good reason. That specific reason why, sometimes, the songs were never completed.

"Shit...," JiSung muttered, handing the plate of food to ChangBin as he got up. "I’ll be right back.”

As if chasing his kidnapped soul, JiSung walked out of the apartment without giving too many explanations. He quickly went down the stairs of the building until he reached the floor below, praying inside that a specific song would be heard. Upon arrival, he knocked on the door insistently, and as a divine gift, MinHo opened the door.

"Hello," he smiled slightly, leaning on the frame. "Did you like the food?"

Excuse. Fast.

"ChangBin hyung is eating it," he charged, pointing upstairs.

MinHo changed his face and rolled his eyes. "I was expecting it - although I already gave him one."

JiSung stretched out his hand and took the bottom of MinHo's shirt, making a small shy knot on it. "Please..., go get it back."

"You clean the blood," MinHo said goodbye, going out in search of his boy's plate of food.

When JiSung saw MinHo get lost on the stairs upstairs, he quickly entered the apartment and, without waving, headed towards the living room, where the other three younger boys were listening from a computer to the demos of the songs that 3RACHA had made.

"Excuse me~," he intervened, taking the computer to search the large folder of songs for the one he was searching for.

"What are you doing?" asked SeungMin, before kicking him sideways. "Don't do it..."

"I have to erase this," JiSung said, sparking frustration at not finding the song. "Shit."

Finally, in the search bar, he typed 'Winter Falls' and, appearing almost immediately, he took the song to the trash and emptied it.

"Hey!" the three youngers exclaimed.

"I wanted to hear it!" complained JeongIn.

"Yes, hyung said it was dramatic," Felix continued.

JiSung threateningly targeted the three boys. "If someone mentions that demo to MinHo hyung, I swear I'll blow you up."

When he soon finished committing his act of crime, JiSung left the apartment to go to his apartment, where MinHo was menacingly standing behind ChangBin, who excused himself from the slander That JiSung had said against him.

"I saw you with the plate, ChangBin, don't lie to me," MinHo said.

"I taste a bit! I swear! But I didn't take the plate away from JiSung, hyung!" defended ChangBin between false sobs, while Chan ignored the other two completely for being immersed in the composition.

JiSung pressed his lips before raising them in a smile, and in a quick motion jumped to MinHo's back, following his accusation against ChangBin.

Past

There was no more complicated morning than the one that never came, really. JiSung remained in the gloomy darkness as he repeated on stage, each of his memoirs, with different points of view that made him torment more and more. The interpretations, reinterpretations, subtexts, and perspectives made him see, from some point of view, the normality of all his behavior.

The JiSung in love was equivalent to the friendly JiSung, the one you saw as a lifelong brother – the one who was, platonically, your soulmate.

"Good morning..."

In a subtle gift, JeongIn crawled into JiSung's bed, also resting his head on the other's pillow so he could see him in his profile. "How are you?"

"Good...," JiSung rambled, looking at the ceiling. "Have you ever wondered why the roof has footprints?"

JeongIn, imitating his position, frowned upon noticing it. "You're right..., why?"

"No idea."

"Will he be okay to go to work today?"

JiSung, pressing his lips, felt his eyes water. "Can you see if..., if Hyung is out there?"

"I will distract him. I don't assure you more than ten minutes."

"It's enough time."

He came to the company, undefeated. His backpack, loaded with clothes and notebooks, were a pleasant reminder of his work as an artist, and when his deliberate journey to the company was interrupted by certain fans waiting for him halfway, he tried to calm their irrefutable fear so that he could smile under the mask and say hello, thus distracting them for a moment so that he could escape.

If he was right with the schedule he was driving, Chan and ChangBin should be in the gym, so he went to Chan's studio so he could install his own computer on Chan's television device and, erasing himself for a moment from the world, began to perfect the songs he had planned for the next album of the group.

How is it that Oh, a beautiful display of his romantic sensibility, was rejected in such a way? JiSung did not want to be a braggart or self-centered, but believed that the song composed with his team was not only decent, but rewarding; he mixed the ballad with hip-hop, and it was no secret that JiSung liked things to be like this; however, MinHo, the only point he wanted the emotionality of the song to be destined, ended up rejecting it because of that dangerous weapon of the human being:

Ignorance.

During the course of the morning, Chan and ChangBin appeared, ready to continue with the composition and the last arrangements of the next album so that they could present it to the company. ChangBin made nonsensical jokes about the environment while Chan gave words of encouragement to JiSung's songs for inclusion on the record, but still, JiSung kept his mind away.

"Almost half an hour of the album, is that enough?" questioned ChangBin.

"Maybe we got inspired by it and added some," Chan said, pointing to a specific song that wasn't convinced. "What about this one? I don't think it fits much with our concept."

"Only the title track starts with another lyric in the name," JiSung observed, amused.

"We can't add much either —the subunit songs are missing," Chan recalled.

"Oh...," ChangBin and JiSung closed their eyes inside litany ailment. None wanted to work on it.

Don’t get them wrong— they loved working with members. However, the three boys had developed a specific way of working that had been perfected over the years, which is why they continued to maintain professionalism in friendship and friendship in professionalism. However, the rest was not the same; the little experience and the lack of professionalism made the results much more complex and low to their taste.

"Do we do it by lottery or do we choose?" asked JiSung, a laconic.

"I want to work with HyunJinnie," Chan said.

"I take SeungMin."

"I take SeungMin."

ChangBin and JiSung looked at each other.

"I said it first," ChangBin charged.

"But, hyung...," with a little pout, JiSung looked at his eldest. "My heart was broken..."

"Don't use that argument, little shit."

"ChangBin!"

"You can take YongBokkie and MinHo hyung in the subunit," JiSung recommended, moving on the couch so he could rest his chin on it. "You worked very well with them on the reality."

"That was almost four years ago, JiSung."

"Same~"

"Speaking of MinHo..."

The child's mood went out. Chan had adopted the classic tone of voice he used when he wanted to talk about sensitivity with someone, and JiSung didn't feel fully prepared.

"Okay," JiSung said. "I'll talk to him —or, better, not talk about it with him."

"I can intervene-"

"Thanks, but no thanks, hyung," he interrupted Chan. "If he believes that nothing happened and that we are just friends, then nothing happened."

The problem, even if it wasn't believable, is that it wasn't Chan who wanted to attack—much less ChangBin, because he understood the perspective of both boys.

It was HyunJin.

"We can break his head. Or open his throat with a saw and make him go through an accident," the boy proposed one afternoon, in the bedroom, after making sure MinHo was not present. "Or better yet! Send him to live on the island of cats and-"

"The idea is tempting, but I don't have much money," JiSung interrupted, watching Felix play Animal Crossing. "Maybe- revolutionary idea, leave things as they are?"

"In Investigation Discovery there are too many ways to commit murder," SeungMin muttered from the bunk above, lost in his philosophical literature. "They can get ideas out of there."

"MinHo hyung doesn't deserve death, he's just dumb," JiSung tried to justify.

"You are stupid too, but we don't want to make you disappear," HyunJin told him.

JiSung, letting out a loud snort, ended up lying next to HyunJin as he stretched his legs on the boards of the upper bunk. "If you want to do something – do it to me. Hit me in the head and make me lose my memory."

"Sweet."

"We need his lyrics," Felix said, focused on his game.

"We are all replaced in this life," JiSung sighed.

At that, indiscriminately entering the bedroom, ChangBin saw all his minors gathered. "Did I miss something?"

"MinHo hyung is in the house?" asked HyunJin. ChangBin denied. "That's how I like it. Stay away from the apartment."

"He had to record I don't know what the fuck on the MNET," ChangBin said, going to SeungMin's bedside table. "SeungMin- Where did you leave my hearing aid charger?"

"I'm deaf, hyung."

"I hate you."

"Do you know what you could do, JiSung?" HyunJin spoke again. "A song. Whenever you get depressed about a movie, you make a song."

"I like to make songs."

"You could make a compound for the subunit," ChangBin gave him the idea.

But all the boys raised their heads.

"Subunit?"

JiSung wanted to hit his head.

"Shit...," ChangBin muttered. "We haven't announced it yet."

Making a song, it's not as if JiSung hadn't composed his main melancholic thoughts within lyrics that embroidered privacy next to the exhibition. He avoided being outgoing with his emotions because that made him feel vulnerable– but the songs were his therapist's notebooks: so transparent that the ailments of loneliness in a nation, the lack of belonging, the fictitious irregularity of love and, in his best cases, his beautiful feeling of being in love could be recognized.

For one afternoon, after the consideration of making a song that would remain only in his memory, he would lie down, alone on the sofa in the living room, changing channels as if his life depended on it.

"Do you want to see something?" out of nowhere, MinHo peeked into the entrance of the house. Taking off their shoes and socks to leave them scattered in the same place. "I get ice cream.”

"Sure," JiSung agreed. Spending quality time with MinHo without talking about it could be a good way to avoid it, even if your pulse reached the sky. "What do you want to see?"

"Nothing Hills?"

It's not as if JiSung had thrown the remote control over his head, but his temper was so high that he was grateful that MinHo had good reflexes and was a great accomplice, because probably if it had reached his head, he would have had a big bump, and someone would have asked.

"I really hate it. He acts like nothing," he complained, hours later, in the gym. "Can't he have a little more consideration?"

"What more consideration do you expect?" ChangBin questioned. "You are not the only one surprised. "

"We thought you were in their honeymoon phase," Chan said, using that terrifying weight machine on their legs. "He was very sticky. You were very sticky. In the end, it was in vain."

"I don't think it was all in vain...," he muttered, unsure. "I say- no one acts like that with you just because you're his friend, right? Maybe..., maybe he just hasn't noticed."

"Will you tell him?" asked Chan. JiSung shrugged. "JiSung, if he had had any kind of feeling towards you the way you believe it, MinHo would have said it by now."

"I know..."

"But it still seems weird to me," ChangBin continued. "I asked hyung if he was with JiSung, and he said yes- you, hyung, also asked him- you even talked about the topic in front of everyone!"

"That also seems strange to me," the other agreed. JiSung hadn't even remembered that. "He confirmed it with us- and with you, JiSung?"

"Do you think I wouldn't be like this if I hadn't insured?" he asked, before snorting. "I don't know what to do."

"Talk to him," the elders replied.

"I want to cry..."

"You'll have to talk to him," ChangBin repeated, going towards the weights. "It may be that by chance I mentioned a little bit about it."

JiSung turned pale, and Chan let out a prominent sigh.

"ChangBin?"

"Yes?"

"What did you mention to him, specifically?"

Present

"I just want you for my own - more than you could ever know," Felix sang as he hung small lights around the Christmas tree (which more than a tree, it was a plant MinHo had bought for his garden), "make my wish come true~, all I want for Christmas is-"

"A little liquor. We need liquor," ChangBin interrupted, appearing through the door of the apartment as he left the purchases he had ordered from the manager in the kitchen. "I gave myself a card game and I want to try it."

"Do you want to drink now?" questioned MinHo, keeping an eye on the beef on the electric grill. "It's just noon."

"Then we're going out and tomorrow we have an event," he reminded him, climbing onto a chair to check the top kitchen cabinet. "Did you guys have the rum liquor you gave us?"

"We drank it."

"Bastards."

JiSung, meanwhile, was lying on the couch, watching HyunJin place a small plastic manger under the TV. He, in his boredom, grabbed a cushion and threw it towards the object.

"JiSung is doing that again!" complained HyunJin loudly.

"We respect your religion, but please respect ours," Felix told the boy. JiSung burst out laughing.

"Why do they still believe I'm a Muslim?" he asked on the air.

"Because you are from Malaysia."

"I'm from Incheon, what the fuck-"

The background was being decorated by Christmas music playing on the radio, highlighting the classic Western chants that made Felix move with joy inside the room. SeungMin, coming out of his bedroom, took a seat next to JiSung and subtly put a hand on his thigh. "JiSung."

"Yes?"

"It is normal for the human being to diversify his identifications into different edges to feel complete – and that is why inconsequence is born," he began, and JiSung raised an eyebrow of curiosity. "You can tell us, with all confidence, that-"

"SeungMin- what the fuck are you talking about?"

"They told me I could do therapy and catch some of the Christmas air."

"But I like Christmas!" he exclaimed, surprised. "When we were trainees, I decorated the bedroom!"

"You once tried to hang me with a garland," HyunJin said.

"With Christmas spirit."

 "I brought liquor!"

Appearing through the front door, JeongIn and Chan took off their large layers of winter clothes to enter the apartment. ChangBin immediately took the black plastic bags to see inside. "White wine?"

"That's for me," MinHo removed, opening it right away to pour a little over the lamb.

"And effervescent pills for the alleged hangover," Chan showed, making eye contact with the rest of the group. "Whoever has to use it, will have to clean both departments."

"Deal," they sang.

Christmas festivities for an artist were contagious as well as depressing. Even though it had been about six years since his family custom was broken by leaving for Korea, it was a bit inevitable for JiSung not to feel melancholy.

"What time are you leaving?" asked JeongIn to JiSung, sitting next to him on the sofa.

"Maybe at five," he muttered, leaning his shoulder on the youngest. "The play is at seven, but MinHo wants to walk."

"First Christmas as a couple, pretty," he sneered.

JiSung squeezed out a small smile. It was still uncomfortable for him to think that this Christmas was, indeed, the first one he and MinHo spent as a couple. It made him feel so humiliated to have considered one long ago as the first among them, where, just like at the time, MinHo and JiSung would go out after Christmas lunch to get lost somewhere.

Why didn't he feel any different?

The alleged date on Pepero Day was no different as JiSung would have expected. MinHo had asked his fans that same day for a nice place to walk and, after forbidding JiSung his cell phone, he took him on a nice night walk among plantations that he liked; ending the night with a sporadic dinner in a coexistence store.

MinHo was aware that JiSung would not have wanted something expensive as a first choice, even though he would have liked it. Maybe if they had both been in a slightly finer restaurant, with a romantic pattern of everything JiSung had seen in the media, maybe that would have been considered a date.

Time passed as did the songs, and between MinHo and Felix's collaboration, and SeungMin's help with Chan, the four of them prepared an appetizing Christmas lunch. The eight sat around that table in the living room and, amid disputes, arguments, teasing, and laughter ate as a family.

Some were laughing and others drowsy, all because of alcohol. Chan and HyunJin discussed a topic out loud while SeungMin, a little content, made a mixture of the liquors next to an energy drink to give to ChangBin, with Felix and JeongIn encouraging them, all in order to make his hangover to clean the apartments.

"Do you want some coffee?"

With JiSung leaning on the couch, MinHo leaned back on his chest as he ate the leftover vegetables from the plates from time to time.

"No..., let me rest a little," JiSung murmured, hiding his face in the boy's hair.

"YAH, why do they want to get me drunk only?" exclaimed ChangBin, offended. He indiscriminately targeted HyunJin. "You, go for the cards!"

"I need you to clean our apartment," SeungMin told his eldest. "It's very dirty."

"Dirty, could I eat on the floor," he replied. "Besides- you are already drunk."

"I'm not, hyung."

"Spell the alphabet backward."

"T – E – B – A – H – P -L - A

"That- it wasn't even what I asked for."

HyunJin appeared and left the deck of cards in front of everyone. "How do you play?"

"The rules say it's simple," Chan took the box. "It's like truth or dare – but it has gifts of drinks between letters. You have to take one out of the deck and do what it says."

"Am I going for the glasses?" asked Felix.

"Nah," Chan watched his. "I guess we can measure it to the eye."

"Chan hyung wants to kill us," MinHo charged, pointing at him. "I know that look."

"Shut up."

 Felix, reckless, took the first letter, giving hints of drinking drinks before each notification that came to him. "Oh, shit."

"And he attacks me for always having my cell phone silent," JeongIn joked.

"Ya- take out you," he ordered, tired of seeing how ChangBin refilled his glass in order for him to drink everything at once.

JeongIn listened, and sang victory by being a penance of drinking the contents at once; he didn't make himself beg with the little liquid he had, and when he finished, he pointed towards ChangBin.

"With whom in the group would you hide the corpse of a horse after it died of manslaughter?" he read aloud and let out a loud laugh. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Who thinks it will help you bury a horse after you wanted to kill a horse," SeungMin explained, before frowning. "Why would you murder a horse?"

"Has he looked me ugly? Anyway- I must drink three shorts if no one accepts."

"Nop," the group denied in chorus, causing ChangBin to complain loudly.

SeungMin took out his own, running with the luck of giving away a drink (he went to ChangBin). HyunJin, taking out a card from the deck, read that he should relate a sex scene with someone present or drink five shots, and since he was worthy enough to do so, he took the shots.

Chan followed up with the letter, selecting a challenge.

"Message your mother asking her how to get that sticky white thing out of my clothes...," he read aloud, and the rest of the group burst into laughter. "If not, it's eight shots."

"What a great tragedy, hyung," JeongIn falsely lamented, pouring a coffee liquor into Chan's glass until it was filled to the brim. "I really regret it for you."

"Well, I can do it with ChangBin's mother"

"YAH!"

When Chan finished swallowing, he looked much drunker than before, with his red face and as he gradually took off his clothes.

"We released the beast," MinHo sneered, stretching out to draw his letter. "Do it or drink three: let the group check your photo gallery for sixty seconds..., it's not the big deal, really."

"No, no," JiSung interrupted him, raising his glass for him. "Just drink."

MinHo, realizing, drank everything at once under the howls of the group.

"How do you get the time?" asked SeungMin, funny. "We can barely breathe."

"They will always find the time...," Chan replied in a low voice, drinking from his glass. "They will always find time..."

"Advantages of being precocious," JiSung said, stretching out his hand to take his own letter. "Answer or drink five: What has been that in the work you did and you can't comment on it to any... body...?"

"IUGH!" they all screamed.

"In the studio?! Where do we record?!" squealed HyunJin, shaking from disgust.

"No, no, no!" Felix scream. "In the rehearsal room or am I wrong?!"

MinHo saw JiSung raise his drinking glass but interrupted him. "No, no-, I want to know."

"I don't even have anything to answer, hyung," JiSung replied, laughing. "I am pure."

"But- tell us the truth," JeongIn encouraged. "Where? Where in the company?"

"Nowhere!" he squealed.

"Then why are you going to drink?" asked SeungMin. "What did you do that you can't comment?"

"I know!" shouted Felix, indiscriminately pointing at MinHo. "It's the demo, the demo!"

"What demo?" the elders asked.

"Maybe it was sex tape from him and hyung," HyunJin agreed, agreeing with Felix. "That's why JiSung deleted it-"

Gradually, JiSung's funny smile was eliminated, becoming evident in his backward brain drunk of that thing he had explicitly asked for complicity.

Shit.

"What demo?" MinHo turned to ask JiSung, dramatically placing a hand on his chest. "Did you record us without my consent?"

"I didn't do shit– and why would I have a sex tape on an audio shared with Chan and ChangBin?" JiSung asked, horrified. "I'm not a pig."

"What demo?" asked ChangBin again. "Of those who saw the other time?"

"Yes!" Felix said, and JiSung wanted to throw a cushion at his head to make him shut up. "JiSung came and deleted the Winter Falls demo. Why did he do it? What did it contain?"

"Did you delete the Winter Falls demo?" asked MinHo this time.

The table was silent, and because of the paleness Felix, SeungMin and JeongIn made the rest of the group realize that it had been secret.

JiSung couldn't back down and had to face the consequences. "Yes-hyung, I deleted the demo."

"And why?" MinHo looked at the rest of the production line, even though one had his head on the moon and the other tried to remember what was in that song. "Why, Hannie?"

Fondly, MinHo pushed him with his shoulder while smiling with the breath, and JiSung almost felt able to answer. However, ChangBin uttered a loud cry of epiphany.

"The Winter Falls demo!" he repeated, this time looking at MinHo. "Ah- eh- uh, yes, that demo."

Again, without Chan being conscious, everyone looked to JiSung for an answer. The boy just shrugged and drank the rest of his glass. In the end, he added, "I'll just say that Sad JiSung is a Ridiculous JiSung."

Past

"This has been the most depressing lyric I've ever written," JiSung muttered, his eyes closed and lying on the floor of Chan's studio as a pile of leaves rested on him.

"JiSung, get up," Chan ordered.

"I can't, I'm decaying."

Gently, Chan closed his laptop and got up from his chair to kneel down and pat JiSung's leg affectionately. "The lyricist will arrive at any time."

"I know~"

"Record the song.”

Slowly incorporating, the leaves on JiSung's body fell sideways. He, selflessly, tasted her mouth and frowned at the bad taste in it. How long has he not brushed his teeth?

"I'll go to the bedroom," Chan said, putting his laptop in his backpack. "ChangBin will come like ten o'clock. Do you want him to bring you something?"

"My toothbrush, a towel, and a change," he asked, stretching into his own backpack to check what was missing. "Yeah, I have everything."

"You let me know when you're done."

"Okay, hyung, thank you."

After closing the door of the study, JiSung got up from the ground so that he could elongate a little. He didn't know when he had fallen asleep on the floor, but it was past seven o'clock in the afternoon, and his stomach demanded dinner.

He didn't dare to return to the apartment.

The song came out much easier and more depressing than he expected, which disappointed JiSung. He just wanted to have a pertinent distractor that would allow him to work, but the sadness kept haunting him at such a level that he couldn't even cheer upon watching his favorite animations.

"Hayao Miyazaki is disappointed about me," he muttered, entering the recording studio with his own laptop.

He warmed his throat and did sound checks, sang the song a few times without recording, and finally, with the red button above the booth, JiSung recorded the original demo of that song that made him want to see all the sad movies in the world.

It's okay to feel sad, he thought, getting back on the stretch when he finished singing. It's normal.

He had an accumulation of negative emotions that were not necessarily because of MinHo's frankness in having referred to the relationship of both as a service for fans. He considered it ridiculous, but the male protagonist of his dorama he saw had passed away and left the female protagonist desolate, which was enough reason to be sad. His toothbrush fell into the trash can in the morning, causing him to have to leave the bedroom to go buy one. There was also no coffee of his favorite, so he had to drink from the traditional.

A lot of bad things had happened.

The lyricist, as punctual as ever, appeared in Chan's studio and JiSung showed him the song solemnly, explaining various points of each verse with ideas of who could sing it and the atmosphere that could occur.

"Look, I proposed to ChangBin the idea of putting a song of your own on the seasonal album," he said. "I like the song, but I think it breaks a little with the idea of the image of your group, I don't know if you understand me."

"Yes, I get it."

"I propose two ways: talk to ChangBin and modify the lyrics- do not lose the essence, because I consider it good, but try ..., uh..."

"To reduce the drama?"

"Intensity, I would say," he explained. "Work with ChangBin and credit the song to both of you, or try to modify the lyrics." Out of his pocket, the lyricist took out his cell phone to show him an open document. "Read this, thesaurus together with a translator. Use concepts in other languages to be able to adapt, Okay? How were you inspired to make the song?"

"Howl broke up with me."

"Too bad to hear, kid. Do you think we'll see it next week?"

He stayed in the studio to continue with other songs of his own leisure, recording demos and working on the last details of the presentation songs for the album that in less than two months would come out. He even collaborated a bit with ideas for the title track for the seasonal record, which made it easier for him to get through the afternoon.

Around eleven o'clock, after plugging his laptop into the studio screen to watch The Wind Rises, ChangBin appeared in the studio.

"Good," he greeted, with two plastic bags. "I brought you food and what you ordered from Chan hyung."

"Binnie hyung, you are the best," he flattered, stretching out his hands to take the bags. "Chicken ramyeon, thank you~, hyung, could you put the hot water?"

"No."

"I don't like you so much," he muttered, getting up to do it.

ChangBin took a seat on Chan's couch and began to read the letters that were scattered all over the floor, commenting on how terrified the leader will be to see all the dirt in his workplace.

"Ah-hyung, the lyricist recommended me to work with you for the seasonal song," JiSung said, pouring the hot water into his noodles. "He told me he proposed you to do a song."

"Yes, but I'm not really feeling like it," he admitted, scratching his head. "If it were for a few more months I would have done it, but Noeasy left me dry. You keep the job."

"He told me to make again the lyrics."

"Ha, now I want to hear her."

Shyly, JiSung paused the film so that he could show him the song, and while ChangBin's serious face of concentration absorbed the composition, JiSung poured the water from his noodles into the plants so that he could stir the dressing inside it.

"JiSung," ChangBin called him when the song ended.

"Yep?"

"You should go back to the bedroom," he advised. "You were aware of the risk."

Leaving the noodles halfway through his mouth, JiSung nodded. "Believe me I was, hyung, it's just that..."

"MinHo hyung loves you very much, even if it's as a friend," he said, and those words hurt JiSung like hell. "He would never want to hurt you."

"He will never intend to do it," JiSung agreed, sighing. "And I have to think for the good of the team."

"JiSung-"

"Hyung, I just want to be locked in a bubble without anyone bothering me – at least just for one night," he asked, trying not to sound impolite. "SeungMin always talks about morally valuable love or some shit Nietzsche said."

"Nietzsche said that?"

"No idea, hyung, but..." JiSung didn't know how to put his emotions into words. They had already been suppressed, changed; now only his mind was to function in a frustratingly accepted way, "... I want to be alone."

JiSung could ask ChangBin a hundred times, and he would tell him a hundred times that he will listen to him, but being aware that his eldest will be on the same floor made him feel claustrophobic.

One night later, JiSung returned with the best face of someone who spent two days living in the company and an entire night crying over beautiful romances from Japanese movies. He confronted everyone at breakfast, with his characteristic humor and comic line that he liked to be, talking about idiocies with HyunJin while Felix commented on irremediably ridiculous things.

To his surprise, MinHo, who was a morning person, had woken up late. And JiSung, in his best disposition to settle his guilt and sadness, stretched out a plate of bread towards him. "Good day, hyung, do you want one?"

MinHo will always want him as a friend, and that JiSung must have digested. For the sake of both of us and everyone, he had to get over it.

Present

"Why is it so cold if winter started five days ago?" complained MinHo as he warmed his hands with his breath.

JiSung, holding his gaze on him fondly, raised his hand to amusingly lower the other boy's hat into his eyes. "Crybaby."

"Do you want to die?"

"Later. I've wanted to see this play for a long time."

The advantage of being recognized worldwide is that they did not necessarily have to be fully recognized in their native country. Sure, it was nice when fans got in your way with the best of intentions, which JiSung still appreciated for his nervousness; however, there were circumstances that he appreciated or that they did not recognize, or that the other people had complicity.

They were in a line outside the theater, due to COVID-19 protocols. It was the characteristic Christmas winter wind and, as expected, the whole line was full of couples and families.

"Can I ask you a question?" interrupted MinHo.

"You want to buy me a coffee from the corner cart?" replied JiSung, smiling under his mask. "You are the best, hyung."

He could see his eyes rolling under the hat, but I have no hesitation in being able to go to JiSung's order.

He was not an idiot, he knew what he wanted to ask, and he still didn't completely surpass himself so that he could deliver an answer worthy of Han JiSung.

What could JiSung tell to MinHo? That the first version of Winter Falls occupied a part of his life as a delicious consolation, the one that initially carried an accumulation of sad emotions because of a lot of specific circumstances that made him feel that way? JiSung didn't want to give more importance to something that MinHo himself had not only apologized for but asked him for total sincerity with his emotions.

It had been difficult, but letting go of anger, self-grief, self-flagellation, and insecurities had helped him not to feel more ashamed, even though he sometimes caught up in difficulty looking MinHo in the eyes.

How could he be such an idiot?

The sudden thought that perhaps MinHo was in that situation with JiSung was out of moral responsibility—that made more sense than the sudden magical reasoning MinHo had that decreed he was in love.

Oh, that thought made his spine tremble. Was it possible that, unconsciously, MinHo fell in love with JiSung in order to fulfill something?

Wow, what a beautiful Christmas night.

Don't think silly, he reproached himself right away. He is not so kind.

Or he is?

At that instant, dead of cold, MinHo had bought him a coffee just to avoid a conversation. How many were the odds that he would do it out of commitment?

MinHo is too committed, he thought, feeling his cheeks burn and his stomach bursting with happiness.

MinHo returned with two coffees, and both lowered their masks to some extent so they could drink it. It was boiling.

"Was it instant?" asked JiSung. MinHo nodded. "Did you know that instant coffee, if you see the boiling water right away on it, it burns?"

"I don't feel the taste of burning," said the other.

"You don't drink a lot of coffee, so you don't feel the difference," he explained. "If you add a splash of cold water to the instant coffee, and then the boiling water, it will taste different."

"Does it vary whether it's ice water or room temperature water?"

"Both."

"I don't have enough stomach to do the test."

"We can always ask JeongIn to try."

"JeongIn was like a beast today- who the hell drinks so much alcohol and is still able to clean the bathroom?"

"I'm amazed that you stand," MinHo said gracefully. "You drank like a damn."

"It was that or teaching how to make an oral sex with a banana – and I didn't have much encouragement to have an affair with her."

MinHo almost took out the coffee through his nose, but JiSung moved his glass a little because of laughter. They tried to recompose themselves as quickly as possible so as not to attract attention.

However, outside the large classical theater where they had bought tickets for the play, JiSung spotted a flash.

"Shit-" he muttered, pulling up his mask. "They are here."

There was no need to say more about that. MinHo imitated JiSung, and entering into silence, both waited for time to pass quickly, and the flash flashing from across the street was extinguished. Maybe it could be for someone else who was there, or so they wanted to believe.

In normal instances, JiSung would grab MinHo from his jacket so he could feel a little strength in the situation, but with the mess he had in his head, he could only press his nails on his hands hard into the pockets of his own garment.

"It's moving forward," MinHo reported, sounding relieved. "The line goes forward."

Real or not, paranoia kept eating JiSung.

Past

"I don't think I've ever seen him in this state."

"Not me."

"Oh, I do. In 2018."

"What happened in 2018?"

"He saw Banana Fish," JeongIn said.

HyunJin, SeungMin, and Felix let out a light ah from the bedroom door. JeongIn, for his part, seemed to be terrified to enter the territory.

Or, as he had adopted: 'wild territory'.

"Do you think this is a bigger problem?" asked Felix.

"So far, his favorite song is Sorry, I Love You. "

"That's good."

"He's only listened to Sorry, I Love You."

"That's bad."

"What's the matter?"

The four of them, turning to cover the door of the shared dormitory, looked at MinHo.

"Oh, nothing, hyung," SeungMin replied selflessly. "What do we do with the elephant in the room?"

"What elephant?"

The four of them pointed inward, although they did not let MinHo see.

"I don't understand you," he said, resigning himself to retire to the bathroom.

Again, the boys saw each other's faces before entering the 'wild territory', with the utmost care not to step on anything valuable from the ground and guess what was happening inside JiSung's head at that instant.

"It's going to give me an ulcer," SeungMin muttered, disgusted by the mess.

"JiSung?" Felix groped over the cover of the boy's bed, where a small ball peeked out that seemed to be attached to the bed. However, the boy could only feel a bunch of leaves on the cover. "JiSung- please tell me that you are here and you didn't merge with the mattress."

"We could call the rat exterminator," HyunJin said, dismayed that he couldn't find his friend anywhere. "Or a machi. Anything that serves to return JiSung alive."

Suddenly, a hand came out under the bed and grabbed HyunJin's ankle; he screamed into the sky and jumped quickly towards JeongIn, with Felix and SeungMin bursting into laughter.

"Why the fuck do you find that funny?!" squealed HyunJin, getting off JeongIn as JiSung went out under the bed. "What's wrong with you, spawn of evil?!"

"My pencil had fallen under my bed and I went to get it," he replied, although in the dark he could not witness it in a good way, he handed a notebook to HyunJin. "Inspiration shower or whatever, I'm starving."

"I thought you were dead," SeungMin said, groping the desk to look for the switch. "We haven't seen you since yesterday and..., yes," with a click, SeungMin turned on the desk lamp, and the other three guys gasped at jiSung's face. "I expected that."

"I'm living my best moment," JiSung replied, his eyes swollen and one tempting the appearance of a style, bulging cheeks, blanket marks on his cheek, and a little food at the corner of his lips. "I haven't touched the water since yesterday morning."

"The smell says so," JeongIn sneered.

With a sigh, JiSung sat on the bed while trying to fix his hair. "This is like the third deadline I have to deliver the seasonal song. They tell me to take it easy because we're in comeback periods, but they tell me I have to deliver something good. I lost my magic."

"You didn't lose your magic. This is good," HyunJin encouraged, finishing reading the lyrics to leave it on JiSung's lap. "Show it to the hyung."

"I want to take a shower and change this," he said, feeling hungover from his intense nights.

The boys left him alone. JiSung took a shower and changed the cover of his bed, but he still had all those leaves with different versions that sounded mediocre to him of the blessed seasonal song.

To hell.

JeongIn was playing with his friends on a call, so it didn't bother JiSung to feel him tear the leaves in the middle of where the versions of the song were so he could randomly stick them on the wall to run with luck and see if anything was functional for the company. However, reading them aloud, none seemed to make sense.

The lights on the floor went out, but no one seemed to sleep. JiSung wanted to rest his mind a little but it continued to be designed like crazy, altering it a little when he felt the strong voices in his head repeat again and again and again different verses that could conspire in a decent song and not in a mere dramatic intensity of a romantic lyricist.

Suddenly, a message reached his cell phone.

>> awake?

What could JiSung answer to that?, his heart kept altering every time MinHo approached and cried when he stayed. The boy's presence was so murderous that he wondered how he was still alive after so long.

What if I get something good out of this? JiSung could be considered a masochist, but he knew that any basic artist had to have a little suffering in order to remember that he was alive.

"What do you have in bed?" asked MinHo as he got into JiSung's bed.

"Leaves," he replied.

"Will you sleep with that all over the blanket?"

"It's a technique. Chan hyung recommended synthesize the lyrics into a single song because I was having a lot of ideas, but I didn't complete any, so I split the lyrics by verses and randomly created a single song."

The song that still did not consider that it made sense, but it was not enough for him more than to accept.

"Will they make sense, even if it is?" asked MinHo. His voice was so low that JiSung felt the urge to want to get even closer to MinHo's face.

"They all talk about the same thing, actually...," JiSung was able to mutter.

Could JiSung afford those moments- would he be a predator, someone bad, in wanting to get close to MinHo and pet him a little?

JiSung missed him – not like the friend he never thought he was, but he missed within his mind the romantic idea he had of him; of someone who was sentimentally complicit, with whom he could do what he did now: look into each other's eyes into the darkness and touch himself in the most innocent and romantic way they could afford; because that's how they had both been built.

Or it was just done unilaterally.

With his feet touching MinHo's feet, JiSung dared to ask, "Hyung?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I just thought I didn't come to you for a long time," he replied. "If you allow me, of course..."

This is painful.

"Can it be in silent?" he asked.

And, although MinHo didn't seem to know it, he kept his eyes on JiSung's. "Whatever you want, Hannie..."

The night was so eternal that, the next morning, he woke up alone in his bed, and felt that he could concede a few more verses to his song.

Upon arriving at the studio, he recorded one more demo in the booth and waited patiently for his team to arrive.

The evaluation was made with Chan, ChangBin, and a couple of cooperation lyricists from the company, and opinions were divided. Some female lyricists were fascinated by the complexity of the boy's vocabulary in being able to adapt the Christmas melancholy in part of the lyrical speaker's grief, but both Chan and ChangBin were not very convinced of it.

"And when I have the approval of the lyricists, I get stuck with you," JiSung said, losing patience.

It was very night, and the reunion of the seasonal album had spread as much as the people on both the staff and Div 1 had wanted.

"I say, it's good, but not enough," Chan replied normally, taking a seat in his chair. "Maybe you could erase the MinHos and it would be idyllic."

JiSung took one of the cushions and beat Chan with her, making him laugh. ChangBin, on the other hand, sat on the sofa without finding grace in the matter.

"Hyung?"

"What the fuck are you doing?" asked ChangBin finally, looking at him.

The minor blinked. "Huh, what do you mean?"

"This—to everything you do now," ChangBin quickly put JiSung's demo on the studio screen. "That-that, it's all with..., dedication—in every damn verse you're drowning in the same emotion. Can't you get over it?"

"Will we really get into a dispute over that, hyung?" asked JiSung, angrily. "Because that doesn't have to involve you-"

"I understand your point, but I think it's a good abuse," Chan intervened.

"Do you think it's good?" ChangBin faced. "When we write we do from our own, and if we need a specific concept we go into our imagination to make it perfect – that's what an artist does, isn't it? Able to put us in imaginary situations in emotionally tangible ways."

"ChangBin?"

"So, JiSung, tell me what game are you playing with MinHo hyung."

At first instance, he didn't catch what he was saying– much less Chan, but when he remembered that at night no one really slept, he knew that JeongIn had betrayed him.

"Hyung," spoke firmly. "You are no one to get involved in that issue!"

"He slept with MinHo hyung!" he accused Chan.

"JiSung- shit, really?" Chan faced it too.

"Is it suddenly wrong to do it?!" asked JiSung, offended.

"We understand that you want to pretend and stick with that nothing happened, but-"

"I'm not pretending, I'm getting over it," he interjected.

"If you're going to get over it, try not to do it with the songs that feed you," ChangBin said, before lip-licking and reaching out. "Give me your cell phone."

"What?"

"Don't get me wrong, I love hyung with my heart, but as part of 3RACHA and your major, I'm within my rights to protect you from morons who are playing with you."

"MinHo hyung is not playing with me."

"I know, but I won't let him try to figure out what-knows-what-thing with you while you consume yourself as a fool for him."

"Chan hyung!" asked JiSung for help.

"I don't think it's good to intervene in such a brusque way, ChangBin. But, JiSung, also has his point," he mediated, getting up from his seat. "We need you focused-"

"I'm focused!"

"The only person who can see you in a steady state is MinHo hyung!" exclaimed ChangBin. "But the rest of us have to see you cry for him, JiSung! Grow up and get over it at once!"

"I'm in it! Why don't you have patience?!"

The three of them felt the door open, and Chan threw the cushion at it.

"Get out!!!"

Present

You must be...

Seeming to be a bad joke, the speakers in the theater's waiting room were playing a Christmas K-pop special – falling into the coincidence of placing Winter Falls for the relaxed atmosphere.

"Can I ask you the question?" asked MinHo.

"No."

"Come on~," gently, MinHo tapped his shoulder with JiSung's, "you don't have to feel embarrassed. Tell me, what was the demo about?"

"Really nothing to worry about," he said.

"I didn't realize the existence of that demo, and you deleted it before I heard it," he recapitulated, smiling naughtily under his mask as he gave him that look. "I must worry."

"It had been very unlucky days when I wrote it," he explained. "It's just a bunch of ridiculously sad words and dramatic scenarios."

"How bad luck?" MinHo raised his memory in memory. "When did you write it? We were introduced to the song at the beginning of October because we recorded the video on my birthday..."

It was his magic words that made JiSung shrink as MinHo, entering the realization, nodded. "Ah..."

"Yep." JiSung averted his gaze. He didn't even dare to see it.

MinHo didn't comment further on it, which was good for JiSung who wanted the earth to swallow it.

This is why I didn't want you to know.

People began to move inside the waiting room, and as Winter Falls was in the second choir, JiSung and MinHo entered the theater room, placing themselves in the seats they had bought and, with the intention of lightening the atmosphere, carrying out a small conversation about the other people who were there, taking pictures of their surroundings or themselves and, waiting patiently, for it to start.

"Don't you think the first act has been a bit longer?" MinHo whispered at some point.

"Are we still in the first one?" replied JiSung, surprised.

The first act ended, and through the speakers, it was announced that the second act would begin in fifteen more minutes.

"How long does this last?" asked JiSung gracefully, checking the electronic ballot on his cell phone. "Three hours!"

"Wow, I feel like an old man in the theater," MinHo said.

"Hyung- you are an old man in the theater- AY!"

Slurping his arm, he ran the boy's gaze as MinHo let out a laugh.

"I'll go to the bathroom," he announced, getting up. "Do you want me to buy something to eat outside?"

"No, my face is going to swell," JiSung replied, slurping his cheek.

"But if with a swollen face you're the most cutie thing there is," he sneered, pricking the boy's cheek and getting slapped in his hand to pull him away.

JiSung kept reading a bit of the curiosity of the production of the play in the meantime. Christmas music by K-pop artists kept playing on the speakers and JiSung just wanted to vomit himself out of the harassment.

He and MinHo seemed to be fine, or so it was said in his head. The other seemed to understand not playing the song's theme, which JiSung found idyllic – even though, inside his head, the same idea hovered that maybe it was still not enough for MinHo.

He saw how people returned to their seats – all except MinHo. JiSung looked for him with his gaze in the sea of people, but there was no sign of MinHo.

Shit..., nervous, he typed a message to the boy on his cell phone, but when he felt his own thigh vibrate, he cursed himself of having his things. Wonderful. My boyfriend leaves me stranded at Christmas.

Maybe he escaped, he thought nervously, looking once again at the whole place. Great, now I want to cry.

The lights went out, and the second act began.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry-

"JiSung."

He hadn't realized at what point MinHo had appeared, but JiSung almost breathed a sigh of relief; he would have done it if it weren't for MinHo's powerful eyes showing concern.

"We have to leave," he said, taking JiSung by the arm to get up. "They are outside."

Between the gossip of the rest of the audience and the insults to sit down, JiSung and MinHo came out of the seats to the empty rows.

"What happened?" asked JiSung, before MinHo could drag them somewhere.

"Standing in line at the food store I saw a group, and they recognized me," he said, nervously.

"Do we call the manager?"

They both shared a look. It was Christmas, and he was with his family spending quality time on the date. The couple felt uncomfortable having to turn to him.

"We could escape," JiSung proposed, receiving no response from MinHo. "The theater is big. They can't see us."

"Escape?" MinHo let out a sarcastic laugh. "Because that's the way we deal with this."

"Do you want to face them?" he proposed. "I don't know about you, but they terrify me."

"And do you think not me?"

"Can you collaborate?"

"Sorry, I'm nervous."

JiSung understood because he was also on the verge of panic.

It wasn't the first time it had happened, but that didn't take away from the fact that it was desperate, irritating, and scary.

They saw one of the doors of the emergency exit open, and by the cap and grim reaper, MinHo recognized it.

"Here," he silently guides you to the next emergency exit. "Did I make you wait a long time, did I scare you?"

"I thought you had abandoned me," JiSung replied with a hint of humor to feel less anxious.

 "I wasn't going to abandon you when we have a pending conversation."

"Hyung..."

"I...?" between concentrating on the chase and enduring his nervousness, MinHo licked his lips. "Did I hurt you a lot?"

If it weren't for the integrity of both of them being at risk, JiSung probably would have taken the stage to express his feelings.

MinHo slightly opened an emergency exit door and seemed to murmur that there was no one interfering, so they both walked out safely into the hall.

"Don't take it as harm," JiSung advised. "Take it as... a source of inspiration."

"Source of inspiration?"

"Yes, which is good because that means you inspire people," he completed with a small blow to the shoulder. "Congratulations."

"A month ago, I said I was in love with you," he recalled. "And since that time we haven't talked about it, why not...?"

JiSung shrugged. "I don't want to do it, hyung, it's very recent for me yet."

"So- am I still hurting you?"

"Inspired by me," he corrected.

"JiSung- shit."

Appearing down the hall, a group of four appeared, and the big whistleblower was that one was carrying a large camera in hand.

Those recognized them, and JiSung couldn't do more than pat MinHo's arm before the two embarked on a race to the other side.

"Do you remember Los Angeles 2019?" commented MinHo gracelessly.

"Of course, hyung."

"What a good day to do cardio."

Amid the tiredness, JiSung was able to roll his eyes because of him.

They quickly went out into the waiting room of the theater, but they were aware that they were not safe there; they tried to walk as quickly as possible to another emergency exit – the one that led to another room on the second or third floor of the building.

"Do you think we lost them?" asked JiSung gasps.

"Does it make you bad to be with me?"

JiSung glanced at him and swallowed a little before nodding. "It makes me nervous."

"Why?"

"Because it's... ridiculously unrealistic what you do," he admitted, pulling out his cell phone and frowning upon noticing there was no signal. "Let's go up?"

"What do you mean by unreal?" MinHo followed a couple of steps down. JiSung wanted to evade all that. "My feelings?"

"Something like that."

"JiSung, be frank."

Tired of the situation, JiSung snorted. "I've been in love with you for part of my artist’s life, and you only take it a month and only because you found out I was into you," he explained, fearful. "Doesn't that seem weird to you?"

"I've been with you longer than I imagined."

"And that's the problem." JiSung stopped and turned, facing him. "Look- I don't want to create a drama with all this, but I hope you understand that it's still hard for me to understand that you really love me when I spent many months before believing that you already did it."

MinHo was quiet, seeming not to know what to add about it. JiSung, trying not to show his annoyance, turned to keep walking.

They remained silent for a couple of floors until they reached the last one, where it overlooked the roof of the building. JiSung went out and locked the door so that it would not close (in the movies the doors on the rooftop were always closed, and JiSung was not in the mood to spend a Christmas night in the cold); MinHo followed, but when JiSung stood up to see his cell phone, MinHo kept his distance.

I said so, and he seems to recognize the problem, JiSung watched with regret, looking at MinHo sideways.

"Do we call the manager?" proposed JiSung finally, fed up with the silence.

"Okay," taking off the mask, MinHo put it in his pocket. "But..., let's settle this out before he comes."

"Settle? Like a work meeting?"

"Point one: you never told me you liked me," MinHo began, approaching him.

"Yes, I told you."

"Point two: you never told me we were together."

"Yes, I told you."

"Point three: you think my feelings towards you are not true."

"No- I said I had a hard time believing them because it was sudden," he corrected, allowing the other to stick to him. "You love me like a friend- like a brother, and unconsciously you want to make me happy, that's why you think you're in love with me, even if you really aren't."

Wow, saying it out loud sounded much more painful.

"It can be," MinHo reciprocated, focusing his eyes on Seoul's beautiful night view. "After all, I'm used to having you with me."

JiSung's heart trimmed a little but nodded. "Yes, I guess SeungMin can explain it as a natural reflection of the human being in being-"

"You are an idiot."

"Uh- I know, but why?"

"Because you can't say I see you like a damn brother or friend when I literally sleep with you," he said burlesquely, leaning his back on the railing to see him. "Not in a thousand years would I do with another of the boys what I do with you."

"I mean, I know the sex for some people can be important as well as irrelevant, I wouldn't know if-"

"Shut up. Not even before I realized I was crazy about you I wouldn’t allow me to do things I did with the others as I did with you," he explained, stretching out his hand to take JiSung by the arm, bringing him closer, and carefully remove his mask.

"How could not? You..., treat me like them."

"Yes, but no. I can sleep with HyunJin and will consider the side of the bed he wants to sleep on. I can go out with hyung and pay for his ice cream. But as long as I cook in the apartment and make five different dishes to take away everything that the guys don't like, I'm going to add your favorite condiments to your plate always because you're more special to me than the rest."

"Those are your acts of cordiality, hyung-"

"Can you shut up and stop convincing me that I don't love you? Because you're going to make it and not even because of the arguments you're giving me," he threatened, covering the boy's mouth with his hand. JiSung pouted unconsciously. "I always believed that love worked in one way because that was logical for me, but after spending my entire life as an artist with you, I realized that it was much clearer to fall in love with you than with any other member. You don't know how much it hurts me to know that I hurt you before this, but now it kills me to know that I still do it."

JiSung was silent for a moment (apart from not being able to speak by the hand in his mouth). His heart overflowed slightly from MinHo's sweet words, and he considered it fair to be able to be honest with him as well.

"I don't want to show you the Winter Falls demo because I feel sorry," JiSung began, pulling MinHo's hand out of his mouth. "I was never the one considered. I was never the first. I spent a lot of time believing that I was happy with you because we were both on the same page, and when I found out that it was actually me who was living in a fantasy bubble, the clash with reality was so drastic that I couldn't even look you in the face, hyung. I suddenly went from being yours to believing that I was."

"Why now, at this moment, would you say you are in love with me?" he continued. "You thought that if you didn't do it before, you won't do it now. And seeing you in the bedroom and pretending we were friends really killed me, hyung, because that's what I always was to you— a friend, a roommate, a work colleague, and— that you felt our relationship was mere fan service made me want to die."

"I know, and I truly regret-"

"I know you do it because you’re kind, but now I'm afraid that one day you'll wake up and realize that you never really loved me, that I was never as important to you as you are to me," and he let out a slight laugh, "I think I have post-traumatic stress."

"And does that say the demo?" asked MinHo carefully. "Says how you felt?"

"It's just an accumulation of feelings- of intensity, drama, and romanticism, hyung," he explained, before noticing that his eyes had watered down. "And it's ridiculous because I love you, and even if you tell me to do it too, I'll have a hard time believing it."

"Then...," hesitantly, MinHo looked at him. "Don't you want to continue this relationship?"

"Ah-hyung...," JiSung wiped the side of his eye with his sleeve. "I will always come back to you."

"I want to listen to the demo, please," he asked, rubbing JiSung's shoulders with affection. "I want to know how you felt, I want to have your big picture."

"But I'm not ready, hyung," he said in a gangly voice. "If you listen to it now, I probably won't look you in the face and be forced to leave the group and start my own entertainment company."

"You won't do a shit," he laughed, taking JiSung by the cheeks. "We will do this."

"What?"

"In ten, twenty more years, when we wake up and have breakfast, I'll tell you 'Remember when we were idols?' and you'll tell me 'that was decades ago, hyung, why do you remember now?' and I'll say 'there was a demo of a seasonal song that was about us, do you want to show it to me now?' So, when I wash the dishes, you will search that old cloud of the internet for the demo. We'll hear it. We will laugh. And we will continue with our daily lives."

"Will we be together in twenty more years?"

"You don't start a relationship to end it, did you know?"

It was inevitable for JiSung not to wrap his arms around MinHo's neck and hide there, letting himself be embraced by MinHo with all his strength just so he could hold that moment.

Past

"And?"

The deadline had arrived. At the table were three lyricists, the general producer, the JYPE staff, Div 1 staff, and, like three little puppies, 3RACHA looking at the whole group.

'It can't be that we're stressed about a Christmas record in August,' JiSung wrote nervously, passing the leaf to ChangBin.

"The songs are good," the general producer said. "Of good concepts, and Domino's adaptation is loyal to his Korean phonetics."

"Everyone will have music videos," said someone from Div 1. "Except Domino-sure, they would candelarize it at the end of October."

"We must adapt the dates of the comeback in Japan for the photoshoots and the preparation of the photobook," said someone else. "And the MAMA trials."

Great..., JiSung thought, getting tired of just listening to all the busy dates he would have by the end of the year.

The meeting ended, and the board got up to go in preparation for what they should, but JiSung couldn't do it. His song had passed without sorrow or glory.

He had lost his magic.

But I finished it, after all...

Drowning out a groan, he ended up lying on his table. It had been two hellish days inside his own head for the construction of the new lyrics of the song – the new version, the original version, the one he had to compose after singing it because of how exhausted it had been in it.

JiSung would pretend he did well— it was the right thing to do, it was his mission to deliver a song that fit the image of the group, and JiSung copied Oh's same melancholic pattern for that new song—an antonym to love.

Following ChangBin's advice and just doing only his work was painful, especially when he didn't feel he fulfilled the three edges of an artist.

"You did a good job with the song," Chan congratulated, patting his shoulder. "It's very good."

"I lost my spark," he murmured.

"You turned professional," ChangBin replied, mimicking Chan. "Come on, I invite you some pork."

"I'm on a diet."

"Of course you are. Come on."

The bedroom was full of boxes – they would soon move in, they didn't know when specifically, but the group's income had skyrocketed and they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to have a home spacious enough to be bumping into each other.

While JiSung ate the pork ChangBin bought him in the living room, the rest of the group gathered so they could listen to the songs on the new album. HyunJin was the first to jump on JiSung to congratulate his composition, which made him feel a little better about himself.

"You were traumatized by the dorama you saw," Felix said, funny. "You look torn."

"He rewatched Banana Fish recently," JeongIn said. "So it's sensitive."

"Don't tell me that," JiSung said, pricking his eyes.

Leaning on HyunJin's shoulder, JiSung watched his group chat and weigh in on the songs. Chan immediately took the opportunity to make the distribution line of each member's song, which subjected them to an extensive discussion that JiSung preferred to be absent; he did not wish to give preference to anyone.

From time to time, when he thought no one was looking at him, his eyes fell on MinHo. He was equally leaning on SeungMin as they tried to sing the chorus in hums to see which intonations and lines looked better on the other. JiSung wondered if MinHo had any idea of the meaning of the song, or if he was remotely interested in it.

Even if he knew he had done it?

Both had fought. Days ago, where MinHo had returned to bring out the theme of the song Oh and everything led to JiSung feeling much more pathetic and sad about himself, confessing for the first time his feelings and perceiving that he was nothing more than pathetic who, in his effort, was desperately trying to find normalcy.

He couldn't. He had asked MinHo for time and he had agreed. Now JiSung could only resign himself to looking at him from afar.

JiSung missed MinHo.

Should he really be strong? Should he remain worthy of appearance before a boy who had given him everything? JiSung considered it unfair that his essence was reduced by the act of MinHo- from the looks he gave him to the silence complicit in respecting his space. One part of JiSung was pleasantly grateful, while the other cursed the seven winds because, with MinHo giving in, it meant that there was no opportunity for the other to have feelings towards him.

"I loved you, loved you, loved you – as you did, I loved you, loved you, loved you," HyunJin chanted as he entered JiSung and JeongIn's shared dormitory, going to the second's bedside table in order to look for something. "Again, the snow falls - we fall apart."

"Did you like it very much?" JiSung asked, with his head empty and a towel over his wet hair.

"Yep. SeungMin named it the perfect antithesis that Marx referred to in dialectics," he said, before frowning. "Although I have no idea what that means."

"The thesis would be Oh, the Winter Falls antithesis, and the new thesis that would come out of that would be— well, some other ballad we'll have to do in the future," he shrugged.

"Although it's not like the lyrics you made me read," he said, sitting next to him.

JiSung joked downplaying it. "I had to remodel it. The lyricist didn't like it."

"And did you like this version?"

"I don't know, but it was approved— that's all I need," he resigned, stretching out to lie on his bed.

"MinHo hyung liked it too," he said, lying next to him to look him in the face.

"He didn't tell me."

"You don't have to say it to like it," he said, and JiSung agreed with him. "I heard it the other time humming it."

"You must learn it, it is your duty."

"Well- yes."

Silence. JiSung felt seized again inside his head with HyunJin staring at him. He didn't realize he was crying until HyunJin wiped a fallen tear from him.

"I want to get overall this," JiSung finally confessed in a low voice. "ChangBin hyung told me not to mix the two things– to stick to the professional and..., he was right. I don't know how I would have done it in listening to the demo as many times as I have now."

"You didn't lose the magic in not putting your real feelings into the song," HyunJin comforted. "Only..., you needed your emotional space. Sometimes it's counterproductive to draw inspiration from yourself in a song because you leave a piece of your feeling there, and, in life as an idol, you'll bring that back again and again and again..."

"I think it would be the same, actually," he said. "I live with hyung. No matter how many songs I make about how I feel about him– just watching him makes me want to..."

"I told you."

"Everyone told me."

"And you didn't listen because..."

"Because I'm an idiot?"

"Also, and because you're just twenty-one," he recalled, patting his thigh as he got up. "You're not going to get over it, JiSung, but you can live with it. They're like trauma."

"He's a damn trauma."

"Oh- I understand you perfectly. It causes me nightmares," he joked before leaving the bedroom.

JiSung let out a sigh from the depths of his heart, believing that it might saturate the broken heart a little. The thought of living with that feeling seemed terrifying, but it wasn't the end of the world.

For the next few days, he raised his head proudly and became him again. Many months of self-pitying the harsh reality had made him believe that he was behind with the world, so he had to keep moving forward with it, no matter if he had to do it with MinHo.

He would deliver that to him— the friendship, the brotherly love that MinHo always believed existed in both of them. JiSung would give it to him, because the day JiSung held his hand to support him, that day they sealed the promise of their friendship.

One night when he arrived resigned from the world of entertainment, he made a small igloo with polar blankets and leaned back on the sofa so he could do a marathon in the loneliness of horror movies. Some of the members joined in over the course of the afternoon, but JiSung was so focused on being awake and sleeping from the weariness of the working world that he never differentiated who was who.

"I'll go to sleep," he finally warned, freeing himself from the blankets so he could elongate a little. "I'm dead."

"Okay," MinHo commented beside him, his face drowsy. "I finish this movie and I'll go to sleep too. I like the ending."

"Where the dead man who was in the room was the real villain?"

"Yep."

"The best ending ever," he yawned, "good night, hyung."

"Good night, Hannie."

He didn't want to show any kind of reaction to the classic nickname, so he headed to the bathroom so he could clean himself before sleeping. As he went to bed, he read an updated chapter of the Manhwa that was still in Webtoon and blocked the cell phone on the side of his head to finally go into sleep.

But something alerted his head instantly.

He checked the time once again. 23:58 on the twenty-fourth of October.

I forgot.

Or could he wait until tomorrow for breakfast? Both options were tempting for JiSung, but he considered that, in the plausibility of his mind, he must do the former.

But he didn't dare to see it in the eyes.

When the clock struck midnight, JiSung unlocked MinHo from his contacts and sent him a birthday message along with a repeated good night.

That would be enough.

Present

JiSung didn't know how long he was dozing, but he was awakened by the powerful meow that his manager's cat had thrown to claim MinHo's attention.

"You can't steal the cat," JiSung reminded him, settling on the couch so he could get some more sleep.

"He chose me," MinHo defended herself, stroking the feline's belly.

To the couple's pity, the manager had to break into their family dinner (very familiar - with his large family, specifically) to rescue them from the theater. It was dangerous to take them to the bedroom, so, taking a couple of laps in the van, he ended up taking them home with his family to share a little so they would lose track of them.

"A pleasure to meet you," said goodbye to manager's sister-in-law with her family, and JiSung with MinHo could do nothing but reciprocate the inclinations.

It was almost three in the morning, and the family celebration was over. The manager's wife had prepared various alcoholic downspouts that ended up beating JiSung, letting him doze on the couch along with his children on the side.

"Okay, ready to leave?" the manager asked.

"We're sorry we put this through, hyung," MinHo apologized. "We didn't want to bother you."

"I'm your manager, I'm meant to do this shit- or do you forget when I had to look for ChangBin and JeongIn the French street?"

"Oui."

With the bitter cold of the early morning, they both got into the manager's van and drove back to the building.

"Do you think anyone is awake?" asked JiSung as he left MinHo at the door of his apartment.

"We are good children, and we fall asleep early," he said mockingly, before shrugging his shoulders. "And- well, with ChangBin's game I doubt there's anyone alive."

JiSung nodded, not knowing what else to add. He pointed to the next floor, and MinHo nodded.

However, before JiSung could take a step, MinHo took him by the hand.

"Don't you want to go see the flowers on the terrace?"

Maybe that was what JiSung needed. Since the words MinHo spoke were hard to believe, he needed a bit of that romantic touch that made him feel on the cusp of his life, with a great adrenalin load and excitement that could keep him sane.

How many times must they be like this, naked on the terrace of an apartment while their breaths were regulated and their foreheads collided so that JiSung could understand himself and assume that someone could love him?

There was no more transparent sample than those who loved him for his songs because those were his real selves; but the songs he made had to be professional- cold, sold, to the taste of the generic public.

Unfortunately, the life of an object like the K-pop idol made his three edges of being an artist broken- intensity, dramaticism, and romanticism. He had to limit himself if he wanted to be accepted.

However, MinHo hugged him by the waist as he ensured that the light woolen blanket covered the two, with his bareback resting on the railing as JiSung continued on him, mixing the sweats of their foreheads until they could recompose their composure.

JiSung was intense, dramatic, and romantic, and MinHo kept hugging him naked.