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Changmin's not thinking about it.
Changmin's thinking about the script in his hand, the sun above him, the dirt below.
Changmin's writing dinner before you leave and deleting it.
*
When Changmin is thirsty, a sip is not enough.
When Changmin is hungry, one bite won't do.
So he writes buy me a beer before you go and sends it.
Yunho says hyung will buy you six.
*
His robes are heavy, his face is hot, and between takes, a case of beer appears by the trailer.
The cans are sweaty and wrong so Changmin flicks one and writes which manager brought them over.
I'm 160 miles away, Yunho reasons.
*
Gwangju is three hours away.
Two, two and a half tops, the way Changmin drives.
He could drive there and back and be on time for his next scene but interrupting Yunho's hometown valediction with a petulant you, YOU have to buy it for me isn't rational.
So Changmin waits.
*
"I'll be honest, hyung," Changmin says around a mouthful of patbingsu, "I probably won't notice you're gone."
Yunho nods into his spoon.
"I have filming and a concert," Changmin says, cheeks numb.
"I know," Yunho says and gently nudges the bowl at Changmin.
"I have a schedule," Changmin insists, spoon stalling in ice, "I can't be there."
"I know," Yunho says with a soft smile. "It's not a big deal."
"I won't be there tomorrow," Changmin repeats, half apology, half defense.
Yunho's smile doesn't falter.
"I know."
*
"Never drop soap in the shower," Changmin says into the phone, fanning himself with the script. "Always take the end stall," he lists off restlessly, pacing the set, "if there's no stalls or partitions, go for corners—"
"Changminnie," Yunho says and there are dogs barking in the background, a rooster crowing, an engine sputtering, "I'll call you in a week."
"If you get lost during the midnight march," Changmin instructs, clenching his jaw, knuckles white, heartburn strong, "find a river and follow it downstream—"
Yunho hangs up.
*
"When hyung and me come back," Changmin says around a piece of kimbap.
His manager flinches.
Indigestion corkscrews through Changmin's gut.
"When me and hyung come back," he repeats with more conviction, bile rising. Scowling, he shoves more food down, a little extra, a little too much, because this is Yunho's favorite and Yunho can't have it right now so Changmin's going to have it for him—
"Changmin-ah," his manager coaxes, sliding a schedule across the table. "What do you think about this."
Changmin doesn't think.
His stomach aches all day.
*
On Tuesday, Yunho's phone doesn't work.
Changmin knows this, is perfectly aware, but he sends a text anyway.
He lets it sit for a couple of days, then loads the app, just to check, just to make sure it doesn't say seen at 18:32.
It doesn't.
*
His hand reaches out during the concert, finds a warm shoulder—finds many—the curve of them set too low, too round and too small and followed by wide-eyed pure adoration and an excited chorus of Changmin-hyung.
It feels good.
*
"That was fun, right," his manager asks after, careful, calculated.
Changmin sucks down half a water bottle and exhales in a loud rush, heart pounding, adrenaline surging, and pants, "Yeah."
"It was fine," his manager nods slowly, watching him, fingers twisted around a sweat-soaked hand towel, "without Yunho, right."
Changmin pauses.
It was fine without the nagging, without the bickering, without don't drink too much be nice to that girl wear a condom don't take photos get some sleep.
It was fine without Yunho.
"Yeah."
*
Yunho doesn't call.
Changmin figures he's probably used up all his minutes on his parents.
*
Next week, it's probably his sister.
*
But then week three happens and there's a blurb online about Hojoon's fifteen-minute phone call and so Changmin clears his schedule.
*
His feet won't move.
"Half my appeal was the hair," Yunho greets with a lopsided grin, hair cropped short, arms tanned, black t-shirt stretched wide across his chest, hands anxiously folded over a cafeteria table.
"At least half," Changmin agrees and forces himself to take a seat, eyes trained on the set of dog tags dangling from Yunho's neck.
"Changminnie," Yunho starts, eyes soft, "how are—"
"Give me," Changmin says stupidly.
Yunho frowns. "What."
"Your tags," Changmin mumbles, mortified.
Yunho's face brightens with a pleased kind of satisfaction. "I can't... give you my... government-issued tags."
"You can give me one," Changmin negotiates with an indifferent shrug and coolly crosses his legs. His knee awkwardly slams against the underside of the table, shoving it across the floor with a loud embarrassing screech.
Several of the soldiers turn to look.
Yunho steadies the table, lips twitching.
"Have you talked to your manager," he asks over Changmin's low impatient, "So did you forget my number."
"You're busy," Yunho says softly, closing his hands around one of Changmin's. "I didn't want to be an inconvenience."
Changmin relaxes, warm under Yunho's palms.
"Talk to your manager, Changminnie."
Calm, Changmin nods his chin at the tags. "Give me one."
Yunho's mouth curls, beautiful.
"No."
*
"You wanna watch it."
Kyu squints at the DVD. "It's in Japanese."
Changmin pre-ordered it for Yunho but the fucking thing shipped out late, so he shrugs one shoulder with a bored, "I can translate."
Kyu makes a face, rifling through the assortment of snacks wedged inside the box, packing peanuts spilling to the floor. "Are all of these strawberry-flavored."
"They were a limited-time—" Changmin starts, face burning. "Yeah. All strawberry."
Disgusted, Kyu closes the box.
*
"Maybe..." his manager starts gingerly, one hand on the wheel, "...maybe postponing your enlistment wouldn't be a bad idea."
Changmin's heard this speech twenty different times from twenty different people.
So he yawns, eyes watering, and leans his cheek to the car window. "No."
"You could focus," his manager argues, running a red light, "on a few more acting projects, maybe knock out an album or two, consider a subunit with—"
Agitated, Changmin rips open another pack of strawberry pocky. He has to eat them all this month. Their shelf life is so short, too short, so he has to eat them because Yunho said there are things that don't have expiration dates and Changmin told him everything has one and only one of them can be right.
Only Yunho should be right.
"You could travel," his manager rambles on, gesturing at the road, shifting gears.
The biscuit turns stale and soggy in Changmin's mouth, too sweet, too artificial.
"No."
His manager slows down.
"And what if," he tries quietly, "Yunho wanted you to."
Changmin's fingers curl around the seat belt, crumbs pooling in his lap.
"Yunho wouldn't want me to."
*
Changmin's thinking about it.
About the way Yunho didn't react right.
About the clench of Yunho's jaw, about the pride in Yunho's eyes vanishing under some sad distant thing, about the pause in Yunho's voice when Changmin said he passed his exams, scored high enough to dictate his own terms, and it's not like Changmin expected a parade or to be showered with gratitude or Yunho's eternal attention but.
*
Between scenes, in the shade of a thick dark oak, robes a wet suffocating mess, beard melting off his face, Changmin finds himself gripped with unrelenting panic.
The feeling expands in his chest, a weight his ribcage can't contain where his stomach draws up and his heart drops down and Changmin thinks I was left behind.
Except Yunho would never leave him behind, he reasons during a scene, angry tears threatening to spill, but for Yunho one sip is enough, one bite is plenty, for Yunho there is a yield sign and a stop sign.
For Yunho, there's an ending.
"That was good," the director says, nodding, "very natural. Organic."
*
Yunho calls two days later, when Changmin is five beers into a bender.
"...is this a bad time," he says.
And Changmin says, "Why are you so old."
There's a long tense pause and then Yunho says, "Sorry, Changminnie. I'm old."
Changmin grits his teeth and mashes his forehead into the phone, sprawled across a plastic lawn chair. "Why are you so fucking old, hyung. Yunho. Hyung."
Yunho says a thing but Changmin used to think it could be worse, two years is okay, it could be four years, could be forever, could've been 2009 and never, so he drags his cheek up the screen, makeup leaving a gross streaky smudge, and slurs at the speaker, "Why should it. 'Cause it doesn't. Who says it has to end."
Yunho doesn't say anything.
So Changmin says, "It wasn't long enough."
Yunho says, voice strange, patient, "Half of your life wasn't long enough?"
And because Changmin is drunk and stupid and will only remember a third of this in the morning, he asks Yunho, without shame and without pride, "Hyung, why."
"I just..." Yunho says, warm, "Changmin. I want everything for you."
"I HAVE everything," Changmin snaps and the fact that his voice breaks is humiliating, unacceptable, infuriating.
"Changminnie, you could use these two years to establish—" Yunho starts desperately, and there are words, nonsensical and wrong, like by yourself and full potential and be free.
"What is that," Changmin laughs, sobering, "that makes no sense to me, hyung." He sits up, groggy, nauseated, legs tangling in the chair, anger and indignation coiling through him, "You go and you WAIT FOR ME, that's always been—you don't go and... go, Yunho, what the fuck."
Yunho falters.
"Changmin," he says. "Everything has a shelf life."
*
Changmin's thinking about it.
About actually going solo, exploring his options, carving out his own path, about how nothing can realistically stay the same forever, never has and never will, how there should probably be post-army marriages and post-army babies, how things haven't changed without Yunho, not significantly, not noticeably, not for the worse, how that's... acceptable.
He's thinking about the time he was seventeen and their new dorm didn't do utilities and how it was so cold Changmin couldn't feel his toes and how he argued over the top bunk bed for an hour, how he wanted that bed more than he wanted to live because he knew heat rises and his toes would fall off without heat and how Yunho thought on it and said let Changminnie have it.
Changmin's thinking about numbers.
Four thousand times Yunho let him sleep in. Three thousand times Yunho brought him coffee. Two thousand times Yunho fell asleep on his shoulder.
One thousand times Changmin secretly thought as long as I have hyung.
But he's not a fragile codependent child.
He's not an embarrassing mess of a person.
He's reasonable and rational and pragmatic.
If Yunho wants to lead his army recruits while Changmin leads a life, that's okay.
It's okay.
*
During a concert, between songs, bangs matted with sweat, Changmin catches a glimpse of himself on one of the screens.
He scans the length of the image, unsettled.
And then he's thinking about that first time Yunho told him to quit and instantly deciding this, I won't quit THIS, and how he meant Yunho and god, it's not enough. It's not replaceable.
The thing with Yunho is just not.
*
Changmin cleans his apartment.
He cleans Yunho's apartment.
He clears a good chunk of his bucket list, too, sightsees across Europe, plays a few games, lands back in Seoul with a grin and a purpose.
"Yeah," he greets, slipping into the car. "I'm gonna enlist."
"Yeah," his manager sighs, mouth twitching, both hands on the steering wheel, "I figured."
*
"I thought I should visit," Changmin says, benevolent. "Just in case."
Yunho adjusts his band uniform, too red, too shiny, too ridiculous, and firmly clasps Changmin's shoulder. "Are you... are you trying not to smile."
Flushed, Changmin grunts, "No, there's pollen here, I need to sneeze, hyung, you know I'm allergic."
Yunho's jaw clenches, eyes bright. "You're not allergic to pollen."
Off in the distance, the muted sound of cheap army drums signals the start of another event.
"You stay on your side," Changmin instructs and dusts Yunho's epaulettes off, repressing clickbait headlines, "and they'll stay on theirs."
Yunho cocks his head, apparently deaf. "So. Your manager told me."
Changmin winces, unprepared.
Yunho withdraws and props himself against a snack table, listlessly picking at a plate of orange slices. "You're postponing your enlistment."
Changmin blinks.
"Which is..." Yunho says, fidgeting with a pair of slices stuck together, "fine. It's fine."
There's a weird awful hurt lacing his voice so Changmin grins, stupidly, affectionately, and says, "Yeah."
"Yeah," Yunho agrees, peeling the stringy bits.
And because Yunho is forgiving to a fault, except with himself, Changmin shuffles closer and covers Yunho's hands and says, "I should enjoy my youth, hyung."
Yunho looks up, unhappy. "You should."
"And explore my full potential."
Yunho brings a piece of orange to his lips, murmuring around it, "You should—"
Changmin lunges forward to bite into the slice, nose grazing Yunho's right cheek.
The orange bursts between his teeth, juice dribbling down both their chins.
Startled, Yunho swallows his share and slowly wipes at his mouth.
"I just want," Changmin apologizes and shoves a hand through the gap between Yunho's buttons in search of hidden dog tags, "one."
Yunho lets him steal both.
*
"I can't be there tomorrow," Yunho says over speakerphone.
Changmin turns the hair clipper off to adjust volume, scrutinizing himself in the bathroom mirror. "Okay."
"The food won't be salty enough," Yunho rambles with concern. "Don't eat any kimchi the first week and bring earplugs and also lint sheets, they keep mosquitoes away—"
Changmin angles his head to trim the last of his bangs, nicking one ear. "Okay."
"If you get lost during the midnight march," Yunho says, excessive, "and I'm not saying I got lost but there's definitely a phone box you can use to dial base except first you have to bring some acorns for the squirrel guarding it—"
Changmin glances down at his phone, malfunctioning. "I don't think that's... hyung. How many squirrels did you steal."
"Bring soup packets," Yunho says.
Changmin bites back a grin. "Okay."
Yunho pauses and then, "I'm sorry I can't be there tomorrow."
Changmin almost says as long as you're there after but only manages a deadpan, "How many squirrels, hyung."
Yunho hangs up.
*
Changmin's thinking about acorns.
Perched atop the phone box, a fat squirrel offers him an inquisitive tail tap as if to say pay up sweaty human.
Changmin leans his helmet against the pole, toying with a stupid fucking acorn, fingers ghosting over the initials carved into it, and cracks up.
*
"That one's mine."
Changmin wraps his mouth around Yunho's water bottle even harder. "Seeyunamnt."
"You do see my name on it," Yunho points out with an annoyed hand gesture, palm outstretched.
Grinning, Changmin tucks his fingers over the neatly printed yunho and pops off with a nonchalant, "It's just water, hyung."
Yunho opens his mouth then just bites his lips, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Your hair's too short."
Changmin glances at the makeup mirror behind them, full concert warpaint slathered on his face. "I don't think they'll care."
Anxious, Yunho flexes his gloved fingers, eyeliner smudged attractively. "It's our first comeback," he says warily, already four steps in the wrong direction. "They might—"
Changmin shoves the gross saliva-covered teeth-marked neck of the bottle at Yunho's shiny mouth. "Drink."
Yunho narrows his eyes, lips parting around the rim.
Disgruntled, he wraps long warm fingers around Changmin's wrists.
Which gets Changmin thinking about it.
About the distant stage bass and Yunho's pulse and Changmin's heartbeat, and how perfectly they match.
So he meets Yunho's eyes, tense and unsure, and reminds him with a cocky defensive, "You almost gave this up, hyung."
Yunho's gaze softens. He shoves off the bottle and straightens his costume, shy, apologetic, helplessly grateful. "I tried, Changmin. Just remember that."
"Yeah, hyung," Changmin grins and zips up a shiny black vest. "It was a nice try."