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Red flashes in his periphery as the railroad crossing gate drops. Red, then white. It’s the first snow of the year and Seungcheol is standing on the other side of unfamiliar train tracks, wondering when a town once so familiar turned into something unrecognizable.
Ah, but Seungcheol’s the one that’s changed the most, isn’t he?
The town he once grew up in, now so foreign, still welcomes him with open arms, albeit behind closed doors and hoods pulled over his head.
It’s still snowing when the gate lifts. His eyes widen when he looks up, meeting another pair so familiar.
“Jihoon-ah.”
Jihoon tilts his head—shaved, like it was when he left—and nods once. “Coups hyung.”
He once called him by his name. Now Seungcheol is more familiar with a monicker to strangers in the voice of one of his closest friends.
“I thought you’d be in Seoul for your break,” he says eventually, when Jihoon stands hardly a meter across from him than on the other side of the tracks. “Soonyoung’s been talking about getting everyone together for a monthly meeting.”
Jihoon shrugs. “I have a few more days of leave. Mingyu said you came back for the weekend, so.”
Mingyu hasn’t talked to Seungcheol in a week, actually. He brought it up with Jeonghan, who offered him a sympathetic smile and then threatened to kick him out if he didn’t go figure it out. He’s surprised Mingyu even knows about his whereabouts, let alone is updating the other members of them.
Is updating Jihoon on where he is.
“So,” Seungcheol echoes quietly, shoving his hands in his pockets. Winter fell later this year, and with the next leg of the tour still chasing them on their heels, the wind feels colder when it blows. He’s on the tail end of a cold he picked up from their last concert in Japan and his grandma’s always chided him on how the fresh cold air would do him good, but all he feels is the weight of his bones and the path ahead.
Jihoon’s stare is equally heavy. Seungcheol doesn’t know what to say to him.
“You’ve been around Daegu before?”
Jihoon snorts, warm and familiar, leaning forward like he’s going to nudge Seungcheol. Like he nudges Soonyoung sometimes, when he’s pretending that he’s indulging him and not ridiculously infatuated.
Seungcheol’s happy for them, he really is. The snow’s just making him a little nostalgic.
“You were the one who showed us all around,” he points out, lifting his hands from his pockets to point at a random cafe. “Come on, it’s cold outside.”
Seungcheol blindly follows him into the cafe. He just got back from meeting a childhood friend at one and doesn’t necessarily need any more caffeine, but it’s been so long since he’s hung out with Jihoon without other obligations that he knows he’ll regret it if he declines.
Jihoon gets a diet coke. Seungcheol picks at a chocolate bun and wishes they weren’t out of the melon kind.
It feels a little silly to ask his oldest friend how he’s been. But, for the first time in nearly two decades, Jihoon is doing something Seungcheol has never done—and will never do.
“How is training?” is only marginally better, but Seungcheol chokes it out.
Jihoon tilts his head, considering. The snow picks up outside and Seungcheol wonders if he should start looking for taxis now, for both of them to head back. “It’s not like anything we’ve done before.”
Seungcheol doesn’t know what to say. He’s not sure he has the words to talk to Jihoon the way he did when they were kids, even if he’s never meant more to him.
“When we were younger, even as trainees, there was always an end goal.” He sets his can down. “There’s no end goal to this, no? We train and we train, and we hope we’ll never be ready.”
Like training to never debut.
Maybe it’s because it was their anniversary year, but Seungcheol’s been thinking about their trainee days more lately. Jihoon is a prominent feature in all of his most vibrant memories, saturated even against those green walls.
“It’s hard though,” he offers.
“It’s hard, of course it is,” Jihoon agrees immediately, nodding. A quirk he’s always had. “But what isn’t? We were kids when we trained and there were always so many rules.”
Jihoon was always better at following them.
“But your life wasn’t on the line.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. Another two years of this, and then we go back to that. I’ll miss the music.”
Will you miss me, Seungcheol stops himself from asking. He knows better than to be so cruel.
“Soonyoung says you guys got leave together.” He licks the chocolate cream from his lips. “He’s doing okay too?”
Jihoon chuckles. “He’s probably better at this than I am, no? He did taekwondo when he was younger and all that.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” Seungcheol presses the napkin to his lips.
Jihoon hesitates, tilting his head curiously and opening his mouth to speak before his lips ultimately part around a different word. “Hyung, your lips, really—”
Seungcheol turns red. “Yah!”
Jihoon just throws his head back and laughs. The cafe is empty—it doesn’t matter what he says. It’s a space out of time, and this conversation might as well be one they had ten years ago.
Eight years ago. Thirteen years ago.
They’ve had a lifetime together. Jihoon will always be core memory at the center of it all.
“No, seriously, didn’t the fans catch you buying lip balm too? You always look like you just got back from kissing someone.”
He doesn’t know what inspires him to say it. In-divine intervention, perhaps. “I kissed you, once.”
Jihoon doesn’t blush, just makes a face. It’s so different from how expressive he gets when Soonyoung starts acting up. “Come on, that barely counts.”
It counts for me, Seungcheol thinks. Does barely mean it doesn’t for you?
Then, the quieter, meaner voice in his head: does it count if it’s Soonyoung?
“Hyung, did you and Mingyu fight? Jeonghan hyung’s been complaining that he’s come home to Mingyu sulking in his apartment a lot—and I know you guys are preparing for the unit concerts—”
Ah, he really doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes two people grow so close that they come out on the other end of each other.
All this time, he was so sure Jihoon was the one who’d changed. But he’s sitting in front of him, talking about their friends, their work, their dream, like it’s what means the most to him.
“Ah, it’s nothing.” He waves it off. “We’ve just spent so much time together lately that we’re both a little sensitive.”
Jihoon raises an eyebrow. “Really? Thought you always had a soft spot for him.”
This has always meant the most to him—the cooperation, the music, the members. He’s more pragmatic than the rest of them.
Seungcheol’s the one that’s changed.