Chapter Text
*
we really could’ve had it all
*
The vibration of the roaring applause rings incessantly in Jaehyun’s ear, reminding him of the stubborn cicadas during summer.
“ONE MORE! ONE MORE!”
Jaehyun’s pretty sure that he’s not in the field at the moment—he doesn’t even know where he is at the moment—but he couldn’t leave this space where the audience is waiting for him to make one more strike. One more, he thinks, and they would have won the penalty kick. One more, he tells himself, and this is it. The Championship would finally be theirs—his.
Then the applause fades and the smoke clears and then he sees the face of the player dashing towards the ball, and it’s not his.
It takes a while for Jaehyun to realise it, but this doesn’t seem to be a dream about him.
*
This drug they put him on feels like it’s making Jaehyun’s headache worse, so he had to call a nurse to help him with his afternoon dosages and also to complain about the noise in the children’s ward downstairs.
“We’re so sorry about the commotion,” Nurse Park says. “We were informed that the singer who would be coming is quite popular, but we had no idea he was that popular.”
“Right,” Jaehyun nods, massaging his temples. He has been warded for close to a month now, having injured his ankles right after missing the crucial goal in the Asian Cup finals, barely making any dent in his recovery process. It doesn’t help that there has been talks about letting him take all his time to also heal all latent injuries accumulated from his almost 20 years of athletic career before taking it slow as he heads towards retirement, something that Jaehyun was vehemently opposed to in the beginning, but is now coming to terms with.
“Is that person someone I know?” Jaehyun asks after finishing his cup of water. “Not that I know them, but I could have met them during those press tours or something.” He doesn’t go any further to explain, plus Nurse Park has probably seen a lot more celebrities than he had, but the sports media did used to call him the Beckham of Asia—in that he’s a lot more about his looks than about his skills, something that the Sports Ministry happily exploits.
“Oh it’s this guy named Yuta—a rockstar,” Nurse Park tells him with a barely-concealed giggle. “Apparently his popularity skyrocketed after making an opening song for this anime that the kids in our pediatrics ward really like, and you know, I saw him just now. He’s really beautiful.”
Jaehyun still feels a little groggy, otherwise this new information might have gagged him into spilling all the pills he just swallowed.
“Yuta?”
“Yes, you know him?”
“I know a few,” Jaehyun admits, vaguely recalling some few model Yutas he had tipsily kissed during those entertainment award shows his sponsors invited him to. He doesn’t remember if any of them had demonstrated penchants for rock music befitting anime openings, though it wasn’t like he had spent enough time with them to find out.
“Well he’s leaving in a while now, so you can get your rest soon,” Nurse Park says as she tucks him in. “Good news is that he’s coming back in two days, so maybe I’ll arrange for you to be there as well? The kids would be so happy!”
“Some change of environment would be nice, so yes,” Jaehyun says sleepily. “But first I need this,” he raises a finger to his temple and makes a swirling motion, “to go away.”
Nurse Park laughs as she exits his ward. “I’ll take care of that.”
*
Whatever Nurse Park gave him has got to be illegal, but Jaehyun convinces himself that it’s not a big deal since it really does make those persistent headaches go away. It’s not even like he’s unfamiliar with unauthorised drugs, it’s just that he usually doesn’t see them being used outside of competitive contexts.
He’s really grateful regardless, because he can now see for himself who that rockstar Yuta is and it’s, thankfully, not someone he had ever kissed at parties.
The nurses initially wanted to introduce him after Yuta finishes his acoustic session, but Jaehyun declined, saying that he would prefer to go with the flow and just relax with his crutch in the background. Nurse Park wasn’t really convinced, until he explained that he didn’t feel like stealing the attention from someone he doesn’t really know. She explained that Yuta was already informed about him and that he really wouldn’t mind Jaehyun crashing into his mini-fanmeeting, but respected Jaehyun’s decision anyway.
Jaehyun now knows that he was wrong about not knowing Yuta, but he wasn’t wrong about wanting to step back and not interrupt his show, because he could now take his time to admire how his high school classmate and fellow soccer teammate has evolved so much and yet changed so little.
Unlike during high school, Yuta seems to have fully embraced some sort of androgynous style, letting his velvety hair shine to his shoulder and sporting soft tints of blush over his cheeks and eyes while boasting his luscious lips with a deep red hue. He’s more than just beautiful, Jaehyun feels, because something about the way Yuta looks right now projects some kind of indescribably radiant glow and Jaehyun’s struggling to find words to accurately represent his feelings.
“Oh, Jay is here!!!”
The kid who called out to him is this boy who sometimes lurks around his ward, apparently his dad is a fan, and Jaehyun tries to shush him up but he’s too late. The kids all now turn towards him and start talking excitedly with each other about how this is the best day ever, because they have two superstars coming to visit them and are all starting to scramble to find anything that they could get “Jay” to sign.
Jaehyun suddenly feels a little nervous and starts using his hands to calm the excited crowd of kids, wondering if Yuta would be offended that he barged into his show like that, but then he looks up and sees Yuta smiling at him.
He smiles back a few seconds later, feeling like his heart stopped pulsing when their eyes met, but knowing that he would have a lot to catch up with his old friend.
*
Jaehyun finds himself quite incapable of taking his eyes off Yuta—thanks in no part to his gorgeous, gorgeous makeup—and mentally comparing him to the Yuta who used to practice soccer with him after school.
Unlike the famous superstar now sipping iced americano in front of him, Yuta as his classmate was a picture of boyish sportiness: short hair trimmed below his ears, always meticulously clean-shaven but a little rough on the edges, sharp jaws and tough expressions. Yuta as a rockstar, on the other hand, exudes the air of poise and elegance, as though it’s meant to silently challenge the boisterousness of his music.
“So,” Jaehyun starts a little awkwardly, “what brought you here?”
“Well, my company arranged it…”
“Oh.”
“I kid,” Yuta laughs. “A boy with leukemia wrote a fanletter to my radio show, and I thought it would be good to come and visit him. My company initially didn’t want to, because it’s so close to my national tour dates, but I told them it would be good publicity.”
“I see,” Jaehyun replies. All that poise and elegance aside, he’s still the realistic, practical Yuta he knew from high school. “Pretty sure you just changed his life.”
“I hope so,” Yuta smiles, in a way that makes Jaehyun’s heart skip a few beats. He doesn’t really remember if Yuta was ever that good at charming people, though he still recalls the way his locker was always full of chocolates during Valentines.
“You?”
“Me?” Jaehyun says, pointing to himself. “Oh well, I’m here as a patient.”
“I figured,” Yuta says, his eyes taking a quick glance at the crutch that Jaehyun’s using. “Is it because your back is acting up again?”
Yuta’s referring to that time during second year in high school when he had to be taken for physical therapy for some back injury, but that hadn’t been an issue for a long time. “No,” Jaehyun says, “it’s my ankle, sprained and stretched my ligament quite a bit.”
“Oh,” Yuta says, nodding politely, “that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Well, yeah, it isn’t, really,” Jaehyun answers. “It’s just that the ankle injury got the doctors to find out that the knee joints and the tendons are suffering pretty badly, and it won’t recover unless I rest for at least a month.”
“Wow,” Yuta sighs. “Everything adds up, don’t they?”
“Yeah, they do,” Jaehyun shrugs. “But it gave me a chance to meet you again.”
Yuta obviously hadn’t expected it, because Jaehyun thinks he saw a fresh streak of subtle blush flashing across his cheeks as he tilts downwards. It’s cute, he thinks, how Yuta’s still so shy after all the years of fame, and he has an inkling that he prefers this version of Yuta just a little more than the high school version of him.
Perhaps it could be a crush, Jaehyun thinks, but perhaps it’s also just both of them being flustered by their unexpected reunion.
“Do you mind if I,” Yuta says when they part, “come again?”
“Yeah, of course, the kids would—”
“To see you.” Yuta interrupts. His tone is definite but rushed, as though he was in a hurry to say it out.
Jaehyun heaves before giving him a knowing nod.
“Of course,” he says. “I love visitors.”
*
Jaehyun was pretty sure that he had never kissed Yuta before, but his dreams are saying otherwise. He was also pretty sure that it was triggered by having Yuta reappear in his life, and yet he couldn’t tell what was it that he was supposed to have realised, especially when the dreams are stubbornly revolving around the Valentine’s Day of his last year of high school, the year he very clearly remembered having rejected a girl who was a freshman in his school.
It’s been a few days of repeated visions, all appearing through connected flashes of memories and truncated conversations, each day unearthing another deep-buried recollection until Jaehyun’s pretty sure that it’s corrupting his actual memories.
He had lived his life thus far remembering a few key details of what happened that day: that the girl’s name was Julia and she was a cousin of Hana’s from his class; that it happened after the soccer practice where he was told that his chances at the sports scholarship got decreased by 10% after an abysmal performance in the regionals; and that he almost burst out in anger after returning back to his classroom to pick up his bag because his classmates have prepared a small birthday celebration for him.
He wasn't a very good sport back then, which was why to this day he still berated himself for leaving school almost immediately without allowing his classmates to actually celebrate it. As far as he could remember, the day ended with him reluctantly entertaining them by blowing the candles then excusing himself and before he knew it, he was lying in his bed in his dirty uniform until his mom nagged him into taking a shower.
Jaehyun didn’t like that that was how his last birthday during high school went the way it did, which was why he supposed he tried his best to suppress all the bad memories of that day. It didn’t matter in the long run anyway, considering that he later did get the sports scholarship after all—though he had long suspected that he was only offered it because someone else rejected it—and Julia also later got together with someone from her own class.
That should have been the end of it, except his dreams are suggesting with every incremental clarity that there was a lot more after that. A lot more went on after he walked out of his classroom and headed towards the school gate, and there was someone else with him. Someone else who chased after him and walked along with him to the train station, with a small pack of chocolates in his hand. Someone who said something to him just as they reached the train station, something that caused him to stand still for almost a full minute before going in for a kiss. Someone who definitely didn’t reject the kiss, someone who definitely wasn’t Julia or any other girl—
—someone who, apparently, looked like a much younger, boyish version of the rockstar who had just performed at the hospital he’s recuperating at.
*
The next time Jaehyun meets Yuta at the hospital cafe, he’s draped in the dullest tone of grey with a pair of old glasses and his hair tied in a very messy bun. To the untrained eyes, he could probably even pass for a homeless woman, but Jaehyun would recognise those eyes anywhere.
“That’s a lot of work put into appearing unrecognisable,” Jaehyun teases when he places his crutch next to the chair he’s sitting on. “You should have just come into my ward, I’ll tell the hospital staff to let you in.”
“Oh, no, it’s alright,” Yuta says, fumbling around with his glasses. It’s pretty clear that they don’t belong to him, and Jaehyun tries to stop himself from mentally guessing who he could have borrowed them from.
“So,” Jaehyun asks, “how was your tour?”
“It was pretty great,” Yuta answers. “My voice went hoarse for a little bit after all the shouting, but I dealt with it as usual.”
“Then you should have just come later after you’re rested,” Jaehyun laughs, then nods at the cafeteria staff who presented him with a bagel and a cup of mint tea. “I don’t think I’m leaving anytime soon.”
“Leaving where?”
“Well, leaving the ward,” Jaehyun shrugs. “I don’t think I will be able to return to form, so I think I should just stay here until I figure out a plan.”
“But—oh,” Yuta looks like his question got redirected halfway, as though just remembering how the lifespan of an athlete differs from that of a rockstar. Arguably, Jaehyun thinks, it could have been almost similar, except Yuta must have gone to great lengths to maintain his youth and his energy level, at least from the concert videos he had been watching for the past week or so.
The overdosage of Yuta through the concert videos could also be one of the reasons why his dreams are also inadvertently peppered with flashes of him, but at the moment Jaehyun’s too busy in awe of the disparities in their career trajectory to worry about anything else.
“We are not that old, you know,” Yuta laughs in a way that shows even the best disguises could never conceal his beauty. “I still think I’m just starting out.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Jaehyun answers. Maybe he should hold back a little more than to trauma dump on an old classmate like this, especially since they haven’t really kept in touch in so long. “Still a long way to go.”
“I asked my manager about your condition, and he showed me the news from your injury,” Yuta says, slowly and nervously, as though he’s about to make a proposition. Jaehyun thinks he should find it slightly abrupt that Yuta is moving this soon, but those dreams must have been messing with his mental acuity.
“To be honest with you, I don’t think it’s that serious,” Jaehyun admits. “It’s just that I’m also preparing for retirement—”
“—I know of an orthopedic surgeon from Canada who might be able to help,” Yuta finishes while gulping his saliva. “He’s a really good friend of mine and he’s one of the top specialists in this field, so I was thinking I could introduce you to him.”
Jaehyun snickers for a little as he drinks a sip of his rapidly-cooling tea, then asks.
“Your ex-boyfriend?”
Yuta’s eyes quiver a little, seemingly still hesitating to look at Jaehyun directly.
“Yes,” he whispers after an awkward second. “He wanted to marry me, but that was quite a long time ago. We are still good friends, don’t worry.”
Jaehyun knows that he shouldn’t be prying into Yuta’s life lovelives, especially since he’s been keeping such a low profile through his life in the limelight, but something in him suddenly feels entitled to details of Yuta’s relationship with this Canadian orthopedic surgeon: how did you know him, where did you know him, when did you guys start dating, why did you guys break up, and most of all, how do you guys still remain friends.
“I didn’t think you would need to see an orthopedic surgeon,” Jaehyun chooses to tease instead. “Unless it was something that you got from high school when you were still playing soccer.”
“A friend introduced us,” he answers in a definite tone, signalling an abrupt end to the questions. “So you’ll see him?”
“Yeah, I would,” Jaehyun says, deciding to accept the offer. “Except I don’t think it’s recommended for me to travel.”
“He’s here in the city for a conference,” Yuta says, now smiling brightly after hearing Jaehyun’s acceptance. “I’ll get him to contact this hospital and make arrangements.”
“Alright.”
“I need to go now,” Yuta excuses himself, fixing his glasses for another time as he keeps his wallet and phone in his bag.
“Is this why you asked to see me a week ago?”
“Oh, no,” Yuta replies. “I didn’t know he was here until he contacted me yesterday, so I talked to him and he agreed to help you out.”
“Then you wanted to see me because…?”
Hearing that, Yuta burst into laughter.
“Is there something wrong with wanting to catch up with an old friend?”
Jaehyun laughs along, then gives Yuta a tiny fist bump as he makes his way to the exit, just like the old times. He doesn’t really recognise what he’s feeling at the moment, this combination of slight unearned jealousy along with nosiness and a tinge of gratitude that Yuta’s reappearing back in his life, but also a wave of unfathomable disappointment that it had taken so long for them to reconnect.
It’s like something is about to end, or at least from the way Yuta’s making efforts to help ease his journey into career retirement, and something inside Jaehyun rears its ugly head and he suddenly feels like he’s not about to let this happen on Yuta’s term.
“Hey,” he calls to Yuta at the lobby, just before Yuta gets in this luxuriously expensive-looking car, “a moment?”
Yuta signals for his driver to park somewhere near the valet service podium and walks towards Jaehyun.
“Yes?”
“I, er,” it’s now Jaehyun’s time to be nervous. “Have been having dreams about us.”
“About us?”
“Yeah, about that Valentine’s day, you know, when the class tried to surprise me and I walked out and all.” Recalling it in his dreams is one thing, but having to retell it verbally still makes Jaehyun’s stomach spill a fresh blob of bile into the inner linings. “And well. Apparently you walked me to the train station and stuff.”
Yuta now holds his arm, probably to stabilise him, but Jaehyun appreciates the gesture regardless. The touch itself is nowhere nearly enough to send shockwaves to stop his heart completely, but it makes the hair on his skin stand and his dreams start to solidify themselves into vividness.
“We kissed, didn’t we?”
Yuta’s brows furrow for a moment, as though deliberating his answer. Jaehyun suddenly feels a pang of regret for having asked the question, because he’s fairly certain that this would definitely make Yuta retract his offer to introduce the orthopedic surgeon to him.
“We did,” Yuta answers. “But it’s been so long, I got over it.”
He answers it so casually, so smoothly, as though the impact of it had really dissipated into speckles of high school stories, something to be told as an anecdote rather than an origin story. To Jaehyun, on the other hand, it’s now resurfacing as a hidden memory, something he had kept buried down in his mind so deeply that he didn’t know how to react to it.
He stays in the hospital lobby until Nurse Park ushers him back into his ward, for the first time in his life willing himself into staying awake for the night because he doesn’t know if he could bear to face whatever his dreams will present him later.
He couldn’t bear with them anymore because he now knows what happened next—and it was a rejection so bad that it altered the courses of his love life for the past 20 years, and despite knowing that it wasn’t Yuta’s fault that things ended the way it did, Jaehyun knows that something inside him still blames him for it.
After all, Yuta was the one who initiated it, he pushed into the kiss—just to run away after, never once acknowledging it ever again.
It was him, all this time, and Jaehyun just realised that he repressed the whole thing because he didn’t want to hate him.
It pains him to admit that he still holds a candle to him after all these years.
After 20 years.
Fuck, Jaehyun hisses, once again shaking himself awake.
I’m still in love with him.
*