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ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪
It ended quietly, almost gently. Like the last page of a book you keep putting off because you know you'll miss the characters.
After years together, the eight of them sat down in a conference room at JYP and did the math. The contract was up. Chan had said it first. He always did.
"I think we've done everything we set out to do. We're allowed to rest now."
Nobody argued.
They announced it on a Tuesday. The internet lost its mind. The eight of them had already made their peace.
What came next surprised them, in the best of ways.
3RACHA founded RACHA Entertainment, a small but fiercely respected label. Within two years, three groups had debuted under them and they'd won two producer-of-the-year awards that lived in a drawer somewhere. They wanted the studio at midnight, not the stage.
Minho spent three months doing nothing at all before walking into the audition of Seoul's most prestigious contemporary dance company. He became a teacher. Exacting, occasionally terrifying, beloved.
Seungmin's ballads made people cry in the way that feels like relief. Jeongin's debut was a pop-punk record nobody saw coming and everyone immediately understood. They toured separately and were loudly, simply proud of each other.
Hyunjin packed too many canvases into a backpack and left. His Seoul exhibition sold out in forty minutes and french press didn't wait to reviewed his Paris show.
And Felix went home.
Australia was waiting with open arms and eucalyptus and salt air he hadn't realised he'd been missing every single day for a decade. He and Chan found a flat near Bondi Junction almost immediately, spacious and full of light, with a balcony where you could just about spot the ocean between the buildings on clear days.
Chan produced music in the spare bedroom he'd turned into a studio. He wore headphones six hours a day and came out for meals, sunsets, and Felix. Not necessarily in that order.
It was perhaps inevitable. Two people who'd survived the extremity of fame together, landing softly in the same quiet life. Nobody announced anything. Nobody needed to. It lived in the way Felix laughed at Chan's jokes, really laughed, bent at the waist with his hand over his mouth. It lived in the way Chan looked at him sometimes mid-sentence, like he'd just remembered something important.
There had been evenings, more than a few, with wine and Sydney's golden light, where they'd drifted together on the couch until Felix's head was on Chan's shoulder and neither of them moved away. Those evenings sometimes ended with a kiss that tasted like wine. Neither of them talked about it the next morning. Neither of them apologised either.
The words hadn't been spoken. But the shape of the thing was perfectly clear.
ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪
Chan was at his desk, headphones around his neck, when he heard the front door and the specific rustle of grocery bags that meant Felix had done a proper shop.
"I'm back!" Felix called, in that singsong way, as if Chan might have forgotten he existed in the forty-five minutes he'd been gone.
"Hey" Chan called back.
Felix appeared in the studio doorway, canvas tote on one shoulder, blond hair behind his ears, freckles catching the afternoon light.
"They were doing a sale on the good lamb," he said, pleased with himself. "And I found yakgwa at the Korean place on Oxford Street. The real stuff."
"You're a hero" Chan said, meaning it.
"I know." Felix tilted his head. "How's it going?"
"Second verse needs something. Brain's flat."
"Eat something and it'll come back. I got your crackers. The seedy ones."
"God, I love you," Chan said, automatically, easily, the way he always did. Felix smiled the way he always did when Chan said that, warmly, letting it sit between them.
"Oh." Felix pushed off the doorframe. "Did you see the group chat?"
"Not since lunch. What happened?"
"Hyunjin's exhibition." Felix's face lit up. "Here. In Sydney." A pause for effect. "And the others are coming for it."
Chan took his headphones fully off. "All of them?"
"All of them." Felix grinned. "Jeongin from Busan. Minho and Jisung from Seoul. Seungmin and Changbin too."
The smile spread slowly across Chan's face, starting somewhere behind his eyes. "We're seeing everyone. Here."
"Here," Felix confirmed.
Chan checked his phone. The group chat was moving at a pace that blurred the screen.
[SKZ 🔥🔥🔥🔥]
hyunjinnnnn: expo is a MUST TO GO and I want everyone there
minhocat: already booked. don't make it weird
doolsetnet: ITS ALREADY WEIRD I'M CRYING IN THE AIRPORT LOUNGE
CHANGBIN: jisung crying is a constant. old news
yang.jeongin: coming from busan!!! my mom packed snacks for everyone
seungminnie: she packed them for Chan specifically. we all know
CHANGBIN: ☠️☠️☠️
hyunjinnnnn: CHAN AND FELIX I NEED YOU BOTH THERE
FelixLee: we'll be there 💛
BangChan: wouldn't miss it for anything
Chan smiled at his phone for a long moment. He could hear each of them in those messages as clearly as if they were in the room. He missed them. He hadn't let himself feel how much until now.
"I need to figure out what to wear," Felix said, already drifting toward his room. "The cream linen or the dark blue. Does the blue wash me out?"
"Nothing washes you out," Chan said, but Felix had already disappeared.
Chan looked back at his screen. The mix could wait.
He looked down at himself.
Carhartt hoodie, washed grey, bought the first month in Sydney when he'd thought he might use the gym. He hadn't used the gym. Below that, black sweatpants with a drawstring he'd progressively loosened over the past year without registering he'd done it.
He stood up and walked to the bathroom.
He turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror.
Bang Chan, thirty-six years old, looked back at him.
The face was the same in its essentials, same dark eyes, same nose, same mouth, but it was rounder now. Softer. His cheeks had filled out so substantially that his jawline had almost disappeared into them, round and smooth and full, giving him the look of someone well-fed and comfortable with it. The sharp angles he'd had at twenty-six were long gone.
He pulled the hoodie off.
His arms had changed thoroughly. The muscle he'd spent years building was still somewhere underneath, but buried under a generous layer of softness that made his upper arms thick and pillowy, swaying slightly when he moved. His forearms were heavier. His shoulders had lost their definition entirely and rounded out into something plush.
His chest sat heavier on his frame, softer and fuller, and below it his stomach. He stood looking at it for a moment.
It was large. Genuinely, substantially large. It wasn't a small paunch or a bit of extra weight, it was a proper belly, round and full and heavy, hanging over his sweatpants with a comfortable authority that no amount of sucking in was going to change. He pressed his hands to his sides and felt the soft rolls at his flanks, the generous love handles that spilled over any waistband that tried to contain them. He turned sideways. The arc of his stomach curved outward dramatically, dropping with gravity in a way that was impossible to ignore, and his lower back curved inward to compensate for the new weight at his front. His backside had filled out to match, round and full, and his thighs were thick enough now that they pressed together at the top with every step he took.
He put the hoodie back on. It settled around him without complaint. The hoodie had always been a faithful companion in this.
He went to the wardrobe. He had, he quickly discovered, almost nothing that wasn't hoodies or sweatpants. He pulled out a button-down he'd loved two years ago.
First two buttons, fine. Third, effort. Fourth, the fabric pulled across his chest and the seams at his shoulders strained. He stood with the shirt hanging open over his stomach, which filled the gap entirely, and took it off.
Another shirt, larger. He got all the buttons done. The fabric stretched tight horizontally, outlining everything, buttons pulling at their holes. Wearing it in public would constitute a statement he wasn't sure he was ready to make.
He had four pairs of jeans. He hadn't worn them in eight months.
The first pair didn't get past his thighs.
The second made it to his hips and stopped there, several centimetres from closing.
The third, a looser Melbourne purchase, he wrestled into for a full minute before getting the zip most of the way and attempting the button. He pressed both sides together with both hands and held them there for five seconds of strained optimism before the back inseam split cleanly.
He stood in his room in the ruined jeans.
He knew exactly how it had happened. Late nights. His mother's cooking on visits home. Felix's insistence on proper meals. Losing Changbin as a gym companion. Ten hours a day in the studio chair. The slow, unconscious replacement of physical discipline with the genuine, simple pleasure of a life that didn't demand the constant performance of his own body.
And the food. He'd enjoyed the food. He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't.
But the reunion was in five days .... He opened his laptop and found a clothing site. He spent twenty minutes selecting things in sizes he'd never bought before, 2XL in some cuts, 3XL in others, elastic-waist trousers added with the pragmatism of someone who has recently destroyed their last pair of jeans. He checked out without looking at the total.
Then he went back to the studio, put his headphones on, and found the missing note in the second verse.
It was a low cello line. It had been there the whole time.
ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪
Hyunjin's exhibition was called Love at Every Season and occupied an entire floor of a gallery in Surry Hills.
Chan and Felix arrived twenty minutes after opening. Felix wore the dark blue shirt. Chan had been right, it didn't wash him out, nothing did.
Chan wore the new clothes: trousers in a relaxed cut that fit him without protest, and a soft olive button-up that lay flat over his chest and stomach without straining. Not the body he was used to show in public But it was his, and the shirt fit, and that was enough.
Before they'd left, he'd stood in front of the mirror too long. Felix appeared in the doorway, clocked his expression immediately, and said: "You look good. Stop making that face." And because it was Felix, Chan had exhaled and believed it. Mostly.
They found familiar shapes near a painting of the Sydney coastline.
Changbin looked good, the way he always did, someone who trained regularly and ate whatever he wanted with cheerful defiance. His arms in the fitted black t-shirt were still dense and solid. But there was a new roundness at his middle, a belly pushing against the fabric of his shirt and sitting over the waistband of his jeans with a visible, unapologetic comfort. He looked like someone who worked out but couldn't say no to take out
Seungmin stood beside him, elegant and easy, hair slightly longer than Chan remembered.
Seungmin saw them first and crossed the room in three strides, pulling Chan into a hug that was tighter than it looked.
"You're here," Seungmin said, stepping back to look at him. His eyes went to Chan's face, then dropped, a quick involuntary sweep taking in the full picture of him, the round cheeks, the broad soft frame, the belly visible even under the relaxed-fit shirt, then back up. Something small moved in his expression. "You look .... good."
"Thanks?" Chan said.
Changbin grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him once, his standard greeting. He looked Chan over with undisguised assessment, his gaze moving down from Chan's face to his chest, to his stomach, to the soft overall roundness of him, before coming back up with a grin. "Sydney is happy with you," he said. "All of Sydney, apparently."
"That's one way to put it," Chan said.
Changbin's grin widened. "It's a good way."
They moved through the gallery together, talking between the paintings. A track Chan had produced that had gone unexpectedly viral, Seungmin's drama soundtrack ballad, Changbin's catastrophic attempt at homemade gochujang.
"Inedible," Changbin admitted. "Genuinely inedible. I'm going to try again."
Chan laughed and felt the months of distance dissolving.
The gift shop had the energy of a controlled disaster.
Minho was wearing a cat-ear headband with the absolute conviction of someone who considers their appearance entirely their own business. Jisung stood beside him wearing springy pom-pom eyes on his head, examining himself in the display mirror with complete seriousness.
"The pom-pom ones are more versatile," Jisung was explaining. "You could build a whole look around..."
He looked up.
The sound he made was not a word. It was approximately between a scream and a sob and it came out at a volume that made people in the next room look up.
"CHANNIE HYUNG!"
Minho turned. He took in all four of them in the doorway and his face did the rare thing, opened, unguarded, warm.
Then Jisung was across the shop and wrapping around Chan with the full-body commitment of someone making up for years of missed hugs at once. Chan staggered back half a step, laughing. He was dimly aware that he made a more substantial landing target than he used to, and that Jisung had made a small surprised noise on impact that he was politely not mentioning.
"You're so..." Jisung started, muffled against Chan's shoulder.
"Don't" said Minho, calmly.
Jisung pulled back, eyes bright. "I was going to say here. You're so here." He beamed. His eyes traveled down and back up with the guilelessness of someone who has never successfully hidden a thought. "You look cozy, hyung."
"Cozy" Chan repeated.
"I meant it nicely."
"I know you did."
Minho hung the cat-ear headband back up with ceremonial care and walked over to Chan. He looked at him for a moment with that precise, fifteen-year gaze that saw more than it let on, then pulled him into a brief, tight hug. "You look good," he said into Chan's shoulder. He stepped back and added, at normal volume: "Wider. But good."
"Minho" Felix said.
"I said good" Minho said. He turned to Felix. "You look exactly the same. It's offensive."
"Skincare," Felix said.
"I hate you," Minho said, warmly.
Minho's gaze moved to Changbin, who was studying a print behind them with studied nonchalance.
"Dwaekki," Minho said.
Changbin turned. "Don't."
"You've got a little something." Minho gestured vaguely toward Changbin's middle. "A little extra. Stress-eating again?"
Changbin pointed at him. "I will put you back in the cat ears."
"Go ahead. I looked incredible."
"He ate too much samgyeopsal," Jisung informed the room. "I watched it happen. Over several years."
"You ate more than me every single time," Changbin said.
"Hummingbird metabolism," Minho said. "Scientifically unfair."
Chan laughed, and felt briefly, gratefully aware that Changbin's extra weight had absorbed the room's attention in a way that had quietly taken the pressure off himself. He was privately aware that his own stomach considerably outpaced Changbin's, that there was a clear scale here and he was at one definitive end of it. He was also aware that nobody in this room was going to say so out loud.
He was hungry, he realised. He'd been nervous this morning and barely eaten.
Good. The restaurant was next.
ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪
The Korean BBQ restaurant had been privatised for the evening. Eight chairs around a grill table in the back room, the exhaust fan humming overhead, the smell of charcoal and sesame reaching back into Chan's muscle memory.
Hyunjin and Jeongin were waiting outside. Hyunjin's hair was long and dark and he moved with his usual unconscious elegance. Jeongin had grown further into himself, steadier, older, still that same brightness held more securely now.
When Hyunjin saw all six of them round the corner together, he put a hand over his mouth.
"Oh," he said. "All of you."
Jeongin walked forward without a word and worked his way down the row of them, making sure each one was real. When he got to Chan he held on a moment longer.
"Hyung," he said quietly
Jeongin pulled back and looked at him properly. Not the quick polite glance the others had managed, a real look, the kind he'd always been capable of. His eyes moved over Chan fully, the round soft face, the broad frame, the belly that pushed visibly at the front of his shirt with undeniable presence, before coming back up to his face.
"I missed you," Jeongin said. Nothing else.
"Me too," Chan said. "A lot."
Hyunjin took Chan's shoulders in both hands and looked at him with an expression working hard to appear casual. His gaze slipped down, just once, taking in the full soft roundness of him, the way Chan occupied space differently now than he ever had, and came back up with something that looked like genuine, uncomplicated warmth. "You look so good," Hyunjin said, and meant it.
"The exhibition was incredible," Chan said, letting the deflection happen.
Hyunjin's face transformed completely "Did you see all of the painting?"
And they were in, and they were talking, and the last of the morning's dread dissolved.
At first it was typical small talk , how they were doing , how's life treating them , Minho and Jisung deciding to go to Sydney three days ealier than planned to get married , The funny routine of Hyunjin and Seungmin living together but Changbin living only 5 meters away from them so it was mostly all three of them and two appartements , just basic informations
The grill fired up. The first meat went on.
"You look great, hyung," Jisung said, looking at Chan with his head tilted. "You look like a person who eats. Regularly. Consistently." He paused. "With real enthusiasm."
"Thanks... i guess ?" Chan said.
"I meant it as a compliment!"
"He looks happy," Jeongin said, from the other end of the table, with a quiet finality that should have closed the subject.
It did not close the subject.
What followed was two hours of the most coordinated, deniable, entirely loving overfeeding Chan had ever experienced.
It started with Changbin. He reached over for the tongs, flipped a piece of pork belly on the grill, and slid it onto Chan's plate. "This one's done," he said. "It'll get cold."
"I have–"
"Eat it."
Minho refilled his soju glass without being asked. When Chan reached for a finished piece of meat, Minho got there first with the tongs and transferred it to Chan's plate with the efficiency of someone who had thought about this. "Eat," Minho said pleasantly.
"I am eating."
"More."
"You've been sitting in a Sydney studio," Seungmin observed, from across the table, in the same tone as commenting on mild weather. He added a portion of japchae to Chan's plate. "Probably not eating properly."
"Felix makes sure I eat properly."
"Felix is too nice," Changbin said, loading more meat onto the grill. "He lets you have crackers for dinner."
"That was one time," Felix said, without looking up.
"How often do you skip breakfast?" Jeongin asked, with the innocence of someone asking an entirely academic question.
"I don't—"
Jeongin placed a perfect piece of grilled pork onto Chan's plate.
Hyunjin selected the best-looking piece from the centre of the grill, placed it on Chan's plate with care, and said: "You're running a whole label. You need to keep your strength up." He said it with the gentle certainty of someone stating an obvious fact about the weather.
Chan looked at his plate, which had accumulated significantly more food than he'd put there himself. He looked around the table. Seven faces looked back at him with varying degrees of innocence.
"What" he said.
"Nothing," Jisung said, and added one more piece. "You're our leader. We want you healthy."
"Jisung. What does healthy mean to you right now, specifically."
Jisung pointed at Chan's plate. "It means eat that."
Chan ate it. It was very good. He'd been hungrier than he'd admitted to himself.
The conversation kept moving. Jisung and Minho's courthouse wedding, the cats in bow ties, the registrar's bewildered face. Hyunjin and Seungmin's two-and-a-half years that everyone had known about and nobody had technically confirmed until now. Changbin, who had apparently told Seungmin first, maintaining that he'd been helpful about the whole thing.
Chan laughed, genuinely, until his shoulders shook.
When the conversation circled toward him, he was on his third plate. He hadn't entirely planned the third plate, but Jeongin had quietly put more on the grill in front of him, and Minho had topped up his glass again, and it had seemed ungrateful not to.
"Tell us about you," Jisung said. "Not the label. You."
"I'm good" Chan said. He glanced at Felix across the table. "Really good, actually."
Nobody pushed. They nodded, and Minho made a sound of satisfaction, and Jeongin reached over and placed the last piece of beef from the serving plate onto Chan's plate with a quiet, deliberate gesture that said everything without saying anything.
Chan looked at it. He laughed softly to himself.
"Your hair looks incredible," Hyunjin said. "When did you start doing it like that?"
"Recently," Chan said, touching the back of his neck.
"It works" Seungmin confirmed.
"You look good, hyung," Changbin said, meeting his eyes directly. "Happy looks good on you." A beat. "All of you."
Seungmin raised his glass. "To our idiot old leader."
"To Chan-hyung," Jeongin said immediately, with feeling.
"To Chan-hyung," the rest of them said, in the overlapping, slightly out-of-sync way of people who spent years doing everything together.
Chan raised his glass. Something that had been wound tight since he'd stood in front of his bathroom mirror unwound slowly in his chest.
He was recognised here. Every one of them looked at him and saw Bang Chan. Not the weight, not the change. Just him, the way they always had.
He accepted a fourth portion when Jeongin offered it without making it a statement.
He laughed until his face hurt.
ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪
The Uber home was quiet in the comfortable way that follows a long, full evening.
Chan sat with his hands resting on his stomach, which was pressing against his waistband with a firmness that left no room for ambiguity. The button had been doing its best for the past hour. He respected its commitment.
"You okay?" Felix asked, from beside him, the ghost of a smile already there.
"I'm full," Chan said.
"You're very full."
"Felix. I ate four plates."
"I counted," Felix said. "Jeongin put food on your plate nine separate times."
"Minho did it at least four. And Hyunjin gave me his own portion at one point, I saw him do it."
"He was smooth about it," Felix said, appreciatively. "You almost missed it."
"I'm going to explode," Chan said.
"You're not going to explode."
"I'm genuinely not sure about that." He pressed his hands against his stomach, which was round and taut and enormous, and exhaled slowly. "Why did nobody stop them."
"Because you kept eating," Felix said, reasonably.
"Because they kept putting it in front of me!"
"Because they love you," Felix said simply. "That's all that was."
Chan went quiet. He looked out at Sydney sliding past the window, the orange glow of streetlights. He thought about Jeongin and the tongs, Minho's refilled glass, Changbin's carefully casual piece of pork belly. Seven people, quietly, continuously, collectively making sure their leader ate enough.
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
They got home.
Chan made it through the front door and stopped in the entrance hall, hands pressed to his middle, taking stock. The trousers were not comfortable. They had not been comfortable for some time. His stomach felt round and heavy and genuinely enormous under his palms.
"Right," Felix said, appearing beside him. "You need to not be wearing those trousers anymore."
"Accurate," Chan said.
Felix took him gently by the elbow and steered him toward the bedroom, easy and matter-of-fact, the way he'd always known what Chan needed before Chan had worked it out himself. He undid the button at Chan's waist, which released with something close to audible relief, and helped him step out of the trousers without comment.
Chan pulled the olive shirt over his head himself and dropped it on the chair. He stood in the middle of the room in just his boxers.
His stomach was very round. Very full. Even rounder than it usually was, which was already quite round. It curved out in front of him, soft and heavy, sitting over the waistband of his boxers with a weight that was simply and entirely present.
Felix turned back from hanging up the trousers and looked at him.
He didn't look away.
"Better?" he asked.
"Much better," Chan said.
Felix picked up the soft jersey shorts from the end of the bed where Chan had left them that morning and handed them over. While Chan stepped into them, Felix sat on the bed and watched him with an expression that was open and calm and didn't try to be anything else.
"You're staring," Chan said.
"I am," Felix agreed.
"Why?"
Felix thought about it for a moment, the honest way he thought about things that deserved honesty. "I don't see you like this very often," he said. "Without the hoodie. You spend a lot of time under a lot of fabric."
"For reasons," Chan said.
"Yeah. I know." Felix paused. "Come here."
Chan sat down on the bed beside him. Felix shifted, turning toward him slightly, and then placed one hand, warm and light, on Chan's stomach.
Chan went still.
Felix moved his hand in a slow easy circle, gentle and unhurried, and Chan felt the tightness ease almost immediately, the pressure redistributing into something more manageable.
"Okay?" Felix asked.
"Yeah" Chan said. Quieter than intended. "Yeah, that helps."
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"You were nervous today" Felix said.
"A bit."
"Is it beceause about how you look ?"
"About what they'd think," Chan said to the ceiling. "About whether they'd... I don't know."
Chan thought about Changbin's grin and all of Sydney, apparently. Jeongin's long honest look followed by I missed you. Hyunjin's surprised warmth. Minho's wider, but good, which had been the most honest thing anyone said all evening and somehow the easiest thing to hear.
"They were them," he said. "Exactly them."
His hand kept moving, slow and warm. Chan closed his eyes.
"I like it," Felix said, after a moment. Quietly. Matter-of-factly.
Chan opened his eyes and looked at him.
Felix met his gaze without flinching. "How you look. Right now." His eyes moved over Chan without hurry, the round soft face, the heavy arms, the belly under his hand, full and warm. "I've liked it for a while. I know you don't always. I know you stand in front of the mirror too long sometimes." He paused.
Chan stared at him.
"Also," Felix added, with a small smile working at the corner of his mouth, "you're extremely warm. Particularly in winter."
"That's not—"
"Objectively cuddly," Felix continued, undeterred. "Measurably."
"Felix."
"I'm just saying" Felix said, and the smile had won entirely now, warm and private, the one he kept just for the two of them.
Chan looked at him. The freckles, the easy smile, the hand still resting warm on his stomach like it was the most natural place in the world to put it.
Something settled in his chest that had been waiting a long time to settle
Outside, Sydney settled into its late evening. Distant city noise. The faint sound of the ocean two streets away.
Chan was full. He was warm. He'd been seen by all of them, really seen, and loved anyway. By the ones who'd made jokes and the ones who'd said nothing and the one sitting right here with his hand on Chan's stomach like there was nowhere else it belonged.
"Felix" he said.
"Yeah?"
"Don't move."
Felix smiled. He didn't move.
Chan closed his eyes.
At peace. Entirely.