After Super Junior, Kyuhyun and Jongwoon live together, testing every possible limit to their relationship and watching as everything crumbles to pieces.

(See the end of the work for more notes)

I. Denouement

Of all the Super Junior members, Jongwoon hadn’t expected to stay with Kyuhyun post-band breakup. Actually, he never really expected to stay with anyone—he’d thought that he’d be on his own, alone, no one to be with, no one to talk to. Instead he’s with a man three years younger than him, a man whom he’s known well for the past several years, a man with very little respect and far too much free time, a man with a quick mind and an honest heart to boot.

In retrospect, Jongwoon figures that the only reason they’re staying together is because they both have their own solo careers as singers. Of course, Ryeowook has his solo career too—but on top of that he’s running a restaurant and also enjoys people’s company far too much to consider having less than two roommates. Kyuhyun and Jongwoon aren’t one of these types of people—Jongwoon had thought Kyuhyun would be, but apparently he’s not.

He hadn’t even chosen Kyuhyun, anyways. Kyuhyun hadn’t chosen him either. It had been a mutual thing: when they had left, they had moved in together. There wasn’t any conversation or dispute over it—it just sort of happened. At least, that’s what Jongwoon has always known.

Kyuhyun comes home around five in the afternoon. It’s the normal thing, the daily routine—wake up at six, say brief hellos, have a small, quiet breakfast and then leave around six thirty. It’s what they’ve grown to be used to. Sometimes they’ll be a little early, other times late—but it’s not like either of them know because they don’t go to the same place.

When Kyuhyun arrives, Jongwoon’s already in the kitchen, fixing himself up a little dinner. His schedule is a little less busy today, so he decides that he can have a bit of time for himself. Cook something from scratch for once, rather than the takeout they usually have (sometimes not even together, since occasionally Kyuhyun will come around nine, or maybe Jongwoon will return at one in the morning. They don’t tell each other—but they expect each other to come home some time.)

“Hi,” Jongwoon says from behind the marble counter, turning to the front door where Kyuhyun is busy taking his shoes off. “Feel like fish tonight?” He indicates the large bass he’s chopping up on a wood board; he had learned a few things from Ryeowook back in Super Junior days.

Kyuhyun shakes his head no and smiles. “It’s all right. I need to meet up with my manager later tonight anyways, so I’m probably going to catch dinner along the way there.”

“Oh come on, Kyuhyun,” Jongwoon says to him. “Look at this! Doesn’t this look delicious!” He brings up the board and shows the raw fish laying on it.

Kyuhyun grimaces and shakes his head again. He lets out a small, forced laugh. “Really, hyung, it’s fine. I’m going to get dinner with my manager. But thanks for the offer.”

He makes his way past their kitchen and past Jongwoon, down the hall and to his bedroom. Jongwoon stares after him, but then shrugs to himself. Oh well. More fish for him.

Kyuhyun and Jongwoon have always been the more talkative of people; but strangely, Jongwoon finds that he’s quiet around Kyuhyun the most. Maybe Kyuhyun gives off a demeanor that makes Jongwoon falter, maybe Jongwoon just isn’t interesting enough for Kyuhyun—whatever it is, it makes the world between them stay at peace for the moments they are together.

Jongwoon’s sitting at his bookshelf and looking through old CDs when Kyuhyun comes home, and turns his head when he sees Kyuhyun. “Hi,” he says, because it’s instinct, it’s everything he’s been used to.

“Hi,” Kyuhyun says back, putting his bag on the kitchen counter. “What are you doing over there?”

“Looking through some of our old discography,” Jongwoon says pleasantly, pulling out a large black and white disk. At least, the main colors are black and white—but it doesn’t seem grayscale at all (though considering its age it might as well be). “Remember this?”

Kyuhyun stares at it. “Yeah, I remember,” he says softly, staring at the disc cover.

“Good times.” Jongwoon chuckles and glances to the cardboard himself. “I kind of miss it all. Don’t you?”

But when he looks back to Kyuhyun, he sees that Kyuhyun isn’t there. He wonders where Kyuhyun has gone, and why he has left. The second thought lingers in his head a little bit longer, but he shoves it aside and puts the disc back on the shelf.

Dinners together are as quiet as breakfasts together. Sometimes Jongwoon wants to have lunch with Kyuhyun, just to see if he’ll be any different.

The only sound in the apartment is the slurping of the noodles Jongwoon had ordered earlier today, aside from the heater of course. In an attempt to make some sort of conversation, Jongwoon lifts his head up and looks to Kyuhyun who’s still munching on his ramen hungrily.

“How was your day today?” he asks—strangely, he feels like they’re one of those couples who pry into each other’s lives all the time and reveal nothing. He looks at Kyuhyun expectantly.

It seems as though the question has thrown Kyuhyun off guard. It takes a moment for Kyuhyun to finish swallowing his food before nodding his head up and looking to Jongwoon. “Good,” he says, almost like they’ve been having this conversation all along. He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “You?”

“Mine was pretty good too,” Jongwoon says, and then it’s the end of that.

Their evening goes by smoothly—almost boring, Jongwoon realizes as he tells Kyuhyun that he’s going out to make their weekly mailbox check. Kyuhyun nods to him and then returns to his computer, where he’s gaming. Jongwoon’s gaze lingers a little longer than it probably should—but he makes no note of importance of this, and goes out to get their mail.

The envelopes are always the same—junk mail, bank mail, newspaper, maybe a note or two from one of their parents. There isn’t anything new in today’s batch. There’s never anything new.

Jongwoon comes back into their apartment soon enough and tosses most of the junk mail (sent to “Current Resident” as neither Jongwoon nor Kyuhyun individually own this apartment) in the trash can, leaves a few letters addressed to Kyuhyun on the counter, and then takes the newspaper and goes into the living room. He sits down on the couch and props his feet up on the coffee table, spreading the paper in front of him. Kyuhyun glances to him, a little.

“Anything interesting in there?” he asks him.

“Same old, same old,” Jongwoon replies, like it’s always been his life.

Sometimes Jongwoon will forget that he’s a grown man, except for the days where lust tingles at the pit of his stomach. Then he does what he can to make the feeling go away, in the middle of his showers, and comes out like nothing’s happened. (Sometimes he wonders if Kyuhyun feels the same, if Kyuhyun does the same, too. The thought makes heat and hazes blur through his mind, but he doesn’t bother to stop to wonder what it means.)

They aren’t in touch with any of the other Super Junior members. Well. To say that they never were would be a lie. Jongwoon had attempted to stay in contact with Donghae and Ryeowook and Jungsu for quite a while, but it had all soon fallen away. And as far as he knows, Kyuhyun had telephoned Donghee and Hyukjae every day for a few months—but that had stopped quickly as well. It’s sort of sad, Jongwoon realizes when he reflects upon it. But life must go on.

Kyuhyun isn’t a Super Junior member to him anymore. He isn’t a fellow bandmate. He’s not a friend, he’s not a brother; rather, he’s become nothing but a roommate to him. Jongwoon doesn’t know what this means. But he doesn’t spend too much time thinking about that, either.

A few days later he comes home to see Kyuhyun on the phone, talking rapidly to whoever’s on the other end. It takes a while for Jongwoon to make sense of his words—but then again, Kyuhyun has never been the best speaker. (All mumbles he had been; all murmurs and awkward phrases.)

“Yes, Mom, yes—I’ll visit you, calm down. I’ve just been busy lately—yes, it’s almost winter, I know, I’ll be there with you and Dad and everyone for Christmas—I understand, noona’s going to be there, and so will I—Jesus Christ.”

When he hangs up, he rubs his temples and sighs. Jongwoon peers down at him carefully.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

“I… Oh, it’s fine, hyung,” Kyuhyun replies, not looking up at him. “I just… I’m going to be away for a few weeks, if that’s okay with you.” He peeks at him through his fingers, almost in a childish manner. Jongwoon presses back a small chuckle.

“It’s all right,” he tells Kyuhyun. “I understand. You probably need to take a break from work and spend time with your family anyways.”

“So everyone’s been telling me,” Kyuhyun grumbles, and Jongwoon laughs a little bit harder. “But, thanks hyung. Don’t get too lonely without me.”

The next few days go by as usual. They wake up, they brush their teeth, they change their clothes in their respective bedrooms. They say good morning and eat breakfast and make sure to see that everything around their apartment is in check. Then they go to their respective jobs, their respective lives.

Kyuhyun leaves on Thursday. Jongwoon offers to see him off, but Kyuhyun politely declines and says that he can get a taxi all by himself. Jongwoon laughs and tells him, “You’re still the magnae, Kyuhyun. Even to me.”

Kyuhyun pauses but doesn’t say anything about this; the next second, he’s gone.

Jongwoon’s okay with it. After Kyuhyun’s departure, he manages to go around their apartment and read magazines, feed his turtles, eat dinner, and, oh, he can practice his singing now that Kyuhyun’s not here! (Not that they’ve never heard each other’s voices before, but—well, with Kyuhyun around, it would have just been awkward.) It’s just like Kyuhyun’s out late with his work and schedule and everything. It’s just like Kyuhyun’s not going to come home too early, but maybe when Jongwoon’s asleep. It’s just like Kyuhyun’s not here, but he will be here, he will be.

Except today, Kyuhyun’s not coming back.

He tells himself he adjusts to it. He wakes up to an empty apartment (but it’s not empty if one person occupies it, right?) and brushes his teeth by himself (rather than amusedly glancing to Kyuhyun awkwardly in the mirror, no matter how many times it’s happened) and changes his clothes without the fear of Kyuhyun accidentally walking in on him. He remains mute throughout the morning and eats breakfast at the small table with no one sitting across from him, and it’s Jongwoon alone who makes sure that their apartment is neat and tidy before he takes off for the day.

During his work, he laughs with his manager and records songs for his new album—he’s a little flat but it’s okay because he’ll get it next time. He eats lunch out—and strangely, even though he always eats lunch by himself, he feels a little bit more lonely today—and then returns. It’s all part of schedule, he knows. Just a part of schedule.

And so when he comes home, he takes off his shoes and proceeds with his afternoon. He reads some books, surfs the internet a little bit, makes some dinner. He watches some television and spoils himself to a few unhealthy snacks. He calls his mother and feeds his turtles again and cleans up his room a little bit. He does all this, because it’s what he’s always done.

Oddly enough, though, it feels like something is missing. Jongwoon isn’t quite sure what it is, or why, or anything. Kyuhyun has never had the most significant presence, and there was never—there was never anything too special about having him around.

Jongwoon refuses to think about it, though. He refuses to. He goes on because he’s Jongwoon, he’s a man. And it’s not just about the dignity he has to retain while Kyuhyun’s not here, but also because of the dignity he has to replace in Kyuhyun’s absence.

But he’ll be back soon. He’ll come home. And so Jongwoon goes on.

(Jongwoon still feels alone, though. He feels alone for the first time, for the first time in two years. Ever since, ever since they had fallen apart, ever since they had broken—)

He celebrates Christmas by himself, which is all right. He’d visit his parents but they’re in Japan where is brother is living, and he doesn’t really feel like traveling outside of the country. Besides, this is Seoul, this is his home. This has been his home his whole life.

Of course, he gets presents in the mail a few days after Christmas and opens them up, feeling like a kid again. He gets new clothes from his family and some books and other spare items from old friends, maybe old friends he had forgotten about, old friends who hadn’t forgotten him. Regardless, he doesn’t take a second glance at the names and addresses, and instead takes his new presents and puts them in his room. Then he leaves a small gift in the corner of Kyuhyun’s room, because even if Kyuhyun isn’t technically here, at least there’s still someone he can share the holiday cheer with.

It’s not the same as Christmases he’s had in the past, and it’s not something he can get used to. But he can live with it, just this one time.

New Year’s comes and goes; and soon enough, Kyuhyun’s back. It’s still sort of snowing a little—it always snows a bit too much in Korea—and Kyuhyun’s covered with frost all over his jacket and shoes and bags.

“Here, let me help you,” Jongwoon says as he takes the suitcase from Kyuhyun’s hand and rolls it along the wooden floor to Kyuhyun’s bedroom. He hears Kyuhyun breathe heavily behind him, probably from the cold—he can still hear Kyuhyun even when he makes his way out of the hallway, and thinks it’s his imagination before he realizes that Kyuhyun’s standing right behind him.

“Thanks,” Kyuhyun manages out as he takes deep breaths. “God, it is freezing as hell out there. Was it always this freezing in Seoul? How did we even manage?”

“I have no idea,” Jongwoon says with a laugh as he drops Kyuhyun’s suitcase. He looks to Kyuhyun, to see that Kyuhyun’s cheeks are flushed and his hair is slightly messy, stuck all over the place with little snowflakes dangling on a few strands.

“You should probably take a shower,” Jongwoon tells him, moving over to wipe Kyuhyun’s face a little bit. “Before you get a cold or anything, you know.”

“Good idea.”

Kyuhyun exhales one last time before leaving the room. Jongwoon watches after him with a smile on his face, feeling a little less than alone now.

Everything seems to fall into place after a few hours, now with Kyuhyun back. Jongwoon adjusts to having a roommate again—it’s a little bit louder than it had always been, at first, but then they return to habit, to routine.

Jongwoon’s not the type to have deep, meaningful conversations—Kyuhyun had never been either, he knows—but he says to Kyuhyun, “I missed you while you were gone.”

Kyuhyun laughs a hearty laugh. “Didn’t I tell you not to miss me?”

“No.” And Jongwoon pouts a little. “You told me not to get too lonely—which, by the way, I did not.”

“If you missed me, clearly you did.”

“How was visiting your family, anyways?” Jongwoon asks.

“Oh, you know. Hectic and stuff.” Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “The usual sort of family meetings, only this time my sister acted like a cranky old cat lady and my mom didn’t go off on a spiel about my life again.”

“Sounds like you had a good time.”

“You can say that.”

Kyuhyun chuckles; Jongwoon’s suddenly aware of the space between them. He brushes the thought aside.

“Did you miss me?” he asks (just for fun though, because he’s not serious—he’s never serious when it comes to Kyuhyun.)

Kyuhyun laughs again. “Yes, hyung. I missed you very, very much.”

So it seems like everything is normal again. Because it is, it really is. It’s normal again because Kyuhyun’s back, and even if it isn’t significantly louder, it’s significantly less empty around here.

But it makes Jongwoon think. It makes Jongwoon think, how Kyuhyun was gone, like he’s always been gone, but he’s not. They’re here together—and even though Kyuhyun had left, he had come back. Because this is his home. This is Jongwoon’s home, and this is Kyuhyun’s home. This is the home that they have together.

The thought makes Jongwoon wonder where’s his home, if this is the home they’re really supposed to have.

He keeps silent, though.

But then again—

Jongwoon brings up the subject of Super Junior over dinner.

“I kind of,” he starts, “I kind of miss everything, you know?”

Kyuhyun looks at him from his rice. “What are you talking about?”

“Super Junior,” Jongwoon states—Kyuhyun freezes. “You remember, right? How we were all together, one big happy family… one really big family,” and he chuckles, “but still. It was really nice. I miss it.”

Kyuhyun doesn’t say anything.

Jongwoon tilts his head to the side. “You do remember, don’t you, Kyuhyun?”

“Of course I do.” Kyuhyun doesn’t look up. “How can I not?”

“Why don’t you say anything about it, then?” Jongwoon asks.

Kyuhyun glances to him. “Maybe I just don’t have anything to say,” he snaps.

Alarmed, Jongwoon puts his chopsticks down and looks at Kyuhyun worriedly. “Are you okay, Kyuhyun? Is there something you want to talk about?”

“I’m fine.”

Kyuhyun drops his own chopsticks; it lands on the table with a loud clang. He gets up from the table.

“Wh-Where are you going?” Jongwoon asks as Kyuhyun starts to walk away. “You can’t just—Kyuhyun!”

“I’m not hungry,” is Kyuhyun’s reply.

All Jongwoon hears afterwards is a slam of a door. He sighs and puts his head in his hands, lost and confused.

The next day is awkward, mostly because the last time they had seen each other was dinner the day previous. Kyuhyun doesn’t say anything so Jongwoon doesn’t either, though the thoughts still trouble him as he looks at Kyuhyun while he brushes his teeth. Kyuhyun raises his eyebrows towards him in the mirror.

“You’re so creepy, hyung,” he says to him, gaze fixed on his reflection.

“Wh—” Jongwoon suddenly blushes at the realization that he’s staring, and quickly darts his eyes away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Kyuhyun says with a chuckle, and then spits into the sink.

Their morning goes on like it always does, though Jongwoon can’t help but look at Kyuhyun a little longer as Kyuhyun stands in the doorway, putting his shoes on. Kyuhyun glances at him; Jongwoon quickly averts his eyes to the sink instead.

“Make sure that you lock your turtle tank today,” he says to him. “I don’t want to find your pets’ waste in my room like I did a few weeks ago.”

Jongwoon chuckles, trying to make it sound real. “Okay, I will,” he says to Kyuhyun, and doesn’t respond when Kyuhyun bids him farewell.

The thing is, Jongwoon misses Super Junior. He misses them a lot. He misses all the members—and he can list them off, one by one if he really wanted to. He misses singing with them, dancing with them, going on shows with them, recording in the studio with them—it’s not the same, now, recording songs on his own. There’s no one for him to make stupid remarks with, to be stupid with, to make inside jokes with, to tease and laugh with.

He supposes he’s alone. (But he does have Kyuhyun.)

And anyways, he tells himself, he’s not really alone. He probably just reminisces too much. Misses the past too much. There’s nothing he can do about it now. He has to learn to be independent. He has to learn to be by himself. He has to learn to be on his own.

Kyuhyun isn’t helping him with this.

He decides not to bring up the subject of Super Junior again, in case of angering Kyuhyun. He doesn’t have to worry, though. He rarely has the words to speak.

Somehow, the subject of China comes between them later this afternoon, while Kyuhyun is on the computer and Jongwoon is looking over some of his old music theory notes, trying to get inspiration for a tune. He isn’t even aware that they had been talking, but one thing leads to the next and suddenly Jongwoon finds himself asking, “So, have you been to China recently?”

Kyuhyun hesitates. “No,” he says. “I haven’t.”

“That’s a pity,” says Jongwoon—memories of Super Junior M flood back to him, memories of the more successful subgroup, memories of Super Girl and Too Perfect and all the other songs afterward and before and in between. Memories of watching, and waiting, waiting for Kyuhyun and Ryeowook and Donghae and Siwon to come back. Memories of seeing Henry cry and Zhou Mi struggle and Hankyung plead from a distance. Memories of envy as he’d seen Hyukjae and Sungmin go, and felt lost, alone. Abandoned.

“We should go visit there some time,” Jongwoon continues, pushing these memories out of his head. “It’d be nice.”

“It would be,” Kyuhyun replies.

“We can visit Zhou Mi and Hankyung again.”

Kyuhyun looks at him from behind his laptop screen.

“Hyung,” he says quietly, almost begging him.

It usually doesn’t take Jongwoon that long to come home, but he’s cursing and muttering swear words under his breath as he walks down the street from the bus stop, covering up his head. He wishes he had brought an umbrella. He really does.

It’s not the same as the days when he had been famous. Not to say that he’s not famous now—he’s just less famous. It’s different from being in a boy band. And of course, Jongwoon misses it. And of course, Jongwoon tries to ignore these reminders as he stomps through puddles and accidentally gets his jeans wet.

The minute he enters the apartment, he moans, “Thank God I’m home!” He throws his bag aside and throws his shoes off and flops onto the couch in the living room. Kyuhyun comes out of his room at that moment with his laptop in his arms, and looks down at Jongwoon’s backside amusedly.

“Rough day?” he asks—though Jongwoon rarely ever has rough days, so it’s strange for him to ask.

Jongwoon doesn’t roll over from having his nose buried into the couch cushions. He doesn’t even attempt to answer coherently. Instead he must makes another groaning noise, and hears Kyuhyun chuckle behind him.

“Well don’t stay there all night,” he says. “I want you to make me dinner this evening.” And then he walks out of the living room, computer still cradled in his hands.

Jongwoon’s more than willing to make him dinner, only because this is the first time Kyuhyun has asked. He doesn’t even ask why Kyuhyun had done so—he eagerly stirs the broccoli around in their barely-used pan, and thinks of the delicious dishes he’s going to make for Kyuhyun tonight.

The food doesn’t come out as good as he had hoped, but Kyuhyun seems pretty content with it as he eats it all up along with the rice Jongwoon had steamed earlier. Jongwoon watches him as Kyuhyun sticks his chopsticks out to pick up another piece of meat again, and words fall fast from his lips before he has the chance to think.

“Do you miss Ryeowook?”

Kyuhyun stops instantly; his chopsticks are frozen in midair. “No,” he replies immediately, before grabbing the piece of pork he had been reaching out for.

“But.” Jongwoon thinks over his words. “But you never want me to cook—I mean, not that I’m opposed to cooking for you, but—but it’s a little odd, don’t you think?”

“No,” Kyuhyun says again. His face is buried in his rice bowl. He doesn’t meet Jongwoon’s gaze.

“But Ryeowook, he-he’d always been the one who had cooked for us, back when—back when we were Super Junior, when we were in a band—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyuhyun says curtly. “Stop talking nonsense, hyung.”

Most of the time, Jongwoon isn’t bothered when Kyuhyun doesn’t speak to him all morning; they can go days without speaking and both will feel fine. But for some reason, today feels different. Awkward. Like Kyuhyun’s purposely not speaking, not speaking to him.

“Kyuhyun,” Jongwoon says to him over breakfast. “Kyuhyun? Are you okay?”

Kyuhyun doesn’t look at him. He continues eating his porridge, as if he hadn’t heard the man only a few feet away speak to him.

“Kyuhyun?” Jongwoon says again. “Kyuhyun, do you- do you want me to make dinner for you again?”

Kyuhyun gets up from the table and dumps his food in the sink. Then he grabs his bag and leaves.

This goes on for the rest of the day. The next day, too. Jongwoon’s pretty sure he knows what this is about, but—well, he’s not really in the position of making assumptions.

After all, how can he make assumptions about a man he now barely knows?

Kyuhyun doesn’t come home from dinner, though at one in the morning Jongwoon can hear the door open and can see lights flicker on in the living room, from his place in bed. He watches closely through the small gap in his doorway as Kyuhyun walks around, stretches, grabs a few crackers to eat, and then goes into the hallway. He watches as Kyuhyun wanders around and then enters the bathroom, checks himself out in the mirror, brushes his teeth, and then trudges into his bedroom. He watches as Kyuhyun comes out once again, now in pajamas, and goes into the living room to turn out the light. He watches as Kyuhyun turns and goes back down the hall, as Kyuhyun walks away.

The days that follow are silent ones—and not the normal silent ones; but rather, the silent ones where Jongwoon just wants to scream and break something because it’s the sort of silence where it’s like the string of tension is hanging in the air and it won’t come down.

Jongwoon ends up slipping on the last piece of melting snow in the middle of the street, and finds himself calling the hospital; and then suddenly he’s perched up on a pair of crutches, with his right foot dangling in the air. He’s told by his doctor that he should be accompanied at all times, and when Jongwoon tells him that it’s not likely for that to happen, the doctor says that he should be careful then. He tells Jongwoon to be steady and perhaps call in to say that he can’t go to work for a while, because he really can’t. Jongwoon thanks him and then makes his way back home, all the while avoiding all the melted snow in the streets.

And all the while, Kyuhyun doesn’t help him. Not once.

This isn’t true, actually—though it’s what Jongwoon had expected to be true. (He should stop expecting things, shouldn’t he? Or rather, not expecting them.) But as soon as Kyuhyun sees that Jongwoon is injured, that Jongwoon is hurt, he rushes to his side immediately.

“Hyung, are you okay?” he asks him, running toward him and grabbing his bag, putting it on the ground before examining him some more. “Hyung, you don’t—are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jongwoon says with a light laugh, looking down at Kyuhyun. “Just sprained an ankle, that’s all.”

“‘Just sprained an ankle?’ That doesn’t sound very good! Well, what do I know,” Kyuhyun adds to his train of thought, “though I guess that doesn’t matter. You can’t be fine if you’re on crutches, hyung! You really can’t be!”

“But I really am,” Jongwoon says, smiling down at him.

And so because of Jongwoon’s minor injury and clumsiness, Kyuhyun is talking to him again. Kyuhyun is talking to him and laughing with him and having conversations—they’re a bit more animated, Jongwoon notes, though he supposes that maybe he’s just never been this observant before. He doesn’t mind, though. He knows Kyuhyun, even if he doesn’t know him too well.

Weeks pass and everything is back to normal. This is what Jongwoon tells himself even though he doesn’t know what normal is anymore. But Kyuhyun is normal and he is normal and, well, if that’s how they are, then that must be what normal is, right? Right, Jongwoon thinks once more, and relishes in Kyuhyun’s familiar voice.

“I feel so old,” Kyuhyun complains. “Really. Twenty-nine already? And next year I’ll be turning thirty!”

“What about me?” Jongwoon says to him. “Thirty-three and still as handsome as ever.” He doesn’t mean this, of course, but it sounds nice coming out from his lips.

“As ever.” Kyuhyun chuckles and glances down Jongwoon’s leg. “How’s your ankle, hyung?”

“It’s fine.” A thought suddenly strikes Jongwoon. “Hey, Jungsu-hyung’s going to be turning thirty-five next year, won’t he?”

He realizes what he’s said wrong a second too late. Kyuhyun doesn’t react to this because Jongwoon hasn’t made a mistake for a while; but the silence is there, it’s always been there.

“You might want to put some pressure on your foot, hyung,” he says to Jongwoon quietly.

But Jongwoon- Jongwoon ignores his words. Because he’s not going to let Kyuhyun get away with no answer anymore. “Kyuhyun? I’m right, right? Jungsu hyung’ll be thirty-five soon.”

“Yeah.” Kyuhyun doesn’t look at him, doesn’t give his words much thought. “Come on, put some pressure on your foot.”

“Why do I need to put pressure on my foot?” Jongwoon shoots back. “Why is that—Why is that important to you all of a sudden? Don’t you want to talk about Jungsu hyung with me? Do you?”

“Put pressure on your foot,” Kyuhyun says again, clearly attempting to keep his voice steady although it’s shaking, a bit.

“No! No, I’m not going to!” Jongwoon stands up all of a sudden; he winces but doesn’t care. He looks Kyuhyun in the face. “Kyuhyun, why won’t you talk about Jungsu hyung with me? Why won’t you talk about Super Junior with me?”

Kyuhyun doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares out the window and turns his back to Jongwoon.

Frustrated, Jongwoon reaches for his shoulder and yanks him towards him. “Kyuhyun, why won’t you answer me? Why won’t you talk to me? Ab-About Super Junior and Ryeowook and Jungsu and everything, everyone, every—”

“Because!” Kyuhyun says. The air breaks between them. “Because I don’t want to, okay? Because I just don’t want to! I don’t want to—I don’t want to think about Super Junior, I don’t want to talk about Super Junior, I don’t want to—” He cuts himself off, breathing heavily.

“But why?” Jongwoon persists. “Why won’t you—Why don’t you want to, what—what’s so wrong about—about us?”

He says us like Super Junior isn’t just about the members, it’s about him and Kyuhyun. Like there’s some sort of, some sort of family between Jongwoon and Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun thrusts Jongwoon’s hand off his shoulder and glowers. It’s cold.

“I don’t want to Yesung, okay? I don’t want to.”

He storms off, away.

Jongwoon later realizes that it’s the first time Kyuhyun’s ever called him something else other than ‘hyung.’

Jongwoon later realizes that Yesung isn’t even his real name.

They don’t talk anymore. Well, they do. But not really. Their conversations are abrupt and fall short, and there’s not much essence to any of them. Jongwoon feels like he’s a stranger, and Kyuhyun’s a stranger, and they’re just two people who are together and have nothing, together.

Jongwoon never asks more than, “What are you ordering for dinner today?” and Kyuhyun never answers more than, “Beef noodles.” They only speak when spoken to, speak when they need to, and speak when they absolutely have to. The air feels thin and strong, almost suffocating. Jongwoon barely finds the will to breathe.

He wonders what it would be like if he tried. If he tried to speak more, if he tried to talk more. If he tried to get Kyuhyun to actually look at him, to tell him why he had gotten upset over the mention of their old band leader. If he tried to ask Kyuhyun why he had called him by his old, forgotten nickname and never by his real name.

He’s off his crutches after a month when he had slipped, but Kyuhyun doesn’t comment on it.

The ground between them feels empty, dry.

His mini album makes it to the top of some chart—which chart, he’s not quite sure, but when he goes back to work a few weeks later, his manager approaches him with a CD in one hand and a grin on his face. “Congratulations,” he says. “You might as well do a full album.”

“Not likely,” Jongwoon says with a chuckle. “What’s that?” He nods his head over to where his stylist is holding something small and colorful. His manager beams.

“Just a little congratulatory present we should we should get for you,” he says. “But we weren’t quite sure which color you liked best. Pick one.”

The stylist walks over to him, a small, perhaps fake smile lined along her lips. “Red or pink,” she says.

Jongwoon looks down at the stuffed animals in her hands. “Pink.”

(Later his manager asks him if he wants to perform live at a concert because it’s good for giving publicity, and it has a good price to come along with it. Jongwoon declines the offer.)

When he comes home, he leaves his bags and the stuffed animal on the counter before going off to go to the bathroom. Kyuhyun’s in the living room, on the computer.

He pretends not to notice that Kyuhyun’s eyes go towards the toy and linger on it for a second too long.

Over the next several days Jongwoon tries his hand at cooking again. It’s not his best skill, he knows, but he’s certainly not terrible. At least, as far as he knows. He’s mediocre, and that’s good enough for him.

Kyuhyun leaves early in the mornings, and doesn’t come home until around midnight.

And all the while, Jongwoon thinks of Super Junior. He thinks of all the members and all the years they had spent together (and thirteen boys staying together, fifteen boys being a family sounds too big, sounds too chaotic—but for them it had been perfect). He thinks of what they must be doing now or what they’re not doing now, and if they’re on the other side of the world or only a few doors down from them. Wherever they are, Jongwoon hopes that they’re happy, as he cooks fried rice in the pan in front of him.

(Jongwoon’s always had this dream where he’s standing at the edge of a beach, staring out at an ocean, perhaps waiting for someone to come back. The sand is warm beneath his toes and the sea tosses waves back and forth.)

Maybe he tells himself that he’ll try to get in touch with the other members again, that he’ll laugh with Donghee and talk to Youngwoon again. Maybe he tells himself that he’ll try to shoot Henry an email or call Donghae on the phone. But it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t end up doing any of this anyways. He’s with Kyuhyun.

So instead he just cooks his own food and sings his own songs that he’s composed himself. He goes to church on Sundays (even though he hasn’t been there for ages) and occasionally watches dramas on his television.

And he talks to Kyuhyun twice a day at most, and hardly ever sees him around their apartment. But it doesn’t really bother him too much. As long as Kyuhyun comes home.

But even after all this, something doesn’t settle right. With Kyuhyun gone all the time, Jongwoon doesn’t even know if it’s worth it to come back to their apartment. It doesn’t feel like home.

They stop talking. They stop looking at each other. They both become so absent to each other that it’s even hard to say that they’re roommates. Jongwoon doesn’t even know what he’s doing for the majority of the time: he’s wandering around the city, he’s going around shopping, he’s seeing friends and saying hi and smiling. Sometimes he wonders what Kyuhyun’s doing. If Kyuhyun’s looking about the city and going to stores and seeing his friends. He wonders if Kyuhyun’s seeing any girls. Not that he should be caring, but—they aren’t really idols anymore, are they? They’re free to do whatever they want. And so Jongwoon wonders what Kyuhyun’s doing and if he’s dating anyone (and the thought makes his stomach clench) just because he can (and he also wonders why he isn’t dating anyone himself—perhaps it had never been quite his style). If he’s seeing girls, hugging girls, kissing girls…

At the end of the day, though, it’s all the same. It all goes to waste.

He takes Kyuhyun’s laptop one afternoon and decides to stream some old Super Junior shows. There’s nothing like looking back on memories. He goes through video sites and search sites until he comes to the homepage of some group of fangirls who have illegal clips of EHB and Intimate Note and Sukira and some music videos, and then clicks on some random links. Soon enough he’s watching and laughing and has his hand covered over his mouth as he watches him and his band members do some of the stupidest things and say the strangest scripted lines. It all feels real to him. So real.

Jongwoon falls asleep in the middle of watching Shin PD. It’s about ten o’clock at night and he’s still dressed in his work clothes, but he manages to drift off anyways, with his hand still on the mouse pad. He doesn’t hear anything all night, and he doesn’t wake up until seven in the morning.

When he nods his head up, he sees that he’s lying on the couch with a blanket covering him—had he fallen asleep like this? Everything around him is all clean, and—the laptop isn’t with him anymore. Kyuhyun’s laptop. The entire apartment is quiet.

And so Jongwoon continues watching old Super Junior videos, Super Junior talk shows, Super Junior performances—had they always been that happy? Or had it been all an act? He can’t quite remember, but he wishes that he can revert to that emotion, back to feeling like he’s on top of the world rather than someone average, someone in the middle, someone unimportant.

He plays old Super Junior songs and sings along to them as well. He doesn’t remember all the words, of course, and makes them up as he goes along; but they all ring familiar to him and he likes it. He bellows out the right lyrics and the wrong lyrics and tries to dance along even though he had never really been the best at choreography. But he’s having fun, when Kyuhyun’s not around.

Kyuhyun comes home at a surprisingly early hour a few days later while Jongwoon is vacuuming the apartment and singing along to Sorry Sorry (and dancing as well, though it seems to be more like shuffling). He doesn’t really notice that Kyuhyun’s home, however, until he hears him speak.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Jongwoon whips around. At first he’s embarrassed, that Kyuhyun had caught him doing something so… so foolish, but it all goes away when he sees the glare settling in Kyuhyun’s eyes.

“I’m reminiscing,” he replies.

Kyuhyun’s gaze is fixed on him. “Just stop it, hyung.”

“Stop what?” Jongwoon suddenly feels defensive, annoyed. “Stop listening to our old songs? Stop mentioning our old bandmates? Stop trying to talk about our past—?”

“Just stop it, please.”

“I’m not going to stop!” Jongwoon says fiercely. “I’m not going to—I don’t want to forget about them, okay? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t want to remember all the good times we had, but—but at least I’m actually doing something to try to remember!”

Kyuhyun looks to Jongwoon exasperatedly. He suddenly looks tired, much older. “Hyung.”

The music stops in the background. The world stops moving around them.

“What?” Jongwoon says annoyedly. “You want me to stop singing? You want me to stop remembering? You want me to just ignore the past several years of both our lives?”

“You don’t even know what you’re saying—”

“I don’t care if you want to forget about everything we’ve been for the past several years, but.” Jongwoon stares Kyuhyun straight in the eye. “I’m not going to any time soon.”

“Hyung, you don’t even know!” Kyuhyun suddenly shouts, catching him off guard. “You really call this not forgetting? What, trying to bring up the subject every time you can, trying to bring them back? You can’t bring them back and you know it! You can’t make new memories out of old ones! And that’s what you’re doing!”

“I’m not—”

“Do you realize how much I miss them?” says Kyuhyun. “Do you know how much I want to forget? I can’t—Do you know how hard it is to let things go?”

“But you shouldn’t let it go,” says Jongwoon. “You can’t just let something like that so important, so huge to you, you can’t just let it go—that’s why I don’t want to let it go, because that’s like—”

“Hyung, you have to let it go sometime! You can’t sit in the past!” Kyuhyun yells, screams over Jongwoon. “You’re just trying to—You’re just trying to remake everything we were but you can’t! Have you been in touch with any of the members? Do you know anything about them now?”

“I—no, of course not, but we can always change that—”

“We can’t, Yesung, can’t you see that? We can’t! We’re broken apart and we’re gone—Henry’s probably back in Canada, Hankyung and Zhou Mi are never going to leave China—we can’t, we’re done, an-and—”

“Then why,” Jongwoon says, all of a sudden angry, “why in the world did you want to room together with me, why did you want to live with me, out of all the Super Junior members, why did you want to stay with me—Jesus Christ if I had known you’d be this way, I wouldn’t have—”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Kyuhyun shrieks. “I don’t know! I just—don’t you remember, when we had went on our own ways, we both said that we’d have our own solo careers—and then one thing happened and then the next and this just—”

“And if you wanted to forget about everyone so much, then you didn’t have to stay with me at all! But no, instead you’re just dumping it on me, all of it on me—”

“You don’t miss them the way I do! You don’t know—You don’t know that I miss them too!” Kyuhyun throws his hands to his sides. “You don’t think that I wasn’t part of the band? You think that I didn’t love them the way you do?”

“Then why—”

“Because! Because I know that I can’t! Because I know that I shouldn’t try to hold onto something that will never come back! Can’t you see, Yesung, that we have to let go and move on—”

“STOP CALLING ME YESUNG!” Jongwoon shouts; he’s suddenly aware of everything around them, and how shattered it all seems.

“That’s exactly what I mean! I can’t—It’s hard for me to let go of things like this!” Kyuhyun looks like he’s about to cry, and his voice is shaking, like the earth. “I want to let go, I want to—I want to forget about it all, I just don’t—I just don’t want to think about it but how am I supposed to forget if you’re just bringing it all back, making me—”

“You’re just being weak, you know that?” snarls Jongwoon. “You’re just being weak and you’re too scared to face it! At least I, I’m doing something when you’re just trying to avoid it all because you’re just too fucking scared—”

“I may be scared, but at least I’m not hanging onto something that’s already gone,” Kyuhyun retorts.

Jongwoon glowers at him.

“I never should have lived with you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

“I shouldn’t—This was just a bad idea. I can’t believe you want to forget about Super Junior,” says Jongwoon, shaking his head.

“I don’t want to forget about them, it’s just something that I don’t want to hold onto!”

“Yeah? Well you know what?” says Jongwoon fiercely. “I may miss Super Junior, but I sure as hell don’t miss you!”

“That doesn’t make any sense—”

“I miss Jungsu!” shouts Jongwoon. “And Heechul and Hankyung a-and Youngwoon, and Donghee, and Sungmin, and—” his breath catches “and Hyukjae and Donghae, and Siwon, and Ryeowook, and Kibum and Zhou Mi and Henry—but you, Kyuhyun, after living with you for the past—months, years, whatever—you—I-I can’t even imagine, why we had ever decided to do this in the first place, and why, of all people—”

“So you’re saying that you don’t even like me!” shouts Kyuhyun.

“Maybe I am!” Jongwoon fires back.

“Well maybe—” Kyuhyun breaks off and pants. “Well fine; if you miss them so fucking much, then go find someone else to stay with!”

Jongwoon scowls; Kyuhyun’s defiant stare doesn’t falter. Then, without a word, Jongwoon storms out of the apartment. His footsteps echo down the hall and through the stairs he climbs down, and all he can think about is how much he hates Kyuhyun, about how much he hates being with Kyuhyun, and, and how Super Junior doesn’t feel like anything but a dream anymore.

Kyuhyun is stupid, isn’t he? He’s stupid. For thinking that they should just forget about them, for thinking that they just move on… Move on to what? From what? From the past? Jongwoon knows, he knows that hanging onto the past is a bad thing, that he should cherish memories but continue forward, but—but that’s what he’s doing, isn’t it? That’s what he’s been doing all along. He’s been remembering. He’s been recalling all the nice and fun times. He hasn’t been trying to bring Super Junior back; he hasn’t been trying to recreate something that’s already gone…

And cooking isn’t trying to bring Ryeowook back. And going to church isn’t trying to bring Siwon back. And pink, pink of all things, isn’t trying to bring Sungmin back. And watching old shows isn’t trying to bring them all back. He’s just nostalgic, that’s all. And Kyuhyun is stupid. He’s foolish for just wanting to forget, for not letting go, for not letting go of forgetting—he had been the one who kept calling Jongwoon his old nickname, the nickname he hasn’t heard in months, years, in forever…

He makes his way out into the streets of Seoul. It’s raining, though Jongwoon concludes that this makes sense because hell, it’s springtime already. He ducks his head down and wishes that the jacket he’s wearing had a hood, and Jongwoon just stomps through the water like he always does. He’s pushing against it all, and a part of him wishes, that maybe, maybe they shouldn’t have broken up. Maybe they shouldn’t have gone off in their separate directions. Maybe they just should have stayed as Super Junior forever…

You can’t bring them back and you know it…

And if they had stayed together, he wouldn’t need to bring them back. He wouldn’t miss them, he wouldn’t feel the sudden pain of realization that they’re gone and that there’s nothing they can do anymore. They won’t ever be the band they had been in the past, and there’s no way they would be it in the future… He wouldn’t want to forget about them. He wouldn’t need to forget about them.

But everything has its end, right? Jongwoon stops in the streets and the knowledge hits him in the chest even harder. They wouldn’t last forever. They can’t last forever. And even if he’s staying with Kyuhyun, his last real piece of Super Junior… Kyuhyun’s already gone. Kyuhyun’s trying to make something new. Kyuhyun’s trying to begin again, even if he can’t bring himself to. Kyuhyun’s trying to get over them.

(But he can’t, not really.)

Jongwoon doesn’t even know if he wants to leave Kyuhyun, if he wants to leave the only part of Super Junior he has left. And it’s not just because of Super Junior, but because—because he can’t. Even if Jongwoon wants to, he can’t bring himself to push Kyuhyun away. He can’t leave him.

The rain continues to fall, soaking his hair wet. Jongwoon suddenly realizes that he’s cold when he stops walking for a second too long, and then continues on. Anything left of Kyuhyun’s words rings in his mind, and his anger fades away, making him no longer feel blind. Because forgetting is the last thing he wants to do. Because letting go sort of sounds like, this never happened and we’re going to pretend it didn’t. But moving on, making something out of whatever he has left, that’s what he has to do.

(And he has Kyuhyun.)

Something suddenly hits him from behind, tightening around his waist—Jongwoon stops in his tracks again. Someone is holding him from behind, causing heat to escalate up his body, and there are arms, arms around him. Jongwoon doesn’t know who, what, why—he hears a small gasp of breath, and a nose and a mouth press against his shoulder. Skin is touching his skin, warm, small, smooth.

“Please don’t leave me,” murmurs Kyuhyun’s voice, and Jongwoon’s heart clenches in his throat. Something wet, something not rain hits on the side of his neck, and Kyuhyun squeezes tighter.

“Please don’t go.”

When they arrive back at their apartment, it’s quiet as ever—but it feels like the sort of settled quiet, the serenity, where for the first time, everything’s pretty much okay. Kyuhyun awkwardly tells Jongwoon that he should take a shower and Jongwoon awkwardly mumbles back that that sounds like a good idea and awkwardly, they go on their respective ways and do their own respective things.

Jongwoon thinks about it in the shower. That sure, letting go of the past will be hard—but he has Kyuhyun to help him through. And he’s here to help Kyuhyun through. And for some reason, this makes something flutter to the bottom of his stomach, like the last feather of a wing, waiting to be shed.

As soon as he finishes, he comes out, just to see Kyuhyun sitting on the couch with his laptop, though it seems more like Kyuhyun is waiting for him. When Jongwoon catches his eye, he can’t help but blush slightly; but Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to notice (his blush) as he speaks.

“Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?” he asks him.

Jongwoon’s stunned for a moment; it’d be the first dinner they’d be having together in a long time. But then he smiles. “Sure,” he says, and sort of feels like a giddy little boy as he walks back over to his room.

He gets dressed, and when he comes out, he sees that Kyuhyun has put his laptop down and is now making his way towards the door. Kyuhyun shoots him a look the instant he hears him come into the room. “Ready to go?” he asks.

Jongwoon nods and makes his way towards him. “I’m ready.”

The dinner feels like it’s their first time being together, their first time actually starting to know each other. They’re starting over. Jongwoon kind of likes it because he finds out so many things about Kyuhyun that he’s never known before—either that, or things he’s forgotten. But Kyuhyun doesn’t really seem to mind as he laughs when Jongwoon stumbles over his words again.

They get ice cream afterwards and walk around, not wanting to go back home. Jongwoon falls in step with the other man, waiting for everything to blow over.

II. Butterfly

It’s a few weeks later but they’ve grown accustomed to be with each other. Friends—well, Jongwoon would like to think, but they’re only starting to grow close together and form a new friendship. Super Junior is behind them, Super Junior is between them, but only like a white thread, so thin and invisible that you can forget that it’s there.

Speaking of—Jongwoon’s looking through old discs again, but only because they’ve been sitting at the bottom of his bookshelf for so long and he feels like he should listen to them again, just once. He pops in Bonamana in their stereo set just as Kyuhyun comes home from work, and familiar sounds of the pop music that they sang (in contrast to the ballads and occasional slightly more lively music that they make now) sound around the entire apartment. Kyuhyun looks to him as he shuffles his shoes off, and Jongwoon’s frightened for a moment—but only a moment, once he sees that the expression on Kyuhyun’s face is nothing but amused.

“I remember this,” he says to Jongwoon. “This album. We had a duet on it, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Jongwoon nods in compliance, grinning. He switches to the track Kyuhyun had referred to, and sounds of both their voices come through the speakers. Kyuhyun sings along and Jongwoon does as well, and he figures that maybe one thing, one thing he can bring back is their old friendship.

And so they sing together.

Of course the idea of forming something with Kyuhyun goes through Jongwoon’s head one too many times, but he has this inkling of the fact that that’s not how it’s supposed to be. That they’re supposed to be on their own, at least in a career sort of sense. Jongwoon’s always been able to manage as a singer and so has Kyuhyun—never once had competition arose between them; they had both been only civil and content. Because generally that’s how their relationship is—small and delicate, with the slightest bit of smiles.

Building bridges with Kyuhyun proves to be a good idea, however. And so is going out on weekends, going to the mall, shopping for whatnot and eating and drinking and having fun. Kyuhyun laughs as Jongwoon almost stumbles on nothing, and says, “We don’t want you on crutches again, hyung, would we.”

“I’m sure with the way that you’re laughing at me that you do,” Jongwoon grumbles, picking himself up and dusting off his pants. Kyuhyun laughs again and Jongwoon wonders if he’s always sounded like that.

And it’s weird having this sort of closeness with someone who had been close to him once before, but Jongwoon doesn’t mind it at all. They’re friends now. They’re roommates. Not bandmates, not forced friends, but a genuine… genuine something. Something real.

It takes Jongwoon three weeks to wrap his mind around this idea, but it seems that Kyuhyun’s already gotten it.

“Jongwoon, can you not,” Kyuhyun says exasperatedly when they go out to get breakfast in the mornings and Jongwoon runs over to the newsstand to pick up a newspaper.

Jongwoon crinkles his nose as he walks back over to Kyuhyun. “What happened to hyung?” he asks him. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with keeping up with current events!” He waves the paper in Kyuhyun’s face, and Kyuhyun rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but if you’re going to do this every time we come out.” Kyuhyun tsks and turns away. “Whatever. There’s no use in trying to stop you.”

“There never is,” Jongwoon says cheekily, and then exclaims, “Ow!” when Kyuhyun reaches over to pinch his cheek.

When he’s in the shower again, when that slight bit of uneasiness is warm inside of him, he tries not to think of the man standing a few feet outside of the bathroom door, waiting to come in after him. (He fails, of course, but he doesn’t remember any of it after he comes.)

He’s constantly reminded that his life does revolve around music, it revolves around singing because generally, it’s what he does. Melodies and lyrics and tunes day in and day out. And when he’s not in the recording studio trying to get the perfect note or not in the practice room trying to get the right words and the right pitch or isn’t busy discussing things with his manager or in the small room in the back trying to come up with the perfect lyrics, or even when he’s not singing in the shower, there’s always something, something with music around.

And then he realizes that Kyuhyun’s life isn’t much different when he comes home at around ten one night and Kyuhyun’s shuffling with the dishes behind the sink and singing loudly all throughout the apartment. It’s not the first time he’s done this but Jongwoon suddenly realizes, maybe we’re not as different as I thought as he says suddenly, “You sound good.”

Surprised, Kyuhyun turns around and blushes upon sight of Jongwoon. “Thanks,” he tells him. “You’re not so bad yourself. You know. If you were singing.”

Jongwoon chuckles. “I know,” he says, and then, “Hey, can I hear some of your stuff? You know, things you’ve been working on since you went on solo.”

Kyuhyun nods. “Sure,” he says. As he dries his hands and walks around the counter, Jongwoon follows him into the living room and wonders why he hadn’t done this earlier. He’s rather curious as to what Kyuhyun had been up to. If his style had changed, if his range of tone had changed—well, he’ll have to see and find out.

Kyuhyun pulls out a disc that has his name and his face on it, and then pops it into the stereo. Then, rather embarrassedly, he fiddles with the knobs and the volume until it’s adjusted to the place he wants. “They’re not too amazing,” he confesses to Jongwoon, scratching the back of his head. “Kind of boring, really, since I don’t write them—I never really liked ballads.”

“But they bring in the money, don’t they,” Jongwoon says thoughtfully as he listens to Kyuhyun’s voice over the speakers. It’s rich, beautiful, just as it had always been. It makes Jongwoon smile, at the familiar purity, as if he doesn’t hear it every day.

“Yeah, they do,” Kyuhyun says. “What about your stuff? What have you been up to?”

Their conversation falls into place, about work and career and money—but it’s also about music, which is why Jongwoon enjoys it immensely. They have some sort of bond, some bond that only they understand—perhaps they’ve always had it, but Jongwoon hadn’t realized it until now.

Every effort to get to know Kyuhyun better makes Jongwoon feels like he’s won, he’s won this game of friendship. They’re not just awkward smiles and peaceful silences anymore, they’re also stupid conversations and obnoxious laughs.

He decides to make it a little deeper.

“Kyuhyun,” Jongwoon says as they sit with each other over dinner, again. “How’s your… erm.” He coughs. “Your, er…”

“My what?” Kyuhyun asks, smirking. “My parents? My work? My gaming?”

“Your. Um.” Jongwoon coughs. “Your personal life.”

Kyuhyun’s eyes twinkle in amusement. “My personal life? Why do you ask, hyung?”

“Just wondering.” Jongwoon shrugs and doesn’t meet his eyes. Instead, he stares at his fried egg on his plate. “Since I feel obligated to know… or at least ask.”

“You feel obligated to pry into my life?”

“No! I mean… well. In case there’s anything you need to tell me. Or want to tell me.”

Jongwoon sneaks a peek upward, to see that Kyuhyun’s still watching him, grin dancing upon his face. Jongwoon quickly averts his gaze again and prods his rice with his chopsticks.

“Well there’s nothing really interesting about my personal life,” says Kyuhyun. “Nothing’s really changed, really. Don’t have the time to date, don’t really have the energy to care for girls… Though I suppose the girl who brings me tea is sort of cute.” He gazes upward, in thought. “I don’t have much of a personal life, actually.” He chuckles and continues to eat his noodles.

Jongwoon doesn’t look up, but a smile manages to find its way on his face.

It’s suddenly summer, which means Jongwoon and Kyuhyun have more free time. Not a lot, but just more time to be with each other. Of course neither of them mentions it or point it out, but Kyuhyun’s seemed to realize it when he comes home one day with a pair of swim trunks in his hands.

“I was thinking,” he says confidently as Jongwoon’s at the dinner table, watching some drama on Kyuhyun’s laptop. “We should go to the beach sometime.”

“Why?” Jongwoon looks up and gazes to the trunks.

“Because. It’s just nice out for it, you know?” Kyuhyun says, indicating the sunlight outside. “Besides, we never really do anything other than go shopping and eat meals together… it’d be nice to do something fun for once.”

“I can be plenty of fun when I want to be!” Jongwoon says. “And so can you! We can be fun together!”

“… right. Anyways,” Kyuhyun continues. “So. Beach? This weekend?”

Jongwoon just rolls his eyes. “Once I buy a swimming suit of my own.”

“Come on! We should go work out!”

“Working out isn’t really my thing, hyung,” Kyuhyun says from staring intently at his laptop. “I have other things to do.”

“But don’t you want to stay in shape?” Jongwoon says eagerly.

Kyuhyun glances up to him. “Jongwoon hyung,” he says. “Do I really look out of shape to you?”

Jongwoon looks down to Kyuhyun’s body. “No! But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to improve your health! Don’t you want some muscles like me?” he says. He flexes his muscles and shows Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun rolls his eyes and gazes back to his computer. “I don’t want to be anything like you,” he says, and when Jongwoon whacks his arm with a, “Hey!” he just chuckles and adds, “Kidding.”

Jongwoon’s surprised at the invitation, but when he declines politely, Kyuhyun just laughs and says, “Really? More beer for me then!”

He takes a large gulp and then slams the bottle on the bar counter. Jongwoon glances around.

“Brings back good memories, huh?”

“I’ll say,” Kyuhyun says with a grin. “I think I forgot how to hold my alcohol well.” He giggles a little bit and his cheeks flush red. Jongwoon spends the rest of the night wondering why the sight had been so appealing.

(And it’s not the same as being with Super Junior, as it had been with being Kyuhyun in the past. But Jongwoon doesn’t mind.

In fact, he kind of likes it.)

So their relationship slowly builds, slowly but surely.

They’re talking over lunch once more (and lunch with Kyuhyun is just the same as dinner with Kyuhyun and breakfast with Kyuhyun—then again, it’s changed, it’s all changed) when Jongwoon sighs and leans his chin against his hand. “It’s difficult being an ex-idol, isn’t it,” he says thoughtfully.

Kyuhyun chuckles. “You’ve been an ex-idol for about three years now, Jongwoon hyung.”

“Yeah, but.” Jongwoon stops suddenly. “Wait, we’ve been living with each other for three years?”

“You say that like that’s a bad thing.”

“It is! I can’t believe I’ve been living with you so long and we’ve never done something like this before!”

Jongwoon definitely notices the wariness in Kyuhyun’s gaze at this point, but he does his best to wave it off (because Jongwoon always says what’s on his mind without a second thought). “Anyways,” he says, pressing on, “Life is just… so much different. Like. We’re not as busy. There’s not as much drama. It’s actually kind of boring.” He lets out a laugh and hears what it sounds like.

“I guess that’s true,” Kyuhyun says. “But that’s not a bad thing, right? Life with you is just as good.” He forks a piece of cake off from the cake in front of him and puts it in his mouth, before curling his lips toward Jongwoon. “Life couldn’t get better.”

“Life couldn’t get better indeed,” Jongwoon laughs again, and raises his fork over to Kyuhyun. “Cheers.”

Jongwoon notices how Kyuhyun seems to be much more free around him, much more real. Kyuhyun had always been the type all for business, all for what’s supposed to be there on the surface, all for prosperity—but it goes away when he’s around him. Jongwoon feels sort of flattered, sort of nice.

“Hyung,” Kyuhyun says, tossing him a newspaper. “Here. I got the mail for you.”

“Oh!” Jongwoon looks up to him, surprised. “Thanks!”

Kyuhyun sends him a silent grin, one with no reason or words behind it.

When Jongwoon writes love songs, he never has anyone in mind. It’s all hypothetical, all theoretical—it’s not like he’s ever had someone to love. He’s still waiting for the moment but he fakes the moment as well.

He writes about love in silence, love in quiet. Love in stillness and invisibility, love that’s always there.

Soon enough it’s August, and then it’s Jongwoon’s birthday. It takes Kyuhyun fifteen hours to remember, but it takes Jongwoon zero effort to remind him.

“Happy birthday hyung!” Kyuhyun says as soon as Jongwoon comes through the door. He tackles him with a hug and Jongwoon laughs as he struggles to push Kyuhyun off of him.

“You’re choking me, Kyuhyun,” he manages out. Kyuhyun has a large grin on his face when he lets him go; Jongwoon doesn’t ever remember seeing Kyuhyun this happy (but maybe that’s because his smile always makes him forget, makes him blind from everything else—no stop and Jongwoon stops thinking.)

He’s too busy standing there with his bag in his hand that he’s not paying attention, when all of a sudden Kyuhyun’s in front of him and there’s a plate of cake in his hand and what is he going to do—and then the cake is suddenly in Jongwoon’s face, and he’s laughing again, while Jongwoon sputters from behind the frosting and bread.

“Kyuhyun!” Jongwoon says indignantly, dropping his bag and moving his hands to wipe the cake out from his eyes. “What was that for?”

Kyuhyun’s laughing as well. “Hyung you look so funny!” he exclaims.

Jongwoon suddenly hears the shutter of a camera and manages to lift his eyes to see Kyuhyun taking pictures of him with his cell phone. “Kyuhyun, don’t!” he squeaks and tries to wipe the cake off his face with his already frosting-covered hands.

“This is your new caller ID,” Kyuhyun says with a grin, shoving his phone into Jongwoon’s face.

Jongwoon laughs and rubs his lips and cheeks and eyes all over Kyuhyun, covering him with frosting as well.

And so life continues, and Super Junior is behind them, but Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun and Jongwoon are still together, they’re still pieces fit in all the right places, and maybe they’re not perfect but at least they’re together—

Jongwoon doesn’t have nightmares often, but they aren’t uncommon to him. He wakes up in a sweat, staring into the dark, eyes tightened, lips chapped.

The apartment is still, but Jongwoon, Jongwoon feels like everything around him is shaking and spinning around. Slightly frightened (because he refuses to admit that he’s completely frightened, even in his worst state) and wanting something, some form of comfort, his feet manage to pull him out of his bed and he wanders around, around until he’s entering Kyuhyun’s bedroom suddenly, and then he’s pulling himself onto Kyuhyun’s bed, yanking the covers over him, onto him, from around Kyuhyun’s body.

Kyuhyun wakes up, and when he sees Jongwoon, he only looks a little bit concerned. “Hyung, what-what are you doing?” he manages to mumble out.

“Scared. Nightmare,” Jongwoon murmurs, cradling his head next to Kyuhyun, managing to fit next to him in the small bed. His head rests on the pillow, much warmer than his own.

“Hyung, what are you—”

But all Jongwoon hears is Kyuhyun’s sigh before he drifts to sleep, content and comfortable with the man next to him.

(Jongwoon’s always had this dream where he’s standing at the edge of a beach, staring out at an ocean, perhaps waiting for someone to come back. But the salt water rolls back and forth and no one comes, and Jongwoon is alone.)

And then this happens again. And again. And then they become something a little more than just words and laughs, but touches and hugs too. It’s sort of being like in a band again, only minus the huge number of members and there isn’t anyone to tease them about it the day afterwards.

It’s nothing they speak about, either, through the silent and not-so-silent conversations they have. Jongwoon feels like it’s the sort of closeness they can have without caring about because they’re close already, they’ve always been close, in one way or another. He doesn’t let himself think too much about it. He doesn’t need to.

He blames it entirely on his old habits, on days when they had been a band, but when Jongwoon comes home this afternoon he approaches Kyuhyun (who always seems to be here earlier than him nowadays) with a smile and a hug. Kyuhyun seems to be a little surprised, though, as he manages to tear himself out of Jongwoon’s grasp and looks at him with raised eyebrows. “Hyung, what are you doing?”

“Sorry.” Jongwoon blushes, bowing his head down. “It was… kind of instinct for me.” He shuffles his feet around and wonders if this is actually true, since he hadn’t even been thinking about Super Junior at all.

Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to believe him either. “Really? Are you sure you’re not sick or anything?” He sounds entirely joking but Jongwoon isn’t too taken aback when he puts his head on his forehead, feeling for a temperature.

“Really, I’m fine,” Jongwoon mutters, starting to back out of the room. He doesn’t turn around, and keeps his shallowest thoughts to himself.

Kyuhyun watches after him.

Kyuhyun comes in as Jongwoon is finishing feeding his turtles in his bedroom, and watches on amusedly as Jongwoon moves the turtle food from side to side, trying to get the turtle to catch it. “Having fun there, hyung?” he says with his arms folded across his chest, walking over towards him.

“Oh!” Jongwoon turns around, surprised at his sudden appearance, but not upset in the least. “Yeah,” he says with a chuckle, and finally bends his wrist down so that Ddangkomaeng can eat the final piece.

“Your turtles are a replication of you,” Kyuhyun says. “Cute but weird.”

Jongwoon turns to Kyuhyun and pouts. “Mean.”

He leans in and kisses Kyuhyun on the cheek, however. Kyuhyun lets it happen, but he doesn’t respond.

(Jongwoon takes this to be a good sign.)

Shortly after returning home a bit later in the evening, Jongwoon calls throughout the apartment, “I’m home!” He hears Kyuhyun’s voice faintly somewhere else, in a different room; the water’s running somewhere else so he assumes that he’s taking a shower.

Because he can’t help it and because he needs some reassurance, he goes into the hallway and knocks on the bathroom door. Kyuhyun shouts out, from inside, “I’m in here hyung!” and Jongwoon says back, “Okay!” The door is open a little, allowing a little bit of the fluorescent light to come into the hallway.

Jongwoon doesn’t lean his head in but he can see Kyuhyun—Kyuhyun’s bare body behind the shower curtain. He doesn’t see much, but he hears—he hears faint sounds, a few noises. Some grunts and then a groan, the other man’s body straining underneath the water, and then Kyuhyun’s hand is going down, Kyuhyun’s hand is—

Jongwoon stops himself suddenly and tears his eyes away, shoving his back against the wall behind him. The images don’t leave his mind, and the sounds are still ringing in his ears.

They form a new sort of routine, the sort of routine that Kyuhyun doesn’t mention in the mornings and Jongwoon doesn’t bring up as the most trivial of matters. When Jongwoon awakens, Kyuhyun isn’t there so Jongwoon assumes that he’s in the shower, that he’s eating breakfast, or that he’s gone to the bathroom with his clothes to change rather than in his room where Jongwoon is. Jongwoon doesn’t think too much about it as he rolls out of Kyuhyun’s bed and goes to his own room. (This doesn’t happen too often, so Jongwoon decides that it’s just another thing that they share, another thing that they don’t speak of.)

It takes Jongwoon ten minutes at most to beat off in the shower (it’s mostly because the bathroom smells faintly of Kyuhyun, because they use different shampoos—Kyuhyun’s always smelled of fresh grass and water while Jongwoon tends to stick with his lavender body wash) and when he finishes, he comes out with his towel around his waist. To his only faint surprise, Kyuhyun’s sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal.

“What, not going to wait for me?” Jongwoon asks him, still dripping wet from his shower. He tries to not be self-conscious; he tries not to notice how Kyuhyun’s eyes linger southward too long.

“My boss wants me in early today,” Kyuhyun replies, swallowing his food and blinking at Jongwoon. “But I’ll be home for dinner, I promise!”

“You better,” Jongwoon chuckles and tries not to notice the faint pink tinge in Kyuhyun’s cheeks.

At work, Jongwoon fiddles with the pen in his fingers and stares up to the ceiling, trying to come up with the right words. Writing music is like beating off, for him. There’s no one particular in mind, no one to really stimulate his thoughts and emotions—but he manages to do so anyway, he manages to accomplish his task thoroughly. (He wonders what it would be like if he really had someone; why hasn’t he even tried yet?)

And it’s not like girls haven’t asked him out before, because they have. Jongwoon doesn’t have very much interest in them, though; he hasn’t had interest in anyone ever since their band had broken up. He had dated here and there but they were small brief dates, could hardly be called dates at all. Nothing had changed. Nothing was interesting. Nothing is interesting, he thinks, and groans while slumping on his arm at the table.

“Jongwoon? You all right there?” asks his manager across from him. He had been busy discussing the wardrobe for a concert Jongwoon had been dragged into performing in a few weeks.

Jongwoon nods and brings his head back up. “I’m fine,” he replies, looking down at his paper. “Just trying to find my muse.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure your song will turn out great,” his manager says, smiling. “Since you make your own songs.”

“Hey,” Jongwoon says suddenly. “Do you think it would be possible—Do you think I could collaborate with someone on a song—just my roommate, but he’s in the music industry too, actually he’s going solo himself—but sunbae, do you think it could be possible?”

“I don’t see why not.” His manager raises his eyebrows, surprised at the offer. “But I’d like to see how that’d turn out.”

“Great!” Jongwoon says eagerly. He can’t wait to go home.

He enters to see that Kyuhyun’s busy trying to cook something in the kitchen—whatever it is, Jongwoon can’t really tell—but the first thing he asks is, “Kyuhyun, do you want to write a song together with me?”

Kyuhyun turns around, and his eyes are wide. “Huh—what?”

“I said: do you want to write a song together with me?” Jongwoon runs behind the kitchen counter and grins to Kyuhyun so that he can see him fully. “’Cause my manager said that maybe I could, and I was thinking that, well, I don’t know, we could write a song together or something—”

“But hyung, I suck at writing songs,” Kyuhyun says, laughing.

“So? It could still be something fun we could do together,” Jongwoon says brightly.

“I’m sorry hyung, but I can’t.” At this, Jongwoon drops his hands to his sides. “I would really love to, but—I mean, my schedule’s kind of tight.” Kyuhyun sends him an apologetic look. “I have concerts and apparently the wardrobe person has a problem with the size of my pants, and—” He chuckles again. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Jongwoon says, though he can feel his spirits dampen a little. “It’s understandable.”

“But hey.” Kyuhyun smiles again. “It’s definitely something we should try doing in the future.”

Jongwoon tosses and turns in his bed, but can’t get to sleep. He remembers being in the Super Junior dorms and feeling as tired as hell, days where he had hugged and clung onto members for lack of better things to do, due to drowsiness (and the urge to promote fanservice.) He clings to his pillow and stuffs his face in, trying to get himself to fall asleep; but the adrenaline rushing through him refuses to go away.

He settles for getting up from his bed and making his way over to Kyuhyun’s room like he always does. Kyuhyun’s door is open, as usual. He climbs into the bed and doesn’t move when Kyuhyun rolls around, and Kyuhyun seems mildly surprised at first before he sighs. Jongwoon doesn’t really mind, though, as long as he knows as Kyuhyun doesn’t.

Jongwoon finds his nose automatically snuggling into the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck, which is probably awkward considering both of their positions right now. So he moves slightly, and flops his arm to the side, unknowingly trapping Kyuhyun beneath him. Kyuhyun notices, of course, and mumbles a, “Hyung,” as he attempts to shove his arm off of him.

Jongwoon whines and brings him closer to him, wanting some sort of warmth, some sort of comfort. Kyuhyun whines, “Hyung,” again, but Jongwoon hardly pays him any attention. Instead he just brings Kyuhyun’s shoulder closer to him and his mouth sidles against the edge of his ear, lips pressing on him gently.

Kyuhyun’s seemed to have frozen in his grasp, but Jongwoon is hardly aware of what he’s doing anymore. He nods his head down and falls asleep, still holding Kyuhyun in his arms.

Kyuhyun doesn’t mention anything in the morning, as always, though there seems to be something wary about him when Jongwoon walks into the kitchen. It all goes away, though, when Jongwoon greets him with nothing but a smile and they settle down at the table for breakfast.

“Anything new with you?” Kyuhyun asks him, because it’s polite to do so of course. Jongwoon thinks in the back of his mind that maybe Kyuhyun cares but doesn’t dwell too long on it.

“Not really,” he replies. “Finished a song. Gonna call my mom. And whatnot. I think she’s worried that I still don’t have a wife yet.” He chuckles and fumbles with the rice cake in between his chopsticks.

Kyuhyun laughs as well. “If I were your mom, I’d be worried too. Except…”

“Except you don’t have a wife either?” Jongwoon says amusedly.

Kyuhyun chuckles and nods, and then glances down to the rice ball soup in the bowl beneath him.

“We’re some sad, sad men aren’t we,” Jongwoon muses. “Not that I mind so much, though. It’s nice enough having you here.”

“Yeah,” Kyuhyun says. “It’s nice having you here with me too.”

In mid-September, Jongwoon notices that his hair is getting long and he notices that Kyuhyun’s hair is getting long as well. They haven’t had a haircut in a while—they rarely got haircuts together—but really, it would be unhealthy to just let their hair grow. So he comes up to Kyuhyun one day and tells him, “We need to cut our hair.”

“We?” Kyuhyun raises his gaze up and eyes Jongwoon’s hair. Then he stares at the strands hanging in front of his face. “Oh. We do.”

“Yeah. Want to go today?” Jongwoon asks.

“Hold on, just give me a second,” Kyuhyun says, turning his attention back to the sink where he had been washing the dishes. “Just let me finish with this last load.”

“What’s with you and your obsession with doing the dishes anyways?” Jongwoon says, glancing between him and the dishwasher.

“I don’t have an obsession! I just can’t stand it when there are dirty dishes in the sink.”

“Yeah, okay. You don’t have an obsession at all.” Jongwoon grins.

“You know, what, shut up hyung.” Kyuhyun laughs and splashes some soap water on Jongwoon’s face, causing a little bit of the bubbles to pop on him.

“Ah! My eye, my eye!” Jongwoon cries, covering his right eye with his palm.

Kyuhyun stops suddenly and runs over to him, looking at him carefully. “Are you all right?”

“Just kidding!” Jongwoon laughs as well and reaches over to the sink, tossing water on Kyuhyun too. Kyuhyun yelps as the front of his shirt gets wet, and turns on the sink to spray Jongwoon back.

The two have a small water fight (and almost kill the sink nozzle) until a ceramic plate nearly falls off from the edge of the slippery counter. Then they glance at each other, eyes widened in fear.

“We should stop,” Kyuhyun says.

Jongwoon nods in agreement, and as Kyuhyun finishes doing the dishes, he walks around and stretches his arms behind his head. Their apartment is still small, plain; but there’s this sort of homey feel to it that he enjoys immensely. Jongwoon enjoys his home immensely.

Kyuhyun goes to his room when he’s done and changes his clothes, and then comes out to where Jongwoon’s standing near their shoes. “Ready?” he says.

“Yeah,” says Jongwoon.

They slip on their shoes and then walk out. Before Jongwoon knows it, they’re strolling along the streets, looking for a proper place to get their hair cut. The place that Jongwoon usually goes to is merely mediocre, and apparently Kyuhyun likes to roam around and see which places are best (which explains why that one time a couple years back his hair had been horrible—not like Jongwoon had ever let him know.) They talk and make their way around the city, until they finally find a place that they think is suitable for the both of them.

Jongwoon’s hair turns out clean-cut and crisp—not too bad—and he also had managed talking Kyuhyun out of getting a perm he had been considering. Kyuhyun’s hair turns out to be not much shorter than it had been before (but maybe Jongwoon had decided on the style on purpose, because Kyuhyun doesn’t look too bad in it), which he seems pretty much satisfied with. They walk out of the shop after tipping their respective barbers, and then Jongwoon turns around to play with Kyuhyun’s hair.

“It’s so soft and fluffy!” he says, running his fingers through the strands. He watches as Kyuhyun laughs, all teeth and lips and tongue.

“I’m sure it is, hyung.” He lifts up his own hands to pat it down, batting Jongwoon’s hands away.

“Oh, don’t be so mean to me.” Jongwoon pouts and wraps his arms around Kyuhyun’s torso, leaning his chin on his shoulder. He sees Kyuhyun fidget in his hold, and wonders what’s wrong. (There’s nothing wrong.)

And in the night he comes to Kyuhyun again, because it feels like what’s right, what he’s supposed to do. That he’s supposed to be with him. Even though Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to want or need Jongwoon at all, it’s not like Jongwoon can (wants to) help it—his body takes over, his mind is temporarily gone (or so he likes to think) and it’s all just him and Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun.

He feels the warmth next to him in the morning, and then its brief absence—but only brief because Jongwoon sticks his hands out and pulls Kyuhyun back down, making him yelp out a little.

“Jongwoon, what—what are you doing—”

“Just stay,” Jongwoon murmurs, clutching Kyuhyun close to him like a stuffed animal and burying his face into the side of Kyuhyun’s sleeve. Kyuhyun sighs but settles back down next to Jongwoon in the bed, shifting slightly uncomfortably.

“Hyung, is this really necessary?” he whispers. The sun is peeks out from the curtains on the side.

Jongwoon wriggles underneath the dark blue sheet covering them and manages to nod, just barely. “I miss this,” he mumbles.

“Miss what?”

Kyuhyun’s head moves a little bit, perhaps to look at him. Jongwoon manages to shrug from holding Kyuhyun so tightly.

“Just this… closeness,” he says.

They stay for a little bit, and Jongwoon’s aware of Kyuhyun’s shallow breathing and of his own. The top of his head seems to fit in place next to Kyuhyun’s ear, as his hands settle on the other side of his shoulders. Kyuhyun makes no effort to move away from him—actually, it seems as if he’s starting to get used to this position. The thought makes a small smile come to Jongwoon’s face, as he continues bringing Kyuhyun even closer to him.

Finally after a while, Kyuhyun starts to move away. “Jongwoon, I need to—We should probably start getting ready for work. We’re probably late.”

“Yeah, probably,” Jongwoon says, watching as Kyuhyun makes his way out of the bed. He doesn’t let him go, though, because he pulls Kyuhyun’s hand and kisses him lightly on the lips, before walking out of the room.

Jongwoon decides that he’s finally let go of Super Junior. He hasn’t let them go fully, obviously—he’ll probably never be able to—but he’s progressed, he’s starting to live towards something else. He’s pretty sure Kyuhyun has too, and they’re relying on each other—but it’s the good sort of reliance, like two good friends looking out for each other.

He jerks off in the shower and thinks of Kyuhyun. (He knows what it means, of course, but he refuses to admit it to himself.)

It’s like forming some sort of closure and at the same time not, because as things start to come together, other opportunities start to open up. Jongwoon has the incentive to take these opportunities so he does, little by little, step by step. And it works. Everything works.

(The only problem that remains is Kyuhyun.)

He doesn’t try to look at Kyuhyun again because he knows it’s wrong—

—but it must be wrong, too, to not forget about him as the water splashes all around and Jongwoon’s fingers work around himself.

“Kyuhyun.”

Jongwoon pokes Kyuhyun’s arm with his finger. Kyuhyun barely lifts up his eyes from his computer screen, but says, “Yeah hyung?” like he’s pretending to pay attention to him.

“I said, your cell phone’s been ringing nonstop for the past five minutes,” Jongwoon says to him. “You should probably pick it up. The caller ID says it’s ‘manager hyung.’”

“Why didn’t you pick it up for me?” Kyuhyun asks, setting his laptop down on the seat next to him and starts to get up from the couch. “Instead of just sitting here and bothering me—”

“Oh please. If I was bothering you, you would have been up within a second.” Jongwoon rolls his eyes as Kyuhyun walks over to the other side of the room. He follows him, and wraps an arm around the front of his torso while Kyuhyun picks up his phone.

“Hello?” Kyuhyun says. He seems a bit uncomfortable in Jongwoon’s hold, so Jongwoon loosens it a little bit. “Hi, hyung, yes—yes, I can come to work later this evening. Yeah. Sure! I—” And then he turns to Jongwoon and shoots him a dirty look. Jongwoon furrows his eyebrows in confusion but Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to try to explain when he turns to his phone again. “Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay.” He hangs up, and then turns to Jongwoon again.

“Hyung!” he says, throwing his hands off. “What are you doing?”

“What?” Jongwoon blinks, and then realizes what’s wrong: Kyuhyun seems to want to stand as far away from him as possible. Defensively, he says, “I used to do it all the time, there’s nothing wrong—”

“Yes, you used to do it all the time. Used to,” says Kyuhyun. “You haven’t done it in a long time, and then suddenly—suddenly you’re being all touchy feely over me?”

“Well.” Jongwoon shifts from foot to foot. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Yes! I mean, normal men—normal men don’t do that,” Kyuhyun emphasizes.

“Who said we were normal men?”

“Hyung,” Kyuhyun says, giving him a serious look.

Jongwoon shrugs and blinks. “What? I’m just saying.”

“Yes, but—but really.”

“But what?”

“I—Jongwoon, I just—” Kyuhyun lets out an exasperated sigh and throws his hand up in the air. “I’m going out for a walk.”

“Can I come with you?”

“No,” Kyuhyun says briskly. “I’m going out for a walk. On my own. Just to clear my mind,” he adds when he sees the slightly reproachful expression on Jongwoon’s face. “I’ll be back, hyung. I promise.”

Kyuhyun does come back, of course. When he does, they eat seaweed soup for dinner and then Kyuhyun tells him that he has to go back to work, for something that his manager wants. Jongwoon nods and watches as Kyuhyun walks out the door, and waits for him to come back. (He has this feeling, this feeling that it’s sort of hopeless though—but it’s not, he tells himself, of course it’s not.)

By eleven o’clock it seems like Kyuhyun’s still at work so Jongwoon decides to give up on staying up for Kyuhyun to come back, and instead just go to bed. (He’s in the shower again and Kyuhyun fills his mind and he hasn’t felt like this for a long time but he comes all in a rush and he has nothing to hold back in this empty apartment.) So he washes and changes and then settles into his rather cool bed for a mid-autumn night, waiting for sleep to overtake him.

The apartment is silent the next morning.

Jongwoon first thinks that there must be some sort of mistake—maybe he’s dreaming, or maybe it’s really late and Kyuhyun had already left without leaving a note. But no, it’s six thirty like it always is and when he pinches himself he’s pretty sure by the blood he ends up spilling that he’s not dreaming. He wanders around the apartment, thinking that maybe Kyuhyun is in the bathroom, in the living room, in the room they never use, hiding in one of the kitchen drawers and is just playing a trick on him—but it’s quiet, all quiet.

And Jongwoon is alone.

His manager taps a pen against the side of his head. “Jongwoon, wake up.”

“Huh—Oh.” Jongwoon swivels his head around to see his manager staring down at him, eyes clouded with confusion and worry.

“You’ve been zoning out all day,” he says to him. “Are you all right? Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“What—Yeah, yeah I did,” Jongwoon says quickly. “Um, yeah. I’m just—I’m fine, really, mild headache, that’s all.”

“Are you sure?” His manager bends his head down to look Jongwoon in the eye.

“Really.” Jongwoon shakes his head and averts his gaze back to the paper beneath him, wishing he could climb into its crease and ride on the wing-like folds.

Dinner seems empty, cold without Kyuhyun, even though Jongwoon’s burning his tongue with his overheated flat beef noodles. He stares at the empty space across from him and wonders where he’s gone. (It shouldn’t be any of his business or worry to wonder things like this, but—Jongwoon can’t help wondering. He really can’t.)

He finishes his meal in ten minutes and spends the rest of the night wanting to go to sleep. Of course he can’t, because the heater refuses to turn on; and even if it does, it’s still not warm enough.

Jongwoon’s doing the laundry (because he still cares about health, he still cares about personal hygiene) and instinctively, like he always does, he walks into Kyuhyun’s room and expects a pile of dirty clothes waiting for him to pick up. Waiting for him to sigh and stare at, waiting for him to get.

There’s a tiny mound in the closet where Kyuhyun’s dirty clothes had been before he had left. Jongwoon sighs and stares at the hill, and then gets every single piece in them. He pretends that these are Kyuhyun’s clothes for the week, instead of for the few days he had been here, and tosses the clothes into the basket two times longer than he should.

The next morning, Jongwoon has this sort of hope deep down inside of him that Kyuhyun will pop out of nowhere and yell, “Surprise! I’m back!” because it’s such a Kyuhyun thing to do, right? Yes, it is. It’s such a Kyuhyun thing to do that it’s what Kyuhyun will do because Kyuhyun just doesn’t disappear randomly, he’s usually just hiding some place that Jongwoon hadn’t looked before. So Jongwoon believes that it will happen, and that any moment now Kyuhyun will jump out from behind the counter and tackle him.

After breakfast, he puts his shoes on and leaves.

When he gets to work, his manager seems to be just as wary about him as he had been last time. He doesn’t say anything, of course, and neither does Jongwoon. They proceed with their normal day like they always do and Jongwoon ignores the little thing tugging at the back of his mind. He works all morning and eats a fifteen minute lunch and works all afternoon, and then goes home late at night, back to the sudden, still apartment.

Kyuhyun will come back. Jongwoon knows this. All of Kyuhyun’s stuff is still littered around the apartment, and it’s been what—four days now? Kyuhyun wouldn’t last without Jongwoon for about a week. No, Kyuhyun will come back, he’s sure of it. Of course Kyuhyun will. What would Kyuhyun do without all his stuff? (Without him?)

Jongwoon is tempted to take the opportunity to go through his stuff—he doesn’t, of course, but he’s tempted to. Instead he just sits in Kyuhyun’s bed and breathes in Kyuhyun’s scent and wonders where he is right now. This is sort of like when they hadn’t been talking to each other—sort of, but not really. Now Kyuhyun’s the one who’s left and Jongwoon, Jongwoon doesn’t know where he’s gone. (But he will come back. He will come home.)

Breakfast and dinner are usually the same, mostly because Jongwoon cooks too much and always ends up having leftovers for the next meal. He confuses breakfast with dinner sometimes and dinner with breakfast; one time, he had accidentally told his mother over the phone that he was eating dinner when it had been seven in the morning!

The event sounds hilarious to him, or maybe Jongwoon’s just hearing things.

Regardless, he fills the empty space in the rooms with his music and talks and words and sounds, because even if there is absence, there should be no reason for him to not hold the spots. This is all temporary, but he’s just doing this. He’s keeping all of it warm. Everything, all of it.

But somehow, it is not quite enough.

Jongwoon decides that he shouldn’t waste his time mulling over Kyuhyun’s momentary absence—he should do something by himself. He should learn how to manage by himself. So after a few days he stops sitting in Kyuhyun’s room and stops lying in Kyuhyun’s bed and goes back to his own, where he pulls the covers over himself and tells himself that he’s happy.

His manager continues to notice his odd behavior, but Jongwoon doesn’t care. Why should he care? He’s fine, perfectly fine; he can handle being without Kyuhyun, he is strong, he is strong—

(The water runs along the sand beneath his toes, washing up nothing but empty beer bottles and empty shells.)

III. Skinny Love

But no, he’s not because two days later Jongwoon gives up again. He gives up on being strong and instead drags his blanket out into the living room and stares at their apartment doorway, waiting for Kyuhyun to walk in any moment now. He stays up and his tired eyes focus on the wooden door, anticipating for it to open, anticipating for the silence to break and for Kyuhyun to be here with him. Jongwoon stays up for days and nights on end, but none of it changes.

He wonders what Kyuhyun’s doing right now. If Kyuhyun’s okay. Who, who Kyuhyun’s currently staying with. Maybe with his family—they don’t live too far away from here, do they? Jongwoon hopes that they’re feeding him okay. He hopes that Kyuhyun has a cozy bed, a far cozier bed than the one in this apartment (even though that’s not likely.) He hopes that Kyuhyun thinks about him and hopes that Kyuhyun is being held against his own will, that he wants to come back.

Jongwoon is a little pathetic, isn’t he? He stares at the door and his eyes grow red.

For eight days his manager continues to not say anything even though it’s clear that he’s noticed that something is wrong, that something is off. Of course no one else knows about Jongwoon’s current living situation, or any living situation he’s ever had; so there’s no reason for Jongwoon to tell him, and there’s no reason for Jongwoon to tell him anything at all.

Finally his manager snaps on the ninth day and pulls Jongwoon aside from being outfitted for his photo shoot. “Jongwoon,” he says. “You know if there’s anything you want to tell me, anything, you can always just come and talk to me, right?”

“Right.” Jongwoon says the recited word, and thinks that if there’s anything he’s ever needed to tell anyone, he would tell Kyuhyun.

“Are you sure you’re focused? Completely and wholeheartedly fine?” his manager asks, looking concerned.

“Really, sunbae,” Jongwoon snaps, giving him a look. “I’m fine. How many times do I have to tell you?” He doesn’t meet his manager’s eyes with his own red ones, and instead walks away with weakness in each footstep.

Being alone is something Jongwoon had always been good at, or at least that’s what he likes to think. He has this stage alone, he has his career alone, and he has his apartment alone.

Or, at least, now he does.

On the stage, he grips the microphone tightly in his hand and sings the songs he had composed himself. The lyrics feel familiar on his lips and the music sounds familiar in his ears and all of it is familiar to him. Even though something is missing, something is not quite right; but it’s not really for Jongwoon to care or notice this. Because when he’s alone, nothing is right, nothing is quite perfect.

He doesn’t sleep because he can’t sleep and insomnia isn’t something he can control. Missing Kyuhyun is something he can’t control either, so Jongwoon just goes along with what his mind tells him instead of his body. He knows best. He always knows best.

So instead of sleeping and instead of not missing, he curls up and holds himself and stares at the door and waits. His days feel like ashes, blowing away slowly, and it’s all Jongwoon really needs in life.

Eventually the missing turns to anger and the anger turns to sadness. Days, weeks pass and Kyuhyun still isn’t back. It’s mid-October and Kyuhyun still isn’t back.

Jongwoon’s eyes not only grow red, but wet as well: perhaps he’s being a little stupid in it all. It’s probably all just a misconception, that Kyuhyun’s not really gone, that there’s just, there’s just something behind the scenes that Jongwoon doesn’t know yet. This must be it—but no because when Jongwoon wakes up every morning, his pillow is tear-stained and his room is impossibly cold and he decides that, the next time I see you Cho Kyuhyun I am going to strangle the living shit out of you.

(Only because he hates feeling this hopeless.)

It can’t be hopeless, though. Kyuhyun’s stuff is still in this apartment. Kyuhyun will come back. It can’t be this hopeless. It can’t. It can’t. (Jongwoon’s still a little shocked at how sudden it had started, and how short it’s been lasting—it certainly feels like ages and why, why is Kyuhyun gone now.)

He knows Kyuhyun. He knows Kyuhyun isn’t the type to just get up and leave, that Kyuhyun would at least tell him a reason or leave him a slip of paper or something. Kyuhyun isn’t quiet. Kyuhyun isn’t cold. Kyuhyun is talkative and wonderful and beautiful and perfect. He can’t have left. So Jongwoon waits.

After waiting eighteen hours more, Jongwoon blasts one of Kyuhyun’s compact discs throughout the apartment until the neighbors come over and yell at him, “Turn the stupid music off!” He yells back, “Shut the fuck up you don’t even know who I am!” The neighbors call the landlord and the landlord asks Jongwoon to please, at least turn down your music; so Jongwoon turns off his stereo and misses Kyuhyun’s voice filling his ears.

After twenty-six hours more, Jongwoon considers getting up to eat before he remembers that he’s not hungry and there’s no use in eating if you’re not hungry. He holds onto himself and stares at the chair across from him, where Kyuhyun had sat, where Kyuhyun used to sit whenever they ate breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s Kyuhyun’s seat. (Jongwoon is tempted to burn it.)

After thirty-four hours more, Jongwoon stares out the window and tries to figure out when it had started turning light out. It had been dark a moment ago. Or maybe he had fallen asleep. (But that can’t be true because it’s cold and he doesn’t fall asleep when he’s cold so he probably hadn’t fallen asleep. Going insane, most likely.)

After forty hours more, there’s a sound. Or, at least, Jongwoon swears he hears the doorbell ring and he jumps up from his seat on the couch and run towards the door, pillow in hand, eyes pink in happiness.

“Kyuhyun!” he says, opening up the door—but no one is there. The hallway is completely empty, and completely dark.

After waiting forty-two hours, the rest of Jongwoon’s body gives way and he sleeps. He dreams of photographs and childhood memories and wonders where the past has gone. Where everything has gone.

He gets a call from Siwon.

“H-Hello?”

“Ah.” Jongwoon presses his ear harder to the speaker and tries to remember why that voice sounds familiar. “Who is this?”

“This is—This is Choi Siwon.” A clearing of a throat, an awkward pause. “I was, um.”

“Siwon?” Jongwoon interrupts. “Siwon as in…”

“As in ex-Super Junior member.” A small shuffling. “I was, um. I was told to check up on you.”

“Check up on me?”

“Yeah, to see how you’re doing—”

“What?”

“—or-or if you’re okay, or something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” comes Siwon’s somewhat familiar, somewhat distinct voice. “I was just—I don’t know.”

“Who contacted you?”

“What?”

“Who contacted you to check up on me?”

“I—Uh—It’s not very—He feels bad for this—”

“Who?”

“I don’t know if I should—Please, hyung, you have to understand—Aren’t you even glad to hear from me?”

“Who?”

Dial tone.

Kyuhyun comes back two days later.

Jongwoon’s not very aware of it, really; actually, he’s pretty much given up by now. He’s given up on doing work because Kyuhyun’s left, gone for no reason and all he can do is wait because he knows, he knows Kyuhyun will come back because this apartment has all his stuff and it has Jongwoon and how can Kyuhyun not come back?

Kyuhyun enters the door and Jongwoon barely notices.

“Hyung,” Kyuhyun says at first, quietly, indistinct. Jongwoon doesn’t hear him because he’s busy sitting on the couch, hugging a pillow and staring into space, somewhere else, on the floor (or in its general direction.)

“Hyung,” Kyuhyun says again.

Jongwoon snaps his head up. His bloodshot eyes widen in surprise, perhaps a bit too wide for a relatively sane, or awake person.

“Kyuhyun?” he says. Then he shakes his head and ruffles his black hair a little bit. “No, you can’t be here, not yet—Not yet—”

“Hyung,” Kyuhyun repeats for a third time but Jongwoon is shaking his head, muttering things like, “He can’t be here, it’s too—he can’t be here yet—”

“I told Siwon to check up on you, hyung,” Kyuhyun says, looking down to Jongwoon on the couch.

Jongwoon snaps his head up. “That was you? You—You’re in touch with the others and you never told me?”

“I—Yes.” Kyuhyun casts his gaze down. “That was—Only a convenience of the thing, I felt bad for leaving and I wanted to see if you were okay—”

“You’re in touch with the other members and you never told me?”

Jongwoon gets up from the couch, dropping the cushion he had been holding earlier. He stands up and thrusts a finger to Kyuhyun’s chest.

“You just felt bad for leaving me, here, alone? You—You left me Kyuhyun, without a note or warning or anything and why—why the hell did you even leave anyways!”

“I—”

“You can’t just abandon me without any reason and just—and just leave like that! I—I waited for you! I waited!” Jongwoon presses back sobs in his throat and punches Kyuhyun’s chest, hard. Kyuhyun doesn’t move. “I waited for you to come back because I knew—I knew you’d come back but y-you—fuck you Cho Kyuhyun!”

He shoves Kyuhyun a little, making him stumble back; but Kyuhyun just stares at Jongwoon and doesn’t say anything. Jongwoon clenches his jaw and tightens his fist and bites on his lip, and he feels a single tear trace down his cheek as he pushes Kyuhyun’s shoulder again.

“Why did you leave?” Jongwoon demands, looking down, refusing to meet his gaze. “Why?” His fingers curl around the hem of Kyuhyun’s shirt as he stares at the ground beneath his feet.

“B-Because…” Kyuhyun’s voice is weighted, guilty. “I… I don’t… You’re changing, hyung.”

“I’m not changing! I’m not changing at all!” Jongwoon lets out a hollow laugh. “How am I changing, Kyuhyun? Tell me.”

“You… You’re… You’re becoming more needy,” says Kyuhyun. “You’re just… It’s not like how we used to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything. All of this living together, all of this staying together—it had never meant anything before.” Kyuhyun gestures to the apartment around them before looking to Jongwoon again. “But then all of a sudden you’re-you’re becoming clingy and hugging me and holding me and kissing me and-and it’s just not right, you know?”

“What do you mean it’s just not right?” Jongwoon says defiantly, his gaze fixated on Kyuhyun’s face.

“You know what I’m talking about.” Kyuhyun’s expression remains stony, with a tiny bit of regret in his eyes.

“Oh what? Me touching you? Doing things to you? It’s not right?” Jongwoon laughs deliriously. “Well I don’t care if it’s not right,” he says, sobering up, “because it feels right to me and I like it and I’ll do whatever I want to do—”

“You think that I actually want it?” cuts in Kyuhyun. “You think that just because we’re friends and just because we’re living with each other, you’re allowed to go even further, do-do other stuff? Experiment with me?” He looks pained, and a little bit exasperated. “Look, hyung, I-I understand if—if you’re having an identity crisis or something. But that’s no excuse to impose it on me.”

“Identity crisis? What the hell,” says Jongwoon, meeting his defiant gaze, “are you talking about?”

“All this gay stuff!” The words rip through the air. “Jesus Christ, hyung, you haven’t acted like this since our band days! And back then, that was all for show and publicity and everything! Just because we’d been in a boy band doesn’t mean that I—I’m like you!”

“Like me?” Jongwoon narrows his eyes.

“You know. Your sudden affection for me… in ways more than one,” Kyuhyun adds pointedly. “What, did all the fanservice get to your head? I don’t—I don’t really mind that much if you—if you like guys that way, but I don’t.”

And this sort of makes Jongwoon feel hopeless, although he doesn’t say anything on the matter. Instead, he says, “How can you know that for sure?”

“‘For sure’? Jongwoon, I’ve known for ages.” For the first time, Kyuhyun sounds patient, a little bit tired. “You think I didn’t question it myself back in adolescent years, much less in Super Junior? Hyung, I don’t have any attraction, physical or emotional, to males at all. I don’t—I just know I don’t. I was comfortable with you and the others back when we did things for the fans, but that’s it. That’s all there’s ever been to it.”

“But you can’t just—”

“I may not have explored my sexuality,” says Kyuhyun, “but it’s not—it’s not right, okay? It’s not okay. I haven’t tried and I don’t want to try, because being… doing things with another man is just something I don’t—I don’t want to do. I can’t do. I’m not.”

“But see, this is it!” exclaims Jongwoon. “You don’t know because you’ve never tried! You’ve thought about it, but it’s not—it’s not the same, you can’t just say no and know for sure without having any experience—”

“I do know! I know! I know it’s true! I know that there’s nothing to it about me and guys!” Kyuhyun throws up his hands, looking a bit deranged.

Jongwoon bites his lip and feels hopeless. “Can you… At least try. Once. So you know for sure.” And when Kyuhyun’s calculating eyes rake over him, Jongwoon keeps still. “Just once?”

Kyuhyun stares for a moment, and then sighs. But he nods. He looks serious, gaze penetrating into Jongwoon; for a moment, Jongwoon forgets how to breathe. They lean in, sort of awkwardly walking towards each other, sort of trying to balance everything together. The space between them gets smaller and smaller, closing at an impossibly fast rate.

So their lips meet. And then their hands do. And then Jongwoon finds himself getting lost in Kyuhyun’s scent, in Kyuhyun’s taste as his fingers run through his hair, breathing in everything he’s always known, he’s ever known. Kyuhyun’s lips are working against his as well, gently as if this is natural for him, and he slowly adjusts and molds against Jongwoon. They’re all soft and brief touches, and that’s all their kiss really is—and then Jongwoon’s mouth opens and Kyuhyun is feeling every inch and wall and corner, tasting every last bit of him.

And all the while, they don’t cease to let go, not even once.

Jongwoon stumbles as Kyuhyun pushes him backwards, shoving his body against the bedroom door. It manages to open; Kyuhyun kisses him harder and Jongwoon lets out a soft moan in his mouth while his hands fasten around Kyuhyun’s neck.

Kyuhyun tosses Jongwoon’s body onto the bed, and as Jongwoon rolls over to adjust himself on the mattress, Kyuhyun reaches over and runs a hand through his thick, dark, matted hair. Jongwoon shivers at his cold touch, and at Kyuhyun’s nails slowly scraping along his skin. Kyuhyun leans down to kiss him again, and Jongwoon presses his body back against him, not hesitating at all.

Their tongues entangle and Kyuhyun slips a hand under Jongwoon’s shirt, sending a spark straight to Jongwoon’s crotch. Jongwoon groans again and presses their hips together, biting onto Kyuhyun’s lips. A sound emits from his mouth, a sound that he’s slightly embarrassed to hear himself make, not sounding at all like melodies or harmonies but a desperate, desperate chord. He can feel Kyuhyun smirk against him as their shirts come off, and soon enough, their pants as well.

(They don’t speak a word the whole time.)

Kyuhyun wakes up before him. Jongwoon opens his eyes to an impossibly cold bed, and he can feel his whole body aching as he rolls over. Any form of a previous absence is gone, and his initial thought is, Fuck, I screwed it up again.

He puts some clothes on and walks out of the room, stretching and yawning. When he comes into the kitchen, however, he sees a small card on the table, with some writing on it. Curious, he picks it up.

Jongwoon –

Left at the normal time today. Didn’t want to wake you up. I’ll be home as I usually do, so be sure to cook me some noodles!

– Kyuhyun

Jongwoon smiles.

Dinners aren’t awkward and neither are breakfasts, but it definitely feels like something is different. Nothing is perfect and nothing is completely, quite right—but—

But—

Jongwoon refuses to think.

“Hey. Hyung.” Kyuhyun snaps his fingers in front of Jongwoon’s face. “Are you okay there?”

“What?” Jongwoon shakes his head and looks to Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun is staring at him intently from across the restaurant table.

Jongwoon quickly shakes his head and then nods. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Good.” Kyuhyun returns to eating his cake. “I want you to be fine. I wouldn’t want you to be upset or anything.”

“You better not.” Jongwoon throws Kyuhyun a look before turning to his own pastry, poking at it with a stick.

“Of course I don’t. Though,” Kyuhyun adds thoughtfully, tapping the piece of cake he had just torn off, “you are pretty amusing when you’re angry.”

“Hey!”

“Or annoyed.”

Jongwoon pouts. Kyuhyun smirks. Their hands meet under the table, unknown to everyone else.

Fingers touch fingers, skin touches skin; beyond them, the night sky is staring at them, watching them like a voyeur in the mist. Kyuhyun’s hands go down Jongwoon’s bare legs, feeling every muscle inside of them. Jongwoon groans and throws his head back against the headboard.

“Fucking…” Kyuhyun mutters, tearing the last piece of Jongwoon’s clothing off. “These blankets really shouldn’t be on the bed.”

Jongwoon can only nod slightly as Kyuhyun kicks the comforter off, and then moves a little bit closer to Jongwoon. The older man parts his legs as Kyuhyun slides between them, and then bites on his lips when Kyuhyun’s hands touch the hardness between his thighs.

“This is a new side to you,” Kyuhyun says with a grin, and Jongwoon merely moans in reply.

They speak of nothing, absolutely nothing; but the brief touches they share during the daytime explain it all.

Jongwoon still writes songs about invisible love—he writes songs about invisible love and the foundation of friendship with hints, hints of lusty tones underneath. Something feels missing, something definitely feels missing—but it’ll always be like this, won’t it? (Of course, and that’s why Jongwoon never thinks about it.) And so this is perfect enough to him. Or so he tells himself.

And Kyuhyun seems happy. Kyuhyun always seems happy. Kyuhyun’s a happy man, with a happy family and a happy friend. And a happy roommate. So, Kyuhyun is happy.

For the first time—

Jongwoon’s fingers crawl up Kyuhyun’s shirt, and he wonders why he hadn’t done this before. Why, why he had never even tried this before because everything, all of it is simply unbearable, unbearably thrilling, and how could he have lived before. He grips onto Kyuhyun’s waist as Kyuhyun’s mouth works more fiercely at his neck, sucking and kissing and—it all feels like a rush, a rush that Jongwoon doesn’t want to stop from existing.

It’s mid-November and Jongwoon and Kyuhyun are starting to go shopping for winter clothes. Of course, it’s not like they had grown or anything or that it’s getting any colder in Seoul (it’s always a little bit more cold than anything else)—but they’ve both decided that they need more clothes to keep them warm.

Even when they’re cold, they still have each other.

Kyuhyun admires a large jacket on display, but Jongwoon frowns distastefully at it. “It looks too bulky,” he says.

“Yes, but—but it looks like it can protect you from the cold, doesn’t it?” says Kyuhyun. “I might get it. Do you see how much it costs?”

“Nope,” Jongwoon says, turning away.

“Hold on.” Kyuhyun grips onto Jongwoon’s arm and then leans down to check the price tag—but when he sees the number of zeroes, he immediately pulls back. “Oh wait, never mind.”

Laughing, Jongwoon pulls Kyuhyun by the hand and they walk along through the mall, hints of winter surrounding them.

Jongwoon can feel the vibrations run through Kyuhyun’s neck as he kisses him, harder. He can feel Kyuhyun chuckle, feel Kyuhyun groan, feel Kyuhyun make sounds of pleasure—it causes the lust tingling inside of him to burn brighter, to burn even more.

Kyuhyun’s nails dig into the side of his back as Jongwoon’s kisses become more fervent, going down even further, down to Kyuhyun’s collarbone, to Kyuhyun’s bare chest, to his nipples. His pale legs glisten in the moonlight as they press around Jongwoon’s sides, pushing him to go farther southward, pressing with all the force they can. Jongwoon bends his head down obediently and suddenly his head is in his mouth and he’s sucking, sucking just to hear that sound come out of Kyuhyun more, sucking until Kyuhyun comes, comes all into him.

Baking isn’t Jongwoon’s specialty (he’s always liked just cooking—though just cooking in general really isn’t his thing) but Kyuhyun’s insisted that they bake Christmas cookies together. So they do and halfway through, Jongwoon feels like he wants to tear all his hair out.

“Pour one cup of butter—oh god that’s a lot of butter—into the mixture. Kyuhyun, how many tablespoons are in a cup?”

“I don’t know!” Kyuhyun says cheerfully as he stirs the questionable flour-and-baking soda mixture. “Don’t forget the eggs either, hyung! Oh, and the sprinkles!”

“Don’t we put on the sprinkles right before we put the cookies into the oven?” Jongwoon frowns and glances down at the paper he had printed out. “Or maybe that’s just—it doesn’t say specifically—”

“I don’t know!” Kyuhyun says again. “Come on, Jongwoon, join me!”

“Join you in what? You don’t even know what you’re doing!” Jongwoon exclaims, throwing the recipe down.

“That may be true, but at least I’m having fun,” Kyuhyun says cheekily.

Jongwoon rolls his eyes, but joins him nevertheless.

Lust can do crazy things to people, Jongwoon figures as Kyuhyun corners him in the bathroom and suddenly he’s pressed up against the wall, being kissed out of breath by Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun’s tongue lazily flickers over his lips, teasing him, wanting in; Jongwoon obliges and his mind is sent into a world of nothingness, a world of ecstasy. He lets Kyuhyun kiss him like this, he lets Kyuhyun dominate him like this—Kyuhyun’s hands suddenly become quicker, feeling around his stomach and snaking up his shirt and making Jongwoon shiver. Something bangs into the bathroom trash can, but neither of them notices.

“This—sort—of—seems—unsanitary—don’t you think?” Jongwoon manages to breathe between kisses. He sees Kyuhyun smirk down at him, and longs for those lips to be on his again.

“But since when have you care about what’s sanitary and what’s not?” he murmurs, pressing his mouth on his and tasting his tongue again. His fingers catch themselves in Jongwoon’s belt loops, grinding their hips close together. Jongwoon struggles and shivers.

“I don’t know,” he whispers back, and tangles his fingers in Kyuhyun’s hair as Kyuhyun tugs his jeans down.

The last thing Jongwoon wants is an argument, but it seems to be leading that way when Kyuhyun refuses to get his lazy ass off the computer to go get the mail.

“Oh, come on hyung, it’s not like anything’s really important in the mail, anyways! You can just get it tomorrow!”

“ ‘Get it tomorrow’? Kyuhyun, we always get our mail today—it’s like once we get it tomorrow, we’ll just keep on changing it up every day and—”

“So what’s wrong with that?”

“There’s no consistency! It just bothers me!”

“Well if it bothers you so much why don’t you just go get the mail now yourself?”

“Because I’m cooking dinner! You know that! My fingers are all covered with grease and oil and stuff—”

“Then wash it off.”

“I can’t, I’m sort of in the middle of doing things and you can’t just ask me to do it—aish—”

“Then do it when you’re done.”

“Kyuhyun, can’t you just get the mail now?”

“No.”

Except Kyuhyun sort of makes it hard for them to have a proper argument.

Has their bathroom ceiling always been this ugly? Jongwoon forces himself to look upward, because he knows that if he looks down, he’ll come right then and there.

Kyuhyun’s hands are gripping his thighs, and his tongue slicks to the front of his groin.

Jongwoon arches his back and looks at the ceiling harder, as if it’ll stop the burning sensation running up and down his body. He can feel Kyuhyun’s tongue sliding along his length, pressing the tip so his precome drips out, a little; Kyuhyun’s mouth turns more fierce, as if trying to draw a more excited reaction from him.

Jongwoon glances down to Kyuhyun’s bright pink face and excited hollow cheeks, and he’s coming before he knows it.

In the first week of December, precipitation falls from the sky.

“It’s snowing already?” Kyuhyun asks wide-eyed as he stares outside their apartment window. Beside him, Jongwoon is looking out as well, gaze drifting across the streets.

“I guess,” he says, “though I’m not really complaining. It’s a lot better than rain, at least. Although the slush will be painful to walk through.”

“Slush is always painful to walk through,” Kyuhyun grumbles, resting his head between his arms and watching the people run up and down the sidewalks. “But I don’t mind too much,” he adds, looking down at them and smiling a bit. “It looks like it’s going to be a white Christmas already.”

“Yeah,” Jongwoon says thoughtfully.

Kyuhyun’s head bows down and he goes in between Jongwoon’s thighs and then suddenly something is there, and Jongwoon doesn’t know if he should be pained or pleasured but he opens his mouth and makes a little sound. And apparently Kyuhyun takes this as a good thing because then his tongue is worming inside of Jongwoon and it’s different and it’s small and it’s difficult, but Jongwoon arches his back against Kyuhyun and he’s begging, he’s begging, “More, more.”

Kyuhyun gives him more. He’s always given more.

Jongwoon shudders and tries not to come at that exact moment, because it’s hard when Kyuhyun’s tongue is doing things it’s never done before and Jongwoon is pretty sure at one point he’s doing it all wrong because they’re so inexperienced; but when Kyuhyun’s eyes darken in lust and then they both come, Jongwoon doesn’t question anything. This feels too right.

His mother invites him to go over for Christmas, but Jongwoon declines politely; Kyuhyun’s father does the same and Kyuhyun merely tells his mother over the phone that he’ll be spending Christmas with a friend instead. Of course, he is—but he’s not going anywhere, he’s just staying with Jongwoon.

When they get that out of the way, they address the next dilemma.

“A tree,” Jongwoon says. “We need a tree.”

“And some lights,” Kyuhyun adds.

They stare around at their empty apartment blankly.

“I’ll get the tree,” Jongwoon says, fishing through the coat closet for his jacket.

“And I’ll find some decorations,” Kyuhyun adds, grabbing his own sweater as well.

The air between them is hot, even though the cold air is rattling against the windows. Jongwoon tries to make out Kyuhyun’s face in the dark, but all he can see is a dark head making a way down his chest.

“Kyuhyun…”

A tongue flicks forward, and then swirls; Jongwoon grips onto his arms like he’s holding on for his dear life. A hardness is scorching the side of his leg, and Jongwoon forgets how to think.

Halfway through the month, they notice some carolers in the mall, singing Korean Christmas songs. Jongwoon hums along with them as they walk, and Kyuhyun looks to him amusedly.

“We should start our own caroling group,” he says to him.

“We should,” Jongwoon agrees, a grin sneaking up on his face. “But who would be in it? You, me…”

“It can just be us! It can be a two-man group,” says Kyuhyun eagerly. “Two men who used to be idols and were in a band, but still.”

“Two men who are together,” Jongwoon mutters under his breath, but Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“We would be the best carolers ever, don’t you think?” Kyuhyun’s saying while they walk along the tiled floors. “Everyone would be bowing down to our singing superiority.” He puffs his chest out, and Jongwoon hits him in the stomach.

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Jongwoon says, laughing.

“I’m not.” Kyuhyun grins. “I’m bragging about the both of us.”

Biting, kissing, licking—the inside of Jongwoon’s mouth feels sore, but when Kyuhyun moves his lips to the side of his neck, Jongwoon finds that he can’t seem to get enough.

“Kyuhyun,” he rasps, and feels the tremor along Kyuhyun’s lips.

“Your lips look all bruised, Jongwoon,” Kyuhyun says, looking back and eyeing him. Jongwoon glares at him, but Kyuhyun just chuckles again. He makes his way to bury his head in the crook of his neck, tongue darting out to lick the sensitive skin.

“You taste like sweat,” Kyuhyun says absentmindedly. “Sweat and mint. Did you spill toothpaste on yourself again?”

Jongwoon scoffs slightly, but it quickly turns into a whimper when Kyuhyun’s mouth starts sucking.

When the holiday comes (after they’ve gotten the tree, after they’ve gotten the decorations, after they’ve bought (and not baked) a pie and have put candles all around the apartment), they exchange Happy Christmases and gifts, and then sit with each other in the living room. Jongwoon sort of feels like this would be so much better if they had a fireplace—but no, this is good enough. This is perfect.

Jongwoon looks up from resting his head on Kyuhyun’s lap, and runs his fingers through his own hair. “I feel like this is the first Christmas we’ve actually spent together,” he says quietly.

Kyuhyun chuckles. “That’s because last year I was away, the year before that you had to run out on an errand, and a year before that we didn’t really talk much.”

“We didn’t.” Jongwoon mulls over the fact. “So… this actually is the first Christmas we’re spending together.”

“I suppose it is,” Kyuhyun says with a small smile.

Jongwoon plays with the pillow in his hands and stares out to the darkening window. The stars look like diamonds, and the sky looks like a blanket, covering up this entire city.

There’s a pair of hands underneath the waistband of his jeans; a second later, the jeans are at a pool by his ankles and Kyuhyun’s fingers are working their way behind him. A smirk presses against Jongwoon’s lips. “No underwear?” Kyuhyun breathes.

“I… forgot,” Jongwoon gasps, feeling the lubricated fingers pressing against the side of his hole. He squeezes his eyes shut and kisses back as fiercely as he can while Kyuhyun works against him.

“Pity,” Kyuhyun says in a non-pitying voice, and Jongwoon reminds himself to lock his legs in place before he nearly collapses against the wall.

By the time it’s New Year’s, Jongwoon has already gone through five boxes of turtle feed because Ddangkoma, Ddangkomaeng and Ddangkoming have been whining (or, rather, tapping their noses on the glass in a very annoying manner) all winter for more and more food. Once it’s January second, Kyuhyun can’t take it anymore and tugs Jongwoon out of his room where Jongwoon had been trying to dump the last of the turtle feed.

“We need to get your stupid turtles to be quiet,” he says to him.

Jongwoon sighs. “I know, but they’re eating their food like mad and there’s nothing I can do about it! See?” He points to the small empty boxes in his bedroom trashcan.

“Yes, Jongwoon, I do see,” Kyuhyun says, slightly irritated. “So we should try to actually do something about it, rather than giving your pets food that they’ll never be satisfied with.”

“But—” Jongwoon sighs. “What are we supposed to do then?”

“I have no idea.” Kyuhyun glances to the glass tank in the corner. “Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t died yet. It’s been, what, eight years since you got them?”

“More, I think,” says Jongwoon. “And they’re turtles, of course they haven’t died yet! Why would you say anything like that?”

Kyuhyun shrugs. “Just saying.” He looks to the turtles again, who are now pawing at the glass (if possible). “You know… maybe we can just take them out of your room. And let them starve.”

“We’re not going to let them starve,” Jongwoon says sternly, going back inside, “though taking them out would be a good idea. So at least they don’t bother us.”

The underside of Kyuhyun’s mouth is dry, even though his tongue is probing near Jongwoon’s entrance. Jongwoon groans, stifling a cry—the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate hear him screaming.

Kyuhyun firmly grips his legs, and then draws back, saying, “You’re rather eager, aren’t you?” His tone is teasing, but a feeling of emptiness brushes against Jongwoon.

“Go,” he almost pleads, pushing at the backs of Kyuhyun’s elbows to force him forward. Kyuhyun obeys, and his tongue flicks along Jongwoon’s hole once again.

The least of Jongwoon’s worries, when he goes back to work, is that his style in singing, style in song writing, style in everything hasn’t changed at all even though he’s so sure it should. (Mostly because he should know what love is by now, or at least a little hint; after all, having Kyuhyun should at least give him a tiny idea.

But it’s the least of his worries so he never dwells on it for too long.)

The biggest part of his worries, however, is that his manager says that he wants him to go overseas, or at least to other parts of Asia for him to do work when Jongwoon really just wants to stay in South Korea, in Seoul, in his little apartment with Kyuhyun.

“But think about it, Jongwoon,” his manager says. “You’ll be more famous! You’ll spread your music to a larger population of people, you’ll get more fans, and more people will want to buy your album!”

“But I don’t—That’s not really what’s important to me!” Jongwoon protests. “I like staying here, I like being in Seoul, I don’t want to leave—”

“Don’t you think it’d be a good idea to explore the world, though? See new things all by yourself?”

“I don’t want to,” Jongwoon says stubbornly.

Hands shaking, eyes dawdling, Jongwoon looks down at Kyuhyun’s body, and his waiting erection pressing against the suddenly annoying fabric of his jeans.

“Hurry up,” Kyuhyun hisses.

Jongwoon’s hand slowly slides in, cold palm meeting against Kyuhyun’s warm thigh. His hand wanders around, amazed at the space between Kyuhyun’s legs, and his fingers touch everywhere around him except for his throbbing cock.

“Jongwoon,” Kyuhyun moans.

Dubiously, Jongwoon fastens his fingers around him; but when Kyuhyun’s breathing turns rapid, shallow, he strokes harder and faster, confidence running through his veins.

They get their hair cut a few days later (together, like always) and then go out to a restaurant for lunch. It’s some place that apparently Kyuhyun really likes, some place that Jongwoon has never been to before, but he trusts Kyuhyun’s judgment. Well, sort of. Enough to at least put his stomach on the line.

“What I don’t understand,” Kyuhyun says as he sips some of his tea, “is Chinese.”

Jongwoon looks at him. “What?”

“Chinese, you know? The language.” Kyuhyun looks at Jongwoon pointedly. “It was mostly why when we—when we were in China, Zhou Mi always translated so much for me. Though sometimes I think he gave me the wrong translations.” He chuckles.

“And back here we thought you guys were just doing fanservice,” Jongwoon says amusedly, picking up a piece of radish with his chopsticks.

“Well we were.” Kyuhyun shrugs. “You know how it is. I don’t think it’s primarily why Super Junior M albums were so popular—but the fanservice definitely contributed.”

“I’m glad those days are over,” Jongwoon says, and hides a small smile when Kyuhyun says, “I’m glad they are too.”

The afterwards is the worst, though sometimes Jongwoon thinks they’re the best. The excitement is gone and the euphoria has faded, and they fall into nothing but a still silence, sometimes a deep sleep. He runs a hand over himself and sometimes wonders why Kyuhyun had said yes.

(Of course he had never actually said yes—but it had been implied, hadn’t it?)

He can feel Kyuhyun’s breathing, can feel Kyuhyun’s body pressed firmly against his. Jongwoon curls up in his arms and closes his eyes, waiting for sleep to come over him.

It’s nice to know that when you screw things over, you can always repair them, you can always repair the relationship, even if you can’t repair the problem.

It’s a thing Jongwoon often reflects on in life, and sometimes he tries to remember all the fights he’s had with Kyuhyun and wonders why they still manage to live together.

“People are completely different,” he says to Kyuhyun, “when you’re living with them, you know? It’s like a whole other side that the public doesn’t see.”

“Yeah, but.” Kyuhyun shoots Jongwoon a tiny, amused look. “We’ve technically been living with each other for more than a decade now.”

“I suppose.” Jongwoon shifts from side to side. “It’s just not to same. There’s so much more to tolerate… so much more to get used to.”

“Are you saying that you can’t tolerate or get used to me anymore?” Kyuhyun’s tone remains teasing.

Jongwoon manages to lift his lips up, a little. “You’re still with me, aren’t you?”

Jongwoon shivers as Kyuhyun’s hands slowly make their way up his shirt, rubbing against the fabric and feeling every inch of his body. Jongwoon feels like he should feel exposed, opened up—but he doesn’t. (Does that mean that there’s something wrong?)

Kyuhyun happens to notice the hesitancy in his movement, because he stops suddenly and looks Jongwoon in the eye. “Is there something wrong?” he asks, and the worry in his gaze is real, sincere. This is what Jongwoon tells himself as he finds himself nodding in response to Kyuhyun’s question.

“Yes. Sorry. Just a bit distracted,” he says, and then kisses Kyuhyun lazily. When they pull back, Kyuhyun still looks a bit unsure—but Jongwoon urges him to go on, and shudders at the feel of Kyuhyun’s cold hands.

“Happy birthday!”

Jongwoon runs into the room with a brightly wrapped birthday present. Kyuhyun laughs as he takes it, and doesn’t pay attention to Jongwoon until a cake is promptly shoved in his face.

“Hey!” Kyuhyun looks up and wipes the cream from his eyelashes. “Jongwoon!” He laughs, though, still attempting to get more of the cake off.

“Only revenge for what you did to me for my birthday,” Jongwoon says, smirking. Then as Kyuhyun starts to open up his gift, he suddenly says, “Hey, hey, wait, don’t rip that—”

The wrapping paper gives way; the envelope in the back rips. Kyuhyun flips it over to see a small card peeking through the tear.

“Whoops,” he says. And when he turns to see the crestfallen look on Jongwoon’s face, he just chuckles. “Oh, don’t be sad hyung. It’s something tape can always fix. Don’t worry about it.”

“But—” Jongwoon says helplessly, looking after him as Kyuhyun goes over to a tape roll on the shelf.

Kyuhyun just turns around and puts a piece of tape on the paper. Then he turns to Jongwoon and smiles. “See? Good as new.”

Lips graze against his ear; Jongwoon moans and wonders why such a sensation in the world like that exists. He can feel Kyuhyun chuckle, because Kyuhyun always chuckles—Jongwoon melts once again as he feels teeth on the side of his neck, nipping at his soft skin, and he moans again.

The feeling of all these touches and kisses along his body are different sensations than from when he comes—but they all seem sort of similar, as well. The lust raging in his head, this desire, this need for his satisfaction to be fulfilled, to feel Kyuhyun’s hot mouth, to have the heat inside of him—and his muscles clench as he squeezes his eyes shut and he nearly blacks out.

Kyuhyun is warm and thick inside of him, and Jongwoon knows no other feeling in the world.

Jongwoon doesn’t look up when he enters the apartment; he doesn’t have anything to look up at, anyways. But when he finally casts his gaze around and realizes he isn’t being greeted by a nod of the head, or the briefest of hellos, he catches sight of Kyuhyun sitting at the dining table, staring at something in his hand.

“Kyuhyun?” he says tentatively. Kyuhyun seems to be intent on whatever’s sitting in his palm.

Kyuhyun jerks his head up to look at Jongwoon. The smile that drifts across his face doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Hi, hyung,” he says in an oddly clipped tone. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I realized,” Jongwoon says, trying for some humor. But Kyuhyun doesn’t even crack another smile. Instead, he just gets up and leaves the table, his mind evidently elsewhere.

Jongwoon stares after him, before realizing that the other man had left something on the table. The thing he had been staring at. Curious, Jongwoon walks over and flips it over to the front, although the moment his fingers reach the paper he suddenly realizes what it is.

He sees his face on the front of his own photo album looking back at him.

It’s always in the dark, and Jongwoon doesn’t know if he likes it better this way or wants something else. But he never says anything, because they’re only alive at night, and the day feels like a grueling, waiting task.

The two pairs of underwear lying on the floor off the bed are laundry-fresh clean; but there’s no need for them, for the two men on the bed. Jongwoon can’t help but think what would people think of him if he told them, if he told his manager, his parents. He can’t help but wonder what Super Junior would think if they knew anything of this.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Kyuhyun says absently before putting Jongwoon into his mouth. Jongwoon doesn’t think anymore.

“Hello?”

“Hi Kyuhyun,” Jongwoon says, playing with the pencil in his hand. “You still at work?”

“Where else would I be?” comes Kyuhyun’s amused voice.

“Well I was thinking.” Jongwoon ingrains the eraser end of his pencil into the table. “We should have lunch. Sometime. Today. And I want to see your workplace.”

“Do you?” Kyuhyun sounds surprised.

“Yeah… I do,” Jongwoon replies absentmindedly. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” Kyuhyun says cheerfully.

After being given the address of Kyuhyun’s workplace, Jongwoon quickly hangs up and tells his manager and everyone else in the studio that he’s going to go out for lunch. They all seem surprised; Jongwoon doesn’t regularly mention where he’s going, or when in particular, he just usually leaves. But Jongwoon doesn’t dwell on this thought for too long, as he grabs his bag and then leaves.

The late February air slowly dwindles down behind him as he makes his way along the streets. It isn’t long before he’s on the street where Kyuhyun’s supposed recording studio is, and he’s looking along at the numbers, trying to find the right building.

“Four ninety-six… four ninety-seven… four ninety—ah.”

Jongwoon stops in front of the building, not sure if he should go in. It looks oddly empty, like space is being cleared out—surely Kyuhyun’s recording studio isn’t here? But then he sees the shadow of the familiar man in an inner room, and decides that it is.

He takes a few cautious steps coming inside, and Kyuhyun looks up only when he’s a few feet away from him. “Hi Jongwoon,” he says brightly, breaking out into a smile. “You’d want to put the package over there,” he adds to a man in the corner.

“What’s going on?” asks Jongwoon, looking around. “Is it being refurbished?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Kyuhyun waves his question aside and brings his hand down, brushing it against Jongwoon’s slightly. “You said we’re going to get something to eat? I feel like Thai today.”

Watching Kyuhyun blush certainly is a sight. Jongwoon hadn’t expected the words to fall from his lips—“You look amazing”—but then suddenly Kyuhyun is blushing ten shades of red and Jongwoon finds it difficult to look away.

It’s a bit different, you know, fucking in the dark.

Jongwoon watches as Kyuhyun’s head goes down on his body, and his eyes rake over the skin peeking out from under his shirt. “You don’t look so bad yourself,” Kyuhyun tries to retort, fumbling with Jongwoon’s fly.

Jongwoon lets out a laugh that sends a shudder down his whole body, and it’s only when Kyuhyun’s full mouth is enclosed around his cock does he stop.

“We’re running out of food,” Jongwoon announces when he opens up the refrigerator and is met by empty shelves and empty drawers.

Kyuhyun, from the family room, is eating the last of the bread crumbs from a paper bag. He glances to Jongwoon. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well then why don’t we go grocery shopping?” says Jongwoon.

“You can go grocery shopping.”

“No,” says Jongwoon, and he marches over to the living room and starts tugging Kyuhyun up and away from his computer. “You… are… getting… your… lazy ass… off the couch… and coming… with me…” He attempts to drag him away.

Kyuhyun looks down at Jongwoon, amused. “Is this your attempt to force me into getting what you want me to do?”

“Yes it is!” Jongwoon says defiantly, letting his arm fall down and looking Kyuhyun in the eye. “You’re not just going to sit there—”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

“—playing your video games every day, doing nothing to get outside aside from going to work, and—”

“Jongwoon, I said I’ll go.”

“—I’m always the one forced to get the mail—eh?”

“I said, I’m coming,” Kyuhyun says with a laugh, and then begins to tug Jongwoon away. “Really, it’s a surprise that you can get on without me.”

Jongwoon grumbles, but follows him out the apartment door.

(Eventually they get too lazy to walk all the way to the grocery store and pick out food, and end up eating at a restaurant along the way. Which is all right, Jongwoon thinks; he can get the groceries alone tomorrow.)

Jongwoon feels like he shouldn’t look when Kyuhyun pulls out his cock, but he looks anyways and his mouth waters at the sight. Kyuhyun adjusts himself on the bed and then aligns his length with Jongwoon’s; the brief touch of the sensitive skin has Jongwoon hissing in anticipation.

“Sorry,” murmurs Kyuhyun, leaning up to nibble on the shell of Jongwoon’s ear as their slick cocks rub together. Jongwoon moans into Kyuhyun’s shoulder as Kyuhyun moves, grinding, rolling his hips on top of Jongwoon’s.

“What are you sorry for?” Jongwoon manages out, struggling to keep his voice steady. “You shouldn’t be sorry for—ah—this.”

“Probably not,” Kyuhyun chuckles, but his touch is light and a bit delicate and this knowledge sends Jongwoon coming all too soon.

Jongwoon’s head is hanging off to the side as he stares the paper in front of him. Beside him, Kyuhyun is still focused on his computer, although he’s typing frantically instead of staring blankly like he usually does.

“What are you doing?” Jongwoon asks tiredly, moving so that he can see a fraction of Kyuhyun’s computer screen.

“Writing,” Kyuhyun answers. “A song,” he adds as a response to Jongwoon’s questioning gaze.

“But.” Jongwoon shakes the fringe of hair out of his face and looks at Kyuhyun, clearer. “I thought you didn’t write your own songs.”

“I don’t,” Kyuhyun answers. “But I just felt the inspiration, you know?” His eyes gleam as he returns to his computer.

They sit in the silence for a little bit longer. Finally, Kyuhyun yawns and pushes his computer aside, bringing his arms above his head and stretching. Jongwoon can’t help but notice the biceps beneath his thin long shirt. Then Kyuhyun turns to Jongwoon and says, “Shall we go to bed then?”

All sense of fatigue suddenly leaves Jongwoon. He gets up, eyes wide and alert, and sticks his hand out to Kyuhyun. “Yeah,” he says, and then adds, “I’m tired,” even though they both know he’s not.

Kyuhyun chuckles and, taking his hand, leads them away into the bedroom, closing the door and shutting off the lights.

IV. First Sight

Kyuhyun’s mouth is on his collarbone and his hands are on his shoulders and he’s holding him like he has nothing else to hold onto, even though Jongwoon knows that there are more things out there, out there for Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun’s hands dip inside his pants and they fumble with him and it takes all of Jongwoon not to come right then and there, at the feeling of Kyuhyun’s hot hands touching him, at the feeling of Kyuhyun’s wet mouth working and licking and sucking his skin.

Pants and shirts come undone and even though they know they should be exhausted, they’re not because Kyuhyun’s dark eyes glint in the darkness, blacker than ever with pupils dilated even though Jongwoon can hardly distinguish anything himself. But he knows Kyuhyun’s there and Kyuhyun’s taking him all in—but they’re both thinking, Not yet because they’re not done yet and Kyuhyun likes to tease, he really does. Jongwoon grits his teeth and tightens his hands on Kyuhyun’s shoulders, trying to urge him, urge him downwards.

Kyuhyun doesn’t, though; he tosses off the last of their underwear with a lazy flick, and then pulls out their third bottle of lubricant (almost out) and gets himself ready. He adds a little extra on his fingers, too, and then suddenly he’s inside Jongwoon and Jongwoon is twisting and writhing in delicious pain as Kyuhyun spreads him, as if Kyuhyun hasn’t spread him enough already, as if he’s not used to this sensation at all. Moments pass and Jongwoon has resorted to fumbling with the comforter as Kyuhyun opens him up, and then Kyuhyun takes himself out and Jongwoon kind of misses it—and then he comes in and Jongwoon blacks out for a second, just a second.

Kyuhyun rocks back and forth and watches Jongwoon’s face as Jongwoon soaks up the delectable heat, the heat of Kyuhyun in him and thrusting into him and he’s so used to this feeling but not really. Kyuhyun moves back and forth, and Jongwoon lets out little incoherent cries because he can’t hear or see anything except for his heart pounding in his ears and little white spots beneath his eyelids. Kyuhyun continues fucking him until Jongwoon can’t take it anymore, and he comes without having Kyuhyun really touching him and then suddenly Kyuhyun’s coming as well, just as Kyuhyun is watching him, just as Kyuhyun is staring at him with those half-lidded eyes and swollen lips and Jongwoon knows nothing except for the two of them, and the darkness enveloping their bodies into the night.

“I love you,” he murmurs when Kyuhyun’s finally pulled out and on the side, and they’re tangled in the sheets, waiting for sleep to come.

Kyuhyun says nothing.

The next day, Kyuhyun is gone.

There is no note, and when Jongwoon comes into the apartment after work, he notices that it is significantly more empty. There is no second laptop. The bookshelf looks smaller. A few decorations have been taken off the shelves, decorations Jongwoon had never bought, or put there in the first place.

Some bowls from the kitchen are gone, half the mail is on the kitchen table, and when Jongwoon goes into his room, he sees that a few things are missing. A few things that had been left there from forgotten nights and lazy mornings, like wisps of steam from coffee cups, tantalizing and fading away. Jongwoon goes into the hallway, looking for something—but he knows it won’t be there.

Kyuhyun’s room is empty. The only things that are there are the shelf and the bed, which is neatly made. There are no clothes. There are no books. There are no instruments or little trinkets, no cell phone or notebooks, no pencils or sheets of music strewn across the floor. There are no glasses or photos or wallets. And when Jongwoon looks in the bathroom, there’s only one toothbrush, one cup, one shaver and one bottle of shaving cream. And when he opens the cabinet, one tube of unopened toothpaste is gone.

He should have expected it. He really should have. Jongwoon walks back into the living room, and sits.

The couch feels much too big.

(He knows what he’s done wrong.

It wasn’t warranted and he couldn’t do that to Kyuhyun, no, not yet. Even though he’s always liked it, always liked the way they touched and kissed and hugged and knew, the way they just managed to fit into each other, somehow. Even though they’ve always been like this. Even though they’re together.)

(Not anymore.)

It’s a shock, Jongwoon will be the first to admit. All the habits of sharing are gone. All the memories still linger, even though the life doesn’t. All the schedules he’s been used to for the past year and almost a half are completely altered, forcing him to get used to living like this. By himself.

Jongwoon can deal with living by himself, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t need it.

He’s cold for the first nights. Quiet. But he’s not completely out of place, because it’s like he’s already used to this; like his body has been preparing himself for this moment. Like his mind has been preparing himself for this moment. But there’s an empty, aching hole in his chest, like one part of him had been left out in the dark, not ready for this at all. Not ready for this onslaught of emotions.

Not ready for any of this.

He pretends. That it’s always been like this. That nothing has been taken away from him. That he hadn’t been expecting too much. That this is life as how it is, how it has been.

And then he just gives up.

“This is horrible,” Jongwoon mutters, staring at the document on the computer screen and raking his fingers through his hair (it’s gotten thicker as he’s gotten quieter.) His song is fine, but it’s also all wrong and it’s just not right, even though his manager comes over and a funny look passes over his face.

“What? I think this is a great song, Jongwoon. Your best song yet,” his manager encourages. His manager never lies. Jongwoon wonders if he’s taken on a new hobby.

“It’s not,” says Jongwoon.

“Well it’s no matter. I’m sure you’ll make it more perfect soon enough,” says his manager. “Also, are you sure you won’t reconsider that singing tour? Of course, you’ll be moving around a lot, but…”

Jongwoon tunes him out. For once in his life, he doesn’t know anything.

The Christmas tree is still in the living room. Jongwoon feels like he should take it down, since it isn’t even close to the winter anymore, but he can’t. He doesn’t know where he should put it.

It sits there every day, staring at him, mocking him. Eventually Jongwoon trains his gaze to look everywhere at the Christmas tree, the pure reminder of what had been.

Spring passes much too quickly, and then it’s summer again. And summer doesn’t really feel like summer, because the sun is bright and hot and beating down on Jongwoon’s neck and all Jongwoon can think about is how it seems so fake because nothing can be this bright, nothing can ever be this bright.

Summer means that Jongwoon gets more breaks than usual, but he wants to work harder than ever. He comes in on one of the days he’s supposed to have off and the janitor looks at him oddly, looks at him like he’s something wrong and maybe Jongwoon is something wrong. But Jongwoon stays there and he writes songs in the empty building and he leaves at five in the afternoon, as always. (For a moment he thinks of what he’s going to cook for dinner and is worried that they don’t have enough bean sprouts—then he remembers there’s not a they but a he and he’ll have much more bean sprouts than he’ll need.)

What do people usually do in the summer? They go to the beach, except they usually go to the beach with someone else. Jongwoon thinks for a moment that he hasn’t been to the beach in ages, since probably some years back when he had visited his family for vacation—and then he remembers that he had gone down to the beach with Kyuhyun last year and so he just stops thinking and continues working.

He buys another laptop because his old one is getting, well, old (and he is too), with some of the money he had made over the last month. (He and Kyuhyun had barely discussed their salaries, and Jongwoon feels like it’s something lovers (lovers?) should have discussed.) His new laptop is faster. More high-tech. Jongwoon is satisfied with his purchase.

Soon enough he stops thinking about Kyuhyun so much because of work and because of everything else in life (and he’s paying the rent now, so why should he waste his mind on someone who isn’t helping him pay for the apartment?). But he doesn’t forget.

Jongwoon cooks dinner for himself as soon as he gets home. There are some leftover peas, so he microwaves those, and he cooks enough stir fry and beef to last him for the rest of the week. Which is sort of an amazing feat, considering how exhausted he is.

As soon as he finishes eating, he flops onto the couch and sprawls all over it. His eyes briefly flit to the second chair at the small dining table; but his mind makes no remark on the matter. He grabs one of the magazines on the coffee table and ignores the fact that it used to be much fuller, only mere months before. His fingers rifle through the faces and his eyes rake over unattractive men, because everyone is unattractive to him.

He falls asleep at eight in the afternoon and wakes up at three in the morning. He doesn’t go back to sleep. In fact, he just sits there and waits for the sun to come up, because he knows it will sooner or later.

He grabs the newspaper again, like he always does, from one of the boxes on the side of the street. They’re a bit funny, like they expect you to be interested, for you to reach in and grab one because you want to keep up with the news. When they don’t know that on the outside, no one really cares.

Jongwoon cares as he reads the headlines with a breakfast cake in his hands. The economy. Politics. Murder. Scandals. It’s all the same, just different. With different people, different endings. Still the same. Jongwoon quickly tosses the newspaper into a nearby trashcan, and heads to work.

“Jongwoon!” his manager says brightly as soon as he steps into the building. “I know you’ve been saying no for the past—what, year?—but I think it would be really good for your career if you branch out. Go for different direction, see new things. You seemed pretty insistent the last time I asked, but traveling isn’t just good for sales, it’s also good to get new fans and a new audience, for them to see—and look, more publicity! And all right, I suppose in the end, that’s still for new fans, but think about it Jongwoon, won’t that be great if—”

“I get it, I’ll do it,” says Jongwoon, putting his hand up to quiet his manager.

His manager keeps rattling off the advertisements. “—you gain more fans? Then the sales will definitely go through the roof! Internationality is everything in business, even though you’ve got plenty of fans already here thanks to your old band; and you’ve got a fantastic voice, too, though I’m sure you know that already…”

“Sunbae, sunbae, I said I’ll do it. So you can stop talking,” Jongwoon chuckles, looking at his manager slightly exasperatedly.

“Oh.” His manager seems surprised. “That’s great then. All right. You’ll do it?”

“I’ll do it,” Jongwoon confirms. He doesn’t have anything to hold him back anymore.

Jongwoon gets the mail because he’s the only person to get the mail. He goes through the envelopes. It’s the same old thing with the taxes and the money (he still has to sort a few things out with the landlord), and then a few magazines and advertisements. Jongwoon saves a few coupons in case he wants to go out and doesn’t have any extra money to spend, which is a lot more likely than before.

He’s about to leave the rest of the mail on the table, and then changes his mind and throws the rest of it away. It’s all extra. So much in his life is extra. The mail is pretty much extra, as well, but Jongwoon has a schedule to keep; he still has to get it these days. He’s always gotten it these days. It’s one of the things that has remained constant.

On one of the days when Jongwoon feels a little bit stronger, he goes into Kyuhyun’s old room. It’s the same as Kyuhyun had left it, as he had left it: dark and empty. He’s only come in because he’s left his cell phone lying around somewhere, and he’s searched the rest of the apartment high and low. This is the only place he hasn’t checked. (Of course he doesn’t expect it to be here—but it wouldn’t hurt to look, would it?)

He looks on the bed and at the bedside, but of course his phone isn’t there. He goes to the corner between the wall and the shelf—for some reason, this place seems a bit familiar. He remembers where from: that Christmas, ages ago, when he had been home all alone and put a Christmas present here for Kyuhyun because Kyuhyun wasn’t here. In the back of his mind, he regrets not asking Kyuhyun about it. In the front of his mind, he is still searching for his cell phone.

When he finds his cell phone about an hour later (it had been in his bag all along), he briefly considers going back into Kyuhyun’s room to see if the present he had put is still there. But he knows it’s not because when he had looked, it had been empty. And in the back of Jongwoon’s mind, again, he regrets not asking Kyuhyun about his reaction.

He fumbles with his cell phone and calls his manager about when they’re going to leave Seoul, the same way Kyuhyun has left his mind.

Jongwoon comes home at nine at night on a Thursday in the middle of June. He’d spent the past few hours at work, talking and recording and discussing and planning, and time had flown by without him knowing it—time seems to do that nowadays, doesn’t it? Hunger had escaped him during the day, but now his stomach is growling and he feels like he could eat everything in this whole apartment. If only he could stomach it.

He grabs a piece of toast from the counter and hopes that it satisfies most of his hunger pains. He walks around the apartment, trying to find something to do with the adrenaline still running through him. Jongwoon rearranges some things, finds other parts of things in the apartment to adjust; he’s always been a neat person and now everything feels more organized than ever. He dawdles around in front of the television set before realizing that he hasn’t turned it on in ages, hasn’t appreciated any other form of entertainment for a long time. And perhaps he never will.

Jongwoon spends too much time in the living room and not enough time in other parts of the apartment. One of the rooms remains untouched, almost empty. To Jongwoon, it is.

Instead, he goes to the bathroom.

He takes the time to observe the surroundings; the bathroom ceiling has always been ugly. A nasty knot twists in Jongwoon’s stomach. He looks to the shower—the shower that might as well be stained with everything he’s done, the shower in which half the water running hadn’t been for him. The knot tightens, and he promptly exits the bathroom.

He goes into his bathroom, intending to call it a day and go to sleep as soon as he can, even though he knows it’ll be hours until he finally drifts into the arms of slumber. One of his turtles is poking the glass walls of its tank. Ddangkomaeng.

“Shut up,” he murmurs, hitting the wall back with the knuckle of his forefinger.

Ddangkomaeng tilts his head and looks at him, but doesn’t say anything. Because it can’t. It’s a turtle. And turtles can’t talk to people.

Jongwoon suddenly feels very alone.

Early in the morning on Saturday, Jongwoon awakes, not feeling up for a day of rest. Work clears thoughts out of his mind. Jongwoon doesn’t want to think. It’s never been his strong point.

He lies in bed for a while, staring at the white ceiling, almost hoping, imagining that the ceiling is staring back. When he finally decides that he’s being stupid and petulant, not wanting to do anything but nothing all day (and isn’t that an oxymoron, he thinks sardonically), he gets up out of his bed and shuffles into the kitchen still clad in his dark plaid pajama buttons. The floor is polished, cold.

He goes out of the apartment for a moment to grab the mail. He notices a letter not addressed to him, and in the back of his mind, tells himself to later pen a carefully worded letter on how Kyuhyun doesn’t live here anymore. He sets the envelope aside on the counter and rifles through the rest of the mail.

It’s been four months, but it feels so much shorter.

So much longer.

But then again, Jongwoon sighs and stares up at the ceiling thoughtfully. It’s been monotonous. Boring. Every day is the same now. Every single day. Jongwoon feels like he should be grateful, grateful of little excitement, grateful of no restlessness, grateful of peace. But he’s not at peace.

(When the tide comes in, Jongwoon thinks for a moment, this is it!—and then the water turns to dust and flickers onto the sand, and there’s nothing between Jongwoon’s fingers except for the blue spaces of the sky.)

His manager is excited. Jongwoon is not.

“Think about it!” his manager says, pacing the room up and down as everything goes into boxes, cardboard boxes, brown cardboard boxes. The sight stuns Jongwoon for a moment. “You’ll be performing in new places! Oh, this will be fun, too much fun.”

“And if they don’t like me?” Jongwoon asks dryly, twiddling the pencil between his fingers. He’s picked up too many habits from too many people, he figures.

“That’s not possible.” His manager waves a hand. “And if they don’t—think! We can just go somewhere else! Somewhere, people will like you—you’ve got a talent, you know.”

“Yeah.” The compliment has been told so many times over so many years that it’s more of a fact, now.

“Though you’ll need a nice place to stay,” says his manager, tapping his chin with his pen. He glances at Jongwoon. “Your new apartment all right?”

Suddenly, Jongwoon would like nothing better than to move out. No memories. No old routine. “It’s fine, but it could be better,” he says, hoping that his sunbae will pick up on the implication.

And his manager nods. “Then you’ll move! Somewhere small because you probably won’t be staying too much—you’ll probably see a lot of hotels the longer this goes on—but just so that you have a place to go back to, right? Like a home.” He chuckles.

Home. Jongwoon doesn’t know what to make of this. Like a home. Even though it’ll be anything but a home.

“Sure,” he says.

At one o’clock in the morning, Jongwoon finally snaps and trudges out of his bedroom. He supposes he can do whatever he wants since he’s alone now. He can turn on the lights and do some stress cleaning. He can eat straight from the milk carton. He can sing loudly. He can stomp throughout the apartment, testing the floorboards.

He doesn’t. He goes to the bathroom and leaves the door open.

Jongwoon supposes that he can be sanitary and jack off in the shower, but it’s fucking one in the morning and he really doesn’t care. He’s a bit tired, too, but psychological drive overcomes him and instead he just drops down his pajama buttons and stares at himself in the mirror, before wandering over to the toilet.

He strokes and grips himself and just wants it to be done, to be over with so he can get a goodnight’s rest, so he can rest. When he finally, finally comes after what feels like a tremendous amount of effort, he tells himself that he hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been thinking about anyone. He hadn’t seen a figure in his mind or a face in the dark, nor heard the familiar breathing patterns of someone he once knew. All it had been was his own hand on his own erection and sexual frustration pouring out of him. That was all it was.

He climbs into bed and closes his eyes. In the morning, he does not feel rested.

Eventually Jongwoon becomes tired of having the same thing for dinner over and over again, beef and meat and rice and vegetables, because he keeps cooking too much and it turns bland on him. So he decides to go out for dinner, and it’s not like old times because single people go out to restaurants and eat by themselves, right? Jongwoon brings a notebook with his lyrics in it just so that he has something to work on, and his cell phone even though he doubts anyone will call him on a Sunday evening.

He goes to a restaurant and thinks he might recognize the waiter; in fact, he might even recognize the restaurant itself. He doesn’t know. He hadn’t paid any attention to the sign outside. The symbols had just been symbols and all Jongwoon had really cared about was that the restaurant served decent food and he had a wallet in his pocket. He eats the food and thinks that it might taste a bit familiar as well. The waiter tilts his head to the side, almost asking, Weren’t you here with another man one day? Jongwoon is tempted to say no, but he knows that he’ll look like a lunatic. So instead he smiles and eats his food and nods, and it’s enough. Apparently.

He’s sure he’s eaten far too little, but Jongwoon is used to these small diets; and after dinner, he goes outside and thinks he might treat himself. Funny, how everything looks so much bigger when you’re alone. The streets seem to stretch on to the end of the universe. Jongwoon walks and walks down the sidewalk until he comes to an ice cream vendor, and thinks that might be familiar as well.

He orders his ice cream and licks it, thinking about why he feels like he’s seen it all before. Felt it all before. Like in a dream, a strange sense of déjà vu, even though it feels too real. Far too real.

Jongwoon suddenly realizes and stops in the middle of the street. He throws the rest of his half-eaten ice cream cone away into a trashcan on the side. Then he turns and walks back to the apartment, wishing he had somewhere else to go.

“We’ve decided,” announces his manager, tossing a large map onto the table and pointing to somewhere south in South Korea. “You’ll be staying in Changhung. Living there, that is.”

“Huh?” Jongwoon sleepily lifts his head up from the cradle of his arms.

His manager sighs. “When we leave. Changhung. That’s your new home.”

“Oh.” Jongwoon blinks and stares the map. “But… that’s so far away.”

“Hardly a few hours’ flight.” His manager waves his hand. “And I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it. When do you say we leave? In a month?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jongwoon complies, and then returns to resting on the table as his manager continues planning stuff with the others.

It’s a bit different but Jongwoon lets them guide his life, because even though it’s been like this in the past, it definitely feels like something new. He hasn’t had plans before but now someone is making plans for him. And Jongwoon can only go along with them.

At lunch break, one of the stylists comes up to him and asks him if he wants to go to lunch with her. He agrees; he sort of needs the company, anyways. And all right, maybe the stylist looks a little bit too happy when Jongwoon says yes—or maybe she realizes he needs a pick-me-up and is trying to make him feel better. It won’t work, but Jongwoon has the decency to feel grateful.

Lunch is over quickly and Jongwoon is back in the workroom. His manager makes plans. Jongwoon hears, but doesn’t listen.

His manager tells him to man up and find an apartment for himself in Changhung already (apparently Jongwoon’s the only one actually moving, since everyone already has a home here in Seoul. But their homes have families and wives and husbands and children. Jongwoon’s doesn’t. Pity), so Jongwoon searches online and does. He finds a nice small one, at the edge of town: Changhung is a bit less urban than Seoul is. He purchases it on a whim and then waits for the weeks to pass by until it’s officially his.

It’s the first apartment that he had seen on the internet. He hadn’t even considered going to Changhung to look at it.

Two days later, his manager tells him he’s proud of him. For what, Jongwoon doesn’t know, but he just smiles weakly and continues on with the business that is business.

“You are going to be big further down south,” says his manager. “Super Junior was pretty successful in Korea, wasn’t it? Much less internationally.” He chuckles. “They’ll know your name already. They’ll be impressed with the stuff you’ve got.”

Jongwoon doesn’t try to deny this, because even sometimes he can’t believe that nowadays he’s singing a lot of heavier stuff. Rock stuff. Whatever happened to ballads and pop? It feels like the first time Jongwoon’s paying attention to his career. (He still sings loads of ballads though, because they’re his comfort zone and he’s not especially fond of stepping outside of his comfort zone.)

All in all, Jongwoon doesn’t know if this is a good thing or not.

“And you’ll make enough money to retire by the time you’re forty,” his manager chuckles, patting him on the back. For some extremely strange reason, Jongwoon feels like this is supposed to make him feel better, even though it doesn’t.

Jongwoon’s in his bedroom when he beats off again. It’s starting to become a habit, doing this when he can. He supposes lonely men do this all the time. Not all men do, because a lot of them have someone to help them. Someone to stimulate them.

(Jongwoon doesn’t have someone to stimulate him, he really doesn’t.)

Eight hours later he wakes up and cleans his spunk off his sheets. Fourteen hours later, he does it again.

His manager has gotten his whole new schedule figured out—stay in Changhung for a little bit, then go around to Haenam, Sunchon and Mokpo. Jongwoon doesn’t bother wondering why Mokpo sounds so familiar to him. He knows why.

Then his manager asks him if he’s packed up yet and Jongwoon has a sinking realization he hasn’t. His manager scolds him because hell, they’re moving in two weeks. Two weeks. Jongwoon believes in time, but two weeks sounds so short. Two weeks in comparison to two months, two years—

Two people. Too many memories. Too much past.

Jongwoon needs to get out of here as fast as he can.

A few days later, they’ve even decided which hotels Jongwoon would be staying at when they go out to travel, to perform at public places and shows. Volunteer arenas, for causes people should care about but don’t really care about anyways. At schools, even. Jongwoon sort of imagines that people will be pointing and laughing at him, saying, Look, there’s an ex-Super Junior member! Doesn’t he look so lonely now, having a solo career? Jongwoon knows that loads of artists have solo careers, but when you’re in a huge boy band, it’s hard to forget something you were part of. Something that was part of you.

The hotels, fortunately, are comfortable and nice and his manager says that they’re “his style”—what style, exactly, he’s talking about, Jongwoon has no idea. He smiles and goes along with it, though. Anything to keep his manager happy. Anything to keep everybody else happy.

When the weekend rolls around, Jongwoon tells himself he’ll pack up, only he knows he won’t. He lounges around the apartment, looking for things to do, things to keep him busy, to keep his mind off of other things. There are things and things and things and more things, and soon enough Jongwoon is just getting bored out of his mind. He sings some of his old songs as he cleans the apartment for the fiftieth time on Sunday. His voice is loud in the empty space.

Jongwoon wonders if there are people who are like this. Who actually live like this. Who’ve been lonely and bored their whole lives, and he suddenly stops feeling sorry for himself. Then he immediately feels sorry for himself again, because he shouldn’t be caring about others and comparing himself to other people because he’s himself, and okay sure maybe Siwon’s happily married and Donghae has three bouncing children and Ryeowook’s business is booming and his girlfriend is cheerful and adorable. And Jongwoon is pathetic and alone, and sometimes he wishes for an end.

Not the sort of end where he dies and disappears, none of that. He won’t have any of that. But some sort of closure, some sort of finality. Then he realizes that there isn’t going to be a finality, because there’s no middle to balance that end. There are just beginnings. Beginnings, beginnings, beginnings. And Jongwoon considers for one sickening moment that this is his last beginning, and he’ll never have another.

Three hours later he falls asleep in bed, his mind full of insane thoughts and random questions and not enough answers. He gets four hours of sleep, a pale comparison to the thirty-two hours he had been awake.

His depression comes to an abrupt end when his manager tells him to pack up already because seriously, they’re leaving in a week. Already there are advertisements about KIM JONGWOON IN CHANGHUNG—DON’T MISS IT! Jongwoon’s sort of sick of it, but not really (because hey, beginnings, right? There’s another one coming around the corner. Or at least, Jongwoon hopes so.)

Though he hasn’t had nightmares for a while. And that’s something else to contemplate about. Nightmares. If they were just based on his moods, if he could have brought light to his nightmares and made them, well, better. Nightmares are a source of sanity, to feel weak. If Jongwoon hasn’t had nightmares for a while, does that make him stronger? Or weaker?

Anyways, apparently his manager and every other person he works with has noticed that he’s been behaving sort of odd lately and his stylist tells him that he really, really should get more sleep because there are those horrible bags under his eyes and the whites of his eyes are bloodshot. And Jongwoon’s pretty much shit at his own eye makeup, and there’s no way he could possibly hide his eyes, so he does what she says and gets some sleep. It becomes embedded into his everyday routine, like everything else. And even though everything’s changing, it’s staying exactly the same.

His stylist comes over with a water bottle, pats his head and tells him it’ll be all right.

His bookshelf holds many things. Books, notebooks, pencils and pens, binders, textbooks, old letters, random paperweights, and discs. Things he’s compiled over the past few years. It’s one of the things he never bothers sorting out, or else it’ll make even less sense to him.

Jongwoon puts them all into his carry-along bag (except for the paperweights—they go into the suitcase) until he reaches the bottom shelf. He’s not paying too much attention to the discs—a few old albums by bands he’s liked since he was a teen, some from bands while he was in a band—until he catches sight of a familiar face. Kyuhyun’s face. On the disc he had bought from him.

Jongwoon stares at it for a moment, remembering when they had talked about their careers. Then he puts it into his bag.

But after that is yet another all-too familiar disc. It’s not Kyuhyun’s face this time; rather, it’s his own. It’s the face that Kyuhyun had been staring at that one day, when Jongwoon had come home from work. Jongwoon had never asked Kyuhyun why. They hadn’t even talked about the incident. Incident. Like it’s such an important matter.

Jongwoon puts that into his bag, too.

He continues packing, until a black-and-white photo album stares up at him. This, Jongwoon can’t help but smile at. It’s the old Super Junior disc. Third or fourth, he can’t remember. He puts that into his bag, and right underneath where the previous Super Junior album had been, there’s another one. And Jongwoon really can’t help the fluttery feeling in his stomach this time, the long thrill of reminiscence.

He takes the disc out of the album and puts it into the stereo. Then he listens to the songs one by one, humming a little bit.

Gradually, the humming turns to soft words, and the soft words turn into louder words. Eventually he’s singing, singing along with the songs, singing with all his might, singing words he doesn’t know but just spill off the tip of his tongue, singing better and bigger and more passionate than he has in ages, in ages, and this really doesn’t mean a thing because he’s belting out words and sure these are ballads and supposed to be nice and soft but Jongwoon, Jongwoon is singing with all his might and he doesn’t—

Stop. This isn’t Jongwoon’s song.

It’s not a song that’s meant to be sung alone.

Jongwoon shakes his head and feels foolish, as he takes the disc back out from the stereo. He looks at it for a long time, then puts it back into the disc flap. And he puts the album into his bag. And then he continues packing.

Jongwoon sees a pink stuffed animal sitting inside the unused bedroom closet.

He packs that, as well. He doesn’t stay in the room for any longer.

Then they’re all ready to go. Jongwoon’s stuff is in the van, his turtles indignantly tapping their shells in the back (Jongwoon can hear them, but it’s probably because his ears are too sensitive) and they’re heading to the airport. His manager is ecstatic in the front.

On their way out of the van, Jongwoon trips as he walks out and is caught by a few people who are helping out. “Sorry,” he apologizes to the people who had caught him, who tell him that it’s okay.

“Could have sprained that ankle,” his manager chuckles.

Jongwoon smiles. Could have.

They go through baggage and security check on time, and then soon enough they’re on the airplane. First class. Row A. Seat 3.

Not bad.

“Would you like a glass of champagne?” asks the flight attendant. “Wine? Beer?”

Jongwoon offers her a little smile. “No thank you. No beer for me.”

“You’re missing out,” calls his manager on the side, but Jongwoon doubts he is.

The moment they touch down in Changhung, Jongwoon suddenly feels awake, wide awake. It’s not proper to want to advertise in such a small town, and this Jongwoon knows—and sure he sort of wants people to know who he is, and so that’s why he doesn’t feel tired as he walks out of the airport.

He tells his manager that he’s going to stay awake in his new apartment and that he doesn’t need anyone’s help. “It’s eleven in the evening, Jongwoon,” his manager grumbles, but doesn’t bother with him when he bids him goodnight.

Jongwoon unpacks everything on the first night and, instead of getting a decent rest like he should, he instead preens around, deciding where he should put furniture. He’s not going to buy too much since his bed and television and many other things are on their way, but he’ll probably need a couch so he can sleep on something other than his makeshift bed (composed of an old pillow and some clothes) for a few days. And, you know, lights wouldn’t hurt.

However, Jongwoon doesn’t bother going into the kitchen, doesn’t think about making himself meals. Anything at all. He’ll just eat out. Cooking is much too tiring, anyways.

The next few days he has off, giving him some time to settle into his new apartment. Jongwoon gets used to it quickly, as well as the lady down the hall who thought she might have recognized him (but didn’t) and the new landlord, and a few new neighbors. He gets used to the town and the streets and the places, and soon enough people are eating out of his hand—well not really, but they’re perfectly congenial to him. He isn’t to them, but he’s used to it.

And he doesn’t get settled in, but he’s used to it.

He goes to his new workplace on Monday morning—a large building down the block. Jongwoon’s manager had had a friend who lived here and could help them out, including their working space. When Jongwoon enters the building, he greets the receptionist, who gives him a quick nod before giving directions to his manager’s temporary office here in Changhung. He’ll be getting a permanent one soon.

“So,” his manager says as soon as he settles down at the desk. “I was thinking that since we’re in a new place, we could try new things. Remember that time a few months ago when you said you wanted to do a collaboration with your roommate?”

Jongwoon’s stomach turns over. “Yes,” he says, “but my—my roommate apparently was too busy. He, ah, already had other projects going on.”

“Is he all right with you moving?” his manager asks him breezily.

Jongwoon can feel a bead of sweat on his upper lip. “Yes,” he says shortly.

“Ah. Well anyways, I suppose you could always collaborate with someone else.” His manager chuckles. “Are any of your old bandmates—?”

“No,” says Jongwoon before his manager can get any further.

His manager frowns. “Well all right then. It’s not an idea we should scrap, though, because I’m sure your voice will sound good with loads others. We’ll try to find a nice duet for you to join in on; meanwhile, let’s keep working on those solo songs!”

“Yes,” says Jongwoon, and never in his life had he been so grateful that he is alone.

Because of the new reign on the company—though technically it’s not a new reign, just a new schedule and a way of doing things—they’ve decided that Jongwoon is getting a new cell phone. Specifically, this means that Jongwoon had had no say in the manner, although he’s not entirely opposed to the idea, anyways.

“What would you like?” the cell phone man asks him, probably eager to treat someone who’ll be paying him so well.

Jongwoon chooses without picking, and then waits as the data gets transferred and the money gets sent. The company will help paying for this as well; it’s part of the insurance. And also proper etiquette, Jongwoon figures as he thanks the man and goes back to his apartment with the cardboard box holding his new cell phone in his hands.

When he arrives, he scrounges around for his old cell phone. He stares at it for a moment. He considers throwing it out.

But he doesn’t. He keeps it in the back of his bag. Just in case.

Writing love songs gets harder, like the love isn’t there.

Jongwoon taps the back of his pen on the bridge of his nose. The words just don’t sound right. At all. Like they’re trying to fit together to create something special and extraordinary, except it all turns into shit. Jongwoon’s mood dampens significantly.

Eventually he sets his pen down and gets up to get a snack. When he comes back, the horrible lyrics are staring back up at him and he doesn’t know what to do to make them sound right.

He doesn’t like his new bathroom, because it doesn’t smell like fresh grass and water. Still, he masturbates and then sits in the bathtub, his bare ass on the cold floor.

He ends up falling asleep and wakes up too early in the morning; he knows because the sky is dark and it’s not even close to the time when he should be in the office. Jongwoon gathers himself up and treads over to the only bedroom. He falls asleep but it feels like two minutes later when he wakes up again.

A vision of rippling waves flashes through his mind, but Jongwoon only puts his socks on and gets ready for work.

“Your hair’s getting long,” says his stylist right after a show, taking his makeup off and brushing his long hair out of his face. “You need a trim.”

“More than a trim,” says one of the other designers, observing the top of Jongwoon’s head. She meets his gaze for a second. “We could do it, if you’d like.”

“That’d be great,” says Jongwoon, wanting nothing more than to get out of here as soon as possible.

So the next day, they cut his hair and then give him a mirror and praise him. They’re his stylists for a reason, because everyone who passes by stops to admire him and compliment him on his haircut.

“You couldn’t look better,” crows one of the wardrobe people, beaming.

Jongwoon couldn’t feel any worse.

His new apartment is different from his old apartment, in many ways.

First, it’s smaller. Much smaller. Too much smaller. In fact, it’s so small that it sort of makes Jongwoon feel like he’s living in a closet—he’s not, of course, because it has multiple rooms. But the walls are closer and whiter and make Jongwoon feel like everything is closing in on him. And he doesn’t like that.

The second thing is that it’s new and it has no memories. Jongwoon can’t lean against the wall and recall when he had done so-and-so. Or look into the bathroom and remember how he had done this-or-that and it was really funny, or really stupid, or really embarrassing. He can’t look into his closet and remember how he used to put that there, and then one day it wasn’t there because something had happened. Because there’s nothing to take away in the first place.

The third thing is the bathroom. It doesn’t smell like anything. It doesn’t smell like fresh grass and water, it doesn’t smell like fresh grass and water. It smells like Jongwoon. It smells like him. Only of him.

Nothing else.

Just like his manager had promised, they don’t stay in Changhung for too long—eventually he packs up as little as he can and they’re in the van, driving to Sunchon. He just really wants to go to sleep at this point, but he listens to his music player and stares out the window, ignoring his manager next to him and the drive in the front.

Jongwoon is glad for this change of scenery; he doesn’t have the expectations that he gives in Changhung. The hotel room is cozy and nice, albeit not homey at all, but Jongwoon can stay for a few days. He performs at some sort of local event, and then spends the rest of the day touring around a place he’ll never visit again. His words come quick, his smiles fake.

Jongwoon knows how to live, alright. He definitely knows how to live.

Very, incredibly soon it’s his birthday and his manager and everyone else takes him out. They go out to dinner and sing happy birthday in the dark lit by a large number of candles, though Jongwoon highly doubts there’s thirty or else the cake would be on fire.

Then they turn the lights back on and start dividing up the cake.

Jongwoon thanks the man who’s cutting the cake and eats it. It tastes dull, bland. Jongwoon’s not paying attention when he hears one of the work behind him say, “Hey, Jongwoon hyung—” and the next thing he knows is that he’s turning around and there’s cake on his face.

Jongwoon forces out a laugh. “Very funny,” he says, wiping his face clean as everyone else laughs, as well.

Jongwoon sits up in his bed, sweat beading down his face. He can still see the dark ocean rolling with the wind, even though right now he’s awake.

Three hours later, the sight of the sand is still embedded into his mind’s eye.

(There’s nothing on the beach. Nothing. And Jongwoon, Jongwoon is only waiting.)

Jongwoon’s working on a tune for a song he doesn’t think will sell well (and will probably receive more than a half amount of attention more than it deserves) while his manager is at the desk beside him, working on his own things. Jongwoon’s not paying too much attention to him—he’s too focused on making his song sound good while still being half-assed. It’s a much more difficult task than one would imagine.

“Oh, Jongwoon, I heard something the other day,” his manager says suddenly, perking up and glancing over at him. “You might be interested.”

Jongwoon doesn’t look over at him.

“Your old roommate was Cho Kyuhyun, right?” Jongwoon doesn’t answer. “Apparently he’s over at Japan now. Tokyo. For his own solo career. Left for there several months ago.” His manager chuckles. “Tokyo loves him.”

One of these days, Jongwoon figures, he’ll find a pattern in how my wardrobe is picked out. Jongwoon has never been good at solving and noticing patterns, but today his clothes are especially itchy and it takes all he can not to pick and scratch at them as he sings on the chair, up on the stage.

Besides, this is for a television program and Jongwoon wouldn’t want to seem too jumpy, would he?

When the performance is done, Jongwoon quickly shrugs out of his clothes and pulls on his more comfortable ones. His back is turned to his bag as he looks around for his shoes in the dressing room, when all of a sudden, he hears a strange buzzing. The buzzing sounds awfully familiar.

Jongwoon glances around the room, looking for the source of the noise. He locates it to be somewhere around his bag. After observing and seeing that nothing else on the chair where is bag is sitting happens to be the causal of this continuous buzzing, he finally goes through his bag, searching and feeling around—

—and pulls out his old cell phone, from the bottom.

The number on the caller identification screen isn’t familiar, but Jongwoon knows that he should answer this. He turns the speaker on and says, “Hello?”

“Hello? Jongwoon hyung?” Jongwoon feels like he should know this voice.

“Who is this?”

“It’s, um.” An awkward shuffling of feet. “Sungmin. Lee Sungmin. You probably haven’t heard from me for a while—”

“No, I haven’t,” Jongwoon says very meaningfully. He sits down in a nearby chair so his legs don’t give way underneath him. “Why are you calling me?” He tries to keep his tone friendly.

“Well, um, I was just wondering—was just checking up on you. To see, you know. How you’re doing.”

Checking up on you. The words are extremely familiar. And soon enough, Jongwoon knows exactly what this is about.

“You shouldn’t do things out of pure guilt,” he whispers into the speaker, before promptly hanging up on Sungmin.

(Jongwoon idles. The sky is darkening; it hasn’t done this before. There’s nothing in the distance except for the endless blue of the ocean. And nothing has come up. How can Jongwoon expect something to come when it hasn’t, nothing had ever come for all this time? Still, he waits. The sky is clear, bounty for the feeling that sinks into Jongwoon’s stomach.)

He’s startled out of his dream by the sound of Ddangkoma scratching at the wall of his tank. Jongwoon glances at him for a moment, before staring into the darkness once more, his eyes falling on the wall in front of him. They’re only dreams. And Jongwoon hasn’t had nightmares in forever.

But somehow, he feels like these dreams are nightmares. A different sort of nightmares. Perhaps the type of nightmares that he can turn into a happy dream.

Jongwoon shakes these thoughts out of his mind and gets out of his bed, and goes over to his turtles to give them the turtle feed. Ddangkoming and Ddangkomaeng are still asleep, but Ddangkoma looks at him with reproachful eyes. Like he knows what’s going on through Jongwoon’s mind.

“Don’t worry, I’m all right,” he assures Ddangkoma, but Ddangkoma continues staring at him like he knows something Jongwoon doesn’t know.

Jongwoon scoffs at his own thought, and then climbs back into his bed. If he has dreams of anything else tonight, he does not remember them when he wakes up.

It’s late September when Jongwoon even remembers anything about his family again (and he feels so old, but he realizes he’s not, not really, when he still has many years to go). So he decides to ring them up and see how they’re doing, just for the sake of doing so and out of guilt. Out of guilt and with nothing else better to do. Besides, he figures that he should let them know he’s doing okay ever since they’ve moved here.

His mother answers on the first ring.

“Hello?” she says, her voice tired.

Jongwoon feels his pulse quicken. “Mom?”

“Oh! Jongwoon!” Something clatters on the other end, but his mother’s voice is still excited. “Sorry, just a busy day today in the shop—how are you doing? How’s Changhung? I saw the advertisements and some of your shows on the television, you look great!”

Oh right. A lot of the shows have been aired to the public. Jongwoon forgets this small detail, for a moment. “Thanks,” he says, leaning against his narrow kitchen counter. “Changhung’s great. Small, quiet—but great.”

“Never like the lives you’ve had before.” His mother’s voice is still breathy. “All—All right then? You’re just living by yourself?”

“Yeah. Nothing like Seoul,” Jongwoon says wistfully, and then figures he should sound a bit happier. “But it’s nice. Making more money. Getting the better end of things.”

“Good,” his mother says, sounding relieved. “So your old roommate was completely okay with you moving?”

Jongwoon’s hand slips off the edge of the counter. “Yeah,” he says. “He was fine.”

Even though Jongwoon isn’t cooking for himself nowadays (breakfasts are pastries from the bakery; lunch, whatever he can find while he’s out; and dinner, the small restaurant across the street that has black bean noodles cheaper than any other place Jongwoon has been to before), he figures that he should buy some groceries. Because, you know, he wants to prove to himself and anyone else who asks that he can depend on himself and not on the restaurants that surround him.

This place has no memories here.

Jongwoon spends fifteen minutes wondering where the grocery store is—and then when he finally finds it, he wastes another twenty minutes contemplating what he should buy. Vegetables. Fruit. Tofu. Drinks. Jongwoon has been drinking from the tap for weeks. It probably isn’t very healthy.

Jongwoon wanders around the aisles and picks around at the food. For some reason, grocery shopping doesn’t seem right. He had done it a few times before, back in Seoul. Not too little, but not even close to a number of times until it would be considered normal. Shopping for fresh food, that is. They’ve always just eaten out. At restaurants. But those restaurants are gone.

Other things, however, are not. Jongwoon leaves the grocery store without purchasing anything, and decides to have some Chinese food tonight.

He ends up eating fried pork and steamed rice in a restaurant that doesn’t even resemble anything Chinese, but that’s beside the point.

On Wednesdays, Jongwoon goes to the local gym and tries to be someone he doesn’t want to be.

Jongwoon does finally get the courage to buy actual food for him to cook for himself, and it’s only when one day he realizes he has nothing left to lose (because he’s never had too much to lose in the first place) does he actually gather up his wits and cooks, for the first time in what, weeks? Months? (Not years, of course, because that would be far too long and Jongwoon would have lost his mind by now, if it’s been years.)

After arriving home from shopping (with lack of anything else better to do; Jongwoon realizes that he might be a stress shopper as well. The prospect, if anything, is amusing), Jongwoon puts the bulky coat that had cost too much, which he had bought, on the couch before going into the kitchen and looking to see what he could prepare tonight. There are a few vegetables, no meat, and some random potatoes sitting in the bottom drawer. Soup then, Jongwoon decides, and then gets to work.

He does a pretty decent job, if he must say so himself. The food just doesn’t taste as good.

Winter comes with the lackluster feeling of longing, and suddenly Jongwoon dreads the season more than usual. Not because of the cold, or the possible impending snow—but because it’s another huge reminder that he is alone now. If Jongwoon hadn’t gone to work every day he possibly could ever since moving to Changhung, he’s pretty sure that his voice would die from lack of use.

He wears the bulky coat he had purchased, and the comfort is divine. It’s rather chilling, for Jongwoon, and he puts it in the very back of his closet after the second day of its use.

November passes relentlessly and then it’s December. Jongwoon can see the clouds thickening, and across the street, some families are putting decorations up. Celebrating the upcoming Christmas. Spreading the holiday cheer. Jongwoon feels like an old grump, sitting here in his apartment alone.

So he goes out to the grocery store, in which the cashiers and the workers are oddly kind to him—they probably recognize him, he figures, but are just too damned nice to say anything or offer up dirt to reporters—and looks for something to buy. He settles on holiday cookies.

When he’s outside of the grocery store after making his small purchase, he opens the small clear plastic box and takes out a cookie. It tastes buttery and sweet on his tongue. It feels like paste.

He throws out the rest into the nearby trashcan.

Jongwoon’s most recent album—the album he had made last year—suddenly spikes up sales and goes through the roof. It reaches number one on a large amount of charts, and Jongwoon briefly wonders why it’s suddenly gotten so popular. Funny how everyone’s always late to the party.

It’s pretty fantastic, says his manager as they sit in the sitting room of their new managing building. Oh yes, Jongwoon’s manager has gotten his own building now. Given to by his friend. His manager thinks it’s one of the greatest things to have ever happened now that they have a building for their portion of the company his manager his bound to. Jongwoon thinks that the building looks the same as the old one.

He continues going on places and performing the same songs over and over again until his throat feels raw from the excess amount of singing. Jongwoon’s pretty sure that his manager just wants him to feel like he’s actually doing something and saying stuff nowadays, instead of lounging around his apartment, which is what Jongwoon does whenever he’s not at work. In fact, Jongwoon doesn’t even know how he manages to pass time alone. He just does. But anyways, Sunchon and Yosu are, apparently, excellent places to be performing and the numbers just get higher and higher. For the better.

“So,” says his manager, sitting back on his chair and sipping his tea. “Because of this rapid growth, I was thinking—and you know how I don’t do that often—” he breaks off into a chuckle, but only gets a wan smile from Jongwoon “—as I was saying, it’d be good. You’ve been working on those songs, right?”

“Er, yeah,” Jongwoon lies inconspicuously. He still has those songs he had been working on several months ago. They haven’t gone anywhere. His mind is pretty much empty.

“Great. Because I think we’ll need to come out with another album soon.” At Jongwoon’s astounded expression, he explains, “They’re eager for more. They’ll be lapping it up. You’d be making them happier, coming out with new stuff quicker than everyone else.”

So after a few orders from his boss, Jongwoon finds himself sitting on the couch in his living room, still thinking of this new album idea. He’s been working on songs, yes, editing and revising until he’s just changing words and then changing them back and not doing anything productive at all. And he can’t write. What the fuck is he supposed to write about? Love songs just aren’t it anymore. They’re not it, for him.

Jongwoon pops in a few of his old CDs into the small stereo system and chews at the end of his pen as his own voice blasts through the speakers. Every single song sounds the same to him, in terms of lyrics. Even a bit in tune, too. It’s a wonder how no one’s ever noticed it before, that his songs are basically exactly the same. Surely it wouldn’t matter, though, as long as he’s coming out with new stuff? According to his manager at least.

Jongwoon writes. He writes in circles, mindless trains of thought. He writes the same thing over and over again, only in different words and different characters.

Holidays come and pass, and soon enough it’s nothing but winter and Jongwoon is surrounded by the bitter cold of the air. He shivers as he runs to the van, and collapses onto the backseat with relief.

“Good,” says his manager from the front, sounding pleased. “You’re here on time.”

“Barely,” says Jongwoon, his teeth chattering.

“You’re here, and that’s what matters,” says his manager. “Your stage is indoors today, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Loads.” Jongwoon’s voice is grateful and sarcastic at the same time.

“Well you should be. Anyways, the production of your last song is almost done, just need a few more edits with the tracking and some autotune with the instrumentals. After that, your album will be ready to go by the beginning of February, and I’m sure it’ll be one of our best.”

“Great,” says Jongwoon, and he means it, he really does. At least, he tries to sound it.

“Meanwhile,” says his manager, continuing on with that businesslike way of his, “we’ll be doing pre-selling promotions, you know? Like personal advertisements. You can sing some of the new songs at concerts as leaks, and everyone will love it. Actually, I was planning on having you start that today, but you look a little scrupled to be doing that right now.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re tired and exhausted. It’s okay, Jongwoon, it’s understandable.” His manager sends him a sympathetic look. “But soon enough, we’ll be working our asses off more than anything. I’ve arranged for some promotion at Haenam next week. I heard it’s supposed to be great.”

“Looking forward to it.”

The day’s performances go smoothly and just as planned, and it’s already four o’clock when Jongwoon arrives at the apartment building in the afternoon, still weary from work. All of this is going to his old bones, and his dreams haven’t been getting any better. He feels like they should, though; they’re not really nightmares, and dreams can’t be that bad. They’re not supposed to be that bad.

Jongwoon picks up his mail from his mailbox on his way in, and rifles through the letters mindlessly. It takes him five minutes to do a double-take at scrawled words on a parchment envelope. Because all the letters he’s ever gotten have been addressed to him in typed font.

He opens the envelope with slightly numb fingers, both from cold and from his shocked daze. The letter is cool as he enters his warm apartment.

Kim Jongwoon—

Just thought I’d invite you to a Super Junior reunion. We haven’t seen each other in ages, and I figured that with the way things went, it’d be in all of our best interests if we saw each other again to catch up. Hope you can make it.

It’s not signed, but he could recognize Jungsu’s handwriting anywhere.

Jongwoon stares at the letter.

He’s anxious. His bag is sitting neatly on his lap, but Jongwoon is only aware of himself and the faint buzzing noise inside his head, as a result of nerves. He’s sweating, too. It’s probably not very attractive.

The van continues moving on, heading towards the airport. Jongwoon had told his manager that he had wanted to go back to Seoul for an arrangement—at first, his manager had been disapproving until he learned what it was. He let Jongwoon off easy, and Jongwoon’s not sure if he should have thanked his manager or begged him to not let him go.

Promotions in Haenam are this weekend, but Jongwoon has much more important matters at hand.

They’re at the airport, and then suddenly he’s in the airplane. It’s all a blur to Jongwoon, as he just tries to think of the things he’s done. The things to say. If, really, everyone will make it. He certainly hopes so. (His stomach twists.) It’d be a pain, a bit of a tragedy if they didn’t. Just like old days. And Jongwoon doesn’t want it to be like old days. He wants it to be something new.

The plane lands without abandon, and then Jongwoon’s in the airport, then on the street, hailing a taxi—then, finally, he’s at the restaurant he had been told where all of this would take place. The restaurant looks vaguely familiar, but Jongwoon brushes that thought aside. When he had been living here—in Seoul—he had probably eaten at every restaurant the city had. He shouldn’t be too surprised.

Apparently the restaurant has been rented out for the evening, because as soon as Jongwoon opens the glass door and walks in, he sees nothing but fourteen other men, with the occasional waiters catering out the food and only a few ogling the presence of a broken-up band. Jongwoon half-prays that he remains unnoticed and that maybe he should just go since they seem to be getting on fine without them—but then Youngwoon suddenly perks up and walks over to him, nothing but beaming with his hands in his pockets.

“Jongwoon! You made it!” Youngwoon envelops him into a brotherly hug, and Jongwoon can’t help but cherish the moment. Youngwoon smells lovely, just like an old bandmate should. “Not everyone’s here yet, but it’s great that you’ve made it, right?”

“Yeah,” says Jongwoon, managing a smile. It feels too surreal.

Some of the others have noticed him as well, and come up to him in greeting. Jongwoon’s still a bit… dazzled by the reality of it all that he can’t quite say much other than, “Good,” and, “I’m fine, how about you?” They don’t seem to mind, though; Jongwoon wonders if they’re in the same shocked state as he is. Just like he is.

(Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jongwoon is thinking—and then he stops and refuses to let himself think.)

Jongwoon accepts a glass of water and wanders around the restaurant, drinking in the scene. It’s strange, to see old friends again whom you’d lost contact with ages ago. Sort of makes you feel incredibly guilty, and yet you just want to stand and stay here forever. Jongwoon says hi to Donghae as he passes him by, and can see Siwon leaning over and roping him into a conversation five years late. Surprisingly, Zhou Mi is talking to Hyukjae (who had arrived ten minutes after Jongwoon) by the bar counter, while Henry’s with Sungmin at one of the restaurant tables. The mere idea sends Jongwoon giddy, and he relishes on the high of togetherness, for a moment.

Ryeowook greets him like an old friend (because he is an old friend), and soon enough awkward introductions are out of the way and replaced by casual conversation, which they fall into naturally. Ryeowook tells him of his wife, who’s at home taking care of their son, and then his son himself. Ryeowook is brimming with pride. Jongwoon knows for sure that Ryeowook’s son is as stunning as he is, and tells him so.

“Oh, don’t flatter me,” laughs Ryeowook, but Jongwoon can see he’s pleased. Jongwoon can also see that Ryeowook understands a thing or two about him, but he ignores him.

“So what about you?” Ryeowook asks curiously, tipping the last of his wine into his mouth and then placing it on the tray of a nearby caterer. He leans on his hands and peers up at Jongwoon. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know.” Jongwoon waves a careless hand. “Careers and stuff. Album sales have spiked. Going to release a new one soon.”

“That’s good for the sales.” Ryeowook nods understandingly. “Changhung doing you good? That’s where you moved when you left Seoul, right?”

“Yeah. It’s quiet. Peaceful.” Jongwoon keeps his voice neutral, because even he isn’t sure if he likes it or not.

“Good. And…?”

Ryeowook sends a questioning gaze towards him. Jongwoon shrugs, even though after all these years he knows exactly what it means.

“Nothing. That’s it,” he says.

“Right.” Ryeowook doesn’t look too convinced. But he lets the subject slide. “You know, hyung, you could always visit me in Kangjon. It’s pretty close to Changhung, I think.”

“Is it?” Jongwoon glances around the restaurant, almost subconsciously. He spots Youngwoon and Heechul laughing in a corner. They probably kept in touch. The thought makes Jongwoon’s heart flip in his throat.

“Yeah,” says Ryeowook, nodding. “You can stay, too. We have a guest bedroom, and I’m sure…”

Ryeowook continues talking, but Jongwoon tunes him out, still looking around the restaurant. He knows he’s looking for someone, but he fails to admit it to himself. His glances are futile, anyways, because he keeps looking in the same direction and only keeps on seeing Siwon and Sungmin, and then Donghae with Youngwoon and Heechul.

Jongwoon’s jerked out of his reverie when Ryeowook exclaims, “Donghee, you’re here!” and Jongwoon snaps his attention to focus on the newcomer. Donghee is indeed here, and he’s beaming at the both of them.

“Ryeowook, Jongwoon hyung,” he says, inclining his head to both of them in turn.

Jongwoon actually laughs, and it feels better than anything for ages. “Hi Donghee,” he greets, like they’re all five years younger.

Donghee moves and asks them a question, and Ryeowook answers and then soon enough they’re in a deep discussion about the World Cup next year (or maybe it’s this year? Or the next.) Donghee moves a little to step closer to Ryeowook—and Jongwoon doesn’t mean to look in his direction, he swears he doesn’t, but in the place where Donghee’s head had been before, is a perfect view of a familiar man standing to the side, a glass of wine in his hands.

Jongwoon’s breath catches. Kyuhyun is standing there, talking to Kibum, smiling and laughing. Kyuhyun is standing there. There.

Jongwoon wants to flee and cry and shout, all at the same time.

Kyuhyun must have felt someone watching him, because he looks up and glances around. His eyes meet Jongwoon’s almost immediately. An unfamiliar emotion runs through Jongwoon’s veins as Kyuhyun stares at him, and Jongwoon notices that there might be a load of regret in Kyuhyun’s expression as he watches him. Kyuhyun quickly turns back to his conversation with Kibum, but Jongwoon is only aware of the space between them, the several feet and the people and the carpet and everything else in the middle, separating them from each other.

Kyuhyun says something to Kibum and then he turns around. And then his eyes are on Jongwoon. Jongwoon wants to run away and run to him, but he’s standing still in place. He’s nervous and anxious and hell, even excited, and a little bit scared and his heart is in his throat and then Kyuhyun’s walking, walking faster and faster with his gaze trained on him like they’re the only two people in the room and Jongwoon is just staring at him, watching him, aching, waiting, waiting for him—

Then arms are around him and Kyuhyun is holding him, hugging him so close and so tight and Jongwoon feels everything inside of him rush out of his mouth with a sigh. The hug feels like an apology for everything, for everything even though it probably won’t make it up, but Jongwoon thinks it will because he hugs back just as tightly with too much forgiveness and maybe there’s something more, something extra, but it’s okay because Kyuhyun has that extra bit too. His face is in Jongwoon’s shoulder and Jongwoon thinks he might hear some sound come out from his own lips as he buries his head in the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck.

He’s warm and just right and everything is real, so real.

And Kyuhyun pulls back and smiles at him. His eyes are shining. Jongwoon can’t tear his gaze away from him.

“Come on,” says Kyuhyun. He grabs Jongwoon’s hand and keeps him close. “Let’s go home.”

Notes:

the running out in the rain scene was actually for an original fic idea i had a while ago, but scrapped it even though i really liked the scene and had no idea what to do with it. so this was a nice placement :’DDD the first sleeping in the same bed scene (not where they actually shagged, mind you) was for another super long kyusung that i abandoned earlier this year, but i liked that scene too so i dragged it into this fic as well.

um, i mostly wrote this because i just wanted this fic to exist. kyuhyun-and-yesung-living-together-post-band-breakup. it’s like. the best idea ever, right? /super modest. er, i hope you’ll grant me an artistic license considering i know basically little to nothing about the music industry, though i did do my best to research, much less the korean music industry… so i made shit up. orz; ARTISTIC LICENSE PLS?

um, this is the map i used for reference for the cities... changhung is a super super small town, i realize. yeah. lastly, i feel super bad because none of the other members had an appearance till the end, lol, just saying. so much for being unbiased. orz

the title is from the hush sound’s “where we went wrong” (obviously, lol.) listen to it, it’s a great song.

obviously i am a sadist or a masochist or something, considering i broke up my otp of all time like THREE TIMES IN THIS FIC orz;; all of my kyuhyun/yesung fics have been like this recently… ever. at least this one has a happy ending. ♥

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Notice:

Where We Went Wrong

by aroceu

Summary:

I. Denouement

II. Butterfly

III. Skinny Love

IV. First Sight

Notes:

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© 2009-2026 aroceu