Chapter Text
"I'm sorry I wasn't there enough.
It's on me."
- "Yard" by Slow Pulp
Jeonghan didn’t know quite why he was so shocked at the feeling of it - being seen so clearly, straight through his carefully crafted veneer, for the first time in… God, had it really been four years now? Joshua’s smile hadn’t changed a bit, though Jeonghan knew, logically, that both of them now showed clear signs of aging. The flashbulb of it blinded him momentarily, catching him off guard like the camera going off midway down the frightening drop of a roller coaster. You can know it’s coming all you want, but despite that, chances are your picture will come up with eyes squinched shut against the light, face half contorted in adrenaline fueled euphoria (terror, for some, though it was rare Joshua made Jeoghan feel like that, at least not for a long time), half in surprise.
Joshua never meant to take him apart so easily. In fact, there were times that Jeonghan had convinced himself that the man had no clue he was doing it at all in the first place. But just when he was lulled into the security of his own delusions, Joshua would say something so devastatingly apt about Jeonghan’s current disposition, scalpel flaying back a layer of skin, exposing the heat lightning storm always raging within, his presence still graciously shielding any onlookers from the sight, and Jeonghan would just know he had been found out. Most of the time, though he was swift and deadly with his assassination of Jeonghan’s pride, it was exactly what Jeonghan needed to hear. They were like that: equals and opposites, even if Jeonghan felt as if he was more like the tide to Joshua’s moon, deep down, deep in his core, the unmapped territory of the ocean floor.
Over the years, even if they grew apart, they always seemed to grow in tandem, eventually twining back together like a stubborn old rose bush determined to climb despite how the garden shears trimmed and pruned at them.
Jeonghan often thought that it would be the two of them, when the smoke settled following the shrill peel of tires as Seventeen careened over the edge of obsolescence. Even if the dam of whatever they were, or could have been, never broke - never turned romantic - surely, Jeonghan thought, they would still be holding hands at the end of that old country lane, smiling and waving as the earth’s pulse held steady despite their fingers no longer being on it to monitor the exact thrum of the beat.
But Joshua had gone home to LA. To be with his mom, yes, everyone accepted that easily, despite how much they would miss him. But also because, just like Jeonghan, Joshua believed deep down that he had never quite had it -whatever ephemeral concept it was - like the rest of them had. Jeonghan envied him. It was easier to be anonymous in LA, a city full of eponyms. He taught in the music department at UCLA now, seemed to thrive, falling easily back into the lockstep of normalcy, despite never really experiencing much of it himself. He was always a quick learner, though. Jeonghan was scared to even try to learn the first eight-count of what that might be like. So he stayed in the spotlight. He liked his show, really, he did. His quick wit and biting personality was fun for his guests to play off of, and he was lucky to still be called handsome and beautiful even at thirty-seven. None of the other members had stayed in the industry quite like him. Producers, models-turned-modeling-agents, designers, actors, directors, photographers - sure, but it wasn't quite the same. Jeonghan still carried that same smell of k-pop star with him, inextricably a part of who he was. Jeonghan's show had become a comforting landing spot for up-and-coming artists and soon-to-debut groups, the slow ball lobbed straight down the middle, easy to hit a homerun, give these kids a fighting chance in the industry. It was really hard to come off bad or unlikeable on Jeonghan’s show and he had a good eye for potential, himself being so conditioned to hyperawareness of his own lack of it in comparison to others’ when he had been pre-debut himself. Despite his success, he still felt the chill of the ghost of his own fear of stunted growth pass through him from time to time. And despite his continued success, despite still being praised for his looks, despite his own too-little-too-late attempts at opening up, allowing those around him to maybe peak behind the curtain a little, it all still accumulated to the anaphylactic shock of his own loneliness gripping his bronchial tree by the trunk at the most unexpected times, the undercurrents easy to ignore most of the time.
Receiving Joshua’s wedding invitation in the mail three years ago had been one of those times. Embarrassingly enough, it had been Seungcheol, an entire year after Seventeen disbanded, who came around to pick up Jeonghan’s shattered pieces for the nth time since they had met.
“He didn’t know how to tell you, Hannie.” Seunghceol had tried to explain as he swept the shards off the floor into his arms, a hand down his back, his spine too evident through his thin t-shirt like dragon spikes might finally burst through his skin and he could transform into the giant, scaly beast and fly away from it all at last.
“But why just me, Coups-ah?” Jeonghan buried his face into Seungcheol’s shirt, despite the fact that both of them knew he couldn’t cry. Not even for this. Even in front of a friend so close as Seungcheol. Sometimes he hated himself for how he was, envious of his friends who wore their heart on their sleeves. It seemed easier that way. More courageous. He was a bit of a coward.
“Oh, Han.” Seungcheol waffled, clearly not knowing if he should say what he said next, “It’s not my place to say. But you know why, right? I think we all know why. We were just as shocked as you.”
They were shocked that it hadn’t been them. They were shocked it was Joshua and a pleasant enough looking woman who taught at the law school, hanging off his arm in their wedding announcement pictures like she belonged there, but looking as out of place as Godzilla clinging to the side of a skyscraper in Jeonghan’s eyes.
“Why didn’t he ever say anything, Cheollie?” Jeonghan breathed, barely above a whisper, half hoping Seungcheol wouldn’t hear it and he could avoid hearing the inevitable answer.
“Well, why didn’t you, Jeonghan?” Seungcheol cupped the back of his head comfortingly, “You two really are too similar for your own good.” It had been said before, comically, but the way it sounded then was like Seungcheol was reading Jeonghan’s name amongst the obituaries. Tragic death, died too young. Jeonghan was outlived by his twelve members and his pet rock.
“Yoon Jeonghan.” Joshua pulled him into a hug at the airport terminal before Jeonghan could even get over the shock of seeing him. His American accent bled through the syllables more than Jeonghan remembered. “So good to see you.” He still wore the same cologne, the burst of warm cardamom and powdery floral against honey skin almost had Jeonghan nauseated from the gut punch of nostalgia. “Thank you so much for letting me stay with you. I just… hotels, you know?”
Jeonghan was stuck basking in his sunshine, realizing how anemic he had grown without it, forgetting it was his cue to speak. “No, Josh, please explain to me the concept of hotels while we drive though, I’m dying to hear of this phenomenon. Are they native to Los Angeles?” The words he said were in Korean, but the dialect he used was one derived from and reserved for conversations between the two of them. They had always had the uncanny ability to have conversations shrouded in six layers of irony, the meaning of which was only decipherable to them, the rest of the members blinking, perplexed at their own little alien bleep-bloop back and forth.
Joshua rolls his eyes, but then starts in anyway, “So hotels are like a house but bigger, okay?”
They fall back into it so easily and it’s like someone has pressed “play” on Jeonghan’s life for the first time in four years, everything in between just an infuriating screensaver where the logo never quite hits the corner of the TV screen perfectly.
Sometimes he wonders if the best parts of himself are all Joshua. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began there for a while. To the point where losing him was like losing a limb. He had to learn how to walk all over again, the gaps in his personhood aching to be filled, but Jeonghan had nothing to offer them. He stuffed silk flowers in the holes and foolishly hoped they would grow.
Everyone was in town for Minghao's debut in Seoul Fashion Week, the members all reuniting per his request to walk in the show. It was rare he was so sentimental, but the promise of seeing the group back together again was drawing lots of attention to the show, which is exactly what Minghao deserved with how hard he'd been working on the collection, how tirelessly he'd been honing his craft for the past few years since the group disbanded. It was all going to pay off, Jeonghan had no doubt in his mind and he couldn’t be more proud. Minghao was like that, happy to blow where the wind took him, cool and confident in his ability to thrive no matter where he landed. He had always loved fashion so it was no surprise to any of them that this is the direction he took, and they shouldn't have been so shocked at how good he was at it, but great art is always awe inspiring, even when you expect greatness from its creator. It hadn’t surprised them two years ago, either, when they received via a shared doc in their group chat an album full of Wonwoo's photos of Minghao and Junhui's elopement, an achingly intimate tea ceremony in the woods, the two of them dressed in Minghao's own designs, so perfectly representative of them, his love for Junhui carefully stitched into the fabric tailored perfectly to his body. They might have been a little offended that they weren't invited, but it was so perfectly them that they were forgiven easily. Plus, the party Junhui planned for afterwards made up for it, especially watching Wonwoo get plastered in celebration of his relief of not having to keep that secret anymore.
Jeonghan had almost cried at the photos. Minghao and Junhui were probably the most similar to he and Joshua of all of their friends, not personality wise, but similar in their symbiosis. Opposites in many ways, but the same where it mattered most. Devoted wholly to one another, even when things were uncertain, lines blurred, the leaves of their future indecipherable at the bottom of the cup. Minghao was sensitive where Junhui was carefree and though neither of them were readily forthcoming with their true feelings, they had gotten there eventually, brave and brash in the face of potentially crumbling their carefully built friendship to the ground, all because at a certain point, it became scarier for them to not try, according to Junhui. They should have known their foundation was stronger than that - a house built on stone, not sand.
Jeonghan was happy for them, if not a little (a lot) envious. Bending the rules and out-foxing the game had always been his way, but love, it turned out, couldn't so easily be cheated to win. He wasn't even sure anymore that it was a game at all, even if he had finally admitted to himself that it was indeed love. How he'd choked on that pill when he forced himself to swallow it. The shape of it still felt like it was lodged in the back of his throat, nearly waterboarding himself in a desperate attempt to quell the sensation.
Joshua had a few gray hairs visible, Jeonghan noticed. He bit down the urge to reach over with tweezer-like fingers and pluck one out, take it home and press it in his favorite book.
Instead, he cleared his throat, breaking the startlingly comfortable silence that had formed between them in the back of Jeonghan’s private car, “How's Lydia?”
“Oh-” Joshua looked surprised at the question, despite how very pedestrian it was to ask about a friend's spouse, “She's fine. Good.”
“Mmh.” Jeonghan replied, very intelligently, “Good.”
He pulled the key out of the ignition of that conversation, accepting that its engine wouldn't be turning over. It didn't stop him from meditating on Joshua’s expression though. Guilt, maybe? Mixed with something else that Jeonghan had seen before but never put a name to. He could describe the color but didn't know what to call it, feeling similarly to when he searched for what the color of light hitting ocean waves was called.
“We're. Um. We divorced.” Joshua helped the answer slip off the tip of his tongue.
Xanadu.
“Oh.” Jeonghan's brain started swirling uncontrollably, “I'm sorry to hear that, Josh.”
He sounded robotic in his own ears, using his slightly higher pitched, well-rehearsed on-camera voice for some reason.
“I'm not.” A smile played on the edge of Joshua’s mouth, even if his eyes lacked their typical mischievous glint, replaced with a muted shade of defeat. “Wasn't ever going to work anyway.”
Jeonghan wanted so badly to dig deeper, but he knew Joshua too well for that. He was a feral cat, too, afterall. Cagey and skittish unless allowed to approach on his own, right when you've given up on trying.
“Hm.” Jeonghan glanced over at him, smile slowly creeping over his own face now, “When's the last time you had real fried chicken, Shuji?”
“Far too fucking long, Hannie.” Joshua sighed, eyes glancing over to confirm what he'd been expecting, the light returning to them as they reflected off the conspiratorial glow radiating from Jeonghan.
“I told everyone I was getting in tomorrow.” Joshua confessed, three beers and an amount of chicken both of them had silently agreed to not keep track of sitting between them like forensic evidence on thr table, the crunch and grease being the exact lubrication needed to get the rusty cogs in the machine of their relationship to turn easily again, even if the squeak of friction could still occasionally be heard under the hum of easy conversation.
“I noticed.” Jeonghan chuckled.
“Is that bad?” Joshua swallowed a mouthful of beer, “I kinda felt bad.”
“Yah, you worry too much.” Jeonghan waved him off, stumbling on an opportunity to encourage Joshua seeking time alone with him out before throwing himself into the grabby hands of the rest of the members. “Do what's best for you, Shua.”
“You just want me all to yourself.” Joshua nudged his shin with his toe under the table.
How could he not? When he'd been deprived for so long, going blue at the lips from lack of something so vital. “Still full of it, I see.” Jeonghan rolled his eyes, “Glad to see you haven't changed a bit.”
“Haven't I?” Joshua was still smiling but something on his face looked scared and relieved all at once. Scared he might have changed, scared Jeonghan might not like the difference, relieved he might not have, relieved Jeonghan might see that.
“Not in the ways that count.” Jeonghan said with a sigh. “‘S not a bad thing.”
Joshua looked back down at his plate of chicken bones, studying them like he might be able to divine his future from their form, “I guess not.”
Jeonghan could feel Joshua turning inwards from across the table. He would need time alone now, there wouldn't be any turnaround on the mood of the night. Not a bad thing, just a song he knows well and can play by ear. They both were the type to need time alone for introspection, assessing the tangled wires inside their own brains.
“Let’s get you to bed.” Jeonghan said as he called the waiter over, “Surely you're exhausted.”
“Yeah.” Joshua met his eye again, having returned to his body a bit at the prospect of no longer being in public, “I am. Thanks.”
If Jeonghan were a better person, he'd have put Joshua in the spare bedroom across his far-too-large-for-a-single-person apartment. He wasn't a better person, though. So he put Joshua up in the bedroom closest to his, desperate to be exposed to and aware of the signs of life across the hallway, proof that Joshua was here, close, real.
He knocked on the bathoom door, arms full of fluffy white towels, and caught a brief glimpse of flawless skin glowing in the warm light of the bathroom, droplets of water clinging to him before sliding off with his movement - Jeonghan could relate - as his arm reached through the gap to relieve him of his burden.
“Thanks.” Joshua called softly, voice low with drowsiness, tinged in a quiet familiarity that Jeonghan could almost feel tangibly, a scared rabbit caught in his hands, heart beating so fast the animal was at risk of seizing, soft fur rippling under his touch.
“Sleep well, Shuji.” He wished over his shoulder as he retreated to his own room, the bright imprint of Joshua’s light still burning his retinas as he closed his eyes.
There was one night a few years ago while on tour, their last together before Jeonghan’s enlistment, that Joshua had snuck over to his hotel room, standing in the doorway, looking so small to Jeonghan, his face pink and open, looking like it had pre-debut, scared and unsure of himself.
“C'mon.” Jeonghan spared his pride, not making him explain himself, especially since he had been aching to see Joshua so badly himself.
It wasn't the first time they had slept in the same bed together, far from it, but something about how Joshua's hands carded through Jeonghan’s hair, his head on the younger’s chest, memorizing the bassline of his heartbeat, that told him it was the last time, at least for a long time.
“It's going to be so weird.” Joshua’s voice was a little thick, keeping his words casual, though their implication was far from it, but Jeonghan didn't dare draw attention to it.
“Hm?” Jeonghan encouraged, scared to say more, the sound itself already a risk.
“What am I supposed to do while you're gone?” Joshua asked, all rhetorical, of course.
Jeonghan had sat up, reaching up to search Joshua's eyes for the answer he so desperately wanted to find there. He glanced down at his lips for a millisecond and could read the message clearly upon his return. A tiny shake of Joshua’s head to punctuate it.
It wasn't a no. Jeonghan had never been able to convince himself it was a hard no.
The way Joshua’s skin vibrated with life under his thumb as he swiped away the evidence of tear tracks down his cheek, he knew it wasn't a no. It was a not yet.
Not yet.
They couldn't start something then. It wasn't time. Not when Jeonghan was about to go away for a year and a half.
He thought maybe, when he discharged. But it's always hard to pick up where you left off. Besides, even if he was back where they left off, Joshua had kept moving. A shark who had to keep swimming to stay alive. Jeonghan could only hope he remembered how to swim.