afterwards; i'll still be here.
afterwards; i'll still be here.
Yunho/Changmin.
Romance/AU/Drama/Fluff; PG-13.
5375 words.
In a small town in the countryside, Changmin's dreams are too big, too big for maybe even Yunho to hold.
He’s sitting at the front desk, getting ready to close down the library, when a man slightly younger than him stops in front of him, holding out a book to be checked out. Yunho glances up, flashing his well-used polite smile, and takes the book, glancing down to see the title. He looks up again at the man with interest as it’s the first time he’d seen someone of this town borrow this book.
“Singing for dummies?” Yunho asks, amused, as he takes the library card the man’s offering.
He shrugs self consciously and says, “I have nothing else to do, and singing has always been one of my interests.”
After the man leaves, Yunho’s left sitting at the desk, face in one hand, mulling over the type of person who would willingly borrow a book offering tips on how to sing-or at least the type of person living in this town who would do so. He soon realizes he’d never seen the man in town before, and in this small town, everyone knows everybody. He pulls up the man’s file and sees his name at the top.
Shim Changmin. He says the name out loud and likes how easily it rolls off his tongue.
Shim Changmin.
Almost exactly three weeks later, he’s again sitting at the front desk, helping out a long line of people to check out their books. The line soon shortens, and as he blindly reaches out for the next book without looking up at the person holding it out, he jumps when someone drawls into his ear, “Hi, hyung. No hello for me?”
Keeping his eyes on the computer and his hands moving, he feels his mouth quirk up into a smile. “Hi, Yoochun. Never thought the day would come when I’d see you in the library by yourself.”
There’s a beat of silence before Yoochun answers, “I’m not alone, actually. I’m just following my friend from university in here to return a book and to check out another one.”
Yunho looks up and sees the man from three weeks ago smiling wryly at him. He turns to face Yoochun. “Changmin’s a friend of yours from your university?” he asks.
Yoochun raises an eyebrow, about to speak, when Changmin cuts in, “How’d you know my name?”
“I-I,” Yunho stammers, “I didn’t recognize you, and I was wondering who you were, so I asked around.”
“Oh. I guess this town isn’t so different from where I grew up after all,” Changmin sighs. “Everybody still knows everyone.”
“You grew up in a small town too? Where is it?” Yunho questions, his curiosity piqued. He suddenly realizes he’d still been holding the book Changmin had wanted and hands it over.
“Hyung, you still have a pretty long line after us,” Yoochun says, pointing behind himself. “Since you’re about to close, why don’t you come join us for coffee?”
Yunho grins as he accepts the offer.
Over cups of steaming coffee, with Yoochun having a bottle of soju, he learns about Changmin. He learns that he’d left his town in order to try to branch out, sick and tired of having everybody he knew knowing of his every action, learns that he’s majoring in fine arts with Yoochun at the only university the town boasted, learns that he’d always had dreams of becoming a singing star, learns that he could often be sarcastic and cutting, and learns that underneath all the sarcasm, there is a man with a caring nature, wanting only the best for the people he loves.
And as they part, Changmin leaving with Yoochun to head back to their dorms, Yunho sincerely hopes they’ll meet again.
Changmin comes in when he’s on the phone, talking to a patron about some of the library’s policies. Yunho smiles and waves a hello as he heads towards the advertisement board next to the desk, a board with an uncountable number of pinned ads. It sometimes holds ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the library, but the owner of the library allows them to be pinned on anyways; it was probably the only place where ads could be posted other than in the daily newspaper.
Once Yunho’s done talking, he casually walks over to where Changmin’s standing. “What are you looking for?” he asks, noting the way Changmin’s randomly lifting pieces of paper.
Changmin gives him a glance and answers, “I was wondering if there was anyone in this town who teaches singing. I figured if there was, they might’ve posted an ad here.”
“Someone who teaches singing…,” Yunho hums as he flicks through the people living in the town in his mind. “I remember there being one a few years ago, but I think he moved to Seoul after he realized that not a lot of people in small towns actually care about stuff like singing.”
“Oh.” Changmin’s face falls, and he reaches out to flick a sheet that had its corner bent upwards. He sighs and turns away, shrugging, before he looks back at Yunho. “Thanks anyways, Yunho-shii.”
“Hyung,” Yunho finds himself saying, “call me hyung.”
Changmin’s mouth curls up for a second as Yunho belatedly remembers the story he’d told Yoochun and him about the time an older cousin had asked Changmin to call him hyung; fortunately though, Changmin ends up murmuring, “Okay. Thanks anyways, Yunho-hyung.”
Yunho grins. “No problem, dongsaeng,” and laughs as Changmin playfully pretends to swat his arm.
Changmin starts to come every other day, near the time the library starts to close, in order to look through the ads on the bulletin. He gives that as an excuse whenever Yunho asks, and Yunho just accepts the answer as part of his eccentric nature.
After he starts to come for a few days, always waiting for Yunho to close the library before he leaves, they begin walking back to their respective places together, always managing to talk about everything and nothing.
Although Yunho has never had an interest in going to university, he’s read enough books of widely different genres that he manages to keep up with whatever Changmin feels like talking about that day. They talk about salmon fishing one day, how to make paper the next, and argue over religion the day after that.
Yunho finds himself falling in love.
The only difference between your best friend and your closest friend is that while your best friend may know every single nuance of your personality, he may not be the best person to go to for advice. Yunho’s best friend is Junsu, and he knows he can always depend on him whenever he has a problem. However, Yunho’s closest friend is Jaejoong, and he calls him up one morning, wondering about what to do about Changmin.
‘Hello?’
“Good morning, Jaejoong,” Yunho practically sings into the phone. “Am I waking you up?”
‘...Yes, you are, actually. Why are you calling so early in the morning?’
He has to bite back a chuckle at the obvious morning grumpiness in Jaejoong’s voice. He wasn’t exactly a morning person. “You sound so much like Yoochun sometimes,” he laughs. “I need advice.”
‘And that needed advice couldn’t wait until, say, two or three hours later?’
“Well, okay, it could,” he admits.
‘Then what are you doing calling-’
Yunho pretends that he didn’t hear what Jaejoong was about to say, and says, in one breath, “You see, I’m in love with this guy but I don’t know how he feels about me so I was wondering what to do and I called you since I think you’re the only person I know who has a good amount of experience so what do I do to make sure he’s in love with me too?”
‘…You’re in love.’
“Yes,” Yunho says cautiously, not liking Jaejoong’s tone.
‘…You’re in love love.’
“Yeeees.”
‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE IN LOVE.’ A cough. ‘So, what was your problem again?’
“How to make sure he’s in love with me too...,” Yunho mumbles.
‘Wait, wait, tell me everything first.’
Around ten minutes later, after Yunho finishes telling Jaejoong almost every single detail of what has happened between Changmin and him, Jaejoong only has one thing to say.
‘Yunho-yah, you are incredibly dense.’
As he demands to know what Jaejoong means, Jaejoong explains, ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that he’s in love with you too. I mean, why else would he go to the library almost every day just to walk home with you? I certainly can’t imagine a person doing that just because they wanted to talk.’
“I don’t know, Jaejoong,” Yunho says doubtfully, “he’s never given me any indication that he likes me.”
‘Whatever. Just either go up to him and say you love him and wait for his reaction or just straight out kiss him. Kiss him in private though, if you’re planning on going down that route. He doesn’t seem like he would like a public confession of love. Or maybe you should, he might like-’
“Thank you, Jaejoong-ah,” he cuts in, “I’ll think about it.” He’s still not sure if he’ll really do what Jaejoong suggests, but he figures that he might as well muse over it since he doesn’t exactly have any other plans.
He’s still wondering about what to do when Changmin shows up the next day. They walk back home like usual while Yunho becomes increasingly more nervous, finally deciding to do something.
They reach the place they usually separate all too soon for Yunho’s liking, and Changmin starts to walk away with a smile and a goodbye on his lips when Yunho grabs him, pushes him against a tree, and kisses him.
Yunho keeps kissing for a few more seconds, savoring the feeling of Changmin’s lips against his own, when Changmin abruptly pushes him away. He stumbles back a step, not daring to look up into Changmin’s eyes, and mutters, “I love you. Yeah. That’s all I wanted to say.” He turns on his heel and almost runs in the direction of where he lives, but hands suddenly pull the back of his jacket and spin him around.
“Say that again,” Changmin demands.
“I-I love you?” Yunho ventures.
“Say it louder. Like you mean it.”
Yunho sees Changmin fighting to not let his mouth curve, and he clears his throat, fighting his own grin. He leans in towards his face, stopping about an inch away, and says, loudly and clearly, “I love you, Changmin.”
The grin he’d been trying to not let Yunho see finally appears, and Changmin steps into Yunho’s arms, sighing as he does so. “You finally got around to confessing. Well, that certainly took a while.”
Yunho draws back, moving his eyes up that extra few centimeters into Changmin’s eyes, and raises his eyebrow. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
“I love you too, you amazingly dense and slow person.”
“Hey, hey, no insults, or I might take back what I just said,” Yunho teases as he tilts his head further to place a kiss on that impossibly gorgeous mouth.
“Fine, fine,” Changmin sighs.
A few weeks after they officially became a couple, Changmin drags Yunho to the nearest metropolitan city, saying that he wanted to have a date in a place that wouldn’t know who they were or what they were doing.
After watching a movie which they’d kissed through, Yunho spies a club and turns to Changmin, trying to wheedle him into entering.
“No. I can’t dance to save my life,” Changmin says stubbornly.
“So? It doesn’t matter, all you need to do is move to the beat,” Yunho coaxes, slowly pulling him to the line in front.
“Do you know how to dance?” Changmin demands. “I’ll only go in if you can.”
“I do, actually,” Yunho grins. “It’s one of my more secret hobbies.” He bites his lips, ordering himself not to laugh at the look of sheer bafflement on Changmin’s face, and successfully manages to steer him inside without more words.
Once inside, Yunho immediately puts down his coat on an empty table and gives Changmin a peck on the cheek, murmuring, “Be back in ten minutes. I just want to warm up a bit, and maybe you can order something to drink in the meantime? I’ll come back and teach you how to dance.”
He disappears into a crowd, his body already starting to react to the music, and although he feels guilty over leaving Changmin alone, it’s been a really long time since he’d been able to dance, freely and without hiding. He begins to sway his hips, slowly letting his body match the beat of its own accord, and finally stops thinking, allowing his body to move the way it wants.
The song ends a little too soon for his liking, but he looks over to where he left Changmin, checking to see if he’s still there. His eyes widen when he sees him staring straight at him, eyes wide and taking every detail of him in, every move he makes. Yunho slowly moves over, lips unconsciously curling up into a seductive smile, and stops right in front of him, hand reaching out to take Changmin’s hand. He pulls him straight into the crowd, and he places his hands on Changmin’s hips, showing him exactly how to move.
He can tell Changmin’s hesitating, so he shifts his body closer, body still moving, almost to the point where his semi-erect cock would touch Changmin’s. “Come on, Changmin, feel the beat. Follow how I move,” he breathes into Changmin’s ears. Changmin swallows audibly, but he follows the way Yunho’s moving, body beginning to get used to dancing. “There we go,” Yunho whispers, stepping closer, “Just like that.”
He steps close enough that their chests are touching, close enough that Changmin probably feels his erection and leans in, touching their lips together. Their lips move together to the same beat their bodies are, and Yunho smiles against Changmin’s lips, teasing Changmin’s tongue with his own. After a few more seconds, he gently bites Changmin’s bottom lip before easing away back into the crowd, silently laughing at Changmin’s frustrated face.
Eventually, Changmin virtually moves into his apartment, leaving only to attend his classes. They walk home one day to find Yoochun waiting right outside the door, hands deep in his pockets and a beanie pulled low over his eyes.
“Yoochun?” Yunho asks, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Yoochun looks up from his reverie and answers in a pained voice, “Hyung, you stole away my go-to person for questions and homework. You should’ve expected that I would show up one day.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Changmin says, startled. “Midterms are next week.”
Yoochun stares at him for a second before he turns to Yunho, “Where’s Changmin, and what did you do to him?”
Yunho laughs and raises his hands up in surrender as Changmin flicks a finger at Yoochun’s forehead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and if you don’t shut up, I’m not helping you with studying,” Changmin threatens.
“There he is,” Yoochun grins, ignoring the eye roll Changmin sent his way while opening the door.
Yunho winds up talking to his mother over the phone as he looks on with amusement at Yoochun’s bewildered expressions at trying to absorb all the information he’d been supposed to learn over the entire semester. He’d been tuning out his mother’s voice in order to observe Changmin’s many different expressions, only offering an occasional hm to signal that he was still on the line, when a sudden phrase caught his attention.
“Say that again, Mother?” he sputters.
‘You heard me. I set up a date for you with a daughter of one my friends. She’s a lovely girl, and I’m sure you would like her.’
“I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now,” he argues. “There wasn’t a need for you to do it.”
‘Maybe. But I’m still waiting for a grandchild, and it’s about time you got settled down.’
“But, Mother-”
‘Enough. Listen to me, just show up at the barbecue restaurant on the 45th street a month from today, and spend the day with her. That’s all I’m asking you to do.’
He walks into the living room, hoping his consternation isn’t showing on his face, and glances around, surprised to see Yoochun no longer there. Changmin’s sprawled on the couch, laptop on his lap, and looks up as Yunho asks, settling down next to him, “Yoochun left already? I was planning on letting him stay for dinner.”
Changmin grins as he places his feet onto Yunho’s legs, “I kicked him out. He was here trying to get out of a blind date his mother set up for him.”
“You just kicked him out? That’s so mean, Changmin-ah. Maybe he really didn’t want to go,” Yunho laughs self-consciously, praying that he didn’t look or sound different. He didn’t want to see Changmin’s reaction when he finds out about the date.
Shrugging, Changmin says, “He didn’t. But he should’ve gone anyways, especially since his mother had told him about it almost a month ago. If he really didn’t want to go, he should’ve used that month to try to convince her to cancel.”
Yunho plasters a smile onto his face, ignoring the weird look in Changmin’s eyes as he looks at him, and peeks over into Changmin’s laptop. “What are you looking at?”
The grin that suddenly appears on Changmin’s face startles him, and what he says amazes him even more. “I found a vocal coach. She just recently settled, so she doesn’t have many students now.”
“Where does she live?” Yunho asks.
“The city where we went last time,” Changmin mumbles, looking everywhere except at him.
“Oh.” Yunho fights a grin, remembering the way Changmin had reacted for the few days after they had gone to the club. Watching him fidget with slightly pink tinged ears, he couldn’t help but pull him onto his lap, placing his chin onto Changmin’s shoulder, and softly whispers into his ear, “Want me to teach you how to dance?”
Changmin immediately stills, and as he turns to look at him, his eyes decidedly had a sparkle of interest. “Yes. Definitely yes!”
Yunho smiles in answer and doesn’t say anything when Changmin pushes him down onto the couch, looking as if he wanted a few kisses. He’ll find another time to tell Changmin about the date.
Nursing a gin and tonic, Yunho sits at the club he and Changmin had gone to last time, waiting for Changmin to finish his vocal lesson, and muses over how he'll break the news of his blind date to him. He should've told him a while ago since the date was three days from now but to simply put it, Yunho had chickened out every time he had a chance.
A light tap on his head startles him from his reverie, and Yunho looks up to see Jaejoong sporting spiky, blonde hair and wearing the club's uniform grinning down at him. "I bet you're thinking of how to talk to Changmin," Jaejoong teases. “I hear from Junsu you haven't told him yet.”
Yunho bites back a growl; he should've known Jaejoong would hear of his dilemma. He sighs, “I see Junsu and you are still going good. Remind me next time not to tell him anything and ask him to keep it secret.”
Jaejoong slightly hums as his hands move around, mixing orders, and says, “Well, he is your best friend. He's going to find out and end up telling me anyways.” He glances at him, obviously holding back laughter, when Changmin strolls in and sits down next to Yunho. “This must be the Changmin you told me so much about,” Jaejoong starts off conversationally.
He hides his slight smile at Jaejoong's apparent dig to be introduced and complies, motioning to Jaejoong and describing him as the 'annoying-guy-who-turned-into-my-closest-friend.' The annoyed look and hard poke to his face Jaejoong gives him amuse Yunho to no end, especially since Jaejoong ends up almost spilling the drink he had been mixing when he was lowering his arm back down.
Changmin smiles politely, introducing himself and starts to look a bit harried when Jaejoong pesters him with questions, questions that were a bit on the personal side.
“Feel free to ignore him, Changmin-ah,” Yunho laughs, slanting a look back at Jaejoong as he stands up. “He's very persistent.” He smiles down at Changmin, mouthing out let's go.
Changmin moves after his eyes crinkle, subtly slipping his hand into Yunho's as they leave. He bursts into laughter when they hear Jaejoong calling out behind them, “Yeah, just leave without saying anything. You're a horrible friend, Yunho-yah!”
“Do you always do that?” Changmin laughs as they reach their car. “Seems a bit mean of you.”
Yunho shrugs, grinning, when he answers, “It's fine. Jaejoong and I live off making fun of each other and just generally annoying each other.”
“Mhm, but you're still pretty close friends, aren't you guys?”
He nods, placing his hand on Changmin’s knee without thinking as he drives. It's starting to be a habit, he realizes. He'd always been alone whenever he'd driven to the club, dancing half the night away and driving back home at 4am without anyone next to him, and he had been content with that, used to empty seat next to him. Now, though, Changmin has a definite, solid reason to sit in that seat, and he's like something you can't throw away once you tried it out-too good for your mind to wrap around, but real enough that you can't imagine anything else afterwards.
That, more than anything else, helps the words to slide effortlessly from his mouth. “Next Saturday, I'm going out with one of my mom's friends' daughters.”
They're walking down the street, Yunho smiling politely and murmuring meaningless words to a well-groomed lady around his age, when he sees a unique ring in a jewelry store's window. It reminds him of Changmin with its clean, sleek lines and occasional twists, and he asks his date to wait outside for a little while. He buys it in the hopes of placating Changmin with a gift.
Letting himself inside, Yunho lets out a breath, tired from having to continuously pay attention and be nice, polite, everything he'd been raised to be. He walks around, searching for Changmin, and finds him in bed, sleeping. He's disappointed but smiles softly anyways when he sees Changmin’s hands clenched around the covers; for all his maturity, the childish habits Changmin has always make him fall in love just a little more, just a little bit deeper.
He leans over and lightly brushes his lips against Changmin’s and pulls out the little box from his pant pocket, gently placing it underneath Changmin’s night lamp so that it'll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.
The ringing of Changmin’s cellphone startles him awake, the incessant sound working better than a cup of coffee would. Slightly groaning, Yunho rolls over in bed, eyes slitted against the bright morning sun spilling from the windows, and sees Changmin reaching over to his phone.
He rests his head on his arm as he observes Changmin talking, his ears not taking in anything he's saying but his eyes absorbing all the little details, like the way Changmin’s pinky finger on the hand holding the phone curls ever-so-slightly to rest on the phone's scratched back, or how only one of his eyebrows are mussed from sleep. Yunho never usually gets the chance to simply lean back and look at him as most of the time, he's already out the door and at the library before Changmin wakes up. He feels himself slowly sliding into contentment as he lies there, lazily waiting for him to finish talking, but the moment Changmin’s eyes grow larger and almost falls out of bed in his shock, Yunho can sense something has changed.
Yunho gets out of bed and pulls his bathrobe over his pajamas while Changmin hangs up. “What happened?” he asks casually. “You're suddenly so excited.”
Changmin hesitates before answering. “It was a call from one of the major talent agencies in Seoul.”
“Why did they call you?” Yunho queries, surprised.
He bites his bottom lip and looks away, clearly unsure, but Changmin takes in a deep breath, fists clenching and turns back to look at him, eyes mixed with determination and fear. “They called to tell me I made it in. I made it in to their training program.”
He sits on the living room floor of Junsu and Jaejoong's apartment, silently grateful to them for allowing him to come over at such an early hour in the morning. He glances up when Junsu comes in, carrying breakfast on two plates. The eggs and sausages slightly cheer him up, knowing that Jaejoong almost never makes it except for when he's asked to, or when he knows someone is particularly depressed. “Where's Jaejoong?” he softly asks, not seeing him entering after Junsu.
“He went out after making these,” Junsu says, smiling. “Told me he was sick of talking to you.”
Yunho half-smiles at his words. “Well, tell him I didn't mean to talk to him so much. It was sort of an accident.”
Junsu hums an okay through the egg in his mouth. After swallowing, he comments offhandedly as he cuts a piece of sausage, “So what's bothering you? You're not supposed to be sitting on my living room floor so early in the morning.”
He sets his plate down on the table next to him, suddenly losing his appetite. “I... It's just that Changmin suddenly told me he got into a talent agency. One of the major ones, in fact. One of the major ones in Seoul.”
“And?” Junsu prompts. “What'd you say afterwards?”
“Nothing. After he told me he was leaving in a few days, I couldn't think of anything to say. I pretty much just got dressed and came here to sit on your floor.” Something's prickling at the back of Yunho's eyes, and he rapidly blinks, not understanding why the prickling won't stop.
“Did he say when he went to audition?”
“Yesterday,” Yunho says. “When I was on the... date.” Without warning, he feels Junsu's arms gently wrap around him, lightly holding him. The warmth reminds him of why he calls Junsu his best friend, and he suddenly realizes he's been crying, droplets of salty water running down his cheeks.
“It's okay, Yunho-yah,” Junsu murmurs. “I can't give you any advice since this is your problem, but I can help you calm down and think about what you should do. I'm sure you'll be able to make the right decision.”
Yunho slowly walks underneath the trees he and Changmin always walk under on the way home. He runs his hand across the rough tree bark, loving the uneven texture, and he stops walking when he reaches a familiar tree. The day he'd confessed to Changmin now seems so far away, and he wonders what would've happened if he hadn't said anything that day. Would he still be in love with Changmin, living each day looking forward to when Changmin comes? Or would he have fallen in love with someone else, someone his mother would approve of?
He smiles softly, self-deprecatingly. (There's no use in thinking about things that could've happened, Changmin would scold if he knew about his thoughts.) Closing his eyes, he leans his head against the worn bark of the tree and simply stands, letting the cool breezes rush over him, ruffling his hair (Your hair looks nice messy, Changmin would tease, reaching out to gently fix the tangled strands. You should leave it that way more often).
Looking up into the clear blue sky, he sighs, not wanting to let Changmin go, but knowing at the same time that he doesn't have the right to stop him. “I'll miss you, Changmin-ah,” he whispers under his breath. “But I'll still be here, waiting for you to come back to me. I'm not going anywhere else.”
Two arms slide around his waist as a head drops onto his shoulder, face neatly fitting into the niche where his neck and shoulder meet. “You should say that straight to my face, idiot,” Changmin murmurs. “How else am I going to hear it?”
He ducks his head for a second, eyes threatening to tear. “I didn't want you to see me cry.”
“I've seen you cry before,” Changmin softly teases. “You tear up all the time whenever you watch those sad dramas of yours.”
He lets out a choked chuckle, breathing in deeply before he turns in Changmin’s arms, holding him close. “I meant what I just said, you know.”
His eyes crinkling lightly in the corners, Changmin says, “I know. I'm sorry for not telling you about it ahead of time. I didn't find out about the auditions until the night before, and I was too pissed off at you to tell you the next day.”
They stand there in the wind for a while, quietly enjoying the silence as part of them. Yunho reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out the box he'd stared at while at sitting alone at Jaejoong and Junsu's house, and takes out the ring inside. He holds it up in front of Changmin's eyes and says, “I wanted to give you this yesterday, but when I came home, you were asleep. I didn't get the chance to give it to you this morning what with everything that happened.”
Changmin eyes the ring for seconds before he takes it from Yunho and slips it onto his finger. “It's a very nice looking ring,” he comments lightly, “but I'm not letting you put it on me. I'll only let you put a ring on me when I retire from singing and come back to live with you in this tiny town.”
Yunho fully smiles for the first time that day. “You better come back. It'll be a bit boring around here without you.”
He aligns his lips with Yunho's before he mouths I will. Don't worry.
(Years later, Yunho would sit outside his apartment, laptop in his lap, and watch another one of Changmin's performances. He would smile nostalgically to himself, marveling over how Changmin changes whenever he goes up on stage. Snatches of stolen time would crowd in his mind, Changmin taking vacations in a small town in Korea's countryside to the bemusement of his fans.
A pair of legs would appear in his line of sight, clad in black jeans and boots, and he would look up, already grinning. Back already? Management sure is letting you loose these days.
It's not just that. I'm finished, Yunho-yah. I officially retired yesterday, and now all that's left is for my company to announce it to the fans.
Yunho would blink bemusedly, much to Changmin's amusement. So... you're not leaving anymore?
Nope. I'm stuck here with you now, Yunho.
He would feel a smile, a happy, glowing smile break across his face as he reaches up to tug Changmin down. A ring would clink against a matching one, and Yunho would see it, a soft look entering his eyes. You still have it.
I never took it off.)
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It's pretty much the first time I've written Homin, if you don't count a 100 words drabble. :X I'm sorry if dynamics and things like that seem wrong! Concrit welcomed. ♥
Yunho/Changmin.
Romance/AU/Drama/Fluff; PG-13.
5375 words.
In a small town in the countryside, Changmin's dreams are too big, too big for maybe even Yunho to hold.
He’s sitting at the front desk, getting ready to close down the library, when a man slightly younger than him stops in front of him, holding out a book to be checked out. Yunho glances up, flashing his well-used polite smile, and takes the book, glancing down to see the title. He looks up again at the man with interest as it’s the first time he’d seen someone of this town borrow this book.
“Singing for dummies?” Yunho asks, amused, as he takes the library card the man’s offering.
He shrugs self consciously and says, “I have nothing else to do, and singing has always been one of my interests.”
After the man leaves, Yunho’s left sitting at the desk, face in one hand, mulling over the type of person who would willingly borrow a book offering tips on how to sing-or at least the type of person living in this town who would do so. He soon realizes he’d never seen the man in town before, and in this small town, everyone knows everybody. He pulls up the man’s file and sees his name at the top.
Shim Changmin. He says the name out loud and likes how easily it rolls off his tongue.
Shim Changmin.
Almost exactly three weeks later, he’s again sitting at the front desk, helping out a long line of people to check out their books. The line soon shortens, and as he blindly reaches out for the next book without looking up at the person holding it out, he jumps when someone drawls into his ear, “Hi, hyung. No hello for me?”
Keeping his eyes on the computer and his hands moving, he feels his mouth quirk up into a smile. “Hi, Yoochun. Never thought the day would come when I’d see you in the library by yourself.”
There’s a beat of silence before Yoochun answers, “I’m not alone, actually. I’m just following my friend from university in here to return a book and to check out another one.”
Yunho looks up and sees the man from three weeks ago smiling wryly at him. He turns to face Yoochun. “Changmin’s a friend of yours from your university?” he asks.
Yoochun raises an eyebrow, about to speak, when Changmin cuts in, “How’d you know my name?”
“I-I,” Yunho stammers, “I didn’t recognize you, and I was wondering who you were, so I asked around.”
“Oh. I guess this town isn’t so different from where I grew up after all,” Changmin sighs. “Everybody still knows everyone.”
“You grew up in a small town too? Where is it?” Yunho questions, his curiosity piqued. He suddenly realizes he’d still been holding the book Changmin had wanted and hands it over.
“Hyung, you still have a pretty long line after us,” Yoochun says, pointing behind himself. “Since you’re about to close, why don’t you come join us for coffee?”
Yunho grins as he accepts the offer.
Over cups of steaming coffee, with Yoochun having a bottle of soju, he learns about Changmin. He learns that he’d left his town in order to try to branch out, sick and tired of having everybody he knew knowing of his every action, learns that he’s majoring in fine arts with Yoochun at the only university the town boasted, learns that he’d always had dreams of becoming a singing star, learns that he could often be sarcastic and cutting, and learns that underneath all the sarcasm, there is a man with a caring nature, wanting only the best for the people he loves.
And as they part, Changmin leaving with Yoochun to head back to their dorms, Yunho sincerely hopes they’ll meet again.
Changmin comes in when he’s on the phone, talking to a patron about some of the library’s policies. Yunho smiles and waves a hello as he heads towards the advertisement board next to the desk, a board with an uncountable number of pinned ads. It sometimes holds ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the library, but the owner of the library allows them to be pinned on anyways; it was probably the only place where ads could be posted other than in the daily newspaper.
Once Yunho’s done talking, he casually walks over to where Changmin’s standing. “What are you looking for?” he asks, noting the way Changmin’s randomly lifting pieces of paper.
Changmin gives him a glance and answers, “I was wondering if there was anyone in this town who teaches singing. I figured if there was, they might’ve posted an ad here.”
“Someone who teaches singing…,” Yunho hums as he flicks through the people living in the town in his mind. “I remember there being one a few years ago, but I think he moved to Seoul after he realized that not a lot of people in small towns actually care about stuff like singing.”
“Oh.” Changmin’s face falls, and he reaches out to flick a sheet that had its corner bent upwards. He sighs and turns away, shrugging, before he looks back at Yunho. “Thanks anyways, Yunho-shii.”
“Hyung,” Yunho finds himself saying, “call me hyung.”
Changmin’s mouth curls up for a second as Yunho belatedly remembers the story he’d told Yoochun and him about the time an older cousin had asked Changmin to call him hyung; fortunately though, Changmin ends up murmuring, “Okay. Thanks anyways, Yunho-hyung.”
Yunho grins. “No problem, dongsaeng,” and laughs as Changmin playfully pretends to swat his arm.
Changmin starts to come every other day, near the time the library starts to close, in order to look through the ads on the bulletin. He gives that as an excuse whenever Yunho asks, and Yunho just accepts the answer as part of his eccentric nature.
After he starts to come for a few days, always waiting for Yunho to close the library before he leaves, they begin walking back to their respective places together, always managing to talk about everything and nothing.
Although Yunho has never had an interest in going to university, he’s read enough books of widely different genres that he manages to keep up with whatever Changmin feels like talking about that day. They talk about salmon fishing one day, how to make paper the next, and argue over religion the day after that.
Yunho finds himself falling in love.
The only difference between your best friend and your closest friend is that while your best friend may know every single nuance of your personality, he may not be the best person to go to for advice. Yunho’s best friend is Junsu, and he knows he can always depend on him whenever he has a problem. However, Yunho’s closest friend is Jaejoong, and he calls him up one morning, wondering about what to do about Changmin.
‘Hello?’
“Good morning, Jaejoong,” Yunho practically sings into the phone. “Am I waking you up?”
‘...Yes, you are, actually. Why are you calling so early in the morning?’
He has to bite back a chuckle at the obvious morning grumpiness in Jaejoong’s voice. He wasn’t exactly a morning person. “You sound so much like Yoochun sometimes,” he laughs. “I need advice.”
‘And that needed advice couldn’t wait until, say, two or three hours later?’
“Well, okay, it could,” he admits.
‘Then what are you doing calling-’
Yunho pretends that he didn’t hear what Jaejoong was about to say, and says, in one breath, “You see, I’m in love with this guy but I don’t know how he feels about me so I was wondering what to do and I called you since I think you’re the only person I know who has a good amount of experience so what do I do to make sure he’s in love with me too?”
‘…You’re in love.’
“Yes,” Yunho says cautiously, not liking Jaejoong’s tone.
‘…You’re in love love.’
“Yeeees.”
‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE IN LOVE.’ A cough. ‘So, what was your problem again?’
“How to make sure he’s in love with me too...,” Yunho mumbles.
‘Wait, wait, tell me everything first.’
Around ten minutes later, after Yunho finishes telling Jaejoong almost every single detail of what has happened between Changmin and him, Jaejoong only has one thing to say.
‘Yunho-yah, you are incredibly dense.’
As he demands to know what Jaejoong means, Jaejoong explains, ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that he’s in love with you too. I mean, why else would he go to the library almost every day just to walk home with you? I certainly can’t imagine a person doing that just because they wanted to talk.’
“I don’t know, Jaejoong,” Yunho says doubtfully, “he’s never given me any indication that he likes me.”
‘Whatever. Just either go up to him and say you love him and wait for his reaction or just straight out kiss him. Kiss him in private though, if you’re planning on going down that route. He doesn’t seem like he would like a public confession of love. Or maybe you should, he might like-’
“Thank you, Jaejoong-ah,” he cuts in, “I’ll think about it.” He’s still not sure if he’ll really do what Jaejoong suggests, but he figures that he might as well muse over it since he doesn’t exactly have any other plans.
He’s still wondering about what to do when Changmin shows up the next day. They walk back home like usual while Yunho becomes increasingly more nervous, finally deciding to do something.
They reach the place they usually separate all too soon for Yunho’s liking, and Changmin starts to walk away with a smile and a goodbye on his lips when Yunho grabs him, pushes him against a tree, and kisses him.
Yunho keeps kissing for a few more seconds, savoring the feeling of Changmin’s lips against his own, when Changmin abruptly pushes him away. He stumbles back a step, not daring to look up into Changmin’s eyes, and mutters, “I love you. Yeah. That’s all I wanted to say.” He turns on his heel and almost runs in the direction of where he lives, but hands suddenly pull the back of his jacket and spin him around.
“Say that again,” Changmin demands.
“I-I love you?” Yunho ventures.
“Say it louder. Like you mean it.”
Yunho sees Changmin fighting to not let his mouth curve, and he clears his throat, fighting his own grin. He leans in towards his face, stopping about an inch away, and says, loudly and clearly, “I love you, Changmin.”
The grin he’d been trying to not let Yunho see finally appears, and Changmin steps into Yunho’s arms, sighing as he does so. “You finally got around to confessing. Well, that certainly took a while.”
Yunho draws back, moving his eyes up that extra few centimeters into Changmin’s eyes, and raises his eyebrow. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
“I love you too, you amazingly dense and slow person.”
“Hey, hey, no insults, or I might take back what I just said,” Yunho teases as he tilts his head further to place a kiss on that impossibly gorgeous mouth.
“Fine, fine,” Changmin sighs.
A few weeks after they officially became a couple, Changmin drags Yunho to the nearest metropolitan city, saying that he wanted to have a date in a place that wouldn’t know who they were or what they were doing.
After watching a movie which they’d kissed through, Yunho spies a club and turns to Changmin, trying to wheedle him into entering.
“No. I can’t dance to save my life,” Changmin says stubbornly.
“So? It doesn’t matter, all you need to do is move to the beat,” Yunho coaxes, slowly pulling him to the line in front.
“Do you know how to dance?” Changmin demands. “I’ll only go in if you can.”
“I do, actually,” Yunho grins. “It’s one of my more secret hobbies.” He bites his lips, ordering himself not to laugh at the look of sheer bafflement on Changmin’s face, and successfully manages to steer him inside without more words.
Once inside, Yunho immediately puts down his coat on an empty table and gives Changmin a peck on the cheek, murmuring, “Be back in ten minutes. I just want to warm up a bit, and maybe you can order something to drink in the meantime? I’ll come back and teach you how to dance.”
He disappears into a crowd, his body already starting to react to the music, and although he feels guilty over leaving Changmin alone, it’s been a really long time since he’d been able to dance, freely and without hiding. He begins to sway his hips, slowly letting his body match the beat of its own accord, and finally stops thinking, allowing his body to move the way it wants.
The song ends a little too soon for his liking, but he looks over to where he left Changmin, checking to see if he’s still there. His eyes widen when he sees him staring straight at him, eyes wide and taking every detail of him in, every move he makes. Yunho slowly moves over, lips unconsciously curling up into a seductive smile, and stops right in front of him, hand reaching out to take Changmin’s hand. He pulls him straight into the crowd, and he places his hands on Changmin’s hips, showing him exactly how to move.
He can tell Changmin’s hesitating, so he shifts his body closer, body still moving, almost to the point where his semi-erect cock would touch Changmin’s. “Come on, Changmin, feel the beat. Follow how I move,” he breathes into Changmin’s ears. Changmin swallows audibly, but he follows the way Yunho’s moving, body beginning to get used to dancing. “There we go,” Yunho whispers, stepping closer, “Just like that.”
He steps close enough that their chests are touching, close enough that Changmin probably feels his erection and leans in, touching their lips together. Their lips move together to the same beat their bodies are, and Yunho smiles against Changmin’s lips, teasing Changmin’s tongue with his own. After a few more seconds, he gently bites Changmin’s bottom lip before easing away back into the crowd, silently laughing at Changmin’s frustrated face.
Eventually, Changmin virtually moves into his apartment, leaving only to attend his classes. They walk home one day to find Yoochun waiting right outside the door, hands deep in his pockets and a beanie pulled low over his eyes.
“Yoochun?” Yunho asks, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Yoochun looks up from his reverie and answers in a pained voice, “Hyung, you stole away my go-to person for questions and homework. You should’ve expected that I would show up one day.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Changmin says, startled. “Midterms are next week.”
Yoochun stares at him for a second before he turns to Yunho, “Where’s Changmin, and what did you do to him?”
Yunho laughs and raises his hands up in surrender as Changmin flicks a finger at Yoochun’s forehead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and if you don’t shut up, I’m not helping you with studying,” Changmin threatens.
“There he is,” Yoochun grins, ignoring the eye roll Changmin sent his way while opening the door.
Yunho winds up talking to his mother over the phone as he looks on with amusement at Yoochun’s bewildered expressions at trying to absorb all the information he’d been supposed to learn over the entire semester. He’d been tuning out his mother’s voice in order to observe Changmin’s many different expressions, only offering an occasional hm to signal that he was still on the line, when a sudden phrase caught his attention.
“Say that again, Mother?” he sputters.
‘You heard me. I set up a date for you with a daughter of one my friends. She’s a lovely girl, and I’m sure you would like her.’
“I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now,” he argues. “There wasn’t a need for you to do it.”
‘Maybe. But I’m still waiting for a grandchild, and it’s about time you got settled down.’
“But, Mother-”
‘Enough. Listen to me, just show up at the barbecue restaurant on the 45th street a month from today, and spend the day with her. That’s all I’m asking you to do.’
He walks into the living room, hoping his consternation isn’t showing on his face, and glances around, surprised to see Yoochun no longer there. Changmin’s sprawled on the couch, laptop on his lap, and looks up as Yunho asks, settling down next to him, “Yoochun left already? I was planning on letting him stay for dinner.”
Changmin grins as he places his feet onto Yunho’s legs, “I kicked him out. He was here trying to get out of a blind date his mother set up for him.”
“You just kicked him out? That’s so mean, Changmin-ah. Maybe he really didn’t want to go,” Yunho laughs self-consciously, praying that he didn’t look or sound different. He didn’t want to see Changmin’s reaction when he finds out about the date.
Shrugging, Changmin says, “He didn’t. But he should’ve gone anyways, especially since his mother had told him about it almost a month ago. If he really didn’t want to go, he should’ve used that month to try to convince her to cancel.”
Yunho plasters a smile onto his face, ignoring the weird look in Changmin’s eyes as he looks at him, and peeks over into Changmin’s laptop. “What are you looking at?”
The grin that suddenly appears on Changmin’s face startles him, and what he says amazes him even more. “I found a vocal coach. She just recently settled, so she doesn’t have many students now.”
“Where does she live?” Yunho asks.
“The city where we went last time,” Changmin mumbles, looking everywhere except at him.
“Oh.” Yunho fights a grin, remembering the way Changmin had reacted for the few days after they had gone to the club. Watching him fidget with slightly pink tinged ears, he couldn’t help but pull him onto his lap, placing his chin onto Changmin’s shoulder, and softly whispers into his ear, “Want me to teach you how to dance?”
Changmin immediately stills, and as he turns to look at him, his eyes decidedly had a sparkle of interest. “Yes. Definitely yes!”
Yunho smiles in answer and doesn’t say anything when Changmin pushes him down onto the couch, looking as if he wanted a few kisses. He’ll find another time to tell Changmin about the date.
Nursing a gin and tonic, Yunho sits at the club he and Changmin had gone to last time, waiting for Changmin to finish his vocal lesson, and muses over how he'll break the news of his blind date to him. He should've told him a while ago since the date was three days from now but to simply put it, Yunho had chickened out every time he had a chance.
A light tap on his head startles him from his reverie, and Yunho looks up to see Jaejoong sporting spiky, blonde hair and wearing the club's uniform grinning down at him. "I bet you're thinking of how to talk to Changmin," Jaejoong teases. “I hear from Junsu you haven't told him yet.”
Yunho bites back a growl; he should've known Jaejoong would hear of his dilemma. He sighs, “I see Junsu and you are still going good. Remind me next time not to tell him anything and ask him to keep it secret.”
Jaejoong slightly hums as his hands move around, mixing orders, and says, “Well, he is your best friend. He's going to find out and end up telling me anyways.” He glances at him, obviously holding back laughter, when Changmin strolls in and sits down next to Yunho. “This must be the Changmin you told me so much about,” Jaejoong starts off conversationally.
He hides his slight smile at Jaejoong's apparent dig to be introduced and complies, motioning to Jaejoong and describing him as the 'annoying-guy-who-turned-into-my-closest-friend.' The annoyed look and hard poke to his face Jaejoong gives him amuse Yunho to no end, especially since Jaejoong ends up almost spilling the drink he had been mixing when he was lowering his arm back down.
Changmin smiles politely, introducing himself and starts to look a bit harried when Jaejoong pesters him with questions, questions that were a bit on the personal side.
“Feel free to ignore him, Changmin-ah,” Yunho laughs, slanting a look back at Jaejoong as he stands up. “He's very persistent.” He smiles down at Changmin, mouthing out let's go.
Changmin moves after his eyes crinkle, subtly slipping his hand into Yunho's as they leave. He bursts into laughter when they hear Jaejoong calling out behind them, “Yeah, just leave without saying anything. You're a horrible friend, Yunho-yah!”
“Do you always do that?” Changmin laughs as they reach their car. “Seems a bit mean of you.”
Yunho shrugs, grinning, when he answers, “It's fine. Jaejoong and I live off making fun of each other and just generally annoying each other.”
“Mhm, but you're still pretty close friends, aren't you guys?”
He nods, placing his hand on Changmin’s knee without thinking as he drives. It's starting to be a habit, he realizes. He'd always been alone whenever he'd driven to the club, dancing half the night away and driving back home at 4am without anyone next to him, and he had been content with that, used to empty seat next to him. Now, though, Changmin has a definite, solid reason to sit in that seat, and he's like something you can't throw away once you tried it out-too good for your mind to wrap around, but real enough that you can't imagine anything else afterwards.
That, more than anything else, helps the words to slide effortlessly from his mouth. “Next Saturday, I'm going out with one of my mom's friends' daughters.”
They're walking down the street, Yunho smiling politely and murmuring meaningless words to a well-groomed lady around his age, when he sees a unique ring in a jewelry store's window. It reminds him of Changmin with its clean, sleek lines and occasional twists, and he asks his date to wait outside for a little while. He buys it in the hopes of placating Changmin with a gift.
Letting himself inside, Yunho lets out a breath, tired from having to continuously pay attention and be nice, polite, everything he'd been raised to be. He walks around, searching for Changmin, and finds him in bed, sleeping. He's disappointed but smiles softly anyways when he sees Changmin’s hands clenched around the covers; for all his maturity, the childish habits Changmin has always make him fall in love just a little more, just a little bit deeper.
He leans over and lightly brushes his lips against Changmin’s and pulls out the little box from his pant pocket, gently placing it underneath Changmin’s night lamp so that it'll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.
The ringing of Changmin’s cellphone startles him awake, the incessant sound working better than a cup of coffee would. Slightly groaning, Yunho rolls over in bed, eyes slitted against the bright morning sun spilling from the windows, and sees Changmin reaching over to his phone.
He rests his head on his arm as he observes Changmin talking, his ears not taking in anything he's saying but his eyes absorbing all the little details, like the way Changmin’s pinky finger on the hand holding the phone curls ever-so-slightly to rest on the phone's scratched back, or how only one of his eyebrows are mussed from sleep. Yunho never usually gets the chance to simply lean back and look at him as most of the time, he's already out the door and at the library before Changmin wakes up. He feels himself slowly sliding into contentment as he lies there, lazily waiting for him to finish talking, but the moment Changmin’s eyes grow larger and almost falls out of bed in his shock, Yunho can sense something has changed.
Yunho gets out of bed and pulls his bathrobe over his pajamas while Changmin hangs up. “What happened?” he asks casually. “You're suddenly so excited.”
Changmin hesitates before answering. “It was a call from one of the major talent agencies in Seoul.”
“Why did they call you?” Yunho queries, surprised.
He bites his bottom lip and looks away, clearly unsure, but Changmin takes in a deep breath, fists clenching and turns back to look at him, eyes mixed with determination and fear. “They called to tell me I made it in. I made it in to their training program.”
He sits on the living room floor of Junsu and Jaejoong's apartment, silently grateful to them for allowing him to come over at such an early hour in the morning. He glances up when Junsu comes in, carrying breakfast on two plates. The eggs and sausages slightly cheer him up, knowing that Jaejoong almost never makes it except for when he's asked to, or when he knows someone is particularly depressed. “Where's Jaejoong?” he softly asks, not seeing him entering after Junsu.
“He went out after making these,” Junsu says, smiling. “Told me he was sick of talking to you.”
Yunho half-smiles at his words. “Well, tell him I didn't mean to talk to him so much. It was sort of an accident.”
Junsu hums an okay through the egg in his mouth. After swallowing, he comments offhandedly as he cuts a piece of sausage, “So what's bothering you? You're not supposed to be sitting on my living room floor so early in the morning.”
He sets his plate down on the table next to him, suddenly losing his appetite. “I... It's just that Changmin suddenly told me he got into a talent agency. One of the major ones, in fact. One of the major ones in Seoul.”
“And?” Junsu prompts. “What'd you say afterwards?”
“Nothing. After he told me he was leaving in a few days, I couldn't think of anything to say. I pretty much just got dressed and came here to sit on your floor.” Something's prickling at the back of Yunho's eyes, and he rapidly blinks, not understanding why the prickling won't stop.
“Did he say when he went to audition?”
“Yesterday,” Yunho says. “When I was on the... date.” Without warning, he feels Junsu's arms gently wrap around him, lightly holding him. The warmth reminds him of why he calls Junsu his best friend, and he suddenly realizes he's been crying, droplets of salty water running down his cheeks.
“It's okay, Yunho-yah,” Junsu murmurs. “I can't give you any advice since this is your problem, but I can help you calm down and think about what you should do. I'm sure you'll be able to make the right decision.”
Yunho slowly walks underneath the trees he and Changmin always walk under on the way home. He runs his hand across the rough tree bark, loving the uneven texture, and he stops walking when he reaches a familiar tree. The day he'd confessed to Changmin now seems so far away, and he wonders what would've happened if he hadn't said anything that day. Would he still be in love with Changmin, living each day looking forward to when Changmin comes? Or would he have fallen in love with someone else, someone his mother would approve of?
He smiles softly, self-deprecatingly. (There's no use in thinking about things that could've happened, Changmin would scold if he knew about his thoughts.) Closing his eyes, he leans his head against the worn bark of the tree and simply stands, letting the cool breezes rush over him, ruffling his hair (Your hair looks nice messy, Changmin would tease, reaching out to gently fix the tangled strands. You should leave it that way more often).
Looking up into the clear blue sky, he sighs, not wanting to let Changmin go, but knowing at the same time that he doesn't have the right to stop him. “I'll miss you, Changmin-ah,” he whispers under his breath. “But I'll still be here, waiting for you to come back to me. I'm not going anywhere else.”
Two arms slide around his waist as a head drops onto his shoulder, face neatly fitting into the niche where his neck and shoulder meet. “You should say that straight to my face, idiot,” Changmin murmurs. “How else am I going to hear it?”
He ducks his head for a second, eyes threatening to tear. “I didn't want you to see me cry.”
“I've seen you cry before,” Changmin softly teases. “You tear up all the time whenever you watch those sad dramas of yours.”
He lets out a choked chuckle, breathing in deeply before he turns in Changmin’s arms, holding him close. “I meant what I just said, you know.”
His eyes crinkling lightly in the corners, Changmin says, “I know. I'm sorry for not telling you about it ahead of time. I didn't find out about the auditions until the night before, and I was too pissed off at you to tell you the next day.”
They stand there in the wind for a while, quietly enjoying the silence as part of them. Yunho reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out the box he'd stared at while at sitting alone at Jaejoong and Junsu's house, and takes out the ring inside. He holds it up in front of Changmin's eyes and says, “I wanted to give you this yesterday, but when I came home, you were asleep. I didn't get the chance to give it to you this morning what with everything that happened.”
Changmin eyes the ring for seconds before he takes it from Yunho and slips it onto his finger. “It's a very nice looking ring,” he comments lightly, “but I'm not letting you put it on me. I'll only let you put a ring on me when I retire from singing and come back to live with you in this tiny town.”
Yunho fully smiles for the first time that day. “You better come back. It'll be a bit boring around here without you.”
He aligns his lips with Yunho's before he mouths I will. Don't worry.
(Years later, Yunho would sit outside his apartment, laptop in his lap, and watch another one of Changmin's performances. He would smile nostalgically to himself, marveling over how Changmin changes whenever he goes up on stage. Snatches of stolen time would crowd in his mind, Changmin taking vacations in a small town in Korea's countryside to the bemusement of his fans.
A pair of legs would appear in his line of sight, clad in black jeans and boots, and he would look up, already grinning. Back already? Management sure is letting you loose these days.
It's not just that. I'm finished, Yunho-yah. I officially retired yesterday, and now all that's left is for my company to announce it to the fans.
Yunho would blink bemusedly, much to Changmin's amusement. So... you're not leaving anymore?
Nope. I'm stuck here with you now, Yunho.
He would feel a smile, a happy, glowing smile break across his face as he reaches up to tug Changmin down. A ring would clink against a matching one, and Yunho would see it, a soft look entering his eyes. You still have it.
I never took it off.)
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It's pretty much the first time I've written Homin, if you don't count a 100 words drabble. :X I'm sorry if dynamics and things like that seem wrong! Concrit welcomed. ♥