Polaroid Dreams, Yunho/Changmin
Fic: Polaroid Dreams
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin ft. EXO
Rating: PG
Notes: Future fic. Yunho finds Changmin. Set roughly about 5-6 years into the future.
“And that's a wrap, well done guys.”
Yunho wipes the sweat off his forehead, smiling in the mirror at the boys behind him. EXOTIC (The International Class) was doing their last round of rehearsals before their debut in London. The boys shook their limbs, tired and happy and bubbling with excitement for the next day.
It was going to be brilliant.
Yunho absently listened in the background, stretching his limbs whilst EXO's manager lectured the boys - that it was going to be a big night, and they should get home and eat and try to get as much sleep as they can. It was no surprise to Yunho that Luhan's eyes were already starting to droop and Chanyeol was leaning heavily against Kai's shoulder.
When he works with some of these boys, 6 years past their debut, Yunho sometimes feels waves of nostalgia like nothing else, pictures himself on the ground surrounded by four others, fighting exhaustion. He can picture it like those movies, where ghosts of himself and his friends are right before his eyes.
Well, that's all gone now.
Yunho drives the boys back to the hotel and they're non-stop talking - or Baekhyun was non-stop talking, Sehun's laughing with Luhan, and when Kris asks him if he's planning to go out tonight he declines.
“Yunho-sunbaenim you need to have some fun,” Baekhyun says, shaking his head.
“Why don't you come out?” Luhan chimes in automatically, and gets a thump on his arm for his trouble.
Yunho raises an eyebrow, looking at Kai quizzically, initiator of said thump, who returns his eyes with a blank, transparent stare. Chanyeol grins sheepishly.
“Are you guys going out tonight? I thought hyung wanted you to rest.”
“Just a walk,” Kris replies protectively, and it reminds Yunho of when he was a leader.
“Be safe and avoid fans and come back quickly.” Yunho's rewarded with six signature, dazzling smiles (“Thank you!” “You're the best, hyung!” “I wish you were our manager”) as each of them hops out of the car.
**
Yunho finds himself unable to sleep. The bed isn't right and the temperature's too hot and after over 10 years of this he should be used to it. Maybe he's getting old and a bit fussy and jetlag finally starts to get the better of him, but then again it could be because it doesn't seem like the boys have returned.
Yunho checks his watch. A bright 1:30AM blinks back at him.
Not too late, he supposes - some training days went past that time - but considering the big day ahead he really should find out where they were.
“What happened to coming back quickly?” Yunho texts Kris, getting dressed. If he was wide awake he might as well get up.
It doesn't take long for Kris to ring back.
“Yunho-hyung, thank God! Manager is either ignoring my calls or sleeping right through them! Luhan's fallen asleep and you know he's much heavier than he looks, could you please pick us up? ”
Kris texts the name of a bar and Yunho finds himself quickly out the door, praying that he won't get lost and hoping his English lessons will finally be put to good use.
**
The door swings open with a soft chime as Yunho enters, some local pub-slash-diner in a quiet corner of town, bathed in warm light and jukebox blasting some old, vaguely familiar pop tune, the sound of billard balls clacking as they collide from the tables at the back. It reminds him of hangouts in old sitcoms, Friends or How I Met Your Mother, shows which helped pass the time when they did SMTown Concerts in America.
Yunho pushes the thought away, closing the door behind him. Kris and the other boys are nowhere to be seen.
“Are you picking up those foreign guys? Max is with them,” a girl pipes up, young and pretty with shining blonde hair in a ponytail, dressed in a short black denim skirt and checkered shirt that matches the tablecloths. She waves her hand towards the back.
He finds them piled together napping in a booth in the far corner of the room. Luhan was leaning his head against the wall and Sehun's head was on his shoulder, Chanyeol's head on Sehun's. Kris's head was down, arms folded, one hand still clasping his phone; Baekhyun muttering in his sleep, head on the table, with Kai asleep on top of him.
Dragging one guy out the door was fine, but six??
“Oh, they're yours are they,” a voice speaks behind him, English distinct, clipped and smooth. “They've been asleep for a little while. The tall one wouldn't let anyone drink so they played pool until they pretty much fell asleep one by one. A lame night out, if you ask me.”
“How long have they been unconscious?” Yunho asks, trying to figure out the puzzle before him.
“The last one? Maybe 15 mins. We close in about another 30. Let me know if you need help, okay? You brought a car, I hope?”
Yunho nods, absently. “Just around the corner.”
“Take your time.” The other man starts clearing the booths around him.
Yunho moves quickly, then, shaking Kris awake; Kris starts with a sudden shudder and his eyes fly open, “Hyung! You're here-” he stops when he sees the rest of them, “-Oh God, these boys don't like waking up as much as manager-hyung likes it-”
“You'll have to help me carry them out to the car, Kris,” Yunho says, trying to keep his voice steady. He'll leave it up to management to yell at him. Kris doesn't need one more person to do it.
“I'm going to be in so much trouble,” Kris mutters, prying Kai off Baekhyun and wrapping his arm around his shoulder. “Could you grab the other arm, hyung?”
Yunho flings Kai's arm over his own shoulder, steadying Kai by the waist. “Since when did you lot get so tall?”
“Yunho?” Kai stirs softly, as they settle him into the back seat.“Kris? Where are we going? Can we go to Buckingham Palace?”
“Home, we're going home” Kris says firmly. Kai groans in disagreement, twisting back into slumber. Kris sighs. “I've got this, hyung, go get the others.”
**
Yunho re-enters the pub to find that the jukebox has been turned off and the patrons were starting to file out.
Max was humming to himself, back to him, wiping the powder off the edges of the billard tables, straightening out the baskets and placing the coloured balls back into their triangular holsters.
Yunho couldn't stop himself from looking at Max as he hummed away on some tune that Yunho didn't recognise, a tune that Yunho felt like he should recognise since the voice sounded so melodic, so familiar...
The line of Max's shoulders and the way his wrist lent on the table, fingers partly raised; the way his head nodded in time to his tune; and those tall legs...
When Max spins around at looks straight at him with large, doe-shaped eyes, everything seems to stop.
“You're not Max,” Yunho says. “You're Changmin.”
**
Changmin groans inwardly. He had known as soon as Yunho walked into the door, recognised the frame of his back, the way his shirt pulled against too-wide shoulders and the way his jeans hung; suspected it as soon as he heard the younger boy talking, and it was madness itself that Kris didn't remember him, after all those years back at training. (Granted, it was years ago, but they haven't changed much; had he?)
It's not every night that a whole group of Korean boys entered their diner, dressed casually but trying too hard to be so; tall and gangly and gorgeous that even young Emma did a double take and nearly dropped the glass of beer she was filling. She points them out to Changmin and he pretty much runs to the back room so he can sneak peeks out of the window in the door.
“What's wrong with you?” Emma asks, bewildered. Changmin doesn't lose composure often.
“I might know them. Distract them for me,” he replies, and Emma shoots him a devilish grin before she disappears with her pen and her order pad, straightening her skirt as she leaves.
He avoids the boys, remaining at the bar with the patrons that file in to watch the football matches on the television and serving them their staple peanuts and Carlsbergs; disappearing into the back room more than usual but eyes and ears keenly aware of the group in the corner.
When he hears Kris talking on the phone and hears Yunho's name he freezes, body completely still like in that old Batman movie where innocent victims are iced to the bone; someone scores a goal and he's shaken by the cheers and the boos except all he can hear is the blood pounding in his ears as he remembers to breathe.
He thinks two things when he stares at himself in the mirror after splashing his face with water (Get a grip, Changmin Shim,) ruffling his hair and pushing his bangs over his eyes: 1. The avoidance tactic worked quite well for the EXO Boys; 2. Keep your head down (Good grief, this is a really bad time for a pun) and your back to him when he gets here, clean up and get out, and everyone would be none the wiser.
Except of course he couldn't resist talking to Yunho, so close he can smell the cologne on the older man that hits him with nauseous nostalgia, a direct blow in the stomach; wanting to be both closer and further away from him at the same time.
He just wanted to make sure it really was Yunho Jung, he tells himself; just a few words, and he'll go.
This plan fails when Yunho catches him unprepared and everything in his brain blanks when Yunho looks at him with eyes wide with surprise, and Changmin is stuck rooted because his body freezes up again even though he so desperately wants to disappear.
What was he supposed to say?)
“Hi, hyung,” he says finally, unsure of the tone of resignation or uncertainty escapes with it.
**
Changmin's changed, Yunho thinks as Changmin talks, and it's probably why he didn't recognise the man who had been beside him for a good decade of his life.
For one, Changmin is now Max. Just Max, but his friends were drunk one night and tried guessing what it was short for, Maximilian or Maxwell or (God forbid) Maximus, and they thought Maxwell Shim sounded nice so it stuck with him, something English and yet not too English, and a bit more modern than Maximilian (who the hell has a name like Maximilian these days).
Maxwell Changmin Shim doesn't even have his old nickname, not Changminnie or Minnie but Maxxie and only Emma gets to call him that (and even then only sometimes).
Yunho tries the name around on his tongue and it's foreign and unusual except for Max - Max he can handle - but whenever he looks at Changmin it's just Changmin (or Changmin-ah, Changminnie, Changdola;) never Max.
Changmin looks different, even though after their many years of being tortured with hair gel and peroxide he had probably seen Changmin in every haircut on the planet. This curly, frizzy mop of hair, like Chanyeol's when he debuted but longer, it reminds him of Einstein and it shouldn't look any good but it does.
And then there were the muscles that were never there before, shoulders slightly broader and arms thicker and even though he's still not as built as Yunho, he no longer looks obviously slender. (How is it possible that he can look better than he did before?)
This Changmin goes to Cambridge University and studies English literature with an intention to do law, dabbles in photography classes because he wants to; listens to everything from Mozart to the Beatles to Coldplay; is obsessed with flannel shirts and wears glasses because he needs actually them to read.
Yunho has Changmin sitting next to him in the car, accompanying him and the EXO boys back to the hotel, and he can't think of anything to say.
**
Changmin can tell that Yunho is caught unprepared, like he's been hit with a stunning spell and can't compose himself enough to reply (being almost 3am probably didn't help). When Kris returns and they're standing awkwardly because Yunho is gaping at him, Changmin looks warily at Kris and says, “Let's get the rest of you into the car,” still speaking in English and leaving Yunho standing there stunned.
Yunho's reacted by the time he returns, the last boy's arm flung over his shoulder, eyes down and looking everywhere but at Changmin.
If Changmin found it amusing that Kris still did not recognise him it didn't show. He locks up the diner, pulling the roller door down with a metallic bang.
“Max,” Yunho finally speaks, voice teetering in an almost undetectable shake (probably detectable only to Changmin, really, he thinks), “did you need a lift home?”
“Sure,” comes Changmin's quick, short reply.
Kris looks at them both quizzically but is too tired to say anything, hopping into the back seat and falling asleep almost immediately with the rest of the pile of unconsciousness.
It's awkward and silent and awkward and Changmin can't stand it, (since when did hyung stop talking about stupid things back in the day?) so he talks, about London and how it's actually possible for a place to rain two thirds of the year, every year, probably for the past a hundred years, and you'd think the ground is just completely saturated with water but it never is and it just disappears off the face off the earth and it keeps raining; about the people he's met, Emma and his landlord who owns a bulldog which is more adorable than terrorising because the dog apparently loves Mozart and how bloody difficult it is to learn a new language when you're no longer sixteen and the brain just doesn't retain that much information anymore and his eyes are getting old way too early because he's reading so much, and did you know the Lion King is based on Shakespeare's Hamlet?
Changmin momentarily stops talking when Kris mumbles “Thanks, hyung,” half-asleep as they tuck him and the rest of the boys into their hotel beds.
“Do you miss it?” Yunho says, finally, and when Changmin looks at him he can tell that Yunho's a mess.
Changmin shrugs. “Not really.”
The silence that follows is long and stagnant and Changmin can tell they were on the verge of something, big and violent with a lot of yelling; he doesn't want to hear it, not when Yunho looks exhausted and still recovering from the shock of seeing him.
“Before you say anything that you regret,” Changmin says, slowly and deliberately like treading on eggshells, “You should sleep and gather yourself, and-”
“But I offered to drive you-”
“I can catch a cab.”
“Where will I find you?”
“Where you found me today.”
“But-”
“I'll be there, I promise.”
(Yunho's eyes flick with something akin to pain.)
“The last time you said that-”
Changmin sighs. “You need to trust me.”
“I don't want to wake up tomorrow and find out I've just dreamed you up and you're not actually standing here, because Changmin, God I've dreamed of you and this is very, very real.”
Changmin smiles. “I'm real.”
“Couldn't you stay?”
And how is Changmin supposed to deny him that, deny him when Yunho appears so lost; when Yunho looks at him with those pleading eyes?
“I'll stay a little while,” he says finally.
In the end it doesn't matter; Yunho is finally spent and falls asleep with two, three blinks, shaky breath easing into a steady rise and fall of his chest; Changmin watches and leaves a post-it note on nightstand beside Yunho's bed; and in the morning Changmin is gone.
**
Yunho wakes to the sound of his alarm going off, less than three hours since he's fallen asleep, loud and abrasive and causing a throbbing on the sides of his head. The morning is cold and the sky a cloudless grey slate pre-empting a morning of rehearsals and last minute costume tweaks before a media conference in the afternoon and EXO's performance that evening.
Yunho bolts upright in bed, remembering yesterday with images flickering in and out of memory like the feeling of chasing almost-forgotten dreams after waking, stretching as he does so and looking immediately around the empty room.
He couldn't say he was too surprised.
He is, however, surprised to find the post-it attached to his bedside lamp, a slanted scrawl he recognised - still recognises; “Good morning, hyung,” it reads, and Yunho can hear Changmin's voice, sunny and cheerful like the yellow slip of paper, “This is to remind you that it wasn't a dream.”
Yunho stares at the paper, reads it over and over again until he's convinced he's not dreaming, and tucks it into his wallet, preparing to get dressed.
It's going to have to be a long day before he has a chance to see Changmin, he calculates in his head. Perhaps 11pm, perhaps later. The team leaves the following evening, so there wasn't much time.
In any case, Yunho will go to Changmin. He's quite certain of that.
**
Class that day was particularly challenging for Changmin, and thank goodness he only had lectures and no tutorials today, because he didn't feel like participating; hanging in the back of the class taking notes every now and then was enough exertion on his concentration.
Every minute he was in the lecture theatre was another minute he could be at the diner, waiting for Yunho.
Half-attentive to his lecturers, Changmin jots down notes periodically, but somehow repeatedly catches himself distracted, mind half-way across the world, similar to when he first began in London, homesick and alone...
Back when no-one realised what had happened, when he was about to complete his military service; a few months before he was due to return Changmin simply had no ambition to return to SM. Starting again once was enough; he didn't need to pick up the pieces twice, he didn't want to. Being amongst guys who weren't superstars humbled him. He was tired.
He wanted to try something new.
Changmin jumps a little when the rest of the students start chatting and standing up; the lecture finished without him noticing. Sighing, Changmin gives up on his last two lectures for the day (it's not like he hasn't already read the course notes; he'll listen to the lectures electronically when he gets home); Changmin heads to the library to figure out what on earth was happening with EXO in London.
**
The concert goes smoothly and wonderfully without a hitch, and the young boys are elated, flushed with excitement and giddy exertion borne from a successful performance. For his part Yunho watches from behind the curtains, simply being moral support tonight, give them his thumbs up and give them tips about using the stage, straightening their costumes, their interactions with the cameras. There was nothing more for him to do tonight, mostly sitting back and enjoying himself and trying not to think of the person waiting for him at the diner.
The afterparty was a relatively quiet affair, a little hangout on the manager's hotel room with junk food and sugary alcoholic beverages that keep the boys on sugar highs and hyperactively awake and Yunho aims for the manliest beer he can manage before retreating into a corner near the balcony overlooking the Thames.
“Hyung,” Kris sides up to him, tall and long-legged and dark eyes with hair flopping over; kind eyes which betray his tough, cool image; “Are you alright?”
Yunho smiles reflexively, his usual, reassuring smile, “Fine. Just tired.”
(Kris gets straight to the point.)
“Are you meeting that boy you met yesterday?” and Yunho can feel the flush immediately hot on his cheeks.
“You remembered when you were half-conscious?” Yunho deflects lightheartedly.
“He looked familiar,” Kris presses, “Do I know him?”
Yunho shrugs, “He's an old friend.”
Kris sighs. “You know, after Changmin left...” he shakes his head, “Hyung, if you want to go, just go, okay? I'll cover.”
“What, now?” Yunho asks, but Kris is already prying the drink out of his hands.
“Yeah, go,” Kris repeats, smiling a little, “You're not drunk but don't drive too quickly and come back early or you know, keep in touch.” He raises an eyebrow.
Yunho laughs lightly, ruffling Kris's hair, who squirms. “When did you become my leader?” but Yunho gives him a pat on the back and makes his way out.
When he enters through the doorway of the diner with the cheerful chime, Yunho can feel his eyes automatically find Changmin, back to him in his plaid shirt again, drying cups by the counter. Changmin spins around and sees him, smiling, gesturing to a seat in front of him at the bar, and Yunho can feel himself being drawn to Changmin like a puppet on a string.
**
Changmin is surprised to see him so early, and partly dazzled as the older man walks into the room. Yunho, all black jeans and white tshirt and black leather jacket, is positively radiant as he walks up to the bar, eyes only on Changmin like he's the only one in the room.
“Hey, old friend,” Changmin says, smooth English making Yunho blink and remind himself he's not the only one in the place; “I'll get you a drink.”
“Thanks,” Yunho replies casually, his English not as good, looking self-consciously around the diner. There's only a handful of stragglers left behind. “When do you finish?”
“I'm off-duty, Emma's got it under control,” Changmin answers, pausing for Yunho to process, “I'm just here to give you free drinks and then we can go for a drive.”
“Free drinks?” Yunho echoes, cheered, “Make me a cocktail, you know, and throw that thing around. Let's see what you can do.”
Changmin laughs. “Sure, hyung.”
Yunho watches as Changmin mixes ice and shots of coloured liquid, tossing in lemon juice and twisting the cocktail mixer shut, long fingers clasped around the cup and its lid; shaking until the ice cubes rattle, spinning the metal container and tossing it up in the air - vaguely, Yunho's reminded of the time when he splashed Changmin with the cocktail mix, at a fanmeet back in the day - Changmin catches it with one hand behind his back, and pours the drink in front of Yunho complete with a flip of his hair.
“Show off,” Yunho comments. Changmin just shoots him a grin.
“How was the concert?” Changmin asks, and Yunho talks without pausing for breath, about how wonderful EXOTIC were, how mature they'd become, how popular they'd become, how global, the deafening screams and the mesmorised silence when the fans listened to the boys sing Acapella, tingles down the spine with the harmonies; tingles down the spine when the entire concert hall sang together when the boys held their mics out to the audience, and the boys who almost cried.
Changmin watches Yunho with his sparkling eyes and earnest face and hands that didn't stop moving as he talks; Yunho catches him, eyes glassy, and he pauses. Changmin smiles.
“Finish your drink, I'll take you around, and then we can hang at my place.”
(Yunho remembers to text Kris, just in case.)
**
Changmin takes Yunho to the heart of the shopping district with the closed shops and they muck around looking at the shop windows with the vacant mannequins (“What is this, Supper at Harrods?” Yunho asks, and Changmin drags him inside because he needed some groceries anyway, piles them in the back of the car, fine foods like dark chocolate and ground coffee beans and discounted bread because it was almost 2AM.) Changmin takes Yunho to places he vaguely remembers from Harry Potter films, takes Yunho along the Thames, to Buckingham Palace and the grounds outside the Arsenal Stadium (Yunho argues about wanting to see Old Trafford but Changmin argues that he's not driving all the way to Manchester).
Yunho's not sure about reality again, not sure if he's dreaming, strolling along under trees laced with fairy lights, illuminating the edges of Changmin's hair.
“I miss you,” Yunho says suddenly, and Changmin, glorious Changmin with those eyes he could stare at forever, looks at him with twinkling eyes and smiles at him and entwines his long fingers with his own.
“When are you coming back?” Yunho asks; feels Changmin tense slightly, and the sense of dreaming fading away. Yunho reflexively grips Changmin's hand a bit tighter.
“You're not coming back?” He repeats, and Changmin starts looking uncomfortable.
“I'm here at least until my degree finishes,” Changmin says, simply.
“And then you're coming back?” Yunho implores, pressing, more hopeful than anything else.
Changmin shrugs. “Maybe.”
“You want to stay here?” Changmin looks at Yunho, suddenly childlike, and Changmin can sense the (all-too-familiar)feeling that they're in for a quarrel and it's simply inevitable.
“I'm free, here,” Changmin explains, resigned. Yunho looks incensed.
“You mean you weren't free with SM? Like you were trapped? Why didn't you just leave with the rest of them? You could have saved me from being hurt twice,” Yunho bites, bitterly, like he's trying hard to be angry when he's simply just hurt. Yunho lets go of Changmin's hand.
“You don't understand-”
“Oh, I do,” Yunho retaliates, “I understand that when I got back from military service I waited for you to get out. And there were preparations to welcome you home. And all of a sudden you disappeared off the face of the earth, and people spotted you in London. And suddenly a statement comes out and I have to find out from Lee Soo Man that you've left, your contract terminated. You couldn't even tell me in person!”
Yunho takes a breath, waiting for a rebuttal. There is none. Changmin comes up with nothing.
“Why couldn't you tell me?”
“I'm sorry,” Changmin says, “I wanted to tell you but you wouldn't understand, you loved - love - it so much and I - fell out of love with it. I couldn't find a way to tell you. I'm sorry. I didn't want anyone to find out until I was sure it wasn't what I wanted - I just didn't want to start over. Again.”
“What about what I wanted? I was ready to start over with you. I was ready, damn it, Changmin, us, take two. But you left without me and I became nothing.”
“You're not-”
“No, you're wrong, I was nothing, I had nothing to do! Yunho Jung, the poor leader without anyone to lead, because everyone had left him, wandering around the corridors at the SM building. No chance of a solo career, I didn't want one. Tried my hand at acting, variety shows, nothing, no success, do you know how embarrassed I was? So much pity in everyone's eyes? I stayed home so much because I didn't want people looking at me. And then Suho suggested I should try teaching dance, because that's all I'm ever good at, wasn't it, Changmin, I'm the dancer? And Thank God I'm actually good at it, because I don't know what I'd do otherwise.”
“I'm sorry,” Changmin repeats, “You know I can't say anything to make you feel better. It's been too long now to fix it-”
“I rang your parents and they wouldn't say; just that you were studying here. I even came here to find you. Of course that failed. I even took up English lessons so I could come find you!”
Changmin says nothing.
“How could I find you when I wasn't even trying to look?” Yunho sighs, shaking his head. They lapse into silence.
“Why don't we go home,” Changmin suggests softly, and Yunho looks defeated.
**
Yunho wakes to find himself in a lumpy bed with fluffy blankets and Changmin taking off his shoes.
“Changmin?” He says drowsily, rubbing at his eyes; Changmin looks up at him, smiles slightly. “Where am I?”
“You fell asleep in the car,” Changmin explains, “I didn't know your hotel address, so I just took you home.”
“This is your place?” He asks, just as dazed, looking up at the high wooden panels in the slanted ceiling. “What time is it?”
“Just past 4,” Changmin answers. “I'll get you some tea.” He gestures to a fleecy throw beside the bed as he leaves the room.
Yunho sits up, puzzled, swinging his feet off the bed; he's been reduced to his t-shirt and a pair of too-long trackpants, and feels instantly warmer with the throw over his shoulders.
It reminds him of a cabin, Yunho thinks, feet padding across the timber floors: the bed appears at once both dishevelled and ridiculously cozy and Yunho's things are folded neatly over a worn green armchair beside it; Yunho walks over to Changmin's desk, illuminated by the light at the window behind it, a combination of heavy wood and glass, English books and folders piled high around a little empty space in the centre with his laptop and a metallic silver folded desk lamp bending over his workspace like an affectionate companion peering over his shoulder as he works. It's rustic and old-fashioned and Yunho loves it.
In the space in the corner there's an electric keyboard and guitar haphazardly leaning against the wall, a faint sheen of dust like it was used only every so often when the owner remembers; there's sheet music on a stand, and when Yunho recognises' Changmin's handwriting he realises with a jolt that they're originals.
Outside the bedroom the space opens up to a slightly more modern kitchen and a lounge area with a ridiculously ample television screen and sound system (Yunho thinks it'd clash with all the wood but somehow it works.) The wall behind the television was covered in photographs, wide and extensive and spreading like a network all across from the doorway to the balcony on one side and down the hall to the entrance at the other.
Yunho starts at the balcony and follows the photographs, mostly artistic shots, of clouds and birds and lens flare and bokeh and stars streaking across time-lapsed skies; tilt-shift images of London and Paris and Tokyo and Seoul, sunsets and street scenes and rain splattered against windowsills. They blend into images of patrons at the bar, some with their faces contorted in mutual anticipation with their eyes fixed on screens; there's a picture of Emma with laughter across her face, shirt soaked in beer; and then - down the hall; he finds pictures of people he recognises - Changmin's family, his father, his sisters, his mother, and then of his friends - Kyuhyun, Minho - and them at the end, Dong Bang Shin Ki, together as five and much more of them together as two, photos of Yunho and Changmin with youthful, beaming faces, looking back at him there in the doorway.
“You're the first thing I see when I get home, and the last thing I see when I leave,” Changmin says, behind Yunho with a steaming cup of tea; if it was anyone else it'd be ridiculously corny, but of course it's Changmin and it's everything he wanted to hear and it's enough. Yunho closes the gap between them in one, two, three steps, hands framing around Changmin's exquisite face and pulling his lips flush against his own.
**
Changmin watches as Yunho followed the photographs, eyes lingering over shots he'd taken, and wonders what he thinks of them, this little hobby of his; some were his favourites and some were just accidentally good and some seemed to fit despite being neither. Changmin feels somewhat exposed, like there was a part of him on the walls and like Yunho was tracing Changmin's time away from singing through those photographs he'd placed on the wall.
He knows what's at the end of the hall, and waits.
He knows Yunho's on the wall there, the last and the most important; could see Yunho's eyes slowly get wider, like Yunho too knew he'd be there, expression unreadable under the dim hall light.
When Yunho kisses him Changmin almost drops the tea he's holding, shocked by the sudden movement; he reaches blindly to place the cup onto the hall table before he responds, eagerly and without breath like a starving man - and let's face it, he hadn't kissed Yunho in years.
Yunho is warm, body radiating heat through his thin shirt, and he smells so familiar, so good. Changmin presses himself up against Yunho, against the wall, lips not leaving the other's. Changmin sneaks a finger under the hem of Yunho's shirt and comes into contact with hot skin; Yunho makes a noise in the back of his throat, the sound is so indescribable he wants more; Changmin kisses him deeper, chasing it; presses his palm and thumb down against the bone at Yunho's hip, fingers increasing the pressure, and Yunho moans again.
“Changmin,” Yunho breathes, coming up for air and he's still half asleep, eyes glazed and disoriented and so fucking gorgeous; leaning back against the wall and clinging to him like he's struggling to stand properly; the throw he was wearing around his shoulders curls and pools on the floor at his feet.
Changmin has to run his hands through Yunho's hair and kisses him again, making a beeline for the bedroom.
**
“Where are you going?” Yunho asks, after, when Changmin gets out of bed.
“Making more tea, I'm sure it's cold by now,” Changmin responds, and Yunho shoots him a wicked grin.
“You better count how many photo frames we broke, too,” Yunho suggests.
“You're paying for them, hyung,” Changmin replies.
**
“Why didn't you get married? You wanted kids so much,” Changmin asks, shifting his body to his side to face Yunho. Yunho smiles vaguely and shrugs.
“I couldn't find anyone good enough.”
“You could have married Boa,” Changmin suggests, and Yunho resists the urge to laugh.
“And reduce her to a fag hag with no satisfaction? She deserves better.”
“I'm sure you'd be, you know, more than satisfactory.”
Yunho really laughs this time.
“And none of the EXO boys have crushes on you?”
“If they did I don't know about it.”
Changmin sighs.
“Seriously? Nobody?”
“Nobody but you,” Yunho sings softly, grinning, and earns a punch to the arm.
“Hyung,” Changmin chides, “I don't want to be responsible for you not having any kids.”
“I can adopt,” Yunho suggests.
“But I want you to have someone you can live happily with,” Changmin says.
“I've got you.”
“I can see I'm not winning this conversation,” Changmin remarks, but gives up when Yunho starts peppering his neck with kisses.
**
“Hyung, you need to wake up, there's a flight to catch,” Changmin whispers, nudging the older man sleeping beside him. Yunho mumbles incoherantly, tosses in his sleep. Changmin can see the dark bruises haloing his eyelids, eyelashes dark against pale skin; he watches those parted lips, swollen from kissing; Yunho breath is steady, with the outline his ribcage rising and falling (has Yunho lost weight?), reassuring, peaceful, (fragile, vulnerable). Changmin wonders if a photograph was appropriate; keeps the image in his head instead.
Changmin wonders if the last time Yunho slept well was actually when they were still together in Korea; wonders exactly how much Yunho misses him, wonders if Yunho cares for him more than he cares for Yunho (and how is that even possible, really, when all the photographs were taken for him and the lyrics he's written were written for him?); it leaves him scared and protective at the same time.
Yunho can sleep for ten more minutes, Changmin thinks, padding to the kitchen to make them breakfast.
**
Changmin accompanies Yunho back to the hotel, even though he doesn't need to (“Come, when's the next time I'm going to see you?” Yunho says, shovelling cereal into his mouth, and he can't not go with him, not now).
“I know several magazine publishers who wouldn't hesitate to hire you to photograph-”
“I don't want to photograph models, Yunho-”
“Or you can come back and write lyrics like Tablo-”
“Yah,” Changmin says exasperatedly, “Please, stop building my dreams for me.”
Yunho sighs, “or I can stay here, open a studio-”
“Hyung-”
“Teach kpop dance routines to kids - is that even a lucritative job? Or maybe I could be an SM scout in Europe-”
“Hyung, I've only got a year left here,” Changmin says.
“I thought you weren't coming back?”
“That was before you - I have to consider you.”
Yunho beams at him through a mouthful of cereal. “Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.”
“Have you looked at yourself? I worry. You need to eat.”
“Says the poor university student living on his own and working part time at a bar.”
“Look, I don't want you to stay here because of me, I want you to stay because you want to.”
“I-”
“You need to find out what you want and who you are or who you want to be. Because I need you to know that you're not nothing. You're not. You could be anything, do anything.”
Yunho sighs again, running a hand through his hair. “I can't lose you again.”
“I won't be a stranger, hyung; the night wasn't long enough; we still need to sort us out. You fell asleep during our fight,” Changmin points out, “we just have to do this long distance. You've got KakaoTalk or Skype right?”
“Changmin-”
“Look, I've got a year. I think I know what I want; I need you to know what you want, regardless of me. And after that, when you're ready, I'll come back.”
**
Yunho's been to Russia to see the ballet, been to China and does a crash course on Chinese martial art basics, goes to New York and visits Broadway; visits choreographers, visits dance academies, grasps things too quickly and moves on to the next when he’s bored.
Yunho listens to music in the SM dances studios wired in with his headphones; invents moves and shows them to the choreography team who slowly let him become more and more involved; Changmin hears about it when he creates the dance routine to an entire song on his own.
He works with the new rookie group on the dance routine for their debut song, and when they grasp it without fault Yunho glows with a sense of accomplishment and spends the rest of the day smiling.
He works with EXO so much that he's next in line whenever the manager gets sick; not that the boys mind. (Intentional food poisoning becomes a running in-joke). They work hard and treat Yunho like a god, Yunho making sure that everybody can dance as well as each other; drills their fitness so that they can dance without losing breath whilst singing; as consequence, EXO have some of the best and most complicated song and dance routines of them all.
Yunho Jung, choreographer, dance instructor, manager-in-waiting. Yunho wonders if this was what Changmin was going on about, as he falls into his sofa after work, satisfying aches in his limbs and a glass of wine in his hand.
**
Changmin steps out of Incheon Airport into the bright sunlight, a year older and a Cambridge degree in his bags, squinting despite his pair of shades (habit, now, especially given he's grown so accustomed to the gloominess of England); there's no one to pick him up, of course, because coming back to Seoul was supposed to be a surprise.
He hails a taxi and heads straight for a building he once called his second home, large and glossy with prestine walls of glass, more expensive looking and ominous than he remembered.
Looking at it makes him feel fifteen.
He walks up to it from the curb with his backpack and his hat and his sunglasses and he can feel people's eyes on him as he passes, indiscernible whispers and murmurings; he feels and remembers that uncomfortable feeling where there are tingles on the hairs at the base of his neck. Changmin rushes in without a sideways glance.
Suho, surprisingly, recognises him the instant he steps in, and within minutes he's escorted inside with the 5 other EXO-K members, grown so tall Changmin can look most of them straight in the eye without having to move his head.
They usher him further back, where EXO-M were recording their latest song; Changmin enters the recording room silently, and Yunho is there, completely oblivious with headphones fitted firmly around his ears.
Changmin slings an arm over Yunho's shoulder, and the older man turns towards him in surprise, pulling Changmin into a fierce, quick hug, bodies flush for a second before they let go.
Yixing's the first to look through the window, waving wildly to Changmin; the others follow suit, and they rush out to greet him as soon as they finish, crowding around and bowing like a prodigal son's return; Changmin feels both flattered and overwhelmed.
“Wait - aren't you - ?” Kris looks back and forth between the pair of them, Changmin's arm still over Yunho's shoulder, eyes wide with recognition.
“You finally remember him, Kris,” Yunho says, smiling.
Changmin has to laugh.
FIN
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin ft. EXO
Rating: PG
Notes: Future fic. Yunho finds Changmin. Set roughly about 5-6 years into the future.
“And that's a wrap, well done guys.”
Yunho wipes the sweat off his forehead, smiling in the mirror at the boys behind him. EXOTIC (The International Class) was doing their last round of rehearsals before their debut in London. The boys shook their limbs, tired and happy and bubbling with excitement for the next day.
It was going to be brilliant.
Yunho absently listened in the background, stretching his limbs whilst EXO's manager lectured the boys - that it was going to be a big night, and they should get home and eat and try to get as much sleep as they can. It was no surprise to Yunho that Luhan's eyes were already starting to droop and Chanyeol was leaning heavily against Kai's shoulder.
When he works with some of these boys, 6 years past their debut, Yunho sometimes feels waves of nostalgia like nothing else, pictures himself on the ground surrounded by four others, fighting exhaustion. He can picture it like those movies, where ghosts of himself and his friends are right before his eyes.
Well, that's all gone now.
Yunho drives the boys back to the hotel and they're non-stop talking - or Baekhyun was non-stop talking, Sehun's laughing with Luhan, and when Kris asks him if he's planning to go out tonight he declines.
“Yunho-sunbaenim you need to have some fun,” Baekhyun says, shaking his head.
“Why don't you come out?” Luhan chimes in automatically, and gets a thump on his arm for his trouble.
Yunho raises an eyebrow, looking at Kai quizzically, initiator of said thump, who returns his eyes with a blank, transparent stare. Chanyeol grins sheepishly.
“Are you guys going out tonight? I thought hyung wanted you to rest.”
“Just a walk,” Kris replies protectively, and it reminds Yunho of when he was a leader.
“Be safe and avoid fans and come back quickly.” Yunho's rewarded with six signature, dazzling smiles (“Thank you!” “You're the best, hyung!” “I wish you were our manager”) as each of them hops out of the car.
**
Yunho finds himself unable to sleep. The bed isn't right and the temperature's too hot and after over 10 years of this he should be used to it. Maybe he's getting old and a bit fussy and jetlag finally starts to get the better of him, but then again it could be because it doesn't seem like the boys have returned.
Yunho checks his watch. A bright 1:30AM blinks back at him.
Not too late, he supposes - some training days went past that time - but considering the big day ahead he really should find out where they were.
“What happened to coming back quickly?” Yunho texts Kris, getting dressed. If he was wide awake he might as well get up.
It doesn't take long for Kris to ring back.
“Yunho-hyung, thank God! Manager is either ignoring my calls or sleeping right through them! Luhan's fallen asleep and you know he's much heavier than he looks, could you please pick us up? ”
Kris texts the name of a bar and Yunho finds himself quickly out the door, praying that he won't get lost and hoping his English lessons will finally be put to good use.
**
The door swings open with a soft chime as Yunho enters, some local pub-slash-diner in a quiet corner of town, bathed in warm light and jukebox blasting some old, vaguely familiar pop tune, the sound of billard balls clacking as they collide from the tables at the back. It reminds him of hangouts in old sitcoms, Friends or How I Met Your Mother, shows which helped pass the time when they did SMTown Concerts in America.
Yunho pushes the thought away, closing the door behind him. Kris and the other boys are nowhere to be seen.
“Are you picking up those foreign guys? Max is with them,” a girl pipes up, young and pretty with shining blonde hair in a ponytail, dressed in a short black denim skirt and checkered shirt that matches the tablecloths. She waves her hand towards the back.
He finds them piled together napping in a booth in the far corner of the room. Luhan was leaning his head against the wall and Sehun's head was on his shoulder, Chanyeol's head on Sehun's. Kris's head was down, arms folded, one hand still clasping his phone; Baekhyun muttering in his sleep, head on the table, with Kai asleep on top of him.
Dragging one guy out the door was fine, but six??
“Oh, they're yours are they,” a voice speaks behind him, English distinct, clipped and smooth. “They've been asleep for a little while. The tall one wouldn't let anyone drink so they played pool until they pretty much fell asleep one by one. A lame night out, if you ask me.”
“How long have they been unconscious?” Yunho asks, trying to figure out the puzzle before him.
“The last one? Maybe 15 mins. We close in about another 30. Let me know if you need help, okay? You brought a car, I hope?”
Yunho nods, absently. “Just around the corner.”
“Take your time.” The other man starts clearing the booths around him.
Yunho moves quickly, then, shaking Kris awake; Kris starts with a sudden shudder and his eyes fly open, “Hyung! You're here-” he stops when he sees the rest of them, “-Oh God, these boys don't like waking up as much as manager-hyung likes it-”
“You'll have to help me carry them out to the car, Kris,” Yunho says, trying to keep his voice steady. He'll leave it up to management to yell at him. Kris doesn't need one more person to do it.
“I'm going to be in so much trouble,” Kris mutters, prying Kai off Baekhyun and wrapping his arm around his shoulder. “Could you grab the other arm, hyung?”
Yunho flings Kai's arm over his own shoulder, steadying Kai by the waist. “Since when did you lot get so tall?”
“Yunho?” Kai stirs softly, as they settle him into the back seat.“Kris? Where are we going? Can we go to Buckingham Palace?”
“Home, we're going home” Kris says firmly. Kai groans in disagreement, twisting back into slumber. Kris sighs. “I've got this, hyung, go get the others.”
**
Yunho re-enters the pub to find that the jukebox has been turned off and the patrons were starting to file out.
Max was humming to himself, back to him, wiping the powder off the edges of the billard tables, straightening out the baskets and placing the coloured balls back into their triangular holsters.
Yunho couldn't stop himself from looking at Max as he hummed away on some tune that Yunho didn't recognise, a tune that Yunho felt like he should recognise since the voice sounded so melodic, so familiar...
The line of Max's shoulders and the way his wrist lent on the table, fingers partly raised; the way his head nodded in time to his tune; and those tall legs...
When Max spins around at looks straight at him with large, doe-shaped eyes, everything seems to stop.
“You're not Max,” Yunho says. “You're Changmin.”
**
Changmin groans inwardly. He had known as soon as Yunho walked into the door, recognised the frame of his back, the way his shirt pulled against too-wide shoulders and the way his jeans hung; suspected it as soon as he heard the younger boy talking, and it was madness itself that Kris didn't remember him, after all those years back at training. (Granted, it was years ago, but they haven't changed much; had he?)
It's not every night that a whole group of Korean boys entered their diner, dressed casually but trying too hard to be so; tall and gangly and gorgeous that even young Emma did a double take and nearly dropped the glass of beer she was filling. She points them out to Changmin and he pretty much runs to the back room so he can sneak peeks out of the window in the door.
“What's wrong with you?” Emma asks, bewildered. Changmin doesn't lose composure often.
“I might know them. Distract them for me,” he replies, and Emma shoots him a devilish grin before she disappears with her pen and her order pad, straightening her skirt as she leaves.
He avoids the boys, remaining at the bar with the patrons that file in to watch the football matches on the television and serving them their staple peanuts and Carlsbergs; disappearing into the back room more than usual but eyes and ears keenly aware of the group in the corner.
When he hears Kris talking on the phone and hears Yunho's name he freezes, body completely still like in that old Batman movie where innocent victims are iced to the bone; someone scores a goal and he's shaken by the cheers and the boos except all he can hear is the blood pounding in his ears as he remembers to breathe.
He thinks two things when he stares at himself in the mirror after splashing his face with water (Get a grip, Changmin Shim,) ruffling his hair and pushing his bangs over his eyes: 1. The avoidance tactic worked quite well for the EXO Boys; 2. Keep your head down (Good grief, this is a really bad time for a pun) and your back to him when he gets here, clean up and get out, and everyone would be none the wiser.
Except of course he couldn't resist talking to Yunho, so close he can smell the cologne on the older man that hits him with nauseous nostalgia, a direct blow in the stomach; wanting to be both closer and further away from him at the same time.
He just wanted to make sure it really was Yunho Jung, he tells himself; just a few words, and he'll go.
This plan fails when Yunho catches him unprepared and everything in his brain blanks when Yunho looks at him with eyes wide with surprise, and Changmin is stuck rooted because his body freezes up again even though he so desperately wants to disappear.
What was he supposed to say?)
“Hi, hyung,” he says finally, unsure of the tone of resignation or uncertainty escapes with it.
**
Changmin's changed, Yunho thinks as Changmin talks, and it's probably why he didn't recognise the man who had been beside him for a good decade of his life.
For one, Changmin is now Max. Just Max, but his friends were drunk one night and tried guessing what it was short for, Maximilian or Maxwell or (God forbid) Maximus, and they thought Maxwell Shim sounded nice so it stuck with him, something English and yet not too English, and a bit more modern than Maximilian (who the hell has a name like Maximilian these days).
Maxwell Changmin Shim doesn't even have his old nickname, not Changminnie or Minnie but Maxxie and only Emma gets to call him that (and even then only sometimes).
Yunho tries the name around on his tongue and it's foreign and unusual except for Max - Max he can handle - but whenever he looks at Changmin it's just Changmin (or Changmin-ah, Changminnie, Changdola;) never Max.
Changmin looks different, even though after their many years of being tortured with hair gel and peroxide he had probably seen Changmin in every haircut on the planet. This curly, frizzy mop of hair, like Chanyeol's when he debuted but longer, it reminds him of Einstein and it shouldn't look any good but it does.
And then there were the muscles that were never there before, shoulders slightly broader and arms thicker and even though he's still not as built as Yunho, he no longer looks obviously slender. (How is it possible that he can look better than he did before?)
This Changmin goes to Cambridge University and studies English literature with an intention to do law, dabbles in photography classes because he wants to; listens to everything from Mozart to the Beatles to Coldplay; is obsessed with flannel shirts and wears glasses because he needs actually them to read.
Yunho has Changmin sitting next to him in the car, accompanying him and the EXO boys back to the hotel, and he can't think of anything to say.
**
Changmin can tell that Yunho is caught unprepared, like he's been hit with a stunning spell and can't compose himself enough to reply (being almost 3am probably didn't help). When Kris returns and they're standing awkwardly because Yunho is gaping at him, Changmin looks warily at Kris and says, “Let's get the rest of you into the car,” still speaking in English and leaving Yunho standing there stunned.
Yunho's reacted by the time he returns, the last boy's arm flung over his shoulder, eyes down and looking everywhere but at Changmin.
If Changmin found it amusing that Kris still did not recognise him it didn't show. He locks up the diner, pulling the roller door down with a metallic bang.
“Max,” Yunho finally speaks, voice teetering in an almost undetectable shake (probably detectable only to Changmin, really, he thinks), “did you need a lift home?”
“Sure,” comes Changmin's quick, short reply.
Kris looks at them both quizzically but is too tired to say anything, hopping into the back seat and falling asleep almost immediately with the rest of the pile of unconsciousness.
It's awkward and silent and awkward and Changmin can't stand it, (since when did hyung stop talking about stupid things back in the day?) so he talks, about London and how it's actually possible for a place to rain two thirds of the year, every year, probably for the past a hundred years, and you'd think the ground is just completely saturated with water but it never is and it just disappears off the face off the earth and it keeps raining; about the people he's met, Emma and his landlord who owns a bulldog which is more adorable than terrorising because the dog apparently loves Mozart and how bloody difficult it is to learn a new language when you're no longer sixteen and the brain just doesn't retain that much information anymore and his eyes are getting old way too early because he's reading so much, and did you know the Lion King is based on Shakespeare's Hamlet?
Changmin momentarily stops talking when Kris mumbles “Thanks, hyung,” half-asleep as they tuck him and the rest of the boys into their hotel beds.
“Do you miss it?” Yunho says, finally, and when Changmin looks at him he can tell that Yunho's a mess.
Changmin shrugs. “Not really.”
The silence that follows is long and stagnant and Changmin can tell they were on the verge of something, big and violent with a lot of yelling; he doesn't want to hear it, not when Yunho looks exhausted and still recovering from the shock of seeing him.
“Before you say anything that you regret,” Changmin says, slowly and deliberately like treading on eggshells, “You should sleep and gather yourself, and-”
“But I offered to drive you-”
“I can catch a cab.”
“Where will I find you?”
“Where you found me today.”
“But-”
“I'll be there, I promise.”
(Yunho's eyes flick with something akin to pain.)
“The last time you said that-”
Changmin sighs. “You need to trust me.”
“I don't want to wake up tomorrow and find out I've just dreamed you up and you're not actually standing here, because Changmin, God I've dreamed of you and this is very, very real.”
Changmin smiles. “I'm real.”
“Couldn't you stay?”
And how is Changmin supposed to deny him that, deny him when Yunho appears so lost; when Yunho looks at him with those pleading eyes?
“I'll stay a little while,” he says finally.
In the end it doesn't matter; Yunho is finally spent and falls asleep with two, three blinks, shaky breath easing into a steady rise and fall of his chest; Changmin watches and leaves a post-it note on nightstand beside Yunho's bed; and in the morning Changmin is gone.
**
Yunho wakes to the sound of his alarm going off, less than three hours since he's fallen asleep, loud and abrasive and causing a throbbing on the sides of his head. The morning is cold and the sky a cloudless grey slate pre-empting a morning of rehearsals and last minute costume tweaks before a media conference in the afternoon and EXO's performance that evening.
Yunho bolts upright in bed, remembering yesterday with images flickering in and out of memory like the feeling of chasing almost-forgotten dreams after waking, stretching as he does so and looking immediately around the empty room.
He couldn't say he was too surprised.
He is, however, surprised to find the post-it attached to his bedside lamp, a slanted scrawl he recognised - still recognises; “Good morning, hyung,” it reads, and Yunho can hear Changmin's voice, sunny and cheerful like the yellow slip of paper, “This is to remind you that it wasn't a dream.”
Yunho stares at the paper, reads it over and over again until he's convinced he's not dreaming, and tucks it into his wallet, preparing to get dressed.
It's going to have to be a long day before he has a chance to see Changmin, he calculates in his head. Perhaps 11pm, perhaps later. The team leaves the following evening, so there wasn't much time.
In any case, Yunho will go to Changmin. He's quite certain of that.
**
Class that day was particularly challenging for Changmin, and thank goodness he only had lectures and no tutorials today, because he didn't feel like participating; hanging in the back of the class taking notes every now and then was enough exertion on his concentration.
Every minute he was in the lecture theatre was another minute he could be at the diner, waiting for Yunho.
Half-attentive to his lecturers, Changmin jots down notes periodically, but somehow repeatedly catches himself distracted, mind half-way across the world, similar to when he first began in London, homesick and alone...
Back when no-one realised what had happened, when he was about to complete his military service; a few months before he was due to return Changmin simply had no ambition to return to SM. Starting again once was enough; he didn't need to pick up the pieces twice, he didn't want to. Being amongst guys who weren't superstars humbled him. He was tired.
He wanted to try something new.
Changmin jumps a little when the rest of the students start chatting and standing up; the lecture finished without him noticing. Sighing, Changmin gives up on his last two lectures for the day (it's not like he hasn't already read the course notes; he'll listen to the lectures electronically when he gets home); Changmin heads to the library to figure out what on earth was happening with EXO in London.
**
The concert goes smoothly and wonderfully without a hitch, and the young boys are elated, flushed with excitement and giddy exertion borne from a successful performance. For his part Yunho watches from behind the curtains, simply being moral support tonight, give them his thumbs up and give them tips about using the stage, straightening their costumes, their interactions with the cameras. There was nothing more for him to do tonight, mostly sitting back and enjoying himself and trying not to think of the person waiting for him at the diner.
The afterparty was a relatively quiet affair, a little hangout on the manager's hotel room with junk food and sugary alcoholic beverages that keep the boys on sugar highs and hyperactively awake and Yunho aims for the manliest beer he can manage before retreating into a corner near the balcony overlooking the Thames.
“Hyung,” Kris sides up to him, tall and long-legged and dark eyes with hair flopping over; kind eyes which betray his tough, cool image; “Are you alright?”
Yunho smiles reflexively, his usual, reassuring smile, “Fine. Just tired.”
(Kris gets straight to the point.)
“Are you meeting that boy you met yesterday?” and Yunho can feel the flush immediately hot on his cheeks.
“You remembered when you were half-conscious?” Yunho deflects lightheartedly.
“He looked familiar,” Kris presses, “Do I know him?”
Yunho shrugs, “He's an old friend.”
Kris sighs. “You know, after Changmin left...” he shakes his head, “Hyung, if you want to go, just go, okay? I'll cover.”
“What, now?” Yunho asks, but Kris is already prying the drink out of his hands.
“Yeah, go,” Kris repeats, smiling a little, “You're not drunk but don't drive too quickly and come back early or you know, keep in touch.” He raises an eyebrow.
Yunho laughs lightly, ruffling Kris's hair, who squirms. “When did you become my leader?” but Yunho gives him a pat on the back and makes his way out.
When he enters through the doorway of the diner with the cheerful chime, Yunho can feel his eyes automatically find Changmin, back to him in his plaid shirt again, drying cups by the counter. Changmin spins around and sees him, smiling, gesturing to a seat in front of him at the bar, and Yunho can feel himself being drawn to Changmin like a puppet on a string.
**
Changmin is surprised to see him so early, and partly dazzled as the older man walks into the room. Yunho, all black jeans and white tshirt and black leather jacket, is positively radiant as he walks up to the bar, eyes only on Changmin like he's the only one in the room.
“Hey, old friend,” Changmin says, smooth English making Yunho blink and remind himself he's not the only one in the place; “I'll get you a drink.”
“Thanks,” Yunho replies casually, his English not as good, looking self-consciously around the diner. There's only a handful of stragglers left behind. “When do you finish?”
“I'm off-duty, Emma's got it under control,” Changmin answers, pausing for Yunho to process, “I'm just here to give you free drinks and then we can go for a drive.”
“Free drinks?” Yunho echoes, cheered, “Make me a cocktail, you know, and throw that thing around. Let's see what you can do.”
Changmin laughs. “Sure, hyung.”
Yunho watches as Changmin mixes ice and shots of coloured liquid, tossing in lemon juice and twisting the cocktail mixer shut, long fingers clasped around the cup and its lid; shaking until the ice cubes rattle, spinning the metal container and tossing it up in the air - vaguely, Yunho's reminded of the time when he splashed Changmin with the cocktail mix, at a fanmeet back in the day - Changmin catches it with one hand behind his back, and pours the drink in front of Yunho complete with a flip of his hair.
“Show off,” Yunho comments. Changmin just shoots him a grin.
“How was the concert?” Changmin asks, and Yunho talks without pausing for breath, about how wonderful EXOTIC were, how mature they'd become, how popular they'd become, how global, the deafening screams and the mesmorised silence when the fans listened to the boys sing Acapella, tingles down the spine with the harmonies; tingles down the spine when the entire concert hall sang together when the boys held their mics out to the audience, and the boys who almost cried.
Changmin watches Yunho with his sparkling eyes and earnest face and hands that didn't stop moving as he talks; Yunho catches him, eyes glassy, and he pauses. Changmin smiles.
“Finish your drink, I'll take you around, and then we can hang at my place.”
(Yunho remembers to text Kris, just in case.)
**
Changmin takes Yunho to the heart of the shopping district with the closed shops and they muck around looking at the shop windows with the vacant mannequins (“What is this, Supper at Harrods?” Yunho asks, and Changmin drags him inside because he needed some groceries anyway, piles them in the back of the car, fine foods like dark chocolate and ground coffee beans and discounted bread because it was almost 2AM.) Changmin takes Yunho to places he vaguely remembers from Harry Potter films, takes Yunho along the Thames, to Buckingham Palace and the grounds outside the Arsenal Stadium (Yunho argues about wanting to see Old Trafford but Changmin argues that he's not driving all the way to Manchester).
Yunho's not sure about reality again, not sure if he's dreaming, strolling along under trees laced with fairy lights, illuminating the edges of Changmin's hair.
“I miss you,” Yunho says suddenly, and Changmin, glorious Changmin with those eyes he could stare at forever, looks at him with twinkling eyes and smiles at him and entwines his long fingers with his own.
“When are you coming back?” Yunho asks; feels Changmin tense slightly, and the sense of dreaming fading away. Yunho reflexively grips Changmin's hand a bit tighter.
“You're not coming back?” He repeats, and Changmin starts looking uncomfortable.
“I'm here at least until my degree finishes,” Changmin says, simply.
“And then you're coming back?” Yunho implores, pressing, more hopeful than anything else.
Changmin shrugs. “Maybe.”
“You want to stay here?” Changmin looks at Yunho, suddenly childlike, and Changmin can sense the (all-too-familiar)feeling that they're in for a quarrel and it's simply inevitable.
“I'm free, here,” Changmin explains, resigned. Yunho looks incensed.
“You mean you weren't free with SM? Like you were trapped? Why didn't you just leave with the rest of them? You could have saved me from being hurt twice,” Yunho bites, bitterly, like he's trying hard to be angry when he's simply just hurt. Yunho lets go of Changmin's hand.
“You don't understand-”
“Oh, I do,” Yunho retaliates, “I understand that when I got back from military service I waited for you to get out. And there were preparations to welcome you home. And all of a sudden you disappeared off the face of the earth, and people spotted you in London. And suddenly a statement comes out and I have to find out from Lee Soo Man that you've left, your contract terminated. You couldn't even tell me in person!”
Yunho takes a breath, waiting for a rebuttal. There is none. Changmin comes up with nothing.
“Why couldn't you tell me?”
“I'm sorry,” Changmin says, “I wanted to tell you but you wouldn't understand, you loved - love - it so much and I - fell out of love with it. I couldn't find a way to tell you. I'm sorry. I didn't want anyone to find out until I was sure it wasn't what I wanted - I just didn't want to start over. Again.”
“What about what I wanted? I was ready to start over with you. I was ready, damn it, Changmin, us, take two. But you left without me and I became nothing.”
“You're not-”
“No, you're wrong, I was nothing, I had nothing to do! Yunho Jung, the poor leader without anyone to lead, because everyone had left him, wandering around the corridors at the SM building. No chance of a solo career, I didn't want one. Tried my hand at acting, variety shows, nothing, no success, do you know how embarrassed I was? So much pity in everyone's eyes? I stayed home so much because I didn't want people looking at me. And then Suho suggested I should try teaching dance, because that's all I'm ever good at, wasn't it, Changmin, I'm the dancer? And Thank God I'm actually good at it, because I don't know what I'd do otherwise.”
“I'm sorry,” Changmin repeats, “You know I can't say anything to make you feel better. It's been too long now to fix it-”
“I rang your parents and they wouldn't say; just that you were studying here. I even came here to find you. Of course that failed. I even took up English lessons so I could come find you!”
Changmin says nothing.
“How could I find you when I wasn't even trying to look?” Yunho sighs, shaking his head. They lapse into silence.
“Why don't we go home,” Changmin suggests softly, and Yunho looks defeated.
**
Yunho wakes to find himself in a lumpy bed with fluffy blankets and Changmin taking off his shoes.
“Changmin?” He says drowsily, rubbing at his eyes; Changmin looks up at him, smiles slightly. “Where am I?”
“You fell asleep in the car,” Changmin explains, “I didn't know your hotel address, so I just took you home.”
“This is your place?” He asks, just as dazed, looking up at the high wooden panels in the slanted ceiling. “What time is it?”
“Just past 4,” Changmin answers. “I'll get you some tea.” He gestures to a fleecy throw beside the bed as he leaves the room.
Yunho sits up, puzzled, swinging his feet off the bed; he's been reduced to his t-shirt and a pair of too-long trackpants, and feels instantly warmer with the throw over his shoulders.
It reminds him of a cabin, Yunho thinks, feet padding across the timber floors: the bed appears at once both dishevelled and ridiculously cozy and Yunho's things are folded neatly over a worn green armchair beside it; Yunho walks over to Changmin's desk, illuminated by the light at the window behind it, a combination of heavy wood and glass, English books and folders piled high around a little empty space in the centre with his laptop and a metallic silver folded desk lamp bending over his workspace like an affectionate companion peering over his shoulder as he works. It's rustic and old-fashioned and Yunho loves it.
In the space in the corner there's an electric keyboard and guitar haphazardly leaning against the wall, a faint sheen of dust like it was used only every so often when the owner remembers; there's sheet music on a stand, and when Yunho recognises' Changmin's handwriting he realises with a jolt that they're originals.
Outside the bedroom the space opens up to a slightly more modern kitchen and a lounge area with a ridiculously ample television screen and sound system (Yunho thinks it'd clash with all the wood but somehow it works.) The wall behind the television was covered in photographs, wide and extensive and spreading like a network all across from the doorway to the balcony on one side and down the hall to the entrance at the other.
Yunho starts at the balcony and follows the photographs, mostly artistic shots, of clouds and birds and lens flare and bokeh and stars streaking across time-lapsed skies; tilt-shift images of London and Paris and Tokyo and Seoul, sunsets and street scenes and rain splattered against windowsills. They blend into images of patrons at the bar, some with their faces contorted in mutual anticipation with their eyes fixed on screens; there's a picture of Emma with laughter across her face, shirt soaked in beer; and then - down the hall; he finds pictures of people he recognises - Changmin's family, his father, his sisters, his mother, and then of his friends - Kyuhyun, Minho - and them at the end, Dong Bang Shin Ki, together as five and much more of them together as two, photos of Yunho and Changmin with youthful, beaming faces, looking back at him there in the doorway.
“You're the first thing I see when I get home, and the last thing I see when I leave,” Changmin says, behind Yunho with a steaming cup of tea; if it was anyone else it'd be ridiculously corny, but of course it's Changmin and it's everything he wanted to hear and it's enough. Yunho closes the gap between them in one, two, three steps, hands framing around Changmin's exquisite face and pulling his lips flush against his own.
**
Changmin watches as Yunho followed the photographs, eyes lingering over shots he'd taken, and wonders what he thinks of them, this little hobby of his; some were his favourites and some were just accidentally good and some seemed to fit despite being neither. Changmin feels somewhat exposed, like there was a part of him on the walls and like Yunho was tracing Changmin's time away from singing through those photographs he'd placed on the wall.
He knows what's at the end of the hall, and waits.
He knows Yunho's on the wall there, the last and the most important; could see Yunho's eyes slowly get wider, like Yunho too knew he'd be there, expression unreadable under the dim hall light.
When Yunho kisses him Changmin almost drops the tea he's holding, shocked by the sudden movement; he reaches blindly to place the cup onto the hall table before he responds, eagerly and without breath like a starving man - and let's face it, he hadn't kissed Yunho in years.
Yunho is warm, body radiating heat through his thin shirt, and he smells so familiar, so good. Changmin presses himself up against Yunho, against the wall, lips not leaving the other's. Changmin sneaks a finger under the hem of Yunho's shirt and comes into contact with hot skin; Yunho makes a noise in the back of his throat, the sound is so indescribable he wants more; Changmin kisses him deeper, chasing it; presses his palm and thumb down against the bone at Yunho's hip, fingers increasing the pressure, and Yunho moans again.
“Changmin,” Yunho breathes, coming up for air and he's still half asleep, eyes glazed and disoriented and so fucking gorgeous; leaning back against the wall and clinging to him like he's struggling to stand properly; the throw he was wearing around his shoulders curls and pools on the floor at his feet.
Changmin has to run his hands through Yunho's hair and kisses him again, making a beeline for the bedroom.
**
“Where are you going?” Yunho asks, after, when Changmin gets out of bed.
“Making more tea, I'm sure it's cold by now,” Changmin responds, and Yunho shoots him a wicked grin.
“You better count how many photo frames we broke, too,” Yunho suggests.
“You're paying for them, hyung,” Changmin replies.
**
“Why didn't you get married? You wanted kids so much,” Changmin asks, shifting his body to his side to face Yunho. Yunho smiles vaguely and shrugs.
“I couldn't find anyone good enough.”
“You could have married Boa,” Changmin suggests, and Yunho resists the urge to laugh.
“And reduce her to a fag hag with no satisfaction? She deserves better.”
“I'm sure you'd be, you know, more than satisfactory.”
Yunho really laughs this time.
“And none of the EXO boys have crushes on you?”
“If they did I don't know about it.”
Changmin sighs.
“Seriously? Nobody?”
“Nobody but you,” Yunho sings softly, grinning, and earns a punch to the arm.
“Hyung,” Changmin chides, “I don't want to be responsible for you not having any kids.”
“I can adopt,” Yunho suggests.
“But I want you to have someone you can live happily with,” Changmin says.
“I've got you.”
“I can see I'm not winning this conversation,” Changmin remarks, but gives up when Yunho starts peppering his neck with kisses.
**
“Hyung, you need to wake up, there's a flight to catch,” Changmin whispers, nudging the older man sleeping beside him. Yunho mumbles incoherantly, tosses in his sleep. Changmin can see the dark bruises haloing his eyelids, eyelashes dark against pale skin; he watches those parted lips, swollen from kissing; Yunho breath is steady, with the outline his ribcage rising and falling (has Yunho lost weight?), reassuring, peaceful, (fragile, vulnerable). Changmin wonders if a photograph was appropriate; keeps the image in his head instead.
Changmin wonders if the last time Yunho slept well was actually when they were still together in Korea; wonders exactly how much Yunho misses him, wonders if Yunho cares for him more than he cares for Yunho (and how is that even possible, really, when all the photographs were taken for him and the lyrics he's written were written for him?); it leaves him scared and protective at the same time.
Yunho can sleep for ten more minutes, Changmin thinks, padding to the kitchen to make them breakfast.
**
Changmin accompanies Yunho back to the hotel, even though he doesn't need to (“Come, when's the next time I'm going to see you?” Yunho says, shovelling cereal into his mouth, and he can't not go with him, not now).
“I know several magazine publishers who wouldn't hesitate to hire you to photograph-”
“I don't want to photograph models, Yunho-”
“Or you can come back and write lyrics like Tablo-”
“Yah,” Changmin says exasperatedly, “Please, stop building my dreams for me.”
Yunho sighs, “or I can stay here, open a studio-”
“Hyung-”
“Teach kpop dance routines to kids - is that even a lucritative job? Or maybe I could be an SM scout in Europe-”
“Hyung, I've only got a year left here,” Changmin says.
“I thought you weren't coming back?”
“That was before you - I have to consider you.”
Yunho beams at him through a mouthful of cereal. “Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.”
“Have you looked at yourself? I worry. You need to eat.”
“Says the poor university student living on his own and working part time at a bar.”
“Look, I don't want you to stay here because of me, I want you to stay because you want to.”
“I-”
“You need to find out what you want and who you are or who you want to be. Because I need you to know that you're not nothing. You're not. You could be anything, do anything.”
Yunho sighs again, running a hand through his hair. “I can't lose you again.”
“I won't be a stranger, hyung; the night wasn't long enough; we still need to sort us out. You fell asleep during our fight,” Changmin points out, “we just have to do this long distance. You've got KakaoTalk or Skype right?”
“Changmin-”
“Look, I've got a year. I think I know what I want; I need you to know what you want, regardless of me. And after that, when you're ready, I'll come back.”
**
Yunho's been to Russia to see the ballet, been to China and does a crash course on Chinese martial art basics, goes to New York and visits Broadway; visits choreographers, visits dance academies, grasps things too quickly and moves on to the next when he’s bored.
Yunho listens to music in the SM dances studios wired in with his headphones; invents moves and shows them to the choreography team who slowly let him become more and more involved; Changmin hears about it when he creates the dance routine to an entire song on his own.
He works with the new rookie group on the dance routine for their debut song, and when they grasp it without fault Yunho glows with a sense of accomplishment and spends the rest of the day smiling.
He works with EXO so much that he's next in line whenever the manager gets sick; not that the boys mind. (Intentional food poisoning becomes a running in-joke). They work hard and treat Yunho like a god, Yunho making sure that everybody can dance as well as each other; drills their fitness so that they can dance without losing breath whilst singing; as consequence, EXO have some of the best and most complicated song and dance routines of them all.
Yunho Jung, choreographer, dance instructor, manager-in-waiting. Yunho wonders if this was what Changmin was going on about, as he falls into his sofa after work, satisfying aches in his limbs and a glass of wine in his hand.
**
Changmin steps out of Incheon Airport into the bright sunlight, a year older and a Cambridge degree in his bags, squinting despite his pair of shades (habit, now, especially given he's grown so accustomed to the gloominess of England); there's no one to pick him up, of course, because coming back to Seoul was supposed to be a surprise.
He hails a taxi and heads straight for a building he once called his second home, large and glossy with prestine walls of glass, more expensive looking and ominous than he remembered.
Looking at it makes him feel fifteen.
He walks up to it from the curb with his backpack and his hat and his sunglasses and he can feel people's eyes on him as he passes, indiscernible whispers and murmurings; he feels and remembers that uncomfortable feeling where there are tingles on the hairs at the base of his neck. Changmin rushes in without a sideways glance.
Suho, surprisingly, recognises him the instant he steps in, and within minutes he's escorted inside with the 5 other EXO-K members, grown so tall Changmin can look most of them straight in the eye without having to move his head.
They usher him further back, where EXO-M were recording their latest song; Changmin enters the recording room silently, and Yunho is there, completely oblivious with headphones fitted firmly around his ears.
Changmin slings an arm over Yunho's shoulder, and the older man turns towards him in surprise, pulling Changmin into a fierce, quick hug, bodies flush for a second before they let go.
Yixing's the first to look through the window, waving wildly to Changmin; the others follow suit, and they rush out to greet him as soon as they finish, crowding around and bowing like a prodigal son's return; Changmin feels both flattered and overwhelmed.
“Wait - aren't you - ?” Kris looks back and forth between the pair of them, Changmin's arm still over Yunho's shoulder, eyes wide with recognition.
“You finally remember him, Kris,” Yunho says, smiling.
Changmin has to laugh.
FIN