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The cheers become disembodied after so many stops. After so many years. The faces change. Some stay the same. Somedays it’s easier to go out onstage. Somedays –
But Seungcheol is a professional. He knows how to dance when he’s dizzy. He knows how to sing when his chest aches. He’s done it plenty.
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Someone is always missing. They have obligations. Health concerns. They have military service. Today, it is this person, these two, these three, these four. Months from now, years from now, it will be somebody different. It never stops feeling like a hole ripped right through the center of Seungcheol’s galaxy, even when he knows they are healthy, as happy as they can be in the circumstances. He is only okay when he knows that they are safe. They tell him to take care of himself, and this is what that looks like. Them.
They always find back together again. More than anything else, this is a characteristic Seungcheol knows to appreciate. They circle each other, pulled together by gravity. Contact binary amplified; expanded. The laws of physics stretch to accommodate for the thirteen of them. Nothing about it makes sense, so it must be magic. They are magic. Fans tell them it again and again and it is difficult to grasp their effect. How much they mean to others outside of their orbit. How it still doesn’t compare to being within. There is so much love they cannot possibly share it all, but it bleeds out of them anyway, only to be replenished. Love: infinite.
One day all of this ends, even if the love doesn’t – but he can’t think about that yet.
It’s so hard not to think about it.
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It’s better this way, for the fans. Staggering it like this. Better for Seungcheol, too, he thinks, ultimately – but it chips away at him.
Years of it. And they will pass too, as all hardships do, faster than expected in the end. He’ll blink, and everyone will be home again.
They will all be older then. But they’ll be together for a little while more. A long time, in the grand scheme of things, but Seungcheol knows how quickly time passes. How there will never be enough of it. He misses it already. Misses them. Misses everything.
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How he curses himself for the time he spent away from the stage. For his weakness. For the things he can’t change. How hard it is to believe it wasn’t his fault. How they tried to tell him. How, eventually, they made him listen, showed him care is not a one-way street.
How they picked him back up again, piece by shaky piece, first one then two then twelve, and suddenly: wholeness.
Jihoon, Soonyoung, Wonwoo. He misses them more than anything. Jeonghan has been gone the longest. And maybe there is no shame in admitting that the size of the chunk of Seungcheol’s heart Jeonghan carries around with him is bigger than the others.
Well – bigger might be wrong, but the shape of it is different.
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Jeonghan, never-uncertain where others can see him. Vulnerability a thing to be beaten down until it is no more than pulp he can laugh at, can crush under his soles, unseen. How many times Seungcheol has begged him to bare them, let him at the remnants that inevitably stick to his skin.
How Jeonghan wobbles the first time he kisses him. How Seungcheol helps clean him up and get both feet safely back on the ground; kisses him back only then. How Jeonghan makes fun of him for his tentativeness like his own voice isn’t trembling.
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“He’ll be back soon,” Joshua always tells him. He’s right, but hearing those words doesn’t often do much but invalidate the throb Seungcheol walks around with every day. It’s okay when it’s Joshua, though. It’s okay because Seungcheol knows he feels it too. Maybe not in the exact same way, but just as acutely. The chunk of Joshua’s heart that Jeonghan carries around with him is uniquely shaped too.
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It's difficult, at first. Aside from all the obvious reasons: the pitfalls of idol life, long familiar. Normalcy a distant dream, more nebulous concept than anything. He understands why Jeonghan’s so good at hiding. It’s part of the job description.
This is hard privately.
It’s Joshua, in the end, that puts it to him like this after days spent ruminating in silence and regretting giving in to the kiss: love isn’t finite.
It clicks, then. Of course it isn’t. He already knows this. It was the only thing he knew for the longest time: his heart has twelve chambers in it, one artery to connect them. His orbit defies the laws of physics.
But maybe it’s hard for that reason. Seungcheol doesn’t get to have favorites. Doesn’t want to. And Joshua and Jeonghan: each other’s already. Where could he possibly fit into this?
Joshua, shrugging like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “We can share, can’t we? He likes you.”
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Jeonghan, shrugging like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I like you.”
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Some things can’t be explained. Seungcheol doesn’t have favorites, but the way he’s always felt about Jeonghan is just… different.
Some things are magic.
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How many nights he spends sleepless, thinking about the two of them. It’s not jealousy, he doesn’t think. That’s a feeling he’s intimately familiar with; you don’t get to Seungcheol’s position without some competitiveness. This is different.
Some feelings are hard to discern from one another when the physical sensations are so similar.
Seungcheol in his bed at night – months before Jeonghan comes to him, shaky and uncertain and baring the soles of his feet. Months before Joshua tells him, love isn’t finite.
Scrubs a hand over his face, through his hair, tries not to tear at it. Blinks at his lurid phone screen. Attempts to breathe.
Googles, symptoms of a panic attack.
Googles, symptoms of being in love.
Thinks, oh. Oh. Oh no.
In his defense, he’s never been it before.
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Things are scary when they’re unknown.
When Jeonghan leaves for the military Seungcheol’s world collapses, but he has to be strong for the rest of them, no matter how much they tell him he doesn’t. No matter how afraid he is.
When Wonwoo leaves, it’s scary.
When Jihoon and Soonyoung leave, it’s scary.
When the rest of them leave, it will be scary.
Each of them is so integral. Being without anyone has always felt like a missing limb to the entire group. They will grow back together; the wounds are not fatal, nor final. But the quality of life is different, and this is something no amount of countdowns can amend.
And there are so many of them.
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The world keeps spinning, even if it’s off-kilter. Seungcheol is a professional. He knows how to dance when he’s dizzy, to sing around an ache in his chest.
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Some things become even scarier once you’ve understood them. But love isn’t life-threatening.
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He’s long been through it all already by the time Jeonghan leaves – understanding his feelings. So it doesn’t make any sense that it takes him so long to grasp when it happens again.
The world keeps spinning, so he and Joshua cling to each other in Jeonghan’s absence. What else is there to do?
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t get it. It seems natural. He cannot distinguish between the need for closeness, for touch, for emotional support – and something more, something different, something magic. Maybe the lines have been blurred from the beginning.
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Joshua, his silhouette falling across Seungcheol’s floor, voice clear and teasing from the doorframe. “Why are you moping?”
Joshua letting light into Seungcheol’s bedroom for the first time in days, days spent mulling over that first kiss again and again and again and still not understanding.
Joshua, the only person besides Jeonghan who doesn’t listen to Seungcheol’s protests, his voice earnest and imploring as he rips open the curtains. “Love isn’t finite, Cheollie.”
Joshua sitting on Seungcheol’s bed, eyes sparkling, voice kindling with exhilaration. “We can share, can’t we?”
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He likes you.
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I like you.
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Oh, Seungcheol thinks numbly one sleepless night, watching Joshua snore softly beside him. It’s cold out, the window is frosted, but the bed is warm. Joshua’s eyelids flutter, his chest rises and falls. It is the most soothing sight. Jeonghan has been gone for three months and the absence is as palpable as it’s ever been. Gaping. Nothing fills it, but now, in Seungcheol’s chest: a new sensation next to it. Something warm and scary. Oh. Oh no.
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This time: guilt. A different kind of fear. He’s never dreamed of having both of them.
That’s a lie.
But what if Jeonghan doesn’t want to share? How horrible, to come to this realization when he isn’t even there. When he’s barely even texting. When Seungcheol can’t sit across from him or hold his hand when he says the words, I think I’m in love with your boyfriend.
-
“You mean you weren’t in love with him before?”
It takes Mingyu speaking around a mouthful of noodles – affable, blunt in the kindest way, and genuinely confused – for Seungcheol to wonder whether it was obvious to everyone but him. Whether Jeonghan knows already. Whether Joshua does.
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Maybe it was always going to go this way. The three of them have always had a special connection that transcends just their closeness in age.
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Funny enough, he doesn’t consider that Joshua might not feel the same. At the very least, he isn’t afraid. He’s scared of many things, but not of this rejection. One way or another, Joshua loves him.
He still doesn’t know how to tell him.
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First, Jeonghan.
When he finally has time and energy for a video call again, Seungcheol doesn’t want to just spring it on him, but keeping it to himself would be lying, and avoiding Joshua isn’t going to go well for much longer. Joshua isn’t going to let it.
Seungcheol allows himself a moment to appreciate Jeonghan’s face, sapped and shadowed – and the close-cropped hair is something Seungcheol still isn’t used to – but smiling, and beautiful. Always beautiful. His Jeonghannie. Theirs.
Tells him he misses him, earnest and sentimental. Takes a shaky breath.
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Jeonghan is sad, but only because he really wants to be there.
Seungcheol jokes about filming it for him – the confession. The second first kiss Jeonghan assures him is coming. Jokes about filming other things for him. Jeonghan laughs, but there’s no strength behind it. Seungcheol’s heart splinters, ice across a lake, but the layer is thin. And it thuds, precariously, as if trying to prevent further cracking.
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He doesn’t film it, but they do send him photos together. More and more risqué ones as time passes, for Jeonghan to enjoy privately when he’s allowed a few moments with his phone. Sometimes he sends photos back. Sometimes audios.
Seungcheol tucks them between his ribs one after another, seals them beneath Joshua’s with kisses. It starts to feel less unsafe.
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The new normal is surprisingly quick to get used to in the end – maybe because not all that much has really changed, with the exception of a few boundaries.
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Maybe that’s why he didn’t get it initially.
It felt natural, because it is.
It didn’t make sense because it is the only thing that could. Magic.
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Even at the beginning, long before he has both of them, it’s never weird to Seungcheol: knowing that everything he does with Jeonghan, Jeonghan has done before. Does, still, with someone that isn’t him. That the places his hands roam, the jagged, unguarded edges of Jeonghan’s body, have all been touched just like this by somebody different.
Sure, it feels a little odd being the oldest and so inexperienced, but on the other hand it’s Jeonghan. One of the few people Seungcheol lets guide him. One of the few people Seungcheol is comfortable giving up control with.
He likes knowing Jeonghan’s first experiences were with somebody whose hands are equally tender and safe and clean. Someone that loved him, loves him still.
He doesn’t mind sharing.
-
“We have to tell you something.”
A whispered confession in the dead of night, on the floor of the kitchen with the curtains drawn against the streetlights. A room dipped in the hushed black of midnight. Trembling voices, two bodies too far apart on the floor, felt more than seen.
There is a part of Seungcheol that feels he should be against it like they are expecting, simply by virtue of it threatening the group’s longevity should anything go wrong. There is nothing more important than the thirteen of them.
That’s exactly why he finds himself saying, “I trust you two,” instead. Basks in their sighs of relief, at how they noticeably relax and scoot closer to each other again. As if he could deny them anything.
As if he could deny them love, if that’s what they’ve found.
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It’s enchanting to see them so close. Even if something pinches in Seungcheol’s chest, that smothered part of him that says, I want it. I also want it. It is still a shapeless thing, a longing he can’t delineate.
He’s good at ignoring it. Joshua and Jeonghan are perfect together. The group was never in any danger.
Months from now, Jeonghan will find Seungcheol, wobbling on his legs.
Years from now, Jeonghan will leave, and Seungcheol will find Joshua right where he’s always been – and when he tells him, it’s in daylight and his voice is steady.
-
How Joshua gleams, smile wide, eyes shining, Mingyu the only person that rivals his brightness – nearly tripping over his feet to congratulate them for “finally getting it together.”
How Jeonghan gleams when they call him that night, a glassy sheen over the dark velvet of his irises.
“I love seeing you two like this,” he says, and Seungcheol knows he means it. Knows, too, the Venn diagram of love and mourning.
His heart is fuller than it’s ever been, and a chunk of it still missing.
He pulls Joshua closer in to his chest that evening. Joshua clings in return. They borrow each other’s heartbeats when their own begin to trip, and holding each other, they stumble through this. Learning.
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“He likes it when you kiss his neck,” Jeonghan tells him over video call. He’s thawed by now, more used to his state of affairs, more used to being seen in a constitution he can’t manipulate. He finds it easier to call more, to text. He is so grateful to them for giving him something to get giddy over across the distance. To brighten up his dark days – an island of warmth in the sea of loneliness. “The spot right below his left ear is extra sensitive.”
Seungcheol takes the gifts being offered to him, begins to say Thank you instead of I’m sorry.
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“More love couldn’t possibly be a bad thing,” Jeonghan insists. Reiterates whenever Seungcheol needs to hear it. Seungcheol is getting better at it too. Baring the soles of his own feet and letting others chip gently at the grime that has spent a lifetime accumulating like silt.
Jeonghan has always known how to get under his skin. Joshua’s smile has always been the most disarming thing.
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It was always going to go this way.
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They find rhythms that are unique to the two of them. Put any two artists in the same room and they will create something distinctive, even if certain beats are the same.
Put a third one in with them and something different still emerges. Seungcheol can’t wait to see what beautiful magic they will produce when they are allowed to come together again.
For now: twin stuttering heartbeats, two figures holding each other up on shaky knees, a smile so disarming and sweet, and night after night all blurry with tears and ecstasy. A body to learn from the beginning, an I love you to get comfortable with again now that its meaning has shifted.
Not shifted. Become apparent.
And in daytime: duties to fulfill. Places to go. Fans to regale. Routines to uphold. Stages to step out on. Disembodied cheers. Familiarity. Dizziness to dance hand in hand with and chest pain to embrace while singing. So many absences to welcome in like wanted guests, because they’re there whether or not Seungcheol decides to fight them. Countdowns that steadily dwindle even when it seems they’ll never end.
-
Three different keyholes. One master key with three copies. Seungcheol keeps his close to his chest, refuses to be without it; when he showers, at the gym, when he eats, at night in bed, when his members ask him how he’s doing and he starts being honest; when he is squeezed into stage outfits too snug for comfort and puts the mask on again. Never without his key even when it’s pressed into his skin, sometimes sharp, but warm. Always warm.
“He’ll be back soon.”
Joshua says it to solace himself, too. Seungcheol sees him clutch at his sternum when the cameras aren’t on him. At night they wedge themselves together, as close as they can get, skin on sweaty skin. Keys clashing, teeth clashing, love spilling out sideways and soaking into the sheets. Not quite enough for the phantom presence to be forgotten – not that it would let them. Not that they’d want it to.
They could exist without him, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Jeonghan is in every stain on the linen, at home and in every hotel room; he is in every string of spit between interrupted kisses, in every breath of air sucked into burning lungs, in the shimmer Seungcheol finds over Joshua’s irises when the light catches them right – pain or pleasure or a place in which they coexist. He is in every I love you, easier to say now than at the beginning and harder than in the years between.
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“He’ll be back soon.”
“He will.”
And then the next person goes, stays unspoken. Not everything needs to be acknowledged.
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One day all of this ends, but love goes on, even when physical bodies do not. Love: infinite.
Seungcheol is lucky to be so surrounded by it.