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In July 2003, Shim Changmin is barely sixteen, gangly for his age, and has it on good authority—namely his asshole friends—that on good days he only looks slightly like an undergrown q-tip. It’s the ears, apparently. But despite all of these things, Shim Changmin can sing, and so even though he doesn’t quite believe it, somehow he ends up with an audition for SM Entertainment, which he passes, and a one way ticket to stardom, should he take it.
He does, because, deep down, doesn’t everyone want to be famous?
At barely sixteen, Changmin doesn’t have any illusions about meeting a soulmate. It’s only his first day, and though he’s heard, through gossip and chatter and the sudden closeness that only forms when you’re forced to spend hours together, that it’s not uncommon for idols to meet their first color before debuting, Changmin hadn’t actually dreamed that that would be him.
After all, he’s barely sixteen, and while there isn’t much research into when people meet their first color, the general consensus is that it happens whenever a person reaches adulthood. Barely sixteen is not adulthood, even though deciding to sign away thirteen years of your life to the Korean public seems like a pretty damn adult decision.
So when he meets Jung Yunho—two years his senior, two years his sunbae, one hell of a dancer, and beautifully, vibrantly red—and the first thing the older boy says to him is, “if you’re going to quit, you should just do it now,” Changmin feels like someone’s dropped a stone into his chest.
He stares back at Yunho, stomach a pit of ice, and tries to decide if the other boy has seen any colors upon meeting him. And then he remembers to speak, gets his name out and bows, and waits far longer than he would like before lifting his head back up.
Yunho’s already moved on to the other boys in the room—Junsu-hyung and Jaejoong-hyung—and he looks entirely unaffected.
Changmin spends that first night huddled under the covers, shaking, with the first book on soulmates he could get his hands on, trying to figure out if it’s possible for your first color to be one-sided. The book’s old and dusty and official looking but it tells him exactly nothing.
He asks his mom about it the next morning over breakfast, voice quiet and hands in his lap. He doesn’t mention he’s found his first color, just plays it as curiosity, and tries not to think too hard about Yunho.
“Honey, you’re scaring me,” his mother says, but when Changmin insists, she gives up and answers him—yes, it does happen, but no, not that often, and yes there have been cases but since those people all ended up with another color anyway, he doesn’t have to worry about that. “Baby. Have you met someone—” finishes his mother, and Changmin shoves an entire mouthful of food into his mouth before she’s finished asking.
He’s feeling slightly less sick to his stomach now, and if he focuses on the facts—on how it’s only 2003 and he’s not even eighteen and he doesn’t have to stay with his first color anyway, religion be damned—that helps.
He manages something of a smile. “I almost met Boa-noona yesterday,” he says instead, and his mother looks knowing, but lets it go.
And then they get another member—Yoochun-hyung, who smiles at Changmin with a too wide smile and is supposed to be the American member, or something, but has a very badly concealed accent—and then they debut.
And between all of that, Changmin doesn’t have time to think about the fact that he can’t help but gravitate towards Yunho-hyung when the stylist-noonas dress them all in various shades of red.
In 2006, briefly, Changmin thinks of quitting. They’re too tired, too unsuccessful, and too foreign for whatever venture Lee Sooman-seonsaengnim and co have them in Japan for, and no amount of slowly growing fanclubs can change that. But more than that he’s homesick, and languagesick, and just plain sick of Japan, because Japan might be an adventure but it’s still not home.
Even though they’re still living together in a dorm in Japan, and they’re still getting herded around to film shoots and variety shows and music performances, it is not until their album does decently and their single breaks the top ten, that all of a sudden they’re huge in Japan and Korea both.
And then Yunho gets poisoned.
For a second, Changmin thinks he’s the one who’s dying. They’re kind of a big deal now, so variety shouldn’t be all that terrifying, but Changmin still gets a little nervous, still feels a little off center, so at first he doesn’t even notice. He isn’t even watching Yunho when it happens, until the tiny specks of red on his manager-hyung’s shoes start fading, and then, as he glances around the studio, the rest of the reds start fading, color leeching out of his vision like poison.
Changmin thinks, that’s odd, and then panics, makes the connection, and whirls to face Yunho, who’s gone ashen and black and white and is being ushered towards the nearest waste basket by their many handlers.
“Super glue,” Changmin hears, and, “ambulance,” before the ringing in his ears drowns everything out.
The hospital only allows family visitors, a fact which their manager informs them apologetically hours later. They’re standing in the hospital hallway in a nervous pile, arms and legs overlapping, and Changmin pulls out the red string bracelet he’d snagged from his sister on his latest visit back home. None of them say anything, but Changmin’s pretty sure at least Jaejoong-hyung has noticed, because the thing’s come out of more than a few washes unscathed, left wordlessly on his bedside table in both dorms.
Changmin breathes deeply, tightens his grip on the string, and lets the bold, solid vibrancy of the color keep him sane.
“They should let you see him tomorrow,” continues Manager-hyung, less apologetic now. “Or later. For now you should all go home and get some sleep.” He frowns, suddenly. “You still have schedules.”
Changmin would protest, but it’s not his place, so he lets Jaejoong-hyung do it for him, digging his nails into his own palms and slipping the bracelet back into his jean pocket.
If he really wanted to, if he wasn’t so much of a coward, he could get himself onto the visitor list with one simple vision test. But Yunho’s entire family is here—sister teary-eyed and mother stricken and father tight-lipped with silent worry and overt disapproval—and Changmin would rather be with his hyungs, left on the outside, than in the room with them.
“Changmin-ah,” says Jaejoong-hyung, not unkindly, and Changmin follows after him without a word.
They let them see him two days later.
Changmin goes in last, practically dragged by Jaejoong-hyung, who’s been herding the lot of them around like a stand-in for those forty-eight hours. Yoochun-hyung had just cried and Junsu-hyung had seemed particularly anxious, but Changmin at least had been grateful for some semblance of normalness. After all. Yunjae were Mom and Dad, supposedly. Ridiculous as that was.
Yunho’s sitting up in the bed when they get to him, tubes sticking out of him and paler than Changmin would like, but he manages a smile when he sees them.
Changmin swallows, sees nothing but blood around his lips for one horrifying second, and blinks.
“Yunho-hyung,” says Yoochun-hyung, voice hushed, and hurries to his side. He reaches down and grips Yunho’s hand hard enough it has to hurt, but Yunho just squeezes his hand right back.
“Hey, guys,” says Yunho, and his voice is raspy.
Changmin feels tears in the corners of his eyes. He needs to leave this room now.
“Yah,” says Jaejoong-hyung, and Changmin’s head snaps up despite himself. His hyung isn’t looking at him, but his hand is tight around Changmin’s, so Changmin has no choice but to follow him when he heads closer to the bed. “This one wouldn’t stop worrying about you all night,” Jaejoong-hyung continues, and gives Changmin’s hand a small shake. “Wouldn’t even sleep.”
Yunho’s brow furrows instantly, and Changmin stabs his fingernails into Jaejoong-hyung’s hand rather viciously.
“I did not,” he says, and his voice sounds awful. It sounds like he’s the one who’s been forced to swallow superglue. Changmin thinks about that moment—that terrifying, horrifying moment where the world was black and white and he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of their manager shouting and the distant howl of sirens—and decides that he as good as did. “I slept loads.”
A lie.
“Changdol-ah,” says Yunho.
Changmin can’t meet his eyes. “I’m glad you’re better,” he says.
“Better,” scoffs Jaejoong-hyung, shuffling right up next to Yunho and setting a hand on Yoochun-hyung’s shoulder. “He’s not better—he’s barely even sitting up—”
“I got up on my own this morning,” protests Yunho, but no one listens to him.
“You can’t just say that, Jaejoong-hyung,” Yoochun-hyung is saying, as Junsu-hyung nods beside him. “Have some tact.”
“I am right here,” protests Yunho, and Changmin tunes them all out.
He stares at the bouquet of red roses sitting on Yunho’s hospital bedside and tries very hard not to cry some more.
He looks up when he feels a weight against his knuckles.
Yunho’s reaching for him, even as he banters back and forth with the rest of them, and Changmin swallows.
He lets their fingers intertwine for one quick second, and then works very hard to only think of Yunho as Yunho-hyung for the rest of the evening.
By the time they release him, Changmin’s gotten quite good at that.
After that, they’re too busy and too famous for Changmin to think much of it. He still carries the red bracelet around in his back pocket sometimes, still has moments of breathless panic whenever Yunho-hyung ends up shoved into any shade of red for concerts, and even gets filmed shoving his entire face into the older boy’s chest when they win Album of the Year for the 2008 Mnet Korean Music Festival.
Which. Changmin thinks that’s fine, given how hard they had worked, and how hard 2006 had been, with new languages and new audiences and the ever present ache of homesickness in the pit of his stomach.
So by the time Jaejoong finds him, after, Changmin’s gotten very good at pretending to be as spectrumless as his band members.
“Changmin-ah,” says Jaejoong, and Changmin looks up quickly.
He’s standing in front of him holding a dishtowel, lashes wet, and when Changmin cranes his head, he can see the overnight bag in the doorway.
Their doorway.
“Hyung.”
Jaejoong visibly flinches. “Changmin-ah,” he says again, and his voice is as careful as it’s ever been around Changmin.
Changmin doesn’t want him to finish that sentence. “It’s him, Hyung,” he interrupts, swiping angrily at unshed tears. “It’s him—he’s. He’s my red, Jaejoong-hyung.” And he never says Yunho’s name, but Jaejoong seems to understand anyway.
His mouth closes around whatever it is whatever he wanted to say—whatever apologies, meaningless requests, and over rehearsed platitudes had been on the tip of his tongue, and nods, fists clenching.
Changmin wonders, vaguely, as he watches the past five years of his life tatter away into two gaping pieces, if he wasn’t the only one who’d met one of his colors.
But then Yunho is clearing his throat from behind him, and Yunho is reaching for the empty mug sitting in front of him.
Jaejoong stiffens even more and leaves with no more than a bow and half a backward glance.
The door to the dorm closes behind him with finality.
Changmin lets a few tears leak down his face, and tries not to think about how long Yunho’d been standing behind him.
“I, uh,” he says at last, standing. “I think I’ll just go to my room—”
“One of your sock’s blue,” Yunho interrupts quietly, from where he’s gone to work scrubbing at the tea residue inside Changmin’s mug. “I don’t know what color the other one is.”
“It’s red,” Changmin says, and it’s not quite a whisper, but it comes close. “It’s red.”
For a long moment, Yunho doesn’t move. The sink turns on. “Do you remember the day it rained?” Yunho asked, voice muted against the smooth hum of the water. “And Jaejoong shouted at me for a full five minutes because I got locked out of the room?”
Changmin nods even though Yunho can’t see him, and then manages a tiny, “yes,” in response. Of course he remembers that day, because it had been his fifth day as an official trainee, and his feet had been so happy that Yunho wasn’t around to be a slave driver that he could have cried.
“Rain is blue, Changdol,” Yunho continues, calmy. “So’s the sky.”
And then he turns around to look at Changmin, but his eyes are so sad, and so dry, that Changmin doesn’t know what to do with that. Your mouth is so red, he thinks, but doesn’t say, and Yunho goes back to washing dishes in silence.
Changmin watches him, waiting for the silence to stop feeling like distance, and for the distance to stop feeling like the end of something.
Changmin ends up waiting for two years.
Towards the end of 2011 Changmin decides, lugging his suitcase with him out of JFK airport to what feels like a never-ending stream of flashbulbs, that he must be part of the world’s greatest fuck up. Nevermind the multiple awards, or the tremendous success of their comeback, or their impending Japanese tour dates. There is absolutely no way he and Yunho are soulmates. No way.
For one, Yunho can’t even remember to squeeze toothpaste out from the bottom of the damn tube, and Changmin has reminded him more times than he can count. For another, the man really needs to stop stealing Changmin’s water bottles and drinking from them directly. Changmin is almost starting to think that Yunho’s doing it on damn purpose, as some sort of ridiculous pissing contest where Yunho has seen fit to claim every single water bottle on the damn stage and in the damn waiting room.
Not only that, but Jung Yunho, Changmin decides, is the absolute worst person that Changmin has ever met.
Fucking. Two separate flights. For no reason.
Changmin doesn’t even remember what they had fought about, just that it was ridiculous, and Yunho had taken advantage of his schedule to fly ahead without him like the world’s pettiest twenty-six year old.
Just for that, Changmin’s not going to the fan thing later that night.
(Yunho wears glasses and a dark Lacoste button down to the fan thing later that night; Changmin hates his life.)
“Changmin sleep talks,” reveals Yunho, on some Japanese talk show. “He’s hit me in the chest before.”
The hosts titter in response and even the camera crew looks amused.
“I probably wasn’t sleeping,” says Changmin, which wasn’t at all what he was planning to say, but gets him a roaring laugh from Yunho anyway. It’s too loud for the space they’re in.
Changmin smiles with his teeth, and makes sure to talk in unnecessary detail about that time Yunho wore his underwear.
“Do you guys separate household supplies?” asks a Japanese MC, for yet another music program. They’re in one of the stranger studios Changmin’s been in—half garden half indoors, with cars in the background because of their proximity to the road, and the host is very, very pretty.
And married.
And still talking.
“—Like shampoo?” she finishes.
“No, not really,” says Changmin, glancing quickly at Yunho.
“We share everything,” adds Yunho, with a tiny smile.
Changmin’s heart gives an almighty thump. He turns to the host, more than a little desperate to change the subject in a cool but aloof way. “Don’t you share shampoo with your husband?”
Fuck.
“Hyung,” Changmin says, always careful. “What is this?”
Yunho looks up from where he’d been tossing his shoes into the middle of their hallway and swallows.
Changmin raises an eyebrow and counts mentally to three.
“You know I’m starting to think you are my wife,” mutters Yunho, under his breath but somehow booming in the suddenly cramped space of their foyer.
Changmin feels a migraine coming on, but Yunho puts his shoes neatly by the door with an over exaggerated bow anyway and doesn’t continue speaking.
They are not damn married.
Even though they are apparently soulmates.
“Changmin-ah,” says Kyuhyun, over the phone. “You’re paying for the phone bill.”
Changmin flops across his bed with a long sigh. “You’re famouser than I am, Cho,” he says. “Sixty-forty.”
Kyuhyun scoffs over the line. “Please,” he says. “I’m like five times as famous as you are.”
“Well then by that logic you should be paying for five phone calls,” Changmin points out sweetly. “And also you called me.”
There’s a pause. No doubt Kyuhyun is cursing Changmin’s superior wit.
“Yeah,” his friend says. “See. Chwang.”
Changmin rolls over onto his back and groans. “We’re not going to talk about our feelings, are we?” he asks.
Kyuhyun doesn’t even rise to the bait. “Chwang,” he repeats.
Changmin slaps a hand over his eyes. “Kyu.”
“I, uh. Know you don’t like talking about it—”
Changmin drags his palm down his face. “Kyu.”
“—But like. We should probably talk about it?”
Changmin groans. “Kyuhyun,” he says, kicking his feet in the air.
His friend sighs. “Changmin please,” he says.
And Changmin decides to sit up. “Yes, you’re my gold,” he snaps, voice taught. “And I’ve known this for years and never once told you to your face because you’re not actually the first color I’ve met, asshole, and I can guarantee we’re just platonic.”
There’s a pause.
“Oh, right,” says Kyuhyun, finally, and he actually sounds relieved. “I mean good, that’s. That’s good cause like. I love you, and all, but I don’t love love you, and I might have something of a reputation but I’m actually awful at breaking people’s hearts—”
Changmin barks out a startled laugh.
“—so like. Good. And same, by the way. Only. You’re more like. Aquamarine?”
“Aquamarine—honestly what are you walking paint store—” Changmin starts to say, before he realizes he’s not alone.
Yunho’s standing in his doorway, hand raised to knock on the door, which Changmin notices with growing horror has been open this entire time. “Um,” Yunho says. “Did you want to go out for dinner?”
Changmin nods, more than a little panicked, and hangs up without thinking twice. “Sure!”
Yunho looks like he wants to say something for a moment, and then seems to think better of it. “Let me just let manager-hyung know.”
And then he’s gone, and Changmin is left to have a crisis alone in his room.
They don’t speak of it, of course, because when have they ever spoken about it, but when the next mock up of potential tour costumes come through, they’re distinctly goldless. More champagne than anything. And the tour shirts are red.
Changmin tries not to look too much into that.
Months later, sitting in a studio with Yunho waiting to go on stage with the most blatant anime hair ever, Changmin decides to blame those shirts for everything he fucking says. Because “love and war?” “Man/woman couple?” Fucking, “sometimes I watch shows about marriage and think about Yunho-hyung and mine’s damn relationship?” He might as well mount Yunho on stage for the next Bibari and Rui stage.
“Changminnie is like home,” says Yunho, and Changmin’s brain, which had managed to collect itself, starts slamming itself against a metaphorical wall in despair.
Changmin isn’t even drunk, is the thing. They’re due to fly out as a group for SMTOWN 2012 only the next day, and instead of packing and being responsible and practicing alongside Yunho, Changmin has instead plopped himself down next to the mirror to text Kyuhyun to go fetch him beer. He wouldn’t normally be like this, but he woke up that morning from half-remembered dreams, more than half-hard, hips jerking into nothing and the after-images of fingers and red, red lips trailing their way up and down his chest.
No number of cold showers or angry masturbation had been able to help, and by the time Yunho had dragged him to the studio to practice for the first Los Angeles concert, Changmin was more than a little jittery.
And they were practicing “Maximum,” and Yunho’s whole hip step thing in “Maximum” only made it worse.
The song is on its eighth loop, and Changmin isn’t sure if he can see straight, yet alone do the damn dance all over again.
His arms feel like lead.
There’s no way he’s going to get through another chorus of pointing.
The music cuts off abruptly. “Yah. Changmin-ah,” says Yunho. He doesn’t even sound winded.
Changmin looks up from his phone miserably. “What?” he says, and he. Maybe snaps it. Maybe isn’t as formal as he should be. It’s not quite informal, but the line between respect and insolence is about a breath too long.
Yunho’s lips thin. “You missed your cue,” he says curtly.
Changmin lets his head tip forward and glances down at his phone.
Kyuhyun hasn’t even seen his message. Bastard’s probably already asleep, since they’re changing time zones tomorrow. Also, Leeteuk isn’t a slave driver.
Changmin lifts his head back. “I’m tired,” he says, and then adds not quickly enough, “Yunho-hyung.”
Yunho’s brows pull together. “Changmin-ah,” he starts to say, but Changmin interrupts him.
“Ugh,” he says, flopping across the floor and throwing an arm across his eyes. He’s aware of how he looks, how he sounds, how very out of line he is acting, but he doesn’t even care. They’re the only two at practice anyway—it’s not like there’s anyone around to see Changmin be anything other than the perfect dongsaeng. Besides, it’s not like that’s news to any of their dancers. “You’re awful,” Changmin continues, listening to the sound of his breath in the silence between them.
Yunho doesn’t respond, and Changmin can barely hear his footsteps.
That should be a warning; he keeps talking anyway. “It’s just my luck that I got stuck with you as a soulmate anyway,” says Changmin, and wow, he really is an idiot.
Yunho’s shoes squeak when he stops, but Changmin is too much of a coward to peek out from behind his arm to see where he is in the room.
“I get it. You don’t want me,” says Changmin, unable to stop now that he’s started. “Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it.”
Yunho makes a broken sound and then his footsteps start up again, louder and more purposeful. He’s getting farther away. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he says quietly, voice barely there. “We have a flight.”
Changmin keeps his arm over his eyes for one long minute, counting down seconds in his head and waiting for his ears to stop ringing with the slam of the practice room door.
“Hyung, I,” he tells Yunho, scrambling after him as they make their way towards the press room. They’ve stuck up a billboard with their names on it, and Changmin spares a quick glance to the fact that they’re second, before his eyes flit back around the room. “Yunho-hyung. I—”
Yunho looks at him, but the thing is it isn’t like Yunho hasn’t looked at him all day or anything. He has, but not for more than a few seconds. Ten seconds. Yunho hasn’t looked at Changmin for more than ten seconds since they left for California. He’s been antsy since they landed in Anaheim.
It was fine when they were in and out of the hotel doing other things, but now that they’re together—now that they have to be together—Yunho’s silence is rather unsettling.
He hadn’t even bothered bantering with Changmin during hair and make-up, which had left Changmin sweating before the make-up-noonas painted over his pores. By the time they were done Changmin felt like he’d already performed twice.
It doesn’t help that their outfits are dark maroon, or that Yunho has two twin winged lapels sitting around his collarbones, which are out for the entire room to see because of the cut of the shirt. Changmin’s gotten very good at ignoring the elephant in the room, since he’s a professional and not abstinent by a long shot and perfectly able to handle the fact that by some twisted stroke of fate Yunho is supposedly perfect for him. But that color, and those collar bones—it’s unfair.
“Hyung,” Changmin says again, as they’re ushered towards the stage.
Yunho ignores him.
Changmin fights the urge to worry his lip with his teeth, mindful of the cameras, of their fellow artists, and of the way the entirety of Super Junior has been walking on eggshells around them.
“I was drunk,” he admits—lies—as they’re directed to file onto the stage. “I was talking out of my ass.”
Yunho finally looks at him long enough for Changmin to get antsy, but instead of looking relieved, or amused, or anything other than closed off, he just looks colder.
Changmin keeps his head high and walks towards his chair.
Later, when Yunho hands him the mic without even a sideways glance, Changmin swallows, but takes it and answers.
He darts glances at Yunho all through the rest of the conference, smiles when prompted, and keeps it together until they’re led off stage, where Changmin loses Yunho in the pre-show fuss. By the time they’re on stage together he doesn’t have time to think about it. Professionalism wins out; they get through the show; during “Hope,” when he has to stretch out that final note, Yunho puts his mic to his mouth and shouts for Changmin like he always does.
Changmin’s lungs feel full of air.
“Hyung,” he says quietly, after.
Yunho looks at him for a long moment. “I’m tired, Changdol-ah,” he says finally, draping an arm around Changmin’s shoulders and tugging him along towards their dressing room. “Let’s go home.”
Changmin feels something loosen right in the middle of his chest. “Hyung,” he says again, unable to keep the emotion quite out of his words. “We’ve got another concert tomorrow.”
Yunho tightens his grip on Changmin’s bicep. “Semantics,” he says. “Sleep.”
“Shower,” counters Changmin, which wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say, but he goes with it anyway, because he doesn’t want to ruin whatever this is—be it temporary peace, or an actual standstill. “Make-up.”
Yunho laughs, muted and subdued, and steers Changmin more firmly around the various staff members and artists. “Bed, Changdol-ah,” he says. “You’re not making any sense.”
Changmin just hums and pretends not to snuggle closer.
They don’t ever talk about it: Yunho never asks if Changmin was serious, and Changmin makes sure not to get excessively drunk in Yunho’s presence in case he really does shoot his mouth off about soulmates.
And then Changmin moves out, and the opportunities to get drunk in front of Yunho are even smaller.
Which is fine.
“You’re an idiot,” says Kyuhyun, seated across from Changmin in the middle of his brand new bachelor pad of an apartment chewing on a mouthful of chicken. “He’s your soulmate.”
“Pass me a wrap,” says Changmin, and ignores him.
Kyuhyun stares at him with visible disdain, but passes him the lettuce anyway. “Idiot,” he says quietly.
“I know,” says Changmin, and stuffs the entire thing into his mouth.
In early 2013, Yunho comes out of a meeting with blazing, ecstatic eyes, and stops directly in the middle of one of the SM hallways. “Changdol,” he says. “Changdol—a dome tour.”
He looks about two seconds from gripping Changmin by the hands or something, so Changmin does it for him, and then tugs the older man so that they’re not completely blocking the hallway. Cause you know. They don’t actually own the entirety of SM.
Yunho doesn’t even seem bothered, just swings their arms between them and bounces a little on his toes.
His skin looks. Different.
Almost pastel red, but that’s wrong, because Changmin once got drunk and made Hyukjae describe skin to him—particularly Yunho-hyung’s but not just Yunho-hyung like everyone—all Koreans—what does Korean skin tone look like, Hyukjae-hyung you’re the only specful person I know besides Donghae-hyung and Donghae-hyung can’t keep a secret to save his life—and Yunho isn’t pink. Which is what pastel red is.
Sort of.
And Changmin can’t see pink yet.
Yunho appears to have been saying something, so Changmin tunes briefly back in to catch the tail end of more dome tour gushing.
He blinks, and whatever weird trick of the light color thing that had been happening to him stops, because Yunho just looks black and white again.
“Changdol,” Yunho says again, harder this time, and Changmin gives himself a shake.
Yunho’s been doing that a lot lately, using the nickname.
Changmin doesn’t know what to do with that.
“Sorry, hyung, dome tour?” he says, on reflex. He’s been doing that a lot lately too, calling Yunho hyung and meaning it again.
It’s enough to appease Yunho, who continues to babble excitedly about the tour.
They’re still holding hands, but Changmin finds he doesn’t actually mind.
The spoon thing is hilarious. Like.
Hilarious.
Changmin knows he ought to be horrified or at least chagrined or something but there’s really something about the lengths his fans will go (or are they f(x)’s—he’s not really sure) in order to blow nothing into something that he just finds amusing.
Which is good, because last time fans had been rabid at him he’d checked himself in for some much needed and much loved therapy so that he could stop feeling like he was being followed everywhere.
Mostly Changmin just can’t believe the amount of press it’s getting.
The two of them get dragged into one of the most awkward meetings ever the next day, however, and that’s not fun at all.
Yunho comes, because of course he comes, and the rest of (fx) is dragged in as well, with bonus managers and handlers, all piled together around a desk in the middle of the SM building trying not to look too guilty or too amused or too anything as the netizen storm rages on the cellphones they’d left outside the door.
Changmin sits next to Yunho and stares down at his hands, ignoring the fact that Qian is wearing that lilac blouse he got her on a whim or how he’s wearing those periwinkle socks she got him last Christmas because Kyuhyun is an utter dick who can’t be trusted with alcohol and sudden announcements of “secret soulmate santa” or whatever that had turned into “secret Kyu-line santa” when they very quickly realized other people could hear them.
“Victoria-ssi,” says someone—one of TVXQ’s managers, if the stage name is anything to go by—and Changmin stops thinking on the past abruptly. “Is Changmin-ssi your soulmate?”
And Changmin hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t really thought about contracts or the law or how that was actually an out, a way to get around the “idols in certain groups with certain images shouldn’t go around dating other idols” rule, but he knows that Qian deleted the photo the moment it started blowing up.
It still hurts, however, when she responds, voice shaking only slightly, in a blatant lie. “No.”
Changmin startles, looks away from his hands for the first time since he’d been dragged in, and tries not to let it show on his face as lilac leeches out of the blouse Qian is wearing.
“Okay,” says someone else—this time one of f(x)’s managers, and suddenly everyone is in movement.
There are statements to be released, stories to straighten out, and Changmin feels, for the first time since Kyuhyun had sent him a link to the article, like he’s drowning.
The scarf Soojung is wearing is covered in tiny lilac flowers, barely there snatches of color that fade out of existence the longer Changmin doesn’t blink.
At his side, Yunho is silent, lips pursed, eyes carefully blank.
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at Changmin, but when they start talking about appearances and CF deals he perks right up, arms crossing, and shifts so that he can start to weigh in.
His leg presses up against Changmin’s, all the way from hip to ankle, perfectly casual like the product of overcrowding.
But it definitely isn’t, not by a long shot, and Changmin swallows hard, suddenly overcome.
He gets lilac back, of course, hours later at dinner with Qian and Kyuhyun and the entirety of f(x), who invited themselves along with great fuss and shrewd eyes and loud exclamations of how they’re just looking out for their Unnie and “Shim Changmin you utter heartbreaker” etc etc etc.
Qian makes them all beef soup and fried radishes, because of course she does, and Kyuhyun takes dramatic selfies with all the silverware, before making a show of closing the drawer and pulling out chopsticks.
“You have to admit it’s hilarious,” he says, coming back over to the table to hand them out, as Qian bustles after him brandishing a serving spoon as a weapon.
“Yah,” she says, and shakes it at him.
Kyuhyun fakes death, and then darts his eyes towards Changmin frantically. “Wait, not in front of your ex, Victoria-ssi, what will the world think?”
Changmin snorts, rolls his eyes, and puts his phone down.
He’d texted Yunho on his way out explaining where he was, and hadn’t seen fit to mention that f(x) or Kyuhyun were coming along, mostly because he hadn’t known at the time, but also because part of him had been curious to see if there’d be any sort of response.
There hadn’t been, beyond a cursory number change to let him know that Yunho’d seen the damn thing before going offline in some sort of weird huff.
He decides to put his phone in his pocket instead.
“—I think you’re just jealous, Kyuhyun,” Qian is in the middle of saying when Changmin glances back up again. She’s finished dishing them all food, settled herself into a chair between Sunyoung and Amber, and meets Changmin’s eyes shyly when he notices.
She’s still wearing the blouse.
Changmin looks away quickly.
“You’ve got me—I’m actually head over heels with Chwang myself,” says Kyuhyun, and slings an arm across Changmin’s shoulders, dragging him rather abruptly into the conversation.
The members of f(x) eye him warily, lips pursed, before Amber smirks. “I thought Yunho-oppa was Changmin-opppa’s other color,” she says, and Changmin is suddenly grateful for Kyuhyun’s arm because otherwise he thinks he wouldn’t be able to stay upright.
“You what?”
To his credit, Kyuhyun seems unfazed, and he even goes so far to subtly pat Changmin on the back a few times to help try to restart his heart. “You thought wrong,” he says, tone matter of fact. “I know I seem cool and aloof but deep down all I want is Changmin to love me enough to marry me and adopt babies with me.”
Changmin chokes a little bit more. “You what?” he repeats, voice hoarse and raspy.
“My mistake,” says Amber, also smirking, and gently pushes one of the glasses of water towards Changmin.
Changmin takes it gratefully, feeling more than a little lightheaded.
“No, don’t be,” continues Kyuhyun, bless him. “We were hiding it on purpose.”
“I am so fucking confused,” says Changmin, and downs the glass.
“Sorry,” Qian tells him, with a small smile. “I had to give them something. They were going to be impossible about it otherwise.”
Changmin blinks, feeling a little less lost, and swallows. “Right,” he says slowly.
“We only wanted what was best for Unnie,” Soojung says. “And you’re her soulmate.”
“One of my soulmates,” interrupts Qian, shooting Changmin an apologetic look.
Soojung waves her hand. “Whatever.”
“And I’m another one of his,” puts in Kyuhyun, before the silence can get awkward. He gives Changmin another little shake before releasing him. “Sorry you had to find out like this.”
“Yeah yeah,” says Qian, picking up her chopsticks. “Let’s eat.”
“Now that you mention that that really doesn’t make sense,” says Amber later, even as the rest of the group dissolves into eating and band talk, “Since I’m pretty sure you said Changmin had already found the one and no offense Cho, but you’re definitely not marriage material.”
“Who said anything about marriage,” Changmin hurries to say, before anyone else can latch onto that bit of semantics and start pulling at things they shouldn’t. “Was it you?” He points at Qian with one of his chopsticks. “Stop going around telling people I want to get married.”
Qian blinks, mouth open for a bite, and Kyuhyun swoops in to her rescue.
“Don’t worry I’ll marry you,” he says, dramatically, and Changmin gets the sense that he’s going to owe him like so many video games. “Given that you are, after all, my violet.”
There’s a small pause, before the entire dorm erupts into noise.
“Wait. What?” says Soojung, at the same time Amber starts laughing, and Changmin is going to owe Kyuhyun so many video games.
“Hang on, hang on,” says Sunyoung. “Was that why you guys gave each other presents last Christmas?” She pauses. “Is that why Minho-oppa called me at like five in the morning asking if Qian-unnie liked necklaces?!”
Scratch that.
Changmin owes Kyuhyun all the video games.
Qian catches him up in a hug on his way out, tells him, “Sorry—I panicked because they wouldn’t stop bothering me about why you didn’t want to even try dating me and I was afraid they were going to go bother you.”
Changmin hugs her back. “Your shirt’s a little lighter,” he tells her hair.
“So are your socks,” Qian tells his collar, voice sounding a little funny. And then, pulling back with a smile: “But we’re okay, right?”
Changmin doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yeah, of course,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s not like you faded away or anything you’re just. Different.”
Sadder, he doesn’t say.
Qian pauses for a moment, and then grins up at him, brilliant. “How much do you think manager-oppa will murder me if I start talking about spoons in every interview we do after this?” she says, and Changmin throws his head back and laughs.
Amber comes up behind the two of them before he can respond and grabs Qian by the hand. “You’re a horrible influence,” she tells Changmin, and then Kyuhyun, when his friend comes back from his bathroom run and picks up his shoes.
“Wah?” He’s got a plastic spoon between his teeth, eyes wide, and Changmin narrows his eyes.
“What the hell is that?” he says pointing, even as Kyuhyun pockets the spoon and turns a warm grin on Amber and Qian.
“Thanks for having us dinner was lovely please try not take spoon selfies of my soulmate where everyone can see them,” he says, in one mouthful of a sentence, and grabs Changmin by the arm and hauls him out into the hall.
Changmin blinks.
“You owe me,” Kyuhyun says, and then reaches into Changmin’s jeans pocket and pulls out his phone.
“Hey!” Changmin protests, reaching after it. “Kyu—”
“Trade.” Kyuhyun tosses him the plastic spoon without looking back. “Unless you want me to do some dramatic poses with it next time we’re at the airport together—”
Changmin shoves the thing in his pocket and goes striding past him, face hot. “I hate you.”
“You owe me,” Kyuhyun corrects, but let’s Changmin have the window seat in the car anyway. “You wanna crash at mine?”
Changmin does, but he knows better. “No we’ve got a flight in a few days for King’s Brunch and who knows when I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed again,” he explains, and takes his phone back from Kyuhyun quietly. “Sorry.”
His friend shrugs, entirely unconcerned, and leaves Changmin to his thoughts the entire ride to Changmin’s apartment.
“So Qiannie,” says Yunho, in the car on the way to Gimpo. He’s already put his sunglasses on, and his expression is emotionless.
Changmin feels a little bit like a dick, but he puts his on preemptively anyway. To protect his eyes from the cameras, he decides, and not from the Jung Yunho.
“What about her?”
Yunho doesn’t say anything for a long while.
“You didn’t say anything about it.”
Changmin swallows, throat dry. “No,” he says. “I mean. She wasn’t my first, so.” He shrugs. He doesn’t really care about that—not really, but Yunho seems like he does. Given how he goes on about it in interviews and all.
“Oh,” says Yunho, and his voice is suddenly very small.
Changmin feels lost, like he’s misstepped off a mountain with no idea how and why. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for telling me,” says Yunho, still sounding off, and gets out of the car.
Changmin follows him, still feeling lost.
The show goes fine, though, and he even convinces Yunho to eat most of the spicy dish the host gives them, and gets away with buying way too many legos. By the time they’re done, Changmin feels considerably less on edge and considerably much more comfortable.
And he’s got so many legos.
When it finally happens, Changmin isn’t expecting it at all. Somewhere between the start of their dome tour and the end of their Catch Me Tour, Changmin wakes up one morning to find that he doesn’t mind that Yunho squeezes the toothpaste from the middle or leaves his shoes in odd places.
He ends up standing in the middle of their Japan bathroom holding a tube of toothpaste in one hand and a shoe in the other, mulling that over.
He’s still mulling that over when Yunho bursts into their bathroom wearing running clothes and running shoes and out of breath.
His hair is still bright fucking red—because either the universe hates him and Yunho’s forgotten about Changmin’s not confession, or Yunho hates him and this is payback for all the times Changmin spent sniffing him on stage for their Bibari and Rui gag—and Changmin gets a little lost on that before he manages to reboot his brain.
“Changmin!” Yunho says shrilly, reaching out to grab Changmin by the biceps and haul him in close. “Changmin the sun is yellow!”
Changmin just keeps staring at the toothpaste, until Yunho shakes him again, and then his head snaps up so that he can snap at him as usual. And then everything stops because the sweatband Yunho has on keeping his bangs off his head is a bright, ungodly neon yellow, and Changmin can see it in all its flashing, colored glory.
He drops the shoe.
“The sun!” shouts Yunho, shaking Changmin again. “It’s yellow!”
Changmin wants to point out that most of the science world agrees that the sun is actually green, but he’s too busy glancing between Yunho’s sweatband and the wallpaper of his bedroom, which now that he thinks about it, is one of the most appalling shades of yellow he has ever seen. He tries to remember which one of them had decided to buy the place in the first place, comes up with probably one of their manager-hyungs plus Yunho himself, and drops the toothpaste on Yunho’s foot to make a point.
Of course seeing as Yunho is still wearing shoes, this does nothing, beside make Changmin’s head start to ache.
“What the fuck,” he says slowly, reaching up to press at his own temples, “is on my fucking wall?”
Yunho doesn’t let go him when he goes to look, but he swings the both of them around anyway so Changmin is left dizzy and with a headache. “Oh wow that’s quite a yellow,” says Yunho, and then he pauses.
Changmin brings his other hand up to help massage at his forehead. “This is all your fault—” he starts to say, before Yunho swings them both around one more time so that he can stare hard into Changmin’s eyes.
“Wait,” he says slowly. “Changmin-ah. Can you see yellow?”
And Changmin opens his mouth to snap, yes, because obviously he can, but then all the implications of that sink in, and he closes his mouth and sways on his feet and is so very thankful for the fact that Yunho has him by the biceps. “I, um,” he says slowly. “Yeah.” And then, because he feels a little faint. “Yunho?”
Yunho tilts his head at him.
“I think I need to lie down.”
It takes Changmin a few more minutes to work up the courage to speak once Yunho maneuvers them both back towards Changmin’s bed and lays down next to Changmin with hands behind his head.
He keeps staring at his ceiling, which is also that appalling yellow, and then glances at Yunho’s hair, which has hints of yellow sunlight running through it, and then he gets lost in Yunho’s lips, which are turning more and more red as the older man worries at them with his teeth.
“Hyung?” Changmin manages after a long moment.
Yunho makes a non-committal noise and keeps biting at his lip.
“I, um.” Changmin swallows heavily, wondering how quickly the news would spread if he showed up at the Suju dorm in order to whine to Kyuhyun and Heechul-hyung about this. “You’remyredhyung,” Changmin says finally, in one great rush. “And I would say I’m sorry that I never told you but I’m pretty sure you knew the moment I did so actually you’re the one who should be saying sorry.” His words slur together and the banmal seems awkward for the first time in ages, but Changmin’s heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of his chest, so he just closes his mouth and waits.
Yunho doesn’t say anything, but he also looks a little crosseyed, and Changmin lets out a long breath.
“I mean I am sorry I sort of told you and then pretended to be drunk so we would never talk about it,” he says, and it’s possible he’s still rambling but Yunho’s gone silent and at least someone should try to dispel the tension. “But you’re the one who was going on about my socks all those years ago.” He pauses. “Years. Years, hyung, you’ve known for years and never said anything and you are an utter asshole why the fuck am I even apologizing?”
Yunho is staring at him with his mouth slightly open now, but his cheeks have gone all rosy and Changmin’s throat is suddenly dry.
Which is good, because he seems to be unable to stop talking.
“I’m,” says Yunho slowly, “sorry?’
“Like you mean it,” Changmin replies instantly, and then winces. “Hyung—”
And Yunho leans forwards and kisses him, a barely there press of lips that stops Changmin’s whirl of thoughts better than any calm ever could. “Changmin.”
Changmin blinks. “Yunho,” he tries.
Yunho’s lips twitch despite himself. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you for years and years and was, to quote my soulmate, an utter asshole. Now can I kiss you?”
And . . . Changmin had meant to argue the point, he thinks, or at least, try to follow up with some pretty pressing questions but he also . . . really wouldn’t be opposed.
He’s nodding before he can help himself, and somehow he ends up sprawled all the way on top of Yunho, which absolutely wasn’t his doing, if the tiny twinkle he can see in Yunho’s too brown eyes means anything. But he’s not doing anything, just staring at Changmin, which is doing nothing to help with the whole rambling thing.
“Well?” says Changmin, finally, starting to feel antsy.
Yunho glances between Changmin and the ceiling and then back at Changmin. “You’re my fucking blue, Changdol-ah,” he says around one long exhale, before his arms are moving and his hands are grasping, and Changmin brings his mouth down to those red, red lips and steals a first kiss.
It’s different than Changmin was expecting it to be. For one, it’s nothing like the movies. In dramas, people gain colors within seconds of that first kiss; by contrast, Changmin doesn’t find himself any less colorblind. Of course he’s a bit distracted by Yunho’s tongue and Yunho’s mouth and the utterly sinful way the older man arches under him and groans.
Changmin’s kissed plenty of people in his young adult life, but none of that compares to this. This feels right in ways that he hadn’t dared to dream of, drunk and alone and worried that he was never going to find another color.
“Changdol-ah,” says Yunho, leaning back against the pillows and staring at Changmin with lidded eyes. “You’re thinking too hard.”
Changmin narrows his eyes down at him and settles his full weight across Yunho more solidly, smirking a little when the older man lets out an “oof” of breath. He raises his eyebrows.
“You’re wearing too many clothes?” Yunho tries again, and Changmin opens his mouth to squawk at him in protest, well aware of the fact that his ears are flaming, but before he can Yunho is rolling them to the side.
Changmin ends up more than a little breathless and more than a little aroused, eyes wide and blinking and mouth hanging open.
Yunho is staring down at him with so much emotion in his eyes that Changmin’s ears start to hurt.
“Hyung,” he says.
Yunho narrows his eyes at him. “So the stylists-noonas said that my hair was red,” he starts to say, and Changmin knows where he’s going with this instantly and any sense of romance and arousal is instantly replaced by stone cold self perseveration.
“Hyung,” he says again, shuffling around on the bed in a quest to get free. “Hyung.”
Yunho just sits himself down across Changmin’s hips with a knowing smirk dancing around his features. “Changmin-ah,” he replies.
“Hyung,” Changmin tries, squirming around a little bit more and then dropping back against the bed with a put upon sigh. His actions have brought his cock right up against Yunho’s ass, which really isn’t helping. Although at the very least Yunho looks just as affected as Changmin is, what with the way his lashes keep fluttering against his cheekbones.
Yunho reaches out with one hand and grabs hold of Changmin’s left ear.
Changmin’s mouth snaps shut.
He’s. He’s definitely blushing now, to the point where Changmin worries that his ears are going to actually come off. What would TVXQ do then, when half of them ends up missing one of his defining features? It would be the end of the band as they know it, and they haven’t even finished their damn tour. Their damn tour that culminates in Nissan Stadium two nights in a row. Changmin absolutely refuses to miss out on that—he’ll get prosthetic ears.
He might have said that outloud, because while Yunho is still holding onto Changmin’s left ear, he’s also staring at him with a vague look of horror on his face. “What?”
“Sorry—you were saying?” Changmin says, voice coming out strangled and high pitched and oh, fuck, there goes the other ear—
Yunho slides both of his index fingers around the shells of both of Changmin’s ears and Changmin’s entire face is on fire what the fuck is he supposed to do now he can’t get a prosthetic face.
“Changmin-ah!” Yunho says, and his voice is shrill and high pitched this time.
“Sorry!” Changmin squeaks. “Please stop doing that I think you’re breaking me.”
Yunho lets go of both of his ears like he’s been burned, and part of Changmin thinks that’s hilarious. The rest of him is more than a little worried because that’s done nothing to help with the whole flames up and down the sides of his face.
“Hyung,” he says, more than a little miserably, and Yunho leans in to kiss him before he can say more. Which is just lovely—ten years with someone can do wonders for your silent communication—and effectively distracts Changmin from the horror that was that entire train of thought.
“What I was trying to say is that I can’t wait to see you blush for real this time,” says Yunho in one great gush, which effectively brings everything roaring back to the surface.
Changmin makes a disgusted noise and rolls himself over this time, shoving his head under the pillow and bemoaning his life. “I hate you,” he tells the mattress.
Yunho snorts and pets a hand up and down Changmin’s spine, fingers creeping along the fabric of Changmin’s t-shirt until he ends up rucking the whole thing up between Changmin’s shoulder-blades.
And now Changmin’s entire body is covered in goosebumps. “It’s unfair that people don’t turn blue when they’re cold,” Changmin says into the mattress, more than a little petulantly.
“Yes, but Changdol, I can’t see when you blush,” points out Yunho, and Changmin would reply, but his voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere worryingly close to Changmin’s lower back.
Several seconds later, when Yunho presses a series of tiny kisses along the small of Changmin’s back, Changmin nearly bites through the mattress. He shoves the pillow away from his face and rolls back over, well aware of the fact that he probably looks about as calm as he feels, and shoves his laughing hyung down onto the bed and just. Sits on him.
Yunho keeps laughing at him for several moments, eyes crinkling up and shoulders shaking and teeth biting into the bottom of his lip until it’s red red red. When he finally stops, his cheeks are very faintly darker. Changmin sucks in a deep breath and stares until his eyes hurt.
“Changmin-ah?” Yunho says hesitantly.
“I take it all back,” says Changmin, leaning in close to kiss one of his cheeks. “I totally understand it.”
“What—”
Changmin kisses the other cheek. “I mean, I’m not sure if it’d be that fun if you were doing it in black and white but—”
Realization creeps into Yunho’s eyes about the same time the flush spreads down his neck and across his collar bones, and Changmin decides that the running shirt has to go. “Changdol,” says Yunho.
“Yunho-yah,” says Changmin.
And then they’re kissing again.
They don’t gain any colors for the rest of that night, but Changmin doesn’t really care, not when Yunho’s lips are stained red and swollen and it’s all Changmin’s fault.
“When did you know?” says Yunho, once they’ve gotten their breath back and are lying sprawled across their bed staring at the ceiling. He’s nestled into the crook of Changmin’s neck and using most of Changmin as a pillow with one hand tracing kanji against Changmin’s belly button. Changmin tries not to laugh too hard, muscles jumping under the attention.
“First day we met,” he says promptly. “When you told me—”
“If you’re going to quit, you should just do it now,” Yunho interrupts, and he brings up a hand to twist one of Changmin’s nipples. He half-asses it just enough that Changmin has to stifle a groan, bites into his own lip and has to work to remind his cock that they literally just got off. “I know, Changdol-ah, you’re never going to let me forget it.”
“Yeah, well,” says Changmin. “It fucked me up. I thought it was one-sided.”
Yunho opens his mouth and then closes it. “Oh God,” he says quietly. “I never—” He swallows. “I never thought about that.” He pauses. “Can that even happen?”
He sounds so honestly horrified that Changmin can’t help but giggle, more than a little giddy on instant relief. Cause he’d stopped thinking about that months into their comeback, and certainly by Catch Me he was well over the insecurity, but there was always that nagging thought that maybe it was one-sided—that maybe Yunho wasn’t some repressed idiot and instead Changmin was broken. “No,” he tells Yunho, lying, before his hyung can worry some more. “I mean. That didn’t stop me from thinking about it—”
“Even after Jae—”
“We had to deal with a lot in 2010, Hyung,” Changmin interrupts quickly. “I didn’t have time to think about it.”
For a moment Changmin thinks Yunho is going to push it, but than the older man sighs, and cuddles more solidly into the v of Changmin’s thighs.
Which.
Changmin isn’t entirely opposed to that train of events.
“Yah,” Yunho says, with almost a sixth sense, and pinches Changmin’s nipple again.
Only, this time he definitely drags it out, complete with a sinful smirk and a quiet kiss pressed to Changmin’s heart.
There’s a beat.
Chest. Changmin’s chest. Changmin’s fucking chest—what is he thinking.
“Oh God,” Changmin says, and he’s not even that religious. Or Christian.
“Indeed,” agrees Yunho, and then, the asshole, slides down to kiss other parts of Changmin.
Parts of Changmin that definitely are not his heart.
“You’re so good at that,” says Changmin like an utter cliché.
Yunho pulls off with a loud pop. “Don’t worry, Changdol,” he says. “I’ll teach you.”
And Changmin doesn’t murder him, but that’s only because he’s pretty sure the man is it for him, Qian and Kyuhyun and whoever else he might happen upon be damned.
And also Jung Yunho, renowned performer, phenomenal dancer, and one hell of a friend, is really, really, really, fucking good at giving blow jobs.
“I’m not your first, am I,” asks Changmin, much later, curled up in Yunho’s bed after their show in Fukuoka.
For a moment, he think Yunho’s actually fallen asleep, since it feels like ages before he responds, and his breaths are coming in long and deep underneath Changmin’s cheek.
“No,” Yunho says. He sounds half-asleep anyway.
Changmin stiffens before he can help himself. “Oh,” he whispers. “I mean. Cool.” He forces himself to relax, goes through one of the pre-show breathing exercises until his muscles are loose and sleep ready again.
Yunho sets a hand in his hair and lets him. “It’s Hojoonnie,” he continues. “He was my first.”
There’s a beat.
“I haven’t met anyone else.”
Changmin lets out a breath. “Huh,” he says. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”
Yunho’s hand stills in his hair, and he hurries on.
“I mean that it’s Hojoon-hyung not that you haven’t met anyone else.” He licks his lips, and debates asking what color Hojoon is, and then thinks better of it. “You’re my first,” he says instead.
Yunho’s fingers, which had gone back to stroking, go tight again. “What?” he says, and his voice is so quiet Changmin almost can’t hear him. “Changdol.” He sounds broken, and Changmin is so confused.
“Yeah?” he says. “But it’s not a big deal or anything, like. My parents weren’t each other’s firsts, and I’m pretty sure half the people Teukie-hyung’s dated haven’t been his first so . . .” He trails off, only half embarrassed. “You’re mad.”
Yunho shifts around so that they’re eye to eye and nose to nose. “No—I.” He swallows. “I just. Didn’t think I was your first.”
He says it all reverent, like he really believes that the first color you meet really is the one you spend the rest of your life with no questions or other colors asked, and Changmin doesn’t roll his eyes but wants to.
“I was sixteen, hyung,” he explains, trying to be patient. “Of course you were my first.”
Yunho looks shattered, eyes wide, and Changmin gives in and does roll his eyes.
“Ugh, Yunho-hyung, you’re being weird,” he says, and gets up. “I’m going back to my room.”
Yunho’s hand shoots out and grabs him by the wrist like a vice, which according to the dramas is supposed to be romantic but really just feels like being grabbed by a vice. Which isn’t romantic at all why the fuck is Changmin’s heart pounding.
Yunho softens his grip instantly, thumb rubbing circles on Changmin’s pulse point, and Changmin thinks, oh yeah, that’s why.
“Hyung,” he manages.
Yunho lets go of him slowly, carefully, like he still thinks Changmin’s going to run.
Changmin reaches over and turns on the lamp.
“Sorry,” Yunho says, voice still hushed.
It’s awkward, now that the light’s on.
Changmin sits back down on the bed. He isn’t wearing anything—neither of them are wearing anything on the bottom but at least Yunho has a shirt on—and his skin feels cold, all of a sudden. He shivers.
Yunho notices and tosses him the first t-shirt he can find in reach of the bed.
Changmin pulls it on silently before he realizes it’s Yunho’s, and then he’s shivering for a whole other reason. The neck is a little wide, the fabric is worn soft, and it smells like Yunho in the exact same way his sheets do, only stronger, since t-shirts go everywhere and Yunho only sleeps here when they’re in Japan.
“I met Kyuhyun second,” Changmin says finally, meeting Yunho’s eyes full on. “And then I made Qian after we’d debuted.” He pauses, thinking. “That one wasn’t that instant like. It took a bit.”
Yunho blinks at him, eyes careful, and mouth slanted.
“I don’t think it really solidified until we were a duo,” Changmin continues, unperturbed. He shrugs. “We tried.”
Yunho opens his mouth, and closes it.
“It didn’t really work out,” Changmin finishes. He waits. “Also Kyu and I are like family.” He lets that sit for a second. “Your turn.”
Yunho’s brows furrow. “Oh, um,” he says. “I guess. I met Hojoonie before you auditioned?” he says, and it sounds like a question. “When I was rapping for Dana-noona and he was new to the industry and everything.” He shrugs. “We never really tried or anything it just didn’t feel right.” He pauses. “He didn’t think it felt right,” he amends, and looks away.
Changmin watches him, watches how his eyes dart around the room and how he won’t meet Changmin’s eyes.
“I didn’t handle that very well,” Yunho says finally, looking back. “And then I met you.”
Changmin feels his mouth open in a small “o.”
“Yeah,” says Yunho. “Oh.”
Changmin thinks that makes sense, actually. “That makes a lot of sense, actually,” he says out loud, because it does.
And then he flops back down on the bed next to Yunho, bouncing slightly because the older man’s mattress is far superior to anything Changmin’s ever splurged on.
After a moment, Yunho follows suit, lying back on the bed and glancing at Changmin out of the corner of his eye. “I was a dick to you,” he says, parroting Changmin’s word from before back to him, but sounding more like he means it this time, and less like a precursor to getting off. “An utter asshole.”
Changmin snorts, and turns to face him. “I’ll say,” he says. “You’d think you’d never met a soulmate before or something. Acting like nothing had changed. Telling me to quit. Being nice to everyone but me.”
Yunho colors slightly, but manages to still look dignified when he speaks. “I’m sorry that my parents were each other’s firsts and that I grew up actually believing people when they told me I wasn’t supposed to go searching for other colors if I’d already found one.”
Changmin kisses him, because he’s got his nose in the air, and he’s adorable. “Mmm.”
Yunho’s eyes close like he can’t help himself. He opens them, cheeks a little red—basically pink.
Changmin loves pink. Not as much as red, but close. He smiles. “Apology accepted.”
Yunho smiles back. “Thank you, Changdol.”
Changmin knows he’s the one blushing now, so he sits up quickly and goes for the lamp, because if he gets the lights off quick enough Yunho won’t be able to see.
He doesn’t get very far.
“Changdol,” Yunho says, voice gone funny. “Changdol your ears are blushing.”
Changmin stares back at him, mouth quirking despite himself. “Yes?” he says. “They do that. We’ve established this. All our fans notice?”
Yunho reaches out and touches the shell of his ear. “No,” he says. “You’re blushing.” His fingers slide down to Changmin’s lips. “Your mouth is so red.”
For a second Changmin get’s lost in that touch, goes a little cross eyed, feels sort of lightheaded, and almost misses what Yunho’s saying—what Yunho’s really actually saying.
“Hyung,” he says, in that same tone. “How many colors are you with me?”
Yunho kisses him, leans straight in and kisses him, which isn’t an answer, but Changmin doesn’t even care.
They end up tangled together, still kissing, fingers in each other’s hair and one of Changmin’s legs pressed between Yunho’s as they kiss and kiss and kiss.
“All of them,” Yunho lies, straight to Changmin’s face, and then follows it up with more kisses, along Changmin’s jawline and collarbones and finally, blessedly, close enough to his nipple that it probably won’t show if Changmin doesn’t stirp off his shirt too much the next concert.
“I—nghhh—I actually—” Changmin tries to say, head tossing against the pillow and one hand coming up to cradle Yunho’s head. “—I wanted an answer.”
“Two,” says Yunho, into Changmin’s nipple, but Changmin only half hears and half understands and he’s definitely taking Yunho up on those blowjob lessons because joke or not Changmin needs to get even one day.
Some day.
Eventually.
He didn’t really need an answer anyway.
In July 2015, Changmin wakes up one morning, stares at the ceiling of his hotel room, and realizes that he can see nearly every color in the room. When he pulls up that handy chart thing Heechul-hyung had given him and Yunho for their latest anniversary to glance at, the empty space tells him that the only thing he’s missing is some obscure shade of purple.
So he calls his parents, calls his manager, texts Kyuline, and manages to get hold of an online color wheel for the purple spectrum to text to Yunho.
Before he can close out of the app, he gets one lone question mark in response, and then, after two terrifying seconds, several frantic exclamation points and one awful—wonderful—heart emoji. He still hasn’t closed the app which means Yunho knows he’s seen it, but Changmin just gets up and ignores the butterflies in his stomach in favor of selecting an outfit for his flight back into Korea.
When the announcement comes out a few hours later and a good portion of internet dissolves into tears Changmin holes himself up in his room alone with his non-work phone to wait for Yunho’s call.
“Now you can’t die,” he says as soon as he picks up the phone, “Because I’ll expect you to be there when I get out.”
“Changdol,” says Yunho, but he doesn’t finish, throat catching, and Changmin doesn’t have to pull the chart back up to know that there aren’t any blank spaces anymore.
“Two years, hyung,” he says. “And I’m expecting a vacation.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” says Yunho, and he is, Changmin realizes, maybe crying.
So come on come on come on let me hug you . . .
. . . na na na time works wonders.