Archive of Our Own

“No one's ever gonna give you a trophy

For all the pain and the things you've been through

No one knows but you.”

-  Mirror Forever, Weyes Blood

“I gave too much of my heart tonight

Can you come to where I'm staying

And make some extra love?

That I can save til tomorrow's show.”

-   Remember My Name, Mitski

“I'm tired of wanting more

I think I'm finally worn.”

-   A Burning Hill, Mitski

Jaemin shifts in his seat uncomfortably.

Even after all these years he’s not yet used to the cold, the freezing gust of wind, which streams from the skating rink beneath him. It bites the shells of his ears, the tips of his fingers, the bridge of his nose. Turns them blood red.

His vision is blurred out from the tears gathered at his lower eyelids. When he blinks them away the whole arena is suddenly clad in darkness. The only space lit by hot, streaming light is the very centre of the ice where two bodies lay on top of one another. Jaemin wills his own body to cooperate, the previous sense of all-consuming apathy bleeding into mild interest when the music starts playing. He’s been surrounded by talent, unbound and destructive, his entire life. Athleticism far beyond his imagination, creativity bordering on madness. Nothing should surprise him anymore and yet all it takes is two bodies, rising from the dead on beat with the music, for his eyes to brighten up, for his hands to tremble in excitement.

The pair glides along the ice and it’s a pitiful sight. They stumble and they fall and they laugh like it’s all a game, like they’re unafraid of the score deduction, of the judgmental stares, of the guilt. It’s contagious. Jaemin almost wants to unplug the audio system just so he can hear the magnitude of their laughter, the sound of it so cheerful and full and loud, echoing like church bells inside a place most sacred. 

Jaemin hasn’t stepped foot in a church for years. At that moment it feels like he’ll never find a place holier.

The routine ends much like the way it had started. A body on the ice, another one on top of it, two frail arms wrapped around a waist. The blue dominating the pair’s costumes has them merging with the cold ice.

When they get up to greet the mixed shouting of the crowd, the screen pans on their sweaty faces. Some of the makeup has washed off but Jaemin can still see the electric blue tracing the gentle slope of their flushed cheeks, the beads and jewels glued everywhere. They’re crying. Tears as a statement of their confidence and mental fortitude in place of misery and regret.

“Jaemin.” a hushed voice, spoken almost directly into his red ear makes Jaemin blink. He’d had his eyes wide open the entire time.

“Jaemin.” a warm hand rests on top of his. He turns to his left and stares at Jeno blankly for a few seconds. She’s been sitting right next to him this entire time and yet her presence startles him. The realization that he’s not as far removed from the scenery as he likes to believe he is always most shocking.

“Who are they?” he asks, dazed. His own voice sounds weird, coming from somewhere far away, a different galaxy entirely. Light years finally aligning.

“I told you already.” Jaemin’s expression remains puzzled. “They’re the reason I dragged you here. A new addition to our team. God, Jaemin, you need to start paying more attention to me. It’s like I’m speaking to a brick wall.”

“Sorry,” mumbles Jaemin sheepishly, eyes already trained back onto the rink. It’s empty. And so is the kiss-and-cry. He’d missed the score announcement. “I like listening to you talk, you know that. It’s just that — your voice — it’s too distracting. I get lost between the words and can’t quite recall what you were talking about sometimes.” 

There’s a small smile on Jaemin’s face. Jeno can’t tell whom it’s directed at.

“You’re an abominable person, Na Jaemin.” she sighs, throwing her woolen scarf over Jaemin’s trembling shoulders. He finally turns back around and looks at her with those eyes. 

“I am. But you love me still.” there is no mean streak when he drops these kinds of sentiments, not really. Na Jaemin is rational, his strength lies in his ability to observe and adapt so his words, more often than not, are a mere reflection of their admittedly dull reality. There is nothing concealed, no disguised intentions, no underlying meanings or annoyingly complicated riddles. Language is but an instrument, not a weapon. It holds no power over him.

“I do.” Jeno confirms eventually, her eyes taking in the sight of Jaemin’s flushed cheeks. It’s the only place the cold doesn’t leave it’s mean bite onto. Today’s a different story, she guesses. “And you love me just as much, if not more.”

“That I do, yeah.”

The seats around them are all empty but they refuse to move an inch. Jaemin allows his muscles to relax, he let’s Jeno see the corners of his lips twitching. It’s nothing like the smiles photographed on the cover pages of expensive magazines or the ones taken without his permission and posted all over the Internet. No, this is Jaemin reborn.

Jeno wipes away his tears on the way home.

Jaemin collapses onto the bench with a heavy thud.

He lets his head hang far back, the blood circulating directly into it, making him dizzier than all six hours of practice combined. His eyelids fall shut without his permission and suddenly all he can see is black.

His body aches all over, the cold gusts of wind licking over wounds old and new, drawing fresh blood from them. The bruises on his knees and elbows, the swelling of his ankles and the slight bumps on his lower back — they never heal, they never shrink in size and the ugly colour never fades either. Once upon a time when Jaemin still treated his body like a well-loved temple he’d tend to them daily. He’d rub expensive oils and unguent into them, cover them up with layers upon layers of foundation, all in the name of looking smooth and perfect and pristine on tape. Now he let’s them breathe in the open, observes them with mild indifference as they grow darker and bigger, as they spread from one limb to another until his bare skin is no longer visible.

Somewhere along the way he’d grown numb to the pain entirely. As long as he can stand tall and proud on the podium, bright light shielding his sight from the hysterical faces in the crowd. As long as he can get his grimy little hands on the shiny trophies —  it does not matter. Pain is but a means through which he can succeed, a necessary sacrifice. Blood worth spilling and walking all over. One day when his legs give out under the immense weight of his human body he’ll have no choice but to lay on top of the mess, roll in it like mud. There’s nothing he fears more than dying on the sidewalk like a bird someone accidentally ran over with their car, there’s nothing he welcomes more.

The door to the locker room slams open with a loud bang.

It should be enough to jostle Jaemin out of his delirious state but all it does is make the walls around shake like fall leaves. Someone grabs his face and forces him to look up.

Jeno’s hands are gentle. They always touch with such care but now her grip is vice-like, inescapable, her expression hard, impenetrable.

“You’re insane.” she spits in Jaemin’s face but he can feel her body shaking. “You’re fucking insane, do you hear me?”

Jaemin stares at her shortly before he looks away. Jeno doesn’t give him the satisfaction of running away, gripping his face tighter until he gets the hint and traces his eyes back to hers.

“What were you thinking back there, huh? Do you want to break your fucking back so you can no longer compete?” Jeno’s voice is but a whisper laced with so much venom, so much anger, it cuts right through Jaemin’s murky consciousness, forcibly yanking him back into reality.

“The Olympics are in three weeks time, Jen. I don’t have time to fuck around.”

“So what, you decided the best way to go about it is by fucking up your back even further? Jaemin, your coach barely agreed to let you compete as it is. Is that how you repay her? By proving to her that you are indeed as stupidly reckless and self-destructive as she feared?”

Jaemin thinks back. He thinks way back to when he first stepped foot on the cold ice. It had welcomed him like a son, helped him find his place in the world and then one day it had suddenly stopped existing in his favour. Jaemin had lived vicariously through his fans and family’s hopes and dreams for him and his career. He had dug himself a hole. And then Jeno had taken him to that stupid Gala Exhibition four years ago. 

Zhong Chenle and her stupidly pretty blue tears and platinum blonde hair and her dorky, scrawny tree of a partner Park Jisung. That single performance, that off chance at getting to know her had brought him more joy, more inspiration to propel himself forward and reach for a bigger stage, a bigger dream than the many years he’d spend dragging himself to practice only to call it quits half-way through and watch the disapproving scowl on his couch’s and teammates faces.

In retrospect it was stupid. Thinking that all that apathy to the sport, all those years of carefully concealed disgust and distrust with reporters, paparazzi and stalkers could be undone by a single person. Still, Jaemin had ridden the wave of short-lived happiness and now he was crashing hard and fast, straight into the dense surface of the ice.

“Jaemin, say something.” Jeno’s voice sounds tired as she lets go of his face. She’d come straight from her own practice session to check up on Jaemin only to see him seconds before he’d come crashing head first into the railing. He’d been wearing his helmet, which had lessened the blow but Jeno was no fool. She could tell that the collision was only half an accident.

“I’m sorry.”

“No. No, you’re not. Jaemin don’t you get it?” her voice grows in pitch but the sharp edge from earlier has dulled down significantly. It’s starting to turn mellow.

“There is no pride in destroying your own body. None, do you hear me?”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” 

The two words are strong and sturdy just like Jeno herself. They’re also kind. Even when she’s angry, rightfully so, she finds a way to tame it for the other person’s sake. Jaemin could do with some sense being talked into him but she knows that yelling won’t help her get through to him. His ears have long gotten accustomed to the deafening shouts of the press, of the rowdy audience, of his coach. He’d learned how to tune it out so he wouldn’t go insane.

In that sense, Jeno guesses, the only thing he’s not used to is getting handled with care. So she does that. She does that and expects nothing in return and it eats Jaemin alive because he loves her so badly. Jeno’s one of the few people who have stayed. She’s the one who never got away, who never wanted to get away.

“Jaemin,” it takes him a while to recognize his own name. It’s spoken with so much tenderness that it feels foreign to his ears. His name always sounds so thunderous, so powerful, so impersonal. On the tip of her tongue, however, it’s just that. A name. One that belongs not to Jaemin, world class speed skater and ambassador for numerous brands and questionable business organizations, but Jaemin the person, the man behind the bruises and the cuts, and the trophies and the medals.

“Jaemin, I think you should take a break from practicing for a while.”

He nods curtly. Jeno helps him out of his gear, hands warm against his freezing skin. It’s an act of love. She covers the bruised limbs up not because she detests the sight of them but because she wants them to heal, she wants Jaemin to heal and the first step towards that is for him to learn how to take care of himself again.

“Thing one and thing two have a private practice session tomorrow evening.” she tells him as a parting gift, the corner of her lips curving into a sly smile. By the time Jaemin gathers his things Jeno’s already disappeared from the locker room.

Jaemin pours himself a flute of champagne and downs it in one go.

He wipes away the sweat gathered at his brow as discreetly as possible, which is a task, considering the amount of people gathered in the hall who are eyeing him in what they probably consider to be a discreet manner. Jaemin begs to differ. He’s used to the stares by now, however, so he pays them no mind. Instead he scans the room for familiar faces. 

The ceiling in the banquet hall is tall and there is enough room for everyone to sit comfortably in their designated places, but the lack of windows makes it extremely humid. Jaemin’s unsure if he’s just imagining it, seeing as everyone else seems to be doing just fine, but he feels his entire body burning. It’s like small flames dancing over his skin, spreading all over until he inevitably melts like a votive candle.

He gets rid of the suit jacket Jeno had forced him to wear and not for the first time this evening he regrets his life choices. There is a reason why he avoids social gatherings of such nature like the plague, but Jeno is a menace when she wants something and Jaemin is weak for her. She’s also the only person in the world who has dirt on him so he prefers remaining in her good graces.

The point of this banquet is for athletes, figure skaters specifically, to get acquainted with one another, an off chance to strike a conversation with someone who lives halfway across the globe, get moderately wasted, sometimes even laid. Jaemin is no a prude. While the main purpose of the event is innocent in its nature, it’d be stupid to believe that people who have been deprived of a social identity over the course of their career wouldn’t grab the opportunity to bed the first stranger they can get their hands on. Courtesy to Jeno’s big mouth he knows all about it even though it is his first time attending such an event in person.

He’s not necessarily a fan of the crowd and the fact that he’s sticking out like a sore thumb doesn’t make it any easier to let himself enjoy the night, but Jeno’s joyous expression is enough to have him stay. Instead of making any snarky remarks he lets her have her fun and sticks around while she laughs with the others on the table they’re seated at. 

Jaemin’s about to excuse himself and use the commotion to slither out of the room for some fresh air when something catches at the corner of his eye. Something obnoxiously shiny and blue. Jaemin curses quietly.

“You’re a vile creature, Lee Jeno.” hisses Jaemin straight into Jeno’s ear. She gives him a pointed look but Jaemin refuses to apologize for interrupting her conversation. Jeno follows his stare to the other end of the hall, a sly smile overtaking her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she feigns innocence but the sweet tone completely fails to overwrite the wicked look on her face.

“I cannot believe you dragged me here just so you could see me suffer.”

“Don’t humble yourself, Na Jaemin." she scoffs. " I am here to have fun, maybe steal a kiss or two from a pretty girl. Your suffering is nothing more than minor entertainment I can indulge in when there’s nothing interesting to ogle at.”

Jaemin can’t help but crack a smile at Jeno’s best attempt to remain serious while jokingly treating him like a court jester.

“Of course, how could I get ahead of myself like that?” he kisses her hand before getting up from his seat. “If you’ll excuse me I’ll be on my merry way. Try not to miss me too much.”

Jeno waves him off quickly but Jaemin can feel her eyes on him as he crosses the room and heads towards the impromptu bar set up. It’s nothing more than a table covered with glasses and half-empty bottles of liquor but it does the job just fine. Jaemin is not in the mood for drinking. Instead, he circles around it because it helps him sneak glances at none other than Zhong Chenle. Jaemin feels his blood running cold at the mere mention of her name.

Not a week ago she’d been a stranger, someone he would have walked past on the street without sparing her a second glance, but then the Gala happened. Much like today he’d been roped into attending it for Jeno’s sake and while he has nothing against being her anchor, as well as her personal cheerleader, he’d expected a quant closing ceremony, some well-polished routines, maybe another reporter shoving a microphone in his face and asking whether him and Jeno are dating. Instead he’d been met with a storm. A powerful, destructive in its nature storm.

Zhong Chenle and Park Jisung were the newest and youngest addition to South Korea’s arsenal. Jeno had mentioned that they’d be competing as a part of her team starting this season but Jaemin had written it off as just another pair of talented skaters who’d inevitably blend in with everyone else, not leaving any significant impression behind. He hates to admit it but he couldn’t have been more wrong. The two of them, especially Chenle, though Jaemin might be biased, knocked him off his axis in a record time. In just under four minutes they managed to remind him why he started competing all these years back. The thrill of stepping on the ice and trusting it’ll treat you kindly, the cold, cold breeze in your face, the chance to be awakened and to awaken those around you. Jaemin would never and could never move like them if he wished to, their disciplines vastly different but for just a moment he felt that long-gone spark reignite itself, spreading its fire from his chest to his arms to the very tips of his fingers and toes. It was rebirth. Jaemin has been nursing it ever since. He never wants to let go of that feeling anymore.

Still, seeing Chenle off the ice, being in her presence as a person, not just a nameless face in the crowd, is something he never thought he’d get the chance to do. They’re in the same room, little can stop Jaemin from crossing the distance, reaching out a hand to see if she’d crumble under his touch, turn into fairydust, into tiny little snowflakes. He stares instead. 

Chenle is hard to miss even in a room full of celebrities and age-old competitors. She doesn’t blend into the boring black and whites of the crowd, no, she stands out, she forces you to look at her. Her slender neck, some of the pinned up blonde strands of hair falling over it. Her bare shoulders are covered with swatches of blue paint and shiny crystals, which circle down, reaching her wrists, her fingers. The dress she’s wearing twice, thrice as big as her. The ruffles of the skirt layered over and over, making it look like an old timey ball gown.

Jaemin’s not sure how she’s able to sit comfortably considering the amount of space the dress takes up but that’s the point, he guesses. It’s not about comfort, it’s a statement. It’s her making her presence known to all. Everyone here is a star, sure, but she’s an entire universe of her own.

Jaemin likes her. In the face of mediocrity and the boring nature of their unfortunate reality she abides by her rules alone and no one else's. For an awful second, Jaemin thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’re alike in that sense. Always in the eye of the storm, their names in everyone’s mouth for all the wrong reasons. The key difference is that Chenle’s fire, her drive for indisputable victory is huge and bustling and roaring, while Jaemin’s is but a speck which he’s desperately trying to nurture back to life.

Jaemin plays with the hem of his dress shirt absentmindedly, eyes never leaving Chenle’s slight frame. It feels like an eternity goes by but really it’s only a minute or two before Chenle realizes that someone’s staring at her. She turns around and singles out Jaemin way too quickly, quirking an eyebrow in a silent question. It feels like a challenge. Jaemin’s way too used to doing things only halfway so he breaks eye contact shortly.

“You’re not a figure skater, nor are you a coach.” Jaemin startles at the thin voice, his head whipping around to see who it belongs to. “I saw you come in with Jeno earlier but you left shortly after. By the looks of it you’re not trying to mingle and no one is trying to mingle with you either. What is your deal exactly, I wonder?” 

After their short-lived staring contest Jaemin had actually gone out to take a breather. He hadn’t expected Chenle to follow, much less approach him so confidently. There’s no malice in her words as she speaks them, her expression, too, is relaxed, almost serenely so. She’s conversing, speaking the unspeakable just like that. It’s not apathy, nor is it a weird sense of superiority; she just does what feels right. At least that’s how Jaemin sees it. While he may be star-struck, Jaemin still has manners so he tries to introduce himself but Chenle cuts him short.

“No, I know who you are. Everyone does. I’m asking why are you here?”

Jaemin notices that Chenle is no longer wearing the dress or at least the bottom part of it is gone, a pair of electric blue disco pants in its place. 

“The skirt is detachable.” she says as though reading his mind.

“Are you like one of these people who are obsessed with a single colour and incorporate it into all their outfits?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. Is that not the first time you’re seeing me?”

Jaemin coughs awkwardly. Her gaze and the way she’s speaking so casually turn him bashful for some reason.

“No, I uuh, was there. At the Gala exhibition, I mean.” she hums softly, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

“You don’t like direct confrontation, do you?” Jaemin’s expression remains puzzled at the next question she fires. “You have an interesting way of deflecting people’s attention from yourself, you do it a lot in interviews, too. It’s kind of funny. Everyone’s just dying to get to know you better but you always misdirect, sweet talk your way out of it.”

Jaemin smiles, something inside of him stirring: “You know, I think I get why you like blue so much. It’s the ice princess persona and all that.”

“You’re doing it again.” she notes but there’s little irritation laced in her voice, it’s more so amusement.

“I’m doing it again, yeah.”

The silence that follows stretches on for a few seconds before Chenle decides to sit down. She’s close enough for Jaemin to feel self-conscious about the way his laboured breathing sounds but far enough for it to be socially acceptable, considering that they’re nothing more than strangers. Jaemin wonders if Chenle’s cold. There’s a significant lack of snow despite it being February but the wind is cold and unforgiving. It doesn’t seem to phase her any.

“Do you always stare at people like a weirdo or am I just that interesting to look at?” 

“Your makeup is smudged.”

“Oh, wow, you sure know how to charm a girl.”

Jaemin smiles at her biting tone but doesn’t falter: “No, I mean it really is smudged. It’s really humid inside so it probably melted down a bit. Still looks good though.”

“Thanks.” she says, patting at her pockets before she fishes out something small and shiny. Then she shifts and suddenly all Jaemin can see is Zhong Chenle. She’s uncomfortably close but Jaemin can’t bring himself to say a word. Up close her eyes are even bigger, scarier.

“Stay still.” she says and Jaemin wants to trust her. There’s something whimsical, something entirely too bright and funny and confusing about her existence as a whole. If Jaemin didn’t know any better he’d call her an illusion, a boredom-induced hallucination.

He keeps still as she dips her pinky into the small container and smears something very blue and very shimmering under his eye. Her touch, too, he sighs. Her touch, too, is like fire. It lingers long after her hand is gone.

“Now we match.”

The rest of the night passes in a blur. Somehow Jaemin finds his way to his hotel room where he passes out for hours. When he wakes up most of the glitter has fallen but still some of it is sticking to his skin. It’s a violent reminder that the day before Na Jaemin met his doom.

Jaemin buries his face into the crumpled bed sheets. 

There’s a stagnated smell coming off of them, which makes him dizzy, almost nauseous but Jaemin can’t bring himself to change them. He hasn’t the energy to air the room either, too busy breaking out into cold sweat which seeps into the white sheets, stinking them up even further. He’s been in and out of consciousness repeatedly for the last few days to the point where his perception of time and space has stretched so thin it has become virtually nonexistent. The last thing he remembers doing is crashing onto the bed and forcing himself to sleep after Chenle’s phone call.

He had anticipated it. She isn’t the type of person to lay low, to let others walk all over her so when Jaemin hadn’t shown up at the stadium like he’d promised, he knew she’d come knocking at his door, demanding an explanation. Still, hearing her voice over the phone line instead of in person, had surprised him. She’d asked questions Jaemin didn’t have answers for and he’d fed her half-truths just like the first time they met.

Jaemin sighs tiredly. It feels like ages have passed since then but in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few days. Still every time he closes his eyes, he sees her and for some reason the sight of her, usually a salvation, makes his gut twist.

The worst part had been the fact that she didn’t sound disappointed, no. There was hurt in her voice but that came from her wounded pride, not from a place of judgement or resentment. Jaemin wishes it was hatred. He wants for her to be truly mad, to seek him out in person and tear him apart. Destroy him first, demand an explanation later. Instead she’d kept her distance, she’d given him space, reaching over the phone instead of walking through the door like she owned the place. It hurts because despite it all she’d been almost considerate in her short-lived anger and Jaemin didn’t want that.

He wishes for a reality where Chenle would be just as vicious off-stage as she is when gliding on the ice. He wants to be held accountable, to have her treat him roughly. Instead she willingly dulls the edges of the blades, the blades which are her fingertips and caresses him like he’s something precious, something small and helpless and confused. Her blind trust that Jaemin will find his footing, will rise up once again, it kills him. Jaemin feels undeserving of her pardon and yet he clings to it like a lifeline.

The screen of his phone lights up. Jaemin scans over the messages quickly, some from Jeno, others from his coach, both demanding him to emerge from whatever hole he’s dug himself into and to come back to Seoul immediately. It’s Thursday afternoon. Jaemin buys a train ticket for Saturday evening and switches his phone off.

He slowly emerges from underneath the heavy quilt and wobbles his way to the bathroom. The sudden movement after days spent becoming one with the bed makes him physically sick but he manages to push through with minimal repercussions. He dozes off in the bathtub but manages not to drown, which considering the circumstances is about as much as he can ask for. By evening Jaemin stumbles out of the room, looking like a person or at least as close as he can get to imitating one. 

The air outside is crisp and cold, it sinks its teeth into Jaemin’s tender skin almost immediately but he finds that he doesn’t hate the feeling. Being locked inside a stuffy, unaired room for days had messed with his perception of reality and turned his brain liquid but the wind puts his body back together. He doesn’t know where he’s going, just that he needs to start moving, running even if he doesn’t want to go insane. He could have left Pyeongchang immediately considering the city has only brought him grief and bitter regrets but he reasons he cannot blame it for his own shortcomings. 

Instead he tries to learn it by heart. He walks the unfamiliar streets with confidence, attempting to memorize every back alley, every local business and small supermarket, every green area and little park. It’s a tradition of his — to familiarize himself with every part of the world he steps foot in, to ingrain the sight of it into his mind so that one day if he returns it’ll feel like home away from home.

After grabbing something small to eat so as to not overwhelm his admittedly very empty stomach, Jaemin finds himself in front of a small church. He enters, reluctantly at first, but the serene atmosphere soothes the ache inside his chest, the one that’s beginning to turn into something physical.

He listens to the choir singing until the pain in his lower back becomes unbearable. Jaemin lets his mind wonder for a minute, for two, maybe for an hour. He recalls the first time he climbed the podium and tasted gold, his teeth gripping it a little too hard. The first time he cried after a bitter defeat, the first time he felt miserable and alone. The first time he realized his love for skating was no longer pure, somewhere along the way it’d become tainted and that was okay until it wasn’t. Because somewhere along the way it had stopped being love, turning into an obsession, a heavy obligation. And he’d tried to turn these newly found feelings into what they once were — inspiration, raw determination — time and again but to no avail. The only times he didn’t hate the sight of ice, the noise of skates cutting through it sharply was when he was on the other side of the railing.

Admitting this truth to himself is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s awfully convenient, considering his injury. It’s maddeningly plain and simple, it’s entirely too complicated and unwelcome of a realization, especially when he’s at the top of the fucking world. It’s betrayal but to whom, Jaemin’s not sure.  

He lights two candles and prays like he hasn’t done in years. If he can’t come out of this victorious, a person worth remembering, an athlete notable and unforgettable than the least he can do is hope the people most dear to him can have it easier. He asks for their wellbeing, he begs for it even and then he leaves. 

“Jaemin?”

It’s dark outside and Jaemin doesn’t remember dialing anyone’s number but there is a weight in his hand. A loving voice calling his name. Jaemin bursts into tears.

“Jaemin, where are you?” asks Jeno, her voice firm but he can almost see her pacing around anxiously.

“I’m at the end of the fucking road, sweetheart. And this time I can’t seem to find a way around it all. I think I’ve run out of trump cards.”

Jeno hears the crack in his voice and it makes her feel both relief and endless desolation: “Come home then, Jaemin. Come home to me.”

And so he does.

Jaemin hates Jeno’s touch.

He hates it when she wraps her long fingers around the door handle and opens it oh, so slowly, like she’s afraid any sudden movement will send Jaemin into an instant state of convulsive frenzy. Like he’ll bolt, fast and slick on his feet and never come back. He hates the way Jeno is considerate enough to take away the baggage from his frail, shaking arms, putting it away somewhere safe. There’s nothing worth protecting inside of the bag, anyways.

He hates it when she helps him out of his jacket, doing everything in her power not to make physical contact with the bare skin of his neck, his arms, his wrists. He hates that she doesn’t flinch when Jaemin grabs her hands and kisses the inside of her palms. Jaemin is on his knees, begging her to take it all, please, but instead she pulls him up with all her strength until they’re at eye level once again. He hates her for that, as well. So, so much.

“This, too, Jaemin,” Jeno says and he knows just from the tone of her voice where this is going. “This, too, is home away from home. You belong here. You can belong here.” 

Jaemin gives her a weak smile: “Don’t you get tired?” She looks puzzled, naturally.

He didn’t always hate hearing his name on the lips of a crowd, Jaemin thinks all of a sudden. There was a point in time where it was his driving force, the thing, which kept him afloat. Now though, it feels violating almost, the way they’d taken it and made it so impersonal, so foreign to the ear. However, when Jeno says it, when she calls him it, when she summons him from the dead, that’s when he doesn’t hate it as much. On the tip of her tongue, in the tone of her voice it sounds like his name. It sounds like his name.

“Tired of what?” she asks eventually when Jaemin doesn’t elaborate.

“Calling for me? And then calling again when I don’t answer. And then a third, a fourth time. Doesn’t it get tiring? Don’t you just want to let me bash my head against this wall I’m so keen on breaking through?”

“No. It may take a while but you always answer.”

“What if I stop one day? What if I stop recognizing it one day — my name — and you’re left screaming your throat sore into the void?”

“What if that doesn’t happen?”

“But what if it does .”

“Then I’ll wait for you to call mine, you idiot.”

Jaemin spends a lot of time outside the week after he returns from Pyeongcheng.

He doesn’t do much of anything, or at least that’s how he sees it. A part of him will always view time spent away from the ice as insubstantial, pointless, a waste of time. Old habits die hard and all that.

He strolls around the empty streets of Seoul, sits alone on park benches for hours on end, crashes at small restaurants and even tinier coffee shops when he gets cold, swings at playgrounds until he feels nauseous, goes to the local library without ever renting a book and he prays. He doesn’t step foot in a church again but sometimes when he walks past one, Jaemin stops, sits in front of the sacred building or in the back if there is a garden and he prays. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to reach with these words, if he really does want them to reach someone. In the end it doesn’t matter. 

What he’s chasing after isn’t forgiveness nor is it a deeper connection with a God he doesn’t quite believe to exist, it’s the quietness. When he closes his eyes for a minute or two and clasps his hands tightly it’s like everything vanishes momentarily. It’s awfully peaceful. Jaemin has too much time on his hands, or none at all, depending on the angle and on the person who’s viewing his sad excuse of a life.

He spends hours thinking and pondering, carefully calculating the damage his actions will cause, the damage they’ve already caused. It’s never enough for him to see the full picture, to assess everything properly. It’s always too much for his body — much too young, but already chilled down to the bone, the remains of it slowly and painstakingly getting grinded to dust.

These few minutes are the only time of the day in which his mind is completely blank, void of both the good and the bad. Jaemin realizes that he’s tip-toeing a fine line, always unsure which side would be more merciful when he inevitably falls but he can’t stop now. Both are cruel in their own ways, he knows it, but he also knows that once set in motion few things can be stopped. This one in particular he has to see through till the bitter end.

When dusk turns dark Jaemin lets himself get molded by loneliness. He seeks others unknowingly always, a side effect of pushing everything and everyone aside for years. Jaemin waits for Jeno’s practice to be over so they can head to her place together. She makes him stay the night most of the time.

It turns into a routine of sorts. Jaemin buys groceries and cooks for Jeno because he knows how tired she is and how little she can do in the kitchen by herself. He helps her with the laundry, does the dishes even when she protests loudly and proclaims herself more than capable of washing a plate or two, brushes her hair, combing through it gently and sleeps next to her if she asks. She always does for some reason. Jaemin is unsure if it’s pity or if she’s taking advantage of him as much as he’s taking advantage of her. He’s content either way. Jeno’s warm. Not a blazing fire like Chenle but she has enough to share it with him and Jaemin, well, his hands and feet have always been so cold.

Jaemin’s half grateful that Jeno doesn’t pry. She doesn’t ask for an explanation, nor does she push him to go back to the rink where he belongs. Sometimes he wishes she would but Jaemin tries to rid himself of such thoughts for the time being.

Instead he focuses on finding ground under his legs, a place solid and steady where he can plant his feet firmly. That way he can walk the distance to his coach, to his parents, to his teammates, tell them what the hell is going on with his muddled mind. He hates being vulnerable and open about the things that plague him daily and keep him from sleeping soundly at night but it feels like he owes them this much. Like he owes himself this much.

Sometimes, late at night, when Jeno’s holding him or when he’s holding her, Jaemin thinks about Chenle, too. He tries to picture her sly smile and knowing eyes, the mischievous look she sends his way when Jaemin yields under her teasing tone and let’s her win.

It’s funny. Jaemin has spent his whole life chasing after sweet, indisputable victory but when it comes to their little game, losing doesn’t feel like a crushing force, like the end of the fucking world. He chases after her because being in Chenle’s presence, those few precious moments, are often the only time Jaemin doesn’t feel like he has to prove something. Not to her, not to himself and definitely not to the world. 

He wants to see her just because and that’s terrifying. It’s so very scary because Jaemin is used to doing things on purpose. Every step, every smile, every touch, every word should have an ulterior motive , he thinks. That’s how you survive , he reasons. Maybe he’s grown rotten.

When the thoughts of her grow overwhelming, Jaemin nudges Jeno awake, who gets the hint and starts speaking about everything that comes to mind. Jaemin listens but doesn’t always hear her, the words not quite registering but that’s the point most of the time. She speaks and her voice, quiet and gentle, drowns him. It’s so much easier not to think when you’re underwater. 

When he does hear her, Jaemin can’t help the fond smile that stretches on his face. Jeno speaks with such enthusiasm about the most mundane of things. She tells him about the day’s practice, boosts about landing consecutive triple axels, goes into alarming details about a TV series she’s been binging in his absence and goes off for hours about the tragedy that is her love life. Jaemin chuckles as she flames all of her exes and the few flings she’d had recently, lists all the reasons why dating nationally ranked figure skaters is basically self-sabotage and whines about getting left on read by a really cute girl she met in the subway two days ago. God, he loves her.

“Jeno.” Jaemin’s not quite sure if he’d spoken the word out loud, his voice foreign to his own ears.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing, just felt like saying your name.”

Jeno smiles, shoving him until he rolls on his left side and then she buries her face in his back. Jaemin can swear he almost feels his spine bending, the shape of it curving into something which could accommodate her body easier.

“You’re meeting up with Doyoung tomorrow, right?”

“Maybe. Are you going through my phone or something?”

“Shut up. You were on the phone earlier or are you suffering memory loss all of a sudden?”

“Touche.” he squeezes her hand. “I am. She’s so mad. If I suddenly drop from the face of Earth you can blame it all on her.”

“You would deserve it.” Jeno hums quietly. Jaemin can almost hear the cogs in her brain working overtime. After a while she speaks up again:“What exactly are you doing, Jaemin?”

“What do you mean?” He knows what she means, obviously he does, but Jaemin’s always been a bit too good at dumbing himself down. It’s easier that way.

“Well, you’re gearing up for something, I can tell this much. It’s something big and inevitable but you refuse to confirm nor deny my suspicions, so I’m asking you. What are you doing?”

It shouldn’t catch him off guard, really, it shouldn’t. Jeno has been housing the remains of his heavy head and aching heart for much too long. A week is nothing but for them it’s a lifetime. It’s missing practice after practice, losing momentum and touch with the ice in general. Time moves differently for them whether they like it or not.

Despite all the time she’d given him, Jaemin finds himself unable to communicate it all. He’s been thinking, he has been doing nothing but thinking for weeks now and yet!

Jaemin is a man of many talents, he can charm his way into everyone’s heart be it an interviewer, a judge or a fan. He can sweep them off their feet like it’s nothing, but that’s the easy stuff. They’re just faces attached to bodies that he’ll never see again and even if he does they’ll always remain impersonal. It might be egotistical to regard them in such a manner, especially those who put their faith and trust into his very hands, but Jaemin doesn’t care about them. He doesn’t care about their lives, their circumstances, he just doesn’t. That’s why it’s so easy because he doesn’t know them and they don’t know him.

It’s different with Jeno. He wants to be honest with her, badly. He hates that none of this comes easy to him.

“I’m tired, Jen.” he whispers around a dry throat. “So, so fucking tired. I think it’s time to call it quits before, before I-” he chokes up and it sounds pathetic.

Jeno tightens her hold around him. Maybe she’d seen it coming, maybe she hadn’t. It’d be foolish to think she hadn’t but that’s what Jaemin is at the end of the day. A fool, an idiot, the one with the painted face.

“Then rest.” she whispers into his ear.

“I can’t.”

“But you should. Jaemin, please.” her voice sounds too hoarse for it to be comforting. “I hate seeing you withering away, I hate it most ardently.”

“Sorry. You always end up shouldering the brunt of my despair.”

“You’d do the same for me, you’d do it tenfold so don’t you dare fucking apologize.” There’s no real anger in her words, they know it both but she needs the edge, otherwise she can never get it all out. And right now she needs to tip the scale in her favour more than ever. “Lay low for a while, rest, heal. Do it all over until it starts feeling right again.”

Jaemin squeezes her hand in a silent agreement. 

Jaemin can feel his heart sinking into the fucking ground.

Guilt is a feeling he’s intimately acquainted with. It’s the one he’s learned how to repress over the years or so he thought.

Guilt over losing and therefore disappointing all the ones who have invested their time and money into him, guilt over winning and unintentionally crushing so many people’s hopes and dreams, guilt over being too much this and too much that, guilt over not being enough, not taking that one extra step. It’s somewhat pathetic that most of his career has revolved around guilt. No one person can stomach a single emotion this repetitive and dense so instead of letting it poison him, Jaemin has learned how to push it down, or maybe he’d grown too accustomed to it to really pay it much attention. He can’t tell which one of the two is worse, the mere thought of it scaring him to death. He makes an active effort to never confront himself in this regard. 

Until he’s forced to, that is.

He’d been going back and forth for weeks now, speaking with his coach, though arguing would be a more accurate description of their heated conversations. Jaemin feels bad for Doyoung and all he’d put her through over the years but he needs this last spur of selfishness. He might be wrong and he could very well regret this decision as soon as it sets in motion but Jaemin had decided to take this final leap of fate and worry about the consequences later. So he quits.

Doyoung tries to talk him out of it, of course she does. Jaemin doesn’t blame her one bit but he’s unyielding under the storm she unleashes on him. He knows what this will cost him because at the end of the day he’s not only an athlete, he’s also a product. All the brands and sponsors whose collar he wears obediently, all the news outlets who have been documenting his every move since he started competing professionally, they won’t let him disappear quietly, unpunished. Jaemin is aware of that but he’s ready, or as ready as he’ll ever be, to shoulder the backlash. He’ll pay off his debt to the world and return to being just a face in the crowd like he was always meant to be. He’s already reached all the places which were never meant for him. It is time to fall back in line.

Of course, nothing could have prepared him for the reaction this would garner from others. Jaemin doesn’t care about his image or what others think about him on the best of days but this is different. This is Chenle on her knees, crying because of him and his selfish ventures. 

Jaemin gets his first taste of real guilt in years. It’s a lot more bitter than he remembers it being, yet somehow he can’t find it in himself to shed any tears. Jaemin cradles her in his arms, holds her how she deserves to be held and prays. 

He doesn’t regret it but he wishes things could be different, easier. Chenle deserves to be handled with care, to be loved in abundance and Jaemin can never quite seem to give her that. Somehow he always ends up hurting her, making her chase after him like a pipe dream, leaving her hanging by the thinnest of threads. It is, in a sense, quite horrid. He’s grown into someone vile and repulsive.

It haunts him, it eats him alive and yet he doesn’t know how else to show her his love and adoration. Jaemin is so used to keeping people at an arm’s length — a self preservation tactic — that he’s not quite sure how to handle Chenle at her best, let alone her worst. Side effects.

He carries her inside like one would a wounded bird and watches intently as she cries herself to sleep.

If he were kinder, Jaemin would have stayed like he’d promised her but sleeping next to her, in the very place she inhabits and owns and loves feels fundamentally wrong. So he leaves.

A part of Jaemin hopes for Chenle to wake up hating his guts.

Jaemin packs his entire life into a single suitcase and leaves. 

So very little ties him to this world, he thinks in a passing. There’s the four bare walls of his apartment, a place he crashes to sleep at only half of the time. He’s away more often than not, anyways. If he’s not at a far-off competition, he finds himself knocking on Jeno’s door, hiding between the creases of her old couch, the folds of her bed sheets. Jeno never kicks him out because she knows how rare it is for him to seek her out like that, how he could easily pay for a motel room instead, or fall asleep in a stranger’s bed. Rumours spread fast, not that she cares much. Jaemin is not a child she’s been tasked to dot on and he doesn’t owe her an explanation as to why he’s so adamant on shitting where he eats.

The walls of his apartment enclose the too many trophies and medals, prizes and awards, certificates and credentials. Everything is carefully framed, put behind a tempered glass case. The gold and silver are shining, polished. It makes the cheap white paint job that much uglier, the dusty surface of the old furniture sloppy and unsightly. Jaemin hates the place but he hates the thought of actually putting in effort to make it look like home even more. Home should be these four walls and these numerous awards and the blue ice but it’s not. 

Jaemin seeks familiarity, yet he denies himself it. He always longs for home but when the opportunity presents itself he turns his back on it. Jeno would call it being masochistic; Jaemin, well, he’d call it being realistic, if leaning a bit on the pessimistic side of things. That probably only further proves Jeno’s point but Jaemin is nothing if not stubborn. The simple truth is that when you’ve been denied one too many times you learn to make peace with how things are, never going out of your way to actively seek what you wish for most dearly, in fear that you’ll be denied it too. Home could be a door knock away and Jaemin wouldn’t know it because he’s grown much too used to breaking through the slightly ajar windows and ramshackle back doors. 

It’s unfitting for someone like him. In the eyes of the public he’s a sparkling shooting star, merely greeting them with his angelus appearance before he disappears into the void for good. In his own eyes he’s a little more than an animal, a little less than a human.

Jaemin runs his hand through his greasy hair, trying to kill the self-deprecating thoughts before they can take root, though he guesses it might be a little too late for that. He sighs as he locks the door to his apartment. Jaemin has never had any particular interest in gardening but he might want to pick up a beginners guide seen as there’s too many weeds growing in his mind and he’s not quite sure how to get rid of them. 

Before he sets off to wherever his feet take him Jaemin drops off a single letter at the mailbox addressed to Lee Jeno. He knows he’s being unfair towards her and towards Chenle, hell, he’s being unfair towards the whole fucking world but he needs this time away. He’ll never be able to forgive himself if he stays. They deserve to be much more than collateral damage to his outbursts of indifference and general apathy. He leaves so he can come back and make his wrongs right if they’ll allow him to.

Jaemin wakes up nine hundred twenty-seven kilometres away from home and for one terrifying moment he’s afraid he’s not breathing.

He checks his pulse just to make sure and lets out a pained sigh of relief when his heart makes a weak thumping sound. His chest feels way too heavy and sore. It’s like someone had clawed through it, replaced everything inside with rough, bumpy boulders and left the skin to heal on its own. Every breath he takes, every move he makes, it’s agonizingly painful. Jaemin thinks it’s a punishment well deserved. Pain, in this particular case, exists as proof that he’s still alive and Jaemin really needs something to remind him of that fact most, if not all of the time. Especially now when Jeno’s so far away.

He scurries out of the thin white sheets covering his body and takes a look around the unfamiliar room. There’s only one other person besides him and by the looks of it they won’t be waking anytime soon. Jaemin does them both a favour by getting the hell out, but not before getting dressed in the apartment’s small bathroom.

The weeks spent in and out of consciousness are starting to catch up on him, he realizes begrudgingly as he observes his unsightly appearance. He’s mostly sober at the moment, which is a state he seems to find himself into rarely these days. Jaemin pokes at his red face, the dark circles under his equally red eyes and lets out a sigh so dramatic it’s like he’s been holding it inside his lungs for years, letting it build up slowly until the right timing occurs for it to be unleashed. All the alcohol and cigarettes have made his skin break out badly. He doesn’t remember the last time he had acne this bad. It’s not the type born from hormone imbalance, no, this is clearly a result of his poor diet and equally as poor life choices.

His hair also looks like it’s seen better days. He hasn’t showered in a few days, judging by how greasy and flat it looks, the fringe sticking to his forehead like a wet sock. The dark roots are starting to show and for a second Jaemin considers shaving it all off just because it would make things a whole lot easier. When he can't seem to find any scissors in the stranger’s bathroom, let alone hair clippers, Jaemin gives up on the idea for the time being, instead opting for pulling a t-shirt over his bare chest. Before he lets it cover his dry skin, Jaemin notices thick black ink covering his stomach. He stares at the ugly scribble for a few seconds, praying that it’s not permanent only to realize that it’s an address written with a sharpie. At least he was lucid enough at some point to write his hotel’s location somewhere visible, Jaemin snorts loudly, before he leaves the apartment complex. If the situation was different, maybe he’d have remembered the name of the stranger he’d seemingly spent the night with, maybe he would have even stayed for breakfast, gotten to know them, but for some reason all he wants to do is get as far away as possible.

The streets are bustling despite the early hour, which is not doing wonders for Jaemin’s raging headache but he’s in no position to complain. Instead he walks around a corner and waves a taxi over. It’s only when the driver chats him up in Japanese that it hits him. He’s not home. He’s not home. 

Jaemin racks his brain, trying to make sense of what the elderly man is asking him but he comes up blank. He’s had numerous competitions in Tokyo as well as interviews and fan meetings — he clearly remembers accepting multiple marriage proposals from people, one of the girls going as far as to teach him how to recite a vow of faithfulness in Japanese, which Jaemin admittedly forgot completely on the next day — in other words his spoken Japanese is decent. Yet for some reason he can’t muster up a simple greeting, let alone give directions to the driver. Instead he writes the address down on his phone and hands it over. It seems to do the job. Jaemin spends the short drive looking through the window without really seeing anything. Usually he’d jump at any opportunity to observe the places he visits, memorizing the sight of them by heart, but he finds his eyes too heavy, vision too blurred to do that now. What a shame, he chuckles quietly.

Once inside the hotel room Jaemin takes a brisk shower, scrubbing his skin until it’s bright red and packs the little baggage he carries around in record time. Just before he leaves, he feels a wave of anger wash over him. It’s not the tangible kind of anger, the one where there’s a very clear culprit, someone or something he can focus all his grief onto, violently unleash it upon them and accept the consequences gladly. No, it’s but a wave of red, something vicious and scorching. One second he’s breathing normally the next he’s gripping his phone tightly before throwing it at the wall with all the force he can muster. The cracking noise as it collides with the hard surface, before it inevitably lands on the soft carpet appears to relieve the irrational fury, which had bubbled up and spilled out of its vessel. Still, Jaemin doesn’t feel any better. He’s calmer, sure, but it’s not satisfactory. It’s annoying, in fact. So very annoying how he seems to have about as much control over his emotions as a newborn, maybe even less. He kicks and screams and cries, throws tantrums without apologizing and it feels good. To let those feelings out, let them take over completely but when they inevitably subdue, all he’s left with are the tears he cannot explain, the shaking hands that make no sense because he was fine just a second ago. He was.

Jaemin stares at the cracked screen for a few seconds. He stomps all over it for a good measure and then heads to the airport. He was getting tired of Japan anyway.

Chenle’s staring at him through the television screen.

She’s sitting prettily at the kiss and cry, one of her fake eyelashes barely clinging to her bottom eyelid, hand squeezing Jisung’s arm so tightly Jaemin’s afraid she’ll cut off his blood circulation. When their score gets announced she stands as still as possible, not an inkling of what she’s feeling written on her blank face. Then she looks straight into the camera and gives it a peculiar smile, one that’s almost razor sharp with the way her lips curl dangerously. It knocks the breath out of Jaemin’s lungs as most things about her tend to do.

Jaemin hasn’t seen her face in more than two years, yet that single glimpse of her is enough to make him wish he was home. He’s not delusional, but if he looks close enough it almost feels like the smile is directed towards him, like she knows Jaemin is watching her. It’s both a challenge — a sign that Chenle’s ready to take him on whenever, no matter how much time has passed — and an act of reassurance. Chenle has kept the blades of her hands sharp and deathly in his absence, she hadn’t dulled like Jaemin had foolishly anticipated. But, of course, she hasn’t. She’s Zhong Chenle. One moron breaking her heart is not enough for her to fade into the background and become dull and grey.

The footage of her bright smile and falling apart makeup gets cut off by a commercial break.

“You know, you’ve been here for almost two weeks now and I still cannot figure you out.” Renjun’s harsh tone snaps Jaemin out of his haze. “Is this some sort of self-punishment? You being away from this woman?” Renjun nods towards the TV screen. Chenle’s no longer staring back at him but it doesn't matter. It always comes back to her after all. Despite Jaemin's best attempts to stay away from Chenle, she always finds a way to remind him of her existence, and that alone is sometimes enough to bring Jaemin to his knees. It’s simple, really, Chenle wishes for something and she gets it. She pulls the reins and Jaemin follows because it’s her and at the end of the day no alcohol is strong enough to wash away the image of her smiling face and warm hands, the wild sparkle in her eyes and the soft, yet confident sound of her shoes hitting the ground as she strides miles ahead of Jaemin.

Jaemin clears his throat: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t.” Renjun’s voice creeps closer as she enters the living room and sits down on the couch, leaving enough distance between her and Jaemin for two. “From one stranger to another, you look two seconds away from collapsing under the weight of your problems, which judging by your general appearance aren’t few. You’re away from her when she clearly makes you happy, so the question is why?”

Jaemin sighs softly. Though he’d only known her shortly, Jaemin can deduce that Renjun is definitely the kind of person who’s unrelenting and doesn’t back down when something peaks her interest. Jaemin wasn’t planning on staying long in China, but somewhere between falling asleep in a small restaurant that Renjun’s father owns and throwing up on the spotless clean floor when they tried to tell him they’re closing, Jaemin had been roped into helping in the kitchen in exchange for living rent free in their house. He has hardly any recollection of that night, much less does he remember signing up for an extensive interrogation by Huang Zihua ’s daughter but here he is.

“It’s complicated.” is what Jaemin ends up muttering after racking his brains for any answer that would both satisfy Renjun’s curiosity and put an end to the conversation the fastest. He comes up empty.

To his surprise Renjun breaks out into a full body laughter: “Well, isn’t it always complicated with people like you? Try me.”

When Jaemin says nothing, too much at a loss for words Renjun picks up the conversation herself again.

“Look, I’m not saying this because I’m oh , so interested in your life story, because I’m not. I probably care about you just as much as you do about me, which is not a whole lot and I mean, why would you? We don’t know each other despite the fact that you live in my home now. For whatever reason you ended up here and, well, my father is too nice to let people bang their heads against a wall deliberately so he offered you to stay.” Renjun plays with the rim of the plastic cup she’s holding. “We’re stuck together for a while, so you can decide to spend that time in silence, wallowing over how miserable your life is or we can exchange sob stories and get it over with. They don’t say it’s easier to talk with strangers for nothing.”

Jaemins finds a smile tugging at the corners of his lips despite his best efforts to remain neutral, he can’t help it. Somehow he always ends up meeting people that remind him of her.

“What’s so funny, hmm?” Renjun quirks a brow but she’s clearly amused by Jaemin’s reaction to her little impromptu speech instead of mad.

“Nothing, just — a sense of deja vu or something.”

“Or something?”

“Or something.”

“You’re truly a man of a few words, aren’t you?” Renjun shakes her head.

“Believe it or not I used to be quite the blabbermouth.”

“You don’t say.” Renjun’s tone is mocking but there’s a lack of malice. Despite the fact that Jaemin has been nothing but unresponsive and close-mouthed, she's making an active effort to maintain an air of anonymity and comfort. Jaemin can count the amount of times they’ve spoken since he started working and living alongside her family on one hand. Renjun seems nice, her entire family does. Maybe that’s why Jaemin hasn’t made an active effort to get to know them. Weak mind, weaker heart.

“Okay, guess I’ll have to go first.” she says eventually. Jaemin looks at her with confusion. “Well, obviously you’re not about to spill your guts out so I’ll do it. Come one, ask away. I know you’re trying to keep your distance for whatever reason but you must be curious about something, it’s only human.”

Jaemin can’t argue with her logic. Even the strangers he walks by, the nameless people he buys drinks for and kisses stupid in whatever dark corner they can find themselves in, even the faces in the dense crowd of his competitions and the cameramen who film his every move — even they keep him awake at night sometimes, wondering what their life looks like, feels like. Maybe he was lying when he said he doesn’t care about them. So, of course, seeing Renjun in his peripheral vision for days on end, sharing a space with her and her family — it’s only natural that he’s curious about her and her bold makeup, about her colourful hair and the giant tattoos, which would swallow anyone else but on her skin they only manage to make her presence bigger, brighter. So, yes, he is curious. Then again wasn’t it curiosity that got him into this mess in the first place?

“Well, you’re trying very hard to make me share, as you kindly phrased it, my sob story, so what’s yours? Even pretty people have it hard, or so I’ve heard.”

“Well, aren’t you a womanizer?” Renjun chuckles. “ Even pretty people have it hard, ha!” she mimics the scratchy tone of his voice. “Well, you happen to be right.” Renjun says quietly as she gets up, her feet carrying her to a picture hung on the wall. It’s an old photograph, one where her hair barely reaches her chin but her lips on the other hand are stretched almost as far as her ears.

“Zihua is not my real father — I know, shocking. He used to be my History teacher when I was still in high school.” her fingers trace the frame of the photo lovingly. ”I had a rough coming out, my parents didn’t exactly kick me out but they didn’t exactly want me around either, so when things started going south, he took me in.

“He was already dealing with his two sons who were barely five each at that time, his wife had left him just a few months back so he had to raise them himself on top of managing the restaurant and, yet, he didn't hesitate for a second to offer me a place to stay. It’s funny, it’s not like he even really knew what being transgender was and I don’t blame him, he’s well in his fifties, but that was never a deciding factor in how much he respected me as a person. He was willing to learn for me because he saw how much happier I was, compared to the broody teenager I used to be. It’s thanks to him that I was able to attend college, albeit a little late compared to my classmates who had all graduated by the time I enrolled. Not that it matters much.”

Renjun’s voice is soothing, Jaemin realizes. She has this way of speaking that draws you in, makes you feel what she’s feeling.

“Hey, don’t give me that look.” she says sternly. “I’m not fishing for pity or trying to make you cry, we’re just two strangers sharing sob stories, remember?”

“I’m not pitying you.” Jaemin says, his tone serious.

“Good.” she taps the photo frame again before she abruptly makes her way to Jaemin, grabbing him by the wrist. “Come, you’re helping me make dinner.”

“But what about —”

“It can wait, no?” Renjun gives him a look and Jaemin loses. She’s giving him a way out, even though it’s become apparent that he can no longer escape if he wanted to. He’d underestimated her, it seems. ”Now, I want you to come upstairs because my brothers would like to know who’s making the killer hot pot we’ve been eating for the past week, okay?”

“Fine, okay.”

Weird.

Jaemin runs his hand through his hair and a clump of it falls out. He stares at the thinning strands as they slip through his bony fingers, eventually flushing them down the toilet. It’s become a routine of sorts. Jaemin runs his cold hands all over his body and every single time without fail he stumbles upon a bruise or a bump he doesn’t remember adopting. His body is a maze he’s been trying to figure out for months now, after ignoring its very existence for years. It’s no easy task, but as he finds himself spending less time at shady clubs and shadier flats, he starts to sober up to the world. The world is his body, which he’s able to see far more clearly as the days go by. And while it may seem ugly now, at least it’s clean. It’s littered with bruises, sure, but they’re green instead of blue or purple — they’re healing.

Having something to occupy his mind with at all times, be it working at the kitchen downstairs or taking the twins to school — it keeps his mind busy, prohibits it from straying into dangerous territory. He found his stay here a little less than burdensome at first, but his conversation with Renjun last night made him view things differently. Jaemin had spent way too much time thinking and while thinking is not directly correlated to anything negative, only doing so in the cozy confines of your own brain, completely disregarding everything and everyone around you — it’s inevitable that he’d end up spiralling. He doesn’t exist in a vacuum, after all.

Jaemin isn’t a monster because he decided to take care of his needs, albeit rather clumsily, as would anyone who’d just gotten a taste of freedom for the first time in their life. No, he was one because he’d began viewing kindness as a natural occurrence, a commodity he was deserving of simply for existing. 

Renjun didn’t have to share with him the most vulnerable parts of her life, her father didn’t have to offer him to stay when he saw him half dead in their restaurant, but he did and all Jaemin could do for the first week was curse him out in his head. He kept his mouth shut but his thoughts had their own unique ways of escaping through the little gaps and pores of his body — seeping into his speech, possessing his every movement, poisoning his intentions. Sure, he’d stay from early morning till sundown in the kitchen, and he would make dinner for five, and clean the house on weekends when everyone was out and about, but in his mind it didn’t feel genuine because there was so much more that he could do that he didn’t. Like talking with them more, trying to get to know them better because in Jaemin’s case words speak louder than actions and he’s been keeping his mouth tightly shut for way too long.

Not for the first time, he wishes honesty came easier to him. More naturally, like it does for others. But it didn’t and it doesn’t and as he flushes his fallen strands of hair down the toilet, Jaemin realizes that a time has come when he has to learn to live with that fact. Otherwise there would be nothing left for him when he looks into the mirror next time.

He dresses up before heading to the living room, where he’s met with none other than Renjun. She doesn’t pay him any mind, lazily thumbing through a magazine with her long fingers, the nails a bright yellow colour. She looks like one of those girls in the magazines she always seems to be reading, the ones photographed doing the most mundane of things but even so they make you do a double take, because, really, who looks that good just sitting on the wooden floor, feet bare, hair damp and a mess? 

“You’re gonna catch a cold.”Jaemin says a little too softly, closing the window hanging wide open. Renjun hums quietly, eyes still glued to the magazine. “Also, not that I don’t appreciate your dazzling presence in this otherwise quite dull room, but I’d would absolutely love a little heads up next time. I like to walk out naked after a shower.”

“That’s an awful lot of words there to tell me to make myself scarce, don’t you think so?”

“Just looking out for you. I’m awfully easy to fall in love with, did you know that?” if that’s how Renjun wants to play, fine. Jaemin’s no stranger to teasing and playing around.

“Don’t flatter yourself, dear. You’re a solid nine out of ten, I’ll give you that, but I am a taken woman and even if I wasn’t, you are not my type.”

“Ouch, buttering me up only to insult me at the end. You wound me, Renjun.”

“What, used to being everyone’s ideal guy or something?”

“More or less.” Jaemin shrugs in defeat, his smile as bright and brilliant as always, if a little dulled around the edges. He pours himself a cup of coffee before plopping down next to Renjun.

“You didn’t even get me one. What happened to your gentle mannerisms?” 

“Haven’t you heard, dear ? Sharing is caring.”Jaemin echoes back sweetly, which earns him an eye roll but Renjun grabs the mug still, taking a huge sip before handing it back.

That’s when she finally gives him a good once over and notices his sorry appearance. Renjun lifts a hand up and runs it through Jaemin’s hair, which makes him stifle for a second before he wills his body to relax. It reminds him of Jeno and the way she’d spend hours caressing his scalp until he fell asleep in her warm embrace. 

Renjun’s touch is different, her grip is tighter and full of intent.

“You’re losing hair like crazy. What the hell, Jaemin?” 

“It’s nothing.” Jaemin tries to shrug it off but once Renjun sinks her teeth into something, she never lets go. Or at least that’s the kind of person Jaemin believes her to be, so he’s sure she won’t let him off the hook that easily. “I think it’s a stress thing or something.”

“Jaemin, there’s like a bald patch behind your ear. This isn’t nothing.”

“It’s just from the stress ,” Jaemin mumbles, refusing to meet her eyes.” or something.” he adds as an afterthought, repeating what he’d previously said like a broken record.

“Or something. God, you’re beyond saving.” she sighs deeply. “Look, do you want me to shave it for you? It’ll be easier to treat it that way.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Renjun has a knack for crazy neon dye jobs and had even tried to rope Jaemin into turning him into a hot pinkett not a week ago but there’s nothing more satisfying that a good buzzcut, or so she claims.

With the condition of Jaemin’s hair, shaving it all off is about as much as can be done, anyways. He’s not mad about it. He hasn’t felt the breeze tickle his nape in years so maybe this is a needed change. Sometimes in order to move on, to embark on a new journey you need to leave some things behind. Jaemin was never a fan of such stories, rather he detested them with his entire being. There’s a level of discomfort one can only feel when they see themself on a huge TV screen for the very first time and Jaemin has had the displeasure of doing so when he was just 13. Despite it all, he’s here now — walking the path of the many people he wished would meet their doom because he was a teenager and seeing someone so similar end up living a happy and fulfilling life, when this was everything he ever wanted but could never have, was a tad too cruel.

“Say, Renjun,” Jaemin says quietly when he hears her switching the clippers on. “Have you ever been in love?”

Jaemin doesn’t know what possesses him to ask such a question when Renjun’s a little more than a total stranger. It’s impolite at best, downright vulgar at worst.

“I have.” is the answer Jaemin gets. That’s when it truly hits him that he’s hundreds of miles away from Seoul, living in another’s home, running on borrowed time. In any other situation he’d try to seem polite, act the part of a model son, an exemplary athlete, a perfectly raised and faultless star. Instead, he bites his tongue and allows the disarray of random thoughts and well kept secrets to leave through the otherwise tightly sealed gates that are his lips. With Renjun it doesn’t seem as daunting. Maybe that’s what she meant by it being easier to talk to strangers, though Jaemin would argue that she’s much more than that.

So instead of trying to filter his words, Jaemin asks her another question, knowing that Renjun would reply without an ounce of hesitation: “Multiple times?” 

“Yes, multiple times.”

Jaemin’s not quite sure why he’s suddenly so grossly interested in her love life. He doesn’t care to know, instead he keeps going: ”What about now?”

“You’re awfully chatty today, dear. What’s gotten into you?” Renjun’s voice is teasing, yet it’s anything but formidable. Rather, it is encouraging in a way that’s unique to her and her alone.

“Just answer,” Jaemin demands. ” Please .” he adds as an afterthought.

“Yes,” Renjun smiles gently. “I am, in fact, in love.”

“Tell me about them.” Jaemin’s voice was meant to be even, instead it comes out shaky, almost like he’s on his knees, clinging to Renjun’s every word so tightly he has to wonder would she survive under the crushing force of his embrace?

“His name is Donghyuck.” says Renjun and Jaemin can already sense it. Love , unbound and unreasonable. She says his name with certainty, like she’s ready to bet his life on him and it makes something twist painfully in Jaemin’s stomach. Would Chenle say my name like that? He wonders and he hates himself for the fact that such a thought would even cross his mind. Has she already called me in such a way? The voice in his head is so small and laughable, so deranged sounding and comical, so pathetic, so pitiful that Jaemin doesn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed.

“We met senior year in college,” Renjun’s voice brings him down to earth. “and we’ve been dating ever since. Not to sound corny or anything, but it’s been a while and, well, the feeling that he is the one hasn’t faded, so.” she hums softly, the clippers buzzing softly as she runs them over Jaemin’s scalp. ”Who knows. Maybe in a few years time, I’ll invite you to our wedding.”

“I would like that, actually.”

“Well, you’re meeting him on Monday so you better.“ Renjun chuckles breathily. “You’re also getting a phone as soon as possible because I’m not chasing you to the ends of the world, no matter how much I’d like to see you in the crowd wearing a tux.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jaemin smiles and it feels sincere. He doesn’t doubt for a second that Renjun and this Donghyuck guy are meant to be. Sure, he’s yet to meet him, but the way she speaks of him, the tone of her voice — it’s quite easy to figure out just how happy he makes her.

“So,” Renjun draws out. “Why do you ask if I’m in love?”

“Honestly? I’m not quite sure. A hunch, I guess.” he says quietly. “You just feel like a person who’s loved, so I figured. You know.”  Jaemin bites on his nails nervously — a habit he’d acquired over the past two years, right before he unleashes the question this conversation has been building towards from the very start. “Say, Renjun, do I look like someone who’s in love?”

“You do.” There’s no pause, no trace of hesitation, no nothing. Renjun’s response comes down onto him like a ton of bricks, which he slowly suffocates under until he realizes they weigh close to nothing. The unbearable lightness of being.

“Figured.” Jaemin whispers after a long pause, his eyes staring at Renjun’s reflection in the window facing them.

“What, she doesn't feel the same way or something?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it, Jaemin? And don’t you dare say complicated.”

It’s then that the dam finally breaks. Jaemin has spent his entire life running from a choice he made when he was a child. About half of it wasted on trying and failing to go back to the point in time where skating was directly synonymous with love, and most recently — two years spent running away from her . 

“I left her.” Jaemin says and his throat tightens impossibly. “Fuck, Renjun, I left her. So many people loved and cared for me despite all the shit I put them through and I still had the audacity to pack my absolutely miserable self in a single fucking suitcase and leave.” Jaemin’s eyes sting, the feeling unpleasant if a little painful but not unwelcome. “She can never forgive me, she won’t ever forgive me.”

“And why’s that?”

“‘Cause I wouldn’t forgive myself.”

Jaemin can’t see it but he can almost imagine the smile on Renjun’s face as she runs her cold hands over Jaemin’s smooth nape: “Well, good thing she’s not you then.”

“What do I do?” Jaemin asks and his voice is so raw and stuck in the back of his throat, it almost makes Renjun’s heart bend and break. “I miss her, I miss her so badly but the mere thought of going back there, it’s terrifying. It feels like I missed my chance to make it better, if not right a long time ago.”

Renjun traces her long fingers over Jaemin’s burning cheeks, then under his swollen eyes, gathering the tears that are streaming down his face like a small river, overflowing.

Jaemin was so obsessed with the idea of feeling the good only, now that he’s away from the place where all the misery first took root, that he never realized — winning or losing, he’d never shed a single tear on camera. Maybe his joy used to be real at some point and maybe his sorrow used to be even realer, but still he’d never allowed himself such vulnerability. Chenle had cried herself to sleep in his arms and all he was capable of doing was leaving her behind, seeking the easy way out — hoping she’d hate him until he’d fade from her memory all together. 

That was the plan. Plans never seem to go quite the way Jaemin pictures they would. The bruises and the clumps of hair on the floor speaking for themselves.

The silence that follows after his dreadful confession seems to last an eternity, in reality Renjun speaks up almost immediately. 

“Well,” she begins, switching the clippers off. “You can wallow in self pity, here in my home until your hair turns grey prematurely,” she pauses briefly, hand still caressing his damp cheek. “or you could go back and talk to her.”  

“Maybe you won’t be able to make it right. Maybe it’ll hurt so bad you would wish for nothing more than to be back here, cooking hotpot with me and avoiding your problems but in a month, in a year? Believe me, it’ll feel so much different. You’ll be glad that you did what you did, Jaemin. You need closure and so does she. That’s how us humans are, otherwise it haunts us till our graves.”

“Maybe you should have became a poetess instead of a hairdresser, Miss Huang Renjun.” Jaemin’s voice is still raw and spent and his eyes still feel like they’re drowning in acid, but Renjun manages to regain a part of him he thought was lost for good with just a few words, a couple of carefully weaved sentences. 

“Maybe I should have, Mister Na Jaemin.” she smirks and pats his bare head. “But I didn’t.”

“No, you didn’t.” 

Quite possibly for the first time in his twenty eight years of existence Jaemin has fun — in moderation, that is. 

He spends the next few weeks glued to Renjun like a piece of old gum that refuses to come off your shoe sole no matter how hard you try to scrub it off, except Renjun does no such thing. When Jaemin’s hold on her hand feels loose, she squeezes hard enough for the blood to stop circulating, she holds him tightly to the point where their flesh melts from the scorching summer heat and fuses into one huge gooey mess, until there’s no way for Jaemin to run away — intentionally or otherwise. 

It isn’t until Jaemin has had a drink with her friends, until he’s gone to see a play at the local theatre where Donghyuck — Renjun’s boyfriend and her dear future husband , as Jaemin likes to call him — volunteers, until he’d tried helping the twins with their math homework, that he finally realizes how badly he’d needed this kind of stability, normalcy, mundanity. The realization that he’d spend his whole life toeing the fine between abstinence and debauchery comes to him gradually. Instead of drinking himself into an early grave like he’s been doing so consistently for the past two years, he sits back and watches as Renjun laughs with her friends over the most elaborate and well planned picnic Jaemin has ever had the pleasure of partaking in. They go clubbing and dance the night away and Jaemin, for once, doesn’t feel the weight of the world on his weak shoulders the morning after. He doesn’t remember the last time the sun didn’t stab his eyeballs like spears, the last time he got up slowly, washed his face, looked up at the small bathroom mirror and he didn’t feel regret. None whatsoever. A giddy sort of feeling creeping on him instead.

As promised, Jaemin gets to meet Donghyuck, multiple times in fact. He’s not sure what he expected but quite literally nothing could have prepared him for the natural disaster that was Renjun’s boyfriend. 

Lee Donghyuck. Shaggy light brown hair falling into his eyes, the expression of someone who knows the world belongs to him and not the other way around, terrible posture, clothes that could fit both him and Renjun and there’d still be place left. At first he looked like the exact opposite of Renjun’s manicured and concise style but the second he opened his mouth Jaemin began to put the picture together. 

The two of them — they’re loud in completely different ways. Renjun’s hair and clothes, the way she carries herself makes her stand out, forces you to look at her. The way she speaks is confident as well, but most of it simmers down to pleasant chatter and kind words the more you get to know her. Donghyuck is the opposite — nothing in his outer appearance makes eyes turn but his voice is like a siren’s call. He’s loud without it being obnoxious, opinionated, words and gestures hypnotizing, dragging you forcibly into the liminal space where he exists, where he’s the supreme form of authority: playful and commanding, mouthy and a little mean, beautiful and otherworldly. Jaemin’s not quite sure how he manages to be bigger than life whilst also remaining the most down to earth person he’s ever met. 

Watching him and Renjun interact is an experience to be had. They’re both hot headed and never back down, they bicker and they play fight, assertive and insistent — the world yields underneath them. And yet when they think no one’s watching they look at each other like they’re the only two people existing and living and breathing on this earth and Jaemin can’t help but feel small and insignificant before their love, which is so grand and all encompassing. It’s not a bad feeling, not in the slightest. Jaemin’s endlessly entertained and entirely grateful that he gets to witness them being young and in love and he gets it. The part where Renjun told him that Donghyuck might just be the one — he gets it. 

They can’t be more different. They couldn’t be any more alike. Kindred souls.

Donghyuck pushes and Renjun yields under him, she struggles but eventually she lets him lay all of his weight on her, trying and failing to hide the smile that blooms on her face like a flower under direct sunlight.

The three of them explore the whole town together and more. Renjun in the middle, Jaemin on her left, Donghyuck on her right. She holds their hands, her grip iron-like. They rent bikes, drive around in Donghyuck’s beat-up truck, catch the first and the last subway, run until their feet are sore and begin giving out under their own weight. They never stop moving, Renjun entirely too determined to show Jaemin every nook and corner of her hometown — every park, mall and cafe, every bench she’d passed out on when she was still a teen and could barely hold her alcohol, every swing set, every local convenience store and garage shop — everything she’d lived through, everything Jaemin had never gotten to experience when he was her age. It makes him heady, the way she’s letting him see it all. Jaemin never stops too long to think about it though, lets himself enjoy it all for once, soak it in completely.

When he finally gets his fill, Jaemin packs his clothes and a box Donghyuck hands him just before he boards his flight home, and he takes off. 

“Jaemin.”

It sounds like his name, Jaemin notes as he watches Jeno’s mouth stretch around the syllables. Her voice is a little hoarse, a little scratchy, like a cat’s purr. It’s cute, Jaemin thinks for a second before it really hits him. It sounds like his name.

“Jeno.” his voice cracks at the end and maybe if guilt wasn’t all but drowning him he’d cry. He can feel the tears building behind his eyes, the stinging at his bottom eyelids but he wills himself not to. 

In a way it’s a reunion far less eventful than he had expected but somehow it feels right for them. Jeno reaches a hand to touch his face, as though she’s making sure that Jaemin’s really there and, unsurprisingly, that’s all it takes for the dam to break. So much for keeping it together.

Jaemin doesn’t double down crying, there’s no ugly sobbing or loud wailing, the tears simply start running down his cheeks like a waterfall and there’s that. Jeno tries to collect all of them in the palms of her big, strong hands, while her own eyes water and then it’s just a mess of them trying and failing to gather the salty tears from each other’s eyes before they hit the floor, loud like gunshots.

For a while they don’t, can’t make it past the hallway. They just sit against the entrance door and hold hands, squeezing the other’s when the fear that this is all a dream starts creeping in. 

“How did you become even more beautiful while I was away?” Jaemin asks and he can see Jeno trying her very best not to curse him out. Eventually she gives in and it feels like a start for whatever reason. 

“Fuck you,” she spits out, squeezing his hand so hard it forces an involtary yelp out of Jaemin.

It will never be the same between the two of them, it can’t ever be the same. Each and every decision — good or bad, reasonable or illogical have consequences. Burning bridges down is not a crime, rebuilding them isn’t either, but at the end of the day it’ll never be the same bridge and if you can’t make peace with that simple fact you cannot begin the process of rebuilding it in the first place. Jaemin can only hope — desperately wish, more like, that Jeno, sweet, beautiful, strong Jeno would be willing to meet him halfway.

“You don’t get to say shit like that.”

Despite her words Jaemin feels it before he sees it — Jeno letting her head rest on his shoulder. He stiffens at first but then the familiar scent of her body wash and shampoo hits his nose and muscle memory kicks in. Jaemin relaxes all too easily under Jeno’s touch. She mumbles something unintelligible.

“What was that?”

“I said I told you so, you idiot.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“You ended up calling my name, Jaemin.” 

Jaemin feels something in his chest squeeze painfully: “Yeah, I did.” he pauses for a second. “I missed you.”

“You never called.” and though she tries to mask the hurt in her voice it bleeds through, her words bitter and sharp.

“I couldn’t.”

“That isn’t an excuse.”

“It’s not meant to be one. But it’s all I can offer you besides an apology.”

“It better be a lengthy one.”

“What do you think I spent these three years doing, love?”

Jeno kicks him in the shins. Jaemin elbows her in the ribs. They burst out laughing, much like little kids.

“Jaemin?” He hums softly to let Jeno know he’s listening. “Is this the ending?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you finally found your way home? Is the ancient terror inside of you stomped out for good?”

Jaemin kisses the crown of her head.

“I suppose it is.” he breathes in Jeno’s scent, ever so soothing and familiar. Jaemin could go blind or deaf but he’d always be able to recognize her. The scent of her sweet perfume, of her cherry lip balm, the feel of her skin smooth and warm — he’d know her by touch alone. “I just had to make peace with some stuff before I came back to you. When I left, strangely it felt like a movie coming to an end. One where I’m the hero and the war is over, except it wasn’t. Sure, I decided that being the hero wasn’t my calling after all and that it’s okay to give some things up, but. There was no glory, you were right about that. Just the aftermath, which will linger always.” Jaemin sighs, running a hand through his hair, which is no longer falling out in clumps at the barest of touch. “I fucked up, Jeno. Big time. So now, well, now I need to nurture both my body and soul back to life. This time slowly, with care.”

Jeno lifts her head up, a hopeful spark in the deep abyss of her brown eyes, which makes it infinitely easier for Jaemin to keep going.

“I’ll be enrolling into college next fall. Child care, Pedagogy. I haven’t exactly figured it out yet but I want to take care of kids, one way or another.”

“I’m really happy for you, Jaemin.” and she is, her smile small but genuine. 

“I’ve uh ,” Jaemin coughs nervously. “I’ve also booked an appointment with a therapist, so. Yeah.”

Jeno’s hands, coloused and secure, warm and gentle, chiselled with all the kindness and love the world has to offer, take a hold of Jaemin’s burning face and he melts. Having to look Jeno in the eye and be swallowed up by the unabashed, unfiltered adoration stored in her every limb, muscle, bone, should be humiliating. It’s the exact opposite instead. 

“I love you, Jaemin.” she whispers so that no one in the world but Jaemin is a witness to the full gravity of her words. “And I’m so proud of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Jaemin will never get tired, can’t ever get tired of hearing his name coming out of Jeno’s mouth. She makes it sound so right, so real. She’s always made everything so easy. Loving her, for example, is the easiest thing in the world. After all, it feels an awful lot like what he imagines loving himself would feel like one day.

And well, love, love, love. Doesn’t it always come down to love?

Jaemin was always planning on coming home to her, too. Chenle.  

He just didn’t expect it to be so soon. He makes the argument that he’s not ready but much like Renjun, Jeno doesn’t buy it, because: “You’ll never be ready, Jaemin.” And as always, she’s right. It will never feel like today’s the day to face the enormity and weight of his guilt but he does it anyway. The key to his home lays in the hands of the one he loves, after all. Literally. 

Jaemin had dropped off a letter in Jeno’s mailbox the day he left, a mere three lines scribbled on a yellowing piece of paper, alongside the key to his apartment. It was a sort of a lame excuse, a reason to see Jeno when he would finally return and it had worked, except that Jeno had given it to Chenle because she knows. She always knows. Jaemin doesn’t have to say a single word and Jeno would see right through him. He hates her for it, he loves her for it.

So he goes. One morning he wakes up and it’s easier than usual — getting up, taking a shower, eating, walking, breathing — so he takes that first step. And it is equally as rewarding as it is terrifying. 

Walking into Chenle’s home after leaving her behind all these months, all these years ago doesn’t feel in any way rewarding at first. Jaemin’s first instinct is, in fact, to run but then he catches sight of one of his winter coats, which Chenle borrowed and never gave back. It’s hanging in the hallway alongside a dozen others. Some are hers, some look way too big so Jaemin assumes them to be Jisung’s. One of them is Jeno’s. 

Jaemin leaves his shoes behind and goes into the kitchen, which looks much different compared to when he saw it last. In a way, it makes him happy. An irrational part of his brain had feared that he’d return and everything would be the exact same way he’d left it but it isn’t. He’s changed. Jeno’s changed. Chenle’s changed. It’s inevitable but still, so relieving. The anxiety bubbling up inside gives place to something else. Curiosity.

Jaemin wants to know this new Chenle. He wants to drink his morning coffee together with her and let her fill in all the blank spaces, tell him about everything he’s missed, map out each and every event that have made her the person she is today. Jaemin can only hope she’d be willing to bare herself this way in front of him, a stranger.

Still, when Chenle comes out of the shower, platinum blonde hair still damp, eyes big and curious as ever, Jaemin takes the first step and starts talking. Even if she doesn’t want to let him in on her life, Jaemin wants her to know everything. So he talks until his mouth turns dry. He recalls everything in startling detail and in return Chenle stares at him almost in a daze. 

“This is the most you’ve told me about yourself since we met, you know?” asks Chenle, once Jaemin runs out of things to say. Her chin is propped on the palm of her hand. There’s a little tattoo on her ring finger, Jaemin notes, and another on her wrist, near her elbow, too, and one right on her shoulder, as well. “It’s been what, seven, maybe eight years now. The last three don’t count so.” There’s a small smile on her face but it’s hard to place exactly how she’s feeling, how she’s taking everything thrown her way so suddenly.

“I guess I got tired of keeping it all to myself.”

“I guess you did.” Chenle raps her nails against the wooden table. “Did you come to get your keys or something?” there’s an edge in her voice, hurt. Jaemin’s still not sure how to make it better, how to make them better.

“Yes and no.” is what he ends up answering. 

“Back to being cryptic with your answers.” Jaemin can tell this is not what Chenle was hoping to hear. He can see it clearly now. She’s not angry with Jaemin, nothing in her tone is accusatory even, she’s just sad, maybe even a little disappointed.

That’s when Jaemin realizes that in his attempt to keep the conversation going, to let her in on everything all at once, he’d ended up feeding her half truths once again, in an attempt to make her see that he’s doing better. And he is but that’s not the point. Jaemin knows that Chenle will never judge him even though she has every right to, she’s always gone out of her way to make sure Jaemin knows he can talk to her and, yet, he’s gone out of his way to shut her attempts down each time. Including now.

If he wants to get through to her, Jaemin needs to stop viewing her the way he does. Putting her, consciously or subconsciously, on this pedestal, all pretty and perfect looking. He’s seen her cry, all red-rimmed eyes and snot and hiccups, he’s seen her angry and overjoyed, but somehow it’s still hard to view her as someone equal. 

Jaemin is afraid, terrified even. But nothing compares to the fear of losing her for good so he swallows it all down and it’s bitter and it burns but it’s what must be done. Then, he tells her the truth. 

“I’m here because I couldn’t forget you.” Jaemin starts off slowly, testing the waters. “No matter what I did, no matter how far I went, I just — I could never shake you off. And I tried, believe me. I did everything in my power to erase you entirely. As awful as it sounds, I didn’t want to think about you. I didn’t want to think about the fact that I left you behind when I promised to stay or about the way you made me feel. I wasn’t ready to face you and be truthful. You were something good I was afraid to lose so I antagonized you and I kept you at an arm’s length. Never letting you quite in, only showing you enough to keep you interested. And it worked for a while. Until it didn’t.”  

Jaemin gets up, gathering their plates and promptly dumping them in the sink. Chenle hangs at his side while he washes them slowly.

“You’re a good person, Chenle. You deserve someone who is nice and caring, someone who loves you gently and at that point in time I couldn’t give that to you. All I could think about was how betrayed I felt by myself, how much I hated myself and this town and this country and how, if only I left and started anew, surely things would be better, right? They weren’t. Truthfully I spend most of my time travelling drunk or high. Or both. The worst part is that I knew what I was doing. I relished in feeling awful and nasty and useless. And then it hit me one day. Ah . I’m gonna end up dead soon, aren’t I? I realized that pretty early on actually. The harder part was recognizing the fact that I didn’t want to die. In fact, I wanted to live. Badly.”

Jaemin feels a warm palm on the small of his back and it almost chokes him up. He doesn’t dare to look up until he’s got everything out in the open.

“And now I’m back. Because despite it all I couldn’t forget you and Jeno. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me because I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for years now and, I don’t really even want your forgiveness, either. I just want you in my life. I want to get better gradually and I want to learn to trust myself and trust you and, well, if you could learn to trust me too, that would be great.”

Somehow Jaemin ends up with his face in the crook of Chenle’s neck, warm tears running down his cheeks, her arms secured around his waist.

“What am I going to do with you, darling?” Chenle whispers into his burning ear. 

“You can keep me or throw me away, let me stay for as long as you’ll have me or never have to think about me ever again. I will walk away now if you ask me to.”

“You should have been a figure skater, love, with the way you jump to conclusions.” She chuckles sweetly and Jaemin really, really prays this won’t be the end for them. “I couldn’t get rid of you if I wanted to. And, well, gentle love is overrated, boring. I like you a little mean and cunning, no one else can keep up with me other than you.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm. So stay.” she says, pressing her lips to Jaemin’s damp cheeks. 

“I will.”