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2013. Joshua stumbles through half a sentence, and it takes twice as long as it should. He’s tired. He wants to say color names in English. The other trainees are staring at him, making him flustered and tying his tongue even more. It isn’t going to work. Whatever he was going to say has been lost.
“Ah, never mind,” he says in English, waving his hand dismissively and waiting for someone else to divert the attention away from him.
But Seungkwan tilts his head and Junhui keeps staring and Joshua knows even his attempt at redirection was lost in translation.
“What’s ‘never mind’?” Joshua turns to Hansol.
“Uhh,” Hansol replies, “like, just, ‘it’s okay’?” he says in Korean.
“Mh,” Joshua nods. “It’s okay,” he repeats to the group, and the conversation keeps moving.
But, that isn’t quite it. ‘Don’t worry’ isn’t right either. ‘It’s nothing’ and ’forget it’ seem almost too dismissive. Joshua can’t think of a phrase that conveys ‘this just isn’t working, so I’m bailing’ quite like ‘never mind.’
2014. Joshua is trying to read. It’s an American book, something a friend recommended a long time ago. Somehow it’s making him feel both closer to home and further than he’s even been.
Wordlessly, Junhui slides into Joshua’s bunk. Joshua moves his elbow to let Junhui curl up to his side. This is nothing new—Joshua can’t remember exactly when they’d fallen into the habit of laying like this. It’s familiar, it’s nice.
Junhui starts to nuzzle into Joshua’s side, pressing his face into Joshua’s neck. He can feel Junhui’s breathing. He keeps his eyes on the page in front of him. He’s read the same sentence at least three times.
Junhui’s nose drags across Joshua’s neck, over and over. Then Junhui’s mouth, just a faint brush of lips, but it’s enough to catch Joshua’s breath.
Each movement sends warmth cascading through Joshua’s body and pooling into a ball of something in his stomach. He’s been staring at the same page for minutes. He hasn’t read a single word.
“Junhui,” Joshua whispers, setting down his book. “Junhui, do you—are you—what is this?”
Junhui freezes. Joshua instantly wishes he hadn’t said anything.
Joshua’s breathing is heavy and deafening. He wonders if Junhui hears it too. If Junhui understands now, why he shouldn’t—do things like this.
“I don’t know,” Junhui finally speaks. “Is it okay?”
Joshua exhales. “Yes,” he says softly. “It’s just—”
It’s just. It’s just.
Joshua does know. Joshua wants. What would Junhui think if he knew just how much Joshua wants?
What would it be like, if they were two normal people, pursuing normal careers—not living together, not training together? Would Junhui still be here?
(Of course, the answer is no. Neither of them would. They wouldn't know the other existed, if it weren’t for this. Joshua shakes the thought.)
It feels nice. It feels nice, and if Junhui feels nice too—
Joshua closes his eyes. “Yes, it’s okay.”
Slowly, Junhui presses a definitive kiss to the side of his neck. Joshua lets out a breath.
Never mind: It’s irrelevant.
2015. Junhui’s been strange. Stranger than usual.
He acts skittish and laughs too hard at things that aren’t funny and Joshua just wants things to go back to how they were. When it felt like a lack of understanding was what drew them together, not what pulled them apart.
Junhui rarely allows them to be alone together now, and Joshua is sure that he’s figured it out. He’s realized that Joshua wants more than just lazily laced together hands and kisses pressed to foreheads and noses when it’s dark enough to hide.
They couldn’t avoid each other forever. Eventually Junhui enters Joshua’s room, looking for a lost item of clothing or a stolen charger or something. He clearly thought the room was empty, as he takes one look at Joshua and pivots to leave.
“Junhui, wait,” Joshua says, and Junhui freezes at the door. Joshua readies the words he’s run over in his head at least a dozen times. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong. But I want to know what’s going on. Will you talk to me, please?”
Junhui stares, and Joshua knows he has to give him a moment. That’s okay.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Junhui says slowly.
“Junhui—”
“Please,” Junhui says. He looks almost pained. “Don’t make me say it.”
Joshua’s heart sinks.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Joshua says quietly. But he’s so, so scared that he does.
Junhui finally meets his eye, then pulls away again.
“You’re so beautiful,” Junhui says to the floor.
Joshua’s mouth goes dry.
“I want to kiss you.”
“You—you—?” Joshua stammers.
Junhui nods, and he looks like he’s ready to run out of the room. Joshua stands, slowly.
“I want that, too,” Joshua says. It comes easier than it should. Of course it does.
Junhui looks up. It’s like something out of a drama, Joshua thinks deliriously. A wave of courage washes over him, and he steps towards Junhui.
It’s not as awkward as it should be. Junhui kisses like he knows what he’s doing and Joshua feels only half-way out of his depth. Because it’s Junhui, it’s Junhui. “Junnie, I—”
And Junhui looks at him, and he looks so—so concerned, so devoted.
It’s selfish. It’s so selfish, but Joshua doesn’t want to ruin it with words. He kisses Junhui again, and again.
Never mind: We’re okay.
2017. The door shuts and Junhui’s already on Joshua, kissing him like he’s starving. Kissing him like he knows what he wants. He still tastes like makeup.
“Wait,” Joshua says breathlessly, “stop.”
Junhui stops and stares at Joshua, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Joshua loves him. Fuck, Joshua loves him.
“Junnie,” Joshua says, “we aren’t…we aren’t kids anymore.”
Junhui blinks. “Oh,” he says. If he’s feeling any particular way about this assertion, he’s hiding it well. “It’s—I can stop,” he offers.
“No,” Joshua says quickly. “No, that’s not—I just mean—”
What does he mean?
Joshua knows what he wants. He’s known for a long time. But Junhui never seemed to meet him there.
Joshua wants Junhui, not just in hurried and messy hookups. He wants Junhui in daylight, Junhui’s hand in his, not pulling away when the others look at them. He wants dates, and ‘I love you,’ and not just reverting back to friends after watching each other come.
But they can’t have that. Not with the life they have now.
“Maybe we should,” Joshua says. “Stop, I mean. Unless you think we could...”
The sentence isn’t coming out right. It sounds so stupid to even suggest. Joshua lets the words fade out into the room around them. Because surely, surely Junhui knows. How could he not know?
Junhui stares. He doesn’t say a word. Joshua doesn’t know why he ever thought he would.
“Goodnight, Jun,” Joshua says. He steps out of the room, and his eyes start to sting. Stupid.
He doesn’t know where he’ll go. It doesn’t matter. He just wants out of this place, away from Junhui and away from prying eyes and cameras and away from what he wants.
Never mind: I don’t need it anymore.
2022. Junhui’s been clinging to Joshua all day. It’s been fine, really. No more than the usual amount of contact between a pair of members when they’re feeling particularly close or touchy. It was fine in front of the cameras.
But then they get back to the hotel, and a knock comes on Joshua’s door, and he already knows who it is before looking through the peephole.
Of course he opens the door. Junhui flops onto Joshua’s bed, and they spend ten minutes acting normal. They’re very good at acting normal.
Then Junhui places a hand on Joshua’s knee. Innocuous, but Joshua sees through it. He’s played this game, on both sides, enough times to know what it means.
“Don’t be mean,” Joshua mutters.
“How am I mean?” Junhui says.
“You know how.”
“I don’t.”
Silence. One of them is lying. Both of them are lying.
Junhui tries to say something with his eyes, but Joshua lost the ability to read his expressions in low-lit rooms and closed-off spaces years ago. (Or has pretended long enough, at least.) Then, quietly, Junhui speaks. “Show me?”
Never tell. Never tell.
It’s a dance. A routine they’ve perfected. Sometimes they go months or years without it, but they can fall back into it like no time passed at all.
(Neither one is lying.)
Joshua looks at Junhui, laid out on his bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He leans down, careful not to graze his hand on Junhui’s cheek or splay his hand on Junhui’s chest like he used to.
Their lips meet. Junhui kisses soft and tender.
‘I miss you,’ it says, ‘I miss you, I miss you.’ Joshua hasn’t gone anywhere. Junhui knows this. ‘I miss you’ isn’t fair.
But really, Joshua knows it’s half his fault. Neither one of them fully understood what they were getting into when they started. And, the last time they talked about it—if you could even call it talking—
Joshua has spent years convincing himself that no matter how much Junhui loved him, his silence that night was proof that they could not work. Not how Joshua wanted.
But he replayed that conversation so often in his mind. And eventually he realized that he hadn’t said anything, either.
It was so long ago. This is what they are now.
Joshua snakes a hand up Junhui’s thigh, because he knows what he wants, and he knows what he can allow himself.
He doesn’t hold onto that hope anymore. He can imagine, and fantasize, and wish that they were different people as much as he wants, but it will never be true. It’s this or nothing. That’s okay.
Never mind: it’s futile.
But not—but not—
Never mind: I wish it hadn’t happened.
“Did I miss my chance?” Junhui mutters into Joshua’s neck. It’s so familiar. It’s a comfort. It’s a ghost.
Joshua would like to pretend that he doesn’t know what Junhui’s asking, but he does. They’ve created their own language. Their own words to dance around it, this thing that sits between them.
Did Junhui miss his chance?
Did Joshua miss his?
Joshua breathes. He should be scared, he thinks. But he’s not, because it’s Junhui.
He’s not going to bail this time.