Chapter Text
Mingi finds it easier to breathe.
Long drives aren’t a preferable pastime for him, but he managed fine. All that matters to him is that he’s here now, and that there’s nobody but him for acres of land.
Mingi gets out of his car and stretches his legs. He takes in the rustle of the leaves all around him and basks in the early morning dew. The skies are easing into blue hour, but the sun is still asleep. It feels like it’s a lot earlier than it is even though there’s no snow today— just a cold that makes itself known. The birds chirp only at each other, and it’s as if Mingi’s as unimportant as the still water that overlooks the place he’s stood in front of.
It’s a relief for Mingi, to not be seen.
If he were to be really honest with himself, the truth would be that he’d seen the listing for this lake-house right before he enlisted, and that it had been nothing short of a panic buy. Here’s the thing about Mingi, though— when it’s come down to it, he’s never known much about peace.
If he were to sieve his entire life, or rather the majority of what he can remember down to its very foundations, he would find it filled with either the childhood of his parents arguing, his mom having to scrounge around for money to send him to his extra dance and vocal classes, or this consistent, agonising voice in Mingi’s head that somehow learnt to tell him that he isn’t worth shit. It’s evolved since becoming an idol, he thinks, into something that’s probably worse. Mingi hears it inside his own head as his mom’s voice sometimes, that he’s only ever been adored and never understood, that he’s only a chess piece or a pretty doll, instead of a breathing, living person. To be fair, Mingi doesn’t mind it most days— he would even go so far as to say he has the right level of introspection to know that on some level, he enjoys it. He lives the life he wants, in the end. From how much he drinks and who he fucks to where he frequents or what he wastes his money on, it’s all for him to decide. This job calls for it— allows for it, even. It always has.
There’s been something about growing older though, Mingi’s come to realise, something about waking up one day and realising how much of your life you’ve already lived and how much of it hasn’t actually felt like your own. As it happens, it’s an epiphany that Mingi stumbled upon a few weeks before he was shipped off to his basic training.
From close to a decade being a showpiece for an audience to then two years for a government he has no particular fidelity to, Mingi realised that he’d never gotten a chance to be his own. Not really in any way that counts.
So, what does one do when one realises that they can’t place when they lost ownership of their own life?
One buys a fucking lake-house, apparently.
It had made perfect sense three years ago. It’s far from work and a place that Mingi could better towards making his own. There’s been a sense of calm every time he’s driven up here over the last year, days he’s stolen from his time off for holidays or a get-away where’s he’s been purposely vague about where he’s going. The house hasn’t needed much up-keep or fixing, but it has been a place Mingi can come to when he doesn’t want to think about anything other than how well-nourished the garden soil should be or what springtime vegetation he wants to grow.
In the time he was doing his service, he’d made sure to have someone paid to ensure that the house was well-kept. It had shown, when he’d first driven up and the fridge was stocked with the grocery list he’d sent over and not a sliver of dust to be found.
Really, Mingi had thought it was pretentious, when he had first seen it in person. He’d driven up the weekend after he’d been released and gawked at the exterior for longer that it should’ve have been acceptable.
Calling this place a house is sort of an under-statement. Floor to ceiling windows embellish much of the space as it’s seen from the driveway, two dynamic stories that are all sharp, modern wood and metal panelling. It’s luxe in the simplest sense, something that Mingi would scoff at if anybody else owned it but him. There are a couple of rooms and as many bathrooms, a deck that leads out to one of the largest lakes in the country and slivers of forest on either side of the build. The house has both a backyard and a front porch. It’s the least Korean looking architecture that Mingi’s come across since being in this part of the countryside.
It’s excessive by most standards and ostentatious by all of them.
Still, the place has come to be home, to Mingi.
Again, there’s not a lot of Mingi that’s known peace. Here, without much other than the birds and Mingi’s own breathing, there is peace. It’s the small things, Mingi’s learnt, and the more he comes back, the homier it becomes. Mingi wouldn’t mind growing old here. There’s enough space for his thoughts and feelings inside these four walls, even if he’ll have to brace them alone.
He plans to be here for a few days. He’d told work that he’s going to his mom’s over Christmas and New Year’s and told his mom that he’ll come by only after Christmas day. It’s the first time in his career that he isn’t working through the holidays and he’s rewarding himself with some solitude.
Mingi unloads the bags of groceries he’s bought. There’s enough for multiple people to make sure he doesn’t run out of anything for the time he’s staying over. The closest convenience store is at least an hour away and Mingi doesn’t feel like making the trek, even for an emergency.
The warmth is immediate in greeting him when he gets inside. Mingi changes into his house slippers and heads straight to the kitchen. He stocks his fridge and takes his time prepping breakfast after he queues up a jazz album he’s been meaning to listen to for ages. He figures there’s no better time for it.
There’s only the sizzle of garlic and onion as a smooth trumpet eases both Mingi and the sun into full morning. Hues of iridescent yellows and deep pinks shower the kitchen from the windows facing the water. It’s a sight that Mingi can never get over.
This is the first of deep winter Mingi’s experiencing at the house. He’d been relieved of his service as the weather had just about started thinking of spring, far from late mornings and a crisp cold that ushers the lake water clearer than clear. It’s breathtakingly gorgeous— an enamouring backdrop of the sun rising over water as everything is painted golden outside and in. Mingi hums along to the melody he’s picked up and cooks himself some jjigae he wouldn’t have the energy to make back at the dorms. There’s a bunch of banchan he prepares for himself, too, and he packs them into his tupperware after serving himself breakfast.
He sits down to eat and puts his phone on silent because he won’t be needing it much, anyways. The service is kind of terrible in the area but he finds himself grateful for that, too. He’ll have some time to actually think about music without being called to give his opinion for anything regarding work in Seoul— he’ll have time to write.
He pours himself the cup of coffee he’s brewed to compliment his food, and for twenty minutes, everything is well and truly perfect. He doesn’t think about anything at all and lets his mind wander to what he can see. The horizon is right in Mingi’s eyeline and there are a few different species of bird that fly by. Mingi made a point to ensure that the property had evergreen trees, and without the snow, they almost make it seem as though he’s in proximity to spring from his vantage indoors.
The windows he looks out from opens up to the deck and a big outdoor grill that he had built into the house over the summer. He had invested hours into that particular addition, from the design to sourcing the materials and then putting it together from scratch, and it doubled as an outdoor fire pit, too. It’s been one of the many DIY projects he’s taken up over the last few months, and it’s been rewarding in ways Mingi had never expected. Something that’s Mingi’s to have and hone. Peace, on Mingi’s terms.
He’s excited about checking up on his tuber garden as well. He’d managed harvesting some spring herbs and tomatoes right before fall, and he’s hoping to keep the practice alive for as long as he can manage. He’s heard that potatoes and carrots are resilient as they grow and Mingi’s looking forward to finding out whether that’s true, first hand. It’s a new kind of contentment, here— something slow and necessary away from his normal.
He cleans once he’s done eating and makes his way out of the lounge area. To Mingi, his studio remains the heart of the house. It had been the only bare room left when he first visited while he had worked with his hyung to fix up every other part of the house beforehand. Every time he's here, he’s glad that he got to build the space to be everything he’s wanted by himself.
It has a completely different vibe to his studio in Seoul. Even if he’s got most of the same gear posted up for any recording he’s inspired to do, the space is an antithesis to the windowless, nightly energy he’s curated in the city. The centrepiece of this room is that one of its walls is entirely a window. He gets an uninterrupted lakeside view any time he likes, and everything he’s decorated the room with is in shades of natural green.
There’s a forest green rug that covers most of the space and Mingi’s spent a lot of his time on the floor because of it. The paintings are all variations of moss green, and the little embellishments are shades of gold and silver. The room isn’t even fitted with an overhead light— Mingi’s got about four or five lamps that all glow different intensities of warm yellows for when he needs them. It’s perfect for him, the dream.
Mingi takes a seat and switches on his desktop. He connects everything to his laptop and there’s a second where his breath hitches, once he logs in.
Fuck.
He’d been scrolling through his Photos app, last night. The picture that pops up on his desktop is one of him and Yunho from when they were kids. He feels silly for having had it open in the first place, still. It’s from when they were weeks away from their auditions at KQ. The photo’s got a shitty filter and too much grain for anything that would compare to the present, but the two of them are smiling at the selfie camera with their school uniforms still on. Mingi can tell they’ve just finished a dance class from how one of his shirt buttons are undone and the way the hair by Yunho’s ears curl up into the curve of it. They look bright and happy— invincible.
It’s— he’s not running away.
Has it been a few weeks since Yunho came back from his service? Yes. Is Mingi feeling completely normal and okay about it? Also, yes.
It’s just new. In the same old ways.
They kept in touch while the both of them had been gone. There were birthday texts and catch-up phone calls, check-ins and how are you’s that were more than genuine. Still, it was all an adjustment until it wasn't.
Since Mingi finished his service, he's spent the last few months easing back into working as an idol again. He's been brainstorming for his unit music with Hongjoong, and all the logistics of that's been keeping him mostly busy. Still, it’s felt like strengthening a weakened limb— where he’s felt too slow in connecting to the musicality he needs to and too big and out of shape for the way he should be moving, the choreography he has to manage stiffer than he remembers and his body more rigid. All the same, it's also like he'd been holding his breath while waiting for the time to elapse before they’re all together again, Yunho especially.
He’d just about gotten used to the new old rhythm of things when their team meetings reiterated that Yunho and Wooyoung returning in a few weeks.
He knows it should have registered as a good thing.
It was. Of course, it was.
Even so, coming to terms with seeing your best friend after three years away from him, in person, was to say the least, weird. The two of them hadn’t even known what to do, really.
Mingi had gone for a handshake where Yunho had gone in for a hug. There had been an awkward beat only for them to try again in reverse. Yunho’s the one who snapped out of it, even if it had been a beat too late for it to be natural. He’d drawn Mingi into a hug and smiled into his shoulder as if no time had passed. Mingi’s brain had only siloed in on how much broader Yunho’s shoulders had gotten and how much tauter his torso was, against all of his fucking will.
(There was a painstakingly high-resolution video of the interaction uploaded to Twitter with captions that flip-flopped from #yungidivorceera to #THEYUNGIREUNION all in a few hours of it happening. It had been fine.)
It’s Yunho who had asked for them to go out for dinner a few days later, and Mingi who had somehow lost all his abilities to converse like a normal person while they had.
All he could notice was how much fuller Yunho’s cheeks were and how much prettier it had made his smile, how Yunho's buzzcut served to make the rest of him that much bigger and more filled with charisma. Yunho himself had been talkative all the same. He had done what he does best and asked Mingi all the right questions and told him all the funniest stories he’d saved up only for Mingi’s ears.
Mingi had been the weird one, in the end. He’s the one who had only managed half-laughs and stilted replies while solely thinking about how his best friend had somehow become even prettier coming out of a gruelling hellhole than before he’d gone into it. Mingi’s the one who had thought back to the last Christmas card Yunho’s mom had e-mailed him while Yunho talked about everything he did at his final Chuseok during his service, where Yunho had had his hands wrapped around Kiari as his entire family in the photo looked happy and perfect and whole. Mingi’s the one who had gotten ahead of himself and pictured Yunho’s inevitable wedding then, one that Mingi would have to pretend to be happy about.
So, he’s the one who ruins their reunion, in a way. Well, in all the ways.
It had all just felt a little incorrect at the end of the night— not wrong, per say, just moved to the right a bit. Still, there had been enough that was peculiar for Mingi to be more uncomfortable than he’s been about anything ever.
He’s still uncomfortable about it.
Mingi closes out of the app and takes a beat. Even so, the cursor blinks at him after, waiting for him to click into Logic Pro.
Eventually, he decides to be an adult and cranks up the volume on his most soundproof noise-cancelling headphones while he works. He pushes himself with no breaks until he feels like his brain is about to leak out of his ears. It’s also then that he registers how badly his back’s stiffened up, begging him to stand.
It’s already past nightfall when he does, and he’s fighting tinnitus when he gets up to switch on the lights. His body autopilots to a shower then, and Mingi’s too exhausted to change his trajectory and push for more work. He had made progress for the hours he managed to focus, despite the odds, and he could use the hot water.
He pushes himself to switch on the fireplace lamps outside before he indulges himself, just so that there’s more light around. He’s fucking freezing by the time he’s back inside, but the sight of it is so beautiful against the night.
It’s nearing midnight when he checks his phone again.
He doesn’t expect much to be going on while he’s left it on do not disturb during the holiday season, but boy is he wrong. As unexpected as it is, there are several missed calls from Yunho, and it makes his heart stutter several beats. They’re staggered throughout the day but one goes as recently as within the last hour. Mingi’s finger reaches for the call dial before he’s even thinking about it.
Yunho picks up on first ring.
“Hi— Mingi-yah?”
There’s a sense of ease that rushes through Mingi. It’s as if some wound and waning part of him relaxes even if he doesn’t mean to. Yunho sounds okay, as far as Mingi can tell. Still, there’s an urgency to his tone Mingi doesn’t enjoy.
“Hi, Yun,” he greets. “Is everything okay?”
He hears an exhale at the end of the line.
“Fuck— hi,” Yunho breathes, “I was starting think something happened to you. You always answer.”
It’s part of the problem, Mingi thinks.
“I got carried away helping my mom,” he lies.
There’s a little voice in his head telling him that it shouldn’t be this easy to forgo honesty with Yunho. Still— “I’m sorry I missed your call.”
“Right.” Yunho says.
“Right,” Mingi parrots, looking at the time. “What’s wrong? It’s late, Yun— why aren’t you asleep?”
There’s a bit of unidentifiable rustling over the static. Mingi can hear Yunho’s quiet breathing though, above all else. He tries not to worry while he waits.
“Kiari and I broke up,” Yunho says. He stumbles over the words as if he’s trying to get them out of him as fast as he can. “It’s been three months to the day, today, actually.”
Mingi doesn’t really know what to say. “Shit.”
“I haven’t told anyone, obviously,” Yunho goes on, “not even my parents.”
There’s a weight to Yunho that cuts through the stifle of the phone call.
Mingi feels like he’s not drawing in enough air. “Yun, I—"
“Are you at the lake-house, Mingi-yah?”
Yunho’s barely audible when he asks, as if he hadn’t wanted to ask the question at all. Even so, the wind is knocked out of Mingi all the same.
He stills. “How the hell do you know about the lake-house?”
Mingi’s hyung is the only person he’s talked about this place to. He wouldn’t have done even that, really, if he’d been able to manage his time better before basic training. It turned out to be an inevitable logistical thing, in the end. Either way, Mingi’s prided this place as his personal peace and quiet, and it’s not meant for anybody else. Not even Yunho, and especially not now.
“Can I come to you?” Yunho asks, evading Mingi’s question. He sounds tired. Mingi picks up on the hesitance, too, as if he’s already beating himself up about asking.
Then Yunho actually walks himself back. “Fuck— I— uh, I’m really sor—”
“Stay on the line while I send you the address,” Mingi says. He switches Yunho to loud-speaker and texts him the details.
Mingi watches as Yunho’s read receipt comes on. There’s some movement then, as if Yunho’s gotten up and out. “I’ll be there in couple of hours.”
Okay. Okay.
Mingi’s head spins. There’s a part of him that chastises his inability to ever say no to Yunho. Most of all though, Mingi’s just confused.
“Yun,” Mingi tries again, “how—”
“I called your mom because you weren’t picking up and she told me you’re coming home only for New Year’s,” Yunho answers. “She assumed you were with me, back in Seoul.”
It’s not the explanation Mingi’s looking for, they both know that.
There’s some shuffling, and Mingi hears the stifled start-up of an engine, then. Yunho heaves another shaky exhale.
“You told me about the house before you left, Min— at your pre-enlistment send-off thing— or, well, after we got home that night." There's a pause. "You drank too much,” Yunho adds belatedly.
Of fucking course, Mingi had.
As he half-expects, there’s a giant gap in his memory from the night when he tries to place it. He remembers karaoke with the hyungs and kissing both Wooyoung and Yeosang as part of a game forfeit. He remembers exchanging pleasantries with their extended network and playing beer pong with San and Jongho before Yunho had gotten there. He’s able to recall the essence of the one bland conversation he had managed with Yunho early on that night and then it’s pretty much all a blank from there.
Fuck.
Mingi chews at his bottom lip. “I don’t really remember anything.”
Yunho lets out a small laugh. It’s the most genuine sound that Mingi’s gotten from him this entire call, and Mingi’s chest loosens a little bit.
“Yeah,” Yunho sighs, “I didn’t think you would, Min. That’s okay, though.”
Mingi tries to come to terms with how he’s invited the one person he’s trying to avoid to the one place that’s supposed to be just his. He takes a deep breath about it and tells himself that there’s nothing to worry about.
It’s just Yunho, in the end. Always fucking Yunho.
“Are you sure I can come by?” He asks again.
Mingi knows how difficult this call must be for him. If it was Mingi, he wouldn’t have bothered making it in the first place. He’s been avoiding just that by being here.
He looks at the lamplight outside. The lake reflects the mirror of the stars and half-crescent moon almost perfectly. There’s something about it all that comforts Mingi through his apprehension. “Do you have anywhere else to go?”
Mingi hears the muffle of Yunho shaking his head. “I told my parents I’ll be in Seoul until after Christmas because I needed some time— honestly, I don’t mind the quiet here, either.”
Mingi’s already resigned himself to the fate he's committed to. Plus, Yunho’s a terrible fucking liar.
“You’re not spending Christmas alone, Yun,” Mingi relents. “Turn your location on so I know where you are and I’ll see you in a bit, yeah? Drive safe.”
Yunho seems to nod. “See you soon, Min.”
Mingi’s chest expands to draw in as much air as he can manage once the line clicks dead. Still, he doesn’t know what to do with the wait he now has. He’s up and out of his couch before he can think about it and shakes off all the restless energy that’s coursing through him. This is fine. It’s fine.
Against all of Mingi’s best efforts, there’s an innate expectation that settles over him just as surely as the impending sense of dread.