[2017 – 2018]

Joining Super Junior

The first time Changmin jokes about joining Super Junior it’s a late autumn evening and they are chilling in the house they share in Japan. When Yunho hears him, he arches an eyebrow and stares at him for a moment, before laughing the issue away, a while after.
Changmin smiles back and keeps on reading the book he had left on the sofa.

The second time Changmin jokes about joining Super Junior it’s winter and they are discussing the schedule for their upcoming concert in Seoul. Yunho doesn’t laugh and stares at Changmin with sad eyes, his pride hurt. They don’t say a word and for days Yunho refuses to talk to him.

The third time Changmin jokes about joining Super Junior it’s spring and they are on a plane headed to Dubai. Yesung is filming him, but Yunho is busy talking with other people and doesn’t seem to be listening to them. Or so Changmin thought.
Yunho actually heard him, but hid the pain behind a broken smile.

The last time Changmin jokes about joining Super Junior it’s summer and they are fighting with the broken air conditioner to survive the hot weather that has imprisoned the capital. Changmin has just drop a whole bucket of water on Yunho as a joke, but Yunho is now angry and screaming and Changmin shouts back how Super Junior members wouldn’t have minded, how they would have laughed along and probably thanked him for having refreshed them.
At the mention of the fellow group, Yunho screams louder and reminds the younger guy of what they had to go through to protect their name, of how hard they had to work, of all the sacrifices they had to do. He tells him that it hurts when he says he would exchange him with their friends and colleagues and even though Yunho knows that he’s not serious, that he wouldn’t actually do so, it hurts that he likes to think about it. 

Changmin hadn’t really thought about the words he said, but looking at Yunho he feels his eyes getting wet and warm tears rolling down his face. And he’s hurt, too. Because even though he knows all the sufference they had to endure in order to protect their name, he also knows that back then everything was easier. Practise was hard, for sure, and so were the meetings and the thick schedules, but he would have had an innocent Junsu to prank along with Yoochun, he would have had a smiling Jaejoong always caring for him and a happier Yunho to deal with.

They look at each other for those that seem ages and when Yunho finally decides to let it go, they both break down, painfully aware of lost light-hearted times and of a deep melancholy unable to be forgotten, even after years.