“—and I said, if you don’t know your way between EDM and Electronic maybe you should shut your trap about having good taste because clearly, you know ,” Yeri tells him with a slight sneer in her voice.

Donghae stifles a laugh as they carefully navigate the rush of the evening subway crowd with her arm looped around his. “Must you be so harsh to him?”

Yeri pouts, squeezing his arm in a vice-like grip. “He was being an elitist , I was just correcting him.”

“Of course you are,” he says with a roll of his eyes and gently tries to pry her hand off of him before she cut off his blood circulation completely. “And owe.”

“Sorry,” she says, sounding not sorry at all as she releases him.

“You know—” he starts, a retort on his tongue but before he could get it out Yeri’s eyes widen dramatically as she sees something past his head and practically shrieks loud enough to deafen one of his ears.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod!” Yeri breaks away from him suddenly and rushes toward one of the many large advertisement walls behind him that lined all the subway stations of Seoul. “It’s Bad Decision, oppa!”

As though someone had reached into his chest and gives his heart a squeeze, Donghae stutters for a breath and his body tenses up as he slowly and unwillingly turns around and stares right into Hyukjae’s heated gaze fixed on him.

Out of the corners of his eyes, he can see Yeri excitedly pointing at the new advertisement banner that appeared to replace the old CJ Chicken that used to be there every day for the last month. Now is it Hyukjae’s face that adorns this subway station and Donghae finds himself frozen in his spot staring at the face of his ex.

Yeri hurries back to his side and grips at his arm, only to drags his stiff body toward the large banner layout in glorious color and detail. “You heard of them right, oppa?!” she asks eagerly.

“Vaguely,” he answers distantly, still fixated at the poster with an intensity he is sure it would drill a hole in it. Hyukjae is laid out on a 2D flat surface, hanging on the wall of crowded subway station but everything about him feels alive as though he’s in the same space as Donghae and they’re sharing the same air.

With his hair an artful mess as Hyukjae slightly lean backward, revealing an expanse of smooth skin as his neck lay bare, and the collar of his too thin shirt is popped wide open to accentuate the sliver of skin peeking through, drawing all eyes to the shadows that run down. It’s a carefully restrained obscenity; provocative without being too lewd but still, it set every fiber of Donghae’s being on fire.

On the banner, in black scripted text ‘Blue September’ is written across on the other side of Hyukjae’s and underneath that is the titular Bad Decision’s logo and a date of the new album release advertised for all passerby to see.

“But you used to work at a music store,” she points out, eyes narrowing.

Reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the banner, he steers his attention back to Yeri and shrugs. “In college and it was just to pay the bills.”

“You’re so boring, oppa,” she whines and drops her hand on him to look at the banner with a profound grin. “They were an indie band, you know? I heard that they used to play in dive bars and underground clubs all over Seoul before the public caught on to how amazing they are and they exploded into popularity ever since. And now they have their fifth studio album and their songs are constantly topping the chart, can you believe it?”

Yes, I can, Donghae doesn’t say.

“I couldn’t even get a ticket to the last tour because it was sold in seconds,” she complains, a sulky expression adorns her face but it is quickly overridden with sheer determination. “Next time I’ll definitely get it!”

“I’m sure you will,” he says, and he doesn’t doubt it for a second.

“Wait,” Yeri says, looking at him all hopeful, “aren’t you guys from the same hometown?”

Donghae swallows around the sudden rush of bitter feelings that Yeri’s accidentally brought up with that question. “It’s maybe a small town but it’s not true that everyone knows everyone there,” he says and it’s only a half-truth.

“Boring,” she says, lips protruding in another sulking pout.

Donghae rolls his eyes. “Yes very boring indeed,” he says and pointedly looks down at his watch. “Now don’t you have a train to catch in five minutes?”

Yeri’s eyes widen in realization. “Oh right, bye oppa! See you tomorrow,” she says, dashing out into the crowd with a wave of her hand at him before it swallows her completely.

Donghae should also be on his way too, his train will arrive right after Yeri’s, but he remains rooted in his spot, turning around to peer at the banner of Hyukjae again.

Hyukjae used to hate it, Donghae muses. “I can’t be the face of the group,” he had said once before the band first official photo shoot all those years ago and Donghae had done his best to soothe away Hyukjae’s insecurities. He’d pressed his lip up against all of Hyukjae’s perceived imperfection and told him they didn’t know what a treasure they have because only Donghae did.

Now he looks like he belongs on the front page of a fashion magazine or a centerfold piece people would pay a single copy just to see him splayed out like--beautiful, untouchable, and just out of their reach. And even here in this crowded subway station where Hyukjae appears right in front of him and as close as he can be, Donghae knows this is just an illusion, a shadow of his larger than life profile.

Back then Donghae was afraid of a lot of things, failing out of his classes, paying the bills, Hyukjae and the band never given the chance, and the big bright light of Seoul’s swallowing a small town boy like him up but he didn’t think it would ever be that one day Hyukjae would soon outgrow him, outgrew their relationship.

Oh to be woefully wrong.

Donghae reaches a handout, pressed it up against the banner and his fingers tracing the dip of Hyukjae’s collar bones that peek through his shirt, carefully and reverently. His finger trails upward, up Hyukjae’s neck and toward the defined jawline till it finally falls on his lips. He maps the place he must have kiss a hundred times that even now the memory burns his fingers at the thought of it.

The impression of a kiss, the memory of the past, and all the could haves and should bes, it’s right there in front of him.

He brings the fingers toward his lips and before he could do anything truly embarrass he manages to catch himself in time, face going red. What was he even doing?! He’s not seventeen anymore, caught up in the flush of youth and sold on the idea of a happy ending. That part of him has died along with everything of Hyukjae he had snuffed out.

Donghae instead hastily pulls out his phone and snaps a picture before he decides against it.

It’s enough. It has to be.

“Are you a fan too?” a young girl asks, suddenly appearing beside him. Her pink phone with BD stickers all over is held out in a similar manner as Donghae as she takes several pictures of the banner.  

Somewhere in his bedroom, there’s a box tucked away under his bed and in that box it contains several unused concert tickets, CD albums that are well used and loved, old photographs of two boys stuck in a time of joy and youthful naivety, and memories that Donghae had desperately tried to lock away. “No.” He shakes his head. “No,” he says again,  “not at all.”

She looks at him and then down at his phone, where a sapphire blue BD’s Fanclub keychain adorns it—it’s a limited edition BD fan club keychain only awarded to the first 100 fan club members that registered when the fan club first open in its early days. Donghae had fought faulty Internet connection and 404 error messages to claimed the eighty-nine spot. Hyukjae had about going the extra mile for something that Hyukjae could have easily pull string for him but he had seem pleased by it afterward, secretly smiling as he turned away.

The keychain is nearly a decade old and is so worn out that the color is scratched off but Donghae never once consider taken it off, even when he tried to erase every part of Hyukjae from his life.

“Really,” she says doubtfully, scrutinizing him over. “You know there’s nothing embarrassing about being a fan at your age. Music is for everyone and Bad Decision is one of the best band if not the best out in the music scene currently.”

“I hate them actually, their music disgust me,” Donghae says hollowly, taking several steps back from her. He makes a run for it as soon as he sees her darken face and the pinch between her brows as she is ready to unleash hell on him—the way he used to get whenever someone had insulted Bad Decisions in the olden days.

“You bastard--!” the girl shouts at his back but Donghae is already off, feet carrying him as far away from her as possible as though he can’t get far enough from the girl but somewhere in the back of his mind, in the twist of his heart, he knows what he’s running away from isn’t her at all.

But even that won’t save Donghae.

“—but it’s true, I haven’t got a clue without you,” he hears Hyukjae croons over the subway station radio. “And this September you left me dyed in blue.”

Seven years ago on a brisk September day, just on the heels of summer, two boys met and then parted way. Two hearts were broken that day or so he thought. Maybe it has always been one.

a/n: you can thank donghae's deleted instagram of hyukjae's pic for that one. part of my band au.