“Coffee tastes best when you add salt to it.”

“Then why are you adding sugar to yours?”

Yifan can’t help the quirk of his lips as he mixes the sugar into his black coffee. Junmyeon has his right eyebrow raised, a questioning look in his eyes as he watches Yifan. How long has it been since he last spoke to the quirky man sitting before him?

“I’m not supposed to add the salt like its sugar, salt is added beforehand.” Yifan brings the coffee mug to his lips, carefully blowing on the steaming liquid before drinking it. “It condenses the bitter taste.”

Junmyeon eyes his own coffee, his pointer finger skimming the rim of his mug. He prefers to add milk and sugar to make the taste sweeter, occasionally he drinks black coffee for when he needs an energy boost for work.

“Shame. I would have thought you ate spoonfuls of salt.”

“If ate spoonfuls of salt you would have been eating it alongside with me.”

Silence falls between them. There is no tension not like the second time: Junmyeon had spent those 2 hours ranting and throwing things at Yifan, shouting at him for leaving him at such a dire moment. Yifan tried his best to dodge to oncoming objects, but he wasn’t very graceful at ducking.

“The only time I’m a graceful swan is when I’m on the basketball court,” he admitted. Which probably the reason why he ended up with a cut on his head. Junmyeon could feel guilty about scarring Yifan’s head; he could.

But it’s different this time.

There is no tension in the air anymore, but it is awkward and it made both men squirm in their seats like hyperactive children.

“You’re bald.” Junmyeon breaks the uncomfortable first, pointing out Yifan’s lack of hair under his snapback. “You remind of this American cartoon character I was watching last night. What his name…Omi, I believe.”

The nerve under Yifan’s left eye twitches. Out of all the characters to be compared to it has to be the short, dense, manic kid from Shaolin Showdown. It’s not the first time he hears that reference, international fans have flooded his Instagram and Weibo account with jokes of him being a Shaolin warrior.

“Yeah. Just add six dots on your forehead and lower your height to 3 feet and you’re all set.” Junmyeon brings his coffee mug to his lips, his eyes not wavering.

“You do realize I had to shave my hair because you threw a ceramic plate at my head.” Yifan points at the small line on his bald head. “I got stitches.”

The EXO leader snorts, “Like five.”

“It still hurt, Junmyeon!”

The shorter man grunts in response, bringing his mug back up to his lips he looks out the complex window, watching as California sun shines above Los Angeles. He can hear the sound of the waves hitting the shore and the sound of seagulls calling while they search for leftovers. This isn’t how he expected to spend his weekend off.

What are they doing here?

What is he doing here?

The first time they met was a fluke. He and Yifan happened to be in Los Angeles at the same time and ran into each other when they walked into the same Starbucks. It was chaos of course, fans had been following both of them and when they acted like civilized adults, people began to think that Yifan and Junmyeon had met up to talk. Many hoped he was coming back to EXO, others suggested to kick him to the curb.

It caused an uproar between the fans—many hoped, and still do, that the Chinese members which had left would come back to EXO. Although he hated to crush their hopes, he came out clean that it was a misunderstanding, none of the ex-members were coming back.

“So, how’s life treating you?” Yifan scratches the back of his head, his snapback slightly moving as his fingertips collide with it.

Junmyeon shrugs. Yifan should know how his life is, or at least have an idea of how it is.

“It’s great. The boys and I are working hard for our next album.”

“I heard you debuted in Japan already and are in the middle of recording another Christmas album.”

Junmyeon takes a sip of coffee. “Yeah, we are.”

“How’s Japan?”

Yifan watches as Junmyeon’s lips quirk, his eyes turning into crescents as he says, “It’s beautiful. I didn’t know there would be so much energy while we performed. It was 2012 all over again.”

Both men fall silent. They don’t look at each other, instead they look away. Yifan staring silently at the cooling mug in his hands and Junmyeon staring out at the window watching the California sky clouds up.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” Junmyeon pulls down on his shirt collar, his ears flushing as he straightens out in his chair.

Yifan shakes his head furiously. “No, no. I understand. I suppose, in a way, it is 2012 all over again.”

It’s silent again. Junmyeon is cursing himself silently—why does it have to be so awkward between them? Why couldn’t they just talk to each other like before Yifan decided to file his lawsuit? It couldn’t be possible he was still bitter over it, as leader of EXO he had to learn how to acknowledge that, yes, three Chinese members had left.

Yifan without saying a word, and Luhan and Tao explaining themselves.

“How are the others?” Yifan says, “I’ve been wanting to ask about them since I saw you at Starbucks.”

Junmyeon smiles. s could be a pain in the , but he’s honest when he says he loves all of them. “They’re still a pain in the , older but still a pain.”

“Sehun is still acting like a bratty child?”

“Worse,” Junmyeon snorts, “he’s acting like a rebellious teenager. I tell him to come home earlier and he responds with but I came home early last night, hyung.”

Both men begin to laugh, Yifan can imagine Sehun’s face as he tells this to Junmyeon. He hasn’t changed one bit.

“I swear I’m turning into a nagging mother.”

Deep laughter fills the kitchen, it feels like old times when Junmyeon and Yifan would joke around behind closed doors. Junmyeon and Yifan making stupid jokes only they could understand and the rest of the group judging them openly.

As the leaders of EXO is was stand together like a dorky couple or go down in flames. But even if they stood together they would go down in flames—no shame in their dumb jokes.

“How’s Minseok? I heard he got a roll in a drama.”

Junmyeon nods. “It’s a web drama, I believe. He nailed the main role.”

They begin to chatter back and forth. Yifan tells Junmyeon about his movie roles and Junmyeon fills Yifan in on (almost) everything the other members are doing—he talks about Jongdae and the theatre act he did; about Kyungsoo’s continuous praise as an actor; Chanyeol’s rising popularity among the fans; and Yixing’s struggle to keep his promise to stay in EXO.

“We’re all struggling in some way,” Junmyeon says, “but I believe Yixing has worse right now. I don’t voice it but he is. As the last standing Chinese member in EXO, he has a lot to prove to our fans. He’s busy coming to and fro, promoting us in China while keeping the fans placated. I’m worried he’ll collapse one of these days.”

Yifan scrapes his nails against the porcelain cup, guilt coursing through him as he thinks of the dimpled man who was a lot more devious than he led on. How was Yixing really feeling? He could say he felt strong to prove to his fans that he was staying, but how long could he keep that up?

“I heard about Tao.”

Yifan feels his throat constrict and his back tense. His fingers twitch uncomfortably as he brings his now cold coffee to his lips. “Yeah.”

“Are you still upset about it?”

The tall male leans back on his chair, his jaw clenching as he frowns. “I’ve read so many comments telling me whether or not I’m allowed to be upset for what he said. I know what I did made a sprain in all of your hard work, and I thought in the beginning: ‘I’ll come back and I will explain. But for now, I’ll stay quiet about it, I won’t badmouth my members or the company.’”

Yifan swallows the lump forming in his throat. There was so many things he wanted to explain to his ex-group members, he just couldn’t find the time.

“But I never did get a chance to explain myself. As soon as I was gone, everything was flipped sideways. I guess you let the anger and hurt get the best of you, and you said I should come back and apologize for what I did.”

Junmyeon remains silent.

“Luhan was the only one who knew about what I was planning to do because he felt the same way I did. But he wasn’t in a rush.”

Yifan scratches his face, his gaze distant.

“You treated Tao like your little brother, why didn’t you tell him?”

“It’s complicated.” Yifan shakes his head, “There’s more there than you think. I did see Tao as my younger brother but there were so many things he just wouldn’t understand. I knew he wouldn’t understand my reasons for leaving but even after confirming it, it still hurt.”

Yifan stands up from where he sits. His has gone numb and his legs itch to move.

“I didn’t want him to take my side. I never did. I wanted him to understand as a member, as a friend…as a brother.”

The echo of laughter decreased to a solemn state. Junmyeon’s mind is racing and his hands shake slightly; he was still angry, hurt.

“I suppose a year of silence tends to with your mind. There’s no one really there to talk to, or who can relate to you.”

Junmyeon is glued to his seat. He doesn’t know what to say, how to react. There’s so much pent up emotion in his gut that he doesn’t know whether to laugh or yell. Should he punch Yifan in the face or should his damn mug out the window?

Or maybe punch Yifan and then throw him out the window?

“You know what also s with your mind? Having to stand on stage like one of your members didn’t just file lawsuit.”

Yifan stops pacing. His back turned against Junmyeon as he listens to what he has to say.

“You think it was bad having to hear people tell you whether or not you should be angry? Imagine having people blame you for someone else’s choice. ‘Kris left because Suho wasn’t a good leader’, ‘Suho should have done a better job’, ‘Why didn’t Suho know about this? I thought he was the so-called guardian...’”

Junmyeon can feel his eyes sting—there had been so much shame in his heart when he read those comments, and for a while he did blame himself.

“I thought, maybe I should have been a better leader. I should have listened to what Kris said. I should have pushed to know more about his well-being.” A breathy chuckle escapes his lips, “But after a while, I realized that I can’t be in everyone’s head. I’m not the type to manipulate people into telling me their feelings, I can’t read a person’s mind.”

Yifan is now looking at Junmyeon, who’s fighting his pent up tears.

“And then Luhan told us he leaving, and then I went to see Tao in LA and he told me he was leaving…the only Chinese member left is Yixing. I had to reassure our members that Yixing was staying, especially Sehun. You should’ve seen him, he was so heartbroken and confused. ‘Hyung, you’re not going to leave us right?’”

Yifan’s forehead is pressed against the wall. The raw emotion in Junmyeon’s voice is tearing him apart. Both sides suffered painful casualties, and he knew there was a lot more for Junmyeon to share.

“I remember telling him Yixing wasn’t going anywhere, but deep down I was afraid he was. Maybe he would leave like you three did, maybe we would end up falling apart. I feared we would, many fans were saying we were going to break up really soon. ‘Why did Suho spend all those years training if he was only active for a few years?’

“It broke me so much to hear that our fans were being so sardonic about what was happening. I know some of them were using humor to deal with the blow of leaving members, but other mocked us so harshly even I began to doubt our continuing.”

Junmyeon ran a hand through his hair.

“They made theories, posting facts on the web as to why they should start saying good-bye to us, why they should enjoy the “last” of our performances.”

Yifan moves away from the wall, his long legs carrying him back to the table. He doesn’t know how, but he managed to keep his tears from falling.

“But you’re still performing.”

Junmyeon nods. “We are.”

“For the record, I didn’t mean to make things hard for you. But I suppose even if it wasn’t intentional, it would have been anyway.”

Junmyeon nods. He suddenly feels tired, drained. He wants to sleep for long hours and just let his body sink into the mattress. Yifan feels the same, he wants to lay his head on a pillow and go into a deep sleep. But neither of them want to voice it out, it can’t be called progress of course, their emotions are still everywhere and they seem to not be able to look at each other for long.

“I think…” Junmyeon hesitates, “I think it’s time for me to go. My plane leaves in three hours and I have to make sure I packed everything.”

Yifan looks up at the clock. It’s been a couple hours since they sat down, their coffee mugs are empty and sun has begun to set.

They both stand up as they make their way towards Yifan’s apartment floor. Junmyeon’s gathers his things before he bows to Yifan; the latter returns the gesture, feeling awkward for bowing to someone he knows well.

“See you next time?” he inquires, hoping the Korean man says yes.

Junmyeon his lips, a contemplating look in his eyes. Even though they had shared bitter parts of the past year—parts which they had no clue about each other, the air felt different somehow. It was less…bitter. Like if the saltiness of their past had somehow sweetened the air between them.

It’s like salt and coffee, a strange combination but it still does wonders.

Junmyeon finally nods, turning his body away to leave. “Next time.”

 

 

---

 

Author’s Corner:

Oh god, this was crappy and sort of rushed but I love it because I can finally get this idea out of my head! I’ve been wanting to write a krisho one-shot where they meet up to talk to each other about everything that has happened but I could never find the right…uh, words???

I totally broke my heart a little while writing this. I really do miss OT12, but sometimes people have to take a different route to make things work.

Anyway, I hope you all liked it! Let me know what you thought (: