Title: Starburst

Pairing: Junjin/Andy, JinDy

Author: Phoenix_Soar

Genre: Romance, Angst, Friendship, Fluff

Warnings: Some coarse language, sensuality

Rating: PG-13

Summary: It is the single most mystifying and terrifying moment of his life – and that is how he will always remember the first time he met his soulmate in this world.

Author’s Notes: This fic incorporates the theme of soulmates (and a hint at the multi-universe theory) into Shinhwa canon, originally intended to be a ~5k one-shot. Atypically, the entire thing blew out of proportion and I ended up with this huge monster.

This fic is a bit of a disjointed hot mess that, strangely enough, I’m quite satisfied with. It is told mostly through emotions set within a smattering of canonical situations.

Speaking of which, quick warning that though this story is set in canon, I butchered a lot of their past events to fit my own whims. ^_^ Also, I didn’t go completely in-depth into the details of these events, focussing more on the main character’s emotional reaction to them.

 

The visions begin soon after they first meet.
    
The stirrings, however, begin the moment their eyes meet – and he has never been less prepared for something so unsettling in his life.

The very air between them awakens, trembling with a resonance that echoes from him to the tall stranger approaching them. Something rouses inside him, deep in a place he never knew existed, and it sears and freezes his soul.

The stranger stops in front of them. He looks around at the five waiting boys and attempts a smile - and that is all it takes to rip away the fabric of the physical world. It is as if he and this boy have been amidst stars that swirl and dance in a radiance of distorted colours around them, and he does not even know the stranger’s name.

The stranger finally speaks, jarring him out of that vortex of starbursts and riotous sensations.

With a respectful bow, he introduces himself, “My name is Park Choongjae. I look forward to working with you in Shinhwa…”

The rest of his words fade away, leaving only two words hanging in the air.

Park Choongjae.

The name rings in his ears, fills his lungs, pulls at that unknown awakening inside him with insubstantial tendrils until he has to force himself to breathe.

He has never heard that name before – never met this boy before – but in that moment, he just knows that this boy is no stranger.

He knows him as surely as he knows his own name.

Yet, he does not. He does, but … he does not, either.

It is the single most mystifying and terrifying moment of his life – and that is how Lee Sunho will always remember the first time he met his soulmate in this world.

~***~

When it his turn to greet the new boy, Sunho is so caught up in how his entire world has been tipped on its axis that he stumbles over his own name.

Choongjae’s lips twitch at Sunho’s stammer while the rest of Shinhwa snickers at him in amusement. Dongwan nudges him with his shoulder, chuckling, ‘Yah, what’s up with you?’

Sunho says nothing. He stares at Choongjae for a long moment, memorising the good humour in his warm brown eyes, the genial quirk of his mouth and the unreserved friendliness on his face without quite realising it.

The sensation inside his chest flares, almost tangible in its intensity, and Sunho has to look away.

He does not meet Choongjae’s eyes for the rest of their conversation, even when it is his turn to speak. It is rude, especially as Park Choongjae is older than him, but Sunho does not dare.

He is afraid to see what he saw in his eyes before.

And that is how their “friendship” – for lack of a better term – begins: awkward and rocky, to continue for several years into the future.

In hindsight, Sunho will come to regret that shaky beginning.

But right now, he is too out of his depth to realise what is happening and how its repercussions will echo in the future.

~***~

The feelings do not fade away as the days begin to slip and blur together. If anything, they seem to grow only stronger.

With Park Choongjae signed on as the final member of Shinhwa, Sunho sees him every day. The meetings at the agency, the vocal and dance trainings, and the fact that Shinhwa shares a dormitory – Sunho is continuously forced into Choongjae’s company and he experiences the same surreal sensations every minute of it.

The most prominent is the feeling of Choongjae and him existing alone on another plane together, cocooned in an Elysian embrace of starbursts and lights – he cannot explain the feeling nor escape it.

He wishes he can. He wants to get away from Choongjae so badly it is almost a physical ache. But there is another emotion, just as confusing, that battles his impulse to run away.

It is the inherent urge to be closer to Choongjae, to speak to him, to know his every thought and touch him just to feel the heat of his blood pulsing beneath his pale skin.

That urge … he is wary of calling it “desire”. He first assumes that is simply because he does not want to imagine what that will bode for Shinhwa’s future. To desire a member of his group … it will not end well; it is unthinkable.

But then the visions begin.

And Sunho realises slowly that he cannot call the feeling “desire” because it is not merely that. It is so much more – more than anything he can comprehend or is ready for.

~***~

They make no sense at first, the visions. They creep into his consciousness in the darkest hours of night and he mistakes them for dreams.

~The boy with the warm brown eyes smiles at him from across a room full of bustling boys in school uniforms, staring at him as if there is nothing and no one else there except the two of them…~

~He bumps into a boy on the pavement. Both of them mumble hasty apologies, glancing at each other without any recognition as they hurry on their opposite ways. A minute later, he notices the uneasy feeling in his gut, like he has just missed something important, crucial, but he cannot tell what it is. He turns around, but the stranger has already disappeared into the crowds…~

~The tightening feeling in his chest intensifies as he waits for the boy to respond, still holding onto his shoulders. ‘Please,’ he whispers, ‘please, remember…’ It takes a long, agonising moment for the boy to finally smile, meeting his eyes. ‘I remember,’ the boy whispers back and leans in close…

And so they continue, long and relentless, until Sunho realises they are not ordinary dreams. They do not feel connected to each other, but rather disjointed, like pieces from different puzzles trying to fit together. Bits and pieces of surreal imagery that feel as chaotic as they are familiar to him, like foggy memories long forgotten.

And they are always about him and Choongjae.

There is no question that “the boy” he sees is Choongjae, but in the visions, he never identifies the boy with that name. He does not identify himself as Sunho, either.

‘It’s as if we have different names in them,’ he murmurs to himself one day. ‘Like we are the same people, but with different identities.’

He does not know what that means.

Sunho spends months trying to figure out what the visions mean.

~‘I know you’re out there somewhere,’ he mutters to a dark winter sky. ‘I just wish I knew where …’ He closes his eyes, feeling tears burn behind his eyelids. ‘Please … please … I just want to stop missing someone I haven’t even met …’~

~They are laughing and out of breath as they collapse to the floor, surrounded by haphazardly thrown pillows. The boy’s eyes are warm and soft when their eyes meet. It makes his heart leap, makes him wonder if his wait is over, if now is the time…~

~There are hands buried in his hair and hot breath on his neck. ‘Y-you don’t know … how long … I’ve waited … for you … to realise,’ says the boy in a trembling voice, breathing the words in between searing kisses to his neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ he tells the boy, just as breathless, ‘for taking so long. How could I not recognise you…?’ He grasps the boy’s face with both hands and kisses him fiercely…~

The visions of him and Choongjae being intimate start a couple of months later. The first day he wakes up from it, he cannot even look at Choongjae, much less talk to him. He spends the majority of his schedule avoiding the older boy as much as possible, hoping this one day will be the end of it.

Of course it is not.

Similar visions visit him in his dreams sporadically. Nor two are the same, but it fills Sunho with the same mixed feelings of guilt and longing, whenever he sees Choongjae afterwards.

The longing is the worst. From the moment they had met, Sunho has been experiencing the strange urge to be close to Choongjae, to know him and be with him … but this physical longing, almost bordering on lust, unsettles him unlike any other feeling.

He is yearning for a boy he barely knows without even knowing why. It escapes sense and reason, and Sunho bottles it up the only way he knows how – avoiding the object of his distress: Choongjae.

~***~

It creates a rift between them, gaping and prominent. He had already been on uneasy terms with Choongjae, but on the days he cuts himself off from the other boy entirely to avoid those feelings … it becomes glaringly noticeable, even to the other members.

It is not Shinhwa’s type to meddle deeply into affairs that do not involve the entire group. Only a few members address the issue between Sunho and Choongjae, and that, too, only in private to both of them.

When Eric asks him about it for the first time and calls him ‘Jason’, Sunho winces with guilt but tries to give a credible answer.

‘It’s a misunderstanding, hyung,’ he says. ‘I’m not avoiding Choongjae hyung, it’s just … we’re very different. I’m not sure what to say to him most of the time.’

His excuse is only a mere trace of the truth and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘Is it that … you hate him?’ asks Eric slowly.

Sunho is shocked. ‘No, of course not!’ he exclaims, and it is the truest thing he has ever said about Choongjae. His troubling feelings for the older boy is something beyond control and reason, but it is far from hatred.

‘Of course, I don’t hate him…’

Eric finally lets the issue go only with the gentle advice that they should try to spend some time together and reach an understanding.

Sunho has no choice but to agree. ‘I’ll try, hyung.’

The next time he sees Choongjae, the older boy blanches when their eyes meet and he looks away quickly. Sunho sees him exchange a glance with Pilkyo, who looks deeply concerned, and he immediately realises that a talk, similar to what had transpired between him and Eric, must have taken place between Pilkyo and Choongjae too.

In that moment, he sees the cracks between him and Choongjae; the cracks in Shinhwa that he is causing, and he is suddenly horrified at himself.

Shinhwa and their future are more important than the unspoken cosmic entanglement between him and Choongjae. Shinhwa is more important than the visions that haunt him and the boy who torments him without even knowing.

Shinhwa, the culmination of their hopes and dreams, is above all that.

It is then that he quietly resolves to fix the damage he has caused.

~***~

The first time Sunho takes the initiative to address Choongjae directly is at a time Shinhwa are all gathered together, eating an improvised dinner at their dorm.

‘Hyung, please pass the soy sauce,’ he says to Choongjae, quietly and nonchalantly, across their dining table.

The reaction to the simple request is deafening in its silence as everyone pauses in various states of eating, to stare at Sunho as if he has just announced the apocalypse.

It is not entirely unexpected, the members’ shock. So he ignores it entirely and holds Choongjae’s gaze calmly.

Choongjae looks almost shaken that Sunho is actually speaking to him, but he recovers fast enough.

‘Here…’ He holds out the bottle.

‘Thanks, hyung’ says Sunho as easily as he would say it to any other member, and, for the first time in what seems like forever, Choongjae smiles genuinely at him. It is as if Sunho’s simple words have wiped away months of silent suffocating tension between them.

Sunho’s answering smile is not entirely honest; inside, he is still struggling with the tangled connection he feels with Choongjae. But it is still a smile and Choongjae looks pleasantly surprised.

Returning to his dinner with his lips still forced up, Sunho thinks that maybe he can get used to it.

Fixing the awkward atmosphere he has caused within Shinhwa because of Choongjae does not seem so hard after all.

~***~

There is a catch to it, as there always is.

Fixing things and acting normal are not so hard … that is, when he and Choongjae are with Shinhwa together.

They can go with the flow of conversation without feeling odd about it when they are talking amongst Shinhwa. Sunho can take the initiative to speak to Choongjae when they are chatting together as Shinhwa. Choongjae can tease Sunho when Shinhwa gang up on teasing Sunho together.  

With Shinhwa, it is not so hard.

With the two of them alone together, though, it is a different story …

It happens on a rare off day when both of them arrive at the agency’s dance practice room at the same time.

Sunho freezes from where he is tying his shoelaces when Choongjae walks into the room, a sports bag slung lazily on his shoulder. Choongjae stops, too, and stares at him in surprise.

‘I thought the practice room was free until tonight,’ he begins.

Sunho has to take a moment to breathe. ‘I was told that, too,’ he finally returns lamely. He tries to quell the usual butterflies that have begun fluttering in his gut the moment he laid eyes on his colleague.

Choongjae pauses. ‘Free day for you, too?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No other plans?’

‘Thought of practising the harder choreo more,’ replies Sunho, returning to his shoelaces with an effort. His fingers are suddenly clumsy, unable to form proper loops and slipping.

‘Me, too,’ Choongjae says with surprising enthusiasm. Hurrying forward, he says brightly, ‘Hey, wanna do it together? We can help each other out with the difficult steps.’

Sunho just nods for lack of a better response. He secretly thinks to himself that Choongjae, with his level of talent, certainly does not require Sunho’s help in dancing.

When the music begins and they fall into the rhythm together, Sunho tells himself to ignore the usual cosmic pull he feels towards Choongjae and just focus on the dance. And for the first half hour it works, with the music filling in the silence that masquerades as peace between them.

For that short amount of time, Sunho almost believes that he can get used to this; that he can spend years putting on this façade of being comfortable alone with Park Choongjae.

But then Choongjae suddenly says, ‘Your stance is off, Sunho-yah,’ and, before Sunho can react, Choongjae is right behind him, one hand pressing down on Sunho’s left shoulder and the other grasping his hip.

Sunho stops breathing.

Choongjae is speaking softly, his voice almost in Sunho’s ear and just audible over the music, ‘Go a bit lower and turn your waist a bit to the left.’ His hands pull and push gently, guiding Sunho’s limbs and body to the correct pose.

‘There, that’s better,’ says Choongjae.

There is a pause and Sunho exhales very slowly, waiting for Choongjae to move away. Five seconds pass, and then ten, and suddenly Choongjae is tilting his head so that it is almost resting on Sunho’s right shoulder. His hands still on Sunho’s body, Choongjae peers over his shoulder and eyes him critically in the mirrored wall they are facing.

‘You hunch your shoulders sometimes when you dance,’ he comments and Sunho almost shivers as his voice rumbles deep and low in his ear. ‘That can strain your muscles and constrain movement. Try to relax.’ The hand on Sunho’s other shoulder makes a massaging movement in encouragement and Sunho, hardly daring to breathe, forces his body into obliging.

‘Hunching also affects your posture,’ Choongjae continues, still speaking almost directly in his ear. ‘Once you relax your shoulders, always keep your back straight and stomach in.’

This time, Choongjae does not wait for Sunho to follow his instructions on his own. He slides his left hand from Sunho’s shoulder to rest between his shoulder blades before dragging it down his spine in a firm caress, forcing Sunho to straighten. Sunho has barely registered what happened before Choongjae’s right hand, resting on his hip, lightly winds around him. His hand comes to rest on Sunho’s abs where he gently presses.

A long moment passes. Then Choongjae smiles and says lightly, ‘See, your posture is already much better.’

Sunho remains frozen, his heart pounding so hard he is afraid Choongjae can hear it. Trying to control his shallow breaths, he waits again for Choongjae to move away, but the older boy says instead, his voice very soft,

‘You know, I’ve seen you dance and you’re a really good dancer already.’

He pauses and their eyes meet in the mirror for the first time and it is as if time has stopped. Sunho stares at him, at the gentle quirk of his lips and his warm brown eyes gazing back at him, and feels his mouth go dry. He is too aware of Choongjae’s body just inches behind him, feels the waves of heat rolling off him and the firm press of Choongjae’s hands on his lower back and stomach, and he just –

He realises what he is doing only after it happens. He sees Choongjae’s eyes widen in the mirror, lips parting in surprise, and Sunho leaps away from Choongjae as if he has been electrocuted.

Tense and rigid, he berates himself angrily for losing control over himself, for giving into that magnetic pull and leaning back against Choongjae’s body, for touching his hand resting on his stomach and –

It could have been worse, he tells himself, avoiding Choongjae’s eyes. He could have done something completely irrevocable.

Like turning around, pushing Choongjae up against the wall and –

He forcibly crashes that train of thought, face burning. That is only one of the several unwholesome desires that had come to mind with Choongjae touching and staring at him like that, and they are certainly not things he wants to revisit.

‘Sunho…’ Choongjae begins cautiously, still gaping at him.

Sunho cannot blame his reaction. Of everyone in Shinhwa, Sunho is the only one who has never done bold skinship or fanservice with Choongjae yet. What he has just done moments ago must have been as alarming as it was unexpected.

‘Thanks for helping me, hyung,’ Sunho says before Choongjae can follow up with an uncomfortable question that Sunho cannot provide an answer for. ‘I didn’t realise I was messing up my posture before.’

‘Uh … no problem,’ replies Choongjae, still looking at him oddly.

‘I’ll try to do better from now on,’ he continues to ramble, now making for his sports bag so he can get away before he does anything more stupid.

Choongjae follows him to the back of the practice room slowly, much to Sunho’s anxiety.

‘I was just giving some pointers, not being your instructor, you know,’ he says.

Sunho is uncomfortably aware of how Choongjae’s eyes and tone are still not entirely normal. Clearly Sunho has crossed an invisible line with the way he touched Choongjae just now and the older boy is not brushing it off easily like he has hoped.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he replies a beat too late. ‘But now I know what to look out for, so thanks again, hyung.’

Choongjae pauses in front of him when Sunho sits down to strip off his shoes and socks.

‘You’re leaving already?’

‘Um, yeah.’

‘It hasn’t even been an hour yet…’

‘I just … I just remembered I have to meet someone,’ Sunho rambles, stuffing his belongings into his bag and quickly slinging it over his shoulder. ‘Guess I’m not as free as I thought. So – er, yeah, I’m just gonna go.’

His blatant lie hangs heavily in the air between them and Sunho almost runs out of the practice room. Heart wild and breath short, he does not calm down until he enters his room at Shinhwa’s dorm, where he slides down against his closed bedroom door.

He thinks back to the dance practice room, how he pressed back against Choongjae’s warm body and grasped his hand. His cheeks burn and his longing courses like blood through his veins and he buries his face in his hands, cursing loudly at himself and his foolishness.

That night, Sunho sees the vision that finally brings the answers to his questions.

~He is hurrying along a quiet boulevard when someone grabs him by the elbow from behind, yanking him around so that he faces a boy, wide-eyed and panting, who stares at him like he is everything that ever was and ever will be.

‘It’s you!’ gasps the boy, his voice trembling. ‘It’s actually you…’

He takes a step back, pulling his arm free. ‘What the … Who are you? What are you talking about?’

The boy’s eyes widen and his lips part. ‘You … you don’t recognise me?’

‘I’ve never met you!’

The boy’s face falls, his dark eyes filling with unspeakable pain and heartbreak. ‘But we’re … you’re … you are my…’~

Sunho jolts awake. Fists clenched into the sheets, he lies still as a statue and stares blankly up at the dark ceiling while a single word echoes hollowly in his mind.

Soulmate.

~***~

That single answer opens the doors of epiphany to all of his questions.

The cosmic pull he feels towards Choongjae, the feeling of having the entire universe wrapped around them, the desires, the longing, everything – Sunho understands it all now.

Soulmate.

He garners some semblance of explanation for the visions he sees at night, too. He knows they are real, has known for a long time, but he has never known before where they come from.

Other lives, he thinks to himself, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of it all. Somewhere out there, in other – worlds, realms, universes – he is alive and living lives different to what he is living here. Perhaps with different names, with different people, in different places.

But out there in those infinite universes, one thing remains consistent – Park Choongjae is his soulmate. In all the infinite lives that Lee Sunho’s infinite selves are living right in this very moment across space and dimension, his soul is still connected to only one other person.

And his visions at night are brief glimpses into those lives, some in which he and Choongjae are together, some in which he is waiting for Choongjae to recognise him, some in which Choongjae is waiting for him, and some in which they have never met. Never even realised that they have a soulmate…

Sunho is in the middle of coming to grips with these insights when the hardest truth hits home one day: his life right now, where he is Lee Sunho, is one where he is the one waiting for his soulmate to recognise him … because Choongjae does not have a clue to what they are.

Yet.

Choongjae does not feel that incredible pull to Sunho; does not see visions of their other ongoing lives. In this life, Sunho is the one to have experienced that awakening … and he has no idea when Choongjae will experience it.

If Choongjae would ever experience it…

The realisation fills him with pain and Sunho becomes more aware than ever of a gaping void inside him, like a hole in his soul, and he knows intuitively that only Choongjae would ever be able to fill that.

He is for Choongjae and Choongjae is for him.

But only Sunho knows that.

Perhaps what hurts more is the awareness that Sunho, no matter what, will always wait for Choongjae. He knows that as surely as he knew Choongjae was not a stranger the day they had met. His heart can never accept anyone else and so he will wait for his soulmate.

He will wait even if he has to wait his entire life and that day never comes.

~***~

Choongjae does not bring up what happened in the practice room again.

Instead, the incident becomes one of many that remain as unspoken awkward transgressions between them. Maybe not speaking about it further widens the distance in their relationship with each other, adding fuel to the uncomfortable fires always simmering between them.

But they do not speak of it.

However, Sunho is aware, more than before, that Choongjae looks at him differently sometimes. It is not the look of someone who has recognised their soulmate – though how Sunho wishes it were! – but the look of someone who has become aware of something gone wrong or amiss in their relationship, but cannot put his finger on what it is.

But they do not speak of it.

And so their shaky friendship continues in that tangent, publicly branding them both as “awkward” characters within Shinhwa. Though their uneasy relationship only rarely becomes a topic of focus, it lingers in the atmosphere like a palpable energy.

Sunho is aware that their “awkwardness” upsets the balance of the group on a certain level. Following their debut into singing and varieties, Shinhwa has learned to laugh and poke fun at it light-heartedly whenever the topic crops up on camera, but Sunho knows it causes concern for the older members. Especially for Eric and Pilkyo, who have taken Sunho and Choongjae, as the youngest members, under their respective wings.

The only reason Sunho has not yet blurted out the whole truth about them being soulmates to Eric is because Eric is not well equipped at having deep conversations.

‘You and Choongjae don’t seem that much better,’ he comments to Sunho at some point. ‘It’s been a long time…’

‘I don’t think we’re worse than before, though,’ replies Sunho shortly, knowing that the conversation will not continue if he does not offer more details. The thing with talking to Eric is that Eric is a good listener, but he at talking himself or keeping the conversation going.

Eric looks at him, quiet and so concerned it makes Sunho feel unspeakably guilty, but Sunho does not continue.

He is quite sure that Pilkyo must be approaching Choongjae with these questions as well, and he wonders how Choongjae replies to them. What explanation does Park Choongjae, who does not feel like his entire being revolves around Lee Sunho, offer as the reason behind their distance?

He cannot know the answer, but he eventually sees the results of Pilkyo’s talks with Choongjae.

With painstaking effort, Choongjae tries to bridge the gap between them. It happens slowly, so that by the time Sunho realises what Choongjae is actively doing, he is already in the thick of it. Through small conversations, brief and impersonal touches, random jokes and jovial smiles, Choongjae tries hard – so hard – to be close to Sunho.

He asks Sunho about his day when they meet at the dorms after exhausting schedules. (Sunho answers with the usual level of self-consciousness, but Choongjae actually listens and comments on his reply.)

He makes an extra mug of coffee for Sunho when they wake up at dawn and, sometimes on weekends and off days, shyly asks Sunho to make breakfast for him (Sunho does. Every time.)

He approaches Sunho to rehearse their lines and raps for their songs together. (It is easier since their lines usually follow each other’s and Sunho picks up a thing or two from Choongjae as well.)

He shares his water with Sunho at the end of hard dance routines and squeezes his shoulder encouragingly when Sunho collapses to the ground in exhaustion. (Sunho accepts the water and the touches, and wishes he can have more.)

When Sunho recognises the efforts Choongjae is putting in – how could he not? – he is overcome with both humble joy and crushing misery.

Joy, because Choongjae is showing that he wants to overcome this barrier separating them. He is trying to be closer to Sunho, with smiles and talks and friendly touches, despite all the cracks Sunho has caused between them.

And misery, because the reason Sunho has been incapable of being close to Choongjae all this time is because he cannot handle the feelings that come from their soulmate bond. Without that control, how can he be with this boy who remains oblivious to what he means to Sunho, and what Sunho should mean to him?

How can he be with a boy he knows is meant for him – to love and to have and to grow old together – while being completely aware that he does not amount to even a fraction of that for that boy?

That pain is too raw, too wounding.

Sunho continues to struggle with how to respond to Choongjae – perhaps find a way around the soulmate attraction – until Choongjae drops the ultimate bomb on him one day.

‘You know, you don’t have to call me hyung.’

Sunho looks up from the lyric sheet he is holding, shocked, at Choongjae who is sitting opposite him in the vocal practice room. Choongjae had invited him to go over their rap together again – another invitation for closeness – and Sunho had been unable to say no, though his heart is now agonising with longing for Choongjae and the ever bitter knowledge that he cannot have him still.

‘What?’ Sunho finally breathes.

‘It’s OK if you don’t call me hyung,’ Choongjae repeats. He looks shy and slightly uncomfortable, as if he has practised saying these words a lot. ‘I know you’re my dongsaeng and all, but … I’m a late 80-liner and you’re an early 81-liner, right?’

Sunho can barely manage a nod.

‘So, let’s not do the formal hyung-dongsaeng thing anymore. We can just be friends.’

‘I … are you … I mean, that’s … I don’t know, hyung, I –’

‘You don’t have to call me hyung,’ Choongjae repeats, cutting across him. He looks seriously at Sunho. ‘You can just speak comfortably to me, like friends.’ He pauses. ‘I want you to.’

Sunho ducks his head, his face hot and an odd lump in his throat.

‘OK, hyu –’ He stops, not knowing how to go on.

‘Choongjae. You can just call me Choongjae.’

‘Right,’ Sunho mumbles, but does not call him Choongjae. Not right then.

But Choongjae looks satisfied and returns to practising his rap.

After that day, Sunho sticks with what Choongjae asked and does not call him ‘hyung’ anymore … but he does not call him ‘Choongjae’ either. He cannot.

Calling Choongjae ‘hyung’ had been easy. The honorific – the formality – had established a certain line between them, a wall that could not be scaled. But having that line eradicated, that wall brought down, has opened a door of closer intimacy between them.

It is, Sunho knew, Choongjae’s ultimate invitation for them to be actual friends.

It is not an invitation Sunho can easily accept.

Oh, he wants to, definitely. He wants to call Choongjae by his name, to destroy that wall between them, to be comfortable with him – but in the wake of that comes more powerful desires: to be able to love Choongjae openly, to claim him as Sunho’s own, to mark him as his soulmate, to live the rest of his life with him…

Being so close to Choongjae, Sunho cannot hold back those feelings until Choongjae awakens his own soulmate bond. And so, he does not take up Choongjae on his invitation. Not fully anyway. He does not call him hyung, but he does not call him by his name, either.

In the end, he calls him nothing.

Sunho waits until Choongjae is facing him or meets his eyes before speaking or asking him anything. When he needs to grab Choongjae’s attention, all he can muster is a small, ‘Hey’, but never his name.

Choongjae realises Sunho is keeping him at arm’s length. The disappointment in his eyes each time Sunho acts like this around him is as obvious as the sun. But Choongjae does not push it and puts on a smile always.

It hurts.

Over the years, they reach a small compromise – stage names.

After an era of being unable to call Choongjae anything, Sunho is finally able to address him as simply ‘Jin’. It is sporadic, happens only every now and then, but it is something at least. Calling him Jin is easier and more impersonal than calling him Choongjae. Sunho can handle that.

It feels different from calling Junghyuk ‘Eric hyung’ or Pilkyo ‘Hyesung hyung’ – because Eric has always been Eric since their time in the States, and Hyesung becomes more of a fond nickname for Pilkyo than merely a stage name, a mask. Calling them Eric and Hyesung does not put up a wall between them and Sunho.

But calling Choongjae ‘Jin’ does.

Choongjae returns the favour. The number of times he calls him ‘Sunho’ dwindles, replaced more and more frequently by just ‘Andy’. Sunho misses hearing his name on Choongjae’s tongue, but it is a compromise he comes to accept. Because he deserves it, if nothing else.

The one thing that does not change is Choongjae’s efforts to establish that they are, at the very least, reasonably close. Though Sunho always toes that blurred line to maintain a safe distance between them, Choongjae never stops talking to Sunho; never stops making jokes around him, never stops smiling, never stops rehearsing together.

He ensures that Junjin and Andy, the two “awkward maknaes” of Shinhwa, have a common ground to stand on together, though they are certainly not the best of friends.

It is both stressful and heartening – but then again, what else is Sunho’s life now?

~***~

It takes time.

It takes a long time for Sunho to give in, bit by bit, to Choongjae’s friendly approaches. With shaky control, cemented by pure iron-willed determination, Sunho buries down the urges and desires evoked by their soulmate connection, and learns to enjoy Choongjae’s company more.

He takes the initiative to speak to Choongjae more, whether they are with Shinhwa or the rare moments they find themselves with only each other for company.

He laughs more at Choongjae’s jokes on variety shows, and with Choongjae during their private times, too. The man is a funny guy, bordering on downright ridiculous at times, so laughing with him at least comes naturally.

He takes to the dance floor more with Choongjae during shows and concerts as well. They move in perfect synch with each other, sometimes executing serious routines, sometimes comedic routines, and at the end, he lets Choongjae hold his hand or throw their arms around each other’s shoulders as they wave and bow to the crowds.

His heart does funny things inside his chest every time he is involved with Choongjae, but with the passing of long years, Sunho has learned to stamp it down.

The innate call of his soulmate bond – the desires, the urges, the longing, the breathlessness, the starbursts and the lights – they have all evolved into a hollow, numb ache he feels every moment within the deepest recesses of his soul now.

Sunho knows there is no cure for it; only Choongjae can fill that void within him. But until then, Sunho still has to wait, and he is glad for the control he has learned to exercise over the cosmic pull he feels towards Choongjae.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of being able to control his emotions is being able to touch Choongjae more; gentle touches that can easily be brushed off as platonic affection, without Sunho having to run out of the room for fear of doing something inappropriate to Choongjae.

The casual hand holding when they are on stage, or throwing arms around shoulders, brief hugs at the end of long shows – the pure intimacy of it all is a blessing for Sunho. It warms his heart and fills him to the brim with love for Choongjae, but he is able to control it now and just enjoy his soulmate’s company.

Their developing camaraderie reaches the point where Choongjae, in a moment of frenzied excitement during one of the spontaneous parties Shinhwa throw for themselves at the dorms, drops an unexpected kiss on Sunho’s cheek.

Such skinship is the most natural thing in the world for Shinhwa, but it is a definite novelty between Choongjae and Sunho. The former looks immediately worried when he pulls back and realises what he has done, and he looks anxiously at Sunho.

To say that Sunho’s heart did not skip a beat would be a lie. He freezes for a split second, but then comes to his senses. He turns to Choongjae and is able to smile reassuringly at him, letting him know he has not done anything wrong. Choongjae’s expression melts in relief.

Sunho swallows heavily when Choongjae returns to the fray of the party, though. He resists the urge to touch his cheek, where the imprint of Choongjae’s lips are still burning through his skin, and commands himself to calm down.

It is so hard, though.

Perhaps that is why he kisses Choongjae on his birthday later. It is a fan meeting and there are cameras everywhere and people scream themselves hoarse when Sunho wraps his arms around Choongjae’s middle, wishes him happiness, and leans up to kiss him softly on the cheek.

It is brief; just the brush of lips on warm skin and Sunho inhales Choongjae’s scent, nearly getting drunk on his essence, and then pulls away, feeling like he has smeared a part of his soul on Choongjae’s immaculate jacket.

No one thinks it is weird. Choongjae grins brightly at him and Sunho gives a lopsided smile back, and the fan meeting proceeds smoothly as planned.

Much later, Eric says out of nowhere, ‘I’m glad you guys are on better terms now.’

He walks away before Sunho can reply and Sunho wonders just how he can explain, to anyone, the hollowness in his heart that worsens the closer he gets to Choongjae without actually being able to have him.

(to be continued)