It was Ren who opened the door when Minhyun came to visit the NU’EST dorm that night.

“Surprise!” Minhyun said with a bright smile on his face, happy to see him again.

“Oh! He remembers my name!” Ren replied sarcastically, opening the door wider to let him in. Minhyun gave him a quick hug before making his way inside the dorm. It was very messy, as expected, but Minhyun decided not to comment. He didn’t want this visit to be a lecture. He truly just wanted to sit with the Ren, Aron and JR and talk with them until he was too tired to open his eyes.

“I finally got free time, so I came to visit,” Minhyun told Ren. “Where is everyone else?”

“Aron's hanging out with friends; JR’s in his room watching anime; Baekho’s in the studio with Bumzu…”

“Wait, I didn’t know Baekho was back in Seoul,” Minhyun said, surprised. He had thought that Baekho was still healing in Jeju.

“Of course you didn’t,” Ren replied, rolling his eyes. Minhyun sensed that Ren’s remark was a little snide. Ren always got like that when he was irritated, and Minhyun learned that the best way to deal with it is to not acknowledge it.

“When did he come back?” Minhyun asked. “And I why didn’t you guys tell me?”

“Three days ago. And why and when would we tell you? Not like you have time to talk to any of us anyways,” Ren scoffed.

Ren’s snarky comments were beginning to sting a little. Minhyun hadn’t realized that Ren was that upset at Minhyun’s lack of communication with the team, so he made a mental note to try and talk with Ren more later.

It was then Jonghyun came out of his room, his headphones around his neck and iPad still in his hand.

Seeing Jonghyun brought back that feeling of guilt for what happened with Ong just a few hours ago, but Minhyun didn’t want to let that bother him again. He had already decided that he was going to confess to what happened to JR because only by confessing could he move on from it.

“Minhyun!” JR beamed with brightly when he saw him. “I thought I heard you!” He quickly took off his headphones and threw his iPad to the side, rushing to embrace his long-absent lover.

Minhyun felt his heart stir as he took JR in his arms. He really loved JR. He couldn’t explain it, but he loved him with all of his heart. There was no one like JR, least of all Ong Seongwoo. He couldn’t even compare the two– they were just on entirely different planes, and there was no way that Seongwoo could even come close to JR.

“I need to talk to you alone,” Minhyun said as they broke apart.”

“I get it. I’m leaving,” Ren told them rolling his eyes and heading to the door.

“Ren, no. That’s not what I mean,” Minhyun said quickly, not wanting to offend the maknae even more than he already seemed to be.

“Have fun, lovebirds,” Ren said. “Come to the studio when you’re done whatever you’re doing. Baekho would love to see big head again.” With that, Ren left.

“Is Ren mad at me?” Minhyun asked JR, still surprised by Ren’s behavior.

“A little bit,” JR answered. “You know Ren. He’ll get over it soon.”

“But why?”

“Just that he expected you at the funeral. And he expected you to talk to us a bit more. He’s just going through a lot.”

“I want to talk to you guys more, I really do,” Minhyun defended himself. “I just don’t have the time.”

“I get it. And he gets it too,” JR said. “Don’t be so upset, please?”

Minhyun nodded, but he was a little upset. He made a note to himself to apologize to Minki later and explain himself. But right now, he had other things he wanted to do.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Minhyun said, getting right to to it: “Today, Seongwoo was trying to show me how to approach you, and he kinda… got too close.”

JR narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“He kissed me here,” Minhyun pointed to the edge of his lip, “and rubbed my thigh with his knee.” Full disclosure. JR deserved that much at least.

“Weird,” JR said, but thankfully, he didn’t seem hurt or anything. “Do you think he likes you or something?”

“Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Minhyun replied quickly. “He was trying to show me what to do with you. I just felt bad about it, so I wanted to tell you. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” JR laughed. “You didn’t kiss him back or anything, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then it’s nothing. Don’t worry yourself over nothing,” JR said. “But thank you for being honest.”

Minhyun sighed. Even if JR didn’t hold him accountable for that, Minhyun still felt guilty. Regardless of whether or not his actions responded to Ong’s physical advances, his heart still did. Minhyun still felt something after that, and that’s what made the whole thing so… wrong.

Minhyun couldn’t bring himself to say that to JR. He couldn’t tell him he felt a spark with Seongwoo, a spark that was sadly absent when the two of them tried to be physically intimate.

No. No, Minhyun refused to believe that. JR was so much more to him that Seongwoo could ever be.

“I love you, jju-ya,” Minhyun said. Now was the time to do what Seongwoo taught him. Now was the time to prove to himself that they were more than a “platonic couple.”

Minhyun locked eyes with JR and inched closer to him the same way that Seongwoo did. JR was against the sofa’s backrest when Minhyun took his lips and kissed him.

JR responded and kissed him back like any boyfriend should, but it still didn’t feel right. JR wished that Minhyun would stop trying to force it, stop seeking advice from Seongwoo about how to approach it. Seongwoo didn’t know anything about their relationship, what made Minhyun think that the guy would have anything valuable to say about it?

This was so forced and unnatural.

Jonghyun then felt Minhyun’s knee between his legs, and that was a whole new level of awkward that JR couldn’t bear for longer than a few seconds.

JR stopped returning the kiss. Instead, he shrunk away and shriveled up in a ball to lightly push Minhyun away from him. JR really wasn’t prepared for something like that now. “Can we please do this later? When we have more time?” he requested

“We have all night though,” Minhyun replied.

“No, we don’t. Don’t you want to go see Baekho tonight?” JR asked him. Both of them knew that he was just using Baekho as an excuse right now.

Minhyun looked defeated and a little hurt by the rejection, which made JR feel lousy. “I get it,” Minhyun said with a sigh.

“Look, I’m sorry, Minhyun. But… I don’t… I don’t want this for us,” JR said honestly. “I thought maybe we could try one more time, but now I don’t think we should. It doesn’t feel right, and you know it.”

“But isn’t it supposed to feel right?”

“Who told you that? Seongwoo?”

“This has nothing to do with Seongwoo,” Minhyun groaned. “We need to figure this out between us.”

“I thought we figured it out ages ago, though,” JR replied calmly. “I thought we agreed that we weren’t that kind of couple...”

“But I want to be!”

“And I don’t,” JR replied honestly. “Minhyun, you are very important to me, and doing these things with you does not represent what I feel about you.”

“So you’re not attracted to me?”

“Not like that.”

“I see,” Minhyun said with a deep breath. “So be it.”

Was that hurt that JR sensed in Minhyun’s voice? Hurting Minhyun was the last thing that he ever wanted to do; he was just being honest. He was just trying to shut this down before is spiraled out of control and affected their relationship negatively.

They decided to go to the studio to see Baekho like they planned, but there was now a heavy atmosphere between them that didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

“If I were a girl, do you think things would have been different?” Minhyun asked as they were walking to the main street to hail a taxi.

“Of course,” JR replied. “If you were a girl I would have never met you because you would have never been part of NU’EST.” He said it in a joking way, trying to lighten the mood.

Minhyun smiled a little, but continued prying: “I mean, say I was part of After School, and we fell in love and we’ve been dating for three years. Do you think our relationship would be different?”

“Maybe,” JR replied with a shrug.

“Are we lovers or are we brothers?” Minhyun asked, turning to JR with a serious expression on his face.

“My brothers are Aron, Ren and Baekho,” JR replied. “My lover is you.”

Minhyun smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

“You accept that answer?”

“I do,” Minhyun said.

-

It was great to see Minhyun again. Seeing him brought back a sense of normalcy that Baekho had been lacking for the past few weeks as he recovered from his father’s death. Minhyun was still the same old big head. Talkative, whiny, hella annoying, but comforting all at the same.

And it was nice that Minhyun didn’t talk about his father. Baekho didn’t like to be reminded that his old man had moved on, but lately it was all his friends seemed to want to talk about with him. But Minhyun knew him well. Instead of talking about how unfortunate it was that his dad left him, and how sorry he was, Minhyun complained about Guanlin’s loud snores and Baejin’s affinity for skinship and Sungwoon’s messy habits. The stories that Minhyun told gave Baekho a good laugh. It was nice that the big head adjusted to his new group so well.

But Baekho did eventually notice that something was off with Minhyun, and it had to do with JR and Ren. Ren didn’t really say a single word since Minhyun came, and JR was also just watching Minhyun with… what was it? Regret? Longing? There was a new kind of tension between the two lovebirds that wasn’t there before. Maybe they got into a fight, Baekho thought.

His chance to ask came when Minhyun had to step out to talk to his YMC manager, and Ren was playing with Seventeen in the practice room.

“Hey, JR. What’s up with you and Minhyun? Everything okay with you two?”

The look on JR’s face after Baekho asked him told Baekho that things were not okay at all.

“What’s up?”

“It’s kind of… private,” JR answered uncertainly.

“You two are keeping secrets?” Baekho scoffed.

“It’s not like that…”

“Then tell me,” Baekho pressed. The truth was that he really wanted JR to tell him, because for once, he didn’t want to be the member with the problem. For once, he wanted to not be the member that the others had to provide with emotional support. For once, he wanted to be one to provide comfort and support.

JR hesitated. Was it okay to tell others about the very private couple issue they were having? Well, Minhyun is telling Seongwoo, said a voice in JR’s head. Why was that okay? Why was Minhyun the only one who got to open up about personal issues to someone else?

And so JR told him, partly out of jealousy of Minhyun. It was awkward to tell another member about their awkward life, but it didn’t look like Baekho was particularly repulsed by it. He listened intently and without judgement until the end.

“What do you think I should do?” JR asked him.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Baekho shrugged. “But it sounds like Ong is planting some poisonous seeds in Minhyun’s big head. You guys never had this problem before, right?”

“No, we didn’t,” JR agreed.

“Then the problem isn’t with either of you.”

JR didn’t like putting the blame on others, so he didn’t really agree with Baekho. No, it wasn’t Seongwoo’s fault; Seongwoo always meant well, and it’s obvious that Minhyun needed his support.

“No. I think it’s my own fault,” said JR. “I didn’t know how to properly deal with this issue.”

Baekho sighed. He was used to JR blaming himself for anything bad that ever happened; he should have known that JR wouldn’t accept Baekho’s diagnosis.

Oh well. If JR didn’t want to confront that Ong guy, then Baekho would.

-

“I heard you and JR were having problems,” Baekho told Minhyun later that night as he was working on a new song, Minhyun next to him, just like old times.

“Who told you that?” Minhyun asked awkwardly.

“A little bird.”

“Well, it’s not a big deal,” Minhyun replied.

“You rarely ever fought like this before, and it seems to be bothering you especially­.”

“We’ve sorted it out.”

“Look, I know it’s not very comfortable talking about it with me. I get it. But I wish you’d feel that way about Ong Seongwoo too.”

At this point, Minhyun knew that Baekho’s concern was coming from more than just his intuition and his sense of the tension between them. Someone must have told him something.

“Did JR tell you?” Minhyun asked Baekho.

“Who else?” Baekho replied with a scoff. “But listen here, you’re stressing the poor guy out and he’s blaming himself for whatever awkward went down between you two. But it’s not his fault, and it’s not yours either. Just stop letting an outsider influence you, alright?”

“I appreciate that advice,” Minhyun said, “but I think for myself. I’m not blindly following some ‘outsider.’ And I know you’re not very close to Seongwoo, but I am, and I don’t appreciate how you’re making him the bad guy in all of this.”

“Suit yourself,” Baekho replied, not wanting to make this more of an argument than it already was.

Minhyun was disappointed in the whole conversation with Baekho, and in JR for telling him about the “awkward encounters” that Minhyun would have rather kept between them. And the worst part about it was how Seongwoo was suddenly the one to blame.

Minhyun was most hurt by how Baekho called Seongwoo an “outsider.” If Seongwoo was an outsider, then what did that make Minhyun himself? To Minhyun, Ong was not an outsider- Ong was in his group and his closest friend and greatest support at the moment. If Ong was such an outsider, then maybe that’s what Minhyun himself was too.

It didn’t help that Ren was also making him feel like that as well. Every now and again, the maknae would make a comment that would hurt him slightly, and it didn’t stop. (“You’ve changed a lot since you joined that group.” “You didn’t know that Bumzu released a new song? Why am I not surprised?” etc.)

Aron finally joined them after many hours. At this point it was 2 AM and Minhyun had to go back to the dorm to catch three hours of sleep before the next schedule.

“You have to leave already?” Aron whined. “But we never see you. It’s like you’re not even with us anymore.”

That stung, even if Aron didn’t mean it to.

Minhyun left quickly after. He didn’t even properly say goodbye to any of them. The whole meeting had left him feeling lonelier than ever. He managed to distance himself from JR when he wanted to finally fix things. He managed to leave on bitter terms with both Baekho and Ren. He didn’t even properly get to see Aron.

His NU’EST members were supposed to be his family. They were supposed to make him feel at home. This meeting with them was supposed to be comforting, but it ended being anything but that.

He wished he didn’t come. He wished he used his free time to sleep or watch a movie with Baejin or something.

-

The very next day, the 2017 version of Hello was suddenly released, and Minhyun couldn’t even listen to it. He felt so replaced and excluded. Why did they have to remake Hello without him? Why did they have to get rid of his voice in their song? It felt like they were kicking him out of the group with this.

“The 2017 version of Hello wasn’t all that great anyway,” Seongwoo said as he slumped down next to him the waiting room. “It’s missing a very important voice.”

Minhyun smiled at Seongwoo’s attempts to make him feel better. “So you gave that catastrophic remix views?” Minhyun replied with a pretend frown of disapproval.

“Only one view!” Seongwoo defended himself quickly. “And a thumbs down too! And I also wrote a mean comment.”

Minhyun laughed. Seongwoo always knew how to joke to make him feel better.

He then sighed and turned to Seongwoo. “I’m wrong to be upset by this, right? Be honest with me.”

“To be honest, yes. You’re acting like a petty ex watching your girlfriend do the same fun stuff with her new boyfriend that you used to do. Just let your ex go, for crying out,” Seongwoo urged.

“Good analogy,” Minhyun said, laughing. “And you’re right. I need to let go of her for now.”

“Good. Because you have a super hot new girlfriend named Wanna One that needs your full and undivided attention right now,” Seongwoo told him. “And she’s terminally ill and is going to die in 2019 so you best make the best of your time with her!”

Minhyun laughed and nodded. “I will.”

Seongwoo loved watching Minhyun laugh at his jokes. He gazed at that emperor’s face for as long as it took that amused smile to fade away into his just-as-enchanting poker face.

“Minhyun, I have something important to tell you,” Seongwoo said after a brief moment of consideration.

“Yes?” Minhyun turned to give him his attention.

“I like you,” he confessed.

“Huh?”

“I like like you,” Ong clarified lifting his head and holding eye contact with Minhyun.

Minhyun was surprised by the sudden confession. Usually he was good with letting his love confessors down easy, but now, for some reason, Minhyun was to stunned to think of the proper way to react to or reject it. “Seongwoo, I…”

“I know,” Ong cut him off. “You’re with Jonghyun, and you can’t accept my feelings. I expected that. I just needed to let you know.” With that, Seongwoo stood up and went to get his make-up done, leaving Minhyun with jumbled thought and a lot to dwell on.