This was just fantastic. After just Ong got over the awkwardness with one member, things just got severely awkward with another.

Daniel and Seongwoo couldn’t even look at one another after what had transpired between them. Those damn hormones, thought Seongwoo.

“Look, hyung,” Daniel said to Seongwoo the day after. “Don’t tell anyone about what happened, please?”

“I’m not the one with the big mouth,” Seongwoo said. “You don’t tell anyone.”

Besides agreeing to keep what happened that night a buried secret never to be brought up again, Daniel and Seongwoo have practically avoided one another at all costs. Just glancing at one another triggered embarrassing memories that made them both cringe.

Did that really happen?

-

“Whatever you did, thanks. It worked, the two are back together again!”

JR read that text message once. Twice. Three times. The two are back together again?

He considered texting back asking Jisung to clarify. Maybe Jisung meant back together as close friends? Or maybe Jisung just misread the situation, which seemed highly likely; he was not really the most perceptive of people. It wasn’t a very good quality to have as a leader, and JR thought it was worth it to warn Jisung about it.

“Hyung, it’s important that you don’t make assumptions and create misunderstandings,” JR replied to Jisung. “I’m sure you’ve misread.”

“No, I’m sure I really haven’t ;)”

A winking face? What did that mean? JR suddenly felt an uncomfortable knot in his stomach. What did that mean???

Too curious, JR pressed for more information: “What makes you sure?”

“Why don’t you ask them yourself?”

“Please?” JR pressed. He really didn’t want to confront Minhyun about what JR was still 99.9% sure was a misunderstanding on Jisung’s part, but a part of him still worried that maybe Jisung had been on to something. “Please?”

It was hard to say no to Jonghyunnie, i.e. the nicest person in the world according to Jisung. Although Jisung was hesitant to talk about what he heard, he felt like Jonghyun was trustworthy and wouldn’t spread gossip or do anything bad with the information. Plus, this was another thing that Jisung had wanted advice about: how to deal with a couple in the group, and Jonghyun had to be aware of the couple to give that advice.

“I heard them from inside the bedroom. They were definitely doing the do.”

Doing the… what?

-

Baekho was trying to reach Minhyun all day, but it appeared like that jerk of a manager wasn’t giving Minhyun his phone back.

When Minhyun would finally get the messages, he would see screenshots of the conversation between Baekho and Seong-. Maybe Minhyun can use his charm to make that guy back down. Baekho even considered getting the company involved, but realized that escalating it would just make it worse.

The truth was that Baekho was very scared of Seongwoo and the blackmail material the Seongwoo had. It was stressing him out, and he couldn’t even work on his music because of it.

He thought of telling JR, but held back when he realized that JR would just get stressed and apologetic, and the poor leader didn’t need to be burdened any more than he already was. He just hoped that Minhyun would have some influence over that Seong-.

-

JR told himself repeatedly that there was a major miscalculation on Jisung’s part. Maybe the noises that Jisung heard were coming from some adult movies that Woojin snuck into the dorm. Yes, yes, that’s what it was.

Sure, Minhyun seemed to be going through some hormonal spike in this period, but that had no connection whatsoever to what Jisung was saying. Right?

Minhyun wouldn’t. He absolutely wouldn’t.

But why was the thought still tormenting him?

JR felt guilty for being so riled up about it, for even considering the possibility that Minhyun actually did do what Jisung assumed. He should trust his lover more than this.

But what if it was true?

JR took a moment to reflect on how it would feel if it were true. He would be heartbroken for sure, but did he really have the right to be heartbroken? JR was the one who didn’t want to go all the way with Minhyun after all. What right did he have to hold Minhyun back and be heartbroken over some intimate association with someone else? Maybe Minhyun needed it, and maybe JR should be okay with it.

JR still loved Minhyun, but he didn’t want to hold Minhyun back. If Minhyun wanted to find physical satisfaction with some other person, then JR reasoned that it was only fair that JR let him. Sure, it would hurt a lot, but it would hurt even more if Minhyun left him for good on account of their lack of a life.

He grappled with the thought for a while. What he was thinking about was an open relationship. Maybe that was the course that their relationship should be taking. As much as his heart hurt to consider it, maybe this was the missing formula.

If Jisung was right about Seongwoo and Minhyun, then JR decided that he would be okay with it, and he wanted Minhyun to know that.

-

Today, Guanlin cried because he remembered Wanna One’s impending disbandment. This led to seven more members crying, but Minhyun wasn’t one of them.

Minhyun hated that he couldn’t cry with them. Why wasn’t he crying, he wondered? Was he less sad about the impending disbandment than the others? He really loved all of s, and loved the time he spent with them, but somehow, he wasn’t sad over the fact they will disband soon. He wasn’t necessarily happy about it either, but it just didn’t make him cry like it should.

After that emotional outbreak among Wanna One members, Minhyun had started to feel this guilty pit in his stomach, because he realized that he didn’t treasure the time that he had with his Wanna One members like the others did, and he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.

-

Wanna One had been so busy preparing for their album, and that, along with crazy hectic schedules, had not given Minhyun much time to be on his phone. Now, Wanna One was in the recording room, and Minhyun found time in between the other members’ turns to record to make a phone call.

He had wanted to stay disconnected for a while longer until album preparations end, but it was his sister’s birthday. Minhyun was planning to just wish her a happy birthday and get back to work, but was distracted by the mass of messages he had received.

The first was from Baekho, who seemed to be freaking out about the text exchange between him and Seongwoo. Minhyun had almost forgotten about confrontation until he read Baekho’s panicked messages. He had meant to call Baekho out for approaching Seongwoo like that and cursing at him. Baekho was just trying to help, but Minhyun thought that it was wrong to confront Seongwoo like that.

“Don’t worry, he deleted the screenshots and is sorry,” Minhyun wrote to Baekho. You should also apologize to him. how you cussed him out was very rude to be honest. And if there’s anyone to blame for the distance between me and Jonghyun, it’s me and Jonghyun, not Seongwoo.”

He then went on to answer other text messages. One of the messages was from JR: “How would you feel if we were in an open relationship?”

Minhyun felt his heart crumble at that question.

This was about Jooeun from DIA, wasn’t it? Jonghyun wanted an open relationship because he wanted the freedom to be with her, right??? It appeared that Seongwoo was absolutely right: JR would eventually want to explore his uality, and that time seemed to have come a lot sooner than Minhyun had expected.

“Do you want that?” Minhyun typed back with trembling fingers.

JR shortly replied with: “I want what you want.”

“I want you,” was Minhyun’s answer.

It took a moment for JR to reply: “And I am always yours, Minhyunnie. I always want to be yours, even if you decide to do things with others.”

“I don’t understand. Where is this coming from???” Minhyun asked. If they had been speaking to one another directly and not texting, then Minhyun was sure he would have been an emotional wreck. Already, he felt like he wanted to cry.

But JR didn’t sense Minhyun’s distress through the text message. Instead, he wondered if the question was an admission of guilt on Minhyun’s part. JR didn’t want to be elusive anymore; he wanted to be dead honest with Minhyun, and so he told Minhyun, very honestly, where this was coming from: “Jisung seems to think you and Ong are a thing. I don’t know if he’s right, but I decided to accept it, even if he was right. I just want you to be happy.”

“???????” was all that Minhyun could type in response to that. He had no words to express how he felt. All he knew was that for the first time for as long as Minhyun could remember, JR was hurting him.

“What?” JR replied to all of Minhyun’s text message, unsure of what it was that made Minhyun so quizzical.

“You don’t know if Jisung was right? Do you really not know, Jonghyun? Do you really think I would do that to you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I have a feeling this open relationship thing isn’t about me though. If you want to date a girl, then go for it,” Minhyun replied. “Let’s have this ‘open relationship’ or whatever you want to call it.”

Minhyun’s phone buzzed with another message. This time, it was from Baekho: “Wait, are you actually defending that ? Why are you even still talking to him if you know what he did?????”

Minhyun was really in no mood to argue with Baekho right now, because he was so upset with what JR was saying. He saw the message and decided to ignore it.

He got another message from Jonghyun: “Can we please talk about this in person?”

“No, I’d rather not,” Minhyun replied. He was already so busy with all his schedules along with album preparations; he did not need to add an emotional heart-to-heart boyfriend talk to the mix.

Baekho then sent another message: “Minhyun, stop ignoring me. I’ve been stressed all week because of this waiting for you to see your damned messages, and I end up with you defending him???? What the hell is going on between you two anyways?”

At this point, Minhyun was done. He was done with JR, done with Baekho, and done with trying to defend himself in front of both of them. Done with trying to prove that he was on their side.

He needed a break.

Lately the relationship with JR and s had given him more stress than it did pleasure. And with this whole ‘open relationship’ bull, Minhyun felt like it was the right time to withdraw. He didn’t need this shadow lingering over him while he was promoting with Wanna One.

Lately, he had grown so attached to all of his Wanna One members. Despite that, he still didn’t feel sad about the disbandment, and now, Minhyun began to see why. The shadow of his original group, and especially the romantic association he had with JR, had been distracting him, and it made him lose the precious time that he had with Wanna One. He didn’t want that anymore. He wanted to live in the moment, and for that reason, he had to cut ties.

For as long as he was a member of Wanna One, Minhyun wanted the experience of growing closer to s, playing with them, guiding them, making memories with them. He no longer wanted to waste that time trying to save a relationship and worrying about his NU’EST members. The time for that will come in 2019.

Right now, he was through with it all.

“Let’s take a break,” wrote Minhyun to JR.

“What do you mean?”

“I love you, Jonghyun. I love you so much, but I can’t afford to be thinking about us all the time. I need space from this. So let’s take a break.”

“So does that mean we’re broken up?”

“Don’t say it like that. We’re on a break.”

One whole minute passed, but JR didn’t reply. Minhyun waited anxiously for at least the notification that JR was typing, but nothing. A second minute passed, still no response, and Minhyun felt his heartbeat accelerate Was JR hurt? Was he crying? Did Minhyun do something wrong?

JR was indeed crying. He couldn’t even bring himself to type a reply. He wanted to send Minhyun at least an emoji to show him that he acknowledged the message, but his fingers were stiff so couldn’t even move them to touch his screen.

“I love you, jju-ya,” Minhyun wrote to him. Minhyun hoped for another message from JR. An ‘I love you too’ or just a heart emoji would suffice, but nothing.

In Minhyun’s wait for a response from JR, the manager came and asked for Minhyun’s phone back, telling him he’s needed in the recording room immediately.

Begrudgingly, Minhyun typed: “I really have to go now. I’ll talk to you later?”

Minhyun was only afforded a few seconds of time to see if JR would reply before his phone was snatched away from him and stored in the manager’s bag.

It was like the entire world suddenly changed. As Minhyun made his way to the recording room, it suddenly dawned on him that he and JR were not together anymore. After over three years of being in perfect harmony, they finally hit a bump on the road.

Did Minhyun make a mistake?

When Minhyun stood in front of the microphone ready to record his part, he felt so empty. His face was blank and his thoughts were in shambles, and when the music played, Minhyun missed his cue to sing.

“Focus, Minhyun! Focus!” yelled the musical director, and the music started playing again.

Minhyun held the sheet with the lyrics printed on it and tried to focus. He noticed from the way the paper was moving in his hands that his fingers were trembling. Again, he missed his cue.

“Hyung, what’s wrong?” asked Guanlin with concern, noticing the odd state that Minhyun was in.

At this point, Minhyun had lost his composure and began to cry.

Guanlin approached Minhyun, face filled with worry. Jihoon and Jinyoung followed suit, asking their hyung why he was crying. Before long there were ten boys huddled around him, hugging him, comforting him, giving him words of encouragement, asking him what was upsetting him.

Minhyun wiped the tears from his eyes and faced s. He owed them an explanation: “I just… I just remembered that Wanna One is doomed to disband soon,” he said. “I’m going to miss this so much.”

It was a white lie, but Minhyun still meant those words. He was going to miss this; he was going to miss them. As his Wanna One members gathered to console him, Minhyun began to feel so much more confident and reassured about his decision. He owed Wanna One his unfettered allegiance and devotion; it was right to take a break from Jonghyun.