Yunho surveys himself in the mirror one last time; his hair lies slicked back, effortless and casual, his skin is tanned just enough to look healthy, and his tuxedo, smartly cut, shows off the results of two grueling months on a merciless protein-only diet. Satisfied with what he sees, Yunho moves on, tilting his head to reaffirm his most photogenic angles - a big smile, lips pulled back to reveal a hint of teeth, but not so much that it looks faked. Check.

A decade in the entertainment industry is nothing to thumb your nose at. And SM seems determined to pull out all the stops, making a grand affair of their fifteenth anniversary post-debut.

Personally the idea of it all is a little too flashy for Yunho’s tastes, but he’s not one to complain at the chance of catching up with his closest friends, and the people he’s grown up in the industry with. He’ll show up, shake hands and smile, enjoy the free alcohol and maybe even get home early enough to catch an episode or two of One Punch Man before bed.

His front door swings opens and Yunho turns to see Donghae strolling in, decked out in a midnight blue suit.

“Looking good stranger,” Donghae says, greeting Yunho with a playful bump to the shoulder, “ready to do this thing?”

“I was born ready,” Yunho laughs as Donghae pulls open front the door to reveal a sleek black limousine waiting outside.

Yunho climbs in, sighing appreciatively as he sinks into the plush leather seats. How long ago had they been pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in too-small minivans? Yunho chuckles at the thought.

Donghae slides in a second later, two glasses of Moet balanced precariously in one hand.

“One for the road?” He offers.

“Cheers,” Yunho says taking a glass and clinking it against Donghae’s. He swallows, feeling the bright burn of sparkling alcohol slide down his throat and warm his stomach.

“This is crazy isn’t it,” Donghae murmurs, gesturing at the limousine and the champagne. His eyes crinkle, satori working heavily into his words, “no one would have guessed us hill billies from Gwangju would end up here.”

Yunho smiles. No, they wouldn’t have.

After almost two decades in the industry, Yunho feels like he’s finally proven their detractors wrong. He's kept his promise, and TVXQ has survived, thrived even, after losing all of its main vocalists. They’ve evolved and grown and he feels like today is the day he can finally stop looking over his shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We are here. We are finally here.

He should feel relief, but all he feels is a nagging sense of unease that this isn’t at all how he pictured his life turning out.

The Hilton on Hangang is lit up like a Christmas tree on steroids. The grand banquet hall is decked with heavy teardrop chandeliers and strings of artfully placed fairy lights. In the background, a full orchestra plays soothing instrumental versions of Humanoids and Catch Me, lulling its audience into quiet tinkling chatter.

Ever punctual, Changmin is already waiting when Yunho arrives, discreetly hidden in a small room by the main entrance. They exchange smiles when they catch each other’s eye, the air heavy with anticipation, and something a little more somber and sad.

From across the room, Yunho admires how handsome and self assured Changmin looks. There is an unmistakable glow of pride blooming in his chest as Yunho stands next to the man Changmin has become; the past fifteen years testament to how they've stood by, supported, and leaned on each other. When TVXQ had shattered, Yunho had broken with it, but Changmin. Changmin had been strong. Changmin had soldiered on, picking up the broken pieces and marching them relentlessly forward; step by agonizing step.

He couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

Changmin's never been one for public displays of affection, but as if he feels the significance of the day, he leans in first when they meet, enveloping Yunho in a long, meaningful hug.

There aren’t enough words to describe how grateful Yunho is for his maknae, for his quiet, reliable presence and unwavering support. Thankfully Changmin seems to understand that the fragile moment needs no words.

“To us,” Changmin says simply, squeezing Yunho’s shoulder.

“To us.” Yunho echoes, and smiles so he doesn’t cry.

With that, Changmin pushes open the ornate doors, and leads them both into the frenzy of flashing lightbulbs and thundering applause.

The evening trickles by with eager well wishers and excitable reporters coyly asking "what comes next?". It is a well known fact that TVXQ's contract with SM Entertainment is almost up. Yunho finds that he doesn't have an answer for them, which is why eleven forty five finds him hiding out on an empty smoking landing, shielded in darkness and away from the crowds. Yunho leans against the balcony, watching the minute hand of the clock slowly tick toward twelve, tilting his face into the wintry air and breathing in deep, until the heavy weight in his chest dissipates.

I’m having a midlife crisis, he thinks, ruefully. There aren’t many people who can say they’ve led their band to blazing international recognition; who’ve set multiple Guinness book records, who've sold out Dome tours and had it all before the ripe old age of twenty five. And then abruptly, as fleetingly as they’d grasped it, had lost everything.

I did that, Yunho thinks, painfully aware of the fact that he is required to use past tense.

Now they stand, two instead of five, and where Jaejoong needed cajoling, Yoochun needed a shoulder to cry on and Junsu needed a hyung to beat at Starcraft, there’s just Changmin. Changmin who is ruthlessly independent, Changmin who is more self sufficient than Yunho is, Changmin who Yunho can no longer boss around, because he’s growing up so fast.

And then in the blink of an eye they’re in their thirties and Yunho is standing in the dark wondering how, in the span of him protecting the TVXQ legacy, his life morphed into something he doesn't recognize at all. He was supposed to be their fearless leader, but what is a leader, when there's no band to protect, no band to lead?

Across the skyline, a projection of Hug splays across the city. Yunho doesn’t want to imagine how much the entire thing cost. But it’s one of the few videos that features the five of them from 2004, Jaejoong with his hair still dark, his eyes big and full of wonder, Changmin, wrapped in a too-large red scarf, still so young and sweet and eager to please, Junsu, gazing at them all innocently, his cheeks slightly filled out with baby fat, and Yoochun, his eyes curved into half moons, a hat tipped mischievously over an eyebrow.

Yunho’s cellphone rings and unthinkingly, he hits answer without checking the caller ID.

It's a mistake.

“Hello?”

On the other side of the line, there is a sharp intake of breath.

Yunho frowns. “Who is this?”

There's no immediate answer and Yunho is about to hang up when he hears a familiar, heartbreaking--

“Oh, Yunho-ya.”

It’s been too many years, but Yunho could pick out that voice in a crowd, its husky, cigarette-roughed edge unmistakeable.

“Jaejoong,” Yunho says, exhaling a breath he didn't realize he was holding. “Hi.”

“It’s. I.” Jaejoong starts, nervously. “I just wanted to say. Congratulations.”

Congratulations for what? Surviving without you three? Yunho thinks bitterly, the apology ten years too late and far from enough. Aloud he simply says, “thank you. It’s been—- it's been nice.”

"Good," Jaejoong sounds shy. “I'm... that's-- I'm proud of you guys. Are you in Seoul right now?”

“Yeah. We are at the Hilton. Company celebration.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Jaejoong forces an uncomfortable laugh. “You must be busy.”

Yunho wonders why, even after all these years, the urge to soothe Jaejoong comes to him as natural as breathing.

“It’s fine,” he hears himself say, “I was taking a breather on the roof.”

“Well, company parties were never really your thing,” Jaejoong says.

Yunho stiffens.

"I mean--" Jaejoong backpeddles, although the damage has already been done. Jaejoong's lost the right to about this, hasn't deserved it for years now.

“A lot of things have changed,” Yunho says, sharply.

“Of course,” Jaejoong says, too quickly. “Sorry—“

“It’s fine,” Yunho says, just as Jaejoong says, “I shouldn’t have—“

“I've taken up so much of your time already,” Jaejoong says, and Yunho doesn’t recognize this Jaejoong, the one who backs down instead of fighting back. “I should let you go.”

This seems like a cue for them to hang up, but Yunho finds, somewhere deep down inside, that he doesn’t want to hang up, not unless Jaejoong does first. And after a few seconds, it is clear that Jaejoong doesn’t want to either. He can hear Jaejoong breathe, soft and elevated, on the other end of the line.

“Jaejoong-ah—“

“I just—“

They both stop.

“Sorry you should—“

“What were you—“

“I’m sorry,” Jaejoong says, the words hushed and regretful. “That’s what I called to say. I’m sorry.”

It’s too late, Yunho thinks because the words shouldn't mean anything anymore. Once upon a time he would have lost a limb to hear them, spoken in Jaejoong's husky baritone. The words a promise that all of this was reversible, that they were still TVXQ, that they could bounce back from this, together. But now, they echo tinny across a badly connected phone line, empty and meaningless.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, when the words sink in and he realizes belatedly, that there's been no magic fix. They're still two and three, broken and separate and nothing’s changed. “Thank you, I guess.”

The silence stretches, Jaejoong helpless and Yunho resolute. The sound of two people holding on to the sweet memory of a relationship long dead and gone.

“I know I was selfish—“

Jaejoong is. Was.

It doesn't matter, because Yunho is tired of living in the past, tired of dredging up old wounds and abusing them until they fester and heal with jagged angry scars. It’s been a decade of constant pain and disappointment and Yunho desperately chasing after the shadow of their former glory. And everything never, ever measuring up. It's been fifteen years and Yunho is finally ready to move on.

“Don't apologize,” Yunho says, firmly. “It’s fine, Jaejoong, everything is fine.”

The frustrated silence that follows says that Jaejoong doesn’t want it to be fine. He wants Yunho to be angry, to scream, to yell at him. Anything other than this blank indifference. Because if Yunho is indifferent, then it means that Jaejoong’s tiny glimmer of hope that there is still something to salvage at all, is gone.

“I miss you both.” Jaejoong says finally, his voice cracking.

Tough, Yunho thinks, even though his chest twinges painfully at the words. Because he's never been able to stay angry at Jaejoong, because despite the decade of cold silence and betrayal, he desperately misses him, like a constant ache in his bones.

Unconsciously, Yunho’s fingers tighten around the the base of his champagne glass. When they had been seventeen, dreaming of riches and success, Yunho had never thought that the endless painful practices, the constant hunger and cup ramyeon, would lead them to this. When he dreamed about their success as a cold, starving trainee, Jaejoong had always been the constant. Whether as Four Season's Autumn or TVXQ's Hero, Yunho had always pictured Jaejoong by his side, his eyes curved in amused laughter, his fingers curled around Yunho's chin, the white feathers from his performance outfit tickling Yunho's nose as he whispered, "we are here, Yunho-ya, we've finally made it".

“Yunho,” Jaejoong says softly, pleading. “Do you think—”

His breath hitches.

“Do you think we could ever go back to the way we were?”

The words sting, a Pandora’s box that Yunho can’t afford to open again. Of the many painful things he's learned to endure in the decade of Jaejoong's absence, the most devastating of these is hope. And he’s already spent too many hours, days, years, hoping, aching with it. Drowning and fervently praying that this was just a phase, that TVXQ was stronger than it all, that they could overcome it because they’re Dongbangshinki. But they couldn’t. And Yunho's had ten years of waking up, feeling the desperate weight on his chest grow so heavy he can't breathe as the realization sinks in, with the disappointment of every passing day, that this is permanent.

So it’s a simple question with a simple answer. No.

But nothing about Jaejoong is ever simple.

“I— I have to go.” Yunho says.

The minute hand ticks sixteen, fifteen, fourteen…

“Yunho,” Jaejoong exhales, like a plea.

Twelve, eleven, ten.

“Hyung, there you are! Come inside, the ball’s about to drop.”

Six, five, four, three, two

You made your choice, Yunho thinks, ruefully, we can’t go back.

Aloud, he says, “have a good life Jaejoong-ah.”

“I still love you,” Jaejoong says, quietly, so quietly Yunho's not sure he meant to say it aloud.

one.

Time stops. And then the banquet hall explodes in a riot of fireworks, music and color.

Yunho's world goes black.