It starts with this dream. This undeniable ache inside him. The voice quiet at first but persistent enough that even Yunho, obedient to a fault, can’t quash it. And there it stays, brewing in him until it’s an undeniable part of him, as much as a heart or a lung.

He puts his head down and aces his classes. If he joins a break dancing group after school, no one has to know.

He ignores it by Doing The Right Thing. Law school, the way his father wanted. Because as much as Yunho wantscravesneeds to dance, he can’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes, knows what his father will think even if he won’t say it aloud, if Yunho would give up their dream of being a prosecutor.

Because he’s eleven, he doesn’t know how to say, it’s their dream, but maybe it’s not his dream, it’s never been his dream. And he would take that secret to his grave rather than see disapproval etched in his father’s face, sculpted into the frown of his brow.

He knows this, but the gnawing grows like an addiction and Yunho’s hands shake as he cuts out of school early to participate in SM’s Young Talent competition, hosted at the local youth center.

He applies on a whim, half sick with the idea that he might get it, half sick with the idea he might not.

And when the acceptance letter comes, he stares, wishing the fat beige envelope held a no. Because then it would be easier to believe when his dad said he wasn’t, had never been good enough to turn this love, no, hobby of his into a career.

Instead, he takes a scholarship at a high school in Seoul and trains in the studio whenever he gets off of class. He tells himself that life is about ands, not buts.

He can have both, be a trainee, and become a lawyer.

The dark gnawing ache at the bottom of his stomach every time his professors glare at him falling asleep in lecture, the clear disappointment in Son Sungsaengnim’s eyes, every time Yunho fumbles a step he should have gotten, however, say otherwise.

The day he gets his offer to Seoul University’s law program, President Soo Man personally invites him to the office and announces that he’s been offered the lead role in their next boyband, due to debut in December.

Jung Yunho stares down the crossroads of his very short life, and makes a choice.

He chooses the former because it’s easier believing the group will tank than to stake his life on a stupid passion project. He tries not to think too much about the fact that the voice in his head sounds a little too much like his father.

Yunho spends the next ten years of his life as an unfulfilled semi-successful corporate lawyer, good enough at his job to get by, but without the motivation to be anything more than ‘good enough.’

At night, he curls up next to his perfectly agreeable wife, dreaming of a bigger life, of the glare of stage lights, and the deafening cheers of a faceless, nameless crowd, conveniently forgetting the three times he’d chosen to walk away.