When everyone around you tells you to stop running, keep looking forward.

The finish line is not the end.

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If someone had told Jaejoong fifteen years ago, when he first debuted as part of TVXQ, how much broken love, tears, and anguish it would bring him, maybe he would have turned around and started over right there.

(Actually, he probably would have gone through with it all the same, he thinks.)

He thought he was already done with years asking why, why, why didn’t he negotiate that contract before signing it? Why couldn’t SM think about more than making a profit? Why didn’t Yunho and Changmin leave with them? Why did they fall apart after all those promises of “TVXQ forever” and “Boojae, I’ll never love anyone as much as you”? He remembers the endless nights he’d spent over the years with no one but some empty bottles of wine and a few broken shards of memories, glued together with nothing but the love that was still left from their years together.

Fifteen years since their debut, eight years since the split.

Two years since the thirteen that had seemed like such a cage back then.

So why was it only now that Yunho contacted him?

(He didn’t want to have to face this all over again.)

When he thought about it, maybe it wasn’t fair to Yunho that Jaejoong left him stranded inside his own apartment building while he himself had turned tail and left.

(Fair? What was fair? Had it been fair to Jaejoong that Yunho hadn’t tried to get in touch with him, not even once, after everything they had gone through?)

(He said he loved me.)

Ironically, it was really himself who was stranded now in the empty streets of a cloudy day, getting drenched with cold rain while Yunho could at least have a comfortable roof over his head, even if it wasn’t his own. It was probably about five o’clock now—he couldn’t really tell from the perpetual gray that had been hanging over the city the entire day.

“Mister, you look cold,” a child’s voice from said from behind him. He looked and saw a little girl of about eight years old, in pigtails and a pink coat, holding her umbrella out to him.

“It’s okay, you keep it,” he smiled at her. She shook her head.

“But I have a hat and you don’t. Mom says that people catch colds in the rain.”

Jaejoong chuckled. “Thank you. You’re a very nice girl.” But he didn’t take the umbrella.

The girl seemed to accept that her umbrella wasn’t going to taken. “Well, at least come inside where it’s warm.” Without giving him time to protest, she took his hand in her grip and pulled him toward an apartment complex off the side of the street. “Come on! If you stay any longer, you’ll get sneezy and I hate sneezing.”

He found himself in the apartment after a daze. Kids would always be his weakness.

(But it’s not like he ever planned on having any.)

“Why were you outside today?” the girl asked him after giving him a towel and pair of slippers.

Jaejoong smiled bitterly. “I was running.”

“But why? It’s raining. Dad never runs in the rain.”

“I was running…from someone I care about very much.”

She frowned. “But that doesn’t make any sense. You shouldn’t run from the people you care about, that would hurt both of you.”

He stared at her. “Um…so, where’s your mom? Didn’t she teach you against bringing strangers into the house?”

The girl giggled. “Mommy’s at work, and I don’t have school today. And besides, you’re no stranger. You’re Jaejoong-shii, right?”

His eyes softened. The music scene moved fast; he was surprised that the younger generations would know anything about the celebrities of even a few years ago. “You know me?”

“Of course! Mommy used to talk about you and everyone else all the time.” With that, the girl took his hand again and led him to a room that most people used as a study or guest room.

But this one was covered with posters of TVXQ.

As five.

Albums, singles, and photo books, all of them from Hug to Rising Sun to Mirotic, were placed carefully on shelves that weren’t really grimy but still had a layer of dust on them. Handmade signs and post-it notes saying “Keep the faith!” covered the wall space that didn’t have posters on it; there were so many of them that some overlapped each other and littered the floor.

Someone had cared for this room for a long time, keeping it tidy and clean until a while ago, when the cleaning slowly stopped.

(“Keep the faith!”)

(I don’t blame you for giving up on us.)

Jaejoong didn’t even feel his tears when they fell from his eyes. The girl must have seen them, but if she did, she said nothing about seeing the grown man cry.

“You were born the year we split, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “Mom said that she showed me whenever you guys performed separately on TV, but I don’t remember any of it. And she used to take me into this room and show me everything, telling me that TVXQ was the greatest band that Korea ever had. She said liked you the best, Jaejoong-shii, because she thought that if anyone could bring TVXQ all back together again, you could.”

The tears fell harder. “She thought I was much greater than I am.”

“But you’re such a nice man. I like you too.”

“…Thank you.”

“Mom hasn’t come in to this room for a long time. But you know what? I still believe in you, Jaejoong-shii.”

Jaejoong tried to dry to his face (it didn’t work). “Why? You barely even know me.”

The girl patted his hand to still it; he hadn’t even realized it had been shaking. “Maybe, but I believe in love. Mom and Dad left each other once, you know? But they love each other, so now they’re back together again. You love them, don’t you? Mom said you must have loved Yunho-shii a lot. So I think you’ll all come back someday.”

(Cassiopeia is still a constellation in the sky.)

It was funny how you could find support and love in places you’d never have dreamed of looking.

He finally let out a sob and hugged the girl tight. “You’re such a wonderful girl. Thank you. Thank you.”

She wrapped her little arms around him and patted him on this head this time. “But you shouldn’t thank me! Mom would be so happy if she knew our home helped you not get a cold.”

“You tell your mom I dropped by, okay?” he smiled at her. “And tell her I said thank you. Just…thank you.”

She agreed and looked at him questioningly. “Are you leaving now? You just got here. And it’s still raining!”

Jaejoong unwrapped the scarf from around his neck and put it around the girl. “I have to go back and talk to that person I ran from now.” The girl nodded and followed him to the door.

He put his wet shoes and jacket on, ignoring the way they clung to him to look back at the girl one last time.

“Always…always keep the faith, right?” he raised a fist in what he hoped passed as a determined way.

She giggled and responded with her own little fist pump. “Hwaiting! Bye, Jaejoong-shii!”

“Goodbye, my pretty lady. It was nice meeting you. Maybe we’ll run into each other again?”

The door of the apartment shut behind him.

And he ran.

He ran so fast it was hard to register to pitter of raindrops all around him and the mud that definitely splashed onto his pants. The streets were slick and wet and gray, but the only thing on his mind was his own warmth that he had left behind him. It should have been his all along.

Jaejoong flew up flights of stairs and flung the door of his apartment open, hoping against hope that Yunho was still there.

He was, he was, and was sitting on the couch with his head in his hand. When he lifted it, he stared back at him with wide eyes and neither of them knew what to say to the other.

(He’s here, he’s here, why is he still here?)

“Yunho!” he called across the room, just to anchor his attention; just in case he was really about to leave this time and Jaejoong didn’t want that, he didn’t want either of them to leave again. “Yunho…”

And Yunho, solid Yunho whose whispers of eternal love and warm affection he still remembered, just kept quiet, like he was waiting for Jaejoong to say what he should have said the first time one of them had burst into this apartment looking for something both old and new.

“Yunho, I…” Jaejoong took a deep breath and started walking slowly to the man he had once promised his future to. “I…hell, I just…I love you. I still love you, I do, and I don’t even know what you feel now but I still…can we start over again?” He stumbled the last few steps, right into Yunho’s waiting arms. “Don’t leave me, please, please don’t leave.”

“Shh,” Yunho murmured and embraced him tightly. “It’s still you. It’ll always be you. You don’t like leaving people’s minds, do you, Boojae? Do you know how many times I tried to move on? It didn’t work. It didn’t ing work and now I’m back here even though I told myself it wouldn’t do anyone any good. But it’s so good to see you.”

Jaejoong cried. “I’m sorry I left. Back then, and this morning. Is…is Changmin with you now?”

“He’s in Seoul now too, yeah. Why?”

“Call him.”

“Huh?” Yunho pulled away just enough to let him see his confused look. “Now?”

“Yeah, now.” Jaejoong buried his face in Yunho’s strong neck again and didn’t bother trying to stop his tears. “And I’ll call Yoochun and Junsu. Let’s have a reunion. And then let’s debut again, as a new Dong Bang Shin Ki. And then I’ll tell everyone I love you, properly this time.”

Yunho smiled at him, the smile turning into the most beautiful laugh he’d ever heard. “I was thinking the same thing. Now?”

“Yeah.”

Yunho touched his face tenderly and leaned in to kiss him, moving their lips together slowly in a way that was so familiar that Jaejoong wondered why they had ever left this behind in the first place.

But none of that mattered now.

They would gather the scraps of old memories and have a new beginning.

(Thank you for your faith in me.)