There’s just so much a man’s heart can take before he begins to wear down, falling apart at the seams, the acid of his loss slowly corroding away his soul so that what is left is no longer Jung Yunho, but a mere shell of a man that once held so much in the palms of his hands.

The loss is startling, and all at once it hits Yunho with the force of a tidal wave, knocking him down so forcefully that he does not know if he can get up. Every word online only confirms the dread imbedded firmly in the pit of his stomach, and with every Cassie’s heart that breaks, Yunho’s own heart breaks tenfold. 

Yunho’s fingers clench around the shot glass so tight that his knuckles are white and the bartender is startled, worried that the glass might actually shatter under the immense pressure. A sudden sob reverberates through the empty club - after all it is six in the morning, and the tired bartender’s head shoots up at the noise. Expecting to face a bloody hand and another mess of broken glass to clean up, the bartender is surprised once again. 

Nothing’s broken.

Well, except for Yunho.

Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.

Interrupting the tears that fall, Yunho sits limply on the bar stool, staring at his phone reverberating against the table - reminding him that outside of this sad pit of despair he has created for himself, exists a world that hasn’t crumbled down into irreparable pieces. His hands refuse to move as his eyes stay trained to the screen, watching as the little phone icon shakes, begging to be answered. 

One missed call from: Changie

“Yunho-sshi,” the bartender calls tentatively. Yunho manages to drag his eyes from his phone to meet the bartender’s hesitant ones. The bartender flinches. “I- I think you should go back,” he says as he wipes down a shot glass. “Someone is probably worried.”

Yunho’s lips curve upwards to form an unnatural grin but in his eyes pool sadness and a desperation that in the low light of the setting tinted him with something dancing along the lines of insanity. 

“Worried?” He echoes, his voice trembling. “If that day ing comes…”

The bartender bows his head and inches back, afraid that this broken, bitter man might then and there let go. Yunho teeters in his stool and he slams the shot glass on the bar. 

“One more!” He growls.

The bartender jumps, sure that if this man were to take any more, he would be dealing with a dead body via intoxication. “Yunho-sshi, I- I’m not sure it’s wise…y-your twentieth dr-”

Bzzzzt. Bzzzzt. Bzzzzt. 

Yunho grabs his phone and stabs at the answer call icon with such force that it would be no surprise if the screen cracked. Before he can scream into the receiver, what he hears stops the blood cold and forces him to regain his sobriety.

“Hyung, come quick, hyungs are being moved out of the dorms - now! If you aren’t back in time, you won’t be able to-” Changmin’s frantic voice is cut off over the line and interrupted by a few loud voices and shuffles in the background. 

Yunho’s heart palpitates in his chest and it gives a pang. He had no idea that the separation would be final, this soon.

“, I’m on my way.”

Yunho cannot stop fidgeting in the backseat of the taxi, urging the cab driver to speed up every few seconds. The overwhelmingness of the sudden news is driving him over the edge of his wits and he is biting down on his lip to keep himself from screaming so hard that he can taste acrid copper in his mouth. His hands are shaking so hard that the cab driver is contemplating taking this near-mad man to the hospital instead of the given address. 

It is painful to the most extreme degree, for Yunho knows that if he arrives a minute too late, he might never have a chance for a goodbye that he so desperately needed. He was never forced to come to terms with such sudden harsh circumstances that denied him not only his bandmates, but his brothers and the one that he held so closely in his heart, his only love - Kim Jaejoong.

Kim Jaejoong, the embodiment of the word perfection.

His love.

His only love.

The road to figuring out that Jung Yunho was in love with Kim Jaejoong was nothing if not one tiring, painful struggle. It was a tiny, fragile bud in the beginning, and as much as Yunho wanted and tried to deny it, Jaejoong always managed to weasel his way back into the leader’s stiff heart. Yunho had only began to accept that he was in love with a man, Jaejoong nonetheless, and now here was reality trying to rip his brother, his partner, his love away from him.

“Sir, we’ve arrived. Oh my, that’s one large crowd…” the elderly man’s voice interrupts Yunho’s panicked train of thought. He hardly gets another word in before Yunho hurriedly stuffs a couple of bills into the man’s hands and sprints off, leaving the cab door open.

Yunho barely even sees the throng of fans camped outside the gate of his dorm’s building, he fails to even register that he has stepped over a precious Cassie’s light stick and broken it, or left a wet footprint over another fan’s DBSK poster. He pushes and shoves through the mass of bodies all twisting and turning to get a glimpse of the Jung Yunho and maybe scream a hundred questions or two about the group split to him, questions that even the idol himself has yet to answer.

It’s the first time he’s ever treated his fans that way, brushing them off so simply - and this was all because losing a certain somebody had put him in such a frenzied state of anxiety. 

“Stop!” He screams as he swings open the door to his dorm, panting heavily. Everyone in the room stops and stares at a side of Jung Yunho that they have never seen before. “What. Are. You. Doing,” he growls lowly, enunciating every single word. His eyes are fixated on one person and one person only.

One of the company’s staff steps forward slowly, avoiding his piercing gaze. “Yunho ah, this isn’t th-” 

“I wasn’t asking you,” Yunho snaps, voice dripping with danger. “Get out.”

“Hyung, please,” Changmin speaks quietly. Yunho feels something warm on his arm and realises that it’s Changmin, trying to stop him from shaking. The atmosphere in the room is buzzing with tension, the air so tight that Yunho feels like it’s about to choke him and smother him alive.

Yunho slips his arm out of Changmin’s grasp and eyes the luggages before him. “Where are you planning on going?” He asks, voice clipped.

Junsu opens his mouth but before he can answer, that same staff wisely chooses to interrupt, as if he has a death wish. “Instructions from headquarters, those three are to move out by tonight - to avoid the fans that will be hounding your door.” 

“Those…those three?” Yunho’s voice is soft. 

The staff steps backwards as Yunho advances. “Wh-what are you doing?” He stammers. The staff’s back hits the wall, cornered completely, and he flinches as Yunho leans in closely.

“I said, get out.”

Needing not one more warning from the idol, the frightened staff scurries out of the dorm, the open door letting in the roar of the crowd outside seep into the living room with five lone beings standing facing one another in silence.

“Yunho hyung, we’re sorry,” Junsu breaks the silence with four simple words that send Yunho into a rage. 

“Sorry? If you were sorry, you wouldn’t try to leave!” He screams, fists clenched by his sides. “If you were sorry towards me as your leader, or Changmin as our maknae, you wouldn’t be doing this!” Yunho doesn’t stop, his angry tears making its reappearance. 

“If you really held us close to your heart, as brothers or as- as… Y-you wouldn’t- Not to Changmin, not to me!” He breaks down and falls to his knees before his four members, the only four people in the world who know the ins, the outs and the making of Jung Yunho. 

“Y-Yunho, stop. Please, stop,” Yoochun begs, getting down on his knees and clasping his broken leader’s hands in his, urging him with all his heart to stop crying, to put back the smile on his face and hugs them, telling them that he understands. “We didn’t want it to happen like this,” he holds back his own heart from breaking, looking down at the hot tears escaping from Yunho’s eyes, splashing on his hand. 

“Hyung, don’t be like this,” Changmin’s voice shakes, and something deep inside of him hurts at the sight of his strong rock of a leader breaking down like there’s no tomorrow. 

Junsu bites back his own tears from flowing freely and he looks away to prevent any more damage to his heart. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this devastating. The five were supposed to part with the same brotherly ties intact, and they would call each other ever so often to meet up for a drink or two and catch up. At the rate this was going, there would be no such thing.

“Yunho,” a quiet voice calls. It’s the only voice Yunho wants to hear.

“Yunho, get up,” Jaejoong says, voice firm. 

Yunho looks up to meet the eyes of the person he so, so dearly treasured. He swallows back the words threatening to explode out of him and he stumbles to his feet, only to collapse back down on the floor because his legs would not hold him up.

“You’ve been drinking,” Jaejoong states. 

Yunho wants to yell at him and pull out his hair for hurting him like this, but he cannot, because he knows that he loves Kim Jaejoong too much to cause him pain - even if that meant throwing himself into the dark, lonely depths. 

“You care only now?” Yunho murmurs.

Jaejoong sends him a look. “I’ve always cared.” You’re just too stupid to see it. 

“You know what thi- this means, right? DBSK breaking up?” Yunho looks dead in the centre of Jaejoong’s eyes. I dare you to say it out loud. 

“DBSK isn’t breaking up, you and Changmin will still be promoting as a duo,”   Jaejoong shakes his head, and Yunho stares up disbelievingly at him. The heart-shattering look plastered on Yunho’s face is one that Jaejoong has only seen twice before in the whole time that they’ve known each other. 

Yunho’s mouth feels dry and he doesn’t know if his heart can withstand any more blows. “H-how can you even say that so easily? You- You’re leaving, you’re leaving us behind! Without you three, DBSK will never be the same!”

You’re leaving me behind. 

A DBSK that is not five is not one where we can exist.

“How can you say that, and pretend that everything’s okay? How can you say that so easily, and throw away what we’ve all worked for, like it means nothing?” He raves, like it was a proclamation of a dying man.

How can you pluck me out of your life just like that? How can you dismiss our love, like it’s nothing of substance? 

“Do you know how much it hurts?” His voice drops to a mere whisper. 

Jaejoong falls to his knees in front of Yunho and places a thumb against his cheek, wiping away the tears that fall relentlessly. “I know, Yunho, I know,” he whispers, his voice soothing and calming down Yunho’s erratic heartbeat. 

I’m hurting too.

Yunho stares deeply into Jaejoong’s dark eyes, transfixed and unable to move. “Then why?” 

Jaejoong shakes his head sadly, denying the man he loves the explanation to the separation that was about to come. He leans in, inching his face closer and closer to Yunho’s. “Just know that one thing will never change,” he whispers, breath hot against Yunho’s neck. 

Jaejoong pulls back and Yunho closes his eyes, willing everything in the room to melt away so that only Jung Yunho and Kim Jaejoong existed in that warped reality - the reality in which they both loved, and their love was enough. The reality where no one was leaving the other, and nobody had to suffer the heartache of loss.

Yunho feels Jaejoong’s strong arms wrap around his torso and he leans his forehead against the other’s. Both keep their eyes tightly shut in an effort to ingrain this last few moments being together in their memories forever. Tears leaking, Junsu, Yoochun and Changmin look away from the scene, allowing the two forbidden lovers to supply one last spark to the dying fire.

Before he knows it, Yunho feels the cool air envelope him once more as Jaejoong pulls away first, signalling the end of their goodbye. The thing that Yunho dreaded the most has now arrived, and there was no way of stopping it.

“Changmin-ah, be good alright? Don’t let hyung suffer,” Yoochun grabs the younger in for one last hug as the Junsu and Jaejoong collect their luggages. 

Changmin nods tearfully and socks his hyung in the arm, and Junsu reaches over to ruffle up his hair. It’s one last act of affection, the last before they have to go separate ways. Jaejoong taps Junsu’s and Yoochun’s arms in a silent reminder that they have to leave and the two step back. Changmin’s shoulders droop. 

Yunho looks up and if it was possible, his heart falls to the bottom of his feet as he sees Junsu, Yoochun and Jaejoong standing side by side before the door, hands on their luggage handles.

It’s the perfect image of separation.

“Take care of yourself, promise me,” Jaejoong says softly, looking down. Yunho can barely nod through the tears cascading down his face. Jaejoong soon turns around before his own tears can escape.

“Goodbye,” Yunho whispers. 

I love you.