People say that life is nothing but a bunch of choices and memories we make out of those choices. But would a different choice make a different future?

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Kyuhyun is seventeen.

He has been laying on his bed for two hours, staring at the boring white ceiling. Imaginary animations suddenly appears out of nowhere. First comes a tree, then wooden boards nailed to the trunk 1,5 meters from the ground, each pointing at an opposite direction. Then two roads unfurl, one on each side of the tree. Kyuhyun swifts his gaze back at the wooden boards on the tree, writings appear on it. “Law” points to the left, “Music” points to the right.

He decides to take on on the left.

So he applies to a law school, gets accepted, graduates with nearly perfect grades, and makes his way to one of the country’s most prominent law firm. He still sings in church and on family events, sometimes he sings in the shower or goes to karaoke with his friends. And then two years later he gets an offer to be a partner at the law firm he’s working at, but decides to turn it down and opens up his own practice instead.

Somewhere in his lates 30s he meets a man named Choi Siwon, a client of a divorce case. The case is a piece of cake for a brilliant lawyer like Kyuhyun. The real challenge is, somewhere between the cups of coffee and the late night snacks, something grows.

It’s strange, alien, but not necessarily unpleasant. But Kyuhyun is a lawyer, and Siwon is his client. Any relationship out of the professional context is unnatural, and uncalled for.

And yet there’s something in the soft brushes of Siwon’s calloused palm on Kyuhyun’s hair that binds them together, something less subtle than a strand of gray hair, but at the same time stronger than a steel chain. They never describe what they have, but they knew it’s there.

So forty years later, with wrinkles on their faces and less muscle on their bodies, they are still together. Much more than good friends but nothing more than companions. Still the chain remains in their eyes.

Perhaps it’s love. And perhaps they knew.

***

Kyuhyun is eighteen.

The man sitting on the strangely huge chair in front of him just told him the news. He will be joining an already established boy group called Super Junior. He has heard of them before, saw their performance on television a few times before. But Super Junior is a dance group, and he’s a ballad singer. More than that, this group already has twelve members, most of which had went through years of training.

The truth is, he doesn’t have the confidence to be in the group. So he proposes an argument, and he wins. It’s finally decided that the company is now plotting him to be a soloist or form him a ballad group.

Months after that day he meets a guy, Choi Siwon, a member of Super Junior. The guy is eye candy and simply the nicest guy in the entire company. They soon become good friends, and there are moments when Kyuhyun regrets having refused the offer to be in Super Junior. But then again, maybe Siwon wouldn’t have been so nice had Kyuhyun joined Super Junior and caused trouble to his group of brothers.

And so it goes, they become best friends, they stick together. Kyuhyun enjoys basking in Siwon’s charms, and Siwon enjoys spoiling Kyuhyun rotten. And even if years later something starts tickling in Kyuhyun’s heart, like the bubbly sensation he feels whenever Siwon’s skin brushes with his, he can always put it aside and watch from afar as Siwon gets more popular and shines even brighter.

He doesn’t mind being a sidekick, becase he never takes off the friendship tag he has used to label him and Siwon.

***

Kyuhyun is twenty.

He has been laying on his bed for two hours, staring at the boring white ceiling, replaying Heechul’s words in his mind over and over and over again.

“Get your head in the game, maknae! I know our horsey is handsome and such a charming sight to see, but you need to focus. Our concert is in three weeks and we need to get everything ready. It would be nice if you can sort out your feelings as soon as possible, but if you can’t, leave it aside and get back to it after the concert. Please.”

It was then he realizes just how much he was in love with Choi Siwon.

But he can’t afford love right now. He needs to focus on his career. Things are just starting to work well for him and his hyungs and there’s no way he will spoil the good chances with such a silly and trivial thing like crush. So he decides to freeze whatever feelings he has for Siwon, and just pour his heart on his singing an dancing.

He has no idea that he will be spending the rest of his life being in secret love with Choi Siwon. Siwon will never know about it. And Kyuhyun, he can not fall in love with anybody else because no matter how much he tries to throw it away, Siwon is still in his heart, and he never falls out of love with him.

***

Kyuhyun is twenty one.

Siwon is in love with Kyuhyun, maybe just as much as Kyuhyun is in love with Siwon, maybe less, maybe more. The point is, the feeling is mutual. It’s like the planets have finaly lined up together and make the impossible possible. But even so, they are still guys, and love between them is still wrong. And they are celebrities that live under the microscope called stardom, every little thing they do is bound to be thousands of times bigger in the eyes of the fans and the media that are watching them like hungry predators.

So Kyuhyun decides it will be better that they remain being mere friends. Except their gravity towards each other are way stronger than what they can control and there are countless times when they are pulled harshly into the other’s gravity field and they surrender to their fatuistic love.

And these kinds of encounter continues on even after they are too old for impulsive . It gets more and more painful to handle everytime, but the worst thing is, they can’t stay away from each other.

***

Kyuhyun is twenty three.

He has been laying on his bed for two hours, staring at the boring white ceiling, watching flashes of images blurs into one another right before his eyes. He never knew memories can be so vivid like this. There’s the moment when Siwon told him he loves him for the first time. Then there’s their first kiss. And their first date. Basically their first time of everything.

But then comes the first promise. And so comes the first broken promise.

Kyuhyun can’t help but to drown in contemplation. If all the beautiful first things have a second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time, and so forth, will the first betrayal have the same series of continuation like the rest? Because really, it hurts enough to read news about Siwon getting caught kissing with a female co-star of his newest drama, in times when no cameras are rolling but those of the stalkers, in a place where no filming is taking place, even just once. He doesn’t know whether or not he can handle it if this kind of thing happens for the second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time.

So he decides to call it quits. He goes to see Siwon that night, telling him that he’s ending everything that has happened between them, that those memories, good and bad, will now be something he prefers not to talk about, and that he will be professional, he will interact with him on stage as if nothing happened, he will still tolerate holding hands and friendly hugs on stage, but nothing more.

Siwon cries. He apologizes for everything. He even begs for Kyuhyun to stay.

Kyuhyun felt a soft tug somewhere inside his chest. But his already breaking heart is out of shape, and the sincerity in Siwon’s plea is wrongly resonated, and his brain, his oh-so-logical brain, misinterprets it to a whole different thing.

But the thing about true love is, it doesn’t really cool down with time. So when Kyuhyun meets Siwon again nineteen years later, they kiss like long-lost lovers. And the spark is still there. The longing, the adrenaline rush, the craving for touch, it’s all still there.

And the sad irony is, they are both now bound by a new set of metal rods called marriage. And it makes them both pathetic sinners.

***

Kyuhyun wakes up with a gasp.

He looks around the room and sees white ceiling right above. But the ceiling looks different, not boring, but meaningful. He soon realizes why it’s different, because this is the ceiling of Siwon’s bedroom, and everytime Kyuhyun looked at it, there was always Siwon’s face right on top of him, drenched in steamy sweat, staring at him with his gentle but lustful eyes.

He turns to his left, finding the said man sleeping peacefully, half smiling. His left hand is resting on his carved abs, and his right hand is on top of Kyuhyun’s blanket-covered thigh. Kyuhyun laid his head on Siwon’s bare chest, listening to the latter’s steady NREM heart beats, letting Siwon’s oddly beautiful breathings lull him back to sleep.

He remembers the weird dream he just had, it was as if he was taken to the crossroads of his life, the turning points which he thought will shape the rest of his future. It was unbelievable that no matter how he seemed to choose the opposite of what was already done, in the end it’s still about him and Siwon. So he stretches out his neck and lands a quick peck on Siwon’s cheek.

“Now I know you’re my destiny... Cause no matter what road I choose in my life, you’re there until the end. And I’m happy we’re in this path together.”

-----end-----