Sorry for yet another looooong wait >.< I have so many new story ideas I am embarrassed how slow I am updating everything!!!

Time silently healed the wounded heart. Andy stopped feeling indignant over Choong Jae’s confusion. He might as well treat the man like how he treated everyone else to overcome the first barrier between them; the invisible wall erected by their fear of their messed up fate.

“Why is Jin doing the tumbling? I can do it well too.” The young man asked Eric. The inseparable pair in Shinhwa strolled towards a pile of floor mats stacked messily in the corner of the room filled with other filming props. Andy grabbed a stack of it, passed them to his hyung before getting another for himself to bring to the set. He did not like the jittery feeling in him since his knowledge of Choong Jae being the one demonstrating the tumbling.

“Do you really think I would let you perform tumbling with your injured back?” Eric replied with authority much like a parent. Andy glimpsed at the leader from the corner of his eyes; the warmth he always felt from Eric engulfing his chest. He was forced to mature at a very young age, but Eric had granted him the feeling of being a carefree and protected child once again. Like Eric hyung always did, Andy thought.

“No, you wouldn’t.” Andy replied after a few steps. “But it’d be fine if it was my neck,” the young man said playfully. Eric snorted.

“You are still harping over it?” The leader asked. Andy stuck his tongue out at the leader.

“You would too if one of the members tried to murder you.” The child-like Andy immediately took off and sprinted towards the set. He paused very briefly when he saw Hyesung and Choong Jae, but that short moment caused Eric who was chasing to crash into him. Andy fell flat onto the ground and his breath was cut short when he felt Eric’s weight on him.

Just like typical Shinhwa, laughter broke out at the two members’ misfortune. Hyesung friskily shouted something crude at the leader.

“Why did you stop suddenly?” The leader whined as he got off Andy. He ignored his own question and helped Andy up before turning over to send a flying kiss and some mushy love messages to Hyesung, just to get back at the little prince. More of Hyesung’s wonderful vocabulary for Eric drifted into Andy’s ear. Amid the anarchy, Andy’s eyes instinctively found Choong Jae. His soul mate stood like a bystander beside Hyesung, not contributing to the chaos like he usually would.

Choong Jae must be nervous about the tumbling, Andy naively thought. He picked up the mats scattered all over the floor and let Eric dragged him away to place them for Choong Jae.

If only he knew what was going through Choong Jae’s mind that instant……

Andy poked at the mats with his index finger while squatting beside them. “Will this be enough?” He asked. He turned to Eric when the leader remained silent. His hyung’s piercing gaze greeted him; the mind reading game once again.

“How are you and Jin?” Eric said with a casual tone. “You have grown a lot closer than before.”

Andy exhaled slowly, lowering his gaze. Eric’s question was anything but casual. His over concern with the tumbling had given himself away to the one person who knows him best.  

“I realised I was wrong before.” Andy stood up, slowly levelling his eyes to Eric’s. On the very first day Choong Jae joined Shinhwa, Andy promised to tell his hyung everything when he sorted things out. But after all these years, he was going nowhere with the relationship. There was nothing he could tell Eric, yet.

“I shouldn’t have made all of you worried about us before. That was stupid. Let’s go back to the rest.” Andy concluded simply. The filming commenced in a jiffy after they returned. As always, Andy sat beside Eric. This time he was diagonally behind Choong Jae. Andy’s eyes irrepressibly stayed at the back of the man’s head. Eric’s questions had spin off a million thoughts in his mind.

How long must Choong Jae and him live in this pretence of being friends? When can he come clean with Eric? Time had healed him, maybe it will heal Choong Jae too…Maybe that is the only thing he can give Choong Jae now.

Yet in a short while, in the cruellest way possible, Andy was going to learn that “time”, is not an unlimited resource.

***

The voices of abounding anguish overflow from the small area outside the operating theatre and the melancholy was spread throughout the hospital (maybe even the whole of Korea’s entertainment industry). Yet none of these manifestations of grief were from Andy.

“Wake up!” He commanded sternly, wanting to escape from the emotions displayed by the rest, which stabbed at his heart mercilessly. He was convinced this was a dream, and Choong Jae will be sleeping soundly beside him when he waked up.

“He might not live through tonight.” The doctor’s haunting words echoed at the back of his mind.

“Wake up…please…” Andy imperatively begged himself as tears gathered around his eyes. The crystal like liquid glistened under the unsympathetic ceiling light, adorning his denial with a wretched reality. Andy wouldn’t let them fall. It was his last effort to deceive himself he had a chance to re-write events of that day.

A sudden cold touch jolted the young man and his fabricated world quaked. The disconcerted man turned his head and witnessed Minwoo holding onto his tightly clenched fist, softly prying open the stiff fingers.

“Andy-yah…” Minwoo called, his gentle and tired voice laced with the exact agony Andy was running from. He did not want to accept this ending. He did not want to believe Choong Jae was really leaving him. Minwoo softly brushed his fingers against Andy’s palm, wiping away the tiny traces of blood where Andy’s nails had dug into his own flesh. “Andy…” There were no other words his heart broken hyung could offer. It was unfair that his hyungs should worry about him in addition to Choong Jae, but Andy could not help it.

The tears finally escaped. They rushed out of his eyes, like water from a broken dam; ringing finality to the circumstance. They flowed together with memories in Andy’s mind. Like a slow-motioned film, he saw Choong Jae stood up at the request of the host. Choong Jae never walked to the mats Andy laid out for him. The moment Choong Jae lifted himself in the air, Andy knew something was off…

The young man shut his eyes at the painful memories, trying to get rid of the defending roar of Choong Jae’s skull contacting the ground which kept ringing in his ears till now.

Andy never felt so bare in his entire life. Not even when he was separated from Shinhwa. He felt instantly the thinning of the bond between him and Choong Jae when the accident happened…

His soul mate was slipping from his grasp.

_________________________________________________

References made:

1) Eric mentioned before Andy and Junjin were the best at tumbling among the members.

2) Andy also had a tumbling accident where he ended up wearing a cast around his neck. It happened when he was together with Eric. He had mentioned the accident at least twice on tv.