I’ll be honest I’m alright with me

Sunday mornings In my own bed sheets

I’ve been waking up alone I haven’t thought of her for days

I’ll be honest It’s better off this way 

[Our Song - by Anne-Marie and Niall Horan]

Our Song

Sunday morning waking up on his own bed, Saturday all on his own: alone. He is gone, he is all right, driving at night, listening to the radio, listening to their song – not their song, it’s just his voice filling the room. Fog covers his eyes, all the memories shaking him. Just like that, hearing this song, everything he has been fighting is crumbling down.

There is nothing to do, just let the emotions wash over him, take them away until he is bone-dry and numb of recollections and dreams worn-out. He has tried to keep him, has done his best – but it wasn’t enough, he is long gone: he is just a pair of grey hoodies forgotten in the wardrobe, a blur face colouring a photograph, a voice pressed inside a song he made (a song for him alone, for him to shine on).

He stops the engineer and frosts up, the music that carries the heaviness of his heart soaking him, defrosting his stunned heart, hard as rocks, stiff since he has left – he who was the sun, always warming him with tight hugs and endless kisses, his laugh coming so easily to swarm him with giggles, pride of being the reason behind it, the cause of his joy, it was like spring rain (mild and sweet, bathing him with its splendour). He shakes his head but his name persists, tangled under his tongue, tingling and prickling, an annoyance he can’t get rid of – that has been following him since he has gone, a phantom dancing by his side, recalling all that they were, all the places they used to go, all the songs they sang together: one voice, one heart, one soul. Now they are no longer one - they are nothing at all, ashes to the wind of his memories, aged pages coloured in red where he wrote his love but that time has bleared out, diminishing them to sand scurrying between his fingers like all the moments that won't come back.

The song comes to an end, the last notes whirling in the air, smooth as silk and cool like ice. It revolves inside his head, tumbling and fumbling, all the love he has and that is ebbing without him, perishing. He was the one nourishing his feelings, who labelled them, named a love as great as the sun, immense, infinite.

He presses replay and the song comes to life again, blazing like a burning flame. He sings alongside this time, highlighting the best parts, his tone melting with his precious voice – crystalline, so sad it could break a heart. His attempts to tame his senses failing, all his emotions, all that he has caged inside his core flowing away, breaking free of his contempt, opening the floodgates. It’s swarming him with sorrow and flashes of that movie they used to recreate – that movie he loved so much.

It’s just a song on the radio and, yet, it carries within all the pain of a departure, the end of a story, the last of paint caught inside the radiance of his eyes. He looks at his phone, the song still playing, his pictures captured on the screen. It doesn’t matter what he does, he is always coming back to Jinwoo – everything drives him back to the first stage: when they first met, so young, so full of dreams and determination. When everything went down? Minho doesn’t know, can’t pinpoint the exact moment, the instant he lost him, for good, forever. What he knows is that it was his fault - that love wasn't enough to keep him. 

Minho wanted it all, wanted fame, reputation, Jinwoo’s heart. Jinwoo only wanted to be by his side, to make him happy – but, at a time, it became impossible: Minho was a big hit, the cover of the magazines, his name spreading like wildfire, untamed, uncontrolled. Jinwoo tried to keep up but Minho was miles ahead, running out of breath, reaching out for all he was yearning for – forgetting in the process all that ever mattered, that all the joy in the universe was trapped inside of Jinwoo’s mouth. He longed for more, far more than what Jinwoo had to offer, much more than mere love, care and adoration, endless admiration. He craved to be the boy ruling the world, but he discovered, once alone, that he was just a fool, an idiot. He was nothing without Jinwoo – a king of wasted land, a home that broke down, ashes and dust. Everything lost its gleam, all that he held dear - his music, the shows, stardom, - it was meaningless if Jinwoo wasn't there to share his happiness - to listen to his days, laughing at his lame jokes, his head tilted, lips brushing his tongue.

He is doing well on his own, hasn’t thought of him in days but, just like that, just a song, and all caves in, shattering. One song and he is craving for him, missing him as he has never done before - missing every second since he was gone, feeling the itching of his voice all over his bones. 

Maybe he hasn’t been doing this good if just a song on the radio can hurt like this – hurt as if life is about to explode, the collision of thousands of stars inside of his core.

Maybe it’s not just the song that is doing this to Minho – perhaps it’s the meaning it holds, the recollections it carries within, the explanation of their break-up (the last time he has seen him: he had said good-bye while singing it at the recording booth). And tears roll down, slide from eyes that haven’t cried in years, that have been dried out for a decade.

He listens to the lyric, makes it out the significance Jinwoo put into it, all the drops he had poured into making it this way for him to understand – he might have written and composed it but it was Jinwoo who brought it to life, who soaked it with meaning, with feelings. He realises now just how bad he had been, how greedy and selfish – an unbearable brat, a jerk treating Jinwoo like a punching bag. And it’s too late to come back to the time they shared smiles - before they shared fake happiness (before he demolished all that they so carefully built up. He has wrenched Jinwoo but the water has been spilt, it can’t be put back as it was) he can only pray for forgiveness he doesn’t deserve but that Jinwoo will grant because he is this good - because he holds no grudges towards Minho.

He was so unhappy, he needed to stop. He sang for him one last time before biding him goodbye with a bright smile. It was over before he could understand - before he could notice the emptiness of his broken heart, the void swirling where Jinwoo used to stand, how cold the world became without Jinwoo to warm him up, to hold his hands and his core. Jinwoo stopped their love before it bruised them more, eroding the person he was: before the damage was too great to save them - he pushed him and walked away. 

There is nothing he can do to salvage what they had – it’s too late to turn back, he is too lame to run to Jinwoo, to beg for another chance, to promise him that he has changed. He has, he is not the same without him – but if he regains Jinwoo perhaps he will become the person he wants to be (the one that is there for Jinwoo, his home, his grand finale). But he has to do something or he will go mad - thinking about Jinwoo has never hurt so bad.

He puts on hold the song and makes a call – he picks it up, he answers him against all odds. His voice is still the same, precious, beaming, a ray of sunshine over his flesh. He greets him happily, asks about his whereabouts, tells him he is rooting for his next album. Minho breaks down. He doesn’t deserve Jinwoo – Jinwoo deserves so much more than he can offer, even if he can provide the world to him, it won’t be enough (he can’t hurt Jinwoo).

“I’ve heard your song on the radio,” he says, tears floating, stains of charcoal over his cheeks, cold like a winter day. “And I went back to all the places we used to know,” he adds.

“And you called me to have a chat about who we were before,” Jinwoo understands – he is still an open poem to Jinwoo, he can read amid the lines, even when he is not making sense, he still seizes the meaning.

“I’ve missed you,” he blurts out but he doesn’t care – it’s the truth anyway.

Jinwoo laughs and it is more beautiful than he recalls – like butterflies under a rainbow, the promise that everything will be all right.

“I know, Seunghoon told me,” he giggles, doesn’t add that Minho had been drunk that time, talking with his hyung over a bottle of gin and ice.

Jinwoo could have had the world if he wanted – but he wanted something different, something ordinary, the opposite of Minho: he just wanted to be anonymous, a faded voice. He could be a movie star, a solo artist, he had the potential but, once they split, glamour wasn’t appealing to him. So he took a leave, he left the group and Minho and disappeared into the crowd, a worker doing as everybody does.

“You keep in touch with him?” he wonders, not exactly surprised – Seunghoon was, still is, his best friend, the other half of his brain. After all Seunghoon, too, departed after him, following his steps. 

“With the boys, yes, of course,” he says, chuckling at his stupid question – and Minho wants to kick himself for being such a fool, for even considering that Jinwoo would let go of his friendship for him (that he was so important for him to break free of all the chains linking them together). “Minho,” he says and the sound of his name tastes reverent, “I’ve been thinking as well. Thinking that I left without fighting, without giving you an opportunity to change my mind. Do you want to change my mind?” he asks, nearly begs and there is nothing he wants more – not the elation of being on-stage can beat this moment.

“I’ve been wanting to get back to you for decades,” he breathes out, the air hot, arid, scratching his throat. “I was a fool for treating you so bad. And I’m afraid that nothing has changed, that, once we are together again, I’ll be the same jerk that hurt you, that pushed you to the rim, to the edge,” he explains, his heart beating like a drum.

“I know you might. Or I might. Nothing is promised,” he says, and Minho can see, across the seas that keep them apart, a blooming smile on his face – the face he wants to trace, to draw on the sky, to paint with tears and blood, splashing all that swirls and lingers inside of his heart. “So, if you want, we can listen to our song on the radio, together.” And Minho feels like home again, whole and mended - by the gentle tone of Jinwoo, his words a blessing, healing all the wounds he had inflicted. 

And there is nothing as beautiful as hearing Jinwoo’s voice next to him, soft and graceful, straight to his ears. Not on the radio, not over the phone: alive and wonderful, filling up all the space that he has left and that belongs to Jinwoo alone.

“It hasn’t been this long, you know?” Seunghoon jokes, watching them all cuddling, “you broke up for merely a few months. I can’t believe you two can be so startling,” but Minho can’t care about the implications – that Jinwoo hasn’t truly gone, that they hadn’t truly split, that it was him being melodramatic, histrionic at a times.

After all, Jinwoo was away, serving. And the one leaving their shared house was him, back to his parents looking for comfort – looking for a place away from the ghost of his love.

“You two are too well suited together, the same lonely brain-cell you share,” he says, shaking his head in disbelieve, shocked at the dimension of the whole situation - he watches Jinwoo with his brow up, his laughter blending together with Jinwoo's giggles and Minho confused stare. 

Minho has always been prone to drama, but this time around he has surpassed it all - he has become a joke himself, believing that Jinwoo was leaving when he was merely out to do his service. And, yes, they had problems unsolved, Jinwoo wasn't all happy and cheery but he has clarified it, he has told Minho the reasons for every disappointment he had. He had never meant to break up, it just happened and, at the time, it felt so natural, the normal course of life. And Minho had been digging explanations out of bare land - because there was nothing to be unravelled in the end. 

“A second without Jinwoo,” Minho says, kissing his temple, “is a second wasted. A month without him feels impossible to handle, an idea that I can’t comprehend,” and it doesn’t matter that Seunghoon is right and that Minho is just unbearable, an insufferable intense pain in the . It doesn’t matter how many times he rolls his eyes at him, stating the obvious – that he is just a drama queen, - he has Jinwoo by his side and, this time around, nothing will keep them apart.