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Jay sees it for the first time during &audition's finale. He feels powerless when the only thing he can do is watch, a stone fist clenching uncomfortably in his ribcage. It feels wrong, the way he is hyperfixated on the way that he feels, rather than being truly happy for the participants. He sees the way that Yudai sags with relief as each of the names is called, the tension only fully leaving him when Murata Fuma’s name is called last, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that lingers like sand on his tongue. Jay’s sharp eyes trace every movement as Yudai, his Yudai hyung , hugs each and every person to his chest, caressing their heads and holding back tears that have been threatening to pour out the entire time. It reminds him all too clearly of when he was the one being held, being on the receiving end of Yudai’s praises and congratulations.
It feels like a different time, an entirely different world. And now the tables have turned, and it feels wrong in all the worst possible ways.
Jay delivers his congratulatory speech, but his mind is elsewhere, his Japanese far too sloppy for someone who once had to use it to teach a 15 year old Niki how to navigate Seoul’s subway system. His gaze is fixated on the way Yudai’s hands seem to flutter, needing to touch, to ground himself in his new reality. Yudai has always been tall, towering over all of them even as they grow inches through the years. As he pulls each of his new members into his chest, Jay’s heart thuds heavily. He knows how it feels, to fit so perfectly within Yudai’s embrace and feel like none of the dangers of the world can touch you. He itches to find his way back, but all he can do is bite his lip and hold himself in place between his own members. Today is not about him.
A hand finds its way into his, and the calluses feel as familiar as the fingers that thread themselves between his own.
“He’s done it. He’ll shine on stage now, we don’t have to worry,” Heeseung’s voice is low, teeming with pride and something else.
Jay doesn’t trust himself to speak, not when everything that comes out of his mouth would be tinged around the edges with longing, with want. Not the sincere congratulations that Yudai deserves, that they all deserve in fact. Jay doesn’t need to say anything, though. Heeseung knows him too well, can read his minute gestures, and the way Jay’s shoulders are wound up tight speaks volumes about the tsunami raging inside him.
It could have been different. He could be here, next to us. I miss him. The small smile that Heeseung offers as consolation has the same worn edges of something else. Heeseung doesn’t leave his side for the entire night, and they end up entangled with each other as they sleep. Heeseung tries his best, whispering and patting him and drawing him closer. Jay sleeps fitfully nonetheless,his chest feeling painfully empty. He feels ungrateful.
Heeseung sees it next, when they meet for the first time during their collaboration stage. There’s a twitch of something that tugs at the threads of his internal organs, not quite the stab of despair that Jay felt, but something resembling an uncomfortable pressure.
Murata Fuma is older than he is. According to Euijoo, &team’s second oldest is reserved, but softens around the edges whenever his younger members come close, greedy for his attention. It feels familiar, the way that Euijoo describes his hyung. It sounds like the way that one of his own younger members would describe him. A dependable older brother figure, with a soft tender side hidden beneath a tough exterior.
Heeseung recalls Niki telling him Fuma was chosen as Euijoo’s sub-leader, and he breathes a sigh of relief that the burden had not fallen onto Yudai. Heeseung knows how hard it is to be the oldest, even if you have no official title to your name. He’s held Jungwon in his arms many times, squeezing hard enough to glue the cracks in Jungwon’s strong facade back together. Jungwon may be the leader, but he’s still Enhypen’s second youngest. Heeseung will yield to Jungwon whenever it comes to group matters, but he’s still Heeseung’s to take care of at the end of the day, away from all the cameras and staff and official duties. Heeseung also sees Nicholas and Euijoo, and how the bond between them has only gotten stronger, deeper, even when they were already impossibly close to begin with.
But as usual, it’s Yudai that catches his attention. Heeseung’s eyes meet Jay’s across the room, where the younger Enhypen member is being introduced to Jungwon’s same-aged comrades. Jo, who’s even quieter than Sunghoon was when Heeseung first met him; and Yuma, who reminds Heeseung as much of a cat as Jake reminds him of a puppy. They’re adorable, and Heeseung wants to get closer.
Jay raises an eyebrow, and follows Heeseung’s line of sight to where Yudai and Fuma stand. Something falls over Jay’s features like a dark curtain, and it makes Heeseung’s heart twinge. The corners of Jay’s lips tighten, and he holds himself stiff. It is still difficult for Jay, in a way that only Heeseung will ever be able to comprehend. Because this is a secret that Jay will take to his grave, one he would rather swallow glass shards than admit to, but Heeseung is already privy to it.
Yudai, Heeseung and Jay. They had been brought together by fate, and torn apart by reality.
They never defined what was between them, couldn’t bring themselves to voice out the words when they were powerless to take action and give each other anything more, but everyone could always see crackling tension between them. Thankfully, Heeseung and Jay are more now, but it always felt incomplete. Like they couldn’t bear to speak about the elephant in the room, even as the pressure threatened to break them apart a few times.
It was common knowledge back then. Everyone was always at least, just a little bit, in love with Koga Yudai. You couldn’t be a trainee alongside him, couldn’t spend days and nights in his company, without yearning for just a little bit more. Jay and Heeseung were no exception, even when they found each other. But then Yudai was wrenched from their grasp, even when their future together seemed to be just beyond the horizon. Heeseung had to watch Jay swallow the words that have lingered on the tip of his tongue probably since he had first met Yudai years ago. The thing is, there was always something there . And in a different universe, Yudai would be theirs. Jay had never said anything, but Heeseung knew. They’d both never really let their hyung go, even separated by an ocean and customs and a whole language that Heeseung doesn’t speak.
As much as moving on has been killing them both, Heeseung knows they have no choice now. And he can already see Jay hurting, sinking down into a pit of despair, even as the atmosphere around him is lively and vibrant. Because he’s not blind to the way that Yudai’s hands find their way onto Fuma’s waist and linger there, even just in casual conversation. It’s like Yudai has found his anchor, and he’s afraid to let go.
But when Niki yells for Yudai from across the room, waving at him frantically from where he lies sprawled next to Taki, the older one seems to start and hastily brings his hands back down.
That’s when it hits Heeseung. Oh. He doesn’t know yet.
Later, Heeseung moves towards Jay as the cameras cut for a quick break and everyone has broken off into smaller groups to chat or drink water. Niki has slung himself onto Yudai’s back, the way he used to when he was exhausted beyond words, but now there’s a teasing grin on his face as he hoards Yudai’s affection. They’re preoccupied talking to Harua, who has his head in Fuma’s lap as he holds a conversation with Niki. Heeseung is proud of his youngest for extending a branch of friendship first.
Jay sits hunched in a corner on his own, and Sunghoon is throwing him worried glances from across the room where he and Jake have been catching up with Nicholas and Maki.
“I don’t want to let him go, hyung,” Jay whispers under his breath when Heeseung plops down next to him and presses their shoulders together. His breathing is uneven, and he suddenly looks years younger. It feels like a sucker punch to Heeseung’s gut as he pulls Jay into a tight hug, burying his nose into Jay’s hair. Jay’s the perfect height for him, to be enveloped in Heeseung’s arms.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice, love. He’s not ours anymore.” Heeseung really is sorry that he has to be the one to verbalise the ache that they both feel. Despite Jay and Yudai always having visible tension between them, Heeseung had also silently given a part of his heart to ILand’s oldest, gift-wrapped with a bow neatly decorating its top. It doesn’t hurt less for him than it does for Jay, but Jay needs him more than his own sorrow.
“He could have been. He could have been ours, we could have done this right.” Jay’s tone is bitter, overflowing with regret.
“Oh baby,” Heeseung pressed a secret kiss to Jay’s head, feeling the younger shudder in his embrace. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We tried our best with what we had, and that’s enough. He’ll always be ours, in some way. Even if it’s not the way we wanted when we were 18.”
“Sometimes I think I still want him that way. Like I’ll never be able to outgrow him. Not that you’re not enough, hyung. Not that Sunghoon-” Jay cuts himself off, and Heeseung bites back a chuckle despite himself. “He was ours for so long. I didn’t think we could lose him. I don’t want to move on. It feels like I’m losing something, a part of myself that I can never get back.”
Heeseung knows what Jay means. Their relationship with Yudai feels like the one a child has with their favourite soft toy. Their place of comfort, the one that accompanied them throughout all the highs and lows, the turbulence of growing up. Then the child blinks and one day he’s grown and the soft toy doesn’t bring the same sort of feeling that it used to. There’s guilt, that the relationship has run its course and the place in the child’s heart that was always specially reserved for the soft toy no longer feels the same. There’s always a lingering anguish, the desperate wish to hold on to the past and still find a way to move forward.
Heeseung’s eyes find Yudai again, magnetically drawn to wherever the oldest was. Yudai is now tucked between Euijoo and Fuma, with Euijoo leaning heavily onto him with drooping eyes. Upon closer inspection, Heeseung notices how Fuma has a hand pressed against Yudai’s back, gently holding up both Yudai and Euijoo’s weight.
Heeseung thinks he understands what Fuma means to Yudai, then.
“I know, Jongseong. I know it hurts, sweetheart. But you don’t have to stop feeling something for him. Just- I think it’s going to change, baby. And it’s all going to be okay. We’re going to relearn how to be in each other’s lives, even if it takes a while. And if it hurts too much for you to bear, I’m always here.”
Jay sighs, and swallows audibly, tightening his grip on Heeseung. “Is it wrong for me to wish it went differently?”
Heeseung shakes his head gently. “No, it’s not. But this journey was ours, Jongseong. We had him for years, and he’s still here. Yudai hyung is just carving out his own path now, baby. But he’ll always look back at us. He loves you, you know. That won’t go away, maybe it will just morph into something else.”
Jay sucks in a harsh, pained breath. “I wish I told him, back then. Damn the consequences of it all.”
Heeseung wonders if he would have dared to. “I don’t think we ever had to. He always knew us best.”
Heeseung feels eyes on them, and when he glances back up, he catches Euijoo’s gaze. &team’s leader flushes a bright red, and tucks himself deeper into Yudai’s side, hastily averting his gaze. Heeseung doesn’t miss the way that he clings tighter to Yudai’s shirt.
He also doesn’t miss the way that Nicholas is looking at his hyungs and his leader. As the director calls for everyone to get ready for shooting to resume, Heeseung thinks:
Oh, Yudai hyung. It’s all of them, then?
When practice ends for the day, Heeseung finds his footsteps bringing him to the side of someone that doesn’t expect it. Fuma doesn’t startle, but his arms tense briefly before relaxing. He meets Heeseung’s eyes, and Heeseung immediately relaxes when all he sees is warmth, perhaps still laced with a bit of apprehension.
Heeseung beams at him. “Fuma hyung. Do you play games?”
In the end, it goes something like this.
Yudai grows up with Heeseung and Jongseong, shedding tears and sharing laughter in equal proportions. They watched each other struggle, picked each back up when the world seemed too bleak to continue, whenever any of them wanted to give up. Somewhere along the line, they turn from teenagers hungry for success, enduring countless sleepless nights with their physical and mental endurance pushed beyond their limits. And yet, they don’t crack. They prove their grit, their worth, and they fly.
Their paths end up diverging, but the universe must know how much love remains between them. They can share the same stage, show up on the same shows, and share meals at the same table, all while succeeding in their own right.
In his youth, Yudai was theirs. In another world, a universe running parallel to this one, they might have stayed on the same path. But in their reality, Yudai runs with them in tandem, not quite on the same road, but together nonetheless.
If Heeseung could choose all over again, whether he would want to hold eye contact with the most stunning person he had ever seen on the first day he stepped foot into his training room, there would be no hesitation. If he could turn back time, with all the knowledge he had now, he might have said something like:
“Hi, Yudai hyung. I’m Heeseung. Someone named Park Jongseong is coming tomorrow. We’re going to fall in love with you, and I hope you know that we’ll love you for a long time to come, no matter what happens.”
But time doesn’t turn back, only moving forwards without any regard for any regrets, for feelings buried instead of freed. So Heeseung promises himself that before Yudai and &team return to Japan, before they are forced to rely on text messages and the occasional video call for life updates, he’ll say something like:
“Hi, Yudai hyung. We still love you. But we know it’s different now, and it’s okay. We’ll still love you in whatever way we can, and we’ll love each other even more because you’d want us to. And hyung, just know that they love you back. Even if they don’t dare to say it now, just like we never did. You should say something. It could be something beautiful. Yudai hyung, you’ll always be ours, in some way. And we’ll always be yours, me and Jongseong, even if you belong with them now. I hope they love growing old with you, just as much as we loved growing up with you. You gave us a part of yourself through all these years, and we’ll continue to grow together for a long time. So thank you, hyung. We miss you, and we’ll love you forever. ”
Not an ending, but a promise. A promise for forever, made by souls too young to understand what they would mean to each other when they grew up. Unconditional and sincere, in every way possible.
+1: 会いたかったです、兄さん ( i missed you, older brother)
Niki sees it as well when they are introduced during their collaboration stage. Granted, the lens that Niki viewed Yudai with has always been grossly different than Heeseung or Jay or Sunghoon, but no less deep, no less precious.
When Yudai takes Harua and Maki’s hands and plops them in front of Niki, he is seated on the floor with Taki’s head already in his lap. Taki takes the lead, eager for his best friends to meet. “Niki, this is Harua and Maki. We have the same name, it’s really, really annoying, can you believe it? It was bad enough with the two of us, and now there is this brat too. Rua’s fine, I guess, he just likes to copy me all the time, you wouldn’t believe-” Niki just lets Taki ramble on, and ponders his following actions. It couldn’t be much clearer, honestly.
The type of brotherly affection, the role that Yudai had always had in Niki’s life, mirrored almost perfectly in the way he encouraged Harua and Maki to engage with him. Niki, for his part, tried to smile as widely as he could without coming across as intimidating, and Taki’s presence helped to hasten the bond-forming process. Niki always thought he would feel jealous, that they got to be with Yudai like this, got to speak in their shared language while Niki fought for survival in a foreign country. But Harua smiles and Maki teases in a manner that reminds him of himself and Taki, and he knows that Yudai could never not love them the way that he loved Niki. Yudai’s heart is big enough for all of them, because he wordlessly brings Niki a plastic bag filled to the brim with his favourite Japanese snacks without any prompting, and Niki’s heart swells with how much he has missed him.
When Niki starts wedging his way between Taki and Harua during their break, already part of their group and on the same wavelength, he sees Yudai out of the corner of his eye. He is staring at them, with a glossy sheen over his eyes. That’s when Niki is certain, Yudai loves him still, doesn’t love him any less because of them. Niki grins. He feels 15 again, and it feels good.