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Q.: Haven't you changed a lot, then? Especially if you compare yourself to when you debuted.
JEONGHAN: In some ways I’m more mature, but I don’t think I’m noticeably different. I’m only where I am today because of how hard I worked from when I was 19 to when I was 25. […] I thought that, other than working hard, I wasn’t doing enough to improve myself. […] I’m curious how different I could be in 10 years.
Q.: Does a different side of you come out when you do things that are unrelated to the group?
JEONGHAN: There was a time when I was being molded into a moving piece of this team, and when that was happening there were times when I felt conflicts between SEVENTEEN JEONGHAN and regular Jeonghan. Now they’re all nice and mixed together, and I feel like the line between them has disappeared. Talking with the members helped a lot, too. (Weverse Magazine, 2021)
JEONGHAN: The members? I love them. Of course, they’re the closest, most precious people to me. Like family, since we’re all living together. Some say you’ve succeeded in life if you have two to three really good friends. But I already have twelve of them. (Hit The Road, 2020)
On the day he's due back in the HYBE building practice room for the first time in close to two years, Jeonghan wakes up a couple hours before his alarm goes off.
It's not an unusual feat. He's not expected to be there exceptionally early today, and so he's taken the liberty of setting his phone up to ring a bit later than he's gotten used to during the length of his service duties.
The plan for the day is simple enough not to warrant a dawnish awakening from his side. There are activities, such as unit preparations and content recordings, that have been put on hold until his much awaited return to idol life, but none of it it's going to be started today.
Instead, Jeonghan just has to start getting used to what once was the only kind of life he knew. To greet the fans eagerly waiting for him in front of the building, and fight with the face-recognition system that still refuses to let him into his workplace. To regain contact with the mirrored walls throwing his potentially rusted dancing skills back at him. To hang out with the members that are still around, and get ready to face everything he's been missing out on ever since his military-powered hiatus started a handful of seasons ago.
Still, Jeonghan has gotten so used to his office work routine that his body waking up on its own is not something he's particularly worried about.
However, something does feel off the moment he stirs from his sleep.
There's a knick on his shoulder that hasn't been there for a long time. A spring on the mattress digging in between his ribs that shouldn't exist in the first place. Sweat dampening the back of his neck, bent at a weird angle on a too-flat pillow. Loud snoring sounding far too close than it should in his otherwise empty bedroom. An awful amount of noise coming from another of the—supposedly, hopefully—empty rooms in his apartment.
A familiar voice calling out to him, void of the tender touch that usually follows after.
"Jeonghan," Seungcheol says again, far too loud for this time of day. "Jeonghan! Come on, wake up. It's five thirty already. You need to get into the shower first, or else we won't make it to the hall on time."
"What?"
Jeonghan's brain takes longer than his eyes to notice how something is undoubedly wrong.
Something, like how the Seungcheol leaning over his bed has a platinum blonde undercut and sharp, boyish features. Something, like the bottom bunk bed across the room, where a too young Mingyu keeps snoring away despite the noise. Something, like the tie digging into the flesh of his own left wrist, and the tips of his hair brushing his shoulders as he sits up on his single-bed mattress.
Something, like Soonyoung's voice booming through the walls of a dorm Jeonghan hasn't been to in a decade as he screams:
"It's debut day, everyone! Let's do it! Let's go!"
"What?" Jeonghan hears himself say. His own tone sounds off to his ears, weak and shaky and insecure like it once used to, and still does in his worst nightmares.
"Just start getting ready. We can't afford to be late today." Seungcheol's gaze softens for a second, something akin to tenderness flashing through his face.
It's gone as fast as it came, his thick brows furrowing as he turns around and shakes the frame of the bunk bed. "Mingyu! Wake up! We're going to be late for the debut showcase if you don't start getting ready right now!"
The room starts spinning around Jeonghan. As if the Earth had been shaken off its orbit, or a hurricane had swallowed it whole and spat it out the other way around.
And yet still, now wide awake, Jeonghan's feet carry him into a bathroom cramped with three people hunched over the sink, brushing their teeth at the same time.
༊*·˚
When the natural panicking that comes from waking up in a place in time where he shouldn't have subsides, Jeonghan realizes how his memories of their debut day have always been fuzzy.
The rush of adrenaline that came from running from one place to another, from performing as a real idol for the first time, from seeing the dream he'd been sharing with twelve other boys for years come true, made it so that his brain refused to record an accurate picture of what exactly went down back then.
Instead, when Jeonghan thinks of that fateful day of May eleven years ago, the only thing he remembers clearly is the happiness he'd felt inside his chest, grand and all-reaching like nothing he'd felt before, and how it had swirled around with something bitter that screamed at him that he had to do better than just this.
Looking at it now, not back but around himself in this strange sort of haze, he realizes that there are some things he never did notice in the first place.
Things, like how clear it is on all their faces that it was hard to sleep last night. Hansol's head rests on Seugkwan's shoulder on the seat across from Jeonghan as they ride the van, trying to doze off but not managing to. Jihoon does not utter a single word all morning, lost in his own dark world. In the back, Minghao and Junhui talk in hushed voices, and Jeonghan still cannot understand what they're saying but knows the power those words hold.
Things, like how Seungcheol places a careful hand on the middle of his back as they walk into the Mnet recording studio on shaky legs. "It's going to be okay," he whispers close to Jeonghan's ear, and Jeonghan thinks I know, and his throat feels dry as he says, "Yeah," because it is. It is.
Things, like how bad their clothes fit their too slim bodies. How the way his voice cracks like it hasn't in years is muted by his turned-off microphone, the sound swallowed by Seungkwan's singing in the loud back track that crawls its way through his improvised in-ears. Under the attentive stare of reporters that do not believe in them just because thirteen still sounds like too big of a number to them, Jeonghan feels incredibly vulnerable and unbelievably strong at the same time—like a shooting star, fleeting but so bright, traveling across time and space with a trail of shining light.
Things, like how young the thirteen of them really were—are, because the Chan standing with his back pressed to Jeonghan's chest, trembling in his tight embrace, is proof of how this version of Jeonghan does not belong here even though he has never been able to picture himself anywhere else.
"It has to work out," Seungkwan says while they monitor their performance in the aftermath, and in Jeonghan's eyes he's much more of a kid than he's ever been. "Woozi-hyung and Soonyoung-hyung have worked so hard for this album. We've all worked so hard to debut. It has to, right?"
It will. It's going to take time, but it will. "You have too, Seungkwannie," Jeonghan says, and wonders if he did say so back in the day, and whether he's made it clear enough to him through the course of the past decade. "You were all amazing."
"We did well, everyone," Seungcheol says, making himself sound bigger than he is for the sake of them all like he always has. Jeonghan catches the slight tremor in his voice, the exhaustion he keeps fighting against while the weight on his shoulder grows, and Jeonghan's bones rattle with the knowledge of how much this will hurt. "This is just the start. We need to keep working hard. We can't relax now."
Jisoo's hand reaches out for Jeonghan's while they wait for their manager to pick them up and take them back to the practice room. "We made it," Jisoo says, quiet like he did in Jeonghan's memories of today. "Isn't it crazy?"
It is. You don't even know the half of it. "It is," Jeonghan says back, squeezing his hand. "I couldn't have done it without you," because years from now this will still be true, and Jisoo will still know like he does now, smiling and looking away from him.
"Me too," full of ache and void of the hurt Jeonghan knows will come and wishes he could take away. "Me too, Jeonghan. We've worked so hard."
They have. They will. They do.
"Alright, let's go, let's go!" Seugcheol calls out, and though he doesn't do it outloud, Jeonghan knows he's counting heads as they walk out the door, too young for this despite how none of them would want to have it any other way.
Wonwoo trips on a step on his way out. Mingyu's hands stop him from falling, and eleven years from now Seokmin will still be unable to keep in his laughter as he watches a scene like this unfold.
Warmth keeps growing and growing inside Jeonghan's chest. He wonders if being here will be something permanent or feeble like a dream instead, and is only half surprised to discover that he wouldn't mind doing it all over again.
If that's how it ought to be, at least he'd get to spend this decade with the twelve of them again. Knowing what he does now, the burden weighs seventeen thousand times less.
༊*·˚
"You've been acting weird all day," Seungcheol says through a mouthful of instant ramyon.
Jeonghan chuckles, the motion threatening to make him choke on his own spit. His hair is tied up into a bun at the back of his head, the length of it unfamiliar after so long. "Weird how?"
"Just weird."
"I don't think I did."
"Well, you did," Seungcheol accuses.
Jeonghan tries to keep up the façade, but he was never sure the ship would still be the same after having all its pieces replaced.
He's been going through the motions on autopilot all day. It's still not clear to him what is really happening—if this strange kind of time-traveling is an actual thing he's living through, or a very vivid dream he can't make himself wake up from.
"It's been a strange day," he replies, which is nothing but the truth. "You've been pretty stressed out too, you know."
"I have not." Seungcheol's rebuttal comes like a resort, bouncing off him on instinct. "I'm the same I've always been."
It holds true and rings false at the same time. This version of Seungcheol bears a responsibility far too great for his age, yet has shoulders stronger than he should. He's the greatest leader they could've asked for, and a kid that has been through so much more than any of them would've wanted him to.
When Jeonghan looks at Seungcheol, he sees the sheer amount of sacrifice he's made for all of them. And, though Seungcheol will keep pretending like nothing gets to him for years to come, Jeonghan realizes that he's always known how deep the hurt ran. How tall the wall Seungcheol had put up truly was, and how long it took to bring it down, row to shore, make it home.
But there is something else. Something Jeonghan knows is real. That has always been there, that he could not see back then but does now.
It's in the way Seungcheol's shoulders sag when he talks to Jeonghan, as if he could finally let go, only to pick himself back up at the slightest of moves. In the way he looks at Jeonghan, wanting so much and yet allowing himself so little. In the way he keeps a spare hairtie around his wrist, and how he'd slid his own team ring onto Jeonghan's crooked finger when the burden grew too heavy for what felt like the hundredth time.
In the way blood rushes to Seungcheol's face, tinting it pink under the dimmed lights of the living room where only the two of them remain awake now when Jeonghan says, "I know". I know. "But you've worked so hard. I don't know what we would do without you. Seriously."
In the way Jeonghan knows there's a version of Seungcheol that's waiting for him at home eleven years in the future. That kisses him as he walks through the door, and leans on his shoulder when he needs to. A Seungcheol that Jeonghan can help shoulder the pain in the way he couldn't this one, back in this day.
This Seungcheol has not yet been broken. "You dont have to do this alone", Jeonghan told him in a hotel room in Jakarta, short of breath while the room spun around him and Seungcheol clinged to his shirt like a lifeline. "I'm here. You can lean on me. I love you." I always have.
"Stop it," Seungcheol huffs. It sounds like a plea, and Jeonghan knows back then he would've kept pressing, but today he chooses to let it be.
Silence follows after, quiet but not uncomfortable at all. Jeonghan basks in it, and in the stillness, he lets himself be soaked by the love that has always existed but the two of them will take years to understand.
"So many people came to see us today," Seungcheol says after a while, sounding much smaller than he used to. "I can't believe we finally got to perform before a crowd so big. It feels surreal, don't you think?"
Jeonghan's throat grows tight at the tone in Seungcheol's voice, and suddenly he wants to tell him just how so many more will come. Wants this Seungcheol to picture himself touring the world, filling up stadiums, breaking down and rising from his ashes stronger than before.
"And this is just the start." Jeonghan thinks of them in Japan. In America. In Berlin. Thinks of them all, together yet not always complete. Wating, hopeful, determined. Always stronger together, a family made up of thirteen souls so thoroughly intertwined there's no way to pull them apart from each other. A love so strong it makes Jeonghan keep standing up even when he's too tired to breathe. "We need to keep working hard. I believe in you all so much. We need to keep going for a long, long time. We promised, right?"
Seungcheol does not cry today, but three days ago Jeonghan held him into his arms as he weeped at the preface of the rest of the members leaving for their military service, over an uncertainty forever dreaded. The love is there now, but Jeonghan knows it was there then, too.
"Of course," Seungcheol says. When he looks up at Jeonghan, the tenderness in his gaze gives away everything his mouth will take much, much longer to say. "I told you I won't let you fail."
The love has always been there. It changes, but lives on and on and on.
"Thank you for being by my side," Jeonghan tells this Seungcheol who's never heard those words slip from his mouth before. "This will all pay off in the end. Believe me. I'm sure of it."
Seungcheol blinks. Flushes red despite his best efforts. Looks away as he says, "See? You're being weird. You'd better not be getting sick."
Jeonghan laughs and reaches over to take a sip from Seungcheol's already warm can of Coke. "Hopefully not," he chuckles under Seungcheol's guilty stare.
This is a movie Jeonghan has seen many times before. It'll take time, but he knows how much worth it the end is, so he pushes the now cold noodles into his mouth and lets Seungcheol steer the conversation away from the two of them for the rest of the night.
༊*·˚
On the day he's due back in the HYBE building practice room for the first time in close to two years, Jeonghan wakes up a couple hours before his alarm goes off.
It's not an unusual feat. He's not expected to be there exceptionally early today, and so he's taken the liberty of setting his phone up to ring a bit later than he's gotten used to during the length of his service duties.
Still, when he opens his eyes and grabs his phone to check the time, there's an endless string of notifications filling up his screen.
At the very top, a message from Seungcheol sent eight minutes ago flashes, "I'm picking you up at 8 with coffee <3". Underneath, Seungkwan has sent to their group chat what looks like his entire gallery of celebratory stickers, topped with a cutely written Weverse post that reads, "Welcome back, Jeonghanie-hyung!!!!!".
Jeonghan takes in a deep breath. Closes his eyes, allows himself to melt into the firmness of his mattress, lets the nostalgia wash over him like the rising tide until his phone rings and snaps him out of it.
"Are you awake?" Is the first thing Seungcheol asks when Jeonghan picks it up.
Fondness fills up Jeonghan's ribcage. This is a movie Jeonghan has seen many times before. "What do you think?"
"I had a nightmare where you said you didn't want to come back today," Seungcheol says into the speaker. In the background, Jeonghan can hear the sound of sheets being rustled. "I needed to make sure that wasn't true. And I knew you would wake up early anyways. Your body always takes time to get used to changes."
Jeonghan smiles. Presses his face closer to his phone, as if he could feel Seungcheol's touch that way. Imagines him leaning in, cupping his cheek, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips. "You're so silly," he says. "Silly, silly, silly Cheollie." There's no way I would ever leave your side, he means.
The love has always been there.
A cute whine. Open vulnerability where there was only hesitancy once.
"Jeonghan!"
It changes, but lives on and on and on.