#i know i've talked about this before in a post somewhere. but yunho's only comparable peers are literally like. junsu and rain

[oreharuuu]

éta ritual (5)

Summary: Meeting San's two friends was an interesting experience yet...you can't help but hide your suspicion about them.

Warnings: none

A/N: I'M SORRY I WAS LATE POSTING THIS! I've rewritten the whole thing because I wasn't happy with it, but I'm satisfied with the whole thing now so ENJOY :)

"Oh, please. You think the library is swamped on a Monday?"

"Oh, (name). You don't have to say sorry for taking a few days off," Suho hummed as you placed your phone on your shoulder. You huffed, dragging the trash bag outside of your apartment. "I feel bad because you only have Mark working at the moment."

You shrugged before realizing Suho can't see it. "It might. You never know."

Suho sighed. "Well, don't worry. You better finish that problem sooner or later. Are you staying with someone?"

"Yeah, my neighbor."

San was an angel for letting you stay on his couch for the meantime. It's only been a day since the incident but you're trying to clean up at a faster pace because you don't want to bother San anymore. He's adamant that he's okay with the whole thing but you don't want to stay longer because that man is a menace.

You only stayed one day at his apartment to calm yourself down and relax before doing any work, but damn did San not know the term 'personal boundaries'. You slept on the couch because your heart's going to burst if you step into San's room. The one morning you woke up to the smell of bacon, you sat up only to go eyes wide when you saw San shirtless. He's only wearing pajama pants but the pants are down to his hips, showing the top of his underwear? Boxers? You don't even know because your mind isn't working right.

Laying back down you only stared at the ceiling as you tried to erase the image from your mind. You could've sworn you heard a growl somewhere nearby, but your heart stopped literally when San appeared smiling, his dimple showing.

Fuck.

"Morning, (name)! Breakfast is ready, come eat it before I eat everything," He smiled as he walked away again to grab a plate for himself.

That morning you looked everywhere besides San's godly body, not noticing how he's hiding his smirks as he purposely stretched and flexed his muscles.

Thankfully San needed to run some errands before working tomorrow. But that didn't stop yourself from ogling at how his clothes fit nicely to his body like a glove. "I'm gonna go now, you sure you don't want me to buy anything?" San asked.

"No thanks," You smiled. "I'm good."

San smiled before waving goodbye, closing the door before you huffed and screamed into the pillow you slept yesterday.

"—So I'm guessing this neighbor is also helping you?"

You snapped out of your head, coughing lightly before answering Suho. "No, actually. His friends are willing to help though because he's busy with work."

"Hmm, what a nice man."

You sighed. "Tell me about it."

You and Suho kept talking over the phone as you mindlessly cleaned what you can in your apartment. As Suho was talking about a cute dog he saw yesterday, a knock stopped you from grabbing the trash. "Suho, can I call you later? I think his friends are here."

Saying goodbye, you turned off the call before making yourself presentable with the hoodie, joggers, and messy hair. You're too lazy to change anyway and you're cleaning. Fixing your glasses you walked to the door before opening it.

What a sight it was.

Both of the men were tall. One with brown hair and one with bold coloured hair. You've never met anyone with hair of neon yellow and orange make it look so good.

"Hi, are you (name)?" The man with brown hair asked, making you nod. "Yeah, I'm (name). I'm assuming your San's friends?"

"Yup!" The other man cheerily replied. "My name's Mingi, this is Yunho. Nice to meet you."

Your tense body slowly went lax, smiling at how cute Mingi is. They both have golden retriever energies so you don't sense any bad things from them. Although their height is still making you a bit uneasy because of how short you are compared to them.

"Nice to meet you too! Thank you really for offering to help."

Yunho waved you off. "It's fine, besides we don't really have anything to do. And we've been dying to meet the girl San was gushing over."

Hearing that you tried to hide the rising heats on your cheeks by coughing, hiding behind the door before appearing back to them. "Thank you! But sadly San never told me about you guys. Are you guys close friends or...?"

"Oh!" Mingi smiled. "Let's say we've been together for a long time."

"Very, very, long time," Yunho smirked.

"Hmm, must be good friends then."

Mingi and Yunho only nodded, so you opened the door wider to let them in. You're embarrassed as both of the men looked around your apartment with an unreadable expression, shifting uneasily when Yunho turned back to look at you.

"I presumed you already cleaned this already?"

"Well yeah, not all though. Just started cleaning a few hours a go," You shrugged helplessly.

Mingi and Yunho exchanged glances before Mingi asked back. "So...the apartment is actually more cleaner now?"

You nodded.

Yunho smiled but you know it's not a pleasant one, while Mingi scowled before shaking his head with a sigh. "San told us the girl is your friend?"

"Was," You snarked back. "After the stunt she pulled I'm not sure I'll be able to hold myself back from punching her. But then again I'll probably just think about it instead of actually doing it."

"I'm supporting you to punch her. If my Cas—uh, apartment was trashed like this or even worse, I'd say kill her," Yunho shrugged, Mingi nodding along in agreement.

"Yeah, not taking any chances here," You huffed before making your way towards the mess on your kitchen. "I believe you both came here to help me?"

Both of them grin, separating as they make their way towards the mess inside. You huffed before grabbing the trash bags outside before deciding to clean your bedroom next. It's not as trashed as the living room, but still messy nonetheless.

"You need help here?" Yunho popped his head inside your room, carrying a trash bag over his shoulder. You looked around before shaking your head. "Nope. I'm good here."

You noticed how Yunho lingers around the door, noticing how he's shifting his gaze around your room. Before you could ask him what's wrong, a knock from the door interrupted your question.

You swore you heard a growl from Yunho but you ignored it. It sounds too...inhuman for it to come from an actual human. "Someone visiting you?" Yunho cocked his head towards the door.

"Actually...no."

You heard the door open, instantly thinking that Mingi opened the door. You heard talking so you brushed off any dust from your clothes before walking towards the door, Yunho following behind.

"Mark? What're you doing here?"

"(name)!" Mark smiled happily. "Wanted to visit you before going to work, Suho told me what happened. So I bought something for you."

"Aww, thanks. You really didn't have to," You walked up to grab the bag from Mark's hand, noticing the delicious smell. "Damn, right on time. Thanks for the food!"

"Wanted to eat with you, but it seems you have company..."

"Oh!" You forgot Yunho and Mingi were here, looking back at them before pointing. "That's Yunho, that's Mingi. They're actually my neighbor's friends, they wanted to help me."

"Oh, hi!"

"Hello," Mingi replied with a smile but you noticed how it didn't reach his eyes. Yunho only nodded with a tense smile, making the atmosphere awkward before you cleared your throat. "Wanna come in? I mean you did buy the food."

Mark opened his mouth before closing it. You frowned when suddenly his eyes looked blank, almost empty. "Mark? You okay?" You waved a hand in front of him, but no response.

"Actually," He started. "I remembered I had something to do before I go to work. It's best if I work on it."

Weird. He sounded like a stranger to you with that kinda of language and tone, but you shrugged before hugging him. "Alright, hope it goes well. Take care Mark!"

Mark's body was lax so you thought he didn't want any hugs right now, but his blank gaze was still etched on his face. Glancing back at Mingi and Yunho, you noticed the subtle yet annoyed smirk Yunho had while Mingi straight up looked scary as he glared at Mark.

"Uh...anything wrong here?"

Mingi glanced at Yunho before his face melts from any tension, smiling at you before grabbing your back gently. "All fine, love. Maybe Mark's a little...tired. Let's leave him be."

You frowned but nodded nonetheless. Mark did mentioned how his professor seems to have a grudge towards him, always making him revise a few assignments. "Maybe. Bye, Mark! I'll see you at work!"

Mark didn't even wave before Yunho closed the door, a bit strong in your opinion. You saw how Yunho was hunched, huffing softly before looking back at you with a smile. You hold back the shiver that just went through your body, slowly inching away from Mingi; not noticing his gaze always looking at you.

You swore his eyes was red but in an instant it vanished. Jumping back to Mingi, you didn't even notice Yunho already standing in front of you.

"So," He purred. "Shall we continue were we left off?"

[sanstropfremir]

Hey! I hops life has been treating you well! And warning for a long and convoluted ask incoming (which is pretty par for the course for me). I’ve been going down a Yunho (U-Know Yunho to be precise lol) rabbit hole and I’m curious how you think he compares to other male SM solo artists especially Taemin (though I think it would be interesting to compare all SM solo artists like BOA or Taeyeon and Hyoyeon for the purpose of this ask im just thinking about the dudes). Cause I feel like him, Taemin, and Kai all fall on different ends of the same spectrum that’s distinct from some of the other SM solos like the other Exos (except I might add Baekhyun in there but I’m just not familiar enough with him) as they tend to tackle that darker sexier sound. I’ve been thinking about how when people say a male solo artists is making taemin lite music it’s usually actually closer to Yunho’s more recent stuff. Like taemin has kind of become short hand for dark male solo concept especially if it’s on the sexier or high concept side when that’s not always an accurate comparison. I’ve seen this especially with Wonho which is really interesting to me cause in my mind he falls way more on the Yunho end of the spectrum than Taemin (by like a long shot). And this could also be cause the kpop circles I run in are way less familiar with Yunho to make that comparison in the first place, I was just wondering if others like you that knew Yunho would agree with me. I also found it interesting that Taemin went solo before Yunho even though TVXQ are the older group so I wonder he affected Yunho’s music at all. Cause Yunho kind of seems like a more, I don’t want to say masculine, definitely more of a player, conventionally sexy foil to taemin’s more unhinged (satanic?? Fantasy? Horror-adjacent? I can’t really describe it accurately but I mean TVXQ has down their share of that too) sensual side and I can’t tell if it’s cause of the age difference between them, their group concepts (I mean TVXQ are the grown men of the kpop industry in my mind and I have no doubt they play a role in inspiring any “manly” or mature concept and Yunho’s concepts seems to follow pretty closely to TVXQ’s image in a way that Taemin doesn’t at all with Shinee), or their own artist personas and careers- taemin has always been viewed as the “feminine” one and you’ve talked a lot about how he’s both rejected and embraced that image overtime in his career. And to further complicate this I don’t really know where to put Kai between them cause he has the more overt sex appeal in Mmmh, and in his image over all, that Yunho has but also is more sensual and softer (subtle?) dance style that seems closer to taemin (or at least taemin’s image I’ll be the first to admit that my understanding of him as an artists doesnt always align with his actual output and the expectations I project on him) so I guess he goes in the middle. But peaches does really stand out as a sort of softer lighter storybook concept (which I love cause I feel like we don’t see traditional concepts that are more feel good) so that kind of throws a wrench into my theory and I guess thats what I get for treating artists’ output as a monolith and for comparing them😅. This ask is getting very very long and I’m late for class so I won’t continue but I did have some idea about where Xiumin’s recent comeback fits into this roster of artists but I’ll save that for another day lol. As always thanks for your input and I hope this makes at least some sense to you!

i stopped photo editing to answer this lmao bc i think this a very interesting question/thought experiment etc etc

firstly, most people will make the taemin comparison for male soloist because he is significantly more well known as a soloist, and part of that is that he's famous for being a soloist; an extension of which is the disparity between his solo work and his group work. now there are two points i want to fork off into from here:

-> the first is that it's a flawed comparison to place yunho, taemin, and kai on a spectrum because they're not derivatives of each other in the way that a spectrum would imply; what they all are is derivatives of rain. every dance-based male soloist is, via some lineage, a descendant of rain, whether it's through the skills line (taemin) or the 'masculinity' line (yunho) or a mix (kai). baekhyun doesn't factor in here because he's almost purely rnb based and therefore a kangta derivative.

-> the second is that it is valid for people to be making that comparison to taemin because most younger idols are going to be using him as reference, and because a lot of these younger idols are following his method of creating a separate solo persona from their group. yunho does not have that distinction. he is quite literally the face of tvxq, and therefore inextricably bound to the group's identity because there are literally only two of them. if they were, for example, still a five member group, he might have had more a chance to diversify himself a bit, but that's a bygone point because we don't live in that world. the reason tvxq made it through the split and maintained being an extremely successful group is very likely because of yunho's singlehanded determination. obviously changmin does care about the group, but as we've seen with his solo work, he's much more of a musical chameleon; he's more focused on dabbling in widely different genres that interest him. yunho's solo music however, is pretty consistent in sound and also not all that surprising of a leap from who he is in tvxq. so by that observation, i would say there isn't actually a difference between uknow yunho and uknow the soloist. his artistic identity is tvxq, in a way that he can't separate, unlike how taemin can separate from shinee. and following that point through, no younger soloist can really be compared to him because his history and group image are so integral to what he does. that's why there's like a negative number of young idols that every attempt to cover a yunho song, bc the vibes of something like follow or thank u would OBLITERATE anyone under the age of 30.

if you were to look at just aesthetics and music styles, sure on the surface there are some younger idols that unintentionally skew more towards some of the stuff that yunho has done, but in the end that's because they're all under the rain umbrella.