DBSK - A Work of Heart [YunhoxJaejoong] PART THREE (end)
Title: A Work of Heart(part 3/3)
Pairing: Yunho x Jaejoong, ?? x ??
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst, Drama, insanity?
Summary: Loss paves a path to love and insanity.
Notes: Written for the JaeHo fanfic contest. Won first place. Don't ask me how.
Warning: Character death.
Part three: Heart to Find
Yunho had started to work for SM Town through simple paperwork, handing in some reviews on trainees that wanted to come out either as solo artist or in group formation. The work was easy and didn’t require too much time out of the house, either. Because he was a familiar name at the company, he had the luxury of receiving a fair pay that could easily cover the expenses of the apartment and all the other costs they had to deal with.
There were plans of him starting as a dance instructor at the main SM Town building once he felt like it. He had not declined the offer, but for now, he just stuck to the work that he was doing. In his mind, it felt good doing something scheduled again, falling back into a routine that could be written out on paper.
Jaejoong refrained to doing some work around the house. He had gone out to visit a lot of people and felt more human by the day. He wore Yoochun’s jewellery daily, remembering the man with pride in his heart. He would still shed tears now and then, but he had managed to give the grief a place by now, albeit one where the doors were always opened.
He had come to understand that the feelings he held for Yunho should not be held back by the emotions he got to deal with because of Yoochun’s death. It had taken him a while to see the two as a different aspect in his life, but he had come to peace with it. Yunho was no excuse to replace Yoochun with; he was merely someone his heart had come to respect aside from all those things.
They spend long hours in one another’s arms, talking about a lot of things and Yunho was a good listener, just like Yoochun had been. All the things he would never have told the leader in the past he told him now without holding back. Yunho had changed, almost as if he had become another person, but Jaejoong knew that Yunho had merely opened up more.
Yet the office was out of limits for him. Yunho had made it clear to him that he wanted to keep work separated from their private lives from now on and it made sense to Jaejoong in a way, even though he sometimes felt a little helpless at being unable to venture into the man’s office space to see what he was doing.
-
The day Yunho accepted the offer to start working as a dance instructor was the day Jaejoong kissed him more intensely than ever before. They had been lying on the couch together, watching TV absently and had somehow, at one point, completely molten into one another. They were like two pieces of a puzzle, fitting in all the right places.
They had kissed for hours, completely drowning in one another’s tastes. Yunho’s mind wondered briefly if Yoochun had ever taken the liberty to taste at the former-blonde’s mouth, but he pushed the thought aside when Jaejoong’s teeth tugged playfully at his bottom lip.
Breaking apart, Yunho informed the other of the plans he had made with SM Town. It required him to be away from the apartment on Wednesdays and Fridays, tutoring advanced trainees and guiding them in their ways of becoming true stars.
“That seems like a good thing for you to do,” Jaejoong mumbled, thinking over the idea and visualising Yunho teaching younger people the dance moves he loved. He knew Yunho always felt the need to lead and the man was good at it too, so who was he to object? It would be rather strange to spend days alone though, but somehow he knew that he would manage.
“When you feel like it, you can come and watch me,” Yunho offered, his hand running through the now-black hair. He liked this look more on Jaejoong, just like Yoochun had once notified that Jaejoong’s original hair colour suited him best. With a smile on his face, he toyed with the earring the other was wearing, recognising the double-cross to be one of Yoochun’s without a doubt.
“I might just do that one time,” Jaejoong chuckled softly, Yunho’s fingers tickling on his skin. He leaned in once more and pressed his lips shortly to the man’s before excusing himself. There was work to be done and he took his job around the house just as seriously as Yunho considered his new job to be.
-
The first day Yunho had spent at the SM Town building, Jaejoong had found it difficult to wake up in an empty bed. The sheets were cold instead of warm and the house was just too silent for his liking.
In a rush of sudden inspiration, he had moved into the music room and played a few chords on the keyboard. That had been all there was though, the chords lost in the emptiness of the apartment. He hadn’t written a song in ages now and for some reason, his fingers itched to play more but his mind wouldn’t allow him to do so.
He spent the rest of the day watching TV and making dinner for when the other man would return home. Al in all it had been a rather pointless day and he wondered for a moment whether he should wake up at all on days Yunho was working.
The second day Yunho spent away, Jaejoong had been more active. He had decided to clean the apartment and had started with the kitchen. Of course, he always left said space as clean as possible after he had cooked, so he had finished that part of the house rather quickly.
It was early in the afternoon when he had finished up his work around the house and he bit his lip, realising that in this rhythm, he would not have anything to do later on. He reached for his cell phone and scrolled through the list, pausing when his phone lighted up Yoochun’s name. He had never erased the man’s number from his phone’s memory and found himself unable to do so now. It just wouldn’t feel right if he was to delete it and he was quite sure that if he’d switch phones, he’d still copy the man’s number.
He scrolled on and paused once more when Yunho’s name was highlighted. The silly heart icon next to it made him smile briefly and he looked up to stare at the door that leaded to Yunho’s office. Surely, the man wouldn’t mind him cleaning that space. He couldn’t interrupt any work by doing so and he wouldn’t move around any of the paper work that was stacked up on Yunho’s desk.
Determined, Jaejoong opened the door and entered Yunho’s office. The room was small and had a window that looked out on the street. They were on the second floor of the building and therefore the view wasn’t too bothersome.
Small as the office was, the space was well-used. Yunho had a lot of shelves on which he kept all kinds of things. Photos of their group, photos from their days of trainees, a photo of Jaejoong and a photo of Yoochun that stood closest to the window.
Jaejoong started tidying up, wiping away the dust from the picture frames and smiling when he found several photo albums tucked away under a few of their CDs. The first one contained photos from when they had just debuted, silly snapshots of private gatherings that were never made known to the public. If people had just known about the stuff they had done, the places they had gone to when they were actually not allowed to go out at all… it would cause quite the fuss, even now.
Smiling, Jaejoong opened the next photo album. It was a fair bit smaller in size, not indicating what kind of pictures it held on the cover, either. Knowing Yunho was the type to organise things neatly, he curiously browsed through the pages.
There were many pictures of Yoochun in there, from back when they had just met up all the way to the last photo shoot they had done. Frowning, he realised that there were only pictures of Yoochun in there, but perhaps this was Yunho’s way of cherishing the man.
He skipped some pages and moved to the last ones, which were still blank. Wanting to see the last photo Yunho had added to the album, he browsed back until he found it. He raised his eyebrows at the picture, not having expected to see his own face staring back at him. Turning the page back, he found another picture of himself.
He counted ten of himself in total until he stumbled upon a page that held no pictures, but notes. Not sure whether Yunho would be comfortable with him reading these, he swore he would never tell the other and smiled a little as he read what had been written down there.
‘Yoochun loved Jaejoong.
He loved Jaejoong’s smile, he loved his eyes, and he loved his expressions.
There was no day he didn’t talk about Jaejoong’s appearance.
There was no day he didn’t mention Jaejoong’s personality.
Jaejoong has a great character.
He really is just as kind as Yoochun told me.
I feel like I need to love Jaejoong, because Yoochun can’t do so now.
I feel like I love Jaejoong through Yoochun’s eyes.
I love him more than anyone,
Just the way Yoochun did.’
Jaejoong sat there, staring at the page for what seemed centuries. The notes had thrown him off, completely confused him and he had reread the sentences a few times, but they still didn’t make sense to him. What was this about? It seemed a little out of place, if this was really the way Yunho felt.
His hands were shaking and he hadn’t even realised until he tucked away the photo album. It was best to perhaps forget about this, maybe he had just understood this all wrongly. Yunho had probably just been as confused as he had been in the beginning, probably had written this a long time ago.
Trying to console himself with that thought, Jaejoong moved on to clean the other shelves, not taking the liberty to peek into more of the albums and books he found on those. In the end, all that was left to clean was the other man’s desk and he did so slowly, trying not to mix up any of the papers stalled out.
Amidst the trash, he found a small key that he absently toyed with in his hand while he continued cleaning the surface. Only when he dropped the cloth he had been using and bended over to get it, he noticed the drawers located on the right side of the desk. The key he had been holding seemed to be made to fit in the keyholes on them.
Biting his lip, he checked the clock. Yunho would not be back for another couple of hours and he knew the man would never keep really big secrets from him anyway. What could he expect to find in the drawers anyway? There probably was more paperwork and perhaps a few folders he wanted to keep safe.
Yet Jaejoong’s curiosity wasn’t stilled by such easy thoughts and he put aside the cloth before he fitted the key into the keyhole of the top drawer. He turned it and opened the drawer slowly, indeed finding several folders that read titles of names he knew belonged to SM trainees. He chuckled when he found a jar. Yunho loved pickles and he often kept a jar of said things with him. He remembered pickling the weirdest things for the man in the past, so he took it out and nearly dropped it back when he saw what was in there.
His stomach turned, immediately making him sick with disgust. In mere seconds, all the strength had left his limbs and he vaguely felt how his body dropped back on the floor. His arms trembled as he pushed away the jar as far away from him as he could with his hands. When that still didn’t suffice, he kicked it, causing it to fall and roll over the floor until it hit the wall with a dull sound that seemed to echo through his head.
As he felt the sickness reach his mouth, his eyes were still wide in shock, fixed on the pinkish red thing floating in the green water.
-
Yunho returned home after a long day of work, his body worn out but even though he was tired, he felt really satisfied with what he had accomplished today. Taking off his coat, he called out for the other man. When he didn’t get a response, he figured Jaejoong was probably taking a nap somewhere, most likely on the couch.
Shoeless, he ventured into the living area, calling out for the man once more. He frowned when he didn’t find Jaejoong on the sofa and moved towards their bedroom. Opening the door, his mind registered that the door in the far right corner, leading to his office, was opened and he didn’t recall leaving that open.
Peeking into their bedroom quickly, he slowly felt the weight of the matter press down on him when he didn’t find Jaejoong there. He hurried over to his office and pushed the door open, alarmed by the man he found there on the floor.
Jaejoong was sitting with his back against the wall opposite of the door, his face paler than Yunho had ever seen it before. The man’s eyes were wide, looking at the area near his feet and so Yunho glanced to the side to see what the other was staring at.
He then looked back at Jaejoong and noticed how the man’s hand was placed on the wall next to him, as if trying to stop the world from turning that way. Wearily, Jaejoong looked up at him in total disbelief, emotions crossing his face that Yunho never expected to find there. Disgust. Anger. Confusion. Fear. Sadness.
“You…” Jaejoong’s voice was soft, yet it held some kind of strength, bordering on vague insanity by the way he used his intonation. “You… killed Yoochun…” he stated, still looking at Yunho, but now as if he was looking right through him, as if this was all a bad dream and he just hadn’t woken up yet.
“Took his heart…” Jaejoong paused, shaking his head from side to side slowly, as if to fight off the nonsense. “…and pickled it,” his voice went up a pitch, every word uttered in total disbelief. “You… you… you are insane…”
Yunho let the man, bending through his knees to pick up the jar. He looked at it for a moment before placing it on his desk and then stared at Jaejoong once more. The man by now was slowly getting to his feet, using the wall as support. Obviously, he felt really sick, because he clutched his stomach and looked as if he would break in two any moment from now.
“How… Why…” Questions directed at the leader that still just stood there, his expression rather blank as he watched the other man stumble towards him. “You cried… you… made me believe and… the girl was...”
“Innocent?” Yunho offered, tilting his head just a little when Jaejoong halted a few metres away from him. “She was innocent, yes, of murder, that is. She was a stalker, so I thought it wouldn’t really matter if I’d make the evidence lead to her. The amount of things she owned that belonged to us would be enough to convince the police that she was indeed the murderer,” calmly, Yunho reached for the photo album Jaejoong had browsed through before.
“Have you seen this? I have collected a lot of pictures of Yoochun in here,” Yunho opened the album and turned a few pages, hearing Jaejoong’s muffled sounds of disgust in the background. “He loved you, do you know that? He loved you with all his heart. He was in love with you, just like I was in love with him,” Yunho looked up at Jaejoong once more when he had admitted that and he saw Jaejoong’s face fall, his head shaking from side to side again.
“You see, I knew he could never look up to me the way he looked up to you. He adored everything about you…” Yunho paused, looking down at one of the pictures in the album and running his fingers over the smooth paper. “So you see, I had to kill him. He was driving me insane with his obsession towards you. He trusted me because I approached him, he told me everything…” he paused again, staring out of the window for a moment.
“I had someone kill him, a person I knew from when I was a kid. I kept in contact with him ever since I joined a gang when we were living under that bridge… he’s very loyal to me, you know? Kind of like how you all have been really loyal to me,” Yunho smiled, but it wasn’t a smile Jaejoong recognised anymore.
“And then… then I had to fall in love with you, it seemed. I realised that everything Yoochun had ever told me about you was right. You really do have a lovely smile,” he turned his head to Jaejoong and nodded. “It was inevitable. I came to love everything about you he loved about you. It was as if I had become him… isn’t that strange? I understood the way he looked at you, the way he wanted you… It is so beautiful, the love he has for you. Do you understand now?”
Jaejoong averted his eyes, the information processing but never quite making it to his mind. He remembered everything Yunho had said about Yoochun loving him before, he remembered Yunho comparing his own feelings to what Yoochun had told him before and a shiver ran through his body as he realised that in a way, it all had been so obvious.
“But I couldn’t have him keep his heart. He had given it away to you so I had to take it, do you understand that? It belongs to me and because it belongs to me, your heart also belongs to me. It was destined to be this way. It is perfect the way it is,” Yunho concluded, closing the photo album and putting it on his desk next to the jar.
“Are you disgusted with me, Jaejoong? Is this all too much for you? You can’t be, really, because if you hate me now, the one you really hate it Yoochun, don’t you think so?” Yunho chuckled and reached for the jar, taking it into his hands.
Jaejoong was unable to speak, like the conclusion Yunho had just made was a knife that had cut through his vocal cords. He felt his knees gave away and he sank to the floor, his hands covering his face as he curled up to a ball.
He heard Yunho’s footsteps and the rattling of keys in the lock of the front door. He heard how the door opened and closed and his mind fell apart under the sound of it. Humourless laughter escaped him, breathless and confused, breaking the last bits of his sanity.
-
The sky was dark when Yunho made his way to Yoochun’s so-called grave. He hadn’t approved of placing the man’s urn in a tomb, but he hadn’t held the power to control that decision. His shoes kicked aside the sand that had heaped up in front of the small building before he stepped inside.
Amongst the many urns placed there, he knew exactly what Yoochun’s looked like. After all, he had visited this place many a time, feeling the need to discuss what he had done that day. He had told Yoochun everything about Jaejoong, how Jaejoong had cooked for him, what Jaejoong looked like when waking up next to him.He smiled, sure that Yoochun would be happy with the information he provided him this way.
The jar in his pocket was heavy and he closed his hand around the glass, bowing his head in respect for the ancestors.
[end]
Pairing: Yunho x Jaejoong, ?? x ??
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst, Drama, insanity?
Summary: Loss paves a path to love and insanity.
Notes: Written for the JaeHo fanfic contest. Won first place. Don't ask me how.
Warning: Character death.
Part three: Heart to Find
Yunho had started to work for SM Town through simple paperwork, handing in some reviews on trainees that wanted to come out either as solo artist or in group formation. The work was easy and didn’t require too much time out of the house, either. Because he was a familiar name at the company, he had the luxury of receiving a fair pay that could easily cover the expenses of the apartment and all the other costs they had to deal with.
There were plans of him starting as a dance instructor at the main SM Town building once he felt like it. He had not declined the offer, but for now, he just stuck to the work that he was doing. In his mind, it felt good doing something scheduled again, falling back into a routine that could be written out on paper.
Jaejoong refrained to doing some work around the house. He had gone out to visit a lot of people and felt more human by the day. He wore Yoochun’s jewellery daily, remembering the man with pride in his heart. He would still shed tears now and then, but he had managed to give the grief a place by now, albeit one where the doors were always opened.
He had come to understand that the feelings he held for Yunho should not be held back by the emotions he got to deal with because of Yoochun’s death. It had taken him a while to see the two as a different aspect in his life, but he had come to peace with it. Yunho was no excuse to replace Yoochun with; he was merely someone his heart had come to respect aside from all those things.
They spend long hours in one another’s arms, talking about a lot of things and Yunho was a good listener, just like Yoochun had been. All the things he would never have told the leader in the past he told him now without holding back. Yunho had changed, almost as if he had become another person, but Jaejoong knew that Yunho had merely opened up more.
Yet the office was out of limits for him. Yunho had made it clear to him that he wanted to keep work separated from their private lives from now on and it made sense to Jaejoong in a way, even though he sometimes felt a little helpless at being unable to venture into the man’s office space to see what he was doing.
-
The day Yunho accepted the offer to start working as a dance instructor was the day Jaejoong kissed him more intensely than ever before. They had been lying on the couch together, watching TV absently and had somehow, at one point, completely molten into one another. They were like two pieces of a puzzle, fitting in all the right places.
They had kissed for hours, completely drowning in one another’s tastes. Yunho’s mind wondered briefly if Yoochun had ever taken the liberty to taste at the former-blonde’s mouth, but he pushed the thought aside when Jaejoong’s teeth tugged playfully at his bottom lip.
Breaking apart, Yunho informed the other of the plans he had made with SM Town. It required him to be away from the apartment on Wednesdays and Fridays, tutoring advanced trainees and guiding them in their ways of becoming true stars.
“That seems like a good thing for you to do,” Jaejoong mumbled, thinking over the idea and visualising Yunho teaching younger people the dance moves he loved. He knew Yunho always felt the need to lead and the man was good at it too, so who was he to object? It would be rather strange to spend days alone though, but somehow he knew that he would manage.
“When you feel like it, you can come and watch me,” Yunho offered, his hand running through the now-black hair. He liked this look more on Jaejoong, just like Yoochun had once notified that Jaejoong’s original hair colour suited him best. With a smile on his face, he toyed with the earring the other was wearing, recognising the double-cross to be one of Yoochun’s without a doubt.
“I might just do that one time,” Jaejoong chuckled softly, Yunho’s fingers tickling on his skin. He leaned in once more and pressed his lips shortly to the man’s before excusing himself. There was work to be done and he took his job around the house just as seriously as Yunho considered his new job to be.
-
The first day Yunho had spent at the SM Town building, Jaejoong had found it difficult to wake up in an empty bed. The sheets were cold instead of warm and the house was just too silent for his liking.
In a rush of sudden inspiration, he had moved into the music room and played a few chords on the keyboard. That had been all there was though, the chords lost in the emptiness of the apartment. He hadn’t written a song in ages now and for some reason, his fingers itched to play more but his mind wouldn’t allow him to do so.
He spent the rest of the day watching TV and making dinner for when the other man would return home. Al in all it had been a rather pointless day and he wondered for a moment whether he should wake up at all on days Yunho was working.
The second day Yunho spent away, Jaejoong had been more active. He had decided to clean the apartment and had started with the kitchen. Of course, he always left said space as clean as possible after he had cooked, so he had finished that part of the house rather quickly.
It was early in the afternoon when he had finished up his work around the house and he bit his lip, realising that in this rhythm, he would not have anything to do later on. He reached for his cell phone and scrolled through the list, pausing when his phone lighted up Yoochun’s name. He had never erased the man’s number from his phone’s memory and found himself unable to do so now. It just wouldn’t feel right if he was to delete it and he was quite sure that if he’d switch phones, he’d still copy the man’s number.
He scrolled on and paused once more when Yunho’s name was highlighted. The silly heart icon next to it made him smile briefly and he looked up to stare at the door that leaded to Yunho’s office. Surely, the man wouldn’t mind him cleaning that space. He couldn’t interrupt any work by doing so and he wouldn’t move around any of the paper work that was stacked up on Yunho’s desk.
Determined, Jaejoong opened the door and entered Yunho’s office. The room was small and had a window that looked out on the street. They were on the second floor of the building and therefore the view wasn’t too bothersome.
Small as the office was, the space was well-used. Yunho had a lot of shelves on which he kept all kinds of things. Photos of their group, photos from their days of trainees, a photo of Jaejoong and a photo of Yoochun that stood closest to the window.
Jaejoong started tidying up, wiping away the dust from the picture frames and smiling when he found several photo albums tucked away under a few of their CDs. The first one contained photos from when they had just debuted, silly snapshots of private gatherings that were never made known to the public. If people had just known about the stuff they had done, the places they had gone to when they were actually not allowed to go out at all… it would cause quite the fuss, even now.
Smiling, Jaejoong opened the next photo album. It was a fair bit smaller in size, not indicating what kind of pictures it held on the cover, either. Knowing Yunho was the type to organise things neatly, he curiously browsed through the pages.
There were many pictures of Yoochun in there, from back when they had just met up all the way to the last photo shoot they had done. Frowning, he realised that there were only pictures of Yoochun in there, but perhaps this was Yunho’s way of cherishing the man.
He skipped some pages and moved to the last ones, which were still blank. Wanting to see the last photo Yunho had added to the album, he browsed back until he found it. He raised his eyebrows at the picture, not having expected to see his own face staring back at him. Turning the page back, he found another picture of himself.
He counted ten of himself in total until he stumbled upon a page that held no pictures, but notes. Not sure whether Yunho would be comfortable with him reading these, he swore he would never tell the other and smiled a little as he read what had been written down there.
‘Yoochun loved Jaejoong.
He loved Jaejoong’s smile, he loved his eyes, and he loved his expressions.
There was no day he didn’t talk about Jaejoong’s appearance.
There was no day he didn’t mention Jaejoong’s personality.
Jaejoong has a great character.
He really is just as kind as Yoochun told me.
I feel like I need to love Jaejoong, because Yoochun can’t do so now.
I feel like I love Jaejoong through Yoochun’s eyes.
I love him more than anyone,
Just the way Yoochun did.’
Jaejoong sat there, staring at the page for what seemed centuries. The notes had thrown him off, completely confused him and he had reread the sentences a few times, but they still didn’t make sense to him. What was this about? It seemed a little out of place, if this was really the way Yunho felt.
His hands were shaking and he hadn’t even realised until he tucked away the photo album. It was best to perhaps forget about this, maybe he had just understood this all wrongly. Yunho had probably just been as confused as he had been in the beginning, probably had written this a long time ago.
Trying to console himself with that thought, Jaejoong moved on to clean the other shelves, not taking the liberty to peek into more of the albums and books he found on those. In the end, all that was left to clean was the other man’s desk and he did so slowly, trying not to mix up any of the papers stalled out.
Amidst the trash, he found a small key that he absently toyed with in his hand while he continued cleaning the surface. Only when he dropped the cloth he had been using and bended over to get it, he noticed the drawers located on the right side of the desk. The key he had been holding seemed to be made to fit in the keyholes on them.
Biting his lip, he checked the clock. Yunho would not be back for another couple of hours and he knew the man would never keep really big secrets from him anyway. What could he expect to find in the drawers anyway? There probably was more paperwork and perhaps a few folders he wanted to keep safe.
Yet Jaejoong’s curiosity wasn’t stilled by such easy thoughts and he put aside the cloth before he fitted the key into the keyhole of the top drawer. He turned it and opened the drawer slowly, indeed finding several folders that read titles of names he knew belonged to SM trainees. He chuckled when he found a jar. Yunho loved pickles and he often kept a jar of said things with him. He remembered pickling the weirdest things for the man in the past, so he took it out and nearly dropped it back when he saw what was in there.
His stomach turned, immediately making him sick with disgust. In mere seconds, all the strength had left his limbs and he vaguely felt how his body dropped back on the floor. His arms trembled as he pushed away the jar as far away from him as he could with his hands. When that still didn’t suffice, he kicked it, causing it to fall and roll over the floor until it hit the wall with a dull sound that seemed to echo through his head.
As he felt the sickness reach his mouth, his eyes were still wide in shock, fixed on the pinkish red thing floating in the green water.
-
Yunho returned home after a long day of work, his body worn out but even though he was tired, he felt really satisfied with what he had accomplished today. Taking off his coat, he called out for the other man. When he didn’t get a response, he figured Jaejoong was probably taking a nap somewhere, most likely on the couch.
Shoeless, he ventured into the living area, calling out for the man once more. He frowned when he didn’t find Jaejoong on the sofa and moved towards their bedroom. Opening the door, his mind registered that the door in the far right corner, leading to his office, was opened and he didn’t recall leaving that open.
Peeking into their bedroom quickly, he slowly felt the weight of the matter press down on him when he didn’t find Jaejoong there. He hurried over to his office and pushed the door open, alarmed by the man he found there on the floor.
Jaejoong was sitting with his back against the wall opposite of the door, his face paler than Yunho had ever seen it before. The man’s eyes were wide, looking at the area near his feet and so Yunho glanced to the side to see what the other was staring at.
He then looked back at Jaejoong and noticed how the man’s hand was placed on the wall next to him, as if trying to stop the world from turning that way. Wearily, Jaejoong looked up at him in total disbelief, emotions crossing his face that Yunho never expected to find there. Disgust. Anger. Confusion. Fear. Sadness.
“You…” Jaejoong’s voice was soft, yet it held some kind of strength, bordering on vague insanity by the way he used his intonation. “You… killed Yoochun…” he stated, still looking at Yunho, but now as if he was looking right through him, as if this was all a bad dream and he just hadn’t woken up yet.
“Took his heart…” Jaejoong paused, shaking his head from side to side slowly, as if to fight off the nonsense. “…and pickled it,” his voice went up a pitch, every word uttered in total disbelief. “You… you… you are insane…”
Yunho let the man, bending through his knees to pick up the jar. He looked at it for a moment before placing it on his desk and then stared at Jaejoong once more. The man by now was slowly getting to his feet, using the wall as support. Obviously, he felt really sick, because he clutched his stomach and looked as if he would break in two any moment from now.
“How… Why…” Questions directed at the leader that still just stood there, his expression rather blank as he watched the other man stumble towards him. “You cried… you… made me believe and… the girl was...”
“Innocent?” Yunho offered, tilting his head just a little when Jaejoong halted a few metres away from him. “She was innocent, yes, of murder, that is. She was a stalker, so I thought it wouldn’t really matter if I’d make the evidence lead to her. The amount of things she owned that belonged to us would be enough to convince the police that she was indeed the murderer,” calmly, Yunho reached for the photo album Jaejoong had browsed through before.
“Have you seen this? I have collected a lot of pictures of Yoochun in here,” Yunho opened the album and turned a few pages, hearing Jaejoong’s muffled sounds of disgust in the background. “He loved you, do you know that? He loved you with all his heart. He was in love with you, just like I was in love with him,” Yunho looked up at Jaejoong once more when he had admitted that and he saw Jaejoong’s face fall, his head shaking from side to side again.
“You see, I knew he could never look up to me the way he looked up to you. He adored everything about you…” Yunho paused, looking down at one of the pictures in the album and running his fingers over the smooth paper. “So you see, I had to kill him. He was driving me insane with his obsession towards you. He trusted me because I approached him, he told me everything…” he paused again, staring out of the window for a moment.
“I had someone kill him, a person I knew from when I was a kid. I kept in contact with him ever since I joined a gang when we were living under that bridge… he’s very loyal to me, you know? Kind of like how you all have been really loyal to me,” Yunho smiled, but it wasn’t a smile Jaejoong recognised anymore.
“And then… then I had to fall in love with you, it seemed. I realised that everything Yoochun had ever told me about you was right. You really do have a lovely smile,” he turned his head to Jaejoong and nodded. “It was inevitable. I came to love everything about you he loved about you. It was as if I had become him… isn’t that strange? I understood the way he looked at you, the way he wanted you… It is so beautiful, the love he has for you. Do you understand now?”
Jaejoong averted his eyes, the information processing but never quite making it to his mind. He remembered everything Yunho had said about Yoochun loving him before, he remembered Yunho comparing his own feelings to what Yoochun had told him before and a shiver ran through his body as he realised that in a way, it all had been so obvious.
“But I couldn’t have him keep his heart. He had given it away to you so I had to take it, do you understand that? It belongs to me and because it belongs to me, your heart also belongs to me. It was destined to be this way. It is perfect the way it is,” Yunho concluded, closing the photo album and putting it on his desk next to the jar.
“Are you disgusted with me, Jaejoong? Is this all too much for you? You can’t be, really, because if you hate me now, the one you really hate it Yoochun, don’t you think so?” Yunho chuckled and reached for the jar, taking it into his hands.
Jaejoong was unable to speak, like the conclusion Yunho had just made was a knife that had cut through his vocal cords. He felt his knees gave away and he sank to the floor, his hands covering his face as he curled up to a ball.
He heard Yunho’s footsteps and the rattling of keys in the lock of the front door. He heard how the door opened and closed and his mind fell apart under the sound of it. Humourless laughter escaped him, breathless and confused, breaking the last bits of his sanity.
-
The sky was dark when Yunho made his way to Yoochun’s so-called grave. He hadn’t approved of placing the man’s urn in a tomb, but he hadn’t held the power to control that decision. His shoes kicked aside the sand that had heaped up in front of the small building before he stepped inside.
Amongst the many urns placed there, he knew exactly what Yoochun’s looked like. After all, he had visited this place many a time, feeling the need to discuss what he had done that day. He had told Yoochun everything about Jaejoong, how Jaejoong had cooked for him, what Jaejoong looked like when waking up next to him.He smiled, sure that Yoochun would be happy with the information he provided him this way.
The jar in his pocket was heavy and he closed his hand around the glass, bowing his head in respect for the ancestors.
[end]