YunJae in the rain~sigh~ Keats & Coffee **Chap 2**
Title: Keats & Coffee
Author: anoukinparis
Genre: AU/romance/drama
Pairing: JaeHo/YunJae
Rating: R for safety (subject to change)
A/N: Ah...yet another chapter written during an all-nighter. ^__^ I really don't appreciate how my mind seems to find the best inspiration for Keats when I should be asleep, but no matter! On with chapter two! I really hope this one is up to par with the others...I know it's moving at a slow pace, but trust me, I wouldn't add anything unless it was important to the plot. So I hope you will all be patient with me. <3
Besides, JaeHo interaction is just beginning~ ^_~ As always, comments are always loved and appreciated! <333
**Rain & Slip**
The last place Yunho expected to be on Monday afternoon, four twenty three p.m., the eighth day of his arrival in Seoul, was in a drug store with a certain student with blond hair and eyes that wouldn’t stop dancing no matter which way he looked at them.
He wondered if he could have seen it coming.
Then the student grabbed a basket from the front of the store, claiming that he would take care of everything, not to worry, don’t even think about it. Swinging it to and fro as he walked off, as easy as the breeze even as his tennis shoes squeaked lightly against the tiled floor.
And then he realized he wouldn’t have been able to see it coming had it walked right up to him and sang him a tune like a canary.
So what else could he do but follow?
“I’m fine, really…”
But the student simply rounded a corner, already poking through the neat, little aisles filled with cold and flu medicine.
“Can’t hear you! You need to speak up!”
****
Strange, how a week of seven full days could rather feel like one continuous haze to a person unaccustomed to the lifestyle of a teacher. It was a rude wake-up call, and a sudden one to say the least, when Yunho found himself coming home not to the delightful pages of a well-worn, much-loved novel, yet the foreign faces of essays ready to be graded. Mocking him, waiting for marks that he still felt uncomfortable giving out.
He hated to think it, but when the pen sat in his fingers and he sat in his bed, the night sitting just on the verge of morning, he could only shake his head.
Who was he to judge their work?
And black ink was just so unforgivable.
The mornings proved even less leisurely, filled with scribbles and murmurs and lesson planning that had somehow managed to slip through his grasp. Often he would pace the entire length of the bedroom, socks on hard wood, trying to reach for something, anything that could make him appear as professional as he liked to think he was.
All of the lessons were up to him. Yunho knew nothing of what the other teacher had planned on working on next, all of the students simply confirming that they had finished studying various works by Shakespeare and were ready to move on to something else. Their desperation was as tangible as Yunho’s relief.
He couldn’t run before walking. And Shakespeare was definitely a marathon.
On the other hand, the door was left wide to just about every sort of possibility, a list of names forming in Yunho’s head before he really even had a chance to seriously consider them. Names he grew up with. They were family by now, and he loved them as such.
Those pacings would pick up rhythms of their own, softly treading ideas as Yunho counted them off with nimble fingers.
Eliot. Donne. Austen. Bacon. Orwell.
But fingers couldn’t sustain just how great the list was. And after the second day, still with no clear sign pointing him along in the correct direction, he finally gave in to the one person he knew he could teach.
It was an odd sort of craving, yet this time, Yunho chose not to push it aside. He chose to act on it. Wasn’t sure why. And that unnerved him, but what unnerved him more was the thought of him giving his students an inadequate education while their teacher was away.
So he emptied his shelves of the most beloved member of his family.
****
“So who here has read anything by John Keats?”
A rather disappointing, but no less expected silence followed. Yunho emptied his bag of all the Keats he had amassed over the years, spilling the beautiful words all over his desk, supple language against hard wood. Several of the students weren’t expecting the sound, starting slightly in their seats.
“Alright. Who here has heard of John Keats?”
A few tentative hands.
Yunho just smiled.
“Perfect. Let’s get to work.”
****
Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.
The rain certainly wasn’t fine.
The whole street was throwing a tantrum. Old magazines, plastic bags, empty cigarette cartons thrashed against the slick street, sticking, struggling, constantly tossed by the snap of the wind, which threw the rain at a nearly impossible angle. Twisting it just to spite Yunho and the fact that he was completely unprepared.
Students shrieked and laughed as they passed him by, their forms quickly drowning into the earthen sea, moving along with the stride.
Yunho walked, trying to bury his nose into the front of his coal black coat as he moved against the stride, thick drops coating him within a matter of seconds. Class had gone by surprisingly smooth, the first day students had participated enough to ignite a genuine discussion of the poem they had been studying for quite a few hours now, and he supposed it was only a matter of time before he came down from the light, airy sort of cloud called contentment.
That small wondering was put to rest once he viewed what was before him.
Of course. The bus stop was just that. A stop. Nothing to possibly take shelter under. Cold, vaguely miserable, berating himself for not watching the news earlier that morning, Yunho sank down onto a questionable looking bench with chipped paint, the rain splattering it to a dull grey, and he sighed, the sound being carried and lost to the wind.
He was familiar with sunshine. Grass. The world bathed in natural hues instead of steel, chrome, and neon. Bad weather only seemed that much worse in a big city, but he shook those dreary thoughts from his mind. No use making the atmosphere even colder.
A glance to his watch.
Fifteen more minutes.
Yunho had planned on waiting.
That is, until he saw a canary yellow umbrella bobbing in between the crowds, as ridiculous as a bright Crayola crayon skipping along the street. But it was the person underneath the umbrella that made him stare.
Yunho artfully kept his glance to a minimum, instead focusing on the office building hovering just beyond the umbrella, somewhere in the distance, eying it as if it suddenly held some tremendous importance to him. He studied the rectangular windows with stern interest.
Even so, the canary fluttered to him.
“Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”
Yunho couldn’t decide what was worth reacting to first, the fact that this student had just referred to the afternoon as it was roaring past as anything more than dreadful, or the fact that this student happened to have blond hair in his eyes and a smile lingering just out of reach, shockingly out of place against the dark, huddled masses scurrying on either side of him, standing as if he wanted nothing more than to remain in the rain, smiling that infuriatingly subtle smile to a teacher who wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in something warm and dry.
His name was Kim Jaejoong.
And he was a student.
“No,” Yunho finally mustered, voice thick against the collar of his coat. Eyes fixed forward and down, as he checked his watch again.
Eleven minutes.
Were the hands even moving?
He supposed it wouldn’t have been so bad if the student had moved on after that. Yet he hadn’t. He only moved closer, sitting down on the bench next to Yunho, content under the shelter of his canary umbrella.
“You look a little wet.”
“I don’t have an umbrella.” The obvious answer, and Yunho wasn’t even sure why he spoke again in the first place. Eyes still forward, safe. The truth of his words hitting him again and again. On his lips. Neck. Hair. Ears. Everywhere a drop sinking into his pores, and he could feel the chill down to his bones, drenching him in slick ice.
A flash of yellow just out of the corner of his eyes, and suddenly a handle was being pressed into his fingers.
“Then take mine,” Jaejoong replied breezily, not even looking back at Yunho to catch his bewildered expression as he stood up again, the rain suddenly engulfing his slight form, the wind whisking his shirt into traceable patterns, hair tossed into his eyes again. There was something alive in his stillness, and just as Yunho stumbled for words to somehow give the umbrella back, the student began walking away.
“Come on.”
And for the second time that week, Yunho was left stunned.
He looked on either side of him, almost expecting himself to be dreaming, but then he remembered again the umbrella left in his hands, and he looked up into it.
Had never seen so much yellow.
Jaejoong was already across the street, stopping only once to glance back over his shoulder, blond hair damp against the planes of his cheekbones. Yet through the rain and slip, he didn’t appear to be waiting at all.
Merely watching.
The bench was empty a moment later.
Yunho had to give back the umbrella, after all. He could never be seen with something so bizarre.
****
Jaejoong balanced a pencil between his lips and nose.
Day eight of substitute teacher’s magic appearing act.
Yoochun was whispering something behind him, something he knew was most likely directed for his ears, yet his ears were momentarily preoccupied, and nothing could be done about that.
A swift jab caught in between his shoulder blades.
“Hey. We’re going to the movies after school. Coming or not?”
The pencil fell gracefully back into his fingers. Smoothing the hard wood. Listening to the beautiful words the teacher read aloud from one of the fourteen books he brought in.
This one had a red spine. Just like the red Jaejoong saw in the teacher’s sharp black glasses under the fluorescent lights of room 115.
A subtle smile.
“Sorry. I’ll be busy.”
- but human nature is finer.
Author: anoukinparis
Genre: AU/romance/drama
Pairing: JaeHo/YunJae
Rating: R for safety (subject to change)
A/N: Ah...yet another chapter written during an all-nighter. ^__^ I really don't appreciate how my mind seems to find the best inspiration for Keats when I should be asleep, but no matter! On with chapter two! I really hope this one is up to par with the others...I know it's moving at a slow pace, but trust me, I wouldn't add anything unless it was important to the plot. So I hope you will all be patient with me. <3
Besides, JaeHo interaction is just beginning~ ^_~ As always, comments are always loved and appreciated! <333
**Rain & Slip**
The last place Yunho expected to be on Monday afternoon, four twenty three p.m., the eighth day of his arrival in Seoul, was in a drug store with a certain student with blond hair and eyes that wouldn’t stop dancing no matter which way he looked at them.
He wondered if he could have seen it coming.
Then the student grabbed a basket from the front of the store, claiming that he would take care of everything, not to worry, don’t even think about it. Swinging it to and fro as he walked off, as easy as the breeze even as his tennis shoes squeaked lightly against the tiled floor.
And then he realized he wouldn’t have been able to see it coming had it walked right up to him and sang him a tune like a canary.
So what else could he do but follow?
“I’m fine, really…”
But the student simply rounded a corner, already poking through the neat, little aisles filled with cold and flu medicine.
“Can’t hear you! You need to speak up!”
****
Strange, how a week of seven full days could rather feel like one continuous haze to a person unaccustomed to the lifestyle of a teacher. It was a rude wake-up call, and a sudden one to say the least, when Yunho found himself coming home not to the delightful pages of a well-worn, much-loved novel, yet the foreign faces of essays ready to be graded. Mocking him, waiting for marks that he still felt uncomfortable giving out.
He hated to think it, but when the pen sat in his fingers and he sat in his bed, the night sitting just on the verge of morning, he could only shake his head.
Who was he to judge their work?
And black ink was just so unforgivable.
The mornings proved even less leisurely, filled with scribbles and murmurs and lesson planning that had somehow managed to slip through his grasp. Often he would pace the entire length of the bedroom, socks on hard wood, trying to reach for something, anything that could make him appear as professional as he liked to think he was.
All of the lessons were up to him. Yunho knew nothing of what the other teacher had planned on working on next, all of the students simply confirming that they had finished studying various works by Shakespeare and were ready to move on to something else. Their desperation was as tangible as Yunho’s relief.
He couldn’t run before walking. And Shakespeare was definitely a marathon.
On the other hand, the door was left wide to just about every sort of possibility, a list of names forming in Yunho’s head before he really even had a chance to seriously consider them. Names he grew up with. They were family by now, and he loved them as such.
Those pacings would pick up rhythms of their own, softly treading ideas as Yunho counted them off with nimble fingers.
Eliot. Donne. Austen. Bacon. Orwell.
But fingers couldn’t sustain just how great the list was. And after the second day, still with no clear sign pointing him along in the correct direction, he finally gave in to the one person he knew he could teach.
It was an odd sort of craving, yet this time, Yunho chose not to push it aside. He chose to act on it. Wasn’t sure why. And that unnerved him, but what unnerved him more was the thought of him giving his students an inadequate education while their teacher was away.
So he emptied his shelves of the most beloved member of his family.
****
“So who here has read anything by John Keats?”
A rather disappointing, but no less expected silence followed. Yunho emptied his bag of all the Keats he had amassed over the years, spilling the beautiful words all over his desk, supple language against hard wood. Several of the students weren’t expecting the sound, starting slightly in their seats.
“Alright. Who here has heard of John Keats?”
A few tentative hands.
Yunho just smiled.
“Perfect. Let’s get to work.”
****
Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.
The rain certainly wasn’t fine.
The whole street was throwing a tantrum. Old magazines, plastic bags, empty cigarette cartons thrashed against the slick street, sticking, struggling, constantly tossed by the snap of the wind, which threw the rain at a nearly impossible angle. Twisting it just to spite Yunho and the fact that he was completely unprepared.
Students shrieked and laughed as they passed him by, their forms quickly drowning into the earthen sea, moving along with the stride.
Yunho walked, trying to bury his nose into the front of his coal black coat as he moved against the stride, thick drops coating him within a matter of seconds. Class had gone by surprisingly smooth, the first day students had participated enough to ignite a genuine discussion of the poem they had been studying for quite a few hours now, and he supposed it was only a matter of time before he came down from the light, airy sort of cloud called contentment.
That small wondering was put to rest once he viewed what was before him.
Of course. The bus stop was just that. A stop. Nothing to possibly take shelter under. Cold, vaguely miserable, berating himself for not watching the news earlier that morning, Yunho sank down onto a questionable looking bench with chipped paint, the rain splattering it to a dull grey, and he sighed, the sound being carried and lost to the wind.
He was familiar with sunshine. Grass. The world bathed in natural hues instead of steel, chrome, and neon. Bad weather only seemed that much worse in a big city, but he shook those dreary thoughts from his mind. No use making the atmosphere even colder.
A glance to his watch.
Fifteen more minutes.
Yunho had planned on waiting.
That is, until he saw a canary yellow umbrella bobbing in between the crowds, as ridiculous as a bright Crayola crayon skipping along the street. But it was the person underneath the umbrella that made him stare.
Yunho artfully kept his glance to a minimum, instead focusing on the office building hovering just beyond the umbrella, somewhere in the distance, eying it as if it suddenly held some tremendous importance to him. He studied the rectangular windows with stern interest.
Even so, the canary fluttered to him.
“Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”
Yunho couldn’t decide what was worth reacting to first, the fact that this student had just referred to the afternoon as it was roaring past as anything more than dreadful, or the fact that this student happened to have blond hair in his eyes and a smile lingering just out of reach, shockingly out of place against the dark, huddled masses scurrying on either side of him, standing as if he wanted nothing more than to remain in the rain, smiling that infuriatingly subtle smile to a teacher who wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in something warm and dry.
His name was Kim Jaejoong.
And he was a student.
“No,” Yunho finally mustered, voice thick against the collar of his coat. Eyes fixed forward and down, as he checked his watch again.
Eleven minutes.
Were the hands even moving?
He supposed it wouldn’t have been so bad if the student had moved on after that. Yet he hadn’t. He only moved closer, sitting down on the bench next to Yunho, content under the shelter of his canary umbrella.
“You look a little wet.”
“I don’t have an umbrella.” The obvious answer, and Yunho wasn’t even sure why he spoke again in the first place. Eyes still forward, safe. The truth of his words hitting him again and again. On his lips. Neck. Hair. Ears. Everywhere a drop sinking into his pores, and he could feel the chill down to his bones, drenching him in slick ice.
A flash of yellow just out of the corner of his eyes, and suddenly a handle was being pressed into his fingers.
“Then take mine,” Jaejoong replied breezily, not even looking back at Yunho to catch his bewildered expression as he stood up again, the rain suddenly engulfing his slight form, the wind whisking his shirt into traceable patterns, hair tossed into his eyes again. There was something alive in his stillness, and just as Yunho stumbled for words to somehow give the umbrella back, the student began walking away.
“Come on.”
And for the second time that week, Yunho was left stunned.
He looked on either side of him, almost expecting himself to be dreaming, but then he remembered again the umbrella left in his hands, and he looked up into it.
Had never seen so much yellow.
Jaejoong was already across the street, stopping only once to glance back over his shoulder, blond hair damp against the planes of his cheekbones. Yet through the rain and slip, he didn’t appear to be waiting at all.
Merely watching.
The bench was empty a moment later.
Yunho had to give back the umbrella, after all. He could never be seen with something so bizarre.
****
Jaejoong balanced a pencil between his lips and nose.
Day eight of substitute teacher’s magic appearing act.
Yoochun was whispering something behind him, something he knew was most likely directed for his ears, yet his ears were momentarily preoccupied, and nothing could be done about that.
A swift jab caught in between his shoulder blades.
“Hey. We’re going to the movies after school. Coming or not?”
The pencil fell gracefully back into his fingers. Smoothing the hard wood. Listening to the beautiful words the teacher read aloud from one of the fourteen books he brought in.
This one had a red spine. Just like the red Jaejoong saw in the teacher’s sharp black glasses under the fluorescent lights of room 115.
A subtle smile.
“Sorry. I’ll be busy.”
- but human nature is finer.