[changmin/yunho] patient b
title : patient b
pairing : changmin/yunho
rating : pg-13
words : 4921
summary : yunho has a rare disorder that enables him to remember everything about his life
a/n : a continuation of my rare disorders verse. not related to any of the previous one-shots. based off the real-life story of jill price.
Introduced to the medical world and mass media as patient B, he was first written about in early 2009 as the young man who remembers every detail of his life. In reality his name doesn't begin with a B and he's neither a savant or autistic like most would expect him to be. He suffers from hyperthymesia, a disorder so rare that it's been documented in only two people worldwide and his name is Jung Yunho, twenty-four and a graduate student of law currently residing in New York.
The first interview he had ever given was for channel 7 news. It was right after the medical journal on him was published and oddly enough, the entire nation was transfixed with the boy that remembered it all. He had received the call at night while studying for an exam the following week and the next morning, found himself seated in a cushy armchair with a paper bag over his head. Yes, a paper bag. That brilliant idea belonged to his two best friends, Kim Junsu his neighbor since they were both in diapers and bald, and Kim Jaejoong his eccentric roommate with a penchant for all things spotted.
"What if they see your face? You're supposed to be doing this medical thing anonymously, Yunho-yah." Those were the infamous words straight out of Jaejoong's mouth, a shit-eating grin on his face that Yunho really should've known better than to trust.
"Yeah, you know how those people who wear those black things over their head with holes for their eyes? You can do that, Hyung," Junsu says from where he's seated on the floor, legs crossed with his DS in hand.
"Junsu," Yunho says with a sigh, "I'm not on death row."
Jaejoong disappears into their shared kitchen and a second later returns with a large brown bag, grinning from ear to ear, "Here, this'll work."
And the rest is history. From then on, Yunho makes it a thing to wear masks made out of paper bags on national TV or just whenever he's to give an interview. Sometimes they'll be elaborate and full of sparkles and sometimes they're plain with just two holes for his eyes and a slit for his mouth. He still remembers the first mask he'd ever donned, a simple brown bag that once held onion bagels with two ovals that were much too small for even his eyes and a cut-out smile so wide it fit his nose as well. Jaejoong's the one that remains in charge of his mask-making and Yunho sometimes thinks that his best friend is more like that stylist noona that everyone is afraid of pissing off. On his good days, Yunho will get a paper bag with nice eyes and eyebrows drawn in with a simple tie doodled on. On Jaejoong's bad days, Yunho will end up with a misshaped eye holes and a nose but no mouth.
His paper bag masks become something of a phenomenon and fans start to send them in by the dozen. Yunho's much too kind to reject them and he'll wear them at least once on-air so people can see that he did but to be honest, most if not all, smell. It's easy to tell where the previous owner had bought or received their bags from before, sometimes it'll be from a pickled goods store and sometimes a deli selling oddly flavored cream cheese. Yunho just wishes they'd at least wipe down the insides of the bag beforehand because after three hours or so, the smell gets to be pretty bad and the air inside a paper bag just doesn't circulate well enough.
The one thing that does amuse him is the YouTube compilations of his masks. The uploaders spend time downloading his clips and then cutting them for just a few seconds worth of him in his mask and since Yunho never wears the same bag more than once, there are at least three different videos from the same user entitled "Patient B's Mask Collection I/II/III." But that was before the infamous YouTube crack down and all the videos were found in violation of a few dozen different broadcasting stations rights and therefore taken down.
----
All things considered though, having hyperthymesia isn't the worst thing that could happen to a fellow.
The first time he'd realized he had this exceptional ability to remember things was when he was ten. Yunho was in school when then teacher asked which one of them remembered their very first day at elementary school. The obvious answer should be none of them but Yunho had raised his hand high in the air, waving it a bit with a wide smile on his face even as the teacher looked at him warily.
"Yes, Yunho?"
"It was rainy," he starts off by saying, "and Mother didn't let me wear my rain boots out so I got the bottoms of my jeans all wet. I had on a red Power Ranger t-shirt and carrots for lunch."
Predictably, he gets sent off to sit in the corner all during lunch break, sulking to himself because no one believes him anymore when he says he remembers. After all, who'd expect a kid to remember something like the color socks they wore in pre-school (red with golden stripes, the narrow kind and not the ugly wide ones).
He's not actually diagnosed with the disorder until his twenty-third birthday though and it's purely accidental when he does. There's also the tiny detail that his disorder wasn't even a disorder until he was diagnosed with it.
Hyperthymesia, also known as piking or hyperthymestic syndrome is a condition where the affected individual has a superior autobiographical memory. Meaning that Yunho has the ability to remember everything about his life such as specific events and things that happened to him. He's often given a date and time from his past and he'll be able to recall exactly everything that happened that day, including certain trivial details that most people don't even notice.
For example, his parents had thrown him an extravagant birthday party for his thirteenth birthday. Junsu was invited and also the first to arrival with a round object that he'd obviously wrapped by himself. Yunho still remembers exactly how many layers of wrapping paper (three) Junsu had wrapped his soccer ball in and he still remembers the color of the paper (forest green with yellow cupcakes all over) and he still remembers that they'd had to pump the soccer ball four times with air because there was a tear somewhere.
But while hyperthymesia isn't such a bad disorder to have, it's not exactly a walk in the park either.
Staring from the age of twelve, he began to have headaches. Horrible migraines that made his head throb to the point where he wished he was able to reach inside to his mind and scratch at it. Those lasted until he turned twenty. He was also highly suspectible to sore throats and frequently had ear infections. And for the longest while, he was also an insomniac, he just never told anyone about it. Yunho's not the kind of guy who complains to his parents about a fever or a strep throat so even though he was having hours worth of headaches, he never said a thing.
----
He's first approached to be in a study after his doctor had sent his brain scans over to Harvard University where Yunho ended up spending two summers being tested on and observed. He's asked question after question and his brain is probed repeatedly to the point where he actually wonders if this will help him as the doctors have promised or if it'll further differentiate him from his friends.
The answer turns out to be the latter. Yunho's the kind of guy, handsome and friendly, sweet and all smiles but he's not one that wants to be known because he's sick or weird. Everyone has imperfections that are overlooked but Yunho's prove to be too much for that. In his first year in High School, Yunho's friends on the basketball team start to find this talent of his intriguing. They quiz him from time to time and instead of telling him to show up for practice or asking if he'd like to hang out, he's simply questioned about last week's basketball game and if he picked up any special tricks from the other team. The problem is, autobiographical memory is different from photographic memory. He remembers things about his own life, about what had happened to him but he doesn't have the ability to look at a page in his textbook and memorize it like that.
He ends up changing high schools three times in four years before he realizes that the best way and smartest way to go about doing this is just to pretend to be normal.
It works for him all throughout his four years as an undergraduate at Columbia University and it would've worked through all of graduate school too if it weren't for two people : Kim Jaejoong and Shim Changmin.
The former is his best friend, his other best friend that he finds impossible to dislike because Jaejoong is in one word, infectious. When Yunho moved into his dorm room that first day, the only thing he saw was spots. There was a Cheetah print fabric draped over their couch and a Leopard one over one of the beds in his bedroom.
"Oh, hey, I'm Jaejoong."
Yunho whirls around and stares. Actually staring would be an understatement. He kind of gapes like a fish, mouth wide open and small eyes stretched as far as they can.
"You're Yunho right? I read your name from the packet."
Yunho's still staring and it's kind of hard not to. Jaejoong sports a short haircut with hair that has an orange-ish, yellow hue. He's also wearing a jacket with black sleeves while the rest of it is yet another spotted creation. A...hideous spotted creation.
"It's not that bad right?"
Yunho blinks and wonders if he'd been speaking aloud and then nods and shakes his head.
"I like spots. And I like to cook too. See, I used to make a lot of jjigae but then it got lonely eating jjigae by myself and that made me sad so I stopped making jjigae. But you seem like you would enjoy a bowl of jjigae. Let me go make some. I'll call you when it's done, you can settle in first."
And that's why halfway through his meal of kimchi jjigae and fried rice, Yunho feels the need to tell Jaejoong of his disorder. Someone as odd as his roommate couldn't possibly judge him for it.
The second person, Shim Changmin, happens to The One. Or he can also be called The Boy. Or he's also known as Yunho's giant crush that makes him act like a big load of fail. Jaejoong calls Changmin the "fuck buddy."
He'd met Changmin through Yoochun who he met through Jaejoong. Yoochun's Jaejoong's crush except Jaejoong doesn't act like a load of fail and trip over his own two feet when Yoochun shows up and they eventually hit it off after a few dozen beers. Yoochun's head of the broadcasting station at their University. He's a communications major and he'd picked up the broadcasting station only because it seemed like fun. He doesn't have the voice to be a radio announcer or to host his own program, instead he'd recruited his own best friend for that. And that is Shim Changmin.
Changmin's tall, even taller than Yunho and he's got legs that most Brazilian models would envy. Changmin's also got curves, much like women do, a slender waist but a pair of hips that Yunho really enjoys picturing himself holding onto. Yeah, no doubt about it, Shim Changmin has a perfect hourglass figure, eyes as large as a doe's and a smirk that makes Yunho tripping over his feet seem like child's play.
The first time he meets Changmin is at a party that Jaejoong throws in their dorm room. It's a small party because technically their dorm only fits four people at once and there's five being crammed in there but Yunho doesn't mind, it gives him a reason to be squished right next to Changmin on the couch, his thigh pressed against the younger man's. All Yunho remembers doing that night is grinning and drinking shot after shot of vodka. And so when he wakes the next morning with a killer hangover and Changmin's arm draped over his waist, he wonders if he hadn't missed something terribly important.
"Did we....?
Changmin blinks and bats at his face, an obvious sign that his head is pounding at a speed only rocket ships can travel. "Go away, sleep."
Yunho looks down and finds that he's still clothed. Jeans buttoned, fly zipped all the way to the top and his hoodie on the same way it had been last night. His hair isn't even tousled and he's not even sporting an erection. Then he looks over at Changmin and finds that the younger man's clothes are also still on in the same exact way he remembers them to be. They're not even in his bed but on the sofa, scrunched even tighter than they'd been sitting last night because now they're lying halfway atop each other.
After a thorough analyzation of the situation, Yunho comes to the conclusion that nothing exciting happened between him and Changmin. It's really the fact that he climbs over Changmin's body to find Junsu dead asleep on the floor, hand curled around a Wii nunchunk with his socks still on. No, nothing exciting could've happened if Junsu was still playing games on the Wii when he fell asleep. He finds Jaejoong and Yoochun asleep in his bedroom and something did happen there because his bed is occupied by their clothes, a bottle of lube and at least three condom wrappers. Figures that Jaejoong would get all the action.
It really isn't until Yunho starts to hang out more and more with Changmin that they talk. The younger man is reticent and keeps most of his thoughts to himself. It kind of figures that Changmin would be tall and mysterious. It also doesn't help that Yunho is so shy around him that he barely gets the right words out of his mouth, much less manage to keep a conversation going. Half the time, all they talk about is how class is and which professors they've gotten this term. Boring stuff that doesn't help him in asking Changmin out.
A few weeks in though, Changmin starts to crowd Yunho's space more and more, walking a little closer when they head off to each lunch and he swears that Changmin seems to be hitting on him as well. It's not anything really obvious, or so he had thought, simple things like Changmin complimenting Yunho on the style of his shirt or how those black frames look really good on him or even that his hair looks good. Simple but classic things that Changmin does to try and make known his affections for Yunho. Things that Yunho ignores or doesn't notice because he's too oblivious and wrapped into liking Changmin that he doesn't even realize that Changmin likes him back.
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Yunho's thrown a party at the local bar, everything paid for and arranged by Jaejoong. He also receives the best birthday present of his life in the form of a 188cm, young male named Shim Changmin. To be honest, he hadn't really been up to partying, upset and unhappy that he's still single and miserable with this so called exceptional memory deal. News had gotten out that the mysterious patient B was actually a student at Columbia University but no one really knew who it was. He tries to lay low these day, not call any attention to himself and a birthday party in one of the most popular bars by campus isn't really his idea of laying low.
"Yunho-yah," Changmin mumbles, signaling the bartender for another two shots, "let me buy you a drink! To celebrate the day of your birth!" Changmin's a clingy drunk and he drapes himself all over Yunho now, giggling into the older man's neck, "You smell really good, Yunho, really good."
Yunho shifts uncomfortably, crossing his legs slowly to hide his growing bulge from being made public. "Changmin-ah, I think you've had enough to drink."
"Nonsense!" Jaejoong cuts in with a smile, holding out five lemon slices and five shot glasses worth of tequilla, "he hasn't even done his shots yet. Remember what I've always said, Yunja, when life give you lemons, drink tequila! Keep your chin up, it's a new year."
Yunho opens his mouth to argue when Changmin cuts in, nodding as he reaches for the salt shaker and Yunho's hand, sprinkling some onto the webbed part between Yunho's thumb and index. "Cheers," Changmin mumbles, tugging Yunho's hand closer to suck all the salt off, staring the entire while into Yunho's eyes while he sucks on the lemon wedge. He downs the shot of tequila with ease, taking Yunho's for him as well, pushing the two empty shot glasses in Jaejoong's direction.
All Yunho does is stare at Changmin, wondering now if there wasn't something he all along in the way Changmin looked at him sometimes or the way Changmin would hold onto his wrist as they walked through campus together.
"Happy Birthday," Changmin whispers, standing up and turning around to walk away.
Yunho's out of his seat before Jaejoong even gets to kick his chair, going after Changmin. This time when he wakes in the morning, Changmin's hand draped over his waist, Yunho remembers every detail from the night before. Including the way Changmin had arched while screaming his name, cock twitching as he had come.
----
It's not in Yunho's plans to make any more appearances as Patient B after that. He's much too preoccupied with spending time with Changmin and loving the younger man, coddling his boyfriend to the point where even Yoochun finds it ridiculous. But it's fate he supposes when he comes across a letter from Changmin in his pile of fan letters that he gets in the PO Box especially created for those wanting to write to Patient B.
Changmin hosts a weekly radio show every Friday night on campus. Yunho knows because he makes a point of showing up when Changmin gets off work to pick his boyfriend up. The radio show does alright, Changmin's got a voice made for the radios, smooth and velvet-like, and while Yunho's not a fan of using adjectives normally used to describe food in description of voices, Changmin's got a buttery kind that Yunho adores. He also likes to listen to the radio show because it's all the more obvious to him how much Changmin really does love him when he listens to the way Changmin talks to others and on the air in comparison to the way Changmin talks to him at home.
The letter comes right at the start of their fall semester and it's a humble request for Yunho, no Patient B, to make it as a guest on Changmin's weekly radio shows. Yunho looks the letter over and re-reads it over the course of a week, watching as Changmin asks every night if any mail has come for him. Yunho always says no and while he wants to ask what Changmin's waiting for, he doesn't because he already knows. The following week, he sends Changmin a letter back, agreeing to guest with two requirements : one that he isn't ever asked what his name is and two that he's never required to take off his mask. Changmin agrees and the next Friday, Yunho shows up with a paper bag over his head and a tiny mic that he's created himself that'll mask his real voice.
The ruse continues for a few months, Yunho always showing up on Friday nights about an hour before the end of Changmin's two hour long show to answer a few questions. He's there to be entertaining and to boost Changmin's ratings. Listeners call in to ask him personal questions like his favorite food or the what he'd been like in elementary school, if he wore overalls and t-shirts or baggy jeans. Yunho doesn't mind because he gets to spend more time with Changmin even if the younger man doesn't know who he is.
Changmin calls him Hyung instead of Patient B all the time and Yunho finds it cute the way the younger man will smile at him, laugh when he says something funny and talk to him as if he's a friend. Yunho can't resist testing his boyfriend out too, flirting playfully with Changmin on-air, blushing beneath his mask when Changmin shoots him down kindly, telling him each time that he's already got a boyfriend.
It's the little things that Changmin notices first. Like the way both his Hyung's socks and Yunho's socks are always mismatched or the fact that they wear similar if not the same hoodies. Yunho has the same jacket that his Hyung wears too and they both write left-handed. Then it's other things that tip Changmin off. Like the way his Hyung's eyes will scrunch up the same way that Yunho's does when they laugh or the way they both tap their ring, middle and index fingers on the desk in succession. Once, when his Hyung had bent over to pick up a script, Changmin had managed to catch a glimpse of his underwear and found it to be the same ones that Yunho wears : black Calvin Kleins. The thing that really does it for Changmin is the piggy charm he spots on his Hyung's phone. That he remembers for sure. After all he'd been the one that bought it for Yunho.
Changmin doesn't actually bring it up for weeks though, hinting sometimes when they're curled together in bed but never blatantly asking Yunho. He waits for Yunho to tell him but the older man never does.
----
"So, Hyung, the last question for tonight comes from me actually," Changmin says with an easy smile during the last few minutes their weekly radio show.
Yunho gestures for him to go ahead from behind the paper bag mask he's donning, sitting back in the chair.
Changmin leans forward, eyes narrowing slightly, "What were you doing last night at 11pm?"
Yunho's mouth opens by instinct as if to answer and then he pauses, eyes widening a little, staring at Changmin long enough for the younger man to confirm his suspicions. "I was with my boyfriend," he finally whispers quietly, "making love."
There's a long pause between Yunho's last words and when Changmin speaks again, "That's all for tonight then. Good night and thanks for listening. Tune in next week for more."
Yoochun signals to them from behind the glass screen that they're off-air now and they can go home but no one moves. He stares for a while and knocks on the door only to be waved off by Changmin.
"Were you ever going to tell me?" Changmin asks quietly after Yoochun's gone, pushing away the mic from his face.
Yunho answers with a helpless shrug, reaching for the mask and tugging it off slowly, "Yes."
All Changmin hears is the crinkle of the paper bag and he looks up, staring into the same eyes he looks into every night in bed. "But not when we moved in together. Not when I told you I loved you and not when you made love to me for the first time, right? So when, Yunho? When were you going to tell me?"
Crumbling the bag in his hands, Yunho shifts so he's a little closer to Changmin, looking into his eyes before he responds, "I was scared."
"What? Of me?! Were you scared of me?"
Yunho shakes his head immediately at the disbelief in Changmin's voice and then nods slowly, "I was scared that if you knew, you wouldn't want to be with me for me anymore but because of that. I was scared that all you'd see when you saw me or kissed me was that patient B crap."
Changmin scoffs in reply to Yunho's words and grits his teeth, "That's crap and you know it. That's crap, Yunho. We leased an apartment together, we met each other's parents and I've told you again and again that I love you. That's crap so don't tell me it again."
"But it's not," Yunho says after a short pause, "it's not crap." Swallowing hard, he holds out his mask and mic so Changmin can see, offering them up to the younger man just like he's always offered everything else in his life to him. "You don't see how it's like to be me. Everyone sees me as a game or as an interesting bit of information to use in conversation. I was a twitter trend topic for weeks! In elementary school, my sister used me as her show and tell when she forgot to bring something in. I don't expect you to know what it's like to be the oddball or the kid who gets stared at in school because he's different. I don't expect you to know how it feels like to to be the neighbor's weird son with the freakishly good memory. I don't expect you to know but it'd be nice if you at least understood. You know what you told me instead about your Hyung? You told me that you thought I was a 'bit off his rocker'. Do you remember that?"
Yunho throws his hands up in the air, a helpless gesture if anything and shrugs helplessly, "For once I wanted to at least be normal. I wanted to be that awesome boyfriend that you'd not only fall in love for but stay in love with forever. Because, Changmin-ah, you're perfect. You with your model looks and your genius mind- you're perfect. And you don't deserve a slightly odd or unique boyfriend. You deserve someone just as perfect in return."
Standing, he hands Changmin his visitor ID tag and the mask, "Do you still think it's crap now?" he asks quietly before walking out of the recording booth and leaving.
Changmin doesn't go home that night nor does he go home for the next two days. By the third night, Yunho's ready to move out and call it quits when he gets home late from lecture to find Changmin sitting cross-legged on their bed. He closes the door to their studio and stares wordlessly, walking slowly towards his boyfriend. Before he can get a word out though, Changmin speaks.
"I have big ears, no, huge ears. They stick out obnoxiously so to the point where I can't even wear a baseball cap because of that fact."
Yunho blinks, momentarily stunned and confused about what Changmin is saying, mouth opening to form the younger man's name, an argument about how perfect Changmin's ears are already on the tip of his tongue but Changmin barrels on.
"I'm flat-footed too." Changmin holds up a palm and sticks out a foot to demonstrate that fact to Yunho. "Completely flat. You know where your feet are supposed to arch right here? Mine doesn't. It makes me look like I'm stomping when I walk and ten years down the road, I'll be in a wheelchair and you'll have to push me around everywhere."
Again Yunho tries to get a word in, walking forward until he's kneeling at the foot of their bed and staring up at Changmin, hand reaching out to rest on the younger man's knee but Changmin ignores it.
"And let's not forget how much I sweat! I sweat when I walk, I sweat when I'm sitting and I sweat when you hold my hands! It's not even that slight wet palm deal, I literally drip sweat."
Changmin gets off the bed, sliding until he's on his knees as well, going forward to cup Yunho's cheeks. "I will never be perfect, Yunho but you think that I am and it's that though that makes me feel perfect. I'm sorry that I've never made you feel that way before but I promise I'll try harder to do that."
Yunho eyes widen a little and they fill with tears as he turns to kiss Changmin's palm, "Changmin-ah," he finally manages to cut in and say, "I'm not mad. I never was. All you had to do was come back to me."
Changmin smiles in response and he nods. He's known that all along and he's always been guilty of abusing that trait of Yunho's but he thinks that just once more will be okay. This time is the last time.
"Hyung," he whispers, a smile on his face, "what were you doing last night at 11pm?"
Yunho smiles right back and tugs Changmin into his arms completely, hugging the younger man as tightly as he can manage, "Was thinking of my boyfriend and how much I love him."
"Yeah? Me too."
----
Changmin changes the last corner of his weekly radio from questions and emails from the listeners in favor of asking Yunho the same question each time : "What were you doing last night at 11pm?"
And Yunho always makes it a point to answer with the same response each time, "Being in love."
a/n 2: happy birthday to yunho :) not exactly a birthday fic but as close as i could manage to one. i hope he's cuddled in bed with a certain long-legged young man ♥ ♥
the line "when life gives you lemons, drink tequila" is the brain child of yuxo :) ♥
pairing : changmin/yunho
rating : pg-13
words : 4921
summary : yunho has a rare disorder that enables him to remember everything about his life
a/n : a continuation of my rare disorders verse. not related to any of the previous one-shots. based off the real-life story of jill price.
Introduced to the medical world and mass media as patient B, he was first written about in early 2009 as the young man who remembers every detail of his life. In reality his name doesn't begin with a B and he's neither a savant or autistic like most would expect him to be. He suffers from hyperthymesia, a disorder so rare that it's been documented in only two people worldwide and his name is Jung Yunho, twenty-four and a graduate student of law currently residing in New York.
The first interview he had ever given was for channel 7 news. It was right after the medical journal on him was published and oddly enough, the entire nation was transfixed with the boy that remembered it all. He had received the call at night while studying for an exam the following week and the next morning, found himself seated in a cushy armchair with a paper bag over his head. Yes, a paper bag. That brilliant idea belonged to his two best friends, Kim Junsu his neighbor since they were both in diapers and bald, and Kim Jaejoong his eccentric roommate with a penchant for all things spotted.
"What if they see your face? You're supposed to be doing this medical thing anonymously, Yunho-yah." Those were the infamous words straight out of Jaejoong's mouth, a shit-eating grin on his face that Yunho really should've known better than to trust.
"Yeah, you know how those people who wear those black things over their head with holes for their eyes? You can do that, Hyung," Junsu says from where he's seated on the floor, legs crossed with his DS in hand.
"Junsu," Yunho says with a sigh, "I'm not on death row."
Jaejoong disappears into their shared kitchen and a second later returns with a large brown bag, grinning from ear to ear, "Here, this'll work."
And the rest is history. From then on, Yunho makes it a thing to wear masks made out of paper bags on national TV or just whenever he's to give an interview. Sometimes they'll be elaborate and full of sparkles and sometimes they're plain with just two holes for his eyes and a slit for his mouth. He still remembers the first mask he'd ever donned, a simple brown bag that once held onion bagels with two ovals that were much too small for even his eyes and a cut-out smile so wide it fit his nose as well. Jaejoong's the one that remains in charge of his mask-making and Yunho sometimes thinks that his best friend is more like that stylist noona that everyone is afraid of pissing off. On his good days, Yunho will get a paper bag with nice eyes and eyebrows drawn in with a simple tie doodled on. On Jaejoong's bad days, Yunho will end up with a misshaped eye holes and a nose but no mouth.
His paper bag masks become something of a phenomenon and fans start to send them in by the dozen. Yunho's much too kind to reject them and he'll wear them at least once on-air so people can see that he did but to be honest, most if not all, smell. It's easy to tell where the previous owner had bought or received their bags from before, sometimes it'll be from a pickled goods store and sometimes a deli selling oddly flavored cream cheese. Yunho just wishes they'd at least wipe down the insides of the bag beforehand because after three hours or so, the smell gets to be pretty bad and the air inside a paper bag just doesn't circulate well enough.
The one thing that does amuse him is the YouTube compilations of his masks. The uploaders spend time downloading his clips and then cutting them for just a few seconds worth of him in his mask and since Yunho never wears the same bag more than once, there are at least three different videos from the same user entitled "Patient B's Mask Collection I/II/III." But that was before the infamous YouTube crack down and all the videos were found in violation of a few dozen different broadcasting stations rights and therefore taken down.
----
All things considered though, having hyperthymesia isn't the worst thing that could happen to a fellow.
The first time he'd realized he had this exceptional ability to remember things was when he was ten. Yunho was in school when then teacher asked which one of them remembered their very first day at elementary school. The obvious answer should be none of them but Yunho had raised his hand high in the air, waving it a bit with a wide smile on his face even as the teacher looked at him warily.
"Yes, Yunho?"
"It was rainy," he starts off by saying, "and Mother didn't let me wear my rain boots out so I got the bottoms of my jeans all wet. I had on a red Power Ranger t-shirt and carrots for lunch."
Predictably, he gets sent off to sit in the corner all during lunch break, sulking to himself because no one believes him anymore when he says he remembers. After all, who'd expect a kid to remember something like the color socks they wore in pre-school (red with golden stripes, the narrow kind and not the ugly wide ones).
He's not actually diagnosed with the disorder until his twenty-third birthday though and it's purely accidental when he does. There's also the tiny detail that his disorder wasn't even a disorder until he was diagnosed with it.
Hyperthymesia, also known as piking or hyperthymestic syndrome is a condition where the affected individual has a superior autobiographical memory. Meaning that Yunho has the ability to remember everything about his life such as specific events and things that happened to him. He's often given a date and time from his past and he'll be able to recall exactly everything that happened that day, including certain trivial details that most people don't even notice.
For example, his parents had thrown him an extravagant birthday party for his thirteenth birthday. Junsu was invited and also the first to arrival with a round object that he'd obviously wrapped by himself. Yunho still remembers exactly how many layers of wrapping paper (three) Junsu had wrapped his soccer ball in and he still remembers the color of the paper (forest green with yellow cupcakes all over) and he still remembers that they'd had to pump the soccer ball four times with air because there was a tear somewhere.
But while hyperthymesia isn't such a bad disorder to have, it's not exactly a walk in the park either.
Staring from the age of twelve, he began to have headaches. Horrible migraines that made his head throb to the point where he wished he was able to reach inside to his mind and scratch at it. Those lasted until he turned twenty. He was also highly suspectible to sore throats and frequently had ear infections. And for the longest while, he was also an insomniac, he just never told anyone about it. Yunho's not the kind of guy who complains to his parents about a fever or a strep throat so even though he was having hours worth of headaches, he never said a thing.
----
He's first approached to be in a study after his doctor had sent his brain scans over to Harvard University where Yunho ended up spending two summers being tested on and observed. He's asked question after question and his brain is probed repeatedly to the point where he actually wonders if this will help him as the doctors have promised or if it'll further differentiate him from his friends.
The answer turns out to be the latter. Yunho's the kind of guy, handsome and friendly, sweet and all smiles but he's not one that wants to be known because he's sick or weird. Everyone has imperfections that are overlooked but Yunho's prove to be too much for that. In his first year in High School, Yunho's friends on the basketball team start to find this talent of his intriguing. They quiz him from time to time and instead of telling him to show up for practice or asking if he'd like to hang out, he's simply questioned about last week's basketball game and if he picked up any special tricks from the other team. The problem is, autobiographical memory is different from photographic memory. He remembers things about his own life, about what had happened to him but he doesn't have the ability to look at a page in his textbook and memorize it like that.
He ends up changing high schools three times in four years before he realizes that the best way and smartest way to go about doing this is just to pretend to be normal.
It works for him all throughout his four years as an undergraduate at Columbia University and it would've worked through all of graduate school too if it weren't for two people : Kim Jaejoong and Shim Changmin.
The former is his best friend, his other best friend that he finds impossible to dislike because Jaejoong is in one word, infectious. When Yunho moved into his dorm room that first day, the only thing he saw was spots. There was a Cheetah print fabric draped over their couch and a Leopard one over one of the beds in his bedroom.
"Oh, hey, I'm Jaejoong."
Yunho whirls around and stares. Actually staring would be an understatement. He kind of gapes like a fish, mouth wide open and small eyes stretched as far as they can.
"You're Yunho right? I read your name from the packet."
Yunho's still staring and it's kind of hard not to. Jaejoong sports a short haircut with hair that has an orange-ish, yellow hue. He's also wearing a jacket with black sleeves while the rest of it is yet another spotted creation. A...hideous spotted creation.
"It's not that bad right?"
Yunho blinks and wonders if he'd been speaking aloud and then nods and shakes his head.
"I like spots. And I like to cook too. See, I used to make a lot of jjigae but then it got lonely eating jjigae by myself and that made me sad so I stopped making jjigae. But you seem like you would enjoy a bowl of jjigae. Let me go make some. I'll call you when it's done, you can settle in first."
And that's why halfway through his meal of kimchi jjigae and fried rice, Yunho feels the need to tell Jaejoong of his disorder. Someone as odd as his roommate couldn't possibly judge him for it.
The second person, Shim Changmin, happens to The One. Or he can also be called The Boy. Or he's also known as Yunho's giant crush that makes him act like a big load of fail. Jaejoong calls Changmin the "fuck buddy."
He'd met Changmin through Yoochun who he met through Jaejoong. Yoochun's Jaejoong's crush except Jaejoong doesn't act like a load of fail and trip over his own two feet when Yoochun shows up and they eventually hit it off after a few dozen beers. Yoochun's head of the broadcasting station at their University. He's a communications major and he'd picked up the broadcasting station only because it seemed like fun. He doesn't have the voice to be a radio announcer or to host his own program, instead he'd recruited his own best friend for that. And that is Shim Changmin.
Changmin's tall, even taller than Yunho and he's got legs that most Brazilian models would envy. Changmin's also got curves, much like women do, a slender waist but a pair of hips that Yunho really enjoys picturing himself holding onto. Yeah, no doubt about it, Shim Changmin has a perfect hourglass figure, eyes as large as a doe's and a smirk that makes Yunho tripping over his feet seem like child's play.
The first time he meets Changmin is at a party that Jaejoong throws in their dorm room. It's a small party because technically their dorm only fits four people at once and there's five being crammed in there but Yunho doesn't mind, it gives him a reason to be squished right next to Changmin on the couch, his thigh pressed against the younger man's. All Yunho remembers doing that night is grinning and drinking shot after shot of vodka. And so when he wakes the next morning with a killer hangover and Changmin's arm draped over his waist, he wonders if he hadn't missed something terribly important.
"Did we....?
Changmin blinks and bats at his face, an obvious sign that his head is pounding at a speed only rocket ships can travel. "Go away, sleep."
Yunho looks down and finds that he's still clothed. Jeans buttoned, fly zipped all the way to the top and his hoodie on the same way it had been last night. His hair isn't even tousled and he's not even sporting an erection. Then he looks over at Changmin and finds that the younger man's clothes are also still on in the same exact way he remembers them to be. They're not even in his bed but on the sofa, scrunched even tighter than they'd been sitting last night because now they're lying halfway atop each other.
After a thorough analyzation of the situation, Yunho comes to the conclusion that nothing exciting happened between him and Changmin. It's really the fact that he climbs over Changmin's body to find Junsu dead asleep on the floor, hand curled around a Wii nunchunk with his socks still on. No, nothing exciting could've happened if Junsu was still playing games on the Wii when he fell asleep. He finds Jaejoong and Yoochun asleep in his bedroom and something did happen there because his bed is occupied by their clothes, a bottle of lube and at least three condom wrappers. Figures that Jaejoong would get all the action.
It really isn't until Yunho starts to hang out more and more with Changmin that they talk. The younger man is reticent and keeps most of his thoughts to himself. It kind of figures that Changmin would be tall and mysterious. It also doesn't help that Yunho is so shy around him that he barely gets the right words out of his mouth, much less manage to keep a conversation going. Half the time, all they talk about is how class is and which professors they've gotten this term. Boring stuff that doesn't help him in asking Changmin out.
A few weeks in though, Changmin starts to crowd Yunho's space more and more, walking a little closer when they head off to each lunch and he swears that Changmin seems to be hitting on him as well. It's not anything really obvious, or so he had thought, simple things like Changmin complimenting Yunho on the style of his shirt or how those black frames look really good on him or even that his hair looks good. Simple but classic things that Changmin does to try and make known his affections for Yunho. Things that Yunho ignores or doesn't notice because he's too oblivious and wrapped into liking Changmin that he doesn't even realize that Changmin likes him back.
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Yunho's thrown a party at the local bar, everything paid for and arranged by Jaejoong. He also receives the best birthday present of his life in the form of a 188cm, young male named Shim Changmin. To be honest, he hadn't really been up to partying, upset and unhappy that he's still single and miserable with this so called exceptional memory deal. News had gotten out that the mysterious patient B was actually a student at Columbia University but no one really knew who it was. He tries to lay low these day, not call any attention to himself and a birthday party in one of the most popular bars by campus isn't really his idea of laying low.
"Yunho-yah," Changmin mumbles, signaling the bartender for another two shots, "let me buy you a drink! To celebrate the day of your birth!" Changmin's a clingy drunk and he drapes himself all over Yunho now, giggling into the older man's neck, "You smell really good, Yunho, really good."
Yunho shifts uncomfortably, crossing his legs slowly to hide his growing bulge from being made public. "Changmin-ah, I think you've had enough to drink."
"Nonsense!" Jaejoong cuts in with a smile, holding out five lemon slices and five shot glasses worth of tequilla, "he hasn't even done his shots yet. Remember what I've always said, Yunja, when life give you lemons, drink tequila! Keep your chin up, it's a new year."
Yunho opens his mouth to argue when Changmin cuts in, nodding as he reaches for the salt shaker and Yunho's hand, sprinkling some onto the webbed part between Yunho's thumb and index. "Cheers," Changmin mumbles, tugging Yunho's hand closer to suck all the salt off, staring the entire while into Yunho's eyes while he sucks on the lemon wedge. He downs the shot of tequila with ease, taking Yunho's for him as well, pushing the two empty shot glasses in Jaejoong's direction.
All Yunho does is stare at Changmin, wondering now if there wasn't something he all along in the way Changmin looked at him sometimes or the way Changmin would hold onto his wrist as they walked through campus together.
"Happy Birthday," Changmin whispers, standing up and turning around to walk away.
Yunho's out of his seat before Jaejoong even gets to kick his chair, going after Changmin. This time when he wakes in the morning, Changmin's hand draped over his waist, Yunho remembers every detail from the night before. Including the way Changmin had arched while screaming his name, cock twitching as he had come.
----
It's not in Yunho's plans to make any more appearances as Patient B after that. He's much too preoccupied with spending time with Changmin and loving the younger man, coddling his boyfriend to the point where even Yoochun finds it ridiculous. But it's fate he supposes when he comes across a letter from Changmin in his pile of fan letters that he gets in the PO Box especially created for those wanting to write to Patient B.
Changmin hosts a weekly radio show every Friday night on campus. Yunho knows because he makes a point of showing up when Changmin gets off work to pick his boyfriend up. The radio show does alright, Changmin's got a voice made for the radios, smooth and velvet-like, and while Yunho's not a fan of using adjectives normally used to describe food in description of voices, Changmin's got a buttery kind that Yunho adores. He also likes to listen to the radio show because it's all the more obvious to him how much Changmin really does love him when he listens to the way Changmin talks to others and on the air in comparison to the way Changmin talks to him at home.
The letter comes right at the start of their fall semester and it's a humble request for Yunho, no Patient B, to make it as a guest on Changmin's weekly radio shows. Yunho looks the letter over and re-reads it over the course of a week, watching as Changmin asks every night if any mail has come for him. Yunho always says no and while he wants to ask what Changmin's waiting for, he doesn't because he already knows. The following week, he sends Changmin a letter back, agreeing to guest with two requirements : one that he isn't ever asked what his name is and two that he's never required to take off his mask. Changmin agrees and the next Friday, Yunho shows up with a paper bag over his head and a tiny mic that he's created himself that'll mask his real voice.
The ruse continues for a few months, Yunho always showing up on Friday nights about an hour before the end of Changmin's two hour long show to answer a few questions. He's there to be entertaining and to boost Changmin's ratings. Listeners call in to ask him personal questions like his favorite food or the what he'd been like in elementary school, if he wore overalls and t-shirts or baggy jeans. Yunho doesn't mind because he gets to spend more time with Changmin even if the younger man doesn't know who he is.
Changmin calls him Hyung instead of Patient B all the time and Yunho finds it cute the way the younger man will smile at him, laugh when he says something funny and talk to him as if he's a friend. Yunho can't resist testing his boyfriend out too, flirting playfully with Changmin on-air, blushing beneath his mask when Changmin shoots him down kindly, telling him each time that he's already got a boyfriend.
It's the little things that Changmin notices first. Like the way both his Hyung's socks and Yunho's socks are always mismatched or the fact that they wear similar if not the same hoodies. Yunho has the same jacket that his Hyung wears too and they both write left-handed. Then it's other things that tip Changmin off. Like the way his Hyung's eyes will scrunch up the same way that Yunho's does when they laugh or the way they both tap their ring, middle and index fingers on the desk in succession. Once, when his Hyung had bent over to pick up a script, Changmin had managed to catch a glimpse of his underwear and found it to be the same ones that Yunho wears : black Calvin Kleins. The thing that really does it for Changmin is the piggy charm he spots on his Hyung's phone. That he remembers for sure. After all he'd been the one that bought it for Yunho.
Changmin doesn't actually bring it up for weeks though, hinting sometimes when they're curled together in bed but never blatantly asking Yunho. He waits for Yunho to tell him but the older man never does.
----
"So, Hyung, the last question for tonight comes from me actually," Changmin says with an easy smile during the last few minutes their weekly radio show.
Yunho gestures for him to go ahead from behind the paper bag mask he's donning, sitting back in the chair.
Changmin leans forward, eyes narrowing slightly, "What were you doing last night at 11pm?"
Yunho's mouth opens by instinct as if to answer and then he pauses, eyes widening a little, staring at Changmin long enough for the younger man to confirm his suspicions. "I was with my boyfriend," he finally whispers quietly, "making love."
There's a long pause between Yunho's last words and when Changmin speaks again, "That's all for tonight then. Good night and thanks for listening. Tune in next week for more."
Yoochun signals to them from behind the glass screen that they're off-air now and they can go home but no one moves. He stares for a while and knocks on the door only to be waved off by Changmin.
"Were you ever going to tell me?" Changmin asks quietly after Yoochun's gone, pushing away the mic from his face.
Yunho answers with a helpless shrug, reaching for the mask and tugging it off slowly, "Yes."
All Changmin hears is the crinkle of the paper bag and he looks up, staring into the same eyes he looks into every night in bed. "But not when we moved in together. Not when I told you I loved you and not when you made love to me for the first time, right? So when, Yunho? When were you going to tell me?"
Crumbling the bag in his hands, Yunho shifts so he's a little closer to Changmin, looking into his eyes before he responds, "I was scared."
"What? Of me?! Were you scared of me?"
Yunho shakes his head immediately at the disbelief in Changmin's voice and then nods slowly, "I was scared that if you knew, you wouldn't want to be with me for me anymore but because of that. I was scared that all you'd see when you saw me or kissed me was that patient B crap."
Changmin scoffs in reply to Yunho's words and grits his teeth, "That's crap and you know it. That's crap, Yunho. We leased an apartment together, we met each other's parents and I've told you again and again that I love you. That's crap so don't tell me it again."
"But it's not," Yunho says after a short pause, "it's not crap." Swallowing hard, he holds out his mask and mic so Changmin can see, offering them up to the younger man just like he's always offered everything else in his life to him. "You don't see how it's like to be me. Everyone sees me as a game or as an interesting bit of information to use in conversation. I was a twitter trend topic for weeks! In elementary school, my sister used me as her show and tell when she forgot to bring something in. I don't expect you to know what it's like to be the oddball or the kid who gets stared at in school because he's different. I don't expect you to know how it feels like to to be the neighbor's weird son with the freakishly good memory. I don't expect you to know but it'd be nice if you at least understood. You know what you told me instead about your Hyung? You told me that you thought I was a 'bit off his rocker'. Do you remember that?"
Yunho throws his hands up in the air, a helpless gesture if anything and shrugs helplessly, "For once I wanted to at least be normal. I wanted to be that awesome boyfriend that you'd not only fall in love for but stay in love with forever. Because, Changmin-ah, you're perfect. You with your model looks and your genius mind- you're perfect. And you don't deserve a slightly odd or unique boyfriend. You deserve someone just as perfect in return."
Standing, he hands Changmin his visitor ID tag and the mask, "Do you still think it's crap now?" he asks quietly before walking out of the recording booth and leaving.
Changmin doesn't go home that night nor does he go home for the next two days. By the third night, Yunho's ready to move out and call it quits when he gets home late from lecture to find Changmin sitting cross-legged on their bed. He closes the door to their studio and stares wordlessly, walking slowly towards his boyfriend. Before he can get a word out though, Changmin speaks.
"I have big ears, no, huge ears. They stick out obnoxiously so to the point where I can't even wear a baseball cap because of that fact."
Yunho blinks, momentarily stunned and confused about what Changmin is saying, mouth opening to form the younger man's name, an argument about how perfect Changmin's ears are already on the tip of his tongue but Changmin barrels on.
"I'm flat-footed too." Changmin holds up a palm and sticks out a foot to demonstrate that fact to Yunho. "Completely flat. You know where your feet are supposed to arch right here? Mine doesn't. It makes me look like I'm stomping when I walk and ten years down the road, I'll be in a wheelchair and you'll have to push me around everywhere."
Again Yunho tries to get a word in, walking forward until he's kneeling at the foot of their bed and staring up at Changmin, hand reaching out to rest on the younger man's knee but Changmin ignores it.
"And let's not forget how much I sweat! I sweat when I walk, I sweat when I'm sitting and I sweat when you hold my hands! It's not even that slight wet palm deal, I literally drip sweat."
Changmin gets off the bed, sliding until he's on his knees as well, going forward to cup Yunho's cheeks. "I will never be perfect, Yunho but you think that I am and it's that though that makes me feel perfect. I'm sorry that I've never made you feel that way before but I promise I'll try harder to do that."
Yunho eyes widen a little and they fill with tears as he turns to kiss Changmin's palm, "Changmin-ah," he finally manages to cut in and say, "I'm not mad. I never was. All you had to do was come back to me."
Changmin smiles in response and he nods. He's known that all along and he's always been guilty of abusing that trait of Yunho's but he thinks that just once more will be okay. This time is the last time.
"Hyung," he whispers, a smile on his face, "what were you doing last night at 11pm?"
Yunho smiles right back and tugs Changmin into his arms completely, hugging the younger man as tightly as he can manage, "Was thinking of my boyfriend and how much I love him."
"Yeah? Me too."
----
Changmin changes the last corner of his weekly radio from questions and emails from the listeners in favor of asking Yunho the same question each time : "What were you doing last night at 11pm?"
And Yunho always makes it a point to answer with the same response each time, "Being in love."
a/n 2: happy birthday to yunho :) not exactly a birthday fic but as close as i could manage to one. i hope he's cuddled in bed with a certain long-legged young man ♥ ♥
the line "when life gives you lemons, drink tequila" is the brain child of yuxo :) ♥