[fic] A Tale Told By Flowers (PG)
Title: A Tale Told By Flowers
Author: April/tokkisshi (formerly iokoda/naneunpierrot)
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, anst
Warning: Angst...fluffy stuff, flowers, um. Yeah. :D
Disclaimer: Never ever.
Summary: For lya95's request: Major angst + happy ending. Yunho only discovers how much Jaejoong means to him when he's gone. Uh...pretty sure I failed at the ~major angst~ part of this request, but I do hope everything else turned out okay to your liking, dear. f^^;;
A Tale Told By Flowers
Most days Jaejoong just doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. He goes to work looking like a puppy beaten and thrown in front of a moving vehicle, as Yoochun so aptly puts it, and then comes home to die on the couch every night. He does nothing more than lounge around with the television remote in his hands, flicking through channel after channel until he finds something that will distract him long enough to survive the night.
Work is dreary as is usual, and Jaejoong finds himself stuck in the office working on invoices. Being the assistant manager of Starbucks might not be his dream job, but it pays enough for him to survive on and the people are always nice. It keeps him busy, too, though it doesn’t make him completely unaware of the residual burning in his chest, a turbulent squall of emotions raging something fierce inside his heart.
“Jaejoong-sshi,” one of the young girls working the counter calls out to him, knocking on the metal door frame. “Someone’s here and he’s asking to see you.”
Jaejoong feels his body tense, then he takes a deep breath and forces himself to let everything go. Maybe it’s his friend that he’s been crashing with. Maybe it’s his brother-in-law. Maybe it’s someone that isn’t him.
“Okay,” Jaejoong says, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
The girl nods, and Jaejoong makes quick work of cleaning up the mess he’d made of the desk. He tries to mark the place he left off at, but he’ll probably somehow screw it up just as he typically does.
Inhaling deep one last time, Jaejoong prepares himself for the worst. The ache in his chest intensifies as it forewarning him of what’s to come, though he tries his hardest to suspend that belief. Later, Jaejoong would berate himself to always follow his gut instinct.
Adding gasoline to the flames of his misery, Jaejoong is none too happy to discover that his guest is in fact him. Because this is his place of work and he has to be the model employee, Jaejoong opens a box and stuffs his quivering heart inside of it and musters his best smile.
“Y-” Yunho-yah. “Jung Yunho-sshi, how may I be of assistance?”
The expression on the other man’s face looks none too happy, and Jaejoong fears his ex might be there to berate him for the poor performance of his baristas.
“I need the apartment keys.” Yunho holds out his hand expectantly.
The smile is gone from Jaejoong’s face. That box inside of him is shaking beneath the weight of his repressed anguish and sorrow. But I’m the one that left him, Jaejoong tries to remind himself. He reaches for the key ring on his work pants and viciously pulls off the set for their old apartment and slams it in Yunho’s palm.
“I had hoped you would at least wait for me to get my things out first,” he says, a note of bitterness seeping into his words.
“Don’t bother,” Yunho says, and he’s gone before Jaejoong can even blink.
Jaejoong spends the rest of his shift locked in the office, fists pressed against his eyes to hold back the tears he swore he would never cry again.
*
It takes him a couple of days before he decides to call Yunho, the agony of their separation turned into pure ire. If Yunho thinks he can just take everything in their apartment that was his and throw it away, he would-
“I wondered when you were going to call,” Yunho greets him unceremoniously, sounding like he was talking about the weather.
“I need to come over and get my things,” Jaejoong says, trying to sound firm and assertive.
“You can come get your things when I’m home, but I can’t tell you when that will be. I’m doing some shopping before I go to my parents’ for the weekend.”
Gritting his teeth, Jaejoong forces himself to breathe and think about his next words carefully. “Okay,” he says and bites his tongue to hold back more caustic words.
“I’m busy.” Yunho hangs up on him.
*
It’s Jaejoong’s day off and he’s sitting on the patio at his friend’s house, nursing a cup of hot earl grey tea. He’s been outside since sunrise and he finds watching the day begin anew a small comfort in his world of discord. Yoochun joins him within a couple of hours, just as Jaejoong is beginning to contemplate a mid-morning snack.
“So…” Yoochun begins, reaching for Jaejoong’s cup to steal a gulp of the lukewarm tea.
“You slept in,” Jaejoong murmurs, handing over his cup without thinking about it.
“Junsu called me last night,” Yoochun explains, savoring the taste of the exquisite tea in his mouth for several long moments. “He kept me up a bit with a small problem.”
Somehow, Yoochun knows as he watches Jaejoong bask in a morose stupor, it’s a good idea to not tell him that small problem was Yunho having a mental breakdown.
Jaejoong nods lifelessly. “Oh,” he says, and Yoochun wonders if Jaejoong had even heard what he’d said.
Watching his friend suffering in silence kills him, and Yoochun just doesn’t know what he can do for him anymore. He thought about trying to kick Jaejoong out of his apartment for the day, to make him go somewhere and do something other than mope, but he just didn’t have the heart for it.
“Come on,” Yoochun said softly, grabbing Jaejoong with his free hand. “Let’s go inside and make brownies. We could both use some good mood food right now.”
Jaejoong manages to laugh and follows his best friend inside. Double chocolate chip fudge sounds so good right about now.
*
It’s been 3 days since Jaejoong last heard from his ex and he’s beginning to wonder. Once again he’s at work, this time in the middle of doing a deposit when a delivery comes in specifically for him. A young girl to his left raises her eyebrows, but he brushes it off as he drags the tiny parcel into the office to open it.
It’s a small picture frame, not horribly tiny but one big enough to hold something of artistic value. Jaejoong smiles when he notices the pressed apple blossom, fashioned into a piece of art to look like it was falling from a barren tree.
Let me tempt you.
“Yunho, you bastard.”
Jaejoong reaches for a tissue as he fights with himself, unable to decide if he wants to smile or to cry.
Somehow, he chooses both.
*
Jaejoong should have expected it when he arrived at Yoochun’s place. The entire apartment was heavy with the fragrance of something bright and lovely, a familiarity on the tip of his tongue he can’t seem to name.
“Is that…?” Jaejoong glances at Yoochun.
“Gardenias? Yes. They’re…lovely, aren’t they?” There’s a certain lilt to the world ‘lovely’ that has Jaejoong’s heart palpitating inside of his chest.
“Yes,” he says absently. “Yes, gardenias are lovely…”
“I want to buy one of these and plant it in our backyard one day,” Yunho says, brushing the length of his hair from his face. His eyes glitter as he looks at the flowering tree, fingers reverently touching the white blossoms with splatters of red on each petal.
“What is it?” Jaejoong asks naively, finding his heart aflutter in his chest every time Yunho mentions them living together. They’re still in their last year of college, barely a year and a half into their relationship, and the dedication they have for one another sometimes scares him.
“A flowering dogwood,” Yunho tells him. “Flowers can talk, you know. This one just happens to say ‘Our love will endure adversity.’”
“It’s nice to finally have something on our side, isn’t it?”
Jaejoong smiles reverently at Yunho, fingers twitching with the suppressed urge to reach out for his hand. They’d have plenty of time for that when they got back to the dorms.
Jaejoong has locked himself in the spare bedroom, his hands shaking as he presses his mobile phone against his ears. “What are you doing?” he asks the second Yunho picks up, barely giving him the chance to spew out a single syllable. “You ask for my keys and then you send me flower messages? What are you doing, Jung Yunho?” He has to struggle to not sob, pressing a closed fist against his mouth. Damn me, he thinks, damn me for being the emotional one.
“Jaejoong-ah,” Yunho calls him fondly, though he sounds a bit worse for wear, “shouldn’t we discuss this in person?”
“Fine,” Jaejoong grits out and hangs up. He’s glad Yoochun’s apartment isn’t too far from his old one with Yunho, and before he knows it, he’s already burst inside to see his ex-boyfriend fumbling to cover a half-painted canvas. He has just enough time to glimpse the willowy plant covered with white, familiar bell-shaped flowers.
Jaejoong won’t admit it, but his heart flutters in his chest knowing that Yunho was trying to paint his favorite flower. His throat grows tight and he struggles around it, trying to breathe, and he’s so overcome with ripe emotion he just doesn’t know what to do with himself.
“Yunho, what are you doing?” Jaejoong whispers brokenly. “I left you. I left you because, for the past 8 months, you’ve been nothing but ignorant and selfish, and I thought - I thought…you didn’t care anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Yunho offers a minute consolation. “I never stopped caring, Jaejoong. Never. I just…I forgot.” He takes a breath and licks his suddenly too dry lips. “I’m sorry for being the awkward, emotionally stunted guy you took a chance with.”
“Yunho…”
Jaejoong feels his heart breaking all over again.
“I went to see my parents over the weekend,” Yunho tells him quietly, though he’s already told him before. “I went to ask for advice, for us. I thought if I took your keys with me you wouldn’t be able to take your things while I was away, because I desperately needed to see you again. They helped, but they wouldn’t stop pestering me about you until I gave in. I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive the weekend without telling them, so I just…I just did it.”
Yunho’s eyes are teary, and Jaejoong knows his are, too.
“My mother fainted on the spot. Father asked me to leave. I’ve tried calling them, but they either won’t pick up or they ignore my calls. I guess…having a gay son is such a disappointment they’d rather pretend I don’t exist.”
Smiling bitterly, Yunho reaches out for Jaejoong. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell them. I was afraid of being alone, but now…I need you.” Their fingers fall together in a familiar pattern, and Jaejoong feels how the touch of the man he still loves assuages the ache in his chest.
“Three years, Yunho, and you never once said it,” Jaejoong whispers. “Just say it, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Jaejoong-ah…”
“Please, Yunho. I need this.”
Nodding, Yunho swallows a lump in his throat and pulls Jaejoong into his lap. His arms follow the familiar curve of Jaejoong’s slim waist, chin perched on his shoulder and mouth against the shell of his ear.
“I love you.”
Jaejoong loses himself in Yunho’s arms, his heart soaring to new heights. He never thought he’d be able to love this man any more than he already did, but the sudden, intense emotions bubbling inside him are as intense as the brilliant orange flame in the fireplace.
“Thank you,” Jaejoong tells him, turning his head to kiss the man he knows he can’t live without. The past 2 weeks alone have been testament to this.
“I love you,” Yunho says again, breathing against a plush mouth, and he reiterates himself once more just because he likes the way those words make Jaejoong glow radiantly.
The last thing Jaejoong remembers seeing before everything was all Yunho was the half-finished canvas of his favorite flower: lily of the valley.
You’ve made my life complete.
Author: April/tokkisshi (formerly iokoda/naneunpierrot)
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, anst
Warning: Angst...fluffy stuff, flowers, um. Yeah. :D
Disclaimer: Never ever.
Summary: For lya95's request: Major angst + happy ending. Yunho only discovers how much Jaejoong means to him when he's gone. Uh...pretty sure I failed at the ~major angst~ part of this request, but I do hope everything else turned out okay to your liking, dear. f^^;;
A Tale Told By Flowers
Most days Jaejoong just doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. He goes to work looking like a puppy beaten and thrown in front of a moving vehicle, as Yoochun so aptly puts it, and then comes home to die on the couch every night. He does nothing more than lounge around with the television remote in his hands, flicking through channel after channel until he finds something that will distract him long enough to survive the night.
Work is dreary as is usual, and Jaejoong finds himself stuck in the office working on invoices. Being the assistant manager of Starbucks might not be his dream job, but it pays enough for him to survive on and the people are always nice. It keeps him busy, too, though it doesn’t make him completely unaware of the residual burning in his chest, a turbulent squall of emotions raging something fierce inside his heart.
“Jaejoong-sshi,” one of the young girls working the counter calls out to him, knocking on the metal door frame. “Someone’s here and he’s asking to see you.”
Jaejoong feels his body tense, then he takes a deep breath and forces himself to let everything go. Maybe it’s his friend that he’s been crashing with. Maybe it’s his brother-in-law. Maybe it’s someone that isn’t him.
“Okay,” Jaejoong says, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
The girl nods, and Jaejoong makes quick work of cleaning up the mess he’d made of the desk. He tries to mark the place he left off at, but he’ll probably somehow screw it up just as he typically does.
Inhaling deep one last time, Jaejoong prepares himself for the worst. The ache in his chest intensifies as it forewarning him of what’s to come, though he tries his hardest to suspend that belief. Later, Jaejoong would berate himself to always follow his gut instinct.
Adding gasoline to the flames of his misery, Jaejoong is none too happy to discover that his guest is in fact him. Because this is his place of work and he has to be the model employee, Jaejoong opens a box and stuffs his quivering heart inside of it and musters his best smile.
“Y-” Yunho-yah. “Jung Yunho-sshi, how may I be of assistance?”
The expression on the other man’s face looks none too happy, and Jaejoong fears his ex might be there to berate him for the poor performance of his baristas.
“I need the apartment keys.” Yunho holds out his hand expectantly.
The smile is gone from Jaejoong’s face. That box inside of him is shaking beneath the weight of his repressed anguish and sorrow. But I’m the one that left him, Jaejoong tries to remind himself. He reaches for the key ring on his work pants and viciously pulls off the set for their old apartment and slams it in Yunho’s palm.
“I had hoped you would at least wait for me to get my things out first,” he says, a note of bitterness seeping into his words.
“Don’t bother,” Yunho says, and he’s gone before Jaejoong can even blink.
Jaejoong spends the rest of his shift locked in the office, fists pressed against his eyes to hold back the tears he swore he would never cry again.
*
It takes him a couple of days before he decides to call Yunho, the agony of their separation turned into pure ire. If Yunho thinks he can just take everything in their apartment that was his and throw it away, he would-
“I wondered when you were going to call,” Yunho greets him unceremoniously, sounding like he was talking about the weather.
“I need to come over and get my things,” Jaejoong says, trying to sound firm and assertive.
“You can come get your things when I’m home, but I can’t tell you when that will be. I’m doing some shopping before I go to my parents’ for the weekend.”
Gritting his teeth, Jaejoong forces himself to breathe and think about his next words carefully. “Okay,” he says and bites his tongue to hold back more caustic words.
“I’m busy.” Yunho hangs up on him.
*
It’s Jaejoong’s day off and he’s sitting on the patio at his friend’s house, nursing a cup of hot earl grey tea. He’s been outside since sunrise and he finds watching the day begin anew a small comfort in his world of discord. Yoochun joins him within a couple of hours, just as Jaejoong is beginning to contemplate a mid-morning snack.
“So…” Yoochun begins, reaching for Jaejoong’s cup to steal a gulp of the lukewarm tea.
“You slept in,” Jaejoong murmurs, handing over his cup without thinking about it.
“Junsu called me last night,” Yoochun explains, savoring the taste of the exquisite tea in his mouth for several long moments. “He kept me up a bit with a small problem.”
Somehow, Yoochun knows as he watches Jaejoong bask in a morose stupor, it’s a good idea to not tell him that small problem was Yunho having a mental breakdown.
Jaejoong nods lifelessly. “Oh,” he says, and Yoochun wonders if Jaejoong had even heard what he’d said.
Watching his friend suffering in silence kills him, and Yoochun just doesn’t know what he can do for him anymore. He thought about trying to kick Jaejoong out of his apartment for the day, to make him go somewhere and do something other than mope, but he just didn’t have the heart for it.
“Come on,” Yoochun said softly, grabbing Jaejoong with his free hand. “Let’s go inside and make brownies. We could both use some good mood food right now.”
Jaejoong manages to laugh and follows his best friend inside. Double chocolate chip fudge sounds so good right about now.
*
It’s been 3 days since Jaejoong last heard from his ex and he’s beginning to wonder. Once again he’s at work, this time in the middle of doing a deposit when a delivery comes in specifically for him. A young girl to his left raises her eyebrows, but he brushes it off as he drags the tiny parcel into the office to open it.
It’s a small picture frame, not horribly tiny but one big enough to hold something of artistic value. Jaejoong smiles when he notices the pressed apple blossom, fashioned into a piece of art to look like it was falling from a barren tree.
Let me tempt you.
“Yunho, you bastard.”
Jaejoong reaches for a tissue as he fights with himself, unable to decide if he wants to smile or to cry.
Somehow, he chooses both.
*
Jaejoong should have expected it when he arrived at Yoochun’s place. The entire apartment was heavy with the fragrance of something bright and lovely, a familiarity on the tip of his tongue he can’t seem to name.
“Is that…?” Jaejoong glances at Yoochun.
“Gardenias? Yes. They’re…lovely, aren’t they?” There’s a certain lilt to the world ‘lovely’ that has Jaejoong’s heart palpitating inside of his chest.
“Yes,” he says absently. “Yes, gardenias are lovely…”
“I want to buy one of these and plant it in our backyard one day,” Yunho says, brushing the length of his hair from his face. His eyes glitter as he looks at the flowering tree, fingers reverently touching the white blossoms with splatters of red on each petal.
“What is it?” Jaejoong asks naively, finding his heart aflutter in his chest every time Yunho mentions them living together. They’re still in their last year of college, barely a year and a half into their relationship, and the dedication they have for one another sometimes scares him.
“A flowering dogwood,” Yunho tells him. “Flowers can talk, you know. This one just happens to say ‘Our love will endure adversity.’”
“It’s nice to finally have something on our side, isn’t it?”
Jaejoong smiles reverently at Yunho, fingers twitching with the suppressed urge to reach out for his hand. They’d have plenty of time for that when they got back to the dorms.
Jaejoong has locked himself in the spare bedroom, his hands shaking as he presses his mobile phone against his ears. “What are you doing?” he asks the second Yunho picks up, barely giving him the chance to spew out a single syllable. “You ask for my keys and then you send me flower messages? What are you doing, Jung Yunho?” He has to struggle to not sob, pressing a closed fist against his mouth. Damn me, he thinks, damn me for being the emotional one.
“Jaejoong-ah,” Yunho calls him fondly, though he sounds a bit worse for wear, “shouldn’t we discuss this in person?”
“Fine,” Jaejoong grits out and hangs up. He’s glad Yoochun’s apartment isn’t too far from his old one with Yunho, and before he knows it, he’s already burst inside to see his ex-boyfriend fumbling to cover a half-painted canvas. He has just enough time to glimpse the willowy plant covered with white, familiar bell-shaped flowers.
Jaejoong won’t admit it, but his heart flutters in his chest knowing that Yunho was trying to paint his favorite flower. His throat grows tight and he struggles around it, trying to breathe, and he’s so overcome with ripe emotion he just doesn’t know what to do with himself.
“Yunho, what are you doing?” Jaejoong whispers brokenly. “I left you. I left you because, for the past 8 months, you’ve been nothing but ignorant and selfish, and I thought - I thought…you didn’t care anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Yunho offers a minute consolation. “I never stopped caring, Jaejoong. Never. I just…I forgot.” He takes a breath and licks his suddenly too dry lips. “I’m sorry for being the awkward, emotionally stunted guy you took a chance with.”
“Yunho…”
Jaejoong feels his heart breaking all over again.
“I went to see my parents over the weekend,” Yunho tells him quietly, though he’s already told him before. “I went to ask for advice, for us. I thought if I took your keys with me you wouldn’t be able to take your things while I was away, because I desperately needed to see you again. They helped, but they wouldn’t stop pestering me about you until I gave in. I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive the weekend without telling them, so I just…I just did it.”
Yunho’s eyes are teary, and Jaejoong knows his are, too.
“My mother fainted on the spot. Father asked me to leave. I’ve tried calling them, but they either won’t pick up or they ignore my calls. I guess…having a gay son is such a disappointment they’d rather pretend I don’t exist.”
Smiling bitterly, Yunho reaches out for Jaejoong. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell them. I was afraid of being alone, but now…I need you.” Their fingers fall together in a familiar pattern, and Jaejoong feels how the touch of the man he still loves assuages the ache in his chest.
“Three years, Yunho, and you never once said it,” Jaejoong whispers. “Just say it, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Jaejoong-ah…”
“Please, Yunho. I need this.”
Nodding, Yunho swallows a lump in his throat and pulls Jaejoong into his lap. His arms follow the familiar curve of Jaejoong’s slim waist, chin perched on his shoulder and mouth against the shell of his ear.
“I love you.”
Jaejoong loses himself in Yunho’s arms, his heart soaring to new heights. He never thought he’d be able to love this man any more than he already did, but the sudden, intense emotions bubbling inside him are as intense as the brilliant orange flame in the fireplace.
“Thank you,” Jaejoong tells him, turning his head to kiss the man he knows he can’t live without. The past 2 weeks alone have been testament to this.
“I love you,” Yunho says again, breathing against a plush mouth, and he reiterates himself once more just because he likes the way those words make Jaejoong glow radiantly.
The last thing Jaejoong remembers seeing before everything was all Yunho was the half-finished canvas of his favorite flower: lily of the valley.
You’ve made my life complete.