Five Truths
*rises from the yunjae fic grave* :OOOO
Title: Five Truths
Author: Bell
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-Shot
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama, Fluff, some humor?
Word Count: 2,692
Summary: Of five things Jaejoong is sure. (A series of interrelated drabbles.)
1. After a while, it becomes difficult to find the ‘me’ in ‘us.’
Jaejoong leaves traces of himself in the others. He compiles a growing list of their “me-isms” in his head: Changmin and Junsu are picking up my accent, Yoochun now holds his chopsticks in the same tilt as mine, Yunho takes his coffee the same way I do, Yunho’s new hats are so similar to mine that he mixes them up, Yunho is growing to like the same music I do.
He checks and re-checks obsessively, and assures himself that if the group were one day ripped apart or if he died tomorrow, he would still exist, somewhere, inside all of them. Makes certain that even if no one remembers the name “Youngwoong Jaejoong,” these pieces of him would still live on.
(“Idiot. You’re not that forgettable,” Yunho says and smiles into the crook of his neck.)
But he worries that traces of the others are seeping into him as well. He can see Yoochun’s gestures in his own hands, can detect Changmin’s sarcasm in his own tone, can hear Junsu’s inflections in his own voice, can breathe in Yunho’s scent in his own clothes, until he doesn’t know how much of himself has truly been theirs all along, as if he were, in the end, just an empty vessel.
Yunho silences him with a press of warm fingers on cold lips. “You worry too much. We’re all a part of each other; each of us is necessary to make up the whole. Isn’t that enough?”
Jaejoong smiles at him and says that it is, but sometimes he has to wonder. Is it enough?
----------
2. True beauty is not a formula.
Jaejoong is tired of the word pretty. Jaejoong is tired of cameras and too-bright lights, tired of the knowledge that his face is his greatest asset. He flips through a pile of music magazines and watches the parade of glossed, airbrushed Jaejoongs with a casual apathy. Who are you, Jaejoong muses as his perfected self stares back.
His stylist stands closely behind him, and admires each page of photos (the soft curves of his jaw, his perfectly smooth skin, his attractively large eyes) with a thinly veiled envy. “Our pretty Jaejoong should have been born as a woman,” she says. “Even his waist is slimmer than mine.”
Jaejoong smiles politely; inside, he feels something prickle. He is intensely aware of how Yunho’s eyes are lingering on him for too long a while, as if the other man were worried he would disappear if he tore away his gaze. When Jaejoong dares to peer in his direction, Yunho blinks, startled, then shyly looks down and thoroughly preoccupies himself with his half-finished meal. He grips his bowl and drinks the remaining broth in big, strong gulps.
Our brave, manly leader even eats soup in a masculine way, Jaejoong thinks, and at first, it is maddening.
But Yunho cares too much, understands him too well; when Yunho later corners him in their apartment, he uses the word ‘beautiful’ and means it.
I wish you weren’t so kind, Jaejoong thinks, as strong arms embrace him.
----------
3. It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Jaejoong doesn’t think about the past. Doesn’t think of days spent grabbing at dropped change on the street when he sees the growing sum on his paychecks, doesn’t think of the once-familiar feeling of his stomach eating away at itself when he samples exotic foreign foods. Jaejoong keeps his memories locked away and tells himself that some things aren’t worth remembering.
Yunho is obsessed with the past. Despite his valiant efforts to hide it, Jaejoong knows that Yunho’s every action is driven by endless possibilities: what if I’m not good enough, what if I can’t last, what if I lose everything, what if, what if, what if. Jaejoong sees it in the smallest things: when Yunho falters just so under the eyes of top executives or from the disappointment or scorn or apathy in their manager’s face, day after day, until Yunho can’t even look at old pictures of Jaejoong and himself (sickly pale skin, skeleton-thin outlines) without vomiting and he is convinced he is going mad.
“It’s okay,” Jaejoong murmurs and holds him as delicately as he can; brushes hair away from sweat-stained skin and sleep-deprived eyes. “It’s okay. You’re here now.”
----------
4. There is no good way to say, “I love you.”
Jaejoong prefers letting the others speak for him. His words always come out wrong; they twist in his throat or get lost on the path from his mind to his mouth. He wishes it were simpler. He wishes there was a way for thoughts to just be sent from one person to another. “Like e-mails,” he explains, and Yunho laughs at his innocence.
“But you can censor yourself in emails. You can’t censor thoughts,” he says as he follows Jaejoong into the balcony, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the three sleeping individuals in the room behind him.
Jaejoong doesn’t respond. He walks across the width of the small area, stopping just short of the railing, and takes in the sight of the nocturnal city around him, bustling and still so alive despite the thick darkness. From behind, Yunho rests his chin on his shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist; in the back of Jaejoong’s mind, he wonders why the gesture isn’t more awkward.
“What are you thinking right now?” Yunho asks, his voice just above a whisper.
“Why?” Jaejoong asks back, but it comes out wrong, sounds more alarmed than he meant it to.
“I was only asking,” Yunho replies with a hint of defense. “It’s just… difficult, sometimes, to know what you’re thinking. Your face doesn’t give much away, and a lot of times you seem so distant. Like anyone who talks to you is intruding on something…”
As Yunho trails off, something in Jaejoong’s chest sinks. Intruding. The word makes him feel empty. He feels Yunho’s arms tighten slightly around him and realizes that the other is waiting for a response.
“I was thinking…” Jaejoong starts after a long pause, opting to avoid Yunho’s analysis of him, “…I was thinking that the two of us are very close.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t notice.”
Jaejoong rolls his eyes and Yunho chuckles. “No, seriously. We’re very very very very close to each other. More than just best friends. It’s like the two of us are… are…” Jaejoong scrunches his eyebrows in frustration. He can’t think of the right words; his mind is a blank.
“Pretend you’re sending an e-mail,” Yunho says with a smile. Jaejoong lifts his hands in imitation of typing and Yunho laughs softly.
“It’s like…” Jaejoong tries again, letting his hands drop, “The two of us are somehow… essential to each other, you know? As if we couldn’t function through everything, through all this,” Jaejoong gestures at the city before them, although he’s not sure why, “…without each other. Yunho, shouldn’t it feel uncomfortable when you hold me like this? But it doesn’t.”
Jaejoong pauses and listens for a reaction. Yunho says nothing.
“Isn’t that kind of… unusual?” Jaejoong continues. “Aren’t we unusual? It seems not normal to be this way with each other. All five of us are close, but the two of us… we’re different. We have a different kind of closeness. You said that it’s difficult for you to know what I’m thinking, but I don’t think that’s true. Not for you, anyway. It’s like… we can understand each other without even really being aware of it. And… and I rely on you so much that it scares me.” Jaejoong ends so softly that he isn’t sure if Yunho hears him, even with their proximity.
Jaejoong stops, not knowing what else to say. Minutes pass by in deep silence, Yunho very, very still all the while, as if frozen by his words. His unresponsiveness frustrates Jaejoong more than it should, until he can’t wait any longer. Baby steps, he thinks and turns within the circle of Yunho’s arms to face him, their chests mere inches apart. “And what about you? Do you think this is… wrong?”
Yunho remains silent, but Jaejoong can see his reply; something in Yunho’s eyes captivates him even more than the twinkling city lights from moments ago.
Jaejoong reaches out and timidly places his hands on the other’s arms, feeling firm muscle under the thin fabric of his sleeves, and it spurs Yunho into action; he leans forward, close enough so that Jaejoong can feel his breaths warm his skin, and tenderly presses his lips to the side of his neck. Yunho travels upward and makes a slow trail across the curve of the other’s jaw, gaining confidence when Jaejoong trembles from the touch but does not object. He brushes his lips gently against Jaejoong’s before fully taking them, and quicker than Jaejoong can protest, Yunho uses his weight to push him against the balcony railing, the metal digging into the back of his waist. Jaejoong’s lips part slightly from the force of it, and Yunho deepens the kiss without waiting for permission.
Yunho gasps his name when they separate, Jaejoong-ah; says it again under his breath when he leans his forehead against Jaejoong’s cheek, the word washing over the still-sensitive skin of his neck. Jaejoong-ah. Yunho says his name as if it were a plea, spoken with such frightening intensity that it makes something in Jaejoong snap.
“Stop it,” he blurts out, but it comes out wrong again; the words sound like an accusation.
Yunho tenses and cautiously draws back, stares at him with heated, piercing eyes, and Jaejoong doesn’t know why, but the desperation he sees in Yunho now frightens him more than anything he’s ever known. “Stop it,” Jaejoong whispers, voice fading partway. Yunho’s expression hardens, then.
“You were wrong, Jae. I really don’t understand you,” he says in the smallest of voices, then steps away, gaze fixed on the ground. A million thoughts flit through Jaejoong’s mind: I’m scared, I’m pathetic, and most of all I’m sorry, but the look on Yunho’s face (distant, cold, ashamed) makes his chest ache. The thoughts are left unsaid; they die in his throat.
Jaejoong searches through the scramble of letters in his head. “I ____ you.” There’s a gap in his thoughts where a word should be, and he wonders if Yunho will wait long enough for him to find it.
----------
Jaejoong doesn’t much like airports. No matter how many or how few countries he visits in a year, airports all blur into each other, an incoherent mess of lines and luggage and swarms of people in his mind. But Jaejoong finds that he’s never liked airports any less than he does today, as he dashes through the never-ending aisle of terminals and bathrooms and eateries, panicked heartbeats pounding in his ears.
Jaejoong eventually finds him sitting in a Starbucks a floor above their assigned terminal in Narita Airport.
“Yunho, what the hell? At least warn us ahead of time before you decide to disappear like that. And why did you turn your cellphone off?”
He doesn’t care that he sounds as irritated as he feels and cares even less that his small commotion is causing some of the female customers to recognize him; Yunho rarely ever acts this reckless, this stupid.
“Sorry, Jae. I just needed to think for a while.” Yunho doesn’t look at him; he stares unblinkingly into his barely-touched cup of coffee.
“Well, you could’ve thought back at the terminal,” Jaejoong snaps. He glowers at Yunho, daring him to meet his eyes. He doesn’t.
Jaejoong keeps his eyes on the other man as he flips open his cellphone and dials. “Yeah Junsu, I found him on the third floor… Don’t bother, he’s fine. We’re just at Starbucks… I don’t know why either…”
Yunho keeps his head down when Jaejoong’s phone clicks shut, but finally jerks up to look at him when he hears the chair opposite him scrape away from the table.
“I’m thinking with you.” Jaejoong sits and crosses his arms, still glowering. Yunho’s eyebrows furrow and he opens his mouth to argue, but Jaejoong’s glare intensifies and his mouth shuts on its own. Yunho mutters something under his breath (“you’re not my nanny”) and stares miserably at his cold coffee.
The two of them sit there, both crossing their arms and refusing to look at anything other than the tabletop, until Jaejoong eventually calms down enough to realize he’s thirsty. He reaches across the table and grabs the coffee, knowing Yunho wouldn’t complain; he smirks to himself a little when he finds that he’s right. He takes a sip, makes a face and reaches for a packet of sugar.
“If you add sugar to that, I’m not drinking it anymore.”
“You’re not drinking it anyway.” Jaejoong rips open the packet and pours its contents into the cup. “So I guess it’s mine now.”
Jaejoong stirs with a thin straw, watching the little molecules of sweetness disintegrate then disappear into the black liquid. When he’s sure all the sugar is invisible, he looks up to find Yunho watching him.
“…Jae?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…” He looks back down at the table. “Do you ever think about what you would do if all this ended one day? Like if we suddenly couldn’t be singers anymore.”
“No,” Jaejoong lies. He continues stirring, studying the coffee as it whirls around. “I live in the moment, remember?”
Yunho looks up at him again, seeming less reluctant now. Their eyes meet at last, and the connection sends a small shiver across Jaejoong’s skin. “Most people would probably expect me to study law, “ Yunho says, ” But to be honest… the lawyer thing has always been more of a fallback, I guess. I really can’t imagine myself as a lawyer. I can’t imagine myself as anything other than what I am now.”
Jaejoong stops stirring. He wonders how Yunho expects him to react to his confession; his expression gives away nothing.
“I can’t either,” Jaejoong admits and hopes the sincerity shows, “And that’s why I think we’ll be doing this forever.”
“Not literally forever.”
“Who really knows? We could be singers in our next life too. And the life after that.”
“Christians don’t believe in next lives,” Yunho reminds, but he’s finally smiling.
“Then we’ll be singers in Heaven.” Jaejoong smiles back.
They fall into silence. Yunho dumps a pile of sugar packets onto the center of the table and sorts them out as Jaejoong comments (“These packets are female because they’re pink,” he proudly announces to the other.) and watches him amusedly, slowly sipping the cup empty of its coffee. He glances at a clock on the wall and is surprised to see that their plane will already be boarding in fifteen minutes, as if the time suddenly sped up after a long, sluggish crawl.
“We should start heading back.”
Yunho glances at the clock too, and Jaejoong notices that the expression on his face is the same one he adopts when reminded of something unpleasant. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
Yunho stands up to leave and Jaejoong does the same. When Yunho is near enough to the door to grab its handle, Jaejoong moves close to his side and clasps his hand in his, making sure the gesture is kept hidden from the peering eyes behind him. Yunho stiffens for a moment, but quickly relaxes once Jaejoong lightly brushes his thumb over his skin. Yunho faces forward and speaks to him over his shoulder.
“Thanks.” Yunho whispers the word, as if it were a secret. Jaejoong barely catches it.
“Thanks for what? You sure are strange, Yunho.”
Yunho turns and smiles again, and it’s the brightest thing Jaejoong has seen in days. “Whatever you say, Jae.”
Jaejoong gently squeezes the other’s hand as they leave the store and return to the rush of people outside. He steps past the threshold and in his heart, he hopes for the both of them.
5. The future is less scary with you by my side.
Title: Five Truths
Author: Bell
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-Shot
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama, Fluff, some humor?
Word Count: 2,692
Summary: Of five things Jaejoong is sure. (A series of interrelated drabbles.)
1. After a while, it becomes difficult to find the ‘me’ in ‘us.’
Jaejoong leaves traces of himself in the others. He compiles a growing list of their “me-isms” in his head: Changmin and Junsu are picking up my accent, Yoochun now holds his chopsticks in the same tilt as mine, Yunho takes his coffee the same way I do, Yunho’s new hats are so similar to mine that he mixes them up, Yunho is growing to like the same music I do.
He checks and re-checks obsessively, and assures himself that if the group were one day ripped apart or if he died tomorrow, he would still exist, somewhere, inside all of them. Makes certain that even if no one remembers the name “Youngwoong Jaejoong,” these pieces of him would still live on.
(“Idiot. You’re not that forgettable,” Yunho says and smiles into the crook of his neck.)
But he worries that traces of the others are seeping into him as well. He can see Yoochun’s gestures in his own hands, can detect Changmin’s sarcasm in his own tone, can hear Junsu’s inflections in his own voice, can breathe in Yunho’s scent in his own clothes, until he doesn’t know how much of himself has truly been theirs all along, as if he were, in the end, just an empty vessel.
Yunho silences him with a press of warm fingers on cold lips. “You worry too much. We’re all a part of each other; each of us is necessary to make up the whole. Isn’t that enough?”
Jaejoong smiles at him and says that it is, but sometimes he has to wonder. Is it enough?
----------
2. True beauty is not a formula.
Jaejoong is tired of the word pretty. Jaejoong is tired of cameras and too-bright lights, tired of the knowledge that his face is his greatest asset. He flips through a pile of music magazines and watches the parade of glossed, airbrushed Jaejoongs with a casual apathy. Who are you, Jaejoong muses as his perfected self stares back.
His stylist stands closely behind him, and admires each page of photos (the soft curves of his jaw, his perfectly smooth skin, his attractively large eyes) with a thinly veiled envy. “Our pretty Jaejoong should have been born as a woman,” she says. “Even his waist is slimmer than mine.”
Jaejoong smiles politely; inside, he feels something prickle. He is intensely aware of how Yunho’s eyes are lingering on him for too long a while, as if the other man were worried he would disappear if he tore away his gaze. When Jaejoong dares to peer in his direction, Yunho blinks, startled, then shyly looks down and thoroughly preoccupies himself with his half-finished meal. He grips his bowl and drinks the remaining broth in big, strong gulps.
Our brave, manly leader even eats soup in a masculine way, Jaejoong thinks, and at first, it is maddening.
But Yunho cares too much, understands him too well; when Yunho later corners him in their apartment, he uses the word ‘beautiful’ and means it.
I wish you weren’t so kind, Jaejoong thinks, as strong arms embrace him.
----------
3. It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Jaejoong doesn’t think about the past. Doesn’t think of days spent grabbing at dropped change on the street when he sees the growing sum on his paychecks, doesn’t think of the once-familiar feeling of his stomach eating away at itself when he samples exotic foreign foods. Jaejoong keeps his memories locked away and tells himself that some things aren’t worth remembering.
Yunho is obsessed with the past. Despite his valiant efforts to hide it, Jaejoong knows that Yunho’s every action is driven by endless possibilities: what if I’m not good enough, what if I can’t last, what if I lose everything, what if, what if, what if. Jaejoong sees it in the smallest things: when Yunho falters just so under the eyes of top executives or from the disappointment or scorn or apathy in their manager’s face, day after day, until Yunho can’t even look at old pictures of Jaejoong and himself (sickly pale skin, skeleton-thin outlines) without vomiting and he is convinced he is going mad.
“It’s okay,” Jaejoong murmurs and holds him as delicately as he can; brushes hair away from sweat-stained skin and sleep-deprived eyes. “It’s okay. You’re here now.”
----------
4. There is no good way to say, “I love you.”
Jaejoong prefers letting the others speak for him. His words always come out wrong; they twist in his throat or get lost on the path from his mind to his mouth. He wishes it were simpler. He wishes there was a way for thoughts to just be sent from one person to another. “Like e-mails,” he explains, and Yunho laughs at his innocence.
“But you can censor yourself in emails. You can’t censor thoughts,” he says as he follows Jaejoong into the balcony, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the three sleeping individuals in the room behind him.
Jaejoong doesn’t respond. He walks across the width of the small area, stopping just short of the railing, and takes in the sight of the nocturnal city around him, bustling and still so alive despite the thick darkness. From behind, Yunho rests his chin on his shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist; in the back of Jaejoong’s mind, he wonders why the gesture isn’t more awkward.
“What are you thinking right now?” Yunho asks, his voice just above a whisper.
“Why?” Jaejoong asks back, but it comes out wrong, sounds more alarmed than he meant it to.
“I was only asking,” Yunho replies with a hint of defense. “It’s just… difficult, sometimes, to know what you’re thinking. Your face doesn’t give much away, and a lot of times you seem so distant. Like anyone who talks to you is intruding on something…”
As Yunho trails off, something in Jaejoong’s chest sinks. Intruding. The word makes him feel empty. He feels Yunho’s arms tighten slightly around him and realizes that the other is waiting for a response.
“I was thinking…” Jaejoong starts after a long pause, opting to avoid Yunho’s analysis of him, “…I was thinking that the two of us are very close.”
“Oh, really? I didn’t notice.”
Jaejoong rolls his eyes and Yunho chuckles. “No, seriously. We’re very very very very close to each other. More than just best friends. It’s like the two of us are… are…” Jaejoong scrunches his eyebrows in frustration. He can’t think of the right words; his mind is a blank.
“Pretend you’re sending an e-mail,” Yunho says with a smile. Jaejoong lifts his hands in imitation of typing and Yunho laughs softly.
“It’s like…” Jaejoong tries again, letting his hands drop, “The two of us are somehow… essential to each other, you know? As if we couldn’t function through everything, through all this,” Jaejoong gestures at the city before them, although he’s not sure why, “…without each other. Yunho, shouldn’t it feel uncomfortable when you hold me like this? But it doesn’t.”
Jaejoong pauses and listens for a reaction. Yunho says nothing.
“Isn’t that kind of… unusual?” Jaejoong continues. “Aren’t we unusual? It seems not normal to be this way with each other. All five of us are close, but the two of us… we’re different. We have a different kind of closeness. You said that it’s difficult for you to know what I’m thinking, but I don’t think that’s true. Not for you, anyway. It’s like… we can understand each other without even really being aware of it. And… and I rely on you so much that it scares me.” Jaejoong ends so softly that he isn’t sure if Yunho hears him, even with their proximity.
Jaejoong stops, not knowing what else to say. Minutes pass by in deep silence, Yunho very, very still all the while, as if frozen by his words. His unresponsiveness frustrates Jaejoong more than it should, until he can’t wait any longer. Baby steps, he thinks and turns within the circle of Yunho’s arms to face him, their chests mere inches apart. “And what about you? Do you think this is… wrong?”
Yunho remains silent, but Jaejoong can see his reply; something in Yunho’s eyes captivates him even more than the twinkling city lights from moments ago.
Jaejoong reaches out and timidly places his hands on the other’s arms, feeling firm muscle under the thin fabric of his sleeves, and it spurs Yunho into action; he leans forward, close enough so that Jaejoong can feel his breaths warm his skin, and tenderly presses his lips to the side of his neck. Yunho travels upward and makes a slow trail across the curve of the other’s jaw, gaining confidence when Jaejoong trembles from the touch but does not object. He brushes his lips gently against Jaejoong’s before fully taking them, and quicker than Jaejoong can protest, Yunho uses his weight to push him against the balcony railing, the metal digging into the back of his waist. Jaejoong’s lips part slightly from the force of it, and Yunho deepens the kiss without waiting for permission.
Yunho gasps his name when they separate, Jaejoong-ah; says it again under his breath when he leans his forehead against Jaejoong’s cheek, the word washing over the still-sensitive skin of his neck. Jaejoong-ah. Yunho says his name as if it were a plea, spoken with such frightening intensity that it makes something in Jaejoong snap.
“Stop it,” he blurts out, but it comes out wrong again; the words sound like an accusation.
Yunho tenses and cautiously draws back, stares at him with heated, piercing eyes, and Jaejoong doesn’t know why, but the desperation he sees in Yunho now frightens him more than anything he’s ever known. “Stop it,” Jaejoong whispers, voice fading partway. Yunho’s expression hardens, then.
“You were wrong, Jae. I really don’t understand you,” he says in the smallest of voices, then steps away, gaze fixed on the ground. A million thoughts flit through Jaejoong’s mind: I’m scared, I’m pathetic, and most of all I’m sorry, but the look on Yunho’s face (distant, cold, ashamed) makes his chest ache. The thoughts are left unsaid; they die in his throat.
Jaejoong searches through the scramble of letters in his head. “I ____ you.” There’s a gap in his thoughts where a word should be, and he wonders if Yunho will wait long enough for him to find it.
----------
Jaejoong doesn’t much like airports. No matter how many or how few countries he visits in a year, airports all blur into each other, an incoherent mess of lines and luggage and swarms of people in his mind. But Jaejoong finds that he’s never liked airports any less than he does today, as he dashes through the never-ending aisle of terminals and bathrooms and eateries, panicked heartbeats pounding in his ears.
Jaejoong eventually finds him sitting in a Starbucks a floor above their assigned terminal in Narita Airport.
“Yunho, what the hell? At least warn us ahead of time before you decide to disappear like that. And why did you turn your cellphone off?”
He doesn’t care that he sounds as irritated as he feels and cares even less that his small commotion is causing some of the female customers to recognize him; Yunho rarely ever acts this reckless, this stupid.
“Sorry, Jae. I just needed to think for a while.” Yunho doesn’t look at him; he stares unblinkingly into his barely-touched cup of coffee.
“Well, you could’ve thought back at the terminal,” Jaejoong snaps. He glowers at Yunho, daring him to meet his eyes. He doesn’t.
Jaejoong keeps his eyes on the other man as he flips open his cellphone and dials. “Yeah Junsu, I found him on the third floor… Don’t bother, he’s fine. We’re just at Starbucks… I don’t know why either…”
Yunho keeps his head down when Jaejoong’s phone clicks shut, but finally jerks up to look at him when he hears the chair opposite him scrape away from the table.
“I’m thinking with you.” Jaejoong sits and crosses his arms, still glowering. Yunho’s eyebrows furrow and he opens his mouth to argue, but Jaejoong’s glare intensifies and his mouth shuts on its own. Yunho mutters something under his breath (“you’re not my nanny”) and stares miserably at his cold coffee.
The two of them sit there, both crossing their arms and refusing to look at anything other than the tabletop, until Jaejoong eventually calms down enough to realize he’s thirsty. He reaches across the table and grabs the coffee, knowing Yunho wouldn’t complain; he smirks to himself a little when he finds that he’s right. He takes a sip, makes a face and reaches for a packet of sugar.
“If you add sugar to that, I’m not drinking it anymore.”
“You’re not drinking it anyway.” Jaejoong rips open the packet and pours its contents into the cup. “So I guess it’s mine now.”
Jaejoong stirs with a thin straw, watching the little molecules of sweetness disintegrate then disappear into the black liquid. When he’s sure all the sugar is invisible, he looks up to find Yunho watching him.
“…Jae?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…” He looks back down at the table. “Do you ever think about what you would do if all this ended one day? Like if we suddenly couldn’t be singers anymore.”
“No,” Jaejoong lies. He continues stirring, studying the coffee as it whirls around. “I live in the moment, remember?”
Yunho looks up at him again, seeming less reluctant now. Their eyes meet at last, and the connection sends a small shiver across Jaejoong’s skin. “Most people would probably expect me to study law, “ Yunho says, ” But to be honest… the lawyer thing has always been more of a fallback, I guess. I really can’t imagine myself as a lawyer. I can’t imagine myself as anything other than what I am now.”
Jaejoong stops stirring. He wonders how Yunho expects him to react to his confession; his expression gives away nothing.
“I can’t either,” Jaejoong admits and hopes the sincerity shows, “And that’s why I think we’ll be doing this forever.”
“Not literally forever.”
“Who really knows? We could be singers in our next life too. And the life after that.”
“Christians don’t believe in next lives,” Yunho reminds, but he’s finally smiling.
“Then we’ll be singers in Heaven.” Jaejoong smiles back.
They fall into silence. Yunho dumps a pile of sugar packets onto the center of the table and sorts them out as Jaejoong comments (“These packets are female because they’re pink,” he proudly announces to the other.) and watches him amusedly, slowly sipping the cup empty of its coffee. He glances at a clock on the wall and is surprised to see that their plane will already be boarding in fifteen minutes, as if the time suddenly sped up after a long, sluggish crawl.
“We should start heading back.”
Yunho glances at the clock too, and Jaejoong notices that the expression on his face is the same one he adopts when reminded of something unpleasant. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
Yunho stands up to leave and Jaejoong does the same. When Yunho is near enough to the door to grab its handle, Jaejoong moves close to his side and clasps his hand in his, making sure the gesture is kept hidden from the peering eyes behind him. Yunho stiffens for a moment, but quickly relaxes once Jaejoong lightly brushes his thumb over his skin. Yunho faces forward and speaks to him over his shoulder.
“Thanks.” Yunho whispers the word, as if it were a secret. Jaejoong barely catches it.
“Thanks for what? You sure are strange, Yunho.”
Yunho turns and smiles again, and it’s the brightest thing Jaejoong has seen in days. “Whatever you say, Jae.”
Jaejoong gently squeezes the other’s hand as they leave the store and return to the rush of people outside. He steps past the threshold and in his heart, he hopes for the both of them.
5. The future is less scary with you by my side.