Arete 1/2 - Make Perfect
Title: Arete 1/2 - Make Perfect
Pairing: YunJae
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Purely fictional! And I don’t own any of the characters~
Word count: 3513
Summary: What if all we needed to be perfect were each other?
♥♥♥
The first time Yunho sees him, their buses were beside each other, and Yunho had been staring mindlessly out the glass panel of the bus. It’s routine, and the same habit that every other office worker, forced out of bed by the blare of their alarm clock and the prospect of spending a chirpy day in the boxed partition they called a cubicle, has, he supposes.
Right.
Yunho has no idea what drew his eyes to said man, and what about said man sent his mind back to him in the seconds their buses spend at the obstructing red of the traffic light. Maybe it is the fact that he isn’t an office worker - he can’t be, the v-necked knit top and tattered denim jeans easily giving him away. Yunho smirks at the thought of wearing that to the office - you can’t even wear that to the office on a smart-casual Friday.
He wonders where a guy who doesn’t need to be up at wee hours of the morning is going at this time.
Then again, maybe it’s the smile-
The light turns green, the buses no longer tremble at a standstill, but rumble to life, turning separate ways at the junction, and Yunho’s thoughts turn elsewhere.
---
Yunho sees him a second time, picking out his form easily, even though he’d seen him only once before, and even though he was sporting groggy eyes. And the thoughts come rushing back.
Maybe it’s the fact that he wore a goofy grin so familiar to his lips that Yunho is sure it worked like a second skin. Yunho likes it, even the memory of it. It reminds him of a sunny-side-up in a way that doesn’t make him hungry. And besides, he can’t remember when was the last time he smiled like-
“Daydreaming, aren’t we?”. A sneer that he could hear.
Yunho vaguely shook his head, not wanting a lack of response to be his downfall to nitpicking, but not wanting to say too much to spark annoyance and open a whole can of worms either.
-smiled like his day was going to be good, he finishes.
Well. Back to work.
---
Twice is luck, but three times? That’s gotta be fate or something. Guess it’s good that he doesn’t believe in that.
Because there is the pretty man, sitting just beside him, albeit on a different bus. And pretty man sounds pretty good. Said pretty man is unfazed but Yunho’s breath is robbed for some unknown reason. He is positively gaping at the man now and he’s so sure that the heat of his stare should penetrate both layers of glass, but the pretty man is still sitting, oblivious and staring ahead. But it doesn’t matter because the everlasting smile is still on his lips, almost permanent.
Yunho wonders if it feels as good as it looks. Focusing on the man’s smile (the side-view of it, anyway), he curves his own lips in a mimic. Or tries to.
His muscles are tense and his skin feels like caked powder that has been left for decades, just about to crack under the slightest pressure. And it doesn’t feel good. Catching sight of his reflection in the glass, he realizes his lips are curved more in a grimace than anything else.
Positively horrendous.
Dropping all his efforts to copy the pretty man, he shrugs and settles for simply gazing at the man for what remaining seconds he had left.
Guess you’ll have to feel good for it to look good.
---
Yunho sets his alarm clock to wake up a little earlier, and dresses a little better in the morning. Nothing large, really, he tells himself. Just a little longer with the brushing of his teeth, a little more careful with the hairstyling, and more meticulous with his shirt, smoothing over creases and checking his reflection a little more.
He doesn’t hurry to the bus stop, but strolls on his way there. Carefully checking his watch every few minutes, he makes sure he gets there at exactly 7.03 a.m., because the bus he usually takes comes at 7.08a.m., give and take several minutes. He gets on the bus and manages to grab a seat, and barely containing his anticipation, he waits for the bus to reach the junction where it has somehow kept meeting with one particular other bus for the past two weeks without fail. Not to mention that the other bus always managed to ferry a particular pretty man at whom he had been (shamelessly) ogling.
The buses are side by side, again, and Yunho peers into the opposite vehicle, trying to locate a familiar figure in those precious seconds. He scans through the people again, then a third, and a fourth time, almost desperately.
Not there.
At the same time, he sees an old lady in the reflection of the glass panel, so he gets up from his seat, offering it to her. He keeps his sigh to himself as he grabs a pole with his free hand, the other balancing a briefcase, just as the buses turn off in opposite directions. But he’s unable to stop himself from feeling disappointed, and from wondering, for the rest of the day (and most part of the night), where the pretty man had been, if not on the bus.
---
The next day, the pretty man is there, on the other bus, like he hadn’t not been there the previous day.
Yunho is happy beyond description, and the rest of the day passes in a rush for him, even though his superior makes several snarky remarks, it doesn’t get him down like it normally does. Work has never seemed so short, and he has never been home so seemingly quickly before. He is glad, though he doesn’t know why, and feels the need to do something for the pretty man who unknowingly pleased him.
He can’t wait for tomorrow.
---
He’s decided he needs to find out the name of the pretty man, and perhaps stop calling him pretty man. Though he thinks it actually fits him rather well. He’d much rather have a name, and he’s curious as hell.
He doesn’t know anything about the man, and doesn’t know what he is going to say to find out his name, when they are technically complete strangers (even if it doesn’t feel like that to him, he’s sure the other man is completely unaware of his existence). But he is on leave today, just for this purpose, and hopefully they don’t stay strangers for long, because he doesn’t want to have another day in the pits of disappointment because he doesn’t see the pretty man on the other bus.
Even though he’s running the risk of being called a stalker, he has checked the service route of the bus the pretty man takes almost every morning. Since he doesn’t know which bus stop the pretty man gets on, he is taking the bus from the terminal station and has calculated the time precisely so that it is the correct bus. Now he’s nervously sitting in the exact bus, his leg bobbing up and down even though he has made numerous conscious efforts to stop it, a thousand scenarios running through his mind about what could happen when the pretty man gets on.
Then the bus halts at yet another bus stop, and the man gets on. And suddenly Yunho has no time to panick anymore.
The newcomer seems to meet his eyes for a moment and Yunho’s mouth runs dry. Then Yunho thinks he imagined it because the pretty man didn’t pause in recognition or anything like that, just strode easily to the seat beside him and sat down. All his dreamt-up scenarios flew out of his head, because he certainly didn’t predict this would happen, of all things. The brief contact between their sides sends Yunho a little over the dazed side, and he’s flustered, wanting to say something but not knowing what. And he says the first thing that comes to mind.
“You weren’t on the bus the day before yesterday.”
He sees the other man’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Great going, Yunho, just great. Word vomit is just-
Laughter. Pretty laughter. Just like him. And Yunho’s head suddenly skids to a stop. Or was it his heart, he isn't too sure. Nothing seems to work right as his head tries to wrap around the idea of the beautiful laughter and the fact that it's coming from the pretty man that he seems to know but doesn't know at the same time.
“Your laughter is like you. Pretty.”
Yunho’s breath catches in his throat right after the words tumble from his lips unthinkingly. Oh god, he could just shoot himself now. Or find a hole and crawl into it and never ever come out to see the sunlight again. Why didn’t he just make things a little easier and simply wear a sign that screams ‘I’m your STALKER’?
Yunho wants to apologise and get up and jump off the bus even though it hasn’t reached another bus stop but he can’t stop staring, almost fascinated, at the man as he watches the man’s cheek take on a tinge of red. The laughter has stopped since his last remark, but the man doesn’t seem offended. More like..embarrassed? Yunho’s heart swells with silly hope.
Silly. He knows it’s silly, but he hopes nonetheless.
A smile, with a slight blush. “Thank you. My name is Jaejoong.”
Yunho’s brain turns to mush, but he somehow manages to deal.
“I’m Yunho.”
---
His steps are light-hearted as he leaves the campus, his heart singing a soprano that tells of spring and joy and mirth.
Jaejoong. Jaejoong. Jaejoong.
He likes the sound of it, and how the syllables roll off his tongue easily. It’s pretty like him, and perfect. Everything about Jaejoong seems to be perfect; he can’t find even one thing that he dislikes about the man.
After the first meeting (which was quite disastrous in his opinion; luckily for him, Jaejoong overlooked his oddity), he had gotten off at the same stop as Jaejoong and walked him to the university. Apparently the conversation that followed after introduction on the bus had been considerably more normal, and they had traded numbers with promises to hang out someday. They had clicked immediately; even though Yunho had been nervous and dumb (he is almost sure his brain resembles mashed potato, except in a shade of grey, when Jaejoong gets close). Jaejoong was so easy to talk to. And the rest was history.
It has been almost one month since that day. And Yunho’s feelings are only growing stronger. He’d been a little unsure at first. How can it be? How can he feel…so much for a stranger on the opposite bus? That had been what his question was. But putting everything aside, and remembering the feeling of not seeing Jaejoong that one day on the bus, and remembering the feeling of not getting to know more about Jaejoong, he knows.
Knows that he is in love with Jae.
He supposes he should be feeling scared. Scared of how fast this is going and how hard he is falling. And that he should be telling himself not to, because he is Yunho, and this is real life, not some fairy tale that girls he had briefly dated in university would swoon over and where everything would end happily ever after.
And really, after two years beyond graduation and working in the real world, if there’s one thing that he’s learned, it’d be that nothing is easy and nothing really goes right here. After all, isn’t that what changed him from a newly-graduated student - fresh, ambitious and full of dreams and hopes - to an adult - hard, bitter and just bearing, surviving - right now?
But for what it’s worth, when he’s with Jaejoong, he feels like the person he was before. Hopeful, ambitious, driven. Daring to dream. Brave.
And who’s to say that isn’t a good thing?
---
Yunho is sure this is something that he has never had before. He’s sure Jaejoong makes him perfect, completes his broken-down world that has gone grey for far too long.
For his birthday, they celebrate over glowing candles, hands entwining with each other’s, lips meeting over red velvet chocolate cupcakes Jaejoong baked.
Turns out Jaejoong bakes well. And not just cupcakes, too. Yunho carefully removes the wrapping to find a beautiful hand-painted pot.
The note reads, “To a person who claims he can’t breed a plant, but has made love bloom so beautifully in my heart (that I refuse to believe the former).”
Yunho tries to pretend dust got into his eyes despite the immaculate state of Jaejoong’s apartment, and Jaejoong just smiles against his eyelids, clutching Yunho’s hands away from them and pressing gentle kisses.
---
His boss breathes down his neck today.
This day is, perhaps, different from the others for so many different reasons. Perhaps it’s because he woke up with his heart bursting and could hear the birds chirping this morning. Perhaps it’s because he had breathed in the nervousness, swallowed the thumping of his heart, and finally mustered the courage to grab Jae’s hand. Perhaps it’s because they had held hands - both nervous, a little sweaty, but perfect - all the way to the university and Jae had given him the most beautiful smile ever and his heart had overflowed with happiness. Perhaps-
-it’s love, and there’s no perhaps because he knows it for sure.
He won’t allow his boss to sully this day, to bring him down like the latter always does.
Not today, he thinks, as he turns around and faces his boss in a civilized manner that is sure to sting more than anything because it screams I’m better than you. He doesn’t remember what he says about respect and the human integrity and much else, but he quits before his boss can slip in a “you’re fired!”. He feels the stares (in awe, maybe? Or is it disbelief?) as he calmly picks up his few personal effects from the desk, and walks from the office.
Heck, he just lost his job, but it was a long time in coming, and he has never felt braver, or more at ease, than at the present moment.
---
It doesn’t dawn on him till much later in the night, after he comes down from the high of meeting Jaejoong.
Holy shit - he lost his job.
He starts to panick and wonder if massive amounts of shameless groveling will help him get it back. Then he finally remembers what he said, and nope, groveling - even begging on his knees - won’t help.
---
Yet another interview without news. He knows what’s happening. Once they call up his ex-employer, they’d change their minds. Yet he has no choice but to leave that name under the experience clause, considering he had kept the job since graduation. Why didn’t I find another job? He wonders flittingly, half appalled, half amazed.
It’s no good, Yunho thinks, staring down at his hands and blinking away the pinpricks.
Yunho doesn’t know when he began to think about the house.
The whole situation is so amusing that he could almost laugh. Except that it’s not, and he doesn’t actually want to laugh.
The house, damn it. The fence and a garden. Two stories, with monochromatic furnishing, or neutral tones. A bathroom with a bathtub, eventually a Jacuzzi once he can afford it.
When did this all become his?
---
“Let’s break up.”
“Wait Yunho, what-“
“No.”
He saw it coming, but he doesn’t dodge, doesn’t flinch. The iron he can taste in his mouth comes before the pain, but he deserves all of it, and more.
He doesn’t call Jaejoong back despite how much he wants to. But his heart aches when he can no longer follow him with his eyes.
---
It came in the mail.
It must have been before they-
Broke up, Yunho thinks, and clenches his fists. Jaejoong must have put his name into the register before he went and did that.
His heart clenches as he remembered Jaejoong’s doe eyes that held both confusion and hope, warring. His eyes had been filling fast, brimming with tears, yet he had waited for Yunho’s answer.
Like he had wanted to believe Yunho had a reason all the way till the end.
---
He shouldn’t be here.
He knows that, but that’s the last thing on his mind as he stalks through the gallery, trying to figure out which was Jaejoong’s. He doesn’t deserve to be invited to the graduating class’ exhibition, that he knows. But he’s here anyway, and he doesn’t know what he should be feeling. His heart wants to bump into Jaejoong and his head says it’s best that they don’t. Yet he’s unable to stop his eyes from darting everywhere, skimping every figure and trying to locate the one that’s so familiar to him.
The flash of dulled colours makes him stop in his tracks.
He knows it can’t be Jaejoong’s. His works are always bright, beautiful.. Cheery, like everything that the beautiful boy who brought joy into his life is. And still, his feet don’t stop.
When he gets closer, he sees the printed letters below the frame:
Bloom
Kim Jaejoong
(Class of 2013)
His eyes are transfixed as he takes in every detail of the painting. His eyes are filling, and he hears the whispered ‘it’s beautiful’ before realizing it’s from his lips. Yunho lets the first tears fall as he keeps his head lowered, fumbling in his bag as he exits the gallery.
Heart thundering in his ears, he listens to the dial tone before the call connects. He barely makes out a choked phrase consisting of perfection and beautiful. There’s a silence where he’s overcome by emotions, and waiting with growing anxiety, before Jaejoong finally speaks.
“Let’s meet.”
---
It’s awkward and heart breaking, the way Jaejoong stops many feet away from him.
Guarded, the word finally comes into Yunho’s half-frozen brain, as he realizes that he must have frozen half of Jaejoong’s heart in his callous abandonment. Jaejoong’s lost weight since the time they last met, and Yunho blames himself for that. He wants to shoot himself and beg Jaejoong on his knees.
Jaejoong doesn’t move closer, so Yunho does, tentatively, hoping with all his might that Jaejoong does not turn tail and run away at proximity to him. So intent on watching Jaejoong’s reactions, he almost misses the question when Jaejoong finally speaks.
“Why?”
It’s harder than he thought. To explain. To let Jaejoong see his flaws as a person. He’s half-afraid that if Jaejoong hasn’t seen it yet, then when he says it, when he articulates his own flaws, Jaejoong’s going to come to realization about them. About how he is completely undeserving of perfect, perfect Jaejoong.
Jaejoong’s face falls as the silence drags on. And in that instant, Yunho realizes he is one big douchebag who’d rather hurt than be hurt. There’s suddenly an understanding in him that even if he doesn’t get Jaejoong back this night, he’ll do all he can to make Jaejoong feel better. And after that, he’ll fight for Jaejoong. And suddenly it’s not so hard, and everything tumbles out in a rush.
“Look at you, you’re bright, you’re amazing, you’re going to make it big one day,”
“And?”
“And I’m a failure.” Yunho’s eyes fixate on a pebble on the ground, his foot coming to roll it around in the dust. “Someone you’ll be better off without.”
Yunho finally looks up in a rare moment of courage, all his words tumbling over one another to make it out of his mouth. “I can’t-can’t stop thinking of all the things I could fail you in, could be lacking in. ”
A breath. For courage, Yunho tells himself.
“You’re perfect to me.”
There’s a pause and Yunho finds himself with an armful of Jaejoong. “I’m not perfect,” Jaejoong buries his nose into Yunho’s shoulder, “but I think you could make me.”
Maybe it’s a little bleak. Yunho can’t see what the future might hold for them. Jaejoong is a struggling artist who’s just graduated, and Yunho is going into a venture that may succeed, but may also fail entirely. But he thinks it’s alright, he doesn’t need to know the future to be happy, be complete with just Jaejoong and just as he voices this, Jaejoong kisses him, whispering against his lips.
‘It’s going to be perfect, as long as I’m with you, Jung Yunho.’
Just before his brain misfires, Yunho thinks that perhaps Jaejoong is what will make him perfect, and just perhaps, he’s what Jaejoong needs to be perfect as well, and smiles into the kiss.
They part for air, gloved hands finding each other, walking off back towards the direction of the gallery as Jaejoong complains about Yunho’s lips being freezing and pulls Yunho down for another kiss with a promise to warm them up.
♥♥♥
A/N: Merry Christmas guys! It’s a two-shot that has questions answered in the second part! :D
Pairing: YunJae
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Purely fictional! And I don’t own any of the characters~
Word count: 3513
Summary: What if all we needed to be perfect were each other?
♥♥♥
The first time Yunho sees him, their buses were beside each other, and Yunho had been staring mindlessly out the glass panel of the bus. It’s routine, and the same habit that every other office worker, forced out of bed by the blare of their alarm clock and the prospect of spending a chirpy day in the boxed partition they called a cubicle, has, he supposes.
Right.
Yunho has no idea what drew his eyes to said man, and what about said man sent his mind back to him in the seconds their buses spend at the obstructing red of the traffic light. Maybe it is the fact that he isn’t an office worker - he can’t be, the v-necked knit top and tattered denim jeans easily giving him away. Yunho smirks at the thought of wearing that to the office - you can’t even wear that to the office on a smart-casual Friday.
He wonders where a guy who doesn’t need to be up at wee hours of the morning is going at this time.
Then again, maybe it’s the smile-
The light turns green, the buses no longer tremble at a standstill, but rumble to life, turning separate ways at the junction, and Yunho’s thoughts turn elsewhere.
---
Yunho sees him a second time, picking out his form easily, even though he’d seen him only once before, and even though he was sporting groggy eyes. And the thoughts come rushing back.
Maybe it’s the fact that he wore a goofy grin so familiar to his lips that Yunho is sure it worked like a second skin. Yunho likes it, even the memory of it. It reminds him of a sunny-side-up in a way that doesn’t make him hungry. And besides, he can’t remember when was the last time he smiled like-
“Daydreaming, aren’t we?”. A sneer that he could hear.
Yunho vaguely shook his head, not wanting a lack of response to be his downfall to nitpicking, but not wanting to say too much to spark annoyance and open a whole can of worms either.
-smiled like his day was going to be good, he finishes.
Well. Back to work.
---
Twice is luck, but three times? That’s gotta be fate or something. Guess it’s good that he doesn’t believe in that.
Because there is the pretty man, sitting just beside him, albeit on a different bus. And pretty man sounds pretty good. Said pretty man is unfazed but Yunho’s breath is robbed for some unknown reason. He is positively gaping at the man now and he’s so sure that the heat of his stare should penetrate both layers of glass, but the pretty man is still sitting, oblivious and staring ahead. But it doesn’t matter because the everlasting smile is still on his lips, almost permanent.
Yunho wonders if it feels as good as it looks. Focusing on the man’s smile (the side-view of it, anyway), he curves his own lips in a mimic. Or tries to.
His muscles are tense and his skin feels like caked powder that has been left for decades, just about to crack under the slightest pressure. And it doesn’t feel good. Catching sight of his reflection in the glass, he realizes his lips are curved more in a grimace than anything else.
Positively horrendous.
Dropping all his efforts to copy the pretty man, he shrugs and settles for simply gazing at the man for what remaining seconds he had left.
Guess you’ll have to feel good for it to look good.
---
Yunho sets his alarm clock to wake up a little earlier, and dresses a little better in the morning. Nothing large, really, he tells himself. Just a little longer with the brushing of his teeth, a little more careful with the hairstyling, and more meticulous with his shirt, smoothing over creases and checking his reflection a little more.
He doesn’t hurry to the bus stop, but strolls on his way there. Carefully checking his watch every few minutes, he makes sure he gets there at exactly 7.03 a.m., because the bus he usually takes comes at 7.08a.m., give and take several minutes. He gets on the bus and manages to grab a seat, and barely containing his anticipation, he waits for the bus to reach the junction where it has somehow kept meeting with one particular other bus for the past two weeks without fail. Not to mention that the other bus always managed to ferry a particular pretty man at whom he had been (shamelessly) ogling.
The buses are side by side, again, and Yunho peers into the opposite vehicle, trying to locate a familiar figure in those precious seconds. He scans through the people again, then a third, and a fourth time, almost desperately.
Not there.
At the same time, he sees an old lady in the reflection of the glass panel, so he gets up from his seat, offering it to her. He keeps his sigh to himself as he grabs a pole with his free hand, the other balancing a briefcase, just as the buses turn off in opposite directions. But he’s unable to stop himself from feeling disappointed, and from wondering, for the rest of the day (and most part of the night), where the pretty man had been, if not on the bus.
---
The next day, the pretty man is there, on the other bus, like he hadn’t not been there the previous day.
Yunho is happy beyond description, and the rest of the day passes in a rush for him, even though his superior makes several snarky remarks, it doesn’t get him down like it normally does. Work has never seemed so short, and he has never been home so seemingly quickly before. He is glad, though he doesn’t know why, and feels the need to do something for the pretty man who unknowingly pleased him.
He can’t wait for tomorrow.
---
He’s decided he needs to find out the name of the pretty man, and perhaps stop calling him pretty man. Though he thinks it actually fits him rather well. He’d much rather have a name, and he’s curious as hell.
He doesn’t know anything about the man, and doesn’t know what he is going to say to find out his name, when they are technically complete strangers (even if it doesn’t feel like that to him, he’s sure the other man is completely unaware of his existence). But he is on leave today, just for this purpose, and hopefully they don’t stay strangers for long, because he doesn’t want to have another day in the pits of disappointment because he doesn’t see the pretty man on the other bus.
Even though he’s running the risk of being called a stalker, he has checked the service route of the bus the pretty man takes almost every morning. Since he doesn’t know which bus stop the pretty man gets on, he is taking the bus from the terminal station and has calculated the time precisely so that it is the correct bus. Now he’s nervously sitting in the exact bus, his leg bobbing up and down even though he has made numerous conscious efforts to stop it, a thousand scenarios running through his mind about what could happen when the pretty man gets on.
Then the bus halts at yet another bus stop, and the man gets on. And suddenly Yunho has no time to panick anymore.
The newcomer seems to meet his eyes for a moment and Yunho’s mouth runs dry. Then Yunho thinks he imagined it because the pretty man didn’t pause in recognition or anything like that, just strode easily to the seat beside him and sat down. All his dreamt-up scenarios flew out of his head, because he certainly didn’t predict this would happen, of all things. The brief contact between their sides sends Yunho a little over the dazed side, and he’s flustered, wanting to say something but not knowing what. And he says the first thing that comes to mind.
“You weren’t on the bus the day before yesterday.”
He sees the other man’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Great going, Yunho, just great. Word vomit is just-
Laughter. Pretty laughter. Just like him. And Yunho’s head suddenly skids to a stop. Or was it his heart, he isn't too sure. Nothing seems to work right as his head tries to wrap around the idea of the beautiful laughter and the fact that it's coming from the pretty man that he seems to know but doesn't know at the same time.
“Your laughter is like you. Pretty.”
Yunho’s breath catches in his throat right after the words tumble from his lips unthinkingly. Oh god, he could just shoot himself now. Or find a hole and crawl into it and never ever come out to see the sunlight again. Why didn’t he just make things a little easier and simply wear a sign that screams ‘I’m your STALKER’?
Yunho wants to apologise and get up and jump off the bus even though it hasn’t reached another bus stop but he can’t stop staring, almost fascinated, at the man as he watches the man’s cheek take on a tinge of red. The laughter has stopped since his last remark, but the man doesn’t seem offended. More like..embarrassed? Yunho’s heart swells with silly hope.
Silly. He knows it’s silly, but he hopes nonetheless.
A smile, with a slight blush. “Thank you. My name is Jaejoong.”
Yunho’s brain turns to mush, but he somehow manages to deal.
“I’m Yunho.”
---
His steps are light-hearted as he leaves the campus, his heart singing a soprano that tells of spring and joy and mirth.
Jaejoong. Jaejoong. Jaejoong.
He likes the sound of it, and how the syllables roll off his tongue easily. It’s pretty like him, and perfect. Everything about Jaejoong seems to be perfect; he can’t find even one thing that he dislikes about the man.
After the first meeting (which was quite disastrous in his opinion; luckily for him, Jaejoong overlooked his oddity), he had gotten off at the same stop as Jaejoong and walked him to the university. Apparently the conversation that followed after introduction on the bus had been considerably more normal, and they had traded numbers with promises to hang out someday. They had clicked immediately; even though Yunho had been nervous and dumb (he is almost sure his brain resembles mashed potato, except in a shade of grey, when Jaejoong gets close). Jaejoong was so easy to talk to. And the rest was history.
It has been almost one month since that day. And Yunho’s feelings are only growing stronger. He’d been a little unsure at first. How can it be? How can he feel…so much for a stranger on the opposite bus? That had been what his question was. But putting everything aside, and remembering the feeling of not seeing Jaejoong that one day on the bus, and remembering the feeling of not getting to know more about Jaejoong, he knows.
Knows that he is in love with Jae.
He supposes he should be feeling scared. Scared of how fast this is going and how hard he is falling. And that he should be telling himself not to, because he is Yunho, and this is real life, not some fairy tale that girls he had briefly dated in university would swoon over and where everything would end happily ever after.
And really, after two years beyond graduation and working in the real world, if there’s one thing that he’s learned, it’d be that nothing is easy and nothing really goes right here. After all, isn’t that what changed him from a newly-graduated student - fresh, ambitious and full of dreams and hopes - to an adult - hard, bitter and just bearing, surviving - right now?
But for what it’s worth, when he’s with Jaejoong, he feels like the person he was before. Hopeful, ambitious, driven. Daring to dream. Brave.
And who’s to say that isn’t a good thing?
---
Yunho is sure this is something that he has never had before. He’s sure Jaejoong makes him perfect, completes his broken-down world that has gone grey for far too long.
For his birthday, they celebrate over glowing candles, hands entwining with each other’s, lips meeting over red velvet chocolate cupcakes Jaejoong baked.
Turns out Jaejoong bakes well. And not just cupcakes, too. Yunho carefully removes the wrapping to find a beautiful hand-painted pot.
The note reads, “To a person who claims he can’t breed a plant, but has made love bloom so beautifully in my heart (that I refuse to believe the former).”
Yunho tries to pretend dust got into his eyes despite the immaculate state of Jaejoong’s apartment, and Jaejoong just smiles against his eyelids, clutching Yunho’s hands away from them and pressing gentle kisses.
---
His boss breathes down his neck today.
This day is, perhaps, different from the others for so many different reasons. Perhaps it’s because he woke up with his heart bursting and could hear the birds chirping this morning. Perhaps it’s because he had breathed in the nervousness, swallowed the thumping of his heart, and finally mustered the courage to grab Jae’s hand. Perhaps it’s because they had held hands - both nervous, a little sweaty, but perfect - all the way to the university and Jae had given him the most beautiful smile ever and his heart had overflowed with happiness. Perhaps-
-it’s love, and there’s no perhaps because he knows it for sure.
He won’t allow his boss to sully this day, to bring him down like the latter always does.
Not today, he thinks, as he turns around and faces his boss in a civilized manner that is sure to sting more than anything because it screams I’m better than you. He doesn’t remember what he says about respect and the human integrity and much else, but he quits before his boss can slip in a “you’re fired!”. He feels the stares (in awe, maybe? Or is it disbelief?) as he calmly picks up his few personal effects from the desk, and walks from the office.
Heck, he just lost his job, but it was a long time in coming, and he has never felt braver, or more at ease, than at the present moment.
---
It doesn’t dawn on him till much later in the night, after he comes down from the high of meeting Jaejoong.
Holy shit - he lost his job.
He starts to panick and wonder if massive amounts of shameless groveling will help him get it back. Then he finally remembers what he said, and nope, groveling - even begging on his knees - won’t help.
---
Yet another interview without news. He knows what’s happening. Once they call up his ex-employer, they’d change their minds. Yet he has no choice but to leave that name under the experience clause, considering he had kept the job since graduation. Why didn’t I find another job? He wonders flittingly, half appalled, half amazed.
It’s no good, Yunho thinks, staring down at his hands and blinking away the pinpricks.
Yunho doesn’t know when he began to think about the house.
The whole situation is so amusing that he could almost laugh. Except that it’s not, and he doesn’t actually want to laugh.
The house, damn it. The fence and a garden. Two stories, with monochromatic furnishing, or neutral tones. A bathroom with a bathtub, eventually a Jacuzzi once he can afford it.
When did this all become his?
---
“Let’s break up.”
“Wait Yunho, what-“
“No.”
He saw it coming, but he doesn’t dodge, doesn’t flinch. The iron he can taste in his mouth comes before the pain, but he deserves all of it, and more.
He doesn’t call Jaejoong back despite how much he wants to. But his heart aches when he can no longer follow him with his eyes.
---
It came in the mail.
It must have been before they-
Broke up, Yunho thinks, and clenches his fists. Jaejoong must have put his name into the register before he went and did that.
His heart clenches as he remembered Jaejoong’s doe eyes that held both confusion and hope, warring. His eyes had been filling fast, brimming with tears, yet he had waited for Yunho’s answer.
Like he had wanted to believe Yunho had a reason all the way till the end.
---
He shouldn’t be here.
He knows that, but that’s the last thing on his mind as he stalks through the gallery, trying to figure out which was Jaejoong’s. He doesn’t deserve to be invited to the graduating class’ exhibition, that he knows. But he’s here anyway, and he doesn’t know what he should be feeling. His heart wants to bump into Jaejoong and his head says it’s best that they don’t. Yet he’s unable to stop his eyes from darting everywhere, skimping every figure and trying to locate the one that’s so familiar to him.
The flash of dulled colours makes him stop in his tracks.
He knows it can’t be Jaejoong’s. His works are always bright, beautiful.. Cheery, like everything that the beautiful boy who brought joy into his life is. And still, his feet don’t stop.
When he gets closer, he sees the printed letters below the frame:
Bloom
Kim Jaejoong
(Class of 2013)
His eyes are transfixed as he takes in every detail of the painting. His eyes are filling, and he hears the whispered ‘it’s beautiful’ before realizing it’s from his lips. Yunho lets the first tears fall as he keeps his head lowered, fumbling in his bag as he exits the gallery.
Heart thundering in his ears, he listens to the dial tone before the call connects. He barely makes out a choked phrase consisting of perfection and beautiful. There’s a silence where he’s overcome by emotions, and waiting with growing anxiety, before Jaejoong finally speaks.
“Let’s meet.”
---
It’s awkward and heart breaking, the way Jaejoong stops many feet away from him.
Guarded, the word finally comes into Yunho’s half-frozen brain, as he realizes that he must have frozen half of Jaejoong’s heart in his callous abandonment. Jaejoong’s lost weight since the time they last met, and Yunho blames himself for that. He wants to shoot himself and beg Jaejoong on his knees.
Jaejoong doesn’t move closer, so Yunho does, tentatively, hoping with all his might that Jaejoong does not turn tail and run away at proximity to him. So intent on watching Jaejoong’s reactions, he almost misses the question when Jaejoong finally speaks.
“Why?”
It’s harder than he thought. To explain. To let Jaejoong see his flaws as a person. He’s half-afraid that if Jaejoong hasn’t seen it yet, then when he says it, when he articulates his own flaws, Jaejoong’s going to come to realization about them. About how he is completely undeserving of perfect, perfect Jaejoong.
Jaejoong’s face falls as the silence drags on. And in that instant, Yunho realizes he is one big douchebag who’d rather hurt than be hurt. There’s suddenly an understanding in him that even if he doesn’t get Jaejoong back this night, he’ll do all he can to make Jaejoong feel better. And after that, he’ll fight for Jaejoong. And suddenly it’s not so hard, and everything tumbles out in a rush.
“Look at you, you’re bright, you’re amazing, you’re going to make it big one day,”
“And?”
“And I’m a failure.” Yunho’s eyes fixate on a pebble on the ground, his foot coming to roll it around in the dust. “Someone you’ll be better off without.”
Yunho finally looks up in a rare moment of courage, all his words tumbling over one another to make it out of his mouth. “I can’t-can’t stop thinking of all the things I could fail you in, could be lacking in. ”
A breath. For courage, Yunho tells himself.
“You’re perfect to me.”
There’s a pause and Yunho finds himself with an armful of Jaejoong. “I’m not perfect,” Jaejoong buries his nose into Yunho’s shoulder, “but I think you could make me.”
Maybe it’s a little bleak. Yunho can’t see what the future might hold for them. Jaejoong is a struggling artist who’s just graduated, and Yunho is going into a venture that may succeed, but may also fail entirely. But he thinks it’s alright, he doesn’t need to know the future to be happy, be complete with just Jaejoong and just as he voices this, Jaejoong kisses him, whispering against his lips.
‘It’s going to be perfect, as long as I’m with you, Jung Yunho.’
Just before his brain misfires, Yunho thinks that perhaps Jaejoong is what will make him perfect, and just perhaps, he’s what Jaejoong needs to be perfect as well, and smiles into the kiss.
They part for air, gloved hands finding each other, walking off back towards the direction of the gallery as Jaejoong complains about Yunho’s lips being freezing and pulls Yunho down for another kiss with a promise to warm them up.
♥♥♥
A/N: Merry Christmas guys! It’s a two-shot that has questions answered in the second part! :D