[Oneshot] A Song About Love
Title: A Song About Love
Character: Yoochun-centric, but everyone's there
Pairing: Jaechun, Jaeho, Yoosu maybe, but I'm not sure.
Rating: Emm. PG-13 for cuss words and implied drug use
Summary: Here is Jaejoong chasing his dream, Yoochun fast behind him.
A/N: Because I have an unhealthy obsession for RENT and because I needed a break from ghost!Jaes. :D (I will update though. Soon. Promise.)
Song lyrics obviously from RENT, one from Alternative Route's Ordinary.
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A Song About Love
New York City,
center of the universe.
It’s on some days, quiet and still, that gets Yoochun thinking. Here is Yoochun, twenty, wild and free; a boy in the big city. Here is Yoochun, whose life is being measured in coffee spoons and refrigerator magnet poetry.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Junsu says, pinching his leg as he passes by the kitchen counter. He’s (She, sometimes) chosen to be normal today: too-tight jeans, ratty Chucks and a shirt that’s two sizes too big for him. Yoochun blinks at first, fails to recognize Junsu without the makeup and glamour, theatrics and drama. “God, I’m late. See you later, honey.” He blows a kiss at both him and Jaejoong (Jaejoong catches it in his fist) and leaves, humming Queen under his breath, his footsteps swallowed by the sounds of midmorning traffic irritable in the summer heat that waft in through the open windows.
The bang of the door welcomes a slight breeze that ripples through the room, detaches Yoochun from his thoughts of what if, could have, home, maybe that have stuck together in the heat as much as his jeans have been pasted to the kitchen counter.
“Chunnie.”
Jaejoong is on the windowsill, bathed in dust and neon sunlight. The city is eleven stories below him on his left and a million miles away from any of them. Sometimes he wonders if Jaejoong wonders too, when his hands aren’t busy with battered guitars and mics that screech when you get too close.
“Chunnie, I think I just found another song,” Jaejoong says. Found never make, because songs to him are like fireflies, things to be searched for, to be caught and kept safe in a glass jar. Yoochun turns himself off, focuses on Jaejoong with the cigarette behind his ear and the guitar in his hands, ready to be his audience.
“Cool,” he smiles, and even without him requesting, the song comes alive under the dancing of Jaejoong’s fingers; smooth, steady, as though Jaejoong’s reading from music sheets, the notes cutting sharply through the languid morning.
(Here is Jaejoong chasing his dream, Yoochun fast behind him.)
Leave your conscience
at the tone.
It had been Jaejoong’s idea.
Jaejoong who has always been peculiar, who invented his own language in the second grade, who leapt from his roof when they were eleven; Jaejoong who had (has, but it’s not like there’s a difference) a father who always took his instruments away, and Yoochun would end up hearing several renditions of Pachelbel’s Canon in D on his long-abandoned violin while doing their Geography homework.
Jaejoong who had tears in his eyes and a(nother) growing welt on his cheek, who had come to him to say goodbye but instead it was two of them who left, because it was him who had wings big enough to take them both far, far away.
Where do you want to go?
Neverland.
This was as far as the Greyhound Bus could take them.
(You do know this is Alphabet City, Heechul had told them, once upon a time, eyes dancing with mischief, his strawberry-red hair tied back in a way that reminded Yoochun of a firework, Lots of things happen here. Everything your mother warned you about. But Jaejoong was excited and his face was glowing Big Apple Empire State oh my fucking God and he says When can we move in, even though Yoochun was scared, unsure, wondered if they’d done the right thing).
Pretty boy front man;
the world at his feet.
He watches Jaejoong perform, once, twice, thrice a week. Beer is free thanks to Junsu, and additional entertainment on the house thanks to Changmin and his drunken spiels. Jaejoong makes thirty dollars each gig, fifty or more sometimes because some customers appreciate a pretty face as well as nimble fingers. With Yunho, it can reach until a hundred and it’s more than enough to last them until the next gig, but Yunho has been out of action for so long now that sometimes Yoochun forgets he and Jaejoong ever shared a stage.
I’ve been wasting my days, good and reckless and true, Jaejoong sings an old favorite, croons into the mic as though it’s a lover. He’s glowing under the lights: untouchable like Yoochun’s always believed him to be.
Would you love, could you love to be ordinary?
“Big crowd tonight,” Junsu says as he appears from the crowd of teenagers, all linked wrists and spangled dreams, and slides in beside him. The boa around his neck makes Yoochun sneeze. “Bless you.” Junsu laughs, picks the cigarette Yoochun has between his fingers and slips it into his mouth, blows out smoke as snakes that wrap around their heads.
“Changmin’s quoting Heidegger again.”
“I told you to put away those books.”
“It’s funny to watch.”
The song has died down and applause is rippling through the crowd. Jaejoong appears and gives Junsu a small shove before slipping into the seat adjacent him and Yoochun. His eyes are bright and wandering, and sweat covers him in a silver sheen. For once, he doesn’t look for Yunho.
“Remember that song, Chun?” He laughs, folds up the sleeves of the red plaid polo shirt that’s as old as the song itself. “Ninth grade, by the football pitch. Remember?” He grabs the beer bottle Yoochun’s holding by the neck and sings into it, And at the end of the day,
(Jaejoong’s smile is iridescent under the dying lights and Junsu’s lips are soft and bittersweet as they press against his.)
Will you stand in the ashes building a flame for the rest of your dreams?
One song,
a song about love.
They had met Yunho when he was still living several floors below them and Heechul. A guitarist, all rock star glamour and dreams of glory. A has-been before he had actually even started. Yoochun remembers seeing the track marks on his arm and remembers wanting to stay away. It was Jaejoong who had given him a chance. Ever curious. Ever patient. He was drawn to Yunho’s scowl and scarred soul like a moth to a flame.
(Jaejoong, he’d said, warned, when Yunho’s things and his presence were already becoming too much inside the apartment, but Jaejoong had taken him aside, voice low and out of earshot.
He’s broken, Jaejoong had said. I can fix him, I know I can. Just give him a chance, Chunnie.)
He knocks on the door as soft as he can, and when he finally pushes the door open, isn’t surprised when Jaejoong is there accompanying Yunho in the dark. There when he’s supposed to be working, there when food’s supposed to be bought and rent paid.
“How’s he doing?” Yoochun asks as he sets down the mug of tea on the floor before he can spill it. There are bad days like this, because Yunho can’t be weaned off of the drugs as easily but Yoochun knows he tries, even though some days they end up with bloody noses and bruised fists and words they never meant to be released. Yunho tries.
“Better,” Jaejoong says, a silhouette, from Changmin’s bed. Yunho is a messy lump of sheets with only the crown of his head sticking out. Yoochun edges closer to Jaejoong, leans over to the older boy, eyes squinting in the darkness. Jaejoong shies from his gaze, lowers his chin to his thin chest, urging a shock of bleached blond hair to fall into his face.
“Again. He did it again.” Yoochun breathes, and for a second nothing stirs, only the three of them trapped in the hot dank room that reeks of sweat and cigarettes and once-glittery hopes and dreams forced into pillboxes.
“He doesn’t mean it,” Jaejoong whispers, head still down. “He’s sick. He can’t help it.”
Sick, the word churns in his stomach and he remembers Heechul, spiteful and irritable until the end, and how they all miss him. Sick, and there’s an image of a smog-ridden city and the disease-ridden streets, the dirty alleys and byways and mazes that make up where they live in. Sick, and there’s them, stuck in a place that was supposed to determine their freedom, and he can’t really decide on whether every day he should be thankful he’s still alive, or regretful that he still hasn’t left.
(You have me, Jaejoong always says, You’ve always had me. We’ll be okay. I promise.)
“Okay,” he says, because he’s a shadow, a life preserver, only noticed when needed, only to be used when absolutely necessary.
“Thank you.”
Play the game.
Changmin is ADD-addled, is all long legs and arms that get in their way. He’s logic where Yoochun is art, and says he dreams of numbers even when he’s awake. (There are quadratic equations in the cereal, pi on rusty lampposts, and derivatives on beer bottles drying on the wall.) He’s class-A geek with a smart mouth, a dropout who can hack into any system he can get his hands on. Yoochun forgets how young he is sometimes, when he’s out hitting joints or getting his hands in places that aren’t computer keyboards, but he’s forced to remember; when Yunho and Jaejoong are screaming their throats raw and things are thrown about, it’s him whom Changmin runs to.
“Yoochun, make it stop, Yoochun,” he pleads, a ball almost invisible on the couch, hands to his ears.
(Make it stop, Yoochun, make it stop, Jaejoong says, ten years old and his father’s handprint red on his palm)
Just one, just one, Jae, Yunho is pleading, childlike. It takes seconds, and Yoochun is always afraid that Jaejoong will fold. One! Just one fucking HIT, goddamnit!
The storm outside bathes the city in blue and white flashes, electric bolts sizzling in and out of dark clouds. Yunho is looming in the doorway, pale skin with dark eyes and darker intentions, fists curling and uncurling at his sides. Jaejoong turns to him when he approaches, small, afraid, but unyielding.
“Stop it,” he says, and it’s like leaving his hand long enough in the fire to burn. “Stop it! Changmin…you know Changmin can’t handle it.”
Yunho scoffs, and Yoochun sometimes wonders who Yunho really is (was). Before he became this. Before everything.
“He’s not a child. I am not a fucking child.” There’s a hand, and then an attempt to push Jaejoong out of the way. A struggle, then a fist is raised. Yoochun doesn’t even know what he’s done until he tastes the blood in his mouth and the pain ringing in his head. He hears Changmin rapidly reciting formulae in the living room, and Yunho has disappeared. Jaejoong is on his hands and knees, body bent low enough from the floor to imitate a bow and all Yoochun hears is I’m sorry, I’m sorry Yoochunnie before Jaejoong rushes out, melts into the darkness.
Sweet kisses
I’ve got to spare
“My favorite stranger,” Junsu tells him, and it’s two weeks till the end of another summer. The rooftop is bleached white under their feet but golden in the sunset.
“No dress-up today?” he grins with the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you being in jeans and just a shirt.”
Junsu laughs (barks, because it’s more similar), walks over to him and plants a kiss on his temple. Yoochun feigns disgust.
“I don’t know where your mouth’s been!” he says in his defense.
“Bastard.” Junsu says, but is still smiling. “Jaejoong…?”
“With Yunho.”
“Ah.”
Yoochun wonders when it could have happened. Jaejoong with Yunho is as normal now as Cap’n Crunch for dinner and sad songs for gigs: mismatched, but routine. Not that he’s jealous. Never.
“I’ve…not been feeling well lately,” Junsu tells him and Yoochun has to look, pushes himself aside to tune in to Junsu. Junsu with the smiling eyes but fading laughter, like Heechul. With the heart that contains more lost loves than Yoochun can ever count.
“You’re not fucking with me, right?” he says, because with Heechul it took only a month after the first cold. There were them and cold distant hospitals with the stench that stung their noses and Heechul kissing them goodbye.
“Don’t worry so much.” Junsu says and pulls him in, kisses him again and this time Yoochun can’t push him away.
One last refrain
Jaejoong looks for him, the first in a very long time.
“Chunnie,” he says, and for once there is no guitar, no song, no smile.
“What?”
Yunho is there too, arms folded over his chest and wary of their actions. Alive, but not living. Jaejoong hasn’t succeeded. Yet.
“What?” he asks again, and then he notices Jaejoong’s eyes are overbright, but he thinks that it may be because of the lighting. There’s a look in his eyes that Yoochun has seen before, but all he can see perfectly is I love you I love you, this time with no strings attached.
“Nothing.” Jaejoong tells him.
Nothing stays suspended in air for a very long time.
Changmin gives him the note and it’s already fall. The kitchen smells of coffee and Junsu is still in bed. Jaejoong is gone but it isn’t as though that’s unnatural.
“For you,” Changmin says, and rubs his eyes, the only time in the day when Changmin is actually not lucid enough to be understood. The note is torn from a notebook and Yoochun’s fingers feel an odd jolt as skin meets paper.
“What?” he says because he feels particularly stupid. The air is heavy around the apartment because the heat’s been cut off, and every square inch of him is screaming from too much booze, music, art and poetry.
“I don’t know!” Changmin groans, fails to be sensible for once as he shuffles towards the abandoned couch with the springs that poke into your back and the upholstery that smells of too many one-night stands.
He lights a cigarette first before he unfolds the paper. Sees Jaejoong’s handwriting in thick black ink. Sees another piece of paper nestled in between.
(I’m sorry. I love you.)
Sees three letters and a sign that makes him choke, makes him scream loud enough for Changmin to jump up and Junsu to appear from inside their bedroom.
HIV(+)
(I’m sorry. I’m sorry.)
Yunho has gone. Jaejoong has gone.
(Goodbye.)
And here is Yoochun left alone.
A/N: Feel free to brick me. I was high I think when I wrote this. ;_;