APTF [12/13]
Title: A Prayer Time Forgot
Length: Chaptered [12/13]
Rating: NC17 now, to be safe.
Genre: Umm. Unsure. Angst, supernatural, generally. Weirdness. We'll see.
Pairing: Yes, there are pairings. (Gasp! A first!) I'm guessing it's YunJae.
Summary: His life is running backwards in photographs.
---
Chapter Twelve
His life is running backwards in photographs. Yoochun regresses from children’s birthday parties held in the garden to being just a swollen lump underneath Sun Young noona’s patterned summer dress. There’s New York in smog and sun, light piercing through buildings and balding trees in the park, their parents’ ashes scattered at sea. His first job working for magazines, then university with Junsu and sitting punch drunk on the dormitory’s rooftop. High school and all the pretty girls he dated (his smile small and uncomfortable, the girl beside him absolutely beaming), Siwon hyung’s first car, weed in the boys’ bathroom and failed Biology tests. There’s crying in grade school and reddening hands from the headmaster’s ruler, Can-I-be-your-friend/Hello-my-name-is-Yunho-Jung/A-is-for-Apple, B-is-for-Boy, and the big plane that took them away before the sun even rose.
---
He’s separated from Yunho hyung physically by a thin sheet of glass and several feet of air and space, a mess of medical paraphernalia that wink and flash and blow steam, silent from where he is, but cold and distant all the same. Junsu hyung has been inside for an entire 5 minutes, just standing there by the bed, the only smear of color (sea-green and alien, the color of the hospital garb the nurses forced him to wear) in the sea of white and metal. The tubes and wires and the bandages on his head are enough to make Yunho appear as a lab specimen from some strange mutant nightmare, and he knows Junsu hyung doesn’t think he saw but Changmin knows his hyung has only been brave enough to touch only the tips of Yunho’s fingers, afraid to hurt him more than how he already is. When Junsu hyung finally emerges from the room, his head is bowed and his voice is thick, and he yanks the scrubs off in a vicious manner, as though they had threatened to constrict him.
“Go home, Changmin-ah,” Junsu hyung tells him in a tone that requires immediate obedience. “There’s nothing else you can do here.”
It’s one of those situations wherein, after having been told what to do, Changmin would immediately obey. (His car is in the parking lot, unlocked. He has a test in three days. His parents don’t even know he cut school.) But that’s if it were under normal circumstances.
“Hyung…” he says, looks up to see Junsu attempting to fold the scrubs but halfway through hurls it hard at the floor. It makes a sound almost like a thunderclap as it hits the marble tiles. “Hyung, I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Junsu throws him a glare, his cheeks flushed and his breath coming out in heaves through his nose. “Look, I’m responsible for you. Soon the media will get a lead of what’s happened and swarm this place. Yoochun’s safe now and there’s nothing more we can do for Yunho. If something happens to you, our fathers will have my head. You got that? This doesn’t concern you anymore. Go home.”
The words sting more than they should, but that’s because Changmin knows he’s deliberately left one name out.
“Jaejoong didn’t do it. I know it. I know he didn’t do it.” He grips Junsu’s arms, forces him to look at him. “Listen to me!”
“You’re just a kid,” Junsu tells him, and Changmin knows that his hyung’s patience is wearing thin. “Forget about this. This isn’t your battle.”
“Well it isn’t yours either, hyung,” Changmin says with growing defiance. He isn’t going to have this. He isn’t going to have Junsu do anything he would eventually regret. “What are you planning to do to him? You can’t just hand him over to the police! You don’t even have evidence!”
“And what evidence do you have?” Junsu is yelling at him now, but he stands his ground. “You can tell by just fucking looking at him? Is there a sign on his forehead that tells the rest of us he’s innocent? He was the only fucking one who knew the code! He was the only one who could have broken in!”
His anger has escalated into something that burns against his skin, and for a moment, he considers punching Junsu, just to clear his head. Goddamnit! Junsu yells, piercing through the steady buzz of the fluorescent lights, and punches at air, before turning around to rest his fist and forehead on the glass that shows Yunho hyung on the other side, pale and still and as unmoving as before.
“I don’t believe in sentencing people without any proof. If it were you, hyung, if you were Jaejoong, you wouldn’t want me to, would you? Use your head!” He’s talking to Junsu’s shaking shoulders now. “Besides…it was you who found Yunho hyung. You had technically broken into the apartment yourself. What evidence do you have to show to the police that you aren’t guilty of anything?”
The tables have been turned.
“…hyung.” Changmin adds, for formality’s sake. There’s fire in his eyes and ice in his tone and Junsu looks at him, weighted down by the unmistakable air of surrender.
“Go,” he says one final time, and Changmin knows he’s won.
---
They’re in the woods and Yoochun is playing hide-and-seek: Na-na-na, can’t catch me! Yunho can hear his voice bouncing off the trees and empty air, his laughter making the tiny branches above their heads shiver.
Micky, he calls. Once, twice. He’s surrounded by moonlight and shadows and the sound of Yoochun’s laughter. There one minute, by his front, then seconds later to the side. There’s a crackling of twigs underfoot that makes him turn his head. Once, twice. But no Yoochun.
Micky, come out, he says. He’s half-running. His heart is a stone in his chest but his limbs have sprouted wings. Night air and the lingering scent of a faraway river cling to him and turn his palms cold. Crack. Crack. Snap. Twigs are crushed underneath his feet like bones.
---
You have to tell me the truth, Changmin says. You have to tell me everything you know.
He had been caught halfway through with leaving the room he’d been confined in for the past n hours. The sedative kept his movements sluggish and every so often the prickling sensation of the anesthetic on the stitches wearing off would distract him, would make him stop to wince and grimace. Changmin had caught him doing just that, hand on his face, one arm already inside his coat sleeve, his shoes already on his feet (though unlaced). No destination in mind, but the longing, biting feeling to not just stand there and do nothing.
Hyung, work with me. You do know Junsu’s hyung out for your head, don’t you?
“There’s nothing to tell,” he says, even though there is. There’s a whole lot to tell. He looks up, sees Changmin standing in front of him (still in his school uniform, tired, disheveled, but determined all the same; he has to hand it to the kid), one hand on his hips, another on the back of his neck.
“How is he?” he asks, because he can’t help not know. Even saying his name hurts, and Jaejoong is sure that it’s the guilt. The syllables rest on his lips, bitter and heavy, even moments after he says them. “Yun-Yunho.”
“…Stable.” Changmin says in a way that implies the opposite, and Jaejoong’s breath gets caught in his throat. “The doctors said that it’s a critical time now…see if he’d wake up or not.” There’s pressure on his wrist, and he sees Changmin has extended a hand to grip it. “Hyung. Hyung, would you get a grip? You have to trust me. I want to help. You and Yunho hyung and Yoochun. I can help you.”
Jaejoong almost gives a hollow laugh. What’s help to someone who’s too far gone? What’s help to someone not worth saving? Stupid kid, he shakes his head.
“Spare me the chivalry, kid,” he says, and snatches his wrist back. He stands, readies himself to leave. He isn’t too surprised when Changmin holds him back, hand clamped down on his shoulder and anger flickering in his eyes. Jaejoong stops, keeps his head low, but doesn’t bother to fight. “Let me go,” he tells the younger boy, but it sounds almost unsure.
Changmin is taller (bigger, stronger) than he is and uses it to his advantage. The doorway is blocked, and the room constricts as oxygen is sucked out. “What’s wrong with you?” The boy nearly yells at him, red-faced, frustrated. “This is the only thing that’s keeping you from being thrown into jail. This is the only thing that can save your sorry ass.” His voice tightens to that of a child’s. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you fucking get it?”
Anger, raw and burning, courses through his veins despite Jaejoong not understanding why. He shrugs Changmin’s hand off just the same, bristling. Who is this child to lecture him? This boy in his perfect world, this boy he barely knows, whose path he’s only come across through fucking happenstance? This boy so unlike him, who will never understand?
“What the hell is the matter with you anyway? Why the fuck do you care so much? Don’t talk like you know me-”
“I just want the truth!” Changmin yells, eyes shining in the light. “If ever you did pick up that goddamned baseball bat…if ever you did find it in you to hurt Yunho hyung right now, well shit you’d better spill so we can all just fucking get on with our lives. Yoochun…Yoochun is a child hyung and if I’m not doing this for you then I am for him. Just fucking give me something to grip here!”
He sees a thin line of hope in Changmin’s eyes. Please, he knows the boy begs him, even though it isn’t said out loud.
“Fine, you want the truth? You want to know the fucking truth?” His throat is tightening as tears threaten to spill, but he maintains his composure, ensures that his voice doesn’t shake or his look doesn’t waver. “I wish I’d never met Jung Yunho. I wish I’d never met Jung Yoochun. I wish they had never come here. I wish I never even knew they existed.
(I wish life wasn’t so fucking unfair.)
I hate them. I hate them. I never fucking want to see them again. There, are you happy? Are you fucking happy now?”
Somehow the words don’t make him feel better as they’re supposed to, in this one final attempt of separation, and in the end, his tears betray him.
“Liar. You love him.” Changmin says. Simply. Aptly. And Jaejoong can’t breathe.
(I love him. I love him. I love him.)
“You will never fucking understand.” He says, swallowing to ease the lump growing in his throat.
(But he can never be mine.)
---
He finds the boy when Yoochun’s laughter fades. No more than a shadow at first, and then an odd shaft of moonlight highlights hands, arms, hair, chin. He giggles, mischievous and eerie at the same time, as he walks into the light; the mere skeleton of what a child’s laugh is supposed to be. The sound of it makes Yunho’s blood run cold in his veins.
The boy grins at him as though in acknowledgement, teeth lined like black pearls. What’s the matter, Yunnie? Scared of the dark?
Jaejoong, he breathes, and the name comes out with a slight shudder; Jaejoong because he knows it’s right, Jaejoong because this time there isn’t anything to be confused about anymore. Jaejoong, but not his Jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong.
There’s a fresh clangor of giggles in his ears and the shadows shift. That’s right, remember me? Not confused anymore, are we? I never took you for an idiot.
Yoochun. Don’t hurt him. Please, he can no longer move; his feet are welded to the forest floor, he’s a kid…he did nothing wrong.
The boy cocks his head, pale mouth suddenly contorting into a scowl. And what about me? Did I deserve to die?
It wasn’t supposed to happen! He pleads, but his voice is drowned by howling wind. We’ve paid our dues! Not Yoochun…not Yoochun…
And then there’s Yoochun, small and searching, eyes empty, emerging from behind Jaejoong. Yunho straightens, a small flame of hope suddenly flickering inside of him.
Yoochun. Yoochun-ah. It’s hyung. It’s hyung, Yoochun-ah, come to me. Please, Yoochun. Micky. Mickybo, please-
but Yoochun doesn’t hear, doesn’t even seem to see him. The boy laughs again and then holds his hand up in the light: his hand clasping Yoochun’s own.
You’re too late. Maybe you should have listened to your nephew when he was trying to tell you about me, hm? Ah, Yunnie. It pays to listen to kids. I should know. You should know.
Everything is suddenly cold cold cold, and Yunho feels as though he’s drowning.
He’s mine now.
---
Code Red, Code Red
Junsu is there when the machines start going crazy, head and hands still leaning heavily on the glass. He doesn’t hear it at first, only sees as green lines spike and red lights flash but then the doctors come and fling the door open, and somehow he finds it in him to follow them inside.
“What…What…” is the only thing he finds himself saying because his tongue is stapled to the roof of his mouth and his heart is beating in a way that’s tempting him to faint. There’s movement on the bed and he tricks himself into thinking that maybe Yunho is awake, that Yunho is all right, but then he hears the howling of the alarm and the screeching of the machines, sees the plummeting numbers, and he knows that Yunho is far from saved.
Vitals are dropping
“What’s wrong with him? Yunho! YUNHO!” He reaches out to hold Yunho’s hand because it’s the only thing he can fucking do, but then he’s shoved roughly back, Yunho’s fingers just out of reach from his.
“Get him out of here!” a doctor roars, and two nurses get a hold of each of his arms, start to drag him back to the safety of the hallway. Back where he can’t interfere. Back where he can’t control any fucking thing. And Junsu is left on the other side of the glass, fists and tears both staining the surface.
(You have to remember you can’t save everyone. Not even me. Not if I don’t want you to.)
“Son of a bitch,” he says and bites down on his lip hard enough to make it bleed. The Hyung! makes him turn around; Changmin is flying down the corridor, eyes wide with panic. “Hyung. I heard…the intercom. It said…Yunho hyung’s room…”
He sees Jaejoong with him. Pale and terrified, the other man is staring at the scene on the other side of the glass, his eyes transfixed as doctors and nurses rush around Yunho’s bed, jab with needles and jolt with electricity a body, a soul that Junsu knows has long been gone. He falls to his knees, not even wincing as bone hits marble, and Jaejoong, not Changmin is the first to reach him. Wordless, he grips Junsu’s shoulders, and Junsu bows his head.
“I can’t save him. He’s dying and I can’t save him.”
Jaejoong’s grip tightens.
“I don’t care anymore. Please. He loves you. He fucking loves you. Just bring him back. I know he won’t do it for anyone else.”
Tears are blinding him and all he sees is white. (We got him back, the doctor would tell him later, but I’m afraid the outlook now is rather bleak).
“I’ll make it right,” he hears Jaejoong whisper. “I promise I’ll make it right.”
---
(Kinda funny how it turned out huh? You and Jaejoong…met. Death and life. My death and my life. Only fair, isn’t it, that I get some sort of compensation for all my trouble?)
---
(Yoochun is shaken awake by the cold. He rubs his eyes and on the windowsill by the open window is his playmate, sitting Peter-Pan-like under the light of the moon.
Remember your promise? His playmate says, and offers a hand. Come on. It’s time.
Yoochun doesn’t need to be told twice.
I can get my hyung back, he says, ignoring the inexplicable prickle on the back of his neck as night air licks his skin. You swear. You promise.
The boy smiles at him, but gives no answer. At any rate, Yoochun zips his hoodie up and slips into his shoes.
Scared?
His heart is pounding like crazy and his mouth has gone dry, but he answers with a shake of his head. He can’t be scared. He can’t.
No.
Fingers brush against his cheek and he shudders.
Good. Now hold on tight.
The room is empty by the time the moonlight shifts.)
TBC
A/N: One more to go! :D
Length: Chaptered [12/13]
Rating: NC17 now, to be safe.
Genre: Umm. Unsure. Angst, supernatural, generally. Weirdness. We'll see.
Pairing: Yes, there are pairings. (Gasp! A first!) I'm guessing it's YunJae.
Summary: His life is running backwards in photographs.
---
Chapter Twelve
His life is running backwards in photographs. Yoochun regresses from children’s birthday parties held in the garden to being just a swollen lump underneath Sun Young noona’s patterned summer dress. There’s New York in smog and sun, light piercing through buildings and balding trees in the park, their parents’ ashes scattered at sea. His first job working for magazines, then university with Junsu and sitting punch drunk on the dormitory’s rooftop. High school and all the pretty girls he dated (his smile small and uncomfortable, the girl beside him absolutely beaming), Siwon hyung’s first car, weed in the boys’ bathroom and failed Biology tests. There’s crying in grade school and reddening hands from the headmaster’s ruler, Can-I-be-your-friend/Hello-my-name-is-Yunho-Jung/A-is-for-Apple, B-is-for-Boy, and the big plane that took them away before the sun even rose.
---
He’s separated from Yunho hyung physically by a thin sheet of glass and several feet of air and space, a mess of medical paraphernalia that wink and flash and blow steam, silent from where he is, but cold and distant all the same. Junsu hyung has been inside for an entire 5 minutes, just standing there by the bed, the only smear of color (sea-green and alien, the color of the hospital garb the nurses forced him to wear) in the sea of white and metal. The tubes and wires and the bandages on his head are enough to make Yunho appear as a lab specimen from some strange mutant nightmare, and he knows Junsu hyung doesn’t think he saw but Changmin knows his hyung has only been brave enough to touch only the tips of Yunho’s fingers, afraid to hurt him more than how he already is. When Junsu hyung finally emerges from the room, his head is bowed and his voice is thick, and he yanks the scrubs off in a vicious manner, as though they had threatened to constrict him.
“Go home, Changmin-ah,” Junsu hyung tells him in a tone that requires immediate obedience. “There’s nothing else you can do here.”
It’s one of those situations wherein, after having been told what to do, Changmin would immediately obey. (His car is in the parking lot, unlocked. He has a test in three days. His parents don’t even know he cut school.) But that’s if it were under normal circumstances.
“Hyung…” he says, looks up to see Junsu attempting to fold the scrubs but halfway through hurls it hard at the floor. It makes a sound almost like a thunderclap as it hits the marble tiles. “Hyung, I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Junsu throws him a glare, his cheeks flushed and his breath coming out in heaves through his nose. “Look, I’m responsible for you. Soon the media will get a lead of what’s happened and swarm this place. Yoochun’s safe now and there’s nothing more we can do for Yunho. If something happens to you, our fathers will have my head. You got that? This doesn’t concern you anymore. Go home.”
The words sting more than they should, but that’s because Changmin knows he’s deliberately left one name out.
“Jaejoong didn’t do it. I know it. I know he didn’t do it.” He grips Junsu’s arms, forces him to look at him. “Listen to me!”
“You’re just a kid,” Junsu tells him, and Changmin knows that his hyung’s patience is wearing thin. “Forget about this. This isn’t your battle.”
“Well it isn’t yours either, hyung,” Changmin says with growing defiance. He isn’t going to have this. He isn’t going to have Junsu do anything he would eventually regret. “What are you planning to do to him? You can’t just hand him over to the police! You don’t even have evidence!”
“And what evidence do you have?” Junsu is yelling at him now, but he stands his ground. “You can tell by just fucking looking at him? Is there a sign on his forehead that tells the rest of us he’s innocent? He was the only fucking one who knew the code! He was the only one who could have broken in!”
His anger has escalated into something that burns against his skin, and for a moment, he considers punching Junsu, just to clear his head. Goddamnit! Junsu yells, piercing through the steady buzz of the fluorescent lights, and punches at air, before turning around to rest his fist and forehead on the glass that shows Yunho hyung on the other side, pale and still and as unmoving as before.
“I don’t believe in sentencing people without any proof. If it were you, hyung, if you were Jaejoong, you wouldn’t want me to, would you? Use your head!” He’s talking to Junsu’s shaking shoulders now. “Besides…it was you who found Yunho hyung. You had technically broken into the apartment yourself. What evidence do you have to show to the police that you aren’t guilty of anything?”
The tables have been turned.
“…hyung.” Changmin adds, for formality’s sake. There’s fire in his eyes and ice in his tone and Junsu looks at him, weighted down by the unmistakable air of surrender.
“Go,” he says one final time, and Changmin knows he’s won.
---
They’re in the woods and Yoochun is playing hide-and-seek: Na-na-na, can’t catch me! Yunho can hear his voice bouncing off the trees and empty air, his laughter making the tiny branches above their heads shiver.
Micky, he calls. Once, twice. He’s surrounded by moonlight and shadows and the sound of Yoochun’s laughter. There one minute, by his front, then seconds later to the side. There’s a crackling of twigs underfoot that makes him turn his head. Once, twice. But no Yoochun.
Micky, come out, he says. He’s half-running. His heart is a stone in his chest but his limbs have sprouted wings. Night air and the lingering scent of a faraway river cling to him and turn his palms cold. Crack. Crack. Snap. Twigs are crushed underneath his feet like bones.
---
You have to tell me the truth, Changmin says. You have to tell me everything you know.
He had been caught halfway through with leaving the room he’d been confined in for the past n hours. The sedative kept his movements sluggish and every so often the prickling sensation of the anesthetic on the stitches wearing off would distract him, would make him stop to wince and grimace. Changmin had caught him doing just that, hand on his face, one arm already inside his coat sleeve, his shoes already on his feet (though unlaced). No destination in mind, but the longing, biting feeling to not just stand there and do nothing.
Hyung, work with me. You do know Junsu’s hyung out for your head, don’t you?
“There’s nothing to tell,” he says, even though there is. There’s a whole lot to tell. He looks up, sees Changmin standing in front of him (still in his school uniform, tired, disheveled, but determined all the same; he has to hand it to the kid), one hand on his hips, another on the back of his neck.
“How is he?” he asks, because he can’t help not know. Even saying his name hurts, and Jaejoong is sure that it’s the guilt. The syllables rest on his lips, bitter and heavy, even moments after he says them. “Yun-Yunho.”
“…Stable.” Changmin says in a way that implies the opposite, and Jaejoong’s breath gets caught in his throat. “The doctors said that it’s a critical time now…see if he’d wake up or not.” There’s pressure on his wrist, and he sees Changmin has extended a hand to grip it. “Hyung. Hyung, would you get a grip? You have to trust me. I want to help. You and Yunho hyung and Yoochun. I can help you.”
Jaejoong almost gives a hollow laugh. What’s help to someone who’s too far gone? What’s help to someone not worth saving? Stupid kid, he shakes his head.
“Spare me the chivalry, kid,” he says, and snatches his wrist back. He stands, readies himself to leave. He isn’t too surprised when Changmin holds him back, hand clamped down on his shoulder and anger flickering in his eyes. Jaejoong stops, keeps his head low, but doesn’t bother to fight. “Let me go,” he tells the younger boy, but it sounds almost unsure.
Changmin is taller (bigger, stronger) than he is and uses it to his advantage. The doorway is blocked, and the room constricts as oxygen is sucked out. “What’s wrong with you?” The boy nearly yells at him, red-faced, frustrated. “This is the only thing that’s keeping you from being thrown into jail. This is the only thing that can save your sorry ass.” His voice tightens to that of a child’s. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you fucking get it?”
Anger, raw and burning, courses through his veins despite Jaejoong not understanding why. He shrugs Changmin’s hand off just the same, bristling. Who is this child to lecture him? This boy in his perfect world, this boy he barely knows, whose path he’s only come across through fucking happenstance? This boy so unlike him, who will never understand?
“What the hell is the matter with you anyway? Why the fuck do you care so much? Don’t talk like you know me-”
“I just want the truth!” Changmin yells, eyes shining in the light. “If ever you did pick up that goddamned baseball bat…if ever you did find it in you to hurt Yunho hyung right now, well shit you’d better spill so we can all just fucking get on with our lives. Yoochun…Yoochun is a child hyung and if I’m not doing this for you then I am for him. Just fucking give me something to grip here!”
He sees a thin line of hope in Changmin’s eyes. Please, he knows the boy begs him, even though it isn’t said out loud.
“Fine, you want the truth? You want to know the fucking truth?” His throat is tightening as tears threaten to spill, but he maintains his composure, ensures that his voice doesn’t shake or his look doesn’t waver. “I wish I’d never met Jung Yunho. I wish I’d never met Jung Yoochun. I wish they had never come here. I wish I never even knew they existed.
(I wish life wasn’t so fucking unfair.)
I hate them. I hate them. I never fucking want to see them again. There, are you happy? Are you fucking happy now?”
Somehow the words don’t make him feel better as they’re supposed to, in this one final attempt of separation, and in the end, his tears betray him.
“Liar. You love him.” Changmin says. Simply. Aptly. And Jaejoong can’t breathe.
(I love him. I love him. I love him.)
“You will never fucking understand.” He says, swallowing to ease the lump growing in his throat.
(But he can never be mine.)
---
He finds the boy when Yoochun’s laughter fades. No more than a shadow at first, and then an odd shaft of moonlight highlights hands, arms, hair, chin. He giggles, mischievous and eerie at the same time, as he walks into the light; the mere skeleton of what a child’s laugh is supposed to be. The sound of it makes Yunho’s blood run cold in his veins.
The boy grins at him as though in acknowledgement, teeth lined like black pearls. What’s the matter, Yunnie? Scared of the dark?
Jaejoong, he breathes, and the name comes out with a slight shudder; Jaejoong because he knows it’s right, Jaejoong because this time there isn’t anything to be confused about anymore. Jaejoong, but not his Jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong.
There’s a fresh clangor of giggles in his ears and the shadows shift. That’s right, remember me? Not confused anymore, are we? I never took you for an idiot.
Yoochun. Don’t hurt him. Please, he can no longer move; his feet are welded to the forest floor, he’s a kid…he did nothing wrong.
The boy cocks his head, pale mouth suddenly contorting into a scowl. And what about me? Did I deserve to die?
It wasn’t supposed to happen! He pleads, but his voice is drowned by howling wind. We’ve paid our dues! Not Yoochun…not Yoochun…
And then there’s Yoochun, small and searching, eyes empty, emerging from behind Jaejoong. Yunho straightens, a small flame of hope suddenly flickering inside of him.
Yoochun. Yoochun-ah. It’s hyung. It’s hyung, Yoochun-ah, come to me. Please, Yoochun. Micky. Mickybo, please-
but Yoochun doesn’t hear, doesn’t even seem to see him. The boy laughs again and then holds his hand up in the light: his hand clasping Yoochun’s own.
You’re too late. Maybe you should have listened to your nephew when he was trying to tell you about me, hm? Ah, Yunnie. It pays to listen to kids. I should know. You should know.
Everything is suddenly cold cold cold, and Yunho feels as though he’s drowning.
He’s mine now.
---
Code Red, Code Red
Junsu is there when the machines start going crazy, head and hands still leaning heavily on the glass. He doesn’t hear it at first, only sees as green lines spike and red lights flash but then the doctors come and fling the door open, and somehow he finds it in him to follow them inside.
“What…What…” is the only thing he finds himself saying because his tongue is stapled to the roof of his mouth and his heart is beating in a way that’s tempting him to faint. There’s movement on the bed and he tricks himself into thinking that maybe Yunho is awake, that Yunho is all right, but then he hears the howling of the alarm and the screeching of the machines, sees the plummeting numbers, and he knows that Yunho is far from saved.
Vitals are dropping
“What’s wrong with him? Yunho! YUNHO!” He reaches out to hold Yunho’s hand because it’s the only thing he can fucking do, but then he’s shoved roughly back, Yunho’s fingers just out of reach from his.
“Get him out of here!” a doctor roars, and two nurses get a hold of each of his arms, start to drag him back to the safety of the hallway. Back where he can’t interfere. Back where he can’t control any fucking thing. And Junsu is left on the other side of the glass, fists and tears both staining the surface.
(You have to remember you can’t save everyone. Not even me. Not if I don’t want you to.)
“Son of a bitch,” he says and bites down on his lip hard enough to make it bleed. The Hyung! makes him turn around; Changmin is flying down the corridor, eyes wide with panic. “Hyung. I heard…the intercom. It said…Yunho hyung’s room…”
He sees Jaejoong with him. Pale and terrified, the other man is staring at the scene on the other side of the glass, his eyes transfixed as doctors and nurses rush around Yunho’s bed, jab with needles and jolt with electricity a body, a soul that Junsu knows has long been gone. He falls to his knees, not even wincing as bone hits marble, and Jaejoong, not Changmin is the first to reach him. Wordless, he grips Junsu’s shoulders, and Junsu bows his head.
“I can’t save him. He’s dying and I can’t save him.”
Jaejoong’s grip tightens.
“I don’t care anymore. Please. He loves you. He fucking loves you. Just bring him back. I know he won’t do it for anyone else.”
Tears are blinding him and all he sees is white. (We got him back, the doctor would tell him later, but I’m afraid the outlook now is rather bleak).
“I’ll make it right,” he hears Jaejoong whisper. “I promise I’ll make it right.”
---
(Kinda funny how it turned out huh? You and Jaejoong…met. Death and life. My death and my life. Only fair, isn’t it, that I get some sort of compensation for all my trouble?)
---
(Yoochun is shaken awake by the cold. He rubs his eyes and on the windowsill by the open window is his playmate, sitting Peter-Pan-like under the light of the moon.
Remember your promise? His playmate says, and offers a hand. Come on. It’s time.
Yoochun doesn’t need to be told twice.
I can get my hyung back, he says, ignoring the inexplicable prickle on the back of his neck as night air licks his skin. You swear. You promise.
The boy smiles at him, but gives no answer. At any rate, Yoochun zips his hoodie up and slips into his shoes.
Scared?
His heart is pounding like crazy and his mouth has gone dry, but he answers with a shake of his head. He can’t be scared. He can’t.
No.
Fingers brush against his cheek and he shudders.
Good. Now hold on tight.
The room is empty by the time the moonlight shifts.)
TBC
A/N: One more to go! :D