Hello Chapter 12
Title: Hello
Length: [12/?]
Author: HolyStarDown
Pairing: Yunjae
Rating: Overall NC-17
Genre: Psychological, romance, angst, drama
Disclaimer: if i owned them i would be posting HD videos, not fics
Summary: Love knows no boundaries; it reaches the good, the broken, the hopeless, and even the insane
Author's Note: PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF ENTRY DATES AND NUMBERS. SKIPS ARE INTENTIONAL.
{ Chapter 1} { Chapter 2} { Chapter 3} { Chapter 4} { Chapter 5} { Chapter 6} { Chapter 7} { Chapter 8} { Chapter 9} { Chapter 10a} { Chapter 10b} { Chapter 11}
“Should have seen it coming…”
“It all happened so fast…”
“Blood everywhere. Absolutely everywhere…”
“Worst thing that could happen…”
“He knew better…”
**~**~**~**~**~**
It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be to keep myself in check throughout the day. Sure, there were a few moments when I just wanted to strip Jaejoong down and take him on the spot, but every time I thought about it, guilt from my night with Hyori would taint any desire I once had.
Jaejoong remained quiet throughout most of the morning, his kisses light and touches sparse… except for his right hand. It hardly broke contact with me for a second since he first woke up and grabbed onto my wrist, almost as if he needed to be grounded to me to keep me from flying away. Of course, the constant contact made working a little difficult at times, and I was forced to pry his desperate fingers off when the need for two free hands was too great. At those times his eyes would suddenly go wild, frantically darting around the room before settling in a remote corner and staring until my skin was touching his once again.
“What do you see Jaejoong?” I asked when my curiosity finally became too much to suppress. I resisted the urge to take the young boy’s hand again as it started to tremble and his eyes fixed on the same corner of the room they had twice before.
“He’s still here,” Jaejoong whispered, his voice shaking almost as badly as his hands. Sharp nails bit into his palms and a wild desperation punctuated the fear in his eyes; my empty hand was no more than five inches away from him, yet for some reason he didn’t reach for it. My curiosity peaked when Jaejoong slowly straightened his fingers out toward me, only to recoil them as if he’d been shocked. His lips parted and trembled, but no words came out when he moved them- just silence as he let his mind run wild. Whatever this hallucination was, it terrified him beyond belief.
As his condition is now, Jaejoong can’t deal with the vast amounts of anxiety his hallucination brings. Just the thought of it debilitates him (some days worse than others,) and getting past this fear could open up a whole new world for him- a world that I desperately want him to see. But he can’t do this on his own; he needs me. Jaejoong needs me.
I took a brief look around the room before my eyes settled back on Jaejoong’s rigid form, his hand still suspended in midair and lips still parted. “Where is he now Jaejoong?” I asked as I carefully put more distance between my hand and his body, watching as he began to shake harder.
His eyes practically screamed in horror at the waning proximity, but still he did nothing to get closer. Even his voice was noticeably more unstable, his trembling lips forming whispers I could barely catch. “He’s still watching us,” Jaejoong breathed out. “He’s always been watching us. He won’t stop.”
My patient’s fixed gaze told me more than his words, but I interpreted his incoherency all the same. “It’s okay Jaejoong,” I assured, not yet taking his hand. “I’m right here; he can’t hurt you.”
“He’s waiting for you to leave again,” Jaejoong snapped. “He knows you’ll leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, I sw-”
“You left me with him before!”
Jaejoong snapped his head around to face me, anger that I had never seen before pulsing in his dark eyes. I couldn’t imagine what he meant by it, but his entire body had gone deathly still, and for the first time he stared directly into my eyes. His chest heaved with tight breaths, the warm air ghosting over my face and surrounding me with his presence.
“You left me with him,” he repeated darkly.
“Jaejoong…” I whispered, my voice delicate- careful. “What does he look like?”
“Me.”
My mouth opened, air rushing out of my lungs without words to accompany it as tension spilled into the tight space between us. His eyes held me in place, helpless to do anything but absorb the fierce anger in his usually delicate eyes.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom what I was supposed to do next, but I didn’t have to- not quite yet.
Out of nowhere, the doorbell rang, startling us out of our haze and jerking us apart. All traces of hostility in Jaejoong’s face instantly vanished as his child-like fear returned, his wide eyes immediately looking away from his reflection. My throat had impossibly tightened, choking off my breath and leaving my brain too oxygen-deprived to think clearly. But the doorbell rang again, and I managed a soft whisper before going to the door. “I’ll be… right back, okay?” I said weakly as I rose to my feet and turned away.
“Promise?” he called after me.
“Yeah… I promise.”
I can’t really say that I expected Donghae to come by, but there he was, standing in my doorway with all his cheerful glory bright, shiny and on display while I was barely able to stay on my lead feet. I had no time to dwell on what had just happened because of his arrival, and in a way I was partially glad for the distraction.
I only managed to force out a smile when I opened the door before Donghae barreled ahead, speaking before I had much time to process who he was.
“Good morning Dr. Jung,” he greeted as he dipped into a bow and came back up with a grin. A small prescription bag dangled from his right hand, rattling slightly as he moved to hand it to me. “I noticed that this hadn’t been picked up for a while when I was making my deliveries and wasn’t really sure what you wanted me to do with it. I hope you don’t mind that I brought it here.”
The bag fell lightly into my outstretched hand (when had I done that?), and rattled softly as I stared at it. “Um. No. That’s… fine Donghae-shii,” I faltered. “Uh, thank you?”
His smile stretched further at my thanks, but he didn’t move to leave like I expected. Instead, he leaned slightly to the side as if trying to look behind me. “Is everything alright Dr. Jung?” he asked.
Electricity skated across my skin, every nerve awakening with panic as a rock of guilt dropped into my stomach. It was enough for me to temporarily remember myself- remember the situation that Donghae couldn’t see. Without much extra thought, I brought the door closer to me and used my body to block his view of whatever he was trying to look for. If he found out Jaejoong was here… it would only lead to a whole new set of unwanted complications. “Yes,” I answered shortly as I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”
He glanced up at my sharp answer and his smile slipped away. “What I mean is, are you feeling okay? It’s unlike you to miss a day,” he amended with wide, hurt eyes just as the insanity of it all struck me.
Air rushed out of my lungs as I closed my eyes and tried to get rational thoughts back in my head. “I’m fine Donghae,” I repeated softly. “I was just feeling a little sick this morning. Thank you for your concern.”
The young boy eyed me uncertainly for a few moments longer, lips pressed together and gaze searching before he bowed again- this time much more slowly and executed with an air of caution. “I hope you feel better then Dr. Jung. If there’s anything else you need, just let me know,” he offered. The boy tried for a smile, but the slight incline of his lips fell away quickly and lacked any of his normal sincerity. Mine was no better.
Even after Donghae had left and the door was shut, I couldn’t move beyond the doorframe. My face pressed against the chilled wooden barrier and my legs felt too weak to support me, even with the door’s help. What just… happened?
Donghae just dropped off medications: that was nothing out of the ordinary. But this suspicion… this anxiety… Where was it coming from all of a sudden?
Standing in the doorway did nothing to spark answers, but I knew I had to go back eventually- with or without them.
After five minutes and several deep breaths, I forced myself to return to Jaejoong as if nothing had happened at all. A fake smile graced my lips and the prescription Donghae had given me fell carelessly somewhere on the nightstand to be forgotten. Jaejoong looked up at my entrance with a blank face.
“I’m sorry about that Jaejoong-ah. It was just something from work and… um. Work related things,” I muttered, attempting to mask my incoherency by taking Jaejoong’s frozen hand.
I tried my best to push the strangeness to the back of my mind as I continued to speak with Jaejoong, and I (very, very gratefully) had him smiling at me again in less than half an hour- any and all abnormalities seemingly forgotten. I didn’t even think much of it myself until I began to write this entry, but I believe it was for the better; dwelling on it would have only served as a distraction to what I really wanted to accomplish that day. Besides, I can always document it and come back to it later when both of us are a little more prepared for it.
What I did get accomplished was quite a bit more beneficial to both of us: I spoke with him for hours, and slid in simple tests along the way- some he was aware of, some he was not. It was normal. Comfortable.
Jaejoong’s face twitched with confusion as I brought my laptop into the room and sat it in front of him, his earlier fear of losing contact with me apparently forgotten as my presence drifted away. “What’s this for?” he asked, barely sparing a glance at the device as it whirred to life.
“I just want to show you something,” I answered semi-truthfully. Silence fell over us aside from the soft clicking of keys and was only broken when the program I had in mind finished loading. Four letters appeared on the screen, all the same size and font, but in no particular order. We started off simple; L, B, T, R.
Jaejoong stared at the letters with narrowed eyes for a moment and scrunched his nose in distaste when I asked him what they were, but he read them off with no problems. “Do I have to do this?” he asked after reading the letters to me. “Micky and Choikang said this is stupid.”
I forced a smile and brushed my fingers over the back of his hand. “Just hang in there, okay? This is really important.”
Skepticism played with Jaejoong’s features, but he returned his gaze to the computer just in time for it to flash white and show four new letters- these ones broken and disfigured. “Jaejoong-ah, can you remember what those first four letters were?” I asked, carefully watching his face and readying my pen to scribble down a check mark or an x.
As I expected, Jaejoong narrowed his eyes once again (this time most likely in concentration) and remained silent. I could practically see the severed wires firing off in Jaejoong’s head- all of them desperately trying to relay a message he’ll most likely never receive.
Resigning to this observation, Jaejoong hung his head in defeat. “I don’t remember,” he whispered, confirming that the blank flash has served its purpose. “I’m sorry…”
“That’s okay,” I soothed as I leaned in to press my lips against his temple and slashed an x in my notes. “Just try again with the next one.”
And so my little experiment went on; letters, distraction, new disfigured letters, failed answer, scribbled x, and Jaejoong’s reward for trying. I tried my best to keep from prolonging the torture while still making the test long enough to confirm that he wasn’t doing any better as it went on, but there was only so much I could save him from.
Visual backwards masking tests generally don’t take very long, but I had to repeat the test with a variety of different letter/number/pattern configurations to see if Jaejoong’s ability to remember the initial images improved with repetition, which (in this case) it did not. This kind of result is typical for schizophrenics like Jaejoong, and along with my other tests and previous observations, it fully supported my initial diagnoses. I drew this conclusion just in time too- the anxiety of being unable to correctly answer any of my questions was driving Jaejoong to his breaking point.
The heels of his hands were pressed hard against the sides of his head by the time I closed my laptop and leaned in to give him his final reward kiss. “It’s okay Jaejoong,” I muttered. “We don’t have to do any more today.”
My patient’s frail body leaned into my awaiting arms and his eyes screwed shut. “They hate this,” he said darkly. “They say I’m stupid. If I keep doing this, he’ll find out, and they don’t want you to know.”
Despite being utterly confused, I held Jaejoong’s body close to mine and let his lips brush against my neck as he spoke. “Know what?” I asked.
“About him. He doesn’t want you to know who he is.”
Back to this again.
Maybe I thought it would be better dealt with on another day, or maybe I just wanted to avoid the subject for as long as possible. Either way, I tried to shove the discussion back down as soon as it came up. “Don’t think about him right now Jae,” I whispered into his hair. “He can’t hurt you here; you said it yourself. I’ll protect you.”
My words couldn’t have been more sincere, and their intentions slowly penetrated Jaejoong’s fear and helped dissolve it away. He relaxed in my arms and ‘he’ wasn’t brought up again for the rest of the day.
It was nice being able to stay at home all day like that, especially since I got to spend it with Jaejoong. Even though a lot of his conversations with me strayed from coherency, I still feel like I got to know him more than I ever could have with just one hour a day.
Jaejoong… has a deep-rooted affection for me. I guess I’ve known that for a while now, but today it became glaringly obvious that I’m the sole focus of it.
“I don’t have any friends,” he told me. “Micky and Xiah are my friends sometimes, but Choikang wants to hit me all the time. No one else is nice to me.”
“What about U-know?”
“…He’s different.”
And I left it at that, too afraid to ask about myself. I already know that we’ve both gotten in too deep- maybe even past the point of no return- but hearing it said out loud would make it all too real, and for now, I’m not ready to handle that. I got a lot accomplished today; there’s no need to ruin that with something so irrelevant to his condition.
February 28, 2003
Entry Ninety-Five
Long nights are grueling. Especially long nights of thinking too hard about things you never should have gotten involved with in the first place. My mind is in shambles, and I can’t sleep.
I kept my word to Jaejoong about giving him rewards for cooperation, so I decided that for an entire day’s worth of doing what I asked, he deserved a pretty big reward. After a quick evaluation of my own self control (just in case he asked to sleep with me again tonight,) I took a hesitant step into the topic of letting him have a choice.
“I’m really glad that you went along with all of my evaluations today Jaejoong,” I said as he returned from the shower and curled up against my side. “You did really well.” He seemed to take no mind to my comment, just rested his still wet head against my shoulder and absently played with my fingers. “Don’t you think you deserve a reward for that?” I prodded.
At first he didn’t respond. His fingers slipped between the spaces in mine and held our intwined hands up towards the light for better examination. Seemingly satisfied, he smiled and returned them to my lap. “Do I get to choose again?” he asked, to which I nodded and kissed his forehead.
“Anything you want.”
I should have known that saying such words was like signing a death warrant, but in my defense, I was expecting him to make a similar request to last night’s. Not this.
Before I really had any idea of what Jaejoong had in mind, he was already shifting to get out of my hold and toss a leg over my hips. Our hands stayed tightly laced together as he closed his eyes and pressed an opened-mouthed kiss to my lips, which I greedily returned. The warning signals weren’t quite registering even as he pressed his hips against mine; the movement was gradual, but unrelenting. We’d made out before. We’d done a bit of (mostly) shameless grinding and groping before. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to go much farther.
Call me an idiot, or blind, or stupid, or whatever, but I wasn’t at all expecting Jaejoong’s hand to slip into my pants and brush his cold fingers against my throbbing need. An instant shock of electricity exploded beneath my skin, making all of my senses go haywire and my brain stutter. Before I could properly react, his hand pressed against me again and my mind went blank.
“Jaejoong,” I hissed.
He pressed his mouth to mine and bit down on my bottom lip, drawing a moan from deep within my throat and pushing my desire into overdrive. “Jaejoong… What are you… We don’t- God- we don’t have to… do this,” I choked out between kisses.
“This is what I want,” he breathed against my lips, ministrations not pausing for a second. “Micky said I wasn’t good enough, so I want to try again.”
I protested. “Micky’s wrong. You’re more than good enough,” I said as I half-heartedly tried to roll him off me.
But Jaejoong persisted. “I have to prove it,” he shot back. “I have to show him. He won’t listen.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.” The words came to me automatically, but even though my lips said no, my body was saying anything but: my hands were still threaded in his hair and desperately clinging to the fingers of his free hand, and my hips were still jerking up to meet his icy touch.
“I want to,” he whispered, voice low and full of forbidden longing. “You like it too, don’t you?”
God yes.
“N-no. We can’t. Not this. Jaejoong please.”
I wished more than anything that he could have look into my eyes then- that he could have seen the desperation pouring from them and trying in vain to drown my growing desire. It would have made things so much easier if he just understood why this was so wrong. It was different from kissing- different from cuddling with each other or flashing warm smiles while he lay in my arms. This was too much.
Despite my protests, Jaejoong’s hand kept moving. Up and down, stroking my skin until all I could do was cling to him and gasp for breath. My lips parted in a silent plea as my head fell back to scream it to the heavens, but the only thing that came out was a breathless moan. No matter what I did, the sounds just kept coming, one after another until they blended into a continuous string of incoherency that I was helpless to control.
His fingers never lost their chill even as they stroked me to the edge of completion. Just one more second of his touch and I would have lost it, but he pulled away before the first wave could hit. I could have screamed at the sudden loss of sensation, and I probably would have if I hadn’t seen the look on Jaejoong’s face when he sat back on his heels.
All emotion had completely vanished from his eyes, the dark orbs becoming nothing more than infinite voids of charcoal staring at my chest. Even his grip on my hand went slack, and my desire quickly began to fade.
“This is not the same,” he whispered.
“What’s not?” I questioned. Although the clouds of lust in my mind were rapidly dissipating, I was still boarder-line incoherent and my voice still scratched at the back of my throat. I couldn’t make any sense of why Jaejoong had suddenly stopped or why he was staring or what he’d said, so I just watched and waited for an answer that never came as I willed my body to get back under control.
For a moment, I thought I might actually get off the hook. Blood was quickly returning to the head on my shoulders and Jaejoong seemed to have lost interest in using his hands to drive me crazy, but the moment was short-lived. Just as suddenly as he’d stopped, Jaejoong jerked forward and crushed our lips back together in a bruising kiss, sighing against me as his hands returned to my skin.
Had he not caught me off guard, I wouldn’t have let it happen at all. So, with the little bit of sensibility I gained back during the brief pause, I made the decision to gently push Jaejoong away and still his eager hand. “Jaejoong… That’s- that’s enough. We have to stop now,” I breathed out, making sure that he couldn’t disobey me by lacing our fingers together.
He drew back slightly but made no other move to protest, both of his hands resting calmly in mine. “Why?” he whispered.
I pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and let my lips linger. “Tell me why this isn’t the same…” I sighed.
“No. I can’t.” His body began to go rigid again, and I knew my window of opportunity to get an answer was quickly closing. I had to do something.
Against my better (normal) judgment, I breathed against Jaejoong’s pale skin, inhaling deeply and letting his scent linger in my senses before I signed for my certain death. “Tell me why… and I’ll let you finish.”
A/N: not sure why i didn't post this here when i posted it over in my main journal back in September. my bad ^^;
Length: [12/?]
Author: HolyStarDown
Pairing: Yunjae
Rating: Overall NC-17
Genre: Psychological, romance, angst, drama
Disclaimer: if i owned them i would be posting HD videos, not fics
Summary: Love knows no boundaries; it reaches the good, the broken, the hopeless, and even the insane
Author's Note: PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF ENTRY DATES AND NUMBERS. SKIPS ARE INTENTIONAL.
{ Chapter 1} { Chapter 2} { Chapter 3} { Chapter 4} { Chapter 5} { Chapter 6} { Chapter 7} { Chapter 8} { Chapter 9} { Chapter 10a} { Chapter 10b} { Chapter 11}
“Should have seen it coming…”
“It all happened so fast…”
“Blood everywhere. Absolutely everywhere…”
“Worst thing that could happen…”
“He knew better…”
**~**~**~**~**~**
It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be to keep myself in check throughout the day. Sure, there were a few moments when I just wanted to strip Jaejoong down and take him on the spot, but every time I thought about it, guilt from my night with Hyori would taint any desire I once had.
Jaejoong remained quiet throughout most of the morning, his kisses light and touches sparse… except for his right hand. It hardly broke contact with me for a second since he first woke up and grabbed onto my wrist, almost as if he needed to be grounded to me to keep me from flying away. Of course, the constant contact made working a little difficult at times, and I was forced to pry his desperate fingers off when the need for two free hands was too great. At those times his eyes would suddenly go wild, frantically darting around the room before settling in a remote corner and staring until my skin was touching his once again.
“What do you see Jaejoong?” I asked when my curiosity finally became too much to suppress. I resisted the urge to take the young boy’s hand again as it started to tremble and his eyes fixed on the same corner of the room they had twice before.
“He’s still here,” Jaejoong whispered, his voice shaking almost as badly as his hands. Sharp nails bit into his palms and a wild desperation punctuated the fear in his eyes; my empty hand was no more than five inches away from him, yet for some reason he didn’t reach for it. My curiosity peaked when Jaejoong slowly straightened his fingers out toward me, only to recoil them as if he’d been shocked. His lips parted and trembled, but no words came out when he moved them- just silence as he let his mind run wild. Whatever this hallucination was, it terrified him beyond belief.
As his condition is now, Jaejoong can’t deal with the vast amounts of anxiety his hallucination brings. Just the thought of it debilitates him (some days worse than others,) and getting past this fear could open up a whole new world for him- a world that I desperately want him to see. But he can’t do this on his own; he needs me. Jaejoong needs me.
I took a brief look around the room before my eyes settled back on Jaejoong’s rigid form, his hand still suspended in midair and lips still parted. “Where is he now Jaejoong?” I asked as I carefully put more distance between my hand and his body, watching as he began to shake harder.
His eyes practically screamed in horror at the waning proximity, but still he did nothing to get closer. Even his voice was noticeably more unstable, his trembling lips forming whispers I could barely catch. “He’s still watching us,” Jaejoong breathed out. “He’s always been watching us. He won’t stop.”
My patient’s fixed gaze told me more than his words, but I interpreted his incoherency all the same. “It’s okay Jaejoong,” I assured, not yet taking his hand. “I’m right here; he can’t hurt you.”
“He’s waiting for you to leave again,” Jaejoong snapped. “He knows you’ll leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, I sw-”
“You left me with him before!”
Jaejoong snapped his head around to face me, anger that I had never seen before pulsing in his dark eyes. I couldn’t imagine what he meant by it, but his entire body had gone deathly still, and for the first time he stared directly into my eyes. His chest heaved with tight breaths, the warm air ghosting over my face and surrounding me with his presence.
“You left me with him,” he repeated darkly.
“Jaejoong…” I whispered, my voice delicate- careful. “What does he look like?”
“Me.”
My mouth opened, air rushing out of my lungs without words to accompany it as tension spilled into the tight space between us. His eyes held me in place, helpless to do anything but absorb the fierce anger in his usually delicate eyes.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom what I was supposed to do next, but I didn’t have to- not quite yet.
Out of nowhere, the doorbell rang, startling us out of our haze and jerking us apart. All traces of hostility in Jaejoong’s face instantly vanished as his child-like fear returned, his wide eyes immediately looking away from his reflection. My throat had impossibly tightened, choking off my breath and leaving my brain too oxygen-deprived to think clearly. But the doorbell rang again, and I managed a soft whisper before going to the door. “I’ll be… right back, okay?” I said weakly as I rose to my feet and turned away.
“Promise?” he called after me.
“Yeah… I promise.”
I can’t really say that I expected Donghae to come by, but there he was, standing in my doorway with all his cheerful glory bright, shiny and on display while I was barely able to stay on my lead feet. I had no time to dwell on what had just happened because of his arrival, and in a way I was partially glad for the distraction.
I only managed to force out a smile when I opened the door before Donghae barreled ahead, speaking before I had much time to process who he was.
“Good morning Dr. Jung,” he greeted as he dipped into a bow and came back up with a grin. A small prescription bag dangled from his right hand, rattling slightly as he moved to hand it to me. “I noticed that this hadn’t been picked up for a while when I was making my deliveries and wasn’t really sure what you wanted me to do with it. I hope you don’t mind that I brought it here.”
The bag fell lightly into my outstretched hand (when had I done that?), and rattled softly as I stared at it. “Um. No. That’s… fine Donghae-shii,” I faltered. “Uh, thank you?”
His smile stretched further at my thanks, but he didn’t move to leave like I expected. Instead, he leaned slightly to the side as if trying to look behind me. “Is everything alright Dr. Jung?” he asked.
Electricity skated across my skin, every nerve awakening with panic as a rock of guilt dropped into my stomach. It was enough for me to temporarily remember myself- remember the situation that Donghae couldn’t see. Without much extra thought, I brought the door closer to me and used my body to block his view of whatever he was trying to look for. If he found out Jaejoong was here… it would only lead to a whole new set of unwanted complications. “Yes,” I answered shortly as I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”
He glanced up at my sharp answer and his smile slipped away. “What I mean is, are you feeling okay? It’s unlike you to miss a day,” he amended with wide, hurt eyes just as the insanity of it all struck me.
Air rushed out of my lungs as I closed my eyes and tried to get rational thoughts back in my head. “I’m fine Donghae,” I repeated softly. “I was just feeling a little sick this morning. Thank you for your concern.”
The young boy eyed me uncertainly for a few moments longer, lips pressed together and gaze searching before he bowed again- this time much more slowly and executed with an air of caution. “I hope you feel better then Dr. Jung. If there’s anything else you need, just let me know,” he offered. The boy tried for a smile, but the slight incline of his lips fell away quickly and lacked any of his normal sincerity. Mine was no better.
Even after Donghae had left and the door was shut, I couldn’t move beyond the doorframe. My face pressed against the chilled wooden barrier and my legs felt too weak to support me, even with the door’s help. What just… happened?
Donghae just dropped off medications: that was nothing out of the ordinary. But this suspicion… this anxiety… Where was it coming from all of a sudden?
Standing in the doorway did nothing to spark answers, but I knew I had to go back eventually- with or without them.
After five minutes and several deep breaths, I forced myself to return to Jaejoong as if nothing had happened at all. A fake smile graced my lips and the prescription Donghae had given me fell carelessly somewhere on the nightstand to be forgotten. Jaejoong looked up at my entrance with a blank face.
“I’m sorry about that Jaejoong-ah. It was just something from work and… um. Work related things,” I muttered, attempting to mask my incoherency by taking Jaejoong’s frozen hand.
I tried my best to push the strangeness to the back of my mind as I continued to speak with Jaejoong, and I (very, very gratefully) had him smiling at me again in less than half an hour- any and all abnormalities seemingly forgotten. I didn’t even think much of it myself until I began to write this entry, but I believe it was for the better; dwelling on it would have only served as a distraction to what I really wanted to accomplish that day. Besides, I can always document it and come back to it later when both of us are a little more prepared for it.
What I did get accomplished was quite a bit more beneficial to both of us: I spoke with him for hours, and slid in simple tests along the way- some he was aware of, some he was not. It was normal. Comfortable.
Jaejoong’s face twitched with confusion as I brought my laptop into the room and sat it in front of him, his earlier fear of losing contact with me apparently forgotten as my presence drifted away. “What’s this for?” he asked, barely sparing a glance at the device as it whirred to life.
“I just want to show you something,” I answered semi-truthfully. Silence fell over us aside from the soft clicking of keys and was only broken when the program I had in mind finished loading. Four letters appeared on the screen, all the same size and font, but in no particular order. We started off simple; L, B, T, R.
Jaejoong stared at the letters with narrowed eyes for a moment and scrunched his nose in distaste when I asked him what they were, but he read them off with no problems. “Do I have to do this?” he asked after reading the letters to me. “Micky and Choikang said this is stupid.”
I forced a smile and brushed my fingers over the back of his hand. “Just hang in there, okay? This is really important.”
Skepticism played with Jaejoong’s features, but he returned his gaze to the computer just in time for it to flash white and show four new letters- these ones broken and disfigured. “Jaejoong-ah, can you remember what those first four letters were?” I asked, carefully watching his face and readying my pen to scribble down a check mark or an x.
As I expected, Jaejoong narrowed his eyes once again (this time most likely in concentration) and remained silent. I could practically see the severed wires firing off in Jaejoong’s head- all of them desperately trying to relay a message he’ll most likely never receive.
Resigning to this observation, Jaejoong hung his head in defeat. “I don’t remember,” he whispered, confirming that the blank flash has served its purpose. “I’m sorry…”
“That’s okay,” I soothed as I leaned in to press my lips against his temple and slashed an x in my notes. “Just try again with the next one.”
And so my little experiment went on; letters, distraction, new disfigured letters, failed answer, scribbled x, and Jaejoong’s reward for trying. I tried my best to keep from prolonging the torture while still making the test long enough to confirm that he wasn’t doing any better as it went on, but there was only so much I could save him from.
Visual backwards masking tests generally don’t take very long, but I had to repeat the test with a variety of different letter/number/pattern configurations to see if Jaejoong’s ability to remember the initial images improved with repetition, which (in this case) it did not. This kind of result is typical for schizophrenics like Jaejoong, and along with my other tests and previous observations, it fully supported my initial diagnoses. I drew this conclusion just in time too- the anxiety of being unable to correctly answer any of my questions was driving Jaejoong to his breaking point.
The heels of his hands were pressed hard against the sides of his head by the time I closed my laptop and leaned in to give him his final reward kiss. “It’s okay Jaejoong,” I muttered. “We don’t have to do any more today.”
My patient’s frail body leaned into my awaiting arms and his eyes screwed shut. “They hate this,” he said darkly. “They say I’m stupid. If I keep doing this, he’ll find out, and they don’t want you to know.”
Despite being utterly confused, I held Jaejoong’s body close to mine and let his lips brush against my neck as he spoke. “Know what?” I asked.
“About him. He doesn’t want you to know who he is.”
Back to this again.
Maybe I thought it would be better dealt with on another day, or maybe I just wanted to avoid the subject for as long as possible. Either way, I tried to shove the discussion back down as soon as it came up. “Don’t think about him right now Jae,” I whispered into his hair. “He can’t hurt you here; you said it yourself. I’ll protect you.”
My words couldn’t have been more sincere, and their intentions slowly penetrated Jaejoong’s fear and helped dissolve it away. He relaxed in my arms and ‘he’ wasn’t brought up again for the rest of the day.
It was nice being able to stay at home all day like that, especially since I got to spend it with Jaejoong. Even though a lot of his conversations with me strayed from coherency, I still feel like I got to know him more than I ever could have with just one hour a day.
Jaejoong… has a deep-rooted affection for me. I guess I’ve known that for a while now, but today it became glaringly obvious that I’m the sole focus of it.
“I don’t have any friends,” he told me. “Micky and Xiah are my friends sometimes, but Choikang wants to hit me all the time. No one else is nice to me.”
“What about U-know?”
“…He’s different.”
And I left it at that, too afraid to ask about myself. I already know that we’ve both gotten in too deep- maybe even past the point of no return- but hearing it said out loud would make it all too real, and for now, I’m not ready to handle that. I got a lot accomplished today; there’s no need to ruin that with something so irrelevant to his condition.
February 28, 2003
Entry Ninety-Five
Long nights are grueling. Especially long nights of thinking too hard about things you never should have gotten involved with in the first place. My mind is in shambles, and I can’t sleep.
I kept my word to Jaejoong about giving him rewards for cooperation, so I decided that for an entire day’s worth of doing what I asked, he deserved a pretty big reward. After a quick evaluation of my own self control (just in case he asked to sleep with me again tonight,) I took a hesitant step into the topic of letting him have a choice.
“I’m really glad that you went along with all of my evaluations today Jaejoong,” I said as he returned from the shower and curled up against my side. “You did really well.” He seemed to take no mind to my comment, just rested his still wet head against my shoulder and absently played with my fingers. “Don’t you think you deserve a reward for that?” I prodded.
At first he didn’t respond. His fingers slipped between the spaces in mine and held our intwined hands up towards the light for better examination. Seemingly satisfied, he smiled and returned them to my lap. “Do I get to choose again?” he asked, to which I nodded and kissed his forehead.
“Anything you want.”
I should have known that saying such words was like signing a death warrant, but in my defense, I was expecting him to make a similar request to last night’s. Not this.
Before I really had any idea of what Jaejoong had in mind, he was already shifting to get out of my hold and toss a leg over my hips. Our hands stayed tightly laced together as he closed his eyes and pressed an opened-mouthed kiss to my lips, which I greedily returned. The warning signals weren’t quite registering even as he pressed his hips against mine; the movement was gradual, but unrelenting. We’d made out before. We’d done a bit of (mostly) shameless grinding and groping before. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to go much farther.
Call me an idiot, or blind, or stupid, or whatever, but I wasn’t at all expecting Jaejoong’s hand to slip into my pants and brush his cold fingers against my throbbing need. An instant shock of electricity exploded beneath my skin, making all of my senses go haywire and my brain stutter. Before I could properly react, his hand pressed against me again and my mind went blank.
“Jaejoong,” I hissed.
He pressed his mouth to mine and bit down on my bottom lip, drawing a moan from deep within my throat and pushing my desire into overdrive. “Jaejoong… What are you… We don’t- God- we don’t have to… do this,” I choked out between kisses.
“This is what I want,” he breathed against my lips, ministrations not pausing for a second. “Micky said I wasn’t good enough, so I want to try again.”
I protested. “Micky’s wrong. You’re more than good enough,” I said as I half-heartedly tried to roll him off me.
But Jaejoong persisted. “I have to prove it,” he shot back. “I have to show him. He won’t listen.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.” The words came to me automatically, but even though my lips said no, my body was saying anything but: my hands were still threaded in his hair and desperately clinging to the fingers of his free hand, and my hips were still jerking up to meet his icy touch.
“I want to,” he whispered, voice low and full of forbidden longing. “You like it too, don’t you?”
God yes.
“N-no. We can’t. Not this. Jaejoong please.”
I wished more than anything that he could have look into my eyes then- that he could have seen the desperation pouring from them and trying in vain to drown my growing desire. It would have made things so much easier if he just understood why this was so wrong. It was different from kissing- different from cuddling with each other or flashing warm smiles while he lay in my arms. This was too much.
Despite my protests, Jaejoong’s hand kept moving. Up and down, stroking my skin until all I could do was cling to him and gasp for breath. My lips parted in a silent plea as my head fell back to scream it to the heavens, but the only thing that came out was a breathless moan. No matter what I did, the sounds just kept coming, one after another until they blended into a continuous string of incoherency that I was helpless to control.
His fingers never lost their chill even as they stroked me to the edge of completion. Just one more second of his touch and I would have lost it, but he pulled away before the first wave could hit. I could have screamed at the sudden loss of sensation, and I probably would have if I hadn’t seen the look on Jaejoong’s face when he sat back on his heels.
All emotion had completely vanished from his eyes, the dark orbs becoming nothing more than infinite voids of charcoal staring at my chest. Even his grip on my hand went slack, and my desire quickly began to fade.
“This is not the same,” he whispered.
“What’s not?” I questioned. Although the clouds of lust in my mind were rapidly dissipating, I was still boarder-line incoherent and my voice still scratched at the back of my throat. I couldn’t make any sense of why Jaejoong had suddenly stopped or why he was staring or what he’d said, so I just watched and waited for an answer that never came as I willed my body to get back under control.
For a moment, I thought I might actually get off the hook. Blood was quickly returning to the head on my shoulders and Jaejoong seemed to have lost interest in using his hands to drive me crazy, but the moment was short-lived. Just as suddenly as he’d stopped, Jaejoong jerked forward and crushed our lips back together in a bruising kiss, sighing against me as his hands returned to my skin.
Had he not caught me off guard, I wouldn’t have let it happen at all. So, with the little bit of sensibility I gained back during the brief pause, I made the decision to gently push Jaejoong away and still his eager hand. “Jaejoong… That’s- that’s enough. We have to stop now,” I breathed out, making sure that he couldn’t disobey me by lacing our fingers together.
He drew back slightly but made no other move to protest, both of his hands resting calmly in mine. “Why?” he whispered.
I pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and let my lips linger. “Tell me why this isn’t the same…” I sighed.
“No. I can’t.” His body began to go rigid again, and I knew my window of opportunity to get an answer was quickly closing. I had to do something.
Against my better (normal) judgment, I breathed against Jaejoong’s pale skin, inhaling deeply and letting his scent linger in my senses before I signed for my certain death. “Tell me why… and I’ll let you finish.”
A/N: not sure why i didn't post this here when i posted it over in my main journal back in September. my bad ^^;