Christmas (Fic Exchange: for samikitty)
Title: Christmas
Author: twhitesakura
Recipient: samikitty
Wordcount: 2,045
Characters: Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu, and Yunho
Rating: G
Summary: OT5-family. Jaejoong tries to convince everyone to move in with him.
Changmin reached up to put the last piece of tinsel on the Christmas tree that took up the center of Jaejoong’s living room. The tree was a large, grandiose, Douglas fir with sweet, sharp smelling pine needles. It had taken Changmin hours to hang ornaments, small silver baubles, on each bough, and his fingers were sticky with resin. With a sigh of relief, he started climbing down the step ladder when he heard the apartment’s front door slam.
“Hyung,” Changmin greeted automatically.
Jaejoong bustled in, snug in a padded black jacket which had a very large tear in the back of it. His fingers were wrapped around jingling keys and the crooks of his arms were full of grocery bags. Sunglasses shielded Jaejoong’s face. He tromped through the hallway, past Changmin in mid-step down the ladder, and deposited his keys and load of food on the kitchen table, then quickly bent down to shed his snow-encrusted boots. He threw his sunglasses into the sink in haste. They clattered.
“I can’t believe it.” Jaejoong made a sour face. “Those fans stalked and mobbed me all the way from the intersection to the supermarket.” He walked quickly in his socks to the living room where he squirmed out of his confining coat and lay like a landed seal on the couch. It was a short walk. His apartment’s foyer, living room, kitchen and dining area were all one connected space. Only the bathroom and one bedroom were actually separate rooms.
At Jaejoong’s huff of exasperation, Changmin alit from his perch and towered over the older man with his hands on his hips.
Jaejoong’s eyes were closed, but his brows furrowed as if he could feel Changmin’s shadow like a cool hand passing over him.
“Well,” Changmin said, “we could have ordered catering to be delivered. But you wanted to cook.”
Jaejoong opened one orb, squinting at Changmin like a mutinous pirate.
“But you would have missed my jjigae, right?”
Changmin didn’t reply and turned back to the tree, pretending to rearrange some of the golden tinsel that was strewn among the greenery with care and balance. He had gotten good at decorating trees. He had done so every year since 2004 for the DBSK household. Last year, Changmin didn’t bother. He put up a tiny aluminum tree sans decorations in the corner of the dormitory he shared with Yunho and quietly fumed, using anger to drive away a sense of loneliness and incompleteness.
Warm hands wrapped gently around Changmin’s back and across his mid-section.
“I missed you too,” Jaejoong murmured, face pressed against Changmin’s shoulder. “Last Christmas wasn’t the same without you and Yunho.”
Changmin rolled his eyes and elbowed the man behind him.
“You’re so sticky, hyung.”
Jaejoong laughed, voice bright and shining like a chime catching sunlight and a breath of fresh wind. It was different from his chuckle of the past. It came from someplace deeper, long and mellow, and there was an old tenderness in his eyes that made Changmin’s toes curl. Jaejoong’s smile was causing strange, half-forgotten flutterings in his stomach.
“Just for that elbow in the gut,” Jaejoong exclaimed, “I’m going to put extra death sauce in your portion of the stew!”
Changmin smirked, ready to reply to the challenging tilt of Jaejoong’s head when the doorbell rang. They eyed each other for a long moment and then Jaejoong did a curious thing, his thin frame uncoiling, deflating. Jaejoong shuffled back to the sofa and flopped back down on it.
“Go get that.” Five fingers rose from the leather cushions and waved imperiously at Changmin.
“Why?”
“I’m the host,” Jaejoong complained. He leaned up on one elbow while mischief lurked on his lips, pulling the corners of them like a teasing child. “Everyone’s crashing my apartment,” Jaejoong emphasized. “Everyone’s eating my food. Everyone’s getting presents under my tree.”
Changmin ogled the gift-wrapped packages under the fir, trying to stop the curiosity from flowing out of his eyes. He kept his gaze on the gifts even as he made his way to the apartment entrance. As Changmin reached the foyer, the bell rang again. This time, he also heard voices behind the portal.
“Junsu!” A low voice scolded harshly. “You forgot the marshmallows!”
“Stop talking about the marshmallows, Yoochunie!” A higher voice squeaked back. “I had to run back and forth from my apartment five times already getting things Jaejoong needed. I’m not going back one more time!”
“But you live right next door to Jaejoong!”
“No I don’t!” Junsu protested. “I live ten floors away in this building and Jaejoong was so antsy he made me use the stairs back and forth instead of waiting for the eleva-”
Changmin unlocked the door and leaned across it, long lanky legs crossing at the ankles and long lanky arms folding against his chest.
“Hello, hyung-deul.”
On Jaejoong’s welcome mat, Yoochun and Junsu, both loaded with even more groceries, stood agape at him.
“God, you’re so slow, Junsu!” Yoochun hissed. “Changmin’s already here!”
Junsu’s face pinched, cheeks turning bright red. He shoveled his bag of supplies into Yoochun’s arms and stepped lively into Jaejoong’s apartment, his voice rising in holiday cheer.
“Jaejoongie-hyung! Merry, merry, merry Christmas!”
Changmin chortled, watching as a stunned Yoochun tried to juggle the sudden profusion of cartons in his hands. One of them landed on the floor with a sickening crack.
“I’m guessing that’s the eggs breaking,” Changmin pointed out good-naturedly.
Yoochun sighed, staring up at Changmin with a tired ashen face.
“Jaejoong’s going to kill me.”
Yoochun and Junsu settled into Jaejoong’s apartment. Changmin helped hang their coats away in a closet before the two entered into the den to give Jaejoong greeting embraces although Jaejoong still refused to get up from the couch.
“You know, we’re in a pretty compromising position,” Yoochun waggled his eyebrows as he lay on top of Jaejoong to give him a great bear hug. “Don’t you think it’s about time to get up?”
“I can lay here and mope all I want,” Jaejoong bit back mournfully. He pushed Yoochun away. “The fans tore off a piece of my new coat. Do you know how expensive it was?” He lolled ineffectually on the cushions after the endeavor. “Put the food in the fridge,” Jaejoong barked.
Yoochun sighed, picking up the packages he had temporarily laid on the floor, and ambled off into the kitchen.
“Yes, mom.”
Obligingly, Yoochun unloaded kimchi, milk, and cheese into the refrigerator. As he closed the fridge door, he peered at Jaejoong’s shopping list - a series of post-it notes stuck on the top right corner of the appliance. He crossed off all of the items with a pen he found on a kitchen shelf. Yoochun nodded once to himself before peeling off the notes daintily, one by one.
“You know, you should think about buying magnets!” Yoochun hollered at Jaejoong as he crumpled the notes up. He pretended to dribble the mess like a basketball before tossing it into a paper wastebasket near the sink.
Jaejoong grunted.
While Yoochun chatted, Junsu puttered around the living space. He rolled up the thick sleeves of his blue sweater and whistled the tune “First Noel,” before he reached for the phone in the cradle set attached to a dividing wall in the kitchen. In the area, Changmin snagged a peach to munch on from the fruit bowl and watched as Junsu dialed, the buttons warbling electronically note by note.
“Yunho-hyung’s going to be late,” Changmin called out mid-chew before Junsu finished inputting his numbers. “He’s at the doctor’s. I already told Jaejoong.”
In reply, Junsu grinned cheekily at Changmin, keeping the phone to his ear.
“Oh! Hyung,” Junsu said. “It’s me. Can you go by a convenience store and grab us some eggs and marshmallows? Jaejoongie wants to bake desert and use the fireplace in his apartment to roast the marshmallows after dinner. Oh, you need to know how many?”
From the couch, Jaejoong lifted his hand up high in a V-sign.
Junsu’s gaze darted once to him, then quickly away.
“One carton and one bag,” Junsu told Yunho matter-of-factly through the phone. “Okay. Okay.”
“Junsu saved the day,” Yoochun whispered, dusting his hands off, and coming to stand by Changmin.
“Did he actually get,” Changmin leaned down teasingly and gulped, “smarter?”
“Side effect of living near me!” Jaejoong sing-songed, loud and clear from his lair. “You know there’s plenty of vacant apartments still left in the building. Tell me if you guys ever need to move.”
By the time Yunho arrived, Jaejoong was up and about, cooking up a storm, while Junsu and Yoochun hogged the HD television set and game console in the living room. Changmin had taken over Jaejoong’s lair and was now new overlord of sofa leather and the commodious warm spot Jaejoong had left when he had been deposed from his kingdom.
“Score one for the youngest,” Changmin said happily to himself. His hands were butter-yellow from a bowl of popcorn Jaejoong had given him to tide over his hunger before dinner, and Junsu and Yoochun’s familiar bickering was more entertaining than even the most nostalgic movies from childhood.
The bell trilled. Unlike Yoochun and Junsu’s short jabs or Changmin’s knock, this one sang like a nightingale.
“It’s Yunho!” Jaejoong called out what all of them already knew. “Go get the door!”
Changmin grunted, wiggled lovingly on his couch for a moment longer, then rose to greet his roommate. He unlatched the door with a click.
“Merry Christmas, hyung.”
Yunho blinked back, puppy-like eyes bright, warm, and happy.
“Merry Christmas, Changmin.”
“Let me get those eggs and marshmallows from you.”
Yunho handed over his burden and stomped the frost from his boots. He threw off the hood of his coat, and the ice, hanging like a thick crust over it, transformed into powdered sugar shaking all over Jaejoong’s welcome mat.
“U-know Yunho!” Jaejoong screamed. “Don’t you dare walk in here with dirty feet!”
“I already know!” Yunho tried to scream back, although his voice sounded a little battered.
Yoochun and Junsu appeared like magic near Changmin to help Yunho with his coat. The game on the television set was paused.
“Good news this year?” Yoochun asked cautiously.
“Hospital checkup says my throat is fine, although scratchy from the tests.” Yunho grinned. “No cancer.”
Junsu and Yoochun shared a glance. It was an old story. One day, a long time ago, the sores had spread and robbed Yunho of his voice and nearly killed him until the doctors cut them out. As time wore on and remission continued, they sometimes nearly forgot about it, until the semi-annual appointments came.
“That’s great hyung,” Junsu said kindly. “That’s great.”
Yunho finished shedding his coat when he caught sight of Changmin’s Christmas tree.
“So much tinsel, but no angels again this year?”
Changmin rolled his eyes.
“I don’t believe in angels, you know that. I’m Buddhist.”
“Our little heretic,” Yoochun tugged on Changmin’s left earlobe affectionately. All of DBSK, like most of South Korea was Christian, except for Changmin.
“It’s still a wonderful tree,” Yunho said smilingly. He cast a meaningful look at Changmin. “Please make sure to decorate one for me, every year.”
Changmin beamed.
“I will, hyung.”
They looked at each other, camaraderie draped between them like an old blanket when Jaejoong came barreling out of the kitchen with a pot of kimchi jjigae steaming between his mitten-ed hands. He plunked it down on the dining table.
“Guys! Time to eat!”
As DBSK grabbed bowls and utensils and settled down for Christmas dinner, Jaejoong put down his spoon and cast a hard gaze on all of them.
“You know,” Jaejoong started slowly, “if you lived nearby I could cook for you all the time. I just happen to know there are vacancies on floors twenty and twenty two. There’s one that has a really great terrace that overlooks a beautiful skyline of Seoul at night.” At his audience’s silence, Jaejoong cast a desperate peek at one of his members. “Junsu?”
Junsu choked mid-bite on his jjigae.
“Hyung,” Junsu said, his cheeks glowing an alarming shade of crimson. It wasn’t cute at all this time, but the uneasy shade of asphyxiation. “I think,” he croaked, “you gave me Changmin’s portion by mistake.”
Author: twhitesakura
Recipient: samikitty
Wordcount: 2,045
Characters: Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu, and Yunho
Rating: G
Summary: OT5-family. Jaejoong tries to convince everyone to move in with him.
Changmin reached up to put the last piece of tinsel on the Christmas tree that took up the center of Jaejoong’s living room. The tree was a large, grandiose, Douglas fir with sweet, sharp smelling pine needles. It had taken Changmin hours to hang ornaments, small silver baubles, on each bough, and his fingers were sticky with resin. With a sigh of relief, he started climbing down the step ladder when he heard the apartment’s front door slam.
“Hyung,” Changmin greeted automatically.
Jaejoong bustled in, snug in a padded black jacket which had a very large tear in the back of it. His fingers were wrapped around jingling keys and the crooks of his arms were full of grocery bags. Sunglasses shielded Jaejoong’s face. He tromped through the hallway, past Changmin in mid-step down the ladder, and deposited his keys and load of food on the kitchen table, then quickly bent down to shed his snow-encrusted boots. He threw his sunglasses into the sink in haste. They clattered.
“I can’t believe it.” Jaejoong made a sour face. “Those fans stalked and mobbed me all the way from the intersection to the supermarket.” He walked quickly in his socks to the living room where he squirmed out of his confining coat and lay like a landed seal on the couch. It was a short walk. His apartment’s foyer, living room, kitchen and dining area were all one connected space. Only the bathroom and one bedroom were actually separate rooms.
At Jaejoong’s huff of exasperation, Changmin alit from his perch and towered over the older man with his hands on his hips.
Jaejoong’s eyes were closed, but his brows furrowed as if he could feel Changmin’s shadow like a cool hand passing over him.
“Well,” Changmin said, “we could have ordered catering to be delivered. But you wanted to cook.”
Jaejoong opened one orb, squinting at Changmin like a mutinous pirate.
“But you would have missed my jjigae, right?”
Changmin didn’t reply and turned back to the tree, pretending to rearrange some of the golden tinsel that was strewn among the greenery with care and balance. He had gotten good at decorating trees. He had done so every year since 2004 for the DBSK household. Last year, Changmin didn’t bother. He put up a tiny aluminum tree sans decorations in the corner of the dormitory he shared with Yunho and quietly fumed, using anger to drive away a sense of loneliness and incompleteness.
Warm hands wrapped gently around Changmin’s back and across his mid-section.
“I missed you too,” Jaejoong murmured, face pressed against Changmin’s shoulder. “Last Christmas wasn’t the same without you and Yunho.”
Changmin rolled his eyes and elbowed the man behind him.
“You’re so sticky, hyung.”
Jaejoong laughed, voice bright and shining like a chime catching sunlight and a breath of fresh wind. It was different from his chuckle of the past. It came from someplace deeper, long and mellow, and there was an old tenderness in his eyes that made Changmin’s toes curl. Jaejoong’s smile was causing strange, half-forgotten flutterings in his stomach.
“Just for that elbow in the gut,” Jaejoong exclaimed, “I’m going to put extra death sauce in your portion of the stew!”
Changmin smirked, ready to reply to the challenging tilt of Jaejoong’s head when the doorbell rang. They eyed each other for a long moment and then Jaejoong did a curious thing, his thin frame uncoiling, deflating. Jaejoong shuffled back to the sofa and flopped back down on it.
“Go get that.” Five fingers rose from the leather cushions and waved imperiously at Changmin.
“Why?”
“I’m the host,” Jaejoong complained. He leaned up on one elbow while mischief lurked on his lips, pulling the corners of them like a teasing child. “Everyone’s crashing my apartment,” Jaejoong emphasized. “Everyone’s eating my food. Everyone’s getting presents under my tree.”
Changmin ogled the gift-wrapped packages under the fir, trying to stop the curiosity from flowing out of his eyes. He kept his gaze on the gifts even as he made his way to the apartment entrance. As Changmin reached the foyer, the bell rang again. This time, he also heard voices behind the portal.
“Junsu!” A low voice scolded harshly. “You forgot the marshmallows!”
“Stop talking about the marshmallows, Yoochunie!” A higher voice squeaked back. “I had to run back and forth from my apartment five times already getting things Jaejoong needed. I’m not going back one more time!”
“But you live right next door to Jaejoong!”
“No I don’t!” Junsu protested. “I live ten floors away in this building and Jaejoong was so antsy he made me use the stairs back and forth instead of waiting for the eleva-”
Changmin unlocked the door and leaned across it, long lanky legs crossing at the ankles and long lanky arms folding against his chest.
“Hello, hyung-deul.”
On Jaejoong’s welcome mat, Yoochun and Junsu, both loaded with even more groceries, stood agape at him.
“God, you’re so slow, Junsu!” Yoochun hissed. “Changmin’s already here!”
Junsu’s face pinched, cheeks turning bright red. He shoveled his bag of supplies into Yoochun’s arms and stepped lively into Jaejoong’s apartment, his voice rising in holiday cheer.
“Jaejoongie-hyung! Merry, merry, merry Christmas!”
Changmin chortled, watching as a stunned Yoochun tried to juggle the sudden profusion of cartons in his hands. One of them landed on the floor with a sickening crack.
“I’m guessing that’s the eggs breaking,” Changmin pointed out good-naturedly.
Yoochun sighed, staring up at Changmin with a tired ashen face.
“Jaejoong’s going to kill me.”
Yoochun and Junsu settled into Jaejoong’s apartment. Changmin helped hang their coats away in a closet before the two entered into the den to give Jaejoong greeting embraces although Jaejoong still refused to get up from the couch.
“You know, we’re in a pretty compromising position,” Yoochun waggled his eyebrows as he lay on top of Jaejoong to give him a great bear hug. “Don’t you think it’s about time to get up?”
“I can lay here and mope all I want,” Jaejoong bit back mournfully. He pushed Yoochun away. “The fans tore off a piece of my new coat. Do you know how expensive it was?” He lolled ineffectually on the cushions after the endeavor. “Put the food in the fridge,” Jaejoong barked.
Yoochun sighed, picking up the packages he had temporarily laid on the floor, and ambled off into the kitchen.
“Yes, mom.”
Obligingly, Yoochun unloaded kimchi, milk, and cheese into the refrigerator. As he closed the fridge door, he peered at Jaejoong’s shopping list - a series of post-it notes stuck on the top right corner of the appliance. He crossed off all of the items with a pen he found on a kitchen shelf. Yoochun nodded once to himself before peeling off the notes daintily, one by one.
“You know, you should think about buying magnets!” Yoochun hollered at Jaejoong as he crumpled the notes up. He pretended to dribble the mess like a basketball before tossing it into a paper wastebasket near the sink.
Jaejoong grunted.
While Yoochun chatted, Junsu puttered around the living space. He rolled up the thick sleeves of his blue sweater and whistled the tune “First Noel,” before he reached for the phone in the cradle set attached to a dividing wall in the kitchen. In the area, Changmin snagged a peach to munch on from the fruit bowl and watched as Junsu dialed, the buttons warbling electronically note by note.
“Yunho-hyung’s going to be late,” Changmin called out mid-chew before Junsu finished inputting his numbers. “He’s at the doctor’s. I already told Jaejoong.”
In reply, Junsu grinned cheekily at Changmin, keeping the phone to his ear.
“Oh! Hyung,” Junsu said. “It’s me. Can you go by a convenience store and grab us some eggs and marshmallows? Jaejoongie wants to bake desert and use the fireplace in his apartment to roast the marshmallows after dinner. Oh, you need to know how many?”
From the couch, Jaejoong lifted his hand up high in a V-sign.
Junsu’s gaze darted once to him, then quickly away.
“One carton and one bag,” Junsu told Yunho matter-of-factly through the phone. “Okay. Okay.”
“Junsu saved the day,” Yoochun whispered, dusting his hands off, and coming to stand by Changmin.
“Did he actually get,” Changmin leaned down teasingly and gulped, “smarter?”
“Side effect of living near me!” Jaejoong sing-songed, loud and clear from his lair. “You know there’s plenty of vacant apartments still left in the building. Tell me if you guys ever need to move.”
By the time Yunho arrived, Jaejoong was up and about, cooking up a storm, while Junsu and Yoochun hogged the HD television set and game console in the living room. Changmin had taken over Jaejoong’s lair and was now new overlord of sofa leather and the commodious warm spot Jaejoong had left when he had been deposed from his kingdom.
“Score one for the youngest,” Changmin said happily to himself. His hands were butter-yellow from a bowl of popcorn Jaejoong had given him to tide over his hunger before dinner, and Junsu and Yoochun’s familiar bickering was more entertaining than even the most nostalgic movies from childhood.
The bell trilled. Unlike Yoochun and Junsu’s short jabs or Changmin’s knock, this one sang like a nightingale.
“It’s Yunho!” Jaejoong called out what all of them already knew. “Go get the door!”
Changmin grunted, wiggled lovingly on his couch for a moment longer, then rose to greet his roommate. He unlatched the door with a click.
“Merry Christmas, hyung.”
Yunho blinked back, puppy-like eyes bright, warm, and happy.
“Merry Christmas, Changmin.”
“Let me get those eggs and marshmallows from you.”
Yunho handed over his burden and stomped the frost from his boots. He threw off the hood of his coat, and the ice, hanging like a thick crust over it, transformed into powdered sugar shaking all over Jaejoong’s welcome mat.
“U-know Yunho!” Jaejoong screamed. “Don’t you dare walk in here with dirty feet!”
“I already know!” Yunho tried to scream back, although his voice sounded a little battered.
Yoochun and Junsu appeared like magic near Changmin to help Yunho with his coat. The game on the television set was paused.
“Good news this year?” Yoochun asked cautiously.
“Hospital checkup says my throat is fine, although scratchy from the tests.” Yunho grinned. “No cancer.”
Junsu and Yoochun shared a glance. It was an old story. One day, a long time ago, the sores had spread and robbed Yunho of his voice and nearly killed him until the doctors cut them out. As time wore on and remission continued, they sometimes nearly forgot about it, until the semi-annual appointments came.
“That’s great hyung,” Junsu said kindly. “That’s great.”
Yunho finished shedding his coat when he caught sight of Changmin’s Christmas tree.
“So much tinsel, but no angels again this year?”
Changmin rolled his eyes.
“I don’t believe in angels, you know that. I’m Buddhist.”
“Our little heretic,” Yoochun tugged on Changmin’s left earlobe affectionately. All of DBSK, like most of South Korea was Christian, except for Changmin.
“It’s still a wonderful tree,” Yunho said smilingly. He cast a meaningful look at Changmin. “Please make sure to decorate one for me, every year.”
Changmin beamed.
“I will, hyung.”
They looked at each other, camaraderie draped between them like an old blanket when Jaejoong came barreling out of the kitchen with a pot of kimchi jjigae steaming between his mitten-ed hands. He plunked it down on the dining table.
“Guys! Time to eat!”
As DBSK grabbed bowls and utensils and settled down for Christmas dinner, Jaejoong put down his spoon and cast a hard gaze on all of them.
“You know,” Jaejoong started slowly, “if you lived nearby I could cook for you all the time. I just happen to know there are vacancies on floors twenty and twenty two. There’s one that has a really great terrace that overlooks a beautiful skyline of Seoul at night.” At his audience’s silence, Jaejoong cast a desperate peek at one of his members. “Junsu?”
Junsu choked mid-bite on his jjigae.
“Hyung,” Junsu said, his cheeks glowing an alarming shade of crimson. It wasn’t cute at all this time, but the uneasy shade of asphyxiation. “I think,” he croaked, “you gave me Changmin’s portion by mistake.”