My Marble Tiger 2/8
Title: My Marble Tiger
Pairings: YooMin, past JaeChun, XiMin.
Rating: NC-17 for later chapters
Summary: A famous sculptor who’s lost his inspiration after being dumped meets a cheerful man who sits in a zoo and watches the tigers all day. He slowly learns how to be happy again and even falls in love. But the seemingly carefree man has a dark secret.
Warnings: Angst and violence later. Will get graphic.
Disclaimer: The tigers belong to a Dutch zoo, DBSK belong to SM’s zoo. If I ever get my hands on them they’ll be in cages in a private zoo in my backyard (DBSK, not the tigers) or I’d set them free, they’d look great in the wild too.
Part 2: Tigers
One week later
Yoochun was walking to the zoo again, he’d been there with Changmin every day since the day he’d seen him cry.
He hadn’t mentioned it, the crying.
Changmin must have known the traces of his tears were still visible on his face when Yoochun sat down next to him, but he had acted as cheerful as (almost) ever.
And Yoochun was curious and worried - he had no idea why, it wasn’t like he cared for Changmin, right? - but he didn’t have the courage to ask him about it.
What would he say anyway? Changmin would probably deny it and somehow he had the feeling that saying: “yes you did, I was sitting there, behind that bush, watching you, and I saw it”, would sound a bit creepy.
Oh, and in the worst case Changmin would start crying again, he had definitely no intention of letting that happen, let alone be the one to cause it.
He walked past elephants and bears and giraffes and small cuddly animals but he didn’t stop to look at any of them, he’d only find Changmin with the tigers.
Changmin was obsessed with tigers, Yoochun had concluded, but not in the way most people were obsessed with something.
Yoochun didn’t know what Changmin’s house looked like, but he was sure it wasn’t filled with useless tiger-related stuff, Changmin wasn’t like that. He just liked being with the tigers for some reason.
What reason he didn’t know, Changmin never talked about things like that, he never really talked about himself.
Yes he’d told him about his favourite band and his favourite food and the worst haircut he’d ever had and a million other things.
But Yoochun still didn’t know why he came here every day.
It was time to find out, today he was definitely going to ask him.
Of course there were other things he wanted to know, like why Changmin was interested in him, seemed to like him. That really was a mystery to Yoochun.
He’d been cold, boring and even rude sometimes, for example that day he wore his other coat and he’d found the ring he’d once given Jae in one of the pockets.
Changmin had looked at him and asked what was wrong and Yoochun had yelled at him. It was just, that had made it seem so final, Jae hadn’t even kept his ring, it was over.
But at the end of the day Changmin always asked him ‘see you tomorrow?’. He’d started bringing twice as much food for lunch and forced Yoochun to eat something. And what touched Yoochun the most was that he’d started reading a little book about Greek myths that he said he’d found somewhere - Yoochun suspected he’d bought it - to be of more help to Yoochun and his, as Changmin called it, ‘quest for a good idea for a statue’.
Yoochun didn’t want to ask him about this though, he wanted to know, but what if Changmin would say or imply something that meant: ‘because you’re famous’, or: ‘Well I don’t like you but I’m forced to be with you because you come to my spot every day so I might as well be nice.’
He knew Changmin didn’t think those things, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
He hadn’t even started looking for the pieces of his heart yet. One little blow and he’d probably be looking for them for the rest of his life and die a bitter, lonely death. It might make his art more famous though, that seemed to be how that worked.
He arrived at the cage. Changmin was there, of course, sitting on the bench. He smiled at Yoochun and then turned back again to look at the tiger - it was Yardan, Changmin had taught him how to tell them apart - that was visible between the little trees.
Yoochun’s curiosity reached a peak. He hadn’t asked Changmin any questions yet, he hadn’t shown any interest in him at all. He was going to change that.
He didn’t sit down. “Changmin?”
“Yes?” If Changmin was surprised that Yoochun initiated a conversation for once he hid it well, he even kept his eyes on Yardan.”
“Why do you like tigers so much?”
Changmin stiffened, was this too personal? It seemed like a normal unimportant question, but Changmin’s reaction caused Yoochun to immediately regret asking it.
“Um.. you don’t have to..”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll tell you.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his usual spontaneous laugh, it sounded a bit forced.
“I understand I must seem weird to you, coming here every day. Of course you come here every day too, but you’re an artist, it’s okay for artists to be eccentric.”
Yoochun didn’t think Changmin was weird at all, but he was afraid he’d stop talking if he interrupted him now.
“I like the tigers because they look so carefree and strong. You know, they spend their entire life in that cage, and I’ve never seen them look upset about it. Have you seen their eyes? They look so wise, so relaxed, like they wouldn’t care even you put them in a cage that’s ten times as small. And they look so strong... they can protect the ones they love.”
Changmin’s voice had started off very passionate and ended soft, he was looking at Yoochun now, his eyes impenetrable for the first time.
“That’s why I like them, I admire them.” He turned to watch Yardan again, Radka had joined him and they were now lying on the leaves together, enjoying the sunlight, they did look very peaceful and happy.
Yoochun sat down next to Changmin. He didn’t say anything, it wasn’t necessary and somehow he felt it was better to stay silent for a while.
He didn’t know what to make of Changmin’s answer and somehow his thoughts went back to Jae.
Since he’d met Changmin the painful memories of Jae had plagued him less and less, but they hadn’t gone away completely or stopped being painful. He looked at the cage.
He felt like he was locked in a cage too, a cage called Jaejoong. Maybe Changmin was right, if he were a tiger he’d be stronger, he wouldn’t let the cage get him down.
He probably wouldn’t be in a cage at all. Catching Yoochun had been easy for Jae, catching a tiger would be difficult, Jae didn’t do difficult, he was spoiled and lazy.
Yoochun realised he was part of the reason Jae was so spoiled, he had loved him unconditionally, without asking anything in return.
He looked up when Changmin turned to look at him, he was smiling again.
“I have an idea for our quest. I got it when I found this in my room this morning.” He took a small digital camera from his pocket.
“I’ll take pictures of all the pretty things I see today and print them and tomorrow you look at them and get an idea for a statue.”
He said it like it was a fact, like there was no way this plan could possibly fail. Yoochun smiled. He didn’t know if it would work but it’d at least be very interesting.
He wanted to know what kind of things Changmin considered pretty, maybe he’d get to know him a little bit better.
===============================================
When Yoochun woke up the next morning he decided he really had to pay some bills today. He’d been putting it off way too long and it was time to pick up his life again.
He’d also go grocery shopping so he could eat something other than instant noodles and share his lunch with Changmin instead of the other way around. Somehow being with Changmin had a positive effect on him.
Money wasn’t a problem. It had been a while since he’d sold his last statue, but rich clients paid well and he’d built up a little fortune.
Thinking about this made him wonder, ‘where does Changmin get his money from?’ He didn’t seem to have a job. He couldn’t have, unless it was a night job, but he never looked tired.
And Yoochun had a strong feeling he lived alone. Changmin had talked about practically everyone who lived in his building - and their pets. He’d said life stories of different people often inspired artists.
For example the story about a couple that lived next door to Changmin and kept fighting about what colour to paint their front door until they settled for using both colours in a striped pattern.
Changmin hadn’t dared to break to them that you weren’t supposed to repaint the front door of a rented apartment, and the landlord had almost kicked them out, not because of the paint, but because of their bad taste.
Everyone in the building had protested and told him they liked it - because everyone liked the couple and they were glad the fighting had stopped - so they could stay and their door even stayed two-coloured.
Now that door had turned into a defining feature of the building and they'd really started to like it.
Yoochun had laughed, for what felt like the first time in years, Changmin was good at telling stories.
Surely Changmin would have told him stories about the people that he lived with had there been any.
So it was a mystery how Changmin supported himself.
This mystery was solved when Yoochun arrived at the cage, well, he still didn’t know what Changmin had done before. But he knew what job he had now.
Changmin was wearing a simple uniform, the name of the zoo on his shoulder. And he was holding a broom, which he swung around enthusiastically when he noticed Yoochun.
As if it wasn’t obvious he kept repeating: “Yoochun, I have a job! They gave me a job! I have an actual job! In the zoo!”
Yoochun couldn’t help but laugh. “Tell me everything”, he said.
The zookeepers had noticed Changmin’s daily visits and decided they could use someone to keep the area around the cage clean and answer questions of visitors about the tigers.
Changmin knew everything about the tiger’s daily routines, their favourite spots, when they took naps, when they played. After all he’d carefully observed them for over two months.
Basically Changmin would get paid to hang around the cage all day and occasionally throw away some rubbish left by visitors, or tell them to do it themselves since he’d be there all the time.
Yoochun knew he wouldn’t be very busy answering questions. The summer holiday hadn’t started yet and the daily number of visitors was small.
Yoochun was happy, because this seemed to make Changmin very happy. He hadn’t forgotten about the crying yet, he still didn’t know what had caused it.
And he was also happy because this was a kind of guarantee that Changmin would keep coming here.
Somewhere deep inside he’d been afraid that he’d arrive one day and Changmin wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t come anymore. He didn’t want that to happen.
Changmin had taken pictures like he said he would. He pointed to a little album that was lying on their bench - Yoochun had unconsciously started referring to it as ‘our bench’.
He picked the album up and sat down. Changmin continued sweeping the spotless pavement. He was very enthusiastic about this job.
But he also looked a bit embarrassed, he kept his head down and Yoochun thought his cheeks looked slightly more pink than usual.
He opened the album. He was curious, had Changmin taken a picture of something embarrassing? What could it be?
Changmin had put some work into this, he’d sorted the pictures and carefully placed them in the album.
“You can keep it if you want”, he said.
There were pictures of tigers - no surprise there -, some flowers - probably from the park close to his house -, and there was a picture of Yoochun’s Hermes as well.
“I already made that statue”, he said, voice amused.
He was sure Changmin was blushing now. “I know, but I wanted to take pictures of nice and beautiful things.”
Yoochun smiled, shook his head and turned the last page. There was a picture of him. When had Changmin taken this? It was just the side of his face. He had probably been looking at the tigers, thinking about something. And...
Wait.
There was a picture.. of him. Changmin had taken a picture of him and placed it in this album.
Did this mean...
When he looked up he saw Changmin quickly turning his eyes back to his broom, he had been looking at him and his face was red now.
Yoochun wanted to know. But he felt he had to say something casual to break the tension between them. He cleared his throat and tried to pull a neutral face.
“You want me to make a statue of myself?”
Changmin’s eyes shot up and met his. “That’s not.. I wanted to...”, he sighed, like he was giving up on something.
“Yes”, he said, "I think it would be a very beautiful statue.” He kept looking at Yoochun, observing his reaction.
“You could use a classical theme too, I think you would make a great Greek hero or god.”
Now it was Yoochun’s turn to blush. “Um.. thank you.. but I don’t really see myself as the Greek god type, and making such a statue of myself might make me look like a very arrogant artist. I don’t know if galleries would like it.
“Oh..” Changmin looked disappointed.
“But you are the Greek god type.”
Yoochun had said it without thinking.
Changmin’s beautiful - divine - smile was back.
“Really? Would you make a statue of me?” He sounded very hopeful.
Yoochun thought about this for a moment, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Changmin knew quite a few Greek myths now, he could let him choose a character and portray him as it.
It might be fun, it would make Changmin happy and Yoochun would get to look at him, a lot, without having to do it secretly.
“Yes”, he said, I would like to make a statue of you. Do you want to be my model?
Saying the words ‘my model’ might have hurt Yoochun a few days ago, but he didn’t even notice what he’d said as Changmin’s happiness seemed to explode, he was almost jumping up and down, it was very cute.
“Yes, yes! Of course I do. This is so awesome, I’m sure Yunho would-”
...Suddenly he stopped talking and his mood changed completely.
Yoochun had seen his mood swings, but never one this big. Changmin’s shoulders slumped - he almost dropped the broom. And the sad eyes were back. He looked down and started sweeping again.
“Changmin?”
No response.
“Who is Yunho?”
“...”
“Changmin?”
Changmin sighed, “he was my brother.”
“Was?”
“He died last winter.”
“I’m sorry.”
Changmin continued sweeping the same spot he’d been sweeping for ten minutes or so already.
“Do you.. want to talk about it?”
“Not much to talk about, he took care of me when our parents died, he was very smart and went to America to study when I was old enough to take care of myself. He was the best big brother in the world, and then he died.”
Yoochun felt there was more to Yunho’s death than Changmin let out, but he didn’t push it.
Changmin slowly changed back to his cheerful self again.
They spent the rest of the day talking about Changmin’s job and their idea for a statue.
Changmin was very happy with the lunch Yoochun had brought. They had way too much food now, but somehow Changmin managed to eat everything Yoochun gave him and most of his own lunch as well.
He promised to look for a mythological character, Yoochun liked making statues with classical themes the most. And his audience was used to that, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to do something different anyway.
===============================================
When Yoochun turned off the lights in his studio he realised he hadn’t once thought about Jae that day. That was a good thing right? Thinking about Jae hurt.
But he didn’t feel like he was over him yet, so what had caused this?
He thought of Changmin immediately. Changmin had talked to him, cheered him up, given him an idea for a statue, he liked Changmin. Was he... falling for him?
‘No,’ Yoochun thought, ‘no, that can’t be, I shouldn’t.’
He didn’t want to fall in love again, not for a long time, love caused hurt. He was hurt enough already.
But Changmin was starting to become an important person to him, he couldn’t deny that. He’d opened up to him on the day they first met and Changmin had been more of a friend to him than anyone had in years.
On the other hand he still didn’t know that much about Changmin. Why wasn’t he in school or looking for a real job? He couldn’t be planning to spend the rest of his life sweeping could he?
And why didn’t he want to talk about what happened to his brother? This made Yoochun angry, he’d told Changmin everything, the most painful details of his relationship with Jae.
No, he shouldn’t get to closer to Changmin than he already was. Making a statue of him would be a bad idea.
Yoochun fell asleep with those thoughts and was even more pissed when he woke up, mostly angry at himself for what he was starting to feel for Changmin.
When Changmin greeted him happily he only grunted in response.
Changmin looked at him with investigating eyes.
“Did something happen.”
“No.”
“Yoochun, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“But you were just starting to look happy again. Did Jae contact you?”
“No! And what do you know about me and Jae? Mind your own business!”
“But... okay.” Changmin looked a bit hurt, but he forced himself to smile. Changmin either smiled, or tried to smile. Right now that pissed Yoochun off too, couldn’t he just show his other emotions more, like a normal person would?
Changmin motioned to the bench. “Let’s talk about our statue, I went through my book again and I thi-”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a statue of you.” Yoochun said while staring at the cage, somehow it was hard to look at Changmin while he said this.
“...why not?” Changmin whispered.
“I just don’t feel like it anymore, let’s talk about something else.”
This should keep Changmin at a safe distance. Now things would just go back to the way they had been for the past few days - yesterday excluded - and he and Changmin would just be friends or whatever this should be called.
But what was that annoying feeling in his chest? Jae again? Probably, it had to be. Yoochun tried to ignore it.
“Okay... it’s your call” Changmin mumbled sadly.
Yoochun sat on the bench and waited for Changmin to tell a story or to ask a question. Nothing happened.
Changmin was sweeping again - just one spot, maybe even the same spot as yesterday. Every now and then he stopped and looked at the tigers. He didn’t look very cheerful.
Yoochun started to feel bad, really bad. He didn’t want this, he wanted Changmin to be happy. Had the statue meant that much to him?
The entire day he thought about how he could fix this without creating situations that could stimulate his feelings for Changmin. He couldn’t think of anything.
They both left early, Changmin did smile a little when he said ‘see you tomorrow’, but it wasn’t a real smile.
That was the last drop. While Yoochun watched Changmin disappear between the buildings he decided he didn’t care anymore that he could be hurt if he fell in love. Being rejected by Changmin would probably hurt less than seeing him sad like this.
He was the one who’d asked Changmin to model for him. He had practically promised something and then taken it back. He had to make this up to him.
Jae’s place in his heart had been taken without him noticing, he didn’t want Jae anymore, he wanted Changmin. And most of all he wanted Changmin to be happy.
===============================================
The next day Yoochun bought flowers on his way to the zoo. A type he’d seen on Changmin’s pictures. So he thought - hoped - that Changmin would like them and they would make him smile.
He really wanted to see Changmin’s smile again. At first he’d found it a bit annoying, but he couldn’t go a day without it now.
When he got to the bench he looked around, confused. A bad feeling started to grow in his chest, in his entire body.
Changmin wasn’t there.
Part 3: Date
Part 1: Dumped
Pairings: YooMin, past JaeChun, XiMin.
Rating: NC-17 for later chapters
Summary: A famous sculptor who’s lost his inspiration after being dumped meets a cheerful man who sits in a zoo and watches the tigers all day. He slowly learns how to be happy again and even falls in love. But the seemingly carefree man has a dark secret.
Warnings: Angst and violence later. Will get graphic.
Disclaimer: The tigers belong to a Dutch zoo, DBSK belong to SM’s zoo. If I ever get my hands on them they’ll be in cages in a private zoo in my backyard (DBSK, not the tigers) or I’d set them free, they’d look great in the wild too.
Part 2: Tigers
One week later
Yoochun was walking to the zoo again, he’d been there with Changmin every day since the day he’d seen him cry.
He hadn’t mentioned it, the crying.
Changmin must have known the traces of his tears were still visible on his face when Yoochun sat down next to him, but he had acted as cheerful as (almost) ever.
And Yoochun was curious and worried - he had no idea why, it wasn’t like he cared for Changmin, right? - but he didn’t have the courage to ask him about it.
What would he say anyway? Changmin would probably deny it and somehow he had the feeling that saying: “yes you did, I was sitting there, behind that bush, watching you, and I saw it”, would sound a bit creepy.
Oh, and in the worst case Changmin would start crying again, he had definitely no intention of letting that happen, let alone be the one to cause it.
He walked past elephants and bears and giraffes and small cuddly animals but he didn’t stop to look at any of them, he’d only find Changmin with the tigers.
Changmin was obsessed with tigers, Yoochun had concluded, but not in the way most people were obsessed with something.
Yoochun didn’t know what Changmin’s house looked like, but he was sure it wasn’t filled with useless tiger-related stuff, Changmin wasn’t like that. He just liked being with the tigers for some reason.
What reason he didn’t know, Changmin never talked about things like that, he never really talked about himself.
Yes he’d told him about his favourite band and his favourite food and the worst haircut he’d ever had and a million other things.
But Yoochun still didn’t know why he came here every day.
It was time to find out, today he was definitely going to ask him.
Of course there were other things he wanted to know, like why Changmin was interested in him, seemed to like him. That really was a mystery to Yoochun.
He’d been cold, boring and even rude sometimes, for example that day he wore his other coat and he’d found the ring he’d once given Jae in one of the pockets.
Changmin had looked at him and asked what was wrong and Yoochun had yelled at him. It was just, that had made it seem so final, Jae hadn’t even kept his ring, it was over.
But at the end of the day Changmin always asked him ‘see you tomorrow?’. He’d started bringing twice as much food for lunch and forced Yoochun to eat something. And what touched Yoochun the most was that he’d started reading a little book about Greek myths that he said he’d found somewhere - Yoochun suspected he’d bought it - to be of more help to Yoochun and his, as Changmin called it, ‘quest for a good idea for a statue’.
Yoochun didn’t want to ask him about this though, he wanted to know, but what if Changmin would say or imply something that meant: ‘because you’re famous’, or: ‘Well I don’t like you but I’m forced to be with you because you come to my spot every day so I might as well be nice.’
He knew Changmin didn’t think those things, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
He hadn’t even started looking for the pieces of his heart yet. One little blow and he’d probably be looking for them for the rest of his life and die a bitter, lonely death. It might make his art more famous though, that seemed to be how that worked.
He arrived at the cage. Changmin was there, of course, sitting on the bench. He smiled at Yoochun and then turned back again to look at the tiger - it was Yardan, Changmin had taught him how to tell them apart - that was visible between the little trees.
Yoochun’s curiosity reached a peak. He hadn’t asked Changmin any questions yet, he hadn’t shown any interest in him at all. He was going to change that.
He didn’t sit down. “Changmin?”
“Yes?” If Changmin was surprised that Yoochun initiated a conversation for once he hid it well, he even kept his eyes on Yardan.”
“Why do you like tigers so much?”
Changmin stiffened, was this too personal? It seemed like a normal unimportant question, but Changmin’s reaction caused Yoochun to immediately regret asking it.
“Um.. you don’t have to..”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll tell you.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his usual spontaneous laugh, it sounded a bit forced.
“I understand I must seem weird to you, coming here every day. Of course you come here every day too, but you’re an artist, it’s okay for artists to be eccentric.”
Yoochun didn’t think Changmin was weird at all, but he was afraid he’d stop talking if he interrupted him now.
“I like the tigers because they look so carefree and strong. You know, they spend their entire life in that cage, and I’ve never seen them look upset about it. Have you seen their eyes? They look so wise, so relaxed, like they wouldn’t care even you put them in a cage that’s ten times as small. And they look so strong... they can protect the ones they love.”
Changmin’s voice had started off very passionate and ended soft, he was looking at Yoochun now, his eyes impenetrable for the first time.
“That’s why I like them, I admire them.” He turned to watch Yardan again, Radka had joined him and they were now lying on the leaves together, enjoying the sunlight, they did look very peaceful and happy.
Yoochun sat down next to Changmin. He didn’t say anything, it wasn’t necessary and somehow he felt it was better to stay silent for a while.
He didn’t know what to make of Changmin’s answer and somehow his thoughts went back to Jae.
Since he’d met Changmin the painful memories of Jae had plagued him less and less, but they hadn’t gone away completely or stopped being painful. He looked at the cage.
He felt like he was locked in a cage too, a cage called Jaejoong. Maybe Changmin was right, if he were a tiger he’d be stronger, he wouldn’t let the cage get him down.
He probably wouldn’t be in a cage at all. Catching Yoochun had been easy for Jae, catching a tiger would be difficult, Jae didn’t do difficult, he was spoiled and lazy.
Yoochun realised he was part of the reason Jae was so spoiled, he had loved him unconditionally, without asking anything in return.
He looked up when Changmin turned to look at him, he was smiling again.
“I have an idea for our quest. I got it when I found this in my room this morning.” He took a small digital camera from his pocket.
“I’ll take pictures of all the pretty things I see today and print them and tomorrow you look at them and get an idea for a statue.”
He said it like it was a fact, like there was no way this plan could possibly fail. Yoochun smiled. He didn’t know if it would work but it’d at least be very interesting.
He wanted to know what kind of things Changmin considered pretty, maybe he’d get to know him a little bit better.
===============================================
When Yoochun woke up the next morning he decided he really had to pay some bills today. He’d been putting it off way too long and it was time to pick up his life again.
He’d also go grocery shopping so he could eat something other than instant noodles and share his lunch with Changmin instead of the other way around. Somehow being with Changmin had a positive effect on him.
Money wasn’t a problem. It had been a while since he’d sold his last statue, but rich clients paid well and he’d built up a little fortune.
Thinking about this made him wonder, ‘where does Changmin get his money from?’ He didn’t seem to have a job. He couldn’t have, unless it was a night job, but he never looked tired.
And Yoochun had a strong feeling he lived alone. Changmin had talked about practically everyone who lived in his building - and their pets. He’d said life stories of different people often inspired artists.
For example the story about a couple that lived next door to Changmin and kept fighting about what colour to paint their front door until they settled for using both colours in a striped pattern.
Changmin hadn’t dared to break to them that you weren’t supposed to repaint the front door of a rented apartment, and the landlord had almost kicked them out, not because of the paint, but because of their bad taste.
Everyone in the building had protested and told him they liked it - because everyone liked the couple and they were glad the fighting had stopped - so they could stay and their door even stayed two-coloured.
Now that door had turned into a defining feature of the building and they'd really started to like it.
Yoochun had laughed, for what felt like the first time in years, Changmin was good at telling stories.
Surely Changmin would have told him stories about the people that he lived with had there been any.
So it was a mystery how Changmin supported himself.
This mystery was solved when Yoochun arrived at the cage, well, he still didn’t know what Changmin had done before. But he knew what job he had now.
Changmin was wearing a simple uniform, the name of the zoo on his shoulder. And he was holding a broom, which he swung around enthusiastically when he noticed Yoochun.
As if it wasn’t obvious he kept repeating: “Yoochun, I have a job! They gave me a job! I have an actual job! In the zoo!”
Yoochun couldn’t help but laugh. “Tell me everything”, he said.
The zookeepers had noticed Changmin’s daily visits and decided they could use someone to keep the area around the cage clean and answer questions of visitors about the tigers.
Changmin knew everything about the tiger’s daily routines, their favourite spots, when they took naps, when they played. After all he’d carefully observed them for over two months.
Basically Changmin would get paid to hang around the cage all day and occasionally throw away some rubbish left by visitors, or tell them to do it themselves since he’d be there all the time.
Yoochun knew he wouldn’t be very busy answering questions. The summer holiday hadn’t started yet and the daily number of visitors was small.
Yoochun was happy, because this seemed to make Changmin very happy. He hadn’t forgotten about the crying yet, he still didn’t know what had caused it.
And he was also happy because this was a kind of guarantee that Changmin would keep coming here.
Somewhere deep inside he’d been afraid that he’d arrive one day and Changmin wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t come anymore. He didn’t want that to happen.
Changmin had taken pictures like he said he would. He pointed to a little album that was lying on their bench - Yoochun had unconsciously started referring to it as ‘our bench’.
He picked the album up and sat down. Changmin continued sweeping the spotless pavement. He was very enthusiastic about this job.
But he also looked a bit embarrassed, he kept his head down and Yoochun thought his cheeks looked slightly more pink than usual.
He opened the album. He was curious, had Changmin taken a picture of something embarrassing? What could it be?
Changmin had put some work into this, he’d sorted the pictures and carefully placed them in the album.
“You can keep it if you want”, he said.
There were pictures of tigers - no surprise there -, some flowers - probably from the park close to his house -, and there was a picture of Yoochun’s Hermes as well.
“I already made that statue”, he said, voice amused.
He was sure Changmin was blushing now. “I know, but I wanted to take pictures of nice and beautiful things.”
Yoochun smiled, shook his head and turned the last page. There was a picture of him. When had Changmin taken this? It was just the side of his face. He had probably been looking at the tigers, thinking about something. And...
Wait.
There was a picture.. of him. Changmin had taken a picture of him and placed it in this album.
Did this mean...
When he looked up he saw Changmin quickly turning his eyes back to his broom, he had been looking at him and his face was red now.
Yoochun wanted to know. But he felt he had to say something casual to break the tension between them. He cleared his throat and tried to pull a neutral face.
“You want me to make a statue of myself?”
Changmin’s eyes shot up and met his. “That’s not.. I wanted to...”, he sighed, like he was giving up on something.
“Yes”, he said, "I think it would be a very beautiful statue.” He kept looking at Yoochun, observing his reaction.
“You could use a classical theme too, I think you would make a great Greek hero or god.”
Now it was Yoochun’s turn to blush. “Um.. thank you.. but I don’t really see myself as the Greek god type, and making such a statue of myself might make me look like a very arrogant artist. I don’t know if galleries would like it.
“Oh..” Changmin looked disappointed.
“But you are the Greek god type.”
Yoochun had said it without thinking.
Changmin’s beautiful - divine - smile was back.
“Really? Would you make a statue of me?” He sounded very hopeful.
Yoochun thought about this for a moment, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Changmin knew quite a few Greek myths now, he could let him choose a character and portray him as it.
It might be fun, it would make Changmin happy and Yoochun would get to look at him, a lot, without having to do it secretly.
“Yes”, he said, I would like to make a statue of you. Do you want to be my model?
Saying the words ‘my model’ might have hurt Yoochun a few days ago, but he didn’t even notice what he’d said as Changmin’s happiness seemed to explode, he was almost jumping up and down, it was very cute.
“Yes, yes! Of course I do. This is so awesome, I’m sure Yunho would-”
...Suddenly he stopped talking and his mood changed completely.
Yoochun had seen his mood swings, but never one this big. Changmin’s shoulders slumped - he almost dropped the broom. And the sad eyes were back. He looked down and started sweeping again.
“Changmin?”
No response.
“Who is Yunho?”
“...”
“Changmin?”
Changmin sighed, “he was my brother.”
“Was?”
“He died last winter.”
“I’m sorry.”
Changmin continued sweeping the same spot he’d been sweeping for ten minutes or so already.
“Do you.. want to talk about it?”
“Not much to talk about, he took care of me when our parents died, he was very smart and went to America to study when I was old enough to take care of myself. He was the best big brother in the world, and then he died.”
Yoochun felt there was more to Yunho’s death than Changmin let out, but he didn’t push it.
Changmin slowly changed back to his cheerful self again.
They spent the rest of the day talking about Changmin’s job and their idea for a statue.
Changmin was very happy with the lunch Yoochun had brought. They had way too much food now, but somehow Changmin managed to eat everything Yoochun gave him and most of his own lunch as well.
He promised to look for a mythological character, Yoochun liked making statues with classical themes the most. And his audience was used to that, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to do something different anyway.
===============================================
When Yoochun turned off the lights in his studio he realised he hadn’t once thought about Jae that day. That was a good thing right? Thinking about Jae hurt.
But he didn’t feel like he was over him yet, so what had caused this?
He thought of Changmin immediately. Changmin had talked to him, cheered him up, given him an idea for a statue, he liked Changmin. Was he... falling for him?
‘No,’ Yoochun thought, ‘no, that can’t be, I shouldn’t.’
He didn’t want to fall in love again, not for a long time, love caused hurt. He was hurt enough already.
But Changmin was starting to become an important person to him, he couldn’t deny that. He’d opened up to him on the day they first met and Changmin had been more of a friend to him than anyone had in years.
On the other hand he still didn’t know that much about Changmin. Why wasn’t he in school or looking for a real job? He couldn’t be planning to spend the rest of his life sweeping could he?
And why didn’t he want to talk about what happened to his brother? This made Yoochun angry, he’d told Changmin everything, the most painful details of his relationship with Jae.
No, he shouldn’t get to closer to Changmin than he already was. Making a statue of him would be a bad idea.
Yoochun fell asleep with those thoughts and was even more pissed when he woke up, mostly angry at himself for what he was starting to feel for Changmin.
When Changmin greeted him happily he only grunted in response.
Changmin looked at him with investigating eyes.
“Did something happen.”
“No.”
“Yoochun, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“But you were just starting to look happy again. Did Jae contact you?”
“No! And what do you know about me and Jae? Mind your own business!”
“But... okay.” Changmin looked a bit hurt, but he forced himself to smile. Changmin either smiled, or tried to smile. Right now that pissed Yoochun off too, couldn’t he just show his other emotions more, like a normal person would?
Changmin motioned to the bench. “Let’s talk about our statue, I went through my book again and I thi-”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a statue of you.” Yoochun said while staring at the cage, somehow it was hard to look at Changmin while he said this.
“...why not?” Changmin whispered.
“I just don’t feel like it anymore, let’s talk about something else.”
This should keep Changmin at a safe distance. Now things would just go back to the way they had been for the past few days - yesterday excluded - and he and Changmin would just be friends or whatever this should be called.
But what was that annoying feeling in his chest? Jae again? Probably, it had to be. Yoochun tried to ignore it.
“Okay... it’s your call” Changmin mumbled sadly.
Yoochun sat on the bench and waited for Changmin to tell a story or to ask a question. Nothing happened.
Changmin was sweeping again - just one spot, maybe even the same spot as yesterday. Every now and then he stopped and looked at the tigers. He didn’t look very cheerful.
Yoochun started to feel bad, really bad. He didn’t want this, he wanted Changmin to be happy. Had the statue meant that much to him?
The entire day he thought about how he could fix this without creating situations that could stimulate his feelings for Changmin. He couldn’t think of anything.
They both left early, Changmin did smile a little when he said ‘see you tomorrow’, but it wasn’t a real smile.
That was the last drop. While Yoochun watched Changmin disappear between the buildings he decided he didn’t care anymore that he could be hurt if he fell in love. Being rejected by Changmin would probably hurt less than seeing him sad like this.
He was the one who’d asked Changmin to model for him. He had practically promised something and then taken it back. He had to make this up to him.
Jae’s place in his heart had been taken without him noticing, he didn’t want Jae anymore, he wanted Changmin. And most of all he wanted Changmin to be happy.
===============================================
The next day Yoochun bought flowers on his way to the zoo. A type he’d seen on Changmin’s pictures. So he thought - hoped - that Changmin would like them and they would make him smile.
He really wanted to see Changmin’s smile again. At first he’d found it a bit annoying, but he couldn’t go a day without it now.
When he got to the bench he looked around, confused. A bad feeling started to grow in his chest, in his entire body.
Changmin wasn’t there.
Part 3: Date
Part 1: Dumped