[GBtR] Chapter 12
Title: Getting Back to Real
Chapter Title: (13/?) Unfamiliar Feelings
Pairings: YooMin, HoSuJae
Rating: PG-13 for now
Genre: AU, sci-fi, drama
Summary: After the events in Dreaming Back to This, the five have fled Korea and started to rebuild a new life for themselves far away. The past still haunts them, however, perhaps even more than they first realized.
Notes: Alright, so this it. HoSuMin's full backstory, and yet another chap over 2000 words. Let me know what you think~~ (Seriously, all. If it seems like I beg for comments, it's mostly because I don't have a beta, never have had a beta, and thus have no other way to get serious feedback. If you're not liking something, if you have questions that aren't being answered, PLEASE let me know. ^_^)
Previous: Dreaming Back to This, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Interlude, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11
Chapter 12: Unfamiliar Feelings
Changmin wakes slowly, images from the dream playing behind his eyelids. It's been so long since he's thought about that day, since he's stopped to consider how far he's come since that first escape. He remembers the fear, the panic, and all-encompassing confusion, but they're all hazy now through the gossamer curtains of time and love.
Love. It's almost funny now how incomprehensible and foreign that concept used to be for him. How the doctors used to attempt to explain it to him, but he'd never quite been able to grasp it. Not until feeling it, finally, for the first time in his life.
It had taken him three days to fully shake off the effects of the drugs he'd been subjected to for so long. He hadn't uttered a single word during that time, though that hadn't stopped the two strangers from tending his wounds and keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
They'd never left him alone, not in those early days, and he realizes now they must have taken turns skipping classes to stay with him. Finally, on the fourth day, Changmin felt clear-headed and aware for the first time in years. Yunho was already out of the house, probably an early morning class. Junsu was changing the bandages wrapped around Changmin's tattered feet.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he had them fully uncovered and got a good look at the wounds. Changmin tilted his head to the side in a silent question. "Some of these were really red yesterday," he explained with a soft smile at the boy's gesture. "I was afraid they were getting infected so I put some stronger medicine on them last night. They look a lot better today."
Using a bucket of warm, soapy water and a soft cloth, Junsu started to clean and redress Changmin's feet. "I just wish I knew where you came from," he continued with the one-sided conversation. "Yunho and I have started calling around to the police stations in the area to see if anyone's reported a missing person with your description, but we haven't had any luck so far. It'd probably be easier if we had a name to..." He trailed off when he felt the tremors overtaking the thin body in his hands.
A deep, shuddering breath drew his attention to the boy's terrified face. "Don't," Changmin choked out, fighting off tears.
"You can talk?" Junsu exclaims, caught off guard by the voice from the boy both he and Yunho had assumed was mute. Then the boy's single-word plea filtered through the shock. He set the boy's mostly rewrapped feet back down then moves up the bed to sit closer to the kid's side. "Don't what? Talk to the police? But surely your family misses you, wants you back."
Changmin shook his head, emphatic. "No. No family. Never had one, I don't think. And they'll hear if you keep asking around. They'll know. I can't go back there, please. Don't let them take me back there." His control broke then, tears spilling down his cheeks as he sobbed.
Junsu gathered him in his arms, snug up against his chest, and ran his hands over Changmin's back to soothe the panicked boy. He could count every bump in the spine, the boy's shoulder blades feeling as if they'd cut right through the skin. Whispering soft words in the boy's ear, he attempted to calm the shaking. "Okay. We won't tell anyone anymore if that's what you want. Just calm down, okay? Try to breathe."
It took nearly an hour before Changmin's crying finally tapered off. He still didn't move, though, head against Junsu's chest and fists clenched in Junsu's t-shirt. Junsu, for his part, wasn't rushing to let the obviously traumatized boy go, either. "Well," Junsu finally broke the silence a while later, "if we're going to keep living together then, do you think you could at least tell me your name?"
"Changmin," the boy whispered straight into Junsu's heart. "My name is Changmin."
~*~~*~
Changmin slowly grew more comfortable with the two men, usually leaving his empathy open and receiving to maintain a connection to those emotions he'd felt the first time they met. There were no hidden agendas with these two, and he reveled in them when those feelings laid over his lonely soul like a warm blanket - soft and comforting.
Even so, he was still skittish and unsure, prone to panic attacks and retreats into his own mind. Their unfailing patience with him, to sit by him and slowly coax him out of those moments, astounded him on a regular basis. Most importantly, though, through it all, he'd been able to protect his secret. They could never know, because they were Outsiders.
It was one of the first lessons a Centre child learned. "The Outsiders don't have Powers of their own," they'd been told from the day they were old enough to understand words. "They can't do the things we can, and they'll never understand. They'll be jealous because you can do things they can only dream of, and they'll hate you because you're different. That's why we keep you Inside, to keep you safe from them."
Changmin had second-guessed everything he used to know in the days after escaping, but that much seemed to be true at least. Yunho and Junsu had never done anything to indicate they had any kind of Power, and it scared him. If the Centre had been right about that part... So he kept his secret. Changmin wasn't sure what these two would or could become to him, but he knew he didn't want them to hate him.
Changmin was still young, though, and while his control was very good, it wasn't perfect. He woke in the middle of the night one night a few weeks later, the blur of sleep he couldn't quite shake off feeling far too much like the haze of drugs for his liking. He huddled in a corner of the bedroom, legs pulled up to his chest and forehead pressed to his knees, and tried not to make too much noise.
Yunho had always been a light sleeper. Sounds of scuffling across the floor woke him, but it was the muted whimpers that got him up off the futon they'd acquired so the injured boy could keep their bed. The bed that was alarmingly empty when Yunho looked at it. "Changmin?" he called, bending over to shake Junsu awake. "Changmin-ah?" Bleary-eyed, Junsu slowly processed the question then immediately stood up when the words filtered through.
The sounds had stopped, leaving them no clues to work from, and Yunho knew it was too dark in the room for them to find Changmin without hurting themselves or breaking something anyway. He switched on a small table lamp, the soft light just enough to see by, and they both immediately spotted the boy curled in the corner between their tall bookshelf and the wall.
Yunho, forgetting for a dangerous moment how jumpy the boy could still be, followed his first instinct to cross the room and attempt to pull Changmin into a hug. As soon as he made contact, though, he flew back and hit the floor a few feet away with a solid thud. His breath whooshed from his lungs, but he scrambled up to stare at the unmoving boy anyway. "What was that?" Junsu asked, arm around Yunho's waist for extra support.
Shaking his head, Yunho tried to find the words for what had just happened. Before he could, though, a book fell from the highest shelf of the bookcase next to Changmin. Then another and another and another until the shelf was empty. Yunho and Junsu both watched, frozen, as the first book lifted into the air, hovering for a long moment as they held their breaths. Then without warming, the book shot across the room and straight at them.
They managed to duck just in time, Yunho pulling Junsu down before crawling for cover behind the couch. They listened to the thumps as more objects hit the walls, some flying over the couch to crash against the wall behind them. "Do you think..." Junsu starts, wide-eyed. "Is he doing this somehow?"
Yunho only shook his head, not quite sure what to make of the situation. It was like something out of a sci-fi or horror movie, and he wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't still asleep and just dreaming the whole thing. Finally, though, the noise stopped. They traded a look before cautiously peering over the top of the couch. The room was a mess, books and clothes and other small odds and ends spread everywhere.
Still backed into his little niche, Changmin had uncurled himself and risen up onto his knees. Tears etched twin trails down his pale cheeks, fear and sadness and resignation falling from his eyes. As soon as he caught sight of them, a choked cry escaped his mouth, and he sank back down onto the floor. "I'm sorry," he gasped through his sobs. "Please don't hate me. I won't do it again. I'm sorry."
Without a second thought, Yunho and Junsu crossed the room together and crouched on either side of the distraught boy. Junsu hesitated for only a breath before pulling him into a tight hug, and Yunho wrapped his arms around both of them only a moment after that. "Shh, it's okay, Minnie-ah," Junsu whispered into Changmin's hair, the boy's face pressed firmly against his chest. "We're okay. We don't hate you, not at all. It's okay."
~*~~*~
He hadn't been able to give them straight answers about his powers; he was still far too uncertain, too cautious. By the time he was secure enough in the fact that they wouldn't abandon him over it, they'd stopped asking questions. Not exactly eager to discuss the issue anyway, Changmin had been more than happy to let it die just like that.
The bigger puzzle to him had been distracting him for weeks since then. From the first moment he'd met them, Yunho and Junsu had been connected by a clear, vibrant line of emotions. In the days following the incident, that line had started growing threads, branches reached out towards Changmin. It didn't scare him. Though the emotions were unfamiliar to him, he knew instinctively that they weren't bad. They wouldn't hurt him.
He took to staring at that line, so bright and warm whenever the two were in the same room. Yunho and Junsu, for their part, figured Changmin was just getting lost in his thoughts and usually opted to let him be. As much as he dwelled on it, though, and even as the strands reaching for him grew stronger and closer, Changmin still couldn't quite figure out what the line was.
"Hyung?" he finally asked Yunho one day, a few months after. They were on opposite ends of the couch, feet tangled together in the middle, while Yunho worked on some homework. He gave a distracted hum in response to Changmin's query, but Changmin knew he was listening. "What makes a family?"
Yunho's writing stuttered to a stop, and he turned his full attention to Changmin. "What?" he asked in return, not sure he'd heard the question correctly.
"A family," Changmin repeated in the blunt, matter-of-fact tone Yunho and Junsu had finally gotten used to. "I know for most people it's parents and siblings and such, and I know I must have had a mother and father, too. Everyone does, right? But if I don't even remember them, are they my family? Or are the people who raised me my family?"
"Are the people who raised you the ones responsible for the condition we found you in?" Yunho half-growled out, a clear image in his head of the battered and bruised boy reaching out for him. Changmin's silence was answer enough. "Then no, Min, they certainly weren't your family. If you weren't comfortable enough to call any of them 'mom' or 'dad' or 'hyung' or 'noona' then they weren't your family."
Changmin was quiet for a long moment as he processed Yunho's words. Finally he shook his head before replying, "No, never any of those. Only-" He cut himself off, thinking better of whatever he almost revealed. "You and Junsu are my hyungs, though. Does that mean you're my family? How do you know for sure?"
"Love, Minnie-ah," Junsu answered from behind him. Neither Changmin or Yunho had heard him come in. The line between the two snapped into place before once again reaching for Changmin, so much closer this time. Changmin studied it as Junsu sat on the armrest behind Changmin and laid an arm around his shoulders. "Love makes a family," he continued when Changmin leaned into his touch. "Whether they're blood-related or not, whether they raised you or not, the people you love and care about are your family. And whenever you're ready for it, we definitely wouldn't mind being your family, Min."
Love. That word again. They all said it so easily, like it was such an obvious feeling to know and understand. Changmin wanted that for himself, that certainty in such a feeling. He thought about his time so far with Yunho and Junsu, the warmth and care and attention they'd poured over him, and knew he never wanted to lose those things. Never wanted to lose his two hyungs.
His family.
The searching strands finally connected, slipping through his chest and into his heart to fill holes he hadn't even realized existed. He gasped at the sensation, hand on his chest where the soft tendrils had entered. Love. Tears filled his eyes, but he fought them off before looking up at Junsu. "I think I'm ready, hyung."
Anaheim Payday Loans
Chapter Title: (13/?) Unfamiliar Feelings
Pairings: YooMin, HoSuJae
Rating: PG-13 for now
Genre: AU, sci-fi, drama
Summary: After the events in Dreaming Back to This, the five have fled Korea and started to rebuild a new life for themselves far away. The past still haunts them, however, perhaps even more than they first realized.
Notes: Alright, so this it. HoSuMin's full backstory, and yet another chap over 2000 words. Let me know what you think~~ (Seriously, all. If it seems like I beg for comments, it's mostly because I don't have a beta, never have had a beta, and thus have no other way to get serious feedback. If you're not liking something, if you have questions that aren't being answered, PLEASE let me know. ^_^)
Previous: Dreaming Back to This, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Interlude, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11
Chapter 12: Unfamiliar Feelings
Changmin wakes slowly, images from the dream playing behind his eyelids. It's been so long since he's thought about that day, since he's stopped to consider how far he's come since that first escape. He remembers the fear, the panic, and all-encompassing confusion, but they're all hazy now through the gossamer curtains of time and love.
Love. It's almost funny now how incomprehensible and foreign that concept used to be for him. How the doctors used to attempt to explain it to him, but he'd never quite been able to grasp it. Not until feeling it, finally, for the first time in his life.
It had taken him three days to fully shake off the effects of the drugs he'd been subjected to for so long. He hadn't uttered a single word during that time, though that hadn't stopped the two strangers from tending his wounds and keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
They'd never left him alone, not in those early days, and he realizes now they must have taken turns skipping classes to stay with him. Finally, on the fourth day, Changmin felt clear-headed and aware for the first time in years. Yunho was already out of the house, probably an early morning class. Junsu was changing the bandages wrapped around Changmin's tattered feet.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he had them fully uncovered and got a good look at the wounds. Changmin tilted his head to the side in a silent question. "Some of these were really red yesterday," he explained with a soft smile at the boy's gesture. "I was afraid they were getting infected so I put some stronger medicine on them last night. They look a lot better today."
Using a bucket of warm, soapy water and a soft cloth, Junsu started to clean and redress Changmin's feet. "I just wish I knew where you came from," he continued with the one-sided conversation. "Yunho and I have started calling around to the police stations in the area to see if anyone's reported a missing person with your description, but we haven't had any luck so far. It'd probably be easier if we had a name to..." He trailed off when he felt the tremors overtaking the thin body in his hands.
A deep, shuddering breath drew his attention to the boy's terrified face. "Don't," Changmin choked out, fighting off tears.
"You can talk?" Junsu exclaims, caught off guard by the voice from the boy both he and Yunho had assumed was mute. Then the boy's single-word plea filtered through the shock. He set the boy's mostly rewrapped feet back down then moves up the bed to sit closer to the kid's side. "Don't what? Talk to the police? But surely your family misses you, wants you back."
Changmin shook his head, emphatic. "No. No family. Never had one, I don't think. And they'll hear if you keep asking around. They'll know. I can't go back there, please. Don't let them take me back there." His control broke then, tears spilling down his cheeks as he sobbed.
Junsu gathered him in his arms, snug up against his chest, and ran his hands over Changmin's back to soothe the panicked boy. He could count every bump in the spine, the boy's shoulder blades feeling as if they'd cut right through the skin. Whispering soft words in the boy's ear, he attempted to calm the shaking. "Okay. We won't tell anyone anymore if that's what you want. Just calm down, okay? Try to breathe."
It took nearly an hour before Changmin's crying finally tapered off. He still didn't move, though, head against Junsu's chest and fists clenched in Junsu's t-shirt. Junsu, for his part, wasn't rushing to let the obviously traumatized boy go, either. "Well," Junsu finally broke the silence a while later, "if we're going to keep living together then, do you think you could at least tell me your name?"
"Changmin," the boy whispered straight into Junsu's heart. "My name is Changmin."
~*~~*~
Changmin slowly grew more comfortable with the two men, usually leaving his empathy open and receiving to maintain a connection to those emotions he'd felt the first time they met. There were no hidden agendas with these two, and he reveled in them when those feelings laid over his lonely soul like a warm blanket - soft and comforting.
Even so, he was still skittish and unsure, prone to panic attacks and retreats into his own mind. Their unfailing patience with him, to sit by him and slowly coax him out of those moments, astounded him on a regular basis. Most importantly, though, through it all, he'd been able to protect his secret. They could never know, because they were Outsiders.
It was one of the first lessons a Centre child learned. "The Outsiders don't have Powers of their own," they'd been told from the day they were old enough to understand words. "They can't do the things we can, and they'll never understand. They'll be jealous because you can do things they can only dream of, and they'll hate you because you're different. That's why we keep you Inside, to keep you safe from them."
Changmin had second-guessed everything he used to know in the days after escaping, but that much seemed to be true at least. Yunho and Junsu had never done anything to indicate they had any kind of Power, and it scared him. If the Centre had been right about that part... So he kept his secret. Changmin wasn't sure what these two would or could become to him, but he knew he didn't want them to hate him.
Changmin was still young, though, and while his control was very good, it wasn't perfect. He woke in the middle of the night one night a few weeks later, the blur of sleep he couldn't quite shake off feeling far too much like the haze of drugs for his liking. He huddled in a corner of the bedroom, legs pulled up to his chest and forehead pressed to his knees, and tried not to make too much noise.
Yunho had always been a light sleeper. Sounds of scuffling across the floor woke him, but it was the muted whimpers that got him up off the futon they'd acquired so the injured boy could keep their bed. The bed that was alarmingly empty when Yunho looked at it. "Changmin?" he called, bending over to shake Junsu awake. "Changmin-ah?" Bleary-eyed, Junsu slowly processed the question then immediately stood up when the words filtered through.
The sounds had stopped, leaving them no clues to work from, and Yunho knew it was too dark in the room for them to find Changmin without hurting themselves or breaking something anyway. He switched on a small table lamp, the soft light just enough to see by, and they both immediately spotted the boy curled in the corner between their tall bookshelf and the wall.
Yunho, forgetting for a dangerous moment how jumpy the boy could still be, followed his first instinct to cross the room and attempt to pull Changmin into a hug. As soon as he made contact, though, he flew back and hit the floor a few feet away with a solid thud. His breath whooshed from his lungs, but he scrambled up to stare at the unmoving boy anyway. "What was that?" Junsu asked, arm around Yunho's waist for extra support.
Shaking his head, Yunho tried to find the words for what had just happened. Before he could, though, a book fell from the highest shelf of the bookcase next to Changmin. Then another and another and another until the shelf was empty. Yunho and Junsu both watched, frozen, as the first book lifted into the air, hovering for a long moment as they held their breaths. Then without warming, the book shot across the room and straight at them.
They managed to duck just in time, Yunho pulling Junsu down before crawling for cover behind the couch. They listened to the thumps as more objects hit the walls, some flying over the couch to crash against the wall behind them. "Do you think..." Junsu starts, wide-eyed. "Is he doing this somehow?"
Yunho only shook his head, not quite sure what to make of the situation. It was like something out of a sci-fi or horror movie, and he wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't still asleep and just dreaming the whole thing. Finally, though, the noise stopped. They traded a look before cautiously peering over the top of the couch. The room was a mess, books and clothes and other small odds and ends spread everywhere.
Still backed into his little niche, Changmin had uncurled himself and risen up onto his knees. Tears etched twin trails down his pale cheeks, fear and sadness and resignation falling from his eyes. As soon as he caught sight of them, a choked cry escaped his mouth, and he sank back down onto the floor. "I'm sorry," he gasped through his sobs. "Please don't hate me. I won't do it again. I'm sorry."
Without a second thought, Yunho and Junsu crossed the room together and crouched on either side of the distraught boy. Junsu hesitated for only a breath before pulling him into a tight hug, and Yunho wrapped his arms around both of them only a moment after that. "Shh, it's okay, Minnie-ah," Junsu whispered into Changmin's hair, the boy's face pressed firmly against his chest. "We're okay. We don't hate you, not at all. It's okay."
~*~~*~
He hadn't been able to give them straight answers about his powers; he was still far too uncertain, too cautious. By the time he was secure enough in the fact that they wouldn't abandon him over it, they'd stopped asking questions. Not exactly eager to discuss the issue anyway, Changmin had been more than happy to let it die just like that.
The bigger puzzle to him had been distracting him for weeks since then. From the first moment he'd met them, Yunho and Junsu had been connected by a clear, vibrant line of emotions. In the days following the incident, that line had started growing threads, branches reached out towards Changmin. It didn't scare him. Though the emotions were unfamiliar to him, he knew instinctively that they weren't bad. They wouldn't hurt him.
He took to staring at that line, so bright and warm whenever the two were in the same room. Yunho and Junsu, for their part, figured Changmin was just getting lost in his thoughts and usually opted to let him be. As much as he dwelled on it, though, and even as the strands reaching for him grew stronger and closer, Changmin still couldn't quite figure out what the line was.
"Hyung?" he finally asked Yunho one day, a few months after. They were on opposite ends of the couch, feet tangled together in the middle, while Yunho worked on some homework. He gave a distracted hum in response to Changmin's query, but Changmin knew he was listening. "What makes a family?"
Yunho's writing stuttered to a stop, and he turned his full attention to Changmin. "What?" he asked in return, not sure he'd heard the question correctly.
"A family," Changmin repeated in the blunt, matter-of-fact tone Yunho and Junsu had finally gotten used to. "I know for most people it's parents and siblings and such, and I know I must have had a mother and father, too. Everyone does, right? But if I don't even remember them, are they my family? Or are the people who raised me my family?"
"Are the people who raised you the ones responsible for the condition we found you in?" Yunho half-growled out, a clear image in his head of the battered and bruised boy reaching out for him. Changmin's silence was answer enough. "Then no, Min, they certainly weren't your family. If you weren't comfortable enough to call any of them 'mom' or 'dad' or 'hyung' or 'noona' then they weren't your family."
Changmin was quiet for a long moment as he processed Yunho's words. Finally he shook his head before replying, "No, never any of those. Only-" He cut himself off, thinking better of whatever he almost revealed. "You and Junsu are my hyungs, though. Does that mean you're my family? How do you know for sure?"
"Love, Minnie-ah," Junsu answered from behind him. Neither Changmin or Yunho had heard him come in. The line between the two snapped into place before once again reaching for Changmin, so much closer this time. Changmin studied it as Junsu sat on the armrest behind Changmin and laid an arm around his shoulders. "Love makes a family," he continued when Changmin leaned into his touch. "Whether they're blood-related or not, whether they raised you or not, the people you love and care about are your family. And whenever you're ready for it, we definitely wouldn't mind being your family, Min."
Love. That word again. They all said it so easily, like it was such an obvious feeling to know and understand. Changmin wanted that for himself, that certainty in such a feeling. He thought about his time so far with Yunho and Junsu, the warmth and care and attention they'd poured over him, and knew he never wanted to lose those things. Never wanted to lose his two hyungs.
His family.
The searching strands finally connected, slipping through his chest and into his heart to fill holes he hadn't even realized existed. He gasped at the sensation, hand on his chest where the soft tendrils had entered. Love. Tears filled his eyes, but he fought them off before looking up at Junsu. "I think I'm ready, hyung."
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