the love was made of paper but the memories were not.
THE LOVE WAS MADE OF PAPER BUT THE MEMORIES WERE NOT.
⇾ tvxq | yunho/changmin
⇾ 852 words
⇾ PG
changmin falls in love with a dream.
he packs up his heart in a carefully padded box and ships it off to an unknown destination.
and somewhere out there in the universe, amongst the multitude of stars and meteors, the package arrives safely on a floating doorstep. lithe fingers peel off the strip of tape holding the flaps of his heart the box together, and reaches in.
changmin's - still beating - heart feels oddly weightless in his palm.
---
changmin meets yunho one cloudy afternoon as he walks around a corner on the street. they run into each other, not as smoothly as it would have been if it were a movie. changmin's bag drops to the ground, and yunho trips none too graciously.
"i'm sorry," they say in unison, and flash embarrassed smiles at each other.
then it's a matter of moving on and not looking back as they continue on their ways.
but changmin makes the mistake of glancing over his shoulder at the retreating back of a certain jung yunho.
---
what was perhaps destined to be a one-time-thing happens again; this time, changmin nearly cracks his skull open on yunho's.
"i'm -" they start, then pause.
"it's you," yunho says, the hand rubbing at the bump on his forehead slowing to a stop.
"yeah," changmin replies, and straightens up.
yunho's quiet for a split second, watching as changmin re-slings his bag across his shoulders.
"how's your head?" he asks, smiling slightly.
"throbbing," changmin answers truthfully.
"i'm jung yunho," yunho laughs, extending his hand.
"shim changmin," changmin replies, and takes it.
somewhere out there in the galaxy, the palm closes its fingers tight around changmin's heart.
---
in all honesty, changmin fell too far, too fast.
you see, yunho was the kind of boy who could build a stairway made of diamonds up to the heavens on nothing but dreams. he was the kind of boy who wove such intricate dreams that you would do anything to have one of them imprinted in your mind.
most of all, he was the kind of boy who would wish on a shooting star for you to love him.
so changmin does.
changmin attaches yunho to his life in a way that the colours of yunho's soul blends in with his own, creating a haphazard masterpiece of melting shades.
changmin doesn't realize that it's so much easier to fall in love than out of it.
---
it's in the feather-light touches yunho gives him on the base of his skull, the words chock full of hope and promises he whispers into his ears, and the warmth of his lips on every inch of bare skin that has changmin going from i don't want to fall in love to please love me forever.
yunho's name is the first thing on the tip of his tongue when he wakes, and it's the last thing he feels before he falls asleep. he finds himself tracing hearts onto the crevice of yunho's collarbones and behind his ear, and changmin thinks that they look good embedded in his skin.
yunho presses a wonderfully simple kiss to changmin's temple and promises that he'll be there as long as changmin dreams.
---
changmin's secret stash of Memories With Yunho That I Will Never Forget slowly builds up until they're ready to burst out of their jar. so changmin moves all of them into an empty treasure chest - it fits, right?
each one of his memories are handwritten carefully onto pieces of once white paper, folded gently and sealed with a kiss. sooner than later, the pen changmin uses to write out his memories with runs out of ink.
he doesn't mind, simply finds another seemingly identical pen and continues to write.
---
so you see, the day yunho disappears has changmin falling from the precipice of the staircase made of diamonds, has changmin reaching out, trying to grab the nearest shooting star. but he falls back down to earth with a thud, and his dreams vanish in a puff of smoke.
where does he go from here?
far, comes the answer, and changmin tries his best to shoulder on, pulling his cracked heart and treasure chest full of memories after him. because now, without yunho in his dreams, he's just an empty man with his heart in a box far far away, looking for a place to call home.
---
changmin's still-beating heart slides out of the silken palm and free-falls into weightless air forever.
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