effervescence - 1/1
effervescence. (yoochun/changmin)
4 938 words. AU. PG.
◦this is for you, drugsex
yoochun sells potions and changmin doesn't believe in magic.
shim changmin is twenty one years old and on top of the world.
possibly.
if he doesn't fail this interview.
his hands are clammy with anxiety and his hair is sticky from the wax that junsu insisted would make him look professional. it didn't. changmin would have strangled him except that the interview started in forty five minutes and it took twenty seven minutes to drive there depending on traffic and two minutes to walk to the elevator and another two to ride the damn thing and three minutes to walk down the hall to the secretary so he just hissed, "i'm going to kill you," into his ear and ran out the door. junsu sat pleasantly on the couch and wiggled his fingers.
"you look hot, changmin! almost as hot as me, which is pretty indicative of how hot you are right now. don't forget to buy milk on your way home!"
that goddamn catcall rings in his ears all the way downtown and all the way up the skyscraper and all the way down that quiet, carpetted hallway.
"mr. shim?"
"yes, milk."
"pardon?"
"i mean. yes, i'm sorry. yes, this is shim changmin. sorry. i was. yes. yes."
the secretary gives him a sympathetic smile and changmin returns it weakly. he gestures for him to wait on the sofa. changmin sits and does his best to improve his briefcase handle's pretzel impression. it feels like he sits there for thirty hours.
"you may go inside now."
"thank you. um. thanks." and he bows awkwardly and stands up too quickly because he knocks his knee against the low glass table. "oh geez! sorry. about that. i'm going to go inside now."
an hour and four minutes later, changmin is swearing loudly in the safety of his own car, back uptown. he screwed it up. in a horrifying, never-live-it-down sort of way. how many times can you answer an interviewer with, "yes, buying skim because that other crap will make you fat," before they cross you out on their list of potential employees? zero. he bangs his head against the steering wheel. he might actually kill junsu if he goes home right now. he takes the highway out of town, automatically, and turns into some nature park. he'll go for a run. to work off all that frustration and leftover energy before he decides to use it to ram through the front door of junsu's apartment.
running in dress shoes is a lot more painful than the drama-grooms make it seem. but the cool, crisp air makes him feel better and it stops him from imagining either his own suicide or junsu's murder. a smear of discoloration in the distance catches his attention. it looks like a lemonade stand. in. a nature park? he jogs a little faster. eventually, he can make out a sign.
"medicine for the soul," he reads out loud. the man behind the wooden counter looks starved and content, tapping out scales against an imaginary piano. changmin picks up one of the glass bottles. this one has a sticker with a big pink heart on it.
"one hundred percent effective," a voice pipes up, unexpectedly low. changmin raises an eyebrow.
"what's this?" he asks, gesturing to the other bottles.
"it's like you said. medicine for the soul. this one cures depression." he points to a bottle with a yellow smiley face sticker on it. "this one improves confidence." he points to another one with the superman logo on it.
"let me guess, the one i have is a love potion?"
he grins. "yeah."
changmin puts it back down. "what's in this stuff?"
"liquid rainbows! with a dash of stardust and a lot of crushed unicorn root."
"oh," changmin frowns. "aren't you a little young to be selling magical potions?" and it's true, he looks no older than changmin, though decidedly more.... bohemian, if he had to put it nicely.
"everyone wants to be happy, be brave, fall in love. not just the old and weary."
changmin feels as though he has stepped into the twilight zone. he checks his watch to make sure it hasn't stopped or started to spin out of control or something fantastic like that, and it hasn't, though he's slightly surprised to find that he wishes it had.
"how much for a bottle, then?"
changmin waits as the other looks him up and down.
"more than you could afford."
"what?" changmin looks down at himself, with the pressed blue dress shirt and designer cufflinks and sharp black slacks and shining leather shoes. then at the faded shirt of the potionseller, nonsensical english splashed across the front with a ratted old tuque barely keeping his hair contained and a necklace, too old and cheap looking to be worn for anything other than sentimental value. are you serious, thinks changmin.
"you can't judge worth with your eyes. come back when you're richer in there," and he presses a finger over changmin's sternum, tingling warmth seeping through where their skin touch and he can feel his chest beat heavily, just once, in response. he recoils reflexively. the other man smiles. it makes changmin want to leave, so he turns around and starts jogging again.
"i'll be waiting," he calls out.
--
"how was the interview?" junsu shouts from the sofa the second he steps in through the door.
"did you just sit on your ass and do nothing all day?" changmin says, disbelievingly.
"no, i did a bit of weed. and i ate all our chips ahoy. oh i swept the floors too."
changmin flops down on the sofa on the other end, swinging his feet up to land on junsu's lap. "that's why you're so fat, you know."
"stop changing the subject," junsu frowns, pushing changmin's feet off. he swings them back on. he pushes them off again. he swings them back on. junsu glares. "i'm not a foot stool. now spill, how was your interview? and where's my milk?"
"oh," changmin says. "i don't remember." and he really doesn't. his head is still too full of thoughts of a wooden stand and the boney, smiling man behind it. "it was bad, i think."
"typical. those who suck at life tend to suck at life forever."
"those who are fat and lazy and stupid at birth tend to be fat and lazy and stupid forever."
"those who have shitty insults usually steal them from those of higher prestige, intelligence, appearance, and charisma."
"huh, but there's no one like that here."
"sad, you're blind too."
"i just don't see any pretigious, intelligent, handsome, charismatic people right now. unless you have a mirror."
"why, that person of which you speak is right here!"
"where?"
"under there!"
"...just for even trying that, you can go buy the milk."
junsu pouts. he returns later that day with whole milk, because, "your figure isn't luscious enough."
changmin points out that junsu is probably trying to make him fat too.
junsu loses the fistfight that ensues.
"pure muscle," changmin says, patting his biceps. "i guess you'd better call the zoo, because these pythons are on the loose."
--
"you're back," the potionseller smiles. it's been a week, and changmin spent the better part of it trying to figure out where the stupid stand was. he shrugs and fixes the messenger bag hanging off his shoulder.
"i like nature parks."
"a whole lot, it seems."
"i guess."
"is that take out i see?"
"maybe."
"people with food who feed people without food have higher net worths, just so you know."
"i suspected as much."
changmin discovers over the next few days that the potionseller likes greek, indian, mexican, and japanese food. loves thai and korean. always asks for a beer to go with whatever he's eating, which changmin denies because he's pretty sure there are bylaws against that sort of thing, but he laughs and shoves changmin's shoulder and does that thing where his smile makes his eyes look about a decade younger and changmin gives.
he never starts eating until changmin takes the first bite, and he'd asked about that once. in response, he'd stolen a piece of chicken from changmin's plate and said, "i don't like eating by myself. it makes me feel lonely."
"is that why you're all bones?" changmin had joked.
he'd looked down, startled. "i am?"
and then changmin started to go there daily, once at twelve thirty and then again at eight.
--
what's your name?
if i told you, you'd just run back to your dear old professors at kyunghee university and put it through a database.
how'd you know where i go?
and he'd smiled, secret and deliberate.
call me micky.
--
"what do you do here all day anyway?"
"i compose! want to hear?"
"how?"
micky puts out his hand. "do you have a pen?"
"yeah," he replies, and reaches into his bookbag to pull out a thick black marker. micky takes it and draws a piano on the counter, five scales. then he fixes his seat, looks up, and grins. the dull thudding noise of his fingers against the softened wood are firstly accompanied by his voice, humming all the individual notes. it's not terrible. changmin closes his eyes and listens and suddenly realises that he's hearing real piano notes, the gentle ringing sound of a hammer against taut columns of strings. he opens his eyes. micky is still sitting there, fingers hitting the wood, except his eyes are closed now and he's swaying back and forth to the music.
"how are you doing that?" changmin demands.
micky shrugs, smiling. still swaying to the music. still playing that sweet and flittering and dust ridden tune.
changmin checks his watch again and the second hand sweeps quietly from second to second, as steadfastly and consistent as before.
"you mess me up a little," changmin says under his breath. micky stops playing.
"i know." changmin looks up and micky is grinning proudly at him. changmin makes a face and says, "keep playing."
he does.
--
micky whispers, "i'll put a spell on you."
changmin says, "really?"
micky smiles, "yeah, you're going to see me everywhere."
changmin frowns, "how're you going to do that?"
micky laughs, "dopplegangers!"
and changmin believes. and then doubts. and then micky breathes out his open mouth and changmin believes again.
--
changmin plans his mornings down to the minute, from when he wakes up to the moment he steps onto the bus. he's usually early enough that the spot next to the window with the scratched on heart is free. but today, there's someone sitting there and it throws him off completely because it's micky, head against the window and breaths even with sleep.
"kid, you going to take a seat?" asks the bus driver, gesturing impatiently. it snaps him out of his trance. he apologises and takes the seat behind micky, spends the entire ride staring at micky's neck. at some point, he wakes up and starts to text on a dinky black flip phone. changmin can't stop staring, waiting, wondering if he should say something. when micky stands up near a highschool, as if he's about to get off, changmin finally reaches out and grabs him by the arm. he turns, and all of a sudden it looks nothing like the potionseller.
"micky?" changmin tries anyway.
"sorry," the boy apologises in english. "i think you have the wrong person. i'm yoohwan."
"oh," changmin says, letting go. "yeah, sorry."
yoohwan bows politely, and smiles apologetically and all of a sudden it is micky all over again and the sight has him reeling. he puts his hands over his eyes and tries to figure out what this means.
twenty minutes later, his hands are still over his eyes and his stop passes without his noticing.
--
"do you have a brother?"
"i'm not real, you know."
"... are you being serious?"
"i don't know, are you?"
"yes!"
"me too." a red-lipped grin offset by rows and rows of little white teeth. you reach out to touch the roundest part of his mouth, find it slightly chapped and you, shim changmin,
sit up and find yourself back in your bed. changmin sneezes and moves to close the window, before remembering, quite suddenly, that, "sleeping with the windows open is really nice. i can't explain it. you know the feeling of a cold bed and pillow? it's like that until you're under the blankets, and you warm everything up and you feel all toasty and comfortable and it's fantastic. try it." but, "i don't want to catch pneumonia for a feeling." so, "but life's all about feelings! rich, sappy, girl feelings." so changmin gets back into his bed and pulls the covers tighter around him. lets his own body warm up the cocoon of blankets.
tries to figure out if that was just a dream or a memory.
--
"i'm not real, you know."
dream dream dream dream it was a dream.
--
"i'm not real, you know."
"sorry, did you say something?"
"no."
it was a memory i knew it i remember it was a memory.
--
your hands on his mouth, fingers shaking and you don't know why, he grins like it's funny and your heartbeat is so loud you can't hear anything else except the sound of his throat moving when he swallows and hah hah he's nervous too or is he just oh please let me do this don't tell me no because i think that i might explode if you don't let me do this--
a dream. it has to have been a dream.
--
"who was that you were with today?"
"say what?" junsu asks, sucking frozen yogurt off a metal spoon.
"that guy. the one in the hoodie and flipflops and arm around your shoulders. the one who put his head in your neck when he laughed."
junsu stops trying to scoop that last spoon of strawberries long enough to look puzzled. "i've been home all day?"
"no, i saw you on campus, around two thirty pm."
"hello, fifa world cup started today?"
changmin frowns. "but i saw you."
"sure it wasn't junho?"
"i'm sure."
"sure sure?"
"yes, sure sure," changmin snaps, getting impatient.
"i don't know then," junsu shrugs, returning to his yogurt. "you've been kind of weird lately, maybe you're just tired."
changmin presses his palms to his eyes to try and burn away the vivid, natural image of micky slung over junsu's shoulders, junsu's hand easy on his waist as they turn to each other and laugh, and the knowing look that micky gives him when they brush past.
"yeah, tired," changmin echos hollowly.
--
changmin is sitting middle row, far left side of the lecture hall when a tall, squinty student steps in. changmin waves and the boy waves back before making his way over.
"are you okay?" yunho asks, sliding into the seat next to him. "you look really bad."
"i'm fine," changmin says, opening his laptop. "haven't been getting enough sleep lately."
"you?" he scoffs. "you haven't been out with any of us in weeks. junsu said you were doing charity work before but you haven't even left your apartment the last few days."
changmin glares. "you sure have been resourceful."
"i have been a very good friend. so what's up?"
he starts rubbing at the back of his neck. "nothing. i don't know. look, prof is talking now. conversation over."
"since when do you do charity work?" yunho asks insistently, pressing his elbow into changmin's side.
"it wasn't really charity work. more like. working with a charity case. or. er. helping someone that needed my help. well, not really needed. but he probably should've been helped. so i did it."
"wow."
"what?"
"you haven't been this incoherent since that really hot teacher's aide last december."
changmin groans. "can you shut up now? i'm trying to make the most of my tuition."
"seriously though. are you okay?"
he shoots him a sidelong glance. "are you working undercover right now?"
"i will not report any of my findings to headmaster junsu, cross my heart," yunho says obediently, hand over his chest. changmin turns back to his laptop and sighs. he doesn't say anything for a while.
"it's just that. i think i need to figure some stuff out right now."
yunho nods wisely, throws a friendly arm over his shoulders. "stuff can be very complicated."
"right," says changmin. "glad to see you understand."
"take a break from stuff," yunho offers. "maybe you'll figure it out then."
"maybe," changmin repeats emptily.
and he continues to eat at restaurants, at cafes, at diners at drivebys at home. anywhere but parks.
--
"god, you've been moping for days. what's wrong with you now?"
"shut up junsu, i'm studying."
junsu looks over his shoulder, making loud, obnoxious, sucking noises in changmin's ear as he slurps juice from a straw. "that's my textbook."
"i'll have you know i am very interested in physics of the human body."
"right. maybe you could write a paper for me by the sixteenth, since you're so interested in it."
"but your professors would know right away that it wasn't you. they'd recognise my brilliant prose and ideas and have you kicked out of the school."
junsu fakes an exaggerated kick and changmin pretends to wince. "good to see you're still lively enough to insult me."
"it's reflex now. very natural, like blinking or breathing. everything you say just leads directly into a beautiful retort."
"you should go die."
"living with you already feels like hell."
"oh yeah? well same here!"
"good to know."
junsu splutters, then stalks away, grumbling about how no one has respect for their elders these days.
changmin lifts the book away and goes back to doodling little glass bottles and white rectangular teeth and heavy silver bracelets and sharp delicate earrings and black and white pianos. draws a water molecule. erases it.
--
what if he's not eating?
--
changmin looks up one lunchtime to see a boy who looks startlingly like micky sitting at the next table over, laughing into the ear of another boy with bottle bleach hair and girlish lips and piercings all up and down his ears and open, careless laughter. he was going to turn away, pretend he didn't see anything, but then the blonde boy leans in and kisses maybe-micky on the mouth. maybe-micky opens his eyes and looks right at changmin, without searching, as if he had known that he was there all along.
and the cafeteria may have been loud with casual, conversational din, but changmin could hear the inhale when maybe-micky opened his mouth and pushed closer into the other boy as loudly as if it had been right in his ear.
--
changmin is obediently looking over a resource that a professor insisted would help improve his semester thesis. so far, it has been filled with jargon and irrelevant theories, enough to make him want to take the book by the spine and fling it against a wall. the library door opens, and he looks up, glad for the distraction. it's same boy that maybe-micky was with in the cafeteria earlier that day. except this time, his hair is a warm coffee brown and short enough to bare his neck. all the piercings are gone from his ears but the most striking difference is the apathetic, indifferent expression that looks absolutely nothing like the laughing one from the cafeteria. changmin stares. the boy heads for a shelf and disappears from sight. changmin sighs, puts his head on the open pages of his book and closes his eyes.
i am not going insane, he repeats to himself. i am not.
someone taps him lightly on the shoulder. he turns his head and opens an eye, expecting to see the librarian about to remind him that if you must sleep please do it back in your own room. it's not.
"hi," the coffee haired boy says, softly. changmin can barely hear him.
"hi," he replies, sitting up and picking up his pencil again, though he isn't entirely sure who he's trying to look studious for.
"will you be finished with that book soon?"
changmin looks down, then at his half page of incoherent notes and scribbles. "i'm not sure. i don't think so."
"oh," he says. "could i share it with you for a bit then?"
changmin shrugs. "sure." he gestures to the empty seat next to him.
"my name is jaejoong."
the introduction surprises him, since he expected to just work in silence for another hour or two then politely excuse himself and never see him again. but for the sake of being courteous, "i'm changmin."
jaejoong bows politely, and smiles as if to say i know.
--
jaejoong is surprisingly easy to get along with, after the first few awkward moments when changmin moved to flip the page and froze after jaejoong made an indignant, opposing little sound. they use the same type of pencil and aftershave, and share an afternoon philosophy class. jaejoong makes changmin promise that they'll sit together the next class. he does. when jaejoong laughs it makes changmin want to kiss him, a little. he's not sure if it's because of the way he puts his hand gently over his mouth, as if shielding the way it looks when it's wide and happy, or if it's because he thinks that kissing jaejoong will drag him closer to micky, someone who sells delusions in glass bottles and puts his lips on one person and his eyes on another.
when changmin asks if jaejoong dyes his hair often, he laughs awkwardly in response and puts his hand on his neck.
"not that much. why do you ask?"
changmin stares and wonders and says, "just curious."
--
"so who was that guy you were with just now?" yunho asks, and changmin can tell he's trying very hard to sound casual. junsu is singing some ballad at the top of his lungs while playing some japanese zombie shoot out game. hyukjae is beatboxing to it and yelling every time some mutilated body leaps into the screen.
"who?" changmin replies, with equal aloofness. he blasts off a rotting head with his hand gun.
"the one who walked you here. brown bowl cut, boots and distressed jeans?" yunho throws a grenade and accidentally kills hyukjae. he whips around and punches him once, before shooting at three zombies and killing each one. junsu high fives him.
"oh, him. just a friend. why do you ask? hankering for some pretty boy loving?"
"dammit changmin, do you actually know how not to be an asshole?"
"nope," he chirps, shooting at a crate and taking the extra life inside it. "his name is jaejoong, by the way."
"you should invite him out some time. with us. so we can get to know him. he looks like he could be bored." yunho misses his next four shots and gets saved by hyukjae every time.
"oh yunho," changmin scolds, kicking the back of junsu's head when he misses the switch for a bridge and sends them to an alternate path. "desperation never looks good on anyone."
"can you tell yunho to stop being gay and pay attention?" hyukjae snaps. "junsu's trying to eavesdrop and it's bringing down our score."
yunho throws another grenade and kills all three of them.
--
philosophy class is boring but luckily, jaejoong is not. instead, he's whimsical and impulsive and full of bullshit ideas, the same way micky is, and it makes changmin want to believe and mock him at the same time. but most of all, it draws changmin in like a moth to an open flame and he wants jaejoong more every time he does or says something that reminds him of micky.
unsurprisingly, jaejoong does really well in philosophy.
--
changmin isn't sure if it means anything, but he catches the tail end of one of jaejoong's conversations, when he's leaning against the wall in the stairway with his cellphone against his ear.
"... yeah, he's a lot of fun." he laughs, that hah-hah-hah laugh that stays in changmin's ears for hours. "just like you said. maybe i'll take him with me." changmin coughs and he turns around, jumps a little to see him there, then waves and smiles. "hey, i'll call you back. yeah. yeah. no. sure. i will. bye yoochun." jaejoong laughs again. "love you too, baby," he coos, then hangs up. changmin is suddenly hit by the image of jaejoong's profile that day in the cafeteria, eyes closed and lips pursed against micky's mouth. and overcome by an urge to suddenly know more about jaejoong, faster. to know the most about him in the least amount of time.
"are you free this friday?" he blurts. "we could each round up a bunch of friends and go for a beer or two." i want to see you show up with micky's arm around your waist and his face when he sees that i've found him, round and open with shock. and then i will laugh, both triumphant and sad.
"that sounds great, but i'm actually leaving on wednesday for a co-op. somewhere in paris."
"wednesday? six o clock flight?"
"yeah, how'd you know?"
"oh, i think yunho's in the same one."
"is he the guy that hangs around you with the tiny head and pouty bottom lip?"
"yeah, that's the one."
"... hm. interesting."
"why do you look so-- you know what, nevermind. you won't be back for a few months, right?"
"yeah. we should keep in touch anyway, here's my email."
"thanks. i'll talk to you later then."
and when he's left standing there alone in the stairway with a piece of paper in his fingers, he realises that he doesn't really care about it. he doesn't want to know jaejoong better. he wants jaejoong to lead him to micky, the boy with the lonely posture and angular collarbones and the stupid dreams.
and then changmin goes back to the nature park.
--
the stand isn't there anymore.
--
but micky still is.
--
"you," changmin pants. he'd been running around the park for the past hour and a half, only to find micky sitting on a bench near the place where the stand used to be. he turns to changmin and pushes his fake glasses higher on his nose. waves. smiles that same stupid smile that makes changmin want to touch him.
"haven't seen you in a while. how've you been?"
"stop it," changmin flares. "stop it stop it stop it."
"stop what?" and now changmin can see that micky has a bottle in his hand, the ones he used to sell. he can't see the sticker.
"stop the spells the enchantments whatever you've done to me. i hate it. i hate you. i-- i can't function anymore."
"i think you're ready."
"what?" changmin recoils, confused. "what?"
"here," he offers, holding out the bottle. the sticker is a big pink heart. "i think you should fall in love now."
"are you kidding me?"
"it'll cancel all the other spells i've put on you."
"i'm not going to fall in love with the first person i see or any stupid crap like that, right?"
"no, you'll fall in love with the right one."
changmin deflates and takes the bottle. the liquid is clear and doesn't look like anything special. micky's face is distorted through it. he passes him a bottle opener and he takes it, something in his chest lurching when he feels micky's fingers brush over his wrist, dry and warm.
and he chugs it.
then he spits half of it out.
"this. this, you, but, you," he sputters.
"yes?" micky smiles.
"this is vodka. cheap vodka. cheap shitty crazy strong vodka." he's staring at micky, dumbfounded. "what the fuck?"
micky goes up on his knees and scoots forward on the bench until he's leaning over the back with his face very close to changmin's. "well it worked, didn't it?" his breath is warm as it fans over changmin's mouth.
"what?" changmin repeats.
"you're," he whispers, tapping his finger against changmin's jaw, "in love with me."
changmin just stares at him, counts the eyelashes on micky's face until he goes dizzy.
"you're crazy. i'm crazy. you're the biggest freak i know."
micky laughs, pleased and gleeful. "it did work!"
"shut up," changmin mutters. "shut up right now and let me kiss you or i'll smash this over your head."
it's an embarassing moment when park security finds them against a tree with micky's hands up changmin's shirt. not embarassing enough to stop them from continuing in the car.
--
epilogue
"seriously," changmin says. "how did you do all that stuff with the appearing everywhere and the guy that kind of looked like you but not really and all that mindfuckery?"
"oh," yoochun says casually, pulling on his shoes. "i go to kyunghee, didn't you know?"
"what."
"and everyone knew i was messing with your head. the guy on the bus was my little brother."
"what."
"and the piano thing? i had a stereo behind the stand."
"i," changmin says incredulously, "think i might kill you."
"naw, i'm too wonderful for that. i'll catch you later, have a class in ten minutes."
changmin brings his hands up to yoochun's neck, ready to strangle him, except yoochun leans in closer and slobbers all over his forehead.
"gross," he grimaces, wiping the drool off with his arm.
yoochun winks at him before hopping out the door.
and changmin doesn't think he's ever been so disgusted and happy at the same time.
4 938 words. AU. PG.
◦this is for you, drugsex
yoochun sells potions and changmin doesn't believe in magic.
shim changmin is twenty one years old and on top of the world.
possibly.
if he doesn't fail this interview.
his hands are clammy with anxiety and his hair is sticky from the wax that junsu insisted would make him look professional. it didn't. changmin would have strangled him except that the interview started in forty five minutes and it took twenty seven minutes to drive there depending on traffic and two minutes to walk to the elevator and another two to ride the damn thing and three minutes to walk down the hall to the secretary so he just hissed, "i'm going to kill you," into his ear and ran out the door. junsu sat pleasantly on the couch and wiggled his fingers.
"you look hot, changmin! almost as hot as me, which is pretty indicative of how hot you are right now. don't forget to buy milk on your way home!"
that goddamn catcall rings in his ears all the way downtown and all the way up the skyscraper and all the way down that quiet, carpetted hallway.
"mr. shim?"
"yes, milk."
"pardon?"
"i mean. yes, i'm sorry. yes, this is shim changmin. sorry. i was. yes. yes."
the secretary gives him a sympathetic smile and changmin returns it weakly. he gestures for him to wait on the sofa. changmin sits and does his best to improve his briefcase handle's pretzel impression. it feels like he sits there for thirty hours.
"you may go inside now."
"thank you. um. thanks." and he bows awkwardly and stands up too quickly because he knocks his knee against the low glass table. "oh geez! sorry. about that. i'm going to go inside now."
an hour and four minutes later, changmin is swearing loudly in the safety of his own car, back uptown. he screwed it up. in a horrifying, never-live-it-down sort of way. how many times can you answer an interviewer with, "yes, buying skim because that other crap will make you fat," before they cross you out on their list of potential employees? zero. he bangs his head against the steering wheel. he might actually kill junsu if he goes home right now. he takes the highway out of town, automatically, and turns into some nature park. he'll go for a run. to work off all that frustration and leftover energy before he decides to use it to ram through the front door of junsu's apartment.
running in dress shoes is a lot more painful than the drama-grooms make it seem. but the cool, crisp air makes him feel better and it stops him from imagining either his own suicide or junsu's murder. a smear of discoloration in the distance catches his attention. it looks like a lemonade stand. in. a nature park? he jogs a little faster. eventually, he can make out a sign.
"medicine for the soul," he reads out loud. the man behind the wooden counter looks starved and content, tapping out scales against an imaginary piano. changmin picks up one of the glass bottles. this one has a sticker with a big pink heart on it.
"one hundred percent effective," a voice pipes up, unexpectedly low. changmin raises an eyebrow.
"what's this?" he asks, gesturing to the other bottles.
"it's like you said. medicine for the soul. this one cures depression." he points to a bottle with a yellow smiley face sticker on it. "this one improves confidence." he points to another one with the superman logo on it.
"let me guess, the one i have is a love potion?"
he grins. "yeah."
changmin puts it back down. "what's in this stuff?"
"liquid rainbows! with a dash of stardust and a lot of crushed unicorn root."
"oh," changmin frowns. "aren't you a little young to be selling magical potions?" and it's true, he looks no older than changmin, though decidedly more.... bohemian, if he had to put it nicely.
"everyone wants to be happy, be brave, fall in love. not just the old and weary."
changmin feels as though he has stepped into the twilight zone. he checks his watch to make sure it hasn't stopped or started to spin out of control or something fantastic like that, and it hasn't, though he's slightly surprised to find that he wishes it had.
"how much for a bottle, then?"
changmin waits as the other looks him up and down.
"more than you could afford."
"what?" changmin looks down at himself, with the pressed blue dress shirt and designer cufflinks and sharp black slacks and shining leather shoes. then at the faded shirt of the potionseller, nonsensical english splashed across the front with a ratted old tuque barely keeping his hair contained and a necklace, too old and cheap looking to be worn for anything other than sentimental value. are you serious, thinks changmin.
"you can't judge worth with your eyes. come back when you're richer in there," and he presses a finger over changmin's sternum, tingling warmth seeping through where their skin touch and he can feel his chest beat heavily, just once, in response. he recoils reflexively. the other man smiles. it makes changmin want to leave, so he turns around and starts jogging again.
"i'll be waiting," he calls out.
--
"how was the interview?" junsu shouts from the sofa the second he steps in through the door.
"did you just sit on your ass and do nothing all day?" changmin says, disbelievingly.
"no, i did a bit of weed. and i ate all our chips ahoy. oh i swept the floors too."
changmin flops down on the sofa on the other end, swinging his feet up to land on junsu's lap. "that's why you're so fat, you know."
"stop changing the subject," junsu frowns, pushing changmin's feet off. he swings them back on. he pushes them off again. he swings them back on. junsu glares. "i'm not a foot stool. now spill, how was your interview? and where's my milk?"
"oh," changmin says. "i don't remember." and he really doesn't. his head is still too full of thoughts of a wooden stand and the boney, smiling man behind it. "it was bad, i think."
"typical. those who suck at life tend to suck at life forever."
"those who are fat and lazy and stupid at birth tend to be fat and lazy and stupid forever."
"those who have shitty insults usually steal them from those of higher prestige, intelligence, appearance, and charisma."
"huh, but there's no one like that here."
"sad, you're blind too."
"i just don't see any pretigious, intelligent, handsome, charismatic people right now. unless you have a mirror."
"why, that person of which you speak is right here!"
"where?"
"under there!"
"...just for even trying that, you can go buy the milk."
junsu pouts. he returns later that day with whole milk, because, "your figure isn't luscious enough."
changmin points out that junsu is probably trying to make him fat too.
junsu loses the fistfight that ensues.
"pure muscle," changmin says, patting his biceps. "i guess you'd better call the zoo, because these pythons are on the loose."
--
"you're back," the potionseller smiles. it's been a week, and changmin spent the better part of it trying to figure out where the stupid stand was. he shrugs and fixes the messenger bag hanging off his shoulder.
"i like nature parks."
"a whole lot, it seems."
"i guess."
"is that take out i see?"
"maybe."
"people with food who feed people without food have higher net worths, just so you know."
"i suspected as much."
changmin discovers over the next few days that the potionseller likes greek, indian, mexican, and japanese food. loves thai and korean. always asks for a beer to go with whatever he's eating, which changmin denies because he's pretty sure there are bylaws against that sort of thing, but he laughs and shoves changmin's shoulder and does that thing where his smile makes his eyes look about a decade younger and changmin gives.
he never starts eating until changmin takes the first bite, and he'd asked about that once. in response, he'd stolen a piece of chicken from changmin's plate and said, "i don't like eating by myself. it makes me feel lonely."
"is that why you're all bones?" changmin had joked.
he'd looked down, startled. "i am?"
and then changmin started to go there daily, once at twelve thirty and then again at eight.
--
what's your name?
if i told you, you'd just run back to your dear old professors at kyunghee university and put it through a database.
how'd you know where i go?
and he'd smiled, secret and deliberate.
call me micky.
--
"what do you do here all day anyway?"
"i compose! want to hear?"
"how?"
micky puts out his hand. "do you have a pen?"
"yeah," he replies, and reaches into his bookbag to pull out a thick black marker. micky takes it and draws a piano on the counter, five scales. then he fixes his seat, looks up, and grins. the dull thudding noise of his fingers against the softened wood are firstly accompanied by his voice, humming all the individual notes. it's not terrible. changmin closes his eyes and listens and suddenly realises that he's hearing real piano notes, the gentle ringing sound of a hammer against taut columns of strings. he opens his eyes. micky is still sitting there, fingers hitting the wood, except his eyes are closed now and he's swaying back and forth to the music.
"how are you doing that?" changmin demands.
micky shrugs, smiling. still swaying to the music. still playing that sweet and flittering and dust ridden tune.
changmin checks his watch again and the second hand sweeps quietly from second to second, as steadfastly and consistent as before.
"you mess me up a little," changmin says under his breath. micky stops playing.
"i know." changmin looks up and micky is grinning proudly at him. changmin makes a face and says, "keep playing."
he does.
--
micky whispers, "i'll put a spell on you."
changmin says, "really?"
micky smiles, "yeah, you're going to see me everywhere."
changmin frowns, "how're you going to do that?"
micky laughs, "dopplegangers!"
and changmin believes. and then doubts. and then micky breathes out his open mouth and changmin believes again.
--
changmin plans his mornings down to the minute, from when he wakes up to the moment he steps onto the bus. he's usually early enough that the spot next to the window with the scratched on heart is free. but today, there's someone sitting there and it throws him off completely because it's micky, head against the window and breaths even with sleep.
"kid, you going to take a seat?" asks the bus driver, gesturing impatiently. it snaps him out of his trance. he apologises and takes the seat behind micky, spends the entire ride staring at micky's neck. at some point, he wakes up and starts to text on a dinky black flip phone. changmin can't stop staring, waiting, wondering if he should say something. when micky stands up near a highschool, as if he's about to get off, changmin finally reaches out and grabs him by the arm. he turns, and all of a sudden it looks nothing like the potionseller.
"micky?" changmin tries anyway.
"sorry," the boy apologises in english. "i think you have the wrong person. i'm yoohwan."
"oh," changmin says, letting go. "yeah, sorry."
yoohwan bows politely, and smiles apologetically and all of a sudden it is micky all over again and the sight has him reeling. he puts his hands over his eyes and tries to figure out what this means.
twenty minutes later, his hands are still over his eyes and his stop passes without his noticing.
--
"do you have a brother?"
"i'm not real, you know."
"... are you being serious?"
"i don't know, are you?"
"yes!"
"me too." a red-lipped grin offset by rows and rows of little white teeth. you reach out to touch the roundest part of his mouth, find it slightly chapped and you, shim changmin,
sit up and find yourself back in your bed. changmin sneezes and moves to close the window, before remembering, quite suddenly, that, "sleeping with the windows open is really nice. i can't explain it. you know the feeling of a cold bed and pillow? it's like that until you're under the blankets, and you warm everything up and you feel all toasty and comfortable and it's fantastic. try it." but, "i don't want to catch pneumonia for a feeling." so, "but life's all about feelings! rich, sappy, girl feelings." so changmin gets back into his bed and pulls the covers tighter around him. lets his own body warm up the cocoon of blankets.
tries to figure out if that was just a dream or a memory.
--
"i'm not real, you know."
dream dream dream dream it was a dream.
--
"i'm not real, you know."
"sorry, did you say something?"
"no."
it was a memory i knew it i remember it was a memory.
--
your hands on his mouth, fingers shaking and you don't know why, he grins like it's funny and your heartbeat is so loud you can't hear anything else except the sound of his throat moving when he swallows and hah hah he's nervous too or is he just oh please let me do this don't tell me no because i think that i might explode if you don't let me do this--
a dream. it has to have been a dream.
--
"who was that you were with today?"
"say what?" junsu asks, sucking frozen yogurt off a metal spoon.
"that guy. the one in the hoodie and flipflops and arm around your shoulders. the one who put his head in your neck when he laughed."
junsu stops trying to scoop that last spoon of strawberries long enough to look puzzled. "i've been home all day?"
"no, i saw you on campus, around two thirty pm."
"hello, fifa world cup started today?"
changmin frowns. "but i saw you."
"sure it wasn't junho?"
"i'm sure."
"sure sure?"
"yes, sure sure," changmin snaps, getting impatient.
"i don't know then," junsu shrugs, returning to his yogurt. "you've been kind of weird lately, maybe you're just tired."
changmin presses his palms to his eyes to try and burn away the vivid, natural image of micky slung over junsu's shoulders, junsu's hand easy on his waist as they turn to each other and laugh, and the knowing look that micky gives him when they brush past.
"yeah, tired," changmin echos hollowly.
--
changmin is sitting middle row, far left side of the lecture hall when a tall, squinty student steps in. changmin waves and the boy waves back before making his way over.
"are you okay?" yunho asks, sliding into the seat next to him. "you look really bad."
"i'm fine," changmin says, opening his laptop. "haven't been getting enough sleep lately."
"you?" he scoffs. "you haven't been out with any of us in weeks. junsu said you were doing charity work before but you haven't even left your apartment the last few days."
changmin glares. "you sure have been resourceful."
"i have been a very good friend. so what's up?"
he starts rubbing at the back of his neck. "nothing. i don't know. look, prof is talking now. conversation over."
"since when do you do charity work?" yunho asks insistently, pressing his elbow into changmin's side.
"it wasn't really charity work. more like. working with a charity case. or. er. helping someone that needed my help. well, not really needed. but he probably should've been helped. so i did it."
"wow."
"what?"
"you haven't been this incoherent since that really hot teacher's aide last december."
changmin groans. "can you shut up now? i'm trying to make the most of my tuition."
"seriously though. are you okay?"
he shoots him a sidelong glance. "are you working undercover right now?"
"i will not report any of my findings to headmaster junsu, cross my heart," yunho says obediently, hand over his chest. changmin turns back to his laptop and sighs. he doesn't say anything for a while.
"it's just that. i think i need to figure some stuff out right now."
yunho nods wisely, throws a friendly arm over his shoulders. "stuff can be very complicated."
"right," says changmin. "glad to see you understand."
"take a break from stuff," yunho offers. "maybe you'll figure it out then."
"maybe," changmin repeats emptily.
and he continues to eat at restaurants, at cafes, at diners at drivebys at home. anywhere but parks.
--
"god, you've been moping for days. what's wrong with you now?"
"shut up junsu, i'm studying."
junsu looks over his shoulder, making loud, obnoxious, sucking noises in changmin's ear as he slurps juice from a straw. "that's my textbook."
"i'll have you know i am very interested in physics of the human body."
"right. maybe you could write a paper for me by the sixteenth, since you're so interested in it."
"but your professors would know right away that it wasn't you. they'd recognise my brilliant prose and ideas and have you kicked out of the school."
junsu fakes an exaggerated kick and changmin pretends to wince. "good to see you're still lively enough to insult me."
"it's reflex now. very natural, like blinking or breathing. everything you say just leads directly into a beautiful retort."
"you should go die."
"living with you already feels like hell."
"oh yeah? well same here!"
"good to know."
junsu splutters, then stalks away, grumbling about how no one has respect for their elders these days.
changmin lifts the book away and goes back to doodling little glass bottles and white rectangular teeth and heavy silver bracelets and sharp delicate earrings and black and white pianos. draws a water molecule. erases it.
--
what if he's not eating?
--
changmin looks up one lunchtime to see a boy who looks startlingly like micky sitting at the next table over, laughing into the ear of another boy with bottle bleach hair and girlish lips and piercings all up and down his ears and open, careless laughter. he was going to turn away, pretend he didn't see anything, but then the blonde boy leans in and kisses maybe-micky on the mouth. maybe-micky opens his eyes and looks right at changmin, without searching, as if he had known that he was there all along.
and the cafeteria may have been loud with casual, conversational din, but changmin could hear the inhale when maybe-micky opened his mouth and pushed closer into the other boy as loudly as if it had been right in his ear.
--
changmin is obediently looking over a resource that a professor insisted would help improve his semester thesis. so far, it has been filled with jargon and irrelevant theories, enough to make him want to take the book by the spine and fling it against a wall. the library door opens, and he looks up, glad for the distraction. it's same boy that maybe-micky was with in the cafeteria earlier that day. except this time, his hair is a warm coffee brown and short enough to bare his neck. all the piercings are gone from his ears but the most striking difference is the apathetic, indifferent expression that looks absolutely nothing like the laughing one from the cafeteria. changmin stares. the boy heads for a shelf and disappears from sight. changmin sighs, puts his head on the open pages of his book and closes his eyes.
i am not going insane, he repeats to himself. i am not.
someone taps him lightly on the shoulder. he turns his head and opens an eye, expecting to see the librarian about to remind him that if you must sleep please do it back in your own room. it's not.
"hi," the coffee haired boy says, softly. changmin can barely hear him.
"hi," he replies, sitting up and picking up his pencil again, though he isn't entirely sure who he's trying to look studious for.
"will you be finished with that book soon?"
changmin looks down, then at his half page of incoherent notes and scribbles. "i'm not sure. i don't think so."
"oh," he says. "could i share it with you for a bit then?"
changmin shrugs. "sure." he gestures to the empty seat next to him.
"my name is jaejoong."
the introduction surprises him, since he expected to just work in silence for another hour or two then politely excuse himself and never see him again. but for the sake of being courteous, "i'm changmin."
jaejoong bows politely, and smiles as if to say i know.
--
jaejoong is surprisingly easy to get along with, after the first few awkward moments when changmin moved to flip the page and froze after jaejoong made an indignant, opposing little sound. they use the same type of pencil and aftershave, and share an afternoon philosophy class. jaejoong makes changmin promise that they'll sit together the next class. he does. when jaejoong laughs it makes changmin want to kiss him, a little. he's not sure if it's because of the way he puts his hand gently over his mouth, as if shielding the way it looks when it's wide and happy, or if it's because he thinks that kissing jaejoong will drag him closer to micky, someone who sells delusions in glass bottles and puts his lips on one person and his eyes on another.
when changmin asks if jaejoong dyes his hair often, he laughs awkwardly in response and puts his hand on his neck.
"not that much. why do you ask?"
changmin stares and wonders and says, "just curious."
--
"so who was that guy you were with just now?" yunho asks, and changmin can tell he's trying very hard to sound casual. junsu is singing some ballad at the top of his lungs while playing some japanese zombie shoot out game. hyukjae is beatboxing to it and yelling every time some mutilated body leaps into the screen.
"who?" changmin replies, with equal aloofness. he blasts off a rotting head with his hand gun.
"the one who walked you here. brown bowl cut, boots and distressed jeans?" yunho throws a grenade and accidentally kills hyukjae. he whips around and punches him once, before shooting at three zombies and killing each one. junsu high fives him.
"oh, him. just a friend. why do you ask? hankering for some pretty boy loving?"
"dammit changmin, do you actually know how not to be an asshole?"
"nope," he chirps, shooting at a crate and taking the extra life inside it. "his name is jaejoong, by the way."
"you should invite him out some time. with us. so we can get to know him. he looks like he could be bored." yunho misses his next four shots and gets saved by hyukjae every time.
"oh yunho," changmin scolds, kicking the back of junsu's head when he misses the switch for a bridge and sends them to an alternate path. "desperation never looks good on anyone."
"can you tell yunho to stop being gay and pay attention?" hyukjae snaps. "junsu's trying to eavesdrop and it's bringing down our score."
yunho throws another grenade and kills all three of them.
--
philosophy class is boring but luckily, jaejoong is not. instead, he's whimsical and impulsive and full of bullshit ideas, the same way micky is, and it makes changmin want to believe and mock him at the same time. but most of all, it draws changmin in like a moth to an open flame and he wants jaejoong more every time he does or says something that reminds him of micky.
unsurprisingly, jaejoong does really well in philosophy.
--
changmin isn't sure if it means anything, but he catches the tail end of one of jaejoong's conversations, when he's leaning against the wall in the stairway with his cellphone against his ear.
"... yeah, he's a lot of fun." he laughs, that hah-hah-hah laugh that stays in changmin's ears for hours. "just like you said. maybe i'll take him with me." changmin coughs and he turns around, jumps a little to see him there, then waves and smiles. "hey, i'll call you back. yeah. yeah. no. sure. i will. bye yoochun." jaejoong laughs again. "love you too, baby," he coos, then hangs up. changmin is suddenly hit by the image of jaejoong's profile that day in the cafeteria, eyes closed and lips pursed against micky's mouth. and overcome by an urge to suddenly know more about jaejoong, faster. to know the most about him in the least amount of time.
"are you free this friday?" he blurts. "we could each round up a bunch of friends and go for a beer or two." i want to see you show up with micky's arm around your waist and his face when he sees that i've found him, round and open with shock. and then i will laugh, both triumphant and sad.
"that sounds great, but i'm actually leaving on wednesday for a co-op. somewhere in paris."
"wednesday? six o clock flight?"
"yeah, how'd you know?"
"oh, i think yunho's in the same one."
"is he the guy that hangs around you with the tiny head and pouty bottom lip?"
"yeah, that's the one."
"... hm. interesting."
"why do you look so-- you know what, nevermind. you won't be back for a few months, right?"
"yeah. we should keep in touch anyway, here's my email."
"thanks. i'll talk to you later then."
and when he's left standing there alone in the stairway with a piece of paper in his fingers, he realises that he doesn't really care about it. he doesn't want to know jaejoong better. he wants jaejoong to lead him to micky, the boy with the lonely posture and angular collarbones and the stupid dreams.
and then changmin goes back to the nature park.
--
the stand isn't there anymore.
--
but micky still is.
--
"you," changmin pants. he'd been running around the park for the past hour and a half, only to find micky sitting on a bench near the place where the stand used to be. he turns to changmin and pushes his fake glasses higher on his nose. waves. smiles that same stupid smile that makes changmin want to touch him.
"haven't seen you in a while. how've you been?"
"stop it," changmin flares. "stop it stop it stop it."
"stop what?" and now changmin can see that micky has a bottle in his hand, the ones he used to sell. he can't see the sticker.
"stop the spells the enchantments whatever you've done to me. i hate it. i hate you. i-- i can't function anymore."
"i think you're ready."
"what?" changmin recoils, confused. "what?"
"here," he offers, holding out the bottle. the sticker is a big pink heart. "i think you should fall in love now."
"are you kidding me?"
"it'll cancel all the other spells i've put on you."
"i'm not going to fall in love with the first person i see or any stupid crap like that, right?"
"no, you'll fall in love with the right one."
changmin deflates and takes the bottle. the liquid is clear and doesn't look like anything special. micky's face is distorted through it. he passes him a bottle opener and he takes it, something in his chest lurching when he feels micky's fingers brush over his wrist, dry and warm.
and he chugs it.
then he spits half of it out.
"this. this, you, but, you," he sputters.
"yes?" micky smiles.
"this is vodka. cheap vodka. cheap shitty crazy strong vodka." he's staring at micky, dumbfounded. "what the fuck?"
micky goes up on his knees and scoots forward on the bench until he's leaning over the back with his face very close to changmin's. "well it worked, didn't it?" his breath is warm as it fans over changmin's mouth.
"what?" changmin repeats.
"you're," he whispers, tapping his finger against changmin's jaw, "in love with me."
changmin just stares at him, counts the eyelashes on micky's face until he goes dizzy.
"you're crazy. i'm crazy. you're the biggest freak i know."
micky laughs, pleased and gleeful. "it did work!"
"shut up," changmin mutters. "shut up right now and let me kiss you or i'll smash this over your head."
it's an embarassing moment when park security finds them against a tree with micky's hands up changmin's shirt. not embarassing enough to stop them from continuing in the car.
--
epilogue
"seriously," changmin says. "how did you do all that stuff with the appearing everywhere and the guy that kind of looked like you but not really and all that mindfuckery?"
"oh," yoochun says casually, pulling on his shoes. "i go to kyunghee, didn't you know?"
"what."
"and everyone knew i was messing with your head. the guy on the bus was my little brother."
"what."
"and the piano thing? i had a stereo behind the stand."
"i," changmin says incredulously, "think i might kill you."
"naw, i'm too wonderful for that. i'll catch you later, have a class in ten minutes."
changmin brings his hands up to yoochun's neck, ready to strangle him, except yoochun leans in closer and slobbers all over his forehead.
"gross," he grimaces, wiping the drool off with his arm.
yoochun winks at him before hopping out the door.
and changmin doesn't think he's ever been so disgusted and happy at the same time.