Pretty. Odd. - YunJae - PG 13
Title: Pretty. Odd.
Length: One shot.
Author: Guu
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Randomness (I'm not 100% sure that counts as genre, tho...)
Summary:
One cold winter morning, barely a week after his twenty-third birthday, Jaejoong lost his mind.
To me. Thanx Rae and Jewell for beta-ing and bearing with my death threats ♥ This is very very VERY random. Also, the title is taken from Panic At The Disco's last album. It totally belongs to them. I just happened to think it rocked. And fit this piece very well.
Pretty. Odd.
One cold winter morning, barely a week after his twenty-third birthday, Jaejoong lost his mind.
Not in a metaphoric or romantic way. Not medically or figuratively.
He literally lost his mind.
---
Yoochun cringed when he heard the door to the working room open quietly and a tall figure made a hesitant entrance. He loved Jaejoong, he really did. But he loved the old Jaejoong. The loud, obnoxious person whose laugh could be heard half-way round the world and shone in the spotlight wherever he went. This Jaejoong was quieter, shy. He reminded Yoochun too much of that pale, doe-eyed trainee he had met so long ago that seemed cold and detached and took him so long to figure out.
"Am I bothering you?" the figure said, voice slow and barely above a whisper. It made him remember all those traits Jaejoong had as a teenager that he had shaken off as he grew, like how he rarely ever looked into your eyes when he spoke, or that white sheet list of insecurities that restricted his speech he had fought so hard to overcome. Yoochun supposed that it wasn't only that he didn't have them anymore, just he didn't have them with them. His family.
Strangers now.
---
He guessed Jaejoong liked to hear him sing, because his eyes shone in a hopeful, childish way whenever Junsu randomly broke into a song. So he sang, unusually excited to perform for this one-person audience. He sang love songs the most, old hits he and Jaejoong had loved and sang until their throats were sore. He sang songs that had been their only hope years ago, songs that had kept their will alive. He sang and he wondered if Jaejoong knew. If he remembered what each one of the songs really meant. All the memories that gave all the more significance to the verses he heard.
Jaejoong hadn't sang once since his loss.
---
"Excuse me...," Jaejoong said, as a tall, young man sat sternly on the edge of his bed and babbled something about starvation and broken promises of breakfast. The young man turned to him, indignant, but stopped talking nonetheless.
Jaejoong shrugged shyly, instinctively covering his mouth with a curled fist. He asked himself, how to put this?
"Excuse me but... who are you?"
He guessed he shouldn't have been so bold, judging by the incredulous open-mouthed stare that immediately took over the boy.
As the stranger rushed out of the room, demanding that somebody called Yunho fix Jaejoong, Jaejoong himself realized that he didn't really know who he was, either.
---
"You don't really do that anymore."
Jaejoong looked up and his lips formed a small 'o' behind the protective palm of his hand.
"What thing?" he asked. Yunho smiled and covered his mouth with his hand too, in perfect imitation of Jaejoong. "I don't?" Another hidden smile.
"It's--"
"Your teeth."
He found it was easy to talk to Yunho. He lacked Yoochun's masked apprehension and wasn't constantly trying to make him read between the lines of his words, like Junsu did. He was patient, understanding, and wouldn't glare at him through instant-food dinners as was Changmin's fancy from time to time.
---
"It's okay," Yoochun said, patting the spot by his side at the piano. Jaejoong nodded slowly and took baby steps towards the younger singer. When he sat, he felt a gush of familiarity run through his spine.
Yoochun played magnificently, and Jaejoong felt every emotion the white keys evoked as his own. He didn't even realise when he started playing himself, hands moving around the board like they had been made with it, for it.
It was their song, Yoochun explained when the music ended abruptly and Jaejoong couldn't quite understand why.
---
Do I sing?
Jaejoong watched as Junsu finished yet another oddly familiar song. He liked the way that the young man's eyes closed and his semblant suddenly filled with solemn concentration as the words came out.
"Do I sing?" he asked when the song came to an end. Junsu thought about the question for a minute. They all had strict orders to not pressure Jaejoong into remembering anything, made all the more strict by Yunho's overprotective mother-hening.
"You sing," Junsu aswered, deciding that Jaejoong was asking and he wasn't going to lie to him, "you, me, Yunho, Minnie and Yoochun."
"Oh," he said, and then, "sing more, please."
Junsu sang one of the songs he liked the best, and Jaejoong joined him in the last verse, their voices falling into place with surprising ease.
---
It couldn't be as difficult as the book made it look like. Jaejoong glanced at the pot where the potatoes and the meat were boiling and at the weird color of the water that should have a shade of red, rather than a yellowish dye as it was.
He sighed. Stupid book.
He closed it and moved towards the cupboards, somehow knowing that something there would do the trick. He found a stack of condiments and spices in one of them and took the little cans out, seasoning the vegetables he just had chopped and the contents of the pot as he thought it would be proper.
Ten minutes later he was moving around the kitchen as if it were his own (and technically, it was).
When the younger men came back home from work-- and they would never tell what kind of work they did--, Jaejoong was waiting for them with an extra large dinner.
"I hope you like kamjatang," he said, eyes glimmering with hope and giving an extra glance at the young man with the black hole for a stomach.
Changmin beamed. His smile almost cracks his face in half.
---
For once, Yunho took him out of the house. It was boring to be inside all day long, but for some reason he wasn't allowed to go out. Dangerous, everyone said, and then Yunho promised he would soon understand why. He trusted Yunho. So he stayed inside the house.
Two men in black clothes walked close by them and Jaejoong didn't find them as scary as he found them odd.
The dogs walked in front of them and they were a sight. Vick was the white one's name. His beloved dog. The dog he didn't know anything about.
"He misses you," Yunho said as if he could read Jaejoong's mind. And Jaejoong was starting to believe he could.
"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. Yunho just shrugged.
---
They walked the dogs together three times a week. The men in black always followed close.
Yunho always smiled. All the time.
It was a sad smile. It made Jaejoong's heart clench.
"I'm sorry I can't remember," he said one day. It had been a month.
Yunho's eyes narrowed for a bare second, and just then did Jaejoong realize a hand was holding onto his lower back. Yunho's hand. He had never realized it had been there on the first place.
"It's not your fault Jaejoong-ah," Yunho said, as his hand stiffened and tightened on Jaejoong's back. Jaejoong nodded and snaked his free arm around Yunho's waist.
"I'm sorry I can't help you more," the younger man continued, voice quiet but full of emotion. It came as a shock to Jaejoong that suddenly he could read Yunho so well. He squeezed the younger man's waist and Yunho stopped their stroll and moved his hand from Jaejoong's back to his opposite shoulder.
"But you've helped," Jaejoong said, looking into his eyes, "you've helped so much."
---
Their kiss was soft, short and timeless.
---
"Our song?"
"We wrote it. You and I."
They sat, together, and played it again, side by side.
---
"I sing."
"You sing."
"I'm not half bad."
Jaejoong watched fondly as Junsu burst into laughter, amused at the boy's childish EU KYANG KYANG.
---
"Too spicy."
"Too spicy?"
"Yes. You'll have to repeat it tomorrow," Changmin said, smirk tugging at the sides of his mouth.
Jaejoong gave him a mock indignant gasp, and hit him playfully on one arm.
---
The morning Spring started Jaejoong jumped off his bed. He ran in his underwear and a stolen pair of bunny slippers to the kitchen, where he found Junsu, Changmin and Yunho. The first two were trying to make pancackes, the latter was ignoring them in favour of either reading the newspaper or his mental health.
"Gross," said Jaejoong as he peeked into whatever the youngest were trying to make that was definitely not pancake batter, "you guys suck."
He ignored the boys' protests and sat down noisily at the table, opposite where Yunho was.
"I had the weirdest dream," he said, waiting for the newspaper to be lowered. It didn't happen, so he had to do it himself. He crawled over the table and pulled the infamous paper down.
"I was reading that," said Yunho. Jaejoong ignored him, too.
"About a red monster that came to Seoul and ate you guys. And then it destroyed all the downtown area and I had to save the world."
Yunho chuckled and let Jaejoong ramble for about ten minutes about monsters and destroyed cities and Super Heroes. When he was sure the other two were too busy with their 'cooking', he stood up and silenced Jaejoong with a chaste kiss on his mouth.
"Welcome back," he whispered. Jaejoong snorted; Yunho was a walking cliché.
---
When Yoochun walked into the kitchen, half asleep and one third almost-dead, he found Changmin and Junsu covered in flour, fighting near the stove, and Jaejoong and Yunho making out over the table.
"Gross," he said, and Jaejoong flashed a finger at him.
Another normal day at home.
---
FINITO.
Length: One shot.
Author: Guu
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Randomness (I'm not 100% sure that counts as genre, tho...)
Summary:
One cold winter morning, barely a week after his twenty-third birthday, Jaejoong lost his mind.
To me. Thanx Rae and Jewell for beta-ing and bearing with my death threats ♥ This is very very VERY random. Also, the title is taken from Panic At The Disco's last album. It totally belongs to them. I just happened to think it rocked. And fit this piece very well.
Pretty. Odd.
One cold winter morning, barely a week after his twenty-third birthday, Jaejoong lost his mind.
Not in a metaphoric or romantic way. Not medically or figuratively.
He literally lost his mind.
---
Yoochun cringed when he heard the door to the working room open quietly and a tall figure made a hesitant entrance. He loved Jaejoong, he really did. But he loved the old Jaejoong. The loud, obnoxious person whose laugh could be heard half-way round the world and shone in the spotlight wherever he went. This Jaejoong was quieter, shy. He reminded Yoochun too much of that pale, doe-eyed trainee he had met so long ago that seemed cold and detached and took him so long to figure out.
"Am I bothering you?" the figure said, voice slow and barely above a whisper. It made him remember all those traits Jaejoong had as a teenager that he had shaken off as he grew, like how he rarely ever looked into your eyes when he spoke, or that white sheet list of insecurities that restricted his speech he had fought so hard to overcome. Yoochun supposed that it wasn't only that he didn't have them anymore, just he didn't have them with them. His family.
Strangers now.
---
He guessed Jaejoong liked to hear him sing, because his eyes shone in a hopeful, childish way whenever Junsu randomly broke into a song. So he sang, unusually excited to perform for this one-person audience. He sang love songs the most, old hits he and Jaejoong had loved and sang until their throats were sore. He sang songs that had been their only hope years ago, songs that had kept their will alive. He sang and he wondered if Jaejoong knew. If he remembered what each one of the songs really meant. All the memories that gave all the more significance to the verses he heard.
Jaejoong hadn't sang once since his loss.
---
"Excuse me...," Jaejoong said, as a tall, young man sat sternly on the edge of his bed and babbled something about starvation and broken promises of breakfast. The young man turned to him, indignant, but stopped talking nonetheless.
Jaejoong shrugged shyly, instinctively covering his mouth with a curled fist. He asked himself, how to put this?
"Excuse me but... who are you?"
He guessed he shouldn't have been so bold, judging by the incredulous open-mouthed stare that immediately took over the boy.
As the stranger rushed out of the room, demanding that somebody called Yunho fix Jaejoong, Jaejoong himself realized that he didn't really know who he was, either.
---
"You don't really do that anymore."
Jaejoong looked up and his lips formed a small 'o' behind the protective palm of his hand.
"What thing?" he asked. Yunho smiled and covered his mouth with his hand too, in perfect imitation of Jaejoong. "I don't?" Another hidden smile.
"It's--"
"Your teeth."
He found it was easy to talk to Yunho. He lacked Yoochun's masked apprehension and wasn't constantly trying to make him read between the lines of his words, like Junsu did. He was patient, understanding, and wouldn't glare at him through instant-food dinners as was Changmin's fancy from time to time.
---
"It's okay," Yoochun said, patting the spot by his side at the piano. Jaejoong nodded slowly and took baby steps towards the younger singer. When he sat, he felt a gush of familiarity run through his spine.
Yoochun played magnificently, and Jaejoong felt every emotion the white keys evoked as his own. He didn't even realise when he started playing himself, hands moving around the board like they had been made with it, for it.
It was their song, Yoochun explained when the music ended abruptly and Jaejoong couldn't quite understand why.
---
Do I sing?
Jaejoong watched as Junsu finished yet another oddly familiar song. He liked the way that the young man's eyes closed and his semblant suddenly filled with solemn concentration as the words came out.
"Do I sing?" he asked when the song came to an end. Junsu thought about the question for a minute. They all had strict orders to not pressure Jaejoong into remembering anything, made all the more strict by Yunho's overprotective mother-hening.
"You sing," Junsu aswered, deciding that Jaejoong was asking and he wasn't going to lie to him, "you, me, Yunho, Minnie and Yoochun."
"Oh," he said, and then, "sing more, please."
Junsu sang one of the songs he liked the best, and Jaejoong joined him in the last verse, their voices falling into place with surprising ease.
---
It couldn't be as difficult as the book made it look like. Jaejoong glanced at the pot where the potatoes and the meat were boiling and at the weird color of the water that should have a shade of red, rather than a yellowish dye as it was.
He sighed. Stupid book.
He closed it and moved towards the cupboards, somehow knowing that something there would do the trick. He found a stack of condiments and spices in one of them and took the little cans out, seasoning the vegetables he just had chopped and the contents of the pot as he thought it would be proper.
Ten minutes later he was moving around the kitchen as if it were his own (and technically, it was).
When the younger men came back home from work-- and they would never tell what kind of work they did--, Jaejoong was waiting for them with an extra large dinner.
"I hope you like kamjatang," he said, eyes glimmering with hope and giving an extra glance at the young man with the black hole for a stomach.
Changmin beamed. His smile almost cracks his face in half.
---
For once, Yunho took him out of the house. It was boring to be inside all day long, but for some reason he wasn't allowed to go out. Dangerous, everyone said, and then Yunho promised he would soon understand why. He trusted Yunho. So he stayed inside the house.
Two men in black clothes walked close by them and Jaejoong didn't find them as scary as he found them odd.
The dogs walked in front of them and they were a sight. Vick was the white one's name. His beloved dog. The dog he didn't know anything about.
"He misses you," Yunho said as if he could read Jaejoong's mind. And Jaejoong was starting to believe he could.
"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. Yunho just shrugged.
---
They walked the dogs together three times a week. The men in black always followed close.
Yunho always smiled. All the time.
It was a sad smile. It made Jaejoong's heart clench.
"I'm sorry I can't remember," he said one day. It had been a month.
Yunho's eyes narrowed for a bare second, and just then did Jaejoong realize a hand was holding onto his lower back. Yunho's hand. He had never realized it had been there on the first place.
"It's not your fault Jaejoong-ah," Yunho said, as his hand stiffened and tightened on Jaejoong's back. Jaejoong nodded and snaked his free arm around Yunho's waist.
"I'm sorry I can't help you more," the younger man continued, voice quiet but full of emotion. It came as a shock to Jaejoong that suddenly he could read Yunho so well. He squeezed the younger man's waist and Yunho stopped their stroll and moved his hand from Jaejoong's back to his opposite shoulder.
"But you've helped," Jaejoong said, looking into his eyes, "you've helped so much."
---
Their kiss was soft, short and timeless.
---
"Our song?"
"We wrote it. You and I."
They sat, together, and played it again, side by side.
---
"I sing."
"You sing."
"I'm not half bad."
Jaejoong watched fondly as Junsu burst into laughter, amused at the boy's childish EU KYANG KYANG.
---
"Too spicy."
"Too spicy?"
"Yes. You'll have to repeat it tomorrow," Changmin said, smirk tugging at the sides of his mouth.
Jaejoong gave him a mock indignant gasp, and hit him playfully on one arm.
---
The morning Spring started Jaejoong jumped off his bed. He ran in his underwear and a stolen pair of bunny slippers to the kitchen, where he found Junsu, Changmin and Yunho. The first two were trying to make pancackes, the latter was ignoring them in favour of either reading the newspaper or his mental health.
"Gross," said Jaejoong as he peeked into whatever the youngest were trying to make that was definitely not pancake batter, "you guys suck."
He ignored the boys' protests and sat down noisily at the table, opposite where Yunho was.
"I had the weirdest dream," he said, waiting for the newspaper to be lowered. It didn't happen, so he had to do it himself. He crawled over the table and pulled the infamous paper down.
"I was reading that," said Yunho. Jaejoong ignored him, too.
"About a red monster that came to Seoul and ate you guys. And then it destroyed all the downtown area and I had to save the world."
Yunho chuckled and let Jaejoong ramble for about ten minutes about monsters and destroyed cities and Super Heroes. When he was sure the other two were too busy with their 'cooking', he stood up and silenced Jaejoong with a chaste kiss on his mouth.
"Welcome back," he whispered. Jaejoong snorted; Yunho was a walking cliché.
---
When Yoochun walked into the kitchen, half asleep and one third almost-dead, he found Changmin and Junsu covered in flour, fighting near the stove, and Jaejoong and Yunho making out over the table.
"Gross," he said, and Jaejoong flashed a finger at him.
Another normal day at home.
---
FINITO.