TAXI 4
Part 4
The young man who was sitting quietly at his back seat and staring outside silently really caught Yunho’s attention. His clothing told Yunho that he must came from a rich family while the big bag he carried notified him that the boy might be running away from his family.
Well, of course, the first thing that caught Yunho’s attention was the man’s appearance. Soft raven hair and delicate face. White porcelain skin and big brown eyes. Red pouty lips and… Yunho could clearly went on and on.
‘He looks like he’s around 18-19 years old,’ Yunho observed the young man quietly. ‘And he really should stop biting his lips and pouting like that… it certainly doesn’t help my predicament at all…’
On the back seat, Jaejoong furiously worked his brain out. He didn’t have a chance to take too much money when his dad decided to kick him out of the house from dropping out from college and decided to be a singer instead. The money he got in his pocket would only be enough for a meal and maybe a few days in a cheap hotel. After that, he would have to start working to earn his living.
He sighed. Although he had decided to start living on his own, he knew that he had no skills for any decent paying job. The lack of university diploma as well as a not-so high grade during his high school wouldn’t help his situation as well. The only place he thought that a person like him could get a job was in shady areas in Seoul. But…
He must admit that even the mere thought of stepping into such places scared his wits out.
Yunho was frustrated that his vision wouldn’t come during the time he wanted it the most. He was really curious about the young man’s future. He thought of trying to concentrate and focus his mind to get into his normal vision and was surprised that it worked.
The thumping sound of the club music really started to annoy his mind out. However, he pushed the nagging headache back to the corner of his mind and quickly started to look for the attractive young man.
‘Ah there he is!’
The young man who went with the name Kim Jaejoong as written on his tag was in the middle of concocting various alcoholic mixes for the customers in the bar when Yunho witnessed a middle-aged man approached him to offer him a name card.
‘Eh, he’s working as a bartender in a bar? I thought the first vision is supposed to be a positive one?’
His question was quickly answered as he was forcefully whisked to leap to a further future to see the young man standing in the middle of the big stage and singing his heart out.
As he listened to the melodic voice flowing from the attractive young man, Yunho must concede that he really belonged on the stage and he braced himself to be transported to the negative possibility of the young man’s future…
Only to find himself transferred to the inside of the closet of a hotel room instead.
‘Eh???’ He panicked. Yunho knew that if someone found him hiding in the middle of closet in his or her hotel room, he would definitely ended up in a jail although he claimed that he came from the past. So he started to try focusing his mind to escape from this possible sticky situation…
When he heard someone’s outside sobbing.
Ignoring his screaming mind that ordered him to get out from his right there and right now, Yunho opened the door slightly to peek on the crying…
‘Jaejoong?’
As much as he longed to just go outside and pulled the man into a hug, he knew that he couldn’t change the future, not matter how bad it was. So he just stared worriedly at the young man who was weeping and talked to himself… almost hysterically.
“It’s not enough! You need to work harder!!” Now Jaejoong was throwing stuff to his reflection on the mirror. “Fuck you! You don’t know how much I had done in order to get to here… they all can just fuck off… keep asking more and more for me… what else of me can they take? They already get my voice, my life, my body…” He shuddered as he remembered the hands of the filthy old business men that he was forced to ‘serve’ in order to be able to stay in his career right now.
“I hate this… hate… hate… I want out… please someone… just take me out from here…”
And Yunho could only watch in horror as the distraught young man grabbed a bottle of pills near him and proceeded to gulp the whole contents of the bottle.
He didn’t need to stay any longer to know the end of Kim Jaejoong’s life.
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He was still breathing harshly when he realized that he had finally changed into another future. He shivered as he realized that the previous scene was supposed to be Kim Jaejoong’s happy ending…
‘Then what will his sad ending be?
His questioned was answered when he saw a bloody figure in front of him.
His mind was again screaming at him not to touch the body but his body reacted faster. With one hand he quickly flipped the male body to see his face…
To see the Kim Jaejoong blank eyes staring back at him.
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“Cheogyeo! Cheogyeo! Are you alright?!!”
A soft hand shook him back to his reality. As soon as he had a full control over his body, Yunho quickly turned his head to see his passenger and heaved out a relieved sigh when he saw the face of worried Kim Jaejoong. Pale, but alive.
And he knew that he shouldn’t meddle in someone’s else destiny, but he just couldn’t help himself when he felt his lips moving.
“Hey,” He croaked out. “I know that it might seem suspicious and weird. But I know that you’re running away from home and most probably you don’t have a place to stay currently…”
He ignored the shocked face of the young man and trudged on, “If you don’t mind, you can just stay in my place…”
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Jaejoong scrutinized the man in front of him intensely. He certainly didn’t look like a bad person, but in this kind of age, even the most harmless person could turn out to be a serial murderer. So who was he to judge?
However, the man did have a valid point. He already knew that he didn’t have enough money to survive out there, and to think about it, going with this man seemed saver than to sleep in some random alley if he couldn’t get any job soon.
Sensing the other man’s hesitance, Yunho quickly pulled out his ID and passed it to his passenger. “See, you can take down of my citizen number and everything. If anything happen, you can always go to the police and ask them to arrest me,” But he quickly lifted up his hands. “But I swear that I’m not a bad person… It’s just you looked like you need some help…”
‘He looks cute stuttering like that,’ Jaejoong’s mind helpfully pointed that out to him and he couldn’t hold back a small smile from gracing his lips as he saw the man nervously waiting for his answer.
“Uh… so?” apparently the man also couldn’t withstand a too long silence.
“Well, I guess there is no harm in trying out,” Jaejoong smiled and extended his hand. “Kim Jaejoong”.
Yunho grinned in return of the beautiful smile he was granted with. “Jung Yunho,” ‘And I will make sure that you will not die under my watch,’ He thought resolutely.
And that was how Kim Jaejoong’s future started to intertwine with Jung Yunho’s.
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