The Meaning of Being Lonely 3/4
The third time he has sex, Changmin finds himself wondering if he really could live without Jae - like he claimed he could. He’d told Jae he didn’t want to be protected all the time. But in this situation, he wished he’d done more than just walk away.
Changmin thought he finally understood how Jae felt that night last summer.
Two weeks ago.
“Changmin! Changmin-ah!” Jaejoong skidded into the kitchen, waving a thick stack of papers back and forth over his head.
Changmin took off his reading glasses, and set them as a bookmark over the text he was studying for their exam the next day. He folded his hands and patiently waited for Jaejoong to calm down. He had a hunch as to what the papers were.
“Changmin,” Jaejoong panted, as he plopped down in the chair opposite him at the dining table. His dark eyes were shining, his now blond hair askew on his head, all out of breath and completely excited. “Changmin, I got accepted to Seoul University!” He pointed to the papers, excitedly prodding the word ‘acceptance’ - waiting for Changmin to become as enthusiastic as he was.
Changmin just sat back in his chair and quirked an eyebrow.
“Do you know what this means,” Jaejoong asked, putting emphasis on every word. Changmin just wasn’t responding. Jaejoong sighed after a moment. “It means, that we get to go to college…together!” He waved a hand, body stretched halfway across the distance between them, excitement slightly ebbing at his lover’s lack of response.
Changmin looked at him for a moment, opened his mouth, and sighed. “Good.”
“Good? Good? That’s all you have to say? We get to go to college together, Changmin!”
Changmin gave Jaejoong a pitying look as he got up from his chair and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
“Jae, do you know how small the chances are that we’ll even end up on the same side of the campus? Much less the same dorm room,” Changmin chided, placing the glass beneath the faucet. He let it fill up with cold water.
“I can pull some strings,” Jaejoong said, pulling his lips into a pout and using his cute voice. The voice that seemed to grate on Changmin’s nerves lately. He gulped down half of the water in the glass before he responded.
“You don’t need a track record going into college, Jae,” he said, then gulped the rest of the water down. He put the glass back under the faucet to refill it.
“Changmin,” Jaejoong whined, getting up from his seat and walking around the counter to him, “Why aren’t you excited? I worked so hard to get in so we could be together, and you make it sound like you don’t want to be together.” He snaked his arms around Changmin’s waist and clasped his fingers together over his bellybutton. Changmin felt Jaejoong’s cheek press against his shoulder blade [because he’d gotten taller again this year, and Jae fell behind miserably], and tried hard not to sigh.
“It’s not that, Jae,” he began, pausing to figure a way to phrase it without hurting him, “I’ve…I’ve gotten an opportunity. To…to study in America, and…I’ve considered taking it.”
He winced when Jaejoong inhaled in surprise. “America? America, Changmin? As in, the America that Park Yoochun moved back from a couple of years ago?”
Of course, he was referring to their playmate from down the street who’d moved to Virginia when he was twelve, and only moved back last year. They didn’t talk very much anymore.
“Yes, Jaejoong. That America,” Changmin breathed.
“But you can’t! We have to go to Seoul University together! Changmin,” he said, turning him around to face him, “you can’t.”
“Jaejoong, how many kids my age, who have graduated two years ahead of time, get this kind of opportunity?”
“Um, none, because people aren’t freaks like you and graduate so early,” Jaejoong said, raising his voice.
“Exactly,” Changmin said, “Can you imagine how amazing that kind of thing would look on a resume for my first job? Shim Changmin, graduated from high school two years early, and went to college in America.”
Jaejoong dropped his hands from Changmin’s sides, and took a step back from him. The look of disbelief hurt Changmin more than any scolding Jaejoong could have ever thrown at him.
“…You’re really considering it, aren’t you?” Changmin licked his lips, knowing what Jae would do next.
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” he answered, voice smaller than a mouse’s. Jaejoong bit his lip, and looked down. He backed up, bumping into the refrigerator. Changmin thought he saw tears. “Jae, where are you going?”
He picked up his acceptance letters off the table, eyes downcast the entire time. “I uhm,…I have some homework to finish before tomorrow. So I’m just gonna…yeah,” he mumbled, and then rushed out of the kitchen. He heard the front door slam as he left - the sound echoing endlessly through Changmin’s mind.
Jaejoong never did his homework.
Two weeks later. Science class.
Changmin closed his notebook, and wondered why he’d even opened it in the first place. He didn’t take notes anymore. Jaejoong transferred classes two weeks ago, so maybe the pain of his decision wouldn’t be so harsh. They hardly saw each other anymore. They stopped doing homework together, or coming to one anothers’ house at all. Changmin felt like a jerk whenever he happened to catch a glimpse of Jaejoong’s blond hair in the hallway, one minute walking in his direction, the next moment walking in a completely different one. Just to avoid seeing him.
He supposed Jaejoong was making good on his promise to be his as long as he wanted him. And now that it seemed Changmin didn’t want him, he cleared out completely, to give him his space back. The truth was, after sharing space [among other things] for so many years, Changmin didn’t know how to adjust to the abrupt change. He got along fine he supposed, because no one treated him any different, but he could tell he was slipping. He’d never had trouble focusing like this before.
“I hear you and Jaejoong are having trouble these days.”
Changmin looked up, startled out of his daze. He didn’t even realize that he’d been staring at the front of his notebook, and that everyone was gone from the classroom. Except the teacher.
“What does it matter, HyunJoong-seunsengnim,” Changmin asked wearily. He looked up at the teacher that’d caused him and Jae so much trouble last year.
“Call me a sadist, but I like seeing Jaejoong so…what’s the word? Hurt? Hopeless? Depressed? You choose, Changmin-ah,” he answered, folding his arms over his chest and smiling.
Changmin sighed, and gathered his books off the desk, spilling them into his bag. “I choose to go to lunch now,” he said pointedly, standing up. He scooted past HyunJoong, bumping him with his backpack on accident. He thought, for a fleeting second, that perhaps he would have liked HyunJoong in another life, if he weren’t such a bitch.
Changmin continued walking up the aisle, but tripped backwards a bit. HyunJoong had come up behind him, grabbed a hold of his backpack, and pulled it back. With Changmin disoriented, HyunJoong took advantage, turning him around and shoving him into the desk at the front of the room. His day-planner and pencil cup fell to the ground with a loud clatter, along with Changmin’s backpack. He pressed his body against Changmin’s, roughly taking his lips into a kiss.
Changmin flailed and beat HyunJoong’s back, trying to push him off, but HyunJoong was too strong. He pinned Changmin’s wrists to the desk with one hand, and used the other to delve into Changmin’s pants.
“Ugh, no…NO,” Changmin yelled, trying to scoot away from his prying fingers, but HyunJoong pinned his legs to the desk with his hips. He recaptured his lips, biting roughly on his bottom one, drawing a little blood. He shoved his tongue into Changmin’s open mouth, blocking his continued yells for help. His fingers deftly dropped his zipper, and he began stroking Changmin.
Changmin hated that it felt so good, hated that this man was touching him, hated that he was helpless to escape. If Jaejoong had never left, this wouldn’t be happening. If he’d never accepted the overseas opportunity…if he and Jae had never met…
“No, no, NO!”
In the lunchroom.
“Jaejoong-ah!” He looked up from his lunch, barely touched, to see Park Yoochun walking towards him. “HyunJoong-seunsengnim wants to see you in the classroom. He said he had something to show you.”
Jaejoong only nodded, and Park looked at him for a moment longer before retreating to the line for food. Jaejoong got up, carrying his tray with him, and dumped all his uneaten food into the trashcan on his way out. He wasn’t hungry, anyways.
As he walked through the halls, he wondered where Changmin was. He hadn’t seen him come into the lunchroom. Not that he really wanted to sit with him or anything…he just wanted to know where he was, so he could know where not to be. He saw him walk into school this morning, later than he normally was. He’d almost given up hope that he’d be coming today. It seemed like he’d gotten a bit later everyday since two weeks ago…and Jaejoong wondered if he was as miserable as he was.
Not that it would change anything. Once Changmin made up his mind, he knew there was no dissuading him. Even if he realized it was a bad choice, he would still keep going - like the time they went driving to Pusan. Changmin insisted that they take a left, where they should have taken a right. They ended up running out of gas, broken down on the side of the highway.
Jaejoong smiled at the memory, and how Changmin never admitted that he’d been wrong.
He sighed, and rounded the corner to HyunJoong’s classroom. He wondered what this teacher, of all the teachers in the school, would want with him during lunch hour. He hadn’t been in his class for two weeks. Whatever it was was irrelevant to school, and Jaejoong immediately regretted coming. He considered turning around, trying to avoid a situation that couldn’t go anywhere but south, but halted when he heard shouts.
“No, no, NO!”
Intrigued, Jaejoong continued to the door.
Trapped.
“No, please,” Changmin pleaded, tears welling up behind his eyes as HyunJoong pumped him faster. HyunJoong kissed him again, effectively quieting him, and began moving his hips against Changmin’s legs. When Changmin felt his erection against his knees, he whimpered, wishing HyunJoong would just let him go…
HyunJoong let go of his lips at the same time the classroom door opened. Changmin’s heart fluttered with hope.
“You wanted to see me, Hyun…” Jaejoong froze right inside the door, disbelieving his own eyes.
“JAEJOONG! HE…,” HyunJoong recaptured Changmin’s lips, cutting him off, and pumped faster than before. The heat bloomed in Changmin’s stomach, and he couldn’t help it when he came all over the desk, and the front of his school uniform. He looked at Jaejoong, who’s mouth was open in shock, his eyes narrowing in disappointment, tears shining against the blackness that once seemed so alive. Changmin couldn’t do anything to stop him as he fled the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving only HyunJoong and him in the classroom.
He finally released his lips, and Changmin let out a sob, tears finally overflowing from his eyes.
“You did that on purpose,” he choked.
HyunJoong chuckled, an wicked shine to his eyes. “You bet I did.”
Changmin didn’t even have the strength to resist when HyunJoong pulled him off the desk, turned him around, and made him bend over. He just layed his face down on the cool desk, feeling every painful thrust, and praying for the moment it would be over to come soon.
Graduation.
Changmin received a letter in the mail one afternoon from the Kim residence. It contained Jaejoong’s senior picture [in which he didn’t smile], and his college decision. Seoul University. To major in postmodern music.
Changmin crumpled it and threw it away. Then finished packing. His flight for America left in the morning.
Changmin thought he finally understood how Jae felt that night last summer.
Two weeks ago.
“Changmin! Changmin-ah!” Jaejoong skidded into the kitchen, waving a thick stack of papers back and forth over his head.
Changmin took off his reading glasses, and set them as a bookmark over the text he was studying for their exam the next day. He folded his hands and patiently waited for Jaejoong to calm down. He had a hunch as to what the papers were.
“Changmin,” Jaejoong panted, as he plopped down in the chair opposite him at the dining table. His dark eyes were shining, his now blond hair askew on his head, all out of breath and completely excited. “Changmin, I got accepted to Seoul University!” He pointed to the papers, excitedly prodding the word ‘acceptance’ - waiting for Changmin to become as enthusiastic as he was.
Changmin just sat back in his chair and quirked an eyebrow.
“Do you know what this means,” Jaejoong asked, putting emphasis on every word. Changmin just wasn’t responding. Jaejoong sighed after a moment. “It means, that we get to go to college…together!” He waved a hand, body stretched halfway across the distance between them, excitement slightly ebbing at his lover’s lack of response.
Changmin looked at him for a moment, opened his mouth, and sighed. “Good.”
“Good? Good? That’s all you have to say? We get to go to college together, Changmin!”
Changmin gave Jaejoong a pitying look as he got up from his chair and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
“Jae, do you know how small the chances are that we’ll even end up on the same side of the campus? Much less the same dorm room,” Changmin chided, placing the glass beneath the faucet. He let it fill up with cold water.
“I can pull some strings,” Jaejoong said, pulling his lips into a pout and using his cute voice. The voice that seemed to grate on Changmin’s nerves lately. He gulped down half of the water in the glass before he responded.
“You don’t need a track record going into college, Jae,” he said, then gulped the rest of the water down. He put the glass back under the faucet to refill it.
“Changmin,” Jaejoong whined, getting up from his seat and walking around the counter to him, “Why aren’t you excited? I worked so hard to get in so we could be together, and you make it sound like you don’t want to be together.” He snaked his arms around Changmin’s waist and clasped his fingers together over his bellybutton. Changmin felt Jaejoong’s cheek press against his shoulder blade [because he’d gotten taller again this year, and Jae fell behind miserably], and tried hard not to sigh.
“It’s not that, Jae,” he began, pausing to figure a way to phrase it without hurting him, “I’ve…I’ve gotten an opportunity. To…to study in America, and…I’ve considered taking it.”
He winced when Jaejoong inhaled in surprise. “America? America, Changmin? As in, the America that Park Yoochun moved back from a couple of years ago?”
Of course, he was referring to their playmate from down the street who’d moved to Virginia when he was twelve, and only moved back last year. They didn’t talk very much anymore.
“Yes, Jaejoong. That America,” Changmin breathed.
“But you can’t! We have to go to Seoul University together! Changmin,” he said, turning him around to face him, “you can’t.”
“Jaejoong, how many kids my age, who have graduated two years ahead of time, get this kind of opportunity?”
“Um, none, because people aren’t freaks like you and graduate so early,” Jaejoong said, raising his voice.
“Exactly,” Changmin said, “Can you imagine how amazing that kind of thing would look on a resume for my first job? Shim Changmin, graduated from high school two years early, and went to college in America.”
Jaejoong dropped his hands from Changmin’s sides, and took a step back from him. The look of disbelief hurt Changmin more than any scolding Jaejoong could have ever thrown at him.
“…You’re really considering it, aren’t you?” Changmin licked his lips, knowing what Jae would do next.
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” he answered, voice smaller than a mouse’s. Jaejoong bit his lip, and looked down. He backed up, bumping into the refrigerator. Changmin thought he saw tears. “Jae, where are you going?”
He picked up his acceptance letters off the table, eyes downcast the entire time. “I uhm,…I have some homework to finish before tomorrow. So I’m just gonna…yeah,” he mumbled, and then rushed out of the kitchen. He heard the front door slam as he left - the sound echoing endlessly through Changmin’s mind.
Jaejoong never did his homework.
Two weeks later. Science class.
Changmin closed his notebook, and wondered why he’d even opened it in the first place. He didn’t take notes anymore. Jaejoong transferred classes two weeks ago, so maybe the pain of his decision wouldn’t be so harsh. They hardly saw each other anymore. They stopped doing homework together, or coming to one anothers’ house at all. Changmin felt like a jerk whenever he happened to catch a glimpse of Jaejoong’s blond hair in the hallway, one minute walking in his direction, the next moment walking in a completely different one. Just to avoid seeing him.
He supposed Jaejoong was making good on his promise to be his as long as he wanted him. And now that it seemed Changmin didn’t want him, he cleared out completely, to give him his space back. The truth was, after sharing space [among other things] for so many years, Changmin didn’t know how to adjust to the abrupt change. He got along fine he supposed, because no one treated him any different, but he could tell he was slipping. He’d never had trouble focusing like this before.
“I hear you and Jaejoong are having trouble these days.”
Changmin looked up, startled out of his daze. He didn’t even realize that he’d been staring at the front of his notebook, and that everyone was gone from the classroom. Except the teacher.
“What does it matter, HyunJoong-seunsengnim,” Changmin asked wearily. He looked up at the teacher that’d caused him and Jae so much trouble last year.
“Call me a sadist, but I like seeing Jaejoong so…what’s the word? Hurt? Hopeless? Depressed? You choose, Changmin-ah,” he answered, folding his arms over his chest and smiling.
Changmin sighed, and gathered his books off the desk, spilling them into his bag. “I choose to go to lunch now,” he said pointedly, standing up. He scooted past HyunJoong, bumping him with his backpack on accident. He thought, for a fleeting second, that perhaps he would have liked HyunJoong in another life, if he weren’t such a bitch.
Changmin continued walking up the aisle, but tripped backwards a bit. HyunJoong had come up behind him, grabbed a hold of his backpack, and pulled it back. With Changmin disoriented, HyunJoong took advantage, turning him around and shoving him into the desk at the front of the room. His day-planner and pencil cup fell to the ground with a loud clatter, along with Changmin’s backpack. He pressed his body against Changmin’s, roughly taking his lips into a kiss.
Changmin flailed and beat HyunJoong’s back, trying to push him off, but HyunJoong was too strong. He pinned Changmin’s wrists to the desk with one hand, and used the other to delve into Changmin’s pants.
“Ugh, no…NO,” Changmin yelled, trying to scoot away from his prying fingers, but HyunJoong pinned his legs to the desk with his hips. He recaptured his lips, biting roughly on his bottom one, drawing a little blood. He shoved his tongue into Changmin’s open mouth, blocking his continued yells for help. His fingers deftly dropped his zipper, and he began stroking Changmin.
Changmin hated that it felt so good, hated that this man was touching him, hated that he was helpless to escape. If Jaejoong had never left, this wouldn’t be happening. If he’d never accepted the overseas opportunity…if he and Jae had never met…
“No, no, NO!”
In the lunchroom.
“Jaejoong-ah!” He looked up from his lunch, barely touched, to see Park Yoochun walking towards him. “HyunJoong-seunsengnim wants to see you in the classroom. He said he had something to show you.”
Jaejoong only nodded, and Park looked at him for a moment longer before retreating to the line for food. Jaejoong got up, carrying his tray with him, and dumped all his uneaten food into the trashcan on his way out. He wasn’t hungry, anyways.
As he walked through the halls, he wondered where Changmin was. He hadn’t seen him come into the lunchroom. Not that he really wanted to sit with him or anything…he just wanted to know where he was, so he could know where not to be. He saw him walk into school this morning, later than he normally was. He’d almost given up hope that he’d be coming today. It seemed like he’d gotten a bit later everyday since two weeks ago…and Jaejoong wondered if he was as miserable as he was.
Not that it would change anything. Once Changmin made up his mind, he knew there was no dissuading him. Even if he realized it was a bad choice, he would still keep going - like the time they went driving to Pusan. Changmin insisted that they take a left, where they should have taken a right. They ended up running out of gas, broken down on the side of the highway.
Jaejoong smiled at the memory, and how Changmin never admitted that he’d been wrong.
He sighed, and rounded the corner to HyunJoong’s classroom. He wondered what this teacher, of all the teachers in the school, would want with him during lunch hour. He hadn’t been in his class for two weeks. Whatever it was was irrelevant to school, and Jaejoong immediately regretted coming. He considered turning around, trying to avoid a situation that couldn’t go anywhere but south, but halted when he heard shouts.
“No, no, NO!”
Intrigued, Jaejoong continued to the door.
Trapped.
“No, please,” Changmin pleaded, tears welling up behind his eyes as HyunJoong pumped him faster. HyunJoong kissed him again, effectively quieting him, and began moving his hips against Changmin’s legs. When Changmin felt his erection against his knees, he whimpered, wishing HyunJoong would just let him go…
HyunJoong let go of his lips at the same time the classroom door opened. Changmin’s heart fluttered with hope.
“You wanted to see me, Hyun…” Jaejoong froze right inside the door, disbelieving his own eyes.
“JAEJOONG! HE…,” HyunJoong recaptured Changmin’s lips, cutting him off, and pumped faster than before. The heat bloomed in Changmin’s stomach, and he couldn’t help it when he came all over the desk, and the front of his school uniform. He looked at Jaejoong, who’s mouth was open in shock, his eyes narrowing in disappointment, tears shining against the blackness that once seemed so alive. Changmin couldn’t do anything to stop him as he fled the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving only HyunJoong and him in the classroom.
He finally released his lips, and Changmin let out a sob, tears finally overflowing from his eyes.
“You did that on purpose,” he choked.
HyunJoong chuckled, an wicked shine to his eyes. “You bet I did.”
Changmin didn’t even have the strength to resist when HyunJoong pulled him off the desk, turned him around, and made him bend over. He just layed his face down on the cool desk, feeling every painful thrust, and praying for the moment it would be over to come soon.
Graduation.
Changmin received a letter in the mail one afternoon from the Kim residence. It contained Jaejoong’s senior picture [in which he didn’t smile], and his college decision. Seoul University. To major in postmodern music.
Changmin crumpled it and threw it away. Then finished packing. His flight for America left in the morning.