Happy New Year, smartcatt! Exchange fic: "It’s the Small Things"
Title: It’s the Small Things
Rating: PG
Genre: Humor
Warning: Couple swears, otherwise nothing except Jaejoong’s thought processes
Summary: Every time, they vow to never let Jaejoong plan anything again, and every time he still does.
smartcatt's prompt: Yunho and Jaejoong get locked inside a closet while trying to prank the other three members. The door gets jammed and they are stuck there for a good 2 hours until the other 3 are back from their promoting event. It is a hot summer day and there is no AC in the closet, obviously.
“I really don’t see how this is a good idea.”
Jaejoong sighed for what felt like the thousandth time since the others had left, but was probably really only about the third. “Look, do you or do you not want to get Junsu and Yoochun back for that thing with the jam?”
“That thing with the jam you helped them plan, you mean?”
He chose to take that as a compliment rather than a complaint and waved it off. “They just consult me for my expertise. That’s why I know this will be perfect.”
And it would be perfect, completely perfect. Summer promotions could always be counted on to suffer at least one unexpected rainfall, and Junsu hated getting soaked by rain almost as much as Jaejoong himself did (although Jaejoong would argue that Junsu’s hair didn’t merit the protection nearly as much as his own) which meant that Junsu had taken his umbrella and would need to put it away when he got home. Which meant that anyone already in the closet would be in a prime location to give him at least half a heart attack.
Jaejoong had already laid in a stash of party poppers and one of those big cans where if you pulled the lid off, things jumped out, just to give the prank that extra oomph needed to achieve perfection. Really, it was so simple, he wasn’t sure how Yunho couldn’t see it.
Besides, even if one of the others opened the door first, it’d be funny as anything. A win-win for him no matter what.
The sliding door to the hall closet was doing that squeaky metal thing it did every summer when everything got all humid, and Jaejoong frowned at it before looking around for Yunho again, to make sure he hadn’t wandered off. He hadn’t, but he did still look far too dubious, which was a hilarious expression on someone holding a prank can. Jaejoong laughed, reaching to grab Yunho’s shoulder and nudge him toward the door. “I promise. Perfection. You’ll see.”
Yunho sighed but didn’t object again, just checked to make sure his phone was in his pocket before crawling into the closet. It was technically a walk in, in that you could stand inside the closet if you really wanted, but with five young men (one of them with more clothes than any sane person needed, but no one had ever really called Jaejoong ‘sane’) living in one apartment, all the closets were overflowing at the best of times. Between the shoe rack (and really, all of them could claim a hand in that particular obsession), the coats, jackets, miniature hanging hat tree (for once, mostly Changmin’s), and a pile of umbrellas of questionable origin, you could just squeeze in if you were careful.
With two of them, there wasn’t enough careful in the world. Sitting made it easier if still crowded, but they’d been dealing with crowded since they became trainees. Jaejoong had taken the precaution of laying in a couple of pillows for cushion, but he’d timed it carefully enough that the others should be home before they had time to so much as finish a round of Words with Friends.
He knelt on his own pillow once Yunho was settled in against the shoe rack, one of Changmin’s ridiculous deer slippers (a gift from a fan that Yoochun had taken a shine to and refused to let Changmin throw out, and that Changmin liked to pretend they never saw him wear around the apartment on cold mornings) providing the perfect backrest. Closing the door from here was awkward at best, but he managed, the odd metallic scrape seeming louder in here than usual, but he didn’t take any real note of it getting louder until the scrape became more of a thunk, if thunks could be kind of drawn out and shrieky. Even that likely wouldn’t have caught his full attention if the door hadn’t then refused to move another inch. He tried to push it open again instead, but no, the door didn’t feel like moving that way, either.
“Um.”
Well, that got Yunho’s attention. He’d been fiddling with his phone, but now he sat up straight, eyes sharp even in the dim light seeping in around the door. “Why’d you say ‘um’?”
Jaejoong hedged immediately, shoulders hunching. “What? A guy can’t say ‘um’ once in a while without getting interrogated?”
“Jaejoong-”
“Fine!” He’d always broken under pressure. It was a failing. He rearranged to sit more comfortably, actions at odds with his words. “Door’s stuck.”
“The door-” Yunho stopped, obviously hoping that Jaejoong was lying or somehow too stupid to open a door properly, before he moved to his knees, trying to open the door himself, but getting only a duller squeaky thud and maybe a centimeter of movement before the door scraped once more into immobility. He collapsed back, and Jaejoong pretended not to notice the incredulous look being sent his way. “You got us locked in a closet.”
He would have puffed up like an angry cat if he’d had the room. He settled for kicking Yunho’s ankle in a fine sulk. “I got us stuck in a closet. We’re not locked in, and anyway, this is even better, because they’ll be paying attention to the stuck door and not where we are.”
“If they can get it open at all.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Yunho, stop being a baby. It’s not like we’re going to die in here.”
Even if a tiny bit of him was sure they just might die in here. The closet was stuffy and close, only the lights of the cell phones and whatever made it through the cracks of the door providing any illumination and the two of them all but sitting in each other’s laps, but still, it couldn’t be that long. Jaejoong pointedly sent a Words with Friends invite to Yunho’s phone, knowing the man’s competitive streak wouldn’t let him refuse. Actually, that was more or less why they were in this closet in the first place, but at least phone games were less likely to end in being stuffed in a closet, no matter how sore a loser Changmin was.
After fifteen minutes and a very close game, Jaejoong was sure the others would be home any minute. Until Yunho’s phone buzzed with a text, and Jaejoong leaned in close to see as he pulled the message up.
It was from Yoochun. ‘Hey, hyung. Be glad they didn’t drag you and Jaejoong along. Van broke down and the fangirls almost got Changmin. It was crazy. Anyway, they’re saying another couple hours, so don’t wait.’
Jaejoong leaned away carefully, not meeting Yunho’s eyes as his own phone played the cheerful (and just a tad deliberately annoying) tune of a text from Yoochun, probably more of the same he’d sent Yunho. The best laid plans…
“Another couple hours.”
Somehow, he managed to find an extra inch or two to put between himself and Yunho by trying to become one with the pile of umbrellas. “It’s not so bad.”
“A couple of hours, Jaejoong.”
“I can read!” He huffed. Just because he played the ditzy one didn’t mean he really was that bad all the time. “And I said it’s really not that-”
Bad, he would have said, but for an even more unwelcome sound interrupting him than the dreaded squeaky thud. The apartment’s tiny air conditioner was set into an outside wall in the living room and ordinarily filled the apartment with a low, comforting hum. It had been especially warm the last few days, though, and that comforting hum had been more of a throaty gargle. Until just now, when that throaty gargle seemed to start gargling rocks instead, which lasted a few dreadful seconds until silence returned.
Actual silence. Not the throaty gargle. Not the low, comforting hum. Silence.
A moment later, the last of the cool air that had been trailing in together with the weak light through the cracks stopped, leaving the air as still as a reflecting pool. If only it were half so peaceful, as well.
Jaejoong and his new umbrella family carefully avoided looking at Yunho or near Yunho or anywhere in Yunho’s general direction. “To be fair, I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Yunho seemed generally disinclined to fairness, which was unlike him. Jaejoong might have laid a hand on his forehead to check for a temperature, but at the moment he worried his hand might come back minus a finger or two if he tried. He settled for sending another Words with Friends request.
Somehow, it seemed ominous that Yunho was able to play ‘murder’ as his first word, but when Jaejoong questioned it, he just muttered something about not having enough letters for ‘justifiable homicide’ and they both left it at that.
He lost that game spectacularly and quickly (purely out of self-preservation, naturally) and after that, found himself at loose ends. Yunho had turned his attention to a single player game, completely leaving Jaejoong alone and to his own devices, which was neither fair nor right. It was like Yunho really thought this was all his fault. Which it wasn’t. At all.
First, he texted Yoochun back, something innocuous and annoying, a random assortment of emotes that he would later pretend had some deep meaning but were really just whatever popped up when he hit a bunch of keys at once. Then he went down his list, replying to emails and sending texts to half the contacts in his phone. Not Junsu, of course. Changmin got one short note with lots of laughing for the whole fangirl fiasco, but that was only to be expected.
That much texting took maybe an hour. Sometimes, he regretted his fast thumbs. He glanced at Yunho and sent one last text. ‘Hey, is it hot in here or are you just happy to see me?’
Yunho glanced at the screen when the notification popped up, blinking at it and then Jaejoong suspiciously before opening it. He read it once… and then twice… and then dropped his forehead onto his knees with a groan. “How are you older than me?”
Not precisely the reaction he was going for, but he’d take it. Attention was attention. “Well, see, when a mother and a father-” His recitation was cut short ducking a shoe. That was a lot harder than he’d have expected at this range. “Hey!”
The match to the one now digging into the back of his shoulder was waved threateningly at his nose. “No one would blame me.”
While not strictly true (because management liked using his face to sell records, which wouldn’t happen if it had a shoe-print on it), he could take the threat for what it was. He sulked himself back into silence, phone forgotten in his pocket for the moment. It was hot. It was probably only going to get hotter. He was obviously going to die and no one would care, except maybe Yunho who would only care if his corpse started to stink before anyone came to let them out.
He twitched and twisted and turned and tossed, which lasted him about five minutes with increasingly annoyed huffs from Yunho every time he ‘accidentally’ kicked him in the leg. ‘Accidentally’ stepping on his ankle only got Yunho to turn up the sound on the most annoying game Jaejoong had ever had to listen to. Obviously, more drastic measures were needed, and it was getting progressively warmer in the tiny, enclosed space.
So he started to take his shirt off.
“Jaejoong! What are you doing?!”
Oh, he’d felt up to noticing that, had he? Jaejoong rolled his eyes, pulling his shirt the rest of the way off and unbuckling his belt. “What does it look like I’m doing? I know it’s dark in here, but I doubt you’ve gone blind.”
Yunho’s jaw worked over what Jaejoong could only assume was an entire lecture. They’d all learned just how useless those were against Jaejoong, especially when he got his mind set on something, but once in a while they still tried. For now, though, Yunho just sighed. “Just… just stay over there.” He sounded almost defeated, but Jaejoong supposed being stuck in a tiny closet might do that to anybody given enough time, and they had nothing if not enough time.
“Fine.” He drew himself up as straight as he could and tried to pretend he didn’t feel the little line of sweat working its way annoyingly down his back. “Fine. It’ll be cooler that way, anyway.”
He even tried to rein in the tiny, internal howl of glee when Yunho’s shirt followed his ten minutes later. His pants stayed on, but Jaejoong knew not everyone was willing to go that extra mile like him. Not like either of them had any surprises left, not having all but grown up in each other’s back pockets like they did, but sometimes Yunho was just… Yunho, and that was okay.
The silence stretched out to a good decade after that (which was actually probably closer to fifteen minutes) through which Jaejoong again grew increasingly restless. He texted less than a third of his contacts this time. He sang along with three songs on his phone (technically one song, Hug, just in three different languages). He tried to stretch out, crossing his legs over Yunho’s, only for Yunho to huff again and kick him off.
Finally, something in him snapped. He’d say it was his sanity; most people would call it any pretense at self-control. He didn’t like being ignored at the best of times, and these were far from the best of times, but Yunho was a master at it thanks to long years of practice. He’d even tried texting Yunho a few more times, but the messages went unread.
Drastic times called for drastic measures.
“Hey, Yun-”
“No, Jaejoong.” He didn’t even look up.
Jaejoong gaped. “You don’t know what I was going to say!”
“Was it going to be ‘I’m bored, entertain me’? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what it was going to be.”
Jaejoong’s silence was practically an affirmation, but he recovered quickly. “No. Well. Maybe, but I wouldn’t have said it like that. That’s stupid.”
“You said it, not me.”
There was some satisfaction at pulling Yunho down to his own, childish level, but most of that satisfaction was lost in Yunho turning his own, childish level back on Jaejoong and using it to win. Not that most people could ‘win’ or ‘lose’ a simple conversation, but most people would never be Jaejoong. “YAH! Jung Yunho!”
But Yunho had gone back to the game with the annoying sound effects, and Jaejoong had had enough. Texting wouldn’t work. Conversation wouldn’t work. Hell, probably jumping Yunho wouldn’t even work, and frankly, it was so hot, they’d probably melt like gummy worms on a dashboard at this point.
So he resolved to practice his dancing. They were all on him to practice more in his spare time, weren’t they? So he was practicing. Just… while sitting down. And kicking Yunho’s legs in time.
Jaejoong could tell the second he’d pushed (well, fine, okay, kicked) a little too far, in the middle of a step-turn that he had trouble with on a dance floor and couldn’t get right like this, either. It wasn’t hard, really, considering the way Yunho growled. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the leader make that sound, and it would have been kind of sexy in any other circumstances, but then Yunho grabbed his ankle, pulling him flat on his back in the closet and making him squawk.
Of course, the situation could only go down from there. Yunho launched himself at Jaejoong (which was really more of an aggravated flop and completely in violation of their non-contact accord), one hand covering Jaejoong’s mouth, hissing something that might have been a threat, and Jaejoong might have actually been worried if the door hadn’t chosen that very moment to shake loudly and reluctantly jerk open.
“I don’t know! It was just stuck, I think the slider came out of the track aga-” Junsu had been speaking back over his shoulder after wrenching the door open, only turning back to see the awkward tableau at his feet. His words had cut off although his mouth kept moving as if his lips maybe didn’t get the memo quite so quickly.
Somewhere behind him, Changmin and Yoochun all but howled with laughter as they realized what had caught Junsu’s attention. Jaejoong started to squirm his way to his feet, only to go still under a pointed glare from Yunho until the other had pushed to his feet and disappeared down the hallway, the door of the bathroom slamming moments before the shower turned on.
Well. Jaejoong looked from one still shocked face to two going slowly red with breathless laughter and eventually shrugged. It probably could have gone worse. He pulled the string on the popper without standing up, the noise still getting a startled little jump out of Junsu even if the streamers barely made it to his waist. “Surprise?”
Rating: PG
Genre: Humor
Warning: Couple swears, otherwise nothing except Jaejoong’s thought processes
Summary: Every time, they vow to never let Jaejoong plan anything again, and every time he still does.
smartcatt's prompt: Yunho and Jaejoong get locked inside a closet while trying to prank the other three members. The door gets jammed and they are stuck there for a good 2 hours until the other 3 are back from their promoting event. It is a hot summer day and there is no AC in the closet, obviously.
“I really don’t see how this is a good idea.”
Jaejoong sighed for what felt like the thousandth time since the others had left, but was probably really only about the third. “Look, do you or do you not want to get Junsu and Yoochun back for that thing with the jam?”
“That thing with the jam you helped them plan, you mean?”
He chose to take that as a compliment rather than a complaint and waved it off. “They just consult me for my expertise. That’s why I know this will be perfect.”
And it would be perfect, completely perfect. Summer promotions could always be counted on to suffer at least one unexpected rainfall, and Junsu hated getting soaked by rain almost as much as Jaejoong himself did (although Jaejoong would argue that Junsu’s hair didn’t merit the protection nearly as much as his own) which meant that Junsu had taken his umbrella and would need to put it away when he got home. Which meant that anyone already in the closet would be in a prime location to give him at least half a heart attack.
Jaejoong had already laid in a stash of party poppers and one of those big cans where if you pulled the lid off, things jumped out, just to give the prank that extra oomph needed to achieve perfection. Really, it was so simple, he wasn’t sure how Yunho couldn’t see it.
Besides, even if one of the others opened the door first, it’d be funny as anything. A win-win for him no matter what.
The sliding door to the hall closet was doing that squeaky metal thing it did every summer when everything got all humid, and Jaejoong frowned at it before looking around for Yunho again, to make sure he hadn’t wandered off. He hadn’t, but he did still look far too dubious, which was a hilarious expression on someone holding a prank can. Jaejoong laughed, reaching to grab Yunho’s shoulder and nudge him toward the door. “I promise. Perfection. You’ll see.”
Yunho sighed but didn’t object again, just checked to make sure his phone was in his pocket before crawling into the closet. It was technically a walk in, in that you could stand inside the closet if you really wanted, but with five young men (one of them with more clothes than any sane person needed, but no one had ever really called Jaejoong ‘sane’) living in one apartment, all the closets were overflowing at the best of times. Between the shoe rack (and really, all of them could claim a hand in that particular obsession), the coats, jackets, miniature hanging hat tree (for once, mostly Changmin’s), and a pile of umbrellas of questionable origin, you could just squeeze in if you were careful.
With two of them, there wasn’t enough careful in the world. Sitting made it easier if still crowded, but they’d been dealing with crowded since they became trainees. Jaejoong had taken the precaution of laying in a couple of pillows for cushion, but he’d timed it carefully enough that the others should be home before they had time to so much as finish a round of Words with Friends.
He knelt on his own pillow once Yunho was settled in against the shoe rack, one of Changmin’s ridiculous deer slippers (a gift from a fan that Yoochun had taken a shine to and refused to let Changmin throw out, and that Changmin liked to pretend they never saw him wear around the apartment on cold mornings) providing the perfect backrest. Closing the door from here was awkward at best, but he managed, the odd metallic scrape seeming louder in here than usual, but he didn’t take any real note of it getting louder until the scrape became more of a thunk, if thunks could be kind of drawn out and shrieky. Even that likely wouldn’t have caught his full attention if the door hadn’t then refused to move another inch. He tried to push it open again instead, but no, the door didn’t feel like moving that way, either.
“Um.”
Well, that got Yunho’s attention. He’d been fiddling with his phone, but now he sat up straight, eyes sharp even in the dim light seeping in around the door. “Why’d you say ‘um’?”
Jaejoong hedged immediately, shoulders hunching. “What? A guy can’t say ‘um’ once in a while without getting interrogated?”
“Jaejoong-”
“Fine!” He’d always broken under pressure. It was a failing. He rearranged to sit more comfortably, actions at odds with his words. “Door’s stuck.”
“The door-” Yunho stopped, obviously hoping that Jaejoong was lying or somehow too stupid to open a door properly, before he moved to his knees, trying to open the door himself, but getting only a duller squeaky thud and maybe a centimeter of movement before the door scraped once more into immobility. He collapsed back, and Jaejoong pretended not to notice the incredulous look being sent his way. “You got us locked in a closet.”
He would have puffed up like an angry cat if he’d had the room. He settled for kicking Yunho’s ankle in a fine sulk. “I got us stuck in a closet. We’re not locked in, and anyway, this is even better, because they’ll be paying attention to the stuck door and not where we are.”
“If they can get it open at all.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Yunho, stop being a baby. It’s not like we’re going to die in here.”
Even if a tiny bit of him was sure they just might die in here. The closet was stuffy and close, only the lights of the cell phones and whatever made it through the cracks of the door providing any illumination and the two of them all but sitting in each other’s laps, but still, it couldn’t be that long. Jaejoong pointedly sent a Words with Friends invite to Yunho’s phone, knowing the man’s competitive streak wouldn’t let him refuse. Actually, that was more or less why they were in this closet in the first place, but at least phone games were less likely to end in being stuffed in a closet, no matter how sore a loser Changmin was.
After fifteen minutes and a very close game, Jaejoong was sure the others would be home any minute. Until Yunho’s phone buzzed with a text, and Jaejoong leaned in close to see as he pulled the message up.
It was from Yoochun. ‘Hey, hyung. Be glad they didn’t drag you and Jaejoong along. Van broke down and the fangirls almost got Changmin. It was crazy. Anyway, they’re saying another couple hours, so don’t wait.’
Jaejoong leaned away carefully, not meeting Yunho’s eyes as his own phone played the cheerful (and just a tad deliberately annoying) tune of a text from Yoochun, probably more of the same he’d sent Yunho. The best laid plans…
“Another couple hours.”
Somehow, he managed to find an extra inch or two to put between himself and Yunho by trying to become one with the pile of umbrellas. “It’s not so bad.”
“A couple of hours, Jaejoong.”
“I can read!” He huffed. Just because he played the ditzy one didn’t mean he really was that bad all the time. “And I said it’s really not that-”
Bad, he would have said, but for an even more unwelcome sound interrupting him than the dreaded squeaky thud. The apartment’s tiny air conditioner was set into an outside wall in the living room and ordinarily filled the apartment with a low, comforting hum. It had been especially warm the last few days, though, and that comforting hum had been more of a throaty gargle. Until just now, when that throaty gargle seemed to start gargling rocks instead, which lasted a few dreadful seconds until silence returned.
Actual silence. Not the throaty gargle. Not the low, comforting hum. Silence.
A moment later, the last of the cool air that had been trailing in together with the weak light through the cracks stopped, leaving the air as still as a reflecting pool. If only it were half so peaceful, as well.
Jaejoong and his new umbrella family carefully avoided looking at Yunho or near Yunho or anywhere in Yunho’s general direction. “To be fair, I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Yunho seemed generally disinclined to fairness, which was unlike him. Jaejoong might have laid a hand on his forehead to check for a temperature, but at the moment he worried his hand might come back minus a finger or two if he tried. He settled for sending another Words with Friends request.
Somehow, it seemed ominous that Yunho was able to play ‘murder’ as his first word, but when Jaejoong questioned it, he just muttered something about not having enough letters for ‘justifiable homicide’ and they both left it at that.
He lost that game spectacularly and quickly (purely out of self-preservation, naturally) and after that, found himself at loose ends. Yunho had turned his attention to a single player game, completely leaving Jaejoong alone and to his own devices, which was neither fair nor right. It was like Yunho really thought this was all his fault. Which it wasn’t. At all.
First, he texted Yoochun back, something innocuous and annoying, a random assortment of emotes that he would later pretend had some deep meaning but were really just whatever popped up when he hit a bunch of keys at once. Then he went down his list, replying to emails and sending texts to half the contacts in his phone. Not Junsu, of course. Changmin got one short note with lots of laughing for the whole fangirl fiasco, but that was only to be expected.
That much texting took maybe an hour. Sometimes, he regretted his fast thumbs. He glanced at Yunho and sent one last text. ‘Hey, is it hot in here or are you just happy to see me?’
Yunho glanced at the screen when the notification popped up, blinking at it and then Jaejoong suspiciously before opening it. He read it once… and then twice… and then dropped his forehead onto his knees with a groan. “How are you older than me?”
Not precisely the reaction he was going for, but he’d take it. Attention was attention. “Well, see, when a mother and a father-” His recitation was cut short ducking a shoe. That was a lot harder than he’d have expected at this range. “Hey!”
The match to the one now digging into the back of his shoulder was waved threateningly at his nose. “No one would blame me.”
While not strictly true (because management liked using his face to sell records, which wouldn’t happen if it had a shoe-print on it), he could take the threat for what it was. He sulked himself back into silence, phone forgotten in his pocket for the moment. It was hot. It was probably only going to get hotter. He was obviously going to die and no one would care, except maybe Yunho who would only care if his corpse started to stink before anyone came to let them out.
He twitched and twisted and turned and tossed, which lasted him about five minutes with increasingly annoyed huffs from Yunho every time he ‘accidentally’ kicked him in the leg. ‘Accidentally’ stepping on his ankle only got Yunho to turn up the sound on the most annoying game Jaejoong had ever had to listen to. Obviously, more drastic measures were needed, and it was getting progressively warmer in the tiny, enclosed space.
So he started to take his shirt off.
“Jaejoong! What are you doing?!”
Oh, he’d felt up to noticing that, had he? Jaejoong rolled his eyes, pulling his shirt the rest of the way off and unbuckling his belt. “What does it look like I’m doing? I know it’s dark in here, but I doubt you’ve gone blind.”
Yunho’s jaw worked over what Jaejoong could only assume was an entire lecture. They’d all learned just how useless those were against Jaejoong, especially when he got his mind set on something, but once in a while they still tried. For now, though, Yunho just sighed. “Just… just stay over there.” He sounded almost defeated, but Jaejoong supposed being stuck in a tiny closet might do that to anybody given enough time, and they had nothing if not enough time.
“Fine.” He drew himself up as straight as he could and tried to pretend he didn’t feel the little line of sweat working its way annoyingly down his back. “Fine. It’ll be cooler that way, anyway.”
He even tried to rein in the tiny, internal howl of glee when Yunho’s shirt followed his ten minutes later. His pants stayed on, but Jaejoong knew not everyone was willing to go that extra mile like him. Not like either of them had any surprises left, not having all but grown up in each other’s back pockets like they did, but sometimes Yunho was just… Yunho, and that was okay.
The silence stretched out to a good decade after that (which was actually probably closer to fifteen minutes) through which Jaejoong again grew increasingly restless. He texted less than a third of his contacts this time. He sang along with three songs on his phone (technically one song, Hug, just in three different languages). He tried to stretch out, crossing his legs over Yunho’s, only for Yunho to huff again and kick him off.
Finally, something in him snapped. He’d say it was his sanity; most people would call it any pretense at self-control. He didn’t like being ignored at the best of times, and these were far from the best of times, but Yunho was a master at it thanks to long years of practice. He’d even tried texting Yunho a few more times, but the messages went unread.
Drastic times called for drastic measures.
“Hey, Yun-”
“No, Jaejoong.” He didn’t even look up.
Jaejoong gaped. “You don’t know what I was going to say!”
“Was it going to be ‘I’m bored, entertain me’? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what it was going to be.”
Jaejoong’s silence was practically an affirmation, but he recovered quickly. “No. Well. Maybe, but I wouldn’t have said it like that. That’s stupid.”
“You said it, not me.”
There was some satisfaction at pulling Yunho down to his own, childish level, but most of that satisfaction was lost in Yunho turning his own, childish level back on Jaejoong and using it to win. Not that most people could ‘win’ or ‘lose’ a simple conversation, but most people would never be Jaejoong. “YAH! Jung Yunho!”
But Yunho had gone back to the game with the annoying sound effects, and Jaejoong had had enough. Texting wouldn’t work. Conversation wouldn’t work. Hell, probably jumping Yunho wouldn’t even work, and frankly, it was so hot, they’d probably melt like gummy worms on a dashboard at this point.
So he resolved to practice his dancing. They were all on him to practice more in his spare time, weren’t they? So he was practicing. Just… while sitting down. And kicking Yunho’s legs in time.
Jaejoong could tell the second he’d pushed (well, fine, okay, kicked) a little too far, in the middle of a step-turn that he had trouble with on a dance floor and couldn’t get right like this, either. It wasn’t hard, really, considering the way Yunho growled. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the leader make that sound, and it would have been kind of sexy in any other circumstances, but then Yunho grabbed his ankle, pulling him flat on his back in the closet and making him squawk.
Of course, the situation could only go down from there. Yunho launched himself at Jaejoong (which was really more of an aggravated flop and completely in violation of their non-contact accord), one hand covering Jaejoong’s mouth, hissing something that might have been a threat, and Jaejoong might have actually been worried if the door hadn’t chosen that very moment to shake loudly and reluctantly jerk open.
“I don’t know! It was just stuck, I think the slider came out of the track aga-” Junsu had been speaking back over his shoulder after wrenching the door open, only turning back to see the awkward tableau at his feet. His words had cut off although his mouth kept moving as if his lips maybe didn’t get the memo quite so quickly.
Somewhere behind him, Changmin and Yoochun all but howled with laughter as they realized what had caught Junsu’s attention. Jaejoong started to squirm his way to his feet, only to go still under a pointed glare from Yunho until the other had pushed to his feet and disappeared down the hallway, the door of the bathroom slamming moments before the shower turned on.
Well. Jaejoong looked from one still shocked face to two going slowly red with breathless laughter and eventually shrugged. It probably could have gone worse. He pulled the string on the popper without standing up, the noise still getting a startled little jump out of Junsu even if the streamers barely made it to his waist. “Surprise?”