Happy Holidays snarkychangmin! Exchange fic: "when are you going to die, darling?"
assignment: snarkychangmin
words count: 5,600+
beta: ligerliger
rating: PG13
genre: romance, slice of life, AU
summary: Jaejoong was a ghost, Yunho was not. They just happened to meet when Yunho felt like committing suicide.
Author’s note: I hope snarkychangmin and you will enjoy the read as I enjoyed the writing process. Thank you so much for jaeho-xchange mod(s) for the given opportunity, extensions time and patience! Also thanks to S for beta-ing this story!
The night was a forlorn one. The moonlight was bright and strong in the dark hue sky, but the night itself was unusually still. The wind wasn’t breezing, the air was stale and humid. There were only so few people going out at this midnight time, and even those few people hurry their feet to reach their home faster. Something about the night was uneasy and somehow haunting, like some bad omen would happen if they lingered around in the street for much longer.
On the highest branch of the willow tree in the middle park, sat a lone figure with his feet dangling, hidden by the tree’s long wisps from people who seek him---though no one will ever seek him, for he was no one; no one that mattered in this human world anyway---Kim Jaejoong, looking as young as a 24 year old man could be, sighed as he watched with his big doe eyes, how the dead night proceeded. His pale figure stood out stark against the dark tree’s shadow.
Jaejoong was dead for too many years that he stopped counting years ago. He didn’t know why he bothered to count them in the first place since he would be stuck in this human world with his concealed-physique-to-ordinary-human-eyes for as long as eternity stretches. Which most likely would be a millennium to come, that was if these stupid humans could reserve the earth for that long anyway.
Now that brought up a random question to his mind, would he be one of the spirits who would go to space after the apocalypse hits the earth?
Shaking his head with a grim smile, Jaejoong chided his mind for being silly yet again. That was for the future to answer. But hell, he was stuck in a world where he had no one to call him silly, so if he wanted to be silly, then silly he would be.
Another sigh escaped his lips again as he swung his dangling feet back and forth lightly. For the past decades, Jaejoong had been feeling a bit lonely and had been craving for a company. He had met other ghosts, stumbled upon groups of them but Jaejoong was too different from them. Those ghosts looked like they would have worshipped him for his beauty---and that was the least thing he wanted to happen.
He didn’t like the feeling of being worshipped. Perhaps in the faraway past that he now can’t remember and bother about, that particular time when he still had lungs which needed oxygen, he was some kind of diva or something, and one of the reasons he was dead and stuck as a ghost instead of moving on to after life was because he was fed up with the whole worship-thing. The possibility was high considering that even in his death, ghosts still lined up for him and worshiped the ground he floated on.
“Hey! What are you doing up there?”
Jaejoong frowned and looked down to face the intruder of the peaceful night, only to find a young boy, looking just past his awkward teen era, boyishly-handsome small face, and amber eyes looking up at him.
“You can see me?” He blurted out curiously. It had been little past three decades since one can see him, if he remembered correctly.
“Should I not be able to?” The boy asked with a frown too. “Are you planning to commit suicide from up there?”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. “No, are you?”
The boy thought for a heartbeat, handsome face crunched in mock-concentration. “Actually yes,” he answered slowly, then he looked up and smiled brightly, showing his crooked teeth, “but now I don’t feel like it.”
The boy’s name was Jung Yunho, Jaejoong learned as the man insisted him to come down from the top of the tree and accompany him. Jaejoong complied only because he was curious, and not because the boy currently sitting down on the big roots of the tree was cute when he smiled with his crooked teeth.
“What were you doing up there?” The boy asked again.
“Well, now-” Jaejoong replied but his answer was cut by Yunho, whose look was as forlorn as the night.
“Were you attempting to commit suicide?”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. Seriously this kid. “No-”
“You are beautiful-”
Now that was the one word that didn’t please him. “Hey-”
“Why do you want to die?” Yunho continued, oblivious to Jaejoong’s growing irritated mood.
“I can ask you the same thing,” Jaejoong readily answered and that stopped the rambling.
The boy shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. “I don’t know. I just felt like it.”
Before Jaejoong could respond to it, Yunho continued, “Don’t you have a moment in life when you feel everyone and everything is suffocating you? That your life doesn’t work for you. That everything is against you and you don’t want to feel anything anymore except numbness. And you wonder if death would welcome you more than life itself. That-”
Jaejoong grimaced as he heard the boy ramble on and on. Wasn’t he too young to talk about life? “Hey, young man, have you checked your head?” He gestured to the boy’s head, “You are not wacky, aren’t you?” Jaejoong crossed his eyes to emphasize his point.
“I think you just insulted me.” Yunho narrowed his eyes, a slight pout on his full lips. “What’s your name? You haven’t answered me. What were you doing up there on the top of the tree? Why are you dressed like hippies?”
“I think you should stop rambling because you sound stupid.” Jaejoong retorted, a little bit miffed that Yunho mentioned his clothes. It’s not his fault that ghost couldn’t change their clothes like humans do. Tight yellow green tie-dye tees, patched jeans and hand-down leather sandals were the things he was wearing on his dead day. It was a trend at that time, and Jaejoong was a man who followed the trend. However, living a ghost life now he could only bite his nails as the fashion trend changed as the years passed by. “And you should be more respectful to me, you barbaric youth. I am older than you-”
Yunho leaned closer to him and scrutinized his face. Jaejoong all of a sudden felt self-conscious about his pale complexion---even though having a pale complexion was a given for a ghost. That’s right. Didn’t this boy notice that Jaejoong was not a human? True that his figure looked more solid at night, when there’s no sun or other natural sources of light, but it still appeared kind of translucent especially as tonight’s moon shone brightly.
“Not by much, I think.” Yunho leaned back, and Jaejoong exhaled. He didn’t need to breathe actually, didn’t need the rush of oxygen into his lungs, but the motion came natural to him even though he was a disembodied spirit.
“You are probably in your early twenties, am I wrong?” Yunho asked again, eyes fixed on the shadow of the swings on the ground before them.
“That’s not entirely wrong,” Jaejoong replied. After all he only got to enjoy his life for a short 24 years before death claimed him. “But don’t you notice something?”
“Like what? Oh, I know. You are so beautiful that you look almost inhumane!” Yunho exclaimed as he once again showed off his crooked teeth in a smile.
Jaejoong swore he didn’t blush. It was impossible for him to anyway as he didn’t have the necessary blood rushing to his cheeks to make out the blushing. “You are stupid,” he muttered in the end. “Can’t you see that I am a ghost?”
Yunho didn’t look surprise and that surprised Jaejoong.
“I know,” the boy said slowly, eyes blinking nervously. “I just thought that it might be a sore issue for you so I didn’t want to bring it up.”
Jaejoong blinked, his mouth agape. “You-” but no words escaped his pouty lips. For once in his entire life as a ghost, no one, not even a ghost or an unlucky human who can see him, ever bothered to be sensitive enough about this. Except this boy. Not that his death or him being a ghost mattered much for Jaejoong, it had been forever since he died so he was used to it----but despite of that fact, it certainly felt nice to know that somebody cared enough to do that for him.
“You never told me your name?” Yunho reminded him softly.
Jaejoong blinked again. After a moment, as the wind breezed, he replied, “Kim Jaejoong. Nice to meet you, Jung Yunho.”
That’s when their peculiar relationship started.
--
The weather was bright and cheerful as the sun crawled up the morning sky radiantly like some good things had occurred somewhere on the other side of the world.
On the opened window sill of a certain room on the third floor, sat Jaejoong. Feet hanging off the single dormitory room’s window as he absorbed the nice feeling the Saturday morning had brought. Although he couldn’t breathe in the fresh air and the wind would just breeze past him, he could feel the vibrant air. He sighed contentedly as he watched the empty surrounding; occasionally one or two people would jog past the field in front of the modest dormitory complex. After all, it was still too early for people to start their activities on a weekend.
Jaejoong turned his head into the bedroom to look at Yunho’s drooling face. Grinning mischievously, he turned and jumped down the sill into the bedroom and stalked his sleeping victim. He intended to wake the fast asleep young man and drag him to the beach for a change of Saturday routines. Since he couldn’t touch any living things, he couldn’t rouse Yunho by shaking him, thus Jaejoong settled with suffocating the man with his own pillows. Who knows that if he incidentally suffocates his only friend to death, the man would be stuck in this earth as a ghost, and then Jaejoong would have a friend for as long as eternity goes for the ghost. He cackled silently at his amusing thought.
After awhile, a slight tremble ran through the pillow and then Jaejoong’s poor victim flailed his hands around to get the soft cushion off of his face. At the fuss Yunho was making, the edges of the ghost’s lips pointed upward forming a huge smile with rows of white teeth.
Yunho sat up violently, as he succeeded pulling the offending material off his face. His mouth opened wide as he tried to gulp in more oxygen into his lungs. His bleary eyes moved in a quick search for his assailant, and when he found the almost invisible ghost laughing at him, Yunho glared.
“Fuck, Jaejoong! What the hell!”
The answer to Yunho’s rage was a loud snort from the ghost and that made Yunho angrier with his friend. The man threw the pillow in his hand towards Jaejoong’s head, and scowled when it flew through the ghost’s transparent figure.
Jaejoong laughed louder at the poor younger man.
Yunho rubbed the sleep away from his eyes, and ran his fingers through his messy hair. “Fuck, Jaejoong. What do you want? It’s-” He took a glance at the digital clock on his study desk and scowled further, “only fucking 6 AM. Shit, Jaejoong! It’s too fucking early for a Saturday!” The young man ranted at the ghost who had mellowed down from his laughter.
“Yunho, my dear friend, calm down. It’s too early for the world to hear you cursing for your woe,” Jaejoong teased the younger man.
The human only rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you want, Jaejoong-ah?”
“Tch,” Jaejoong straightened his body and stalked away from the still upset younger man. “You are no fun, Yunho-ah. And you are young! You are supposed to be a lot more fun!”
“It’s 6 fucking AM on Saturday, Jae-ah. If I wanted to curse the world, or you, for the lost of my beauty sleep, I damn well have the right to. Now get to the point, why are you here?”
At the question, Jaejoong remembered his mission to drag the younger man to the beach. “Let’s go to the beach today!” he exclaimed cheerfully, his mood lifting up.
“Are you crazy?” was what Jaejoong got from Yunho, and the ghost pouted at the lack of enthusiasm from the younger man.
“You. Are. No. Fun. Seriously.”
Yunho stared at his ghost friend for a while, then plopped back on the bed and closed his eyes. “Wake me up in two hours and we will go there.”
“But-”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes when he heard the man snoring. It’s a fake snore, Jaejoong knew it, but okay, he would grant his human friend the demanded two hours of sleep.
Under the blaring sun, Jaejoong’s figure was transparent, almost invisible, and the ghost noticed the extra squint Yunho did when he was looking for the ghost.
“Hey! Stop squinting your eyes!” Jaejoong shouted to Yunho as he stood on the seashore. “You’re wasting your energy unproductively.”
The sea and foam was licking at his feet. He couldn’t really feel them but it harmed no one if Jaejoong pretended that he could.
“You are wasting my sleeping time,” Yunho yelled back from his position under the shade of the coconut trees.
The ghost turned his face away to hide his grin. It seemed that the younger man was still sulking for his mischief.
In the span of two years knowing Yunho, Jaejoong got to know various sides of his human friend. Yunho was a duteous son and a protective brother to his little sister Jihye, who had grown into a young beautiful woman but will always be the little sister for Yunho; also a role model student with straight As on his semester reports, an ex-Student Council President at a prestigious high school and now was on his way to become one in university as well; a handsome man who could dance with actual right and left feet, unlike Jaejoong who danced with two left feet; et cetera.
In short, for many people Yunho was a wonderful person; sort of a perfect being.
However, Jaejoong begged to differ, as in front of him Yunho was anything but those descriptions. Despite the initial compassion the young man showed on their first meeting, Yunho almost always acted childish with him. The young man sulked, whined, and pouted openly at him whenever he felt unjust and displeased, just like now.
Even though Jaejoong always acted like he got annoyed with Yunho for the man’s childish traits, the ghost secretly liked it, knowing he was the only one, besides Jihye and Yunho’s human best friend, Changmin, who got to see the different side of the young man.
Jaejoong stretched his arms wide and reveled in the feeling of the wind breezing through him. He turned back to look at his companion and smiled when he found Yunho once again fast asleep. After spending a little bit more time enjoying the sound of the waves hitting the shore repetitively in an endless motion, Jaejoong turned and approached his sleeping friend.
He had to admit that Yunho was a handsome young man with a manly-looking face. The younger man had sharp wolf-y eyes with a scar just under his left eye (by the way, the scar was not from a heroic deed and Jaejoong had a good share of laughter when Yunho told him the story), a pointy nose like the Greek Gods, smoldering amber eyes that look fiery when Yunho was being passionate about something, an oddly-kissable full lower lip the younger man always pursed when he felt bored, a little mole adoring the side of his mouth---Yunho’s face was not perfectly carved, but he was handsome, and kind of also beautiful, like a polished art.
“Why, are you watching me sleep? You creepy ghost.”
Jaejoong jerked back. “Wha-” He didn’t realize that Yunho had woken up in the middle of his reverie.
“How long have you been admiring my handsome face, Jaejoong-ah?” Yunho teased, as he rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes.
“Did you hear yourself?” Jaejoong retorted as he straightened his back, embarrassed that he had been caught staring. “You sound conceited, you know?” he grumbled.
The younger man smirked. “You do think I am handsome, though.”
Yes, I do. Jaejoong thought, not daring to voice it out. He would hate himself if he inflated Yunho’s already prominent ego further.
“Anyway,” Yunho cut in before he could retort, “come on, the sun is high and I am hungry. Let’s go find some food, and then I have to go to work. Donghae texted me awhile back saying that he has some emergency and I have to replace him at the coffee shop.”
“Okay. Thank you for accompanying me to the beach. You didn’t have to-”
“It’s okay. I like spending time with you.”
The ghost thanked the Gods for the fact that he was already dead, which meant he didn’t have a functional heart that would beat faster or blood that would rush to his cheeks to form of a blush at the small smile Yunho gave him. It’s the kind of smile that reached the eyes and touched the heart of the recipient.
“Likewise, Yunho-ah.”
Time had flown by so fast after their fateful meeting that night, and now, Kim Jaejoong, still a 24 year-old-looking ghost, and Jung Yunho, an 18 year-old freshman at Seoul University, was the best of friends despite the odds. Or maybe there’s something more than just friendship between them?
--
Everything was different now. Yunho was 23, a fresh graduate with a bright future waiting for him and Jaejoong was still the ever 24 year-old ghost with future as bleak as the color of his coffin.
They rarely spent their time together anymore for the past few years. In fact, the short trip to the beach years ago had been their last quality time together, after that Yunho only got busier with university and his part time job. The young man rarely came back to his dormitory room, and even when he did, it’s only to sleep and then when morning came, hurry out of the dorm with a quick shout of ‘Good Morning’ to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong understood that Yunho had a life outside the single dormitory room and the ghost had promised to himself that he wouldn’t disturb the man’s life when there were other people present, less they would find Yunho crazy for talking to no one when the young man was actually interacting with him. He also made Yunho pinky promise him to keep their friendship as a secret for the same reason. Thus, no one, not even Yunho’s lovely sister, knew about Jaejoong’s existence.
It was kind of lonely for Jaejoong. He felt abandon yet again and it made him remember his past life, something he tried not to dwell on too much now that he was a ghost.
“Oh, hey, Jaejoong.”
The ghost looked up to find Yunho smiling at him. The younger man was leaving his dormitory room and moving to a new flat near his office building. He had been packing his things since the morning and his girlfriend and friends had offered him helping hands. With the crowds in Yunho’s room, Jaejoong decided to stay away, only lurking from his place on the tree branch just outside Yunho’s window.
Wistfully, Jaejoong watched how Yunho played around with his friends, how the young man flirts with his new girlfriend and always able to find ways to kiss and touch her amidst the packing.
It was weird for Jaejoong to watch the Yunho he did not know.
“I-” Jaejoong said, and he tried to quirk his lips into a smile. “I wish you good luck for your life, Yunho-ah.”
The man beamed. “Thank you, Jaejoong-ah. I wish I could say the same to you, but you are dead and I don’t-”
Jaejoong tuned out the rambling man. It kind of hurt when Yunho addressed him as a dead being. He was dead that he knew, but it still hurt to have the fact rubbed into his face like that. Especially when he knew that the man would continue his life; that his only friend would leave him, while Jaejoong would be stuck in this world alone.
“Yunnie? Who are you talking to?”
Jaejoong watched as Yunho turned his back to him to welcome his girlfriend. He smiled bitterly and left the room.
When Yunho turned back, there was the last box left on the floor that he was looking for. But there was no Jaejoong.
That’s when their already strained friendship drifted further apart.
Jaejoong never left. He was always by Yunho’s side, only he made sure that Yunho never saw him. Day by day, Jaejoong followed the younger man. Jaejoong knew that he was getting attached to the man who had been part of his death life for years. It was just strange for Jaejoong to suddenly not have the man’s existence in his days. He had grown used to the man’s nonsensical rambles too much to leave.
However, now the circumstances had changed, and even though Jaejoong could see Yunho any time of the day, the man couldn’t see him, didn’t see him. Try as he might to make Yunho notice him, Jaejoong couldn’t show himself in front of Yunho who looked happy with his life without him. He was scared of Yunho’s rejection if he told the man that he had missed his friend. After all, Yunho didn’t seem to miss him.
To top it all, the childish demeanors that only Jaejoong got to see before, was now being witnessed by Yunho’s girlfriend, taking his place.
It irked Jaejoong how much Yunho could live his life without missing Jaejoong one bit. It was like their time together held nothing in Yunho’s life. He hated the feeling of being discarded from the young man’s life just like that.
Jaejoong hated the fact that he could feel even more.
It’s not fair, Jaejoong thought grudgingly, that for a ghost whose heart didn’t beat anymore, the ability to feel such emotions still worked.
--
Sometimes, when everything about his feelings towards Yunho was too much for him to handle, Jaejoong would go to the beach alone. For a week or two, he would stay at the beach and revel in the fresh salty air, although he couldn’t really feel them---he was used to pretend he could feel anything besides his emotions anyway.
Today the sun was hiding behind the fluffy white clouds, only occasionally peeking from the apertures. Resting down on the sandy surfaces, Jaejoong relaxed as the sound of the waves calmed him and cleared his mind. He liked coming to this particular beach, despite the memory it holds of him and Yunho the last time they are here.
Usually years would pass by and Jaejoong wouldn’t notice it. He never paid attention to time before, why should he when he had eternity lying ahead of him? However for the last few years, Jaejoong noticed how time passed by. He could see them in Yunho’s face, getting more mature with prominent laugh lines adoring the sides of the man’s eyes and mouth; could see the years passing by as Yunho, who was younger than him a few years ago, was now older than him in age.
Jaejoong watched every step and stumble Yunho went through. How the man got promoted for his hardwork after two years; how he came home to his girlfriend one Valentine night the next year, got down to his knees and proposed with a simple single diamond adorned ring; how not long after that the wedding bells echoed in the church as the young groom and bride recite their vows to love each other until death do us part.
Right after the vow, Jaejoong went away to the beach and stayed there, not wanting to come back and witness Yunho’s life. It had been a month since.
He could see the unstoppable force of time on Yunho’s life---and here Jaejoong was, looking eternally 24 year-old with nothing in the future for him. Jaejoong scowled at himself for being stupid. He was dead, of course, he had no future. It was just sad that Yunho had forgotten him.
The ghost was immersed in his thought that he wasn’t aware of the footsteps approaching him; the underside of the sandals producing a crunching sound against the sands.
“Jaejoong-ah?”
The ghost froze, and turned his head slowly to look at the only person who could see him. There, only a meter away from him was Yunho, his sharp eyes squinted from the blinding sun.
“Yunho?”
“Hey, how are you doing?” The man greeted the ghost and settled down beside Jaejoong.
“Why- You- What?” Jaejoong stumbled on his words. All of a sudden, the man came back and greeted him like the years that had passed between them was nothing and they were still the best friends.
The man plopped down and pillowed his head with both of his arms, eyes watching the lazy swirl of puffy clouds. “Did you know that I know you watch me?”
“What?”
“I don’t know why you decided to play hide and seek with me for years.”
Jaejoong’s eyes widened like saucers. “I didn’t play hide and seek with you,” he hissed, annoyed that Yunho put his feeling so lightly.
“I miss you. You have been gone for too long this time.”
If anything, Jaejoong felt betrayed that Yunho could play his heart with just simple words. “I-”
“Come back?”
“Will you kill yourself for me?” Jaejoong asked before silence could settle between them. It’s a huge hint for Yunho to take. The ghost was sure that even the densest men could pick the hint.
Yunho shifted his head and looked at Jaejoong in the eyes seriously. “Would you want me dead?”
Jaejoong had not been thinking that far. He just wanted Yunho to know his feelings.
“No. I want you to live happily,” Jaejoong answered sincerely after awhile, a bittersweet smile on his pale face, “I want to see you live until you grow old, and die because it’s time for you to die.”
The man gave him a smile with no crooked teeth this time. During the university years when they had grown distanced, Yunho had undergone a small surgery for his teeth. Jaejoong missed his crooked teeth.
“And it won’t bother you if I love her?”
The ghost wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t like her, but I do like you enough to want to see you happy.”
“You are cute.” Yunho reached out to him and pretended to caress his right cheek.
On their early friendship stage, Yunho had tried to touch him out of curiosity, but of course he couldn’t touch him, because Jaejoong had no solid body, he was just a spirit. Now was no different, because Yunho was human and Jaejoong was still a ghost. However, the sweet gesture made Jaejoong smile.
It’s enough, Jaejoong told himself. It’s enough that Yunho recognized his feeling.
--
Years had passed again between them since their meeting on the beach, and Jaejoong was happier than he had been before. Their friendship had resumed from its pause, even though it stayed the same like before. No one knew about Jaejoong but Yunho. But it was okay, Jaejoong had accepted the circumstances and felt contented with what they were.
However, life had its up and down moments. If Yunho’s life had been anything but going up before, that his life was better than the average of others, this time was his down moment.
Jaejoong tried his best to stay beside Yunho when the bad news broke down. The man’s beautiful wife and son died in a car accident one winter night and the agonizing pain Yunho felt over his beloveds’ death was so palpable that even Jaejoong felt them too.
The ghost tried to cheer the man up but there were only so many things he could do as a ghost. That fact for once in after a long time, upset him. He wanted to mend Yunho’s broken heart, wanted to hug the man so badly, but he could not do it. Not directly though.
So, one night when Yunho was asleep, a frown decorating his usually peaceful sleeping face, Jaejoong lifted up Yunho’s blanket and threw them over the man’s prone body. He may not be able to touch living things, but he certainly can hold a blanket and hold the man sleeping under the blanket. It may be not much, he didn’t know if Yunho could feel him or not, although Jaejoong supposed the man could since he himself could feel Yunho’s body under the blanket.
The ghost imagined that the man’s warmth was seeping through the blanket and reaching him.
“Jaejoong?” A sleepy voice muffled through the silence of the room.
There was a shift under the blanket and Jaejoong knew the man had woken up. “Hm?” He hummed in acknowledgement as his arms tightened around the body.
“Thank you.”
“Sleep, Yunho-ah. I will be here.”
Jaejoong waited for the body under him turning slack and the breathing steadied, before he whispered out the three words he always wanted to say for years.
--
More years passed by since then. Jaejoong continued to be his 24 year-old ghost-self, and Yunho was 47, looking even more wonderful and handsome.
Yunho’s life continued after the lost of his wife and only son, and ever since there was only Jaejoong in it. Ocassionally there were also Yunho’s parent, Jihye and her kids, or Changmin visiting Yunho. All of them hinted that they wanted the man to move on, find another love and re-marry. But Yunho always politely objected to their attempts, saying he was content with his single life, all the while smiling fondly at Jaejoong who lurked from kitchen.
Yunho never tried to find another love, even though there were women vying to get his attention. Yunho said he didn’t want to re-marry although Jaejoong insisted that he will be okay with it. The man only smiled and looked at him with a small smile and a shake of his head when Jaejoong brought up the topic. He always steered Jaejoong away from the topic by throwing a blanket over himself, subtly asking Jaejoong to hug him because he himself can’t initiate them. His touch and blanket will only go through Jaejoong’s disembodied form.
After Jaejoong tried to comfort him with the blanket-covered-hug the first time, they always shared the bed and had gotten closer, much closer than their friendship has allowed them before. And in those quite years since, Yunho had slowly recognized Jaejoong’s growing feelings for him and returned them as best as he can. They can’t be intimately close, but the life they had built over the years living next to each other---the quality times they had, the affectionate gazes and sweet gestures they have for and do to each other made up for the lack of physical intimacy.
Yunho never said he loved Jaejoong. But the ghost didn’t mind it, it was better if the man never said it anyway.
Love. The strong lone word had been gone for as long as time ticked by. Many people survived their life because the existence of love. It brought happiness to some while for others it only brought misery. For Jaejoong, his love towards Yunho brought him both of happiness and misery. Happiness that finally after long years of being solitary in his life as a ghost, he had someone to look out for, but then there was the misery, because he was a ghost, he can’t have the man truly.
That’s why it was better if Jaejoong never heard the word coming out from Yunho’s mouth, because one day, Yunho would leave him and move on to after life, while Jaejoong would stay in this earth as eternity prolongs.
It was enough that Yunho knew Jaejoong loved him, and that Jaejoong also knew the now old man adored him enough to keep him close in his life. The man even made sure that he built his life to accommodate the ghost’s lack of life.
They had gone on dates with several awkward moments where people would look at Yunho weirdly because the man would talk to himself while actually he was conversing with Jaejoong, and then to make it less awkward, Yunho would pretend that he was taking a call by pressing his mobile to his ear---Jaejoong had laughed at the man the first time they use the method, but inside, he felt warm that Yunho would go such length to treasure him.
Jaejoong had enough and he didn’t need more from Yunho.
“Jae, why are you awake?”
The ghost looked over his shoulder and found the man’s sleep-laden eyes looking at him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go to sleep.”
Yunho adjusted the blanket around him, leaving his head uncovered. He waited for Jaejoong to come and settle on top of his chest before he closed his eyes and let sleep took him over.
Jaejoong felt the rising and dipping of Yunho’s chest with every in- and exhale the man took in his sleep, and he whispered out the three words into the still night like he always did every single night for the past years.
“I love you,” the old man whispered out, a small smile quirked his lips.
Jaejoong watched the wrinkIy face framed with grey hairs. Even in the old age of eighty one, Yunho managed to look so handsome. The ghost watched those amber eyes, which always watched out for him with so much love, closing with a flutter.
There were no tears in Jaejoong’s eyes, because ghosts can’t cry and why would he cry when he was happy. Instead Jaejoong smiled, leaning in to give Yunho’s smiling lips a final kiss.
“I love you, too.”
words count: 5,600+
beta: ligerliger
rating: PG13
genre: romance, slice of life, AU
summary: Jaejoong was a ghost, Yunho was not. They just happened to meet when Yunho felt like committing suicide.
Author’s note: I hope snarkychangmin and you will enjoy the read as I enjoyed the writing process. Thank you so much for jaeho-xchange mod(s) for the given opportunity, extensions time and patience! Also thanks to S for beta-ing this story!
The night was a forlorn one. The moonlight was bright and strong in the dark hue sky, but the night itself was unusually still. The wind wasn’t breezing, the air was stale and humid. There were only so few people going out at this midnight time, and even those few people hurry their feet to reach their home faster. Something about the night was uneasy and somehow haunting, like some bad omen would happen if they lingered around in the street for much longer.
On the highest branch of the willow tree in the middle park, sat a lone figure with his feet dangling, hidden by the tree’s long wisps from people who seek him---though no one will ever seek him, for he was no one; no one that mattered in this human world anyway---Kim Jaejoong, looking as young as a 24 year old man could be, sighed as he watched with his big doe eyes, how the dead night proceeded. His pale figure stood out stark against the dark tree’s shadow.
Jaejoong was dead for too many years that he stopped counting years ago. He didn’t know why he bothered to count them in the first place since he would be stuck in this human world with his concealed-physique-to-ordinary-human-eyes for as long as eternity stretches. Which most likely would be a millennium to come, that was if these stupid humans could reserve the earth for that long anyway.
Now that brought up a random question to his mind, would he be one of the spirits who would go to space after the apocalypse hits the earth?
Shaking his head with a grim smile, Jaejoong chided his mind for being silly yet again. That was for the future to answer. But hell, he was stuck in a world where he had no one to call him silly, so if he wanted to be silly, then silly he would be.
Another sigh escaped his lips again as he swung his dangling feet back and forth lightly. For the past decades, Jaejoong had been feeling a bit lonely and had been craving for a company. He had met other ghosts, stumbled upon groups of them but Jaejoong was too different from them. Those ghosts looked like they would have worshipped him for his beauty---and that was the least thing he wanted to happen.
He didn’t like the feeling of being worshipped. Perhaps in the faraway past that he now can’t remember and bother about, that particular time when he still had lungs which needed oxygen, he was some kind of diva or something, and one of the reasons he was dead and stuck as a ghost instead of moving on to after life was because he was fed up with the whole worship-thing. The possibility was high considering that even in his death, ghosts still lined up for him and worshiped the ground he floated on.
“Hey! What are you doing up there?”
Jaejoong frowned and looked down to face the intruder of the peaceful night, only to find a young boy, looking just past his awkward teen era, boyishly-handsome small face, and amber eyes looking up at him.
“You can see me?” He blurted out curiously. It had been little past three decades since one can see him, if he remembered correctly.
“Should I not be able to?” The boy asked with a frown too. “Are you planning to commit suicide from up there?”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. “No, are you?”
The boy thought for a heartbeat, handsome face crunched in mock-concentration. “Actually yes,” he answered slowly, then he looked up and smiled brightly, showing his crooked teeth, “but now I don’t feel like it.”
The boy’s name was Jung Yunho, Jaejoong learned as the man insisted him to come down from the top of the tree and accompany him. Jaejoong complied only because he was curious, and not because the boy currently sitting down on the big roots of the tree was cute when he smiled with his crooked teeth.
“What were you doing up there?” The boy asked again.
“Well, now-” Jaejoong replied but his answer was cut by Yunho, whose look was as forlorn as the night.
“Were you attempting to commit suicide?”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. Seriously this kid. “No-”
“You are beautiful-”
Now that was the one word that didn’t please him. “Hey-”
“Why do you want to die?” Yunho continued, oblivious to Jaejoong’s growing irritated mood.
“I can ask you the same thing,” Jaejoong readily answered and that stopped the rambling.
The boy shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. “I don’t know. I just felt like it.”
Before Jaejoong could respond to it, Yunho continued, “Don’t you have a moment in life when you feel everyone and everything is suffocating you? That your life doesn’t work for you. That everything is against you and you don’t want to feel anything anymore except numbness. And you wonder if death would welcome you more than life itself. That-”
Jaejoong grimaced as he heard the boy ramble on and on. Wasn’t he too young to talk about life? “Hey, young man, have you checked your head?” He gestured to the boy’s head, “You are not wacky, aren’t you?” Jaejoong crossed his eyes to emphasize his point.
“I think you just insulted me.” Yunho narrowed his eyes, a slight pout on his full lips. “What’s your name? You haven’t answered me. What were you doing up there on the top of the tree? Why are you dressed like hippies?”
“I think you should stop rambling because you sound stupid.” Jaejoong retorted, a little bit miffed that Yunho mentioned his clothes. It’s not his fault that ghost couldn’t change their clothes like humans do. Tight yellow green tie-dye tees, patched jeans and hand-down leather sandals were the things he was wearing on his dead day. It was a trend at that time, and Jaejoong was a man who followed the trend. However, living a ghost life now he could only bite his nails as the fashion trend changed as the years passed by. “And you should be more respectful to me, you barbaric youth. I am older than you-”
Yunho leaned closer to him and scrutinized his face. Jaejoong all of a sudden felt self-conscious about his pale complexion---even though having a pale complexion was a given for a ghost. That’s right. Didn’t this boy notice that Jaejoong was not a human? True that his figure looked more solid at night, when there’s no sun or other natural sources of light, but it still appeared kind of translucent especially as tonight’s moon shone brightly.
“Not by much, I think.” Yunho leaned back, and Jaejoong exhaled. He didn’t need to breathe actually, didn’t need the rush of oxygen into his lungs, but the motion came natural to him even though he was a disembodied spirit.
“You are probably in your early twenties, am I wrong?” Yunho asked again, eyes fixed on the shadow of the swings on the ground before them.
“That’s not entirely wrong,” Jaejoong replied. After all he only got to enjoy his life for a short 24 years before death claimed him. “But don’t you notice something?”
“Like what? Oh, I know. You are so beautiful that you look almost inhumane!” Yunho exclaimed as he once again showed off his crooked teeth in a smile.
Jaejoong swore he didn’t blush. It was impossible for him to anyway as he didn’t have the necessary blood rushing to his cheeks to make out the blushing. “You are stupid,” he muttered in the end. “Can’t you see that I am a ghost?”
Yunho didn’t look surprise and that surprised Jaejoong.
“I know,” the boy said slowly, eyes blinking nervously. “I just thought that it might be a sore issue for you so I didn’t want to bring it up.”
Jaejoong blinked, his mouth agape. “You-” but no words escaped his pouty lips. For once in his entire life as a ghost, no one, not even a ghost or an unlucky human who can see him, ever bothered to be sensitive enough about this. Except this boy. Not that his death or him being a ghost mattered much for Jaejoong, it had been forever since he died so he was used to it----but despite of that fact, it certainly felt nice to know that somebody cared enough to do that for him.
“You never told me your name?” Yunho reminded him softly.
Jaejoong blinked again. After a moment, as the wind breezed, he replied, “Kim Jaejoong. Nice to meet you, Jung Yunho.”
That’s when their peculiar relationship started.
--
The weather was bright and cheerful as the sun crawled up the morning sky radiantly like some good things had occurred somewhere on the other side of the world.
On the opened window sill of a certain room on the third floor, sat Jaejoong. Feet hanging off the single dormitory room’s window as he absorbed the nice feeling the Saturday morning had brought. Although he couldn’t breathe in the fresh air and the wind would just breeze past him, he could feel the vibrant air. He sighed contentedly as he watched the empty surrounding; occasionally one or two people would jog past the field in front of the modest dormitory complex. After all, it was still too early for people to start their activities on a weekend.
Jaejoong turned his head into the bedroom to look at Yunho’s drooling face. Grinning mischievously, he turned and jumped down the sill into the bedroom and stalked his sleeping victim. He intended to wake the fast asleep young man and drag him to the beach for a change of Saturday routines. Since he couldn’t touch any living things, he couldn’t rouse Yunho by shaking him, thus Jaejoong settled with suffocating the man with his own pillows. Who knows that if he incidentally suffocates his only friend to death, the man would be stuck in this earth as a ghost, and then Jaejoong would have a friend for as long as eternity goes for the ghost. He cackled silently at his amusing thought.
After awhile, a slight tremble ran through the pillow and then Jaejoong’s poor victim flailed his hands around to get the soft cushion off of his face. At the fuss Yunho was making, the edges of the ghost’s lips pointed upward forming a huge smile with rows of white teeth.
Yunho sat up violently, as he succeeded pulling the offending material off his face. His mouth opened wide as he tried to gulp in more oxygen into his lungs. His bleary eyes moved in a quick search for his assailant, and when he found the almost invisible ghost laughing at him, Yunho glared.
“Fuck, Jaejoong! What the hell!”
The answer to Yunho’s rage was a loud snort from the ghost and that made Yunho angrier with his friend. The man threw the pillow in his hand towards Jaejoong’s head, and scowled when it flew through the ghost’s transparent figure.
Jaejoong laughed louder at the poor younger man.
Yunho rubbed the sleep away from his eyes, and ran his fingers through his messy hair. “Fuck, Jaejoong. What do you want? It’s-” He took a glance at the digital clock on his study desk and scowled further, “only fucking 6 AM. Shit, Jaejoong! It’s too fucking early for a Saturday!” The young man ranted at the ghost who had mellowed down from his laughter.
“Yunho, my dear friend, calm down. It’s too early for the world to hear you cursing for your woe,” Jaejoong teased the younger man.
The human only rolled his eyes. “What the fuck do you want, Jaejoong-ah?”
“Tch,” Jaejoong straightened his body and stalked away from the still upset younger man. “You are no fun, Yunho-ah. And you are young! You are supposed to be a lot more fun!”
“It’s 6 fucking AM on Saturday, Jae-ah. If I wanted to curse the world, or you, for the lost of my beauty sleep, I damn well have the right to. Now get to the point, why are you here?”
At the question, Jaejoong remembered his mission to drag the younger man to the beach. “Let’s go to the beach today!” he exclaimed cheerfully, his mood lifting up.
“Are you crazy?” was what Jaejoong got from Yunho, and the ghost pouted at the lack of enthusiasm from the younger man.
“You. Are. No. Fun. Seriously.”
Yunho stared at his ghost friend for a while, then plopped back on the bed and closed his eyes. “Wake me up in two hours and we will go there.”
“But-”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes when he heard the man snoring. It’s a fake snore, Jaejoong knew it, but okay, he would grant his human friend the demanded two hours of sleep.
Under the blaring sun, Jaejoong’s figure was transparent, almost invisible, and the ghost noticed the extra squint Yunho did when he was looking for the ghost.
“Hey! Stop squinting your eyes!” Jaejoong shouted to Yunho as he stood on the seashore. “You’re wasting your energy unproductively.”
The sea and foam was licking at his feet. He couldn’t really feel them but it harmed no one if Jaejoong pretended that he could.
“You are wasting my sleeping time,” Yunho yelled back from his position under the shade of the coconut trees.
The ghost turned his face away to hide his grin. It seemed that the younger man was still sulking for his mischief.
In the span of two years knowing Yunho, Jaejoong got to know various sides of his human friend. Yunho was a duteous son and a protective brother to his little sister Jihye, who had grown into a young beautiful woman but will always be the little sister for Yunho; also a role model student with straight As on his semester reports, an ex-Student Council President at a prestigious high school and now was on his way to become one in university as well; a handsome man who could dance with actual right and left feet, unlike Jaejoong who danced with two left feet; et cetera.
In short, for many people Yunho was a wonderful person; sort of a perfect being.
However, Jaejoong begged to differ, as in front of him Yunho was anything but those descriptions. Despite the initial compassion the young man showed on their first meeting, Yunho almost always acted childish with him. The young man sulked, whined, and pouted openly at him whenever he felt unjust and displeased, just like now.
Even though Jaejoong always acted like he got annoyed with Yunho for the man’s childish traits, the ghost secretly liked it, knowing he was the only one, besides Jihye and Yunho’s human best friend, Changmin, who got to see the different side of the young man.
Jaejoong stretched his arms wide and reveled in the feeling of the wind breezing through him. He turned back to look at his companion and smiled when he found Yunho once again fast asleep. After spending a little bit more time enjoying the sound of the waves hitting the shore repetitively in an endless motion, Jaejoong turned and approached his sleeping friend.
He had to admit that Yunho was a handsome young man with a manly-looking face. The younger man had sharp wolf-y eyes with a scar just under his left eye (by the way, the scar was not from a heroic deed and Jaejoong had a good share of laughter when Yunho told him the story), a pointy nose like the Greek Gods, smoldering amber eyes that look fiery when Yunho was being passionate about something, an oddly-kissable full lower lip the younger man always pursed when he felt bored, a little mole adoring the side of his mouth---Yunho’s face was not perfectly carved, but he was handsome, and kind of also beautiful, like a polished art.
“Why, are you watching me sleep? You creepy ghost.”
Jaejoong jerked back. “Wha-” He didn’t realize that Yunho had woken up in the middle of his reverie.
“How long have you been admiring my handsome face, Jaejoong-ah?” Yunho teased, as he rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes.
“Did you hear yourself?” Jaejoong retorted as he straightened his back, embarrassed that he had been caught staring. “You sound conceited, you know?” he grumbled.
The younger man smirked. “You do think I am handsome, though.”
Yes, I do. Jaejoong thought, not daring to voice it out. He would hate himself if he inflated Yunho’s already prominent ego further.
“Anyway,” Yunho cut in before he could retort, “come on, the sun is high and I am hungry. Let’s go find some food, and then I have to go to work. Donghae texted me awhile back saying that he has some emergency and I have to replace him at the coffee shop.”
“Okay. Thank you for accompanying me to the beach. You didn’t have to-”
“It’s okay. I like spending time with you.”
The ghost thanked the Gods for the fact that he was already dead, which meant he didn’t have a functional heart that would beat faster or blood that would rush to his cheeks to form of a blush at the small smile Yunho gave him. It’s the kind of smile that reached the eyes and touched the heart of the recipient.
“Likewise, Yunho-ah.”
Time had flown by so fast after their fateful meeting that night, and now, Kim Jaejoong, still a 24 year-old-looking ghost, and Jung Yunho, an 18 year-old freshman at Seoul University, was the best of friends despite the odds. Or maybe there’s something more than just friendship between them?
--
Everything was different now. Yunho was 23, a fresh graduate with a bright future waiting for him and Jaejoong was still the ever 24 year-old ghost with future as bleak as the color of his coffin.
They rarely spent their time together anymore for the past few years. In fact, the short trip to the beach years ago had been their last quality time together, after that Yunho only got busier with university and his part time job. The young man rarely came back to his dormitory room, and even when he did, it’s only to sleep and then when morning came, hurry out of the dorm with a quick shout of ‘Good Morning’ to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong understood that Yunho had a life outside the single dormitory room and the ghost had promised to himself that he wouldn’t disturb the man’s life when there were other people present, less they would find Yunho crazy for talking to no one when the young man was actually interacting with him. He also made Yunho pinky promise him to keep their friendship as a secret for the same reason. Thus, no one, not even Yunho’s lovely sister, knew about Jaejoong’s existence.
It was kind of lonely for Jaejoong. He felt abandon yet again and it made him remember his past life, something he tried not to dwell on too much now that he was a ghost.
“Oh, hey, Jaejoong.”
The ghost looked up to find Yunho smiling at him. The younger man was leaving his dormitory room and moving to a new flat near his office building. He had been packing his things since the morning and his girlfriend and friends had offered him helping hands. With the crowds in Yunho’s room, Jaejoong decided to stay away, only lurking from his place on the tree branch just outside Yunho’s window.
Wistfully, Jaejoong watched how Yunho played around with his friends, how the young man flirts with his new girlfriend and always able to find ways to kiss and touch her amidst the packing.
It was weird for Jaejoong to watch the Yunho he did not know.
“I-” Jaejoong said, and he tried to quirk his lips into a smile. “I wish you good luck for your life, Yunho-ah.”
The man beamed. “Thank you, Jaejoong-ah. I wish I could say the same to you, but you are dead and I don’t-”
Jaejoong tuned out the rambling man. It kind of hurt when Yunho addressed him as a dead being. He was dead that he knew, but it still hurt to have the fact rubbed into his face like that. Especially when he knew that the man would continue his life; that his only friend would leave him, while Jaejoong would be stuck in this world alone.
“Yunnie? Who are you talking to?”
Jaejoong watched as Yunho turned his back to him to welcome his girlfriend. He smiled bitterly and left the room.
When Yunho turned back, there was the last box left on the floor that he was looking for. But there was no Jaejoong.
That’s when their already strained friendship drifted further apart.
Jaejoong never left. He was always by Yunho’s side, only he made sure that Yunho never saw him. Day by day, Jaejoong followed the younger man. Jaejoong knew that he was getting attached to the man who had been part of his death life for years. It was just strange for Jaejoong to suddenly not have the man’s existence in his days. He had grown used to the man’s nonsensical rambles too much to leave.
However, now the circumstances had changed, and even though Jaejoong could see Yunho any time of the day, the man couldn’t see him, didn’t see him. Try as he might to make Yunho notice him, Jaejoong couldn’t show himself in front of Yunho who looked happy with his life without him. He was scared of Yunho’s rejection if he told the man that he had missed his friend. After all, Yunho didn’t seem to miss him.
To top it all, the childish demeanors that only Jaejoong got to see before, was now being witnessed by Yunho’s girlfriend, taking his place.
It irked Jaejoong how much Yunho could live his life without missing Jaejoong one bit. It was like their time together held nothing in Yunho’s life. He hated the feeling of being discarded from the young man’s life just like that.
Jaejoong hated the fact that he could feel even more.
It’s not fair, Jaejoong thought grudgingly, that for a ghost whose heart didn’t beat anymore, the ability to feel such emotions still worked.
--
Sometimes, when everything about his feelings towards Yunho was too much for him to handle, Jaejoong would go to the beach alone. For a week or two, he would stay at the beach and revel in the fresh salty air, although he couldn’t really feel them---he was used to pretend he could feel anything besides his emotions anyway.
Today the sun was hiding behind the fluffy white clouds, only occasionally peeking from the apertures. Resting down on the sandy surfaces, Jaejoong relaxed as the sound of the waves calmed him and cleared his mind. He liked coming to this particular beach, despite the memory it holds of him and Yunho the last time they are here.
Usually years would pass by and Jaejoong wouldn’t notice it. He never paid attention to time before, why should he when he had eternity lying ahead of him? However for the last few years, Jaejoong noticed how time passed by. He could see them in Yunho’s face, getting more mature with prominent laugh lines adoring the sides of the man’s eyes and mouth; could see the years passing by as Yunho, who was younger than him a few years ago, was now older than him in age.
Jaejoong watched every step and stumble Yunho went through. How the man got promoted for his hardwork after two years; how he came home to his girlfriend one Valentine night the next year, got down to his knees and proposed with a simple single diamond adorned ring; how not long after that the wedding bells echoed in the church as the young groom and bride recite their vows to love each other until death do us part.
Right after the vow, Jaejoong went away to the beach and stayed there, not wanting to come back and witness Yunho’s life. It had been a month since.
He could see the unstoppable force of time on Yunho’s life---and here Jaejoong was, looking eternally 24 year-old with nothing in the future for him. Jaejoong scowled at himself for being stupid. He was dead, of course, he had no future. It was just sad that Yunho had forgotten him.
The ghost was immersed in his thought that he wasn’t aware of the footsteps approaching him; the underside of the sandals producing a crunching sound against the sands.
“Jaejoong-ah?”
The ghost froze, and turned his head slowly to look at the only person who could see him. There, only a meter away from him was Yunho, his sharp eyes squinted from the blinding sun.
“Yunho?”
“Hey, how are you doing?” The man greeted the ghost and settled down beside Jaejoong.
“Why- You- What?” Jaejoong stumbled on his words. All of a sudden, the man came back and greeted him like the years that had passed between them was nothing and they were still the best friends.
The man plopped down and pillowed his head with both of his arms, eyes watching the lazy swirl of puffy clouds. “Did you know that I know you watch me?”
“What?”
“I don’t know why you decided to play hide and seek with me for years.”
Jaejoong’s eyes widened like saucers. “I didn’t play hide and seek with you,” he hissed, annoyed that Yunho put his feeling so lightly.
“I miss you. You have been gone for too long this time.”
If anything, Jaejoong felt betrayed that Yunho could play his heart with just simple words. “I-”
“Come back?”
“Will you kill yourself for me?” Jaejoong asked before silence could settle between them. It’s a huge hint for Yunho to take. The ghost was sure that even the densest men could pick the hint.
Yunho shifted his head and looked at Jaejoong in the eyes seriously. “Would you want me dead?”
Jaejoong had not been thinking that far. He just wanted Yunho to know his feelings.
“No. I want you to live happily,” Jaejoong answered sincerely after awhile, a bittersweet smile on his pale face, “I want to see you live until you grow old, and die because it’s time for you to die.”
The man gave him a smile with no crooked teeth this time. During the university years when they had grown distanced, Yunho had undergone a small surgery for his teeth. Jaejoong missed his crooked teeth.
“And it won’t bother you if I love her?”
The ghost wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t like her, but I do like you enough to want to see you happy.”
“You are cute.” Yunho reached out to him and pretended to caress his right cheek.
On their early friendship stage, Yunho had tried to touch him out of curiosity, but of course he couldn’t touch him, because Jaejoong had no solid body, he was just a spirit. Now was no different, because Yunho was human and Jaejoong was still a ghost. However, the sweet gesture made Jaejoong smile.
It’s enough, Jaejoong told himself. It’s enough that Yunho recognized his feeling.
--
Years had passed again between them since their meeting on the beach, and Jaejoong was happier than he had been before. Their friendship had resumed from its pause, even though it stayed the same like before. No one knew about Jaejoong but Yunho. But it was okay, Jaejoong had accepted the circumstances and felt contented with what they were.
However, life had its up and down moments. If Yunho’s life had been anything but going up before, that his life was better than the average of others, this time was his down moment.
Jaejoong tried his best to stay beside Yunho when the bad news broke down. The man’s beautiful wife and son died in a car accident one winter night and the agonizing pain Yunho felt over his beloveds’ death was so palpable that even Jaejoong felt them too.
The ghost tried to cheer the man up but there were only so many things he could do as a ghost. That fact for once in after a long time, upset him. He wanted to mend Yunho’s broken heart, wanted to hug the man so badly, but he could not do it. Not directly though.
So, one night when Yunho was asleep, a frown decorating his usually peaceful sleeping face, Jaejoong lifted up Yunho’s blanket and threw them over the man’s prone body. He may not be able to touch living things, but he certainly can hold a blanket and hold the man sleeping under the blanket. It may be not much, he didn’t know if Yunho could feel him or not, although Jaejoong supposed the man could since he himself could feel Yunho’s body under the blanket.
The ghost imagined that the man’s warmth was seeping through the blanket and reaching him.
“Jaejoong?” A sleepy voice muffled through the silence of the room.
There was a shift under the blanket and Jaejoong knew the man had woken up. “Hm?” He hummed in acknowledgement as his arms tightened around the body.
“Thank you.”
“Sleep, Yunho-ah. I will be here.”
Jaejoong waited for the body under him turning slack and the breathing steadied, before he whispered out the three words he always wanted to say for years.
--
More years passed by since then. Jaejoong continued to be his 24 year-old ghost-self, and Yunho was 47, looking even more wonderful and handsome.
Yunho’s life continued after the lost of his wife and only son, and ever since there was only Jaejoong in it. Ocassionally there were also Yunho’s parent, Jihye and her kids, or Changmin visiting Yunho. All of them hinted that they wanted the man to move on, find another love and re-marry. But Yunho always politely objected to their attempts, saying he was content with his single life, all the while smiling fondly at Jaejoong who lurked from kitchen.
Yunho never tried to find another love, even though there were women vying to get his attention. Yunho said he didn’t want to re-marry although Jaejoong insisted that he will be okay with it. The man only smiled and looked at him with a small smile and a shake of his head when Jaejoong brought up the topic. He always steered Jaejoong away from the topic by throwing a blanket over himself, subtly asking Jaejoong to hug him because he himself can’t initiate them. His touch and blanket will only go through Jaejoong’s disembodied form.
After Jaejoong tried to comfort him with the blanket-covered-hug the first time, they always shared the bed and had gotten closer, much closer than their friendship has allowed them before. And in those quite years since, Yunho had slowly recognized Jaejoong’s growing feelings for him and returned them as best as he can. They can’t be intimately close, but the life they had built over the years living next to each other---the quality times they had, the affectionate gazes and sweet gestures they have for and do to each other made up for the lack of physical intimacy.
Yunho never said he loved Jaejoong. But the ghost didn’t mind it, it was better if the man never said it anyway.
Love. The strong lone word had been gone for as long as time ticked by. Many people survived their life because the existence of love. It brought happiness to some while for others it only brought misery. For Jaejoong, his love towards Yunho brought him both of happiness and misery. Happiness that finally after long years of being solitary in his life as a ghost, he had someone to look out for, but then there was the misery, because he was a ghost, he can’t have the man truly.
That’s why it was better if Jaejoong never heard the word coming out from Yunho’s mouth, because one day, Yunho would leave him and move on to after life, while Jaejoong would stay in this earth as eternity prolongs.
It was enough that Yunho knew Jaejoong loved him, and that Jaejoong also knew the now old man adored him enough to keep him close in his life. The man even made sure that he built his life to accommodate the ghost’s lack of life.
They had gone on dates with several awkward moments where people would look at Yunho weirdly because the man would talk to himself while actually he was conversing with Jaejoong, and then to make it less awkward, Yunho would pretend that he was taking a call by pressing his mobile to his ear---Jaejoong had laughed at the man the first time they use the method, but inside, he felt warm that Yunho would go such length to treasure him.
Jaejoong had enough and he didn’t need more from Yunho.
“Jae, why are you awake?”
The ghost looked over his shoulder and found the man’s sleep-laden eyes looking at him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go to sleep.”
Yunho adjusted the blanket around him, leaving his head uncovered. He waited for Jaejoong to come and settle on top of his chest before he closed his eyes and let sleep took him over.
Jaejoong felt the rising and dipping of Yunho’s chest with every in- and exhale the man took in his sleep, and he whispered out the three words into the still night like he always did every single night for the past years.
“I love you,” the old man whispered out, a small smile quirked his lips.
Jaejoong watched the wrinkIy face framed with grey hairs. Even in the old age of eighty one, Yunho managed to look so handsome. The ghost watched those amber eyes, which always watched out for him with so much love, closing with a flutter.
There were no tears in Jaejoong’s eyes, because ghosts can’t cry and why would he cry when he was happy. Instead Jaejoong smiled, leaning in to give Yunho’s smiling lips a final kiss.
“I love you, too.”