A Thousand Years
Title: A Thousand Years
Pairing: JaeChun
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Romance
Length: Oneshot
Summary: Being a vampire really wasn't as interesting as it should have been. Especially after a thousand years
400 BC
When Prince Jaejoong turned one, he learned to walk. He also developed a strange fascination with General Park's very pretty and very pregnant wife.
It was a common sight to see the small prince toddle after the noblewomen, babbling nonsense words under his breath as he stared intensely at the lady. It was sort of cute and sort of creepy, but Jaejoong was the future leader so nobody could really say or do anything to stop him.
One day during a particularly sweltering summer, Jaejoong finally became impatient. He walked over to the lady with clumsy steps and hit her very, very pregnant stomach.
“Little prince, does something upset you?” noblewoman Park asked in gentle tones. The little boy pouted, mad that he got no response, and hit the lady's stomach even harder.
Noblewoman Park opened her mouth to speak again but at that second her water broke and the pains of childbirth hit her full on. She gasped to her attendants to escort her to the birthing chamber. In her haze of pain and haste she missed the smirk on the young prince's face.
Park Yoochun didn't kick and cry. Even as a newborn, he refused to exert anymore effort than was necessary. Instead he whined. A continuous, high pitched sound that stopped being cute after .1 seconds. Neither the noblewoman nor her husband nor the healer or any of the attendants knew how to sooth the troubled child.
“Shall we call the witch over?” one of the attendants whispered. “Maybe the baby was born with a curse”
“No one shall expose my newborn son to those crazy people” General Park growled low in his throat. “Humans don't consort with magical beings, you know this”
“Then what shall we do?” his wife asked, holding the whining child close to her.
Suddenly there were softs thuds against the door-rhythmic and sounding strangely as though someone was hitting their head against the wooden surface again and again.
One of the attendants opened the door only for the young prince to tumble headfirst into the birthing chamber. His eyes immediately found the small bundle clutched in Noblewoman Park's arms and he rushed to it as fast as his little legs would carry him.
As soon as he reached the baby, he put his hand on the boy's head. Yoochun immediately stopped whining and brought his hand up, wrapping all of his fingers around Jaejoong's thumb.
Jaejoong looked at the baby solemnly before turning to the stunned Park couple.
“Baby”
It was Jaejoong's first word. And one and a half year later when Yoochun's first word was 'prince', nobody was really that surprised.
The war against the vampires started when Jaejoong was 17 and Yoochun was 16. Yoochun was training to follow his father's footsteps and become the next general of the kingdom and Jaejoong didn't like it one bit.
“Why do you need to go and fight the vampires? Do they not have other people to do that sort of thing?”
“Prince, I am the person they have to do this sort of thing”
“You shouldn't be a warrior. You can't even breathe properly. Why did you have to become like your father? I don't like your father. He is ugly”
Yoochun grinned. “Everyone in the kingdom says I look like my father”
“You are ugly as well”
“I should not get bitten by a vampire then” Yoochun said airily “I heard they are all very beautiful so I will most likely be shunned by them”
“Do not speak of becoming a vampire” Jaejoong hissed. Every human in the kingdom was taught from the time they were born that magical creatures were evil. “If you get bit I will stab you with a silver dagger and you will die”
“I think silver is for werewolves, Prince”
“Then I will throw you off a balcony”
Yoochun was 18 when he got bit.
He returned to the palace a half pale, half crazed mess of curly hair and blood and baby fangs poking out from his gums.
Jaejoong took one look at him and sighed.
“I guess you need to turn me too, now”
Two weeks later, when both were healed and fine and not wanting to attack everything that walked by, they sat on the balcony of the palace and looked out over the kingdom of Gojoseon.
“You know...” Yoochun started.
“Being a vampire is not as interesting as I imagined it would be” Jaejoong finished.
1410
Around 50 BC, Jaejoong and Yoochun had learned that being vampires meant that you could choose which age you presented yourself as. Which meant that the two of them could go from looking like 80 year old ahjussis to 5 year old boys in the span of seconds.
It was really the only useful thing about being a vampire. They didn't have increased speed or strength nor did they have any aversion to garlic or sunlight, which would be myths that humans came up with many many years into the future. In fact, besides the occasional need to drain the blood out of some sort of living creature, the only things that differed Jaejoong and Yoochun from the rest of the world was their ability to change ages and, of course, being immortal.
But being immortal became very old very soon.
“The Joseon dynasty is boring” Jaejoong huffed, pulling off his hanbok as soon as he entered the small building where him and Yoochun lived. Jaejoong's royal line ended as soon as Korea had been invaded by the Hans and now the two of them lived as simple craftsmen, pretending to be orphaned brothers.
“You just say that because you hate herding sheep, Prince” Yoochun said idly as he worked industrially on his loom.
“I don't see you out there herding sheep” Jaejoong shot back darkly as he grabbed the wet cloth Yoochun had left him and used it to wipe the sweat and grime off his torso.
“You know I have trouble breathing”
“That did not seem to stop you from chasing away that Seo InJoo boy yesterday” Jaejoong said as he lowered himself into a chair.
“He was trying to steal our sheep!”
“He was asking me directions to the marketplace”
“He grabbed onto your arm”
Jaejoong looked at the younger boy with both eyebrows raised and a creepy grin spreading on his face. “Oh, so you were bitten by envy?”
Yoochun turned a marvelous shade of red and stared at his loom. Jaejoong's obnoxious laughter filled the small house.
Yoochun threw a basket at Jaejoong's head. “Stop speaking nonsense and make yourself useful. I need more wool”
Jaejoong grumbled under his breath, but he grabbed the pair of shears hanging besides the door and went outside to the sheep pen anyways.
That night, when both of them were curled under their a scratchy wool blanket, Yoochun turned to Jaejoong.
“Prince....just....do not let other people touch you, okay?”
Jaejoong smiled softly and brought his hand from below the blanket, stroking Yoochun's face. The younger boy reached up and folded his fingers over Jaejoong's thumb.
“Okay, baby”
1953
“You are doing what?” Yoochun shrieked, voice reaching octaves that no human should be able to reach. Which made sense. Since...Yoochun wasn't exactly a human.
“Going to war apparently?” Jaejoong said in wonder, staring at the piece of paper in his hands. His conscription letter had just showed up in the mailbox attached to his and Yoochun's lavish Seoul house.
The two of them didn't have many expenses and living for hundreds of years made it rather easy to save up a small fortune.
But apparently, no matter how rich a person was, once the Korean War started, it didn't stop them from getting conscripted.
“Why did we decide to register as citizens of Korea anyways?” Jaejoong mumbled, reading the paper once again.
“You can't go to war!” Yoochun cried, “We can run away! You know we have the money to. We can go to China or America. We can buy an island. Wherever you want to go, Prince”
“Korea is our home” Jaejoong sighed. “It will only be for a short while”
“You are not the one who has to be waiting at home waiting everyday to hear some terrible news” Yoochun shot back.
“Now you know what I felt like when you went to go and fight those vampires!”
“And look how well that turned out”
Jaejoong leaned against their dining room table and shook his head. “Our lives didn't turn out too bad, did they?”
“Not up until now” Yoochun whined dramatically, trying to fall back onto a chair but missing by quite a few inches. He landed on his butt on the tile floor and not even Jaejoong (especially not Jaejoong) had the self control to stop himself from laughing.
Yoochun couldn't stop himself from grinning along with the laughter. No matter what the situation was, Jaejoong's laughter was infectious.
The older boy came over and sat on the ground next to Yoochun. He reached out his hand, holding it in front of the younger expectantly. “Don't worry, baby. You know it's hard to kill a vampire. I'll be back home before you can even miss me."
Yoochun knew that was false. Jaejoong wasn't even gone and he already missed him. But instead of complaining he just sighed and reluctantly wrapped his fingers around Jaejoong's thumb.
“If you get hurt, I'm going to throw you off the balcony”
1984
Jaejoong and Yoochun decided to be in their 30s. Jaejoong thought he looked the best at that age. A little refined, a little mature, but still retaining the beauty of his teens.
They also decided to become part of the resistance movement against the conservative Korean government. Which meant that they colored their hair with dyes imported from the US: bright blues and greens and reds. They went to all the important monuments and took of their shirts and held signs and played guitars and sang rock songs until their throats were about to bleed.
It was one of the most fun lives that Jaejoong had lived, he thought as he drained a soju bottle in five seconds and then threw it at an approaching cop.
Yoochun sat on the ground and strummed a guitar moodily.
“You would make a kick ass actor” Jaejoong smiled fondly as he caressed the man's moppy hair. “You have perfected the angsty starving artist thing.”
“I am an angsty starving artist” Yoochun replied.
“Says the boy who owns vacation homes all around Korea”
“Those policemen have been looking at you strangely and I don't like it” Yoochun spat out, turning his head towards the group of men with cropped hair and uniforms on. One of them, the one Jaejoong had pegged with a soju bottle, was clutching onto what looked like would be a very stunning black eye.
“They're probably just going to arrest me” Jaejoong shrugged.
Two seconds later, one of them came up and cuffed the older man. “Come on, Seo Injoo. You know how it goes by now”
“Why did you have to choose the name of that guy who had a crush on you back during Joseon?” Yoochun moped.
“Is he on drugs?” the policeman asked as he started to drag Jaejoong away.
“Why, want to buy some?” Jaejoong asked, earning him a punch in the stomach. He turned to Yoochun with a grin.
“Wait for me, baby”
“Don't I always, Prince?”
Yoochun ended up in the same jail cell only hours later.
2001
Yoochun and Jaejoong were 80 for the day. Not because they really liked feeling like saggy sacks of bones (though by this time, that was basically what the two of them were at any age). But it was immensely fun to sit on park benches and grumpily yell at all the younger people walking by.
That day they had chosen a bench in front of an ugly building with the words SM Entertainment stamped on the front. There were a lot of young kids walking by, and young kids were the most fun to yell at.
After living for as long as the two of them had, they had to find amusement somehow.
“Hey there young man, pull up those pants!” Yoochun grumbled at some wannabe gangster kid that walked by.
“And turn that cap the right way. You're embarrassing your ancestors” Jaejoong added in.
He turned and stared at the building the kid disappeared into and sighed.
“What's going on in that head, Prince?”
“I miss singing” Jaejoong answered. “We haven't since the 80s and I kind of miss those drunken nights we would stay up and compose songs and perform in front of people”
“We mostly performed in front of the police”
“Police aren't people now?”
Yoochun grinned and knocked his knee against Jaejoong's “So you want to join this company?”
“It does sound kind of fun, doesn't it? A boyband. We haven't tried that out yet”
Yoochun nodded. They didn't really need to discuss the idea more than that. Him and Jaejoong were always on the same page with everything. And if they weren't, they had forever to get there.
“We'll need to come up with believable backstories if we do this” Yoochun said. “We can't use the whole orphaned brothers thing. We'd need families”
“We could find some other creatures to pretend to be our families” Jaejoong answered easily. All magical creatures had gone into hiding back before the Joseon era, but that didn't mean that they weren't around anymore. Like Jaejoong and Yoochun, they were all around, living like normal people.
“Okay then” Yoochun said with a shrug. “Let's try the whole boyband thing”
Jaejoong found a witch and wizard who had a staggering 8 daughters to adopt him into their family. Whereas Yoochun found a beautiful fairy woman that had a son that looked so much like Yoochun that the boy didn't wonder if they had somehow descended from the same line. They spent a couple of days changing ages, taking all sorts of pictures in case anyone asked them for photos from their childhood, and then finally settled into their new teenage forms. Neither of them had been teenagers in awhile and even though they weren't subjected to all the raging hormones teenagers normally had, it still took them awhile to get used to their bodies.
They both decided that Jaejoong would go in first and Yoochun would come a couple of years later. They still secretly lived in their now ancient yet still beautifully expansive Seoul house, but Jaejoong also rented a run down apartment a few bus stops away from SM just to keep up pretenses.
The two of them never kept anything from each other, so by the time Yoochun decided it was time to make his grand entrance he already knew about all the trainees and their strange quirks.
He entered the practice room and was immediately greeted by a gaggle of over-eager teenagers all wanting to introduce themselves to the new trainee who was supposedly from America.
Jaejoong leaned against the mirror of their practice room with an amused look on his face. Once the crowd dissipated a bit he pushed himself off the mirror and slinked over to Yoochun.
“Hi” he said, sticking out his hand. “I'm Kim Jaejoong”
“Park Yoochun” the younger answered with a smile, grabbing onto Jaejoong's thumb.
2008
“This...really isn't fun anymore” Jaejoong said as he collapsed onto Yoochun's bed. He looked tired and haggard and in the need of three years of sleep. Yoochun looked exactly the same.
“We need to get you out of here, Prince. You weren't meant to live like this” Yoochun muttered, running a hand through Jaejoong's fried hair. They had never felt this beat up, even when they were back herding sheep or farming or working in a factory during the Japanese rule.
“You too” Jaejoong said, crawling until he was firmly planted into Yoochun's lap. He buried himself in the scent and feel of his soul's mate, rubbing his cheek against the soft fabric of Yoochun's shirt, which he was positive used to be his shirt once upon a time.
When they had both joined SM, Jaejoong had envisioned such beautiful things for them. Long nights spent composing together, singing their songs together, creating a creative world for them to let themselves get lost in.
But instead it turned out to be a series of flights, six countries a week with no sleep. SM owned anything they created in Korea while AVEX owned anything they created in Japan and Jaejoong didn't like this feeling of being owned. He had lived too long for this.
“Then let's leave” Yoochun shrugged. “We knew we'd have to eventually”
Jaejoong was about to nod his head in agreement when a voice from the door stopped them.
“You two are going to leave?”
They both turned to find Junsu standing in their doorway, a video game controller clutched so hard in one hand that his knuckles were starting to turn white.
“Now Junsu...”
“I'll join you” Junsu said resolutely. “You have to let me join you”
And how could Jaejoong and Yoochun say no to that?
2011
“Yoochunnie” Jaejoong whined as he entered their house. He kicked off his boots messily. Yoochun grunted.
“Yoochunnie, I thought we wanted to be singers in this life”
“Are we not?” Yoochun asked, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the collection of albums that they kept in their living room.
“Why are you doing so many dramas?”
“If I recall, you were the first person who told me that I would be a great actor. Remember, back in the 80s?”
“I didn't realize dramas took so much time” Jaejoong answered gloomily. “You're there all day and all night and you barely come home at all”
“Prince, when you've got this kind of natural talent, you've got to use it. We're not going to get to be celebrities again. Not for another few hundred years, at least. So I have to take advantage of this while I can”
“When you put it like that” Jaejoong mumbled. “Maybe I should try acting?”
Yoochun chuckled and Jaejoong looked at him darkly. “You don't think I can?”
“My prince, I think we both know that you can do whatever you want to do”
“I can act” Jaejoong sniffed.
Two weeks later, Yoochun was lounging on the couch with a skien of wool (old habits died hard) when a script for a drama called Protect the Boss landed in front of him.
“I am going to act” Jaejoong announced.
Yoochun looked up at him with a warm smile. “You'll be great at it”
And Jaejoong was.
2014
It was the end of their third dome concert and Jaejoong left the backstage in tears. He had been crying during every concert and it had gotten to the point where Yoochun didn't know what it was about anymore. At first, he thought it was just an outpouring of happiness about being free and living the life he had envisioned ten years back. But after the third time, Yoochun was starting to get worried.
He cornered Jaejoong in the men's bathroom. The older man was gripping onto the sink, his eyes leaking over.
“Prince?” Yoochun asked tentatively, coming up and placing a hand on Jaejoong's shoulder. “What's wrong?”
“Junsu” Jaejoong chocked out. “Baby, Junsu...he....”
“What's wrong with Junsu?” Yoochun asked. Jaejoong looked up at him with teary eyes.
“Yoochunnie, we're vampires” he choked out. Yoochun raised both eyebrows. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed this fact over the past thousand years.
“And?”
“And Junsu isn't”
Yoochun froze as Jaejoong's words finally hit him. Oh.
Oh
“We've never let other people into our lives before” Jaejoong said softly. “It's only been the two of us until now. But Junsu...how are we going to do this, Chunnie? How are we supposed to let Su go?”
“He's not going to leave for at least another 50, 60 years, Jaejoongie” Yoochun said, but even as the words came out he knew they would be no help. That amount of time was nothing for the two of them.
Jaejoong stared at Yoochun. “Do you think...” he would want to turn? Should we tell him what we are and give him the option?
He didn't need to say the words aloud for Yoochun to understand him perfectly.
“I don't know, Prince. I really don't know”
2017
Jaejoong and Yoochun brought the topic up again once all of them were out of the army (both of them had gotten very used to the whole mandatory enlistment by now). They were inching back to Jaejoong's favorite age and they had both decided that they were going to take the plunge.
“So we're going to ask him” Jaejoong said as he texted Junsu to meet him in his cafe, which he had closed for the day. “We'll tell him what we are and we'll ask him if he wants us to...”
“Change him” Yoochun finished easily. He grabbed onto Jaejoong's thumb under the table and brought their hands up to kiss them gently.
“This was so much easier when it was you changing me” Jaejoong sighed. “We didn't gave to go through all of this”
“Would you have preferred for me to buy you coffee and bribe you into changing?”
“We didn't have coffee back then”
“And you didn't need to be convinced, Prince” Yoochun smiled.
“I see you two are up to this already” Junsu's loud voice sounded through the empty room. Jaejoong and Yoochun both sighed deeply, nodding their heads at each other before turning around.
They saw Junsu, holding hands with a petite woman with one of the sunniest smiles they had ever seen.
“It's a good thing that I brought someone along or else I'd feel left out again”
“What...who...” Jaejoong stumbled.
“Who is that, Su-yah?” Yoochun translated.
“Guys, I wanted to introduce you to MinHee. Our parents set us up and...we ended up really liking each other”
“Parents set you up?” Jaejoong asked, staring with his mouth open.
“Yeah. They want us to get married”
Both Yoochun and Jaejoong were now staring openly.
“So...will you?” Yoochun asked.
The blush on MinHee's face was all the answer they needed.
2018
They received Junsu's wedding invitation in the mail.
“We can't change him now” Yoochun sighed. Jaejoong nodded, his head rested on the younger's shoulder.
“So let's work on making sure that our Su has the best life he can possibly live” Jaejoong said. Yoochun laughed, bittersweet, and hummed in agreement.
Junsu and MinHee's wedding was beautiful. Jaejoong had decorated the venue, making it exactly what Junsu and his family would want. A mix of modern and traditional and gorgeous. Yoochun had composed a whole CD full of songs, half which played as instrumentals during the ceremony itself and half which him and Jaejoong sang to the newly wed couple before sequestering a corner of the reception venue for themselves and endless bottles of soju.
Jaejoong was taking a sip out of his (or Yoochun's?) tenth bottle when Junsu and MinHee came up to them.
“Hyung, the place looks beautiful” he gushed. “Where did you get all those flower vases from? They look like they're actually from the Joseon era”
Jaejoong chuckled into the bottle.
“Thank you for being here” Junsu continued, “you two know that....”
“We know” Yoochun said easily. “We love you too”
MinHee looked at the two men, leaning over. “Junsu. He...told me about the two of you. I just want you to know that I'm totally okay with it”
“He told you we're vampires?” Jaejoong slurred. Yoochun kicked his leg under the table but Junsu just laughed it off.
“Hyung, you stopped looking like a vampire years ago” the maknae said.
Both Jaejoong and Yoochun couldn't stop laughing for hours.
2019
“Thank you all for being in our lives for this past year. It's been one of the happiest times of my life. MinHee-ah...happy one year anniversary” Junsu said, raising his glass to the blushing and pregnant lady sitting by his side.
“How long have we been together for?” Yoochun asked Jaejoong. The older man shrugged.
“I stopped counting after a thousand”
“Happy thousandth anniversary to you, Prince” Yoochun said, raising his champagne glass.
“Happy thousandth anniversary to you too, baby” Jaejoong grinned, clinking his glass against Yoochun's.
“Did I hear you say thousand?” Yihan asked from next to Jaejoong. “Are the two of you drunk already?”
“Not drunk enough, sweetie” Jaejoong answered giving Yihan one of his stunning smiles.
Yoochun downed the whole bottle of champagne in less than a minute.
2085
They both stood in front of the fresh grave, wearing matching black suits and holding hands. Jaejoong didn't want to read the tombstone. Not again. Never again. Once had been too much.
Junsu was gone. Along with Yoochun's adopted mom and Jaejoong's adopted parents and a handful of sisters. Vampires were the only magical creatures that were immortal and the two of them were just starting to realize what that meant now.
“Never again” Jaejoong said. There weren't anymore tears: he had cried all he could these past few years as they saw Junsu fall ill and deteriorate in front of their eyes. “We're never going to let anybody into our lives ever again. I can't handle this again”
“Just the two of us” Yoochun agreed.
“You better not leave me, Park Yoochun. I swear to god, if you ever....”
“What would I be able to do without you?” Yoochun asked. He looked over at the older man. “So where to now, Prince? China? America? Should we buy an island?”
Jaejoong smiled at the man's words.
“An island sounds nice, don't you think?”
Yoochun gripped onto the thumb of Jaejoong's left hand, both of them walking out of the graveyard, shedding years as they left.
They ended up naming a beach after Junsu and planting so many palm trees on it that they would never have to worry about buying coconuts for the rest of their lives.
Jaejoong stood on the balcony of their expansive beach house. He looked out over the island with a wistful smile. Yoochun came up beside him and slung an arm across his slim waist.
“You know, baby, being a vampire....”
Yoochun smiled into Jaejoong's shoulder. “Is not as interesting as I thought it would be”
A/N: This was for a request by Sherry to write a vampire fic. I know it wasn't very vampire-y. But that's because I kind of fail whenever it comes to supernatural or fantasy things. Nothing against them, they're just usually not my cup of tea. So instead, Jaejoong and Yoochun ended up becoming immortal creatures. Which life of theirs was your favorite? I'm sort of partial to them in the 1980s, but the thought of Joseon-era Jaejoong herding sheep and Yoochun spinning their wool also paints quite an amazing picture in my mind XD
Pairing: JaeChun
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Romance
Length: Oneshot
Summary: Being a vampire really wasn't as interesting as it should have been. Especially after a thousand years
400 BC
When Prince Jaejoong turned one, he learned to walk. He also developed a strange fascination with General Park's very pretty and very pregnant wife.
It was a common sight to see the small prince toddle after the noblewomen, babbling nonsense words under his breath as he stared intensely at the lady. It was sort of cute and sort of creepy, but Jaejoong was the future leader so nobody could really say or do anything to stop him.
One day during a particularly sweltering summer, Jaejoong finally became impatient. He walked over to the lady with clumsy steps and hit her very, very pregnant stomach.
“Little prince, does something upset you?” noblewoman Park asked in gentle tones. The little boy pouted, mad that he got no response, and hit the lady's stomach even harder.
Noblewoman Park opened her mouth to speak again but at that second her water broke and the pains of childbirth hit her full on. She gasped to her attendants to escort her to the birthing chamber. In her haze of pain and haste she missed the smirk on the young prince's face.
Park Yoochun didn't kick and cry. Even as a newborn, he refused to exert anymore effort than was necessary. Instead he whined. A continuous, high pitched sound that stopped being cute after .1 seconds. Neither the noblewoman nor her husband nor the healer or any of the attendants knew how to sooth the troubled child.
“Shall we call the witch over?” one of the attendants whispered. “Maybe the baby was born with a curse”
“No one shall expose my newborn son to those crazy people” General Park growled low in his throat. “Humans don't consort with magical beings, you know this”
“Then what shall we do?” his wife asked, holding the whining child close to her.
Suddenly there were softs thuds against the door-rhythmic and sounding strangely as though someone was hitting their head against the wooden surface again and again.
One of the attendants opened the door only for the young prince to tumble headfirst into the birthing chamber. His eyes immediately found the small bundle clutched in Noblewoman Park's arms and he rushed to it as fast as his little legs would carry him.
As soon as he reached the baby, he put his hand on the boy's head. Yoochun immediately stopped whining and brought his hand up, wrapping all of his fingers around Jaejoong's thumb.
Jaejoong looked at the baby solemnly before turning to the stunned Park couple.
“Baby”
It was Jaejoong's first word. And one and a half year later when Yoochun's first word was 'prince', nobody was really that surprised.
The war against the vampires started when Jaejoong was 17 and Yoochun was 16. Yoochun was training to follow his father's footsteps and become the next general of the kingdom and Jaejoong didn't like it one bit.
“Why do you need to go and fight the vampires? Do they not have other people to do that sort of thing?”
“Prince, I am the person they have to do this sort of thing”
“You shouldn't be a warrior. You can't even breathe properly. Why did you have to become like your father? I don't like your father. He is ugly”
Yoochun grinned. “Everyone in the kingdom says I look like my father”
“You are ugly as well”
“I should not get bitten by a vampire then” Yoochun said airily “I heard they are all very beautiful so I will most likely be shunned by them”
“Do not speak of becoming a vampire” Jaejoong hissed. Every human in the kingdom was taught from the time they were born that magical creatures were evil. “If you get bit I will stab you with a silver dagger and you will die”
“I think silver is for werewolves, Prince”
“Then I will throw you off a balcony”
Yoochun was 18 when he got bit.
He returned to the palace a half pale, half crazed mess of curly hair and blood and baby fangs poking out from his gums.
Jaejoong took one look at him and sighed.
“I guess you need to turn me too, now”
Two weeks later, when both were healed and fine and not wanting to attack everything that walked by, they sat on the balcony of the palace and looked out over the kingdom of Gojoseon.
“You know...” Yoochun started.
“Being a vampire is not as interesting as I imagined it would be” Jaejoong finished.
1410
Around 50 BC, Jaejoong and Yoochun had learned that being vampires meant that you could choose which age you presented yourself as. Which meant that the two of them could go from looking like 80 year old ahjussis to 5 year old boys in the span of seconds.
It was really the only useful thing about being a vampire. They didn't have increased speed or strength nor did they have any aversion to garlic or sunlight, which would be myths that humans came up with many many years into the future. In fact, besides the occasional need to drain the blood out of some sort of living creature, the only things that differed Jaejoong and Yoochun from the rest of the world was their ability to change ages and, of course, being immortal.
But being immortal became very old very soon.
“The Joseon dynasty is boring” Jaejoong huffed, pulling off his hanbok as soon as he entered the small building where him and Yoochun lived. Jaejoong's royal line ended as soon as Korea had been invaded by the Hans and now the two of them lived as simple craftsmen, pretending to be orphaned brothers.
“You just say that because you hate herding sheep, Prince” Yoochun said idly as he worked industrially on his loom.
“I don't see you out there herding sheep” Jaejoong shot back darkly as he grabbed the wet cloth Yoochun had left him and used it to wipe the sweat and grime off his torso.
“You know I have trouble breathing”
“That did not seem to stop you from chasing away that Seo InJoo boy yesterday” Jaejoong said as he lowered himself into a chair.
“He was trying to steal our sheep!”
“He was asking me directions to the marketplace”
“He grabbed onto your arm”
Jaejoong looked at the younger boy with both eyebrows raised and a creepy grin spreading on his face. “Oh, so you were bitten by envy?”
Yoochun turned a marvelous shade of red and stared at his loom. Jaejoong's obnoxious laughter filled the small house.
Yoochun threw a basket at Jaejoong's head. “Stop speaking nonsense and make yourself useful. I need more wool”
Jaejoong grumbled under his breath, but he grabbed the pair of shears hanging besides the door and went outside to the sheep pen anyways.
That night, when both of them were curled under their a scratchy wool blanket, Yoochun turned to Jaejoong.
“Prince....just....do not let other people touch you, okay?”
Jaejoong smiled softly and brought his hand from below the blanket, stroking Yoochun's face. The younger boy reached up and folded his fingers over Jaejoong's thumb.
“Okay, baby”
1953
“You are doing what?” Yoochun shrieked, voice reaching octaves that no human should be able to reach. Which made sense. Since...Yoochun wasn't exactly a human.
“Going to war apparently?” Jaejoong said in wonder, staring at the piece of paper in his hands. His conscription letter had just showed up in the mailbox attached to his and Yoochun's lavish Seoul house.
The two of them didn't have many expenses and living for hundreds of years made it rather easy to save up a small fortune.
But apparently, no matter how rich a person was, once the Korean War started, it didn't stop them from getting conscripted.
“Why did we decide to register as citizens of Korea anyways?” Jaejoong mumbled, reading the paper once again.
“You can't go to war!” Yoochun cried, “We can run away! You know we have the money to. We can go to China or America. We can buy an island. Wherever you want to go, Prince”
“Korea is our home” Jaejoong sighed. “It will only be for a short while”
“You are not the one who has to be waiting at home waiting everyday to hear some terrible news” Yoochun shot back.
“Now you know what I felt like when you went to go and fight those vampires!”
“And look how well that turned out”
Jaejoong leaned against their dining room table and shook his head. “Our lives didn't turn out too bad, did they?”
“Not up until now” Yoochun whined dramatically, trying to fall back onto a chair but missing by quite a few inches. He landed on his butt on the tile floor and not even Jaejoong (especially not Jaejoong) had the self control to stop himself from laughing.
Yoochun couldn't stop himself from grinning along with the laughter. No matter what the situation was, Jaejoong's laughter was infectious.
The older boy came over and sat on the ground next to Yoochun. He reached out his hand, holding it in front of the younger expectantly. “Don't worry, baby. You know it's hard to kill a vampire. I'll be back home before you can even miss me."
Yoochun knew that was false. Jaejoong wasn't even gone and he already missed him. But instead of complaining he just sighed and reluctantly wrapped his fingers around Jaejoong's thumb.
“If you get hurt, I'm going to throw you off the balcony”
1984
Jaejoong and Yoochun decided to be in their 30s. Jaejoong thought he looked the best at that age. A little refined, a little mature, but still retaining the beauty of his teens.
They also decided to become part of the resistance movement against the conservative Korean government. Which meant that they colored their hair with dyes imported from the US: bright blues and greens and reds. They went to all the important monuments and took of their shirts and held signs and played guitars and sang rock songs until their throats were about to bleed.
It was one of the most fun lives that Jaejoong had lived, he thought as he drained a soju bottle in five seconds and then threw it at an approaching cop.
Yoochun sat on the ground and strummed a guitar moodily.
“You would make a kick ass actor” Jaejoong smiled fondly as he caressed the man's moppy hair. “You have perfected the angsty starving artist thing.”
“I am an angsty starving artist” Yoochun replied.
“Says the boy who owns vacation homes all around Korea”
“Those policemen have been looking at you strangely and I don't like it” Yoochun spat out, turning his head towards the group of men with cropped hair and uniforms on. One of them, the one Jaejoong had pegged with a soju bottle, was clutching onto what looked like would be a very stunning black eye.
“They're probably just going to arrest me” Jaejoong shrugged.
Two seconds later, one of them came up and cuffed the older man. “Come on, Seo Injoo. You know how it goes by now”
“Why did you have to choose the name of that guy who had a crush on you back during Joseon?” Yoochun moped.
“Is he on drugs?” the policeman asked as he started to drag Jaejoong away.
“Why, want to buy some?” Jaejoong asked, earning him a punch in the stomach. He turned to Yoochun with a grin.
“Wait for me, baby”
“Don't I always, Prince?”
Yoochun ended up in the same jail cell only hours later.
2001
Yoochun and Jaejoong were 80 for the day. Not because they really liked feeling like saggy sacks of bones (though by this time, that was basically what the two of them were at any age). But it was immensely fun to sit on park benches and grumpily yell at all the younger people walking by.
That day they had chosen a bench in front of an ugly building with the words SM Entertainment stamped on the front. There were a lot of young kids walking by, and young kids were the most fun to yell at.
After living for as long as the two of them had, they had to find amusement somehow.
“Hey there young man, pull up those pants!” Yoochun grumbled at some wannabe gangster kid that walked by.
“And turn that cap the right way. You're embarrassing your ancestors” Jaejoong added in.
He turned and stared at the building the kid disappeared into and sighed.
“What's going on in that head, Prince?”
“I miss singing” Jaejoong answered. “We haven't since the 80s and I kind of miss those drunken nights we would stay up and compose songs and perform in front of people”
“We mostly performed in front of the police”
“Police aren't people now?”
Yoochun grinned and knocked his knee against Jaejoong's “So you want to join this company?”
“It does sound kind of fun, doesn't it? A boyband. We haven't tried that out yet”
Yoochun nodded. They didn't really need to discuss the idea more than that. Him and Jaejoong were always on the same page with everything. And if they weren't, they had forever to get there.
“We'll need to come up with believable backstories if we do this” Yoochun said. “We can't use the whole orphaned brothers thing. We'd need families”
“We could find some other creatures to pretend to be our families” Jaejoong answered easily. All magical creatures had gone into hiding back before the Joseon era, but that didn't mean that they weren't around anymore. Like Jaejoong and Yoochun, they were all around, living like normal people.
“Okay then” Yoochun said with a shrug. “Let's try the whole boyband thing”
Jaejoong found a witch and wizard who had a staggering 8 daughters to adopt him into their family. Whereas Yoochun found a beautiful fairy woman that had a son that looked so much like Yoochun that the boy didn't wonder if they had somehow descended from the same line. They spent a couple of days changing ages, taking all sorts of pictures in case anyone asked them for photos from their childhood, and then finally settled into their new teenage forms. Neither of them had been teenagers in awhile and even though they weren't subjected to all the raging hormones teenagers normally had, it still took them awhile to get used to their bodies.
They both decided that Jaejoong would go in first and Yoochun would come a couple of years later. They still secretly lived in their now ancient yet still beautifully expansive Seoul house, but Jaejoong also rented a run down apartment a few bus stops away from SM just to keep up pretenses.
The two of them never kept anything from each other, so by the time Yoochun decided it was time to make his grand entrance he already knew about all the trainees and their strange quirks.
He entered the practice room and was immediately greeted by a gaggle of over-eager teenagers all wanting to introduce themselves to the new trainee who was supposedly from America.
Jaejoong leaned against the mirror of their practice room with an amused look on his face. Once the crowd dissipated a bit he pushed himself off the mirror and slinked over to Yoochun.
“Hi” he said, sticking out his hand. “I'm Kim Jaejoong”
“Park Yoochun” the younger answered with a smile, grabbing onto Jaejoong's thumb.
2008
“This...really isn't fun anymore” Jaejoong said as he collapsed onto Yoochun's bed. He looked tired and haggard and in the need of three years of sleep. Yoochun looked exactly the same.
“We need to get you out of here, Prince. You weren't meant to live like this” Yoochun muttered, running a hand through Jaejoong's fried hair. They had never felt this beat up, even when they were back herding sheep or farming or working in a factory during the Japanese rule.
“You too” Jaejoong said, crawling until he was firmly planted into Yoochun's lap. He buried himself in the scent and feel of his soul's mate, rubbing his cheek against the soft fabric of Yoochun's shirt, which he was positive used to be his shirt once upon a time.
When they had both joined SM, Jaejoong had envisioned such beautiful things for them. Long nights spent composing together, singing their songs together, creating a creative world for them to let themselves get lost in.
But instead it turned out to be a series of flights, six countries a week with no sleep. SM owned anything they created in Korea while AVEX owned anything they created in Japan and Jaejoong didn't like this feeling of being owned. He had lived too long for this.
“Then let's leave” Yoochun shrugged. “We knew we'd have to eventually”
Jaejoong was about to nod his head in agreement when a voice from the door stopped them.
“You two are going to leave?”
They both turned to find Junsu standing in their doorway, a video game controller clutched so hard in one hand that his knuckles were starting to turn white.
“Now Junsu...”
“I'll join you” Junsu said resolutely. “You have to let me join you”
And how could Jaejoong and Yoochun say no to that?
2011
“Yoochunnie” Jaejoong whined as he entered their house. He kicked off his boots messily. Yoochun grunted.
“Yoochunnie, I thought we wanted to be singers in this life”
“Are we not?” Yoochun asked, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the collection of albums that they kept in their living room.
“Why are you doing so many dramas?”
“If I recall, you were the first person who told me that I would be a great actor. Remember, back in the 80s?”
“I didn't realize dramas took so much time” Jaejoong answered gloomily. “You're there all day and all night and you barely come home at all”
“Prince, when you've got this kind of natural talent, you've got to use it. We're not going to get to be celebrities again. Not for another few hundred years, at least. So I have to take advantage of this while I can”
“When you put it like that” Jaejoong mumbled. “Maybe I should try acting?”
Yoochun chuckled and Jaejoong looked at him darkly. “You don't think I can?”
“My prince, I think we both know that you can do whatever you want to do”
“I can act” Jaejoong sniffed.
Two weeks later, Yoochun was lounging on the couch with a skien of wool (old habits died hard) when a script for a drama called Protect the Boss landed in front of him.
“I am going to act” Jaejoong announced.
Yoochun looked up at him with a warm smile. “You'll be great at it”
And Jaejoong was.
2014
It was the end of their third dome concert and Jaejoong left the backstage in tears. He had been crying during every concert and it had gotten to the point where Yoochun didn't know what it was about anymore. At first, he thought it was just an outpouring of happiness about being free and living the life he had envisioned ten years back. But after the third time, Yoochun was starting to get worried.
He cornered Jaejoong in the men's bathroom. The older man was gripping onto the sink, his eyes leaking over.
“Prince?” Yoochun asked tentatively, coming up and placing a hand on Jaejoong's shoulder. “What's wrong?”
“Junsu” Jaejoong chocked out. “Baby, Junsu...he....”
“What's wrong with Junsu?” Yoochun asked. Jaejoong looked up at him with teary eyes.
“Yoochunnie, we're vampires” he choked out. Yoochun raised both eyebrows. It wasn't like he hadn't noticed this fact over the past thousand years.
“And?”
“And Junsu isn't”
Yoochun froze as Jaejoong's words finally hit him. Oh.
Oh
“We've never let other people into our lives before” Jaejoong said softly. “It's only been the two of us until now. But Junsu...how are we going to do this, Chunnie? How are we supposed to let Su go?”
“He's not going to leave for at least another 50, 60 years, Jaejoongie” Yoochun said, but even as the words came out he knew they would be no help. That amount of time was nothing for the two of them.
Jaejoong stared at Yoochun. “Do you think...” he would want to turn? Should we tell him what we are and give him the option?
He didn't need to say the words aloud for Yoochun to understand him perfectly.
“I don't know, Prince. I really don't know”
2017
Jaejoong and Yoochun brought the topic up again once all of them were out of the army (both of them had gotten very used to the whole mandatory enlistment by now). They were inching back to Jaejoong's favorite age and they had both decided that they were going to take the plunge.
“So we're going to ask him” Jaejoong said as he texted Junsu to meet him in his cafe, which he had closed for the day. “We'll tell him what we are and we'll ask him if he wants us to...”
“Change him” Yoochun finished easily. He grabbed onto Jaejoong's thumb under the table and brought their hands up to kiss them gently.
“This was so much easier when it was you changing me” Jaejoong sighed. “We didn't gave to go through all of this”
“Would you have preferred for me to buy you coffee and bribe you into changing?”
“We didn't have coffee back then”
“And you didn't need to be convinced, Prince” Yoochun smiled.
“I see you two are up to this already” Junsu's loud voice sounded through the empty room. Jaejoong and Yoochun both sighed deeply, nodding their heads at each other before turning around.
They saw Junsu, holding hands with a petite woman with one of the sunniest smiles they had ever seen.
“It's a good thing that I brought someone along or else I'd feel left out again”
“What...who...” Jaejoong stumbled.
“Who is that, Su-yah?” Yoochun translated.
“Guys, I wanted to introduce you to MinHee. Our parents set us up and...we ended up really liking each other”
“Parents set you up?” Jaejoong asked, staring with his mouth open.
“Yeah. They want us to get married”
Both Yoochun and Jaejoong were now staring openly.
“So...will you?” Yoochun asked.
The blush on MinHee's face was all the answer they needed.
2018
They received Junsu's wedding invitation in the mail.
“We can't change him now” Yoochun sighed. Jaejoong nodded, his head rested on the younger's shoulder.
“So let's work on making sure that our Su has the best life he can possibly live” Jaejoong said. Yoochun laughed, bittersweet, and hummed in agreement.
Junsu and MinHee's wedding was beautiful. Jaejoong had decorated the venue, making it exactly what Junsu and his family would want. A mix of modern and traditional and gorgeous. Yoochun had composed a whole CD full of songs, half which played as instrumentals during the ceremony itself and half which him and Jaejoong sang to the newly wed couple before sequestering a corner of the reception venue for themselves and endless bottles of soju.
Jaejoong was taking a sip out of his (or Yoochun's?) tenth bottle when Junsu and MinHee came up to them.
“Hyung, the place looks beautiful” he gushed. “Where did you get all those flower vases from? They look like they're actually from the Joseon era”
Jaejoong chuckled into the bottle.
“Thank you for being here” Junsu continued, “you two know that....”
“We know” Yoochun said easily. “We love you too”
MinHee looked at the two men, leaning over. “Junsu. He...told me about the two of you. I just want you to know that I'm totally okay with it”
“He told you we're vampires?” Jaejoong slurred. Yoochun kicked his leg under the table but Junsu just laughed it off.
“Hyung, you stopped looking like a vampire years ago” the maknae said.
Both Jaejoong and Yoochun couldn't stop laughing for hours.
2019
“Thank you all for being in our lives for this past year. It's been one of the happiest times of my life. MinHee-ah...happy one year anniversary” Junsu said, raising his glass to the blushing and pregnant lady sitting by his side.
“How long have we been together for?” Yoochun asked Jaejoong. The older man shrugged.
“I stopped counting after a thousand”
“Happy thousandth anniversary to you, Prince” Yoochun said, raising his champagne glass.
“Happy thousandth anniversary to you too, baby” Jaejoong grinned, clinking his glass against Yoochun's.
“Did I hear you say thousand?” Yihan asked from next to Jaejoong. “Are the two of you drunk already?”
“Not drunk enough, sweetie” Jaejoong answered giving Yihan one of his stunning smiles.
Yoochun downed the whole bottle of champagne in less than a minute.
2085
They both stood in front of the fresh grave, wearing matching black suits and holding hands. Jaejoong didn't want to read the tombstone. Not again. Never again. Once had been too much.
Junsu was gone. Along with Yoochun's adopted mom and Jaejoong's adopted parents and a handful of sisters. Vampires were the only magical creatures that were immortal and the two of them were just starting to realize what that meant now.
“Never again” Jaejoong said. There weren't anymore tears: he had cried all he could these past few years as they saw Junsu fall ill and deteriorate in front of their eyes. “We're never going to let anybody into our lives ever again. I can't handle this again”
“Just the two of us” Yoochun agreed.
“You better not leave me, Park Yoochun. I swear to god, if you ever....”
“What would I be able to do without you?” Yoochun asked. He looked over at the older man. “So where to now, Prince? China? America? Should we buy an island?”
Jaejoong smiled at the man's words.
“An island sounds nice, don't you think?”
Yoochun gripped onto the thumb of Jaejoong's left hand, both of them walking out of the graveyard, shedding years as they left.
They ended up naming a beach after Junsu and planting so many palm trees on it that they would never have to worry about buying coconuts for the rest of their lives.
Jaejoong stood on the balcony of their expansive beach house. He looked out over the island with a wistful smile. Yoochun came up beside him and slung an arm across his slim waist.
“You know, baby, being a vampire....”
Yoochun smiled into Jaejoong's shoulder. “Is not as interesting as I thought it would be”
A/N: This was for a request by Sherry to write a vampire fic. I know it wasn't very vampire-y. But that's because I kind of fail whenever it comes to supernatural or fantasy things. Nothing against them, they're just usually not my cup of tea. So instead, Jaejoong and Yoochun ended up becoming immortal creatures. Which life of theirs was your favorite? I'm sort of partial to them in the 1980s, but the thought of Joseon-era Jaejoong herding sheep and Yoochun spinning their wool also paints quite an amazing picture in my mind XD