Just Friends
1989 words
for once, not-mini-epic! fic
and it appears that I do have a sense of humour
Yoochun has known Yunho for a long time, long enough to trust him to be all the things he should be. Yunho’s supposed to be his horror movie buddy, and they’re supposed to hide behind each other during the bits when the blonde girl gets her legs hacked off so that they end up squashed so tight into the couch cushions that it’s a challenge to detangle afterward. Yunho tells Yoochun to come home early and not sleep late, tries to stop him from slowly killing himself.
Yunho is not supposed to scare him. Yoochun is not supposed to be scared of Yunho. But it’s a little hard not to be when his (male and supposed to be very morally upstanding) friend starts staring at him with goat’s eyes at every possible opportunity.
+
It’s the witching hour of a Sunday morning. The sky outside the windows is pitch black and Yoochun remembers that when he was really young, he’d be terrified when he woke up in the middle of the night and needing to go to the bathroom. The passageway from his bedroom to the bathroom was long and dark and treacherous, crawling with shadows and silent but for the slow ticking of a wall clock. But it’s a fear he’s gotten over for a long time. Now he’s grown up and finds that an empty flat the best place to do his thinking.
He sits at the dining table, under the glow of his desk lamp. The light comes down in a yellow cone, and at this time it gains a special intensity that makes Yoochun just feel like writing. In fact, he already has a nice melody all penned out on manuscript paper, all he needs are the lyrics to make it a song.
So Yoochun taps his pencil against the wooden table edge and lets his eyes wander into the city beyond the window opposite. The melody plays in his head, a more diffuse vision of itself. He thinks it’s a love song. Heck, all he writes are love songs, but this will be the best yet. It’s poetic, it has sensitivity and … maturity. Like, it’s balanced, no one note bewailing a breakup or happy sappy new girlfriend.
He smiles and the mood seeps into his mind as if by magic. Then he lowers pencil to paper, letting the newly sharpened tip brush against the white surface with just enough pressure to leave a mark.
It sheds a shy solemnity,
This lamp in our poor room.
O grey and gold amenity, --
Silence and gentle gloom!
Wide from the world, a stolen hour
We claim, and none may know
How love blooms like a tardy flower
Here in the day's after-glow.
Nice and simple, yet atmospheric. Now it’s time to go into how love blooms. Yoochun pauses and straightens his back, savouring the moment. This song’s going to be the best ever-if he’s lucky he might just make a quantum leap and write like this all the time … and he’s always wanted to detail … that sort of thing. Today it’ll be like a Rembrandt, maybe tomorrow it’ll be more weirdly erotic, like a Yoshitoshi. He closes his eyes and leans his head on his hand.
How to make it not-so-obvious but sensual at the same time? It would be ghastly if the censors pounced on his magnum opus because he said something about hair. And he finds too-blatant use of “breasts” and “fuck” and the other word for “cat” just downright distasteful. This is art, man. So Yoochun thinks a bit more, what else does he like about a woman?
Eyes. Yes, eyes it is.
All his past girlfriends had nice eyes. His first kiss had the most adorable and virginal way of shutting her eyes so tight that they seemed to disappear between her eyebrows and her cheekbones. Then the one in America had the most delicious folds of fat on her lower lids. As for Gahee … just so beautiful all over, he couldn’t really recall what her eyes looked like. More like legs or abs. But he couldn’t write a song about that.
But … whose eyes is it he sees now through his inward eye? Whose weird knife-like gaze does he feel? It’s curious, how he can’t exactly match the eyes to a name. They’re unfeminine and angular, nearly no eyelashes and the double-lids are folded in so deep that they look like two swift strokes carved on a Jack-O-Lantern.
Oh god. No. Not now.
Yoochun opens his eyes and breathes in deeply in a bid to drive the image away. He can’t work with those eyes staring at him like that.
Then, from behind him comes a noise. It’s the creak of a door and footsteps on the hard tiled floor.
“Yoochun, how is it that you’re not asleep yet?”
Oh, speak of the devil. It’s Yunho. The low, nasal voice is laced with familiar concern and slight sleepiness. But now he’s not sure if he can take it for what it is.
“Why are you awake? Can’t sleep?” He tries to sound similarly caring although he’s actually really annoyed. Really, sometime he’d just like to be let alone to do his own thing.
“I just suddenly woke up and couldn’t go to sleep again. You know, Changmin likes to sleep with the thermostat turned down really low.”
Now Yoochun can feel Yunho standing right behind him. What if he’s peering over his shoulder at his work? So he turns around in his chair.
“You can just go back, turn the temperature up again, he won’t notice.” Yoochun looks up and tries to school his features into an expression of the utmost sincerity. He tries to decipher Yunho’s expression, but his face is completely hidden in the dark.
“Yoochun,” the other man sets a hand on his shoulder. Yoochun is shocked for a moment, Yunho has such large hands … heavy too. Just imagine what they could do if the fancy ever struck him-but he wouldn’t. He’s Yunho. The guy’s had crushes before but he hasn’t ever done anything, right? Right?
“Yoochun, I can turn the thermostat up, but I don’t really want to go to sleep. Now I’ve got you alone,” he pauses and pulls up a chair to sit facing Yoochun.
Their knees are touching.
“I want to tell you something.” He looks Yoochun right in the eyes and there seems to be no way to tear away from his gaze. His eyes are small but piercing, and it gives Yoochun the most unpleasant feeling of having his mind read.
“I’ll be very honest, because people I love deserve the truth. I like you.”
Yunho’s hand is now squeezing his left kneecap, the gesture is most probably meant to be reassuring and affectionate, but it feels too warm. Too close. And when Yoochun hears the words, it seems for a moment like the world has ground to a halt on its axis, floating completely immobile in a black and empty universe. He wants to scream and wake up the whole house, wake up the entire apartment block and send them running into the dining room, but he resists the urge to do so. Yunho is his friend. He should … love him.
So after an uncomfortable fifteen tick tocks of the wall clock, Yoochun finally quiets the hammering in his heart and gives the old lie in a shaky voice.
“Yunho, I like you too. And I wish we could be together because you’re just so good. But we can only be friends because-“ Yoochun catches himself just in time. Because I don’t want you that way.
But Yunho obviously knows the lines too, because the hand around his knee is as tight as a vice; Yoochun is beginning to feel fingernails, a worrying sign. So he puts his hands on top of Yunho’s.
“No, no, please. We can be friends. Pleaseletgoithurts.”
“No, we can’t be friends. I’ve wanted--I've needed you for the longest time. You’ll like it.”
Yoochun’s knee is finally freed, but at the expense of his wrists. Yunho holds Yoochun’s hands above his head, pushes them as far back as the joints allow.
“Trust me, I’m just doing what’s good for us.”
Yunho leans into the lamp’s golden cone of light. His features are sharp and harsh like a winter wolf’s and his eyes are burning a hole in Yoochun’s forehead. Although Yoochun’s blood is thick with fear, a sudden burst of heat sears through the numbness that fills him and it’s just unbearably wrong how he heats up as Yunho uses his free hand to pull the elastic waistband of his pants down.
“Damn. How do we do this on a chair?” Yunho’s eyes are focusing on the action below Yoochun’s waist and his lips shine red as roses when they are pushed out in a secret smile.
“Or … say we do it on the floor? Much easier to clean up.”
Yoochun shudders and blinks and then they’re on the floor and the chair’s lying on it’s side. Yunho is still gripping both his hands so that he can't fight back and the full weight of Yunho's body sprawled over his own is pressing his ribcage to the tiles. Yunho’s calluses scratch their way all over his hips and the insides of his thighs until his fingers finally close roughly around him.
“It’ll be good for you.” A dark whisper against his ear. It makes his hair stand on end while his skin tingles in anticipation. The feeling, the want, is just so wrong. How could he possibly want this? And how inappropriate was it, really, to be so filled up with lust for the devilishly handsome friend who’s on top of him and about to screw him so hard he won’t be able to sit for a week? And which shelter offered counseling for r____ (Yoochun please don’t go there) victims who aren’t women anyway?
And did he say handsome? Fuck. Handsome? Handsome! Then his pants are tugged off completely and the floor below him is freezing and Yunho pressing down on him is hot, so hot. Oh god, yes. Only a thin layer of cloth separates them and Yoochun just knows that once that comes off, they'll melt into each other. Something inside him wants it so badly he thinks his lungs will burst.
Yunho starts to jerk him off, and there are teeth pressing into his neck and he can’t move and can’t breathe. Then the weight on top of him shifts and Yunho's fingering him, stretching and pushing in and really not gentle at all, it's painful but Yoochun feels a strong and disgusting desire to be taken. It’s a terrifying feeling, Yoochun can’t quite comprehend what’s about to happen to him, it’s just the sensation of teetering at the edge of something horrid. And the fact that it’s Yunho of all people. It doesn’t make sense, reality would have to fall apart before this day. But obviously that hasn’t happened.
Yunho presses against him again and growls into his ear and he’s filled with revulsion, but he’s not sure of whom.
“Just fucking get it over and done with then.” Yoochun finally manages this through gritted teeth.
“So I will.” Then they’re both naked against each other and Yoochun shuts his eyes for the fall.
He lands in the grey-black. Moonlight creeps across damp sheets and a wetness pools between his legs. He can’t-doesn’t want to move just yet, so he lies and breathes and looks around, then he sits up and shakes the sheets out. No one there. He touches himself and realizes he still has his pants on.
A dream.
He’s ready to let himself relax and drop off to sleep again, but the eyes surface out of his dreams and he feels his face burn in the dark.
I like comments.
And Yoochun's supposed song lyrics come from a poem by Hart Crane, Interior.
for once, not-mini-epic! fic
and it appears that I do have a sense of humour
Yoochun has known Yunho for a long time, long enough to trust him to be all the things he should be. Yunho’s supposed to be his horror movie buddy, and they’re supposed to hide behind each other during the bits when the blonde girl gets her legs hacked off so that they end up squashed so tight into the couch cushions that it’s a challenge to detangle afterward. Yunho tells Yoochun to come home early and not sleep late, tries to stop him from slowly killing himself.
Yunho is not supposed to scare him. Yoochun is not supposed to be scared of Yunho. But it’s a little hard not to be when his (male and supposed to be very morally upstanding) friend starts staring at him with goat’s eyes at every possible opportunity.
+
It’s the witching hour of a Sunday morning. The sky outside the windows is pitch black and Yoochun remembers that when he was really young, he’d be terrified when he woke up in the middle of the night and needing to go to the bathroom. The passageway from his bedroom to the bathroom was long and dark and treacherous, crawling with shadows and silent but for the slow ticking of a wall clock. But it’s a fear he’s gotten over for a long time. Now he’s grown up and finds that an empty flat the best place to do his thinking.
He sits at the dining table, under the glow of his desk lamp. The light comes down in a yellow cone, and at this time it gains a special intensity that makes Yoochun just feel like writing. In fact, he already has a nice melody all penned out on manuscript paper, all he needs are the lyrics to make it a song.
So Yoochun taps his pencil against the wooden table edge and lets his eyes wander into the city beyond the window opposite. The melody plays in his head, a more diffuse vision of itself. He thinks it’s a love song. Heck, all he writes are love songs, but this will be the best yet. It’s poetic, it has sensitivity and … maturity. Like, it’s balanced, no one note bewailing a breakup or happy sappy new girlfriend.
He smiles and the mood seeps into his mind as if by magic. Then he lowers pencil to paper, letting the newly sharpened tip brush against the white surface with just enough pressure to leave a mark.
It sheds a shy solemnity,
This lamp in our poor room.
O grey and gold amenity, --
Silence and gentle gloom!
Wide from the world, a stolen hour
We claim, and none may know
How love blooms like a tardy flower
Here in the day's after-glow.
Nice and simple, yet atmospheric. Now it’s time to go into how love blooms. Yoochun pauses and straightens his back, savouring the moment. This song’s going to be the best ever-if he’s lucky he might just make a quantum leap and write like this all the time … and he’s always wanted to detail … that sort of thing. Today it’ll be like a Rembrandt, maybe tomorrow it’ll be more weirdly erotic, like a Yoshitoshi. He closes his eyes and leans his head on his hand.
How to make it not-so-obvious but sensual at the same time? It would be ghastly if the censors pounced on his magnum opus because he said something about hair. And he finds too-blatant use of “breasts” and “fuck” and the other word for “cat” just downright distasteful. This is art, man. So Yoochun thinks a bit more, what else does he like about a woman?
Eyes. Yes, eyes it is.
All his past girlfriends had nice eyes. His first kiss had the most adorable and virginal way of shutting her eyes so tight that they seemed to disappear between her eyebrows and her cheekbones. Then the one in America had the most delicious folds of fat on her lower lids. As for Gahee … just so beautiful all over, he couldn’t really recall what her eyes looked like. More like legs or abs. But he couldn’t write a song about that.
But … whose eyes is it he sees now through his inward eye? Whose weird knife-like gaze does he feel? It’s curious, how he can’t exactly match the eyes to a name. They’re unfeminine and angular, nearly no eyelashes and the double-lids are folded in so deep that they look like two swift strokes carved on a Jack-O-Lantern.
Oh god. No. Not now.
Yoochun opens his eyes and breathes in deeply in a bid to drive the image away. He can’t work with those eyes staring at him like that.
Then, from behind him comes a noise. It’s the creak of a door and footsteps on the hard tiled floor.
“Yoochun, how is it that you’re not asleep yet?”
Oh, speak of the devil. It’s Yunho. The low, nasal voice is laced with familiar concern and slight sleepiness. But now he’s not sure if he can take it for what it is.
“Why are you awake? Can’t sleep?” He tries to sound similarly caring although he’s actually really annoyed. Really, sometime he’d just like to be let alone to do his own thing.
“I just suddenly woke up and couldn’t go to sleep again. You know, Changmin likes to sleep with the thermostat turned down really low.”
Now Yoochun can feel Yunho standing right behind him. What if he’s peering over his shoulder at his work? So he turns around in his chair.
“You can just go back, turn the temperature up again, he won’t notice.” Yoochun looks up and tries to school his features into an expression of the utmost sincerity. He tries to decipher Yunho’s expression, but his face is completely hidden in the dark.
“Yoochun,” the other man sets a hand on his shoulder. Yoochun is shocked for a moment, Yunho has such large hands … heavy too. Just imagine what they could do if the fancy ever struck him-but he wouldn’t. He’s Yunho. The guy’s had crushes before but he hasn’t ever done anything, right? Right?
“Yoochun, I can turn the thermostat up, but I don’t really want to go to sleep. Now I’ve got you alone,” he pauses and pulls up a chair to sit facing Yoochun.
Their knees are touching.
“I want to tell you something.” He looks Yoochun right in the eyes and there seems to be no way to tear away from his gaze. His eyes are small but piercing, and it gives Yoochun the most unpleasant feeling of having his mind read.
“I’ll be very honest, because people I love deserve the truth. I like you.”
Yunho’s hand is now squeezing his left kneecap, the gesture is most probably meant to be reassuring and affectionate, but it feels too warm. Too close. And when Yoochun hears the words, it seems for a moment like the world has ground to a halt on its axis, floating completely immobile in a black and empty universe. He wants to scream and wake up the whole house, wake up the entire apartment block and send them running into the dining room, but he resists the urge to do so. Yunho is his friend. He should … love him.
So after an uncomfortable fifteen tick tocks of the wall clock, Yoochun finally quiets the hammering in his heart and gives the old lie in a shaky voice.
“Yunho, I like you too. And I wish we could be together because you’re just so good. But we can only be friends because-“ Yoochun catches himself just in time. Because I don’t want you that way.
But Yunho obviously knows the lines too, because the hand around his knee is as tight as a vice; Yoochun is beginning to feel fingernails, a worrying sign. So he puts his hands on top of Yunho’s.
“No, no, please. We can be friends. Pleaseletgoithurts.”
“No, we can’t be friends. I’ve wanted--I've needed you for the longest time. You’ll like it.”
Yoochun’s knee is finally freed, but at the expense of his wrists. Yunho holds Yoochun’s hands above his head, pushes them as far back as the joints allow.
“Trust me, I’m just doing what’s good for us.”
Yunho leans into the lamp’s golden cone of light. His features are sharp and harsh like a winter wolf’s and his eyes are burning a hole in Yoochun’s forehead. Although Yoochun’s blood is thick with fear, a sudden burst of heat sears through the numbness that fills him and it’s just unbearably wrong how he heats up as Yunho uses his free hand to pull the elastic waistband of his pants down.
“Damn. How do we do this on a chair?” Yunho’s eyes are focusing on the action below Yoochun’s waist and his lips shine red as roses when they are pushed out in a secret smile.
“Or … say we do it on the floor? Much easier to clean up.”
Yoochun shudders and blinks and then they’re on the floor and the chair’s lying on it’s side. Yunho is still gripping both his hands so that he can't fight back and the full weight of Yunho's body sprawled over his own is pressing his ribcage to the tiles. Yunho’s calluses scratch their way all over his hips and the insides of his thighs until his fingers finally close roughly around him.
“It’ll be good for you.” A dark whisper against his ear. It makes his hair stand on end while his skin tingles in anticipation. The feeling, the want, is just so wrong. How could he possibly want this? And how inappropriate was it, really, to be so filled up with lust for the devilishly handsome friend who’s on top of him and about to screw him so hard he won’t be able to sit for a week? And which shelter offered counseling for r____ (Yoochun please don’t go there) victims who aren’t women anyway?
And did he say handsome? Fuck. Handsome? Handsome! Then his pants are tugged off completely and the floor below him is freezing and Yunho pressing down on him is hot, so hot. Oh god, yes. Only a thin layer of cloth separates them and Yoochun just knows that once that comes off, they'll melt into each other. Something inside him wants it so badly he thinks his lungs will burst.
Yunho starts to jerk him off, and there are teeth pressing into his neck and he can’t move and can’t breathe. Then the weight on top of him shifts and Yunho's fingering him, stretching and pushing in and really not gentle at all, it's painful but Yoochun feels a strong and disgusting desire to be taken. It’s a terrifying feeling, Yoochun can’t quite comprehend what’s about to happen to him, it’s just the sensation of teetering at the edge of something horrid. And the fact that it’s Yunho of all people. It doesn’t make sense, reality would have to fall apart before this day. But obviously that hasn’t happened.
Yunho presses against him again and growls into his ear and he’s filled with revulsion, but he’s not sure of whom.
“Just fucking get it over and done with then.” Yoochun finally manages this through gritted teeth.
“So I will.” Then they’re both naked against each other and Yoochun shuts his eyes for the fall.
He lands in the grey-black. Moonlight creeps across damp sheets and a wetness pools between his legs. He can’t-doesn’t want to move just yet, so he lies and breathes and looks around, then he sits up and shakes the sheets out. No one there. He touches himself and realizes he still has his pants on.
A dream.
He’s ready to let himself relax and drop off to sleep again, but the eyes surface out of his dreams and he feels his face burn in the dark.
I like comments.
And Yoochun's supposed song lyrics come from a poem by Hart Crane, Interior.