Falling from the Sky [Part 2]
[Part 2]
The next morning, Junsu walked to school thinking too much again.
The night had been a long one, yet the alarm came on too soon. Junsu awoke with such a heavy, exhausted feeling, he had almost forgotten the events of last night. His first thought when he had sat up in his bed was, Why am I alone? But he couldn’t figure out for the life of him why he expected to see anyone in his room first thing in the morning til the 11th buzz of the alarm clock.
Restaurant, drunk celebrity passes out into lap, drunk celebrity forced in his house, drunk celebrity hiding from Mom, drunk celebrity sleeping in bed. The drunk celebrity was gone. Junsu was always too tired to think too hard about anything when he first woke up in the morning, so he figured if the police weren’t surrounding the apartment, his mom had left for work before Micky had snuck out.
Junsu shook the sleep out of his head and turned into the gates of the school campus. Because of last night’s distraction, he didn’t have time to practice Algebra III concepts at home. His goal was to be able to perform any function introduced in the first six chapters of his textbook from memory. He was only up to Chapter 3 so far.
Let’s see. If f(x) = 32, then-
“Junsu!”
Suddenly a very tall teenaged boy pounced on his back interrupting his thought. Changmin ruffled his hair playfully as Junsu tried to straighten out again, then did it again and again, and the sequence played out for quite a while as the two friends walked through the school courtyard.
“Okay, okay. Stop!” Junsu laughed lightly and rearranged his brown hair for the final time.
Changmin’s smile waned a bit as he studied Junsu’s face for a bit until Junsu looked back up at him questioningly.
“You look normal. Why?”
“Huh?” Junsu was already tired of playing this game.
“Last night? Hellooo?” Changmin blushed slightly and looked away. “Sorry about leaving you with…that guy. I know it must have been stressful on you. But I knew my parents were already home and Yunho has been getting in enough trouble with his parents for staying out too late recently. He can’t get caught with a drunk super star in his room. And I mean, we couldn’t just leave the poor guy.”
“Ah, it’s okay. My mom didn’t even come home til after I hid him,” Junsu forced a laugh.
“So, did you take Micky to a hotel?”
“Umm, yeah,” It was Junsu’s turn to blush and look away.
Suddenly, Changmin started to chuckle. “That sounded wrong. ‘Did you take Micky to a hotel?’”
Junsu shoved his friend and kicked him lightly behind the knee. “Stop downloading porn, you perv.”
Changmin finished laughing and rejoined the elder’s steady stride. “So, you know what I said before? About Yunho?”
“Uh-huh,” Junsu’s mind began wandering back to Algebra III.
“I heard from his little sister that he has been staying out incredibly late every day for the past 3 weeks.”
“…Sorry,” Junsu ducked his head from guilt. He knew he had been pushing his study sessions a bit too late.
Changmin waved dismissively. “No, no. It’s not you, Junsu. We usually get done before 9 at least. Yesterday was a bit unique though. Up at 11PM memorizing the periodic table….” Changmin continued hastily before Junsu could coat himself in another layer of guilt. “But Yunho hasn’t been coming home til about 3 in the morning. Isn’t that strange?”
Junsu’s head perked up. “3AM? What’s he doing?”
Changmin shrugged. “Dunno. He hasn’t told anyone anything. I’m kinda worried.”
“Well, he’s a good kid. He wouldn’t be doing anything illegal, right?” Junsu reasoned while turning to walk through the front doors of the school. But Changmin was continuing in another direction.
“Hey, where are you going? Class starts in ten minutes.”
Changmin gave Junsu a confused look, which then melted to a faint smile of sympathy. “Junsu, the school’s cultural festival is today. No classes. Just socialize with the community. How did you forget? Come on.”
As Changmin grabbed his wrist and dragged him over towards the north side of the school campus, it dawned on Junsu that this was one less day that he had to seriously study for his college entrance exams. His future was in jeopardy and now he had to waste his time on “community unity?” Life was not fair for the ambitious.
*
Of course Changmin wanted to hit the food stalls outside first. It seemed like Junsu was dragged to sample each and every one of them sprinkled on the lawn. It was already torture for Junsu to watch his friend get carried away in calorie heaven, but Changmin coerced him into trying everything as well. Junsu could have sworn the takoyaki on a stick shoved in his mouth after fervent useless protesting had carved a bleeding gash in the back of his throat.
Soon after, Changmin decided to check out the cafes set in classrooms inside. By the time Changmin had set foot through the door of a café with complementary waitresses dressed as cartoon characters, with Junsu reluctantly in tow, Yunho and Donghae had come bursting through the hallways excited and out of breath.
“We’ve been looking all over for you,” Donghae heaved with his hands on his knees.
“We even checked all food stalls outside and asked if they’d seen a tall fellow with a stomach the size of a planet with a shorter, passively uncooperative shorter guy tagging along,” Yunho eyed Changmin breathlessly. “The very last one said to come inside.”
Junsu looked to his two saviors and silently thanked the gods for this diversion. “So…why are you guys dying right now?”
Yunho hiccupped, but continued after another gulp of air. “Go to the auditorium. We heard someone famous is going to perform.”
Changmin’s face lit up. “Another celebrity?”
“Another?” Donghae eyed him curiously.
“Yeah!” Yunho continued excitedly. “I heard someone from our school has connections and got Bi to come and sing. Man, he’s my idol.”
“No! I heard it was Boa,” Donghae interjected. “I can’t wait to hear ‘Key of Heart.’”
“No way, man! Boa is in America right now,” Yunho argued.
“Well, are you sure you heard it was Bi?”
“Well, it could’ve been Seungri…” Yunho scratched his head.
“How about we just go before all the seats are taken,” Junsu interposed. Anything to stop eating.
The four friends agreed that that was the best idea all day and dashed to the auditorium before Changmin could request a takeout box.
The entrance of the auditorium was already packed by the time they got there. Disappointment hovered on the friends’ faces, but Yunho turned to the others with determination. “Follow me closely. I’ll get us to the front.” He grabbed Junsu’s hand while the others also linked up, forming a train and Yunho pressed his way to through the mob.
Junsu fought between thoughts of letting go of Yunho’s hand to just get the heck out of there and hanging on til it was all over. There were people jostling on all sides of him and the only available oxygen was hot and littered with sweat. He gripped Yunho’s hand harder and clutched Changmin’s hand tighter behind him and continued on. He felt safe with these two on either side of him.
“Ha! I’m awesome! Follow me, you guys, and you’ll go places,” Yunho congratulated himself as the four were thrust from the crowd and into the cool auditorium. They found seats in the front dead center and made themselves comfortable.
A few minutes passed and the auditorium had filled up and there were even people standing in the back in anticipation of a rare celebrity sighting. The lights dimmed and a spotlight illuminated a female student in the center of the stage who looked more excited to be there than anyone in the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she beamed. “Thanks to yours truly, I would like to introduce the soul of East Asia. Please give a very, very warm welcome for my cousin…Micky!”
If Junsu hadn’t been so completely dumbstruck, he could’ve almost heard a collective gasp from the audience as the name was announced before a thunder of applause. Looked like everyone else was as confused as to who the guest would be as Junsu, Changmin, and Yunho were to see him in person for the second time in a row.
Donghae clapped eagerly and glanced over at the three who, unlike everyone else in the room, were not clapping. In fact, that just sat there, stone cold, with their mouths hung open unattractively.
The opening bars to “Dangerous Mind” flooded the speakers as a new spotlight centered on the star of the show. Sure enough, it was the same Micky singing live and dancing with grace, completely unlike the drunken mess from before.
Blood pounded in Junsu’s ears, drowning out the music and the audience. The man in front of him had just left his bed and his room from his apartment to come to his school’s auditorium and perform. Surreal now had a new meaning to him.
The song soon ended and the audience erupted into applause and cheers. “How are you guys today?” Yoochun’s smooth voice poured through the microphone and his smile rivaled the stage lights surrounding him. After another spell of clapping and whistles, he continued. “Sorry this meeting is so short, but I’m gonna sing one more song before I leave.”
Another resounding applause shook the auditorium. Yoochun’s eyes scanned through all the thrilled screaming faces of his fans, but stopped on a peculiar sight.
Someone was not clapping.
Or moving at all, for that matter. Dead center in the front row were three motionless students just ogling the stage lifelessly. Yoochun’s gaze fixed on the brown-headed kid in the middle and almost failed to hear the first notes of “Rising Sun” echo across the stage. It couldn’t be that same kid. Right?
In his moment of recognition, Yoochun had successfully failed to miss the first dance step and simply locked eyes with his new found acquaintance. He could see Jaejoong flailing his arms wildly in the corner of his eye off stage.
Suddenly, Yoochun turned off stage and signaled for the music to stop. In an awkward silence filled with confused whispers of the audience, Yoochun ignored Jaejoong’s homicidal glare and mouthed, Switch to track 8!
Smiling as if nothing happened, he turned back to the audience. “Sorry again, guys. I just want to sing a different song for you if that’s alright.”
The spectators did not discriminate and cheered him on in, if possible, even more vigor and anticipation.
A succession of heartbeats pulsed through the speakers and it was not Yoochun’s own. He looked directly down into the shell-shocked eyes of a certain brown headed kid and sang the first lines of “Hug.”
“I want to be your bed in your room for one day. Oh, baby.”
It took every ounce of will power Junsu possessed to keep from throwing up, exploding, blushing til his ears leaked blood, suffocating, or breaking eye contact with the man in front him. He didn’t think his heart could take letting any of those things happen in this moment.