A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
rating: pg
pairing: general, slight yunho/jaejoong
length: ~2100 wc
summary: when jaejoong found out he was adopted, it didn't take too much to console him. just the constancy of family and friends
Jaejoong’s eighth sister, the one he’s closest to, is the only one who visits their dorm when the news breaks. He’d told everyone else he’d see them later, just not now.
They sit together quietly at the small table in the kitchen, not knowing what to say to one another.
The other four boys linger at the other corners of the dorm, listening to the deafening silence.
His sister reaches across the table hesitantly and lightly sets her hand on top of Jaejoong’s.
“You have been more of a sibling to me than our two oldest sisters were. While I was growing up and they already had their own families to take care of it wasn’t them who kissed my finger when I cut it, it wasn’t them who held me when my first boyfriend wasn’t good to me and I cried, Jaejoong, it was you. You’re my brother and nothing will change that.”
Jaejoong looks up and his heart aches, his head splits with the pain of confusion.
“I love you, my precious brother.”
He breathes. “Of course I’m your brother. I am,” and he means it, but there’s still something in his voice, like he’s trying to convince himself. Yunho hears it and his grip on the doorknob he’s clenching tightens. “I love you, too,” Jaejoong tells his sister, and it’s the first time he’s sounded so sure of himself in days.
She allows herself a half smile, then gets up. She won’t push it any further for now. This is something he’ll have to deal with inside his own soul. But that doesn’t mean she can’t offer to be there.
For now, it’s a start. And she’ll count on the people Jaejoong lives with to help too.
As she’s walking out she catches Yoochun and Changmin and Junsu lingering in the shadows. She sends them a wordless glance, but her eyes say it all. Be there for him.
They nod solemnly and she walks out the door, intent on not being away for too long.
Adopted.
The word seems to hang in the air around every corner these days.
It can mean different things to everyone. Jaejoong understands that. He knows that there are some kids who have known they were adopted their whole life-who, when they grew up, felt ready to seek out their birth parents, or were so satisfied with their life as it was and felt no need whatsoever.
Less common were the children who never knew.
Children like Jaejoong.
Except he wasn’t a child anymore. He was an adult with responsibilities and his own life. And then this bombshell dropped and suddenly he didn’t really know what was real anymore.
Was he still Kim Jaejoong? Or was he Han Jaejoon?
Was he still Hero Jaejoong of Dong Bang Shin Ki to his fans?
Was he still the child, the brother, the friend he always thought he was?
He wasn’t sure anymore. He just didn’t know.
And he knew he was being ridiculous. How could years of experiences leading to who he was today be undone by one incident, by one word from a man he’d never met? Even if that man was his biological father, did it mean the past 20 years had never happened? That made no sense. But still, but still, Jaejoong felt unsure of himself.
The others didn’t know how to help him, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t try.
Junsu was sweet, dragging him inside from the balcony where Jaejoong would contemplate everything quietly, alone. Junsu would put on music in the living room and take Jaejoong’s hands and start dancing with him, spontaneous and not choreographed, never too fast. He’d twine their fingers together and push their arms back and forth and spin them around in circles, like children. Jaejoong would giggle and sway along, feeling something inside him warm up.
“Hyung, it’s fun to be with me, right?”
Jaejoong nods vigorously. “Of course it is.”
“You feel like you can be yourself around me, right?” Junsu asks, never stopping their childish dance.
“Y-yeah, of course, it’s just-” Jaejoong pauses, and his brows pull together in confusion.
Junsu frowns. “It’s just what?”
“It’s just-I don’t know what ‘being myself’ means anymore,” Jaejoong admits, and the back of his eyes sting.
Junsu stops dancing. He pulls Jaejoong in for a loose hug. “I know Jaejoong. It’s okay. You’re still you. And we’ll be here until you find yourself again. Not going anywhere.”
Changmin tries, too.
He tries by being himself. By not changing how he interacts with Jaejoong. By eating the food Jaejoong cooks and stealing the other members’ portions because he loves it so much and guarding his own plate jealously. It makes Jaejoong smile.
Changmin still hits Jaejoong when he feels like it. He usually feels like it when Jaejoong draws too far into himself, eyes downcast and dark and unreadable.
Punch.
“Ow, hey, what was that for,” Jaejoong demands, dull eyes glittering back to life.
“Um, where the fuck are you these days? It’s time for singing practice.”
Jaejoong had almost forgotten about the one-on-one vocal lessons he’d been giving Changmin recently. Or rather than lessons, they were just extra practice sessions Jaejoong had started by himself until Changmin had a sudden desire to improve as well and they thought it might be fun to train together.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah let’s go.”
“If you don’t feel like it…”
Jaejoong sighs. “I don’t feel like it honestly, but I don’t mind if we can do it together.”
Changmin smirks at that. “Then let’s get going, princess,” he says, voice full of snark, but when he takes Jaejoong’s hand in his, warm and large around Jaejoong’s, it’s all sweetness.
They sing together, reach high notes and harmonize and look into each other’s eyes, and Jaejoong can feel that connection between them. There’s something about Jaejoong’s voice, airy and versatile, that blends so well with Changmin’s-it’s almost like magic. Changmin feels it, too, and he blushes as Jaejoong leans closer and wraps an arm around his waist. Changmin rolls his eyes and hugs Jaejoong as they finish the note together in perfect harmony.
“You felt that, didn’t you,” he asks, voice slightly raspy from the training.
“Yeah.”
“Nothing’s changed, has it?”
“I guess not.”
Changmin rolls his eyes again. “What we feel when we sing together-it’s special. And it only happens when I’m with you. I wouldn’t feel it if you were someone else. Do you understand?”
Jaejoong sighs into the material of Changmin’s sweater. “I do.”
Changmin squeezes Jaejoong’s shoulder. “Good.”
Changmin can’t say the things the others might say. Things like “you’re still you, you’re always my Jaejoong-hyung,” so instead he traces lazy patters along Jaejoong’s back and holds him for a while longer before they head back.
Yoochun would still pull him into their music room, show him compositions he was working on and get Jaejoong to tweak it for him. It brought back a sense of normalcy, if only for a minute.
“Ah, that sounds much better, thanks hyung,” Yoochun would grin up at him and Jaejoong would smile back, then zone out again, eyes looking much further away than they had been in the first place.
Yoochun swallows around the lump in his throat and doesn’t give up.
Come back to us, he sings, and smile again.
By the time the song is done, it sounds exactly like something Jaejoong would compose. Somewhere along the way, Yoochun had sat back and watched as Jaejoong scratched out notes and wrote in new ones and even changed a few lyrics here and there. It was like watching a master.
When Yoochun played the end product, it was so characteristically Jaejoong that he couldn’t help but giggle.
“See?” he asks, the ends of his eyes crinkling with his smile, “it’s so you. Nothing’s changed. You’re still you.”
And Jaejoong hugs him, leans onto his shoulder because yeah, if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that music is an expression of who he is. It’s a physical manifestation of what is soul is made of.
And he’s still Jaejoong.
“Still my soulmate.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, a fraction of the weight lifted off his shoulders.
“Isn’t that what soulmates are, anyways?” Yoochun says, voice thickening like the crybaby he is. Jaejoong looks at him, biting back his laughter because Yoochun’s about-to-cry face was always so ugly. “No matter who you are, or where you’re from, we’re meant to be together, right?”
Jaejoong laughs loudly and nods. “Of course, Yoochun. I’m your soulmate.”
Yoochun wipes his sleeve across his runny nose and eyes like a child. “Good,” he huffs.
Yunho feels helpless at times like these, but he knows it’s not about him, it’s about Jaejoong. He tries. He tries so hard to bring Jaejoong back to them, but the more he tries the more he realizes that it’s not something he can solve.
All he can do is offer his support.
He hugs Jaejoong from behind one night, out on the balcony, where Jaejoong stands in the freezing air, watching the city lights around them.
Yunho presses his lips to Jaejoong’s neck and doesn’t say anything.
Jaejoong doesn’t say anything either, but he rests his hands atop Yunho’s and twists his neck to kiss the taller man’s lips.
“If I was raised in that other house, with those other parents, I wouldn’t have become who I am today.”
Yunho stays silent.
“If I hadn’t become who I am today, I wouldn’t be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Flawed.”
“Jaejoongie…”
“Look at me, Yunho. I’m possessive, jealous, narcissistic, and now I’m paranoid that people who are supposed to love me are going to abandon me all over again. I drink too much and I smoke too much even though I’m a goddamn singer. I try to be grateful for everything I have but I’m always tired and I keep thinking about how much life sucks.”
He sighs, but he doesn’t try to move out of Yunho’s arms.
“If my real parents raised me, maybe I’d be a better person.”
Yunho’s heart clenches with pain.
“You’re a wonderful person, Jaejoong.”
Silence.
“You care about us so much. You get us to talk about what’s on our mind even if we want to bottle it all up because you know it’s healthier to talk. You do things for us that make us feel like we have a reason to be worthy of all the love we receive. You care, Jaejoong, and that in itself makes you a good person.”
Yunho feels Jaejoong tremble. He doesn’t move to look at his face, because he knows Jaejoong hates it when people see his tears.
“If I was raised in that other house, would I have met you all? Would we…have fallen in love?”
Yunho surprises Jaejoong with soft laughter.
Jaejoong spins around, not caring that there are tears falling out of the corner of his eyes.
If it were another situation, another day, another temperature even, Yunho might have never said this. But the atmosphere is just right and Jaejoong is frail and perfect in his arms so he brushes the older boy’s hair back and kisses him.
“In any lifetime, in any situation, I would have found you, and I would have loved you with everything I am. You know why, Jaejoong?”
“Why?” he breathes, eyes glistening with the hope of hearing the words that will heal him.
“Because when we fell in love I realized this whole time I’d just been waiting for you. Not for anyone else, Jaejoong. Just you. I must have loved you in my past lives. I must have died without having loved you enough so we found each other again. And again. And I’ll always find you. And I’ll always love you-no matter who you are in any of those lives. It’s your soul that I see. Your beautiful, pure soul.”
Something snaps and Jaejoong lets go, cries freely.
“Thought you didn’t like crying in front of others,” Yunho murmurs, running his hand up and down Jaejoong’s back.
“It’s okay if it’s you,” Jaejoong says, and it heals them both a little bit.
A few weeks later, when they win the award, Jaejoong announces to the world the truth that broke his heart. He feels the hands of the people he loves grip him tightly and he knows he doesn’t have to be afraid.
And he’s not. Not anymore.
a/n: guys im sorry i dont know anymore i just wanted write/post something and now that 3/5 are enlisted none of them interact w/ each other anymore and i just miss how they were with each other rip in rip...
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leave me a prompt!
pairing: general, slight yunho/jaejoong
length: ~2100 wc
summary: when jaejoong found out he was adopted, it didn't take too much to console him. just the constancy of family and friends
Jaejoong’s eighth sister, the one he’s closest to, is the only one who visits their dorm when the news breaks. He’d told everyone else he’d see them later, just not now.
They sit together quietly at the small table in the kitchen, not knowing what to say to one another.
The other four boys linger at the other corners of the dorm, listening to the deafening silence.
His sister reaches across the table hesitantly and lightly sets her hand on top of Jaejoong’s.
“You have been more of a sibling to me than our two oldest sisters were. While I was growing up and they already had their own families to take care of it wasn’t them who kissed my finger when I cut it, it wasn’t them who held me when my first boyfriend wasn’t good to me and I cried, Jaejoong, it was you. You’re my brother and nothing will change that.”
Jaejoong looks up and his heart aches, his head splits with the pain of confusion.
“I love you, my precious brother.”
He breathes. “Of course I’m your brother. I am,” and he means it, but there’s still something in his voice, like he’s trying to convince himself. Yunho hears it and his grip on the doorknob he’s clenching tightens. “I love you, too,” Jaejoong tells his sister, and it’s the first time he’s sounded so sure of himself in days.
She allows herself a half smile, then gets up. She won’t push it any further for now. This is something he’ll have to deal with inside his own soul. But that doesn’t mean she can’t offer to be there.
For now, it’s a start. And she’ll count on the people Jaejoong lives with to help too.
As she’s walking out she catches Yoochun and Changmin and Junsu lingering in the shadows. She sends them a wordless glance, but her eyes say it all. Be there for him.
They nod solemnly and she walks out the door, intent on not being away for too long.
Adopted.
The word seems to hang in the air around every corner these days.
It can mean different things to everyone. Jaejoong understands that. He knows that there are some kids who have known they were adopted their whole life-who, when they grew up, felt ready to seek out their birth parents, or were so satisfied with their life as it was and felt no need whatsoever.
Less common were the children who never knew.
Children like Jaejoong.
Except he wasn’t a child anymore. He was an adult with responsibilities and his own life. And then this bombshell dropped and suddenly he didn’t really know what was real anymore.
Was he still Kim Jaejoong? Or was he Han Jaejoon?
Was he still Hero Jaejoong of Dong Bang Shin Ki to his fans?
Was he still the child, the brother, the friend he always thought he was?
He wasn’t sure anymore. He just didn’t know.
And he knew he was being ridiculous. How could years of experiences leading to who he was today be undone by one incident, by one word from a man he’d never met? Even if that man was his biological father, did it mean the past 20 years had never happened? That made no sense. But still, but still, Jaejoong felt unsure of himself.
The others didn’t know how to help him, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t try.
Junsu was sweet, dragging him inside from the balcony where Jaejoong would contemplate everything quietly, alone. Junsu would put on music in the living room and take Jaejoong’s hands and start dancing with him, spontaneous and not choreographed, never too fast. He’d twine their fingers together and push their arms back and forth and spin them around in circles, like children. Jaejoong would giggle and sway along, feeling something inside him warm up.
“Hyung, it’s fun to be with me, right?”
Jaejoong nods vigorously. “Of course it is.”
“You feel like you can be yourself around me, right?” Junsu asks, never stopping their childish dance.
“Y-yeah, of course, it’s just-” Jaejoong pauses, and his brows pull together in confusion.
Junsu frowns. “It’s just what?”
“It’s just-I don’t know what ‘being myself’ means anymore,” Jaejoong admits, and the back of his eyes sting.
Junsu stops dancing. He pulls Jaejoong in for a loose hug. “I know Jaejoong. It’s okay. You’re still you. And we’ll be here until you find yourself again. Not going anywhere.”
Changmin tries, too.
He tries by being himself. By not changing how he interacts with Jaejoong. By eating the food Jaejoong cooks and stealing the other members’ portions because he loves it so much and guarding his own plate jealously. It makes Jaejoong smile.
Changmin still hits Jaejoong when he feels like it. He usually feels like it when Jaejoong draws too far into himself, eyes downcast and dark and unreadable.
Punch.
“Ow, hey, what was that for,” Jaejoong demands, dull eyes glittering back to life.
“Um, where the fuck are you these days? It’s time for singing practice.”
Jaejoong had almost forgotten about the one-on-one vocal lessons he’d been giving Changmin recently. Or rather than lessons, they were just extra practice sessions Jaejoong had started by himself until Changmin had a sudden desire to improve as well and they thought it might be fun to train together.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah let’s go.”
“If you don’t feel like it…”
Jaejoong sighs. “I don’t feel like it honestly, but I don’t mind if we can do it together.”
Changmin smirks at that. “Then let’s get going, princess,” he says, voice full of snark, but when he takes Jaejoong’s hand in his, warm and large around Jaejoong’s, it’s all sweetness.
They sing together, reach high notes and harmonize and look into each other’s eyes, and Jaejoong can feel that connection between them. There’s something about Jaejoong’s voice, airy and versatile, that blends so well with Changmin’s-it’s almost like magic. Changmin feels it, too, and he blushes as Jaejoong leans closer and wraps an arm around his waist. Changmin rolls his eyes and hugs Jaejoong as they finish the note together in perfect harmony.
“You felt that, didn’t you,” he asks, voice slightly raspy from the training.
“Yeah.”
“Nothing’s changed, has it?”
“I guess not.”
Changmin rolls his eyes again. “What we feel when we sing together-it’s special. And it only happens when I’m with you. I wouldn’t feel it if you were someone else. Do you understand?”
Jaejoong sighs into the material of Changmin’s sweater. “I do.”
Changmin squeezes Jaejoong’s shoulder. “Good.”
Changmin can’t say the things the others might say. Things like “you’re still you, you’re always my Jaejoong-hyung,” so instead he traces lazy patters along Jaejoong’s back and holds him for a while longer before they head back.
Yoochun would still pull him into their music room, show him compositions he was working on and get Jaejoong to tweak it for him. It brought back a sense of normalcy, if only for a minute.
“Ah, that sounds much better, thanks hyung,” Yoochun would grin up at him and Jaejoong would smile back, then zone out again, eyes looking much further away than they had been in the first place.
Yoochun swallows around the lump in his throat and doesn’t give up.
Come back to us, he sings, and smile again.
By the time the song is done, it sounds exactly like something Jaejoong would compose. Somewhere along the way, Yoochun had sat back and watched as Jaejoong scratched out notes and wrote in new ones and even changed a few lyrics here and there. It was like watching a master.
When Yoochun played the end product, it was so characteristically Jaejoong that he couldn’t help but giggle.
“See?” he asks, the ends of his eyes crinkling with his smile, “it’s so you. Nothing’s changed. You’re still you.”
And Jaejoong hugs him, leans onto his shoulder because yeah, if there’s one thing he knows, it’s that music is an expression of who he is. It’s a physical manifestation of what is soul is made of.
And he’s still Jaejoong.
“Still my soulmate.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, a fraction of the weight lifted off his shoulders.
“Isn’t that what soulmates are, anyways?” Yoochun says, voice thickening like the crybaby he is. Jaejoong looks at him, biting back his laughter because Yoochun’s about-to-cry face was always so ugly. “No matter who you are, or where you’re from, we’re meant to be together, right?”
Jaejoong laughs loudly and nods. “Of course, Yoochun. I’m your soulmate.”
Yoochun wipes his sleeve across his runny nose and eyes like a child. “Good,” he huffs.
Yunho feels helpless at times like these, but he knows it’s not about him, it’s about Jaejoong. He tries. He tries so hard to bring Jaejoong back to them, but the more he tries the more he realizes that it’s not something he can solve.
All he can do is offer his support.
He hugs Jaejoong from behind one night, out on the balcony, where Jaejoong stands in the freezing air, watching the city lights around them.
Yunho presses his lips to Jaejoong’s neck and doesn’t say anything.
Jaejoong doesn’t say anything either, but he rests his hands atop Yunho’s and twists his neck to kiss the taller man’s lips.
“If I was raised in that other house, with those other parents, I wouldn’t have become who I am today.”
Yunho stays silent.
“If I hadn’t become who I am today, I wouldn’t be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Flawed.”
“Jaejoongie…”
“Look at me, Yunho. I’m possessive, jealous, narcissistic, and now I’m paranoid that people who are supposed to love me are going to abandon me all over again. I drink too much and I smoke too much even though I’m a goddamn singer. I try to be grateful for everything I have but I’m always tired and I keep thinking about how much life sucks.”
He sighs, but he doesn’t try to move out of Yunho’s arms.
“If my real parents raised me, maybe I’d be a better person.”
Yunho’s heart clenches with pain.
“You’re a wonderful person, Jaejoong.”
Silence.
“You care about us so much. You get us to talk about what’s on our mind even if we want to bottle it all up because you know it’s healthier to talk. You do things for us that make us feel like we have a reason to be worthy of all the love we receive. You care, Jaejoong, and that in itself makes you a good person.”
Yunho feels Jaejoong tremble. He doesn’t move to look at his face, because he knows Jaejoong hates it when people see his tears.
“If I was raised in that other house, would I have met you all? Would we…have fallen in love?”
Yunho surprises Jaejoong with soft laughter.
Jaejoong spins around, not caring that there are tears falling out of the corner of his eyes.
If it were another situation, another day, another temperature even, Yunho might have never said this. But the atmosphere is just right and Jaejoong is frail and perfect in his arms so he brushes the older boy’s hair back and kisses him.
“In any lifetime, in any situation, I would have found you, and I would have loved you with everything I am. You know why, Jaejoong?”
“Why?” he breathes, eyes glistening with the hope of hearing the words that will heal him.
“Because when we fell in love I realized this whole time I’d just been waiting for you. Not for anyone else, Jaejoong. Just you. I must have loved you in my past lives. I must have died without having loved you enough so we found each other again. And again. And I’ll always find you. And I’ll always love you-no matter who you are in any of those lives. It’s your soul that I see. Your beautiful, pure soul.”
Something snaps and Jaejoong lets go, cries freely.
“Thought you didn’t like crying in front of others,” Yunho murmurs, running his hand up and down Jaejoong’s back.
“It’s okay if it’s you,” Jaejoong says, and it heals them both a little bit.
A few weeks later, when they win the award, Jaejoong announces to the world the truth that broke his heart. He feels the hands of the people he loves grip him tightly and he knows he doesn’t have to be afraid.
And he’s not. Not anymore.
a/n: guys im sorry i dont know anymore i just wanted write/post something and now that 3/5 are enlisted none of them interact w/ each other anymore and i just miss how they were with each other rip in rip...
be my friend! twitter | k-pop tumblr | ask.fm
leave me a prompt!