fic: The Long Exile {chapter 6/?}
Title: The Long Exile
Length: Chaptered, Chapter 6/?
Author: M_K Yujji
Rating: PG, likely to go up eventually
Genre: Drama/Angst/Fantasy
Disclaimer: Though real people are used as characters, this fic bears no resemblance to Real Life and these people are not owned by me.
Notes: Inspired by the Tri-Angle PV. Though there will be a loose resemblance to various mythical/religious figures and places, it's not really intentional.
As always, the 'ie' is a cutsey shortening, not an intended honorific, though I suppose it fits as either here. The only real purpose for using any honorifics at all in this fic is to separate the AU side of the story from the more reality-based side. Also, to separate the paralleling differences between the characters.
Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
“So.”
Jaejoong looked up from his book to find Yoochun's face hovering only inches away. He rolled his eyes and shoved the younger man away. “So what?”
“So tell me all about it.”
“Tell you all about what?” he asked, pretending to go back to reading his book to dodge the questions he'd been expecting for days. Honestly, he was kind of proud of Yoochun's restraint.
“Jaejoo~oong,” Chun whined. “Am I not your bestest best friend in the whole wide world?”
“Not when you're whining at me.”
He couldn't suppress his grin at the pout that garnered.
“That hurts, hyung. That really hurts.” Yoochun collapsed in a heap across Jaejoong's bed. Then he rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow to stare at Jaejoong expectantly. “Seriously though. Are you going to tell me or do I have to tickle it out of you?”
Jae's arms came down instinctively to protect his sides from the threat. “Don't you dare.”
Yoochun's smile was wicked and he flexed his fingers near Jaejoong's foot. “All you have to do is start talking, Jae...”
Maybe if he hadn't wanted someone to talk to about the entire situation, he might called Yoochun's bluff. The truth was, though, that he was almost desperate for a sympathetic ear. The only other of his band mates he might have been willing to have such personal talks with was Yunho, but that was impossible. It wasn't like he could talk to Yunho about Yunho.
He hopped up off the bed and went to check the hallway. The sounds of Junsu and Yunho playing video games was hard to miss and though he didn't hear Changmin, when he'd headed for his own room earlier, the youngest had been sitting in the kitchen eating soup and working on his Japanese. Experience told him that it was unlikely that Changmin would move until either the soup ran out or someone forced him to go to bed.
Sure that no one would accidently wander by and eavesdrop, Jaejoong shut the door and locked it before returning to the bed.
The younger man still lay carelessly on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he waited.
Jaejoong fell heavily beside him and curled close, sighing. “What do you want to know, exactly?”
“When did you and Yunho hyung start dating?”
Burying his face against his friends shoulder, Jaejoong cursed the blush he knew was staining his cheeks. “We're not dating.”
“Please. You don't have to lie, Jaejoong. You guys have been crazy for each other as long as I've known you. I know it. Changmin knows it. Hell, even Junsu knows it.” Yoochun sighed and began petting his hair absently. “We've just been waiting for you guys to actually tell us.”
“I'm not lying, Chunnie... We're not... We've never... It's never even come up until last week.”
“Never?” Yoochun sounded truly baffled about it. “But you guys seriously act like you're a couple. Even the fans can see it.”
“JaeHo?” Jaejoong said, a sardonic lilt to his voice as he rolled his eyes. “HoMin? YooSu? MinSu? Any of those ring a bell?”
Then he yelped at the sharp tug on his hair. “I'm not even talking about the fanservice, hyung.”
“Pull my hair again and I'll shave off what little you have left and dye your scalp maroon.”
Though Yoochun pouted, the hand in his hair went from tugging to petting. “I meant that you guys have this... this... vibe. Like... You're two halves of the same whole... or something. Even when you're fighting, you still ... feel like you're together. We never worry that one of your fights is going to mess with the band no matter how nasty it gets because we know you'll make up eventually.”
“...” Jaejoong wasn't sure what to say to that. Truthfully, he could think of dozens of times when he'd been so mad at Yunho he'd thought he'd happily never speak to the man again and he was sure the same was true for the other. Jaejoong made Yunho's job as leader harder than it probably had to be. Yunho was forever apologizing to the management for Jaejoong and taking responsibility for the older singer's lack of responsibility, dancing skills, chilly demeanor.... Some days Jaejoong purposely acted out just because it pissed him off so damned much.
But such squabbles usually only lasted for a few days.
“I don't know about that,” he finally said. “But... Have you ever met someone and just... just... known.”
“Known what?”
The memory of his first meeting with Yunho was as clear to him as if it had happened yesterday, a small and seemingly insignificant encounter that had shaped the rest of his life. “The day I met Yunho and I just... knew.”
“Knew what, Jaejoong?”
“Everything. Nothing.” Yoochun made a sound of frustration at his vagueness, but Jaejoong was at a loss to describe it in a way his friend would understand. He sighed again and shook his head. “I just knew.”
~*~*~*~
Tired from a long day of interviews and dance practice, Jaejoong opted to stay at the apartment when the rest of the band went out for dinner. He had a tickle in the back of his throat that seemed to be a warning sign that he needed to pay better attention to his health than Changmin had.
Their Tokyo apartment always seemed too small when all five were at home and accounted for, but with just him, it seemed unbearably large and empty. And quiet. Far too quiet to be comfortable.
He sighed, drifting from room to room before gathering up the blanket off of Yunho's bed and curling on the couch underneath its warmth to flip through the random television channels.
“News, news, and more news,” he muttered under his breath before finally settling onto the one channel with a movie.
He almost changed it again once he realized what it was. Somehow he didn't think Ju-on was something he needed to be watching considering the nightmares and mild paranoia he'd been experiencing lately. He even went as far as going up one more channel, but he could only tolerate the dry Japanese report about the stock market for a few minutes before he went back to the movie. Watching a full half hour of stocks and exchanges would give him worse nightmares, he was sure.
The last time he'd watched Ju-on, it had been in a fully lit room with all four of his band mates. Yoochun and, somewhat surprisingly, Yunho had spent the entire time clinging to him with their heads buried against his shoulder, one on each side, and he'd been too amused at them to really appreciate just how scary the movie actually was.
Outside, lightening flickered in the corner of his view at the same time the lights were going out in the staircase on the screen and Jaejoong couldn't help but jump, startled. Then snorted at himself when he realized that the flickering light had been a small thunderstorm starting and not a ghost messing with the lights. He was glad the others weren't there to see his reaction. Yunho and Yoochun had been the butt of many a joke by Changmin and Junsu for weeks even though Jaejoong was pretty certain that both of them had been just as uneasy about the movie - just better at hiding it.
He turned back to the television, feeling silly but unable to quell the faint uneasiness that was curling in his belly.
A few crashes of thunder and flickers of light later, Jaejoong finally had to conceded defeat. He just couldn't watch the movie by himself.
Moving to the stereo, he put it on a random pop station and turned the volume up as high as he dared. It wouldn't do to get them kicked out again - he wasn't sure what kind of place management might try to stuff them into if he did. It still didn't seem to fill the silence quite well enough, so he flipped the television back on - safely on news, this time, though.
The storm began to build outside and he drifted over to the glass door, watching the rain pour outside and hoping that the others had remembered their umbrellas. The small balcony looked darker and more menacing than usual and he turned away, trying to pretend he wasn't rushing when he went to the bedroom Yunho, Changmin, and Junsu shared and snagged the familiar Bambi plushie.
It didn't have the same protected feeling Yunho gave him, but at least he didn't feel quite so alone in the apartment anymore when he curled back up on the couch.
“You're being silly,” he muttered to himself, ignoring the creeping feeling that made the short hairs on his neck stand on end.
Jaejoong was really starting to wish he'd gone with the others as he cringed under the blanket, trying not to let his imagination run away with him.
A sudden crash had him jerking his attention back to the glass door and he sighed both in relief and in exasperation when he realized that one of the potted plants Junsu and Changmin kept on the balcony had fallen over.
He got up and slipped a thin rain slicker on, muttering to himself as he moved to open the door. “Should have thought to bring them in earlier.”
The force of the wind nearly knocked him over when he stepped outside. Cold water seeped into the legs of his sleep pants and he could feel it leeching the heat out of his feet.
“Quickly, quickly, quickly,” he muttered as he tried to get the overturned plant back into its pot, frowning at the mud he was getting everywhere. From now on, he decided, Changmin and Junsu could deal with their own plants.
It took a few minutes, but he managed to get it all back together and settled just inside the door. The handful of other plants were bigger, took more effort to move, cold water and wind hampering his movements. Jaejoong was out of breath by the time he got to the last one and for a moment he just stared at it before deciding that the stupid tree would be fine outside.
Trying to push bedraggled hair out of his face, he turned to go back in only to jerk sharply when the door slid shut with a loud snapping noise.
“What the f-“
Time to go home, Youngwoong Jaejoong.
Shadows and dark shapes swirled around him, mixing with the cold rain, dancing in the wind. It was beautiful. It was horrible.
It was trying to drag him off the balcony, he realized with a start when he fell backwards, just barely managing to snag a hand-hold on the railing.
Just let go.
“No!” He held tighter, twisting around, resisting, trying to escape.
The wind seemed to have fingers and teeth, tugging at him, nipping at his already frigid fingers. Jaejoong gripped tighter, the pain sharp and biting.
Time didn't exist. The world didn't exist. Only the wind and the rain and the shadows that whispered at him.
He tried to hold on but he could feel his hands slipping, the rain slicked wood working against his best efforts, and he cried out as a greater pressure wrapped around his waist, lifting him.
They'd think he'd jumped. They'd think he'd chosen death over their family and he cried at the very thought. He didn't want to die, to leave them all behind. Changmin who got so caught up in his role as the mature one that he forgot to be a kid without Jaejoong to remind him, Junsu who liked to read him Bible Scriptures whenever he was scared or uncertain and didn't mind that Jaejoong wasn't entirely sure he believed, Yoochun who liked to act tough but missed his blood family so much it had him clinging to Jaejoong in tears some nights, and Yunho.... Yunho who filled in all the spaces in his life he hadn't even realized were empty.
“Please,” he begged, pleading with whatever entity had suddenly turned his life upside down. “Please leave me alone... I don't want to die yet- please.”
But the pressure solidified into arms and instead of hurtling forward as he'd expected, they drug him to the floor of the balcony and pressed him close to solid warmth. “I've got you, Jaejoong. You're not going to fall. I've got you.”
Weak with relief and the abrupt dissipation of adrenaline, Jaejoong sagged in Yunho's arms, clinging to his friend, unable to stop the flow of tears.
~*~*~
“Yunnie!” Jaejoong ignored the disapproving stares he garnered as he flew down the palace steps. He slid to a halt, however, once he reached the other.
Blood and grime covered the young prince - none of it his, Jaejoong made sure with a quick but thorough inspection - and he looked more weary than Jaejoong could remember him ever looking. There was an almost bone-deep sadness permeating the prince's very aura and without another word, Jaejoong pulled him into a tight hug.
Yunho sighed and wrapped his own arms around Jaejoong, burying his nose in the sweet smelling hair and clinging as if he never intended to let go.
“It's over,” he whispered in the changeling's ear. “It's... over.”
There was something in his voice that struck Jaejoong almost like a blow. He leaned back and took Yunho's face in his hands. “What is it, Yunnie? What's ...”
But then it occurred to him. The royal guard had returned with Yunho, but there was no sign of the king. He glanced around and saw the sad knowledge in the faces of everyone returning from battle, saw that same knowledge sweep over the gathering crowd as word was passed along. It made them turn away in sympathy rather than continue burdening the grieving prince with their disapproval.
Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Jaejoong took Yunho's hand and drug him through the palace, not stopping until he'd come out the other side in the great gardens he liked to consider their own special place. There, far from prying eyes, he sank down onto the carpet of soft moss and flowers and pulled the prince down with him.
When he held Yunho this time, he gently patted his friend's back and let his own tears flow. The king had always been kind to him - a rarity in a kingdom that saw him as nothing more than an evil blight. His voice was hushed and raspy with grief that mingled with his relief that Yunho had survived. “It's okay to let go, Yunnie... I've got you.”
Then he just held on tight as the prince who had to be strong for everyone else who had lost their king melted into the little boy who grieved harshly for his father.
~*~*~
on to: Chapter 7
Length: Chaptered, Chapter 6/?
Author: M_K Yujji
Rating: PG, likely to go up eventually
Genre: Drama/Angst/Fantasy
Disclaimer: Though real people are used as characters, this fic bears no resemblance to Real Life and these people are not owned by me.
Notes: Inspired by the Tri-Angle PV. Though there will be a loose resemblance to various mythical/religious figures and places, it's not really intentional.
As always, the 'ie' is a cutsey shortening, not an intended honorific, though I suppose it fits as either here. The only real purpose for using any honorifics at all in this fic is to separate the AU side of the story from the more reality-based side. Also, to separate the paralleling differences between the characters.
Previous
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
“So.”
Jaejoong looked up from his book to find Yoochun's face hovering only inches away. He rolled his eyes and shoved the younger man away. “So what?”
“So tell me all about it.”
“Tell you all about what?” he asked, pretending to go back to reading his book to dodge the questions he'd been expecting for days. Honestly, he was kind of proud of Yoochun's restraint.
“Jaejoo~oong,” Chun whined. “Am I not your bestest best friend in the whole wide world?”
“Not when you're whining at me.”
He couldn't suppress his grin at the pout that garnered.
“That hurts, hyung. That really hurts.” Yoochun collapsed in a heap across Jaejoong's bed. Then he rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow to stare at Jaejoong expectantly. “Seriously though. Are you going to tell me or do I have to tickle it out of you?”
Jae's arms came down instinctively to protect his sides from the threat. “Don't you dare.”
Yoochun's smile was wicked and he flexed his fingers near Jaejoong's foot. “All you have to do is start talking, Jae...”
Maybe if he hadn't wanted someone to talk to about the entire situation, he might called Yoochun's bluff. The truth was, though, that he was almost desperate for a sympathetic ear. The only other of his band mates he might have been willing to have such personal talks with was Yunho, but that was impossible. It wasn't like he could talk to Yunho about Yunho.
He hopped up off the bed and went to check the hallway. The sounds of Junsu and Yunho playing video games was hard to miss and though he didn't hear Changmin, when he'd headed for his own room earlier, the youngest had been sitting in the kitchen eating soup and working on his Japanese. Experience told him that it was unlikely that Changmin would move until either the soup ran out or someone forced him to go to bed.
Sure that no one would accidently wander by and eavesdrop, Jaejoong shut the door and locked it before returning to the bed.
The younger man still lay carelessly on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he waited.
Jaejoong fell heavily beside him and curled close, sighing. “What do you want to know, exactly?”
“When did you and Yunho hyung start dating?”
Burying his face against his friends shoulder, Jaejoong cursed the blush he knew was staining his cheeks. “We're not dating.”
“Please. You don't have to lie, Jaejoong. You guys have been crazy for each other as long as I've known you. I know it. Changmin knows it. Hell, even Junsu knows it.” Yoochun sighed and began petting his hair absently. “We've just been waiting for you guys to actually tell us.”
“I'm not lying, Chunnie... We're not... We've never... It's never even come up until last week.”
“Never?” Yoochun sounded truly baffled about it. “But you guys seriously act like you're a couple. Even the fans can see it.”
“JaeHo?” Jaejoong said, a sardonic lilt to his voice as he rolled his eyes. “HoMin? YooSu? MinSu? Any of those ring a bell?”
Then he yelped at the sharp tug on his hair. “I'm not even talking about the fanservice, hyung.”
“Pull my hair again and I'll shave off what little you have left and dye your scalp maroon.”
Though Yoochun pouted, the hand in his hair went from tugging to petting. “I meant that you guys have this... this... vibe. Like... You're two halves of the same whole... or something. Even when you're fighting, you still ... feel like you're together. We never worry that one of your fights is going to mess with the band no matter how nasty it gets because we know you'll make up eventually.”
“...” Jaejoong wasn't sure what to say to that. Truthfully, he could think of dozens of times when he'd been so mad at Yunho he'd thought he'd happily never speak to the man again and he was sure the same was true for the other. Jaejoong made Yunho's job as leader harder than it probably had to be. Yunho was forever apologizing to the management for Jaejoong and taking responsibility for the older singer's lack of responsibility, dancing skills, chilly demeanor.... Some days Jaejoong purposely acted out just because it pissed him off so damned much.
But such squabbles usually only lasted for a few days.
“I don't know about that,” he finally said. “But... Have you ever met someone and just... just... known.”
“Known what?”
The memory of his first meeting with Yunho was as clear to him as if it had happened yesterday, a small and seemingly insignificant encounter that had shaped the rest of his life. “The day I met Yunho and I just... knew.”
“Knew what, Jaejoong?”
“Everything. Nothing.” Yoochun made a sound of frustration at his vagueness, but Jaejoong was at a loss to describe it in a way his friend would understand. He sighed again and shook his head. “I just knew.”
~*~*~*~
Tired from a long day of interviews and dance practice, Jaejoong opted to stay at the apartment when the rest of the band went out for dinner. He had a tickle in the back of his throat that seemed to be a warning sign that he needed to pay better attention to his health than Changmin had.
Their Tokyo apartment always seemed too small when all five were at home and accounted for, but with just him, it seemed unbearably large and empty. And quiet. Far too quiet to be comfortable.
He sighed, drifting from room to room before gathering up the blanket off of Yunho's bed and curling on the couch underneath its warmth to flip through the random television channels.
“News, news, and more news,” he muttered under his breath before finally settling onto the one channel with a movie.
He almost changed it again once he realized what it was. Somehow he didn't think Ju-on was something he needed to be watching considering the nightmares and mild paranoia he'd been experiencing lately. He even went as far as going up one more channel, but he could only tolerate the dry Japanese report about the stock market for a few minutes before he went back to the movie. Watching a full half hour of stocks and exchanges would give him worse nightmares, he was sure.
The last time he'd watched Ju-on, it had been in a fully lit room with all four of his band mates. Yoochun and, somewhat surprisingly, Yunho had spent the entire time clinging to him with their heads buried against his shoulder, one on each side, and he'd been too amused at them to really appreciate just how scary the movie actually was.
Outside, lightening flickered in the corner of his view at the same time the lights were going out in the staircase on the screen and Jaejoong couldn't help but jump, startled. Then snorted at himself when he realized that the flickering light had been a small thunderstorm starting and not a ghost messing with the lights. He was glad the others weren't there to see his reaction. Yunho and Yoochun had been the butt of many a joke by Changmin and Junsu for weeks even though Jaejoong was pretty certain that both of them had been just as uneasy about the movie - just better at hiding it.
He turned back to the television, feeling silly but unable to quell the faint uneasiness that was curling in his belly.
A few crashes of thunder and flickers of light later, Jaejoong finally had to conceded defeat. He just couldn't watch the movie by himself.
Moving to the stereo, he put it on a random pop station and turned the volume up as high as he dared. It wouldn't do to get them kicked out again - he wasn't sure what kind of place management might try to stuff them into if he did. It still didn't seem to fill the silence quite well enough, so he flipped the television back on - safely on news, this time, though.
The storm began to build outside and he drifted over to the glass door, watching the rain pour outside and hoping that the others had remembered their umbrellas. The small balcony looked darker and more menacing than usual and he turned away, trying to pretend he wasn't rushing when he went to the bedroom Yunho, Changmin, and Junsu shared and snagged the familiar Bambi plushie.
It didn't have the same protected feeling Yunho gave him, but at least he didn't feel quite so alone in the apartment anymore when he curled back up on the couch.
“You're being silly,” he muttered to himself, ignoring the creeping feeling that made the short hairs on his neck stand on end.
Jaejoong was really starting to wish he'd gone with the others as he cringed under the blanket, trying not to let his imagination run away with him.
A sudden crash had him jerking his attention back to the glass door and he sighed both in relief and in exasperation when he realized that one of the potted plants Junsu and Changmin kept on the balcony had fallen over.
He got up and slipped a thin rain slicker on, muttering to himself as he moved to open the door. “Should have thought to bring them in earlier.”
The force of the wind nearly knocked him over when he stepped outside. Cold water seeped into the legs of his sleep pants and he could feel it leeching the heat out of his feet.
“Quickly, quickly, quickly,” he muttered as he tried to get the overturned plant back into its pot, frowning at the mud he was getting everywhere. From now on, he decided, Changmin and Junsu could deal with their own plants.
It took a few minutes, but he managed to get it all back together and settled just inside the door. The handful of other plants were bigger, took more effort to move, cold water and wind hampering his movements. Jaejoong was out of breath by the time he got to the last one and for a moment he just stared at it before deciding that the stupid tree would be fine outside.
Trying to push bedraggled hair out of his face, he turned to go back in only to jerk sharply when the door slid shut with a loud snapping noise.
“What the f-“
Time to go home, Youngwoong Jaejoong.
Shadows and dark shapes swirled around him, mixing with the cold rain, dancing in the wind. It was beautiful. It was horrible.
It was trying to drag him off the balcony, he realized with a start when he fell backwards, just barely managing to snag a hand-hold on the railing.
Just let go.
“No!” He held tighter, twisting around, resisting, trying to escape.
The wind seemed to have fingers and teeth, tugging at him, nipping at his already frigid fingers. Jaejoong gripped tighter, the pain sharp and biting.
Time didn't exist. The world didn't exist. Only the wind and the rain and the shadows that whispered at him.
He tried to hold on but he could feel his hands slipping, the rain slicked wood working against his best efforts, and he cried out as a greater pressure wrapped around his waist, lifting him.
They'd think he'd jumped. They'd think he'd chosen death over their family and he cried at the very thought. He didn't want to die, to leave them all behind. Changmin who got so caught up in his role as the mature one that he forgot to be a kid without Jaejoong to remind him, Junsu who liked to read him Bible Scriptures whenever he was scared or uncertain and didn't mind that Jaejoong wasn't entirely sure he believed, Yoochun who liked to act tough but missed his blood family so much it had him clinging to Jaejoong in tears some nights, and Yunho.... Yunho who filled in all the spaces in his life he hadn't even realized were empty.
“Please,” he begged, pleading with whatever entity had suddenly turned his life upside down. “Please leave me alone... I don't want to die yet- please.”
But the pressure solidified into arms and instead of hurtling forward as he'd expected, they drug him to the floor of the balcony and pressed him close to solid warmth. “I've got you, Jaejoong. You're not going to fall. I've got you.”
Weak with relief and the abrupt dissipation of adrenaline, Jaejoong sagged in Yunho's arms, clinging to his friend, unable to stop the flow of tears.
~*~*~
“Yunnie!” Jaejoong ignored the disapproving stares he garnered as he flew down the palace steps. He slid to a halt, however, once he reached the other.
Blood and grime covered the young prince - none of it his, Jaejoong made sure with a quick but thorough inspection - and he looked more weary than Jaejoong could remember him ever looking. There was an almost bone-deep sadness permeating the prince's very aura and without another word, Jaejoong pulled him into a tight hug.
Yunho sighed and wrapped his own arms around Jaejoong, burying his nose in the sweet smelling hair and clinging as if he never intended to let go.
“It's over,” he whispered in the changeling's ear. “It's... over.”
There was something in his voice that struck Jaejoong almost like a blow. He leaned back and took Yunho's face in his hands. “What is it, Yunnie? What's ...”
But then it occurred to him. The royal guard had returned with Yunho, but there was no sign of the king. He glanced around and saw the sad knowledge in the faces of everyone returning from battle, saw that same knowledge sweep over the gathering crowd as word was passed along. It made them turn away in sympathy rather than continue burdening the grieving prince with their disapproval.
Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Jaejoong took Yunho's hand and drug him through the palace, not stopping until he'd come out the other side in the great gardens he liked to consider their own special place. There, far from prying eyes, he sank down onto the carpet of soft moss and flowers and pulled the prince down with him.
When he held Yunho this time, he gently patted his friend's back and let his own tears flow. The king had always been kind to him - a rarity in a kingdom that saw him as nothing more than an evil blight. His voice was hushed and raspy with grief that mingled with his relief that Yunho had survived. “It's okay to let go, Yunnie... I've got you.”
Then he just held on tight as the prince who had to be strong for everyone else who had lost their king melted into the little boy who grieved harshly for his father.
~*~*~
on to: Chapter 7