I believe
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Pairings: Homin, slight Yunjae
Rated: PG-13 for angst, romance
~
You don’t believe in fairytales.
You suspect your mother never realized that, because you clearly remember her reading you fantastical stories about white horses and princes in shining armor and lovely damsels needing to be saved. And while your sisters may giggle and gush and daydream about meeting a dashing gentleman someday and riding off into the sunset with him, you dread the day they’ll learn for themselves that fairytales have no place in this world except in the minds of silly foolish little girls.
Your mother frowns at you when you voice this opinion at the dinner table, in full earshot of your sisters. “Changmin ah, be nice,” she scolds gently.
Sullenly, you poke at the last few grains of rice left on your plate. You don’t understand why she insists on allowing your sisters’ childish fantasies to go on. If only she knew, you think. If only she knew the reason her son doesn’t believe in fairytales.
Your father smiles politely at her as he offers to do the dishes tonight, but she refuses, shooing him off to the study. There’s no lingering passion between them, no loving aura surrounding them, only friendly affection as she comments to no one in particular about how his business has been booming lately and he’s been swamped with paperwork.
They like each other well enough, it’s true, but that’s the problem. They like each other. There’s no love involved, and you wonder what kind of a situation forced them into this marriage. Obviously there was no fairy godmother or prince charming involved.
Your views don’t exactly change as you grow up and fall in love.
Love at first sight is a lie. It takes time and intimacy to have your heart begin to beat faster around another person. Love is not the beautiful world it’s made out to be. It’s harsh and cold and full of strife, and it’s even worse than you expected in your childish naivety for a multitude of reasons.
The person you realize you’ve fallen in love with, mere months after Dong Bang Shin Ki debuts, is your leader. Strong and handsome Jung Yunho, who always knows the right thing to do and can coax anything out of anyone, yourself included. You find yourself willing to do anything just to get him to smile at you, his commanding presence softening just a little as he pats you on the head fondly. Your own smile fades as you watch him walk off; you’ll never be able to be with him and you know it.
Your rival happens to be Kim Jaejoong, lead singer and prettier even than the models you’ve seen around the company. It’d be better for you if he hadn’t been so nice to you before, you think miserably. Before he’d found out about your feelings, he’d treated you like a son without being too stifling, and you’d enjoyed the attention even if you claimed you didn’t. That, coupled with the tender heart that you actually do have, makes it impossible for you to fight for Yunho as much as you would’ve wanted to.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that Yunho is unbearably in love with Jaejoong. You’re the one forced to separate them during performances and talk shows and endure their constant lingering gazes across you as if you don’t even exist.
Yunho doesn’t know how you feel, and you’re planning on keeping it that way.
You could almost say that watching Yunho and Jaejoong together makes you believe in fairytales, but being forced to watch from the sidelines, emotionally if not physically, as Yunho and Jaejoong make no attempt to hide their obvious feelings for each other doesn’t exactly do wonders to your emotional stability.
Looking back on it, you admit that you have no idea how you survived those seven years. It doesn’t really matter anyway, what with the lawsuit that s fortunately ccurred, and not knowing for over a year if you were even going to stay in the music industry.
Yunho had been shocked when he found out, but at the same time it seemed like he knew all along that this was going to happen. He pleaded quietly with Jaejoong for them to stay together, but when it didn’t work out, you at least wanted to be there to catch Yunho when he fell.
“How could you,” you demand of Jaejoong in your last phone call to him. “Do you hav an idea how much you’re hurting him?”
“I’m sorry,” Jaejoong says shakily. “I...Changmin ah, please-”
“Don’t waste your breath,” you cut him off bluntly. “He’s not going to forgive you and neither will I.”
“Please,” Jaejoong almost sobs. “Promise me one thing. For his sake.”
You grit your teeth, knowing Jaejoong’s hit on the one thing that’ll make you listen to whatever Jaejoong wants. “What is it,” you say coldly.
“Confess to Yunho.”
“No,” you answer, without even thinking about it. “Why-no, I won’t do it.”
“He needs to know,” Jaejoong says firmly. “He doesn’t deserve to have to long after me when he can have everything he wants and more right there with him. You’ll be better for him than I was, Changmin ah.”
He hangs up so you can’t argue, leaving you with nothing but your conscience and the tiny selfish voice in the back of your head.
Yunho’s preoccupied enough with his own issues not to notice the way you keep glancing at him over the next few days, worrying at your bottom lip as Jaejoong’s words echo in your mind. In the end, you decide to throw all caution to the winds as you’ve done before. You corner him in the kitchen one evening and kiss him, fleeing before he figures out an appropriate response.
The only problem with confessing is that Yunho’s the perfect selfless leader-your perfect selfless leader-and once he knows how you feel, it doesn’t matter if he loves you or not, he’ll make you think he does. You have no way of knowing whether or not he really loves you, and that causes your first (and probably not last) argument with him a month after that first kiss.
“You’re still in love with Jaejoong.”
“So what if I am?”
“Then you’ve lied to me over and over that I’m the only one you love.”
“I thought you’d accepted a long time ago that you weren’t the only one in my heart.”
“Yeah, well I thought you were at leas trying o move on!”
You run out of the house trying not to cry, not sure where you’re going until you collapse onto a park bench, hugging your knees to your chest and staring fixedly at the ground until your tears stop welling up.
“I was stupid to think this would work out, wasn’t I?” you mutter to a blade of grass, and it waves gently in the breeze. You’re not sure if it’s saying yes or no.
Sighing, you stand up and start walking back to your apartment again, head down, your hands shoved in your pockets. Along the way you abruptly bump into someone, nearly falling backwards before he reaches out to catch you, and you find yourself staring directly into Yunho’s dark topaz eyes.
It’s not a fairytale. It’s not even one of those horrid cheesy dramas that are parodies of “perfect” and “fairytale” love.
It doesn’t start raining as you two stand there staring at each other, his arm still around your waist. You don’t throw your arms around him and kiss him.
He lets go of you and steps back, hesitating. “Changminnie, listen-” he starts just as you say, “Yunho hyung, I’m-”
There’s an awkward pause as you stare at each other some more, before he goes on. “Changminnie, I really am sorry I haven’t been treating you like you deserve and,” he takes a breath, “I want to change that starting from right now. I know it’s going to take a while for me to move on, but I want you to know that it’s only because of you that I’ve been able to get this far and it’s going to be because of you that I can finally be happy.”
You blink, your previous argument rendered entirely invalid. Unable to find words adequate enough to describe your feelings, you settle for grabbing him by the front of his shirt and kissing him. He smiles into the kiss, his arms settling low around your waist again, and somehow it’s still not raining yet, though it does later that night when neither of you are paying attention to anything else but each other.
You still don’t believe in fairytales, but this is much more than you could ever have asked for, so it’s not like you’re going to complain.