Sweet or Bitter [2/2]
Title: Sweet or Bitter
Beta: causticaria
Pairing: Yunho/Jaejoong
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Humor, Fluff, Drama, Angst, Band!fic
Summary: Perhaps the times and circumstances would change, but there were some things that never changed.
February 13, 2012
He was falling apart.
It was something that management pretended not to notice, a problem he hid from Changmin, and a truth that he could not hide from himself.
He didn’t know how much longer he could continue feeling so empty. The days just blurred into one another, the achievements and praises couldn’t ever stifle the pain of just remembering.
He couldn’t drink the hollowness away because it was just tiring. Drinking had once been his thing, but he had to be responsible. He couldn’t just allow himself to give up and drink his problems away because they wouldn’t go away even if he did.
Nothing could stop him from remembering - every single sight, sound, everything reminded him of what was gone. No matter how hard he tried to just tune everything out, the memories wouldn’t stop flooding back in.
Despite the miles of distance between them, he couldn’t run away from the past, he couldn’t run away from their past. Jaejoong was one of the main reasons he couldn’t move on, the reason why he couldn’t simply seclude himself from everyone and everything.
Yunho got up from his bed and quickly looked through his things for his wallet. He pocketed it and quickly made his way out of his room. He didn’t explain his actions to Changmin and walked out of their hostel wordlessly.
His brain was running at a thousand miles a minute, and he could barely comprehend his actions. Never before had he ever felt so desperate and so brave at the same time. He had to act quickly or else he’d lose the nerve that he’d taken so long to build up.
The drive to the convenience store had been short, and he left his car quickly. He entered the brightly lit confines of the store and searched through the aisles to find what he was looking for. He walked past the red streamers of crepe paper and found the stacks of leftover Valentines’ chocolate.
He ignored the several gaudily designed boxes and eventually ignored the holiday specific section. Yunho made his way to the plainer sweets and picked out a simple bar of milk chocolate.
As he walked to the counter, he caught sight of his reflection on the coolers. From his messy hair and rumpled clothes, he could barely believe that he was Jung Yunho.
The convenience store clerk spared him little interest as she totaled the price of his buy, her attention was elsewhere, and she hardly looked at him for longer than ten seconds. Just as he was about to pay for the bar of chocolate, she stopped and studied him.
“You look terrible,” she said bluntly.
Yunho almost laughed but decided against it. He shrugged and left the store. The moment he was in his car, he fumbled through the compartment to find something to write on. He eventually found a blank sheet of paper and hastily wrote his message on the dashboard of his car.
He could feel his fears beginning to emerge, but he knew he had to keep going. He wrote his letter and attached it to the bar of chocolate before he tossed the item to the empty passenger’s seat.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly and when he reached the destination, he gripped it even tighter. Yunho glanced around, made sure not a single soul was within sight, and got out of his car with the gift in tow.
Yunho slowly walked up to the post office and walked over to the closest attendant. She glanced down at the bar of chocolate and back at him.
“Is that it?”
Yunho glanced down at the bar and noticed a sheet of pad paper lying down on the attendant’s side of the counter. He swallowed hard and looked up at her, “Could I have a sheet of paper? I want to write a message.”
February 14, 2012 (Valentine’s Day)
Jaejoong approached the gate cautiously. He hadn’t expected to receive a delivery, so he walked up to the man with a confused look on his face before he remembered that one of his sisters had promised to send him a thank you gift for some favor he didn’t remember doing.
He signed the package without really bothering to look at the paper and accepted the thin parcel. Jaejoong began to make his way inside his house and shook the parcel as he tried to figure out what it was. The moment he had gotten inside his house, he unwrapped it.
As he got underneath a stronger light, he frowned at the present. It was wrapped in crumpled pad paper and as he slowly removed the wrapping, a bar of chocolate fell out onto his hand. He stared at the familiar brand of chocolate before he noticed there was writing on the wrapping.
He placed the chocolate in the back pocket of his jeans and with shaking hands he slowly opened up the crumpled sheet of paper.
I’m sorry that I didn’t greet you on your birthday and for never replying. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, and if you want, throw this away. I’ve gotten my phone number changed three times this month, Changmin’s number has been changed four times, but I’m sure you’ve given up on us, so that doesn’t matter.
Chocolate won’t fix everything I’ve done to you, and it’s stupid for me to have even attempted to give you a Valentine’s day present when we haven’t talked in more than a year.
Forgive me for being stupid.
Jaejoong could barely continue to look at the paper as the tears welled up in his eyes. He was just about to crumple it when he noticed something else was written on the paper.
It was a phone number.
He ran inside his house and grabbed his closest phone, immediately dialing the number. His call got picked up immediately.
“Jaejoong -“
“I hate you!” Jaejoong shouted as the tears began to fall. He wiped his eyes but the tears refused to stop falling. “You’re so stupid and I hate you.”
It was hardly the conversation either of them wanted. Neither of them could properly think of what they wanted to say, but Jaejoong continued to tell Yunho about how much hated him and Yunho listened quietly on the line and uttered soft apologies as they both took comfort in the fact that despite the conversation’s oddities - they were talking.
March 13, 2012
Jaejoong stretched out his legs and glanced at Yoochun and Junsu from where he was seated. They were both fast asleep, and he fiddled with his fingers anxiously as he wondered what to do. None of the stewardesses were roaming around, and he was fairly sure that the other passengers in the first class were asleep.
The dimmed lights in the cabin were more than enough of a sign to tell him to go to sleep, but his mind was restless. They’d just finished their last concert, and he was supposed to be tired, but he couldn’t sleep.
In fact, he’d been having troubles sleeping lately. Jaejoong sighed softly and bit his lip before he reached over for the airplane’s phone. He stared down at the numbers before he raised his eyes to look at Yoochun and Junsu.
It was almost White Day in Japan.
Jaejoong glanced down at the phone and remembered that Yunho had a concert. He was terrible with timezones, but he assumed that it would still be the thirteenth in Japan. He let a soft sigh escape his lips.
Would it be worth it to call? It was just a day after all, hardly anything special, and most of the world didn’t celebrate the holiday anyway.
His eyes fluttered shut as he tried to think, and he grasped the phone a bit tighter. He and Yunho had been speaking ever since Valentine’s Day - not at a regular schedule, but it was better than before. There were still the occasional lapses of awkwardness, but Jaejoong preferred occasional lapses of awkwardness compared to cold silence.
He and Yunho had talked since the first phone call, several times in fact. It wasn’t quite the same, but it would take time before things got better and easier between the two of them. Despite that though, Jaejoong was willing to offer the rest of his life to make things better between him and Yunho then eventually, all of them.
It would take time before all five of them reached a stage of normalcy with each other, but all the trials, all the difficulties, and all the pain - it’d all be worth it because they’d reach that point in time when everything would just be okay again.
Mustering up his strength, Jaejoong decided that it was time that he worked for his own personal future. It was time that he spoke about feelings that he’d kept buried for some time, and it was time that he acted.
He dialed the number and reached Yunho’s voice mail. He took a deep breath before he quietly spoke the words that he wished he could’ve been saying to Yunho’s face.
March 14, 2012 (White Day)
Yunho tossed his things on his bed as he looked for a shirt to put on before he slept. He looked around for a few seconds as he searched for a clean shirt, cursing the poor state of his room, and settled onto his bed as soon as he’d gotten a clean shirt on.
The familiar ache of performing was felt throughout his body, and all he wanted to do was sleep. As soon as he adjusted himself, his eyes felt heavy. He pulled the comforter closer but accidentally brought his phone along as well, resulting in it hitting him lightly on the face.
The screen lit up, and Yunho glanced at his screen.
He had one voice mail. The call was from an unknown number, but something told him that it was from someone important, so he decided to play the message anyway despite the possible risk.
“I’m calling you from the plane…happy White Day.”
Yunho blinked at his ceiling in confusion. He glanced at the clock close to his bed and realized that it was indeed White Day. It was already one in the morning on the fourteenth of March.
“I hope you had a successful concert because our tour just wrapped up successfully. There’s always a glowing feeling of pride after finishing a tour, and I wish you the best on completing your own tour with Changmin.”
He listened as Jaejoong took a deep breath, and Yunho cradled the phone closer to his ear as he waited for Jaejoong to continue.
“I…I bought chocolate in Peru for you. I don’t know where you’re staying in Japan, so I’ll just have it mailed to your house in Seoul…is it stupid that I’m sending you chocolate?”
Yunho’s eyes fluttered shut, and he whispered to his empty room, “Of course not Jaejoong. We’ve exchanged chocolate so many times before.”
“I never asked you about what it meant…why did you send me chocolate on Valentine’s Day of all times? Did you mean something? Were you in some way…trying to prove something to me? Is…is it wrong for me to still hope that you still…”
“That I still love you?” Yunho questioned, “No, it’s not -“
“I still love you.”
Yunho’s heart ached in his chest, and he gripped his phone tighter. He wished that he could actually speak to Jaejoong, but he couldn’t because Jaejoong was still miles away and Jaejoong was still on an airplane.
“Do you still love me? I don’t want to pressure you…but I would like an answer someday. It doesn’t have to be today, tomorrow, or next week. It just has to come. I’m sorry for telling you this…but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We’re all working together for a better future, and it might be selfish, but I want to know more about our future Yunho. I want to know it’s not stupid for me to keep hoping.”
“It’s not. It’s not,” Yunho whispered to no one in particular as tears ran down his cheeks. He wanted so much to just be with Jaejoong. He wanted to kiss away his fears, and he wanted to be with him.
It was all he’d wanted for such a long time.
“But anyway, it’s not just about us - there are Yoochun, Changmin, and Junsu too. I want us all to be together as well. I know we’ll get there someday, so I won’t stop hoping and I won’t stop believing. You’ve always been such a better man than you think you are…I’m sorry for rambling. I just wanted you to know what I felt, and I just…I just want you to know how happy I am to have you back in my life in some way. Take care.”
Yunho breathed heavily for a few minutes. He stared at his phone for a few seconds before he dialed Jaejoong’s home number. As expected, he reached the other man’s voice mail.
“I love you too,” Yunho said confidently as he found his strength, “I love you, and I’m here for all of you. We’ll get through everything…we’ll get through it no matter what, and I’ll do my best to make sure we carry through.”
He took a deep breath and spoke again.
“I’m here for you Jaejoong…always.”
<
Fin ♥
Author’s Note: Belated Happy White Day! Just a little gift for you all, so yeah. XD I hope you all liked it. ^__^ ♥
Beta: causticaria
Pairing: Yunho/Jaejoong
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Humor, Fluff, Drama, Angst, Band!fic
Summary: Perhaps the times and circumstances would change, but there were some things that never changed.
February 13, 2012
He was falling apart.
It was something that management pretended not to notice, a problem he hid from Changmin, and a truth that he could not hide from himself.
He didn’t know how much longer he could continue feeling so empty. The days just blurred into one another, the achievements and praises couldn’t ever stifle the pain of just remembering.
He couldn’t drink the hollowness away because it was just tiring. Drinking had once been his thing, but he had to be responsible. He couldn’t just allow himself to give up and drink his problems away because they wouldn’t go away even if he did.
Nothing could stop him from remembering - every single sight, sound, everything reminded him of what was gone. No matter how hard he tried to just tune everything out, the memories wouldn’t stop flooding back in.
Despite the miles of distance between them, he couldn’t run away from the past, he couldn’t run away from their past. Jaejoong was one of the main reasons he couldn’t move on, the reason why he couldn’t simply seclude himself from everyone and everything.
Yunho got up from his bed and quickly looked through his things for his wallet. He pocketed it and quickly made his way out of his room. He didn’t explain his actions to Changmin and walked out of their hostel wordlessly.
His brain was running at a thousand miles a minute, and he could barely comprehend his actions. Never before had he ever felt so desperate and so brave at the same time. He had to act quickly or else he’d lose the nerve that he’d taken so long to build up.
The drive to the convenience store had been short, and he left his car quickly. He entered the brightly lit confines of the store and searched through the aisles to find what he was looking for. He walked past the red streamers of crepe paper and found the stacks of leftover Valentines’ chocolate.
He ignored the several gaudily designed boxes and eventually ignored the holiday specific section. Yunho made his way to the plainer sweets and picked out a simple bar of milk chocolate.
As he walked to the counter, he caught sight of his reflection on the coolers. From his messy hair and rumpled clothes, he could barely believe that he was Jung Yunho.
The convenience store clerk spared him little interest as she totaled the price of his buy, her attention was elsewhere, and she hardly looked at him for longer than ten seconds. Just as he was about to pay for the bar of chocolate, she stopped and studied him.
“You look terrible,” she said bluntly.
Yunho almost laughed but decided against it. He shrugged and left the store. The moment he was in his car, he fumbled through the compartment to find something to write on. He eventually found a blank sheet of paper and hastily wrote his message on the dashboard of his car.
He could feel his fears beginning to emerge, but he knew he had to keep going. He wrote his letter and attached it to the bar of chocolate before he tossed the item to the empty passenger’s seat.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly and when he reached the destination, he gripped it even tighter. Yunho glanced around, made sure not a single soul was within sight, and got out of his car with the gift in tow.
Yunho slowly walked up to the post office and walked over to the closest attendant. She glanced down at the bar of chocolate and back at him.
“Is that it?”
Yunho glanced down at the bar and noticed a sheet of pad paper lying down on the attendant’s side of the counter. He swallowed hard and looked up at her, “Could I have a sheet of paper? I want to write a message.”
February 14, 2012 (Valentine’s Day)
Jaejoong approached the gate cautiously. He hadn’t expected to receive a delivery, so he walked up to the man with a confused look on his face before he remembered that one of his sisters had promised to send him a thank you gift for some favor he didn’t remember doing.
He signed the package without really bothering to look at the paper and accepted the thin parcel. Jaejoong began to make his way inside his house and shook the parcel as he tried to figure out what it was. The moment he had gotten inside his house, he unwrapped it.
As he got underneath a stronger light, he frowned at the present. It was wrapped in crumpled pad paper and as he slowly removed the wrapping, a bar of chocolate fell out onto his hand. He stared at the familiar brand of chocolate before he noticed there was writing on the wrapping.
He placed the chocolate in the back pocket of his jeans and with shaking hands he slowly opened up the crumpled sheet of paper.
I’m sorry that I didn’t greet you on your birthday and for never replying. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, and if you want, throw this away. I’ve gotten my phone number changed three times this month, Changmin’s number has been changed four times, but I’m sure you’ve given up on us, so that doesn’t matter.
Chocolate won’t fix everything I’ve done to you, and it’s stupid for me to have even attempted to give you a Valentine’s day present when we haven’t talked in more than a year.
Forgive me for being stupid.
Jaejoong could barely continue to look at the paper as the tears welled up in his eyes. He was just about to crumple it when he noticed something else was written on the paper.
It was a phone number.
He ran inside his house and grabbed his closest phone, immediately dialing the number. His call got picked up immediately.
“Jaejoong -“
“I hate you!” Jaejoong shouted as the tears began to fall. He wiped his eyes but the tears refused to stop falling. “You’re so stupid and I hate you.”
It was hardly the conversation either of them wanted. Neither of them could properly think of what they wanted to say, but Jaejoong continued to tell Yunho about how much hated him and Yunho listened quietly on the line and uttered soft apologies as they both took comfort in the fact that despite the conversation’s oddities - they were talking.
March 13, 2012
Jaejoong stretched out his legs and glanced at Yoochun and Junsu from where he was seated. They were both fast asleep, and he fiddled with his fingers anxiously as he wondered what to do. None of the stewardesses were roaming around, and he was fairly sure that the other passengers in the first class were asleep.
The dimmed lights in the cabin were more than enough of a sign to tell him to go to sleep, but his mind was restless. They’d just finished their last concert, and he was supposed to be tired, but he couldn’t sleep.
In fact, he’d been having troubles sleeping lately. Jaejoong sighed softly and bit his lip before he reached over for the airplane’s phone. He stared down at the numbers before he raised his eyes to look at Yoochun and Junsu.
It was almost White Day in Japan.
Jaejoong glanced down at the phone and remembered that Yunho had a concert. He was terrible with timezones, but he assumed that it would still be the thirteenth in Japan. He let a soft sigh escape his lips.
Would it be worth it to call? It was just a day after all, hardly anything special, and most of the world didn’t celebrate the holiday anyway.
His eyes fluttered shut as he tried to think, and he grasped the phone a bit tighter. He and Yunho had been speaking ever since Valentine’s Day - not at a regular schedule, but it was better than before. There were still the occasional lapses of awkwardness, but Jaejoong preferred occasional lapses of awkwardness compared to cold silence.
He and Yunho had talked since the first phone call, several times in fact. It wasn’t quite the same, but it would take time before things got better and easier between the two of them. Despite that though, Jaejoong was willing to offer the rest of his life to make things better between him and Yunho then eventually, all of them.
It would take time before all five of them reached a stage of normalcy with each other, but all the trials, all the difficulties, and all the pain - it’d all be worth it because they’d reach that point in time when everything would just be okay again.
Mustering up his strength, Jaejoong decided that it was time that he worked for his own personal future. It was time that he spoke about feelings that he’d kept buried for some time, and it was time that he acted.
He dialed the number and reached Yunho’s voice mail. He took a deep breath before he quietly spoke the words that he wished he could’ve been saying to Yunho’s face.
March 14, 2012 (White Day)
Yunho tossed his things on his bed as he looked for a shirt to put on before he slept. He looked around for a few seconds as he searched for a clean shirt, cursing the poor state of his room, and settled onto his bed as soon as he’d gotten a clean shirt on.
The familiar ache of performing was felt throughout his body, and all he wanted to do was sleep. As soon as he adjusted himself, his eyes felt heavy. He pulled the comforter closer but accidentally brought his phone along as well, resulting in it hitting him lightly on the face.
The screen lit up, and Yunho glanced at his screen.
He had one voice mail. The call was from an unknown number, but something told him that it was from someone important, so he decided to play the message anyway despite the possible risk.
“I’m calling you from the plane…happy White Day.”
Yunho blinked at his ceiling in confusion. He glanced at the clock close to his bed and realized that it was indeed White Day. It was already one in the morning on the fourteenth of March.
“I hope you had a successful concert because our tour just wrapped up successfully. There’s always a glowing feeling of pride after finishing a tour, and I wish you the best on completing your own tour with Changmin.”
He listened as Jaejoong took a deep breath, and Yunho cradled the phone closer to his ear as he waited for Jaejoong to continue.
“I…I bought chocolate in Peru for you. I don’t know where you’re staying in Japan, so I’ll just have it mailed to your house in Seoul…is it stupid that I’m sending you chocolate?”
Yunho’s eyes fluttered shut, and he whispered to his empty room, “Of course not Jaejoong. We’ve exchanged chocolate so many times before.”
“I never asked you about what it meant…why did you send me chocolate on Valentine’s Day of all times? Did you mean something? Were you in some way…trying to prove something to me? Is…is it wrong for me to still hope that you still…”
“That I still love you?” Yunho questioned, “No, it’s not -“
“I still love you.”
Yunho’s heart ached in his chest, and he gripped his phone tighter. He wished that he could actually speak to Jaejoong, but he couldn’t because Jaejoong was still miles away and Jaejoong was still on an airplane.
“Do you still love me? I don’t want to pressure you…but I would like an answer someday. It doesn’t have to be today, tomorrow, or next week. It just has to come. I’m sorry for telling you this…but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We’re all working together for a better future, and it might be selfish, but I want to know more about our future Yunho. I want to know it’s not stupid for me to keep hoping.”
“It’s not. It’s not,” Yunho whispered to no one in particular as tears ran down his cheeks. He wanted so much to just be with Jaejoong. He wanted to kiss away his fears, and he wanted to be with him.
It was all he’d wanted for such a long time.
“But anyway, it’s not just about us - there are Yoochun, Changmin, and Junsu too. I want us all to be together as well. I know we’ll get there someday, so I won’t stop hoping and I won’t stop believing. You’ve always been such a better man than you think you are…I’m sorry for rambling. I just wanted you to know what I felt, and I just…I just want you to know how happy I am to have you back in my life in some way. Take care.”
Yunho breathed heavily for a few minutes. He stared at his phone for a few seconds before he dialed Jaejoong’s home number. As expected, he reached the other man’s voice mail.
“I love you too,” Yunho said confidently as he found his strength, “I love you, and I’m here for all of you. We’ll get through everything…we’ll get through it no matter what, and I’ll do my best to make sure we carry through.”
He took a deep breath and spoke again.
“I’m here for you Jaejoong…always.”
<
Fin ♥
Author’s Note: Belated Happy White Day! Just a little gift for you all, so yeah. XD I hope you all liked it. ^__^ ♥