THE PROVINCE [PROLOGUE]
The Province
Pairing(s): Minjae (Changmin x Jaejoong); past Yunjae (Yunho x Jaejoong)
Chapters: Prologue (1/?)
Genre: Drama/Angst/Slice of Life/Romance/Tragedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary:
To Jung Changmin, his older brother, Jung Yunho, was the ultimate perfection that he could never reach. But the man's sudden passing soon reveals painful secrets, betrayals, and old feelings that could mar that image forever and all because of a man named Kim Jaejoong.
Warning: Cursing, sexual situations, infidelity, etc.
A/N: Starting up a new Jaemin fic since the idea has been on my mind for the past couple of weeks and I really need to get it out ;^o^ I am still working on the next chapter for The Roommate as well as the next prompt the Jaemin Sex Series, so if anyone still waiting on those two stories, then no worries I have not forgotten about them and I will continue to update them. This story will also be updated along with them, provided if anybody likes the plot ^^ I've been wanting to write something like this for awhile, so I'm excited to write it xD
---
PROLOGUE: The Solitary Man
It couldn’t have been more perfect weather for a funeral, Jung Changmin thought bitterly.
The rolling gray clouds spat out fits of chilled rain as the smooth black coffin was lowered slowly into the soil, with dozens of umbrellas crowded around it. The many colorful bouquets that had been laid upon the lid had already been scattered by the water and the carried away by the ferociousness of the wind. The only sounds were the drops that made cracking sounds against the frozen ground and the sniffing of the few who barely control their tears.
“Changmin…I need you to be there for them. Mother and father, they’ll need you now more than ever. Especially mother. She is already suffering so much.”
His mother, their mother, stood to his left. The confident, strong woman, who had never once, to him, lost her youth and vibrancy even as the years of the stress of raising children, finally looked her age, or perhaps, twenty years older than that. The wrinkles under her eyes bore through the horribly applied make-up and the thin, black veil that covered her teary eyes and raw nose. Her mascara ran uncaring down her pasty cheeks, another aspect that marred her and contrasted the her usual need to appear flawless; and each time her breath hitched, trying to contain her sobs, her manicured hands digging into his hand harshly, prompting him to squeeze back to in act feeble act of comfort.
“You haven’t talked him since then, have you? You really should clear things up with Father. At least for your older brother, ne?”
His father, their father, stood to his right. The man who had not uttered a sound since they left the funeral home and the man who did not even grace his presence with a simple glance. He had only seen his father as he was now. Cold and distant; too stiff to be moved and too proud to cry. Not even for the death of the son that he had loved the most. If Changmin wasn’t the type of person to read other as well he did, he would not have noticed the way the man’s hand white knuckled the handle of his umbrella or how the umbrella shook, even as the wind would die down.
For the first time in his life, he felt taller than his parents. Yes, once he had reached puberty, had already towered over them, but he had never felt that they were this small before. This far out of his reach of understanding; of his ability to read their emotions and predict their next move.
Still, he couldn’t deny that the reason for this change was now being lowered into the earth in an achingly slow pace.
Changmin’s breath hitched and he swallowed lump in his throat, his eyes too dry now to even form the tears that he had shed earlier in silence.
He couldn’t deny that his older brother, Jung Yunho, was lying in that coffin. His handsome features, which had been slowly withering away due to disease, forever etched in sleep, his hands clasped comfortably across his chest. His only possessions being his finely tailored navy blue suit and his wedding ring that barely fit on his now bony fingers.
Even in death, despite dying from a sickness that ate away his body until almost nothing inside of him was left, Jung Yunho had been nothing if not flawless.
Just like in life, he was perfect.
The perfect son.
The perfect husband.
The perfect lawyer.
The perfect friend.
The perfect brother.
All of his life, Jung Changmin had idolized his brother just as much as he had burned with jealousy because of him. His older brother was everything that he wasn’t. Was everything that he couldn’t be. Even in death, he knew that, in the eyes of his family, in society, and especially, in the eyes of his father, he would never even come close to that perfection.
“It is ironic isn’t it? They said I was perfectly healthy. As fit as I was when I was a twenty-year-old and now this. Quite scary how quickly things can come to an end…”
A perfection that had been tainted with disease, which Changmin had found bitterly ironic. His parents had been horrified that find out that he had wanted to become a police officer. Their family was full of successful lawyers, one of them being Yunho himself, who had already aced his way through law school at the tender age of 22. He remembered how his mother begged him not to or how his father had screamed and yelled, which had ended in a fight that prompted a six year long silence between them.
They had believed he would die within the first year…ironically; it was his brother who would die first, brought down by an unseen force.
Still even so, despite the bitterness that had been caused by his failure to his father, he had loved his brother. Deeply. Dearly. Loved him so much that his heart broke at the sight of this kind, handsome man wasting away in that hospital bed. The man who had always stood beside him and had believed in him. His caring, thoughtful, and wise brother….was gone.
Just like that.
And Changmin had long since stopped his heart from beating…no matter how much he had wished he could break down.
“Please look after Jihyo for me. She’s a strong woman…but even she has her limits. I need you to be there for her. Can you do that for me, Changmin?”
A burst of loud sobbing echoed through the sound of beating rain. Changmin looked over his mother to gaze at his sister-in-law, who looked so worn and lost in the pouring rain that he could hardly recognize her anymore. He watched her dark eyes as it they followed her husband’s coffin, that lovely face filled with salty tears, cold snot, and what was once lipstick that was now smeared due to her fevered attempts at hiding her sorrow.
He had remembered when he had first met her, Kim Jihyo. She had been a classmate of his for years and good friend when he had needed her. She was as generous as she was lovely…and the perfect companion for his brother. The two had met in high school; Yunho was a senior and two years older than her. They had ironically met through Changmin himself (a travesty that Changmin torn himself apart with every single day) and had been inseparable since then, maintaining a strong relationship despite going to separate universities, had married a year after graduation.
They were considered 'The Golden' couple.
He couldn’t deny that he had never been more jealous of his brother then.
Nevertheless, he had buried those feelings away, deep inside his heart. It wasn’t his brother’s fault after all.
It was his. He who had been too much of a coward to breach the line of friendship...and now that line had thinned. So much so, that he couldn't find the strength to go over and comfort her, to hold her tightly.
What a coward he was.
“And of course, please be there for Hana. She needs someone like her uncle in her life. She's turning out to be more and more like you every day, did you know that? Just like her uncle.”
To her left was Hana, his five-year-old niece, who was covered in a thick wool coat and gripped her stuffed, pink rabbit tightly in my hand. Her usually cheerful, adorable face held a solemn expression. A look, Changmin had thought, wasn’t a look that shouldn't have been worn by someone so young and innocent. Someone who was still supposed to be cheerfully naive to the sight, the smell, the pain of death.
To have that knowledge. The understanding. That your loving father was gone forever.
“There’s one more thing…I need to tell you…”
Suddenly, his eyes strayed from his niece to the young man, dressed in black, who stood to the right of his sister-in-law, soothingly rubbing her shoulders and whispering sweet words to the little girl. He had only seen the man twice, but still, it was hard to not remember the man.
It was hard not to remember that face that caused his breath hitch and his heart stop the moment he had first laid eyes on him….
As the coffin finally reached the bottom and the priest said his last few words of prayer, already a line of black umbrellas began to disperse. Changmin barely registered that his father had he stomped away, disappearing into the mist. He then watched as his mother, still choking on her own tears, pulled away from him and began to walk towards her broken daughter-in-law, only stopping to take her grandchild by the hand and leading them both away from scene.
“Please…take care of him…”
The young officer slowly turned to follow them. As he reached the top of the hill, a powerful force made him stop, his feet instantly sinking into the mud. His cold eyes turned back to the only person that stayed behind, while the rest had already returned to their cars. The umbrella had disappeared and now the lone, solitary figure was completely soaked to the bone, those dark bangs covering that lovely face.
The pale, beautiful face of Kim Jaejoong, Jihyo’s older brother…
He then watched as the man’s hands slowly pull out a wilted red rose from his pocket, clenching it tightly in his hands, its petals falling away in the chilled wind. Suddenly, the rose fell from his hands and his pretty form collapsed on his knees to the unforgiving ground. His pure black suit was instantly covered, his thin body beginning to convulse into harsh sobs. His wet hair was plastered against his ghostly skin fell over his face. His now dirtied hands clawed at the ground violently and pulled his body closer the newly-made grave. He then began slamming his fists in the ground, screaming into the air…as the bloody petals from the rose flowed like a river into the ground and on to the coffin below.
“Take care…of…Jaejoong..ie…”
Those words that Yunho had spoken to him that day…he had first attributed them to the medications that flowed through his blood stream…his weak body through the multiple surgeries…to the illness that was eating out at his muscle tissue and tearing through his liver…
But now it seemed…those words were no mistake.
“Tell him…that I’m sorry…”
As broken whimpers broke through the silence…Changmin knew one thing.
That perfection…
Had only been an illusion.
TBC
Next>>---
So yea that's the prologue, let me know how you feel about it! Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated~ Just please don't try to kill me because Yunho is....yea *avoiding all of the thrown vegetables and steak knives* I'M SORRY!!! It had to happen! ;;A;; I'm sorry, please forgive me! And please don't hate me, Yunnie! *hugs you*
Lol he will actually appear a lot in flashbacks and of course, on everyone's minds because he's special~ xD so he's not completely gone here.
And just so everyone knows: Kim Ji-hyo is indeed Song Ji-hyo (actress who appeared in In Heaven and with Jaejoong in The Jackal Is Coming if anyone was curious).
Thanks for reading! ^^
Oh! And if anyone has a tumblr and wants to follow me or talk to me outside of LJ, my tumblr is changjaeporn :33
Pairing(s): Minjae (Changmin x Jaejoong); past Yunjae (Yunho x Jaejoong)
Chapters: Prologue (1/?)
Genre: Drama/Angst/Slice of Life/Romance/Tragedy
Rating: PG-13
Summary:
To Jung Changmin, his older brother, Jung Yunho, was the ultimate perfection that he could never reach. But the man's sudden passing soon reveals painful secrets, betrayals, and old feelings that could mar that image forever and all because of a man named Kim Jaejoong.
Warning: Cursing, sexual situations, infidelity, etc.
A/N: Starting up a new Jaemin fic since the idea has been on my mind for the past couple of weeks and I really need to get it out ;^o^ I am still working on the next chapter for The Roommate as well as the next prompt the Jaemin Sex Series, so if anyone still waiting on those two stories, then no worries I have not forgotten about them and I will continue to update them. This story will also be updated along with them, provided if anybody likes the plot ^^ I've been wanting to write something like this for awhile, so I'm excited to write it xD
---
PROLOGUE: The Solitary Man
It couldn’t have been more perfect weather for a funeral, Jung Changmin thought bitterly.
The rolling gray clouds spat out fits of chilled rain as the smooth black coffin was lowered slowly into the soil, with dozens of umbrellas crowded around it. The many colorful bouquets that had been laid upon the lid had already been scattered by the water and the carried away by the ferociousness of the wind. The only sounds were the drops that made cracking sounds against the frozen ground and the sniffing of the few who barely control their tears.
“Changmin…I need you to be there for them. Mother and father, they’ll need you now more than ever. Especially mother. She is already suffering so much.”
His mother, their mother, stood to his left. The confident, strong woman, who had never once, to him, lost her youth and vibrancy even as the years of the stress of raising children, finally looked her age, or perhaps, twenty years older than that. The wrinkles under her eyes bore through the horribly applied make-up and the thin, black veil that covered her teary eyes and raw nose. Her mascara ran uncaring down her pasty cheeks, another aspect that marred her and contrasted the her usual need to appear flawless; and each time her breath hitched, trying to contain her sobs, her manicured hands digging into his hand harshly, prompting him to squeeze back to in act feeble act of comfort.
“You haven’t talked him since then, have you? You really should clear things up with Father. At least for your older brother, ne?”
His father, their father, stood to his right. The man who had not uttered a sound since they left the funeral home and the man who did not even grace his presence with a simple glance. He had only seen his father as he was now. Cold and distant; too stiff to be moved and too proud to cry. Not even for the death of the son that he had loved the most. If Changmin wasn’t the type of person to read other as well he did, he would not have noticed the way the man’s hand white knuckled the handle of his umbrella or how the umbrella shook, even as the wind would die down.
For the first time in his life, he felt taller than his parents. Yes, once he had reached puberty, had already towered over them, but he had never felt that they were this small before. This far out of his reach of understanding; of his ability to read their emotions and predict their next move.
Still, he couldn’t deny that the reason for this change was now being lowered into the earth in an achingly slow pace.
Changmin’s breath hitched and he swallowed lump in his throat, his eyes too dry now to even form the tears that he had shed earlier in silence.
He couldn’t deny that his older brother, Jung Yunho, was lying in that coffin. His handsome features, which had been slowly withering away due to disease, forever etched in sleep, his hands clasped comfortably across his chest. His only possessions being his finely tailored navy blue suit and his wedding ring that barely fit on his now bony fingers.
Even in death, despite dying from a sickness that ate away his body until almost nothing inside of him was left, Jung Yunho had been nothing if not flawless.
Just like in life, he was perfect.
The perfect son.
The perfect husband.
The perfect lawyer.
The perfect friend.
The perfect brother.
All of his life, Jung Changmin had idolized his brother just as much as he had burned with jealousy because of him. His older brother was everything that he wasn’t. Was everything that he couldn’t be. Even in death, he knew that, in the eyes of his family, in society, and especially, in the eyes of his father, he would never even come close to that perfection.
“It is ironic isn’t it? They said I was perfectly healthy. As fit as I was when I was a twenty-year-old and now this. Quite scary how quickly things can come to an end…”
A perfection that had been tainted with disease, which Changmin had found bitterly ironic. His parents had been horrified that find out that he had wanted to become a police officer. Their family was full of successful lawyers, one of them being Yunho himself, who had already aced his way through law school at the tender age of 22. He remembered how his mother begged him not to or how his father had screamed and yelled, which had ended in a fight that prompted a six year long silence between them.
They had believed he would die within the first year…ironically; it was his brother who would die first, brought down by an unseen force.
Still even so, despite the bitterness that had been caused by his failure to his father, he had loved his brother. Deeply. Dearly. Loved him so much that his heart broke at the sight of this kind, handsome man wasting away in that hospital bed. The man who had always stood beside him and had believed in him. His caring, thoughtful, and wise brother….was gone.
Just like that.
And Changmin had long since stopped his heart from beating…no matter how much he had wished he could break down.
“Please look after Jihyo for me. She’s a strong woman…but even she has her limits. I need you to be there for her. Can you do that for me, Changmin?”
A burst of loud sobbing echoed through the sound of beating rain. Changmin looked over his mother to gaze at his sister-in-law, who looked so worn and lost in the pouring rain that he could hardly recognize her anymore. He watched her dark eyes as it they followed her husband’s coffin, that lovely face filled with salty tears, cold snot, and what was once lipstick that was now smeared due to her fevered attempts at hiding her sorrow.
He had remembered when he had first met her, Kim Jihyo. She had been a classmate of his for years and good friend when he had needed her. She was as generous as she was lovely…and the perfect companion for his brother. The two had met in high school; Yunho was a senior and two years older than her. They had ironically met through Changmin himself (a travesty that Changmin torn himself apart with every single day) and had been inseparable since then, maintaining a strong relationship despite going to separate universities, had married a year after graduation.
They were considered 'The Golden' couple.
He couldn’t deny that he had never been more jealous of his brother then.
Nevertheless, he had buried those feelings away, deep inside his heart. It wasn’t his brother’s fault after all.
It was his. He who had been too much of a coward to breach the line of friendship...and now that line had thinned. So much so, that he couldn't find the strength to go over and comfort her, to hold her tightly.
What a coward he was.
“And of course, please be there for Hana. She needs someone like her uncle in her life. She's turning out to be more and more like you every day, did you know that? Just like her uncle.”
To her left was Hana, his five-year-old niece, who was covered in a thick wool coat and gripped her stuffed, pink rabbit tightly in my hand. Her usually cheerful, adorable face held a solemn expression. A look, Changmin had thought, wasn’t a look that shouldn't have been worn by someone so young and innocent. Someone who was still supposed to be cheerfully naive to the sight, the smell, the pain of death.
To have that knowledge. The understanding. That your loving father was gone forever.
“There’s one more thing…I need to tell you…”
Suddenly, his eyes strayed from his niece to the young man, dressed in black, who stood to the right of his sister-in-law, soothingly rubbing her shoulders and whispering sweet words to the little girl. He had only seen the man twice, but still, it was hard to not remember the man.
It was hard not to remember that face that caused his breath hitch and his heart stop the moment he had first laid eyes on him….
As the coffin finally reached the bottom and the priest said his last few words of prayer, already a line of black umbrellas began to disperse. Changmin barely registered that his father had he stomped away, disappearing into the mist. He then watched as his mother, still choking on her own tears, pulled away from him and began to walk towards her broken daughter-in-law, only stopping to take her grandchild by the hand and leading them both away from scene.
“Please…take care of him…”
The young officer slowly turned to follow them. As he reached the top of the hill, a powerful force made him stop, his feet instantly sinking into the mud. His cold eyes turned back to the only person that stayed behind, while the rest had already returned to their cars. The umbrella had disappeared and now the lone, solitary figure was completely soaked to the bone, those dark bangs covering that lovely face.
The pale, beautiful face of Kim Jaejoong, Jihyo’s older brother…
He then watched as the man’s hands slowly pull out a wilted red rose from his pocket, clenching it tightly in his hands, its petals falling away in the chilled wind. Suddenly, the rose fell from his hands and his pretty form collapsed on his knees to the unforgiving ground. His pure black suit was instantly covered, his thin body beginning to convulse into harsh sobs. His wet hair was plastered against his ghostly skin fell over his face. His now dirtied hands clawed at the ground violently and pulled his body closer the newly-made grave. He then began slamming his fists in the ground, screaming into the air…as the bloody petals from the rose flowed like a river into the ground and on to the coffin below.
“Take care…of…Jaejoong..ie…”
Those words that Yunho had spoken to him that day…he had first attributed them to the medications that flowed through his blood stream…his weak body through the multiple surgeries…to the illness that was eating out at his muscle tissue and tearing through his liver…
But now it seemed…those words were no mistake.
“Tell him…that I’m sorry…”
As broken whimpers broke through the silence…Changmin knew one thing.
That perfection…
Had only been an illusion.
TBC
Next>>---
So yea that's the prologue, let me know how you feel about it! Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated~ Just please don't try to kill me because Yunho is....yea *avoiding all of the thrown vegetables and steak knives* I'M SORRY!!! It had to happen! ;;A;; I'm sorry, please forgive me! And please don't hate me, Yunnie! *hugs you*
Lol he will actually appear a lot in flashbacks and of course, on everyone's minds because he's special~ xD so he's not completely gone here.
And just so everyone knows: Kim Ji-hyo is indeed Song Ji-hyo (actress who appeared in In Heaven and with Jaejoong in The Jackal Is Coming if anyone was curious).
Thanks for reading! ^^
Oh! And if anyone has a tumblr and wants to follow me or talk to me outside of LJ, my tumblr is changjaeporn :33