changmin/yoona | kingyo
Title: Kingyo
Pairing: Changmin/Yoona
Genre: romance, AU, angst
Rating: G
Length: oneshot
A/N: dedicated to aoza
Oneshot | Kingyo; Goldfish
When he asks her if she’ll accompany him elsewhere at the after party, her immediate reaction is a swift shake of her head. “No,” she tells him, a sorrowful look in her eyes, “I can’t.” It is the classic Yoona rejection, the formality, the distance. But with Changmin, it’s different because one - he’s seen it so many times and two - she can’t hide her feelings, no matter how hard she tries.
But Yoona, being Yoona, tries anyway.
Changmin has always known about their friendship. Sooyoung and Yoona, the unlikely friends, but connected at the hip. Where one went, the other followed. What one ate, the other tried to steal. It had been common knowledge amongst the SM artists and trainees, but Changmin only really started to take notice when he discovered the pair of them during a break, tossing a coin to see who got the last sushi roll in the treat their dance trainer had brought along. Sooyoung had ended up winning, but Changmin hadn’t been able to stand the regretful, forlorn look on Yoona’s beautiful face. So he ended up buying another roll for Yoona.
Changmin, being Changmin, is stubborn as always and doesn’t turn and walk away like Yoona wants him to. Before, that is what he would do, before, when he felt that he would get another chance - that’s what he would do. But now, he feels like he’s running out of time. So he asks her, “Why not?”
He can tell that all she wants to do is turn around and disappear in the crowd, drowning in alcohol, drown, so she doesn’t need to think about him. He’s not going to let that happen. Then Yoona tells him, “People will talk.”
He hated it when people talked. They talked and talked, as if he would never come to hear of exactly what they said. When Changmin had just joined, talk about him had been good. How he was a promising trainee, how surely, he’d have a great future. But then, when the people he thought of as his closest friends, his brothers, turned their backs on him and Yunho. And while they’re separated, wishing those stupid things called contracts and lawsuits would just go away, people talked. Day by day, Changmin lived, surrounded by people talking about him, about DBSK, about his future. As if he was deaf. Until one day, Changmin woke up in the morning and figured that he was tired of caring.
That’s what he tells Yoona, beneath the heavy bass beats of the stereo system in the hotel suite, beneath the dimmed lights. He tells her, simply, clearly, “It doesn’t matter, what they say.” Because he knows that people would always talk. The one thing that made all the difference was whether or not the person who was being talked about cared.
But even though Changmin thinks of everything this way, he knows that Yoona needs to care very much about what people say about her. So it’s no surprise when she says, “It matters to me.”
But still, Changmin is selfish.
The first time he fell in love, he was young, foolish. And in a way, he still is. He doesn’t recall a specific moment when he fell in love, but he did remember the day that he admitted it to himself. That he was hopelessly in love with Yoona, while the rest of SMTown knew that Sooyoung had something of a crush on him. It was a warm afternoon, utterly inappropriate for slaving away in the training rooms as TVXQ practiced for their comeback - one that Cassies around the world were anticipating with bated breath. Neither Yunho or Changmin could afford to disappoint. They were reaching one of hte more difficult parts of the dance, a part that Changmin had never gotten quite perfect. And in the lead up, he let his concentration break - just for one moment and one moment only. Only to find Yoona watching him through the window in the door. She gave him a smile that he couldn’t possibly decipher - not in a million years. Then, he perfects the dance.
He was in love.
When she tries to flee, he grabs her wrist but his fingers end up around her fingers and he cannot stop himself from entwining them. They are a perfect fit, and he cannot imagine them fitting with anybody else. He notices her breath catch too, and he knows that she had thought the same, unforgivable thing. His voice sinks into a whisper, resonating in her mind, her heart, like nothing else can.
“Come with me. Just once.”
She looks up at him, gaze wavering and afraid. He nearly misses her voice because it is so soft. “Just once.”
He agrees, leading her away from the loud music and straining lights. All the while, wishing it was ‘forever’ instead of ‘once’.
Yoona wishes that too, knowing full well that she cannot. She cannot, for her best friend. And yet, she is being led out into the night with him, heading somewhere else. In the end, it doesn’t matter to her where - all that matters is that it’s just her and Changmin.
They come to a stop in front of laughter, warm lights and delightful smells. Hand in hand.
He knew that there was no obligation for him to be with Sooyoung at all. He didn’t need to care about what she thought of him. He had to care though, because the two shikshins of Girls’ Generations had a close bond. If he loved Yoona - and if that got out - how would Sooyoung feel? Changmin was selfish and ignorant much of the time, but he cared about Yoona and that made all the difference.
So he kept the interactions minimal, but satisfactory. Passing by their training room, a friendly wave every third time they passes each other in the hallway, a friendly text during their comeback and goodbye stages. Changmin also knew to entertain Sooyoung to a degree, but after a high-five, smile and bow onstage, he would get a strange look from Yoona. Changmin could have interpretted it as jealousy (and it was, in part), but he knew that it was the look of a best friend looking out for her counterpart.
Don’t lead her on.
But don’t break her heart either.
What was he supposed to do?
Yoona tugs her coat closer around her, feeling a wave of nervousness course through her as she considers the possibilities of being recognised. She can’t kid herself, Girls’ Generation is well-known in Japan. Perhaps they never gained the same popularity as SHINee and TVXQ, but their faces had been on billboards and TV screens. She can’t afford it - being caught with Changmin - a scandal. She is the face of SNSD, she needs to be perfect.
But then she notices the warm hand holding hers and she realises that she’s not perfect at all. She’s far from it, and there’s nothing she can do. It’s far easier to just go along with it, to fall apart as time and fate dictates.
So she does not fight it when Changmin leads them along stalls, purchasing food for both of them, challenging her to a game here and there. Yoona just laughs and goes along with it, because it’s everything she wants and she can do nothing about it. She’s too far gone, after all.
“Yoona.”
“Yeah, Sooyoung?”
The girls were sitting on the floor of their training room, after most of the girls had cleared out. They were the last ones left that morning, with an extra hours’ worth of practice because everyone else (save for Yuri and Seohyun at vocal training) had different schedules. Sooyoung had her hair tied into two pigtails, and was sprawled out on the floor, making invisible snow angels.
“Do you think I have a chance with Changmin oppa at all?”
Yoona wanted to say that she had no chance. Changmin would never love her. Changmin had his sights set on somebody else - and she was ashamed to say that she knew who. But she didn’t say those things. She just smiled at her friend and told her, like she always did, “He’ll wake up one day.”
Sooyoung laughed, “The way you say ‘one day’ makes it feel like the day we turn fifty or something.”
She laughed along but said nothing, for the guilt was suffocating her.
They stop at a stall - a game where you caught goldfish. Yoona stares a little at the nets she is given. They are thin and small - flimsy. She doubts that she can catch anything with them. But when Changmin challenges her, encourages her, with a laugh, an irresistible smile - she can’t refuse.
So she tries to catch them - flickering red and orange in clear water. Slipping away, evading her gr
asp.
Just like him.
When he walks away with two goldfish and her none, they laugh. Well, he laughs at her. “Clumsy choding.”
She rolls her eyes in response and shakes her head. “Immature as always, eh?”
He proves her right by kissing her - a forbidden, yet, irresistible act. Yoona wishes then, that life was really like a fairytale. That a kiss would be able to break the spell and set her free.
But life is not a fairytale.
A year later, she sits in the dorms, cross-legged on the floor. It is snowing lightly outside and the other girls are either sleeping or elsewhere, recording for a variety show, a radio show. For once, Yoona is not the centre of attention, and she is grateful. For once, Yoona does not torture herself with questions about the future. Instead, she waits for the future to come to her.
As she watches two flickers of red and orange cross, she wonders if she’ll have a happily ever after with Changmin.
Maybe this time, happily ever after will not flee her grasp.