Needing Hero
Needing Hero
Centric:Jaejoong
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,253
Summary: The other members have something that Jaejoong doesn't, something that he needs.
A/N: Coding is a bitch. I recommend waiting to read until I can fix the coding problem or reading it on Tumblr, unless you enjoy giant blocks of un-paragraphed text.
“I have to use the bathroom,” Jaejoong deadpans as soon as he crosses the threshold of the dorm and heads to the bathroom, leaving his band mates staring at him oddly. Picture frames containing paintings of boring landscapes rattle as he slams the bathroom door behind him; one falls from its rusty nail and Jaejoong can hear glass shatter. Voices murmur in the kitchen.
He sits on the edge of the bathtub and sighs, wondering why he even came to Seoul in the first place. Why did he he leave his family, only to sell chocolates and bubblegum outside of a supermarket in order to pay his rent? Why did he come to this big city just to fulfill a dream that he wasn't sure he could finish fulfilling?
“Dammit, Youngwoong,” he mutters, gripping the hard plastic edge of the bathtub until his knuckles turn white. “Get it together, will you?”
He can't dance like Yunho. He can't rap like Yoochun. He isn't cute like Junsu. He doesn't have half the wit that Changmin does. He's the oldest, yet he's not the leader of the group. He can sing, but DBSK is an a cappella group, it would be ridiculous if one of them couldn't sing. He's just the replaceable, cold looking lead singer; fans have to be forced to stand in his line at fan signings, and some cry because of it.
He's useless.
Changmin says loudly that he's hungry, and Jaejoong knows that the complaint is aimed at him. Jaejoong ignores them. He knows that Changmin's words reflect the opinions of the other three and he's just the only one that will speak up.
It would be stupid of him to think that the others would leave it at that, so he isn't at all surprised when he hears socked footsteps in the hallway. They stutter, obviously not keen on getting a foot full of glass shards, and stop in front of the bathroom.
“Jaejoong, you should come out now.”
It's U-Know. Jaejoong doesn't know if it's because U-Know is usually better at handling people, or if Yunho is simply too tired from the day's nearly endless schedule to let U-Know fade away. Regardless, he doesn't want to talk to either, especially not to the Other.
“Go away,” Jaejoong says, leaning his back against the wall and drawing his knees up to his chest. He won't let U-Know draw him out. He'll suffer in silence, by himself.
“You've been using the bathroom for at least ten minutes,” U-Know counters, and Jaejoong can almost see the leader making air quotes with the index and middle finger of each of his hands.
“Go away, dammit!” Anger seizes him; he picks up the nearest object, a bar of soap sitting on the shelf of the shower, and hurls it at the door. It bounces off harmlessly, neither the door nor the soap damaged, but it makes a satisfyingly loud noise.
The man on the other side of the door sighs. Jaejoong can't tell if it's Yunho or U-Know at this point. U-Know wouldn't sigh in such a way, as if admitting defeat, but stranger things have happened. Footsteps sound in the hallway again, the leader walks away and leaves Jaejoong to himself.
Jaejoong sighs as well. Yunho should have known better than to talk to him using U-Know, when it's obvious that the Other is exactly what's eating at Jaejoong. Not U-Know specifically, nor Micky nor Xiah nor Choikang, but Others in general.
Others, personas, stage names. They were all the same thing really, like masks that they could put on when needed and take off when unnecessary. Others were quite common in the entertainment industry, though people without them had no idea of their existence.
“Your Other is another tool at your disposal,” Jaejoong remembers the president of their company telling them when he found that they had Others. “They make up for the things you lack or enhance the abilities you already have, and make you better idols. Use them whenever you do something for this company, on-camera or not.”
President Lee was one of few people that could sense when someone possessed an Other. When he found that Jaejoong, Yunho, Yoochun, Junsu, and Changmin all had them, he promptly named the Others and shoved the five of them in a group together, talent and compatibility with each other be damned. They became Youngwoong Jaejoong, U-Know Yunho, Micky Yoochun, Xiah Junsu, and Choikang Changmin.
When U-Know takes control, Yunho gains the tact and patience to get them through the awkward situations that come up. Micky helps Yoochun become more charming. Xiah lets Junsu throw out high notes as if it's as simple as breathing, and Choikang allows Changmin to navigate through puberty with little to no voice cracks or other quirks as his body changes, though Choikang will move to something else once that phase of Changmin's growth ends.
As for Youngwoong, Jaejoong has no idea where he is or what he does.
A late bloomer, that's what President Lee calls him. He and Changmin were in the same boat when they first debuted, stage names tacked to the front of their given names with no Other to be found, but Choikang popped up two weeks later. It's been more than a year, and Jaejoong is thoroughly convinced that Youngwoong is hiding under a rock. He constantly tells President Lee that he was wrong in sensing Jaejoong's Other, that there is no Youngwoong and he shouldn't have been given a stage name in the first place. The president tells him that Jaejoong is the wrong one, and that Youngwoong will manifest eventually.
Jaejoong isn't convinced.
He needs Youngwoong. Youngwoong will make him better; he'll either fix some of Jaejoong's flaws or accentuate good features. Youngwoong will get him fans that don't cry when shoved into his line, but ones that will smile and squeal and ask if he can write something special for them. Youngwoong will indulge them, of course, and will smile as he does so. Youngwoong will make him shine, just as his band mates do.
But Jaejoong can't help but wonder where Youngwoong has stowed himself away. He's been told that the latest a “late bloomer” tapped into their Other was two months, and Jaejoong is obviously past that deadline.
Why the hell can't he gain access to Youngwoong? It was so simple for his band mates; U-Know, Micky, and Xiah appeared almost immediately after being discovered, and it only took two weeks and an embarrassing on-air voice crack from Changmin for Choikang to show himself and fix Changmin. Why is Jaejoong so different?
He clonks his head on the shower wall behind him, thinking that maybe if he knocks his brain around enough, Youngwoong will pop up out of nowhere and fix him. It's a stupid thought, but he does it again for a good measure before getting up to stand in front of the mirror above the sink. The glass is broken, spiderweb cracks spreading from the spot that Jaejoong had punched just days ago.
Jaejoong stares at his reflection. He wishes he could see Youngwoong in the glass, but he knows it's not that easy. Youngwoong won't appear just because Jaejoong wants him to, or else the Other would have been with him when he debuted. He has to wait, and that's what frustrates him the most.
“Youngwoong, where are you?” he asks and traces the cracks in the glass with his finger. “I need you.”