Majnun Jang (Minjun/Wooyoung)
Title: Majnun Jang
Author: mo_chan_tf
Group: 2PM
Characters: Minjun/Wooyoung
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,400
Summary: Damn cheesy love stories.
Notes: Written for unreal-2pm; originally posted here. Notes on the title and other details are at the end. This one goes to Kojo, Michelle and Mica. :)
Prompt 1: "I need more dreams, and less life. And I need that dark, in a little more light." (lyrics from Fall Out Boys' Save Rock & Roll)
Prompt 2: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_koinawZF2N1qzf1oro1_500.jpg
Prompt 3: Star-crossed lovers
*
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:20am]
Hey hey ^^
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:20am]
Hey hey ㅋㅋ
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:22am]
Are you still on the way?
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:28am]
Gimme a few more minutes and I’ll be there! You in bed?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:29am]
You’ve got 4 tracks before one of Our Songs starts, or you’ll miss the chance to dance with me.
He stares at the screen, the taxi silent while the driver waits for the light to turn green. So Hey hey was a hint. A number of songs and artists echo on his mind before he types an answer.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:32am]
Clapton?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:32am]
Too easy.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:33am]
So I’m right?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:33am]
And dumb.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
Watch out or hyung will have to punish you.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
Boo. :P
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
2 more tracks.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:35am]
If it starts and you don’t wait for me I’ll drag you out of bed and scream the lyrics in your ear.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:36am]
You wouldn’t.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:36am]
Boo. :)
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:37am]
Stop using that against me.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:37am]
Don’t get angry at your boo boo! ^3^
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:38am]
1 more track. Where are you???
*
Minjun arrives just as the first notes of Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out echo from the bedroom. His lips tug up and he feels giddy with anticipation as he takes off his flashy high tops, red beanie, olive scarf and python jacket. He finds Wooyoung where the music plays, face burrowed in a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Minjun only knows the title because he had actually asked Chansung to find him a book that mentioned another famous story in a way that would be surprising for Wooyoung, and Chansung had found that one. He still has to thank their maknae for that.
Wooyoung seems focused on his reading. However contradicting it might be of the messages they’d just been sending each other, it doesn’t surprise Minjun. Wooyoung has often been able to concentrate despite the noise around him, whereas Minjun usually needs silence to get things done. His inspiration, however, comes from their very lack of rest.
“Hey hey,” he greets, just after the song before Theirs finishes the first chorus. Wooyoung turns fast to look at him, basically jumping off the bed to come and give him a peck on the lips.
“Majnun Minjun,” he teases, his smile telling Minjun at once that he knows he’s not supposed to call him that but he’ll do it anyway so Minjun’d better shut up about it. “My crazy oppaaaaa,” he continues, circling Minjun’s torso to put his hands inside the back pockets of his jeans, which this time are not baggy but actually fit. Minjun can’t complain then, not when Wooyoung takes the chance to squeeze him while nuzzling at his neck.
“Missed me much?” Minjun tries to get back at him, but his voice already betrays his expectations as much as the way his hands grip at Wooyoung’s sides. The response he earns is Wooyoung’s lips on his neck, perhaps another smile there, slender hands going up underneath Minjun’s striped shirt.
When the first notes of the awaited Layla come out, Minjun doesn’t bother snapping his fingers along like he usually would, prefering to pull Wooyoung closer this time. The latter sings the first verses along, voice soft as they take slow steps to the beat, thighs intertwined and lips almost touching. Minjun breathes Wooyoung in, breathing out the song title as he starts the chorus and they sway, hips going down. Dun-dun duuuun-dun, go the notes, you got me on my knees, Layla, they look at each other and then they’re straight up again, going down once more each time the notes are repeated. Minjun lets out a breathy laugh just before Wooyoung sings the next verse, and then he follows, twirling Wooyoung around and pulling him close again, holding him by the waist. Before I finally go insaaaane, he whispers, lyrics in tune with the song, Wooyoung’s body in tune with his.
Wooyoung grasps at his wrists as the chorus makes them go down again, a little less this time, more slowly, carefully. Maybe a little out of rhythm, but not necessarily by accident. It hardly matters at this point. Wooyoung’s head drops on Minjun’s shoulder, his eyelids droop, lips parted. Minjun’s eyes feast on his face as their legs almost stop moving because Wooyoung is guiding their hands places that need attention right now.
*
“Tell me the story of Majnun and Layla again, hyung.”
“Again?! But I haven’t told you the one about the rock stars yet.”
Wooyoung pouts at him. “But that’s boring.”
“You don’t even know--”
“Not today, okay?”
“How about the one with Captain Junkay Sparrow?”
“You mean Captain Junk Sparrow?”
“Junkaaay.”
“Whatever. And no.”
“What if I tell you about Kim Romeo and Jangliet--”
Wooyoung cracks up at that. Then he frowns. “Why am I always the girl.”
“Who said anything about you being the girl?”
“Well... you--”
Minjun moves around until he can bury his face on Wooyoung’s hair and neck, draping himself half over Wooyoung’s body on the mattress. He’s tired, but the good kind of tired, his body feels heavy and yet devoid of shape, and he’s content as long as they can stay like this. “You’re my Layla,” he mumbles against Wooyoung’s skin, willing to sleep already.
Wooyoung has other plans, though. “Hyung.”
Minjun ought to remember to stop pestering him during the day so he can either complain about Wooyoung not letting him sleep or at least have a reason to try and seem annoyed. Wooyoung is right, however, when he says Minjun can’t really get angry at him. “Hmmmmmm.”
Relentless, Wooyoung pinches at Minjun’s calf with two of his toes.
Minjun yelps and rolls away from him. “Bad dongsaeng!”
Wooyoung just chuckles, unrepentant. “You promised me a story.”
“I didn’t.”
“Minjunniiieee...” his voice drops down to the overly soothing, often childish tone they sometimes use to talk to each other. Minjun doesn’t remember selling his soul to that, but apparently he did. He just can’t resist - least of all when Wooyoung rests a cheek on his shoulder and pouts at him while his fingers crawl up Minjun’s spine. “Majnun and Layla.”
Minjun lets out an over dramatic sigh, but his smile is real once he decides to sit on the bed, more than welcoming Wooyoung back in his arms. Covers are dragged and tucked around them as Minjun thinks of the words to use even though he’s told this so many times Wooyoung can probably do it better than him now. “Do you want the whole story?”
Wooyoung surprises him by shaking his head. “I want details. Things you haven’t said.”
He frowns. “Like what?”
Fingers move up his chest, tracing lines under the covers. Minjun intertwines their hands, thumb caressing the other’s. “We usually stop after Layla dies.” He pauses. “But what happens to Majnun?”
Minjun almost states the obvious just to tease him, but bites at his own lips and keeps quiet for some time. “You know that Layla’s father didn’t let them get married, and some versions say that was because Majnun was mad, while others say that he got mad after that...”
Wooyoung nods. “His name was Qays.”
“Yes. And people called him Majnun as if Layla had been the one to drive him mad.”
Minjun feels Wooyoung’s fleeting smile on his shoulder, warm breath tickling him briefly. “You don’t like that version, right, hyung?”
Minjun shrugs once. “I don’t know. I think he went mad because he couldn’t be with her, but he was madly in love already, y’know? That’s not necessarily bad.” He touches Wooyoung’s hair, pulling gently at the longer strands on the top of his head and stroking at his scalp where the hair was cut short. He looks down to see the other’s eyes are closed, his lips slightly curved, which makes Minjun smile as well. “He wrote a lot of poems inspired by Layla and the love he had for her, but to people who couldn’t understand what he felt, that was just a sign he was crazy.”
Wooyoung moves a little, adjusting his body against Minjun’s, but their hands remain locked. “No Love, No Music.” There’s no derision in his voice, just an echo of Minjun’s own words. “I remember you told me about that once. To those who don’t feel it, it’s just a lot of noise.”
Minjun takes a moment to savor that, and when he tightens his hold around Wooyoung for a while, the other lets him. He clears his throat, now rubbing slow circles down Wooyoung’s back. “He continued writing after Layla died, and he kept visiting her grave.”
Wooyoung nods and waits, eyes on their fingers as they move a little and fit together again. Minjun lets go of his hand only to caress his arm, which Wooyoung wraps around his middle, head on his chest.
“One tale says he was found near her grave, where he had written some verses.”
“You don’t happen to know them by heart?”
Minjun frowns. “I don’t know those, but... there’s this poet, Nizami, who wrote about them a lot...” another thing he only knows thanks to Chansung. He seriously ought to thank him properly, maybe by getting him a year’s worth supply of books. Right now, though, it’s to Wooyoung that his mind goes: the way he turns his head up to look at Minjun, who feels it, the way his eyes spark in expectation. He clears his throat, staring at their joined hands while letting the emotion in the verses take over his voice. “If someone delves within a lover’s heart,” he pauses, “He’ll find the loved one in its deepest part.”
Wooyoung keeps looking at him, a joined smile hovering between them. He squeezes Minjun’s fingers once, but keeps silent, that in itself speaking volumes.
Minjun clears his throat again. He might have teased Wooyoung or faked a whine for attention were he not moved by the words as well, by how he feels towards the very one in his arms. Damn cheesy love stories.
“This book you gave me...” Wooyoung trails off as a brief frown crosses his features. “There’s a girl called Laila, and she falls in love with a boy named Tariq, but they can’t be together,” he actually rolls his eyes as if to say, of-course,this-had-to-become-another-drama, and Minjun loves him all the more for it. “Rasheed keeps calling them Layla and Majnun, but he has more reasons than just social prejudice to be against them.”
“Let me guess. He wants Laila.”
Wooyoung nods gravely, and sighs. “Yes, but at least they get to be together before tragedy strikes.”
“Hmmm. A little happier than Layla and Majnun, then?”
“Not really... I don’t know. But when they... when they say farewell, I really wished they could have found a way, y’know?”
Minjun bites back a smile, yet he grips lightly at Wooyoung’s shoulder and then settles at caressing down his spine. “How would that have been?”
Wooyoung’s brows furrow together for a split second and then he’s smiling at Minjun. “You want me to tell you?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s time you came up with your own stories.”
“I like ours.”
“But you’ve heard about Maj--”
“No, I mean, our story. You and me.”
Minjun has to bite back more than just a smile this time. “Wooyoung.”
Wooyoung hums, head still on his chest. “It was a cold winter night.”
Minjun chuckles, but forces himself to be quiet. Wooyoung feels beyond the chuckle, reads underneath the lines on his face. Wooyoung knows him. Wooyoung knows.
“I think we said some bullshit about loving music too much to risk being together, because, oh no, society, blah blah, yes industry, no gay people, boom,” Wooyoung lets go of his hand to mimic an explosion and sweep at the air as if dismissing all that. Minjun has to laugh again, although it’s as breathy as ever, so Wooyoung can’t hold it against him. Not that he would, because their story doesn’t really go like that, but Wooyoung can make up whatever he wants when he’s the narrator, just like Minjun would. “So we decide to depart because we can’t bear each other’s presence without touching and that is suspicious.”
Minjun nods. His fingers rake at the top of Wooyoung’s head, pulling gently at the long strands again. “And we do that on a cold winter night?”
“Uh-huh. Makes it more intense and sad, y’know? Love stories are not supposed to end in the summer or spring, when everything’s so bright and lively.”
“So is it raining too?”
Wooyoung hums in thought, and Minjun shifts a little under him, because, well. “No. It’s snowing, though. When you reach the train station, you leave a trail of footsteps behind you.”
“Train station? Why am I going there?”
“Because you’re going away.”
“Why me?”
“Do you want me to go? Fine, I can--”
Minjun strengthens his hold around him. He hopes his tone now will make up for the interruptions. “No, Wooyoung ah. Go on.”
Wooyoung takes a second or two to continue, as if testing Minjun. “Footprints. In the snow. You’re alone, the door to your railcar is open, and you need to hop in.”
Minjun can’t resist his dramatic pause. “And I feel so alone... No loooooove, no loooooooove, NO LOOOOOOOOOOOO--”
Wooyoung all but snarls at him. “Hyung!!!”
He coughs. “Sorry, Wooyoungie.”
“Yeah. Right.” But Wooyoung laughs quietly at him and settles back against his body. Minjun lets his victorious smile show only because the other’s face rests over his chest, so he can’t see it. Probably. “But just as you’re about to get on the train--” His eyes narrow; he’s either imagining it or expecting Minjun to interrupt him again. The latter just waits, though, so Wooyoung goes on, voice subdued. “You hear someone calling you.” Wooyoung lifts up his head, chin now on Minjun’s clavicle. “Minjun,” he whispers, very close to his lips. “I’m screaming and running towards you, and then--”
Minjun kisses him.
Wooyoung pulls back. “I’m not finished...!”
“Good, ‘cause neither am I.”
*
*
Extra notes: Majnun means “to be driven mad by / to be possessed by madness for”. Qays was called Majnun after he fell in love with Layla, and their story is usually known as “Majnun Layla”, one of the many “star-crossed lovers” that came up while I researched for this fic. The title here is a play on Minjun's name, Wooyoung’s last name (Jang) and the Korean word “jjang”, the latter of which can mean “the best / awesome”. So what you have here is either Wooyoung driving Minjun mad with love (and both of them enjoying every minute of it) or a celebration of the madness that is to fall in love (which also works for them).
The song Layla, by Eric Clapton (& Jim Gordon), is indeed about Majnun Layla. All the songs mentioned here are off Clapton’s 1992 Unplugged album.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book by Khaled Hosseini.
Some of Nizami’s poetry can be found here.
*
Author: mo_chan_tf
Group: 2PM
Characters: Minjun/Wooyoung
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,400
Summary: Damn cheesy love stories.
Notes: Written for unreal-2pm; originally posted here. Notes on the title and other details are at the end. This one goes to Kojo, Michelle and Mica. :)
Prompt 1: "I need more dreams, and less life. And I need that dark, in a little more light." (lyrics from Fall Out Boys' Save Rock & Roll)
Prompt 2: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_koinawZF2N1qzf1oro1_500.jpg
Prompt 3: Star-crossed lovers
*
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:20am]
Hey hey ^^
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:20am]
Hey hey ㅋㅋ
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:22am]
Are you still on the way?
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:28am]
Gimme a few more minutes and I’ll be there! You in bed?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:29am]
You’ve got 4 tracks before one of Our Songs starts, or you’ll miss the chance to dance with me.
He stares at the screen, the taxi silent while the driver waits for the light to turn green. So Hey hey was a hint. A number of songs and artists echo on his mind before he types an answer.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:32am]
Clapton?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:32am]
Too easy.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:33am]
So I’m right?
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:33am]
And dumb.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
Watch out or hyung will have to punish you.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
Boo. :P
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:34am]
2 more tracks.
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:35am]
If it starts and you don’t wait for me I’ll drag you out of bed and scream the lyrics in your ear.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:36am]
You wouldn’t.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:36am]
Boo. :)
[to Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:37am]
Stop using that against me.
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:37am]
Don’t get angry at your boo boo! ^3^
[from Fave Dongsaeng @ 01:38am]
1 more track. Where are you???
*
Minjun arrives just as the first notes of Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out echo from the bedroom. His lips tug up and he feels giddy with anticipation as he takes off his flashy high tops, red beanie, olive scarf and python jacket. He finds Wooyoung where the music plays, face burrowed in a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns. Minjun only knows the title because he had actually asked Chansung to find him a book that mentioned another famous story in a way that would be surprising for Wooyoung, and Chansung had found that one. He still has to thank their maknae for that.
Wooyoung seems focused on his reading. However contradicting it might be of the messages they’d just been sending each other, it doesn’t surprise Minjun. Wooyoung has often been able to concentrate despite the noise around him, whereas Minjun usually needs silence to get things done. His inspiration, however, comes from their very lack of rest.
“Hey hey,” he greets, just after the song before Theirs finishes the first chorus. Wooyoung turns fast to look at him, basically jumping off the bed to come and give him a peck on the lips.
“Majnun Minjun,” he teases, his smile telling Minjun at once that he knows he’s not supposed to call him that but he’ll do it anyway so Minjun’d better shut up about it. “My crazy oppaaaaa,” he continues, circling Minjun’s torso to put his hands inside the back pockets of his jeans, which this time are not baggy but actually fit. Minjun can’t complain then, not when Wooyoung takes the chance to squeeze him while nuzzling at his neck.
“Missed me much?” Minjun tries to get back at him, but his voice already betrays his expectations as much as the way his hands grip at Wooyoung’s sides. The response he earns is Wooyoung’s lips on his neck, perhaps another smile there, slender hands going up underneath Minjun’s striped shirt.
When the first notes of the awaited Layla come out, Minjun doesn’t bother snapping his fingers along like he usually would, prefering to pull Wooyoung closer this time. The latter sings the first verses along, voice soft as they take slow steps to the beat, thighs intertwined and lips almost touching. Minjun breathes Wooyoung in, breathing out the song title as he starts the chorus and they sway, hips going down. Dun-dun duuuun-dun, go the notes, you got me on my knees, Layla, they look at each other and then they’re straight up again, going down once more each time the notes are repeated. Minjun lets out a breathy laugh just before Wooyoung sings the next verse, and then he follows, twirling Wooyoung around and pulling him close again, holding him by the waist. Before I finally go insaaaane, he whispers, lyrics in tune with the song, Wooyoung’s body in tune with his.
Wooyoung grasps at his wrists as the chorus makes them go down again, a little less this time, more slowly, carefully. Maybe a little out of rhythm, but not necessarily by accident. It hardly matters at this point. Wooyoung’s head drops on Minjun’s shoulder, his eyelids droop, lips parted. Minjun’s eyes feast on his face as their legs almost stop moving because Wooyoung is guiding their hands places that need attention right now.
*
“Tell me the story of Majnun and Layla again, hyung.”
“Again?! But I haven’t told you the one about the rock stars yet.”
Wooyoung pouts at him. “But that’s boring.”
“You don’t even know--”
“Not today, okay?”
“How about the one with Captain Junkay Sparrow?”
“You mean Captain Junk Sparrow?”
“Junkaaay.”
“Whatever. And no.”
“What if I tell you about Kim Romeo and Jangliet--”
Wooyoung cracks up at that. Then he frowns. “Why am I always the girl.”
“Who said anything about you being the girl?”
“Well... you--”
Minjun moves around until he can bury his face on Wooyoung’s hair and neck, draping himself half over Wooyoung’s body on the mattress. He’s tired, but the good kind of tired, his body feels heavy and yet devoid of shape, and he’s content as long as they can stay like this. “You’re my Layla,” he mumbles against Wooyoung’s skin, willing to sleep already.
Wooyoung has other plans, though. “Hyung.”
Minjun ought to remember to stop pestering him during the day so he can either complain about Wooyoung not letting him sleep or at least have a reason to try and seem annoyed. Wooyoung is right, however, when he says Minjun can’t really get angry at him. “Hmmmmmm.”
Relentless, Wooyoung pinches at Minjun’s calf with two of his toes.
Minjun yelps and rolls away from him. “Bad dongsaeng!”
Wooyoung just chuckles, unrepentant. “You promised me a story.”
“I didn’t.”
“Minjunniiieee...” his voice drops down to the overly soothing, often childish tone they sometimes use to talk to each other. Minjun doesn’t remember selling his soul to that, but apparently he did. He just can’t resist - least of all when Wooyoung rests a cheek on his shoulder and pouts at him while his fingers crawl up Minjun’s spine. “Majnun and Layla.”
Minjun lets out an over dramatic sigh, but his smile is real once he decides to sit on the bed, more than welcoming Wooyoung back in his arms. Covers are dragged and tucked around them as Minjun thinks of the words to use even though he’s told this so many times Wooyoung can probably do it better than him now. “Do you want the whole story?”
Wooyoung surprises him by shaking his head. “I want details. Things you haven’t said.”
He frowns. “Like what?”
Fingers move up his chest, tracing lines under the covers. Minjun intertwines their hands, thumb caressing the other’s. “We usually stop after Layla dies.” He pauses. “But what happens to Majnun?”
Minjun almost states the obvious just to tease him, but bites at his own lips and keeps quiet for some time. “You know that Layla’s father didn’t let them get married, and some versions say that was because Majnun was mad, while others say that he got mad after that...”
Wooyoung nods. “His name was Qays.”
“Yes. And people called him Majnun as if Layla had been the one to drive him mad.”
Minjun feels Wooyoung’s fleeting smile on his shoulder, warm breath tickling him briefly. “You don’t like that version, right, hyung?”
Minjun shrugs once. “I don’t know. I think he went mad because he couldn’t be with her, but he was madly in love already, y’know? That’s not necessarily bad.” He touches Wooyoung’s hair, pulling gently at the longer strands on the top of his head and stroking at his scalp where the hair was cut short. He looks down to see the other’s eyes are closed, his lips slightly curved, which makes Minjun smile as well. “He wrote a lot of poems inspired by Layla and the love he had for her, but to people who couldn’t understand what he felt, that was just a sign he was crazy.”
Wooyoung moves a little, adjusting his body against Minjun’s, but their hands remain locked. “No Love, No Music.” There’s no derision in his voice, just an echo of Minjun’s own words. “I remember you told me about that once. To those who don’t feel it, it’s just a lot of noise.”
Minjun takes a moment to savor that, and when he tightens his hold around Wooyoung for a while, the other lets him. He clears his throat, now rubbing slow circles down Wooyoung’s back. “He continued writing after Layla died, and he kept visiting her grave.”
Wooyoung nods and waits, eyes on their fingers as they move a little and fit together again. Minjun lets go of his hand only to caress his arm, which Wooyoung wraps around his middle, head on his chest.
“One tale says he was found near her grave, where he had written some verses.”
“You don’t happen to know them by heart?”
Minjun frowns. “I don’t know those, but... there’s this poet, Nizami, who wrote about them a lot...” another thing he only knows thanks to Chansung. He seriously ought to thank him properly, maybe by getting him a year’s worth supply of books. Right now, though, it’s to Wooyoung that his mind goes: the way he turns his head up to look at Minjun, who feels it, the way his eyes spark in expectation. He clears his throat, staring at their joined hands while letting the emotion in the verses take over his voice. “If someone delves within a lover’s heart,” he pauses, “He’ll find the loved one in its deepest part.”
Wooyoung keeps looking at him, a joined smile hovering between them. He squeezes Minjun’s fingers once, but keeps silent, that in itself speaking volumes.
Minjun clears his throat again. He might have teased Wooyoung or faked a whine for attention were he not moved by the words as well, by how he feels towards the very one in his arms. Damn cheesy love stories.
“This book you gave me...” Wooyoung trails off as a brief frown crosses his features. “There’s a girl called Laila, and she falls in love with a boy named Tariq, but they can’t be together,” he actually rolls his eyes as if to say, of-course,this-had-to-become-another-drama, and Minjun loves him all the more for it. “Rasheed keeps calling them Layla and Majnun, but he has more reasons than just social prejudice to be against them.”
“Let me guess. He wants Laila.”
Wooyoung nods gravely, and sighs. “Yes, but at least they get to be together before tragedy strikes.”
“Hmmm. A little happier than Layla and Majnun, then?”
“Not really... I don’t know. But when they... when they say farewell, I really wished they could have found a way, y’know?”
Minjun bites back a smile, yet he grips lightly at Wooyoung’s shoulder and then settles at caressing down his spine. “How would that have been?”
Wooyoung’s brows furrow together for a split second and then he’s smiling at Minjun. “You want me to tell you?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s time you came up with your own stories.”
“I like ours.”
“But you’ve heard about Maj--”
“No, I mean, our story. You and me.”
Minjun has to bite back more than just a smile this time. “Wooyoung.”
Wooyoung hums, head still on his chest. “It was a cold winter night.”
Minjun chuckles, but forces himself to be quiet. Wooyoung feels beyond the chuckle, reads underneath the lines on his face. Wooyoung knows him. Wooyoung knows.
“I think we said some bullshit about loving music too much to risk being together, because, oh no, society, blah blah, yes industry, no gay people, boom,” Wooyoung lets go of his hand to mimic an explosion and sweep at the air as if dismissing all that. Minjun has to laugh again, although it’s as breathy as ever, so Wooyoung can’t hold it against him. Not that he would, because their story doesn’t really go like that, but Wooyoung can make up whatever he wants when he’s the narrator, just like Minjun would. “So we decide to depart because we can’t bear each other’s presence without touching and that is suspicious.”
Minjun nods. His fingers rake at the top of Wooyoung’s head, pulling gently at the long strands again. “And we do that on a cold winter night?”
“Uh-huh. Makes it more intense and sad, y’know? Love stories are not supposed to end in the summer or spring, when everything’s so bright and lively.”
“So is it raining too?”
Wooyoung hums in thought, and Minjun shifts a little under him, because, well. “No. It’s snowing, though. When you reach the train station, you leave a trail of footsteps behind you.”
“Train station? Why am I going there?”
“Because you’re going away.”
“Why me?”
“Do you want me to go? Fine, I can--”
Minjun strengthens his hold around him. He hopes his tone now will make up for the interruptions. “No, Wooyoung ah. Go on.”
Wooyoung takes a second or two to continue, as if testing Minjun. “Footprints. In the snow. You’re alone, the door to your railcar is open, and you need to hop in.”
Minjun can’t resist his dramatic pause. “And I feel so alone... No loooooove, no loooooooove, NO LOOOOOOOOOOOO--”
Wooyoung all but snarls at him. “Hyung!!!”
He coughs. “Sorry, Wooyoungie.”
“Yeah. Right.” But Wooyoung laughs quietly at him and settles back against his body. Minjun lets his victorious smile show only because the other’s face rests over his chest, so he can’t see it. Probably. “But just as you’re about to get on the train--” His eyes narrow; he’s either imagining it or expecting Minjun to interrupt him again. The latter just waits, though, so Wooyoung goes on, voice subdued. “You hear someone calling you.” Wooyoung lifts up his head, chin now on Minjun’s clavicle. “Minjun,” he whispers, very close to his lips. “I’m screaming and running towards you, and then--”
Minjun kisses him.
Wooyoung pulls back. “I’m not finished...!”
“Good, ‘cause neither am I.”
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Extra notes: Majnun means “to be driven mad by / to be possessed by madness for”. Qays was called Majnun after he fell in love with Layla, and their story is usually known as “Majnun Layla”, one of the many “star-crossed lovers” that came up while I researched for this fic. The title here is a play on Minjun's name, Wooyoung’s last name (Jang) and the Korean word “jjang”, the latter of which can mean “the best / awesome”. So what you have here is either Wooyoung driving Minjun mad with love (and both of them enjoying every minute of it) or a celebration of the madness that is to fall in love (which also works for them).
The song Layla, by Eric Clapton (& Jim Gordon), is indeed about Majnun Layla. All the songs mentioned here are off Clapton’s 1992 Unplugged album.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book by Khaled Hosseini.
Some of Nizami’s poetry can be found here.
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