of washing machines and lost keys
title: of washing machines and lost keys
pairing: jaechun, jaemin (my bias is like that)
length: 4,468 words - oneshot!
rating: r due to bad language and uh, dirty boys doing dirty things going on next door.
summary: in which yoochun hates newcomers.
author’s note: very, very late birthday present for apple-of-my-eye
mojo_viking, whose birthday was back in the end of june. well. it could have been worse! and this marks my debut as a writer of other pairings besides jaemin! :D and uh, BOARDING SCHOOL!VERSE, or high school!verse where they just happen to live at a boarding school. something like that.
has not been beta’d, because sunoftheworld rastaakhriz is busy these days and i don’t want to overburden her. :) now, with all rambling done - please enjoy!
you would think that the new kid in the block (the hallway) would keep a low profile.
the first time he meets ‘the new kid’, yoochun is standing outside of his own door, cursing because he can’t find his goddamn keys and he’s in a hurry because his date with the big assets is waiting for him outside. suddenly, he is approached by some kid with bleached blond hair, who opens his mouth to ask him something before yoochun interrupts him with an “i don’t have time for you right now, scram”.
bleached kid looks surprised for a second before narrowing his eyes, backtracking to lean up against the wall nonchalantly as if he has nothing better to do than watch yoochun rip his jeans apart to find his keys. he probably doesn’t.
when, in the end, yoochun gives up the possibility of his keys hiding in his hair or something, he turns around and looks at the new kid behind him.
“you don’t have a credit card or something i can use?” he asks helplessly, praying to god that the credit card trick actually works. it looks easy. in the movies.
bleached kid snorts, looks at him with raised eyebrows and smirk in place and says, “credit card trick doesn’t actually work. it just makes your card snap in halves.”
yoochun screams, thumping his head into his door as he twists the door handle around as if it will magically open if he pulls it hard enough.
“but i have your keys.”
yoochun turns around quickly, and right there in the new kids (pale) palm are his keys. yoochun stares at them for a second in disbelief and then looks up at the kid with confusion etched in his face.
“i found them on your doorstep and decided to take them in case someone else stole them,” he explains, throwing them up in the air and over to yoochun, since the latter makes no move to come and get them himself. “i tried to tell you, but you told me to scram.”
yoochun, mouth still hanging open, blinks a couple of times before inserting the right key into the keyhole, and the door swings open. he turns around with the intent of saying something (he’s not sure if he’s going to thank him for giving him his keys or curse him for not giving him the keys before now), but the new kid with the bleached hair is gone, the door next to his slamming shut. He catches a glimpse of the name tag on the door. kim jaejoong.
huh, he thinks to himself. new neighbour.
*
when he comes home from his date, his head hurting and wishing that he had never gone - his date had done nothing but talk about herself for the three hours that it took to eat and then to watch the movie - he wants nothing but his bed and maybe a smoke to clear his head (his date had insisted on him not smoking because she didn’t want her clothes to smell). but as he enters his room and throws himself on the bed, fingers groping under his mattress for the cancer sticks he’s hid there, his thoughts of sleep and smoking and ugly dates are interrupted by a loud scream from the room next door.
what the hell, he thinks, sitting up as still as he can to hear. what’s going on?
his questions are answered when there’s another scream, followed by a long, loud moan, harsh breathing, and unmistakable sound of a rattling headboard.
“dammit jaejoong, go - harder -” someone (male) grinds out before the sound of the rattling headboard increases in loudness together with the moans.
oh god, yoochun thinks, drowning his face under his pillow to block out the noises, because what he needs the least right now is live gay porn. it doesn’t work. oh god, i just want to sleep!
the noise lasts for another eight terrible, stretched minutes, before he hears the blessed line, “i - almost -“ followed by the loudest moan yet followed by (jaejoong’s) lower groan fourteen creaks, or approximately a minute after. then silence.
yoochun flips onto his other side, resolutely thinking only of things like weather and canteen food to will his half-hard-on away.
*
the screamer’s name is shim changmin, as he finds out a couple of days after, a boy living in another section of the school. he is labelled as somewhat of a nerd, only social with people he wants to be social with, and quiet. yoochun snorts in irony.
changmin visits jaejoong every other day, always with books under his arm, always whistling as if the world’s one happy place.
well. it might be for him, what with how often he gets laid.
meanwhile, yoochun makes sure to be somewhere else every time changmin visits his neighbour, cursing everyone around him because he is being chased from his own room, and cursing jaejoong for making him walk around in his room with a hard-on every time he doesn’t flee fast enough. the guy has lived there for a week, and yoochun hates him already.
it doesn’t particularly help his case that jaejoong seems to be totally and completely oblivious of yoochun’s obvious hate towards him. it is almost as if he wants him to hate him.
like the instance where jaejoong comes barging into his room (unlocked, because he once again lost his keys and didn’t want to risk being locked outside) at five in the morning for no apparent reason except “we should get to know each other better, being neighbours and all”. with him he carries a giant batch of chocolate brownies, and yoochun half forgives him for nicking his beauty sleep when he takes a big bite of a brownie. until he instantly starts choking and coughing.
jaejoong can’t stop laughing, and yoochun just really wants to strangle him.
“what did you put in it,” he wheezes, spitting into the nearest trashcan as he tries to rinse his mouth with his fingers.
jaejoong, who has tears in his eyes from laughing so hard, tells him it’s chilli powder. yoochun promptly kicks (literally) him out his room.
*
yoochun continues hating jaejoong, even in the following weeks where, for some reason, his room is strangely quiet.
“seriously, are you stalking me?” yoochun asks irritated when jaejoong suddenly pops up while he’s doing his laundry. the latter smiles, doesn’t respond, before dragging in a bag twice or triple the size of yoochun’s own, filled to the brink with dirty clothes.
“what the hell,” he starts, his eyes wide and his hatred against jaejoong forgotten for a moment as he looks at the gigantic pile. “haven’t you done laundry for a year or something?”
jaejoong opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted when the machine that yoochun is currently using suddenly shrieks and BANG, it stops.
yoochun just really hopes he can get his clothes out, because otherwise he’ll be going to school naked tomorrow.
it feels like a déjà vu, yoochun thinks, him hunching over the washing machine cursing and half panicking because really, that’s all his clothes in there, while jaejoong leans up against the wall behind him, looking blissfully unaware that the world is ending.
and then, “you know, you just need to restart it. the cable fell out. i fixed it.”
yoochun stares, then realises that he is staring (after jaejoong looks at him pointedly), coughs and moves to restart the machine while raiding his brain for what he could say to his neighbour (because he doesn’t want to say thank you, obviously).
“so. um. you just moved in?” he starts lamely, fixing his eyes to his clothes spiralling inside the machine as if it’s the most fascinating thing he has ever seen.
jaejoong snorts loudly, guffaws, then stabilises himself just before yoochun can punch him. “seriously,” he snickers instead, “you could have talked about the weather and it would have been less lame.”
yoochun really needs all of his patience if he is expected to remain civilised now. not that he is usually the violent type - he’s not, really - but with jaejoong, it just seems that he is easier ticked off than usual.
“yes,” jaejoong says, faking seriousness in his voice, when he’s calmed down enough to carry on the conversation. “or. i’ve been here almost three weeks now, but i guess you can say that i just moved in.”
yoochun suffers in the silence after, cringing because now it’s his turn to speak again. he hates conversations like these.
“but you hate me already,” jaejoong adds when yoochun has opened and closed his mouth after multiple attempts at speaking. he smiles, still leaning up the wall in a casual manner that indicates that he doesn’t really mind, that it’s not his problem if yoochun hates him or not.
“what?” yoochun says then. “no, i - uh. i don’t hate you. not really. i just don’t like you all that much. um. yet.”
jaejoong grins. “awesome.” and then, as if he had just been waiting for the finalization of their conversation, changmin turns up with no sign on his face to indicate surprise over seeing jaejoong and yoochun speaking to each other in a civilised way.
“hey guys,” he greets them, dragging a giant sports bag matching jaejoong’s with him into the room, also with clothes in danger of spilling over any moment. “half of your wardrobe was in my room,” he tells jaejoong, “i thought i should wash it.”
“why is half of his wardrobe in your room?” yoochun asks absentmindedly, wondering how it is even possible to have that much clothes.
“we can never be bothered to pick it up after sex,” changmin replies in a cheery voice, and yoochun chokes on his own spit. “not there’s been any lately. jaejoong’s tired of me. apparently, he’s after your ass now.”
he sounds like he’s talking about the weather.
“go after that other guy,” jaejoong suggests. “the one living across your hallway. kim junsu, was it? hey park, isn’t that one of your friends?”
“um,” yoochun says, just to say something. then, miraculously, his clothes stop spinning and he can pretend that he’s all but forgotten about their conversation and turn his heated face to the machine instead.
*
yoochun likes parties. he likes the feeling of cold liquid bravery running down his throat and how alcohol makes him fearless and flirty in a way that makes girls blush and stammer much quicker than it would usually take him. he likes how, after a couple of drinks, he usually manages to have two of the prettiest girls hanging on his arms.
thus, naturally, yoochun doesn’t decline the invitation to the boarding school party later that night.
he shows up casually in a pair of jeans coupled with a sleeveless grey shirt, one which he personally thinks makes him look particularly dashing; the boarding school girls seem to agree with him, as he catches more than a few of them casting his interested looks as he enters the basement where the party is being held.
he winks back at some of the pretty looking ones, making a beeline to the bar.
“a beer please,” he says, not really looking at the guy serving as bartender that night, opting instead to try and figure out how the hell a strapless blouse can stay up when the girl is as flat as a plank.
“it’s taped to her chest,” the bartender says, and yoochun shifts his attention to jaejoong looking at him with a grin, hand pushing a cold beer towards him. he wonders for a moment if jaejoong can read minds before the look in his face tells him that his previous centre of attention may have been slightly obvious.
“oh,” he says. “i see.” he pretends to be busy by bringing the bottle to his lips, taking a hearty swig before moving away from the bar as fast as he can without being more obvious.
he stays away from the bar too, instead making other people go fetch drinks for him while he pretends to be busy (he pretends a lot) talking to various pretty blondes and brunettes and redheads. thing is, although they all seem interested (judging by the way they eye his body when they think he’s not looking), all of them shift away from him, casting around panicked looks as if they had their mothers standing around or something, every time he tries to put an arm around their waists.
yoochun is miffed, so he drinks a little more than he intends to, thinking that maybe there’s something wrong with his flirting abilities tonight. he doesn’t let it show that the sudden lack of girls around his is particularly strange; he smiles, pretends to be busy by locking lips with the bottle in his hand.
after a while, the world starts spinning a little and the lights are much prettier - brighter, somehow, than they were before. it is then that he realises that he might be a bit more drunk than he had foreseen, and that he is the only one still there that isn’t passed out on the floor (not that he’s not close to that). he rises, stumbles over the arm of the guy he came with, and staggers to the door in a way he hopes isn’t too bad; nothing seems better than his bed at the moment.
he trips over the door sill and the world goes black.
*
all yoochun really wants when he wakes up the next morning is death. he would like to die, not too painfully, just a quiet little sleep-in and never wake up again. it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. surely hell, no matter how awful it is, can’t be as bad as the jackhammer that’s hammering away in his brain at the moment.
after mastering up the strength to open his eyes, he realises that he has no idea where he is. he’s in a room that looks like his; the bed is in the corner of the room, just in between the wall and the closet, a desk at his feet. the window behind the desk is familiar and big, and the curtains aren’t drawn; he feels like the sun is trying to burn out his eye balls.
familiar, as it all is, it isn’t his room.
his walls are white, not purple; they are plastered with posters of girls in bikinis - not orlando bloom. his closet definitely isn’t that big. his bed, though roughly the same size as this one, is not as cramped.
for a moment, he thinks that he may have gotten lucky last night after all, judging from the slim body next to him. yoochun smiles, lets his fingers dance over a pale shoulder.
then the body next to him shifts, and he catches a look of the face. it takes him a short while to comprehend what he is seeing, then,
“OH MY GOD!” he screams, tumbling out of the bed as fast as he can, wincing as he slams his head right into the closet.
jaejoong blinks, looks at him, sits up so fast that yoochun gets dizzy from it.
“do you need to shout?” he asks mildly, looking like he’s had a perfectly splendid night of sleep, yawning slightly as he squints at the clock on the other wall. “most people in the building probably aren’t up yet.”
yoochun stares at him, mouth agape. “what - you - why am i -?” he splutters, flushing.
“you passed out,” jaejoong snickers, catching on to the reason why yoochun is blushing like a school girl. “on the floor, last night. the dorm guard told me to take you to your room, but i think you’ve lost your key again, and your door is locked. so i dragged you into my room, and then…” he trails off, looking at yoochun shrewdly.
yoochun thinks he just might pass out again.
“and then?” he says weakly, looks at the bed, looks at his own half-naked self, looks at the plush carpet. doesn’t look at jaejoong.
“well, you know, then we had sex.”
yoochun flinches, his eyes widening, looks up in shock.
jaejoong looks like he is trying extremely hard not to laugh. it doesn’t work. within seconds, he is rolling from side to side, eerily reminding yoochun of a maniac he stumbled over some years back in a dark alley. his still clothed legs manage to get tangled up in the sheet, and suddenly, yoochun’s lungs feel like they’ve been punched flat. they may very well have been.
and jaejoong just keeps on laughing, from his new position on yoochun’s chest.
it doesn’t stop, or even decrease when yoochun lets out an undignified squeak, to signify that he is currently dying; as light as jaejoong looks, he is probably heavier than yoochun is.
“why are you laughing?” he asks in a sour voice once he can breathe again, and he looks around him to see if he can find his missing shirt, cheeks burning in embarrassment. he finds it under the bed, slips it on.
“the look on your face - !” jaejoong replies, wiping stray tears from the corners of his eyes, wide grin still plastered onto his face. “priceless!”
disgruntled, yoochun attempts to push jaejoong off his chest so he can breathe again. with a loud thump as jaejoong’s head rams into the edge of the closet, yoochun is free to inhale all the air he wants.
“what the hell,” jaejoong says, all signs of joy gone from his face. he pushes himself up by his elbows and glares down at yoochun.
“you were laughing at me,” he says, glaring back just as evilly.
“of course i was. you thought we’d had sex.”
“you said so!”
“well, we didn’t. you’d be hurting a lot more, and you wouldn’t be clothed.”
he’s right, yoochun realises as he looks down at himself. he’s still wearing his frayed jeans. now he just feels stupid.
“oh,” he says lamely, silently thanking all angels and saints. “i’ll - i’ll just go then -”
as if all of hell’s dogs were after him, he runs out of jaejoong’s room, only to find out that his own is, indeed locked. he hides in one of the shower stalls for the remaining hour while he tries to figure out what to do. he can’t exactly go anywhere while being half naked.
(he finds the key to his door stuffed into his sock later, where he put it the day before so he wouldn’t lose it.)
*
it’s the very first time in yoochun’s boarding school history that he has attended a party without ending up with some girl. his flock of friends are not going to let him forget it.
“i think you’re losing your touch, yoochun,” junsu says, looking positively delighted at yoochun’s failure. “the girls don’t want you anymore.”
“don’t get your hopes up,” yoochun bites back. “it’s not like you’ll be getting any anyway.”
“we’ll see,” junsu says, not deterred. “they’ll fall for my charm sooner or later. they can’t resist me.” he ignores yoochun when he rolls his eyes. when he starts mimicking vomiting, junsu punches him across the head.
“i heard,” yunho, another of his friends begins. “i heard from changmin -”
“does this have anything to do with jaejoong?” yoochun asks, horror in his voice as realisation washes over him. the reason the girls don’t want him anymore - all jaejoong’s fault. somehow. everything bad that happens to him is jaejoong’s fault. “did he tell everyone that i’m gay or something? because i’m not -”
“yes,” junsu says gravely, trying hard not to laugh at the terror on yoochun’s face. “and yoochun - i know that you’re in love with me. but i’m very sorry, i just don’t swing that way -”
“he didn’t say that you were gay,” yunho interrupts, glaring at junsu with a look clearly saying, don’t even joke about that, he will get a heart attack.
“then what?” yoochun wails, throwing himself into a nearby armchair, ushering a younger boy out of it with a flick of his wrist. “why are all girls avoiding me suddenly?”
“well,” yunho says, looking at yoochun in much the same way a doctor looks at person whom he is going to tell that he has an incurable, deathly disease. “jaejoong told all boarding school girls that - that he saw you first.”
“saw me first?” yoochun asks, confused. “what do you mean, saw me first? he just moved in!”
now yunho looks like he really, really regrets having started the conversation. yunho was never one for explaining romantic things. (un?)fortunately, junsu saves him.
“oh, i heard that too!” he exclaims, beaming at yoochun. “i heard that jaejoong told all the girls to stay away from you, because he wants you for himself.”
yoochun is silent. then,
“oh my god,” he whispers, and puts his face into his hands. “my life is over.”
*
he confronts jaejoong about it that evening, when jaejoong knocks on his door asking him if he can share some toothpaste. it’s not something he has planned - the words push themselves past his lips and then there, suddenly they’re out.
jaejoong looks at him silently for a moment before his face breaks into a grin.
“well, isn’t it obvious why?” he asks as if yoochun is particularly dumb and needs things spelled out for him. yoochun thinks he might be. he hasn’t felt this confused in years.
he blinks. “…no?” jaejoong sighs, moves forward. suddenly yoochun feels very trapped.
“wait - what are you doing -”
jaejoong’s hands come up to hold his jaw still, a devilish glint appearing in his eyes as he closes in on the space between their faces. yoochun stares at him wide-eyed, not able to think anything but that jaejoong must have lost his mind.
jaejoong’s lips meet his, and he realises that jaejoong’s lips are like a girl’s. they’re thick, soft, good for sucking on. jaejoong does most of the sucking though, since yoochun is still frozen to the spot.
“oh my god,” he says, a low voice inside his head (sounding unmistakably like junsu’s) reprimanding him for taking god’s name in vain all the time. he pays it no heed. “i’m not gay.”
jaejoong just looks satisfied, licking his lips slowly, making sure to have yoochun’s undivided attention on them as he does so. “i didn’t say you were.”
yoochun stares. “but you kissed me.”
“so i did.”
“but you’re a guy - and i’m a guy -” he can’t help but feel especially foolish while he says this, almost feeling like this is the moment where he tells himself no shit, sherlock.
jaejoong just smiles, grabbing a tube of toothpaste from his cupboard, and leaves, abandoning yoochun with his confusion.
*
i’m not gay, yoochun tells himself as he looks at jaejoong the following days across the lunch room, watching him as he chews his food carefully before swallowing. the contrast between him and changmin next to him, shovelling food down his throat like he hasn’t eaten for days, is striking. but changmin and jaejoong sitting together reminds me of other instances where changmin and jaejoong have been together, which is not appropriate thinking for sitting in the lunch room. damn hormones. he excuses himself, cursing jaejoong.
i’m not gay, yoochun repeats to himself when he pushes his ear against the wall next to his bed, trying to see if he can catch any suspicious sounds from the other room. he knows that someone is in there; he saw the inhabitant plus one (changmin) returning to his room just minutes ago, after keeping watch for hours. but the only thing he hears is soft humming and meaningless chatting and - the walls must be really thin - the sound of creaking floorboards. changmin didn’t lie when he said that they weren’t together anymore.
i’m not gay! yoochun thinks as he stands by his window, looking down at the grass-covered ground where jaejoong is lying, head resting upon a hand, the other hand holding a cigarette. yoochun observes him as he takes a drag, slowly exhaling the smoke with closed eyes.
(he is one tiny movement from falling out of the window, breaking his spine, and showing jaejoong just how much of a retard he is.)
*
“self-realizations done?” jaejoong asks first thing as he walks into his room and sees yoochun sitting on his bed awkwardly (there were no other places to sit, since every other flat surface is covered by colourful clothes). yoochun looks up, not quite looking jaejoong in the eyes.
“no,” he admits, swallowing. “can’t really say that.” he tries not to squirm when jaejoong seats himself next to him,
“then what are you doing here?” jaejoong says, and yoochun looks up, because jaejoong’s voice is not the usual teasing, infuriating one, but much softer and yoochun is really a sucker at heart.
“i’ve come to think,” he begins, building up courage and finding it harder than usual, most likely because of the absence of liquid bravery in his hands. “that i… have a sickness.”
jaejoong’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and he looks stunned for a second. “what?” he asks, voice now dumber than yoochun has ever heard it.
“yeah,” yoochun continues, pace picking up. “i think i have some kind of cancer, because it keeps like, getting worse and worse and it’s in the same places and not spreading all over, you know? like, i can’t feel it in my arms; my arms feel just normal. but it’s in my brain, making me think weird stuff, and in my chest, making me unable to breathe, and in my spine, because it keeps tingling, like it’s doing right now - is it possible to have cancer in three places at once?” he says it all in a rush, and he from what he can see on jaejoong’s confused face, none of it is making sense. he stops.
it takes a minute before jaejoong can come up with anything to say.
“do you think it would get worse if i kissed you?” jaejoong asks, smirk returning to his face.
“i don’t know,” yoochun blurts out. “you could try.”
(jaejoong kisses him, and although his spine does tingle and it gets harder to breathe - mostly because his mouth is suddenly preoccupied - and he starts thinking funny things about jaejoong mouth, he finds that it somehow decreases the more he does it. so he doesn’t really mind when, later that evening, his door is locked and he can’t find his keys, because he’s hurting in a fourth place, down south, but he feels like telling jaejoong that would be rather tactless. and after all, yoochun is a romantic at heart).
(i could tell people to please comment, but would it work? you tell me. :D)
pairing: jaechun, jaemin (my bias is like that)
length: 4,468 words - oneshot!
rating: r due to bad language and uh, dirty boys doing dirty things going on next door.
summary: in which yoochun hates newcomers.
author’s note: very, very late birthday present for apple-of-my-eye
mojo_viking, whose birthday was back in the end of june. well. it could have been worse! and this marks my debut as a writer of other pairings besides jaemin! :D and uh, BOARDING SCHOOL!VERSE, or high school!verse where they just happen to live at a boarding school. something like that.
has not been beta’d, because sunoftheworld rastaakhriz is busy these days and i don’t want to overburden her. :) now, with all rambling done - please enjoy!
you would think that the new kid in the block (the hallway) would keep a low profile.
the first time he meets ‘the new kid’, yoochun is standing outside of his own door, cursing because he can’t find his goddamn keys and he’s in a hurry because his date with the big assets is waiting for him outside. suddenly, he is approached by some kid with bleached blond hair, who opens his mouth to ask him something before yoochun interrupts him with an “i don’t have time for you right now, scram”.
bleached kid looks surprised for a second before narrowing his eyes, backtracking to lean up against the wall nonchalantly as if he has nothing better to do than watch yoochun rip his jeans apart to find his keys. he probably doesn’t.
when, in the end, yoochun gives up the possibility of his keys hiding in his hair or something, he turns around and looks at the new kid behind him.
“you don’t have a credit card or something i can use?” he asks helplessly, praying to god that the credit card trick actually works. it looks easy. in the movies.
bleached kid snorts, looks at him with raised eyebrows and smirk in place and says, “credit card trick doesn’t actually work. it just makes your card snap in halves.”
yoochun screams, thumping his head into his door as he twists the door handle around as if it will magically open if he pulls it hard enough.
“but i have your keys.”
yoochun turns around quickly, and right there in the new kids (pale) palm are his keys. yoochun stares at them for a second in disbelief and then looks up at the kid with confusion etched in his face.
“i found them on your doorstep and decided to take them in case someone else stole them,” he explains, throwing them up in the air and over to yoochun, since the latter makes no move to come and get them himself. “i tried to tell you, but you told me to scram.”
yoochun, mouth still hanging open, blinks a couple of times before inserting the right key into the keyhole, and the door swings open. he turns around with the intent of saying something (he’s not sure if he’s going to thank him for giving him his keys or curse him for not giving him the keys before now), but the new kid with the bleached hair is gone, the door next to his slamming shut. He catches a glimpse of the name tag on the door. kim jaejoong.
huh, he thinks to himself. new neighbour.
*
when he comes home from his date, his head hurting and wishing that he had never gone - his date had done nothing but talk about herself for the three hours that it took to eat and then to watch the movie - he wants nothing but his bed and maybe a smoke to clear his head (his date had insisted on him not smoking because she didn’t want her clothes to smell). but as he enters his room and throws himself on the bed, fingers groping under his mattress for the cancer sticks he’s hid there, his thoughts of sleep and smoking and ugly dates are interrupted by a loud scream from the room next door.
what the hell, he thinks, sitting up as still as he can to hear. what’s going on?
his questions are answered when there’s another scream, followed by a long, loud moan, harsh breathing, and unmistakable sound of a rattling headboard.
“dammit jaejoong, go - harder -” someone (male) grinds out before the sound of the rattling headboard increases in loudness together with the moans.
oh god, yoochun thinks, drowning his face under his pillow to block out the noises, because what he needs the least right now is live gay porn. it doesn’t work. oh god, i just want to sleep!
the noise lasts for another eight terrible, stretched minutes, before he hears the blessed line, “i - almost -“ followed by the loudest moan yet followed by (jaejoong’s) lower groan fourteen creaks, or approximately a minute after. then silence.
yoochun flips onto his other side, resolutely thinking only of things like weather and canteen food to will his half-hard-on away.
*
the screamer’s name is shim changmin, as he finds out a couple of days after, a boy living in another section of the school. he is labelled as somewhat of a nerd, only social with people he wants to be social with, and quiet. yoochun snorts in irony.
changmin visits jaejoong every other day, always with books under his arm, always whistling as if the world’s one happy place.
well. it might be for him, what with how often he gets laid.
meanwhile, yoochun makes sure to be somewhere else every time changmin visits his neighbour, cursing everyone around him because he is being chased from his own room, and cursing jaejoong for making him walk around in his room with a hard-on every time he doesn’t flee fast enough. the guy has lived there for a week, and yoochun hates him already.
it doesn’t particularly help his case that jaejoong seems to be totally and completely oblivious of yoochun’s obvious hate towards him. it is almost as if he wants him to hate him.
like the instance where jaejoong comes barging into his room (unlocked, because he once again lost his keys and didn’t want to risk being locked outside) at five in the morning for no apparent reason except “we should get to know each other better, being neighbours and all”. with him he carries a giant batch of chocolate brownies, and yoochun half forgives him for nicking his beauty sleep when he takes a big bite of a brownie. until he instantly starts choking and coughing.
jaejoong can’t stop laughing, and yoochun just really wants to strangle him.
“what did you put in it,” he wheezes, spitting into the nearest trashcan as he tries to rinse his mouth with his fingers.
jaejoong, who has tears in his eyes from laughing so hard, tells him it’s chilli powder. yoochun promptly kicks (literally) him out his room.
*
yoochun continues hating jaejoong, even in the following weeks where, for some reason, his room is strangely quiet.
“seriously, are you stalking me?” yoochun asks irritated when jaejoong suddenly pops up while he’s doing his laundry. the latter smiles, doesn’t respond, before dragging in a bag twice or triple the size of yoochun’s own, filled to the brink with dirty clothes.
“what the hell,” he starts, his eyes wide and his hatred against jaejoong forgotten for a moment as he looks at the gigantic pile. “haven’t you done laundry for a year or something?”
jaejoong opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted when the machine that yoochun is currently using suddenly shrieks and BANG, it stops.
yoochun just really hopes he can get his clothes out, because otherwise he’ll be going to school naked tomorrow.
it feels like a déjà vu, yoochun thinks, him hunching over the washing machine cursing and half panicking because really, that’s all his clothes in there, while jaejoong leans up against the wall behind him, looking blissfully unaware that the world is ending.
and then, “you know, you just need to restart it. the cable fell out. i fixed it.”
yoochun stares, then realises that he is staring (after jaejoong looks at him pointedly), coughs and moves to restart the machine while raiding his brain for what he could say to his neighbour (because he doesn’t want to say thank you, obviously).
“so. um. you just moved in?” he starts lamely, fixing his eyes to his clothes spiralling inside the machine as if it’s the most fascinating thing he has ever seen.
jaejoong snorts loudly, guffaws, then stabilises himself just before yoochun can punch him. “seriously,” he snickers instead, “you could have talked about the weather and it would have been less lame.”
yoochun really needs all of his patience if he is expected to remain civilised now. not that he is usually the violent type - he’s not, really - but with jaejoong, it just seems that he is easier ticked off than usual.
“yes,” jaejoong says, faking seriousness in his voice, when he’s calmed down enough to carry on the conversation. “or. i’ve been here almost three weeks now, but i guess you can say that i just moved in.”
yoochun suffers in the silence after, cringing because now it’s his turn to speak again. he hates conversations like these.
“but you hate me already,” jaejoong adds when yoochun has opened and closed his mouth after multiple attempts at speaking. he smiles, still leaning up the wall in a casual manner that indicates that he doesn’t really mind, that it’s not his problem if yoochun hates him or not.
“what?” yoochun says then. “no, i - uh. i don’t hate you. not really. i just don’t like you all that much. um. yet.”
jaejoong grins. “awesome.” and then, as if he had just been waiting for the finalization of their conversation, changmin turns up with no sign on his face to indicate surprise over seeing jaejoong and yoochun speaking to each other in a civilised way.
“hey guys,” he greets them, dragging a giant sports bag matching jaejoong’s with him into the room, also with clothes in danger of spilling over any moment. “half of your wardrobe was in my room,” he tells jaejoong, “i thought i should wash it.”
“why is half of his wardrobe in your room?” yoochun asks absentmindedly, wondering how it is even possible to have that much clothes.
“we can never be bothered to pick it up after sex,” changmin replies in a cheery voice, and yoochun chokes on his own spit. “not there’s been any lately. jaejoong’s tired of me. apparently, he’s after your ass now.”
he sounds like he’s talking about the weather.
“go after that other guy,” jaejoong suggests. “the one living across your hallway. kim junsu, was it? hey park, isn’t that one of your friends?”
“um,” yoochun says, just to say something. then, miraculously, his clothes stop spinning and he can pretend that he’s all but forgotten about their conversation and turn his heated face to the machine instead.
*
yoochun likes parties. he likes the feeling of cold liquid bravery running down his throat and how alcohol makes him fearless and flirty in a way that makes girls blush and stammer much quicker than it would usually take him. he likes how, after a couple of drinks, he usually manages to have two of the prettiest girls hanging on his arms.
thus, naturally, yoochun doesn’t decline the invitation to the boarding school party later that night.
he shows up casually in a pair of jeans coupled with a sleeveless grey shirt, one which he personally thinks makes him look particularly dashing; the boarding school girls seem to agree with him, as he catches more than a few of them casting his interested looks as he enters the basement where the party is being held.
he winks back at some of the pretty looking ones, making a beeline to the bar.
“a beer please,” he says, not really looking at the guy serving as bartender that night, opting instead to try and figure out how the hell a strapless blouse can stay up when the girl is as flat as a plank.
“it’s taped to her chest,” the bartender says, and yoochun shifts his attention to jaejoong looking at him with a grin, hand pushing a cold beer towards him. he wonders for a moment if jaejoong can read minds before the look in his face tells him that his previous centre of attention may have been slightly obvious.
“oh,” he says. “i see.” he pretends to be busy by bringing the bottle to his lips, taking a hearty swig before moving away from the bar as fast as he can without being more obvious.
he stays away from the bar too, instead making other people go fetch drinks for him while he pretends to be busy (he pretends a lot) talking to various pretty blondes and brunettes and redheads. thing is, although they all seem interested (judging by the way they eye his body when they think he’s not looking), all of them shift away from him, casting around panicked looks as if they had their mothers standing around or something, every time he tries to put an arm around their waists.
yoochun is miffed, so he drinks a little more than he intends to, thinking that maybe there’s something wrong with his flirting abilities tonight. he doesn’t let it show that the sudden lack of girls around his is particularly strange; he smiles, pretends to be busy by locking lips with the bottle in his hand.
after a while, the world starts spinning a little and the lights are much prettier - brighter, somehow, than they were before. it is then that he realises that he might be a bit more drunk than he had foreseen, and that he is the only one still there that isn’t passed out on the floor (not that he’s not close to that). he rises, stumbles over the arm of the guy he came with, and staggers to the door in a way he hopes isn’t too bad; nothing seems better than his bed at the moment.
he trips over the door sill and the world goes black.
*
all yoochun really wants when he wakes up the next morning is death. he would like to die, not too painfully, just a quiet little sleep-in and never wake up again. it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. surely hell, no matter how awful it is, can’t be as bad as the jackhammer that’s hammering away in his brain at the moment.
after mastering up the strength to open his eyes, he realises that he has no idea where he is. he’s in a room that looks like his; the bed is in the corner of the room, just in between the wall and the closet, a desk at his feet. the window behind the desk is familiar and big, and the curtains aren’t drawn; he feels like the sun is trying to burn out his eye balls.
familiar, as it all is, it isn’t his room.
his walls are white, not purple; they are plastered with posters of girls in bikinis - not orlando bloom. his closet definitely isn’t that big. his bed, though roughly the same size as this one, is not as cramped.
for a moment, he thinks that he may have gotten lucky last night after all, judging from the slim body next to him. yoochun smiles, lets his fingers dance over a pale shoulder.
then the body next to him shifts, and he catches a look of the face. it takes him a short while to comprehend what he is seeing, then,
“OH MY GOD!” he screams, tumbling out of the bed as fast as he can, wincing as he slams his head right into the closet.
jaejoong blinks, looks at him, sits up so fast that yoochun gets dizzy from it.
“do you need to shout?” he asks mildly, looking like he’s had a perfectly splendid night of sleep, yawning slightly as he squints at the clock on the other wall. “most people in the building probably aren’t up yet.”
yoochun stares at him, mouth agape. “what - you - why am i -?” he splutters, flushing.
“you passed out,” jaejoong snickers, catching on to the reason why yoochun is blushing like a school girl. “on the floor, last night. the dorm guard told me to take you to your room, but i think you’ve lost your key again, and your door is locked. so i dragged you into my room, and then…” he trails off, looking at yoochun shrewdly.
yoochun thinks he just might pass out again.
“and then?” he says weakly, looks at the bed, looks at his own half-naked self, looks at the plush carpet. doesn’t look at jaejoong.
“well, you know, then we had sex.”
yoochun flinches, his eyes widening, looks up in shock.
jaejoong looks like he is trying extremely hard not to laugh. it doesn’t work. within seconds, he is rolling from side to side, eerily reminding yoochun of a maniac he stumbled over some years back in a dark alley. his still clothed legs manage to get tangled up in the sheet, and suddenly, yoochun’s lungs feel like they’ve been punched flat. they may very well have been.
and jaejoong just keeps on laughing, from his new position on yoochun’s chest.
it doesn’t stop, or even decrease when yoochun lets out an undignified squeak, to signify that he is currently dying; as light as jaejoong looks, he is probably heavier than yoochun is.
“why are you laughing?” he asks in a sour voice once he can breathe again, and he looks around him to see if he can find his missing shirt, cheeks burning in embarrassment. he finds it under the bed, slips it on.
“the look on your face - !” jaejoong replies, wiping stray tears from the corners of his eyes, wide grin still plastered onto his face. “priceless!”
disgruntled, yoochun attempts to push jaejoong off his chest so he can breathe again. with a loud thump as jaejoong’s head rams into the edge of the closet, yoochun is free to inhale all the air he wants.
“what the hell,” jaejoong says, all signs of joy gone from his face. he pushes himself up by his elbows and glares down at yoochun.
“you were laughing at me,” he says, glaring back just as evilly.
“of course i was. you thought we’d had sex.”
“you said so!”
“well, we didn’t. you’d be hurting a lot more, and you wouldn’t be clothed.”
he’s right, yoochun realises as he looks down at himself. he’s still wearing his frayed jeans. now he just feels stupid.
“oh,” he says lamely, silently thanking all angels and saints. “i’ll - i’ll just go then -”
as if all of hell’s dogs were after him, he runs out of jaejoong’s room, only to find out that his own is, indeed locked. he hides in one of the shower stalls for the remaining hour while he tries to figure out what to do. he can’t exactly go anywhere while being half naked.
(he finds the key to his door stuffed into his sock later, where he put it the day before so he wouldn’t lose it.)
*
it’s the very first time in yoochun’s boarding school history that he has attended a party without ending up with some girl. his flock of friends are not going to let him forget it.
“i think you’re losing your touch, yoochun,” junsu says, looking positively delighted at yoochun’s failure. “the girls don’t want you anymore.”
“don’t get your hopes up,” yoochun bites back. “it’s not like you’ll be getting any anyway.”
“we’ll see,” junsu says, not deterred. “they’ll fall for my charm sooner or later. they can’t resist me.” he ignores yoochun when he rolls his eyes. when he starts mimicking vomiting, junsu punches him across the head.
“i heard,” yunho, another of his friends begins. “i heard from changmin -”
“does this have anything to do with jaejoong?” yoochun asks, horror in his voice as realisation washes over him. the reason the girls don’t want him anymore - all jaejoong’s fault. somehow. everything bad that happens to him is jaejoong’s fault. “did he tell everyone that i’m gay or something? because i’m not -”
“yes,” junsu says gravely, trying hard not to laugh at the terror on yoochun’s face. “and yoochun - i know that you’re in love with me. but i’m very sorry, i just don’t swing that way -”
“he didn’t say that you were gay,” yunho interrupts, glaring at junsu with a look clearly saying, don’t even joke about that, he will get a heart attack.
“then what?” yoochun wails, throwing himself into a nearby armchair, ushering a younger boy out of it with a flick of his wrist. “why are all girls avoiding me suddenly?”
“well,” yunho says, looking at yoochun in much the same way a doctor looks at person whom he is going to tell that he has an incurable, deathly disease. “jaejoong told all boarding school girls that - that he saw you first.”
“saw me first?” yoochun asks, confused. “what do you mean, saw me first? he just moved in!”
now yunho looks like he really, really regrets having started the conversation. yunho was never one for explaining romantic things. (un?)fortunately, junsu saves him.
“oh, i heard that too!” he exclaims, beaming at yoochun. “i heard that jaejoong told all the girls to stay away from you, because he wants you for himself.”
yoochun is silent. then,
“oh my god,” he whispers, and puts his face into his hands. “my life is over.”
*
he confronts jaejoong about it that evening, when jaejoong knocks on his door asking him if he can share some toothpaste. it’s not something he has planned - the words push themselves past his lips and then there, suddenly they’re out.
jaejoong looks at him silently for a moment before his face breaks into a grin.
“well, isn’t it obvious why?” he asks as if yoochun is particularly dumb and needs things spelled out for him. yoochun thinks he might be. he hasn’t felt this confused in years.
he blinks. “…no?” jaejoong sighs, moves forward. suddenly yoochun feels very trapped.
“wait - what are you doing -”
jaejoong’s hands come up to hold his jaw still, a devilish glint appearing in his eyes as he closes in on the space between their faces. yoochun stares at him wide-eyed, not able to think anything but that jaejoong must have lost his mind.
jaejoong’s lips meet his, and he realises that jaejoong’s lips are like a girl’s. they’re thick, soft, good for sucking on. jaejoong does most of the sucking though, since yoochun is still frozen to the spot.
“oh my god,” he says, a low voice inside his head (sounding unmistakably like junsu’s) reprimanding him for taking god’s name in vain all the time. he pays it no heed. “i’m not gay.”
jaejoong just looks satisfied, licking his lips slowly, making sure to have yoochun’s undivided attention on them as he does so. “i didn’t say you were.”
yoochun stares. “but you kissed me.”
“so i did.”
“but you’re a guy - and i’m a guy -” he can’t help but feel especially foolish while he says this, almost feeling like this is the moment where he tells himself no shit, sherlock.
jaejoong just smiles, grabbing a tube of toothpaste from his cupboard, and leaves, abandoning yoochun with his confusion.
*
i’m not gay, yoochun tells himself as he looks at jaejoong the following days across the lunch room, watching him as he chews his food carefully before swallowing. the contrast between him and changmin next to him, shovelling food down his throat like he hasn’t eaten for days, is striking. but changmin and jaejoong sitting together reminds me of other instances where changmin and jaejoong have been together, which is not appropriate thinking for sitting in the lunch room. damn hormones. he excuses himself, cursing jaejoong.
i’m not gay, yoochun repeats to himself when he pushes his ear against the wall next to his bed, trying to see if he can catch any suspicious sounds from the other room. he knows that someone is in there; he saw the inhabitant plus one (changmin) returning to his room just minutes ago, after keeping watch for hours. but the only thing he hears is soft humming and meaningless chatting and - the walls must be really thin - the sound of creaking floorboards. changmin didn’t lie when he said that they weren’t together anymore.
i’m not gay! yoochun thinks as he stands by his window, looking down at the grass-covered ground where jaejoong is lying, head resting upon a hand, the other hand holding a cigarette. yoochun observes him as he takes a drag, slowly exhaling the smoke with closed eyes.
(he is one tiny movement from falling out of the window, breaking his spine, and showing jaejoong just how much of a retard he is.)
*
“self-realizations done?” jaejoong asks first thing as he walks into his room and sees yoochun sitting on his bed awkwardly (there were no other places to sit, since every other flat surface is covered by colourful clothes). yoochun looks up, not quite looking jaejoong in the eyes.
“no,” he admits, swallowing. “can’t really say that.” he tries not to squirm when jaejoong seats himself next to him,
“then what are you doing here?” jaejoong says, and yoochun looks up, because jaejoong’s voice is not the usual teasing, infuriating one, but much softer and yoochun is really a sucker at heart.
“i’ve come to think,” he begins, building up courage and finding it harder than usual, most likely because of the absence of liquid bravery in his hands. “that i… have a sickness.”
jaejoong’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and he looks stunned for a second. “what?” he asks, voice now dumber than yoochun has ever heard it.
“yeah,” yoochun continues, pace picking up. “i think i have some kind of cancer, because it keeps like, getting worse and worse and it’s in the same places and not spreading all over, you know? like, i can’t feel it in my arms; my arms feel just normal. but it’s in my brain, making me think weird stuff, and in my chest, making me unable to breathe, and in my spine, because it keeps tingling, like it’s doing right now - is it possible to have cancer in three places at once?” he says it all in a rush, and he from what he can see on jaejoong’s confused face, none of it is making sense. he stops.
it takes a minute before jaejoong can come up with anything to say.
“do you think it would get worse if i kissed you?” jaejoong asks, smirk returning to his face.
“i don’t know,” yoochun blurts out. “you could try.”
(jaejoong kisses him, and although his spine does tingle and it gets harder to breathe - mostly because his mouth is suddenly preoccupied - and he starts thinking funny things about jaejoong mouth, he finds that it somehow decreases the more he does it. so he doesn’t really mind when, later that evening, his door is locked and he can’t find his keys, because he’s hurting in a fourth place, down south, but he feels like telling jaejoong that would be rather tactless. and after all, yoochun is a romantic at heart).
(i could tell people to please comment, but would it work? you tell me. :D)