Catch Me Chapter 5
“Really? I haven’t watched it, Oppa. Is it better than the original version?” Amber asked, poured a glass of orange juice for him.
“Thank you,” Junsu drank it gratefully. The summer heat made him felt dizzy and he kept an ice cube in his mouth. “I think the new version is better, you know. With all the effects and-“
“But usually the storyline from the original version is better, right?” Amber sat on the table, legs dangled in the air.
Junsu hummed. “Well… but it’s worth it, though. I mean, it won’t be a waste of time to watch it.”
“Okay… maybe I will buy the dvd.”
“No need to. I have it at home. I’ll bring it next time.” Junsu said, drank another gulped of the fresh juice.
“Really? Thank you, Oppa! Then… do you have any other movies I can borrow? What else do you have?”
“It depends on what kind of genre you want.” Junsu said. “Action movies?”
“I actually-“
“Oh, Junsu, you’ve waited long?” Yoochun came down from the stairs, hair wet. Just finished his shower.
Amber jumped off the table and went to her room and closed the door.
Junsu gave Yoochun a look.
Yoochun blinked, disappeared to the laundry room to put his towel and came to the kitchen where Junsu was. “What?”
“Jaejoong Hyung told me, you know.” Junsu said in a small voice.
Yoochun sighed. “I can’t help it. She let random men touching her so freely? How can I-“
“But saying she’s cheap and low? Yoochun, that’s inappropriate.” Junsu looked at his lover’s eyes.
Yoochun ran his fingers through his hair. “Are you taking her side now?”
Junsu gasped in bewilderment. “I’m not taking her side. She’s your sister, and you’re the one who should be on her side.”
“I don’t want those filthy men look at her as a fucking playtoy, Junsu. If she let her guards down that easy, what do you think will those immoral boys do, huh?”
“Well I believe she’s old enough to take a good care of herself.”
“Junsu, you don’t understand. You don’t have a younger sister. You don’t know how it feels.”
“Well no, I don’t. And I’m sorry to judge you unfairly.” Junsu said sarcastically.
Yoochun shrugged. Some time passed, and they were just looking into each other.
“So you came here to tell me that?” Yoochun asked.
“I was going to talk about it with you. But you know what, I’m not in the mood anymore.” Junsu put his hands up.
Yoochun said nothing.
Junsu wore his shoes. “She’ll hate you forever if you won’t change.”
*
Because Jaejoong was one annoying nosy man, he was interrogating Changmin about his date with Julien.
“It’s not a date, okay. We just had meal together.” Changmin said, over and over.
“Yeah. So did he ask about your exes?” Jaejoong didn’t care what Changmin said. A date is a date.
They were in the park, sitting on the bench. Changmin was reading a novel Julien lent him. He was very careful not to mention it, but still, Jaejoong could sense it and his accusation about Changmin dating Julien was getting stronger.
The answer of Jaejoong last question was no, because Julien was one fine polite man who respected other’s privacy a lot. And Changmin liked that side of him a lot. “Don’t you have anything to do?”
“Why, do you have another date with him? Today?”
Actually Julien asked him to accompany him go apartment hunting. “Hyung, we’re just friends, alright.”
“Well, let’s see…” Jaejoong gave him an amusing look as he checked his vibrating phone. “OH! MY!”
Changmin turned his gaze away from his book and finally paid some interest on the man beside him. “What?” he shifted closer to see Jaejoong’s phone.
“It’s Amber! She texted me!” Jaejoong’s hands were almost shaking.
“Why? How could-“
“Oh? She said that Yoochun and Junsu are fighting.” Jaejoong read the text, hands busy not long after, typing the reply. “Why are they fighting I don’t care anyway because she texted me haha!”
“Hyung, really, what happened between them?” Changmin asked impatiently. “Why are they fighting?”
“Calm down…” Jaejoong mumbled. “I ask her to meet up.”
“Gosh Hyung, you unshameful person...”
“Yeay! She said we can meet at lunch. Ugh, it’s still half an hour away!” Jaejoong’s feet were tapping on the grass impatiently.
Changmin inhaled deeply and let out a loud, heavy air came out after. Jaejoong could make one person felt tired by doing nothing. He flipped another page when his eyes caught someone afar entering the gate. With crutches.
Was that-
No.
No.
No it wasn’t him. The one walking with crutches. Siwon greeted him. He greeted back and Changmin could almost see the sunshine from his smile. No one else could smile like he did. He jerked his head a little to sweep his fringe to the side.
Changmin didn’t want to believe.
No. It wasn’t him.
It was him.
“Hyung what happened to Yunho?” Changmin couldn’t hold the overflowing wave in his heart and mind. “What happened to his legs?”
Jaejoong looked at him for a while, didn’t say anything.
Changmin could hear his own noisy heartbeat in his ears.
“He injured his right ankle. So they sent him back home.” Jaejoong answered flatly.
“It is that… severe?”
“More than that severe.” Jaejoong lifted his shoulders. “Heard that he lost 80% capability of his ankle.”
“Really?” Changmin’s eyes widened and he moved closer to Jaejoong.
“May… maybe I heard it wrong.” Jaejoong corrected, didn’t want Changmin to worry too much. “He will heal.”
Changmin nodded and gulped. “How long has he been here?” came out from his mouth, instead of ‘Why nobody told me?’
Jaejoong counted. “Not longer than two weeks.”
Fuck. Yunho. Fuck that stupid idiot. How could he hurt himself? And how come I didn’t notice it? Fuck Yunho, we separated for four months and look what have you done to your clumsy self? Can you just take care of one person, you? It’s your leg, dammit, it’s so important… to walk, to run, to dance… dance. Yunho can’t dance, then. He can’t do the thing he loves the most, isn’t it worse than dying? Fuck, how can he injure his leg, that stupid- “It’s lunchtime already, Hyung. I bet you don’t want Amber to wait.”
Jaejoong checked his phone. “Ah! Right! I’ll see you, then, Min.”
Changmin just nodded as Jaejoong left.
He closed his eyes.
Was Yunho alright? Shit, 80% was… wasn’t that a lot? He imagined how Yunho bit his plump lower lip to hold his pain in… eyes closed tight and fist clenched. Yunho would never complain. He’d never say he was in pain. And it wasn’t just the pain in his leg. What about the disappointment that he got dismissed from the program? Would they still recruit him? Changmin knew the man would just act tough and strong. But after that injury, of course he needed someone to take care of him.
And now that Changmin wasn’t by his side anymore… who would do it?
*
Nayoon sat on Jaejoong’s table and took his juice and drank it.
“Yah, go bother someone else!” Jaejoong slapped her ass off the table.
“Why? I love bothering you…” Nayoon said, next in the same chair as Jaejoong and pushed the man to give some space for her.
Jaejoong fell to the floor. “Yah!”
Nayoon laughed.
Jaejoong tsked and tried to steal back his seat but failed. So just pouted in the end and shared the chair with the girl.
“Yah, are you to participating in that bet?”
Jaejoong raised his eyebrows and looked at Nayoon. “Bet, what bet?”
“You know… the one you guys always do,” Nayoon combed her bobbed hair with her fingers. “Betting on girl. Who get the girl will win.”
Jaejoong scoffed. “They’re still playing it?”
“Don’t act like that… you’re the one who broke most of their little pitiful hearts, you know?”
“Whatever. Who play, anyway?” Jaejoong asked curiously.
“Donghae, Taecyeon… and that one guy from third year I don’t know.” Nayoon said, offered back the juice.
Jaejoong looked at the juice and realized there was Nayoon’s lipstick stain on the straw. “It’s disgusting you know?”
“What?”
“Your lipstick!”
“What the heck, it’s just lipstick!”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. “Just- finished it.” He was speechless and Nayoon happily drank the juice. “Who’s the girl anyway?” he couldn’t help but felt curious.
Nayoon laughed. “You know that tomboy from the first year?”
Jaejoong’s brows furrowed. “Who?”
“Well, actually the challenge isn’t from the girl alone. But also the brother.” She laughed. “I don’t think anyone would win,”
“Yah, who?” Jaejoong was impatient.
“It’s Park Yoochun’s sister. You know him, right?”
*
“Did I already say that I saw your videos, Hyung?” Kai said, sat on the wooden floor, leaned back to the mirror.
“Yeah?” Yunho was sitting on a chair, looked down to his junior. He was visiting the dance studio. Simply because he missed it. But then he found Kai was practicing and ended up watching and enjoying his performance on the dance floor. “What do you think?
“You’re amazing.” Kai’s breaths were heavy. He took a towel from his bag and wiped his sweat.
“You’re too nice.” Yunho gave him the water bottle.
“No, Hyung! Really! You’re extraordinary- I- I mean…” Kai seemed embarrassed after he showed that he admired Yunho too much.
“I’ve seen you dance.” Yunho said, filled the air of awkwardness from the younger male. “And you’re amazing too, Kai.”
Kai felt lucky that his face was hot and red from dancing so Yunho wouldn’t notice him blushed. Jung Yunho was like a legend for him. From the first day, he had heard everything about the older man. He thought people exaggerated, but after Kai saw Yunho danced, he was hypnotized. No wonder why people worshipped him like a god.
After all he got, he thought Jung Yunho sunbae-nim would be arrogant and smug. But it was all the way around. He was kind, helpful, humble, and loving.
Talked about a perfect human being.
“What is it?” Yunho asked after a while. He noticed the awkward movement from the kid.
“I just want to know, Hyung…” Kai said slowly. “But… well… just forget it.”
Yunho chuckled. “Come on, what is it?”
Kai bit his lip. “Is…” gosh, fuck this. “Is the man in your apartment yesterday is your boyfriend?” he could hear his loud heartbeat in his ears.
“Jaejoongie?”
Yes, shitfuck, Kai actually knew that guy. He asked around about that man. And no man in that university didn’t know the famous pretty guy like Jaejoong.
“No, he’s just a friend. Bestfriend. We’ve known each other since… forever. I don’t remember.” Yunho said. “Why?”
Kai exhaled slowly in relief. “No… nothing, Hyung.”
“Why, you like him?” Yunho teased, grinned widely.
“No! No, it’s not that.” Kai said.
“Eyy, you can just tell me, you know. I’m sure Jaejoong swing both ways.” Yunho winked at him.
Kai sighed. “No, Hyung. I… I mean I… have somebody else in mind.” He mumbled quietly.
“What?”
“No… nothing…” Kai excused himself to get a shower before he confessed about the man he actually liked to the man himself.
*
Yunho chuckled. “Did you forget to wrap the kimbap in the seaweed or what?” he asked, looking at the neat rows of naked kimbap.
“Yeah, so I was going to make rice balls with beef but I change my mind.” Jaejoong put more kimchi on Yunho’s plate. He brought lunch for Yunho that day and ate together in the canteen.
“Hey, Hyung. I’ve been looking for you everywhere-“ Changmin put his tray on the table, realized just a second after that Yunho was there also.
But he couldn’t just decide to go again. To take back his tray from the table and left. Then they would know. Yunho would know how Changmin felt uncomfortable with him. How he hated him, maybe. How he… still not letting go of the past.
“Hi, Changmin,” it was Yunho who greet him first.
It was the first direct interaction they had after the break up. How healthy.
“Hi…” Changmin almost forgot how to speak. How to breathe. He didn’t remember where he was. What he was going to do. “… Yunho.”
“Sit. Jaejoong made a delicious samgyetang.” Yunho said, pushed the bowl to Changmin for him to try.
Changmin sat slowly in front of Yunho.
“Where’s Junsu? Or Yoochun? You see them?” Jaejoong asked, finally, lifted the awkwardness a bit more between them.
“They went out for lunch,” Changmin said, tried the soup. And realized that there was only one spoon, which meant that he and Yunho wore the same spoon. Then he thought why that shit bothered him so much.
“Oh. So they’ve made up?”
Changmin hummed. “Why did they fight, anyway?”
“You know, Min, I actually don’t know either. But yesterday, Yoochun said that…”
Changmin didn’t really hear Jaejoong’s words because his mind was busy instructed his eyes to steal some glance to the man in front of him.
Yunho looked… a bit thinner. But he looked healthy. And Changmin could almost see the well defined muscles beneath the blue stripped shirt he wore. The crutches were beside the man, resting from their tiring job, supporting the man’s activities all day.
He wasn’t looking at the food. He was looking at Yunho’s hand. How would his fingers stretch when he used his chopsticks to take the pieces of chicken. His round knuckles Changmin loved, because they felt like locking their fingers together when they held hands.
That was the first one Changmin felt grateful for Jaejoong’s long talk. But long wasn’t good enough. He wanted forever. Although all he could do was quietly sitting in front of the man who once loved him so much.
“So yeah, like you can expect, they’re back together and all in love forever, in the end.” Jaejoong gave his conclusion.
But nobody paid attention to him. Jaejoong was going to protest but he saw Yunho had a piece of chicken between his chopsticks, lifting it to give it to the man in front of him, but then he stopped and put it in his own bowl instead.
Changmin didn’t seem to notice it, though. He kept eating, much slower than usual. Jaejoong followed Changmin’s gaze and realized that the younger man didn’t really pay any attention to his food. But more to Yunho’s hands. And his arms. And his other body parts that he could stare without lifting his head.
And even when he did lift his head, he just stole a quick glance to Yunho, before looking at the crutches, bit his lower lip and gave them a sad look, before sighed deeply, before went back to eating.
Jaejoong turned his head to Yunho, who was actually looking Changmin with some kind of longing and desperate expression in his eyes. And Jaejoong now understand the different vibe Yunho had since he back to town. Jung Yunho he knew, though all his quietness and charismatic cool attitude, was like a sun, vibrant, always fully energized and somehow overshined everybody else.
Maybe there was a deep dark shadow in the current Jung Yunho that he didn’t shine as bright now.
The dancer smiled emptily, and turned his head to Jaejoong.
“Glad to hear they’re alright.”
“Glad to know you’re listening.” Jaejoong said quietly, smiled back to him.
Maybe it wasn’t only Junsu and Yoochun who were all in love forever.
“Thank you,” Junsu drank it gratefully. The summer heat made him felt dizzy and he kept an ice cube in his mouth. “I think the new version is better, you know. With all the effects and-“
“But usually the storyline from the original version is better, right?” Amber sat on the table, legs dangled in the air.
Junsu hummed. “Well… but it’s worth it, though. I mean, it won’t be a waste of time to watch it.”
“Okay… maybe I will buy the dvd.”
“No need to. I have it at home. I’ll bring it next time.” Junsu said, drank another gulped of the fresh juice.
“Really? Thank you, Oppa! Then… do you have any other movies I can borrow? What else do you have?”
“It depends on what kind of genre you want.” Junsu said. “Action movies?”
“I actually-“
“Oh, Junsu, you’ve waited long?” Yoochun came down from the stairs, hair wet. Just finished his shower.
Amber jumped off the table and went to her room and closed the door.
Junsu gave Yoochun a look.
Yoochun blinked, disappeared to the laundry room to put his towel and came to the kitchen where Junsu was. “What?”
“Jaejoong Hyung told me, you know.” Junsu said in a small voice.
Yoochun sighed. “I can’t help it. She let random men touching her so freely? How can I-“
“But saying she’s cheap and low? Yoochun, that’s inappropriate.” Junsu looked at his lover’s eyes.
Yoochun ran his fingers through his hair. “Are you taking her side now?”
Junsu gasped in bewilderment. “I’m not taking her side. She’s your sister, and you’re the one who should be on her side.”
“I don’t want those filthy men look at her as a fucking playtoy, Junsu. If she let her guards down that easy, what do you think will those immoral boys do, huh?”
“Well I believe she’s old enough to take a good care of herself.”
“Junsu, you don’t understand. You don’t have a younger sister. You don’t know how it feels.”
“Well no, I don’t. And I’m sorry to judge you unfairly.” Junsu said sarcastically.
Yoochun shrugged. Some time passed, and they were just looking into each other.
“So you came here to tell me that?” Yoochun asked.
“I was going to talk about it with you. But you know what, I’m not in the mood anymore.” Junsu put his hands up.
Yoochun said nothing.
Junsu wore his shoes. “She’ll hate you forever if you won’t change.”
*
Because Jaejoong was one annoying nosy man, he was interrogating Changmin about his date with Julien.
“It’s not a date, okay. We just had meal together.” Changmin said, over and over.
“Yeah. So did he ask about your exes?” Jaejoong didn’t care what Changmin said. A date is a date.
They were in the park, sitting on the bench. Changmin was reading a novel Julien lent him. He was very careful not to mention it, but still, Jaejoong could sense it and his accusation about Changmin dating Julien was getting stronger.
The answer of Jaejoong last question was no, because Julien was one fine polite man who respected other’s privacy a lot. And Changmin liked that side of him a lot. “Don’t you have anything to do?”
“Why, do you have another date with him? Today?”
Actually Julien asked him to accompany him go apartment hunting. “Hyung, we’re just friends, alright.”
“Well, let’s see…” Jaejoong gave him an amusing look as he checked his vibrating phone. “OH! MY!”
Changmin turned his gaze away from his book and finally paid some interest on the man beside him. “What?” he shifted closer to see Jaejoong’s phone.
“It’s Amber! She texted me!” Jaejoong’s hands were almost shaking.
“Why? How could-“
“Oh? She said that Yoochun and Junsu are fighting.” Jaejoong read the text, hands busy not long after, typing the reply. “Why are they fighting I don’t care anyway because she texted me haha!”
“Hyung, really, what happened between them?” Changmin asked impatiently. “Why are they fighting?”
“Calm down…” Jaejoong mumbled. “I ask her to meet up.”
“Gosh Hyung, you unshameful person...”
“Yeay! She said we can meet at lunch. Ugh, it’s still half an hour away!” Jaejoong’s feet were tapping on the grass impatiently.
Changmin inhaled deeply and let out a loud, heavy air came out after. Jaejoong could make one person felt tired by doing nothing. He flipped another page when his eyes caught someone afar entering the gate. With crutches.
Was that-
No.
No.
No it wasn’t him. The one walking with crutches. Siwon greeted him. He greeted back and Changmin could almost see the sunshine from his smile. No one else could smile like he did. He jerked his head a little to sweep his fringe to the side.
Changmin didn’t want to believe.
No. It wasn’t him.
It was him.
“Hyung what happened to Yunho?” Changmin couldn’t hold the overflowing wave in his heart and mind. “What happened to his legs?”
Jaejoong looked at him for a while, didn’t say anything.
Changmin could hear his own noisy heartbeat in his ears.
“He injured his right ankle. So they sent him back home.” Jaejoong answered flatly.
“It is that… severe?”
“More than that severe.” Jaejoong lifted his shoulders. “Heard that he lost 80% capability of his ankle.”
“Really?” Changmin’s eyes widened and he moved closer to Jaejoong.
“May… maybe I heard it wrong.” Jaejoong corrected, didn’t want Changmin to worry too much. “He will heal.”
Changmin nodded and gulped. “How long has he been here?” came out from his mouth, instead of ‘Why nobody told me?’
Jaejoong counted. “Not longer than two weeks.”
Fuck. Yunho. Fuck that stupid idiot. How could he hurt himself? And how come I didn’t notice it? Fuck Yunho, we separated for four months and look what have you done to your clumsy self? Can you just take care of one person, you? It’s your leg, dammit, it’s so important… to walk, to run, to dance… dance. Yunho can’t dance, then. He can’t do the thing he loves the most, isn’t it worse than dying? Fuck, how can he injure his leg, that stupid- “It’s lunchtime already, Hyung. I bet you don’t want Amber to wait.”
Jaejoong checked his phone. “Ah! Right! I’ll see you, then, Min.”
Changmin just nodded as Jaejoong left.
He closed his eyes.
Was Yunho alright? Shit, 80% was… wasn’t that a lot? He imagined how Yunho bit his plump lower lip to hold his pain in… eyes closed tight and fist clenched. Yunho would never complain. He’d never say he was in pain. And it wasn’t just the pain in his leg. What about the disappointment that he got dismissed from the program? Would they still recruit him? Changmin knew the man would just act tough and strong. But after that injury, of course he needed someone to take care of him.
And now that Changmin wasn’t by his side anymore… who would do it?
*
Nayoon sat on Jaejoong’s table and took his juice and drank it.
“Yah, go bother someone else!” Jaejoong slapped her ass off the table.
“Why? I love bothering you…” Nayoon said, next in the same chair as Jaejoong and pushed the man to give some space for her.
Jaejoong fell to the floor. “Yah!”
Nayoon laughed.
Jaejoong tsked and tried to steal back his seat but failed. So just pouted in the end and shared the chair with the girl.
“Yah, are you to participating in that bet?”
Jaejoong raised his eyebrows and looked at Nayoon. “Bet, what bet?”
“You know… the one you guys always do,” Nayoon combed her bobbed hair with her fingers. “Betting on girl. Who get the girl will win.”
Jaejoong scoffed. “They’re still playing it?”
“Don’t act like that… you’re the one who broke most of their little pitiful hearts, you know?”
“Whatever. Who play, anyway?” Jaejoong asked curiously.
“Donghae, Taecyeon… and that one guy from third year I don’t know.” Nayoon said, offered back the juice.
Jaejoong looked at the juice and realized there was Nayoon’s lipstick stain on the straw. “It’s disgusting you know?”
“What?”
“Your lipstick!”
“What the heck, it’s just lipstick!”
Jaejoong rolled his eyes. “Just- finished it.” He was speechless and Nayoon happily drank the juice. “Who’s the girl anyway?” he couldn’t help but felt curious.
Nayoon laughed. “You know that tomboy from the first year?”
Jaejoong’s brows furrowed. “Who?”
“Well, actually the challenge isn’t from the girl alone. But also the brother.” She laughed. “I don’t think anyone would win,”
“Yah, who?” Jaejoong was impatient.
“It’s Park Yoochun’s sister. You know him, right?”
*
“Did I already say that I saw your videos, Hyung?” Kai said, sat on the wooden floor, leaned back to the mirror.
“Yeah?” Yunho was sitting on a chair, looked down to his junior. He was visiting the dance studio. Simply because he missed it. But then he found Kai was practicing and ended up watching and enjoying his performance on the dance floor. “What do you think?
“You’re amazing.” Kai’s breaths were heavy. He took a towel from his bag and wiped his sweat.
“You’re too nice.” Yunho gave him the water bottle.
“No, Hyung! Really! You’re extraordinary- I- I mean…” Kai seemed embarrassed after he showed that he admired Yunho too much.
“I’ve seen you dance.” Yunho said, filled the air of awkwardness from the younger male. “And you’re amazing too, Kai.”
Kai felt lucky that his face was hot and red from dancing so Yunho wouldn’t notice him blushed. Jung Yunho was like a legend for him. From the first day, he had heard everything about the older man. He thought people exaggerated, but after Kai saw Yunho danced, he was hypnotized. No wonder why people worshipped him like a god.
After all he got, he thought Jung Yunho sunbae-nim would be arrogant and smug. But it was all the way around. He was kind, helpful, humble, and loving.
Talked about a perfect human being.
“What is it?” Yunho asked after a while. He noticed the awkward movement from the kid.
“I just want to know, Hyung…” Kai said slowly. “But… well… just forget it.”
Yunho chuckled. “Come on, what is it?”
Kai bit his lip. “Is…” gosh, fuck this. “Is the man in your apartment yesterday is your boyfriend?” he could hear his loud heartbeat in his ears.
“Jaejoongie?”
Yes, shitfuck, Kai actually knew that guy. He asked around about that man. And no man in that university didn’t know the famous pretty guy like Jaejoong.
“No, he’s just a friend. Bestfriend. We’ve known each other since… forever. I don’t remember.” Yunho said. “Why?”
Kai exhaled slowly in relief. “No… nothing, Hyung.”
“Why, you like him?” Yunho teased, grinned widely.
“No! No, it’s not that.” Kai said.
“Eyy, you can just tell me, you know. I’m sure Jaejoong swing both ways.” Yunho winked at him.
Kai sighed. “No, Hyung. I… I mean I… have somebody else in mind.” He mumbled quietly.
“What?”
“No… nothing…” Kai excused himself to get a shower before he confessed about the man he actually liked to the man himself.
*
Yunho chuckled. “Did you forget to wrap the kimbap in the seaweed or what?” he asked, looking at the neat rows of naked kimbap.
“Yeah, so I was going to make rice balls with beef but I change my mind.” Jaejoong put more kimchi on Yunho’s plate. He brought lunch for Yunho that day and ate together in the canteen.
“Hey, Hyung. I’ve been looking for you everywhere-“ Changmin put his tray on the table, realized just a second after that Yunho was there also.
But he couldn’t just decide to go again. To take back his tray from the table and left. Then they would know. Yunho would know how Changmin felt uncomfortable with him. How he hated him, maybe. How he… still not letting go of the past.
“Hi, Changmin,” it was Yunho who greet him first.
It was the first direct interaction they had after the break up. How healthy.
“Hi…” Changmin almost forgot how to speak. How to breathe. He didn’t remember where he was. What he was going to do. “… Yunho.”
“Sit. Jaejoong made a delicious samgyetang.” Yunho said, pushed the bowl to Changmin for him to try.
Changmin sat slowly in front of Yunho.
“Where’s Junsu? Or Yoochun? You see them?” Jaejoong asked, finally, lifted the awkwardness a bit more between them.
“They went out for lunch,” Changmin said, tried the soup. And realized that there was only one spoon, which meant that he and Yunho wore the same spoon. Then he thought why that shit bothered him so much.
“Oh. So they’ve made up?”
Changmin hummed. “Why did they fight, anyway?”
“You know, Min, I actually don’t know either. But yesterday, Yoochun said that…”
Changmin didn’t really hear Jaejoong’s words because his mind was busy instructed his eyes to steal some glance to the man in front of him.
Yunho looked… a bit thinner. But he looked healthy. And Changmin could almost see the well defined muscles beneath the blue stripped shirt he wore. The crutches were beside the man, resting from their tiring job, supporting the man’s activities all day.
He wasn’t looking at the food. He was looking at Yunho’s hand. How would his fingers stretch when he used his chopsticks to take the pieces of chicken. His round knuckles Changmin loved, because they felt like locking their fingers together when they held hands.
That was the first one Changmin felt grateful for Jaejoong’s long talk. But long wasn’t good enough. He wanted forever. Although all he could do was quietly sitting in front of the man who once loved him so much.
“So yeah, like you can expect, they’re back together and all in love forever, in the end.” Jaejoong gave his conclusion.
But nobody paid attention to him. Jaejoong was going to protest but he saw Yunho had a piece of chicken between his chopsticks, lifting it to give it to the man in front of him, but then he stopped and put it in his own bowl instead.
Changmin didn’t seem to notice it, though. He kept eating, much slower than usual. Jaejoong followed Changmin’s gaze and realized that the younger man didn’t really pay any attention to his food. But more to Yunho’s hands. And his arms. And his other body parts that he could stare without lifting his head.
And even when he did lift his head, he just stole a quick glance to Yunho, before looking at the crutches, bit his lower lip and gave them a sad look, before sighed deeply, before went back to eating.
Jaejoong turned his head to Yunho, who was actually looking Changmin with some kind of longing and desperate expression in his eyes. And Jaejoong now understand the different vibe Yunho had since he back to town. Jung Yunho he knew, though all his quietness and charismatic cool attitude, was like a sun, vibrant, always fully energized and somehow overshined everybody else.
Maybe there was a deep dark shadow in the current Jung Yunho that he didn’t shine as bright now.
The dancer smiled emptily, and turned his head to Jaejoong.
“Glad to hear they’re alright.”
“Glad to know you’re listening.” Jaejoong said quietly, smiled back to him.
Maybe it wasn’t only Junsu and Yoochun who were all in love forever.