Meet You There [14/16]
Title: Meet You There
Pairings: Jaeho, Yoosu, one-sided Jaemin
Length: Chapter fic
Author: rainbowpebbles
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, Humour, Fluff, Angst (not in any particular order)
Summary: Sequel to A World of Colour. Who said that the road after the first kiss would ever be smooth?
In this chapter: Jaejoong-centric. And he comes closer to the truth (:
Jaejoong spent his time over the next few days shuttling in between his job at the hotel and back home. He never saw Yunho at the lobby again; it seemed as if the other was avoiding the lobby during lunch time. Either that or it was that Yunho had no time for lunch, but his instinct told him that the former was more likely than the latter.
The long stretches at home were spent searching his for traces of his past: the traces with Yunho in particular. But he could find nothing; it was if a typhoon had come by, sweeping all the evidence away. The lack of material left Jaejoong frustrated, but he wasn’t about to give up so easily.
Today involved yet another day of searching.
He had chanced upon a set of photo albums, tucked in his closet in a neat holder. He remembered these: his mother had been the one who had filled the first three albums with pictures of them. What he found made him frown heavily. The holder had obviously been made to hold five photo albums, and yet there were only four. The last album, which he guessed to be the most recent, was gone. Had someone deliberately hidden it away?
Jaejoong didn’t really understand why he felt so compelled to find out who Jung Yunho had really been to him. In a way…it just seemed right.
And in that way, how his feelings for Changmin seemed to be wrong.
He was pretty sure that he didn’t hate Changmin in the past or anything, but he now knew…or felt, rather, how his feelings for Changmin were not those of a lover’s. And for the first time since he had woken up, for the first time since this whole mess had started, he saw Changmin as a dong saeng. A much loved dong saeng, but nothing more.
But Yunho…
“BAAAAAAAAMM!”
The door was nearly ripped from its hinges without ceremony, and Jaejoong sighed as he was pulled rudely from his thoughts.
“You’re paying for that door, hyung. From the way it creaks nowadays, its funeral won’t be far off.”
Heechul snorted, trying vainly to balance two plates on one hand, shutting the door with the other. “It’s an old door! It’s not my fault.”
Jaejoong took out a sheet of paper. “It’s a new door, hyung. I had it refitted when you were away sometime last Christmas, apparently.” He waved the paper around. “I may not remember it, but I have the bill to prove it.”
Heechul raised an eyebrow, setting the two plates down on the dining table. “You’re rummaging around your old stuff again? You’ve been at it for days now. What are you looking for?”
Jaejoong flushed a little. “N-nothing in particular. You don’t need to bother about me. I’m just packing my old stuff, it’s been getting too cluttered for my liking lately.” He made his way over to the table, stretching a little. “Anyway I have a lot of time on my hands.”
“You could use that time for some nourishment now,” Heechul said as he stalked to the kitchen to find cutlery, beaming. “I made eggs and sausages!”
Jaejoong examined Heechul’s masterpiece. Two eggs, sunny-side up with a sausage, which was slightly curled. All neatly arranged to form a lop-sided smiley face.
“It looks like you.”
“I don’t even want to bother thinking about whether that was a compliment or an insult.”
Jaejoong grinned. “Are you doubting your own artistic creation?”
“Nope.” Heechul walked over, using his knuckles to rap gently on Jaejoong’s head. “Enough talk. Let’s eat.”
Jaejoong looked slightly surprised. “Why do you seem so…I dunno…so quiet today?”
Heechul groaned, rubbing his head as if in pain. “DON’T remind me. And next time you see a fire extinguisher in the vicinity, hide it away from Yoochun. Please.”
Jaejoong stuck out his tongue childishly. “You deserved it. Even if I don’t know why he did it, I just know you deserved it.”
Heechul mumbled something vaguely under his breath, which sounded like ‘everyone doesn’t appreciate me’ and ‘that stupid brat’ and ‘did he have to hit so hard’. Jaejoong muffled a laugh, settling down and poking an egg yolk so that the golden yellow spilled out over the white.
“You found this?”
Jaejoong looked over to see Heechul picking up the holder with the four albums. “Yeah, I found it in my cupboard.” He used his fork to cut a neat piece of egg. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does,” Heechul carried the holder over, looking at it fondly like a proud mother would do to her (his?) child. “And you are not an uncivilized barbarian, Joongie. Use a knife to cut your food.”
Jaejoong obediently picked up his knife, not wanting to start an argument over knives-and-their-use-at-the-table. “Omma used to put the pictures into the album, right? But I don’t recognize any of the pictures in the fourth album, and…” He forced a casual tone. “And she doesn’t appear in any of the pictures.”
He felt a pang of pain as the words left his mouth. His mother’s obvious absence in the pictures was very difficult to bear. And for the first time, Jaejoong found actual physical evidence that he had been blind: in the first few pictures in the album, his eyes were not looking directly at the camera.
Heechul remained oblivious, his mouth stuffed full of sausage. “Aaaaahhhhhhh…” With difficulty, he swallowed everything. “The fourth album was done by me! Let’s see…” He flipped a page, laughing out loud at the picture. “There’s that time we had that pillow fight…and Eunhyuk’s soccer ball-shaped cake…” He flipped another page. “And the remnants of that cake after we mooshed his face into it…”
Jaejoong smiled. “I sort of remember that.”
Heechul looked shocked. “You do!?”
Jaejoong made a face. “Just laughter. A lot of laughter. And I remember that,” He pointed at the picture where majority of the remnants of the cake had found their way into his hair. “It took me 2 hours to stop my hair from smelling like chocolate, right?”
“You remember!!!” Heechul shouted, and Jaejoong watched with amusement as Heechul’s egg yolk flew in big droplets into his mug of water.
“I do remember…” He hesitated slightly. “But not everything. There are still large gaps in my memory.” Yunho’s face floated into his mind. “Some larger than others.”
Heechul studied his face for a moment, before flipping to another page, pushing the album in front of Jaejoong. “Then maybe you should start finding your answers here.”
The picture depicted a young girl, smiling and laughing with a crayon in her hand, and Jaejoong had his arms wrapped around her. There were other children standing around the both of them, some playing with blocks in the background, others tugging at the hem of his shirt.
Eun Bi…?
The name stuck in his head, ringing over and over again.
“…where is this?”
“The Association for the Blind.” Heechul answered, smiling a little. “Your omma used to bring you there when you were younger, remember? She volunteered there at that time. And you,” he pointed at the picture. “You started there as a volunteer after you lost your sight, teaching the kids.”
Jaejoong stared hard at the picture for a while, before he spoke, his mind made up. “I’m going there. Today. It’s my day-off anyway.”
Heechul nodded, stuffing the last of his egg into his mouth. “You do know the way, don’t you…oh crud.” His eyes fell on the clock in the kitchen. “I’m late for work!!!”
“Wait, hyung!” Jaejoong started quickly. “I still need to ask you about Yun-”
Before he knew it he heard the door slam as his whirlwind of a hyung left the room, the curtains at the window blowing dramatically in his wake.
“…ho.” Jaejoong stared at the swirling dust cloud left behind by the natural disaster known as Kim Heechul.
“He’s definitely paying for that door.”
~*~
Yunho sat in his chair, pondering over the things discussed in the meeting. His pen tapped lightly against the proposal that had just been given to him, his mind running through the possibilities, the pros and the cons…
And for the first time in a very long time, Yunho actually agreed with the advice of the board of management.
The door opened suddenly, and a tall figure strode in confidently, swinging it shut. He looked behind the door and was shocked to find nothing there.
“What happened to the picture of me, hyung? The one you were throwing darts at?”
Yunho sighed in exasperation. “It wouldn’t hurt to knock, Min. And the picture was too riddled with holes; I’ll draw a new one soon. Don’t worry bout that.”
The both of them held their straight faces for a while, unblinking. Then the staring contest was broken by Changmin’s grin, which led to Yunho chuckling.
“You definitely look better in a suit than in hospital clothes, Min.”
Changmin raised an eyebrow, running a hand down his blazer. “It had better be that way. The amount this suit cost me is enough to pay for all the hospital gowns in Seoul.” He smiled, sitting himself down on the chair. “So how was the meeting?”
Yunho glared mildly at him. “After I was so nicely abandoned by a certain vice-president yet again,” He looked at Changmin pointedly. “It didn’t go so bad. They actually had a pretty interesting idea this time.”
Changmin raised his eyebrows, wondering whether the meeting had been too much for Yunho’s brain to handle. “Really?”
“Really.” Yunho smiled, his fingers fiddling with the papers in front of him.
And then he explained his idea to Changmin.
*insert plan that would disrupt the easy road to jaeho and complicate the lives of all GUSJA members*
Changmin had ceased to blink. “You can’t be serious.”
“Ahaha…” Yunho let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I am pretty serious about it, actually.”
Changmin gaped. “But hyung…” He struggled to find the words to say. “Two years?”
“It’s not that long, two years will come and go in a flash…”
“Why don’t you let me-”
“No.” Yunho cut in immediately, predicting what his dong saeng was going to say. “No. I won’t allow it. I’m doing it, not you.”
Changmin felt a horrible sense of guilt settle in his stomach. “This isn’t about…”
Yunho gave him an assuring smile. “No, it’s not. But if you do lock me up in the lift again, I’ll personally come to wring your neck and then I’ll send an e-mail to the entire company about the vice-president being suspended because he watched porn during a meeting.”
“HEY-”
Yunho pointed a finger at him playfully. “Don’t try to deny it!! I know it’s true!!! It may not have been during a meeting, but I looked through the files on your laptop!”
“How did you get the password to my laptop!?”
“Maybe if your password wasn’t ‘ilovefood’ it wouldn’t have been so obvious!”
“HAH! I would like to see you coming up with a more interesting password! I know for a fact that yours is ‘ilovejae-” Changmin stopped in mid-sentence, realizing where he had unintentionally steered the conversation to. “I mean…”
Yunho laughed weakly. “It’s ok, Min. It’s not like his name is taboo.”
Changmin studied his hyung’s face, noticing the obvious discomfort. There’s nothing much I can do, is there? “You’re not doing it just because of him, are you?”
Yunho shook his head. “No, solely for the good of the company.” He saw the doubt on his dong saeng’s face. “Really, Min, trust me!”
…but how could he expect Changmin to do that when he couldn’t even do that himself?
~*~
Jaejoong left the centre, feeling more confused than he had before. He had almost automatically remembered Eun Bi and the rest of the kids, despite never having seen them face to face before…their voice, their touches…maybe it was just the way the blind communicated with the blind.
The trip had been eventful, with a warm welcome from Young-ah noona (who had actually visited him at the hospital a few times) and the children. Interacting with the little ‘bundles of terror’, as Young-ah noona had referred to them as, had been refreshing and Jaejoong had felt extremely at ease.
But more pieces had been added to the puzzle in his head…
“Jaejoong oppa…”
“Hmm?” Jaejoong looked at the young girl who was sitting in his lap, his fingers trying to guide hers into playing a simple melody on the piano, Seung Woong sitting beside him on the piano bench, holding on tightly to his t-shirt as if to prevent him from disappearing again.
“Where’s Yunho-oppa?”
Seung Woong tugged on his shirt. “Yeah, where’s hyung?”
Jaejoong was slightly startled. Nobody had told him that Yunho had visited the centre with him. “Err…he’s a little busy. He’s got a lot of work to do.”
“Again?” Eun Bi’s face fell slightly, her face turning away slightly. “Why is he always so busy…”
Jaejoong decided to probe further. “Again? He told me he came recently…”
Seung Woong shook his head. “No, hyung hasn’t been here in a VERY,” he raised both arms to emphasize his point. “…long time! I miss him, hyung.” Seung Woong pouted a little. “Yunho hyung could always push us the highest on the swings.”
“Has Yunho oppa come to see you, oppa?” Eun Bi asked abruptly in a serious tone.
“I just saw him a few days ago.” Jaejoong felt curious. “Why?”
“Oh nothing.” Eun Bi clasped her hands together, looking slightly happier. “You were sad last time because Yunho hyung didn’t come to visit you, but now that he has, everything’s better now!” She placed both hands on his face, trying to feel his features. “Are you smiling?”
And Jaejoong gave her a small smile, his thoughts still spinning in circles.
Yunho hadn’t visited him in a long time? Was that what had happened before the accident? Had Yunho been too busy to bother about him?
…and why did Yunho have to bother about him? What was their relationship? Why did Yunho come to the centre with him? Why had he bothered to play with the kids?
The endless flow of questions didn’t stop, distracting him from realizing that he had instinctively taken a familiar path to a bus stop without even knowing it.
And then he felt it.
That…familiar feeling of being watched.
Immediately, one name came to mind.
“Young Saeng!”
The bushes beside the bus stop seemed to jump alive, shuddering, before a young man came tumbling out, twigs and leaves in his hair, eyes opened wide with shock.
End of chapter fourteen.
A/N: aaaaaaah this was a short one :x
Nothing much happens in this chapter, I just realized (after reading through it again) :P the only interesting thing is that Jaejoong is slowly coming closer to the truth!!! ‘slowly’ being the key word XD for those who have been wondering why young saeng has been playing such a small role in the previous chapters, here you go (: you can tell he’s gonna have a lot of lines in the next one, don’t you?
TO VIEN WHO LOST HER I-POD (just like changmin, lol ^^): CHEER UP!!!! :D :D :D ALL IS NOT LOST!!! YOU STILL HAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEE~~ ßbig comfort
This fic should be ending in TWO CHAPTERS. *noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!*
It should not have a sequel, because I haven’t planned for one yet ^^’’’ BUT I have thought of a new fic idea!!! A new fic, a new AU (: all I can say now is that I think the main pairing will be Yoosu, though there is major Jaeho as well :D more details will come in the last chapter of this fic!!!
Thanks to 7x18 for prodding me to get this chapter out <333 if not I would have lazily taken my time to write and the dong bang boys would be old and grey by the time I posted the chapter :P
Comments are loved!!