Tears Dry On Their Own - Chapter 6
Title: Tears Dry On Their Own
Pairing: JaeMin (Main), HoMin, HoSu, Yoochun/OFC
Rating: R
Length: Chaptered
Genre: Romance, Angst (a lot in this chapter), Drama, Fluff, Humor, AU
Warnings: Language, Mentions of Adultery, References to Sex
Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction. The characters belong to themselves. The plot-line is mine. Do not translate this fic or distribute it without permission.
Summary: Two stunningly powerful individuals; so hopelessly in love. They had everything anyone could ever want - fame, money, love and a family worth more than all the happiness in the world.
But something happened. Something wrong.
One half of their whole committed a mistake that the other could never accept and, thus, unleashed a story of discovery, understanding and forgiveness.
“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.”
Changmin held a worn book in one hand, his other trailing absently through Kris’s hair as the words of poems, long celebrating the loss of love, melded among each other in a sad, dismal song.
He was starting to hate those words. Sadness. Depression. Loss. How much longer would he drive himself to the point of insanity because the existence of joy, seemed like an ephemeral tragedy in the midst of a darkness, that had invaded his life over and over again in the last three and a half years?
The young man read and read and read and finally believed that there were so many kinds of love expressed so wholly in the disconnect found within the limits of poetry.
Innocent love - that shy smile across a crowded room, the first kiss under the quiet moon, the laughter following the tears of that first fight, those scared whispered words while hands grabbed each other’s under the table.
Crazy love- Sneaking out of the house, uncaring of consequences, head first, toes last, brain left behind, the backseat of a car, the end of the world and back on the very first night, the heartbreak and its inevitability because damn the heart for betraying the brain and leaving it so far behind.
Eternal love - fear for the other, pride for the other, trust of the other, everything for and of the other. That moment when prayers say “if we live until we’re 89, I hope I live a day less so I never have to see you go”…you wonder why there’s no forever.
Hateful love - anger, jealousy, hurt and the inevitable ‘why did it have to be you?”
“I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.”
Then again, Changmin thought as he raised his eyes unseeingly at the wall in front of him, was all love one love? Could you have everything that love had to offer and then nothing at all.
Could eternal love exist for a second and then vanish when there was no “each other”? Could you gain eternity in less than a lifetime?
If Changmin had already been given eternity…then what was he living through now?
Purgatory?
Hell?
He was certain this wasn’t heaven.
The model jerked out of his reverie when Kris shifted. He looked down to see his son staring up at him, his big, beautiful, wonderful eyes boring into his soul.
No. Maybe there was a bit of heaven left in this hell. Kris was the only blessing he had left in his life. The one good thing that came out of his disastrous marriage.
“You stopped reading the poem…” his son muttered, turning and burying his head into his father’s stomach.
“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” Changmin mumbled, smiling at his stubborn son, who’d refused to let his father out of his sight the entire night, no matter how sleepy he got.
Changmin didn’t know how Junsu had managed to convince his son to do this, but ever since a month ago, every single time Changmin so much as stepped out of the house to engage in some self-destructive behaviour, Kris would start crying and refuse to let him out of the house.
He didn’t think his son knew any of the stuff he’d been up to, especially since entertainment news channels and tabloids were banned in their house; and he was 90% sure none of the adults would have dared to explain any of his transgressions to a nine year old boy; but whatever Junsu had said, had scared his son enough to never let his father out of his sight.
“Papa…” the child whined.
“Alright, alright, you brat, I was just resting my vocal chords.”
The look that particular statement garnered was so like himself that Changmin bit back a grin and looked down at the poem again.
“And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.”
“So the man killed himself?” Kris asked, tracing patterns on the muscles of Changmin’s upper arms.
“I’d assume so…” the older man replied, wondering how to explain to a child who had everything to live for, what it was like to just want everything to stop.
“Some people, Krispy….are so in love that they can’t live without each other. People talk about being independent and owning oneself - but that doesn’t always work out and you start needing someone next to you, no matter how bad they are for you-“
“But Annabel wasn’t bad for the narrator…”
Changmin looked at his son and sighed in acquiescence, “You’re right, let’s just say I’m talking about this on a general level - there will come a time when you start valuing people around you more than your own life. For example, I love you more than my own life and if something ever happened to you, I wouldn’t know what would happen to me…”
“I’m not going to leave you, Dad.”
Changmin smiled before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss against the boy’s forehead, “I know that, my love.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, love?”
“You love Papa like that too, don’t you? That’s why you’ve been acting…not yourself? Do you want to…do what the guy did?”
“Your Papa isn’t dead, Krispy…Where would I go?”
“You’ve been acting like he is…you keep forgetting to kiss me goodnight and I never see you anymore…you don’t …you don’t look like yourself anymore…”
“Oh baby…”
“Uncle Junsu said that if you kept leaving, you wouldn’t come back home one day.”
Changmin bit his lip, a twinge of anger coursing through him at Junsu for scaring his son like that.
“Uncle Junsu was -“
“Lying?”
Was he? Changmin wondered to himself as he struggled to find the right words.
“I-I was angry at your Papa and I wanted to forget, so I used to go out to -“
Damn, how was he supposed to explain this to a child?
“Forget.” The boy helpfully supplied.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t do that anymore, no matter how much you love Papa or how angry you are, you can’t forget,” Kris stated softly, staring at his father with eyes so much like Jaejoong’s, watery, wide, wonderful eyes.
“I won’t. I won’t. I promise.”
“Did the poet love Annabel like you love Papa?”
“Yeah, baby. Something like that.”
I don’t think Poe’s love for the woman came close to this insanity.
“He really must’ve loved her then,” Kris muttered, a small v forming between his brows.
Changmin sighed and pressed a finger against the boy’s forehead, “If you keep making faces like that, one day it’s going to stay like that and everyone’s going to start calling you the Grinch.”
“Nah, that’s Uncle Junsu’s dad.”
The model, who had been too busy smoothing out his son’s frown and trying not to over-think what had just happened, burst out into shocked laughter before trying to muffle it behind fake coughs.
“Kris! You can’t talk about anyone like that!”
“Yun-Appa says it all the time. He says Junsu’s mom and dad are the base [bane] of his existence and that Junsu’s dad always looks like he has shit-“
Changmin placed a hand on Kris’s mouth and held tight, using all his strength to stop himself from laughing and waking everyone in the house up.
“Never,” the older man croaked out, “never ever say any of that out loud.”
“Mmmggphhh- but it’s true, he looks - conscripted, is that the word?”
“Constipated…”
“See! You think so too!”
“No- I mean yeah but- no. I mean no. I don’t think so. I mean it’s ‘constipated’ not ‘conscripted’”
Kris rolled his eyes so exasperatedly, that Changmin felt like he was looking into a mirror and thanked his stars that these were the only few bad qualities he’d managed to acquire from the model.
“Dad, you’re missing the point.”
Changmin cocked an eyebrow. There was a point to this conversation?
“I’m not like Junsu’s dad. I won’t look like the Grinch. I’m like Papa. I’ll look good when I frown. You used to say he looked like a hot piece of as-“
Changmin clamped his hand back down on his son’s mouth and looked up at the ceiling in prayer.
“What have I told you about using that word?”
“That it makes you look and sound like one?”
“Yes.”
“But Papa says you like as-“
“KRIS!”
The young boy pouted and raised his hand to point at the wall behind the bed, “If you don’t like people frowning then why is that picture of Papa above your bed?”
Changmin bit the inside of his cheek and tried very very hard to not blush in front of his son, “The same reason your Papa has a picture of me in his room,” the model muttered a bit darkly, thinking of the picture of Jaejoong’s room Yoochun had sent him a year or two ago.
Seeing his own photograph above the man's bed had made him feel a lot of unnecessary emotions.
God, he hated that picture. It was one of the few where Jaejoong had managed to capture him completely unaware.
It was also one of his best pictures.
And the worst because it embodied everything happy about their family vacation to Italy way back when.
“You kiss the poster every morning too?”
Changmin froze.
“What?”
“Do you kiss Papa’s picture every morning too?”
He stared at his son.
“Your Papa does what?”
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A/N: /silence/ Did I just? Is this really? Did I just update?!! Oh my God, I did.
A/N 2: After that bit of drama, I'm so glad I could get out a chapter this week. I've been busy with my dissertation but I just had to write or I was going to go crazy.
A/N 3: I tried to slow down the story after the insanity that was the last chapter. It's been way too angsty till now. I had to remind Changmin that he had other things to consider in his path to self-destruction.
A/N 4: Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. COMMENT, COMMENT. COMMENT. ILY.