Title: The One That Got Away
Pairing: Yunho/Jaejoong
Disclaimer: Real people belong to themselves. So I really don't own anything.
A/N: Based on the Filipino movie "My Amnesia Girl" and could be considered as a sequel to
N.B.S.B. But it could also be a stand-alone fic, I think. This is also unedited and unbetaed, so I apologize for any mistakes I made.
Summary: For Kim Jaejoong, his first boyfriend didn't end up to be his last. Until said first boyfriend a.k.a. Jung Yunho came barging back in his life.
Chapter 3:
Jung Yunho and Kim Jaejoong were together for three years. It was the longest relationship Yunho had ever been in. (It was no secret to every one that knew Yunho that when he had fallen in love with Jaejoong, he had fallen hard. Jaejoong had been different from all the other people Yunho had been with - the young writer had no experience in love and had never been in a relationship before he had met Yunho. Yunho’s charming and flirting ways had no effect on Jaejoong. For the first time in his life, there was someone who didn’t fall at Yunho’s feet. On the contrary, Jaejoong had been oblivious, for lack of a better term, and showed an air of disinterest when Yunho had started pursuing him. It took a bout of jealousy, days of keeping distance, and a masquerade ball for Yunho to finally win over Kim Jaejoong.)
It had come as no surprise to anyone when Yunho had proposed to Jaejoong. (Yunho’s parents and brother had never been happier. Long before Yunho had realized his feelings for Jaejoong, Jung Jin Ho, Youn Ha, and Ji Hoon had already welcomed and treated Jaejoong as part of the Jung family. Jaejoong’s parents, on the other hand, took a long time to warm up to Yunho. Thankfully, Jaejoong’s eight sisters had been more acceptable with Yunho being their youngest and only brother’s first boyfriend.)
The wedding was supposed to be the most perfect day of Yunho’s life. Yunho was standing at the altar, with Yoochun as his best man beside him, and every one else that mattered watching as the love of Yunho’s life walked down the aisle in a white tuxedo, eyes sparkling and a shy smile adorning his angelic face.
Nothing was supposed to go wrong. Except that when Jaejoong was making his way to Yunho, Yunho was suddenly gripped with the inexplicable fear that Jaejoong wouldn’t be happy with him. That a few years down the road, Jaejoong’s smiling face would turn into something sad and inconsolable because of him; that Jaejoong would regret becoming his husband; and that the time would come when Jaejoong would leave him because Yunho wasn’t the man he thought he was. (Those had always been Yunho’s insecurities with regard to Jaejoong - the insecurities he had managed to ignore for the most part, always reminding himself that Jaejoong loves him and that nothing else mattered. Unfortunately, it was also those insecurities that had reared their ugly heads in the wedding, and Yunho found that he couldn’t ignore the voices anymore.)
What if he wasn’t enough to make Jaejoong happy?
The fear had been so great and so tangible that Yunho found that he couldn’t stay there, that he couldn’t allow Jaejoong to make the biggest mistake of his life by marrying him, and before Yunho knew it, he was running - running from Jaejoong, out of the church, away from the voices in his head.
And it was when he finally stopped running (days turning into weeks into months of every one not knowing where he had gone when he left the wedding), that Yunho realized that he was the person who had made the biggest mistake of his life that day, by running away from the person he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
And Yunho could never take it back.
Until now.
“Joongie, I know you’re mad but punching the wrong guy -” Kim Hyori had finally reached her brother (who was still staring at Yunho in confusion), and saw just who exactly it is he rewarded a black eye to. “Well, well,” she drawled. “Maybe it isn’t the wrong guy after all.”
“Jaejoong,” Yunho struggled to stand up. “It’s me, Yunho.” (Maybe Jae had already erased his entire existence from his mind so that he could forget about what happened? Not that Yunho could blame him if he did that.)
But Jaejoong only continued staring at him, with his head tilted to the side and his lips pursed. “Who?”
“Joongie,” Hyori held her brother’s hand as she glared at Yunho. “Don’t bother with people like him, he’s not worth your time.”
(If looks could kill, Yunho would have been dead by now.)
The tension at table six could be cut with a knife. If Changmin had felt that his meeting with Jung Yunho the day before had been awkward, Jung Yunho’s unexpected meeting with Kim Jaejoong was definitely a hundred times more uncomfortable and more nerve-wracking. Beside him, Yoochun and Junsu had also been resorted to mere spectators, not daring to interrupt. (It wasn’t any of their places anyway.)
Jaejoong hissed in pain and pulled his hand away from Hyori. Yunho noticed that it was the same hand Jae had used in punching him.
“Does it hurt?” Hyori examined her brother’s knuckles where some skin had started to peel off. “You should really watch your temper better.”
Jaejoong scowled when he remembered why he had to punch someone in the first place. “The guy was going to pay me to sleep with him! He deserved what he was going to get.”
“Yeah, except that he’s in table sixteen and you should’ve let the waiter finish his sentence -” Hyori was cut off short by a low growl.
Before any of them could react, Jung Yunho had stormed off to table sixteen. There was a man in a leather jacket sitting there. He looked to be in his late thirties, with thinning black hair and a lecherous smile on his face. He had been watching the entire scene unfold, taking note of the fact that the princess would also probably be wild in bed. (If he was smarter, he should’ve left earlier.)
Yunho saw the pervert leer at Jaejoong and he lost it. Eyes dimming, Yunho hit the guy for all he’s worth. No one was allowed to see Jaejoong in that way, to be able to treat him in that way -
He didn’t notice that he had already pummelled the guy to the floor and that Yoochun and Junsu were pulling him away. (The waiters had been too scared of the wild look on Yunho’s eyes to actually do something.)
“Yunho!” Yoochun held on as Yunho struggled from his and Junsu’s hold. “Stop! He wasn’t doing anything to Jaejoong!”
“The bastard was planning to,” Yunho snarled. “I won’t allow him, Chun, he can’t!”
“Why are you doing this?”
It took Jaejoong’s soft voice to stop Yunho from struggling. (No one paid much attention to the pummelled guy on the floor.)
Jaejoong was looking at Yunho, those huge doe eyes that seemed to be staring straight through him. “Who are you to be so angry for me?”
++++
“His heart was broken when you left him at the altar -”
“Walking aimlessly out in the streets of Seoul, wondering what exactly went wrong -”
“Not caring about the people around him or the cars that pass him by -”
“He was crying hard, and not seeing or hearing a thing -”
“A bus suddenly comes careening from the corner -”
“He’s too absorbed with his broken heart to notice it coming towards him -”
“SHUT UP!” Yunho ran a hand through his hair. He glared at Yoochun, Junsu and Changmin. “The three of you, just shut up!”
The four of them were still at Bon Appetit. After that final outburst from Jaejoong, the latter had left, with Hyori following right after. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the guy Yunho had pummelled would be fine (although his face would sport two black eyes and have bruises and would be sore for weeks). The guy wouldn’t be able to press charges against Yunho either, because he was in the wrong to begin with, propositioning someone like that. (And well, he was Jung Yunho of Jung Corporation. His name alone should have prevented the guy from doing anything. It was also the reason why Bon Appetit had not thrown any of them out after that commotion.)
“So what are you going to do, Yunho?” Yoochun asked his best friend.
“Nothing, obviously.” Changmin couldn’t help but express his opinion on the matter. “Jaejoong-ssi clearly doesn’t want anything to do with him.”
“But that’s because he doesn’t remember Yunho,” Junsu reasoned out. “It is kind of weird if a person you don’t know suddenly hits someone just because you mentioned that that someone tried to proposition you. I’ll be freaked out too, since I just gave that person a black eye and he wasn’t even angry at me but instead punches the one I was supposed to punch.”
“It’s possible that Jae got into an accident after the wedding,” Yoochun tapped his forehead. “I mean, think about it - no one had seen him since then. He hasn’t written any novel the past two years and even Heechul had been tight-lipped when you asked him that one time where Jae was. It was like he disappeared off the face of the earth, actually.”
“He didn’t even acknowledge our existence,” Junsu said sadly. He had been really close to Jae and he considered the latter as one of his friends. It was just a shame that when Jae’s relationship with Yunho had broken off, Jae had also lost contact with the people who were related to Yunho.
Changmin looked at Yunho, who was putting some ice on his left eye. “That’s certainly going to bruise.” (He supposed Yunho had to wear sunglasses for two weeks again.)
“Hey, didn’t Jae also give you a black eye the first time you met?”
“Second time,” Yunho corrected Yoochun. “He got pissed because I thought he wanted me to sleep with him. It turned out he was angry that I stole his clothes and left him at the motel with nothing but his boxers on.”
Junsu stared at Yunho, who had a dreamy look on his face. (Yunho was probably imagining Jae with only his boxers on.) Junsu shook his head. “Man, you have it bad.”
“He shouldn’t have run away from the wedding if he was so in love with Jaejoong-ssi.” Changmin remarked dryly. But seeing Jung Yunho nursing a black eye and witnessing firsthand how he hurt when Kim Jaejoong did not recognize him, Changmin finally decided to let bygones be bygones. “This might probably be the chance you’re looking for.”
Yunho looked at him. “What do you mean?”
(Shim Changmin did not earn the best and most successful matchmaker title for nothing.) “You can start over with a clean slate.”
++++
“Noona!” Jaejoong yelped as Hyori put antiseptic on his knuckles. “It hurts!”
Hyori ignored him and continued disinfecting his left hand. “I’m so proud of you, Joongie!” The two of them were at her apartment which was nearer to Bon Appetit. (Hyori had insisted that she would take care of her brother’s hand before it bruised and blistered.) “I never knew my Joongie had it in him to act so cool in front of his ex-fiancé.”
Jae’s eyes flashed. “Please don’t ever mention him. Giving him a black eye wasn’t enough.”
“Then why didn’t you pummel Yunho to the ground the minute you realized it was him?”
“I was shocked!” To be honest, Jaejoong doubted if he had recovered yet from the shock of seeing Jung Yunho - his first boyfriend and the one he was supposed to marry.
He still remembered that fateful day. It was supposed to be the most perfect day of Jaejoong’s life - he was walking down the aisle, towards the love of his life, and Yunho’s gaze as Jae made his way towards him was filled with so much love and devotion. (Jaejoong couldn’t have asked for anything more at the moment.)
So Jaejoong couldn’t understand how from one minute Yunho could look at him as if he was the most important person in the world and the next be running out of the church, out of the wedding, and away from Jaejoong.
The silly part of it was that Jaejoong had honestly believed Yunho would come back. (It took days turning into weeks turning into months for Jae to realize that Yunho would never return.)
If Jae had thought that seeing the first love story he wrote being torn into pieces by his first love had been painful, it was definitely nowhere near the heartbreak he felt knowing that the person he loves with all his heart (and the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with) wouldn’t ever come back to him.
So Jaejoong did the only thing he could do - he moved on. It wasn’t easy but Jae thought he was coping better than expected.
Until now.
“So you pretended not to know him?” Hyori smirked. “I had no idea you could be so sly.” It was better than physically hurting Jung Yunho - denying Yunho’s existence, it felt like Jaejoong didn’t care about Yunho - when it was exactly the opposite.
(It grated Jaejoong that Yunho was still as gorgeous as he remembered him to be, sporting a shorter military haircut that made him more mature and respectable. Turning thirty was supposed to make one look older, not more handsome.)
“I didn’t know how to react.” Jaejoong doubted he was even thinking at that moment. “I never thought I’d see him again and he even had the nerve to actually introduce himself too! As if I can forget the bastard who broke my heart!”
“Now, now,” Hyori patted Jae on the back. “You shouldn’t let him affect you this way, Joongie. You should be above that now.”
Jae took a deep breath. “I know. I’m just so pissed at him.” (It didn’t help that Yunho had to go and hit the pervert for him too, as if he had the right. Which he doesn’t - not anymore.)
Hyori watched as her brother touched his newly-disinfected left hand. He had a scowl on his face and his eyes were flashing. It was the most emotion she had seen in Jaejoong’s face in a long while. Even though very beautiful, Jae had often been judged as cold by the people who didn’t know him. His face wasn’t easy to read but Jae’s eyes had always been very expressive. (His eyes never lied about how he feels.) But ever since the wedding, Jae had become closed and shut off and it had become very difficult to know how he felt. And just for that, Hyori wanted to hurt Jung Yunho.
“This could be your opportunity.”
Jaejoong looked at Hyori. “What are you talking about?”
Maybe Jae wasn’t devious enough for what Hyori was planning (but then, Hyori could be cunning enough for both of them.) “Joongie, it’s time you get back at Jung Yunho for breaking your heart.”