Thunder and Thunderstorms
Title: Thunder and Thunderstorms
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: Romance, Fluff
Rating: PG-13
Summary: There have always been two constants in Jaejoong’s life.
One is thunder.
The other one is Yunho.
There have always been two constants in Jaejoong’s life.
One is thunder.
The other one is Yunho.
And more often than not, these two have tended to appear hand in hand.
One of Jaejoong’s first memories of such an occasion is from quite early in his life, must have been the summer before they started school together, he and Yunho. Yunho’s grandmother lived on an island, and sometimes, when Jaejoong’s dad finally had a day off from his job, both families would travel there for a weekend, sometimes even for a whole week.
Summer meant days spent paddling in shallow seawater. It meant lying on a flat rock next to Yunho, feeling the salty wind and the warm sun, listening to the sounds of waves breaking against the shore. It meant getting bitten by fat black ants and carving little boats out of tree bark. It meant playing on the rocky bank, building breakwaters from small stones and floating the bark boats in their self-built miniature harbours.
Summer also meant those muggy days when Jaejoong’s dad’s t-shirt would plaster against his sweaty back, and his mother would sigh and sigh and carry her parasol everywhere with her. Jaejoong’s sisters would whine and refuse to do any housework because it was too hot to even lift a single finger. If Jaejoong got really lucky, one of them would drag him along to eat sweet shaved ice topped with rice cake and red beans.
Everyone seemed to hate those sultry days-except for Jaejoong. Even Yunho would keep scratching his body and complaining that the hot weather made his clothes damp and his skin itchy.
But Jaejoong loved those days. He loved them from the bottom of his heart, but even so, they could never be over soon enough. He loved them, because he knew that as soon as the sun would start descending, grey clouds would come and bring thunder with them.
On such a day, they had all together built a big fire at the waterfront. Yunho and Jaejoong had spent hours running around excitedly, gathering rubbish brought to the shore by the sea and throwing it all into the large pile mostly constructed of wood. Yunho’s grandmother had chucked out all her old wooden furniture, and in the middle there was a big old bench, shored up upright with a few smaller chairs.
The sky was still as light as at midday when Yunho’s father finally lit the bonfire in the evening. Jaejoong’s mom was holding onto the neckline of his little boy’s t-shirt, preventing him from running too close as the flames slowly started sneaking upwards, licking their fuel experimentally before hungrily sinking their teeth into the old, dry wood.
Yunho had stalked close to the fire and when Jaejoong saw him, he tugged his collar out of his mother’s fingers as well, running after the taller boy. He could hardly hear his mother’s warnings as he chased after Yunho. He reached the other young boy where he had come to a stop next to the water, staring at the waterline with a serious expression on his face.
“What is it, Yunho? What is it,” Jaejoong asked, grabbing the other boy’s shirt to stabilise his unsure feet before his momentum made him run right into the water.
“Look, Jjoongie,” Yunho said in his serious little boy voice. “The water is rising.”
Jaejoong peered into the water, scrunching up his whole face and squinting as if it would make him see better.
They stood still for a few moments, and true to Yunho’s observation, the water truly was rising, faster than Jaejoong had ever seen.
“Mommy!” he shouted, “Yunho says the water is rising.”
“That’s right, bunny,” his mother called back, “there is going to be a storm tonight.”
“Mommy says there’s going to be a storm,” Jaejoong repeated her words, tugging at Yunho’s shirt. “Do you think they will let us go outside to see the storm?”
“I don’t think so, Jjoongie,” Yunho answered him after pondering his question over carefully. “I think mom will make us go inside soon.”
They stood silent for a moment still, until Yunho suddenly took hold of the wrist of the hand Jaejoong was gripping his shirt with.
“Look Jjoongie,” he whispered excitedly. “The water is boiling!”
“Where? Where?” Jaejoong enquired quickly, and looked as Yunho pointed his finger at the water. It had crept up until the tide was high enough to reach the bonfire, and right there, under the flames that were now flaring happily up towards the sky, the seawater was seething, bubbles forming and popping under the heat of the bonfire.
“Mommy!” Jaejoong cried out. “The sea is boiling! Come look, mommy!”
There were sounds of hurried footsteps, until a calming hand settled on Jaejoong’s shoulder.
“Wow…” Yunho’s mother breathed out. “You know, boys, I have never seen this happen before.”
She stood there behind them for a while, watching intensively as the water kept rising, the bonfire hissing and cracking as occasional bigger waves hit its bottom.
“Boys, time to go inside,” she said finally, and Yunho turned around to direct a meaningful glance at Jaejoong.
They were only half way up the path to the house when the rain fell. Yunho’s mother grabbed Jaejoong’s hand quickly and started running, both boys giggling at the sudden change in the weather.
It took only a few minutes after they had reached the house and safely gotten inside when the first roar of thunder could be heard. It was tumultuous, and Jaejoong could almost feel the whole house shaking under his feet at the sound.
“I have never seen the tide rise so fast,” Yunho’s mother said as he rubbed a towel over her son’s wet hair.
“Oh our daughter, you have always had such a bad memory,” Yunho’s grandmother teased her daughter, emerging from the kitchen. “Come on boys, I baked some potatoes for you little people.”
“Come Jjoongie,” Yunho urged as Jaejoong’s mother finally got a new, dry t-shirt over his little boy’s big head. “I bet we can make a blanket fort with nanna later.”
Jaejoong knew Yunho liked thunder as well, but he had always suspected it was more due to the fact that they were allowed to stay up late whenever there was a big storm.
Later that night, Jaejoong failed to notice the pale faces and guarded expressions of their parents as he and Yunho performed a play for them in front of their blanket fort. Yunho was pounding the traditional drum his grandmother kept in her house while Jaejoong recited an old folk song they had learnt at music school. The electricity had been out for an hour already, only a few candles sitting on a table illuminating their makeshift stage. As the thunder kept coming closer and closer, the adults grew jitterier; a fact the two playful boys completely missed. Jaejoong would only years later learn that the storm had passed by right above them, and that there had been a few moments when Yunho’s grandmother had been completely sure a lightning would surely strike the house. Instead, Jaejoong played on with Yunho, accepting a round of applause from the frightened flock of adults, before retiring into the blanket fort to tell scary stories with the rumble of thunder as their background music.
The next morning Yunho’s mother took them out really early, showing the two wide-eyed boys the long, wide crack a lightning had stricken in the flat rock where they had built their bonfire a day earlier.
~0~0~0~
The next time thunder and Yunho came together was a day just as hot as the one four years earlier, a week into the new autumn semester.
It was a math class, and as usual, Yunho was half asleep, nodding over his notebook as Jaejoong wrote degrading things on the other’s arm as fast as he could.
Yunho had an odd way of sleeping in class; he would always rock his chair backwards and balance it on only the two back legs. He said that it was because when he zoned out, the chair would swing forwards onto all four legs and he would wake up at the impact. However, Jaejoong had long noticed Yunho had somehow learnt to close off his mind without losing control over the arms and feet he used to balance his chair in the precarious position. It resulted in the strangest way off sleeping in class that Jaejoong had ever witnessed, but at least Yunho never got caught. There was not a single teacher in the whole school that would believe anyone could sleep in such a pose.
The arms braced over the edges of his desk left Jaejoong plenty of readily available canvas, and since it was still late summer Yunho was wearing his summer uniform, his forearms bared with the short-sleeved polo shirt. Jaejoong was very much into his doodling, but the darkness was making him squint. It was oddly dim in the room despite it being still near midday, and just when Jaejoong was about to raise his hand to request for the lights to be turned on, there was a resounding boom. In a second, half of the class jumped back as Yunho added his own ado to the ruckus by waking up so quickly that he lost his balance, his chair tilting right over.
Jaejoong couldn’t help but to let out a delighted bark of laughter as he regarded his disoriented friend. Yunho had ended up sprawled over the floor and was turning his head around as if trying to locate his whereabouts.
“Jung Yunho-ssi!” the annoyed voice of their flavourless math teacher was heard from the front of the class. “How many times do I need to remind you not rock back and forth on your chair? I remember quite clearly warning you you would end up with a fractured tail bone one day.”
“Yes, teacher,” Yunho mumbled an answer while grimacing at his friend who was still laughing at him. Jaejoong could hardly conceal his mirth, trying to hide his wide smile behind his hand.
Just then, there was a flash and a new rumble, and half of the class got up from their seats, hurrying closer to the windows to look outside. Their classroom was on the top floor of a building that was situated on top of a hill, and the view was quite wonderful.
Right then, however, there were very dark clouds gathering up on the sky. Yunho and Jaejoong were sitting next to the windows, and Jaejoong bent over his friends sitting on the floor, peering outside. As he watched, the room turned darker and darker as the clouds shielded the building from any daylight. Even the teacher gave up trying to bring the students back to their seats, taking a position next to the window as well.
“Yunho-yah,” Jaejoong exclaimed excitedly, “we’re right in the middle of a storm!”
Then the real lightshow started. It was something different; never before had Jaejoong seen so many lightnings at once. He remained glued to the window, gaping as he watched the electric discharges lighten up the sky that was now as dark as during night.
He was so fascinated he even ignored his best friend’s repetitive calls, until a certain tug and kick made his chair flip over and had him sprawled on the floor next to his contentedly grinning friend.
“Yah!” he exclaimed, aghast. “What did you do that for! It wasn’t me who made you fall earlier?!”
Yunho just grinned a bit more widely, scratching his forearm.
“Nah, I was just getting lonely here at the floor level,” he joked. “Now, care to explain me what these scribbles mean?” he offered his forearm to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong rubbed his bum, sure that it would bruise, and stared at Yunho’s impudent face. Rather than deciphering his doodles to him, he ended up pushing the shameless boy. Yunho fell on his back, but it didn’t take him long to take Jaejoong down with him.
~0~0~0~
The next time it happened was much more dramatic. Yunho and Jaejoong were both attending a school camp together, one that was supposed to build up the class spirit and motivate them in their studies and so on, when the only real result was lots of sneaking around, a few smuggled cans of warm beer, and secret midnight swimming.
It was the last night of the four-day camp, and everyone was gathered in a small room for evening activities. They were sitting on the floor, alternating between funny games and singing. Everyone was pretending it was less fun than it actually was; their need to act cool and laidback in front of others had increased exponentially during the last year in unison with their lowering voices, increasing heights and widening shoulders.
Jaejoong was just about to hit Yunho, who was sitting in front of him, over the head with his songbook again when a loud bang was heard. Someone cried out from surprise, and Yoochun suddenly stopped his piano accompaniment to the song they were singing. Everyone’s voices died out except for Junsu and Yunho’s, who carried on singing obnoxiously, raising their voices the quieter everyone else became. Unable to stand the pair’s shit-eating grins, Jaejoong whacked Yunho again.
“Ouch!” the boy exclaimed, dropping backwards to lay his head on Jaejoong’s lap over his crossed legs. “What did I deserve that for?!” he complained, staring up at Jaejoong whose face now looked to him as if it was upside down.
“Idiot,” Jaejoong snorted, laying his songbook on top of Yunho’s face. Then he felt a nudge from Junsu, who was nodding towards Yoochun.
“Look,” he said, “Park’s still staring out of the window.”
Indeed, Yoochun was still staring outside through the window, his hands frozen on the keyboard.
“Yah, Yoochun-ah,” Yunho had gotten Jaejoong’s songbook off his face, “what is it that’s so interesting it makes you even forget about your piano?”
“I swear,” the boy answered, “that lightning struck down on the ground right in between this house and the caretaker’s house!”
Their teacher scampered up from the floor to look out of the window. He laid a hand on Yoochun’s shoulder.
“That bush?” she asked, pointing outside. Yoochun nodded, and Jaejoong could hardly contain his curiosity. He would have probably bounced up to look outside as well if Yunho’s head wasn’t still on his lap.
The teacher looked out for a while before patting Yoochun’s shoulder and pushing him away from the window.
“Alright, kids, time for evening snack,” she announced.
“What? It’s the last night here! You said we would have activities till later than normally!” Several complaints were heard as the kids started clambering up.
“Somehow I seem to recall how just few minutes ago you were all finding this terribly lame and boring,” she remarked sarcastically, pulling the closest young teenager up on his feet. “Off you go now!” she told them, ignoring all grousing it aroused in the young students.
Jaejoong quickly pushed Yunho away from him and made his way next to Yoochun, grabbing the boy’s shoulder excitedly.
“How was it?” he asked. “A big one?”
“Man, I’ve never seen a lightning so up close,” Yoochun wondered aloud. “I swear it struck all the way down right to the ground. I mean, does that make sense? There’s two houses right next to each other, don’t lightnings usually strike the highest points?”
“The caretaker’s house is on fire!” someone screeched just then, and Jaejoong couldn’t run outside fast enough. It seemed like everyone else had the same thought, as the whole class started running.
It wasn’t raining yet, but the air felt so heavy Jaejoong could almost feel it pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. There was a rumble further away in the sky, but right now even Jaejoong wasn’t paying attention. Instead, all thirty pairs of adolescent eyes were fixed on one thing: the caretaker’s house, and the small flames peeking out of the open windows.
Jaejoong felt Yunho’s presence stop on the terrace next to him.
“He isn’t home, is he?” the boy wondered a bit worriedly.
“Nah, the caretaker went to the town,” a teacher that had come out answered from a slight distance. “Now come on, guys, I know there’s nothing more interesting than a nice big fire, but it doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Inside, everyone!”
Jaejoong didn’t move a finger, frozen on his spot as he stared at the flames, growing in size and intensity with every passing second.
“You too, Kim Jaejoong! Right now!” the teacher yelled as he tried his best to herd the flock of mischievous teenage boys inside. “It’s dangerous, teacher Kim already called the fire department and you shouldn’t be out here on their way when they arrive!”
“Come on, Jjoongie,” Yunho coaxed, saying the childhood pet name he only used when they were alone. He took hold of Jaejoong’s elbow in order to drag him inside. “Let’s go, you watch it from the window.”
Allowing himself to be hauled in, Jaejoong immediately found himself a window in the second floor that opened towards the house, completely disregarding the fruit and snacks that had been laid out downstairs. First, he could see the house being devoured by flames that were now at least the height of a whole floor, and then he heard the sirens of a fire truck coming closer. However, in a matter of only a few minutes he was forced to close the window because of smoke; it was an almost completely windless night. After a few moments, the smoke was so thick Jaejoong couldn’t even see the house that was situated only a dozen metres away.
“Teacher Kim ordered us all to go downstairs,” Yunho appeared by his side with his mouth full of sweet bread. Jaejoong scrunched his face in distaste; he had never been a fan of sweet bread. “She said we can continue with the activities now.”
Jaejoong followed the boy downstairs, but just when they reached the bottom of the staircase, a fireman appeared through the front door, dressed in full smoke diving equipment. Teacher Kim was quickly next to him.
“Make sure all windows and doors are closed,” the fireman ordered through his thick helmet. “The smoke isn’t going anywhere, there’s no wind. This is a big fire, we’ll have to either wait for it to burn out or count on natural rain to put it down; we can only control it in the meantime. You’ll have to do with the oxygen already inside the house for tonight.”
“You heard him, boys,” the teacher barked out loudly as the firefighter disappeared back outside. “Everyone run to your rooms and make sure your windows are closed!”
Yunho grabbed Jaejoong, a few more pieces of sugary bread and hauled the whole lot back upstairs. After checking the window, Jaejoong climbed up on his upper bunk bed, peering down at Yunho over the edge. The boy was still eating, munching on his evening snack contently.
“You’re gonna get fat with all the bread you eat,” Jaejoong remarked, ignoring the sharp glare Yunho sent his way. The boy reached upwards, stuffing a piece of his bread into Jaejoong’s mouth.
“You get fat together with me, then,” he exclaimed joyfully as Jaejoong coughed over the sudden food in his mouth. “Besides, I’m still a growing youth.”
“Guys,” Junsu had appeared on the door. “The teacher ordered everyone to stay in our rooms. Yoochun had an asthma attack…”
“Is he alright?” Jaejoong struggled to ask with his stuffed mouth.
“Yeah, he’s alright, it was a minor one,” Junsu reassured them. “It just, the oxygen… The teacher said we utilise less of it if we just lie down instead of running around…”
“A whole class of middle school second year students suffocated in their beds during a school trip,” Yunho announced dramatically, as if he was reading a piece of news. Junsu eyed him angrily.
“Don’t joke about it,” he said. “It’s not funny.”
“He’s sorry, Junsu,” Jaejoong apologised in his best friend’s stead. “Make sure Yoochun’s all good for me. Say good night to him from us!”
“Yeah,” Junsu agreed. “Good night guys.”
After he disappeared, Jaejoong flung himself down from his bunk bed, sitting next to Yunho who was scratching his ear a bit embarrassedly.
“You think he’s angry at me, Jjoongie?” he asked.
“Who? Junsu?” Jaejoong asked, breaking a piece of Yunho’s bread and popping it into his mouth, grimacing at the syrupy sweetness spreading throughout his mouth. “Nah, I don’t think so. You’re kind of a jerk sometimes though.”
“Good thing I have you to always remind me of the fact in case I happen to forget,” Yunho remarked sarcastically, stretching his long limb away from Jaejoong. “And stop eating my bread, I know you hate the taste.”
“Yeah, where would you be without me,” Jaejoong teased, fighting the other boy for his bread just to spite him.
They ended up rolling over the edge of the bed, wrestling on the floor breathless from laughter, until a very angry teacher Kim appeared at the room door to tell them off for using up all of poor Yoochun’s oxygen. Outwardly ashamed, the bowed their heads and lay down on their respective beds obediently.
The next morning, all that was left of the caretaker’s house was the stone foundation and half of the cellar. The ruin was all black, coloured by soot and ash. It wasn’t even a skeleton of a house, what was left; the house had truly burnt all the way down.
~0~0~0~
It was only two years later that Jaejoong understood how Yoochun had actually felt. He had had a bad cold just before the summer camp he and Yunho were attending, taking care of smaller kids and helping the adults around. What didn’t help at all was the fact that it hadn’t rained in weeks, and the ground was dry. As soon as the kids were marching in a line to their next destination, their little feet would rouse dust from the ground, making it whirl around in the air endlessly.
It only took a few days out in the nature until Jaejoong completely lost his voice due to his bad cough, and he hardly got to go more than an hour without some difficulty in breathing.
At night, the inside of their tent felt so dusty he couldn’t stop coughing at all. As a last resort, not wanting to keep his companions awake with his constant tossing and turning and hacking, he took his sleeping bag outside with him, making himself a small place to sleep under a makeshift tarp canopy they had erected between a few trees.
Regardless, he could hardly sleep. Only after a few minutes, it started raining. Where the wetness tying all dust to the ground made breathing easier for him, it also kept him awake with the faraway rumble of thunder and the accompanying strong wind.
After half an hour, the wind had grown stronger, and it started truly pouring. A small stream of water made itself known under Jaejoong’s light shelter, crawling right past his shoulder. He could hear the thunder getting louder and louder; there was a big storm, and it was coming right towards them.
And then, suddenly, the first flash of light illuminated Jaejoong’s surroundings. If the storm five years earlier had brought the darkness of a night right to the middle of the day, this light show brightened up the whole forest as if it was broad daylight, but only for a split second.
Jaejoong lay down frozen to his spot; not because of fear but because of pure astonishment. He could feel the end of his sleeping bag slowly getting wet as the force of the wind carried some of the rain under his canopy. Regardless, he could only lie there, stiff, and watch on as the lightnings one after another illuminated the whole forest.
Even with the tarp stretched over him, he felt like someone had taken him right into an eye of a storm. It was over him, everywhere around him, even under him with all the small streams of water making their way forwards on the ground around him.
He had only just briefly started wondering if the kids were all right, or if they were scared or maybe just wet, when Yunho appeared under the tarp, dressed in his raincoat. He kneeled next to Jaejoong, resting his hand on top of the boy’s chest.
“Jjoongie,” he shouted over the roar of the thunder and the pouring rain, “are you okay?”
Jaejoong sat up as Yunho wound his arm around his shoulder, leaning down closer.
“You should take your sleeping bag back inside the tent,” he yelled. “I’m going to go check if the kids’ tents are alright. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all been knocked down by now, listen to that wind!”
“Are you the only one who came out?” Jaejoong asked him surprised, but he could see from Yunho’s expression that the other couldn’t hear a word he said. Yunho smiled under the hood of his raincoat, standing back up and waiting until Jaejoong had crawled out of his sleeping bag before he offered his hand to Jaejoong, hauling him upright.
“I’ll go now,” he shouted as Jaejoong started rolling up his sleeping bag. “We’ll check the girls’ tent first!”
Jaejoong made a quick trip for the sturdy adults’ tent, to his great surprise finding most of the people inside half-sleeping. Some were trying to gather their belongings closer from the edges of the tent where water was threatening to spill over. Besides Yunho, only one spot was empty; the sleeping bag of the leader of their little camp. Quickly, Jaejoong dumped his sleeping bag on the empty spot beside Yunho, and rummaged through his backpack for his own raincoat.
Stepping into his rubber boots, he took a deep breath before braving the weather and running back outside.
He could see blinking of a flashlight near the children’s tents. Navigating into the direction, he soon found Yunho and the leader securing the ropes of the girls’ tent. As most of the tents put up by the kids themselves, it had sloped slightly, and the wind was doing its best to wrench even the last secured roped off.
As soon as Yunho saw him approaching, he smiled widely. The leader saw Jaejoong as well, and he nodded quickly towards a loosened corner of the tent fluttering in the wind where there weren’t enough hands to take hold of it. Jaejoong waded his way towards it, feeling Yunho’s eyes on him the whole way.
Yunho might have been a jerk every now and then, but he had something Jaejoong had always admired immensely. Whenever the situation so called for, he wasn’t afraid to set to work straight away, without any complaints or grumbling. To Jaejoong, there was hardly anything he could consider manlier than that.
Jaejoong reached his tent corner and as he took hold of it, he saw Yunho still smiling at him from the other side of the tent. At his nod, Jaejoong pulled the tent canvas taut, feeling strangely warm despite the rain beating against his face.
~0~0~0~
There was a time when thunder came to Jaejoong without Yunho.
He had been living in Japan for three months already, and a week ago he had still thought he had finally gotten accustomed to his new life; he had found all the spiciest curry restaurants around his house, and he had a new best friend at his new school.
Well, his Japanese best friend, as he would put it when his parents called him on the phone.
But then, a week ago, he’d had his first exams. He had sat there, confronted with papers in front of him that he was supposed to fill in. How could he complete such a task, when he couldn’t even really read what the questions were asking?
Moreover, he had arrived at his host family’s house after the exam, only to realise he had left his house keys in. The mother of the family was usually always home, and if it had happened any other day Jaejoong would have been fine; but just that day, she had gone over to her parents’ place. The father of the family worked far away, so far he had to commute for one and a half hours every day; and Jaejoong didn’t have any host sisters or brothers.
Depressed, Jaejoong had sat down on the front step of their house, burying his head between his knees. Feeling too sorry for himself, he hadn’t even bothered to think of something to do, other than wait. It was true that their school strictly forbid wearing the school uniform in public outside of the school day, but thinking back, surely he could have found a schoolmate whose house he could’ve waited at.
Even though Jaejoong had been lucky, as the mother had decided to come back quite early that day, it had hardly improved his mood. As the exam week went on, Jaejoong started feeling more and more underaccomplished with each exam.
To top it off, he had gotten into a fight with a Japanese Korean boy earlier that day. Jaejoong had been delighted to find out there was someone he could perhaps sometimes talk to in his native tongue, but as soon as he had greeted the boy in Korean, instead of a smile he had promptly received a fist on his face.
Studying abroad had always been his dream, and when such an opportunity had risen during his first year of high school, he had grabbed the chance without a second thought. However, right now, when he was lying on his futon with an aching nose and defiant tears in his eyes, he could hardly think of an idea he’d ever had that had been a worse one.
He missed his mom and dad, and every single one of his eight sisters; he missed his school, and his neighbourhood, and his friends. He missed Yunho a lot.
Jaejoong was just about to reach for his cell phone that was lying on the bedside table and send his Korean best friend a pathetic, self-pitying text message when he heard a familiar rumble outside.
Quickly, he got up, running up to his window. The house they lived in was a one-floor house, but it was built on a hillside, and Jaejoong’s window faced downhill. It wasn’t raining outside, but Jaejoong could see a grey curtain drawn over the town under further down.
Jaejoong opened the window, smelling the fresh, damp air. There were more flashes, but all the lightnings must have been on the other side of the hill, as Jaejoong couldn’t see them. Regardless, he let himself succumb into the familiar smell of a storm approaching.
When the rain finally reached their house, Jaejoong opened the window further, and carefully, he climbed up to sit in the opening. Awkward, skinny legs dangling down the side of the house, he leant his head against the window frame. The roof extending above him was mostly keeping him dry, but when he kicked his legs forwards, a few refreshing drops would land on his toes.
Before he knew, he was humming a traditional song he couldn’t ever remember learning; perhaps he had learnt it at kindergarten, when he had been still too young to later remember learning such things. With the flashes illuminating the garden underneath him every now and then, Jaejoong decided he’d save his text message to Yunho for the next day.
Maybe he would try greeting that Korean Japanese boy at school again too. This time in Japanese though, for sure.
~0~0~0~
It was the first time in a very long while that Jaejoong had been to Yunho’s grandmother’s house. It was different from all the other times, too; this time Yunho and Jaejoong had come together, just the two of them.
Yunho’s grandmother was everything Jaejoong remembered; maybe just a little bit shorter. In fact, she was really short, barely reaching even the second set of Yunho’s ribs. Regardless, Yunho seemed to love hugging his grandmother. Every night, he would hug her when she baked them some potatoes, just like she had always done during the summers of Jaejoong’s childhood.
It was one of those muggy days that seemed to remain exactly the same from year to year; only now it was Yunho whose t-shirt was plastered against his sweaty back, and the fat cat that lived in one of the huts across Yunho’s grandmother’s yard that kept on sighing and sighing.
Yunho had somehow managed to convince Jaejoong to take a small trip with his grandmother’s rowing boat despite the obvious fact that it was going to rain soon. Jaejoong had tried to argue against the idea he had deemed stupid and reckless, but Yunho had just grinned in that dumb, self-satisfied way he always did when he was riling Jaejoong on purpose and succeeding in it too.
So, he had ended up letting Yunho drag him into the rowing boat while the boy’s grandmother followed them to the bank, babbling about the weather and how she could feel it in her old bones and how Yunho had better make sure they both came back in one piece because she was too old to deal with lightning-struck, scorched things.
A few minutes and a few reassuring hugs later the grandmother was sitting on the small stool she had brought to the shore because of her bad legs, sniffing and mumbling to herself how she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve such a troublemaker for a grandchild.
“You used to be such a serious, earnest child too!” she yelled after the pair, and Jaejoong, sitting on the stern, could only twist his body around and wave at her until he saw her finally get up and walk up to her little house.
Jaejoong turned back around, facing Yunho who was pulling the oars with all his might, staring at him. Jaejoong glowered back and scooted backwards on the thwart, pulling his bare feet up to rest his chin against his knees. Yunho grinned once again.
“I don’t get you,” Jaejoong accused, winding his arms around his bent legs.
“Oh come on Jjoongie, we both know you’re lying,” Yunho dismissed him.
“No, I really don’t get you,” Jaejoong insisted, but a small hesitant timbre had already entered his voice. Yunho just raised his eyebrows at him, not even bothering to answer.
Jaejoong sighed, closing his eyes for second. When he opened them, Yunho was still looking at him; but Jaejoong avoided his eyes, gazing over the boy’s shoulder instead.
“A little to the right,” he said. Yunho’s smile widened impossibly as he started pulling the left oar with more force, correcting the boat’s course. Jaejoong couldn’t help the tug that threatened to curl his own lips into a smile, so he just made sure his mouth was duly hidden behind his knees.
Jaejoong piloted Yunho to row the boat close to the shore. With the thunderstorm approaching, the last thing he wanted to happen was to have the tempest sneak up on them while they were at open sea, with nowhere to take shelter. If there was one thing his dad had taught him as a child, it was to get out of water as soon as it started thundering. Water was the trickiest thing when it came to electricity.
In half an hour, the first raindrops fell. Jaejoong felt one on his cheek and held out his hands to feel whether it had been just some splatter from Yunho’s oars or if it really was rain. He looked up and just then, a droplet fell into his eye. It made him scrunch up his face, which in turn made Yunho laugh out loud.
Jaejoong glared.
“Shore,” he said, and as if to back up his authority there was a distant rumble of thunder. Yunho glanced over his shoulder, and carefully changed the course of the rowing boat. They landed with a bump, and Jaejoong jumped over the board to drag the boat ashore while Yunho secured the oars inside the boat. He then took off his shoes and jumped into the shallow water next to Jaejoong. Together, they managed to pull the boat up just as it began to rain more heavily.
There was nothing to hide under, and as the thunder reminded Jaejoong of its presence with a new boom near by, sitting under a tree didn’t seem like a good option either.
Jaejoong sat on a rock, curling his bare toes into muddy earth. He watched Yunho finish the knot he had tied the boat to a tree with. He had always been diligent with these kinds of tasks, absolutely refusing to half-ass anything.
The storm had picked up, making the sea restless and Jaejoong’s fringe cling to his temples. He swept the damp hair out of his face and watched the rain beat down on the now empty rowing boat. He felt Yunho’s eyes on him for a moment, but when he looked up to the tree, Yunho was leaning against the bow of the boat instead, furrowing his brows as he thought.
As soon as he grabbed the edge of the boat and started turning, Jaejoong caught on. Quickly grabbing Yunho’s shoes from the boat and setting them aside, he helped the other boy turn the boat around. It almost fell on his bare toes, but he managed to jump back just before it tilted over.
Yunho patted the frame, satisfied. He turned to look at Jaejoong with that smug look on his face that Jaejoong could hardly take without throwing something at him.
“Ladies first,” he grinned.
“Fuck you too, Yunho,” Jaejoong answered him with the widest fake smile before picking up Yunho’s shoes. As he passed the other boy, Jaejoong thrust the muddy pair right onto Yunho’s chest before kneeling down to peer underneath the boat.
It was dripping and the ground was wet; but Jaejoong assumed they could both get in, even though it would surely be a tight fit. Carefully, he crawled in, and after accepting Yunho’s shoes through the slit between the ground and the edge of the boat, Yunho wormed his way in as well, right next to Jaejoong.
They lay there for a while very still, listening to the sound of rain against the wooden frame of the boat and each other’s deep breaths until Yunho started wiggling around, trying to find a more comfortable position.
“Ouch!” Jaejoong exclaimed when he got an elbow to his ribs. “Stop moving!”
“I’m sorry Jjoongie,” Yunho grunted while still searching for a better way to lie down, “not my fault I grew a few inches taller than you, makes it hard to fit my legs inside a car too you know-”
“Barely one inch!” Jaejoong hissed back. “And keep telling yourself that; really, it’s all the sweet bread you eat-”
Just then, there was a loud bang so close it felt like it had resounded right on the other side of the thin wooden boards. Jaejoong jerked in surprise, and so did Yunho who ended up knocking his knee on the centre thwart. He groaned loudly, carefully turning onto his side until he was facing Jaejoong.
Jaejoong let his eyes graze over Yunho’s familiar features; the sharp nose that so often bled when Yunho bumped into things while deep in thought. The puffy cheeks that Jaejoong loved to pat patronisingly when Yunho managed to make a total fool out of himself. The eyes that were always looking at him, searching to see if he needed any help, just like they were at that moment.
The mouth that was always smiling. Just like it was at that moment.
It was neither that self-satisfied smirk that distorted Yunho’s face whenever he won an argument, nor the shit-eating grin he wore while annoying someone on purpose. It was a different one; the one that Yunho only used when he called Jaejoong Jjoongie and took hold of his elbow.
There was another bang and Jaejoong jerked again, having been too absorbed in studying Yunho’s face. The other boy chuckled quietly, reaching a hand behind Jaejoong’s back to pull him closer.
“Come ’ere,” he whispered, and without a word, Jaejoong slithered closer until he could tuck his head under Yunho’s chin. The boy’s shirt was wet where Jaejoong’s face pressed into his chest, but Jaejoong couldn’t have cared less. His own face was wet to begin with, too.
They lay silently for a short while until the urge to kiss Yunho became too strong to resist. Maybe he’d sometime had the urge before; but Yunho had always managed to crack the lamest joke at that very moment, changing the need to pull him in for a kiss into a need to hit him over the head.
But now, to Jaejoong’s great delight, Yunho was silent except for the steady, loud thudding of his heart that Jaejoong could hear under his ear.
Quietly reaching a hand upwards, Jaejoong tilted his head up while pulling Yunho down.
Jaejoong really, really liked thunder.
Jaejoong knew Yunho liked thunder as well, but he knew Yunho also liked to pretend that Jaejoong was more scared of it than he really was. He also knew that Yunho knew he wasn’t actually scared of it at all, and that Jaejoong knew that he knew it.
Regardless, he let Yunho pretend. Sometimes it could amount to nice things.
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong wakes up to a familiar sound, a sound he loves more than any other, a sound he would recognise even in his sleep. He actually does, and that’s why he wakes up. Even his sleeping mind knows that Jaejoong wouldn’t miss experiencing such a big storm for the world.
He wakes up, and because Yunho likes to sleep with the window open, the sound is even louder than it would otherwise be. He only has to wait a few dozens of seconds for the next flash, and in less than ten seconds, there’s a new rumble echoing throughout the sky.
Jaejoong sits up as he waits for the next two flashes, and every time the bang follows a second earlier. The storm is coming closer, and if Jaejoong is really lucky, it may pass by exactly above them, similar to that day almost fifteen years ago when they were just two little snotnoses blissfully ignorant of the true dangers of this particular force of nature.
He can hear the steady pitter-patter of the rain outside, and in all honesty he should get up to close the window unless he wants all the papers on the desk to get wet. Instead, he decides to wake up Yunho; maybe he could persuade the other to climb up onto the roof with him, or at least to go out to the balcony. He really wants to see this one up close.
“Yunho-yah,” he starts quietly, “Yunho-yah, there’s a thunderstorm.”
The man lying on his side, back turned towards him barely reacts, letting out a quiet sigh at his prodding. Jaejoong takes hold of his shoulder and starts shaking quite violently, another flash of a lightning illuminating the room for a split second.
“Yunho-yah!” he raises his voice slightly to get some reaction out of the other. “Yunho-yah! A thunderstorm!”
A loud roar that would make anyone jump makes the window shudder, and Yunho stirs up halfway, turning over as he flings an arm in Jaejoong’s direction, apparently aiming to stretch it over the other’s body. If Jaejoong was still lying down, it would have probably wound around his middle perfectly, but he’s sitting up, and Yunho’s fist ends up colliding nicely with his jaw.
“Hpmh…don’t be scared Jjoongie, I’ll protect you…” the man mumbles drowsily, ending the sentence with a nice snore. Jaejoong can only hold his aching jaw as he stares down at the man in his bed with amused surprise. The man’s hand is still moving, feeling around the bed in front of Jaejoong’s knees as if searching for the inexistent body it’s trying to embrace. Finally, it settles down, a little disappointed at the emptiness it encounters.
Jaejoong snorts, watching as Yunho’s mouth falls back open in his deep slumber, a dribble of drool making its way down the corner of his lips.
“Protect me my ass…” he murmurs, clicking his tongue. “By punching me in the jaw? What a knight in a shining armour indeed…”
There’s another flash, and the following rumble makes it clear that the storm is now at its closest, and that if Jaejoong wants to see it he needs to get up right now. He stares at Yunho’s honestly quite dumb-looking sleeping face, and with a deep sigh, he bends down to kiss the man’s temple before lifting the arm that just hit him and wiggling his way under it.
In the morning, Yunho asks him, shocked, what kind of fighting dreams he has that make his jaw bruise for real. Jaejoong just gives it back to him by notifying him of his own violent ways in bed.
The whole ordeal ends in a good laugh followed by an apologetic, profound session of kissing it all better. Jaejoong can only concede that it may have been worth missing one thunderstorm.
A/N: Happy early birthday to lovely little-passions :3 I hope you find this since you probably don’t even know I wrote you a birthday fic… But I owed you one! And since I got mine late, you’re getting yours early!!! :P The first thunder of the summer/spring was last night so… I have to post this now :D
I hope anyone who knows me well enough to do so, will refrain from pointing out any connections between this fic and my pathetic life. oTL
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: Romance, Fluff
Rating: PG-13
Summary: There have always been two constants in Jaejoong’s life.
One is thunder.
The other one is Yunho.
There have always been two constants in Jaejoong’s life.
One is thunder.
The other one is Yunho.
And more often than not, these two have tended to appear hand in hand.
One of Jaejoong’s first memories of such an occasion is from quite early in his life, must have been the summer before they started school together, he and Yunho. Yunho’s grandmother lived on an island, and sometimes, when Jaejoong’s dad finally had a day off from his job, both families would travel there for a weekend, sometimes even for a whole week.
Summer meant days spent paddling in shallow seawater. It meant lying on a flat rock next to Yunho, feeling the salty wind and the warm sun, listening to the sounds of waves breaking against the shore. It meant getting bitten by fat black ants and carving little boats out of tree bark. It meant playing on the rocky bank, building breakwaters from small stones and floating the bark boats in their self-built miniature harbours.
Summer also meant those muggy days when Jaejoong’s dad’s t-shirt would plaster against his sweaty back, and his mother would sigh and sigh and carry her parasol everywhere with her. Jaejoong’s sisters would whine and refuse to do any housework because it was too hot to even lift a single finger. If Jaejoong got really lucky, one of them would drag him along to eat sweet shaved ice topped with rice cake and red beans.
Everyone seemed to hate those sultry days-except for Jaejoong. Even Yunho would keep scratching his body and complaining that the hot weather made his clothes damp and his skin itchy.
But Jaejoong loved those days. He loved them from the bottom of his heart, but even so, they could never be over soon enough. He loved them, because he knew that as soon as the sun would start descending, grey clouds would come and bring thunder with them.
On such a day, they had all together built a big fire at the waterfront. Yunho and Jaejoong had spent hours running around excitedly, gathering rubbish brought to the shore by the sea and throwing it all into the large pile mostly constructed of wood. Yunho’s grandmother had chucked out all her old wooden furniture, and in the middle there was a big old bench, shored up upright with a few smaller chairs.
The sky was still as light as at midday when Yunho’s father finally lit the bonfire in the evening. Jaejoong’s mom was holding onto the neckline of his little boy’s t-shirt, preventing him from running too close as the flames slowly started sneaking upwards, licking their fuel experimentally before hungrily sinking their teeth into the old, dry wood.
Yunho had stalked close to the fire and when Jaejoong saw him, he tugged his collar out of his mother’s fingers as well, running after the taller boy. He could hardly hear his mother’s warnings as he chased after Yunho. He reached the other young boy where he had come to a stop next to the water, staring at the waterline with a serious expression on his face.
“What is it, Yunho? What is it,” Jaejoong asked, grabbing the other boy’s shirt to stabilise his unsure feet before his momentum made him run right into the water.
“Look, Jjoongie,” Yunho said in his serious little boy voice. “The water is rising.”
Jaejoong peered into the water, scrunching up his whole face and squinting as if it would make him see better.
They stood still for a few moments, and true to Yunho’s observation, the water truly was rising, faster than Jaejoong had ever seen.
“Mommy!” he shouted, “Yunho says the water is rising.”
“That’s right, bunny,” his mother called back, “there is going to be a storm tonight.”
“Mommy says there’s going to be a storm,” Jaejoong repeated her words, tugging at Yunho’s shirt. “Do you think they will let us go outside to see the storm?”
“I don’t think so, Jjoongie,” Yunho answered him after pondering his question over carefully. “I think mom will make us go inside soon.”
They stood silent for a moment still, until Yunho suddenly took hold of the wrist of the hand Jaejoong was gripping his shirt with.
“Look Jjoongie,” he whispered excitedly. “The water is boiling!”
“Where? Where?” Jaejoong enquired quickly, and looked as Yunho pointed his finger at the water. It had crept up until the tide was high enough to reach the bonfire, and right there, under the flames that were now flaring happily up towards the sky, the seawater was seething, bubbles forming and popping under the heat of the bonfire.
“Mommy!” Jaejoong cried out. “The sea is boiling! Come look, mommy!”
There were sounds of hurried footsteps, until a calming hand settled on Jaejoong’s shoulder.
“Wow…” Yunho’s mother breathed out. “You know, boys, I have never seen this happen before.”
She stood there behind them for a while, watching intensively as the water kept rising, the bonfire hissing and cracking as occasional bigger waves hit its bottom.
“Boys, time to go inside,” she said finally, and Yunho turned around to direct a meaningful glance at Jaejoong.
They were only half way up the path to the house when the rain fell. Yunho’s mother grabbed Jaejoong’s hand quickly and started running, both boys giggling at the sudden change in the weather.
It took only a few minutes after they had reached the house and safely gotten inside when the first roar of thunder could be heard. It was tumultuous, and Jaejoong could almost feel the whole house shaking under his feet at the sound.
“I have never seen the tide rise so fast,” Yunho’s mother said as he rubbed a towel over her son’s wet hair.
“Oh our daughter, you have always had such a bad memory,” Yunho’s grandmother teased her daughter, emerging from the kitchen. “Come on boys, I baked some potatoes for you little people.”
“Come Jjoongie,” Yunho urged as Jaejoong’s mother finally got a new, dry t-shirt over his little boy’s big head. “I bet we can make a blanket fort with nanna later.”
Jaejoong knew Yunho liked thunder as well, but he had always suspected it was more due to the fact that they were allowed to stay up late whenever there was a big storm.
Later that night, Jaejoong failed to notice the pale faces and guarded expressions of their parents as he and Yunho performed a play for them in front of their blanket fort. Yunho was pounding the traditional drum his grandmother kept in her house while Jaejoong recited an old folk song they had learnt at music school. The electricity had been out for an hour already, only a few candles sitting on a table illuminating their makeshift stage. As the thunder kept coming closer and closer, the adults grew jitterier; a fact the two playful boys completely missed. Jaejoong would only years later learn that the storm had passed by right above them, and that there had been a few moments when Yunho’s grandmother had been completely sure a lightning would surely strike the house. Instead, Jaejoong played on with Yunho, accepting a round of applause from the frightened flock of adults, before retiring into the blanket fort to tell scary stories with the rumble of thunder as their background music.
The next morning Yunho’s mother took them out really early, showing the two wide-eyed boys the long, wide crack a lightning had stricken in the flat rock where they had built their bonfire a day earlier.
~0~0~0~
The next time thunder and Yunho came together was a day just as hot as the one four years earlier, a week into the new autumn semester.
It was a math class, and as usual, Yunho was half asleep, nodding over his notebook as Jaejoong wrote degrading things on the other’s arm as fast as he could.
Yunho had an odd way of sleeping in class; he would always rock his chair backwards and balance it on only the two back legs. He said that it was because when he zoned out, the chair would swing forwards onto all four legs and he would wake up at the impact. However, Jaejoong had long noticed Yunho had somehow learnt to close off his mind without losing control over the arms and feet he used to balance his chair in the precarious position. It resulted in the strangest way off sleeping in class that Jaejoong had ever witnessed, but at least Yunho never got caught. There was not a single teacher in the whole school that would believe anyone could sleep in such a pose.
The arms braced over the edges of his desk left Jaejoong plenty of readily available canvas, and since it was still late summer Yunho was wearing his summer uniform, his forearms bared with the short-sleeved polo shirt. Jaejoong was very much into his doodling, but the darkness was making him squint. It was oddly dim in the room despite it being still near midday, and just when Jaejoong was about to raise his hand to request for the lights to be turned on, there was a resounding boom. In a second, half of the class jumped back as Yunho added his own ado to the ruckus by waking up so quickly that he lost his balance, his chair tilting right over.
Jaejoong couldn’t help but to let out a delighted bark of laughter as he regarded his disoriented friend. Yunho had ended up sprawled over the floor and was turning his head around as if trying to locate his whereabouts.
“Jung Yunho-ssi!” the annoyed voice of their flavourless math teacher was heard from the front of the class. “How many times do I need to remind you not rock back and forth on your chair? I remember quite clearly warning you you would end up with a fractured tail bone one day.”
“Yes, teacher,” Yunho mumbled an answer while grimacing at his friend who was still laughing at him. Jaejoong could hardly conceal his mirth, trying to hide his wide smile behind his hand.
Just then, there was a flash and a new rumble, and half of the class got up from their seats, hurrying closer to the windows to look outside. Their classroom was on the top floor of a building that was situated on top of a hill, and the view was quite wonderful.
Right then, however, there were very dark clouds gathering up on the sky. Yunho and Jaejoong were sitting next to the windows, and Jaejoong bent over his friends sitting on the floor, peering outside. As he watched, the room turned darker and darker as the clouds shielded the building from any daylight. Even the teacher gave up trying to bring the students back to their seats, taking a position next to the window as well.
“Yunho-yah,” Jaejoong exclaimed excitedly, “we’re right in the middle of a storm!”
Then the real lightshow started. It was something different; never before had Jaejoong seen so many lightnings at once. He remained glued to the window, gaping as he watched the electric discharges lighten up the sky that was now as dark as during night.
He was so fascinated he even ignored his best friend’s repetitive calls, until a certain tug and kick made his chair flip over and had him sprawled on the floor next to his contentedly grinning friend.
“Yah!” he exclaimed, aghast. “What did you do that for! It wasn’t me who made you fall earlier?!”
Yunho just grinned a bit more widely, scratching his forearm.
“Nah, I was just getting lonely here at the floor level,” he joked. “Now, care to explain me what these scribbles mean?” he offered his forearm to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong rubbed his bum, sure that it would bruise, and stared at Yunho’s impudent face. Rather than deciphering his doodles to him, he ended up pushing the shameless boy. Yunho fell on his back, but it didn’t take him long to take Jaejoong down with him.
~0~0~0~
The next time it happened was much more dramatic. Yunho and Jaejoong were both attending a school camp together, one that was supposed to build up the class spirit and motivate them in their studies and so on, when the only real result was lots of sneaking around, a few smuggled cans of warm beer, and secret midnight swimming.
It was the last night of the four-day camp, and everyone was gathered in a small room for evening activities. They were sitting on the floor, alternating between funny games and singing. Everyone was pretending it was less fun than it actually was; their need to act cool and laidback in front of others had increased exponentially during the last year in unison with their lowering voices, increasing heights and widening shoulders.
Jaejoong was just about to hit Yunho, who was sitting in front of him, over the head with his songbook again when a loud bang was heard. Someone cried out from surprise, and Yoochun suddenly stopped his piano accompaniment to the song they were singing. Everyone’s voices died out except for Junsu and Yunho’s, who carried on singing obnoxiously, raising their voices the quieter everyone else became. Unable to stand the pair’s shit-eating grins, Jaejoong whacked Yunho again.
“Ouch!” the boy exclaimed, dropping backwards to lay his head on Jaejoong’s lap over his crossed legs. “What did I deserve that for?!” he complained, staring up at Jaejoong whose face now looked to him as if it was upside down.
“Idiot,” Jaejoong snorted, laying his songbook on top of Yunho’s face. Then he felt a nudge from Junsu, who was nodding towards Yoochun.
“Look,” he said, “Park’s still staring out of the window.”
Indeed, Yoochun was still staring outside through the window, his hands frozen on the keyboard.
“Yah, Yoochun-ah,” Yunho had gotten Jaejoong’s songbook off his face, “what is it that’s so interesting it makes you even forget about your piano?”
“I swear,” the boy answered, “that lightning struck down on the ground right in between this house and the caretaker’s house!”
Their teacher scampered up from the floor to look out of the window. He laid a hand on Yoochun’s shoulder.
“That bush?” she asked, pointing outside. Yoochun nodded, and Jaejoong could hardly contain his curiosity. He would have probably bounced up to look outside as well if Yunho’s head wasn’t still on his lap.
The teacher looked out for a while before patting Yoochun’s shoulder and pushing him away from the window.
“Alright, kids, time for evening snack,” she announced.
“What? It’s the last night here! You said we would have activities till later than normally!” Several complaints were heard as the kids started clambering up.
“Somehow I seem to recall how just few minutes ago you were all finding this terribly lame and boring,” she remarked sarcastically, pulling the closest young teenager up on his feet. “Off you go now!” she told them, ignoring all grousing it aroused in the young students.
Jaejoong quickly pushed Yunho away from him and made his way next to Yoochun, grabbing the boy’s shoulder excitedly.
“How was it?” he asked. “A big one?”
“Man, I’ve never seen a lightning so up close,” Yoochun wondered aloud. “I swear it struck all the way down right to the ground. I mean, does that make sense? There’s two houses right next to each other, don’t lightnings usually strike the highest points?”
“The caretaker’s house is on fire!” someone screeched just then, and Jaejoong couldn’t run outside fast enough. It seemed like everyone else had the same thought, as the whole class started running.
It wasn’t raining yet, but the air felt so heavy Jaejoong could almost feel it pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. There was a rumble further away in the sky, but right now even Jaejoong wasn’t paying attention. Instead, all thirty pairs of adolescent eyes were fixed on one thing: the caretaker’s house, and the small flames peeking out of the open windows.
Jaejoong felt Yunho’s presence stop on the terrace next to him.
“He isn’t home, is he?” the boy wondered a bit worriedly.
“Nah, the caretaker went to the town,” a teacher that had come out answered from a slight distance. “Now come on, guys, I know there’s nothing more interesting than a nice big fire, but it doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Inside, everyone!”
Jaejoong didn’t move a finger, frozen on his spot as he stared at the flames, growing in size and intensity with every passing second.
“You too, Kim Jaejoong! Right now!” the teacher yelled as he tried his best to herd the flock of mischievous teenage boys inside. “It’s dangerous, teacher Kim already called the fire department and you shouldn’t be out here on their way when they arrive!”
“Come on, Jjoongie,” Yunho coaxed, saying the childhood pet name he only used when they were alone. He took hold of Jaejoong’s elbow in order to drag him inside. “Let’s go, you watch it from the window.”
Allowing himself to be hauled in, Jaejoong immediately found himself a window in the second floor that opened towards the house, completely disregarding the fruit and snacks that had been laid out downstairs. First, he could see the house being devoured by flames that were now at least the height of a whole floor, and then he heard the sirens of a fire truck coming closer. However, in a matter of only a few minutes he was forced to close the window because of smoke; it was an almost completely windless night. After a few moments, the smoke was so thick Jaejoong couldn’t even see the house that was situated only a dozen metres away.
“Teacher Kim ordered us all to go downstairs,” Yunho appeared by his side with his mouth full of sweet bread. Jaejoong scrunched his face in distaste; he had never been a fan of sweet bread. “She said we can continue with the activities now.”
Jaejoong followed the boy downstairs, but just when they reached the bottom of the staircase, a fireman appeared through the front door, dressed in full smoke diving equipment. Teacher Kim was quickly next to him.
“Make sure all windows and doors are closed,” the fireman ordered through his thick helmet. “The smoke isn’t going anywhere, there’s no wind. This is a big fire, we’ll have to either wait for it to burn out or count on natural rain to put it down; we can only control it in the meantime. You’ll have to do with the oxygen already inside the house for tonight.”
“You heard him, boys,” the teacher barked out loudly as the firefighter disappeared back outside. “Everyone run to your rooms and make sure your windows are closed!”
Yunho grabbed Jaejoong, a few more pieces of sugary bread and hauled the whole lot back upstairs. After checking the window, Jaejoong climbed up on his upper bunk bed, peering down at Yunho over the edge. The boy was still eating, munching on his evening snack contently.
“You’re gonna get fat with all the bread you eat,” Jaejoong remarked, ignoring the sharp glare Yunho sent his way. The boy reached upwards, stuffing a piece of his bread into Jaejoong’s mouth.
“You get fat together with me, then,” he exclaimed joyfully as Jaejoong coughed over the sudden food in his mouth. “Besides, I’m still a growing youth.”
“Guys,” Junsu had appeared on the door. “The teacher ordered everyone to stay in our rooms. Yoochun had an asthma attack…”
“Is he alright?” Jaejoong struggled to ask with his stuffed mouth.
“Yeah, he’s alright, it was a minor one,” Junsu reassured them. “It just, the oxygen… The teacher said we utilise less of it if we just lie down instead of running around…”
“A whole class of middle school second year students suffocated in their beds during a school trip,” Yunho announced dramatically, as if he was reading a piece of news. Junsu eyed him angrily.
“Don’t joke about it,” he said. “It’s not funny.”
“He’s sorry, Junsu,” Jaejoong apologised in his best friend’s stead. “Make sure Yoochun’s all good for me. Say good night to him from us!”
“Yeah,” Junsu agreed. “Good night guys.”
After he disappeared, Jaejoong flung himself down from his bunk bed, sitting next to Yunho who was scratching his ear a bit embarrassedly.
“You think he’s angry at me, Jjoongie?” he asked.
“Who? Junsu?” Jaejoong asked, breaking a piece of Yunho’s bread and popping it into his mouth, grimacing at the syrupy sweetness spreading throughout his mouth. “Nah, I don’t think so. You’re kind of a jerk sometimes though.”
“Good thing I have you to always remind me of the fact in case I happen to forget,” Yunho remarked sarcastically, stretching his long limb away from Jaejoong. “And stop eating my bread, I know you hate the taste.”
“Yeah, where would you be without me,” Jaejoong teased, fighting the other boy for his bread just to spite him.
They ended up rolling over the edge of the bed, wrestling on the floor breathless from laughter, until a very angry teacher Kim appeared at the room door to tell them off for using up all of poor Yoochun’s oxygen. Outwardly ashamed, the bowed their heads and lay down on their respective beds obediently.
The next morning, all that was left of the caretaker’s house was the stone foundation and half of the cellar. The ruin was all black, coloured by soot and ash. It wasn’t even a skeleton of a house, what was left; the house had truly burnt all the way down.
~0~0~0~
It was only two years later that Jaejoong understood how Yoochun had actually felt. He had had a bad cold just before the summer camp he and Yunho were attending, taking care of smaller kids and helping the adults around. What didn’t help at all was the fact that it hadn’t rained in weeks, and the ground was dry. As soon as the kids were marching in a line to their next destination, their little feet would rouse dust from the ground, making it whirl around in the air endlessly.
It only took a few days out in the nature until Jaejoong completely lost his voice due to his bad cough, and he hardly got to go more than an hour without some difficulty in breathing.
At night, the inside of their tent felt so dusty he couldn’t stop coughing at all. As a last resort, not wanting to keep his companions awake with his constant tossing and turning and hacking, he took his sleeping bag outside with him, making himself a small place to sleep under a makeshift tarp canopy they had erected between a few trees.
Regardless, he could hardly sleep. Only after a few minutes, it started raining. Where the wetness tying all dust to the ground made breathing easier for him, it also kept him awake with the faraway rumble of thunder and the accompanying strong wind.
After half an hour, the wind had grown stronger, and it started truly pouring. A small stream of water made itself known under Jaejoong’s light shelter, crawling right past his shoulder. He could hear the thunder getting louder and louder; there was a big storm, and it was coming right towards them.
And then, suddenly, the first flash of light illuminated Jaejoong’s surroundings. If the storm five years earlier had brought the darkness of a night right to the middle of the day, this light show brightened up the whole forest as if it was broad daylight, but only for a split second.
Jaejoong lay down frozen to his spot; not because of fear but because of pure astonishment. He could feel the end of his sleeping bag slowly getting wet as the force of the wind carried some of the rain under his canopy. Regardless, he could only lie there, stiff, and watch on as the lightnings one after another illuminated the whole forest.
Even with the tarp stretched over him, he felt like someone had taken him right into an eye of a storm. It was over him, everywhere around him, even under him with all the small streams of water making their way forwards on the ground around him.
He had only just briefly started wondering if the kids were all right, or if they were scared or maybe just wet, when Yunho appeared under the tarp, dressed in his raincoat. He kneeled next to Jaejoong, resting his hand on top of the boy’s chest.
“Jjoongie,” he shouted over the roar of the thunder and the pouring rain, “are you okay?”
Jaejoong sat up as Yunho wound his arm around his shoulder, leaning down closer.
“You should take your sleeping bag back inside the tent,” he yelled. “I’m going to go check if the kids’ tents are alright. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all been knocked down by now, listen to that wind!”
“Are you the only one who came out?” Jaejoong asked him surprised, but he could see from Yunho’s expression that the other couldn’t hear a word he said. Yunho smiled under the hood of his raincoat, standing back up and waiting until Jaejoong had crawled out of his sleeping bag before he offered his hand to Jaejoong, hauling him upright.
“I’ll go now,” he shouted as Jaejoong started rolling up his sleeping bag. “We’ll check the girls’ tent first!”
Jaejoong made a quick trip for the sturdy adults’ tent, to his great surprise finding most of the people inside half-sleeping. Some were trying to gather their belongings closer from the edges of the tent where water was threatening to spill over. Besides Yunho, only one spot was empty; the sleeping bag of the leader of their little camp. Quickly, Jaejoong dumped his sleeping bag on the empty spot beside Yunho, and rummaged through his backpack for his own raincoat.
Stepping into his rubber boots, he took a deep breath before braving the weather and running back outside.
He could see blinking of a flashlight near the children’s tents. Navigating into the direction, he soon found Yunho and the leader securing the ropes of the girls’ tent. As most of the tents put up by the kids themselves, it had sloped slightly, and the wind was doing its best to wrench even the last secured roped off.
As soon as Yunho saw him approaching, he smiled widely. The leader saw Jaejoong as well, and he nodded quickly towards a loosened corner of the tent fluttering in the wind where there weren’t enough hands to take hold of it. Jaejoong waded his way towards it, feeling Yunho’s eyes on him the whole way.
Yunho might have been a jerk every now and then, but he had something Jaejoong had always admired immensely. Whenever the situation so called for, he wasn’t afraid to set to work straight away, without any complaints or grumbling. To Jaejoong, there was hardly anything he could consider manlier than that.
Jaejoong reached his tent corner and as he took hold of it, he saw Yunho still smiling at him from the other side of the tent. At his nod, Jaejoong pulled the tent canvas taut, feeling strangely warm despite the rain beating against his face.
~0~0~0~
There was a time when thunder came to Jaejoong without Yunho.
He had been living in Japan for three months already, and a week ago he had still thought he had finally gotten accustomed to his new life; he had found all the spiciest curry restaurants around his house, and he had a new best friend at his new school.
Well, his Japanese best friend, as he would put it when his parents called him on the phone.
But then, a week ago, he’d had his first exams. He had sat there, confronted with papers in front of him that he was supposed to fill in. How could he complete such a task, when he couldn’t even really read what the questions were asking?
Moreover, he had arrived at his host family’s house after the exam, only to realise he had left his house keys in. The mother of the family was usually always home, and if it had happened any other day Jaejoong would have been fine; but just that day, she had gone over to her parents’ place. The father of the family worked far away, so far he had to commute for one and a half hours every day; and Jaejoong didn’t have any host sisters or brothers.
Depressed, Jaejoong had sat down on the front step of their house, burying his head between his knees. Feeling too sorry for himself, he hadn’t even bothered to think of something to do, other than wait. It was true that their school strictly forbid wearing the school uniform in public outside of the school day, but thinking back, surely he could have found a schoolmate whose house he could’ve waited at.
Even though Jaejoong had been lucky, as the mother had decided to come back quite early that day, it had hardly improved his mood. As the exam week went on, Jaejoong started feeling more and more underaccomplished with each exam.
To top it off, he had gotten into a fight with a Japanese Korean boy earlier that day. Jaejoong had been delighted to find out there was someone he could perhaps sometimes talk to in his native tongue, but as soon as he had greeted the boy in Korean, instead of a smile he had promptly received a fist on his face.
Studying abroad had always been his dream, and when such an opportunity had risen during his first year of high school, he had grabbed the chance without a second thought. However, right now, when he was lying on his futon with an aching nose and defiant tears in his eyes, he could hardly think of an idea he’d ever had that had been a worse one.
He missed his mom and dad, and every single one of his eight sisters; he missed his school, and his neighbourhood, and his friends. He missed Yunho a lot.
Jaejoong was just about to reach for his cell phone that was lying on the bedside table and send his Korean best friend a pathetic, self-pitying text message when he heard a familiar rumble outside.
Quickly, he got up, running up to his window. The house they lived in was a one-floor house, but it was built on a hillside, and Jaejoong’s window faced downhill. It wasn’t raining outside, but Jaejoong could see a grey curtain drawn over the town under further down.
Jaejoong opened the window, smelling the fresh, damp air. There were more flashes, but all the lightnings must have been on the other side of the hill, as Jaejoong couldn’t see them. Regardless, he let himself succumb into the familiar smell of a storm approaching.
When the rain finally reached their house, Jaejoong opened the window further, and carefully, he climbed up to sit in the opening. Awkward, skinny legs dangling down the side of the house, he leant his head against the window frame. The roof extending above him was mostly keeping him dry, but when he kicked his legs forwards, a few refreshing drops would land on his toes.
Before he knew, he was humming a traditional song he couldn’t ever remember learning; perhaps he had learnt it at kindergarten, when he had been still too young to later remember learning such things. With the flashes illuminating the garden underneath him every now and then, Jaejoong decided he’d save his text message to Yunho for the next day.
Maybe he would try greeting that Korean Japanese boy at school again too. This time in Japanese though, for sure.
~0~0~0~
It was the first time in a very long while that Jaejoong had been to Yunho’s grandmother’s house. It was different from all the other times, too; this time Yunho and Jaejoong had come together, just the two of them.
Yunho’s grandmother was everything Jaejoong remembered; maybe just a little bit shorter. In fact, she was really short, barely reaching even the second set of Yunho’s ribs. Regardless, Yunho seemed to love hugging his grandmother. Every night, he would hug her when she baked them some potatoes, just like she had always done during the summers of Jaejoong’s childhood.
It was one of those muggy days that seemed to remain exactly the same from year to year; only now it was Yunho whose t-shirt was plastered against his sweaty back, and the fat cat that lived in one of the huts across Yunho’s grandmother’s yard that kept on sighing and sighing.
Yunho had somehow managed to convince Jaejoong to take a small trip with his grandmother’s rowing boat despite the obvious fact that it was going to rain soon. Jaejoong had tried to argue against the idea he had deemed stupid and reckless, but Yunho had just grinned in that dumb, self-satisfied way he always did when he was riling Jaejoong on purpose and succeeding in it too.
So, he had ended up letting Yunho drag him into the rowing boat while the boy’s grandmother followed them to the bank, babbling about the weather and how she could feel it in her old bones and how Yunho had better make sure they both came back in one piece because she was too old to deal with lightning-struck, scorched things.
A few minutes and a few reassuring hugs later the grandmother was sitting on the small stool she had brought to the shore because of her bad legs, sniffing and mumbling to herself how she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve such a troublemaker for a grandchild.
“You used to be such a serious, earnest child too!” she yelled after the pair, and Jaejoong, sitting on the stern, could only twist his body around and wave at her until he saw her finally get up and walk up to her little house.
Jaejoong turned back around, facing Yunho who was pulling the oars with all his might, staring at him. Jaejoong glowered back and scooted backwards on the thwart, pulling his bare feet up to rest his chin against his knees. Yunho grinned once again.
“I don’t get you,” Jaejoong accused, winding his arms around his bent legs.
“Oh come on Jjoongie, we both know you’re lying,” Yunho dismissed him.
“No, I really don’t get you,” Jaejoong insisted, but a small hesitant timbre had already entered his voice. Yunho just raised his eyebrows at him, not even bothering to answer.
Jaejoong sighed, closing his eyes for second. When he opened them, Yunho was still looking at him; but Jaejoong avoided his eyes, gazing over the boy’s shoulder instead.
“A little to the right,” he said. Yunho’s smile widened impossibly as he started pulling the left oar with more force, correcting the boat’s course. Jaejoong couldn’t help the tug that threatened to curl his own lips into a smile, so he just made sure his mouth was duly hidden behind his knees.
Jaejoong piloted Yunho to row the boat close to the shore. With the thunderstorm approaching, the last thing he wanted to happen was to have the tempest sneak up on them while they were at open sea, with nowhere to take shelter. If there was one thing his dad had taught him as a child, it was to get out of water as soon as it started thundering. Water was the trickiest thing when it came to electricity.
In half an hour, the first raindrops fell. Jaejoong felt one on his cheek and held out his hands to feel whether it had been just some splatter from Yunho’s oars or if it really was rain. He looked up and just then, a droplet fell into his eye. It made him scrunch up his face, which in turn made Yunho laugh out loud.
Jaejoong glared.
“Shore,” he said, and as if to back up his authority there was a distant rumble of thunder. Yunho glanced over his shoulder, and carefully changed the course of the rowing boat. They landed with a bump, and Jaejoong jumped over the board to drag the boat ashore while Yunho secured the oars inside the boat. He then took off his shoes and jumped into the shallow water next to Jaejoong. Together, they managed to pull the boat up just as it began to rain more heavily.
There was nothing to hide under, and as the thunder reminded Jaejoong of its presence with a new boom near by, sitting under a tree didn’t seem like a good option either.
Jaejoong sat on a rock, curling his bare toes into muddy earth. He watched Yunho finish the knot he had tied the boat to a tree with. He had always been diligent with these kinds of tasks, absolutely refusing to half-ass anything.
The storm had picked up, making the sea restless and Jaejoong’s fringe cling to his temples. He swept the damp hair out of his face and watched the rain beat down on the now empty rowing boat. He felt Yunho’s eyes on him for a moment, but when he looked up to the tree, Yunho was leaning against the bow of the boat instead, furrowing his brows as he thought.
As soon as he grabbed the edge of the boat and started turning, Jaejoong caught on. Quickly grabbing Yunho’s shoes from the boat and setting them aside, he helped the other boy turn the boat around. It almost fell on his bare toes, but he managed to jump back just before it tilted over.
Yunho patted the frame, satisfied. He turned to look at Jaejoong with that smug look on his face that Jaejoong could hardly take without throwing something at him.
“Ladies first,” he grinned.
“Fuck you too, Yunho,” Jaejoong answered him with the widest fake smile before picking up Yunho’s shoes. As he passed the other boy, Jaejoong thrust the muddy pair right onto Yunho’s chest before kneeling down to peer underneath the boat.
It was dripping and the ground was wet; but Jaejoong assumed they could both get in, even though it would surely be a tight fit. Carefully, he crawled in, and after accepting Yunho’s shoes through the slit between the ground and the edge of the boat, Yunho wormed his way in as well, right next to Jaejoong.
They lay there for a while very still, listening to the sound of rain against the wooden frame of the boat and each other’s deep breaths until Yunho started wiggling around, trying to find a more comfortable position.
“Ouch!” Jaejoong exclaimed when he got an elbow to his ribs. “Stop moving!”
“I’m sorry Jjoongie,” Yunho grunted while still searching for a better way to lie down, “not my fault I grew a few inches taller than you, makes it hard to fit my legs inside a car too you know-”
“Barely one inch!” Jaejoong hissed back. “And keep telling yourself that; really, it’s all the sweet bread you eat-”
Just then, there was a loud bang so close it felt like it had resounded right on the other side of the thin wooden boards. Jaejoong jerked in surprise, and so did Yunho who ended up knocking his knee on the centre thwart. He groaned loudly, carefully turning onto his side until he was facing Jaejoong.
Jaejoong let his eyes graze over Yunho’s familiar features; the sharp nose that so often bled when Yunho bumped into things while deep in thought. The puffy cheeks that Jaejoong loved to pat patronisingly when Yunho managed to make a total fool out of himself. The eyes that were always looking at him, searching to see if he needed any help, just like they were at that moment.
The mouth that was always smiling. Just like it was at that moment.
It was neither that self-satisfied smirk that distorted Yunho’s face whenever he won an argument, nor the shit-eating grin he wore while annoying someone on purpose. It was a different one; the one that Yunho only used when he called Jaejoong Jjoongie and took hold of his elbow.
There was another bang and Jaejoong jerked again, having been too absorbed in studying Yunho’s face. The other boy chuckled quietly, reaching a hand behind Jaejoong’s back to pull him closer.
“Come ’ere,” he whispered, and without a word, Jaejoong slithered closer until he could tuck his head under Yunho’s chin. The boy’s shirt was wet where Jaejoong’s face pressed into his chest, but Jaejoong couldn’t have cared less. His own face was wet to begin with, too.
They lay silently for a short while until the urge to kiss Yunho became too strong to resist. Maybe he’d sometime had the urge before; but Yunho had always managed to crack the lamest joke at that very moment, changing the need to pull him in for a kiss into a need to hit him over the head.
But now, to Jaejoong’s great delight, Yunho was silent except for the steady, loud thudding of his heart that Jaejoong could hear under his ear.
Quietly reaching a hand upwards, Jaejoong tilted his head up while pulling Yunho down.
Jaejoong really, really liked thunder.
Jaejoong knew Yunho liked thunder as well, but he knew Yunho also liked to pretend that Jaejoong was more scared of it than he really was. He also knew that Yunho knew he wasn’t actually scared of it at all, and that Jaejoong knew that he knew it.
Regardless, he let Yunho pretend. Sometimes it could amount to nice things.
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong wakes up to a familiar sound, a sound he loves more than any other, a sound he would recognise even in his sleep. He actually does, and that’s why he wakes up. Even his sleeping mind knows that Jaejoong wouldn’t miss experiencing such a big storm for the world.
He wakes up, and because Yunho likes to sleep with the window open, the sound is even louder than it would otherwise be. He only has to wait a few dozens of seconds for the next flash, and in less than ten seconds, there’s a new rumble echoing throughout the sky.
Jaejoong sits up as he waits for the next two flashes, and every time the bang follows a second earlier. The storm is coming closer, and if Jaejoong is really lucky, it may pass by exactly above them, similar to that day almost fifteen years ago when they were just two little snotnoses blissfully ignorant of the true dangers of this particular force of nature.
He can hear the steady pitter-patter of the rain outside, and in all honesty he should get up to close the window unless he wants all the papers on the desk to get wet. Instead, he decides to wake up Yunho; maybe he could persuade the other to climb up onto the roof with him, or at least to go out to the balcony. He really wants to see this one up close.
“Yunho-yah,” he starts quietly, “Yunho-yah, there’s a thunderstorm.”
The man lying on his side, back turned towards him barely reacts, letting out a quiet sigh at his prodding. Jaejoong takes hold of his shoulder and starts shaking quite violently, another flash of a lightning illuminating the room for a split second.
“Yunho-yah!” he raises his voice slightly to get some reaction out of the other. “Yunho-yah! A thunderstorm!”
A loud roar that would make anyone jump makes the window shudder, and Yunho stirs up halfway, turning over as he flings an arm in Jaejoong’s direction, apparently aiming to stretch it over the other’s body. If Jaejoong was still lying down, it would have probably wound around his middle perfectly, but he’s sitting up, and Yunho’s fist ends up colliding nicely with his jaw.
“Hpmh…don’t be scared Jjoongie, I’ll protect you…” the man mumbles drowsily, ending the sentence with a nice snore. Jaejoong can only hold his aching jaw as he stares down at the man in his bed with amused surprise. The man’s hand is still moving, feeling around the bed in front of Jaejoong’s knees as if searching for the inexistent body it’s trying to embrace. Finally, it settles down, a little disappointed at the emptiness it encounters.
Jaejoong snorts, watching as Yunho’s mouth falls back open in his deep slumber, a dribble of drool making its way down the corner of his lips.
“Protect me my ass…” he murmurs, clicking his tongue. “By punching me in the jaw? What a knight in a shining armour indeed…”
There’s another flash, and the following rumble makes it clear that the storm is now at its closest, and that if Jaejoong wants to see it he needs to get up right now. He stares at Yunho’s honestly quite dumb-looking sleeping face, and with a deep sigh, he bends down to kiss the man’s temple before lifting the arm that just hit him and wiggling his way under it.
In the morning, Yunho asks him, shocked, what kind of fighting dreams he has that make his jaw bruise for real. Jaejoong just gives it back to him by notifying him of his own violent ways in bed.
The whole ordeal ends in a good laugh followed by an apologetic, profound session of kissing it all better. Jaejoong can only concede that it may have been worth missing one thunderstorm.
A/N: Happy early birthday to lovely little-passions :3 I hope you find this since you probably don’t even know I wrote you a birthday fic… But I owed you one! And since I got mine late, you’re getting yours early!!! :P The first thunder of the summer/spring was last night so… I have to post this now :D
I hope anyone who knows me well enough to do so, will refrain from pointing out any connections between this fic and my pathetic life. oTL