#16 The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Title: The Lies We Tell Ourselves
Author: Twilight_Ave
Pairing: JaeHo, JaeChun and a small bit of YooSu
Raiting: Drama
Summary: Yunho’s POV. What happens when the world pulls the greatest irony and you’re left with the options of either living in the lie or letting him go.
A/N: Because I had run off to Boracay for a vacation, expecting sunshine, liquor and a wonderful tan, only to end up with a cold, zero tanning experience and cold nights (literally). 2,228 words. It ended up so much longer than I had expected and since I was writing this while listening to Damien Rice’s 9 Crimes over and over and over again, here’s a link if you want to listen to it while reading: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6F3J4W28 *_*
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When does love stop? You ask yourself, leaning into the cold press of the window pane, fingers clinging with futile efforts into the glass that’s suddenly made of stronger stuffs than your heart.
It is cold where you are, standing alone in the living room filled with scattered evidences of five men sharing one home, and you think about moving towards the front door and slipping it back into place, sealing off the faint whispers of laughter drifting into the house with the cold winter breeze. Logic tells you to take that step before the warmth seeps out, before the five of you would have to huddle around the heater once again just to keep warm. Yet you remain where you are, staring blankly at the door - half closed, half opened, completely forgotten - knowing that when you take that final step the sprinkles of brightness floating by will be silenced, and you’re not certain if you can bear the pain just then.
When do you walk away? You wonder, watching three small figures chasing after each other in the soft blanket of snow. Everything seems so far away, like as if you aren’t there by the window, holding on to the threads of a past that is no longer there, and you are suddenly untouched by the curve of emotions that you had all but begged not to be there.
“It’s snowing!” Yoochun announces excitedly, bounding into the living room with an energy that ripples through the comfortable silence you had been sharing with the dark haired lead singer as the afternoon slipped by unnoticed.
You catch the smile in his voice, finding yourself alone once again when he reaches out and Jaejoong untangles himself with that single touch, unquestioning.
You look away, turning towards the window with a forced fascination, just to save yourself from seeing the eagerness that takes him away from you as they dash out of the house without a second glance at the things left behind.
Changmin chases after them soon enough, jackets in hand, “Ya!! You’re both going to get sick!”
“Hyung! Why do you even bother buying them of your not going to use them!” He cries out, frustration edging around his words as the two older members smile mischievously at one another before tackling him down beside them.
What does it matter, you remind yourself, smiling sadly as Changmin manages to dislodge the two and pin Yoochun into the ground with a shout of triumph, that you never knew just how much he loves the first day of snow. That it had slipped pass you, despite how you had been carefully keeping watch, while he had simply walked in, extended one hand forward and took him away from you. Once again.
What do all of these matter when you know, ironically, how neither of them noticed the way their hands had sought for one another as they raced out of the house and threw themselves into the freezing air.
“I want you” He whispers, hot breath against the sensitive space behind your ear, fingers digging greedily into your shoulders as he pressed you pass the heavy curtains and into the walls underneath it. Where it’s so dark that you can only feel him on you and he drowns out all your senses, shuts up the service crew scrambling around backstage and makes the million other people outside screaming for more disappear in an instant.
“We should-” You start to say, only he’s not paying attention and kisses the words away from you instead. Until you’re kissing him back, pulling him in, pushing against him, until all you can think of is just how badly you want him.
You reach forward, unthinkingly, and he pulls away gently with a smile behind the whisper, “You know our stylist is going to kill us if we end up messing our hairs again”.
You remember then where you are - where the both of you are - and the backstage noise comes back to life, as if on cue, and you can hear once again your names being chanted by the crowd outside, calling out for you, for him, for all five members of Dong Bang Shin Ki.
You pull away then, slipping back into the madness where Junsu spots you almost instantly and drags you along with him. He follows soon after, brushing his hand against yours as he moves to take his position under the heat of the spotlight. The adrenaline rush and carnal want leaving you flushed and heady.
Your performance is better than ever and the crowd goes into frenzy.
More! They scream, More!
And he leans in with a mischievous smile, “More?”, the double meaning behind that single word so obvious that it leaves you blushing in response.
The memories fall bitter against the hollow of your cheek now, like an aftertaste that gnaws at you for being out of place, and so you push them back somewhere inside of you where it can’t whisper of certain truths you aren’t ready to face.
“I don’t like him like that Yunnie” He scoffed at you, bewilderment etched clearly in his voice when you had finally managed to put together the words and ask him.
You make yourself believe him when he repeats it to you once more and coaxes your swollen lips into a heated kiss. Arching into the curve of his body, you drag him close, falling into his embrace, allowing him to pin you down and be marked with his touch, so much unspoken need left tucked away.
“Love me” He tells you, the soft demand bellying the struggle it had taken the both of you to slip pass each other’s defenses and wake up to love tangled between anxious sheets and uncertain limbs.
And you kiss him, crush his lips against yours, and taste him where words are no longer needed because the intensity of his gaze scares the hell out of you.
I always have, you whisper to the sight of him laughing with snow flakes in his hair, to the empty living room, to the year old picture of him leaning into you ever so slightly, and the words echo like broken glass scraping into the inner lining of your heart.
Someone, you know, somewhere out there, is playing a cruel joke at you. You think even, if you stare long enough, you will be able to see the way they smile greedily in triumph whenever you look away to protect the lie you want to believe in.
That he loves you.
“Only you, love”, eyes of black diamond holding the secrets to your heart within a smile.
“They don’t know it themselves, you know” Junsu’s familiar voice draws you out of yourself and you turn to find him standing beside you, looking back at them with a certain sadness that you’ve only seen reflected in mirrors you couldn’t hide from.
He says them quietly, “It’s not that their cheating on us” like as if he is carefully picking out the words against the pain, the days of stumbling out of the house with dark glasses to hide red-rimmed eyes, “They don’t understand it still”, gently finding the demons that has haunted you mercilessly in your struggle to hold him.
“They just haven’t realized it yet” He adds with a small hitch in his voice, wrapping his hand around the necklace Yoochun had made and given to him as an anniversary present, and you think you glimpse the nights you had held Jaejoong a little tighter, holding on, proving to yourself that he was still there beside you.
“Junsu I -” You start to say when you feel him reach for you, fragile fingers on brittle flesh, and yet there is something about the dull emptiness in his eyes that stares back at you and drowns out the words you had wanted to say.
From the corner of your eye, you can make out Changmin trying to make a snowman while Jae and Yoochun are sitting beside each other in the snow.
Junsu pulls you in, eyes traveling the expanse of your chest, finding its way to the collar of your shirt, into the curve of your neck, until you find yourself returning his gaze. And you can’t help but gently cup his cheek with one hand, because he’s never seemed so far away, never more broken than that second where abandoned lovers are left to fend for themselves.
Jae says something to Changmin that you don’t quite catch and heads back into the apartment building.
“Junsu -” You start again, voice hoarse with emotion, his hand clenching around the back of your shirt when you start to pull away.
The days and nights you have spent watching over Jaejoong tells you that he will reach the living room, where you and Junsu are in a tangled mess of bare emotions and all the little white lies you have told yourselves, in exactly twelve seconds.
Junsu stares out into the window, into the blanket of snow and the sight of Yoochun wrapped in Jae’s jacket, “I don’t know how else to let him go”, and you know there are no longer any excuses to bargain for more time.
Ten.
“We’re best friends” Yoochun declares openly, placing one hand over Jae’s shoulder, laughing a little shyly when the camera pans in to take a closer shot of them smiling at each other in that achingly sweet and vulnerable way the public rarely gets to see.
Junsu stiffens beside you.
You don’t move your eyes away from the cameraman’s shadow.
Neither of you say anything.
Neither of you move an inch until Changmin cracks a joke and Jae pulls you along to laugh with him.
Eight.
“Yah! Yoochun ah!” He exclaims, concern adding volume to his voice when you had both came back home to find him curled up in one end of the sofa.
“Why are you crying?” Jae asks once again, pulling the younger member into his embrace, the couch shouldering their weight, “Are you hurt?” Hands running nervously around Yoochun’s face to brush away the tears “Did anything happen?” Eyes darting around the living room for answers, until he catches sight of the cordless phone left gracelessly on the floor, “Shhh… It’s ok. Yoochun-ah, it’s ok. Ricky will be ok.”
And you stand by the hallway entrance, the hand he was holding now clenched into a fist inside your pants’ front pocket, suddenly feeling as if you shouldn’t be there.
Like as if you’re the one out of place.
Junsu turns to look at you when you reach out to brush away the tear trailing slowly down his cheek. And you fight the urge to wrap him in an embrace, to patch up his wounds and squeeze his hand reassuringly, because this time, this time, you know there’s no running away for either of you.
Six.
It was three in the morning when you had woken up, found him missing from your side, and stumbled out of your room in search of him.
Worried because it’s been three days since the news of his adoption had leaked to the press, three days of him smiling against the strain and reassuring you that he was ok, like as if you don’t notice the way he curls into his own embrace at night when the lights are out and there’s only you and him in bed.
You reached as far as the hallway when the dim lights of the living room brought with it faint whispers of comfort to ease a broken heart.
“It’s going to be ok Hyung” Yoochun says gently, over and over again, soft and steady words you had wanted so badly to be the one to tell him, until the sobs lessen into slow even breathing and your leaning into the wall for support.
“You’ll still have us no matter what”
You’re the one who takes the final step to bridge the remaining distance, bringing yourself closer, pulling Junsu gently into your frame where his bittersweet smile tells you clearly enough that neither of you fit in the way the both of you do with them.
Four.
“Are they real?” Min had asked, poking at the tattoo on Yoochun’s lower back, eyes round with innocence. “Did they hurt?”
Jae laughed affectionately at the youngest, reaching over to ruffle his hair, “Of course they did.”
“But it was worth it, right ‘Chun?” He had called out invitingly when Changmin moved to trace his tattoo in wonderment.
“What does it mean?”
You catch the smile he exchanges with Yoochun, conspiratory* and laden with hidden secrets.
“What does ‘Soul Mate’ mean?”
Jaejoong’s familiar footsteps echo like a ticking clock between the both of you, now just inches apart, so close to each other’s comfort and yet so far away.
His hand trembles a little as he reaches up to brush away your hair and you draw a sharp breath in because it reminds you so much of another time, of a moment when things were so much simpler.
Two.
“I don’t love him like that Yunnie.”
I’m sorry, you whisper faintly against Junsu’s lips when you catch the familiar silhouette of the man whom you’ve lost your heart to, I’m sorry, more to yourself than to anyone else, because all you had ever really wanted was to love him.
ef
A/N: Ok, I’m about 90% certain there’s no such word as ‘conspiratory’ (although I vaguely remember having read it somewhere) but I can’t get myself to find another word to describe it.