fic-DBSK-Perfect Everything
Title: Perfect Everything
Author: virdant
Length: 1,771 words; one-shot
Rating: R
Genre: Tragedy, High School AU
Pairing: HoMin, JaeHo, JaeChun, JaeMin
Summary: Shim Changmin goes to class, not to learn about how cell walls rupture upon being frozen, but to watch Jung Yunho as he diligently takes down notes. He watches and he learns. He learns Jung Yunho until he knows Jung Yunho better than Yunho himself knows Jung Yunho, and then he moves on to everybody else that Jung Yunho knows. Kim Jaejoong. Park Yoochun. Kim Junsu.
Warning: Disturbing content, death, and unreliable narrators
Notes: For yuxo for no reason other than the fact that she's awesome. Much thanks to Victor, for his research at some insane hour in the morning which kept this story alive.
Perfect Everything
Jung Yunho is one of, if not the, most popular boys in school.
He plays sports, dances, and moves, all muscle and smooth motion. He’s the star of the school, their pride and joy, and throughout it all he insists: “it was everybody’s effort,” and that he “didn’t do much at all.”
The teachers love him. He sits in the front row usually. Sometimes towards the left, but usually in the center. He takes notes, answers questions, and smiles a lot, all twelve muscles moving in unison to reveal pearly white teeth.
The girls love him.
“Yunho-oppa!” they shriek in the hallways as he walks past. On Valentines day, they offer him chocolates, tied with red ribbons. They fiddle and twitch and nervously ask him if he likes them after their memorized confessions that Shim Changmin wrote two days ago.
Jung Yunho is very popular.
He spends most of his time with Kim Jaejoong, resident pretty boy and almost-delinquent. Kim Jaejoong would be a delinquent, except for the fact that he spends all his time with Jung Yunho, and anybody that Jung Yunho associates with can’t possibly be a delinquent.
They spend almost all of their time together; Yunho and Jaejoong eat with each other at lunch, feeding each other morsels of each other’s food. Yunho listens to Jaejoong blather with a smile on his face, and Jaejoong holds Yunho until Yunho is done crying.
Most people don’t know this.
They know that Yunho and Jaejoong are friends. Best friends. They know that Yunho is perfect and Jaejoong isn’t quite as perfect-because he’s cold and frigid where Yunho is warm and kind-but since Jung Yunho, perfect athlete, perfect student, perfect everything, associates with strange mysterious Kim Jaejoong, then Kim Jaejoong must be perfect.
Just a little more perfect than he appears.
*
Shim Changmin likes Yunho. Jung Yunho, he mouths from his seat near the back of the class. He doesn’t need to go to class, really, because he’s smart enough to do the prep for the class and the homework that’s assigned, and so he knows everything that the other students flounder with. He asks questions occasionally; after school or before school when other students aren’t around, he slips and stands before his teachers and asks them questions that they usually respond with: “We’re not covering that in this class, Shim. Please ask relevant questions.”
So he doesn’t ask questions.
But he studies, and he learns. He knows how much effort it takes to smile and how much effort it takes to laugh and how much effort it takes to frown. He knows about force, about impact, and even about bones snapping and splintering. He knows that dying of internal bleeding is excessively painful, so if he ever decides to commit suicide, he’ll be sure to jump off of a tall enough building.
Shim Changmin goes to class, not to learn about how cell walls rupture upon being frozen, but to watch Jung Yunho as he diligently takes down notes. He watches and he learns. He learns Jung Yunho until he knows Jung Yunho better than Yunho himself knows Jung Yunho, and then he moves on to everybody else that Jung Yunho knows. Kim Jaejoong. Park Yoochun. Kim Junsu.
He knows.
He learns.
He loves.
*
He writes love letters for awe-struck girls at a price of 200 won a letter. He knows Jung Yunho well enough to write exactly what Jung Yunho isn’t quite looking for, and when Yunho opens up pink scented stationary-his nose twitches a fraction of an inch and his lips spasm at the sight of pink with pinker hearts drawn around the edges-Yunho reads the carefully scripted, but not too scripted, love confession that Changmin drafted two days ago for whatever girl wanted to love Jung Yunho, who wasn’t hers to love.
Kim Jaejoong reads these love letters. He plucks them from Yunho’s hands, reads them, and then points out that every girl is exactly the same. Because I wrote them all, Changmin thinks from his position in the darkest corner of the library. Jung Yunho and Kim Jaejoong sit at a brighter table, in a small niche away from everybody else but still among everybody else.
“Don’t be silly,” Yunho admonishes when Jaejoong sprouts out conspiracy theories.
“I’m just saying,” Jaejoong replies flippantly.
Changmin is careful. He alternates writing styles; changes word choice, syntax, and diction; and tailors his carefully constructed confession-that Jung Yunho cannot help but turn down-to each girl he sells his writing to.
He’s smart. He’s good at what he does. He’ll make sure that he gets what he wants.
*
Park Yoochun and Kim Junsu are Jung Yunho’s friends. Park Yoochun spends too much time with Kim Jaejoong, and Changmin watches Jaejoong every time Yoochun and Jaejoong slide arms around each other and trace the matching tattoos that Changmin knows are there-along the lower back and between shoulder blades.
Yunho laughs at a joke, and Jaejoong brings a hand up to muffle his laughter.
Yoochun’s arm tightens.
They look happy, Jaejoong and Yoochun. They all look happy. Except for maybe Jung Yunho, who looks empty without pretty Kim Jaejoong next to him, smiling.
Jaejoong is not good enough for Yunho.
*
Yunho is perfect.
Jaejoong is not.
Changmin watches. Waits and watches. Because he has to know. Has to have all the data in his hands, synthesized and analyzed, before he can draw his conclusions.
He sits in the back of the classroom and watches as Yunho and Jaejoong pass notes to each other without the teacher noticing. Jaejoong sits behind Yunho, because Jaejoong, despite being Yunho’s best friend, his not perfect enough to sit in the front and take notes.
Changmin sits in the back and takes notes.
His physics teacher looks up and doesn’t see Changmin in the back, scribbling furiously into a notebook that’s been empty the whole year.
Calculations.
Perfect calculations.
*
Two weeks later, Jaejoong receives a note from his psychology teacher. It’s left on his desk when he walks him with Yunho, two minutes early, because Yunho has to be early.
“Tutoring?” Jaejoong asks, puzzled. “I didn’t realize that I did so badly on the practice exam. Does it matter anyways?”
Yunho insists that he go, because Yunho is perfect, and those around him must be perfect to.
More perfect.
Jaejoong has to be more perfect.
Kim Jaejoong goes. Shim Changmin waits for him, dangling his legs as he sits on the desk in the darkest corner of the room.
“Is anybody here?” Jaejoong asks, sounding irritated. Jung Yunho isn’t with him. Jung Yunho has athletics practice now. Changmin calculated as such.
“Hi,” Changmin says, forcing his voice, his face, his everything into calm. “I’m Shim Changmin, your tutor. You must be Kim Jaejoong?”
Jaejoong eyes him skeptically. He doesn’t know Changmin. Changmin is good at hiding himself, because the only thing worst than being a genius is being an acknowledged genius-Changmin doesn’t want to be called upon to fix other people’s problems (he’ll only fix Yunho’s, and gladly)-and so he hides himself so well that nobody knows Shim Changmin.
“I know you don’t know me,” Changmin says. “Why don’t we sit and get to know each other?”
*
One week later, Changmin knows everything there is to know about Kim Jaejoong.
One week and one day later, Changmin invites himself to Kim Jaejoong’s home.
*
Kim Jaejoong welcomes Changmin in, puzzled. Changmin explains, “The exam’s in two days, right before our tutoring session, so I wanted to help you review some essential information.”
“Okay. Yeah. Sure,” Jaejoong responds, perplexed but willing. Changmin’s a nice sort, Jaejoong thinks, to hike all the way to here, where Jaejoong lives, just for some extra review. He’ll be acing this exam for sure, Jaejoong thinks.
They sit on Jaejoong’s bed, books propped open on knees. Jaejoong’s room is high above the ground, and the city outside shine like little stars, a skyscape just next to them. Changmin waits for ten minutes before he says, “It’s awfully stuffy in here. Can you open the window?”
Jaejoong does so obligingly, reaching over a little to open the window. At Changmin’s request, he opens the window fully.
Changmin waits another two minutes, fidgeting and shuffling around, before he says, “Jaejoong-hyung, I think I really like you.”
Jaejoong pauses and stares in bafflement.
Changmin turns away, to hide the pale cheeks that won’t blush. He says, “I really. I really really like you.”
“I…” Jaejoong begins.
Changmin moves quickly. He only has so much time before Jaejoong realizes something’s wrong. He kisses Jaejoong, turns around, and mutters, “I know you like Yoochun-sshi…” and makes sure to train his voice off meaningfully.
“What?” Jaejoong yelps.
Changmin looks around. “You don’t?” he asks, hopefully. “Then do you like me?”
“I… guess?”
“Great! We can go to the formal together. It’ll be fun. I promise.”
“Wait!” Jaejoong protests.
“I’m so happy. I’ve never been to the formal with anybody.”
“I-”
Conversations that were so carefully drafted on a notebook intended for physics slide out perfectly. Changmin makes sure to pause, shudder a little, and ask, “So you… you don’t… you don’t like me?”
“Changmin. It’s not like that. Honest. I just. I don’t like-”
“I can’t believe you!” Changmin bursts out, shoving Jaejoong. Jaejoong reels back, caught off guard. “Why?” he shouts, for no reason other than it’s a perfectly valid question for any situation. Their conversation makes no sense. Changmin’s actions make no sense. But they keep Jaejoong off his guard. Keep Kim Jaejoong floundering, because he’s not perfect, and he cannot see what Shim Changmin intends to do. He pushes Jaejoong harder, and Jaejoong reaches out to steady himself on the wall.
It’s a long fall down to the ground outside Jaejoong’s window.
Without much remorse, Changmin pushes him out.
(He’s calculated, with gravity equal to 9.81, just how much force the impact will impart on Kim Jaejoong’s body.)
(He’s calculated, and the impact would maybe be enough to kill Jaejoong.)
(But just outside Jaejoong’s window is a deserted alley anyway. Nobody notices him as he dies of internal bleeding.)
*
Shim Changmin leaves behind a suicide note, written in Jaejoong’s handwriting.
Nobody notices him leave the building.
Nobody noticed him enter in the first place.
*
One year and three months later, Shim Changmin kisses Jung Yunho and whispers, “I love you so much.” He ignores Yoochun and Junsu, who mime gagging at the now familiar sight. “You’re perfect.”
Yunho smiles. “I love you too.”
Shim Changmin is happy.
Kim Jaejoong is dead.
And Jung Yunho is perfect again.
End.
Uh. Yeah. 希望你喜歡,雨曦.
In other news, I have a default userpic now!
Author: virdant
Length: 1,771 words; one-shot
Rating: R
Genre: Tragedy, High School AU
Pairing: HoMin, JaeHo, JaeChun, JaeMin
Summary: Shim Changmin goes to class, not to learn about how cell walls rupture upon being frozen, but to watch Jung Yunho as he diligently takes down notes. He watches and he learns. He learns Jung Yunho until he knows Jung Yunho better than Yunho himself knows Jung Yunho, and then he moves on to everybody else that Jung Yunho knows. Kim Jaejoong. Park Yoochun. Kim Junsu.
Warning: Disturbing content, death, and unreliable narrators
Notes: For yuxo for no reason other than the fact that she's awesome. Much thanks to Victor, for his research at some insane hour in the morning which kept this story alive.
Perfect Everything
Jung Yunho is one of, if not the, most popular boys in school.
He plays sports, dances, and moves, all muscle and smooth motion. He’s the star of the school, their pride and joy, and throughout it all he insists: “it was everybody’s effort,” and that he “didn’t do much at all.”
The teachers love him. He sits in the front row usually. Sometimes towards the left, but usually in the center. He takes notes, answers questions, and smiles a lot, all twelve muscles moving in unison to reveal pearly white teeth.
The girls love him.
“Yunho-oppa!” they shriek in the hallways as he walks past. On Valentines day, they offer him chocolates, tied with red ribbons. They fiddle and twitch and nervously ask him if he likes them after their memorized confessions that Shim Changmin wrote two days ago.
Jung Yunho is very popular.
He spends most of his time with Kim Jaejoong, resident pretty boy and almost-delinquent. Kim Jaejoong would be a delinquent, except for the fact that he spends all his time with Jung Yunho, and anybody that Jung Yunho associates with can’t possibly be a delinquent.
They spend almost all of their time together; Yunho and Jaejoong eat with each other at lunch, feeding each other morsels of each other’s food. Yunho listens to Jaejoong blather with a smile on his face, and Jaejoong holds Yunho until Yunho is done crying.
Most people don’t know this.
They know that Yunho and Jaejoong are friends. Best friends. They know that Yunho is perfect and Jaejoong isn’t quite as perfect-because he’s cold and frigid where Yunho is warm and kind-but since Jung Yunho, perfect athlete, perfect student, perfect everything, associates with strange mysterious Kim Jaejoong, then Kim Jaejoong must be perfect.
Just a little more perfect than he appears.
*
Shim Changmin likes Yunho. Jung Yunho, he mouths from his seat near the back of the class. He doesn’t need to go to class, really, because he’s smart enough to do the prep for the class and the homework that’s assigned, and so he knows everything that the other students flounder with. He asks questions occasionally; after school or before school when other students aren’t around, he slips and stands before his teachers and asks them questions that they usually respond with: “We’re not covering that in this class, Shim. Please ask relevant questions.”
So he doesn’t ask questions.
But he studies, and he learns. He knows how much effort it takes to smile and how much effort it takes to laugh and how much effort it takes to frown. He knows about force, about impact, and even about bones snapping and splintering. He knows that dying of internal bleeding is excessively painful, so if he ever decides to commit suicide, he’ll be sure to jump off of a tall enough building.
Shim Changmin goes to class, not to learn about how cell walls rupture upon being frozen, but to watch Jung Yunho as he diligently takes down notes. He watches and he learns. He learns Jung Yunho until he knows Jung Yunho better than Yunho himself knows Jung Yunho, and then he moves on to everybody else that Jung Yunho knows. Kim Jaejoong. Park Yoochun. Kim Junsu.
He knows.
He learns.
He loves.
*
He writes love letters for awe-struck girls at a price of 200 won a letter. He knows Jung Yunho well enough to write exactly what Jung Yunho isn’t quite looking for, and when Yunho opens up pink scented stationary-his nose twitches a fraction of an inch and his lips spasm at the sight of pink with pinker hearts drawn around the edges-Yunho reads the carefully scripted, but not too scripted, love confession that Changmin drafted two days ago for whatever girl wanted to love Jung Yunho, who wasn’t hers to love.
Kim Jaejoong reads these love letters. He plucks them from Yunho’s hands, reads them, and then points out that every girl is exactly the same. Because I wrote them all, Changmin thinks from his position in the darkest corner of the library. Jung Yunho and Kim Jaejoong sit at a brighter table, in a small niche away from everybody else but still among everybody else.
“Don’t be silly,” Yunho admonishes when Jaejoong sprouts out conspiracy theories.
“I’m just saying,” Jaejoong replies flippantly.
Changmin is careful. He alternates writing styles; changes word choice, syntax, and diction; and tailors his carefully constructed confession-that Jung Yunho cannot help but turn down-to each girl he sells his writing to.
He’s smart. He’s good at what he does. He’ll make sure that he gets what he wants.
*
Park Yoochun and Kim Junsu are Jung Yunho’s friends. Park Yoochun spends too much time with Kim Jaejoong, and Changmin watches Jaejoong every time Yoochun and Jaejoong slide arms around each other and trace the matching tattoos that Changmin knows are there-along the lower back and between shoulder blades.
Yunho laughs at a joke, and Jaejoong brings a hand up to muffle his laughter.
Yoochun’s arm tightens.
They look happy, Jaejoong and Yoochun. They all look happy. Except for maybe Jung Yunho, who looks empty without pretty Kim Jaejoong next to him, smiling.
Jaejoong is not good enough for Yunho.
*
Yunho is perfect.
Jaejoong is not.
Changmin watches. Waits and watches. Because he has to know. Has to have all the data in his hands, synthesized and analyzed, before he can draw his conclusions.
He sits in the back of the classroom and watches as Yunho and Jaejoong pass notes to each other without the teacher noticing. Jaejoong sits behind Yunho, because Jaejoong, despite being Yunho’s best friend, his not perfect enough to sit in the front and take notes.
Changmin sits in the back and takes notes.
His physics teacher looks up and doesn’t see Changmin in the back, scribbling furiously into a notebook that’s been empty the whole year.
Calculations.
Perfect calculations.
*
Two weeks later, Jaejoong receives a note from his psychology teacher. It’s left on his desk when he walks him with Yunho, two minutes early, because Yunho has to be early.
“Tutoring?” Jaejoong asks, puzzled. “I didn’t realize that I did so badly on the practice exam. Does it matter anyways?”
Yunho insists that he go, because Yunho is perfect, and those around him must be perfect to.
More perfect.
Jaejoong has to be more perfect.
Kim Jaejoong goes. Shim Changmin waits for him, dangling his legs as he sits on the desk in the darkest corner of the room.
“Is anybody here?” Jaejoong asks, sounding irritated. Jung Yunho isn’t with him. Jung Yunho has athletics practice now. Changmin calculated as such.
“Hi,” Changmin says, forcing his voice, his face, his everything into calm. “I’m Shim Changmin, your tutor. You must be Kim Jaejoong?”
Jaejoong eyes him skeptically. He doesn’t know Changmin. Changmin is good at hiding himself, because the only thing worst than being a genius is being an acknowledged genius-Changmin doesn’t want to be called upon to fix other people’s problems (he’ll only fix Yunho’s, and gladly)-and so he hides himself so well that nobody knows Shim Changmin.
“I know you don’t know me,” Changmin says. “Why don’t we sit and get to know each other?”
*
One week later, Changmin knows everything there is to know about Kim Jaejoong.
One week and one day later, Changmin invites himself to Kim Jaejoong’s home.
*
Kim Jaejoong welcomes Changmin in, puzzled. Changmin explains, “The exam’s in two days, right before our tutoring session, so I wanted to help you review some essential information.”
“Okay. Yeah. Sure,” Jaejoong responds, perplexed but willing. Changmin’s a nice sort, Jaejoong thinks, to hike all the way to here, where Jaejoong lives, just for some extra review. He’ll be acing this exam for sure, Jaejoong thinks.
They sit on Jaejoong’s bed, books propped open on knees. Jaejoong’s room is high above the ground, and the city outside shine like little stars, a skyscape just next to them. Changmin waits for ten minutes before he says, “It’s awfully stuffy in here. Can you open the window?”
Jaejoong does so obligingly, reaching over a little to open the window. At Changmin’s request, he opens the window fully.
Changmin waits another two minutes, fidgeting and shuffling around, before he says, “Jaejoong-hyung, I think I really like you.”
Jaejoong pauses and stares in bafflement.
Changmin turns away, to hide the pale cheeks that won’t blush. He says, “I really. I really really like you.”
“I…” Jaejoong begins.
Changmin moves quickly. He only has so much time before Jaejoong realizes something’s wrong. He kisses Jaejoong, turns around, and mutters, “I know you like Yoochun-sshi…” and makes sure to train his voice off meaningfully.
“What?” Jaejoong yelps.
Changmin looks around. “You don’t?” he asks, hopefully. “Then do you like me?”
“I… guess?”
“Great! We can go to the formal together. It’ll be fun. I promise.”
“Wait!” Jaejoong protests.
“I’m so happy. I’ve never been to the formal with anybody.”
“I-”
Conversations that were so carefully drafted on a notebook intended for physics slide out perfectly. Changmin makes sure to pause, shudder a little, and ask, “So you… you don’t… you don’t like me?”
“Changmin. It’s not like that. Honest. I just. I don’t like-”
“I can’t believe you!” Changmin bursts out, shoving Jaejoong. Jaejoong reels back, caught off guard. “Why?” he shouts, for no reason other than it’s a perfectly valid question for any situation. Their conversation makes no sense. Changmin’s actions make no sense. But they keep Jaejoong off his guard. Keep Kim Jaejoong floundering, because he’s not perfect, and he cannot see what Shim Changmin intends to do. He pushes Jaejoong harder, and Jaejoong reaches out to steady himself on the wall.
It’s a long fall down to the ground outside Jaejoong’s window.
Without much remorse, Changmin pushes him out.
(He’s calculated, with gravity equal to 9.81, just how much force the impact will impart on Kim Jaejoong’s body.)
(He’s calculated, and the impact would maybe be enough to kill Jaejoong.)
(But just outside Jaejoong’s window is a deserted alley anyway. Nobody notices him as he dies of internal bleeding.)
*
Shim Changmin leaves behind a suicide note, written in Jaejoong’s handwriting.
Nobody notices him leave the building.
Nobody noticed him enter in the first place.
*
One year and three months later, Shim Changmin kisses Jung Yunho and whispers, “I love you so much.” He ignores Yoochun and Junsu, who mime gagging at the now familiar sight. “You’re perfect.”
Yunho smiles. “I love you too.”
Shim Changmin is happy.
Kim Jaejoong is dead.
And Jung Yunho is perfect again.
End.
Uh. Yeah. 希望你喜歡,雨曦.
In other news, I have a default userpic now!