fic-DBSK-Duality
Title: Duality
Author: virdant
Length: 2267 words; one-shot
Rating: PG-PG-13
Genre: General
Pairing: None. JaeChun-ish, but entirely friendship-based.
Summary: “So you're saying you don't want to go out and perform?” “I do,” Jaejoong says, “But it's going to be Youngwoong singing when I walk out.” Jaejoong and Youngwoong are more different than expected.
Warning: pseudo-psychological themes.
Notes: A very exploratory fic. Explores the same sort of themes as In Between, but takes a different view.
Duality
“I don't want to be Youngwoong anymore,” Jaejoong says to Yoochun, because Yoochun's always understood Jaejoong best when it comes to the matter of Youngwoong Jaejoong.
“So don't,” Micky replies, not even pulling his headphones away from his ears. Jaejoong frowns in pique. Yoochun isn't taking him seriously right now, and Jaejoong's needs Yoochun's undivided attention. Yoochun continues, “Just be Jaejoong.”
Maybe Yoochun is paying attention. Jaejoong wiggles his toes thoughtfully, staring up at the plain white ceiling and wishing it didn't have recessed lighting. It reminds him too much of stage lights right now, and that's not what Jaejoong wants to be thinking of, not when he's already thinking of Youngwoong. Jaejoong says seriously, “I'm tired of Youngwoong,” hoping that Yoochun will understand.
Yoochun does take off his headphones this time. He folds his hands on his lap and faces Jaejoong squarely. It makes Jaejoong think of shrinks, sitting there all serious while the patient lies on a bed and pours out their problems. And in the end, the patient leaves all fixed. Except not. Because just talking out your problems doesn't fix them.
Because if that was all it took to fix people, then he wouldn't be lying on his bed in their shared room, talking to Yoochun again.
“I wish I knew how to be Jaejoong all the time,” Jaejoong to explain.
Not just now, he thinks. Not just when it's just you and me.
All the time.
*
All-the-time is a bit like forever, only forever is about the future, and all-the-time is about the present. Forever is about promises to be made and broken, and all-the-time is about promises kept.
Jaejoong wonders, sometimes, if it's just him who feels this way. Like there's another person inside of him, and when he steps onto the stage, it's not him anymore, but that other person. He wonders if he'll feel that way forever.
He calls that other person Youngwoong. He doesn't think that it's particularly healthy, naming some other person inside him. But they call him Youngwoong anyways, and he thinks it's easier to say Youngwoong than “that other person I become.”
Yoochun doesn't feel that way. Jaejoong knows this because they talked about it when Jaejoong first realized that he wasn't himself on stage (or during interviews, or when they sang, even in practice). Jaejoong didn't realize it himself until Yoochun said thoughtfully, when it was just the two of them: “I wish you were more like this all the time.”
Jaejoong felt something inside of him shiver, and he found himself raising a hand to laugh awkwardly into.
“That's exactly what I mean,” Yoochun said.
Jaejoong's hand paused halfway to his mouth.
“You don't do that when it's just the two of us, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong. Not Youngwoong Jaejoong. Just plain ordinary Kim Jaejoong. Not special. Just an average teenager working a job too big for him to work alone. Only that wasn't normal, was it? People his age didn't sing on stages to thousands of screaming fangirls. They went to school. They studied and crammed for exams.
Jaejoong dropped his hand. A cold shiver worked through his chest. “Does it matter?” he said lightly. “The girls love that Jaejoong.”
Yoochun looked at Jaejoong and didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
*
Youngwoong plays on stage. He likes the heat of the lights and the thrill of adrenaline. He likes hearing the screams of fangirls, so loud and shrill that he can't hear himself think.
Jaejoong likes singing on stage, but he doesn't like playing so much. He likes the joy of singing, the way the sounds swell inside of him, like something bigger he can't contain.
Then he thinks of Youngwoong, swelling inside of him until he bursts out and he isn't Jaejoong anymore but is Youngwoong instead. He doesn't know if he likes singing anymore.
He tells Micky backstage about this new revelation. He doesn't tell U-know, or Xiah, or even Choikang. He doesn't even think about telling them, because he needs Yoochun to tell this to, and Micky is closest to Yoochun right now.
Maybe it's the fact that Yoochun went by Micky before, and learned how to reconcile having two different people inside him, that makes Micky so much more viable for Jaejoong to talk to right now, when he's trying himself to fix the fact that he doesn't remember being himself on stage ever. At least not since he debuted, and sometime before that as well.
Micky blinks, just like Yoochun does sometimes, and Jaejoong wonders how much of Yoochun is Micky and how much of Micky is Yoochun. More than Youngwoong is Jaejoong and Jaejoong is Youngwoong, he thinks. “So you're saying you don't want to go out and perform?”
“I do,” Jaejoong says, trying to make Micky understand-only it's not Micky anymore, it's Yoochun-and Jaejoong can't stop the relief that floods his voice as he says, “But it's going to be Youngwoong singing when I walk out.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Yoochun asks. “Shouldn't you be telling Yunho about this?”
To Yoochun, Yunho and U-know are the same person. Still, Jaejoong mutters petulantly, “U-know.”
“U-know, Yunho.” Yoochun waves his hand airily around. “Same difference. If you don't feel up for performing, you should be telling him. What can I do?”
Yoochun still doesn't realize the problem. Or maybe he does. Because what can Jaejoong do other than walk on stage and let Youngwoong woo thousands of teenage girls?
Jaejoong shrugs awkwardly and leaves those words hanging. Instead, he says, “I guess. Thanks, Micky.”
Yoochun shrugs awkwardly back and wanders over to where Xiah is rehearsing (it's not Junsu, because Junsu's a nervous wreck before performances and tends to drink enough water to turn a desert into ocean). Yoochun pokes Xiah in the shoulder, starting a poke-match that Jaejoong knows will end when U-know claps his hands twice...
Clap clap! “Okay, time to perform!”
Jaejoong touches his hair nervously. He's not worried about the performance, but who he'll be afterwards.
U-know catches that movement. “You'll be great,” he says with a smile that's all U-know without a hint of Yunho at all.
Jaejoong thinks of what to say. “Maybe,” is an answer distinctly Jaejoong. But an answer like that would worry U-know enough that maybe their performance wouldn't pull through, and Jaejoong loves performing too much to let that happen. He grins confidently instead. It's part Youngwoong, but more Jaejoong. Youngwoong isn't as reckless as Jaejoong after all.
Jaejoong walks onto the stage.
Youngwoong walks off.
*
“I see what you mean,” Yoochun says. They're sitting together, or really, Jaejoong's lying in bed staring at the spaces between the recessed lights, and Yoochun's sitting, hands folded to keep fingers from twitching into a new song, watching Jaejoong.
“I don't know if it's just me or if it's everybody,” Jaejoong says.
Micky laughs.
Jaejoong scowls. He realizes that he's being petty, but he's annoyed all the same. He wants a serious conversation. And cookies, because he's been craving cookies recently but he can't have any because they don't have any (or all the ingredients) and he doesn't want to dare the outside where fangirls stalk them. Youngwoong can deal with the fangirls. Jaejoong just wants to sing.
Micky sobers. “You're not that special, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong closes his eyes. The lights beat a pattern into his eyelids. Jaejoong opens his eyes again and focuses on the white. He kinda wants a popcorn ceiling. It'd be better than plain white reflecting the lights.
“But you're the only one who cares.”
*
“Think I can make SM foot the bill for shrink visits?”
“Ask... you know, U-know,” Micky replies dryly.
“Now you sound like Changmin,” Jaejoong says. “Haha,” he adds for Micky, who does love his jokes, even if he sucks at them.
Yoochun grins proudly back.
Jaejoong wonders when he learned to tell the difference between Micky and Yoochun. There's barely any difference, because they're both so deeply entwined with each other. It's like teenagers, one person in front of their parents, another person in front of their teachers, but so close in resemblance that they're the same person.
Youngwoong and Jaejoong-Jaejoong thinks-is like the difference of a teenager with his friends and with his parents. The same body, but different thinking. A different audience, Jaejoong thinks, and closes his eyes and lets the lights beat the pattern of stage lights over his eyelids. He can almost hear the roar of Cassiopeia.
Yoochun interrupts, “What makes you think you need one though?” Jaejoong opens his eyes to see Yoochun's hands folded.
Jaejoong sits up. “I have a person called Youngwoong inside of me, and you're wondering why I need to see a shrink?”
Yoochun stares steadily back. “You think you're that special?”
Youngwoong does. But Jaejoong doesn't.
Jaejoong sighs. “How much does group counseling cost?”
Yoochun grins sardonically. “Now we're talking.”
*
But for all Jaejoong and Yoochun's flippancy, Jaejoong doesn't think that the others would agree with them.
Junsu wants to be the best in Asia. And if it takes Xiah to make him the best, Junsu will take that. It wasn't Xiah who relearned how to sing, after all. It was Junsu. Junsu and his eyes that look back at him sometimes, when Jaejoong looks at Xiah. Jaejoong doesn't think that Junsu will ever give up Xiah. Not when Xiah is everything that Junsu dreamed of.
Changmin is young. Young enough that he doesn't quite feel the desperation to be fixed yet. He has his whole life before him to be fixed. And that's even if he wants to be fixed. That's even if he thinks that he needs to be fixed. Changmin has the arrogance of youth, only maybe that makes it better. Jaejoong's been noticing Choikang bleeding into Changmin more and more. (It makes him think of Micky and Yoochun, who are almost the same person. It makes Jaejoong jealous.)
“What're you thinking of?” Yunho asks. Yunho, with Yunho's smile and Yunho's warmth. Not U-know this time.
Jaejoong smiles back.
Yunho waits.
U-know wouldn't wait. U-know would take control. Jaejoong wonders when the differences started, wonders where the differences originated, wonders why the differences ever began.
That that chain of thought only leads him to the question of where the differences end. And Jaejoong doesn't want to think of that, because that means that Youngwoong really truly is him, and Jaejoong takes a sick thrill in the thought that he's quite possibly insane-he suppose he really does think he's that special-even though he's not sure why that idea is so appealing.
“I need to talk to Yoochun,” Jaejoong blurts out.
Yunho stares. “W-wait! Jaejoong!”
But Jaejoong's already stumbling away, wondering why he wants Youngwoong with him-the way Micky and Yoochun are almost the same.
*
“I want to be Youngwoong,” Jaejoong says to Yoochun. He's mostly horrified at the idea, that there's another person lingering within him, one that he made himself when he first realized that his life had gotten out of control.
They're in the room together. Jaejoong's lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the recessed lights, imagining the screams of thousands upon thousands of fan girls screaming their love for them.
“What brought that on?” Yoochun asks.
Jaejoong thinks of when it all started-and what will happen when it all ends. “They don't love Jaejoong,” he says, and he knows that it's true. They like Youngwoong, and Youngwoong has never been Jaejoong.
“Don't underestimate Cassiopeia,” Yoochun says calmly.
“I don't.” Jaejoong tries to find the words. “Youngwoong... Youngwoong will never be able to walk on the streets. But Jaejoong will never be able to stand on the stage.”
“Cassiopeia doesn't think that way.”
“Cassiopeia,” Jaejoong begins, before he decides not to continue down that train of thought. Cassiopeia doesn't understand the difference between Youngwoong and Jaejoong. Jaejoong doesn't even understand the difference. “I can't give up the part of me that stands on stage.”
“Camera whore,” Yoochun snipes.
Jaejoong shakes his head. “It's become me.” The lights beam down on his eyes, and Jaejoong can feel a part of him unknot at that thought. He wants to become Youngwoong Jaejoong, like Micky Yoochun. Neither Micky or Yoochun, but something in between. Maybe he hasn't reached that point yet, where he's neither Youngwoong or Jaejoong, but something in between that encompasses both aspects. But that doesn't matter; all that matters is the sound of a song swelling in his throat.
Micky laughs. “Does that mean we're not going to go for group counseling?”
*
In the end, all that is Jaejoong and all that is Youngwoong doesn't exist anymore. In the end, there's just something in between. Jaejoong calls that person in between Youngwoong Jaejoong. The Youngwoong that is almost Jaejoong and the Jaejoong that is almost Youngwoong.
“I don't think I'm Youngwoong anymore,” Youngwoong Jaejoong says to Yoochun, "Or Jaejoong."
Micky looks back at him. Jaejoong's not lying on the bed, and Yoochun's hands are not folded. They are not talking about this in the way they used to. There's no need. Jaejoong and Youngwoong are both gone. Instead, they're sitting against each other, backs resting against each others, as if that will make them even closer than they already are. Yoochun's back is warm against Youngwoong's. Jaejoong's hair tickles Micky's cheek.
“That's nice,” Micky Yoochun says finally. And he does understand what Youngwoong Jaejoong is (not who, never who), because Micky Yoochun's the same. Two different people blended together so that there's only one different person left. Neither one or the other, but something in between.
“Think the others feel this way?”
“You think we're that special?”
End.
Notes: Duality comes from the Wave-Particle Duality Theorem which states that photons display both wave and particle traits. Wave particle duality is not switching from one to the other, which is why in the end Jaejoong and Yoochun both become “different” people entirely, because they have become metaphors for the wave-particle duality theorem. They have aspects that are similar to Youngwoong and Jaejoong (in Jaejoong's case) and Micky and Yoochun (in Yoochun's case) that creates a new “person.” Yes, I'm a nerd. I'm also proud of it.
My main goal in exploring this sort of topic is mainly because I've been thinking about how people tend to react differently to their parents versus their friends. In general, people tend to act differently in front of their parents vs. their friends. Why not explore that idea through the idea of stage personas? No offence was ever meant.
Concrit please. :)
Author: virdant
Length: 2267 words; one-shot
Rating: PG-PG-13
Genre: General
Pairing: None. JaeChun-ish, but entirely friendship-based.
Summary: “So you're saying you don't want to go out and perform?” “I do,” Jaejoong says, “But it's going to be Youngwoong singing when I walk out.” Jaejoong and Youngwoong are more different than expected.
Warning: pseudo-psychological themes.
Notes: A very exploratory fic. Explores the same sort of themes as In Between, but takes a different view.
Duality
“I don't want to be Youngwoong anymore,” Jaejoong says to Yoochun, because Yoochun's always understood Jaejoong best when it comes to the matter of Youngwoong Jaejoong.
“So don't,” Micky replies, not even pulling his headphones away from his ears. Jaejoong frowns in pique. Yoochun isn't taking him seriously right now, and Jaejoong's needs Yoochun's undivided attention. Yoochun continues, “Just be Jaejoong.”
Maybe Yoochun is paying attention. Jaejoong wiggles his toes thoughtfully, staring up at the plain white ceiling and wishing it didn't have recessed lighting. It reminds him too much of stage lights right now, and that's not what Jaejoong wants to be thinking of, not when he's already thinking of Youngwoong. Jaejoong says seriously, “I'm tired of Youngwoong,” hoping that Yoochun will understand.
Yoochun does take off his headphones this time. He folds his hands on his lap and faces Jaejoong squarely. It makes Jaejoong think of shrinks, sitting there all serious while the patient lies on a bed and pours out their problems. And in the end, the patient leaves all fixed. Except not. Because just talking out your problems doesn't fix them.
Because if that was all it took to fix people, then he wouldn't be lying on his bed in their shared room, talking to Yoochun again.
“I wish I knew how to be Jaejoong all the time,” Jaejoong to explain.
Not just now, he thinks. Not just when it's just you and me.
All the time.
*
All-the-time is a bit like forever, only forever is about the future, and all-the-time is about the present. Forever is about promises to be made and broken, and all-the-time is about promises kept.
Jaejoong wonders, sometimes, if it's just him who feels this way. Like there's another person inside of him, and when he steps onto the stage, it's not him anymore, but that other person. He wonders if he'll feel that way forever.
He calls that other person Youngwoong. He doesn't think that it's particularly healthy, naming some other person inside him. But they call him Youngwoong anyways, and he thinks it's easier to say Youngwoong than “that other person I become.”
Yoochun doesn't feel that way. Jaejoong knows this because they talked about it when Jaejoong first realized that he wasn't himself on stage (or during interviews, or when they sang, even in practice). Jaejoong didn't realize it himself until Yoochun said thoughtfully, when it was just the two of them: “I wish you were more like this all the time.”
Jaejoong felt something inside of him shiver, and he found himself raising a hand to laugh awkwardly into.
“That's exactly what I mean,” Yoochun said.
Jaejoong's hand paused halfway to his mouth.
“You don't do that when it's just the two of us, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong. Not Youngwoong Jaejoong. Just plain ordinary Kim Jaejoong. Not special. Just an average teenager working a job too big for him to work alone. Only that wasn't normal, was it? People his age didn't sing on stages to thousands of screaming fangirls. They went to school. They studied and crammed for exams.
Jaejoong dropped his hand. A cold shiver worked through his chest. “Does it matter?” he said lightly. “The girls love that Jaejoong.”
Yoochun looked at Jaejoong and didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
*
Youngwoong plays on stage. He likes the heat of the lights and the thrill of adrenaline. He likes hearing the screams of fangirls, so loud and shrill that he can't hear himself think.
Jaejoong likes singing on stage, but he doesn't like playing so much. He likes the joy of singing, the way the sounds swell inside of him, like something bigger he can't contain.
Then he thinks of Youngwoong, swelling inside of him until he bursts out and he isn't Jaejoong anymore but is Youngwoong instead. He doesn't know if he likes singing anymore.
He tells Micky backstage about this new revelation. He doesn't tell U-know, or Xiah, or even Choikang. He doesn't even think about telling them, because he needs Yoochun to tell this to, and Micky is closest to Yoochun right now.
Maybe it's the fact that Yoochun went by Micky before, and learned how to reconcile having two different people inside him, that makes Micky so much more viable for Jaejoong to talk to right now, when he's trying himself to fix the fact that he doesn't remember being himself on stage ever. At least not since he debuted, and sometime before that as well.
Micky blinks, just like Yoochun does sometimes, and Jaejoong wonders how much of Yoochun is Micky and how much of Micky is Yoochun. More than Youngwoong is Jaejoong and Jaejoong is Youngwoong, he thinks. “So you're saying you don't want to go out and perform?”
“I do,” Jaejoong says, trying to make Micky understand-only it's not Micky anymore, it's Yoochun-and Jaejoong can't stop the relief that floods his voice as he says, “But it's going to be Youngwoong singing when I walk out.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Yoochun asks. “Shouldn't you be telling Yunho about this?”
To Yoochun, Yunho and U-know are the same person. Still, Jaejoong mutters petulantly, “U-know.”
“U-know, Yunho.” Yoochun waves his hand airily around. “Same difference. If you don't feel up for performing, you should be telling him. What can I do?”
Yoochun still doesn't realize the problem. Or maybe he does. Because what can Jaejoong do other than walk on stage and let Youngwoong woo thousands of teenage girls?
Jaejoong shrugs awkwardly and leaves those words hanging. Instead, he says, “I guess. Thanks, Micky.”
Yoochun shrugs awkwardly back and wanders over to where Xiah is rehearsing (it's not Junsu, because Junsu's a nervous wreck before performances and tends to drink enough water to turn a desert into ocean). Yoochun pokes Xiah in the shoulder, starting a poke-match that Jaejoong knows will end when U-know claps his hands twice...
Clap clap! “Okay, time to perform!”
Jaejoong touches his hair nervously. He's not worried about the performance, but who he'll be afterwards.
U-know catches that movement. “You'll be great,” he says with a smile that's all U-know without a hint of Yunho at all.
Jaejoong thinks of what to say. “Maybe,” is an answer distinctly Jaejoong. But an answer like that would worry U-know enough that maybe their performance wouldn't pull through, and Jaejoong loves performing too much to let that happen. He grins confidently instead. It's part Youngwoong, but more Jaejoong. Youngwoong isn't as reckless as Jaejoong after all.
Jaejoong walks onto the stage.
Youngwoong walks off.
*
“I see what you mean,” Yoochun says. They're sitting together, or really, Jaejoong's lying in bed staring at the spaces between the recessed lights, and Yoochun's sitting, hands folded to keep fingers from twitching into a new song, watching Jaejoong.
“I don't know if it's just me or if it's everybody,” Jaejoong says.
Micky laughs.
Jaejoong scowls. He realizes that he's being petty, but he's annoyed all the same. He wants a serious conversation. And cookies, because he's been craving cookies recently but he can't have any because they don't have any (or all the ingredients) and he doesn't want to dare the outside where fangirls stalk them. Youngwoong can deal with the fangirls. Jaejoong just wants to sing.
Micky sobers. “You're not that special, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong closes his eyes. The lights beat a pattern into his eyelids. Jaejoong opens his eyes again and focuses on the white. He kinda wants a popcorn ceiling. It'd be better than plain white reflecting the lights.
“But you're the only one who cares.”
*
“Think I can make SM foot the bill for shrink visits?”
“Ask... you know, U-know,” Micky replies dryly.
“Now you sound like Changmin,” Jaejoong says. “Haha,” he adds for Micky, who does love his jokes, even if he sucks at them.
Yoochun grins proudly back.
Jaejoong wonders when he learned to tell the difference between Micky and Yoochun. There's barely any difference, because they're both so deeply entwined with each other. It's like teenagers, one person in front of their parents, another person in front of their teachers, but so close in resemblance that they're the same person.
Youngwoong and Jaejoong-Jaejoong thinks-is like the difference of a teenager with his friends and with his parents. The same body, but different thinking. A different audience, Jaejoong thinks, and closes his eyes and lets the lights beat the pattern of stage lights over his eyelids. He can almost hear the roar of Cassiopeia.
Yoochun interrupts, “What makes you think you need one though?” Jaejoong opens his eyes to see Yoochun's hands folded.
Jaejoong sits up. “I have a person called Youngwoong inside of me, and you're wondering why I need to see a shrink?”
Yoochun stares steadily back. “You think you're that special?”
Youngwoong does. But Jaejoong doesn't.
Jaejoong sighs. “How much does group counseling cost?”
Yoochun grins sardonically. “Now we're talking.”
*
But for all Jaejoong and Yoochun's flippancy, Jaejoong doesn't think that the others would agree with them.
Junsu wants to be the best in Asia. And if it takes Xiah to make him the best, Junsu will take that. It wasn't Xiah who relearned how to sing, after all. It was Junsu. Junsu and his eyes that look back at him sometimes, when Jaejoong looks at Xiah. Jaejoong doesn't think that Junsu will ever give up Xiah. Not when Xiah is everything that Junsu dreamed of.
Changmin is young. Young enough that he doesn't quite feel the desperation to be fixed yet. He has his whole life before him to be fixed. And that's even if he wants to be fixed. That's even if he thinks that he needs to be fixed. Changmin has the arrogance of youth, only maybe that makes it better. Jaejoong's been noticing Choikang bleeding into Changmin more and more. (It makes him think of Micky and Yoochun, who are almost the same person. It makes Jaejoong jealous.)
“What're you thinking of?” Yunho asks. Yunho, with Yunho's smile and Yunho's warmth. Not U-know this time.
Jaejoong smiles back.
Yunho waits.
U-know wouldn't wait. U-know would take control. Jaejoong wonders when the differences started, wonders where the differences originated, wonders why the differences ever began.
That that chain of thought only leads him to the question of where the differences end. And Jaejoong doesn't want to think of that, because that means that Youngwoong really truly is him, and Jaejoong takes a sick thrill in the thought that he's quite possibly insane-he suppose he really does think he's that special-even though he's not sure why that idea is so appealing.
“I need to talk to Yoochun,” Jaejoong blurts out.
Yunho stares. “W-wait! Jaejoong!”
But Jaejoong's already stumbling away, wondering why he wants Youngwoong with him-the way Micky and Yoochun are almost the same.
*
“I want to be Youngwoong,” Jaejoong says to Yoochun. He's mostly horrified at the idea, that there's another person lingering within him, one that he made himself when he first realized that his life had gotten out of control.
They're in the room together. Jaejoong's lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring up at the recessed lights, imagining the screams of thousands upon thousands of fan girls screaming their love for them.
“What brought that on?” Yoochun asks.
Jaejoong thinks of when it all started-and what will happen when it all ends. “They don't love Jaejoong,” he says, and he knows that it's true. They like Youngwoong, and Youngwoong has never been Jaejoong.
“Don't underestimate Cassiopeia,” Yoochun says calmly.
“I don't.” Jaejoong tries to find the words. “Youngwoong... Youngwoong will never be able to walk on the streets. But Jaejoong will never be able to stand on the stage.”
“Cassiopeia doesn't think that way.”
“Cassiopeia,” Jaejoong begins, before he decides not to continue down that train of thought. Cassiopeia doesn't understand the difference between Youngwoong and Jaejoong. Jaejoong doesn't even understand the difference. “I can't give up the part of me that stands on stage.”
“Camera whore,” Yoochun snipes.
Jaejoong shakes his head. “It's become me.” The lights beam down on his eyes, and Jaejoong can feel a part of him unknot at that thought. He wants to become Youngwoong Jaejoong, like Micky Yoochun. Neither Micky or Yoochun, but something in between. Maybe he hasn't reached that point yet, where he's neither Youngwoong or Jaejoong, but something in between that encompasses both aspects. But that doesn't matter; all that matters is the sound of a song swelling in his throat.
Micky laughs. “Does that mean we're not going to go for group counseling?”
*
In the end, all that is Jaejoong and all that is Youngwoong doesn't exist anymore. In the end, there's just something in between. Jaejoong calls that person in between Youngwoong Jaejoong. The Youngwoong that is almost Jaejoong and the Jaejoong that is almost Youngwoong.
“I don't think I'm Youngwoong anymore,” Youngwoong Jaejoong says to Yoochun, "Or Jaejoong."
Micky looks back at him. Jaejoong's not lying on the bed, and Yoochun's hands are not folded. They are not talking about this in the way they used to. There's no need. Jaejoong and Youngwoong are both gone. Instead, they're sitting against each other, backs resting against each others, as if that will make them even closer than they already are. Yoochun's back is warm against Youngwoong's. Jaejoong's hair tickles Micky's cheek.
“That's nice,” Micky Yoochun says finally. And he does understand what Youngwoong Jaejoong is (not who, never who), because Micky Yoochun's the same. Two different people blended together so that there's only one different person left. Neither one or the other, but something in between.
“Think the others feel this way?”
“You think we're that special?”
End.
Notes: Duality comes from the Wave-Particle Duality Theorem which states that photons display both wave and particle traits. Wave particle duality is not switching from one to the other, which is why in the end Jaejoong and Yoochun both become “different” people entirely, because they have become metaphors for the wave-particle duality theorem. They have aspects that are similar to Youngwoong and Jaejoong (in Jaejoong's case) and Micky and Yoochun (in Yoochun's case) that creates a new “person.” Yes, I'm a nerd. I'm also proud of it.
My main goal in exploring this sort of topic is mainly because I've been thinking about how people tend to react differently to their parents versus their friends. In general, people tend to act differently in front of their parents vs. their friends. Why not explore that idea through the idea of stage personas? No offence was ever meant.
Concrit please. :)