Blow Away
Blow Away
another variation of Jonghyun/Yonghwa/Seohyun
PG
2000 words
ONE
Something Jonghyun remembers from before-before debut, before Japan, before the marriage:
The phone is ringing-“A Little Night Music,” one of her favorites-and Jonghyun turns over in his bed. His foot is cold, he notices then, because he must have toed off the sock in his sleep. His hand finds the phone face down beside the pillow.
“Hyung.”
“Jonghyunnie, you’re not still sleeping.”
Jonghyun clears his throat and uses his free hand to comb through his hair, now greasing after two days of not shampooing.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” comes Yonghwa’s voice, unusually gentle. “You need to be packing.”
From the window Jonghyun hears a car driving a pothole, a sound echoed in the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Outside,” Yonghwa says, as though reading his mind. “Get your ass down here. We’re going out.”
“I need to pack,” Jonghyun says.
“I’ll help you later. C’mon, get dressed.”
Jonghyun is downstairs in less than a minute, in a cap and his go-to hoodie for the past week. The streetlamps are harsh on his sleep-filled eyes. He squints at Yonghwa through the blaze of yellow and orange.
“How long have you been wearing this same outfit?”
Jonghyun shrugs. “A couple of days.”
“The fans are going to call you ‘dirty oppa,’” Yonghwa says.
“What fans?” Jonghyun’s sudden grin surprises Yonghwa. He’s relieved.
“There’s gonna be a ton of them.” Yonghwa folds his arms behind his head. “Screaming.”
“That’d be cool,” Jonghyun says, more awake now. “Where’re we going?”
They end up at the 24/7 restaurant five blocks down. The ajusshi there likes Jonghyun a lot because he doesn’t talk much. “Kid’s got an honest face,” he said the last time they went with Minhyuk and Kwangjin. Jonghyun said thanks, and deepened his slouch. Yonghwa made fun of his reaction for a week.
“You’re popular,” Yonghwa says when they’re seated. Jonghyun leans his head against the window, the glass chilly against his cheek. He shrugs.
“Hey, don’t think about it so much.”
“I know.”
Yonghwa examines him, the shaggy-haired boy in front of him who looks as though he’s about to shrink into himself. The cute waitress delivers two soju bottles to their table, and Yonghwa cracks one open for Jonghyun first. “Why are you-“ Jonghyun starts laughing. “You don’t have to act like this.”
Yonghwa looks embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
They drink in silence.
The second round loosens them. Jonghyun’s lower lip goes numb the way it does when he feels the alcohol working his insides. He doesn’t drink much, so it happens faster than for Yonghwa. He gets sleepy and smiles more readily. Everything is funnier. He feels good.
Jonghyun is mid-laughter when Yonghwa sets his bottle down on the table and says, “It must’ve been hard for you. I know how much you liked her.”
Celine Dion starts playing. Ajusshi has a rather refined taste in music.
Jonghyun takes another swig before nodding. He moves his attention towards the window, at the increasingly drunk people walking past them. Or maybe it’s him who’s getting drunker.
“It would’ve been harder for her to wait for you while we’re in Japan. While you’re living out your dream, and she’s still here. I think waiting is worse.”
A little boy bends down to tie his shoe. His mother waits impatiently and reaches down to slap his bottom. Jonghyun’s cheeks are itching. He’s halfway between a grin and a good cry. He hasn’t cried since his mom dropped him off at the airport.
“You did the right thing. You’ll both find someone else. And, honestly, I mean we really don’t know, but maybe you’ll get back together in the future. After all this is over.”
Yonghwa is doing his best. “Yeah. Thanks,” Jonghyun says, meeting his eyes briefly.
“C’mon.” Yonghwa reaches over to give him a hearty slap on the back. “Finish your drink.”
The streets are comfortably darker, but they still can’t see the stars. Yonghwa slings an arm over Jonghyun’s shoulder, his other arm swinging the plastic bag holding their leftovers. Jonghyun feels lighter now, and ready for a shower. He opens his mouth to say so just as Yonghwa turns his head to look at him.
“’When I was young,’” Yonghwa starts.
It takes Jonghyun only a second. “. . . ‘I never needed anyone.’”
“’And making love was just for fun.’”
“’Those days . . . are gone.’”
“Not for us,” Yonghwa corrects. “They’re just beginning.”
“Playboy,” Jonghyun says in perfect English, and they wait until they duck into their building to start laughing.
They stay up to pack. Yonghwa helps him massage t-shirts into the suitcase, careful like he’s kneading dough. The bags under his eyes could almost speak. “Cut me some cucumbers,” Yonghwa demands. Everything that could be stuffed has been. There wasn’t much, though. Jonghyun wasn’t planning on taking anything he doesn’t need.
Jonghyun makes a motion for the kitchen, but Yonghwa’s already fiddling with his phone, request forgotten. “I heard a really good song yesterday,” Yonghwa says, flicking the volume up.
Jonghyun sits back down on the couch and listens. He doesn’t understand the lyrics that Yonghwa’s singing along to, mostly in made-up English with the occasional refrain belted with more confidence. It’s not completely melodic, not rap either. He nods along.
We could be the talk across the town.
“I’ll send it to you as a ringtone,” Yonghwa says. “You can use it when we get our Japanese phones.”
“I like this,” Jonghyun says. “Thanks.”
He falls asleep on the plane, over Minhyuk’s shoulder, and doesn’t dream of her at all.
TWO
Three years later Seohyun comes into the picture, and nothing really changes, except Yonghwa is giddier and sleeps less, but he was already sleeping less. He eats more.
“I’m getting fat,” Yonghwa says, massaging his chin in the handheld mirror they keep by the couch. It belongs to Minhyuk or something but has since become communal property.
“It’s a sign of happiness,” Jungshin calls from the bathroom.
Yonghwa sets the mirror down. “How can he hear me?”
“Your happiness is too loud,” Jungshin yells.
Jonghyun shrugs. Does being happy really make you fat? Then why has he stayed the same? He looks at Yonghwa, expecting an answer for his unasked question.
Naturally, Yonghwa doesn’t look back.
-
WGM means more screen time for all of them, and more than once he’s been asked what he thinks of his sister-in-law.
“She’s very . . . good,” he says after a pause. “She’s good for him, probably.”
Jungshin glances at him as though asking What kind of a lukewarm response is that? But the reporter seems satisfied, having moved on to Minhyuk already. She’s wearing a dark lipstick, some of which has come off on her front teeth.
That would never happen to Seohyun, Jonghyun thinks. He wonders why he thought it.
-
He doesn’t dislike her, although her initial presence confused him. He’d found her incredibly, accidentally funny. He had never met anyone so sincere, and neither had the others. In the beginning everything she said was wild, but the wildest was the way she smiled and nodded along while they were laughing at her, not comprehending what was so funny. It was the kind of reaction that naturally commanded a level of sobriety. They would close their jaws and fold their hands together to listen to her like a line of newly spanked, newly obedient puppies. Especially Minhyuk, who’d laughed the hardest in the beginning and later looked the guiltiest.
“I like her,” Minhyuk says after the cameras have left. “But that kimchi was a little. . .”
Jonghyun dumps the bowls unceremoniously in the sink. “I’ll eat the rest if you won’t.”
Minhyuk looks surprised, and then less surprised. “Hyung, do you-“ he starts deviously but, at the expression on Jonghyun’s face, doesn’t finish.
-
“I still remember when you gave me that ringtone,” Jonghyun says. They’re lying on Yonghwa’s bed, immobile after the show. Jungshin’s already fallen asleep; Minhyuk’s halfway there. Jonghyun is too giddy with adrenaline to close his eyes, and he knows Yonghwa’s the same. It’s a rare night when no one messes up and nothing goes wrong. Across the stage they’d made eye contact and known-I’m gonna remember this.
“I was trying to cheer you up,” Yonghwa flashes him a self-congratulatory grin. “Subtly.”
“It worked. I listened to it on a loop on the plane.”
“I thought you fell asleep.”
Jonghyun thinks. “Oh yeah. But I woke up singing lyrics I didn’t even know.”
“I could be the one to take you home,” Yonghwa sings, but it comes out as a croak. Jonghyun laughs.
“I can feel you laughing through the mattress,” Yonghwa says. “What the hell.”
“It’s like we’re the same person,” Jonghyun says. “I get Seohyun on the weekends.”
Jonghyun has no idea why he just said what he said.
When he looks over, he sees that Yonghwa has his eyes closed and is gently breathing through his mouth. His hair is matted on his forehead from the ski hats they wore on the way back to the van, clumped together with sweat and grease, and his lower lip quivers almost imperceptibly with every shallow exhale. It’s then that Jonghyun has an idea, a crazy idea, something he’d never ever thought of before but suddenly seems to make sense at that time of night, energy levels depleted and self-consciousness at an ultimate low. He thinks Minhyuk is wrong, it was never Seohyun, it’s always been-been this person right in front of him right now, the jam sessions, the shared mp3s, the headnods and humming and tapping out melodies audible to only the two of them. The exchanged looks. The fist pumps. The sweaty, charged high fives. Let’s kill ourselves. In a way, this whole time he’s been saying, I’ll kill myself for you guys. For you, for you. And especially you.
No way.
-
When it's too late, he realizes all over again that it's true, he never disliked her. It's just--he's always liked someone else.
-
Minhyuk comes over with about ten spring rolls. “This is so good,” he says with his mouth full. “I can’t feel my stomach right now.”
Jonghyun steals one off his plate. “Thanks, Minhyuk.”
Halfheartedly Minhyuk feigns disapproval. But it’s too happy of an occasion for him to persist, and his face breaks into a wide smile. “Hey, when are you going to sing?”
“In a little bit.” Jonghyun takes a bite. It really is good.
“You might want some water with that,” Jungshin says from his other side, having finished a conversation with the pretty girl next to him. One of Seohyun’s cousins on her father’s side. Jungshin’s in a white tux, hair long as ever and pulled back. They joked around, calling him a dove earlier.
Jonghyun downs his glass, but it’s actually champagne. It doesn’t hurt, he figures.
When they announce him, he walks up to the microphone without looking at either of newlywed couple. His shoes are stiff, fresh out of the box, never been worn. He leans into the mic and passes his eyes over the tables of unknown relatives and friends before fixing them on Seohyun, and then Yonghwa. “I’d like to sing a song for my best friend,” he announces as boldly as he’ll ever, “and his beautiful bride.”
The young girl at the piano stills her fingers, and a boy hands him his guitar.
-
I want to tell you carefully
I want to be brave
Can I love you from today?
-
He keeps his eyes on the back wall as he sings. He doesn’t see Seohyun drying her tears on the back of her white gloves, or Yonghwa quietly holding her other hand, jaw clenched, listening. He sees only the words to the song, printed clearly in his mind over any piece of residual sadness he could possibly feel on this wonderful day.
--
(ergh I am torn about this.) Thanks to tokyospine for her jongseohwa ost, which is where the last song is from! According to Ashley, Jonghyun sang this to them on WGM! I can't find the ep right now but it must have happened. This was originally supposed to go with a higher-rated Jonghwa piece but I realized it didn't fit, like, at all. A lot of references to canon that I hope make sense @_@
another variation of Jonghyun/Yonghwa/Seohyun
PG
2000 words
ONE
Something Jonghyun remembers from before-before debut, before Japan, before the marriage:
The phone is ringing-“A Little Night Music,” one of her favorites-and Jonghyun turns over in his bed. His foot is cold, he notices then, because he must have toed off the sock in his sleep. His hand finds the phone face down beside the pillow.
“Hyung.”
“Jonghyunnie, you’re not still sleeping.”
Jonghyun clears his throat and uses his free hand to comb through his hair, now greasing after two days of not shampooing.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” comes Yonghwa’s voice, unusually gentle. “You need to be packing.”
From the window Jonghyun hears a car driving a pothole, a sound echoed in the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Outside,” Yonghwa says, as though reading his mind. “Get your ass down here. We’re going out.”
“I need to pack,” Jonghyun says.
“I’ll help you later. C’mon, get dressed.”
Jonghyun is downstairs in less than a minute, in a cap and his go-to hoodie for the past week. The streetlamps are harsh on his sleep-filled eyes. He squints at Yonghwa through the blaze of yellow and orange.
“How long have you been wearing this same outfit?”
Jonghyun shrugs. “A couple of days.”
“The fans are going to call you ‘dirty oppa,’” Yonghwa says.
“What fans?” Jonghyun’s sudden grin surprises Yonghwa. He’s relieved.
“There’s gonna be a ton of them.” Yonghwa folds his arms behind his head. “Screaming.”
“That’d be cool,” Jonghyun says, more awake now. “Where’re we going?”
They end up at the 24/7 restaurant five blocks down. The ajusshi there likes Jonghyun a lot because he doesn’t talk much. “Kid’s got an honest face,” he said the last time they went with Minhyuk and Kwangjin. Jonghyun said thanks, and deepened his slouch. Yonghwa made fun of his reaction for a week.
“You’re popular,” Yonghwa says when they’re seated. Jonghyun leans his head against the window, the glass chilly against his cheek. He shrugs.
“Hey, don’t think about it so much.”
“I know.”
Yonghwa examines him, the shaggy-haired boy in front of him who looks as though he’s about to shrink into himself. The cute waitress delivers two soju bottles to their table, and Yonghwa cracks one open for Jonghyun first. “Why are you-“ Jonghyun starts laughing. “You don’t have to act like this.”
Yonghwa looks embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
They drink in silence.
The second round loosens them. Jonghyun’s lower lip goes numb the way it does when he feels the alcohol working his insides. He doesn’t drink much, so it happens faster than for Yonghwa. He gets sleepy and smiles more readily. Everything is funnier. He feels good.
Jonghyun is mid-laughter when Yonghwa sets his bottle down on the table and says, “It must’ve been hard for you. I know how much you liked her.”
Celine Dion starts playing. Ajusshi has a rather refined taste in music.
Jonghyun takes another swig before nodding. He moves his attention towards the window, at the increasingly drunk people walking past them. Or maybe it’s him who’s getting drunker.
“It would’ve been harder for her to wait for you while we’re in Japan. While you’re living out your dream, and she’s still here. I think waiting is worse.”
A little boy bends down to tie his shoe. His mother waits impatiently and reaches down to slap his bottom. Jonghyun’s cheeks are itching. He’s halfway between a grin and a good cry. He hasn’t cried since his mom dropped him off at the airport.
“You did the right thing. You’ll both find someone else. And, honestly, I mean we really don’t know, but maybe you’ll get back together in the future. After all this is over.”
Yonghwa is doing his best. “Yeah. Thanks,” Jonghyun says, meeting his eyes briefly.
“C’mon.” Yonghwa reaches over to give him a hearty slap on the back. “Finish your drink.”
The streets are comfortably darker, but they still can’t see the stars. Yonghwa slings an arm over Jonghyun’s shoulder, his other arm swinging the plastic bag holding their leftovers. Jonghyun feels lighter now, and ready for a shower. He opens his mouth to say so just as Yonghwa turns his head to look at him.
“’When I was young,’” Yonghwa starts.
It takes Jonghyun only a second. “. . . ‘I never needed anyone.’”
“’And making love was just for fun.’”
“’Those days . . . are gone.’”
“Not for us,” Yonghwa corrects. “They’re just beginning.”
“Playboy,” Jonghyun says in perfect English, and they wait until they duck into their building to start laughing.
They stay up to pack. Yonghwa helps him massage t-shirts into the suitcase, careful like he’s kneading dough. The bags under his eyes could almost speak. “Cut me some cucumbers,” Yonghwa demands. Everything that could be stuffed has been. There wasn’t much, though. Jonghyun wasn’t planning on taking anything he doesn’t need.
Jonghyun makes a motion for the kitchen, but Yonghwa’s already fiddling with his phone, request forgotten. “I heard a really good song yesterday,” Yonghwa says, flicking the volume up.
Jonghyun sits back down on the couch and listens. He doesn’t understand the lyrics that Yonghwa’s singing along to, mostly in made-up English with the occasional refrain belted with more confidence. It’s not completely melodic, not rap either. He nods along.
We could be the talk across the town.
“I’ll send it to you as a ringtone,” Yonghwa says. “You can use it when we get our Japanese phones.”
“I like this,” Jonghyun says. “Thanks.”
He falls asleep on the plane, over Minhyuk’s shoulder, and doesn’t dream of her at all.
TWO
Three years later Seohyun comes into the picture, and nothing really changes, except Yonghwa is giddier and sleeps less, but he was already sleeping less. He eats more.
“I’m getting fat,” Yonghwa says, massaging his chin in the handheld mirror they keep by the couch. It belongs to Minhyuk or something but has since become communal property.
“It’s a sign of happiness,” Jungshin calls from the bathroom.
Yonghwa sets the mirror down. “How can he hear me?”
“Your happiness is too loud,” Jungshin yells.
Jonghyun shrugs. Does being happy really make you fat? Then why has he stayed the same? He looks at Yonghwa, expecting an answer for his unasked question.
Naturally, Yonghwa doesn’t look back.
-
WGM means more screen time for all of them, and more than once he’s been asked what he thinks of his sister-in-law.
“She’s very . . . good,” he says after a pause. “She’s good for him, probably.”
Jungshin glances at him as though asking What kind of a lukewarm response is that? But the reporter seems satisfied, having moved on to Minhyuk already. She’s wearing a dark lipstick, some of which has come off on her front teeth.
That would never happen to Seohyun, Jonghyun thinks. He wonders why he thought it.
-
He doesn’t dislike her, although her initial presence confused him. He’d found her incredibly, accidentally funny. He had never met anyone so sincere, and neither had the others. In the beginning everything she said was wild, but the wildest was the way she smiled and nodded along while they were laughing at her, not comprehending what was so funny. It was the kind of reaction that naturally commanded a level of sobriety. They would close their jaws and fold their hands together to listen to her like a line of newly spanked, newly obedient puppies. Especially Minhyuk, who’d laughed the hardest in the beginning and later looked the guiltiest.
“I like her,” Minhyuk says after the cameras have left. “But that kimchi was a little. . .”
Jonghyun dumps the bowls unceremoniously in the sink. “I’ll eat the rest if you won’t.”
Minhyuk looks surprised, and then less surprised. “Hyung, do you-“ he starts deviously but, at the expression on Jonghyun’s face, doesn’t finish.
-
“I still remember when you gave me that ringtone,” Jonghyun says. They’re lying on Yonghwa’s bed, immobile after the show. Jungshin’s already fallen asleep; Minhyuk’s halfway there. Jonghyun is too giddy with adrenaline to close his eyes, and he knows Yonghwa’s the same. It’s a rare night when no one messes up and nothing goes wrong. Across the stage they’d made eye contact and known-I’m gonna remember this.
“I was trying to cheer you up,” Yonghwa flashes him a self-congratulatory grin. “Subtly.”
“It worked. I listened to it on a loop on the plane.”
“I thought you fell asleep.”
Jonghyun thinks. “Oh yeah. But I woke up singing lyrics I didn’t even know.”
“I could be the one to take you home,” Yonghwa sings, but it comes out as a croak. Jonghyun laughs.
“I can feel you laughing through the mattress,” Yonghwa says. “What the hell.”
“It’s like we’re the same person,” Jonghyun says. “I get Seohyun on the weekends.”
Jonghyun has no idea why he just said what he said.
When he looks over, he sees that Yonghwa has his eyes closed and is gently breathing through his mouth. His hair is matted on his forehead from the ski hats they wore on the way back to the van, clumped together with sweat and grease, and his lower lip quivers almost imperceptibly with every shallow exhale. It’s then that Jonghyun has an idea, a crazy idea, something he’d never ever thought of before but suddenly seems to make sense at that time of night, energy levels depleted and self-consciousness at an ultimate low. He thinks Minhyuk is wrong, it was never Seohyun, it’s always been-been this person right in front of him right now, the jam sessions, the shared mp3s, the headnods and humming and tapping out melodies audible to only the two of them. The exchanged looks. The fist pumps. The sweaty, charged high fives. Let’s kill ourselves. In a way, this whole time he’s been saying, I’ll kill myself for you guys. For you, for you. And especially you.
No way.
-
When it's too late, he realizes all over again that it's true, he never disliked her. It's just--he's always liked someone else.
-
Minhyuk comes over with about ten spring rolls. “This is so good,” he says with his mouth full. “I can’t feel my stomach right now.”
Jonghyun steals one off his plate. “Thanks, Minhyuk.”
Halfheartedly Minhyuk feigns disapproval. But it’s too happy of an occasion for him to persist, and his face breaks into a wide smile. “Hey, when are you going to sing?”
“In a little bit.” Jonghyun takes a bite. It really is good.
“You might want some water with that,” Jungshin says from his other side, having finished a conversation with the pretty girl next to him. One of Seohyun’s cousins on her father’s side. Jungshin’s in a white tux, hair long as ever and pulled back. They joked around, calling him a dove earlier.
Jonghyun downs his glass, but it’s actually champagne. It doesn’t hurt, he figures.
When they announce him, he walks up to the microphone without looking at either of newlywed couple. His shoes are stiff, fresh out of the box, never been worn. He leans into the mic and passes his eyes over the tables of unknown relatives and friends before fixing them on Seohyun, and then Yonghwa. “I’d like to sing a song for my best friend,” he announces as boldly as he’ll ever, “and his beautiful bride.”
The young girl at the piano stills her fingers, and a boy hands him his guitar.
-
I want to tell you carefully
I want to be brave
Can I love you from today?
-
He keeps his eyes on the back wall as he sings. He doesn’t see Seohyun drying her tears on the back of her white gloves, or Yonghwa quietly holding her other hand, jaw clenched, listening. He sees only the words to the song, printed clearly in his mind over any piece of residual sadness he could possibly feel on this wonderful day.
--
(ergh I am torn about this.) Thanks to tokyospine for her jongseohwa ost, which is where the last song is from! According to Ashley, Jonghyun sang this to them on WGM! I can't find the ep right now but it must have happened. This was originally supposed to go with a higher-rated Jonghwa piece but I realized it didn't fit, like, at all. A lot of references to canon that I hope make sense @_@