The Beacon; My Siren - Chap 6
Title: The Beacon; My Siren
Author: wild_terrain (ie.
fi_chan )
Special Banner (Made beautifully by:
love_cassiopeia )
Chapter: [06 / ?]
Rating: MA15+
Genre: AU [FLANGST, mystery, spirituality, romance]
Summary:
Philophobia… The fear of falling in love or being in love. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I met him… Kim JaeJoong was my age-a youthful 25 years-and the owner of a popular café, yet he was already known around town as the mysterious hermit who had chosen to completely withdraw from the world. How on earth could someone so young be afraid of loving others to the point of secluding themselves from all human beings? What was he afraid of? What was he hiding? I just didn’t understand it. And by that stage, the need to understand it was all I could think about... In fact, he was all I could think about…
Jung Yunho… For all of my life I had grown up away from the limelight. I couldn’t stand being noticed by anybody, and for a long time I thankfully never was. But then you came and suddenly you were everywhere - waving to me as I swept the café after closing, saying hello to me as you cycled past the bench I was sitting on, helping me carry my groceries inside whilst talking non-stop to me as if we were actually friends… Why are you always around making my heart thump erratically? Why do you even care? The more you try to explore this town, the more I need to step up and protect you from your own curiosity, because I know It is out there and I know It wants to harm you…
Trailer: CLICK TO WATCH~~
BETA = moon1084 <3
A/N: HERE IT IS!! I am so sorry in the delay! But most of you are aware of how I had to rewrite it from scratch. Plus, I wasn't home for the whole of last weekend so...I was stuck unable to update. T_T
“You ready to go, mate?”
I turned my head slightly to glance at my best friend. His chest was still moving a little irregularly as he tried to finish catching his breath. His face was shining ever so slightly in the moonlight from the layer of sweat coating it, and I had a feeling that I was in a similar state.
The two of us had been out doing our daily routine of jogging in the evening despite the warm air that still lingered, the air growing more and more unbearable as the heat produced by our moving bodies mingled with it. The extra heat would have been fantastic had we been trying to jog around Antarctica. Sadly, we were in a beach town where icebergs didn’t exist. But that’s always the case, isn’t it? When you’re freezing beneath a big coat during the middle of winter and a big gush of wind blows in your face, it almost chills your nuts off. Yet, when you are sweating your skin off in the middle of summer and are desperate to feel one of those chilly breezes, the only breeze you get is a warm one that almost suffocates you. We never get what we want. C’est la vie.
“You know what?” I began, looking away from Junsu until my gaze caught the strong yellow glow coming out from the windows of Café JaDe, “I think I wanna do another circuit. Had too many cookies today, after all. But hey, you look like you’re ready to retire so I’ll meet you back home, yeh?”
He nodded in agreement and pushed himself off the wooden fence we were using as a bench. “Have fun.”
I smirked and waved as he bounded off down the road, disappearing completely into the darkness.
Glancing back at the glowing café sitting in the distance on my right, I almost let out a smile as the familiar silhouette of Kim JaeJoong blocked out some of the glow. From the looks of things he was stacking the chairs above the tables so that he’d have no obstacles to deal with when he swept the floor clean. Either Junsu and I had been jogging earlier than normal or JaeJoong’s normal routine had been delayed because whenever I found myself watching him from this seat, he was always up to the sweeping process already.
“May as well pop in and see if he needs a hand…” I murmured to myself, perhaps as a confidence booster.
After a quick scratch of my knee I slid myself off the bench and started making my way over to the familiar café. By the time I reached the front glass paneling I could see JaeJoong still working on flipping the chairs up onto the table with his back to me. He wasn’t wearing the white chef’s uniform anymore, now covered head to toe in black casual clothes - a black t-shirt, black cargo pants and black slippers.
I felt my eyes going a little cross-eyed as I read the small rectangular sign hanging on the door just below my line of vision. It was white with thick red lettering reading: CLOSED.
Heh. Yeah right. Closed, shmosed.
Taking a long inhale of breath I lifted my hand up preparing to rap my knuckles against the glass door. At the very last second, before I could make a sound, I pulled my hand back in a hurry. I hadn’t thought to check the state of myself! I probably smelt like a dumpster after all of that jogging!
With a slight grimace I glanced down at my blue wife-beater to check for any sweat marks. There were a few damp spots on the middle of my chest, but it thankfully didn’t look so bad. A quick sniff under each armpit likewise told me that I was in the clear. I didn’t smell like I was slowly rotting from the inside. Deodorant - a man’s best friend.
With a more confident stance and frame of mine, I lifted my hand up again to knock properly on the door. Through the window I could see JaeJoong’s tall body jolt upwards slightly from the surprise of hearing the sudden set of knocks pierce through the air. I was given a wary glance from the café owner for a moment before I was deemed worthy of letting inside.
I smiled victoriously out at JaeJoong through the glass window and waved a little. He didn’t smile back but he did unlock the door for me - always a good sign. However, it was only opened up far enough for him to be able to stick his head through the gap.
“Yo!” I greeted, still grinning.
“Hi.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I don’t suppose a poor dehydrating fellow like me could get a glass of water? I’ve been out jogging,” I pointed out, in case the sweat stains on my top weren’t enough of a sign, “and I sort of forgot to bring my own water bottle with me. Stupid, I know.”
“Yeah sure. Come in…”
He stepped back and pulled the door completely open for me.
“Thank you!” I wailed, jumping up onto the raised level of the café’s flooring. Before I could take another step further into the café, I quickly bent down to untie my shoelaces and slip my sneakers off, resting them against the edge of the wall that met the wooden doorframe. “I hope you don’t mind me keeping my shoes here indoors. If I leave them outside I might end up like Cinderella!”
“Cinderella?”
Straightening up I let my eyebrows fly up in a silent complaint at the café owner’s lack of understanding. “You don’t know the Cinderella fairytale?”
A slow shake of his head.
“Ah, that’s alright,” I decided. “Come to think of it, the only reason why I know about it is because I have a younger sister! It’s a fairytale that originated from…Greece or Egypt or somewhere like that. It’s a Disney movie too. There’s this girl, Cinderella, and she’s sort of this slave for her evil stepmother and sisters. They make her clean everything and do their chores for them. She’s sort of isolated and dressed in rags and things. But then there is this ball in her town and she wants to go but she hasn’t finished the cleaning and well, she’s wearing rags so she’d sort of stand out for all the wrong reasons if she went.
“Anyways, then this crazy fairy woman comes along and waves her wand around and taa daa, Cinderella has a pretty dress and shoes and all of that. The only thing is, the magic will run out at midnight. So as soon as midnight comes along she runs like hell out of the ballroom because she doesn’t want everyone to realize she’s just some useless maid in rags. You see, she’d been dancing with the prince all night so it would really suck if he found out she wasn’t actually telling the truth about herself. But she had pretty shit co-ordination or something when she was running away from the ballroom coz she tripped on some stairs and lost a shoe. The prince wasn’t ready to give up the nice piece of ass he’d been dancing with so he chased her out and discovered that all he had left was her shoe. But he figured that he could use the shoe to figure out which women in town had the same size feet.”
I stopped my rambling as soon as the sight of JaeJoong’s face began to register in my head. He looked confused out of his mind, like he was one of those a nervous kid in class who would concentrate too much on what their teacher was saying in case he was called on to answer a question despite not having his hand up.
“Erm,” I continued on, chuckling a little in remorse. “Basically, what I meant before was that I didn’t want to have to walk home without any shoes on like Cinderella in case someone stole them. I mean, especially since there wouldn’t even be any nice girls to chase after me to try and find me.”
“Oh…” From the look on JaeJoong’s face he had slowly replayed my somewhat awful version of Cinderella in his head and somehow linked it to his satisfaction to my shoe explanation. “I understand now.”
Oh, that stupid rambling mind of mine. I could never tell when I’d said too much until the damage had already been done. It was a habit I hadn’t been able to break since primary school. You’d think I would have become immune to the embarrassment by now…
“Gee, how about that water?” I coughed out, hoping my cheeks hadn’t turned red. “Talking too much makes me thirsty…”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I’ll go get it for you.”
I watched as the softly spoken café owner walked over towards the kitchen doors, gracefully slipping out of sight behind them. It was only a moment before he reappeared with a small glass in hand, which he offered up to me without a word.
“Thanks!”
I gulped down most it and almost wanted to groan out loud from the pleasure of feeling the cool liquid slipping down through my body. Quenching thirst was always a pleasurable experience for me. Working hard for your water was rewarding. Of course, had I been living in some of the poorer areas of this country, or the world for that matter, I don’t think I would have quite had the same frame of mind…
“Ah, that was gooood. I can feel the power coming back,” I closed my eyes and grinned stupidly. When I reopened them I found JaeJoong still politely staring at me a few feet away, waiting for me to regain my sanity. “I can’t believe I forgot my water bottle,” I groaned, using the hand not currently gripping the cool glass to gently tap the side of my head in self-punishment. “I forget everything! My phone, my wallet, my passport, my sunglasses… Heck, back in the day I think once or twice I even forgot my school bag!”
JaeJoong nodded in sympathy, and I could have sworn there was the smallest curve of his lip.
“But enough about me,” I sighed. “There’s you! Kim JaeJoong!”
He looked a little startled as his eyes moved to gaze at the arm I had eagerly flung forward in order to point my index finger in his direction.
“I interrupted your nightly clean, didn’t I? I’m sorry about that. But hey, I’m not the type to accept anything for free. You gave me water, and now I offer up my cleaning services to you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand…?”
“Do you need help cleaning up tonight?”
“Oh, erm, no. I’ve just got to sweep and then I’m finished.”
I didn’t want to nod at his explanation and give away the fact that I already knew his cleaning routine, having watched him do the same old things every night. “Sweeping, huh? Let me help you! Although…” I faltered and felt my face inevitably scrunch up into a grimace. “I’m not the tidiest person on this planet. I drive my mother nuts with the amount of dust in my bedroom. It’s not like I don’t like things clean, it’s just that I don’t really notice it’s all that dirty, you know? Besides, I do try to clean up, but whenever I vacuum I somehow leave some areas untouched. My sister even calls me Mr. MAS - it stands for Mister Missed A Spot, which isn’t a very nice nickname when you think about it. On second thoughts though, I probably shouldn’t be scaring you off with my cleaning horror tales since I volunteered to sweep for you! I’m probably not as bad as I make myself out to be, honest…”
“You want to…sweep?” JaeJoong questioned in blatant disbelief, cutting right through all of my bullshit to get down to business.
“Yeah.” It was bizarre, but I was actually telling the truth. Normally I couldn’t think of anything more boring than cleaning up, but tonight I really wanted to give it a go. I wanted to rise to the challenge and help the quiet café owner whilst I was at it.
“Oh, okay. I’ll go get the erm…” he didn’t finish his sentence, slowly spinning around to retrieve the broom from its hiding place.
I grasped the top of the handle and quickly lifted the long stick out of JaeJoong’s hand before he could change his mind. “So is there any particular way you do this?”
”Um, normally I just sweep the dirt into the middle of the floor over there and then use a dust pan to dispose of the remaining pile.”
“Easy-peasy then,” I nodded, bending over to start pushing the long broom beneath the table closest to me. Feeling a little awkward at just being watched, I quickly opened my mouth to get the conversation rolling again. “So, JaeJoong-sshi. You run this place by yourself, right? And before that your grandmother ran it?”
He nodded.
“Wow. It’s really nice that you were able to take over that family business. My grandmother is a seamstress, so I guess there is no way I’d be able to take over for her.” I grimaced at the image of myself cooped up next to a sewing machine. Nope, it really didn’t fit my image at all. Apparently JaeJoong was thinking the same thing too, for a small smile popped up onto his face despite his best efforts to fight it.
Amazed that I had finally managed to make him smile like that, I quickly rummaged around my useless brain to try and come up with something else to say along the lines of sewing. If myself connected to sewing had been amusing for him then I wouldn’t want to stray off topic and lose that smile of his.
“When I was a kid I tried sewing, actually,” I admitted, smiling in spite of myself at the memory whilst I swept. “My grandmother used to let me have a go with her sewing machine every now and then. I could never really get the hang of it though. Sewing machines are pretty complicated! They are quite delicate and easy to turn into the devil. I hated that stupid little thingy that you had to threat stuff through coz I could never do it properly. God, what’s the name of that thingy? Bobber? No, that’s not right. Bobster? No, no, definitely not! Bob-something… You know what I mean though, right? That little gadget with holes everywhere?”
I looked up and saw JaeJoong’s blank face again. I guess that was a big fat no then.
“God, I wish I could remember what it was called! It’s gonna bug me all night now! Well, you had to thread stuff through that contraption thingy but it would never work unless you put the right amount of pressure on it. I could never do it! God, I hated that bobbin.” My eyes widened in disbelief as my last sentence echoed around the empty café. “BOBBIN!”
I saw JaeJoong jump a little at the corner of my eye at my sudden exclamation.
“It was called a bobbin! That friggen bobbin! Ergh! But yeah, as I was saying it was hard to thread stuff through it with the right pressure. And it’s not like I had shitty hand-coordination or anything! I could do some pretty tricky knots that I learnt when I was a boy scout so it was definitely the stupid bobbin’s fault and not mine!” I pushed down on the broom with a little too much force, causing the piece of wood to smack loudly against the table leg. “I guess it didn’t help that I had a lead foot… Coz you control a lot of the sewing through the pressure of the foot pedal. And well, I’d put way too much pressure on the pedal even when I was a kid and the machine would go ape-shit! It was like I’d fed it red cordial or something - it sewed like a crazy maniac, but then because of that the material would start lumping up in the wrong places and the finished product was a disaster! My grandmother used to almost cry! Of course she only let me practice on leftover scraps of material, but man, she loved that material regardless and it broke her heart whenever I accidentally butchered it!”
I looked up and immediately felt another gush of embarrassment as I saw the expression on JaeJoong’s face. He looked like he was about to have a stroke trying to keep up with my babbling.
“In summary, I’m not the sewing kind.”
“No,” JaeJoong slowly agreed. “No, you really aren’t.”
And then he smiled again for me. My gaze lingered on the small curve of his lips, relieved to see that the amusement was reaching his eyes. I didn’t like fake smiles. A fake smile on JaeJoong just wouldn’t seem right… After all, so far he had been always quite blunt with his emotion-or lack of emotion-so I’d feel uncomfortable if he now felt he needed to exhibit a polite façade in front of me.
“I guess I just suck at all activities starting with ‘S’. Sweeping… Sewing… Oh wait, I take it back! I’m good at skateboarding!” I nodded to myself with pride. Oh yeah, I was a good skateboarder, alright! “God, look at me,” I sighed, bowing my head to concentrate on the sweeping once more. “Yapping away without realizing when to stop again. Honestly, just nudge me if I get out of control again like that. There’s no need to be polite and sit through all of my nonsense storytelling.”
“It’s fine.”
”I’m not kidding.”
“I’m not kidding either. I don’t mind hearing your stories.”
“If you say so,” I sighed, moving over to the next table. “Enough about me though. What about you? Tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Eh? Like what?”
“You know, anything! How old are you? What are your hobbies? What is your favourite dish to cook? Why is everything so cheap here! It’s amazing that you give free cookies to kids - oh, and thanks for giving me that extra cookie this afternoon, by the way. And, well, why do you like Master Splinter over the other ninja turtles?”
“Ah… So many questions. Well, I’m twenty five years-old.”
“Me too!” I grinned, looking up from my sweeping in excitement. “Give me a high-five, man!”
JaeJoong looked a little startled that I had lifted my hand up in front of him so quickly.
”What? You’re going to leave me hanging here like a douche?”
I smiled when JaeJoong finally lifted his hand up to lightly tap his palm to mine. It was a very gentle movement, but a high-five nonetheless. I considered that a victory.
“Anyhoo, sorry for butting in. Do continue.”
“My hobbies? Well, I don’t actually have any…”
“Bullshit!” I laughed, pausing in my sweeping to gaze at his innocent face. “Everyone has hobbies - even you, my friend. What about the time I saw you in the park watching the kids playing soccer!”
“That counts?”
“Of course that counts!” I laughed again in amusement. “You like going out in the fresh air sometimes and sitting on the park bench for contemplation, right? That’s a hobby. A passive one, yes, but still a hobby.”
“Okay then. My hobby is sitting at the park. What was next? My cooking? Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a favourite dish that I like making either…”
I let out a sigh, still staring at him as I lazily held onto the broom with one hand. “Let me rephrase that question then. Just say that for some reason you had to have an operation on your mouth and a side effect from having that operation is that you’ll permanently lose all taste in your taste buds. Knowing that you’d never be able to really taste food again, what would your last meal be?”
JaeJoong’s face immediately scrunched up as he dived deep into serious contemplation. I had to bite back a chuckle as I watched him. He was really taking my scenario seriously. Note to self - JaeJoong doesn’t take food and cooking lightly.
“In that case…” he slowly began. “I think that I would make kimchi soup.”
“K-Kimchi soup?!” I almost lost my balance, thankful that I could lean against the broom for support. “That’s so common! Out of all the amazing dishes listed on your café menu you would chose kimchi soup as your last meal?!”
“Absolutely,” JaeJoong nodded. “The fact that it is common is probably why I’d choose it about everything else. Exotic dishes are really nice to eat, sure, but if you only occasionally ate them then you wouldn’t really miss them if you could never taste them again. Yet, if there was a meal that you always enjoyed eating since a child you would really crave the taste of it if you suddenly didn’t have access to it.”
“You really have a lot of time to think about these things, don’t you?” I drawled.
“Yup. But I guess that’s not the only reason why I’d choose kimchi soup. It’s sort of special to me… I ate it a lot in the past and so I guess the taste is something that is always comforting for me. No matter what stuff has happened I’ve always had the taste of that soup to rely on for comfort.”
“And there you were saying you didn’t have a favourite dish,” I teased, repositioning the broom to continue on with my sweeping. I didn’t want to keep staring at him in case he got self-conscious. I’d finally gotten JaeJoong talking to me out of his own free will and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of his fickle attitude.
“Mm. What was your next question? The pricing of the café?”
“You don’t have to answer all of the questions I listed off,” I smiled, shaking my head in amusement as I pushed the broom forward. “I was just giving examples. But to be honest, I’m kind of curious about that question in particular. You don’t seem to be making much of a profit…”
“No, not really… But food is important. It’s a necessity to living. Some people have a hard time trying to find food for survival so it’s a little wrong to put so much pricing on it.”
“Is that something your grandmother taught you?”
He nodded.
“Ahh. Thought so. Our grandparents grew up in much harder times so they’d be more sensitive to things like that compared to our generation.”
“Yeah. And we have a lot of regular elderly diners here - I don’t want their pensions to be wasted on just food, you know?”
“What about the kids? Why do you offer free cookies for them, if you don’t mind my curiosity?”
“Hmm…” He took a moment to think, his hands resting in the warm caverns of his pant’s pockets. “Kids above everyone else need a decent amount of food. They’re just starting to grow and have a lot of energy. Besides, I…kind of like watching kids when they smile.”
“You big softie,” I teased quietly, looking up from my sweeping to flash him a little smile. “But I must admit that I’m still a little surprised that you aren’t trying to make much of a profit. You can’t just keep on going through life just scraping up enough money for maintenance and groceries! What about school? What about your future family? You’re going to need enough money to support everyone.”
”It’s all irrelevant,” JaeJoong shrugged. “I was home schooled by my grandmother and then when she passed on I didn’t see the need to enroll in a public school. I’m perfectly happy where I am in this café. And family…” he sighed deeply and looked down at his black slippers. “I don’t want a family. I don’t want to get married.”
His statement shocked the repetitive sweeping motion right out of my muscles. “Are you kidding?! You, the guy whose hobby is to watch kids play, the guy who gives free cookies to small children, doesn’t want to make a family?!”
JaeJoong avoided my gaze, looking a little uncomfortable so I was left with no choice but to drop the matter and sweep it under the carpet. I’d touched a nerve somehow and I didn’t want to press any harder on it.
I bit down slightly on my lip and straightened back up. Lifting the broom until it stood by my side like a silent comrade, I leaned a little into it and glanced back at JaeJoong. “Hey, am I doing alright over here? With the sweeping I mean.”
“Of course,” JaeJoong shrugged, sliding his eyes across the floor until he finally looked back up at my face. “It’s just sweeping… There’s no real right or wrong method…”
“And you do this every day, eh? Why not hire a cleaner to do all of this stuff for you?”
“There’s no point, really. I kind of like doing it. It’s not like I have that much else to do anyway…”
“Ah, I see, I see.” I glanced over to the final two tables I needed to sweep under and almost pumped my fist in the air from relief.
“Um, I believe there was another question I had to answer… Master Splinter?”
“Oh!” I burst into laughter. “You really don’t need to answer that one! I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one.”
“No, it’s fine. No one has ever asked me why I liked Master Splinter before. I don’t really know why myself… The other turtles were really great as well and really strong, but Master Splinter really stuck out for me I guess. Probably because he was really wise and a really great, nurturing stepfather for them. I guess I wanted to be like him when I grew up because of it.”
“Wow.” I grinned over at him. “That is definitely thinking outside of the box! When I was a kid all I cared about was the action and justice.”
JaeJoong shook his head in disagreement. “No, no. I was the strange one for liking Master Splinter instead of the actual turtles.”
“It’s good to be different though. That’s what makes us individuals, yeah?”
“I suppose so…”
I carefully pushed the broom head over the wooden boards until the small pile of dirt I had collected was reunited with its fellow dirty friends in the middle of the room, as per JaeJoong’s instructions. “I. Am. FINISHED!” I exclaimed with pride, doing a little dance around the broom whilst I was at it.
“I’ll go get the dustbin,” JaeJoong smiled, walking back towards the main counter.
A strange purring near my leg interrupted my silly victory jig and I reached into my short’s pocket to retrieve my mobile phone. Junsu’s name was flashing across the screen and I was surprised he had even found enough reception to call.
“Yo?”
“Where the hell are you?!” Junsu hissed back.
“Me? Oh, I’m at Café JaDe.”
“Me and HyunAe were getting worried! We thought you had been attacked by wild bears or something!”
“Don’t be silly, Susu-ah! This is a beach town,” I chuckled.
“Hmph. What the hell are you even doing at the café? Isn’t it closed?”
“Well yeah, but I stopped in for some water after my jog.”
“Pfft, how typical of you! I can’t believe you forgot your water bottle on a night like this.”
“Hey! You could have helped me out a bit and checked before I left to see whether I’d brought it or not. You know what my forgetfulness is like!”
“I’m not your mother, Jung,” Junsu yawned.
“You’re not falling asleep on me are you?” I groaned. “I don’t have any keys with me! If you and HyunAe fall asleep I’ll be locked out all night!”
“I’m plumping up my pillows as we speak.”
“Stop! For the love of all things soccer, stop! I’m just about to leave anyway. Don’t fall asleep on me.”
“Hunh.”
It was the last sound my best friend uttered before the sharp dial tone broke into our conversation. His lack of farewell was clearly his way of saying ‘hurry the fuck up, you twat!’ I hadn’t even realized how much time I had spent in the café talking to JaeJoong. It really was getting a little late.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and let out a sigh.
“Your friend?” JaeJoong guessed, bent down a few meters in front of me to sweep up the small mound of dirt into the small plastic green pan.
“Yup. I better start heading back or I’ll be sleeping on the doormat.”
JaeJoong nodded, carrying the dirty pan over to the bin seated at the corner of the main counter and dumped the bits of dust and dirt into the liner.
I quickly darted back over to where my obedient shoes were waiting beside the front door and bent over to slip them on. By the time I’d straightened back up, JaeJoong had already tied the bin liner closed and was pulling it up over his shoulder to chuck outside. I opened the door for him and followed him out into the warm night air.
“Me and the gang were going to head over to the park again tomorrow morning before the sun gets too hot. We wanted to cycle again and get some more ice cream at Shim’s stand,” I paused in my explanation, trying to make out the delicate plains of his face through the shadow my body had placed over him.
“Maybe we’ll see you there?”
A nod from the shorter man. “Maybe.”
“Well, thanks again for the water. Good night!”
I quickly started jogging back up the street, only stopping to look back once I was half way. All the lights were off in the café. I guess JaeJoong was just as sleepy as Junsu without my realizing. Oh god, maybe it was my talking! Maybe I had given him a headache…
I felt my face scrunch up into a grimace as I flung my foot forward to keep jogging towards the unit. I really did hope that Junsu wouldn’t fall asleep on me. Junsu and HyunAe loved me, sure, but that love didn’t always transcend into getting out of bed to let me into the house once it was late. If I wasn’t careful I really would be using the doormat as a pillow.
Run, Yunho! Run like Cinderella!
///TBC///
A/N:Phew! Finally Yunjae are at a stage where I can finally include them in the chapters now, keke. Ehh, as some of you know this wasn’t the original chapter I wrote, but I’m fairly sure that I remembered the main gist of the huge dialogue. Hopefully I didn’t lose any of the ‘magic’ (so to speak) of the original one I wrote. *sigh*
Anddddd, as a bonus, I dug out my bro’s old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurines from his cupboard, brushed the dust off, and played around with them a bit next to my laptop. We’re talking official 1987 and 1990 figurines here (I am really feeling my youth slipping away now XD). Apparently my mum almost lost an arm and a leg trying to buy those figurines for my brother - she had to fight for them in a mob of determined mothers when the store opened before Christmas, LMAO!! The things mothers have to do…:P
These are the two special versions my brother has! How awesome is that!! Samurai Leonardo and fish-friendly Michelangelo!! (There are bite marks at the back of Michelangelo's mask..I dunno if I made those or my brother... But I have a feeling that was from me. I apparently chewed a lot of stuff when I was young - like my gran's necklaces. XD)
But erm, I got a bit too...passionate when playing with the figures so I ended up making Shredder have some bum fun with Captain Planet. It wasn't rape, peoples!! Deep down Captain Planet was enjoying it, I swear!!! T___T
(Sorry that the images are kind of dark... I couldn't be bothered changing the brightness and contrast in an actual graphics program.... ^^;;)
A different angle. It looks like Master Splinter has some eyebag issues... LMAO My bro was such a TMNT geek that he even had Leonardo carry case! Pretty hardcore...
And finally some dialogue, coz crack pics are oh-so-much fun to do. ^^;;
Actually, the really embarrassing thing was that my aunt was looking at photos on my laptop on the weekend and came across my TMNT snaps and was like "FIONA!!! That guy is bumming Captain Planet!! Was that...intentional?"
And I was like: .............yup. *small voice*
LOL! Damn, my perverted yaoi mind has been found out. ><
...YES, I am a idiot who plays with old figurines, but I do have real life friends, I swear. LOL!
Author: wild_terrain (ie.
fi_chan )
Special Banner (Made beautifully by:
love_cassiopeia )
Chapter: [06 / ?]
Rating: MA15+
Genre: AU [FLANGST, mystery, spirituality, romance]
Summary:
Philophobia… The fear of falling in love or being in love. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I met him… Kim JaeJoong was my age-a youthful 25 years-and the owner of a popular café, yet he was already known around town as the mysterious hermit who had chosen to completely withdraw from the world. How on earth could someone so young be afraid of loving others to the point of secluding themselves from all human beings? What was he afraid of? What was he hiding? I just didn’t understand it. And by that stage, the need to understand it was all I could think about... In fact, he was all I could think about…
Jung Yunho… For all of my life I had grown up away from the limelight. I couldn’t stand being noticed by anybody, and for a long time I thankfully never was. But then you came and suddenly you were everywhere - waving to me as I swept the café after closing, saying hello to me as you cycled past the bench I was sitting on, helping me carry my groceries inside whilst talking non-stop to me as if we were actually friends… Why are you always around making my heart thump erratically? Why do you even care? The more you try to explore this town, the more I need to step up and protect you from your own curiosity, because I know It is out there and I know It wants to harm you…
Trailer: CLICK TO WATCH~~
BETA = moon1084 <3
A/N: HERE IT IS!! I am so sorry in the delay! But most of you are aware of how I had to rewrite it from scratch. Plus, I wasn't home for the whole of last weekend so...I was stuck unable to update. T_T
“You ready to go, mate?”
I turned my head slightly to glance at my best friend. His chest was still moving a little irregularly as he tried to finish catching his breath. His face was shining ever so slightly in the moonlight from the layer of sweat coating it, and I had a feeling that I was in a similar state.
The two of us had been out doing our daily routine of jogging in the evening despite the warm air that still lingered, the air growing more and more unbearable as the heat produced by our moving bodies mingled with it. The extra heat would have been fantastic had we been trying to jog around Antarctica. Sadly, we were in a beach town where icebergs didn’t exist. But that’s always the case, isn’t it? When you’re freezing beneath a big coat during the middle of winter and a big gush of wind blows in your face, it almost chills your nuts off. Yet, when you are sweating your skin off in the middle of summer and are desperate to feel one of those chilly breezes, the only breeze you get is a warm one that almost suffocates you. We never get what we want. C’est la vie.
“You know what?” I began, looking away from Junsu until my gaze caught the strong yellow glow coming out from the windows of Café JaDe, “I think I wanna do another circuit. Had too many cookies today, after all. But hey, you look like you’re ready to retire so I’ll meet you back home, yeh?”
He nodded in agreement and pushed himself off the wooden fence we were using as a bench. “Have fun.”
I smirked and waved as he bounded off down the road, disappearing completely into the darkness.
Glancing back at the glowing café sitting in the distance on my right, I almost let out a smile as the familiar silhouette of Kim JaeJoong blocked out some of the glow. From the looks of things he was stacking the chairs above the tables so that he’d have no obstacles to deal with when he swept the floor clean. Either Junsu and I had been jogging earlier than normal or JaeJoong’s normal routine had been delayed because whenever I found myself watching him from this seat, he was always up to the sweeping process already.
“May as well pop in and see if he needs a hand…” I murmured to myself, perhaps as a confidence booster.
After a quick scratch of my knee I slid myself off the bench and started making my way over to the familiar café. By the time I reached the front glass paneling I could see JaeJoong still working on flipping the chairs up onto the table with his back to me. He wasn’t wearing the white chef’s uniform anymore, now covered head to toe in black casual clothes - a black t-shirt, black cargo pants and black slippers.
I felt my eyes going a little cross-eyed as I read the small rectangular sign hanging on the door just below my line of vision. It was white with thick red lettering reading: CLOSED.
Heh. Yeah right. Closed, shmosed.
Taking a long inhale of breath I lifted my hand up preparing to rap my knuckles against the glass door. At the very last second, before I could make a sound, I pulled my hand back in a hurry. I hadn’t thought to check the state of myself! I probably smelt like a dumpster after all of that jogging!
With a slight grimace I glanced down at my blue wife-beater to check for any sweat marks. There were a few damp spots on the middle of my chest, but it thankfully didn’t look so bad. A quick sniff under each armpit likewise told me that I was in the clear. I didn’t smell like I was slowly rotting from the inside. Deodorant - a man’s best friend.
With a more confident stance and frame of mine, I lifted my hand up again to knock properly on the door. Through the window I could see JaeJoong’s tall body jolt upwards slightly from the surprise of hearing the sudden set of knocks pierce through the air. I was given a wary glance from the café owner for a moment before I was deemed worthy of letting inside.
I smiled victoriously out at JaeJoong through the glass window and waved a little. He didn’t smile back but he did unlock the door for me - always a good sign. However, it was only opened up far enough for him to be able to stick his head through the gap.
“Yo!” I greeted, still grinning.
“Hi.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I don’t suppose a poor dehydrating fellow like me could get a glass of water? I’ve been out jogging,” I pointed out, in case the sweat stains on my top weren’t enough of a sign, “and I sort of forgot to bring my own water bottle with me. Stupid, I know.”
“Yeah sure. Come in…”
He stepped back and pulled the door completely open for me.
“Thank you!” I wailed, jumping up onto the raised level of the café’s flooring. Before I could take another step further into the café, I quickly bent down to untie my shoelaces and slip my sneakers off, resting them against the edge of the wall that met the wooden doorframe. “I hope you don’t mind me keeping my shoes here indoors. If I leave them outside I might end up like Cinderella!”
“Cinderella?”
Straightening up I let my eyebrows fly up in a silent complaint at the café owner’s lack of understanding. “You don’t know the Cinderella fairytale?”
A slow shake of his head.
“Ah, that’s alright,” I decided. “Come to think of it, the only reason why I know about it is because I have a younger sister! It’s a fairytale that originated from…Greece or Egypt or somewhere like that. It’s a Disney movie too. There’s this girl, Cinderella, and she’s sort of this slave for her evil stepmother and sisters. They make her clean everything and do their chores for them. She’s sort of isolated and dressed in rags and things. But then there is this ball in her town and she wants to go but she hasn’t finished the cleaning and well, she’s wearing rags so she’d sort of stand out for all the wrong reasons if she went.
“Anyways, then this crazy fairy woman comes along and waves her wand around and taa daa, Cinderella has a pretty dress and shoes and all of that. The only thing is, the magic will run out at midnight. So as soon as midnight comes along she runs like hell out of the ballroom because she doesn’t want everyone to realize she’s just some useless maid in rags. You see, she’d been dancing with the prince all night so it would really suck if he found out she wasn’t actually telling the truth about herself. But she had pretty shit co-ordination or something when she was running away from the ballroom coz she tripped on some stairs and lost a shoe. The prince wasn’t ready to give up the nice piece of ass he’d been dancing with so he chased her out and discovered that all he had left was her shoe. But he figured that he could use the shoe to figure out which women in town had the same size feet.”
I stopped my rambling as soon as the sight of JaeJoong’s face began to register in my head. He looked confused out of his mind, like he was one of those a nervous kid in class who would concentrate too much on what their teacher was saying in case he was called on to answer a question despite not having his hand up.
“Erm,” I continued on, chuckling a little in remorse. “Basically, what I meant before was that I didn’t want to have to walk home without any shoes on like Cinderella in case someone stole them. I mean, especially since there wouldn’t even be any nice girls to chase after me to try and find me.”
“Oh…” From the look on JaeJoong’s face he had slowly replayed my somewhat awful version of Cinderella in his head and somehow linked it to his satisfaction to my shoe explanation. “I understand now.”
Oh, that stupid rambling mind of mine. I could never tell when I’d said too much until the damage had already been done. It was a habit I hadn’t been able to break since primary school. You’d think I would have become immune to the embarrassment by now…
“Gee, how about that water?” I coughed out, hoping my cheeks hadn’t turned red. “Talking too much makes me thirsty…”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I’ll go get it for you.”
I watched as the softly spoken café owner walked over towards the kitchen doors, gracefully slipping out of sight behind them. It was only a moment before he reappeared with a small glass in hand, which he offered up to me without a word.
“Thanks!”
I gulped down most it and almost wanted to groan out loud from the pleasure of feeling the cool liquid slipping down through my body. Quenching thirst was always a pleasurable experience for me. Working hard for your water was rewarding. Of course, had I been living in some of the poorer areas of this country, or the world for that matter, I don’t think I would have quite had the same frame of mind…
“Ah, that was gooood. I can feel the power coming back,” I closed my eyes and grinned stupidly. When I reopened them I found JaeJoong still politely staring at me a few feet away, waiting for me to regain my sanity. “I can’t believe I forgot my water bottle,” I groaned, using the hand not currently gripping the cool glass to gently tap the side of my head in self-punishment. “I forget everything! My phone, my wallet, my passport, my sunglasses… Heck, back in the day I think once or twice I even forgot my school bag!”
JaeJoong nodded in sympathy, and I could have sworn there was the smallest curve of his lip.
“But enough about me,” I sighed. “There’s you! Kim JaeJoong!”
He looked a little startled as his eyes moved to gaze at the arm I had eagerly flung forward in order to point my index finger in his direction.
“I interrupted your nightly clean, didn’t I? I’m sorry about that. But hey, I’m not the type to accept anything for free. You gave me water, and now I offer up my cleaning services to you.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand…?”
“Do you need help cleaning up tonight?”
“Oh, erm, no. I’ve just got to sweep and then I’m finished.”
I didn’t want to nod at his explanation and give away the fact that I already knew his cleaning routine, having watched him do the same old things every night. “Sweeping, huh? Let me help you! Although…” I faltered and felt my face inevitably scrunch up into a grimace. “I’m not the tidiest person on this planet. I drive my mother nuts with the amount of dust in my bedroom. It’s not like I don’t like things clean, it’s just that I don’t really notice it’s all that dirty, you know? Besides, I do try to clean up, but whenever I vacuum I somehow leave some areas untouched. My sister even calls me Mr. MAS - it stands for Mister Missed A Spot, which isn’t a very nice nickname when you think about it. On second thoughts though, I probably shouldn’t be scaring you off with my cleaning horror tales since I volunteered to sweep for you! I’m probably not as bad as I make myself out to be, honest…”
“You want to…sweep?” JaeJoong questioned in blatant disbelief, cutting right through all of my bullshit to get down to business.
“Yeah.” It was bizarre, but I was actually telling the truth. Normally I couldn’t think of anything more boring than cleaning up, but tonight I really wanted to give it a go. I wanted to rise to the challenge and help the quiet café owner whilst I was at it.
“Oh, okay. I’ll go get the erm…” he didn’t finish his sentence, slowly spinning around to retrieve the broom from its hiding place.
I grasped the top of the handle and quickly lifted the long stick out of JaeJoong’s hand before he could change his mind. “So is there any particular way you do this?”
”Um, normally I just sweep the dirt into the middle of the floor over there and then use a dust pan to dispose of the remaining pile.”
“Easy-peasy then,” I nodded, bending over to start pushing the long broom beneath the table closest to me. Feeling a little awkward at just being watched, I quickly opened my mouth to get the conversation rolling again. “So, JaeJoong-sshi. You run this place by yourself, right? And before that your grandmother ran it?”
He nodded.
“Wow. It’s really nice that you were able to take over that family business. My grandmother is a seamstress, so I guess there is no way I’d be able to take over for her.” I grimaced at the image of myself cooped up next to a sewing machine. Nope, it really didn’t fit my image at all. Apparently JaeJoong was thinking the same thing too, for a small smile popped up onto his face despite his best efforts to fight it.
Amazed that I had finally managed to make him smile like that, I quickly rummaged around my useless brain to try and come up with something else to say along the lines of sewing. If myself connected to sewing had been amusing for him then I wouldn’t want to stray off topic and lose that smile of his.
“When I was a kid I tried sewing, actually,” I admitted, smiling in spite of myself at the memory whilst I swept. “My grandmother used to let me have a go with her sewing machine every now and then. I could never really get the hang of it though. Sewing machines are pretty complicated! They are quite delicate and easy to turn into the devil. I hated that stupid little thingy that you had to threat stuff through coz I could never do it properly. God, what’s the name of that thingy? Bobber? No, that’s not right. Bobster? No, no, definitely not! Bob-something… You know what I mean though, right? That little gadget with holes everywhere?”
I looked up and saw JaeJoong’s blank face again. I guess that was a big fat no then.
“God, I wish I could remember what it was called! It’s gonna bug me all night now! Well, you had to thread stuff through that contraption thingy but it would never work unless you put the right amount of pressure on it. I could never do it! God, I hated that bobbin.” My eyes widened in disbelief as my last sentence echoed around the empty café. “BOBBIN!”
I saw JaeJoong jump a little at the corner of my eye at my sudden exclamation.
“It was called a bobbin! That friggen bobbin! Ergh! But yeah, as I was saying it was hard to thread stuff through it with the right pressure. And it’s not like I had shitty hand-coordination or anything! I could do some pretty tricky knots that I learnt when I was a boy scout so it was definitely the stupid bobbin’s fault and not mine!” I pushed down on the broom with a little too much force, causing the piece of wood to smack loudly against the table leg. “I guess it didn’t help that I had a lead foot… Coz you control a lot of the sewing through the pressure of the foot pedal. And well, I’d put way too much pressure on the pedal even when I was a kid and the machine would go ape-shit! It was like I’d fed it red cordial or something - it sewed like a crazy maniac, but then because of that the material would start lumping up in the wrong places and the finished product was a disaster! My grandmother used to almost cry! Of course she only let me practice on leftover scraps of material, but man, she loved that material regardless and it broke her heart whenever I accidentally butchered it!”
I looked up and immediately felt another gush of embarrassment as I saw the expression on JaeJoong’s face. He looked like he was about to have a stroke trying to keep up with my babbling.
“In summary, I’m not the sewing kind.”
“No,” JaeJoong slowly agreed. “No, you really aren’t.”
And then he smiled again for me. My gaze lingered on the small curve of his lips, relieved to see that the amusement was reaching his eyes. I didn’t like fake smiles. A fake smile on JaeJoong just wouldn’t seem right… After all, so far he had been always quite blunt with his emotion-or lack of emotion-so I’d feel uncomfortable if he now felt he needed to exhibit a polite façade in front of me.
“I guess I just suck at all activities starting with ‘S’. Sweeping… Sewing… Oh wait, I take it back! I’m good at skateboarding!” I nodded to myself with pride. Oh yeah, I was a good skateboarder, alright! “God, look at me,” I sighed, bowing my head to concentrate on the sweeping once more. “Yapping away without realizing when to stop again. Honestly, just nudge me if I get out of control again like that. There’s no need to be polite and sit through all of my nonsense storytelling.”
“It’s fine.”
”I’m not kidding.”
“I’m not kidding either. I don’t mind hearing your stories.”
“If you say so,” I sighed, moving over to the next table. “Enough about me though. What about you? Tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Eh? Like what?”
“You know, anything! How old are you? What are your hobbies? What is your favourite dish to cook? Why is everything so cheap here! It’s amazing that you give free cookies to kids - oh, and thanks for giving me that extra cookie this afternoon, by the way. And, well, why do you like Master Splinter over the other ninja turtles?”
“Ah… So many questions. Well, I’m twenty five years-old.”
“Me too!” I grinned, looking up from my sweeping in excitement. “Give me a high-five, man!”
JaeJoong looked a little startled that I had lifted my hand up in front of him so quickly.
”What? You’re going to leave me hanging here like a douche?”
I smiled when JaeJoong finally lifted his hand up to lightly tap his palm to mine. It was a very gentle movement, but a high-five nonetheless. I considered that a victory.
“Anyhoo, sorry for butting in. Do continue.”
“My hobbies? Well, I don’t actually have any…”
“Bullshit!” I laughed, pausing in my sweeping to gaze at his innocent face. “Everyone has hobbies - even you, my friend. What about the time I saw you in the park watching the kids playing soccer!”
“That counts?”
“Of course that counts!” I laughed again in amusement. “You like going out in the fresh air sometimes and sitting on the park bench for contemplation, right? That’s a hobby. A passive one, yes, but still a hobby.”
“Okay then. My hobby is sitting at the park. What was next? My cooking? Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a favourite dish that I like making either…”
I let out a sigh, still staring at him as I lazily held onto the broom with one hand. “Let me rephrase that question then. Just say that for some reason you had to have an operation on your mouth and a side effect from having that operation is that you’ll permanently lose all taste in your taste buds. Knowing that you’d never be able to really taste food again, what would your last meal be?”
JaeJoong’s face immediately scrunched up as he dived deep into serious contemplation. I had to bite back a chuckle as I watched him. He was really taking my scenario seriously. Note to self - JaeJoong doesn’t take food and cooking lightly.
“In that case…” he slowly began. “I think that I would make kimchi soup.”
“K-Kimchi soup?!” I almost lost my balance, thankful that I could lean against the broom for support. “That’s so common! Out of all the amazing dishes listed on your café menu you would chose kimchi soup as your last meal?!”
“Absolutely,” JaeJoong nodded. “The fact that it is common is probably why I’d choose it about everything else. Exotic dishes are really nice to eat, sure, but if you only occasionally ate them then you wouldn’t really miss them if you could never taste them again. Yet, if there was a meal that you always enjoyed eating since a child you would really crave the taste of it if you suddenly didn’t have access to it.”
“You really have a lot of time to think about these things, don’t you?” I drawled.
“Yup. But I guess that’s not the only reason why I’d choose kimchi soup. It’s sort of special to me… I ate it a lot in the past and so I guess the taste is something that is always comforting for me. No matter what stuff has happened I’ve always had the taste of that soup to rely on for comfort.”
“And there you were saying you didn’t have a favourite dish,” I teased, repositioning the broom to continue on with my sweeping. I didn’t want to keep staring at him in case he got self-conscious. I’d finally gotten JaeJoong talking to me out of his own free will and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of his fickle attitude.
“Mm. What was your next question? The pricing of the café?”
“You don’t have to answer all of the questions I listed off,” I smiled, shaking my head in amusement as I pushed the broom forward. “I was just giving examples. But to be honest, I’m kind of curious about that question in particular. You don’t seem to be making much of a profit…”
“No, not really… But food is important. It’s a necessity to living. Some people have a hard time trying to find food for survival so it’s a little wrong to put so much pricing on it.”
“Is that something your grandmother taught you?”
He nodded.
“Ahh. Thought so. Our grandparents grew up in much harder times so they’d be more sensitive to things like that compared to our generation.”
“Yeah. And we have a lot of regular elderly diners here - I don’t want their pensions to be wasted on just food, you know?”
“What about the kids? Why do you offer free cookies for them, if you don’t mind my curiosity?”
“Hmm…” He took a moment to think, his hands resting in the warm caverns of his pant’s pockets. “Kids above everyone else need a decent amount of food. They’re just starting to grow and have a lot of energy. Besides, I…kind of like watching kids when they smile.”
“You big softie,” I teased quietly, looking up from my sweeping to flash him a little smile. “But I must admit that I’m still a little surprised that you aren’t trying to make much of a profit. You can’t just keep on going through life just scraping up enough money for maintenance and groceries! What about school? What about your future family? You’re going to need enough money to support everyone.”
”It’s all irrelevant,” JaeJoong shrugged. “I was home schooled by my grandmother and then when she passed on I didn’t see the need to enroll in a public school. I’m perfectly happy where I am in this café. And family…” he sighed deeply and looked down at his black slippers. “I don’t want a family. I don’t want to get married.”
His statement shocked the repetitive sweeping motion right out of my muscles. “Are you kidding?! You, the guy whose hobby is to watch kids play, the guy who gives free cookies to small children, doesn’t want to make a family?!”
JaeJoong avoided my gaze, looking a little uncomfortable so I was left with no choice but to drop the matter and sweep it under the carpet. I’d touched a nerve somehow and I didn’t want to press any harder on it.
I bit down slightly on my lip and straightened back up. Lifting the broom until it stood by my side like a silent comrade, I leaned a little into it and glanced back at JaeJoong. “Hey, am I doing alright over here? With the sweeping I mean.”
“Of course,” JaeJoong shrugged, sliding his eyes across the floor until he finally looked back up at my face. “It’s just sweeping… There’s no real right or wrong method…”
“And you do this every day, eh? Why not hire a cleaner to do all of this stuff for you?”
“There’s no point, really. I kind of like doing it. It’s not like I have that much else to do anyway…”
“Ah, I see, I see.” I glanced over to the final two tables I needed to sweep under and almost pumped my fist in the air from relief.
“Um, I believe there was another question I had to answer… Master Splinter?”
“Oh!” I burst into laughter. “You really don’t need to answer that one! I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one.”
“No, it’s fine. No one has ever asked me why I liked Master Splinter before. I don’t really know why myself… The other turtles were really great as well and really strong, but Master Splinter really stuck out for me I guess. Probably because he was really wise and a really great, nurturing stepfather for them. I guess I wanted to be like him when I grew up because of it.”
“Wow.” I grinned over at him. “That is definitely thinking outside of the box! When I was a kid all I cared about was the action and justice.”
JaeJoong shook his head in disagreement. “No, no. I was the strange one for liking Master Splinter instead of the actual turtles.”
“It’s good to be different though. That’s what makes us individuals, yeah?”
“I suppose so…”
I carefully pushed the broom head over the wooden boards until the small pile of dirt I had collected was reunited with its fellow dirty friends in the middle of the room, as per JaeJoong’s instructions. “I. Am. FINISHED!” I exclaimed with pride, doing a little dance around the broom whilst I was at it.
“I’ll go get the dustbin,” JaeJoong smiled, walking back towards the main counter.
A strange purring near my leg interrupted my silly victory jig and I reached into my short’s pocket to retrieve my mobile phone. Junsu’s name was flashing across the screen and I was surprised he had even found enough reception to call.
“Yo?”
“Where the hell are you?!” Junsu hissed back.
“Me? Oh, I’m at Café JaDe.”
“Me and HyunAe were getting worried! We thought you had been attacked by wild bears or something!”
“Don’t be silly, Susu-ah! This is a beach town,” I chuckled.
“Hmph. What the hell are you even doing at the café? Isn’t it closed?”
“Well yeah, but I stopped in for some water after my jog.”
“Pfft, how typical of you! I can’t believe you forgot your water bottle on a night like this.”
“Hey! You could have helped me out a bit and checked before I left to see whether I’d brought it or not. You know what my forgetfulness is like!”
“I’m not your mother, Jung,” Junsu yawned.
“You’re not falling asleep on me are you?” I groaned. “I don’t have any keys with me! If you and HyunAe fall asleep I’ll be locked out all night!”
“I’m plumping up my pillows as we speak.”
“Stop! For the love of all things soccer, stop! I’m just about to leave anyway. Don’t fall asleep on me.”
“Hunh.”
It was the last sound my best friend uttered before the sharp dial tone broke into our conversation. His lack of farewell was clearly his way of saying ‘hurry the fuck up, you twat!’ I hadn’t even realized how much time I had spent in the café talking to JaeJoong. It really was getting a little late.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and let out a sigh.
“Your friend?” JaeJoong guessed, bent down a few meters in front of me to sweep up the small mound of dirt into the small plastic green pan.
“Yup. I better start heading back or I’ll be sleeping on the doormat.”
JaeJoong nodded, carrying the dirty pan over to the bin seated at the corner of the main counter and dumped the bits of dust and dirt into the liner.
I quickly darted back over to where my obedient shoes were waiting beside the front door and bent over to slip them on. By the time I’d straightened back up, JaeJoong had already tied the bin liner closed and was pulling it up over his shoulder to chuck outside. I opened the door for him and followed him out into the warm night air.
“Me and the gang were going to head over to the park again tomorrow morning before the sun gets too hot. We wanted to cycle again and get some more ice cream at Shim’s stand,” I paused in my explanation, trying to make out the delicate plains of his face through the shadow my body had placed over him.
“Maybe we’ll see you there?”
A nod from the shorter man. “Maybe.”
“Well, thanks again for the water. Good night!”
I quickly started jogging back up the street, only stopping to look back once I was half way. All the lights were off in the café. I guess JaeJoong was just as sleepy as Junsu without my realizing. Oh god, maybe it was my talking! Maybe I had given him a headache…
I felt my face scrunch up into a grimace as I flung my foot forward to keep jogging towards the unit. I really did hope that Junsu wouldn’t fall asleep on me. Junsu and HyunAe loved me, sure, but that love didn’t always transcend into getting out of bed to let me into the house once it was late. If I wasn’t careful I really would be using the doormat as a pillow.
Run, Yunho! Run like Cinderella!
///TBC///
A/N:Phew! Finally Yunjae are at a stage where I can finally include them in the chapters now, keke. Ehh, as some of you know this wasn’t the original chapter I wrote, but I’m fairly sure that I remembered the main gist of the huge dialogue. Hopefully I didn’t lose any of the ‘magic’ (so to speak) of the original one I wrote. *sigh*
Anddddd, as a bonus, I dug out my bro’s old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurines from his cupboard, brushed the dust off, and played around with them a bit next to my laptop. We’re talking official 1987 and 1990 figurines here (I am really feeling my youth slipping away now XD). Apparently my mum almost lost an arm and a leg trying to buy those figurines for my brother - she had to fight for them in a mob of determined mothers when the store opened before Christmas, LMAO!! The things mothers have to do…:P
These are the two special versions my brother has! How awesome is that!! Samurai Leonardo and fish-friendly Michelangelo!! (There are bite marks at the back of Michelangelo's mask..I dunno if I made those or my brother... But I have a feeling that was from me. I apparently chewed a lot of stuff when I was young - like my gran's necklaces. XD)
But erm, I got a bit too...passionate when playing with the figures so I ended up making Shredder have some bum fun with Captain Planet. It wasn't rape, peoples!! Deep down Captain Planet was enjoying it, I swear!!! T___T
(Sorry that the images are kind of dark... I couldn't be bothered changing the brightness and contrast in an actual graphics program.... ^^;;)
A different angle. It looks like Master Splinter has some eyebag issues... LMAO My bro was such a TMNT geek that he even had Leonardo carry case! Pretty hardcore...
And finally some dialogue, coz crack pics are oh-so-much fun to do. ^^;;
Actually, the really embarrassing thing was that my aunt was looking at photos on my laptop on the weekend and came across my TMNT snaps and was like "FIONA!!! That guy is bumming Captain Planet!! Was that...intentional?"
And I was like: .............yup. *small voice*
LOL! Damn, my perverted yaoi mind has been found out. ><
...YES, I am a idiot who plays with old figurines, but I do have real life friends, I swear. LOL!