The Beacon; My Siren - Chap 7
Title: The Beacon; My Siren
Author: wild_terrain (ie.
fi_chan )
Special Banner (Made beautifully by:
love_cassiopeia )
Chapter: [07 / ?]
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 we go my lovelies! I hope you enjoy. This is the last chapter of just Yun's pov. >D
“Oppa, whatcha doing?”
My sister’s gentle curiosity lifted me out of the funk I had accidentally fallen into a few minutes ago.
We were all slurping on our ice creams once again, Junsu chatting behind me to the young man behind the counter, Shim Changmin, whilst I stared in front of me at the empty bench in the distance.
“Oh, nothing,” I lied, turning around the smile at HyunAe. “Just remembering how cute those kids were the other day when they were trying to play soccer.”
“I see. It’s a bummer they aren’t here today. The youngest one was so adorable!”
“Now now, Hyunnie,” I grinned. “You’re too young to have children. How about adopting a puppy?”
“Shuddap, Oppa,” she sighed, turning away from me in mock annoyance. It was at least another minute before she spoke again, turning her head until I was in her peripheral vision. “What kind of puppy?”
I laughed loudly, accidentally getting a dab of ice cream under my nose. Wiping it off with the back of my palm, I started wandering down the path without my bike until I was almost at the bench. As I looked around I was slightly disappointed to see no one I knew. Not that I knew a lot of people in town, but there was one person who I thought might have been here at least… After all, I’d invited him to meet up with us today and he had kind of agreed…sort of. I mean, his nod had to at least have been 25% genuine. That meant there was a quarter of a chance that he’d turn up!
Sitting my rump down on the edge of the seat, I spread my long legs out in a sort of manly splits and continued to bite down on the remaining piece of waffle cone in my hand.
I hadn’t actually given JaeJoong a proper time considering I, myself, had had no clue as to what time we’d all reach this point in the first place… I’d just said ‘in the morning’ which wasn’t really that helpful. It made perfect sense that JaeJoong wasn’t here - maybe he had already come and waited and we’d just missed each other. Or maybe he was on his way over right now?
HyunAe slowly walked over towards the bench once her ice cream was completely devoured and sat down next to me.
“Getting nostalgic?” she asked.
“Who, me?” I raised my eyebrows. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you looking around in every direction?”
“I like the view!”
“Okay… Whatever you say,” she murmured, slumping backwards against the wood.
“Besides…” I slowly began. “I told JaeJoong-sshi that we’d be here this morning if he wanted to hang with us.”
“Ah.”
“What’s with the ‘ah?’” I demanded.
“I should have known,” she smirked to herself.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been acting more and more like an eager puppy recently. And the only time you actually get like that is when you want to make friends with someone but it’s going too slowly. You get obsessed with becoming friends with one person until your mind is completely filled with strategies on how to meet up with them.”
“I do not do that!”
“You know you do!” she laughed. “Remember when Eunbi-unnie started working with you and Junsu-oppa? It was Eunbi this and Eunbi that all week. Then as soon as you started becoming friends you got over it and went back to normal. Now it’s JaeJoong-sshi you’ve got your sights locked onto.”
I chewed on the side of my lip in silence, pondering over what HyunAe had just observed. I didn’t realize I was always that obvious…
“I just feel a little pressured, is all…” I admitted.
“Do explain.”
“We’re only gonna be in this town for a little over a week. I really wanna get to know JaeJoong-sshi more but he’s so hard to crack, you know? I keep panicking that my time will be up before I even know his email address!”
“I understand,” she nodded thoughtfully. “I support your little obsession then. Go add JaeJoong-sshi to your collection. He sure looks like he could use a few friends…”
“I don’t have a ‘collection’,” I scoffed. “You make it sound like I don’t value friendship and only want to win the non-existent award of having the most phone numbers in my phone book!”
“I know you value friendship, Oppa,” HyunAe smiled over at me. “You like to act like a typical manly-man, getting your knees scrapped against rocks every spare minute of the day, but in the end you’re just a big pile of mush.”
“Is there a compliment somewhere in there?” I rolled my eyes, shoving my hands in my pant pockets.
“So… How long were you planning on waiting here? It doesn’t look like he’s coming…”
“Nope,” I agreed with resignation. “Guess we better carry on with the cycling before the sun gets too hot.”
“You read my mind. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can get to the beach again!”
“Yippee,” I drawled, trying to hide my smile at HyunAe’s blatant excitement. It was nice that she was so happy. I guess this big pile of mush was at least doing something right…
Hours later the sun had set, my nose and forehead had been sun burnt and I found myself once again staring into the bright windows of Café JaDe. I was by myself again, having seemingly annoyed Junsu with my suggestion to hang out at Café JaDe before our dinner. He’d declined my suggestion and headed back to the unit with a scowl on his face. The two of us hadn’t exactly fought over it, but Junsu had made the claim that my need to constantly try and talk to JaeJoong was starting to annoy him. He wanted to plan our next adventure already, find some time to go hiking in the bushy areas surrounding us - not wait for JaeJoong to act friendly towards me before I was motivated enough to finish exploring the surrounding area.
It wasn’t that Junsu was jealous of me trying to make friends with other people - he, himself, loved doing it too. He just believed that I was wasting my time trying to create a friendship with JaeJoong when I’d probably never really see him again once our trip was over. There were quite a few places left in this town to explore and he was determined to see everything before our time was up.
For once in our lives, our priorities weren’t matching. He was paranoid that we wouldn’t have enough time to explore all the places of this area… I was paranoid that there wasn’t enough time to get to know JaeJoong… I had no idea when our shared priorities had begun to shift, but there was no point sticking my head in the sand and denying that they had changed.
I was hoping that in the morning everything would blow over after a good night’s sleep and we’d be able to sort something out in the form of a compromise. But for now, whilst I was here outside the familiar café, I figured I may as well finish what I came here to do - see JaeJoong again.
Checking once more that I didn’t smell like rotting garbage after my afternoon jog, I stepped up to the glass door and knocked. The smaller man jumped a little at the sudden sound but didn’t seem all that surprised when he glanced in my direction. That was surely an improvement, right?
“Hey!” I grinned at him once he opened the door for me. “Nice evening, isn’t it!”
“You need water?” It sounded more like a presumption rather than a question; I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
“No, not tonight. I came prepared!” I held up the half-full bottle of water for him to see in order to prove my forgetfulness wasn’t a long-term problem.
“Oh. Then…?”
“I thought I’d stop by for a bit of a breather, if that’s okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
Happily slipping my sneakers off and leaving them beside the door I trotted further into the café and chose a seat. “Wow, this place looks so big when no one else is here!”
“Yeah. It does.”
I smiled up at JaeJoong as he slowly lowered himself down into the seat beside mine. “So, you weren’t at the park today.”
“The park…?” His face scrunched up slightly and I could practically see the cogs of his brain whirring away as he tried to recall what the park had to do with him. “Oh, I’m sorry… I was busy today…”
“It’s no sweat off my back,” I reassured. “Well, there’s plenty of sweat on my back, but not because of you.” He looked at me blankly and I couldn’t help but grin. “That was me trying to make a joke. Remember this awkwardness for the future, it will be inevitable that it will come up again the next time I try to be funny,” I wailed, burying my head behind my hands.
If it had been Junsu, Eunbi or HyunAe sitting next to me right now I would have felt an encouraging pat on the back, or even a string of words reflecting their full agreement. Being JaeJoong, he was still sitting there politely watching me when I next peeked through my fingers.
“Are you hungry?”
“Huh?” I was a little taken aback by the sudden question.
“I’ve got some spare cookies in the back if you wanted some…” he offered quietly.
“JaeJoong-sshi, what kind of satanic force just made you offer me something like that after I’ve been jogging?! My restraint powers are close to 3% of effectiveness so of course I’m going to accept such an offer without second thought! But then I’ll wake up the next morning and find that I’m up an extra bra size!”
He looked at me blankly again and I felt myself flushing in embarrassment. Why the hell had I dragged my man-boobs into it? Now I’d have to explain about the pattern my fats took and it would get so humiliating by the time I finished, and gahh!!
“When I put on weight it is always my chest area that cops it the most,” I sighed out. “My sister gets it in the bum, but I get it in my chest. Which is absolutely ridiculous because she would want to have a bigger chest, and I wouldn’t mind having a bigger bum as long as there was a reduction in my chest, but no, we never get what we wish for, and…” I faltered in my ranting, already feeling the harsh flakes of regret churning away inside my stomach from saying too much.
“Your chest looks fine.”
I felt my cheeks grow a little warmer at the sudden compliment and then our eyes caught. I couldn’t look away from him. It sounded ridiculous hearing it in my own head, but under the soft, yellow glow of the overhead lighting JaeJoong’s whole body looked fine as well.
“Boy, I’d love that cookie…” I gasped out, hurriedly breaking our eye contact. I didn’t know what had just happened and why I had suddenly felt my palms sweating, but I wanted it to stop. The emotion I felt within my chest was too strong; it alarmed me. I’d never really felt it before - the last time I could even recall it happening had been several years ago when I’d seen a pretty girl in the grade above mine smile at me.
Once JaeJoong had drifted up from his seat without a sound and wandered towards the kitchen doors, I dropped my forehead into my awaiting palm. My nose and eye rested against the gentle warmth radiating from the skin of my palm whilst my fingers curled slightly to press into my forehead. I tried to stop all thoughts from registering, too alarmed and unnerved to want to hear them anymore.
The sound of porcelain scraping against wood pulled me out from my silent reverie. I quickly sat back up and dropped my hand back down to rest on my lap as I gazed down at the familiar cookie in front of me.
”Are you alright?” I could hear JaeJoong’s soft voice questioning.
“Yeah, of course!” I put on a smile and reached over to pick up the warm cookie. “Mmmm! Heaven!” I murmured as soon as my teeth broke through the coffee-flavored snack.
“Thank you,” the petite café owner replied, looking down at the markings on the wooden tabletop with a small smile. “The melted chocolate went a little weird because it sort of froze in thicker lines inside the fridge but…”
“It all tastes the same,” I smiled.
“Yeah.”
“This is really nice of you,” I continued to garble through the party of delicious flavors bouncing all over my tongue. I quickly raised my hand up to try and cover up my mouth so that he couldn’t see the mayhem inside of it.
“You’re welcome. It would have gone to waste anyway…”
“Lies. I would have bought it tomorrow during lunch.”
JaeJoong shrugged, smiling a little again, perhaps at the thought of how silly it was that a grown man such as myself had such a weakness for cookies.
“Don’t you worry, though! I don’t accept anything for free. I’m definitely going to sing for my supper. I am yours for the evening; ask me anything you want.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, I grilled you last night for random details of your life. Fair is fair, I don’t mind answering anything on your mind.”
“I already know about you…” he admitted.
“Nah-ah,” I countered.
“I do,” he insisted softly. “You’re twenty five years-old. You work at a recreation centre and often go on school camping trips.”
I gaped at him, not even caring that I could feel a crumb of cookie hanging on for dear life under my bottom lip. “How did you know that?”
“Your sister told me,” he shrugged. “That day at the park when you were playing soccer. She wanted to explain why you were so good with young children. She’s really proud of you.”
“Oh…” I didn’t know what to say. To say that my cheeks were nice and warm at this stage would certainly be an understatement. “Yeah, we’re pretty close.”
“That’s nice. It’s good when siblings are close.”
I nodded, finally wiping away at the rebellious cookie crumb. “But still, there must be other things you want to know about? My hobbies? My number one goal in life, the duration of my stay in this town…?”
“Your hobbies are hiking, action sports, and above all: exploring. You want to be a renowned explorer when you grow up - not that you’re not grown up already, but you know what I mean. And you’re staying here for two weeks.”
I think my eyes must have surely been bulging out of my head at this point. I felt…exposed. And to be honest, a little freaked out. “How the hell did you know all that stuff?!”
“Well, Yoochun told me about the duration of your stay. Your hobbies were a good guess from your choice of employment, and as far as your goal in life…it was kind of obvious from your determination to explore the islands around here even though you had heard bad rumors about them. In fact, the danger of such places is probably alluring to you.”
“Wow.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re like a human wikipedia!”
“Wiki…pedia?” he repeated, his face scrunching up again.
“It’s an internet site,” I explained carefully. “It’s like a gigantic electronic encyclopedia where you can search for any information you want.”
“I’m an encyclopedia?”
“Well, no,” I laughed, “I just meant that if I mentioned any name of someone living in this town you’d be able to give me a whole list of things you had observed about them. That’s what you do, right? Observe people when they don’t realize it. You’re so quiet and that makes you more able to flit around and overhear snippets of conversation.”
It was his turn to stare at me with wide eyes.
“Hah!” I grinned, puffing my chest out a little bit in victory. “You’re not the only one that observes people. I’ve worked with a lot of kids in my job who all have a variety of differing personalities. From my experience it’s always the quiet ones that people foolishly underestimate. If they can’t contribute to the conversation, they use their eyes instead to lap everything up. Am I right?”
“I suppose…” he mumbled, looking back down at the table in what I guessed was self-consciousness.
At that moment I almost felt a bit of affection for him. Sometimes it could get annoying when people were so timid and overly sensitive because it clashed so much with my own personality, and yet when it was JaeJoong reacting that way it was kind of cute…
“You’ve been overseas, yes?” he suddenly asked, looking back up at me. “I remember you sister mentioning something about photos of snakes you had seen.”
“Oh yeh, I have. Only a few times, so far. Mostly Junsu and I stick to Korea. Our country is so beautiful, yeh? There are nice beaches, rivers, mountains, forests… Everything you could need! But even so, we do want to experience other countries as well. Our first overseas trip was to China. Then last year we went to Australia.”
“What did you do in those places?”
“Ah.” I grinned at him and wiggled my finger. “That’s for another time, my friend.” His eyes never left mine as I stood up from the table and dusted my hands on my shorts. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeh? Thanks for the cookie.”
“Oh… Bye then…” He looked a little started by my sudden announcement; as if he was worried he had done something wrong to scare me away.
“I’ve gotta get an early night,” I explained, feeling a little guilty after glimpsing his expression. “Junsu and I are going hiking tomorrow. We’re talking actual hiking. Heavy duty boots, a backpack full of first-aid and water, insect repellant, maps, compasses, flashlights, matches, whistles… The big guns, baby. You will never see me and Su getting lost in the wilderness. No sirree.”
“You’re missing one thing then…”
“Yeh? And what is that?”
“Modesty.”
“Very funny,” I pouted at him. “Confidence is important when you are hiking. The wilderness can be a pretty terrifying place if you’re not an expert and full of confidence.”
“Is HyunAe going with you two?”
“Hyunnie? Certainly not,” I declared, my hand automatically floating to rest on my hip. “Even if she wasn’t scared of snakes and wild terrains I wouldn’t let her go hiking. Especially not with us. Junsu and I, as you have most likely already figured out, like a bit of danger in our lives. The ways we hike would be much too dangerous for someone inexperienced like her.”
“So she’s not allowed to put herself in danger so that you don’t get worried, but you have the right to put yourself in danger? What about your sister! Wouldn’t she be worried if you’re gone all day?!”
I stared at JaeJoong in surprise. His voice was raised quite dramatically compared to the soft-spoken guy I often had trouble communicating with in the past. And what was worse was the hypocrisy that he was pointing out - it was true… I was a hypocrite and I hadn’t even realized it…
“We wouldn’t go if HyunAe didn’t want us to,” I slowly declared. “But she is used to us doing things like that. She trusts us. And besides, Junsu and I both have our phones with us if she needs to contact us.”
“It doesn’t matter if she trusts you or not!” JaeJoong insisted, standing up from his seat to directly look at me at almost perfect eye level. “Accidents happen! No matter how prepared you are things can go wrong! Freak accidents can occur! You can get hurt and have no way to get help! You… You could die!”
“C-Calm down, JaeJoong-sshi,” I stammered, taking a step back. Really, I had no idea where all this sudden paranoia was coming from, but it sure wasn’t pretty. “Junsu and I have done this so many times before, in much wilder areas. Of course accidents can happen, but we’re trained to know what to do if one does occur. It’ll be fine! I wouldn’t insist on going through with it if I thought there was a chance I would seriously put my life in danger. I’m not that stupid!”
He had nothing to say back at me, just stood there staring, keeping his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t counterattacking my argument though, so I figured he had accepted my explanation on some level.
“If you see HyunAe around, keep an eye on her, yeh?” I asked softly, backing up another step. “She promised she’d either stay in our unit, go for a short walk, or come to this café.”
“Yeh, I’ll look out for her,” he sighed out.
“Thank you. And just in case you need to contact me I’ll give you mine and Junsu’s mobile phone numbers, okay?”
He gave a brief nod before swiftly walking over to the main counter and retrieving a small pad and pen. As he walked back over to me, a clump of his shining black locks fell over his forehead and he instinctually brushed a strand of his hair behind his ears before handing the pad over to me. It was a pretty common occurrence, fighting with disobedient hair, and yet I sort of liked watching him do it.
I scribbled down the right combination of phone digits and passed the small pad back to him. Holding the pad up, small flecks of light reflected in his pupils as he cocked his head to briefly scan the two phone numbers I had written for him. His eyelashes were long and dark, their petite beauty almost completely overshadowed by his dark eyebrows. They were quite thick but not in an unflattering way. If anything, they made his face look even more angular and mysterious.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised, trying to break the silence. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll be careful. I know my limits, but even so I’ll be extra careful for Hyunnie’s sake.”
“Good.”
“See ya,” I dismissed awkwardly, squeezing my feet into my abandoned shoes.
I could feel his gaze on my back as I pulled the door open and stepped into the warm air. It was the last thing on my mind though. Instead, my head was completely occupied with thoughts on the dangers of hiking in unknown areas. JaeJoong had acted even stranger than usual when I’d even brought it up. I really was a confident hiker but the café owner’s paranoia was starting to rub off onto me too. After all, JaeJoong did seem to be a somewhat omniscient presence in this town - if anyone knew about the land it was him. Knowing that made it harder for me to shake away the thought that maybe he knew something about the flaws of the area that I didn’t…
///TBC///
A/N: In the next chapter JaeJoong’s POV begins, like many of you have been waiting for. ^_^
Actually, there’s something I wanna say whilst I’m on the topic. I know I don’t have to say it but I guess I want to say it anyway. To be honest, I’m sure many of you have noticed that I’ve sort of struggled to write recent chapters, particularly JaeJoong’s POV in the next chapter. I couldn’t understand why at first and then after a night of some serious self-reflection I came out of denial and realised that my own subconscious was/is blocking my creative flow lol.
Why? Well, in this fic JaeJoong struggles to open up to people and let himself grow attached to them. Likewise, I actually share the same problem. The reason for Jae’s reluctance to get close to people is commmmpletely different to my own problem (I've suffered from Social Phobia since my primary school days), but since the outcome is the same-self-afflicting social ostracizing-I found the whole situation a little too close to home. I didn’t want to open up old and current scars for myself. It sort of hurt too much to think about because in order to write Jae’s character properly I have to borrow from my own social shyness. I wasn’t ready to attack my own demons. I’m still not, when I think about it.
But I figured that I shouldn’t be paying money to see a psychologist every month just to AVOID my own demons when it comes down to it. I figure I can maybe sort of help my own demons get better by borrowing the strength of the characters in TB;MS or something silly like that lol.
I almost wanted to take a hiatus away from this until my personal demons were under control, but in the end I couldn’t handle the idea of leaving people hanging. So I will continue to update as frequently as I can, but as a warning I might be a little slow to update, depending on my emotions. ^^
So in summary: I really do apologise if Jae’s quietness is frustrating and that not a whole lot of Yunjae lovin’ has been happening yet. I’m doing my best to try and fix my effed up self at the same time as fixing Jae’s effed up self lol! It’s gonna take some time though, because emotional scars can be pretty crippling. YUNHO, HWAITING! KEEP CRACKING JAE! Hahah~
That is all! Thank you my lovelies for sticking with this fic despite the snail pace. :D <333
Author: wild_terrain (ie.
fi_chan )
Special Banner (Made beautifully by:
love_cassiopeia )
Chapter: [07 / ?]
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 we go my lovelies! I hope you enjoy. This is the last chapter of just Yun's pov. >D
“Oppa, whatcha doing?”
My sister’s gentle curiosity lifted me out of the funk I had accidentally fallen into a few minutes ago.
We were all slurping on our ice creams once again, Junsu chatting behind me to the young man behind the counter, Shim Changmin, whilst I stared in front of me at the empty bench in the distance.
“Oh, nothing,” I lied, turning around the smile at HyunAe. “Just remembering how cute those kids were the other day when they were trying to play soccer.”
“I see. It’s a bummer they aren’t here today. The youngest one was so adorable!”
“Now now, Hyunnie,” I grinned. “You’re too young to have children. How about adopting a puppy?”
“Shuddap, Oppa,” she sighed, turning away from me in mock annoyance. It was at least another minute before she spoke again, turning her head until I was in her peripheral vision. “What kind of puppy?”
I laughed loudly, accidentally getting a dab of ice cream under my nose. Wiping it off with the back of my palm, I started wandering down the path without my bike until I was almost at the bench. As I looked around I was slightly disappointed to see no one I knew. Not that I knew a lot of people in town, but there was one person who I thought might have been here at least… After all, I’d invited him to meet up with us today and he had kind of agreed…sort of. I mean, his nod had to at least have been 25% genuine. That meant there was a quarter of a chance that he’d turn up!
Sitting my rump down on the edge of the seat, I spread my long legs out in a sort of manly splits and continued to bite down on the remaining piece of waffle cone in my hand.
I hadn’t actually given JaeJoong a proper time considering I, myself, had had no clue as to what time we’d all reach this point in the first place… I’d just said ‘in the morning’ which wasn’t really that helpful. It made perfect sense that JaeJoong wasn’t here - maybe he had already come and waited and we’d just missed each other. Or maybe he was on his way over right now?
HyunAe slowly walked over towards the bench once her ice cream was completely devoured and sat down next to me.
“Getting nostalgic?” she asked.
“Who, me?” I raised my eyebrows. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you looking around in every direction?”
“I like the view!”
“Okay… Whatever you say,” she murmured, slumping backwards against the wood.
“Besides…” I slowly began. “I told JaeJoong-sshi that we’d be here this morning if he wanted to hang with us.”
“Ah.”
“What’s with the ‘ah?’” I demanded.
“I should have known,” she smirked to herself.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been acting more and more like an eager puppy recently. And the only time you actually get like that is when you want to make friends with someone but it’s going too slowly. You get obsessed with becoming friends with one person until your mind is completely filled with strategies on how to meet up with them.”
“I do not do that!”
“You know you do!” she laughed. “Remember when Eunbi-unnie started working with you and Junsu-oppa? It was Eunbi this and Eunbi that all week. Then as soon as you started becoming friends you got over it and went back to normal. Now it’s JaeJoong-sshi you’ve got your sights locked onto.”
I chewed on the side of my lip in silence, pondering over what HyunAe had just observed. I didn’t realize I was always that obvious…
“I just feel a little pressured, is all…” I admitted.
“Do explain.”
“We’re only gonna be in this town for a little over a week. I really wanna get to know JaeJoong-sshi more but he’s so hard to crack, you know? I keep panicking that my time will be up before I even know his email address!”
“I understand,” she nodded thoughtfully. “I support your little obsession then. Go add JaeJoong-sshi to your collection. He sure looks like he could use a few friends…”
“I don’t have a ‘collection’,” I scoffed. “You make it sound like I don’t value friendship and only want to win the non-existent award of having the most phone numbers in my phone book!”
“I know you value friendship, Oppa,” HyunAe smiled over at me. “You like to act like a typical manly-man, getting your knees scrapped against rocks every spare minute of the day, but in the end you’re just a big pile of mush.”
“Is there a compliment somewhere in there?” I rolled my eyes, shoving my hands in my pant pockets.
“So… How long were you planning on waiting here? It doesn’t look like he’s coming…”
“Nope,” I agreed with resignation. “Guess we better carry on with the cycling before the sun gets too hot.”
“You read my mind. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can get to the beach again!”
“Yippee,” I drawled, trying to hide my smile at HyunAe’s blatant excitement. It was nice that she was so happy. I guess this big pile of mush was at least doing something right…
Hours later the sun had set, my nose and forehead had been sun burnt and I found myself once again staring into the bright windows of Café JaDe. I was by myself again, having seemingly annoyed Junsu with my suggestion to hang out at Café JaDe before our dinner. He’d declined my suggestion and headed back to the unit with a scowl on his face. The two of us hadn’t exactly fought over it, but Junsu had made the claim that my need to constantly try and talk to JaeJoong was starting to annoy him. He wanted to plan our next adventure already, find some time to go hiking in the bushy areas surrounding us - not wait for JaeJoong to act friendly towards me before I was motivated enough to finish exploring the surrounding area.
It wasn’t that Junsu was jealous of me trying to make friends with other people - he, himself, loved doing it too. He just believed that I was wasting my time trying to create a friendship with JaeJoong when I’d probably never really see him again once our trip was over. There were quite a few places left in this town to explore and he was determined to see everything before our time was up.
For once in our lives, our priorities weren’t matching. He was paranoid that we wouldn’t have enough time to explore all the places of this area… I was paranoid that there wasn’t enough time to get to know JaeJoong… I had no idea when our shared priorities had begun to shift, but there was no point sticking my head in the sand and denying that they had changed.
I was hoping that in the morning everything would blow over after a good night’s sleep and we’d be able to sort something out in the form of a compromise. But for now, whilst I was here outside the familiar café, I figured I may as well finish what I came here to do - see JaeJoong again.
Checking once more that I didn’t smell like rotting garbage after my afternoon jog, I stepped up to the glass door and knocked. The smaller man jumped a little at the sudden sound but didn’t seem all that surprised when he glanced in my direction. That was surely an improvement, right?
“Hey!” I grinned at him once he opened the door for me. “Nice evening, isn’t it!”
“You need water?” It sounded more like a presumption rather than a question; I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
“No, not tonight. I came prepared!” I held up the half-full bottle of water for him to see in order to prove my forgetfulness wasn’t a long-term problem.
“Oh. Then…?”
“I thought I’d stop by for a bit of a breather, if that’s okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
Happily slipping my sneakers off and leaving them beside the door I trotted further into the café and chose a seat. “Wow, this place looks so big when no one else is here!”
“Yeah. It does.”
I smiled up at JaeJoong as he slowly lowered himself down into the seat beside mine. “So, you weren’t at the park today.”
“The park…?” His face scrunched up slightly and I could practically see the cogs of his brain whirring away as he tried to recall what the park had to do with him. “Oh, I’m sorry… I was busy today…”
“It’s no sweat off my back,” I reassured. “Well, there’s plenty of sweat on my back, but not because of you.” He looked at me blankly and I couldn’t help but grin. “That was me trying to make a joke. Remember this awkwardness for the future, it will be inevitable that it will come up again the next time I try to be funny,” I wailed, burying my head behind my hands.
If it had been Junsu, Eunbi or HyunAe sitting next to me right now I would have felt an encouraging pat on the back, or even a string of words reflecting their full agreement. Being JaeJoong, he was still sitting there politely watching me when I next peeked through my fingers.
“Are you hungry?”
“Huh?” I was a little taken aback by the sudden question.
“I’ve got some spare cookies in the back if you wanted some…” he offered quietly.
“JaeJoong-sshi, what kind of satanic force just made you offer me something like that after I’ve been jogging?! My restraint powers are close to 3% of effectiveness so of course I’m going to accept such an offer without second thought! But then I’ll wake up the next morning and find that I’m up an extra bra size!”
He looked at me blankly again and I felt myself flushing in embarrassment. Why the hell had I dragged my man-boobs into it? Now I’d have to explain about the pattern my fats took and it would get so humiliating by the time I finished, and gahh!!
“When I put on weight it is always my chest area that cops it the most,” I sighed out. “My sister gets it in the bum, but I get it in my chest. Which is absolutely ridiculous because she would want to have a bigger chest, and I wouldn’t mind having a bigger bum as long as there was a reduction in my chest, but no, we never get what we wish for, and…” I faltered in my ranting, already feeling the harsh flakes of regret churning away inside my stomach from saying too much.
“Your chest looks fine.”
I felt my cheeks grow a little warmer at the sudden compliment and then our eyes caught. I couldn’t look away from him. It sounded ridiculous hearing it in my own head, but under the soft, yellow glow of the overhead lighting JaeJoong’s whole body looked fine as well.
“Boy, I’d love that cookie…” I gasped out, hurriedly breaking our eye contact. I didn’t know what had just happened and why I had suddenly felt my palms sweating, but I wanted it to stop. The emotion I felt within my chest was too strong; it alarmed me. I’d never really felt it before - the last time I could even recall it happening had been several years ago when I’d seen a pretty girl in the grade above mine smile at me.
Once JaeJoong had drifted up from his seat without a sound and wandered towards the kitchen doors, I dropped my forehead into my awaiting palm. My nose and eye rested against the gentle warmth radiating from the skin of my palm whilst my fingers curled slightly to press into my forehead. I tried to stop all thoughts from registering, too alarmed and unnerved to want to hear them anymore.
The sound of porcelain scraping against wood pulled me out from my silent reverie. I quickly sat back up and dropped my hand back down to rest on my lap as I gazed down at the familiar cookie in front of me.
”Are you alright?” I could hear JaeJoong’s soft voice questioning.
“Yeah, of course!” I put on a smile and reached over to pick up the warm cookie. “Mmmm! Heaven!” I murmured as soon as my teeth broke through the coffee-flavored snack.
“Thank you,” the petite café owner replied, looking down at the markings on the wooden tabletop with a small smile. “The melted chocolate went a little weird because it sort of froze in thicker lines inside the fridge but…”
“It all tastes the same,” I smiled.
“Yeah.”
“This is really nice of you,” I continued to garble through the party of delicious flavors bouncing all over my tongue. I quickly raised my hand up to try and cover up my mouth so that he couldn’t see the mayhem inside of it.
“You’re welcome. It would have gone to waste anyway…”
“Lies. I would have bought it tomorrow during lunch.”
JaeJoong shrugged, smiling a little again, perhaps at the thought of how silly it was that a grown man such as myself had such a weakness for cookies.
“Don’t you worry, though! I don’t accept anything for free. I’m definitely going to sing for my supper. I am yours for the evening; ask me anything you want.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, I grilled you last night for random details of your life. Fair is fair, I don’t mind answering anything on your mind.”
“I already know about you…” he admitted.
“Nah-ah,” I countered.
“I do,” he insisted softly. “You’re twenty five years-old. You work at a recreation centre and often go on school camping trips.”
I gaped at him, not even caring that I could feel a crumb of cookie hanging on for dear life under my bottom lip. “How did you know that?”
“Your sister told me,” he shrugged. “That day at the park when you were playing soccer. She wanted to explain why you were so good with young children. She’s really proud of you.”
“Oh…” I didn’t know what to say. To say that my cheeks were nice and warm at this stage would certainly be an understatement. “Yeah, we’re pretty close.”
“That’s nice. It’s good when siblings are close.”
I nodded, finally wiping away at the rebellious cookie crumb. “But still, there must be other things you want to know about? My hobbies? My number one goal in life, the duration of my stay in this town…?”
“Your hobbies are hiking, action sports, and above all: exploring. You want to be a renowned explorer when you grow up - not that you’re not grown up already, but you know what I mean. And you’re staying here for two weeks.”
I think my eyes must have surely been bulging out of my head at this point. I felt…exposed. And to be honest, a little freaked out. “How the hell did you know all that stuff?!”
“Well, Yoochun told me about the duration of your stay. Your hobbies were a good guess from your choice of employment, and as far as your goal in life…it was kind of obvious from your determination to explore the islands around here even though you had heard bad rumors about them. In fact, the danger of such places is probably alluring to you.”
“Wow.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re like a human wikipedia!”
“Wiki…pedia?” he repeated, his face scrunching up again.
“It’s an internet site,” I explained carefully. “It’s like a gigantic electronic encyclopedia where you can search for any information you want.”
“I’m an encyclopedia?”
“Well, no,” I laughed, “I just meant that if I mentioned any name of someone living in this town you’d be able to give me a whole list of things you had observed about them. That’s what you do, right? Observe people when they don’t realize it. You’re so quiet and that makes you more able to flit around and overhear snippets of conversation.”
It was his turn to stare at me with wide eyes.
“Hah!” I grinned, puffing my chest out a little bit in victory. “You’re not the only one that observes people. I’ve worked with a lot of kids in my job who all have a variety of differing personalities. From my experience it’s always the quiet ones that people foolishly underestimate. If they can’t contribute to the conversation, they use their eyes instead to lap everything up. Am I right?”
“I suppose…” he mumbled, looking back down at the table in what I guessed was self-consciousness.
At that moment I almost felt a bit of affection for him. Sometimes it could get annoying when people were so timid and overly sensitive because it clashed so much with my own personality, and yet when it was JaeJoong reacting that way it was kind of cute…
“You’ve been overseas, yes?” he suddenly asked, looking back up at me. “I remember you sister mentioning something about photos of snakes you had seen.”
“Oh yeh, I have. Only a few times, so far. Mostly Junsu and I stick to Korea. Our country is so beautiful, yeh? There are nice beaches, rivers, mountains, forests… Everything you could need! But even so, we do want to experience other countries as well. Our first overseas trip was to China. Then last year we went to Australia.”
“What did you do in those places?”
“Ah.” I grinned at him and wiggled my finger. “That’s for another time, my friend.” His eyes never left mine as I stood up from the table and dusted my hands on my shorts. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeh? Thanks for the cookie.”
“Oh… Bye then…” He looked a little started by my sudden announcement; as if he was worried he had done something wrong to scare me away.
“I’ve gotta get an early night,” I explained, feeling a little guilty after glimpsing his expression. “Junsu and I are going hiking tomorrow. We’re talking actual hiking. Heavy duty boots, a backpack full of first-aid and water, insect repellant, maps, compasses, flashlights, matches, whistles… The big guns, baby. You will never see me and Su getting lost in the wilderness. No sirree.”
“You’re missing one thing then…”
“Yeh? And what is that?”
“Modesty.”
“Very funny,” I pouted at him. “Confidence is important when you are hiking. The wilderness can be a pretty terrifying place if you’re not an expert and full of confidence.”
“Is HyunAe going with you two?”
“Hyunnie? Certainly not,” I declared, my hand automatically floating to rest on my hip. “Even if she wasn’t scared of snakes and wild terrains I wouldn’t let her go hiking. Especially not with us. Junsu and I, as you have most likely already figured out, like a bit of danger in our lives. The ways we hike would be much too dangerous for someone inexperienced like her.”
“So she’s not allowed to put herself in danger so that you don’t get worried, but you have the right to put yourself in danger? What about your sister! Wouldn’t she be worried if you’re gone all day?!”
I stared at JaeJoong in surprise. His voice was raised quite dramatically compared to the soft-spoken guy I often had trouble communicating with in the past. And what was worse was the hypocrisy that he was pointing out - it was true… I was a hypocrite and I hadn’t even realized it…
“We wouldn’t go if HyunAe didn’t want us to,” I slowly declared. “But she is used to us doing things like that. She trusts us. And besides, Junsu and I both have our phones with us if she needs to contact us.”
“It doesn’t matter if she trusts you or not!” JaeJoong insisted, standing up from his seat to directly look at me at almost perfect eye level. “Accidents happen! No matter how prepared you are things can go wrong! Freak accidents can occur! You can get hurt and have no way to get help! You… You could die!”
“C-Calm down, JaeJoong-sshi,” I stammered, taking a step back. Really, I had no idea where all this sudden paranoia was coming from, but it sure wasn’t pretty. “Junsu and I have done this so many times before, in much wilder areas. Of course accidents can happen, but we’re trained to know what to do if one does occur. It’ll be fine! I wouldn’t insist on going through with it if I thought there was a chance I would seriously put my life in danger. I’m not that stupid!”
He had nothing to say back at me, just stood there staring, keeping his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t counterattacking my argument though, so I figured he had accepted my explanation on some level.
“If you see HyunAe around, keep an eye on her, yeh?” I asked softly, backing up another step. “She promised she’d either stay in our unit, go for a short walk, or come to this café.”
“Yeh, I’ll look out for her,” he sighed out.
“Thank you. And just in case you need to contact me I’ll give you mine and Junsu’s mobile phone numbers, okay?”
He gave a brief nod before swiftly walking over to the main counter and retrieving a small pad and pen. As he walked back over to me, a clump of his shining black locks fell over his forehead and he instinctually brushed a strand of his hair behind his ears before handing the pad over to me. It was a pretty common occurrence, fighting with disobedient hair, and yet I sort of liked watching him do it.
I scribbled down the right combination of phone digits and passed the small pad back to him. Holding the pad up, small flecks of light reflected in his pupils as he cocked his head to briefly scan the two phone numbers I had written for him. His eyelashes were long and dark, their petite beauty almost completely overshadowed by his dark eyebrows. They were quite thick but not in an unflattering way. If anything, they made his face look even more angular and mysterious.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised, trying to break the silence. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll be careful. I know my limits, but even so I’ll be extra careful for Hyunnie’s sake.”
“Good.”
“See ya,” I dismissed awkwardly, squeezing my feet into my abandoned shoes.
I could feel his gaze on my back as I pulled the door open and stepped into the warm air. It was the last thing on my mind though. Instead, my head was completely occupied with thoughts on the dangers of hiking in unknown areas. JaeJoong had acted even stranger than usual when I’d even brought it up. I really was a confident hiker but the café owner’s paranoia was starting to rub off onto me too. After all, JaeJoong did seem to be a somewhat omniscient presence in this town - if anyone knew about the land it was him. Knowing that made it harder for me to shake away the thought that maybe he knew something about the flaws of the area that I didn’t…
///TBC///
A/N: In the next chapter JaeJoong’s POV begins, like many of you have been waiting for. ^_^
Actually, there’s something I wanna say whilst I’m on the topic. I know I don’t have to say it but I guess I want to say it anyway. To be honest, I’m sure many of you have noticed that I’ve sort of struggled to write recent chapters, particularly JaeJoong’s POV in the next chapter. I couldn’t understand why at first and then after a night of some serious self-reflection I came out of denial and realised that my own subconscious was/is blocking my creative flow lol.
Why? Well, in this fic JaeJoong struggles to open up to people and let himself grow attached to them. Likewise, I actually share the same problem. The reason for Jae’s reluctance to get close to people is commmmpletely different to my own problem (I've suffered from Social Phobia since my primary school days), but since the outcome is the same-self-afflicting social ostracizing-I found the whole situation a little too close to home. I didn’t want to open up old and current scars for myself. It sort of hurt too much to think about because in order to write Jae’s character properly I have to borrow from my own social shyness. I wasn’t ready to attack my own demons. I’m still not, when I think about it.
But I figured that I shouldn’t be paying money to see a psychologist every month just to AVOID my own demons when it comes down to it. I figure I can maybe sort of help my own demons get better by borrowing the strength of the characters in TB;MS or something silly like that lol.
I almost wanted to take a hiatus away from this until my personal demons were under control, but in the end I couldn’t handle the idea of leaving people hanging. So I will continue to update as frequently as I can, but as a warning I might be a little slow to update, depending on my emotions. ^^
So in summary: I really do apologise if Jae’s quietness is frustrating and that not a whole lot of Yunjae lovin’ has been happening yet. I’m doing my best to try and fix my effed up self at the same time as fixing Jae’s effed up self lol! It’s gonna take some time though, because emotional scars can be pretty crippling. YUNHO, HWAITING! KEEP CRACKING JAE! Hahah~
That is all! Thank you my lovelies for sticking with this fic despite the snail pace. :D <333