Meteors [Chapter 11]
Chapter: 11
Pairings: YooMin
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, Fluff, slight Angst
Summary:
There is only one truth, Changmin believes, and only one question - is it the one you want?
There is only chance, Yoochun thinks - the meteor crashes, or it doesn’t. And if it does the only question is, will you run fast enough or let the stars collide?
Part 11. Of a cold and homecoming.
Three days after reading that last e-mail from Changmin, Yoochun is in the plane back home.
He would have left at once but there was stuff to deal with first - find money for a return ticket, mainly. He can count himself lucky he made quite a lot of dependable friends in a five kilometers radius around Rowe Street. Sad to say, he doesn’t deserve their trust. Yoochun told them his mother was sick, because no one would have been half so openhanded if he had said the truth.
Yunho knows the truth though, or at least Yoochun went over it three times and it’s not for lack of trying if the older man is still convinced that Changmin is his boyfriend. The other was determined to help. Yoochun realized then that Yunho was in fact the beyond-sappy happy-ending-loving sort of guy, but he couldn’t decently make fun of it when it became clear that Yunho intended to pay for half the plane ticket.
“Tell me when you come to South Korea next time” Yoochun made him promise before leaving, “I’m going to make it up to you, you’ll see. You can eat lobster every day if you want. My treat.”
“Lobster.”
“Yes.”
“No sun.”
“Exactly.”
“Boyfriend peace?”
“I’ll try” Yoochun told him gravely, “I promise I’ll try. If I don’t you can hand me over to the sharks.”
Yunho smiled that bright empty smile that meant he hadn’t understood a thing, and Yoochun said goodbye.
It was still early morning when his plane departed from Sydney airport but the temperature was already around 25°C, and above was cloudless blue sky. It’s night when they land in Seoul, and Yoochun remembers belatedly that it’s the heart of winter here, and his flip flops and shorts won’t get him very far. He resorts to asking around until someone agrees to lend him their phone.
The conversation lasts two minutes, long enough for Yoochun to tell Jaejoong to bring him clothes half a dozen times. When he hangs up however he has to wonder if his friend did hear it, so busy Jaejoong was squealing over the phone. There’s nothing to do but wait and he ends up falling asleep on a bench, his beach towel wrapped over him and a hand clasped over his luggage for fear someone steals it.
It’s well past midnight and the airport’s main hall is empty when a hand shakes him awake.
“Yoochun?”
He sneezes.
“I got you clothes. Underwear too. The way you insisted I thought maybe you’d be naked but that’s silly right? They don’t let naked men on planes.”
Yoochun sneezes again. He sits up slowly, his back and limbs aching from the long trip and uncomfortable sleep, and grabs the beach towel as it slips from his shoulders. Jaejoong is standing in front of him. He’s holding a plastic bag in one hand and a box of what looks like spicy rice cakes in the other. He’s crying - fat round tears rolling down his cheeks, and the sight does things to Yoochun’s heart.
“Don’t go sentimental on me” he warns his friend anyway, shivering as cold air hits his bare arms and legs. “I’m cold and tired and cranky, and that bench is the worst thing I’ve ever slept on.”
“I’m so glad to see you” Jaejoong says, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. “So so glad to see you.”
“What did I just say?”
“I was afraid you’d never come back.”
“Jae-“
“I watched the news every day in case something happened and they talked about you. I’d never watched the news before. It’s not very cheerful. I always get depressed, but you remember I told you it’s all a matter of kicking the goblin out.”
Yoochun blinks, trying to remember if Jaejoong has always been this bad. Years of hanging out together made him Jaejoong-immune, but he can feel a headache creeping up, and that means either he lost his touch or his friend moved onto the next stage of insanity while he was away. He hopes it’s the former.
“I’m glad to see you too” he says for lack of a better answer.
“Take the clothes” Jaejoong sniffs as he hands out the plastic bag. “I got shoes for you too. And I bought food. Korean food. Yooseon said they ate kangaroos and crocodiles in Australia.”
“They do” Yoochun smiles as he rummages inside the bag, pleased to see that Jaejoong chose warm clothes, relatively normal and apparently clean, “but crocodile is expensive and kangaroo is not that good.”
Jaejoong doesn’t answer at once. He tilts his head, studying him silently as Yoochun wriggles into a sweater that’s a bit too tight, but much more fitting than a beach towel when it’s -5°C outside.
“You’re blue.”
“What?”
“You” Jaejoong smiles more widely, “you’re blue.”
“…If you mean I’m damn cold then yeah, I’m half-frozen.”
“I’m so glad.”
‘Can you try and make sense for once?’ - Yoochun nearly says, but it’d be useless. He rather likes the blissful grin on Jaejoong’s face anyway. Changmin’s smile is not the only one he missed during the past six months.
“I’m back” he says instead, and sneezes again.
It turns out that Yoochun caught a first-class cold in Incheon arrival hall, and all chivalrous plans of rushing at once to wherever Changmin is are subsequently delayed. He spends the next four days cooped up in Jaejoong’s flat, unable to do anything but blow his nose and fill plastic bags with used handkerchiefs that Jaejoong treats like nuclear waste and refuses to approach.
He tries to make the best of his forced confinement by learning more about what happened, since it’s obvious from Changmin’s emails that he and Jaejoong grew closer while he was away - and while Yoochun is happy about it, the idea of the two of them plotting who-knows-what in his back also makes him very anxious. He hoped Jaejoong would help but his friend turned a deaf ear to all his questions, and he’s left with suppositions only.
Yoochun won’t lie; his first reaction reading about the break-up was happiness. He knows what that makes him: a failure as a friend, an embittered third wheel, and a bit of a jerk like many have told him (among much worse things) - but that’s who Yoochun is. That much about him hasn’t changed.
His second reaction was worry. Yes, Changmin isn’t like him - he doesn’t run. He fights and gets back on his feet and he’ll be alright. But he also asked him to come back, please, and that’s not the kind of thing Changmin does. That’s what the selfish brat does… the one Yoochun can’t help but indulge, the one who made him think that maybe it was worth caring, and the one he fell in love with.
He isn’t sure what could have happened with Jungmi. Changmin told him a lot in his emails - good moments, others not so good, plans for the future and a few fights - but he saw no ground here for a break-up less than four months before their wedding. Changmin and Jungmi fit, as much as Yoochun didn’t want to admit it. They’re made of the same mold. Together they were blatant… as natural as Changmin and he are odd and unlikely.
Jaejoong won’t tell him anything though. The only piece of information he deigned to leak was that Changmin was staying at Junsu’s for now, and he obligingly gave him the address. He texted that same address to him six times. He writes it on the boxes of Yoochun’s cold medicine. He writes it on the packs of his favorite cereals. He writes it every day on a paper that he leaves on the bedside table, stuck under an orange lava lamp. He even wrote it once with toothpaste on the bathroom mirror.
“I think I got the hint” Yoochun tells him the fourth day at breakfast, after he woke up and found the address written in big, red letters on his forearm. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about” Jaejoong answers while putting on his coat. “Don’t forget to take your medicine, you want to look good and healthy.”
“I thought he was a bastard and you didn’t like him because he made me sad!!” Yoochun shouts, but only the sound of the front door slamming shut answers him.
It’s early afternoon when Yoochun rings at the door of Junsu’s apartment the next day. The area looks nice, he notices while waiting. Far from the crappy student room and university campus where Yoochun first met him. It seems a lot happened on that side too. The door opens and he puts his friendliest smile on when Junsu comes out, unsure of the kind of welcome he should expect. The other guy doesn’t say anything at first, his expression guarded, until a smile briefly touches his lips.
“You look fine” he says like everything is perfectly normal, “but your nose still looks like a tomato. Jaejoong didn’t lie when he said you were a walking chemical weapon.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
Junsu smiles again, wider, moving aside to let him come in.
“He’s here” he says, motioning toward a door at the opposite end of the room. “I only told him this morning that you were back. Else he’d have barged in at Jaejoong’s, straight into your germs. You know he hates being sick.”
“I know.”
“He said to kick you in the face and he ran to the bedroom when he heard the doorbell just now.”
“He doesn’t want to see me?” Yoochun asks anxiously. “I mean, I would understand if he doesn’t, I-“
“He has wanted to see you every day since you threw your feelings in his face and fled to another continent” Junsu cuts him sharply, “but right now he just broke up with the girl he thought he was going to spend his life with, and you coming back now isn’t exactly making matters simpler.”
“He asked me to come back.”
“Which is why I didn’t kick you in the face” Junsu says lightly, grabbing the coat hanging next to the door. “You fix things with him. I’m going for a walk. You two reek of drama and I need some fresh air.”
The door barely closed behind him that Yoochun crossed the room. He grips the handle and pushes the bedroom door open without a second thought. He doesn’t stop to wonder if he’s ready. He doesn’t know what to tell him. He hasn’t prepared anything. What he needs now is Changmin because it’s been months and suddenly Changmin is here, and this time he’s here just for him.
“Yoochun.”
The young man rises from the bed and Yoochun stops dead in his tracks the moment he sees him. His heartbeat abruptly accelerates into a mad dance, pounding so hard he’s sure Changmin can hear it from where he’s standing across of him. Just here. So close. Close enough to touch after six months, and Yoochun is glad that he didn’t lie to himself about his own feelings, because despite Australia and Yunho and Jungmi, despite how he changed and how he didn’t, he still loves Changmin and loves him more maybe, and he missed him, and he wants to tell him again that he loves him but also that it’s ok, he’s glad he does because that’s the best part of him.
Yoochun desperately wants to take him in his arms and erase what happened but he obliges himself to stay still, studying him from here.
Changmin looks much the same as before - same haircut, figure, features… same hands that Yoochun wants to hold always and same mouth that he wants to touch, kiss and draw smiles from. Shaved clean and dressed properly as always. He may be a tad thinner but it’s hard to tell. It takes a few seconds before Yoochun spots the open luggage near the bed - a mess of clothes and toiletries, not at all organized as they should - and the faint traces on Changmin’s mouth. Yoochun pictures him incessantly worrying his lips between his teeth, a frown on his face, lost in stubborn silence. He smiles to himself a little sadly.
“I’m back” he hears himself say.
“I can see that.”
Not good. Too curt. Too detached - though Changmin’s eyes say otherwise. He’s trying not to betray anything but Yoochun can read much and more in them. Who are you trying to fool… you’re hurt, you’re relieved, you still wish you could give me that punch in the face I probably deserve, and you feel bad for making me come back here when I may have been happier somewhere else.
Right now however, the young man in front of him wants to act strong, levelheaded and mature - for this Changmin, there isn’t much Yoochun can do.
“No ‘welcome back’ hug?” he asks lightly, playing his part as he’s supposed to.
“It’s not funny” Changmin frowns.
“It’s not funny” Yoochun agrees, “but I can’t really ask you how you’ve been doing, can I?”
“You would know if you hadn’t gone into hiding for six months.”
“You can hit me if that makes you feel better.”
“Don’t be stupid” Changmin sits back stiffly on the edge of the bed, his frown deepening.
Yoochun can do little but watch him. He thinks he’d be content with just being allowed to watch him like this for the next ten minutes, or the next ten days. Just watching. He likes watching him. He missed that. He needs to, as obsessive as that may sound. It’s like a bad habit that he keeps falling back into, and Yoochun doesn’t have any control over the urge to stare at him, not when Changmin is right here… not when it’s just the two of them, as it should always be.
Yoochun watches the frown on his face and thinks of what could make him smile. He thinks he should have been here. He thinks Changmin must have felt so alone. He doesn’t think about saying sorry; Yoochun isn’t here to apologize.
He looks at him as Changmin stares - that same intent stare that used to make him so uncomfortable, but not anymore. He watches him as Changmin hesitates and tries hard not to look affected. Stiff. Fingers clenching and unclenching. Breathing in deeply once, twice, before he ventures a question.
“So what did you do in Australia?”
“Small jobs. Cleaning. Gardening. Fixing fences.”
Kissing hot tall guys who looked a bit like you.
“Sounds fantastic” Changmin deadpans. “I wonder why you came back.”
“Because you asked me to.”
Changmin flinches and Yoochun nearly regrets saying it, but he can’t help it. He likes seeing that other side of him… that other Changmin, the one who’s not always right but unsure instead - tentative, hesitant, a tad vulnerable. That side he doesn’t like to show but that Yoochun knows how to find and sometimes doesn’t hesitate to uncover, just because he can.
Because he needs to make sure it’s still his.
“…I’m sorry about that” Changmin answers after a silence, a flicker of doubt or guilt crossing his eyes as the tension in the room lessens noticeably. “I shouldn’t have. It was selfish.”
“No.”
Yes.
Yes but that’s okay.
Changmin falls silent after that. He looks down at his hands and starts biting his lower lip, still frowning. Yoochun watches him, back to that old gymnastic of the mind as he rummages through his memories. He has the answer to everything in there. He only needs to find the right one - 11 loves chocolate, he hates soccer, he never smoked, he used to be allergic to nuts, he had his first computer at 14 and his first kiss at 16, he knows by heart all the countries and capitals in the world, the first word he spoke as a toddler was “yan” and he called everyone and everything like that for two months, he-
“Oh damn it.”
He raises his head just in time to see Changmin get up from the bed, his expression determined. Yoochun stumbles backwards, briefly wondering if that’s when he gets kicked in the face. The next thing he knows he’s in Changmin’s arms, his face pressed against the young man’s shoulder.
“Changmin you-“
“I missed you” Changmin says precipitately, the words rushed and cracked and hot against Yoochun’s face. “I missed you so much, you’ve no idea.”
“I think I’ve an idea” Yoochun croaks and fails to smile, overwhelmed, warmth rushing to his heart and blood to his face, and tears to his eyes, “and I missed you too.”
“You can’t leave me like that again.”
The young man’s arms tighten around him, insecure and possessive and selfish and oh Yoochun loves him when he’s like that… loves him when Changmin wrecks the lines he drew himself, loves him when Changmin doesn’t ask before taking, loves him above all when Changmin forgets that he’s strong and instead of reminding him that he is, Yoochun pretends to forget too and for just a moment they shine just the same, and their hearts fit just right.
“I won’t” he says.
Changmin doesn’t answer.
His arms tighten even more around Yoochun until he returns the embrace, and he can’t be sure but he thinks that’s when time starts slowing down. When Yoochun stops searching, and running, and changing, and his entire being gently settles back right where it wants to be… warmth, familiar and comforting, the scents, his strength, his wounds as well. Yoochun’s fingers splayed over his back, keeping him close and greedily taking in as much as he can while the moment lasts, because no one should know that place better than him, no one can understand it as he does. It was him who found it first, him, and he belongs here like no one else ever will.
He never really left that place, Yoochun realizes as his heartbeat slows down and rises, fuller by the second, and that place never really changed. He closes his eyes.
He falls forward.
Falls all over again… falls without fear and without regrets. Yoochun searched but he found nothing he wanted more than this. He ran another course, alien and haphazard, and it brought him back here. He changed, he did, but the harmony of that moment right now is still the same, and the core of him remained anchored to that man holding him, to the heart beating just across from his own.
In his arms Changmin sighs, and soon after Yoochun feels him relax. The muscles of his back and shoulders loosen under his hands, his embrace turns less taut. Second after second, tension evaporates, as if Yoochun’s mere presence suffices to erase the strain of the past weeks.
Yoochun smiles, glad for his own selfish reasons but that’s alright. He didn’t ask for this to happen. It just did, and it changed his life.
‘I love you’ he says silently, his lips moving soundlessly against Changmin’s shoulder.
It’s enough. It’s only words, and Yoochun doesn’t intend to ever lose him because of words again.
When Junsu comes back an hour later, he finds them both in his kitchen. Yoochun is perched on the table, swinging his legs and waving a spoon around enthusiastically as he talks about Australia, a nearly full bucket of vanilla ice cream next to him. Changmin is leaning against the sink, looking at him and obviously not believing a word he says but laughing all the same, his own bucket of chocolate ice cream on the sink and half-empty. His eyes shining with amusement, warm, alive, and the extra sparkle brought by mingled affection and wonder.
“What is the ice cream for?” Junsu asks, dropping his coat on the back of a chair.
“Celebration” Yoochun grins at him. “There’s one for you in the freezer.”
“It’s the middle of winter.”
“In Australia it’s summer.”
“And what are we celebrating?” Junsu asks again, knowing better than to argue when Yoochun is in the mood for trolling and Changmin looks happy for the first time in weeks. He opens the freezer and finds his favorite strawberry ice cream, and decides the middle of winter is just perfect for it.
“Whatever you want to celebrate” Yoochun shrugs, “does it matter?”
“I suppose it doesn’t” Junsu concedes, rummaging inside the kitchen drawer until he finds a spoon. “What were you saying about koalas?”
“It’s a long story.”
Changmin starts giggling all by himself. Junsu doesn’t miss the fond look Yoochun throws his way.
‘So we are playing that game again?’ he thinks, digging into his ice cream and looking at the two of them alternatively. His gaze stops on Yoochun, who’s back to his story - a vivid picture of mixed truth and lies, only meant to make Changmin laugh like nothing wrong ever happened.
Will pretence be enough now, Junsu asks silently, this time, will you keep him a dream or are you ready to want more?
Part 12.
Note: short chapter but it brings back YooMin~ (and JaeSu, best friends know better XD). Thank you for reading/commenting!
Pairings: YooMin
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, Fluff, slight Angst
Summary:
There is only one truth, Changmin believes, and only one question - is it the one you want?
There is only chance, Yoochun thinks - the meteor crashes, or it doesn’t. And if it does the only question is, will you run fast enough or let the stars collide?
Part 11. Of a cold and homecoming.
Three days after reading that last e-mail from Changmin, Yoochun is in the plane back home.
He would have left at once but there was stuff to deal with first - find money for a return ticket, mainly. He can count himself lucky he made quite a lot of dependable friends in a five kilometers radius around Rowe Street. Sad to say, he doesn’t deserve their trust. Yoochun told them his mother was sick, because no one would have been half so openhanded if he had said the truth.
Yunho knows the truth though, or at least Yoochun went over it three times and it’s not for lack of trying if the older man is still convinced that Changmin is his boyfriend. The other was determined to help. Yoochun realized then that Yunho was in fact the beyond-sappy happy-ending-loving sort of guy, but he couldn’t decently make fun of it when it became clear that Yunho intended to pay for half the plane ticket.
“Tell me when you come to South Korea next time” Yoochun made him promise before leaving, “I’m going to make it up to you, you’ll see. You can eat lobster every day if you want. My treat.”
“Lobster.”
“Yes.”
“No sun.”
“Exactly.”
“Boyfriend peace?”
“I’ll try” Yoochun told him gravely, “I promise I’ll try. If I don’t you can hand me over to the sharks.”
Yunho smiled that bright empty smile that meant he hadn’t understood a thing, and Yoochun said goodbye.
It was still early morning when his plane departed from Sydney airport but the temperature was already around 25°C, and above was cloudless blue sky. It’s night when they land in Seoul, and Yoochun remembers belatedly that it’s the heart of winter here, and his flip flops and shorts won’t get him very far. He resorts to asking around until someone agrees to lend him their phone.
The conversation lasts two minutes, long enough for Yoochun to tell Jaejoong to bring him clothes half a dozen times. When he hangs up however he has to wonder if his friend did hear it, so busy Jaejoong was squealing over the phone. There’s nothing to do but wait and he ends up falling asleep on a bench, his beach towel wrapped over him and a hand clasped over his luggage for fear someone steals it.
It’s well past midnight and the airport’s main hall is empty when a hand shakes him awake.
“Yoochun?”
He sneezes.
“I got you clothes. Underwear too. The way you insisted I thought maybe you’d be naked but that’s silly right? They don’t let naked men on planes.”
Yoochun sneezes again. He sits up slowly, his back and limbs aching from the long trip and uncomfortable sleep, and grabs the beach towel as it slips from his shoulders. Jaejoong is standing in front of him. He’s holding a plastic bag in one hand and a box of what looks like spicy rice cakes in the other. He’s crying - fat round tears rolling down his cheeks, and the sight does things to Yoochun’s heart.
“Don’t go sentimental on me” he warns his friend anyway, shivering as cold air hits his bare arms and legs. “I’m cold and tired and cranky, and that bench is the worst thing I’ve ever slept on.”
“I’m so glad to see you” Jaejoong says, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. “So so glad to see you.”
“What did I just say?”
“I was afraid you’d never come back.”
“Jae-“
“I watched the news every day in case something happened and they talked about you. I’d never watched the news before. It’s not very cheerful. I always get depressed, but you remember I told you it’s all a matter of kicking the goblin out.”
Yoochun blinks, trying to remember if Jaejoong has always been this bad. Years of hanging out together made him Jaejoong-immune, but he can feel a headache creeping up, and that means either he lost his touch or his friend moved onto the next stage of insanity while he was away. He hopes it’s the former.
“I’m glad to see you too” he says for lack of a better answer.
“Take the clothes” Jaejoong sniffs as he hands out the plastic bag. “I got shoes for you too. And I bought food. Korean food. Yooseon said they ate kangaroos and crocodiles in Australia.”
“They do” Yoochun smiles as he rummages inside the bag, pleased to see that Jaejoong chose warm clothes, relatively normal and apparently clean, “but crocodile is expensive and kangaroo is not that good.”
Jaejoong doesn’t answer at once. He tilts his head, studying him silently as Yoochun wriggles into a sweater that’s a bit too tight, but much more fitting than a beach towel when it’s -5°C outside.
“You’re blue.”
“What?”
“You” Jaejoong smiles more widely, “you’re blue.”
“…If you mean I’m damn cold then yeah, I’m half-frozen.”
“I’m so glad.”
‘Can you try and make sense for once?’ - Yoochun nearly says, but it’d be useless. He rather likes the blissful grin on Jaejoong’s face anyway. Changmin’s smile is not the only one he missed during the past six months.
“I’m back” he says instead, and sneezes again.
It turns out that Yoochun caught a first-class cold in Incheon arrival hall, and all chivalrous plans of rushing at once to wherever Changmin is are subsequently delayed. He spends the next four days cooped up in Jaejoong’s flat, unable to do anything but blow his nose and fill plastic bags with used handkerchiefs that Jaejoong treats like nuclear waste and refuses to approach.
He tries to make the best of his forced confinement by learning more about what happened, since it’s obvious from Changmin’s emails that he and Jaejoong grew closer while he was away - and while Yoochun is happy about it, the idea of the two of them plotting who-knows-what in his back also makes him very anxious. He hoped Jaejoong would help but his friend turned a deaf ear to all his questions, and he’s left with suppositions only.
Yoochun won’t lie; his first reaction reading about the break-up was happiness. He knows what that makes him: a failure as a friend, an embittered third wheel, and a bit of a jerk like many have told him (among much worse things) - but that’s who Yoochun is. That much about him hasn’t changed.
His second reaction was worry. Yes, Changmin isn’t like him - he doesn’t run. He fights and gets back on his feet and he’ll be alright. But he also asked him to come back, please, and that’s not the kind of thing Changmin does. That’s what the selfish brat does… the one Yoochun can’t help but indulge, the one who made him think that maybe it was worth caring, and the one he fell in love with.
He isn’t sure what could have happened with Jungmi. Changmin told him a lot in his emails - good moments, others not so good, plans for the future and a few fights - but he saw no ground here for a break-up less than four months before their wedding. Changmin and Jungmi fit, as much as Yoochun didn’t want to admit it. They’re made of the same mold. Together they were blatant… as natural as Changmin and he are odd and unlikely.
Jaejoong won’t tell him anything though. The only piece of information he deigned to leak was that Changmin was staying at Junsu’s for now, and he obligingly gave him the address. He texted that same address to him six times. He writes it on the boxes of Yoochun’s cold medicine. He writes it on the packs of his favorite cereals. He writes it every day on a paper that he leaves on the bedside table, stuck under an orange lava lamp. He even wrote it once with toothpaste on the bathroom mirror.
“I think I got the hint” Yoochun tells him the fourth day at breakfast, after he woke up and found the address written in big, red letters on his forearm. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about” Jaejoong answers while putting on his coat. “Don’t forget to take your medicine, you want to look good and healthy.”
“I thought he was a bastard and you didn’t like him because he made me sad!!” Yoochun shouts, but only the sound of the front door slamming shut answers him.
It’s early afternoon when Yoochun rings at the door of Junsu’s apartment the next day. The area looks nice, he notices while waiting. Far from the crappy student room and university campus where Yoochun first met him. It seems a lot happened on that side too. The door opens and he puts his friendliest smile on when Junsu comes out, unsure of the kind of welcome he should expect. The other guy doesn’t say anything at first, his expression guarded, until a smile briefly touches his lips.
“You look fine” he says like everything is perfectly normal, “but your nose still looks like a tomato. Jaejoong didn’t lie when he said you were a walking chemical weapon.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
Junsu smiles again, wider, moving aside to let him come in.
“He’s here” he says, motioning toward a door at the opposite end of the room. “I only told him this morning that you were back. Else he’d have barged in at Jaejoong’s, straight into your germs. You know he hates being sick.”
“I know.”
“He said to kick you in the face and he ran to the bedroom when he heard the doorbell just now.”
“He doesn’t want to see me?” Yoochun asks anxiously. “I mean, I would understand if he doesn’t, I-“
“He has wanted to see you every day since you threw your feelings in his face and fled to another continent” Junsu cuts him sharply, “but right now he just broke up with the girl he thought he was going to spend his life with, and you coming back now isn’t exactly making matters simpler.”
“He asked me to come back.”
“Which is why I didn’t kick you in the face” Junsu says lightly, grabbing the coat hanging next to the door. “You fix things with him. I’m going for a walk. You two reek of drama and I need some fresh air.”
The door barely closed behind him that Yoochun crossed the room. He grips the handle and pushes the bedroom door open without a second thought. He doesn’t stop to wonder if he’s ready. He doesn’t know what to tell him. He hasn’t prepared anything. What he needs now is Changmin because it’s been months and suddenly Changmin is here, and this time he’s here just for him.
“Yoochun.”
The young man rises from the bed and Yoochun stops dead in his tracks the moment he sees him. His heartbeat abruptly accelerates into a mad dance, pounding so hard he’s sure Changmin can hear it from where he’s standing across of him. Just here. So close. Close enough to touch after six months, and Yoochun is glad that he didn’t lie to himself about his own feelings, because despite Australia and Yunho and Jungmi, despite how he changed and how he didn’t, he still loves Changmin and loves him more maybe, and he missed him, and he wants to tell him again that he loves him but also that it’s ok, he’s glad he does because that’s the best part of him.
Yoochun desperately wants to take him in his arms and erase what happened but he obliges himself to stay still, studying him from here.
Changmin looks much the same as before - same haircut, figure, features… same hands that Yoochun wants to hold always and same mouth that he wants to touch, kiss and draw smiles from. Shaved clean and dressed properly as always. He may be a tad thinner but it’s hard to tell. It takes a few seconds before Yoochun spots the open luggage near the bed - a mess of clothes and toiletries, not at all organized as they should - and the faint traces on Changmin’s mouth. Yoochun pictures him incessantly worrying his lips between his teeth, a frown on his face, lost in stubborn silence. He smiles to himself a little sadly.
“I’m back” he hears himself say.
“I can see that.”
Not good. Too curt. Too detached - though Changmin’s eyes say otherwise. He’s trying not to betray anything but Yoochun can read much and more in them. Who are you trying to fool… you’re hurt, you’re relieved, you still wish you could give me that punch in the face I probably deserve, and you feel bad for making me come back here when I may have been happier somewhere else.
Right now however, the young man in front of him wants to act strong, levelheaded and mature - for this Changmin, there isn’t much Yoochun can do.
“No ‘welcome back’ hug?” he asks lightly, playing his part as he’s supposed to.
“It’s not funny” Changmin frowns.
“It’s not funny” Yoochun agrees, “but I can’t really ask you how you’ve been doing, can I?”
“You would know if you hadn’t gone into hiding for six months.”
“You can hit me if that makes you feel better.”
“Don’t be stupid” Changmin sits back stiffly on the edge of the bed, his frown deepening.
Yoochun can do little but watch him. He thinks he’d be content with just being allowed to watch him like this for the next ten minutes, or the next ten days. Just watching. He likes watching him. He missed that. He needs to, as obsessive as that may sound. It’s like a bad habit that he keeps falling back into, and Yoochun doesn’t have any control over the urge to stare at him, not when Changmin is right here… not when it’s just the two of them, as it should always be.
Yoochun watches the frown on his face and thinks of what could make him smile. He thinks he should have been here. He thinks Changmin must have felt so alone. He doesn’t think about saying sorry; Yoochun isn’t here to apologize.
He looks at him as Changmin stares - that same intent stare that used to make him so uncomfortable, but not anymore. He watches him as Changmin hesitates and tries hard not to look affected. Stiff. Fingers clenching and unclenching. Breathing in deeply once, twice, before he ventures a question.
“So what did you do in Australia?”
“Small jobs. Cleaning. Gardening. Fixing fences.”
Kissing hot tall guys who looked a bit like you.
“Sounds fantastic” Changmin deadpans. “I wonder why you came back.”
“Because you asked me to.”
Changmin flinches and Yoochun nearly regrets saying it, but he can’t help it. He likes seeing that other side of him… that other Changmin, the one who’s not always right but unsure instead - tentative, hesitant, a tad vulnerable. That side he doesn’t like to show but that Yoochun knows how to find and sometimes doesn’t hesitate to uncover, just because he can.
Because he needs to make sure it’s still his.
“…I’m sorry about that” Changmin answers after a silence, a flicker of doubt or guilt crossing his eyes as the tension in the room lessens noticeably. “I shouldn’t have. It was selfish.”
“No.”
Yes.
Yes but that’s okay.
Changmin falls silent after that. He looks down at his hands and starts biting his lower lip, still frowning. Yoochun watches him, back to that old gymnastic of the mind as he rummages through his memories. He has the answer to everything in there. He only needs to find the right one - 11 loves chocolate, he hates soccer, he never smoked, he used to be allergic to nuts, he had his first computer at 14 and his first kiss at 16, he knows by heart all the countries and capitals in the world, the first word he spoke as a toddler was “yan” and he called everyone and everything like that for two months, he-
“Oh damn it.”
He raises his head just in time to see Changmin get up from the bed, his expression determined. Yoochun stumbles backwards, briefly wondering if that’s when he gets kicked in the face. The next thing he knows he’s in Changmin’s arms, his face pressed against the young man’s shoulder.
“Changmin you-“
“I missed you” Changmin says precipitately, the words rushed and cracked and hot against Yoochun’s face. “I missed you so much, you’ve no idea.”
“I think I’ve an idea” Yoochun croaks and fails to smile, overwhelmed, warmth rushing to his heart and blood to his face, and tears to his eyes, “and I missed you too.”
“You can’t leave me like that again.”
The young man’s arms tighten around him, insecure and possessive and selfish and oh Yoochun loves him when he’s like that… loves him when Changmin wrecks the lines he drew himself, loves him when Changmin doesn’t ask before taking, loves him above all when Changmin forgets that he’s strong and instead of reminding him that he is, Yoochun pretends to forget too and for just a moment they shine just the same, and their hearts fit just right.
“I won’t” he says.
Changmin doesn’t answer.
His arms tighten even more around Yoochun until he returns the embrace, and he can’t be sure but he thinks that’s when time starts slowing down. When Yoochun stops searching, and running, and changing, and his entire being gently settles back right where it wants to be… warmth, familiar and comforting, the scents, his strength, his wounds as well. Yoochun’s fingers splayed over his back, keeping him close and greedily taking in as much as he can while the moment lasts, because no one should know that place better than him, no one can understand it as he does. It was him who found it first, him, and he belongs here like no one else ever will.
He never really left that place, Yoochun realizes as his heartbeat slows down and rises, fuller by the second, and that place never really changed. He closes his eyes.
He falls forward.
Falls all over again… falls without fear and without regrets. Yoochun searched but he found nothing he wanted more than this. He ran another course, alien and haphazard, and it brought him back here. He changed, he did, but the harmony of that moment right now is still the same, and the core of him remained anchored to that man holding him, to the heart beating just across from his own.
In his arms Changmin sighs, and soon after Yoochun feels him relax. The muscles of his back and shoulders loosen under his hands, his embrace turns less taut. Second after second, tension evaporates, as if Yoochun’s mere presence suffices to erase the strain of the past weeks.
Yoochun smiles, glad for his own selfish reasons but that’s alright. He didn’t ask for this to happen. It just did, and it changed his life.
‘I love you’ he says silently, his lips moving soundlessly against Changmin’s shoulder.
It’s enough. It’s only words, and Yoochun doesn’t intend to ever lose him because of words again.
When Junsu comes back an hour later, he finds them both in his kitchen. Yoochun is perched on the table, swinging his legs and waving a spoon around enthusiastically as he talks about Australia, a nearly full bucket of vanilla ice cream next to him. Changmin is leaning against the sink, looking at him and obviously not believing a word he says but laughing all the same, his own bucket of chocolate ice cream on the sink and half-empty. His eyes shining with amusement, warm, alive, and the extra sparkle brought by mingled affection and wonder.
“What is the ice cream for?” Junsu asks, dropping his coat on the back of a chair.
“Celebration” Yoochun grins at him. “There’s one for you in the freezer.”
“It’s the middle of winter.”
“In Australia it’s summer.”
“And what are we celebrating?” Junsu asks again, knowing better than to argue when Yoochun is in the mood for trolling and Changmin looks happy for the first time in weeks. He opens the freezer and finds his favorite strawberry ice cream, and decides the middle of winter is just perfect for it.
“Whatever you want to celebrate” Yoochun shrugs, “does it matter?”
“I suppose it doesn’t” Junsu concedes, rummaging inside the kitchen drawer until he finds a spoon. “What were you saying about koalas?”
“It’s a long story.”
Changmin starts giggling all by himself. Junsu doesn’t miss the fond look Yoochun throws his way.
‘So we are playing that game again?’ he thinks, digging into his ice cream and looking at the two of them alternatively. His gaze stops on Yoochun, who’s back to his story - a vivid picture of mixed truth and lies, only meant to make Changmin laugh like nothing wrong ever happened.
Will pretence be enough now, Junsu asks silently, this time, will you keep him a dream or are you ready to want more?
Part 12.
Note: short chapter but it brings back YooMin~ (and JaeSu, best friends know better XD). Thank you for reading/commenting!