[Meteors] Epilogue - Part A
Chapter: Epilogue, part A
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?
Epilogue. Of important things (Part A).
Their beginning doesn’t feel like one, a time of strange quality… deeply familiar when considering every distinct detail yet constantly a little off if you look at the broad picture. Unless it’s the contrary.
Above all, there’s the acute consciousness that a different them is born and that it’s changing everything - quickly, slowly, it’s hard to tell - even though it soon becomes clear that most of this new ‘them’ has always been here, somewhere, steering the underflow of their lives.
Perhaps the difference between being in love, or wanting to outline it amidst a tangled bundle of feelings too strong and earnest to bear being tidied.
▪ Hey ^^
Mmh?
Something’s wrong?
▪ I can’t sleep
Are you by chance thinking of me? :)))
▪ Yes
▪ Yoochun?
You remember when you said you thought being blunt was actually a very good thing
▪ Yes?
And how I told you that wasn’t cute at all?
▪ …Yes
I take it back
You’re adorable
▪ Good night
I mean it
▪ Turning off my phone
Are you embarrassed now?
Cos that’s even cuter
Adorable, I’m telling youuuu
I’m so happy
Meet me in your dreams
I love you
<3
“Hey.”
Changmin hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t look up from his phone, his expression perplexed as he reads again through Yoochun’s texts last night. He’s been trying for hours now to wrap his mind around this specific newfound side of the older man’s personality - meaning the utterly shameless flirting and flailing all over him - but it’s proving hard to take in. Especially the ‘adorable’ part.
“You should stop glaring at your phone. It could be sending the bad waves back to you.”
God knows Changmin has been called a lot of things in his life, but “adorable” is a first. His mother never did, Jungmi only went as far as “cute”, and even in his wildest attempts to piss him off, Junsu would never have dared.
“The bad waves from phones can make knots in your brain cells, you know.”
Changmin just can’t begin to pinpoint what it is about him that would objectively earn an “adorable” label. Then again, it’s obvious at this point that Yoochun can’t do “objective” when it comes to him. It’s been two weeks and that was more than enough time for him to figure out that his friend (boyfriend actually, and doesn’t that sound weird) is really, really far gone down the infatuation path. He had not anticipated some of the consequences for himself though.
“They say it’s all part of their plan to take humanity out.”
“I told you already aliens don’t exist” Changmin looks up at last, meeting Jaejoong’s worried eyes. “You’ve been reading bullshit online again.”
Jaejoong’s features harden, shifting into an obstinate expression that Changmin has come to know all too well in the months when Yoochun was away in Australia.
“That-“
“No.”
“But-“
“We’re not having this conversation again” Changmin cuts him.
He tried… spent hours presenting logical, simple arguments, only for Jaejoong to counterattack with rumors of UFO sightings the previous week above a teashop in Jeju or similar nonsense. Changmin soon realized that his attempts to have a serious take on the matter did nothing but fuel the older man’s enthusiasm for aberrations in general and alien life in particular. He’s not giving up, but arguing with Jaejoong is awfully draining. Right now there are more pressing issues on his mind.
“I just don’t understand” he mutters to himself, absently checking the time on his phone as a subway train appears in the tunnel on their left. Yoochun is eight minutes late.
Jaejoong is thankfully not in the mood to put up much of a fight today. He shakes his head disapprovingly before taking a seat next to Changmin as the train stops, the platform soon filling with the bustle of people rushing in and out.
The three of them agreed to meet up here before going together to a robot exhibition Yoowhan has been working on. Changmin grants robots as much interest as aliens - zero - yet it’s the third time he’s being dragged there. Yoochun is adamant about making as many people as possible go - ‘for visitor rates you know’ - and while Changmin clearly feels that he’s being taken advantage of, it doesn’t bother him as much as it should.
“What don’t you understand?” Jaejoong asks, talking loud to be heard above the commotion and the rumble of the train leaving.
“This” Changmin answers curtly, waving his phone, and increasingly frustrated. “I don’t get this at all.”
“It’s the knots in your brain cells” Jaejoong provides at once, his eyes glinting triumphantly.
“Leave my brain cells alone, they’re doing just fine.”
“Unless it’s depression, have you-”
“Seriously, I am adorable??”
Jaejoong freezes, speechless - a rare feat. As it is Changmin barely notices, his thoughts following a logic of their own and anyway that was a rhetorical question. Only a gross cheesy infatuated idiot like Yoochun could come up with nonsense like this. No. The problem is that it’s not supposed to make Changmin feel all fluttery inside.
He’s so going to make Yoochun pay for it once he finally shows up - eleven minutes late now.
“…Changmin?”
“What now?” he snaps, regretting at once his harsh tone and glancing at Jaejoong in case he looks hurt and he needs to apologize or something. Jaejoong is easily hurt, he learned, and by the most ridiculous remarks too, but whatever you want to think about Changmin he doesn’t like hurting people.
Jaejoong doesn’t look hurt though. In fact he’s sporting a dazzling grin that makes Changmin blink, because it’s the first time Jaejoong is looking at him this way - like what he just said or did was extraordinarily beautiful - and Changmin isn’t used to being looked at like this. Much like he isn’t used to being called adorable.
“…What?” he asks again, less harshly, albeit a tad suspicious.
“I got you a present” Jaejoong announces out-of-the-blue and bends down to pick a plastic bag on the ground next to them. “Here!”
Changmin stares alternatively at the bag in the other’s outstretched hand and at his too-bright smile, admittedly wary. He gestures to make sure it’s okay to open it now as another train noisily pulls into the subway station, and Jaejoong nods enthusiastically, bringing his feet up on his seat and putting his arms around his knees as a new flow of people pours onto the platform.
“Yoochun is fifteen minutes late” Changmin observes as he takes the bag.
Jaejoong cocks his head to the side questioningly.
“You know sometimes you don’t make sense at all.”
Changmin halts in the middle of opening the bag. He considers his options, a dozen perfectly honed and sensible retorts instantly flashing through his mind, because isn’t that the most absurd statement ever - coming from Jaejoong of all people. He ends up smiling instead.
“I guess I don’t” he comments softly, his smile widening when Jaejoong’s expression turns impossibly smug, and reverts to the plastic bag in his hand.
Changmin successfully opens it as this train too leaves without them. An improbable jumble of trinkets spills on his lap. There is a ball pen, ear plugs, a USB key, a pack of balloons, a plastic toy (the sort they give away in family restaurants when you take the kids menu), a handful of sugar candies, a keychain, cheap sunglasses and a saltshaker. He contemplates that bric-a-brac, needing a few seconds to realize that the only common point between all those things is that they are orange and blue. He raises his head and finds Jaejoong watching him eagerly.
“Thanks” Changmin says, careful not to make any side comment that might not be interpreted to his advantage.
“They are complementary colors you know” Jaejoong flashes another bright smile at him, and then, out of nowhere, “thank you so much.”
Changmin has nothing to say to that. He watches him as Jaejoong brings his knees closer to his chest and looks up at the clock hanging above the platform. Yoochun is over twenty minutes late now.
“I think it’s ok to be late” the older man muses, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Same. It has never bothered me” Changmin answers truthfully, but his mind is already somewhere else. He fumbles with his jacket, taking his phone out of his pocket with one hand while placing Jaejoong’s presents back inside the plastic bag with the other.
There are four messages and three voicemails from Yoochun, all variations on the familiar theme of “I’m sorry”, “on my way” and “omg please don’t kill me”. Of course there’s also a far-fetched excuse for being late that Changmin knows is nowhere near true, and that Yoochun knows Changmin won’t believe, as usual. As usual, Changmin will pretend to be annoyed when Yoochun will finally arrive. And as usual, Yoochun will beg for forgiveness and indulge Changmin’s every whim for the next few hours.
But this time, Changmin thinks, oblivious of the agitation around as yet another train arrives… this time maybe Yoochun will have this big, foolish, lovesick grin on his face as he’ll run toward him. Maybe he’ll take his hand to make him stand up from his seat and not let go afterwards. Maybe later he’ll squeeze his fingers tight when no one is looking, and maybe… just maybe, Changmin will tighten his hold in return.
He finishes carefully collecting the orange and blue items inside the bag, fighting an uncharacteristic urge to smile. He gives in eventually when a loud scream of “Changmin-ah!!” reaches his ears, a little frantic but above all so damn happy that he doesn’t need to look up to know that, sure enough, there is a huge dumb smile illuminating Yoochun’s face.
In a few seconds Changmin will look up, scowl, and complain about punctuality for the sake of habits. Now he keeps his head lowered and allows his smile to linger just a little longer. The truth is that he wouldn’t want them to be any other way.
~
The first time Yoochun and Changmin try for touches a little more feisty than kissing - even considering how very enthusiastic their kissing has become - it doesn’t go so well.
The second time is a full disaster. Changmin spends the following days carefully avoiding touching him, talking to him or even just looking at him if he can avoid it, and incidentally - in the rare occurrences when their gazes meet - turning various interesting shades of red. Yoochun starts working on convincing himself that he’s perfectly fine with a platonic relationship, and that the idea doesn’t make him feel utterly depressed.
The third time they have both drunk a lot more than strictly necessary, which as a general rule is not recommended at all, but in their specific case proves to help considerably.
The nerve-racking pressure Yoochun put upon himself subsides enough for him to remember how much he wants Changmin, and also focus on letting him know how badly he wants him, instead of a crippling mantra of You Must Not Mess This Up. Meanwhile Changmin discovers there is a limit to how frustrated he can get, and proceeds with crashing through that one line as soon as alcohol works its disinhibiting properties.
The outcome is arguably nowhere near Yoochun’s wild sex fantasies, but when he wakes up and opens his eyes the next morning, Changmin’s sleeping face fills his field of vision and he knows what heaven on earth must be like. And that’s after having dreamed this moment a thousand times before.
In spite of a killer hangover, the next twenty minutes become the most perfect his life has ever been - Yoochun spends them watching him, just watching. When it becomes clear that Changmin won’t wake up any time soon, Yoochun snuggles closer, not daring to take him in his arms just yet but still close enough to be wrapped in the younger man’s scent and warmth. He lets Changmin’s presence overtake every sense, every thought, every feeling, and drifts back to sleep with a content sigh.
One morning about eight months into their relationship, Changmin catches Yoochun in the bathroom taking a selfie to show Jaejoong the big purple hickey on his collarbone.
“But it’s my first hickey!!” Yoochun protests vehemently when Changmin snatches his phone from his hand, and shuts his mouth seeing the younger man’s vicious glare. Survival instincts kick in. Yoochun takes a cautious step back, palms up and hands raised midair in a show of innocence. He pauses to ponder how damn sexy Changmin looks when he’s angry, and also how he really should have learnt to better order his priorities by now.
“You” Changmin says in that quiet tone that always makes Yoochun wish he’d be screaming instead, “are going to end up with a lot more bruises if I ever find you doing something like this again.”
“…Where?”
It’s out before Yoochun can stop himself and he dives under Changmin’s arm, running out of the bathroom before the younger can react.
“YOOCHUN” he hears him shout a second later but he already reached the shelter of the bedroom and locks himself inside, shaking with laughter.
Changmin spends the next thirty minutes spilling strings of imaginative death threats on the other side of the door. It’s the kind of excessive thing he does when he’s excessively embarrassed and Yoochun grins like a fool that entire time.
~
One Thursday evening soon after his 30th birthday, Yoochun takes the long way home after work - an odd job again, this time as an editing assistant at a local newspaper firm, but he enjoys it well enough and even admitted he’d like to stay if they asked to keep him. Changmin says “of course they’ll want to keep you”. Jaejoong believes it’s a good idea because of the nurturing smell of ink and paper - whatever that means - and wants him to investigate why they publish the bad news in the first place.
Yoochun only knows that he has two weeks left working there. He’ll be happy if they propose him to renew his contract, he’ll deal with it just fine if they don’t.
Dusk is already spreading, swiftly darkening sinuous streets and bringing a welcome breath of cool air after the numbing heat of that long summer day. He stops by a garage screened by an old gnarled tree, home to dozens of evening birds gathered on its branches. The murmuring breeze ruffles the tree’s pale leaves and brushes past his face like a ghostly caress. The birds’ loud chirrups randomly dot the low rumble of the city in the distance. It’s the bottom part of a residential area and Yoochun’s apartment is on the top of that hill. It’s a Thursday evening.
He took the long way home.
He starts moving again, dragging his feet, slowly walking along a high wall. He lets the tips of his fingers brush against the warm stones, still gorged with the sunlight of a dying day. His gaze travels around, jumping from one detail to the other, restless, distracted.
He stops again once he reaches the convenient store down his street, gazing inside the shop as if deep in thoughts, his hands opening and closing around the strap of his shoulder bag. He eventually resumes walking, head lowered, only to abruptly turn back after a few meters. Yoochun retraces his steps and enters the store. He comes out shortly after, a plastic bag in hand.
He walks the remaining distance at a much faster pace, as if suddenly in a hurry to arrive after delaying the moment as best as he could during the past hour.
They don’t plan anything on Thursdays. The week-end is just around the corner so there’s no need to meet that day, they agreed - or rather, Changmin suggested at first and Yoochun went along with it, and it stuck until now. Nothing planned tonight. No need to hurry.
He speeds up, as if hoping to make up for the time he lost.
It’s a Thursday evening and there’s a pair of shoes by the door when Yoochun comes in. He stares down at them. Black and shiny, expensive leather shoes. Changmin’s best. Lying overturned in a corner as if their owner threw them off carelessly when he arrived. Yoochun stops just the time to drop his bag, remove his own shoes and tidy Changmin’s - he’ll be annoyed at himself if he finds them like this later - and walks inside, heading to the bedroom after a second of hesitation.
The curtains are drawn and Yoochun stops at the threshold, a flash of concern crossing his eyes as he spots the shape of the man lying curled up on his bed. He watches him for a full minute before he leaves the room, carefully closing the door behind him.
When Yoochun comes in again ten minutes later, Changmin is still lying down but he’s awake now and facing the door, his eyes fixed on him as he walks closer.
There’s tension, apprehension… silent alarms going off in Yoochun’s head, but his feet make no noise on the carpeted floor. There’s the muffled sound made by the mug in his hand when he puts it on the bedside table. The way the mattress dips under his weight when he sits down on the edge of the bed. The expectant look in Changmin’s eyes when the young man looks up at him, quiet, tired, inert.
The soft sigh that escapes his lips as Yoochun tentatively puts one hand on his forehead, his fingers gently brushing the young man’s bangs away from his eyes.
“You’re late” Changmin murmurs, closing his eyes. There’s no trace of reproach in his tone. A mere observation.
“Had to stop by the store” Yoochun answers equally softly, the half-lie ready on his tongue, “knew I’d run out of chocolate powder.”
“It’s summer. It’s too hot.”
“And your hot chocolate is right here waiting for you.”
Changmin doesn’t answer, instead burying his face into the pillow. Yoochun moves his hand to the top of his head, slowly threading his fingers through the young man’s hair. His gaze travels down from his face to his neck, and the crumpled collar of his shirt. The white clothing flatteringly fits Changmin’s lean body but the fabric is creased and rumpled, escaping in some places the waistband of his suit trousers. Yoochun looks up and spots a black jacket rolled into a ball at the foot of the bed.
It’s a Thursday and it has been seven years today since Changmin’s father died.
Every year there’s a commemoration event. Yoochun never attended the private ceremony - which is for close family members only - but he usually joins the small gathering afterwards, widely accepted in the Shims’ inner circle as Changmin’s best friend. He was not invited this year though. Changmin’s mother opposed a categorical refusal.
Yoochun swallows around the lump in his throat.
“How was it?” he ventures, aware that this is in many ways a pointless thing to say, but also that it is more or less the question Changmin expects him to ask now.
“Fine…”
“You don’t look fine.”
Changmin cracks an eye open and looks up at him. The expression on his face is one Yoochun sees very rarely, because Changmin… Changmin doesn’t run away. Changmin fights and gets back on his feet and moves on. Changmin never complains and deals with life on his own, everyone who knows him would agree on this. But Yoochun isn’t ‘everyone’.
His chest tightens and he puts his hand back on the young man’s head just as Changmin shifts closer and tucks his face against his thigh, his eyes fluttering shut again, wet at the corners.
“I tried to talk to her again-“
“You didn’t have to.”
“She still thinks it’s just a phase.”
Yoochun silently starts stroking the young man’s hair again, unable to come up with proper words of comfort, unable to do anything but wish that real life would stop being in the way. He knows Changmin must feel terribly pressured. Changmin grants family a lot of importance. He’s the only son, the older brother, the one they all expected to be married by now with maybe one child or two in tow already. Barely three years ago he was still engaged to Jungmi, and Yoochun thinks with a pang to his heart that he can’t even categorically refute Changmin’s mother’s opinion here because…
Yoochun doesn’t want to think of “because”.
He doesn’t want to be reminded of everything Changmin has yet to do or say. Of the oppressing anxiety that comes up whenever Yoochun sees him lost in thoughts, irritable or distant - of “what if…?”, of silences, of aborted attempts to talk to him and get him to talk in return. Of three little words that Yoochun hasn’t stopped saying but that he’s starting to fear will never be answered.
“Maybe she’s right, you know” he distantly hears himself say, his free hand clasping the bed covers tight, the other still on top of Changmin’s head but unmoving now. Just here. Frozen. “You shouldn’t argue with her, not for this, who knows maybe it’s truly just a phase and-“
“It’s not.”
Changmin moves closer, raising his right arm to wrap it around Yoochun’s waist and burying his face against his side.
“It’s not…” he says again, his hand gripping the back of Yoochun’s T-shirt, his voice thick and charged with contradicting emotions. A layer of anger too. “You’ve to believe it’s not too, you’ve to say it because else I don’t know if I c-can…”
Changmin’s voice breaks halfway and Yoochun wordlessly gathers him in his arms, his heart heavy and uneasy, knowing perfectly well that he’s shit at this and hating himself for it. He wishes he could feel sure, or at the very least pretend to be. He wishes Changmin would be sure, so that Yoochun himself would stop having to grope around blindly for answers he doesn’t have.
“I love you” he says, for lack of a better answer. His eyes fall on the mug of hot chocolate getting cold on the bedside table and he smiles somewhat bitterly.
He remembers a time when it was so easy. It used to be simple - a relationship that wasn’t everything Yoochun wanted but that he could manage just fine, imperfect yet accomplished in so many different ways. Back then he used to dream that love come reality would only mean fulfilling the unachieved part of them, going that last mile together at the same easy pace.
He remembers a time when loving Changmin was the simplest feeling of them all.
“I love you” Yoochun says again, and again he waits in vain for an answer that doesn’t come. Changmin silently tightens his arms around him as if he never wants to let go, and Yoochun remembers a time when this was more than he even dared to hope for.
He remembers when he did not have him, and he wishes someone had told him back then that having Changmin - really having him - would also mean fear losing him. Really losing him.
~
Retrospectively, there are many episodes of his life that Changmin is not proud of. Most of them felt right at the moment, and it’s only with time and distance that he could understand what he should probably have done differently. A few still sting with the lingering burn of humiliation - anchored deeply in the recesses of childhood, when a handful of words is still enough to entirely reshape a person’s life. Parts of him that he accepted, dealt with and moved on from.
But among those memories, there’s this one moment that Changmin still doesn’t dare to touch.
One evening of his life that he can barely acknowledge years later, because absolutely everything about it still feels wrong… as sickeningly wrong as it felt when it happened. Even now he badly wishes he could undo it, change it, erase it from his past entirely or at least keep it estranged from himself - from the person he is. And yet, he has now come to realize…. and yet, had it not happened, he knows deep down that Yoochun and he would likely be standing in a different place today.
Memories have blurred now - a small blessing and a mercy - but he remembers going to Yoochun’s place in the small hours of the morning, the stink of alcohol clinging to his clothes and the stale taste of guilt at the back of his throat… remembers dizziness, confusion, tripping in the stairs and pounding at Yoochun’s door with shaky hands and dread coiling in the pit of his stomach. Changmin doesn’t remember crying but his eyes burned, and his cheeks felt icy.
He remembers the urge to run when Yoochun opened the door, the burning heat of shame and the clutches of renewed fear, how Yoochun ushered him inside and tried to calm him down and how that had felt worse than everything else. Changmin remembers thinking that he had to tell him now - now before he came to his senses and it would become too hard to say and too easy to hide.
He doesn’t remember the words he used when the ugly truth spilled from his mouth… going out, wandering, late, lost, alone, drinking… drinking so much and bad excuses - so many bad excuses but Yoochun would understand, right, he had to - and there was a girl next to him in the bar. She had looked like she would listen… she had looked like she was meant to be here and listen and so Changmin had told her… drank and told her about his mother not talking to him, about Jungmi marrying next month, drank again and told her about future, efforts, trying, trying more yet not knowing till future becomes doubts, fears, closed, and then Yoochun being so far… so so far away and already wounded, already giving up maybe and how it hurt, how he just didn’t know anymore.
He remembers kissing her. He remembers it had felt right the moment her lips had touched his, a brief spell of softness and relief, deepening the kiss, a hand on her slim waist and her heady perfume, and the strange comfort of having a female body pressed close to him, and possibilities. He remembers the second that followed. Remembers the realization of what he had just done crashing through him. Doesn’t remember leaving the bar but there… there was that feeling, twisted, rotten, the horrible sensation that he was the person who had just done that, thought that, liked that. It was him, and every belief he ever had about himself had just blown up in his dirty hands.
That was the worst he had ever felt until an hour later. Until he was with Yoochun. Until he had told Yoochun, had seen the blank expression on the older man’s face, and until Changmin had realized that stupidly, selfishly, he had thought at some point that Yoochun would fix it. Because Yoochun always did… Yoochun used to know how to fix it but not recently, not anymore… not now. Not this.
Predictably, Yoochun had disappeared the days that followed. Five days gone, and Changmin had not dared to do anything but leave useless voice messages filled with remorse, apologies and more bad excuses. Five days when he only allowed himself to feel awful and worse than that, until Yoochun came back and Changmin went to find him, doing his best to fight the anxiety tearing at his heart and to hide the gashes it had already cut into shaken beliefs.
Changmin is bad with people, relationships… feelings in general. Still, he tried. Perhaps he did it all wrong but that was okay too, because Yoochun knows, right? He knows better. He understands. He accepts him just as he is, Yoochun wouldn’t want him to be any other way. Changmin tried, so hard, without realizing that he was ready to tell him all the beautiful lies he had once refused to tell Jungmi, if that was what it’d take for Yoochun to forgive.
And Yoochun merely smiled… he smiled and tilted his head, and told him not to worry. Said everything was fine. Didn’t cry. Didn’t look upset. Didn’t look hurt and didn’t get angry. Didn’t say he loved him either. Changmin knew then that there was only so much time before he lost him for good.
He corners Yoochun two days after he came back, in the bathroom and way too late for this kind of talk if Yoochun’s eye bags are any indication. Changmin doesn’t give a fuck about timing. He’s scared… scared like never before because the most important thing in his life is slipping right through his fingers and the more time passes, the less he manages to hold onto it - and still, Changmin doesn’t stop to think and question what it is exactly.
“We need to talk” he starts ominously, and Yoochun frowns, toothbrush in one hand, toothpaste in the other, his hair messy as ever and his face lined with tiredness and worries that used to leave him undisturbed.
“What do you mean, ‘talk’?”
“About last week” Changmin goes on, silent panic going up several notches as he notices the way Yoochun stiffens, the way he withdraws, how his eyes instantly become blank and a little lifeless.
“We already talked about that” the older man states carefully, putting toothbrush and toothpaste aside on the sink, his expression giving nothing away. “I told you not to worry about it.”
“We didn’t talk, Yoochun” Changmin snaps, despite having promised himself not to lose his cool. “You just stood here and… and you smiled and said it was fine-“
“It is” Yoochun argues at once, his frown deepening, “if I say it’s fine then it is and you shouldn’t-“
“It’s not fine” Changmin cuts him, anxiety tying knots in his heart, on the verge of shouting and he couldn’t care less and he can’t hold back anymore - and he doesn’t want to. “Nothing’s fine.”
“You-“
“Which part of it is fine to you??” Changmin takes a step forward and his voice shakes and breaks free, and the words fly as they are, broken, self-control shattering. “That I kissed some girl I don’t even know or that you’re pretending you don’t care?! Or that I decided to get pissed drunk on my own cos we don’t talk anymore?!! We… you don’t say anything but I know what you’re thinking a-and-“
Tears gather in his eyes and he stubbornly blinks them back and curses, emotions overflowing and messed up, spilling out in the wrong order, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and suddenly Yoochun is right here, looking into his eyes. Looking right at him for the first time in days.
“What do you mean, what I’m thinking?”
Yoochun’s voice is shaking too. Pain in his eyes… pain, anger, confusion… feelings, at last. Feelings sharp and hurtful, but feelings that broke through the older man’s thick emotional defenses and Changmin finds himself breathing again.
“You believe I don’t know you?” he spills, bitter, unable to hold back the sarcasm because yes, Changmin knows him, knows him better than Yoochun does himself and that’s why he’s so scared. “You’ve it all set up in your little head, don’t you? Just need the courage to do it now.”
“I don’t-“
“It’s too complicated right?” Changmin lets it all out in one breathless question, fear overpowering him, slashing his voice and squeezing hard the suffocating weight in his chest. “With me right now, it’s too damn complicated and just when you realized you don’t want that, look, I screw up!”
That last sentence soars too high and cracks midway, damaged. Yoochun takes a small step forward, eyes suddenly swirling with emotions Changmin is too upset to bother noticing.
“It’s all my fault now, right?!” he goes on, shouting, fists tight, jaw set and unconcerned by the tears of anger and frustration running down his cheeks, “you can fucking say it was!! You can blame it all on me and I’ll be the asshole who cheated on you, isn’t that perfect?!”
Changmin held back too long, for weeks… months, because he knows Yoochun, knows what he wants, what makes him hold on, why and how he breaks. Changmin knows… wanted to protect him from those things Yoochun can’t cope with - family, future, questions - wanted to solve it himself, but that didn’t work, and now it’s his fault and it’s unfair… scary, paralyzing, he doesn’t have any option left and lost feelings are derailing, escaping, latching helplessly on his voice as the words pour out.
“You can leave now!! You can leave me and no one will say a damn thing cos I deserve it and-“
All the air leaves his lungs as Yoochun slams him into the wall. Changmin gasps and only has the time to spot tears in the older man’s eyes, and the storm raging in them, before Yoochun’s lips crash against his own and the next thing he knows Changmin is kissing back. It’s all teeth and lips, desperate and angry but relief washes through him all the same and Changmin shudders, clutching the back of Yoochun’s shirt, bringing him closer, kissing him harder, fighting the acute fear inside by pouring everything out now.
He falls back against the wall when Yoochun breaks the kiss, breathing hard, staring at the older man’s tear-stricken face… the taste of those tears on his tongue, the burn behind his own eyes, his wet cheeks and racing heart. Changmin chokes on a stifled sob and grips the other’s shirt tighter, and feels hands grabbing his arms and pushing him harder against the wall.
“Not leaving…” Yoochun forces out, his voice thick and his eyes defiant, heated, afire with the very passion Changmin feared was fading out the past few months. “Not leaving you, I’m not-“
He stops when Changmin starts shaking his head, fresh tears rising to his eyes, feeling a mess and unable to keep any control whatsoever over the chaos of emotions he tried so hard to repress.
“Don’t l-lie” he starts and takes a sharp intake of breath, scared at the way he doesn’t recognize his own voice, and tries in vain to shake the vice-like grip Yoochun is having on his upper arms, “don’t lie to me, I know what you’re thinking-“
“The fuck you know” Yoochun hisses, pressing closer, fingers digging hard into Changmin’s arms. “I’m not leaving- I can’t... couldn’t leave even if I wanted to, but of course you don’t get that.”
“I-“
“I don’t give a damn who you kiss or what you feel!” Yoochun’s voice rises and whatever emotions he had managed to hold back are spilling out, his eyes filled with hurt, self-hatred, pleas, apologies, reproaches, anger, everything… tears rising again and blurring all those into one desperate look that pierces right through Changmin’s heart. “I don’t care, you… you could tell me it’s over and go and I… I-I’d still be running after you like the idiot I am b-but…”
Yoochun stops and breathes in shakily and Changmin doesn’t know anymore what he’s doing or feeling. He starts wiping away the tears from Yoochun’s face with one hand, apologies spilling from his mouth he doesn’t know what for, his other hand unable to let go of the older man’s shirt.
“Shit” Yoochun curses, struggling to stop crying, moving his hands higher and soon he’s not so much pushing Changmin into the wall as clinging onto him. “Shit I can’t… can’t do this, I’m not- I hate it.”
Changmin remembers how to move and brings his arms around Yoochun, closer now, fear receding and replaced by something bigger, brighter, warmer, still vague and hard to apprehend but this one, he’s convinced… this one he shares with Yoochun, and that makes it suddenly just a little alright.
“I-I understand…”
“Like hell you understand!” Yoochun lashes out, eyes bright with anger and pain, “what do you understand?! You don’t even love me!!”
And it takes that moment… it takes the frantic emotions swirling in Yoochun’s eyes, the deep resonances of the words he just said, the tears on both their faces, the emotional chaos of the past days and the ghost of the past months’ anxiety hovering at the back of his mind… it takes the warmth of Yoochun’s body pressed close and the reality of that man in his arms, the reality of that fear inside him, the reality of what he needs to hear and feel - not just now, not just today but tomorrow too and every day after that - for Changmin to finally realize a very important thing.
It takes the violent pounding of his heart… it takes his deepest insecurities crashing against the urge to protect his most precious person for Changmin’s last line to give way and reveal a bigger future, his brightest dream and warmest hope.
When Yoochun wakes up and opens his eyes the next morning, Changmin’s sleeping face fills his field of vision and it takes several seconds before he remembers what happened the day before - the reason for his bleary eyes and fatigued thoughts. His body feels drained and way too heavy and he’s content with not moving, merely letting his eyes run over Changmin’s face. An ethereal caress full of quiet love and longing, one he’s deeply familiar with.
For years that’s all he was allowed to do. That’s all he wanted to do.
Watch… watch him, and dream. A dream that hurt in the way dreams do - a flawless scenario that won’t happen but ensnares you all the same within its perfection… a lulling mist inside that you end up losing your way into. A dull ache that never materializes into a wound, a missing piece that can never be found since it never existed in the first place.
Dreams are thieves, Yoochun knows… thieves, traps and botched emotions. He knew back then already… knew he didn’t have the strength to feel and risk more than a half-accomplished ideal. He was fully aware of the reasons why he had chosen to tie his heart to an unblemished and unattainable hope, rather than a damageable future. Reality has always scared him.
Reality is a meteor, Yoochun knows.
Reality happens whether you want it or not. It’s made of truths and hard feelings, it creates and breaks and soars and crashes down, and starts as many fires as it shapes black holes in its wake. Back then Yoochun wanted the lights without the darkness. He wanted the dream of Changmin and him, and knew deep down that he wasn’t brave enough for the reality of them.
Today Yoochun knows that he’s stronger than he once thought.
He snuggles closer, tucks his head under Changmin’s chin and wraps an arm around his torso. The sheets rustles as he curls around the warmth of the younger man’s body. Yoochun breathes in deeply and closes his eyes once he’s comfortably burrowed in Changmin’s presence, a hand splayed over the younger’s back, his lips brushing against his shoulder, the outside world effectively shunned and harmless for now.
He isn’t so surprised when Changmin stirs silently and wraps his arms around him in turn. Yoochun moves along as the younger man secures his hold onto his upper body, their hands never letting go of each other until Changmin stops moving at last and sighs, and Yoochun recognizes in that soft sound the same calm tiredness and deep satisfaction filling his own being.
He shuts his eyes more tightly. His fingertips curl and dig a little into Changmin’s shoulder blade. His mouth presses more firmly against Changmin’s skin. His heart skips a gentle beat when he feels a kiss being laid on his temple and the warm hand coming to envelop the nape of his neck, and hears the soft words whispered in his ear.
Yoochun soon drifts back to sleep with a content sigh, at last fully relishing in a reality more precious to him than any dream come true.
~
“Changmin, I really don’t think it’s necessary…”
“Don’t start again.”
“No one dresses formally in there, I know it, I-“
Changmin tugs harder on Yoochun’s tie, effectively making the older man shut up as he attempts for the third time to tie a proper Windsor knot, brow furrowed in concentration.
“If you keep moving I swear I’m strangling you with it” he mutters, punctuating the sentence with sharp little tugs on the tie to better get his point across. Yoochun seems to get the message at last and settles with sulking silently during the rest of the operation, fiercely glaring his disapproval but not daring to make any further comment while Changmin’s hands are so close to his neck.
“Here” Changmin says at last when he’s done, taking a step back to admire his work. “You look great.”
“I hate it” Yoochun whines, shifting uncomfortably in his tailored suit, his fingers immediately rising to feel the tie around his neck and Changmin knows it’s a matter of seconds before he starts pulling at the fabric to loosen it. “I look ridiculous.”
“Stop that” he intervenes, slapping Yoochun’s hands away and giving him a warning look. “And you look perfect, stop complaining.”
“I look stupid” Yoochun insists sullenly, hands falling back against his sides. “I can’t breathe with that stuff, I’m sure they don’t even care, no one else’s gonna be dressed like this, and… and they’ll think I’m a bloody stuck-up conceited asshole and-“
“I’m the stuck-up conceited asshole, you’re not” Changmin cuts him, chewing on his lower lip as he checks Yoochun’s hair, which is less messy than usual though still not quite as neat as he’d have liked, but all the bribes and threats in the world wouldn’t have convinced Yoochun to sit down for a proper haircut. “And as far as I’m concerned you can wear your pajamas there once they hire you, but today you’re wearing a suit.”
“They won’t hire me anyway…”
Changmin slaps the older man’s arm none too lightly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
“You’ve made it to the final round of interviews” he reminds him for the umpteenth time, as calmly as possible. “You have the exact profile they want, you’ve worked with them already and they loved the job you did back then.”
Yoochun nods cheerlessly, eyes downcast, looking far from convinced. Changmin sighs inwardly. He knows the older man is nervous as hell because he actually wants this job, and this time around he happens to have good chances too. The local newspapers agency he once briefly worked for is hiring. They couldn’t open a position for him back then, a year and a half ago, but his previous boss contacted Yoochun again last month to tell him a job offer had just come up and that she’d recommend him - if Yoochun was interested of course.
Yoochun is interested indeed. So interested that he’s slowly turning the color of someone about to puke on their shoes.
“Yoochun.”
“Yeah…”
“Look at me.”
Yoochun looks up at him reluctantly. In spite of the suit and tie and nearly ten years that have stretched since then, he looks very much like the young man who used to sulk by the window back in the days when Changmin still lived at Junsu’s, when he did not pay him enough attention to Yoochun’s liking. The memory brings a smile to his lips and Changmin casts a glance around. The small alleyway he dragged the older man to earlier is still well empty, and he leans forward for a quick peck on the older man’s lips. Still absurdly efficient. Changmin looks at Yoochun, thinking it’s ridiculous how he can literally see all negative thoughts vanishing from the other’s mind.
“Now you’re listening.”
“You just-“
“Yes.”
“But we’re in the street.”
“So?”
Yoochun opens his mouth. Changmin arches an eyebrow and protests die on the older man’s lips, leaving him hanging with his mouth half-open and a slightly dazed expression on his face.
“We’ve spent hours preparing this interview together, haven’t we?”
Yoochun nods.
“You know you’re ready.”
Another nod.
“You’re going to do great.”
A nod again.
“Now close your mouth.”
Yoochun shuts his mouth, looking half-sheepish and half-annoyed and entirely too in love, but not so nervous anymore, and Changmin mentally gives himself a good pat on the back.
“You’re going to be late” he adds, taking the older man’s arm and gently maneuvering him toward the alleyway’s entrance - the newspapers’ main office being just across the street. “Go inside, and remember you need to ask after Ms. Song.”
“Okay…” Yoochun utters slowly, and seems to shake himself out of autopilot mode. “Okay” he adds more firmly, taking a couple steps forward before he turns back and throws him a quick glance, looking slightly embarrassed, “and thank you.”
“My pleasure” Changmin smiles, hands in his pockets, uncomfortably feeling like he’s sending his son away for his first day at school - worried yet proud - not that Yoochun will ever know.
“I’ll call you when it’s over” the older man goes on, delaying the moment to go of course. “To tell you how it went.”
“No need” Changmin’s grin widens as he motions toward the end of the street and the chain coffee shop they left just thirty minutes ago, after yet another cheering up session - supposedly the last one. “I’m going to wait there” he adds, trying not to look too amused at Yoochun’s scrunched up face.
“But, you-“
“I took the day off” Changmin adds, “just in case. After this I’m all yours.”
Ten seconds later Yoochun all but prances toward the newspapers’ head office and his dreaded job interview. Changmin can’t help but shake his head, and not for the first time wonders how Yoochun would have survived all those years if it wasn’t for him. Or what he’d have done of all that time himself if Changmin had had no Yoochun to keep busy and on a constant high level of alert. Which all comes to more or less the same thing now - that it’s good they found each other, otherwise doomed respectively to a likely death or an entire life of senselessness and boredom.
~
▪ What have you done again
…?
More specific please?
▪ Don’t
▪ Just
▪ Damn
Sentences, Changmin-ah
▪ Shut up
▪ Why am I in a train for the airport now???
:)))
▪ I said DON’T
▪ What the hell did you tell my boss???
Uuh that’s a secret
▪ She was nearly crying it was CREEEPY
▪ What did you tell her???
▪ Why am I on leave??! I can’t be on leave! I have work to do!!
Not anymore
And she’s not creepy, she’s super nice
▪ Oh god…
She is! We talked about you! A lot!!
▪ No you didn’t
And she said she had no idea what you were going through, you never said a word, that must be so hard, and then of course she agreed with me you needed holidays! :)
▪ What. Did you. Tell her.
▪ Yoochun I’m serious
She had tears in her eyes I swear, I was so touched I nearly cried too TT__TT
▪ WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
▪ Where are you now??? I can’t go on holidays!! I haven’t prepared anything!!
Well you’re going though
Your luggage is with me
▪ …
And I’m waiting for youuuu <3
I’ll tell you where to go once you reach the airport~
▪ Can’t you at least tell me WHERE we are going?
No
▪ It’d better not be Australia
You’ll see
▪ You’re the worst
<3
▪ Don’t
▪ I’m angry at you
Yes
▪ Really angry
Yes
▪ You’re insane
Yes
▪ Completely crazy
Yes
▪ I love you so much
An airport is one of those places were important things happen all the time, and where no one notices.
The man is alone, sitting on a bench with his black coat folded on the empty seat on his right. Oblivious to the noise and agitation around him, his full attention on the phone in his hands, his luggage beside him. On top of a small suitcase, a bouquet of red roses. Barely a handful of people notice, and while some of them do a double take and throw him a curious glance, none stops long enough to catch the important things here.
And yet.
There are the man’s fingers… brushing lightly over the screen of his phone, slow and careful, as though he’s scared to damage the words he’s reading. His eyes as they earnestly go over those same words again, and again, and the fondness in them. The fragility too. And the smile that rises to his lips… a smile that words cannot describe. A smile without words but with a story, because here, in that one place and at that exact moment, in this very smile, there’s that man’s entire life.
A man sitting alone in the middle of a crowded airport, and as busy as you are, if you cared to look at him - really look - and if you cared for the small important things, you’d see his heart, and the lights it shelters. The distant yet burning glow of the falling stars you were told to wish upon.
Part B.
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?
Epilogue. Of important things (Part A).
Their beginning doesn’t feel like one, a time of strange quality… deeply familiar when considering every distinct detail yet constantly a little off if you look at the broad picture. Unless it’s the contrary.
Above all, there’s the acute consciousness that a different them is born and that it’s changing everything - quickly, slowly, it’s hard to tell - even though it soon becomes clear that most of this new ‘them’ has always been here, somewhere, steering the underflow of their lives.
Perhaps the difference between being in love, or wanting to outline it amidst a tangled bundle of feelings too strong and earnest to bear being tidied.
▪ Hey ^^
Mmh?
Something’s wrong?
▪ I can’t sleep
Are you by chance thinking of me? :)))
▪ Yes
▪ Yoochun?
You remember when you said you thought being blunt was actually a very good thing
▪ Yes?
And how I told you that wasn’t cute at all?
▪ …Yes
I take it back
You’re adorable
▪ Good night
I mean it
▪ Turning off my phone
Are you embarrassed now?
Cos that’s even cuter
Adorable, I’m telling youuuu
I’m so happy
Meet me in your dreams
I love you
<3
“Hey.”
Changmin hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t look up from his phone, his expression perplexed as he reads again through Yoochun’s texts last night. He’s been trying for hours now to wrap his mind around this specific newfound side of the older man’s personality - meaning the utterly shameless flirting and flailing all over him - but it’s proving hard to take in. Especially the ‘adorable’ part.
“You should stop glaring at your phone. It could be sending the bad waves back to you.”
God knows Changmin has been called a lot of things in his life, but “adorable” is a first. His mother never did, Jungmi only went as far as “cute”, and even in his wildest attempts to piss him off, Junsu would never have dared.
“The bad waves from phones can make knots in your brain cells, you know.”
Changmin just can’t begin to pinpoint what it is about him that would objectively earn an “adorable” label. Then again, it’s obvious at this point that Yoochun can’t do “objective” when it comes to him. It’s been two weeks and that was more than enough time for him to figure out that his friend (boyfriend actually, and doesn’t that sound weird) is really, really far gone down the infatuation path. He had not anticipated some of the consequences for himself though.
“They say it’s all part of their plan to take humanity out.”
“I told you already aliens don’t exist” Changmin looks up at last, meeting Jaejoong’s worried eyes. “You’ve been reading bullshit online again.”
Jaejoong’s features harden, shifting into an obstinate expression that Changmin has come to know all too well in the months when Yoochun was away in Australia.
“That-“
“No.”
“But-“
“We’re not having this conversation again” Changmin cuts him.
He tried… spent hours presenting logical, simple arguments, only for Jaejoong to counterattack with rumors of UFO sightings the previous week above a teashop in Jeju or similar nonsense. Changmin soon realized that his attempts to have a serious take on the matter did nothing but fuel the older man’s enthusiasm for aberrations in general and alien life in particular. He’s not giving up, but arguing with Jaejoong is awfully draining. Right now there are more pressing issues on his mind.
“I just don’t understand” he mutters to himself, absently checking the time on his phone as a subway train appears in the tunnel on their left. Yoochun is eight minutes late.
Jaejoong is thankfully not in the mood to put up much of a fight today. He shakes his head disapprovingly before taking a seat next to Changmin as the train stops, the platform soon filling with the bustle of people rushing in and out.
The three of them agreed to meet up here before going together to a robot exhibition Yoowhan has been working on. Changmin grants robots as much interest as aliens - zero - yet it’s the third time he’s being dragged there. Yoochun is adamant about making as many people as possible go - ‘for visitor rates you know’ - and while Changmin clearly feels that he’s being taken advantage of, it doesn’t bother him as much as it should.
“What don’t you understand?” Jaejoong asks, talking loud to be heard above the commotion and the rumble of the train leaving.
“This” Changmin answers curtly, waving his phone, and increasingly frustrated. “I don’t get this at all.”
“It’s the knots in your brain cells” Jaejoong provides at once, his eyes glinting triumphantly.
“Leave my brain cells alone, they’re doing just fine.”
“Unless it’s depression, have you-”
“Seriously, I am adorable??”
Jaejoong freezes, speechless - a rare feat. As it is Changmin barely notices, his thoughts following a logic of their own and anyway that was a rhetorical question. Only a gross cheesy infatuated idiot like Yoochun could come up with nonsense like this. No. The problem is that it’s not supposed to make Changmin feel all fluttery inside.
He’s so going to make Yoochun pay for it once he finally shows up - eleven minutes late now.
“…Changmin?”
“What now?” he snaps, regretting at once his harsh tone and glancing at Jaejoong in case he looks hurt and he needs to apologize or something. Jaejoong is easily hurt, he learned, and by the most ridiculous remarks too, but whatever you want to think about Changmin he doesn’t like hurting people.
Jaejoong doesn’t look hurt though. In fact he’s sporting a dazzling grin that makes Changmin blink, because it’s the first time Jaejoong is looking at him this way - like what he just said or did was extraordinarily beautiful - and Changmin isn’t used to being looked at like this. Much like he isn’t used to being called adorable.
“…What?” he asks again, less harshly, albeit a tad suspicious.
“I got you a present” Jaejoong announces out-of-the-blue and bends down to pick a plastic bag on the ground next to them. “Here!”
Changmin stares alternatively at the bag in the other’s outstretched hand and at his too-bright smile, admittedly wary. He gestures to make sure it’s okay to open it now as another train noisily pulls into the subway station, and Jaejoong nods enthusiastically, bringing his feet up on his seat and putting his arms around his knees as a new flow of people pours onto the platform.
“Yoochun is fifteen minutes late” Changmin observes as he takes the bag.
Jaejoong cocks his head to the side questioningly.
“You know sometimes you don’t make sense at all.”
Changmin halts in the middle of opening the bag. He considers his options, a dozen perfectly honed and sensible retorts instantly flashing through his mind, because isn’t that the most absurd statement ever - coming from Jaejoong of all people. He ends up smiling instead.
“I guess I don’t” he comments softly, his smile widening when Jaejoong’s expression turns impossibly smug, and reverts to the plastic bag in his hand.
Changmin successfully opens it as this train too leaves without them. An improbable jumble of trinkets spills on his lap. There is a ball pen, ear plugs, a USB key, a pack of balloons, a plastic toy (the sort they give away in family restaurants when you take the kids menu), a handful of sugar candies, a keychain, cheap sunglasses and a saltshaker. He contemplates that bric-a-brac, needing a few seconds to realize that the only common point between all those things is that they are orange and blue. He raises his head and finds Jaejoong watching him eagerly.
“Thanks” Changmin says, careful not to make any side comment that might not be interpreted to his advantage.
“They are complementary colors you know” Jaejoong flashes another bright smile at him, and then, out of nowhere, “thank you so much.”
Changmin has nothing to say to that. He watches him as Jaejoong brings his knees closer to his chest and looks up at the clock hanging above the platform. Yoochun is over twenty minutes late now.
“I think it’s ok to be late” the older man muses, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Same. It has never bothered me” Changmin answers truthfully, but his mind is already somewhere else. He fumbles with his jacket, taking his phone out of his pocket with one hand while placing Jaejoong’s presents back inside the plastic bag with the other.
There are four messages and three voicemails from Yoochun, all variations on the familiar theme of “I’m sorry”, “on my way” and “omg please don’t kill me”. Of course there’s also a far-fetched excuse for being late that Changmin knows is nowhere near true, and that Yoochun knows Changmin won’t believe, as usual. As usual, Changmin will pretend to be annoyed when Yoochun will finally arrive. And as usual, Yoochun will beg for forgiveness and indulge Changmin’s every whim for the next few hours.
But this time, Changmin thinks, oblivious of the agitation around as yet another train arrives… this time maybe Yoochun will have this big, foolish, lovesick grin on his face as he’ll run toward him. Maybe he’ll take his hand to make him stand up from his seat and not let go afterwards. Maybe later he’ll squeeze his fingers tight when no one is looking, and maybe… just maybe, Changmin will tighten his hold in return.
He finishes carefully collecting the orange and blue items inside the bag, fighting an uncharacteristic urge to smile. He gives in eventually when a loud scream of “Changmin-ah!!” reaches his ears, a little frantic but above all so damn happy that he doesn’t need to look up to know that, sure enough, there is a huge dumb smile illuminating Yoochun’s face.
In a few seconds Changmin will look up, scowl, and complain about punctuality for the sake of habits. Now he keeps his head lowered and allows his smile to linger just a little longer. The truth is that he wouldn’t want them to be any other way.
~
The first time Yoochun and Changmin try for touches a little more feisty than kissing - even considering how very enthusiastic their kissing has become - it doesn’t go so well.
The second time is a full disaster. Changmin spends the following days carefully avoiding touching him, talking to him or even just looking at him if he can avoid it, and incidentally - in the rare occurrences when their gazes meet - turning various interesting shades of red. Yoochun starts working on convincing himself that he’s perfectly fine with a platonic relationship, and that the idea doesn’t make him feel utterly depressed.
The third time they have both drunk a lot more than strictly necessary, which as a general rule is not recommended at all, but in their specific case proves to help considerably.
The nerve-racking pressure Yoochun put upon himself subsides enough for him to remember how much he wants Changmin, and also focus on letting him know how badly he wants him, instead of a crippling mantra of You Must Not Mess This Up. Meanwhile Changmin discovers there is a limit to how frustrated he can get, and proceeds with crashing through that one line as soon as alcohol works its disinhibiting properties.
The outcome is arguably nowhere near Yoochun’s wild sex fantasies, but when he wakes up and opens his eyes the next morning, Changmin’s sleeping face fills his field of vision and he knows what heaven on earth must be like. And that’s after having dreamed this moment a thousand times before.
In spite of a killer hangover, the next twenty minutes become the most perfect his life has ever been - Yoochun spends them watching him, just watching. When it becomes clear that Changmin won’t wake up any time soon, Yoochun snuggles closer, not daring to take him in his arms just yet but still close enough to be wrapped in the younger man’s scent and warmth. He lets Changmin’s presence overtake every sense, every thought, every feeling, and drifts back to sleep with a content sigh.
One morning about eight months into their relationship, Changmin catches Yoochun in the bathroom taking a selfie to show Jaejoong the big purple hickey on his collarbone.
“But it’s my first hickey!!” Yoochun protests vehemently when Changmin snatches his phone from his hand, and shuts his mouth seeing the younger man’s vicious glare. Survival instincts kick in. Yoochun takes a cautious step back, palms up and hands raised midair in a show of innocence. He pauses to ponder how damn sexy Changmin looks when he’s angry, and also how he really should have learnt to better order his priorities by now.
“You” Changmin says in that quiet tone that always makes Yoochun wish he’d be screaming instead, “are going to end up with a lot more bruises if I ever find you doing something like this again.”
“…Where?”
It’s out before Yoochun can stop himself and he dives under Changmin’s arm, running out of the bathroom before the younger can react.
“YOOCHUN” he hears him shout a second later but he already reached the shelter of the bedroom and locks himself inside, shaking with laughter.
Changmin spends the next thirty minutes spilling strings of imaginative death threats on the other side of the door. It’s the kind of excessive thing he does when he’s excessively embarrassed and Yoochun grins like a fool that entire time.
~
One Thursday evening soon after his 30th birthday, Yoochun takes the long way home after work - an odd job again, this time as an editing assistant at a local newspaper firm, but he enjoys it well enough and even admitted he’d like to stay if they asked to keep him. Changmin says “of course they’ll want to keep you”. Jaejoong believes it’s a good idea because of the nurturing smell of ink and paper - whatever that means - and wants him to investigate why they publish the bad news in the first place.
Yoochun only knows that he has two weeks left working there. He’ll be happy if they propose him to renew his contract, he’ll deal with it just fine if they don’t.
Dusk is already spreading, swiftly darkening sinuous streets and bringing a welcome breath of cool air after the numbing heat of that long summer day. He stops by a garage screened by an old gnarled tree, home to dozens of evening birds gathered on its branches. The murmuring breeze ruffles the tree’s pale leaves and brushes past his face like a ghostly caress. The birds’ loud chirrups randomly dot the low rumble of the city in the distance. It’s the bottom part of a residential area and Yoochun’s apartment is on the top of that hill. It’s a Thursday evening.
He took the long way home.
He starts moving again, dragging his feet, slowly walking along a high wall. He lets the tips of his fingers brush against the warm stones, still gorged with the sunlight of a dying day. His gaze travels around, jumping from one detail to the other, restless, distracted.
He stops again once he reaches the convenient store down his street, gazing inside the shop as if deep in thoughts, his hands opening and closing around the strap of his shoulder bag. He eventually resumes walking, head lowered, only to abruptly turn back after a few meters. Yoochun retraces his steps and enters the store. He comes out shortly after, a plastic bag in hand.
He walks the remaining distance at a much faster pace, as if suddenly in a hurry to arrive after delaying the moment as best as he could during the past hour.
They don’t plan anything on Thursdays. The week-end is just around the corner so there’s no need to meet that day, they agreed - or rather, Changmin suggested at first and Yoochun went along with it, and it stuck until now. Nothing planned tonight. No need to hurry.
He speeds up, as if hoping to make up for the time he lost.
It’s a Thursday evening and there’s a pair of shoes by the door when Yoochun comes in. He stares down at them. Black and shiny, expensive leather shoes. Changmin’s best. Lying overturned in a corner as if their owner threw them off carelessly when he arrived. Yoochun stops just the time to drop his bag, remove his own shoes and tidy Changmin’s - he’ll be annoyed at himself if he finds them like this later - and walks inside, heading to the bedroom after a second of hesitation.
The curtains are drawn and Yoochun stops at the threshold, a flash of concern crossing his eyes as he spots the shape of the man lying curled up on his bed. He watches him for a full minute before he leaves the room, carefully closing the door behind him.
When Yoochun comes in again ten minutes later, Changmin is still lying down but he’s awake now and facing the door, his eyes fixed on him as he walks closer.
There’s tension, apprehension… silent alarms going off in Yoochun’s head, but his feet make no noise on the carpeted floor. There’s the muffled sound made by the mug in his hand when he puts it on the bedside table. The way the mattress dips under his weight when he sits down on the edge of the bed. The expectant look in Changmin’s eyes when the young man looks up at him, quiet, tired, inert.
The soft sigh that escapes his lips as Yoochun tentatively puts one hand on his forehead, his fingers gently brushing the young man’s bangs away from his eyes.
“You’re late” Changmin murmurs, closing his eyes. There’s no trace of reproach in his tone. A mere observation.
“Had to stop by the store” Yoochun answers equally softly, the half-lie ready on his tongue, “knew I’d run out of chocolate powder.”
“It’s summer. It’s too hot.”
“And your hot chocolate is right here waiting for you.”
Changmin doesn’t answer, instead burying his face into the pillow. Yoochun moves his hand to the top of his head, slowly threading his fingers through the young man’s hair. His gaze travels down from his face to his neck, and the crumpled collar of his shirt. The white clothing flatteringly fits Changmin’s lean body but the fabric is creased and rumpled, escaping in some places the waistband of his suit trousers. Yoochun looks up and spots a black jacket rolled into a ball at the foot of the bed.
It’s a Thursday and it has been seven years today since Changmin’s father died.
Every year there’s a commemoration event. Yoochun never attended the private ceremony - which is for close family members only - but he usually joins the small gathering afterwards, widely accepted in the Shims’ inner circle as Changmin’s best friend. He was not invited this year though. Changmin’s mother opposed a categorical refusal.
Yoochun swallows around the lump in his throat.
“How was it?” he ventures, aware that this is in many ways a pointless thing to say, but also that it is more or less the question Changmin expects him to ask now.
“Fine…”
“You don’t look fine.”
Changmin cracks an eye open and looks up at him. The expression on his face is one Yoochun sees very rarely, because Changmin… Changmin doesn’t run away. Changmin fights and gets back on his feet and moves on. Changmin never complains and deals with life on his own, everyone who knows him would agree on this. But Yoochun isn’t ‘everyone’.
His chest tightens and he puts his hand back on the young man’s head just as Changmin shifts closer and tucks his face against his thigh, his eyes fluttering shut again, wet at the corners.
“I tried to talk to her again-“
“You didn’t have to.”
“She still thinks it’s just a phase.”
Yoochun silently starts stroking the young man’s hair again, unable to come up with proper words of comfort, unable to do anything but wish that real life would stop being in the way. He knows Changmin must feel terribly pressured. Changmin grants family a lot of importance. He’s the only son, the older brother, the one they all expected to be married by now with maybe one child or two in tow already. Barely three years ago he was still engaged to Jungmi, and Yoochun thinks with a pang to his heart that he can’t even categorically refute Changmin’s mother’s opinion here because…
Yoochun doesn’t want to think of “because”.
He doesn’t want to be reminded of everything Changmin has yet to do or say. Of the oppressing anxiety that comes up whenever Yoochun sees him lost in thoughts, irritable or distant - of “what if…?”, of silences, of aborted attempts to talk to him and get him to talk in return. Of three little words that Yoochun hasn’t stopped saying but that he’s starting to fear will never be answered.
“Maybe she’s right, you know” he distantly hears himself say, his free hand clasping the bed covers tight, the other still on top of Changmin’s head but unmoving now. Just here. Frozen. “You shouldn’t argue with her, not for this, who knows maybe it’s truly just a phase and-“
“It’s not.”
Changmin moves closer, raising his right arm to wrap it around Yoochun’s waist and burying his face against his side.
“It’s not…” he says again, his hand gripping the back of Yoochun’s T-shirt, his voice thick and charged with contradicting emotions. A layer of anger too. “You’ve to believe it’s not too, you’ve to say it because else I don’t know if I c-can…”
Changmin’s voice breaks halfway and Yoochun wordlessly gathers him in his arms, his heart heavy and uneasy, knowing perfectly well that he’s shit at this and hating himself for it. He wishes he could feel sure, or at the very least pretend to be. He wishes Changmin would be sure, so that Yoochun himself would stop having to grope around blindly for answers he doesn’t have.
“I love you” he says, for lack of a better answer. His eyes fall on the mug of hot chocolate getting cold on the bedside table and he smiles somewhat bitterly.
He remembers a time when it was so easy. It used to be simple - a relationship that wasn’t everything Yoochun wanted but that he could manage just fine, imperfect yet accomplished in so many different ways. Back then he used to dream that love come reality would only mean fulfilling the unachieved part of them, going that last mile together at the same easy pace.
He remembers a time when loving Changmin was the simplest feeling of them all.
“I love you” Yoochun says again, and again he waits in vain for an answer that doesn’t come. Changmin silently tightens his arms around him as if he never wants to let go, and Yoochun remembers a time when this was more than he even dared to hope for.
He remembers when he did not have him, and he wishes someone had told him back then that having Changmin - really having him - would also mean fear losing him. Really losing him.
~
Retrospectively, there are many episodes of his life that Changmin is not proud of. Most of them felt right at the moment, and it’s only with time and distance that he could understand what he should probably have done differently. A few still sting with the lingering burn of humiliation - anchored deeply in the recesses of childhood, when a handful of words is still enough to entirely reshape a person’s life. Parts of him that he accepted, dealt with and moved on from.
But among those memories, there’s this one moment that Changmin still doesn’t dare to touch.
One evening of his life that he can barely acknowledge years later, because absolutely everything about it still feels wrong… as sickeningly wrong as it felt when it happened. Even now he badly wishes he could undo it, change it, erase it from his past entirely or at least keep it estranged from himself - from the person he is. And yet, he has now come to realize…. and yet, had it not happened, he knows deep down that Yoochun and he would likely be standing in a different place today.
Memories have blurred now - a small blessing and a mercy - but he remembers going to Yoochun’s place in the small hours of the morning, the stink of alcohol clinging to his clothes and the stale taste of guilt at the back of his throat… remembers dizziness, confusion, tripping in the stairs and pounding at Yoochun’s door with shaky hands and dread coiling in the pit of his stomach. Changmin doesn’t remember crying but his eyes burned, and his cheeks felt icy.
He remembers the urge to run when Yoochun opened the door, the burning heat of shame and the clutches of renewed fear, how Yoochun ushered him inside and tried to calm him down and how that had felt worse than everything else. Changmin remembers thinking that he had to tell him now - now before he came to his senses and it would become too hard to say and too easy to hide.
He doesn’t remember the words he used when the ugly truth spilled from his mouth… going out, wandering, late, lost, alone, drinking… drinking so much and bad excuses - so many bad excuses but Yoochun would understand, right, he had to - and there was a girl next to him in the bar. She had looked like she would listen… she had looked like she was meant to be here and listen and so Changmin had told her… drank and told her about his mother not talking to him, about Jungmi marrying next month, drank again and told her about future, efforts, trying, trying more yet not knowing till future becomes doubts, fears, closed, and then Yoochun being so far… so so far away and already wounded, already giving up maybe and how it hurt, how he just didn’t know anymore.
He remembers kissing her. He remembers it had felt right the moment her lips had touched his, a brief spell of softness and relief, deepening the kiss, a hand on her slim waist and her heady perfume, and the strange comfort of having a female body pressed close to him, and possibilities. He remembers the second that followed. Remembers the realization of what he had just done crashing through him. Doesn’t remember leaving the bar but there… there was that feeling, twisted, rotten, the horrible sensation that he was the person who had just done that, thought that, liked that. It was him, and every belief he ever had about himself had just blown up in his dirty hands.
That was the worst he had ever felt until an hour later. Until he was with Yoochun. Until he had told Yoochun, had seen the blank expression on the older man’s face, and until Changmin had realized that stupidly, selfishly, he had thought at some point that Yoochun would fix it. Because Yoochun always did… Yoochun used to know how to fix it but not recently, not anymore… not now. Not this.
Predictably, Yoochun had disappeared the days that followed. Five days gone, and Changmin had not dared to do anything but leave useless voice messages filled with remorse, apologies and more bad excuses. Five days when he only allowed himself to feel awful and worse than that, until Yoochun came back and Changmin went to find him, doing his best to fight the anxiety tearing at his heart and to hide the gashes it had already cut into shaken beliefs.
Changmin is bad with people, relationships… feelings in general. Still, he tried. Perhaps he did it all wrong but that was okay too, because Yoochun knows, right? He knows better. He understands. He accepts him just as he is, Yoochun wouldn’t want him to be any other way. Changmin tried, so hard, without realizing that he was ready to tell him all the beautiful lies he had once refused to tell Jungmi, if that was what it’d take for Yoochun to forgive.
And Yoochun merely smiled… he smiled and tilted his head, and told him not to worry. Said everything was fine. Didn’t cry. Didn’t look upset. Didn’t look hurt and didn’t get angry. Didn’t say he loved him either. Changmin knew then that there was only so much time before he lost him for good.
He corners Yoochun two days after he came back, in the bathroom and way too late for this kind of talk if Yoochun’s eye bags are any indication. Changmin doesn’t give a fuck about timing. He’s scared… scared like never before because the most important thing in his life is slipping right through his fingers and the more time passes, the less he manages to hold onto it - and still, Changmin doesn’t stop to think and question what it is exactly.
“We need to talk” he starts ominously, and Yoochun frowns, toothbrush in one hand, toothpaste in the other, his hair messy as ever and his face lined with tiredness and worries that used to leave him undisturbed.
“What do you mean, ‘talk’?”
“About last week” Changmin goes on, silent panic going up several notches as he notices the way Yoochun stiffens, the way he withdraws, how his eyes instantly become blank and a little lifeless.
“We already talked about that” the older man states carefully, putting toothbrush and toothpaste aside on the sink, his expression giving nothing away. “I told you not to worry about it.”
“We didn’t talk, Yoochun” Changmin snaps, despite having promised himself not to lose his cool. “You just stood here and… and you smiled and said it was fine-“
“It is” Yoochun argues at once, his frown deepening, “if I say it’s fine then it is and you shouldn’t-“
“It’s not fine” Changmin cuts him, anxiety tying knots in his heart, on the verge of shouting and he couldn’t care less and he can’t hold back anymore - and he doesn’t want to. “Nothing’s fine.”
“You-“
“Which part of it is fine to you??” Changmin takes a step forward and his voice shakes and breaks free, and the words fly as they are, broken, self-control shattering. “That I kissed some girl I don’t even know or that you’re pretending you don’t care?! Or that I decided to get pissed drunk on my own cos we don’t talk anymore?!! We… you don’t say anything but I know what you’re thinking a-and-“
Tears gather in his eyes and he stubbornly blinks them back and curses, emotions overflowing and messed up, spilling out in the wrong order, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and suddenly Yoochun is right here, looking into his eyes. Looking right at him for the first time in days.
“What do you mean, what I’m thinking?”
Yoochun’s voice is shaking too. Pain in his eyes… pain, anger, confusion… feelings, at last. Feelings sharp and hurtful, but feelings that broke through the older man’s thick emotional defenses and Changmin finds himself breathing again.
“You believe I don’t know you?” he spills, bitter, unable to hold back the sarcasm because yes, Changmin knows him, knows him better than Yoochun does himself and that’s why he’s so scared. “You’ve it all set up in your little head, don’t you? Just need the courage to do it now.”
“I don’t-“
“It’s too complicated right?” Changmin lets it all out in one breathless question, fear overpowering him, slashing his voice and squeezing hard the suffocating weight in his chest. “With me right now, it’s too damn complicated and just when you realized you don’t want that, look, I screw up!”
That last sentence soars too high and cracks midway, damaged. Yoochun takes a small step forward, eyes suddenly swirling with emotions Changmin is too upset to bother noticing.
“It’s all my fault now, right?!” he goes on, shouting, fists tight, jaw set and unconcerned by the tears of anger and frustration running down his cheeks, “you can fucking say it was!! You can blame it all on me and I’ll be the asshole who cheated on you, isn’t that perfect?!”
Changmin held back too long, for weeks… months, because he knows Yoochun, knows what he wants, what makes him hold on, why and how he breaks. Changmin knows… wanted to protect him from those things Yoochun can’t cope with - family, future, questions - wanted to solve it himself, but that didn’t work, and now it’s his fault and it’s unfair… scary, paralyzing, he doesn’t have any option left and lost feelings are derailing, escaping, latching helplessly on his voice as the words pour out.
“You can leave now!! You can leave me and no one will say a damn thing cos I deserve it and-“
All the air leaves his lungs as Yoochun slams him into the wall. Changmin gasps and only has the time to spot tears in the older man’s eyes, and the storm raging in them, before Yoochun’s lips crash against his own and the next thing he knows Changmin is kissing back. It’s all teeth and lips, desperate and angry but relief washes through him all the same and Changmin shudders, clutching the back of Yoochun’s shirt, bringing him closer, kissing him harder, fighting the acute fear inside by pouring everything out now.
He falls back against the wall when Yoochun breaks the kiss, breathing hard, staring at the older man’s tear-stricken face… the taste of those tears on his tongue, the burn behind his own eyes, his wet cheeks and racing heart. Changmin chokes on a stifled sob and grips the other’s shirt tighter, and feels hands grabbing his arms and pushing him harder against the wall.
“Not leaving…” Yoochun forces out, his voice thick and his eyes defiant, heated, afire with the very passion Changmin feared was fading out the past few months. “Not leaving you, I’m not-“
He stops when Changmin starts shaking his head, fresh tears rising to his eyes, feeling a mess and unable to keep any control whatsoever over the chaos of emotions he tried so hard to repress.
“Don’t l-lie” he starts and takes a sharp intake of breath, scared at the way he doesn’t recognize his own voice, and tries in vain to shake the vice-like grip Yoochun is having on his upper arms, “don’t lie to me, I know what you’re thinking-“
“The fuck you know” Yoochun hisses, pressing closer, fingers digging hard into Changmin’s arms. “I’m not leaving- I can’t... couldn’t leave even if I wanted to, but of course you don’t get that.”
“I-“
“I don’t give a damn who you kiss or what you feel!” Yoochun’s voice rises and whatever emotions he had managed to hold back are spilling out, his eyes filled with hurt, self-hatred, pleas, apologies, reproaches, anger, everything… tears rising again and blurring all those into one desperate look that pierces right through Changmin’s heart. “I don’t care, you… you could tell me it’s over and go and I… I-I’d still be running after you like the idiot I am b-but…”
Yoochun stops and breathes in shakily and Changmin doesn’t know anymore what he’s doing or feeling. He starts wiping away the tears from Yoochun’s face with one hand, apologies spilling from his mouth he doesn’t know what for, his other hand unable to let go of the older man’s shirt.
“Shit” Yoochun curses, struggling to stop crying, moving his hands higher and soon he’s not so much pushing Changmin into the wall as clinging onto him. “Shit I can’t… can’t do this, I’m not- I hate it.”
Changmin remembers how to move and brings his arms around Yoochun, closer now, fear receding and replaced by something bigger, brighter, warmer, still vague and hard to apprehend but this one, he’s convinced… this one he shares with Yoochun, and that makes it suddenly just a little alright.
“I-I understand…”
“Like hell you understand!” Yoochun lashes out, eyes bright with anger and pain, “what do you understand?! You don’t even love me!!”
And it takes that moment… it takes the frantic emotions swirling in Yoochun’s eyes, the deep resonances of the words he just said, the tears on both their faces, the emotional chaos of the past days and the ghost of the past months’ anxiety hovering at the back of his mind… it takes the warmth of Yoochun’s body pressed close and the reality of that man in his arms, the reality of that fear inside him, the reality of what he needs to hear and feel - not just now, not just today but tomorrow too and every day after that - for Changmin to finally realize a very important thing.
It takes the violent pounding of his heart… it takes his deepest insecurities crashing against the urge to protect his most precious person for Changmin’s last line to give way and reveal a bigger future, his brightest dream and warmest hope.
When Yoochun wakes up and opens his eyes the next morning, Changmin’s sleeping face fills his field of vision and it takes several seconds before he remembers what happened the day before - the reason for his bleary eyes and fatigued thoughts. His body feels drained and way too heavy and he’s content with not moving, merely letting his eyes run over Changmin’s face. An ethereal caress full of quiet love and longing, one he’s deeply familiar with.
For years that’s all he was allowed to do. That’s all he wanted to do.
Watch… watch him, and dream. A dream that hurt in the way dreams do - a flawless scenario that won’t happen but ensnares you all the same within its perfection… a lulling mist inside that you end up losing your way into. A dull ache that never materializes into a wound, a missing piece that can never be found since it never existed in the first place.
Dreams are thieves, Yoochun knows… thieves, traps and botched emotions. He knew back then already… knew he didn’t have the strength to feel and risk more than a half-accomplished ideal. He was fully aware of the reasons why he had chosen to tie his heart to an unblemished and unattainable hope, rather than a damageable future. Reality has always scared him.
Reality is a meteor, Yoochun knows.
Reality happens whether you want it or not. It’s made of truths and hard feelings, it creates and breaks and soars and crashes down, and starts as many fires as it shapes black holes in its wake. Back then Yoochun wanted the lights without the darkness. He wanted the dream of Changmin and him, and knew deep down that he wasn’t brave enough for the reality of them.
Today Yoochun knows that he’s stronger than he once thought.
He snuggles closer, tucks his head under Changmin’s chin and wraps an arm around his torso. The sheets rustles as he curls around the warmth of the younger man’s body. Yoochun breathes in deeply and closes his eyes once he’s comfortably burrowed in Changmin’s presence, a hand splayed over the younger’s back, his lips brushing against his shoulder, the outside world effectively shunned and harmless for now.
He isn’t so surprised when Changmin stirs silently and wraps his arms around him in turn. Yoochun moves along as the younger man secures his hold onto his upper body, their hands never letting go of each other until Changmin stops moving at last and sighs, and Yoochun recognizes in that soft sound the same calm tiredness and deep satisfaction filling his own being.
He shuts his eyes more tightly. His fingertips curl and dig a little into Changmin’s shoulder blade. His mouth presses more firmly against Changmin’s skin. His heart skips a gentle beat when he feels a kiss being laid on his temple and the warm hand coming to envelop the nape of his neck, and hears the soft words whispered in his ear.
Yoochun soon drifts back to sleep with a content sigh, at last fully relishing in a reality more precious to him than any dream come true.
~
“Changmin, I really don’t think it’s necessary…”
“Don’t start again.”
“No one dresses formally in there, I know it, I-“
Changmin tugs harder on Yoochun’s tie, effectively making the older man shut up as he attempts for the third time to tie a proper Windsor knot, brow furrowed in concentration.
“If you keep moving I swear I’m strangling you with it” he mutters, punctuating the sentence with sharp little tugs on the tie to better get his point across. Yoochun seems to get the message at last and settles with sulking silently during the rest of the operation, fiercely glaring his disapproval but not daring to make any further comment while Changmin’s hands are so close to his neck.
“Here” Changmin says at last when he’s done, taking a step back to admire his work. “You look great.”
“I hate it” Yoochun whines, shifting uncomfortably in his tailored suit, his fingers immediately rising to feel the tie around his neck and Changmin knows it’s a matter of seconds before he starts pulling at the fabric to loosen it. “I look ridiculous.”
“Stop that” he intervenes, slapping Yoochun’s hands away and giving him a warning look. “And you look perfect, stop complaining.”
“I look stupid” Yoochun insists sullenly, hands falling back against his sides. “I can’t breathe with that stuff, I’m sure they don’t even care, no one else’s gonna be dressed like this, and… and they’ll think I’m a bloody stuck-up conceited asshole and-“
“I’m the stuck-up conceited asshole, you’re not” Changmin cuts him, chewing on his lower lip as he checks Yoochun’s hair, which is less messy than usual though still not quite as neat as he’d have liked, but all the bribes and threats in the world wouldn’t have convinced Yoochun to sit down for a proper haircut. “And as far as I’m concerned you can wear your pajamas there once they hire you, but today you’re wearing a suit.”
“They won’t hire me anyway…”
Changmin slaps the older man’s arm none too lightly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
“You’ve made it to the final round of interviews” he reminds him for the umpteenth time, as calmly as possible. “You have the exact profile they want, you’ve worked with them already and they loved the job you did back then.”
Yoochun nods cheerlessly, eyes downcast, looking far from convinced. Changmin sighs inwardly. He knows the older man is nervous as hell because he actually wants this job, and this time around he happens to have good chances too. The local newspapers agency he once briefly worked for is hiring. They couldn’t open a position for him back then, a year and a half ago, but his previous boss contacted Yoochun again last month to tell him a job offer had just come up and that she’d recommend him - if Yoochun was interested of course.
Yoochun is interested indeed. So interested that he’s slowly turning the color of someone about to puke on their shoes.
“Yoochun.”
“Yeah…”
“Look at me.”
Yoochun looks up at him reluctantly. In spite of the suit and tie and nearly ten years that have stretched since then, he looks very much like the young man who used to sulk by the window back in the days when Changmin still lived at Junsu’s, when he did not pay him enough attention to Yoochun’s liking. The memory brings a smile to his lips and Changmin casts a glance around. The small alleyway he dragged the older man to earlier is still well empty, and he leans forward for a quick peck on the older man’s lips. Still absurdly efficient. Changmin looks at Yoochun, thinking it’s ridiculous how he can literally see all negative thoughts vanishing from the other’s mind.
“Now you’re listening.”
“You just-“
“Yes.”
“But we’re in the street.”
“So?”
Yoochun opens his mouth. Changmin arches an eyebrow and protests die on the older man’s lips, leaving him hanging with his mouth half-open and a slightly dazed expression on his face.
“We’ve spent hours preparing this interview together, haven’t we?”
Yoochun nods.
“You know you’re ready.”
Another nod.
“You’re going to do great.”
A nod again.
“Now close your mouth.”
Yoochun shuts his mouth, looking half-sheepish and half-annoyed and entirely too in love, but not so nervous anymore, and Changmin mentally gives himself a good pat on the back.
“You’re going to be late” he adds, taking the older man’s arm and gently maneuvering him toward the alleyway’s entrance - the newspapers’ main office being just across the street. “Go inside, and remember you need to ask after Ms. Song.”
“Okay…” Yoochun utters slowly, and seems to shake himself out of autopilot mode. “Okay” he adds more firmly, taking a couple steps forward before he turns back and throws him a quick glance, looking slightly embarrassed, “and thank you.”
“My pleasure” Changmin smiles, hands in his pockets, uncomfortably feeling like he’s sending his son away for his first day at school - worried yet proud - not that Yoochun will ever know.
“I’ll call you when it’s over” the older man goes on, delaying the moment to go of course. “To tell you how it went.”
“No need” Changmin’s grin widens as he motions toward the end of the street and the chain coffee shop they left just thirty minutes ago, after yet another cheering up session - supposedly the last one. “I’m going to wait there” he adds, trying not to look too amused at Yoochun’s scrunched up face.
“But, you-“
“I took the day off” Changmin adds, “just in case. After this I’m all yours.”
Ten seconds later Yoochun all but prances toward the newspapers’ head office and his dreaded job interview. Changmin can’t help but shake his head, and not for the first time wonders how Yoochun would have survived all those years if it wasn’t for him. Or what he’d have done of all that time himself if Changmin had had no Yoochun to keep busy and on a constant high level of alert. Which all comes to more or less the same thing now - that it’s good they found each other, otherwise doomed respectively to a likely death or an entire life of senselessness and boredom.
~
▪ What have you done again
…?
More specific please?
▪ Don’t
▪ Just
▪ Damn
Sentences, Changmin-ah
▪ Shut up
▪ Why am I in a train for the airport now???
:)))
▪ I said DON’T
▪ What the hell did you tell my boss???
Uuh that’s a secret
▪ She was nearly crying it was CREEEPY
▪ What did you tell her???
▪ Why am I on leave??! I can’t be on leave! I have work to do!!
Not anymore
And she’s not creepy, she’s super nice
▪ Oh god…
She is! We talked about you! A lot!!
▪ No you didn’t
And she said she had no idea what you were going through, you never said a word, that must be so hard, and then of course she agreed with me you needed holidays! :)
▪ What. Did you. Tell her.
▪ Yoochun I’m serious
She had tears in her eyes I swear, I was so touched I nearly cried too TT__TT
▪ WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
▪ Where are you now??? I can’t go on holidays!! I haven’t prepared anything!!
Well you’re going though
Your luggage is with me
▪ …
And I’m waiting for youuuu <3
I’ll tell you where to go once you reach the airport~
▪ Can’t you at least tell me WHERE we are going?
No
▪ It’d better not be Australia
You’ll see
▪ You’re the worst
<3
▪ Don’t
▪ I’m angry at you
Yes
▪ Really angry
Yes
▪ You’re insane
Yes
▪ Completely crazy
Yes
▪ I love you so much
An airport is one of those places were important things happen all the time, and where no one notices.
The man is alone, sitting on a bench with his black coat folded on the empty seat on his right. Oblivious to the noise and agitation around him, his full attention on the phone in his hands, his luggage beside him. On top of a small suitcase, a bouquet of red roses. Barely a handful of people notice, and while some of them do a double take and throw him a curious glance, none stops long enough to catch the important things here.
And yet.
There are the man’s fingers… brushing lightly over the screen of his phone, slow and careful, as though he’s scared to damage the words he’s reading. His eyes as they earnestly go over those same words again, and again, and the fondness in them. The fragility too. And the smile that rises to his lips… a smile that words cannot describe. A smile without words but with a story, because here, in that one place and at that exact moment, in this very smile, there’s that man’s entire life.
A man sitting alone in the middle of a crowded airport, and as busy as you are, if you cared to look at him - really look - and if you cared for the small important things, you’d see his heart, and the lights it shelters. The distant yet burning glow of the falling stars you were told to wish upon.
Part B.