[Fic] Two Hearts
Cross-posted to hug______
Title: Two Hearts
Genre: Angst/Romance
Length: One-shot
Pairing: Jaemin
Rated: R
Summary: Changmin thinks love is truly knowing someone. Jaejoong thinks it’s still wanting to be with each other.
Changmin is all long limbs and sleepy eyes, a wet runny nose that nuzzles into your neck and a warm sneeze trapped against your shoulder. He’s clingy when he’s sick: de-ages a decade and demands attention with the softest tissues. Turns his head away at the porridge you stir for him carefully with a wooden spoon. He hates to be sick, hates to be deprived of ramen and gyoza, take-out pizza with the cheese still warm and gooey, the motsunabe simmering on the stove for the rest of the members deemed untouchable.
“It’s not fair,” Changmin grumbles into your shirt. “I took so many supplements, wore the most clothes for the winter photoshoot and I still get ill.”
You bring the spoon up and touch it softly against his moving lips.
This time, he slurps without complaint. You steal a chaste kiss before he hides his head again, against the flu and the rest of the unjust world.
There are things you don’t quite grasp, like Changmin primping in front of your mirror (the largest one in the apartment, he explains) for hours and agonizing over the crease in his shirt that doesn’t quite smooth out, the scent of his cologne.
He turns.
“What about this one?” He fiddles with the bottle and almost drops it.
You catch it and spray the perfume against your wrist, take a sniff at the resulting musky aroma and grab Changmin’s arm, rub the liquid in small concentric circles against his wrists, tip-toe up to dab it behind his ears. You tiptoe back and away, rake over his form with appraising eyes.
“She’ll love it.”
Changmin’s face blossoms, so radiant and still so young.
You stand at the door and watch him hurry off with a bitter-sweet smile.
You’re drunk and the night club’s strobe lights paint a rainbow on the soles of your feet, the smell of alcohol burns your nose and the music strums your soul with picky fingers, riffling for something, something…
“You’re drunk,” Changmin says, suddenly teleporting from across the room to right in front of you.
In the back of your mind, you register he’s slurring too. Not as much as you are, not the birthday boy who gets tons of sake and soju and Yunho and Yoochun’s arms slung across his shoulders and Junsu belting out “Happy Birthday” with thrills and strained neck with the karaoke machine onstage.
“C’mere,” you say, and make a grab for the shiny sheen of Changmin’s shirt, sparkling like a night sky and just as velvety, while Yoochun and Yunho laugh and move away when the youngest of your group flops against you and the couch.
Changmin brings his face to yours, nose to nose.
“This one’s a keeper,” you whisper and he moves closer. “The girl.”
Changmin jerks away.
You watch him with knowing eyes.
“Your latest girlfriend,” you explain. “You’ve been with her longer than any of the others. You’re in love.”
He’s not so young anymore, you think, when he slams you against the club’s bathroom wall and you sink your fingers into the hard firmness of his biceps, the soft curl of his hair when he sinks down on his knees.
“I’m not in love,” Changmin grits out before he curls his protest around you.
You’re starved for love, haunted by being thrown away, dreams of a childhood spent eating alone at dusk in a dark and lonely room. You’ve had a string of girlfriends, exchange diaries and promises, learned to cook to please one of them who had your fondness of spices and kimchi jjigae. Eventually, they all learned enough about you, became too smothered by you to want to leave.
“She doesn’t love me,” Changmin says, mumbles into your shoulder while you stroke his hair. A hot summer night and his clothed form is sticky against you and the sheets, the air-conditioner broken down from frequent usage during the heat wave in Tokyo. Yoochun’s taken refuge in Yunho and Junsu’s room which has their last functional fan.
“She likes the singer Changmin,” He continues, voice quiet and still like a pool without any ripples. “She likes the model. The witty boy she sees on television. She doesn’t know me, not the real me.”
You touch your finger to the tip of his nose and draw it up across the bridge of it, across his eyelids which flutter shut at your touch. You tell him about how she must love the way one of his eyes crinkle more when he laughs, how she loves the way he hobbles about in the snow, careful of slipping on ice, and how he doesn’t know the difference between jade and marble although he knows two percent of thirty-eight.
“I love you,” Changmin says. “Why can’t I be with you?”
The fans know that you always want affection, approval. Adopted. Only son among eight sisters, probably chosen to keep the family name from dying instead of anything else. And Yoochun too, who misses his mother and brother back in America, a continent away. They don’t know though, about Changmin. Changmin who lost his normal life at fourteen barely fifteen. Changmin who’s never been properly kissed until he was twenty going on twenty-one.
“Your kisses count,” Changmin interrupts your rambling.
You remember them, the first so many years ago, before he presses for silence against your cheek, your lips.
You lost your virginity at thirteen, to a girl in a backwater town who’s probably forgotten you but whom you remember clear as day. During your time at SM Academy, there was little time for girls. You were pretty enough that a few fellow male trainees tried approaching you but it was too strange, too out of the norm.
You tell Changmin to confess to his girl.
He looks at you with the calmest eyes you’ve ever seen and says, “I won’t let you run away.”
Two days later, he breaks up with her instead.
Marriage and children, a happy family. You wanted those things and although low voices and warm touches with a rough hand could be nice, there weren’t things you were willing to sacrifice. You wanted to sit together at the dining table and eat together with your wife and kids, put shining lamps in every room of your house until it glowed like heaven.
Changmin pushes into you. You bite your lips against the pain. His breath is harsh against your temple and you grip the sheets. Sweat runs down your face.
Love always made you crazy enough to forget reason.
“It’s oedipal complex,” you explain to Changmin the morning after. “We’re messed up.”
Changmin laughs, his eyes crinkling until they mismatch.
“I don’t care, Jaejoong.”
He buries his face against your neck, nuzzles against you and hides the both of you against the world in his arms.
Title: Two Hearts
Genre: Angst/Romance
Length: One-shot
Pairing: Jaemin
Rated: R
Summary: Changmin thinks love is truly knowing someone. Jaejoong thinks it’s still wanting to be with each other.
Changmin is all long limbs and sleepy eyes, a wet runny nose that nuzzles into your neck and a warm sneeze trapped against your shoulder. He’s clingy when he’s sick: de-ages a decade and demands attention with the softest tissues. Turns his head away at the porridge you stir for him carefully with a wooden spoon. He hates to be sick, hates to be deprived of ramen and gyoza, take-out pizza with the cheese still warm and gooey, the motsunabe simmering on the stove for the rest of the members deemed untouchable.
“It’s not fair,” Changmin grumbles into your shirt. “I took so many supplements, wore the most clothes for the winter photoshoot and I still get ill.”
You bring the spoon up and touch it softly against his moving lips.
This time, he slurps without complaint. You steal a chaste kiss before he hides his head again, against the flu and the rest of the unjust world.
There are things you don’t quite grasp, like Changmin primping in front of your mirror (the largest one in the apartment, he explains) for hours and agonizing over the crease in his shirt that doesn’t quite smooth out, the scent of his cologne.
He turns.
“What about this one?” He fiddles with the bottle and almost drops it.
You catch it and spray the perfume against your wrist, take a sniff at the resulting musky aroma and grab Changmin’s arm, rub the liquid in small concentric circles against his wrists, tip-toe up to dab it behind his ears. You tiptoe back and away, rake over his form with appraising eyes.
“She’ll love it.”
Changmin’s face blossoms, so radiant and still so young.
You stand at the door and watch him hurry off with a bitter-sweet smile.
You’re drunk and the night club’s strobe lights paint a rainbow on the soles of your feet, the smell of alcohol burns your nose and the music strums your soul with picky fingers, riffling for something, something…
“You’re drunk,” Changmin says, suddenly teleporting from across the room to right in front of you.
In the back of your mind, you register he’s slurring too. Not as much as you are, not the birthday boy who gets tons of sake and soju and Yunho and Yoochun’s arms slung across his shoulders and Junsu belting out “Happy Birthday” with thrills and strained neck with the karaoke machine onstage.
“C’mere,” you say, and make a grab for the shiny sheen of Changmin’s shirt, sparkling like a night sky and just as velvety, while Yoochun and Yunho laugh and move away when the youngest of your group flops against you and the couch.
Changmin brings his face to yours, nose to nose.
“This one’s a keeper,” you whisper and he moves closer. “The girl.”
Changmin jerks away.
You watch him with knowing eyes.
“Your latest girlfriend,” you explain. “You’ve been with her longer than any of the others. You’re in love.”
He’s not so young anymore, you think, when he slams you against the club’s bathroom wall and you sink your fingers into the hard firmness of his biceps, the soft curl of his hair when he sinks down on his knees.
“I’m not in love,” Changmin grits out before he curls his protest around you.
You’re starved for love, haunted by being thrown away, dreams of a childhood spent eating alone at dusk in a dark and lonely room. You’ve had a string of girlfriends, exchange diaries and promises, learned to cook to please one of them who had your fondness of spices and kimchi jjigae. Eventually, they all learned enough about you, became too smothered by you to want to leave.
“She doesn’t love me,” Changmin says, mumbles into your shoulder while you stroke his hair. A hot summer night and his clothed form is sticky against you and the sheets, the air-conditioner broken down from frequent usage during the heat wave in Tokyo. Yoochun’s taken refuge in Yunho and Junsu’s room which has their last functional fan.
“She likes the singer Changmin,” He continues, voice quiet and still like a pool without any ripples. “She likes the model. The witty boy she sees on television. She doesn’t know me, not the real me.”
You touch your finger to the tip of his nose and draw it up across the bridge of it, across his eyelids which flutter shut at your touch. You tell him about how she must love the way one of his eyes crinkle more when he laughs, how she loves the way he hobbles about in the snow, careful of slipping on ice, and how he doesn’t know the difference between jade and marble although he knows two percent of thirty-eight.
“I love you,” Changmin says. “Why can’t I be with you?”
The fans know that you always want affection, approval. Adopted. Only son among eight sisters, probably chosen to keep the family name from dying instead of anything else. And Yoochun too, who misses his mother and brother back in America, a continent away. They don’t know though, about Changmin. Changmin who lost his normal life at fourteen barely fifteen. Changmin who’s never been properly kissed until he was twenty going on twenty-one.
“Your kisses count,” Changmin interrupts your rambling.
You remember them, the first so many years ago, before he presses for silence against your cheek, your lips.
You lost your virginity at thirteen, to a girl in a backwater town who’s probably forgotten you but whom you remember clear as day. During your time at SM Academy, there was little time for girls. You were pretty enough that a few fellow male trainees tried approaching you but it was too strange, too out of the norm.
You tell Changmin to confess to his girl.
He looks at you with the calmest eyes you’ve ever seen and says, “I won’t let you run away.”
Two days later, he breaks up with her instead.
Marriage and children, a happy family. You wanted those things and although low voices and warm touches with a rough hand could be nice, there weren’t things you were willing to sacrifice. You wanted to sit together at the dining table and eat together with your wife and kids, put shining lamps in every room of your house until it glowed like heaven.
Changmin pushes into you. You bite your lips against the pain. His breath is harsh against your temple and you grip the sheets. Sweat runs down your face.
Love always made you crazy enough to forget reason.
“It’s oedipal complex,” you explain to Changmin the morning after. “We’re messed up.”
Changmin laughs, his eyes crinkling until they mismatch.
“I don’t care, Jaejoong.”
He buries his face against your neck, nuzzles against you and hides the both of you against the world in his arms.