facts in fiction (3/3)
This feels like Sunday cartoons, ridiculous reruns that are meant to be enjoyed in secret when no one’s watching. But why feel guilty about something so very small, so very insignificant when it’s precisely that? Now I would be worried if it was primetime, center stage with the spotlight trained on it, something to tune into everyday without fail.
“Are you sure you’re not worried?”
Jaejoong purposely backs his chair into the person behind it, a defense mechanism learnt from all the countless times of having his work being read over his shoulder, and the culprit lets out colorful sounding curse that involves Jaejoong, garden shears and lots of masking tape.
“No. I’m not. Should I be? And I didn’t know you could do that with masking tape.”
Yunho grins and ruffles Jaejoong’s hair, something he knows the other man hates but allows him and only him to get away with.
“I can think of dozens of inventive uses for masking tape.”
“Keep them to yourself for the moment, then, I need to get this done to show Heechul.”
“You’re showing him your little Mills and Boon rip off novella?”
“Compare me to Mills and Boon again and I can add one more usage to masking tape. Last I heard; it doesn’t go down throats very well.”
Jaejoong groans softly as Yunho lets his hand slide from hair to neck to jaw line, soft caress accompanied by a quick peck on the lips.
“I know something else that does...” Yunho spins Jaejoong round on his chair to pull him up by the tie. “Go down very....very well indeed.”
“I don’t suppose you can enlighten me?”
“Gladly.”
It’s not as hush-hush as they would like it to be but it’s secretive enough for only a choice few (Junsu, for one, Yoochun from accounting too) to throw them knowing glances when they emerge from broom cupboards strangely disheveled.
“Looking for toilet paper.” Yunho explains one unbelieving office boy as he exits with Jaejoong in tow behind him, face still flushed from a pre-lunch hour session.
“Riiiiight...”
Jaejoong bares his teeth at the poor lad in a bright grin that just dares him to prod at the matter further and the office boy gulps, scrambles away muttering about photocopiers and very important things that need his attention. Somewhere between scaring temporary members of the staff (the senior ones couldn’t care less, almost all of them having spent enough time themselves in various broom cupboards once upon a time) and having raunchy office sex in empty meeting rooms when no one is looking, Jaejoong finds the time to wonder where they’re actually headed.
Perhaps it’s primetime now, he types absent mindedly and hits the delete key when Yunho sets down coffee on his table, swings his legs from his place beside it as he goes over Jaejoong’s articles, editing them in his spare time away from Heechul who watches all this from behind frosted glass, mouth set in a thin line.
“So tell me about the potted plants,” Yunho asks one day, casually circling words with a red felt tip pen as he corrects misspelled words ad awkward sounding phrases. Jaejoong looks up from doing the dishes, up to his elbows in soapy water that splashes to the floor of his tiny kitchen.
“What?”
“Don’t try to act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Yunho lowers his voice, peers cautiously over his shoulder before sidling up to an exasperated Jaejoong. “It’s a conspiracy, isn’t it?” he hisses in Jaejoong’s ear and soap suds fly at him as Jaejoong waves his hands in agreement.
“Aliens in the leaves, Yunho. And microscopic people with camcorders recording your every move to sell you out to Heechul for cream pies. That’s why none of us water the plants,” Jaejoong deadpans without missing a beat and goes back to rinsing the dishes, blatantly ignoring Yunho as he flails like a madman drowning in thin air around the kitchen trying to get soap out of his eyes.
“Heechul has fired a grand total of 36 people in the last three years. That’s 12 a year, one for every month,” Jaejoong tells Yunho later, curled up watching the ten o’clock news with the other man’s head in his lap.
“And I need to know that because....?”
Jaejoong flips channels to a late night talk show, one with canned laughter and tired topics that serves as background noise for the moment.
“Because one of these days, you should go count the number of plants in the office.”
“Yunho, what the hell do you think you’re doing, skulking around like some goddamn secret agent?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Well ‘nothing’ is getting in my way so I suggest while you’re playing at spies, you should go check my filing cabinet for transmitter bugs. Arrange everything by alphabetical order according to height and color code them while you’re at it”
Yunho counts more than 36.
“What exactly are you playing at?” he demands from Jaejoong during lunch, peering over his cup of coffee at the other man who’s seeming more interested in his food than the conversation at hand.
“You must think very highly of the human race if you expect no one to walk out on their own account.”
Jaejoong picks out the tomatoes from his sandwich, places them neatly on the side of his plate for Yunho to steal before continuing. “He only puts out plants for the memorable ones, take Changmin for example. Fine young man, bit of a slut though, he was Heechul’s toy boy before you showed up.”
“I...see. Plants.”
“Yes, plants. Ferns for those he fired, flowering ones for the ones that walked. Likes to play favorites, Heechul does. Now are you going to eat that or not?”
It’s a comfortable routine of work, sex, staying up late and a little more sex, Yunho juggling his time expertly with white lies and straight faces.
“You staying back late tonight?”
“Yeah, Heechul’s got this thing going on tomorrow and it’ll be raining elephants if he lets me off before 11. Damn him and his time management.”
“Or lack of, thereof.”
Yunho sees Jaejoong to the elevator, waves as the doors close and turns on his heel to head back to the office, humming a tuneless melody as he does. Heechul is waiting for him as usual, hand on one hip.
“Well it took you long enough to get rid of the fairy.”
“Stop calling him that,” mumbles Yunho as he drops to his knees, reaches for Heechul’s belt to unbuckle it with steady hands.
“I’ll call him whatever the hell I want and oh god...” A small moan passes from behind Heechul’s lips as he’s forced to remember why he hired Yunho in the first place, other than to have yet another poor soul to yell at, ridicule and ask for coffee from, of course. “You and fairy boy?” he asks through grit teeth and Yunho swirls his tongue a little as he turns the question over in his mind.
“Jaejoong and I...” he starts slowly, drawing away to speak. “Are happy.”
“Oh really?” Heechul pulls Yunho to his back to fuck him into the table, furious thrusts that makes the wood shudder under them.
“Really.”
It takes a moment for them to realize the voice belongs to neither of them.
Yunho can see it all unfold in his mind’s eye now, going over the sequence of events in his head as he gazes blankly at the flickering (or maybe it’ just his own eyes threatening to shut, damn, now he’s going insane on top of everything) computer screen. Jaejoong walking to his car, turning back at having forgotten something, walking into the elevator-,
“Yunho.”
Pressing the buttons, doors opening, feet taking him past the dark work stations, past the bloody potted plants-...
“Yunho.”
Going to the door, opening it, watching open mouthed as he and Heechul-...
“EARTH TO YUNHO, COME IN JUNG YUNHO.”
“What?” he snaps irritated, and Junsu’s smile falters, assistant editor placing a concerned hand on Yunho’s shoulder. Yunho shrugs it off.
“Well?” comes the demand.
“You should try talking to him.”
“And you should stop prying into people’s personal matters.”
“I pry because I give a fuck, about Jaejoong, about you. More of Jaejoong at the moment, to be precise, since currently I couldn’t care less if you keeled over and died but just go talk to him, will you?”
Yunho dry swallows a retort back down, stares at Junsu’s retreating back until there’s nothing to look at anymore.
Jaejoong isn’t the kind to call in sick the next day just because he saw his boss fucking someone he himself was sleeping with, no, not that kind of person at all. Jaejoong’s more of the go to work and bury yourself in it, down caffeine and growl at anyone who comes within a 3 meter radius kind of person.
Words are elusive, flamboyant little things if you get your hands on them. There’s always something else behind them, like how most disappointments reek of anger when you care to look close enough, or how love is tinged with the green tint of envy to some. Wordswordswords all wrong
“Care to listen to mine?”
“No.”
Jaejoong sits upright, stiff and unresponsive as he flips the monitor off and stares ahead, refusing to turn.
“Jaejoong...”
“Don’t. Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything, what if I just want to end...”
“Then it’s over.” There’s a hollow laugh from Jaejoong’s part as he stands, walks to the elevator with Yunho trailing behind him, from lobby to car park.
“Aren’t going to-...”
“No. I’m not going to listen, I’m not going to ‘try to understand the situation’, Yunho. From my point of view, there’s nothing left to understand.”
Jaejoong gets into his car and fumbles for the keys, dropping them onto the ground as he does and Yunho picks them up gingerly. Holds them between his fingers just out of Jaejoong’s reach.
“Give them to me.”
“Since we’re all talking in the negative tense today, I’m going to say no. Not until you hear me out.”
There is a slight roll of eyes, folding of arms but Jaejoong doesn’t make to get out of the car.
“He offered me a job. Not the best job in the world, per se, but a job. I needed one badly, Jae -...”
“You needed a job, he needed a quick lay, it makes an awful lot of sense.”
“It’s not like that.”
Jaejoong does get up now, shoves Yunho away as he does so they stand in the open now, voices carried far.
“What do you want me to say? Oh, everything is just fine and I don’t give a fuck that you’re going at it with Heechul? Is that it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry doesn’t cut it.”
“Then what will? Because I swear to god, I’m not lying when I say I would do anything to erase this but the problem is I can’t. Tell me what’s the next best thing, Jaejoong, and I’ll try.”
Silence, heavy and awkward, thumps in their ears and Jaejoong imagines what it’d be like to walk away now, just walk away and-...
Yunho kisses him. Hard, wanting, an unsaid apology pressed (even though unwanted) into his lips and despite himself, Jaejoong kisses back because; because this is that stranger, this is that definition he’s looking for, this is primetime right here.
“Don’t have try,” he whispers against the nape of Yunho’s neck and he other man laughs silently, shoulders shaking in relief.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Jaejoong lets Yunho drive.
Kim Jaejoong, it says in glossy letters on the cover and surprise, surprise, there’s Yunho’s name there as well, squeezed beneath it in flowery script, crediting him as editor. Heechul is far from amused.
“HANKYUNG. GET IN HERE.”
The new boy stumbles through the door, almost knocks over the two new pots of African Violets
(“Potted plants?” he asks Junsu and the other man raises his eyebrows.
“Potted plants indeed. All in good time, my dear. All in good time.”)
that wobble dangerously. Heechul throws him a disgusted look and pitches the bestseller at him, mutters something about either getting a review done by 3pm today (Hankyung checks his watch, it’s sometime after 2) or recycling the damn thing.
“Right away, Heechul.”
“It’s Rella.”
“Rella.”
“And watch the plants when you leave, god, after everything, I’m still surrounded by idiots.”
Hankyung knows better than to ask.
[fin]
“Are you sure you’re not worried?”
Jaejoong purposely backs his chair into the person behind it, a defense mechanism learnt from all the countless times of having his work being read over his shoulder, and the culprit lets out colorful sounding curse that involves Jaejoong, garden shears and lots of masking tape.
“No. I’m not. Should I be? And I didn’t know you could do that with masking tape.”
Yunho grins and ruffles Jaejoong’s hair, something he knows the other man hates but allows him and only him to get away with.
“I can think of dozens of inventive uses for masking tape.”
“Keep them to yourself for the moment, then, I need to get this done to show Heechul.”
“You’re showing him your little Mills and Boon rip off novella?”
“Compare me to Mills and Boon again and I can add one more usage to masking tape. Last I heard; it doesn’t go down throats very well.”
Jaejoong groans softly as Yunho lets his hand slide from hair to neck to jaw line, soft caress accompanied by a quick peck on the lips.
“I know something else that does...” Yunho spins Jaejoong round on his chair to pull him up by the tie. “Go down very....very well indeed.”
“I don’t suppose you can enlighten me?”
“Gladly.”
It’s not as hush-hush as they would like it to be but it’s secretive enough for only a choice few (Junsu, for one, Yoochun from accounting too) to throw them knowing glances when they emerge from broom cupboards strangely disheveled.
“Looking for toilet paper.” Yunho explains one unbelieving office boy as he exits with Jaejoong in tow behind him, face still flushed from a pre-lunch hour session.
“Riiiiight...”
Jaejoong bares his teeth at the poor lad in a bright grin that just dares him to prod at the matter further and the office boy gulps, scrambles away muttering about photocopiers and very important things that need his attention. Somewhere between scaring temporary members of the staff (the senior ones couldn’t care less, almost all of them having spent enough time themselves in various broom cupboards once upon a time) and having raunchy office sex in empty meeting rooms when no one is looking, Jaejoong finds the time to wonder where they’re actually headed.
Perhaps it’s primetime now, he types absent mindedly and hits the delete key when Yunho sets down coffee on his table, swings his legs from his place beside it as he goes over Jaejoong’s articles, editing them in his spare time away from Heechul who watches all this from behind frosted glass, mouth set in a thin line.
“So tell me about the potted plants,” Yunho asks one day, casually circling words with a red felt tip pen as he corrects misspelled words ad awkward sounding phrases. Jaejoong looks up from doing the dishes, up to his elbows in soapy water that splashes to the floor of his tiny kitchen.
“What?”
“Don’t try to act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Yunho lowers his voice, peers cautiously over his shoulder before sidling up to an exasperated Jaejoong. “It’s a conspiracy, isn’t it?” he hisses in Jaejoong’s ear and soap suds fly at him as Jaejoong waves his hands in agreement.
“Aliens in the leaves, Yunho. And microscopic people with camcorders recording your every move to sell you out to Heechul for cream pies. That’s why none of us water the plants,” Jaejoong deadpans without missing a beat and goes back to rinsing the dishes, blatantly ignoring Yunho as he flails like a madman drowning in thin air around the kitchen trying to get soap out of his eyes.
“Heechul has fired a grand total of 36 people in the last three years. That’s 12 a year, one for every month,” Jaejoong tells Yunho later, curled up watching the ten o’clock news with the other man’s head in his lap.
“And I need to know that because....?”
Jaejoong flips channels to a late night talk show, one with canned laughter and tired topics that serves as background noise for the moment.
“Because one of these days, you should go count the number of plants in the office.”
“Yunho, what the hell do you think you’re doing, skulking around like some goddamn secret agent?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Well ‘nothing’ is getting in my way so I suggest while you’re playing at spies, you should go check my filing cabinet for transmitter bugs. Arrange everything by alphabetical order according to height and color code them while you’re at it”
Yunho counts more than 36.
“What exactly are you playing at?” he demands from Jaejoong during lunch, peering over his cup of coffee at the other man who’s seeming more interested in his food than the conversation at hand.
“You must think very highly of the human race if you expect no one to walk out on their own account.”
Jaejoong picks out the tomatoes from his sandwich, places them neatly on the side of his plate for Yunho to steal before continuing. “He only puts out plants for the memorable ones, take Changmin for example. Fine young man, bit of a slut though, he was Heechul’s toy boy before you showed up.”
“I...see. Plants.”
“Yes, plants. Ferns for those he fired, flowering ones for the ones that walked. Likes to play favorites, Heechul does. Now are you going to eat that or not?”
It’s a comfortable routine of work, sex, staying up late and a little more sex, Yunho juggling his time expertly with white lies and straight faces.
“You staying back late tonight?”
“Yeah, Heechul’s got this thing going on tomorrow and it’ll be raining elephants if he lets me off before 11. Damn him and his time management.”
“Or lack of, thereof.”
Yunho sees Jaejoong to the elevator, waves as the doors close and turns on his heel to head back to the office, humming a tuneless melody as he does. Heechul is waiting for him as usual, hand on one hip.
“Well it took you long enough to get rid of the fairy.”
“Stop calling him that,” mumbles Yunho as he drops to his knees, reaches for Heechul’s belt to unbuckle it with steady hands.
“I’ll call him whatever the hell I want and oh god...” A small moan passes from behind Heechul’s lips as he’s forced to remember why he hired Yunho in the first place, other than to have yet another poor soul to yell at, ridicule and ask for coffee from, of course. “You and fairy boy?” he asks through grit teeth and Yunho swirls his tongue a little as he turns the question over in his mind.
“Jaejoong and I...” he starts slowly, drawing away to speak. “Are happy.”
“Oh really?” Heechul pulls Yunho to his back to fuck him into the table, furious thrusts that makes the wood shudder under them.
“Really.”
It takes a moment for them to realize the voice belongs to neither of them.
Yunho can see it all unfold in his mind’s eye now, going over the sequence of events in his head as he gazes blankly at the flickering (or maybe it’ just his own eyes threatening to shut, damn, now he’s going insane on top of everything) computer screen. Jaejoong walking to his car, turning back at having forgotten something, walking into the elevator-,
“Yunho.”
Pressing the buttons, doors opening, feet taking him past the dark work stations, past the bloody potted plants-...
“Yunho.”
Going to the door, opening it, watching open mouthed as he and Heechul-...
“EARTH TO YUNHO, COME IN JUNG YUNHO.”
“What?” he snaps irritated, and Junsu’s smile falters, assistant editor placing a concerned hand on Yunho’s shoulder. Yunho shrugs it off.
“Well?” comes the demand.
“You should try talking to him.”
“And you should stop prying into people’s personal matters.”
“I pry because I give a fuck, about Jaejoong, about you. More of Jaejoong at the moment, to be precise, since currently I couldn’t care less if you keeled over and died but just go talk to him, will you?”
Yunho dry swallows a retort back down, stares at Junsu’s retreating back until there’s nothing to look at anymore.
Jaejoong isn’t the kind to call in sick the next day just because he saw his boss fucking someone he himself was sleeping with, no, not that kind of person at all. Jaejoong’s more of the go to work and bury yourself in it, down caffeine and growl at anyone who comes within a 3 meter radius kind of person.
Words are elusive, flamboyant little things if you get your hands on them. There’s always something else behind them, like how most disappointments reek of anger when you care to look close enough, or how love is tinged with the green tint of envy to some. Wordswordswords all wrong
“Care to listen to mine?”
“No.”
Jaejoong sits upright, stiff and unresponsive as he flips the monitor off and stares ahead, refusing to turn.
“Jaejoong...”
“Don’t. Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything, what if I just want to end...”
“Then it’s over.” There’s a hollow laugh from Jaejoong’s part as he stands, walks to the elevator with Yunho trailing behind him, from lobby to car park.
“Aren’t going to-...”
“No. I’m not going to listen, I’m not going to ‘try to understand the situation’, Yunho. From my point of view, there’s nothing left to understand.”
Jaejoong gets into his car and fumbles for the keys, dropping them onto the ground as he does and Yunho picks them up gingerly. Holds them between his fingers just out of Jaejoong’s reach.
“Give them to me.”
“Since we’re all talking in the negative tense today, I’m going to say no. Not until you hear me out.”
There is a slight roll of eyes, folding of arms but Jaejoong doesn’t make to get out of the car.
“He offered me a job. Not the best job in the world, per se, but a job. I needed one badly, Jae -...”
“You needed a job, he needed a quick lay, it makes an awful lot of sense.”
“It’s not like that.”
Jaejoong does get up now, shoves Yunho away as he does so they stand in the open now, voices carried far.
“What do you want me to say? Oh, everything is just fine and I don’t give a fuck that you’re going at it with Heechul? Is that it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry doesn’t cut it.”
“Then what will? Because I swear to god, I’m not lying when I say I would do anything to erase this but the problem is I can’t. Tell me what’s the next best thing, Jaejoong, and I’ll try.”
Silence, heavy and awkward, thumps in their ears and Jaejoong imagines what it’d be like to walk away now, just walk away and-...
Yunho kisses him. Hard, wanting, an unsaid apology pressed (even though unwanted) into his lips and despite himself, Jaejoong kisses back because; because this is that stranger, this is that definition he’s looking for, this is primetime right here.
“Don’t have try,” he whispers against the nape of Yunho’s neck and he other man laughs silently, shoulders shaking in relief.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Jaejoong lets Yunho drive.
Kim Jaejoong, it says in glossy letters on the cover and surprise, surprise, there’s Yunho’s name there as well, squeezed beneath it in flowery script, crediting him as editor. Heechul is far from amused.
“HANKYUNG. GET IN HERE.”
The new boy stumbles through the door, almost knocks over the two new pots of African Violets
(“Potted plants?” he asks Junsu and the other man raises his eyebrows.
“Potted plants indeed. All in good time, my dear. All in good time.”)
that wobble dangerously. Heechul throws him a disgusted look and pitches the bestseller at him, mutters something about either getting a review done by 3pm today (Hankyung checks his watch, it’s sometime after 2) or recycling the damn thing.
“Right away, Heechul.”
“It’s Rella.”
“Rella.”
“And watch the plants when you leave, god, after everything, I’m still surrounded by idiots.”
Hankyung knows better than to ask.
[fin]