the sea, the sea - a selkie story
yoochun/junsu
fluff & fantasy & angst
nc17
6545 words
Sunday afternoon and Jaejoong had been serious when he’d said Yoochun was to do absolutely nothing here, cell phone confiscated, laptop under lock and key three hundred miles away. Yoochun can hear the waves crashing onto the beach from where he’s standing and the sound is making him sleepy, lulling images of surf on sand. It’s a lazy, sunny day.
“Don’t call me, don’t try to get back before next Monday and last but obviously not the least important, try to relax, okay? Have fun. Unwind.”
“Okay,” Yoochun mumbles without much conviction and Jaejoong punches him lightly in the arm, hoists Yoochun’s bag out from the back seat of his cushy Lexus and onto the ground. A few changes of clothes. Toothbrush. Three paperbacks. An ipod slipped sneakily between a tube of toothpaste and a half empty shampoo bottle. Flip flops that Jaejoong insisted on choosing, a baby blue pair still lying in its box.
“There should be enough food to last you for a while but if you ever do run out, there’s a small town just 15 minutes from here.”
“15 minutes as in-…”
“As in you can get there in 15 minutes if you walk. Briskly.” A gesture towards the dusty dirt road ambling into the distance.
Jaejoong beams at him and behind the high flying financial executive, the three room seaside villa suddenly looks more ominous than villas should be allowed to look.
“Well then. I guess I’ll see you in a week.” Jaejoong shields his eyes from the glint of sunlight on the waves, gives a low whistle. “God, Yoochun, do you have any idea what I’d give to switch places with you?”
“A week, you can be me for a week,” comes the weak reply and Jaejoong rolls his eyes, gets into his car with one last “Try to relax, dammit!” before pulling away with a flash of sunlight tinged metal. Yoochun watches his last link to civilization speed down dirt roads, dust clouds stirred up behind exhaust fumes.
It’s a lazy, sunny day and Yoochun is on the first real vacation he’s had in the last six years.
-
Sunday. 6:00pm.
Yoochun wakes up just in time to watch the sun go down, a slow flare of burnt purples and golden edged clouds before darkness starts to rise in place. It takes a bit of poking around and a lot of banging into furniture but Yoochun makes it to the light switches in one piece, flips them on; all of that done with curses muttered under his breath. He hadn’t really noticed it when he had come in but it was a nice enough little place; sun burnt colours and wood themes leading him from bedroom to hall to bathroom and back out again. There’s an ancient looking telephone in the hallway and it’s possibly the most advanced piece of technology here after his ipod.
“Well now. Relax. That can’t be too hard, right?”
It feels odd to hear nothing but the waves outside in response and Yoochun doesn’t like it too much, tries to fix something edible while banging pots and pans as loud as possible. An hour and a half, two burnt pieces of toast, an opened can of baked beans and three chapters into his first novel later, Yoochun is starting to feel a little kinder towards the villa. Half an hour. He starts wonders what’s playing on the home movie channel tonight. A half more. What if Jaejoong was at his house now, leeching off his internet connection?
Another two and Yoochun thinks that if he has to read another page, entertain another speculation between every sentence, he’ll go quite, quite crazy. It’s only 10:30 but Yoochun crawls into bed again, only to tumble out, restless, ten minutes later because the silence and the waves are driving him insane so now it’s 11:00pm on a Sunday night and Yoochun is walking barefoot out to the beach, baby blue slippers in hand.
-
Sunday. 11:05pm.
There’s a half moon rising over the sea when Yoochun finally sinks his feet into the cool sand, looks a bit bleary eyed down the white expanse of shoreline. The usual rock pools, barnacle caked sea boulders, all an unsteady shade of moonlight and wave shadows. If he’d squinted a little, perhaps the beach would have looked like a run-of-the-mill alien landscape.
Tiny, translucent crabs scuttle terrified into their holes when Yoochun bends down to watch them, picking his way past washed up sea shells, cracked driftwood up to the end of the beach and back down again. Yoochun’s just about to make another trip again when he stops short. There’s the distinct sound of humming under the usual roll of waves on sand.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
Yoochun turns with a half yelp of surprise caught in his throat and the speaker laughs at his reaction, clear sound that rises high into the night.
“Definitely new,” he says and draws his knees up to his chin, looking at Yoochun from his perch on one of the sea boulders. He has a wide smile on his face.
“Y-y-you were here all along?”
The stranger shrugs and Yoochun, usually adapt at deciphering the minutest actions after being lifelong friends with Jaejoong, can’t seem to figure out just what the stranger means. Yes? No? Maybe and you shouldn’t really care?
“I’m Junsu,” he continues on when Yoochun finds himself tongue tied at what to say to a stranger wandering on the beach at midnight. “I’m Junsu and usually what people do in situations like this is they introduce themselves so it’s your turn now, what’s your name?”
“Yoo-Yoochun,” Yoochun stammers out, still not quite over the initial shock.
“Yoo-Yoochun? That’s a bit odd sounding but I like it.”
“No, it’s Yoochun, without the extra Yoo in the front. Just Yoochun.”
“Ahh.” Junsu looks thoughtful and climbs down gingerly from his rock seat, goes to stand with his toes just barely skimming the water’s edge.
“Well, Yoochun without the extra Yoo in the front, I like your name like this too and you know what I’d like more? If you’ll come over here and try this instead of just standing there.” He turns and kicks seawater playfully in Yoochun’s direction, moonlight and salt water in his hair.
“I won’t bite, maybe push you into the sea but no, no biting.”
And despite the utter…strangeness of it all, meeting this Junsu person sitting on a rock in the middle of the night, out here in the middle of nowhere, being invited to go dip his toes in seawater; Yoochun finds himself smiling. Walking down to the water’s edge.
-
Monday. 12:43pm
Yoochun wakes to early afternoon sun streaming through the windows, bed sheets and clothes hard with sea salt. There’s a messy smiley face made of seaweed on the floor that he almost steps into and by the time he staggers into the bathroom, goes to stand sighing under the shower, Yoochun thinks he can more or less sum up what happened last night in one simple word:
Junsu.
There’s bits of dead coral in his right pants pocket when he turns it out and Yoochun lets out a yell when a misplaced crab falls from another, has to shoo it out with one slipper (where was the other one?) and make sure it gets back to the beach in one piece.
“Junsu,” he says to himself later when he sets a pot of canned soup to simmer on the stove and flashes of last night are surfacing slowly now, swimming and breaking lazy to the surface of his mind. Junsu not lying when he said he might push Yoochun into the water. Junsu showing him how to catch baby crabs without hurting them and let them go later. Junsu giving him a handful of coral that Yoochun remembers being more beautiful in starlight. Junsu tailing him home and draping seaweed on the floor before stealing away again, nothing left to show that he’d been there other than a smile on the floor and a laugh ringing in Yoochun’s ears.
Junsu, Junsu, Junsu.
“Dammed if I didn’t ask him who he actually was,” Yoochun finds himself saying out loud as he toasts another few pieces of bread but common sense kicks into gear and he laughs, almost burns his bread. What kind of question was that? Junsu was just probably one of the locals from town, beach combing or doing whatever the people here did for fun. Probably.
-
Monday. 8:49pm
“Well you’re out early today.”
“Maybe I was just late yesterday.”
Junsu is lying on his back, staring up at the sky. Yoochun takes a seat beside him without being asked to and Junsu doesn’t bother to make space for him, the strip of beach sand between them wide enough for them to lie on without touching but small enough to hear each other talk without strain.
“Are you always here?”
“Are you always going to be here?” Junsu replies back without missing a beat and Yoochun finds himself tongue tied again, the second time in as many days with the same person.
“You’re only staying for a while, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
A muffled thump as Junsu turns onto his side and watches Yoochun watch him back with bright eyes, small smile that makes Yoochun want to look away but come back as soon as he does. There are patterns being drawn in the sand and Yoochun jerks his hand away when they accidentally touch, Junsu continuing on as if nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had happened after all.
“I wish you were staying longer.”
“Seven days long enough for you?”
A week, Jaejoong had said. As if Yoochun would ever let him switch places now.
-
Tuesday. 7:31am
Yoochun is up early today, determined to be somewhat productive and make it to the town before it got too hot to walk. Junsu had watched him go at midnight last night, waved him off with sad eyes and a smile that had somehow made Yoochun almost stay back. Just almost.
“I’m going up to the town tomorrow.”
“Town?”
Funny, how Junsu didn’t seem to have the slightest inkling as to what he was talking about. Yoochun ponders this as he pulls a proper pair of shoes on, the past two and a half days being lived out in nothing but flip flops and bare feet making squeezing into sneakers a little uncomfortable.
“Would you like to come?”
“With you? To the town?”
Yoochun pauses for a moment at the front door. Wait. Wasn’t Junsu from the town? Then what with all the…Yoochun scoffs at himself mentally as the moment passes. But of course, he wouldn’t put it past Junsu to fool around like this; it was a long shot to claim to know someone after only two nights but Junsu…
Yoochun locks the door behind him and starts on the dirt path, 15 minutes brisk walk, Jaejoong had said. More like 45 minutes of doddering around the countryside for Yoochun, then.
Junsu was special, in a way.
“So will you come with me?”
“Maybe next time.”
-
Tuesday. 8:20am
The shops are just opening when Yoochun trudges into the town, more village than town given the fact that the two roads it consisted of was probably shorter than the distance it took for Yoochun to walk from one end of his office to the other. A corner stall is selling what seems and smells like the most amazing pastries he’s ever laid his eyes on, another one peddling handmade trinkets. Yoochun buys two of whatever that catches his fancy, Jaejoong slipping into his mind unbidden and a bit unwelcome as he picks out a wooden dolphin he’s sure Junsu would be delighted with.
“You didn’t buy me anything?” storms the miniature Jaejoong in his head and Yoochun winces a little, pays the shopkeeper again for a multi coloured horse that might look nice on Jaejoong’s desk, if Jaejoong didn’t repaint it to something even more garish than the pink and green stripes it currently had.
It’s close to noon when he’s done wandering around, poking his city dweller nose into every little open store he can find, coming out with a lighter wallet and heavier bags, all that and a slowly more confused head because every person he’s struck up small talk with doesn’t seem to know a person called Junsu. There’s only so many people in a two street town.
“Around this tall? Laughs loudly?”
“No, sorry, never seen him around here.”
The wooden dolphin in his pocket grows a little heavier with every step.
-
Tuesday. 10:03pm
Yoochun waits until the moon rises, the highest it will go and still, no Junsu. He goes and stands with his feet in the surf but it doesn’t feel the same without someone pulling at his shirt, laughing, trying to get sea spray and wet sand down his back
12:47pm
No Junsu.
Yoochun walks back to his three room villa and sets the wooden dolphin on the table, treks a confused mess of wet footprints around the house before falling into bed, more than a little disappointed.
-
Wednesday. 9:02am
Jaejoong picks up on the fifth ring, sounding a little hassled at being called from across the state just as he’d sat down at his desk but happy all the same to hear Yoochun still alive.
“So did you buy me anything?”
“Loads. A wooden horse. And a wooden horse. And did I mention the wooden horse?”
“Hah. You should have bought me a zoo for getting all the arrangements done.”
“Since when did I say I only bought you one wooden horse?”
“Oh god you bought three, then?”
Yoochun twirls the cord around his hand and goes to sit in the chair by the hall, taking the phone as far as it will go. On the line, Jaejoong complains about work, listens with bated breath about Junsu, plays an express game of twenty questions about him.
“Good looking?”
“Yeah. Maybe. In the moonlight.”
“Ooh romantic, really romantic. Single?”
“No idea.”
“No, wait, more importantly, does he play for your team?”
“Jaejoong do I look like I would know? I’ve only been here three days, jeez.”
There’s a disapproving noise and Jaejoong waxes lyrical about how it only takes around an hour to fall in love these days, what more with moonlight and beaches and whatnot.
“I’m going to hang up if you keep wasting my talk time.”
“Fine, hang up then, I have work to do, unlike someone.”
Yoochun hangs up but Jaejoong calls back again, begging to be informed when the next Junsu sighting occurred and Yoochun ends up talking to him for the rest of the morning, work or no work, Junsu or no Junsu.
-
Wednesday. 3:40pm
Yoochun is back to his paperback again, mind wandering only between paragraphs now which is a bit of a step up, considering where he had started out a few days back. There’s a knock on his front door just as the protagonist is starting to get angsty about something he doesn’t remember reading about.
“Junsu?”
“That’s me.”
Junsu won’t drink anything but cold water so Yoochun gives him just that, ice cubes in a tall glass and hot tea for himself. He’s still wearing the same clothes from Sunday night, hair damp as ever and smile just as wide.
“Did you wait for me last night? I’m sorry,” he says and Yoochun thinks it would be near impossible to be angry, or even be disappointed at this man sitting at his kitchen table, bobbing ice cubes up and down in his glass.
“I’ve got something for you.”
“Oh?”
Yoochun holds up the dolphin he’d slipped into his hand from the table and Junsu almost knocks his glass over in excitement, laughter bubbling out from the corners of his mouth.
“For me?”
“Just for you.”
Junsu holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world and Yoochun thinks of how Jaejoong is wrong, about how it doesn’t take only an hour to fall in love, it takes carved wooden animals and surprise visits and the best holiday he’s ever had in his life.
-
Blink and it’s Friday night, moon almost nothing but a thin crescent now and Junsu wants to go swimming in the dark, pulls a protesting Yoochun into the black water.
“It’ll be fine, I’ll be here.”
“I can swim, it’s just…”
“It’s just?”
Junsu watches, perched unmoving on his rock as Yoochun strips slowly, lays his clothes neatly on the sand.
“It’s just that sea water is hell to wash out, y’know?”
Stinging cold at first but Junsu’s hand is warm when he grasps Yoochun’s underwater, warmer still when they alight on his shoulders and tug him down gently beneath the waves.
“It’ll be fine,” Junsu says over the sound of water lapping at bare skin and Yoochun wonders when Junsu had gotten his shirt off as well, not that it matters anymore because running his hand over the stark bones of Junsu’s collarbones, dipping down to his chest and spreading his fingers under the cover of night water, it doesn’t matter at all.
Yoochun doesn’t know what to call it but this, making love, perhaps? Fucking too coarse a word to fit this around, this being Junsu shuddering when Yoochun touches him in all the right places, dropping his head into the crook of Yoochun’s shoulder and asking if “This will be fine?” in a small voice that’s almost lost over the sound of hearts racing, waves pulling them further away from shore.
“It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”
It’s messy and difficult and Junsu doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do (“Just tell me if you want me to stop.” “ N-ngh-no, don’t stop, don’t ever stop.”) and Yoochun hasn’t the barest idea how this is even possible but taking Junsu back to shore and laying him down just where the water starts to come in, it’s okay. Junsu clutches at handfuls of wet sand, keening low when Yoochun traces muscles, arching and breathing hard and coming undone as Yoochun takes him into his mouth slow. There’s sea water on his lips.
“You taste…” Yoochun kisses the inside of Junsu’s thigh and lingers there. “You taste amazing.”
Later, falling into bed together, watching Junsu’s face as he learns how to curve his body against feather mattresses, Yoochun blesses the fact that Jaejoong is one of the best vacation planners ever. There’s a small bottle of rosehip oil stashed away in the drawer next to the bed and Junsu is writhing, calling for Yoochun by the time Yoochun lets the empty bottle roll away on the floor.
Junsu still tastes of sea when Yoochun kisses him on the mouth, inching lips apart and slipping gently into him, holding Junsu in place as lightly as he can when he nudges Junsu’s legs further apart.
“H-h-hurts, it hurts. It’ll be fine?”
“Tell me if it isn’t, okay?”
I’m sorrys pressed into skin, lips and it’s more than fine by the time Junsu learns to relax, Yoochun going as slow as he can, hand wrapped around Junsu’s length, stroking with every movement. Junsu comes with a low moan and the feel of limbs tensing taut beneath him is more than enough to push Yoochun over the edge soon after, sea water still drip drip dripping from his hair when he curls up with Junsu in his arms.
-
Saturday 6:23am
“Junsu?”
There’s barely enough light to see by but Yoochun sits up in bed, startled by the sight of Junsu standing in the middle of the room, clutching something silvery that slithers to the floor as he lets go of it.
“Junsu what is-…”
An unnatural silence as Junsu bends down slowly to gather up the silver, cloth-like thing, goes to sit on Yoochun’s side of the bed.
“I meant to tell you.”
“T-tell me about what? What is this?”
Junsu has gone and tipped the cloth onto Yoochun’s lap and it’s cold to touch, almost alive. There’s a sad sort of look in Junsu’s eyes and for once, he isn’t smiling.
“It’s my selkie skin.”
“Your…what?”
“Selkie skin,” Junsu says again and Yoochun tries to wrap his mind around the unfamiliar sounding word. Selkie? Weren’t those…
“You’re kidding me.”
He holds the skin up to the early morning light and it glimmers back at him, a thousand shades of silver that seem to curl around his touch. Alive.
“Why would I be?”
Junsu takes it back from Yoochun and makes for the door, turning back half way as if expecting Yoochun to follow.
“Would you like to come?” he asks over his shoulder, reminiscent of that one night that feels too long ago to only have happened.
“With you?” continues Yoochun with a smile as he picks up the first few pieces of a conversation remembered. He’s already slipping out of bed and padding on the floor barefooted after Junsu. There’s no time for next times.
-
Things fall slowly into place as Yoochun walks behind Junsu, feeling dirt turn to gravel to sand under his feet. The way Junsu talked. The way he seemed to always have the sea clinging to him. How no one in town had even heard of Junsu before.
“Why?” Yoochun wonders out loud and Junsu lifts his gaze from his selkie skin, goes “Hnnng,” thoughtfully.
“Because no one ever comes here and even if they do, they don’t ever stay for more than two days. Will you keep this somewhere safe for me?” Junsu presses the wooden dolphin into Yoochun’s hand before turning back to the selkie skin, slips it over his head. Yoochun stares transfixed by the sight.
A doe eyed seal with the widest smile he’s ever seen looks back at him.
“You’re a selkie.”
Even the sound of his own voice sounds ethereal, Junsu sliding easy into the waves and Yoochun, detached, can feel himself splashing into the water after him.
“You’re a selkie!” he calls after Junsu, the wooden dolphin light as air in his pocket.
A grey head surfaces and Yoochun laughs, up to his chest in warm sea water, Junsu nipping at his fingers.
“Liar, you said you wouldn’t bite.”
-
Saturday. 4:55pm
Junsu is stretched out on the floor of Yoochun’s living room, eating dry toast and getting crumbs all over the carpet, telling Yoochun things about tides and currents and how he’d borrowed this set of clothes from the last person who lived here and how he’d meant to return them but he just forgot. It’s like watching a very strange modern day fairy tale unfold right in front of Yoochun’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Would you have stayed if I’d told you?”
Yoochun steals a bit of Junsu’s toast and washes it down with cold tea, sets the pitcher back down on the table.
“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Junsu props his head up to look Yoochun in the eye, as if scrutinizing but apparently Yoochun passes the test because Junsu is climbing up onto the couch with him, squeezing for space and love.
“You know the stories about selkies? About how they keep their skins in the safest place they know?”
Yoochun is silent, letting Junsu pause where he wants to, pick up when he’s done toying with strands of Yoochun’s hair.
“Well, I kept it here,” he says like it’s the most natural thing on earth to trust Yoochun and Junsu’s selkie skin is lying in a patch of sun, drying and winking drops of sea water at him.
“When? On Tuesday? Was that why you didn’t show?”
A shrug and Junsu won’t say anything more, content to go to sleep in Yoochun’s arms. It’s a lazy, sunny day and Yoochun’s first real vacation in six years is ending tomorrow.
-
Sunday. 2:03pm
Jaejoong barges into the villa to find Yoochun sitting on the floor, the first start of tears in his eyes as he hastily shoves things into his bag. Another man he presumes to be Junsu is handing him a bagful of wooden animals labeled Jaejoong on the plastic bag.
“Hi.”
Junsu looks up and Yoochun almost drops the animals, nervous burst of laughter at his own mistake that dissolves back into silence.
“Hi,” Junsu sings out to Jaejoong and it’s an odd contrast to Yoochun’s obvious post-holiday depression, “Hi, you’re Jaejoong, aren’t you? I’m Junsu. And I’m a selkie.”
“…say what.”
“A selkie. You know. The seals?” Junsu makes what Jaejoong presumes to be seal-like movements and Jaejoong thinks it’s better to just accept everything as it is, ask questions later when Yoochun doesn’t seem so suicidal and there isn’t a man claiming to be a mystical creature beaming up at him.
“Yoochun are you going to explain yourself anytime soon?”
“Soon enough.”
“Good enough for me.”
Jaejoong goes to sit beside Yoochun and Junsu is obviously fascinated with Jaejoong’s sun bleached blond hair, can’t stop staring and picking shyly at it when Jaejoong moves closer.
“So. Selkie, are you?”
Junsu nods enthusiastically and goes to drag out his selkie skin to show Jaejoong, who seems as fascinated with it as Junsu is with his dyed hair.
“Yoochun, where did you find him?”
Jaejoong has gone and given Junsu his cell phone to play with, just for kicks and Junsu yelps when he accidentally presses something that makes sounds come out of the little metal device.
“Outside,” comes the stoic answer and Jaejoong thinks he’s had quite enough of this senseless moping, leaves Junsu in a patch of sun to call contacts up in Egypt while he corners Yoochun, still blindly packing everything within reach.
“Yoochun, you don’t own that tea coaster.”
“Oh.”
Yoochun sets the tea coaster back onto the table and goes to sit on the couch, Jaejoong flopping down beside him and waiting until it feels alright to say something.
“It’s about Junsu, isn’t it?”
The subject in question is staring, mesmerized at Jaejoong’s cell phone, out of which a tinny voice is demanding that Jaejoong say something this instant or she’ll hang up.
“Of course it is.”
Dial tone and Junsu moves on to the next contact entry in Jaejoong’s phonebook.
“You want to keep him?”
“Jaejoong he’s not a thing. I can’t keep someone, can I? Even if I want to, really, really badly.”
“Does he know you’re going for good?”
Yoochun’s shoulders slump and Jaejoong wants to hit his friend in the face, hisses, “You didn’t tell him you’re not coming back?”
“He doesn’t know I’m not. He just thinks…oh god, Jaejoong, what have I gotten myself into?”
“Obviously a very deep pile of shit, if you’d ask me. But don’t you suppose…don’t you suppose he could follow you?”
“What, to the city? Jaejoong are you out of your mind?”
“City?”
Junsu looks up at them from his seat on the floor and Yoochun can feel his heart drop a little, Jaejoong giving Yoochun’s hand the slightest of squeezes when he gets up to kneel in front of Junsu.
“City, we’re going to the city?” Junsu asks again. There’s a slightly confused lilt to his voice and Yoochun’s knees are hurting from the floorboards but he needs to see Junsu’s eyes when he says this, needs to know that Junsu wants this just as much as he does.
“Will you come with me?”
Junsu seems to consider this for a while, turning Jaejoong’s cell phone over in his hands.
“For a long time?” he asks, voice softer than usual and Yoochun can feel his heart clench.
“Yeah. A very long time.”
Jaejoong steals out of the room at his point, preferring to bum a quick cigarette outside. He nudges Yoochun with his foot on the way out. You’ll make the right choice, says the gesture and Yoochun wishes he had as much faith in himself as Jaejoong did. Junsu has fallen silent again.
“Junsu?”
“You know about selkies, don’t you? How much do you know?” The cell phone clatters to the floor and Junsu scrambles to pick it up again, goes back to turning it over in his hands. It’s warm to touch, from sun and over usage.
Yoochun has this sinking feeling that it’s not quite enough and he tells Junsu this, the latter shrugging.
“It’s okay. I’ll tell you, then.”
So Junsu does, crawls uninvited into Yoochun’s loose embrace, tells him about how selkies, selkies can come up on land for so long at any time, how humans would have to hide the selkie skins they found to stop the selkies from going back to the sea. How selkies could sometimes steal their skins back and escape away, only able to touch land again after seven years.
“Junsu, I didn’t-…”
Junsu breaks away from Yoochun, only to come back bearing his selkie skin. He sets it down gently in Yoochun’s lap and the skin catches sunlight in a way nothing else ever could, cold and glittering like liquid silver.
“Hide it,” he says and Yoochun watches the sea still behind Junsu’s eyes. Unreadable.
“Hide it and take me with you, because I don’t think I could ever stay away from you even if I had to.”
-
Junsu isn’t made for city life.
Everything is too big, too loud, too modern. Too much. Junsu says it’s okay to leave him at home when Yoochun goes back to work but on the days that Yoochun comes back home early, slipping quiet through the door, he can hear Junsu fiddling with the taps in the kitchen, the bathroom, desperate for the sound of water.
Yoochun tries buying him one of those relaxation CDs after that, the kind that has tracks of recorded waves.
“It’s almost as good as listening to the real thing,” he says and Junsu plays it when Yoochun is around, takes it out and puts it back into its case when Yoochun leaves.
“Don’t you like it?” Yoochun asks, concerned when Junsu forgets to put it on for the fifth day in a row and Junsu fiddles with the smooth disc, getting fingerprints all over it.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that…”
“That? It’s okay if you don’t like it, really. You can just tell me.”
“It’s just that it makes me sad, Yoochun. Remembering.”
Yoochun throws the CD into the trash and tries taking Junsu to the zoo instead, thinks that maybe the sight of familiar things will help but all Junsu does is press his hands up against the thick glass, staring confusedly at the seals behind it.
“Why are they behind the glass? Did they do something wrong?”
“No, it’s just that some of them were sick, you see? And we take them in, care for them until they’re better but sometimes they’re not well enough to ever go back so we keep them here, where it’s safe.”
Junsu nods slowly and Yoochun steers him carefully away from the seal exhibit, avoids the seal show altogether. On the way home, Junsu holds Yoochun’s hand under the shelter of his coat. It’s gone dark enough for the air to nip at their fingers.
“I’m glad I’m not here because I’m sick,” Junsu says softly and Yoochun kisses him under the light of flickering streetlamps.
-
One time, on a cloudless weekend night, Yoochun takes Junsu down to the apartment pool, tries to make up for all the tides and oceans he can’t give to Junsu.
“Thank you,” Junsu laughs. “Thank you, Yoochun, thank you.” The water is barely deep enough to dive into but Junsu pulls Yoochun in after him, turning underwater somersaults and stealing watery kisses by the light of looming skylines.
“This isn’t so bad?” ventures Yoochun and he wonders if it’s to make himself or Junsu feel better.
“Not so bad.”
It’s only the next morning when Yoochun finds Junsu curled up on his side of the bed, pale and feverish because oh, didn’t he know? Chlorine, chlorine and treated water, the dust of tired cities added in, it makes selkies sick.
-
Yoochun brings home things for Junsu to do whenever he can. An encyclopedia with colorful pictures (“Seals, find seals!” “Here you are, right after seashorse.”) one day, a jigsaw puzzle the next. Jaejoong drops by whenever he can and after a while, it doesn’t feel too strange anymore to come home to them sitting on his living room floor, a thousand puzzle pieces scattered around the carpet, Jaejoong reading to Junsu about airplanes.
“You mean they can fly? Like the gulls?”
Jaejoong turns a page and there’s an illustration of a Boeing777 suspended in painted clouds, happy faces drawn in its windows.
“Of course they can, higher and faster than any seagull you’ve ever met.”
Flip again and Yoochun settles onto the couch, dreaming about all the places he could take Junsu one day.
“Yoochun?”
“Hnng?”
Jaejoong has already left and Junsu has the encyclopedia open on his lap, tracing the cloud drawings with one finger.
“Yoochun, will you take me flying one day?”
“Wouldn’t you rather swim?”
A brief shadow passes over Junsu’s face and Yoochun mentally kicks himself, chides his sub consciousness for being so utterly stupid.
“I’ll take you flying, all around the world if I can,” he says and Junsu seems to cheer up, flipping to the back of the book where the world maps are, pointing out places he wants to fly to. Yoochun doesn’t comment on how every single one of those places are right next to the sea.
-
“Yoochun,” he whispers when they pass a shop selling tropical fish, rainbow fins and scales swimming circles inside glass bowls, “Yoochun, why do they keep them here?” He presses his nose against the glass and Yoochun stumbles over himself trying to explain that well, humans, they like to look at pretty things, they like to keep them in their houses and-…
“But won’t they be sad, so far away from home?”
Yoochun tugs Junsu gently away from the shop front and a passing car honks at them as they dash across the street, Junsu clutching at Yoochun’s hand in silent terror.
“I…I don’t know, Junsu. I don’t know.” And he wants to ask Junsu if he’s sad, so far away from the sea but Junsu is already running ahead of him, trying to race Yoochun back to the front door of their apartment.
“I’ll get home first if you don’t hurry!”
Home.
-
Weeks to months to a season and nothing changes, Junsu still flipping wistfully through his encyclopedia, still waking up at three in the morning to go stand at the window and sigh when he thinks Yoochun’s still asleep. Nothing changes and that’s the part that scares Yoochun the most.
“Junsu, I want you to go home,” he says one night when Junsu is reading something about telephones and Junsu freezes, looking straight down at the page without actually seeing anything.
“But we’re home, aren’t we?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You…you don’t…”
Yoochun goes to hold Junsu, pushing the book out of the way. “It’s not that I don’t want you. I’ll always want you, always and always and you know I love you more than life itself but Junsu, you can’t stay here. Not when it’s killing you.”
“N-n-not dying, Yoochun, I’m not!”
But Junsu is crying now, salt tears that streak warm down his face and Yoochun knows that something, however small it might had been, something has withered and died inside Junsu, choked from city fumes and washed up onto concrete pavements.
“You will be, if you stay here any longer.”
He’d anticipated it, of course, watched it come creeping on from a mile away but there had always been this one spark of hope that something would click and he’d wake up to Junsu happy, used to life here. It’s been five months, a few days short of half a year and Junsu still spends more hours than he should staring out the window, looking for something that isn’t there.
“Junsu, look at me. I love you. I always have, always will.”
“I’m sorry,” Junsu whispers finally and in a way, Yoochun is glad. Junsu will go back. He’ll be here. Life will go on, it went on before he’d met Junsu, hadn’t it? Yoochun gets up to pull the selkie skin out of its box under the bed, hold it out to Junsu with shaking hands.
“Go home, Junsu. I’ll come and find you someday.”
Junsu has something to give back to Yoochun in exchange, a small wooden dolphin that’s a bit worn around the edges from too much holding, too much love.
“Keep this safe for me? Until you come and find me.”
-
Seven years.
Jaejoong hits him in the arm and says, “It’s not too long, not too long at all,” but Yoochun knows better, seven years a total of 2555 days. 61320 hours. Yoochun logs in more time at work than any other person in the office and Jaejoong doesn’t hit him in the arm anymore, takes to touching him gently on the shoulder instead. Says, “Yoochun, time and tide wait for no one, it’s okay,”
Sometimes, Yoochun thinks it will be. Coming home to an empty apartment and thinking of how miserable Junsu would have been in it, taking down the encyclopedia and blowing dust off the cover. Marking all the places Junsu wants fly to and tearing the page out of the book, pinning it to his bedroom wall.
Junsu’s wooden dolphin goes everywhere with him, sits on his bedside table when he sleeps, watches him from the corner of his desk at work. Being kept safe.
And sometimes, it’s not okay. Sometimes Yoochun will drive five hours out into the country straight after work, watch the moonrise from his car and try to spot something among the waves, staying there for hours and hours on end. Driving back to the city before dawn to beat the morning rush hour, red eyed from lack of sleep and something to hold on to.
But those are just sometimes. Life goes on without Junsu and Yoochun thinks he’s getting left behind as well.
-
Sunday afternoon and Jaejoong didn’t think Yoochun had been serious when he’d said he wanted to move here, buy over the little house by the sea. Yoochun can hear the sound of waves crashing on the beach from where he stands.
“Bastard, that’s what you’ve been planning all this time haven’t you? The overworking. The bonuses.”
“What, you thought I was doing all that for laughs?” Yoochun punches Jaejoong in the arm this time and gets a fierce hug in return.
“You underestimate me, Kim Jaejoong.”
It’s a lazy, sunny day.
-
Sunday. 11:05pm
There’s the sound of humming under the usual roll of waves on beach sand, crabs dashing back into their holes as Yoochun runs down the beach and into Junsu’s arms, breaking apart only to tip a small wooden dolphin into Junsu’s hands. Sea drenched fingers close around it and Junsu smiles like the sun.
“I don’t think you’re new around here.”
Yoochun is more alive than he’s ever been in seven years.
[fin]
AN- Big thank yous to itsplashes and old_willowbrook , for reading this through and tolerating me spamming their emails with it D: ilu guys too much to say.
Written for the magyk_carousel one month anniversary challenge thing~ Voting starts at the comm on the 26th to the 30th, vote if you liked it? /cries shameless plugging is shameless/ :D
fluff & fantasy & angst
nc17
6545 words
Sunday afternoon and Jaejoong had been serious when he’d said Yoochun was to do absolutely nothing here, cell phone confiscated, laptop under lock and key three hundred miles away. Yoochun can hear the waves crashing onto the beach from where he’s standing and the sound is making him sleepy, lulling images of surf on sand. It’s a lazy, sunny day.
“Don’t call me, don’t try to get back before next Monday and last but obviously not the least important, try to relax, okay? Have fun. Unwind.”
“Okay,” Yoochun mumbles without much conviction and Jaejoong punches him lightly in the arm, hoists Yoochun’s bag out from the back seat of his cushy Lexus and onto the ground. A few changes of clothes. Toothbrush. Three paperbacks. An ipod slipped sneakily between a tube of toothpaste and a half empty shampoo bottle. Flip flops that Jaejoong insisted on choosing, a baby blue pair still lying in its box.
“There should be enough food to last you for a while but if you ever do run out, there’s a small town just 15 minutes from here.”
“15 minutes as in-…”
“As in you can get there in 15 minutes if you walk. Briskly.” A gesture towards the dusty dirt road ambling into the distance.
Jaejoong beams at him and behind the high flying financial executive, the three room seaside villa suddenly looks more ominous than villas should be allowed to look.
“Well then. I guess I’ll see you in a week.” Jaejoong shields his eyes from the glint of sunlight on the waves, gives a low whistle. “God, Yoochun, do you have any idea what I’d give to switch places with you?”
“A week, you can be me for a week,” comes the weak reply and Jaejoong rolls his eyes, gets into his car with one last “Try to relax, dammit!” before pulling away with a flash of sunlight tinged metal. Yoochun watches his last link to civilization speed down dirt roads, dust clouds stirred up behind exhaust fumes.
It’s a lazy, sunny day and Yoochun is on the first real vacation he’s had in the last six years.
-
Sunday. 6:00pm.
Yoochun wakes up just in time to watch the sun go down, a slow flare of burnt purples and golden edged clouds before darkness starts to rise in place. It takes a bit of poking around and a lot of banging into furniture but Yoochun makes it to the light switches in one piece, flips them on; all of that done with curses muttered under his breath. He hadn’t really noticed it when he had come in but it was a nice enough little place; sun burnt colours and wood themes leading him from bedroom to hall to bathroom and back out again. There’s an ancient looking telephone in the hallway and it’s possibly the most advanced piece of technology here after his ipod.
“Well now. Relax. That can’t be too hard, right?”
It feels odd to hear nothing but the waves outside in response and Yoochun doesn’t like it too much, tries to fix something edible while banging pots and pans as loud as possible. An hour and a half, two burnt pieces of toast, an opened can of baked beans and three chapters into his first novel later, Yoochun is starting to feel a little kinder towards the villa. Half an hour. He starts wonders what’s playing on the home movie channel tonight. A half more. What if Jaejoong was at his house now, leeching off his internet connection?
Another two and Yoochun thinks that if he has to read another page, entertain another speculation between every sentence, he’ll go quite, quite crazy. It’s only 10:30 but Yoochun crawls into bed again, only to tumble out, restless, ten minutes later because the silence and the waves are driving him insane so now it’s 11:00pm on a Sunday night and Yoochun is walking barefoot out to the beach, baby blue slippers in hand.
-
Sunday. 11:05pm.
There’s a half moon rising over the sea when Yoochun finally sinks his feet into the cool sand, looks a bit bleary eyed down the white expanse of shoreline. The usual rock pools, barnacle caked sea boulders, all an unsteady shade of moonlight and wave shadows. If he’d squinted a little, perhaps the beach would have looked like a run-of-the-mill alien landscape.
Tiny, translucent crabs scuttle terrified into their holes when Yoochun bends down to watch them, picking his way past washed up sea shells, cracked driftwood up to the end of the beach and back down again. Yoochun’s just about to make another trip again when he stops short. There’s the distinct sound of humming under the usual roll of waves on sand.
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
Yoochun turns with a half yelp of surprise caught in his throat and the speaker laughs at his reaction, clear sound that rises high into the night.
“Definitely new,” he says and draws his knees up to his chin, looking at Yoochun from his perch on one of the sea boulders. He has a wide smile on his face.
“Y-y-you were here all along?”
The stranger shrugs and Yoochun, usually adapt at deciphering the minutest actions after being lifelong friends with Jaejoong, can’t seem to figure out just what the stranger means. Yes? No? Maybe and you shouldn’t really care?
“I’m Junsu,” he continues on when Yoochun finds himself tongue tied at what to say to a stranger wandering on the beach at midnight. “I’m Junsu and usually what people do in situations like this is they introduce themselves so it’s your turn now, what’s your name?”
“Yoo-Yoochun,” Yoochun stammers out, still not quite over the initial shock.
“Yoo-Yoochun? That’s a bit odd sounding but I like it.”
“No, it’s Yoochun, without the extra Yoo in the front. Just Yoochun.”
“Ahh.” Junsu looks thoughtful and climbs down gingerly from his rock seat, goes to stand with his toes just barely skimming the water’s edge.
“Well, Yoochun without the extra Yoo in the front, I like your name like this too and you know what I’d like more? If you’ll come over here and try this instead of just standing there.” He turns and kicks seawater playfully in Yoochun’s direction, moonlight and salt water in his hair.
“I won’t bite, maybe push you into the sea but no, no biting.”
And despite the utter…strangeness of it all, meeting this Junsu person sitting on a rock in the middle of the night, out here in the middle of nowhere, being invited to go dip his toes in seawater; Yoochun finds himself smiling. Walking down to the water’s edge.
-
Monday. 12:43pm
Yoochun wakes to early afternoon sun streaming through the windows, bed sheets and clothes hard with sea salt. There’s a messy smiley face made of seaweed on the floor that he almost steps into and by the time he staggers into the bathroom, goes to stand sighing under the shower, Yoochun thinks he can more or less sum up what happened last night in one simple word:
Junsu.
There’s bits of dead coral in his right pants pocket when he turns it out and Yoochun lets out a yell when a misplaced crab falls from another, has to shoo it out with one slipper (where was the other one?) and make sure it gets back to the beach in one piece.
“Junsu,” he says to himself later when he sets a pot of canned soup to simmer on the stove and flashes of last night are surfacing slowly now, swimming and breaking lazy to the surface of his mind. Junsu not lying when he said he might push Yoochun into the water. Junsu showing him how to catch baby crabs without hurting them and let them go later. Junsu giving him a handful of coral that Yoochun remembers being more beautiful in starlight. Junsu tailing him home and draping seaweed on the floor before stealing away again, nothing left to show that he’d been there other than a smile on the floor and a laugh ringing in Yoochun’s ears.
Junsu, Junsu, Junsu.
“Dammed if I didn’t ask him who he actually was,” Yoochun finds himself saying out loud as he toasts another few pieces of bread but common sense kicks into gear and he laughs, almost burns his bread. What kind of question was that? Junsu was just probably one of the locals from town, beach combing or doing whatever the people here did for fun. Probably.
-
Monday. 8:49pm
“Well you’re out early today.”
“Maybe I was just late yesterday.”
Junsu is lying on his back, staring up at the sky. Yoochun takes a seat beside him without being asked to and Junsu doesn’t bother to make space for him, the strip of beach sand between them wide enough for them to lie on without touching but small enough to hear each other talk without strain.
“Are you always here?”
“Are you always going to be here?” Junsu replies back without missing a beat and Yoochun finds himself tongue tied again, the second time in as many days with the same person.
“You’re only staying for a while, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
A muffled thump as Junsu turns onto his side and watches Yoochun watch him back with bright eyes, small smile that makes Yoochun want to look away but come back as soon as he does. There are patterns being drawn in the sand and Yoochun jerks his hand away when they accidentally touch, Junsu continuing on as if nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had happened after all.
“I wish you were staying longer.”
“Seven days long enough for you?”
A week, Jaejoong had said. As if Yoochun would ever let him switch places now.
-
Tuesday. 7:31am
Yoochun is up early today, determined to be somewhat productive and make it to the town before it got too hot to walk. Junsu had watched him go at midnight last night, waved him off with sad eyes and a smile that had somehow made Yoochun almost stay back. Just almost.
“I’m going up to the town tomorrow.”
“Town?”
Funny, how Junsu didn’t seem to have the slightest inkling as to what he was talking about. Yoochun ponders this as he pulls a proper pair of shoes on, the past two and a half days being lived out in nothing but flip flops and bare feet making squeezing into sneakers a little uncomfortable.
“Would you like to come?”
“With you? To the town?”
Yoochun pauses for a moment at the front door. Wait. Wasn’t Junsu from the town? Then what with all the…Yoochun scoffs at himself mentally as the moment passes. But of course, he wouldn’t put it past Junsu to fool around like this; it was a long shot to claim to know someone after only two nights but Junsu…
Yoochun locks the door behind him and starts on the dirt path, 15 minutes brisk walk, Jaejoong had said. More like 45 minutes of doddering around the countryside for Yoochun, then.
Junsu was special, in a way.
“So will you come with me?”
“Maybe next time.”
-
Tuesday. 8:20am
The shops are just opening when Yoochun trudges into the town, more village than town given the fact that the two roads it consisted of was probably shorter than the distance it took for Yoochun to walk from one end of his office to the other. A corner stall is selling what seems and smells like the most amazing pastries he’s ever laid his eyes on, another one peddling handmade trinkets. Yoochun buys two of whatever that catches his fancy, Jaejoong slipping into his mind unbidden and a bit unwelcome as he picks out a wooden dolphin he’s sure Junsu would be delighted with.
“You didn’t buy me anything?” storms the miniature Jaejoong in his head and Yoochun winces a little, pays the shopkeeper again for a multi coloured horse that might look nice on Jaejoong’s desk, if Jaejoong didn’t repaint it to something even more garish than the pink and green stripes it currently had.
It’s close to noon when he’s done wandering around, poking his city dweller nose into every little open store he can find, coming out with a lighter wallet and heavier bags, all that and a slowly more confused head because every person he’s struck up small talk with doesn’t seem to know a person called Junsu. There’s only so many people in a two street town.
“Around this tall? Laughs loudly?”
“No, sorry, never seen him around here.”
The wooden dolphin in his pocket grows a little heavier with every step.
-
Tuesday. 10:03pm
Yoochun waits until the moon rises, the highest it will go and still, no Junsu. He goes and stands with his feet in the surf but it doesn’t feel the same without someone pulling at his shirt, laughing, trying to get sea spray and wet sand down his back
12:47pm
No Junsu.
Yoochun walks back to his three room villa and sets the wooden dolphin on the table, treks a confused mess of wet footprints around the house before falling into bed, more than a little disappointed.
-
Wednesday. 9:02am
Jaejoong picks up on the fifth ring, sounding a little hassled at being called from across the state just as he’d sat down at his desk but happy all the same to hear Yoochun still alive.
“So did you buy me anything?”
“Loads. A wooden horse. And a wooden horse. And did I mention the wooden horse?”
“Hah. You should have bought me a zoo for getting all the arrangements done.”
“Since when did I say I only bought you one wooden horse?”
“Oh god you bought three, then?”
Yoochun twirls the cord around his hand and goes to sit in the chair by the hall, taking the phone as far as it will go. On the line, Jaejoong complains about work, listens with bated breath about Junsu, plays an express game of twenty questions about him.
“Good looking?”
“Yeah. Maybe. In the moonlight.”
“Ooh romantic, really romantic. Single?”
“No idea.”
“No, wait, more importantly, does he play for your team?”
“Jaejoong do I look like I would know? I’ve only been here three days, jeez.”
There’s a disapproving noise and Jaejoong waxes lyrical about how it only takes around an hour to fall in love these days, what more with moonlight and beaches and whatnot.
“I’m going to hang up if you keep wasting my talk time.”
“Fine, hang up then, I have work to do, unlike someone.”
Yoochun hangs up but Jaejoong calls back again, begging to be informed when the next Junsu sighting occurred and Yoochun ends up talking to him for the rest of the morning, work or no work, Junsu or no Junsu.
-
Wednesday. 3:40pm
Yoochun is back to his paperback again, mind wandering only between paragraphs now which is a bit of a step up, considering where he had started out a few days back. There’s a knock on his front door just as the protagonist is starting to get angsty about something he doesn’t remember reading about.
“Junsu?”
“That’s me.”
Junsu won’t drink anything but cold water so Yoochun gives him just that, ice cubes in a tall glass and hot tea for himself. He’s still wearing the same clothes from Sunday night, hair damp as ever and smile just as wide.
“Did you wait for me last night? I’m sorry,” he says and Yoochun thinks it would be near impossible to be angry, or even be disappointed at this man sitting at his kitchen table, bobbing ice cubes up and down in his glass.
“I’ve got something for you.”
“Oh?”
Yoochun holds up the dolphin he’d slipped into his hand from the table and Junsu almost knocks his glass over in excitement, laughter bubbling out from the corners of his mouth.
“For me?”
“Just for you.”
Junsu holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world and Yoochun thinks of how Jaejoong is wrong, about how it doesn’t take only an hour to fall in love, it takes carved wooden animals and surprise visits and the best holiday he’s ever had in his life.
-
Blink and it’s Friday night, moon almost nothing but a thin crescent now and Junsu wants to go swimming in the dark, pulls a protesting Yoochun into the black water.
“It’ll be fine, I’ll be here.”
“I can swim, it’s just…”
“It’s just?”
Junsu watches, perched unmoving on his rock as Yoochun strips slowly, lays his clothes neatly on the sand.
“It’s just that sea water is hell to wash out, y’know?”
Stinging cold at first but Junsu’s hand is warm when he grasps Yoochun’s underwater, warmer still when they alight on his shoulders and tug him down gently beneath the waves.
“It’ll be fine,” Junsu says over the sound of water lapping at bare skin and Yoochun wonders when Junsu had gotten his shirt off as well, not that it matters anymore because running his hand over the stark bones of Junsu’s collarbones, dipping down to his chest and spreading his fingers under the cover of night water, it doesn’t matter at all.
Yoochun doesn’t know what to call it but this, making love, perhaps? Fucking too coarse a word to fit this around, this being Junsu shuddering when Yoochun touches him in all the right places, dropping his head into the crook of Yoochun’s shoulder and asking if “This will be fine?” in a small voice that’s almost lost over the sound of hearts racing, waves pulling them further away from shore.
“It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”
It’s messy and difficult and Junsu doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do (“Just tell me if you want me to stop.” “ N-ngh-no, don’t stop, don’t ever stop.”) and Yoochun hasn’t the barest idea how this is even possible but taking Junsu back to shore and laying him down just where the water starts to come in, it’s okay. Junsu clutches at handfuls of wet sand, keening low when Yoochun traces muscles, arching and breathing hard and coming undone as Yoochun takes him into his mouth slow. There’s sea water on his lips.
“You taste…” Yoochun kisses the inside of Junsu’s thigh and lingers there. “You taste amazing.”
Later, falling into bed together, watching Junsu’s face as he learns how to curve his body against feather mattresses, Yoochun blesses the fact that Jaejoong is one of the best vacation planners ever. There’s a small bottle of rosehip oil stashed away in the drawer next to the bed and Junsu is writhing, calling for Yoochun by the time Yoochun lets the empty bottle roll away on the floor.
Junsu still tastes of sea when Yoochun kisses him on the mouth, inching lips apart and slipping gently into him, holding Junsu in place as lightly as he can when he nudges Junsu’s legs further apart.
“H-h-hurts, it hurts. It’ll be fine?”
“Tell me if it isn’t, okay?”
I’m sorrys pressed into skin, lips and it’s more than fine by the time Junsu learns to relax, Yoochun going as slow as he can, hand wrapped around Junsu’s length, stroking with every movement. Junsu comes with a low moan and the feel of limbs tensing taut beneath him is more than enough to push Yoochun over the edge soon after, sea water still drip drip dripping from his hair when he curls up with Junsu in his arms.
-
Saturday 6:23am
“Junsu?”
There’s barely enough light to see by but Yoochun sits up in bed, startled by the sight of Junsu standing in the middle of the room, clutching something silvery that slithers to the floor as he lets go of it.
“Junsu what is-…”
An unnatural silence as Junsu bends down slowly to gather up the silver, cloth-like thing, goes to sit on Yoochun’s side of the bed.
“I meant to tell you.”
“T-tell me about what? What is this?”
Junsu has gone and tipped the cloth onto Yoochun’s lap and it’s cold to touch, almost alive. There’s a sad sort of look in Junsu’s eyes and for once, he isn’t smiling.
“It’s my selkie skin.”
“Your…what?”
“Selkie skin,” Junsu says again and Yoochun tries to wrap his mind around the unfamiliar sounding word. Selkie? Weren’t those…
“You’re kidding me.”
He holds the skin up to the early morning light and it glimmers back at him, a thousand shades of silver that seem to curl around his touch. Alive.
“Why would I be?”
Junsu takes it back from Yoochun and makes for the door, turning back half way as if expecting Yoochun to follow.
“Would you like to come?” he asks over his shoulder, reminiscent of that one night that feels too long ago to only have happened.
“With you?” continues Yoochun with a smile as he picks up the first few pieces of a conversation remembered. He’s already slipping out of bed and padding on the floor barefooted after Junsu. There’s no time for next times.
-
Things fall slowly into place as Yoochun walks behind Junsu, feeling dirt turn to gravel to sand under his feet. The way Junsu talked. The way he seemed to always have the sea clinging to him. How no one in town had even heard of Junsu before.
“Why?” Yoochun wonders out loud and Junsu lifts his gaze from his selkie skin, goes “Hnnng,” thoughtfully.
“Because no one ever comes here and even if they do, they don’t ever stay for more than two days. Will you keep this somewhere safe for me?” Junsu presses the wooden dolphin into Yoochun’s hand before turning back to the selkie skin, slips it over his head. Yoochun stares transfixed by the sight.
A doe eyed seal with the widest smile he’s ever seen looks back at him.
“You’re a selkie.”
Even the sound of his own voice sounds ethereal, Junsu sliding easy into the waves and Yoochun, detached, can feel himself splashing into the water after him.
“You’re a selkie!” he calls after Junsu, the wooden dolphin light as air in his pocket.
A grey head surfaces and Yoochun laughs, up to his chest in warm sea water, Junsu nipping at his fingers.
“Liar, you said you wouldn’t bite.”
-
Saturday. 4:55pm
Junsu is stretched out on the floor of Yoochun’s living room, eating dry toast and getting crumbs all over the carpet, telling Yoochun things about tides and currents and how he’d borrowed this set of clothes from the last person who lived here and how he’d meant to return them but he just forgot. It’s like watching a very strange modern day fairy tale unfold right in front of Yoochun’s eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Would you have stayed if I’d told you?”
Yoochun steals a bit of Junsu’s toast and washes it down with cold tea, sets the pitcher back down on the table.
“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Junsu props his head up to look Yoochun in the eye, as if scrutinizing but apparently Yoochun passes the test because Junsu is climbing up onto the couch with him, squeezing for space and love.
“You know the stories about selkies? About how they keep their skins in the safest place they know?”
Yoochun is silent, letting Junsu pause where he wants to, pick up when he’s done toying with strands of Yoochun’s hair.
“Well, I kept it here,” he says like it’s the most natural thing on earth to trust Yoochun and Junsu’s selkie skin is lying in a patch of sun, drying and winking drops of sea water at him.
“When? On Tuesday? Was that why you didn’t show?”
A shrug and Junsu won’t say anything more, content to go to sleep in Yoochun’s arms. It’s a lazy, sunny day and Yoochun’s first real vacation in six years is ending tomorrow.
-
Sunday. 2:03pm
Jaejoong barges into the villa to find Yoochun sitting on the floor, the first start of tears in his eyes as he hastily shoves things into his bag. Another man he presumes to be Junsu is handing him a bagful of wooden animals labeled Jaejoong on the plastic bag.
“Hi.”
Junsu looks up and Yoochun almost drops the animals, nervous burst of laughter at his own mistake that dissolves back into silence.
“Hi,” Junsu sings out to Jaejoong and it’s an odd contrast to Yoochun’s obvious post-holiday depression, “Hi, you’re Jaejoong, aren’t you? I’m Junsu. And I’m a selkie.”
“…say what.”
“A selkie. You know. The seals?” Junsu makes what Jaejoong presumes to be seal-like movements and Jaejoong thinks it’s better to just accept everything as it is, ask questions later when Yoochun doesn’t seem so suicidal and there isn’t a man claiming to be a mystical creature beaming up at him.
“Yoochun are you going to explain yourself anytime soon?”
“Soon enough.”
“Good enough for me.”
Jaejoong goes to sit beside Yoochun and Junsu is obviously fascinated with Jaejoong’s sun bleached blond hair, can’t stop staring and picking shyly at it when Jaejoong moves closer.
“So. Selkie, are you?”
Junsu nods enthusiastically and goes to drag out his selkie skin to show Jaejoong, who seems as fascinated with it as Junsu is with his dyed hair.
“Yoochun, where did you find him?”
Jaejoong has gone and given Junsu his cell phone to play with, just for kicks and Junsu yelps when he accidentally presses something that makes sounds come out of the little metal device.
“Outside,” comes the stoic answer and Jaejoong thinks he’s had quite enough of this senseless moping, leaves Junsu in a patch of sun to call contacts up in Egypt while he corners Yoochun, still blindly packing everything within reach.
“Yoochun, you don’t own that tea coaster.”
“Oh.”
Yoochun sets the tea coaster back onto the table and goes to sit on the couch, Jaejoong flopping down beside him and waiting until it feels alright to say something.
“It’s about Junsu, isn’t it?”
The subject in question is staring, mesmerized at Jaejoong’s cell phone, out of which a tinny voice is demanding that Jaejoong say something this instant or she’ll hang up.
“Of course it is.”
Dial tone and Junsu moves on to the next contact entry in Jaejoong’s phonebook.
“You want to keep him?”
“Jaejoong he’s not a thing. I can’t keep someone, can I? Even if I want to, really, really badly.”
“Does he know you’re going for good?”
Yoochun’s shoulders slump and Jaejoong wants to hit his friend in the face, hisses, “You didn’t tell him you’re not coming back?”
“He doesn’t know I’m not. He just thinks…oh god, Jaejoong, what have I gotten myself into?”
“Obviously a very deep pile of shit, if you’d ask me. But don’t you suppose…don’t you suppose he could follow you?”
“What, to the city? Jaejoong are you out of your mind?”
“City?”
Junsu looks up at them from his seat on the floor and Yoochun can feel his heart drop a little, Jaejoong giving Yoochun’s hand the slightest of squeezes when he gets up to kneel in front of Junsu.
“City, we’re going to the city?” Junsu asks again. There’s a slightly confused lilt to his voice and Yoochun’s knees are hurting from the floorboards but he needs to see Junsu’s eyes when he says this, needs to know that Junsu wants this just as much as he does.
“Will you come with me?”
Junsu seems to consider this for a while, turning Jaejoong’s cell phone over in his hands.
“For a long time?” he asks, voice softer than usual and Yoochun can feel his heart clench.
“Yeah. A very long time.”
Jaejoong steals out of the room at his point, preferring to bum a quick cigarette outside. He nudges Yoochun with his foot on the way out. You’ll make the right choice, says the gesture and Yoochun wishes he had as much faith in himself as Jaejoong did. Junsu has fallen silent again.
“Junsu?”
“You know about selkies, don’t you? How much do you know?” The cell phone clatters to the floor and Junsu scrambles to pick it up again, goes back to turning it over in his hands. It’s warm to touch, from sun and over usage.
Yoochun has this sinking feeling that it’s not quite enough and he tells Junsu this, the latter shrugging.
“It’s okay. I’ll tell you, then.”
So Junsu does, crawls uninvited into Yoochun’s loose embrace, tells him about how selkies, selkies can come up on land for so long at any time, how humans would have to hide the selkie skins they found to stop the selkies from going back to the sea. How selkies could sometimes steal their skins back and escape away, only able to touch land again after seven years.
“Junsu, I didn’t-…”
Junsu breaks away from Yoochun, only to come back bearing his selkie skin. He sets it down gently in Yoochun’s lap and the skin catches sunlight in a way nothing else ever could, cold and glittering like liquid silver.
“Hide it,” he says and Yoochun watches the sea still behind Junsu’s eyes. Unreadable.
“Hide it and take me with you, because I don’t think I could ever stay away from you even if I had to.”
-
Junsu isn’t made for city life.
Everything is too big, too loud, too modern. Too much. Junsu says it’s okay to leave him at home when Yoochun goes back to work but on the days that Yoochun comes back home early, slipping quiet through the door, he can hear Junsu fiddling with the taps in the kitchen, the bathroom, desperate for the sound of water.
Yoochun tries buying him one of those relaxation CDs after that, the kind that has tracks of recorded waves.
“It’s almost as good as listening to the real thing,” he says and Junsu plays it when Yoochun is around, takes it out and puts it back into its case when Yoochun leaves.
“Don’t you like it?” Yoochun asks, concerned when Junsu forgets to put it on for the fifth day in a row and Junsu fiddles with the smooth disc, getting fingerprints all over it.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that…”
“That? It’s okay if you don’t like it, really. You can just tell me.”
“It’s just that it makes me sad, Yoochun. Remembering.”
Yoochun throws the CD into the trash and tries taking Junsu to the zoo instead, thinks that maybe the sight of familiar things will help but all Junsu does is press his hands up against the thick glass, staring confusedly at the seals behind it.
“Why are they behind the glass? Did they do something wrong?”
“No, it’s just that some of them were sick, you see? And we take them in, care for them until they’re better but sometimes they’re not well enough to ever go back so we keep them here, where it’s safe.”
Junsu nods slowly and Yoochun steers him carefully away from the seal exhibit, avoids the seal show altogether. On the way home, Junsu holds Yoochun’s hand under the shelter of his coat. It’s gone dark enough for the air to nip at their fingers.
“I’m glad I’m not here because I’m sick,” Junsu says softly and Yoochun kisses him under the light of flickering streetlamps.
-
One time, on a cloudless weekend night, Yoochun takes Junsu down to the apartment pool, tries to make up for all the tides and oceans he can’t give to Junsu.
“Thank you,” Junsu laughs. “Thank you, Yoochun, thank you.” The water is barely deep enough to dive into but Junsu pulls Yoochun in after him, turning underwater somersaults and stealing watery kisses by the light of looming skylines.
“This isn’t so bad?” ventures Yoochun and he wonders if it’s to make himself or Junsu feel better.
“Not so bad.”
It’s only the next morning when Yoochun finds Junsu curled up on his side of the bed, pale and feverish because oh, didn’t he know? Chlorine, chlorine and treated water, the dust of tired cities added in, it makes selkies sick.
-
Yoochun brings home things for Junsu to do whenever he can. An encyclopedia with colorful pictures (“Seals, find seals!” “Here you are, right after seashorse.”) one day, a jigsaw puzzle the next. Jaejoong drops by whenever he can and after a while, it doesn’t feel too strange anymore to come home to them sitting on his living room floor, a thousand puzzle pieces scattered around the carpet, Jaejoong reading to Junsu about airplanes.
“You mean they can fly? Like the gulls?”
Jaejoong turns a page and there’s an illustration of a Boeing777 suspended in painted clouds, happy faces drawn in its windows.
“Of course they can, higher and faster than any seagull you’ve ever met.”
Flip again and Yoochun settles onto the couch, dreaming about all the places he could take Junsu one day.
“Yoochun?”
“Hnng?”
Jaejoong has already left and Junsu has the encyclopedia open on his lap, tracing the cloud drawings with one finger.
“Yoochun, will you take me flying one day?”
“Wouldn’t you rather swim?”
A brief shadow passes over Junsu’s face and Yoochun mentally kicks himself, chides his sub consciousness for being so utterly stupid.
“I’ll take you flying, all around the world if I can,” he says and Junsu seems to cheer up, flipping to the back of the book where the world maps are, pointing out places he wants to fly to. Yoochun doesn’t comment on how every single one of those places are right next to the sea.
-
“Yoochun,” he whispers when they pass a shop selling tropical fish, rainbow fins and scales swimming circles inside glass bowls, “Yoochun, why do they keep them here?” He presses his nose against the glass and Yoochun stumbles over himself trying to explain that well, humans, they like to look at pretty things, they like to keep them in their houses and-…
“But won’t they be sad, so far away from home?”
Yoochun tugs Junsu gently away from the shop front and a passing car honks at them as they dash across the street, Junsu clutching at Yoochun’s hand in silent terror.
“I…I don’t know, Junsu. I don’t know.” And he wants to ask Junsu if he’s sad, so far away from the sea but Junsu is already running ahead of him, trying to race Yoochun back to the front door of their apartment.
“I’ll get home first if you don’t hurry!”
Home.
-
Weeks to months to a season and nothing changes, Junsu still flipping wistfully through his encyclopedia, still waking up at three in the morning to go stand at the window and sigh when he thinks Yoochun’s still asleep. Nothing changes and that’s the part that scares Yoochun the most.
“Junsu, I want you to go home,” he says one night when Junsu is reading something about telephones and Junsu freezes, looking straight down at the page without actually seeing anything.
“But we’re home, aren’t we?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You…you don’t…”
Yoochun goes to hold Junsu, pushing the book out of the way. “It’s not that I don’t want you. I’ll always want you, always and always and you know I love you more than life itself but Junsu, you can’t stay here. Not when it’s killing you.”
“N-n-not dying, Yoochun, I’m not!”
But Junsu is crying now, salt tears that streak warm down his face and Yoochun knows that something, however small it might had been, something has withered and died inside Junsu, choked from city fumes and washed up onto concrete pavements.
“You will be, if you stay here any longer.”
He’d anticipated it, of course, watched it come creeping on from a mile away but there had always been this one spark of hope that something would click and he’d wake up to Junsu happy, used to life here. It’s been five months, a few days short of half a year and Junsu still spends more hours than he should staring out the window, looking for something that isn’t there.
“Junsu, look at me. I love you. I always have, always will.”
“I’m sorry,” Junsu whispers finally and in a way, Yoochun is glad. Junsu will go back. He’ll be here. Life will go on, it went on before he’d met Junsu, hadn’t it? Yoochun gets up to pull the selkie skin out of its box under the bed, hold it out to Junsu with shaking hands.
“Go home, Junsu. I’ll come and find you someday.”
Junsu has something to give back to Yoochun in exchange, a small wooden dolphin that’s a bit worn around the edges from too much holding, too much love.
“Keep this safe for me? Until you come and find me.”
-
Seven years.
Jaejoong hits him in the arm and says, “It’s not too long, not too long at all,” but Yoochun knows better, seven years a total of 2555 days. 61320 hours. Yoochun logs in more time at work than any other person in the office and Jaejoong doesn’t hit him in the arm anymore, takes to touching him gently on the shoulder instead. Says, “Yoochun, time and tide wait for no one, it’s okay,”
Sometimes, Yoochun thinks it will be. Coming home to an empty apartment and thinking of how miserable Junsu would have been in it, taking down the encyclopedia and blowing dust off the cover. Marking all the places Junsu wants fly to and tearing the page out of the book, pinning it to his bedroom wall.
Junsu’s wooden dolphin goes everywhere with him, sits on his bedside table when he sleeps, watches him from the corner of his desk at work. Being kept safe.
And sometimes, it’s not okay. Sometimes Yoochun will drive five hours out into the country straight after work, watch the moonrise from his car and try to spot something among the waves, staying there for hours and hours on end. Driving back to the city before dawn to beat the morning rush hour, red eyed from lack of sleep and something to hold on to.
But those are just sometimes. Life goes on without Junsu and Yoochun thinks he’s getting left behind as well.
-
Sunday afternoon and Jaejoong didn’t think Yoochun had been serious when he’d said he wanted to move here, buy over the little house by the sea. Yoochun can hear the sound of waves crashing on the beach from where he stands.
“Bastard, that’s what you’ve been planning all this time haven’t you? The overworking. The bonuses.”
“What, you thought I was doing all that for laughs?” Yoochun punches Jaejoong in the arm this time and gets a fierce hug in return.
“You underestimate me, Kim Jaejoong.”
It’s a lazy, sunny day.
-
Sunday. 11:05pm
There’s the sound of humming under the usual roll of waves on beach sand, crabs dashing back into their holes as Yoochun runs down the beach and into Junsu’s arms, breaking apart only to tip a small wooden dolphin into Junsu’s hands. Sea drenched fingers close around it and Junsu smiles like the sun.
“I don’t think you’re new around here.”
Yoochun is more alive than he’s ever been in seven years.
[fin]
AN- Big thank yous to itsplashes and old_willowbrook , for reading this through and tolerating me spamming their emails with it D: ilu guys too much to say.
Written for the magyk_carousel one month anniversary challenge thing~ Voting starts at the comm on the 26th to the 30th, vote if you liked it? /cries shameless plugging is shameless/ :D