trees without leaves (2/2)
yoochun/junsu & jaejoong/yunho & junsu/boa
angst
pg13
6275 words
They eat straight from the pack-
(“You only bought one?”
“It’s a large pack. Anyway there’s a romance factor to eating from the same pack.”
“Romance factor? Like your charisma factor? You’ve been hanging around Yoochun too much haven’t you?”
“He did come over this afternoon.”
“There’s a sort of similarity between that romance and charisma factor.”
“Can’t have one without the other.”
“I was going to say they’re similar in the way that in your case, they’re both nonexistent.”
“You really intend to go hungry tonight, don’t you?”
“Cook me ramen.”)
-wooden chopsticks snapping as they’re pulling apart. Junsu makes them tea, a splash of milk in hers and sugar in his, Jaejoong watching from his place by the window without really knowing what to feel. There’s isn’t any instant ramen left.
“Is it good?”
She nods and picks out a piece, biting off one end and offering the other to Junsu who tries to take it with his own pair of chopsticks, the whole affair messy and they drip hot sauce all over the tabletop.
“Yah Kim Junsu, stop trying to be a man and just let me feed you already.”
Boa has lean across the table and forcibly hold him still by the jaw with her one free hand before he opens his mouth, already cold piece of ddok disappearing.
“So is it good?” she asks and picks out another piece for herself, popping it into her mouth.
“Better than your ramen at any rate.”
“Nonexistent ramen.”
“It’s gone off to cavort with my romance and charisma factors, hasn’t it?”
“Make little romantic, charismatic ramen babies.”
Jaejoong feels like he prefers two way conversations now.
-
He thinks it’s time he left when the one polystyrene pack is thrown into the bin with the disposable chopsticks, the table cleared of drank-from mugs, wiped down with a cloth so Junsu can bend her over it to kiss her.
“Have fun, the both of you.”
Jaejoong’s only ever seen Yoochun kiss Junsu every now and then, a quiet sort of urgency behind each one because the world might be watching but with Boa, it’s full on out, lingering because if the world is watching, well fuck them.
If being with Yoochun is staying up late winter nights composing together on the roof, watching the first snowflake fall, sharing a thermos of coffee by citylights, Boa is the complete opposite. Behind him, Junsu threads a hand through her hair and moves down to an exposed neck. Being with Boa is this: kissing open mouthed on early winter nights, singing to each other on the phone and wondering “what if”s out loud until they grow confused and become “when we”s.
“If we debuted together?”
“When we debut together.”
“Talks going good then?”
“Doesn’t your side tell you anything?”
“Shut up about my management and kiss me.”
Jaejoong slips out through locked doors and wanders the streets until he’s convinced that no one actually falls out of love. They just find new, stronger ones.
-
Yunho is still awake when he gets back, sitting in the same chair by the same window, holding the same book from so very long ago. By the looks of it, it’s probably the same page too, somewhere near the middle.
“You’re a darned slow reader, you know that?”
But Yunho isn’t reading at all, just slowly tearing page after page after printed, unread page out before and after the page he’s opened the book to, the sound of paper crying loud at 4am.
“Stop wasting paper.”
It’s a medium sized paperback, probably picked up at the airport before one of their long haul flights, stashed away in hand carry luggage only to be unread because there’s a good movie showing on the in-flight entertainment.
“Yunho.”
He doesn’t stop until there’s one page left, fluttering sadly in its broken spine; the same page from that night a lifetime ago. Yunho looks at it for the longest time before reaching to tear it out as well, dropping the empty shell of his book onto the table where the rest of the pages are before hunching over, face in his hands.
“Yunho, Yunho.”
No amount of calling will make him stop crying.
-
Almost Christmas time and life seems to have slipped back into the mundane, the livable. Changmin goes back to school, taking up and dropping anything that catches his fancy, this semester bringing another round of sleepless nights spent staying up reading, filling empty sheets of paper with printed projects.
“East Asian history, Changmin? Really?”
Jaejoong has seen him trudge through Popular Music (dropped the moment he found a reference to them in one of the later papers) and exhaust the apartment’s caffeine supply during that one fling with business studies.
Tonight he’s reading about the rise and fall of some long dead dynasty, something to deal with treason, treachery, bloodied tapestries of love and wars unfurled. Yoochun doesn’t knock on his door when he enters, knows that Changmin won’t answer anyways and locks are always put to good use in this house.
“You should go to sleep.”
“Says the person who just came home ten minutes ago.”
“I have work.”
“Well so do I.”
It’s a step up from sullen stares and silence and Yoochun isn’t going to back down, striding across the room to close Changmin’s textbook with a flip of his hand.
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
They don’t take the car and Jaejoong is glad, ghosting (teehee, he laughs with dark humor) their steps far more easy than getting into the backseat of Yoochun’s car without falling through the doors. The streets of Seoul in the dead of winter is cover enough for them and no one stops them for photo ops, for hastily scrawled signatures on old album covers.
“Where’re we going?”
“Somewhere fun.”
“Freezing to death is not fun.”
“You will if you keep stopping to whine.”
“Tough love,” comments Jaejoong and Yoochun’s idea of fun hasn’t changed much since ever, him leading the way through frost covered alleys with slippery sidewalks, ducking into an inconspicuous looking eatery that has enough tables to count on one hand.
“Soju?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too.”
Jaejoong misses little things like these, the scent of clear alcohol in glass bottles, the taste of street food, the brush of scarves against his skin when Yunho kisses him on the cheek on cold nights. Simple, little things. The two bottles of soju come and Yoochun pays, Changmin drinking in half mouthfuls because it’s been a while since he’s done this, slightly different from lonely hours spent on playground swings, cradling room temperature lager.
“So how’s this course going?”
“Park Yoochun, don’t think for one second that I believe you called me out in the freezing cold to talk about college.”
“Right.”
A large swig from the bottle and Yoochun makes a face, inhaling air with a half hiss.
“I didn’t.”
“Well?”
“It’s about Junsu.”
-
Yunho is feeling lonely when he comes back to too quiet rooms, an unusual sort of fatigue sinking deep into his bones as he stretches out onto the couch, channel surfs with the volume off for the heck of it in his work clothes. Working for SME like this isn’t so much different from being in Dongbangshinki after all; the parallels far too many to make him feel like anything has actually changed.
The odd hours, the hectic schedule, the way there’s always music involved one way or another, whether he likes it or not. How he still doesn’t really have much control over what kind of decisions get made.
Junsu picks up on the fourth ring, the sound of dying laughter making Yunho sit a little straighter, listen a little harder but Junsu shushes someone and turns back to the call with an apologetic note in his voice.
“Anything?”
“Nah, just…bored.”
Junsu hums on the other end, happy, made up tune of semitones and staccatos that brings back memories of long car rides to faraway places, hours in transit on unfamiliar soil.
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
“…she?”
Yunho doesn’t even have to try hard to get Junsu to talk, the latter fumbling for excuses that don’t really have to be made with Yunho.
“How long?”
“Long enough, Brazil, the US…now this. The whole re-debuting concept, I’ve told you haven’t I?”
“The fourth time now, yes. And Yoochun?”
“Yeah.”
“Answer the right question, Junsu.”
A sigh and a soft no, but you will?
“Only if you want me to.”
“Don’t. You’re not going to ask why, are you?”
“No, I’m going to ask who.”
“You won’t tell?”
“Yah Kim Junsu who do you think I am, Changmin?”
“…guess.”
In the background, there’s the sound of dishes being washed, stacked neat into sinks.
“No time for games, Junsu.”
“Didn’t someone say he was bored? Boa.”
“…Boa. That Boa?”
“The one and only. Tell me, Yunho, how many Boas do we actually know?”
Are you talking about me? shouted indignantly and something bangs its porcelain way into the cupboard, Junsu’s voice muffled as he covers his end of the phone with a hand.
“And Yoochun?”
A spot of uneasy silence and Yunho waits, keeps an eye on the front door.
“We didn’t talk about it.”
“People don’t generally talk about things they don’t know.”
“I think he does.”
“And?”
“And I think he’s-”
“Sad. Not devastated, but sad all the same.”
“Don’t go telling me he loves me now; I know that already.”
Then why this? Yunho wants to ask but checks himself in time because love works both ways. Yoochun didn’t really have much to say about Junsu leaving, other than the expected why and don’t and promise you will, unspoken understandings and an already faded love keeping lips sealed.
“Yunho?”
“Hold on a minute, I’ve got another incoming call.”
-
Jaejoong tails them as they make their zigzagging, unstable way through the city, Changmin letting Yoochun hold onto his arm as they trip laughing over each other’s feet. It’s the happiest he’s seen the both of them in a long time and he pauses to watch them smile under streetlamps, Changmin’s eyes clear, Yoochun’s bright.
“We should do this more often.”
“Yeah, yeah we should.”
“Race you to the other side?”
“It not a race when you’re holding hands.”
Yoochun doesn’t let Changmin let go and makes a tsk-ing noise at the magnae, pulling them off the curb.
“Picky picky picky. Fuck the rules a little, won’t you?”
“I’d rather do actual people, thank you.”
“You’re welcome~” Yoochun sings and they’re not really dashing across the road, jay-walking made into a midnight art of sorts, shoes slip sliding on slippery tarred roads. Jaejoong is still under the lamplight, arms folded to watch when something suddenly feels like it’s going to change, the sound of solitary cars taking advantage of empty roads approaching,
Not this.
They stand rooted to the ground, hands still in each other’s winter jacket pockets when the car tries to brake in time, Jaejoong sprinting to the middle of the road without really knowing if he can do this right.
No, no, no.
It feels like a cruel case of déjà vu except for the fact that he’s the one watching this time, roles flipped around and spread to different people. There’s barely enough time to act, let alone make good decisions and Jaejoong doesn’t think he could pick anyway, reaching out for the both of them and catching hold of only one, Yoochun’s already unsteady feet giving out on ice-sheet roads as he tries to make for the opposite direction.
No.
Changmin watches the impact happen, doesn’t hear the dull thud over the sound of his own screaming and the screech of tires pulling away at the sight of a once-famous face bloodied on the ground.
“You bastard,” Jaejoong hisses at fleeing rear lights as he collapses onto the ground beside Changmin and there are tear tracks down both their faces, “They’re coming, they’re coming, hang in there,” overpowered by Yoochun’s screaming as he trashes weakly in Changmin’s arms.
“It hurts, Changmin, make it stop oh god Changmin-”
Blood, tears, the sound of things slipping away.
“Yoochun look at me, just look at me. You’ll be okay.”
Jaejoong turns from the scene and covers his ears, waits for lifelines to come wailing down the street. It takes seven long minutes for Yoochun to die, nine for the ambulance to arrive and by then, Yoochun is standing beside Jaejoong, watching Changmin being led away by sleepy paramedics into the waiting van.
“Hey.”
“Hey right back atcha.”
-
Yoochun picks up on this being dead thing quick enough, the both of them racing each other to the highest floors, jumping off in tandem after each other.
And then there are days that Yoochun says he feels guilty about dragging everyone back into the depths of dark depression, but he says it while purposely misplacing Yunho’s pens and Jaejoong hits him in the arm, moves it back to its original place with a tired sigh. Junsu had been inconsolable the first few days, sinking into a Changmin-esque type of silence with red eyes and sealed lips, Yunho coming back only to stay up all night working.
Jaejoong shows Yoochun how to walk through locked doors, walls and stands with him when he watches Boa kiss the sadness off Junsu; quiet, fluttering kisses on his cheek that are reciprocated soon enough.
“I think I always knew.”
“I should have told you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
He turns to Jaejoong with a muted kind of smile and leads the way out, doesn’t turn back.
-
Their apartment is emptier than ever now, Yunho out most of the day, Changmin slipping back to square one and locking himself in his room until late afternoons when he pads out to the living room to wait for Yunho to come back.
The days that they keep Changmin unacknowledged company, Yoochun thinks that Changmin can see them, sometimes turning back from his desk to stare straight at them before dropping his gaze, eyes unreadable.
“Stop wasting yourself,” Jaejoong tells Yoochun as he shreds paper on the roof, color running in Yoochun shades off his skin. The pieces flutter off into the night and Jaejoong starts for them out of habit.
“Says the translucent man. There’s nothing much to do here anyway, why stay?”
“Do you know how much effort it took to save Changmin?” He ignores the second part of the sentence, doesn’t want to answer things that Yoochun already knows anyway.
“And not me?” There’s no venom beneath the words, just a too fast retort that makes Yoochun look up from his almost gone paper and say sorry, I didn’t mean it.
“I would have if I could.”
“It’s not anything important, y’know, dying.”
Jaejoong hits him in the arm again and Yoochun harasses him to the edge of the roof, falling off with him laughing.
-
The more hours they spend on long nights talking in low voices, waiting for Changmin to go to bed, the more Jaejoong is convinced that he can see, maybe hear them, the way the tap tap tap of computer keys pauses for the briefest of seconds when their conversation ebbs.
“Changmin?” he ventures one day and it’s a delayed response, the younger boy turning round slow in his seat. He gets up and Yoochun grabs hold of Jaejoong’s sleeve, tugging excitedly when he seemingly meets their eyes but he passes by, goes towards the window to wrench the curtains open before walking back, lanky gait with quiet feet.
“Wishful thinking,” Yoochun says, deflated and goes to stare at sunsets from the roof, Jaejoong slowly getting up to do the same. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking too when something makes Jaejoong turn around just before he leaves, only to find Changmin staring straight at him.
“Bye, Min-ah.”
The other man turns back to his work with a small shake of his head.
-
They tell each other the things they miss, made up game of memories to pass the time waiting for twilight to fall so they can draw constellations until dawn.
“Yunho.”
“Junsu.”
“Oh god, could we be any more obvious?”
“Sex.”
“A good drink.”
“Now we sound like sad, useless bums.”
“Smoking.”
“Sad, useless, addicted bums.”
“Eating. Breathing. Actually hurting when you throw yourself off things.”
“Standing in front of crowds.”
“Singing?”
“We can still do that, but I get what you mean, singing together. Being heard.”
“Yeah.”
They lapse into contemplative silence and Yoochun wonders out loud about where they’ll go from here; what they will do.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I want to,” Yoochun says softly and picks up minute pieces of old concrete crumbling from the side of the rooftop, throws it out as far as he can.
Don’t leave me, Jaejoong wants to say but bites his tongue, feels the awful feeling of knowing he’s being selfish for a moment. The silence creeps back and Yoochun sits down on the ledge, dangles his feet off the edge as another little part of him fades away. Jaejoong lingers behind him, unsure.
“Just not yet, don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”
The sun sets and lights the city buildings up in gold red artificial fires, a million suns in a million windows reflected.
“Hey Yoochun, it’s your turn, isn’t it?
“I miss living.”
-
The day Yoochun wants to try something new and probably quite stupid, Jaejoong doesn’t want to go along, prefers to follow Yunho on errands and make inane, unheard comments about the groceries he buys.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says to Yoochun who gives a noncommittal noise as he takes to the streets, waves goodbye in the form of a careless flick of fingers. He takes his time to make it to Junsu’s place; walks down alleyways that lead to brick walls but not necessarily dead ends for him, takes in the sights and sounds of Seoul’s pulsing city heart. By mid afternoon, he’s somehow made his winding way to Junsu’s door and he’s home today, the sound of sheets rustling and voices indistinguishable from each other.
“Junsu. ”
Yoochun feels like a voyeur and he knows he actually is at the moment, no exceptions made for the non-living, as he watches Junsu run his hands down her bare back, pausing at her hips and marking them as he thrusts slow in her,
“Junsu, yes, like that.”
Something familiar stirs inside him, rattles the bars of locked cages. Something that doesn’t let him look away when Boa arches into Junsu’s touches, kisses, words.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He doesn’t quite remember the last time he’s heard Junsu say that and he chews on the thought as he watches them finish, Boa pushing herself out from under Junsu to let him hold her to his chest instead, lips to a heartbeat Yoochun used to time his songs to. Later when the sun sets and Junsu steps under the hot spray of lazy showers, Yoochun will wait for the bathroom mirror to grow translucent, I love you written on the surface to the sound of Junsu humming some popular melody through falling water.
“Just so you know,” Yoochun whispers as Junsu walks past him with his hair still wet to scrutinize the writing on the mirror before dripping water out into the bedroom, kissing Boa open mouthed.
“I love you right back,” Junsu says, not to the ghost in the corner and Boa tells him to go change, stop getting the carpet damp.
Yoochun walks home in loose, aimless patterns after that, circles that bring him one step closer before drawing him away five steps back. It’s light by the time Jaejoong watches him cross from front door to living room with his arms folded to his chest.
“So did you do anything I wouldn’t?”
“Well.”
“Just tell me if you decide to stay out all night, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like it when I don’t know when someone will get back. If they get back.”
“Cheer up emo kid, I’m still here.”
-
Another season and Jaejoong thinks up things for them to do to pass the time, today being expressway tag, weaving through speeding traffic.
“Blue car!”
Yoochun is calling this round and they’re on different sides of the concrete divider, dashing for the nearest sky or sea colored vehicle. Jaejoong wins the moment a faded turquoise sedan pass through him and it’s his turn now, something obscure like “Minivan with two kids!”
They play until it grows too dark to see what’s actually coming so they settle for draggy conversations instead on the way back home-
“I have this theory.”
“Shoot.”
Jaejoong doesn’t want to agree, something small and flippant like the fear of being alone telling him to say No, Yoochun, you’re crazy but something bigger, something like a half step down from love makes him nod instead.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try anyways. What’s there to lose?”
“Being with you,” Yoochun says but Jaejoong is already too far away to hear, striding through ongoing cars that rush to places unknown.
-
Only Changmin is home when they get back, flicking too fast through television channels to actually watch anything as he waits up for Yunho.
“Hey Min-ah.” Jaejoong says softly, Changmin’s back suddenly straightening and the screen goes black, television control thrown careless onto the couch before he slams his room door behind him.
“Should we be worried?”
Yoochun is staring at the empty spaces on the wall, suddenly feeling out of place in this empty house.
“He’s Changmin.”
“He’s a different Changmin.”
“We can’t help.”
Outside in the foyer, there’s the unmistakable sound of unlocking doors and tired feet kicking off shoes, Jaejoong starting to move away from Yoochun.
-
Yoochun doesn’t think he would be scared when push came to shove but standing over Junsu one night when Boa is too far away, too tired to come spend the night, he thinks he’s never been this afraid of anything ever in his life. Junsu still sleeps the same way he remembers, curled to one side with his legs together, semi fetal position that Yoochun has learned to angle his body around after so long.
What is there to lose?
Jaejoong would have resorted to physical pestering by now, come on come on what’re you waiting for anyways, playful misplaced one-touches imagined clear in his head.
“I miss you, you know that?”
The other man shifts in his sleep, clutches at the sheets before burrowing deeper into his pillow. It takes more effort than he imagines, trying to catch hold of Junsu’s dreams, chasing after them with closed eyes as he touches Junsu’s arm lightly, fading with every passing moment that he wastes swallowing down fear.
“Yoochun?”
They’re standing in some un-nameable place with whitewashed walls, bare room with wooden floors that creak when Yoochun meets Junsu’s gaze for the first time in too long.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
-
Yoochun wants to say I’ve been watching you but figures it’ll come off as stalker-ish, settles for Life’s been good, hasn’t it?
“You know, don’t you?”
“Answer my last question first then I’ll answer yours.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it has.”
“And I do.”
He drums his fingers on the wooden boards, sound of restless fingers echoing off the white box they’ve found themselves in.
“Are you happy?”
Junsu won’t look up from the floor, his fingers, and Yoochun wonders what is it with him and asking questions he already knows the answers to.
“I want you to be, just so you know.”
“Thank you.”
It comes out awkward and this is what Yoochun has been terrified about; that they’d find nothing in common, anything, everything they’ve ever shared laughing at the back of cars, in airport lounges waiting for planes, lives already packed away into little neat boxes labeled old loves.
“I miss you,” he says and Junsu finally looks up now, Yoochun finding the tear tracks on his face oddly jarring because Junsu’s living okay, Junsu’s moved on.
Junsu is happy.
He clenches a fist when Junsu moves towards him, holds him by the shoulders and Yoochun hugs him close, lets him dirty the front of his shirt with tears that have taken too long in coming.
“I miss you too. I miss you, I miss you so much.”
-
Yoochun is sitting in the sunlight on the carpet when Jaejoong troops home with Yunho, berating him noisily from the back for buying foodstuff at a higher price than necessary, why didn’t he go back to that nice ahjumma’s place three streets down instead?
“Yoochun.”
Jajeoong stops short and lets Yunho wander into the kitchen alone, pots and plates and cupboard doors banging, refrigerator door opening.
“Yoochun what happened?”
He takes a seat beside the other man, watches how sunlight almost makes Yoochun invisible now, washed out colors filling in a Yoochun-shaped mould.
“Junsu happened, that’s what it is.”
“…are you-”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Not so soon,” Yoochun says and turns to Jaejoong with a smile that brings up memories of childhood stories, the one with the Cheshire cat and lingering grins. Jaejoong hits, suddenly fearing halfway that his fist will just go right through but it connects hard enough to leave Yoochun wincing and Jaejoong laughing as he claims a spot in the sun as well.
-
There’s nothing much that Yoochun wants to do before he leaves, just drops in on Yoohwan and his mother more often than usual, goes freefalling with Jaejoong at night straight on till dawn. Jaejoong is still convinced that Changmin can see them but that doesn’t deter Yoochun from spending hours in the magnae’s room, carrying on one man conversations until Changmin turns the light off and crawls into bed, eyes bloodshot from too long nights, too many things to read.
Too many voices, real and unreal.
“Don’t miss me,” Yoochun tells Jaejoong one summer morning, extending an unheard goodbye Yunho and Changmin who’re seated at the breakfast table, Yunho pouring over the newspaper.
“If I do?”
“I’ll come back and kick your undead ass.”
“If I’m still here.”
“Good, it’ll save me a trip back down if you’re not.”
Changmin rinses his bowl in the sink, back turned and Yoochun waves at it, mouths a goodbye before he hugs Jaejoong tight.
“Promise you won’t take too long.”
“I can’t…wait, do they even have a concept of time up there?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
One final clasp on Jaejoong’s shoulder, a take care of dumb and dumber here before he leaves, before he starts to cry and it’ll be harder than ever to do it now.
“Goodbye, Yoochun.”
-
He takes the long route to Junsu’s place, stopping by to watch Yoohwan and his mother eating lunch at home, goes by the SME building to watch past dongsaengs fool around in the recording rooms, dance practice halls. It’s another bloody sunset, sky bleeding summer colors across the sky when he’s standing in Junsu’s living room, watching him clear up small messes. A fallen magazine here, an opened book there, papers back into files.
“Is she coming over tonight?”
Not that it matters but Yoochun thinks maybe it’d be nice to see her again, Boa, that lithe little girl with the big voice and heart huge enough to hold Junsu in.
“Or are you going over?”
Boa lets herself in and Yoochun feels his heart clench, so it’s come to this now replaying unwelcome in his head. He watches Junsu cook instant ramen for her, the both of them eating it out of the same pot.
“You’re just lazy, aren’t you?”
“I found my romance factor.”
“Still looking for your charisma one, aren’t you?”
Junsu thwacks her chopsticks away with his own to get the last few strands of noodles, only to get her to lean towards him so he can feed her.
“Now?”
“Keep looking, baby, keep looking.”
Yoochun waits for them to wash the dishes, Boa getting soap suds in her hair and Junsu getting the drying cloth flung at him, stuffed down the back of his shirt.
“Yah Kwon Boa!”
“Kim Junsu!”
“We should go shower, shouldn’t we?”
“You forgot to add a ‘together’ in there.”
He thinks he couldn’t bring himself to watch, tonight of all nights and he’s glad that they emerge from the bathroom an hour later, content look on Junsu’s face and Boa with her hair hanging in limp strands down her back, dripping water on the floor.
“Stop dripping!”
“You do it all the time, shut up.”
And it takes another hour of banter, half an hour of how was your day talks before Boa falls asleep on his shoulder, Junsu reaching over to turn the light off and lower his head ever so slowly onto the pillow without waking her up. Yoochun feels glad for these waking hours he intrudes on, steals from Junsu, glad to watch him laugh without holding anything back, to see him live, love.
Even if it’s without him.
-
“Hey, come here often?”
Junsu turns and almost knocks the both of them over running into Yoochun’s arms, pulling them to the floor anyways after.
“Talk to me, Su-ah.”
-
Changmin is uneasy, waiting for Yunho to come back and Jaejoong can feel it, watching him pace the floor a few times before stretching out on the couch, getting up a minute later to wander through the rooms.
“Changmin what’s wrong?”
Yunho’s working late today, calls to say so and it makes Changmin’s shoulders droop a little, movements slower, less jittery now as he puts the phone down, goes to try and sleep at 8pm.
“Changmin come on.”
The light goes off and Jaejoong sits in the dark, listening for Yunho’s footsteps in the hallway. He hears it close to 9.30, Changmin’s door opening by a crack and starting to close again but the light flips on, Changmin sitting up straight in his bed, face hollowed with shadows the bedside lamp throws onto the walls.
“I thought you were-”
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
Yunho goes to sit on the edge of Changmin’s bed, the latter pulling his legs up to make room, laying a chin on them.
“That something?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re…you’re what?”
Jaejoong wants to hit Changmin, really does for the first time in so long but he can’t, resorts to shouting instead, “Why? Why now? Why?”
Yunho is silent for a moment before asking the exact same thing that Jaejoong had, softer, words almost a whisper.
“There’s a twinning program, for the course I’m taking. And…and I want to go. I can’t stay here for too long anyway.”
“…okay.”
“Okay? Okay?!” Jaejoong raves and Changmin flinches, maybe from the words, maybe from the look on Yunho’s face.
“When?”
“In two weeks, to the States.”
“You should tell Junsu.”
Yunho stands and Changmin makes as if to follow after him but stops halfway when Yunho pats him on the shoulder, unspoken I’ll do okay before he slips out of the room, Jaejoong following after without a second look back at Changmin.
-
“We’re debuting this September, the both of us. Again.”
“Concept?”
“I don’t really know what they’re going for at the moment but it’ll have to include the both of us together together, if you get me.”
Junsu turns Yoochun’s hand over, traces the lines on his palm as he talks, comments on how faded he looks, didn’t they serve anything edible in heaven?
“I wish I’d have dreamt of you sooner, but there’s still the rest of my life to go, isn’t there?”
“…no, Junsu.”
“What do you mean no?”
“Maybe you’ll dream, I’m quite sure you will, actually, but it won’t be me. Me me.”
Yoochun clasps his hand over Junsu’s wandering fingers and waits for words to come, waits for goodbyes. Somewhere in the far off, beyond white walls and sub consciousness, a phone starts to ring and Yoochun is fading, Junsu grasping trying to hold on for one more moment.
“Let go, Junsu.”
"No, no, I’m not letting you leave again.”
Yoochun sighs and kisses the hand atop his, pulling it out from under Junsu’s.
“Go answer the phone.”
“No, Yoochun please there’s still so much more, so many things.”
“Share them with Boa.”
Yoochun stands and Junsu can see the walls through him now, Yoochun forcibly turning him around, hands firm on his shoulders.
“Go, Su-ah. Don’t look, don’t look at me when I leave, don’t look back, remember I love you, I love you more than anything in this world.”
Junsu doesn’t look back and when he does with an I loved you too on his lips, there’s nothing there.
-
“Phone, Su.”
Boa turns on her side and Junsu bolts up in his bed, eyes wet and an empty feeling in his chest.
“Phone,” groans Boa from under the covers and Junsu reaches for his mobile, clears his throat of choked up tears before answering it. There’s silence on the other line.
“Hello?”
Three seconds tick pass and Junsu takes a glance at the caller ID, sighing at the name.
“Changmin what is it?”
“I want to talk.”
-
Jaejoong is lonely, going up to the rooftop alone for the first time in a long while to watch the sun come up, Yoochun never coming back from Junsu’s place. Falling alone isn’t as fun as it used to be and he takes to watching cars now instead of chasing after them, lying atop grassy hills to watch them snake multi-colored lines below. Changmin is packing his life into suitcases and Jaejoong watches him as always, tells him softly to “Take them,” when Changmin pauses over their CDs, singles, own mix tapes from years past. He puts them in.
“Taxi’ll be here in an hour.”
Yunho shuts the door on Changmin, leaves him sitting amidst suddenly towering luggage and Jaejoong standing in the centre of the room, arms crossed.
“You’re really leaving, aren’t you? Leaving me, Yunho. Mostly Yunho.”
“Where’s Yoochun?”
Jaejoong almost falls over when Changmin looks at him to ask this, eyes strangely bright and unflinching.
“Where’s Yoochun, Jae-ah?”
“You can see me?”
“Hear you, every day, every waking hour. Yes. Tell me where’s Yoochun.”
The haunted look creeps back into his gaze and Jaejoong wants to touch him, ask him what’s wrong.
“He…he left.”
Jaejoong makes towards Changmin who scuttles away at the first step, back against one of his bags.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Changmin I-”
“No, no, I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want I don’t-”
“Min-ah.”
“Leave me alone, please, just leave me alone, all those nights, I can’t stay here any longer.”
He stares at the floor, shoulders shaking.
“Jaejoong.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Jaejoong looks at him with sad eyes, not really understanding but walking slowly towards the door to sit in the living room with Yunho anyway.
“Take care of yourself,” he says as he disappears out into the hallway and Changmin pulls his legs up, rests a tired head on them. He can’t bear watching people leave.
-
The more time he spends alone with Yunho, the angrier he gets, at himself for leaving too early, at Yunho for holding on too long. He lives, of course he does; commutes to work, talks with colleagues, signs autographs on the way back home for still disillusioned fans that stop him on the street.
“Yunho oppa!”
He nods and smiles, empty for-media polite smile that sends them into a flurry of squeals, hands holding out papers and pens and old dreams.
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
Jaejoong can’t find it in himself to feel disgusted, not when something as small as that can make Yunho smile a little on the walk back home, lasting until he reaches quiet rooms for too many people. He cooks for himself the days he doesn’t work late, simple meals that Jaejoong criticizes half-heartedly, watching him, always always only watching. It’s a banal kind of existence and yes, Yunho is living, breathing, heart beating but only on the outside.
-
The trees are leafless again, wind starting to bite more. There’re Christmas ornaments strung up in the streets now and shopping malls play Christmas jingles; staff wearing reindeer antlers, Santa hats to work.
“Merry Christmas,” a fan tells him and Yunho returns the greeting, adds a tiny Christmas tree on the bottom of his signature.
“So that’s where Junsu’s charisma factor went,” thinks Jaejoong out loud and it’s already late, street lamps lighting up one by one and the running lights twirled around their posts starting their own individual races. Some nights, he feels like slipping under the covers with him, falling asleep with him and never waking up, other times he contemplates doing what Yoochun did but he’s sure that Yunho already dreams of him, dreams of the past him in perfect detail and there’s no need.
Tonight, Yunho sits on the roof, doesn’t smoke like Jaejoong used to up here, doesn’t compose like Yoochun.
“Merry Christmas.”
He sits on the ledge, swinging his legs and Jaejoong can feel his heart leap into his throat. Not yet. Not so fast.
Yunho, you idiot.
But perhaps, perhaps, just perhaps with a touch of hope, a dash of selfish want.
Yunho pushes himself off the edge.
-
“Hey stranger.”
And this is the first time all over again. Jaejoong doesn’t turn around but one familiar hand on his shoulder makes him, twisting him gently to look back.
“Hey.”
Perhaps we are an illusion.
[fin]
angst
pg13
6275 words
They eat straight from the pack-
(“You only bought one?”
“It’s a large pack. Anyway there’s a romance factor to eating from the same pack.”
“Romance factor? Like your charisma factor? You’ve been hanging around Yoochun too much haven’t you?”
“He did come over this afternoon.”
“There’s a sort of similarity between that romance and charisma factor.”
“Can’t have one without the other.”
“I was going to say they’re similar in the way that in your case, they’re both nonexistent.”
“You really intend to go hungry tonight, don’t you?”
“Cook me ramen.”)
-wooden chopsticks snapping as they’re pulling apart. Junsu makes them tea, a splash of milk in hers and sugar in his, Jaejoong watching from his place by the window without really knowing what to feel. There’s isn’t any instant ramen left.
“Is it good?”
She nods and picks out a piece, biting off one end and offering the other to Junsu who tries to take it with his own pair of chopsticks, the whole affair messy and they drip hot sauce all over the tabletop.
“Yah Kim Junsu, stop trying to be a man and just let me feed you already.”
Boa has lean across the table and forcibly hold him still by the jaw with her one free hand before he opens his mouth, already cold piece of ddok disappearing.
“So is it good?” she asks and picks out another piece for herself, popping it into her mouth.
“Better than your ramen at any rate.”
“Nonexistent ramen.”
“It’s gone off to cavort with my romance and charisma factors, hasn’t it?”
“Make little romantic, charismatic ramen babies.”
Jaejoong feels like he prefers two way conversations now.
-
He thinks it’s time he left when the one polystyrene pack is thrown into the bin with the disposable chopsticks, the table cleared of drank-from mugs, wiped down with a cloth so Junsu can bend her over it to kiss her.
“Have fun, the both of you.”
Jaejoong’s only ever seen Yoochun kiss Junsu every now and then, a quiet sort of urgency behind each one because the world might be watching but with Boa, it’s full on out, lingering because if the world is watching, well fuck them.
If being with Yoochun is staying up late winter nights composing together on the roof, watching the first snowflake fall, sharing a thermos of coffee by citylights, Boa is the complete opposite. Behind him, Junsu threads a hand through her hair and moves down to an exposed neck. Being with Boa is this: kissing open mouthed on early winter nights, singing to each other on the phone and wondering “what if”s out loud until they grow confused and become “when we”s.
“If we debuted together?”
“When we debut together.”
“Talks going good then?”
“Doesn’t your side tell you anything?”
“Shut up about my management and kiss me.”
Jaejoong slips out through locked doors and wanders the streets until he’s convinced that no one actually falls out of love. They just find new, stronger ones.
-
Yunho is still awake when he gets back, sitting in the same chair by the same window, holding the same book from so very long ago. By the looks of it, it’s probably the same page too, somewhere near the middle.
“You’re a darned slow reader, you know that?”
But Yunho isn’t reading at all, just slowly tearing page after page after printed, unread page out before and after the page he’s opened the book to, the sound of paper crying loud at 4am.
“Stop wasting paper.”
It’s a medium sized paperback, probably picked up at the airport before one of their long haul flights, stashed away in hand carry luggage only to be unread because there’s a good movie showing on the in-flight entertainment.
“Yunho.”
He doesn’t stop until there’s one page left, fluttering sadly in its broken spine; the same page from that night a lifetime ago. Yunho looks at it for the longest time before reaching to tear it out as well, dropping the empty shell of his book onto the table where the rest of the pages are before hunching over, face in his hands.
“Yunho, Yunho.”
No amount of calling will make him stop crying.
-
Almost Christmas time and life seems to have slipped back into the mundane, the livable. Changmin goes back to school, taking up and dropping anything that catches his fancy, this semester bringing another round of sleepless nights spent staying up reading, filling empty sheets of paper with printed projects.
“East Asian history, Changmin? Really?”
Jaejoong has seen him trudge through Popular Music (dropped the moment he found a reference to them in one of the later papers) and exhaust the apartment’s caffeine supply during that one fling with business studies.
Tonight he’s reading about the rise and fall of some long dead dynasty, something to deal with treason, treachery, bloodied tapestries of love and wars unfurled. Yoochun doesn’t knock on his door when he enters, knows that Changmin won’t answer anyways and locks are always put to good use in this house.
“You should go to sleep.”
“Says the person who just came home ten minutes ago.”
“I have work.”
“Well so do I.”
It’s a step up from sullen stares and silence and Yoochun isn’t going to back down, striding across the room to close Changmin’s textbook with a flip of his hand.
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
They don’t take the car and Jaejoong is glad, ghosting (teehee, he laughs with dark humor) their steps far more easy than getting into the backseat of Yoochun’s car without falling through the doors. The streets of Seoul in the dead of winter is cover enough for them and no one stops them for photo ops, for hastily scrawled signatures on old album covers.
“Where’re we going?”
“Somewhere fun.”
“Freezing to death is not fun.”
“You will if you keep stopping to whine.”
“Tough love,” comments Jaejoong and Yoochun’s idea of fun hasn’t changed much since ever, him leading the way through frost covered alleys with slippery sidewalks, ducking into an inconspicuous looking eatery that has enough tables to count on one hand.
“Soju?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too.”
Jaejoong misses little things like these, the scent of clear alcohol in glass bottles, the taste of street food, the brush of scarves against his skin when Yunho kisses him on the cheek on cold nights. Simple, little things. The two bottles of soju come and Yoochun pays, Changmin drinking in half mouthfuls because it’s been a while since he’s done this, slightly different from lonely hours spent on playground swings, cradling room temperature lager.
“So how’s this course going?”
“Park Yoochun, don’t think for one second that I believe you called me out in the freezing cold to talk about college.”
“Right.”
A large swig from the bottle and Yoochun makes a face, inhaling air with a half hiss.
“I didn’t.”
“Well?”
“It’s about Junsu.”
-
Yunho is feeling lonely when he comes back to too quiet rooms, an unusual sort of fatigue sinking deep into his bones as he stretches out onto the couch, channel surfs with the volume off for the heck of it in his work clothes. Working for SME like this isn’t so much different from being in Dongbangshinki after all; the parallels far too many to make him feel like anything has actually changed.
The odd hours, the hectic schedule, the way there’s always music involved one way or another, whether he likes it or not. How he still doesn’t really have much control over what kind of decisions get made.
Junsu picks up on the fourth ring, the sound of dying laughter making Yunho sit a little straighter, listen a little harder but Junsu shushes someone and turns back to the call with an apologetic note in his voice.
“Anything?”
“Nah, just…bored.”
Junsu hums on the other end, happy, made up tune of semitones and staccatos that brings back memories of long car rides to faraway places, hours in transit on unfamiliar soil.
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
“…she?”
Yunho doesn’t even have to try hard to get Junsu to talk, the latter fumbling for excuses that don’t really have to be made with Yunho.
“How long?”
“Long enough, Brazil, the US…now this. The whole re-debuting concept, I’ve told you haven’t I?”
“The fourth time now, yes. And Yoochun?”
“Yeah.”
“Answer the right question, Junsu.”
A sigh and a soft no, but you will?
“Only if you want me to.”
“Don’t. You’re not going to ask why, are you?”
“No, I’m going to ask who.”
“You won’t tell?”
“Yah Kim Junsu who do you think I am, Changmin?”
“…guess.”
In the background, there’s the sound of dishes being washed, stacked neat into sinks.
“No time for games, Junsu.”
“Didn’t someone say he was bored? Boa.”
“…Boa. That Boa?”
“The one and only. Tell me, Yunho, how many Boas do we actually know?”
Are you talking about me? shouted indignantly and something bangs its porcelain way into the cupboard, Junsu’s voice muffled as he covers his end of the phone with a hand.
“And Yoochun?”
A spot of uneasy silence and Yunho waits, keeps an eye on the front door.
“We didn’t talk about it.”
“People don’t generally talk about things they don’t know.”
“I think he does.”
“And?”
“And I think he’s-”
“Sad. Not devastated, but sad all the same.”
“Don’t go telling me he loves me now; I know that already.”
Then why this? Yunho wants to ask but checks himself in time because love works both ways. Yoochun didn’t really have much to say about Junsu leaving, other than the expected why and don’t and promise you will, unspoken understandings and an already faded love keeping lips sealed.
“Yunho?”
“Hold on a minute, I’ve got another incoming call.”
-
Jaejoong tails them as they make their zigzagging, unstable way through the city, Changmin letting Yoochun hold onto his arm as they trip laughing over each other’s feet. It’s the happiest he’s seen the both of them in a long time and he pauses to watch them smile under streetlamps, Changmin’s eyes clear, Yoochun’s bright.
“We should do this more often.”
“Yeah, yeah we should.”
“Race you to the other side?”
“It not a race when you’re holding hands.”
Yoochun doesn’t let Changmin let go and makes a tsk-ing noise at the magnae, pulling them off the curb.
“Picky picky picky. Fuck the rules a little, won’t you?”
“I’d rather do actual people, thank you.”
“You’re welcome~” Yoochun sings and they’re not really dashing across the road, jay-walking made into a midnight art of sorts, shoes slip sliding on slippery tarred roads. Jaejoong is still under the lamplight, arms folded to watch when something suddenly feels like it’s going to change, the sound of solitary cars taking advantage of empty roads approaching,
Not this.
They stand rooted to the ground, hands still in each other’s winter jacket pockets when the car tries to brake in time, Jaejoong sprinting to the middle of the road without really knowing if he can do this right.
No, no, no.
It feels like a cruel case of déjà vu except for the fact that he’s the one watching this time, roles flipped around and spread to different people. There’s barely enough time to act, let alone make good decisions and Jaejoong doesn’t think he could pick anyway, reaching out for the both of them and catching hold of only one, Yoochun’s already unsteady feet giving out on ice-sheet roads as he tries to make for the opposite direction.
No.
Changmin watches the impact happen, doesn’t hear the dull thud over the sound of his own screaming and the screech of tires pulling away at the sight of a once-famous face bloodied on the ground.
“You bastard,” Jaejoong hisses at fleeing rear lights as he collapses onto the ground beside Changmin and there are tear tracks down both their faces, “They’re coming, they’re coming, hang in there,” overpowered by Yoochun’s screaming as he trashes weakly in Changmin’s arms.
“It hurts, Changmin, make it stop oh god Changmin-”
Blood, tears, the sound of things slipping away.
“Yoochun look at me, just look at me. You’ll be okay.”
Jaejoong turns from the scene and covers his ears, waits for lifelines to come wailing down the street. It takes seven long minutes for Yoochun to die, nine for the ambulance to arrive and by then, Yoochun is standing beside Jaejoong, watching Changmin being led away by sleepy paramedics into the waiting van.
“Hey.”
“Hey right back atcha.”
-
Yoochun picks up on this being dead thing quick enough, the both of them racing each other to the highest floors, jumping off in tandem after each other.
And then there are days that Yoochun says he feels guilty about dragging everyone back into the depths of dark depression, but he says it while purposely misplacing Yunho’s pens and Jaejoong hits him in the arm, moves it back to its original place with a tired sigh. Junsu had been inconsolable the first few days, sinking into a Changmin-esque type of silence with red eyes and sealed lips, Yunho coming back only to stay up all night working.
Jaejoong shows Yoochun how to walk through locked doors, walls and stands with him when he watches Boa kiss the sadness off Junsu; quiet, fluttering kisses on his cheek that are reciprocated soon enough.
“I think I always knew.”
“I should have told you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
He turns to Jaejoong with a muted kind of smile and leads the way out, doesn’t turn back.
-
Their apartment is emptier than ever now, Yunho out most of the day, Changmin slipping back to square one and locking himself in his room until late afternoons when he pads out to the living room to wait for Yunho to come back.
The days that they keep Changmin unacknowledged company, Yoochun thinks that Changmin can see them, sometimes turning back from his desk to stare straight at them before dropping his gaze, eyes unreadable.
“Stop wasting yourself,” Jaejoong tells Yoochun as he shreds paper on the roof, color running in Yoochun shades off his skin. The pieces flutter off into the night and Jaejoong starts for them out of habit.
“Says the translucent man. There’s nothing much to do here anyway, why stay?”
“Do you know how much effort it took to save Changmin?” He ignores the second part of the sentence, doesn’t want to answer things that Yoochun already knows anyway.
“And not me?” There’s no venom beneath the words, just a too fast retort that makes Yoochun look up from his almost gone paper and say sorry, I didn’t mean it.
“I would have if I could.”
“It’s not anything important, y’know, dying.”
Jaejoong hits him in the arm again and Yoochun harasses him to the edge of the roof, falling off with him laughing.
-
The more hours they spend on long nights talking in low voices, waiting for Changmin to go to bed, the more Jaejoong is convinced that he can see, maybe hear them, the way the tap tap tap of computer keys pauses for the briefest of seconds when their conversation ebbs.
“Changmin?” he ventures one day and it’s a delayed response, the younger boy turning round slow in his seat. He gets up and Yoochun grabs hold of Jaejoong’s sleeve, tugging excitedly when he seemingly meets their eyes but he passes by, goes towards the window to wrench the curtains open before walking back, lanky gait with quiet feet.
“Wishful thinking,” Yoochun says, deflated and goes to stare at sunsets from the roof, Jaejoong slowly getting up to do the same. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking too when something makes Jaejoong turn around just before he leaves, only to find Changmin staring straight at him.
“Bye, Min-ah.”
The other man turns back to his work with a small shake of his head.
-
They tell each other the things they miss, made up game of memories to pass the time waiting for twilight to fall so they can draw constellations until dawn.
“Yunho.”
“Junsu.”
“Oh god, could we be any more obvious?”
“Sex.”
“A good drink.”
“Now we sound like sad, useless bums.”
“Smoking.”
“Sad, useless, addicted bums.”
“Eating. Breathing. Actually hurting when you throw yourself off things.”
“Standing in front of crowds.”
“Singing?”
“We can still do that, but I get what you mean, singing together. Being heard.”
“Yeah.”
They lapse into contemplative silence and Yoochun wonders out loud about where they’ll go from here; what they will do.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I want to,” Yoochun says softly and picks up minute pieces of old concrete crumbling from the side of the rooftop, throws it out as far as he can.
Don’t leave me, Jaejoong wants to say but bites his tongue, feels the awful feeling of knowing he’s being selfish for a moment. The silence creeps back and Yoochun sits down on the ledge, dangles his feet off the edge as another little part of him fades away. Jaejoong lingers behind him, unsure.
“Just not yet, don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”
The sun sets and lights the city buildings up in gold red artificial fires, a million suns in a million windows reflected.
“Hey Yoochun, it’s your turn, isn’t it?
“I miss living.”
-
The day Yoochun wants to try something new and probably quite stupid, Jaejoong doesn’t want to go along, prefers to follow Yunho on errands and make inane, unheard comments about the groceries he buys.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says to Yoochun who gives a noncommittal noise as he takes to the streets, waves goodbye in the form of a careless flick of fingers. He takes his time to make it to Junsu’s place; walks down alleyways that lead to brick walls but not necessarily dead ends for him, takes in the sights and sounds of Seoul’s pulsing city heart. By mid afternoon, he’s somehow made his winding way to Junsu’s door and he’s home today, the sound of sheets rustling and voices indistinguishable from each other.
“Junsu. ”
Yoochun feels like a voyeur and he knows he actually is at the moment, no exceptions made for the non-living, as he watches Junsu run his hands down her bare back, pausing at her hips and marking them as he thrusts slow in her,
“Junsu, yes, like that.”
Something familiar stirs inside him, rattles the bars of locked cages. Something that doesn’t let him look away when Boa arches into Junsu’s touches, kisses, words.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He doesn’t quite remember the last time he’s heard Junsu say that and he chews on the thought as he watches them finish, Boa pushing herself out from under Junsu to let him hold her to his chest instead, lips to a heartbeat Yoochun used to time his songs to. Later when the sun sets and Junsu steps under the hot spray of lazy showers, Yoochun will wait for the bathroom mirror to grow translucent, I love you written on the surface to the sound of Junsu humming some popular melody through falling water.
“Just so you know,” Yoochun whispers as Junsu walks past him with his hair still wet to scrutinize the writing on the mirror before dripping water out into the bedroom, kissing Boa open mouthed.
“I love you right back,” Junsu says, not to the ghost in the corner and Boa tells him to go change, stop getting the carpet damp.
Yoochun walks home in loose, aimless patterns after that, circles that bring him one step closer before drawing him away five steps back. It’s light by the time Jaejoong watches him cross from front door to living room with his arms folded to his chest.
“So did you do anything I wouldn’t?”
“Well.”
“Just tell me if you decide to stay out all night, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like it when I don’t know when someone will get back. If they get back.”
“Cheer up emo kid, I’m still here.”
-
Another season and Jaejoong thinks up things for them to do to pass the time, today being expressway tag, weaving through speeding traffic.
“Blue car!”
Yoochun is calling this round and they’re on different sides of the concrete divider, dashing for the nearest sky or sea colored vehicle. Jaejoong wins the moment a faded turquoise sedan pass through him and it’s his turn now, something obscure like “Minivan with two kids!”
They play until it grows too dark to see what’s actually coming so they settle for draggy conversations instead on the way back home-
“I have this theory.”
“Shoot.”
Jaejoong doesn’t want to agree, something small and flippant like the fear of being alone telling him to say No, Yoochun, you’re crazy but something bigger, something like a half step down from love makes him nod instead.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try anyways. What’s there to lose?”
“Being with you,” Yoochun says but Jaejoong is already too far away to hear, striding through ongoing cars that rush to places unknown.
-
Only Changmin is home when they get back, flicking too fast through television channels to actually watch anything as he waits up for Yunho.
“Hey Min-ah.” Jaejoong says softly, Changmin’s back suddenly straightening and the screen goes black, television control thrown careless onto the couch before he slams his room door behind him.
“Should we be worried?”
Yoochun is staring at the empty spaces on the wall, suddenly feeling out of place in this empty house.
“He’s Changmin.”
“He’s a different Changmin.”
“We can’t help.”
Outside in the foyer, there’s the unmistakable sound of unlocking doors and tired feet kicking off shoes, Jaejoong starting to move away from Yoochun.
-
Yoochun doesn’t think he would be scared when push came to shove but standing over Junsu one night when Boa is too far away, too tired to come spend the night, he thinks he’s never been this afraid of anything ever in his life. Junsu still sleeps the same way he remembers, curled to one side with his legs together, semi fetal position that Yoochun has learned to angle his body around after so long.
What is there to lose?
Jaejoong would have resorted to physical pestering by now, come on come on what’re you waiting for anyways, playful misplaced one-touches imagined clear in his head.
“I miss you, you know that?”
The other man shifts in his sleep, clutches at the sheets before burrowing deeper into his pillow. It takes more effort than he imagines, trying to catch hold of Junsu’s dreams, chasing after them with closed eyes as he touches Junsu’s arm lightly, fading with every passing moment that he wastes swallowing down fear.
“Yoochun?”
They’re standing in some un-nameable place with whitewashed walls, bare room with wooden floors that creak when Yoochun meets Junsu’s gaze for the first time in too long.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
-
Yoochun wants to say I’ve been watching you but figures it’ll come off as stalker-ish, settles for Life’s been good, hasn’t it?
“You know, don’t you?”
“Answer my last question first then I’ll answer yours.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it has.”
“And I do.”
He drums his fingers on the wooden boards, sound of restless fingers echoing off the white box they’ve found themselves in.
“Are you happy?”
Junsu won’t look up from the floor, his fingers, and Yoochun wonders what is it with him and asking questions he already knows the answers to.
“I want you to be, just so you know.”
“Thank you.”
It comes out awkward and this is what Yoochun has been terrified about; that they’d find nothing in common, anything, everything they’ve ever shared laughing at the back of cars, in airport lounges waiting for planes, lives already packed away into little neat boxes labeled old loves.
“I miss you,” he says and Junsu finally looks up now, Yoochun finding the tear tracks on his face oddly jarring because Junsu’s living okay, Junsu’s moved on.
Junsu is happy.
He clenches a fist when Junsu moves towards him, holds him by the shoulders and Yoochun hugs him close, lets him dirty the front of his shirt with tears that have taken too long in coming.
“I miss you too. I miss you, I miss you so much.”
-
Yoochun is sitting in the sunlight on the carpet when Jaejoong troops home with Yunho, berating him noisily from the back for buying foodstuff at a higher price than necessary, why didn’t he go back to that nice ahjumma’s place three streets down instead?
“Yoochun.”
Jajeoong stops short and lets Yunho wander into the kitchen alone, pots and plates and cupboard doors banging, refrigerator door opening.
“Yoochun what happened?”
He takes a seat beside the other man, watches how sunlight almost makes Yoochun invisible now, washed out colors filling in a Yoochun-shaped mould.
“Junsu happened, that’s what it is.”
“…are you-”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Not so soon,” Yoochun says and turns to Jaejoong with a smile that brings up memories of childhood stories, the one with the Cheshire cat and lingering grins. Jaejoong hits, suddenly fearing halfway that his fist will just go right through but it connects hard enough to leave Yoochun wincing and Jaejoong laughing as he claims a spot in the sun as well.
-
There’s nothing much that Yoochun wants to do before he leaves, just drops in on Yoohwan and his mother more often than usual, goes freefalling with Jaejoong at night straight on till dawn. Jaejoong is still convinced that Changmin can see them but that doesn’t deter Yoochun from spending hours in the magnae’s room, carrying on one man conversations until Changmin turns the light off and crawls into bed, eyes bloodshot from too long nights, too many things to read.
Too many voices, real and unreal.
“Don’t miss me,” Yoochun tells Jaejoong one summer morning, extending an unheard goodbye Yunho and Changmin who’re seated at the breakfast table, Yunho pouring over the newspaper.
“If I do?”
“I’ll come back and kick your undead ass.”
“If I’m still here.”
“Good, it’ll save me a trip back down if you’re not.”
Changmin rinses his bowl in the sink, back turned and Yoochun waves at it, mouths a goodbye before he hugs Jaejoong tight.
“Promise you won’t take too long.”
“I can’t…wait, do they even have a concept of time up there?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
One final clasp on Jaejoong’s shoulder, a take care of dumb and dumber here before he leaves, before he starts to cry and it’ll be harder than ever to do it now.
“Goodbye, Yoochun.”
-
He takes the long route to Junsu’s place, stopping by to watch Yoohwan and his mother eating lunch at home, goes by the SME building to watch past dongsaengs fool around in the recording rooms, dance practice halls. It’s another bloody sunset, sky bleeding summer colors across the sky when he’s standing in Junsu’s living room, watching him clear up small messes. A fallen magazine here, an opened book there, papers back into files.
“Is she coming over tonight?”
Not that it matters but Yoochun thinks maybe it’d be nice to see her again, Boa, that lithe little girl with the big voice and heart huge enough to hold Junsu in.
“Or are you going over?”
Boa lets herself in and Yoochun feels his heart clench, so it’s come to this now replaying unwelcome in his head. He watches Junsu cook instant ramen for her, the both of them eating it out of the same pot.
“You’re just lazy, aren’t you?”
“I found my romance factor.”
“Still looking for your charisma one, aren’t you?”
Junsu thwacks her chopsticks away with his own to get the last few strands of noodles, only to get her to lean towards him so he can feed her.
“Now?”
“Keep looking, baby, keep looking.”
Yoochun waits for them to wash the dishes, Boa getting soap suds in her hair and Junsu getting the drying cloth flung at him, stuffed down the back of his shirt.
“Yah Kwon Boa!”
“Kim Junsu!”
“We should go shower, shouldn’t we?”
“You forgot to add a ‘together’ in there.”
He thinks he couldn’t bring himself to watch, tonight of all nights and he’s glad that they emerge from the bathroom an hour later, content look on Junsu’s face and Boa with her hair hanging in limp strands down her back, dripping water on the floor.
“Stop dripping!”
“You do it all the time, shut up.”
And it takes another hour of banter, half an hour of how was your day talks before Boa falls asleep on his shoulder, Junsu reaching over to turn the light off and lower his head ever so slowly onto the pillow without waking her up. Yoochun feels glad for these waking hours he intrudes on, steals from Junsu, glad to watch him laugh without holding anything back, to see him live, love.
Even if it’s without him.
-
“Hey, come here often?”
Junsu turns and almost knocks the both of them over running into Yoochun’s arms, pulling them to the floor anyways after.
“Talk to me, Su-ah.”
-
Changmin is uneasy, waiting for Yunho to come back and Jaejoong can feel it, watching him pace the floor a few times before stretching out on the couch, getting up a minute later to wander through the rooms.
“Changmin what’s wrong?”
Yunho’s working late today, calls to say so and it makes Changmin’s shoulders droop a little, movements slower, less jittery now as he puts the phone down, goes to try and sleep at 8pm.
“Changmin come on.”
The light goes off and Jaejoong sits in the dark, listening for Yunho’s footsteps in the hallway. He hears it close to 9.30, Changmin’s door opening by a crack and starting to close again but the light flips on, Changmin sitting up straight in his bed, face hollowed with shadows the bedside lamp throws onto the walls.
“I thought you were-”
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
Yunho goes to sit on the edge of Changmin’s bed, the latter pulling his legs up to make room, laying a chin on them.
“That something?”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re…you’re what?”
Jaejoong wants to hit Changmin, really does for the first time in so long but he can’t, resorts to shouting instead, “Why? Why now? Why?”
Yunho is silent for a moment before asking the exact same thing that Jaejoong had, softer, words almost a whisper.
“There’s a twinning program, for the course I’m taking. And…and I want to go. I can’t stay here for too long anyway.”
“…okay.”
“Okay? Okay?!” Jaejoong raves and Changmin flinches, maybe from the words, maybe from the look on Yunho’s face.
“When?”
“In two weeks, to the States.”
“You should tell Junsu.”
Yunho stands and Changmin makes as if to follow after him but stops halfway when Yunho pats him on the shoulder, unspoken I’ll do okay before he slips out of the room, Jaejoong following after without a second look back at Changmin.
-
“We’re debuting this September, the both of us. Again.”
“Concept?”
“I don’t really know what they’re going for at the moment but it’ll have to include the both of us together together, if you get me.”
Junsu turns Yoochun’s hand over, traces the lines on his palm as he talks, comments on how faded he looks, didn’t they serve anything edible in heaven?
“I wish I’d have dreamt of you sooner, but there’s still the rest of my life to go, isn’t there?”
“…no, Junsu.”
“What do you mean no?”
“Maybe you’ll dream, I’m quite sure you will, actually, but it won’t be me. Me me.”
Yoochun clasps his hand over Junsu’s wandering fingers and waits for words to come, waits for goodbyes. Somewhere in the far off, beyond white walls and sub consciousness, a phone starts to ring and Yoochun is fading, Junsu grasping trying to hold on for one more moment.
“Let go, Junsu.”
"No, no, I’m not letting you leave again.”
Yoochun sighs and kisses the hand atop his, pulling it out from under Junsu’s.
“Go answer the phone.”
“No, Yoochun please there’s still so much more, so many things.”
“Share them with Boa.”
Yoochun stands and Junsu can see the walls through him now, Yoochun forcibly turning him around, hands firm on his shoulders.
“Go, Su-ah. Don’t look, don’t look at me when I leave, don’t look back, remember I love you, I love you more than anything in this world.”
Junsu doesn’t look back and when he does with an I loved you too on his lips, there’s nothing there.
-
“Phone, Su.”
Boa turns on her side and Junsu bolts up in his bed, eyes wet and an empty feeling in his chest.
“Phone,” groans Boa from under the covers and Junsu reaches for his mobile, clears his throat of choked up tears before answering it. There’s silence on the other line.
“Hello?”
Three seconds tick pass and Junsu takes a glance at the caller ID, sighing at the name.
“Changmin what is it?”
“I want to talk.”
-
Jaejoong is lonely, going up to the rooftop alone for the first time in a long while to watch the sun come up, Yoochun never coming back from Junsu’s place. Falling alone isn’t as fun as it used to be and he takes to watching cars now instead of chasing after them, lying atop grassy hills to watch them snake multi-colored lines below. Changmin is packing his life into suitcases and Jaejoong watches him as always, tells him softly to “Take them,” when Changmin pauses over their CDs, singles, own mix tapes from years past. He puts them in.
“Taxi’ll be here in an hour.”
Yunho shuts the door on Changmin, leaves him sitting amidst suddenly towering luggage and Jaejoong standing in the centre of the room, arms crossed.
“You’re really leaving, aren’t you? Leaving me, Yunho. Mostly Yunho.”
“Where’s Yoochun?”
Jaejoong almost falls over when Changmin looks at him to ask this, eyes strangely bright and unflinching.
“Where’s Yoochun, Jae-ah?”
“You can see me?”
“Hear you, every day, every waking hour. Yes. Tell me where’s Yoochun.”
The haunted look creeps back into his gaze and Jaejoong wants to touch him, ask him what’s wrong.
“He…he left.”
Jaejoong makes towards Changmin who scuttles away at the first step, back against one of his bags.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Changmin I-”
“No, no, I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want I don’t-”
“Min-ah.”
“Leave me alone, please, just leave me alone, all those nights, I can’t stay here any longer.”
He stares at the floor, shoulders shaking.
“Jaejoong.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Jaejoong looks at him with sad eyes, not really understanding but walking slowly towards the door to sit in the living room with Yunho anyway.
“Take care of yourself,” he says as he disappears out into the hallway and Changmin pulls his legs up, rests a tired head on them. He can’t bear watching people leave.
-
The more time he spends alone with Yunho, the angrier he gets, at himself for leaving too early, at Yunho for holding on too long. He lives, of course he does; commutes to work, talks with colleagues, signs autographs on the way back home for still disillusioned fans that stop him on the street.
“Yunho oppa!”
He nods and smiles, empty for-media polite smile that sends them into a flurry of squeals, hands holding out papers and pens and old dreams.
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
Jaejoong can’t find it in himself to feel disgusted, not when something as small as that can make Yunho smile a little on the walk back home, lasting until he reaches quiet rooms for too many people. He cooks for himself the days he doesn’t work late, simple meals that Jaejoong criticizes half-heartedly, watching him, always always only watching. It’s a banal kind of existence and yes, Yunho is living, breathing, heart beating but only on the outside.
-
The trees are leafless again, wind starting to bite more. There’re Christmas ornaments strung up in the streets now and shopping malls play Christmas jingles; staff wearing reindeer antlers, Santa hats to work.
“Merry Christmas,” a fan tells him and Yunho returns the greeting, adds a tiny Christmas tree on the bottom of his signature.
“So that’s where Junsu’s charisma factor went,” thinks Jaejoong out loud and it’s already late, street lamps lighting up one by one and the running lights twirled around their posts starting their own individual races. Some nights, he feels like slipping under the covers with him, falling asleep with him and never waking up, other times he contemplates doing what Yoochun did but he’s sure that Yunho already dreams of him, dreams of the past him in perfect detail and there’s no need.
Tonight, Yunho sits on the roof, doesn’t smoke like Jaejoong used to up here, doesn’t compose like Yoochun.
“Merry Christmas.”
He sits on the ledge, swinging his legs and Jaejoong can feel his heart leap into his throat. Not yet. Not so fast.
Yunho, you idiot.
But perhaps, perhaps, just perhaps with a touch of hope, a dash of selfish want.
Yunho pushes himself off the edge.
-
“Hey stranger.”
And this is the first time all over again. Jaejoong doesn’t turn around but one familiar hand on his shoulder makes him, twisting him gently to look back.
“Hey.”
Perhaps we are an illusion.
[fin]