latenightchai: They Change Their Sky (Part 2/2)
Part 1
Yoochun visits Junsu in the hospital when he can. Junsu looks like he’s almost happy to see him, says “I missed you,” like he almost really means it. The nurse tells him Junsu is doing much better, but that’s the first thing he’s said in a long, long time.
Yoochun grabs the younger man’s hand, their fingers playing together. Junsu doesn’t say much afterwards, but he answers every question Yoochun asks. How are you doing, how are you feeling, have you tried-?
“Good, good, no,” Junsu answers plainly. He keeps his hands moving with Yoochun’s, but his gaze drifts to some spot outside the window and looses focus.
Yoochun sighs but sits with Junsu regardless, sinking into contemplative silence. Minutes tick by and it’s a stillness that resonates, singing within him. It’s not a good feeling, but it’s not bad. Yoochun thinks he could spend hours like this.
“Changmin came to visit me,” Junsu says suddenly, carelessly.
“He did?” Yoochun asks, surprised. It’s unexpected, especially since Changmin never does anything unexpected anymore; Yoochun had been under the impression Changmin rarely went out for anything.
“Yeah,” Junsu answers, but he doesn’t give any more details, not even when Yoochun asks. It isn’t until right before Yoochun leaves that he does anything. Junsu hugs him tight, and it’s contact that Yoochun feels- and he finds himself kissing Junsu once, strong and fierce and desperate. He pulls back and Junsu is giving him a soft smile.
“I’ve missed that,” he says. Yoochun isn’t sure what to say, but Junsu continues, “I’ll be waiting, okay?”
And then he waves Yoochun away. Yoochun realizes he doesn’t need to say anything at all.
*
It’s the twentieth anniversary of Dong Bang Shin Ki. Changmin doesn’t even remember the date until a reporter ambushes him on the street. It’s the first time he’s been out in two months, walking cold in the sunshine, and the man’s insistence is an unpleasant shock.
He dodges into a restaurant where the man can’t follow and calls Yunho for help.
“He’s taking my picture,” Changmin stutters. “I-I can’t…”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Yunho says.
When he picks Changmin up, he swings close to the curb, scattering the crowd of twenty or so that’s gathered there. Changmin dives through them and into the car, and before he’s even got the door closed Yunho is speeding away.
“Damn,” Yunho says, without heat. “I was hoping they wouldn’t find you.”
“…What’s going on?” Changmin asks, feeling overwhelmed, brittle.
Yunho sighs. Then he explains about the anniversary, the calls he’s been getting from SM-
Reunion tours. Press conferences. Best-of Collections. Photobooks. That’s what the company wants, has already got planned as soon as they can get the members - most of them, anyway - to agree.
“No. No way in hell,” Changmin says.
Yunho shakes his head. “SM has already started a viral campaign… nothing official, but expectations are on the rise. There’ll be more reporters, more people searching us out, soon. It’s better to just give them what they want.”
They reach a compromise eventually. No tour, no press conferences. They’ll release some limited edition items and make the company lots of money and still get to stay out of the spotlight.
They only do one photoshoot: individual shots of the four of them, to be part of the new marketing campaign. It’s a sickening experience but posing for pictures comes to them easily enough; there are some skills that don’t fade.
“Like riding a bicycle,” Yunho jokes, even though it’s not that funny.
“Like breathing?” Changmin mutters darkly, even though only Jaejoong hears him.
Two weeks after the shoot, Jaejoong gets a call on his cell -the only one he has- and it’s a representative for SM. They need him to come back in for the shoot. There’s been a bit of confusion, a mistake - they can’t figure it out. Either his set of pictures was misplaced, or the pictures they thought were his were developed improperly. It’s really strange, we can’t explain it… you see, Jaejoong-sshi, of the hundred or so pictures we took, you don’t appear in a single one of them-
*
They turn forty before they know it, forty-five. Yunho and his wife move to a new home farther from Seoul - his wife says the change will be good for them. Yunho thinks it won’t change anything, but he likes the quiet of the country. Still, it means he doesn’t make it to Seoul very often, so he makes a point to meet with Jaejoong every month or so, just to check up.
They’re meeting for coffee this time, talking about nothing in particular - or, Yunho is talking, and Jaejoong is nodding and looking like he might be listening. Yunho has trouble telling sometimes.
“How’s Yoochun?” he finally asks. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while.”
Jaejoong takes a long time to form his thoughts. “He’s getting a divorce,” he finally says, slowly. “Neither of them really wants it, I think, but… you know how it is.”
Yunho does know. It’s hard not to. When two people plan to grow old together, and one doesn’t, questions start coming up that just can’t be answered. Yunho loves his wife, he really does. He really tries.
Jaejoong waits, giving Yunho time to think before continuing. “He’s going to move back in with his mother. She’s not doing too well, and now that Yoohwan’s married he can’t really take care of her. It’s for the best.”
Yunho frowns. “It’s not for the best. Yoochun shouldn’t have to divorce the woman he loves just because-” He stops, because there’s no point in saying it. All these years later, and he still doesn’t want to say it, ever.
“He doesn’t love her,” Jaejoong says blankly.
Yunho grits his teeth. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” Jaejoong shrugs, like Yunho is the one who’s being irrational. “You two have tried so hard to ignore what’s happened-”
Yunho waves his hand to cut Jaejoong off. “Like you and Changmin have any idea. You can’t possibly understand - because yes, we try. We try so damn hard!”
“You think we didn’t?”
“Didn’t! Yunho cries. “So, what, you’ve completely given up? Going to become like Junsu now?”
Jaejoong’s eyes narrow in warning, the first true emotion Yunho’s seen on him in years. “Don’t go there - don’t you dare say that.” Throwing Yunho’s own words back in face.
He backs down, instantly sorry. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
And Yunho watches as Jaejoong’s face smoothes over once again, and sighs. “What am I supposed to think, though? Yoochun tells me how you guys are living, shut up together, never doing anything. That’s not a healthy relationship.”
Jaejoong’s eyes flick up, meeting his, and Yunho nods.
“We know, Jaejoong. Of course we know.”
Jaejoong nods, slow as always, like it’s not something he’s considered before but isn’t surprising, or maybe he doesn’t get surprised anymore. “It wasn’t like that-” he ignores Yunho’s raised eyebrow “-not at first. But we’re… alone in this. It’s just the five of us. And when we - he and I - are together… it’s just a little bit better.”
Yunho wonders what it would be like to have that - to be with someone like him, them. To not have to pretend. He wonders-
“We’re not whole, Yunho, we haven’t been for years. But being together is like… it’s getting a missing piece back. It’s like I feel… human again.”
Again. Because they aren’t, not anymore.
Yunho takes a sharp, pointed breath, because those are the words and he doesn’t want to hear them, let alone agree. He stands, pushes his chair back, fumbling at his wallet so he can throw down some money and run away, like he’s been running his whole life. Jaejoong watches him in silence, waiting until the last minute to reach out and grab his wrist, icy tight.
“I’m sorry,” he says solemnly. “But one day you’ll understand. You’ll realize it’s… it is for the best.”
*
Jaejoong goes home to Changmin. The younger man has thrown open all the curtains - they’ve kept to keeping them open ever since Yoochun stayed with them. The sunlight doesn’t hurt them as much, they’ve come to realize, not like the artificial stuff. Hard to believe it was ten years ago, it feels like nothing. Changmin lies in the middle of the living room, curled onto the sun-soaked hardwood.
Jaejoong thinks he looks so small like that. Like he’ll roll over any moment and kiss a kitten - not that any animal would come near them quietly, now. His hair has gotten longer and he looks like he just stepped out of the pages of their Paris photobook, with a smile and innocence and dreams of a life to be lived all over the world.
Jaejoong moves like he’s ancient. He sits down beside Changmin and runs his hand through that hair rhythmically, methodically. He hums a song and the vibrations travel through him and into Changmin, but they don’t stir a thing.
“Soon?” Changmin asks after a small eternity. He looks up to Jaejoong and his eyes are completely black. It gives him an unearthly air; it’s only fitting. Their outsides match their insides, now. Jaejoong’s hand is too-pale against his dark hair.
Jaejoong nods. “Soon.”
*
Yoochun comes over to Yunho’s a few weeks later. The divorce is processing and he’s already moved in with his mother. He doesn’t eat any of the food that Yunho’s wife offers, and Yunho hurts to see it.
They wait until she leaves the room to really talk. “I hear you had a fight with Jaejoong,” Yoochun murmurs.
Yunho lets his shoulders sag. “It wasn’t really a fight.”
“But he told you,” Yoochun presses. “What he thinks.”
Yunho pauses, digesting the words. “Do you… do you think that too?”
The other man leans back, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to. But Yunho… it’s been twenty years, and I suspected from the very beginning. I was the first. Do you remember back then? We were terrified of what was happening, and now we’ve just gotten used to it. You and I, we’ve lied to ourselves for so long…”
The silence lingers after he trails off, staring intently at the floor. It’s only when Yunho opens his mouth to speak that Yoochun seems to snap back to himself, cutting Yunho off.
“Jaejoong and Changmin don’t breathe, hyung. They don’t breathe.”
The words settled between them, a stale inhalation that breaks only when Yunho lets go of a heavy Fuck.
“How long?” he adds after a while.
“Years. Maybe since we broke up.”
“Fuck.”
Yoochun smiles and everything about it is wrong. “Exactly. They’re not normal but, hell, I think they’re actually - not happy, you know they’re not - but they’re content. They’ve just accepted it. And lately… lately I want to, too.”
*
The day of Jaejoong’s fiftieth birthday, Junsu disappears from his room at the psychiatric ward. An investigation begins immediately, and it’s quickly discovered that Jaejoong and Changmin are missing, too. They’d left their apartment as it was - sparse, dusty, bare but for a few pieces of furniture and some old CDs.
There is an absolute uproar. People have been talking about Dong Bang Shin Ki for years - quietly, behind closed doors, out of respect for the power of SM and for the two who still showed their face in public. But this case is undeniably huge, opening the floodgates of gossip, and now newspapers, magazines, headlines are shouting that they always knew something was wrong with those boys. How perfect they appeared, how successful they were, how reclusive they’ve become - it just wasn’t right.
Yunho expects the fervor, the reporters that camp themselves on his front lawn. His wife is staying with her parents. She’s lived with him for so long, loved him for longer, but the recent years have just been too much, even for her patient soul. She can’t relate to him anymore.
When the news comes that the three of them have disappeared, she demands answers. He refuses to give any. She asks him what’s happened to him. He won’t say. When she asks him to tell her where they went, he can’t tell her. When she asks him to say that what they’ve done is wrong, he absolutely refuses.
When she packs her bags, they both know she’s not coming back.
It’s months before the investigation officially goes cold, not that there were ever any leads to begin with. The furor dies shortly after that. The first day there is no one in front of his house is the day Yunho finally leaves it. He goes to his mailbox, the creaking of the little door like the rusty hinges on his heart. He pulls out wad after wad of mail that he’s yet to pick up, and sifts through each one carefully.
There isn’t anything worth reading. He sighs, disappointed - but not really.
*
Yoochun’s mother dies. Yoochun dutifully fulfills his service as a son, taking care of all the mortuary arrangements. He and his brother lay her to rest in the family cemetery, and after the wake Yoochun says goodbye to Yoohwan with a smile. He pats his niece and nephew on the head and kisses his sister-in-law on the cheek.
She shivers when he does it but everyone pretends not to notice. After he leaves Yoohwan frowns and asks why she always does that. “I don’t know,” she says. “He’s a great guy, but - I couldn’t help it. It just seems like recently he’s… not all there.”
The next day, Yoochun is gone.
No one is surprised.
*
Yunho’s attorney comes to his house to bring him the papers. He doesn’t make the effort to go out much now. They sit at his kitchen table and the attorney points to the empty lines, sign here, here, and here-
Yunho doesn’t pay much attention. His hand has never quite lost the muscle memory of autographing, and he signs like he’s ready to sign a hundred more.
“And that’s it, Yunho-sshi. Ownership of the dance studio has been officially transferred to Hwang-sshi, as well as all your shares in its stock. All your old royalty contracts have been changed over to your ex-wife’s name. Are you really sure about this?” He adds, half-resigned because they’ve had this conversation before. “This negates any source of income, unless you start working again”
Yunho shakes his head. “Not necessary. I’m leaving it all in good hands.”
“Alright, alright. Then I’ll file this as soon as I get back to my office. It should be final within the week. Along with the divorce papers.”
Yunho nods slowly. No need to ask if he’s sure about that. The proceedings had been civil, if not slightly tragic. But now it’s over.
It’s over.
“Yunho-sshi…” The man trails off, looking hesitant.
“Yes?”
He’s unnerved about something, Yunho can tell by the way he looks at him, but he’s become used to such looks by now. People are always scared of what they don’t understand.
“Nothing, sir,” he finally says. “It’s been a pleasure working with you. My, uh, my mother was a big fan when she was a girl, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
The thought stirs something long-dead in Yunho. This attorney of his is so young. Yunho figures that trying one last time can’t hurt - he smiles, feeling his skin crease into what could have been laugh lines. “Would she want an autograph?” he jokes, though it comes out a little stiff.
The young man laughs, though, suddenly more at ease with Yunho’s change in demeanor. “I think she’d want more proof than that. Just to brag to all her old friends that you’re really my client - not that I’d publicize the fact, of course, for confidentiality’s sake.”
“Of course,” Yunho murmurs. “A picture wouldn’t be… so bad.”
They take the picture with the other’s phone, posing together. Yunho smiles again and resists lifting his hand for a thumbs-up like the twenty-five year-old he is not. The fake click of the camera is loud, final, and Yunho feels something inside him loosen, snap, free.
The attorney leaves with a deep bow of thanks, and Yunho watches him go from the window. His smile leaves with the young man, along with the last ties to his life. He takes a deep breath. A minute ticks by, an hour. The shadows creep along the walls but he’s learned how to let time pass him by, else he’d gone mad decades ago.
The sun sets, the stars peek out and he counts them, one by one. He gets to two-hundred and forty-eight before he loses count. He starts again. The sun rises, and he waits until the very last star has been lost- until it has been eclipsed by the light of morning.
*
The airport is bright, hectic, and Yunho is a dark blur amidst the swarm. At least there are no fangirls, he thinks - but then again, why would there be? It’s a new generation, one he’s not meant to be a part of.
He wanders to the ticket counter, and the woman behind the desk barely gives him a second glance. “Can I help you, sir?” she says, eyes glued to her screen as she types.
“I’m checking in for a flight.”
Her fingers never stop clicking on the keys. “What’s the flight number, sir?”
“I have a ticket, I think.”
“You think?” She looks up, eyebrows arched.
“There is a reservation. Maybe. The name is Jung Yunho.”
“Alright…One second, sir.” He can read it on her face, she thinks he’s a little slow. It doesn’t bother him - he’s out of place and he knows it. He’s been lost for far too long; he’s finally ready to change, to move on.
Her clicking stops, and her surprise at actually finding something is obvious. “Oh- I have an open-end voucher listed… can I have your ID?” He gives his number easily. “Ok, it says here it’s good for a one-way flight to-”
“I know. When’s the next flight?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry sir, but it’s not policy to redeem vouchers for same-day flights. Tickets like these require you to book at least a month in advance-”
“But is there a flight leaving today?”
“Yes, but-”
He nods carefully. “That’s fine. I’ll pay for a new ticket, then. Whatever it takes.”
Her fingers twitch over the keys as she looks him up and down. “…Maybe I can give you a discount, then. There are seats available for two flights to your destination today. Which would you-?”
“I’ll take the first available.”
He pays in cash, and goes to wait at his gate. Six hours later, he’s on his way.
*
It’s as if it’s been planned all along, a path laid out for him to find. He doubts it has anything to do with fate, but there’s something there, some inexplicable pull that’s guiding him forward, leading him to where he needs to be. He has no luggage; he has nothing. He even kicked off his shoes, leaving them at the street as he walked onto the beach.
The white sand is soft beneath his feet, in between his toes. He steps on a shell but it doesn’t bother him. Yunho lifts his face to shield his eyes from the sun. It’s a little too bright, a little too blinding - but it’s okay. The light surrounds him, white-washes a world that has been dark for far too long.
The water of Bora Bora is bluer than he remembered.
“So, finally decided to show up?”
He turns and Yoochun is walking towards him, his words carried to Yunho on the sea-wind. There’s a certain still about him, the way his expression is clear and how the sand doesn’t stir at his steps.
Yunho looks beyond him and sees Jaejoong, Changmin, walking side-by-side and kicking idly at the waves. He sees Junsu lying under a tree in a little grove right before the curve of the beach. There’s nothing else around. The taxi driver had told him that this part of the beach was abandoned for miles, but that hadn’t dissuaded Yunho - and rightly so.
He doesn’t say anything, not until Yoochun’s walked passed him with a slow wink, and he’s approached by Jaejoong and Changmin. Changmin, who gives him a slower nod and Jaejoong who says “We’re going to walk for a while.”
“How far?” he asks.
“Not that far. Not yet,” Jaejoong says, his eyes shining dark.
Yunho looks down to the trees. “Junsu?”
“Will come eventually. He’s never far behind.”
Yunho looks around, over the ocean surf. “I’m surprised it’s Bora Bora.”
Changmin snorts. “What were you expecting? A haunted castle?”
Jaejoong shrugs. “It seemed right.”
“Let’s go, hyung,” Changmin says - to Jaejoong, to both of them.
So they walk for a while. Along the shoreline, as far as they want, until their footprints have long faded behind them.