#04. go baby go;
: go baby go
: junsu-centric; yoochun/junsu | pg
: junsu runs away from home the same day yoochun's heart is stolen.
: for yoosu_yongwonhi's contest; "i wonder if i’ll be able to love you properly"; yakusoku
i.
Junsu’s heart is thrumming along to the tapping of his toes and his fingertips are pressing into the cracked concrete of the sidewalk when he sees the bus approach its stop.
He has only a few bills in his back pocket, a pack of half-empty (half-full for the optimist) gum that tastes like citrus fruit, and a pair of headphones that dangle around his neck and plug into a dying mp3 player. It’s Monday - blue skies with only a thirty-six percent chance of a light rain shower sometime later that night. He has his whole life ahead of him (behind him in case you’re morbid) and time to take an adventure.
The sun blinds him momentarily - paralyzes all sense of judgment - and reflects off the coins he hands the bus driver.
“Just far enough for me to talk about where I’ve been.”
ii.
The rain hits when the sun sets, the high of his running away still thumping strong in his veins and numbing his heart to all the broken faces that might miss him. He can’t seem to focus on all those he has hurt by disappearing; all he can think about are all the new people he might get to meet. The worlds he might travel. The foods he might taste. The magic he might experience.
Junsu pulls his legs into his seat, brand new and snow white sneakers peaking out from underneath his dark blue jeans, and maybe they look a little too much like home at the moment as they smile up at him. He frowns and borrows a pen from the guy sketching sunsets (sunrises for those who think of tomorrow) in the seat beside him. The guy’s nametag pinned to his red vest reads “Kim Jaejoong” but Junsu finds it impolite to interrupt the man’s work anymore than he already has just to strike up a conversation. There’s not much to say anyway.
He pulls off his shoe, curls and uncurls his toes out of habit (maybe not), and uncaps the green gel pen lent to him by his seatmate. He’s not one for words, never has been the poetic type, but he supposes that this is what starting over is all about. Words to live by, and he’d like something to remind him of where he went and how he got there.
On the insole of his left foot the words, “life is an adventure,” shimmer in glittery emerald and Junsu traces the curved writing before turning his attention out the window.
He sends a wry smile to his smeared reflection, presses the flat of his palm against the foggy glass and leaves his mark. It won’t stay forever, but he’d like to think that it will.
“Kim Junsu was here,” his lips form, breath fanning across the clear of the glass and kissing his fingers. “Kim Junsu is still here.”
don’t forget me are the words that come to his mind when his temple kisses the cool texture of the bus window, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks and closing in on his vision of the handprint. don’t forget me.
iii.
When the storm clouds breeze by and the rain stops tapping against the rickety metal of the bus’s frame, Junsu rouses himself from his slumber, stretching his arms above his head and reaching for new heights.
The sky is still dark but now stars wink at him somewhere in the horizon and he wants to start searching there. He wants to find himself in snow capped peaks of mountains or underneath oceans of blue with all the little fishes. He just wants to be free to come and go as he pleases, never staying longer than a day, lingering at the edges of a house and home.
He pulls his arms back down to his sides (and his dreams away from the clouds that hold them captive), slender fingers wrapping around the edge of the stiff seat. His heart thumps a little louder in the stillness of the ride in anticipation and he can feel the waves of blood rush through his arms and cause his fingers to twitch.
No one is on the bus at this time, his seat mate having apparently been long gone. He wonders if he was looking for himself as well. Or was he stuck in the normalcy of life. And as he glances to the front of the bus all he sees is the back of the bus driver’s head, he wonders, does this man live his life by beginning the adventures of others? Is that how he contributes?
Junsu supposes he’ll never know, slumping to rest against the seat only to glance to his side and find the drawing Jaejoong had made earlier in his trip. A box of colored pens sparkle up at him in the incandescent lighting, a note resting on top of the shining utensils, and the picture are the only reminders of the beautiful man from earlier. He picks it up, delicately unfolding the papers along the bent edges and holds the sheet as if it’s the most precious thing in the world (in Junsu’s world, at this moment, it is.)
sun rises always mark the start of a new adventure. have fun with yours : ) jaejoong.
Junsu folds the note back along its creases, settles it in his shirt’s pocket, and lets the thin material weigh on his chest, light and easy. His heart feels lighter now and he’s never known a time when he looked forward to the sun rising once more on a new day.
But this is about starting over, and this is where he begins again as just Junsu.
iv.
When the bus rolls into a stop, Junsu isn’t sure what time it is anymore.
His mp3 player died around three in the morning, bright blue digits frowning at him from where they sat pressed against the tiny screen and then faded into nothing. That was hours (days, weeks, years) ago. But then he decides it doesn’t matter anymore, he’s living life by the moment regardless of time. So he pockets the compact music player and leaves his headphones around his neck as he walks to the front of the bus.
He knows he’s been riding for a far longer time than he was supposed to, but the bus driver only smiles brilliantly at him, tips his hat, and says good naturedly, “It’s a brand new day, live your life to the fullest .”
His nameplate says “Jung Yunho” but Junsu can’t find the words to say to thank the man enough, a knot in his throat from the thankful tears he’s choking down. He offers him what he can - a piece of his heart and a place in his memory. He’ll never forget this.
v.
A day or two (how long has it really been) finds him sitting on the curbside of a tiny city, writing pieces of conservations across his arms in black pen (things he doesn’t want to forget so soon), his white shoes reserved for his most important thoughts, and people pass by him, dropping a few coins here and there because maybe he looks a little homeless.
He is homeless, so he has no problem with showing that, large grin in place and eyes as bright as the sun. He thanks them when he remembers his manners, nods to them when he can’t think of what to say, and smiles softly when it’s all he can manage to do.
He’s inking in the scene of a little girl losing her red balloon to the vast ocean of blue hanging above her head when someone stoops before him. Junsu glances up, noticing red skinny jeans clinging to lean legs and winding up into a torso covered in white with a camera resting against a pulsating heart. The next thing he lets his eyes come upon are mismatched brown depths that show the man’s smile much better than his pale lips do.
“This might be of better use with remembering feelings and memories,” he says with a crooked grin, placing a light brown journal into Junsu’s lap. “Words stick to paper better than skin.”
Junsu fingers the penned in name of Shim Changmin on the journal’s first page, letters burning the tip of his tongue ready to form words of gratitude. But when he looks back up, Changmin’s no longer crouching down in front of him but rather across the street taking a picture of the balloon that is still floating away high in the sky. And his smile, oh, his smile is the brightest thing in the world at this moment.
Junsu thinks he’d like to keep this memory tied around his wrist, so he locks it up somewhere in his heart for safekeeping until he can do just that.
vi.
The radio playing in someone’s car says that it’s four in the afternoon and that there are high chances of more storms coming through the area at around midnight.
Junsu supposes he’ll be out of this city by then, wherever here is and wherever his next destination will be. It’s Thursday and the sun hangs its head somewhere in the universe and droops with the weight of the world that the gray clouds want to release in spurts of pounding rains. The breeze is cool against his flushed cheeks and pen marks still decorate his arms in various places while his shoes twinkle an array of bright colors.
Junsu imagines that this quaint town might look beautiful in the rain, but there’s nothing here worth staying for.
He glances around one last time before walking out of the city’s border, strolling along fields of tall grasses and hidden hopes waiting to be explored.
vii.
As he continues along, whistling to songs he vaguely remembers from childhood and pieces of lyrics he might have heard during his travels, he finds himself walking past a figure tangled in the weeds that reach up to his waist and brush against his palms. It seems as if the person is searching for something, and in the tiny light the sun still gives off, he doesn’t think he’s seen a lovelier sight.
Dark brown locks stick up in an unruly mass, tangled from fingers that have been raked through far too many times to tell, and brown eyes that shine blue against the pinks and oranges of the sunset. Junsu feels his heart flutter like the wings of a butterfly and he wonders if this is what love at first sight feels like. It must be because he’s never had this reaction to one person before.
“What are you looking for?” he calls out despite the fact he has not started a single conversation since the beginning of his trip. But there’s something peculiar about this boy, something fascinating that has him wanting to know more. A well-kept secret.
The boy startles from his search, eyes widening to a comical extent before his hand goes to the back of his head, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “I’m looking for my heart!”
“Your heart,” Junsu blinks, fingers unconsciously touching the area above his own rumbling chest. “How’d you lose that?”
“Someone stole it,” the man replies, lips sinking to lower into a pout. “I woke up on Monday and I was fine. By that afternoon, it was gone.”
Junsu doesn’t realize he’s been coming closer to the other male until his knuckles brush against the backside of the other’s pale hand. It sends a jolt through his arm, loops around his bloodstream, and fills his heart with butterfly wings that fall away into his stomach.
“I’m Yoochun, by the way,” he says with a contagious grin that reflects the intensity of the sun just as the coins did on the day Junsu ran away. The boy’s light pink cheeks are dusted with dirt, but it only makes him cuter, and his eyes crinkle at the edges making him resemble a child. “You can help me look for my heart if you’d like…”
Junsu can only smile as well, knuckles still kissing the back of Yoochun’s hand, and it suddenly feels okay to think he might be in love. “I’m Junsu.”
And even though he’s made it a habit to not to linger in one place for too long, he thinks he’s finally found a reason to make him stay.
“Junsu,” Yoochun tests on his tongue, lets the name fall from his lips and Junsu wishes for only Yoochun to say his name for the rest of his life. “Junsu, it’s nice to meet you.”
ix.
A week passes by in this life quickly. Junsu has found a kind old woman that offers him food and board as long as he helps her with her shop every evening, and what he makes in tips is what he keeps. He sees Yoochun when he can, the boy often coming in to visit him at work with his school jacket undone and his smile a little too much for Junsu to handle.
But today is Thursday again, and Yoochun has not shown himself anywhere around the store, so Junsu leaves early than he should and attempts to find the boy that likes to slip through his fingertips and into a closely guarded heart.
He walks the same path he had days ago, humming to himself as he kicks at the dirt path beneath his stained shoes. The ink still shines and just the other day he added, “settle down and live a little,” to the side of his right shoe in a neon orange color. Yoochun had stolen the blue pen, writing his name on Junsu’s arm saying, “I claim this in the name of the queen,” but Junsu had only rolled his eyes at the time and attempted to keep Yoochun from writing any other things on his body (not that he really minded in the end, it was enough for Yoochun to be close.)
He smiles to himself, hands coming to place one over the other in the middle of his chest, as his gaze lands somewhere on his dirty shoes, taking in the way the words glitter in the pale sunlight. And when his eyes travel to the left he sees the one his heart sings for falling backwards, hands outstretched in front of him and eyes closed, going down and down into the waist-high weeds surrounding the area.
Junsu rushes through the weeds, making his way through the tangling masses until he finds the other boy smiling to himself as he basks in the warm glow of the afternoon sun. Junsu’s heart races wildly and the only thing that he has on his mind at that moment is Yoochun, breathtaking and breathing and beautiful before him.
“You know, in the stories, the handsome prince always kisses his fair princess back to life,” Yoochun teases eyes still closed and heart still beating somewhere outside of his body, pale cheeks dusted rose and bangs brushing against his eyelids.
Junsu grins, kneeling before the others body so that he’s leaning over the other, close enough to hear each others every thought, but he still cannot figure out someone as simple as Yoochun. “But you’re not a girl.”
“And you’re not a prince, either,” Yoochun retorts with a frown laced in his words. His eyes blink open and he squints against the sun, bringing one hand forward to slide his fingers against Junsu’s flushed face, “But you’re still handsome and I’m still beautiful. So, it’s kind of like a fairy tale.”
Junsu’s heart finds itself stuck in his throat and he can only dip his head lower to maybe let his lips touch Yoochun’s for a second, a ghost of a kiss, as if the other could maybe help him with his problem. He lingers on the corner of Yoochun’s mouth, struggles for the oxygen Yoochun is stealing away from him, and then presses forward again.
“Did you find your heart?” he inquires against the chapped pink lips brushing against his own with every movement.
Yoochun’s eyes cloud over with a sheen of desperation and longing. “No, it’s not here. And I wonder if I will be able to kiss -” love “- you properly while it’s away. I want to, but I can't.”
Those words unclog his throat and somehow his heart misses its stop and lands somewhere in the pit of his stomach and it hurts to feel like this. So he blinks his eyes away from the boy before him, heartless and hopeless and completely broken, and instead stares into the far away distance, whispering, “Let’s get you home, Yoochunnie.”
“Junsu,” the small voice tickles his wrists where he’s outlined his veins in red gel pen, and he feels tentative hands reach up to the sky, the right one bumping Junsu’s shoulder blade, and he continues, “carry me away.”
Junsu doesn’t have the wings nor the heart to fly away with Yoochun. Yoochun doesn’t have a heart at all.
x.
A few nights later and the moment in the field is forgotten, or at least maybe Yoochun has forgotten because Junsu keeps the scene hidden away in his left palm, lets the kiss replay itself whenever he places his hand to his temple and he can’t get the moment to leave him in peace.
Yoochun’s drunk on laughter, lips curled into a smile wider than the universe and warmer than even the sun, and Junsu’s high on the way Yoochun’s fingers seem to have a mind of their own as they dance along the insides of Junsu’s arms (thighs, palms, neck, cheeks, and dot along his eyelids).
“What’s it like without your heart?”
Yoochun’s smile dims a little and Junsu comes back down to earth. Their fingers stay laced together, Junsu’s slightly colder than Yoochun’s and maybe smaller in size, but Yoochun emotionally distances himself away from Junsu - eyes guarded and mouth drawn into a line.
“It’s like… dying but much more painful,” he murmurs with his eyes shining in tiny amount of moonlight that is offered in this chilly summer night. “A piece of me has been torn out and I don’t know where it is or how it was taken away…”
Junsu looks down at their interconnected hands, bites his bottom lip and doesn’t press further - not unless Yoochun wants to talk. He’s never been assertive and he doesn’t feel the need to pry when this apparently saddens Yoochun so much that his smile dies and his eyes grow dull.
“But…” and Junsu snaps his head back up when those pink lips slip into a sad smile and suddenly Yoochun is breathing words that make Junsu’s ribcage ache because of the pounding his heart is doing. “I… It doesn’t hurt when you’re nearby… As if you erase all the pain - like I never ever lost my heart to begin with…”
Junsu pulls him closer, doesn’t need any more words, and captures the memory of Yoochun smiling with a kiss. He then ties the memory of Yoochun kissing him back, with that smile still present, around his heart - just in case he ever needs a reminder of what he’s begun to live for.
When he gets home later on, he can only manage to write Yoochun’s name in purple across the length of his arms, easily confusing it with the word “love.”
xi.
A day later has him tangled up with Yoochun in his room, the boy’s fingers kissing heartbeats into his chest and his eyes glowing blue just like the sky that lays out beyond the window, cloudless and bright.
“I think I found my heart,” he murmurs as he lets his lips wrap around the end of a pink gel pen, finished with dotting a heart on Junsu’s bared chest. He kisses a place inside the outline once he’s satisfied with his handiwork, sending a shiver along Junsu’s spine and causing his toes to curl and stomach to twist. “And the strangest thing is, I have no desire to take it back.”
Junsu tilts his head to the side, hands placed on Yoochun’s bony hips to keep the boy from falling into the floor when he sits up (it’s really just an excuse to touch him, here, there, anywhere). “Really, why not?”
“Because,” and his fingertips trace along the undersides of Junsu’s jaws, rays of light flittering in and making tattoos of sunspots appear on Yoochun’s cheekbones, and Junsu lets his hand find the one that touches him so delicately, cradling it within his own. “Because you’re the one that stole my heart, and I don’t think that I’d want anyone else to have it but you.”
It slips Junsu’s mind to try and record this memory somewhere in his heart, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget this moment even if all the ink in his pens run out.
“I love you,” Yoochun breathes into Junsu’s neck with soundless words, twisting their hands together in between their chests where Junsu feels their hearts beating together as one.
But maybe their hearts were one all along.
xii.
Suddenly it’s Monday again - blue skies with only a thirty-six percent chance of a light rain shower sometime later that night. Yoochun is wearing his (Junsu’s) heart on his sleeve, stitched in just in case someone tries to snatch it away again, and Junsu is writing a letter to his old home (house because home is where the heart is, and Junsu’s heart is in Yoochun’s care now.) It’s polite, formal, and a little impersonal because these are people he doesn’t know anymore, never knew to begin with. But he thinks it’s finally time to bid this past Junsu goodbye and everything that went with him because he’s found a place to settle down in and be himself. Only himself.
He’s gained a new family, pieced together with smiles and thanks and hugs that smell like love and feel a lot like happiness. He has Yoochun’s heart tucked into the chest pocket above his heart, filling up the space where Jaejoong’s sunrise once resided.
Yoochun feels like August pressed against his back, clings to him like the rain that soaks their clothes through and through as they try to get closer and closer underneath an umbrella (covers, clothes, skin.) He paints him rainbows and sings him sunshine, kisses him like he means it and means it when he kisses him. Yoochun is everything that Junsu has needed to finally string himself back together again.
He tacks Jaejoong’s picture to his wall, right above his bed so that whenever he wakes up the first thing he sees is his new life staring straight back at him. Changmin’s book sits on the coffee table, filled with pictures and names and words and places, bookmarked by the bus ticket with Yunho’s name on the back.
They gave him what he had needed. Hope, chance, and strength. Yoochun gave him love.
Junsu takes all his memories, places them inside a balloon, and lets Yoochun tie a ribbon to the end of it. And when the sun starts to sink below the horizon, a strip of purple peering at them in the distance, Junsu’s hand in Yoochun’s tightens as he takes in a deep breath.
And finally lets go.
this took first place in the contest, so i want to thank everyone that voted. you all mean a lot to me and this fic ♥ dedicated to the plethora of people i adore most in the world: anny, belle, izzy, tiffany, & sally.
: junsu-centric; yoochun/junsu | pg
: junsu runs away from home the same day yoochun's heart is stolen.
: for yoosu_yongwonhi's contest; "i wonder if i’ll be able to love you properly"; yakusoku
i.
Junsu’s heart is thrumming along to the tapping of his toes and his fingertips are pressing into the cracked concrete of the sidewalk when he sees the bus approach its stop.
He has only a few bills in his back pocket, a pack of half-empty (half-full for the optimist) gum that tastes like citrus fruit, and a pair of headphones that dangle around his neck and plug into a dying mp3 player. It’s Monday - blue skies with only a thirty-six percent chance of a light rain shower sometime later that night. He has his whole life ahead of him (behind him in case you’re morbid) and time to take an adventure.
The sun blinds him momentarily - paralyzes all sense of judgment - and reflects off the coins he hands the bus driver.
“Just far enough for me to talk about where I’ve been.”
ii.
The rain hits when the sun sets, the high of his running away still thumping strong in his veins and numbing his heart to all the broken faces that might miss him. He can’t seem to focus on all those he has hurt by disappearing; all he can think about are all the new people he might get to meet. The worlds he might travel. The foods he might taste. The magic he might experience.
Junsu pulls his legs into his seat, brand new and snow white sneakers peaking out from underneath his dark blue jeans, and maybe they look a little too much like home at the moment as they smile up at him. He frowns and borrows a pen from the guy sketching sunsets (sunrises for those who think of tomorrow) in the seat beside him. The guy’s nametag pinned to his red vest reads “Kim Jaejoong” but Junsu finds it impolite to interrupt the man’s work anymore than he already has just to strike up a conversation. There’s not much to say anyway.
He pulls off his shoe, curls and uncurls his toes out of habit (maybe not), and uncaps the green gel pen lent to him by his seatmate. He’s not one for words, never has been the poetic type, but he supposes that this is what starting over is all about. Words to live by, and he’d like something to remind him of where he went and how he got there.
On the insole of his left foot the words, “life is an adventure,” shimmer in glittery emerald and Junsu traces the curved writing before turning his attention out the window.
He sends a wry smile to his smeared reflection, presses the flat of his palm against the foggy glass and leaves his mark. It won’t stay forever, but he’d like to think that it will.
“Kim Junsu was here,” his lips form, breath fanning across the clear of the glass and kissing his fingers. “Kim Junsu is still here.”
don’t forget me are the words that come to his mind when his temple kisses the cool texture of the bus window, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks and closing in on his vision of the handprint. don’t forget me.
iii.
When the storm clouds breeze by and the rain stops tapping against the rickety metal of the bus’s frame, Junsu rouses himself from his slumber, stretching his arms above his head and reaching for new heights.
The sky is still dark but now stars wink at him somewhere in the horizon and he wants to start searching there. He wants to find himself in snow capped peaks of mountains or underneath oceans of blue with all the little fishes. He just wants to be free to come and go as he pleases, never staying longer than a day, lingering at the edges of a house and home.
He pulls his arms back down to his sides (and his dreams away from the clouds that hold them captive), slender fingers wrapping around the edge of the stiff seat. His heart thumps a little louder in the stillness of the ride in anticipation and he can feel the waves of blood rush through his arms and cause his fingers to twitch.
No one is on the bus at this time, his seat mate having apparently been long gone. He wonders if he was looking for himself as well. Or was he stuck in the normalcy of life. And as he glances to the front of the bus all he sees is the back of the bus driver’s head, he wonders, does this man live his life by beginning the adventures of others? Is that how he contributes?
Junsu supposes he’ll never know, slumping to rest against the seat only to glance to his side and find the drawing Jaejoong had made earlier in his trip. A box of colored pens sparkle up at him in the incandescent lighting, a note resting on top of the shining utensils, and the picture are the only reminders of the beautiful man from earlier. He picks it up, delicately unfolding the papers along the bent edges and holds the sheet as if it’s the most precious thing in the world (in Junsu’s world, at this moment, it is.)
sun rises always mark the start of a new adventure. have fun with yours : ) jaejoong.
Junsu folds the note back along its creases, settles it in his shirt’s pocket, and lets the thin material weigh on his chest, light and easy. His heart feels lighter now and he’s never known a time when he looked forward to the sun rising once more on a new day.
But this is about starting over, and this is where he begins again as just Junsu.
iv.
When the bus rolls into a stop, Junsu isn’t sure what time it is anymore.
His mp3 player died around three in the morning, bright blue digits frowning at him from where they sat pressed against the tiny screen and then faded into nothing. That was hours (days, weeks, years) ago. But then he decides it doesn’t matter anymore, he’s living life by the moment regardless of time. So he pockets the compact music player and leaves his headphones around his neck as he walks to the front of the bus.
He knows he’s been riding for a far longer time than he was supposed to, but the bus driver only smiles brilliantly at him, tips his hat, and says good naturedly, “It’s a brand new day, live your life to the fullest .”
His nameplate says “Jung Yunho” but Junsu can’t find the words to say to thank the man enough, a knot in his throat from the thankful tears he’s choking down. He offers him what he can - a piece of his heart and a place in his memory. He’ll never forget this.
v.
A day or two (how long has it really been) finds him sitting on the curbside of a tiny city, writing pieces of conservations across his arms in black pen (things he doesn’t want to forget so soon), his white shoes reserved for his most important thoughts, and people pass by him, dropping a few coins here and there because maybe he looks a little homeless.
He is homeless, so he has no problem with showing that, large grin in place and eyes as bright as the sun. He thanks them when he remembers his manners, nods to them when he can’t think of what to say, and smiles softly when it’s all he can manage to do.
He’s inking in the scene of a little girl losing her red balloon to the vast ocean of blue hanging above her head when someone stoops before him. Junsu glances up, noticing red skinny jeans clinging to lean legs and winding up into a torso covered in white with a camera resting against a pulsating heart. The next thing he lets his eyes come upon are mismatched brown depths that show the man’s smile much better than his pale lips do.
“This might be of better use with remembering feelings and memories,” he says with a crooked grin, placing a light brown journal into Junsu’s lap. “Words stick to paper better than skin.”
Junsu fingers the penned in name of Shim Changmin on the journal’s first page, letters burning the tip of his tongue ready to form words of gratitude. But when he looks back up, Changmin’s no longer crouching down in front of him but rather across the street taking a picture of the balloon that is still floating away high in the sky. And his smile, oh, his smile is the brightest thing in the world at this moment.
Junsu thinks he’d like to keep this memory tied around his wrist, so he locks it up somewhere in his heart for safekeeping until he can do just that.
vi.
The radio playing in someone’s car says that it’s four in the afternoon and that there are high chances of more storms coming through the area at around midnight.
Junsu supposes he’ll be out of this city by then, wherever here is and wherever his next destination will be. It’s Thursday and the sun hangs its head somewhere in the universe and droops with the weight of the world that the gray clouds want to release in spurts of pounding rains. The breeze is cool against his flushed cheeks and pen marks still decorate his arms in various places while his shoes twinkle an array of bright colors.
Junsu imagines that this quaint town might look beautiful in the rain, but there’s nothing here worth staying for.
He glances around one last time before walking out of the city’s border, strolling along fields of tall grasses and hidden hopes waiting to be explored.
vii.
As he continues along, whistling to songs he vaguely remembers from childhood and pieces of lyrics he might have heard during his travels, he finds himself walking past a figure tangled in the weeds that reach up to his waist and brush against his palms. It seems as if the person is searching for something, and in the tiny light the sun still gives off, he doesn’t think he’s seen a lovelier sight.
Dark brown locks stick up in an unruly mass, tangled from fingers that have been raked through far too many times to tell, and brown eyes that shine blue against the pinks and oranges of the sunset. Junsu feels his heart flutter like the wings of a butterfly and he wonders if this is what love at first sight feels like. It must be because he’s never had this reaction to one person before.
“What are you looking for?” he calls out despite the fact he has not started a single conversation since the beginning of his trip. But there’s something peculiar about this boy, something fascinating that has him wanting to know more. A well-kept secret.
The boy startles from his search, eyes widening to a comical extent before his hand goes to the back of his head, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “I’m looking for my heart!”
“Your heart,” Junsu blinks, fingers unconsciously touching the area above his own rumbling chest. “How’d you lose that?”
“Someone stole it,” the man replies, lips sinking to lower into a pout. “I woke up on Monday and I was fine. By that afternoon, it was gone.”
Junsu doesn’t realize he’s been coming closer to the other male until his knuckles brush against the backside of the other’s pale hand. It sends a jolt through his arm, loops around his bloodstream, and fills his heart with butterfly wings that fall away into his stomach.
“I’m Yoochun, by the way,” he says with a contagious grin that reflects the intensity of the sun just as the coins did on the day Junsu ran away. The boy’s light pink cheeks are dusted with dirt, but it only makes him cuter, and his eyes crinkle at the edges making him resemble a child. “You can help me look for my heart if you’d like…”
Junsu can only smile as well, knuckles still kissing the back of Yoochun’s hand, and it suddenly feels okay to think he might be in love. “I’m Junsu.”
And even though he’s made it a habit to not to linger in one place for too long, he thinks he’s finally found a reason to make him stay.
“Junsu,” Yoochun tests on his tongue, lets the name fall from his lips and Junsu wishes for only Yoochun to say his name for the rest of his life. “Junsu, it’s nice to meet you.”
ix.
A week passes by in this life quickly. Junsu has found a kind old woman that offers him food and board as long as he helps her with her shop every evening, and what he makes in tips is what he keeps. He sees Yoochun when he can, the boy often coming in to visit him at work with his school jacket undone and his smile a little too much for Junsu to handle.
But today is Thursday again, and Yoochun has not shown himself anywhere around the store, so Junsu leaves early than he should and attempts to find the boy that likes to slip through his fingertips and into a closely guarded heart.
He walks the same path he had days ago, humming to himself as he kicks at the dirt path beneath his stained shoes. The ink still shines and just the other day he added, “settle down and live a little,” to the side of his right shoe in a neon orange color. Yoochun had stolen the blue pen, writing his name on Junsu’s arm saying, “I claim this in the name of the queen,” but Junsu had only rolled his eyes at the time and attempted to keep Yoochun from writing any other things on his body (not that he really minded in the end, it was enough for Yoochun to be close.)
He smiles to himself, hands coming to place one over the other in the middle of his chest, as his gaze lands somewhere on his dirty shoes, taking in the way the words glitter in the pale sunlight. And when his eyes travel to the left he sees the one his heart sings for falling backwards, hands outstretched in front of him and eyes closed, going down and down into the waist-high weeds surrounding the area.
Junsu rushes through the weeds, making his way through the tangling masses until he finds the other boy smiling to himself as he basks in the warm glow of the afternoon sun. Junsu’s heart races wildly and the only thing that he has on his mind at that moment is Yoochun, breathtaking and breathing and beautiful before him.
“You know, in the stories, the handsome prince always kisses his fair princess back to life,” Yoochun teases eyes still closed and heart still beating somewhere outside of his body, pale cheeks dusted rose and bangs brushing against his eyelids.
Junsu grins, kneeling before the others body so that he’s leaning over the other, close enough to hear each others every thought, but he still cannot figure out someone as simple as Yoochun. “But you’re not a girl.”
“And you’re not a prince, either,” Yoochun retorts with a frown laced in his words. His eyes blink open and he squints against the sun, bringing one hand forward to slide his fingers against Junsu’s flushed face, “But you’re still handsome and I’m still beautiful. So, it’s kind of like a fairy tale.”
Junsu’s heart finds itself stuck in his throat and he can only dip his head lower to maybe let his lips touch Yoochun’s for a second, a ghost of a kiss, as if the other could maybe help him with his problem. He lingers on the corner of Yoochun’s mouth, struggles for the oxygen Yoochun is stealing away from him, and then presses forward again.
“Did you find your heart?” he inquires against the chapped pink lips brushing against his own with every movement.
Yoochun’s eyes cloud over with a sheen of desperation and longing. “No, it’s not here. And I wonder if I will be able to kiss -” love “- you properly while it’s away. I want to, but I can't.”
Those words unclog his throat and somehow his heart misses its stop and lands somewhere in the pit of his stomach and it hurts to feel like this. So he blinks his eyes away from the boy before him, heartless and hopeless and completely broken, and instead stares into the far away distance, whispering, “Let’s get you home, Yoochunnie.”
“Junsu,” the small voice tickles his wrists where he’s outlined his veins in red gel pen, and he feels tentative hands reach up to the sky, the right one bumping Junsu’s shoulder blade, and he continues, “carry me away.”
Junsu doesn’t have the wings nor the heart to fly away with Yoochun. Yoochun doesn’t have a heart at all.
x.
A few nights later and the moment in the field is forgotten, or at least maybe Yoochun has forgotten because Junsu keeps the scene hidden away in his left palm, lets the kiss replay itself whenever he places his hand to his temple and he can’t get the moment to leave him in peace.
Yoochun’s drunk on laughter, lips curled into a smile wider than the universe and warmer than even the sun, and Junsu’s high on the way Yoochun’s fingers seem to have a mind of their own as they dance along the insides of Junsu’s arms (thighs, palms, neck, cheeks, and dot along his eyelids).
“What’s it like without your heart?”
Yoochun’s smile dims a little and Junsu comes back down to earth. Their fingers stay laced together, Junsu’s slightly colder than Yoochun’s and maybe smaller in size, but Yoochun emotionally distances himself away from Junsu - eyes guarded and mouth drawn into a line.
“It’s like… dying but much more painful,” he murmurs with his eyes shining in tiny amount of moonlight that is offered in this chilly summer night. “A piece of me has been torn out and I don’t know where it is or how it was taken away…”
Junsu looks down at their interconnected hands, bites his bottom lip and doesn’t press further - not unless Yoochun wants to talk. He’s never been assertive and he doesn’t feel the need to pry when this apparently saddens Yoochun so much that his smile dies and his eyes grow dull.
“But…” and Junsu snaps his head back up when those pink lips slip into a sad smile and suddenly Yoochun is breathing words that make Junsu’s ribcage ache because of the pounding his heart is doing. “I… It doesn’t hurt when you’re nearby… As if you erase all the pain - like I never ever lost my heart to begin with…”
Junsu pulls him closer, doesn’t need any more words, and captures the memory of Yoochun smiling with a kiss. He then ties the memory of Yoochun kissing him back, with that smile still present, around his heart - just in case he ever needs a reminder of what he’s begun to live for.
When he gets home later on, he can only manage to write Yoochun’s name in purple across the length of his arms, easily confusing it with the word “love.”
xi.
A day later has him tangled up with Yoochun in his room, the boy’s fingers kissing heartbeats into his chest and his eyes glowing blue just like the sky that lays out beyond the window, cloudless and bright.
“I think I found my heart,” he murmurs as he lets his lips wrap around the end of a pink gel pen, finished with dotting a heart on Junsu’s bared chest. He kisses a place inside the outline once he’s satisfied with his handiwork, sending a shiver along Junsu’s spine and causing his toes to curl and stomach to twist. “And the strangest thing is, I have no desire to take it back.”
Junsu tilts his head to the side, hands placed on Yoochun’s bony hips to keep the boy from falling into the floor when he sits up (it’s really just an excuse to touch him, here, there, anywhere). “Really, why not?”
“Because,” and his fingertips trace along the undersides of Junsu’s jaws, rays of light flittering in and making tattoos of sunspots appear on Yoochun’s cheekbones, and Junsu lets his hand find the one that touches him so delicately, cradling it within his own. “Because you’re the one that stole my heart, and I don’t think that I’d want anyone else to have it but you.”
It slips Junsu’s mind to try and record this memory somewhere in his heart, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget this moment even if all the ink in his pens run out.
“I love you,” Yoochun breathes into Junsu’s neck with soundless words, twisting their hands together in between their chests where Junsu feels their hearts beating together as one.
But maybe their hearts were one all along.
xii.
Suddenly it’s Monday again - blue skies with only a thirty-six percent chance of a light rain shower sometime later that night. Yoochun is wearing his (Junsu’s) heart on his sleeve, stitched in just in case someone tries to snatch it away again, and Junsu is writing a letter to his old home (house because home is where the heart is, and Junsu’s heart is in Yoochun’s care now.) It’s polite, formal, and a little impersonal because these are people he doesn’t know anymore, never knew to begin with. But he thinks it’s finally time to bid this past Junsu goodbye and everything that went with him because he’s found a place to settle down in and be himself. Only himself.
He’s gained a new family, pieced together with smiles and thanks and hugs that smell like love and feel a lot like happiness. He has Yoochun’s heart tucked into the chest pocket above his heart, filling up the space where Jaejoong’s sunrise once resided.
Yoochun feels like August pressed against his back, clings to him like the rain that soaks their clothes through and through as they try to get closer and closer underneath an umbrella (covers, clothes, skin.) He paints him rainbows and sings him sunshine, kisses him like he means it and means it when he kisses him. Yoochun is everything that Junsu has needed to finally string himself back together again.
He tacks Jaejoong’s picture to his wall, right above his bed so that whenever he wakes up the first thing he sees is his new life staring straight back at him. Changmin’s book sits on the coffee table, filled with pictures and names and words and places, bookmarked by the bus ticket with Yunho’s name on the back.
They gave him what he had needed. Hope, chance, and strength. Yoochun gave him love.
Junsu takes all his memories, places them inside a balloon, and lets Yoochun tie a ribbon to the end of it. And when the sun starts to sink below the horizon, a strip of purple peering at them in the distance, Junsu’s hand in Yoochun’s tightens as he takes in a deep breath.
And finally lets go.
this took first place in the contest, so i want to thank everyone that voted. you all mean a lot to me and this fic ♥ dedicated to the plethora of people i adore most in the world: anny, belle, izzy, tiffany, & sally.