My Marble Tiger 1/8
Title: My Marble Tiger
Pairings: YooMin, past JaeChun, XiMin.
Rating: NC-17 for later chapters
Summary: A famous sculptor who’s lost his inspiration after being dumped meets a cheerful man who sits in a zoo and watches the tigers all day. He slowly learns how to be happy again and even falls in love. But the seemingly carefree man has a dark secret.
Warnings: emo!Yoochun in this chapter, but hey, he’s been dumped by Jae, how would you feel? Angst and violence later. Will get graphic.
Disclaimer: The tigers belong to a Dutch zoo, DBSK belong to SM’s zoo. If I ever get my hands on them they’ll be in cages in a private zoo in my backyard (DBSK, not the tigers) or I’d set them free, they’d look great in the wild too.
Part 1: Dumped
Yoochun wandered through the zoo. He didn’t look at the animals. He didn’t look at anything, and certainly not where he was going, staring in the distance with empty unseeing eyes.
After almost knocking over a little girl, who dropped her ice cream in shock and started crying, he bowed in apology, gave the girl’s mother some money (too much) and continued, his gaze now on the ground in front of him.
Why was he here again?
Oh right, he just had to get out of his studio this morning and then he’d found his season-ticket to the zoo in his coat.
What a stupid idea. He’d bought that ticket so he could take Jae on dates here. At this moment he really didn’t want to be at places where Jae had been, with him, together.
Actually Jae had only showed up on one of those dates. And he’d had a photo shoot later that day so they’d only been here for about half an hour.
So it wasn’t like this place was overflowing with memories, but he still felt a sharp ache in his chest thinking about it.
His leg hurt too, Yoochun grabbed his shin and while jumping up and down on his other leg, glared at the sign he’d run into.
‘The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica)’, it read. Yoochun always read the Latin names too, he liked Latin.
He let go of his leg and looked at the huge cage in front of him. There was a little forest in it, a forest in a cage.
‘zoos are stupid’, Yoochun thought, ‘people went out of their way to create a realistic forest and build a massive cage around it so they could put animals inside for us to look at and then we can’t see them because of the leaves.’
But then he saw a tiger. It had come from behind a bush and was now walking slowly, majestically along the side of the cage that was closest to where Yoochun was standing.
It was beautiful. The colours of its fur ran over in each other but created a strong contrast at the same time. Its muscles were clearly visible with every fluent movement. It looked so strong and so supple.
The artist in Yoochun made him forget everything for a moment and he just admired the beautiful animal in front of him.
But then his memories came crushing down on him again. Jaejoong had called him ‘my tiger’ once, after a particularly good round of sex.
Oh, fuck Jaejoong. Jaejoong was an asshole. The memory of him shouldn’t stop Yoochun from doing anything, including watching tigers.
He needed to fucking get over the guy already.
‘That’s it’, Yoochun told himself, ‘consider it therapy.’
He sat down on a bench near the cage and watched. It was a nice spot, the sun hit it just right and a gentle breeze created whispers in the bamboo leaves behind him.
Maybe he should visit this place every day, maybe he’d get his inspiration back.
At least he’d be away from his studio. The only things to remind him of Jaejoong here were the tigers and one insignificant date, he could handle that.
And maybe at some point, he’d feel comfortable in his combined studio and apartment again and would actually sleep at night.
‘Maybe the tigers will become my friends.’ Okay, that was a silly thought, but man he needed a friend right now.
Why had this cruel world decided to give him his talent and make him rich and popular?
So popular he had dated a top model.
It had been a very demanding relationship, it had drained him.
And here he was. He’d lost contact with all his former friends (because of Jae) and was now sitting on a bench in some small zoo, ditched, discarded when Jae’s interest had changed as fast as his facial expressions when posing.
Even his bottomless inspiration that had got him this far in the first place had left him.
Fuck.
===============================================
Three days later Yoochun was walking to the cage again.
In the past two days he’d discovered that two full-grown Siberian tigers lived there. A male and a female called Yardan and Radka, which was probably Russian or something.
He had no idea how sitting on a bench and watching a forest and the occasional tiger was going to give him inspiration. But he kept coming anyway because it was relaxing, unlike his past relationship with Jae. And he took his sketchbook just in case.
He neared the cage. His face dropped. There was someone there.
Of course visitors of the zoo passed by here all the time, but this man was sitting on the bench, his bench.
No one had done that before.
He always arrived early, one of the first people to enter the zoo. And then he would sit there all day, probably scaring people away with his facial expression.
He didn’t eat during the day, eating wasn’t important, Jae had been. Yes, he hated to admit it but he had loved Jae, maybe he still loved him, what else could cause him this much pain?
But apparently this man had arrived even earlier, somehow that pissed him off.
It was a young man, almost a boy still, he was watching the tigers.. or the forest if they were hiding, Yoochun didn’t check. He walked to the bench and glared down at him.
The man looked up, he was good looking, he could have been a model. Great, more things to remind him of Jae, this didn’t help Yoochun’s mood at all.
The man smiled a perfect smile. “Can I help y-”
“You’re in my spot”, Yoochun growled.
The man’s smile didn’t fall, it even seemed to widen. “Do you like the tigers too? They’re my favourite animals! Here,” he moved to one side of the bench, “there’s enough room for the both of us.”
Yoochun tried to glare harder. “I need the whole bench.”
“Why? You look upset, do you want to talk about it?”
What was wrong with this guy? Like Yoochun was going to pour his heart out to a stranger.
And a stranger who was probably a model too. Hell, this could well be one of Jae’s friends trying to make fun of him.
A little voice in the back of his head told him this man’s smile looked genuine. But he ignored it.
“Move!”
The man blinked at his harsh command but didn’t comply, he didn’t even look shocked.
Yoochun shot forward and grabbed the man’s arm. He’d just meant to pull him up and regain his bench, but he didn’t expect his reaction.
The man’s expression changed completely as he shot up, yanked his arm away and took a step back, striking a defensive pose. He looked very scared, terrified.
Yoochun immediately felt bad.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just.. yes, I am upset and no, I don’t want to talk about it and I’m rather.. attached to this spot. But I’m sorry for being so rude, I’m not usually like this.”
The man relaxed again, but his eyes stayed wary. Wasn’t he overreacting a bit?
“You can sit down again, you’re right, there’s enough space, I’ll get used to it.”
The man hesitated. Yoochun managed something that resembled a little smile. In a blink the man was back to his cheerful annoying self.
He offered his hand while he sat back down and Yoochun hesitantly took it. “I’m Changmin, nice to meet you, handsome stranger.”
Yoochun’s mouth fell open, Changmin just kept on talking. “Is that a sketchbook? Are you a painter? What do you paint? Do you-”
“Sculptor.” Yoochun had regained his posture.
“..what?”
“I’m a sculptor.” Yoochun said curtly, he turned towards the cage. Maybe Changmin would give up. He didn’t see the tigers.
It was impossible to discourage Changmin. “Really? Cool! What do you make?”
Yoochun sighed. Couldn’t this guy read the atmosphere at all? But maybe he could answer a few questions. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do he admitted to himself. He turned back to Changmin.
“I make marble statues of humans and animals, much like the ones the ancient Greek and Romans made. I often portray Roman and Greek myths using Korean models.”
Pain shot through his chest again. Yes Jaejoong had modelled for him once. He had hated it, complaining about how there was a reason photography had been invented and that he didn’t have all day.
After an hour of sketching he had told Yoochun to just use some photographs of him as example and had gone out with his friends.
Yoochun had been very disappointed. He’d wanted to make a beautiful statue of Jae, one that showed another side of him, not the one Jae always showed in pictures.
“.... are you Micky? Oh my God you’re Micky, aren’t you?”
“Do you know me?” Yoochun was surprised, usually the people that were interested in his work were older or at least very nerdy looking.
“Yes, there’s one of your statues in the park close to where I live. It’s that Greek God, the messenger guy, what’s he called again?”
“Hermes.”
“That’s it, it’s so beautiful, I walk past it every day and your name is on it so I’ve looked you up and found out you’re pretty famous. I can’t believe I get to meet you in person!”
Changmin smiled his perfect smile again, but then seemed to remember something.
“But... can I call you Micky?”
“Call me Yoochun, that’s my real name.” Jae always called him Micky. ‘Maybe he did that because he just wanted to date Micky, the rich and famous sculptor and not Yoochun, the lovesick puppy.’ Yoochun thought bitterly.
Micky didn’t sound like the name of an artist who made classical art, but Yoochun had based it on the name of the Greek sculptor Myron, who'd made the famous discus-thrower, and changed it to something modern and popular sounding. Jae had liked it...
“But Yoochun-ssi”
“Just Yoochun.”
Changmin smiled.
“But Yoochun.”
“Yes?”
“You said you were upset about something. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? I’m a very good listener.”
Changmin looked at him with soft beautiful eyes, somehow Yoochun got the feeling he could trust him completely.
Maybe it was a good idea to talk about this, in the past few days he’d almost started complaining about his life to the tigers, that couldn’t be a sign of sanity.
And he hád been whining about needing a friend. It would be kind of stupid to push away the first person in a long time who was nice to him - outside of his work, where everyone sucked up to him, that didn’t count.
Yoochun cleared his throat and stared at the cage again.
“Do you know Kim Jaejoong, the model?”
===============================================
Yoochun ended up pouring his heart out to a guy he’d just met after all.
Changmin listened, nodded, made sympathetic sounds and let out an angry hiss when Yoochun got to the part were he found out Jae had been organising orgies behind his back.
When Yoochun continued with his story he interrupted him for the first time.
“Wait, you found out, and you didn’t leave him?”
“I.. no, he said it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Yoochun, he should never have done that in the first place. When someone slips one time on a very very drunken night, then maybe, maybe you can forgive them. What you describe is unforgivable, and he claimed he loved you?”
“Well, he didn’t say it very often, but-”
“Yoochun! You deserve so much better.”
Yoochun started to get annoyed again. Who did this guy think he was? Judging his love life, telling him Jae wasn’t good enough for him.
Jae was gorgeous, and a real sex God. No wonder Yoochun hadn’t been enough for him, he could totally understand that.
‘Jae is an asshole,’ the voice in his head said, ‘you know that, you said it yourself.’
But this was a day for ignoring voices in his head, he looked at Changmin furiously.
“What do you know? Who are you to tell me what I deserve or not? I’m the one who didn’t deserve Jae, I understand that now, there, my problems are solved. Don’t you have work, classes, whatever? Go, and leave me and my bench alone.”
He stared defiantly into shocked eyes.
Silence, and then:
“Don’t...” It was almost a whisper. Changmin looked pained, his eyes incredibly sad.
Yoochun’s anger miraculously disappeared and and he got an uncomfortable feeling in his chest that for once didn’t have anything to do with Jae.
“Don’t say you don’t deserve him, and everybody deserves real love.” He said it a bit like he was trying to convince himself as well.
“You should take all the chances you can get to search for it, don’t stick with someone who doesn’t love you, leave them... if you can.”
Yoochun was stunned, there had been so much emotion in Changmin’s voice.
Changmin was silent too, but after a while his smile was back and he acted like nothing had happened.
“But you’re right, it’s your life. Let’s talk about something else. What are you working on right now?”
Yoochun scowled, “nothing, no inspiration.”
“Oh... hey, I can help you get it back! Do you just make statues of classical characters?”
“No, sometimes I portray modern things. When I feel like it, or when someone requests it. A very rich old lady once asked me to make a life size statue of her granddaughter on a pony.”
Changmin laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “And you did that?”
“Yes, it seems silly, but I gave myself the same artistic challenge I do with all my statues, I tried to make the marble come to life. And I felt really good about the results with that particular statue.”
“I bet you had reason to, you’re amazing. What did the lady say?”
“She did pay for it but she placed it in some dark corner of her garden because everyone in her household was afraid of it.”
“Why were they afraid?”
“They said that if you looked at it for a while it looked like the pony was moving, it freaked them out.”
Changmin laughed again. Yoochun wondered why talking to Changmin was so easy.
They ended up sitting on the bench and talking for the rest of the day. Changmin shared the lunch he’d brought from home with him, but then stared at Yoochun’s half with such hungry eyes that Yoochun forced him to take most of it back. He wasn’t used to eating lunch anyway.
Changmin did most of the talking, he chattered about the music he liked, a good movie he’d seen, the cat of his neighbour and more trivial things.
Occasionally he asked Yoochun if he had an idea for a statue yet, to which Yoochun shook his head.
Changmin was still kind of annoying, but Yoochun couldn’t bring himself to leave. There was something about Changmin that made him want to stay.
It couldn’t be his looks, no one was as beautiful as Jae. Right?
Maybe it was the honest look in his eyes or the way he kept trying to help get his inspiration back even though Yoochun was hardly responding and didn’t look happy.
Not that that really meant anything, he’d just forgotten how to be happy. Maybe Changmin felt that.
Suddenly Changmin stood up. Yoochun’s head shot up and he realised he’d been spacing out.
“It’s five minutes before closing time, are you coming or do you want to be kicked out by an angry guard?” Changmin asked, amused.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” When he stood next to Changmin he noticed the boy was taller than him, he really did look like a model.
Yoochun realised he didn’t actually know anything about him yet, what he did, why he had time to sit in the zoo all day, talking to a stranger.
When they arrived at the exit Changmin turned to face him and smiled, he smiled a lot. “You were wrong you know.”
Yoochun blinked. “About what?”
“About that spot, it isn’t yours, you can’t possess things in a public area. And even if you could that spot would be mine. I’ve been there almost every day for the past two months and I’ve never seen you before.”
So Changmin sat on a bench and watched tigers, that’s what he did. What a stupid way to spend your time. Who did that? ‘Oh wait,’ Yoochun thought, ‘...right.’
But he hadn't seen Changmin before either. “Why weren’t you here the past few days?”
“I had a bad cold.” Changmin said. Yoochun noticed a slight change in his usually honest eyes, but he didn’t think much of it.
“But that doesn’t mean you can claim my spot, that’s not fair.” Changmin pouted.
Suddenly his face went serious. “I’m willing to share it with you though, under the condition that you bring your own lunch and if something I say inspires you, you let me see the statue when it’s finished.”
He turned around and started walking away. After a few steps he looked over his shoulder and said: “See you tomorrow, handsome sculptor.”
===============================================
He was not going, he was NOT.
Sitting on a bench all day was a big waste of time. He could use it to.... clean his studio!
Yoochun looked around and groaned. His studio was a huge mess, as always, but that wasn’t the worst part.
Jae was everywhere, the colour of the walls - Jae’s favourite - and an old chair in a corner that Jae used to put his bag on so he wouldn’t have to put it on the dusty floor.
The studio was always dusty, sometimes the colour of the dust changed when Yoochun used a different kind of marble, but he could never get rid of it completely. Jae had hated that.
There was a mirror, because Jae always had to be able to check his hair and there was a little heart shaped frame on an old desk with Jae’s picture in it.
He took it, ‘why haven’t I got rid of this yet?’ and made to throw it in the trash. He couldn’t do it. ‘Oh, that’s why.’
It was almost impossible to stop staring at Jae’s perfect smile. He shoved the frame in a drawer and grabbed his coat. He had to get out again.
But that didn’t mean he’d have to go to the zoo. Changmin was annoying, talked too much, and was way to cheerful.
He’d called him ‘handsome’ twice, if Yoochun had heard it right. What did he want from him? Yoochun wasn’t handsome, Jae was, and Changmin, annoying but handsome.
His mother was probably the only person who had ever called him handsome before. Jae always said: ‘decent enough to be with me.’
Yoochun had found that a compliment at the time. Now that he thought about it it was kind of condescending. Okay, it was very condescending.
He looked up from his thoughts, his feet had somehow taken him to the entrance of the zoo on their own. He stopped.
What if Changmin was waiting for him? When he’d realise Yoochun wasn’t going to come would he have that sad look in his eyes like he did for a moment yesterday?
Somehow he didn’t want Changmin to look that sad ever again.
It was ridiculous of course, why would anyone want to wait for him? Changmin had probably just been joking yesterday.
But what if...
Yoochun had to know now. He showed his ticket and entered the zoo. He’d just look if Changmin was there or not and then he’d leave again.
When he neared the tiger’s cage he slowed down, for some reason he didn’t want to be noticed... by someone who probably wasn’t even there. He felt stupid, sneaking behind a bamboo bush and carefully looking around it.
His heart stopped.
Changmin was there, he was sitting on the bench, looking even more handsome than yesterday, staring at something. He was crying.
Okay, that look from yesterday was nothing, this was the saddest thing he'd ever seen.
It wasn’t the uncontrollable sobbing kind of crying, it was worse. He didn’t make a sound but tears slid down his cheeks and his eyes looked sad, so sad.
Yoochun fought the urge to run over there and hug him, he remembered Changmin’s reaction when he’d grabbed his arm yesterday. Jumping out of a bush and hugging him was probably going to give the boy a heart attack.
Changmin wiped the tears off his cheeks and Yoochun followed his gaze to find out what he was staring at.
There was a tiger, lying on the leaves on the bottom of the cage, close enough to be visible to them.
It looked relaxed, the tigers here seldom looked stressed, Yoochun had never seen or heard one of them pace up and down or growl. They weren’t aggressive either, if visitors pissed them off they just hid in their little forest.
The tiger looked perfectly happy, beams of sunlight caressed its fur. Surely that couldn’t have caused Changmin such great sadness.
The thought that him not showing up had caused this he rejected immediately. They’d just met yesterday!
So what was he going to do now? His feet decided for him once again by walking around the bush and towards the bench. Changmin didn’t notice him, he could still walk away.
“Hey”, he said. Okay, not anymore.
Changmin’s head shot up and so did the edges of his mouth as his eyes focused on Yoochun.
“I knew you’d come.”
Part 2: Tigers
Pairings: YooMin, past JaeChun, XiMin.
Rating: NC-17 for later chapters
Summary: A famous sculptor who’s lost his inspiration after being dumped meets a cheerful man who sits in a zoo and watches the tigers all day. He slowly learns how to be happy again and even falls in love. But the seemingly carefree man has a dark secret.
Warnings: emo!Yoochun in this chapter, but hey, he’s been dumped by Jae, how would you feel? Angst and violence later. Will get graphic.
Disclaimer: The tigers belong to a Dutch zoo, DBSK belong to SM’s zoo. If I ever get my hands on them they’ll be in cages in a private zoo in my backyard (DBSK, not the tigers) or I’d set them free, they’d look great in the wild too.
Part 1: Dumped
Yoochun wandered through the zoo. He didn’t look at the animals. He didn’t look at anything, and certainly not where he was going, staring in the distance with empty unseeing eyes.
After almost knocking over a little girl, who dropped her ice cream in shock and started crying, he bowed in apology, gave the girl’s mother some money (too much) and continued, his gaze now on the ground in front of him.
Why was he here again?
Oh right, he just had to get out of his studio this morning and then he’d found his season-ticket to the zoo in his coat.
What a stupid idea. He’d bought that ticket so he could take Jae on dates here. At this moment he really didn’t want to be at places where Jae had been, with him, together.
Actually Jae had only showed up on one of those dates. And he’d had a photo shoot later that day so they’d only been here for about half an hour.
So it wasn’t like this place was overflowing with memories, but he still felt a sharp ache in his chest thinking about it.
His leg hurt too, Yoochun grabbed his shin and while jumping up and down on his other leg, glared at the sign he’d run into.
‘The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica)’, it read. Yoochun always read the Latin names too, he liked Latin.
He let go of his leg and looked at the huge cage in front of him. There was a little forest in it, a forest in a cage.
‘zoos are stupid’, Yoochun thought, ‘people went out of their way to create a realistic forest and build a massive cage around it so they could put animals inside for us to look at and then we can’t see them because of the leaves.’
But then he saw a tiger. It had come from behind a bush and was now walking slowly, majestically along the side of the cage that was closest to where Yoochun was standing.
It was beautiful. The colours of its fur ran over in each other but created a strong contrast at the same time. Its muscles were clearly visible with every fluent movement. It looked so strong and so supple.
The artist in Yoochun made him forget everything for a moment and he just admired the beautiful animal in front of him.
But then his memories came crushing down on him again. Jaejoong had called him ‘my tiger’ once, after a particularly good round of sex.
Oh, fuck Jaejoong. Jaejoong was an asshole. The memory of him shouldn’t stop Yoochun from doing anything, including watching tigers.
He needed to fucking get over the guy already.
‘That’s it’, Yoochun told himself, ‘consider it therapy.’
He sat down on a bench near the cage and watched. It was a nice spot, the sun hit it just right and a gentle breeze created whispers in the bamboo leaves behind him.
Maybe he should visit this place every day, maybe he’d get his inspiration back.
At least he’d be away from his studio. The only things to remind him of Jaejoong here were the tigers and one insignificant date, he could handle that.
And maybe at some point, he’d feel comfortable in his combined studio and apartment again and would actually sleep at night.
‘Maybe the tigers will become my friends.’ Okay, that was a silly thought, but man he needed a friend right now.
Why had this cruel world decided to give him his talent and make him rich and popular?
So popular he had dated a top model.
It had been a very demanding relationship, it had drained him.
And here he was. He’d lost contact with all his former friends (because of Jae) and was now sitting on a bench in some small zoo, ditched, discarded when Jae’s interest had changed as fast as his facial expressions when posing.
Even his bottomless inspiration that had got him this far in the first place had left him.
Fuck.
===============================================
Three days later Yoochun was walking to the cage again.
In the past two days he’d discovered that two full-grown Siberian tigers lived there. A male and a female called Yardan and Radka, which was probably Russian or something.
He had no idea how sitting on a bench and watching a forest and the occasional tiger was going to give him inspiration. But he kept coming anyway because it was relaxing, unlike his past relationship with Jae. And he took his sketchbook just in case.
He neared the cage. His face dropped. There was someone there.
Of course visitors of the zoo passed by here all the time, but this man was sitting on the bench, his bench.
No one had done that before.
He always arrived early, one of the first people to enter the zoo. And then he would sit there all day, probably scaring people away with his facial expression.
He didn’t eat during the day, eating wasn’t important, Jae had been. Yes, he hated to admit it but he had loved Jae, maybe he still loved him, what else could cause him this much pain?
But apparently this man had arrived even earlier, somehow that pissed him off.
It was a young man, almost a boy still, he was watching the tigers.. or the forest if they were hiding, Yoochun didn’t check. He walked to the bench and glared down at him.
The man looked up, he was good looking, he could have been a model. Great, more things to remind him of Jae, this didn’t help Yoochun’s mood at all.
The man smiled a perfect smile. “Can I help y-”
“You’re in my spot”, Yoochun growled.
The man’s smile didn’t fall, it even seemed to widen. “Do you like the tigers too? They’re my favourite animals! Here,” he moved to one side of the bench, “there’s enough room for the both of us.”
Yoochun tried to glare harder. “I need the whole bench.”
“Why? You look upset, do you want to talk about it?”
What was wrong with this guy? Like Yoochun was going to pour his heart out to a stranger.
And a stranger who was probably a model too. Hell, this could well be one of Jae’s friends trying to make fun of him.
A little voice in the back of his head told him this man’s smile looked genuine. But he ignored it.
“Move!”
The man blinked at his harsh command but didn’t comply, he didn’t even look shocked.
Yoochun shot forward and grabbed the man’s arm. He’d just meant to pull him up and regain his bench, but he didn’t expect his reaction.
The man’s expression changed completely as he shot up, yanked his arm away and took a step back, striking a defensive pose. He looked very scared, terrified.
Yoochun immediately felt bad.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just.. yes, I am upset and no, I don’t want to talk about it and I’m rather.. attached to this spot. But I’m sorry for being so rude, I’m not usually like this.”
The man relaxed again, but his eyes stayed wary. Wasn’t he overreacting a bit?
“You can sit down again, you’re right, there’s enough space, I’ll get used to it.”
The man hesitated. Yoochun managed something that resembled a little smile. In a blink the man was back to his cheerful annoying self.
He offered his hand while he sat back down and Yoochun hesitantly took it. “I’m Changmin, nice to meet you, handsome stranger.”
Yoochun’s mouth fell open, Changmin just kept on talking. “Is that a sketchbook? Are you a painter? What do you paint? Do you-”
“Sculptor.” Yoochun had regained his posture.
“..what?”
“I’m a sculptor.” Yoochun said curtly, he turned towards the cage. Maybe Changmin would give up. He didn’t see the tigers.
It was impossible to discourage Changmin. “Really? Cool! What do you make?”
Yoochun sighed. Couldn’t this guy read the atmosphere at all? But maybe he could answer a few questions. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do he admitted to himself. He turned back to Changmin.
“I make marble statues of humans and animals, much like the ones the ancient Greek and Romans made. I often portray Roman and Greek myths using Korean models.”
Pain shot through his chest again. Yes Jaejoong had modelled for him once. He had hated it, complaining about how there was a reason photography had been invented and that he didn’t have all day.
After an hour of sketching he had told Yoochun to just use some photographs of him as example and had gone out with his friends.
Yoochun had been very disappointed. He’d wanted to make a beautiful statue of Jae, one that showed another side of him, not the one Jae always showed in pictures.
“.... are you Micky? Oh my God you’re Micky, aren’t you?”
“Do you know me?” Yoochun was surprised, usually the people that were interested in his work were older or at least very nerdy looking.
“Yes, there’s one of your statues in the park close to where I live. It’s that Greek God, the messenger guy, what’s he called again?”
“Hermes.”
“That’s it, it’s so beautiful, I walk past it every day and your name is on it so I’ve looked you up and found out you’re pretty famous. I can’t believe I get to meet you in person!”
Changmin smiled his perfect smile again, but then seemed to remember something.
“But... can I call you Micky?”
“Call me Yoochun, that’s my real name.” Jae always called him Micky. ‘Maybe he did that because he just wanted to date Micky, the rich and famous sculptor and not Yoochun, the lovesick puppy.’ Yoochun thought bitterly.
Micky didn’t sound like the name of an artist who made classical art, but Yoochun had based it on the name of the Greek sculptor Myron, who'd made the famous discus-thrower, and changed it to something modern and popular sounding. Jae had liked it...
“But Yoochun-ssi”
“Just Yoochun.”
Changmin smiled.
“But Yoochun.”
“Yes?”
“You said you were upset about something. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? I’m a very good listener.”
Changmin looked at him with soft beautiful eyes, somehow Yoochun got the feeling he could trust him completely.
Maybe it was a good idea to talk about this, in the past few days he’d almost started complaining about his life to the tigers, that couldn’t be a sign of sanity.
And he hád been whining about needing a friend. It would be kind of stupid to push away the first person in a long time who was nice to him - outside of his work, where everyone sucked up to him, that didn’t count.
Yoochun cleared his throat and stared at the cage again.
“Do you know Kim Jaejoong, the model?”
===============================================
Yoochun ended up pouring his heart out to a guy he’d just met after all.
Changmin listened, nodded, made sympathetic sounds and let out an angry hiss when Yoochun got to the part were he found out Jae had been organising orgies behind his back.
When Yoochun continued with his story he interrupted him for the first time.
“Wait, you found out, and you didn’t leave him?”
“I.. no, he said it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Yoochun, he should never have done that in the first place. When someone slips one time on a very very drunken night, then maybe, maybe you can forgive them. What you describe is unforgivable, and he claimed he loved you?”
“Well, he didn’t say it very often, but-”
“Yoochun! You deserve so much better.”
Yoochun started to get annoyed again. Who did this guy think he was? Judging his love life, telling him Jae wasn’t good enough for him.
Jae was gorgeous, and a real sex God. No wonder Yoochun hadn’t been enough for him, he could totally understand that.
‘Jae is an asshole,’ the voice in his head said, ‘you know that, you said it yourself.’
But this was a day for ignoring voices in his head, he looked at Changmin furiously.
“What do you know? Who are you to tell me what I deserve or not? I’m the one who didn’t deserve Jae, I understand that now, there, my problems are solved. Don’t you have work, classes, whatever? Go, and leave me and my bench alone.”
He stared defiantly into shocked eyes.
Silence, and then:
“Don’t...” It was almost a whisper. Changmin looked pained, his eyes incredibly sad.
Yoochun’s anger miraculously disappeared and and he got an uncomfortable feeling in his chest that for once didn’t have anything to do with Jae.
“Don’t say you don’t deserve him, and everybody deserves real love.” He said it a bit like he was trying to convince himself as well.
“You should take all the chances you can get to search for it, don’t stick with someone who doesn’t love you, leave them... if you can.”
Yoochun was stunned, there had been so much emotion in Changmin’s voice.
Changmin was silent too, but after a while his smile was back and he acted like nothing had happened.
“But you’re right, it’s your life. Let’s talk about something else. What are you working on right now?”
Yoochun scowled, “nothing, no inspiration.”
“Oh... hey, I can help you get it back! Do you just make statues of classical characters?”
“No, sometimes I portray modern things. When I feel like it, or when someone requests it. A very rich old lady once asked me to make a life size statue of her granddaughter on a pony.”
Changmin laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “And you did that?”
“Yes, it seems silly, but I gave myself the same artistic challenge I do with all my statues, I tried to make the marble come to life. And I felt really good about the results with that particular statue.”
“I bet you had reason to, you’re amazing. What did the lady say?”
“She did pay for it but she placed it in some dark corner of her garden because everyone in her household was afraid of it.”
“Why were they afraid?”
“They said that if you looked at it for a while it looked like the pony was moving, it freaked them out.”
Changmin laughed again. Yoochun wondered why talking to Changmin was so easy.
They ended up sitting on the bench and talking for the rest of the day. Changmin shared the lunch he’d brought from home with him, but then stared at Yoochun’s half with such hungry eyes that Yoochun forced him to take most of it back. He wasn’t used to eating lunch anyway.
Changmin did most of the talking, he chattered about the music he liked, a good movie he’d seen, the cat of his neighbour and more trivial things.
Occasionally he asked Yoochun if he had an idea for a statue yet, to which Yoochun shook his head.
Changmin was still kind of annoying, but Yoochun couldn’t bring himself to leave. There was something about Changmin that made him want to stay.
It couldn’t be his looks, no one was as beautiful as Jae. Right?
Maybe it was the honest look in his eyes or the way he kept trying to help get his inspiration back even though Yoochun was hardly responding and didn’t look happy.
Not that that really meant anything, he’d just forgotten how to be happy. Maybe Changmin felt that.
Suddenly Changmin stood up. Yoochun’s head shot up and he realised he’d been spacing out.
“It’s five minutes before closing time, are you coming or do you want to be kicked out by an angry guard?” Changmin asked, amused.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” When he stood next to Changmin he noticed the boy was taller than him, he really did look like a model.
Yoochun realised he didn’t actually know anything about him yet, what he did, why he had time to sit in the zoo all day, talking to a stranger.
When they arrived at the exit Changmin turned to face him and smiled, he smiled a lot. “You were wrong you know.”
Yoochun blinked. “About what?”
“About that spot, it isn’t yours, you can’t possess things in a public area. And even if you could that spot would be mine. I’ve been there almost every day for the past two months and I’ve never seen you before.”
So Changmin sat on a bench and watched tigers, that’s what he did. What a stupid way to spend your time. Who did that? ‘Oh wait,’ Yoochun thought, ‘...right.’
But he hadn't seen Changmin before either. “Why weren’t you here the past few days?”
“I had a bad cold.” Changmin said. Yoochun noticed a slight change in his usually honest eyes, but he didn’t think much of it.
“But that doesn’t mean you can claim my spot, that’s not fair.” Changmin pouted.
Suddenly his face went serious. “I’m willing to share it with you though, under the condition that you bring your own lunch and if something I say inspires you, you let me see the statue when it’s finished.”
He turned around and started walking away. After a few steps he looked over his shoulder and said: “See you tomorrow, handsome sculptor.”
===============================================
He was not going, he was NOT.
Sitting on a bench all day was a big waste of time. He could use it to.... clean his studio!
Yoochun looked around and groaned. His studio was a huge mess, as always, but that wasn’t the worst part.
Jae was everywhere, the colour of the walls - Jae’s favourite - and an old chair in a corner that Jae used to put his bag on so he wouldn’t have to put it on the dusty floor.
The studio was always dusty, sometimes the colour of the dust changed when Yoochun used a different kind of marble, but he could never get rid of it completely. Jae had hated that.
There was a mirror, because Jae always had to be able to check his hair and there was a little heart shaped frame on an old desk with Jae’s picture in it.
He took it, ‘why haven’t I got rid of this yet?’ and made to throw it in the trash. He couldn’t do it. ‘Oh, that’s why.’
It was almost impossible to stop staring at Jae’s perfect smile. He shoved the frame in a drawer and grabbed his coat. He had to get out again.
But that didn’t mean he’d have to go to the zoo. Changmin was annoying, talked too much, and was way to cheerful.
He’d called him ‘handsome’ twice, if Yoochun had heard it right. What did he want from him? Yoochun wasn’t handsome, Jae was, and Changmin, annoying but handsome.
His mother was probably the only person who had ever called him handsome before. Jae always said: ‘decent enough to be with me.’
Yoochun had found that a compliment at the time. Now that he thought about it it was kind of condescending. Okay, it was very condescending.
He looked up from his thoughts, his feet had somehow taken him to the entrance of the zoo on their own. He stopped.
What if Changmin was waiting for him? When he’d realise Yoochun wasn’t going to come would he have that sad look in his eyes like he did for a moment yesterday?
Somehow he didn’t want Changmin to look that sad ever again.
It was ridiculous of course, why would anyone want to wait for him? Changmin had probably just been joking yesterday.
But what if...
Yoochun had to know now. He showed his ticket and entered the zoo. He’d just look if Changmin was there or not and then he’d leave again.
When he neared the tiger’s cage he slowed down, for some reason he didn’t want to be noticed... by someone who probably wasn’t even there. He felt stupid, sneaking behind a bamboo bush and carefully looking around it.
His heart stopped.
Changmin was there, he was sitting on the bench, looking even more handsome than yesterday, staring at something. He was crying.
Okay, that look from yesterday was nothing, this was the saddest thing he'd ever seen.
It wasn’t the uncontrollable sobbing kind of crying, it was worse. He didn’t make a sound but tears slid down his cheeks and his eyes looked sad, so sad.
Yoochun fought the urge to run over there and hug him, he remembered Changmin’s reaction when he’d grabbed his arm yesterday. Jumping out of a bush and hugging him was probably going to give the boy a heart attack.
Changmin wiped the tears off his cheeks and Yoochun followed his gaze to find out what he was staring at.
There was a tiger, lying on the leaves on the bottom of the cage, close enough to be visible to them.
It looked relaxed, the tigers here seldom looked stressed, Yoochun had never seen or heard one of them pace up and down or growl. They weren’t aggressive either, if visitors pissed them off they just hid in their little forest.
The tiger looked perfectly happy, beams of sunlight caressed its fur. Surely that couldn’t have caused Changmin such great sadness.
The thought that him not showing up had caused this he rejected immediately. They’d just met yesterday!
So what was he going to do now? His feet decided for him once again by walking around the bush and towards the bench. Changmin didn’t notice him, he could still walk away.
“Hey”, he said. Okay, not anymore.
Changmin’s head shot up and so did the edges of his mouth as his eyes focused on Yoochun.
“I knew you’d come.”
Part 2: Tigers