Spring (Part 1) - YunJae - PG 13
Title: Spring
Length: Two shot. (11,348 words)
Author: Guu
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fluff, Romance
Summary: Yunho, the dancer, works at a music shop. Jaejoong, the (very very hot) violinist comes down to buy a few things one day. Add some Changmin and chaos ensues.
To Sara, whom I promised unconditional love to write violinist!Jae for. I really hope you liked this piece as much as I didn't enjoy writing it :) which is a lot (todo falso, ambas sabemos que soy masoquista y lo disfruté ♥). And THANK YOU for the wonderful pieces that accompany it. They are beautiful and perfect like the people they represent XD ♥
(fuck, this was supposed to be a 1000 words one shot. how the hell did this end up having 11k words????)
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about music, I never knew how to play anything more complicated than the triangle and I sure as hell have no idea how a violin works or anything related to it. Any mistakes, I'll blame them on google.
As usual, thank you Simona for beta-ing and bearing with me!! ♥ ♥ Finished this at 1 am one very cold morning in Amsterdam, while packing and getting ready to fly back to Barcelona for the last time.
Part 1
Somehow, it was all Haneul's fault, Yunho mused as he drove his coworker's battered pink Vespa through the parking lot of the College of Music of Seoul National University. Sure, she was a girl. Sure, she couldn't carry the package attached to the back of the bike by herself, and sure, being gay didn't make Yunho any less of a gentleman, but calling him on his rare day off to play delivery boy in her place was a little bit too much. Sighing, he stopped by the side entrance of the building and untied the heavy box from the bike. This was the last place in his list.
He strolled into the building with slow steps, taking a good look around. The building was a huge and modern thing, white-tiled and angled and a little bit too cold-looking for his liking. In his mind, a Space Institute would have fit better in this place. Inside, however, the myriad of students and their instruments and partitures and the sound of music filled the air with warmth. He smiled to himself. This was it.
It didn't take him very long to guess his way around and soon he found himself standing in the dean's office. The man received him with a warm smile and some tea; he was an old acquaintance of Yunho's boss and a regular customer of their small music shop as well.
"How is business?" he asked as he welcomed the young man into his office. Yunho bowed politely and took a seat.
"Hanging..." he said with a little shrug, "ever since they opened that music shop in the mall near here we've been getting less and less customers."
"Ah, yes. I've been told so by Hansung-sshi. It's a pity because their supplies don't have half the quality that yours do."
"Yeah, but theirs are much cheaper, and with the current crisis and all, all students care about is their wallets."
The old man laughed and poured Yunho some tea.
"You speak like an old man, Yunho-sshi." Yunho simply shrugged and sipped his beverage, and the Dean gave him a knowing smile as he peeked into the box the young man had brought: piles of flyers advertising their little music shop and a sale of sorts for string supplies. "I'll have the boys in the Student Department pin these around the university," he said, "let's hope that will help Hansung-sshi's business. I have a meeting to attend to now, Yunho-sshi. Feel free to walk around the building if you want; we have some of the best music students in the country, and rehearsals are taking place as we speak. Have a good afternoon."
Yunho had always been a music lover, but he had never had any ability with instruments: he had been born a dancer rather than a player. Music to him was just another common and everyday aspect of his life, as eating, walking or breathing, but even when he had been gifted with the hands of a pianist, as his mother would say, he had been much more drawn to the world of dance. The execution of beautiful pieces was beyond him; he would much rather get immersed in them, feel them sweep through his body and enrapt him with movement. Still, he admired people who could produce those beautiful sounds, so he allowed himself to amble through the rehearsal rooms, take a discreet look at the students and listen to their music for a while. He followed the hallways into the different rooms until a violin player caught his attention; a languid man with unruly hair whose violin sang like an extension of his soul. Yunho blinked as Bach's Chaconne filled the room and the few spectactors looked in awe at the player. He was about to close his eyes and give in to the music when something else happened: the most beautiful man on earth entered the room and stood barely a few steps in front of Yunho.
Wow, thought the young man, unable to tear his eyes away from the newcomer or the way in which his big black eyes assessed the violinist, or the soft curve of his plump lips or how his hoodie fell gently off his arm, revealing white skin and the beginning of large, muscular shoulders. He was simply gorgeous, with a face that would put even the most beautiful models to shame and a body that had been worked out to perfection. It occured to him after a while, when the song was already coming to an end, that he had been staring at the man a little too intensely for the past ten minutes or so, and that he might have been looking like a little bit of a creeper, and also that if he kept on staring like that he would have a much harder problem to take care of on another part of his body.
He forced himself to tear his eyes away from the man's body (just as he was reaching the jean-clad curve of his ass) and came to barely in time to hear the last notes pouring from the player's violin. The crowd erupted in applause and he followed, not really caring much about the performance anymore. When he drifted back to where the man had been, he was already gone.
---
He arrived at the music store a few minutes after six thirty that afternoon. Haneul was waiting for him with his best friend, Junsu, who had come to pick him up to go to a football match that night. He patted the smiling boy's back and flicked the girl's forehead as a greeting.
"You owe me so much," he said, jumping over the counter to get his bags. Haneul frowned at him and rubbed her forehead.
"I'll repay, okay?" she protested, "aish, you won't let even one tiny little favor go past."
"Not when it's the third little favor this week. Work some, yes? Lazy ass."
"Bite me."
Junsu burst into laughter at their exchange and extended his arms to grab the bags Yunho was passing him from over the counter.
"You guys sound like an old married couple."
Haneul made barfing signs with her mouth and fingers and Yunho frowned at her, jumping one more time over the counter.
"If she looked anything like a girl, maybe we would," he muttered.
"Too bad you don't even like girls," she retorted, and before Yunho had the time to answer back she added: "Guys, I want to close and go home, so hurry and leave already."
On their way out Junsu waved at her and whispered, "She's worse than Changmin."
Yunho snorted. "Tell me about it."
Changmin was one of Junsu's childhood friends. He was younger than the man by a few years but smarter and snarkier than anybody they had ever met. It was a wonder how Junsu and him had stayed friends through the years: every year Junsu was that much closer to strangling him than the year before, for Junsu seemed to be the only source of Changmin's amusement. He was also a piano student, which suddenly put an idea into Yunho's mind.
"Doesn't Changmin study music or something like that?"
"He does."
"In like, College?"
Junsu turned to his friend and raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, in Seoul National University, why?"
The way in which Yunho's eyes shone at his answer made Junsu's skin crawl. Yunho stopped dead on his tracks and raised a closed fist, stance full of determination.
"Junsu," he said, "you are my best friend and my happiness rests in your hands."
---
Three days went by, in which Yunho couldn't keep his mind off the pretty stranger at the College of Music. Every time he closed his eyes the memory assaulted him with photographic accuracy, and he couldn't help but sigh and wonder if he was ever going to meet him again. He had bribed Junsu, Changmin, Haneul and everybody that knew anybody from that University to no avail: he had no clue about who the man was or even if he was a strings student or a music student at all.
His musings were interrupted by the chiming of the door's bell. He opened his eyes and jumped out of his chair, rubbing them twice before realizing that he wasn't dreaming anymore. It was him, the guy from the university, standing pretty at the door of his shop.
"Excuse me," he said, looking around as he walked towards the counter. Yunho watched, feeling his legs giving in a little.
"C-can I help you?"
He immediately noticed that the man was carrying a violin case on one of his shoulders. He was tall and slim, with broad shoulders and a tiny waist and light chocolate colored hair that fell softly over his forehead and his black eyes. He was a sight to behold.
"Yes, actually," said the man, fishing in his very stylish black bag for his wallet, "I kind of need a new E string..."
He stopped right in front of the counter and Yunho stared at him for the best part of two minutes. For a moment, Yunho could have sworn the guy was checking him out, but ultimately he just gave him a weird look and continued. "For my violin."
"Right. Yes." It's unpolite to stare at people like creepers, Yunho reminded himself, even if he's the hottest guy on the fucking planet. He breathed in. This was his customer after all.
"Let me show you what we have," he said. "What exactly are you looking for?"
"I heard there was a new brand of synthetic-core strings that was pretty good. Since mine broke, I thought I might check it out."
Yunho nodded, "Yeah, I know which one... it's actually two different set of strings, and the sound is pretty wicked when you combine them, but they're kind of expensive together, and we don't have sigle string sets right now. Let me show you."
He walked to the very end of the counter and brought a little staircase to the glass panes behind it, climbing to the highest section and bringing down a couple of blue and red boxes.
"They take one or two days to adjust, and they last longer too."
The man nodded and inspected the strings carefully, mouth forming a little pout, and all the while Yunho had to restrain himself from staring too hard.
"Are you a student?" he asked after the guy had checked the boxes in and out twice. The pretty stranger looked up in surprise and shrugged a little.
"Yes, sorry, am I being too anal about this?"
Yunho smiled warmly and dismissed the statement with his hand.
"No, not really. It's just that most students don't usually come here... they think it's a place for old people and stuff."
"Yeah I know, my ex-boyf--," said the man, making a sudden stop as his eyes opened wide and he looked at Yunho in distress, "my, my ex friend works at the music shop on the mall, near here, and they kind of promote that, um, idea."
Yunho wanted to frown at that new piece of information, but his mind was stuck on the fact that this guy was probably single. And gay, if his little slip and the way his cheeks had light up after that were any kind of indicator. Gay was good.
"I actually saw your flyers at a friend's uni," he added in a small, flat voice. "Um, I think I'm gonna try these two."
"Sure." Yunho grinned his million watt smile and took both boxes. The guy appealed to him more and more every minute. He then turned to pack the string boxes and tried to sound casual as he asked: "Do you go to SNU?"
"No... I'm trying to see if I can get there next semester. I go to Yondae, actually, but SNU is much closer to my house, and it would kind of make my life easier to go there. My best friend goes there too."
"I see." Yunho watched as the man nodded to himself, turning around to look at the rest of the store. As old and small as the place was, it was quite a handsome shop with its wooden floors and rare or old instruments hanging from the walls.
"Are you a music student?" he asked casually without really looking at Yunho.
"Nope, I'm actually a dancer."
"Oh?"
"I do contemporary dance at KNUA," said Yunho as he carefully put the boxes into a small paper bag, noticing with a glance that he had the man's full attention on him, "my mum was a pianist but I could never really play any instrument. I've always liked dancing much better."
"Yeah you look like you could dance pretty," mumbled the man, enthralled by the way Yunho's long, elegant fingers worked around the bag. He must have meant to keep that thought in his mind rather than out of his mouth, because he immediately bit his lip and closed his eyes and hit his forehead with his hand. "I, I mean. I didn't mean to. I just. How much is this?"
He took some won notes out of his wallet and slapped them over the counter, avoiding by all means looking at Yunho's eyes. The dancer just watched him go about with an amused grin. He charged him for the strings and the man bowed awkwardly and left, waving a simple goodbye.
Yunho stared at his retreating back all the way, remembering as the guy crossed the door that he hadn't gotten as much as his name.
---
The unknown violinist started walking past the store and into it two or three times a week after that.
The second time he did so, Yunho was in the middle of making some very hot coffee, for the weather was ghastly despite the spring-like days that had been taking place for a while, and the store was humid and unusually cold. Haneul was down with a cold and Yunho had been by himself most of the afternoon.
"Hi," said the student as he stumbled into the store, wet to the core of his bones. He was dressed very lightly despite the storm. He startled Yunho, who dropped his cup and nearly had a heart attack at the sight. The other man walked in with a shrug and a sheepish expression.
"Are you open?" he asked, watching as Yunho picked up his empty mug and held his chest with one hand.
"I-I didn't hear you come in," he gasped, breathing in. "We're open... come in." He gave his heart two seconds to calm down and walked through the small door that connected the store to the storage room. When he came back he had a small towel in his hand.
"Here." He handed the towel to the gorgeous man in front ot him, who was too happy to take it and dry his face with it.
"Thanx. It's pouring outside," the man said, "I'm... sorry for flooding your shop."
"Don't worry about it... coffee?"
"Please."
Yunho poured two mugs and handed one to the newcomer.
"What were you doing out in this weather?"
"I--er--I needed rosin for my bow, so I came out when it was just cloudy, but then in the middle of the way I noticed I had forgotten my keys so I went back home but my roomate was already out for uni, so I went to SNU to get the key, headed here and then suddenly the sky fell over my head... aish. I hope I won't get a cold after this."
He nodded to himself and sipped the coffee with a small frown, while Yunho turned to get the rosin for him.
"Which kind do you want?"
"Um, Geipel Silver?"
The tall shopkeeper came back a minute later with a rosin cake and a spare umbrella, both of which he put over the counter.
"Anything else?" he said with a very charming smile. The student put down his now empty mug and looked up with bright doe eyes.
"Thank you," he wheezed, pulling out a few notes from his pocket. "I'll return it."
Yunho grinned widely, wishing he could jump out of pure excitement; he would get to see the man at least one more time.
"So do you have a name?" he asked when the stranger had bowed and was ready to leave. The man gave Yunho a shy one sided smile full of teeth and nodded stupidly.
"Kim Jaejoong."
"I'm--"
"Jung Yunho, I know."
He bowed again, leaving a speechless Yunho behind.
---
"...so he saw me at uni that day, and one of Junsu's friends is a friend of his roomate and told him who I was and pointed out that I was working here, and... ah ha ha ha he's just so so fucking gorgeous, Haneul-ah!! I could die by just looking at his face...!"
Haneul watched in pure horror as Yunho turned around on his spot with his hands over his face and hearts in his eyes. She had never gotten to see this supposed new customer they had had for the past weeks, who conveniently only appeared when Yunho was working by himself.
"You're making me dizzy," she commented, bobbing her head around as she followed her spinning friend with her eyes. The two of them were sorting out new boxes of merchandise that had just arrived. "It kind of makes me pity you seeing you like this, Yunho-yah. You walked into the door twice this morning and haven't been able to put two products of the same brand together for the last half hour," she pointed at the mixed string boxes all thrown around haphazardly. "Just ask the guy out already, or something. Although, I gotta say, your friend has been buying all kinds of random shit... he's sort of good for business."
Yunho nodded, let out a little high pitched laughter, shook his hands embarrassedly and rolled over the table while making whimpering sounds that made the girl take a few steps away.
"Okay, you are creeping me out. I'll leave you here with the boxes by yourself. Have fun."
She fled the storage room as fast as her feet allowed her and entered the store just in time to see a familiar face walking in. Her cousin, a tall, handsome boy with impossibly long legs and mismatched smiling eyes greeted her.
"Noona," he grinned, "it's been a while."
Haneul smiled back. "Changmin-ah!" They both bowed when the door bell rang again. In came a beautiful man with rich chocolate colored hair and a violin case hanging from his shoulders. He walked in with a vague air of familiarity, although Haneul couldn't remember seeing him around, and she would have remembered a face like that for sure. He walked towards the pair and looked around, somewhat disappointed.
"Hi," he said a little bit coldly.
"Can I help you?" frowned the girl with a flat voice, immediately disliking the man. Her cousin imitated her expression at once.
Sighing, the man nodded.
"I came by a few hours earlier and left a bow to be rehaired. There was an older man doing it...?"
Haneul nodded. "Yeah, my dad. Your bow is over here..." And then it hit her, all of a sudden, that this might actually be Yunho's guy. He fit the description perfectly, and he was the kind of guy that drove Yunho over the brink of insanity.
She handed the man the repaired bow and made all kinds of subtle signs for her cousin to go bring Yunho into the store. Now.
"Do you mind if I try it before I go?" was the last thing Changmin heard the man say before entering the storage room. In it, he found Yunho laughing to himself against a wall.
"Hyung, this is kind of pathetic."
Yunho turned around with blushing cheeks and shrugged before he offered Changmin a greeting.
"Hey," he said, "What's up?"
Changmin didn't have a chance to answer: the store and the storage room were suddenly filled with music. The soft, flowing sound of a violin wrapped around them and put an expression of astonishment on both men's faces. It was a majestic sound: powerful and full of life.
"That is..." Yunho said.
"Paganini."
Changmin looked back into the store. He couldn't see the violinist through the open door, but he could perfectly appreciate the clean sound of his fiddle. It was impossible that a mere student could produce that kind of sound with a regular violin. Without giving it more thought, he grabbed Yunho by the wrist and pulled him out of the storage room.
Yunho was dumbfounded when he stepped into the store. His guy, his unbelievably gorgeous guy was standing a few feet from him, playing the violin like he was born doing it, making even the hard headed Haneul look at him with absolute admiration in her eyes.
Kim Jaejoong, eyes closed and softly biting his lower lip, playing Paganini's Caprice n.24 in the middle of his working place.
It was something out of Yunho's world.
The violinist played for a few more seconds until he slightly opened his eyes and registered Yunho in his field of vision. In a second, the perfectly played notes turned into a shrilling mess and his violin gave a high pitched shriek that ended his otherwise impeccable performance. He shrugged coyly and half smiled, suddenly losing the ice in his eyes.
"Yunho-yah," he said in a tiny voice.
From the other side of the counter, Haneul did a double take. She turned to look at her cousin, who was pushed back by Yunho without as much as an apology.
"Jaejoong-ah," called the tall dancer, walking from behind the counter towards the chocolate haired violinist. They both bowed at each other and laughed like idiots, smiling and staring at the other's eyes, and all the while Haneul and Changmin stared at them from behind the counter.
"I don't even know where to start," gasped the girl. The way the guy played? The fact that he was Yunho's guy and he was hot like hell? The stupid, sappy way in which they were both looking at each other?
Changmin, on the other hand, had another thing on his mind.
"That's not a student's violin," he stated.
"What?"
"Noona. His violin."
He elbowed the girl and pointed at the instrument in Jaejoong's hands. She tried to take a peek at it, but the violinist was already putting in back into his case (somehow managing to do this without taking his eyes off of Yunho).
When he left, the dancer waved at him and then turned to his friends with the most silly love-struck face he could have ever pulled off.
"Yunho-yah. We're losing you," said Haneul, a little weary at the turn of events.
"Isn't he just just, gorgeous? And the way he plays...?" sighed Yunho, smile stretching to the very ends of his face.
"What kind of violin does he play?" asked Changmin with suspicion. "I doubt that is 100% his ability, hyung. I think he just has one hell of a violin. If he played that well on a regular violin he wouldn't be here, trust me."
Yunho frowned at this. "Why not? He bought his violin from some guy that was selling his late grandfather's stuff. It's a replica of sorts, nothing special. Some people are just born with talent, Changmin-ah."
"No offense, hyung, but I've been studying music all of my life and I recognize a professional violin when I hear one."
"I'm with Changmin in this one," nodded the girl. Yunho's frown deepened a bit.
"Come on, guys. Why can't the guy just be good at it?"
"Because you're infatuated with him and you can't see past that, hyung."
"Am not."
"Yo so are," added Haneul, nodding.
"Gee, thanks for the back up, friend."
"Fifty thousand won say that violin is not common," said Changmin, putting his hand out. Yunho looked at it reluctantly for a minute. Haneul rolled her eyes at his hesitance and she slapped Changmin's hand in agreement.
"Make it one hundred," she said, "I'll team up with Yunho. Someone needs to give him better judgement."
Changmin laughed from his heart and his eyes became mismatched once again.
"Deal!"
***
To Part 2.
And the accompanying piece...
Copyright belongs to Shigai! Don't steal! :)
Length: Two shot. (11,348 words)
Author: Guu
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fluff, Romance
Summary: Yunho, the dancer, works at a music shop. Jaejoong, the (very very hot) violinist comes down to buy a few things one day. Add some Changmin and chaos ensues.
To Sara, whom I promised unconditional love to write violinist!Jae for. I really hope you liked this piece as much as I didn't enjoy writing it :) which is a lot (todo falso, ambas sabemos que soy masoquista y lo disfruté ♥). And THANK YOU for the wonderful pieces that accompany it. They are beautiful and perfect like the people they represent XD ♥
(fuck, this was supposed to be a 1000 words one shot. how the hell did this end up having 11k words????)
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about music, I never knew how to play anything more complicated than the triangle and I sure as hell have no idea how a violin works or anything related to it. Any mistakes, I'll blame them on google.
As usual, thank you Simona for beta-ing and bearing with me!! ♥ ♥ Finished this at 1 am one very cold morning in Amsterdam, while packing and getting ready to fly back to Barcelona for the last time.
Part 1
Somehow, it was all Haneul's fault, Yunho mused as he drove his coworker's battered pink Vespa through the parking lot of the College of Music of Seoul National University. Sure, she was a girl. Sure, she couldn't carry the package attached to the back of the bike by herself, and sure, being gay didn't make Yunho any less of a gentleman, but calling him on his rare day off to play delivery boy in her place was a little bit too much. Sighing, he stopped by the side entrance of the building and untied the heavy box from the bike. This was the last place in his list.
He strolled into the building with slow steps, taking a good look around. The building was a huge and modern thing, white-tiled and angled and a little bit too cold-looking for his liking. In his mind, a Space Institute would have fit better in this place. Inside, however, the myriad of students and their instruments and partitures and the sound of music filled the air with warmth. He smiled to himself. This was it.
It didn't take him very long to guess his way around and soon he found himself standing in the dean's office. The man received him with a warm smile and some tea; he was an old acquaintance of Yunho's boss and a regular customer of their small music shop as well.
"How is business?" he asked as he welcomed the young man into his office. Yunho bowed politely and took a seat.
"Hanging..." he said with a little shrug, "ever since they opened that music shop in the mall near here we've been getting less and less customers."
"Ah, yes. I've been told so by Hansung-sshi. It's a pity because their supplies don't have half the quality that yours do."
"Yeah, but theirs are much cheaper, and with the current crisis and all, all students care about is their wallets."
The old man laughed and poured Yunho some tea.
"You speak like an old man, Yunho-sshi." Yunho simply shrugged and sipped his beverage, and the Dean gave him a knowing smile as he peeked into the box the young man had brought: piles of flyers advertising their little music shop and a sale of sorts for string supplies. "I'll have the boys in the Student Department pin these around the university," he said, "let's hope that will help Hansung-sshi's business. I have a meeting to attend to now, Yunho-sshi. Feel free to walk around the building if you want; we have some of the best music students in the country, and rehearsals are taking place as we speak. Have a good afternoon."
Yunho had always been a music lover, but he had never had any ability with instruments: he had been born a dancer rather than a player. Music to him was just another common and everyday aspect of his life, as eating, walking or breathing, but even when he had been gifted with the hands of a pianist, as his mother would say, he had been much more drawn to the world of dance. The execution of beautiful pieces was beyond him; he would much rather get immersed in them, feel them sweep through his body and enrapt him with movement. Still, he admired people who could produce those beautiful sounds, so he allowed himself to amble through the rehearsal rooms, take a discreet look at the students and listen to their music for a while. He followed the hallways into the different rooms until a violin player caught his attention; a languid man with unruly hair whose violin sang like an extension of his soul. Yunho blinked as Bach's Chaconne filled the room and the few spectactors looked in awe at the player. He was about to close his eyes and give in to the music when something else happened: the most beautiful man on earth entered the room and stood barely a few steps in front of Yunho.
Wow, thought the young man, unable to tear his eyes away from the newcomer or the way in which his big black eyes assessed the violinist, or the soft curve of his plump lips or how his hoodie fell gently off his arm, revealing white skin and the beginning of large, muscular shoulders. He was simply gorgeous, with a face that would put even the most beautiful models to shame and a body that had been worked out to perfection. It occured to him after a while, when the song was already coming to an end, that he had been staring at the man a little too intensely for the past ten minutes or so, and that he might have been looking like a little bit of a creeper, and also that if he kept on staring like that he would have a much harder problem to take care of on another part of his body.
He forced himself to tear his eyes away from the man's body (just as he was reaching the jean-clad curve of his ass) and came to barely in time to hear the last notes pouring from the player's violin. The crowd erupted in applause and he followed, not really caring much about the performance anymore. When he drifted back to where the man had been, he was already gone.
---
He arrived at the music store a few minutes after six thirty that afternoon. Haneul was waiting for him with his best friend, Junsu, who had come to pick him up to go to a football match that night. He patted the smiling boy's back and flicked the girl's forehead as a greeting.
"You owe me so much," he said, jumping over the counter to get his bags. Haneul frowned at him and rubbed her forehead.
"I'll repay, okay?" she protested, "aish, you won't let even one tiny little favor go past."
"Not when it's the third little favor this week. Work some, yes? Lazy ass."
"Bite me."
Junsu burst into laughter at their exchange and extended his arms to grab the bags Yunho was passing him from over the counter.
"You guys sound like an old married couple."
Haneul made barfing signs with her mouth and fingers and Yunho frowned at her, jumping one more time over the counter.
"If she looked anything like a girl, maybe we would," he muttered.
"Too bad you don't even like girls," she retorted, and before Yunho had the time to answer back she added: "Guys, I want to close and go home, so hurry and leave already."
On their way out Junsu waved at her and whispered, "She's worse than Changmin."
Yunho snorted. "Tell me about it."
Changmin was one of Junsu's childhood friends. He was younger than the man by a few years but smarter and snarkier than anybody they had ever met. It was a wonder how Junsu and him had stayed friends through the years: every year Junsu was that much closer to strangling him than the year before, for Junsu seemed to be the only source of Changmin's amusement. He was also a piano student, which suddenly put an idea into Yunho's mind.
"Doesn't Changmin study music or something like that?"
"He does."
"In like, College?"
Junsu turned to his friend and raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, in Seoul National University, why?"
The way in which Yunho's eyes shone at his answer made Junsu's skin crawl. Yunho stopped dead on his tracks and raised a closed fist, stance full of determination.
"Junsu," he said, "you are my best friend and my happiness rests in your hands."
---
Three days went by, in which Yunho couldn't keep his mind off the pretty stranger at the College of Music. Every time he closed his eyes the memory assaulted him with photographic accuracy, and he couldn't help but sigh and wonder if he was ever going to meet him again. He had bribed Junsu, Changmin, Haneul and everybody that knew anybody from that University to no avail: he had no clue about who the man was or even if he was a strings student or a music student at all.
His musings were interrupted by the chiming of the door's bell. He opened his eyes and jumped out of his chair, rubbing them twice before realizing that he wasn't dreaming anymore. It was him, the guy from the university, standing pretty at the door of his shop.
"Excuse me," he said, looking around as he walked towards the counter. Yunho watched, feeling his legs giving in a little.
"C-can I help you?"
He immediately noticed that the man was carrying a violin case on one of his shoulders. He was tall and slim, with broad shoulders and a tiny waist and light chocolate colored hair that fell softly over his forehead and his black eyes. He was a sight to behold.
"Yes, actually," said the man, fishing in his very stylish black bag for his wallet, "I kind of need a new E string..."
He stopped right in front of the counter and Yunho stared at him for the best part of two minutes. For a moment, Yunho could have sworn the guy was checking him out, but ultimately he just gave him a weird look and continued. "For my violin."
"Right. Yes." It's unpolite to stare at people like creepers, Yunho reminded himself, even if he's the hottest guy on the fucking planet. He breathed in. This was his customer after all.
"Let me show you what we have," he said. "What exactly are you looking for?"
"I heard there was a new brand of synthetic-core strings that was pretty good. Since mine broke, I thought I might check it out."
Yunho nodded, "Yeah, I know which one... it's actually two different set of strings, and the sound is pretty wicked when you combine them, but they're kind of expensive together, and we don't have sigle string sets right now. Let me show you."
He walked to the very end of the counter and brought a little staircase to the glass panes behind it, climbing to the highest section and bringing down a couple of blue and red boxes.
"They take one or two days to adjust, and they last longer too."
The man nodded and inspected the strings carefully, mouth forming a little pout, and all the while Yunho had to restrain himself from staring too hard.
"Are you a student?" he asked after the guy had checked the boxes in and out twice. The pretty stranger looked up in surprise and shrugged a little.
"Yes, sorry, am I being too anal about this?"
Yunho smiled warmly and dismissed the statement with his hand.
"No, not really. It's just that most students don't usually come here... they think it's a place for old people and stuff."
"Yeah I know, my ex-boyf--," said the man, making a sudden stop as his eyes opened wide and he looked at Yunho in distress, "my, my ex friend works at the music shop on the mall, near here, and they kind of promote that, um, idea."
Yunho wanted to frown at that new piece of information, but his mind was stuck on the fact that this guy was probably single. And gay, if his little slip and the way his cheeks had light up after that were any kind of indicator. Gay was good.
"I actually saw your flyers at a friend's uni," he added in a small, flat voice. "Um, I think I'm gonna try these two."
"Sure." Yunho grinned his million watt smile and took both boxes. The guy appealed to him more and more every minute. He then turned to pack the string boxes and tried to sound casual as he asked: "Do you go to SNU?"
"No... I'm trying to see if I can get there next semester. I go to Yondae, actually, but SNU is much closer to my house, and it would kind of make my life easier to go there. My best friend goes there too."
"I see." Yunho watched as the man nodded to himself, turning around to look at the rest of the store. As old and small as the place was, it was quite a handsome shop with its wooden floors and rare or old instruments hanging from the walls.
"Are you a music student?" he asked casually without really looking at Yunho.
"Nope, I'm actually a dancer."
"Oh?"
"I do contemporary dance at KNUA," said Yunho as he carefully put the boxes into a small paper bag, noticing with a glance that he had the man's full attention on him, "my mum was a pianist but I could never really play any instrument. I've always liked dancing much better."
"Yeah you look like you could dance pretty," mumbled the man, enthralled by the way Yunho's long, elegant fingers worked around the bag. He must have meant to keep that thought in his mind rather than out of his mouth, because he immediately bit his lip and closed his eyes and hit his forehead with his hand. "I, I mean. I didn't mean to. I just. How much is this?"
He took some won notes out of his wallet and slapped them over the counter, avoiding by all means looking at Yunho's eyes. The dancer just watched him go about with an amused grin. He charged him for the strings and the man bowed awkwardly and left, waving a simple goodbye.
Yunho stared at his retreating back all the way, remembering as the guy crossed the door that he hadn't gotten as much as his name.
---
The unknown violinist started walking past the store and into it two or three times a week after that.
The second time he did so, Yunho was in the middle of making some very hot coffee, for the weather was ghastly despite the spring-like days that had been taking place for a while, and the store was humid and unusually cold. Haneul was down with a cold and Yunho had been by himself most of the afternoon.
"Hi," said the student as he stumbled into the store, wet to the core of his bones. He was dressed very lightly despite the storm. He startled Yunho, who dropped his cup and nearly had a heart attack at the sight. The other man walked in with a shrug and a sheepish expression.
"Are you open?" he asked, watching as Yunho picked up his empty mug and held his chest with one hand.
"I-I didn't hear you come in," he gasped, breathing in. "We're open... come in." He gave his heart two seconds to calm down and walked through the small door that connected the store to the storage room. When he came back he had a small towel in his hand.
"Here." He handed the towel to the gorgeous man in front ot him, who was too happy to take it and dry his face with it.
"Thanx. It's pouring outside," the man said, "I'm... sorry for flooding your shop."
"Don't worry about it... coffee?"
"Please."
Yunho poured two mugs and handed one to the newcomer.
"What were you doing out in this weather?"
"I--er--I needed rosin for my bow, so I came out when it was just cloudy, but then in the middle of the way I noticed I had forgotten my keys so I went back home but my roomate was already out for uni, so I went to SNU to get the key, headed here and then suddenly the sky fell over my head... aish. I hope I won't get a cold after this."
He nodded to himself and sipped the coffee with a small frown, while Yunho turned to get the rosin for him.
"Which kind do you want?"
"Um, Geipel Silver?"
The tall shopkeeper came back a minute later with a rosin cake and a spare umbrella, both of which he put over the counter.
"Anything else?" he said with a very charming smile. The student put down his now empty mug and looked up with bright doe eyes.
"Thank you," he wheezed, pulling out a few notes from his pocket. "I'll return it."
Yunho grinned widely, wishing he could jump out of pure excitement; he would get to see the man at least one more time.
"So do you have a name?" he asked when the stranger had bowed and was ready to leave. The man gave Yunho a shy one sided smile full of teeth and nodded stupidly.
"Kim Jaejoong."
"I'm--"
"Jung Yunho, I know."
He bowed again, leaving a speechless Yunho behind.
---
"...so he saw me at uni that day, and one of Junsu's friends is a friend of his roomate and told him who I was and pointed out that I was working here, and... ah ha ha ha he's just so so fucking gorgeous, Haneul-ah!! I could die by just looking at his face...!"
Haneul watched in pure horror as Yunho turned around on his spot with his hands over his face and hearts in his eyes. She had never gotten to see this supposed new customer they had had for the past weeks, who conveniently only appeared when Yunho was working by himself.
"You're making me dizzy," she commented, bobbing her head around as she followed her spinning friend with her eyes. The two of them were sorting out new boxes of merchandise that had just arrived. "It kind of makes me pity you seeing you like this, Yunho-yah. You walked into the door twice this morning and haven't been able to put two products of the same brand together for the last half hour," she pointed at the mixed string boxes all thrown around haphazardly. "Just ask the guy out already, or something. Although, I gotta say, your friend has been buying all kinds of random shit... he's sort of good for business."
Yunho nodded, let out a little high pitched laughter, shook his hands embarrassedly and rolled over the table while making whimpering sounds that made the girl take a few steps away.
"Okay, you are creeping me out. I'll leave you here with the boxes by yourself. Have fun."
She fled the storage room as fast as her feet allowed her and entered the store just in time to see a familiar face walking in. Her cousin, a tall, handsome boy with impossibly long legs and mismatched smiling eyes greeted her.
"Noona," he grinned, "it's been a while."
Haneul smiled back. "Changmin-ah!" They both bowed when the door bell rang again. In came a beautiful man with rich chocolate colored hair and a violin case hanging from his shoulders. He walked in with a vague air of familiarity, although Haneul couldn't remember seeing him around, and she would have remembered a face like that for sure. He walked towards the pair and looked around, somewhat disappointed.
"Hi," he said a little bit coldly.
"Can I help you?" frowned the girl with a flat voice, immediately disliking the man. Her cousin imitated her expression at once.
Sighing, the man nodded.
"I came by a few hours earlier and left a bow to be rehaired. There was an older man doing it...?"
Haneul nodded. "Yeah, my dad. Your bow is over here..." And then it hit her, all of a sudden, that this might actually be Yunho's guy. He fit the description perfectly, and he was the kind of guy that drove Yunho over the brink of insanity.
She handed the man the repaired bow and made all kinds of subtle signs for her cousin to go bring Yunho into the store. Now.
"Do you mind if I try it before I go?" was the last thing Changmin heard the man say before entering the storage room. In it, he found Yunho laughing to himself against a wall.
"Hyung, this is kind of pathetic."
Yunho turned around with blushing cheeks and shrugged before he offered Changmin a greeting.
"Hey," he said, "What's up?"
Changmin didn't have a chance to answer: the store and the storage room were suddenly filled with music. The soft, flowing sound of a violin wrapped around them and put an expression of astonishment on both men's faces. It was a majestic sound: powerful and full of life.
"That is..." Yunho said.
"Paganini."
Changmin looked back into the store. He couldn't see the violinist through the open door, but he could perfectly appreciate the clean sound of his fiddle. It was impossible that a mere student could produce that kind of sound with a regular violin. Without giving it more thought, he grabbed Yunho by the wrist and pulled him out of the storage room.
Yunho was dumbfounded when he stepped into the store. His guy, his unbelievably gorgeous guy was standing a few feet from him, playing the violin like he was born doing it, making even the hard headed Haneul look at him with absolute admiration in her eyes.
Kim Jaejoong, eyes closed and softly biting his lower lip, playing Paganini's Caprice n.24 in the middle of his working place.
It was something out of Yunho's world.
The violinist played for a few more seconds until he slightly opened his eyes and registered Yunho in his field of vision. In a second, the perfectly played notes turned into a shrilling mess and his violin gave a high pitched shriek that ended his otherwise impeccable performance. He shrugged coyly and half smiled, suddenly losing the ice in his eyes.
"Yunho-yah," he said in a tiny voice.
From the other side of the counter, Haneul did a double take. She turned to look at her cousin, who was pushed back by Yunho without as much as an apology.
"Jaejoong-ah," called the tall dancer, walking from behind the counter towards the chocolate haired violinist. They both bowed at each other and laughed like idiots, smiling and staring at the other's eyes, and all the while Haneul and Changmin stared at them from behind the counter.
"I don't even know where to start," gasped the girl. The way the guy played? The fact that he was Yunho's guy and he was hot like hell? The stupid, sappy way in which they were both looking at each other?
Changmin, on the other hand, had another thing on his mind.
"That's not a student's violin," he stated.
"What?"
"Noona. His violin."
He elbowed the girl and pointed at the instrument in Jaejoong's hands. She tried to take a peek at it, but the violinist was already putting in back into his case (somehow managing to do this without taking his eyes off of Yunho).
When he left, the dancer waved at him and then turned to his friends with the most silly love-struck face he could have ever pulled off.
"Yunho-yah. We're losing you," said Haneul, a little weary at the turn of events.
"Isn't he just just, gorgeous? And the way he plays...?" sighed Yunho, smile stretching to the very ends of his face.
"What kind of violin does he play?" asked Changmin with suspicion. "I doubt that is 100% his ability, hyung. I think he just has one hell of a violin. If he played that well on a regular violin he wouldn't be here, trust me."
Yunho frowned at this. "Why not? He bought his violin from some guy that was selling his late grandfather's stuff. It's a replica of sorts, nothing special. Some people are just born with talent, Changmin-ah."
"No offense, hyung, but I've been studying music all of my life and I recognize a professional violin when I hear one."
"I'm with Changmin in this one," nodded the girl. Yunho's frown deepened a bit.
"Come on, guys. Why can't the guy just be good at it?"
"Because you're infatuated with him and you can't see past that, hyung."
"Am not."
"Yo so are," added Haneul, nodding.
"Gee, thanks for the back up, friend."
"Fifty thousand won say that violin is not common," said Changmin, putting his hand out. Yunho looked at it reluctantly for a minute. Haneul rolled her eyes at his hesitance and she slapped Changmin's hand in agreement.
"Make it one hundred," she said, "I'll team up with Yunho. Someone needs to give him better judgement."
Changmin laughed from his heart and his eyes became mismatched once again.
"Deal!"
***
To Part 2.
And the accompanying piece...
Copyright belongs to Shigai! Don't steal! :)