[fic] the demon i cling to
the demon i cling to
rating: nc-17
pairing: jaejoong/yoochun
summary: au. so maybe sleeping with a married man wasn't exactly yoochun's smartest move.
word count: 10,166
comments: more word vomit that has been hanging around for ages and that i only finished now. and it's for my fav unnie again because i lahv her. i'm not particularly proud of this, it came out entirely different from what i wanted it to be, but i put in too much work not to share it, so enjoy! opinions on it are always appreciated. title from lady gaga's "judas", which heavily influenced this thanks to its metaphors.
so when we leave, it'll be a quick midnight escape
we'll disconnect ourselves from all of yesterday
i'll dig for water and fashion our very own wishing well
then, we'll throw our coins down, hoping to rid us of this little hell
little hell, city and colour
So maybe sleeping with a married man wasn’t exactly Yoochun’s smartest move.
Actually, it was his worst, best, biggest mistake, and there isn’t a single day where he doesn’t hate himself for it, for saying yes, for always wanting more, for falling in love; yet, if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a single thing.
Kim Jaejoong was a busy, busy man, and that’s why Yoochun’s life didn’t fall apart until months after he started giving his daughter piano lessons. Usually, it was his wife who brought her to Yoochun’s small studio and came to pick her up an hour later, and ironically, she was the one who started flirting with him at first: paying him a bit more than his fixed wages, pressing light touches against his arms or hands at any given occasion.
And Yoochun hated irony.
“I was your fan,” she’d said after the second lesson, the dreamy sigh hard to miss.
(At seventeen, he’d risen to fame as a young, musically-inclined, genius composer idol, and was falling down hard at twenty-four. He spent a year in rehab, and that was the end of it; by twenty-seven, he was already a has-been, creating smash-hits that he sold to companies for their new idol groups under a ridiculous penname, cynically telling himself that they would all end up like him. Whether it was bitterness or a very accurate prediction, he wasn’t sure.
And the piano lessons, well. They were the only way he felt alive again, the only way for him to feel like he still deserved music after treating it like a mistress when he was an idol; now, he worshipped it like a goddess, like a wife, like a mother, because it was all he had left.)
Maybe he’d been doomed from the start, with the way that family made its way into his life. The daughter, Eun Ae, was his favourite student; she was eight and soaked up all the knowledge he gave her like a sponge, polite and sweet and surprisingly passionate about music for someone her age. When she played, instead of letting him stand slightly behind her beside the bench like he did with his other students to watch their fingers and posture, she’d take his hand in her tiny one and pull him down next to her, asking him to play her something when she was done, as a reward. She would always watch with barely concealed amazement when his fingers fell into an octave easily, her own still much too small to reach so far, and as he played, she’d talk about her father.
He didn’t know piano himself, but he was a bit of a melomaniac; he lived music, breathed music, and his passion for it was inherited by his daughter. Eun Ae knew he was incredibly busy, having a job of high standing, but at the end of his day, he would always sit beside her at the piano he bought with their house and listen to her daily practice, except on the days she had a lesson with Yoochun. On those days, he’d instead have her tell him what she’d learned, what she’d perfected, and he listened to everything she had to say about how amazing of a pianist her Yoochun oppa was. Then, when it was time for her to go to bed, he’d put on classical music and stroke her hair, humming along to the songs he knew until she’d fall asleep.
Their favourite piece was Satie’s Gymnopédie no.1, and that one, single piece of information made Yoochun fall in love, without having ever seen or met him. That day, he became obsessed with the song, listening to it on loop until his fingers mastered it perfectly, mapping out the peaceful, yet nostalgic melody like he was the one who had composed it. He didn’t tell Eun Ae he’d learned it.
Over the first five months of his teaching her, he didn’t miss a single detail concerning her father, whether it was given by her or by his wife at the door, growing more attracted to the man who’d become almost imaginary to him. For all he knew, Jaejoong could have been sixty, ugly, and fundamentally a horrible person who kicked puppies and disembowelled kittens in his spare time, yet Yoochun still couldn’t help falling; he’d quit drugs, but he was still an addict, clinging to what kept his feet off the ground, wanting more despite himself.
Meeting Jaejoong, though, made his life chaotic, restless; while he was in love with a man whose face he’d never seen, he thought he’d disrupted his peaceful, pointless life, but he learned that this was nothing in comparison to the way he turned around everything he used to know with a smile.
It was sudden, unpredicted, without a hint of warning in the skies that could tell him a storm was coming, but one day in winter, everything changed. It was late afternoon, and the sun was starting to set, bathing the studio in a soft orange glow. The steady ticking of the metronome accompanied Eun Ae’s slightly clumsy interpretation of Bach’s Solfeggietto as Yoochun sat in a chair, eyes closed to let the music soothe a sudden headache in a way only music could.
“Your left hand is losing its tempo,” he spoke up, just as there was a knock on the door.
Eun Ae stopped playing, looking as surprised as Yoochun as they both glanced at the clock: there were still fifteen minutes left to the lesson, and while her mother was never late, she was never too early either, as she didn’t want to bother her “little genius” during her playing, and she also never knocked, instead ringing the doorbell.
“You can keep playing,” Yoochun said and patted her head as he stood up to go answer the door. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have swung it open so fast; if he’d known who was behind that door, he would have waited a moment, taken a deep breath so that it wouldn’t be knocked out of him.
So that maybe he wouldn’t have fallen from as high as he did when he first saw Kim Jaejoong. In the soft glow of the setting sun, he was almost ethereal, his eyes were practically sparkling, and he completely enraptured Yoochun, all in one glance. He didn’t even have to introduce himself for him to know he was Eun Ae’s father.
(“I swear, my heart knew,” he whispered to Changmin one night, embarrassment having vanished with his fourth beer of the night an hour before.
His best friend stared openly. “Oh my god, you did not just say that. How do you even sell your songs? This is the corniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”
“It’s still true.”
“You’re still pathetic.”)
Jaejoong bowed, then tried to look past Yoochun into the studio slightly awkwardly. “Excuse me, is Park Yoochun here?”
“I’m Park Yoochun,” he managed to choke out, sounding oddly composed. It seemed his experience in speaking in an incredibly collected voice when his insides were churning from when he was an idol hadn’t left him, and for that capacity he was incredibly thankful.
“Really?” Jaejoong asked in surprise, taking a better look at Yoochun. He held out his hand. “My name is Kim Jaejoong, I’m Eun Ae’s father. I’ve heard so much about you from both of the women of my life.”
It took a moment for Yoochun to shake Jaejoong’s hand, as if scared that an electric current would pass through them if they ever touched, but nothing happened, aside from his heart jumping in his throat just from touching him. He moved aside to let the other in.
Into his studio, into his music, into his life.
“They’ve been talking about me? Should I be scared, or embarrassed?” Yoochun laughed, flashing the other his brightest smile as he motioned for him to sit in the chair he’d previously been listening to Eun Ae in earlier. Jaejoong obliged, but only after greeting his daughter and kissing the top of her head, giving Yoochun a small smile on the way.
“Neither, I’d say. The way they talked about you, I imagined you as some sort of otherworldly musical genius with looks to boot, but you’re actually quite the ordinary man,” Jaejoong answered, hesitant as if looking for the right words to say.
Yoochun’s smile fell, but only a little, because he was still good at keeping up a façade; it was barely noticeable, only that the stretch of his lips wasn’t as wide and his eyes lost a bit of its sparkle. More often than not, people never realized. It still didn’t change that on the inside, his heart sank with disappointment: in his mind, Jaejoong had been perfect, and now that he’d met him, he was more than he’d thought, so much he couldn’t even explain it in words. But he’d been perfect in Jaejoong’s imagination, and now he’d failed the image the other had of him. The thought hurt him more than he would’ve wanted it to.
Jaejoong’s eyes widened a bit and he waved his hands in front of himself, like he really had noticed the barest change in Yoochun’s expression. “No, I don’t mean it like that! Oh god, I’m so sorry, I tend to word my thoughts so gauchely, I-I mean, I saw you as someone who looked conceited and arrogant because he knows he’s so good, but you’re not! That’s what I meant by ordinary. There’s such an honest look in your eyes, and you told me your name so modestly too, I was surprised. I’m so sorry.”
This was how Yoochun learned Jaejoong was much clumsier than his elegant demeanour and appearance let on.
Eun Ae giggled, not used to hearing her father apologize so profusely, like a child who had just wronged an adult. Yoochun clucked his tongue and poked her in the back, though there was a playful tone in the way he berated her gently. “Who told you to stop practicing and listen to the grown-ups’ conversation? You don’t do this when your mother picks you up.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Jaejoong apologized again, a sheepish look on his face as Eun Ae resumed playing. “Usually it’s my wife who comes pick her up because of my schedule, but I actually got off work early today, so I decided to come. I know she usually comes up right when your lesson ends, but I actually…”
Yoochun watched Jaejoong fidget with his tie, starting at him in anticipation as the other paused. “Yes?”
“I wanted to hear you play.”
He wasn’t sure whether it was from the question-the realization that this amazing man was interested in something that was so personal to him-or the way Jaejoong looked up straight at him, but Yoochun’s heart skipped a bit. It took him a few seconds to realize Eun Ae had stopped playing again and was now looking at him.
“Yes! Please play, oppa!”
Yoochun chewed at the inside of his cheek, suddenly very aware that an eight-year-old girl was calling him, who was probably the same age as her father, oppa-and right in front of said father, too. But the other man seemed to notice his discomfort and shook his head with a reassuring smile, motioning to the piano with a graceful hand instead of showing any sort of reaction towards the way his daughter addressed him.
“But you’re not paying me to play piano,” he protested weakly, suddenly feeling shy. It was one thing to play for an innocent child, blind with admiration, but it was another to strip himself naked of any pretence, of every defence he had in front of the man he’d so suddenly fallen in love with.
“Well, tonight, I am. And besides, it’s not like I’m asking for a full concerto, although I am sure every second of it would be enjoyable. Just one short piece, please?”
How could Yoochun refuse those eyes?
Eun Ae made space at the bench for him to be able to sit, but she didn’t stand up, preferring to be able to look at his hands while he played as she usually did. He squeezed her shoulder lightly as thanks as he sat down and readjusted the bench to suit his height, then hesitated as he placed his hands over the keys.
“I don’t know what to play,” he said and laughed nervously. The first piece that came to mind was Chopin’s Waltz no.7, but he was both afraid of looking like a show-off or messing it up royally, and so he had to choose a simpler piece, but he was having the hardest time piecing his thoughts together to form something coherent when he felt Kim Jaejoong’s eyes boring holes into his back. There was the possibility of playing something he’d composed himself, but the fear of being inadequate was too powerful, and he couldn’t bring himself to show this part of his soul so completely in such a private setting.
“You could just improvise,” Jaejoong suddenly said, tearing another quiet laugh from Yoochun’s throat.
That’s insane, he wanted to answer. To him, improvising meant letting his feelings run free into the notes, and he feared that if he did so, Jaejoong would see, in a matter of seconds, that Yoochun’s heart was in his hands, loving, waiting. But he didn’t say anything in fear of sounding rude.
Hoping to avoid the suggestion, Yoochun began playing the first thing that came to mind: Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Op.43. After years of playing piano, it was easy, but still not too simple, and had always seemed to carry him away. For the three minutes that he played, he forgot all about Jaejoong, about Eun Ae sitting next to him, about the raging feelings inside him as if he’d been in love for years, when really, everything had only become truly palpable a few minutes ago.
The last note brought everything back, and he tensed up under the sound of both father and daughter’s cheerful applause.
“You’re amazing,” Jaejoong said to his back, and he couldn’t give an answer.
They left at five o’clock sharp, Jaejoong giving more than the lesson had been worth. He didn’t want the extra money to begin with, not from Jaejoong, but it was still welcome.
(Changmin had once worried that it would be for drugs again, but all he wanted was to save up to buy a Steinway grand piano, all to himself and for his apartment.)
That night, neither Yoochun nor Jaejoong slept, both haunted by thoughts of each other.
For the next month after Yoochun had met Jaejoong, his life became a mess; he was slowly gaining back his old habit of near-insomnia that he’d been able to shake off after becoming clean, but now that there was a new drug in his life, he began living the same way he used to. His eating habits were all over the place; he wrote and wrote like there was nothing else in the world that could hold him up, but threw everything away at the end of the day in dissatisfaction, so much it was starting to become self-loathing. Changmin worried, albeit silently, looked for the signs of his best friend having relapsed, but the only way he’d fallen was in love.
He became a complete mess, only fixing himself up minimally when he had piano lessons, and trying to look his best on the days he knew Jaejoong would come pick Eun Ae up. After the first time, he’d decided to make it a habit, choosing to pick her up on one of her tri-weekly lessons. He always came on Fridays but never stayed long, never asked for Yoochun to play for him again. His eyes seemed cold after that day.
Every time, it left a small scratch on Yoochun’s heart, and yet there was never one second where he regretted leaving it in the open, unprotected for Jaejoong to bruise freely. Being hated by the man he loved, even if he couldn’t understand what he’d done to deserve it, seemed better than being ignored and living with the knowledge that he was not his to love.
Later, he could’ve wished everything had stayed that way, but there was no way he could bring himself to.
He’d been giving lessons to Eun Ae for almost seven months when he first met Jaejoong privately, just the two of them. Spring was well on its way, but that day, it was snowing as if it was the middle of January, making it a perfect day for Yoochun to stay inside and wallow in self-pity, like he felt it was required of him as an artist who was hopelessly in love.
Sleep hadn’t come to him in days, so he tried to catch up since it was the weekend. After hours of lying awake in bed, he’d torn the covers off it, moved his mattress to the floor, and created a mountain of sheets and comforters on top of it that he could wrap himself in. He made a stellar impression of a lonely turtle. He was on the edge of finally, finally pushing his thoughts away to fall asleep when loud knocks coming from next door-his studio-awakened him. For some reason, the studio had never been constructed as a living space, causing Yoochun’s landlord a perpetual headache until he came along; the room was rented to him for a barely noticeable extra, since the old man was only happy that he didn’t have to waste money on maintaining a room that hadn’t brought back any revenue in years.
Yoochun waited for a moment, hoping that whoever was at the door would leave, since he’d made it clear to all his clients that he wasn’t at the studio during the weekends and kept to himself that he lived next door, not wanting to be bothered in case someone suddenly remembered that he’d once been under the public eye for more than two seconds. He listened, but the knocking never ceased. Groaning, he pushed himself off the mattress but kept the covers tight around his body in a way that only made his head poke out, peering outside of his apartment with a scowl on his face.
“What do you-Kim Eun Ae’s father?” he exclaimed in surprise, eyes widening as he took in the sight of Jaejoong, wrapped in a bulky scarf and a wool overcoat, snow melting in his hair as his leather-gloved hand paused in the middle of its actions. He mentally patted himself on the back for addressing him in such polite terms when the only word going through his head was Jaejoong, Jaejoong, Jaejoong.
The look of slight confusion on his face was endearing. He looked at the number on the door he was facing, then at Yoochun, frowned a little, and opened his mouth to talk when Yoochun answered his unspoken questions.
“Studio, apartment,” he said, gesturing to the closed door before pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s pretty convenient. But why are you here? Is there something wrong?”
Jaejoong gave him a determined look, jaw set. “Teach me how to play.”
“Piano?”
“No, ice hockey,” he answered sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Of course, piano.”
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t give lessons during the weekend,” Yoochun stuttered, knowing this was probably the only free time Jaejoong had. He hoped the other would turn away, go back to his family, and leave him to fight his feelings. The simple thought of spending more than ten minutes alone with Jaejoong made him fear just how powerful his feelings could become.
“I’ll pay you double.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Stop saying sorry and help me, will you? If you want to snake your way into my family, do it right and all the way.”
Yoochun’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
“You’ll do it? Thank you so much,” Jaejoong smiled sweetly, but there was a sarcastic edge to it. Not that Yoochun noticed, because all he could see was that smile, so bright, so absolutely beautiful.
He dropped the covers and kicked them away slightly, shivering as the air licked at its warm skin, before grabbing the keys to the studio. It took him a few more seconds than usual to unlock the door, all too aware of Jaejoong standing behind him at a distance that should have been much less than comfortable for strangers like them, but he finally managed to and went inside, dropping the keys on a small table and tying his hair up sloppily. A few strands fell from it after a few seconds, but he paid no mind to them as he offered to take Jaejoong’s coat so he could hang it on the back of the door.
“So, why do you want to play piano so suddenly?” he asked conversationally.
“I like music.”
A smile played on Yoochun’s lips. “Yeah, Eun Ae told me that. Is there a particular song you want to learn or something?”
“I,” Jaejoong said hesitantly, lowering his gaze slightly. “That song by Xiah Junsu, the piano ballad-the one he always sang with that female piano player and everyone started saying they were doing it because of the way they looked at each other. I want to learn that. Is it hard?”
Yoochun had written that song, just for Junsu. After that, his agency had asked him to write all of his ballads, because he’d grasped his essence as a singer, they said. The two of them used to be pretty close.
“It’s not that bad, for someone who’s used to it. For a beginner, though, I wouldn’t say the same, because it’s more complicated than it sounds. Depending on how good you are, it could take you months to learn.”
Jaejoong nodded, but the determined look from earlier never left his face. The confidence in his eyes astonished him. “I don’t mind how long it takes, but I’m not a total beginner, you know. I have some basics on piano, and I can read music.”
“Alright,” Yoochun said, and rummaged through a box next to the piano before taking out a small booklet of sheet music and setting it on the piano. He gestured for Jaejoong to sit. “Then sight-read this to me, and let’s see where you stand exactly.”
“Chopsticks? Really? Even this is too easy for Eun Ae.”
“A lot of things are too easy for Eun Ae. Do you want to learn or not? I just want to assess your level, but if you’re not satisfied with my methods, you can always find another teacher if you want. I’m not holding you back; I actually liked having weekends off.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll play, not need to get testy,” Jaejoong scoffed, wearing an expression that reminded Yoochun of a high school student, honest and juvenile in his own way. Somehow, he liked this Jaejoong better; the one that showed up suddenly now that only the two of them were alone, the one who was a bit frayed at the edges and pretended to be stronger than he was-the one who stopped trying to fit himself into the mould of father, of husband, of employee that everyone wanted to see him in and was only Jaejoong.
Jaejoong who wanted to become one with his music without even knowing it was his.
Over the next few weeks, Yoochun got to know just-Jaejoong better. He held on tight to the desire to play this one particular song, and showed up at the door of his apartment every Saturday at a quarter past one, but never left after only an hour. They’d get carried away talking about music and everything else, but never did Jaejoong show signs that he knew that all of his favourite songs had been written and composed by Yoochun, or that he was aware he was facing the ex-idol his wife had loved so much and who proudly held the incredibly prestigious title of ex-druggie as well.
Aside from worrying that he’d realize who he was facing and take his daughter (and himself) away from him, he feared that one day Jaejoong would realize that his piano teacher was head over heels in love with him, now more than ever, so much he couldn’t sleep anymore and his bedroom floor was almost completely covered with songs that would never get finished because he was keeping everything inside, locked away in a corner of his mind, and only let his heart out around Jaejoong because getting hurt was easier than putting his walls back up around himself.
Like his daughter, Jaejoong would also often be asking him to play something. Impress me, he’d say, and Yoochun would try his damnedest to. He did play a Chopin waltz for him one time, and Jaejoong stared at him for a moment that stretched on like hours, Yoochun tensing up under those eyes when he realized that, for once, they were only seeing him.
“Why didn’t you say you were this good?”
“I’m not that-”
“Oh, don’t be modest. I’m not stupid, Yoochun-sshi, I know music. Chopin’s waltzes are said to be the hardest to play because the pianist has to shun norms and tempo, and that not many are able to achieve it because they’ve been striving for perfection their whole lives. You were one with the piano just now.”
Yoochun had always told himself that interprets, not matter how talented they were, couldn’t play a Chopin waltz for those reasons. The only way he could explain that he was able to was that he was a composer himself, that he had also gone through the process of leaving everything behind to put feelings down into notes; he knew what it was to turn away from paper and only rely on the keys, and the melodies his heart made his fingers create.
But he couldn’t tell Jaejoong that, for some reason.
part two »
rating: nc-17
pairing: jaejoong/yoochun
summary: au. so maybe sleeping with a married man wasn't exactly yoochun's smartest move.
word count: 10,166
comments: more word vomit that has been hanging around for ages and that i only finished now. and it's for my fav unnie again because i lahv her. i'm not particularly proud of this, it came out entirely different from what i wanted it to be, but i put in too much work not to share it, so enjoy! opinions on it are always appreciated. title from lady gaga's "judas", which heavily influenced this thanks to its metaphors.
so when we leave, it'll be a quick midnight escape
we'll disconnect ourselves from all of yesterday
i'll dig for water and fashion our very own wishing well
then, we'll throw our coins down, hoping to rid us of this little hell
little hell, city and colour
So maybe sleeping with a married man wasn’t exactly Yoochun’s smartest move.
Actually, it was his worst, best, biggest mistake, and there isn’t a single day where he doesn’t hate himself for it, for saying yes, for always wanting more, for falling in love; yet, if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a single thing.
Kim Jaejoong was a busy, busy man, and that’s why Yoochun’s life didn’t fall apart until months after he started giving his daughter piano lessons. Usually, it was his wife who brought her to Yoochun’s small studio and came to pick her up an hour later, and ironically, she was the one who started flirting with him at first: paying him a bit more than his fixed wages, pressing light touches against his arms or hands at any given occasion.
And Yoochun hated irony.
“I was your fan,” she’d said after the second lesson, the dreamy sigh hard to miss.
(At seventeen, he’d risen to fame as a young, musically-inclined, genius composer idol, and was falling down hard at twenty-four. He spent a year in rehab, and that was the end of it; by twenty-seven, he was already a has-been, creating smash-hits that he sold to companies for their new idol groups under a ridiculous penname, cynically telling himself that they would all end up like him. Whether it was bitterness or a very accurate prediction, he wasn’t sure.
And the piano lessons, well. They were the only way he felt alive again, the only way for him to feel like he still deserved music after treating it like a mistress when he was an idol; now, he worshipped it like a goddess, like a wife, like a mother, because it was all he had left.)
Maybe he’d been doomed from the start, with the way that family made its way into his life. The daughter, Eun Ae, was his favourite student; she was eight and soaked up all the knowledge he gave her like a sponge, polite and sweet and surprisingly passionate about music for someone her age. When she played, instead of letting him stand slightly behind her beside the bench like he did with his other students to watch their fingers and posture, she’d take his hand in her tiny one and pull him down next to her, asking him to play her something when she was done, as a reward. She would always watch with barely concealed amazement when his fingers fell into an octave easily, her own still much too small to reach so far, and as he played, she’d talk about her father.
He didn’t know piano himself, but he was a bit of a melomaniac; he lived music, breathed music, and his passion for it was inherited by his daughter. Eun Ae knew he was incredibly busy, having a job of high standing, but at the end of his day, he would always sit beside her at the piano he bought with their house and listen to her daily practice, except on the days she had a lesson with Yoochun. On those days, he’d instead have her tell him what she’d learned, what she’d perfected, and he listened to everything she had to say about how amazing of a pianist her Yoochun oppa was. Then, when it was time for her to go to bed, he’d put on classical music and stroke her hair, humming along to the songs he knew until she’d fall asleep.
Their favourite piece was Satie’s Gymnopédie no.1, and that one, single piece of information made Yoochun fall in love, without having ever seen or met him. That day, he became obsessed with the song, listening to it on loop until his fingers mastered it perfectly, mapping out the peaceful, yet nostalgic melody like he was the one who had composed it. He didn’t tell Eun Ae he’d learned it.
Over the first five months of his teaching her, he didn’t miss a single detail concerning her father, whether it was given by her or by his wife at the door, growing more attracted to the man who’d become almost imaginary to him. For all he knew, Jaejoong could have been sixty, ugly, and fundamentally a horrible person who kicked puppies and disembowelled kittens in his spare time, yet Yoochun still couldn’t help falling; he’d quit drugs, but he was still an addict, clinging to what kept his feet off the ground, wanting more despite himself.
Meeting Jaejoong, though, made his life chaotic, restless; while he was in love with a man whose face he’d never seen, he thought he’d disrupted his peaceful, pointless life, but he learned that this was nothing in comparison to the way he turned around everything he used to know with a smile.
It was sudden, unpredicted, without a hint of warning in the skies that could tell him a storm was coming, but one day in winter, everything changed. It was late afternoon, and the sun was starting to set, bathing the studio in a soft orange glow. The steady ticking of the metronome accompanied Eun Ae’s slightly clumsy interpretation of Bach’s Solfeggietto as Yoochun sat in a chair, eyes closed to let the music soothe a sudden headache in a way only music could.
“Your left hand is losing its tempo,” he spoke up, just as there was a knock on the door.
Eun Ae stopped playing, looking as surprised as Yoochun as they both glanced at the clock: there were still fifteen minutes left to the lesson, and while her mother was never late, she was never too early either, as she didn’t want to bother her “little genius” during her playing, and she also never knocked, instead ringing the doorbell.
“You can keep playing,” Yoochun said and patted her head as he stood up to go answer the door. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have swung it open so fast; if he’d known who was behind that door, he would have waited a moment, taken a deep breath so that it wouldn’t be knocked out of him.
So that maybe he wouldn’t have fallen from as high as he did when he first saw Kim Jaejoong. In the soft glow of the setting sun, he was almost ethereal, his eyes were practically sparkling, and he completely enraptured Yoochun, all in one glance. He didn’t even have to introduce himself for him to know he was Eun Ae’s father.
(“I swear, my heart knew,” he whispered to Changmin one night, embarrassment having vanished with his fourth beer of the night an hour before.
His best friend stared openly. “Oh my god, you did not just say that. How do you even sell your songs? This is the corniest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”
“It’s still true.”
“You’re still pathetic.”)
Jaejoong bowed, then tried to look past Yoochun into the studio slightly awkwardly. “Excuse me, is Park Yoochun here?”
“I’m Park Yoochun,” he managed to choke out, sounding oddly composed. It seemed his experience in speaking in an incredibly collected voice when his insides were churning from when he was an idol hadn’t left him, and for that capacity he was incredibly thankful.
“Really?” Jaejoong asked in surprise, taking a better look at Yoochun. He held out his hand. “My name is Kim Jaejoong, I’m Eun Ae’s father. I’ve heard so much about you from both of the women of my life.”
It took a moment for Yoochun to shake Jaejoong’s hand, as if scared that an electric current would pass through them if they ever touched, but nothing happened, aside from his heart jumping in his throat just from touching him. He moved aside to let the other in.
Into his studio, into his music, into his life.
“They’ve been talking about me? Should I be scared, or embarrassed?” Yoochun laughed, flashing the other his brightest smile as he motioned for him to sit in the chair he’d previously been listening to Eun Ae in earlier. Jaejoong obliged, but only after greeting his daughter and kissing the top of her head, giving Yoochun a small smile on the way.
“Neither, I’d say. The way they talked about you, I imagined you as some sort of otherworldly musical genius with looks to boot, but you’re actually quite the ordinary man,” Jaejoong answered, hesitant as if looking for the right words to say.
Yoochun’s smile fell, but only a little, because he was still good at keeping up a façade; it was barely noticeable, only that the stretch of his lips wasn’t as wide and his eyes lost a bit of its sparkle. More often than not, people never realized. It still didn’t change that on the inside, his heart sank with disappointment: in his mind, Jaejoong had been perfect, and now that he’d met him, he was more than he’d thought, so much he couldn’t even explain it in words. But he’d been perfect in Jaejoong’s imagination, and now he’d failed the image the other had of him. The thought hurt him more than he would’ve wanted it to.
Jaejoong’s eyes widened a bit and he waved his hands in front of himself, like he really had noticed the barest change in Yoochun’s expression. “No, I don’t mean it like that! Oh god, I’m so sorry, I tend to word my thoughts so gauchely, I-I mean, I saw you as someone who looked conceited and arrogant because he knows he’s so good, but you’re not! That’s what I meant by ordinary. There’s such an honest look in your eyes, and you told me your name so modestly too, I was surprised. I’m so sorry.”
This was how Yoochun learned Jaejoong was much clumsier than his elegant demeanour and appearance let on.
Eun Ae giggled, not used to hearing her father apologize so profusely, like a child who had just wronged an adult. Yoochun clucked his tongue and poked her in the back, though there was a playful tone in the way he berated her gently. “Who told you to stop practicing and listen to the grown-ups’ conversation? You don’t do this when your mother picks you up.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Jaejoong apologized again, a sheepish look on his face as Eun Ae resumed playing. “Usually it’s my wife who comes pick her up because of my schedule, but I actually got off work early today, so I decided to come. I know she usually comes up right when your lesson ends, but I actually…”
Yoochun watched Jaejoong fidget with his tie, starting at him in anticipation as the other paused. “Yes?”
“I wanted to hear you play.”
He wasn’t sure whether it was from the question-the realization that this amazing man was interested in something that was so personal to him-or the way Jaejoong looked up straight at him, but Yoochun’s heart skipped a bit. It took him a few seconds to realize Eun Ae had stopped playing again and was now looking at him.
“Yes! Please play, oppa!”
Yoochun chewed at the inside of his cheek, suddenly very aware that an eight-year-old girl was calling him, who was probably the same age as her father, oppa-and right in front of said father, too. But the other man seemed to notice his discomfort and shook his head with a reassuring smile, motioning to the piano with a graceful hand instead of showing any sort of reaction towards the way his daughter addressed him.
“But you’re not paying me to play piano,” he protested weakly, suddenly feeling shy. It was one thing to play for an innocent child, blind with admiration, but it was another to strip himself naked of any pretence, of every defence he had in front of the man he’d so suddenly fallen in love with.
“Well, tonight, I am. And besides, it’s not like I’m asking for a full concerto, although I am sure every second of it would be enjoyable. Just one short piece, please?”
How could Yoochun refuse those eyes?
Eun Ae made space at the bench for him to be able to sit, but she didn’t stand up, preferring to be able to look at his hands while he played as she usually did. He squeezed her shoulder lightly as thanks as he sat down and readjusted the bench to suit his height, then hesitated as he placed his hands over the keys.
“I don’t know what to play,” he said and laughed nervously. The first piece that came to mind was Chopin’s Waltz no.7, but he was both afraid of looking like a show-off or messing it up royally, and so he had to choose a simpler piece, but he was having the hardest time piecing his thoughts together to form something coherent when he felt Kim Jaejoong’s eyes boring holes into his back. There was the possibility of playing something he’d composed himself, but the fear of being inadequate was too powerful, and he couldn’t bring himself to show this part of his soul so completely in such a private setting.
“You could just improvise,” Jaejoong suddenly said, tearing another quiet laugh from Yoochun’s throat.
That’s insane, he wanted to answer. To him, improvising meant letting his feelings run free into the notes, and he feared that if he did so, Jaejoong would see, in a matter of seconds, that Yoochun’s heart was in his hands, loving, waiting. But he didn’t say anything in fear of sounding rude.
Hoping to avoid the suggestion, Yoochun began playing the first thing that came to mind: Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Op.43. After years of playing piano, it was easy, but still not too simple, and had always seemed to carry him away. For the three minutes that he played, he forgot all about Jaejoong, about Eun Ae sitting next to him, about the raging feelings inside him as if he’d been in love for years, when really, everything had only become truly palpable a few minutes ago.
The last note brought everything back, and he tensed up under the sound of both father and daughter’s cheerful applause.
“You’re amazing,” Jaejoong said to his back, and he couldn’t give an answer.
They left at five o’clock sharp, Jaejoong giving more than the lesson had been worth. He didn’t want the extra money to begin with, not from Jaejoong, but it was still welcome.
(Changmin had once worried that it would be for drugs again, but all he wanted was to save up to buy a Steinway grand piano, all to himself and for his apartment.)
That night, neither Yoochun nor Jaejoong slept, both haunted by thoughts of each other.
For the next month after Yoochun had met Jaejoong, his life became a mess; he was slowly gaining back his old habit of near-insomnia that he’d been able to shake off after becoming clean, but now that there was a new drug in his life, he began living the same way he used to. His eating habits were all over the place; he wrote and wrote like there was nothing else in the world that could hold him up, but threw everything away at the end of the day in dissatisfaction, so much it was starting to become self-loathing. Changmin worried, albeit silently, looked for the signs of his best friend having relapsed, but the only way he’d fallen was in love.
He became a complete mess, only fixing himself up minimally when he had piano lessons, and trying to look his best on the days he knew Jaejoong would come pick Eun Ae up. After the first time, he’d decided to make it a habit, choosing to pick her up on one of her tri-weekly lessons. He always came on Fridays but never stayed long, never asked for Yoochun to play for him again. His eyes seemed cold after that day.
Every time, it left a small scratch on Yoochun’s heart, and yet there was never one second where he regretted leaving it in the open, unprotected for Jaejoong to bruise freely. Being hated by the man he loved, even if he couldn’t understand what he’d done to deserve it, seemed better than being ignored and living with the knowledge that he was not his to love.
Later, he could’ve wished everything had stayed that way, but there was no way he could bring himself to.
He’d been giving lessons to Eun Ae for almost seven months when he first met Jaejoong privately, just the two of them. Spring was well on its way, but that day, it was snowing as if it was the middle of January, making it a perfect day for Yoochun to stay inside and wallow in self-pity, like he felt it was required of him as an artist who was hopelessly in love.
Sleep hadn’t come to him in days, so he tried to catch up since it was the weekend. After hours of lying awake in bed, he’d torn the covers off it, moved his mattress to the floor, and created a mountain of sheets and comforters on top of it that he could wrap himself in. He made a stellar impression of a lonely turtle. He was on the edge of finally, finally pushing his thoughts away to fall asleep when loud knocks coming from next door-his studio-awakened him. For some reason, the studio had never been constructed as a living space, causing Yoochun’s landlord a perpetual headache until he came along; the room was rented to him for a barely noticeable extra, since the old man was only happy that he didn’t have to waste money on maintaining a room that hadn’t brought back any revenue in years.
Yoochun waited for a moment, hoping that whoever was at the door would leave, since he’d made it clear to all his clients that he wasn’t at the studio during the weekends and kept to himself that he lived next door, not wanting to be bothered in case someone suddenly remembered that he’d once been under the public eye for more than two seconds. He listened, but the knocking never ceased. Groaning, he pushed himself off the mattress but kept the covers tight around his body in a way that only made his head poke out, peering outside of his apartment with a scowl on his face.
“What do you-Kim Eun Ae’s father?” he exclaimed in surprise, eyes widening as he took in the sight of Jaejoong, wrapped in a bulky scarf and a wool overcoat, snow melting in his hair as his leather-gloved hand paused in the middle of its actions. He mentally patted himself on the back for addressing him in such polite terms when the only word going through his head was Jaejoong, Jaejoong, Jaejoong.
The look of slight confusion on his face was endearing. He looked at the number on the door he was facing, then at Yoochun, frowned a little, and opened his mouth to talk when Yoochun answered his unspoken questions.
“Studio, apartment,” he said, gesturing to the closed door before pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s pretty convenient. But why are you here? Is there something wrong?”
Jaejoong gave him a determined look, jaw set. “Teach me how to play.”
“Piano?”
“No, ice hockey,” he answered sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Of course, piano.”
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t give lessons during the weekend,” Yoochun stuttered, knowing this was probably the only free time Jaejoong had. He hoped the other would turn away, go back to his family, and leave him to fight his feelings. The simple thought of spending more than ten minutes alone with Jaejoong made him fear just how powerful his feelings could become.
“I’ll pay you double.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Stop saying sorry and help me, will you? If you want to snake your way into my family, do it right and all the way.”
Yoochun’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
“You’ll do it? Thank you so much,” Jaejoong smiled sweetly, but there was a sarcastic edge to it. Not that Yoochun noticed, because all he could see was that smile, so bright, so absolutely beautiful.
He dropped the covers and kicked them away slightly, shivering as the air licked at its warm skin, before grabbing the keys to the studio. It took him a few more seconds than usual to unlock the door, all too aware of Jaejoong standing behind him at a distance that should have been much less than comfortable for strangers like them, but he finally managed to and went inside, dropping the keys on a small table and tying his hair up sloppily. A few strands fell from it after a few seconds, but he paid no mind to them as he offered to take Jaejoong’s coat so he could hang it on the back of the door.
“So, why do you want to play piano so suddenly?” he asked conversationally.
“I like music.”
A smile played on Yoochun’s lips. “Yeah, Eun Ae told me that. Is there a particular song you want to learn or something?”
“I,” Jaejoong said hesitantly, lowering his gaze slightly. “That song by Xiah Junsu, the piano ballad-the one he always sang with that female piano player and everyone started saying they were doing it because of the way they looked at each other. I want to learn that. Is it hard?”
Yoochun had written that song, just for Junsu. After that, his agency had asked him to write all of his ballads, because he’d grasped his essence as a singer, they said. The two of them used to be pretty close.
“It’s not that bad, for someone who’s used to it. For a beginner, though, I wouldn’t say the same, because it’s more complicated than it sounds. Depending on how good you are, it could take you months to learn.”
Jaejoong nodded, but the determined look from earlier never left his face. The confidence in his eyes astonished him. “I don’t mind how long it takes, but I’m not a total beginner, you know. I have some basics on piano, and I can read music.”
“Alright,” Yoochun said, and rummaged through a box next to the piano before taking out a small booklet of sheet music and setting it on the piano. He gestured for Jaejoong to sit. “Then sight-read this to me, and let’s see where you stand exactly.”
“Chopsticks? Really? Even this is too easy for Eun Ae.”
“A lot of things are too easy for Eun Ae. Do you want to learn or not? I just want to assess your level, but if you’re not satisfied with my methods, you can always find another teacher if you want. I’m not holding you back; I actually liked having weekends off.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll play, not need to get testy,” Jaejoong scoffed, wearing an expression that reminded Yoochun of a high school student, honest and juvenile in his own way. Somehow, he liked this Jaejoong better; the one that showed up suddenly now that only the two of them were alone, the one who was a bit frayed at the edges and pretended to be stronger than he was-the one who stopped trying to fit himself into the mould of father, of husband, of employee that everyone wanted to see him in and was only Jaejoong.
Jaejoong who wanted to become one with his music without even knowing it was his.
Over the next few weeks, Yoochun got to know just-Jaejoong better. He held on tight to the desire to play this one particular song, and showed up at the door of his apartment every Saturday at a quarter past one, but never left after only an hour. They’d get carried away talking about music and everything else, but never did Jaejoong show signs that he knew that all of his favourite songs had been written and composed by Yoochun, or that he was aware he was facing the ex-idol his wife had loved so much and who proudly held the incredibly prestigious title of ex-druggie as well.
Aside from worrying that he’d realize who he was facing and take his daughter (and himself) away from him, he feared that one day Jaejoong would realize that his piano teacher was head over heels in love with him, now more than ever, so much he couldn’t sleep anymore and his bedroom floor was almost completely covered with songs that would never get finished because he was keeping everything inside, locked away in a corner of his mind, and only let his heart out around Jaejoong because getting hurt was easier than putting his walls back up around himself.
Like his daughter, Jaejoong would also often be asking him to play something. Impress me, he’d say, and Yoochun would try his damnedest to. He did play a Chopin waltz for him one time, and Jaejoong stared at him for a moment that stretched on like hours, Yoochun tensing up under those eyes when he realized that, for once, they were only seeing him.
“Why didn’t you say you were this good?”
“I’m not that-”
“Oh, don’t be modest. I’m not stupid, Yoochun-sshi, I know music. Chopin’s waltzes are said to be the hardest to play because the pianist has to shun norms and tempo, and that not many are able to achieve it because they’ve been striving for perfection their whole lives. You were one with the piano just now.”
Yoochun had always told himself that interprets, not matter how talented they were, couldn’t play a Chopin waltz for those reasons. The only way he could explain that he was able to was that he was a composer himself, that he had also gone through the process of leaving everything behind to put feelings down into notes; he knew what it was to turn away from paper and only rely on the keys, and the melodies his heart made his fingers create.
But he couldn’t tell Jaejoong that, for some reason.
part two »