Rules of Engagement
Title: Rules of Engagement
Pairing: JaeChun, Junsu/Hani
Rating: Pg-13
Length: Oneshot
Genre: Romance, Angst, Bandfic
Summary: Weddings were meant to be new beginnings. But for Jaejoong, Junsu's wedding was just the beginning of the end.
Jaejoong always thought the beginning of the end would happen someplace dramatic. A rainy rooftop, the banks of the Han during the first snowfall, an open field surrounded by mountains: shot panning in from the left with a sorrowful orchestral playing in the background.
But instead it happened on a nondescript Tuesday in the basement room of the newly reopened Bum’s, a place that Jaejoong always associated with good friends and good food and no drama. Yoochun was pressed into the booth next to him and Junsu was sitting across the table, so everything should have been perfect and safe.
And it was until Junsu slid a heavy piece of cardstock across the table to them.
“My…my engagement party invitation”
“Your what?” Yoochun cried, snatching the card off the table.
“Who are you getting engaged to?” Jaejoong demanded at the same time.
Junsu pulled a face of confusion. “My girlfriend, hyung. Who I’ve been dating for 5 years…who else do you think I’d ask to marry me?”
“How did you get poor Heeyeon to agree to this?” Yoochun asked, waving the invitation around “And why didn’t you tell us you were going to ask her to marry you?”
“I never officially proposed or anything. We just told our parents that we were ready for marriage and they kind of set everything up from there”
“You told your parents before you told us?” Jaejoong whimpered dramatically, 90% teasing and 10% genuine hurt.
“I told you I was thinking about marrying her!”
Yoochun snorted. “Yeah, but you didn’t tell tell us”
“What does that even mean?”
“You know” Jaejoong took over. “Tell, tell. Like actually tell”
Junsu looked like he was two seconds away from his brain exploding, so instead Yoochun slid the invitation over to Jaejoong and reached across to grab one of Junsu’s hands.
“No matter who you told first, we’re happy for you, Su”
“Yah, don’t speak for me” Jaejoong said, fingering the scalloped edges of the paper, index finger running up and down the side. Yoochun turned to him with a pointed look.
“You’re not happy for him?”
“Of course I’m happy for him” Jaejoong said with a grin. “Heeyeon is wonderful. A wonderful girl and wonderful for you, Su-yah”
“Too wonderful for Su” Yoochun interjected.
Jaejoong snorted “Well that goes without saying”
Junsu just rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t able to stop the giddy smile from spreading across his face. He had been waiting for this day ever since he saw Heeyeon for the first time. It had been the first snowfall and she was leaving the salon just as he was entering it, fur lined jacket clutched tight to her body, snowflakes falling gently into her newly dyed hair.
“Can you believe it?” Yoochun asked, jabbing his elbow into Jaejoong’s side with force: jostling him and making his finger slip on the sharp edge of the invitation, paper cutting into skin. “Our maknae is getting married before either of us! How is this possible?”
Jaejoong felt his chest tightening for reasons that wasn’t the blood falling from his newly acquired cut, drip dropping onto the once pristine cream of the paper in his hand.
Three more drops fell and Yoochun leaned over, wrapping the finger in a monogrammed napkin before any more could.
“Be more careful, hyung” Yoochun scolded lightly.
“You were the one who jabbed me, you violent freak! This was your fault!”
“Then you’ve got to be more careful about letting violent freaks hurt you” Yoochun said with a grin.
Jaejoong stared down at the napkin, eyes tracing over the shadow of their new logo: two tigers entwined together.
Yeah, he really did.
~~~***~~~
The air was cold when they got outside the restaurant.
Yoochun pulled the sleeves of his sweater down until they covered the tips of his fingers. The woven material hung off his shoulders and Jaejoong’s hands twitched as he stopped them from pulling off his own scarf and offering it to the other man.
“Hey” Yoochun started. Stopped. Started again. “You want to come over and drink? Mom and Yoohwan went to visit some relatives in Suwon so it’s just me…”
It had been months since they had drunk together, just the two of them. These days they always invited other people to come along with them-friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, people whose names they barely knew, who they might have worked with once upon a time. Anyone who could be a distraction.
“You need to get your own place, Chun-ah. I told you the townhouse next to mine is empty.”
“Yeah, and if I move in there, you’ll be over every day”
“And?”
“And that would be a problem”
“Because?”
Yoochun glared at him and Jaejoong bit his lip, looking away. He had broken rule #1. Never Talk About It. Or maybe it was rule #2. Never bring Up Anything That Could Lead to Talking About It.
Either way, those rules had been established to maintain their sanity and Jaejoong was quickly spiraling out of it.
“I just mean…it has to be awkward when you bring a girl home” Jaejoong quickly added, eyes trained on the garage where Junsu had walked into, waiting to see the youngest drive away. “Anyways, I think I’m going to go visit my parents tonight. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them”.
“Yeah” Yoochun agreed. “Besides, I’m not really in the drinking mood today”
Neither one of them brought up the fact that Yoochun had been the one to propose getting a drink together in the first place as Junsu’s car squealed out of the garage. The window lowered as the maknae stuck his head out.
“Why are you two still standing out in the dark like a pair of creepy ahjussis? Go home, It’s getting cold!”
“Sure thing, sunbaenim!” Yoochun yelled back, grumbling under his breath. “He gets engaged and suddenly thinks he can boss us around whenever he wants…”
And somehow, this felt okay.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong wrapped a clean bandage around his finger after getting out of the shower. The cut had healed moments after he had gotten it, but the bandage was a nice reminder.
The long drive to Gongju had done good for his mind, and seeing his parents again did good for his heart.
He walked out of the steamy bathroom, throwing his towel in the basket by the door as he made his way to the living room where his mother was wrapped in a blanket on the sofa. She was tinkering with the new smartphone Jaejoong had bought her a couple of weeks ago: shooting confused looks at the lock screen.
“It recognizes your fingerprint, umma” Jaejoong laughed fondly as he walked over. “Have you not been able to get it open this whole time?”
“This is what happens when you give a smart phone to a dumb lady, Joong-ah”
“Never dumb” Jaejoong corrected, sitting down next to the petite woman, letting her wrap her arms around him. Like most people who lived in the countryside, his parents left the front door open and there was a cold draft spilling through the house. “Just beautiful, lovely, perfect…”
“Aigoo, when did my boy become such a sweet talker?” the woman asked, laughing against her son’s soft night shirt. “When are you going to find a girl of your own to sweet talk to?”
Jaejoong froze for a second, the room suddenly becoming 10 degrees colder. “Junsu is getting married” he said instead.
“Oh?”
“To Heeyeon. Do you remember her? She's in that group, EXID. We took you to her concert a couple of months ago”
“Of course. She’s a very pretty girl”
There was silence again and Jaejoong’s mother took her son’s cold hands in her own, rubbing them to warm then up. Her thumb brushed against the bandage on his finger over and over again and for some reason, Jaejoong felt like crying.
“Is our Yoochunnie thinking about marriage too?” she asked. “He’s at that age where he should be”
There were a million things that wanted to go through Jaejoong’s mind at the moment, but he stopped himself because of rule #4. Just Don’t Think About It
“Yoochunnie should get married” his mother said, sounding a bit more firm.
“Don’t you think you should be worried about your actual son more?” Jaejoong teased, voice light. His mother smiled and raised one of her hands to pat his check.
“You never cause me to worry, Joong-ah”
“You worry about me getting married all the time!”
His mother shook her head. “We’re not worried about you getting married. Your father and I just want to know that you have a family of your own to love when we aren’t here. And a wife to help take care of you.”
“I have noonas and my members to take care of me”
“Be serious here, Joong-ah”
Jaejoong sighed. This was his mother. The lady who had taken him in and raised him and never let him think of himself as anything but her own. She always told him that he owed her nothing, but as someone who had been abandoned by and who had abandoned so many things over the years, he felt like he owed the world to her. He would give her anything he had.
Even if it meant losing himself in the process.
“I know it would make you and appa happy for me to find someone to marry. I’ll start talking it more seriously.”
“We just want to see you happy and settled down before we leave. You know we’re not exactly young anymore right?”
“Nope” Jaejoong said, resolutely, “You and appa are going to be around forever.”
His mother just sighed. “Ignoring the truth doesn’t make it any better.”
Jaejoong looked down at the bandage on his hand. His mind was repeating rule #4 over and over again. Just Don’t Think About It. Just Don’t Think About It.
And he thought, no, his mother was wrong.
Sometimes ignoring the truth was the only way to keep sane.
~~~~***~~~
Whoever thought organizing a wedding was a woman’s job had obviously never met Kim Junsu. From the moment the engagement party was over, it was a non-stop barrage of wedding talk. If cream or off-white was better for tablecloths, if maroon was too masculine for a wedding, if asking musical actors to sing at the wedding would be too ostentatious. If having Yoochun and Jaejoong sing at the wedding would be too ostentatious. Should the ceremony be held in a wedding hall or a traditional church? And, by the way, what are your feelings about doves?
Jaejoong was knee deep in de-thorned roses as Junsu tried to create a sample centerpiece by hand.
“If this is the way his wedding planning is going, can you imagine what he’s going to be like when they’re expecting their first kid?” Yoochun asked, decapitating a bunch of white roses and stringing them together.
Jaejoong groaned. “I don’t even want to think about it. Oh my god, Junsu-yah, never have kids”
“Would cream or off-white be the best color for baby bedding?” Yoochun mimicked.
“Should I announce the birth of my kid to the fans through an instagram post or just hold him up over my apartment building like the Lion King?” Jaejoong added.
“Hold him up over an apartment building…” Yoochun gave off a bark-like laugh. “Okay, you’re never having kids either, hyung”
“I guess it’s up to Yoochun to carry on the JYJ family line, then” Junsu said, tinkering with the vase in his hand.
“Hasn’t it always been?” Jaejoong asked with a huff. “The whole beautiful wife with two kids and a nice house…”
Yoochun’s grip tightened on the string of roses he was making, obviously uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. “You’re making that sound like a bad dream”
“It’s a perfect dream” Jaejoong answered easily. “I’m jealous…”
“It’s the perfect dream” Junsu interjected. “Just not perfect for Yoochun”
“Then what is perfect for me?”
Junsu looked between the two men in front of him and rolled his eyes. If the two of them were going to ignore everything then he would too. So instead, he decided to change the subject. “We need to figure out what the two of you are going to do during the wedding”
“I thought we were going to be the best men” Yoochun said.
Junsu rolled his eyes. “You can’t both be the best man. Plus I already have one and it’s not either of you.”
“What?” Jaejoong cried. “When did you decide this? Who’s going to be your best man then?”
“Junho hyung is. And I decided this when I was born. Together. With him”
Jaejoong turned his full on pout towards Junsu, which he had done countless times in the past, but they were in their 30s now and planning a wedding so it was more comical than anything else. “So what are Chunnie and I going to do then?”
“That’s what we’re trying to decide here…”
“Since you kicked us out of our rightful position, I’m just going to ask Heeyeon if we can be in her bridal party instead” Yoochun said.
“You’re still going to be my groomsmen, just not the best man” Junsu said, “hmm…how about the two of you walk me down the aisle?”
“Men don’t get walked down the aisle” Yoochun pointed out. “They normally just kind of stand there in the front”
Junsu grinned. “Well when have the three of us ever been normal?”
“We still won’t get to do any of the cool stuff like plan your bachelor party and hire you strippers” Jaejoong whined, ignoring Junsu’s sputtering protests.
Yoochun tied the ends of his strings together, creating a rose crown which he promptly slid onto Jaejoong’s head. “Don’t worry, hyung.” His fingers lingered, a little awkwardly, against Jaejoong’s soft hair. “I’ll make you the best man at my wedding” His eyes were a little tired, his smile straining against the seemingly playful words.
“It better be me” Jaejoong said, seriously. No one else was allowed to get the front row seat to the destruction of his life
“I better be your best man, too” Yoochun countered, just as serious.
“You two just don’t want me to be your best man because you know I won’t get you strippers” Junsu said suddenly, trying to raise up the mood. And, like always, he was just the salve that the other two needed.
“You would throw me a bachelor party at LOTTE world” Yoochun said, fingers returning-twitching-to his side.
“What’s wrong with LOTTE world? It’s fun!”
“They don’t even sell alcohol there” Jaejoong answered.
“And?”
Both Jaejoong and Yoochun looked at each other with aghast expressions before dissolving into laughter.
“Please let us help Junho plan your bachelor party” Yoochun said breathlessly.
“Or really do let us join Heeyeon’s bridal party. I’m sure her bachelorette will be great” Jaejoong added.
Junsu rolled his eyes as he grinned. His hyungs didn’t laugh as much recently and he would concede to forever being the victim of their constant trolling as long as it kept them smiling.
~~~***~~~
Yoochun started dating a girl. Her name was JinAh and she was born in the Korea, raised in US. Her eyes were feline; beautiful and sharp, as was her wit. She cooked with too much spice, wore too much black, and listened exclusively to Japanese rock and Swedish heavy metal. She had a dog that hated her and a cat that hated everybody. Including Junsu.
He introduced her to his family. His mother looked relieved, a little too knowing as JinAh shifted in her leather boots, hands running through her hair in endearing self-consciousness. Yoohwan was a lot of things: confused, sad, angry, but understanding. He smiled to her face and later, when it was just him and his brother and a couple of beers he said “if it’s going to be someone, then she seems like a good choice.”
Yoochun introduced her to his members. Junsu’s relationship with her was inversely proportional. He was perfect with her at first: bubbly, attentive, happiness cloaked by years of mistrust, but shining through nevertheless. But the longer JinAh stayed, the more reserved Junsu became around her. The closer he stood to Jaejoong when they were all backstage. The more the comforting touches and concerned glances he spared only for their eldest member grew in number.
Jaejoong just took one look at her and said she was perfect. Because she was.
So perfect that the first night after he met her was spent in the bathroom, curled up in a ball in front of the toilet, body wracked with silent sobs and dry heaves.
~~~***~~~
It was six months to Junsu’s wedding and somehow all of their apartments had become a mess of fabric and flowers.
Jaejoong walked into his place to find four poofy dresses hanging on a rack next to his TV and his floor covered in swatches of fabric in varying shades of blue. There were cake samples all over his dining room table and people, most of who he’d never seen before, coming in and out of rooms.
“The shop sent over the wrong color for the bridesmaid dresses and now I have to call them to make sure that they get everything fixed” Junsu explained as he picked up two rolls of fabric and thrust them into Jaejoong’s arms. “Please tell me how you can confuse baby blue and powder blue?”
Jaejoong looked down at what seemed to be two identical rolls. He wondered a lot of things in the span of a few seconds: if his front door had become a portal that magically transplanted him in an alternate dimension where Junsu lived in his house. If he was on a hidden camera show. If Junsu had sustained a traumatic brain injury and now thought that Jaejoong was the one marrying Heeyeon. If he was colorblind because really, what was the difference between powder blue and baby blue?
“I told him they look the exact same” Yoochun sighed, coming out of Jaejoong’s bedroom while carrying a stack of tablecloths.
“They are completely different!” Junsu cried out.
Heeyeon came out of the kitchen, one cheek smudged with traces of chocolate icing from a cake sample. “None of my bridesmaids will care about the difference, Su. Trust me, with the amount of male celebrities we’re inviting to the wedding, my members wouldn’t even notice if you dressed them up in garbage bags.” She turned to Jaejoong with an apologetic smile “Sorry about the whole home takeover thing, our place is so full of flowers you’d think we were living in a meadow…”
“You’re a saint, Ahn Heeyeon” Yoochun whispered as he walked past.
“A true goddess among women” Jaejoong agreed as someone with a stack of lacy invitations rushed past him, almost knocking him off balance.
It had been a long, exhausting day in the studio-spent putting all the songs he had written onto soundboards, ignoring the weird looks the technicians gave him as they read over his lyrics. Ignoring the questions, why was a man in this 30s-chronically single and bouncing from one casual fling to another-always writing about deep and painful lost love? It wasn’t like he could answer the questions anyways. Not unless he wanted to break rule #3. Don’t Bring It Up To Anyone
Another person walked past him and Jaejoong felt suffocated. The air was too thick with the smell of cake and pressed linen and there were too many people around him. He heard Junsu saying something about calling his mother over and he felt like he wanted to throw up.
Suddenly, everything disappeared into white. There was a soft rustling around him and he turned his head to find Yoochun’s grinning face inches from his. A tablecloth was draped over both of them like some sort of makeshift tent.
“You looked like you were about to pass out”
“I never realized weddings were so much work” Jaejoong huffed. The sounds from outside their little cocoon were muted-sounding worlds away. “I’m going to stay single forever”
“And deprive the world of little Jaejoongs? How cruel” Yoochun countered.
“I could have kids without getting married”
“Please don’t” Yoochun groaned out. “Junsu and Heeyeon getting caught dating created enough of a scandal for the group. I don’t know if JYJ could survive your secret love children”
Jaejoong wanted to say that JYJ had to survive Yoochun’s marriage as well, but Yoochun stopped him as he was about to open his mouth, pressing his index finger to Jaejoong’s lips and keeping it there for a second too long.
“No negativity allowed in Fort Yoochun. That is Rule Number 1”
“You have entirely too many rules” Jaejoong grumbled.
“Someone has to keep us sane” Yoochun said, sitting down on the ground. Jaejoong sat down next to him and smiled as the tablecloth spread around them. Somehow it felt right-him and Yoochun in their little fort, surrounded by soft white as the world went on around them. It felt safe.
“Do you think we’re sane?”
Yoochun tilted his head back. “I don’t think we need to be sane to be happy”
“So do you think we’re happy?”
They met each other’s eyes.
“I think we’re going to be”
Outside, Junsu just stared as his two band members disappeared into their own little world. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but they usually didn’t physically disappear as well. Not like covering themselves with a tablecloth was much of a disappearing act, but it was still a bit strange.
“I think Jaejoong oppa needs a break” Heeyeon said, walking up next to her fiancé.
“A break?”
“Away from wedding planning and everything else. He seems tired lately and I think a break would do both him and Yoochun oppa some good. We’re getting married and then Yoochun oppa and JinAh will get married soon too…”
“Yoochun and JinAh aren’t going to get married” Junsu frowned.
“Of course they will, seobang” Heeyeon said and Junsu couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread through him hearing the affectionate title. “When has Yoochun oppa ever dated a girl for this long before?”
“He’s only dating her for this long because…”
“She’s the female version of him” Heeyeon finished. “None of us are blind, we can all see it”
“I can’t see why he needs to have the female version when he can just have the original”
Heeyeon smiled softly before turning to Junsu. “You love the two of them so much. If they were anyone else, I’d be jealous, you know.”
“What?”
“You love them so much that you can only think about what will make them the happiest, instead of what is realistic.”
And it was true. Because no matter what happened, Junsu knew that one day Jaejoong and Yoochun would find wives and get married and have families of their own. Because it was what was expected for them, and more importantly, it was what they expected for themselves. And they would ignore everything else just like they had been for the past 20 years. They would hide their affections behind knocking knees, hands that stayed on warm shoulders for a little too long, a little too tight, sides pressed against one another, giggles and smiles and hugs hidden between sets of songs.
So Junsu took out his phone and called a familiar number.
“Tanaka-san? Remember that Japanese solo that you wanted Jaejoong to do? I think he’s really interested in it now…”
Heeyeon squeezed his hand from the side and gave him a warm smile.
Because there wasn’t much that Junsu could do for the two men that he loved so deeply, sometimes even more than his own brother. Because in this time, this space, the only thing he could do for them was to help preserve their sanity for a little longer.
~~~****~~~
Jaejoong was good at being alone. That was something Yongha hyung had said to him, years back. He hadn’t understood it then because there wasn’t ever a time he was alone. He had been twenty-young and much too naïve-living in cramped quarters with 4 other guys thinking no one in the world would ever care or question him if he hugged his bandmate a bit too tight or stayed single for a little too long.
But here he was, in Tokyo, inching on 36 years old, preparing for his grand Japanese solo debut, and he realized that Yongha had been right about him. That even among groups of friends and surrounded by other people, Jaejoong was very good at being alone.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, a few short staccato beats. It was a text message, most likely from Yoochun. The other man had been keeping him up to date with Junsu’s wedding preparations, sending him pictures of tulle and aisle runners. And in return, Jaejoong had been sending Yoochun quick shots of cherry blossoms and half-finished compositions which somehow Yoochun always seemed to be able to polish and finish.
But today, sitting on the rooftop of the Tokyo apartment that he’d invested in a few years back, Jaejoong didn’t feel like doing any of that. He was in a melancholy mood and he didn’t really want to do anything but drink the bottles of soju he had found in the international aisle of one of the local grocery stores and stare out into the twinkling nightscape.
He thought that maybe the world would be scared if they knew the things that went on in his head on nights like this. He knew Yoochun would for sure be scared of him now, like this, during the times he thought about Yongha hyung and what the world would be like if he was born in another place, was maybe a little braver, a little less famous, a little less indebted to so many people who had sacrificed so much to make him who he was.
The short beats of his phone turned into a steady vibration and Jaejoong didn’t even have to look to know that Yoochun was calling him.
Yoochun always knew when Jaejoong needed him to call.
But just like Yoochun made rules to keep himself grounded in reality, Jaejoong created situations and moods.
And today, just for a little short while, Jaejoong wanted to feel happy being alone.
~~~***~~~
In some hideaway bar tucked in the back corners of Shimokitazawa, Jaejoong met a girl named Nari. She was a third generation Korean living in Japan and Jaejoong took one look at her eyes-large, rounded, puppy-like-over a glass of bourbon and thought that this could be okay.
She wasn't exactly like the cute girls he normally went for; she was almost as tall as him and a little too thin for his liking, pale pale skin stretched over jutting bones that she liked to cover with oversized sweaters and skinny jeans. She was also famous, an up and coming actress who had been all over the Japanese drama and movie scene. But she could hold her liquor, which was a secret she kept from her slightly overprotective mother, as was the splay of feathers she had tattooed on her side: from sharp hipbone all the way up to the underside of her right breast. She had the brightest smile which she hid in public and unleashed in full brilliance only in private.
And when Jaejoong pulled her close to his side, her long hair tumbled down his face and shoulders. She smelled like snow and cherry blossoms, heavy wool sweaters and newly dried blankets and smoke, like winter and spring mixed and tied together with late afternoon naps and sunrises marked with shared cigarettes.
One day Jaejoong found himself tangled in a blanket with her, bodies bare, sticky sweat cooling in the late morning damp. She traced the tattoo on the small of his back. “I like this” she said in accented Korean. Her finger swept over the MICKY. “You must really love them a lot”
Jaejoong just hugged her closer, breathed in the scent of fresh linen and flowers, and thought that this could be okay. If it had to be, then it would be okay with her.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong and Nari came back to Korea two weeks before Junsu’s wedding, on the heels of a very successful solo album and movie respectively.
JinAh, a consummate fan of Japanese dramas, gushed over Jaejoong’s new girlfriend; eyes alight with stars as she asked for gossip on her favorite actors. They made quite the amusing pair, both with their stuttering Korean and foreign excitement over everything Seoul had to offer.
Jaejoong’s parents and sisters were charmed with Nari’s pleasant disposition and pretty face; cooing over her dimples and laughing when JinAh’s dog took an immediate liking to her.
Junsu just shook his head, eyes conflicted but mouth pulling into a grin nonetheless. “You two idiots are just like each other. So obvious” he said as he gave Jaejoong a long hug, not an ounce surprised over how much he missed having the eldest member there with him, “but I’m happy for you both. I think…like this…it can be okay”
Yoochun didn’t say anything about Nari. His eyes became more tired and somehow Jaejoong knew that the long, agnozied nights were shared by both of them. But Yoochun never said anything about her. Instead, when it was just the two of them standing on the balcony of Junsu’s apartment the night before the wedding, he turned to Jaejoong and clinked their beer bottles together.
“To happiness, hyung”
“Have we found it yet?”
“We will”
~~~***~~~
The wedding was just as beautiful as any of them could have dreamed it would be.
Just like they had planned to, Yoochun and Jaejoong walked Junsu down the aisle; one on either side of him, arms linked together. The small orchestra played an instrumental of Fallen Leaves as they took their place besides Junho and Heeyeon’s brother as the other groomsmen. The EXID members, each in their beautiful baby blue bridesmaids gowns, stood across the aisle as members of Heeyeon’s bridal party.
When the orchestra started playing the bridal march, everyone’s eyes turned to the door of the church, where Heeyeon stood-looking like something straight out of a dream in her off white dress. As she made her way down the aisle, all three of the JYJ members reminisced about the first time they realized they were in love.
Junsu once again recalled that cold November day as he hopped out of his car in front of Red Carpet. How it had just started snowing, the fluffy white powder sticking to the trees and melting as soon as it touched the ground. And how she had looked as she came out of the salon, laughing with her other band members as she struggled to get her jacket on. The way the snow looked as it bunched and gathered in her dark coffee hair.
Jaejoong remembered the lights at A-Nation, almost blinding in their intensity. His hair was stiff with products and they had put him in an outfit he could only describe as denim dyed to look like cowhide. But he looked over to the other side of the stage as the first notes of Colors started and there he had been, wearing the same horribly dyed monstrosity, his long hair tied up, sweeping across his neck. And when they caught each other’s eyes and smiled it wasn’t just the lights that were blinding anymore.
Yoochun remembered being horribly jetlagged and homesick despite only being away from home for less than 24 hours. Remembered coming back to a country that was so familiar but also so different from what lived in his memories. He felt relief at how natural the language felt and how his accent and face wasn’t out of place anymore. His new manager led him into a dance practice room that smelled like sweat and 15 different colognes from teenage boys who didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary to use half the bottle at a time. “Jaejoong-ah, come here and say hi to the new trainee!” the manager had called out. Yoochun looked up and saw a pair of large, excited cat-like eyes staring back at him and from that moment on, he never really felt homesick again.
Heeyeon made her way down the aisle and took her place next to Junsu. They held onto each other’s hands and the pure, unfiltered joy that crossed Junsu’s face almost brought Jaejoong to his knees. He looked back at the crowd, easily finding Nari and JinAh sitting next to each other a few rows behind Junsu’s family. They both looked so happy and lovely and Jaejoong had to fight at the panic clawing up his throat.
Soon this would be Yoochun and then it would be him. And when Junsu lifted Heeyeon’s veil so that they could share their first kiss as husband and wife, Jaejoong thought that maybe it could be like this for him too.
Maybe he could make Nari happy in the way that Junsu made Heeyeon happy. Maybe she could make him happy as well. Maybe, if he tried hard enough and gave enough of himself away, he could be okay.
~~~***~~~
After the speeches were done and the dinner eaten and cake cut, everybody descended down to the dance floor. The wedding guests were a mix of all sorts of celebrities-musical actors and actresses, older idols that JYJ had known and befriended for years; Big Bang members talking with KARA members over glasses of wine; and newer idols that EXID had become close to since their debut.
Jaejoong stood at the edge of the dance floor and just looked at all the guests, marveling at how long he had known some of the people in this room and how close to family they had become.
“Can I have this dance?”
He turned to the side to find Yoochun next to him, smiling, arm offered out.
Normally, Yoochun would never ask for something like this. It went against all the rules that they had been carefully following over the past twenty years. But it seemed like today, Yoochun was feeling a little selfish.
And, if Jaejoong was being completely honest with himself, he was feeling a little selfish too.
Tomorrow, he would wake Nari up with a kiss on her nose and spend a slow, lazy morning cooking breakfast together before taking Hiro on a walk around his gated complex, wearing those couple sneakers that Nari had bought as a joke for them last month.
Tomorrow morning he would do all of that.
But right now, Jaejoong was feeling selfish. So he grabbed Yoochun’s arm and let himself indulge in just one dance.
Because one day Jaejoong would give Yoochun an invitation to his wedding.
Because one day Jaejoong would give Yoochun the title of godfather to his first child.
Because one day Jaejoong would give up, give in, give away all the parts of himself he had left.
But tonight, Jaejoong would give Yoochun what remained of his sanity and have it breathed back into him, repaired and reconstructed, in the way only Yoochun knew how.
~~~***~~~
A/N: I swear, this was just supposed to be a cute fic about Junsu and Hani and it became this mess of angst and emotions because whenever JaeChun is involved, my brain just goes off on its own and I've tried to stop controlling it.
Pairing: JaeChun, Junsu/Hani
Rating: Pg-13
Length: Oneshot
Genre: Romance, Angst, Bandfic
Summary: Weddings were meant to be new beginnings. But for Jaejoong, Junsu's wedding was just the beginning of the end.
Jaejoong always thought the beginning of the end would happen someplace dramatic. A rainy rooftop, the banks of the Han during the first snowfall, an open field surrounded by mountains: shot panning in from the left with a sorrowful orchestral playing in the background.
But instead it happened on a nondescript Tuesday in the basement room of the newly reopened Bum’s, a place that Jaejoong always associated with good friends and good food and no drama. Yoochun was pressed into the booth next to him and Junsu was sitting across the table, so everything should have been perfect and safe.
And it was until Junsu slid a heavy piece of cardstock across the table to them.
“My…my engagement party invitation”
“Your what?” Yoochun cried, snatching the card off the table.
“Who are you getting engaged to?” Jaejoong demanded at the same time.
Junsu pulled a face of confusion. “My girlfriend, hyung. Who I’ve been dating for 5 years…who else do you think I’d ask to marry me?”
“How did you get poor Heeyeon to agree to this?” Yoochun asked, waving the invitation around “And why didn’t you tell us you were going to ask her to marry you?”
“I never officially proposed or anything. We just told our parents that we were ready for marriage and they kind of set everything up from there”
“You told your parents before you told us?” Jaejoong whimpered dramatically, 90% teasing and 10% genuine hurt.
“I told you I was thinking about marrying her!”
Yoochun snorted. “Yeah, but you didn’t tell tell us”
“What does that even mean?”
“You know” Jaejoong took over. “Tell, tell. Like actually tell”
Junsu looked like he was two seconds away from his brain exploding, so instead Yoochun slid the invitation over to Jaejoong and reached across to grab one of Junsu’s hands.
“No matter who you told first, we’re happy for you, Su”
“Yah, don’t speak for me” Jaejoong said, fingering the scalloped edges of the paper, index finger running up and down the side. Yoochun turned to him with a pointed look.
“You’re not happy for him?”
“Of course I’m happy for him” Jaejoong said with a grin. “Heeyeon is wonderful. A wonderful girl and wonderful for you, Su-yah”
“Too wonderful for Su” Yoochun interjected.
Jaejoong snorted “Well that goes without saying”
Junsu just rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t able to stop the giddy smile from spreading across his face. He had been waiting for this day ever since he saw Heeyeon for the first time. It had been the first snowfall and she was leaving the salon just as he was entering it, fur lined jacket clutched tight to her body, snowflakes falling gently into her newly dyed hair.
“Can you believe it?” Yoochun asked, jabbing his elbow into Jaejoong’s side with force: jostling him and making his finger slip on the sharp edge of the invitation, paper cutting into skin. “Our maknae is getting married before either of us! How is this possible?”
Jaejoong felt his chest tightening for reasons that wasn’t the blood falling from his newly acquired cut, drip dropping onto the once pristine cream of the paper in his hand.
Three more drops fell and Yoochun leaned over, wrapping the finger in a monogrammed napkin before any more could.
“Be more careful, hyung” Yoochun scolded lightly.
“You were the one who jabbed me, you violent freak! This was your fault!”
“Then you’ve got to be more careful about letting violent freaks hurt you” Yoochun said with a grin.
Jaejoong stared down at the napkin, eyes tracing over the shadow of their new logo: two tigers entwined together.
Yeah, he really did.
~~~***~~~
The air was cold when they got outside the restaurant.
Yoochun pulled the sleeves of his sweater down until they covered the tips of his fingers. The woven material hung off his shoulders and Jaejoong’s hands twitched as he stopped them from pulling off his own scarf and offering it to the other man.
“Hey” Yoochun started. Stopped. Started again. “You want to come over and drink? Mom and Yoohwan went to visit some relatives in Suwon so it’s just me…”
It had been months since they had drunk together, just the two of them. These days they always invited other people to come along with them-friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, people whose names they barely knew, who they might have worked with once upon a time. Anyone who could be a distraction.
“You need to get your own place, Chun-ah. I told you the townhouse next to mine is empty.”
“Yeah, and if I move in there, you’ll be over every day”
“And?”
“And that would be a problem”
“Because?”
Yoochun glared at him and Jaejoong bit his lip, looking away. He had broken rule #1. Never Talk About It. Or maybe it was rule #2. Never bring Up Anything That Could Lead to Talking About It.
Either way, those rules had been established to maintain their sanity and Jaejoong was quickly spiraling out of it.
“I just mean…it has to be awkward when you bring a girl home” Jaejoong quickly added, eyes trained on the garage where Junsu had walked into, waiting to see the youngest drive away. “Anyways, I think I’m going to go visit my parents tonight. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them”.
“Yeah” Yoochun agreed. “Besides, I’m not really in the drinking mood today”
Neither one of them brought up the fact that Yoochun had been the one to propose getting a drink together in the first place as Junsu’s car squealed out of the garage. The window lowered as the maknae stuck his head out.
“Why are you two still standing out in the dark like a pair of creepy ahjussis? Go home, It’s getting cold!”
“Sure thing, sunbaenim!” Yoochun yelled back, grumbling under his breath. “He gets engaged and suddenly thinks he can boss us around whenever he wants…”
And somehow, this felt okay.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong wrapped a clean bandage around his finger after getting out of the shower. The cut had healed moments after he had gotten it, but the bandage was a nice reminder.
The long drive to Gongju had done good for his mind, and seeing his parents again did good for his heart.
He walked out of the steamy bathroom, throwing his towel in the basket by the door as he made his way to the living room where his mother was wrapped in a blanket on the sofa. She was tinkering with the new smartphone Jaejoong had bought her a couple of weeks ago: shooting confused looks at the lock screen.
“It recognizes your fingerprint, umma” Jaejoong laughed fondly as he walked over. “Have you not been able to get it open this whole time?”
“This is what happens when you give a smart phone to a dumb lady, Joong-ah”
“Never dumb” Jaejoong corrected, sitting down next to the petite woman, letting her wrap her arms around him. Like most people who lived in the countryside, his parents left the front door open and there was a cold draft spilling through the house. “Just beautiful, lovely, perfect…”
“Aigoo, when did my boy become such a sweet talker?” the woman asked, laughing against her son’s soft night shirt. “When are you going to find a girl of your own to sweet talk to?”
Jaejoong froze for a second, the room suddenly becoming 10 degrees colder. “Junsu is getting married” he said instead.
“Oh?”
“To Heeyeon. Do you remember her? She's in that group, EXID. We took you to her concert a couple of months ago”
“Of course. She’s a very pretty girl”
There was silence again and Jaejoong’s mother took her son’s cold hands in her own, rubbing them to warm then up. Her thumb brushed against the bandage on his finger over and over again and for some reason, Jaejoong felt like crying.
“Is our Yoochunnie thinking about marriage too?” she asked. “He’s at that age where he should be”
There were a million things that wanted to go through Jaejoong’s mind at the moment, but he stopped himself because of rule #4. Just Don’t Think About It
“Yoochunnie should get married” his mother said, sounding a bit more firm.
“Don’t you think you should be worried about your actual son more?” Jaejoong teased, voice light. His mother smiled and raised one of her hands to pat his check.
“You never cause me to worry, Joong-ah”
“You worry about me getting married all the time!”
His mother shook her head. “We’re not worried about you getting married. Your father and I just want to know that you have a family of your own to love when we aren’t here. And a wife to help take care of you.”
“I have noonas and my members to take care of me”
“Be serious here, Joong-ah”
Jaejoong sighed. This was his mother. The lady who had taken him in and raised him and never let him think of himself as anything but her own. She always told him that he owed her nothing, but as someone who had been abandoned by and who had abandoned so many things over the years, he felt like he owed the world to her. He would give her anything he had.
Even if it meant losing himself in the process.
“I know it would make you and appa happy for me to find someone to marry. I’ll start talking it more seriously.”
“We just want to see you happy and settled down before we leave. You know we’re not exactly young anymore right?”
“Nope” Jaejoong said, resolutely, “You and appa are going to be around forever.”
His mother just sighed. “Ignoring the truth doesn’t make it any better.”
Jaejoong looked down at the bandage on his hand. His mind was repeating rule #4 over and over again. Just Don’t Think About It. Just Don’t Think About It.
And he thought, no, his mother was wrong.
Sometimes ignoring the truth was the only way to keep sane.
~~~~***~~~
Whoever thought organizing a wedding was a woman’s job had obviously never met Kim Junsu. From the moment the engagement party was over, it was a non-stop barrage of wedding talk. If cream or off-white was better for tablecloths, if maroon was too masculine for a wedding, if asking musical actors to sing at the wedding would be too ostentatious. If having Yoochun and Jaejoong sing at the wedding would be too ostentatious. Should the ceremony be held in a wedding hall or a traditional church? And, by the way, what are your feelings about doves?
Jaejoong was knee deep in de-thorned roses as Junsu tried to create a sample centerpiece by hand.
“If this is the way his wedding planning is going, can you imagine what he’s going to be like when they’re expecting their first kid?” Yoochun asked, decapitating a bunch of white roses and stringing them together.
Jaejoong groaned. “I don’t even want to think about it. Oh my god, Junsu-yah, never have kids”
“Would cream or off-white be the best color for baby bedding?” Yoochun mimicked.
“Should I announce the birth of my kid to the fans through an instagram post or just hold him up over my apartment building like the Lion King?” Jaejoong added.
“Hold him up over an apartment building…” Yoochun gave off a bark-like laugh. “Okay, you’re never having kids either, hyung”
“I guess it’s up to Yoochun to carry on the JYJ family line, then” Junsu said, tinkering with the vase in his hand.
“Hasn’t it always been?” Jaejoong asked with a huff. “The whole beautiful wife with two kids and a nice house…”
Yoochun’s grip tightened on the string of roses he was making, obviously uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. “You’re making that sound like a bad dream”
“It’s a perfect dream” Jaejoong answered easily. “I’m jealous…”
“It’s the perfect dream” Junsu interjected. “Just not perfect for Yoochun”
“Then what is perfect for me?”
Junsu looked between the two men in front of him and rolled his eyes. If the two of them were going to ignore everything then he would too. So instead, he decided to change the subject. “We need to figure out what the two of you are going to do during the wedding”
“I thought we were going to be the best men” Yoochun said.
Junsu rolled his eyes. “You can’t both be the best man. Plus I already have one and it’s not either of you.”
“What?” Jaejoong cried. “When did you decide this? Who’s going to be your best man then?”
“Junho hyung is. And I decided this when I was born. Together. With him”
Jaejoong turned his full on pout towards Junsu, which he had done countless times in the past, but they were in their 30s now and planning a wedding so it was more comical than anything else. “So what are Chunnie and I going to do then?”
“That’s what we’re trying to decide here…”
“Since you kicked us out of our rightful position, I’m just going to ask Heeyeon if we can be in her bridal party instead” Yoochun said.
“You’re still going to be my groomsmen, just not the best man” Junsu said, “hmm…how about the two of you walk me down the aisle?”
“Men don’t get walked down the aisle” Yoochun pointed out. “They normally just kind of stand there in the front”
Junsu grinned. “Well when have the three of us ever been normal?”
“We still won’t get to do any of the cool stuff like plan your bachelor party and hire you strippers” Jaejoong whined, ignoring Junsu’s sputtering protests.
Yoochun tied the ends of his strings together, creating a rose crown which he promptly slid onto Jaejoong’s head. “Don’t worry, hyung.” His fingers lingered, a little awkwardly, against Jaejoong’s soft hair. “I’ll make you the best man at my wedding” His eyes were a little tired, his smile straining against the seemingly playful words.
“It better be me” Jaejoong said, seriously. No one else was allowed to get the front row seat to the destruction of his life
“I better be your best man, too” Yoochun countered, just as serious.
“You two just don’t want me to be your best man because you know I won’t get you strippers” Junsu said suddenly, trying to raise up the mood. And, like always, he was just the salve that the other two needed.
“You would throw me a bachelor party at LOTTE world” Yoochun said, fingers returning-twitching-to his side.
“What’s wrong with LOTTE world? It’s fun!”
“They don’t even sell alcohol there” Jaejoong answered.
“And?”
Both Jaejoong and Yoochun looked at each other with aghast expressions before dissolving into laughter.
“Please let us help Junho plan your bachelor party” Yoochun said breathlessly.
“Or really do let us join Heeyeon’s bridal party. I’m sure her bachelorette will be great” Jaejoong added.
Junsu rolled his eyes as he grinned. His hyungs didn’t laugh as much recently and he would concede to forever being the victim of their constant trolling as long as it kept them smiling.
~~~***~~~
Yoochun started dating a girl. Her name was JinAh and she was born in the Korea, raised in US. Her eyes were feline; beautiful and sharp, as was her wit. She cooked with too much spice, wore too much black, and listened exclusively to Japanese rock and Swedish heavy metal. She had a dog that hated her and a cat that hated everybody. Including Junsu.
He introduced her to his family. His mother looked relieved, a little too knowing as JinAh shifted in her leather boots, hands running through her hair in endearing self-consciousness. Yoohwan was a lot of things: confused, sad, angry, but understanding. He smiled to her face and later, when it was just him and his brother and a couple of beers he said “if it’s going to be someone, then she seems like a good choice.”
Yoochun introduced her to his members. Junsu’s relationship with her was inversely proportional. He was perfect with her at first: bubbly, attentive, happiness cloaked by years of mistrust, but shining through nevertheless. But the longer JinAh stayed, the more reserved Junsu became around her. The closer he stood to Jaejoong when they were all backstage. The more the comforting touches and concerned glances he spared only for their eldest member grew in number.
Jaejoong just took one look at her and said she was perfect. Because she was.
So perfect that the first night after he met her was spent in the bathroom, curled up in a ball in front of the toilet, body wracked with silent sobs and dry heaves.
~~~***~~~
It was six months to Junsu’s wedding and somehow all of their apartments had become a mess of fabric and flowers.
Jaejoong walked into his place to find four poofy dresses hanging on a rack next to his TV and his floor covered in swatches of fabric in varying shades of blue. There were cake samples all over his dining room table and people, most of who he’d never seen before, coming in and out of rooms.
“The shop sent over the wrong color for the bridesmaid dresses and now I have to call them to make sure that they get everything fixed” Junsu explained as he picked up two rolls of fabric and thrust them into Jaejoong’s arms. “Please tell me how you can confuse baby blue and powder blue?”
Jaejoong looked down at what seemed to be two identical rolls. He wondered a lot of things in the span of a few seconds: if his front door had become a portal that magically transplanted him in an alternate dimension where Junsu lived in his house. If he was on a hidden camera show. If Junsu had sustained a traumatic brain injury and now thought that Jaejoong was the one marrying Heeyeon. If he was colorblind because really, what was the difference between powder blue and baby blue?
“I told him they look the exact same” Yoochun sighed, coming out of Jaejoong’s bedroom while carrying a stack of tablecloths.
“They are completely different!” Junsu cried out.
Heeyeon came out of the kitchen, one cheek smudged with traces of chocolate icing from a cake sample. “None of my bridesmaids will care about the difference, Su. Trust me, with the amount of male celebrities we’re inviting to the wedding, my members wouldn’t even notice if you dressed them up in garbage bags.” She turned to Jaejoong with an apologetic smile “Sorry about the whole home takeover thing, our place is so full of flowers you’d think we were living in a meadow…”
“You’re a saint, Ahn Heeyeon” Yoochun whispered as he walked past.
“A true goddess among women” Jaejoong agreed as someone with a stack of lacy invitations rushed past him, almost knocking him off balance.
It had been a long, exhausting day in the studio-spent putting all the songs he had written onto soundboards, ignoring the weird looks the technicians gave him as they read over his lyrics. Ignoring the questions, why was a man in this 30s-chronically single and bouncing from one casual fling to another-always writing about deep and painful lost love? It wasn’t like he could answer the questions anyways. Not unless he wanted to break rule #3. Don’t Bring It Up To Anyone
Another person walked past him and Jaejoong felt suffocated. The air was too thick with the smell of cake and pressed linen and there were too many people around him. He heard Junsu saying something about calling his mother over and he felt like he wanted to throw up.
Suddenly, everything disappeared into white. There was a soft rustling around him and he turned his head to find Yoochun’s grinning face inches from his. A tablecloth was draped over both of them like some sort of makeshift tent.
“You looked like you were about to pass out”
“I never realized weddings were so much work” Jaejoong huffed. The sounds from outside their little cocoon were muted-sounding worlds away. “I’m going to stay single forever”
“And deprive the world of little Jaejoongs? How cruel” Yoochun countered.
“I could have kids without getting married”
“Please don’t” Yoochun groaned out. “Junsu and Heeyeon getting caught dating created enough of a scandal for the group. I don’t know if JYJ could survive your secret love children”
Jaejoong wanted to say that JYJ had to survive Yoochun’s marriage as well, but Yoochun stopped him as he was about to open his mouth, pressing his index finger to Jaejoong’s lips and keeping it there for a second too long.
“No negativity allowed in Fort Yoochun. That is Rule Number 1”
“You have entirely too many rules” Jaejoong grumbled.
“Someone has to keep us sane” Yoochun said, sitting down on the ground. Jaejoong sat down next to him and smiled as the tablecloth spread around them. Somehow it felt right-him and Yoochun in their little fort, surrounded by soft white as the world went on around them. It felt safe.
“Do you think we’re sane?”
Yoochun tilted his head back. “I don’t think we need to be sane to be happy”
“So do you think we’re happy?”
They met each other’s eyes.
“I think we’re going to be”
Outside, Junsu just stared as his two band members disappeared into their own little world. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but they usually didn’t physically disappear as well. Not like covering themselves with a tablecloth was much of a disappearing act, but it was still a bit strange.
“I think Jaejoong oppa needs a break” Heeyeon said, walking up next to her fiancé.
“A break?”
“Away from wedding planning and everything else. He seems tired lately and I think a break would do both him and Yoochun oppa some good. We’re getting married and then Yoochun oppa and JinAh will get married soon too…”
“Yoochun and JinAh aren’t going to get married” Junsu frowned.
“Of course they will, seobang” Heeyeon said and Junsu couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread through him hearing the affectionate title. “When has Yoochun oppa ever dated a girl for this long before?”
“He’s only dating her for this long because…”
“She’s the female version of him” Heeyeon finished. “None of us are blind, we can all see it”
“I can’t see why he needs to have the female version when he can just have the original”
Heeyeon smiled softly before turning to Junsu. “You love the two of them so much. If they were anyone else, I’d be jealous, you know.”
“What?”
“You love them so much that you can only think about what will make them the happiest, instead of what is realistic.”
And it was true. Because no matter what happened, Junsu knew that one day Jaejoong and Yoochun would find wives and get married and have families of their own. Because it was what was expected for them, and more importantly, it was what they expected for themselves. And they would ignore everything else just like they had been for the past 20 years. They would hide their affections behind knocking knees, hands that stayed on warm shoulders for a little too long, a little too tight, sides pressed against one another, giggles and smiles and hugs hidden between sets of songs.
So Junsu took out his phone and called a familiar number.
“Tanaka-san? Remember that Japanese solo that you wanted Jaejoong to do? I think he’s really interested in it now…”
Heeyeon squeezed his hand from the side and gave him a warm smile.
Because there wasn’t much that Junsu could do for the two men that he loved so deeply, sometimes even more than his own brother. Because in this time, this space, the only thing he could do for them was to help preserve their sanity for a little longer.
~~~****~~~
Jaejoong was good at being alone. That was something Yongha hyung had said to him, years back. He hadn’t understood it then because there wasn’t ever a time he was alone. He had been twenty-young and much too naïve-living in cramped quarters with 4 other guys thinking no one in the world would ever care or question him if he hugged his bandmate a bit too tight or stayed single for a little too long.
But here he was, in Tokyo, inching on 36 years old, preparing for his grand Japanese solo debut, and he realized that Yongha had been right about him. That even among groups of friends and surrounded by other people, Jaejoong was very good at being alone.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, a few short staccato beats. It was a text message, most likely from Yoochun. The other man had been keeping him up to date with Junsu’s wedding preparations, sending him pictures of tulle and aisle runners. And in return, Jaejoong had been sending Yoochun quick shots of cherry blossoms and half-finished compositions which somehow Yoochun always seemed to be able to polish and finish.
But today, sitting on the rooftop of the Tokyo apartment that he’d invested in a few years back, Jaejoong didn’t feel like doing any of that. He was in a melancholy mood and he didn’t really want to do anything but drink the bottles of soju he had found in the international aisle of one of the local grocery stores and stare out into the twinkling nightscape.
He thought that maybe the world would be scared if they knew the things that went on in his head on nights like this. He knew Yoochun would for sure be scared of him now, like this, during the times he thought about Yongha hyung and what the world would be like if he was born in another place, was maybe a little braver, a little less famous, a little less indebted to so many people who had sacrificed so much to make him who he was.
The short beats of his phone turned into a steady vibration and Jaejoong didn’t even have to look to know that Yoochun was calling him.
Yoochun always knew when Jaejoong needed him to call.
But just like Yoochun made rules to keep himself grounded in reality, Jaejoong created situations and moods.
And today, just for a little short while, Jaejoong wanted to feel happy being alone.
~~~***~~~
In some hideaway bar tucked in the back corners of Shimokitazawa, Jaejoong met a girl named Nari. She was a third generation Korean living in Japan and Jaejoong took one look at her eyes-large, rounded, puppy-like-over a glass of bourbon and thought that this could be okay.
She wasn't exactly like the cute girls he normally went for; she was almost as tall as him and a little too thin for his liking, pale pale skin stretched over jutting bones that she liked to cover with oversized sweaters and skinny jeans. She was also famous, an up and coming actress who had been all over the Japanese drama and movie scene. But she could hold her liquor, which was a secret she kept from her slightly overprotective mother, as was the splay of feathers she had tattooed on her side: from sharp hipbone all the way up to the underside of her right breast. She had the brightest smile which she hid in public and unleashed in full brilliance only in private.
And when Jaejoong pulled her close to his side, her long hair tumbled down his face and shoulders. She smelled like snow and cherry blossoms, heavy wool sweaters and newly dried blankets and smoke, like winter and spring mixed and tied together with late afternoon naps and sunrises marked with shared cigarettes.
One day Jaejoong found himself tangled in a blanket with her, bodies bare, sticky sweat cooling in the late morning damp. She traced the tattoo on the small of his back. “I like this” she said in accented Korean. Her finger swept over the MICKY. “You must really love them a lot”
Jaejoong just hugged her closer, breathed in the scent of fresh linen and flowers, and thought that this could be okay. If it had to be, then it would be okay with her.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong and Nari came back to Korea two weeks before Junsu’s wedding, on the heels of a very successful solo album and movie respectively.
JinAh, a consummate fan of Japanese dramas, gushed over Jaejoong’s new girlfriend; eyes alight with stars as she asked for gossip on her favorite actors. They made quite the amusing pair, both with their stuttering Korean and foreign excitement over everything Seoul had to offer.
Jaejoong’s parents and sisters were charmed with Nari’s pleasant disposition and pretty face; cooing over her dimples and laughing when JinAh’s dog took an immediate liking to her.
Junsu just shook his head, eyes conflicted but mouth pulling into a grin nonetheless. “You two idiots are just like each other. So obvious” he said as he gave Jaejoong a long hug, not an ounce surprised over how much he missed having the eldest member there with him, “but I’m happy for you both. I think…like this…it can be okay”
Yoochun didn’t say anything about Nari. His eyes became more tired and somehow Jaejoong knew that the long, agnozied nights were shared by both of them. But Yoochun never said anything about her. Instead, when it was just the two of them standing on the balcony of Junsu’s apartment the night before the wedding, he turned to Jaejoong and clinked their beer bottles together.
“To happiness, hyung”
“Have we found it yet?”
“We will”
~~~***~~~
The wedding was just as beautiful as any of them could have dreamed it would be.
Just like they had planned to, Yoochun and Jaejoong walked Junsu down the aisle; one on either side of him, arms linked together. The small orchestra played an instrumental of Fallen Leaves as they took their place besides Junho and Heeyeon’s brother as the other groomsmen. The EXID members, each in their beautiful baby blue bridesmaids gowns, stood across the aisle as members of Heeyeon’s bridal party.
When the orchestra started playing the bridal march, everyone’s eyes turned to the door of the church, where Heeyeon stood-looking like something straight out of a dream in her off white dress. As she made her way down the aisle, all three of the JYJ members reminisced about the first time they realized they were in love.
Junsu once again recalled that cold November day as he hopped out of his car in front of Red Carpet. How it had just started snowing, the fluffy white powder sticking to the trees and melting as soon as it touched the ground. And how she had looked as she came out of the salon, laughing with her other band members as she struggled to get her jacket on. The way the snow looked as it bunched and gathered in her dark coffee hair.
Jaejoong remembered the lights at A-Nation, almost blinding in their intensity. His hair was stiff with products and they had put him in an outfit he could only describe as denim dyed to look like cowhide. But he looked over to the other side of the stage as the first notes of Colors started and there he had been, wearing the same horribly dyed monstrosity, his long hair tied up, sweeping across his neck. And when they caught each other’s eyes and smiled it wasn’t just the lights that were blinding anymore.
Yoochun remembered being horribly jetlagged and homesick despite only being away from home for less than 24 hours. Remembered coming back to a country that was so familiar but also so different from what lived in his memories. He felt relief at how natural the language felt and how his accent and face wasn’t out of place anymore. His new manager led him into a dance practice room that smelled like sweat and 15 different colognes from teenage boys who didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary to use half the bottle at a time. “Jaejoong-ah, come here and say hi to the new trainee!” the manager had called out. Yoochun looked up and saw a pair of large, excited cat-like eyes staring back at him and from that moment on, he never really felt homesick again.
Heeyeon made her way down the aisle and took her place next to Junsu. They held onto each other’s hands and the pure, unfiltered joy that crossed Junsu’s face almost brought Jaejoong to his knees. He looked back at the crowd, easily finding Nari and JinAh sitting next to each other a few rows behind Junsu’s family. They both looked so happy and lovely and Jaejoong had to fight at the panic clawing up his throat.
Soon this would be Yoochun and then it would be him. And when Junsu lifted Heeyeon’s veil so that they could share their first kiss as husband and wife, Jaejoong thought that maybe it could be like this for him too.
Maybe he could make Nari happy in the way that Junsu made Heeyeon happy. Maybe she could make him happy as well. Maybe, if he tried hard enough and gave enough of himself away, he could be okay.
~~~***~~~
After the speeches were done and the dinner eaten and cake cut, everybody descended down to the dance floor. The wedding guests were a mix of all sorts of celebrities-musical actors and actresses, older idols that JYJ had known and befriended for years; Big Bang members talking with KARA members over glasses of wine; and newer idols that EXID had become close to since their debut.
Jaejoong stood at the edge of the dance floor and just looked at all the guests, marveling at how long he had known some of the people in this room and how close to family they had become.
“Can I have this dance?”
He turned to the side to find Yoochun next to him, smiling, arm offered out.
Normally, Yoochun would never ask for something like this. It went against all the rules that they had been carefully following over the past twenty years. But it seemed like today, Yoochun was feeling a little selfish.
And, if Jaejoong was being completely honest with himself, he was feeling a little selfish too.
Tomorrow, he would wake Nari up with a kiss on her nose and spend a slow, lazy morning cooking breakfast together before taking Hiro on a walk around his gated complex, wearing those couple sneakers that Nari had bought as a joke for them last month.
Tomorrow morning he would do all of that.
But right now, Jaejoong was feeling selfish. So he grabbed Yoochun’s arm and let himself indulge in just one dance.
Because one day Jaejoong would give Yoochun an invitation to his wedding.
Because one day Jaejoong would give Yoochun the title of godfather to his first child.
Because one day Jaejoong would give up, give in, give away all the parts of himself he had left.
But tonight, Jaejoong would give Yoochun what remained of his sanity and have it breathed back into him, repaired and reconstructed, in the way only Yoochun knew how.
~~~***~~~
A/N: I swear, this was just supposed to be a cute fic about Junsu and Hani and it became this mess of angst and emotions because whenever JaeChun is involved, my brain just goes off on its own and I've tried to stop controlling it.