eclipse
pairing: jaejoong/junsu
length: oneshot
a/n: does anyone even remember this? i'm sorry to anyone who waited this long to read the sequel - my muse disappeared and this story got placed on what felt like a permanent hold. i apologize in advance for the hot mess that is this fic.
warning: fauxcest. if that bothers you in any way, do not read.
summary: junsu still feels guilty
sequel to fragments of sunlight. you might want to read that before this.
eclipse
Junsu counts the steps underneath his breath, deliberately slow as he places one foot in front of the other, focusing on the sound of the snow crunching beneath his boots as he bites his lips so hard that they bleed red.
He licks away the blood and he keeps walking.
Winter frost blankets the streets with stark white, and the sky paints itself a monochrome mess of grey and black and grey. He has a flush on his cheeks from the cold wind whipping at his face. He sings hymns under his breath and the sound materializes as vapour.
The weather may be terrible, but Junsu’s dreams are shimmering right in front of his eyes, balanced on the tips of their toes with their wings spread wide open, counting down the moments until they can finally spring to life.
Failing is no longer an option.
He signed the contract today. Training starts tomorrow, and someday, eventually, he will be a star.
Hyukjae (his best friend, his confidant, the closest thing to a family he has in this life) rings to congratulate him, and in between the blur of sounds and numbness, he spots a ‘for rent’ sign at an apartment building, lets his mind skim over the idea. It is just two blocks away from the company.
“Hey, what do you think about sharing an apartment?” he muses out loud. It is cheap and it is close, and Junsu has been searching for an alternative for weeks.
“Sure,” Hyukjae replies. “Sounds good. My lease ends next month anyway."
Junsu smiles into the receiver.
“So, have you ever been in love?” Hyukjae asked him once, not as interested in the response as he was in creating a distraction so he could beat him in the game.
“No,” Junsu lied.
As training gets progressively harder, he spends more and more hours in the practice rooms trying to perfect his singing and his breathing in time with the rhythm and the motions. Junsu drowns his soul in the music, and it always comes back smeared with colours of remnant beats and laced with harmonies that are far too beautiful and nostalgic for him to erase.
He goes to the coffee shop when he doesn’t have practice, working from dusk to dawn, and on those days his bones feel so brittle that he wonders if he will break on impact.
Junsu works himself raw, and his determination eats him up from inside out.
Some days, his diet is composed of air and water.
Hyukjae frowns up at him when he collapses onto the couch, leaning over limp cushions to wrap his fingers around thin wrists and measure the leftover space in between. There is concern flickering in his eyes when he notes how the distance is larger than the last time he did this, but Junsu looks back at him unrepentant and defiant. Junsu has music and dance, and he has work and he has Hyukjae and that is enough to keep him satisfied. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it sucks - but this is life, and even though Junsu tries, he cannot picture it any other way.
(The mirror paints an ugly reflection with chapped lips, hollowed cheeks, and shadows dancing dark underneath his eyes - but even as the lights turn out, the sun still shine in Junsu’s dreams, and somehow that makes all of it okay.)
He sees Jaejoong in the news sometimes.
Two years ago, Junsu left home with nothing but an empty wallet and a broken heart, counting the steps under his breath as he walked further and further away from his past with no sense of direction or planned destination for the future. And as the phantom shades of hurt danced along with the freezing winds, brushing across his face and grazing at his hands, all he knew was disappointment and all he felt was numbness. He watched the colours fade into a storm, and he breathed and breathed and breathed, thinking -
(I love you this much)
- there has to be more to life.
Jaejoong holds grudges, he knows.
Pale skin wraps tight around fragile bones as Junsu twists his body to study his reflection in the mirror. Another choreo mishap, another backflip gone wrong, and there are bruises blossoming across his arms and his back, black and blue, standing out against the stale ones, and he presses on them with morbid fascination, counting them like they matter.
Junsu has always been careless.
Once he tripped on his laces and flew down the stairs - three flights of freshly mopped marble. He woke up surrounded by the scent of bleach and medicine with a broken rib and a broken arm, mind still doused with anaesthetics. To his left, Jaejoong leaned back in a plastic chair, resting his head against the wall - uncomfortable and exhausted.
When their eyes met, Junsu couldn’t read his face.
He replays it in his mind sometimes, trying to figure out if:
i. Jaejoong was relieved, because Junsu was okay. In time Junsu’s wounds would heal and he would sing and smile and love and laugh with him once again. There was nothing else to it. Junsu was overthinking things. That sigh was bred from worry for his brother. It wasn’t anything else.
He closes his eyes and he tries to forget.
‘I’m not your brother,’ Jaejoong would laugh and remind him.
ii. He was angry at him. For not tying his laces like he had always told him to; for running through the hall when the maids had warned him about wet floors; for being careless and clumsy and getting this badly hurt - and now, as usual, Jaejoong would have to take time out of his life to look after him even though finals were coming up and he really could not afford the distraction.
Junsu had always been a burden.
iii. He was tired. He was busy with exams and tutoring and applying for internships. And with their father never around, dealing with the staff at home was his responsibility too. Work was slowly draining his soul. Staying at the hospital in the midst of it all was no walk in the park. Looking after Junsu was not an easy task, not something he had volunteered for and -
iii. Jaejoong had wished he’d shattered like glass.
iv. All of the above.
Junsu wonders why he still feels guilty about it.
“You’re wearing my shirt again,” Hyukjae comments as he surfs the channels, work lying unattended on the coffee table as per usual. “If it’s soaked in sweat when you bring it back this time, I swear you’ll be doing laundry for the next three months.”
Junsu grins - innocent yet sly. He has been avoiding house chores for weeks. “You won’t think it smells bad if you just don’t smell it, you know.”
Hyukjae turns around and fixes him with a frown. “Just give it back if you’re going to act like that. Go wear your own.”
“No,” he responds as he picks up his keys.
“Junsu.” His tone is meant to sound annoyed, but there is laughter in his voice, sparkling, and Junsu thinks it feels like home.
“Hey, who else made it to the semi-finals?” He hasn’t had time to keep up with sports these days. He hasn’t had time for anything at all.
“God damnit, you made me miss the goal,” Hyukjae whines as he picks up the remote and pumps up the volume, effectively distracted.
“Hyukjae-ah, you shouldn’t say God’s name in vain,” he sings on his way out. He laughs when he hears rebuttals behind the doorframe, taking the stairs three steps at a time as he practices (what he hopes will be) his debut song in his head.
The thing with Hyukjae is that with him around, Junsu can be himself. He can be simple-minded and foolish and he can be lazy and loud, and Hyukjae never likes him any less for it. He has seen him happy and carefree, and he has seen him bitter and broken, and despite all the meaningless teasing and rivalry, he is loyal to a fault.
With him, Junsu never has to feel alone, and sometimes when he reflects on his presence in his life, he thinks that maybe this is how best friends are supposed to be.
(He isn’t comparing him to Yoochun.
He isn’t thinking of Yoochun at all.)
“Hand over your cellphone,” they tell him.
He does.
They’re in their own little world once again - a post workout high that they’re riding off by devouring sugar-saturated ice cream in the sweltering heat. Hyukjae wipes the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve, complaining about how Junsu always has more energy than he deserves, and in turn Junsu laughs loudly, cheeks flushed bright red from the run. He takes another bite and lets the chocolate melt across his tongue, cool comfort seeping through, saccharine like the colours of summer happiness.
Neither of them brings it up, but they both know Hyukjae only keeps up with him because he is afraid of getting left behind.
Changmin is the one who finds him first, here in the park as he bounces a ball on his knees, showing off his techniques to his unimpressed friend.
“Hyung?” he calls out hesitantly, as if he isn’t sure if this boy with the flushed cheeks and the ice cream stains on his shirt is the same quiet one with the guarded eyes that left them all behind. (He isn’t even sure if this boy is his friend, anymore.)
“Hyung,” he repeats, a bit louder this time, and as they turn to look, Junsu feels his laughter die in his throat.
Changmin purses his lips, and the ball rolls away.
“Hi,” Junsu lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Changmin is taller than him now, handsome still, and his voice is much deeper than the last time Junsu heard it.
Four years was an entire lifetime ago.
He tucks his hands inside his jeans, avoiding the nervous compulsion to fix his hair by instead scratching at the frayed cloth inside his pockets. The air feels heavy, weighed down by the residue of telltale awkwardness that hints at his reluctance to welcome his past into his present. He gazes at the distance instead of Changmin’s eyes and tries to maintain a smile. It falls halfway through.
If Changmin notices the discomfort, he doesn’t say, pretending to be aloof himself as he kicks at the grass.
“I thought you’d died.” This is his expression of concern - drenched with bitterness and wrapped up tight with a string of hurt, and it draws a wistful smile from Junsu, because he remembers these words and he remembers the banter that came with it, but he sees it through a nostalgic filter, of happiness, and this time it sounds vaguely off.
Instead of bringing up the elephant in the room, he simply plays along. “I’m glad to know you cared,” he replies.
And Changmin scoffs. “I don't,” but his breath wavers with his lie.
They stay there for a while, breathing in the quiet.
Changmin’s phone interrupts the silence.
Junsu catches bits and pieces of conversation as the voice seeps like liquid through the line, and it takes a second for him to come to the cold realization that it is Jaejoong’s voice he is hearing. He freezes when the latter starts asking after his favourite dongsaeng, heart pumping itself in overdrive as he panics and he hopes.
It takes another second to remember that Jaejoong is talking to Changmin. He is talking about him, not Junsu - and he feels his heart breaking all over again. He should have known. He should’ve known better than to think-
“Sorry, that was just-“
“It’s okay,” he interrupts with a crisp smile. He doesn’t want to hear it. “I've got to go too. I have work.” It’s not a lie. He stands up, brushing the grass off his jeans.
“Junsu,” Changmin catches him by the hand, and his grip is crushing. He isn’t looking at Junsu. “I’m sorry,” he bites out eventually, almost grudgingly. As if it’s his fault. “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, but - please don’t shut me out again.”
He bites his cheek so hard he tastes blood.
He imagines hurt. He imagines happiness and longing, rushing freely from the valley between familiarity and friendship.
He pictures a dam, built upon years of absence, brick by brick, breaking the flow until it becomes a still calm, left out in the heat to dry. And this, he thinks, this is the rainstorm brings life back into the waters, fills it to the brim and floods the gates, desperation seeping through slowly at first, and then raining down so hard and so fast that he finds himself choking on the guilt before he can even acknowledge that it’s there, and he is drowning.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he confesses, heart anchored somewhere deep inside his stomach. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should’ve said goodbye.” Changmin is trying to look to the left, right, up at the sky or at the ground - anywhere as long as it’s not at Junsu, and when he finally catches his eye, it’s with a simmering glare, and Junsu thinks his entire world will shatter. He remembers how much he missed Changmin and how badly he wanted to forget.
He wants to fix this, so badly that it hurts, but instead he lets his breath stutter in pained resignation, because he can’t.
“I can’t go back,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. His affection hasn’t faded in the least. “You need to put the past behind you. Move on,” he tells him. “I did.”
Lies.
“We need you to move in with your manager this week.”
It is an order, not a request.
Hyukjae doesn’t prod too hard or ask too many questions. Instead, when Junsu finds himself caught breathless between his past and his future, he drags him out dressed in leather and jeans a size too small, insisting that he needs to take a break and unwind every once in a while - eager to make him break the rules and lose himself to the night, because when will he ever get the opportunity to live this way once he is a star?
Dread of the inevitable eventuality crawls underneath his skin, and it is chilling. He tightens his grip on Hyukjae’s elbow to ground himself, and it is hard enough to bruise.
One day all of this will end.
Hyukjae finds a friend from his school on the dance floor, and she leads them to the bar to introduce to her friends.
Ten minutes, twelve, and even though his drink of choice is a diet soda, the scent of alcohol still has his lungs submerged. Junsu hates alcohol (for taking away his brother and leaving him with someone who pushed him away in turn) even more than he hated his father (for loving the escape instead of loving him), and it makes him sick to the stomach.
Hyukjae glances over with a question in his eyes. “You okay?” he asks over the bass, concern lining the lilt of his brows, but Junsu has seen enough of that look to last him a lifetime, and right now he really hates it. He’s not anyone’s responsibility anymore.
He takes a breath and steels himself.
“I’m heading home,” he replies over the music, smile clipped around the edges. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I didn’t know you were training to be an idol.”
Junsu would have missed him completely if his voice hadn’t echoed in the dark. When he turns to face the sound, Yoochun is leaning against his car, smiling at him like it has been days, not years since the last time they spoke.
“Though now that I think about it, entertainment probably suits you best.” A flash of teeth, and it sounds more like an insult than a compliment. Knowing Yoochun, it’s a mix of both.
There was once a time when Junsu had called Yoochun his best friend, laughing and joking and making music from morning to midnight. He had placed his heart in his hands, had been ecstatic to find the affection returned, but then Yoochun met Jaejoong, and slowly the world tilted on its axis. Eventually, Junsu found himself the third wheel, the butt of their jokes, the one left behind. Yoochun started staying out late and he started drinking and smoking and getting tattoos and making new friends until eventually they drifted so far apart that there was no reason left to try anymore. And even then, Yoochun was the one who broke it off first.
Junsu remembers the self-resentment he felt looking at pictures of places they had visited without him, the sadness everytime he heard them stumble home after sunrise, snickering and laughing at jokes he could not make out, and he remembers the endless cycle of love and loss, but he can’t remember what it felt like to be friends with Yoochun anymore.
He isn’t sure he wants to learn.
“Do you need something from me?”
And just like always, Yoochun smiles back knowingly, like he is privy to all the secrets in Junsu’s world. The notion isn’t absurd, and it makes his head spin. “Just your number,” he croons.
He closes his eyes and swallows away the bile. He hasn’t eaten in a day.
He can’t do this. He won’t. He won’t do this to himself. He has wiped the board clean and he does not want to smear it with mistakes once again.
He owes it to himself to at least try.
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Maybe it’s his chin,” they glance at him as they scribble down notes into their files. “Or his nose,” they frown. “He doesn’t look like a star. We’ll need to get him fixed before we start shooting anything.”
Junsu is being evaluated by a lineup of executives, from his vocals to his dancing, scanned from head to toe, and he sits in a plastic chair as they plan out his future with quiet murmurs.
“Fixed?” It isn’t like he hasn’t thought about it before, but to muse about his weaknesses is vastly different from being told straight to his face. Heat rises up his neck, closing around his voice, and he isn’t sure if it’s humiliation, or-
“You want to be taken seriously don’t you?”
“Yes,” he nods meekly. He does.
He doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to.
Yoochun balks when he realizes - expression morphing from confused to livid, and Junsu knows what’s coming next.
He tries to drag him by the arm ‘you need to quit that company’ and ‘imagine if Jaejoong knew’, and he pours fuel into the fire with ‘I won’t let you destroy yourself for money’. It’s not really what Yoochun has to say that bothers him - but it’s the words that he chooses, the way his father referred to his mother, and he can’t help the spite that bubbles up to surface.
Junsu shoves him away with venom. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Yoochun steps back unintentionally, voice carefully leveled. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I let you make your choices.” Alcohol and smoking. Tattoos and Jaejoong. “I’d prefer if you let me make mine.”
An infinity passes in a few seconds.
“Junsu.” Yoochun’s voice is shaking when he finally replies, as if lingering on the last vestiges of control. “You left us. Why do you act like I’m the one who needs to apologize when you’re the one who walked away? I get the whole thing with Jaejoong, but didn’t the rest of us mean anything to you at all?”
Silence. The words make their way up to his throat and clog up at the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know what he can say without fucking everything up, and so he doesn’t say anything at all.
His debut album catapults him up to number one on the music charts overnight. Performances, interviews, photoshoots, commercials and collaborations fill up his schedule almost instantly. His face gets stamped on the front page of every entertainment magazine. There is no one in the country who doesn’t know him, who doesn’t adore him.
He is singing and he is dancing and he has musicals and soccer and a hundred other famous people in his address book. This is the life of his dreams, but Junsu isn’t dreaming anymore. This is real.
Hyukjae raids his fridge when he comes over, claiming that as his best friend, he owns at least half the rights to all his fan gifts.
Junsu looks in the mirror and he can’t recognize himself.
He is leaning against a wall, sipping on his herbal tea and making small talk with his choreographer as he waits for his manager to pick him up. He hears Yunho before he sees him, walking down the hall holding a briefcase in one hand, phone in another, politely telling the person on the other line that yes he has drafted up the contract for the merger and yes he is on his way to discuss it with the other party right now.
He pauses in his path when he spots Junsu in the lobby, a slow smile paving itself on his face in recognition. He looks as though he has never been happier to see anyone else in his life.
As one of the most cherished personalities in the country, Junsu has been on the receiving end of thousands of such looks, but this is Yunho, and Yunho is part of a past he has been adamant to leave behind. He swallows away the familiar feeling of fear and dread, and paints on his traditional smile.
He can’t run away all the time.
It is one of the most awkward conversations he has ever had. He doesn’t take off his sunglasses, hopes Yunho doesn’t see the reluctance behind them. Yunho in turn seems to be aware of his dilemma and doesn’t push him to overcome it. Just asks after his health and if he is happy now.
“Yeah,” Junsu tells him softly. “Happy as I’ll ever be.”
He can’t feign his surprise when Yunho responds to his mention of promoting abroad with, “Jaejoong will be thrilled to know that.”
“You still keep in touch?” And he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Of course they would. Why wouldn’t they. It isn’t like Yunho is Junsu, anchoring him down when he wanted to fly. Jaejoong never hated Yunho.
“Yeah,” he admits. “We all do.”
Junsu already knew this. Having it confirmed shouldn’t come as such a strong punch to his gut, shouldn’t rip the air from his lungs when Yunho elaborates, “He needs us-” shouldn’t sting so sharply, “-especially after your dad..” Junsu furrows his brows, and Yunho sighs.
“He's not as strong as you think,” he concludes finally, pursing his lips.
Did he think I was? Junsu wants to ask, but his phone is ringing, and it’s his manager waiting outside, ready to drive him to his next schedule.
“Good thing he has you,” Junsu smiles politely, says a quick goodbye as he picks up his phone and heads towards the parking lot, never having felt more relieved to know Japan is what awaits him next in life, and he doesn’t have to come back to this again.
Album recordings, performance rehearsals and concert preparations. The language sounds foreign as it rolls off his tongue, but Junsu works harder than he has ever loved, and he gets too busy looking forward to remember what he has left behind.
He calls Hyukjae on one of his days off, when the rain is colouring the soccer field a slippery wet. He sits on the bleachers with his hoodie on and sniffles into the phone. He is getting a cold.
“Yah,” the voice on the other line starts. “Are you not happy?”
And Junsu is-
Junsu is-
The new house feels too large and it gets way too quiet, and sometimes when he falls onto his bed, he wonders if it will echo if he misses the mattress and his bones shatter.
“I'm tired, Hyukjae,” he confesses into the receiver. There is a group of fans huddled on the far side of the field, and Junsu can barely make out the shape of their phones held before their faces, capturing every movement of his lips as he closes his eyes and enunciates, “I'm really, really tired.”
“You're a dumbass,” Changmin tells him the next time they meet. He's on IV fluids - passed out from over-exertion - and he feels like death warmed over when he moves up in bed. Changmin is straddling a chair as he reads his files, the stethoscope looking oddly fitting around his neck. The TV plays shots of the paparazzi surrounding the hospital, and Changmin glares at him as if he brought it upon himself. “Couldn't have picked a worse job if you tried.”
He groans when he sees him, burying his head in the pillow, idly noting that for once he doesn’t feel the phantom weight of regret holding down his heart, glad that of all the doctors in the world, the one his manager chose for him was Changmin. “I love my job.”
“You always liked the stupidest things,” he scoffs, but he is smiling even as he chastises him for being so careless with his health and writing down his prescription.
“Next time I see you, it'd better be as my hyung, not my patient.”
There's a number at the back of the prescription, a time and a date. A follow-up appointment, so to speak. Junsu smiles when he sees it.
“I have a concert that day,” he texts. “In Shanghai.”
“I told you to rest, you idiot.”
“He misses you, y'know.” Junsu is back in Korea for a few weeks, and he is done filming for the day. Changmin brought ice cream over, and though Junsu can’t eat it, he can’t very well turn him away either.
He rests his elbow on the glass tabletop and watches Changmin leisurely lick the chocolate from his spoon. “Who?”
“Your brother.”
“I don't have any siblings.” A rehearsed response. He is so used to telling it to the cameras that he has almost come to believe it.
“Junsu,” Changmin fixes him with a deadpan, and he feels his blood rise up to surface. “Don’t be like that. He's sorry.”
Hope bubbles up to surface, but Junsu shoots it down before it gets to his head. “Did he say that himself?”
Silence.
And he sighs, pulling up his legs so he can sit comfortably. “He’s the one who wanted me gone,” he reasons. It isn’t like he’s hiding, what with being a superstar and all. It isn’t like it’s hard to find a way to reach him.
“If he wanted to fix things, he would've just talked to me himself.”
When Hyukjae visits, he tells him he is going to propose. Junsu has never met the girl, but he promises to sing at their wedding.
The next time he calls Hyukjae, he tells him everything.
He chalks it off as coincidence. The seat beside him is empty, and Yoochun happens to be on the same flight. He pauses for a second, two, and then he hefts his bag into the overhead bin and settles down beside him. “You look like death warmed over,” Yoochun says by way of greeting.
It makes him feel defensive though he knows that’s not what this is about. Yoochun used to call him chubby. “I'm playing death in my musical.”
“You know that's not what I mean,” he is grinning though, as if he sees right through him and his evasive strategies. As if he has forgotten their last meeting, as if-
“Why are you smiling?”
“I just really missed you.”
He is genuinely happy to see him, and that realization, coupled with the mischievous look he throws his way simmers low in his belly and melts all the resolve he had built over the past few years.
“I’m sorry,” Yoochun will whisper along the curve of his jaw, making sure to taste his pulse before curling his fingers tighter around his waist and reaching up for his lips. And Junsu will reciprocate breathless and angry, a tangled mess of hurt and limbs, because a belated apology can’t fix things, can’t change him back to who he was before.
Yoochun chose Jaejoong, and Junsu thinks somewhere in a corner of his heart, that perhaps he did too.
He pulls him closer, grinds against his thigh, aching for the friction to sate his turbulent heart, unrepentant even as he drowns himself in sin, because each and every single one of his nerves is ablaze, and he cannot even remember the last time he felt this way.
“He loves you,” Yoochun tells him as he bends over to tie his shoelaces. He looks much older in the sunlight. “He just never learned how to show it.”
Junsu flashes back to that one time Jaejoong had cornered him piss drunk, straddling him on the bed and leaning close enough for him to taste the alcohol on his breath when he whispered how he had never once accepted him as a brother.
“I hate you,” Jaejoong had moaned into the bed, voice wet with tears. “Hate you so much I want to destroy you.” But he held him gently, carefully, the complete opposite of his words, pressing chapped lips to round cheeks, soft enough to hurt and Junsu’s heart crumpled like paper even as he let him smear his name all over it because no matter how badly he wished it wasn’t true, he wanted this more than Jaejoong could know.
Jaejoong didn’t remember it the next day, but Junsu was the one who pushed him back onto the sheets and kissed the taste of alcohol from his mouth that night, over and over and over, until all that was left was flesh and warmth and Jaejoong - Jaejoong’s sorrow and his regret and his blatantly obvious desire to pull him closer and push him away -
love.
When Jaejoong told him he wanted him gone, Junsu didn’t think twice before putting on his shoes and walking out the door.
Jaejoong was sober when he said those words.
The downside to being an idol is that he never has any privacy. Parting the curtains lets the cameras zoom into his apartment, and the walls have long since proven that they have ears. His email gets hacked routinely, and sometimes he finds old pictures with Hyukjae or from school being distributed online.
Rooftops are different. Quieter. Here he can hide from the noise and breath some fresh air. The sky is painted a starless shade of black, and sometimes as he leans over the edge, he wonders what it would be like to give into gravity.
“I'm sorry you had to get involved,” Junsu murmurs into his phone, cradling his head in his hand. “I should’ve seen it coming.”
A newspaper lies on the coffee table, a full front page exposé of Xiah Junsu’s scandalous background as the illegitimate child of a corporate king, who died an alcoholic and left behind his entire estate to the adoptive older brother who let greed take over his conscience and kicked Asia’s beloved idol from his home.
The company is working on PR recovery. Junsu’s schedule has been cleared for the week. He is told to deny all reports. They don’t ask if they are true.
“It’s okay,” and Jaejoong’s voice is still breathy like he remembers it, still deep and strong and filled with lies. Sales have dropped, stock prices have fallen, and Jaejoong’s credibility as the leader of the enterprise has become a hot topic of concern amongst investors and critics. A board of directors meeting has been scheduled in two days. “It wasn’t your fault.” Junsu imagines him pressing the phone to his ear as he leans back in his chair, loosening his tie and mussing his hair as he places all of his critical projects on the backburner to deal with Junsu’s mess.
It’s like history will never stop repeating itself, and the guilt eats Junsu from inside out.
“I met my biological parents thanks to your sasaengs,” Jaejoong’s voice fills in the silence. “So tell them I said thanks.”
And Junsu’s heart is sinking underground. ‘Lucky you,’ he wants to bite back, sugar sapped from his tone to relay the bitterness across the line, but he finds that he can't. Somewhere deep down, he truly is happy. At least one of them deserves to have a family.
Jaejoong sighs when he says this out loud with, oh, Junsu. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of it, I'm sorry, and let's meet.
His hands are shaking and so he keeps them in his pockets, watching from afar as Jaejoong makes his way around the kitchen, filling the fridge with food his real mother taught him how to make, and “I made too much,” he rambles. There is a telltale red flush on his neck. Jaejoong is nervous too, overcompensating for the past, and there's a painful awkwardness resting in between them.
There are bags under Jaejoong’s eyes, and his cheeks have sunken deep. He is probably just as busy as Junsu, if not more. Junsu wonders if he feels as bad as he looks.
Small talk takes place over a cup of tea that grows cold as they skirt around the topic. The weather and the economy and the Olympics. Jaejoong’s phone lights up on the table - the Caller ID flashes with Yunho's name. He does not move to answer it, but silence falls regardless.
“I never wanted you to leave.”
Junsu lets out a soft sigh, head spinning like the snow storm outside. “I never wanted to go.”
“Hey Junsu,” Jaejoong’s eyes vaguely resemble the night sky as he buttons up his coat, mesmerizing. He has a meeting in an hour, and Junsu flies back to Japan tonight.
“Yeah?” Almost a decade of distance, and he still can’t hate him.
Jaejoong is smiling. “I still don’t think of you as a brother.”
And his heart opens up, unfurling in Jaejoong’s palm as he inches closer, asking, begging for permission before closing his eyes and letting go.
length: oneshot
a/n: does anyone even remember this? i'm sorry to anyone who waited this long to read the sequel - my muse disappeared and this story got placed on what felt like a permanent hold. i apologize in advance for the hot mess that is this fic.
warning: fauxcest. if that bothers you in any way, do not read.
summary: junsu still feels guilty
sequel to fragments of sunlight. you might want to read that before this.
eclipse
Junsu counts the steps underneath his breath, deliberately slow as he places one foot in front of the other, focusing on the sound of the snow crunching beneath his boots as he bites his lips so hard that they bleed red.
He licks away the blood and he keeps walking.
Winter frost blankets the streets with stark white, and the sky paints itself a monochrome mess of grey and black and grey. He has a flush on his cheeks from the cold wind whipping at his face. He sings hymns under his breath and the sound materializes as vapour.
The weather may be terrible, but Junsu’s dreams are shimmering right in front of his eyes, balanced on the tips of their toes with their wings spread wide open, counting down the moments until they can finally spring to life.
Failing is no longer an option.
He signed the contract today. Training starts tomorrow, and someday, eventually, he will be a star.
Hyukjae (his best friend, his confidant, the closest thing to a family he has in this life) rings to congratulate him, and in between the blur of sounds and numbness, he spots a ‘for rent’ sign at an apartment building, lets his mind skim over the idea. It is just two blocks away from the company.
“Hey, what do you think about sharing an apartment?” he muses out loud. It is cheap and it is close, and Junsu has been searching for an alternative for weeks.
“Sure,” Hyukjae replies. “Sounds good. My lease ends next month anyway."
Junsu smiles into the receiver.
“So, have you ever been in love?” Hyukjae asked him once, not as interested in the response as he was in creating a distraction so he could beat him in the game.
“No,” Junsu lied.
As training gets progressively harder, he spends more and more hours in the practice rooms trying to perfect his singing and his breathing in time with the rhythm and the motions. Junsu drowns his soul in the music, and it always comes back smeared with colours of remnant beats and laced with harmonies that are far too beautiful and nostalgic for him to erase.
He goes to the coffee shop when he doesn’t have practice, working from dusk to dawn, and on those days his bones feel so brittle that he wonders if he will break on impact.
Junsu works himself raw, and his determination eats him up from inside out.
Some days, his diet is composed of air and water.
Hyukjae frowns up at him when he collapses onto the couch, leaning over limp cushions to wrap his fingers around thin wrists and measure the leftover space in between. There is concern flickering in his eyes when he notes how the distance is larger than the last time he did this, but Junsu looks back at him unrepentant and defiant. Junsu has music and dance, and he has work and he has Hyukjae and that is enough to keep him satisfied. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it sucks - but this is life, and even though Junsu tries, he cannot picture it any other way.
(The mirror paints an ugly reflection with chapped lips, hollowed cheeks, and shadows dancing dark underneath his eyes - but even as the lights turn out, the sun still shine in Junsu’s dreams, and somehow that makes all of it okay.)
He sees Jaejoong in the news sometimes.
Two years ago, Junsu left home with nothing but an empty wallet and a broken heart, counting the steps under his breath as he walked further and further away from his past with no sense of direction or planned destination for the future. And as the phantom shades of hurt danced along with the freezing winds, brushing across his face and grazing at his hands, all he knew was disappointment and all he felt was numbness. He watched the colours fade into a storm, and he breathed and breathed and breathed, thinking -
(I love you this much)
- there has to be more to life.
Jaejoong holds grudges, he knows.
Pale skin wraps tight around fragile bones as Junsu twists his body to study his reflection in the mirror. Another choreo mishap, another backflip gone wrong, and there are bruises blossoming across his arms and his back, black and blue, standing out against the stale ones, and he presses on them with morbid fascination, counting them like they matter.
Junsu has always been careless.
Once he tripped on his laces and flew down the stairs - three flights of freshly mopped marble. He woke up surrounded by the scent of bleach and medicine with a broken rib and a broken arm, mind still doused with anaesthetics. To his left, Jaejoong leaned back in a plastic chair, resting his head against the wall - uncomfortable and exhausted.
When their eyes met, Junsu couldn’t read his face.
He replays it in his mind sometimes, trying to figure out if:
i. Jaejoong was relieved, because Junsu was okay. In time Junsu’s wounds would heal and he would sing and smile and love and laugh with him once again. There was nothing else to it. Junsu was overthinking things. That sigh was bred from worry for his brother. It wasn’t anything else.
He closes his eyes and he tries to forget.
‘I’m not your brother,’ Jaejoong would laugh and remind him.
ii. He was angry at him. For not tying his laces like he had always told him to; for running through the hall when the maids had warned him about wet floors; for being careless and clumsy and getting this badly hurt - and now, as usual, Jaejoong would have to take time out of his life to look after him even though finals were coming up and he really could not afford the distraction.
Junsu had always been a burden.
iii. He was tired. He was busy with exams and tutoring and applying for internships. And with their father never around, dealing with the staff at home was his responsibility too. Work was slowly draining his soul. Staying at the hospital in the midst of it all was no walk in the park. Looking after Junsu was not an easy task, not something he had volunteered for and -
iii. Jaejoong had wished he’d shattered like glass.
iv. All of the above.
Junsu wonders why he still feels guilty about it.
“You’re wearing my shirt again,” Hyukjae comments as he surfs the channels, work lying unattended on the coffee table as per usual. “If it’s soaked in sweat when you bring it back this time, I swear you’ll be doing laundry for the next three months.”
Junsu grins - innocent yet sly. He has been avoiding house chores for weeks. “You won’t think it smells bad if you just don’t smell it, you know.”
Hyukjae turns around and fixes him with a frown. “Just give it back if you’re going to act like that. Go wear your own.”
“No,” he responds as he picks up his keys.
“Junsu.” His tone is meant to sound annoyed, but there is laughter in his voice, sparkling, and Junsu thinks it feels like home.
“Hey, who else made it to the semi-finals?” He hasn’t had time to keep up with sports these days. He hasn’t had time for anything at all.
“God damnit, you made me miss the goal,” Hyukjae whines as he picks up the remote and pumps up the volume, effectively distracted.
“Hyukjae-ah, you shouldn’t say God’s name in vain,” he sings on his way out. He laughs when he hears rebuttals behind the doorframe, taking the stairs three steps at a time as he practices (what he hopes will be) his debut song in his head.
The thing with Hyukjae is that with him around, Junsu can be himself. He can be simple-minded and foolish and he can be lazy and loud, and Hyukjae never likes him any less for it. He has seen him happy and carefree, and he has seen him bitter and broken, and despite all the meaningless teasing and rivalry, he is loyal to a fault.
With him, Junsu never has to feel alone, and sometimes when he reflects on his presence in his life, he thinks that maybe this is how best friends are supposed to be.
(He isn’t comparing him to Yoochun.
He isn’t thinking of Yoochun at all.)
“Hand over your cellphone,” they tell him.
He does.
They’re in their own little world once again - a post workout high that they’re riding off by devouring sugar-saturated ice cream in the sweltering heat. Hyukjae wipes the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve, complaining about how Junsu always has more energy than he deserves, and in turn Junsu laughs loudly, cheeks flushed bright red from the run. He takes another bite and lets the chocolate melt across his tongue, cool comfort seeping through, saccharine like the colours of summer happiness.
Neither of them brings it up, but they both know Hyukjae only keeps up with him because he is afraid of getting left behind.
Changmin is the one who finds him first, here in the park as he bounces a ball on his knees, showing off his techniques to his unimpressed friend.
“Hyung?” he calls out hesitantly, as if he isn’t sure if this boy with the flushed cheeks and the ice cream stains on his shirt is the same quiet one with the guarded eyes that left them all behind. (He isn’t even sure if this boy is his friend, anymore.)
“Hyung,” he repeats, a bit louder this time, and as they turn to look, Junsu feels his laughter die in his throat.
Changmin purses his lips, and the ball rolls away.
“Hi,” Junsu lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Changmin is taller than him now, handsome still, and his voice is much deeper than the last time Junsu heard it.
Four years was an entire lifetime ago.
He tucks his hands inside his jeans, avoiding the nervous compulsion to fix his hair by instead scratching at the frayed cloth inside his pockets. The air feels heavy, weighed down by the residue of telltale awkwardness that hints at his reluctance to welcome his past into his present. He gazes at the distance instead of Changmin’s eyes and tries to maintain a smile. It falls halfway through.
If Changmin notices the discomfort, he doesn’t say, pretending to be aloof himself as he kicks at the grass.
“I thought you’d died.” This is his expression of concern - drenched with bitterness and wrapped up tight with a string of hurt, and it draws a wistful smile from Junsu, because he remembers these words and he remembers the banter that came with it, but he sees it through a nostalgic filter, of happiness, and this time it sounds vaguely off.
Instead of bringing up the elephant in the room, he simply plays along. “I’m glad to know you cared,” he replies.
And Changmin scoffs. “I don't,” but his breath wavers with his lie.
They stay there for a while, breathing in the quiet.
Changmin’s phone interrupts the silence.
Junsu catches bits and pieces of conversation as the voice seeps like liquid through the line, and it takes a second for him to come to the cold realization that it is Jaejoong’s voice he is hearing. He freezes when the latter starts asking after his favourite dongsaeng, heart pumping itself in overdrive as he panics and he hopes.
It takes another second to remember that Jaejoong is talking to Changmin. He is talking about him, not Junsu - and he feels his heart breaking all over again. He should have known. He should’ve known better than to think-
“Sorry, that was just-“
“It’s okay,” he interrupts with a crisp smile. He doesn’t want to hear it. “I've got to go too. I have work.” It’s not a lie. He stands up, brushing the grass off his jeans.
“Junsu,” Changmin catches him by the hand, and his grip is crushing. He isn’t looking at Junsu. “I’m sorry,” he bites out eventually, almost grudgingly. As if it’s his fault. “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, but - please don’t shut me out again.”
He bites his cheek so hard he tastes blood.
He imagines hurt. He imagines happiness and longing, rushing freely from the valley between familiarity and friendship.
He pictures a dam, built upon years of absence, brick by brick, breaking the flow until it becomes a still calm, left out in the heat to dry. And this, he thinks, this is the rainstorm brings life back into the waters, fills it to the brim and floods the gates, desperation seeping through slowly at first, and then raining down so hard and so fast that he finds himself choking on the guilt before he can even acknowledge that it’s there, and he is drowning.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he confesses, heart anchored somewhere deep inside his stomach. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should’ve said goodbye.” Changmin is trying to look to the left, right, up at the sky or at the ground - anywhere as long as it’s not at Junsu, and when he finally catches his eye, it’s with a simmering glare, and Junsu thinks his entire world will shatter. He remembers how much he missed Changmin and how badly he wanted to forget.
He wants to fix this, so badly that it hurts, but instead he lets his breath stutter in pained resignation, because he can’t.
“I can’t go back,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. His affection hasn’t faded in the least. “You need to put the past behind you. Move on,” he tells him. “I did.”
Lies.
“We need you to move in with your manager this week.”
It is an order, not a request.
Hyukjae doesn’t prod too hard or ask too many questions. Instead, when Junsu finds himself caught breathless between his past and his future, he drags him out dressed in leather and jeans a size too small, insisting that he needs to take a break and unwind every once in a while - eager to make him break the rules and lose himself to the night, because when will he ever get the opportunity to live this way once he is a star?
Dread of the inevitable eventuality crawls underneath his skin, and it is chilling. He tightens his grip on Hyukjae’s elbow to ground himself, and it is hard enough to bruise.
One day all of this will end.
Hyukjae finds a friend from his school on the dance floor, and she leads them to the bar to introduce to her friends.
Ten minutes, twelve, and even though his drink of choice is a diet soda, the scent of alcohol still has his lungs submerged. Junsu hates alcohol (for taking away his brother and leaving him with someone who pushed him away in turn) even more than he hated his father (for loving the escape instead of loving him), and it makes him sick to the stomach.
Hyukjae glances over with a question in his eyes. “You okay?” he asks over the bass, concern lining the lilt of his brows, but Junsu has seen enough of that look to last him a lifetime, and right now he really hates it. He’s not anyone’s responsibility anymore.
He takes a breath and steels himself.
“I’m heading home,” he replies over the music, smile clipped around the edges. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I didn’t know you were training to be an idol.”
Junsu would have missed him completely if his voice hadn’t echoed in the dark. When he turns to face the sound, Yoochun is leaning against his car, smiling at him like it has been days, not years since the last time they spoke.
“Though now that I think about it, entertainment probably suits you best.” A flash of teeth, and it sounds more like an insult than a compliment. Knowing Yoochun, it’s a mix of both.
There was once a time when Junsu had called Yoochun his best friend, laughing and joking and making music from morning to midnight. He had placed his heart in his hands, had been ecstatic to find the affection returned, but then Yoochun met Jaejoong, and slowly the world tilted on its axis. Eventually, Junsu found himself the third wheel, the butt of their jokes, the one left behind. Yoochun started staying out late and he started drinking and smoking and getting tattoos and making new friends until eventually they drifted so far apart that there was no reason left to try anymore. And even then, Yoochun was the one who broke it off first.
Junsu remembers the self-resentment he felt looking at pictures of places they had visited without him, the sadness everytime he heard them stumble home after sunrise, snickering and laughing at jokes he could not make out, and he remembers the endless cycle of love and loss, but he can’t remember what it felt like to be friends with Yoochun anymore.
He isn’t sure he wants to learn.
“Do you need something from me?”
And just like always, Yoochun smiles back knowingly, like he is privy to all the secrets in Junsu’s world. The notion isn’t absurd, and it makes his head spin. “Just your number,” he croons.
He closes his eyes and swallows away the bile. He hasn’t eaten in a day.
He can’t do this. He won’t. He won’t do this to himself. He has wiped the board clean and he does not want to smear it with mistakes once again.
He owes it to himself to at least try.
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Maybe it’s his chin,” they glance at him as they scribble down notes into their files. “Or his nose,” they frown. “He doesn’t look like a star. We’ll need to get him fixed before we start shooting anything.”
Junsu is being evaluated by a lineup of executives, from his vocals to his dancing, scanned from head to toe, and he sits in a plastic chair as they plan out his future with quiet murmurs.
“Fixed?” It isn’t like he hasn’t thought about it before, but to muse about his weaknesses is vastly different from being told straight to his face. Heat rises up his neck, closing around his voice, and he isn’t sure if it’s humiliation, or-
“You want to be taken seriously don’t you?”
“Yes,” he nods meekly. He does.
He doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to.
Yoochun balks when he realizes - expression morphing from confused to livid, and Junsu knows what’s coming next.
He tries to drag him by the arm ‘you need to quit that company’ and ‘imagine if Jaejoong knew’, and he pours fuel into the fire with ‘I won’t let you destroy yourself for money’. It’s not really what Yoochun has to say that bothers him - but it’s the words that he chooses, the way his father referred to his mother, and he can’t help the spite that bubbles up to surface.
Junsu shoves him away with venom. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Yoochun steps back unintentionally, voice carefully leveled. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I let you make your choices.” Alcohol and smoking. Tattoos and Jaejoong. “I’d prefer if you let me make mine.”
An infinity passes in a few seconds.
“Junsu.” Yoochun’s voice is shaking when he finally replies, as if lingering on the last vestiges of control. “You left us. Why do you act like I’m the one who needs to apologize when you’re the one who walked away? I get the whole thing with Jaejoong, but didn’t the rest of us mean anything to you at all?”
Silence. The words make their way up to his throat and clog up at the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know what he can say without fucking everything up, and so he doesn’t say anything at all.
His debut album catapults him up to number one on the music charts overnight. Performances, interviews, photoshoots, commercials and collaborations fill up his schedule almost instantly. His face gets stamped on the front page of every entertainment magazine. There is no one in the country who doesn’t know him, who doesn’t adore him.
He is singing and he is dancing and he has musicals and soccer and a hundred other famous people in his address book. This is the life of his dreams, but Junsu isn’t dreaming anymore. This is real.
Hyukjae raids his fridge when he comes over, claiming that as his best friend, he owns at least half the rights to all his fan gifts.
Junsu looks in the mirror and he can’t recognize himself.
He is leaning against a wall, sipping on his herbal tea and making small talk with his choreographer as he waits for his manager to pick him up. He hears Yunho before he sees him, walking down the hall holding a briefcase in one hand, phone in another, politely telling the person on the other line that yes he has drafted up the contract for the merger and yes he is on his way to discuss it with the other party right now.
He pauses in his path when he spots Junsu in the lobby, a slow smile paving itself on his face in recognition. He looks as though he has never been happier to see anyone else in his life.
As one of the most cherished personalities in the country, Junsu has been on the receiving end of thousands of such looks, but this is Yunho, and Yunho is part of a past he has been adamant to leave behind. He swallows away the familiar feeling of fear and dread, and paints on his traditional smile.
He can’t run away all the time.
It is one of the most awkward conversations he has ever had. He doesn’t take off his sunglasses, hopes Yunho doesn’t see the reluctance behind them. Yunho in turn seems to be aware of his dilemma and doesn’t push him to overcome it. Just asks after his health and if he is happy now.
“Yeah,” Junsu tells him softly. “Happy as I’ll ever be.”
He can’t feign his surprise when Yunho responds to his mention of promoting abroad with, “Jaejoong will be thrilled to know that.”
“You still keep in touch?” And he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Of course they would. Why wouldn’t they. It isn’t like Yunho is Junsu, anchoring him down when he wanted to fly. Jaejoong never hated Yunho.
“Yeah,” he admits. “We all do.”
Junsu already knew this. Having it confirmed shouldn’t come as such a strong punch to his gut, shouldn’t rip the air from his lungs when Yunho elaborates, “He needs us-” shouldn’t sting so sharply, “-especially after your dad..” Junsu furrows his brows, and Yunho sighs.
“He's not as strong as you think,” he concludes finally, pursing his lips.
Did he think I was? Junsu wants to ask, but his phone is ringing, and it’s his manager waiting outside, ready to drive him to his next schedule.
“Good thing he has you,” Junsu smiles politely, says a quick goodbye as he picks up his phone and heads towards the parking lot, never having felt more relieved to know Japan is what awaits him next in life, and he doesn’t have to come back to this again.
Album recordings, performance rehearsals and concert preparations. The language sounds foreign as it rolls off his tongue, but Junsu works harder than he has ever loved, and he gets too busy looking forward to remember what he has left behind.
He calls Hyukjae on one of his days off, when the rain is colouring the soccer field a slippery wet. He sits on the bleachers with his hoodie on and sniffles into the phone. He is getting a cold.
“Yah,” the voice on the other line starts. “Are you not happy?”
And Junsu is-
Junsu is-
The new house feels too large and it gets way too quiet, and sometimes when he falls onto his bed, he wonders if it will echo if he misses the mattress and his bones shatter.
“I'm tired, Hyukjae,” he confesses into the receiver. There is a group of fans huddled on the far side of the field, and Junsu can barely make out the shape of their phones held before their faces, capturing every movement of his lips as he closes his eyes and enunciates, “I'm really, really tired.”
“You're a dumbass,” Changmin tells him the next time they meet. He's on IV fluids - passed out from over-exertion - and he feels like death warmed over when he moves up in bed. Changmin is straddling a chair as he reads his files, the stethoscope looking oddly fitting around his neck. The TV plays shots of the paparazzi surrounding the hospital, and Changmin glares at him as if he brought it upon himself. “Couldn't have picked a worse job if you tried.”
He groans when he sees him, burying his head in the pillow, idly noting that for once he doesn’t feel the phantom weight of regret holding down his heart, glad that of all the doctors in the world, the one his manager chose for him was Changmin. “I love my job.”
“You always liked the stupidest things,” he scoffs, but he is smiling even as he chastises him for being so careless with his health and writing down his prescription.
“Next time I see you, it'd better be as my hyung, not my patient.”
There's a number at the back of the prescription, a time and a date. A follow-up appointment, so to speak. Junsu smiles when he sees it.
“I have a concert that day,” he texts. “In Shanghai.”
“I told you to rest, you idiot.”
“He misses you, y'know.” Junsu is back in Korea for a few weeks, and he is done filming for the day. Changmin brought ice cream over, and though Junsu can’t eat it, he can’t very well turn him away either.
He rests his elbow on the glass tabletop and watches Changmin leisurely lick the chocolate from his spoon. “Who?”
“Your brother.”
“I don't have any siblings.” A rehearsed response. He is so used to telling it to the cameras that he has almost come to believe it.
“Junsu,” Changmin fixes him with a deadpan, and he feels his blood rise up to surface. “Don’t be like that. He's sorry.”
Hope bubbles up to surface, but Junsu shoots it down before it gets to his head. “Did he say that himself?”
Silence.
And he sighs, pulling up his legs so he can sit comfortably. “He’s the one who wanted me gone,” he reasons. It isn’t like he’s hiding, what with being a superstar and all. It isn’t like it’s hard to find a way to reach him.
“If he wanted to fix things, he would've just talked to me himself.”
When Hyukjae visits, he tells him he is going to propose. Junsu has never met the girl, but he promises to sing at their wedding.
The next time he calls Hyukjae, he tells him everything.
He chalks it off as coincidence. The seat beside him is empty, and Yoochun happens to be on the same flight. He pauses for a second, two, and then he hefts his bag into the overhead bin and settles down beside him. “You look like death warmed over,” Yoochun says by way of greeting.
It makes him feel defensive though he knows that’s not what this is about. Yoochun used to call him chubby. “I'm playing death in my musical.”
“You know that's not what I mean,” he is grinning though, as if he sees right through him and his evasive strategies. As if he has forgotten their last meeting, as if-
“Why are you smiling?”
“I just really missed you.”
He is genuinely happy to see him, and that realization, coupled with the mischievous look he throws his way simmers low in his belly and melts all the resolve he had built over the past few years.
“I’m sorry,” Yoochun will whisper along the curve of his jaw, making sure to taste his pulse before curling his fingers tighter around his waist and reaching up for his lips. And Junsu will reciprocate breathless and angry, a tangled mess of hurt and limbs, because a belated apology can’t fix things, can’t change him back to who he was before.
Yoochun chose Jaejoong, and Junsu thinks somewhere in a corner of his heart, that perhaps he did too.
He pulls him closer, grinds against his thigh, aching for the friction to sate his turbulent heart, unrepentant even as he drowns himself in sin, because each and every single one of his nerves is ablaze, and he cannot even remember the last time he felt this way.
“He loves you,” Yoochun tells him as he bends over to tie his shoelaces. He looks much older in the sunlight. “He just never learned how to show it.”
Junsu flashes back to that one time Jaejoong had cornered him piss drunk, straddling him on the bed and leaning close enough for him to taste the alcohol on his breath when he whispered how he had never once accepted him as a brother.
“I hate you,” Jaejoong had moaned into the bed, voice wet with tears. “Hate you so much I want to destroy you.” But he held him gently, carefully, the complete opposite of his words, pressing chapped lips to round cheeks, soft enough to hurt and Junsu’s heart crumpled like paper even as he let him smear his name all over it because no matter how badly he wished it wasn’t true, he wanted this more than Jaejoong could know.
Jaejoong didn’t remember it the next day, but Junsu was the one who pushed him back onto the sheets and kissed the taste of alcohol from his mouth that night, over and over and over, until all that was left was flesh and warmth and Jaejoong - Jaejoong’s sorrow and his regret and his blatantly obvious desire to pull him closer and push him away -
love.
When Jaejoong told him he wanted him gone, Junsu didn’t think twice before putting on his shoes and walking out the door.
Jaejoong was sober when he said those words.
The downside to being an idol is that he never has any privacy. Parting the curtains lets the cameras zoom into his apartment, and the walls have long since proven that they have ears. His email gets hacked routinely, and sometimes he finds old pictures with Hyukjae or from school being distributed online.
Rooftops are different. Quieter. Here he can hide from the noise and breath some fresh air. The sky is painted a starless shade of black, and sometimes as he leans over the edge, he wonders what it would be like to give into gravity.
“I'm sorry you had to get involved,” Junsu murmurs into his phone, cradling his head in his hand. “I should’ve seen it coming.”
A newspaper lies on the coffee table, a full front page exposé of Xiah Junsu’s scandalous background as the illegitimate child of a corporate king, who died an alcoholic and left behind his entire estate to the adoptive older brother who let greed take over his conscience and kicked Asia’s beloved idol from his home.
The company is working on PR recovery. Junsu’s schedule has been cleared for the week. He is told to deny all reports. They don’t ask if they are true.
“It’s okay,” and Jaejoong’s voice is still breathy like he remembers it, still deep and strong and filled with lies. Sales have dropped, stock prices have fallen, and Jaejoong’s credibility as the leader of the enterprise has become a hot topic of concern amongst investors and critics. A board of directors meeting has been scheduled in two days. “It wasn’t your fault.” Junsu imagines him pressing the phone to his ear as he leans back in his chair, loosening his tie and mussing his hair as he places all of his critical projects on the backburner to deal with Junsu’s mess.
It’s like history will never stop repeating itself, and the guilt eats Junsu from inside out.
“I met my biological parents thanks to your sasaengs,” Jaejoong’s voice fills in the silence. “So tell them I said thanks.”
And Junsu’s heart is sinking underground. ‘Lucky you,’ he wants to bite back, sugar sapped from his tone to relay the bitterness across the line, but he finds that he can't. Somewhere deep down, he truly is happy. At least one of them deserves to have a family.
Jaejoong sighs when he says this out loud with, oh, Junsu. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of it, I'm sorry, and let's meet.
His hands are shaking and so he keeps them in his pockets, watching from afar as Jaejoong makes his way around the kitchen, filling the fridge with food his real mother taught him how to make, and “I made too much,” he rambles. There is a telltale red flush on his neck. Jaejoong is nervous too, overcompensating for the past, and there's a painful awkwardness resting in between them.
There are bags under Jaejoong’s eyes, and his cheeks have sunken deep. He is probably just as busy as Junsu, if not more. Junsu wonders if he feels as bad as he looks.
Small talk takes place over a cup of tea that grows cold as they skirt around the topic. The weather and the economy and the Olympics. Jaejoong’s phone lights up on the table - the Caller ID flashes with Yunho's name. He does not move to answer it, but silence falls regardless.
“I never wanted you to leave.”
Junsu lets out a soft sigh, head spinning like the snow storm outside. “I never wanted to go.”
“Hey Junsu,” Jaejoong’s eyes vaguely resemble the night sky as he buttons up his coat, mesmerizing. He has a meeting in an hour, and Junsu flies back to Japan tonight.
“Yeah?” Almost a decade of distance, and he still can’t hate him.
Jaejoong is smiling. “I still don’t think of you as a brother.”
And his heart opens up, unfurling in Jaejoong’s palm as he inches closer, asking, begging for permission before closing his eyes and letting go.