Shadow Side of Me Chapter 5
Title: Shadow Side of Me Ch 5
Characters: Yesung, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kyuhyun, Park Jooryo (OC), the rest of Super Junior members.
Pairing: Yewon, close friendship of KRY
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-15
Summary: He won’t let his selfishness ruined his beloved dongsaengs' dream. But the so-called sacrifice hurt him the most.
Disclaimer: I only own the story, plot, and the original characters. The fiction doesn't resemble the real life of the characters.
Yesung wakes up abruptly from his tired sleep when he hears a dog's barking intensively. He opens his eyes, so heavy as if there are stones glued onto his both eyelids.
The dog keeps barking with high pitched voice outside his room, and his brain finally recognizes those cute barks belong to his lovely Kkoming. He pulls himself out of the blanket, and the washcloth drops from his forehead. He puts the washcloth back to the washbin filled with the already cold water and glances at his alarm clock.
10.47 am.
He smiles, glad that he had made such long sleep without anymore bad dream that make his family worry.
"Shush, Kkoming-ah, silent! Jongwoon oppa is sick and he's asleep now inside his room," Yesung hears Jongjin's voice together with a delicious aroma of his freshly made porridge. "You'll awake him if you continue barking like this. Why don't you play with your favorite rubber ducky?"
"Wooff!" Kkoming answers happily.
Yesung laughs and opens his room's door to greet his dongsaeng. He knows that there are only him and Jongjin in the house, because their parents are obviously have to go to work.
"Oh Hyung, you're awake already. How do you feel?" Jongjin put the porridge on the dining table when his older brother enters the room.
"I'm not lying, I feel a lot better now Jongjin-ah," Yesung sits on the dining chair, eyes staring at the steam emanating from the warm dish made by his little brother. "And that looks great."
"I know you'll be awake soon so I hurrily made this. You really want to eat now?" Jongjin suggests, already picking up a spoon and set of chopstick for Yesung.
Yesung doesn't answer immediately because Kkoming had already jumps into his lap, big, dark eyes staring at him cutely.
"Aww here is my little baby… How are you today Kkoming-ah?" Yesung coos and caresses his dog's back.
"Wooff! Wooff!"
"You're so beautiful and adorable, are you happy oppas are here? Jongjin oppa and Jongwoon oppa together in the house to play with you?"
"Hmm, I think you have to take a bath first, not eat. Your pajama is damp wet with sweat," Jongjin comes and pulled Kkoming out of Yesung's lap into his own embrace.
Now that his brother pointed it, Yesung gets to feel uncomfortable with his pajama. He didn't realize he had been sweating that much.
About fifteen minutes later Yesung gets out of his room, looking all clean and totally refreshed. He’s just about to put a mouthful of the now seemingly cold porridge into his mouth when Jongjin approaches him, with Kkoming’s front paws on his chest.
“You really look better already Hyung, I just out to the minimarket around the corner and bought you something you really like.”
“What’s that?” Yesung asks with porridge in his mouth.
“Ta-da! Your favorite lollipop. The pink, huge, and totally-so-manly lollipop,” Jongjin pulls out a huge pink lollipop from the pastic bag he holds and give it to his brother.
“That’s peach, not pink,” Yesung grumbles but smiling anyways, examining the sweet delicacy. “Oh when’s the last time I eat this? It’s all sugar. Sugar!”
“Apparently since you started dieting. Seven years ago,” Jongjin puts Kkoming on the floor and sits in front of his brother. “You said things like this are making you fat.”
Yesung chuckles, reminiscing all those hardship seven years ago when he barely have any fans. He realized that time that he’s far too chubby and needed to do some diets to get an ideal face proportion.
“Now since you are really sick, you should eat your favorite candy. Anyone knows nothing better than this to keep Kim Jongwoon happy,” Jongjin smirks.
“Happy baby healthy baby,” Yesung and Jongjin say at the same time and they burst out laughing. That’s was what their mother used to say to their father when they were little kids and begging their parents to treat them sweets and candies. Bokyung was such a weak-heartened mother and she always complies to almost all of her sons’ ideas, while Sanggon wanted them to get disciplined and not spoiled.
“I can’t believe it’s been so long since I let myself enjoy this little paradise-in-your-mouth.”
“Eat up your porridge then the macho-candy is all yours,” Jongjin snatches the candy from Yesung and keeps it inside the minimarket’s plastic bag, letting his brother to concentrated on his food in front of him.
“And you still call it macho-candy. You won’t say so if you’re tasting it for yourself.”
“Any macho man will look like a girl eating this,” Jongjin scowls. “Come on, just eat.”
“My brother makes a superb porridge, I thought he’s a macho man,” Yesung says in a mocking tone.
“Shut up.”
Jongjin is glad that Yesung really looks better than a few hours ago. The older man seems to have a good mood and not really minding about work anymore, or whatever disturbed him in his dreams.
In five minutes, Yesung emptied his porridge bowl and cutely stretches his hand to his brother across the table to ask for his sweets.
“My candy.”
“Are you always this cute when you’re around your band members? You fits this candy well!”
Jongjin thinks whether it’s only his imagination or there really is a hurt expression on Yesung eyes, flickers for a moment before the older snaps.
“Stop such kind of talking to your older brother! I’m not a girl!” Yesung says loudly, suddenly restracting his hand back and is going to left the dining table rushly in anger.
“Whoa, whoa, why so sensitive, hyung?” Jongjin asks, confused. He really didn’t expect his brother’s good mood to change as fast. It’s usual for him and Yesung to mock each other all the time. Surely they snapped at each other all the time too, but Yesung was never this mad at Jongjin just because a simple mockery.
“My body might be frail, my face might be feminine, but I’m still a man,” Yesung groans. “Stop telling me that I’m cute, or beautiful, whatever, or I’ll strangle you.”
With those words, Yesung proceeds to walk to his own room but Jongjin is faster. He grabs Yesung’s hand from behind and stops the older man’s motion.
“Hyung, talk to me,” he whispers. “Please tell me what’s bothering you.”
Yesung eyes him with a stink eye and Jongjin can see how flustered his brother is. A second later Yesung’s eyes widened and he tries to pry his hand free from his brother’s grip.
“Hyung! I know about your nightmare. There’s no use to hide it. You have a problem.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just don’t like it the way you tell me I’m cute,” Yesung answers without sparing a glance to his brother, still trying to let go from the younger.
“You’re screaming and crying in your nightmare,” Jongjin hisses.
Kkoming enters the dining room with small, adorable steps and seems to be at shock seeing Yesung and Jongjin’s position. She stops moving when Yesung’s eyes catches the sight of her.
Jongjin watches as Yesung’s expression softens in an instant and lets him go.
Yesung is squatting and cooing at the still baffled dog, completely ignoring his little brother.
“Hyung, I’m talking to you,” Jongjin goes to squat beside his brother.
“I hear you,” Yesung answers lowly, never letting his eyes off of Kkoming, who is awaken from her trance already and rubs the side of her body to Yesung’s legs. He then caresses the soft fur on her head.
“You don’t want to tell me anything?” Jongjin pressures. Seeing Yesung avoids this topic already gives him the hint that his brother really is troubled, and has no one else to share his burdens. “This thing is huge. It’s bothering you, even in your sleep. I’ve known you for the 24 years of my life, you should know better than to hide anything from me.”
“I’m not a little kid, thank you very much,” Yesung says, annoyance on his face. “I can handle my own problems well.”
“Yeah, by screaming pathetically in your sleep,” his little brother frowns.
Yesung seems startled, more than angry, in hearing Jongjin’s words.
“What have you heard? What did I scream about?” Yesung now focuses fully on his brother, tries to sound nonchalant but to no avail.
“I don’t remember,” the younger answers. “But it was apparent that you’re being disturbed by someone, and you wanted them to stop hurting you.”
Jongjin’s heart skips a beat when he sees Yesung gasps for air with mouth hanging open. The older man then hits his own chest using his balled fist repeatedly to clear his breath. In an instant Jongjin swears Yesung seems like he’s going to faint.
“No,” the older whispers, voice so low but Jongjin manages to catch it.
“Hyung are you okay?” he panics. “Hyung, please tell me what’s going on?” Jongjin catches the petite body of his brother when he drops from his heel to his bottom on the floor, still with the agaped face.
“No,” Yesung mumbles, like a stunned person. “Eomma,” he whispers, barely audible, “Eomma heard too?”
Jongjin is really at lost of what to tell his brother.
“Tell me,” Yesung’s breath ragged and he grabs his brother’s collar. “Eomma heard me too?”
“I… I think,” Jongjin hesitates, looking at how strong Yesung’s grip is. “She heard it.”
Yesung lets his brother go, releasing his tight grip over the younger’s t-shirt. He seems totally lifeless.
“Wooff!” Kkoming’s bark startles the brothers, and the dark canine chooses that it’s the right time to give her Yesung ‘oppa’ some licks on his face. Why oppa seems so sad? Kkoming is here to entertain him!
Yesung caresses his dog absentmindedly, with blank expression on his face.
“Hyung….” Jongjin is really in fear now seeing Yesung’s state. What kind of terrible matter made his hyung like this? Never in his life he saw Yesung this weak and it really scares him.
“Jin-ah, give me Kkoming’s leash,” the older requests all of the sudden.
“Please tell me what’s bothering you. You can’t hide it from your family…”
Yesung doesn’t seem to hear his brother as he stands up, a little too hasty in the process, startling Kkoming. The poor dog jumps away in surprise.
“I want to take some fresh air,” Yesung says, not looking at the younger’s eyes and pretends to be busy in neating his t-shirt and shorts.
“You won’t go anywhere until you tell me,” Jongjin also stands abruptly.
“Wooff wooff!!” Kkoming is now angry at her two oppas. How dare they startle her like that?
“Plus, you are still sick, you need to drink your medicine and take a rest,” Jongjin continues, genuine concern in his voice.
“I need to clear my head,” Yesung sighs. “Don’t get in the way. Move.”
“If you have some trouble at work, just tell Siwon hyung,” Jonjin insists. “Siwon hyung will help you. He promised me.”
“Yah Kim Jongjin!” Yesung shouts into his brother’s face. “How dare you…”
“Tell him? Why not?” Jongjin grabs both of the older’s upper arm.
“What did you tell him?!”
“If there’s anyone who can help you it’s definitely him! Siwon hyung cares about you!”
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP YOU!” Yesung screams. “He has nothing to do with this shit!”
Jongjin gives up, for now. He lets Yesung passes him by, reaching for the front door. When Kim Jongwoon doesn’t want to speak, he won’t speak, no matter how hard the younger persuades him.
Yesung walks lifelessly to the front door, blood seems like leaving his face as he is so pale compared to ten minutes ago. Kkoming follows him, trying to walk beside him while staring at his face.
Yesung is a meter away from the door when his brother rushes to him, bringing his plastic bag of medicines and a glass of water.
“Drink these first,”Jongjin says curtly.
Without words Jongwoon pulls out every single tablet and pills, not really caring of what kind of medicines they are. He drinks them all with a huge gulp of water and give them back to the other man.
“This is her leash,” Jongjin gets Kkoming’s leather leash from the small drawer where the family puts their vehicles’ keys, giving it to his brother. “Be careful. It’s spring and she likes to run and sniffing at the flowers. She’ll roll on the ground a lot too,” Jongjin points at Kkoming with his chin.
“Wooff!” Kkoming agrees.
“Oh! I almost forget, your candy. Wait up,” Jongjin runs back to the dining room while Yesung puts the leash on his dog.
After Yesung went away with his dog and pink lollipop, Jongjin finds his brother’s phone in his mother’s room. Bokyung left in a distressed mood a few hours ago, and she forgot about her son’s cell. Luckily, during Yesung’s burst out a few minutes a go, the older man also seemed to forget about his phone.
A few missed calls from Siwon, Ryeowook, and Jung Hyeopbo Manager, and a text message from Kyuhyun are all. Jongjin knows it’s inappropriate, but he couldn’t help himself from checking his brother’s phone without permission. The easiest way to understand his brother’s problem is by checking on his messages and chats applications. Nothing seems to be extraordinary as his brother only chatted with his older male friends, mostly about business and hangout plans-non SuJu materials, so he checks the browsing history.
As an idol, bashing on the social media is a common thing. Yesung is used to them, him being the least popular member in SuJu and he has this weird personality. Probably he’s got something bad on the news, Jongjin thinks.
But they’re only twitter, online games, Youtube, and other nonsenses the little brother finds. There’s nothing suspicious. After ten minutes of scrolling down to the history, Jongjin almost giving up but then he saw a suspicious link. It says “Entry Posted Successfully” and it turns out to be a Naver blog link.
It is, apparently, an alias account of his brother, with only one post.
***
Yesung’s kind of regretting his snap a moment ago at his younger brother. Sure, he knows Jongjin did all the pressure only for his sake, out of his concern and care of his older sibling. But still, Yesung felt like he’s being slapped in the face when Jongjin said whether he’s always acting cute around people, or whatever that was. It harms the shattered pieces of ego Yesung barely posseses inside him.
Actually if Yesung is on his right mind, what Jongjin said won’t really affect him. But it just had to be said on the right moment and Yesung couldn’t control his suppressed anger that’d been triggered by an innocent question.
Who will ever think that Kim Jongwoon is capable of acting cute? Probably Yesung is cute on stages and cameras from time to time, but Jongwoon is a whole different personality. Cute is the last word you could use to portray him. His brother was totally so misreading him.
Thing is, what Jongjin said also remind him of a certain bastard. If his own little brother,who knows him his whole life, could say that he is cute, what will a man who’s only an acquaintance think about him? Why would Jooryo see him as a prey, if he’s not so prey-material? Did Jooryo choose him because he is cute?
Kkoming suddenly pulls at her leash and Yesung is carried out behind her, snapping the black haired man from his reverie.
“Hey hey! Kkomingie!” Yesung shouts. He totally forgets about Jongjin’s warning. “Stop!”
“Wooff!” Kkoming keeps on running with her full speed seeing some bright-coloured flowers not far from the apartment building’s swimming pool.
Before he’s stumbled and fall on something ungracefully, Yesung lets go of his dog’s leash in his hand. People at the pool are looking at him with curious eyes because of Kkoming, and Yesung has to bow at them apologically and smiles politely.
“Hey isn’t he Yesung?” a young girl’s voice is heard.
“OMO! He is! Oppaaaa!”
What are these young girls doing not in school? Yesung never expected to be recognized by fans (other than his sasaengs who are too scared of his glares so they keep a save distance) since it’s a school day. The young girls are clad in their swimming suits and they’re shamelessly running to approach the singer who is still glued on the spot.
“Kyaa Oppa is with Kkoming, look! That’s her!” One of the three girls points to the black Pomeranian who is happily chasing a butterfly about 10 meters away.
Yesung facepalmed. He only put on BB Cream and cologne after he’s bathing, no eyeliner and there are fangirls-non-sasaeng kind. He’s always nervous without his eyeliner these days.
“Hi oppa… We are Super Junior fans,” Yesung was so into his own thinkings about makeup and so they’re surprising him.
“But my favorite is you!” a girl with short hair, about 15 years old beams at him and Yesung smiles back politely at her.
“It’s a pity we don’t bring any stationaries to request for your autograph, Oppa,” other girl says. “And you can’t be photographed outside of SuJu’s events… so what about a hug?”
Yesung gladly hugs the three teenagers one by one, all are blushing and looking so happy afterward. He then politely excuse himself to find his dog.
“Bye, Oppa!”
“Wuah, you see him? He’s so cute I think I will find somebody like him to be my husband!” The girls are passionately spazzing over him, not knowing how the person they just adore clenches his heart hearing he’s being called ‘cute’ again.
Yesung feels stupid for being offended. He hears that all the time, that ‘cute’ part. That’s kind of his face’s type, and fans are using it out of adoration. Obviously didn’t mean any harm. The singer sighs loudly. This stress because of Jooryo is getting out of control.
***
Siwon thinks that perhaps Yesung is still asleep so that he never picked up his calls. During his shooting breaks the actor had always been trying to call his crush and now he chooses to call the little brother instead.
Jongjin answers on the second ring, and Siwon is forever thankful for that since he’s really restless thinking about Yesung.
“Siwon hyung!” Jongjin basically screams to the phone. “Hyung, it’s about Jongwoon hyung…”
Siwon’s heart skips a beat hearing Jongjin’s tone of speaking.
“Thank God you call! I almost…”
“What’s happening? How’s Yesung hyung?” Siwon cuts the younger.
“He’s fine, he’s taking a walk right now, with Kkoming…”
“What??? And how is he taking a walk? He’s sick!” Siwon yells, a little too loud and harsher than he would like to.
“I know, I know Hyung, but he insisted… He even said he’s going to strangle me if I was in the way…”
“Then was he strong enough to stroll around?”
“Yes he was,” Jongjin sounds like he’s at a marathon, loudly gasping for air over the phone. “Hyung I found something.”
“Wait a minute,” Siwon has to go to a more secluded place without crews around, the bathroom. The man on the other line has to wait for a few seconds before Siwon asks, “You found what?”
A silent gap feels like a year for Siwon when Jongjin hesitates.
“This… is… uh… a blog post?”
“His blog post? Yes, continue,” Siwon commands impatiently. His heart was beating its fastest, like it’s gonna rip his ribcage apart.
“I hope I have mistaken, but this is…”
“Go on, Jongjin, it’s okay. Please tell me, whatever that is, please!”
***
TBC
A/N: I know it's too short, compared to other chapters. But really, this fic is so hard to write :^(