Heavenly Reincarnation: Chapter 20
Title: Heavenly reincarnationPairing(s): Yunho/Jaejoong, Yoochun/Jaejoong/Junsu
Genre: Romance, Angst, Crime/Suspense, Drama
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: character death, murder, sexual content, language, angst
Length: 20/?
Summary: For as long as he can remember, Yunho has been dreaming about a person he loved more than life itself, dying because of his fault. When he and his investigation team are put on a gruesome multiple homicide case he meets a journalist, Kim Jaejoong, whose close resemblances to the person in his dreams are more than striking. However, as the case starts to escalate, and more and more people die, he starts to realize Jaejoong might not be as innocent as he seems.
A/N: *whispers* Cliffhanger warning *runs away like a ninja*
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The rest of the afternoon Jaejoong spent just sitting next to Yunho, not having the need to talk. Maybe at a certain point he had fallen asleep, maybe he hadn’t, but he was always aware of Yunho so very close beside him. If it were up to him he would have made that moment last forever, but when the sun started to set and they had to head back, the real world slowly crept upon him again. At first he just held hands with Yunho, dart around him smiling happily, but once they had reached the car and Yunho had started driving, he could no longer deny it.
“Where are we?” he asked, yawning as he stretched his stiff limbs, and looked back at Yunho who had just turned off the car. He realized he must’ve fallen asleep somewhere along the way, for it was far darker now than when he had closed his eyes. Why he had even fallen asleep wasn’t entirely clear to him. He wasn’t that tired, was he? Maybe he was. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten,” Yunho replied, turning off the engine and turning towards him with a sad, barely there smile on his face. “We’re there.”
“What?” Jaejoong blinked in the darkened environment. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?” He felt like pouting as he looked outside, now indeed recognizing Yoochun’s car in the distance. So much of their limited time together he had spend sleeping, it was such a waste.
“You looked like you needed it,” Yunho said, reached out and fixed Jaejoong’s hair. “There,” he said, and gave him a teasing touch on the nose before opening the door and stepping outside.
Jaejoong followed him with his eyes as Yunho walked around his car, his chest clenching painfully, though definitely not in a good way. He wasn’t ready to part yet.
“You’re going to stay inside forever?” Yunho asked, knocking on his window, and then opened the door for him. “Come on, your friend is waiting and I want to at least be able to say goodbye properly before you go.”
Jaejoong looked down at his hands, biting his lip before collecting himself and reluctantly getting out of the car. He was stronger than this; he had to be stronger than this. Without looking Yunho in the eyes he stepped outside. Don’t be weak or you’ll never be able to survive.
“Don’t look so down,” Yunho said, wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him closer. “It’s not like we’re going to part forever.”
“You don’t know that,” Jaejoong muttered, feeling like a small child with the way he behaved. Sighing he rested his head against Yunho’s shoulder and pressed his nose inside the fabric of his jacket, wanting to memorize the other’s scent as well as possible.
“Jaejoong-ah,” Yunho whispered in his hair, and pressed him closer, “I’ll tell you what will happen…”
Jaejoong closed his eyes, allowing Yunho to hold him tightly as he nuzzled his nose in the other’s neck. “What?” he mumbled.
“You’re going with Yoochun and Junsu, the three of you will stick together no matter what,” Yunho started, toying with his hair all the while, “and I will stay here, and do everything I can to prosecute the ones who did this to you.”
Jaejoong closed his eyes, wishing he could just stay. Even though they would be separated soon, his heart still fluttered pleasantly from every soothing word Yunho spoke to him.
“Then when all of this is over, I’ll come and find-“
“What if you aren’t able to find me?” Jaejoong intervened, his nose still pressed against Yunho. The chance was pretty plausible; if Sooman wasn’t able to find them, he doubted Yunho would.
“Then we’ll meet at the place we’ve been today.”
“When?”
Jaejoong heard Yunho chuckle lightly, and could already feel what was coming. “When the day is like today…” Jaejoong moved away from his chest and glared up at Yunho. “And you miss me,” Yunho whispered, smiling in his boyish manner before leaning in and pressing a kiss against his lips. “Don’t worry, we found each other once, we’ll find each other again.”
Jaejoong sighed, nodding before resting his forehead against Yunho’s. “I guess this means goodbye then…” he started, not quite able to continue as he met Yunho’s forever gentle eyes. He had missed him so much; it wasn’t fair that they had to be separated so soon again.
“I guess it does,” Yunho replied, pecked his lips and brushed through his hair. “Your friend is waiting for you.”
Jaejoong was aware of that, but hadn’t quite gotten himself to separate from Yunho just yet.
“Dream of me,” he said, smiling slightly at his own lameness.
“Oh, I will,” Yunho chuckled, and then kissed him one last time; slow, passionate and exactly like it was supposed to be.
After the last peck Jaejoong let Yunho go, first pulling away from his tight embrace, finally releasing his hand to turn around, trying with all his might not to look back. He was aware of the other still looking at him as he crossed the parking lot, the sudden cold air making him shiver even despite his coat. When he reached the car he saw Yoochun was looking at him, but his eyes were concerned rather than anything. Without speaking a word he stepped inside the car and nodded for him to drive, trying not to think about the emptiness that started to crawl up inside his chest.
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“Cocksucking son of a bitch!”
Yunho raised his eyebrow and cast Changmin a dubious look while Zhoumi covered his ears and pretended to be somewhere else.
“I hate this fucking shit, I hate that ass slapping fuck hole of a Lee Sooman and I hate Kyuhyun too!”
“What the…”
Sunny panted as she leaned back in her chair, her cheeks flushed bright red from all the cursing. “You’re right,” she breathed, “that does feel good.”
“Told you so,” Changmin smirked as he looked up from studying his mug.
It had been almost two weeks since Yunho and Jaejoong had parted, and though he was starting to suffer from serious insomnia, Yunho felt more motivated than ever to bring this investigation to a good end and make Jaejoong’s superiors pay for what they had done. So when he heard that morning, finally for the first time since the investigation started, that Kangin’s team had managed to catch Lee Sooman at the border, he had been pumped up with excitement to say in the least. However, by now it was already past noon and they still weren’t allowed to start the interrogations, vague ‘precautions’ being made and more stalling being done. Yunho no longer felt excited, but merely annoyed.
“Seriously though, ass slapping fuckhole?” Changmin asked. Even though his team members were expressing it somewhat differently, Yunho could tell they were starting to get impatient as well.
“Why do you hate me?” Kyuhyun exclaimed indignant, frowning when Changmin cast him a ‘don’t tell me you didn’t realize’ sort of glance. “Well, I hate you too!”
“Slash-care~”
“She hates you either because your butt is too big or because she thinks that you’re also an ass slapping-“
“Guys, can we all at least try to stay professional here?” Yunho sighed. If Donghae wouldn’t allow them to interrogate today he was sure at least one of them was bound to get him or herself fired through acting stupid.
“Seriously, how much time does that old-geezer need to prepare himself?” Kyuhyun groaned, “If I didn’t know better I’d say Donghae was stalling on purpose.”
“That pussylicking-“
“Sunny,” Yunho snapped, “that’s quite enough, you’re giving Zhoumi a heart-attack.”
“Sorry,” she whispered to Zhoumi, who looked rather pale.
“My thoughts exactly,” Changmin intervened.
“What were?” Kyuhyun asked.
“Don’t you think this is becoming a tiny bit suspicious?” he whispered and nudged them to come closer. “I mean, Kangin’s team didn’t get any praise for catching him. I heard Yesung say Donghae actually seemed rather pissed, especially when the media found out.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want the media to find out either,” Kyuhyun replied, “only gives us more pressure to do our job properly… Talking about pressure-“
“Can you stop that?”
“Stop what?” Zhoumi asked Sunny, looking on the verge of crying.
“Biting your nails, it gives me the shivers.”
“Sunny, stop releasing your nerves on Zhoumi, he didn’t do anything.”
“Go fuck yourself Kyuhyun.”
“Yah!”
“Shut it,” Yunho hissed, trying to calm his team members down before he cast Tiffany, who chose that exact moment to walk inside, a polite smile. “Any news yet?” he asked as innocently as possible, praying their boss hadn’t heard all their cursing.
“Yes, you can go inside and interrogate Sooman in an hour, I hope you’re all prepared,” she said, sounding as if she was about to slap someone though Yunho couldn’t quite tell why.
“Yes, yes of course,” he replied, frowning slightly, “is there… something else we should know?”
Tiffany looked down on him, “no,” she said finally, “no, it’s better if we just do what Donghae tells us. We’ll see about the rest later,” she finished, looked thoughtfully at them one more time, then turned around and left quite promptly. Yunho blinked at his team mates confused.
“Weird~” Changmin mumbled.
“You think she suspects Donghae as well?” Sunny asked.
“Are we suspecting Donghae?” Zhoumi replied, obviously having missed at least half of the conversation and earning himself an eye roll from Sunny.
By the time they walked through the corridors, Yunho made it clear to his team members that they were not to mention this anymore. The atmosphere inside the building was already tense enough as it was, he didn’t want to be the one creating even more of a disturbance by spreading false rumors. Besides, Donghae might have a stick up his ass, but he wasn’t one to betray the law.
With that thought in the back of his mind Yunho entered the interrogation’s back room, where the single-reflection glass gave sight to a table and three cheap, aluminum chairs.
“Okay, who’s going with me?” Yunho asked, flinching slightly at the storm of replies he received, then raising his voice to calm them down again. “Not, all at the same fucking time, for heaven’s sake, what is it with you guys lately?”
“I blame Kyuhyun!”
“Okay, so Sunny isn’t coming for sure,” Yunho said, “now the other three have half an hour to figure out who it will be or I’m going in alone!”
Of course he never considered doing the interrogations by himself, but his threat did work; while Sunny sat pouting in the back, the other three used a very wild version of rock-paper-scissors to come to the decision that Changmin was to go inside with him. More than a little proud of himself Changmin paraded towards him, past him by, and entered the interrogation room like he owned the place. Yunho bowed to their boss apologetically while the others rolled their eyes and took their positions behind the window.
“One more time,” Yunho said as he sat down next to Changmin, “do you remember everything we want to ask?”
“By heart boss,” Changmin replied confidently, settling himself down and testing the microphone over and over again until Kyuhyun shouted through the intercom that he would rip off all his limbs if he didn’t stop. Changmin sniggered, but when he caught Yunho’s glare, turned more serious and instead waited patiently for Lee Sooman to enter.
Slowly the minutes trickled by. They must have been sitting there for at least half an hour when the door finally opened.
The person that came inside was not at all like Yunho had expected. He wasn’t the charismatic, evil grinning dark lord he had expected but old, and slightly fragile looking as his illness had taken the best of him. Lee Sooman seemed about as harmful as your regular next-door grandpa with a walking deficiency. Yunho tried not to frown as the man shuffled forward and was helped, rather than forced, in the chair by the two cops who supported him.
“Now my lad,” the old man started with a friendly but tired chuckle. “Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, you know how that goes with my generation. What was it you wanted to ask me?”
Changmin obviously had more trouble than Yunho keeping his face neutral, his eyebrow raised and eyes skeptical.
“Mister Lee Sooman, born 1951, Seoul, South-Korea?” the younger asked, not quite able to keep his voice straight as he frowned at the papers in front of him. Yunho couldn’t imagine this man harming a fly, let alone leading an organization that did anything as long as it was illegal and meant to harm others. This was confusing.
“That’s me,” the man nodded, seeming totally at ease.
“Do you know what you’re here for?”
“I heard it had something to do with those murders? I read about those in the newspapers,” he nodded, his expression earnest. “What is it you’d like to know?”
“Mister Lee, were you personally acquainted to a man named Jinyoung Park, also known as JYP?” Changmin asked, and eyed him intently.
“Is that one of the murdered? I’m sorry, my memory is failing me these days, let me think…” he furrowed his eyebrows and closed his eyes, then nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of his name before, but that’s it.”
Yunho was impressed; even though this man’s face remained straight honest, all his senses were screaming that Lee Sooman was lying. For Yunho it was more obvious than anyone in this investigation so far; and that included Sungmin and his underwear. He tapped the table twice, indicating the lie, and let Changmin continue.
“Okay,” the younger said easily, pretending he hadn’t seen through the lie. “I have another file here,” he said, and took out Jaejoong’s id-copy they found online at the beginning of the investigation. “Do you recognize this man?”
Lee Sooman’s complexion remained neutral as he looked at the picture, not a single twitch in his face or posture giving away what they already knew. “I don’t think I do, no,” he said after a while, and smiled apologetically as he laid the file down again. “Why? Is he a suspect?”
Once again Yunho tapped the table twice, and this time Lee Sooman did look at him, casting a short look at the pen as if mildly irritated, then turned his attention back to Changmin.
“We are still not sure how he is involved exactly,” Changmin replied as he took the file back, “but we are certain about one thing, and that is that he mentioned your name several times. Do you mind explaining to us why that is?”
Lee Sooman sighed tiredly, and slumped his shoulders a bit, looking like the epitome of victimhood as he started talking. “So if I understand well you’re holding me here, in suspicion, because of the stories some rascal told you? I can’t-“
“Mister Lee Sooman, have you given orders to Kim Jaejoong and his two acquaintances to murder Park Jinyoung?”
“I most certainly did not!”
Yunho tapped the table, once this time. Like he had expected, Jaejoong and the other two had been murdering without permission, and he doubted Jaejoong would get away with it if he was caught. More than ever Yunho felt the importance of having this man behind bars.
“Young man, why do you keep doing that?” Lee Sooman asked, slightly annoyed as he eyed Yunho’s pen. “Could you please stop?”
“He can’t,” Changmin replied, “I suggest you just ignore it.” And was about to proceed before Yunho spoke up for the first time.
“By tapping the table I can tell my colleague when you are lying without being overly suspicious,” he said, erupting a surprised look from both Changmin and Lee Sooman.
“What kind of rubbish is that?” Sooman asked, furrowing his eyebrows like you would do with a naughty young child. If he felt intimidated he knew how to hide it very well.
“It isn’t,” Yunho replied calmly. “And it is certainly enough to get you behind bars.” Okay, so that second part wasn’t entirely true, but as long as Sooman believed it, it was enough. “One tap,” he said, tapping the table to show what he meant, “means you’re telling the truth, two,” he tapped twice, “that you’re lying.”
For a moment it remained silent as Sooman looked him straight in the eyes, obviously contemplating if Yunho was playing him or not. “Is that so…” he said after a long silence, then, to Yunho’s surprise, chuckled slightly. “Now that’s interesting, what did you say your name was?”
Yunho had the strange feeling of déjà-vu as he told him he hadn’t given his name yet, and then conveyed that it was Yunho. For a mere second he thought he saw an entirely new emotion flicker through Sooman’s eyes when he told him his name. Not fear, not interest, but something he could’ve sworn bordered on anger. It was gone before he had realized it, but left him with the uncomfortable and strange feeling that he had told him something he shouldn’t have.
“I see,” Sooman said, more slowly this time, but still not unfriendly. “And have you and this Kim Jaejoong been in touch before?”
Slightly uneasy Yunho looked at Changmin. Even though the man’s voice remained friendly, the air around him was anything but.
“I don’t think that is of any relevance right now,” Changmin intervened after a short moment of hesitation. “Please just answer our questions.”
Lee Sooman nodded, and took his fragile, old-people’s-pose again, but every now and then Yunho could feel his eyes on him, staring as if he knew much more then he revealed.
“Mister Lee, have you ever been in touch with-“
“Listen boys, no matter how much I love chatting with you, I am a busy man,” he interrupted, “I know, what does an old fool like me have to do all day, but I really am,” he spoke. “Now, if Yunho over here knows how to see through my lies, why not ask me directly and get it over with, hm?”
Slightly taken aback Changmin frowned, but when Yunho shrugged at him, proceeded anyway. “As you wish,” he said, and looked up at the man, “is it true that you have given orders to kidnap young orphans and have them trained to do your biddings?”
“No.”
Yunho frowned, Lee Sooman was obviously lying, again, but didn’t seem at all bothered that Yunho knew this fact.
Hesitantly Changmin continued after he had tapped the table twice. “Are you directly, or indirectly responsible for the murders on one of the followings…”
Changmin continued to work down his list, Lee Sooman’s answer remaining ‘no’ all the time. At times he spoke the truth, most of the time he lied straight through his teeth, and Yunho soon started to realize what he was doing. Even though they had gathered quite a lot of information, and Jaejoong had mentioned his name once or twice on tape, it all bordered on speculations still. The only definite proof they had that Sooman was who he was, and very much responsible for all these crimes, was Yunho’s capability to differentiate truths from lies. However, no matter how much he wanted to, this could not be used in court. As long as Sooman kept denying they would not be able to hold him prisoner for long, no matter how suspicious he was.
He could tell Changmin had realized this too, and it didn’t take long for them to request a break and discuss with the others what to do; but no answer was provided. By the end of the day Lee Sooman stood outside again, and Yunho was more frustrated than ever.
“Fuck,” he cursed out loud as he kicked a chair to the side, startling his team members with his sudden outburst.
“We did our best boss,” Sunny tried as she eyed him worried. “It’s not the end, if we can just gather more evidence and-“
“We don’t have time to gather more evidence,” Yunho snapped, then tried to control his temper when he saw her startled face. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, “it’s been a long day.”
“We know,” she replied, smiling feebly, “it’s okay.”
“You want to come together again tomorrow morning?” Zhoumi asked carefully, as if preparing himself to get shouted at as well.
“Yes,” Yunho said tiredly, rubbing his eyelids, “yes, lets just do that.”
But as his team members left the building and he started to gather his things he couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable feeling that lingered inside of him. Lee Sooman was dangerous, that much was clear, and he knew something. Had he recognized his name?
Images of Jaejoong softly whispering against his lips, telling him how much he loved him flashed through his mind. His heart lurched uncomfortably. With a sigh he took his cell phone from the table, turned off the lights and looked down at it, hesitating.
More than ever he longed to call Jaejoong, hear his voice for just a second and confirm that he was still okay. Since he left, Yunho’s dreams had been more vivid than ever, as if Jaejoong was reaching out for him through them. It wasn’t enough however, by far wasn’t enough. He longed so much to just hold him closely again, and it had barely been half a month.
Yunho walked outside the office into the deserted corridor, closing the door behind him and locking it with his phone still in his hands.
Should he call him? Maybe if he could just hear his voice…
Yunho frowned as he looked at the end of the corridor, his hand still on the door handle. It was already past 10, everyone should have left by now. But he swore he had seen something.
“Hello?” he called out, released the handle and took a hesitant step forward. “Is anyone still there?”
When no reply came he turned his attention back to his phone, holding it to his chest as he walked through the corridors. His heart was hammering against his chest, and the darkness he was so used to seemed strangely threatening all of a sudden. This investigation was starting to take the best of him, that was for sure.
He rushed through the empty corridor and down the hall, and once he reached the glass front door, brought his phone to his ear, Jaejoong’s number already dialed. He really needed to hear his voice.
Please pick up…
While the sliding doors opened, the first dial tone sounded, then his phone got snatched away. Startled he turned around, reaching for the phone and the person who was holding it, opening his mouth to shout at him before a strange feel in the back of his head stopped him mid-track. Then the pain set in, blurring Yunho’s vision as he slumped towards the ground. In the distance a faint, familiar voice sounded before his vision turned black.
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Chapter 19 | Chapter 21
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