51: "experiments in setting" (tvxq, yunjae)
Notes: word vomit at three in the morning. None of them are or will be 'finished'. Obviously, I should not be writing DBSK fanfic at three in the morning and/or midnight the next... night. And this will let everyone know that I shouldn't be writing DBSK fanfic ever. orz
Warnings: run-on sentences, historical inaccuracy in one part.
experiments in setting
yunho/jaejoong in seven segments
PG-13
1. the man is beautiful, in an exotic, dangerous way. yunho can catch men taking secret glimpses of the oriental beauty, eyes flitting man - ground - pocket watch, then sometimes the man again. women stare openly, hiding their noses and mouths with a laced fan as they bat eyelashes in the stranger's direction.
yunho wonders what the man is thinking, straight black hair falling into his eyes, pale skin and dressed in a colorful men's hanbok, dirty from the trip across the ocean. he probably stinks, despite how clean he looks from half a block away. possibly the hanbok is the only piece of clothing the man brought with him; possibly it's the only piece that survived the brutal, cramped boat ride.
it's been a while since yunho's seen a hanbok* worn by anyone, being the only korean out of three asians in the city, and a train ride away, his sister has already grown out of the dress their mother brought with them. it's a welcome sight, but on the man it's made
2. they are so goddamn good together your heart scalds your throat trying to climb up it. generous in smiles, insulting the hell out of each other but words becoming strokes, not cuts. you could cry.
they've got what you dreamed about, back when you could still
3. jaejoong's such a bad case of wanderlust gone psycho that yunho has to block certain sites from the computer, like any and all sites that allow for the booking of airline tickets, and, after a disastrous trip to jejudo that left yunho and jaejoong stranded on the island with only three sets of clothes between the two of them and begging work off a half-blind grandmother who luckily let them wash dishes (yunho) and serve drunken old men (jaejoong, yunho recalls with a dangerous grimace) for enough won to buy a ticket for the ferry back to the mainland, any and all sites that allow for the booking of bus, boat, ferry, train or authentic ancient korean rickshaw tickets.
"jaejoongah," yunho calls out when he walks into their apartment and a half-full duffel bag is lying open on the living room floor, "what are you doing."
jaejoong practically skips out of the bathroom, arms full of shampoo and little things of soap and bb cream and hand lotion, all of which he dumps unceremoniously onto the sofa the moment he catches sight of the taller man standing in the entrance.
the city's lights are already reflected in his eyes when he speaks. "las vegas! this was all yoochun's idea, i swear. or maybe changmin's. or maybe junsu's just a real sneaky mastermind."
when jaejoong rummages through a cardboard box to come up with empty film canisters and ziplock bags**, yunho turns to the door, whips out his phone, and calls yoochun.
the bastard's already drunk and half-gone, which means yunho will be nursing a deaf ear for the rest of the night, with no real answers for his troubles. needless to say, changmin and junsu can be overheard yoochun's crowed greetings, and they sound just as gone as yoochun. "HYUNG," yoochun's voice thunders. "THANK YOU FOR CALLING."
"yoochun," yunho says, no-nonsense tone of voice doing nothing for the cause of sobriety, "what were you thinking, buying jaejoong plane tickets? did you forget the last time you did that against my wishes, and i was calling you collect from some godforsaken police station in paris after beating up some foreign bastard who practically molested jaejoong with his eyes?!" in anger, his gwangju-heavy words return, and he almost doesn't notice the way jaejoong stops to listen, lips touched with a smile and eyes heavy with something like-
"s'you guys' wedding present. go to vegas and get married already, hyung. elvis priest, you know? get married and have boring domestic sex in the honeymoon suite and fight on the second day of being married then make up that night with clothes-ripping sex. or something. jesus, hyung, we're tired of you pussyfooting around," yoochun slurs. he finishes his speech by retching into the phone, and yunho pulls the phone away in disgust, although none of the puke has gone through the phone line.
"conltrugations, hyung!" junsu cheers, voice muffled by distance and yoochun's wet coughing, and changmin says something like "wait, close the shower curtain, i don't want to smell this," which brings up interesting questions about where exactly they are having this tuesday night party.
yunho hangs up and stares at jaejoong, who has since resumed packing his duffel bag, humming as he carefully rolls up his socks to cushion the canisters of shampoo and shaving cream.
yunho takes three steps forward, takes jaejoong's hands in his, and kneels.
4. "she's got no stage presence," yunho griped, loosening his tie. jaejoong stood before him and tried not to stare, reaching out to help only when his frustrated tugs tightened the knot into an angry fist. yunho probably didn't know how hot and bothered it got jaejoong when he was like this, tall in busniess suits, face lined with annoyance, long fingers blunt knives against his tie.
yunho looked down as jaejoong carefully untangled the noose around his neck. "she's got nothing on you," he practically purred, smirk forming around the formal 'you'***.
okay, jaejoong gulped, suddenly clumsy in his gestures, so maybe yunho knew exactly how hot and bothered it made him.
"set eunhee up on a duet with one of our stronger singers," jaejoong suggested, slinging an arm around yunho's sweat-shined stomach. "remember liyin? she has the most beautiful voice, but couldn't perform on stage as well. having junsu on the stage with her helped her get over the stage fright, and you know yoochun and changmin are good at composing duets together. a good song, a good back-up/partner, and she'll be fine."
yunho groaned, swiping a hand across his eyes. "okay, number one: no business in bed. and number two: never, ever mention eunhee, liyin, or any of our boys right after we've made love. not only are they like my children, it kills any and all urges for a round two. or a round three."
5. industry is heartless, or so you try to excuse him.
six years after he and yoochun and junsu won the lawsuit and lost the band, four years after the last meeting ended with yoochun in tears and changmin yelling louder than he's ever yelled before, jaejoong apologizes-fucking apologizes-through a goddamn video letter on kang hodong's segment on 'golden fishery'****.
"we never fought," the now-solo singer and co-director of -mates inc.***** says, soft-spoken while mc kang and his sidekicks look on in orchestrated interest, "but it might have been better if we did. we always made up really well after fighting..."
he trails off, as if his words are congested at the back of his throat. it's been years since you've practiced synchronization, but you feel your own breath catching, choking you in your skin.
6. snow white the male, otherwise known as kim jaejoong looking like he did during rising sun promotions, winced as he dipped a dirty rag into a lye solution with his bare hands. his bird friends, junsu and yoochun, chirped forlornly as they watched him slave away under the evil step-...mother... changmin.
"wait, are you serious-"
-snow white the male wanted nothing more but to meet his prince charming, who would come in on his dashing steed and sweep him up off his feet and spirit him away to his castle-
"too many male-specific pronouns! are we talking about jaejoong the snow white wannabe, or yunho the prince charming?"
"this is why we shouldn't write in english."
"yeah, as if korean non-gender specific pronouns really help the cause!"
"you know, being cast as a female all the damn time really opens my eyes to the inequality present in the workplace, and also how sexist fairy tales are."
7. the best matchmaker is one who coaxes out a person's charm and lets someone else enjoy them.
jung yunho is ridiculously good at that. he is so ridiculously good at it that he broke up with his girlfriend by setting her up with his close friend and adored church 'dongsaeng'****** junsu. he is so ridiculously good at it that he slowly set the stage for yoochun's coming out and changmin's ridiculously formal date-proposal a minute later, and no one really noticed except for jaejoong, who was really good at catching that kind of stuff anyway.
all of yunho's friends gain the benefit of a smooth, happy love life. except for their resident troublemaker, kim jaejoong.
despite being best friends with the resident matchmaker, jaejoong's been single for a long time, though not for want of trying. it is as if he is trying to single-handedly ruin yunho's otherwise spotless reputation.
yunho's set jaejoong up with law students, art students, choir members, burger king workers, well-traveled philosophers, and even famous people (only kinda; the one wasn't that big-name, which wasn't surprising because jaejoong on a bad day could sing circles around him, but then again jaejoong sung better than two thirds of the singers in south korea. the asshole broke it off with jaejoong halfway through the first date because he was afraid of someone finding out about his 'occasional' gay episodes, but still managed to ask if jaejoong wanted to mess up his hotel bed covers a little-jaejoong punched him in his stomach, but yunho wasn't as kind). women and men, all above the age of consent, age gaps both huge and non-existent; you name any combination legal and safe, and yunho's tried it. jaejoong's rather open-minded and easy going, but apparently not enough-no date's gone past a second date, and there haven't even been any one-night stands, ever. then again, yunho's pretty much pounded safe sex and no putting out on the first or second dates into all his friends' heads.
not that jaejoong's a virgin, yunho's sure. they've shared enough drunken nights and porn watching marathons (almost all of them orchestrated by kim i'm-a-fucking-angel junsu, to the surprise of pretty much the entire world) for yunho to piece together enough of what jaejoong's done, what he's never done, and what he's willing to do.
...okay, so yunho's maybe a little obsessed with hooking jaejoong up with someone.
...okay, so maybe if one were to get into yunho's head about this, they would quickly realize that he's really just obsessed with jaejoong.
which kind of totally makes sense, because they might not be best best friends (yunho has heechul and jaejoong has yoochun), but they're best friends that are comfortable with each other and synchronized and fit together ridiculously well. the only thing they're really missing is the sex, which yunho would more than appreciate but doesn't need, and the mutual understanding that they are an exclusive couple.
"and maybe just the wedding ring," changmin snarks, but yunho's a little drunk, so he can't quite catch the sarcasm and jaejoong is just-drunk. which means he's singing duets with junsu and playing horsie with yoochun and not paying attention. yunho's going to suffer through a pounding headache for sure tomorrow afternoon with jaejoong, which means he'll be puking into the toilet while jaejoong's showering, and showering while jaejoong's making the best hangover stew on the face of the planet, and eating breakfast together while promising never to drink with junsu, yoochun and changmin ever again, and they'll be laughing and passing pieces of kimchi to each other to eat and yunho will spend the entire meal trying not to kiss away a red pepper flake on the corner of jaejoong's lip, which means yunho's going to have to give himself lecture on propriety, because friends don't-
holy shit, yunho thinks. oh holy mary, mother of jesus, he thinks for good measure, and then prays in apology for using the lord's name in vain, even though he's become an agnostic since first year university.
"i'm in love with jaejoong," he mutters aloud, eyes wide and hands already fumbling for a shot of soju, because he doesn't want to remember this in the morning and possibly ruin everything he loves about this relationship.
changmin watches jaejoong jump on yoochun and junsu's backs and takes a sip of his beer. "i'd roll my eyes if the room weren't already spinning, hyung," changmin says wisely, pouring yunho another shot when he downs the other in one go.
"all those times i set jaejoong up with people i knew he wouldn't mesh with, it was because i wanted to set myself up with jaejoong," yunho marvels.
"but were too chicken to do so? yeah, totally," changmin supplies.
"holy shit-" yunho tries to continue, when jaejoong turns to him with pinked cheeks and lips open in laughter.
"jaejoong hyung's in love with you too?" changmin says.
it's like all the alcohol has bubbled in his veins and escaped as steam with his sigh. "...yeah," he rasps, "yeah."
______________________________________
* hanbok is the traditional korean dress.
** film canisters and ziplock bags - perfect for traveling light! fill the empty, washed canisters with shampoo, lotion, gel, whatever! then shove those into a ziplock bag and you're set to walk right on through security in the airport.
*** the formal 'you' - i was thinking 'dangshin' (당신?), which is a rather formal form of 'you' and is also used often between couples. or at least that's the way it is in my family.
**** kang ho dong's segment on golden fishery - the korean variety show which features the segments 'the knee-drop guru' and 'the radio star'. plus, everyone who knows korean entertainment shows should know that we koreans have an on-going love affair with writing someone a letter... except without actually writing, just talking, and while being filmed for editing and broadcasting on national television.
***** -mates inc. - totally useless information, but -mates inc. was founded by jaejoong, junsu and yoochun. nightmates, soulmates, dumbmates (long story), and just mates. their logo has enough empty space for changmin and yunho to join.
****** dongsaeng is the korean word for younger sibling/friend/person; hyung is the term males use to address other older males.
Warnings: run-on sentences, historical inaccuracy in one part.
experiments in setting
yunho/jaejoong in seven segments
PG-13
1. the man is beautiful, in an exotic, dangerous way. yunho can catch men taking secret glimpses of the oriental beauty, eyes flitting man - ground - pocket watch, then sometimes the man again. women stare openly, hiding their noses and mouths with a laced fan as they bat eyelashes in the stranger's direction.
yunho wonders what the man is thinking, straight black hair falling into his eyes, pale skin and dressed in a colorful men's hanbok, dirty from the trip across the ocean. he probably stinks, despite how clean he looks from half a block away. possibly the hanbok is the only piece of clothing the man brought with him; possibly it's the only piece that survived the brutal, cramped boat ride.
it's been a while since yunho's seen a hanbok* worn by anyone, being the only korean out of three asians in the city, and a train ride away, his sister has already grown out of the dress their mother brought with them. it's a welcome sight, but on the man it's made
2. they are so goddamn good together your heart scalds your throat trying to climb up it. generous in smiles, insulting the hell out of each other but words becoming strokes, not cuts. you could cry.
they've got what you dreamed about, back when you could still
3. jaejoong's such a bad case of wanderlust gone psycho that yunho has to block certain sites from the computer, like any and all sites that allow for the booking of airline tickets, and, after a disastrous trip to jejudo that left yunho and jaejoong stranded on the island with only three sets of clothes between the two of them and begging work off a half-blind grandmother who luckily let them wash dishes (yunho) and serve drunken old men (jaejoong, yunho recalls with a dangerous grimace) for enough won to buy a ticket for the ferry back to the mainland, any and all sites that allow for the booking of bus, boat, ferry, train or authentic ancient korean rickshaw tickets.
"jaejoongah," yunho calls out when he walks into their apartment and a half-full duffel bag is lying open on the living room floor, "what are you doing."
jaejoong practically skips out of the bathroom, arms full of shampoo and little things of soap and bb cream and hand lotion, all of which he dumps unceremoniously onto the sofa the moment he catches sight of the taller man standing in the entrance.
the city's lights are already reflected in his eyes when he speaks. "las vegas! this was all yoochun's idea, i swear. or maybe changmin's. or maybe junsu's just a real sneaky mastermind."
when jaejoong rummages through a cardboard box to come up with empty film canisters and ziplock bags**, yunho turns to the door, whips out his phone, and calls yoochun.
the bastard's already drunk and half-gone, which means yunho will be nursing a deaf ear for the rest of the night, with no real answers for his troubles. needless to say, changmin and junsu can be overheard yoochun's crowed greetings, and they sound just as gone as yoochun. "HYUNG," yoochun's voice thunders. "THANK YOU FOR CALLING."
"yoochun," yunho says, no-nonsense tone of voice doing nothing for the cause of sobriety, "what were you thinking, buying jaejoong plane tickets? did you forget the last time you did that against my wishes, and i was calling you collect from some godforsaken police station in paris after beating up some foreign bastard who practically molested jaejoong with his eyes?!" in anger, his gwangju-heavy words return, and he almost doesn't notice the way jaejoong stops to listen, lips touched with a smile and eyes heavy with something like-
"s'you guys' wedding present. go to vegas and get married already, hyung. elvis priest, you know? get married and have boring domestic sex in the honeymoon suite and fight on the second day of being married then make up that night with clothes-ripping sex. or something. jesus, hyung, we're tired of you pussyfooting around," yoochun slurs. he finishes his speech by retching into the phone, and yunho pulls the phone away in disgust, although none of the puke has gone through the phone line.
"conltrugations, hyung!" junsu cheers, voice muffled by distance and yoochun's wet coughing, and changmin says something like "wait, close the shower curtain, i don't want to smell this," which brings up interesting questions about where exactly they are having this tuesday night party.
yunho hangs up and stares at jaejoong, who has since resumed packing his duffel bag, humming as he carefully rolls up his socks to cushion the canisters of shampoo and shaving cream.
yunho takes three steps forward, takes jaejoong's hands in his, and kneels.
4. "she's got no stage presence," yunho griped, loosening his tie. jaejoong stood before him and tried not to stare, reaching out to help only when his frustrated tugs tightened the knot into an angry fist. yunho probably didn't know how hot and bothered it got jaejoong when he was like this, tall in busniess suits, face lined with annoyance, long fingers blunt knives against his tie.
yunho looked down as jaejoong carefully untangled the noose around his neck. "she's got nothing on you," he practically purred, smirk forming around the formal 'you'***.
okay, jaejoong gulped, suddenly clumsy in his gestures, so maybe yunho knew exactly how hot and bothered it made him.
"set eunhee up on a duet with one of our stronger singers," jaejoong suggested, slinging an arm around yunho's sweat-shined stomach. "remember liyin? she has the most beautiful voice, but couldn't perform on stage as well. having junsu on the stage with her helped her get over the stage fright, and you know yoochun and changmin are good at composing duets together. a good song, a good back-up/partner, and she'll be fine."
yunho groaned, swiping a hand across his eyes. "okay, number one: no business in bed. and number two: never, ever mention eunhee, liyin, or any of our boys right after we've made love. not only are they like my children, it kills any and all urges for a round two. or a round three."
5. industry is heartless, or so you try to excuse him.
six years after he and yoochun and junsu won the lawsuit and lost the band, four years after the last meeting ended with yoochun in tears and changmin yelling louder than he's ever yelled before, jaejoong apologizes-fucking apologizes-through a goddamn video letter on kang hodong's segment on 'golden fishery'****.
"we never fought," the now-solo singer and co-director of -mates inc.***** says, soft-spoken while mc kang and his sidekicks look on in orchestrated interest, "but it might have been better if we did. we always made up really well after fighting..."
he trails off, as if his words are congested at the back of his throat. it's been years since you've practiced synchronization, but you feel your own breath catching, choking you in your skin.
6. snow white the male, otherwise known as kim jaejoong looking like he did during rising sun promotions, winced as he dipped a dirty rag into a lye solution with his bare hands. his bird friends, junsu and yoochun, chirped forlornly as they watched him slave away under the evil step-...mother... changmin.
"wait, are you serious-"
-snow white the male wanted nothing more but to meet his prince charming, who would come in on his dashing steed and sweep him up off his feet and spirit him away to his castle-
"too many male-specific pronouns! are we talking about jaejoong the snow white wannabe, or yunho the prince charming?"
"this is why we shouldn't write in english."
"yeah, as if korean non-gender specific pronouns really help the cause!"
"you know, being cast as a female all the damn time really opens my eyes to the inequality present in the workplace, and also how sexist fairy tales are."
7. the best matchmaker is one who coaxes out a person's charm and lets someone else enjoy them.
jung yunho is ridiculously good at that. he is so ridiculously good at it that he broke up with his girlfriend by setting her up with his close friend and adored church 'dongsaeng'****** junsu. he is so ridiculously good at it that he slowly set the stage for yoochun's coming out and changmin's ridiculously formal date-proposal a minute later, and no one really noticed except for jaejoong, who was really good at catching that kind of stuff anyway.
all of yunho's friends gain the benefit of a smooth, happy love life. except for their resident troublemaker, kim jaejoong.
despite being best friends with the resident matchmaker, jaejoong's been single for a long time, though not for want of trying. it is as if he is trying to single-handedly ruin yunho's otherwise spotless reputation.
yunho's set jaejoong up with law students, art students, choir members, burger king workers, well-traveled philosophers, and even famous people (only kinda; the one wasn't that big-name, which wasn't surprising because jaejoong on a bad day could sing circles around him, but then again jaejoong sung better than two thirds of the singers in south korea. the asshole broke it off with jaejoong halfway through the first date because he was afraid of someone finding out about his 'occasional' gay episodes, but still managed to ask if jaejoong wanted to mess up his hotel bed covers a little-jaejoong punched him in his stomach, but yunho wasn't as kind). women and men, all above the age of consent, age gaps both huge and non-existent; you name any combination legal and safe, and yunho's tried it. jaejoong's rather open-minded and easy going, but apparently not enough-no date's gone past a second date, and there haven't even been any one-night stands, ever. then again, yunho's pretty much pounded safe sex and no putting out on the first or second dates into all his friends' heads.
not that jaejoong's a virgin, yunho's sure. they've shared enough drunken nights and porn watching marathons (almost all of them orchestrated by kim i'm-a-fucking-angel junsu, to the surprise of pretty much the entire world) for yunho to piece together enough of what jaejoong's done, what he's never done, and what he's willing to do.
...okay, so yunho's maybe a little obsessed with hooking jaejoong up with someone.
...okay, so maybe if one were to get into yunho's head about this, they would quickly realize that he's really just obsessed with jaejoong.
which kind of totally makes sense, because they might not be best best friends (yunho has heechul and jaejoong has yoochun), but they're best friends that are comfortable with each other and synchronized and fit together ridiculously well. the only thing they're really missing is the sex, which yunho would more than appreciate but doesn't need, and the mutual understanding that they are an exclusive couple.
"and maybe just the wedding ring," changmin snarks, but yunho's a little drunk, so he can't quite catch the sarcasm and jaejoong is just-drunk. which means he's singing duets with junsu and playing horsie with yoochun and not paying attention. yunho's going to suffer through a pounding headache for sure tomorrow afternoon with jaejoong, which means he'll be puking into the toilet while jaejoong's showering, and showering while jaejoong's making the best hangover stew on the face of the planet, and eating breakfast together while promising never to drink with junsu, yoochun and changmin ever again, and they'll be laughing and passing pieces of kimchi to each other to eat and yunho will spend the entire meal trying not to kiss away a red pepper flake on the corner of jaejoong's lip, which means yunho's going to have to give himself lecture on propriety, because friends don't-
holy shit, yunho thinks. oh holy mary, mother of jesus, he thinks for good measure, and then prays in apology for using the lord's name in vain, even though he's become an agnostic since first year university.
"i'm in love with jaejoong," he mutters aloud, eyes wide and hands already fumbling for a shot of soju, because he doesn't want to remember this in the morning and possibly ruin everything he loves about this relationship.
changmin watches jaejoong jump on yoochun and junsu's backs and takes a sip of his beer. "i'd roll my eyes if the room weren't already spinning, hyung," changmin says wisely, pouring yunho another shot when he downs the other in one go.
"all those times i set jaejoong up with people i knew he wouldn't mesh with, it was because i wanted to set myself up with jaejoong," yunho marvels.
"but were too chicken to do so? yeah, totally," changmin supplies.
"holy shit-" yunho tries to continue, when jaejoong turns to him with pinked cheeks and lips open in laughter.
"jaejoong hyung's in love with you too?" changmin says.
it's like all the alcohol has bubbled in his veins and escaped as steam with his sigh. "...yeah," he rasps, "yeah."
______________________________________
* hanbok is the traditional korean dress.
** film canisters and ziplock bags - perfect for traveling light! fill the empty, washed canisters with shampoo, lotion, gel, whatever! then shove those into a ziplock bag and you're set to walk right on through security in the airport.
*** the formal 'you' - i was thinking 'dangshin' (당신?), which is a rather formal form of 'you' and is also used often between couples. or at least that's the way it is in my family.
**** kang ho dong's segment on golden fishery - the korean variety show which features the segments 'the knee-drop guru' and 'the radio star'. plus, everyone who knows korean entertainment shows should know that we koreans have an on-going love affair with writing someone a letter... except without actually writing, just talking, and while being filmed for editing and broadcasting on national television.
***** -mates inc. - totally useless information, but -mates inc. was founded by jaejoong, junsu and yoochun. nightmates, soulmates, dumbmates (long story), and just mates. their logo has enough empty space for changmin and yunho to join.
****** dongsaeng is the korean word for younger sibling/friend/person; hyung is the term males use to address other older males.