a white blank page and a swelling rage » oneshot.
A White Blank Page and a Swelling Rage.
Yunho/Jaejoong.
Angst, Romance.
Where was Yunho's fault in loving Jaejoong with his whole heart?
{based on Mumford and Son's song, White Blank Page}
He held the stick between his fingers, heat radiating from the end and warming the tips. He walked along the riverside, the smoke from the end leaving behind a trail of ash and sin. A disgusting habit, many people had told him. And it'd be a lie to say he didn't agree. He knew it was horrible, but what would be the point in trying to cleanse himself now? He was tainted in many ways; ways that would never be forgiven. Tar on his lungs wasn't worth much scolding, not when he may as well die for what he'd already done. Or so some people said.
The night was cold, but that was expected of a November evening. The clouds had hidden the moon so the pathway was dark, only lit by a few scattered streetlamps - the light from the barely enough to recognise a person walking ten steps in front of you. He watched his breath condense in front of him - although it could've been smoke, he wouldn't know - as he exhaled slowly, observing the small water droplets dance in the orange light.
He coughed harshly, keeling over and leaning an arm on the nearest bench. But there was always the question of, if no one else was around, did he really make a noise? Because it seemed that nobody saw him anymore, and if nobody saw him, then nobody cared. And that's exactly how it felt. Sometimes so much, that he started to disbelieve in his own existence.
His pocket bleeped, signalling a text on the phone that lay inside it. He was surprised. This must've been the first time in weeks that anyone had tried to contact him. It meant someone believed he was alive and breathing - something that his family had told him they'd never believe anymore.
Meet me in the park... by the swings. I know you know which one. 8:30.
Yunho stared at the text, taking inhaling again from the cigarette in his hold. The text made him feel nauseous. Would it bring more pain to see him again and know that he wasn't his? That he couldn't touch him, hold him? There were times when Yunho had began to believe that if he was victim to anymore hurt, he'd be killed. And recently, he began to wonder whether it wouldn't matter if he was.
He stood from the bench and threw the cigarette to the floor, standing on it and putting out it's light. He supposed he'd be in the same situation within the next hour.
*
The park was much colder than the edge of the river, the wind whistling through the trees as stupid speeds, but it wasn't strong. It was the fast, light, sinister wind that had made so many people fear their lives. And Yunho slowly became afraid - but that was for a different reason.
Because this park had held so many happy memories, but seeing it cold and unforgiving made him feel uneasy. It was as if the park had even known that this was the end...
He pulled out another cigarette from his pocket along with his lighter, placing the cylinder into his mouth as he tightened the coat around his body. He lit the cigarette, letting the warmth of the flame caress his face before flicking it shut and allowing the darkness to engulf everything once more.
"I told you to quit those." A voice said, sultry and smooth and exactly how he'd remembered. Yunho felt his heart constrict and his breath shorten as the voice pierced through him, taking time to notice that the sound didn't make him feel the same as it had not long ago. Before, it had sent excited shivers and sparks down his spine, it'd been one of the other's strongest assessts, luring him into his arms. Now, instead it made him queasy - the thought of something so beautiful being so close but so far making his head spin in pain of the situation.
Yunho turned on his heel towards the voice's direction, raising a questioning eyebrow on his brave facade and removing the cigarette from his lips just to say, "You also told me that you loved me."
Jaejoong's gaze fell to the floor as Yunho exhaled the smoke, watching it float away with the wind. He gained some kind of internal victory, knowing that Jaejoong was actually embarrassed or guilty by their situation, a smirk threatening to play on the edges of his lips. Still, his expression remained vacant and he took the moment to just bask in the glory of just being able to feel. The fact it was pain honestly didn't matter anymore.
"What did you want?" Yunho asked, staring at the sky instead of the other man. It had taken enough to look at him the first tim and that'd been unbearable. How could he look so calm? Calm and beautiful? Standing there in his huge duffel coat and blackened jeans. Yunho noticed the change in his hair colour, the blonde from the last time they'd been together transformed into a black as dark as the night they were standing in. It caused a twang in Yunho's heart. He knew that Jaejoong knew about his infatuation with his ebony coloured hair. It made him look angelic. An etheral beauty. And it made Yunho's throat constrict more than it was already.
Jaejoong sighed, "I want you to know that I still want to be friends."
A cruel laugh tore through the winter night, as cold and as vicious as the wind that carried it, "Friends? After this? I don't think so."
"Yunho, please..."
"You could've told me that over text," he interrupted, inhaling smoke once more, "Why are we really here?"
Jaejoong's eyes flickered upwards and he took a step forwards, closer to him, closer to home. No. There was a reason he came here. Doing the wrong thing was not it. He opened his mouth to answer, the words dying on his tongue as Yunho interrupted again, this time with a different question.
"Jaejoong. Why did you leave me?"
The words were spoken with venom and they poisoned Jaejoong's core, throwing any answer he had to that question before he came here out of his mind. He knew that Yunho would ask it. Who wouldn't? But when he'd imagined the scenario, it hadn't hurt as much. Hadn't felt like he was being continously stabbed in the gut. Was this how Yunho had felt since he'd walked out?
He bit his lip, "What we were doing was wrong, Yunho. I had to get out."
The named male turned around to lean backwards on the fence instead, staring into Jaejoong's onyx eye whilst taking another drag from his cigarette. Jaejoong suddenly felt awfully uncomfortable, like he was being scrutinised for things he hadn't done. Unspoken accusations hanging in the air.
Can you lie next to her,
And give her your heart, your heart,
As well as your body?
And can you lie next to her,
And confess your love, your love,
As well as your folly?
"You don't love her." Yunho said confidently, replacing the cigarette into his mouth again.
Jaejoong matched Yunho's glare, "How would you know?"
The other laughed, "You're just as gay as me. And you know you are. You can't look at anyone but me in that way, anymore."
Blood boiled in Jaejoong's body, his veins pulsating with anger at Yunho's assumptions. He wasn't here to be criticised and judged. He'd had enough of that. And out of everyone, he'd have expected Yunho to know how it felt to be judged.
"You really are full of it, Yunho," Jaejoong tsked, shaking his head and folding his arms, "Can't you understand that I've moved on?"
"I know your lying, Jaejoong." Yunho said lightly, shrugging his shoulders, "You can't love her. How can you love her when your heart belongs to me? How can you lie with her at night when you're thinking of me?" Jaejoong watched the smoke exhale from his nose, as the accusations fell from his lips.
"I do love her," Jaejoong said defiantely, "I love her like a man should a woman."
Yunho nodded like adults do to their children before correcting them, "But not truly, not really. Your body won't ever belong to her."
"No, because I don't belong to anyone." Jaejoong pointed out, his eyes blazing. He relaxed his expression and voice as he saw Yunho tense, "I love her enough, Yunho. Enough to start a family, a future, a life."
Yunho flinched, "A family...", he whispered under his breath. Jaejoong... with a family? Small beautiful children created from the genes of an angel and the genes of a petite and fresh-faced woman. He imagined their family sitting around for dinner; Jaejoong's laughing face as he helped his children sit up and eat, kissing Jin Ah as she served their food, smiling. Complete. And his heart broke even more.
"Will you tell her about me? Will you tell your children about me?" Yunho asked, dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing it underneath his trainer.
"She knows you already. You're... you're my best friend."
"No." Yunho hissed, "Will you tell her about our relationship? Our 'mistake'? About how you were sexually involved with a man? A man who you call your best friend." He interrogated with poison laced lips.
Jaejoong shook his head, "I... I can't tell her that. We need forgiveness, not more hatred. What we had was wrong, and we need to cure ourselves."
And can you kneel before the King,
And say I'm clean, I'm clean?
"God won't accept you now! This whole thing is considered unforgiveable. You can't stand before him and tell him you've committed no sins! Not when I've kissed you, touched you. We're thought of as tainted, Jaejoong. We always will be." Yunho stressed, stepping forwards to close some space between them. He needed to feel his skin, his breath on his ear, his gentle kisses, his entire warmth. Instead, Jaejoong just stood his ground, staring at the other whilst shaking his head.
"God is forgiving. If I try hard to stop, he'll forgive me and my sins."
Yunho laughed before his expression hardened, "Maybe God is wrong, Jaejoong! Maybe this is how we're meant to be! You and me..." he said slowly, stepping forwards again and taking Jaejoong's hand in his own. The latter didn't pull away and so Yunho continued advancing, taking time to realise how right it all felt, to be so close, to have his lips on Jaejoong's neck. They were so warm together. He kept his hold on Jaejoong's hand as he left his other rest on his neck, bringing his lips up to close the space between them that and the other's that had taken so long to fill...
Jaejoong jumped back as if Yunho had been set of fire before they had the chance to meet. He sent an icy glare at the offender's loving gaze, the air suddenly turning even colder between them.
"You're insane." Jaejoong hissed.
"No, Jaejoong. I'm not." Yunho said slowly, standing his ground against the other's sharp stare. At the harsh glance, Yunho felt prickles behind his eyes, "I just love you so much. So fucking much and you've broken me."
A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage.
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink.
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections.
Taking a few steps backwards to lean against the fence again, he fell to the floor with his head in his hands, speaking slowly and calmly, "Do you know I sat for days with a piece of paper lying in front of me, trying to think of what to write to get you back, that would tell you my real feelings and would make you accept me for who I am without seeing you, without pushing you away more?!"
He pulled his hair as the tears began to form, "I was angry! So, so angry at you for leaving me! You'd spent the last year around me more than usual, talking to me, touching me, fighting for my attention. But when I gave it to you, gave my everything to you, you shoved it back in my face! Like I was some kind of amusing plaything. Was that it, Jaejoong? Was that what I was?" he asked spitefully, lifting his gaze to meet Jaejoong's, fat tears rolling down his hot cheeks.
Shock shook Jaejoong's frame, his hand over his mouth as he watched Yunho fall to pieces. Was he heartless for standing against him? Condemning the love he had for him? He sighed, collecting himself together and banning his own tears from forming. He couldn't cry because that'd mean he was back to the beginning. And he couldn't fall again.
"It was never like that, Yunho. I... I loved you too. I always did. But now it's in the past an I'm making myself better again. We could be like we used to be. Best friends. Inseperable."
"You really think that I can be around you without acting on what my head tells me?" Yunho snorted, "Even now, it's taking my whole self control to stop myself from holding you, kissing you, showing you how much I really love you."
Jaejoong growled in frustration, pulling at his own hair, "You have to stop this, Yunho! We can stop this together. This is completely wrong. The whole situation!" Just listening to Yunho talk about how much he loved him was making his heart skip a beat and it couldn't happen. It wasn't allowed. He wasn't gay. He was in love with Jin Ah. And she was a girl.
Sighing, Jaejoong gave in to his natural side, sitting beside Yunho and letting a hand rest on his knee in comfort, "You've always wanted children. Why don't you go and get yourself a girlfriend? Fall in love. Start a family. We'll get over this together. We'll cure each other."
"I can't... I can't. I've already fallen in love with you. It just can't happen with girls. I've tried before... so hard." Yunho rasped, his voice shattered by his constricting throat.
"Yunho, please! Stop saying that!" Jaejoong pleaded. But still Yunho remained splayed out for the world to see.
But tell me now, where was my fault,
In loving you with my whole heart?
Oh, tell me now, where was my fault,
In loving you with my whole heart?
"Is it really that wrong for me to love you?" he asked in an almost silent whisper - so quiet, it was almost possible to hear Jaejoong's heart breaking at the words.
"Yes! We're both men! You know exactly how wrong that is!" Jaejoong spat, removing his hand from Yunho's knee. Taking his warmth, taking his comfort. Jaejoong didn't know anymore if he was trying to convince Yunho out of this or himself.
"Loving you with my entire life and soul is that disgusting and horrible and wrong?" Yunho asked, his eyes cold and deadly, "Then I don't know what people mean when they say that love is the best thing that anyone could ever have. Because it's making me feel frozen, broken and dead inside. And from what I see, you don't exactly appreciate it either."
Alarmed at the accusation, Jaejoong tried to defend himself to no avail, his heart refusing to function with his vocal chords, as if his own body banned him from being this way, "I don't... it's not... I just..."
"Save it, Jaejoong." Yunho interrupted, "I'll find a solution without your help." He stood and brushed off his jeans, reaching into his pocket for comfort in the shape of a packet of cigarettes and his lighter, "I'll just go now and we won't see each other anymore, okay?"
He sobbed slightly and slowly around the cigarette between his lips, "And don't remember me for any of this. Because right now, I'm scared of what I won't find when I wake up tomorrow with nothing."
Jaejoong stood too, stepping after the man who had begun to walk away, "Yunho..."
"If you're my best friend... then I just have one last request... if you let me." Yunho said and Jaejoong nodded.
Leaning forwards, Yunho shut the distance between them for one last time. Placing a small kiss on Jaejoong's pale cheek, he smiled through his tears and straightened up again.
"Look after what's left of my heart."
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life.
_______________
Okay, slightly depressing. I hope I conveyed the characters okay! This was written really quickly so I don't know whether it'll sound as okay as I'm assuming it does. So if it sucks, well... it's not my fault... okay, it is.
There was going to be a sequel to this, but I'm not sure if it'll spoil it. I don't know.
I'd do a poll, but LJ currently hates me. Although it's been good compared to usual, so I'm going to give it a break. Please let me know in the comments though? :3
Thanks for reading guys!