TVXQ | There is no middle ground | Changmin/Jaejoong | Oneshot
→ Warnings: AU, Angst, Forced Cohabitation. Heavily inspired by Gummy’s MV for 남자라서 (As a Man).
→ They both asked for a single room. The universe said ‘no’.
There is no middle ground
The newspaper listing calls it an apartment. Your friend who used to live there refers to it as a shitty hotel room he wouldn’t set foot in even if you paid him-which you know is a damn lie, that stingy bastard-but it’s the cheapest housing in the area, even if you have to catch two buses just to get to class, and you’re willing to call it home if it means not having to live out of a jjimjilbang your first week of college.
You think nothing of it when his rental car pulls up besides yours, filled to the brim with boxes and what looks like hastily packed luggage, bits of clothing sticking out between where the edges line up. You don’t bat an eye when he steps into the elevator beside you and reaches for the same button because there were only five stories after all and sometimes the odds win. It’s not until he follows you out the elevator and down the same corridor that you begin feeling uncomfortable, and then he trails you all the way to the last room on the right and-
“This is my room,” you say, holding your key up to the lock in defense of its honor. Blunt and impolite, more so if you include how this fellow is probably older than you. You can see with your mind’s eye your mother’s look of disapproval for making such a bad first impression on someone who’s probably just your next door neighbor. You add, “I asked for a single.”
“So did I.” His voice is not quite what you expected, but not less resolute. He pulls out an envelope that has your apartment number stamped across the middle and you feel the bottom of your stomach give out. In a flash, both of your mobiles are drawn and armed, and even though his looks fancier, yours connects first. You mentally tick a score for practicality and throw him a look of triumph that’s short-lived when the husky voice at the other end of the line informs you that there’s been a mistake and no, for reasons on the lease you’d signed without committing to memory, they couldn’t just kick him out of your apartment.
He reads the expression of disbelief on your face and immediately, there’s a mad scramble for the door of which neither of you claim victory for. It’s not a terrible apartment, you mourn, perfectly size for one person.
“I’m not leaving,” you say stubbornly, glaring at him. “I have class to go to and I can’t afford any other place.”
“I’m not leaving either,” he replies, glaring back in return. “I like the view from out that window.” With that, he throws his pack down like he’s claiming his territory and stomps out the door to bring the rest of his stuff up.
It is a nice view, actually, and you fume at yourself for not acting faster. The rest of the afternoon passes in silence as you set up your side of the apartment and he continues to go up and down the stairs. Your scheme to move all his things out and change the locks at the first opportunity dies a painful death when you realize the sheer volume of stuff he has in his possession
“Is that a miniature foosball table?” you ask, half in horror and half in fascination. “Why?”
He gives you a look that says ‘why not?’ and you refuse to help him finish his move even though it's a discredit to your parents. That night, your roommate puts up a folding screen that block his side from view and in cooperation (or retaliation, you really can’t decide which), you put a line of red tape down the middle of the room.
He wrinkles his nose at the sight of it, and you declare it a victory.
//
One week passes before you finally learn his name, and after that it takes about negative thirty seconds (and maybe the smell of that heavenly bulgogi you still cannot believe came out of that train wreck of a kitchen) for you to cave and tell him yours. His name is Kim Jaejoong and he isn’t a student at all, if the lack of textbooks and nocturnal sleeping habits are any indication. He’s a writer of some sort, always jotting something down on repositionable notes and sticking them all over his side of the room.
“I ghostwrite mostly, but I really want to write lyrics for songs,” he says, and then immediately blushes like he hadn’t meant to give that much away. Warm and fuzzy feelings rise from within, like the time your sister showed you a picture of a baby bunny, and you quash them with extreme prejudice.
Unfortunately, you’re a light sleeper, and that means you’re up at two in the morning the night before your first test listening to the scritch-scratch of pen on paper.
“Why are you still up?” you groan aloud when your pillow fails to drown out the sound. The pen stops moving.
“That’s why I asked for a single,” Jaejoong says, and he doesn’t sound annoyed, just embarrassed. “You can turn off the lights, I’ll let you sleep.”
You do just that, but he continues to work and you can see him with your mind’s eye, squinting in the dark, scribbling every word illegibly because he’s hopelessly technologically challenged. He jumps a little when the lights come back on, and he tilts his head at you questioningly.
“I’ll buy an eye mask tomorrow,” you grumble. And earplugs too.
“Thank you.” He smiles at you, genuine, and the huskiness of fatigue in his voice leaves a warm footprint in your chest.
//
You miss the bus one day and the sun is far below the horizon by the time you drag yourself through the front door. The smell of perfectly cooked samgyeopsal permeates the apartment and your brain shuts down your hunger inhibitors so quickly you feel like you just might collapse on the spot.
“I’m not hungry,” you say just as your traitorous stomach emits a low growl. He rolls his eyes and offers you a bite anyway. Somehow, one bite later, all the rice and vegetable disappear too and you’re pretty sure he’s laughing from behind where his hand covers his mouth.
“Thanks for dinner,” you say, and without thinking, you punch him in the arm. He looks surprised, but before you can apologize, he punches back and it fucking hurts.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
After that, you start calling him ‘Hyung’ (mostly sarcastically unless it’s mealtime) and if Jaejoong’s portion control suddenly slips to where he starts cooking thrice as much as he can actually eat, you don’t make fun of him (because you’re a mature and respectful human being) and you always graciously take care of the extra food for him.
You wash the dishes too, but that has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with your very proper and thorough upbringing.
//
Yunho visits about two months into the school year and he walks through the front door without demanding payment like you knew he would. Jaejoong is passed out in bed, drooling unattractively on his notes that have a tell-tale pencil line trailing listlessly off the side of the page, but he jerks awake when Yunho lets out a low whistle at the hundreds of yellow and green notes stuck on the walls of Jaejoong’s side of the room.
You introduce your roommate to your best friend and they stare at each other for a little longer than socially acceptable before making their bows. Later, Jaejoong makes enough food for five people and flushes pink when Yunho finishes every bite and tells you off matter-of-factly for not inviting him over sooner.
Later that night, Jaejoong starts with, “Are you and Yunho…”
“I don’t like men,” you say immediately. For some reason, it’s vitally important that you clarify this.
He blinks at you and his eyes are huge behind his square frames. “Okay.”
Neither does Yunho, you had planned to add, but he doesn’t question any further and the conversation ends as clumsily as it began.
//
On test days, your class lets out early enough for you to make the afternoon bus, which is all fine and dandy until you walk in and find your roommate in bed with another man’s fingers tangled in his hair.
Your first thought goes to the roommate agreement you never actually got along to drafting and the regret that you didn’t because somewhere in there would’ve been a provision preventing you from walking in on your roommate doing the nasty, and with another guy to boot. Luckily, common sense prevails, and you realize belatedly that they’re both asleep and, more importantly, fully dressed.
The sight of the two of them lying close together, breathing the same air, the stranger’s hand stroking absently at the back of Jaejoong’s head is strangely intimate and you feel as though you should look away even though you don’t; because you can’t.
He could just put a sock on the door, you think faintly before ducking to your side of the room to blast your headphones a little louder than you normally would.
Later, with both hands wrapped around Jaejoong’s waist, the other man introduces himself as Park Yoochun, wearing a half-smirk you can’t read and don’t particularly like. But between all the casual touches and the well-practiced way Park Yoochun responds to Jaejoong’s silences, you have to think that something happened, or will eventually happen between them at some point because no two people who were so much in sync could be any less. A knot twists in your belly and you stuff more rice in your mouth.
Jaejoong excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Park Yoochun turns to you the moment he’s out of earshot. “I have a boyfriend,” he says casually, and it sounds like a test.
“That’s nice,” you say, and steal the last piece of kimbap off his plate.
//
Time flies by and you barely notice. Months pass by, a blur of lectures and bus rides and all the experiences you hoped college would be. Neither you nor Jaejoong can be considered hermits and your circle of friends do not overlap with his, but if he goes out, he always leaves food for you in the refrigerator, and when you come back, you always finish it before the next day.
The week before midterms, you get caught up in your books and by the time you look up at the clock, the last bus home is long gone and you realize, with a sinking heart, that the money you have on hand isn’t enough for a cab. You’re contemplating your options when his motorbike pulls up beside you. You stare at him, unsure if the hunger has gone to your brain, and then he pulls out a jumeok bap. The smell jolts you out of your stupor.
“Yunho called-“ and that’s as far as he gets before you crash into him, burying your face in his shoulders and squeezing him around the middle as hard as you can (which is not very).
“Jaejoong-ah,” you say as you cling to him, half-dead from exhaustion. He starts at hearing his name, but you’re too drained to care and your filters aren’t working properly. You slur out, “You’re my favorite person in the world, you know that?”
He lets out one of his quiet little laughs and pats you on the head as you devour the rice ball with all the grace of a rabid hyena. Once the sugar hits your bloodstream and you no longer bear a resemblance to the walking dead, he takes you home.
You manage to walk back into the apartment on your own two feet. Jaejoong absolutely does not help you to the elevator or into your bed. When you wake up in the middle of the night, you have no idea why he’s on your side of the room, keeled over the side of your mattress, and you have no idea how or why your hands are fisted in his shirt.
Your breath catches at the sight of him lying so close to you. You know his face, of course, but you’ve never really looked at him properly, especially like this with his eyes closed and face unguarded. His appearance is very striking. Even if you don’t like men, you can acknowledge that his looks are captivating in a way that transcends masculine or feminine.
All of your friends who know him have all expressed at some point that the first impression of Jaejoong is ‘cold’. “How do you live with that? His personality is like ice.” Kyuhyun had said with an exaggerated shudder because he was a drama queen and craved attention, but lord help you if you bring up Heechul’s name in comparison.
“As long as you’re happy, Changmin-ah,” Minho had said diplomatically, which meant he agreed with Kyuhyun but didn’t want to take sides. Even Yunho, who interacted with Jaejoong the most in a misguided effort to keep up with his dongsang’s welfare, admitted that Jaejoong seemed cold at first glance.
“His expression doesn’t change very much,” Yunho said with a shrug before adding quickly. “I mean, I know him better now and I think of him as a good friend, but back when I first met him…”
“Are you all stupid?” you wanted to ask. This giant whiney baby who pouts when there’s food left over and smiles with his eyes and sends idiotic texts with far too many emoticons when he feels lonely-you can’t read this open book?
You shake him awake because he’s going to catch a cold otherwise. When he looks up, bleary eyed, instead of making him go back to his own bed, you let him climb in beside you.
Because.
//
In the end, it’s not a well-placed comment from an observer or a sudden epiphany. It’s not like going off the edge of a waterfall as much as it is drifting along a stream and not realizing that the currents were flowing faster and faster until you were so far down the river you couldn’t steer if you tried.
Somewhere along the way, you stop wondering how a pretty girl’s legs look wrapped around your waist and start wondering about their hand. Were those hands skilled at cooking food and diligent at doing housework? Did those hands know when to be gentle and when to be firm when it came to rubbing away aches? Did those hands fit in his or would he always have to be careful not to hold on too tight and crush those fingers?
Physicality aside, what happened after the initial high of a new relationship wore off? You saw how quickly Kyuhyun’s relationship crashed and burned, same with Kibum. What quality did she need to keep you from being tired of her? What would motivate you to hold onto her even when she’s pushing you away? What would make you want to stick around after that first big argument? What about the second? Most importantly, would she stay for you?
You’ve never had a girlfriend before, not really. All that time you spent with all your previous girlfriends, holding hands at school and kissing in public for the thrill-you never counted those because they had no real emotional impact. You promised yourself when you were admitted into university that you weren’t going to enter a relationship unless it you could seriously see yourself spending the rest of your life with that other person, and though you rarely made promises, you always kept them.
One day, you come home and he’s tucked in under his comforter, scribbling lazily on the revoltingly adorable stationary his sisters buy for him. He glances up and smiles lazily, and suddenly, all your analyzing and hypothesizing fly out the window. Because this, you could do forever, coming home to the smell of daeji kalbi and Jaejoong’s lazy, affectionate “welcome back”.
You lied. It is, perhaps, a bit like falling.
//
This sudden realization doesn’t come without consequences. It’s one thing to let your androgynously attractive roommate run his hands through your hair and massage your pounding headache away. It’s another thing entirely to let your androgynously attractive roommate who you just realized you might be harboring a secret chest monster for touch you in any way that goes beyond strictly platonic.
Unfortunately, with Jaejoong, nothing stays within the confines of strictly platonic. So, logically, you begin avoiding him. You stop making eye contact, which is hard. You go back to calling him hyung, which is harder. You stop eating his food, which is the hardest and the one thing which alerts him to something being amiss.
“Changmin-ah,” he tries only once. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” You only mean to say it in a way so he won’t ask again, but it comes out harshly and he takes a step back, stung. You immediately want to take it back, but the little snake on your shoulder whispers that backing down now meant backing down for all eternity and you can’t fall, not like this.
“Okay,” he says quietly, and doesn’t broach the subject again. After two more days, your dinner no longer waits for you and the sink is clean when you return home. The silence in the apartment, previously warm and comfortable, becomes strained and suffocating. Soon, both of you are finding excuses to go out and then it’s like some strange competition to see who can stay out later.
Somewhere underneath that confusion, you know he hurts. It’s not like in the movies. It doesn’t show in his face when you see him or his words in the rare moments he tries to speak to you. His eyebrows don’t turn up, his lips don’t tremble, and his voice doesn’t break when he talks to his friend on the phone. But the hold of his shoulders turn into a strange visual paradox of forced relaxation and his hands shake when he’s smoking on the balcony and every night he stays home, his pen is silent.
He’s never pushed you for anything before, and you know he wouldn’t start now, not for something like this.
It’s not you. The words are on the tip of your tongue and sometimes it’s all you can do to keep them from spilling out. It’s me. I’ve only started to realize what you’ve probably known all along but I can’t. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
In the end, you say nothing, because you can’t face his eyes and the way they make you feel.
//
“You’ve lost weight,” Kyuhyun says bluntly. “And I don’t mean that in a good way. Is that roommate of yours feeding you right?”
“Is something wrong?” Minho asks, batting his big eyes preemptively the way he did when he was about to say something he could get smacked for. “You seem upset all the time. Did you get dumped?”
The one to get to the heart of the matter, unsurprisingly, is Yunho. “Why are you acting this way?” he asks, low and hushed. “Did Jaejoong do something?”
“It’s not about him.” You speak louder than you intended. An irrational kind of anger tears through your inside, that Yunho would automatically associate your behavior with Jaejoong and before you can stop yourself, the words explode out of you. “Aren’t you supposed to be my friend? Why are you on his side?”
“Yah!” Yunho’s expression changes, and when he uses that tone of voice, you have to listen. “I’m not on anyone’s side here,” he says (thunders, really). “And even if I took sides, you know I’d be on yours. You know.”
“I know,” you mumble reluctantly. “He didn’t do anything. I’m the one…”
Maybe a little bit of your misery peeks through because he visibly softens and he swings an arm around your shoulders. “Look,” he says. “It’s hard for me to watch my friend-who I’ve known since childhood, who I know is a good person-treat his friend this way. You do, don’t you? Still think of him as a friend?”
You want to say no, because you don’t want to be friends with Jaejoong. You can’t be friends with Jaejoong, because what you feel for him, the thoughts that you can’t disregard no matter how hard you try, isn’t what friends feel for one another. But if you say ‘no’, Yunho won’t take it the way you think, so you say nothing at all.
“Changmin-ah,” he says gently. “What you’re doing isn’t right. You'll definitely regret this.”
“Probably,” you say dully. Still, you don’t let yourself think about Jaejoong at all. Because if you linger on the way he looked when you left this morning, hunched up in bed, eyes staring determinedly forward, pen hovering over the paper but not writing a single word, something inside of you will break.
For whatever reason, you cannot let that happen.
//
“I’m moving out.”
It’s three in the morning and his voice is hoarse. He looks like he just crawled out of a bottle and he smells like it too. You’re not surprised, not really, and yet disbelief rises inside of you like a tidal wave.
Where will you go? You want to ask nonchalantly. Who will you stay with? Yoochun?
Who will cook for me? You want to ask, despite the fact it’s been weeks since the last time you tasted his food. You can’t remember what he made you, only that ever since then, eating has become less of a pleasure and more of a necessity.
See you around, You want to say at the very least, but the words get caught in your throat. The closest thing the two of you had to a mutual friend was Yunho, and he wouldn’t approach Jaejoong if it made you uncomfortable. If Jaejoong moved out, most likely, they would never see each other again. The revelation is a hollow pit in your stomach.
“Okay,” you say evenly into the silent night before ducking under your covers, heart aching.
//
“He’s moving out.”
Without hesitation, Yunho wraps his arms around you and holds you tight the way he promised he would never do again after your first girlfriend had broken up with you by walking arm in arm with the new kid at school. You had punched him in the shoulder then, all rage and indignation. Now you shake against him, no tears, but holding so much sorrow and regret in your chest it feels as though your ribcage is going to burst.
“Tell him,” he urges, and his unspoken acceptance makes you gulp for air. “It’s not too late, not yet.”
“I can’t,” you whisper. If his heart was ever in your grasp, surely it was out of reach by now. At this point, it might seem petty to worry about rejection when you could lose so much more, but you cling to that last shred of what you think is dignity like a lifeline.
Later, you will recognize your pride for what it is: cowardice. But right now, you hide out in Minho’s dormitory, unable to stand the sight of cardboard boxes and the loss of color as Jaejoong’s wall of notes comes down. Minho remains sympathetic, but on the third day of your depression, he tells Kyuhyun everything, which leads to--
“Are you stupid?” Kyuhyun bellows, and throws a water bottle at your face because even in the depths of your suffering, he remains the biggest bitch in the universe.
“Go away!” You yell back, crawling under the safety of Kibum’s covers.
“He’s not gone yet!” Kyuhyun shouts, pushing a pillow against the blanket with a startling awareness of where your face is. “Go fucking tell him. Are you a man or not?”
“What if he says no?!” The words leave your mouth before you can stop yourself and, in a brief moment of clarity, you wonder when you became this person who whined and made excuses and camped out in someone else’s dormitory so he wouldn’t have to go home to nothing.
Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “What could he do to you that you haven’t already done to him?” he asks snidely, and the words hit you right where it hurts. “Go fucking tell him,” Kyuhyun continues, in that insufferably know-it-all tone (you remind yourself to get him back for it because two weeks does not a hyung make). “Lay your heart out in front of him. If he accepts it, everyone’s happy. If he steps on it, then at least you know and you can move forward with no regret. If you don’t at least try then you’ll die unhappy and forever alone and I’m not fucking putting up with that.”
You gawk at him because that whole thing made sense to you and Kyuhyun doesn’t make sense to anyone, ever. In a flash, you push the covers aside and run out the door.
“Fucking idiot,” Kyuhyun hollers after you. “I don’t even know why I put up with you. WHY ARE WE FRIENDS?!”
//
Adrenaline carries you all the way home and slams you into a box. You fall back against the door with enough force to rattle the frame and the box goes sprawling to the floor.
The two of you freeze upon seeing each other. His eyes are wide (and a lot wary, you note with regret) and his lips are open and you cannot believe it’s taken you this long, this long. You open your mouth but the words die in your mouth when you notice the dark circles under his eyes and the shabby state of his clothing. Jaejoong picks himself off the floor and his face is a mask.
Your courage flees like it never existed, and you’re left with a million thoughts running through your mind, all trying to get out at the same time and getting stuck in your throat like some hideously unfunny vintage cartoon.
“Excuse me,” he says politely and it’s about the worse thing he could say because Jaejoong isn’t polite, not to you.
“Wait, Jae-“ You don’t know how to finish that so you hurry on. “Please don’t go.”
His stare is vacant but his eyes go glassy and his lips tighten like he’s trying to keep his words from spilling out. Involuntarily, you think of Kyuhyun and Yunho, whose first impressions were drawn based entirely on his arresting physical appearance. If they could see what you see now, they’d know there was nothing unfeeling or indifferent about Kim Jaejoong.
He opens his mouth and you brace yourself for the torrent you undoubtedly deserve, but no words come forth. Instead, he just stares at you, unhappy and uncertain, like someone unaccustomed to using anger as a weapon. Then he lowers his eyes and the moment is broken.
“I’m going to go,” he says quietly, and it breaks you.
He reaches for the box and you reach for him, and you miscalculate the amount of force required on your part because both of you wind up on the floor, your hand cradling where his head would’ve knocked the wall. Slowly, your heart pounding so hard you’re sure he could feel it, you draw him close and he doesn’t resist.
“It wasn’t you,” you start. “It was me, I was the foolish one. I was selfish before and I’m being selfish again, but I don’t want you to go. Please let me keep you. I’ll do all the dishes, even if you never cook for me again. I’ll buy my own shampoo and I’ll stop stealing your clothes without permission and I won’t be mean to Yoochun when he comes over even though I hate his greasy face-“
He snorts unexpectedly and you realize you hadn’t meant to say that last bit aloud, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and your breathing comes easier at the sight of it. Tentatively, you cup his cheek in your hands and he meets your gaze expectantly.
“I’m sorry.” Your voice is a whisper. “Please stay. I don’t like men, but I like you. Please stay.”
He blinks at you and his expression is harder to read now because you finally know what you’re looking for. After what feels like an eternity of waiting, a shy smile spreads slowly across his face and he closes his fingers around your wrists and stay there.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Okay.”
[ Epilogue ]
Things don’t go back to the way it used to be, not exactly. Jaejoong’s belongings return to their proper place, and it’s almost worth having to deal with Yoochun’s looks of complete loathing just to see the rainbow of notes scattered on the wall. The red tape still divides the room and Jaejoong’s room dividers still close him from view. Change between the two of you has always come slowly and this is no different.
He does resume cooking for you again, and now neither of you pretends it’s just leftovers. Now, you watch when he cooks, and you even help with the prep work (although for the sake of practicality and Jaejoong’s sanity, you don’t go near the stove). Sometimes, you rest your head against the back of Jaejoong’s neck as the smell of smoke wafts pleasantly around you and sometimes (always), he lets you.
The red tape wears down around the middle from the constant set of feet crossing over it all the time, and neither of you bother to replace it. At some point, the screen on Jaejoong’s side is knocked to the floor, and instead of putting it back up, he hauls it to the side and leaves it there. The corners of your mattresses edge closer and closer to the middle until one day, you wake up and realize he’s within arm’s reach.
Your first kiss is a spontaneous event involving a series of hilarious cat videos your mom sent you. When his teeth bite down on his bottom lip, your body moves without thinking and you cross the space between with one step and then the cat videos are forgotten. It occurs to you after the fact that you probably should’ve asked for permission or something but his fingers tug at you, holding you like he’s been holding back this entire time, and no-you don’t need permission for this.
To this day, the two of you still don’t do the stuff all the other couples do-no movie dates because you always predict the what happens and Jaejoong never makes it to the end without dozing off at least once, no going out to eat because Jaejoong’s food is better anyway (seriously), and no pet names because cute isn’t a good look for either of you.
Yoochun eventually gets over the two of you being together, and you get over the fact that Yoochun will probably always know Jaejoong a little better than you (though, thankfully, not in that way). Yunho congratulates you when you finally tell him and takes it upon himself to declare, in his dickish straight-boy way, that he’d steal Jaejoong away to be his wife if you didn’t treat him right.
Whatever, you know exactly what he’d do if Jaejoong ever left you, and most of it involved shitty food and awkward avoidance of the subject because Yunho burns water when he cooks and has all the emotional depth of a teaspoon.
Both of you continue to throw punches at each other; he pretends they hurt a lot more than they do and you pretend they hurt a lot less. But now there are things he does with his mouth and his lips at night (and sometimes during the day and once when they had company-Yoochun leers for a straight hour afterward and Yunho glances around suspiciously like he’s missing out on the joke) that leave you gasping for air and sometimes you return the favor and the jolt of pleasure that runs through your belly when you make him arch off the bed gasping your name is like nothing you’ve ever felt before.
You won’t stay at this little one-room apartment forever, of course. Eventually, this place will be just a memory to you, but right now, even when the water isn’t quite hot enough and the kitchen appliances look one boiling pot away from setting the place on fire, you wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.
/ Super Extra /
Room 512 sends him flowers again with a card reading Thank You.
Junsu scowls. He made one double-booking mistake three years ago and he’s never been allowed to forget it.
[ the . end ]
Notes:
+ For dongbangasm, whose Tumblr posts unknowingly helped me through the hardest bits.
+ The bit about Jaejoong's coldness.
+ Optional cat gifs.
→ They both asked for a single room. The universe said ‘no’.
There is no middle ground
The newspaper listing calls it an apartment. Your friend who used to live there refers to it as a shitty hotel room he wouldn’t set foot in even if you paid him-which you know is a damn lie, that stingy bastard-but it’s the cheapest housing in the area, even if you have to catch two buses just to get to class, and you’re willing to call it home if it means not having to live out of a jjimjilbang your first week of college.
You think nothing of it when his rental car pulls up besides yours, filled to the brim with boxes and what looks like hastily packed luggage, bits of clothing sticking out between where the edges line up. You don’t bat an eye when he steps into the elevator beside you and reaches for the same button because there were only five stories after all and sometimes the odds win. It’s not until he follows you out the elevator and down the same corridor that you begin feeling uncomfortable, and then he trails you all the way to the last room on the right and-
“This is my room,” you say, holding your key up to the lock in defense of its honor. Blunt and impolite, more so if you include how this fellow is probably older than you. You can see with your mind’s eye your mother’s look of disapproval for making such a bad first impression on someone who’s probably just your next door neighbor. You add, “I asked for a single.”
“So did I.” His voice is not quite what you expected, but not less resolute. He pulls out an envelope that has your apartment number stamped across the middle and you feel the bottom of your stomach give out. In a flash, both of your mobiles are drawn and armed, and even though his looks fancier, yours connects first. You mentally tick a score for practicality and throw him a look of triumph that’s short-lived when the husky voice at the other end of the line informs you that there’s been a mistake and no, for reasons on the lease you’d signed without committing to memory, they couldn’t just kick him out of your apartment.
He reads the expression of disbelief on your face and immediately, there’s a mad scramble for the door of which neither of you claim victory for. It’s not a terrible apartment, you mourn, perfectly size for one person.
“I’m not leaving,” you say stubbornly, glaring at him. “I have class to go to and I can’t afford any other place.”
“I’m not leaving either,” he replies, glaring back in return. “I like the view from out that window.” With that, he throws his pack down like he’s claiming his territory and stomps out the door to bring the rest of his stuff up.
It is a nice view, actually, and you fume at yourself for not acting faster. The rest of the afternoon passes in silence as you set up your side of the apartment and he continues to go up and down the stairs. Your scheme to move all his things out and change the locks at the first opportunity dies a painful death when you realize the sheer volume of stuff he has in his possession
“Is that a miniature foosball table?” you ask, half in horror and half in fascination. “Why?”
He gives you a look that says ‘why not?’ and you refuse to help him finish his move even though it's a discredit to your parents. That night, your roommate puts up a folding screen that block his side from view and in cooperation (or retaliation, you really can’t decide which), you put a line of red tape down the middle of the room.
He wrinkles his nose at the sight of it, and you declare it a victory.
//
One week passes before you finally learn his name, and after that it takes about negative thirty seconds (and maybe the smell of that heavenly bulgogi you still cannot believe came out of that train wreck of a kitchen) for you to cave and tell him yours. His name is Kim Jaejoong and he isn’t a student at all, if the lack of textbooks and nocturnal sleeping habits are any indication. He’s a writer of some sort, always jotting something down on repositionable notes and sticking them all over his side of the room.
“I ghostwrite mostly, but I really want to write lyrics for songs,” he says, and then immediately blushes like he hadn’t meant to give that much away. Warm and fuzzy feelings rise from within, like the time your sister showed you a picture of a baby bunny, and you quash them with extreme prejudice.
Unfortunately, you’re a light sleeper, and that means you’re up at two in the morning the night before your first test listening to the scritch-scratch of pen on paper.
“Why are you still up?” you groan aloud when your pillow fails to drown out the sound. The pen stops moving.
“That’s why I asked for a single,” Jaejoong says, and he doesn’t sound annoyed, just embarrassed. “You can turn off the lights, I’ll let you sleep.”
You do just that, but he continues to work and you can see him with your mind’s eye, squinting in the dark, scribbling every word illegibly because he’s hopelessly technologically challenged. He jumps a little when the lights come back on, and he tilts his head at you questioningly.
“I’ll buy an eye mask tomorrow,” you grumble. And earplugs too.
“Thank you.” He smiles at you, genuine, and the huskiness of fatigue in his voice leaves a warm footprint in your chest.
//
You miss the bus one day and the sun is far below the horizon by the time you drag yourself through the front door. The smell of perfectly cooked samgyeopsal permeates the apartment and your brain shuts down your hunger inhibitors so quickly you feel like you just might collapse on the spot.
“I’m not hungry,” you say just as your traitorous stomach emits a low growl. He rolls his eyes and offers you a bite anyway. Somehow, one bite later, all the rice and vegetable disappear too and you’re pretty sure he’s laughing from behind where his hand covers his mouth.
“Thanks for dinner,” you say, and without thinking, you punch him in the arm. He looks surprised, but before you can apologize, he punches back and it fucking hurts.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
After that, you start calling him ‘Hyung’ (mostly sarcastically unless it’s mealtime) and if Jaejoong’s portion control suddenly slips to where he starts cooking thrice as much as he can actually eat, you don’t make fun of him (because you’re a mature and respectful human being) and you always graciously take care of the extra food for him.
You wash the dishes too, but that has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with your very proper and thorough upbringing.
//
Yunho visits about two months into the school year and he walks through the front door without demanding payment like you knew he would. Jaejoong is passed out in bed, drooling unattractively on his notes that have a tell-tale pencil line trailing listlessly off the side of the page, but he jerks awake when Yunho lets out a low whistle at the hundreds of yellow and green notes stuck on the walls of Jaejoong’s side of the room.
You introduce your roommate to your best friend and they stare at each other for a little longer than socially acceptable before making their bows. Later, Jaejoong makes enough food for five people and flushes pink when Yunho finishes every bite and tells you off matter-of-factly for not inviting him over sooner.
Later that night, Jaejoong starts with, “Are you and Yunho…”
“I don’t like men,” you say immediately. For some reason, it’s vitally important that you clarify this.
He blinks at you and his eyes are huge behind his square frames. “Okay.”
Neither does Yunho, you had planned to add, but he doesn’t question any further and the conversation ends as clumsily as it began.
//
On test days, your class lets out early enough for you to make the afternoon bus, which is all fine and dandy until you walk in and find your roommate in bed with another man’s fingers tangled in his hair.
Your first thought goes to the roommate agreement you never actually got along to drafting and the regret that you didn’t because somewhere in there would’ve been a provision preventing you from walking in on your roommate doing the nasty, and with another guy to boot. Luckily, common sense prevails, and you realize belatedly that they’re both asleep and, more importantly, fully dressed.
The sight of the two of them lying close together, breathing the same air, the stranger’s hand stroking absently at the back of Jaejoong’s head is strangely intimate and you feel as though you should look away even though you don’t; because you can’t.
He could just put a sock on the door, you think faintly before ducking to your side of the room to blast your headphones a little louder than you normally would.
Later, with both hands wrapped around Jaejoong’s waist, the other man introduces himself as Park Yoochun, wearing a half-smirk you can’t read and don’t particularly like. But between all the casual touches and the well-practiced way Park Yoochun responds to Jaejoong’s silences, you have to think that something happened, or will eventually happen between them at some point because no two people who were so much in sync could be any less. A knot twists in your belly and you stuff more rice in your mouth.
Jaejoong excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Park Yoochun turns to you the moment he’s out of earshot. “I have a boyfriend,” he says casually, and it sounds like a test.
“That’s nice,” you say, and steal the last piece of kimbap off his plate.
//
Time flies by and you barely notice. Months pass by, a blur of lectures and bus rides and all the experiences you hoped college would be. Neither you nor Jaejoong can be considered hermits and your circle of friends do not overlap with his, but if he goes out, he always leaves food for you in the refrigerator, and when you come back, you always finish it before the next day.
The week before midterms, you get caught up in your books and by the time you look up at the clock, the last bus home is long gone and you realize, with a sinking heart, that the money you have on hand isn’t enough for a cab. You’re contemplating your options when his motorbike pulls up beside you. You stare at him, unsure if the hunger has gone to your brain, and then he pulls out a jumeok bap. The smell jolts you out of your stupor.
“Yunho called-“ and that’s as far as he gets before you crash into him, burying your face in his shoulders and squeezing him around the middle as hard as you can (which is not very).
“Jaejoong-ah,” you say as you cling to him, half-dead from exhaustion. He starts at hearing his name, but you’re too drained to care and your filters aren’t working properly. You slur out, “You’re my favorite person in the world, you know that?”
He lets out one of his quiet little laughs and pats you on the head as you devour the rice ball with all the grace of a rabid hyena. Once the sugar hits your bloodstream and you no longer bear a resemblance to the walking dead, he takes you home.
You manage to walk back into the apartment on your own two feet. Jaejoong absolutely does not help you to the elevator or into your bed. When you wake up in the middle of the night, you have no idea why he’s on your side of the room, keeled over the side of your mattress, and you have no idea how or why your hands are fisted in his shirt.
Your breath catches at the sight of him lying so close to you. You know his face, of course, but you’ve never really looked at him properly, especially like this with his eyes closed and face unguarded. His appearance is very striking. Even if you don’t like men, you can acknowledge that his looks are captivating in a way that transcends masculine or feminine.
All of your friends who know him have all expressed at some point that the first impression of Jaejoong is ‘cold’. “How do you live with that? His personality is like ice.” Kyuhyun had said with an exaggerated shudder because he was a drama queen and craved attention, but lord help you if you bring up Heechul’s name in comparison.
“As long as you’re happy, Changmin-ah,” Minho had said diplomatically, which meant he agreed with Kyuhyun but didn’t want to take sides. Even Yunho, who interacted with Jaejoong the most in a misguided effort to keep up with his dongsang’s welfare, admitted that Jaejoong seemed cold at first glance.
“His expression doesn’t change very much,” Yunho said with a shrug before adding quickly. “I mean, I know him better now and I think of him as a good friend, but back when I first met him…”
“Are you all stupid?” you wanted to ask. This giant whiney baby who pouts when there’s food left over and smiles with his eyes and sends idiotic texts with far too many emoticons when he feels lonely-you can’t read this open book?
You shake him awake because he’s going to catch a cold otherwise. When he looks up, bleary eyed, instead of making him go back to his own bed, you let him climb in beside you.
Because.
//
In the end, it’s not a well-placed comment from an observer or a sudden epiphany. It’s not like going off the edge of a waterfall as much as it is drifting along a stream and not realizing that the currents were flowing faster and faster until you were so far down the river you couldn’t steer if you tried.
Somewhere along the way, you stop wondering how a pretty girl’s legs look wrapped around your waist and start wondering about their hand. Were those hands skilled at cooking food and diligent at doing housework? Did those hands know when to be gentle and when to be firm when it came to rubbing away aches? Did those hands fit in his or would he always have to be careful not to hold on too tight and crush those fingers?
Physicality aside, what happened after the initial high of a new relationship wore off? You saw how quickly Kyuhyun’s relationship crashed and burned, same with Kibum. What quality did she need to keep you from being tired of her? What would motivate you to hold onto her even when she’s pushing you away? What would make you want to stick around after that first big argument? What about the second? Most importantly, would she stay for you?
You’ve never had a girlfriend before, not really. All that time you spent with all your previous girlfriends, holding hands at school and kissing in public for the thrill-you never counted those because they had no real emotional impact. You promised yourself when you were admitted into university that you weren’t going to enter a relationship unless it you could seriously see yourself spending the rest of your life with that other person, and though you rarely made promises, you always kept them.
One day, you come home and he’s tucked in under his comforter, scribbling lazily on the revoltingly adorable stationary his sisters buy for him. He glances up and smiles lazily, and suddenly, all your analyzing and hypothesizing fly out the window. Because this, you could do forever, coming home to the smell of daeji kalbi and Jaejoong’s lazy, affectionate “welcome back”.
You lied. It is, perhaps, a bit like falling.
//
This sudden realization doesn’t come without consequences. It’s one thing to let your androgynously attractive roommate run his hands through your hair and massage your pounding headache away. It’s another thing entirely to let your androgynously attractive roommate who you just realized you might be harboring a secret chest monster for touch you in any way that goes beyond strictly platonic.
Unfortunately, with Jaejoong, nothing stays within the confines of strictly platonic. So, logically, you begin avoiding him. You stop making eye contact, which is hard. You go back to calling him hyung, which is harder. You stop eating his food, which is the hardest and the one thing which alerts him to something being amiss.
“Changmin-ah,” he tries only once. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” You only mean to say it in a way so he won’t ask again, but it comes out harshly and he takes a step back, stung. You immediately want to take it back, but the little snake on your shoulder whispers that backing down now meant backing down for all eternity and you can’t fall, not like this.
“Okay,” he says quietly, and doesn’t broach the subject again. After two more days, your dinner no longer waits for you and the sink is clean when you return home. The silence in the apartment, previously warm and comfortable, becomes strained and suffocating. Soon, both of you are finding excuses to go out and then it’s like some strange competition to see who can stay out later.
Somewhere underneath that confusion, you know he hurts. It’s not like in the movies. It doesn’t show in his face when you see him or his words in the rare moments he tries to speak to you. His eyebrows don’t turn up, his lips don’t tremble, and his voice doesn’t break when he talks to his friend on the phone. But the hold of his shoulders turn into a strange visual paradox of forced relaxation and his hands shake when he’s smoking on the balcony and every night he stays home, his pen is silent.
He’s never pushed you for anything before, and you know he wouldn’t start now, not for something like this.
It’s not you. The words are on the tip of your tongue and sometimes it’s all you can do to keep them from spilling out. It’s me. I’ve only started to realize what you’ve probably known all along but I can’t. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
In the end, you say nothing, because you can’t face his eyes and the way they make you feel.
//
“You’ve lost weight,” Kyuhyun says bluntly. “And I don’t mean that in a good way. Is that roommate of yours feeding you right?”
“Is something wrong?” Minho asks, batting his big eyes preemptively the way he did when he was about to say something he could get smacked for. “You seem upset all the time. Did you get dumped?”
The one to get to the heart of the matter, unsurprisingly, is Yunho. “Why are you acting this way?” he asks, low and hushed. “Did Jaejoong do something?”
“It’s not about him.” You speak louder than you intended. An irrational kind of anger tears through your inside, that Yunho would automatically associate your behavior with Jaejoong and before you can stop yourself, the words explode out of you. “Aren’t you supposed to be my friend? Why are you on his side?”
“Yah!” Yunho’s expression changes, and when he uses that tone of voice, you have to listen. “I’m not on anyone’s side here,” he says (thunders, really). “And even if I took sides, you know I’d be on yours. You know.”
“I know,” you mumble reluctantly. “He didn’t do anything. I’m the one…”
Maybe a little bit of your misery peeks through because he visibly softens and he swings an arm around your shoulders. “Look,” he says. “It’s hard for me to watch my friend-who I’ve known since childhood, who I know is a good person-treat his friend this way. You do, don’t you? Still think of him as a friend?”
You want to say no, because you don’t want to be friends with Jaejoong. You can’t be friends with Jaejoong, because what you feel for him, the thoughts that you can’t disregard no matter how hard you try, isn’t what friends feel for one another. But if you say ‘no’, Yunho won’t take it the way you think, so you say nothing at all.
“Changmin-ah,” he says gently. “What you’re doing isn’t right. You'll definitely regret this.”
“Probably,” you say dully. Still, you don’t let yourself think about Jaejoong at all. Because if you linger on the way he looked when you left this morning, hunched up in bed, eyes staring determinedly forward, pen hovering over the paper but not writing a single word, something inside of you will break.
For whatever reason, you cannot let that happen.
//
“I’m moving out.”
It’s three in the morning and his voice is hoarse. He looks like he just crawled out of a bottle and he smells like it too. You’re not surprised, not really, and yet disbelief rises inside of you like a tidal wave.
Where will you go? You want to ask nonchalantly. Who will you stay with? Yoochun?
Who will cook for me? You want to ask, despite the fact it’s been weeks since the last time you tasted his food. You can’t remember what he made you, only that ever since then, eating has become less of a pleasure and more of a necessity.
See you around, You want to say at the very least, but the words get caught in your throat. The closest thing the two of you had to a mutual friend was Yunho, and he wouldn’t approach Jaejoong if it made you uncomfortable. If Jaejoong moved out, most likely, they would never see each other again. The revelation is a hollow pit in your stomach.
“Okay,” you say evenly into the silent night before ducking under your covers, heart aching.
//
“He’s moving out.”
Without hesitation, Yunho wraps his arms around you and holds you tight the way he promised he would never do again after your first girlfriend had broken up with you by walking arm in arm with the new kid at school. You had punched him in the shoulder then, all rage and indignation. Now you shake against him, no tears, but holding so much sorrow and regret in your chest it feels as though your ribcage is going to burst.
“Tell him,” he urges, and his unspoken acceptance makes you gulp for air. “It’s not too late, not yet.”
“I can’t,” you whisper. If his heart was ever in your grasp, surely it was out of reach by now. At this point, it might seem petty to worry about rejection when you could lose so much more, but you cling to that last shred of what you think is dignity like a lifeline.
Later, you will recognize your pride for what it is: cowardice. But right now, you hide out in Minho’s dormitory, unable to stand the sight of cardboard boxes and the loss of color as Jaejoong’s wall of notes comes down. Minho remains sympathetic, but on the third day of your depression, he tells Kyuhyun everything, which leads to--
“Are you stupid?” Kyuhyun bellows, and throws a water bottle at your face because even in the depths of your suffering, he remains the biggest bitch in the universe.
“Go away!” You yell back, crawling under the safety of Kibum’s covers.
“He’s not gone yet!” Kyuhyun shouts, pushing a pillow against the blanket with a startling awareness of where your face is. “Go fucking tell him. Are you a man or not?”
“What if he says no?!” The words leave your mouth before you can stop yourself and, in a brief moment of clarity, you wonder when you became this person who whined and made excuses and camped out in someone else’s dormitory so he wouldn’t have to go home to nothing.
Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “What could he do to you that you haven’t already done to him?” he asks snidely, and the words hit you right where it hurts. “Go fucking tell him,” Kyuhyun continues, in that insufferably know-it-all tone (you remind yourself to get him back for it because two weeks does not a hyung make). “Lay your heart out in front of him. If he accepts it, everyone’s happy. If he steps on it, then at least you know and you can move forward with no regret. If you don’t at least try then you’ll die unhappy and forever alone and I’m not fucking putting up with that.”
You gawk at him because that whole thing made sense to you and Kyuhyun doesn’t make sense to anyone, ever. In a flash, you push the covers aside and run out the door.
“Fucking idiot,” Kyuhyun hollers after you. “I don’t even know why I put up with you. WHY ARE WE FRIENDS?!”
//
Adrenaline carries you all the way home and slams you into a box. You fall back against the door with enough force to rattle the frame and the box goes sprawling to the floor.
The two of you freeze upon seeing each other. His eyes are wide (and a lot wary, you note with regret) and his lips are open and you cannot believe it’s taken you this long, this long. You open your mouth but the words die in your mouth when you notice the dark circles under his eyes and the shabby state of his clothing. Jaejoong picks himself off the floor and his face is a mask.
Your courage flees like it never existed, and you’re left with a million thoughts running through your mind, all trying to get out at the same time and getting stuck in your throat like some hideously unfunny vintage cartoon.
“Excuse me,” he says politely and it’s about the worse thing he could say because Jaejoong isn’t polite, not to you.
“Wait, Jae-“ You don’t know how to finish that so you hurry on. “Please don’t go.”
His stare is vacant but his eyes go glassy and his lips tighten like he’s trying to keep his words from spilling out. Involuntarily, you think of Kyuhyun and Yunho, whose first impressions were drawn based entirely on his arresting physical appearance. If they could see what you see now, they’d know there was nothing unfeeling or indifferent about Kim Jaejoong.
He opens his mouth and you brace yourself for the torrent you undoubtedly deserve, but no words come forth. Instead, he just stares at you, unhappy and uncertain, like someone unaccustomed to using anger as a weapon. Then he lowers his eyes and the moment is broken.
“I’m going to go,” he says quietly, and it breaks you.
He reaches for the box and you reach for him, and you miscalculate the amount of force required on your part because both of you wind up on the floor, your hand cradling where his head would’ve knocked the wall. Slowly, your heart pounding so hard you’re sure he could feel it, you draw him close and he doesn’t resist.
“It wasn’t you,” you start. “It was me, I was the foolish one. I was selfish before and I’m being selfish again, but I don’t want you to go. Please let me keep you. I’ll do all the dishes, even if you never cook for me again. I’ll buy my own shampoo and I’ll stop stealing your clothes without permission and I won’t be mean to Yoochun when he comes over even though I hate his greasy face-“
He snorts unexpectedly and you realize you hadn’t meant to say that last bit aloud, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and your breathing comes easier at the sight of it. Tentatively, you cup his cheek in your hands and he meets your gaze expectantly.
“I’m sorry.” Your voice is a whisper. “Please stay. I don’t like men, but I like you. Please stay.”
He blinks at you and his expression is harder to read now because you finally know what you’re looking for. After what feels like an eternity of waiting, a shy smile spreads slowly across his face and he closes his fingers around your wrists and stay there.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Okay.”
[ Epilogue ]
Things don’t go back to the way it used to be, not exactly. Jaejoong’s belongings return to their proper place, and it’s almost worth having to deal with Yoochun’s looks of complete loathing just to see the rainbow of notes scattered on the wall. The red tape still divides the room and Jaejoong’s room dividers still close him from view. Change between the two of you has always come slowly and this is no different.
He does resume cooking for you again, and now neither of you pretends it’s just leftovers. Now, you watch when he cooks, and you even help with the prep work (although for the sake of practicality and Jaejoong’s sanity, you don’t go near the stove). Sometimes, you rest your head against the back of Jaejoong’s neck as the smell of smoke wafts pleasantly around you and sometimes (always), he lets you.
The red tape wears down around the middle from the constant set of feet crossing over it all the time, and neither of you bother to replace it. At some point, the screen on Jaejoong’s side is knocked to the floor, and instead of putting it back up, he hauls it to the side and leaves it there. The corners of your mattresses edge closer and closer to the middle until one day, you wake up and realize he’s within arm’s reach.
Your first kiss is a spontaneous event involving a series of hilarious cat videos your mom sent you. When his teeth bite down on his bottom lip, your body moves without thinking and you cross the space between with one step and then the cat videos are forgotten. It occurs to you after the fact that you probably should’ve asked for permission or something but his fingers tug at you, holding you like he’s been holding back this entire time, and no-you don’t need permission for this.
To this day, the two of you still don’t do the stuff all the other couples do-no movie dates because you always predict the what happens and Jaejoong never makes it to the end without dozing off at least once, no going out to eat because Jaejoong’s food is better anyway (seriously), and no pet names because cute isn’t a good look for either of you.
Yoochun eventually gets over the two of you being together, and you get over the fact that Yoochun will probably always know Jaejoong a little better than you (though, thankfully, not in that way). Yunho congratulates you when you finally tell him and takes it upon himself to declare, in his dickish straight-boy way, that he’d steal Jaejoong away to be his wife if you didn’t treat him right.
Whatever, you know exactly what he’d do if Jaejoong ever left you, and most of it involved shitty food and awkward avoidance of the subject because Yunho burns water when he cooks and has all the emotional depth of a teaspoon.
Both of you continue to throw punches at each other; he pretends they hurt a lot more than they do and you pretend they hurt a lot less. But now there are things he does with his mouth and his lips at night (and sometimes during the day and once when they had company-Yoochun leers for a straight hour afterward and Yunho glances around suspiciously like he’s missing out on the joke) that leave you gasping for air and sometimes you return the favor and the jolt of pleasure that runs through your belly when you make him arch off the bed gasping your name is like nothing you’ve ever felt before.
You won’t stay at this little one-room apartment forever, of course. Eventually, this place will be just a memory to you, but right now, even when the water isn’t quite hot enough and the kitchen appliances look one boiling pot away from setting the place on fire, you wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.
/ Super Extra /
Room 512 sends him flowers again with a card reading Thank You.
Junsu scowls. He made one double-booking mistake three years ago and he’s never been allowed to forget it.
[ the . end ]
Notes:
+ For dongbangasm, whose Tumblr posts unknowingly helped me through the hardest bits.
+ The bit about Jaejoong's coldness.
+ Optional cat gifs.