tvxq: flying low
flying low
yoochun/jaejoong. 5,122w.
1. Yoochun meets Jaejoong over the phone, on a Monday morning when he's rushing to his eight-hour day at the record store. On average, he's late to work two point five times a month, but all Kenny does is threaten him with stock and inventory. Yoochun fishes his keys out of the wrong jeans, takes the piece of toast out of his mouth and says, "I'm kind of in a hurry right now, but I can call you back later?"
"Sorry about the bad timing," says the voice on the other end of the line. Hoarse, like there are fingers gift-wrapped around a throat. He has the hint of a dialect, something countryside that he could've tried to get rid of once. Yoochun's making up stories already. He does acrobatics with his phone and toast so he can shut the front door.
"What's your name again?"
"Jaejoong." Jaejoong sounds like one of those old scratched up LPs that collectors refuse to do anything with but hold onto. "Someone told me you give piano lessons. Can you take another student?"
"Yeah," Yoochun says. "No problem."
2. When Yoochun calls to ask, Junsu simply answers: "You're the best one I know."
"I'm the only one you know," Yoochun says, slumped against the brick wall and sucking on what's left of his cigarette. He keeps his eyes above the rows of sidewalk faces and watches the v pattern of birds in the sky. "What's his story?"
"He used to sing at the bar. He was pretty good." Junsu doesn't say that about everyone. "I heard about this car accident, a few months ago, and then out of nowhere he called me yesterday. I thought you could use the extra income so I gave him your number."
"You thought right," says Yoochun. He flicks the ash from his cigarette and wonders if he has enough time to light another. Junsu has gone quiet, which means there's a stranger around. Junsu's relying on temp jobs to pay the bills until he's done running with a net after his firefly ambitions, so he's bored all the time and calls Yoochun while he hides in the office bathroom, crouched on top of a toilet and playing with the dolphin cellphone strap Yoochun gave him that he says he hates.
"Don't sound so surprised," Junsu finally whispers back.
A group of teenagers filters into the store under the House Of Atti-Tune sign made up of blocky red letters on white. New customer traffic. Yoochun puts his unlit cigarette away and settles for filling up on city air. Kenny comes calling and gives him thirty more seconds before he plays ABBA on the sound system for the rest of the day. Yoochun likes Kenny. Kenny has thick arms, a laugh made for auditoriums, and the biggest collection of band t-shirts that Yoochun's ever seen. He grants Yoochun long smoking breaks.
"I gotta go," Yoochun says to Junsu. "I'm being blackmailed with Mamma Mia."
"You'll play accompaniment for me on Saturday, right?"
Yoochun crushes his cigarette into the ground with brightly colored sneakers that are falling apart. "I've got nothing better to do," he says.
3. Four days later, Jaejoong is in Yoochun's studio apartment, playing a few bars from a Grieg piece. His nails are bitten down, there are healed cuts along his knuckles, and he has ring marks around every finger. "I don't remember much," he says. He'd told Yoochun during their second phone conversation that he'd taken piano for years, but that had been a while ago.
"Why're you picking it back up now?" Yoochun'd asked.
"It seems like a good idea."
Yoochun'd been in the kitchen trying to make dinner, and he swore and threw the phone aside to save his omelet. "Sorry," he'd said afterwards, and in a strange second of honesty: "I don't know what Junsu said, but if you're looking for something serious, you should find a better pedagogue with a better degree."
"He said that you really like music," Jaejoong'd said.
They go over repertoire and scheduling and fees, and how much theory Jaejoong's been taught. His hands take some time to really play the keys, like they're on an airport runway coming home, and Yoochun gets up to pour his coffee because he doesn't need to be watching anything private. Jaejoong isn't what Yoochun'd imagined, but that's because Yoochun was imagining someone more damaged.
"Isn't is late for coffee?" Jaejoong says when Yoochun returns. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows now. The skin's white enough to be unhealthy.
Yoochun turns to a page in an overused paperback with a breaking spine. "I have a starving artist image to maintain."
Jaejoong smiles, half-listening. His eyes are on the stack of loose paper on top of the stand-up piano. "Do you compose?" he asks.
"For fun," Yoochun says, like he hasn't tried to contact every music publisher he's found. He puts the book up on the stand. "Sight-read this for me."
The first song Yoochun gives Jaejoong is Chopin's Étude Op.10 No.3, "Tristesse". Jaejoong won't finish it for a long time.
4. Yoochun teaches four other people: an elementary school girl who tells him every week that they're going to get married, a trust fund kid with time to waste, a mother of two with one more on the way, and Changmin.
Changmin is tall, polite, and seventeen. His technical skill is only average, but he can play Sonata Pathétique with an intensity that makes Yoochun picture towers folding at his feet. Yoochun'll ask, "How's school? How're things at home?" and Changmin will say, "Good," and tear across the piano keys like a natural disaster. Yoochun has an ancient Nintendo system and once in a while, on the days when Changmin's concentration is fractured, the two of them play Duck Hunt and bond over how much they hate that stupid dog.
Today, Changmin tags each duck that flies across the screen. Yoochun licks popcorn butter from his fingertips. He looks at his piano, where the photocopied sheet music for Changmin's latest Prokofiev piece is laid out. "You're kind of messed up, you know that?" he says.
Changmin shrugs. His back straightens and he takes aim as the game counts down to the next round.
When Jaejoong comes back weeks later still saying, "I can't get into it," and his voice is rough from the effort to speak louder, Yoochun thinks of Changmin. He puts Chopin on hold, and pulls out his copy of Beethoven's Sonata Op.31 No. 2. The Tempest.
5. It thunderstorms during one of Jaejoong's lessons. At the end of the forty-five minutes, the sidewalks are flooded and the world is black from the windows. "It's apocalyptic out there," Yoochun says. "You wanna stay until it's over?"
"If that's okay," says Jaejoong, already cross-legged on Yoochun's bed. It's been two months since the first phone call. Jaejoong is easy to get along with. He stops by The House of Atti-Tune sometimes, where they can talk shit when business is slow. By next week, after Jaejoong's adopted family (Yoochun has a theory that Jaejoong is related to half of Korea and the majority of L.A.) and Yoochun's alphabetically named dead pet goldfish (starting with Abby and ending with Just Fish), the two of them will have discussed everything that doesn't matter and nothing that does.
Yoochun walks over to the kitchen. "I've got tea, beer, and cheap hot chocolate mix."
"That's like trying to choose a favorite child."
"Beer?"
Jaejoong stretches his arms out above himself until his joints make a satisfying pop. "Duh," he says.
The weather hasn't gotten any better an hour later. Jaejoong moves onto the floor, rocking back and forth next to the piano with his cheek pressed to his knees as Yoochun plays. "You're good," Jaejoong says into his jeans. "You're really good."
Yoochun isn't. His muscle memory is poor with alcohol. When he botches another chord, he frowns at the keys and gives up. "It's a shitty song anyway."
Thunder makes them both jump, and the back of Jaejoong's skull hits the wall when he jerks up. "So play a different one," he says, after he makes sure he's not hurt. His hair is a wreck and his left cheek is indented with denim seams. The lack of any mystery is a good look on him. Yoochun starts a piano adaptation of Chelsea Hotel #2. Jaejoong doesn't say anything, but when Yoochun looks, he's mouthing the chorus. He doesn't realize fast enough that Yoochun has stopped playing and is climbing off the bench.
Yoochun kneels and presses his fingers to Jaejoong's throat. He runs his words together intentionally, feeling more sober than he wants. "What happened to this?"
"It got taken away," Jaejoong says, and leans in for a drunken, languid kiss.
Yoochun kisses back because he never learns. "By who?"
"Me," says Jaejoong. He tastes like cheap beer. Yoochun imagines he can hear each square inch that Jaejoong's lungs struggle to expand, enough air to fill his cupped palms.
6. Jaejoong invites Yoochun over for dinner as an apology. Yoochun doesn't know if Jaejoong actually remembers passing out on Yoochun's bed. He says yes anyway, stores the play-by-play to revisit on another sleepless day, and buys a box of the darkest chocolate he can find in his rush to bring a gift.
Jaejoong's roommate is a paralegal named Yunho, and after fifteen minutes he is already one of the nicest guys Yoochun's ever met. "Where'd you find him?" Yoochun asks, tucking his chin over Jaejoong's shoulder, and Jaejoong sucks on a chocolate and says, "Out of a Calvin Klein ad."
The entire apartment smells good. Jaejoong runs around with his bangs pinned back out of his face, wearing a pink plaid apron and coughing from the spices, snarling, "I need six eggs." Yunho and Yoochun do the smart thing and stay out of the war zone. Halfway through, something explodes, and Jaejoong yells some truly depraved things.
"I'm not drunk enough for this," Yoochun says.
"Jaejoong literally keeps alcohol everywhere," Yunho tells Yoochun. "Try his bedroom."
"I need help with these potatoes!" shouts Jaejoong. Yoochun makes his escape as fast as he can.
Jaejoong's room is behind the last door down the hallway. There's an unmade bed, polaroids taped to the mirror, an inexplicable collection of tacky snowglobes. Legends on the walls: Morrison, Hendrix, Buddy Holly. Yoochun runs his thumb across the Jeff Buckley picture on Jaejoong's desk, worn out like it's been folded and re-folded a thousand times.
"He has a thing for the ones who died young."
Yunho's standing in the doorway. Yoochun's hand drops back into his hoodie pocket. "Sorry."
"The booze is right there," Yunho says, and sits down on the mattress, grabbing the stuffed elephant that's next to the pillows. He's giving Yoochun a way out of the conversation before Yoochun even asks for one.
Yoochun crouches to study the row of soju brands. "Jaejoong said it was his fault."
"It was raining and he ended up on the wrong side of the road," Yunho says, and the elephant hides its face with its stubby purple legs. "Neck trauma paralyzed one of his vocal chords. The doctors say sometimes it fixes itself and sometimes it doesn't, but physical therapy's out of our budget."
Yoochun'd promised himself that he would stop going after the hard, bruised up ones. He chooses a bottle of champagne. "And you take care of him."
"He needs taking care of," says Yunho, and Yoochun gets it, how the two of them act like nothing's wrong because they think it'll make each other happy. Children playing house.
Dinner is good.
7. The night that they were drunk, Jaejoong'd said, "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Sure," Yoochun'd said. They'd been squeezed together on Yoochun's bed, thinking it was smaller than it actually was. Jaejoong's elbow had dug into Yoochun's body each time he moved.
"Sometimes I wish I'd just gone mute."
"You don't mean that."
"No," Jaejoong'd said. "But then I wouldn't have to walk around listening to a voice come from me that isn't really mine."
8. Yoochun gets a flashdrive from Yunho with a note attached that reads: I'm going to want this back. There are video files saved on it, all labeled and dated.
Jaejoong, pulling out all his classic rock star moves for Fat Bottomed Girls with a group of bar patrons.
Jaejoong, half-dressed in the early morning, singing opera out on the apartment balcony.
Jaejoong, ten years old at a school assembly, performing a solo with the choir.
Jaejoong, eighteen years old at a talent show, cross-dressing to Britney Spears.
Jaejoong, covering Ain't No Sunshine with a minimal background track, both hands on the mic, under a red light. He sings like it would kill him not to. It's been months and a million rejections since Yoochun's wanted to pick up a pen again. He watches Jaejoong, and his fingers curl into his palm.
9. The second week of November, Jaejoong shows up with orange and red leaves in his hair and the hood of his jacket. They throw them off the balcony and duck whenever a sidewalk passerby looks up. Learning The Tempest has worn Jaejoong out, but he's finishing it up, so Yoochun lets him choose which of Schumann's Fantasiestücke pieces he wants to play next. Jaejoong likes Aufschwung, German for Soaring.
The lesson goes on longer than Jaejoong's paying for. Yoochun finds recordings of the song for Jaejoong to listen to, and coaches him through the chords. Somehow they end up ordering pizza, fast-forwarding through Bond movies, kissing again, taking off each other's clothes like people who've been stranded and starving for years.
The apartment's empty when Yoochun opens his eyes in the morning. His thighs feel sticky and the space next to him is lukewarm. Jaejoong's boots are gone and the only sound he can hear is the traffic under the balcony and his own breathing. He groans and buries his face in his pillow so he won't have to think about how much of a fuck-up he is.
Jaejoong is at the door fifteen minutes later with an army of plastic bags. "Hey, you're up," he says. His voice is scratchy and his cheeks have turned pink from the cold. Yoochun, who's in the doorway wrapped up in his entire blanket and naked under it, lets him back in, sleepy and stunned.
"I wanted to make breakfast," Jaejoong continues, unloading food onto the counter. Yoochun spots eggs and strawberries and giant poppy seed muffins. "But all you had was ramen and a jar of fucking peanut butter."
"I'm a bachelor," Yoochun says, yawning.
"You're a mess," Jaejoong says. "Go wash up. Rinse off your single-itis."
Yoochun floats over to the bathroom.
10. The House of Atti-Tune is experiencing a slow day when Jaejoong drops by with hot chocolate and a pastry from the Korean bakery he works at. Yoochun leans onto his elbows as Jaejoong reaches the front counter.
"You gonna buy something this time? It'd make my boss happy."
"I'm only here to loiter," Jaejoong says, tearing off a piece of the pastry to feed Yoochun.
"We have guitar picks," Yoochun offers, muffled as he swallows, jerking his thumb towards the candy jar display. "Finger Pickin' Good. Pick Jesus."
Jaejoong shoves the rest into Yoochun's mouth. When he sees the forty-something man approaching the counter with a stack of rarities, he leaves to look around and give Yoochun the chance to do his job.
Later, Yoochun discovers Jaejoong near Elliott Smith. He stands back for a minute to watch Jaejoong browse through CDs. "I saw the videos of you," he says suddenly, less out of guilt and more because he's curious how fast it'll take for Jaejoong to slam shut.
"My sex tapes?" Jaejoong says, grinning when he sees the look on Yoochun's face. "I'm kidding. I know you did."
"I should've asked first."
Jaejoong skims the tracklisting of an album. "Don't worry about it."
"You sing really well, you know," Yoochun says.
"Let's go out for Thai food tonight," Jaejoong says, right as Kenny starts playing Honey, Honey in the store, and after that they don't talk about it again.
11. A few weeks later, Yoochun wakes up and rubs the heel of his palm into his eyes as he gets out of bed. There's an extra toothbrush by the sink that wasn't there before. He studies it in between showering and shaving and brushing his teeth: this red, plastic, ordinary thing. After work, he goes shopping for more groceries and Jaejoong's favorite shampoo.
12. It snows on the first day of winter. Yoochun'd tried to oversleep but Junsu had been throwing rocks at his window and Jaejoong had been throwing clothes at his butt. He'd woken up all the way only once they'd reached the park playground and there was snow sticking in his eyelashes and Jaejoong was trying to wrap Yoochun's coat around them both because he'd forgotten his own. They'd stolen Yunho from his apartment along the way, blurry-eyed and in his pajama bottoms, because Junsu'd said they needed another person for Snowball Wars.
Right now, Yoochun is hiding under the bright blue slide, his fingers wet and numb as he molds snow in his palms. Junsu, his partner in crime, has left him to either be captured or die.
"Yoochun," Jaejoong calls out. The cold makes him even hoarser than usual. "Come out, I just wanna talk."
Yoochun purses his lips stubbornly and makes his snowball bigger.
"Irish coffee, Yoochun. A fireplace and fur blankets. All you have to do is come out."
Yoochun shouts, "That's false advertising," and gets a mouthful of snow for blowing his cover. He and Jaejoong use up the rest of the time making out on the slide. His back is freezing from the snow Jaejoong poured down his shirt, and his chest nearly hurts from how hot it feels with Jaejoong lying over him, Jaejoong who still doesn't have a coat, icy everywhere except his mouth.
He learns later that Yunho's idea of taking Junsu hostage is helping push him on the swings. They declare the game a tie. Parents kick them off the playground a few minutes right after.
When January hits, Jaejoong dyes his hair platinum blond and Yoochun starts to keep an extra cigarette tucked behind his ear. Some days Jaejoong'll come over to make miniature snowmen out on the balcony, and other days Yoochun'll be alone for hours at the piano, penning down a couple bars before throwing them away. Winter happens in stages: the exhilaration, the anxiety, the realization that you'll be nailed down for the next three months. Junsu says every New Year that resolutions don't count until March, because no one can change in the winter.
Jaejoong hasn't been able to get through Tristesse; he says he's bored or it's difficult or he just doesn't like it. Yoochun doesn't understand why he's pushing so hard for Jaejoong to learn this song, but it has something to do with having seen Jaejoong try to play it, and recognizing in the arch of Jaejoong's hands that inability to move forward.
13. Yoochun snaps awake in the dark. On the other side of the bed, Jaejoong is backed up against the wall, gasping for air. "Hey," Yoochun whispers, turning on the lamp and reaching for him, "bad dream?" until Jaejoong jerks away like an animal who knows it's about to be put down. Yoochun tries again, and this time Jaejoong doesn't fight him. Jaejoong's skin is sweaty and he's shaking. The fear tumbles through Yoochun like a rock through a washing machine. "Okay, shit, okay," he says, and smoothes Jaejoong's hair out of his face. "Jaejoong, come on, breathe."
Jaejoong chokes, his knees pressed to his chest and his hands tearing at anything, the blankets, his throat, Yoochun's arm. His eyes track down every exit and shrinking wall. Yoochun wrestles both of Jaejoong's hands away and folds them in his own, ignoring when Jaejoong's nails dig in too hard.
"It's okay," he says. "You're gonna be okay, you just have to breathe for me, alright?"
Jaejoong shakes his head wildly, but he follows along when Yoochun guides him: in and out, in and out. Five minutes pass like centuries before Yoochun finally hears Jaejoong start to calm down. He can feel Jaejoong's pulse still jumping in his wrists, but he's done struggling. He floods new air into his lungs. The scratch marks darken on his neck. Yoochun knows that talking about this is off limits too.
"I'm not going back to sleep," Jaejoong says. They sit together in the yellow light, holding hands. The rest of the room is still.
"I have the special edition of From Russia, With Love," Yoochun says, and feels Jaejoong shiver in relief.
14. Junsu's bar is dim and welcoming. Yoochun waits with his drink, one of those girly cocktails, for Junsu's ten minute break. When Junsu appears next to him, he's glowing with satisfaction and there's a glass of water waiting for him.
"What'd you think?" he says, after he's done flirting innocently with the bartender.
"You know that song's about drugs, right?" Yoochun tells Junsu, who crinkles his nose.
"It's about a girl."
Yoochun just grins his poor-naïve-Junsu grin around the cigarette between his teeth as he lights up, and watches Junsu tongue the inside of his cheek in a way that's become familiar. Since they've known each other, it's stopped meaning When are you going to quit? and started meaning Where's the hit you always offer me? Yoochun has never been very popular with Junsu's family.
Jaejoong'd said over the phone that he would come by later and listen to them perform. He's already a little drunk when he arrives. He hasn't been back here in all the months since the accident. Yoochun is in the middle of the new song Junsu'd asked him to learn, the one about Jesus being a crossmaker, and he misses entire measures on the keyboard, busy remembering the grainy, magnetic person in the recordings, and thinking he got way too invested way too fast. Thinking Junsu's song actually could be about a girl.
Maybe it's mean or childish of Yoochun to want to witness something from Jaejoong, without needing the beer or the panic attacks to hit first. Jaejoong just stays back, biting his nails, sucking up to the bartender for drinks, dark-eyed and far from the stage.
The three of them take the subway home. There's no one else in their car. Junsu hums the same song at the cold tunnel lights and Jaejoong rests against Yoochun's shoulder, taps the inside of Yoochun's wrist to the beat, even though when Yoochun looks over, Jaejoong pretends to be asleep.
15. By March, they've become nocturnal. Yoochun's charming smile and capacity for bullshit is the only thing keeping his neighbors from wanting him kicked out. Jaejoong's hair has become more of a dirty blond, and Yoochun's stash of unfinished compositions on top of his piano hasn't been touched. So that's how spring starts: halfhearted.
As April approaches, Jaejoong grows more and more restless. When he learns that Yoochun knows some guitar, he makes Yoochun teach him that too.
"I totally suck at it," Yoochun warns as he helps Jaejoong position his fingers on the strings.
Jaejoong shrugs. His back is pressed to Yoochun's chest. "I just want something new to play around with."
"You just want something new to replace singing," Yoochun says, and he can feel the bones of Jaejoong's shoulders tense through the skin, and in their reflection in the television screen Yoochun sees Jaejoong's face for once open up. None of that happens because what Yoochun really says is, "You just want teenage girls to throw their bras at you in lovestruck ecstasy," and Jaejoong sticks out his tongue and Yoochun bites it.
Yoochun remembers being a kid after the divorce, when his mom was stuck doing all the driving. This was before the age of the GPS, and she was bad with directions. Twice a week, they ended up in the middle of nowhere, mom yelling at his son of a bitch father and trying not to cry with frustration, Yoochun sitting in the passenger seat and searching the glovebox for the map. With enough time, it became an ongoing joke: sweetie, I have no idea where we are again. It gave Yoochun this steady faith that you can be fuck-all lost, and the world will take care of you and bring you home anyway.
Somehow he's here again, while Jaejoong holds onto the wheel with both hands and drives them in circles. On Jaejoong's birthday, Yoochun'd dragged Yunho out shopping for present advice, and Yunho'd said you'd better be good for him, you'd better be fucking good for him.
16. Changmin won't stop yawning between his scales. He looks five years younger when he's covering his mouth with his sleeve, so Yoochun takes the chance to ask the usual: "How's home? School?"
Changmin digs his the heel of his palm against his eyes. "I want to study photography," he says after a while.
"What are your parents convinced you want to study?"
"Engineering."
Yoochun thinks this is the first substantial answer Changmin's given him. He slouches back in the chair he's pulled up to the piano and watches Changmin fish out his copy of something angry and Beethoven, because the big things don't ever change that fast.
The day after, he and Jaejoong are roasting marshmallows in the kitchen when Junsu calls.
"Hi," says Junsu. "We're having lunch this weekend. Bring posterboard. Is that Jaejoong?"
Jaejoong has gotten bored of the gas stove and pulled out his lighter. Yoochun uses his free hand to cover his eyes as he answers, "He's burning my apartment down. Why the posterboard?"
"We're going to make a giant list of the pros and cons of me getting a permanent job. I have stickers and a 36-pack of Sharpies."
"What about," Yoochun says, and sucks on the inside of his mouth like there's a splinter in it so the rest of that question doesn't come out. It was hard enough for Junsu to make this call anyway. "Okay. Text me the place."
"Thanks." Junsu hangs up first.
Yoochun slides his cell back into his jeans and finishes watching Jaejoong try to blow out the fire eating up his marshmallow. Jaejoong's hair is pinned up and his roots are showing. There's a chocolate smear on his cheek that Yoochun hasn't told him about. It takes another thirty seconds for Jaejoong to get the marshmallow under control and make a respectable s'more out of it. He sucks on his fingertips where he's burned them on accident, shrugging at Yoochun like what-can-you-do?, and Yoochun smiles back and wonders when the rest of the world started moving fast enough to leave them both behind.
17. It's April, raining, and the room is cold. Jaejoong leaves Yoochun on the bed sore and sated, marked up like an old book. Yoochun stretches out under thin sheets as Jaejoong pulls on his t-shirt and steals the semi-crushed pack of cigarettes from Yoochun's jeans on the floor.
"Is it today?" Yoochun asks.
"Yeah." Jaejoong lights up, his lashes dark on his cheek. Rough and off-key since he got here. For that second he's motionless against the balcony door, gray smoke blurring the outline of his face, he's a goddamn statue. "Same weather, too."
Yoochun rolls onto his elbow. Fucking has turned his body heavy and his tongue unchecked. "Why is talking about it against the rules?"
"It's not against the rules," says Jaejoong, slowly, his own voice something to tiptoe around. Yoochun wants to bridge his throat closed and end it there but it doesn't work.
"You avoid it all the time."
"I'm dealing with it." Jaejoong's never dealing. He's looking for his belt, he's running, and it makes Yoochun more confrontational.
"You mean you pretend nothing happened."
Jaejoong finishes getting dressed with his messy hair in his eyes and his shoes halfway on his feet and says, "It has nothing to do with you."
Yoochun stays where he is because he knows if he gets up Jaejoong'll be gone even quicker. "You're full of shit. God forbid you actually face the fact that you lost something important to you and now you've been stuck in the same place for a year."
"Who the fuck are you to talk, Yoochun?" Jaejoong's fingers are skinny and unforgiving along the frame of the piano. "A silly deluded artist with a silly block of wood. This city has hundreds of you."
"Silly's better than scared," Yoochun says, before Jaejoong takes his jacket and shuts the door.
18. Yoochun doesn't see or hear from Jaejoong for over a week, so he spends it writing. He forgets to eat and rediscovers insomnia. The gears in his hands are turning. After months of dead air, he hears all these songs. They keep him busy until he thinks they're the only thing his body is running on these days. Kenny sends him home early one afternoon because his space cadet act annoys the customers. When his mother calls, it takes him four rings to realize that the sound is real. They talk for half an hour; then she says, "You sound tired, sweetie."
"It's just the weather," Yoochun says, opening the window blinds so the spring sunlight hits his face.
19. Yoochun finds Jaejoong sitting outside the apartment, his legs folded up, held together by stitches. he reaches down and rests his palm against Jaejoong's hair in the open doorway, cautious in case this is a dream. "I was going to go see you tomorrow and apologize," he says.
Jaejoong looks like he hasn't been sleeping either. "Can I come in?"
Yoochun offers to make tea but Jaejoong goes straight for the piano. He pulls the bench forward an inch and positions his fingers on the keys. Yoochun stands unmoving in the kitchen as Jaejoong plays Tristesse, four pages learned in ten days, like each measure has a price and Jaejoong's carving the payment from his own body. The song is stilted and amateur. Yoochun lowers his face.
He waits at the stove, watching steam rise from the kettle, until he hears Jaejoong's hands fall back into his lap. "Sorry," Jaejoong says. "I know it's bad. I need a little more time."
Yoochun brings him tea and they share the bench. The white lamp bleeds across Jaejoong's shoulders and makes them thinner, lighter. "Come on," Yoochun finally says. "We're going to bed. Your toothbrush is still here."
20. They'll start in the morning.
yoochun/jaejoong. 5,122w.
1. Yoochun meets Jaejoong over the phone, on a Monday morning when he's rushing to his eight-hour day at the record store. On average, he's late to work two point five times a month, but all Kenny does is threaten him with stock and inventory. Yoochun fishes his keys out of the wrong jeans, takes the piece of toast out of his mouth and says, "I'm kind of in a hurry right now, but I can call you back later?"
"Sorry about the bad timing," says the voice on the other end of the line. Hoarse, like there are fingers gift-wrapped around a throat. He has the hint of a dialect, something countryside that he could've tried to get rid of once. Yoochun's making up stories already. He does acrobatics with his phone and toast so he can shut the front door.
"What's your name again?"
"Jaejoong." Jaejoong sounds like one of those old scratched up LPs that collectors refuse to do anything with but hold onto. "Someone told me you give piano lessons. Can you take another student?"
"Yeah," Yoochun says. "No problem."
2. When Yoochun calls to ask, Junsu simply answers: "You're the best one I know."
"I'm the only one you know," Yoochun says, slumped against the brick wall and sucking on what's left of his cigarette. He keeps his eyes above the rows of sidewalk faces and watches the v pattern of birds in the sky. "What's his story?"
"He used to sing at the bar. He was pretty good." Junsu doesn't say that about everyone. "I heard about this car accident, a few months ago, and then out of nowhere he called me yesterday. I thought you could use the extra income so I gave him your number."
"You thought right," says Yoochun. He flicks the ash from his cigarette and wonders if he has enough time to light another. Junsu has gone quiet, which means there's a stranger around. Junsu's relying on temp jobs to pay the bills until he's done running with a net after his firefly ambitions, so he's bored all the time and calls Yoochun while he hides in the office bathroom, crouched on top of a toilet and playing with the dolphin cellphone strap Yoochun gave him that he says he hates.
"Don't sound so surprised," Junsu finally whispers back.
A group of teenagers filters into the store under the House Of Atti-Tune sign made up of blocky red letters on white. New customer traffic. Yoochun puts his unlit cigarette away and settles for filling up on city air. Kenny comes calling and gives him thirty more seconds before he plays ABBA on the sound system for the rest of the day. Yoochun likes Kenny. Kenny has thick arms, a laugh made for auditoriums, and the biggest collection of band t-shirts that Yoochun's ever seen. He grants Yoochun long smoking breaks.
"I gotta go," Yoochun says to Junsu. "I'm being blackmailed with Mamma Mia."
"You'll play accompaniment for me on Saturday, right?"
Yoochun crushes his cigarette into the ground with brightly colored sneakers that are falling apart. "I've got nothing better to do," he says.
3. Four days later, Jaejoong is in Yoochun's studio apartment, playing a few bars from a Grieg piece. His nails are bitten down, there are healed cuts along his knuckles, and he has ring marks around every finger. "I don't remember much," he says. He'd told Yoochun during their second phone conversation that he'd taken piano for years, but that had been a while ago.
"Why're you picking it back up now?" Yoochun'd asked.
"It seems like a good idea."
Yoochun'd been in the kitchen trying to make dinner, and he swore and threw the phone aside to save his omelet. "Sorry," he'd said afterwards, and in a strange second of honesty: "I don't know what Junsu said, but if you're looking for something serious, you should find a better pedagogue with a better degree."
"He said that you really like music," Jaejoong'd said.
They go over repertoire and scheduling and fees, and how much theory Jaejoong's been taught. His hands take some time to really play the keys, like they're on an airport runway coming home, and Yoochun gets up to pour his coffee because he doesn't need to be watching anything private. Jaejoong isn't what Yoochun'd imagined, but that's because Yoochun was imagining someone more damaged.
"Isn't is late for coffee?" Jaejoong says when Yoochun returns. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows now. The skin's white enough to be unhealthy.
Yoochun turns to a page in an overused paperback with a breaking spine. "I have a starving artist image to maintain."
Jaejoong smiles, half-listening. His eyes are on the stack of loose paper on top of the stand-up piano. "Do you compose?" he asks.
"For fun," Yoochun says, like he hasn't tried to contact every music publisher he's found. He puts the book up on the stand. "Sight-read this for me."
The first song Yoochun gives Jaejoong is Chopin's Étude Op.10 No.3, "Tristesse". Jaejoong won't finish it for a long time.
4. Yoochun teaches four other people: an elementary school girl who tells him every week that they're going to get married, a trust fund kid with time to waste, a mother of two with one more on the way, and Changmin.
Changmin is tall, polite, and seventeen. His technical skill is only average, but he can play Sonata Pathétique with an intensity that makes Yoochun picture towers folding at his feet. Yoochun'll ask, "How's school? How're things at home?" and Changmin will say, "Good," and tear across the piano keys like a natural disaster. Yoochun has an ancient Nintendo system and once in a while, on the days when Changmin's concentration is fractured, the two of them play Duck Hunt and bond over how much they hate that stupid dog.
Today, Changmin tags each duck that flies across the screen. Yoochun licks popcorn butter from his fingertips. He looks at his piano, where the photocopied sheet music for Changmin's latest Prokofiev piece is laid out. "You're kind of messed up, you know that?" he says.
Changmin shrugs. His back straightens and he takes aim as the game counts down to the next round.
When Jaejoong comes back weeks later still saying, "I can't get into it," and his voice is rough from the effort to speak louder, Yoochun thinks of Changmin. He puts Chopin on hold, and pulls out his copy of Beethoven's Sonata Op.31 No. 2. The Tempest.
5. It thunderstorms during one of Jaejoong's lessons. At the end of the forty-five minutes, the sidewalks are flooded and the world is black from the windows. "It's apocalyptic out there," Yoochun says. "You wanna stay until it's over?"
"If that's okay," says Jaejoong, already cross-legged on Yoochun's bed. It's been two months since the first phone call. Jaejoong is easy to get along with. He stops by The House of Atti-Tune sometimes, where they can talk shit when business is slow. By next week, after Jaejoong's adopted family (Yoochun has a theory that Jaejoong is related to half of Korea and the majority of L.A.) and Yoochun's alphabetically named dead pet goldfish (starting with Abby and ending with Just Fish), the two of them will have discussed everything that doesn't matter and nothing that does.
Yoochun walks over to the kitchen. "I've got tea, beer, and cheap hot chocolate mix."
"That's like trying to choose a favorite child."
"Beer?"
Jaejoong stretches his arms out above himself until his joints make a satisfying pop. "Duh," he says.
The weather hasn't gotten any better an hour later. Jaejoong moves onto the floor, rocking back and forth next to the piano with his cheek pressed to his knees as Yoochun plays. "You're good," Jaejoong says into his jeans. "You're really good."
Yoochun isn't. His muscle memory is poor with alcohol. When he botches another chord, he frowns at the keys and gives up. "It's a shitty song anyway."
Thunder makes them both jump, and the back of Jaejoong's skull hits the wall when he jerks up. "So play a different one," he says, after he makes sure he's not hurt. His hair is a wreck and his left cheek is indented with denim seams. The lack of any mystery is a good look on him. Yoochun starts a piano adaptation of Chelsea Hotel #2. Jaejoong doesn't say anything, but when Yoochun looks, he's mouthing the chorus. He doesn't realize fast enough that Yoochun has stopped playing and is climbing off the bench.
Yoochun kneels and presses his fingers to Jaejoong's throat. He runs his words together intentionally, feeling more sober than he wants. "What happened to this?"
"It got taken away," Jaejoong says, and leans in for a drunken, languid kiss.
Yoochun kisses back because he never learns. "By who?"
"Me," says Jaejoong. He tastes like cheap beer. Yoochun imagines he can hear each square inch that Jaejoong's lungs struggle to expand, enough air to fill his cupped palms.
6. Jaejoong invites Yoochun over for dinner as an apology. Yoochun doesn't know if Jaejoong actually remembers passing out on Yoochun's bed. He says yes anyway, stores the play-by-play to revisit on another sleepless day, and buys a box of the darkest chocolate he can find in his rush to bring a gift.
Jaejoong's roommate is a paralegal named Yunho, and after fifteen minutes he is already one of the nicest guys Yoochun's ever met. "Where'd you find him?" Yoochun asks, tucking his chin over Jaejoong's shoulder, and Jaejoong sucks on a chocolate and says, "Out of a Calvin Klein ad."
The entire apartment smells good. Jaejoong runs around with his bangs pinned back out of his face, wearing a pink plaid apron and coughing from the spices, snarling, "I need six eggs." Yunho and Yoochun do the smart thing and stay out of the war zone. Halfway through, something explodes, and Jaejoong yells some truly depraved things.
"I'm not drunk enough for this," Yoochun says.
"Jaejoong literally keeps alcohol everywhere," Yunho tells Yoochun. "Try his bedroom."
"I need help with these potatoes!" shouts Jaejoong. Yoochun makes his escape as fast as he can.
Jaejoong's room is behind the last door down the hallway. There's an unmade bed, polaroids taped to the mirror, an inexplicable collection of tacky snowglobes. Legends on the walls: Morrison, Hendrix, Buddy Holly. Yoochun runs his thumb across the Jeff Buckley picture on Jaejoong's desk, worn out like it's been folded and re-folded a thousand times.
"He has a thing for the ones who died young."
Yunho's standing in the doorway. Yoochun's hand drops back into his hoodie pocket. "Sorry."
"The booze is right there," Yunho says, and sits down on the mattress, grabbing the stuffed elephant that's next to the pillows. He's giving Yoochun a way out of the conversation before Yoochun even asks for one.
Yoochun crouches to study the row of soju brands. "Jaejoong said it was his fault."
"It was raining and he ended up on the wrong side of the road," Yunho says, and the elephant hides its face with its stubby purple legs. "Neck trauma paralyzed one of his vocal chords. The doctors say sometimes it fixes itself and sometimes it doesn't, but physical therapy's out of our budget."
Yoochun'd promised himself that he would stop going after the hard, bruised up ones. He chooses a bottle of champagne. "And you take care of him."
"He needs taking care of," says Yunho, and Yoochun gets it, how the two of them act like nothing's wrong because they think it'll make each other happy. Children playing house.
Dinner is good.
7. The night that they were drunk, Jaejoong'd said, "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Sure," Yoochun'd said. They'd been squeezed together on Yoochun's bed, thinking it was smaller than it actually was. Jaejoong's elbow had dug into Yoochun's body each time he moved.
"Sometimes I wish I'd just gone mute."
"You don't mean that."
"No," Jaejoong'd said. "But then I wouldn't have to walk around listening to a voice come from me that isn't really mine."
8. Yoochun gets a flashdrive from Yunho with a note attached that reads: I'm going to want this back. There are video files saved on it, all labeled and dated.
Jaejoong, pulling out all his classic rock star moves for Fat Bottomed Girls with a group of bar patrons.
Jaejoong, half-dressed in the early morning, singing opera out on the apartment balcony.
Jaejoong, ten years old at a school assembly, performing a solo with the choir.
Jaejoong, eighteen years old at a talent show, cross-dressing to Britney Spears.
Jaejoong, covering Ain't No Sunshine with a minimal background track, both hands on the mic, under a red light. He sings like it would kill him not to. It's been months and a million rejections since Yoochun's wanted to pick up a pen again. He watches Jaejoong, and his fingers curl into his palm.
9. The second week of November, Jaejoong shows up with orange and red leaves in his hair and the hood of his jacket. They throw them off the balcony and duck whenever a sidewalk passerby looks up. Learning The Tempest has worn Jaejoong out, but he's finishing it up, so Yoochun lets him choose which of Schumann's Fantasiestücke pieces he wants to play next. Jaejoong likes Aufschwung, German for Soaring.
The lesson goes on longer than Jaejoong's paying for. Yoochun finds recordings of the song for Jaejoong to listen to, and coaches him through the chords. Somehow they end up ordering pizza, fast-forwarding through Bond movies, kissing again, taking off each other's clothes like people who've been stranded and starving for years.
The apartment's empty when Yoochun opens his eyes in the morning. His thighs feel sticky and the space next to him is lukewarm. Jaejoong's boots are gone and the only sound he can hear is the traffic under the balcony and his own breathing. He groans and buries his face in his pillow so he won't have to think about how much of a fuck-up he is.
Jaejoong is at the door fifteen minutes later with an army of plastic bags. "Hey, you're up," he says. His voice is scratchy and his cheeks have turned pink from the cold. Yoochun, who's in the doorway wrapped up in his entire blanket and naked under it, lets him back in, sleepy and stunned.
"I wanted to make breakfast," Jaejoong continues, unloading food onto the counter. Yoochun spots eggs and strawberries and giant poppy seed muffins. "But all you had was ramen and a jar of fucking peanut butter."
"I'm a bachelor," Yoochun says, yawning.
"You're a mess," Jaejoong says. "Go wash up. Rinse off your single-itis."
Yoochun floats over to the bathroom.
10. The House of Atti-Tune is experiencing a slow day when Jaejoong drops by with hot chocolate and a pastry from the Korean bakery he works at. Yoochun leans onto his elbows as Jaejoong reaches the front counter.
"You gonna buy something this time? It'd make my boss happy."
"I'm only here to loiter," Jaejoong says, tearing off a piece of the pastry to feed Yoochun.
"We have guitar picks," Yoochun offers, muffled as he swallows, jerking his thumb towards the candy jar display. "Finger Pickin' Good. Pick Jesus."
Jaejoong shoves the rest into Yoochun's mouth. When he sees the forty-something man approaching the counter with a stack of rarities, he leaves to look around and give Yoochun the chance to do his job.
Later, Yoochun discovers Jaejoong near Elliott Smith. He stands back for a minute to watch Jaejoong browse through CDs. "I saw the videos of you," he says suddenly, less out of guilt and more because he's curious how fast it'll take for Jaejoong to slam shut.
"My sex tapes?" Jaejoong says, grinning when he sees the look on Yoochun's face. "I'm kidding. I know you did."
"I should've asked first."
Jaejoong skims the tracklisting of an album. "Don't worry about it."
"You sing really well, you know," Yoochun says.
"Let's go out for Thai food tonight," Jaejoong says, right as Kenny starts playing Honey, Honey in the store, and after that they don't talk about it again.
11. A few weeks later, Yoochun wakes up and rubs the heel of his palm into his eyes as he gets out of bed. There's an extra toothbrush by the sink that wasn't there before. He studies it in between showering and shaving and brushing his teeth: this red, plastic, ordinary thing. After work, he goes shopping for more groceries and Jaejoong's favorite shampoo.
12. It snows on the first day of winter. Yoochun'd tried to oversleep but Junsu had been throwing rocks at his window and Jaejoong had been throwing clothes at his butt. He'd woken up all the way only once they'd reached the park playground and there was snow sticking in his eyelashes and Jaejoong was trying to wrap Yoochun's coat around them both because he'd forgotten his own. They'd stolen Yunho from his apartment along the way, blurry-eyed and in his pajama bottoms, because Junsu'd said they needed another person for Snowball Wars.
Right now, Yoochun is hiding under the bright blue slide, his fingers wet and numb as he molds snow in his palms. Junsu, his partner in crime, has left him to either be captured or die.
"Yoochun," Jaejoong calls out. The cold makes him even hoarser than usual. "Come out, I just wanna talk."
Yoochun purses his lips stubbornly and makes his snowball bigger.
"Irish coffee, Yoochun. A fireplace and fur blankets. All you have to do is come out."
Yoochun shouts, "That's false advertising," and gets a mouthful of snow for blowing his cover. He and Jaejoong use up the rest of the time making out on the slide. His back is freezing from the snow Jaejoong poured down his shirt, and his chest nearly hurts from how hot it feels with Jaejoong lying over him, Jaejoong who still doesn't have a coat, icy everywhere except his mouth.
He learns later that Yunho's idea of taking Junsu hostage is helping push him on the swings. They declare the game a tie. Parents kick them off the playground a few minutes right after.
When January hits, Jaejoong dyes his hair platinum blond and Yoochun starts to keep an extra cigarette tucked behind his ear. Some days Jaejoong'll come over to make miniature snowmen out on the balcony, and other days Yoochun'll be alone for hours at the piano, penning down a couple bars before throwing them away. Winter happens in stages: the exhilaration, the anxiety, the realization that you'll be nailed down for the next three months. Junsu says every New Year that resolutions don't count until March, because no one can change in the winter.
Jaejoong hasn't been able to get through Tristesse; he says he's bored or it's difficult or he just doesn't like it. Yoochun doesn't understand why he's pushing so hard for Jaejoong to learn this song, but it has something to do with having seen Jaejoong try to play it, and recognizing in the arch of Jaejoong's hands that inability to move forward.
13. Yoochun snaps awake in the dark. On the other side of the bed, Jaejoong is backed up against the wall, gasping for air. "Hey," Yoochun whispers, turning on the lamp and reaching for him, "bad dream?" until Jaejoong jerks away like an animal who knows it's about to be put down. Yoochun tries again, and this time Jaejoong doesn't fight him. Jaejoong's skin is sweaty and he's shaking. The fear tumbles through Yoochun like a rock through a washing machine. "Okay, shit, okay," he says, and smoothes Jaejoong's hair out of his face. "Jaejoong, come on, breathe."
Jaejoong chokes, his knees pressed to his chest and his hands tearing at anything, the blankets, his throat, Yoochun's arm. His eyes track down every exit and shrinking wall. Yoochun wrestles both of Jaejoong's hands away and folds them in his own, ignoring when Jaejoong's nails dig in too hard.
"It's okay," he says. "You're gonna be okay, you just have to breathe for me, alright?"
Jaejoong shakes his head wildly, but he follows along when Yoochun guides him: in and out, in and out. Five minutes pass like centuries before Yoochun finally hears Jaejoong start to calm down. He can feel Jaejoong's pulse still jumping in his wrists, but he's done struggling. He floods new air into his lungs. The scratch marks darken on his neck. Yoochun knows that talking about this is off limits too.
"I'm not going back to sleep," Jaejoong says. They sit together in the yellow light, holding hands. The rest of the room is still.
"I have the special edition of From Russia, With Love," Yoochun says, and feels Jaejoong shiver in relief.
14. Junsu's bar is dim and welcoming. Yoochun waits with his drink, one of those girly cocktails, for Junsu's ten minute break. When Junsu appears next to him, he's glowing with satisfaction and there's a glass of water waiting for him.
"What'd you think?" he says, after he's done flirting innocently with the bartender.
"You know that song's about drugs, right?" Yoochun tells Junsu, who crinkles his nose.
"It's about a girl."
Yoochun just grins his poor-naïve-Junsu grin around the cigarette between his teeth as he lights up, and watches Junsu tongue the inside of his cheek in a way that's become familiar. Since they've known each other, it's stopped meaning When are you going to quit? and started meaning Where's the hit you always offer me? Yoochun has never been very popular with Junsu's family.
Jaejoong'd said over the phone that he would come by later and listen to them perform. He's already a little drunk when he arrives. He hasn't been back here in all the months since the accident. Yoochun is in the middle of the new song Junsu'd asked him to learn, the one about Jesus being a crossmaker, and he misses entire measures on the keyboard, busy remembering the grainy, magnetic person in the recordings, and thinking he got way too invested way too fast. Thinking Junsu's song actually could be about a girl.
Maybe it's mean or childish of Yoochun to want to witness something from Jaejoong, without needing the beer or the panic attacks to hit first. Jaejoong just stays back, biting his nails, sucking up to the bartender for drinks, dark-eyed and far from the stage.
The three of them take the subway home. There's no one else in their car. Junsu hums the same song at the cold tunnel lights and Jaejoong rests against Yoochun's shoulder, taps the inside of Yoochun's wrist to the beat, even though when Yoochun looks over, Jaejoong pretends to be asleep.
15. By March, they've become nocturnal. Yoochun's charming smile and capacity for bullshit is the only thing keeping his neighbors from wanting him kicked out. Jaejoong's hair has become more of a dirty blond, and Yoochun's stash of unfinished compositions on top of his piano hasn't been touched. So that's how spring starts: halfhearted.
As April approaches, Jaejoong grows more and more restless. When he learns that Yoochun knows some guitar, he makes Yoochun teach him that too.
"I totally suck at it," Yoochun warns as he helps Jaejoong position his fingers on the strings.
Jaejoong shrugs. His back is pressed to Yoochun's chest. "I just want something new to play around with."
"You just want something new to replace singing," Yoochun says, and he can feel the bones of Jaejoong's shoulders tense through the skin, and in their reflection in the television screen Yoochun sees Jaejoong's face for once open up. None of that happens because what Yoochun really says is, "You just want teenage girls to throw their bras at you in lovestruck ecstasy," and Jaejoong sticks out his tongue and Yoochun bites it.
Yoochun remembers being a kid after the divorce, when his mom was stuck doing all the driving. This was before the age of the GPS, and she was bad with directions. Twice a week, they ended up in the middle of nowhere, mom yelling at his son of a bitch father and trying not to cry with frustration, Yoochun sitting in the passenger seat and searching the glovebox for the map. With enough time, it became an ongoing joke: sweetie, I have no idea where we are again. It gave Yoochun this steady faith that you can be fuck-all lost, and the world will take care of you and bring you home anyway.
Somehow he's here again, while Jaejoong holds onto the wheel with both hands and drives them in circles. On Jaejoong's birthday, Yoochun'd dragged Yunho out shopping for present advice, and Yunho'd said you'd better be good for him, you'd better be fucking good for him.
16. Changmin won't stop yawning between his scales. He looks five years younger when he's covering his mouth with his sleeve, so Yoochun takes the chance to ask the usual: "How's home? School?"
Changmin digs his the heel of his palm against his eyes. "I want to study photography," he says after a while.
"What are your parents convinced you want to study?"
"Engineering."
Yoochun thinks this is the first substantial answer Changmin's given him. He slouches back in the chair he's pulled up to the piano and watches Changmin fish out his copy of something angry and Beethoven, because the big things don't ever change that fast.
The day after, he and Jaejoong are roasting marshmallows in the kitchen when Junsu calls.
"Hi," says Junsu. "We're having lunch this weekend. Bring posterboard. Is that Jaejoong?"
Jaejoong has gotten bored of the gas stove and pulled out his lighter. Yoochun uses his free hand to cover his eyes as he answers, "He's burning my apartment down. Why the posterboard?"
"We're going to make a giant list of the pros and cons of me getting a permanent job. I have stickers and a 36-pack of Sharpies."
"What about," Yoochun says, and sucks on the inside of his mouth like there's a splinter in it so the rest of that question doesn't come out. It was hard enough for Junsu to make this call anyway. "Okay. Text me the place."
"Thanks." Junsu hangs up first.
Yoochun slides his cell back into his jeans and finishes watching Jaejoong try to blow out the fire eating up his marshmallow. Jaejoong's hair is pinned up and his roots are showing. There's a chocolate smear on his cheek that Yoochun hasn't told him about. It takes another thirty seconds for Jaejoong to get the marshmallow under control and make a respectable s'more out of it. He sucks on his fingertips where he's burned them on accident, shrugging at Yoochun like what-can-you-do?, and Yoochun smiles back and wonders when the rest of the world started moving fast enough to leave them both behind.
17. It's April, raining, and the room is cold. Jaejoong leaves Yoochun on the bed sore and sated, marked up like an old book. Yoochun stretches out under thin sheets as Jaejoong pulls on his t-shirt and steals the semi-crushed pack of cigarettes from Yoochun's jeans on the floor.
"Is it today?" Yoochun asks.
"Yeah." Jaejoong lights up, his lashes dark on his cheek. Rough and off-key since he got here. For that second he's motionless against the balcony door, gray smoke blurring the outline of his face, he's a goddamn statue. "Same weather, too."
Yoochun rolls onto his elbow. Fucking has turned his body heavy and his tongue unchecked. "Why is talking about it against the rules?"
"It's not against the rules," says Jaejoong, slowly, his own voice something to tiptoe around. Yoochun wants to bridge his throat closed and end it there but it doesn't work.
"You avoid it all the time."
"I'm dealing with it." Jaejoong's never dealing. He's looking for his belt, he's running, and it makes Yoochun more confrontational.
"You mean you pretend nothing happened."
Jaejoong finishes getting dressed with his messy hair in his eyes and his shoes halfway on his feet and says, "It has nothing to do with you."
Yoochun stays where he is because he knows if he gets up Jaejoong'll be gone even quicker. "You're full of shit. God forbid you actually face the fact that you lost something important to you and now you've been stuck in the same place for a year."
"Who the fuck are you to talk, Yoochun?" Jaejoong's fingers are skinny and unforgiving along the frame of the piano. "A silly deluded artist with a silly block of wood. This city has hundreds of you."
"Silly's better than scared," Yoochun says, before Jaejoong takes his jacket and shuts the door.
18. Yoochun doesn't see or hear from Jaejoong for over a week, so he spends it writing. He forgets to eat and rediscovers insomnia. The gears in his hands are turning. After months of dead air, he hears all these songs. They keep him busy until he thinks they're the only thing his body is running on these days. Kenny sends him home early one afternoon because his space cadet act annoys the customers. When his mother calls, it takes him four rings to realize that the sound is real. They talk for half an hour; then she says, "You sound tired, sweetie."
"It's just the weather," Yoochun says, opening the window blinds so the spring sunlight hits his face.
19. Yoochun finds Jaejoong sitting outside the apartment, his legs folded up, held together by stitches. he reaches down and rests his palm against Jaejoong's hair in the open doorway, cautious in case this is a dream. "I was going to go see you tomorrow and apologize," he says.
Jaejoong looks like he hasn't been sleeping either. "Can I come in?"
Yoochun offers to make tea but Jaejoong goes straight for the piano. He pulls the bench forward an inch and positions his fingers on the keys. Yoochun stands unmoving in the kitchen as Jaejoong plays Tristesse, four pages learned in ten days, like each measure has a price and Jaejoong's carving the payment from his own body. The song is stilted and amateur. Yoochun lowers his face.
He waits at the stove, watching steam rise from the kettle, until he hears Jaejoong's hands fall back into his lap. "Sorry," Jaejoong says. "I know it's bad. I need a little more time."
Yoochun brings him tea and they share the bench. The white lamp bleeds across Jaejoong's shoulders and makes them thinner, lighter. "Come on," Yoochun finally says. "We're going to bed. Your toothbrush is still here."
20. They'll start in the morning.