Fic-DBSK-To Tame a Voice
Title: To Tame a Voice
Author: virdant
Length: 1,060 words; one-shot
Rating: G / PG
Genre: General
Pairing: None.
Summary: When he finishes, cheeks flushed and tongue flitting out to lick dry lips, he’s told where he’s wrong. The instructor has music before him, and the paper drips red. Breathe, Jaejoong can barely make out through all the circles of intonation intonation intonation.
Notes:Perfect Pitch 'verse... Additionally. AU.
To Tame a Voice
The first thing they teach Jaejoong when he enters SM Entertainment is time.
They sit him by the tick-tick of a seconds hand ticking in largo. Sixty beats a minute. For five minutes, he sits there, listening to the tick-tick until his entire body resonates in time, until he is music.
“You’ll learn,” he hears, the words jarring. Not quite triplets, not quite eighth notes. It’s odd. Words have never jarred him before. His skin prickles at the wrongness, and it takes him thirty minutes before he’s no longer thinking in largo, but he’s simply living.
Later, Jaejoong learns that this is what they do when they want to tame wild singers.
*
When Jaejoong is allowed to actually sing: scales, thirds, fifths, harmonizing with cracked sounds of an electric keyboard, he learns how to control a throat out of control. He tames wildness through brute force. This is what he wants. This. His voice struggles out of his control, however, and he struggles to rein it into obedience. To stop his voice from galloping off into the off-key singing.
He learns what pitch he has to sing through sheer force of will. This is what he wants.
Never mind that his voice was never meant to be tamed this way.
*
Three months into Jaejoong’s training, Jaejoong sings his first song. He runs out of breath at the high notes, the pitch wavers beyond his control, and his vibrato vibrates.
When he finishes, cheeks flushed and tongue flitting out to lick dry lips, he’s told where he’s wrong. The instructor has music before him, and the paper drips red. Breathe, Jaejoong can barely make out through all the circles of intonation intonation intonation.
When asked what he needs to work on, Jaejoong answers: intonation in A, B-flat, A-flat, and D-sharp. He knows of the notes; three months is enough to teach him at least that much, but he doesn’t know the notes.
They elude him, the same way songs elude him and his breath eludes him.
Fluttering away like butterflies.
*
Jaejoong meets others. Yunho, who slides into time perfectly. Effortlessly. Jaejoong’s feet fumble as he attempts to feel more than random vibrations on the floor. Yunho replies, feel the music, but all Jaejoong can feel are earthquakes in miniature. Endless vibrations to slip up steady steps. The rattle of the ground as a construction truck rattles across the road.
Yunho reaches out a hand and asks: “Can’t you feel the music?”
All Jaejoong can feel is uncertainty trembling up his legs.
*
One and a half years and one day after Jaejoong starts his training, Jaejoong has learned. He uses his vibrato as a crutch, and he trembles onto A’s instead of slightly flat A’s, C-sharp’s instead of really flat D’s. He lets the flutter of notes ease the strain of his lungs.
“Almost,” they say.
“Now learn,” they say.
They sit him in front of a clock, and this time he drops into largo in only ten minutes.
Then they sit him before a metronome.
He can’t reconcile allegro to largo. His skin prickles and his fingers twitch and he protests: something’s wrong.
They click their tongues and say: “Still much work to be done.”
*
Kim Junsu is well known.
Jaejoong is told to listen to Kim Junsu. Kim Junsu sings notes perfectly. Perfectly in tune. Perfectly in time. He breathes at the right places, moves at the right times, and has mastered music.
“This is what you want to achieve.”
Jaejoong can hear the notes, but he only half knows that they’re perfect. The other half he knows through reputation.
Intonation. Tone Quality. Breath Control. Tempo. Rhythm.
What do you need to work on?
Intonation. Intonation. Intonation. Intonation. Intonation.
*
Feet shoulder length apart. Hands on abdomen.
The more air, Jaejoong knows, the better control. The more air, the tamer the tongue, the more obedient the body.
This was how you tamed a wild singer.
Inhale now. This note. No. Higher. Higher. It’s not right. Lower now. Lower, just a little. Yes.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Persuade him that this is what he wants.
Show him what domesticity is.
Teach him what it means to be a tame singer.
*
Right before they debut, Junsu whispers to Jaejoong, “I’m sorry.”
Jaejoong looks at Junsu. Everything has been tamed. His glance is a medley of amusement and confusion, cool indifference thrums through his voice. “What for?”
But Junsu says nothing.
*
Their debut is a lip-synced number to make sure their voices are the same carefully refined voices inside the studio. It blares out through speakers, distorted and static. Tame.
Jaejoong is satisfied.
The others are giddy.
Except for Junsu, who closes his eyes and says nothing for three beats before he smiles, wide and dazzling.
*
It takes Junsu and Jaejoong three years.
“Sing for me.”
And then, even as they’re looking at each other and shrugging, voice rising already perfectly in harmony, Yoochun reaches through them to rake the careful notes of perfection into shreds.
“Sing for me.”
And Junsu blinks. Once. Twice. Then he smiles and he sings.
It is not perfect.
Junsu sings nonsense words. He sings in the tempo of vivace, with no set beat. He sings and he lingers on love, voice quavering with raw, uncontrolled vibrato, voice lost to words never sang and too often sang.
And Jaejoong slowly, carefully, hesitantly threads through Junsu’s song.
Jaejoong’s breath is thin. His vibrato is out of control. He has no breath control. His intonation is shot to all hell.
He doesn’t know the words.
He’s slouching. He needs to sit straight. Let his air fill his body. This is…
Junsu leans on him. Jaejoong can feel the inhales, sharp and jerky yet controlled. He can feel the glee in spasming fingers, in the tap of the foot that sends vibrations up his spine.
Yoochun listens.
They can hear, through the thready voices of unaccompanied music, the sound of Yunho and Changmin shifting to look, to question this raw unpolished freedom.
Jaejoong’s fingers dig into Junsu’s wrists.
And Junsu forgoes perfect pitches for music.
*
This is how you tame a wild singer.
Show him exactly what you want, and give him no chance to rebel.
But this is how you tame a voice.
Teach him to sing music.
End.
Uh. Is it sang or sung? I keep getting confused. And uh, yeah. D:
Uh, Yeah. Perfect Pitch 'verse fic. Not really what I expected, since I wanted y'know, the fic to establish the 'verse first up... but yup.
Brief knowledge necessary for this 'verse.
Junsu has perfect pitch.
That is all you need to know. That one fact makes this entire 'verse AU. In a good way.
Author: virdant
Length: 1,060 words; one-shot
Rating: G / PG
Genre: General
Pairing: None.
Summary: When he finishes, cheeks flushed and tongue flitting out to lick dry lips, he’s told where he’s wrong. The instructor has music before him, and the paper drips red. Breathe, Jaejoong can barely make out through all the circles of intonation intonation intonation.
Notes:Perfect Pitch 'verse... Additionally. AU.
To Tame a Voice
The first thing they teach Jaejoong when he enters SM Entertainment is time.
They sit him by the tick-tick of a seconds hand ticking in largo. Sixty beats a minute. For five minutes, he sits there, listening to the tick-tick until his entire body resonates in time, until he is music.
“You’ll learn,” he hears, the words jarring. Not quite triplets, not quite eighth notes. It’s odd. Words have never jarred him before. His skin prickles at the wrongness, and it takes him thirty minutes before he’s no longer thinking in largo, but he’s simply living.
Later, Jaejoong learns that this is what they do when they want to tame wild singers.
*
When Jaejoong is allowed to actually sing: scales, thirds, fifths, harmonizing with cracked sounds of an electric keyboard, he learns how to control a throat out of control. He tames wildness through brute force. This is what he wants. This. His voice struggles out of his control, however, and he struggles to rein it into obedience. To stop his voice from galloping off into the off-key singing.
He learns what pitch he has to sing through sheer force of will. This is what he wants.
Never mind that his voice was never meant to be tamed this way.
*
Three months into Jaejoong’s training, Jaejoong sings his first song. He runs out of breath at the high notes, the pitch wavers beyond his control, and his vibrato vibrates.
When he finishes, cheeks flushed and tongue flitting out to lick dry lips, he’s told where he’s wrong. The instructor has music before him, and the paper drips red. Breathe, Jaejoong can barely make out through all the circles of intonation intonation intonation.
When asked what he needs to work on, Jaejoong answers: intonation in A, B-flat, A-flat, and D-sharp. He knows of the notes; three months is enough to teach him at least that much, but he doesn’t know the notes.
They elude him, the same way songs elude him and his breath eludes him.
Fluttering away like butterflies.
*
Jaejoong meets others. Yunho, who slides into time perfectly. Effortlessly. Jaejoong’s feet fumble as he attempts to feel more than random vibrations on the floor. Yunho replies, feel the music, but all Jaejoong can feel are earthquakes in miniature. Endless vibrations to slip up steady steps. The rattle of the ground as a construction truck rattles across the road.
Yunho reaches out a hand and asks: “Can’t you feel the music?”
All Jaejoong can feel is uncertainty trembling up his legs.
*
One and a half years and one day after Jaejoong starts his training, Jaejoong has learned. He uses his vibrato as a crutch, and he trembles onto A’s instead of slightly flat A’s, C-sharp’s instead of really flat D’s. He lets the flutter of notes ease the strain of his lungs.
“Almost,” they say.
“Now learn,” they say.
They sit him in front of a clock, and this time he drops into largo in only ten minutes.
Then they sit him before a metronome.
He can’t reconcile allegro to largo. His skin prickles and his fingers twitch and he protests: something’s wrong.
They click their tongues and say: “Still much work to be done.”
*
Kim Junsu is well known.
Jaejoong is told to listen to Kim Junsu. Kim Junsu sings notes perfectly. Perfectly in tune. Perfectly in time. He breathes at the right places, moves at the right times, and has mastered music.
“This is what you want to achieve.”
Jaejoong can hear the notes, but he only half knows that they’re perfect. The other half he knows through reputation.
Intonation. Tone Quality. Breath Control. Tempo. Rhythm.
What do you need to work on?
Intonation. Intonation. Intonation. Intonation. Intonation.
*
Feet shoulder length apart. Hands on abdomen.
The more air, Jaejoong knows, the better control. The more air, the tamer the tongue, the more obedient the body.
This was how you tamed a wild singer.
Inhale now. This note. No. Higher. Higher. It’s not right. Lower now. Lower, just a little. Yes.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Persuade him that this is what he wants.
Show him what domesticity is.
Teach him what it means to be a tame singer.
*
Right before they debut, Junsu whispers to Jaejoong, “I’m sorry.”
Jaejoong looks at Junsu. Everything has been tamed. His glance is a medley of amusement and confusion, cool indifference thrums through his voice. “What for?”
But Junsu says nothing.
*
Their debut is a lip-synced number to make sure their voices are the same carefully refined voices inside the studio. It blares out through speakers, distorted and static. Tame.
Jaejoong is satisfied.
The others are giddy.
Except for Junsu, who closes his eyes and says nothing for three beats before he smiles, wide and dazzling.
*
It takes Junsu and Jaejoong three years.
“Sing for me.”
And then, even as they’re looking at each other and shrugging, voice rising already perfectly in harmony, Yoochun reaches through them to rake the careful notes of perfection into shreds.
“Sing for me.”
And Junsu blinks. Once. Twice. Then he smiles and he sings.
It is not perfect.
Junsu sings nonsense words. He sings in the tempo of vivace, with no set beat. He sings and he lingers on love, voice quavering with raw, uncontrolled vibrato, voice lost to words never sang and too often sang.
And Jaejoong slowly, carefully, hesitantly threads through Junsu’s song.
Jaejoong’s breath is thin. His vibrato is out of control. He has no breath control. His intonation is shot to all hell.
He doesn’t know the words.
He’s slouching. He needs to sit straight. Let his air fill his body. This is…
Junsu leans on him. Jaejoong can feel the inhales, sharp and jerky yet controlled. He can feel the glee in spasming fingers, in the tap of the foot that sends vibrations up his spine.
Yoochun listens.
They can hear, through the thready voices of unaccompanied music, the sound of Yunho and Changmin shifting to look, to question this raw unpolished freedom.
Jaejoong’s fingers dig into Junsu’s wrists.
And Junsu forgoes perfect pitches for music.
*
This is how you tame a wild singer.
Show him exactly what you want, and give him no chance to rebel.
But this is how you tame a voice.
Teach him to sing music.
End.
Uh. Is it sang or sung? I keep getting confused. And uh, yeah. D:
Uh, Yeah. Perfect Pitch 'verse fic. Not really what I expected, since I wanted y'know, the fic to establish the 'verse first up... but yup.
Brief knowledge necessary for this 'verse.
Junsu has perfect pitch.
That is all you need to know. That one fact makes this entire 'verse AU. In a good way.