Every Human Love I: The Child Ephemeral
Series: Every Human Love
Title: The Child Ephemeral
Pairing: Jaejoong/Yoochun
Rating: G
Summary: "Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains."
AU. Title from Auden's 'Lullaby'.
Everyone who visits Yoochun's dorm room comments on the figurine that stands at the far corner of his desk.
When asked, Yoochun replies, his fingers just touching the curve of a porcelain cheek, "Oh, that's Jaejoong. He's been my best friend since I was a kid."
In general, people think it's a joke, smile at the whimsy, or decide Yoochun just doesn't want to talk about it, move on to speak about other, safer, things. What they don't know is that after the door's closed behind them, Yoochun takes down the statue, sets it gently on the carpet and says, "They're gone, you can come out now." They don't see the statue grow and stretch, bend the air and become a young man just Yoochun's height, with pale skin, honey-gold hair, and strange eyes that glint brown and blue by turns. (He used to be a boy just Yoochun's height, and then a teenager who grew as Yoochun did. Now, he's this.)
No-one else has seen Jaejoong - stretched out on Yoochun's bed with a computer game, beating Yoochun's high scores; humming along to the radio as he proof-reads Yoochun's essay; half-helping, half-getting in the way as Yoochun tries to make dinner; laughing and drying Yoochun's tears at the end of a sappy romantic movie that Yoochun wouldn't even admit he owned to anyone else. Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains.
Sometimes at night, with Jaejoong breathing against Yoochun's shoulder, Yoochun dreams about dropping the statue, watching it fall and shatter. In his dreams, he wonders if that would set Jaejoong free, if Jaejoong would step out of the shards of broken china, if he would open the curtains and let the unfiltered sun touch him for the first time. Yoochun dreams about taking Jaejoong to lectures, leaning together and complaining about the boring ones; about walking next to Jaejoong in the park, barefoot in the grass; about showing him the world outside Yoochun's room, the everyday, ordinary life that Yoochun leads when he's not with Jaejoong.
Yoochun wakes up terrified that he's actually done it, that the statue is gone, that the door is open, that Jaejoong has walked out of Yoochun's life; or worse, that with the statue broken, Jaejoong has just ceased to exist (that he never existed at all?). Yoochun's heart pounds in his ears, desperate, until he finds the courage to open his eyes and sees Jaejoong, sitting in the desk chair, staring at photographs of distant cities on Yoochun's computer screen, until Jaejoong turns and says, "Good morning, sleepyhead," and smiles.
Title: The Child Ephemeral
Pairing: Jaejoong/Yoochun
Rating: G
Summary: "Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains."
AU. Title from Auden's 'Lullaby'.
Everyone who visits Yoochun's dorm room comments on the figurine that stands at the far corner of his desk.
When asked, Yoochun replies, his fingers just touching the curve of a porcelain cheek, "Oh, that's Jaejoong. He's been my best friend since I was a kid."
In general, people think it's a joke, smile at the whimsy, or decide Yoochun just doesn't want to talk about it, move on to speak about other, safer, things. What they don't know is that after the door's closed behind them, Yoochun takes down the statue, sets it gently on the carpet and says, "They're gone, you can come out now." They don't see the statue grow and stretch, bend the air and become a young man just Yoochun's height, with pale skin, honey-gold hair, and strange eyes that glint brown and blue by turns. (He used to be a boy just Yoochun's height, and then a teenager who grew as Yoochun did. Now, he's this.)
No-one else has seen Jaejoong - stretched out on Yoochun's bed with a computer game, beating Yoochun's high scores; humming along to the radio as he proof-reads Yoochun's essay; half-helping, half-getting in the way as Yoochun tries to make dinner; laughing and drying Yoochun's tears at the end of a sappy romantic movie that Yoochun wouldn't even admit he owned to anyone else. Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains.
Sometimes at night, with Jaejoong breathing against Yoochun's shoulder, Yoochun dreams about dropping the statue, watching it fall and shatter. In his dreams, he wonders if that would set Jaejoong free, if Jaejoong would step out of the shards of broken china, if he would open the curtains and let the unfiltered sun touch him for the first time. Yoochun dreams about taking Jaejoong to lectures, leaning together and complaining about the boring ones; about walking next to Jaejoong in the park, barefoot in the grass; about showing him the world outside Yoochun's room, the everyday, ordinary life that Yoochun leads when he's not with Jaejoong.
Yoochun wakes up terrified that he's actually done it, that the statue is gone, that the door is open, that Jaejoong has walked out of Yoochun's life; or worse, that with the statue broken, Jaejoong has just ceased to exist (that he never existed at all?). Yoochun's heart pounds in his ears, desperate, until he finds the courage to open his eyes and sees Jaejoong, sitting in the desk chair, staring at photographs of distant cities on Yoochun's computer screen, until Jaejoong turns and says, "Good morning, sleepyhead," and smiles.