anything, everything pt2
yoochun/junsu
fluff & crack
pg13
4843 words
for shorichan
part 1
“So you mean to say that someone stole your girlfriend’s purse?”
Yoochun balks a little at the word girlfriend but looks straight at the manager, a balding, skinny man with a nervous tick above one eye. “I’m not just saying someone stole her purse, I’m saying your waitress over there did it.” He gestures to the pony-tailed girl heaving an armful of dirty plates to the kitchen.
“That’s quite a serious accusation-”
“And this is quite a serious matter, don’t you think?” Yoochun raises his voice a little at the last part and the other diners are starting to look his way, the manager wringing his hands now.
“Well?” Yoochun demands and finally the waitress is summoned over, albeit with as much discretion as possible.
“You. You’re new, aren’t you?”
The waitress bites her lower lip and mumbles a soft yes.
“Were you the one that gave the bill to this table?”
Another barely audible yes.
“Did you see a purse on the table?”
A no this time and Yoochun can feel the rest of the diners’ eyes on them now, the waitress looking at her feet and the manager taking to trying to persuade them into his office where they can discuss this.
“Mr.Park if you-”
“Did you take it?”
A bit of denying and a little more of Yoochun’s still-shaky acting eventually leads to the manager demanding that the waitress turn her pockets out, Junsu’s purse finally sitting on the table after a good ten minutes of tearful excuses.
“So do you hire thieves at your restaurant?” Yoochun manages out as coolly as possible. The waitresses’ mascara is running messy rivulets down her cheeks, manager still trying to get Yoochun to lower his voice.
“Sir please if you’ll just-”
“Just? Just what? Just sit down and let this matter go? I don’t think so, I’m going to report this to the-”
The manager pulls Yoochun back down onto his chair before he can continue any further, the waitress still hovering, unsure near their table.
“Listen, Mr.Park. I’m really sorry about the whole incident, really, I am, but if there’s anything I can do to make this up to you, let me assure you that I’ll do it.”
Yoochun tries to look as unconvinced as possible. A ways off from him, the waitress is still tearing. The other diners seemed to lost interest though, now that it isn’t quite so easy anymore to catch a glimpse of all the dramatics.
“If there’s anything at all. A compensation, maybe?” There’s a hopeful gleam in the manger’s eyes now and Yoochun thinks he can see where this is going, manager already reaching for his wallet. “Of course, Mr.Park, you’d imagine that a restaurant of this size has quite a reputation to uphold so if we could just avoid any kind of…how do I say this, any kind of complications.” He trails off, waiting for Yoochun to catch the hint.
“Of course.”
“So sorry about everything, Mr.Park,” the manager says smoothly and presses a few bills into his hand before turning to the waitress, snapping at her to go to the bathroom and clean herself up. Another profuse apology and the manager excuses himself, all the while promising to look into matters with the waitress. Barely two minutes later and Junsu comes back from the bathroom. Yoochun hands her the purse back.
“Had fun without me?” she asks him sweetly, linking hands with him on their way out.
“A lot. This what you do every day?” Junsu walks under the shadows of trees lining the sidewalk and when he steps into the sun again, Yoochun finds that he’s walking arm in arm with a Junsu of the non-skirt-wearing variation.
“Pretty much. Everything’s so much more fun with an audience though.”
“Your boobs were a little lopsided.”
Junsu punches Yoochun in the arm and buys him more than a few drinks later to make up for it.
-
Junsu trusts Yoochun enough to not tell anyone about what he knows but Changmin on the other hand, that’s a different matter altogether.
“He won’t call the media,” Yoochun reassures Junsu for the nth time, over a plate of strawberry shortcake this time. Junsu is poking at it listlessly.
“How do you know that? He hates me.”
“For one, do you think anyone would actually believe him? And if you think he’s going risk being labeled as batshit insane on top of jeopardizing his whole career because of you, then you don’t know Changmin well enough. Not that I’m implying you’re not worth jeopardizing one’s career for but you know.” He shrugs. “Changmin.”
Yoochun spears a strawberry and offers it to Junsu who takes it without thinking, chewing it thoughtfully.
“But he still hates me,” he says around a mouthful of fruit.
“He hates me too, but hey, you don’t see me whining about it.”
“It’s just…” A pause as Junsu swallows.
“Just?”
“Nah. It’s nothing.”
Yoochun leaves for work twenty minutes later and Junsu orders another piece of strawberry shortcake for himself, pulls out his cellphone to call someone on speed dial.
-
One month going onto two and the Changmin still hasn’t really come to terms with the fact that Junsu might just be Yoochun’s first foray into a real relationship since preschool.
“You’re jealous,” Yoochun tells him straight on one afternoon as he lounges in Changmin’s office, stretched out on the Cleopatra-esque chair in the corner. They’ve taken to meeting here instead of the bar if only because Yoochun gets to leech off Changmin’s air conditioning while he waits. “You’re more than jealous, you’re-”
“I’m going to kick you out if you don’t stop polluting my air with your drivel.” Changmin doesn’t even bother to grace Yoochun with one of his trademark glares, preferring to just pull one edge of his newspaper a little straighter as he continues to read.
“Jealous~” sings Yoochun under his breath and Changmin flips him the bird, Yoochun returning the love. Junsu is late today, usually bursting through the door sometime around noon for their usual afternoon shenigans but it’s almost one thirty and still no sign of the man. Changmin’s expecting a new client at two.
“Are you getting stood up or something?” Changmin asks after a while.
If anyone could master the art of even making the simple act of rustling paper sound sarcastic, it would be Changmin. Yoochun just shrugs and goes back to picking at the threads on the couch. Junsu finally stumbles through the door at one fifty, a golden haired man following after him.
“Late,” Junsu manages out after taking a few gulps of air. “Sorry. And this is Jaejoong by the way.” He waves towards the man standing near the doorway and Jaejoong smiles, Changmin raising an eyebrow in return.
“That a friend of yours?”
Yoochun sidles close to Junsu who has seated himself on the couch, trying to force air back into his lungs. Jaejoong is still smiling and standing around, Changmin pointedly ignoring him.
“Very good friend. I thought maybe…ah you’ll see soon enough.” Junsu straightens and gets up. “Ready to go?”
“I’m ready for him to go even if he isn’t,” Changmin interjects drily. Jaejoong’s smile seems to have broadened a little and Junsu is already halfway out the door, Yoochun following after him.
“Isn’t Jaejoong coming along?”
Junsu pauses mid-step and even Changmin has looked up from his newspaper, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, him? Nah, I booked an appointment for him with Changmin at two.” He glances at his watch. “Almost two. We’d better get going.” And with that, he leaves with Yoochun in tow, Yoochun casting Changmin an apologetic look before being bustled out of the door.
“Dr.Shim?”
“Oh sit down, you.”
-
Today, Junsu wants to see what Yoochun does with his life.
“Besides spending a good chunk of it with me and getting people drunk at night,” he says and walks on the cracks in the sidewalk, Yoochun getting this funny feeling in the pit of his gut whenever Junsu forgets to look up and crashes into him. So Yoochun takes him to this little record shop three blocks away from his bar and spends the afternoon there with Junsu, educating him on the differences between electro pop and lovelorn ballads. They’re somewhere in the middle of the World Music section when Yoochun’s cellphone rings and Changmin’s caller ID flashes across the screen.
“Dr. Suma?” Junsu reads over Yoochun’s shoulder.
“Stick-up-my-ass,” Yoochun explains and takes the call, Changmin ranting something about Jaejoong and fairies and how some people are just away with them and by the way is Junsu there I need to ask him a few questions.
“He wants to talk to you,” Yoochun mouths with his hand clamped over his cell.
“I can hear you talking to him. Pass the phone, Yoochun, you’re wasting my cell’s credit,” comes the annoyed voice from under Yoochun’s hand and Yoochun mimes the word asshole to Junsu before passing the phone to him. Yoochun toddles over to the pop section, all the while keeping an ear on the one sided conversation a few shelves away.
“You mean Jaejoong?” A pause. Yoochun imagines Changmin’s voice on the other line, snapping some sort of witty comeback. “Ahh. Okay. Yeah I’ve known him for a long time.” Another pause here and Junsu is absently rearranging a few CDs. “I’m not too sure about that but yeah, I think so. Interested?” Junsu has to hold Yoochun’s phone away from his ear at this point and even Yoochun can hear Changmin’s barrage of words from where he’s standing. Something involving the words stupid, of course and why wouldn’t I.
By the time Junsu is done, the rack he’d been standing in front of is more than a mess. Yoochun’s in the midst of figuring out whether the CD he’s holding is in German or Danish when Junsu hands his phone back to him.
“About Jaejoong?”
“You probably guessed that much huh? That’s German by the way, put it in here.”
Junsu makes space for the CD and Yoochun slots it in.
“So all that. Just Jaejoong?”
“Just Jaejoong. And mainly about how much of an oddball he is and how I’m stupid for not sending him earlier. That and whether or not I know if he’s single.”
“Say what.”
Junsu hums a happy sounding melody, refrains from a French pop song that they’d sampled earlier. “I said what I said.” Yoochun almost drops all the CDs he’s holding at the next line. “Changmin’s interested in Jaejoong.”
-
It had taken approximately ten seconds for the both of them to decide that Changmin experiencing a vaguely human feeling was cause enough for celebration. Junsu turns up with Jaejoong at Yoochun’s bar just when the crowd is starting to thin out and Changmin’s too tired to protest.
“Dr.Shim,” Jaejoong addresses Changmin a little reverently and Changmin stiffens a little, drinking up the contents of his shot glass. “That medication you gave me? Can I mix it with alcohol?”
Yoochun and Junsu watch them from a few seats away, Yoochun shaking his head in disbelief as Changmin launches into a mini lecture about how only idiots would mix pills with alcohol, Jaejoong nodding sagely along with his psychiatrist before buying him a drink. Changmin shuts up after that.
“Cute,” comments Junsu as Yoochun tops up his glass. “Young love, doesn’t it make you wish that-”
“That I had a lot of alcohol on hand? Yes. And thank god I do.”
Jaejoong has taken over the talking now, sharing his views with Changmin on all the different medications he’s taken before this and how Changmin’s one seems to be working the best and they even taste the best and Dr.Shim I really need to buy you another drink is that okay with you? Changmin doesn’t quite know how to protest to this sudden logic and Yoochun ends up pouring a double shot of whiskey on the rocks for him.
“Remember the last time we drank like this?”
Junsu is wrapping his hands around a Bloody Mary, quite a change from the White Russian that Yoochun had guessed for him so many nights ago. Yoochun sighs and gets himself a beer.
“I’d rather not. Waking up with a complete stranger in my bed, that’s one time too many thank you.”
“But I’m not a complete stranger now, am I?”
Junsu smiles into his drink and for a moment, he wavers into the man Yoochun had first met, high cheekbones and sculpted face. “And I’m not completely drunk either.”
“Park Yoochun did you just turn down a sexual advance?”
Yoochun snaps his head towards Changmin who’s looking over Jaejoong’s shoulder right at him. “Kim Junsu did you just make a sexual advance?” adds Jaejoong without turning his back and Junsu finishes his Bloody Mary in one go.
-
“You know that thing I said about your ass being fat?” Yoochun is slurring his words by now and Junsu is far too wasted to notice, just cracks a smile at Yoochun that has Yoochun laughing. “I didn’t mean it. Much.”
“Thank you.” Junsu has his head propped on one hand, staring dreamily at the wall beyond Yoochun. Jaejoong and Changmin had left an hour ago, clingy enough to almost fall over their own feet as they climbed the stairs out into the street towards Changmin’s office. “Impromptu check up!” Jaejoong had declared and Yoochun let them go. It’s nearing five in the morning.
“And you know that thing that Changmin said?”
“About me being stupid or that thing about you being stupid, I don’t remember which.”
“About the sexual advances.”
“Ahhh.” Junsu uses two hands to prop his head up now, staring not at the wall but at Yoochun. “So what about it?”
“I wasn’t turning you down.”
Junsu grins and almost knocks his glass over as he leans over the counter to where Yoochun is seated. “And how did you know I was making a sexual advance to begin with?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer before catching hold of Yoochun’s face and kissing him, still sober enough to tangle his hands in Yoochun’s hair.
“Never mind.”
-
This time around, Yoochun doesn’t wake up next to a stranger in the morning. Rather, he wakes up to an empty bed and the smell of take out wafting in from the kitchen, Junsu trying to figure out how to use the microwave to reheat the food he’d bought. It’s almost three in the afternoon.
“You aren’t going to hit me in the head with anything, are you?”
“Press reheat. And no, I’m not.”
Junsu presses the reheat button and they have hot ddokbokki for lunch, Yoochun playing voice mails from Changmin on speakerphone. The first is a drunken rant about sidewalks and how they’re so bloody hard to navigate in the dark, Jaejoong providing sufficient back up in the background. Then comes a questionable one with a lot of “Oh fuck yes”s and the sound of something crashing to the ground, Junsu quickly erasing it as Yoochun tries not to gag on his food. The last one is from this morning, Changmin moaning something about how he’s gone and turned into Yoochun and how he’s probably going to die from syphilis now and-
“Jaejoong does not have syphilis,” interrupts Junsu and Yoochun shrugs. The voicemail ends with a sad lament about the wreckage of morals and a very expensive china vase in Changmin’s office.
“Well at least we had more fun than them last night.”
“How do you know?”
Yoochun nudges Junsu’s leg with his under the table. “But it sounds like Changmin’s going to have a pretty shitty afternoon. I’d say we’re better off than him.”
“Oh really?”
Yoochun shows Junsu just how much really.
-
Changmin pretends to act surprised when Yoochun tells him he’s in love with Junsu but Jaejoong sees through it immediately, punching his doctor hard in the shoulder and telling Yoochun that he’d suspected that much when Junsu hadn’t stop talking about anything but Yoochun for the past few months.
“He’s in love with you too,” he says and Yoochun has to go into a faraway corner to flail a little. Junsu takes him out on more con-jobs now and Yoochun finds that he’s getting better at it, Junsu always only targeting big establishments that won’t remember his face and won’t miss the money they take. Yoochun on the other hand, introduces Junsu to more music than he knows what to do with and Junsu finds himself singing ditties in Finnish whenever he’s alone or with Yoochun.
“This is perfect,” Yoochun tells Junsu one day after another successful job. They’re set enough for a few days worth of cake and coffee at their usual haunts but Junsu doesn’t seem that pleased.
“Did you see me at the end? The waver?”
“It was really slight though.”
“But it was still there.”
Junsu mopes for the rest of the afternoon because towards the grand finale of their con, there had been instances where he had to pretend to drop something under the table so that he could have an excuse to go underneath and fix his appearance while at it. Holding onto shifts hadn’t always been this hard.
“We still got out of it just fine,” Yoochun reminds him when Junsu is still lying awake next to him at four am. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing,” echoes Junsu but he still doesn’t fall asleep until dawn.
-
There is another time when Junsu goes off for two days and comes back in a bad mood, Yoochun having to pour him three vodka cokes before Junsu even hints about explaining his disappearance.
“I tried one of my old cons. A one person one.”
“And?”
Yoochun tries to sound casual but something doesn’t feel that great, the way even Jaejoong has abandoned Changmin for a minute to come sit by Junsu. Changmin follows suit after a few minutes but only because Jaejoong is there.
“I almost got arrested.”
“You what?”
Junsu won’t speak until there’s another drink in his hands. Yoochun won’t tell anyone but secretly, he’s gone and skimped on the alcohol in this one, somehow he thinks that Junsu needs to be fully sober for all this.
“You heard me the first time. Arrested. Me.” Jaejoong has his arm slung over Junsu’s shoulder. “Did something go wrong?” he asks and Junsu shrugs, almost as if trying to get the weight off himself but Jaejoong is adamant. Special too, but mostly adamant. The arm stays.
“My shift didn’t hold. Or actually, I couldn’t make it hold long enough.” Junsu won’t say more after that and eventually, Jaejoong drifts off to a corner with Changmin, Yoochun left to refill Junsu’s glass with cold water this time.
“Are you okay?” he asks in a low voice and waits for Junsu to answer, Junsu just sipping at his water. Yoochun doesn’t think that he’s even realized that it’s not even alcoholic anymore.
“Yeah. I hope.”
Yoochun hopes so too.
-
Junsu doesn’t know what’s happening but whatever it is, he doesn’t like it one bit at all. Yoochun tries to be as understanding as he can and it’s been a good two weeks since they’ve gone out on a job since Junsu can’t comprehend why he can’t hold a shift down for more than a few minutes at a time anymore.
“I don’t get it.”
“Well at least I like you the way you are?” Yoochun says, trying to be helpful but all it does is remind Junsu of how he’s nothing more than ordinary anymore. Jaejoong tries to help in his own otherworldly way, suggesting visits to mediums and doctors and a dozen other things that make Junsu laugh, forget the seriousness of it all for a while. Even Changmin tries to be somewhat nicer to him these days; or maybe as nice as Changmin can possibly be.
“Get well soon,” he says gruffly when he sees Junsu before proceeding to snark thinly veiled insults in his direction. Well at least that’s one constant in his life he’ll always be sure of.
There is this one time though, a week that Yoochun catches the worst cold in the history of mankind (well, according to Jaejoong that is) and for one week, he holes himself up in his cramped little apartment, refusing to go out and infect the rest of society with running noses and chills. It’s a boring one week since Yoochun can’t even talk on the phone properly and Jaejoong is much too preoccupied with his so called “appointments” (more like fuck sessions, Junsu thinks without venom) with Changmin so Junsu takes to the streets, trying out simple cons.
Each and every one of them turns out perfect.
-
“You better now?”
“Mehh.” Yoochun twines the cord of his telephone around one finger before letting it spring back to normal. Junsu sounds like giddy sunshine on the other line. “You sound more than better though. Something happen? Are Jaejoong and Changmin going to adopt a puppy together or something?”
“No, that would be more of a catastrophe more than anything but yeah, something did happen.”
Yoochun waits and hmms, ahhs at the appropriate places when Junsu bubbles over with the fact that he’s more or less back to normal now, if shapeshifting was ever considered normal to begin with.
“You’d better get well soon, you won’t believe the kinds of people I’ve met while you were sick. Are sick. Whatever.”
Yoochun puts down the phone with an odd feeling of elation and disappointment at not being able to be there at Junsu’s first successful con in weeks but hearing Junsu this happy kinda makes up for it. It sounds like something Jaejoong would do but Yoochun takes a double dose of his medication, hoping that in some way it’ll make him get well faster.
-
Nine days later and Yoochun isn’t going through a box of tissues a day anymore, Junsu practically bouncing into his arms when they meet.
“Better?”
“Much.”
Junsu wants to go out and eat cake and drink fizzy things in cans and Yoochun complies, doesn’t eat cake though and orders tea instead.
“Doctor’s orders,” he explains almost apologetically but all that means is more cake for Junsu so that’s alright. Later, Junsu takes him to a restaurant a good hour away from the city. “Just in case,” Junsu says as they board the train.
Just in case. Just in case that Junsu’s shift falters again and they have to hightail it out of there before the cops are called. Just in case.
Yoochun is glad they’re one hour away from home because on the way back, it gives him time to keep Junsu next to him long enough to tell him that everything will be okay.
-
“Something is wrong.”
“Well yeah I figured as much when we failed yesterday.”
“Do you feel okay?”
No, Junsu wants to say. Not physically though, just…inside. Like he’s always tired. Like there’s something constantly stirring and distracting him. He doesn’t tell Yoochun that though, Yoochun probably won’t understand. Changmin offers to take a look at him and after a two hour session, all Junsu gets out of it is an earful of useless psychobabble and a three hundred dollar bill that Jaejoong tears up in front of Changmin.
“Something’s wrong with me,” Junsu tells Yoochun over and over again after that until sometimes, even Yoochun starts to believe him.
-
Then one day, Yoochun can’t get through to Junsu on his cell. Jaejoong doesn’t know where Junsu is. Changmin tells Yoochun that he’s crazy to ask him where Junsu might be and hangs up on him. Three days pass and then three weeks and Yoochun still can’t get through to Junsu. Jaejoong still doesn’t know where he is. Changmin tells Yoochun that he’s probably just sulking under a bridge somewhere and tells him not to worry before hanging up.
Four weeks. Five. Six. Jaejoong doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Changmin tells Yoochun that maybe it’s time to move on and get some sleep while he’s at it, Junsu is gone. He doesn’t hang up because Yoochun is crying but seven eight nine ten and Yoochun has taken to hanging up first when Changmin calls.
-
Three months down the line, Changmin has laid off those syphilis jokes and started on chastity ones instead.
“I think I liked you better when you were sleeping around,” Changmin snaps at Yoochun and maybe it’s true, at least that time Yoochun actually knew how to function properly. He mixes a Screwdriver and skimps on the orange juice this time, throwing it back himself.
“I like you, period,” Jaejoong states nonchalantly and Yoochun gives him a White Russian on the house. That’s all he ever seems to be giving out nowadays anyway. Some nights, he’ll see the back of what might be a familiar looking head and those nights, he’ll practically leap over the bar counter and part crowds only to have a stranger stare at him blank faced and ask him “Do I know you?”
Changmin tells him that he has to stop being stupid an just move the fuck on, those people are probably just the people Junsu has leeched his shifts from but Yoochun still manages to piss off one patron every other night trying to make them admit that their name is Junsu.
“I’ll like you more if you stop being like this and go back to how you were when I met you,” Jaejoong starts saying after a while but Yoochun can’t remember how he’d been before that. Besides, it’s not even Jaejoong that he wants.
-
Yoochun is just about ready to close up the bar for the night when someone walks in, sits down at the counter and orders a White Russian. Changmin shoots Yoochun warning glances and Yoochun clams up for once, mixing milk and vodka and ice.
“I thought you knew I wasn’t a White Russian sort of guy.”
A glass is dropped and the floor is stained white, Yoochun staring into Junsu’s face. The sharp angles of the previous guise has melted into softer curves, voice pitched just a little higher. Jaejoong is strutting over to envelope Junsu in a hug and Changmin snorts into his drink, muttering something about insufferable shapeshifting assholes under his breath. Yoochun just stands really, really still.
“I’m sorry,” Junsu says once Jaejoong has removed himself and Changmin out of their immediate vicinity as well. It almost feels like old times, Changmin glaring sharp objects at him and Yoochun fumbling for words. “I shouldn’t have left so suddenly.”
“But you did.”
“That’s why I’m sorry.”
Yoochun almost wishes that he had his vase back too, so that he can throw it at Junsu’s head and kiss it all better later. Junsu is fidgeting in his chair.
“I was scared, you know. For those few weeks. Thinking about how it’d be like if I couldn’t shift anymore, about how I’d have to live without it. But then after a while, it seemed that living with it wasn’t as bad as living without you.”
“You’re such a fuckatard to take that long to realize something that simple,” snarls Changmin from one corner of the room and Jaejoong kisses him to make him shut up.
“I came back though, whenever I thought I-”
“All those times,” Yoochun finally says. “All those times it was you, wasn’t it?”
Changmin is almost livid now and Jaejoong is trying to sit on him, rather enjoying the task.
“Yeah. And all those times, it just got harder to say that no, I don’t know you.”
Junsu holds his hands up in apparent defeat and Yoochun can see that they’re shaking ever so slightly.
“I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because I’m just so damned comfortable being myself around you that my body forgets everything else or maybe you have some kind of defect in you that screws with me but whatever it is, I’m here. And I’m not leaving for anything.”
“I like the sound of that,” Jaejoong says a little dreamily and turns to Changmin who’s struggling underneath him. “Don’t you like that?” A muffled fuck you in response.
“So. Not a shapeshifter anymore, eh?”
Yoochun is throwing a washing rag from hand to hand now, as if trying to keep his own hands too busy to start shaking.
“This is the part where you ask me what I’m going to do with that, right?” Junsu is smiling now and Yoochun is smiling wider.
“Right. You don’t have a job now, do you?”
“Not at this very moment, no.”
“Want to work here?”
Jaejoong sits harder on Changmin and tells him sweetly to not ruin the mood. Yoochun has left the rag alone now and is currently gripping the edges of his counter, smiling wide enough to split his face.
“Sure, why not.”
Junsu’s first task is to kiss the living daylights out of Yoochun.
[fin]
AN- Uhm. I hope everyone liked that? :D Happy New Year~
fluff & crack
pg13
4843 words
for shorichan
part 1
“So you mean to say that someone stole your girlfriend’s purse?”
Yoochun balks a little at the word girlfriend but looks straight at the manager, a balding, skinny man with a nervous tick above one eye. “I’m not just saying someone stole her purse, I’m saying your waitress over there did it.” He gestures to the pony-tailed girl heaving an armful of dirty plates to the kitchen.
“That’s quite a serious accusation-”
“And this is quite a serious matter, don’t you think?” Yoochun raises his voice a little at the last part and the other diners are starting to look his way, the manager wringing his hands now.
“Well?” Yoochun demands and finally the waitress is summoned over, albeit with as much discretion as possible.
“You. You’re new, aren’t you?”
The waitress bites her lower lip and mumbles a soft yes.
“Were you the one that gave the bill to this table?”
Another barely audible yes.
“Did you see a purse on the table?”
A no this time and Yoochun can feel the rest of the diners’ eyes on them now, the waitress looking at her feet and the manager taking to trying to persuade them into his office where they can discuss this.
“Mr.Park if you-”
“Did you take it?”
A bit of denying and a little more of Yoochun’s still-shaky acting eventually leads to the manager demanding that the waitress turn her pockets out, Junsu’s purse finally sitting on the table after a good ten minutes of tearful excuses.
“So do you hire thieves at your restaurant?” Yoochun manages out as coolly as possible. The waitresses’ mascara is running messy rivulets down her cheeks, manager still trying to get Yoochun to lower his voice.
“Sir please if you’ll just-”
“Just? Just what? Just sit down and let this matter go? I don’t think so, I’m going to report this to the-”
The manager pulls Yoochun back down onto his chair before he can continue any further, the waitress still hovering, unsure near their table.
“Listen, Mr.Park. I’m really sorry about the whole incident, really, I am, but if there’s anything I can do to make this up to you, let me assure you that I’ll do it.”
Yoochun tries to look as unconvinced as possible. A ways off from him, the waitress is still tearing. The other diners seemed to lost interest though, now that it isn’t quite so easy anymore to catch a glimpse of all the dramatics.
“If there’s anything at all. A compensation, maybe?” There’s a hopeful gleam in the manger’s eyes now and Yoochun thinks he can see where this is going, manager already reaching for his wallet. “Of course, Mr.Park, you’d imagine that a restaurant of this size has quite a reputation to uphold so if we could just avoid any kind of…how do I say this, any kind of complications.” He trails off, waiting for Yoochun to catch the hint.
“Of course.”
“So sorry about everything, Mr.Park,” the manager says smoothly and presses a few bills into his hand before turning to the waitress, snapping at her to go to the bathroom and clean herself up. Another profuse apology and the manager excuses himself, all the while promising to look into matters with the waitress. Barely two minutes later and Junsu comes back from the bathroom. Yoochun hands her the purse back.
“Had fun without me?” she asks him sweetly, linking hands with him on their way out.
“A lot. This what you do every day?” Junsu walks under the shadows of trees lining the sidewalk and when he steps into the sun again, Yoochun finds that he’s walking arm in arm with a Junsu of the non-skirt-wearing variation.
“Pretty much. Everything’s so much more fun with an audience though.”
“Your boobs were a little lopsided.”
Junsu punches Yoochun in the arm and buys him more than a few drinks later to make up for it.
-
Junsu trusts Yoochun enough to not tell anyone about what he knows but Changmin on the other hand, that’s a different matter altogether.
“He won’t call the media,” Yoochun reassures Junsu for the nth time, over a plate of strawberry shortcake this time. Junsu is poking at it listlessly.
“How do you know that? He hates me.”
“For one, do you think anyone would actually believe him? And if you think he’s going risk being labeled as batshit insane on top of jeopardizing his whole career because of you, then you don’t know Changmin well enough. Not that I’m implying you’re not worth jeopardizing one’s career for but you know.” He shrugs. “Changmin.”
Yoochun spears a strawberry and offers it to Junsu who takes it without thinking, chewing it thoughtfully.
“But he still hates me,” he says around a mouthful of fruit.
“He hates me too, but hey, you don’t see me whining about it.”
“It’s just…” A pause as Junsu swallows.
“Just?”
“Nah. It’s nothing.”
Yoochun leaves for work twenty minutes later and Junsu orders another piece of strawberry shortcake for himself, pulls out his cellphone to call someone on speed dial.
-
One month going onto two and the Changmin still hasn’t really come to terms with the fact that Junsu might just be Yoochun’s first foray into a real relationship since preschool.
“You’re jealous,” Yoochun tells him straight on one afternoon as he lounges in Changmin’s office, stretched out on the Cleopatra-esque chair in the corner. They’ve taken to meeting here instead of the bar if only because Yoochun gets to leech off Changmin’s air conditioning while he waits. “You’re more than jealous, you’re-”
“I’m going to kick you out if you don’t stop polluting my air with your drivel.” Changmin doesn’t even bother to grace Yoochun with one of his trademark glares, preferring to just pull one edge of his newspaper a little straighter as he continues to read.
“Jealous~” sings Yoochun under his breath and Changmin flips him the bird, Yoochun returning the love. Junsu is late today, usually bursting through the door sometime around noon for their usual afternoon shenigans but it’s almost one thirty and still no sign of the man. Changmin’s expecting a new client at two.
“Are you getting stood up or something?” Changmin asks after a while.
If anyone could master the art of even making the simple act of rustling paper sound sarcastic, it would be Changmin. Yoochun just shrugs and goes back to picking at the threads on the couch. Junsu finally stumbles through the door at one fifty, a golden haired man following after him.
“Late,” Junsu manages out after taking a few gulps of air. “Sorry. And this is Jaejoong by the way.” He waves towards the man standing near the doorway and Jaejoong smiles, Changmin raising an eyebrow in return.
“That a friend of yours?”
Yoochun sidles close to Junsu who has seated himself on the couch, trying to force air back into his lungs. Jaejoong is still smiling and standing around, Changmin pointedly ignoring him.
“Very good friend. I thought maybe…ah you’ll see soon enough.” Junsu straightens and gets up. “Ready to go?”
“I’m ready for him to go even if he isn’t,” Changmin interjects drily. Jaejoong’s smile seems to have broadened a little and Junsu is already halfway out the door, Yoochun following after him.
“Isn’t Jaejoong coming along?”
Junsu pauses mid-step and even Changmin has looked up from his newspaper, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, him? Nah, I booked an appointment for him with Changmin at two.” He glances at his watch. “Almost two. We’d better get going.” And with that, he leaves with Yoochun in tow, Yoochun casting Changmin an apologetic look before being bustled out of the door.
“Dr.Shim?”
“Oh sit down, you.”
-
Today, Junsu wants to see what Yoochun does with his life.
“Besides spending a good chunk of it with me and getting people drunk at night,” he says and walks on the cracks in the sidewalk, Yoochun getting this funny feeling in the pit of his gut whenever Junsu forgets to look up and crashes into him. So Yoochun takes him to this little record shop three blocks away from his bar and spends the afternoon there with Junsu, educating him on the differences between electro pop and lovelorn ballads. They’re somewhere in the middle of the World Music section when Yoochun’s cellphone rings and Changmin’s caller ID flashes across the screen.
“Dr. Suma?” Junsu reads over Yoochun’s shoulder.
“Stick-up-my-ass,” Yoochun explains and takes the call, Changmin ranting something about Jaejoong and fairies and how some people are just away with them and by the way is Junsu there I need to ask him a few questions.
“He wants to talk to you,” Yoochun mouths with his hand clamped over his cell.
“I can hear you talking to him. Pass the phone, Yoochun, you’re wasting my cell’s credit,” comes the annoyed voice from under Yoochun’s hand and Yoochun mimes the word asshole to Junsu before passing the phone to him. Yoochun toddles over to the pop section, all the while keeping an ear on the one sided conversation a few shelves away.
“You mean Jaejoong?” A pause. Yoochun imagines Changmin’s voice on the other line, snapping some sort of witty comeback. “Ahh. Okay. Yeah I’ve known him for a long time.” Another pause here and Junsu is absently rearranging a few CDs. “I’m not too sure about that but yeah, I think so. Interested?” Junsu has to hold Yoochun’s phone away from his ear at this point and even Yoochun can hear Changmin’s barrage of words from where he’s standing. Something involving the words stupid, of course and why wouldn’t I.
By the time Junsu is done, the rack he’d been standing in front of is more than a mess. Yoochun’s in the midst of figuring out whether the CD he’s holding is in German or Danish when Junsu hands his phone back to him.
“About Jaejoong?”
“You probably guessed that much huh? That’s German by the way, put it in here.”
Junsu makes space for the CD and Yoochun slots it in.
“So all that. Just Jaejoong?”
“Just Jaejoong. And mainly about how much of an oddball he is and how I’m stupid for not sending him earlier. That and whether or not I know if he’s single.”
“Say what.”
Junsu hums a happy sounding melody, refrains from a French pop song that they’d sampled earlier. “I said what I said.” Yoochun almost drops all the CDs he’s holding at the next line. “Changmin’s interested in Jaejoong.”
-
It had taken approximately ten seconds for the both of them to decide that Changmin experiencing a vaguely human feeling was cause enough for celebration. Junsu turns up with Jaejoong at Yoochun’s bar just when the crowd is starting to thin out and Changmin’s too tired to protest.
“Dr.Shim,” Jaejoong addresses Changmin a little reverently and Changmin stiffens a little, drinking up the contents of his shot glass. “That medication you gave me? Can I mix it with alcohol?”
Yoochun and Junsu watch them from a few seats away, Yoochun shaking his head in disbelief as Changmin launches into a mini lecture about how only idiots would mix pills with alcohol, Jaejoong nodding sagely along with his psychiatrist before buying him a drink. Changmin shuts up after that.
“Cute,” comments Junsu as Yoochun tops up his glass. “Young love, doesn’t it make you wish that-”
“That I had a lot of alcohol on hand? Yes. And thank god I do.”
Jaejoong has taken over the talking now, sharing his views with Changmin on all the different medications he’s taken before this and how Changmin’s one seems to be working the best and they even taste the best and Dr.Shim I really need to buy you another drink is that okay with you? Changmin doesn’t quite know how to protest to this sudden logic and Yoochun ends up pouring a double shot of whiskey on the rocks for him.
“Remember the last time we drank like this?”
Junsu is wrapping his hands around a Bloody Mary, quite a change from the White Russian that Yoochun had guessed for him so many nights ago. Yoochun sighs and gets himself a beer.
“I’d rather not. Waking up with a complete stranger in my bed, that’s one time too many thank you.”
“But I’m not a complete stranger now, am I?”
Junsu smiles into his drink and for a moment, he wavers into the man Yoochun had first met, high cheekbones and sculpted face. “And I’m not completely drunk either.”
“Park Yoochun did you just turn down a sexual advance?”
Yoochun snaps his head towards Changmin who’s looking over Jaejoong’s shoulder right at him. “Kim Junsu did you just make a sexual advance?” adds Jaejoong without turning his back and Junsu finishes his Bloody Mary in one go.
-
“You know that thing I said about your ass being fat?” Yoochun is slurring his words by now and Junsu is far too wasted to notice, just cracks a smile at Yoochun that has Yoochun laughing. “I didn’t mean it. Much.”
“Thank you.” Junsu has his head propped on one hand, staring dreamily at the wall beyond Yoochun. Jaejoong and Changmin had left an hour ago, clingy enough to almost fall over their own feet as they climbed the stairs out into the street towards Changmin’s office. “Impromptu check up!” Jaejoong had declared and Yoochun let them go. It’s nearing five in the morning.
“And you know that thing that Changmin said?”
“About me being stupid or that thing about you being stupid, I don’t remember which.”
“About the sexual advances.”
“Ahhh.” Junsu uses two hands to prop his head up now, staring not at the wall but at Yoochun. “So what about it?”
“I wasn’t turning you down.”
Junsu grins and almost knocks his glass over as he leans over the counter to where Yoochun is seated. “And how did you know I was making a sexual advance to begin with?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer before catching hold of Yoochun’s face and kissing him, still sober enough to tangle his hands in Yoochun’s hair.
“Never mind.”
-
This time around, Yoochun doesn’t wake up next to a stranger in the morning. Rather, he wakes up to an empty bed and the smell of take out wafting in from the kitchen, Junsu trying to figure out how to use the microwave to reheat the food he’d bought. It’s almost three in the afternoon.
“You aren’t going to hit me in the head with anything, are you?”
“Press reheat. And no, I’m not.”
Junsu presses the reheat button and they have hot ddokbokki for lunch, Yoochun playing voice mails from Changmin on speakerphone. The first is a drunken rant about sidewalks and how they’re so bloody hard to navigate in the dark, Jaejoong providing sufficient back up in the background. Then comes a questionable one with a lot of “Oh fuck yes”s and the sound of something crashing to the ground, Junsu quickly erasing it as Yoochun tries not to gag on his food. The last one is from this morning, Changmin moaning something about how he’s gone and turned into Yoochun and how he’s probably going to die from syphilis now and-
“Jaejoong does not have syphilis,” interrupts Junsu and Yoochun shrugs. The voicemail ends with a sad lament about the wreckage of morals and a very expensive china vase in Changmin’s office.
“Well at least we had more fun than them last night.”
“How do you know?”
Yoochun nudges Junsu’s leg with his under the table. “But it sounds like Changmin’s going to have a pretty shitty afternoon. I’d say we’re better off than him.”
“Oh really?”
Yoochun shows Junsu just how much really.
-
Changmin pretends to act surprised when Yoochun tells him he’s in love with Junsu but Jaejoong sees through it immediately, punching his doctor hard in the shoulder and telling Yoochun that he’d suspected that much when Junsu hadn’t stop talking about anything but Yoochun for the past few months.
“He’s in love with you too,” he says and Yoochun has to go into a faraway corner to flail a little. Junsu takes him out on more con-jobs now and Yoochun finds that he’s getting better at it, Junsu always only targeting big establishments that won’t remember his face and won’t miss the money they take. Yoochun on the other hand, introduces Junsu to more music than he knows what to do with and Junsu finds himself singing ditties in Finnish whenever he’s alone or with Yoochun.
“This is perfect,” Yoochun tells Junsu one day after another successful job. They’re set enough for a few days worth of cake and coffee at their usual haunts but Junsu doesn’t seem that pleased.
“Did you see me at the end? The waver?”
“It was really slight though.”
“But it was still there.”
Junsu mopes for the rest of the afternoon because towards the grand finale of their con, there had been instances where he had to pretend to drop something under the table so that he could have an excuse to go underneath and fix his appearance while at it. Holding onto shifts hadn’t always been this hard.
“We still got out of it just fine,” Yoochun reminds him when Junsu is still lying awake next to him at four am. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing,” echoes Junsu but he still doesn’t fall asleep until dawn.
-
There is another time when Junsu goes off for two days and comes back in a bad mood, Yoochun having to pour him three vodka cokes before Junsu even hints about explaining his disappearance.
“I tried one of my old cons. A one person one.”
“And?”
Yoochun tries to sound casual but something doesn’t feel that great, the way even Jaejoong has abandoned Changmin for a minute to come sit by Junsu. Changmin follows suit after a few minutes but only because Jaejoong is there.
“I almost got arrested.”
“You what?”
Junsu won’t speak until there’s another drink in his hands. Yoochun won’t tell anyone but secretly, he’s gone and skimped on the alcohol in this one, somehow he thinks that Junsu needs to be fully sober for all this.
“You heard me the first time. Arrested. Me.” Jaejoong has his arm slung over Junsu’s shoulder. “Did something go wrong?” he asks and Junsu shrugs, almost as if trying to get the weight off himself but Jaejoong is adamant. Special too, but mostly adamant. The arm stays.
“My shift didn’t hold. Or actually, I couldn’t make it hold long enough.” Junsu won’t say more after that and eventually, Jaejoong drifts off to a corner with Changmin, Yoochun left to refill Junsu’s glass with cold water this time.
“Are you okay?” he asks in a low voice and waits for Junsu to answer, Junsu just sipping at his water. Yoochun doesn’t think that he’s even realized that it’s not even alcoholic anymore.
“Yeah. I hope.”
Yoochun hopes so too.
-
Junsu doesn’t know what’s happening but whatever it is, he doesn’t like it one bit at all. Yoochun tries to be as understanding as he can and it’s been a good two weeks since they’ve gone out on a job since Junsu can’t comprehend why he can’t hold a shift down for more than a few minutes at a time anymore.
“I don’t get it.”
“Well at least I like you the way you are?” Yoochun says, trying to be helpful but all it does is remind Junsu of how he’s nothing more than ordinary anymore. Jaejoong tries to help in his own otherworldly way, suggesting visits to mediums and doctors and a dozen other things that make Junsu laugh, forget the seriousness of it all for a while. Even Changmin tries to be somewhat nicer to him these days; or maybe as nice as Changmin can possibly be.
“Get well soon,” he says gruffly when he sees Junsu before proceeding to snark thinly veiled insults in his direction. Well at least that’s one constant in his life he’ll always be sure of.
There is this one time though, a week that Yoochun catches the worst cold in the history of mankind (well, according to Jaejoong that is) and for one week, he holes himself up in his cramped little apartment, refusing to go out and infect the rest of society with running noses and chills. It’s a boring one week since Yoochun can’t even talk on the phone properly and Jaejoong is much too preoccupied with his so called “appointments” (more like fuck sessions, Junsu thinks without venom) with Changmin so Junsu takes to the streets, trying out simple cons.
Each and every one of them turns out perfect.
-
“You better now?”
“Mehh.” Yoochun twines the cord of his telephone around one finger before letting it spring back to normal. Junsu sounds like giddy sunshine on the other line. “You sound more than better though. Something happen? Are Jaejoong and Changmin going to adopt a puppy together or something?”
“No, that would be more of a catastrophe more than anything but yeah, something did happen.”
Yoochun waits and hmms, ahhs at the appropriate places when Junsu bubbles over with the fact that he’s more or less back to normal now, if shapeshifting was ever considered normal to begin with.
“You’d better get well soon, you won’t believe the kinds of people I’ve met while you were sick. Are sick. Whatever.”
Yoochun puts down the phone with an odd feeling of elation and disappointment at not being able to be there at Junsu’s first successful con in weeks but hearing Junsu this happy kinda makes up for it. It sounds like something Jaejoong would do but Yoochun takes a double dose of his medication, hoping that in some way it’ll make him get well faster.
-
Nine days later and Yoochun isn’t going through a box of tissues a day anymore, Junsu practically bouncing into his arms when they meet.
“Better?”
“Much.”
Junsu wants to go out and eat cake and drink fizzy things in cans and Yoochun complies, doesn’t eat cake though and orders tea instead.
“Doctor’s orders,” he explains almost apologetically but all that means is more cake for Junsu so that’s alright. Later, Junsu takes him to a restaurant a good hour away from the city. “Just in case,” Junsu says as they board the train.
Just in case. Just in case that Junsu’s shift falters again and they have to hightail it out of there before the cops are called. Just in case.
Yoochun is glad they’re one hour away from home because on the way back, it gives him time to keep Junsu next to him long enough to tell him that everything will be okay.
-
“Something is wrong.”
“Well yeah I figured as much when we failed yesterday.”
“Do you feel okay?”
No, Junsu wants to say. Not physically though, just…inside. Like he’s always tired. Like there’s something constantly stirring and distracting him. He doesn’t tell Yoochun that though, Yoochun probably won’t understand. Changmin offers to take a look at him and after a two hour session, all Junsu gets out of it is an earful of useless psychobabble and a three hundred dollar bill that Jaejoong tears up in front of Changmin.
“Something’s wrong with me,” Junsu tells Yoochun over and over again after that until sometimes, even Yoochun starts to believe him.
-
Then one day, Yoochun can’t get through to Junsu on his cell. Jaejoong doesn’t know where Junsu is. Changmin tells Yoochun that he’s crazy to ask him where Junsu might be and hangs up on him. Three days pass and then three weeks and Yoochun still can’t get through to Junsu. Jaejoong still doesn’t know where he is. Changmin tells Yoochun that he’s probably just sulking under a bridge somewhere and tells him not to worry before hanging up.
Four weeks. Five. Six. Jaejoong doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Changmin tells Yoochun that maybe it’s time to move on and get some sleep while he’s at it, Junsu is gone. He doesn’t hang up because Yoochun is crying but seven eight nine ten and Yoochun has taken to hanging up first when Changmin calls.
-
Three months down the line, Changmin has laid off those syphilis jokes and started on chastity ones instead.
“I think I liked you better when you were sleeping around,” Changmin snaps at Yoochun and maybe it’s true, at least that time Yoochun actually knew how to function properly. He mixes a Screwdriver and skimps on the orange juice this time, throwing it back himself.
“I like you, period,” Jaejoong states nonchalantly and Yoochun gives him a White Russian on the house. That’s all he ever seems to be giving out nowadays anyway. Some nights, he’ll see the back of what might be a familiar looking head and those nights, he’ll practically leap over the bar counter and part crowds only to have a stranger stare at him blank faced and ask him “Do I know you?”
Changmin tells him that he has to stop being stupid an just move the fuck on, those people are probably just the people Junsu has leeched his shifts from but Yoochun still manages to piss off one patron every other night trying to make them admit that their name is Junsu.
“I’ll like you more if you stop being like this and go back to how you were when I met you,” Jaejoong starts saying after a while but Yoochun can’t remember how he’d been before that. Besides, it’s not even Jaejoong that he wants.
-
Yoochun is just about ready to close up the bar for the night when someone walks in, sits down at the counter and orders a White Russian. Changmin shoots Yoochun warning glances and Yoochun clams up for once, mixing milk and vodka and ice.
“I thought you knew I wasn’t a White Russian sort of guy.”
A glass is dropped and the floor is stained white, Yoochun staring into Junsu’s face. The sharp angles of the previous guise has melted into softer curves, voice pitched just a little higher. Jaejoong is strutting over to envelope Junsu in a hug and Changmin snorts into his drink, muttering something about insufferable shapeshifting assholes under his breath. Yoochun just stands really, really still.
“I’m sorry,” Junsu says once Jaejoong has removed himself and Changmin out of their immediate vicinity as well. It almost feels like old times, Changmin glaring sharp objects at him and Yoochun fumbling for words. “I shouldn’t have left so suddenly.”
“But you did.”
“That’s why I’m sorry.”
Yoochun almost wishes that he had his vase back too, so that he can throw it at Junsu’s head and kiss it all better later. Junsu is fidgeting in his chair.
“I was scared, you know. For those few weeks. Thinking about how it’d be like if I couldn’t shift anymore, about how I’d have to live without it. But then after a while, it seemed that living with it wasn’t as bad as living without you.”
“You’re such a fuckatard to take that long to realize something that simple,” snarls Changmin from one corner of the room and Jaejoong kisses him to make him shut up.
“I came back though, whenever I thought I-”
“All those times,” Yoochun finally says. “All those times it was you, wasn’t it?”
Changmin is almost livid now and Jaejoong is trying to sit on him, rather enjoying the task.
“Yeah. And all those times, it just got harder to say that no, I don’t know you.”
Junsu holds his hands up in apparent defeat and Yoochun can see that they’re shaking ever so slightly.
“I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because I’m just so damned comfortable being myself around you that my body forgets everything else or maybe you have some kind of defect in you that screws with me but whatever it is, I’m here. And I’m not leaving for anything.”
“I like the sound of that,” Jaejoong says a little dreamily and turns to Changmin who’s struggling underneath him. “Don’t you like that?” A muffled fuck you in response.
“So. Not a shapeshifter anymore, eh?”
Yoochun is throwing a washing rag from hand to hand now, as if trying to keep his own hands too busy to start shaking.
“This is the part where you ask me what I’m going to do with that, right?” Junsu is smiling now and Yoochun is smiling wider.
“Right. You don’t have a job now, do you?”
“Not at this very moment, no.”
“Want to work here?”
Jaejoong sits harder on Changmin and tells him sweetly to not ruin the mood. Yoochun has left the rag alone now and is currently gripping the edges of his counter, smiling wide enough to split his face.
“Sure, why not.”
Junsu’s first task is to kiss the living daylights out of Yoochun.
[fin]
AN- Uhm. I hope everyone liked that? :D Happy New Year~