for every life you've lived 2/3
yoochun/changmin
fluff & angst
pg13
20124 words
part 1
Changmin doesn’t know what to make of the hours this new job is offering but beggars can’t be choosers, right? Or in his case, poor university students can’t be picky.
“So kid, do you want this or not? Honestly, I’m telling you about this just because you seem decent and I’d like the money to go to someone like that.”
Changmin blinks and the job agency man raises an eyebrow, as if implying he hasn’t got all day.
“Look, I know it’s a graveyard shift but the pay is good, you can’t deny that.”
“I suppose you can’t…”Changmin says slowly, still trying not to entertain images of how he’ll look like when he gets off his shift at 6:30am and show up for class at 8. The human part of him winces but ultimately, Changmin’s logic wins out, reminding him how he might not have a class to show up for if he doesn’t take this job.
“1am to 6:30am?” Changmin asks warily one last time and the man places a pen in Changmin’s hand.
“Go for it, kid.”
Changmin signs his name and goes home to go to bed at 4 in the afternoon. His first shift is in nine hours.
-
Changmin has been working here for about a month when he decides sleeping on the job isn’t that taboo as he thought it’d be. No one comes into the convenience store beyond 1am anyway and those that do are usually few, far in between and desperate. Like that girl who had practically flung money in his face before running off with a box of tampons the other day, or the half drunk frat boy groping around for condoms at the back of the store, knocking over boxes of crackers and dispensable shaver. Counting out the occasional fellow student wandering in here in search of canned coffee, Changmin pretty much has the store entirely to himself on most mornings.
There are trashy magazines aplenty to keep him occupied but even those run out after two weeks, Changmin having read enough of celebrity scandals and alien sightings to last him a lifetime. In desperation , Changmin had resorted to calling his sister to keep himself awake.
“Why don’t you sleep like the rest of us normal people?” she had whined and hung up on him after about four half arsed sentences. “I don’t even know why we’re related.”
It’s around this point that Changmin actually decides to listen to his sister and Changmin finds that it’s not that hard to ignore the fact that he’s getting paid to sleep, Changmin usually lasting until maybe 2am before he ends up with his head buried in his arms, dozing on the counter top.
-
When Yoochun decides to start cutting short Changmin’s life again, Changmin is falling asleep over an outdated issue of HELLO. The bell above the door jingles as Yoochun walks in and Changmin startles awake at the sound. There’s a slightly sloppily dressed man stalking towards him and for a moment, in Changmin’s sleep addled confusion, Changmin thinks he’s going to get robbed but the man just asks him for a pack of cigarettes, 20s please.
“We’ve only got Marlboro,” Changmin somehow manages out around a yawn, clamping his mouth shut immediately after in half embarrassment. The man doesn’t seem to mind and Changmin is just about to go back to sleep again after counting out the man’s change when he realizes the man is still standing at the counter, carefully inspecting his pack of smokes.
“Did I miscalculate?” Changmin asks cautiously, feeling more and more like this is one of those new robbery scheme things with each passing second.
“Eh?”
“The change, I meant did I count it wrong? I did give you your change back, right?”
“No and yes, you did. Don’t worry, you can go back to sleep, really, I’m just going to have a smoke.”
Changmin makes as if to ask “In here?” but catches himself in time, realizing for the first time that there aren’t any No Smoking signs in the shop.
“Do you mind?” the stranger asks as he pulls out a stick and Changmin shakes his head, getting the feeling that the man was still going to light up regardless of whatever his answer would have been.
“It’s too cold outside to go home just yet so-” The stranger pauses to flip a lighter open and the end of his cigarette burns easy “-I’ll just keep you company for now.” He looks at Changmin after he replaces his lighter. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Changmin settles back into his seat behind the counter and watches the man make a slow round of the convenience store, blowing smoke at the ceiling every now and then. He switches to smoke rings when he comes full circle and ends up in front of Changmin again, leaning against the counter with his back to Changmin. By now, Changmin is convinced that there’s some sort of art to smoking, the inhale exhale rhythm in perfect sync.
“You don’t smoke?” the man asks after a while, Changmin just about to fall asleep watching the puffs of smoke drift away from him.
“Nope.” Not that Changmin has a problem with it or anything though, he has friends who do it all the time, nicotine actually quite the staple among students trying to keep calm while chasing down a paper due in two hours.
“Wanna try? Not trying to make you into a bad kid but having a smoke in your hand does help make the time go faster if you’re stuck in here.” The man waves at the store’s surroundings with a new cigarette from the pack before handing it to Changmin, who takes it. “By the way, I’m Yoochun.”
-
So that’s how Changmin ends up a social smoker and slightly interested in this Yoochun person, who comes in almost every night looking for cigarettes and sometimes a beer to go with it.
“How can you drink that when it’s zero degrees outside?”
Yoochun just pops the cap and takes a swig, alternating between cigarette and beer every now and then. “With this fuckass weather we’re having, how can you not? You’re legal, right?”
Changmin looks miffed at this and Yoochun just laughs it off, smiling at Changmin over the top of his bottle. “Kidding, kidding. Why kids these days are so concerned about looking more than their age I’ll never know, just wait till you wish someone would mistake you for someone younger.”
“You aren’t that old yourself,” Changmin retorts and Yoochun looks positively gleeful at this.
“See? Case in point, me. I’m not as young as you think I am, kid. And don’t ask me how old I am, that’d just be impolite.”
“How old are you?”
Yoochun throws Changmin a look that Changmin returns twofold, as if to say “Hey, I’m a kid, remember?”
“You won’t believe me if I told you,” Yoochun says darkly and no amount of pleading from Changmin will make him say anything more on the subject.
-
Now Changmin can’t remember anymore when he had actually begun looking forward to his shifts but he’s pretty sure that it had started sometime after Yoochun showed up. Over time, the weather stops being insane and it’s possible for them to move out of the store and onto the sidewalk curb instead, Yoochun proclaiming the store to be too claustrophobic for anything to be done right.
“What would you possibly want to do in a store other than buy stuff?”
“I dunno. Talk? Like what we were doing earlier.”
Changmin isn’t ashamed to admit that he likes having Yoochun around, heck he’d even go as far as to say that he might even like Yoochun. The older man doesn’t seem to have any need to sleep at regular hours and whenever Changmin prods him about this, Yoochun always says something horrendously cheesy like how good company will always negate the need for sleep.
“Only if the company is really, really good,” Yoochun had said seriously and Changmin actually felt something warm flare in his chest. Blame the lack of sleep and stress of oncoming datelines. Either that or the fact that Yoochun was one of the few lucky people who didn’t look like something the cat dragged in after 3am in the morning. In any case, Yoochun is good to be around and Changmin eventually finds himself not getting paid to man the counter or even sleep, rather, he’s getting paid to fall very slowly in love with this oddball stranger known as Yoochun.
-
“I don’t feel like doing it,” Yoochun says flatly as Jaejoong opens one eye almost lazily against the pale light. It’s something like late evening outside Yoochun’s house but no one is ever sure of what the exact time is, hours not confined to the normal definition here. “It feels cruel.”
“Says the person who has killed oh, I don’t know, maybe thirty thousand people by now?”
“Well did any of the alleged thirty thousand actually like me back?”
Jaejoong ponders this for a while and Yoochun sighs, says “For the record, there have been none.”
“I knew that. But still, does your not feeling like doing the job only have to do with Changmin?”
“If you’re implying again that I’m-”
Jaejoong grins and stretches luxuriously, tips of his fingers fading in and out as cat claws as he does. “So what if I am? It wouldn’t bother you so much if you were sure it didn’t hold any truth at all.”
Yoochun grunts in response and Jaejoong looks almost victorious.
-
Changmin isn’t just ready to admit it to himself, sometimes he thinks he’s almost ready to admit it to Yoochun as well. They’ve been seeing each other four nights out of seven in a week for a few months now and despite how Changmin knows the most inane details about Yoochun’s life (he has a cat named Jaejoong, which is apparently a by-word by asshole in Yoochun’s books), it feels like there’s so much more he can’t touch. Again, Changmin feels like blaming his lack of sleep for this barely plausible theory but he knows it has more to do with his penchant for watching reruns of old-school romances more than anything, mind telling him that maybe, just maybe if they were…y’know, together (Changmin’s logical side still recoiled at the sight of that word) then things wouldn’t seem so unattainable.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Yoochun asks him one morning when Changmin is particularly engrossed in this idea of his and Changmin snaps out of it with a sigh.
“Maybe a hundred and I’ll consider dropping hints.”
“It has to do with me?”
“Only someone as self centered as you would imagine something like that, but yeah, for the record, it’s something to do with you.”
Yoochun looks pleased at this and graciously glosses over Changmin’s playful barb. “So, you going to tell me what you were thinking about or do I have to give you a dollar?”
Changmin looks thoughtful, trying to find some sort of convincing way to not blurt out highly embarrassing confessions to Yoochun and it’s miraculous in the way he suddenly remembers he has never asked Yoochun about his job. “I’ve known you for four months now and you know what?”
“What? You’re irrevocably in love with me?”
It’s harder to laugh off than Changmin thinks but he manages, somehow. “You wish. No, actually I was just thinking, you’ve never told me what you work as.”
There’s silence from Yoochun’s part and Changmin finds this unfounded fear blossoming in his chest. It’s just a normal question but for some reason, right now, it feels like something horribly inappropriate to bring up.
“If you don’t wanna tell me then it’s okay, I just-”
Yoochun punches him in the shoulder before Changmin can even finish his sentence and Changmin is relieved to find the moment has passed, Yoochun back to himself again.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Yoochun says seriously. “Really.”
“Really? What are you, a spy? Spiderman?”
Yoochun shrugs and Changmin keeps on guessing, getting further and further off the mark each time. It’s not too easy on his part when his nearest possible correct answer is “Batman”, seeing how people generally don’t believe superheroes and reapers of death exist in real life but Changmin doesn’t need to know that.
“Can I somehow tempt you to give up and stop embarrassing yourself?”
“Depends.”
“Well…” Yoochun looks away for a moment and Changmin can feel tendrils of that previous, slightly awkward moment creeping back into the surroundings. “Tell me, Changmin, do you think you’d be able to swap shifts with someone next Tuesday?”
Changmin is puzzled at this and wants to start asking why when Yoochun looks back at him, completely serious look on his face. “I’m asking this because I want to show you what I do.”
“Your job?”
“More or less. Meet me for dinner and I’ll show you.”
If Changmin had any doubts about the shift thing earlier, they’re instantly gone by now. It feels like a mini victory in Changmin’s books, finally getting Yoochun to tell, or rather show, him something not borderline inane in his life. Something concrete, important. Something like his job. Even the dinner date pales in comparison with the fact that Changmin had finally gotten to wrench something like this out of Yoochun.
“So?” Yoochun asks and Changmin is pretty sure he can coerce the employee before him to take his shift, bribery looking like the way to go. Maybe a nice six pack of beer…
“It’s a date.”
“Wasn’t someone saying something about not being in love with me?”
“Assume what you want then,” Changmin answers, betraying a little too much happiness but thinking nothing of it. “You’ll know if I really am, though.”
-
On Tuesday, Changmin skips his afternoon classes to be in the store from late evening. It’s a bit daunting to finally find out how busy the store usually is but Changmin moves through the shift without so much as a minor speed bump. The customers pay in exact change, they smile at him and Changmin is just generally having one heck of a good day. The prospect of meeting Yoochun outside his shift also moves his mood up a few notches and when the last customer to walk in during Changmin’s shift pulls out a gun at him, Changmin first thought is “This is just a really unfunny joke.”
Yoochun is supposed to meet Changmin for dinner before heading off to his supposed job but if Changmin were to walk into the restaurant at 8:30pm, he’d find that Yoochun already has a dining mate in the form of a black haired man with almost too fine features. Yoochun will address this man as Jaejoong and Changmin, were he to listen to the conversation, would be highly confused, seeing how Jaejoong is supposed to be Yoochun’s cat.
“I did it,” Yoochun says and Jaejoong has his hands wrapped around a mug of horribly overpriced milk with honey. “Again.”
“You’re a regular Britney Spears, aren’t you? Without the oops, I suppose.”
Yoochun shoots Jaejoong a dark look but the cat demon doesn’t seem concerned, instead swiftly changing topics.
“I got Yunho to go down there today though, if that makes any difference. Give your Changmin a good day, at least, before…” Jaejoong trails off as the sound of sirens wailing grow and fade out in the street. “Before that, I think.”
Yoochun checks his watch and his face falls a little. 7:30. Changmin’s shift should have just ended and he should have gotten off, if not for the fact that he had been shot twice in the chest by an over-nervous man robbing his first store. Yoochun should know all this, he had actually overlapped with Junsu’s job on this one, Junsu making sure the robber’s mother was hooked up to life support for a pitiful amount of days before pulling the plug, leaving the man without family and enough money left over from treatment to feed himself.
“So, are sirs ready to order?”
The waiter hovers near their table and Yoochun flips unenthusiastically through his menu, finding himself thinking of Changmin all the while. Jaejoong orders the fish in white sauce.
-
“You’ve got to be kidding me, again?”
Jaejoong flaps the piece of paper in Yoochun’s face and Yoochun already knows what’s written on it. These days, he’s not even sure why he bothers with the burning, it’s like Changmin’s name is permanently tattooed on the fibers of the paper.
“Why don’t you tell me, you’re the one who burnt it.”
Jaejoong scrunches the slip into a little ball before trying to light it again, Yoochun watching him disinterestedly.
“I’ve tried that before you know. Tearing it doesn’t work either. That and stomping on it.”
“If I swallowed it?” Jaejoong offers helpfully. “It won’t kill me or anything, right?”
“You can try?”
But Jaejoong isn’t serious about the eating part, just sits and stares at the paper like it’s some kind of horribly deformed baby. Yoochun doesn’t even want to discuss the matter any further, the idea of having to meet Changmin yet again and then kill him after turning his mood quite sour.
“This is just starting to get freaky.”
“Tell me about it.”
In the end, Yoochun sighs as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders and pockets the slip, getting up to start his next job. There’s an accident to oversee in central China, circa 2001 and after that, a crib death in Hawaii. Busy, busy day and the last thing he needed was the impending idea of meeting Changmin again.
“Like I said, at least he’s good looking, right?” Jaejoong calls after Yoochun as he walks out the house. Yoochun slams the door behind him.
-
“So you’re my new stylist,” Changmin says slowly and Yoochun nods enthusiastically. “And my usual one can’t come because…”
“Because she’s stuck in traffic.” Well actually to be more specific, she was stuck in traffic caused by a massive pile up on the freeway, courtesy of Heechul having the time of his life but Yoochun figures Changmin doesn’t need to know too many details. “It’s pretty bad, so the agency called me to fill in.”
“I see.”
Changmin looks skeptical for a moment but when his manager barges into the room at the next moment screaming bloody murder about the gig starting in an hour and demanding to know why the fuck Changmin isn’t in make-up yet, Changmin decides to let it go. At the very least, Yoochun doesn’t seem like some rabid fan in disguise and even if he was…Changmin sneaks a look at Yoochun’s face from his chair, taking in the perfectly styled hair and steady look in his eyes. Well at least he’s a good looking one.
-
Yoochun works with all the hints of a seasoned professional, not talking as he tilts Changmin’s head this way and that to get the foundation colour just right under all different light angles. Changmin finds that he doesn’t mind the quietness, taking it as a welcome break from his usual stylist’s non-stop chatter about how this colour shade would look so good on him oh if only she had more artistic freedom, why did popstars need to confine to cookie-cutter images, Changmin really needs to take a bit of time out of his schedule to let her experiment, what with his brilliantly high cheekbones and face structure and etc. etc.
“Thinking about someone?” Yoochun asks close to his ear as he bends down to tease out a particularly stubborn lock of hair and it’s only then that Changmin realizes he had been half smiling to himself. He quickly smoothens his features into a blank slate again, embarrassed, but Yoochun hasn’t even seemed to notice, back turned to grope around for a bottle of hairspray.
“My usual stylist,” Changmin says when Yoochun turns back with it in hand.
“Ah.”
Changmin waits for the expected follow-up question but surprisingly, it never comes. Yoochun seems to be really be every bit as disinterested as he had put himself out to be earlier, more focused on Changmin’s hair than Changmin himself. Well. Changmin slid his eyes shut, feigning sleep. That was surprising. Now Changmin wouldn’t call himself cocky or self-centered even but it was just that after so many years in the business, anything that wasn’t short of stunned awe at being in the same room as him caught him unawares. Even his usual stylist would occasionally hound him for a signature or photo to send to some star struck relative but Yoochun…
“Would you mind moving your head just a little to the right?”
Changmin obliges, eyes still closed and a smile creeping back onto his lips.
Yoochun blessedly doesn’t comment on this.
-
After the show, Changmin’s manager drags him into the confines of their company van to do their usual review the entire set online. It had been a slightly obsessive habit of Changmin’s in the first few years after his debut, to anonymously stalk the web for comments on himself and whatever performance he had just delivered and now, despite how he really didn’t need to know how some pre-teen across the world wanted to do the nasty to him, his manager still insisted on the tradition.
“Keeps you on your toes, knowing the public’s opinion,” he had said and Changmin had retorted something along the lines of “You mean keeps me from sleeping at night from all the nightmares.”
Tonight, his manager is scanning the forums while Changmin sips mineral water, pretending to be listening to every read-out comment. So far so good, with the usual one or two “Shim Changmin and his fans should die” thrown in here and there. In all, another satisfying show.
“So what do you think about switching stylists?”
Changmin accidentally spills a splash of water on himself, startled out of his complacency by the curveball question. “Eh? Whatever for?”
His manager sighs and snaps the laptop shut, handing Changmin a tissue out of his messenger bag to soak up the mess. “As usual, I take that you didn’t hear a single word I read out. Changmin, the fans loved your new concept tonight, the whole outfit and hair thing.”
“Oh really now. That’s nice.” Changmin mindlessly dabs at a spot on his shirt. “Give the stylist a bonus or something then. Buy him a box of chocolates.”
“I’m hiring him.”
“But how about Heather-noona?”
“What about her.” His manager is already engrossed in the contacts folder of his phone, desperately looking up the name of Yoochun’s agency so he can book him for the day after tomorrow’s fanmeeting.
Changmin pauses mid-dab, as if wanting to say something but the look on his manager’s face is final.
“If you’re that worried about her, we’ll give her a referral and send her somewhere nice,” his manager says disinterestedly over the sound of his dial tone and Changmin just shrugs, feigning a couldn’t-care-less attitude. Showbiz is showbiz is nowhere to be attached to anyone or anything but some part of Changmin still feels a pang of guilt. Heather noona had been nice to him all this while but at least a referral from his company would get her pretty much anywhere she wanted to go.
“Yes, hello? This is Lee Moon Chung from Starmic Entertainment, can I please speak to-”
Changmin tunes out the rest as their driver gets into the van. It’s filled instantly with the stench of stale cigarettes.
“Home?” he asks as he starts the engine, looking over his shoulder beyond Changmin to reverse.
“Home.”
By the time Changmin is dropped at his front door, he has a certain Park Yoochun as his new stylist for Wenesday.
-
“You like touching him, don’t you?”
Yoochun throws a pair of scissors at Jaejoong without looking up from his newspaper and the latter darts away, laughing all the while, saying highly inappropriate sounding things about how Yoochun would be able to get his hands in places only doctors were allowed to see.
“You’re disgusting.”
“But right, don’t forget that.”
Jaejoong retrieves the scissors from under the coffee table and goes to sit but Yoochun, snipping at a part of his newspaper. There’s Changmin’s face splashed across the entertainment section.
“I’m just a stylist,” Yoochun says slowly as Jaejoong starts working on snipping off the top of Changmin’s head. “And anyways, this won’t be a long job so it’s not like anything will be any different.”
“Other than the fact that you’ll fall more in love with this Shim Changmin soul.”
Snip. Changmin’s head falls onto Yoochun’s lap but he doesn’t even notice, too busy pretending to be engrossed in the headlines.
“Stop avoiding your feelings,” Jaejoong continues on sagely and sticks the scissors sharp end down into a nearby cushion. Yoochun sighs at the sound but doesn’t make a move to stop the cat demon from destroying his new apartment furniture. He’d set himself up somewhere nice for this particular outing, if only to have a nicer place to crash at between seeing Changmin and reaping other souls but Jaejoong currently doesn’t seem to understand the importance of nice things staying nice-looking. When he pulls the scissors out, down feathers come fluttering out.
“I don’t have any feelings to avoid.”
“You wouldn’t know those feelings if they raped you in broad daylight.”
“See, you’re just contradicting yourself right there.”
“Oh?” Jaejoong pulls the pair of scissors out of the cushion, causing down feathers to follow after in a flurry of dusty white. “Not knowing your feelings doesn’t equate to not having any, just so you know.”
Yoochun moves on this to next article, still quite intent on ignoring Jaejoong but the latter keeps blowing feathers into his face until Yoochun rolls his paper up and hits Jaejoong on the hand with it, eliciting a sharp snarl.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“For being a nuisance, that’s what. Why are you so desperate for me to admit I’m head over heels for Changmin anyways?”
Jaejoong’s eyes narrow and now, with his teeth half bared and hand cradled close to his chest, he looks more cat-like than ever. “For starters, you’ve changed since you’ve met this Changmin. I don’t like it.” If Yoochun had expected it to sound whiny, it didn’t in the slightest. Rather, Jaejoong stated the obvious like the facts they were.
“Changed?” Yoochun unrolls his newspaper and goes back to it, Jaejoong flexing his hand carefully. “Changed how?”
“You’re difficult to be around with, you always want to be alone, whenever you’re insisting about how you’re not in love with Changmin you’re pondering about why you’re always getting him, every second of every moment it’s either you being an asshole or it’s something or other about Changmin. Should I call Heechul up to give a testimony too?”
There’s silence from behind the newspaper.
“And in any case, why are you so desperate to not admit you like Changmin? Is it such a bad thing to be in love?”
“When you’re a reaper…” Yoochun begins but Jaejoong waves him off with a flippant “Fuck that, I know if you want something badly enough you, Park Yoochun, will go all out to get it.”
“Things are different when I want a chocolate bar, Jaejoong.”
“Man, chocolate bar, same thing.”
Jaejoong looks quite pleased with himself over his little conclusion and eventually, he leaves Yoochun alone to go find Yunho and tell him about how he’s like chocolate. Without Jaejoong around, the penthouse is almost devastatingly quiet. Yoochun finds he can’t read anything beyond the title of every news article, what with everything Jaejoong had said bouncing around in his head.
Actually, so what if he actually liked Changmin? Who was going to judge him for liking a human? Okay well maybe Heechul would but that’s just besides the point. And going back to it, so what if this is something new and scary and Yoochun is loathe to admit that he’s thinking about Changmin more than he should. Yoochun sets his newspaper down and presses his fists into his eyes, Changmin smiling at him from behind his eyelids.
So what if he had to kill Changmin every now and then between bouts of slightly irrational love? What’s that thing that humans like saying so much? It’s not the end but the journey? By the time Yoochun opens his eyes, it’s exactly 24 hours to Wednesday.
-
Changmin doesn’t quite know what to make of Yoochun today. If “cool and suave” had been Yoochun’s personal concept the last time they’d met, today would have been a step down from then. Maybe more like “trying desperately not to seem overexcited and pulling it off”? Changmin really, really doesn’t know and it bothers him. Yoochun is humming under his breath as he works, something rollicking and happy that Changmin is certain isn’t from this century.
“You like classical music?”
Yoochun reaches for an eyeliner pen on the table and Changmin obediently lifts his head out of habit. “It’s Baroque era actually but yeah, classical.”
“Funny how you’re working here then.”
“Indeed. It’s not bad though, your music. It’s not something I would usually enjoy but it still works.”
“Thanks. Most of it isn’t mine anyways, just stuff the company buys and makes me regurgitate.”
“Stuff sells, you should be happy.”
Yoochun starts on fixing Changmin’s outfit next, making him stand so he can check for loose buttons or open zips. Changmin would have felt intimidated to have someone else’s hands on him but Yoochun doesn’t give time for Changmin to feel awkward, directing him into different poses and asking Changmin things Heather noona wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole.
“So you’re saying that this isn’t actually the kind of music you want to make.”
“Did I ever say I want to make music?”
Yoochun has his hands on Changmin’s shoulders, trying to make the fabric not puff up too much whenever Changmin brings his arms towards himself.
“That’s pretty dangerous, coming from someone like you.”
“You don’t seem like the kind who would kiss and tell to the gossip rags.”
“This hardly constitutes as a kiss, but I’ll just take that as a complement. Thanks.”
By the time Yoochun is done, Changmin is feeling a little more at ease but still, underneath it all, there’s still this feeling of discontent at not knowing how Yoochun really is like. Most people would have clammed up or tried horribly hard to be impressive when faced with any star but in Yoochun’s case, it just feels like he’s standing a little to the side, watching everyone else trip over their shoes trying to fit in.
“Have a good show,” Yoochun says by means of a goodbye and it’s almost when Changmin is halfway out the door that Yoochun adds a flippant sounding “I’ll see you later.” Changmin dreamwalks through his fanmeet trying to remember what his manager had said earlier about the next schedule date.
-
Two months down the line. By now, Yoochun has travelled over half the continent as part of the entourage, gotten into petty fights with Changmin over which way his hair should fall, made up before they’re both due for the next tour stop and seen Changmin in various states of undress. Admittedly, the last part has proved to be much more fun than the ones before but Yoochun isn’t ready to back down to Jaejoong just quite yet.
“Denial, denial, denial,” Jaejoong whispers in his ear when Yoochun is alone in his hotel room and the former is making a nuisance of himself as usual. “Would you like me to throw you a life line as you flounder about in the river of denial?”
“I’d take a life if you have a spare.”
Yoochun pours himself a drink from the minibar and throws Jaejoong a carton of milk while he’s at it, Jaejoong turning his nose up at strawberry.
“Got chocolate?”
“No.”
They sit in silence, each with his respective drink. Yoochun finds that he doesn’t fight back quite as hard these days whenever Jaejoong brings up the topic about Changmin. Either that or it’s just getting harder to do it, Yoochun getting lazier. Changmin staying the same throughout.
“Were you serious about the life thing?” Jaejoong finally says to break the silence. He’s sitting with the milk carton half balanced on his knee, one cardboard side leaning against the armrest. “You aren’t, right?”
Yoochun just stares into the amber depths of his glass.
“Oh gods, you are. You’re-”
“I’m not anything, stop jumping to conclusions,” Yoochun snaps but he knows he’s already triggered it, Jaejoong starting to babble about how Yoochun can go love and canoodle all the humans he wants but to leave Jaejoong? Leave Jaejoong?! Well that was just beyond-
Yoochun tunes out the ranting demon and thinks about what he’s just said. It had started out as a jibe, really, the whole life thing but the more he turns it over in his mind, the more it feels like there’s actually some sort of plan in there. Either that or it’s just the alcohol starting to kick in but either way, Yoochun is sure he’s heard of things like this before. Saving lives instead of reaping them, something like a twisted version of Yunho if you please.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Not really,” Yoochun admits and Jaejoong looks even more offended than he already is. “By the way, can you get Yunho here by any chance?”
Jaejoong’s face instantly brightens at the mention of Yunho but it takes a little more milk and promises to listen next time to actually get him moving.
-
“So you want to do that?”
Yoochun tilts his head as he thinks, Yunho infinitely patient in front of him. “I wouldn’t say I’m going to do it but just…theoretically. Hypothetically even. Yeah, I want to.”
“…but why?”
Yunho rolls his shoulders back, stretching his wings a little as Yoochun ponders this question now, that and the fact how Jaejoong managed to shack up with someone the complete opposite of himself. If Jaejoong is a spiky ball of fizzling, bad karma-tinged energy, Yunho is a serene, kind-hearted orb of heavensent light. Maybe opposites really did attract or something.
“Jaejoong tells me you like this Changmin soul,” Yunho prompts gently and Yoochun sighs, Yunho smiling as he does. “Yeah, that’s the way I feel about Jaejoong too sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“…okay most of the time. But we’re talking about you now, not Jaejoong.”
“I don’t…really know, actually. Like I said, everything is just hypothetical. If I like him, if I want to do this, if I’m actually going to do it. All ifs.”
“That’s a lot of ifs.”
“I know, right?” Yoochun goes back to looking gloomy again. “This isn’t something I’ve ever dealt with before.”
“I can tell. But I think you can try and get rid of that most important if? If you like him. Why do you say if, Yoochun? If it’s because you don’t know, why not make an effort to find out?”
Yoochun stays quiet at this and Yunho makes another one of his knowing sounds.
“If that’s the case, then I’m going to help you. Park Yoochun, how often do you find yourself thinking about Changmin?”
“More than I should but that’s mostly Jaejoong’s fault.”
“Good, see? We’re making progress.” Yunho blatantly ignores the stab at Jaejoong and moves on. “Okay, so that aside, how often do you find yourself wanting to see Changmin?”
“…quite a bit. It’s not because I like him you see, it’s because I need to make sure he doesn’t-”
Yunho gestures at Yoochun to stop and he does, looking a bit embarrassed.
“We’ll go more into that later, don’t worry. Well then. So how do you feel around Changmin?”
“Is this some kind of interrogation that Jaejoong put you up to because-”
“Answer the question, Yoochun.”
Yoochun snaps his mouth shut and bites his lower lip as he thinks.
“Ok fine, comfortable, I feel comfortable around him. But it’s also killing me you see, how no matter what happens, things will end up the way they usually do and I’ll be the reason. And still…I can’t seem to…” Yoochun trails off, suddenly realizing just how much he’s babbling. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be, I’m friends with Jaejoong remember? Rambling is something I hear every day.” Yunho steeples his fingers together with a smile, looking straight at Yoochun as he does. “Well Yoochun, on the bright side, I’ve figured out your most important if.”
“And?”
“You don’t like Changmin, Yoochun.” Yoochun’s face goes unreadable at this while Yunho’s merely stays thoughtful. “No, not at all. Congratulations, I think you love him.”
part 3