Necromantically 1/2
Title: Necromantically
Rating PG
Pairing: Homin
Genre: AU; Necromancy
Warnings: Suicide
Summary: Fifty years later, Shim Changmin is still that boy who dangled from a rafter in a fit of poor judgement and maybe a bit of desperation, still looks exactly how he did when he was eighteen, except with an astronomically improved upon sense of style.
The day Changmin finds out he's immortal is the day he most wants to die. He’s eighteen, he’s fed up with his wreck of a life, he’s got nothing by his side- no friend, no enemy, no dreams, no life. He stands on the edge of his bed, gripping the tie looped around his neck that leads to a rafter, and his heart is pounding so hard. Tears dance on his lashes, quivering with his trembles and everything is so useless it’s suffocating.
His socked feet slip off the edge of his bed and the rafter creaks and he dangles, feet kicking.
He’s stopped kicking ten minutes later, and stares at himself in his mirror as he slowly turns back and forth. At first, it was everything he had imagined. The shock of watching himself choke was horrifying, but after ten minutes, he's gotten almost bored. He gives up and swings until he can step back onto his bed, the pressure of the tie letting up. He pulls it off and looks at his reflection again, cheeks wet and grey but otherwise physically identical to the him of ten minutes before. Mentally, though, Changmin’s mind is racing. He’s still alive. He couldn’t manage to die. He feels a sudden shift in the world. His apathy, once so suffocating, once such a weight on his frame, is now nowhere to be seen.
Changmin can’t die.
Changmin feels his lips curl into a smile.
Fifty years later, Shim Changmin is still that boy who dangled from a rafter in a fit of poor judgement and maybe a bit of desperation, still looks exactly how he did when he was eighteen, except with an astronomically improved upon sense of style. He’s adjusted well to his new forever life, too, wrapped in a Christian Dior suit with a Hermes in his pocket and Ferragamos on his feet.
He’s currently in between jobs. The old man he’s played escort for during the past seven years has just passed away, secretly leaving him a considerable amount of money. He left the estate before the widow could find out. He’d miss her- they got along well, both paid for their respective services by a man who could afford them. However, she was younger as well, and he had no desire to argue over money with her.
Now he’s at an impasse. It wasn’t really a matter of money, anymore, Changmin’s got enough of that. He made some very smart investments a few decades ago that keep him well, well above into what he considers a comfortable standard of living. This time around, he’s truly aimless. He’s not sure what he should occupy his time with.
There’s a small, bright diner on the corner, a shining beacon in the dark of the early evening. Changmin heads towards it on a whim. A full stomach is just what he needs at the moment, and the diner is a nice change of pace from the catered perfection of private chefs. He's got a good feeling about the place, too. Maybe he'll work there for a year or two. He’s ridiculously overdressed, but he’s beyond caring what the general population thinks of him after fifty years. He has no worries about attracting the wrong kind of attention. He’d like to see someone try to hurt him. After all, he still hasn’t figured out how to die.
During his extensive lifespan, Changmin’s been stabbed, hit, run over, pushed, crushed, sliced, and pounded. Each time, he would shakily get up, sans a few body parts, gather his pieces, and after a good night’s sleep, find himself perfectly fine. He has no clue about the chemistry behind it. He does eat quite a lot, sometimes as many as ten large meals throughout the day.
The weirder side effect is that he can bring other things back to life, as well. If he scooped up an unfortunately still baby bird on the sidewalk, it would begin chirping within moments, warm in his hands. He and his dog had been clipped by a swerving semi-truck once, along a deserted road. He had clutched her to his chest, screaming with his first real loss, before he felt her wiggle in his arms. She licked his bloody face, and they stumbled home to collapse in a deep sleep.
Changmin spent years in libraries, searching for answers. He doesn’t find any until a warm day in spring, when a man dies in front of him. The man stands up, wobbling a bit, before glancing around suspiciously. Black eyes fall on Changmin, and the man smiles, before lurching towards him and dragging him into an alley.
There’s others like him, it turns out, a whole bunch who watch the obituaries very closely, who seem to be at the scene of every accident, who are employed by the government to accompany high profile figures for unclear reasons.
They’re called Necromancers, and they keep things alive. They resurrect, they wake the dead, and, most notably, they cannot stay dead, except by one specific cause of death- whatever originally killed them. It’s a necromancer’s most well-kept secret, and Changmin doubts anyone else on Earth knows that he once tried to hang himself. It makes him confident, assured that his immortal life will remain such.
He meets other necromancers. Some of them like him, and some of them don’t. Some of them try to teach him, shape him into unearthly competence. He’s content with his mostly human life, though, and stays on the edges of the network they form. He doesn’t agree to any of the jobs the network offers. Some of the necromancers around his city call him childish, immature. To this he shrugs and turns his shoulder on them. He lets them think it’s immaturity, ah, to be forever eighteen, and there’s nothing he can do about it if they want to hold that against him.
The bigger reason- the reason why he avoids the jobs he’s offered, the reason why other necromancers leave him alone for the most part- is because Changmin has never raised a human. It makes him almost worthless, a product of poor, mortal upbringing and a lack of ambition.
He doesn’t care.
Born alone, die alone. Changmin is happy just living how he wants.
The diner is nearly empty, except for a guy at the counter and the raucous shouts of some guy in the kitchen. There’s no server in sight, so he grabs a menu from the stand and sits down at a random booth. The menu is simple, but he takes his time reading it. He thinks he’ll get one of everything.
Yunho’s tired. He’s on the tail end of a wait shift that started at 5 AM, and though he’s still cheerful, he feels his energy flagging. When Sungmin comes in around 6 PM, he pulls Yunho aside and hands him a mug of the good coffee, telling him to take his last fifteen minute break and go. Yunho takes a seat at the far end of the counter and drinks the coffee gratefully. He’s barely sat for ten minutes before the door chimes open. He groans and makes to turn around, but Sungmin waves a hand from the kitchen, telling him to stay put.
He eavesdrops a little when Sungmin goes to take the customer’s order. Five minutes later, he’s just holding his coffee as he listens, motionless, and Donghae has stuck his head out from the kitchen, a murderous expression on his face. The guy is literally listing off at least three quarters of the small menu, with choices of sides and random drinks thrown in here and there.
Donghae mouths ‘is he serious’ at Yunho, and Yunho finally stands up and turns to save Sungmin from what is obviously a practical joke.
But the customer who’s now looking at him curiously is nothing like any of the regulars. His suit alone probably costs more than Yunho’s rent for a year, his shoes look like he just bought them, his hair is impeccably styled, and he also looks like he can’t be out of college yet.
The customer tilts his head, eyeing Yunho up and down.
“Is there a problem?” he asks politely, widening his brown eyes so they’re huge.
Yunho’s never seen someone attempt ‘puppy dog eyes’ outside of movies, mostly because he hangs out with people who aren't cartoons, but now he can safely put that milestone behind him.
“Just...uh,” Yunho regains his bearings. “You really need to call in an order that big. There’s no way Hae can make all that in a reasonable amount of time. It won’t even fit on the table.”
Sungmin nods. The guy has the nerve to look surprised.
“Oh...sorry,” he says, looking at the table.
Yunho’s trying to read him. He’s not displaying the kind of entitlement that some customers dangle over the heads of waitstaff- the guy sounds genuinely upset, like he’s not used to the protocol of eating in normal, crappy diners. Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s one of those kids who are so rich they’ve never done things like eat in normal, crappy diners.
Sungmin looks at Yunho like ‘well?’. The guy looks at him like 'please feed me'.
“What can I order? Like...how much...can you make?” he asks.
Yunho stares at the guy hard.
“Really? Really,” Donghae says irritably from behind them. Sure enough, he’s hanging out of the kitchen, hand on his hip. “How about this- the seafood stew is gigantic. Groups of five barely finish it. I guarantee you won’t be able to eat all of it. If you do...well, I owe you another.”
“...that sounds good,” the guy says with an excited look on his face. “I like seafood.”
Sungmin squints suspiciously at him, then slants a look at Yunho.
“Um...if he can’t finish, I guess I’ll help?” Yunho offers.
Yunho ends up sitting at the table with the guy anyways. He learns his name is Changmin, and he’s just quit his (very well-paying) job. When Sungmin sets the huge pan on the burner at the table, Yunho learns that Changmin does eat a lot, to the point where he must spend a large part of his income on groceries, because he’s eating like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. It’s fascinating, the enthusiasm Changmin has in fishing for the mussels and little pieces of fish cake. Yunho discretely examines his own stew, wondering if he’s been doing it wrong his entire life or something.
To Donghae’s complete disbelief, Changmin does finish the pan, mostly by himself. He rainchecks on the second one, and seems to be completely distracted by Yunho. Yunho tests this theory by doing little, boring things, like checking his phone, and sure enough, Changmin is practically entranced by the mundane motions.
It gets kind of weird now that Changmin’s not busy with his food, and Yunho finally asks if he’s done.
“Oh, yes, for now, I guess,” Changmin says with absolutely no decisiveness, and Yunho calls Sungmin over.
“Anything else? Or would you like the check?” Sungmin asks.
“No, that’ll be it. And since I caused trouble, here,” Changmin says, pulling out a very expensive wallet. He holds way too much money out to Sungmin. “Hopefully that’s enough.”
While Sungmin stares down at the wad of bills, Changmin turns back to Yunho. “Can we get coffee together? I’ll pay.”
Sungmin drops the money back on the table. “I don’t even think I can make change for this. You have a card, right?”
Changmin looks thoughtful. “You could keep it all, if you want.”
Yunho shakes his head. “No, you can't- we can’t just take a ton of extra money.”
“Why not,” Changmin says under his breath, but pulls out a card- black and matte- and hangs it to Sungmin.
Yunho realizes he never gave his answer to Changmin’s offer of coffee, and Changmin is waiting expectantly.
“Um...sure, coffee sounds great. I’ll pay, though. You should let people who are older than you pay for the food.”
Changmin tilts his head.
“I know.”
Yunho just stares at him. There’s definitely something weird going on with this guy, but Yunho can’t figure out what it is. He decides that coffee is a great way to get to the bottom of it.
Coffee turns into three hours of Yunho realizing just how weird this guy’s something is.
Changmin is trying. He likes Yunho, he really does, he’s cool and looks good and Changmin remembers the familiar flutter of a crush when he feels it. The second Yunho had stood up and turned to him, Changmin felt a tug of ‘this person is special’, and he’s trying so hard not to mess it up. But all of Changmin’s perfectly constructed lies seem muddled and wrong in the face of someone he really wants to get to know.
He’s currently sipping on a large coffee thing with lots of espresso shots in it, pretending to be a normal person so Yunho will like him too.
Yunho seems concerned by his clothing, so he’s taken off his jacket to better match everyone else in the coffee shop. Unfortunately, his shirt is definitely more expensive than most of the other customer’s entire outfits, and he looks fabulous in it too, so it doesn’t help. He can’t really take more clothes off without causing a scene, he knows that, so he just sits tight and enjoys how Yunho’s eyes run over his form when he removes the jacket.
This is good. So far.
Changmin tries to keep the conversation on Yunho this time around- Yunho’s job (a server and part-time dance teacher), Yunho’s family (small), Yunho’s girlfriend (which he does not have and doesn’t seem want to go into detail about. Excellent), Yunho’s apartment (also small!), Yunho’s friends (weird), Yunho’s goals for the future. Yunho starts looking a little oddly at Changmin when he keeps asking ‘and then what?’, and Changmin remembers most living people don’t really have a seventy-five year plan laid out. He reigns himself in.
“So. Um. Now that you know everything about my life,” Yunho says, sipping on his sugary drink, “what about yours? I know you quit your job but...how long did you work there? What do you think you’ll do now?”
“About seven years. I think I want to maybe work in a diner,” Changmin answers without thinking, and wants to kick himself when Yunho’s eyes go wide and he leans forward.
“Seven years? How...how old are you?”
“I’m...” Changmin has to think quickly. Yunho looks like he’s twenty-ish, definitely out of school. Changmin thinks he could pass for a twenty year old, maybe. Seven years would make a twenty-year old Changmin...thirteen when he started? Is that normal? Changmin forgets, which is unusual. He’s usually very good at keeping up a solid lie, it comes with the territory, but Yunho just makes him feel like the uncertain eighteen year old he was fifty years ago.
Changmin frowns. Yunho frowns too.
“Twenty...two?”
Yunho looks unconvinced.
“Most people don’t take that long to tell someone their age. They also don’t phrase it as a question,” he says, eyes narrowing.
“Sometimes people forget their age,” Changmin mumbles. “It’s hard to remember.”
“Your real age. You don’t really look like you’re twenty-two.”
“I age well,” Changmin says, trying out a line he’s heard countless times from his elderly employer.
It doesn’t work. Yunho leans forward, arms crossed, pinning Changmin with a look that’s half reassurance, half disapproval. Changmin swallows.
“Tell the truth. Your age, your job, why you’re wearing those clothes- I won’t judge you. Promise.”
Changmin can’t keep the resentment off of his face or out of his voice.
“Okay, fine.” If Yunho wants the truth, Changmin will tell him the truth.
“I’m a necromancer,” he begins. “I’m actually sixty-eight years old, but technically I’m eighteen. I’ve been an accessory of an old man for the last seven years, living the life he could no longer manage himself. I like all foods, and I’m always hungry because staying alive is hard when you’re supposed to be dead.” He crosses his legs, staring at Yunho. “Anything else?”
Yunho, to his credit, doesn’t look nearly as stunned as Changmin was expecting.
He just leans back in his seat, considering Changmin like he’s trying to figure him out.
“And you asked me out for coffee because...?”
Changmin bites his lip, and suddenly can’t seem to look at Yunho. This is a really nice coffee shop. The decor is very inviting. One of the best coffee shops he’s ever seen.
“I think you’re cute,” he finally blurt outs. “You have a nice body, and your smile is good. I don’t know if you like guys, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll leave if you want me to.”
“...you need to work on your pick-up technique,” Yunho says, then ‘hmms’ a little. “You’re eighteen, you said? You still have time to improve. But that was really off-the-wall.”
Changmin laughs a little, shaking his head down at his crossed legs.
“Called it,” he mutters.
"Do you want to maybe...try a couple dates? You never know, it might be fun,” Yunho is saying.
Changmin’s head snaps up.
“Really? I mean...ah, you’re serious?”
Yunho nods. “Why not? You’re a good looking guy, and at least you’re interesting.”
Changmin looks down at his hands. Yes. He can do this. He’s never dated, not like other people do, picking who they want and going on dinner dates and kissing at movies, but he wants to try it.
“I don’t know if I’ll be good at it,” Changmin warns. “You’re the first person I’ve asked on a real date. So...um, I’ll work hard. Thank you.”
Yunho is looking at him with that weird face again, and Changmin realizes that’s probably not how you start dating. “I mean, I’m so...happy. I’m happy you’re here.”
Yunho smiles, and sips his drink. Changmin watches him, and wonders what they should do first.
Yunho agrees to a movie later that night. To be honest, he’s not sure what he’s in for when he agreed to Changmin’s proposal, he just knows that, well, it’s not everyday someone like Changmin- funny, tall, attractive, with expensive looking clothes- asks you out.
Sure, Changmin’s kind of ...weird, operating blithely at a special sort of distance from reality, but that’s kind of why Yunho likes him. The whole necromancer thing...Yunho hasn’t heard that one before. Hopefully it’s just a phase. Maybe Changmin lies when he’s nervous.
Yunho heads to the theater they agreed on once he’s showered and changed. Changmin shows up wearing something that looks like it came from the circus: all black and white, a striped blazer jacket with a graphic tee and tight white jeans that are already distracting Yunho. It works, somehow, although people are kind of staring and Yunho’s kind of staring at his thighs and Changmin shuffles his feet awkwardly.
“You look nice. Do I look okay?” he asks, looking up at Yunho with big eyes.
“You look great,” Yunho says truthfully. “I like your sneakers.”
Changmin beams at him, tilting his head down and looking demure. Yunho decides he likes Changmin’s smile.
“Thank you, I tried to dress more casually, but it’s been a while...” Changmin says.
He looks up at the marquee.
“I haven’t been to a public theater in a while, either,” he says thoughtfully. “I just watched movies in my boss’ house.”
Yunho thinks that Changmin’s previous job sounds shady as hell, but he keeps that to himself.
“Well, it’s fun to see it like this. The screen is huge and you can get snacks.”
Changmin perks up. “Snacks?”
“Er... Yeah. Like popcorn, or dried squid. Are you hungry already?” Yunho asks.
“Is that bad?”
Yunho eyes Changmin’s stomach like ‘how?’ “Well, I mean, you just ate...”
“That was two hours ago. I eat a lot. You know, because I’m a necromancer.”
“Right, how could I forget.”
Necromancer or not, Yunho is glad Changmin is paying for himself, because he was right- he does eat a lot. And often. And somehow keeps thin as a rail. He might have a tapeworm.
Yunho slips a hand around Changmin’s shoulder and points them towards the ticket booth.
“Let’s go in and buy tickets. I’ll buy, and you can buy whatever snacks you want.”
Changmin heads excitedly towards the snack box while Yunho secures tickets. When Changmin wanders back over to Yunho, his arms are laden with little trays. Yunho grabs some to lighten the load.
They sit on a bench outside their theater, and Yunho watches as Changmin munches his way through squid, popcorn, crackers, and a box of candy. Then he sucks down a strawberry lemonade.
There’s none left by seating time, and Yunho helps Changmin throw away his trash.
“Don’t eat so much food at once,” he scolds as he tips a box into the garbage. “It’s not good for you.”
Changmin looks contemplative, and pulls a vitamin drink bottle from his bag, offering it to Yunho sheepishly.
“I got this for you,” he explains. “As a thanks for taking me here. It’s healthy!”
Yunho sort of reluctantly melts, and takes the drink.
Throughout the movie, Yunho watches Changmin out of the corner of his eye. It’s some horror movie, which seemed fitting, and Changmin is intently focused on it. He looks agitated.
During a scene where the characters are wandering into a cemetery where the curse began, Changmin’s head suddenly drops onto Yunho’s shoulder. He searches for Yunho’s hand and shoves his fingers between Yunho’s. It’s not something Yunho is normally into, but Changmin seems genuinely distressed, and it makes Yunho smile and squeeze his hand.
“Scared?” he whispers against Changmin’s hair.
“They’re doing it all wrong, that’s not how you break a curse at all, they’re going to get even more trouble with how they’re stomping all over the graves,” Changmin whispers. Yunho can’t help but snort, and he tilts his head against Changmin’s.
“Cute,” he murmurs.
Changmin stills, and then he lightly squeezes Yunho’s hand back.
It’s a gorgeous night, and Yunho’s trying to decide how to end it as he and Changmin walk through a park, one of the many strolling couples choosing to enjoy the night. Changmin is looking happy and good, face relaxed and a slight smile on his lips. He’s walking close to Yunho, and their hands brush every so often. Yunho wonders if Changmin’s the type of boy you bring home on the first date, or the type that you bring home on your 100 day anniversary.
Changmin decides for him.
“Do you want to see my home?” he asks.
Yunho thinks for a moment, finger to his chin, then nods.
“Sure, that sounds good.”
Changmin grins excitedly. “Come on, we can take my car.”
“You have a car?” Yunho asks.
“I don’t use it a lot, but it’s nice. We’ll have to take the subway to go to it.”
A short subway ride gets them to a very expensive neighborhood. Yunho begins to get nervous, even though he already knew Changmin was rich. Changmin hadn’t mentioned he’d be meeting his family, but there’s no way Changmin could afford one of these places of his own. The apartments are all two story glass wall affairs, huge blocks of gray, modern concrete.
“Wow- these apartments are the real deal,” Yunho says conversationally, wondering if Changmin’s family is the nice kind of rich, or the not-so-nice kind of rich. Or maybe the ‘who do you think you are, dating our son’ kind of rich.
Changmin glances at him. “Yes, they’re real. But I don’t stay at mine too often. That’s it, up there, the corner one.”
“Ah. You ‘don’t stay here often’?”
“I have a place closer to work. Well, I suppose I’ll sell it now, but...it’s nice. A little smaller than this one.”
Yunho’s definitely a little out of his league, and wonders how the heck he caught this guy’s attention. “How many places do you have?”
“Three at the moment. It gets difficult to keep track of anything more than that.”
Yunho is starting to get a little suspicious. “Your family has three apartments, right?”
Changmin looks at him, stopping in front of a garage with a row of doors. “My family is dead,” he says, face blank.
Oops. Looks like he figured out why Changmin’s so rich- inheritance. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up-”
“Oh, no, it’s okay! It’s just my parents- they died ages ago. Like I said, I’ve been around for a long time. I had to cut off contact with my sister when I realized I wasn’t getting any older.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Yunho says. Even though Changmin seems to be fine and still playing this ridiculous ‘immortal’ card, it’s not something Yunho can brush off quite as lightly.
“Like I said, ages ago.” Changmin unlocks the garage and pulls the door up. “And here is my car!”
Yunho gapes a little. It’s an Audi R8, the sole domain of people who have too much money to drive common Hyundais in the city like everyone else. The only eighteen year olds who get these are generally in their school gossip rag every week, outrageous exploits proclaimed in thirty point font.
“You...what? What exactly was your last job again?” Yunho asks suspiciously. “There’s no way you can afford all of this- is it inheritance or something?”
Changmin frowns. “I told you, I’ve been around for a while. Money isn’t really a problem when you have a high interest earning rate and live indefinitely.”
Yunho turns around, and grabs Changmin’s shoulder.
“Okay. Changmin. This was cute, but if we’re going to be serious, you need to get serious and drop the vampire thing.”
“Necromancer,” Changmin corrects.
“Whatever! It’s not funny, and I’m really getting sort of suspicious about this entire thing!”
“It isn’t funny,” Changmin says, and he’s starting to look angry. “It’s true. I...I’m not human, Yunho, I already told you that. I thought you were okay with it but I guess not? I can’t help it, it’s just something that happened.”
Yunho crosses his arms. “There is nothing that has proven to me that you are anything but one hundred percent human. There’s also the tiny detail that necromancers aren’t real.”
Changmin jerks forward a little, eyes fierce and jaw set. His lips twist angrily.
“What if I showed you? I’m going to show you my home anyways, so it’ll be easy.”
“Home?” Yunho asks, feeling lost. “Isn’t this your home?”
Changmin snorts. “No. We’re just getting the car. Home is about a twenty minute drive from here, so get in. I’ll prove to you I am telling the truth.”
Changmin clicks the unlock button and the headlights flash as he strides to the driver’s side door. Yunho sighs and heads to the passenger door, sliding onto the seat and admiring the interior.
“Check the glove compartment,” Changmin snaps, and they pull out of the garage and onto the road.
Yunho opens the glove compartment and sees a neat pile of cards.
“Those are my driver’s licenses from the past forty years,” Changmin says. “Check’em, they’re all real.”
Yunho flips through the cards. Sure enough, they date back to around forty years ago. It’s like a little slideshow of Changmin showing off the hairstyles of each era, looking exactly the same in each. He starts feeling a little uneasy, and puts them back in the glove compartment. He doesn’t miss Changmin’s triumphant smirk.
The car stops at a house on the outskirts of the city. It’s old, very old, white walls streaked with grey water stains and a beaten roof. It has the appearance of once having a bigger area to fill, but has since been squashed between two other old buildings.
Changmin leans over the steering wheel. “Well, this is it. Home sweet home.”
Yunho frowns. “This is proof? It’s an old house,” he says, but it’s all not sitting right.
Changmin huffs and gets out, keys jangling as he heads up to the front door. Yunho just looks at the house. It looks sad and neglected, and he wonders what he’s doing here, really, as he unbuckles his seatbelt and jogs after Changmin.
Changmin’s sorted out a very tarnished key from his key chain, and unlocks the door before carefully pushing it open.
“Shoes,” he tells Yunho, before taking his own off.
Yunho looks around in amazement. The house has the atmosphere of a time capsule. It’s all old-fashioned decor and appliances, with some touches of more recent but still dated restoration. At some point, whoever was maintaining it had given up.
“My sister used to come a few times a year, but I think she’s had a baby a while back, so it’s just been sitting for a while. I keep an eye on it, though,” Changmin says, walking through the hall like it’s home. Maybe it really is.
Yunho makes sure to keep up with him. This is unreal. There’s no way Changmin’s story makes sense, but here is a giant flashing sign that reads ‘THIS IS REALLY NOT NORMAL’, right in front of him and all around him.
Changmin disappears into a room at the end of the hall, and Yunho rolls his neck and looks at the ceiling for fortitude when he follows him in and sees what Changmin is showing him.
A black frame, conspicuously lacking a ribbon, showcases a photo of Changmin. He’s smiling, and this is absolutely the space for parents mourning a missing child. There’s a little vase, long since empty, and it bothers Yunho immensely.
Yunho feels strangled. Maybe it’s the surrealness of someone holding their own funeral portrait, staring back at him, or maybe it’s the years of sadness and loss that fill the room, but he suddenly wants to leave. He suddenly believes Changmin, unquestionably.
Changmin stopped being alive a long time ago.
“Changmin, I...” he chokes, then starts over. “Let’s go. I’m sorry. I want to leave.”
Changmin looks confused, then sets the portrait down.
“Of course. Come on, let’s leave.”
Yunho doesn’t remember the ride very well, he just gives Changmin his address and stumbles out of the car when they reach his apartment. He vaguely remembers telling Changmin he wanted to think about some things, and thanks for going to see a movie with him. He remembers Changmin’s face, dismayed and painted in apprehension as he nodded and drove off.
It’s been a week since he’s heard from Yunho.
Changmin has never needed anyone to tell him the disadvantages of being eternally eighteen. The decades brought learned self-awareness and a certain confidence, but no amount of self-awareness puts a dent in the simmering miasma of doubt and moodiness that is the teenage brain.
Changmin’s rode out the random fits, thrown expensive things he doesn’t care about, soaked his pillow with frustrated tears, spent an entire day in his pajamas watching mindless variety shows and reading comics, and he’s onto the part where he lays on his huge bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, hurt and miserable.
It’s not even like he spent days with Yunho, or had the best time of his life- but being immortal is lonely, and he had found someone he’d liked, and who was interesting and nice and Changmin had told him his secrets for some reason, shown him his past. He doesn’t even know why, just that Yunho was warm and interested in him and had a good smile and goddamnit Changmin can’t stand eternal teenage hormones and that special kind of mental mobius strip of should have and would have and please take me back, tell me I’m not going to be alone forever.
Yunho had just left suddenly, with barely a word, just something about needing to think and movies and God Changmin is a complete idiot of course he scared him off he’s dead.
He doesn’t even have Yunho’s phone number.
Changmin rolls over to stare out the picture window. His face feels pulled and his eyes feel hollow.
His apartment feels empty and quiet.
He sniffles.
People stare at Changmin when he steps into the diner. He ignores them, as is second nature when people have been staring at you for years. He waits until the server notices him. It’s the guy who was working the night he met Yunho. He waits through the server’s double-take.
“Hi,” Changmin says, gaze dropping to the guy’s nametag. “Sungmin. Is Yunho here?”
“I don’t recall him mentioning you stopping by,” Sungmin says. “Is this the cute sort of checking up, or the creepy sort of checking up? The second one is considered stalking.”
“I’m not stalking. I came to say I’m sorry.”
Sungmin’s eyes narrow. “I’ll let him know you dropped by.”
Changmin frowns and takes his sunglasses off. “I really need to apologize!”
“Then you can wait until he’s around to decide!”
An engine purrs to a stop right outside. Familiar laughter filters in through the door, and Changmin doesn’t even want to look behind him.
The door swings open with a jingle, and Changmin squeezes his eyes shut.
Please be a random normal customer.
He can already smell the expensive cologne, though. And the other customers stare at the newcomer too, before their gazes drift back to Changmin questioningly.
“Changdola!”
A hand claps down on his shoulder, and Changmin sighs.
“Hi, Junsu.”
The door jingles open again, and heavy footfalls let him know Junsu didn’t come alone. Like he ever did.
Junsu’s hand moves idly on Changmin’s shoulder, nails running along his collarbone before he tugs him close and leaves a sloppy kiss on his cheek.
“We missed you, little Min. Where’ve you been?”
The server just quirks his head.
“Party of three?”
Changmin kind of wishes he was back in his bed and staring at the ceiling.
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