Champagne in a Plastic Cup (or, a Brief Stint in New York Caused By a Canceled Flight)
Champagne in a Plastic Cup (or, a Brief Stint in New York Caused By a Canceled Flight)
OT5, brief Yoosu, Homin
PG-13
The Big Apple gets snowed in; Yoochun spends the holidays with four strangers.
tvxqfic prompt challenge: "what's so weird about being head over heels?" uh, absolutely nothing. /bricked.
Yoochun is still struggling to get his shoe back on after taking it off for security when he finally gives up trying to push through the crowd to see the departure and arrival times. Sighing, he drops onto a nearby bench and watches as people slowly leave, disgruntled, and feels a bit disgruntled himself because his side hurts from being elbowed twice in the ribs. Nonetheless, he pretends to read his slightly mauled newspaper to seem composed.
Someone’s suitcase wheels squeal across the airport linoleum, stop a little to the right of Yoochun’s foot, and the bench’s weight shifts. “Do you know what’s going on?” comes the imminent, annoying question. Yes, Count Dracula just died in front of the schedule display, Yoochun wants to say, but shakes his head instead and forces a half-smile.
“There’s so much snow. Can the planes even take off in this weather?” the man now sitting beside him ponders aloud to no one in particular.
Yoochun tips his newspaper down to see the so-called snow and catches sight of what used to be sleet blizzard white across the windows. His hope is truly crushed, though, when a man wearing an oversized beanie trips out of the crowd and announces, “If you’re on flight 2056, it just got canceled.”
The man beside Yoochun hastily pulls out his ticket and immediately looks downtrodden. “Seriously?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Yoochun spots two (very tall) people hurrying over from the café, lattes in hand. God, he could use a latte himself, or a lot of alcohol, because he promised to be home for at least the New Year’s party, oh his mother was going to be so sad and he hated it when she cried.
“Did you say flight 2056?” the shorter one of the two men asks, brow furrowed in worry.
“Yea.” The man with the beanie blinks and suddenly waves his passport at the rest of them with a grin. “Hold up, does this mean you guys were all headed for Seoul too?”
Over pizza and cola, Yoochun somehow finds himself intricately detailed into their plan to spend the holidays together as five jolly strangers. The college kid sitting in the corner (Shim Changmin) doesn't look like very friendly so he remains skeptical about the whole deal. But his friend (Jung Yunho) seems amiable enough.
“I think we should all throw our money together and splurge somewhere,” the blond with the beanie (Kim Jaejoong) says, eyes a little too bright at the thought of five-star hotels and restaurants.
“The Ritz Carlton?” the other sort-of blond keeling into Yoochun’s lap from a previous joke (Kim Junsu) pipes up.
“That’s at least six-hundred a night per room. We’re not exactly rich people,” Yunho points out.
“Then let’s just stay one night in one room together and then spend the rest of our nights at a motel or something,” Jaejoong suggests. He’s already searching up available rooms and rates on his laptop before anybody can protest.
Changmin nudges Yunho, speaking with his mouth full of the last slice of pizza, “Just so you know, I’m ordering room service, and a lot of it.”
“Spa treatment, anyone?” Junsu chirps, looking over Jaejoong’s shoulder.
“I call a bed,” Yoochun grumbles.
Two days in a motel, one day at a five-star hotel, the rest of their lives in an airport. That’s a simple outline of how their year is going to end and how the new decade is going to begin. In between, they’ll go ice-skating in Central Park (“I hate Yunho and his stupid ideas of fun,” Changmin mutters), blow too much money on all the after-Christmas clearance sales (“Fuck, that’s Gucci at twenty-five percent off!” Jaejoong jabs repeatedly at the taxi window in excitement), and live off convenience store food (“Skittles and trashy gossip mags?”).
“Can we just get popcorn and ramen for that Kill Bill marathon playing on Spike network and get out of here?” Yoochun asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets to keep from having to hold anything. Seven-Eleven isn’t his idea of a great hangout.
Junsu wobbles towards the counter with his arms full of junk food, a microwave dinner, and the latest copy of People magazine anyway, not listening because he’s talking loudly into his phone, “I’m sorry that I have to miss dinner, Mum, I’m sure it’s delicious. Don’t let Xiahki get into the leftovers again. I’ll call you later. I’m busy right now. Love you, bye. Bye.”
A few aisles down, Jaejoong and Yunho squabble over which brand of ramen has the best flavor.
Changmin glances in Yoochun’s direction and holds up a twelve-pack of cheap beer. Yoochun feels better already.
At four in the morning, Yoochun is the only one awake and flipping through commercials for ShamWow and Oxiclean. Changmin is one roll away from falling off the bed onto Yunho, who is sleeping on the floor, curled into some blankets and a little girl’s plush toy. Junsu has fallen asleep against Yoochun’s shoulder without permission. Jaejoong is sprawled across the other bed, half-conscious after yelling himself hoarse for Charlize Theron to “kill that half-blind bitch already”. The air smells dusty and like beer.
These must be the best friends Yoochun misplaced after graduation, except now he can only borrow them. He absently runs a hand through Junsu’s hair.
They go ice-skating late at night when nobody's around because none of them have real skates.
Yunho slides a few feet on the lake’s glassy surface, does a little spin on the toes of his sneakers and almost trips both Jaejoong and Junsu into a nearby pine tree. Changmin takes tiny steps into the rink, lured only by the safety of Yunho’s outstretched hand. It’s almost below freezing outside, and Yoochun thinks they all look ridiculously like marshmallows, bundled up in at least three pairs of thermal underwear and puffy jackets.
“Come on, Yoochun! Don’t be a party pooper,” Jaejoong shouts, already getting ice on the butt of his new designer jeans, waving and laughing from the other side of the lake.
“If you can’t stand up, you can roll,” Yunho tells him, pushing Changmin over to demonstrate.
Junsu suddenly becomes a very off-key radio station, bursting into song and pushing himself across the ice on his stomach and stops at Yoochun’s feet. “Lonely, I am so lonely! I have nobody to call my ooooown!”
Yoochun gets on the ice.
And ends up face-first in the ice, heels over head.
Junsu rolls over him on purpose, still warbling. Later, Yunho finds a flattened cardboard box and suggests they go sledding too.
When they get back to Ritz Carlton, completely out of place with reddened complexions and leaving muddy footprints across the impeccable tile, Yoochun’s face hurts from all the smiling. There’s only one bed, but they all pile onto it, pushed together close enough to kiss the person next to them if they turned their heads too far to either side. Yunho’s feet take up more than his share of the bed. Changmin orders everything on the room service dinner menu and champagne.
“To the New Year and canceled flights,” Yunho toasts, holding up his plastic motel cup filled with champagne (he insisted they not use the glass cups lest they charge his credit card even more). Bubbles almost come out Junsu’s nose when he chokes on a sip and Yoochun almost does the same laughing at him.
Jaejoong kisses everybody on his way to the bathroom in the middle of a commercial break.
They almost don’t wake up in time for noon checkout.
The airport echoes with miscellaneous noise. Yoochun has trouble putting his shoes back on after the security gate again. He finds that he’s not the only one with this problem; Jaejoong also spends a good five minutes lacing up his Doc Martens and putting his watch back on. Junsu hums the Jeopardy theme song.
“When we get on that flight, we’re just going to be a few college kids and businessmen again,” Jaejoong sighs.
“What, did you think we were masquerading as Santa’s reindeer for the last three days instead or something?” Changmin teases. Yunho fakes surprise (“We weren’t?”) and gets a punch in the arm.
“Are we sitting apart?” Junsu wants to know, peering over at the tickets in Yunho’s hand. Yoochun and Jaejoong nod, pointing to the first class tickets their company gave them as compensation for making them work over the holidays.
A voice announces that first class is boarding.
“I guess it’s bye for now,” Jaejoong says with a lopsided smile. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again next year ‘cos of another canceled flight, and sorry about the kisses.”
Yoochun picks up his own carry-on, giving a little wave at the three still standing in the terminal, and hurries after Jaejoong. He pauses an extra moment in front of the window before the plane entrance, gaze stretching across the runway into the waning clouds.
There is always next year.
epilogue.
Twenty minutes in the flight, when all the passengers are free to move around the cabin, the curtain Yoochun had drawn around his seat is yanked aside and Junsu drops into the empty seat beside him with a cheek grin. “Thought you might be lonely without me.”
“You’re annoying, you know that?” Yoochun says, but half-heartedly.
“By the way, it's ridiculous since I haven't even known you for a week yet, but I feel like you should know I’ve been wanting to do this since that pizza place that first day.” Junsu grabs Yoochun’s shirt collar, leaning up on one knee, watching Yoochun’s eyes get dark with knowing as he eases in and presses their mouths together. Jaejoong catcalls from across the aisle and orders two extra glasses of wine.
“You just want to sit in first class and get away from that crying baby back there,” Yoochun breathes when they pull apart.
“Maybe,” Junsu laughs, brushing the bangs from his eyes and still leaning into Yoochun’s personal space. “But can I have your number before you kick me back to economy class?”
______________
notes: so the last scene is there purely because i wanted to also make this a very obvious love story. 'cos there was totally homin lurking throughout. i wanted it to be sweet and light-hearted but...i might have missed and made it too crack-y. /fail.
happy new year everyone!
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