APTF [3/?]
Title: A Prayer Time Forgot
Length: Chaptered [3/?]
Rating: PG13, for a bit of cussing. I'm pretty sure it'll go up though.
Genre: Umm. Unsure. Angst, supernatural, generally. Weirdness. We'll see.
Pairing: Yes, there are pairings. (Gasp! A first!) I'm guessing it's YunJae.
Summary: Yunho tastes blood in his mouth as he rushes from one aisle to another. Soup. Sardines. Oil. Diapers. This sort of panic, this dread, he’s felt before, sometime in a past that makes his fingers numb and his stomach churn.
Prologue + Chapter 1
Chapter 2
---
Chapter Three
A photographer without any photos, Junsu notes wryly the first time he sets foot inside the now fully-furnished apartment. Yunho ignores the statement, merely sips on his coffee as a reply as he leans lazily against one of the doorways to watch Yoochun crashing cars and trucks into each other on the living room floor.
He’s having issues about it, is the only explanation he can provide. There are stacks of 8x10s, still unpacked and kept safe in boxes; the Rockefeller Plaza and Fifth Avenue, armored in cloth, and the Brooklyn bridge sharing bubble wrap with downtown Manhattan. Junsu nods, understands and then there’s a silence that Yunho knows took 4 years of college life and being dormitory roommates to learn, in between cigarettes on the fire escape and stale pastrami sandwiches.
How…have you been coping?
It’s a question that means so much more than what is being said. Coping with what? Siwon hyung’s sudden death? Moving to a country he barely recognizes? Yoochun?
Yunho stretches a tight smile, stirs the coffee in his mug with lazy swirls. Funny how smiling now is such a chore for him; it actually hurts him to do so.
Just fine.
Junsu snorts and Yunho isn’t surprised; he was never an easy one to fool.
You never were a good liar, hyung.
---
It’s the crying that alerts him, that makes him snap into attention from the half-dead state he’s in. He leaps off his bed, rubs his arms and shoulders as he notices a draft in his room (didn’t he close the window?).
“Yoochun?”
He doesn’t bother to knock. Yoochun is curled up into a ball in the corner, illuminated by the night light that flashes various car cartoon characters onto the walls and ceiling. The sheets on the bed are a tangled mess and spill off onto the floor as rivers and mountains. Yunho blinks worriedly, but then sees the dark spot that’s marked the center of the bed. He presses his lips against each other, understands; it’s the seventh time this month.
(He dreams of rivers and missing boys and wakes up cold in soaked sheets and in a foreign room, surrounded by boys he knows are not his brother)
“Yoochun-ah…” Yunho kneels beside where Yoochun is and touches his shaking shoulder. Yoochun’s tears, crystal in the light, spill from his eyes and down to his cheeks, drip-drips hot and fast down to his pajamas and arms with every suppressed sob.
“G-Go away,” he says, his small teeth biting down on his lower lip. “I don’t want you, hyung.”
(He spirits away sheets and blankets in the dead of night, prays the school won’t notice, then cries, embarrassed, among the shadows that paint the walls)
“Micky…”
“Go away!” Yoochun screams, and Yunho’s wrist catches a batch of fresh tears.
(Siwon is quick to assure, holds him, sees him after class and talks to him in Korean. It happens, Yunho.)
Little fists hammer onto his chest and shoulders, leaving dull aches in their wake. Yunho ignores them, gathers Yoochun up in his arms, and barely even cringes as the soaked pajamas make contact with his skin. Yoochun squirms and flails, refuses to be held or even touched, but Yunho holds him close, steadies Yoochun’s trembling arms and just lets him cry onto his shoulder.
“It happens, Micky. It’s okay,” he murmurs into Yoochun’s baby-soft neck. “It’s okay.”
Yoochun has given up the fight, but his sobs have escalated into a wail that tears deep into Yunho and makes him bite his lip hard enough to make it bleed. He repeats the words as though they’re a lullaby, rocks the both of them slowly from side to side, but is unsure if it’s him or Yoochun that he’s trying to convince.
It’s okay.
---
Hyung if you need help…
We’re okay, Junsu.
…all right.
---
It’s Yoochun who alerts him on the state of their food supplies. His cries wake Yunho up (“HYUUUNG I’m HUNGRYYYY!”) and after several debates about whether or not cold rice and kimchi are proper breakfast items (“THAT’S GROSS, I’M NOT EATING THAT!”), Yunho gives in, takes down coats from the coat closet and follows Junsu’s directions to the nearest supermarket.
“Don’t get lost,” he warns into the phone. Yunho gives him a sarcastic laugh.
Yoochun is amazed at the sight of the supermarket (“And it’s UNDERGROUND!”) and quickly lets go of Yunho’s hand, runs from one shelf to another in search of what’s familiar, much to Yunho’s dismay. Automatically, familiar dread courses through his veins and he quickly gets a hold of a cart, attempts to follow Yoochun’s trail.
“Yoochun-ah!” he reprimands, his voice perhaps a little too loud, a little too scared. Yoochun looks up at him, obviously not as distraught as he is. “God, don’t run away from me, all right? Just stay close. Okay? Okay? This is isn’t New York, okay? Do you understand?”
A cereal box is thrust in his face as a reply. Cheerios. “Can I have it, hyung?”
Yunho sighs, grabs the box, unceremoniously dumps it into the cart and drapes an arm over Yoochun’s shoulder. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he mutters, shaking his head.
They make their way slowly through each section and each shelf. Yoochun is the most talkative he’s ever been for the first time, and grabs things off the shelves and throws them into the cart. He pretends to play baseball with apples from the produce section and pretends to be a soldier with one of the long vegetables (radish? Gourd? Yunho isn’t sure) he picks up from one crate. Yunho steals glances at him, makes sure he’s still there and hasn’t run off. He’s looking at Yoochun as he pokes at the tofu placed in Styrofoam containers (“Yoochun, don’t do that”) when his cart collides into a display with a slight crash, making him jump and spilling several cans of black beans onto the floor. Bam! Bam! Bam! Yunho winces at the sound, made more audible in the steady buzz of the supermarket, then bends down quickly to pick them up.
“Shit.” One can rolls away from him as his foot accidentally comes into contact with it. A hand grabs the can and hands it over to him. He bows his head. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Fancy bumping into you here, though. You’re more domesticated than I thought.”
The familiar laughter makes him look up. It’s a beanie this time, not a baseball cap, but the dark eyes and mischievous smile are the same. Yunho’s breath hitches up his throat and he straightens, nearly dropping the cans in the process. The stranger from the park lets out another laugh, obviously amused.
“Here, let me help.”
Yunho mumbles thanks in reply as he’s relieved from half of the cans. The stranger shuffles towards a shelf and places them carefully back. He spares one and hands it over to Yunho.
“It’s healthy stuff. Take one, it’ll do you good. You look terrible.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“Tsk. How can you be a photographer if you can’t take criticism?” It’s a tease, and the stranger shakes his head, shoves a hand down the pocket of his distressed jeans. He looks oddly out of place in the too-orderly, too-bright supermarket, a mysterious dark spot clothed in a coat that’s been speckled one too many times with paint. Yunho smirks, then notices the absence of a grocery cart or a basket in the other’s hands.
“Just checking out the supermarket?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I was in the area. Thought I’d pop in for some milk.”
Yunho remembers passing by the dairy section more than half an hour ago. It’s by the entrance, but he brushes it off as something not worth mentioning. The other man ignores his silence and peers into his cart, scrutinizes each item one by one, a thin hand brushing over each box, jar and bag.
“Cheerios. Peanut butter. Bread. Microwave dinners. Ramyeon. Not much of a cook, are you?”
“Utterly useless.” Yunho can’t remember the last time he even tried. “My nephew…”
And then he stops, backtracks. Yoochun has disappeared from the tofu shelf. Suddenly his chest is cold as his heart plummets into the depths of his stomach.
“What’s wrong? Hey.” He feels as a hand grabs his shoulder, shakes it. “Are you okay?”
“Yoochun. Yoochun!” Suddenly the distant droning from the fluorescent lamps seem louder, the light much brighter. Several shoppers turn to look at him. “Jung Yoochun!”
He looks back at the stranger, eyes wide and desperate, gasps the words as though his throat had suddenly closed up. “My nephew…he…I have to find…”
“Hey, calm down, okay? We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”
Yunho tastes blood in his mouth as he rushes from one aisle to another. Soup. Sardines. Oil. Diapers. This sort of panic, this dread, he’s felt before, sometime in a past that makes his fingers numb and his stomach churn.
(He’s gone missing, Yunho, are you sure you don’t know where he is? His mother’s worried sick.)
Instinct leads him towards the sweets section, garbled prayers racing through his mind. Something under his shoes crunch and when he looks, he sees thousands of rainbow colored circles littering the floor, all spewing from a too-large bag of Skittles that lie beside his guilty-looking nephew’s feet. Much to Yunho’s relief Yoochun is safe and whole, but crying, distressed at the mess. To his surprise, the stranger has found him first, and is in the process of wiping Yoochun’s tears away with his jacket sleeve.
“Jung Yoochun!”
He sees as Yoochun jumps at the sound of his name. The stranger turns and gives him a careless grin.
“See, your uncle is here and he isn’t mad.” An obvious lie. Yunho’s emotions are teetering between anger and overwhelming relief. Yoochun, more attuned with his sentiments, cowers in the stranger’s shadow and hides his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Yoochun says, beating him to the punch. “I was just trying to get it off the shelf and it slipped and…and…” His pleas get lost in another burst of tears, a trick even Yunho remembers using as a child. Yunho goes around the stranger’s crouched figure, scoops Yoochun up and holds him close.
“Did you know how scared I was?” Yunho reprimands and comforts at the same time. “You could’ve been hurt or lost or kidnapped or God knows what else and you know I’ll never be able to forgive myself…God. You crazy crazy kid. Jesus Christ you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
The other man stands up, shakes his head with a satisfied sigh. “He’s not hurt or anything, just a little shaken up. I don’t think he expected that kind of bag to be so heavy.” The stranger grins at the sight of Skittles dotting the linoleum, kicks a few with the heel of his boot. “The floor needed a little color anyway.”
Yoochun is holding his neck in a death grip, not a surprising gesture for when he knows he’s in trouble. He bows his head, does it the formal way: “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic; when in doubt, head for the sweets section. They’re nearly always there. Ah ah, you don’t have to,” the stranger says as Yunho fumbles for his wallet.
“Not money. Here.” Yunho hands him a calling card after scribbling down its back with immense difficulty. “I owe you one. Drop me a line. Coffee, or lunch, or whatever. I’m Jung Yunho by the way. I suppose you’ve heard Yoochun’s name enough times today so I don’t think there’s a need to introduce him.”
The other man takes his card, reads it for a second before it disappears into one of his coat’s many pockets.
“Jung Yoochun and Jung Yunho. A pleasure.” He smiles, his eyes crinkling into small slits. “Jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong.”
His laughter sounds hollow in Yunho’s ears after.
“What’s wrong with you? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Jaejoong comments, and Yunho freezes, feels blind fear inching up his spine and crawl into his gut.
How could it? It can’t be. It isn’t possible.
“I’d better go. Maybe I will drop you a line. Maybe. Don’t count on it though.” Jaejoong gives him a wink, does a little shrug before turning around and walking away. Behind him Yunho hears another set of footsteps, possibly from management, asking him just how a mess managed to appear on the floor. His brain is going haywire at trying to assess three different things at the same time, but even when Yoochun has stopped crying, when management accepts his payment and bustles them out the glass doors and back into the cold embrace of winter, one thing surfaces in his mind; a whisper steady as his heartbeat and as audible as the midmorning traffic that passes him and Yoochun by.
Kim Jaejoong is dead.
---
He smokes only when Yoochun is asleep, shuffles out onto the balcony from the living room with his lips already sucking on a cigarette, his fingers clenched tight around the small canvas envelope that belongs to the darkest part of his closet.
Fucking cold, he finds himself cursing, hunches over to protect himself from the too-harsh winds whipping the city. The night smells of lightning storms and asphalt, and Yunho scrunches up his nose in distaste at the black and silver and yellow shadow blocks that are skyscrapers and that wink and twinkle at him as though in mockery.
He sucks in smoke, feels it coat his tongue and fill in the crevices in his teeth,
(You never saw anything all right? We weren’t there)
draws it out in one long breath as warmth travels from his throat to his chest like a slow-moving train. He takes the pictures out of the envelope, runs the matte against his fingertips before going through them one
(Siwon holds him to his chest, his clothes damp with river water and tears. His breaths come in shuddering gasps; he doesn’t know if it’s from the cold or from fear)
by one, feels a pang as he looks at black-and-white smiles and silent frozen laughter of a different Yunho and a different Siwon from so many years ago, scavenged from their parents’ old photo albums.
(Hyung…Jaejoong…Jaejoong, he…we…)
Of course he remembers Jaejoong, a runt whose only weapon was a brain. Of course Yunho had despised him, had hated him badly enough to tell on him to his popular big brother. Of course Siwon hadn’t been anyone who allowed just someone to trample on his little brother. A night at the river, Siwon had told him in glee, That ought to scare him. That ought to teach him.
He tried to look for Jaejoong that morning after the supermarket incident, dragging a protesting Yoochun behind him, but it was like playing hide-and-seek with his own shadow. There was no Jaejoong to be found and more than once, he had to verify with Yoochun that he had been there, that it had happened (I’m not going crazy, am I, Micky? Tell me you remember the man who found you in the supermarket. Tell me. Tell me.) to which Yoochun would always give an almost-frightened nod at.
He was real. I’m not going crazy.
Yunho smokes one, two, three cigarettes in a row, slumps forward on the balcony ledge with the pictures hanging precariously from his fingertips. He wonders how it would be like to fall into the tar darkness below, to actually not feel any of this, to just sleep forever. Deep inside of him, he brands Siwon as lucky to have escaped, but revokes it after a beat, remembers that he and his brother never talked about it after their highschool years, convinced that Siwon had already forgotten by the time Yoochun was born.
He lets one picture go, watches as it dances on the still, thick winter air before getting swallowed by the black below him, wishing he could dance along with it.
TBC
A/N: I promise, more YunJae on the next chapter! It's hard to balance Yoochun/Yunho problems with the YunJae ones. T_T Mian.