daynah_bo: Origami Hearts (2/2)
“Why don’t you just give him a chance to talk about it, Chun ah?” Jaejoong sighed out over the phone later that night, trying his hardest not to take sides in the matter. “He was over here for two hours this afternoon crying because you broke up with him.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Yoochun murmured flipping through the channels on his television as he lay sprawled across the cream colored couch in his living room.
He heard another sigh, this time from another person who was listening in on the conversation, more than likely Yunho, before Jae snapped, “I think I do, and I am about tired of all the misunderstandings. Damn it, Chun ah, you love him… and he loves you, too.”
“He has a funny way of showing it,” the younger male grumbled, flicking off the television after finding nothing on. “And I’m okay. Maybe it is better this way - I mean, whether or not we made it through him kissing Hee-sun, we’d still break up eventually. We’re high school kids trying to secretly date one another; it was doomed from the beginning.”
The younger male could almost envision his friend rolling his eyes at his words as he spoke, “You should learn to trust people more, Yoochun ah. You’d be a lot happier. If you let Junsu in, I’m sure things will turn out okay.”
“He needs to get over his pride.”
“You need to stop being an ass yourself and tell him how you feel,” Jaejoong trailed off when Yunho started talking to him, and then he came back on the line, “Junsu has a soccer game tomorrow night. Go and see him then. I’m pretty sure he’d love to have his good luck charm there watching him.”
Yoochun groaned. “We were ten years old when I told him that, hyung. I think he knows I’m not a good luck charm now.”
“He never lost a game when you were there.” Then Jaejoong smiled softly, and Yoochun knew he was because he could hear him quietly speaking to what the younger male presumed to be his own boyfriend. “Just go to him, Yoochun ah. He needs you - and even though you are both in denial, you really miss and love each other.”
Then the line clicked off and Yoochun was more frustrated than he was before. Jaejoong always had a way of getting under his skin, putting meaningless things in his head that made his heart swell with love. He threw the phone across the room, angry at himself more than he had been at Junsu, and he knew he would never be able to ignore the hole in his chest where Junsu was supposed to be.
He did not go to Junsu’s soccer game the next day - the only one not present to see the defeated stance of the star soccer player as he half-heartedly played his favorite sport.
* * *
“Where’s Junsu?” he could not help but to ask the day after the soccer game, noticing Jae’s angry glares and how the other two danced around the subject of their missing friend.
Yunho cleared his throat, picking at the food in his tray, answering with a simple reply of, “At home with a broken arm. He didn’t feel like coming today - too depressed after being benched for the rest of the season because of the fall yesterday.”
Yoochun’s ears perked up at that. Junsu broke his arm during the game the night before. Millions of thoughts raced through his head, mixing together and becoming nothing more than a jumbled mess of incoherency. But through all the haze his mind left him in, he managed to voice out one simple query.
“Is he alright?”
“If you would’ve gone to the game, he would be,” Jaejoong spoke icily, stabbing a piece of meat that lay innocently in his tray with his utensil before leaving the table.
Yunho rolled his eyes at his boyfriend’s retreating figure, squeezing his friend’s hand over the table, and smiled softly at the offended Yoochun. “He doesn’t mean it, Chun ah. You know how Jae gets at times. He’s just upset that you weren’t there because Junsu was looking for you and after he realized you weren’t coming he quit trying. It was just a small fracture and he’ll be better in no time, but I still think you should go and see him.”
Yoochun laid his head down on the table and mumbled, “But I’m not ready to see him yet, hyung. What do I say? What do I do? Nothing is going to be the same.”
Yunho shook his head, giving another firm squeeze to his young friend’s hand and left him with a few words of guidance. “And nothing will ever go back if you don’t make the first step, Yoochun ah. I know you’re scared, but he is, too. You’re his first boyfriend, and I’m sure he has his own insecurities and uncertainties. Talk it out. Even if you cannot go back to being a couple, at least you could try to become friends again.”
The darker haired boy sat at the table long after the crowd of hungry teens disbursed, ready to go back to their boring classes, and Yoochun made up his mind to talk things over with his ex-boyfriend, even if it did hurt to call him that.
* * *
It had started to rain on the way to Junsu’s home, a good omen for Yoochun who walked slowly as the clouds above unleashed their watery punishment. It soaked him all the way through, but he did not seem to care, his mind fogged over with what he was to say when he saw his friend (broken, hurt, in pain - nothing more than a reflection of what Yoochun was now).
But during the walk there - despite the many detours he took and the painfully slow pace in which he walked - by the time he reached the front door to the Kim house he still had not came up with anything to say. Now it was too late to make speeches as he rang the doorbell and waited for one of Junsu’s family members to open the door.
Luckily it was not Junho. He liked him, but the boy practically towered over him and Yoochun was man enough to admit that he was more than a little intimidated by his ex-lover’s twin brother. Instead, Mrs. Kim greeted him warmly and directed him to Junsu’s room - apparently oblivious to the fact that he and Junsu were not really the best of friends at the moment, barely sparing one word to the other during class (and it hurt so much to know that it ended like this).
He stepped inside, uttered a few words of greeting and then was rushing toward the room he had become so familiar with in the past sixteen years of being best friends with the youngest son of the family that lived there. He stopped at the door, light filtering through the underside and Yoochun knew that things had changed when he could not decide whether to barge in like he usually did or to knock. He went with the latter.
“Come in,” came the faint call of the owner of the room, voice distressed and Yoochun could sympathize with why - soccer meant everything to his (ex) best friend.
He stepped inside the room slowly, taking a few hesitant steps, wanting nothing more than to escape right now, the pressures and anxieties of the past few days catching up to him and crushing down harder than ever.
“Hey,” Yoochun breathed out, taking in the sight of what used to be his proud Kim Junsu laying in his bed in an uncomfortable position, glaring at the sling and plaster around his left arm. “How are you feeling?”
“Horrible,” Junsu complained, his eyes not leaving the useless arm. “What about you?”
Yoochun sighed. “Missing my best friend.”
Junsu let a smile come upon his face, gracing his full lips and Yoochun felt the familiar butterflies set free within the confines of his abdomen. Then those playful brown eyes turned toward him, and for the first time, Yoochun saw the smile he had always longed to see being given to him. It made him feel uncomfortable; the words of Jaejoong - about Junsu being in love with him, too - coming back and rushing through his head. But they could not be true, Junsu liked girls - Junsu liked beautiful girls like Hong Hee-sun.
“Your best friend missed you, too,” Junsu whispered, and it was so quiet that Yoochun barely heard the simple words through the thunderous pounding of rain beating against Junsu’s window pane.
The younger teen motioned for Yoochun to come forward, patting at a tiny space on his bed. The wavy-haired boy stepped forward awkwardly, his fingers twisting together in front of his body as he made his way toward Junsu. Instead of sitting on the bed with his - or what was his - best friend, he pushed the swivel chair to the other’s bedside.
Junsu pouted but did not say anything further of that particular matter. “It’s raining too much lately - I miss the sun.” (We have been fighting too long, I miss you)
Yoochun refused to speak up, catching the double meaning lying within his words. They had been fighting - a cold shoulder, ignorance battle - and it was getting pointless. Yoochun could barely remember what caused it all - and now it made no sense to him.
Junsu grabbed his hand, forcing his best friend to look into his eyes, as he stated, “I want to go back to what we were, Chun ah.”
“We can’t,” Yoochun mumbled, threading his fingers in his lap, trying to pull his gaze away so he did not crumple and give in to Junsu. “There are some things we can’t take back in life - no matter how hard we tried. We learn from our mistakes.”
He knew his voice was breaking and the longer he sat in Junsu’s presence the more he realized he was lying. And every time Junsu opened his mouth, Yoochun loved him even more. This had to stop and he had to get away, even though none of their problems had been solved.
“We were never a mistake, Chunnie ah.”
Junsu moved to grab his friend’s hands, biting his bottom lip as he tried to pull Yoochun in, but the other boy was quicker and he was darting out of the room - past the confused stares of the teen’s parents and then the suspicious one of the said boy’s twin.
He did not stop until he was far enough away to break down into a blubbering mess on the sidewalk without anyone questioning the reason. Where he was far enough away to let the rain wipe away his tears. Where he was far enough away to listen to his heart breaking and not worry about anyone else getting hurt in the process.
* * *
Junsu was not in school for another two days, and when he finally came back, all he tried to do was catch Yoochun’s ever shifting gaze.
It was frustrating - tiresome even - for them to continue with this game. Yoochun had never been the most trusting, and Junsu had always been the one that trusted the most. Junsu was so easy to fall in love with and if someone would have asked when Yoochun fell, he would not be able to answer. It was just that simple.
They had taken a chance and in the end… Yoochun did not know whether it was worth it or not.
The pain was still present - even stronger than when he had kept his feelings bottled up. The silence lingered over the lunch table even though Jaejoong and Junsu tried to cover it up with boisterous laughs and the latest fashion trends. It stuck to them all even when Yunho told them about his next student code, ones that really made little to no sense in their jumbled and tired minds. It shrouded them even when Changmin and Yoochun rattled on about things that probably never mattered to the other three - video games, the latest science-fiction movies, and comics.
No matter how hard they tried to escape it, it stayed by them.
Yoochun looked around his bedroom, crawling on the hardwood floor and grabbing something out from underneath his bed. A little shoebox filled with paper hearts - colored variously, in all different sizes. He let a smile spring upon his lips - a small, melancholic grin - as he took them out one by one, reading the little sayings, poems, lyrics, and other overly dorky things Junsu had written on them.
He had dated every single one of them and finally at the bottom of his stack he pulled out the one given to him the day before the break up. There was nothing written on it, not even his name or the name of the one who made it. Yoochun frowned, shifting it through his fingers, the tears clouding his vision and he - upset at himself, Junsu, and being sixteen and hopelessly in love - ripped the paper heart in two.
It felt great - a high as he split them down the middle one by one, releasing himself from Junsu. This petty attachment - fetish - for the other man was being destroyed as he tore them in two halves, watching the fragments flutter to the floor (a reenactment of what Junsu did to his - Yoochun’s - heart)…
Then when he reached the last one, hearing the sound of the paper tearing, he realized that it sounded sick. That the shreds of paper at his feet no longer gave him that same rush of energy and now all he felt was emptiness.
And it was silly (so silly, stupid, and ignorant) of him to think that way, but Junsu had made him promise to be careful - to not break his heart… And here he was in his bedroom floor, completely surrounded by broken hearts and promises.
He let himself cry as he shuffled to grab the tape off his desktop, carefully sorting the pieces, trying to find their mates and put Junsu’s (and his) heart back together again.
“I’m sorry, Susu ah,” he cried softly in the corner of his room, clutching the shoebox full of mismatched hearts, the phrases and words no longer making any sense because he had taped the wrong things together. “I’m so sorry, Susu ah.”
He trudged out of his room, the rain still falling from the sky like it had been for days, and he sat on the curb gloomily, teeth chattering and clothes sticking to his frail frame. He continued to cry there - no longer wanting his mom to hear his heartache or his brother to look at him with wide eyes as he tried to understand his brother’s grief. He pulled the box closer, afraid of ruining the already damaged hearts inside the cardboard barrier, shivering from the cold and relentless downpour.
Then he felt warmth around his shoulders and the rain no longer pounded down onto him with its icy fingers. Yoochun looked to his side to see an apologetic Junsu staring straight at him, arm still wrapped up due to the fall he had taken on the field and an umbrella in hand.
“Am I too late to save you?” he queried jokingly, but Yoochun detected the seriousness behind Junsu’s words, the worried expression in his friend’s deep brown eyes.
“There was no way anyone ever could, Junsu ah,” Yoochun spoke truthfully, feeling ugly and stupid in front of the most beautiful person he had ever seen. “I fell and landed too hard.”
Junsu chuckled lightly, the sound bouncing around the empty streets, as he teased, “I think I’m the one that hit the ground pretty hard.”
“I’m sorry, Su ah.” It felt right at the moment to apologize.
Junsu shook his head. “It’s okay - although I would have liked my good luck charm to be supporting me. It would’ve made falling a lot less… painful.”
The silence closed around them again, and for once it was not smothering. It felt nice, comfortable, the way it used to be. Junsu shuffled his feet, shoes - worn from overuse - scuffing against the black pavement of the completely deserted street. Yoochun, too, shifted, bringing himself closer to the welcoming heat of Junsu’s body.
When Yoochun placed his head against the other’s shoulder, Junsu began to speak again. “I always believed in you, Yoochun ah, you just never believed in me.”
“You never gave me a reason to do so.”
“I was scared, Chun ah. I still am. After we had sex that first night, I would just stare at you - in a non-stalker like way -” Yoochun cracked a smile at Junsu’s words, to which the speaker gladly returned the gesture - “I was so afraid that I would never be good enough. That you would leave me, and you don’t know how much it hurt to see my worst nightmare come true - you kissing Min the only thing different.”
“It hurt me, too, Junsu ah,” Yoochun stated irritably, “and the kiss with Changmin meant nothing. What about Hee-sun?” Junsu remained silent and Yoochun resisted the urge to give in to the tears that so desperately wanted to fall. God, Junsu had turned him into a damn hormonal mess of emotions. “See? We’re simply not -”
He was cut off by his lips being pressed down upon by the younger man’s own. His eyes slowly shut, immersing himself in the feeling of the other’s lips upon his - a feeling he had been missing for such a very long time now. Fingers tangled in his hair as his own arms looped around the other’s neck, pulling him closer, and he could care less that they were in a public place, that someone could be watching them at that moment. All that mattered was the love of his life kissing him like there was no tomorrow.
When Junsu slackened his hold on the other’s head, he pulled back to look at his handiwork, the adorable flush across his love’s cheeks. “This - us, you and me - means something to me.”
Yoochun let his smile finally - for once in the past few years - meet his eyes, the dazzling shimmer reflecting Junsu’s as well. He pushed forward again, tightening his arms around the other’s shoulders, burying his blushing face into the soft fabric of Junsu’s slightly damp shirt.
“I missed this,” Yoochun said, words slightly muffled by the light green material rubbing against his mouth.
“I did, too,” Junsu voiced back, leaning his own head down to plant a tiny kiss atop the others ink-colored locks. “Are you going to move on?”
“Yes,” Yoochun sighed out as he let his eyelids gently pull over his eyes tiredly.
Junsu stiffened in his hold. “Are you really?”
There was a short pause. “…no.”
Junsu laughed, a tinkling sound - the one that Yoochun had not heard in what seemed to be years. “Then why are you lying?”
Yoochun groaned, tired of the questions and stated, “It makes things hurt less.”
“Yoochun ah…”
Yoochun pushed himself away, looking into amber orbs that stared back - holding his gaze and refusing to let go. “Even if it hadn’t ended when it did, it would have eventually. I was tired of the secrets, of not getting to hold your hand, kiss you in public, and tell you that you meant everything to me - you were my whole world. I wanted so much for myself - for both of us - to be able to shout it out at the tops of our lungs. But that’s not going to happen.”
Junsu blinked up at the now standing sixteen year old before him, the box he was carrying still held tightly to him, as he queried, “Why can’t it happen?”
Yoochun smiled - a broken grin that did not quite convince Junsu that everything was going to be okay, that they were alright.
“It was a matter of what was important to you. And I am sure we both know what won in the end. Bye, Su ah, I have homework to do and it’s getting late. Be careful on your way home.”
Those were the last things Yoochun said to Junsu that night, running away from his problems again instead of trying to fix them. But he was good at running away - at hiding his feelings (the ones that were important - that wanted out). It was not that he did not believe in Junsu - he did, he always had, and he always would (despite the insecurities, the fears, the longing).
He just never believed in himself.
* * *
“He pushed her away, you know,” Jaejoong stated idly as he lazed around on the ledge of the school building, one leg dangling over the edge, above the ground, and the other resting on the ledge.
He twirled a freshly lit cigarette between his fingers, watching the ash white puffs of smoke drift off into the wintry sky above them. Yoochun refused to speak, letting his own body lean over the only thing separating him from crashing down and living.
“It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference,” Yoochun deadpanned, his own white stick dropping to the ground below, much to Jaejoong’s disappointment.
“You just wasted a pretty damn good cigarette.” Jaejoong sighed, rolling off the ledge and steadying himself back on the ground before he continued. “I am fairly certain that he being the one pushing her away - and not kissing her in the first place, mind you - makes a lot of difference.”
“We’re not going to work,” Yoochun breathed out, aggravated with his friend’s persistence on the subject.
Could they not learn to drop it and move on with their lives? Was their relationship the only thing worth talking about lately? A relationship that barely made it past three months and ended because both parties were far too nervous and afraid to let their affections show?
“Not if you don’t try,” Jaejoong said, letting his words drip from his tongue - the usual traces of sarcasm and venom undetectable in his friend’s words. “Don’t let a good thing pass you by, Chun ah. Just think about that.”
Jaejoong patted the younger male on the back, fixing his unbuttoned grey jacket and black shirt underneath, and ran a hand through his hair to make himself more presentable. Then he was slipping through the back stairwell and heading into the warm confines of the establishment, leaving Yoochun to decide for himself.
Either he was running forever or he was going to stop for Junsu.
The choice was his to make, and no matter how much he - or Yunho or Changmin - tried to prod into their business and force decisions upon the two, they could not interfere anymore.
They had to let science (gravity, chemistry, fate, and destiny) take its course.
* * *
The next day before lunch, when the school’s hallways were littered with students, Yoochun saw Junsu again - smiling. He had been walking with Changmin, animatedly talking to the boy (without the awkwardness that had been present for weeks after the kiss that probably happened too late), when he had spotted Junsu standing in the middle of crowd, being bumped about, and with a huge grin on his face that twinkled in his eyes even.
“Junsu ah, what are you doing just standing there?” Yoochun inquired, shifting his bag’s strap on his shoulder where it had been cutting into the skin due to the weight of his books. He noticed Changmin walking away, waving a silent goodbye, and he called back, “See you at the lunch table, Min ah!”
Junsu’s smile dimmed slightly at the sound of Yoochun’s cheerful voice saying goodbye to the boy that he had kissed so many weeks ago in a deserted park. But he did not let that dampen his mood, he simply kept grinning and laced his fingers with the older boy’s, despite the crowds of people watching their every move.
Yoochun, scared (mainly for Junsu and the reputation that his love had worked so very hard for), hissed, “What are you doing, Su ah?”
“I decided it was time to let you know what really was important to me,” Junsu answered shortly, the impish spark still shining brightly in his beautiful brown eyes. He pulled the puzzled boy closer, and finally uttered the words Yoochun had only ever heard in his dreams. “I love you, Chunnie ah.”
Yoochun heard a few scandalized gasps coming from every direction, and then soon he could make out cheering people, catcalls, and everyone that supported them and this big step they took at actually becoming important. But those words and jeers slowly faded as his boyfriend - the love of his life, Kim Junsu - placed his lips upon his own.
In the background he could hear the ever-so-helpful student body president break the crowd up, telling them all to move along, and subtly giving the two kissing teens in the middle of the hall the privacy they needed.
Yoochun missed the knowing glance and the wink that Yunho sent Jaejoong who stood off to one side with a large Cheshire cat grin spread across his full pink lips. He did not quite see the sad smile of Changmin who knew that he had lost, that he had not even gotten past the starting line while Junsu had already been fast approaching the finish. He was letting go.
It was about time they all received the happiness they had sought after for such a very long time now.
Yoochun smiled into the kiss, not even noticing the diminishing crowd, the lessening of shrieks and claps, his fingers twisting into the material of Junsu’s school jacket. Junsu chuckled, happy to wrap his arms around the petite waist of his best friend, and let the older teen deepen the kiss as he ran his fingers through corkscrew curls. They were finally happy - Yoochun’s fairy tale had finally come true.
This is what it felt like to be in love and be loved in return.
* * *
Over the passing days, the hype of the first open homosexual couple had diminished until Junsu and Yoochun were not the center of attention (gossip, scandals, rude comments, jokes) anymore and they were just a phase in a teen’s life. This did not stop their love, though, hanging out at each other’s houses until late at night or when Yoochun would help his boyfriend with his work when the other’s recovering arm started giving him pains.
They had even come out to their respective families, seeking and gaining the much needed approval - as well as support - from the people that had raised them. Yoohwan and Junho had not minded at all - they had suspected something for a while, maybe even longer than the two involved had known. It had taken some time to win over Junsu’s parents - who loved both boys a lot - but a relationship (especially the type that they wished to partake in) was a big step. Despite all the hardships, though, everything turned out better than okay in the end anyway.
They were in first period again, Yoochun by the window watching the storm clouds breeze by and releasing their watery downpour as his boyfriend slept with his mouth open atop the books piled in front of him. Yoochun tilted his head to the side, brushing back the tresses of black wavy hair that fell into his vision, and studied his drooling boyfriend. Even though the very sight would have been disgusting to any regular person (child, man, or woman), Yoochun found it endearing as he threaded his fingers through those of the sleeping man.
And Yoochun looked back out the window, not paying any mind to the middle aged woman chatting idly with another student at the front of the class, seeing and hearing and wishing to feel the hammering rainfall. He only felt the fingers laced with his tighten, signaling that Junsu was now awake, eyes on his boyfriend and the dreary world outside (but the rain washes away all the pain and sins; a new beginning).
Then Yoochun thinks that maybe… just maybe…
He would like to watch the rain fall with Junsu…
…forever.
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