we could have been
We Could Have Been
homin; pg
romance
6,528 words
a series of unrelated one-shots for the holidays. all homin, all love ♥
Cup noodles over a portable heater. That’s the life of Changmin - eldest son, prodigy, grad student - and now, squatter. He sits in the living room wrapped in three jackets and two scarves, pressing his hands tight around the cup in his attempt to stay warm.
The apartment building is abandoned - new and mostly-finished but repossessed by the bank before the owners could begin renting. The complex is up for auction but in this economy, no one’s bidding.
Enter Changmin, penniless student up to his ears in debt, one amongst many scraping out a living in the shell of a building. He’s got no furniture except for a sleeping bag and a suitcase of clothes, a little heater and a laptop. He makes tables of books and uses a flashlight when the sun goes down.
He’s lived here for two months and it was okay, at first. It had been his saving grace - it had been either move out or drop out, and Changmin wasn’t going to waste years of hard work because he couldn’t pay one last semester of tuition. And he’d heard the rumors of students who’d done the same - there were lots of buildings like this to squat in and really, it was just like camping, only a little less outdoors and a little more illegal.
But now it is winter, and the lack of insulated walls and heating makes a world of difference. The wind whips at the window, a flimsy sheet of plastic that is the only thing separating him from the outside. He finishes his noodles and opens up his textbooks. It’s hard to write when his fingers are stiff from the cold, but he’s had lots of practice.
He goes to classes three days a week. He has an unpaid internship one day a week, a teaching assistant job on another. The other two days he spends at the university library, doing research for his thesis.
He’s also got a job at a convenience store, in which he fills in for regular employees who can’t come in. It’s not much, a snatch of hours sketched around his already-full schedule. He isn’t officially on payroll - he can’t be, without a permanent address, so the manger pays him for his work under-the-table. Also illegal, but Changmin thinks it’s okay. Yoochun is a good friend of his and knows what he’s doing; if he’s willing to risk paying Changmin that way, who is Changmin to say no?
It’s not like he wants to do all these illegal things. It’s just that he’s got no choice.
Just one more semester, he tells himself. One more, and he’ll have a degree and a complete résumé. He’ll get a steady job and get a real home, and finally have time to make that life for himself. Then everything will be okay.
But, he thinks, whoever said college will be the best time of your life was an idiot.
He wakes one Saturday morning and can’t stop shivering. There’s a nice trim of ice along the window and he curses. It’s only going to get colder. The sun is just rising over the city skyline and he turns on his heater. He only keeps it on during the day, when he’s awake enough to appreciate it. Can’t use too much electricity or he’ll risk someone noticing that it’s being sent to an abandoned building.
Breakfast is cold dry cereal. He gets a call from his mother. She doesn’t know where he’s living, only that he doesn’t have enough money to come home for the holidays. Christmas is two weeks away. He spent his last two T.A. paychecks on gifts for his family. She scolds him for sending them at all.
“I know you don’t have that much money. You shouldn’t have…” she says.
“I wanted to,” he replies. “You got me here, didn’t you? It’s the least I can do.”
She shushes him and asks how he’s doing, how his thesis is going and how are his friends. He answers all of her questions except the one for a return address. “I might be going out of town. With friends,” he lies. “I wouldn’t get them anyway. Save them for the summer, okay?”
She doesn’t like it but agrees. He hopes they don’t buy him anything at all. It’s not like they have any money, either.
He keeps himself bundled and is working through the third volume of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu when someone knocks on his door. He jumps and for a moment, is absolutely terrified. What if the bank had someone to check the building? It could be bodyguards or worse - the police. But then a voice drifts through the door, soft and trembling
“Hello…? A-anyone in there?”
Changmin has never had anyone come knocking. He stands and moves hesitantly towards door, as if it will burst open at any moment. Then he chastises himself for being stupid. He steps forward and opens the door.
He’s met with small eye and smile that’s bright enough to keep him warm forever.
“Hi…” the man ventures again.
Changmin stares. Then he realizes he is staring and tries to stop. He fails. “Hi…?” he manages. He feels stupid.
The man smiles again. “I’m glad-d to finally meet someone… I live, uh, am in a room on the s-second floor.” Changmin lives on the third. He knows that other people are living in the building - homeless people, crazy vagrants. For all he knows this man could be one of them. He isn’t quite sure what to say.
The man keeps smiling despite Changmin’s silence. “I know this might s-sound weird, but, uh, can I come in? I just found this place and I don’t have a l-lot of clothes and my h-heater wouldn’t start this morning…” he babbles, and Changmin realizes he’s shivering. Whereas Changmin’s still wearing his two jackets and three scarves, plus a sweater and two layers of socks, Yunho’s in nothing more than jeans and a hoodie. Where the neckline dips loose under the man’s thin neck Changmin can see goosebumps scattered across his collarbones. He must be freezing.
He probably shouldn’t trust him. He shouldn’t let in this man. But he looks so hopeful and Changmin’s always been a sucker for a pretty face. He opens the door wider, and watches the man sag in relief.
“I’m Yunho, by the w-way,” he says, rubbing his hands together in the meager warmth of the room.
“Changmin. Here,” he says, offering the man another of his jackets. “Put it on, you look like you’re going to shiver your skin off.”
“T-thanks. I won’t stay long, I promise, or bother you, I just-t can’t - I mean, the cold, it’s…”
“I understand,” he says, and means it. He settles back down on his bed, eyeing Yunho warily for a moment or two before going back to his reading.
Yunho tucks himself into a corner of the room and stays there silently. His shivering stops soon enough and he leans his head against the wall. When Changmin looks up from his book an hour later, he’s fast asleep.
“Weird guy,” he says softly to himself.
Yoochun calls him somewhere around noon, asking him to take over the evening shift that night. Changmin agrees and turns to Yunho. He prods the man to get him to wake.
“Yah, Yunho-sshi.” The man stirs, his eyelids fluttering. Changmin tries to tell himself not to stare too hard.
“Mm?”
“I have to go, Yunho-sshi.”
“O-oh,” the man says, nodding. He gets up. “Well, thanks for letting me stay. I really appreciate it, you didn’t have to…”
“It’s no problem,” Changmin says. It isn’t - they’re all in the same boat here, anyway. At least Yunho doesn’t seem crazy. “Keep the jacket for now. Do you have anything else?”
Yunho shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t have much of anything, really… Just ‘bought the heater yesterday at Goodwill. Waste of five dollars,” he laughs wryly.
“Most of the outlets don’t work. It’s why I live up here,” Changmin shrugs. He rummages through his suitcase and pulls out an extra-long scarf and a pair of gloves. “Take these.”
“No, Changmin-sshi, I couldn’t.”
Changmin forces them into Yunho’s hands. “Until you get something better. I’m not giving them to you - I want them back. Remember, I know where you live.”
Yunho laughs for real this time and Changmin hopes he isn’t blushing. Yunho has a very nice laugh.
“Thanks,” he says sincerely and heads out the door, waving as he walks out. Changmin holds his breathe for one, two, three seconds.
Then he rushes to the door, leaning out into the hallway. “Come back anytime!” he wants to say. But Yunho’s already gone, slipping around the corner into the stairwell.
Changmin ends up taking the graveyard shift as well as the evening one. He’s annoyed at first but knows he shouldn’t mind - more money, and the store is so dead that he gets to spend most of it studying anyway. When he gets home he’s bone-weary and just wants to drop into his sleeping bag.
It’s no more than three hours later, however, when there’s a knock on his door. He grumbles and pushes himself up, still half-asleep. Not really thinking, he swings open the door with an irritated “what?”
Yunho’s still got his hand raised to knock and he looks sheepish. “Uh, hi a-again!” he says cheerfully.
Changmin thinks that no one should be this early in the morning. It can’t be any earlier than seven. “Yunho-sshi,” he says slowly, hanging his head and pushing the door open.
Yunho hesitates, “Is this a bad time…?”
“It’s fine. Just - late night. I’m still a little tired.”
“Oh. I can g-go if-”
“No,” Changmin sighs, “stay. It’s pretty damn cold. Let me get the heater on.”
“Thanks so-o much,” Yunho smiles, and Changmin suddenly feels a lot better.
He goes back to sleep in the end; a few more stolen couple of hours before his natural sleep cycle wakes him up. He’s never been one to sleep in anyway. He opens his eyes and doesn’t see Yunho anywhere. He thinks he must have left and is surprised at the disappointment he feels.
That’s when he hears the sounds from the bedroom, a steady thumpthump of moving feet. He doesn’t go in there much - the heater is only good for one room, anyway, so he doesn’t know why Yunho would have gone in there.
But there Yunho is, doing some sort of weird dance-exercise in the middle of the empty room.
Changmin watches and thinks maybe Yunho is a bit crazy. But he’s one hot kind of crazy, for sure.
He clears his throat as Yunho does this little twist-thrust with his hips and almost chokes on it.
Yunho whirls around, “Changmin-sshi! You’re awake.”
“Yah. What’re you doing?” he asks.
“Aa, just something to do. Staying warm,” the man replies. “I’m a dancer, and this room is still loads warmer than mine, so it’s better for practice… it’s okay, right?”
Changmin nods quickly. “Of course. So… you’re a dancer?”
“Yeah. I lived above the studio I taught at. But then it went under and, well, you know it goes. Out of a job, out of a home…”
Changmin hums in agreement.
“What about you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Grad student,” he says, jerking his head back towards the piles of books in the other room. “College loans.”
Yunho quirks a smile. “You don’t say very much, do you?”
Changmin keeps a straight face when he shrugs, but Yunho laughs. Changmin thinks it’s a laugh he could listen to forever.
Monday morning is Changmin’s internship. He starts at eight but the office is an hour away and he’s at the bus stop by six-thirty.
He works for a research company that fact-checks textbooks. It’s dull work but is the sort of position Changmin needs. He had wanted it to be a stepping-stone for something better - post-grad, fellowships, or even a full-time teaching position at a university. He’d wanted to be a professor. He’s a prodigy, after all - literature, history, sociology, philosophy; he’s studied it all and more. Nothing interests him more than the idea of learning something new, studying and analyzing and knowing it inside and out.
Now, though, all he hopes is that maybe the company’ll hire him after graduation. It might be the closest he’ll ever get to true academia, anyway.
He’s home right before the sun comes down, his breath white in the air. He sneaks into the back entrance of his apartment building and treks up three stories. On his door is a yellow post-it.
Missed you and your heater
this morning
See you tomorrow…? :)
- Yunho ♥
Changmin bites down on his smile when he sees it. It’s ridiculous; something so small shouldn’t make him happy. Besides, he won’t even be there in the morning. He has two seminars that’ll fill up his whole day.
He takes the sticky with him inside.
He eats his cup noodles and goes straight to bed, reading by flashlight until he slips into sleep, book propped open beside him on the pillow.
When he leaves the next morning, he puts the sticky-note back on the door with a little arrow at the bottom corner, and a message on the back.
How can you have post-its and
not a decent coat??
Class today and tomorrow, but
come in if you can’t stand it.
- CM
That night he comes home and the sticky-note is gone, but all his books are where he put them, his heater isn’t on. There’s no sign to tell him whether or not Yunho came in.
Wednesday he only has one morning class. It’s his last class of the semester, and being the good student he is had the final papers finished the week before. He steps out of the classroom with a loud sigh, rolling his head and hearing the bones crack in his neck.
“Hey, Changmin!” Jaejoong calls from behind him.
“Hey.”
“Last class for you, yeah? Same here. Some guys and I are going out for drinks, wanna come?” the older man offers.
Changmin thinks about it. He hasn’t seen a lot of his friends since he’d moved out of the dorms. Hasn’t done much of anything, other than work and study. But it’s only midday and if he goes home, he might catch Yunho at his place. Or he could find him and invite him up. He thinks today might be the coldest day yet.
“Nah,” he says. “I still got some work to do.”
“You sure?” Jaejoong offers. He looks concerned; he’s one of the few that knows Changmin’s situation.
Changmin claps him on the shoulder. “I’m sure. Go, party your heart out and get wasted. Drunk-dial me at three in the morning and we’ll discuss Proust and Durrell and even some Joyce, if your brain can handle it.”
“My brain can never handle Joyce,” Jaejoong laughs. “Alright, but if you want to come…”
“I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“No problem!” He starts to walk off only to turn around, adding, “hey, you going home for break?”
Changmin shakes his head.
“Well, I’ll be back after Christmas and I’m going to throw the most awesome of awesome New Years Eve parties, so you better come.”
“Yah, yah. Go, I’ll talk to you later,” he shoos at the older man, who grins and hurries off.
The university is a good half-hour walk from the apartment building, and even though the sun is up the journey is frigid. He even thinks he sees a few flakes of snow. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it snows.
Yunho is in his apartment when he gets back.
“Hi!” he says. He’s sitting right beside the heater and has got one of Changmin’s books propped in his lap. “You actually read this stuff? You must be a genius.”
Changmin ducks his head, burying his blush in his scarf. “That one’s for my senior thesis. It’s for citing, not reading.”
“Still sounds pretty smart,” Yunho says. “Shouldn’t you be done with classes already? Christmas is only a little over a week away.”
“Today was my last day.”
Yunho’s mouth opens in a little ‘oh.’ “You must be happy! Are you gonna celebrate?”
Changmin shrugs. He wonders how Yunho would take it if he said he’d skipped out on his friends just to see him. Instead he gives the same answer he gave Jaejoong. “I’m good. Parties aren’t really my thing,” he adds, which is mostly true.
“You should celebrate at least a little! It’s officially the holidays, now… ah!” The man jumps up, crying “wait here!” before running out the door.
Changmin raises his eyebrows at the man’s hasty exit, but doesn’t follow him. He steals the man’s place beside the heater, moving the book back to its rightful pile. He waits a few minutes before the other man returns, knocking once in courtesy before pushing the door back open. In his hands is a small box.
“Got these from a friend the other day. He works part-time at a supermarket, and if any of the boxes have been opened or torn, even if the contents are still good, they have to throw them away. But because my dear friend is so kind, he donates them to the Flat Broke Yunho Fund.”
He drops the box beside Changmin and the student peers inside. It’s bags and bags of dried foods - squid and shrimp and seaweed and more.
“We can dine to our hearts content,” Yunho says proudly. “It’s the least I can do, since you’ve been so nice and all.”
Changmin sifts through the box and grabbing a bag of cuttlefish, his favorite. “I should warn you now that I eat more than a normal person probably should be able to. Are you willing to risk me eating all this food? Because I totally could.”
“It’s going towards a good cause,” Yunho says, taking a seat across from him.
“Keep this up and I may never let you leave,” Changmin shoots back impulsively.
And he likes to think that he sees Yunho blush at that.
Since Changmin is out of school his schedule undergoes a sharp cutback. He still has his internship and the occasional shift at the convenience store, but for the most part his hours are his own. He promises himself he will spend at least three days at the library, but the rest of the time he contents himself to studying at home, despite the cold.
Yunho comes over every morning he is there and, he’s pretty sure, every day he isn’t. Changmin knows that Yunho could have easily gone to get another heater by now, but Yunho hasn’t brought it up and Changmin isn’t going to be the one to mention it.
It’s hard to get into the holiday spirit when one is busy with finals and practically homeless. Buying Christmas gifts and hearing songs on the radio is one thing, but actually getting into those warm and cozy sugar-plum dreams is a whole different cup of tea. It’s the twentieth before he knows it and Changmin dreams have yet to be visited by dancing fairies.
Yunho, however, is different. Although Changmin suspects the man might be visited by fairies all year round, now he practically exudes holiday cheer. Changmin doesn’t know what he does during the day and evening, but every night he comes back, arms laden with all sorts of decorations and ornaments, Christmas candies and confections.
“For someone who’s so broke you sure do collect a lot of stuff,” he says, watching as Yunho strings a line of tinsel along the unpainted crown molding.
“What can I say? I’m resourceful,” he winks over his shoulder.
They eat breakfast and dinner together, and when Changmin studies Yunho dances, spinning and swaying away in the other room despite the cold conditions. In the moments between they talk - or, more truthfully, Changmin listens and Yunho talks about whatever comes to mind.
This man, Changmin quickly realizes, is probably one of the most talkative people he’s ever known - and open, too. He tells Changmin about the dance studio and his favorite songs and the people he’s dated and the old woman who lived next door that was his best friend until he was seven. He talks about how this isn’t the first time he’s been homeless.
“I lived under a bridge for nearly half a year,” he says quietly.
Changmin isn’t sure if he should comfort him. Instead he jokes. “Then why are you horrible at living like this now? You’re coats are still too thin.”
Yunho smiles wanly at him. “It was a pretty big surprise. I’d gotten rid of all my old street-clothes the first time I was able to pay rent, just to prove to myself I’d never be here again. Probably stupid, right?”
“…No, not at all.”
“Yeah, well. One thing I also learned about living like this is that you can rely on people. Especially others like us - you can trust them, because you have nothing to lose. And they don’t, either.”
“Makes sense,” Changmin agrees. It’s the reason he let Yunho in - besides the pretty face, of course.
And although he wouldn’t really admit it - denies it, joking that Yunho bothers him and distracts him from his studying - he thinks listening to Yunho is fascinating. He loves the timbre of his voice, the slight accent of his words and the way he accompanies every word with a motion of his hands. He gets absorbed in analyzing the details of Yunho’s face, the way his lips move animatedly around the sounds and the way his eyes get even smaller when he smiles.
It’s why he’s taken aback when Yunho finally wants him to speak.
“Me? I’m, just…” frustrated. scared. lonely. starting to get desperate. starting to fall in love with you. “-just a student.”
It’s Monday again, the twenty-first - another day notched by. He’d gotten home from his internship an hour ago and now they sit side-by-side on Changmin’s sleeping bag, backs against the wall. Changmin’s got his laptop on his lap and is copying notes from a book while Yunho eats a lukewarm cup of noodles.
“Tch, you can’t leave it at that,” he says, nudging Changmin with his shoulder. “I practically told you my whole life story!”
Changmin chews his lip for a moment and debates. It’s not like he likes to talk about it, really. He’d rather just live his life and get this whole stage of his life over with. But - like Yunho said, what does he have to lose?
“I wanted to get my PhD,” he starts, “and everyone said I could do it easy. I even skipped a grade in high school. But my family barely had enough to get me through my undergrad. When I chose to go to grad school they were totally behind me - just not financially.”
“They cut you off?” Yunho says quizzically.
“No. They still send me some money, when they can… but the tuition is way out of their reach. I have financial aid and loans but it only goes so far, yah? What about you? You forgot to mention your parents in that ‘life story’ of yours.”
Yunho chuckles wryly. Changmin thinks it might be a habit. “I was cut off. Dad wanted me to be a professional, I wanted to dance. I left home when I couldn’t stand it anymore, and spent that under the bridge… and then I got a chance at the studio - and I took it.”
“That turned out well,” Changmin jokes again, empathetic.
But this time Yunho doesn’t laugh. He turns on Changmin with serious eyes, chin tilted up in defiance. “I don’t regret my decision. I was doing what I loved - and I’ll find another job, one way or any other, and I’ll keep doing what I love.”
Changmin considers him carefully, holding his gaze. “Good for you,” he finally says. Then he turns back to his book and his laptop, transcribing the small font with shaking fingers.
Yunho is tense beside him, but it takes only a moment for the other to relax. He picks at his noodles with his chopsticks absently before setting him down. With a quiet sigh he slumps, leaning over to rest his head on Changmin’s shoulder.
Changmin looks down onto the mess of dark hair and matches his sigh. “We won’t be here forever,” he says, and tries to believe it.
“Yeah.”
Changmin hesitates before leaning down, just enough to feel soft curls brush against his cheek. “Wanna go out tomorrow?” he whispers.
“Mm?”
“You and me. Somewhere warm. Not here.”
He can feel Yunho’s smile against his shoulder.
They go to a local mall. It’s big and indoors and crowded with shoppers searching for that perfect last-minute gift. They avoid going in most of stores, choosing instead to wander and window shop for things they can’t afford. Yunho drools over the latest music player-phone-camera-pda-thing and Changmin teases him gently.
Then he realizes - “Do you even have a phone?” He’s never seen the older man with one.
Yunho doesn’t meet his eyes for a moment. “Nah. I have one, I mean, but it doesn’t do much good when you can’t pay for any service.”
“Oh,” Changmin says, fingering his in his pocket. He feels guilty, but he doesn’t know why. “I don’t have a camera,” he offers, “or a music player.”
“Yeah?”
“I pawned off my iPod for my sociology textbook two years ago,” he says. “And I’ve never had my own camera. But I really love photography. And music.”
Yunho puffs out his cheeks only to blow out a breath and send his bangs flying. “One day!” he cries, “when we’re rich and respectable, I’ll buy you both. But I want the best phone they have. Limited edition, international service, gold antennae, the works - got it?”
Changmin chuckles, only to stop when Yunho shoots him a wide-eyed look. “What?”
“The first time I heard you laugh, is all,” the man says. “You should do it more often.”
Changmin smirks. “I laugh at you all the time. Just behind your back.”
“Yah! So cruel!” The dancer exclaims, grabbing at his heart in exaggeration. “Death by disrespect, what a way to go.”
He mock-cries and pouts and Changmin feels second-hand embarrassment from the looks they’re getting from passerby’s. He grabs Yunho’s hand and pulls him along, grumbling. “No wonder you’re homeless, you’re probably crazy, you freak.”
“Merciless, I tell you!”
Changmin pulls him all the way to the bookstore. It’s where Changmin wants to go anyway and there are enough quiet corners to keep Yunho out of sight. He leaves Yunho in the manga section, sitting on the floor and flipping through random volumes, as he drift through the store. He could spend hours in the store, just tracing his fingers along the spines and imagining what could be going on inside, folded in among the pages.
He’s in the biography section, standing on the tips of his toes to see the upper shelf when a pair of arms wrap around his waist, coaxing him down. He turns and it’s Yunho.
“Got bored?” he asks lightly, ignoring the fluttering in his chest.
“Chased out by a group of junior high girls,” the man pouts, resting his chin on Changmin’s shoulder. Changmin slouches just so it’ll be more comfortable for the just-shorter man. “Let’s go?”
“Okay.”
Around midnight on the night before Christmas Eve, Changmin is woken by screaming. He is shocked out of sleep, flailing through his layers only to realize it’s just another squatter. He isn’t lying when he says there are crazy drifters in the building.
He’s trying to fall asleep again when he hears a rapid knock on his door. The screams continue from somewhere below him and he knows it’s just Yunho at the door. “Come in!” he calls.
Yunho steps in quickly, wrapped in a blanket. His breath mists in the air - the heater isn’t on. Changmin beckons with a hand and he doesn’t hesitate, coming over to lie out beside Changmin. He’s wearing the jacket Changmin gave him when they first met.
“What the h-hell is that?”
“One of the other squatters,” Changmin whispers. The screams are growing hoarse - sharp, piercing sounds that grate against his heart. “Almost half of homeless people suffer mental disorders, mainly schizophrenia… So there are nights like these. It’s been a while, though.”
“Jesus,” Yunho whispers right back. “I think the guy is in the r-room next to mine. I thought he was dying.”
“Maybe he thinks he is, too,” Changmin murmurs. He’s taught himself to think of it as not his business, but it’s always hard. The first time he heard screaming like this he’d been so scared he’d slept upright against the door, so his body would block anyone from trying to get in. “It’ll probably stop soon. If you want, we can go check on him…”
“N-no, that’s okay,” Yunho says quickly. “I-it’s freezing. How are you not freezing? Why don’t you turn the h-heater on at night?”
“Too much energy. And I’m used to it.” He pauses for a moment and listens to the chatter of Yunho’s teeth. “Yah, c’mere.”
“Huh?” Yunho asks, but Changmin’s already reached out an arm to drag him into the bundle of blankets. He hugs him close, rubs his arms absently through the fabric of the jacket. They’re lying face to face and the air grows warm between them.
They don’t speak again until the screaming stops, fading into broken moans and then nothing at all. The silence is almost just as unnerving.
“You’re a good person, Changmin-ah,” Yunho says slowly, into the quiet. He moves around, finally getting comfortable, and looks at the younger man with hooded eyes. “I’m glad I knocked on your door.”
“I’m glad you knocked, too,” he replies quietly. He tries to ignore the fluttering again but this time it’s much, much harder. He can’t believe it’s only been a little over a week. An unexpected knock on a warped door to a room that was supposed to be empty, and it changed Changmin’s life forever. He screws his eyes shut and tries to work up the courage to say what he wants to say.
“You make this bearable,” he says, so softly that he’s not even sure he makes a sound. “Yunho…” He opens his eyes.
Yunho’s eyes are closed, his breathing even. He’s asleep. Changmin swallows and closes his eyes, willing himself to fall into sleep so easily.
He wakes up in the morning and Yunho is gone. There is a post-it note stuck to a bowl of cereal beside his head.
Merry Christmas Eve!
See you later!
- Yunho ♥
Changmin stamps down the sinking feeling in his chest. If Yunho isn’t going to be around there’s no point in wasting the day. The library should still be open and he hasn’t been going as often as he should have been. He thinks one of his books might be overdue. His books are never overdue.
He’s the type to easily get lost among his studies, and when he arrives he expects to work the whole day, never raising his head - instead, he is distracted by thoughts of Yunho and ‘See you later!’s. He doesn’t know why is so hurt by Yunho leaving - he shouldn’t be. It isn’t like anything happened. It isn’t like it meant anything. It’s only been a little over a week, he reminds himself.
But it’s Christmas Eve, he thinks. And he’d allowed himself to hope. How stupid.
He gives up and is packing his books up around four when he gets the call. It’s Yoochun. The convenient store is open on Christmas Eve, and invariably someone ducks out. Changmin thinks for just a minute before agreeing.
It isn’t Christmas Eve anymore when he gets back. It’s Christmas, and Christmas is cold and dark. He doesn’t know what he expects - it’s not like it’s any different than when he usually gets back late, but for some reason the contrast of decorated houses and light-wrapped street signs and his lonely, abandoned building just makes him feel that much sadder.
He looks up at the empty windows. He doesn’t want to go inside - but, really, he has nowhere else to go.
He walks up the stairs with heavy feet and into his room with a heavy heart. It’s empty and he burrows into the sleeping bag with his clothes still on. He pulls extra blankets on but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to get the chill out of his bones.
Cup noodles over a portable heater. His mother calls him and wishes him Merry Christmas, passing on the phone to his father and sisters and aunts and uncles and everyone else that came for Christmas. He gets a few text messages from friends, Jaejoong even calls him. They talk for a bit but Changmin lets his friend go quickly after hearing laughter in the background.
Yunho probably has friends to be with, too. The man’s homeless, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a life. Friends, places to be. Why would he want to be here for Christmas? Changmin doesn’t blame him.
He wears a pair of fingerless gloves and bends over his table of books, scribbling notes in the margins of review journal of historical essays, dog-earing pages that might be useful for his thesis. After his hand starts cramping he pulls out a book - something he bought at the bookstore when he’d gone with Yunho.
It’s just fiction, a mystery-type novel that Changmin loves but never gets to read because he hasn’t got the time. But hey, it’s Christmas. He should be allowed to take a break. And it takes his mind off other things. If only for so long.
By the time the sun starts creeping towards the horizon he’s sick of the room, sick of the cold. He stands up and starts moving to get his blood pumping, pacing through doorways that he never uses. He almost goes into the room Yunho usually dances in, but at the last moment turns and walks right out the door.
He goes down to the street and down the block and just keeps walking, until he’s breathing hard and his feet hurt. He wishes he would never have to stop, that he would never have to return to that god-awful building and his god-awful life.
He ends up at a little café, where he spares a few dollars for a cup of coffee that is deliciously warm as it slides down his throat. He holds it in hands that are calloused from writing and cracked from the cold. He hates these hands.
The café closes early - of course, it’s Christmas, it’s too be expected. The barista gives him a kind smile when she ushers him out. “Go home, aren’t you keeping someone waiting?” She says, not realizing the cruelty of her words. Changmin is the one waiting - for someone, something, anything better than this.
But.
Maybe it’s time he changed that.
He doesn’t remember the walk back, but he remembers every sense, every instant of the knock. The cold air in his lungs, the feel his knuckles hitting rough wood, sending tremors up his arm and dull thuds echoing in the hallway.
He doesn’t even know if this is Yunho’s room. But it’s the second floor, next to the one where the screaming had sounded like it came from. And he can try again, at other doors-
But sometimes, this shitty life surprises even him. He hears a familiar voice call from inside and he pushes the door open, only to stop in shock at the sight that meets him.
“Hey,” Yunho says with a crooked smile. He’s sitting on a blanket spread over the floor, a full dinner spread before out him. He’s shivering like usual but there are candles in the window and on the floor and it lights up the whole room with a soft golden glow. “Welcome.”
Changmin stares at him and Yunho’s smile falters. He looks down in his lap and twists his fingers together. “I h-had this all set up in your place l-last night, but you, ah, never came back and so I got-t nervous, thinking maybe you’d gone home or s-something. And I figured all this shouldn’t go to w-waste… I was about to s-start eating this all myself!” He adds with false cheer.
Changmin shuts the door behind him and hesitantly takes a seat on the blanket. “It looks good.”
“Yeah… got it from my friend at the grocery s-store. Got everything that you’re supposed to have… It’s all cold now, of course, but-t…”
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Changmin says. “I would eat it even if it wasn’t.”
Yunho laughs and Changmin thinks, it’s only been two days and he missed that laugh. It’s only been two weeks and he’s in love.
“Merry Christmas,” Yunho says warmly.
“Merry Christmas.”
They eat in quiet contentment. It’s not the best Christmas dinner - the turkey slices are soggy and they can’t get cranberry sauce to come out of the can. But Changmin thinks by the light of the candle Yunho looks more handsome than ever and that’s more than enough reason to rank it as one of his top Christmas’s anyway.
They finish with half-frozen pie and Yunho gives him another lop-sided smile. “I told you it wasn’t the best.”
“It was just fine,” Changmin says. And then he swallows, taking a deep breath. “I w-want to thank you,” he says, and the tremble in his voice has nothing to do with the cold.
“It’s nothing,” Yunho shakes his head.
“Not for the dinner. For everything… everything else. I didn’t think I’d be able to really…” he trails off, not quite sure how to phrase it. “I haven’t - I haven’t had reason to hope in a long time. I was expecting Christmas to be just one more miserable day among a lot of others. This is… the best present I could have ever asked for. So thank you.”
Yunho slides up next to him so that he can feel the warmth of the other man along his side. He wraps his arm around Changmin’s shoulders. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say.”
Changmin laughs around the tightness of his throat. “I meant every word.”
“I know,” Yunho says softly. “I don’t know what to say…”
Changmin kisses him so he doesn’t need to say anything at all. He pulls back after a tender moment to look into Yunho’s eyes, waiting.
Dark eyes reflect the candlelight. Changmin holds his breath, one, two, three seconds-
And Yunho laughs, leaning in to place a light kiss at the corner of Changmin’s mouth even as he reaches down to take Changmin’s hand in his. It’s warm and wonderful and Yunho grins softly. “You’re not so bad at gift-giving yourself,” he says and rests his temple against Changmin’s, another laugh carried on a soft puff of breath. They smile together.
Outside, it isn’t snowing.
| 02. | 03. | 04. | 05.
started writing: 12/11/09
finished writing: 12/14/09
comments&+ welcome ^^
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Somehow, in between writing 90+ pages for finals this weekend, I managed to sneak in 6ooo+ words of fic. How? Idefk D: It all came about when apocryphalic mentioned I should write Christmas!homin... and so I did, lol. And will be doing more. Evidently I am easily coerced :| :D
Still not sure how many of these there will be. I have a couple more ideas, but figure I'll just write as many as I can before Christmas. Different lengths, genres, stories, just whatever comes to mind ;)♥
homin; pg
romance
6,528 words
a series of unrelated one-shots for the holidays. all homin, all love ♥
Cup noodles over a portable heater. That’s the life of Changmin - eldest son, prodigy, grad student - and now, squatter. He sits in the living room wrapped in three jackets and two scarves, pressing his hands tight around the cup in his attempt to stay warm.
The apartment building is abandoned - new and mostly-finished but repossessed by the bank before the owners could begin renting. The complex is up for auction but in this economy, no one’s bidding.
Enter Changmin, penniless student up to his ears in debt, one amongst many scraping out a living in the shell of a building. He’s got no furniture except for a sleeping bag and a suitcase of clothes, a little heater and a laptop. He makes tables of books and uses a flashlight when the sun goes down.
He’s lived here for two months and it was okay, at first. It had been his saving grace - it had been either move out or drop out, and Changmin wasn’t going to waste years of hard work because he couldn’t pay one last semester of tuition. And he’d heard the rumors of students who’d done the same - there were lots of buildings like this to squat in and really, it was just like camping, only a little less outdoors and a little more illegal.
But now it is winter, and the lack of insulated walls and heating makes a world of difference. The wind whips at the window, a flimsy sheet of plastic that is the only thing separating him from the outside. He finishes his noodles and opens up his textbooks. It’s hard to write when his fingers are stiff from the cold, but he’s had lots of practice.
He goes to classes three days a week. He has an unpaid internship one day a week, a teaching assistant job on another. The other two days he spends at the university library, doing research for his thesis.
He’s also got a job at a convenience store, in which he fills in for regular employees who can’t come in. It’s not much, a snatch of hours sketched around his already-full schedule. He isn’t officially on payroll - he can’t be, without a permanent address, so the manger pays him for his work under-the-table. Also illegal, but Changmin thinks it’s okay. Yoochun is a good friend of his and knows what he’s doing; if he’s willing to risk paying Changmin that way, who is Changmin to say no?
It’s not like he wants to do all these illegal things. It’s just that he’s got no choice.
Just one more semester, he tells himself. One more, and he’ll have a degree and a complete résumé. He’ll get a steady job and get a real home, and finally have time to make that life for himself. Then everything will be okay.
But, he thinks, whoever said college will be the best time of your life was an idiot.
He wakes one Saturday morning and can’t stop shivering. There’s a nice trim of ice along the window and he curses. It’s only going to get colder. The sun is just rising over the city skyline and he turns on his heater. He only keeps it on during the day, when he’s awake enough to appreciate it. Can’t use too much electricity or he’ll risk someone noticing that it’s being sent to an abandoned building.
Breakfast is cold dry cereal. He gets a call from his mother. She doesn’t know where he’s living, only that he doesn’t have enough money to come home for the holidays. Christmas is two weeks away. He spent his last two T.A. paychecks on gifts for his family. She scolds him for sending them at all.
“I know you don’t have that much money. You shouldn’t have…” she says.
“I wanted to,” he replies. “You got me here, didn’t you? It’s the least I can do.”
She shushes him and asks how he’s doing, how his thesis is going and how are his friends. He answers all of her questions except the one for a return address. “I might be going out of town. With friends,” he lies. “I wouldn’t get them anyway. Save them for the summer, okay?”
She doesn’t like it but agrees. He hopes they don’t buy him anything at all. It’s not like they have any money, either.
He keeps himself bundled and is working through the third volume of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu when someone knocks on his door. He jumps and for a moment, is absolutely terrified. What if the bank had someone to check the building? It could be bodyguards or worse - the police. But then a voice drifts through the door, soft and trembling
“Hello…? A-anyone in there?”
Changmin has never had anyone come knocking. He stands and moves hesitantly towards door, as if it will burst open at any moment. Then he chastises himself for being stupid. He steps forward and opens the door.
He’s met with small eye and smile that’s bright enough to keep him warm forever.
“Hi…” the man ventures again.
Changmin stares. Then he realizes he is staring and tries to stop. He fails. “Hi…?” he manages. He feels stupid.
The man smiles again. “I’m glad-d to finally meet someone… I live, uh, am in a room on the s-second floor.” Changmin lives on the third. He knows that other people are living in the building - homeless people, crazy vagrants. For all he knows this man could be one of them. He isn’t quite sure what to say.
The man keeps smiling despite Changmin’s silence. “I know this might s-sound weird, but, uh, can I come in? I just found this place and I don’t have a l-lot of clothes and my h-heater wouldn’t start this morning…” he babbles, and Changmin realizes he’s shivering. Whereas Changmin’s still wearing his two jackets and three scarves, plus a sweater and two layers of socks, Yunho’s in nothing more than jeans and a hoodie. Where the neckline dips loose under the man’s thin neck Changmin can see goosebumps scattered across his collarbones. He must be freezing.
He probably shouldn’t trust him. He shouldn’t let in this man. But he looks so hopeful and Changmin’s always been a sucker for a pretty face. He opens the door wider, and watches the man sag in relief.
“I’m Yunho, by the w-way,” he says, rubbing his hands together in the meager warmth of the room.
“Changmin. Here,” he says, offering the man another of his jackets. “Put it on, you look like you’re going to shiver your skin off.”
“T-thanks. I won’t stay long, I promise, or bother you, I just-t can’t - I mean, the cold, it’s…”
“I understand,” he says, and means it. He settles back down on his bed, eyeing Yunho warily for a moment or two before going back to his reading.
Yunho tucks himself into a corner of the room and stays there silently. His shivering stops soon enough and he leans his head against the wall. When Changmin looks up from his book an hour later, he’s fast asleep.
“Weird guy,” he says softly to himself.
Yoochun calls him somewhere around noon, asking him to take over the evening shift that night. Changmin agrees and turns to Yunho. He prods the man to get him to wake.
“Yah, Yunho-sshi.” The man stirs, his eyelids fluttering. Changmin tries to tell himself not to stare too hard.
“Mm?”
“I have to go, Yunho-sshi.”
“O-oh,” the man says, nodding. He gets up. “Well, thanks for letting me stay. I really appreciate it, you didn’t have to…”
“It’s no problem,” Changmin says. It isn’t - they’re all in the same boat here, anyway. At least Yunho doesn’t seem crazy. “Keep the jacket for now. Do you have anything else?”
Yunho shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t have much of anything, really… Just ‘bought the heater yesterday at Goodwill. Waste of five dollars,” he laughs wryly.
“Most of the outlets don’t work. It’s why I live up here,” Changmin shrugs. He rummages through his suitcase and pulls out an extra-long scarf and a pair of gloves. “Take these.”
“No, Changmin-sshi, I couldn’t.”
Changmin forces them into Yunho’s hands. “Until you get something better. I’m not giving them to you - I want them back. Remember, I know where you live.”
Yunho laughs for real this time and Changmin hopes he isn’t blushing. Yunho has a very nice laugh.
“Thanks,” he says sincerely and heads out the door, waving as he walks out. Changmin holds his breathe for one, two, three seconds.
Then he rushes to the door, leaning out into the hallway. “Come back anytime!” he wants to say. But Yunho’s already gone, slipping around the corner into the stairwell.
Changmin ends up taking the graveyard shift as well as the evening one. He’s annoyed at first but knows he shouldn’t mind - more money, and the store is so dead that he gets to spend most of it studying anyway. When he gets home he’s bone-weary and just wants to drop into his sleeping bag.
It’s no more than three hours later, however, when there’s a knock on his door. He grumbles and pushes himself up, still half-asleep. Not really thinking, he swings open the door with an irritated “what?”
Yunho’s still got his hand raised to knock and he looks sheepish. “Uh, hi a-again!” he says cheerfully.
Changmin thinks that no one should be this early in the morning. It can’t be any earlier than seven. “Yunho-sshi,” he says slowly, hanging his head and pushing the door open.
Yunho hesitates, “Is this a bad time…?”
“It’s fine. Just - late night. I’m still a little tired.”
“Oh. I can g-go if-”
“No,” Changmin sighs, “stay. It’s pretty damn cold. Let me get the heater on.”
“Thanks so-o much,” Yunho smiles, and Changmin suddenly feels a lot better.
He goes back to sleep in the end; a few more stolen couple of hours before his natural sleep cycle wakes him up. He’s never been one to sleep in anyway. He opens his eyes and doesn’t see Yunho anywhere. He thinks he must have left and is surprised at the disappointment he feels.
That’s when he hears the sounds from the bedroom, a steady thumpthump of moving feet. He doesn’t go in there much - the heater is only good for one room, anyway, so he doesn’t know why Yunho would have gone in there.
But there Yunho is, doing some sort of weird dance-exercise in the middle of the empty room.
Changmin watches and thinks maybe Yunho is a bit crazy. But he’s one hot kind of crazy, for sure.
He clears his throat as Yunho does this little twist-thrust with his hips and almost chokes on it.
Yunho whirls around, “Changmin-sshi! You’re awake.”
“Yah. What’re you doing?” he asks.
“Aa, just something to do. Staying warm,” the man replies. “I’m a dancer, and this room is still loads warmer than mine, so it’s better for practice… it’s okay, right?”
Changmin nods quickly. “Of course. So… you’re a dancer?”
“Yeah. I lived above the studio I taught at. But then it went under and, well, you know it goes. Out of a job, out of a home…”
Changmin hums in agreement.
“What about you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Grad student,” he says, jerking his head back towards the piles of books in the other room. “College loans.”
Yunho quirks a smile. “You don’t say very much, do you?”
Changmin keeps a straight face when he shrugs, but Yunho laughs. Changmin thinks it’s a laugh he could listen to forever.
Monday morning is Changmin’s internship. He starts at eight but the office is an hour away and he’s at the bus stop by six-thirty.
He works for a research company that fact-checks textbooks. It’s dull work but is the sort of position Changmin needs. He had wanted it to be a stepping-stone for something better - post-grad, fellowships, or even a full-time teaching position at a university. He’d wanted to be a professor. He’s a prodigy, after all - literature, history, sociology, philosophy; he’s studied it all and more. Nothing interests him more than the idea of learning something new, studying and analyzing and knowing it inside and out.
Now, though, all he hopes is that maybe the company’ll hire him after graduation. It might be the closest he’ll ever get to true academia, anyway.
He’s home right before the sun comes down, his breath white in the air. He sneaks into the back entrance of his apartment building and treks up three stories. On his door is a yellow post-it.
Missed you and your heater
this morning
See you tomorrow…? :)
- Yunho ♥
Changmin bites down on his smile when he sees it. It’s ridiculous; something so small shouldn’t make him happy. Besides, he won’t even be there in the morning. He has two seminars that’ll fill up his whole day.
He takes the sticky with him inside.
He eats his cup noodles and goes straight to bed, reading by flashlight until he slips into sleep, book propped open beside him on the pillow.
When he leaves the next morning, he puts the sticky-note back on the door with a little arrow at the bottom corner, and a message on the back.
How can you have post-its and
not a decent coat??
Class today and tomorrow, but
come in if you can’t stand it.
- CM
That night he comes home and the sticky-note is gone, but all his books are where he put them, his heater isn’t on. There’s no sign to tell him whether or not Yunho came in.
Wednesday he only has one morning class. It’s his last class of the semester, and being the good student he is had the final papers finished the week before. He steps out of the classroom with a loud sigh, rolling his head and hearing the bones crack in his neck.
“Hey, Changmin!” Jaejoong calls from behind him.
“Hey.”
“Last class for you, yeah? Same here. Some guys and I are going out for drinks, wanna come?” the older man offers.
Changmin thinks about it. He hasn’t seen a lot of his friends since he’d moved out of the dorms. Hasn’t done much of anything, other than work and study. But it’s only midday and if he goes home, he might catch Yunho at his place. Or he could find him and invite him up. He thinks today might be the coldest day yet.
“Nah,” he says. “I still got some work to do.”
“You sure?” Jaejoong offers. He looks concerned; he’s one of the few that knows Changmin’s situation.
Changmin claps him on the shoulder. “I’m sure. Go, party your heart out and get wasted. Drunk-dial me at three in the morning and we’ll discuss Proust and Durrell and even some Joyce, if your brain can handle it.”
“My brain can never handle Joyce,” Jaejoong laughs. “Alright, but if you want to come…”
“I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“No problem!” He starts to walk off only to turn around, adding, “hey, you going home for break?”
Changmin shakes his head.
“Well, I’ll be back after Christmas and I’m going to throw the most awesome of awesome New Years Eve parties, so you better come.”
“Yah, yah. Go, I’ll talk to you later,” he shoos at the older man, who grins and hurries off.
The university is a good half-hour walk from the apartment building, and even though the sun is up the journey is frigid. He even thinks he sees a few flakes of snow. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it snows.
Yunho is in his apartment when he gets back.
“Hi!” he says. He’s sitting right beside the heater and has got one of Changmin’s books propped in his lap. “You actually read this stuff? You must be a genius.”
Changmin ducks his head, burying his blush in his scarf. “That one’s for my senior thesis. It’s for citing, not reading.”
“Still sounds pretty smart,” Yunho says. “Shouldn’t you be done with classes already? Christmas is only a little over a week away.”
“Today was my last day.”
Yunho’s mouth opens in a little ‘oh.’ “You must be happy! Are you gonna celebrate?”
Changmin shrugs. He wonders how Yunho would take it if he said he’d skipped out on his friends just to see him. Instead he gives the same answer he gave Jaejoong. “I’m good. Parties aren’t really my thing,” he adds, which is mostly true.
“You should celebrate at least a little! It’s officially the holidays, now… ah!” The man jumps up, crying “wait here!” before running out the door.
Changmin raises his eyebrows at the man’s hasty exit, but doesn’t follow him. He steals the man’s place beside the heater, moving the book back to its rightful pile. He waits a few minutes before the other man returns, knocking once in courtesy before pushing the door back open. In his hands is a small box.
“Got these from a friend the other day. He works part-time at a supermarket, and if any of the boxes have been opened or torn, even if the contents are still good, they have to throw them away. But because my dear friend is so kind, he donates them to the Flat Broke Yunho Fund.”
He drops the box beside Changmin and the student peers inside. It’s bags and bags of dried foods - squid and shrimp and seaweed and more.
“We can dine to our hearts content,” Yunho says proudly. “It’s the least I can do, since you’ve been so nice and all.”
Changmin sifts through the box and grabbing a bag of cuttlefish, his favorite. “I should warn you now that I eat more than a normal person probably should be able to. Are you willing to risk me eating all this food? Because I totally could.”
“It’s going towards a good cause,” Yunho says, taking a seat across from him.
“Keep this up and I may never let you leave,” Changmin shoots back impulsively.
And he likes to think that he sees Yunho blush at that.
Since Changmin is out of school his schedule undergoes a sharp cutback. He still has his internship and the occasional shift at the convenience store, but for the most part his hours are his own. He promises himself he will spend at least three days at the library, but the rest of the time he contents himself to studying at home, despite the cold.
Yunho comes over every morning he is there and, he’s pretty sure, every day he isn’t. Changmin knows that Yunho could have easily gone to get another heater by now, but Yunho hasn’t brought it up and Changmin isn’t going to be the one to mention it.
It’s hard to get into the holiday spirit when one is busy with finals and practically homeless. Buying Christmas gifts and hearing songs on the radio is one thing, but actually getting into those warm and cozy sugar-plum dreams is a whole different cup of tea. It’s the twentieth before he knows it and Changmin dreams have yet to be visited by dancing fairies.
Yunho, however, is different. Although Changmin suspects the man might be visited by fairies all year round, now he practically exudes holiday cheer. Changmin doesn’t know what he does during the day and evening, but every night he comes back, arms laden with all sorts of decorations and ornaments, Christmas candies and confections.
“For someone who’s so broke you sure do collect a lot of stuff,” he says, watching as Yunho strings a line of tinsel along the unpainted crown molding.
“What can I say? I’m resourceful,” he winks over his shoulder.
They eat breakfast and dinner together, and when Changmin studies Yunho dances, spinning and swaying away in the other room despite the cold conditions. In the moments between they talk - or, more truthfully, Changmin listens and Yunho talks about whatever comes to mind.
This man, Changmin quickly realizes, is probably one of the most talkative people he’s ever known - and open, too. He tells Changmin about the dance studio and his favorite songs and the people he’s dated and the old woman who lived next door that was his best friend until he was seven. He talks about how this isn’t the first time he’s been homeless.
“I lived under a bridge for nearly half a year,” he says quietly.
Changmin isn’t sure if he should comfort him. Instead he jokes. “Then why are you horrible at living like this now? You’re coats are still too thin.”
Yunho smiles wanly at him. “It was a pretty big surprise. I’d gotten rid of all my old street-clothes the first time I was able to pay rent, just to prove to myself I’d never be here again. Probably stupid, right?”
“…No, not at all.”
“Yeah, well. One thing I also learned about living like this is that you can rely on people. Especially others like us - you can trust them, because you have nothing to lose. And they don’t, either.”
“Makes sense,” Changmin agrees. It’s the reason he let Yunho in - besides the pretty face, of course.
And although he wouldn’t really admit it - denies it, joking that Yunho bothers him and distracts him from his studying - he thinks listening to Yunho is fascinating. He loves the timbre of his voice, the slight accent of his words and the way he accompanies every word with a motion of his hands. He gets absorbed in analyzing the details of Yunho’s face, the way his lips move animatedly around the sounds and the way his eyes get even smaller when he smiles.
It’s why he’s taken aback when Yunho finally wants him to speak.
“Me? I’m, just…” frustrated. scared. lonely. starting to get desperate. starting to fall in love with you. “-just a student.”
It’s Monday again, the twenty-first - another day notched by. He’d gotten home from his internship an hour ago and now they sit side-by-side on Changmin’s sleeping bag, backs against the wall. Changmin’s got his laptop on his lap and is copying notes from a book while Yunho eats a lukewarm cup of noodles.
“Tch, you can’t leave it at that,” he says, nudging Changmin with his shoulder. “I practically told you my whole life story!”
Changmin chews his lip for a moment and debates. It’s not like he likes to talk about it, really. He’d rather just live his life and get this whole stage of his life over with. But - like Yunho said, what does he have to lose?
“I wanted to get my PhD,” he starts, “and everyone said I could do it easy. I even skipped a grade in high school. But my family barely had enough to get me through my undergrad. When I chose to go to grad school they were totally behind me - just not financially.”
“They cut you off?” Yunho says quizzically.
“No. They still send me some money, when they can… but the tuition is way out of their reach. I have financial aid and loans but it only goes so far, yah? What about you? You forgot to mention your parents in that ‘life story’ of yours.”
Yunho chuckles wryly. Changmin thinks it might be a habit. “I was cut off. Dad wanted me to be a professional, I wanted to dance. I left home when I couldn’t stand it anymore, and spent that under the bridge… and then I got a chance at the studio - and I took it.”
“That turned out well,” Changmin jokes again, empathetic.
But this time Yunho doesn’t laugh. He turns on Changmin with serious eyes, chin tilted up in defiance. “I don’t regret my decision. I was doing what I loved - and I’ll find another job, one way or any other, and I’ll keep doing what I love.”
Changmin considers him carefully, holding his gaze. “Good for you,” he finally says. Then he turns back to his book and his laptop, transcribing the small font with shaking fingers.
Yunho is tense beside him, but it takes only a moment for the other to relax. He picks at his noodles with his chopsticks absently before setting him down. With a quiet sigh he slumps, leaning over to rest his head on Changmin’s shoulder.
Changmin looks down onto the mess of dark hair and matches his sigh. “We won’t be here forever,” he says, and tries to believe it.
“Yeah.”
Changmin hesitates before leaning down, just enough to feel soft curls brush against his cheek. “Wanna go out tomorrow?” he whispers.
“Mm?”
“You and me. Somewhere warm. Not here.”
He can feel Yunho’s smile against his shoulder.
They go to a local mall. It’s big and indoors and crowded with shoppers searching for that perfect last-minute gift. They avoid going in most of stores, choosing instead to wander and window shop for things they can’t afford. Yunho drools over the latest music player-phone-camera-pda-thing and Changmin teases him gently.
Then he realizes - “Do you even have a phone?” He’s never seen the older man with one.
Yunho doesn’t meet his eyes for a moment. “Nah. I have one, I mean, but it doesn’t do much good when you can’t pay for any service.”
“Oh,” Changmin says, fingering his in his pocket. He feels guilty, but he doesn’t know why. “I don’t have a camera,” he offers, “or a music player.”
“Yeah?”
“I pawned off my iPod for my sociology textbook two years ago,” he says. “And I’ve never had my own camera. But I really love photography. And music.”
Yunho puffs out his cheeks only to blow out a breath and send his bangs flying. “One day!” he cries, “when we’re rich and respectable, I’ll buy you both. But I want the best phone they have. Limited edition, international service, gold antennae, the works - got it?”
Changmin chuckles, only to stop when Yunho shoots him a wide-eyed look. “What?”
“The first time I heard you laugh, is all,” the man says. “You should do it more often.”
Changmin smirks. “I laugh at you all the time. Just behind your back.”
“Yah! So cruel!” The dancer exclaims, grabbing at his heart in exaggeration. “Death by disrespect, what a way to go.”
He mock-cries and pouts and Changmin feels second-hand embarrassment from the looks they’re getting from passerby’s. He grabs Yunho’s hand and pulls him along, grumbling. “No wonder you’re homeless, you’re probably crazy, you freak.”
“Merciless, I tell you!”
Changmin pulls him all the way to the bookstore. It’s where Changmin wants to go anyway and there are enough quiet corners to keep Yunho out of sight. He leaves Yunho in the manga section, sitting on the floor and flipping through random volumes, as he drift through the store. He could spend hours in the store, just tracing his fingers along the spines and imagining what could be going on inside, folded in among the pages.
He’s in the biography section, standing on the tips of his toes to see the upper shelf when a pair of arms wrap around his waist, coaxing him down. He turns and it’s Yunho.
“Got bored?” he asks lightly, ignoring the fluttering in his chest.
“Chased out by a group of junior high girls,” the man pouts, resting his chin on Changmin’s shoulder. Changmin slouches just so it’ll be more comfortable for the just-shorter man. “Let’s go?”
“Okay.”
Around midnight on the night before Christmas Eve, Changmin is woken by screaming. He is shocked out of sleep, flailing through his layers only to realize it’s just another squatter. He isn’t lying when he says there are crazy drifters in the building.
He’s trying to fall asleep again when he hears a rapid knock on his door. The screams continue from somewhere below him and he knows it’s just Yunho at the door. “Come in!” he calls.
Yunho steps in quickly, wrapped in a blanket. His breath mists in the air - the heater isn’t on. Changmin beckons with a hand and he doesn’t hesitate, coming over to lie out beside Changmin. He’s wearing the jacket Changmin gave him when they first met.
“What the h-hell is that?”
“One of the other squatters,” Changmin whispers. The screams are growing hoarse - sharp, piercing sounds that grate against his heart. “Almost half of homeless people suffer mental disorders, mainly schizophrenia… So there are nights like these. It’s been a while, though.”
“Jesus,” Yunho whispers right back. “I think the guy is in the r-room next to mine. I thought he was dying.”
“Maybe he thinks he is, too,” Changmin murmurs. He’s taught himself to think of it as not his business, but it’s always hard. The first time he heard screaming like this he’d been so scared he’d slept upright against the door, so his body would block anyone from trying to get in. “It’ll probably stop soon. If you want, we can go check on him…”
“N-no, that’s okay,” Yunho says quickly. “I-it’s freezing. How are you not freezing? Why don’t you turn the h-heater on at night?”
“Too much energy. And I’m used to it.” He pauses for a moment and listens to the chatter of Yunho’s teeth. “Yah, c’mere.”
“Huh?” Yunho asks, but Changmin’s already reached out an arm to drag him into the bundle of blankets. He hugs him close, rubs his arms absently through the fabric of the jacket. They’re lying face to face and the air grows warm between them.
They don’t speak again until the screaming stops, fading into broken moans and then nothing at all. The silence is almost just as unnerving.
“You’re a good person, Changmin-ah,” Yunho says slowly, into the quiet. He moves around, finally getting comfortable, and looks at the younger man with hooded eyes. “I’m glad I knocked on your door.”
“I’m glad you knocked, too,” he replies quietly. He tries to ignore the fluttering again but this time it’s much, much harder. He can’t believe it’s only been a little over a week. An unexpected knock on a warped door to a room that was supposed to be empty, and it changed Changmin’s life forever. He screws his eyes shut and tries to work up the courage to say what he wants to say.
“You make this bearable,” he says, so softly that he’s not even sure he makes a sound. “Yunho…” He opens his eyes.
Yunho’s eyes are closed, his breathing even. He’s asleep. Changmin swallows and closes his eyes, willing himself to fall into sleep so easily.
He wakes up in the morning and Yunho is gone. There is a post-it note stuck to a bowl of cereal beside his head.
Merry Christmas Eve!
See you later!
- Yunho ♥
Changmin stamps down the sinking feeling in his chest. If Yunho isn’t going to be around there’s no point in wasting the day. The library should still be open and he hasn’t been going as often as he should have been. He thinks one of his books might be overdue. His books are never overdue.
He’s the type to easily get lost among his studies, and when he arrives he expects to work the whole day, never raising his head - instead, he is distracted by thoughts of Yunho and ‘See you later!’s. He doesn’t know why is so hurt by Yunho leaving - he shouldn’t be. It isn’t like anything happened. It isn’t like it meant anything. It’s only been a little over a week, he reminds himself.
But it’s Christmas Eve, he thinks. And he’d allowed himself to hope. How stupid.
He gives up and is packing his books up around four when he gets the call. It’s Yoochun. The convenient store is open on Christmas Eve, and invariably someone ducks out. Changmin thinks for just a minute before agreeing.
It isn’t Christmas Eve anymore when he gets back. It’s Christmas, and Christmas is cold and dark. He doesn’t know what he expects - it’s not like it’s any different than when he usually gets back late, but for some reason the contrast of decorated houses and light-wrapped street signs and his lonely, abandoned building just makes him feel that much sadder.
He looks up at the empty windows. He doesn’t want to go inside - but, really, he has nowhere else to go.
He walks up the stairs with heavy feet and into his room with a heavy heart. It’s empty and he burrows into the sleeping bag with his clothes still on. He pulls extra blankets on but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to get the chill out of his bones.
Cup noodles over a portable heater. His mother calls him and wishes him Merry Christmas, passing on the phone to his father and sisters and aunts and uncles and everyone else that came for Christmas. He gets a few text messages from friends, Jaejoong even calls him. They talk for a bit but Changmin lets his friend go quickly after hearing laughter in the background.
Yunho probably has friends to be with, too. The man’s homeless, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a life. Friends, places to be. Why would he want to be here for Christmas? Changmin doesn’t blame him.
He wears a pair of fingerless gloves and bends over his table of books, scribbling notes in the margins of review journal of historical essays, dog-earing pages that might be useful for his thesis. After his hand starts cramping he pulls out a book - something he bought at the bookstore when he’d gone with Yunho.
It’s just fiction, a mystery-type novel that Changmin loves but never gets to read because he hasn’t got the time. But hey, it’s Christmas. He should be allowed to take a break. And it takes his mind off other things. If only for so long.
By the time the sun starts creeping towards the horizon he’s sick of the room, sick of the cold. He stands up and starts moving to get his blood pumping, pacing through doorways that he never uses. He almost goes into the room Yunho usually dances in, but at the last moment turns and walks right out the door.
He goes down to the street and down the block and just keeps walking, until he’s breathing hard and his feet hurt. He wishes he would never have to stop, that he would never have to return to that god-awful building and his god-awful life.
He ends up at a little café, where he spares a few dollars for a cup of coffee that is deliciously warm as it slides down his throat. He holds it in hands that are calloused from writing and cracked from the cold. He hates these hands.
The café closes early - of course, it’s Christmas, it’s too be expected. The barista gives him a kind smile when she ushers him out. “Go home, aren’t you keeping someone waiting?” She says, not realizing the cruelty of her words. Changmin is the one waiting - for someone, something, anything better than this.
But.
Maybe it’s time he changed that.
He doesn’t remember the walk back, but he remembers every sense, every instant of the knock. The cold air in his lungs, the feel his knuckles hitting rough wood, sending tremors up his arm and dull thuds echoing in the hallway.
He doesn’t even know if this is Yunho’s room. But it’s the second floor, next to the one where the screaming had sounded like it came from. And he can try again, at other doors-
But sometimes, this shitty life surprises even him. He hears a familiar voice call from inside and he pushes the door open, only to stop in shock at the sight that meets him.
“Hey,” Yunho says with a crooked smile. He’s sitting on a blanket spread over the floor, a full dinner spread before out him. He’s shivering like usual but there are candles in the window and on the floor and it lights up the whole room with a soft golden glow. “Welcome.”
Changmin stares at him and Yunho’s smile falters. He looks down in his lap and twists his fingers together. “I h-had this all set up in your place l-last night, but you, ah, never came back and so I got-t nervous, thinking maybe you’d gone home or s-something. And I figured all this shouldn’t go to w-waste… I was about to s-start eating this all myself!” He adds with false cheer.
Changmin shuts the door behind him and hesitantly takes a seat on the blanket. “It looks good.”
“Yeah… got it from my friend at the grocery s-store. Got everything that you’re supposed to have… It’s all cold now, of course, but-t…”
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Changmin says. “I would eat it even if it wasn’t.”
Yunho laughs and Changmin thinks, it’s only been two days and he missed that laugh. It’s only been two weeks and he’s in love.
“Merry Christmas,” Yunho says warmly.
“Merry Christmas.”
They eat in quiet contentment. It’s not the best Christmas dinner - the turkey slices are soggy and they can’t get cranberry sauce to come out of the can. But Changmin thinks by the light of the candle Yunho looks more handsome than ever and that’s more than enough reason to rank it as one of his top Christmas’s anyway.
They finish with half-frozen pie and Yunho gives him another lop-sided smile. “I told you it wasn’t the best.”
“It was just fine,” Changmin says. And then he swallows, taking a deep breath. “I w-want to thank you,” he says, and the tremble in his voice has nothing to do with the cold.
“It’s nothing,” Yunho shakes his head.
“Not for the dinner. For everything… everything else. I didn’t think I’d be able to really…” he trails off, not quite sure how to phrase it. “I haven’t - I haven’t had reason to hope in a long time. I was expecting Christmas to be just one more miserable day among a lot of others. This is… the best present I could have ever asked for. So thank you.”
Yunho slides up next to him so that he can feel the warmth of the other man along his side. He wraps his arm around Changmin’s shoulders. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say.”
Changmin laughs around the tightness of his throat. “I meant every word.”
“I know,” Yunho says softly. “I don’t know what to say…”
Changmin kisses him so he doesn’t need to say anything at all. He pulls back after a tender moment to look into Yunho’s eyes, waiting.
Dark eyes reflect the candlelight. Changmin holds his breath, one, two, three seconds-
And Yunho laughs, leaning in to place a light kiss at the corner of Changmin’s mouth even as he reaches down to take Changmin’s hand in his. It’s warm and wonderful and Yunho grins softly. “You’re not so bad at gift-giving yourself,” he says and rests his temple against Changmin’s, another laugh carried on a soft puff of breath. They smile together.
Outside, it isn’t snowing.
| 02. | 03. | 04. | 05.
started writing: 12/11/09
finished writing: 12/14/09
comments&+ welcome ^^
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Somehow, in between writing 90+ pages for finals this weekend, I managed to sneak in 6ooo+ words of fic. How? Idefk D: It all came about when apocryphalic mentioned I should write Christmas!homin... and so I did, lol. And will be doing more. Evidently I am easily coerced :| :D
Still not sure how many of these there will be. I have a couple more ideas, but figure I'll just write as many as I can before Christmas. Different lengths, genres, stories, just whatever comes to mind ;)♥