Can Anybody Find Me--?
Can Anybody Find Me--?
gen/het; pg-13
romance/humor
12,643 words
Written for the first round of kpop_olymfics (over six months ago, yikes! How have I not posted this already??) My prompt was 2NE1's "I Don't Care" for Team Future, which was the winning team :) Though this fic is technically het and revolves around relationships with non-celebrities, it's truly OT5 at heart, and is something that even those who aren't fans of het can enjoy. Despite it's problems I loved kpop_olymfics and wish I had the time to compete again. I still think my teammates are the awesomest people around ♥ The next round is just beginning, so make sure to check it out!
The members of Dong Bang Shin Ki attempt to resuscitate their love lives post-disbandment and find themselves miserably inept. Codependency issues, manly hijinks, and lots of fail found here.
Yunho walks in the door and she’s waiting for him, snuggled into a corner of the couch with fuzzy slippers and a mug of cold coffee and her indignant, womanly rage face on.
“It’s three in the morning! Where the hell have you been?”
“What?” Yunho says absently, slipping out of his shoes. It’s somewhat difficult; he’s still kind of buzzed. He stumbles. “I to-old you I was going out with the guys.”
“Not until three in the fucking morning,” she glares.
He looks up with a frown. “Hey, no need for that. I thought you would understand.”
“Understand?” she scoffs. “Understand what? That my boyfriend is thirty-four years old and still can’t stop going out joyriding - or whatever you grown men do - until all hours of the morning? I have to be in the office in four hours, Yunho. I can’t keep staying up all night waiting for you like this.”
He looks around a little helplessly. “Then don’t?”
The look she gives him is no less than terrifying. “Don’t? I tell you I’m concerned and you tell me don’t?” She stands up from her chair, and when she walks forward he likens it to a predator stalking its prey.
“Er- no. I mean, I didn’t realize you were concerned-”
“Of course I’m concerned!” she cuts him off and throws her hands into the air, a sign of pure frustration. Her hair slips out of its messy bun, wild around her face, and Yunho would liken her to Medusa, except her glare turns him into more of a gelatinous moron than impenetrable stone. “Aren’t you even listening to me?”
“I was! I just didn’t get, with the yelling, and the rage face, and-”
“Rage face?!” she asks, her voice rising octaves.
He winces, literally backtracking, slowly taking small receding steps towards the door. “Er- ah. That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I was just confused, I’ll call you next time, so you won’t have to stay up-”
“Get out.”
“Really?” He sighs. He doesn’t even know what he said wrong this time. Then again, he should just expect it by now. He walks out the doorway, only to turn around at the last second. “Can I at least get a change of clothes?”
She throws one of his slippers at his head. He likes to take that as ‘I’m thinking about it’, and gives her a small, pitifully hopeful smile. She throws the other shoe, and he takes that as his cue to exit.
He stands outside their apartment door and realizes he didn’t put his shoes back on, but her slippers ended up out in the hallway, too. He takes one look at the pink fuzzy monstrosities, sighs, shakes his head, and puts them on.
He wiggles his toes against the fake fur. They’re actually pretty soft - no wonder she likes them so much. Maybe he’ll keep them, he thinks vindictively. Then he sighs again, because he knows he’ll bring them back if she asks. Probably even if she doesn’t.
He digs in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He has that, at least. He dials the first number on his caller-id. It rings twice before the call’s answered with a drunken burp.
“Yunhooo!” Jaejoong answers happily. “I just sa-aw you!”
“Yeah, Jaejoong, you did. But listen, do you think I could crash at your place tonight…?”
**
Dong Bang Shin Ki gets back together, eventually. It’s after over two years of legal drama; there’s a joyful reunion, and within a few months they’re back to being more co-dependent than ever. They continue to be successful and inseparable for the rest of their careers.
Dong Bang Shin Ki breaks up, eventually. It happens, either because of management or because their original/new contracts are up or because they aren’t as profitable as they used to be. It’s because of a reason that’s rational and expected and so they are think they are prepared for the end.
For the most part, they are okay. They get jobs in various parts of the entertainment industry, because it’s what they know and what they’re good at. They’re successful, each with their own apartments in Seoul, each with their own unlimited phone plan with four numbers first on their speed-dial.
The problem, though, is that living with five guys for the majority of your life doesn’t exactly leave you the most socially-adjusted individual. Especially not (despite countless years of pining and wistful thinking) for interaction with the dear, fairer sex. Changmin, at one point, likens it to “being thrown into a tiger pit bare-assed and covered in cologne that smells like B.O. and is named ‘Eat me, I’m stupid’.”
Wise words, Shim Changmin.
Yoochun prefers a different story. On one of the many vacations he and Jaejoong took when “they were on a break”, they went to see a fortune-teller. Said fortune-teller was hot and Yoochun spent most of his session flirting with her in thinly-veiled predictions - and so he didn’t take it all that seriously up until the moment she said, “I see a lot of hardship in your life. Separations.”
At first he had scoffed, because of course, anyone with a T.V. knew that. But Jaejoong had convinced him to pay a hefty wad of won for this session, and he was going to get his money’s worth.
“How does it end?” he asked, feigning curiosity.
She’d peered carefully into her little crystal ball and tugged his hand forward, walking her fingers along as palm as he tried not to laugh. “I see… connections, a sense of lost time; trying to capture it, and stay the same.”
Yoochun let out a long breath, not sure if that was a good or bad omen. It was a pretty generic answer, but it certainly hit home. “And…?”
“I see women - lots and lots of women. Screaming, waving red things around.”
At the time, he’d thought it was definitely good news. Lots and lots of women screaming? He knew what that was. He smiled and thanked her and promised to send her a bouquet of flowers after their next concert.
Ten years down the road, however, when he gets into a fight with his fiancé and she screams at him and waves her scarf - the bright red scarf he’d bought Junsu for Christmas, but ended up giving to her because his ex-bandmate had already owned one - in his face, he remembers that moment and realizes it had been a very bad omen.
“How was I supposed to know?” he whines to Jaejoong later, over the phone. He’s hiding in his bathroom, talking low into the phone while his fiancé bangs around angrily in the kitchen. She was supposed to come over and make him dinner, but it sounds more like she’s making holes in the plaster. “You wouldn’t have been mad, right?”
“Of course not. Remember that watch I bought for your birthday?”
“Yeah…”
“Bought it for Yunho, but his girlfriend gave him one for Christmas,” Jaejoong says cheerfully.
“Oh really?” Yoochun pauses, thinking. “It would have looked good on him.”
On the other end Jaejoong huffs, “I know, right? It even matched with that Armani tie Changmin got him-”
“I remember that,” Yoochun nods. “That would have been nice.”
“Yeah. A shame, but you like it, right?” the older man adds casually.
“Of course. It goes well with the-”
“-the grey Diesel sunglasses? Who do you think suggested it to Junsu?” Yoochun can hear the smile in his voice.
“Huh, I never knew. Thanks,” he says, knowing Jaejoong will be able to hear his smile just the same.
“My pleasure.”
**
It doesn’t start out difficult. In fact, it starts like any other sort of romance - awkward but well-intentioned, first loves just a little too late. The members that had once had relationships are decades out of the loop, but they dive in with enthusiasm-
Jaejoong meets her first. She’s soft spoken but confident, and on their first date she tells him she didn’t really like Dong Bang Shin Ki all that much; she was more an Epik High type of girl. He kisses her anyway, when he's trying to escort her home on the subway. She gets off alone at her stop because she says she can walk back by herself, but before the doors shut he leans out and smashes his lips to her face. It’s unromantic and sloppy but kind of brilliant, but when he steps back and the doors close, she smiles and gives him a cheeky wave - and for the rest of the ride Jaejoong is sure he looks like a creeper for how much he is smiling, but he doesn't care.
He calls Yunho as soon as he gets home, and despite it being midnight and him being very tired, Yunho answers like usual. He listens carefully as Jaejoong gushes about everything about her, from the soft layering of her hair to the way she held her pinky finger out when taking a sip of wine, and adds the occasional commentary about how great she really must be. Jaejoong hangs up only when he’s pretty sure Yunho’s fallen asleep on him. Then he scrolls through his phone book.
By the next day, anyone relatively close to Jaejoong has gotten a call or text informing them that Jaejoong has met a girl, has gone on a date with this girl, and is practically in love with this girl. He’s thrown himself into the idea of a girlfriend like a kid off the high-dive. He’s got everyone looking at him as he jumps, makes his splash, and now they’re all patiently waiting for him to bring his head above the surface.
Junsu crushes on one of his costars for a year before doing anything. She’s younger than him by several years but at just the right mental age, Yoochun jokes. The other four constantly tell him to man up and confess, but every time he comes close something like word vomit - and maybe something like real vomit - comes into his throat and he finds himself breaking into song or laughing or starting conversations about kangaroos, or something stupid like that.
She usually giggles into her hand, going along with it, her cheeks rising on blush and her eyes like waning half-moons. It’s very obvious that she likes him back, but Junsu’s a little too busy feeling like an idiot to notice.
In the end, she makes the first move. He doesn’t tell the others, and makes her swear to never tell them, either. She giggles, and he realizes she is the first person he honestly thinks is cuter than him.
Yunho’s girl is everything he wants - and Yunho knows what he wants. He’s had it planned out from the time he was thirteen, maybe even twelve. Or ten, whatever. But he knows she is going to look a certain way, talk a certain way, treat him a certain way.
Yunho meets that girl at a company party, and they click instantly, perfectly.
“Well damn,” Changmin says, when she leaves to get a drink. “I didn’t think she actually existed.”
“Huh?”
Changmin sighs. “Go, hyung. Now. This is not a drill.”
Yunho hesitates but the younger man pushes him and that’s that. He follows her to the punch bowl and after that, is pretty much content to follow her anywhere. She isn’t afraid to take control, and he loves it. He’s been the responsible one for so long, it’s nice to let go of the reins for a bit.
He lets go of a breath he’s been holding far too long; when he breathes in, he imagines his heart is full enough to float into the sky.
Changmin meets her at a library, of all things. They laugh about it because he’s the stereotypical smart one and isn’t that irony for you - but in all honesty he was just there to pick up his sister and the girl happened to be working the front desk. Said sister is late, said girl strikes up conversation, and all of a sudden Changmin has a phone number.
“How do I call her?” he asks Yoochun, who’s got his face stuffed in his couch. He’d been up all night and doesn’t really want to listen to Changmin’s anxiety attack, but the kid does need help.
“Well, you match the numbers on the paper with the numbers on the phone-”
“Haha, jerk. I’m serious, when’s a good time? What should I say?”
“Say anything. If she’s a normal human being, she’ll probably even say something back,” he mumbles.
Changmin rolls his eyes and walks away. “I hate you.”
Yoochun feels kind of bad. But the couch is really comfy, so he just calls “Good luck!” and falls right back into sleep.
In the end, Changmin calls the right number, says hello, and she says it back. They even talk some more, on the phone - and later, at a nice restaurant where he makes reservations for two at nine o’clock. They talk on the drive home, and say goodbye, like normal human beings. Changmin thinks it went rather well.
But then she doesn’t call back.
He doesn’t say anything about it, of course, but Yoochun knows and is the one to call and get hung up on; to sneak over to his apartment late at night anyway, bringing friendship and comfort and alcohol. They don’t say much, but Yoochun pops the cap off a beer and hands it over to Changmin, who takes it gratefully and downs in it a few minutes. They end up laughing about something stupid, and Changmin is surprised by how easy she is to forget. But, then again, maybe that’s normal, too.
**
And then it starts to get tricky.
Jaejoong lasts in a sugar-coated, reality-free bubble up until their 100-day anniversary; up until he invites her to move in with him. Then the bubble pops - he hits the surface, and it is the end of their happy beginning.
The day she moves in, the members come help bring in the boxes. Jaejoong takes advantage of it to stay in the apartment, conveniently out of the sweltering summer humidity, and “direct” where the boxes should go. His girlfriend and new roommate is unpacking.
At some point mid-afternoon, she calls him into the hallway. “Jaejoong, where should I put…?” she hefts the box labeled ‘Bathrm.’
“In the bathroom?” he smiles.
She shakes her head. “No, no. Where can I put it until you take out the stuff in there?”
Jaejoong gives her a confused look. “Take out what stuff?”
“Jae!” she protests. “There’s absolutely no room! The cabinet’s full and the counter is absolutely covered - you’re going to have to clean out some room for me.”
Jae opens his mouth once or twice, trying to think of a response. Move the stuff in his bathroom? He needs that stuff! “But - I mean, where will I put it?”
“Maybe you can just rid of it. I don’t think you need that many face creams,” she adds, obviously joking.
Jaejoong doesn’t find it so funny. “Of course I do. I use all the products I have in there. I endorse half of those companies for a reason.”
She looks at him incredulously. “Everything? You have six types of hair gel. No one needs six types of hair gel.”
“Well I do!”
“What about in the cupboards? The hair accessories? The wax kit?”
Behind them there’s a cough - Jaejoong turns and sees Yunho hovering in the doorway, failing to suppress his laughter. Jaejoong flushs, floundering, “Shut up!” he cries. “It’s an aesthetic!”
“Of course,” Yunho says gently, teasingly.
“You did it too!”
“Did, Jaejoong, did. And only because the stylist made me.”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Hey!” she cuts back in, calling their attention. “What about my box?” She hefts it one more time, and Jaejoong can hear the bottles and odds and ends jangle together inside. It’s an awfully big box - he doesn’t know how half of it will go in the bathroom, even if he did deign to get rid of some not-as-essential things.
“Oh, I know,” he gets an idea. “How about you use the half-bath. It’s just down the hall, and we can have our own-”
She, for some reason, seems offended by that. “I’m not using the half-bath down the hall.”
There results a sort of stare down which Yunho carefully extracts himself from. And after a few tense minutes and one longer conversation, Jaejoong cleans out some of his stuff. He gives her a shelf in his medicine cabinet and a bit of space on the counter, but she’s still sour about it. And she really complains when, half a week later, they find themselves battling over who gets to spend the most time in front of the mirror in the morning.
“Should have taken the half-bath,” he grumbles, as he tries to fix his hair while looking over her shoulder and simultaneously dodging hair-spraying arms.
“What was that?” she asks sharply.
He’s tempted to say it aloud, but thinks it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. “Nothing. I’m trying to work fast.”
“Oh,” she says. “Thank you.” And she smiles sweetly at him in the reflection, but as soon as she leaves the too-small-for-the-two-of-us room, he stares down at the long hairs stuck to and slowly slipping down the wet sides of the sink, and keeps on grumbling.
Two months after Junsu and his girlfriend become official he picks her up to go to a soccer game, but she tells him she’s so sorry, she can’t go, because-
-and five minutes later, Yunho gets a call from an anxious Junsu.
“She has cramps, Yunho. What do I do!?” Junsu sounds kind of frantic, and Yunho rolls his eyes fondly.
“Don’t panic, you’ve injured yourself before, you should know how to deal with it. Give her some painkillers, stretch and massage the muscles, and-”
“No! She has cramps, Yunho. Like, cramps. I can’t massage… that!”
Yunho chokes. “Oh, uh - er.” He fakes a cough that lasts just a little too long.
Junsu’s glower is audible. “You’re not helping!” he screeches.
Yunho tugs the phone away from his ear and bites his lip. “Er - call Jaejoong? He might-”
Junsu hangs up, but Yunho doesn’t take offense. He also doesn’t find out how Junsu addresses the problem, but he really doesn’t mind. All he knows is that the next day, Junsu and his girlfriend break-up - and he thinks he’s more than fine never knowing.
Yunho kind of wants to eat his words. His dream girl is - as it turns out - too much of his dream girl. Everything he does, she has to know about. Everything he says, she has to contradict. Everything he buys, she needs to approve of first. But, sometimes, Yunho wants to be listened to. Yunho likes to be in control. And he, now, kind of wants those reins back.
So they fight - and they break up.
Three days later Yunho realizes what he’s done, and after a long apology they’re back together. It lasts for five months before they start fighting again, each too strong-willed not to butt heads. They break up for two months before he runs into her at another business meeting, and within in an hour they’re kissing in the handicap stall in the ladies bathroom.
They get back together, they fight, they break up, they make up, they fight again. They last for months on end only to spend a few weeks apart, agonizing over everything they could have done right. Then, before they actually start to listen to people’s advice, they’re back together.
The tabloids get wind of it, and their on-and-off relationship becomes a big-selling topic, pure fodder for the masses. Yunho’s used to it. She’s not.
So they break up. And the cycle begins again.
Changmin dates, here and there. He’s the one with the least relationship experience of all the Dong Bang men, and he tries his hand at everything.
He dates other entertainers, but finds it too much of a hassle to deal with the pressure and secrecy. He dates tall, beautiful models, but finds often finds them too vain for his taste. He dates small, cute girls, but finds himself treating them more like Mandoongie than anything. He dates girls that are environmentally friendly and women who have PhD’s and ladies who drink too much - and one young woman who, he found out after a rather awful first date, doesn’t believe in bathing.
He tries to be the type of sweet, caring boyfriend. He dotes on one girlfriend and she calls him overbearing. When he acts the aloof, hard-to-get guy and ends up being labeled a jerk. He tries to be laid-back and is told he doesn’t make enough effort.
Changmin likes structure. He likes order, he likes knowing what is going to happen and what the plans are going to be. He likes rational, sane people. Dating and women do not fall in this category.
So he decides he’s going to be the type of guy that doesn’t believe in needing someone else to be happy. He’s busy with work and in all honesty, he’s perfectly fine being single.
However, when a couple months go by and he hasn’t had so much as a coffee date, he thinks having someone else wouldn’t be so bad. When Jaejoong’s girlfriend offers to set him up on a blind date, he doesn’t see the harm in it.
**
But what of Yoochun? Well, Yoochun’s a bit of a different story.
Despite being labeled the ‘romantic one’ (which he is) and the ‘ladies man’ (which is not) and the ‘smooth one’ (which he is definitely not), his first experiences in dating are… not so great.
Because, though he may/may-not be all those things, the one thing he is, is desperate. Years of being lonely and one step away from clinical depression have left its toll, and he goes from girl to girl and finally earns that playboy image he’d once been assigned.
He wants romance, he wants the sweet girl that’ll settle down and wash his dishes. But he also finds he wants the independent girl, and the smart girl, and the stunningly beautiful girl, and the sassy one that can match him hit-for-hit like Junsu. And the moment one of those girl catches his eye he’s already on her trail.
In two years he goes through a total of sixteen “serious” girlfriends - even more who he’s just dating; many more that he’s just fooling around with. He goes through a phase where he has a new girl every night, and he doesn’t even bother changing the name on his cell phone. He just picks an old girl’s name and replaces her number.
Yunho frowns in disapproval and speaks to him leader-voice that still makes Yoochun feel like a fifteen-year-old failure. Changmin and Junsu take turns insulting him, and Jaejoong just shakes his head and goes along with it, helping him remember which girl he’s supposed to be seeing that night.
“I can’t help it,” he finally confesses, when they’re having a guys-night and he gets three calls, all of which he ignores before turning off his phone completely.
“Yoochun…” Yunho begins.
“I’m just… not sure what I’m looking for. And it’s not like they’ll probably stay, anyway,” he adds, to an indignant response. (Only Junsu says he’s probably right, but Changmin hits Junsu hard and for some reason, their familiar bickering makes Yoochun feel so much better).
In the end they call it an official band meeting and make him chose between the girls he’s seeing- it’s time to end the game. They all drink too much and when he calls the not-the-right-one girls he gets more names wrong than right.
When he calls the right number for the-right-one girl, she listens for five minutes, until somewhere behind him Changmin starts chuckling and the girl stops him with a sharp, “Are you with someone else right now?”
Yoochun stumbles over his words, a “Yes -no, I mean - it’s not-” but she’s already hung up.
He hangs his head and attempts to tear out his hair, and gets a group-hug for the effort. It’s somewhat comforting.
The next week, he meets the woman he loves for the rest of his life. Everyone is extremely jealous.
You see, Yoochun meets her completely by chance. He likes to think of it as fate - that she is his saving grace, sweeping into his life at one of his lowest moments. He’s in Time-Out gelato, checking on the new inventory shipment. She comes into the store and happens to want the only flavor they didn’t get in this month.
“You’re Park Yoochun,” she says plainly, when he comes to the front. In a corner a group of women (who are too old to be squealing in excitement) squeal.
“I am,” he says, not really in the mood to deal with fans right then. “Who’re you?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Han Juri.”
“Like the-”
“Like the Streetfighter, yes. Like the member of a boyband, I assume?”
Her mocking tone catches his attention, and he looks her up and down, from the designer shoes to her vivid make-up and the messy, haphazard bun at the nape of her neck. He leans against the glass counter and gives her a lazy smile. “Assume away,” he says (and hears, from the corner, another melodramatic gasp).
“What flavor would you like?” he continues.
“Hmm,” she says, slow and playful, “well, since you’re out of what I want, what else have you got?”
It’s a blatantly suggestive taunt, but somehow delivered in the classiest way he’s ever heard. “How about picking something to sample? You can try as many as you like.”
She tries all forty, and doesn’t end up buying anything. He gives it to her on the house -two scoops of Strawberry Surprise, and his life is never the same.
**
Junsu’s next girlfriend is an up-and-coming indie singer, and from the start their relationship is strained by busy schedules and required secrecy. But she wants to make it work, and Junsu’s no quitter, so they decide to go to a carnival.
“That’s… maybe not the best idea,” Yunho offers hesitantly, when he calls him.
“It’s a stupid idea,” Changmin’s voice sounds in the background. When Junsu doesn’t immediately respond, he hears him say to Yunho “Tell him it’s the worst idea ever.” He can just imagine Changmin trying to grab the phone, and Yunho trying to swat him away.
“Changmin, really-” he sighs, and then speaks to Junsu. “It’ll be difficult. What if you get spotted?”
But Junsu explains the plan, and Yunho reluctantly agrees (they both ignore Changmin). They’ve got a plan, and Junsu is quite sure it will be the most amazing day ever.
It is not the most amazing day ever.
He thinks it’s a good time, of course. They go on a bunch of scary rides - which he likes and which she doesn’t, but it makes her cling to him really tight so it’s okay by him. They go through a mirror funhouse that is hilarious because somehow her butt looks big in every reflection. They don’t get caught, which is in a miracle in and of itself.
So he’s having fun, and he thinks she’s having fun, but it’s when they go to the games section that things go downhill. Junsu has always been known for his competitive streak, so beats her in every single game and doesn’t pull his punches.
“You’re not gonna go easy on me, are you?” she says with a crooked smile.
“Of course not!” he laughs. “Where’s the fun in that?”
She sighs but he drags her to another booth, trying to convince her to try and beat him just once. After about an hour she looks a little tired, so he decides that instead they’ll just go to one-player booths from then on.
“Junsu-yah…” she starts to complain, but he shakes his head.
“I’m trying to aim!” he says, prepping to throw a baseball at a stack of bottles. He manages to knock six of eight down, and she actually claps for him. He gets to pick his prize - a giant stuffed dragon that he holds proudly.
“It’s so cute!” she coos, reaching for it.
He hugs a bit tighter. “Hey! I won this fair and square,” he says. She laughs and he laughs but he’s not really joking.
“I’ll win the next one for you,” he says. But the next booth they happen to go to is the dreaded coin-in-a-cup, and Junsu for the life of him can’t throw it right.
It’s another hour and she starts complaining again. “Junsu… it’s getting late, can we just go?”
“No! I’ll win it for you!”
“I don’t care about the stuffed toy anymore, I’d just like to go home.”
“You don’t care? But we’ve got to win it!”
“Well, what if I don’t care about winning.”
“You should! No girlfriend of Xiah Junsu’s is going to not be a winner!”
She gives him a glare and opens her mouth to retort, but at that moment they both hear a sort of half-scream behind them -
“Xiah Junsu! WHERE?!”
They spend the next hour running for their lives. The next day, she calls and says this probably won’t work. They just aren’t right for each other. He says she’s being a poor sport. She says he’s the one who’s losing out. He sticks his tongue out at her over the phone, forgetting that she can’t see. She hangs up on him anyway.
**
“I don’t get it. She does everything for you. She cleans and cooks and does pretty much anything you want her to. Isn’t that what you want?” Jaejoong drawls into the phone.
“She’s crazy, I tell you,” Changmin hisses. “I can’t get her to leave!”
“Why would you want her to? I know she’s hot - ow!” he hisses when his girlfriend kicks him under the table. “What?” he asks her.
“She’s my friend, don’t talk about her like that! And don’t let him say bad things about her, either!” she frowns. He frowns back.
Safe to say, things for Jaejoong and his girlfriend have not improved. From the bathroom, their fights have moved to the kitchen (who gets to cook the next meal, how spicy things were allowed to be) to the bedroom (who gets which side of the bed, who gets the most of the closest). There is simply not enough room for all of their stuff combined. She suggests moving to a bigger place, but he hesitates. It took him forever to find an apartment an equal distance from all his members’ houses.
And there comes in the biggest of their fights: Dong Bang Shin Ki. She doesn’t care about the celebrity status or the fans that still come up to ask for autographs. She doesn’t care about the memories of the band. She cares about how much the band members are around - which is, for the record, constantly.
The apartment is their space, she insists - hers as much as his. She wants a sense of personal privacy, separate from Dong Bang Shin Ki.
She says they’re allowed over once a week. He bargains - three times a week. Plus boys’ nights out. And the weekly ramen lunch. She says once a week, but he’s allowed to call as much as he wants. He takes full advantage of this, much to her annoyance.
As if in evidence of this, she frowns even harder. “Besides, we’re at dinner, Jaejoong. This can wait.”
Over the phone Changmin whines. “No, this can’t! I need help. She’s waiting outside the building with a picnic basket. It’s nine o’clock at night in February; I’m not going on a damn picnic with her!”
“Changmin needs help - of course it can’t wait,” Jaejoong repeats back to his girlfriend, chuckling at his friend’s expense. His girlfriend glares at him, and Changmin illustrates her glare with a few colorful words.
“I’m serious, damnit!” says the ex-band mate.
“And I’m serious,” says the girlfriend. “We’re having dinner now. Hang up the phone, or go and talk in the other room - and once you’re done, you can make your own dinner.”
Jaejoong glances down at his food. She made it tonight and it was good - but it did have a little too much salt. He stands and says, “It’s okay, I’ll make my own. Thanks for being so understanding.” And when he walks out of the room he leans down to kiss her on the cheek. She flinches away and Jaejoong frowns, right about the time Changmin yells something about the crazy girl being in his building now.
He sighs. She probably just wanted to eat without the distraction, he thinks. Changmin could be rather loud. He tells the younger man to calm down and deal with the girl like a big boy, but only gets an even fouler phrase in response.
Ironically, it turns out Changmin can’t talk for long. The crazy girl is knocking on his apartment door and Changmin decides that talking to Jaejoong might ruin his plan to pretend he isn’t home. Jaejoong only shakes his head.
Back in the kitchen, his girlfriend is throwing the leftovers into the trash. “Oh,” she sniffs, eying him when he walks back in. “I guess you could have eaten it after all.”
“No no, I’d have made my own anyway. Sorry.”
She shrugs, but he can tell it’s a little stiff so he comes up behind her and gives her a hug. She resists, but only for a second. He sways with her for a little bit and she reaches to the sink to splash him with some soap-foam.
“Hey!” he sputters.
“You deserve it, ignoring me like that.” She smiles, even though it’s a little sad.
Jaejoong bites his lip. “I didn’t mean it like that. Changmin just-”
“-needed your help, I know. But sometimes I need you too.” Then she shrugs, like she’s shrugging off all memory of the fight. When she smiles at him again it’s like it never happened - and Jaejoong loves that about her. She’s stubborn and strong-willed, but will never hold a grudge for long; quick to temper, but just as quick to let it lie.
“Help me clean up?” she offers, and he is happy to comply. She stays in the kitchen while he straightens up the rest of the house, and it isn’t until they’re back in the same room, getting ready for bed and not saying more than a ‘goodnight’, that he realizes something still isn’t quite right.
**
Honestly, Changmin doesn’t like Jaejoong’s girlfriend. This is for one reason, and one reason only.
Said reason is standing before him right now.
“Oppa!” the she-reason chirps, and inwardly he cringes. Her voice is so high-pitched that he thinks she could probably speak and only dogs would hear it. Combined with the sugary-sweetness in her address, it makes him want to gag. Or shove a spoon through his eardrum.
“Hi,” he grits out, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could on a picnic, op-pa,” she sing-songs. “It would be romantic, and I know you like drinking in parks at night!”
Of course she knows that. She’s a fan. A scary, scary fan-woman that has every profile of him ever published memorized and owns all the fan merchandise and probably even administers one of his fan sites.
He curses Jaejoong’s girlfriend again; she was, after all, the one who set him up with this crazy girl. Jae’s girlfriend had said she knew of a girl who “might be his type” and that “he was definitely hers” - and oh, he should have known better.
The moment they met was a warning sign - because she’d had Changmin’s face on her cell phone strap. He grinned at himself all through dinner, and he’d thought it was cute but a little creepy and decided this would be a one-time thing.
Three months later, he’s still trying to get rid of her.
“Listen…” he says, staring helplessly at the picnic basket. “It’s not really the right time of year…”
“Oh, I know! That’s why I got these!” And from somewhere in the depths of her Mary-Poppins-like bag she pulls two matching sweaters. “Couple sweaters, oppa!” She waves the sweaters at him with a little shake. They’re absolutely hideous.
“I’m not wearing that,” he says. He has been forced to wear enough ugly sweaters to last a lifetime; he will not succumb to this under his own free will.
“But… I bought them just for us,” she says, looking down with suspiciously watery eyes. “I thought it would be fun.”
“No.”
“It’s not like I like them either!” she says quickly. Her voice wavers. “I know you don’t like campy things; I don’t either! But it’s nighttime and no one would see us… It’s a joke, don’t you get it?”
Her tiny fists clench around the itchy-looking material. She has long fake nails with rhinestone hearts, and it reminds him that even though she’s the almost same age as him, she really is much younger at heart. And she’s a fan. She’s trying really hard to live up to his expectations.
He looks back up at her face, her pleading gaze. She’s nearly a foot shorter than him.
“Fine,” he sighs. “We’ll go out. But not with those sweaters, got it?”
She giggles like he’s said the funniest thing in the world. “Oh, yay! I thought we’d go to the one around the corner, with the little fountain. I made the buchimgae you liked so much, remember?”
He sighs again. He remembers - a few weeks ago she followed him home after “randomly” running into him at a coffee shop and “accidentally” leaving one of her gloves in his jacket pocket. Once inside his apartment, she’d proceeded to stay for five hours. The dinner she’d made had been good; the way he’d caught her kissing a framed picture of him and Yoochun had not.
Honestly, Changmin has no idea how the hell this happened.
**
Yoochun tries to take his new relationship carefully. After seeing the mini-disaster that is Jaejoong and his girlfriend-turned-housemate, he wants to be extra careful with his new lady love. Because a lady she definitely is - a love she quickly becomes.
They go on classy, expensive dates because she likes the fancy stuff, but she’s not afraid to hit the pub and knock back a few with the guys. They hold hands at the movies and go for late night drives where they don’t say anything at all. She fits into his life like she was made for it.
But a few months in and they’ve done nothing more than kiss. Yoochun was serious about taking it slow - but she’s not so fond of it.
They’re necking happily on his couch after a homemade meal in which she washed his dishes - and oh, he does so love it when she washes the dishes - when her hand starts drifting places it hasn’t drifted before.
He pauses in surprise, terribly conflicted, and in that moment she swings over to straddle his lap and there’s no doubt in either of their minds what she has planned.
He pulls back for just a second, his head sinking into the couch cushions and his chin doubling unattractively. He needs to talk to her about this, because they haven’t really talked about it, and it’s something you should talk about, in a serious relationship. This is a serious relationship, and so he plans to say all this. This is what he actually says:
“This- we, uh- now, talk. Maybe? Er-” Which is followed by some incomprehensibly gurgle when her fingers toy with his zipper.
“It’s okay,” she breathes, “We both want this, what’s the point in waiting?”
“But-” she kisses him again and he forgets what he was going to say. Her shirt is off and she’s undoing his belt buckle when he finally remembers.
“Wait - no, seriously, wait. I want to talk about this.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Really? Mr. I-Was-An-International-Superstar? You want to have this talk? I don’t buy that.” She taunts him.
He scowls. “I just want to take it slow. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
She laughs. “I don’t believe that, either.”
“Not-” he rolls his eyes to hide his embarrassment. Somehow her blunt speech always leaves him tongue-tied - and she uses that to her advantage, the evil woman. “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about… talking.”
She tilts her head in question, her fingers finally stilling, realizing the seriousness of his expression.
“I haven’t been in a real relationship in a long time, you know that,” he says, looking down and grabbing her hand away from his pants and closer to his heart. He knows this is killing the mood but he also wants to tell her these things, and that’s special enough. “I’ve had my fair share of women. I played around a lot after the band broke-up… it’s not something I’m really proud of.”
“You’re not going to tell me you have an STD, are you?”
“No, just shut up and listen, will you?” he grumbles, pinching the back of her thigh even as he smiles. “I just want to take this slow. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it - and you mean that much to me. I want this to work.”
And then she smiles at him, soft and sweet and, “Oh, Yoochun. This is already working.”
He gulps and feels his throat grow tight, but he doesn’t cry. He presses his lips to hers instead and lets the give and take of their kiss wash his fears away.
**
That fateful night, in which Yunho is left outside his apartment with nothing but his phone and some pink fuzzy slippers, begins with a simple invitation to dinner. Jaejoong and Yoochun are going out for drinks and ask if Yunho would like to come along - which he most definitely would.
He goes straight from work to the restaurant and calls his girlfriend on the way home. “I think I’ll be home late tonight,” he told her.
“Okay... When will you be back?” She asks slowly, and he can tell she was trying not to be demanding. It makes him smile, because they’ve been working on that.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. It’s been a while since it had been just the three of them.
She still doesn’t sound too happy, but she sighs and he can hear the roll of her eyes. “Fine, fine,” she says dismissively. “Have fun, be safe, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Us?” Yunho grins. “Never.”
Obviously that doesn’t work out so well.
As per usual fare, Jaejoong pushes them to drink as much as possible and it doesn’t take long until they’re all tipsy, teasing and poking at each other in their private room at the bar. They tease Yoochun about being whipped and Yunho having his own ball and chain. They hit that point where tipsy slurs into wasted - Yoochun and Yunho first, but Jaejoong not too long after - and they sit there until the early hours of the morning, giggling and blinking heavily, thought and vision skewed. And Yunho keeps drinking, keeps laughing, keeps having fun…
Up until the moment he gets home and immediately gets kicked out, of course.
When Jaejoong says he’ll let Yunho sleep over, he goes down to curb, toes still curling in those fuzzy pink slippers, and waits for Jaejoong to come pick him up. But, however drunk Jaejoong might be, he still has enough of his senses about him to know that he won’t be the one to pick Yunho up - he figures the other man will call for a taxi, like they had on the way home from the bar.
Any other thoughts of the matter fly out of his mind when he arrives home, too, and gets an equally cold shoulder from his girlfriend. She doesn’t kick him out - she isn’t so confrontational - but she quickly banishes him to the couch. He bundles up in his blankets, planning to wait for Yunho to knock on the door, falling asleep in approximately forty-two seconds.
Result: Yunho sits on the curb for an hour before he falls asleep himself, where he stays, propped against a light post, until five in the morning. He comes down with an awful fever and, in the aftermath, is nursed back to health by a grudgingly repentant girlfriend. And while she’s at work the other four take turns visiting him and bringing things like stuffed animals and chicken noodle soup and it’s ridiculous because he doesn’t even like chicken noodle soup, but he basks in the attention anyway.
The third night she comes home and there’s five men playing nurse-maid and being absolutely horrible at it, she frowns - but doesn’t do anything else except fix herself a glass of wine and watch them interact with one eyebrow raised.
Yunho’s laid out on the couch and he doesn’t even see her enter, but when he does he nearly falls off the couch, collecting himself enough to patiently usher the other guys out. When they’re gone she comes over and perches down next to him, folding her hands carefully in her lap.
“You know… I was a fan, too,” she says slowly. He does know this and nods, wondering where this is going. “I watched read interviews, and watched television shows. I watched Star Show - remember that one? I remember it, especially that one story… about that girlfriend who broke up with you because Heechul wears pink shirts and looks like a girl. I remembered it before we started dating, and after you told it to me again later - and because I remembered, because I know Heechul is definitely not a girl, I also knew I should never be jealous.”
She takes a deep breath. “And Jaejoong and Yoochun and Changmin and Junsu - none of them are girls, and despite all the rumors, none of them are gay. And I should not be jealous. ”
“But you… are?” Yunho asks, holding his breath and already wincing in anticipation.
“No,” she huffs, taking a long gulp of wine. She throws her head back all the way and Yunho’s eyes travel from the slight curve of her jaw, down her throat, to those stick-thin collarbones that he’s always been attracted to, and further down - “I’m not, but damn I wish I could be. I’m dating one man, not five!” she says, and it breaks Yunho’s concentration, his eyes flying back up to hers.
She’s giving him a baleful glare. “I don’t like fighting like this,” she says. He sighs and murmurs an agreement. “But you’re so oblivious and I’m too stubborn, so it’s probably going to happen whether we like it or not.”
“What do you think we should do?”
She shakes her head. “We keep working on it. Because I love you, you idiot.”
His hand travels up her arm, a gentle motion. “Love you, too.”
So they talk about it. He promises to be more considerate, she promises to never kick him out again. One step back, two steps forward - it’s more than enough for him.
**
Changmin is not on a date. Changmin is at lunch, at his favorite restaurant, eating his favorite meal, and she just happens to be sitting across from him.
He ducks his head and inhales his food as fast as possible. She’s talking about something or other, he doesn’t even know, it could be about ducks or colon cancer but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to be seen in public with her any longer than necessary. He tries to pretend like she isn’t there, and is pretty successful up until the moment the waiter comes and asks if “he and his girlfriend” saved room for desert. He glares when she claps her hands and pours over the menu, and jumps when she runs her foot up his leg underneath the table, winking at him.
He does, however, approve of the raspberry cheesecake she picks.
He picks up the check and she thanks him again, sliding her foot a little higher. He doesn’t even know how her legs reach his, because she’s so short. For the first time in his life he curses his own long legs. He jerks and grits out “Don’t do that,” because he doesn’t want her foot where it’s going. Feet are gross enough as it is. Thank god for long table-clothes.
“Fine,” she giggles, withdrawing her foot. He breathes a sigh of relief. “Changmin-oppa… what should we do next?”
“You can do what you want. I have a meeting with a man about a… thing,” he trails off distractedly, scribbling his signature on the check.
“Oh, is it another job? Another television show?” She starts ticking off her fingers. “Another interview? Another photo shoot? Another-”
“Oh my god, please stop,” he sighs, rubbing his temples. He stands to leave. “It’s not any of those things. Its business, that’s all.”
Her shoulders slump. Even the ruffles on her dress seem dejected. “Oh, okay.”
And because Changmin - deep, really deep down - is a nice guy, the nicest of guys, he just can’t leave like that. “Listen, why don’t you… go do… something. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Her eyes go wide and light up. “Of course,” she sighs dreamily.
Changmin resists punching himself in the face. But, he’s done his one good self-sacrificing deed, so he can happily be an ass to everyone else for the rest of the day.
[part two]
gen/het; pg-13
romance/humor
12,643 words
Written for the first round of kpop_olymfics (over six months ago, yikes! How have I not posted this already??) My prompt was 2NE1's "I Don't Care" for Team Future, which was the winning team :) Though this fic is technically het and revolves around relationships with non-celebrities, it's truly OT5 at heart, and is something that even those who aren't fans of het can enjoy. Despite it's problems I loved kpop_olymfics and wish I had the time to compete again. I still think my teammates are the awesomest people around ♥ The next round is just beginning, so make sure to check it out!
The members of Dong Bang Shin Ki attempt to resuscitate their love lives post-disbandment and find themselves miserably inept. Codependency issues, manly hijinks, and lots of fail found here.
Yunho walks in the door and she’s waiting for him, snuggled into a corner of the couch with fuzzy slippers and a mug of cold coffee and her indignant, womanly rage face on.
“It’s three in the morning! Where the hell have you been?”
“What?” Yunho says absently, slipping out of his shoes. It’s somewhat difficult; he’s still kind of buzzed. He stumbles. “I to-old you I was going out with the guys.”
“Not until three in the fucking morning,” she glares.
He looks up with a frown. “Hey, no need for that. I thought you would understand.”
“Understand?” she scoffs. “Understand what? That my boyfriend is thirty-four years old and still can’t stop going out joyriding - or whatever you grown men do - until all hours of the morning? I have to be in the office in four hours, Yunho. I can’t keep staying up all night waiting for you like this.”
He looks around a little helplessly. “Then don’t?”
The look she gives him is no less than terrifying. “Don’t? I tell you I’m concerned and you tell me don’t?” She stands up from her chair, and when she walks forward he likens it to a predator stalking its prey.
“Er- no. I mean, I didn’t realize you were concerned-”
“Of course I’m concerned!” she cuts him off and throws her hands into the air, a sign of pure frustration. Her hair slips out of its messy bun, wild around her face, and Yunho would liken her to Medusa, except her glare turns him into more of a gelatinous moron than impenetrable stone. “Aren’t you even listening to me?”
“I was! I just didn’t get, with the yelling, and the rage face, and-”
“Rage face?!” she asks, her voice rising octaves.
He winces, literally backtracking, slowly taking small receding steps towards the door. “Er- ah. That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I was just confused, I’ll call you next time, so you won’t have to stay up-”
“Get out.”
“Really?” He sighs. He doesn’t even know what he said wrong this time. Then again, he should just expect it by now. He walks out the doorway, only to turn around at the last second. “Can I at least get a change of clothes?”
She throws one of his slippers at his head. He likes to take that as ‘I’m thinking about it’, and gives her a small, pitifully hopeful smile. She throws the other shoe, and he takes that as his cue to exit.
He stands outside their apartment door and realizes he didn’t put his shoes back on, but her slippers ended up out in the hallway, too. He takes one look at the pink fuzzy monstrosities, sighs, shakes his head, and puts them on.
He wiggles his toes against the fake fur. They’re actually pretty soft - no wonder she likes them so much. Maybe he’ll keep them, he thinks vindictively. Then he sighs again, because he knows he’ll bring them back if she asks. Probably even if she doesn’t.
He digs in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He has that, at least. He dials the first number on his caller-id. It rings twice before the call’s answered with a drunken burp.
“Yunhooo!” Jaejoong answers happily. “I just sa-aw you!”
“Yeah, Jaejoong, you did. But listen, do you think I could crash at your place tonight…?”
**
Dong Bang Shin Ki gets back together, eventually. It’s after over two years of legal drama; there’s a joyful reunion, and within a few months they’re back to being more co-dependent than ever. They continue to be successful and inseparable for the rest of their careers.
Dong Bang Shin Ki breaks up, eventually. It happens, either because of management or because their original/new contracts are up or because they aren’t as profitable as they used to be. It’s because of a reason that’s rational and expected and so they are think they are prepared for the end.
For the most part, they are okay. They get jobs in various parts of the entertainment industry, because it’s what they know and what they’re good at. They’re successful, each with their own apartments in Seoul, each with their own unlimited phone plan with four numbers first on their speed-dial.
The problem, though, is that living with five guys for the majority of your life doesn’t exactly leave you the most socially-adjusted individual. Especially not (despite countless years of pining and wistful thinking) for interaction with the dear, fairer sex. Changmin, at one point, likens it to “being thrown into a tiger pit bare-assed and covered in cologne that smells like B.O. and is named ‘Eat me, I’m stupid’.”
Wise words, Shim Changmin.
Yoochun prefers a different story. On one of the many vacations he and Jaejoong took when “they were on a break”, they went to see a fortune-teller. Said fortune-teller was hot and Yoochun spent most of his session flirting with her in thinly-veiled predictions - and so he didn’t take it all that seriously up until the moment she said, “I see a lot of hardship in your life. Separations.”
At first he had scoffed, because of course, anyone with a T.V. knew that. But Jaejoong had convinced him to pay a hefty wad of won for this session, and he was going to get his money’s worth.
“How does it end?” he asked, feigning curiosity.
She’d peered carefully into her little crystal ball and tugged his hand forward, walking her fingers along as palm as he tried not to laugh. “I see… connections, a sense of lost time; trying to capture it, and stay the same.”
Yoochun let out a long breath, not sure if that was a good or bad omen. It was a pretty generic answer, but it certainly hit home. “And…?”
“I see women - lots and lots of women. Screaming, waving red things around.”
At the time, he’d thought it was definitely good news. Lots and lots of women screaming? He knew what that was. He smiled and thanked her and promised to send her a bouquet of flowers after their next concert.
Ten years down the road, however, when he gets into a fight with his fiancé and she screams at him and waves her scarf - the bright red scarf he’d bought Junsu for Christmas, but ended up giving to her because his ex-bandmate had already owned one - in his face, he remembers that moment and realizes it had been a very bad omen.
“How was I supposed to know?” he whines to Jaejoong later, over the phone. He’s hiding in his bathroom, talking low into the phone while his fiancé bangs around angrily in the kitchen. She was supposed to come over and make him dinner, but it sounds more like she’s making holes in the plaster. “You wouldn’t have been mad, right?”
“Of course not. Remember that watch I bought for your birthday?”
“Yeah…”
“Bought it for Yunho, but his girlfriend gave him one for Christmas,” Jaejoong says cheerfully.
“Oh really?” Yoochun pauses, thinking. “It would have looked good on him.”
On the other end Jaejoong huffs, “I know, right? It even matched with that Armani tie Changmin got him-”
“I remember that,” Yoochun nods. “That would have been nice.”
“Yeah. A shame, but you like it, right?” the older man adds casually.
“Of course. It goes well with the-”
“-the grey Diesel sunglasses? Who do you think suggested it to Junsu?” Yoochun can hear the smile in his voice.
“Huh, I never knew. Thanks,” he says, knowing Jaejoong will be able to hear his smile just the same.
“My pleasure.”
**
It doesn’t start out difficult. In fact, it starts like any other sort of romance - awkward but well-intentioned, first loves just a little too late. The members that had once had relationships are decades out of the loop, but they dive in with enthusiasm-
Jaejoong meets her first. She’s soft spoken but confident, and on their first date she tells him she didn’t really like Dong Bang Shin Ki all that much; she was more an Epik High type of girl. He kisses her anyway, when he's trying to escort her home on the subway. She gets off alone at her stop because she says she can walk back by herself, but before the doors shut he leans out and smashes his lips to her face. It’s unromantic and sloppy but kind of brilliant, but when he steps back and the doors close, she smiles and gives him a cheeky wave - and for the rest of the ride Jaejoong is sure he looks like a creeper for how much he is smiling, but he doesn't care.
He calls Yunho as soon as he gets home, and despite it being midnight and him being very tired, Yunho answers like usual. He listens carefully as Jaejoong gushes about everything about her, from the soft layering of her hair to the way she held her pinky finger out when taking a sip of wine, and adds the occasional commentary about how great she really must be. Jaejoong hangs up only when he’s pretty sure Yunho’s fallen asleep on him. Then he scrolls through his phone book.
By the next day, anyone relatively close to Jaejoong has gotten a call or text informing them that Jaejoong has met a girl, has gone on a date with this girl, and is practically in love with this girl. He’s thrown himself into the idea of a girlfriend like a kid off the high-dive. He’s got everyone looking at him as he jumps, makes his splash, and now they’re all patiently waiting for him to bring his head above the surface.
Junsu crushes on one of his costars for a year before doing anything. She’s younger than him by several years but at just the right mental age, Yoochun jokes. The other four constantly tell him to man up and confess, but every time he comes close something like word vomit - and maybe something like real vomit - comes into his throat and he finds himself breaking into song or laughing or starting conversations about kangaroos, or something stupid like that.
She usually giggles into her hand, going along with it, her cheeks rising on blush and her eyes like waning half-moons. It’s very obvious that she likes him back, but Junsu’s a little too busy feeling like an idiot to notice.
In the end, she makes the first move. He doesn’t tell the others, and makes her swear to never tell them, either. She giggles, and he realizes she is the first person he honestly thinks is cuter than him.
Yunho’s girl is everything he wants - and Yunho knows what he wants. He’s had it planned out from the time he was thirteen, maybe even twelve. Or ten, whatever. But he knows she is going to look a certain way, talk a certain way, treat him a certain way.
Yunho meets that girl at a company party, and they click instantly, perfectly.
“Well damn,” Changmin says, when she leaves to get a drink. “I didn’t think she actually existed.”
“Huh?”
Changmin sighs. “Go, hyung. Now. This is not a drill.”
Yunho hesitates but the younger man pushes him and that’s that. He follows her to the punch bowl and after that, is pretty much content to follow her anywhere. She isn’t afraid to take control, and he loves it. He’s been the responsible one for so long, it’s nice to let go of the reins for a bit.
He lets go of a breath he’s been holding far too long; when he breathes in, he imagines his heart is full enough to float into the sky.
Changmin meets her at a library, of all things. They laugh about it because he’s the stereotypical smart one and isn’t that irony for you - but in all honesty he was just there to pick up his sister and the girl happened to be working the front desk. Said sister is late, said girl strikes up conversation, and all of a sudden Changmin has a phone number.
“How do I call her?” he asks Yoochun, who’s got his face stuffed in his couch. He’d been up all night and doesn’t really want to listen to Changmin’s anxiety attack, but the kid does need help.
“Well, you match the numbers on the paper with the numbers on the phone-”
“Haha, jerk. I’m serious, when’s a good time? What should I say?”
“Say anything. If she’s a normal human being, she’ll probably even say something back,” he mumbles.
Changmin rolls his eyes and walks away. “I hate you.”
Yoochun feels kind of bad. But the couch is really comfy, so he just calls “Good luck!” and falls right back into sleep.
In the end, Changmin calls the right number, says hello, and she says it back. They even talk some more, on the phone - and later, at a nice restaurant where he makes reservations for two at nine o’clock. They talk on the drive home, and say goodbye, like normal human beings. Changmin thinks it went rather well.
But then she doesn’t call back.
He doesn’t say anything about it, of course, but Yoochun knows and is the one to call and get hung up on; to sneak over to his apartment late at night anyway, bringing friendship and comfort and alcohol. They don’t say much, but Yoochun pops the cap off a beer and hands it over to Changmin, who takes it gratefully and downs in it a few minutes. They end up laughing about something stupid, and Changmin is surprised by how easy she is to forget. But, then again, maybe that’s normal, too.
**
And then it starts to get tricky.
Jaejoong lasts in a sugar-coated, reality-free bubble up until their 100-day anniversary; up until he invites her to move in with him. Then the bubble pops - he hits the surface, and it is the end of their happy beginning.
The day she moves in, the members come help bring in the boxes. Jaejoong takes advantage of it to stay in the apartment, conveniently out of the sweltering summer humidity, and “direct” where the boxes should go. His girlfriend and new roommate is unpacking.
At some point mid-afternoon, she calls him into the hallway. “Jaejoong, where should I put…?” she hefts the box labeled ‘Bathrm.’
“In the bathroom?” he smiles.
She shakes her head. “No, no. Where can I put it until you take out the stuff in there?”
Jaejoong gives her a confused look. “Take out what stuff?”
“Jae!” she protests. “There’s absolutely no room! The cabinet’s full and the counter is absolutely covered - you’re going to have to clean out some room for me.”
Jae opens his mouth once or twice, trying to think of a response. Move the stuff in his bathroom? He needs that stuff! “But - I mean, where will I put it?”
“Maybe you can just rid of it. I don’t think you need that many face creams,” she adds, obviously joking.
Jaejoong doesn’t find it so funny. “Of course I do. I use all the products I have in there. I endorse half of those companies for a reason.”
She looks at him incredulously. “Everything? You have six types of hair gel. No one needs six types of hair gel.”
“Well I do!”
“What about in the cupboards? The hair accessories? The wax kit?”
Behind them there’s a cough - Jaejoong turns and sees Yunho hovering in the doorway, failing to suppress his laughter. Jaejoong flushs, floundering, “Shut up!” he cries. “It’s an aesthetic!”
“Of course,” Yunho says gently, teasingly.
“You did it too!”
“Did, Jaejoong, did. And only because the stylist made me.”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Hey!” she cuts back in, calling their attention. “What about my box?” She hefts it one more time, and Jaejoong can hear the bottles and odds and ends jangle together inside. It’s an awfully big box - he doesn’t know how half of it will go in the bathroom, even if he did deign to get rid of some not-as-essential things.
“Oh, I know,” he gets an idea. “How about you use the half-bath. It’s just down the hall, and we can have our own-”
She, for some reason, seems offended by that. “I’m not using the half-bath down the hall.”
There results a sort of stare down which Yunho carefully extracts himself from. And after a few tense minutes and one longer conversation, Jaejoong cleans out some of his stuff. He gives her a shelf in his medicine cabinet and a bit of space on the counter, but she’s still sour about it. And she really complains when, half a week later, they find themselves battling over who gets to spend the most time in front of the mirror in the morning.
“Should have taken the half-bath,” he grumbles, as he tries to fix his hair while looking over her shoulder and simultaneously dodging hair-spraying arms.
“What was that?” she asks sharply.
He’s tempted to say it aloud, but thinks it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. “Nothing. I’m trying to work fast.”
“Oh,” she says. “Thank you.” And she smiles sweetly at him in the reflection, but as soon as she leaves the too-small-for-the-two-of-us room, he stares down at the long hairs stuck to and slowly slipping down the wet sides of the sink, and keeps on grumbling.
Two months after Junsu and his girlfriend become official he picks her up to go to a soccer game, but she tells him she’s so sorry, she can’t go, because-
-and five minutes later, Yunho gets a call from an anxious Junsu.
“She has cramps, Yunho. What do I do!?” Junsu sounds kind of frantic, and Yunho rolls his eyes fondly.
“Don’t panic, you’ve injured yourself before, you should know how to deal with it. Give her some painkillers, stretch and massage the muscles, and-”
“No! She has cramps, Yunho. Like, cramps. I can’t massage… that!”
Yunho chokes. “Oh, uh - er.” He fakes a cough that lasts just a little too long.
Junsu’s glower is audible. “You’re not helping!” he screeches.
Yunho tugs the phone away from his ear and bites his lip. “Er - call Jaejoong? He might-”
Junsu hangs up, but Yunho doesn’t take offense. He also doesn’t find out how Junsu addresses the problem, but he really doesn’t mind. All he knows is that the next day, Junsu and his girlfriend break-up - and he thinks he’s more than fine never knowing.
Yunho kind of wants to eat his words. His dream girl is - as it turns out - too much of his dream girl. Everything he does, she has to know about. Everything he says, she has to contradict. Everything he buys, she needs to approve of first. But, sometimes, Yunho wants to be listened to. Yunho likes to be in control. And he, now, kind of wants those reins back.
So they fight - and they break up.
Three days later Yunho realizes what he’s done, and after a long apology they’re back together. It lasts for five months before they start fighting again, each too strong-willed not to butt heads. They break up for two months before he runs into her at another business meeting, and within in an hour they’re kissing in the handicap stall in the ladies bathroom.
They get back together, they fight, they break up, they make up, they fight again. They last for months on end only to spend a few weeks apart, agonizing over everything they could have done right. Then, before they actually start to listen to people’s advice, they’re back together.
The tabloids get wind of it, and their on-and-off relationship becomes a big-selling topic, pure fodder for the masses. Yunho’s used to it. She’s not.
So they break up. And the cycle begins again.
Changmin dates, here and there. He’s the one with the least relationship experience of all the Dong Bang men, and he tries his hand at everything.
He dates other entertainers, but finds it too much of a hassle to deal with the pressure and secrecy. He dates tall, beautiful models, but finds often finds them too vain for his taste. He dates small, cute girls, but finds himself treating them more like Mandoongie than anything. He dates girls that are environmentally friendly and women who have PhD’s and ladies who drink too much - and one young woman who, he found out after a rather awful first date, doesn’t believe in bathing.
He tries to be the type of sweet, caring boyfriend. He dotes on one girlfriend and she calls him overbearing. When he acts the aloof, hard-to-get guy and ends up being labeled a jerk. He tries to be laid-back and is told he doesn’t make enough effort.
Changmin likes structure. He likes order, he likes knowing what is going to happen and what the plans are going to be. He likes rational, sane people. Dating and women do not fall in this category.
So he decides he’s going to be the type of guy that doesn’t believe in needing someone else to be happy. He’s busy with work and in all honesty, he’s perfectly fine being single.
However, when a couple months go by and he hasn’t had so much as a coffee date, he thinks having someone else wouldn’t be so bad. When Jaejoong’s girlfriend offers to set him up on a blind date, he doesn’t see the harm in it.
**
But what of Yoochun? Well, Yoochun’s a bit of a different story.
Despite being labeled the ‘romantic one’ (which he is) and the ‘ladies man’ (which is not) and the ‘smooth one’ (which he is definitely not), his first experiences in dating are… not so great.
Because, though he may/may-not be all those things, the one thing he is, is desperate. Years of being lonely and one step away from clinical depression have left its toll, and he goes from girl to girl and finally earns that playboy image he’d once been assigned.
He wants romance, he wants the sweet girl that’ll settle down and wash his dishes. But he also finds he wants the independent girl, and the smart girl, and the stunningly beautiful girl, and the sassy one that can match him hit-for-hit like Junsu. And the moment one of those girl catches his eye he’s already on her trail.
In two years he goes through a total of sixteen “serious” girlfriends - even more who he’s just dating; many more that he’s just fooling around with. He goes through a phase where he has a new girl every night, and he doesn’t even bother changing the name on his cell phone. He just picks an old girl’s name and replaces her number.
Yunho frowns in disapproval and speaks to him leader-voice that still makes Yoochun feel like a fifteen-year-old failure. Changmin and Junsu take turns insulting him, and Jaejoong just shakes his head and goes along with it, helping him remember which girl he’s supposed to be seeing that night.
“I can’t help it,” he finally confesses, when they’re having a guys-night and he gets three calls, all of which he ignores before turning off his phone completely.
“Yoochun…” Yunho begins.
“I’m just… not sure what I’m looking for. And it’s not like they’ll probably stay, anyway,” he adds, to an indignant response. (Only Junsu says he’s probably right, but Changmin hits Junsu hard and for some reason, their familiar bickering makes Yoochun feel so much better).
In the end they call it an official band meeting and make him chose between the girls he’s seeing- it’s time to end the game. They all drink too much and when he calls the not-the-right-one girls he gets more names wrong than right.
When he calls the right number for the-right-one girl, she listens for five minutes, until somewhere behind him Changmin starts chuckling and the girl stops him with a sharp, “Are you with someone else right now?”
Yoochun stumbles over his words, a “Yes -no, I mean - it’s not-” but she’s already hung up.
He hangs his head and attempts to tear out his hair, and gets a group-hug for the effort. It’s somewhat comforting.
The next week, he meets the woman he loves for the rest of his life. Everyone is extremely jealous.
You see, Yoochun meets her completely by chance. He likes to think of it as fate - that she is his saving grace, sweeping into his life at one of his lowest moments. He’s in Time-Out gelato, checking on the new inventory shipment. She comes into the store and happens to want the only flavor they didn’t get in this month.
“You’re Park Yoochun,” she says plainly, when he comes to the front. In a corner a group of women (who are too old to be squealing in excitement) squeal.
“I am,” he says, not really in the mood to deal with fans right then. “Who’re you?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Han Juri.”
“Like the-”
“Like the Streetfighter, yes. Like the member of a boyband, I assume?”
Her mocking tone catches his attention, and he looks her up and down, from the designer shoes to her vivid make-up and the messy, haphazard bun at the nape of her neck. He leans against the glass counter and gives her a lazy smile. “Assume away,” he says (and hears, from the corner, another melodramatic gasp).
“What flavor would you like?” he continues.
“Hmm,” she says, slow and playful, “well, since you’re out of what I want, what else have you got?”
It’s a blatantly suggestive taunt, but somehow delivered in the classiest way he’s ever heard. “How about picking something to sample? You can try as many as you like.”
She tries all forty, and doesn’t end up buying anything. He gives it to her on the house -two scoops of Strawberry Surprise, and his life is never the same.
**
Junsu’s next girlfriend is an up-and-coming indie singer, and from the start their relationship is strained by busy schedules and required secrecy. But she wants to make it work, and Junsu’s no quitter, so they decide to go to a carnival.
“That’s… maybe not the best idea,” Yunho offers hesitantly, when he calls him.
“It’s a stupid idea,” Changmin’s voice sounds in the background. When Junsu doesn’t immediately respond, he hears him say to Yunho “Tell him it’s the worst idea ever.” He can just imagine Changmin trying to grab the phone, and Yunho trying to swat him away.
“Changmin, really-” he sighs, and then speaks to Junsu. “It’ll be difficult. What if you get spotted?”
But Junsu explains the plan, and Yunho reluctantly agrees (they both ignore Changmin). They’ve got a plan, and Junsu is quite sure it will be the most amazing day ever.
It is not the most amazing day ever.
He thinks it’s a good time, of course. They go on a bunch of scary rides - which he likes and which she doesn’t, but it makes her cling to him really tight so it’s okay by him. They go through a mirror funhouse that is hilarious because somehow her butt looks big in every reflection. They don’t get caught, which is in a miracle in and of itself.
So he’s having fun, and he thinks she’s having fun, but it’s when they go to the games section that things go downhill. Junsu has always been known for his competitive streak, so beats her in every single game and doesn’t pull his punches.
“You’re not gonna go easy on me, are you?” she says with a crooked smile.
“Of course not!” he laughs. “Where’s the fun in that?”
She sighs but he drags her to another booth, trying to convince her to try and beat him just once. After about an hour she looks a little tired, so he decides that instead they’ll just go to one-player booths from then on.
“Junsu-yah…” she starts to complain, but he shakes his head.
“I’m trying to aim!” he says, prepping to throw a baseball at a stack of bottles. He manages to knock six of eight down, and she actually claps for him. He gets to pick his prize - a giant stuffed dragon that he holds proudly.
“It’s so cute!” she coos, reaching for it.
He hugs a bit tighter. “Hey! I won this fair and square,” he says. She laughs and he laughs but he’s not really joking.
“I’ll win the next one for you,” he says. But the next booth they happen to go to is the dreaded coin-in-a-cup, and Junsu for the life of him can’t throw it right.
It’s another hour and she starts complaining again. “Junsu… it’s getting late, can we just go?”
“No! I’ll win it for you!”
“I don’t care about the stuffed toy anymore, I’d just like to go home.”
“You don’t care? But we’ve got to win it!”
“Well, what if I don’t care about winning.”
“You should! No girlfriend of Xiah Junsu’s is going to not be a winner!”
She gives him a glare and opens her mouth to retort, but at that moment they both hear a sort of half-scream behind them -
“Xiah Junsu! WHERE?!”
They spend the next hour running for their lives. The next day, she calls and says this probably won’t work. They just aren’t right for each other. He says she’s being a poor sport. She says he’s the one who’s losing out. He sticks his tongue out at her over the phone, forgetting that she can’t see. She hangs up on him anyway.
**
“I don’t get it. She does everything for you. She cleans and cooks and does pretty much anything you want her to. Isn’t that what you want?” Jaejoong drawls into the phone.
“She’s crazy, I tell you,” Changmin hisses. “I can’t get her to leave!”
“Why would you want her to? I know she’s hot - ow!” he hisses when his girlfriend kicks him under the table. “What?” he asks her.
“She’s my friend, don’t talk about her like that! And don’t let him say bad things about her, either!” she frowns. He frowns back.
Safe to say, things for Jaejoong and his girlfriend have not improved. From the bathroom, their fights have moved to the kitchen (who gets to cook the next meal, how spicy things were allowed to be) to the bedroom (who gets which side of the bed, who gets the most of the closest). There is simply not enough room for all of their stuff combined. She suggests moving to a bigger place, but he hesitates. It took him forever to find an apartment an equal distance from all his members’ houses.
And there comes in the biggest of their fights: Dong Bang Shin Ki. She doesn’t care about the celebrity status or the fans that still come up to ask for autographs. She doesn’t care about the memories of the band. She cares about how much the band members are around - which is, for the record, constantly.
The apartment is their space, she insists - hers as much as his. She wants a sense of personal privacy, separate from Dong Bang Shin Ki.
She says they’re allowed over once a week. He bargains - three times a week. Plus boys’ nights out. And the weekly ramen lunch. She says once a week, but he’s allowed to call as much as he wants. He takes full advantage of this, much to her annoyance.
As if in evidence of this, she frowns even harder. “Besides, we’re at dinner, Jaejoong. This can wait.”
Over the phone Changmin whines. “No, this can’t! I need help. She’s waiting outside the building with a picnic basket. It’s nine o’clock at night in February; I’m not going on a damn picnic with her!”
“Changmin needs help - of course it can’t wait,” Jaejoong repeats back to his girlfriend, chuckling at his friend’s expense. His girlfriend glares at him, and Changmin illustrates her glare with a few colorful words.
“I’m serious, damnit!” says the ex-band mate.
“And I’m serious,” says the girlfriend. “We’re having dinner now. Hang up the phone, or go and talk in the other room - and once you’re done, you can make your own dinner.”
Jaejoong glances down at his food. She made it tonight and it was good - but it did have a little too much salt. He stands and says, “It’s okay, I’ll make my own. Thanks for being so understanding.” And when he walks out of the room he leans down to kiss her on the cheek. She flinches away and Jaejoong frowns, right about the time Changmin yells something about the crazy girl being in his building now.
He sighs. She probably just wanted to eat without the distraction, he thinks. Changmin could be rather loud. He tells the younger man to calm down and deal with the girl like a big boy, but only gets an even fouler phrase in response.
Ironically, it turns out Changmin can’t talk for long. The crazy girl is knocking on his apartment door and Changmin decides that talking to Jaejoong might ruin his plan to pretend he isn’t home. Jaejoong only shakes his head.
Back in the kitchen, his girlfriend is throwing the leftovers into the trash. “Oh,” she sniffs, eying him when he walks back in. “I guess you could have eaten it after all.”
“No no, I’d have made my own anyway. Sorry.”
She shrugs, but he can tell it’s a little stiff so he comes up behind her and gives her a hug. She resists, but only for a second. He sways with her for a little bit and she reaches to the sink to splash him with some soap-foam.
“Hey!” he sputters.
“You deserve it, ignoring me like that.” She smiles, even though it’s a little sad.
Jaejoong bites his lip. “I didn’t mean it like that. Changmin just-”
“-needed your help, I know. But sometimes I need you too.” Then she shrugs, like she’s shrugging off all memory of the fight. When she smiles at him again it’s like it never happened - and Jaejoong loves that about her. She’s stubborn and strong-willed, but will never hold a grudge for long; quick to temper, but just as quick to let it lie.
“Help me clean up?” she offers, and he is happy to comply. She stays in the kitchen while he straightens up the rest of the house, and it isn’t until they’re back in the same room, getting ready for bed and not saying more than a ‘goodnight’, that he realizes something still isn’t quite right.
**
Honestly, Changmin doesn’t like Jaejoong’s girlfriend. This is for one reason, and one reason only.
Said reason is standing before him right now.
“Oppa!” the she-reason chirps, and inwardly he cringes. Her voice is so high-pitched that he thinks she could probably speak and only dogs would hear it. Combined with the sugary-sweetness in her address, it makes him want to gag. Or shove a spoon through his eardrum.
“Hi,” he grits out, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could on a picnic, op-pa,” she sing-songs. “It would be romantic, and I know you like drinking in parks at night!”
Of course she knows that. She’s a fan. A scary, scary fan-woman that has every profile of him ever published memorized and owns all the fan merchandise and probably even administers one of his fan sites.
He curses Jaejoong’s girlfriend again; she was, after all, the one who set him up with this crazy girl. Jae’s girlfriend had said she knew of a girl who “might be his type” and that “he was definitely hers” - and oh, he should have known better.
The moment they met was a warning sign - because she’d had Changmin’s face on her cell phone strap. He grinned at himself all through dinner, and he’d thought it was cute but a little creepy and decided this would be a one-time thing.
Three months later, he’s still trying to get rid of her.
“Listen…” he says, staring helplessly at the picnic basket. “It’s not really the right time of year…”
“Oh, I know! That’s why I got these!” And from somewhere in the depths of her Mary-Poppins-like bag she pulls two matching sweaters. “Couple sweaters, oppa!” She waves the sweaters at him with a little shake. They’re absolutely hideous.
“I’m not wearing that,” he says. He has been forced to wear enough ugly sweaters to last a lifetime; he will not succumb to this under his own free will.
“But… I bought them just for us,” she says, looking down with suspiciously watery eyes. “I thought it would be fun.”
“No.”
“It’s not like I like them either!” she says quickly. Her voice wavers. “I know you don’t like campy things; I don’t either! But it’s nighttime and no one would see us… It’s a joke, don’t you get it?”
Her tiny fists clench around the itchy-looking material. She has long fake nails with rhinestone hearts, and it reminds him that even though she’s the almost same age as him, she really is much younger at heart. And she’s a fan. She’s trying really hard to live up to his expectations.
He looks back up at her face, her pleading gaze. She’s nearly a foot shorter than him.
“Fine,” he sighs. “We’ll go out. But not with those sweaters, got it?”
She giggles like he’s said the funniest thing in the world. “Oh, yay! I thought we’d go to the one around the corner, with the little fountain. I made the buchimgae you liked so much, remember?”
He sighs again. He remembers - a few weeks ago she followed him home after “randomly” running into him at a coffee shop and “accidentally” leaving one of her gloves in his jacket pocket. Once inside his apartment, she’d proceeded to stay for five hours. The dinner she’d made had been good; the way he’d caught her kissing a framed picture of him and Yoochun had not.
Honestly, Changmin has no idea how the hell this happened.
**
Yoochun tries to take his new relationship carefully. After seeing the mini-disaster that is Jaejoong and his girlfriend-turned-housemate, he wants to be extra careful with his new lady love. Because a lady she definitely is - a love she quickly becomes.
They go on classy, expensive dates because she likes the fancy stuff, but she’s not afraid to hit the pub and knock back a few with the guys. They hold hands at the movies and go for late night drives where they don’t say anything at all. She fits into his life like she was made for it.
But a few months in and they’ve done nothing more than kiss. Yoochun was serious about taking it slow - but she’s not so fond of it.
They’re necking happily on his couch after a homemade meal in which she washed his dishes - and oh, he does so love it when she washes the dishes - when her hand starts drifting places it hasn’t drifted before.
He pauses in surprise, terribly conflicted, and in that moment she swings over to straddle his lap and there’s no doubt in either of their minds what she has planned.
He pulls back for just a second, his head sinking into the couch cushions and his chin doubling unattractively. He needs to talk to her about this, because they haven’t really talked about it, and it’s something you should talk about, in a serious relationship. This is a serious relationship, and so he plans to say all this. This is what he actually says:
“This- we, uh- now, talk. Maybe? Er-” Which is followed by some incomprehensibly gurgle when her fingers toy with his zipper.
“It’s okay,” she breathes, “We both want this, what’s the point in waiting?”
“But-” she kisses him again and he forgets what he was going to say. Her shirt is off and she’s undoing his belt buckle when he finally remembers.
“Wait - no, seriously, wait. I want to talk about this.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Really? Mr. I-Was-An-International-Superstar? You want to have this talk? I don’t buy that.” She taunts him.
He scowls. “I just want to take it slow. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
She laughs. “I don’t believe that, either.”
“Not-” he rolls his eyes to hide his embarrassment. Somehow her blunt speech always leaves him tongue-tied - and she uses that to her advantage, the evil woman. “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about… talking.”
She tilts her head in question, her fingers finally stilling, realizing the seriousness of his expression.
“I haven’t been in a real relationship in a long time, you know that,” he says, looking down and grabbing her hand away from his pants and closer to his heart. He knows this is killing the mood but he also wants to tell her these things, and that’s special enough. “I’ve had my fair share of women. I played around a lot after the band broke-up… it’s not something I’m really proud of.”
“You’re not going to tell me you have an STD, are you?”
“No, just shut up and listen, will you?” he grumbles, pinching the back of her thigh even as he smiles. “I just want to take this slow. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it - and you mean that much to me. I want this to work.”
And then she smiles at him, soft and sweet and, “Oh, Yoochun. This is already working.”
He gulps and feels his throat grow tight, but he doesn’t cry. He presses his lips to hers instead and lets the give and take of their kiss wash his fears away.
**
That fateful night, in which Yunho is left outside his apartment with nothing but his phone and some pink fuzzy slippers, begins with a simple invitation to dinner. Jaejoong and Yoochun are going out for drinks and ask if Yunho would like to come along - which he most definitely would.
He goes straight from work to the restaurant and calls his girlfriend on the way home. “I think I’ll be home late tonight,” he told her.
“Okay... When will you be back?” She asks slowly, and he can tell she was trying not to be demanding. It makes him smile, because they’ve been working on that.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. It’s been a while since it had been just the three of them.
She still doesn’t sound too happy, but she sighs and he can hear the roll of her eyes. “Fine, fine,” she says dismissively. “Have fun, be safe, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Us?” Yunho grins. “Never.”
Obviously that doesn’t work out so well.
As per usual fare, Jaejoong pushes them to drink as much as possible and it doesn’t take long until they’re all tipsy, teasing and poking at each other in their private room at the bar. They tease Yoochun about being whipped and Yunho having his own ball and chain. They hit that point where tipsy slurs into wasted - Yoochun and Yunho first, but Jaejoong not too long after - and they sit there until the early hours of the morning, giggling and blinking heavily, thought and vision skewed. And Yunho keeps drinking, keeps laughing, keeps having fun…
Up until the moment he gets home and immediately gets kicked out, of course.
When Jaejoong says he’ll let Yunho sleep over, he goes down to curb, toes still curling in those fuzzy pink slippers, and waits for Jaejoong to come pick him up. But, however drunk Jaejoong might be, he still has enough of his senses about him to know that he won’t be the one to pick Yunho up - he figures the other man will call for a taxi, like they had on the way home from the bar.
Any other thoughts of the matter fly out of his mind when he arrives home, too, and gets an equally cold shoulder from his girlfriend. She doesn’t kick him out - she isn’t so confrontational - but she quickly banishes him to the couch. He bundles up in his blankets, planning to wait for Yunho to knock on the door, falling asleep in approximately forty-two seconds.
Result: Yunho sits on the curb for an hour before he falls asleep himself, where he stays, propped against a light post, until five in the morning. He comes down with an awful fever and, in the aftermath, is nursed back to health by a grudgingly repentant girlfriend. And while she’s at work the other four take turns visiting him and bringing things like stuffed animals and chicken noodle soup and it’s ridiculous because he doesn’t even like chicken noodle soup, but he basks in the attention anyway.
The third night she comes home and there’s five men playing nurse-maid and being absolutely horrible at it, she frowns - but doesn’t do anything else except fix herself a glass of wine and watch them interact with one eyebrow raised.
Yunho’s laid out on the couch and he doesn’t even see her enter, but when he does he nearly falls off the couch, collecting himself enough to patiently usher the other guys out. When they’re gone she comes over and perches down next to him, folding her hands carefully in her lap.
“You know… I was a fan, too,” she says slowly. He does know this and nods, wondering where this is going. “I watched read interviews, and watched television shows. I watched Star Show - remember that one? I remember it, especially that one story… about that girlfriend who broke up with you because Heechul wears pink shirts and looks like a girl. I remembered it before we started dating, and after you told it to me again later - and because I remembered, because I know Heechul is definitely not a girl, I also knew I should never be jealous.”
She takes a deep breath. “And Jaejoong and Yoochun and Changmin and Junsu - none of them are girls, and despite all the rumors, none of them are gay. And I should not be jealous. ”
“But you… are?” Yunho asks, holding his breath and already wincing in anticipation.
“No,” she huffs, taking a long gulp of wine. She throws her head back all the way and Yunho’s eyes travel from the slight curve of her jaw, down her throat, to those stick-thin collarbones that he’s always been attracted to, and further down - “I’m not, but damn I wish I could be. I’m dating one man, not five!” she says, and it breaks Yunho’s concentration, his eyes flying back up to hers.
She’s giving him a baleful glare. “I don’t like fighting like this,” she says. He sighs and murmurs an agreement. “But you’re so oblivious and I’m too stubborn, so it’s probably going to happen whether we like it or not.”
“What do you think we should do?”
She shakes her head. “We keep working on it. Because I love you, you idiot.”
His hand travels up her arm, a gentle motion. “Love you, too.”
So they talk about it. He promises to be more considerate, she promises to never kick him out again. One step back, two steps forward - it’s more than enough for him.
**
Changmin is not on a date. Changmin is at lunch, at his favorite restaurant, eating his favorite meal, and she just happens to be sitting across from him.
He ducks his head and inhales his food as fast as possible. She’s talking about something or other, he doesn’t even know, it could be about ducks or colon cancer but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to be seen in public with her any longer than necessary. He tries to pretend like she isn’t there, and is pretty successful up until the moment the waiter comes and asks if “he and his girlfriend” saved room for desert. He glares when she claps her hands and pours over the menu, and jumps when she runs her foot up his leg underneath the table, winking at him.
He does, however, approve of the raspberry cheesecake she picks.
He picks up the check and she thanks him again, sliding her foot a little higher. He doesn’t even know how her legs reach his, because she’s so short. For the first time in his life he curses his own long legs. He jerks and grits out “Don’t do that,” because he doesn’t want her foot where it’s going. Feet are gross enough as it is. Thank god for long table-clothes.
“Fine,” she giggles, withdrawing her foot. He breathes a sigh of relief. “Changmin-oppa… what should we do next?”
“You can do what you want. I have a meeting with a man about a… thing,” he trails off distractedly, scribbling his signature on the check.
“Oh, is it another job? Another television show?” She starts ticking off her fingers. “Another interview? Another photo shoot? Another-”
“Oh my god, please stop,” he sighs, rubbing his temples. He stands to leave. “It’s not any of those things. Its business, that’s all.”
Her shoulders slump. Even the ruffles on her dress seem dejected. “Oh, okay.”
And because Changmin - deep, really deep down - is a nice guy, the nicest of guys, he just can’t leave like that. “Listen, why don’t you… go do… something. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Her eyes go wide and light up. “Of course,” she sighs dreamily.
Changmin resists punching himself in the face. But, he’s done his one good self-sacrificing deed, so he can happily be an ass to everyone else for the rest of the day.
[part two]