[Fic] Victory
Title: Victory
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Implied Junsu/Yoochun, Yoochun/Jaejoong
Rating: PG
Summary: Victory has a price. The first time Junsu meets the boy from America, he can already hear the music, low and sweet in his voice.
They become best friends, the boy from America with the accented Korean and unruly hair, the SM trainee that somehow became a star again after regaining his lost voice (after years of pitying looks and gleeful, jealous stabs in the back).
As a trainee, Junsu doesn’t remember a time when he used to appreciate a voice just for a voice - the recordings become a lesson, his friend’s laughter becomes the emotional quiver he needs to master, the falsetto a competition he needs to win. The first time Junsu meets him, the boy from America in tattered jeans and a grimy worn hoodie, all he says is, “Hello, my name is Yoochun,” and Junsu can already hear the music, low and sweet in his voice. Yoochun introduces himself with wide, naive eyes while the other trainees assess him with narrowed gazes. Junsu is the only one who gives him a handshake.
Junsu’s father was an Olympian sportsman, his mother an almost Miss Korea. He had expectations and failure was never an option. Even when Junsu hit puberty and the doctors said he could no longer sing, he exiled himself to rooftops where no one would stop him. He screamed the notes he could no longer express in eighths, cut out the raw pain in this heart that careened out of control. “Off-key,” his voice teacher said admonishingly at first. “Off-key,” with growing exasperation and then in hopeless condemnation. After the winds carried away his heartache, Junsu would whisper the word quietly to himself. If only he could swallow it, maybe it wouldn’t echo in his ears any longer.
Yoochun’s nickname from America is Micky. Junsu thinks this is funny and laughs and laughs. For Halloween, he buys Yoochun a headband of mouse ears and Yoochun humors him, wears them around the dormitory and when he bangs on the tattered electronic keyboard rescued from SM Academy’s trash pile. None of the other trainees indulge in instruments, too focused on dance and song - their salvation. Junsu’s voice comes back to him slowly at first, just bits and pieces that he has to fit together like a puzzle he’s forgotten the feel of. Eventually, Yoochun learns to bang out a melody although he can’t really tell the difference between half-notes and quarter-notes on paper, and Junsu’s voice begins to tentatively sound in scales again instead of avalanches.
“I have a brother back home,” Yoochun tells Junsu one day, nestled next to him under the bed covers when the heater breaks down one winter night. They are so close, Junsu can feel Yoochun’s warmth radiating against his side. “My mother’s there too. I wonder what they’re doing.”
It makes Junsu think of his own family, the fraternal twin he misses like grass and soccer on a warm day. He thinks of his mother’s pinched face and his father slapping him exasperatingly on the head when he says something silly. He thinks of the screaming between them when he lost his voice, how so much work suddenly became all for naught.
“You wanted to be a singer and when you couldn’t be one, you brainwashed our son!” Junsu’s father had shouted at his mother. “Junsu’s barely finishing high school, his grades can’t get him into any university, and now it’s a complete waste!”
“Better than playing in the dirt for twenty years of your life and living the rest of it with sprained legs and a bad back that gives out every time it rains!” Junsu’s mother had accused in reply, crying because Junho was in the hospital after pushing himself too much in the final game, pushing too hard for victory.
Junsu doesn’t tell any of this to Yoochun. All he says is, “It must be hard for you. I’m glad my family is in Korea.”
Yoochun’s face sours with longing and envy.
After Junsu lost his voice, President Lee Soo Man told him his voice change was just temporary. He said, “We still believe in you.” Then, the Academy took his vocal coaches away. The still let him attend dance classes, but the instructors no longer took the time to straighten his crooked legs or suggest improvements. On the rooftop Junsu would yell and on nights when no one was in the studio, he’d practice moves over and over again until they seemed effortless. His limbs would ache the next day, though, and the dance instructors would only turn their heads away at his clumsy, tremor-filled choreography. Junsu’s friends could no longer look him in the eyes and his rivals snickered behind his back. If he was a lesser man, he would have bit back. If he still had his voice, he would have argued.
If he still had a voice, he would have said, “Help me.”
Yoochun is like Junsu. He cries sometimes, from homesickness, and Junsu makes him tea and sounds out the lyrics Yoochun pens about love and warmth. Sometimes, he even lays a hand gently over Yoochun’s head. But Yoochun can never say the words either.
There are some trainees that Junsu is still friendly with, although they are never as close to him as Yoochun is. There are some he’d like to avoid. Out of the all the trainees, Jaejoong scares Junsu the most with his large black eyes. You could sink into those eyes. The first time they meet, Jaejoong tells Junsu that they are the same age and Junsu smiles, talks to him informally until one day, he is told by others that Jaejoong is a hyung, an older acquaintance. The closeness between them evaporates like overnight dew on a hot summer afternoon. Jaejoong has a clear, pleasant tone, but it is too soft and he has no control, Junsu thinks detachedly. He wavers his notes in vibrato, uses it as a crutch because he has no confidence of his own. If Jaejoong had asked, maybe Junsu would have helped, but Jaejoong tells lies instead, and Junsu has had enough of them.
“Do you want some?” Yoochun asks Junsu, one day, half-slurping his jjajangmyun. Junsu thinks Yoochun’s smile is beautiful. “Jaejoong gave them to me.”
Junsu sees it happening, little by little, the way he lost his voice - just a few notes at first, then whole registers. There is nothing he can do to stop it.
In the early morning, they are cocooned under blankets and Jaejoong’s skin is a sickly white, washed out in the sun. He looks fragile. Jaejoong whispers a plea to Yoochun and Yoochun embraces him. Junsu steps away from the bedroom door they’ve left ajar, closes it quietly.
Yoochun still cries sometimes, but Junsu knows Jaejoong is there to call him a fool and wipe the tears away. They seem happier, just a bit. When Junsu was five, in the before, when he didn’t know what harmony was, he scraped his knee playing baseball. His father had told him that men didn’t cry.
“Junsu is like a baby,” Yoochun says fondly to Yunho and Changmin when they all start living together, when it becomes clear that Dong Bang Shin Ki will be born.
Jaejoong, draped over Yoochun’s shoulders, listens intently.
“When he first met me, he had these wide eyes like he’d thought I should have blond hair and tattoos since I was from America,” Yoochun chuckles. “But he’s pure, too. He was the first one to shake my hand and correct me when I mispronounced my Korean. He’s my best friend.”
Junsu smiles and laughs brightly.
His voice has come back and he is a star now. Music flows from his every word. Junsu can croon pain and sorrow and love, hope and despair, can say “Help me” in scales and avalanches and all the music in-between, thinking Yoochun’s smile is still the most painfully beautiful he has ever seen.
Sometimes, when Junsu forgets to feel happy, he thinks back to the past when he was five and he had scraped his knee. His father had said, “Men don’t cry. That is the price of victory.”
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Implied Junsu/Yoochun, Yoochun/Jaejoong
Rating: PG
Summary: Victory has a price. The first time Junsu meets the boy from America, he can already hear the music, low and sweet in his voice.
They become best friends, the boy from America with the accented Korean and unruly hair, the SM trainee that somehow became a star again after regaining his lost voice (after years of pitying looks and gleeful, jealous stabs in the back).
As a trainee, Junsu doesn’t remember a time when he used to appreciate a voice just for a voice - the recordings become a lesson, his friend’s laughter becomes the emotional quiver he needs to master, the falsetto a competition he needs to win. The first time Junsu meets him, the boy from America in tattered jeans and a grimy worn hoodie, all he says is, “Hello, my name is Yoochun,” and Junsu can already hear the music, low and sweet in his voice. Yoochun introduces himself with wide, naive eyes while the other trainees assess him with narrowed gazes. Junsu is the only one who gives him a handshake.
Junsu’s father was an Olympian sportsman, his mother an almost Miss Korea. He had expectations and failure was never an option. Even when Junsu hit puberty and the doctors said he could no longer sing, he exiled himself to rooftops where no one would stop him. He screamed the notes he could no longer express in eighths, cut out the raw pain in this heart that careened out of control. “Off-key,” his voice teacher said admonishingly at first. “Off-key,” with growing exasperation and then in hopeless condemnation. After the winds carried away his heartache, Junsu would whisper the word quietly to himself. If only he could swallow it, maybe it wouldn’t echo in his ears any longer.
Yoochun’s nickname from America is Micky. Junsu thinks this is funny and laughs and laughs. For Halloween, he buys Yoochun a headband of mouse ears and Yoochun humors him, wears them around the dormitory and when he bangs on the tattered electronic keyboard rescued from SM Academy’s trash pile. None of the other trainees indulge in instruments, too focused on dance and song - their salvation. Junsu’s voice comes back to him slowly at first, just bits and pieces that he has to fit together like a puzzle he’s forgotten the feel of. Eventually, Yoochun learns to bang out a melody although he can’t really tell the difference between half-notes and quarter-notes on paper, and Junsu’s voice begins to tentatively sound in scales again instead of avalanches.
“I have a brother back home,” Yoochun tells Junsu one day, nestled next to him under the bed covers when the heater breaks down one winter night. They are so close, Junsu can feel Yoochun’s warmth radiating against his side. “My mother’s there too. I wonder what they’re doing.”
It makes Junsu think of his own family, the fraternal twin he misses like grass and soccer on a warm day. He thinks of his mother’s pinched face and his father slapping him exasperatingly on the head when he says something silly. He thinks of the screaming between them when he lost his voice, how so much work suddenly became all for naught.
“You wanted to be a singer and when you couldn’t be one, you brainwashed our son!” Junsu’s father had shouted at his mother. “Junsu’s barely finishing high school, his grades can’t get him into any university, and now it’s a complete waste!”
“Better than playing in the dirt for twenty years of your life and living the rest of it with sprained legs and a bad back that gives out every time it rains!” Junsu’s mother had accused in reply, crying because Junho was in the hospital after pushing himself too much in the final game, pushing too hard for victory.
Junsu doesn’t tell any of this to Yoochun. All he says is, “It must be hard for you. I’m glad my family is in Korea.”
Yoochun’s face sours with longing and envy.
After Junsu lost his voice, President Lee Soo Man told him his voice change was just temporary. He said, “We still believe in you.” Then, the Academy took his vocal coaches away. The still let him attend dance classes, but the instructors no longer took the time to straighten his crooked legs or suggest improvements. On the rooftop Junsu would yell and on nights when no one was in the studio, he’d practice moves over and over again until they seemed effortless. His limbs would ache the next day, though, and the dance instructors would only turn their heads away at his clumsy, tremor-filled choreography. Junsu’s friends could no longer look him in the eyes and his rivals snickered behind his back. If he was a lesser man, he would have bit back. If he still had his voice, he would have argued.
If he still had a voice, he would have said, “Help me.”
Yoochun is like Junsu. He cries sometimes, from homesickness, and Junsu makes him tea and sounds out the lyrics Yoochun pens about love and warmth. Sometimes, he even lays a hand gently over Yoochun’s head. But Yoochun can never say the words either.
There are some trainees that Junsu is still friendly with, although they are never as close to him as Yoochun is. There are some he’d like to avoid. Out of the all the trainees, Jaejoong scares Junsu the most with his large black eyes. You could sink into those eyes. The first time they meet, Jaejoong tells Junsu that they are the same age and Junsu smiles, talks to him informally until one day, he is told by others that Jaejoong is a hyung, an older acquaintance. The closeness between them evaporates like overnight dew on a hot summer afternoon. Jaejoong has a clear, pleasant tone, but it is too soft and he has no control, Junsu thinks detachedly. He wavers his notes in vibrato, uses it as a crutch because he has no confidence of his own. If Jaejoong had asked, maybe Junsu would have helped, but Jaejoong tells lies instead, and Junsu has had enough of them.
“Do you want some?” Yoochun asks Junsu, one day, half-slurping his jjajangmyun. Junsu thinks Yoochun’s smile is beautiful. “Jaejoong gave them to me.”
Junsu sees it happening, little by little, the way he lost his voice - just a few notes at first, then whole registers. There is nothing he can do to stop it.
In the early morning, they are cocooned under blankets and Jaejoong’s skin is a sickly white, washed out in the sun. He looks fragile. Jaejoong whispers a plea to Yoochun and Yoochun embraces him. Junsu steps away from the bedroom door they’ve left ajar, closes it quietly.
Yoochun still cries sometimes, but Junsu knows Jaejoong is there to call him a fool and wipe the tears away. They seem happier, just a bit. When Junsu was five, in the before, when he didn’t know what harmony was, he scraped his knee playing baseball. His father had told him that men didn’t cry.
“Junsu is like a baby,” Yoochun says fondly to Yunho and Changmin when they all start living together, when it becomes clear that Dong Bang Shin Ki will be born.
Jaejoong, draped over Yoochun’s shoulders, listens intently.
“When he first met me, he had these wide eyes like he’d thought I should have blond hair and tattoos since I was from America,” Yoochun chuckles. “But he’s pure, too. He was the first one to shake my hand and correct me when I mispronounced my Korean. He’s my best friend.”
Junsu smiles and laughs brightly.
His voice has come back and he is a star now. Music flows from his every word. Junsu can croon pain and sorrow and love, hope and despair, can say “Help me” in scales and avalanches and all the music in-between, thinking Yoochun’s smile is still the most painfully beautiful he has ever seen.
Sometimes, when Junsu forgets to feel happy, he thinks back to the past when he was five and he had scraped his knee. His father had said, “Men don’t cry. That is the price of victory.”