So Much Mine: Section Twenty-Seven
Section Twenty-Seven
Pairing: JaeHo
Rating: Overall NC-17. This section HAS some explicit content.
Ranalore really does deserve a lot of credit for this fic. it began in an IM between me and her.
Summary: The beginning of a shifting relationship. Hot Korean boys. Sex. Dancing and some angry words. Not necessarily in that order. Not necessarily in each section.
Previous Sections:
One; Two; Three; Four; Five; Six; Seven; Eight; Nine; Ten; Eleven; Twelve; Thirteen; Fourteen; Fifteen; Sixteen; Seventeen; Eighteen; Nineteen; Twenty; Twenty-One; Twenty-Two; Twenty-Three; Twenty-Four; Twenty-Five; Twenty-Six
Yunho decided there was nothing sweeter than the scent of Jaejoong’s nape, that secret sugary musk of youth and sexiness, hidden by a thick ebony curtain. The leader’s fingers caught at the strands, moving them away so he could place a single, gentle kiss on the spot, resisting the need to bite down and roll a nip of the singer’s skin between his front teeth.
Asleep, the young man looked peacefully innocent, just the barest of hints around his sinful mouth boasting the innate sensuality that marked him. Beneath Jae’s parchment thin eyelids, Yunho wondered at the dreams the singer saw, the movement of his blood pulsating softly under his pale skin. A fringe of black lashes ringed the rims of his bruise-tender cheeks, a dearth of sleep running shadows over the high bones of Jae’s face.
Jaejoong stirred, the light from a small lamp hitting just the edges of his body, the rest of the room pitch black, the heavy thick curtains drawn tight over the windows. A beam of sunshine ran the length of the wall, bounced from the glass down to the wooden floor, running gold along the highlighted grain. Yunho slid in closer, moving his body carefully on the bed, adjusting his weight to avoid Jaejoong rolling into him. A plump feathertop joined the two beds, its corners stretched over the mattresses, joining into single sleeping platform.
A crust of salt dusted Jaejoong’s long eyelashes, the flutter of his dreams creating shadow butterflies on the snowy landscape of his face. The singer’s mouth formed a sweet moue, his slumbering thoughts wandering into some pleasant journey unseen by the young man watching him sleep.
Yunho’s lover sighed, a heart-wrenching soft moan, velvet pain scraped raw with a sharp blade of regret. Jae’s lower lip trembled, vulnerable to Yunho’s questing finger. The leader hesitated, not wanting to wake the other but the draw of plump flesh was proving to be too much to resist. Yunho’s thumb pad ghosted over Jae’s chin, riding up to line out the pout he wanted to bite into every time he saw Jaejoong’s face, an erotic lure for his uncontrollable lust. A small dip of a bite dimpled Jae’s mouth, the scalloped fleck from his teeth worrying at the flesh, a nervous habit Yunho had no intention of asking him to break.
Nearly everything about Jaejoong drew Yunho in, the singer’s body shifting again, one arm thrown over his sideways turned head, chin down and shoulders in repose. The thin t-shirt Jae put on to fend off the cold did nothing to hide the singer’s physical splendor, malleable fabric coursing down over his chest and stomach. Short sleeves rode up Jae’s biceps, a length of curves and dips nearly hidden by sheets and a pillow. His right leg was bent at the knee, Yunho’s palm barely touching the light fleece of Jae’s grey sweatpants, an old worn garment that had seen better days. A tear sliced across one knee, another small triangular rip flaring along the sleek length of Jae’s thigh, a peeking wink of pale skin against the dusky slate grey hue.
Chap ran rough over Jae’s mouth, the burred edges of dryness catching on the whorls of Yunho’s thumb, pulling the flesh up in small divots before springing back down. Jae’s chin dropped slightly, an automatic response to the pressure on his lips, the willingness of giving to Yunho’s touch already ingrained into his unconscious actions. It was as if his body opened itself without thinking, spreading apart eagerly. Leaning forward, Yunho moved his mouth over Jae’s jaw, not touching the velvet skin, just running his breath along the downy surface, a quick intake to inhale the singer’s sweet musk into the leader’s flared nostrils.
The little sounds Jaejoong made in his sleep thrilled Yunho, mewls of want he only rarely heard in the heat of their touching. Asleep, the vulnerable singer was easier to hear, the crying wounds of the world muted in the semi-darkness, the shush of a quiet apartment amplifying each tiny sound. A rough hum threaded through Jae’s chest, the voluptuous throbbing vibration setting off a tingling heat along the inside of Yunho’s legs.
Yunho, unable to stop the thrum of want running along his nerves, placed his mouth on the V under Jaejoong’s chin, just wanting a lick of a taste from the singer’s body. It held a cornucopia of flavours, something the leader had never imagined another man could possess. The hard sweetness of Jaejoong’s chest contrasted with the soft taffy perfume of his neck, a nibble along the pulsing blood line under his translucent skin making his chin rise, allowing Yunho access a the pleasures of Jae’s sensual touch. Yunho had yet to plumb into the salt-sweet pearl of Jae’s groin, vast stretches of untouched and untasted flesh he wanted to spend a lifetime knowing.
The mewling purr grew louder, lust darkened pupils wide in Jaejoong’s now opened eyes. Sleep still held him captive, a web of lethargy cast over his tired body, sapping the energy from his bones. Weary from lack of sleep, the singer took a long hard minute before recognizing his lover’s bent head dipping down to lave at his pierced nipple, the glisten of golden metal a flame to Yunho’s hot tongue.
At first Jaejoong felt he was still dreaming, the sounds of a rain driven away by a wan sunlight and the rushing roar of the ocean. The heat uncurled the cold he felt down in his joints, a delicious heat scented with green tea and vanilla. A kiss brushed on his face, a gentle urging for him to shake loose the dragging weight of sleep on his mind. Before consciousness fully sank in, Jaejoong remembered the loss of Yunho in the shadowy bittersweetness of their lovemaking, the rough push of raw flesh into his tender heat. Jae shut his eyes hard against the reality slowly stealing back into his world, wanting to remain there on the sun-washed sands of his fantasy, Yunho laying against him under an open blue sky.
His lover leaned over him on one elbow, Yunho’s handsome face fixed with an intensity that both thrilled and scared Jaejoong, so deep an emotion shrouded by both light and dark. A sculptor had a hand in creating Yunho’s features, strong and masculine under a veil of prettiness, laced peeks of beauty made hard by his strong bones and rich mouth. Laughter and sorrow came easily to this face, Jaejoong thought, most often hidden by the disciplined control that drove Yunho’s ambitions.
“Hello, baby.” Yunho breathed into Jaejoong’s open mouth, returning the wind of a kiss the singer had placed there what seemed like an eternity ago. The other man closed his eyes for a brief, orgasmic moment, feel the thrill of the brushing current of air in the tingle coursing over his nipples. “I’ve kept that warm for you.”
“Yunnie...” Everything was held in that word...a name that fit into his with an easy slide of a lingual shift.
Every drop of fear etching acid into his heart dissipated under the heavenly sight of Yunho’s face. Jaejoong lowered his arm, his fingers finding the corner of Yunho’s mouth, the young man’s lips pursing to suckle on Jae’s inquisitive touch. Marveling at the wetness left there, Jaejoong pulled his hand back, tasting Yunho on his tips, laving the moisture clean and savouring the dark taste of his lover’s mouth in the viscous fluid.
“I wondered if ...you’d left...left me. Left everything.” Jaejoong’s heart skipped a beat, thumping erratically at the thought. “I didn’t...want to believe that. I guess my soul didn’t believe it either because my heart is calling my mind a liar. You never were going to leave me. You never will...will you?”
“No.” Yunho shook his head once, a slow negative cementing the bond he’d formed with the chaotic, mercurial singer that haunted his waking dreams. “I just needed to distance myself from...who I was in that moment when I hurt so badly that I wanted to force that pain inside of you. I didn’t want to have that...monster in me. That ugliness is not anything you should ever see.”
“We’re going to see each others’ ugliness, Yunnie-ah.” Jaejoong’s sweet smile lit upon his face, melting back the darkness shored up against the sides of the bed. It was a crooked thing, a curious, quixotic gesture that held pleasure... a spiraling thrill that touched at the sorrow Yunho placed in his own heart. “Probably before we see any prettiness. I am glad...you came back. I just need to know that ... everything is going to be alright. That we’re going to be alright.”
“God, you are my angel.” Jaejoong snorted with laughter at the poetry spilling from Yunho’s mouth, the young man slightly outraged at the mirthful giggle. Tapping at Jaejoong’s nose, Yunho sternly ordered him to be quiet, a faux severe look on his handsome. “Listen to me. I’m serious here.”
“You and I...” Yunho pressed his hand on Jae’s chest, feeling the warmth in the young man’s body under his palm. “We are going to be together…forever. Even when I’m an idiot and say hurtful things, I need you to know that I will always come back around and apologize. It might take me a little while and sometimes I am going to walk away from you because I know that if I say anything, I am going to hurt you with my words. I know how my tongue is. It’s sharp and I will go for the most hurtful thing I can say because that’s my reaction to anger.”
“But when I walk away, it’s because I don’t want to hurt you.” Yunho reassured Jaejoong, the singer’s silent nod of understanding blooming a kernel of empathic compassion in Yunho’s words. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. If anything, it means I love you more. And if at any time I ask you to walk away from me, it’s for the same reason...because Jaejoong, you drive me insanely mad sometimes. You can touch off tempers in me that I didn’t even know I had and it takes me a while to work to an understanding of what you’ve done.”
“I don’t always apologize for ... being...odd. And I don’t think out what I say.” Jaejoong admitted, his teeth once more finding their nervous target of his lower lip. The nibbling action ceased while the singer regarded his lover with a gauging stare. “I sometimes don’t realize... I’ve gotten you angry. Or any of the others.”
“I think I’ve finally understood that.” Yunho leaned forward, suckling at the enticing treat of Jaejoong’s mouth. His lover tasted of black tea and fatigue, a weary metallic tang against the sugar of his kiss. Yunho played with the tip of Jae’s tongue, feeling the honeycombed texture against the roof of his own mouth, so very different from his own flesh, much more erotic in its foreign pleasantness.
“I went to see Scarlet tonight.” The young man confessed, placing a finger over Jaejoong’s mouth before the other spoke. “Let me finish. Shush for a moment.”
“I had to go to someone that I believed knew you...more so than Yoochun. Even more than perhaps you know yourself.” Yunho replied to the biting nip of Jaejoong’s teeth against his finger with another tap to his nose, a reproachful playfulness filled with private explorations. “Micky knows... the you that came here after the auditions. The cocky, sexy flirt that covers the shyness inside. Every day I see another layer peel off and I get a glimpse of the young man hidden within. You are like a chrysanthemum unfurling under the glow of the sun, almost opened by the end of the day. Then when night comes, you close back up and we have to wait to see the glorious colours are at the centre, never quite getting a good look because the darkness falls so quickly. Much too quickly.”
“I want to take that darkness from you, Joongie. I want you to feel as if I’m the sunshine warming you.” Yunho said, cupping at Jae’s chin, holding the young man’s face so Jaejoong was forced to look at him, the singer’s natural bashfulness drawing him to the side, trying to hide from the intimate probing words his lover spoke. “So I went to Scarlet because I knew ... she... was there when you needed someone to stitch you back together.”
“Nuna was...is... one of my most treasured people.” Jaejoong replied, leaning into the cup of Yunho’s hand, resting his cheek against the young man’s fingers. “I was so ... broken when she found me.”
“That’s what made me finally realize something.” The leader slid down fully onto the bed, spooning against Jaejoong’s side. The heat from their combined bodies drove back the lingering cold in the air, instinctively intertwining their long legs into each, Jae’s smaller form tucking in under Yunho’s shoulder. “I spent hours mourning the loss of a family that I never really had. It was an illusion I constructed from paper doll parents I cut out of my heart...not seeing...or not wanting to see the flesh reality they were.”
“I mourned the burning of those simulacrums. Burnt by their own actions...not by mine.” Yunho traced the rise of bone along Jaejoong’s collar, a delicate sweep of fine strength. “I’m not a disappointment to them. If anything, they raised me thinking that they were perfect and I tried...to become the reality of their lies. I was told always to have an open heart and mind ... that the naked hard truth of any situation is better than the ripe lushness of lies.”
“A lie rots someone’s soul. Once you swallow a lie and try to grow it out as a truth, it slowly eats away at everything you are....everything that you try to achieve. You can’t grow anything positive in the barren soil that a lie fallows.” The leader kissed at the crease forming between Jaejoong’s eyebrows, the singer working at a logic so foreign to his thoughts. “I had to be taught something that just comes to you naturally, Joongie.”
“I lie.” Jaejoong refuted, tangling his fingers into the hem of Yunho’s shirt.
“You...bend the truth at the very most.” Yunho laughed. “Sometimes you even flirt with it... like a teasing hummingbird but for when the truth matters, it doesn’t dawn on you to cover up your feelings or beliefs. You speak your mind...sometimes in ways that are nonsensical but if we listen very hard...to how you are saying it, we can hear the truth.”
“There’s no artifice in you, Jaejoong. For all the masks that you wear, what you are showing is still a part of you. From the private quiet cold you wrap around yourself when we are among other people to the open, laughing warm lover that I have in bed with me...all of that is you.” Yunho tasted Jaejoong’s mouth again, licking at the part in his lips until Jaejoong responded with a flick of his tongue against Yunho’s intrusion. Pulling back, the leader stared down at the angelic beauty tucked against him. “But see, I had to learn that. I had to learn how to be... true to myself and the people around me.”
“My parents’ rejection was merely.. the unmasking of who they were inside.” Yunho admitted, the loss of his familial bond stinging. He’d not spoken it aloud, not so clearly nor so finally. It was a fact now. Saying the obvious between the air shared with Jaejoong, the void in his heart deadened with the impact. “And I cried because in a way, they are dead to me. Until they breathe life into those constructs that they created and become who they should have been all this time. The people they led me to believe they were.”
“They are good people, Yunho.” Jaejoong pleaded with Yunho, pressing up tight against the young man’s body, his waist sliding into the hollow of Yunho’s hips, a natural fit of their two forms. “They will come back to you. I know they will.”
“That’s their choice.” Yunho agreed. “But what’s more important is that I shouldn’t mourn the loss of something I never really had. I should celebrate the gift that you’ve given me... that sweet heart you have puzzled back together with pieces of twine. Scarlet thinks that eventually, it will heal. And I have to believe that I am going to be the one who will help you with that. With every kiss I give you, a small fracture should seal over. I hope so... because I’ve discovered I want that more than I want anything else.”
“If I have to give up Dong Bang Shin Ki to make that possible....to make you feel loved and whole... I will do so, Joongie.” The leader tucked his lover tight up against him, wanting to melt into Jaejoong’s bones and blood. “I know that we both have come so far and tried so hard to be here but if it means that it breaks you apart more and more every day because of the lies we have to tell to keep you from being hurt, then I will leave all of this behind. It isn’t worth your pain. My success isn’t worth your agony. Not to me.”
“I don’t... want that, Yunho.” Jaejoong shook his head, horrified at the thought. “I regret that you’ve lost...everything because of me. Don’t lose anything else.”
“I keep telling you, Joongie.” Yunho corrected the young singer gently. “You haven’t made me lose anything. I never had those things. If anything, I’ve gained you from all of this pain. That’s not something I am willing to give up. Not after struggling so far through the mud of lies to get to you. I lied first to myself and then found my parents lied about loving me without constraints. You are the only truth in this. A complicated mess of a truth...but the truth none the less.”
“I am in love with you, Jaejoong.” Yunho pressed his mouth against Jae’s, taking a kiss from the eternity of kisses that lay on the other’s lips. “Can you tell me that you’ve love me too?”
“I always loved you, Yunnie-ah.” Jaejoong sealed the space between them with a fierce affection, slanting his chin up to capture his lover’s mouth. “Since before we met, the thought of you…of someone like you helped me heal the breaks inside of me. You were there…it was just a matter of time before I knew your face…or your touch. But I knew you were there. You are in my soul.”
Pairing: JaeHo
Rating: Overall NC-17. This section HAS some explicit content.
Ranalore really does deserve a lot of credit for this fic. it began in an IM between me and her.
Summary: The beginning of a shifting relationship. Hot Korean boys. Sex. Dancing and some angry words. Not necessarily in that order. Not necessarily in each section.
Previous Sections:
One; Two; Three; Four; Five; Six; Seven; Eight; Nine; Ten; Eleven; Twelve; Thirteen; Fourteen; Fifteen; Sixteen; Seventeen; Eighteen; Nineteen; Twenty; Twenty-One; Twenty-Two; Twenty-Three; Twenty-Four; Twenty-Five; Twenty-Six
Yunho decided there was nothing sweeter than the scent of Jaejoong’s nape, that secret sugary musk of youth and sexiness, hidden by a thick ebony curtain. The leader’s fingers caught at the strands, moving them away so he could place a single, gentle kiss on the spot, resisting the need to bite down and roll a nip of the singer’s skin between his front teeth.
Asleep, the young man looked peacefully innocent, just the barest of hints around his sinful mouth boasting the innate sensuality that marked him. Beneath Jae’s parchment thin eyelids, Yunho wondered at the dreams the singer saw, the movement of his blood pulsating softly under his pale skin. A fringe of black lashes ringed the rims of his bruise-tender cheeks, a dearth of sleep running shadows over the high bones of Jae’s face.
Jaejoong stirred, the light from a small lamp hitting just the edges of his body, the rest of the room pitch black, the heavy thick curtains drawn tight over the windows. A beam of sunshine ran the length of the wall, bounced from the glass down to the wooden floor, running gold along the highlighted grain. Yunho slid in closer, moving his body carefully on the bed, adjusting his weight to avoid Jaejoong rolling into him. A plump feathertop joined the two beds, its corners stretched over the mattresses, joining into single sleeping platform.
A crust of salt dusted Jaejoong’s long eyelashes, the flutter of his dreams creating shadow butterflies on the snowy landscape of his face. The singer’s mouth formed a sweet moue, his slumbering thoughts wandering into some pleasant journey unseen by the young man watching him sleep.
Yunho’s lover sighed, a heart-wrenching soft moan, velvet pain scraped raw with a sharp blade of regret. Jae’s lower lip trembled, vulnerable to Yunho’s questing finger. The leader hesitated, not wanting to wake the other but the draw of plump flesh was proving to be too much to resist. Yunho’s thumb pad ghosted over Jae’s chin, riding up to line out the pout he wanted to bite into every time he saw Jaejoong’s face, an erotic lure for his uncontrollable lust. A small dip of a bite dimpled Jae’s mouth, the scalloped fleck from his teeth worrying at the flesh, a nervous habit Yunho had no intention of asking him to break.
Nearly everything about Jaejoong drew Yunho in, the singer’s body shifting again, one arm thrown over his sideways turned head, chin down and shoulders in repose. The thin t-shirt Jae put on to fend off the cold did nothing to hide the singer’s physical splendor, malleable fabric coursing down over his chest and stomach. Short sleeves rode up Jae’s biceps, a length of curves and dips nearly hidden by sheets and a pillow. His right leg was bent at the knee, Yunho’s palm barely touching the light fleece of Jae’s grey sweatpants, an old worn garment that had seen better days. A tear sliced across one knee, another small triangular rip flaring along the sleek length of Jae’s thigh, a peeking wink of pale skin against the dusky slate grey hue.
Chap ran rough over Jae’s mouth, the burred edges of dryness catching on the whorls of Yunho’s thumb, pulling the flesh up in small divots before springing back down. Jae’s chin dropped slightly, an automatic response to the pressure on his lips, the willingness of giving to Yunho’s touch already ingrained into his unconscious actions. It was as if his body opened itself without thinking, spreading apart eagerly. Leaning forward, Yunho moved his mouth over Jae’s jaw, not touching the velvet skin, just running his breath along the downy surface, a quick intake to inhale the singer’s sweet musk into the leader’s flared nostrils.
The little sounds Jaejoong made in his sleep thrilled Yunho, mewls of want he only rarely heard in the heat of their touching. Asleep, the vulnerable singer was easier to hear, the crying wounds of the world muted in the semi-darkness, the shush of a quiet apartment amplifying each tiny sound. A rough hum threaded through Jae’s chest, the voluptuous throbbing vibration setting off a tingling heat along the inside of Yunho’s legs.
Yunho, unable to stop the thrum of want running along his nerves, placed his mouth on the V under Jaejoong’s chin, just wanting a lick of a taste from the singer’s body. It held a cornucopia of flavours, something the leader had never imagined another man could possess. The hard sweetness of Jaejoong’s chest contrasted with the soft taffy perfume of his neck, a nibble along the pulsing blood line under his translucent skin making his chin rise, allowing Yunho access a the pleasures of Jae’s sensual touch. Yunho had yet to plumb into the salt-sweet pearl of Jae’s groin, vast stretches of untouched and untasted flesh he wanted to spend a lifetime knowing.
The mewling purr grew louder, lust darkened pupils wide in Jaejoong’s now opened eyes. Sleep still held him captive, a web of lethargy cast over his tired body, sapping the energy from his bones. Weary from lack of sleep, the singer took a long hard minute before recognizing his lover’s bent head dipping down to lave at his pierced nipple, the glisten of golden metal a flame to Yunho’s hot tongue.
At first Jaejoong felt he was still dreaming, the sounds of a rain driven away by a wan sunlight and the rushing roar of the ocean. The heat uncurled the cold he felt down in his joints, a delicious heat scented with green tea and vanilla. A kiss brushed on his face, a gentle urging for him to shake loose the dragging weight of sleep on his mind. Before consciousness fully sank in, Jaejoong remembered the loss of Yunho in the shadowy bittersweetness of their lovemaking, the rough push of raw flesh into his tender heat. Jae shut his eyes hard against the reality slowly stealing back into his world, wanting to remain there on the sun-washed sands of his fantasy, Yunho laying against him under an open blue sky.
His lover leaned over him on one elbow, Yunho’s handsome face fixed with an intensity that both thrilled and scared Jaejoong, so deep an emotion shrouded by both light and dark. A sculptor had a hand in creating Yunho’s features, strong and masculine under a veil of prettiness, laced peeks of beauty made hard by his strong bones and rich mouth. Laughter and sorrow came easily to this face, Jaejoong thought, most often hidden by the disciplined control that drove Yunho’s ambitions.
“Hello, baby.” Yunho breathed into Jaejoong’s open mouth, returning the wind of a kiss the singer had placed there what seemed like an eternity ago. The other man closed his eyes for a brief, orgasmic moment, feel the thrill of the brushing current of air in the tingle coursing over his nipples. “I’ve kept that warm for you.”
“Yunnie...” Everything was held in that word...a name that fit into his with an easy slide of a lingual shift.
Every drop of fear etching acid into his heart dissipated under the heavenly sight of Yunho’s face. Jaejoong lowered his arm, his fingers finding the corner of Yunho’s mouth, the young man’s lips pursing to suckle on Jae’s inquisitive touch. Marveling at the wetness left there, Jaejoong pulled his hand back, tasting Yunho on his tips, laving the moisture clean and savouring the dark taste of his lover’s mouth in the viscous fluid.
“I wondered if ...you’d left...left me. Left everything.” Jaejoong’s heart skipped a beat, thumping erratically at the thought. “I didn’t...want to believe that. I guess my soul didn’t believe it either because my heart is calling my mind a liar. You never were going to leave me. You never will...will you?”
“No.” Yunho shook his head once, a slow negative cementing the bond he’d formed with the chaotic, mercurial singer that haunted his waking dreams. “I just needed to distance myself from...who I was in that moment when I hurt so badly that I wanted to force that pain inside of you. I didn’t want to have that...monster in me. That ugliness is not anything you should ever see.”
“We’re going to see each others’ ugliness, Yunnie-ah.” Jaejoong’s sweet smile lit upon his face, melting back the darkness shored up against the sides of the bed. It was a crooked thing, a curious, quixotic gesture that held pleasure... a spiraling thrill that touched at the sorrow Yunho placed in his own heart. “Probably before we see any prettiness. I am glad...you came back. I just need to know that ... everything is going to be alright. That we’re going to be alright.”
“God, you are my angel.” Jaejoong snorted with laughter at the poetry spilling from Yunho’s mouth, the young man slightly outraged at the mirthful giggle. Tapping at Jaejoong’s nose, Yunho sternly ordered him to be quiet, a faux severe look on his handsome. “Listen to me. I’m serious here.”
“You and I...” Yunho pressed his hand on Jae’s chest, feeling the warmth in the young man’s body under his palm. “We are going to be together…forever. Even when I’m an idiot and say hurtful things, I need you to know that I will always come back around and apologize. It might take me a little while and sometimes I am going to walk away from you because I know that if I say anything, I am going to hurt you with my words. I know how my tongue is. It’s sharp and I will go for the most hurtful thing I can say because that’s my reaction to anger.”
“But when I walk away, it’s because I don’t want to hurt you.” Yunho reassured Jaejoong, the singer’s silent nod of understanding blooming a kernel of empathic compassion in Yunho’s words. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. If anything, it means I love you more. And if at any time I ask you to walk away from me, it’s for the same reason...because Jaejoong, you drive me insanely mad sometimes. You can touch off tempers in me that I didn’t even know I had and it takes me a while to work to an understanding of what you’ve done.”
“I don’t always apologize for ... being...odd. And I don’t think out what I say.” Jaejoong admitted, his teeth once more finding their nervous target of his lower lip. The nibbling action ceased while the singer regarded his lover with a gauging stare. “I sometimes don’t realize... I’ve gotten you angry. Or any of the others.”
“I think I’ve finally understood that.” Yunho leaned forward, suckling at the enticing treat of Jaejoong’s mouth. His lover tasted of black tea and fatigue, a weary metallic tang against the sugar of his kiss. Yunho played with the tip of Jae’s tongue, feeling the honeycombed texture against the roof of his own mouth, so very different from his own flesh, much more erotic in its foreign pleasantness.
“I went to see Scarlet tonight.” The young man confessed, placing a finger over Jaejoong’s mouth before the other spoke. “Let me finish. Shush for a moment.”
“I had to go to someone that I believed knew you...more so than Yoochun. Even more than perhaps you know yourself.” Yunho replied to the biting nip of Jaejoong’s teeth against his finger with another tap to his nose, a reproachful playfulness filled with private explorations. “Micky knows... the you that came here after the auditions. The cocky, sexy flirt that covers the shyness inside. Every day I see another layer peel off and I get a glimpse of the young man hidden within. You are like a chrysanthemum unfurling under the glow of the sun, almost opened by the end of the day. Then when night comes, you close back up and we have to wait to see the glorious colours are at the centre, never quite getting a good look because the darkness falls so quickly. Much too quickly.”
“I want to take that darkness from you, Joongie. I want you to feel as if I’m the sunshine warming you.” Yunho said, cupping at Jae’s chin, holding the young man’s face so Jaejoong was forced to look at him, the singer’s natural bashfulness drawing him to the side, trying to hide from the intimate probing words his lover spoke. “So I went to Scarlet because I knew ... she... was there when you needed someone to stitch you back together.”
“Nuna was...is... one of my most treasured people.” Jaejoong replied, leaning into the cup of Yunho’s hand, resting his cheek against the young man’s fingers. “I was so ... broken when she found me.”
“That’s what made me finally realize something.” The leader slid down fully onto the bed, spooning against Jaejoong’s side. The heat from their combined bodies drove back the lingering cold in the air, instinctively intertwining their long legs into each, Jae’s smaller form tucking in under Yunho’s shoulder. “I spent hours mourning the loss of a family that I never really had. It was an illusion I constructed from paper doll parents I cut out of my heart...not seeing...or not wanting to see the flesh reality they were.”
“I mourned the burning of those simulacrums. Burnt by their own actions...not by mine.” Yunho traced the rise of bone along Jaejoong’s collar, a delicate sweep of fine strength. “I’m not a disappointment to them. If anything, they raised me thinking that they were perfect and I tried...to become the reality of their lies. I was told always to have an open heart and mind ... that the naked hard truth of any situation is better than the ripe lushness of lies.”
“A lie rots someone’s soul. Once you swallow a lie and try to grow it out as a truth, it slowly eats away at everything you are....everything that you try to achieve. You can’t grow anything positive in the barren soil that a lie fallows.” The leader kissed at the crease forming between Jaejoong’s eyebrows, the singer working at a logic so foreign to his thoughts. “I had to be taught something that just comes to you naturally, Joongie.”
“I lie.” Jaejoong refuted, tangling his fingers into the hem of Yunho’s shirt.
“You...bend the truth at the very most.” Yunho laughed. “Sometimes you even flirt with it... like a teasing hummingbird but for when the truth matters, it doesn’t dawn on you to cover up your feelings or beliefs. You speak your mind...sometimes in ways that are nonsensical but if we listen very hard...to how you are saying it, we can hear the truth.”
“There’s no artifice in you, Jaejoong. For all the masks that you wear, what you are showing is still a part of you. From the private quiet cold you wrap around yourself when we are among other people to the open, laughing warm lover that I have in bed with me...all of that is you.” Yunho tasted Jaejoong’s mouth again, licking at the part in his lips until Jaejoong responded with a flick of his tongue against Yunho’s intrusion. Pulling back, the leader stared down at the angelic beauty tucked against him. “But see, I had to learn that. I had to learn how to be... true to myself and the people around me.”
“My parents’ rejection was merely.. the unmasking of who they were inside.” Yunho admitted, the loss of his familial bond stinging. He’d not spoken it aloud, not so clearly nor so finally. It was a fact now. Saying the obvious between the air shared with Jaejoong, the void in his heart deadened with the impact. “And I cried because in a way, they are dead to me. Until they breathe life into those constructs that they created and become who they should have been all this time. The people they led me to believe they were.”
“They are good people, Yunho.” Jaejoong pleaded with Yunho, pressing up tight against the young man’s body, his waist sliding into the hollow of Yunho’s hips, a natural fit of their two forms. “They will come back to you. I know they will.”
“That’s their choice.” Yunho agreed. “But what’s more important is that I shouldn’t mourn the loss of something I never really had. I should celebrate the gift that you’ve given me... that sweet heart you have puzzled back together with pieces of twine. Scarlet thinks that eventually, it will heal. And I have to believe that I am going to be the one who will help you with that. With every kiss I give you, a small fracture should seal over. I hope so... because I’ve discovered I want that more than I want anything else.”
“If I have to give up Dong Bang Shin Ki to make that possible....to make you feel loved and whole... I will do so, Joongie.” The leader tucked his lover tight up against him, wanting to melt into Jaejoong’s bones and blood. “I know that we both have come so far and tried so hard to be here but if it means that it breaks you apart more and more every day because of the lies we have to tell to keep you from being hurt, then I will leave all of this behind. It isn’t worth your pain. My success isn’t worth your agony. Not to me.”
“I don’t... want that, Yunho.” Jaejoong shook his head, horrified at the thought. “I regret that you’ve lost...everything because of me. Don’t lose anything else.”
“I keep telling you, Joongie.” Yunho corrected the young singer gently. “You haven’t made me lose anything. I never had those things. If anything, I’ve gained you from all of this pain. That’s not something I am willing to give up. Not after struggling so far through the mud of lies to get to you. I lied first to myself and then found my parents lied about loving me without constraints. You are the only truth in this. A complicated mess of a truth...but the truth none the less.”
“I am in love with you, Jaejoong.” Yunho pressed his mouth against Jae’s, taking a kiss from the eternity of kisses that lay on the other’s lips. “Can you tell me that you’ve love me too?”
“I always loved you, Yunnie-ah.” Jaejoong sealed the space between them with a fierce affection, slanting his chin up to capture his lover’s mouth. “Since before we met, the thought of you…of someone like you helped me heal the breaks inside of me. You were there…it was just a matter of time before I knew your face…or your touch. But I knew you were there. You are in my soul.”