Empirical Knowledge
Title:Empirical Knowledge
Pairing: JaeMin, JaeChun
Rating: Pg-13
Genre: Drama, Romance
Length: Oneshot
Disclaimer: certain parts loosely based on Admissions by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Summary: Kim Jaejoong is a genius. However with a partner that is increasingly distant, a life that is increasingly boring, an evil French professor, and a student that he may or may not have a crush on, being a genius doesn't seem so great after all.
A/N: This is a birthday fic for gems05! It's probably the longest oneshot I have ever written, but I hope it's at least enjoyable~ haha. Have fun ^^ Also, if you are strictly a JaeMin fan, there is a lot of JaeChun in this. And likewise, if you are a JaeChun fan, there's a lot of JaeMin. Hopefully that's not toooo offputting~
Jaejoong knew that there was something wrong when he stepped into the house and was assaulted with the scent of spices and the sound of wine glasses tinkling against each other. While the smell wasn't too out of place-Yoochun did like to experiment with dishes once in a while when he had time-wine was never drunk from the expensive crystal glasses the pair has bought nearly five years back.
Unless they were expecting company over, that is.
Sighing, Jaejoong rubbed his forehead with both hands. It had been a long day. Two exams returned followed by a barrage of angry students showing up to dispute their grades had left the professor completely spent and exhausted. Those feelings were just intensified as he looked at the formal dining table, where four place settings had been neatly laid out.
“Oh, Jae. You're back!”
Yoochun placed the wine glasses on the table before leaning over and pecking the shorter male on the cheek. His bawdy accent gave away his South Jersey upbringing, but Jaejoong found it endearing. Much more so that his own, awkward Asian slurring.
“Expecting company?”
Yoochun has the decency to blush and look away sheepishly. “I invited one of my colleges over for dinner today. Tess Lebourg. She's a new assistant professor that they brought over and I thought it would be nice for her to come over.”
Jaejoong bit his bottom lip. “I wish you had given me a head's up at least.”
“I know,” Yoochun said in a rush, “but this was last minute. It's just that things will start picking up in the English department at the end of the semester with term papers due. Right now is a pretty free time .”
“Well it's not a free time for the math department,” Jaejoong countered. He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but he was too tired to really care.
“I know, Jae. I'll do all the work today, okay? All you have to do is sit there and look nice.” Yoochun begged. “The department wants to be nice to Tess. She's from France...the most revered scholar of Victor Hugo in the world.”
Jaejoong was completely clueless about Victor Hugo and only knew enough French to know not to order escargot at restaurants, but he decide to deal with it for Yoochun's sake. It was only for one night after all.
“Well you better get out our good wine, then” Jaejoong said with a small smile. “If she's French I'm sure she'll be a harsh critic.”
Yoochun beamed and bent down to place a firm kiss on Jaejoong's lips before going into the kitchen once more.
“Why are there two extra place settings?” Jaejoong questioned. “Is this French professor bringing a date with her?”
Yoochun stuck his head out from the kitchen doorway. “I know how you don't like new guests so I invited Changmin as well. I thought you would enjoy it more with another familiar face at the table.”
This time, Jaejoong shot the other male a genuine smile, relief flooding his whole body. Changmin was a highly gifted and highly snarky junior who had sought out Jaejoong and Yoochun in his freshman year, complaining about the lack of Korean professors in the Harvard campus. Changmin, like Yoochun, was Korean-American, but was also on a seemingly never-ending quest to get in touch with his heritage. His Korean was infinitely better than Yoochun's and his genius made him connect easily with the reclusive yet brilliant Jaejoong.
Maybe, the professor thought to himself, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
~~~***~~~
It only took Jaejoong the duration of the salad course to decide that he severely disliked this Tess girl. Halfway through the main course he ruefully thought he might even hate her.
She was everything that one would expect a Harvard professor to be-haughty, egotistical, and heavily knowledgable on a small field of study, with her brown hair swept up into a perfectly styled half bun and sharp glasses framing icy blue eyes.
“The students in my class are so...uninformed,” she lamented over her second glass of sparkling water. (she had refused the wine Jaejoong offered her with a tsk and a condescending shake of the head). Her thin arms flailed as she talked. “They have absolutely no context on french poetry, let alone literature. It's not as though we're asking them to read it in the original language, though we should!”
Changmin picked at his steak, looking over at the woman with both eyebrows raised.
“The students are more and more disjointed from literature every year,” Yoochun agreed, “I blame it on the internet.”
“I find my students to be smarter every year,” Jaejoong interjected. “Kids these days...they know so much more than most people their age did ten or twenty years ago. And they're all so curious.”
“Curious about the wrong thing,” Tess sniffed. “All that television and video games and internet have turned them so violent and jaded.”
“Sometimes jaded can be good,” Jaejoong countered, “it makes you strive more to find things that interest you.” The professor thought that sometimes violence was okay too, but he didn't dare say it aloud.
Tess looked down at Jaejoong from the rim of her glass. “And what exactly do you do, Mr. Kim?”
“I'm just a math professor,” Jaejoong mumbled.
Changmin scoffed. “Don't let him be so modest. Jaejoong is a genius. PhD at 20, Fields Medal at 30, already on the shortlist for dean at 35. You know, the works.”
“Oh...” Tess said, looking back down at her plate, dissecting a tiny piece of beef until it turned into miniscule little specks. “I suppose it might be easier to excel in mathematics. It's a rather straightforward field. Unlike literature. Everything is so subjective. It can take you lifetimes to fully explore everything.”
Jaejoong scowled into his plate. “Math is just as intricate and subjective as any other field. While there might be one definite answer, there are millions of ways to approach it. And it's the method that you use to solve the problem, not the answer itself, that is the most important.”
“Math is math,” Tess objected. Yoochun just sat silently on the side, observing the verbal warring that was going on in front of him. “It's not a language. You can't manipulate it and create new versions of it.”
“Of course you can,” Changmin defended, “math is like a language too. It's constantly evolving.”
“I suppose you are in the math department too, then,” Tess said, turning her eyes to Changmin.
“Nope” the boy said with a smile. “Philosophy. The happy medium between your department and Jaejoong's.”
The look on Tess' face showed that she had some choice words about Changmin's chosen major as well.
“Let's not get started on Philosophy now, huh?” Yoochun said, finally stepping into the conversation. “If we do then we'll be talking forever and Jae has already had a long day.”
Jaejoong smiled at the man and squeezed his hand under the table. Yoochun just gave him a wan look.
The rest of the main meal went just as awkwardly with Tess picking faults in everything, from the quality of the tablecloth that Jaejoong had picked out to the damp draft that snuck into the old Victorian house. When Yoochun asked if they wanted any after meal coffee or tea Jaejoong wanted to strangle him.
“Oh, none for me. Caffeine consumption at night is one of the worst things you can do for your body,” Tess said, looking right at Jaejoong as though she could read on his face the fact that he usually enjoyed a cup or two of black coffee after dinner.
“Well,” Yoochun continued as though he didn't see the tension worming through the house. “How about I walk you home then?” Jaejoong frowned slightly. He didn't really want Yoochun going out again. He just wanted the two of them to curl up on the couch together and gossip about what a terror this new French professor was.
Tess looked as through she was about to comply when Changmin squeezed Jaejoong's shoulder and stepped forward. “You live on Langdon right, Professor? My apartment is on that street anyways, so I'll walk you.”
Jaejoong smiled at the boy, thankful that Changmin understood his moods so well. People always said that Jaejoong was a complicated person, but with only 3 years of knowing each other, Changmin had figured out the professor rather well.
“That would be great, Changmin,” Yoochun said. “Who knows, even though you're not in the Literature department maybe you'll end up taking Tess's class sometime.”
“I highly doubt it,” the student whispered under his breath so that only Jaejoong and Yoochun could hear him. To Tess, he just gave a bright smile and offered out his arm. The French professor just looked at it for a moment before making her way over to the door.
As soon as the two were outside Jaejoong turned to Yoochun, exasperation written all over his face. “Well she was a bitch.”
Yoochun turned to him with a scowl. “She was my colleague who I invited over because she was new to the US and you were completely rude to her the whole evening.”
Jaejoong gaped, wondering if he had heard the other man correctly. Surely not...“I was rude to her?”
“Don't deny it, Jae.”
“I wasn't the one who was cutting down her profession and her house and her interests and everything else the whole time,” Jaejoong argued.
“Then what do you call you and Changmin ganging up on her?”
“Well it's not like she made it easy for us to be nice to her,” Jaejoong said, his anger mixed with his exhaustion causing him to slip into Korean. “Maybe next time someone invites her to their house she'll actually be thankful instead of finding faults in everything.”
“There you go with the Korean again,” Yoochun huffed. “You know what....it's late. I'm going to the office for a little.”
Jaejoong looked up at the clock. “Office? But....”
“It's late, I know. I just said so,” Yoochun said. “I just need to clear my head.”
“You know I don't like for you to go out when you're angry like this.” Jaejoong said, slumping down. Yoochun sighed and walked up to the male, pressing a kiss in his hair.
“Not angry, Jae. Just...disappointed. And tired. I'll be back in a little while.”
Jaejoong just watched in silence as Yoochun put on his jacket and left. It had been a long day.
~~~***~~~
There was an average of 10 pints of blood in the human body. Some people speculated there were an average of 60 trillion molecules as well.
It was so easy to negate things once numbers were given to them. Once there was a number, all you had to do was subtract it by itself. Or multiply it by zero.
White marker flew deftly over the dark window of the cozy home office. 60 trillion was a large number, but it was easy to work with. It just needed to be broken down. 2 trillion molecules in the brain, 1 trillion in the heart, 7 trillion for the blood.
.4 trillion in the hanks of dark brown hair so stylishly swept up into a half bun; .2 trillion in cold, pursed lips; 8 trillion in thin arms that swayed with too much animation.
He wrote down each number, carefully: precisely, until all 60 trillion had been divvied up into limbs and bones and organs. And from there, the rest was easy.
All he had to do was come up with equations to make every part equal zero.
And so he did. With every movement of his marker, he was negating the existence of this body. With every white stroke upon dark window pain, Jaejoong used his mathematics to slowly and methodically kill Tess Lebourg.
He heard the front door open just as he was making his final marks. He glanced at the clock. 3:45 am. Yoochun was back home.
There was a shuffle heard through the silent house. Yoochun taking off his shoes, hanging up his jacket, and padding through the house, stopping in front of the door to Jaejoong's home study-which was cracked open.
“Jae...you're still awake?” Yoochun's head popped in through the crack. “I thought you were tired.”
“Couldn't sleep,” Jaejoong answered, giving the man a wry smile. Yoochun returned the look and entered the office. Jaejoong was hardly the neat type and books, markers, and pieces of scrap paper littered the room.
“Inspiration struck?” the literature professor asked, looking at the rows upon rows of numbers Jaejoong had written on the windows. It meant nothing to him, but he was sure it was profound. Everything Jaejoong did was profound.
“Something like that,” Jaejoong answered.
Yoochun stopped a few inches away from Jaejoong and leaned on the desk. “Sorry if I made you upset tonight. I know I was a jerk for inviting Tess over without telling you...and then for yelling at you afterwords.”
“I'm glad your time in the office helped you clear your mind a bit,” Jaejoong drolled.
Yoochun frowned slightly and tipped his head to the side. “I still mean everything I said. I'm just not upset at you.”
“Ah, well....how gracious.” Jaejoong said, eyes flashing a bit. The sarcasm was lost on the other male.
“Come on, Jae. Let's go to bed.” Yoochun said, moving closer and pulling the other male into an embrace. “You have tomorrow to finish this....what is this?” he asked, motioning to the numbers sprawled on the window.
Jaejoong looked at them and then back at Yoochun. “Just a simple equation...”
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong had only been 15 when he had arrived in Harvard. It was his first time in America...first time outside of the little city of Gongju that he had grew up in. He had always been the genius of the family-impressing his sisters and parents and cousins with little math tricks from the age of two. So it was no surprise to him when his parents told him that they wanted him to go to the best university in the world.
Sure there were places like Seoul University, and Todai, and MIT...but to people living in a small South Korean town, there was no place more impressive than Harvard.
With his parents and 8 older sisters all having modest, well paying jobs, the Kim family was able to afford to send Jaejoong to the prestigious school. Which is how the awkward 15-year-old found himself on the Cambridge campus with nothing much more than a Korean translation of the Chinese novel Harvard Girl and a heavy Asian accent.
He had met Park Yoochun during an ethics class he took in his first semester. At that time they were two of the only Korean students on the campus and despite Yoochun never having stepped foot in Korea, they hit it off quite well.
They quickly became best friends, roommates, and, two years after they met each other, an item. Jaejoong had always known he was more attracted to men-though living in conservative Korea most of his life, he never acted on his attractions. And he would never forget Yoochun's impassioned speech about how love knew no gender and had no boundaries. There was a reason the man would end up being a literature professor.
Now, nearly 18 years later, the two were still together-at the same university, living in an impressive house only a couple blocks from the apartment they had shared as undergrads. They took walks together on the same parts of the campus they always had and every Friday they went out to eat at the Korean restaurant that had popped up when Yoochun was in his first year as a graduate student and Jaejoong was working on his PhD.
It was all heavily safe, boring, and trite-much like the much beloved yet worn copy of Harvard Girl that sat on the highest shelf of Jaejoong's office bookcase, collecting dust.
Jaejoong sighed and moved his eyes over to his bookcase. The door to his office suddenly opened and the man straightened in his chair, thinking it was a student coming in.
“So what was with the bitch brigade last night?”
A grin crept onto Jaejoong's face as Changmin entered the room, talking as loudly as he always did.
“One person hardly counts as a brigade, Min.”
“Well she was bitchy enough to count as a brigade, so I'll stick to my term.” Changmin said as he fell into the chair across from the professor.
“I'm glad someone agrees with me about her,” Jaejoong said. Changmin shot him a questioning look. “Yoochun told me that I was too rude to her last night and that he was disappointed.”
Changmin snorted. “Yoochun is a lout”
“Min!” Jaejoong gaped. It was obvious that him and the student were closer to each other, but Changmin had always been polite and friendly towards Yoochun.
“What?” the student said. “You can't deny that he's a bit slow if he thought that you were the one being annoying last night.”
Jaejoong bit his bottom lip. “Maybe I was being a little unreasonable. Yoochun went through a lot of trouble making dinner in order to help welcome his colleague and I didn't exactly welcome her kindly. I guess I could have tried harder.”
Changmin rolled his eyes. “You know, I would expect a genius to be a little more selfish sometimes. You probably have the highest IQ on this campus; you can be in the right sometimes, you know.”
“I guess...”
The student leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Want to hear something to make you feel better, though? Professor Lebourg started crying on the way home last night, complaining about how you were better than her at everything.”
“Crying?” Jaejoong asked, mouth open wide. Tess didn't seem like the type of person who would be so emotional.
“Hormones.” Changmin answered easily, “she's pregnant and apparently getting emotional all the time.”
Jaejoong winced, thinking back to his eight older sisters back in Korea. “Pregnant woman are the worst.”
“I'll take your word for it,” Changmin said with a slight smile, “but enough about Professor Bitch. What are you up to now?”
“Nothing,” Jaejoong said, arms sweeping to the chalkboards that covered two of his walls. There were a myriad of numbers and symbols that covered all of them “Just trying to come up with problems for the final exams. It's a couple of months away, but never it's never too early”
Changmin looked at the boards and let out a low whistle. “I'm glad I have never taken one of your classes before.”
“You should. You know Mark from next door thought you were my TA from the amount of time you spend here.”
“So what did you tell him I was?”
“My stalker,” Jaejoong answered with a slight smile. “He offered to call security next time you showed up in my office, but I told him it was useless. You would a way to get in here no matter what.”
“True,” Changmin said, taking out his keyring, “I did have a copy of your office key made after all.”
Jaejoong's eyes widened. “Min! You didn't! Is that really my key?”
“I dunno,” the student said with a cheeky grin as he returned the ring to his pocket. Jaejoong reached over, trying to grab it from the boy's quick fingers.
“Let me see it! You know it's illegal for students to have those kind of copies! Min.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. A second later it opened and Yoochun walked in, two strawberry ice cream cones in his right hand.
“Oh! Hi Changmin. I didn't know you were here.”
Jaejoong smiled at the man, forgetting his previous quest to get Changmin's keyring. “This kid is always in here.”
“You don't visit me that often,” Yoochun said to the student, a look of mock hurt crossing his face.
“The literature department is boring,” Changmin said plainly.
“Watch who you say that to,” Yoochun said cheerfully before turning to Jaejoong. “You don't have anymore classes today, right? I thought we could take a walk.” It seemed as though Yoochun still had some residual guilt for getting so upset the night before.
Jaejoong looked surprised. “I.....I guess....”
“I brought ice cream,” the literature professor said cheerfully, shaking the cones in Jaejoong's direction. The younger male laughed.
“Well you know I can't say no to that.”
“Should I feel hurt, Kim Jaejoong? You seem to love ice cream more than you love me.”
Jaejoong smirked. “Maybe I do.”
“I wouldn't blame you,” Changmin mumbled, earning a smack on the head from Jaejoong as the man walked past him.
“Come on, Min. Time to go. I need to lock up the office.”
Changmin sulkily got up from the chair and followed both professors out of the office. Jaejoong locked the door behind him and the two older men said bye to Changmin before walking down the hall, ice cream cones clutched in one hand and their other hands intertwined together.
Changmin watched the two men walk away, laughing at something or another that had been said. The boy huffed.
Yoochun Changmin thought ruefully was a lout
~~~***~~~
That night Jaejoong calculated how many licks it would take to finish an scoop of ice cream with a diameter of exactly 5.35 centimeters. He calculated how many steps it would take to walk the whole length of the Charles river. How many years a person could have the same routine without going insane. How many minutes it would take for a person to forget 18 years of memories.
The last two calculations were left incomplete.
~~~***~~~
“It all comes down to prime numbers, obviously. This theorem is used to find the probability of a prime number occurring. It's just a simple natural logarithm. That way we can see that if N, which is a random number, is near 1000 then one in very seven numbers will be a prime.”
“uhhhh”
“Min, it's just the Prime Number theorem, not rocket science.”
“It's about the same thing to me,” Changmin groaned.
Jaejoong sighed, his phone perched at his ear. Changmin has his number theory final the next day and seemed to suddenly have forgotten everything he knew. Luckily for him, and unluckily for Jaejoong, the boy did have the genius math professor on speed dial.
“Listen, you have Acherthorn as your professor,” Jaejoong said with a sigh. “She doesn't really care much about prime numbers. Just remember the formula 1/ln(N) and you'll be fine.”
“You know my professor?” Changmin asked, suddenly sounding perky.
“Of course. I know everyone in the math department, Min.”
“Then ask her to go easy when she's grading my test!”
Jaejoong laughed into his phone. “Trying to get me fired? You know that I can't do that. And really, don't worry too much about it. You'll be fine.”
“Alright. But if I fail you're taking me out to a fancy dinner.”
“Fine,” Jaejoong said, laughing again, “you'll be the one with the F on his transcript, though.”
Yoochun entered the living room, looking at the laughing Jaejoong with raised eyebrows. He walked into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water and when he stepped back out, the math professor had already hung up his phone and was typing something on his laptop.
“Changmin?” Yoochun asked as he walked over and sat down next to the other man.
“mmhmm. How did you know?”
“You were speaking in Korean...and laughing,” Yoochun answered, “there's really only one person that could be.”
“Maybe you should have been a detective instead of a professor,” Jaejoong said looking over at the other man. Yoochun looked slightly worried.
“Jae...you know that a relationship between a student and a professor isn't really allowed, right?”
Jaejoong's lips tightened into a think line. “What are you trying to insinuate here, Chun?”
“It's just a little suspicious....you and Changmin. I'm not the only person who notices this. You know the literature and philosophy departments are close to one another. I heard some of those professors talking about how odd it was that you and Changmin were so close.”
“The philosophy professors are so removed from reality I doubt they would realize if two elephants were going at it right in front of their offices.” Jaejoong drolled.
“That's what makes it even worse,” Yoochun countered, “if even they realized that you two were too close to one another.”
“You know that I don't make friends easily,” Jaejoong defended, “Changmin is really the only friend I have on campus besides you and a few of the other math professors.”
“I know, but...”
“And how could you of all people accuse me of having some kind of relationship with Min? You know I'm not the type to cheat.”
Yoochun frowned. “There is no specific type of person who cheats, Jae. Anybody could.”
“Well I didn't” Jaejoong countered, “and I can't believe that you would accuse me of it.”
Yoochun sighed. It seemed that lately they were doing nothing but fighting. He scooted over to Jaejoong and placed his hand on the other man's cheek. “I just worry about you, Jae.”
“By calling me a cheater?”
“I wanted you to know what others were saying. You deserve to know.” Jaejoong deserved to know many things that he didn't, Yoochun thought ruefully, but that would come later.
Jaejoong exhaled and limply fell back on the couch.
“I don't want you to get hurt, Jae.” Yoochun said softly.
“I know.”
“I also didn't mean those things...about you cheating. I think I was just too caught. We were best friends before we got together. I know that you would never do something like that.”
Jaejoong just smiled at the other man.
Yes, Yoochun thought as he leaned back, There's only one monster in this relationship and it's not you...
~~~***~~~
“I've got some bag here for you, Jae. It smells like takeout.”
Jaejoong looked up from his desk to see his colleague Mark walk into his office, carrying a brown paper bag in his hand. Jaejoong took it from him and opened it to find boxes from the Thai place around the corner that he always craved. There was a note attached to one of the boxes.
Heard from Yoochun that you've been skipping meals because you're writing tests. If you don't eat more you'll become as thin as a girl and I won't hold back from making fun of you. So...eat”
~Min
p/s I got everything extra spicy because I know what a freak you are
Jaejoong just grinned and put the bag on the ground.
“From Professor Park?”
Jaejoong looked up and found Mark still standing by his desk. The man was inching close to 70 and sported a head of thinning white hair. His seniority and time spent teaching on campus gave him prime class picks, and he spent most of his day teaching applied mathematics to brilliant graduate students. Jaejoong himself had taken a class from the man nearly ten years back. There was a running bet in the department of when Harvard would finally kick Mark out of his position-the man himself was even in on it, betting fifty dollars that he would be gone within the next five years.
“Ah...no. It's from a student.” Jaejoong answered.
“That cute boy who comes in here all the time? Your stalker?”
Jaejoong laughed. “Cute boy? Mark, I didn't think you were like that.”
The other professor chuckled. “Jae, I'm seventy. I think anybody with two legs and all their teeth is cute.”
“Well that's only slightly disturbing.”
“You'll be the same when you're my age,” Mark said good naturedly. “I just assumed it was Park send you gifts. You know...to apologize. As if it would actually make any difference.”
Like all people in the department, Mark knew of Jaejoong and Yoochun's relationship. Jaejoong was always so surprised by how accepting his fellow faculty members were. He knew that if any professor in Korea came out, they would probably be kicked out of the institution right away.
“Apology?”
“Yeah..” Mark said, suddenly sounding very awkward, “you know for...”
“For what?” Jaejoong asked, brows creased.
“You haven't heard? But...all the professors know about it.”
Jaejoong's stomach dropped “I don't know anything. What is it?”
Mark whistled. “Uh....maybe this is something you should talk with Park about. If you don't already know, I'm not going to be the one to tell you...”
Jaejoong just looked down at his desk as the other professor hurried out of the room. After a few seconds, he got up and walked over to his chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk, writing quickly. A new equation came to his mind: the probability of Yoochun keeping a secret from him. The probability of an 18 year relationship crashing to the ground.
The lunch Changmin had delivered lay forgotten on the ground.
~~~***~~~
It was late by the time that Yoochun came home that night. Jaejoong was lounging on the couch, already changed into his normal nighttime outfit of sweatpants and free college t-shirts he stole every year from the multitude of events they would have for freshmen.
“Jae. You're still up?”
“Wasn't that tired” Jaejoong answered easily. Yoochun just nodded. The atmosphere in the room was tense and the man sat down on the other side of the couch.
They sat for a few quiet seconds before Jaejoong sighed and scooted over to the other man. He placed his hand on Yoochun's thigh and looked at him with as much concern as he could muster.
“Chun, what's going on?”
Yoochun looked at Jaejoong for a few more seconds before looking down at the pale hand on his thigh. “There's....a lot going on right now.”
“In your department?” Jaejoong asked.
Yoochun chuckled wryly “I guess you could say that.”
“Work is getting too much? People are getting too much?”
Yoochun shook his head and raised his eyes to meet Jaejoong's. “Jae. Tess is pregnant.”
“Oh, I know that.” Jaejoogn said. For a second he felt a bit privileged, as though he had known a sort of inside secret before Yoochun had.
But then, just a mere second later, the implication of Yoochun's words hit him and he felt a wave of nausea crashing through his body.
“Pregnant....you....”
“I'm so sorry, Jae.” Yoochun said, guilt and anguish clear in every word. He didn't move to touch Jaejoong, and it was for the best. The younger man wouldn't have let him anyways.
The sick feeling crawled up Jaejoong's throat, making him dry heave a couple of times. It burned his eyes, though no tears fell out. He had envisioned, a million times, how him and Yoochun would end. Nothing in this world was infinite after all. Everything had an ending.
But never had he imagined that it would end in Yoochun cheating....cheating on him with a prissy French professor who scoffed at everything from Yoochun's food to the table settings that he had so meticulously searched for and bought.
“It wasn't supposed to be like this at all.” Yoochun continued. “it was a stupid mistake and it led to something bigger than I could have imagined. I didn't want this then.”
“But you want this now?” Jaejoong asked. He was still doubled over, eyes trained on the worn carpet.
There was a pause. “....yes. I'm sorry, Jae. But...you know how much I've always wanted to be a father. And Tess needs me.”
Jaejoong looked up finally. “And what about me? You go off and have your happy family and I'm left with what? 18 years has gotten me what, Yoochun?”
His voice was loud, but not hysterical, which Jaejoong gave himself credit for. He was also talking in Korean even though he knew it pissed Yoochun off when he did. Or maybe he was doing it exactly because it pissed Yoochun off.
“Jae, if I had a choice it wouldn't have come down to this...”
“Do you even care?” Jaejoong asked, cutting him off. He couldn't believe how incredibly selfish Yoochun was being. “Do you care that you're dumping me for some French woman you hardly know?”
“Of course!” Yoochun said, raising his voice. Yoochun never raised his voice. “Jae, I love you.”
Jaejoong snorted. Yoochun grabbed his face and moved it so that they were looking at each other, eye-to-eye. “Jae. We have been together for eighteen years. There is no one out there that I love more than you, okay. But...I have to take responsibility for my actions. You will never know how sorry I am to you. How regretful I am for...”
The man lapsed into silence. Jaejoong sneered. “Lying to me? Cheating on me?”
“Yes,” Yoochun said with a sigh. “Just...for everything.”
“You even accused me of cheating two weeks ago, you damn bastard.”
Yoochun looked incredibly tired. Jaejoong didn't feel one ounce of sympathy. “I know. That was another mistake.”
“Well mistakes seem to be all that you're making these days, Yoochun.”
The literature professor bit back his tongue. “You....can keep the house, Jae. You can keep whatever you want. I just hope that you'll know how sorry I am and that maybe one day you can forgive me. I don't want to loose you as a friend too. You were my best friend before we ever got together...”
“And I was your lover for 18 years after that, but you seemed to have forgotten that just fine.” Jaejoong said dryly. He stood up and walked over to the table, grabbing his wallet and his keys. Suddenly this house, the stuffy old Victorian crammed with warm furniture they had picked out together, seemed too suffocating. Yoochun seemed to suffocating. He needed to get away, forever if he could.
Yoochun just stared at him.
“You can keep the house,” Jaejoong said as he put on his shoes and stormed outside. “I wouldn't want this shitty reminder of you anyways.”
~~~***~~~
18 years. 6,574 days. 157,784 hours. 9,467,077 minutes. 568,024,668 seconds.
Exactly 30 minutes for it all to come crashing down.
Jaejoong scribbled on his chalkboard, the force of his strokes so hard that the pieces of chalk cracked loudly in half, one by one, until the floor was scattered with bits and pieces.
It was loud, but it didn't matter. No one would be here so late at night anyways.
10 pints of blood in a human body....but only 11 ounces of blood in a baby's body. So small, so...insignificant and easily negated.
18 years, and all it took to end it was 11 ounces of blood.
“Jaejoong!”
Jaejoong didn't even look up from the board as Changmin's familiar voice drifted across his ears.
“Thank god you're here. I was worried about you. What are you doing?”
Math Jaejoong thought with a roll of his eyes. Wasn't it obvious? He felt a presence next to him, but he didn't dare look. Instead he just kept his eyes concentrated on the board, assigning each little baby organ a percentage of the 11 ounces.
“Yoochun called me and told me everything. He said you had stormed out and....God, Jaejoong. I'm sorry.”
“Why?” Jaejoong said lightly. “You told me he was a lout, didn't you? You warned me and I didn't listen.”
“I was joking,” Changmin said. “I didn't think he would...never....this.”
Jaejoong kept writing. It was imperative for him to write. He needed to get rid of this baby. Needed to kill it with his math and the strokes of his chalk stick.
“Jaejoong...” Changmin said slowly. “It's okay to grieve, you know. It's okay to cry.”
Jaejoong's hand stilled on the board. “I should have known better, shouldn't I have, Min? What good is a genius IQ when I don't even know these things?”
“No one could have known.” Changmin said, grabbing the older man's shoulders. “Jae. You have the right to be upset.”
Jaejoong's eyes prickled with tears. He wouldn't cry, though. He wouldn't give that bastard the power to make him do that. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked. “it's not that he cheated on me, and it's not that he lied to me. It's that after all of that he picked her over me.”
“You wouldn't have let him stay with you anyways,” Changmin said.
“But I at least wanted the choice! If he had begged me to forgive him or for me to take him back despite it all then maybe I wouldn't feel so worthless!”
Changmin's eyes flashed as he brought the professor into his embrace. He was so angry. So, so angry at Yoochun for every making Jaejoong feel like he wasn't worth anything. Yoochun had possessed the most precious being and he had just crushed it. Changmin knew that Jaejoong would probably forgive the man-the math professor was too kind of his own good, but Changmin didn't think he ever would.
“Never feel that way, Jaejoong. You don't understand how important you are. He doesn't understand how important you are.”
“I don't need you to be cheesy right now, Min.”
Changmin hugged the other man closer. “Then just tell me what you want me to be and I'll be it. Tell me what you need, Jaejoong.”
“I don't need you to be anyone for me, Min. I...I....this whole thing; it makes me feel like I wasted 18 years of my life. That I was living a mistake the whole time” Jaejoong said, letting himself slump into the student's embrace. How was it that Changmin always felt so right?
“You're the math genius here, Jaejoong.” the student said. The professor sighed: the way that his name slipped off of Changmin's lips always sounded so right. Not Jae, the americanized shortening, but Jaejoong-the full, rich, Korean name.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you should know that there are no such things as mistakes” Changmin said, leaning back a little so that he could see the professor's face “this is nothing more than a bump in the road...a way for you to search for a new solution.”
Changmin, apparently, also knew exactly the right things to say to him.
“A new solution?”
“A new solution.” the student echoed, with a nod of his head.
A small smile tugged at Jaejoong's lips. He brought up his hand to cover up the smile and a second later, his hand was replaced by Changmin's lips.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong stared out the window of his office. Finals were over and most of the students had already left the campus, leaving it empty and cold. The new snow was still soft and white-untrampled on by the masses of winter boots-and lay in gleaming clouds underneath Jaejoong's window.
It had been a month since him and Yoochun had broken up and he hadn't talked to the other man since. Of course, he heard the news from the typical gossip hotlines that ran through all the departments. Yoochun and Tess had gotten married in a small court ceremony a week back. Apparently he had looked miserable.
It had also been a month where Jaejoong had taken a hard look at his life. At the street where he had lived for the majority of his existence. Of the campus that he had grown up on and thought he would spend the rest of his life in. Of the Charles river and the crappy Korean restaurant where he had dated and fell in and out of love.
It was all safe and regular and....boring. The solution for life, Jaejoong figured, was the same for everyone. To be successful.
However, it was the process that you used to find the solution that was the most important. And Jaejoong didn't want his process to be boring.
Slowly, he picked up his cellphone and dialed a familiar number. “Yoochun? It's Jae. Can you meet me at Harvard Coffee in half an hour? Okay. See you then. Bye.”
He hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket. He made his way over to his bookshelf. Most of his textbooks and other heavy tomes were already packed away in various boxes, all neatly labeled and stowed away by Changmin.
The only book left on the shelf was the one age-old copy of Harvard Girl that was still in its same place, still collecting dust and looking as ratted and worn out as when Jaejoong had placed it there years before. The professor took the book down and stared at it for a few seconds.
With a smile, he tossed it into the garbage bin and walked out of his door for the last time.
~~~***~~~
“You look good.”
They were the first words that Yoochun had said to Jaejoong in a month, and they were true. Yoochun knew that Jaejoong wasn't really a griever, so he didn't expect the man to look disheveled. But he also didn't expect to see a glowing, and almost peaceful Jaejoong sitting across from him.
“I wish I could say the same for you, Chun.” Jaejoong said, eliciting a tired laugh from the other man. Yoochun looked exhausted-with large bags under his eyes and messy hair. His clothes were also slightly wrinkled.
A month ago, Jaejoong would have felt a vindictive sense of pleasure seeing what Yoochun had become. Now he just felt sad for the other man. He knew, better than anyone else, what it felt like to live a monotonous life and he knew it was what faced Yoochun.
“How is Tess?” Jaejoong asked, fingers playing on the rim of his coffee cup.
“Uh...she's okay. She's doing fine. Just gets tired a lot.” Yoochun said, looking away. He still wasn't exactly comfortable talking about Tess with a man he still loved. He wondered why Jaejoong was so calm about it.
“You should take care of her more. Pregnant women need a lot of attention.”
“I will,” Yoochun said quickly. “So...”
“I kissed Changmin” Jaejoong said in his usual straightforward manner, as though he was commenting on the weather. “The night you told me that Tess was pregnant. I kissed him and almost had sex with him too, but he stopped me because he said he didn't our first time to be on my office floor”
Yoochun gaped. “W...what? You kissed him? And almost slept with him?”
“Yes,” Jaejoong said.
“So...do you love him?”
Jaejoong laughed. “Chun, it's really to early to decide that yet. I...don't think I'm ready to be in love with someone else just yet. It's only been a month since we've broken up and I think I'll need more time than that to fully get over you.”
Well at least he admits that Yoochun thought. “But do you like him? Are you dating him?”
“I like him,” Jaejoong said with a nod. “Dating? I don't know. I would like to...sometime in the future. I think he could make me happy”
Yoochun looked down at his coffee. “I think he could too, Jae.” And he meant it. He knew Changmin well and he knew that the younger male could be a perfect partner for Jaejoong. And Jaejoong deserved to be with someone like that.
“But,” the Literature professor continued. “You can't date him if you're faculty.”
“I left Harvard,” Jaejoong said, causing Yoochun another shock. “MIT offered me the Morss Professor of Applied Mathematics position and I took it.”
“You....you left Harvard? But Jae, you love Harvard! You are supposed to be here forever. Don't let me take Harvard from you.”
Jaejoong scoffed. “Still so egotistical, Chun” he said, though his words held no real malice. “I didn't leave because of you. I left because I wanted something different. I've lived my whole life one way...I think it's time for a change of pace and a change of scenery.”
“MIT is hardly a change of scenery,” Yoochun said, eyebrows raised, “it's just across the river.”
“Well...new classrooms, new students, new offices.” Jaejoong said. “Plus a higher pay!”
“And the opportunity to date a certain student without you both getting kicked out of university?” Yoochun added in.
Jaejoong grinned. “Maybe that too. Harvard wasn't really my life, anyways. I just went here because my parents told me to. I decided it was about time I lived my life my way.”
Yoochun just shook his head. “You know, if you told me a month ago that the two of us would be able to sit down and have coffee and laugh like this...I don't think I would have believed it.”
“There's no point dwelling on the past, Chun. What you did hurt, but it was just the chance for me to find another solution...”
“So,” Yoochun asked, “I'm forgiven?”
Jaejoong looked at his cup for a few seconds. “There is no such thing as forgiveness, Chun. I won't ever forget what you did nor the pain you caused. And I think a part of me will always resent you for it. But I won't let it affect the way I treat you in the future. We're all just trying to do the best we can to reach our end solution.”
“And what is that?”
Jaejoong looked up and gave Yoochun a genuine smile. “To be happy”
~~~***~~~
“So you'll see that this whole term equals minus one. But then when you look, you see that the term is a multiple of Pm so it can't actually be minus one since it is a contradiction...”
Jaejoong glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 10 minutes past when class was supposed to end.
“And the rest of Euclid's proof will have to be kept until next time. I'm already holding all of you back so long! Have a good weekend and don't forget to study for your test coming up next week.”
There was the usual shuffle of notebooks and papers. Jaejoong turned back towards his desk and collected his notes. This was one of his freshman lecture classes and the stadium was full of 200 students who all hung onto his every word. It was a new experience for Jaejoong, teaching that many students at once, but it was a bit exhilarating as well.
Coming to MIT, the professor had quickly realized, was one of the best decisions he made. His colleagues and students were just as brilliant as those at Harvard but in a completely different way. Here math was almost a religion more than it was a department, and it made for many stimulating conversations and findings.
“Another successful class if I do say so myself, Professor Kim.”
Jaejoong's eyes widened and he turned around to find Changmin standing in front of his desk, wearing an MIT sweatshirt and a goofy grin.
“Min! I didn't even know you were here”
“It's a class of over 200, so that's not surprising.” Changmin said cheekily. “Plus, I bought myself some camouflage” He motioned to his sweatshirt.
“You are so strange,” Jaejoong said, rolling his eyes as he gathered up the rest of his notes.
“Tess just had her baby. Yoochun texted me during class.”
“What?” Jaejoong yelped. “Why didn't he text me?”
“He probably did but you didn't see it because I'm guessing you left your phone in your office...again”
Jaejoong checked his pockets and found them to be empty. He had the decency to blush at Changmin's loud chuckles.
“It's a boy. You will never guess what Yoochun named him.”
“Please don't tell me he named him Jaejoong.”
“Worse,” Changmin said, eyes lighting up in mirth, “he named him JaeChun”
Jaejoong groaned. “So tacky!! I bet Tess is overjoyed at that name.”
“I don't think she's really caught on to what it represents yet. Probably still too tired out from labor.” Changmin said. “But damn...he really does still love you, doesn't he?”
“Of course he does. Part of me still loves him too.”
Jaejoong saw Changmin's face darken and laughed aloud. “We were each other's first loves, Min. And were best friends. Of course we're always going to care for each other. But Yoochun has a family now. And I have...”
“Me,” Changmin said haughtily, walking over to the professor and embracing him. Jaejoong just chuckled.
Changmin looked up at the chalkboard where Jaejoong had been writing his equations. “So...what's the solution to this one?”
Jaejoong looked over. “Euclid's Proof? There is no real solution. Because the end product is a contradiction, it means that our base assumption was wrong.”
Changmin raised his eyebrows. “Which means?”
“Which means that there are an infinite number of processes and solutions.”
Changmin leaned forward and smiled against Jaejoong's hair. “An infinite number? I like that...”
Jaejoong leaned back onto the hard, warm chest and wore a grin of his own. Though there were an infinite number of processes and solutions laid out before him, the professor couldn't help but think, as Changmin linked his fingers with his own, that his current one was definitely the best.
~~~***~~~
A/N: Okay, here it is. The incredibly long oneshot >_< I hope that you all enjoyed it! It was fun writing it (though it just kept growing and growing) so I hope that you all had fun reading it as well.
Pairing: JaeMin, JaeChun
Rating: Pg-13
Genre: Drama, Romance
Length: Oneshot
Disclaimer: certain parts loosely based on Admissions by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Summary: Kim Jaejoong is a genius. However with a partner that is increasingly distant, a life that is increasingly boring, an evil French professor, and a student that he may or may not have a crush on, being a genius doesn't seem so great after all.
A/N: This is a birthday fic for gems05! It's probably the longest oneshot I have ever written, but I hope it's at least enjoyable~ haha. Have fun ^^ Also, if you are strictly a JaeMin fan, there is a lot of JaeChun in this. And likewise, if you are a JaeChun fan, there's a lot of JaeMin. Hopefully that's not toooo offputting~
Jaejoong knew that there was something wrong when he stepped into the house and was assaulted with the scent of spices and the sound of wine glasses tinkling against each other. While the smell wasn't too out of place-Yoochun did like to experiment with dishes once in a while when he had time-wine was never drunk from the expensive crystal glasses the pair has bought nearly five years back.
Unless they were expecting company over, that is.
Sighing, Jaejoong rubbed his forehead with both hands. It had been a long day. Two exams returned followed by a barrage of angry students showing up to dispute their grades had left the professor completely spent and exhausted. Those feelings were just intensified as he looked at the formal dining table, where four place settings had been neatly laid out.
“Oh, Jae. You're back!”
Yoochun placed the wine glasses on the table before leaning over and pecking the shorter male on the cheek. His bawdy accent gave away his South Jersey upbringing, but Jaejoong found it endearing. Much more so that his own, awkward Asian slurring.
“Expecting company?”
Yoochun has the decency to blush and look away sheepishly. “I invited one of my colleges over for dinner today. Tess Lebourg. She's a new assistant professor that they brought over and I thought it would be nice for her to come over.”
Jaejoong bit his bottom lip. “I wish you had given me a head's up at least.”
“I know,” Yoochun said in a rush, “but this was last minute. It's just that things will start picking up in the English department at the end of the semester with term papers due. Right now is a pretty free time .”
“Well it's not a free time for the math department,” Jaejoong countered. He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but he was too tired to really care.
“I know, Jae. I'll do all the work today, okay? All you have to do is sit there and look nice.” Yoochun begged. “The department wants to be nice to Tess. She's from France...the most revered scholar of Victor Hugo in the world.”
Jaejoong was completely clueless about Victor Hugo and only knew enough French to know not to order escargot at restaurants, but he decide to deal with it for Yoochun's sake. It was only for one night after all.
“Well you better get out our good wine, then” Jaejoong said with a small smile. “If she's French I'm sure she'll be a harsh critic.”
Yoochun beamed and bent down to place a firm kiss on Jaejoong's lips before going into the kitchen once more.
“Why are there two extra place settings?” Jaejoong questioned. “Is this French professor bringing a date with her?”
Yoochun stuck his head out from the kitchen doorway. “I know how you don't like new guests so I invited Changmin as well. I thought you would enjoy it more with another familiar face at the table.”
This time, Jaejoong shot the other male a genuine smile, relief flooding his whole body. Changmin was a highly gifted and highly snarky junior who had sought out Jaejoong and Yoochun in his freshman year, complaining about the lack of Korean professors in the Harvard campus. Changmin, like Yoochun, was Korean-American, but was also on a seemingly never-ending quest to get in touch with his heritage. His Korean was infinitely better than Yoochun's and his genius made him connect easily with the reclusive yet brilliant Jaejoong.
Maybe, the professor thought to himself, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
~~~***~~~
It only took Jaejoong the duration of the salad course to decide that he severely disliked this Tess girl. Halfway through the main course he ruefully thought he might even hate her.
She was everything that one would expect a Harvard professor to be-haughty, egotistical, and heavily knowledgable on a small field of study, with her brown hair swept up into a perfectly styled half bun and sharp glasses framing icy blue eyes.
“The students in my class are so...uninformed,” she lamented over her second glass of sparkling water. (she had refused the wine Jaejoong offered her with a tsk and a condescending shake of the head). Her thin arms flailed as she talked. “They have absolutely no context on french poetry, let alone literature. It's not as though we're asking them to read it in the original language, though we should!”
Changmin picked at his steak, looking over at the woman with both eyebrows raised.
“The students are more and more disjointed from literature every year,” Yoochun agreed, “I blame it on the internet.”
“I find my students to be smarter every year,” Jaejoong interjected. “Kids these days...they know so much more than most people their age did ten or twenty years ago. And they're all so curious.”
“Curious about the wrong thing,” Tess sniffed. “All that television and video games and internet have turned them so violent and jaded.”
“Sometimes jaded can be good,” Jaejoong countered, “it makes you strive more to find things that interest you.” The professor thought that sometimes violence was okay too, but he didn't dare say it aloud.
Tess looked down at Jaejoong from the rim of her glass. “And what exactly do you do, Mr. Kim?”
“I'm just a math professor,” Jaejoong mumbled.
Changmin scoffed. “Don't let him be so modest. Jaejoong is a genius. PhD at 20, Fields Medal at 30, already on the shortlist for dean at 35. You know, the works.”
“Oh...” Tess said, looking back down at her plate, dissecting a tiny piece of beef until it turned into miniscule little specks. “I suppose it might be easier to excel in mathematics. It's a rather straightforward field. Unlike literature. Everything is so subjective. It can take you lifetimes to fully explore everything.”
Jaejoong scowled into his plate. “Math is just as intricate and subjective as any other field. While there might be one definite answer, there are millions of ways to approach it. And it's the method that you use to solve the problem, not the answer itself, that is the most important.”
“Math is math,” Tess objected. Yoochun just sat silently on the side, observing the verbal warring that was going on in front of him. “It's not a language. You can't manipulate it and create new versions of it.”
“Of course you can,” Changmin defended, “math is like a language too. It's constantly evolving.”
“I suppose you are in the math department too, then,” Tess said, turning her eyes to Changmin.
“Nope” the boy said with a smile. “Philosophy. The happy medium between your department and Jaejoong's.”
The look on Tess' face showed that she had some choice words about Changmin's chosen major as well.
“Let's not get started on Philosophy now, huh?” Yoochun said, finally stepping into the conversation. “If we do then we'll be talking forever and Jae has already had a long day.”
Jaejoong smiled at the man and squeezed his hand under the table. Yoochun just gave him a wan look.
The rest of the main meal went just as awkwardly with Tess picking faults in everything, from the quality of the tablecloth that Jaejoong had picked out to the damp draft that snuck into the old Victorian house. When Yoochun asked if they wanted any after meal coffee or tea Jaejoong wanted to strangle him.
“Oh, none for me. Caffeine consumption at night is one of the worst things you can do for your body,” Tess said, looking right at Jaejoong as though she could read on his face the fact that he usually enjoyed a cup or two of black coffee after dinner.
“Well,” Yoochun continued as though he didn't see the tension worming through the house. “How about I walk you home then?” Jaejoong frowned slightly. He didn't really want Yoochun going out again. He just wanted the two of them to curl up on the couch together and gossip about what a terror this new French professor was.
Tess looked as through she was about to comply when Changmin squeezed Jaejoong's shoulder and stepped forward. “You live on Langdon right, Professor? My apartment is on that street anyways, so I'll walk you.”
Jaejoong smiled at the boy, thankful that Changmin understood his moods so well. People always said that Jaejoong was a complicated person, but with only 3 years of knowing each other, Changmin had figured out the professor rather well.
“That would be great, Changmin,” Yoochun said. “Who knows, even though you're not in the Literature department maybe you'll end up taking Tess's class sometime.”
“I highly doubt it,” the student whispered under his breath so that only Jaejoong and Yoochun could hear him. To Tess, he just gave a bright smile and offered out his arm. The French professor just looked at it for a moment before making her way over to the door.
As soon as the two were outside Jaejoong turned to Yoochun, exasperation written all over his face. “Well she was a bitch.”
Yoochun turned to him with a scowl. “She was my colleague who I invited over because she was new to the US and you were completely rude to her the whole evening.”
Jaejoong gaped, wondering if he had heard the other man correctly. Surely not...“I was rude to her?”
“Don't deny it, Jae.”
“I wasn't the one who was cutting down her profession and her house and her interests and everything else the whole time,” Jaejoong argued.
“Then what do you call you and Changmin ganging up on her?”
“Well it's not like she made it easy for us to be nice to her,” Jaejoong said, his anger mixed with his exhaustion causing him to slip into Korean. “Maybe next time someone invites her to their house she'll actually be thankful instead of finding faults in everything.”
“There you go with the Korean again,” Yoochun huffed. “You know what....it's late. I'm going to the office for a little.”
Jaejoong looked up at the clock. “Office? But....”
“It's late, I know. I just said so,” Yoochun said. “I just need to clear my head.”
“You know I don't like for you to go out when you're angry like this.” Jaejoong said, slumping down. Yoochun sighed and walked up to the male, pressing a kiss in his hair.
“Not angry, Jae. Just...disappointed. And tired. I'll be back in a little while.”
Jaejoong just watched in silence as Yoochun put on his jacket and left. It had been a long day.
~~~***~~~
There was an average of 10 pints of blood in the human body. Some people speculated there were an average of 60 trillion molecules as well.
It was so easy to negate things once numbers were given to them. Once there was a number, all you had to do was subtract it by itself. Or multiply it by zero.
White marker flew deftly over the dark window of the cozy home office. 60 trillion was a large number, but it was easy to work with. It just needed to be broken down. 2 trillion molecules in the brain, 1 trillion in the heart, 7 trillion for the blood.
.4 trillion in the hanks of dark brown hair so stylishly swept up into a half bun; .2 trillion in cold, pursed lips; 8 trillion in thin arms that swayed with too much animation.
He wrote down each number, carefully: precisely, until all 60 trillion had been divvied up into limbs and bones and organs. And from there, the rest was easy.
All he had to do was come up with equations to make every part equal zero.
And so he did. With every movement of his marker, he was negating the existence of this body. With every white stroke upon dark window pain, Jaejoong used his mathematics to slowly and methodically kill Tess Lebourg.
He heard the front door open just as he was making his final marks. He glanced at the clock. 3:45 am. Yoochun was back home.
There was a shuffle heard through the silent house. Yoochun taking off his shoes, hanging up his jacket, and padding through the house, stopping in front of the door to Jaejoong's home study-which was cracked open.
“Jae...you're still awake?” Yoochun's head popped in through the crack. “I thought you were tired.”
“Couldn't sleep,” Jaejoong answered, giving the man a wry smile. Yoochun returned the look and entered the office. Jaejoong was hardly the neat type and books, markers, and pieces of scrap paper littered the room.
“Inspiration struck?” the literature professor asked, looking at the rows upon rows of numbers Jaejoong had written on the windows. It meant nothing to him, but he was sure it was profound. Everything Jaejoong did was profound.
“Something like that,” Jaejoong answered.
Yoochun stopped a few inches away from Jaejoong and leaned on the desk. “Sorry if I made you upset tonight. I know I was a jerk for inviting Tess over without telling you...and then for yelling at you afterwords.”
“I'm glad your time in the office helped you clear your mind a bit,” Jaejoong drolled.
Yoochun frowned slightly and tipped his head to the side. “I still mean everything I said. I'm just not upset at you.”
“Ah, well....how gracious.” Jaejoong said, eyes flashing a bit. The sarcasm was lost on the other male.
“Come on, Jae. Let's go to bed.” Yoochun said, moving closer and pulling the other male into an embrace. “You have tomorrow to finish this....what is this?” he asked, motioning to the numbers sprawled on the window.
Jaejoong looked at them and then back at Yoochun. “Just a simple equation...”
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong had only been 15 when he had arrived in Harvard. It was his first time in America...first time outside of the little city of Gongju that he had grew up in. He had always been the genius of the family-impressing his sisters and parents and cousins with little math tricks from the age of two. So it was no surprise to him when his parents told him that they wanted him to go to the best university in the world.
Sure there were places like Seoul University, and Todai, and MIT...but to people living in a small South Korean town, there was no place more impressive than Harvard.
With his parents and 8 older sisters all having modest, well paying jobs, the Kim family was able to afford to send Jaejoong to the prestigious school. Which is how the awkward 15-year-old found himself on the Cambridge campus with nothing much more than a Korean translation of the Chinese novel Harvard Girl and a heavy Asian accent.
He had met Park Yoochun during an ethics class he took in his first semester. At that time they were two of the only Korean students on the campus and despite Yoochun never having stepped foot in Korea, they hit it off quite well.
They quickly became best friends, roommates, and, two years after they met each other, an item. Jaejoong had always known he was more attracted to men-though living in conservative Korea most of his life, he never acted on his attractions. And he would never forget Yoochun's impassioned speech about how love knew no gender and had no boundaries. There was a reason the man would end up being a literature professor.
Now, nearly 18 years later, the two were still together-at the same university, living in an impressive house only a couple blocks from the apartment they had shared as undergrads. They took walks together on the same parts of the campus they always had and every Friday they went out to eat at the Korean restaurant that had popped up when Yoochun was in his first year as a graduate student and Jaejoong was working on his PhD.
It was all heavily safe, boring, and trite-much like the much beloved yet worn copy of Harvard Girl that sat on the highest shelf of Jaejoong's office bookcase, collecting dust.
Jaejoong sighed and moved his eyes over to his bookcase. The door to his office suddenly opened and the man straightened in his chair, thinking it was a student coming in.
“So what was with the bitch brigade last night?”
A grin crept onto Jaejoong's face as Changmin entered the room, talking as loudly as he always did.
“One person hardly counts as a brigade, Min.”
“Well she was bitchy enough to count as a brigade, so I'll stick to my term.” Changmin said as he fell into the chair across from the professor.
“I'm glad someone agrees with me about her,” Jaejoong said. Changmin shot him a questioning look. “Yoochun told me that I was too rude to her last night and that he was disappointed.”
Changmin snorted. “Yoochun is a lout”
“Min!” Jaejoong gaped. It was obvious that him and the student were closer to each other, but Changmin had always been polite and friendly towards Yoochun.
“What?” the student said. “You can't deny that he's a bit slow if he thought that you were the one being annoying last night.”
Jaejoong bit his bottom lip. “Maybe I was being a little unreasonable. Yoochun went through a lot of trouble making dinner in order to help welcome his colleague and I didn't exactly welcome her kindly. I guess I could have tried harder.”
Changmin rolled his eyes. “You know, I would expect a genius to be a little more selfish sometimes. You probably have the highest IQ on this campus; you can be in the right sometimes, you know.”
“I guess...”
The student leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Want to hear something to make you feel better, though? Professor Lebourg started crying on the way home last night, complaining about how you were better than her at everything.”
“Crying?” Jaejoong asked, mouth open wide. Tess didn't seem like the type of person who would be so emotional.
“Hormones.” Changmin answered easily, “she's pregnant and apparently getting emotional all the time.”
Jaejoong winced, thinking back to his eight older sisters back in Korea. “Pregnant woman are the worst.”
“I'll take your word for it,” Changmin said with a slight smile, “but enough about Professor Bitch. What are you up to now?”
“Nothing,” Jaejoong said, arms sweeping to the chalkboards that covered two of his walls. There were a myriad of numbers and symbols that covered all of them “Just trying to come up with problems for the final exams. It's a couple of months away, but never it's never too early”
Changmin looked at the boards and let out a low whistle. “I'm glad I have never taken one of your classes before.”
“You should. You know Mark from next door thought you were my TA from the amount of time you spend here.”
“So what did you tell him I was?”
“My stalker,” Jaejoong answered with a slight smile. “He offered to call security next time you showed up in my office, but I told him it was useless. You would a way to get in here no matter what.”
“True,” Changmin said, taking out his keyring, “I did have a copy of your office key made after all.”
Jaejoong's eyes widened. “Min! You didn't! Is that really my key?”
“I dunno,” the student said with a cheeky grin as he returned the ring to his pocket. Jaejoong reached over, trying to grab it from the boy's quick fingers.
“Let me see it! You know it's illegal for students to have those kind of copies! Min.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. A second later it opened and Yoochun walked in, two strawberry ice cream cones in his right hand.
“Oh! Hi Changmin. I didn't know you were here.”
Jaejoong smiled at the man, forgetting his previous quest to get Changmin's keyring. “This kid is always in here.”
“You don't visit me that often,” Yoochun said to the student, a look of mock hurt crossing his face.
“The literature department is boring,” Changmin said plainly.
“Watch who you say that to,” Yoochun said cheerfully before turning to Jaejoong. “You don't have anymore classes today, right? I thought we could take a walk.” It seemed as though Yoochun still had some residual guilt for getting so upset the night before.
Jaejoong looked surprised. “I.....I guess....”
“I brought ice cream,” the literature professor said cheerfully, shaking the cones in Jaejoong's direction. The younger male laughed.
“Well you know I can't say no to that.”
“Should I feel hurt, Kim Jaejoong? You seem to love ice cream more than you love me.”
Jaejoong smirked. “Maybe I do.”
“I wouldn't blame you,” Changmin mumbled, earning a smack on the head from Jaejoong as the man walked past him.
“Come on, Min. Time to go. I need to lock up the office.”
Changmin sulkily got up from the chair and followed both professors out of the office. Jaejoong locked the door behind him and the two older men said bye to Changmin before walking down the hall, ice cream cones clutched in one hand and their other hands intertwined together.
Changmin watched the two men walk away, laughing at something or another that had been said. The boy huffed.
Yoochun Changmin thought ruefully was a lout
~~~***~~~
That night Jaejoong calculated how many licks it would take to finish an scoop of ice cream with a diameter of exactly 5.35 centimeters. He calculated how many steps it would take to walk the whole length of the Charles river. How many years a person could have the same routine without going insane. How many minutes it would take for a person to forget 18 years of memories.
The last two calculations were left incomplete.
~~~***~~~
“It all comes down to prime numbers, obviously. This theorem is used to find the probability of a prime number occurring. It's just a simple natural logarithm. That way we can see that if N, which is a random number, is near 1000 then one in very seven numbers will be a prime.”
“uhhhh”
“Min, it's just the Prime Number theorem, not rocket science.”
“It's about the same thing to me,” Changmin groaned.
Jaejoong sighed, his phone perched at his ear. Changmin has his number theory final the next day and seemed to suddenly have forgotten everything he knew. Luckily for him, and unluckily for Jaejoong, the boy did have the genius math professor on speed dial.
“Listen, you have Acherthorn as your professor,” Jaejoong said with a sigh. “She doesn't really care much about prime numbers. Just remember the formula 1/ln(N) and you'll be fine.”
“You know my professor?” Changmin asked, suddenly sounding perky.
“Of course. I know everyone in the math department, Min.”
“Then ask her to go easy when she's grading my test!”
Jaejoong laughed into his phone. “Trying to get me fired? You know that I can't do that. And really, don't worry too much about it. You'll be fine.”
“Alright. But if I fail you're taking me out to a fancy dinner.”
“Fine,” Jaejoong said, laughing again, “you'll be the one with the F on his transcript, though.”
Yoochun entered the living room, looking at the laughing Jaejoong with raised eyebrows. He walked into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water and when he stepped back out, the math professor had already hung up his phone and was typing something on his laptop.
“Changmin?” Yoochun asked as he walked over and sat down next to the other man.
“mmhmm. How did you know?”
“You were speaking in Korean...and laughing,” Yoochun answered, “there's really only one person that could be.”
“Maybe you should have been a detective instead of a professor,” Jaejoong said looking over at the other man. Yoochun looked slightly worried.
“Jae...you know that a relationship between a student and a professor isn't really allowed, right?”
Jaejoong's lips tightened into a think line. “What are you trying to insinuate here, Chun?”
“It's just a little suspicious....you and Changmin. I'm not the only person who notices this. You know the literature and philosophy departments are close to one another. I heard some of those professors talking about how odd it was that you and Changmin were so close.”
“The philosophy professors are so removed from reality I doubt they would realize if two elephants were going at it right in front of their offices.” Jaejoong drolled.
“That's what makes it even worse,” Yoochun countered, “if even they realized that you two were too close to one another.”
“You know that I don't make friends easily,” Jaejoong defended, “Changmin is really the only friend I have on campus besides you and a few of the other math professors.”
“I know, but...”
“And how could you of all people accuse me of having some kind of relationship with Min? You know I'm not the type to cheat.”
Yoochun frowned. “There is no specific type of person who cheats, Jae. Anybody could.”
“Well I didn't” Jaejoong countered, “and I can't believe that you would accuse me of it.”
Yoochun sighed. It seemed that lately they were doing nothing but fighting. He scooted over to Jaejoong and placed his hand on the other man's cheek. “I just worry about you, Jae.”
“By calling me a cheater?”
“I wanted you to know what others were saying. You deserve to know.” Jaejoong deserved to know many things that he didn't, Yoochun thought ruefully, but that would come later.
Jaejoong exhaled and limply fell back on the couch.
“I don't want you to get hurt, Jae.” Yoochun said softly.
“I know.”
“I also didn't mean those things...about you cheating. I think I was just too caught. We were best friends before we got together. I know that you would never do something like that.”
Jaejoong just smiled at the other man.
Yes, Yoochun thought as he leaned back, There's only one monster in this relationship and it's not you...
~~~***~~~
“I've got some bag here for you, Jae. It smells like takeout.”
Jaejoong looked up from his desk to see his colleague Mark walk into his office, carrying a brown paper bag in his hand. Jaejoong took it from him and opened it to find boxes from the Thai place around the corner that he always craved. There was a note attached to one of the boxes.
Heard from Yoochun that you've been skipping meals because you're writing tests. If you don't eat more you'll become as thin as a girl and I won't hold back from making fun of you. So...eat”
~Min
p/s I got everything extra spicy because I know what a freak you are
Jaejoong just grinned and put the bag on the ground.
“From Professor Park?”
Jaejoong looked up and found Mark still standing by his desk. The man was inching close to 70 and sported a head of thinning white hair. His seniority and time spent teaching on campus gave him prime class picks, and he spent most of his day teaching applied mathematics to brilliant graduate students. Jaejoong himself had taken a class from the man nearly ten years back. There was a running bet in the department of when Harvard would finally kick Mark out of his position-the man himself was even in on it, betting fifty dollars that he would be gone within the next five years.
“Ah...no. It's from a student.” Jaejoong answered.
“That cute boy who comes in here all the time? Your stalker?”
Jaejoong laughed. “Cute boy? Mark, I didn't think you were like that.”
The other professor chuckled. “Jae, I'm seventy. I think anybody with two legs and all their teeth is cute.”
“Well that's only slightly disturbing.”
“You'll be the same when you're my age,” Mark said good naturedly. “I just assumed it was Park send you gifts. You know...to apologize. As if it would actually make any difference.”
Like all people in the department, Mark knew of Jaejoong and Yoochun's relationship. Jaejoong was always so surprised by how accepting his fellow faculty members were. He knew that if any professor in Korea came out, they would probably be kicked out of the institution right away.
“Apology?”
“Yeah..” Mark said, suddenly sounding very awkward, “you know for...”
“For what?” Jaejoong asked, brows creased.
“You haven't heard? But...all the professors know about it.”
Jaejoong's stomach dropped “I don't know anything. What is it?”
Mark whistled. “Uh....maybe this is something you should talk with Park about. If you don't already know, I'm not going to be the one to tell you...”
Jaejoong just looked down at his desk as the other professor hurried out of the room. After a few seconds, he got up and walked over to his chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk, writing quickly. A new equation came to his mind: the probability of Yoochun keeping a secret from him. The probability of an 18 year relationship crashing to the ground.
The lunch Changmin had delivered lay forgotten on the ground.
~~~***~~~
It was late by the time that Yoochun came home that night. Jaejoong was lounging on the couch, already changed into his normal nighttime outfit of sweatpants and free college t-shirts he stole every year from the multitude of events they would have for freshmen.
“Jae. You're still up?”
“Wasn't that tired” Jaejoong answered easily. Yoochun just nodded. The atmosphere in the room was tense and the man sat down on the other side of the couch.
They sat for a few quiet seconds before Jaejoong sighed and scooted over to the other man. He placed his hand on Yoochun's thigh and looked at him with as much concern as he could muster.
“Chun, what's going on?”
Yoochun looked at Jaejoong for a few more seconds before looking down at the pale hand on his thigh. “There's....a lot going on right now.”
“In your department?” Jaejoong asked.
Yoochun chuckled wryly “I guess you could say that.”
“Work is getting too much? People are getting too much?”
Yoochun shook his head and raised his eyes to meet Jaejoong's. “Jae. Tess is pregnant.”
“Oh, I know that.” Jaejoogn said. For a second he felt a bit privileged, as though he had known a sort of inside secret before Yoochun had.
But then, just a mere second later, the implication of Yoochun's words hit him and he felt a wave of nausea crashing through his body.
“Pregnant....you....”
“I'm so sorry, Jae.” Yoochun said, guilt and anguish clear in every word. He didn't move to touch Jaejoong, and it was for the best. The younger man wouldn't have let him anyways.
The sick feeling crawled up Jaejoong's throat, making him dry heave a couple of times. It burned his eyes, though no tears fell out. He had envisioned, a million times, how him and Yoochun would end. Nothing in this world was infinite after all. Everything had an ending.
But never had he imagined that it would end in Yoochun cheating....cheating on him with a prissy French professor who scoffed at everything from Yoochun's food to the table settings that he had so meticulously searched for and bought.
“It wasn't supposed to be like this at all.” Yoochun continued. “it was a stupid mistake and it led to something bigger than I could have imagined. I didn't want this then.”
“But you want this now?” Jaejoong asked. He was still doubled over, eyes trained on the worn carpet.
There was a pause. “....yes. I'm sorry, Jae. But...you know how much I've always wanted to be a father. And Tess needs me.”
Jaejoong looked up finally. “And what about me? You go off and have your happy family and I'm left with what? 18 years has gotten me what, Yoochun?”
His voice was loud, but not hysterical, which Jaejoong gave himself credit for. He was also talking in Korean even though he knew it pissed Yoochun off when he did. Or maybe he was doing it exactly because it pissed Yoochun off.
“Jae, if I had a choice it wouldn't have come down to this...”
“Do you even care?” Jaejoong asked, cutting him off. He couldn't believe how incredibly selfish Yoochun was being. “Do you care that you're dumping me for some French woman you hardly know?”
“Of course!” Yoochun said, raising his voice. Yoochun never raised his voice. “Jae, I love you.”
Jaejoong snorted. Yoochun grabbed his face and moved it so that they were looking at each other, eye-to-eye. “Jae. We have been together for eighteen years. There is no one out there that I love more than you, okay. But...I have to take responsibility for my actions. You will never know how sorry I am to you. How regretful I am for...”
The man lapsed into silence. Jaejoong sneered. “Lying to me? Cheating on me?”
“Yes,” Yoochun said with a sigh. “Just...for everything.”
“You even accused me of cheating two weeks ago, you damn bastard.”
Yoochun looked incredibly tired. Jaejoong didn't feel one ounce of sympathy. “I know. That was another mistake.”
“Well mistakes seem to be all that you're making these days, Yoochun.”
The literature professor bit back his tongue. “You....can keep the house, Jae. You can keep whatever you want. I just hope that you'll know how sorry I am and that maybe one day you can forgive me. I don't want to loose you as a friend too. You were my best friend before we ever got together...”
“And I was your lover for 18 years after that, but you seemed to have forgotten that just fine.” Jaejoong said dryly. He stood up and walked over to the table, grabbing his wallet and his keys. Suddenly this house, the stuffy old Victorian crammed with warm furniture they had picked out together, seemed too suffocating. Yoochun seemed to suffocating. He needed to get away, forever if he could.
Yoochun just stared at him.
“You can keep the house,” Jaejoong said as he put on his shoes and stormed outside. “I wouldn't want this shitty reminder of you anyways.”
~~~***~~~
18 years. 6,574 days. 157,784 hours. 9,467,077 minutes. 568,024,668 seconds.
Exactly 30 minutes for it all to come crashing down.
Jaejoong scribbled on his chalkboard, the force of his strokes so hard that the pieces of chalk cracked loudly in half, one by one, until the floor was scattered with bits and pieces.
It was loud, but it didn't matter. No one would be here so late at night anyways.
10 pints of blood in a human body....but only 11 ounces of blood in a baby's body. So small, so...insignificant and easily negated.
18 years, and all it took to end it was 11 ounces of blood.
“Jaejoong!”
Jaejoong didn't even look up from the board as Changmin's familiar voice drifted across his ears.
“Thank god you're here. I was worried about you. What are you doing?”
Math Jaejoong thought with a roll of his eyes. Wasn't it obvious? He felt a presence next to him, but he didn't dare look. Instead he just kept his eyes concentrated on the board, assigning each little baby organ a percentage of the 11 ounces.
“Yoochun called me and told me everything. He said you had stormed out and....God, Jaejoong. I'm sorry.”
“Why?” Jaejoong said lightly. “You told me he was a lout, didn't you? You warned me and I didn't listen.”
“I was joking,” Changmin said. “I didn't think he would...never....this.”
Jaejoong kept writing. It was imperative for him to write. He needed to get rid of this baby. Needed to kill it with his math and the strokes of his chalk stick.
“Jaejoong...” Changmin said slowly. “It's okay to grieve, you know. It's okay to cry.”
Jaejoong's hand stilled on the board. “I should have known better, shouldn't I have, Min? What good is a genius IQ when I don't even know these things?”
“No one could have known.” Changmin said, grabbing the older man's shoulders. “Jae. You have the right to be upset.”
Jaejoong's eyes prickled with tears. He wouldn't cry, though. He wouldn't give that bastard the power to make him do that. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked. “it's not that he cheated on me, and it's not that he lied to me. It's that after all of that he picked her over me.”
“You wouldn't have let him stay with you anyways,” Changmin said.
“But I at least wanted the choice! If he had begged me to forgive him or for me to take him back despite it all then maybe I wouldn't feel so worthless!”
Changmin's eyes flashed as he brought the professor into his embrace. He was so angry. So, so angry at Yoochun for every making Jaejoong feel like he wasn't worth anything. Yoochun had possessed the most precious being and he had just crushed it. Changmin knew that Jaejoong would probably forgive the man-the math professor was too kind of his own good, but Changmin didn't think he ever would.
“Never feel that way, Jaejoong. You don't understand how important you are. He doesn't understand how important you are.”
“I don't need you to be cheesy right now, Min.”
Changmin hugged the other man closer. “Then just tell me what you want me to be and I'll be it. Tell me what you need, Jaejoong.”
“I don't need you to be anyone for me, Min. I...I....this whole thing; it makes me feel like I wasted 18 years of my life. That I was living a mistake the whole time” Jaejoong said, letting himself slump into the student's embrace. How was it that Changmin always felt so right?
“You're the math genius here, Jaejoong.” the student said. The professor sighed: the way that his name slipped off of Changmin's lips always sounded so right. Not Jae, the americanized shortening, but Jaejoong-the full, rich, Korean name.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you should know that there are no such things as mistakes” Changmin said, leaning back a little so that he could see the professor's face “this is nothing more than a bump in the road...a way for you to search for a new solution.”
Changmin, apparently, also knew exactly the right things to say to him.
“A new solution?”
“A new solution.” the student echoed, with a nod of his head.
A small smile tugged at Jaejoong's lips. He brought up his hand to cover up the smile and a second later, his hand was replaced by Changmin's lips.
~~~***~~~
Jaejoong stared out the window of his office. Finals were over and most of the students had already left the campus, leaving it empty and cold. The new snow was still soft and white-untrampled on by the masses of winter boots-and lay in gleaming clouds underneath Jaejoong's window.
It had been a month since him and Yoochun had broken up and he hadn't talked to the other man since. Of course, he heard the news from the typical gossip hotlines that ran through all the departments. Yoochun and Tess had gotten married in a small court ceremony a week back. Apparently he had looked miserable.
It had also been a month where Jaejoong had taken a hard look at his life. At the street where he had lived for the majority of his existence. Of the campus that he had grown up on and thought he would spend the rest of his life in. Of the Charles river and the crappy Korean restaurant where he had dated and fell in and out of love.
It was all safe and regular and....boring. The solution for life, Jaejoong figured, was the same for everyone. To be successful.
However, it was the process that you used to find the solution that was the most important. And Jaejoong didn't want his process to be boring.
Slowly, he picked up his cellphone and dialed a familiar number. “Yoochun? It's Jae. Can you meet me at Harvard Coffee in half an hour? Okay. See you then. Bye.”
He hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket. He made his way over to his bookshelf. Most of his textbooks and other heavy tomes were already packed away in various boxes, all neatly labeled and stowed away by Changmin.
The only book left on the shelf was the one age-old copy of Harvard Girl that was still in its same place, still collecting dust and looking as ratted and worn out as when Jaejoong had placed it there years before. The professor took the book down and stared at it for a few seconds.
With a smile, he tossed it into the garbage bin and walked out of his door for the last time.
~~~***~~~
“You look good.”
They were the first words that Yoochun had said to Jaejoong in a month, and they were true. Yoochun knew that Jaejoong wasn't really a griever, so he didn't expect the man to look disheveled. But he also didn't expect to see a glowing, and almost peaceful Jaejoong sitting across from him.
“I wish I could say the same for you, Chun.” Jaejoong said, eliciting a tired laugh from the other man. Yoochun looked exhausted-with large bags under his eyes and messy hair. His clothes were also slightly wrinkled.
A month ago, Jaejoong would have felt a vindictive sense of pleasure seeing what Yoochun had become. Now he just felt sad for the other man. He knew, better than anyone else, what it felt like to live a monotonous life and he knew it was what faced Yoochun.
“How is Tess?” Jaejoong asked, fingers playing on the rim of his coffee cup.
“Uh...she's okay. She's doing fine. Just gets tired a lot.” Yoochun said, looking away. He still wasn't exactly comfortable talking about Tess with a man he still loved. He wondered why Jaejoong was so calm about it.
“You should take care of her more. Pregnant women need a lot of attention.”
“I will,” Yoochun said quickly. “So...”
“I kissed Changmin” Jaejoong said in his usual straightforward manner, as though he was commenting on the weather. “The night you told me that Tess was pregnant. I kissed him and almost had sex with him too, but he stopped me because he said he didn't our first time to be on my office floor”
Yoochun gaped. “W...what? You kissed him? And almost slept with him?”
“Yes,” Jaejoong said.
“So...do you love him?”
Jaejoong laughed. “Chun, it's really to early to decide that yet. I...don't think I'm ready to be in love with someone else just yet. It's only been a month since we've broken up and I think I'll need more time than that to fully get over you.”
Well at least he admits that Yoochun thought. “But do you like him? Are you dating him?”
“I like him,” Jaejoong said with a nod. “Dating? I don't know. I would like to...sometime in the future. I think he could make me happy”
Yoochun looked down at his coffee. “I think he could too, Jae.” And he meant it. He knew Changmin well and he knew that the younger male could be a perfect partner for Jaejoong. And Jaejoong deserved to be with someone like that.
“But,” the Literature professor continued. “You can't date him if you're faculty.”
“I left Harvard,” Jaejoong said, causing Yoochun another shock. “MIT offered me the Morss Professor of Applied Mathematics position and I took it.”
“You....you left Harvard? But Jae, you love Harvard! You are supposed to be here forever. Don't let me take Harvard from you.”
Jaejoong scoffed. “Still so egotistical, Chun” he said, though his words held no real malice. “I didn't leave because of you. I left because I wanted something different. I've lived my whole life one way...I think it's time for a change of pace and a change of scenery.”
“MIT is hardly a change of scenery,” Yoochun said, eyebrows raised, “it's just across the river.”
“Well...new classrooms, new students, new offices.” Jaejoong said. “Plus a higher pay!”
“And the opportunity to date a certain student without you both getting kicked out of university?” Yoochun added in.
Jaejoong grinned. “Maybe that too. Harvard wasn't really my life, anyways. I just went here because my parents told me to. I decided it was about time I lived my life my way.”
Yoochun just shook his head. “You know, if you told me a month ago that the two of us would be able to sit down and have coffee and laugh like this...I don't think I would have believed it.”
“There's no point dwelling on the past, Chun. What you did hurt, but it was just the chance for me to find another solution...”
“So,” Yoochun asked, “I'm forgiven?”
Jaejoong looked at his cup for a few seconds. “There is no such thing as forgiveness, Chun. I won't ever forget what you did nor the pain you caused. And I think a part of me will always resent you for it. But I won't let it affect the way I treat you in the future. We're all just trying to do the best we can to reach our end solution.”
“And what is that?”
Jaejoong looked up and gave Yoochun a genuine smile. “To be happy”
~~~***~~~
“So you'll see that this whole term equals minus one. But then when you look, you see that the term is a multiple of Pm so it can't actually be minus one since it is a contradiction...”
Jaejoong glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 10 minutes past when class was supposed to end.
“And the rest of Euclid's proof will have to be kept until next time. I'm already holding all of you back so long! Have a good weekend and don't forget to study for your test coming up next week.”
There was the usual shuffle of notebooks and papers. Jaejoong turned back towards his desk and collected his notes. This was one of his freshman lecture classes and the stadium was full of 200 students who all hung onto his every word. It was a new experience for Jaejoong, teaching that many students at once, but it was a bit exhilarating as well.
Coming to MIT, the professor had quickly realized, was one of the best decisions he made. His colleagues and students were just as brilliant as those at Harvard but in a completely different way. Here math was almost a religion more than it was a department, and it made for many stimulating conversations and findings.
“Another successful class if I do say so myself, Professor Kim.”
Jaejoong's eyes widened and he turned around to find Changmin standing in front of his desk, wearing an MIT sweatshirt and a goofy grin.
“Min! I didn't even know you were here”
“It's a class of over 200, so that's not surprising.” Changmin said cheekily. “Plus, I bought myself some camouflage” He motioned to his sweatshirt.
“You are so strange,” Jaejoong said, rolling his eyes as he gathered up the rest of his notes.
“Tess just had her baby. Yoochun texted me during class.”
“What?” Jaejoong yelped. “Why didn't he text me?”
“He probably did but you didn't see it because I'm guessing you left your phone in your office...again”
Jaejoong checked his pockets and found them to be empty. He had the decency to blush at Changmin's loud chuckles.
“It's a boy. You will never guess what Yoochun named him.”
“Please don't tell me he named him Jaejoong.”
“Worse,” Changmin said, eyes lighting up in mirth, “he named him JaeChun”
Jaejoong groaned. “So tacky!! I bet Tess is overjoyed at that name.”
“I don't think she's really caught on to what it represents yet. Probably still too tired out from labor.” Changmin said. “But damn...he really does still love you, doesn't he?”
“Of course he does. Part of me still loves him too.”
Jaejoong saw Changmin's face darken and laughed aloud. “We were each other's first loves, Min. And were best friends. Of course we're always going to care for each other. But Yoochun has a family now. And I have...”
“Me,” Changmin said haughtily, walking over to the professor and embracing him. Jaejoong just chuckled.
Changmin looked up at the chalkboard where Jaejoong had been writing his equations. “So...what's the solution to this one?”
Jaejoong looked over. “Euclid's Proof? There is no real solution. Because the end product is a contradiction, it means that our base assumption was wrong.”
Changmin raised his eyebrows. “Which means?”
“Which means that there are an infinite number of processes and solutions.”
Changmin leaned forward and smiled against Jaejoong's hair. “An infinite number? I like that...”
Jaejoong leaned back onto the hard, warm chest and wore a grin of his own. Though there were an infinite number of processes and solutions laid out before him, the professor couldn't help but think, as Changmin linked his fingers with his own, that his current one was definitely the best.
~~~***~~~
A/N: Okay, here it is. The incredibly long oneshot >_< I hope that you all enjoyed it! It was fun writing it (though it just kept growing and growing) so I hope that you all had fun reading it as well.