Round 19: In the in-between
Title: In the in-between
Team: Future
Rating: PG
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin, Yunho-centric with a side helping of Heechul
Summary: Death, its aftermath and a promise.
Author’s Note: Slightly AU-setting but a future bandfic for sure. Go team future! Wrinklefist!
Prompt Used: SNSD’s Run Devil Run with most inspiration coming from the supplementary prompts.
When Yunho opens his eyes to find Heechul lying next to him, he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming considering how there’s no way that a) Changmin would let Heechul in their bed dressed like that and b) Heechul’s been dead for a good five years now.
“Hyung,” Yunho mumbles, his tongue feeling a bit thick and odd, “you’re not alive anymore, right?” he asks, as if there’s any possibility that Heechul might still be living and breathing despite the fact that Yunho was a pallbearer himself at Heechul’s wake.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Heechul says, flopping over on the bed to pick at the loose strands of Yunho’s shirt. “Do I look like I’m dead or do I look like I’m alive?”
“You look like…you,” Yunho replies, still as confused as he was a few minutes ago.
Heechul swings his arm over Yunho’s shoulder and pats him a bit, “I like you,” he says, “I really like you so I’m just going to cut the bullshit and tell you what’s going on.” He waits for Yunho’s attention to focus back on him entirely before he continues, hoping that his dongsaeng doesn’t take this too poorly, “You’re dead.”
“Right,” Yunho says, nodding his head slowly, “I’m dead,” he repeating Heechul’s words.
Heechul waits for the news to kick in, knowing from experience that it will take a bit longer for Yunho to understand what he’s just told him. He counts backwards quietly in his head from ten to one and then from twenty to one and by the time he’s reached one again, Yunho’s finally got it.
“What do you mean I’m dead? How can I be dead? I mean, I’m still here and I’m talking to you?” Yunho says, his voice rising and his tone becoming increasingly pitchier as he panics.
“Well, I’m talking to you and you know I’m dead, don’t you?” Heechul says slowly, trying to be patient, something he’s not known to be.
“I don’t get it, I just don’t,” Yunho says with a shake of his head, “I can’t be dead. It’s just- it’s not true. And if I am dead, what are you? Some kind of angel to guide me or something??”
Heechul snorts and Yunho somehow feels relieved to see that it’s his hyung and not someone else, “Far from it, I’m just here to show you the ropes and then I’m gone.”
“What ropes?”
Heechul helps Yunho off the bed and grabs him by the wrist, “Come on, you’ll see.”
- - -
First thing that Heechul explains to him is that he’s not in Heaven and that he’s not in Hell either because someone as polished and controlled and always obedient like Yunho could never go to Hell. The problem is, Heechul tells him in hushed tones, is that someone that’s still living (“Most likely Changmin,” Yunho mumbles then) isn’t quite ready to part with him yet and as a result, he’s not allowed to move on until that’s settled.
The “ropes” as Heechul put it, simply meant telling Yunho what he could and could not do in the in-between. By the end of a thirty minute lecture, all Yunho could remember was that he couldn’t physically touch people and that if he wanted to talk to any living person, he’d have to pay for it.
“Pay how?” Yunho asks wearily.
“Doing chores.”
Yunho thinks for a moment that Heechul must mean a bit of dish washing or floor scrubbing or maybe even laundry duty but as it turns out, chores in the in-between are just a little different from chores in the living world.
- - -
“He is so dead,” Yunho mumbles, holding his nose as Heechul brings him into a room with a very dead body on a steel slab.
“Yes, well, that’s a duh comment isn’t it?” Heechul replies, whipping a face mask out of his pocket to put on. “If you wanna talk to someone, you gotta do a chore and this is one of the chores. You just scrub him a bit, make him presentable and whatnot.”
“Isn’t that what a funeral home does though? Besides, if he’s dead and if this is the in-between, why do I have to even make him presentable?!”
“Because,” Heechul says with a barely controlled roll of his eyes, “not everyone arrives here looking as pristine as you did. Think of the body as container for your spirit,” he explains, “you clean your car don’t you? And you paint the outside of your house if it chips or something? So, same concept, different thing. Someone’s gotta clean the body up before the spirits are allowed back in and here, the number one rule is cleanliness. They don’t like it when things gets dirty and besides, can you imagine fifty thousand rotting bodies in the same area? It’d be putrid to say the least.”
And that’s how Yunho finds himself surrounded with buckets of paint and a dozen or so paintbrushes, a palette in hand as well for him to mix the paints around. Apparently, here in the in-between, they don’t clean people up with the typical soap and water but by painting over the cracks in the skulls and by re-filling in the whites of their eyes. It’s not hard work and once Yunho actually gets used to the smell and sight of it all, he finds that it’s at the very least, bearable.
He’s patching up his fifth body, trying his best to repaint a pair of lips onto a young lady when Heechul comes back and tells him he’s done enough to talk to exactly one person and for exactly seventeen minutes. Problem is that Yunho doesn’t want to talk to just one person and so he soldiers on and patches his tenth and fifteenth and then his twentieth person as well. There’s really only so many car accidents that he can patch up and so after his nth person, Yunho gives in or rather he gives up, and calls for Heechul.
“That’s all you’ll get,” Heechul says, handing him four stopwatches, “the second you get to whomever you want to talk to, just press that red button on the top, alright? Once your time is up, I’ll be there to take you away again to the next person. The thing will give you a two minute countdown. Have a good talk!”
“You sound too peppy for this,” Yunho says tiredly, fingers aching. He’s covered from head to toe in paint, a bit of red here and there, some black and white marks on his arm and just some flecks of peach on his own face. He doesn’t have time to clean up anyway and Yunho’s told by Heechul that it doesn’t matter what he looks like right now because the Yunho that the person he’s talking to will see is the Yunho they want to see. The most memorable one, so to speak.
Hands slightly sweaty, Yunho wipes them dry on his pants and stands at the door of the first person he wishes he talk to, hoping against hope that they don’t start crying the second they see him. He knocks and the door swings open, “Jaejoong-ah,” Yunho says with a slight wave, “what’s up?”
- - -
For every person that Yunho visits, he tells them the same thing: take care of Changmin-ah for me, will you? And person after person tells him that Changmin won’t need looking after, that Changmin’s stronger than that and that Changmin’s not going to want to be looked after anyway. Yunho knows better than that and so he makes them promise one by one to do as he asks.
Yoochun’s the one he tells to buy the beer that he knows Changmin will want to drink, giving him the details as to what Changmin’s favorite drink is and how to make it. Junsu, he leaves the task of taking Changmin out of his apartment for some fun and game or just for a distraction, anything that would give him a bit of laughter in his life now that he’s no longer there to provide him with the silliness. As for Jaejoong, Yunho tells him exactly where the spare key to Changmin’s apartment is hidden.
Yunho trusts that they’ll be able to do what he says because despite all that’s happened and despite all of the history between them, they’ll always know each other better than anybody else might be able to and he knows that if there’s any time for Changmin to forgive and forget, it’d be now.
The last person he visits, he doesn’t say a word to, sitting by the side of Changmin’s bed as the younger man sleeps, fitfully turning from side to side. He reaches out and places his hand on Changmin’s forehead and even though he’s been told that he can’t physically touch the living, as if he knows he’s there, Changmin stills and exhales as if a weight has just been lifted from his chest. He spends the entirety of his seventeen minutes there and when Heechul comes to take him away, even Heechul allows him to longer for just five minutes more than he should.
It’s the definition of sadness, Heechul thinks, having to separate two people who have loved each other for most of their lives but haven’t been together for nearly that long and even though he gets punished when they return, he allows that last kiss to Changmin’s forehead before he finally takes Yunho back with him to the in-between.
- - -
Changmin’s still in bed when he gets the call. He was supposed to meet Yunho for lunch later on in the day and so when he’s told that his Hyung and best friend has just passed away from a sudden heart attack, he’s in shock. It’s such a ridiculous notion that his Hyung, always so strong and dependable, could fall that suddenly and so, he chooses not to believe it. Changmin yanks the cord of his landline and takes the battery out of his cell because it’s not true, it just isn’t.
An hour later, he’s sitting at a table for two at the cafe and waiting for Yunho. Five hours later, Changmin’s on his tenth cup of ice tea, bladder full as he checks his watch and continues to wait for someone that he knows has never been more than five minutes later for any date. Seven hours later, Changmin’s told by the staff that the cafe’s closing and even then, he sits outside on the sidewalk, refusing to leave until his father shows up with the car and tells him to get in because they’re going to the hospital right now.
“He called ten minutes before he died just to tell us he wasn’t coming home for dinner that night because he had a date with you,” Jihye tells him as he stands by the large window looking into the room where Yunho’s body lies. “Said that he was super excited and I was even teasing him,” she whispers, “he was so giddy and he was telling me about how it was a long time coming and how he finally thought that it was time to ask if you wanted to move in together again and it’s just-,”
“Stop,” Changmin says quietly, “please, stop. I don’t want to hear it.”
Changmin’s not here to mourn Yunho, his mind simply cannot wrap around the fact that Yunho’s dead still and he doesn’t want to hear this talk about his friend and almost lover referred to in the past tense. It’s always the hardest thing and he knows he’s going to have difficulty with it already, having to say Yunho was instead of Yunho is.
- - -
When Jaejoong first shows up at Changmin’s apartment, he tries the whole knocking thing, standing in front of the door for nearly ten minutes to no avail. Of course he hadn’t expected anything less and so after calling Changmin’s cell just to test if the younger man is home, he tiptoes and jumps just to grab at the key on the very edge of doorframe. It takes him five minutes just to grab the key and he curses the entire time at Changmin and Yunho for being so freaking tall.
“Go away,” is the first thing that Jaejoong hears when he gets inside of the apartment, words that he ignores as he locks up after himself. “I said, get out, I don’t want you here,” Changmin says quietly, refusing to even turn to see if it’s Jaejoong because somehow, he just knows it is.
“I don’t care what you want,” Jaejoong says as he drops off the groceries that he’s brought with him to Changmin’s, “I’m going to make you some jjigae and you’ll eat it.”
“I said,” Changmin says, fingers curling into a fist, “get out of my apartment, Jaejoong. You’re not welcome here.”
There’s a chill to Changmin’s voice and more than that, Jaejoong can detect more bitterness than he expected, “It won’t take more than half an hour,” he says quietly.
Changmin waits for five minutes to pass, eyes on the clock as he listens to Jaejoong tinkering behind him. It reminds him of a time that he’d much rather forget, a time when he would’ve jumped at the sound of Jaejoong’s jjigae and as he smells the kimchi, he reaches a breaking point.
“Get out,” Changmin screams, “get out, get out!”
Jaejoong refuses the bait and remains by the pot of jjigae, stirring it almost methodically as he ignores Changmin.
And so it starts with a punch and then another. Changmin grabs Jaejoong by the arm and throws him against the door, punching him square in the jaw. A kick to the gut sends Jaejoong crashing into the wall right next to the kitchen and he grabs Changmin by the elbow, twisting hard enough for there to be an audible groan. The fight continues for a while ten minutes until they’re both lying on the floor on opposite ends of the room.
Changmin’s got a bruised lip and a sore chest while Jaejoong’s got a black eye on top of what may be a cracked rib. They pant and stare at each other for a while and as cliche as it is, it’s probably the beginning of what is a renewed friendship. He retreats into his bedroom and when he wakes, Jaejoong’s lying on the sofa sleeping with a pot of jjigae waiting for him in the kitchen.
- - -
“So why’d you wait so long?” Heechul asks as they look through what he calls the peephole to watch Jaejoong and Changmin fight.
“To die?” Yunho replies, wincing a bit at the bruise across Changmin’s chest when he lifts up his shirt.
Heechul slaps the back of Yunho’s head and gives him a look of disbelief, “No, you idiot, why’d you wait so long to start things with the kid?”
Yunho rubs the back of his head as he shrugs, “Because I didn’t think I’d be dead at the age of thirty-four? Because we thought we had all the time in the world,” he says quietly. Yunho watches as Changmin takes his shirt off completely before he falls into bed, covers thrown over his head the way he sleeps when he wants to muffle his cries. “Because,” he says, “we promised each other we wouldn’t try until we had time just for us and nothing else.” His eyes glaze over slightly and he shakes his head in regret, “He would kiss me sometimes and he’d told me he loved me twice, you know? He beat me to it the first time. He’s stronger than he looks and at the same time, he’s not nearly as strong as you’d think.”
The figure huddled under the covers shakes and Yunho exhales deeply, wishing he could reach out through the peephole to hold onto Changmin’s hand and tell him that he’s still here and that he’s waiting.
“So you guys didn’t even get to have sex?” Heechul asks, giving Yunho an unimpressed look.
Yunho snorts and shakes his head, “Nope.”
“He’s going to kill you when he sees you again.”
“Probably,” Yunho says with a chuckle, “but it’ll be worth dying again just to see him.”
- - -
“What’s Changmin doing?” Junsu asks as he walks down the hallway to stand by the other two gathered in the entrance of the kitchen, “mm, and what smells so good?”
“He’s cooking,” Yoochun mumbles, voice lowered, “Changmin’s making pasta carbonara.”
Junsu’s stomach growls a little at the sound of Changmin’s italian cooking, “Doesn’t look like there’s enough for all of us though,” he says as he observes the amount of noodles that Changmin drops into the boiling pot of water.
“That’s because it’s not for us,” Yoochun whispers back, nudging at Junsu to keep quiet for once.
Unfortunately, Junsu’s never been one to get a hint or two and he barrels on, getting his head as far into the kitchen before Jaejoong pulls him back roughly by the back of his shirt. “Ow!” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck where Jaejoong also pinched, “what was that for?”
“It’s not for us,” Jaejoong replies, hissing, “it’s for Yunho.”
“But he’s dead, he can’t-,” Junsu shuts up almost immediately, partially because of the glare the Jaejoong fixes him with and partially because of the hand that Yoochun’s just slapped over his mouth.
“You cook for the one you love,” Jaejoong says quietly, wishing he didn’t understand what Changmin’s doing but knowing all too well, “and that’s what Changmin’s doing. He’s cooking for the one he loves, even if he can no longer eat what he’s got to serve.”
Changmin can hear just fine what the trio are saying behind him but he doesn’t say anything in reply, head bent as he focuses on slicing the shrimp and cooking them on the pan that he’s already lightly buttered. This was Yunho’s favorite dish and that’s mostly because it’s the only dish that Changmin has in his repertoire.
It takes half an hour for everything to be done and when it is, he places it all carefully onto a tray, bowl of pasta in the middle with a plate of homemade garlic bread on the side as well. He sidesteps the other three to place the tray of food on the living room table where Yunho loved to eat the most, a fork and a spoon placed on top of a napkin right in front of the leftmost cushion of their sofa.
There’s already a cupcake on the table that Changmin bought earlier in the day, a chocolate on chocolate that Yunho enjoyed more than anything else. Match in hand, Changmin lights the candle in the middle and smiles as best as he can, grabbing his coat and wallet to leave the apartment now that he’s done doing what he came to do.
By the time Jaejoong’s locking up after them all, the candle has just burned out and as he leaves, he whispers a soft, “Happy Birthday, Yunho.”
Up in wherever he is, Yunho wakes up on the morning of his birthday to find a tray of cold pasta carbonara with crunchy garlic bread and a wax covered chocolate cupcake. He pulls on a t-shirt and grabs the fork on the tray to eat his food. As hard as the pasta is and as plasticky as the cupcake tastes, Yunho eats it all and finishes every single last bite that he can.
- - -
Yunho’s there for the moment that Changmin starts to lose his memory, his once vivid and quick mind now slowed down by a disease that he has no control over. Changmin’s speech starts to slur and the past blurs until he can no longer tell differentiate between those that visit him, mistaking Yoochun for Jaejoong and his sister Soo-yeon for his mother so often that they don’t even bother telling him he’s wrong anymore.
Jaejoong visits him the most, stacks of their old photobooks in hand and even as his hand shakes and his movements slow in the same manner that Changmin does, he still comes every Saturday night intent to give his friend a dose of much needed nostalgia.
Yunho’s also there for when the machine that Changmin’s hooked up to stops beeping. There’s no one around to press the help button and Yunho wouldn’t even if he could. He’s been waiting long enough and he thinks it’s time that Changmin finally made good on his end of the deal and joined him.
He enters back into the room that he once woke up in so many years ago and lies on the left side of the bed, his hand turned so that his palm faces up, eyes focused on the stark white ceiling as he counts down the seconds until he can finally move on. There’s a soft plop and even without turning to confirm it, Yunho knows by the added weight and pressure on the bed that the one lying next to him now is the one he’s been waiting decades for.
Changmin opens his eyes and the first thing he does is scratch at his chin, vision blurry as he gazes around to try and figure out where he is. The first thing he notices is the beautiful man to his right and as his mind searches for a name to connect to this face, his heart already knows.
“Yunho,” he whispers in a rare moment of clarity, “it’s Yunho.” He smiles then and brings his hand up to place into Yunho waiting one.
“I’ve been waiting years for you,” Yunho says with a bit of an air, smiling himself when his hand closes around Changmin’s.
“Good,” Changmin says quietly, “I knew you’d be.”
“As if I had any other options,” Yunho laughs as he teases Changmin, something he hasn’t had the pleasure of doing in too long.
Changmin turns his head to face Yunho and smirks in that familiar way, “I would’ve killed you all over again.” He pauses and then laughs a little, the wrinkles and grey hairs slowly disappearing as Yunho pulls him close for a hug, “so what now? Are we going to get out of bed or is this where we’re going to be staying for the rest of eternity? Not that I’d mind too much…”
“Nah,” Yunho mumbles, lips pressed to Changmin’s forehead, “we’re going to jump a boat and cross some river to get reincarnated but this time,” he says, tightening his arms around Changmin, “we’re doing it together so I don’t have to wait twenty something years before I see you again.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Poll Round 19 : In the in-between
Team: Future
Rating: PG
Fandom: DBSK
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin, Yunho-centric with a side helping of Heechul
Summary: Death, its aftermath and a promise.
Author’s Note: Slightly AU-setting but a future bandfic for sure. Go team future! Wrinklefist!
Prompt Used: SNSD’s Run Devil Run with most inspiration coming from the supplementary prompts.
When Yunho opens his eyes to find Heechul lying next to him, he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming considering how there’s no way that a) Changmin would let Heechul in their bed dressed like that and b) Heechul’s been dead for a good five years now.
“Hyung,” Yunho mumbles, his tongue feeling a bit thick and odd, “you’re not alive anymore, right?” he asks, as if there’s any possibility that Heechul might still be living and breathing despite the fact that Yunho was a pallbearer himself at Heechul’s wake.
“I don’t know, you tell me,” Heechul says, flopping over on the bed to pick at the loose strands of Yunho’s shirt. “Do I look like I’m dead or do I look like I’m alive?”
“You look like…you,” Yunho replies, still as confused as he was a few minutes ago.
Heechul swings his arm over Yunho’s shoulder and pats him a bit, “I like you,” he says, “I really like you so I’m just going to cut the bullshit and tell you what’s going on.” He waits for Yunho’s attention to focus back on him entirely before he continues, hoping that his dongsaeng doesn’t take this too poorly, “You’re dead.”
“Right,” Yunho says, nodding his head slowly, “I’m dead,” he repeating Heechul’s words.
Heechul waits for the news to kick in, knowing from experience that it will take a bit longer for Yunho to understand what he’s just told him. He counts backwards quietly in his head from ten to one and then from twenty to one and by the time he’s reached one again, Yunho’s finally got it.
“What do you mean I’m dead? How can I be dead? I mean, I’m still here and I’m talking to you?” Yunho says, his voice rising and his tone becoming increasingly pitchier as he panics.
“Well, I’m talking to you and you know I’m dead, don’t you?” Heechul says slowly, trying to be patient, something he’s not known to be.
“I don’t get it, I just don’t,” Yunho says with a shake of his head, “I can’t be dead. It’s just- it’s not true. And if I am dead, what are you? Some kind of angel to guide me or something??”
Heechul snorts and Yunho somehow feels relieved to see that it’s his hyung and not someone else, “Far from it, I’m just here to show you the ropes and then I’m gone.”
“What ropes?”
Heechul helps Yunho off the bed and grabs him by the wrist, “Come on, you’ll see.”
- - -
First thing that Heechul explains to him is that he’s not in Heaven and that he’s not in Hell either because someone as polished and controlled and always obedient like Yunho could never go to Hell. The problem is, Heechul tells him in hushed tones, is that someone that’s still living (“Most likely Changmin,” Yunho mumbles then) isn’t quite ready to part with him yet and as a result, he’s not allowed to move on until that’s settled.
The “ropes” as Heechul put it, simply meant telling Yunho what he could and could not do in the in-between. By the end of a thirty minute lecture, all Yunho could remember was that he couldn’t physically touch people and that if he wanted to talk to any living person, he’d have to pay for it.
“Pay how?” Yunho asks wearily.
“Doing chores.”
Yunho thinks for a moment that Heechul must mean a bit of dish washing or floor scrubbing or maybe even laundry duty but as it turns out, chores in the in-between are just a little different from chores in the living world.
- - -
“He is so dead,” Yunho mumbles, holding his nose as Heechul brings him into a room with a very dead body on a steel slab.
“Yes, well, that’s a duh comment isn’t it?” Heechul replies, whipping a face mask out of his pocket to put on. “If you wanna talk to someone, you gotta do a chore and this is one of the chores. You just scrub him a bit, make him presentable and whatnot.”
“Isn’t that what a funeral home does though? Besides, if he’s dead and if this is the in-between, why do I have to even make him presentable?!”
“Because,” Heechul says with a barely controlled roll of his eyes, “not everyone arrives here looking as pristine as you did. Think of the body as container for your spirit,” he explains, “you clean your car don’t you? And you paint the outside of your house if it chips or something? So, same concept, different thing. Someone’s gotta clean the body up before the spirits are allowed back in and here, the number one rule is cleanliness. They don’t like it when things gets dirty and besides, can you imagine fifty thousand rotting bodies in the same area? It’d be putrid to say the least.”
And that’s how Yunho finds himself surrounded with buckets of paint and a dozen or so paintbrushes, a palette in hand as well for him to mix the paints around. Apparently, here in the in-between, they don’t clean people up with the typical soap and water but by painting over the cracks in the skulls and by re-filling in the whites of their eyes. It’s not hard work and once Yunho actually gets used to the smell and sight of it all, he finds that it’s at the very least, bearable.
He’s patching up his fifth body, trying his best to repaint a pair of lips onto a young lady when Heechul comes back and tells him he’s done enough to talk to exactly one person and for exactly seventeen minutes. Problem is that Yunho doesn’t want to talk to just one person and so he soldiers on and patches his tenth and fifteenth and then his twentieth person as well. There’s really only so many car accidents that he can patch up and so after his nth person, Yunho gives in or rather he gives up, and calls for Heechul.
“That’s all you’ll get,” Heechul says, handing him four stopwatches, “the second you get to whomever you want to talk to, just press that red button on the top, alright? Once your time is up, I’ll be there to take you away again to the next person. The thing will give you a two minute countdown. Have a good talk!”
“You sound too peppy for this,” Yunho says tiredly, fingers aching. He’s covered from head to toe in paint, a bit of red here and there, some black and white marks on his arm and just some flecks of peach on his own face. He doesn’t have time to clean up anyway and Yunho’s told by Heechul that it doesn’t matter what he looks like right now because the Yunho that the person he’s talking to will see is the Yunho they want to see. The most memorable one, so to speak.
Hands slightly sweaty, Yunho wipes them dry on his pants and stands at the door of the first person he wishes he talk to, hoping against hope that they don’t start crying the second they see him. He knocks and the door swings open, “Jaejoong-ah,” Yunho says with a slight wave, “what’s up?”
- - -
For every person that Yunho visits, he tells them the same thing: take care of Changmin-ah for me, will you? And person after person tells him that Changmin won’t need looking after, that Changmin’s stronger than that and that Changmin’s not going to want to be looked after anyway. Yunho knows better than that and so he makes them promise one by one to do as he asks.
Yoochun’s the one he tells to buy the beer that he knows Changmin will want to drink, giving him the details as to what Changmin’s favorite drink is and how to make it. Junsu, he leaves the task of taking Changmin out of his apartment for some fun and game or just for a distraction, anything that would give him a bit of laughter in his life now that he’s no longer there to provide him with the silliness. As for Jaejoong, Yunho tells him exactly where the spare key to Changmin’s apartment is hidden.
Yunho trusts that they’ll be able to do what he says because despite all that’s happened and despite all of the history between them, they’ll always know each other better than anybody else might be able to and he knows that if there’s any time for Changmin to forgive and forget, it’d be now.
The last person he visits, he doesn’t say a word to, sitting by the side of Changmin’s bed as the younger man sleeps, fitfully turning from side to side. He reaches out and places his hand on Changmin’s forehead and even though he’s been told that he can’t physically touch the living, as if he knows he’s there, Changmin stills and exhales as if a weight has just been lifted from his chest. He spends the entirety of his seventeen minutes there and when Heechul comes to take him away, even Heechul allows him to longer for just five minutes more than he should.
It’s the definition of sadness, Heechul thinks, having to separate two people who have loved each other for most of their lives but haven’t been together for nearly that long and even though he gets punished when they return, he allows that last kiss to Changmin’s forehead before he finally takes Yunho back with him to the in-between.
- - -
Changmin’s still in bed when he gets the call. He was supposed to meet Yunho for lunch later on in the day and so when he’s told that his Hyung and best friend has just passed away from a sudden heart attack, he’s in shock. It’s such a ridiculous notion that his Hyung, always so strong and dependable, could fall that suddenly and so, he chooses not to believe it. Changmin yanks the cord of his landline and takes the battery out of his cell because it’s not true, it just isn’t.
An hour later, he’s sitting at a table for two at the cafe and waiting for Yunho. Five hours later, Changmin’s on his tenth cup of ice tea, bladder full as he checks his watch and continues to wait for someone that he knows has never been more than five minutes later for any date. Seven hours later, Changmin’s told by the staff that the cafe’s closing and even then, he sits outside on the sidewalk, refusing to leave until his father shows up with the car and tells him to get in because they’re going to the hospital right now.
“He called ten minutes before he died just to tell us he wasn’t coming home for dinner that night because he had a date with you,” Jihye tells him as he stands by the large window looking into the room where Yunho’s body lies. “Said that he was super excited and I was even teasing him,” she whispers, “he was so giddy and he was telling me about how it was a long time coming and how he finally thought that it was time to ask if you wanted to move in together again and it’s just-,”
“Stop,” Changmin says quietly, “please, stop. I don’t want to hear it.”
Changmin’s not here to mourn Yunho, his mind simply cannot wrap around the fact that Yunho’s dead still and he doesn’t want to hear this talk about his friend and almost lover referred to in the past tense. It’s always the hardest thing and he knows he’s going to have difficulty with it already, having to say Yunho was instead of Yunho is.
- - -
When Jaejoong first shows up at Changmin’s apartment, he tries the whole knocking thing, standing in front of the door for nearly ten minutes to no avail. Of course he hadn’t expected anything less and so after calling Changmin’s cell just to test if the younger man is home, he tiptoes and jumps just to grab at the key on the very edge of doorframe. It takes him five minutes just to grab the key and he curses the entire time at Changmin and Yunho for being so freaking tall.
“Go away,” is the first thing that Jaejoong hears when he gets inside of the apartment, words that he ignores as he locks up after himself. “I said, get out, I don’t want you here,” Changmin says quietly, refusing to even turn to see if it’s Jaejoong because somehow, he just knows it is.
“I don’t care what you want,” Jaejoong says as he drops off the groceries that he’s brought with him to Changmin’s, “I’m going to make you some jjigae and you’ll eat it.”
“I said,” Changmin says, fingers curling into a fist, “get out of my apartment, Jaejoong. You’re not welcome here.”
There’s a chill to Changmin’s voice and more than that, Jaejoong can detect more bitterness than he expected, “It won’t take more than half an hour,” he says quietly.
Changmin waits for five minutes to pass, eyes on the clock as he listens to Jaejoong tinkering behind him. It reminds him of a time that he’d much rather forget, a time when he would’ve jumped at the sound of Jaejoong’s jjigae and as he smells the kimchi, he reaches a breaking point.
“Get out,” Changmin screams, “get out, get out!”
Jaejoong refuses the bait and remains by the pot of jjigae, stirring it almost methodically as he ignores Changmin.
And so it starts with a punch and then another. Changmin grabs Jaejoong by the arm and throws him against the door, punching him square in the jaw. A kick to the gut sends Jaejoong crashing into the wall right next to the kitchen and he grabs Changmin by the elbow, twisting hard enough for there to be an audible groan. The fight continues for a while ten minutes until they’re both lying on the floor on opposite ends of the room.
Changmin’s got a bruised lip and a sore chest while Jaejoong’s got a black eye on top of what may be a cracked rib. They pant and stare at each other for a while and as cliche as it is, it’s probably the beginning of what is a renewed friendship. He retreats into his bedroom and when he wakes, Jaejoong’s lying on the sofa sleeping with a pot of jjigae waiting for him in the kitchen.
- - -
“So why’d you wait so long?” Heechul asks as they look through what he calls the peephole to watch Jaejoong and Changmin fight.
“To die?” Yunho replies, wincing a bit at the bruise across Changmin’s chest when he lifts up his shirt.
Heechul slaps the back of Yunho’s head and gives him a look of disbelief, “No, you idiot, why’d you wait so long to start things with the kid?”
Yunho rubs the back of his head as he shrugs, “Because I didn’t think I’d be dead at the age of thirty-four? Because we thought we had all the time in the world,” he says quietly. Yunho watches as Changmin takes his shirt off completely before he falls into bed, covers thrown over his head the way he sleeps when he wants to muffle his cries. “Because,” he says, “we promised each other we wouldn’t try until we had time just for us and nothing else.” His eyes glaze over slightly and he shakes his head in regret, “He would kiss me sometimes and he’d told me he loved me twice, you know? He beat me to it the first time. He’s stronger than he looks and at the same time, he’s not nearly as strong as you’d think.”
The figure huddled under the covers shakes and Yunho exhales deeply, wishing he could reach out through the peephole to hold onto Changmin’s hand and tell him that he’s still here and that he’s waiting.
“So you guys didn’t even get to have sex?” Heechul asks, giving Yunho an unimpressed look.
Yunho snorts and shakes his head, “Nope.”
“He’s going to kill you when he sees you again.”
“Probably,” Yunho says with a chuckle, “but it’ll be worth dying again just to see him.”
- - -
“What’s Changmin doing?” Junsu asks as he walks down the hallway to stand by the other two gathered in the entrance of the kitchen, “mm, and what smells so good?”
“He’s cooking,” Yoochun mumbles, voice lowered, “Changmin’s making pasta carbonara.”
Junsu’s stomach growls a little at the sound of Changmin’s italian cooking, “Doesn’t look like there’s enough for all of us though,” he says as he observes the amount of noodles that Changmin drops into the boiling pot of water.
“That’s because it’s not for us,” Yoochun whispers back, nudging at Junsu to keep quiet for once.
Unfortunately, Junsu’s never been one to get a hint or two and he barrels on, getting his head as far into the kitchen before Jaejoong pulls him back roughly by the back of his shirt. “Ow!” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck where Jaejoong also pinched, “what was that for?”
“It’s not for us,” Jaejoong replies, hissing, “it’s for Yunho.”
“But he’s dead, he can’t-,” Junsu shuts up almost immediately, partially because of the glare the Jaejoong fixes him with and partially because of the hand that Yoochun’s just slapped over his mouth.
“You cook for the one you love,” Jaejoong says quietly, wishing he didn’t understand what Changmin’s doing but knowing all too well, “and that’s what Changmin’s doing. He’s cooking for the one he loves, even if he can no longer eat what he’s got to serve.”
Changmin can hear just fine what the trio are saying behind him but he doesn’t say anything in reply, head bent as he focuses on slicing the shrimp and cooking them on the pan that he’s already lightly buttered. This was Yunho’s favorite dish and that’s mostly because it’s the only dish that Changmin has in his repertoire.
It takes half an hour for everything to be done and when it is, he places it all carefully onto a tray, bowl of pasta in the middle with a plate of homemade garlic bread on the side as well. He sidesteps the other three to place the tray of food on the living room table where Yunho loved to eat the most, a fork and a spoon placed on top of a napkin right in front of the leftmost cushion of their sofa.
There’s already a cupcake on the table that Changmin bought earlier in the day, a chocolate on chocolate that Yunho enjoyed more than anything else. Match in hand, Changmin lights the candle in the middle and smiles as best as he can, grabbing his coat and wallet to leave the apartment now that he’s done doing what he came to do.
By the time Jaejoong’s locking up after them all, the candle has just burned out and as he leaves, he whispers a soft, “Happy Birthday, Yunho.”
Up in wherever he is, Yunho wakes up on the morning of his birthday to find a tray of cold pasta carbonara with crunchy garlic bread and a wax covered chocolate cupcake. He pulls on a t-shirt and grabs the fork on the tray to eat his food. As hard as the pasta is and as plasticky as the cupcake tastes, Yunho eats it all and finishes every single last bite that he can.
- - -
Yunho’s there for the moment that Changmin starts to lose his memory, his once vivid and quick mind now slowed down by a disease that he has no control over. Changmin’s speech starts to slur and the past blurs until he can no longer tell differentiate between those that visit him, mistaking Yoochun for Jaejoong and his sister Soo-yeon for his mother so often that they don’t even bother telling him he’s wrong anymore.
Jaejoong visits him the most, stacks of their old photobooks in hand and even as his hand shakes and his movements slow in the same manner that Changmin does, he still comes every Saturday night intent to give his friend a dose of much needed nostalgia.
Yunho’s also there for when the machine that Changmin’s hooked up to stops beeping. There’s no one around to press the help button and Yunho wouldn’t even if he could. He’s been waiting long enough and he thinks it’s time that Changmin finally made good on his end of the deal and joined him.
He enters back into the room that he once woke up in so many years ago and lies on the left side of the bed, his hand turned so that his palm faces up, eyes focused on the stark white ceiling as he counts down the seconds until he can finally move on. There’s a soft plop and even without turning to confirm it, Yunho knows by the added weight and pressure on the bed that the one lying next to him now is the one he’s been waiting decades for.
Changmin opens his eyes and the first thing he does is scratch at his chin, vision blurry as he gazes around to try and figure out where he is. The first thing he notices is the beautiful man to his right and as his mind searches for a name to connect to this face, his heart already knows.
“Yunho,” he whispers in a rare moment of clarity, “it’s Yunho.” He smiles then and brings his hand up to place into Yunho waiting one.
“I’ve been waiting years for you,” Yunho says with a bit of an air, smiling himself when his hand closes around Changmin’s.
“Good,” Changmin says quietly, “I knew you’d be.”
“As if I had any other options,” Yunho laughs as he teases Changmin, something he hasn’t had the pleasure of doing in too long.
Changmin turns his head to face Yunho and smirks in that familiar way, “I would’ve killed you all over again.” He pauses and then laughs a little, the wrinkles and grey hairs slowly disappearing as Yunho pulls him close for a hug, “so what now? Are we going to get out of bed or is this where we’re going to be staying for the rest of eternity? Not that I’d mind too much…”
“Nah,” Yunho mumbles, lips pressed to Changmin’s forehead, “we’re going to jump a boat and cross some river to get reincarnated but this time,” he says, tightening his arms around Changmin, “we’re doing it together so I don’t have to wait twenty something years before I see you again.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Poll Round 19 : In the in-between