take a little, give a lot
take a little, give a lot
yunho/changmin
r
a case of serial dismemberment.
i...had a really, really interesting dream, rofl. here's my warning now: don't read if you get queasy easily.
---
The first case that Changmin is called in on almost makes him vomit all over his shoes, but it’s only because he’s hardened and jaded after nearly a decade of the same or worse that he refrains from doing so. The new guy to his left turns around with a hand clapped over his mouth and Changmin hears the distant sound of retching as he continues to stare down in shock, watching thin rivulets of blood flow from almost cauterized stumps where thighs should be attached to knees attached to calves attached to ankles attached to feet.
Instead, there’s only a clean slice as if a butcher had made the steadiest decision to swing down with a giant meat cleaver and hacked the legs away. The smell of burnt human flesh pervades the room, suffocates him, but Changmin can’t leave, eyes fixed on the still bleeding wounds and then the face of the young man lying in bed, sheets soaked through with blood.
On the wall, two perfectly healthy if dismembered legs are nailed, relaxingly limp and looking warm to the touch in the orange glow of the victim’s desklamp.
“Jaejoong-ah!” Changmin calls over his shoulder, waiting until the new guy stumbles back into the room, handkerchief pressed firmly over his nose and mouth. “Are you done being sick all over your own shoes?”
The older man shoots him a look but it comes off weak in his state of shock and horror. “I- I don’t think this was an act of ill will, Changmin.”
“Two bloody stumps where legs used to be doesn’t look like ill will to you?” Changmin asks flatly. He points to the marks on the body, marks that might be mistaken for painful bruises but are in fact lovebites. “Crime of passion. Isn’t that obvious enough?”
Jaejoong shakes his head again, looking at Changmin weakly but the light in his eyes is determined. “No, Changmin. I’m telling you. This wasn’t an act with bad intentions.” He steps closer to the body and gently rests his fingers on the young man’s cheek, eyes softening as he brushes his fingers over lips that are almost a smile. “I feel pain here but I also feel gratitude.”
Changmin rolls his eyes and sighs, shrugging noncommittally before exiting the room. The investigation team can collect up pieces of evidence and take photographs.
He hears Jaejoong quickly following after him and Changmin sighs again. Really, did they have to sign the bright-eyed new rookie to him simply because Jaejoong always has “freakishly accurate gut feelings” about cases? What kind of qualification is that to be working with him?
“You shouldn’t be upset with me just because you’re always in a bad mood, you know,” Jaejoong pipes up from behind him.
“No one asked you.”
“Changmin-ah,” Jaejoong says with a big sigh, dropping all formalities now that they’re outside, his pride dictating that since he’s older, Changmin should really learn to be politer to him. “This is why you’re single. No one wants to date a man with the warmth of a carcass.”
---
The first case doesn’t make it on the front page news until the second case occurs, and that one’s only brought to everyone’s attention because the victim was the daughter of a very rich local politician.
She didn’t die, though.
Changmin sits across from her in the large living room of the family’s mansion, staring at the young woman curiously. Sometimes, she reaches over to touch her bandaged stump, causing Changmin’s mind to always attempt at conjuring up the image of an arm where the girl’s arm should be but isn’t.
“I’m happy,” she says, looking at him with a firm smile.
“Happy?” Changmin repeats. He doesn’t even bother writing it down. Clearly, the reality of the situation hasn’t settled in yet.
Jaejoong nods to his left and Changmin sighs inwardly. “I understand,” his friend says softly, “this happened to you for a reason, right?”
“Of course!” she exclaims, nearly jovial about the whole situation. Denial. It has to be the denial. “He’s helped me in ways my parents could never understand. Being locked up in this huge house all the time, not doing anything except practicing etiquette and violin and piano and art, I mean, what does my dad think this is? The 19th century? It’s only because this happened that I’ve realized it’s all my parents’ fault I used to feel the way I did. He helped me so much, and I know you think I’m crazy, detective Shim-”
Changmin startles, looking at her in surprise. She just gives him a sweet smile.
“Like I was saying, I know you don’t believe me, detective Shim, but I’m glad this happened to me. You don’t have to worry about my mental health. I’m very grateful to him for helping me.”
“Him?” Jaejoong ventures softly. “Who, exactly?”
The young lady, still really just a girl, turns to Jaejoong with a frightening, crazy look in her eyes. “I can’t tell you that!” she says with a tinkling laugh, “you’ll just go and lock him up, won’t you? So why would I tell you two when you can’t possibly understand the good he’s doing for this world?”
After they leave, Changmin finds himself fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to bum a cigarette off of Jaejoong.
“So hyung, what do you think?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can.
“I don’t know,” Jaejoong replies helpfully, taking deep drags before blowing the smoke out in perfect rings from his mouth. “But I do have a crazy urge to tell you that I told you so.”
“She’s keeping her arm as a souvenir or something. That’s fucked up.”
Jaejoong shrugs. “Doesn’t mean that she can’t be grateful, even if she is crazy.”
---
Case two leads to five and then ten and then twenty. There’s chaos in the beginning when everyone had gotten so worked up about it, demanding the police to catch the perpetrator at once, demanding justice, demanding retribution.
But as time passes and the number of victims steadily climbs higher and higher, the people also seem to change their minds. There’s an underground cult following after this mysterious serial dismemberment criminal. The victims themselves seem to worship him like a god-the victims that are still alive, that is-and the public opinion seems to be shifting towards an air of indifference if not acceptance.
Changmin finds it all very disturbing and frustrating. He sighs with annoyance as he tosses his coat over the back of his sofa, collapsing onto it to rub away the tension in his temples. Barely a minute after, his cellphone rings.
Twenty minutes after that, Jaejoong’s sitting in his apartment, a handsome man sitting at his side. Changmin offers both of them tea before taking a seat, looking at them both in question.
“This is Jung Yunho,” Jaejoong provides to break the silence. “He…has some information for us about the limb cutter?”
Changmin shoots Jaejoong a dirty look for being so crass with his words, nodding towards Yunho before introducing himself. In the next hour, he learns all the technical information about the older man as well as his relationship to one of the previous victims.
“I only came because I wanted to help,” Yunho says, giving Changmin a big smile. “My friend, Yoochun? He can never play piano again because his fingers are gone. And while he might say he’s grateful and happy that this has happened, I can’t just let it go. He was great with music and now he can’t even play it anymore.”
Changmin nods in understanding. “But Yunho-sshi, please, you have to understand-”
“I want to help you!” Yunho reiterates. “Out of all the victims, three of them have been my friends. The world’s very tiny, Changmin-sshi. I could be of use to you. Use me as a decoy if you want. I’m fairly certain that your limb cutter knows who you are since you’ve been after him for almost a year now, correct?”
“Yeah…” Changmin says, his eyes drifting over to Jaejoong’s face. His friend just gives him a shrug and Changmin sighs, standing up so Yunho will stand up as well, not in the mood for this to continue. “Look, I’ll call you, alright, Yunho-sshi? Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” Yunho replies easily, stretching an arm out to give Changmin a firm handshake.
Yunho’s hands are so warm.
“Don’t forget to call!” the older man reminds them before walking off. Changmin pauses for a bit before closing the door, turning to Jaejoong with a disbelieving look on his face.
“Where did you find him? Does he have delusions of grandeur or a hero complex or what?”
Jaejoong frowns at Changmin’s words. “This is why you’re single and have no friends. Want me to tell you my gut feeling about him?”
“Not at all.”
“He’s a great guy, Changmin-ah. Yunho might not always know what’s best for himself and others but he does always want the best for other people, and they really don’t make them like him anymore these days. You might want to call him and see if he can help. He’s pretty good friends with Park Yoochun and since Park won’t give away anything about our favourite limb cutter, you can always get close-”
Jaejoong pauses, looking Changmin up and down, twisting his lips a little.
“Well, I suppose you can try to get close to Yunho since you’re clearly socially inept at making friends, and find out all you can about Park and the people he was hanging around with.”
Changmin looks at Jaejoong in vague surprise and amusement. “What’s this, hyung? Using people as a means to an end? That doesn’t sound like you.”
Jaejoong reaches over and punches Changmin on the arm, huffing rather indignantly. “And here I was trying to do something nice for you! You know, go on a few dates, talk about bloody stumps, share a passionate night together…is it so wrong to not want to see my dongsaeng grow old all alone and depressed about his dreary, shabby life?”
Snorting, Changmin rolls his eyes and turns away, but only to hide the flash of hurt when truth hit too close to home. He and Jaejoong have been friends for almost a year now and with the older man’s annoying ability to read people like books printed in size 72 font, Jaejoong knows him far too well despite Changmin’s attempts at hiding himself away. In this line of work, you get torn up to pieces if you take everything to heart and care about everyone and everything. Still, it doesn’t mean that the truth doesn’t hurt…
In the mornings, Changmin can see lines on his face in the mirror that weren’t there even two years ago. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone from loving his work no matter how gruelling and hard to stomach to moving through the days with utter apathy and his own loneliness for company.
A life of memories isn’t much of a life at all, is it?
---
He calls Jung Yunho to meet up and discuss the case.
Surprisingly, one coffee date turns to a weekly thing, and that leads to dinner on Friday night, and that leads to an open invitation for Changmin to join Yunho at a club one Saturday, and that leads to Changmin bringing Yunho home despite the older man’s assurance that he’s not too drunk to get home on his own.
In the midst of all this, Changmin doesn’t learn anything about Park Yoochun he didn’t know already nor does he find out anything to help the case. Yunho’s friends are just like him; sociable, fun, talkative, and everything Changmin doesn’t categorize himself as.
Sometimes, he has to wonder why Yunho chooses to stay with him.
---
Changmin’s job pays pretty well but his apartment’s always been too big to live in by himself. He hasn’t been able to contact Junsu ever since his best friend just up and left to join the cult of the criminal Changmin’s been chasing after for the past year and a half. They call themselves Hackers and Jaejoong found it funny in a bad way. And Changmin’s too embarrassed to invite Jaejoong over all the time, especially since he’s always the one saying that he’s not lonely or scared of spending the rest of his life this way.
Fortunately for him, without having to be too explicit about what he wants, Yunho shows up more and more, the visits and sleepovers frequent enough that one morning, Changmin goes to the bathroom and sees two toothbrushes in a cup on the sink instead of just one. The bristles are facing each other and gently touching and while he would normally find it unsanitary, he finds it bringing a smile to his face.
“Wake up, lazy,” Changmin says too affectionately for his own tastes once he gets back to the bedroom, reaching over to tangle his fingers in Yunho’s soft hair. “I have to go to work.”
“Ngh…” Yunho mumbles, shifting around a little in bed. He eventually flops over to where Changmin’s sitting, lifting his head only to decisively drop it again in Changmin’s lap, looking up at the younger man with a more than half-asleep smile. “Why do you have to go already?”
“There’s lots of work to do. I’ve been chasing after this guy for two years, Yunho-yah. Two years! And all I know about him are his sex, his weird preference to leave all the dismembered limbs nailed to the victims’ walls, and that all his victims seem to love him. Oh, if they’re not dead, that is. I just have…I have so much work to do.”
While it’s true that cases have been slowing down, they still haven’t stopped completely. And with his reputation and two years of hard work on the line, Changmin can’t just close this case as unsolved, not even when he knows that deep down, he really wants to.
Yunho’s fully awake now, looking up at Changmin’s weary expression with sympathy, reaching up to gently touch the younger man’s lips. “Hey,” he says with a soft smile, “if you ever get tired of work, you can always come home to do me.”
Changmin blinks and looks down in surprise, then finally cracks a smile, eventually bending lower to laugh softly against Yunho’s lips. “And do even more work while you just lie around and enjoy the fruits of my burden? Yeah, right. I already did that last night. It’s your turn!”
“Deal!” Yunho crows, laughing and tickling Changmin gently to hear the younger man emit something like an adorable giggle that even Changmin is surprised to hear.
But with Yunho, a lot of things surprise him. He’s not sure he wants his old life back anymore.
---
Fifty-seven cases and twenty-eight meandering months later, Changmin decides that this is the very last case he’s going to take before he quits. Now that he has Yunho, he can’t actually bear to be in this line of work anymore.
And he’s scared. Irrationally, Changmin’s afraid that as soon as the case is resolved, the tether holding him and Yunho together will weaken. It is the reason they even started talking to each other and met up in the first place, after all. Even if they like each other so much now, after the explicit reason to stay together fades…
The life before Yunho wasn’t a life.
---
“I wish I had stayed away from criminology,” Changmin says very abruptly one night. Yunho’s hand pauses from where it’s drawing shapes onto the younger man’s chest, and then Yunho gets to his elbows, looking down at Changmin in curiosity. “I mean,” Changmin adds softly, “I wish I had just gone to med school and become a doctor or went to graduate school to be a prof like I had been planning since the age of five.”
“You sure dreamed realistically, didn’t you?” Yunho asks, teasing gently. “I used to dream about being a superhero. I would touch dead people and give them life or heal all wounds on people who were hurt.”
“Well then…” Changmin says slowly, “you’re my hero, aren’t you?”
Yunho blinks in surprise at the cheesy words that leave Changmin’s mouth. He can’t help but laugh and kisses away the embarrassed pout on the younger man’s face, nodding happily to hear Changmin admit that to him.
“If I never solve this case, and even if I did, would you still love me?” Changmin asks suddenly.
Startled and thrown for a loop once more, Yunho remains silent for a while before nodding, reaching to cup Changmin’s cheek. “Why would you even ask a thing like that?” he whispers, tangling fingers into Changmin’s hair to tug gently.
“Because I don’t know what reason you’d have to stay, then,” Changmin replies with a small shrug. “You had a personal investment in this case because your friend Yoochun lost something so important to him. And if I solve this case or just leave it hanging as perpetually unsolved and become a failure at what I do, I just don’t see why you would stay with me willingly when you can do so much better.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. It’s only going to make you feel worse.”
“But it’s true! If I had just stayed in a line of work that wasn’t so crazy and dangerous and morbid, I don’t know, maybe I’d be different now. I’m not sociable and I’m not very nice and I’m hard to be around. Jaejoong-hyung only likes me because he has some weird sixth sense and senses that I’m a good person at heart, but what does that really say about me?”
Yunho frowns and tugs Changmin’s hair a little harshly until the younger man looks up at him. “You need to cherish yourself more, Changmin-ah. You shouldn’t hate yourself. Out of everyone in the world, you deserve your own love and respect the most.”
“But I don’t,” Changmin says painfully, looking up with such a helpless look that Yunho’s heart squeezes.
“Then you’ll have to learn.” Yunho moves his hand over to Changmin’s heart, pressing down to feel the firm, steady beats, bending to gently kiss warm skin before looking back up into Changmin’s eyes. “You never know what you have until it’s gone, Changmin-ah. You shouldn’t take that risk all the time. Hating yourself and wishing you were different or somebody else is never the right thing to do. You have to cherish yourself more than that.”
Suddenly, Changmin is reminded of how warm Yunho’s hands are, and everything around him seems to click into place.
Staring up with wide, wide eyes, he almost begins to laugh when Yunho strokes his cheek, smiling down at him tenderly.
An eternity passes between them.
“How- how long have you been waiting for me?” Changmin asks eventually, his voice shaking, tears springing to his eyes. He helplessly wraps his arms around Yunho’s body, pressing his hands down hard onto the older man’s shoulderblades so they can be closer and breathe each other in. “You found Jaejoong first, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” Yunho says soothingly, “you were so unhappy that I could feel it radiating off of you from miles away.”
“Tell me about Yoochun.”
“He used to sing. Ruined it by smoking four packs a day and drinking all the time and doing everything he shouldn’t. He wasn’t making music and that made him sad and he hated himself for getting to what he was, so I took something away, and the loss made him remember just how much he was worth. And he treasures himself again, Changmin-ah. Everyone’s different but everyone eventually sees. They hate themselves with such passion and sadness and when I take a part away, they can finally cherish the rest of themselves again.”
Changmin stares up at Yunho in blatant shock and then starts laughing, tears streaking past his temples. “I must be crazy because that just made sense to me. You made me crazy, Yunho-yah.”
Yunho smiles and leans forward to press a kiss to Changmin’s lips, letting the younger man tug and claw at him until their lips are crushed together, the younger man’s tongue inside of his mouth, swirling and tasting with needy desperation.
“You can’t do this now,” Changmin whispers breathlessly, cupping Yunho’s cheeks. “You- I finally have you an- and I finally have something to be happy about. You can’t-“ He bites his lip and feels his eyes well with tears all over again. “You can’t take that away now that I’m finally happy. You’re the one good thing in my life, Yunho-yah. Don’t take that away from me.”
“So tell me,” Yunho whispers, voice low and husky, so soothing that Changmin lets out a painful breath like he’s just been punched in the gut. “How much should I take to make the sadness go away? Tell me and I’ll do it, Changmin. I can’t stand to see you so upset all the time.”
Changmin thinks for a long, long time. He goes through all five stages of grief in the short timespan of a half hour and by the time acceptance settles in, Yunho’s already left sucking lovebites all over his neck and chest, their hands laced together tightly on the bedsheet.
“You make me happy,” Changmin half moans, arching against Yunho’s body, the action so familiar that he wishes they could’ve met under different circumstances. “Please, just let me be happy.”
They make love again, Changmin writhing and bucking with pleasure, clinging to Yunho with bone-shattering neediness. Sticky with come and sweat, Changmin finally lays back on his bed afterward, a content smile on his face, nearly purring with happiness as Yunho kisses him softly all over, fingers playing ceaselessly with his hair.
He feels a warmth on his chest, his heart beating so hard that Changmin thinks it might stop. Nothing hurts anymore as his vision dims. The last thing Changmin sees is Yunho’s gentle, heartbroken smile, and that too eventually fades away, the warmth of Yunho’s hand on his chest the only lingering feeling as he surrenders to darkness.
---
Three years after the cases begin, it’s Jaejoong that has the pleasure of closing it.
He sits in an otherwise empty diner, silently watching as Yunho eats a big breakfast of pancakes smothered in fruit yogurt and syrup the way only Changmin used to eat them, eyes downcast and face weary.
“Why now?” Jaejoong asks softly. He can’t help but stare at the jar next to Yunho’s plate, some strange liquid inside to preserve the human heart floating in it. He has no doubt that it’s Changmin’s and his stomach gives a roll, mind flashing back to how he had found his ex-partner and close friend in bed, tucked in warmly with a bleeding hole in his chest where his heart should have been.
Yunho looks up at Jaejoong from across the table, his eyes dull with exhaustion but lips still curved in a smile. “After I took away his pain, I began to hate myself,” he answers softly. “I took away my own happiness and then my purpose was gone.”
“Is that why Changmin was the last?” Jaejoong asks, unable to feel any hatred for the man in front of him. Yunho’s still a good guy at heart. He can feel it now more so than before.
“I only tried to do what’s best.”
Camera flashes go off from the window next to them and Jaejoong turns to look outside with a disapproving frown, the crowd gathered outside of the diner more than just a bit irritating. Fans and curious spectators are all crowded outside of the diner to try and get a look at the notorious limb cutter and the human heart he had brought with him as company for brunch.
“I found him with a smile on his face,” Jaejoong says with a shrug, unsure of why he’s trying to make Yunho feel better. “I think…in the end…you did make him happy.”
“I wasn’t supposed to love him so much,” Yunho whispers, not trusting his own voice to be any louder than that. “It hurt so bad when I knew that I didn’t have any other choice. Not even taking all his limbs would’ve been enough; he hated his life so thoroughly by then and I wanted him to stay with me but he was so, so sad, and- and…”
Jaejoong watches sympathetically as Yunho starts to cry softly, face hidden in his hands. He lets the other man cry for a little while before reaching over to gently touch Yunho’s shoulder, drawing his attention again.
There’s not much time left now. Either he arrests Yunho right here or…
But it seems like Yunho’s already one step ahead of him. “Thank you, Jaejoong-sshi,” he whispers, and Jaejoong nods, biting his lip as he turns away.
He sees out of his peripheral vision a dim glow from Yunho’s hands. Squeezing his eyes shut, Jaejoong waits until people outside start to scream wildly and bang on the glass like animals, flinching hard as warm blood suddenly splatters all down the right side of his face and body.
Letting out a hard breath, Jaejoong slowly opens his eyes, turning back to see Yunho slumped over on the table, bleeding out all over his half-eaten pancakes. He reaches over and unscrews the lid of the jar, then goes to carefully pick up Yunho’s heart cupped in the older man's own hands, and gently submerges it into preservation liquid. He screws the lid back on tightly and smiles a little as he sees two hearts floating together, always touching no matter how much he rocks the jar.
Jaejoong gives himself a shabby cleanup with coarse diner napkins before hugging the jar tightly in his arms, going outside with a frown on his face. The crowd clears a path for him back to the car and he climbs in to set the jar in his lap, tapping at it with a smile on his face, wondering what kind of a burial he should give these two.
Deep down, though Changmin and Yunho were at opposite ends of the spectrum, they were both such good people at heart. Who’s to say who’s right or wrong?
There’s never any real black and white in the world. It’s all shades of grey.
---
(courtesy of reallycorking)
---
...lol. i hope i haven't confused any of you. 8D it was such an awesome dream and i haven't done it any justice at all but omg, it was so cool. D: morbid, but so cool. there were like exciting car chases and jumping off buildings and...sigh. XD
i haven't written in so long so i hope that this wasn't too bad. XDDDD thanks for reading!
p.s. yes, that amazing picture there? i know, why does reallycorking possess such fantastic artistic talent. ;____; cries forever. thank you traci. i LOVE it!! :) ♥
joshua radin songs
Free Music | free Mp3
yunho/changmin
r
a case of serial dismemberment.
i...had a really, really interesting dream, rofl. here's my warning now: don't read if you get queasy easily.
---
The first case that Changmin is called in on almost makes him vomit all over his shoes, but it’s only because he’s hardened and jaded after nearly a decade of the same or worse that he refrains from doing so. The new guy to his left turns around with a hand clapped over his mouth and Changmin hears the distant sound of retching as he continues to stare down in shock, watching thin rivulets of blood flow from almost cauterized stumps where thighs should be attached to knees attached to calves attached to ankles attached to feet.
Instead, there’s only a clean slice as if a butcher had made the steadiest decision to swing down with a giant meat cleaver and hacked the legs away. The smell of burnt human flesh pervades the room, suffocates him, but Changmin can’t leave, eyes fixed on the still bleeding wounds and then the face of the young man lying in bed, sheets soaked through with blood.
On the wall, two perfectly healthy if dismembered legs are nailed, relaxingly limp and looking warm to the touch in the orange glow of the victim’s desklamp.
“Jaejoong-ah!” Changmin calls over his shoulder, waiting until the new guy stumbles back into the room, handkerchief pressed firmly over his nose and mouth. “Are you done being sick all over your own shoes?”
The older man shoots him a look but it comes off weak in his state of shock and horror. “I- I don’t think this was an act of ill will, Changmin.”
“Two bloody stumps where legs used to be doesn’t look like ill will to you?” Changmin asks flatly. He points to the marks on the body, marks that might be mistaken for painful bruises but are in fact lovebites. “Crime of passion. Isn’t that obvious enough?”
Jaejoong shakes his head again, looking at Changmin weakly but the light in his eyes is determined. “No, Changmin. I’m telling you. This wasn’t an act with bad intentions.” He steps closer to the body and gently rests his fingers on the young man’s cheek, eyes softening as he brushes his fingers over lips that are almost a smile. “I feel pain here but I also feel gratitude.”
Changmin rolls his eyes and sighs, shrugging noncommittally before exiting the room. The investigation team can collect up pieces of evidence and take photographs.
He hears Jaejoong quickly following after him and Changmin sighs again. Really, did they have to sign the bright-eyed new rookie to him simply because Jaejoong always has “freakishly accurate gut feelings” about cases? What kind of qualification is that to be working with him?
“You shouldn’t be upset with me just because you’re always in a bad mood, you know,” Jaejoong pipes up from behind him.
“No one asked you.”
“Changmin-ah,” Jaejoong says with a big sigh, dropping all formalities now that they’re outside, his pride dictating that since he’s older, Changmin should really learn to be politer to him. “This is why you’re single. No one wants to date a man with the warmth of a carcass.”
---
The first case doesn’t make it on the front page news until the second case occurs, and that one’s only brought to everyone’s attention because the victim was the daughter of a very rich local politician.
She didn’t die, though.
Changmin sits across from her in the large living room of the family’s mansion, staring at the young woman curiously. Sometimes, she reaches over to touch her bandaged stump, causing Changmin’s mind to always attempt at conjuring up the image of an arm where the girl’s arm should be but isn’t.
“I’m happy,” she says, looking at him with a firm smile.
“Happy?” Changmin repeats. He doesn’t even bother writing it down. Clearly, the reality of the situation hasn’t settled in yet.
Jaejoong nods to his left and Changmin sighs inwardly. “I understand,” his friend says softly, “this happened to you for a reason, right?”
“Of course!” she exclaims, nearly jovial about the whole situation. Denial. It has to be the denial. “He’s helped me in ways my parents could never understand. Being locked up in this huge house all the time, not doing anything except practicing etiquette and violin and piano and art, I mean, what does my dad think this is? The 19th century? It’s only because this happened that I’ve realized it’s all my parents’ fault I used to feel the way I did. He helped me so much, and I know you think I’m crazy, detective Shim-”
Changmin startles, looking at her in surprise. She just gives him a sweet smile.
“Like I was saying, I know you don’t believe me, detective Shim, but I’m glad this happened to me. You don’t have to worry about my mental health. I’m very grateful to him for helping me.”
“Him?” Jaejoong ventures softly. “Who, exactly?”
The young lady, still really just a girl, turns to Jaejoong with a frightening, crazy look in her eyes. “I can’t tell you that!” she says with a tinkling laugh, “you’ll just go and lock him up, won’t you? So why would I tell you two when you can’t possibly understand the good he’s doing for this world?”
After they leave, Changmin finds himself fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to bum a cigarette off of Jaejoong.
“So hyung, what do you think?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can.
“I don’t know,” Jaejoong replies helpfully, taking deep drags before blowing the smoke out in perfect rings from his mouth. “But I do have a crazy urge to tell you that I told you so.”
“She’s keeping her arm as a souvenir or something. That’s fucked up.”
Jaejoong shrugs. “Doesn’t mean that she can’t be grateful, even if she is crazy.”
---
Case two leads to five and then ten and then twenty. There’s chaos in the beginning when everyone had gotten so worked up about it, demanding the police to catch the perpetrator at once, demanding justice, demanding retribution.
But as time passes and the number of victims steadily climbs higher and higher, the people also seem to change their minds. There’s an underground cult following after this mysterious serial dismemberment criminal. The victims themselves seem to worship him like a god-the victims that are still alive, that is-and the public opinion seems to be shifting towards an air of indifference if not acceptance.
Changmin finds it all very disturbing and frustrating. He sighs with annoyance as he tosses his coat over the back of his sofa, collapsing onto it to rub away the tension in his temples. Barely a minute after, his cellphone rings.
Twenty minutes after that, Jaejoong’s sitting in his apartment, a handsome man sitting at his side. Changmin offers both of them tea before taking a seat, looking at them both in question.
“This is Jung Yunho,” Jaejoong provides to break the silence. “He…has some information for us about the limb cutter?”
Changmin shoots Jaejoong a dirty look for being so crass with his words, nodding towards Yunho before introducing himself. In the next hour, he learns all the technical information about the older man as well as his relationship to one of the previous victims.
“I only came because I wanted to help,” Yunho says, giving Changmin a big smile. “My friend, Yoochun? He can never play piano again because his fingers are gone. And while he might say he’s grateful and happy that this has happened, I can’t just let it go. He was great with music and now he can’t even play it anymore.”
Changmin nods in understanding. “But Yunho-sshi, please, you have to understand-”
“I want to help you!” Yunho reiterates. “Out of all the victims, three of them have been my friends. The world’s very tiny, Changmin-sshi. I could be of use to you. Use me as a decoy if you want. I’m fairly certain that your limb cutter knows who you are since you’ve been after him for almost a year now, correct?”
“Yeah…” Changmin says, his eyes drifting over to Jaejoong’s face. His friend just gives him a shrug and Changmin sighs, standing up so Yunho will stand up as well, not in the mood for this to continue. “Look, I’ll call you, alright, Yunho-sshi? Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” Yunho replies easily, stretching an arm out to give Changmin a firm handshake.
Yunho’s hands are so warm.
“Don’t forget to call!” the older man reminds them before walking off. Changmin pauses for a bit before closing the door, turning to Jaejoong with a disbelieving look on his face.
“Where did you find him? Does he have delusions of grandeur or a hero complex or what?”
Jaejoong frowns at Changmin’s words. “This is why you’re single and have no friends. Want me to tell you my gut feeling about him?”
“Not at all.”
“He’s a great guy, Changmin-ah. Yunho might not always know what’s best for himself and others but he does always want the best for other people, and they really don’t make them like him anymore these days. You might want to call him and see if he can help. He’s pretty good friends with Park Yoochun and since Park won’t give away anything about our favourite limb cutter, you can always get close-”
Jaejoong pauses, looking Changmin up and down, twisting his lips a little.
“Well, I suppose you can try to get close to Yunho since you’re clearly socially inept at making friends, and find out all you can about Park and the people he was hanging around with.”
Changmin looks at Jaejoong in vague surprise and amusement. “What’s this, hyung? Using people as a means to an end? That doesn’t sound like you.”
Jaejoong reaches over and punches Changmin on the arm, huffing rather indignantly. “And here I was trying to do something nice for you! You know, go on a few dates, talk about bloody stumps, share a passionate night together…is it so wrong to not want to see my dongsaeng grow old all alone and depressed about his dreary, shabby life?”
Snorting, Changmin rolls his eyes and turns away, but only to hide the flash of hurt when truth hit too close to home. He and Jaejoong have been friends for almost a year now and with the older man’s annoying ability to read people like books printed in size 72 font, Jaejoong knows him far too well despite Changmin’s attempts at hiding himself away. In this line of work, you get torn up to pieces if you take everything to heart and care about everyone and everything. Still, it doesn’t mean that the truth doesn’t hurt…
In the mornings, Changmin can see lines on his face in the mirror that weren’t there even two years ago. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone from loving his work no matter how gruelling and hard to stomach to moving through the days with utter apathy and his own loneliness for company.
A life of memories isn’t much of a life at all, is it?
---
He calls Jung Yunho to meet up and discuss the case.
Surprisingly, one coffee date turns to a weekly thing, and that leads to dinner on Friday night, and that leads to an open invitation for Changmin to join Yunho at a club one Saturday, and that leads to Changmin bringing Yunho home despite the older man’s assurance that he’s not too drunk to get home on his own.
In the midst of all this, Changmin doesn’t learn anything about Park Yoochun he didn’t know already nor does he find out anything to help the case. Yunho’s friends are just like him; sociable, fun, talkative, and everything Changmin doesn’t categorize himself as.
Sometimes, he has to wonder why Yunho chooses to stay with him.
---
Changmin’s job pays pretty well but his apartment’s always been too big to live in by himself. He hasn’t been able to contact Junsu ever since his best friend just up and left to join the cult of the criminal Changmin’s been chasing after for the past year and a half. They call themselves Hackers and Jaejoong found it funny in a bad way. And Changmin’s too embarrassed to invite Jaejoong over all the time, especially since he’s always the one saying that he’s not lonely or scared of spending the rest of his life this way.
Fortunately for him, without having to be too explicit about what he wants, Yunho shows up more and more, the visits and sleepovers frequent enough that one morning, Changmin goes to the bathroom and sees two toothbrushes in a cup on the sink instead of just one. The bristles are facing each other and gently touching and while he would normally find it unsanitary, he finds it bringing a smile to his face.
“Wake up, lazy,” Changmin says too affectionately for his own tastes once he gets back to the bedroom, reaching over to tangle his fingers in Yunho’s soft hair. “I have to go to work.”
“Ngh…” Yunho mumbles, shifting around a little in bed. He eventually flops over to where Changmin’s sitting, lifting his head only to decisively drop it again in Changmin’s lap, looking up at the younger man with a more than half-asleep smile. “Why do you have to go already?”
“There’s lots of work to do. I’ve been chasing after this guy for two years, Yunho-yah. Two years! And all I know about him are his sex, his weird preference to leave all the dismembered limbs nailed to the victims’ walls, and that all his victims seem to love him. Oh, if they’re not dead, that is. I just have…I have so much work to do.”
While it’s true that cases have been slowing down, they still haven’t stopped completely. And with his reputation and two years of hard work on the line, Changmin can’t just close this case as unsolved, not even when he knows that deep down, he really wants to.
Yunho’s fully awake now, looking up at Changmin’s weary expression with sympathy, reaching up to gently touch the younger man’s lips. “Hey,” he says with a soft smile, “if you ever get tired of work, you can always come home to do me.”
Changmin blinks and looks down in surprise, then finally cracks a smile, eventually bending lower to laugh softly against Yunho’s lips. “And do even more work while you just lie around and enjoy the fruits of my burden? Yeah, right. I already did that last night. It’s your turn!”
“Deal!” Yunho crows, laughing and tickling Changmin gently to hear the younger man emit something like an adorable giggle that even Changmin is surprised to hear.
But with Yunho, a lot of things surprise him. He’s not sure he wants his old life back anymore.
---
Fifty-seven cases and twenty-eight meandering months later, Changmin decides that this is the very last case he’s going to take before he quits. Now that he has Yunho, he can’t actually bear to be in this line of work anymore.
And he’s scared. Irrationally, Changmin’s afraid that as soon as the case is resolved, the tether holding him and Yunho together will weaken. It is the reason they even started talking to each other and met up in the first place, after all. Even if they like each other so much now, after the explicit reason to stay together fades…
The life before Yunho wasn’t a life.
---
“I wish I had stayed away from criminology,” Changmin says very abruptly one night. Yunho’s hand pauses from where it’s drawing shapes onto the younger man’s chest, and then Yunho gets to his elbows, looking down at Changmin in curiosity. “I mean,” Changmin adds softly, “I wish I had just gone to med school and become a doctor or went to graduate school to be a prof like I had been planning since the age of five.”
“You sure dreamed realistically, didn’t you?” Yunho asks, teasing gently. “I used to dream about being a superhero. I would touch dead people and give them life or heal all wounds on people who were hurt.”
“Well then…” Changmin says slowly, “you’re my hero, aren’t you?”
Yunho blinks in surprise at the cheesy words that leave Changmin’s mouth. He can’t help but laugh and kisses away the embarrassed pout on the younger man’s face, nodding happily to hear Changmin admit that to him.
“If I never solve this case, and even if I did, would you still love me?” Changmin asks suddenly.
Startled and thrown for a loop once more, Yunho remains silent for a while before nodding, reaching to cup Changmin’s cheek. “Why would you even ask a thing like that?” he whispers, tangling fingers into Changmin’s hair to tug gently.
“Because I don’t know what reason you’d have to stay, then,” Changmin replies with a small shrug. “You had a personal investment in this case because your friend Yoochun lost something so important to him. And if I solve this case or just leave it hanging as perpetually unsolved and become a failure at what I do, I just don’t see why you would stay with me willingly when you can do so much better.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. It’s only going to make you feel worse.”
“But it’s true! If I had just stayed in a line of work that wasn’t so crazy and dangerous and morbid, I don’t know, maybe I’d be different now. I’m not sociable and I’m not very nice and I’m hard to be around. Jaejoong-hyung only likes me because he has some weird sixth sense and senses that I’m a good person at heart, but what does that really say about me?”
Yunho frowns and tugs Changmin’s hair a little harshly until the younger man looks up at him. “You need to cherish yourself more, Changmin-ah. You shouldn’t hate yourself. Out of everyone in the world, you deserve your own love and respect the most.”
“But I don’t,” Changmin says painfully, looking up with such a helpless look that Yunho’s heart squeezes.
“Then you’ll have to learn.” Yunho moves his hand over to Changmin’s heart, pressing down to feel the firm, steady beats, bending to gently kiss warm skin before looking back up into Changmin’s eyes. “You never know what you have until it’s gone, Changmin-ah. You shouldn’t take that risk all the time. Hating yourself and wishing you were different or somebody else is never the right thing to do. You have to cherish yourself more than that.”
Suddenly, Changmin is reminded of how warm Yunho’s hands are, and everything around him seems to click into place.
Staring up with wide, wide eyes, he almost begins to laugh when Yunho strokes his cheek, smiling down at him tenderly.
An eternity passes between them.
“How- how long have you been waiting for me?” Changmin asks eventually, his voice shaking, tears springing to his eyes. He helplessly wraps his arms around Yunho’s body, pressing his hands down hard onto the older man’s shoulderblades so they can be closer and breathe each other in. “You found Jaejoong first, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” Yunho says soothingly, “you were so unhappy that I could feel it radiating off of you from miles away.”
“Tell me about Yoochun.”
“He used to sing. Ruined it by smoking four packs a day and drinking all the time and doing everything he shouldn’t. He wasn’t making music and that made him sad and he hated himself for getting to what he was, so I took something away, and the loss made him remember just how much he was worth. And he treasures himself again, Changmin-ah. Everyone’s different but everyone eventually sees. They hate themselves with such passion and sadness and when I take a part away, they can finally cherish the rest of themselves again.”
Changmin stares up at Yunho in blatant shock and then starts laughing, tears streaking past his temples. “I must be crazy because that just made sense to me. You made me crazy, Yunho-yah.”
Yunho smiles and leans forward to press a kiss to Changmin’s lips, letting the younger man tug and claw at him until their lips are crushed together, the younger man’s tongue inside of his mouth, swirling and tasting with needy desperation.
“You can’t do this now,” Changmin whispers breathlessly, cupping Yunho’s cheeks. “You- I finally have you an- and I finally have something to be happy about. You can’t-“ He bites his lip and feels his eyes well with tears all over again. “You can’t take that away now that I’m finally happy. You’re the one good thing in my life, Yunho-yah. Don’t take that away from me.”
“So tell me,” Yunho whispers, voice low and husky, so soothing that Changmin lets out a painful breath like he’s just been punched in the gut. “How much should I take to make the sadness go away? Tell me and I’ll do it, Changmin. I can’t stand to see you so upset all the time.”
Changmin thinks for a long, long time. He goes through all five stages of grief in the short timespan of a half hour and by the time acceptance settles in, Yunho’s already left sucking lovebites all over his neck and chest, their hands laced together tightly on the bedsheet.
“You make me happy,” Changmin half moans, arching against Yunho’s body, the action so familiar that he wishes they could’ve met under different circumstances. “Please, just let me be happy.”
They make love again, Changmin writhing and bucking with pleasure, clinging to Yunho with bone-shattering neediness. Sticky with come and sweat, Changmin finally lays back on his bed afterward, a content smile on his face, nearly purring with happiness as Yunho kisses him softly all over, fingers playing ceaselessly with his hair.
He feels a warmth on his chest, his heart beating so hard that Changmin thinks it might stop. Nothing hurts anymore as his vision dims. The last thing Changmin sees is Yunho’s gentle, heartbroken smile, and that too eventually fades away, the warmth of Yunho’s hand on his chest the only lingering feeling as he surrenders to darkness.
---
Three years after the cases begin, it’s Jaejoong that has the pleasure of closing it.
He sits in an otherwise empty diner, silently watching as Yunho eats a big breakfast of pancakes smothered in fruit yogurt and syrup the way only Changmin used to eat them, eyes downcast and face weary.
“Why now?” Jaejoong asks softly. He can’t help but stare at the jar next to Yunho’s plate, some strange liquid inside to preserve the human heart floating in it. He has no doubt that it’s Changmin’s and his stomach gives a roll, mind flashing back to how he had found his ex-partner and close friend in bed, tucked in warmly with a bleeding hole in his chest where his heart should have been.
Yunho looks up at Jaejoong from across the table, his eyes dull with exhaustion but lips still curved in a smile. “After I took away his pain, I began to hate myself,” he answers softly. “I took away my own happiness and then my purpose was gone.”
“Is that why Changmin was the last?” Jaejoong asks, unable to feel any hatred for the man in front of him. Yunho’s still a good guy at heart. He can feel it now more so than before.
“I only tried to do what’s best.”
Camera flashes go off from the window next to them and Jaejoong turns to look outside with a disapproving frown, the crowd gathered outside of the diner more than just a bit irritating. Fans and curious spectators are all crowded outside of the diner to try and get a look at the notorious limb cutter and the human heart he had brought with him as company for brunch.
“I found him with a smile on his face,” Jaejoong says with a shrug, unsure of why he’s trying to make Yunho feel better. “I think…in the end…you did make him happy.”
“I wasn’t supposed to love him so much,” Yunho whispers, not trusting his own voice to be any louder than that. “It hurt so bad when I knew that I didn’t have any other choice. Not even taking all his limbs would’ve been enough; he hated his life so thoroughly by then and I wanted him to stay with me but he was so, so sad, and- and…”
Jaejoong watches sympathetically as Yunho starts to cry softly, face hidden in his hands. He lets the other man cry for a little while before reaching over to gently touch Yunho’s shoulder, drawing his attention again.
There’s not much time left now. Either he arrests Yunho right here or…
But it seems like Yunho’s already one step ahead of him. “Thank you, Jaejoong-sshi,” he whispers, and Jaejoong nods, biting his lip as he turns away.
He sees out of his peripheral vision a dim glow from Yunho’s hands. Squeezing his eyes shut, Jaejoong waits until people outside start to scream wildly and bang on the glass like animals, flinching hard as warm blood suddenly splatters all down the right side of his face and body.
Letting out a hard breath, Jaejoong slowly opens his eyes, turning back to see Yunho slumped over on the table, bleeding out all over his half-eaten pancakes. He reaches over and unscrews the lid of the jar, then goes to carefully pick up Yunho’s heart cupped in the older man's own hands, and gently submerges it into preservation liquid. He screws the lid back on tightly and smiles a little as he sees two hearts floating together, always touching no matter how much he rocks the jar.
Jaejoong gives himself a shabby cleanup with coarse diner napkins before hugging the jar tightly in his arms, going outside with a frown on his face. The crowd clears a path for him back to the car and he climbs in to set the jar in his lap, tapping at it with a smile on his face, wondering what kind of a burial he should give these two.
Deep down, though Changmin and Yunho were at opposite ends of the spectrum, they were both such good people at heart. Who’s to say who’s right or wrong?
There’s never any real black and white in the world. It’s all shades of grey.
---
(courtesy of reallycorking)
---
...lol. i hope i haven't confused any of you. 8D it was such an awesome dream and i haven't done it any justice at all but omg, it was so cool. D: morbid, but so cool. there were like exciting car chases and jumping off buildings and...sigh. XD
i haven't written in so long so i hope that this wasn't too bad. XDDDD thanks for reading!
p.s. yes, that amazing picture there? i know, why does reallycorking possess such fantastic artistic talent. ;____; cries forever. thank you traci. i LOVE it!! :) ♥
joshua radin songs
Free Music | free Mp3