sounds like love
sounds like love
yunho/jaejoong
pg-13
jaejoong's tired of plugging headphones into his heart and hearing nothing but static.
based off another dream i had. finally wrote me some yunjae. rofl. ♥
---
Jaejoong only has a very distant memory of what his music sounds like. When he was little, like really little, he remembers his mother handing him a cookie from the cookie jar. He had gone back to play in the front yard, munching quietly on chocolate chips, cheeks bulging. Pink earbuds that belonged to his sister were securely in his ears, and he had been bobbing his head to happy melodies full of pan flute backgrounds and sunny rhythms.
But that was a really long time ago.
He takes off his shirt, ready to collapse from his day at work, and looks at the little, unused jack in the middle of his chest. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought that it was rusting.
“Bleeding again,” he sighs. Grabbing a tissue and wetting it in the sink of his apartment, he gently wipes the dried blood away, crinkling his nose at the metallic smell.
It’s been too long since he’s plugged something in there. But really, he’s not a very big fan of static.
---
On good days, he can catch a snatch of music here and there. After Junsu had taken him to a house party that one night with no alcohol, for example. They had played Monopoly and Risk and Clue and Boggle until unfortunate times in the early morning and Jaejoong had had a ton of fun. On his way back home, still stone sober, he had plugged in his earbuds for the hell of it and caught something like bubblegum pop weaving in and out of the regular static.
It figures that Junsu would bring out the bubblegum pop within him. Strangely enough, the couple of masochistic occasions when he had asked Junsu for a listen of his music, all he ever heard were great, full voices belting melodies that could please the heavens. Kim Junsu, the voice, the boy bursting of music.
Jaejoong sighs, flopping back on his bed. He grabs a pair of red headphones off the dresser and puts them on, hesitating just slightly before plugging them in. A sharp pain announces itself in the middle of his chest and he coughs through it.
Damn it, nothing but static.
---
“You should go do happy things,” Yoochun says over the phone.
“Good job, Mr. Descriptive.”
“Look,” Yoochun says flatly, and Jaejoong can almost see the way his friend is rolling his eyes, “you want your music back but you don’t want to tell anyone about it because you’re too embarrassed to, but then you refuse to do anything about it and call me when you’re feeling shitty, and then you shoot down all my ide-”
“Okay, okay!” Jaejoong sighs, rolling over onto his stomach. “I just…can’t even remember the last time my heart ever gave me anything but static.”
“You’ll find it, Jaejoong-ah,” Yoochun encourages. Jaejoong rolls his eyes but smiles.
“So what’s the first step to happy things, then?”
“I don’t know, do things that make you happy!”
“Thanks, Yoochun. You’re a great help.”
“I am a very worldly person, you know.”
“Not worldly enough to know sarcasm, apparently.”
“You shut up.”
“I love you too.”
---
Truth is, Jaejoong loves music. Someone up there had seen it fit to give him a great voice and that’s not lost on him; the problem is, nothing he sings makes him feel anything. The hard songs, the lost songs, the mean songs, the chilled songs; they come out of him in technical perfection and fail to hold an iota of true feeling. Well, on the days when his relative pitch isn’t kicking his ass. But anyway.
Junsu’s dad’s friend’s friend who owns a nice, laid-back lounge was nice enough to let him work there for decent pay and more than decent tips. He gets to sing twice a week and women love him. Men too, depending on what color his hair is.
Singing makes him happy. Maybe it’s because he’s lost his own music.
After work that day, on the way home, he plugs his earbuds in again, wincing at the small sting in his chest that only comes with disuse.
Still static.
---
Jaejoong loves cooking, too.
He bakes a bajillion cookies, yes, a bajillion exactly, and carries it over to Yoochun’s house in a huge, flowery basket.
“What…” Yoochun starts to say, staring at Jaejoong from across the threshold.
“You owe me five bags of flour and two bags of sugar and a whole shitload of eggs,” Jaejoong informs him kindly, stepping in and dropping the cookies onto the kitchen counter, waving half-heartedly at Yoochun’s gaping girlfriend sitting on the couch.
“Guess that means you haven’t found your happy thing yet, huhn?” Yoochun asks. He grabs a cookie and starts munching, collecting Jaejoong’s pouting form into a hug.
“It’s really upsetting,” Jaejoong mumbles into Yoochun’s shoulder.
“I know.”
“Can I listen to yours for a while?”
“Sure,” Yoochun answers immediately, smiling, fishing out his earbuds and plugging them into his heart after unbuttoning his shirt, handing them over to Jaejoong.
Gorgeous, slow, lonely ballads fill his head. Jaejoong shoots a look over at Yoochun’s current girlfriend and sighs. And he had liked this one too.
“Just don’t say anything,” Yoochun says, seeing Jaejoong’s expression, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Not saying anything…” Honestly, Yoochun’s always been his source of gorgeous, slow, lonely ballads. It’s just that Jaejoong had been hoping that one day, he’ll get to hear a gorgeous, slow, not lonely ballad from Yoochun, because then he wouldn’t have to worry about his soulmate anymore.
“It’s fine.”
“Guess this means you haven’t found your happy thing either, huhn?”
Yoochun smiles and his eyes crinkle, collecting Jaejoong in another hug, rocking the two of them back and forth. “Soulmates for a reason, right?”
---
Bike riding. Jaejoong decides on bike riding.
Whoever said that you never forget how to ride a bike is a flipping liar.
Handlebars shaking dangerously, Jaejoong keeps a deathgrip on the bike, swerving madly down the street. If he doesn’t get himself killed for this, he’s going to be a better man and give up smoking. Or something.
For a while, he thinks he’s got the hang of it. “Hey, this isn’t so ba-” he starts, and then the road drops forward into the most massive hill he’s ever seen in his life. “Why did I take this road!” he screams to himself, and out loud too, forgetting how to brake, beginning his descent into what he is sure will be a terribly painful death. He hopes it’s a closed casket funeral and that they use that picture of him with the black hair and diamond stud earring.
---
Yunho had been craving hodo kwaja like crazy for the past few days. The craving didn’t go away and Changmin had gotten “really fucking tired of hearing it all the livelong day, hyung, so go freaking get some before I sew your mouth shut” and so here he is, buying a whole box. Changmin is an enabler in the strangest ways.
Three steps out of the store, he hears a strange sound. Kind of like screaming. He tilts his head to the side and looks up at the street lamp, kind of disturbed that the sound seems to be getting louder the longer he stands there.
“What is tha-”
“Oh my god watch ouuuuut!” Jaejoong screams, headed straight for him.
“Oh my god!” Yunho cries, eyes wide, whirling around to see a platinum blond on a bike, shooting towards him at the speed of light.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!”
“What! What do you mea-”
“If you move, I’ll hit you! Just don’t move!”
“Don’t hit me!” Yunho cries. He freezes and stares, too petrified to look away, seeing the bike headed closer and closer towards his body.
“DON’T MOVE!”
“I’M NOT MOVING!”
“DON’T MOV- OH DEAR GOD-”
A second and three quarters later, Yunho’s flat on his back with a fully grown man on top of him, still trying to remember how to breathe. He’s pretty sure the bicycle handlebars have made a lasting impression in his diaphragm.
Jaejoong groans and silently thanks whoever’s up there for providing him such a soft cushion. Getting up, he looks down to see a gorgeous, gorgeous, man around his age decked out on the ground, spluttering. “Whoops,” he says, face flaming, reaching out a hand and tugging the other man up.
“Wha- wha-” Yunho starts.
“Hi, I’m Jaejoong,” Jaejoong says, coughing and blushing, offering his hand. He can see the metal wreckage that was his bike out of the corner of his eye.
“Jung Yunho!” Yunho huffs, “and now you can tell me why you told me not to move!”
“I didn’t want to hit you!” Jaejoong says, pouting.
“But you hit me anyway! Were…were you aiming?”
“How could you even imply that!”
“Who tells people to stay still! You tell them to move!”
“It’s not like I meant to hit you!”
“But you did!”
“And you’re alive!”
“Barely!”
“Stop exaggerating!”
“My hodo kwaja’s decorating the cement because of you!”
Anyway, twenty minutes later, they both realize how it looks for two grown men to be squabbling and poking each other in the chest out in the middle of the street, and go back into the store where Jaejoong buys Yunho another box of hodo kwaja.
“I really am sorry,” Jaejoong grumbles, still kind of blushing, crossing his arms.
“It’s okay,” Yunho sighs, smiling wide and happy as he stuffs another red bean pastry into his mouth. “Mmm…want one?”
And that’s how they become friends.
---
Two weeks later, Jaejoong realizes with stunning clarity that he’s fallen in love.
---
“This kind of shit always happens to me,” Jaejoong nearly sobs in a whine into the mouthpiece of his phone, banging his head against his kitchen table. “This is so bad, Yoochun-ah, so bad, so, so, so bad, sooooo, sooooooooo-”
“I get it!” Yoochun yells, “just calm down for one second! Kim Jaejoong!”
“Park Yoochun!”
“It’s fine!”
“What do you mean it’s fine!?” Jaejoong screams, hitting the kitchen table now with the palm of his hand, bouncing in his chair. “This is clearly not fine!! We-we’re friends! I can’t just suddenly be in l-l-love with him!”
“You’ve known him for two weeks! It’s fine to like him like that!”
“I’m pretty sure he’s straight, Yoochun-ah.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to like him.”
Jaejoong is silent for a full minute. “…But…”
“Maybe it’ll go away if you tell him.”
“…Maybe…” Jaejoong sighs, slowly, not sure if he even wants it to go away.
“Or maybe,” Yoochun says a few seconds later, voice clearly reflecting a smile, “you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And then there won’t be anything to worry about.”
---
Jung Yunho. Age twenty-three, taking a break before law school to learn dance, as crazy as that sounds. Comes from a nice, traditional family, loves sports, loves music, loves a lot in general.
He comes over almost every day. It had been great fun at first and then two weeks later, once Jaejoong’s had his stupid revelation, it’s just painful.
“Hey JaeJae!” Yunho says as soon as Jaejoong opens the door, smiling wide like he always does, holding out a bag of flour.
Jaejoong melts on the inside and smiles in confusion. “What’s this?”
“Your friend Yoochun called me. He’s nice. Anyway, he said you were in dire need of flour so I went out and got you a bag.”
Jung Yunho. So flawlessly kind that Jaejoong wants to throw up in adoration.
“…Thanks,” Jaejoong says, closing the door, taking a very, very deep breath before facing Yunho with a smile, hoping on everything he knows of to make it through the visit without turning into a puddle of lovesick goo.
---
A month after their first, crazy meeting, Jaejoong’s ready to lose his mind. At first he had just believed himself to be so lonely that he was willing to clutch onto anything that gave him company, but the more time he spent with Yunho, the more he felt like he was drowning. Yunho sleeps over sometimes, their friendship so immediate and so thick that he feels like he’s known the younger man forever. Those nights are the hardest, when Jaejoong needs simply to turn his head and be face to face with Yunho’s sleeping smile, eyes drawn to that teasing beauty mark above ready-to-kiss lips.
Every time he draws close, Jaejoong can feel his heart ready to thud straight out of his chest, or maybe out of the jack, and bleed onto the floor while Yunho stares in sympathy. He can’t bring himself to risk the friendship but the friendship is barely enough. He’s terrified he’ll slip one day and lean too close, linger too long, and then what?
It’s not fair that he knows Yunho best and there’s still nothing he can do to keep Yunho for himself.
---
They go to the park and take walks. Yunho talks about this and that and makes Jaejoong laugh, and Jaejoong finds that Yunho listens with painful intensity and gives advice with slow, purposeful feeling, putting everything into every word said.
Jaejoong tells him about his family and Yunho listens and gets teary-eyed when Jaejoong turns away to hide tears.
They hug all the time. At Jaejoong’s apartment, at karaoke, at Yoochun’s apartment when Yoochun’s having a crazy party. Yunho’s full of fast dance tracks and cool hip-hop and the very common cheesy love song about being with someone forever and ever. His music is fun and happy and sappy and Jaejoong had blushed the entire time he had listened through Yunho’s earbuds, trying with futility not to stare at the smooth skin of Yunho’s exposed chest and imagine what the rest of that dancer’s body looks like.
It’s not fair that they’re just about everything a couple is and Jaejoong can’t have the official title. He’s too scared to ask Yunho about girlfriends or crushes.
Yunho sighs, breaking into his thoughts, taking Jaejoong’s hand in his as the two of them lie together in bed. “Jaejoong-ah.”
“Yunja?” Jaejoong breathes, clutching Yunho’s hand, willing his heart to stop beating so hard.
“Don’t laugh at me, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I love you.”
Jaejoong closes his eyes and wishes that those words were meant in the way he needs them to. “I love you too,” he answers at length, squeezing the hand clasped in his own, resisting the urge to turn to the side and grab Yunho and kiss him senseless.
“I know you’ve never offered or mentioned it for your own reasons,” Yunho says, “but would it be okay for me to listen to your heart for a little bit?”
Jaejoong feels himself flush and squirms a bit in embarrassment. “It’s really…there’s nothing to listen to,” he stammers.
“Could I, please?” Yunho asks again, getting on an elbow, looking down at Jaejoong imploringly. “I know it’s a personal thing and something you only share with people you love, but Jaejoong-ah, I really want to hear you. Please?”
Something in Yunho’s eyes and voice just makes Jaejoong crumble into bits of dust. He sighs, still blushing, shrugging in defeat. Yunho smiles so brightly that Jaejoong almost feels like it’s worth it and bites his lip as the younger man slowly unbuttons the top of his shirt. He wishes they were headed in a different direction.
Yunho pulls out his own earbuds from his pocket, giving one last look for permission, nodding when Jaejoong nods, gently plugging them into the centre of Jaejoong’s chest.
Jaejoong doesn’t feel anything, not even a twinge of pain, only mild embarrassment that Yunho’s using his personal earbuds to do this. It’s strangely intimate to be sharing them, not at all like when he shares Yoochun’s, and he closes his eyes for the inevitable questions about the static to start.
Two full minutes later, Jaejoong opens his eyes again. Yunho’s head is down and he’s very, very quiet, and very, very still. Jaejoong blinks and sits up a bit, freezing when Yunho’s hand comes up to press him back down. He still can’t see the younger man’s face. Confusion runs through him and Jaejoong can’t help but wonder what in the world Yunho is listening to or listening for. It’s all static that’ll drive you crazy.
He lies still and stares up at the ceiling, barely daring to breathe, swallowing hard when Yunho eventually lays his head down on the older man’s chest, fingers curled loosely into his palm.
---
Yunho goes home the next morning, strangely quiet, avoiding Jaejoong’s gaze. Jaejoong has a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach but doesn’t say anything, waving goodbye with a forced smile and hoping things are okay.
He doesn’t hear from Yunho at all for the next week. The younger man doesn’t even pick up his phone when he calls to ask what’s going on, and never calls back.
Not understanding and scared and trying not to be overwhelmed, Jaejoong grabs his red headphones and nearly stabs them into his heart, closing his eyes in distress when he hears the clear, pure sound of music.
It’s the saddest love song he’s ever heard.
---
“It’ll be fine,” Yoochun soothes, brushing Jaejoong’s hair back, wiping at the tears trailing down Jaejoong’s cheeks. “He’ll come to his senses, I know he will.”
“No, he won’t,” Jaejoong mumbles miserably, still in a bundle of blankets in his bed. Yoochun had come over as soon as he had heard Jaejoong’s voice over the phone and now Jaejoong can’t get rid of him. Yoochun’s too much of a sweetheart for his own good. “I’ve totally fucked things up and I didn’t even get the satisfaction of telling him myself. Stupid heart.”
They both look down as Jaejoong pokes himself in the plug, Yoochun recoiling a bit as Jaejoong’s shirt darkens with blood. “You’re bleeding…” he says helpfully.
“Bleeding again,” Jaejoong huffs. He kicks the covers off his bed, grabbing a tissue and wetting it in the sink, halfway back to his bed when there’s an urgent knock on his front door. It sounds like there’s a struggle outside before the person knocks again.
Jaejoong gives Yoochun an interested look and opens the door, choking on a breath when he’s met with a model if he’s ever seen one.
“Hey it’s…” Yoochun starts, pointing.
“Shim Changmin,” the model says, right eye twitching just slightly, “and I can’t freaking stand it anymore!”
“…What?” Jaejoong says brilliantly.
“This is yours!” Changmin exclaims after a deep breath, nearly flinging Yunho into his arms, Jaejoong reeling back with the sudden weight and proximity of someone he was already sure he’d never see again. “He’s been rambling and floating in the clouds about you for the past month and a half and I thought I could just stick cotton in my ears and take it but I can’t!” Changmin continues, clearly pissed off, not even wanting to be invited in, venting right in the hallway. “Then last week, something obviously happened because he keeps getting weepy and walking into inanimate objects! I keep sending him here but he always comes back mopey so I assume you’ve never gotten a single visit in the last week?”
“…Um,” Jaejoong continues to say brilliantly.
“That’s what I thought!” Changmin bursts out. “I cannot, even, stand it! I bet your best friend isn’t like this!”
“Actually,” Jaejoong sighs, stealing a look at Yoochun, turning away when Yoochun shoots him a stunningly painful death glare.
“If you don’t want me to kill him, just deal with this for me.”
“I…well…I…”
“Good!” Changmin finishes with no room for arguments, motioning at Yoochun. “Yoochun-ah, come with me and buy me sweet things.”
“Sure thing,” Yoochun says, eyebrows in his hairline, running out into the hallway, giving Jaejoong a look. Yunho is still in his soulmate’s arms, head down, clinging gently.
“Wait, you two know each other?” Jaejoong asks, eyes wide.
“Another story for another day!” Changmin says, waving absent-mindedly. “I hope we can meet in more stellar circumstances later, Jaejoong-hyung, perhaps when we’re unofficial brothers-in-law or something.”
“What!?” Jaejoong asks again, brilliantly, feeling fear steal into the cracks of his soul at Changmin’s massive grin.
“Bye!” Yoochun calls with a big smile. “Let’s go get Junsu!” is the last thing he hears before the front door swings shut.
Jaejoong continues to stand there, Yunho still in his arms, the two of them standing in absolute silence.
“…Yunho…” he says eventually, “Um…I think there’s stuff we need to talk about.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” Yunho whispers suddenly, making Jaejoong freeze again, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. “I got scared and I tried to stay away when I didn’t know what to do and then there was nothing but static the whole time I wasn’t with you.”
Jaejoong’s heart lodges itself in his throat painfully. “You mean your…your music?”
“And every time Changmin kicked me out of the house to come talk to you, I couldn’t come all the way back.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Yunho whispers, leaning closer, the dark rings under his eyes glaringly obvious, “the closer I got, the clearer the music got. I know that music’s only in the things that matter. And I didn’t know what to do.”
“…About what?” Jaejoong breathes, naturally tilting his head to the side.
“Being in love with you,” Yunho says, barely audible, eyes slipping shut, and closes the distance between them, lips meeting lips in the sweetest kiss Jaejoong’s ever tasted.
---
Jaejoong wonders about how completely normal they are. He had fallen in love, needless drama had ensued, and he had eventually found his heart’s music.
Okay, so they aren’t normal at all. He had quite literally fallen in love and almost killed the object of his affections with a bike, created needless drama because of his stupid bleeding heart, and found the music after a greater force by the name of Shim Changmin had intervened.
“Just don’t think about it,” Yunho mumbles against his neck, holding him tighter.
Jaejoong sighs, wiggling a bit, Yunho wiggling with him to get into a deeper snuggle. “But don’t you think we’re ridiculous? I mean, now we have to be together forever or else my heart’s going to bleed out from this stupid little plug right here-” he pokes at the plug moodily, “-and you’re not going to get anything but static!”
“I don’t mind forever,” Yunho replies immediately, pressing gentle kisses to Jaejoong’s neck and moving his way up.
Jaejoong flushes. “Yunho, I need to tell you this officially.”
“Hm,” Yunho hums, kissing him on the lips for the nth time, and again before Jaejoong can get the words out.
“Mmfmm, okay, mm,” Jaejoong concedes, “I mmfmm, love, mmm, yoummm…”
Yunho smiles and flails his arm around until he reaches over the bed and locates a bag. He pulls two pairs of headphones out, couple headphones if Jaejoong’s ever seen any, matching pink and heart-shaped. They’re so ugly and so sweet that Jaejoong has to swallow the urge to tell Yunho to return them.
He looks up at Yunho with dark eyes, licking his lower lip when Yunho shivers as he gently plugs a pair into the younger man’s heart, putting the headphones over his ears. Yunho does the same before returning to his snuggled place in Jaejoong’s arms, closing his eyes and listening to Jaejoong’s heart.
“It’s your love, your love,” Jaejoong sings softly, sifting his fingers through Yunho’s hair.
“You’re my melody,” Yunho sings back, smiling as they listen to the same song, tilting his face up for another kiss.
---
dies. i worked and worked on that ending and that lame piece of crap was the best i could get. sorry. seriously, sorry. rofl. man, this is so long and so full of yunjae. anyway. RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU LOVE METRIC THE WAY I LOVE METRIC!! :DDDD ♥
yunho/jaejoong
pg-13
jaejoong's tired of plugging headphones into his heart and hearing nothing but static.
based off another dream i had. finally wrote me some yunjae. rofl. ♥
---
Jaejoong only has a very distant memory of what his music sounds like. When he was little, like really little, he remembers his mother handing him a cookie from the cookie jar. He had gone back to play in the front yard, munching quietly on chocolate chips, cheeks bulging. Pink earbuds that belonged to his sister were securely in his ears, and he had been bobbing his head to happy melodies full of pan flute backgrounds and sunny rhythms.
But that was a really long time ago.
He takes off his shirt, ready to collapse from his day at work, and looks at the little, unused jack in the middle of his chest. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought that it was rusting.
“Bleeding again,” he sighs. Grabbing a tissue and wetting it in the sink of his apartment, he gently wipes the dried blood away, crinkling his nose at the metallic smell.
It’s been too long since he’s plugged something in there. But really, he’s not a very big fan of static.
---
On good days, he can catch a snatch of music here and there. After Junsu had taken him to a house party that one night with no alcohol, for example. They had played Monopoly and Risk and Clue and Boggle until unfortunate times in the early morning and Jaejoong had had a ton of fun. On his way back home, still stone sober, he had plugged in his earbuds for the hell of it and caught something like bubblegum pop weaving in and out of the regular static.
It figures that Junsu would bring out the bubblegum pop within him. Strangely enough, the couple of masochistic occasions when he had asked Junsu for a listen of his music, all he ever heard were great, full voices belting melodies that could please the heavens. Kim Junsu, the voice, the boy bursting of music.
Jaejoong sighs, flopping back on his bed. He grabs a pair of red headphones off the dresser and puts them on, hesitating just slightly before plugging them in. A sharp pain announces itself in the middle of his chest and he coughs through it.
Damn it, nothing but static.
---
“You should go do happy things,” Yoochun says over the phone.
“Good job, Mr. Descriptive.”
“Look,” Yoochun says flatly, and Jaejoong can almost see the way his friend is rolling his eyes, “you want your music back but you don’t want to tell anyone about it because you’re too embarrassed to, but then you refuse to do anything about it and call me when you’re feeling shitty, and then you shoot down all my ide-”
“Okay, okay!” Jaejoong sighs, rolling over onto his stomach. “I just…can’t even remember the last time my heart ever gave me anything but static.”
“You’ll find it, Jaejoong-ah,” Yoochun encourages. Jaejoong rolls his eyes but smiles.
“So what’s the first step to happy things, then?”
“I don’t know, do things that make you happy!”
“Thanks, Yoochun. You’re a great help.”
“I am a very worldly person, you know.”
“Not worldly enough to know sarcasm, apparently.”
“You shut up.”
“I love you too.”
---
Truth is, Jaejoong loves music. Someone up there had seen it fit to give him a great voice and that’s not lost on him; the problem is, nothing he sings makes him feel anything. The hard songs, the lost songs, the mean songs, the chilled songs; they come out of him in technical perfection and fail to hold an iota of true feeling. Well, on the days when his relative pitch isn’t kicking his ass. But anyway.
Junsu’s dad’s friend’s friend who owns a nice, laid-back lounge was nice enough to let him work there for decent pay and more than decent tips. He gets to sing twice a week and women love him. Men too, depending on what color his hair is.
Singing makes him happy. Maybe it’s because he’s lost his own music.
After work that day, on the way home, he plugs his earbuds in again, wincing at the small sting in his chest that only comes with disuse.
Still static.
---
Jaejoong loves cooking, too.
He bakes a bajillion cookies, yes, a bajillion exactly, and carries it over to Yoochun’s house in a huge, flowery basket.
“What…” Yoochun starts to say, staring at Jaejoong from across the threshold.
“You owe me five bags of flour and two bags of sugar and a whole shitload of eggs,” Jaejoong informs him kindly, stepping in and dropping the cookies onto the kitchen counter, waving half-heartedly at Yoochun’s gaping girlfriend sitting on the couch.
“Guess that means you haven’t found your happy thing yet, huhn?” Yoochun asks. He grabs a cookie and starts munching, collecting Jaejoong’s pouting form into a hug.
“It’s really upsetting,” Jaejoong mumbles into Yoochun’s shoulder.
“I know.”
“Can I listen to yours for a while?”
“Sure,” Yoochun answers immediately, smiling, fishing out his earbuds and plugging them into his heart after unbuttoning his shirt, handing them over to Jaejoong.
Gorgeous, slow, lonely ballads fill his head. Jaejoong shoots a look over at Yoochun’s current girlfriend and sighs. And he had liked this one too.
“Just don’t say anything,” Yoochun says, seeing Jaejoong’s expression, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Not saying anything…” Honestly, Yoochun’s always been his source of gorgeous, slow, lonely ballads. It’s just that Jaejoong had been hoping that one day, he’ll get to hear a gorgeous, slow, not lonely ballad from Yoochun, because then he wouldn’t have to worry about his soulmate anymore.
“It’s fine.”
“Guess this means you haven’t found your happy thing either, huhn?”
Yoochun smiles and his eyes crinkle, collecting Jaejoong in another hug, rocking the two of them back and forth. “Soulmates for a reason, right?”
---
Bike riding. Jaejoong decides on bike riding.
Whoever said that you never forget how to ride a bike is a flipping liar.
Handlebars shaking dangerously, Jaejoong keeps a deathgrip on the bike, swerving madly down the street. If he doesn’t get himself killed for this, he’s going to be a better man and give up smoking. Or something.
For a while, he thinks he’s got the hang of it. “Hey, this isn’t so ba-” he starts, and then the road drops forward into the most massive hill he’s ever seen in his life. “Why did I take this road!” he screams to himself, and out loud too, forgetting how to brake, beginning his descent into what he is sure will be a terribly painful death. He hopes it’s a closed casket funeral and that they use that picture of him with the black hair and diamond stud earring.
---
Yunho had been craving hodo kwaja like crazy for the past few days. The craving didn’t go away and Changmin had gotten “really fucking tired of hearing it all the livelong day, hyung, so go freaking get some before I sew your mouth shut” and so here he is, buying a whole box. Changmin is an enabler in the strangest ways.
Three steps out of the store, he hears a strange sound. Kind of like screaming. He tilts his head to the side and looks up at the street lamp, kind of disturbed that the sound seems to be getting louder the longer he stands there.
“What is tha-”
“Oh my god watch ouuuuut!” Jaejoong screams, headed straight for him.
“Oh my god!” Yunho cries, eyes wide, whirling around to see a platinum blond on a bike, shooting towards him at the speed of light.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!”
“What! What do you mea-”
“If you move, I’ll hit you! Just don’t move!”
“Don’t hit me!” Yunho cries. He freezes and stares, too petrified to look away, seeing the bike headed closer and closer towards his body.
“DON’T MOVE!”
“I’M NOT MOVING!”
“DON’T MOV- OH DEAR GOD-”
A second and three quarters later, Yunho’s flat on his back with a fully grown man on top of him, still trying to remember how to breathe. He’s pretty sure the bicycle handlebars have made a lasting impression in his diaphragm.
Jaejoong groans and silently thanks whoever’s up there for providing him such a soft cushion. Getting up, he looks down to see a gorgeous, gorgeous, man around his age decked out on the ground, spluttering. “Whoops,” he says, face flaming, reaching out a hand and tugging the other man up.
“Wha- wha-” Yunho starts.
“Hi, I’m Jaejoong,” Jaejoong says, coughing and blushing, offering his hand. He can see the metal wreckage that was his bike out of the corner of his eye.
“Jung Yunho!” Yunho huffs, “and now you can tell me why you told me not to move!”
“I didn’t want to hit you!” Jaejoong says, pouting.
“But you hit me anyway! Were…were you aiming?”
“How could you even imply that!”
“Who tells people to stay still! You tell them to move!”
“It’s not like I meant to hit you!”
“But you did!”
“And you’re alive!”
“Barely!”
“Stop exaggerating!”
“My hodo kwaja’s decorating the cement because of you!”
Anyway, twenty minutes later, they both realize how it looks for two grown men to be squabbling and poking each other in the chest out in the middle of the street, and go back into the store where Jaejoong buys Yunho another box of hodo kwaja.
“I really am sorry,” Jaejoong grumbles, still kind of blushing, crossing his arms.
“It’s okay,” Yunho sighs, smiling wide and happy as he stuffs another red bean pastry into his mouth. “Mmm…want one?”
And that’s how they become friends.
---
Two weeks later, Jaejoong realizes with stunning clarity that he’s fallen in love.
---
“This kind of shit always happens to me,” Jaejoong nearly sobs in a whine into the mouthpiece of his phone, banging his head against his kitchen table. “This is so bad, Yoochun-ah, so bad, so, so, so bad, sooooo, sooooooooo-”
“I get it!” Yoochun yells, “just calm down for one second! Kim Jaejoong!”
“Park Yoochun!”
“It’s fine!”
“What do you mean it’s fine!?” Jaejoong screams, hitting the kitchen table now with the palm of his hand, bouncing in his chair. “This is clearly not fine!! We-we’re friends! I can’t just suddenly be in l-l-love with him!”
“You’ve known him for two weeks! It’s fine to like him like that!”
“I’m pretty sure he’s straight, Yoochun-ah.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to like him.”
Jaejoong is silent for a full minute. “…But…”
“Maybe it’ll go away if you tell him.”
“…Maybe…” Jaejoong sighs, slowly, not sure if he even wants it to go away.
“Or maybe,” Yoochun says a few seconds later, voice clearly reflecting a smile, “you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And then there won’t be anything to worry about.”
---
Jung Yunho. Age twenty-three, taking a break before law school to learn dance, as crazy as that sounds. Comes from a nice, traditional family, loves sports, loves music, loves a lot in general.
He comes over almost every day. It had been great fun at first and then two weeks later, once Jaejoong’s had his stupid revelation, it’s just painful.
“Hey JaeJae!” Yunho says as soon as Jaejoong opens the door, smiling wide like he always does, holding out a bag of flour.
Jaejoong melts on the inside and smiles in confusion. “What’s this?”
“Your friend Yoochun called me. He’s nice. Anyway, he said you were in dire need of flour so I went out and got you a bag.”
Jung Yunho. So flawlessly kind that Jaejoong wants to throw up in adoration.
“…Thanks,” Jaejoong says, closing the door, taking a very, very deep breath before facing Yunho with a smile, hoping on everything he knows of to make it through the visit without turning into a puddle of lovesick goo.
---
A month after their first, crazy meeting, Jaejoong’s ready to lose his mind. At first he had just believed himself to be so lonely that he was willing to clutch onto anything that gave him company, but the more time he spent with Yunho, the more he felt like he was drowning. Yunho sleeps over sometimes, their friendship so immediate and so thick that he feels like he’s known the younger man forever. Those nights are the hardest, when Jaejoong needs simply to turn his head and be face to face with Yunho’s sleeping smile, eyes drawn to that teasing beauty mark above ready-to-kiss lips.
Every time he draws close, Jaejoong can feel his heart ready to thud straight out of his chest, or maybe out of the jack, and bleed onto the floor while Yunho stares in sympathy. He can’t bring himself to risk the friendship but the friendship is barely enough. He’s terrified he’ll slip one day and lean too close, linger too long, and then what?
It’s not fair that he knows Yunho best and there’s still nothing he can do to keep Yunho for himself.
---
They go to the park and take walks. Yunho talks about this and that and makes Jaejoong laugh, and Jaejoong finds that Yunho listens with painful intensity and gives advice with slow, purposeful feeling, putting everything into every word said.
Jaejoong tells him about his family and Yunho listens and gets teary-eyed when Jaejoong turns away to hide tears.
They hug all the time. At Jaejoong’s apartment, at karaoke, at Yoochun’s apartment when Yoochun’s having a crazy party. Yunho’s full of fast dance tracks and cool hip-hop and the very common cheesy love song about being with someone forever and ever. His music is fun and happy and sappy and Jaejoong had blushed the entire time he had listened through Yunho’s earbuds, trying with futility not to stare at the smooth skin of Yunho’s exposed chest and imagine what the rest of that dancer’s body looks like.
It’s not fair that they’re just about everything a couple is and Jaejoong can’t have the official title. He’s too scared to ask Yunho about girlfriends or crushes.
Yunho sighs, breaking into his thoughts, taking Jaejoong’s hand in his as the two of them lie together in bed. “Jaejoong-ah.”
“Yunja?” Jaejoong breathes, clutching Yunho’s hand, willing his heart to stop beating so hard.
“Don’t laugh at me, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I love you.”
Jaejoong closes his eyes and wishes that those words were meant in the way he needs them to. “I love you too,” he answers at length, squeezing the hand clasped in his own, resisting the urge to turn to the side and grab Yunho and kiss him senseless.
“I know you’ve never offered or mentioned it for your own reasons,” Yunho says, “but would it be okay for me to listen to your heart for a little bit?”
Jaejoong feels himself flush and squirms a bit in embarrassment. “It’s really…there’s nothing to listen to,” he stammers.
“Could I, please?” Yunho asks again, getting on an elbow, looking down at Jaejoong imploringly. “I know it’s a personal thing and something you only share with people you love, but Jaejoong-ah, I really want to hear you. Please?”
Something in Yunho’s eyes and voice just makes Jaejoong crumble into bits of dust. He sighs, still blushing, shrugging in defeat. Yunho smiles so brightly that Jaejoong almost feels like it’s worth it and bites his lip as the younger man slowly unbuttons the top of his shirt. He wishes they were headed in a different direction.
Yunho pulls out his own earbuds from his pocket, giving one last look for permission, nodding when Jaejoong nods, gently plugging them into the centre of Jaejoong’s chest.
Jaejoong doesn’t feel anything, not even a twinge of pain, only mild embarrassment that Yunho’s using his personal earbuds to do this. It’s strangely intimate to be sharing them, not at all like when he shares Yoochun’s, and he closes his eyes for the inevitable questions about the static to start.
Two full minutes later, Jaejoong opens his eyes again. Yunho’s head is down and he’s very, very quiet, and very, very still. Jaejoong blinks and sits up a bit, freezing when Yunho’s hand comes up to press him back down. He still can’t see the younger man’s face. Confusion runs through him and Jaejoong can’t help but wonder what in the world Yunho is listening to or listening for. It’s all static that’ll drive you crazy.
He lies still and stares up at the ceiling, barely daring to breathe, swallowing hard when Yunho eventually lays his head down on the older man’s chest, fingers curled loosely into his palm.
---
Yunho goes home the next morning, strangely quiet, avoiding Jaejoong’s gaze. Jaejoong has a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach but doesn’t say anything, waving goodbye with a forced smile and hoping things are okay.
He doesn’t hear from Yunho at all for the next week. The younger man doesn’t even pick up his phone when he calls to ask what’s going on, and never calls back.
Not understanding and scared and trying not to be overwhelmed, Jaejoong grabs his red headphones and nearly stabs them into his heart, closing his eyes in distress when he hears the clear, pure sound of music.
It’s the saddest love song he’s ever heard.
---
“It’ll be fine,” Yoochun soothes, brushing Jaejoong’s hair back, wiping at the tears trailing down Jaejoong’s cheeks. “He’ll come to his senses, I know he will.”
“No, he won’t,” Jaejoong mumbles miserably, still in a bundle of blankets in his bed. Yoochun had come over as soon as he had heard Jaejoong’s voice over the phone and now Jaejoong can’t get rid of him. Yoochun’s too much of a sweetheart for his own good. “I’ve totally fucked things up and I didn’t even get the satisfaction of telling him myself. Stupid heart.”
They both look down as Jaejoong pokes himself in the plug, Yoochun recoiling a bit as Jaejoong’s shirt darkens with blood. “You’re bleeding…” he says helpfully.
“Bleeding again,” Jaejoong huffs. He kicks the covers off his bed, grabbing a tissue and wetting it in the sink, halfway back to his bed when there’s an urgent knock on his front door. It sounds like there’s a struggle outside before the person knocks again.
Jaejoong gives Yoochun an interested look and opens the door, choking on a breath when he’s met with a model if he’s ever seen one.
“Hey it’s…” Yoochun starts, pointing.
“Shim Changmin,” the model says, right eye twitching just slightly, “and I can’t freaking stand it anymore!”
“…What?” Jaejoong says brilliantly.
“This is yours!” Changmin exclaims after a deep breath, nearly flinging Yunho into his arms, Jaejoong reeling back with the sudden weight and proximity of someone he was already sure he’d never see again. “He’s been rambling and floating in the clouds about you for the past month and a half and I thought I could just stick cotton in my ears and take it but I can’t!” Changmin continues, clearly pissed off, not even wanting to be invited in, venting right in the hallway. “Then last week, something obviously happened because he keeps getting weepy and walking into inanimate objects! I keep sending him here but he always comes back mopey so I assume you’ve never gotten a single visit in the last week?”
“…Um,” Jaejoong continues to say brilliantly.
“That’s what I thought!” Changmin bursts out. “I cannot, even, stand it! I bet your best friend isn’t like this!”
“Actually,” Jaejoong sighs, stealing a look at Yoochun, turning away when Yoochun shoots him a stunningly painful death glare.
“If you don’t want me to kill him, just deal with this for me.”
“I…well…I…”
“Good!” Changmin finishes with no room for arguments, motioning at Yoochun. “Yoochun-ah, come with me and buy me sweet things.”
“Sure thing,” Yoochun says, eyebrows in his hairline, running out into the hallway, giving Jaejoong a look. Yunho is still in his soulmate’s arms, head down, clinging gently.
“Wait, you two know each other?” Jaejoong asks, eyes wide.
“Another story for another day!” Changmin says, waving absent-mindedly. “I hope we can meet in more stellar circumstances later, Jaejoong-hyung, perhaps when we’re unofficial brothers-in-law or something.”
“What!?” Jaejoong asks again, brilliantly, feeling fear steal into the cracks of his soul at Changmin’s massive grin.
“Bye!” Yoochun calls with a big smile. “Let’s go get Junsu!” is the last thing he hears before the front door swings shut.
Jaejoong continues to stand there, Yunho still in his arms, the two of them standing in absolute silence.
“…Yunho…” he says eventually, “Um…I think there’s stuff we need to talk about.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” Yunho whispers suddenly, making Jaejoong freeze again, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. “I got scared and I tried to stay away when I didn’t know what to do and then there was nothing but static the whole time I wasn’t with you.”
Jaejoong’s heart lodges itself in his throat painfully. “You mean your…your music?”
“And every time Changmin kicked me out of the house to come talk to you, I couldn’t come all the way back.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Yunho whispers, leaning closer, the dark rings under his eyes glaringly obvious, “the closer I got, the clearer the music got. I know that music’s only in the things that matter. And I didn’t know what to do.”
“…About what?” Jaejoong breathes, naturally tilting his head to the side.
“Being in love with you,” Yunho says, barely audible, eyes slipping shut, and closes the distance between them, lips meeting lips in the sweetest kiss Jaejoong’s ever tasted.
---
Jaejoong wonders about how completely normal they are. He had fallen in love, needless drama had ensued, and he had eventually found his heart’s music.
Okay, so they aren’t normal at all. He had quite literally fallen in love and almost killed the object of his affections with a bike, created needless drama because of his stupid bleeding heart, and found the music after a greater force by the name of Shim Changmin had intervened.
“Just don’t think about it,” Yunho mumbles against his neck, holding him tighter.
Jaejoong sighs, wiggling a bit, Yunho wiggling with him to get into a deeper snuggle. “But don’t you think we’re ridiculous? I mean, now we have to be together forever or else my heart’s going to bleed out from this stupid little plug right here-” he pokes at the plug moodily, “-and you’re not going to get anything but static!”
“I don’t mind forever,” Yunho replies immediately, pressing gentle kisses to Jaejoong’s neck and moving his way up.
Jaejoong flushes. “Yunho, I need to tell you this officially.”
“Hm,” Yunho hums, kissing him on the lips for the nth time, and again before Jaejoong can get the words out.
“Mmfmm, okay, mm,” Jaejoong concedes, “I mmfmm, love, mmm, yoummm…”
Yunho smiles and flails his arm around until he reaches over the bed and locates a bag. He pulls two pairs of headphones out, couple headphones if Jaejoong’s ever seen any, matching pink and heart-shaped. They’re so ugly and so sweet that Jaejoong has to swallow the urge to tell Yunho to return them.
He looks up at Yunho with dark eyes, licking his lower lip when Yunho shivers as he gently plugs a pair into the younger man’s heart, putting the headphones over his ears. Yunho does the same before returning to his snuggled place in Jaejoong’s arms, closing his eyes and listening to Jaejoong’s heart.
“It’s your love, your love,” Jaejoong sings softly, sifting his fingers through Yunho’s hair.
“You’re my melody,” Yunho sings back, smiling as they listen to the same song, tilting his face up for another kiss.
---
dies. i worked and worked on that ending and that lame piece of crap was the best i could get. sorry. seriously, sorry. rofl. man, this is so long and so full of yunjae. anyway. RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU LOVE METRIC THE WAY I LOVE METRIC!! :DDDD ♥