Shards Of Butterfly Wings

[jyotsu]

.Shards Of Butterfly Wings
.Homin, angst/crack/fluff
.they met in high school
A/N. this is something i've been working about from around december-january, and even my beta got sick of waiting for the end of this piece of crap. this would be my first ever full-blown yunjea debut, and i'm still not proud of it. but anyways, enjoy!



Shards Of Butterfly Wings

They met in high school, Changmin the quiet freshman while Yunho was the leader of the Glee club.

“Welcome,” Yunho said with a flamboyant handshake and what can be said as the biggest smile Changmin had ever seen in his life.

He thought that it was the most charming smile in the world.

What started as a weekly club meeting turned into regular after-club visits to the coffee shop nearby school. Changmin always ordered the mocha latte with extra sugar and whipped cream and it took Yunho only one visit for him to remember it. They would sit by the window - Changmin at the secluded corner and Yunho in front of him - and sip their coffee cups in warm silence for a few minutes before they started talking. After-club meet-ups quickly became after-school hangouts, and naturally they became inseparable after awhile.

Yunho’s classmates started to make it as a game as time went on, and they put their lunch money in. After the recess bell rang, they would all stare to the door, ignoring Yunho’s annoyed looks, and wait.

When Changmin’s face comes around the door, chirping “Hyung!” they would quickly look at the clock, and then conceded their money to the one that got the right bet. Changmin would give them confused looks, and Yunho would ruffle his hair and just tell him to ignore ‘his loony friends’; and then they would walk to the cafeteria together.

After a few attempts, those friends knew that the most accurate guesses would probably be around half to a full minute after the bell rang.

Changmin had friends other than Yunho, of course. Or so Changmin made Yunho believe.

It was after their mid-exam week of their first term, that Yunho disappeared all of a sudden and Changmin had a bad feeling about it. He scoured the whole grounds, and was shocked beyond believe when he found Yunho with four girls behind the changing rooms, looking panicked and out of his mind with disgust as the girls closed in on him.

Changmin did what his mind, or rather his instincts, told him at that time. He started throwing rocks.

“How dare they!” Changmin fumed when they walked back to Yunho’s class. “I mean, ganging up on one guy!”

Yunho was just chuckling when he heard Changmin muttered “sluts” under his breath and promptly froze. Changmin never cursed before. He grabbed the junior’s arm.

“Changmin,” he asked, glancing at the hallways. It was long past the last bell and it was a Friday, they were probably the last students there. “Why are you so upset?”

“I-I’m not!” Changmin replied hotly, and then lost his steam for a minute and stammered. “I just, I mean, it’s just um, y’know, not, I mean..” he stuttered hesitantly while blushing the cutest shade of red Yunho has ever seen.

Realization dawned on him rather quickly.

“Are you jealous?”

And Changmin’s eyes widened just about more and he was just looking extremely adorable and vulnerable that Yunho had no other option than meshing their lips together.

Changmin’s lips were as soft as he had imagined, but his tongue was wickeder than he had ever imagined. Changmin groaned when his back was slammed rather roughly to the wall and Yunho inwardly knew it was going to be a very good wet dream material.

As a club leader, Yunho was attentive, detailed, a little bit perfectionist but his easy going personality makes a lot of people feel comfortable around him. As a friend, Yunho was kind and sweet, the ones who look mature enough to get alcohol when they’re sixteen but then with one too-funny joke and he’d be rolling on the floor. He was soft around harsh attitudes and his calm presence was something nice to have by in an emotional moment.

But as a boyfriend, Yunho was possessive and fervent. He always kept his promise but even Changmin had to tell him right in his face to stop texting him at 5AM in the morning to wake him up because as sweet as it was, he was still asleep. Yunho went red-faced when Changmin said that and quickly dragged him to the toilet to have an apology-make out session. Changmin forgave him rather quickly.

As a student, Changmin was far-fetching and ambitious, vying the position of the head of the Student Body since he entered high school. He had scores that 80% of the other students could only dream of having. As a club member, Changmin had a smooth voice that stood out and worked well with high notes. As a friend, Changmin was a little cold and rough on the outside but extremely prone to jokes, and as warm as a furry blanket.

As a boyfriend, Changmin pouted.

“Hyung,” he pouted when Yunho said a particularly harsh joke.

“Hyung,” he pouted when Yunho tried to put a gecko in his bag. And got caught.

“Hyung,” he pouted when Yunho didn’t want to buy him ice cream.

And sometimes Yunho did things just to see him pout, just because he looked really, really adorable when he pouted.

“I like butterflies.” Changmin once said, the darkness of the solar eclipse closing in on them. Yunho turned to look at him, and found that Changmin was staring at him, something unrecognizable within his eyes.

“I’m afraid of horses because I fell off a rocking horse when I was a kid and hurt my head. I can’t speak until I was four, so I don’t have many friends, and I can write with both hands but can only draw with my left hand. I don’t get sick easily but when I do I come down hard, I read chick flicks and really read them, I like watching soap operas my mom watch and I adore Harry Potter but most of all I really, really like you and I never want to be apart from you.”

Yunho pulled him in for a fervent kiss and when they pulled back the eclipse was over, and Changmin smiled again, like nothing ever happened.

“I want to have a lot of kids.” Yunho said; the fireworks of New Year lighting up his face in the darkness of the hills.

Changmin looked at him in disbelief, but the small smile on Yunho’s face only proved his will’s solidity. He sighed. “That’s a nice dream, Yunho.”

He should’ve known from the way Yunho looked at him when he turned to see him, the gaze that would only mean trouble. But he jumped in surprise when he heard it anyway.

“I want to do it with you.”

So they made plans, that they would someday open an orphanage and Yunho would run the daycare while Changmin handles administrations and the boring stuffs. Yunho started hanging around kids even more, which he accepts wholeheartedly, while Changmin started thinking about the costs needed to properly take care of kids. Yunho’s last winter in high school was spent with him and Changmin snuggled up in his room, a map, papers filled with figures and expenses and they fell asleep in a bed cluttered with catalogs of children objects.

But by the time the cherry blossoms disappeared and summer came around the corner Yunho had gone with the wind, heading to a university in the city. Changmin just smiled when Yunho’s fingers slipped through his hold and waved when he walked into the bus but inside he cried and screamed.

He didn’t see Yunho making a big love and a kiss to the window by his seat, nor did he see Yunho’s attempt to make the bus turn around. He turned his back and he went back home, where he didn’t come out of his room for more than a week.

When he walked out, he had safely detached his heart into a glass jar.

With or without it he survived high school anyways. He spent his second year sharing the table with a bright kid named Junsu, with the ‘bright’ adjective applying to emotions rather than brain capacity.

He saved the latter’s enormous butt from outright flunking the year a lot of time and Junsu always thanked him with favors, like a brand new game he wanted or a cup of ramen or the usual friendly blowjob that Changmin had came to like. In one of their trips of ditching school they found a small diner tucked in between retail malls and they decided to get something to drink.

“Hi,” the waiter greeted them easily when they came in, like they came in every day to the spot, “anything I can get you guys?”

“Your name.” Changmin exclaims in a heartbeat. The bartender just gave a wispy smile.

Yoochun, as that was his name, was the closest thing Changmin had to a boyfriend after Yunho.

And on his off days, the ones where he doesn’t felt like communicating to other humans, he spent it sitting in his room and listening to punk rock in his headset in an ear-crushing decibel while holding a glass jar close to his chest, feeling faint beats from the inside. As his last year came around the days were getting more regular.

Eventually, though, he put down his headset and put back the jar on the top of his shelves, and he graduated from high school.

Junsu took a major in music while still aiming to get a position in the soccer league, and
Yoochun chose to stay and work in the only diner in their small city. It’s what they want to do and Changmin reasoned them into doing it, even if Changmin himself doesn’t have the slightest clue to why he chose to go to the big city and take a major in medic school.

If people ask, he smiled and mentioned something about how it was what’s inside of the glass jar said.

When he left the city, his parents were there, so were Junsu and Yoochun. He hugged Junsu goodbye and he let his fingers slip out of Yoochun’s hold, lips out of each other’s touch. He jumped on the bus and waved them all goodbye from the window.

And then he called Yoochun’s brother to make sure he had destroyed all glass jars in their house, so Yoochun won’t do anything like he does.

He got himself a shared apartment and a guy named Jaejoong was his roommate, a rich city boy born right in the middle of the metropolis. The roommate introduced him to gadgets, took him to places, and brought him stuffs he hadn’t even dreamt of before. Changmin took it up quickly and acted like he’s back in his habitat in less than two weeks. Jaejoong’s major in business was in the same area as his so their schedule were pretty much similar except for weekends where they part ways and had fun on their own. Jaejoong liked to roam clubs and party all night while Changmin visited museum and spent more time fiddling with his Jaejoong-bought laptop than talking with people.

Every time he goes out, he had to remember to stop craning his neck out the window to look for a shadow he knew. In two months, he finally stopped.

He never had a fling with Jaejoong, but he did recognize that Jaejoong had subdued his partying habits somewhat dramatically in their second semester. He asked for the reason why, it’s not like every day the faculty-crowned “king of clubbing” stops going out dancing in his spare time.

Jaejoong’s answers were always spare and avoiding. “I’ll tell you soon,” he said mischievously one time, and merely smirked saying, “when the time is ripe, you shall know,” on another time.

But one farewell dinner for a friend they both knew dearly brought the secret to light.

“Hey,” Jaejoong said to him, another man in tow, “meet my boyfriend, Jung Yunho.”

Changmin felt so glad he didn’t bring his jar.

Changmin smiled politely and Yunho had a familiar shocked expression on his face. “Nice to meet you, Yunho.” He extended his hand. The gesture was only replied after a few second daze and with a nervous smile on Yunho’s face.

“I swear he’s not such a big klutz usually,” Jaejoong joked and Changmin just laughed in reply.

“How did you meet?” Changmin asked.

Yunho looked like he was in utter discomfort by standing next to Jaejoong, fidgeting and shuffling his feet all the time. Changmin knows the signs, but he ignores it. He’s never met him anyways. Jaejoong didn’t get any of it and answered the question.

“In Hyoyeon’s birthday party, he was an awesome dancer and looked too much of a good lay to pass.” He ended with his popular playboy wink and Changmin laughed, hoped that it reached his eyes.

“How long have you been together?” Changmin asked, gazing to their entwined hands and how Yunho’s looks like it’s trying to fidget away from the hold.

“Since the beginning of the semester,” Jaejoong grinned. “He’s been a breath of fresh air and
everything good for me; I even stopped smoking for him.”

Changmin smiles in delight. “You’re really lucky,” was the only thing he said before he bowed out gracefully from the party.

When he arrived in his room, he called home to check if the glass jar was still intact. He breathed in relief when he heard that his sister’s cat had broken the thing yesterday, meaning that there’s a logical reason for him to feel like being stabbed repeatedly in the chest by a rusty knife.

Sunday found him walking through the town, peering into glass displays of shops from the outside to look for a brand new jar. The clouds were nowhere to find and the wind was breezing by. Simply put, it was a good day, and even for his usually sour demeanor it made him smile until one junction where he tried to turn around the bend-

And crashed right into Yunho.

Yunho still sputtered almost a thousand of apologies, just like he had back then, and Changmin smiled faintly.

“Its okay, Yunho, right?” he assured, and Yunho looked like he had just been punched in the ulcer. “Sorry for that, I guess I’m too busy in my own head. I’ll be off now.” He smiled wider, bowed a little, turned around and walked away.

“Please,” Yunho said, barely a whisper, “don’t do that.”

He stopped, hating his esophagus for hitching an intake of breath. “Excuse me?” he said without turning around, still trying to keep a level voice.

“Don’t act like that,” Yunho said, voice wavering yet getting louder, “you’re not a stranger to
me and I’m sure I’m not a stranger to you. Don’t act like we’ve never met each other and-”

When Changmin turned around, his eyes were wet and his lips were quivering. His breaths were far from level and his voice was squeezed out of him.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this right now.”

By the afternoon Changmin had found a small shop that sold household wares and he bought the perfect jar. It was round and not too big and fitted into his room shelves quite perfectly as he imagined. He smiled at the cashier and told him to keep the change. In return, he got his receipt with the name Taegoon written on it and a set of number under it.

Jaejoong had looked at him with a what-is-that-and-what-is-that-thing-doing-in-here expression.

“It’s a jar, Jae.” Changmin answered the unspoken question. The water inside it shook a little when he put it on the shelves, but stabilized quickly.

“What’s in it?” Jaejoong prods.

“My heart.” Changmin says with a smile.

And Changmin didn’t miss the slip of paper that Jaejoong opened from under his bed, nor did he miss the fact that the paper held the apartment landlord’s number.

But Jaejoong didn’t move away and after a few days, he doesn’t look at the jar weirdly anymore.

Taegoon was wonderful and sort of amusing, but Changmin knew chemistry when he sees one; and when he introduced Taegoon to Jaejoong, he knew that he’d be the third wheel after five minutes into their talk. As before, he bowed out gracefully.

But one day when he visited the small wares shop he was greeted by a different sight, a small and thin-looking boy with bouncy hair and a million-watt smile. “Good morning.” He said. And Changmin was breathless for a moment.

It was adoration, simply put.

Changmin later found out that the boy was Taemin, a cousin of Taegoon. He liked Baskin-Robbins and secretly enjoyed frozen yogurts and teddy bears and of course smiled like he’s the sun’s reincarnation.

Changmin felt happy with him from a long time but he slowly realized that, while it was a little bit of a guilt trip having an adult relationship with someone still in high school, he didn’t really like Taemin in that kind of way. They broke up with a clean cut and decided they should really still be friends, since Changmin had found out that Taemin made the best latte and was not a really bad companion in bed. In a non-sexual, big brother-little brother cuddling way. A teddy bear and a coffee maker in one go is not a deal that Changmin likes to pass up every day.

And just like that, his love life slowly dissipated into thin air. His time spent between keeping his scores intact and managing two part-time jobs left little gap for social activity to squeeze through, and even a weekend meeting with Taemin was considered lucky as the semester grew on.

He tried to spend more time with Jaejoong, but even his friend’s usual carefree existence was put on hold as his own study was getting more burdening. And not to mention he would rather spend his free time with Yunho.

“Who wouldn’t,” Changmin scoffed before tapping to his jar and turning back to his essay when Jaejoong politely declined his offer to go out for dinner.

Jaejoong might have realized something at that moment. Changmin had stopped caring.

“So how’s school?” Yoochun asked during one of his phone calls, his warm tone still seeping in through the statics.

A rare uninhibited smile lighted Changmin’s face. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine, I’m having a
test week, so it’s been kind of hectic so far, but I passed most of them. I think.” And he smiled further when he heard Yoochun’s soft chuckle.

“Are you spending more time with Taemin?” Yoochun asked, and Changmin just had to wonder if Yoochun was always this big-hearted; he’d only mentioned the boy once or twice.

“Not really, he’s coming up with some exams himself. We just text a lot now.”

“Love you,” Yoochun said at the end of their call.

The lobby was deserted and Changmin had called from his new cell so Yoochun’s usual goodbye was not embarrassing him one bit. He used it every day but when Changmin’s in public sometimes it made him sound like he’s calling his mother. Changmin replied back, “love you too,” and flipped the phone shut with a small smile.

Yunho stared in disbelief from the door. Changmin raised his head and saw the older man, staring at him wide-eyed from the door, and put on a steel mask as he collected his own surprise.

“Evening, Yunho-sshi.” He sent a disarming grin that seemed to pull Yunho back to
reality. He stood up and walked to the elevator, only to be stopped by a forceful hand on his elbow.

“Yunho-sshi,” Changmin calmly expressed his further surprise, only an eyebrow raising in annoyance, “please, let go of my hand.”

“Tell me this isn’t true.” Yunho stared at him with pleadingly, “tell me you’re-”

“What, not over you? How dare you still have hope for us.”

Changmin wrenched his hand sharply away from the hold and walked away. He stepped out from the elevator on his floor to see Jaejoong staring back at him, “Oh hey, your prince is waiting downstairs.” He said with a grin.

But Jaejoong just looked at him, worried.

“Yunho says he wants to talk to me, he never asks about something like this except its serious.
You think something is wrong?”

Changmin shrugged. Jaejoong shrugged. They punched each other’s shoulders and split paths.

But when he opened the door not one hour after that, Jaejoong was crying.

Jaejoong never cries.

Changmin hugged him and blanketed him and held him through the night, not saying a word as Jaejoong went and recounted everything that happened.

“He broke up with me, he broke up with me.” He repeated the sentence, shaking and holding his own body when Changmin went to get him a glass of water.

Changmin slapped him.

Jaejoong looks dazed, the blush in his cheeks grew aflame before he snapped out of it. “Thanks,” he muttered, and took the glass of water.

“I’m calling Taegoon to see if he can bring some of his cocoa, you want some Chinese pick-ups on the way?” and Jaejoong shook his head, “Extra spicy kimchi jjigae, got it. Want extra chillies?” and Jaejoong nodded this time.

Turned out that Taegoon brought a few alcohols instead. Along with the jjigae, they all had explosive diarrhea in the morning and managed to broke all three toilets in the apartment. Before drinking, Jaejoong had the idea of videotaping them getting drunk and after the cruel hangover left them, they tried to recount the events that had slipped out of their head by watching it.

The video turned out to be a sextape of Jaejoong and Taegoon.

Changmin pronounced them a pair and Taegoon was sleepy enough to accept the rebound position. Jaejoong was happy again. Hangover took them back to sleep and Changmin only realized in the afternoon that he was supposed to have his mid-term.

After their sanity returns and taken care of everything, a few weeks had passed and summer rang through the air. Jaejoong packed his swimming shorts while Changmin went back to his hometown to say hi to his parents before getting on the plane with Jaejoong to Bali. The cicadas greeted him as he walked the small path to his home, a big sling bag over the shoulder and a jar in his arms. A skeletal shadow stood in front of his parent’s gate. Changmin’s soft steps faltered.

“What are you doing here,” he whispers, shock and fury interlacing with each other, “you’re not welcomed here.”

Yunho turned to face him, the shadows under his eyes and the bones under his wrists had glistened under the fierce sunlight, and a soft breeze flapped his polo shirt around a stick-thin body.

“Jaejoong,” he started without warning, “was the son of a doctor who owns one of the world’s most prominent hospitals. You might have heard his name, but Jaejoong would always deny that fact so his position as the child of the named Kim was unknown. I took the same business class and befriended him with that in mind. He would be learning on how to run a hospital and I know it would be more than sufficient for our benefit.”

“Our.” Changmin spoke like the word was acid on his tongue and Yunho’s head droops. But before Changmin can continue his interruption Yunho had started on again.

“I was supposed to break him off the moment I have managed sufficient contact to his dad and other important figures to the point where he knows of my capabilities and can trust me well, since Jaejoong hides the fact that he’s gay from him. I was close when you came along.” And for the first time in his tirade, he looked at Changmin right in the eye. Even with all the bodily changes, the flame in his eyes had still held the same flicker of passion and Changmin came close to heavily losing his heart again.

“and it changed everything. You were everywhere I see, where there was Jaejoong there would be you. He was getting curious and I have to cut it short if I still want to stay in good terms after the break. I wanted to get back to you, I couldn’t handle seeing you with all those different person-”

“There were only two.”

“I still hate them regardless. But as always, you’re the loose cannon that change all my plans. I was supposed to graduate high school smoothly, with grades all sufficient to go to law school and then become a lawyer with big cases. But no, you came along.” Yunho’s eyes seem to be aflame, bigger than Changmin had ever seen. When Yunho took a step closer Changmin froze.

“You turned my life on its axis. You grab my heart and eat it for yourself. You took my heart and taught me a thousand new things. I can’t bear seeing you for the last time, I didn’t even dare to move my legs to stand up and wave back at you. The moment I stepped on that bus to the city I knew I won’t be able to turn back or else I’ll lose everything, I know I’d lose everything I have just to get back to your arms.”

“You liar.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I’m a liar.”

“You’re a liar, Yunho. You’re a liar.”

Changmin couldn’t look at him in the eye. He lost it.

He didn’t flinch when Yunho closed the distance between them and enveloped him; he crumbles into the hold and fit the mold he believed he was born for.

The jar in his hold fell and shattered into brilliant little shards, glimmering under the summer sun like a butterfly wing.