the process of love.
the process of love
Jaejoong/Changmin, a couple of ninja pairings (Yoochun/Junsu etc.); PG; romance, angst; 2500 words approx.
He wonders what Jaejoong’s laugh would sound like, and when he looks at Jaejoong again - and again, and again - for some reason, he wonders what kind of beauty Jaejoong’s voice would hold if he sang, and if it would be as delicate as his face or as gentle as his words or as painful and empty as his eyes.
This piece recieved 3rd place in _starcandy’s awesome!1000+ contest, under the prompt no pain, no gain (You have to endure some pain to gain something that has value.)
This is your present, Diane roselit. :’D ♥ I really hope you like it.
Changmin doesn't believe in love. He sees it happen, but doesn't really think that it's necessarily happening. Junsu is Changmin’s best friend, and Junsu says that Changmin doesn’t make any sense, but Changmin rationalizes to himself: what is love, anyway? Is there love? Or is it just a more complicated version of infatuation, obsession, admiration, and/or something else? Changmin thinks love is something that probably is just an invention of the human mind in order to avoid being alone.
Junsu doesn't think so. From the day he meets Yoochun, he knows that this isn't just infatuation, or obsession, or admiration. He can't really explain it to Changmin, and Changmin says that that’s okay because he doesn't really want to know (even if there is a part of him that is curious). He is not curious enough, though, and he forgets about it not soon after Junsu tells Changmin that he can’t explain this feeling, and that love is something that can’t be explained.
Changmin is introduced to Jaejoong through Junsu who has an aunt who knows Yoochun’s mother who knows a teacher who knows Jaejoong. Jaejoong needs to be tutored in English, Changmin is told. He’s fine with it because he doesn’t feel like he ever has enough to do (schoolwork doesn’t take long to finish, after all).
Jaejoong is dark-haired and quiet, and when Changmin tries to talk to him, he doesn’t quite answer and he doesn’t quite look at Changmin. Since he doesn’t quite look at Changmin, it is easier for Changmin to look at Jaejoong without being caught, and he examines Jaejoong’s face with detached curiosity. High cheekbones, black hair, long eyelashes, soft lips; pale skin, frail fingers, and tired, tired eyes. Jaejoong glances up when Changmin is least expecting it, and he looks at Changmin’s face completely for the first time. There’s something about the way Jaejoong’s eyes look so fragile that makes Changmin look away, feeling almost ashamed and not understanding why. He finishes helping Jaejoong practice his English handwriting as quickly as he can and leaves.
Junsu and Yoochun have been together for almost six months, and they decide to celebrate together. On a whim, they invite Changmin, and even though Changmin is grudging and complaining the entire time, he goes with them when they drive to the Han River. They have fireworks and firecrackers, and then they tell Changmin that oh, yeah, Yunho is coming, remember him from Chemistry? Yeah, him, Yoochun knows him pretty well. Oh, also, he’s bringing Jaejoong along. Jaejoong - you tutor him, right? So we thought you’d like to know.
Changmin shrugs Junsu and Yoochun off and lounges idly by the car, watching Yoochun and Junsu chase each other with sparklers, the setting sun glowing in the river and on their skin. (Love.)
Yunho arrives in his ancient Ford truck fifteen minutes after they arrived at the river, and just as promised, Jaejoong is with him. Yunho greets Changmin and then goes off to break Yoochun and Junsu up because they are rolling on the ground, all entangled limbs and strangled, happy shouting. Jaejoong leans on Changmin’s car next to him and watches the others with him, too. Changmin wonders if this should feel awkward, and if it should, why it doesn’t.
The sun is almost done going over the horizon, and it is still setting off embers in the water, but for some reason, Changmin is looking at Jaejoong instead and pretending he isn’t. Jaejoong is watching the light in the water meld and he looks peaceful. Changmin has a sudden, irrational feeling that’s making it difficult to see clearly, and he wants to reach out and touch Jaejoong’s hand or Jaejoong’s face and see if he will fade or crumble because he looks so fragile already.
Jaejoong looks at him and offers a small smile. Junsu comes barrelling at Changmin, suddenly, and then his hand is stuffed with a couple of sparklers and after Junsu has gone back to tease Yunho about Hee-something, Changmin is stuck awkwardly trying to light his sparklers when the stupid lighter just won’t start.
Jaejoong takes the lighter from Changmin’s hand with an almost familiar gesture and lights the sparklers easily, leaving Changmin slightly embarrassed, but Jaejoong doesn’t notice or care and just takes a sparkler from Changmin. Changmin has two left.
Yoochun is making greasy innuendos, now, and Changmin goes over to the others under the guise of stopping him to get away from Jaejoong’s gaze. Yoochun stops his innuendos briefly to tell him to go back to Jaejoong; don’t you have a heart, Changmin, why would you leave a pretty thing like him just standing there? Changmin rolls his eyes and goes back to Jaejoong a little reluctantly.
Jaejoong’s face, when Changmin looks at it again, is glowing (but it is only the light of the setting sun, and it’s stupid, but Changmin’s heart still skips, anyway). He wonders what Jaejoong’s laugh would sound like, and when he looks at Jaejoong again - and again, and again - for some reason, he wonders what kind of beauty Jaejoong’s voice would hold if he sang, and if it would be as delicate as his face or as gentle as his words or as painful and empty as his eyes.
Jaejoong’s sparkler has burnt out and he looks at it with an odd sadness, and Changmin still has two, even though one is almost gone. He offers his other to Jaejoong, and Jaejoong hesitantly takes it with another smile that doesn’t show his teeth, and with a sudden, almost impulsive motion, he throws it into the air and laughs, really laughs, as it spins a couple of feet above their heads, like a strange, momentary star. Changmin’s eyes aren’t caught by it for long because he’s looking, instead, at the light catching in Jaejoong’s face and wondering what’s happening to him.
Changmin is at Jaejoong’s house again, trying to teach Jaejoong pronouns and nouns and adjectives and no, Jaejoong, a verb is not a person, place or thing. Jaejoong is only getting a little better, but Changmin isn’t willing to give up and doesn’t have the heart to tell him that this will take a while.
They are both in Jaejoong’s room, with Jaejoong sitting at his desk and Changmin in another chair next to him. Jaejoong is looking hard at his worksheet, and he murmurs to Changmin without looking up that could he please explain this part? Changmin leans to glance over it, and Jaejoong looks at him with their faces too close, and there it is again, that pause in time that isn’t supposed to happen. It’s just like any other cliché, really, Changmin thinks, but he doesn’t care when he holds his breath and waits. One second, two seconds, and Jaejoong isn’t moving. Empty, empty eyes, and Changmin wonders what it was that made them like this.
Changmin doesn’t know what he’s doing when he touches Jaejoong's face almost reverently, like a prayer or something that is broken easily. He wants to cup Jaejoong's cheeks and say something that doesn’t make sense, like: tell me why you don’t laugh, or tell me why you won’t laugh, or please, tell me what this is. The words are caught in his throat, heavy and rough, and Changmin cups Jaejoong’s chin instead and kisses him gently, nothing but hope and confusion and a little bit of something Changmin doesn’t know how to name.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he looks at Jaejoong’s face and realizes that Jaejoong never closed his eyes or kissed him back. He lets Jaejoong go like he’s been burnt (and maybe he has, because the feeling he has now is something like pain and hatred and sadness all smothered together) and murmurs apologizes and accidents and how he really has to leave, and then he does. Jaejoong stares empty messages into the wall and doesn’t stop him.
Junsu isn’t Changmin’s best friend for no reason; he can tell that something isn’t right when Changmin doesn’t tease him about gushing over how Yoochun got him flowers yesterday. He asks and asks, but Changmin doesn’t answer, and then he stops asking because he knows that when Changmin needs to tell, he will.
“I can’t explain it -” Changmin says into the phone to Junsu, later, because he needs to voice his strangled fears. “I can’t explain it, Junsu. I just - I don’t know, I look at him, and there’s this feeling, like I want to help him.” He feels foolish, but Junsu is gentle with him and it helps.
There is a long pause and Changmin waits. “Changmin,” Junsu says at last, the slight static not hiding how quiet he is. “Is this a more complicated version of infatuation, or obsession, or admiration? It sounds like it could be.” It is.
Changmin wants to say, no, you don’t understand, it’s not that, it can’t be that because that doesn’t even exist, but he curls his fingers into themselves and ends the call.
Changmin doesn’t go to Jaejoong’s house again, and he was going to keep it that way, but his plans are brought to a standstill when Jaejoong’s mother calls him to ask why he hasn’t been around lately. Jaejoong’s mother looks a lot like Jaejoong, pretty hands and quiet eyes, and she feels soft and scared like Jaejoong, too, and Changmin can’t tell her that he can’t do this anymore. He goes to Jaejoong’s house for (what he tells himself is) the last time.
Jaejoong is at his desk again, head lowered and pencil in hand. When Changmin goes closer, he sees that Jaejoong’s hands are quivering.
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Changmin forgets, for a second, and when Jaejoong looks at him, he is forced to remember and it is like his heart is being crushed all over again. Jaejoong nods and Changmin stands stiffly.
“My mother was calling you earlier,” Jaejoong says, back to staring at his paper. It’s blank. “You’d better go.”
Changmin finds Mrs. Kim in the living room. “Hello,” he says politely. “Is anything wrong, Mrs. Kim?”
She smiles at Changmin. There are wrinkles at her eyes and around her mouth and her eyes are tired, too. “Nothing, Changmin, but I just wanted to know how Jaejoong is doing in his English.”
Changmin recites, “His grammar is better, his sentences are better constructed, and his vocabulary is improving. Overall, he is doing well.”
Mrs. Kim breaks into a relieved smile. “Oh, good. I’m just worried about him sometimes, that’s all.” Changmin understands and Mrs. Kim hums happily and tells him to sit for a few minutes, she’ll get him a drink. He obliges and while he waits, he looks at the pictures on the walls and mantel.
There are pictures of a very young Jaejoong, and one with a very young Yunho. There are portraits of Jaejoong’s mother and who Changmin assumes is his father. He stands up to have a closer look at the pictures. Jaejoong is laughing in every one of them.
The television stand catches Changmin’s eye and he goes to stand next to it. There is a video lying on top of it, and it has a label named Youngwoong. Changmin wonders if it’s a person and puts the tape into the VCR.
The video is full of Jaejoong, except it is not the Jaejoong Changmin sees (knows?). In the video, Jaejoong is laughing and smiling and having a good time. There is five minutes of Jaejoong goofing off, playing games and making faces at the camera and standing precariously on high-rise buildings, leaning his arms out for balance and then jumping off the edge and pretending he is an airplane. The rest is a blank tape. Changmin doesn’t know what to think, and when Mrs. Kim comes back with a glass of orange juice, apologizing for having to take a phone call, he politely tells her it’s alright and tries to forget Jaejoong’s real smile.
When he goes back to Jaejoong’s room, Jaejoong is folding down his paper into a tiny, tiny square, but Changmin doesn’t care because he wants to ask Jaejoong why he doesn’t smile anymore like he used to, why he’s like this, why he didn’t kiss Changmin back. Why didn’t you, Jaejoong? And tell me why I kissed you, too.
He wants to ask a lot of questions, but he doesn’t ask any. He just sits down and opens up Jaejoong’s English textbook. Jaejoong is looking at him and not tearing his gaze away, and Changmin wants to stare back, but he’s too afraid of this Jaejoong, now, because he’s seen another Jaejoong that’s so much more different and he can’t face this Jaejoong anymore because he’s fallen in love with his past.
Fallen in love. Is this what love is? Just a more complicated version of infatuation, obsession, admiration. Changmin thinks that he is infatuated, and he might be (just a little) obsessed, and his admiration for Jaejoong is irrational and confusing but it is there. It took Changmin five minutes to fall in love if he is considering the Jaejoong who made faces at the camera, and it took Changmin three weeks to realize he has fallen in love with Jaejoong if he considers the Jaejoong with the broken wings. It’s strange. Love isn’t supposed to exist, but Changmin’s theories have nothing left to back them up if Changmin doesn’t believe them anymore. And he might not, because he thinks that this pain that he doesn’t want to give up might be love.
Jaejoong is still staring at Changmin, and Changmin can feel his empty messages being burned into his skull, and when he can’t stand it anymore, his head jerks up to glare at Jaejoong and choke out words like why are you doing this, please stop doing this. He can’t get anything past his stubborn throat, though, and Jaejoong looks down, long eyelashes contrasting against his pale cheekbones, a perfect picture and as pretty as a doll, and Changmin wants to hit him, anything to try and get that video-Jaejoong back (because he’s forgetting that Jaejoong’s silly, honest smile already and beginning to wonder if he was ever real).
Jaejoong murmurs something jumbled and unintelligible and presses his fingers into Changmin’s hand. When Changmin looks down, it is that little square of paper that Jaejoong was folding and folding. Changmin wonders what he’s supposed to do with it, but when he is about to question Jaejoong, something about the way Jaejoong is staring at the paper intensely stops him. He begins to unfold it. When he has unfolded it completely, there are creases and creases and Changmin squints, for a second, to decipher the lopsided, shaky letters. He can’t read it, and then he can.
Jaejoong is sorry, it says in English. Jaejoong don’t know what to do, Jaejoong is lost. Jaejoong is - then, something crossed out again and again, and no matter how matter how much Changmin squints, all he can see is vague shapes.
“Your grammar needs improvement,” Changmin says faintly, hardly caring. “Jaejoong is what?” He looks up at Jaejoong again, his voice with something unidentifiable in it and a heavy, burning feeling in his stomach.
Jaejoong doesn’t speak for the longest second. Then, quiet, as though he is afraid of what Changmin will say, he says in English: “Alone.”
Changmin takes Jaejoong’s pencil and writes something on the paper and smoothes the previous creases out of it the best he can before he folds it into the smallest square and hands it back to Jaejoong.
When Jaejoong opens the paper, Changmin says, equally as quiet and like he is reading off of it: “Jaejoong doesn’t have to be alone.” I am here for you.
There is no confession, and when Jaejoong looks up, his empty eyes aren’t empty anymore. When he cries, Changmin is there.
Jaejoong/Changmin, a couple of ninja pairings (Yoochun/Junsu etc.); PG; romance, angst; 2500 words approx.
He wonders what Jaejoong’s laugh would sound like, and when he looks at Jaejoong again - and again, and again - for some reason, he wonders what kind of beauty Jaejoong’s voice would hold if he sang, and if it would be as delicate as his face or as gentle as his words or as painful and empty as his eyes.
This piece recieved 3rd place in _starcandy’s awesome!1000+ contest, under the prompt no pain, no gain (You have to endure some pain to gain something that has value.)
This is your present, Diane roselit. :’D ♥ I really hope you like it.
Changmin doesn't believe in love. He sees it happen, but doesn't really think that it's necessarily happening. Junsu is Changmin’s best friend, and Junsu says that Changmin doesn’t make any sense, but Changmin rationalizes to himself: what is love, anyway? Is there love? Or is it just a more complicated version of infatuation, obsession, admiration, and/or something else? Changmin thinks love is something that probably is just an invention of the human mind in order to avoid being alone.
Junsu doesn't think so. From the day he meets Yoochun, he knows that this isn't just infatuation, or obsession, or admiration. He can't really explain it to Changmin, and Changmin says that that’s okay because he doesn't really want to know (even if there is a part of him that is curious). He is not curious enough, though, and he forgets about it not soon after Junsu tells Changmin that he can’t explain this feeling, and that love is something that can’t be explained.
Changmin is introduced to Jaejoong through Junsu who has an aunt who knows Yoochun’s mother who knows a teacher who knows Jaejoong. Jaejoong needs to be tutored in English, Changmin is told. He’s fine with it because he doesn’t feel like he ever has enough to do (schoolwork doesn’t take long to finish, after all).
Jaejoong is dark-haired and quiet, and when Changmin tries to talk to him, he doesn’t quite answer and he doesn’t quite look at Changmin. Since he doesn’t quite look at Changmin, it is easier for Changmin to look at Jaejoong without being caught, and he examines Jaejoong’s face with detached curiosity. High cheekbones, black hair, long eyelashes, soft lips; pale skin, frail fingers, and tired, tired eyes. Jaejoong glances up when Changmin is least expecting it, and he looks at Changmin’s face completely for the first time. There’s something about the way Jaejoong’s eyes look so fragile that makes Changmin look away, feeling almost ashamed and not understanding why. He finishes helping Jaejoong practice his English handwriting as quickly as he can and leaves.
Junsu and Yoochun have been together for almost six months, and they decide to celebrate together. On a whim, they invite Changmin, and even though Changmin is grudging and complaining the entire time, he goes with them when they drive to the Han River. They have fireworks and firecrackers, and then they tell Changmin that oh, yeah, Yunho is coming, remember him from Chemistry? Yeah, him, Yoochun knows him pretty well. Oh, also, he’s bringing Jaejoong along. Jaejoong - you tutor him, right? So we thought you’d like to know.
Changmin shrugs Junsu and Yoochun off and lounges idly by the car, watching Yoochun and Junsu chase each other with sparklers, the setting sun glowing in the river and on their skin. (Love.)
Yunho arrives in his ancient Ford truck fifteen minutes after they arrived at the river, and just as promised, Jaejoong is with him. Yunho greets Changmin and then goes off to break Yoochun and Junsu up because they are rolling on the ground, all entangled limbs and strangled, happy shouting. Jaejoong leans on Changmin’s car next to him and watches the others with him, too. Changmin wonders if this should feel awkward, and if it should, why it doesn’t.
The sun is almost done going over the horizon, and it is still setting off embers in the water, but for some reason, Changmin is looking at Jaejoong instead and pretending he isn’t. Jaejoong is watching the light in the water meld and he looks peaceful. Changmin has a sudden, irrational feeling that’s making it difficult to see clearly, and he wants to reach out and touch Jaejoong’s hand or Jaejoong’s face and see if he will fade or crumble because he looks so fragile already.
Jaejoong looks at him and offers a small smile. Junsu comes barrelling at Changmin, suddenly, and then his hand is stuffed with a couple of sparklers and after Junsu has gone back to tease Yunho about Hee-something, Changmin is stuck awkwardly trying to light his sparklers when the stupid lighter just won’t start.
Jaejoong takes the lighter from Changmin’s hand with an almost familiar gesture and lights the sparklers easily, leaving Changmin slightly embarrassed, but Jaejoong doesn’t notice or care and just takes a sparkler from Changmin. Changmin has two left.
Yoochun is making greasy innuendos, now, and Changmin goes over to the others under the guise of stopping him to get away from Jaejoong’s gaze. Yoochun stops his innuendos briefly to tell him to go back to Jaejoong; don’t you have a heart, Changmin, why would you leave a pretty thing like him just standing there? Changmin rolls his eyes and goes back to Jaejoong a little reluctantly.
Jaejoong’s face, when Changmin looks at it again, is glowing (but it is only the light of the setting sun, and it’s stupid, but Changmin’s heart still skips, anyway). He wonders what Jaejoong’s laugh would sound like, and when he looks at Jaejoong again - and again, and again - for some reason, he wonders what kind of beauty Jaejoong’s voice would hold if he sang, and if it would be as delicate as his face or as gentle as his words or as painful and empty as his eyes.
Jaejoong’s sparkler has burnt out and he looks at it with an odd sadness, and Changmin still has two, even though one is almost gone. He offers his other to Jaejoong, and Jaejoong hesitantly takes it with another smile that doesn’t show his teeth, and with a sudden, almost impulsive motion, he throws it into the air and laughs, really laughs, as it spins a couple of feet above their heads, like a strange, momentary star. Changmin’s eyes aren’t caught by it for long because he’s looking, instead, at the light catching in Jaejoong’s face and wondering what’s happening to him.
Changmin is at Jaejoong’s house again, trying to teach Jaejoong pronouns and nouns and adjectives and no, Jaejoong, a verb is not a person, place or thing. Jaejoong is only getting a little better, but Changmin isn’t willing to give up and doesn’t have the heart to tell him that this will take a while.
They are both in Jaejoong’s room, with Jaejoong sitting at his desk and Changmin in another chair next to him. Jaejoong is looking hard at his worksheet, and he murmurs to Changmin without looking up that could he please explain this part? Changmin leans to glance over it, and Jaejoong looks at him with their faces too close, and there it is again, that pause in time that isn’t supposed to happen. It’s just like any other cliché, really, Changmin thinks, but he doesn’t care when he holds his breath and waits. One second, two seconds, and Jaejoong isn’t moving. Empty, empty eyes, and Changmin wonders what it was that made them like this.
Changmin doesn’t know what he’s doing when he touches Jaejoong's face almost reverently, like a prayer or something that is broken easily. He wants to cup Jaejoong's cheeks and say something that doesn’t make sense, like: tell me why you don’t laugh, or tell me why you won’t laugh, or please, tell me what this is. The words are caught in his throat, heavy and rough, and Changmin cups Jaejoong’s chin instead and kisses him gently, nothing but hope and confusion and a little bit of something Changmin doesn’t know how to name.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he looks at Jaejoong’s face and realizes that Jaejoong never closed his eyes or kissed him back. He lets Jaejoong go like he’s been burnt (and maybe he has, because the feeling he has now is something like pain and hatred and sadness all smothered together) and murmurs apologizes and accidents and how he really has to leave, and then he does. Jaejoong stares empty messages into the wall and doesn’t stop him.
Junsu isn’t Changmin’s best friend for no reason; he can tell that something isn’t right when Changmin doesn’t tease him about gushing over how Yoochun got him flowers yesterday. He asks and asks, but Changmin doesn’t answer, and then he stops asking because he knows that when Changmin needs to tell, he will.
“I can’t explain it -” Changmin says into the phone to Junsu, later, because he needs to voice his strangled fears. “I can’t explain it, Junsu. I just - I don’t know, I look at him, and there’s this feeling, like I want to help him.” He feels foolish, but Junsu is gentle with him and it helps.
There is a long pause and Changmin waits. “Changmin,” Junsu says at last, the slight static not hiding how quiet he is. “Is this a more complicated version of infatuation, or obsession, or admiration? It sounds like it could be.” It is.
Changmin wants to say, no, you don’t understand, it’s not that, it can’t be that because that doesn’t even exist, but he curls his fingers into themselves and ends the call.
Changmin doesn’t go to Jaejoong’s house again, and he was going to keep it that way, but his plans are brought to a standstill when Jaejoong’s mother calls him to ask why he hasn’t been around lately. Jaejoong’s mother looks a lot like Jaejoong, pretty hands and quiet eyes, and she feels soft and scared like Jaejoong, too, and Changmin can’t tell her that he can’t do this anymore. He goes to Jaejoong’s house for (what he tells himself is) the last time.
Jaejoong is at his desk again, head lowered and pencil in hand. When Changmin goes closer, he sees that Jaejoong’s hands are quivering.
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Changmin forgets, for a second, and when Jaejoong looks at him, he is forced to remember and it is like his heart is being crushed all over again. Jaejoong nods and Changmin stands stiffly.
“My mother was calling you earlier,” Jaejoong says, back to staring at his paper. It’s blank. “You’d better go.”
Changmin finds Mrs. Kim in the living room. “Hello,” he says politely. “Is anything wrong, Mrs. Kim?”
She smiles at Changmin. There are wrinkles at her eyes and around her mouth and her eyes are tired, too. “Nothing, Changmin, but I just wanted to know how Jaejoong is doing in his English.”
Changmin recites, “His grammar is better, his sentences are better constructed, and his vocabulary is improving. Overall, he is doing well.”
Mrs. Kim breaks into a relieved smile. “Oh, good. I’m just worried about him sometimes, that’s all.” Changmin understands and Mrs. Kim hums happily and tells him to sit for a few minutes, she’ll get him a drink. He obliges and while he waits, he looks at the pictures on the walls and mantel.
There are pictures of a very young Jaejoong, and one with a very young Yunho. There are portraits of Jaejoong’s mother and who Changmin assumes is his father. He stands up to have a closer look at the pictures. Jaejoong is laughing in every one of them.
The television stand catches Changmin’s eye and he goes to stand next to it. There is a video lying on top of it, and it has a label named Youngwoong. Changmin wonders if it’s a person and puts the tape into the VCR.
The video is full of Jaejoong, except it is not the Jaejoong Changmin sees (knows?). In the video, Jaejoong is laughing and smiling and having a good time. There is five minutes of Jaejoong goofing off, playing games and making faces at the camera and standing precariously on high-rise buildings, leaning his arms out for balance and then jumping off the edge and pretending he is an airplane. The rest is a blank tape. Changmin doesn’t know what to think, and when Mrs. Kim comes back with a glass of orange juice, apologizing for having to take a phone call, he politely tells her it’s alright and tries to forget Jaejoong’s real smile.
When he goes back to Jaejoong’s room, Jaejoong is folding down his paper into a tiny, tiny square, but Changmin doesn’t care because he wants to ask Jaejoong why he doesn’t smile anymore like he used to, why he’s like this, why he didn’t kiss Changmin back. Why didn’t you, Jaejoong? And tell me why I kissed you, too.
He wants to ask a lot of questions, but he doesn’t ask any. He just sits down and opens up Jaejoong’s English textbook. Jaejoong is looking at him and not tearing his gaze away, and Changmin wants to stare back, but he’s too afraid of this Jaejoong, now, because he’s seen another Jaejoong that’s so much more different and he can’t face this Jaejoong anymore because he’s fallen in love with his past.
Fallen in love. Is this what love is? Just a more complicated version of infatuation, obsession, admiration. Changmin thinks that he is infatuated, and he might be (just a little) obsessed, and his admiration for Jaejoong is irrational and confusing but it is there. It took Changmin five minutes to fall in love if he is considering the Jaejoong who made faces at the camera, and it took Changmin three weeks to realize he has fallen in love with Jaejoong if he considers the Jaejoong with the broken wings. It’s strange. Love isn’t supposed to exist, but Changmin’s theories have nothing left to back them up if Changmin doesn’t believe them anymore. And he might not, because he thinks that this pain that he doesn’t want to give up might be love.
Jaejoong is still staring at Changmin, and Changmin can feel his empty messages being burned into his skull, and when he can’t stand it anymore, his head jerks up to glare at Jaejoong and choke out words like why are you doing this, please stop doing this. He can’t get anything past his stubborn throat, though, and Jaejoong looks down, long eyelashes contrasting against his pale cheekbones, a perfect picture and as pretty as a doll, and Changmin wants to hit him, anything to try and get that video-Jaejoong back (because he’s forgetting that Jaejoong’s silly, honest smile already and beginning to wonder if he was ever real).
Jaejoong murmurs something jumbled and unintelligible and presses his fingers into Changmin’s hand. When Changmin looks down, it is that little square of paper that Jaejoong was folding and folding. Changmin wonders what he’s supposed to do with it, but when he is about to question Jaejoong, something about the way Jaejoong is staring at the paper intensely stops him. He begins to unfold it. When he has unfolded it completely, there are creases and creases and Changmin squints, for a second, to decipher the lopsided, shaky letters. He can’t read it, and then he can.
Jaejoong is sorry, it says in English. Jaejoong don’t know what to do, Jaejoong is lost. Jaejoong is - then, something crossed out again and again, and no matter how matter how much Changmin squints, all he can see is vague shapes.
“Your grammar needs improvement,” Changmin says faintly, hardly caring. “Jaejoong is what?” He looks up at Jaejoong again, his voice with something unidentifiable in it and a heavy, burning feeling in his stomach.
Jaejoong doesn’t speak for the longest second. Then, quiet, as though he is afraid of what Changmin will say, he says in English: “Alone.”
Changmin takes Jaejoong’s pencil and writes something on the paper and smoothes the previous creases out of it the best he can before he folds it into the smallest square and hands it back to Jaejoong.
When Jaejoong opens the paper, Changmin says, equally as quiet and like he is reading off of it: “Jaejoong doesn’t have to be alone.” I am here for you.
There is no confession, and when Jaejoong looks up, his empty eyes aren’t empty anymore. When he cries, Changmin is there.