rooftops with you (this is home)
title: rooftops with you (this is home)
gifted to: onew
pairing: jaejoong/yoochun, jaejoong/yunho, jaejoong/changmin
length: 2,729 words
rating: just barely PG-13
genre: college!verse; romance, crack through dialogue. extreme absence of angst.
summary: in which jaejoong and yoochun find out just exactly where home lies.
author's note: admission for the dbsk_secretgame GUESS WHO? festival with the prompt home, which i imagine i kind of failed. because uh, it's not even camouflaged. :(
rooftops with you (this is home)
june
it’s one of those grimy little public town colleges, the ones that everyone try to avoid if they can. all the buildings are varying shades of grey and brown, and here and there are remnants from old graffiti.
of course jaejoong loves it.
so he is really just humouring his parents (who ask never-ending almost-questions such as, “are you sure you want to go to that place?” and, “surely you can see that you could do so much better?”) when he goes on the guided tour of the college, pretending that he is still considering all options; he already knows where he will be attending this fall.
it’s on this trip that he stumbles across park yoochun.
yoochun is the college, had it been human. he has messy, curly, dark brownish hair (real bed-head messy, not artfully but casual messy) and baggy, ripped clothes in dark earthy colours. his hands are tainted by paint that won’t be washed off. he looks like he has never known the concept of a good night’s sleep, judging from the circles under his eyes and from how he is leaning across one of the many outdoor cafeteria tables to sleep away a few precious moments of unconsciousness. it’s not that early in the morning though, and people with books under their arms are milling around in flocks, kicking pebbles across the grassy grounds, discussing this and that (college people discuss things a lot).
“hey,” jaejoong greets him once he is positive that yoochun is fully awake. “you going to be here this fall?”
yoochun shakes his head, smiling. “no. i’ve got a ticket to harvard.”
“why are you here then?”
he shrugs and says something along the lines of, “it’s harvard.”. jaejoong keeps talking, listing all the reasons why he is going to be here this fall, and carving out the difference between this and harvard. yoochun remains quiet for most of the time, looks at him with a smile once in a while.
“you look like someone who should be here,” jaejoong says a while later, when the tour is over and his bus is waiting. yoochun smiles, scribbles an e-mail address onto a piece of paper and hands it over.
(he takes the bus home, clenching the little piece of paper in his left hand like it’s precious or something, and logs onto his computer, logs onto facebook. typing yoochun’s name into the search box, he clicks into his info quickly, to check if the e-mail address he’s got is real, and not fake. it is. then he lets the window remain open for a couple of hours, adding yoochun as a friend just before he needs to turn off his computer.
it’s not like he uses facebook very much; but this way, it feels much more official, this could-be BFF relationship.)
september
the day he moves into his (single) dorm is a day of freedom; he feels like the sky should be blue and clear and birds should be twittering around and the air should be cleaner somehow; but whoever’s up there above the clouds apparently doesn’t agree, because it’s a grey, rainy day. not that jaejoong cares.
first thing he does when he’s stepped foot inside his new home is open his suitcase and take out all the polo shirts that his mom has bought him ‘so he can look presentable for the first day of college’. he figures he’ll give them to charity; africa can have them (and they can’t complain, they’re all brand new). under the stack of pastel coloured shirts are clothes of darker colours, clothes that are more like the things yoochun was wearing than jaejoong is willing to admit. (his hair cut, black and messy, is inspired by yoochun’s too, not that he’ll tell anyone.)
this is what college is about, according to jaejoong. freedom. to do anything he wants.
and a bit of studying of course. that too.
once the lectures begin, jaejoong finds a new potential BFF by the name yunho.
yunho has broad, strong shoulders and long legs; he looks like the kind of guy who was most likely to have been voted prom king, or like someone who could be a stunt-man for brad pitt (had brad pitt been asian), with a defined jaw and brown, casual hair. and yet there is a sort of please-take-me-with-you-home look etched into his smile (his dimples showing) amidst the responsibility and protectiveness. jaejoong finds himself just slightly in love with him.
“yunho,” he says, tapping him on the shoulder when he doesn’t respond. the latter is deeply engrossed in a thick book that has something to do with philosophy; jaejoong doesn’t understand why anyone would go through that subject willingly.
“yunho,” he repeats, changing strategy: he pinches (hard) instead of tapping, and yunho half squawks half shouts at him.
“what?” he growls, glowering at jaejoong. “i need to have this book read by the lecture after lunch, so unless you have something very, very important to tell me, you need to leave me alone.”
jaejoong blinks. “you’re pretty,” he says seriously without thinking and smiles.
yunho looks at him. “thank you,” he replies. “now fuck off.”
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebest@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: you suck
this place makes me want to go back to kindergarden. it’s weird.
october
jaejoong can find nothing bad to say about college; it feels like he was born for this. he loves the freedom, the non-drama that is such a relief after four years of high school, his dorm room. he has a big window in his room, facing the wall of another building with its own big windows. the window just in front of his almost always has its curtains drawn, but the curtains are pretty enough that he doesn’t really mind.
“HEY,” jaejoong shouts out of the window, across the little space in between his building and the one next to it. “HEY, NICE CURTAINS.”
it’s very early morning, around 7-ish, and jaejoong thinks that he just saw the silhouette of the person who lives in the apartment across from his through his curtains.
he waits for a minute, staring at the window as if he just might develop x-ray vision eyes that will allow him to look through the thick yellow fabric. or laser-zapping eyes that could burn them away, which would work too. he spots aforementioned silhouette freezing behind the curtains, in a position that looks like the owner isn’t completely sure whether it would be wise to draw back the curtains. jaejoong has to admit, had he had laser-zapping eyes, it wouldn’t be a very smart move (because jaejoong doesn’t have quick reflexes and would probably zap the inhabitant to death, along with the curtains).
the person who appears behind drawn back curtains has tan skin and dark hair and cheekbones so apparent that jaejoong becomes just a teeny weenie bit jealous. jaejoong has seen him around; they go to school together, but have no lectures together at all, except for the rare times where administration puts two different classes together because they’re low on funds (it’s not harvard after all). he looks at jaejoong warily, fingers still clenched in the yellow fabric as if he is ready to draw the curtains back in place at the first sign of danger.
“hi,” jaejoong says, smiling, which only serves to make the other frown at him.
“was it you shouting just now?” he asks instead of replying.
“yeah.” jaejoong reaches out a hand to touch his own curtains, then says, “your curtains are very nice.”
“yes, i heard.”
“i’m kim jaejoong.”
the other looks at him thoughtfully, then says, “shim changmin.”
november
a week after his initial meeting with shim changmin, jaejoong has to admit that he does kind of mind when his pretty curtains are drawn and he can’t see him. it becomes routine after a while, to shout greetings of good morning and good afternoon and good evening and good night out of his window. and sometime after that, he can’t exactly say that it’s just good manners; nor can he claim that bumping into changmin seven times a day is purely coincidental.
“you’re not pretty anymore,” jaejoong replies a rainy day in november when yunho asks him if he has lost his mind, or has he just chosen that stalker is his new choice of career.
yunho looks at him, by then used to jaejoong explaining cryptic answers after a few seconds of silence.
“changmin is very pretty,” jaejoong elaborates, as if yunho is particularly dumb.
“oh.”
a groan. “not you again,” changmin sighs, looking around him quickly for an escape, then props himself down on a chair when he doesn’t find any.
“me again,” jaejoong grins, sitting down next to him. “hi. why are you avoiding me?”
changmin looks at him, raising an eyebrow. “don’t people usually avoid their stalkers?” he asks, smiling slightly when jaejoong flinches.
“i’m not a stalker,” he cries, pouting when changmin laughs at him. “i’m just being polite, really.”
“sure,” changmin says, “ and you’re in love with me.” it’s said lightly, but changmin bright gaze turns just a tad searching. jaejoong doesn’t respond.
“that’s okay,” changmin continues in the same light tone, except there’s a tinge of teasing in it now. “i know i’m gorgeous.” he raises his arms in defense when jaejoong tries to punch him, laughing.
december
“this changmin guy,” yunho begins, looking at him very seriously over a coffee mug. “he’s not like - he’s not messing with you, is he?”
jaejoong resists the urge to roll his eyes. “no yunho, he’s not messing with me.”
yunho sighs. “look, i’d totally ask if his intentions are honourable, except i know -”
“i’d hit you,” jaejoong finishes for him, laughing.
“yes,” yunho says gravely, stirring his coffee absentmindedly although it’s completely black and there’s nothing that requires stirring. “i mean, how much do you know about him?”
“i know he’s studying to become a biochemist,” jaejoong says after half a minute’s pause.
“oh,” yunho says, serious tone gone. “oh, he’s one of those. well, then everything’s fine i suppose.”
there’s a christmas party on campus that night, which is really just an excuse for more drinking and partying, because there already has been one before. jaejoong manages to drag changmin without him after lots of begging and promising to make him lunch for a week (changmin claims that it’s stupid to go to parties like those, because they’re not even fun and he will have a headache in the morning), and yunho comes with because he “doesn’t want jaejoong to be raped”. and though jaejoong isn’t sure he was planning on getting drunk, he downs a couple of jell-o cubes out of boredom. whatever is in them, it’s strong. suddenly the world is fuzzy and quite pretty, and changmin is warm against his side.
“hi,” he mumbles, leaning in towards the heat. changmin looks at him bemusedly (jaejoong blurry vision catches that changmin’s eyes are toffee light; eye colour is never something he notices normally) and puts his right arm around jaejoong’s shoulders to make him more comfortable. changmin looks nice and smells nice, and smiles a very nice crooked smile when jaejoong lets his lips graze against his throat.
they’re just getting on to more exciting bits when yunho appears on his other side, coughing loudly.
“jaejoong, are you drunk?” he asks demandingly, and jaejoong smiles in reply and continues kissing changmin’s jaw. he pushes yunho away with his foot in the most inconspicuous manner he can muster, and grudgingly, yunho moves away, looking at changmin pointedly in much the same way jaejoong’s father looks at his sisters’ boyfriends before he joins the people on the dance floor.
“it’s only because you’re supposed to be a geek that he isn’t trying to squeeze his way in between us,” jaejoong murmurs, lips nearing the corner of changmin’s mouth.
“not a geek,” changmin counters, nipping at jaejoong’s lips impatiently when jaejoong continues his teasing. “s’not my fault professors love me.”
january
“do you know if anyone lives in the room next to mine?” jaejoong asks one evening while he’s watching a scary movie with yunho and changmin. it takes a few tries to get them to respond (there’s a naked girl in the movie, whom jaejoong presumes is kind of pretty, except he personally thinks he’s prettier).
“uh - what?” changmin asks, still staring at the screen as the girl runs up and down a street, half naked and covered in blood.
“does anyone live next to me?” he asks again, and nudges them both when they fail to respond again.
“i don’t know,” yunho says vaguely, seeming more interested in the movie than in jaejoong’s question; he doesn’t think that’s quite fair.
“changmin? do you know?”
“in the room next to yours?”
“yeah.”
“no. i think it’s empty.” jaejoong resists asking whether he only thinks and doesn’t know, considering that he is supposed to be a genius and all. but at that moment, the girl on the screen lets out a particularly shrill scream and drops her skirt and jaejoong remains silent, succumbing to the apparently stronger powers (naked girls).
february
jaejoong wakes up very early one morning because someone knocks on his door. constantly. and hard.
“what?” he asks curtly, unable to make out who’s outside because his eyes are still blurry with sleep. whoever’s there had better disappear before he gains back his eyesight.
“hi,” an unfamiliar voice greets, and jaejoong flinches because whoever it is is not yunho asking if he can borrow a laptop, or changmin asking if he can raid his refrigerator. “remember me?”
jaejoong rubs his eyes with the back of his fists until he can see semi-clearly, and then looks up, only to drop open his jaw in surprise.
because who else is standing on his doorstep early saturday morning but park yoochun?
“i - but - how,” jaejoong splutters, still looking surprised until a voice in the back of his head tells him that he looks like a complete retard.
“i dropped out,” yoochun grins. “harvard so isn’t the place for me, so i transferred to this place. i figure that i’d rather study art with you too, instead of, “ he grimaces, “logistics. oh, and i’m your new neighbour.”
“i - oh,” jaejoong replies, trying to grasp the information he’s just been told. “okay. but i don’t have an oven, so i can’t make you a cake.”
“cake?” yoochun says, and now he’s the one to look surprised. “what are you on about?”
“don’t neighbours usually do that?” jaejoong asks, leaning his head to the side, contemplating this new yoochun compared to the one he met back in june. he looks much the same, except wilder, with streaks of colour in his hair that is even more messy now than it was back when he met him. his clothes are also more ragged, patches everywhere, and his whole appearance is very surprising, because jaejoong had somehow expected yoochun to more like harvard after attending there for so many months.
“i suppose,” yoochun agrees, smiling at him. “so - cake or no cake - aren’t you going to invite me in?
march
“i’ve got a new neighbour,” jaejoong tells yunho and changmin over a plate of scrambled eggs. “he’s very pretty.”
“how can you have a new one,” changmin asks bemusedly, lips quirking up, “when you didn’t have an old one -”
“jaejoong,” yunho says grimly, “i don’t think he’s good for you. junsu says he jumps off rooftops -”
“he does?” jaejoong exclaims, impressed. “nice. that’s what he’s been doing at harvard?”
yunho narrows his eyes. “if you think you’re going to start jumping off rooftops -”
“oh, as if i’d do that,” jaejoong says, waving his hand around dismissively. “you know i’m afraid of heights.”
“changmin,” jaejoong whispers during one lecture that both of them happen to attend (one of those lectures that they aren’t actually supposed to have together, but do, because their school has no money). “i have to tell you something.”
“what,” changmin whispers back, glad to have a distraction from the professor’s monotone droning voice.
“my neighbour - you know, yoochun,” he begins, pausing for dramatic effect. “he’s pretty. i think he might be prettier than you.”
changmin looks at him in stone silence, and jaejoong starts fidgeting. he has never been good with breakups.
“i mean - not that you aren’t pretty or anything, but - he might even be prettier than me,” he adds hastily, fearing that he might have offended changmin and wounded his ego or something like that.
changmin looks at him in astonishment before he starts sniggering, which turns to laughing loudly, not stopping until the professor has asked him pointedly if changmin would like all of them to take a break from the lecture until he’s done laughing. jaejoong doesn’t really get the joke.
“what are you laughing about?” he demands in a whisper, yanking on changmin’s shirtsleeve. the latter brushes him off, composes himself and replies,
“just relieved, is all,” he says, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead when jaejoong glares at him, before ducking his head to laugh silently into his notes. (jaejoong finds out later that changmin has a tape recorder under his desk, and has recording jaejoong saying that yoochun is prettier than him.)
april
“you’re actually not that pretty,” he tells yoochun cheerfully, as a sort of last thing to say before he jumps off the main dorm building and risks breaking his spine. yoochun looks at him shrewdly, smirking slightly.
yoochun kisses him suddenly, right there on the roof, with cold wind against their faces, adrenaline running in their blood, and paint-streaked fingers wind themselves in jaejoong’s (newly) bleached hair.
(yoochun’s eyes change colour according to the light.)
“yunho says you’re a bad influence on me,” he shouts through the air as they jump, just for the sake of saying something. he finds himself not appreciating things when he’s not allowed to talk.
“what, me?” yoochun shouts back just before they hit the roof of the next building. “never!”
may
gifted to: onew
pairing: jaejoong/yoochun, jaejoong/yunho, jaejoong/changmin
length: 2,729 words
rating: just barely PG-13
genre: college!verse; romance, crack through dialogue. extreme absence of angst.
summary: in which jaejoong and yoochun find out just exactly where home lies.
author's note: admission for the dbsk_secretgame GUESS WHO? festival with the prompt home, which i imagine i kind of failed. because uh, it's not even camouflaged. :(
rooftops with you (this is home)
june
it’s one of those grimy little public town colleges, the ones that everyone try to avoid if they can. all the buildings are varying shades of grey and brown, and here and there are remnants from old graffiti.
of course jaejoong loves it.
so he is really just humouring his parents (who ask never-ending almost-questions such as, “are you sure you want to go to that place?” and, “surely you can see that you could do so much better?”) when he goes on the guided tour of the college, pretending that he is still considering all options; he already knows where he will be attending this fall.
it’s on this trip that he stumbles across park yoochun.
yoochun is the college, had it been human. he has messy, curly, dark brownish hair (real bed-head messy, not artfully but casual messy) and baggy, ripped clothes in dark earthy colours. his hands are tainted by paint that won’t be washed off. he looks like he has never known the concept of a good night’s sleep, judging from the circles under his eyes and from how he is leaning across one of the many outdoor cafeteria tables to sleep away a few precious moments of unconsciousness. it’s not that early in the morning though, and people with books under their arms are milling around in flocks, kicking pebbles across the grassy grounds, discussing this and that (college people discuss things a lot).
“hey,” jaejoong greets him once he is positive that yoochun is fully awake. “you going to be here this fall?”
yoochun shakes his head, smiling. “no. i’ve got a ticket to harvard.”
“why are you here then?”
he shrugs and says something along the lines of, “it’s harvard.”. jaejoong keeps talking, listing all the reasons why he is going to be here this fall, and carving out the difference between this and harvard. yoochun remains quiet for most of the time, looks at him with a smile once in a while.
“you look like someone who should be here,” jaejoong says a while later, when the tour is over and his bus is waiting. yoochun smiles, scribbles an e-mail address onto a piece of paper and hands it over.
(he takes the bus home, clenching the little piece of paper in his left hand like it’s precious or something, and logs onto his computer, logs onto facebook. typing yoochun’s name into the search box, he clicks into his info quickly, to check if the e-mail address he’s got is real, and not fake. it is. then he lets the window remain open for a couple of hours, adding yoochun as a friend just before he needs to turn off his computer.
it’s not like he uses facebook very much; but this way, it feels much more official, this could-be BFF relationship.)
september
the day he moves into his (single) dorm is a day of freedom; he feels like the sky should be blue and clear and birds should be twittering around and the air should be cleaner somehow; but whoever’s up there above the clouds apparently doesn’t agree, because it’s a grey, rainy day. not that jaejoong cares.
first thing he does when he’s stepped foot inside his new home is open his suitcase and take out all the polo shirts that his mom has bought him ‘so he can look presentable for the first day of college’. he figures he’ll give them to charity; africa can have them (and they can’t complain, they’re all brand new). under the stack of pastel coloured shirts are clothes of darker colours, clothes that are more like the things yoochun was wearing than jaejoong is willing to admit. (his hair cut, black and messy, is inspired by yoochun’s too, not that he’ll tell anyone.)
this is what college is about, according to jaejoong. freedom. to do anything he wants.
and a bit of studying of course. that too.
once the lectures begin, jaejoong finds a new potential BFF by the name yunho.
yunho has broad, strong shoulders and long legs; he looks like the kind of guy who was most likely to have been voted prom king, or like someone who could be a stunt-man for brad pitt (had brad pitt been asian), with a defined jaw and brown, casual hair. and yet there is a sort of please-take-me-with-you-home look etched into his smile (his dimples showing) amidst the responsibility and protectiveness. jaejoong finds himself just slightly in love with him.
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: you alive?
have you been eaten by harvard yet?
“yunho,” he says, tapping him on the shoulder when he doesn’t respond. the latter is deeply engrossed in a thick book that has something to do with philosophy; jaejoong doesn’t understand why anyone would go through that subject willingly.
“yunho,” he repeats, changing strategy: he pinches (hard) instead of tapping, and yunho half squawks half shouts at him.
“what?” he growls, glowering at jaejoong. “i need to have this book read by the lecture after lunch, so unless you have something very, very important to tell me, you need to leave me alone.”
jaejoong blinks. “you’re pretty,” he says seriously without thinking and smiles.
yunho looks at him. “thank you,” he replies. “now fuck off.”
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebest@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: you suck
this place makes me want to go back to kindergarden. it’s weird.
october
jaejoong can find nothing bad to say about college; it feels like he was born for this. he loves the freedom, the non-drama that is such a relief after four years of high school, his dorm room. he has a big window in his room, facing the wall of another building with its own big windows. the window just in front of his almost always has its curtains drawn, but the curtains are pretty enough that he doesn’t really mind.
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: ?
you still have to reply if you’re dead. K
“HEY,” jaejoong shouts out of the window, across the little space in between his building and the one next to it. “HEY, NICE CURTAINS.”
it’s very early morning, around 7-ish, and jaejoong thinks that he just saw the silhouette of the person who lives in the apartment across from his through his curtains.
he waits for a minute, staring at the window as if he just might develop x-ray vision eyes that will allow him to look through the thick yellow fabric. or laser-zapping eyes that could burn them away, which would work too. he spots aforementioned silhouette freezing behind the curtains, in a position that looks like the owner isn’t completely sure whether it would be wise to draw back the curtains. jaejoong has to admit, had he had laser-zapping eyes, it wouldn’t be a very smart move (because jaejoong doesn’t have quick reflexes and would probably zap the inhabitant to death, along with the curtains).
the person who appears behind drawn back curtains has tan skin and dark hair and cheekbones so apparent that jaejoong becomes just a teeny weenie bit jealous. jaejoong has seen him around; they go to school together, but have no lectures together at all, except for the rare times where administration puts two different classes together because they’re low on funds (it’s not harvard after all). he looks at jaejoong warily, fingers still clenched in the yellow fabric as if he is ready to draw the curtains back in place at the first sign of danger.
“hi,” jaejoong says, smiling, which only serves to make the other frown at him.
“was it you shouting just now?” he asks instead of replying.
“yeah.” jaejoong reaches out a hand to touch his own curtains, then says, “your curtains are very nice.”
“yes, i heard.”
“i’m kim jaejoong.”
the other looks at him thoughtfully, then says, “shim changmin.”
november
a week after his initial meeting with shim changmin, jaejoong has to admit that he does kind of mind when his pretty curtains are drawn and he can’t see him. it becomes routine after a while, to shout greetings of good morning and good afternoon and good evening and good night out of his window. and sometime after that, he can’t exactly say that it’s just good manners; nor can he claim that bumping into changmin seven times a day is purely coincidental.
“you’re not pretty anymore,” jaejoong replies a rainy day in november when yunho asks him if he has lost his mind, or has he just chosen that stalker is his new choice of career.
yunho looks at him, by then used to jaejoong explaining cryptic answers after a few seconds of silence.
“changmin is very pretty,” jaejoong elaborates, as if yunho is particularly dumb.
“oh.”
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: RE: ?
what are you talking about?
please tell me your place sucks. tell me your dorm mate or neighbour or professor is insufferable. it’d make me feel so much better, really.
a groan. “not you again,” changmin sighs, looking around him quickly for an escape, then props himself down on a chair when he doesn’t find any.
“me again,” jaejoong grins, sitting down next to him. “hi. why are you avoiding me?”
changmin looks at him, raising an eyebrow. “don’t people usually avoid their stalkers?” he asks, smiling slightly when jaejoong flinches.
“i’m not a stalker,” he cries, pouting when changmin laughs at him. “i’m just being polite, really.”
“sure,” changmin says, “ and you’re in love with me.” it’s said lightly, but changmin bright gaze turns just a tad searching. jaejoong doesn’t respond.
“that’s okay,” changmin continues in the same light tone, except there’s a tinge of teasing in it now. “i know i’m gorgeous.” he raises his arms in defense when jaejoong tries to punch him, laughing.
december
“this changmin guy,” yunho begins, looking at him very seriously over a coffee mug. “he’s not like - he’s not messing with you, is he?”
jaejoong resists the urge to roll his eyes. “no yunho, he’s not messing with me.”
yunho sighs. “look, i’d totally ask if his intentions are honourable, except i know -”
“i’d hit you,” jaejoong finishes for him, laughing.
“yes,” yunho says gravely, stirring his coffee absentmindedly although it’s completely black and there’s nothing that requires stirring. “i mean, how much do you know about him?”
“i know he’s studying to become a biochemist,” jaejoong says after half a minute’s pause.
“oh,” yunho says, serious tone gone. “oh, he’s one of those. well, then everything’s fine i suppose.”
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: RE: RE: ?
you never replied to my first e-mail. K
i think that i am in for some serious making out with this très hot guy who lives across from me very, very soon. J which is good and very awesome. my neighbour is very non-existent (i haven’t met him, i haven’t heard him, i have no proof whatsoever that he even exists), my professors are beyond cool, and life is sweet. i hope you’re enjoying harvard. XD
merry christmas by the way. J
there’s a christmas party on campus that night, which is really just an excuse for more drinking and partying, because there already has been one before. jaejoong manages to drag changmin without him after lots of begging and promising to make him lunch for a week (changmin claims that it’s stupid to go to parties like those, because they’re not even fun and he will have a headache in the morning), and yunho comes with because he “doesn’t want jaejoong to be raped”. and though jaejoong isn’t sure he was planning on getting drunk, he downs a couple of jell-o cubes out of boredom. whatever is in them, it’s strong. suddenly the world is fuzzy and quite pretty, and changmin is warm against his side.
“hi,” he mumbles, leaning in towards the heat. changmin looks at him bemusedly (jaejoong blurry vision catches that changmin’s eyes are toffee light; eye colour is never something he notices normally) and puts his right arm around jaejoong’s shoulders to make him more comfortable. changmin looks nice and smells nice, and smiles a very nice crooked smile when jaejoong lets his lips graze against his throat.
they’re just getting on to more exciting bits when yunho appears on his other side, coughing loudly.
“jaejoong, are you drunk?” he asks demandingly, and jaejoong smiles in reply and continues kissing changmin’s jaw. he pushes yunho away with his foot in the most inconspicuous manner he can muster, and grudgingly, yunho moves away, looking at changmin pointedly in much the same way jaejoong’s father looks at his sisters’ boyfriends before he joins the people on the dance floor.
“it’s only because you’re supposed to be a geek that he isn’t trying to squeeze his way in between us,” jaejoong murmurs, lips nearing the corner of changmin’s mouth.
“not a geek,” changmin counters, nipping at jaejoong’s lips impatiently when jaejoong continues his teasing. “s’not my fault professors love me.”
january
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: I GIVE UP.
- yes i did. it’s in my outbox. i can screencap it and prove it to you, give me a sec -
there. HA.
by the way, does anyone actually live in the room next to yours?
happy new year!
“do you know if anyone lives in the room next to mine?” jaejoong asks one evening while he’s watching a scary movie with yunho and changmin. it takes a few tries to get them to respond (there’s a naked girl in the movie, whom jaejoong presumes is kind of pretty, except he personally thinks he’s prettier).
“uh - what?” changmin asks, still staring at the screen as the girl runs up and down a street, half naked and covered in blood.
“does anyone live next to me?” he asks again, and nudges them both when they fail to respond again.
“i don’t know,” yunho says vaguely, seeming more interested in the movie than in jaejoong’s question; he doesn’t think that’s quite fair.
“changmin? do you know?”
“in the room next to yours?”
“yeah.”
“no. i think it’s empty.” jaejoong resists asking whether he only thinks and doesn’t know, considering that he is supposed to be a genius and all. but at that moment, the girl on the screen lets out a particularly shrill scream and drops her skirt and jaejoong remains silent, succumbing to the apparently stronger powers (naked girls).
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: RE: I GIVE UP
retard. you wrote my e-mail address wrong. so HA back at you.
no, the room next to mine’s empty.
you give up on what? K please don’t commit suicide, my inbox is awfully empty.
february
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: RE: RE: I GIVE UP.
you’d better be home this saturday.
jaejoong wakes up very early one morning because someone knocks on his door. constantly. and hard.
“what?” he asks curtly, unable to make out who’s outside because his eyes are still blurry with sleep. whoever’s there had better disappear before he gains back his eyesight.
“hi,” an unfamiliar voice greets, and jaejoong flinches because whoever it is is not yunho asking if he can borrow a laptop, or changmin asking if he can raid his refrigerator. “remember me?”
jaejoong rubs his eyes with the back of his fists until he can see semi-clearly, and then looks up, only to drop open his jaw in surprise.
because who else is standing on his doorstep early saturday morning but park yoochun?
“i - but - how,” jaejoong splutters, still looking surprised until a voice in the back of his head tells him that he looks like a complete retard.
“i dropped out,” yoochun grins. “harvard so isn’t the place for me, so i transferred to this place. i figure that i’d rather study art with you too, instead of, “ he grimaces, “logistics. oh, and i’m your new neighbour.”
“i - oh,” jaejoong replies, trying to grasp the information he’s just been told. “okay. but i don’t have an oven, so i can’t make you a cake.”
“cake?” yoochun says, and now he’s the one to look surprised. “what are you on about?”
“don’t neighbours usually do that?” jaejoong asks, leaning his head to the side, contemplating this new yoochun compared to the one he met back in june. he looks much the same, except wilder, with streaks of colour in his hair that is even more messy now than it was back when he met him. his clothes are also more ragged, patches everywhere, and his whole appearance is very surprising, because jaejoong had somehow expected yoochun to more like harvard after attending there for so many months.
“i suppose,” yoochun agrees, smiling at him. “so - cake or no cake - aren’t you going to invite me in?
march
“i’ve got a new neighbour,” jaejoong tells yunho and changmin over a plate of scrambled eggs. “he’s very pretty.”
“how can you have a new one,” changmin asks bemusedly, lips quirking up, “when you didn’t have an old one -”
“jaejoong,” yunho says grimly, “i don’t think he’s good for you. junsu says he jumps off rooftops -”
“he does?” jaejoong exclaims, impressed. “nice. that’s what he’s been doing at harvard?”
yunho narrows his eyes. “if you think you’re going to start jumping off rooftops -”
“oh, as if i’d do that,” jaejoong says, waving his hand around dismissively. “you know i’m afraid of heights.”
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: hi neighbour
please take me rooftop jumping! J
“changmin,” jaejoong whispers during one lecture that both of them happen to attend (one of those lectures that they aren’t actually supposed to have together, but do, because their school has no money). “i have to tell you something.”
“what,” changmin whispers back, glad to have a distraction from the professor’s monotone droning voice.
“my neighbour - you know, yoochun,” he begins, pausing for dramatic effect. “he’s pretty. i think he might be prettier than you.”
changmin looks at him in stone silence, and jaejoong starts fidgeting. he has never been good with breakups.
“i mean - not that you aren’t pretty or anything, but - he might even be prettier than me,” he adds hastily, fearing that he might have offended changmin and wounded his ego or something like that.
changmin looks at him in astonishment before he starts sniggering, which turns to laughing loudly, not stopping until the professor has asked him pointedly if changmin would like all of them to take a break from the lecture until he’s done laughing. jaejoong doesn’t really get the joke.
“what are you laughing about?” he demands in a whisper, yanking on changmin’s shirtsleeve. the latter brushes him off, composes himself and replies,
“just relieved, is all,” he says, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead when jaejoong glares at him, before ducking his head to laugh silently into his notes. (jaejoong finds out later that changmin has a tape recorder under his desk, and has recording jaejoong saying that yoochun is prettier than him.)
april
to: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
from: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
subject: RE: hi neighbour
maybe. ;) if you prove yourself worthy of the honour of having someone so pretty teach you.
“you’re actually not that pretty,” he tells yoochun cheerfully, as a sort of last thing to say before he jumps off the main dorm building and risks breaking his spine. yoochun looks at him shrewdly, smirking slightly.
yoochun kisses him suddenly, right there on the roof, with cold wind against their faces, adrenaline running in their blood, and paint-streaked fingers wind themselves in jaejoong’s (newly) bleached hair.
(yoochun’s eyes change colour according to the light.)
“yunho says you’re a bad influence on me,” he shouts through the air as they jump, just for the sake of saying something. he finds himself not appreciating things when he’s not allowed to talk.
“what, me?” yoochun shouts back just before they hit the roof of the next building. “never!”
may
to: park yoochun <yoochuntheunicorn@gmail.com>
from: kim jaejoong <beautyandthebeast@gmail.com>
subject: RE: RE: hi neighbour
you sure you don’t want to go back to harvard? ;)