meet you there (At the End of the World)
Title: meet you there (At the End of the World)
Pairing(s): yunjae, jaemin, friendship-ot5
Rating: R
Summary: It's odd, the things you find when there's nothing to loose and no agenda to follow. Five young men find each other at the end of the world, and figure out how to live through the last days of humanity.
Warnings: Apocalyptic setting, minor drug use, alcohol.
Word count: 11 414
Author's Note: After much toil and trouble, here's the fic I wrote for dbsk_bigbang. Thanks to my fabulous betas, bellasaurus & tatsunotoshi - I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks also to all the encouraging words of my flist!
Thanks also to reallycorking who did the utterly amazing art for this fic.
Text in blue italics indicates English spoken words.
meet you there (At the End of the World)
Yunho met him in a club, one so very similar to every other he’d been in during the blur of day and night that the last few days had come to. The music was loud and fast and strong, and the sweaty bodies inside the small packed room writhed with the beat. Lights flashed, like an epileptic fit onto slick bodies and wild eyes. A momentary flash briefly lit one out face out of the mess, catching Yunho’s eyes; he found him there, in a blinding kaleidoscope of shining white. It only lasted a half second or two, before the strobe moved on and highlighted another pale face. But Yunho’s eyes did not move with it.
He was just one of them, one of the crowd; a sweaty, frantic body just like any other. But Yunho had noticed him. Seen him amongst all others and was able to find him there amongst that mass. Because despite how he was so perfectly unmemorable, he’d smiled at Yunho in that half second. A smile; tired, weary, broken and so far from unremarkable.
Yunho found him in the middle of the dance floor, and he came easily into his arms, unquestioning. They danced, the press of their bodies so startlingly real and solid, even as they were swallowed by the heady, heavy beats and the writhing mass of tragic, make-believe creatures around them. Jaejoong moved against him, a solid heated body, and his dark eyes glinted black in the dim light of the club.
“I’m Yunho,” he said eventually, almost shouting against the music. He didn’t know why he bothered, didn’t know if his partner gave a damn what his name was. Or that he could even hear. Or understand, for that matter. The boy smiled up at him though, white teeth bright in the dimness. The hot kiss of his breath against Yunho’s neck as he leant in made him shudder slightly.
The boy kissed him once there, then stepped back slightly, as much as the small room in which they moved would allow, and held up a hand. A small round white pill lay on his finger. His eyes met Yunho’s as his pink tongue left its cavern and the pill was pressed to the tip, balancing there. Eyes still locked, he moved back into Yunho’s arms, head tilted in invitation. Yunho didn’t think as he enveloped the other young man, the scent of sex and sweat heavy between them as their lips met. He’d never done drugs before, but now seemed to be a good time to start.
The beat of the room reverberated around him, inside him, a cornucopia of sound and colour. His eyes slid shut, better to feel the slick slide of Jaejoong’s tongue. The little white pill went down as Jaejoong allowed him to swallow, kissing him again as the world spun away.
“Jaejoong.” He heard, as the lights rosetted into fireworks, exploding in his eyes, his mind. Warmth ran up through his stomach and he felt Jaejoong melt into him.
“My name’s Jaejoong.”
+
He woke up in a room, on a bed. His mind shook, dizzy and nauseated as he opened his eyes to the cracked ceiling and dirty off-white paint. He hadn’t woken up to a familiar ceiling in weeks. There was a body on him, beside him, and Yunho remembered the slick undulations of it moving against him in the darkness. Except the memory was too vivid, too broken and too overwhelming. The body sighed against his chest and Yunho fell back into oblivion.
The next time Yunho woke up, it was with a dull headache. There was a dusky, dull light filtering in through the shaded windows, signalling some form of daylight… most likely dusk. He blinked, eyes gummed and strained from sleep and the other activities of the evening before. It was all a blur, a blur of bright, bright lights and a shining angel who rode him to heaven before the world faded away.
Looking blearily down beside him, he found not an angel but a worn, skinny young man, whose face was slack with sleep but undeniably exhausted. But then again, who wasn’t these days? Even if there were nothing real to do, the worry alone aged and tired you like nothing else.
The dark-ringed eyelids fluttered slightly in sleep, a frown pulling across the young man’s face. He was some sort of pretty, Yunho thought to himself briefly. Some sort of pretty… a thought Yunho knew he’d never have had before about a guy.
Broad shoulders defied any idea of a woman, the sharp angles down to the tapered waist and bare buttocks showing not an ounce of softness. He was petite, wiry, smooth and pale… but very much a young man. A young man he’d taken to bed, not even knowing his name.
“Jaejoong. My name’s Jaejoong.”
Huh. So maybe he did have a name after all. Not that it mattered.
With that in mind, Yunho carefully sat up, sprawling Jaejoong across the bed. He made a face in protest in his sleep, curling up slightly at the change in position and the lack of Yunho’s warmth.
Yunho paid him no mind however, moving to swing his legs down onto the cool floor of the room. A corner of the sheet pooled over one leg, offering some sort of dignity against his nakedness, which Yunho saw as ironic. For a moment, he couldn’t move, the strange spinning in his head rendering him immobile. Instead, he sat, arms resting on his knees as he lent forward slowly, and thought. He tried to capture the memory last night, tried to grasp hold of the fleeting images and feelings. He saw a flash of Jaejoong turning back to look at him, hand enclosing his own while he was lead onwards. He recalled the feeling of euphoria (faked but felt), the lightness, the feeling of not having a care in the world.
It was odd, that feeling. He thought he might like to have that again. Then he snorted, because it was something they’d all have… soon enough, soon enough.
As he contemplated the floorboards, fragmented memories fluttering around in his mind, he heard the sheets rustle from behind him and felt the dip of the mattress as it moved under him. There was nearly no surprise when a warm hand touched his shoulder.
“Stay?” Jaejoong asked, staring at one of the many cracks that riddled the walls. “I don’t want to be alone.” The light touch on his back solidified into a hand held against his back, and Yunho wondered how hard it would be to reach out and touch some one.
Yunho paused, turning slightly to look at the pale shoulders and dark messy hair and seeing someone just alone and lost as he was. “No. I don’t think any of us do,” he said eventually, and leaned back into the touch slightly, staring out the window as Jae’s hands slid up his back and his head rested on the rise of his shoulder blades.
They stayed like that until the light was gone, finding comfort again in the dark.
+
Yunho stayed with Jaejoong. Partially because Jaejoong was warm and beautiful, but mostly because he was there and it was better then being alone. He had wondered, previously, wandering the city, if the whole mess at the airport in Seoul had been worth anything. Wondered if being here in a strange, alien city alive and alone was better then being back there and dead. After all, it had been pretty obvious after the first week that the scientists in Australia were not going to make some miraculous breakthrough; that they were all in for the same fate. Eventually.
So being with someone else was… nice. Jaejoong was odd and whimsical and Yunho was pretty sure that if he’d met him at any other time he’d have thought him weird and kept away. He was chaotic and carefree, a polar opposite to Yunho’s own controlled view of the world. In any other situation, Yunho would have hated that and the edge of wildness that seemed to hover constantly around the boy. But somehow, in the here and now that they faced, Jaejoong was charming and fey and something to hold onto.
They didn’t go back to the club - that particular one, or any other. There seemed to be no point anymore. Instead, they wandered the city by day, watching the sky searching for clouds on the horizon. Some days, they went down past the high rise buildings and to the bridge, sitting on the grass and looking out over a sparkling, beautiful bay that came straight out of a tourist brochure. It was odd, being there and seeing that and it felt somewhat discomforting to be just sitting there nonchalantly, enjoying the view and the sunshine. Like they should be doing something more, doing something worthwhile. But Yunho couldn’t think of anything, and the heavy feeling didn’t stop Jaejoong from rolling them over and kissing him.
His kiss was warm and beautiful too, and Yunho held him tightly, filled with the scent of sunshine and grass and the sea breeze. Yunho thought that perhaps this was just as worthwhile as anything else, and kissed him back.
+
Yunho remembered, back before, all those books he’d seen in shops. ‘40 Places to Visit Before You Die’; ‘100 Things to Do to Really Live’. Yunho wondered how many people actually bought them, and how many of those people actually accomplished any of the things in the books.
He wondered now, if people were still trying to tick off those lists. He wondered if the pressure of knowing they didn’t have any more time left to procrastinate created motivation or apathy. It wasn’t like you could head over to Egypt and see the Great Pyramids anymore anyway. But he supposed that if you were determined… there were still things to be done.
It seemed like those determined people had gone off to complete their lists however, leaving the city full of aimless, apathetic people. You could see them drifting through the streets, either revelling in the freedom or already half dead in their despair.
Even as they were walking, there was a man kneeling on the corner of King and George, beside the empty skeleton of glass and steel that had probably bustled once with technophiles looking for a hit of cool that the little Apple icon brought. This man though was praying for sunshine and never-ending cloudless days rather then a pocket full of music. And a part of Yunho wondered if there was anyone around to listen to him anymore.
Yunho saw him, saw them all, but tried to ignore the evidence of his eyes. Play pretend. Jaejoong’s hand was in his, the pair of them walking close (too close) together. Nobody cared though. Not there in Sydney; not there in that moment when there were plenty of other things to worry about, to hate about. There was no time for redemption anyway and the preachers were having a hard enough time trying to save their own souls and the clamouring masses of those who already believed.
Even when Yunho tried his very hardest, he could not make believe that he was exploring Sydney as a tourist, that Jaejoong was his boyfriend, that they were happy in love and that everything was perfect.
He thought that perhaps Jaejoong could imagine harder then he could. That he could see the world he wanted to see and not the old, grey buildings and empty glass walls with half-people wandering around trying to put meaning into their all-too-short lives. Jaejoong was the sort who dreamed hard - Yunho knew that much. He watched the other boy as he stared into space, his eyes far away and expression blank as he watched the world and saw something else.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, when he couldn’t bear his own thoughts anymore. Jaejoong turned to look at him, and Yunho thought he was beautiful.
“I was wondering if there was anyone else left.” The words were like a cold shower of water, and Yunho felt himself jolt. The dark eyes holding his didn’t flinch however, and Yunho wondered who Jaejoong had lost. He’d tried to stop himself thinking about it, thinking about his mother, his sister and father, just lying down and dying. Tried not to think about that call from his mother, the promises she’d made him make. Tried not to think of cities, countries, full of silence and stillness. Tried not to scream.
He hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing until Jaejoong kissed him. He choked and broke away to gasp for air, his eyes wide and mind even more scattered then before. Jaejoong was still looking at him, wide deep eyes a pool of nothingness, and Yunho wanted, so very much wanted to smash his face in for his indifference.
And then Jaejoong was walking away, hand slipping from Yunho’s. His footsteps were steady, but and Yunho drew in deep breaths, he saw the way the other man’s fist trembled with how tight Jaejoong was clenching it. He saw the rigidity of Jaejoong’s neck under his soft hair, saw the stiff set of his shoulders.
Abruptly, the anger left him, leaving him feeling drained and empty.
The anger wouldn’t do anything, nor the tears, nor the praying.
There was only today. No past, no future… just now. As long as he kept thinking that, then it would be okay.
He took in a deep breath, holding it until his lungs were ready to burst, before letting it out and jogging after Jaejoong.
The other boy didn’t look at him when he caught up, but his shoulders relaxed slightly and when Yunho’s hand bumped against his own, he let his fingers curl into the tentative embrace.
There was only today.
+
“I want a drink,” Jaejoong had said, quite abruptly, as they were walking down the street in the middle of the night. Yunho raised an eyebrow at the non sequitur, but shrugged.
“We’ll go to a club then,” he agreed amicably after a moment, starting to wonder what was closest. Jaejoong shook his head though, with wide movements of his head that made him look disturbingly child-like.
“No. Not from a club,” Jaejoong said, and looked over the road. Yunho followed his gaze, coming to rest on the dark shop front of a liquor store not so far from them. His expression took on a worried edge - he could see where Jaejoong was going with this.
“It’s closed, Jae.”
“Yeah. So the owner’s probably gone,” Jaejoong reasoned, with perfect Jaejoong certainty.
“Why can’t we just go to a club?” Yunho near whined, even as he was pulled across the road by a firm tugging grip on his hand. He flowed docilely, because he knew the answer to his own (rhetorical, really) question.
The clubs were depressing. Full of manic, desperate people, looking for a fix, for a way out that, in reality, took them nowhere at all. In all honesty, he wondered why most of the people even pretended to keep going. The increasingly more eclectic mixes of alcohol and drugs openly on offer in most of the places seemed to be a thinly veiled excuse for an easy exit. No wait involved.
Yunho wasn’t even sure what Jaejoong was planning to do, or even if Jaejoong was sure what he was planning to do.
It turned out it didn’t matter much. Just as they were approaching the shop front, an alarm went off, sound blaring over the street. Yunho jumped back in shock and doubly alarmed when the glass window front exploded and some guys hopped over the shards. A few more were coming out the door. They were all young, about his and Jaejoong’s age, and they were all carrying liquor bottles.
Jaejoong ran forward towards the broken window, making Yunho’s heart jump with shock and a twinge of fear.
“Jaejoong!” He yelled, uselessly. Jaejoong didn’t look back, instead leaning over the jaggard remains of the window and grabbing some of the displaced display bottles nearby that weren’t covered in glass.
“Fuck!” he swore, running over to drag Jaejoong back and get him away. Instead, he got an arm full of bottles, and Jaejoong’s bright face laughing at him. Someone else suddenly hurtled through the window, a hand protecting his head as he stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He had two bottles tucked under one arm and another in his hand, a hoodie pulled low over his head.
He looked up momentarily, saw them and flashed a grin.
“Run,” he told them in accented English, before shooting off himself. They soon saw the reason for it, a heavy set man thundering through the store right in their direction.
Yunho’s heart was pumping madly, and he nearly dropped the bottles as Jaejoong shoved his shoulder and forced him into action.
“Come on!”
And then they were off, following the hooded boy as he darted down the street.
The owner came out of the shop behind them, swinging a bat and screaming obscenities.
No one stopped them though, as they ran away and disappeared into a dark, small street. Nobody seemed to care about them, or the shop keeper. Some people watched, silently, as they ran by, crossing streets and turning corners, ducking through dull, empty buildings that all looked the same. The sameness of the huge office buildings and dark shop fronts made it impossible for Yunho to figure out where they were, even if he had time to really look around and get his bearings. He’d never been one for directions, anyway. Not that it much mattered now. Jaejoong was running along beside him, face bright and eyes shining, and that was enough.
They kept moving, slowing as they got further and further from the shop without any sign of pursuit.
“Do you know where we are?” Yunho asked Jaejoong somewhat breathlessly.
“Near Korea town,” came the answer, but not from Jaejoong. They both turned to look at the hooded figure walking a little in front of them. The boy stopped, and turned around to face them. “We’re not far from George Street. You guys are Korean, right?”
“Yes,” Yunho replied, when Jaejoong remained quiet, staring at their hooded companion. The guy’s Korean was a little stilted too, like he was rusty speaking it but knew what he was trying to say.
“You come in on the planes?” the boy asked, and Yunho nodded.
“Yeah. One of the last ones. You?”
“Nah. Been here for a couple of years. I was meant to be doing my university studies here.” The boy snorted dismissively. “So much for that, eh?”
“Yeah,” Yunho said again, weakly. It was weird, finding someone else. Not that there weren’t many Koreans about, but Yunho hadn’t really spoken to many except for Jaejoong. “I’m Yunho,” he said after a moment. The boy smiled at him, and shook back his hoodie. Underneath was an expressive face that was, at the time, looking a little haggard. He was quite Korean-looking, and his hair was a mess that was better off hidden under the hoodie, but he looked like he might be a friendly guy. Someone Yunho thought he would get along with.
“Yoochun,” the boy said, and then looked to Jaejoong with a question in his eyes. Jaejoong just looked back at him, blankly.
Yunho nudged him in the side a little, but it failed to bring out Jaejoong’s voice. Instead, there was the clinking of shifting bottles, and Jaejoong’s hand threaded around Yunho’s armvtentatively. Yunho didn’t miss the way that Yoochun’s eyes darted down to the grip and then back up to his face, a different question in his eyes.
“Like that, is it?” he asked, but Yunho didn’t dignify it with an answer.
“This is Jaejoong,” Yunho said instead.
“Hello,” Jaejoong finally said. “I think you need a haircut.”
Yoochun just stared at him, and Yunho blinked in confusion.
The awkward silence broke, Yoochun’s laughter filling the air between them. And slowly, Jaejoong smiled back at him.
+
The Botanical Gardens were a good place to drink, Jaejoong thought, fuzzily.
Between the three of them, they’d had two bottles of vodka (one was some sort of berry flavoured vodka though), two sake bottles, two bottles of red wine and one bottle of expensive-looking bubbly. The alcohol had eased the way, and they’d talked and drunk their way through the night.
They were laid out on the grass, under some trees with a sort of balmy breeze washing over them and making the leaves shift to let the stars through. Jaejoong found them pretty, staring at them through his fingers.
“Sing louder,” Yoochun said. “Your voice is… nice.” It was the best word Yoochun could come up with, words all sort of muddling and meshing together in his mind.
Jaejoong rolled over, pressing himself up onto his elbows to stare blankly at the other boy.
“I wussnt,” Jaejoong denied, fairly sure he hadn’t been uttering a word. Yoochun shook his head though, making broad beckoning gestures.
“Were. Sing s’more!”
Jaejoong shrugged, and began to sing. It was something old and slow, that he remembered his parents listening to. He couldn’t remember half the words though, so he made them up. Yoochun didn’t seem to mind, swaying from side to side with his eyes closed, sake bottle still in hand.
Yoochun was fun, Jaejoong decided. He was amusing and he made funny faces and he got Jaejoong in a way that the older boy found rather miraculous. And he could drink as well as Jaejoong… which was substantially more then Yunho.
Jaejoong rolled himself over again to look at Yunho, his expression softening at the sight of the intoxicated man, passed out leaning against a tree with rosy red cheeks. Jaejoong wanted to kiss him, bite his plump lower lip. He wanted to crawl back into his lap and share a kiss of alcohol and daring with him. He wanted to eat him up, take him inside, so he wouldn’t ever be alone again.
The singing faltered, and stopped, leaving them in silence. Jaejoong closed his eyes, mind already drifting away when he heart the soft snuffling.
Blinking himself awake, he saw that the noise didn’t come from the sleeping Yunho, but from Yoochun.
The boy’s head was hung low, and the bottle had been discarded, his hands instead wrapped around his knees. His shoulders were shaking slightly, and Jaejoong realised he was crying.
Biting his lip, Jaejoong struggled up to his hands and knees and moved towards him, not knowing what to say but unable to just leave Yoochun be. He flopped beside Yoochun, and touched his arm lightly.
“I miss my mum.” The words were quiet, and somewhat wet, and Jaejoong’s teeth near cut through his lip as he wrapped his arms around Yoochun, cocooning him from one side and letting him sob into his shirt. Yoochun smelt of smoke and alcohol and loneliness and tears.
+
They decided to climb the Harbour Bridge. Or rather, Jaejoong decided and Yunho didn’t say no. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do. Yoochun had left them in the pale light of dawn, the three of them saying almost cheerful farewells, with a promise to meet again in two days. There was someone Yoochun had to find, he’d said. Yunho wasn’t sure to be glad or not at the prospect of people other then Jaejoong.
“Shouldn’t we be wearing harnesses?” Yunho asked, as Jaejoong wrestled with the lock on the gate. There were barbed wires and notices everywhere for people not to enter unaccompanied.
Jaejoong looked up at him from the corner of his eye for a moment before focusing back on the heavy lock. After a while, they walked all the way down to the train station at the end of the bridge and stole a long metal pipe, which, while its original use was unknown, did well at smashing off the lock.
The bridge was taller then it looked. The stairs just kept going, up and up, and Yunho felt himself get dizzy as he looked up through the maze of grey steel to the top. It seemed like it took an age to get there, but then once there, Yunho lost his breath.
The walkway was tiny, narrow and somewhat terrifying, but neither of them seemed to mind, eyes set instead on the majestic view stretched below them. Jaejoong’s fingers curled around the railing in a death grip as he leant forward, hair whipped back by the wind and eyes closed to feel the sunshine.
Yunho grabbed him, pulling him back upright, alarmed by the other’s careless abandon but at the same time knowing he wanted to do the exact same thing.
Wordlessly, they began to climb again, following the arch up to its pinnacle, until they were flying high above the water and the city, until they were above the birds that circled the bay.
“I always wanted to come here. Before, you know,” Yunho breathed as he stared down at the Opera House and the sparkling blue ocean that moved and flowed calmly. The ferries had stopped, the boats gone or left moored in the docks, leaving the water undisturbed and pristine.
Jaejoong lent out again, playing with gravity as he raised his arms to the wind. He wondered if this was what it would be like to fly.
The thought of falling never crossed his mind.
+
When they met up with Yoochun again a day later, he had another boy with him.
He was stocky, about Jaejoong’s height, with dyed brown hair that flopped over one half of his face. His face looked quite sharp and serious, mainly because of his small, assessing eyes. Something about him hinted at someone who had once laughed a lot, loudly and freely. It looked like he hadn’t done so in a while though.
“This is Junsu,” Yoochun introduced him.
“Hello,” Jaejoong said. Junsu just nodded in acknowledgement, eyes checking over them in the same way they were assessing him.
And that was how Junsu joined them; four boys in the world.
+
It was some time past dark (hours had lost their significance days and days ago) and they were in the middle of Hyde Park, just wandering. They weren’t the only group of people there… it was as good a place as any to be.
It was a little muggy, and Jaejoong could feel his shirt sticking to his skin a little. He hoped it didn’t get any more humid. Humidity meant moisture, and, eventually, rain.
His mind shied away from that thought, and he let his eyes wander to distract himself.
They stopped by the fountain, Yoochun telling some complicated story about music and dreams and the Conservatorium of Music that lay like a castle on the rise not so far away. It was interesting, but Jaejoong didn’t want to hear about broken dreams anymore. So he had stopped listening, leaving Yunho and Junsu to follow the thread of Yoochun’s story. Instead, he looked at the people around them, watching them move around together and watched their expressions. He tried to imagine what they were thinking.
There was a boy, lanky and slightly awkward looking, sitting alone on the fountain not far from them. He was perched on the cool grey stone, a book held in his hands. His eyes were firmly planted on its pages, but Jaejoong couldn’t help but notice how his face twitched, and how his lips pressed together as Yoochun spoke, his eyes darting sideways.
Without really thinking about it, Jaejoong drifted away from the still talking group, and towards the boy.
“Are you Korean?” he asked, standing before the boy and looking down at him. He could see, dimly, that the book the boy was reading had an English title. But he was sure the boy understood him, had understood what Yoochun had been saying. So he stood there and waited until the boy answered him.
“Yes,” the boy said slowly, looking at him warily. Even his eyes were guarded, and Jaejoong wondered why he looked so old, why he seemed so still. Jaejoong wasn’t used to stillness - he liked movement and action and feeling.
But the boy was alone, and reading a book in the middle of the night in a park. And Jaejoong saw something in him that somehow reminded him of himself.
So he sat down beside the boy and cocked his head.
“I’m Jaejoong,” he said. “What are you reading?”
“Changmin,” the boy said shortly, still looking wary. “And I’m reading Peter Kropotkin, ‘Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution’.”
“Oh,” was all Jaejoong could think to say. Changmin studied him, like he was looking at an ant, and then somehow relaxed, like Jaejoong not knowing who Peter Kropotkin was made him safe.
“He argues that mutual cooperation is as important for evolution as strife and competition,” Changmin explained.
“Oh,” said Jaejoong again, and thought about explosions of gas in the air and scientists in secret rooms making steam that would make a person lie down and die. “I think he has a point.”
“So do I.”
Three hours later, when Yunho lead them back towards the abandoned apartments where they were sleeping, they had another new addition He brought with him a backpack full of books and a head full of theories.
+
“Let’s leave.” It was a very decisive statement, and they all turned to look at him. Jaejoong stared back, gaze curiously blank.
“Why?” Yoochun asked, brows furrowed together.
“What is there here to stay for?” Jaejoong replied, blunt and to the point. It was perhaps a shock to find that they had no answer for his question either, and Yunho thought about the way they kept moving about the same areas of the city, over and over. He thought about the other, zombie-like, aimless, people that wandered the city.
“Okay.” The world felt like a bit of release, a bit of relief.
Changmin shrugged, holding his book close to his chest as he studied the others. Yoochun let out a little, brittle laugh.
“Yeah, okay. Why not?” he said, and jumped off the railing he’d been sitting on. Junsu didn’t say anything, but that was as good as a yes.
“We need a car…” Yoochun said after a moment, and Jaejoong bobbed his head.
“You know how to jack one?” Changmin asked, eyebrow raised as he looked around at them. Yoochun scratched his head.
“I’ve seen it in movies?” he offered tentatively. Jaejoong laughed, a short, biting sound that was oddly carefree. Yunho found himself smiling.
A little while later, when they found the right building, the right door and crept in guiltily to smash open the key cabinet of a valet parking place, Junsu turned to Changmin with wide eyes and told him it was the most illegal thing he’d ever done.
+
They drove through the high rise buildings, got lost in the exits and finally made their way over the Harbour Bridge. It was large and empty, and as Junsu hung out the rear window, wind blowing his hair back, Jaejoong looked at Yoochun in the rear view mirror.
“It used to be full all the time,” the younger man said, and then looked out the window as the metal bars blurred past them.
Jaejoong made no answer, eyes fixing back on the road. After a moment, he reached forward and turned the CD player on. He began to hum lightly to the music, sliding his window down too and resting his elbow on the door.
Changmin read the signs as they whizzed past, telling Jaejoong in vague instructions where they should be headed. But really, they were heading nowhere and Jaejoong made up the way as he went along.
It was odd, going through the suburbs: all the neat houses with their pretty gardens and picket fences. They weren’t like the houses in Korea, or the apartments of Sydney city, and it gave them the shivers to look at the empty husks that used to be homes. Almost as much as seeing the families and people who were still there, living like it was just another day.
They drove and drove and drove and Jaejoong chose a random exit that lead north and saw them shooting down a freeway, surrounded by bush and wind and the echoing silence that was the open road.
+
“No meat?”Yoochun asked, looking over the sparse contents of the so-called ‘supermarket’ they’d stopped at. It was probably the only such place in the small town, but it felt like a hollow, deserted shell. The empty aisles and picked-over shelves were eerie. The lone guy in the store, the owner perhaps (for why else would he still be there?) just smirked at them, shaking his head.
“Yeah, right. Go catch yourself a cow, mate. We aint been getting anything new for the last week.” His voice was gruff and gravelly, like he’d swallowed a cheese grater. It suited him, and Yunho lost track of what they were saying, staring at the brawny, weather-beaten man.
He didn’t know how long it had been when Yoochun and Changmin came back, Changmin carrying a cloth sack that looked heavy.
“Cans,” the boy grunted.
“Not much else here,” Yoochun added. “Nothing’s moving anymore, and cans will keep.”
Yunho nodded, shrugged, and stuck a hand out, wordlessly offering to carry the bag. Changmin glared at him slightly before striding off, leaving Yunho to shrug again and trail after him, Yoochun at his side.
Outside, cars and trucks filled the lot, making them pause in surprise. It had been empty when they’d driven in. Now though, people were milling around the new vehicles in a group, and their car seemed isolated and out of place, parked off to one side. They could see Jaejoong and Junsu, watching the people while leaning on the doors of the car.
Changmin dumped the bag in the boot with a grunt, nestling it into a bed of heavy books. Jaejoong wandered over, one eye still on the mass of people over the way.
“Who are they?” Changmin asked. Jaejoong shook his head.
“I don’t know. They’re speaking English,” he said by way of explanation. “They look like they know where they’re going,” he added after a moment.
Changmin looked at the people, and saw what Jaejoong meant. They weren’t lost or aimless like most people. They had the presence of purpose around them, like there was somewhere they needed to go, something they needed to accomplish. It was more then most people had these days. It was curious.
“I want to talk to them,” Changmin decided after a moment.
A hand came down on Jaejoong’s shoulder, uncomfortably warm in the bright sunlight. He looked up to see Yunho standing beside him, looking at Changmin.
“I’ll come with you,” Yunho said.
And so they went, ambling across to the group with their hands in their pockets, eyes squinting against the sun.
+
Continue on ->
Pairing(s): yunjae, jaemin, friendship-ot5
Rating: R
Summary: It's odd, the things you find when there's nothing to loose and no agenda to follow. Five young men find each other at the end of the world, and figure out how to live through the last days of humanity.
Warnings: Apocalyptic setting, minor drug use, alcohol.
Word count: 11 414
Author's Note: After much toil and trouble, here's the fic I wrote for dbsk_bigbang. Thanks to my fabulous betas, bellasaurus & tatsunotoshi - I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks also to all the encouraging words of my flist!
Thanks also to reallycorking who did the utterly amazing art for this fic.
Text in blue italics indicates English spoken words.
meet you there (At the End of the World)
Yunho met him in a club, one so very similar to every other he’d been in during the blur of day and night that the last few days had come to. The music was loud and fast and strong, and the sweaty bodies inside the small packed room writhed with the beat. Lights flashed, like an epileptic fit onto slick bodies and wild eyes. A momentary flash briefly lit one out face out of the mess, catching Yunho’s eyes; he found him there, in a blinding kaleidoscope of shining white. It only lasted a half second or two, before the strobe moved on and highlighted another pale face. But Yunho’s eyes did not move with it.
He was just one of them, one of the crowd; a sweaty, frantic body just like any other. But Yunho had noticed him. Seen him amongst all others and was able to find him there amongst that mass. Because despite how he was so perfectly unmemorable, he’d smiled at Yunho in that half second. A smile; tired, weary, broken and so far from unremarkable.
Yunho found him in the middle of the dance floor, and he came easily into his arms, unquestioning. They danced, the press of their bodies so startlingly real and solid, even as they were swallowed by the heady, heavy beats and the writhing mass of tragic, make-believe creatures around them. Jaejoong moved against him, a solid heated body, and his dark eyes glinted black in the dim light of the club.
“I’m Yunho,” he said eventually, almost shouting against the music. He didn’t know why he bothered, didn’t know if his partner gave a damn what his name was. Or that he could even hear. Or understand, for that matter. The boy smiled up at him though, white teeth bright in the dimness. The hot kiss of his breath against Yunho’s neck as he leant in made him shudder slightly.
The boy kissed him once there, then stepped back slightly, as much as the small room in which they moved would allow, and held up a hand. A small round white pill lay on his finger. His eyes met Yunho’s as his pink tongue left its cavern and the pill was pressed to the tip, balancing there. Eyes still locked, he moved back into Yunho’s arms, head tilted in invitation. Yunho didn’t think as he enveloped the other young man, the scent of sex and sweat heavy between them as their lips met. He’d never done drugs before, but now seemed to be a good time to start.
The beat of the room reverberated around him, inside him, a cornucopia of sound and colour. His eyes slid shut, better to feel the slick slide of Jaejoong’s tongue. The little white pill went down as Jaejoong allowed him to swallow, kissing him again as the world spun away.
“Jaejoong.” He heard, as the lights rosetted into fireworks, exploding in his eyes, his mind. Warmth ran up through his stomach and he felt Jaejoong melt into him.
“My name’s Jaejoong.”
+
He woke up in a room, on a bed. His mind shook, dizzy and nauseated as he opened his eyes to the cracked ceiling and dirty off-white paint. He hadn’t woken up to a familiar ceiling in weeks. There was a body on him, beside him, and Yunho remembered the slick undulations of it moving against him in the darkness. Except the memory was too vivid, too broken and too overwhelming. The body sighed against his chest and Yunho fell back into oblivion.
The next time Yunho woke up, it was with a dull headache. There was a dusky, dull light filtering in through the shaded windows, signalling some form of daylight… most likely dusk. He blinked, eyes gummed and strained from sleep and the other activities of the evening before. It was all a blur, a blur of bright, bright lights and a shining angel who rode him to heaven before the world faded away.
Looking blearily down beside him, he found not an angel but a worn, skinny young man, whose face was slack with sleep but undeniably exhausted. But then again, who wasn’t these days? Even if there were nothing real to do, the worry alone aged and tired you like nothing else.
The dark-ringed eyelids fluttered slightly in sleep, a frown pulling across the young man’s face. He was some sort of pretty, Yunho thought to himself briefly. Some sort of pretty… a thought Yunho knew he’d never have had before about a guy.
Broad shoulders defied any idea of a woman, the sharp angles down to the tapered waist and bare buttocks showing not an ounce of softness. He was petite, wiry, smooth and pale… but very much a young man. A young man he’d taken to bed, not even knowing his name.
“Jaejoong. My name’s Jaejoong.”
Huh. So maybe he did have a name after all. Not that it mattered.
With that in mind, Yunho carefully sat up, sprawling Jaejoong across the bed. He made a face in protest in his sleep, curling up slightly at the change in position and the lack of Yunho’s warmth.
Yunho paid him no mind however, moving to swing his legs down onto the cool floor of the room. A corner of the sheet pooled over one leg, offering some sort of dignity against his nakedness, which Yunho saw as ironic. For a moment, he couldn’t move, the strange spinning in his head rendering him immobile. Instead, he sat, arms resting on his knees as he lent forward slowly, and thought. He tried to capture the memory last night, tried to grasp hold of the fleeting images and feelings. He saw a flash of Jaejoong turning back to look at him, hand enclosing his own while he was lead onwards. He recalled the feeling of euphoria (faked but felt), the lightness, the feeling of not having a care in the world.
It was odd, that feeling. He thought he might like to have that again. Then he snorted, because it was something they’d all have… soon enough, soon enough.
As he contemplated the floorboards, fragmented memories fluttering around in his mind, he heard the sheets rustle from behind him and felt the dip of the mattress as it moved under him. There was nearly no surprise when a warm hand touched his shoulder.
“Stay?” Jaejoong asked, staring at one of the many cracks that riddled the walls. “I don’t want to be alone.” The light touch on his back solidified into a hand held against his back, and Yunho wondered how hard it would be to reach out and touch some one.
Yunho paused, turning slightly to look at the pale shoulders and dark messy hair and seeing someone just alone and lost as he was. “No. I don’t think any of us do,” he said eventually, and leaned back into the touch slightly, staring out the window as Jae’s hands slid up his back and his head rested on the rise of his shoulder blades.
They stayed like that until the light was gone, finding comfort again in the dark.
+
Yunho stayed with Jaejoong. Partially because Jaejoong was warm and beautiful, but mostly because he was there and it was better then being alone. He had wondered, previously, wandering the city, if the whole mess at the airport in Seoul had been worth anything. Wondered if being here in a strange, alien city alive and alone was better then being back there and dead. After all, it had been pretty obvious after the first week that the scientists in Australia were not going to make some miraculous breakthrough; that they were all in for the same fate. Eventually.
So being with someone else was… nice. Jaejoong was odd and whimsical and Yunho was pretty sure that if he’d met him at any other time he’d have thought him weird and kept away. He was chaotic and carefree, a polar opposite to Yunho’s own controlled view of the world. In any other situation, Yunho would have hated that and the edge of wildness that seemed to hover constantly around the boy. But somehow, in the here and now that they faced, Jaejoong was charming and fey and something to hold onto.
They didn’t go back to the club - that particular one, or any other. There seemed to be no point anymore. Instead, they wandered the city by day, watching the sky searching for clouds on the horizon. Some days, they went down past the high rise buildings and to the bridge, sitting on the grass and looking out over a sparkling, beautiful bay that came straight out of a tourist brochure. It was odd, being there and seeing that and it felt somewhat discomforting to be just sitting there nonchalantly, enjoying the view and the sunshine. Like they should be doing something more, doing something worthwhile. But Yunho couldn’t think of anything, and the heavy feeling didn’t stop Jaejoong from rolling them over and kissing him.
His kiss was warm and beautiful too, and Yunho held him tightly, filled with the scent of sunshine and grass and the sea breeze. Yunho thought that perhaps this was just as worthwhile as anything else, and kissed him back.
+
Yunho remembered, back before, all those books he’d seen in shops. ‘40 Places to Visit Before You Die’; ‘100 Things to Do to Really Live’. Yunho wondered how many people actually bought them, and how many of those people actually accomplished any of the things in the books.
He wondered now, if people were still trying to tick off those lists. He wondered if the pressure of knowing they didn’t have any more time left to procrastinate created motivation or apathy. It wasn’t like you could head over to Egypt and see the Great Pyramids anymore anyway. But he supposed that if you were determined… there were still things to be done.
It seemed like those determined people had gone off to complete their lists however, leaving the city full of aimless, apathetic people. You could see them drifting through the streets, either revelling in the freedom or already half dead in their despair.
Even as they were walking, there was a man kneeling on the corner of King and George, beside the empty skeleton of glass and steel that had probably bustled once with technophiles looking for a hit of cool that the little Apple icon brought. This man though was praying for sunshine and never-ending cloudless days rather then a pocket full of music. And a part of Yunho wondered if there was anyone around to listen to him anymore.
Yunho saw him, saw them all, but tried to ignore the evidence of his eyes. Play pretend. Jaejoong’s hand was in his, the pair of them walking close (too close) together. Nobody cared though. Not there in Sydney; not there in that moment when there were plenty of other things to worry about, to hate about. There was no time for redemption anyway and the preachers were having a hard enough time trying to save their own souls and the clamouring masses of those who already believed.
Even when Yunho tried his very hardest, he could not make believe that he was exploring Sydney as a tourist, that Jaejoong was his boyfriend, that they were happy in love and that everything was perfect.
He thought that perhaps Jaejoong could imagine harder then he could. That he could see the world he wanted to see and not the old, grey buildings and empty glass walls with half-people wandering around trying to put meaning into their all-too-short lives. Jaejoong was the sort who dreamed hard - Yunho knew that much. He watched the other boy as he stared into space, his eyes far away and expression blank as he watched the world and saw something else.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, when he couldn’t bear his own thoughts anymore. Jaejoong turned to look at him, and Yunho thought he was beautiful.
“I was wondering if there was anyone else left.” The words were like a cold shower of water, and Yunho felt himself jolt. The dark eyes holding his didn’t flinch however, and Yunho wondered who Jaejoong had lost. He’d tried to stop himself thinking about it, thinking about his mother, his sister and father, just lying down and dying. Tried not to think about that call from his mother, the promises she’d made him make. Tried not to think of cities, countries, full of silence and stillness. Tried not to scream.
He hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing until Jaejoong kissed him. He choked and broke away to gasp for air, his eyes wide and mind even more scattered then before. Jaejoong was still looking at him, wide deep eyes a pool of nothingness, and Yunho wanted, so very much wanted to smash his face in for his indifference.
And then Jaejoong was walking away, hand slipping from Yunho’s. His footsteps were steady, but and Yunho drew in deep breaths, he saw the way the other man’s fist trembled with how tight Jaejoong was clenching it. He saw the rigidity of Jaejoong’s neck under his soft hair, saw the stiff set of his shoulders.
Abruptly, the anger left him, leaving him feeling drained and empty.
The anger wouldn’t do anything, nor the tears, nor the praying.
There was only today. No past, no future… just now. As long as he kept thinking that, then it would be okay.
He took in a deep breath, holding it until his lungs were ready to burst, before letting it out and jogging after Jaejoong.
The other boy didn’t look at him when he caught up, but his shoulders relaxed slightly and when Yunho’s hand bumped against his own, he let his fingers curl into the tentative embrace.
There was only today.
+
“I want a drink,” Jaejoong had said, quite abruptly, as they were walking down the street in the middle of the night. Yunho raised an eyebrow at the non sequitur, but shrugged.
“We’ll go to a club then,” he agreed amicably after a moment, starting to wonder what was closest. Jaejoong shook his head though, with wide movements of his head that made him look disturbingly child-like.
“No. Not from a club,” Jaejoong said, and looked over the road. Yunho followed his gaze, coming to rest on the dark shop front of a liquor store not so far from them. His expression took on a worried edge - he could see where Jaejoong was going with this.
“It’s closed, Jae.”
“Yeah. So the owner’s probably gone,” Jaejoong reasoned, with perfect Jaejoong certainty.
“Why can’t we just go to a club?” Yunho near whined, even as he was pulled across the road by a firm tugging grip on his hand. He flowed docilely, because he knew the answer to his own (rhetorical, really) question.
The clubs were depressing. Full of manic, desperate people, looking for a fix, for a way out that, in reality, took them nowhere at all. In all honesty, he wondered why most of the people even pretended to keep going. The increasingly more eclectic mixes of alcohol and drugs openly on offer in most of the places seemed to be a thinly veiled excuse for an easy exit. No wait involved.
Yunho wasn’t even sure what Jaejoong was planning to do, or even if Jaejoong was sure what he was planning to do.
It turned out it didn’t matter much. Just as they were approaching the shop front, an alarm went off, sound blaring over the street. Yunho jumped back in shock and doubly alarmed when the glass window front exploded and some guys hopped over the shards. A few more were coming out the door. They were all young, about his and Jaejoong’s age, and they were all carrying liquor bottles.
Jaejoong ran forward towards the broken window, making Yunho’s heart jump with shock and a twinge of fear.
“Jaejoong!” He yelled, uselessly. Jaejoong didn’t look back, instead leaning over the jaggard remains of the window and grabbing some of the displaced display bottles nearby that weren’t covered in glass.
“Fuck!” he swore, running over to drag Jaejoong back and get him away. Instead, he got an arm full of bottles, and Jaejoong’s bright face laughing at him. Someone else suddenly hurtled through the window, a hand protecting his head as he stumbled out onto the sidewalk. He had two bottles tucked under one arm and another in his hand, a hoodie pulled low over his head.
He looked up momentarily, saw them and flashed a grin.
“Run,” he told them in accented English, before shooting off himself. They soon saw the reason for it, a heavy set man thundering through the store right in their direction.
Yunho’s heart was pumping madly, and he nearly dropped the bottles as Jaejoong shoved his shoulder and forced him into action.
“Come on!”
And then they were off, following the hooded boy as he darted down the street.
The owner came out of the shop behind them, swinging a bat and screaming obscenities.
No one stopped them though, as they ran away and disappeared into a dark, small street. Nobody seemed to care about them, or the shop keeper. Some people watched, silently, as they ran by, crossing streets and turning corners, ducking through dull, empty buildings that all looked the same. The sameness of the huge office buildings and dark shop fronts made it impossible for Yunho to figure out where they were, even if he had time to really look around and get his bearings. He’d never been one for directions, anyway. Not that it much mattered now. Jaejoong was running along beside him, face bright and eyes shining, and that was enough.
They kept moving, slowing as they got further and further from the shop without any sign of pursuit.
“Do you know where we are?” Yunho asked Jaejoong somewhat breathlessly.
“Near Korea town,” came the answer, but not from Jaejoong. They both turned to look at the hooded figure walking a little in front of them. The boy stopped, and turned around to face them. “We’re not far from George Street. You guys are Korean, right?”
“Yes,” Yunho replied, when Jaejoong remained quiet, staring at their hooded companion. The guy’s Korean was a little stilted too, like he was rusty speaking it but knew what he was trying to say.
“You come in on the planes?” the boy asked, and Yunho nodded.
“Yeah. One of the last ones. You?”
“Nah. Been here for a couple of years. I was meant to be doing my university studies here.” The boy snorted dismissively. “So much for that, eh?”
“Yeah,” Yunho said again, weakly. It was weird, finding someone else. Not that there weren’t many Koreans about, but Yunho hadn’t really spoken to many except for Jaejoong. “I’m Yunho,” he said after a moment. The boy smiled at him, and shook back his hoodie. Underneath was an expressive face that was, at the time, looking a little haggard. He was quite Korean-looking, and his hair was a mess that was better off hidden under the hoodie, but he looked like he might be a friendly guy. Someone Yunho thought he would get along with.
“Yoochun,” the boy said, and then looked to Jaejoong with a question in his eyes. Jaejoong just looked back at him, blankly.
Yunho nudged him in the side a little, but it failed to bring out Jaejoong’s voice. Instead, there was the clinking of shifting bottles, and Jaejoong’s hand threaded around Yunho’s armvtentatively. Yunho didn’t miss the way that Yoochun’s eyes darted down to the grip and then back up to his face, a different question in his eyes.
“Like that, is it?” he asked, but Yunho didn’t dignify it with an answer.
“This is Jaejoong,” Yunho said instead.
“Hello,” Jaejoong finally said. “I think you need a haircut.”
Yoochun just stared at him, and Yunho blinked in confusion.
The awkward silence broke, Yoochun’s laughter filling the air between them. And slowly, Jaejoong smiled back at him.
+
The Botanical Gardens were a good place to drink, Jaejoong thought, fuzzily.
Between the three of them, they’d had two bottles of vodka (one was some sort of berry flavoured vodka though), two sake bottles, two bottles of red wine and one bottle of expensive-looking bubbly. The alcohol had eased the way, and they’d talked and drunk their way through the night.
They were laid out on the grass, under some trees with a sort of balmy breeze washing over them and making the leaves shift to let the stars through. Jaejoong found them pretty, staring at them through his fingers.
“Sing louder,” Yoochun said. “Your voice is… nice.” It was the best word Yoochun could come up with, words all sort of muddling and meshing together in his mind.
Jaejoong rolled over, pressing himself up onto his elbows to stare blankly at the other boy.
“I wussnt,” Jaejoong denied, fairly sure he hadn’t been uttering a word. Yoochun shook his head though, making broad beckoning gestures.
“Were. Sing s’more!”
Jaejoong shrugged, and began to sing. It was something old and slow, that he remembered his parents listening to. He couldn’t remember half the words though, so he made them up. Yoochun didn’t seem to mind, swaying from side to side with his eyes closed, sake bottle still in hand.
Yoochun was fun, Jaejoong decided. He was amusing and he made funny faces and he got Jaejoong in a way that the older boy found rather miraculous. And he could drink as well as Jaejoong… which was substantially more then Yunho.
Jaejoong rolled himself over again to look at Yunho, his expression softening at the sight of the intoxicated man, passed out leaning against a tree with rosy red cheeks. Jaejoong wanted to kiss him, bite his plump lower lip. He wanted to crawl back into his lap and share a kiss of alcohol and daring with him. He wanted to eat him up, take him inside, so he wouldn’t ever be alone again.
The singing faltered, and stopped, leaving them in silence. Jaejoong closed his eyes, mind already drifting away when he heart the soft snuffling.
Blinking himself awake, he saw that the noise didn’t come from the sleeping Yunho, but from Yoochun.
The boy’s head was hung low, and the bottle had been discarded, his hands instead wrapped around his knees. His shoulders were shaking slightly, and Jaejoong realised he was crying.
Biting his lip, Jaejoong struggled up to his hands and knees and moved towards him, not knowing what to say but unable to just leave Yoochun be. He flopped beside Yoochun, and touched his arm lightly.
“I miss my mum.” The words were quiet, and somewhat wet, and Jaejoong’s teeth near cut through his lip as he wrapped his arms around Yoochun, cocooning him from one side and letting him sob into his shirt. Yoochun smelt of smoke and alcohol and loneliness and tears.
+
They decided to climb the Harbour Bridge. Or rather, Jaejoong decided and Yunho didn’t say no. It wasn’t like they had anything else to do. Yoochun had left them in the pale light of dawn, the three of them saying almost cheerful farewells, with a promise to meet again in two days. There was someone Yoochun had to find, he’d said. Yunho wasn’t sure to be glad or not at the prospect of people other then Jaejoong.
“Shouldn’t we be wearing harnesses?” Yunho asked, as Jaejoong wrestled with the lock on the gate. There were barbed wires and notices everywhere for people not to enter unaccompanied.
Jaejoong looked up at him from the corner of his eye for a moment before focusing back on the heavy lock. After a while, they walked all the way down to the train station at the end of the bridge and stole a long metal pipe, which, while its original use was unknown, did well at smashing off the lock.
The bridge was taller then it looked. The stairs just kept going, up and up, and Yunho felt himself get dizzy as he looked up through the maze of grey steel to the top. It seemed like it took an age to get there, but then once there, Yunho lost his breath.
The walkway was tiny, narrow and somewhat terrifying, but neither of them seemed to mind, eyes set instead on the majestic view stretched below them. Jaejoong’s fingers curled around the railing in a death grip as he leant forward, hair whipped back by the wind and eyes closed to feel the sunshine.
Yunho grabbed him, pulling him back upright, alarmed by the other’s careless abandon but at the same time knowing he wanted to do the exact same thing.
Wordlessly, they began to climb again, following the arch up to its pinnacle, until they were flying high above the water and the city, until they were above the birds that circled the bay.
“I always wanted to come here. Before, you know,” Yunho breathed as he stared down at the Opera House and the sparkling blue ocean that moved and flowed calmly. The ferries had stopped, the boats gone or left moored in the docks, leaving the water undisturbed and pristine.
Jaejoong lent out again, playing with gravity as he raised his arms to the wind. He wondered if this was what it would be like to fly.
The thought of falling never crossed his mind.
+
When they met up with Yoochun again a day later, he had another boy with him.
He was stocky, about Jaejoong’s height, with dyed brown hair that flopped over one half of his face. His face looked quite sharp and serious, mainly because of his small, assessing eyes. Something about him hinted at someone who had once laughed a lot, loudly and freely. It looked like he hadn’t done so in a while though.
“This is Junsu,” Yoochun introduced him.
“Hello,” Jaejoong said. Junsu just nodded in acknowledgement, eyes checking over them in the same way they were assessing him.
And that was how Junsu joined them; four boys in the world.
+
It was some time past dark (hours had lost their significance days and days ago) and they were in the middle of Hyde Park, just wandering. They weren’t the only group of people there… it was as good a place as any to be.
It was a little muggy, and Jaejoong could feel his shirt sticking to his skin a little. He hoped it didn’t get any more humid. Humidity meant moisture, and, eventually, rain.
His mind shied away from that thought, and he let his eyes wander to distract himself.
They stopped by the fountain, Yoochun telling some complicated story about music and dreams and the Conservatorium of Music that lay like a castle on the rise not so far away. It was interesting, but Jaejoong didn’t want to hear about broken dreams anymore. So he had stopped listening, leaving Yunho and Junsu to follow the thread of Yoochun’s story. Instead, he looked at the people around them, watching them move around together and watched their expressions. He tried to imagine what they were thinking.
There was a boy, lanky and slightly awkward looking, sitting alone on the fountain not far from them. He was perched on the cool grey stone, a book held in his hands. His eyes were firmly planted on its pages, but Jaejoong couldn’t help but notice how his face twitched, and how his lips pressed together as Yoochun spoke, his eyes darting sideways.
Without really thinking about it, Jaejoong drifted away from the still talking group, and towards the boy.
“Are you Korean?” he asked, standing before the boy and looking down at him. He could see, dimly, that the book the boy was reading had an English title. But he was sure the boy understood him, had understood what Yoochun had been saying. So he stood there and waited until the boy answered him.
“Yes,” the boy said slowly, looking at him warily. Even his eyes were guarded, and Jaejoong wondered why he looked so old, why he seemed so still. Jaejoong wasn’t used to stillness - he liked movement and action and feeling.
But the boy was alone, and reading a book in the middle of the night in a park. And Jaejoong saw something in him that somehow reminded him of himself.
So he sat down beside the boy and cocked his head.
“I’m Jaejoong,” he said. “What are you reading?”
“Changmin,” the boy said shortly, still looking wary. “And I’m reading Peter Kropotkin, ‘Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution’.”
“Oh,” was all Jaejoong could think to say. Changmin studied him, like he was looking at an ant, and then somehow relaxed, like Jaejoong not knowing who Peter Kropotkin was made him safe.
“He argues that mutual cooperation is as important for evolution as strife and competition,” Changmin explained.
“Oh,” said Jaejoong again, and thought about explosions of gas in the air and scientists in secret rooms making steam that would make a person lie down and die. “I think he has a point.”
“So do I.”
Three hours later, when Yunho lead them back towards the abandoned apartments where they were sleeping, they had another new addition He brought with him a backpack full of books and a head full of theories.
+
“Let’s leave.” It was a very decisive statement, and they all turned to look at him. Jaejoong stared back, gaze curiously blank.
“Why?” Yoochun asked, brows furrowed together.
“What is there here to stay for?” Jaejoong replied, blunt and to the point. It was perhaps a shock to find that they had no answer for his question either, and Yunho thought about the way they kept moving about the same areas of the city, over and over. He thought about the other, zombie-like, aimless, people that wandered the city.
“Okay.” The world felt like a bit of release, a bit of relief.
Changmin shrugged, holding his book close to his chest as he studied the others. Yoochun let out a little, brittle laugh.
“Yeah, okay. Why not?” he said, and jumped off the railing he’d been sitting on. Junsu didn’t say anything, but that was as good as a yes.
“We need a car…” Yoochun said after a moment, and Jaejoong bobbed his head.
“You know how to jack one?” Changmin asked, eyebrow raised as he looked around at them. Yoochun scratched his head.
“I’ve seen it in movies?” he offered tentatively. Jaejoong laughed, a short, biting sound that was oddly carefree. Yunho found himself smiling.
A little while later, when they found the right building, the right door and crept in guiltily to smash open the key cabinet of a valet parking place, Junsu turned to Changmin with wide eyes and told him it was the most illegal thing he’d ever done.
+
They drove through the high rise buildings, got lost in the exits and finally made their way over the Harbour Bridge. It was large and empty, and as Junsu hung out the rear window, wind blowing his hair back, Jaejoong looked at Yoochun in the rear view mirror.
“It used to be full all the time,” the younger man said, and then looked out the window as the metal bars blurred past them.
Jaejoong made no answer, eyes fixing back on the road. After a moment, he reached forward and turned the CD player on. He began to hum lightly to the music, sliding his window down too and resting his elbow on the door.
Changmin read the signs as they whizzed past, telling Jaejoong in vague instructions where they should be headed. But really, they were heading nowhere and Jaejoong made up the way as he went along.
It was odd, going through the suburbs: all the neat houses with their pretty gardens and picket fences. They weren’t like the houses in Korea, or the apartments of Sydney city, and it gave them the shivers to look at the empty husks that used to be homes. Almost as much as seeing the families and people who were still there, living like it was just another day.
They drove and drove and drove and Jaejoong chose a random exit that lead north and saw them shooting down a freeway, surrounded by bush and wind and the echoing silence that was the open road.
+
“No meat?”Yoochun asked, looking over the sparse contents of the so-called ‘supermarket’ they’d stopped at. It was probably the only such place in the small town, but it felt like a hollow, deserted shell. The empty aisles and picked-over shelves were eerie. The lone guy in the store, the owner perhaps (for why else would he still be there?) just smirked at them, shaking his head.
“Yeah, right. Go catch yourself a cow, mate. We aint been getting anything new for the last week.” His voice was gruff and gravelly, like he’d swallowed a cheese grater. It suited him, and Yunho lost track of what they were saying, staring at the brawny, weather-beaten man.
He didn’t know how long it had been when Yoochun and Changmin came back, Changmin carrying a cloth sack that looked heavy.
“Cans,” the boy grunted.
“Not much else here,” Yoochun added. “Nothing’s moving anymore, and cans will keep.”
Yunho nodded, shrugged, and stuck a hand out, wordlessly offering to carry the bag. Changmin glared at him slightly before striding off, leaving Yunho to shrug again and trail after him, Yoochun at his side.
Outside, cars and trucks filled the lot, making them pause in surprise. It had been empty when they’d driven in. Now though, people were milling around the new vehicles in a group, and their car seemed isolated and out of place, parked off to one side. They could see Jaejoong and Junsu, watching the people while leaning on the doors of the car.
Changmin dumped the bag in the boot with a grunt, nestling it into a bed of heavy books. Jaejoong wandered over, one eye still on the mass of people over the way.
“Who are they?” Changmin asked. Jaejoong shook his head.
“I don’t know. They’re speaking English,” he said by way of explanation. “They look like they know where they’re going,” he added after a moment.
Changmin looked at the people, and saw what Jaejoong meant. They weren’t lost or aimless like most people. They had the presence of purpose around them, like there was somewhere they needed to go, something they needed to accomplish. It was more then most people had these days. It was curious.
“I want to talk to them,” Changmin decided after a moment.
A hand came down on Jaejoong’s shoulder, uncomfortably warm in the bright sunlight. He looked up to see Yunho standing beside him, looking at Changmin.
“I’ll come with you,” Yunho said.
And so they went, ambling across to the group with their hands in their pockets, eyes squinting against the sun.
+
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