Title: Hit-and-Miss Target Practice.
Author: kayjayloves
Word Count: 2,078
Pairing: Jaejoong, Yoochun friendship (Pre-slash Jaemin; hints of others)
Fandom: DBSK/TVXQ/THSK
Genre: drama, highschool!au
Rating: PG-13
Warning: cussing, highschoolness.
Disclaimer: Don't own these guys, just my interpretations of them.
Synopsis: Dominoes. Make them fight. "You mean,” Jaejoong hums, pushing forward in his seat toward Yoochun. The metal legs screech. “Provoke someone?”
Comments: for
tvxqluvv . blame it on her ♥ By the way - holy crap longest oneshot I've written. From the prompt on the
prompt post.
Yoochun is watching him, heavy-lidded eyes and one hand in his pocket, thumbing at a lighter. “Let’s make a bet.”
Jaejoong’s head lifts off the table. “Huh?”
“Dominoes.”
Jaejoong remembers this game. He remembers when they were in seventh grade, Yoochun new and awkward and radical. That transfer kid, the one who can’t speak quite right, the one with the big forehead, that’s how they pointed him out - sitting on the floor playing with his shoelace. Big eyes and big forehead - you’d get along great with him, Jaejoong.
Yoochun had looked up.
It was the start of something inseparable, egged on by their shared outcast status and the common knowledge that animals in packs lived longer. Harder to pick off. But Yoochun had been the one to come up with it, at a late night sleep-over (aren’t you too old for these kinds of things? Jaejoong’s mother had said, brow furrowed, when he came to her with his pillow in hand.)
If you aggravate someone long enough, eventually they take it out on everyone else around them. I know, I’ve seen it.
Like dominoes? Jaejoong had asked. Yoochun hummed agreement.
Dominoes. Make them fight.
“You mean,” Jaejoong hums, pushing forward in his seat toward Yoochun. The metal legs screech. “Provoke someone?”
A half-hearted shrug. Yoochun’s back to watching the cheerleaders across the room compare nails and push-up bras. “Yeah.”
“Deal.”
“Seven days.”
“Seven days to do what?”
“Get your target to beat someone up.” Yoochun grins a sleepy smile, eyes still trained across the room. Jaejoong kicks at his desk. “Could beat you up and call you my target,” he says.
“Naw.” Yoochun slides down on the desk; the bell’s about to ring and he closes his eyes. “I’m too easy, babe.”
Jaejoong snorts. “Sure are.” The girls across the room are filing out, a glance and a stifled-giggle thrown in Yoochun’s direction. “Okay, I’m in.”
Game start.
Day 1.
Easy targets are simple to pick out: the bullies left pushing at the back of the lunch line, the geeks with their pent-up anger, the girls with short nails and strong ideals. Jaejoong watches all of them from the side of the cafeteria, he skipped third block and doesn’t have anywhere better to be. Yoochun won’t let him borrow the Chevy’s keys.
People here are particularly boring - they eat, they talk, they bullshit copy homework in front of teachers who have nothing better to do then make sure no one kills each other during lunch block.
“Target,” Jaejoong says to himself. “Target, target, target.”
Cheerleaders, swim team, student council members filing in through the door all at once - Jung Yunho is holding a bouquet. “Interesting.” Student council representative, decent student and decent guy.
Has a not-really freshman girlfriend; he’s been dancing around her long enough that everyone sees the claim and the malicious bitches give the poor girl crap. Yunho’s looking for her now. Hand fluttering to his collar - he must be sweating, Jaejoong thinks - he gives her the small bouquet.
“Cute.” Jaejoong slides away from the wall, heading towards the double doors.
Target.
“Oh god, another day of torture successfully avoided.” Jaejoong flops back on the bed, wincing when his head grazes the wall. Yoochun watches him from behind the pillow he’s stolen, apologetic look only effective in making Jaejoong flip him off.
“Don’t take God’s name in vain,” Yoochun murmurs - widening grin betraying the joke.
“You sound like Junsu.”
A modest nod. “I try.”
Jaejoong stares. “Uh.”
“If bet is still on, I found my target.” Yoochun curls around the pillow. Jaejoong’s sister is screaming downstairs, indignant shrieks that are unmistakably vicious. He’s no stranger to Jaejoong’s house. He likes it, really, the casual battlefield and the way someone’s always doing something - there’s no room in a place like this for drawn curtains and late night cheap ramen.
“I want new contacts, blue, maybe…” Jaejoong’s lost interest, pulling up an eyelid at his mirror. “Who?” he adds as an afterthought.
“Some kid in my Biology class. Obnoxious smart. Helps everyone.”
“Fun.”
“Provoke-able.”
“I want to do Yunho.” The words are barely out of Jaejoong’s mouth before he’s throwing the voodoo doll on his nightstand at Yoochun. He’s clearly affronted when Yoochun doesn’t stop laughing. “No. He’s my target. Got bored.”
Yoochun’s still wheezing. “’Course,” he coughs out. This time he dodges the mini-figurine Jaejoong throws.
They had the conversation a long time ago, during ninth grade when Yoochun first got caught up in the games of soft curves and cherry-gloss lips. “Would you ever kiss a guy?” and it had really been a dare, but Jaejoong did it and he liked it.
“No way,” Jaejoong claims. “Not Yunho - wouldn’t want to go after him. Guy has a stick up his ass.”
Yoochun snorts, says the second thing on his mind. “He gets along well enough.”
“Exactly.” Jaejoong’s moving around the room. He taps at his calendar, the days highlighted in different colors. Blue, Green, Yellow, and on next Wednesday - Red. Judgment Day.
Day 2.
Yoochun prefers to sleep through Biology; as the only senior in a sophomore class, he takes his seniority to heart - by making sure he’s the first one to tune out.
But today he has other plans. “Shim.”
The kid looks up, surprised. He’s cute, really, all growth-spurt gone way too fast awkward and too tall for his own good. It almost makes Yoochun feel bad. “This,” he says, flailing in the direction of his homework, eyes still half-closed at the disruption of his sleeping patterns. “Could you help me at lunch?”
“Screw you, Yoochun!” Junsu shouts from across the lunchroom. Yoochun wiggles his fingers at him. The girls giggle.
Changmin’s been quiet since they sat down, but he’s been watching them all with sharp eyes. Jaejoong nudges him, “Bringing in underclassmen?” he asks Yoochun with a grin.
Changmin answers, himself. “Shim Changmin. Your friend is too stupid to do his own homework, apparently, all though he hasn’t brought any of his books with him.”
Jaejoong sets down the milk carton with a flourish. “I like him,” he declares. “Can we keep him?”
Day 3.
“Yunho,” Jaejoong says sweetly. “I have a problem.”
“Oh?”
“This guy keeps harassing me.” He looks appropriate embarrassed - lying makes him anxious in the first place, no matter how many damn times he does it. “I, um, was wondering if student council - and you - could do anything…”
Jung looks genuinely concerned. “Of course. What’s up?”
“Just…” He gestures his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what to do anymore!”
Jung hurriedly refers him to a counselor, and Jaejoong spends the next half hour trying to make up stories for her benefit.
“You’re so fucking sly.” Yoochun snorts.
Jaejoong passes the cigarette back to him, shivering at the cold and yanking his hoodie further down thin wrists. “Jung has a conscience. And a hero-complex.”
“Got him wrapped around your finger, then.” He takes a drag - lets it out contemplating this shade of Jaejoong’s smile.
Day 4.
“What are you playing at, Yoochun? Getting him to hang with us everyday, that’s just cruel.”
“Changmin’s a big boy.” Yoochun rolls over in the grass. They’re sitting outside his house; Yoohwan is inside, his mom’s gone and the house still smells like her cigarettes. Yoochun had suggested fresh air - ironic, really, the way he’s fingering the smokes in his back pocket. “He can take care of himself.”
Jaejoong points to a cloud in the sky. “Look, castle. Who’re you going to make him fight?”
“Secret.”
“Hm.”
“So - caring, Jaejoong,” Yoochun hums, the pauses putting meaning in all the wrong places. “right?”
“Wrong.”
Day 5.
“Flaming gay, I’ve always said.” Jaejoong looks at their burgers with disgust, picking through a pile of fries on his napkin.
“Junsu?” Changmin looks up at him.
“Have you seen the way he looks at Yoochun - he’s just dying for him to turn those cheesy-googly-eyed love confessions on him.” He throws a fry at Yoochun. “I know!” he declares, when Yoochun doesn’t react. “Let’s play a game. Gay or Straight.”
They hitched a ride in Yoochun’s Chevy to the nearest burger joint; he points towards the waitress in the corner.
“Straight.” Changmin says. “See the way her skirt’s all bunched up around the middle? She pulled it up after she was walking past those guys by the door.”
“Guy in the corner by the soda machine,” Jaejoong gestures, “is definitely gay.” He points at Yoochun.
“Straight.” Yoochun says.
Jaejoong shifts the finger towards Changmin.
Changmin stares back at him, lips moving slowly but easily. “Gay.”
Jaejoong drives himself home in Yoochun’s car, dropping Yoochun and Changmin back off at the school for their last classes; Changmin mimes kissing the ground in relief after they get out. “He’s avoiding Jung Yunho,” Yoochun says, as Jaejoong runs the stop sign on the way out. “That’s why he’s ditching.”
“Eh?”
“I don’t know,” Yoochun muses. “Joongie is kind of a loose bolt.”
He leans against the fence, turning hooded eyes on Changmin. “Jaejoong is playing a game.”
“Another one?”
“This one, he has to provoke someone.” A pause. Changmin shifts his backpack further up his shoulder, glances towards the front doors. It’s almost time for the bell to ring. “He’s going after Jung Yunho. Almost makes me think he wants in his pants.”
“Really?”
Yoochun likes the way Changmin’s eyes go half-distant, like he’s thinking too hard. Rock, paper, scissors - hit.
Day 6.
“Would you hate me if I win the bet?”
“It’s just a game, Jaejoong.”
“I wouldn’t hate you if you won.”
“Hm.”
Yoochun has a way of getting under people’s skin; he sinks into their pores and draws out those painful little thoughts they forget they have - it’s the way he looks at them, the way he feels. Romanticized end-world eyes.
He follows Changmin to his locker.
“What’re you doing?”
“Following you.”
“Haven’t you got better things to do?” Changmin is juggling his books onto his hip, trying to get the locker open. Yoochun watches him.
“Nah. Jaejoong is off annoying the lower classmen.”
A wry snort. “And you’re not.”
“Not particularly.”
“If I amuse you, will you leave?”
“Only tragedy amuses me.” His face quirks in a half-grin, and Changmin glances at him from behind the locker door. Yoochun gets the feeling he can see there’s more truth in the words than his grin lets on.
“Sorry, I’m not a pity case.”
“Been six days.” Jaejoong says. He’s driving Yoochun home in Yoochun’s car - refused to get in the passenger seat. Yoochun’s too used to the passive acceptance route to wrestle him about it now. “I can’t get Yunho to even think bad thoughts about anyone. Guy’s a fucking nutcase.”
“I bet Changmin could think up a way.”
Jaejoong flips off the car that cuts across his lane. “Fuck that.”
“Oops,” Yoochun says. “You don’t feel special anymore?”
“Fuck you.”
Day 7.
Last day. Jung is still student council perfect. I bet Changmin could think up a way. Jaejoong grits his teeth. Hey -- don’t feel special anymore, Jaejoong?
Apparently not.
He passes Changmin on the way to class, right after bumping into Jung’s cute little girlfriend and a gaggle of girls who have that look around them like they’d probably wet their panties just at Yoochun’s smile. Changmin is explaining something to someone, all animated gestures. He ignores how close he is to the other guy, and the easy smile on his face.
Jaejoong sneers.
I can be more ingenious than that.
Lunch is a ping-pong game of wits, and Yoochun’s the referee. Or the catalyst to the inevitable foul, he thinks. Too easy.
“Wow,” Changmin is saying, tone dry. “Drama queen, much?”
“Just for you,” Jaejoong replies, sweetly. He’s lining up sugar packets nicked from the lunch line; rows of five, four, three, two, one. “Don’t bother the underclassman.” Yoochun says mildly - detachedly.
A smirk. Jaejoong’s eyes flash behind the new blue contacts. “Wouldn’t dare worry his tall little frame.”
“Wouldn’t imagine you’d be so unpleasant. Ignoring, of course, all the games.”
Jaejoong gets up. “What games.”
Yoochun rubs a finger across his nose, watching them - adds to Changmin’s words, “Bet, Joongie.”
“You told him?”
“You want to fuck Jung?”
Jaejoong spins back around, stares at Changmin. His smile draws into a tight line - voice suddenly laced with condescending tones. “More than I’d want to fuck Yoochun’s pity case.”
Changmin punches him.
Yoochun wins the game.
Jaejoong’s always been the easiest target.