A Night In Shanghai 1/2
Pairing: YunJae
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU!Romance
Disclaimer: Lien owns Nyx, that's about it. Both own this plot.
Summary: A night begins between a vocal flight attendant and a curious first-time flyer.
-
The red light appears followed by a loud ding, Jaejoong feels the sudden jolt and tucks his notepad and pen into his front pocket. He heads to the back and speaks into the hand microphone after a brief conversation with the pilot in the cockpit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be flying through turbulent air. Please remain seated with your seat belt securely fastened until the captain has turned off the passenger seat belt sign. Thank you for your attention.”
He scans about the cabin when he notes a man waiting just outside an occupied stall. “Sir, if you would please return to your seat.” He orders politely.
The man experiences a slight jolt from the plane but continues staring patiently at the stall door. He feels a pat on his shoulder and turns to see the flustered flight attendant holding on to the surface of the wall. “Sir, if you would please sit down. Once it’s safe to wait, you can return.”
The dimmed lights makes it hard for either of them to see the other very clearly; he bends forward, narrowing his eyes as he tries to figure out what the attendant was trying to tell him over the whispers and commotion.
Finally, he smiles and nods, immediately returning to his seat.
The attendant furrows his brows, giving the man a questionable second glance as he walks past his aisle to return to his jump seat at the front of the cabin. All is peaceful until the ride smoothes out again, the passengers seat belt sign long extinguished.
The flight attendants go about their routine duties. After Jaejoong hands each of the passengers their drinks, he glances down one row to see the familiar man sitting at the window seat beside the two empty ones. “Sir, your coffee.”
Yunho continues peering through the window with much fascination. Too caught up, Jaejoong thinks.
“Sir!” Jaejoong calls slightly louder, but the man is still staring through the window rather intently. He’s hesitant of whether or not he should disturb him when the man shifts in his seat and their eyes meet.
Jaejoong forces a smile, taking a step closer. “Here’s your pre-ordered coffee, Sir.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m not much of a flyer.” Yunho apologizes as he takes the cup of caffeine. The attendant hears a notable lisp, or possible accent he probes, but doesn’t linger on the thought long. He’s grown used to it, faced with many in his day-to-day job.
Still, it’s clear that wasn’t the focal point. Jaejoong clears his throat slightly over the drink cart, he looks up and locks eyes with his co-worker who hides her giggle.
“He’s not bad looking.” Liyin comments once they return to the back of the cabin.
“Why do you always ogle at the passengers?” Jaejoong asks, Liyin rolled her eyes.
“How can you not? It doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“These men are from all over the world, I wouldn’t know where they lived, or who they’re going to see. Too many if’s.”
“It’s just light flirting.”
“I’d like to think that someone I was flirting with would be a person I had a good chance of dating.”
Liyin narrows her eyes as she looks through the trays. “You’re too pessimistic.”
“Realistic,” Jaejoong corrects.
“Same thing,” Liyin adds with a shrug of the shoulder, Jaejoong waits for her to speak but she doesn’t. He decides to be the bigger man and admit only one truth,
“He is cute.”
His quiet answer earns a playful nudge on the shoulder.
Any further interactions are seized by a sudden announcement. “Because of recent weather conditions, we’ll immediately be landing in Shanghai. If you wish to change your next flight to Singapore, please contact the nearest personnel in the gates.”
“Great,” Jaejoong drawled.
Liyin grinned as she settled in her seat, “It won’t be so bad, we won’t have to sleep in the seats at least.”
“But now we have about a hundred pissed off passengers.”
“The receptionists can deal with that.”
When the aircraft lands and the passengers are filing out through the front exit, Jaejoong hears a buzzing noise coming from a certain aisle. He temporarily leaves the rest of the attendants and pilots as they are greeting the disgruntled passengers and finds a PDA sitting in the window seat.
“Are these people always this absentminded? When we tell them to check, does it just go in one ear and out the other-”
“Excuse me.”
Jaejoong froze on the spot, watching as the PDA was taken from his hand overhead.
In horror, Jaejoong turns around and faces the man standing behind him. He feels his cheeks burning, his lips slightly jittering as he’s at a loss of what to say. Yunho bends forward, the corner of his lips raised as he smiles into Jaejoong’s eyes.
“Despite everything, you always seem to save me. It would have been bad if I lost this. What would I do without you?”
Crap, he heard me, Jaejoong grimaced inwardly, forcing a smile through his teeth. “Just doing my job,” he shrugged, laughing awkwardly.
Yunho grins, chuckling, and reaches over briefly to ruffle Jaejoong’s hair before thanking him and turning on his heel to alight the airplane. Jaejoong rejoins his spot with the other flight attendants and Liyin wonders why he looks so distressed as they deplane the aircraft.
In the gate area, Jaejoong turns on the computer beside the two employees who were busy rearranging customer’s flights and complaints. He catches Yunho texting on the phone when he’s called up next.
“Yes, I need to change my flight.” Yunho says with his hand placed on his throat.
The woman he spoke to was speaking a mile a minute, so fast that Jaejoong had trouble catching up with her. Yunho awkwardly chuckled, he had the same issue.
It was then that Yunho reached for a piece of paper and wrote a message, and the woman gave an understanding nod of the head and proceeded to write back at Yunho’s subtle relief.
Jaejoong glimpsed at the message, where Yunho informed the lady that he was deaf.
-
Yunho rummages through his carry-on roughly, digging deep into the baggage as he pulls items out one by one. A bit worried, Jaejoong pats on him on the shoulder and inquires about his actions.
“I think I’ve lost my cell phone,” Yunho says with a bit of a pout.
Jaejoong bites down on his lip, glancing around the area. “Did you possibly leave it on the plane, too?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
There is a brief moment of silence until Yunho stands and meets Jaejoong at eye level. “Could I borrow your cell phone for a second?”
Jaejoong’s rather reluctant and looks about, then gesturing towards the center’s direction. “There should be some payphones by the restroom, you could use that instead.”
Yunho looks from the corner of his eyes, unsure when Jaejoong digs into his pockets and hands over spare change. There is hesitance on Yunho’s part before he accepts it.
“...Thank you.”
When Yunho steps away, Jaejoong feels some guilt; he may have come off as rude but he simply doesn’t like the idea of letting a stranger use his cell.
Don’t be a jerk, He tells himself and hurries over just as Yunho reaches the payphone. With his cellphone outstretched, he gestures for the man to use it.
“Just to call your phone, right?”
Yunho laughs inwardly and nods as he reaches for the phone. Jaejoong stands by and follows as Yunho abruptly walks towards the gate, back to his baggage. The moment Jaejoong hears the distinct buzzing in the silence, he sees Yunho trying to bite back a grin.
“Thank you.” Yunho says earnestly, the expression on his face saying otherwise, and hands the cellular back to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong had wanted to apologize for earlier, but can’t bring himself to as the other rustles into his pocket and pulls out the mobile device. It had been on him all along. “But wait-- then you-- this whole--”
“I seem to have forgotten, how clueless of me.” Yunho says matter-of-factly.
Jaejoong doesn’t believe him, realizing he had just been played. “Is this payback for earlier?”
Yunho blinks, “For what?”
“For when I said... Wait, you don’t know?” Yunho shakes his head, and Jaejoong senses he’s being truthful. “Oh right, you can’t-.... Never-mind then.”
So he hadn’t made a total fool out of himself. Well, that was taken care of now.
Yunho takes out a jacket from his carry-on and puts it on, “Shouldn’t you put on a sweater?”
“They’re all in my luggage, I won’t really need it until tomorrow anyway when we depart.”
“Why not?”
Jaejoong then understands what his underlying question was, “Oh, I won’t be staying here. I have my own room set up.”
“Ah,” Yunho sounds just slightly disappointed. “I guess I won’t be seeing you around.”
Jaejoong shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “Well, I don’t need to head up for a few or so.”
“Is that so?” Yunho asks, Jaejoong nods convincingly. “Doing what?”
Jaejoong pauses, looking about for some sort of reason, and he’s suddenly blank. “I... I have to make sure to pass out the blankets.” Jaejoong turns to leave.
Yunho furrows his eyebrows, pleasantly surprised. “Do all airlines do that?”
“They do now,” Jaejoong muttered.
The rest of the unfortunate passengers are huddled on the floor against one another, vying for the most comfortable position they could muster. Jaejoong looks up to see Yunho sitting the closest against the glass walls.
“Isn’t it cold?” Jaejoong asks, but he sees that Yunho is studying the dark runways outside. He sits down beside him and the friction alarms Yunho, turning to finally face him. He repeats his question, rubbing his own arms from the radiating winter.
The man smiles warmly, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”
Yunho’s barely covered in the blanket, seeing Jaejoong continually rubbing his arms, and tosses the edge over him.
Their conversation mainly consists of Yunho probing questions as Jaejoong attempts to answer them.
Throughout it, Jaejoong notices just how much Yunho has to focus on his lips to read them, sometimes interrupting him to repeat words he couldn’t catch. He’s suddenly conscious to the point that he loses his train of thought, and he stops speaking altogether.
That doesn’t divert Yunho’s attention and, in fact, seems to draw him in even more.
“Why did you stop?” He asks quietly, conscious of the other sleeping travelers. But that only pushed Jaejoong further on edge.
Jaejoong rubs his hands together beneath the blanket, “I should head up now, my friend’s going to be worried if I don’t show.”
Yunho nods, but is slightly disheartened. Jaejoong shifts to stand up, but stops beforehand. “Why don’t you rent an airport hotel room? They have a few unoccupied ones, it isn’t a lot.”
“I didn’t bring much on me. And besides, this way, I’ll get to have the whole flight experience.”
“I’ll pay for your hotel room if you want, it’s really not much.” Jaejoong suggests while reaching for his wallet.
Yunho stops him, “How am I going to pay you back? There’s a likely chance we’ll never meet one another again.”
Jaejoong hesitates for a moment, pondering slightly when he makes his own decision. He reaches for his card,
“Then you’ll just have to find me, won’t you?”
=
Part 2
=
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU!Romance
Disclaimer: Lien owns Nyx, that's about it. Both own this plot.
Summary: A night begins between a vocal flight attendant and a curious first-time flyer.
-
The red light appears followed by a loud ding, Jaejoong feels the sudden jolt and tucks his notepad and pen into his front pocket. He heads to the back and speaks into the hand microphone after a brief conversation with the pilot in the cockpit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be flying through turbulent air. Please remain seated with your seat belt securely fastened until the captain has turned off the passenger seat belt sign. Thank you for your attention.”
He scans about the cabin when he notes a man waiting just outside an occupied stall. “Sir, if you would please return to your seat.” He orders politely.
The man experiences a slight jolt from the plane but continues staring patiently at the stall door. He feels a pat on his shoulder and turns to see the flustered flight attendant holding on to the surface of the wall. “Sir, if you would please sit down. Once it’s safe to wait, you can return.”
The dimmed lights makes it hard for either of them to see the other very clearly; he bends forward, narrowing his eyes as he tries to figure out what the attendant was trying to tell him over the whispers and commotion.
Finally, he smiles and nods, immediately returning to his seat.
The attendant furrows his brows, giving the man a questionable second glance as he walks past his aisle to return to his jump seat at the front of the cabin. All is peaceful until the ride smoothes out again, the passengers seat belt sign long extinguished.
The flight attendants go about their routine duties. After Jaejoong hands each of the passengers their drinks, he glances down one row to see the familiar man sitting at the window seat beside the two empty ones. “Sir, your coffee.”
Yunho continues peering through the window with much fascination. Too caught up, Jaejoong thinks.
“Sir!” Jaejoong calls slightly louder, but the man is still staring through the window rather intently. He’s hesitant of whether or not he should disturb him when the man shifts in his seat and their eyes meet.
Jaejoong forces a smile, taking a step closer. “Here’s your pre-ordered coffee, Sir.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m not much of a flyer.” Yunho apologizes as he takes the cup of caffeine. The attendant hears a notable lisp, or possible accent he probes, but doesn’t linger on the thought long. He’s grown used to it, faced with many in his day-to-day job.
Still, it’s clear that wasn’t the focal point. Jaejoong clears his throat slightly over the drink cart, he looks up and locks eyes with his co-worker who hides her giggle.
“He’s not bad looking.” Liyin comments once they return to the back of the cabin.
“Why do you always ogle at the passengers?” Jaejoong asks, Liyin rolled her eyes.
“How can you not? It doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“These men are from all over the world, I wouldn’t know where they lived, or who they’re going to see. Too many if’s.”
“It’s just light flirting.”
“I’d like to think that someone I was flirting with would be a person I had a good chance of dating.”
Liyin narrows her eyes as she looks through the trays. “You’re too pessimistic.”
“Realistic,” Jaejoong corrects.
“Same thing,” Liyin adds with a shrug of the shoulder, Jaejoong waits for her to speak but she doesn’t. He decides to be the bigger man and admit only one truth,
“He is cute.”
His quiet answer earns a playful nudge on the shoulder.
Any further interactions are seized by a sudden announcement. “Because of recent weather conditions, we’ll immediately be landing in Shanghai. If you wish to change your next flight to Singapore, please contact the nearest personnel in the gates.”
“Great,” Jaejoong drawled.
Liyin grinned as she settled in her seat, “It won’t be so bad, we won’t have to sleep in the seats at least.”
“But now we have about a hundred pissed off passengers.”
“The receptionists can deal with that.”
When the aircraft lands and the passengers are filing out through the front exit, Jaejoong hears a buzzing noise coming from a certain aisle. He temporarily leaves the rest of the attendants and pilots as they are greeting the disgruntled passengers and finds a PDA sitting in the window seat.
“Are these people always this absentminded? When we tell them to check, does it just go in one ear and out the other-”
“Excuse me.”
Jaejoong froze on the spot, watching as the PDA was taken from his hand overhead.
In horror, Jaejoong turns around and faces the man standing behind him. He feels his cheeks burning, his lips slightly jittering as he’s at a loss of what to say. Yunho bends forward, the corner of his lips raised as he smiles into Jaejoong’s eyes.
“Despite everything, you always seem to save me. It would have been bad if I lost this. What would I do without you?”
Crap, he heard me, Jaejoong grimaced inwardly, forcing a smile through his teeth. “Just doing my job,” he shrugged, laughing awkwardly.
Yunho grins, chuckling, and reaches over briefly to ruffle Jaejoong’s hair before thanking him and turning on his heel to alight the airplane. Jaejoong rejoins his spot with the other flight attendants and Liyin wonders why he looks so distressed as they deplane the aircraft.
In the gate area, Jaejoong turns on the computer beside the two employees who were busy rearranging customer’s flights and complaints. He catches Yunho texting on the phone when he’s called up next.
“Yes, I need to change my flight.” Yunho says with his hand placed on his throat.
The woman he spoke to was speaking a mile a minute, so fast that Jaejoong had trouble catching up with her. Yunho awkwardly chuckled, he had the same issue.
It was then that Yunho reached for a piece of paper and wrote a message, and the woman gave an understanding nod of the head and proceeded to write back at Yunho’s subtle relief.
Jaejoong glimpsed at the message, where Yunho informed the lady that he was deaf.
-
Yunho rummages through his carry-on roughly, digging deep into the baggage as he pulls items out one by one. A bit worried, Jaejoong pats on him on the shoulder and inquires about his actions.
“I think I’ve lost my cell phone,” Yunho says with a bit of a pout.
Jaejoong bites down on his lip, glancing around the area. “Did you possibly leave it on the plane, too?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
There is a brief moment of silence until Yunho stands and meets Jaejoong at eye level. “Could I borrow your cell phone for a second?”
Jaejoong’s rather reluctant and looks about, then gesturing towards the center’s direction. “There should be some payphones by the restroom, you could use that instead.”
Yunho looks from the corner of his eyes, unsure when Jaejoong digs into his pockets and hands over spare change. There is hesitance on Yunho’s part before he accepts it.
“...Thank you.”
When Yunho steps away, Jaejoong feels some guilt; he may have come off as rude but he simply doesn’t like the idea of letting a stranger use his cell.
Don’t be a jerk, He tells himself and hurries over just as Yunho reaches the payphone. With his cellphone outstretched, he gestures for the man to use it.
“Just to call your phone, right?”
Yunho laughs inwardly and nods as he reaches for the phone. Jaejoong stands by and follows as Yunho abruptly walks towards the gate, back to his baggage. The moment Jaejoong hears the distinct buzzing in the silence, he sees Yunho trying to bite back a grin.
“Thank you.” Yunho says earnestly, the expression on his face saying otherwise, and hands the cellular back to Jaejoong.
Jaejoong had wanted to apologize for earlier, but can’t bring himself to as the other rustles into his pocket and pulls out the mobile device. It had been on him all along. “But wait-- then you-- this whole--”
“I seem to have forgotten, how clueless of me.” Yunho says matter-of-factly.
Jaejoong doesn’t believe him, realizing he had just been played. “Is this payback for earlier?”
Yunho blinks, “For what?”
“For when I said... Wait, you don’t know?” Yunho shakes his head, and Jaejoong senses he’s being truthful. “Oh right, you can’t-.... Never-mind then.”
So he hadn’t made a total fool out of himself. Well, that was taken care of now.
Yunho takes out a jacket from his carry-on and puts it on, “Shouldn’t you put on a sweater?”
“They’re all in my luggage, I won’t really need it until tomorrow anyway when we depart.”
“Why not?”
Jaejoong then understands what his underlying question was, “Oh, I won’t be staying here. I have my own room set up.”
“Ah,” Yunho sounds just slightly disappointed. “I guess I won’t be seeing you around.”
Jaejoong shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “Well, I don’t need to head up for a few or so.”
“Is that so?” Yunho asks, Jaejoong nods convincingly. “Doing what?”
Jaejoong pauses, looking about for some sort of reason, and he’s suddenly blank. “I... I have to make sure to pass out the blankets.” Jaejoong turns to leave.
Yunho furrows his eyebrows, pleasantly surprised. “Do all airlines do that?”
“They do now,” Jaejoong muttered.
The rest of the unfortunate passengers are huddled on the floor against one another, vying for the most comfortable position they could muster. Jaejoong looks up to see Yunho sitting the closest against the glass walls.
“Isn’t it cold?” Jaejoong asks, but he sees that Yunho is studying the dark runways outside. He sits down beside him and the friction alarms Yunho, turning to finally face him. He repeats his question, rubbing his own arms from the radiating winter.
The man smiles warmly, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”
Yunho’s barely covered in the blanket, seeing Jaejoong continually rubbing his arms, and tosses the edge over him.
Their conversation mainly consists of Yunho probing questions as Jaejoong attempts to answer them.
Throughout it, Jaejoong notices just how much Yunho has to focus on his lips to read them, sometimes interrupting him to repeat words he couldn’t catch. He’s suddenly conscious to the point that he loses his train of thought, and he stops speaking altogether.
That doesn’t divert Yunho’s attention and, in fact, seems to draw him in even more.
“Why did you stop?” He asks quietly, conscious of the other sleeping travelers. But that only pushed Jaejoong further on edge.
Jaejoong rubs his hands together beneath the blanket, “I should head up now, my friend’s going to be worried if I don’t show.”
Yunho nods, but is slightly disheartened. Jaejoong shifts to stand up, but stops beforehand. “Why don’t you rent an airport hotel room? They have a few unoccupied ones, it isn’t a lot.”
“I didn’t bring much on me. And besides, this way, I’ll get to have the whole flight experience.”
“I’ll pay for your hotel room if you want, it’s really not much.” Jaejoong suggests while reaching for his wallet.
Yunho stops him, “How am I going to pay you back? There’s a likely chance we’ll never meet one another again.”
Jaejoong hesitates for a moment, pondering slightly when he makes his own decision. He reaches for his card,
“Then you’ll just have to find me, won’t you?”
=
Part 2
=