Toy Soldiers
Title: Toy Soldiers
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: AU, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Yunho had always been slightly doubtful of Jaejoong’s suitability for a military career, but on the night of his 16th birthday, he’s proved it might in fact be the other way around.
“What a birthday…” Yunho mumbled, dragging his feet behind him, kicking the tips of his heavy winter boots into snow with every step. There had been a few days of thaw a week before, and afterwards the weather had taken a turn for colder again. The quick temperature change had frozen the watery snow, and all human and animal paths had suddenly turned into slippery sled tracks. Even Yunho’s durable steel-toe boots could hardly cut into the dense, downtrodden snow.
“Oh come on, stop squawking”, Jaejoong said, not bothering to even turn his head to face Yunho as he positioned his feet carefully on the icy snow, his cautious actions quite the opposite of Yunho’s listless thumping. “You know I have always wanted to become a Snow Trooper. And you also know that this mission can only be done in pairs.”
“Eat snow,” Yunho countered childishly, kicking his boot into the frozen surface of the path, hard enough to almost throw him off his balance when it unpredictably got stuck. He flailed his arms around for a moment, trying to lean forward so that his loaded backpack wouldn’t pull him down on his back. With his boot stuck in the snow, falling over would have resulted in a sprained ankle even in the best-case scenario.
Jaejoong stopped and turned to glower at him, exasperation stealing into his voice as he watched Yunho yank his foot free of the icy trap.
“For God’s sake, Yunho, stop playing around! I’m not building the quinzhee alone so you’d better not get yourself injured!”
“For God’s sake, Jaejoong, why did you have to drag me out here! You know I want to be an Aviator! I will never, ever,” Yunho emphasised his point by kicking the ground with each sharp word escaping his lips, “ever set a single foot in this god-forsaken place again if I get any say in the matter!”
“Stop. Kicking. The snow!” Jaejoong cried out, adjusting the straps of his backpack and pulling the hood of his white overalls deeper over his ears. “I’m so done with you! Why do I have to do this with such a whiny, useless partner? I still cannot believe they actually accepted you as a student in the first place!”
“So am I with you!” Yunho groaned. “This mission is of absolutely no value for my training, I never asked to come with you! You could’ve chosen someone else!”
“And who might that someone else be?” Jaejoong enquired, his voice strained as he closed his eyes, trying to refrain from lashing out. They had discussed the matter at least four times already since the start of their winter survival mission in the same morning, and to be quite honest, Jaejoong was already getting sick and tired of having to line up the same reasons for Yunho time after time.
“I don’t know, Changmin? That’s not my problem!” Yunho offered indifferently, walking up to Jaejoong and storming past him to take the lead position on the narrow, slippery path.
“Changmin is fourteen! You know perfectly well that specialised trainee missions require the age of 16, at lowest!” Jaejoong barked after him, moving on to follow in Yunho’s defiant footsteps. Yunho’s familiar rocking step made his backpack wobble, and Jaejoong watched the drawstrings of his backpack cover swing from side to side as he listened to Yunho’s continuous grumbling.
“And I have no idea what made you think that me, a person from the genial south, would be any more suitable for your partner… In fact, I’m not even 16 yet! I was born in the evening!”
Jaejoong snorted.
“This morning you seemed to be perfectly 16 when you demanded Yoochun to call you hyung.”
“Whatever, he was still born four months later than me!”
“Well I was born two days earlier than you and I’m telling you to shut up right now!”
“Eat snow,” Yunho countered again, stopping so abruptly that Jaejoong bumped against his back, unable to halt the movement of his feet quickly enough. Yunho snickered as Jaejoong shoved him forward angrily, letting the huffing boy charge past him with tense shoulders. The hood of Jaejoong’s white overalls had slipped off his head, revealing his army green beanie that the boy hadn’t taken off for two days in a row. The familiar wisps of shoulder length black hair were nowhere to be seen, and Yunho couldn’t help but to wonder how Jaejoong would look without the beanie. Most boys boasted about their new haircuts, running around the dormitory, showing off the evidence that they had finally turned into men in the eyes of the brass.
Jaejoong, on the other hand, had been unusually reluctant to get his hair cut in the morning of his 16th birthday, reappearing with a beanie safely over his naked scalp, refusing to let any of the other trainees see his newly shaved head. Yunho had even caught him holding an unwilling Changmin hostage later the same night, carding his fingers through the other’s still freely swaying “baby hair”. For once, Yunho had had enough tact to not let Jaejoong notice his uninvited presence. When Changmin had finally managed to escape the other’s clutches, he had run right into Yunho who had been standing hidden in the doorway. Be happy your hair will be gone in two days hyung was all Changmin had said to him, a horrified look on his face as he had imagined the next two years he would have to endure as the target of Jaejoong’s longing for hair.
When Yunho had gotten his own hair cut in the morning of his own birthday, one more reason for wonderment had been added to his list. How on earth did Jaejoong manage to withstand the insufferable itchiness of wearing a beanie over his buzz cut non-stop?
He hadn’t had time to consider the question for long when Jaejoong had appeared to inform him that he had forged Yunho’s autograph and signed them both up for Snow Trooper trainees’ first trainee mission - beginning the very same day. Yunho had been dumbfounded, shocked speechless as Jaejoong had dragged him into their dorm room to present him with two readily prepared backpacks, finished with snow-white winter camouflage covers over them.
The first thing Yunho had gotten out of his mouth was scolding Jaejoong for going through his stuff. Before he could proceed with his accusations, the sergeant in charge of their 12-head student squad had stepped inside the room, informing them of the trainee mission briefing starting in half an hour. The moment Yunho had noticed the older boy deflate visibly, eyeing him nervously as if to see if Yunho would give away his crime, he had known he could never betray his best friend.
When the sergeant had started complimenting them on choosing their area of specialisation so quickly and even taking action in starting on it immediately, Yunho had brushed off his praises and simply told him to save them for Jaejoong, as the other was the only one to be thanked for their rushed advance into the world of specialised missions. Jaejoong had looked as if he was holding his breath the whole time, and when the sergeant had finally left the room, he had leaped over to glomp Yunho in a rather violent embrace.
Yet, having succumbed into Jaejoong’s plans didn’t mean Yunho couldn’t whine. And whine he did, making sure Jaejoong knew exactly what he thought of having been played in such a way.
“Why do we even have to walk? Why aren’t we skiing? Snow Troopers ski fucking everywhere, don’t they!” Yunho griped, trying to find new matters to complain about.
“Did you even pretend to listen at the briefing?” Jaejoong’s voice was slightly muffled by the collar of his winter jacket. “We are going to ski for the next two days, the skis are where we are supposed to stay the night. Today we only had to set the traps.”
“Oh man… I’m sick of walking in this fucking snow! In fact, I’m sick of this fucking snow in general! Fuck all snow!”
Jaejoong whirled around on his heels and glared at Yunho right in the eye.
“Well this fucking snow is what’s keeping us warm tonight! And in case you feel like not helping me out with the quinzhee, just know that you will be skinning every single bird in our catch if I do any more than exactly 50% of the work today.”
Yunho looked at the boy whose recently exposed eyebrows suddenly made him look a lot older and scarier than he had two days prior, with a long fringe still covering his forehead. To be quite honest, Yunho had always thought that Jaejoong looked much too soft for their boarding school. Not that he was soft - Yunho knew the truth to be quite the opposite, as Jaejoong was one of the few students who never tried to dodge morning workout - but now, with his hair cut, dressed in full winter uniform, Jaejoong suddenly looked quite the opposite of his former docile self.
“…I wouldn’t do that, come on Jaejoong-ah, when did I ever leave you in the lurch?” he retracted, trying to convince the older boy with a toothy smile.
Jaejoong eyed him, astounded by his guts.
“Well, for starters, that time when I had to make the whole presentation for history class because you were too busy bailing Yoochun out of the trouble he had got for smuggling that bottle of spirits into the dorm, not to mention the time I had to bail out you both for-”
“Alright, alright, I got it!” Yunho stuck his hands forward and pulled the hood of Jaejoong’s overalls back over his head, a little too deep so that his eyes were hidden as well. “I’m helping you with that damn quinzhee, but you gotta cut me some slack! I think I have to full right to grouse here. Heck, ten hours ago I didn’t even know I’d be spending the whole day out in the cold! Not to mention, the next two days as well!”
“Right,” was all Jaejoong said before he shook off Yunho’s hands still holding the edges of his hood on both sides of his face and turned around again.
~0~0~0~
Yunho was the one to notice the sledge first. It was covered with a few light brown reindeer skins, scattered with the kind of powdery snow that only fell on very cold days. There was a ski track leading to the spot from the opposite direction, and before it disappeared behind a larger snow bank, Yunho could see the beginning of a jumpy snowmobile track.
“Jaejoong-ah, look,” he called, rushing the few next steps forward to grab the edge of Jaejoong’s sleeve. The boy had been concentrating on the map and his feet, failing to notice they had already reached their sleeping point. The older boy startled, his large eyes jumping up to first meet Yunho’s before being redirected where Yunho was pointing his leather mitten covered hand.
“Ah, there it is…” Jaejoong exclaimed lamely, slightly embarrassed he hadn’t noticed the sledge despite having been walking in the front.
“See, I’m not completely useless, am I?” Yunho enquired smugly as he started dragging Jaejoong towards his discovery. The boy followed him without any resistance, letting Yunho pull him off the established path into deeper snow. Even Yunho, who was a good few inches taller than Jaejoong, was in it knee-deep; for Jaejoong the crust reached as high as his lower thighs.
“Thank god we only needed to walk on the paths today,” Yunho panted as he waded his way towards the sledge, still gripping Jaejoong’s sleeve with his other hand, careful not to let the other fall right on his face in the snow. With the heavy, tall backpacks on their backs, the slightest wrong tilt of their bodies would cause them to lose control of the centre of gravity. What is more, the shorter boy was naturally clumsy, and even if he had always worked extra hard to compensate his lack of athletic prowess, Yunho had his own doubts about Jaejoong’s suitability for a military career. He knew Jaejoong had his reasons to attend their boarding school, but if anyone had asked Yunho, he could’ve rattled off a whole list of reasons he had come up with as objections to Jaejoong’s military career.
Reaching the sledge, Yunho finally let go of the shorter boy’s sleeve. Jaejoong wobbled to the runnerless vehicle, trying to regain his balance. He lifted the edge of the reindeer skin, revealing two pairs of narrow cross-country skis as well as a couple of shovels and other odd equipment, mostly meant for hunting.
Yunho sighed, glad they wouldn’t have to walk another arduous meter in the deep, restricting layer of snow. He moved forward to grab his pair of skis and ski poles, dropping the light planks on the snow to attach his steel-toe winter boots to the old-fashioned bindings. He had already leashed the pulling straps of the sledge over his shoulders, pulling on the string to test out the mobility and weight of it, when he noticed Jaejoong staring at him, showing absolutely no sign of any intention of putting on his own skis.
“What,” Yunho enquired, his uncertainty turning his voice slightly defensive.
“Nothing,” Jaejoong answered quickly, the expression on his face telling otherwise. “I was just wondering where this sudden burst of enthusiasm came from… And where the heck do you think you are going with that sledge.”
Yunho looked down on the straps on his shoulders and the skis bound to his boots. When he looked up again, the corners of Jaejoong’s mouth had been pulled down as if he was trying to control his laughter. Yunho tried to quickly think of a good explanation, a well-thought plan he could say he had had all the while, when his eyes landed on the tall snowdrift near the beginning of the snowmobile track.
“See that big pile of snow? I thought it would be a more convenient spot to build the quinzhee… Since there’s already a nice start. Less shovelling, you see?” he tried, adding a cheeky smile for further emphasis.
Clearly the answer was a wrong one, as Jaejoong lost control of his reaction, bursting out in joyful laughter, the corners of his mouth almost splitting as his dry lips were stretched into a wide smile.
“Yunho dear, did you ever bother to listen at all in survival class? Or more like, did you skip all the winter camps? I remember quite clearly sleeping next to you though, that one time when you kicked your overgrown legs against the tent stove and in addition to your sleeping bag, almost burnt down the whole tent…”
Yunho groaned, slapping his palms against his ears.
“Can you please not remind me of that?!” he whined miserably, tugging on the ear flaps of his fur cap. Jaejoong chuckled at the sight - Yunho looked quite adorable with the grey military ushanka pulled deep down over his head, eyes hidden under the warm fur, only his nose peeking out, turned rosy in the cold. “I was like 10 back then!”
“Ha!” Jaejoong exclaimed with a disbelieving tone. “More like 13! And how does that make any difference anyway; we’ve been attending winter camps since first grade.”
Yunho looked down, his mouth reduced to a thin line.
“Well maybe you now know why I don’t want to become a Snow Trooper.”
Jaejoong stared at him for a second, still amused with Yunho’s random, thoughtless plans and his indignant attitude towards winter training.
“Don’t worry, there’s no stove in a quinzhee! Plus I promise to keep the lantern on my side,” he teased, patting Yunho’s shoulder. “Now get that sledge off your shoulders and let me teach you the things you clearly dozed over during class.”
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong literally had to teach Yunho the manner of building a snow shelter from scratch. More than once, he couldn’t help but to wonder how Yunho had even managed to pass the winter portions of their survival class, let alone the practical training during winter camps every year.
That was until he remembered the way Yunho could memorise four pages worth of Japanese vocabulary in half an hour right before a quiz and then blissfully forget every word after the test ended. The guy had always had amazing skills in short-term rote memorisation; an ability Jaejoong had first been jealous of, as Yunho always topped his scores in quizzes and midterm tests. Yet, when Jaejoong had once gone on a trip with Yunho’s family during their summer holidays, he had noticed that Yunho’s ability to communicate in the said language appeared a whole lot more limited than his. After spending the holiday with Yunho earning Jaejoong a few good laughs with his attempts to converse in his broken Japanese, the older boy had given up on his envy, concentrating on his own way of studying instead of trying to imitate the other boy.
He could only assume that the case with winter survival was similar. The boy had probably gotten perfect marks on his tests and discarded the knowledge he had deemed useless the moment exam period was over.
“Did you even listen to me? I said we have to first shovel all the snow off to create a flat, downtrodden base…”
“But what’s the damn point? Shovel it off and then build a new pile in the same spot… I’ll just build it on top of this,” Yunho insisted, shovelling snow on top of the already existing snow blanket.
“Stupid Yunho, which one of us actually listened during class? Do you really want to suffocate to death when your stupid wrongly built quinzhee collapses on top of us in the middle of the night?” Jaejoong cried out, anger seeping into his already frustrated voice. He would have been fine with teaching Yunho, but the boy just had to argue about every single detail in his instructions.
Yunho huffed, unable to come up with a witty comeback since Jaejoong probably knew what he was talking about, unlike himself.
“Never mind, it will get dark in five hours so we better get on with his. You just go pick up some sticks under those trees and break them into pieces of 30 centimetres each. I’ll handle the shovelling since it seems to be such an insurmountably difficult task for you.”
When Jaejoong reached for the shovel Yunho was holding, the boy dodged his hands, stepping backwards.
“Alright alright, I’ll do it as you say… Go find the sticks yourself.”
Jaejoong reached for the shovel again, but Yunho simply treaded to the other side of the small pile he had already created, continuing with his task, but this time starting to clear out an open space for the shelter they would build.
“Alright… I’ll come back to help you in a bit…” Jaejoong trailed off, following Yunho’s determined sweating as he worked his shovel up and down. “Remember to pack the snow so that we save some time with the hardening! We have to dig the inside too before sunset.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it already,” Yunho assured him. “Shoo now.”
“I’m going!” Jaejoong snapped, turning around to go search for suitable sticks.
~0~0~0~
Even though the layer of snow was remarkably thinner around trees, finding sticks that were long enough proved to be a task more difficult than Jaejoong had thought. When he finally got back with a suitable amount, Yunho’s snow pile was already well over a metre in height and almost as wide. Yunho’s face was red as he panted and shovelled the snow, clearly having gotten excited about the exercise at some point.
Jaejoong joined him, and with the combined effort of two people, the pile had before long increased into a two-and-a-half-metre high, three-metre wide mound. After making sure the snow was well packed, the boys stuck the branches Jaejoong had collected into it, careful to put them at even distances.
Yunho looked at the result of their labour, wiping a few droplets of sweat from his brow. The dampness of the inner layers of his clothing was already turning cold against his skin, but his face was still uncomfortably warm. He took his fur cap off, running an open palm over his short Ivy League haircut, from his nape to the top of his head and back. Looking at the high pile of snow they had created together made him feel strangely proud, and when he turned to Jaejoong in order to praise himself a little, he noticed the other’s eyes wandering to his hair.
The intended smug words were forgotten as he snapped his fingers together to gain Jaejoong’s attention. The other jolted, his eyes finding their way back to Yunho’s face.
“Earth to Jaejoong,” Yunho said, waving his hand in front of Jaejoong’s face. The boy scrunched his nose irritably and grabbed the annoying hand, pulling it down.
“Time to wait for it to harden, I guess,” Jaejoong said, walking over to the sledge that they had placed their backpacks against. Yunho trailed in his footsteps, flopping down on the reindeer skins and flinching when he happened to sit on something pointy. He twirled around until he found a comfortable position and watched as Jaejoong opened his backpack, fishing out a portable stove and tamping the ground to create a space for it.
It was the very reason why Yunho always weaselled himself into being assigned as Jaejoong’s partner on camps. Well, at least one of the reasons; but for sure one of the most important ones. Yunho could almost swear that the food he got to eat during camps was better than the usual meals they had at the school cafeteria everyday.
He could even swear that the school cafeteria meals improved significantly every time it was Jaejoong’s turn to be assigned to canteen service.
Trying to ignore the shivers his cooling sweat brought along his spine, Yunho watched Jaejoong heat up a simple meal for them.
“Tomorrow we have to make a fire every time, you know that right? They only gave us enough fuel for one day,” Jaejoong chattered as he stirred the boiling beans.
“Hmm,” Yunho answered, not really paying attention to his words. “And eat the fowl, right.”
“If we catch any,” Jaejoong corrected him, scooping half of the food into the large cup in Yunho’s mess kit. He handed it to the other boy before pouring the rest for himself and finding a seat besides Yunho. His beanie had slumped over his eyes again, and Yunho watched him trying to push it up by only wiggling his brow. The sight was quite comical, and before he knew it, Yunho had reached out his hand and pulled the beanie off Jaejoong’s forehead.
“Thanks,” the other said, looking at Yunho slightly awkwardly.
“No problem,” he answered, lifting the cup to blow into the steaming stew. He was just going to sip it when he noticed Jaejoong wasn’t eating, but rather looking at him.
“What now,” he asked, wiping his nose with his free hand. “Do I have something on my face?”
Jaejoong smiled at him awkwardly again, scratching the back of his neck.
“Can I… Can I maybe, feel your hair,” Jaejoong hesitated, his other hand already hovering in mid-air. Yunho blinked at him a few times before lowering the cup from his lips.
“Sure,” he answered, remembering Changmin’s words from two days earlier. He looked Jaejoong straight in the eye as the other boy focused his gaze on the top of Yunho’s head, reaching his hand up until he was carefully touching Yunho’s short hair. The barber had actually left the top quite long, and as Yunho had been wearing a hat for the whole day, the hair was now messily sticking into random directions.
Jaejoong’s touch was soft and careful, as if he was afraid the hair would break under his touch. After a while he gained more courage and smoothed his palm back and forth, his eyes growing large with wonder. Yunho felt slightly funny, sitting there with his best friend petting his head as if he was a dog or a five-year-old kid, but the look on Jaejoong’s face was worth it.
“You know, the short hair looks kinda good on you,” the older boy breathed out, pulling his hand back to himself. Yunho lifted the cup back to his lips and turned his head, careful not to let Jaejoong notice he had been staring. “I always thought the bowl cut made your cheeks look even pudgier.”
And as if on purpose, in order to break the strange atmosphere, Jaejoong lifted his hand again and pinched Yunho’s cheek.
“Hey!” the other exclaimed, almost spilling his food as the sudden touch made him jump. “My cheeks ain’t pudgy!”
Jaejoong scoffed.
“Dream on,” he countered before taking a swig of his stew, burning his tongue with the steaming substance and ending up with a fistful of snow in his mouth.
~0~0~0~
The digging part took longer than either of them had expected, and when they finally reached the ends of the sticks that were stuck through the walls to make sure they remained thick enough on all sides, the sun was already setting. The cave they had hollowed was big enough they could comfortably sit upright. Jaejoong had taken one of his ski poles and pricked it through the wall in order to make a few air holes, leaving it in the last one, sticking upwards from the mound. Then, he fetched a small glass lantern from the sledge, creeping inside the snow structure. With a swift movement of his wrist, he lighted a match, and then the candle inside the lantern. Yunho crouched at the doorway and watched the warm orange light create shadows on the white walls. Even though they had smoothed them out the best they could, the rough surface offered a delightful playground for the light of the fluttering flame.
Jaejoong turned around, smiling elatedly.
“It’s all done,” he stated, glancing at the lantern for a second time. “It’ll warm up in no time.”
Yunho nodded wordlessly. Somehow he felt like he wasn’t supposed to disturb the moment; the silent play of the light, inside a shelter they had built themselves, he and Jaejoong, in the middle of snowy wilderness. Having been walking around the whole day, when not working arduously, Yunho hadn’t even noticed how quiet it was around them. Now, he remained silent; and so did Jaejoong, staring at the lantern that illuminated his white overalls and his pale skin with the same warm hue of orange as the walls.
Yunho turned away, crawling through the doorway into the dark. The sun was already below the horizon, but it wasn’t pitch black yet; instead, the surrounding snow was painted in a lovely shade of dark blue, contrasting starkly with the warm light coming from the quinzhee.
It was almost too serene. Yunho cleared his throat.
“Jaejoong-ah,” he hollered, “we’re supposed to put the reindeer skins on the floor, right?”
“Yep,” the other answered from the inside. “And no need to shout, silly, I’m right here…”
Yunho walked over to the sledge, gathering the two large reindeer skins into his arms before making his way to the doorway again. Jaejoong met him halfway, helping the other to spread the wiry furs on the ground. The insulation they provided was nothing short of amazing: Yunho could hardly feel the icy, hard ground under him as he sat on the edge of the skin.
“We should stay inside as much as possible, our body warmth will warm this place up even faster than just the lantern,” Jaejoong explained while he dragged his backpack inside. “I’ll just go melt some snow and make us tea. We should drink something warm before going to bed.”
Yunho made a noncommittal sound at the back of his throat, sorting through his belongings. He could hear Jaejoong rattle the portable stove outside, and in no time, the other re-emerged with two steaming cups, placing them on the ground as he crawled in. They had left the doorway as small as possible in order to keep the warm air inside.
“It’s lotus root,” Jaejoong said as he handed one of the cups to Yunho. “My sister always says it’s like drinking soup stock, so I thought it’d be nice out here.”
“Thanks,” Yunho answered as Jaejoong settled beside him. Suddenly the older boy set his cup on the ground and pulled his many sleeves up. Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw its pointers had passed half past eight already. He turned to the younger boy sitting next to him, grinning in a silly manner.
“Happy sweet 16, Yunho-yah.”
Yunho accepted his congratulation with a nod, not sure how to react to the fact Jaejoong even knew the hour he had been born at. It wasn’t the only question making him curious, though; after contemplating on it for a moment, he finally decided to give it a go and voiced what had been bothering him since the morning.
“Jaejoong-ah…” he started, a little hesitant. “Why did you sign me up for this?”
Jaejoong’s cup stopped mid-air as the boy froze before turning to face Yunho. He smiled, the kind smile Yunho knew he only reserved for the kinds of Junsu, and maybe Changmin - and apparently also Yunho.
“I just didn’t want to do my first specialised mission with anyone else,” he confessed honestly. “I’m sorry I did it without asking you first.”
“Oh, umm, thanks, I mean, it’s okay, I guess,” Yunho stuttered, slightly stunned. Why it might be so, the reason was mostly incomprehensible for Yunho. He knew the only thing he had proved during the day was his incapability to survive in winter conditions.
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong woke up to an inexplicable feeling that something was wrong. He lay still, wrapped in his down sleeping bag with only his nose peeking out from the opening he had tightened into a tiny gap with the drawstrings. He tried to listen, but it was very quiet; the backpack he had placed to cover the doorway of the quinzhee blocked the outside world, leaving them huddled inside their little cave alone, cut off from everything else. Yet, despite the silence, the feeling that had woken him wouldn’t go away. Jaejoong turned around, pulling off his mittens and loosening the drawstrings of his sleeping bag to allow himself to move more freely, wiggling his torso out.
It was pitch dark. The temperature inside had climbed noticeably, and dressed in his long woollen underwear and a sweater, he felt only slightly chilly. The previous day hadn’t been particularly cold, but even the ten-degree change in temperature made a big difference. With the reindeer skins as their bedding, Jaejoong had fallen asleep quickly, and he couldn’t decipher the reason for his sudden awakening.
When his elbow bumped against the boy lying next to him, he suddenly realised what was going on. Quickly, he pulled his arms free of the sleeping bag and sat upright, shaking the other boy.
“Yunho-yah,” he whispered, “are you awake?”
“Y-y-y-yeah, I-I am,” came the answer. The younger boy was trembling, curled into a foetal position, even his face tucked inside the sleeping bag. Jaejoong smoothed his palm over Yunho’s shivering body, frowning worriedly as the other only rubbed his legs together inside the sleeping bag, curling more into himself.
“You’re cold,” he said, more a statement than a question. He could almost hear the other’s teeth clattering.
“Y-yeah, k-k-ki-kinda,” Yunho admitted, drawing the zipper open enough to sit up as well. Jaejoong felt about the ground, fumbling for his flashlight. When he found it, he quickly pulled the headlamp over his beanie, turning it on. Yunho immediately looked down, closing his eyes as the sudden bright light blinded him.
“Sorry,” Jaejoong apologised quickly, turning the lamp towards the ground as he reached for Yunho, peeling the sleeping bag off him and feeling his body. The boy was wearing a sweater over his long-sleeved woollen undershirt, but when Jaejoong quickly rolled the outer sleeve up, he noticed the undershirt was damp, almost ice-cold. Worried, he lifted his hand onto Yunho’s forehead, checking if the other was sick.
His forehead, covered with a beanie, was just as cold as the rest of his body. The relief of knowing the other wasn’t burning up with a fever was short-lived as the younger boy quivered violently again, the white vapour of his breath hitting Jaejoong’s face.
“Did you go to sleep in the same clothes you wore for the whole day?” he realised suddenly, gripping Yunho’s sleeve, astounded.
“Y-y-yeah?” without the extra warmth of his sleeping bag, Yunho’s trembling was getting more severe. Jaejoong could only gape at him with his mouth hanging slack.
“You didn’t even change your socks?” he confirmed, and when the boy nodded, he couldn’t help but to smack the back of the other’s head gently.
“Idiot! I don’t care what kind of fancy aviator you want to be, but you should know at least this much… What if your airship crashes during winter, in the middle of nowhere? What would you do then, huh? Not even get yourself killed by the animals, no, you can always shoot them, heck, you’re even specially trained in taekwondo… But instead, you’d die of hypothermia drenched in your own frozen sweat because you didn’t change into clean and dry clothes before you went to sleep?!”
Yunho took his scolding on solemnly, nodding at appropriate places. He knew that if he waited nicely until the nagging was over, Jaejoong would surely help him out. True to his assessment, Jaejoong was soon rummaging through his backpack, pulling out a clean set of underclothes and throwing them at Yunho. The boy struggled to change, his ice-cold, numb fingers refusing cooperation. In the end Jaejoong only ordered him to cross his arms over his chest and keep his fingers under his armpits, the warmest place on his body, as he pulled a new shirt on the other, covering it with a dry sweatshirt. Yunho felt like he was dressed in a straitjacket, but made no protest as he sat there, being undressed and dressed by Jaejoong like a little child needing assistance. Before pulling a new pair of woollen socks on his feet, the older boy spent a long while massaging his frosted toes. When he had told Jaejoong to look if there was a rock or something between his toes, the older boy had quickly stripped off his socks, finding the limbs had long lost all feeling.
It had felt weird to Yunho, watching the other hold his feet gently between his hands, but not being able to feel it at all. His toes were white and rigid, but with Jaejoong’s patient rubbing, a horrible sting started slowly spreading through them, as if his feet were being pricked by a thousand needles. Jaejoong let out a breath, relief flooding his whole body when Yunho started wiggling his toes because of the uncomfortable feeling.
“Gladly they weren’t badly frostbitten… Know that I wouldn’t have hesitated to send you out to run laps around this quinzhee if it was the only way to get your blood back flowing,” he sighed, letting go of the chilly feet. Yunho sent him a half-hearted glare, feeling slightly sorry for himself. Jaejoong caught the self-pity in his eyes, whacking his head for a second time.
“You cannot blame anyone but yourself for this, you idiot! Who told you to sleep in the same sweaty clothes in the first place… And you could have just woken me up earlier…!”
“I guess I was embarrassed, you seemed to be faring so well,” Yunho confessed, looking down, too ashamed to meet Jaejoong’s eyes. The boy sighed once again, leaning forward to grab Yunho’s sleeping bag and started zipping it open. Yunho rubbed his fingers against his sides inside his shirt, eyeing him with curiosity.
“What are you doing now?” he asked, nudging Jaejoong with his woollen sock covered foot.
“I’m going to attach our sleeping bags together. In case you didn’t notice, your body is still freezingly cold,” Jaejoong explained, slipping out off his own rectangular sleeping bag and zipping it open as well. He lined up the two sleeping bags, slipping the other’s slider through the other’s zipper pin, effectively creating one larger one as he zipped the side up. Yunho stared at him, arms still crossed on his chest inside his shirt. The pale light of Jaejoong’s headlamp flickered around the ground as he spread the sleeping bag on the reindeer skins again and gestured for Yunho to lie down on it.
He stared at Jaejoong for some more before snapping out of his stupor and lying down on his back, wiggling himself into a good position; with his arms trapped inside his shirt, it was harder than he would have thought. As soon as he had settled down comfortably on his side, Jaejoong switched off his headlamp, pulling on his mittens and lying down next to Yunho. He faced the wall, back to Yunho’s chest, and pulled on the zipper pin carefully, trying to inch closer to Yunho in order to be able to zip the sleeping bag all the way up.
In the end, he settled upon grabbing the slack, empty sleeve of Yunho’s shirt, pulling it over his side, tugging Yunho closer to his back. The younger boy was almost dumbfounded, not sure what to do, so he just shifted slightly, revelling in the warmth the other’s body brought inside their shared bedding.
They lay silently for a moment, listening to each other’s slow breathing. Eventually, the position of Yunho’s arms grew uncomfortable, and deeming his fingers warm enough, he started slithering his arms through the sleeves of his shirt. The one Jaejoong had grabbed was still lying over his side, and when Yunho’s finally managed to thread his hand through the cuff, his arm was lying over the other’s body, hand splayed against his hard, muscled chest.
Jaejoong showed no sign of discomfort, simply adjusting his position under Yunho’s arm. As inconspicuously as he could, Yunho snuggled closer, burying his cold nose into the tickly threads of Jaejoong’s beanie.
Jaejoong had started to quietly hum a children’s song, something about fir trees and squirrels and shelter if Yunho remembered right. Before he knew it, he had pressed his lips against Jaejoong’s knitted beanie, wondering how the other boy’s scratchy buzz cut would feel against his lips. The measure seemed to go unnoticed by Jaejoong, who continued his humming, a snippet of the lyrics slipping over his lips into the melody every now and then.
Somehow, it made Yunho wonder if he should reconsider his choice of future employment. Maybe becoming a Snow Trooper wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A/N: We had a pretty severe blizzard going on in here yesterday so I thought it would be appropriate to finish my snow one-shot. :) This was written for our little fic community un_scribbled, you guys should check it out~ The prompt this time was, like I said, snow :D
So, to be clear. This fic happens during an undefined time period(=future). Also, I bet no one’s ever written a military boarding school YunJae before… right? :D
A “quinzhee” was the closest translation I could find for the Finnish word “lumikammi”… It looks something like this [x] [x]. People sometimes sleep in these, when they go hiking during winter. I haven’t, I’ve only slept in a fabric lean-to… That’s a whole lot colder than a quinzhee would be >___< I got my toes frostbitten actually, it was so weird. It really feels like you've got something between your toes, even though there’s nothing… but then, when you touch your feet, you cannot feel the touch at all o__o I ran around the camp for about 10 minutes without regaining feeling ;-; It only came back after around one hour of hiking…
People are probably not very familiar with this so I'll just say it's a quinzhee is a different thing from an igloo^^ An igloo is a larger construction, people can live in those all year round, and they take a longer time to build... A quinzhee is just a small temporal shelter, it will collapse in a few days' time. The ceiling will just fall down.
It's unbetaed btw, sorry for all the mistakes >___< Hopefully it's not too unclear what's going on xD
Pairing: YunJae
Length: One-shot
Genre: AU, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Yunho had always been slightly doubtful of Jaejoong’s suitability for a military career, but on the night of his 16th birthday, he’s proved it might in fact be the other way around.
“What a birthday…” Yunho mumbled, dragging his feet behind him, kicking the tips of his heavy winter boots into snow with every step. There had been a few days of thaw a week before, and afterwards the weather had taken a turn for colder again. The quick temperature change had frozen the watery snow, and all human and animal paths had suddenly turned into slippery sled tracks. Even Yunho’s durable steel-toe boots could hardly cut into the dense, downtrodden snow.
“Oh come on, stop squawking”, Jaejoong said, not bothering to even turn his head to face Yunho as he positioned his feet carefully on the icy snow, his cautious actions quite the opposite of Yunho’s listless thumping. “You know I have always wanted to become a Snow Trooper. And you also know that this mission can only be done in pairs.”
“Eat snow,” Yunho countered childishly, kicking his boot into the frozen surface of the path, hard enough to almost throw him off his balance when it unpredictably got stuck. He flailed his arms around for a moment, trying to lean forward so that his loaded backpack wouldn’t pull him down on his back. With his boot stuck in the snow, falling over would have resulted in a sprained ankle even in the best-case scenario.
Jaejoong stopped and turned to glower at him, exasperation stealing into his voice as he watched Yunho yank his foot free of the icy trap.
“For God’s sake, Yunho, stop playing around! I’m not building the quinzhee alone so you’d better not get yourself injured!”
“For God’s sake, Jaejoong, why did you have to drag me out here! You know I want to be an Aviator! I will never, ever,” Yunho emphasised his point by kicking the ground with each sharp word escaping his lips, “ever set a single foot in this god-forsaken place again if I get any say in the matter!”
“Stop. Kicking. The snow!” Jaejoong cried out, adjusting the straps of his backpack and pulling the hood of his white overalls deeper over his ears. “I’m so done with you! Why do I have to do this with such a whiny, useless partner? I still cannot believe they actually accepted you as a student in the first place!”
“So am I with you!” Yunho groaned. “This mission is of absolutely no value for my training, I never asked to come with you! You could’ve chosen someone else!”
“And who might that someone else be?” Jaejoong enquired, his voice strained as he closed his eyes, trying to refrain from lashing out. They had discussed the matter at least four times already since the start of their winter survival mission in the same morning, and to be quite honest, Jaejoong was already getting sick and tired of having to line up the same reasons for Yunho time after time.
“I don’t know, Changmin? That’s not my problem!” Yunho offered indifferently, walking up to Jaejoong and storming past him to take the lead position on the narrow, slippery path.
“Changmin is fourteen! You know perfectly well that specialised trainee missions require the age of 16, at lowest!” Jaejoong barked after him, moving on to follow in Yunho’s defiant footsteps. Yunho’s familiar rocking step made his backpack wobble, and Jaejoong watched the drawstrings of his backpack cover swing from side to side as he listened to Yunho’s continuous grumbling.
“And I have no idea what made you think that me, a person from the genial south, would be any more suitable for your partner… In fact, I’m not even 16 yet! I was born in the evening!”
Jaejoong snorted.
“This morning you seemed to be perfectly 16 when you demanded Yoochun to call you hyung.”
“Whatever, he was still born four months later than me!”
“Well I was born two days earlier than you and I’m telling you to shut up right now!”
“Eat snow,” Yunho countered again, stopping so abruptly that Jaejoong bumped against his back, unable to halt the movement of his feet quickly enough. Yunho snickered as Jaejoong shoved him forward angrily, letting the huffing boy charge past him with tense shoulders. The hood of Jaejoong’s white overalls had slipped off his head, revealing his army green beanie that the boy hadn’t taken off for two days in a row. The familiar wisps of shoulder length black hair were nowhere to be seen, and Yunho couldn’t help but to wonder how Jaejoong would look without the beanie. Most boys boasted about their new haircuts, running around the dormitory, showing off the evidence that they had finally turned into men in the eyes of the brass.
Jaejoong, on the other hand, had been unusually reluctant to get his hair cut in the morning of his 16th birthday, reappearing with a beanie safely over his naked scalp, refusing to let any of the other trainees see his newly shaved head. Yunho had even caught him holding an unwilling Changmin hostage later the same night, carding his fingers through the other’s still freely swaying “baby hair”. For once, Yunho had had enough tact to not let Jaejoong notice his uninvited presence. When Changmin had finally managed to escape the other’s clutches, he had run right into Yunho who had been standing hidden in the doorway. Be happy your hair will be gone in two days hyung was all Changmin had said to him, a horrified look on his face as he had imagined the next two years he would have to endure as the target of Jaejoong’s longing for hair.
When Yunho had gotten his own hair cut in the morning of his own birthday, one more reason for wonderment had been added to his list. How on earth did Jaejoong manage to withstand the insufferable itchiness of wearing a beanie over his buzz cut non-stop?
He hadn’t had time to consider the question for long when Jaejoong had appeared to inform him that he had forged Yunho’s autograph and signed them both up for Snow Trooper trainees’ first trainee mission - beginning the very same day. Yunho had been dumbfounded, shocked speechless as Jaejoong had dragged him into their dorm room to present him with two readily prepared backpacks, finished with snow-white winter camouflage covers over them.
The first thing Yunho had gotten out of his mouth was scolding Jaejoong for going through his stuff. Before he could proceed with his accusations, the sergeant in charge of their 12-head student squad had stepped inside the room, informing them of the trainee mission briefing starting in half an hour. The moment Yunho had noticed the older boy deflate visibly, eyeing him nervously as if to see if Yunho would give away his crime, he had known he could never betray his best friend.
When the sergeant had started complimenting them on choosing their area of specialisation so quickly and even taking action in starting on it immediately, Yunho had brushed off his praises and simply told him to save them for Jaejoong, as the other was the only one to be thanked for their rushed advance into the world of specialised missions. Jaejoong had looked as if he was holding his breath the whole time, and when the sergeant had finally left the room, he had leaped over to glomp Yunho in a rather violent embrace.
Yet, having succumbed into Jaejoong’s plans didn’t mean Yunho couldn’t whine. And whine he did, making sure Jaejoong knew exactly what he thought of having been played in such a way.
“Why do we even have to walk? Why aren’t we skiing? Snow Troopers ski fucking everywhere, don’t they!” Yunho griped, trying to find new matters to complain about.
“Did you even pretend to listen at the briefing?” Jaejoong’s voice was slightly muffled by the collar of his winter jacket. “We are going to ski for the next two days, the skis are where we are supposed to stay the night. Today we only had to set the traps.”
“Oh man… I’m sick of walking in this fucking snow! In fact, I’m sick of this fucking snow in general! Fuck all snow!”
Jaejoong whirled around on his heels and glared at Yunho right in the eye.
“Well this fucking snow is what’s keeping us warm tonight! And in case you feel like not helping me out with the quinzhee, just know that you will be skinning every single bird in our catch if I do any more than exactly 50% of the work today.”
Yunho looked at the boy whose recently exposed eyebrows suddenly made him look a lot older and scarier than he had two days prior, with a long fringe still covering his forehead. To be quite honest, Yunho had always thought that Jaejoong looked much too soft for their boarding school. Not that he was soft - Yunho knew the truth to be quite the opposite, as Jaejoong was one of the few students who never tried to dodge morning workout - but now, with his hair cut, dressed in full winter uniform, Jaejoong suddenly looked quite the opposite of his former docile self.
“…I wouldn’t do that, come on Jaejoong-ah, when did I ever leave you in the lurch?” he retracted, trying to convince the older boy with a toothy smile.
Jaejoong eyed him, astounded by his guts.
“Well, for starters, that time when I had to make the whole presentation for history class because you were too busy bailing Yoochun out of the trouble he had got for smuggling that bottle of spirits into the dorm, not to mention the time I had to bail out you both for-”
“Alright, alright, I got it!” Yunho stuck his hands forward and pulled the hood of Jaejoong’s overalls back over his head, a little too deep so that his eyes were hidden as well. “I’m helping you with that damn quinzhee, but you gotta cut me some slack! I think I have to full right to grouse here. Heck, ten hours ago I didn’t even know I’d be spending the whole day out in the cold! Not to mention, the next two days as well!”
“Right,” was all Jaejoong said before he shook off Yunho’s hands still holding the edges of his hood on both sides of his face and turned around again.
~0~0~0~
Yunho was the one to notice the sledge first. It was covered with a few light brown reindeer skins, scattered with the kind of powdery snow that only fell on very cold days. There was a ski track leading to the spot from the opposite direction, and before it disappeared behind a larger snow bank, Yunho could see the beginning of a jumpy snowmobile track.
“Jaejoong-ah, look,” he called, rushing the few next steps forward to grab the edge of Jaejoong’s sleeve. The boy had been concentrating on the map and his feet, failing to notice they had already reached their sleeping point. The older boy startled, his large eyes jumping up to first meet Yunho’s before being redirected where Yunho was pointing his leather mitten covered hand.
“Ah, there it is…” Jaejoong exclaimed lamely, slightly embarrassed he hadn’t noticed the sledge despite having been walking in the front.
“See, I’m not completely useless, am I?” Yunho enquired smugly as he started dragging Jaejoong towards his discovery. The boy followed him without any resistance, letting Yunho pull him off the established path into deeper snow. Even Yunho, who was a good few inches taller than Jaejoong, was in it knee-deep; for Jaejoong the crust reached as high as his lower thighs.
“Thank god we only needed to walk on the paths today,” Yunho panted as he waded his way towards the sledge, still gripping Jaejoong’s sleeve with his other hand, careful not to let the other fall right on his face in the snow. With the heavy, tall backpacks on their backs, the slightest wrong tilt of their bodies would cause them to lose control of the centre of gravity. What is more, the shorter boy was naturally clumsy, and even if he had always worked extra hard to compensate his lack of athletic prowess, Yunho had his own doubts about Jaejoong’s suitability for a military career. He knew Jaejoong had his reasons to attend their boarding school, but if anyone had asked Yunho, he could’ve rattled off a whole list of reasons he had come up with as objections to Jaejoong’s military career.
Reaching the sledge, Yunho finally let go of the shorter boy’s sleeve. Jaejoong wobbled to the runnerless vehicle, trying to regain his balance. He lifted the edge of the reindeer skin, revealing two pairs of narrow cross-country skis as well as a couple of shovels and other odd equipment, mostly meant for hunting.
Yunho sighed, glad they wouldn’t have to walk another arduous meter in the deep, restricting layer of snow. He moved forward to grab his pair of skis and ski poles, dropping the light planks on the snow to attach his steel-toe winter boots to the old-fashioned bindings. He had already leashed the pulling straps of the sledge over his shoulders, pulling on the string to test out the mobility and weight of it, when he noticed Jaejoong staring at him, showing absolutely no sign of any intention of putting on his own skis.
“What,” Yunho enquired, his uncertainty turning his voice slightly defensive.
“Nothing,” Jaejoong answered quickly, the expression on his face telling otherwise. “I was just wondering where this sudden burst of enthusiasm came from… And where the heck do you think you are going with that sledge.”
Yunho looked down on the straps on his shoulders and the skis bound to his boots. When he looked up again, the corners of Jaejoong’s mouth had been pulled down as if he was trying to control his laughter. Yunho tried to quickly think of a good explanation, a well-thought plan he could say he had had all the while, when his eyes landed on the tall snowdrift near the beginning of the snowmobile track.
“See that big pile of snow? I thought it would be a more convenient spot to build the quinzhee… Since there’s already a nice start. Less shovelling, you see?” he tried, adding a cheeky smile for further emphasis.
Clearly the answer was a wrong one, as Jaejoong lost control of his reaction, bursting out in joyful laughter, the corners of his mouth almost splitting as his dry lips were stretched into a wide smile.
“Yunho dear, did you ever bother to listen at all in survival class? Or more like, did you skip all the winter camps? I remember quite clearly sleeping next to you though, that one time when you kicked your overgrown legs against the tent stove and in addition to your sleeping bag, almost burnt down the whole tent…”
Yunho groaned, slapping his palms against his ears.
“Can you please not remind me of that?!” he whined miserably, tugging on the ear flaps of his fur cap. Jaejoong chuckled at the sight - Yunho looked quite adorable with the grey military ushanka pulled deep down over his head, eyes hidden under the warm fur, only his nose peeking out, turned rosy in the cold. “I was like 10 back then!”
“Ha!” Jaejoong exclaimed with a disbelieving tone. “More like 13! And how does that make any difference anyway; we’ve been attending winter camps since first grade.”
Yunho looked down, his mouth reduced to a thin line.
“Well maybe you now know why I don’t want to become a Snow Trooper.”
Jaejoong stared at him for a second, still amused with Yunho’s random, thoughtless plans and his indignant attitude towards winter training.
“Don’t worry, there’s no stove in a quinzhee! Plus I promise to keep the lantern on my side,” he teased, patting Yunho’s shoulder. “Now get that sledge off your shoulders and let me teach you the things you clearly dozed over during class.”
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong literally had to teach Yunho the manner of building a snow shelter from scratch. More than once, he couldn’t help but to wonder how Yunho had even managed to pass the winter portions of their survival class, let alone the practical training during winter camps every year.
That was until he remembered the way Yunho could memorise four pages worth of Japanese vocabulary in half an hour right before a quiz and then blissfully forget every word after the test ended. The guy had always had amazing skills in short-term rote memorisation; an ability Jaejoong had first been jealous of, as Yunho always topped his scores in quizzes and midterm tests. Yet, when Jaejoong had once gone on a trip with Yunho’s family during their summer holidays, he had noticed that Yunho’s ability to communicate in the said language appeared a whole lot more limited than his. After spending the holiday with Yunho earning Jaejoong a few good laughs with his attempts to converse in his broken Japanese, the older boy had given up on his envy, concentrating on his own way of studying instead of trying to imitate the other boy.
He could only assume that the case with winter survival was similar. The boy had probably gotten perfect marks on his tests and discarded the knowledge he had deemed useless the moment exam period was over.
“Did you even listen to me? I said we have to first shovel all the snow off to create a flat, downtrodden base…”
“But what’s the damn point? Shovel it off and then build a new pile in the same spot… I’ll just build it on top of this,” Yunho insisted, shovelling snow on top of the already existing snow blanket.
“Stupid Yunho, which one of us actually listened during class? Do you really want to suffocate to death when your stupid wrongly built quinzhee collapses on top of us in the middle of the night?” Jaejoong cried out, anger seeping into his already frustrated voice. He would have been fine with teaching Yunho, but the boy just had to argue about every single detail in his instructions.
Yunho huffed, unable to come up with a witty comeback since Jaejoong probably knew what he was talking about, unlike himself.
“Never mind, it will get dark in five hours so we better get on with his. You just go pick up some sticks under those trees and break them into pieces of 30 centimetres each. I’ll handle the shovelling since it seems to be such an insurmountably difficult task for you.”
When Jaejoong reached for the shovel Yunho was holding, the boy dodged his hands, stepping backwards.
“Alright alright, I’ll do it as you say… Go find the sticks yourself.”
Jaejoong reached for the shovel again, but Yunho simply treaded to the other side of the small pile he had already created, continuing with his task, but this time starting to clear out an open space for the shelter they would build.
“Alright… I’ll come back to help you in a bit…” Jaejoong trailed off, following Yunho’s determined sweating as he worked his shovel up and down. “Remember to pack the snow so that we save some time with the hardening! We have to dig the inside too before sunset.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it already,” Yunho assured him. “Shoo now.”
“I’m going!” Jaejoong snapped, turning around to go search for suitable sticks.
~0~0~0~
Even though the layer of snow was remarkably thinner around trees, finding sticks that were long enough proved to be a task more difficult than Jaejoong had thought. When he finally got back with a suitable amount, Yunho’s snow pile was already well over a metre in height and almost as wide. Yunho’s face was red as he panted and shovelled the snow, clearly having gotten excited about the exercise at some point.
Jaejoong joined him, and with the combined effort of two people, the pile had before long increased into a two-and-a-half-metre high, three-metre wide mound. After making sure the snow was well packed, the boys stuck the branches Jaejoong had collected into it, careful to put them at even distances.
Yunho looked at the result of their labour, wiping a few droplets of sweat from his brow. The dampness of the inner layers of his clothing was already turning cold against his skin, but his face was still uncomfortably warm. He took his fur cap off, running an open palm over his short Ivy League haircut, from his nape to the top of his head and back. Looking at the high pile of snow they had created together made him feel strangely proud, and when he turned to Jaejoong in order to praise himself a little, he noticed the other’s eyes wandering to his hair.
The intended smug words were forgotten as he snapped his fingers together to gain Jaejoong’s attention. The other jolted, his eyes finding their way back to Yunho’s face.
“Earth to Jaejoong,” Yunho said, waving his hand in front of Jaejoong’s face. The boy scrunched his nose irritably and grabbed the annoying hand, pulling it down.
“Time to wait for it to harden, I guess,” Jaejoong said, walking over to the sledge that they had placed their backpacks against. Yunho trailed in his footsteps, flopping down on the reindeer skins and flinching when he happened to sit on something pointy. He twirled around until he found a comfortable position and watched as Jaejoong opened his backpack, fishing out a portable stove and tamping the ground to create a space for it.
It was the very reason why Yunho always weaselled himself into being assigned as Jaejoong’s partner on camps. Well, at least one of the reasons; but for sure one of the most important ones. Yunho could almost swear that the food he got to eat during camps was better than the usual meals they had at the school cafeteria everyday.
He could even swear that the school cafeteria meals improved significantly every time it was Jaejoong’s turn to be assigned to canteen service.
Trying to ignore the shivers his cooling sweat brought along his spine, Yunho watched Jaejoong heat up a simple meal for them.
“Tomorrow we have to make a fire every time, you know that right? They only gave us enough fuel for one day,” Jaejoong chattered as he stirred the boiling beans.
“Hmm,” Yunho answered, not really paying attention to his words. “And eat the fowl, right.”
“If we catch any,” Jaejoong corrected him, scooping half of the food into the large cup in Yunho’s mess kit. He handed it to the other boy before pouring the rest for himself and finding a seat besides Yunho. His beanie had slumped over his eyes again, and Yunho watched him trying to push it up by only wiggling his brow. The sight was quite comical, and before he knew it, Yunho had reached out his hand and pulled the beanie off Jaejoong’s forehead.
“Thanks,” the other said, looking at Yunho slightly awkwardly.
“No problem,” he answered, lifting the cup to blow into the steaming stew. He was just going to sip it when he noticed Jaejoong wasn’t eating, but rather looking at him.
“What now,” he asked, wiping his nose with his free hand. “Do I have something on my face?”
Jaejoong smiled at him awkwardly again, scratching the back of his neck.
“Can I… Can I maybe, feel your hair,” Jaejoong hesitated, his other hand already hovering in mid-air. Yunho blinked at him a few times before lowering the cup from his lips.
“Sure,” he answered, remembering Changmin’s words from two days earlier. He looked Jaejoong straight in the eye as the other boy focused his gaze on the top of Yunho’s head, reaching his hand up until he was carefully touching Yunho’s short hair. The barber had actually left the top quite long, and as Yunho had been wearing a hat for the whole day, the hair was now messily sticking into random directions.
Jaejoong’s touch was soft and careful, as if he was afraid the hair would break under his touch. After a while he gained more courage and smoothed his palm back and forth, his eyes growing large with wonder. Yunho felt slightly funny, sitting there with his best friend petting his head as if he was a dog or a five-year-old kid, but the look on Jaejoong’s face was worth it.
“You know, the short hair looks kinda good on you,” the older boy breathed out, pulling his hand back to himself. Yunho lifted the cup back to his lips and turned his head, careful not to let Jaejoong notice he had been staring. “I always thought the bowl cut made your cheeks look even pudgier.”
And as if on purpose, in order to break the strange atmosphere, Jaejoong lifted his hand again and pinched Yunho’s cheek.
“Hey!” the other exclaimed, almost spilling his food as the sudden touch made him jump. “My cheeks ain’t pudgy!”
Jaejoong scoffed.
“Dream on,” he countered before taking a swig of his stew, burning his tongue with the steaming substance and ending up with a fistful of snow in his mouth.
~0~0~0~
The digging part took longer than either of them had expected, and when they finally reached the ends of the sticks that were stuck through the walls to make sure they remained thick enough on all sides, the sun was already setting. The cave they had hollowed was big enough they could comfortably sit upright. Jaejoong had taken one of his ski poles and pricked it through the wall in order to make a few air holes, leaving it in the last one, sticking upwards from the mound. Then, he fetched a small glass lantern from the sledge, creeping inside the snow structure. With a swift movement of his wrist, he lighted a match, and then the candle inside the lantern. Yunho crouched at the doorway and watched the warm orange light create shadows on the white walls. Even though they had smoothed them out the best they could, the rough surface offered a delightful playground for the light of the fluttering flame.
Jaejoong turned around, smiling elatedly.
“It’s all done,” he stated, glancing at the lantern for a second time. “It’ll warm up in no time.”
Yunho nodded wordlessly. Somehow he felt like he wasn’t supposed to disturb the moment; the silent play of the light, inside a shelter they had built themselves, he and Jaejoong, in the middle of snowy wilderness. Having been walking around the whole day, when not working arduously, Yunho hadn’t even noticed how quiet it was around them. Now, he remained silent; and so did Jaejoong, staring at the lantern that illuminated his white overalls and his pale skin with the same warm hue of orange as the walls.
Yunho turned away, crawling through the doorway into the dark. The sun was already below the horizon, but it wasn’t pitch black yet; instead, the surrounding snow was painted in a lovely shade of dark blue, contrasting starkly with the warm light coming from the quinzhee.
It was almost too serene. Yunho cleared his throat.
“Jaejoong-ah,” he hollered, “we’re supposed to put the reindeer skins on the floor, right?”
“Yep,” the other answered from the inside. “And no need to shout, silly, I’m right here…”
Yunho walked over to the sledge, gathering the two large reindeer skins into his arms before making his way to the doorway again. Jaejoong met him halfway, helping the other to spread the wiry furs on the ground. The insulation they provided was nothing short of amazing: Yunho could hardly feel the icy, hard ground under him as he sat on the edge of the skin.
“We should stay inside as much as possible, our body warmth will warm this place up even faster than just the lantern,” Jaejoong explained while he dragged his backpack inside. “I’ll just go melt some snow and make us tea. We should drink something warm before going to bed.”
Yunho made a noncommittal sound at the back of his throat, sorting through his belongings. He could hear Jaejoong rattle the portable stove outside, and in no time, the other re-emerged with two steaming cups, placing them on the ground as he crawled in. They had left the doorway as small as possible in order to keep the warm air inside.
“It’s lotus root,” Jaejoong said as he handed one of the cups to Yunho. “My sister always says it’s like drinking soup stock, so I thought it’d be nice out here.”
“Thanks,” Yunho answered as Jaejoong settled beside him. Suddenly the older boy set his cup on the ground and pulled his many sleeves up. Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw its pointers had passed half past eight already. He turned to the younger boy sitting next to him, grinning in a silly manner.
“Happy sweet 16, Yunho-yah.”
Yunho accepted his congratulation with a nod, not sure how to react to the fact Jaejoong even knew the hour he had been born at. It wasn’t the only question making him curious, though; after contemplating on it for a moment, he finally decided to give it a go and voiced what had been bothering him since the morning.
“Jaejoong-ah…” he started, a little hesitant. “Why did you sign me up for this?”
Jaejoong’s cup stopped mid-air as the boy froze before turning to face Yunho. He smiled, the kind smile Yunho knew he only reserved for the kinds of Junsu, and maybe Changmin - and apparently also Yunho.
“I just didn’t want to do my first specialised mission with anyone else,” he confessed honestly. “I’m sorry I did it without asking you first.”
“Oh, umm, thanks, I mean, it’s okay, I guess,” Yunho stuttered, slightly stunned. Why it might be so, the reason was mostly incomprehensible for Yunho. He knew the only thing he had proved during the day was his incapability to survive in winter conditions.
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong woke up to an inexplicable feeling that something was wrong. He lay still, wrapped in his down sleeping bag with only his nose peeking out from the opening he had tightened into a tiny gap with the drawstrings. He tried to listen, but it was very quiet; the backpack he had placed to cover the doorway of the quinzhee blocked the outside world, leaving them huddled inside their little cave alone, cut off from everything else. Yet, despite the silence, the feeling that had woken him wouldn’t go away. Jaejoong turned around, pulling off his mittens and loosening the drawstrings of his sleeping bag to allow himself to move more freely, wiggling his torso out.
It was pitch dark. The temperature inside had climbed noticeably, and dressed in his long woollen underwear and a sweater, he felt only slightly chilly. The previous day hadn’t been particularly cold, but even the ten-degree change in temperature made a big difference. With the reindeer skins as their bedding, Jaejoong had fallen asleep quickly, and he couldn’t decipher the reason for his sudden awakening.
When his elbow bumped against the boy lying next to him, he suddenly realised what was going on. Quickly, he pulled his arms free of the sleeping bag and sat upright, shaking the other boy.
“Yunho-yah,” he whispered, “are you awake?”
“Y-y-y-yeah, I-I am,” came the answer. The younger boy was trembling, curled into a foetal position, even his face tucked inside the sleeping bag. Jaejoong smoothed his palm over Yunho’s shivering body, frowning worriedly as the other only rubbed his legs together inside the sleeping bag, curling more into himself.
“You’re cold,” he said, more a statement than a question. He could almost hear the other’s teeth clattering.
“Y-yeah, k-k-ki-kinda,” Yunho admitted, drawing the zipper open enough to sit up as well. Jaejoong felt about the ground, fumbling for his flashlight. When he found it, he quickly pulled the headlamp over his beanie, turning it on. Yunho immediately looked down, closing his eyes as the sudden bright light blinded him.
“Sorry,” Jaejoong apologised quickly, turning the lamp towards the ground as he reached for Yunho, peeling the sleeping bag off him and feeling his body. The boy was wearing a sweater over his long-sleeved woollen undershirt, but when Jaejoong quickly rolled the outer sleeve up, he noticed the undershirt was damp, almost ice-cold. Worried, he lifted his hand onto Yunho’s forehead, checking if the other was sick.
His forehead, covered with a beanie, was just as cold as the rest of his body. The relief of knowing the other wasn’t burning up with a fever was short-lived as the younger boy quivered violently again, the white vapour of his breath hitting Jaejoong’s face.
“Did you go to sleep in the same clothes you wore for the whole day?” he realised suddenly, gripping Yunho’s sleeve, astounded.
“Y-y-yeah?” without the extra warmth of his sleeping bag, Yunho’s trembling was getting more severe. Jaejoong could only gape at him with his mouth hanging slack.
“You didn’t even change your socks?” he confirmed, and when the boy nodded, he couldn’t help but to smack the back of the other’s head gently.
“Idiot! I don’t care what kind of fancy aviator you want to be, but you should know at least this much… What if your airship crashes during winter, in the middle of nowhere? What would you do then, huh? Not even get yourself killed by the animals, no, you can always shoot them, heck, you’re even specially trained in taekwondo… But instead, you’d die of hypothermia drenched in your own frozen sweat because you didn’t change into clean and dry clothes before you went to sleep?!”
Yunho took his scolding on solemnly, nodding at appropriate places. He knew that if he waited nicely until the nagging was over, Jaejoong would surely help him out. True to his assessment, Jaejoong was soon rummaging through his backpack, pulling out a clean set of underclothes and throwing them at Yunho. The boy struggled to change, his ice-cold, numb fingers refusing cooperation. In the end Jaejoong only ordered him to cross his arms over his chest and keep his fingers under his armpits, the warmest place on his body, as he pulled a new shirt on the other, covering it with a dry sweatshirt. Yunho felt like he was dressed in a straitjacket, but made no protest as he sat there, being undressed and dressed by Jaejoong like a little child needing assistance. Before pulling a new pair of woollen socks on his feet, the older boy spent a long while massaging his frosted toes. When he had told Jaejoong to look if there was a rock or something between his toes, the older boy had quickly stripped off his socks, finding the limbs had long lost all feeling.
It had felt weird to Yunho, watching the other hold his feet gently between his hands, but not being able to feel it at all. His toes were white and rigid, but with Jaejoong’s patient rubbing, a horrible sting started slowly spreading through them, as if his feet were being pricked by a thousand needles. Jaejoong let out a breath, relief flooding his whole body when Yunho started wiggling his toes because of the uncomfortable feeling.
“Gladly they weren’t badly frostbitten… Know that I wouldn’t have hesitated to send you out to run laps around this quinzhee if it was the only way to get your blood back flowing,” he sighed, letting go of the chilly feet. Yunho sent him a half-hearted glare, feeling slightly sorry for himself. Jaejoong caught the self-pity in his eyes, whacking his head for a second time.
“You cannot blame anyone but yourself for this, you idiot! Who told you to sleep in the same sweaty clothes in the first place… And you could have just woken me up earlier…!”
“I guess I was embarrassed, you seemed to be faring so well,” Yunho confessed, looking down, too ashamed to meet Jaejoong’s eyes. The boy sighed once again, leaning forward to grab Yunho’s sleeping bag and started zipping it open. Yunho rubbed his fingers against his sides inside his shirt, eyeing him with curiosity.
“What are you doing now?” he asked, nudging Jaejoong with his woollen sock covered foot.
“I’m going to attach our sleeping bags together. In case you didn’t notice, your body is still freezingly cold,” Jaejoong explained, slipping out off his own rectangular sleeping bag and zipping it open as well. He lined up the two sleeping bags, slipping the other’s slider through the other’s zipper pin, effectively creating one larger one as he zipped the side up. Yunho stared at him, arms still crossed on his chest inside his shirt. The pale light of Jaejoong’s headlamp flickered around the ground as he spread the sleeping bag on the reindeer skins again and gestured for Yunho to lie down on it.
He stared at Jaejoong for some more before snapping out of his stupor and lying down on his back, wiggling himself into a good position; with his arms trapped inside his shirt, it was harder than he would have thought. As soon as he had settled down comfortably on his side, Jaejoong switched off his headlamp, pulling on his mittens and lying down next to Yunho. He faced the wall, back to Yunho’s chest, and pulled on the zipper pin carefully, trying to inch closer to Yunho in order to be able to zip the sleeping bag all the way up.
In the end, he settled upon grabbing the slack, empty sleeve of Yunho’s shirt, pulling it over his side, tugging Yunho closer to his back. The younger boy was almost dumbfounded, not sure what to do, so he just shifted slightly, revelling in the warmth the other’s body brought inside their shared bedding.
They lay silently for a moment, listening to each other’s slow breathing. Eventually, the position of Yunho’s arms grew uncomfortable, and deeming his fingers warm enough, he started slithering his arms through the sleeves of his shirt. The one Jaejoong had grabbed was still lying over his side, and when Yunho’s finally managed to thread his hand through the cuff, his arm was lying over the other’s body, hand splayed against his hard, muscled chest.
Jaejoong showed no sign of discomfort, simply adjusting his position under Yunho’s arm. As inconspicuously as he could, Yunho snuggled closer, burying his cold nose into the tickly threads of Jaejoong’s beanie.
Jaejoong had started to quietly hum a children’s song, something about fir trees and squirrels and shelter if Yunho remembered right. Before he knew it, he had pressed his lips against Jaejoong’s knitted beanie, wondering how the other boy’s scratchy buzz cut would feel against his lips. The measure seemed to go unnoticed by Jaejoong, who continued his humming, a snippet of the lyrics slipping over his lips into the melody every now and then.
Somehow, it made Yunho wonder if he should reconsider his choice of future employment. Maybe becoming a Snow Trooper wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A/N: We had a pretty severe blizzard going on in here yesterday so I thought it would be appropriate to finish my snow one-shot. :) This was written for our little fic community un_scribbled, you guys should check it out~ The prompt this time was, like I said, snow :D
So, to be clear. This fic happens during an undefined time period(=future). Also, I bet no one’s ever written a military boarding school YunJae before… right? :D
A “quinzhee” was the closest translation I could find for the Finnish word “lumikammi”… It looks something like this [x] [x]. People sometimes sleep in these, when they go hiking during winter. I haven’t, I’ve only slept in a fabric lean-to… That’s a whole lot colder than a quinzhee would be >___< I got my toes frostbitten actually, it was so weird. It really feels like you've got something between your toes, even though there’s nothing… but then, when you touch your feet, you cannot feel the touch at all o__o I ran around the camp for about 10 minutes without regaining feeling ;-; It only came back after around one hour of hiking…
People are probably not very familiar with this so I'll just say it's a quinzhee is a different thing from an igloo^^ An igloo is a larger construction, people can live in those all year round, and they take a longer time to build... A quinzhee is just a small temporal shelter, it will collapse in a few days' time. The ceiling will just fall down.
It's unbetaed btw, sorry for all the mistakes >___< Hopefully it's not too unclear what's going on xD