skyfall
title: skyfall
pairing: homin
rating: pg
warnings: unbeta'd
words: 2532
for lliyk
changmin likes taking pictures of the sky. capturing vast blues and specks of white clouds brings a certain calmness deep green trees and gray mountains could never bring to him (mountains aren’t high enough for him to launch himself free). he especially likes the mornings when the sun peeks out behind hills to brush peaches and lilacs on navy blues and his film drinks it up like he does with black coffee.
changmin aims high like the lens of his camera towards the ceiling of the world to practice how to fly. he knows he won’t fall- can’t fall, so he focuses higher and higher until the clouds disappear and all that’s left is empty space. he tries, really tries to focus on something substantial, something steady like the earth, but he’s too dedicated to freedom, too focused on particles of air to see what he really needs. changmin breathes his soul into the sky, hoping that one day that he will finally be one with it.
yunho likes filming people. he takes candid videos of them in the street, at the beach, in coffee shops (all with consent of course) and shares his daily experiences with the world. short people, tall people, young people, old people, people with glasses, he’s not partial to anyone as long as they catch his eye. pictures don’t truly capture the soul, the essence of people, so he does it justice through clips in minimal saturation and specific details that will guarantee a trip through a person’s heart , mind, and soul.
yunho aims low purposefully. he likes the earthiness of humans, fascinated with the blurred movements of limbs and momentary glimpses of the eyes. he finds home in the corners of smiling eyes, the crevices of elbows, the joints in knees as he films people whisk pieces of him away with them. yunho engrains pieces of himself into these films in hopes to spread himself to everyone in the world.
their story starts out like this: changmin meets yunho, or yunho meets changmin (depending on angle and perspective) on a cool friday morning. changmin sits on the rooftop of his apartment building, drinking his espresso with one hand and holding an unlit cigarette in the other, his camera on the table horizontal to the saucer. he waits for the post sunrise sky, dove gray clouds in the horizon balancing out the yellow to blue gradient. once he finishes taking the pictures for the morning, he stands up, slings the camera around his neck, crushes the unlit cigarette with the heel of his shoe, folds his newspaper, and carries his espresso cup and saucer in one hand. yunho bursts through the rooftop door just as when changmin leaves, and changmin almost drops his cup and saucer if yunho didn’t catch it.
(it was an awkward first meeting that yunho would laugh about whenever he retold the story in the wee hours of the morning to changmin before the latter would hit him with a pillow to go back to sleep.)
yunho mutters a sorry and hands the cup and saucer back, soft fingers touching changmin’s slightly dry ones. changmin feels the goosebumps on his arms when he feels the warmth from yunho, warmth that the espresso in his stomach couldn’t bring. he nods a thanks to yunho before descending down the stairs, shoving the kind stranger who saved his porcelain cup from doom in the back of his mind for the time being.
(later when yunho and changmin finally become an item, yunho raves to his friends about how changmin looked so poised and handsome when he first met him on the rooftop like it was the start of a vintage parisian film. changmin blushes and hits yunho on the arm before bluntly saying that he never got a good look of yunho’s face until they met again.)
yunho and changmin meet again a week later on the rooftop (not on purpose, more like fate has decided to give them another chance), except this time, it’s a cloudy sunday afternoon with sparse sunlight shining in random patches every few minutes. changmin strains his neck to find the right angle to catch a piece of the sky and he almost has it- the light hits the clouds perfectly and he’s about to take one of the best photos he has in his whole freelancing career, but a loud slam of the rooftop door makes him flinch, and the camera goes way off away from the actual target. changmin whips his head to the distraction that ruined his moment, and sees a tall man in a hoodie and jeans holding onto the doorknob with a firm grip.
“who are you?” changmin barely spits out.
“i, uh, i’m jung yunho?” yunho responds. he didn’t know there was someone here on the rooftop- definitely not an attractive person, and sweet jesus christ, he’s tall too- and he looks like he’s going to murder him in a few seconds.
“what are you doing here?” changmin asks in the same accusatory tone. red anger rushes through his veins because his moment is now lost, the sun setting slowly over the edge of the horizon. the sky dims from pastel blue to shades of harsh soft oranges and navy blues in the time they stare each other down.
“i’m actually, just, uh, leaving,” yunho stutters, opening the door and puts a foot out into the staircase. “i-sorry.” yunho leaves in a rush, shutting the rooftop door quietly unlike when he opened it. changmin stands taken aback at the random encounter with this jung yunho, camera gripped at hand. he sighs at the sky, which turns to evening black, and goes back to his apartment with the thought of the man in the hoodie fresh in his mind.
three times the charm, yunho says with a wide grin when a subject shyly looks away from the camera when she messes up a little, a stumbled step, a smile too small to be subtly noticed. he realizes that the person looming behind him is the cause of the miniscule mishaps. yunho tells the girl she can go, that he’s sorry for wasting her time and gives her a piece of candy before sending her off to her parents. she and her parents wave him goodbye and he waves back at them before they walk away.
“you’re jung yunho,” the man says bluntly as yunho dusts off his knees. yunho knows who he is; he’s the scary (albeit, attractive) guy from the rooftop the other week or so ago, and yunho’s wary of him-what if he’s here to chew his head off (both in the literal and figurative sense)?
“fortunately, in the flesh,” yunho responds absentmindedly as he packs up his equipment. he hoists the camera bag on his shoulder and grabs his tripod. the male is well dressed; a long blue coat, a deep purple cable knit sweater, and slim black pants with converse. he holds a coffee bean paper cup in his left hand. yunho feels outclassed in his scuffed sneakers, off brand jeans, v neck, and a wind breaker.
“shim changmin,” he says, holding out his right hand. yunho takes it in his own; firm, yet gentle. the connection is fleeting just like lightening, but just like lightening, the effects are everlasting. yunho can smell the light cologne and coffee from him, a comfortable combination he decides he really likes. they stare at each other what feel like an eternity. changmin breaks the gaze first, ears slowly turning red. yunho rubs the back of his neck bashfully and he quickly suggests that they go to a café nearby.
the café is quaint, and has quality coffee and strawberry turnovers that are out of this world. the place brews creativity and bakes serenity from the vintage photographs and classy piano music in the background. the vintage french-esqe romance film plays out like this: yunho orders a hot chocolate and a strawberry turnover and changmin orders an espresso with a biscotti, and yunho makes a comment about pretentious coffee drinkers and changmin retorts with a disdainful look at yunho’s sugary order and a “at least i don’t look like a kid drinking something that has more sugar than candyland.”
yunho splutters, and wipes the dripping hot chocolate from his face. “who are you calling kid?” yunho defends, arms crossed. “i’m 24, i’ll have you know.”
“a 24 year old who gives candy to children,” changmin sends back casually, brushing off crumbs off his coat- yunho thinks he has a good point. “i’m surprised parents haven’t report you as a pedophile. talking to their kids, filming them, and giving them candy-“ he claps his hands slowly, as if he’s impressed, a small smirk forming on chiseled features. “-i guess it would be a shame for a handsome face to go to jail so early.” he takes a sip of his coffee.
“did you just call me handsome?” he asks.
a casual(ly gorgeous) eyebrow rises. “did i stutter?”
yunho leans against his chair, rolling his eyes to the view outside. it’s afternoon; the streets are busy and motion blur with masses of people going home or to work late shifts.
“what do you do?” yunho asks in attempts of conversation. his cocoa has gotten slightly cold, but he still sips it, lukewarm liquid going down his esophagus.
“i used to be with this one guy, but he wasn’t cutting it for me. blond was never his color,” changmin says, his mouth closing to a pout.
“no, not that kind of do. like job kind of do.”
“oh.” there’s a blush dusting changmin’s cheeks and yunho thinks it’s kind of cute.
changmin clears his throat, and replies, “then, the same as you. but not quite.” he nibbles on the last of his biscotti and looks out the window. he glances, and in yunho’s angle, almost flirtatiously, coy. “i can show you if you want.”
yunho doesn’t know how, but he finds himself follow after changmin, bells and long coat trailing behind him with the autumn breeze.
changmin walks fast, camera beating against chest like his heart. he hears yunho’s footsteps behind him and looks up at the sky. the clouds have finally broken away since morning, gold leafed felt sheets drifting in and out of peach sky. he quickens his pace and makes a hard right to the fire escape. the metal rattles under his weight and climbs to the rooftop. yunho steps onto the rooftop after, a rushed “what is your deal” cut off from his lips when he sees changmin.
the way the corner of his lip curls downwards for a second in thought looks like a salvador dali painting in motion, the way his index finger and thumb adjust the lens of his camera, the way his eyes train on at a point in the sky that holds aspirations and promises, the way his hair moves out of his eyes when he tilts his head up and falls back down when he examines his picture. yunho could take many stop motion films but it still won’t capture the perfection he sees with his own eyes.
changmin curses under his breath and yunho walks up to him.
“what’s wrong?”
changmin ruffles his hair in frustration. “ran out of film in my camera and i forgot to bring extras. such an idiot,” he says to himself, and yunho can see the exasperation in his eyes. he goes through his bag, and in the bottom of a pocket, he finds a canister of film.
he holds it out to changmin. “here,” he offers, jaw set, words ready in case changmin refuses, but he takes it, a thankful expression on his face as he replaces his full film canister with yunho’s. yunho stands back and watches changmin take his final pictures before he sits down with a huff. they sit in peace, coldness settling over the city like a blanket.
the sky’s gone black, stars out like fairy lights. yunho offers to give changmin a ride back to their apartment.
“how do you know i live in the same apartment as you do?”
“we met once. on the rooftop.”
“well.” there’s a silence.
“well indeed. so are you accepting or not?”
changmin says yes.
the film ends with a simple resolution: yunho and changmin see each other occasionally over coffee, then frequently over take out, and somehow yunho moves in with changmin because the younger’s apartment is bigger and a lot nicer than his own. by some miracle, they manage to coexist between changmin’s cleanliness and yunho’s haphazardness. equipment is sometimes in their respected places, and other times, it’s strewn in all corners of their apartment. yunho squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube, and changmin chastises him for not squeezing from the bottom. changmin talks in his sleep and yunho hits him with a pillow to make him stop, later using earmuffs to sleep. they live in pleasant harmony, hugs and kisses, pulls and pushes, sepia turned to chrome.
yunho doesn’t photograph people, refuses to; people appear too flat, too uncharacteristically like themselves. the eyes are not the windows to their souls when he sees them cry or laugh or smile. emotions disappear the moment they appear, too short to photograph, but too long in his memory.
in his heart of hearts, yunho knows- believes- that filmography was created for shim changmin. sometimes, yunho silently films changmin slurping noodles or talking animatedly about his new project. when he walks down the stairs to catch up to yunho, or when he concentrates on the subject of his photo or when he talks in his sleep. he compiles the little clips in one film, very avant garde, very changmin-esque, he thinks when he puts the finishing touches, leaning back on his chair as he did before on their first date. no class but class nevertheless.
changmin doesn’t regret not photographing people. people are too limited in their space- their bodies are vessels that can’t expand anymore. sky is forever, seven layers of atmosphere and a heaven to find on each of them, but changmin finds his own in yunho, who seems to engulf him whole with his presence. changmin knows yunho is just as human as he is, but to changmin, he’s the freedom he searches for in the heavens.
the story ends like this: a year and five months from now, changmin takes yunho to the rooftop past midnight to show him the stars as best as he could in the city night. changmin points out the big dipper, scorpio, cassiopeia with his finger and spins the tales behind the night paintings just as storytellers have before him. in between the anecdote of artemis’ lack of faith in orion and how sirius found his place in the sky, yunho takes changmin’s left hand gently and changmin stops. he looks at yunho something unreadable like fate and galaxies, and yunho slips a simple platinum band on the fourth finger. the small diamond in the band represents polaris, because as yunho whispers, “it always points me to the place where i want to be.”
fin