On The Red Couch (SMM Universe) YunJae: Chapter Forty. FINAL CHAPTER
Title: On The Red Couch ♥
Pairing: YunJae (with some YooSu and Min7en)
Chapter: Forty
Chapter Rating: R
Genre: Slash/Relationship
Author: wedspawn
FINAL CHAPTER
Part One: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Se7en, 8, 9, 10, 11
Part Two: 12, 13 (Extremely Mature Content), 14, 15, 16, Comments Regarding Storyline , Se7enteen, 18, 19, 20, 21 (Lemon)
Part Three: 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, Twenty-Se7en (LEMON), 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 (LEMON), 33, 34, 35, 36, Thirty-Se7en, 38, 39, 40 (Final)
Summary: Hot Korean boys. Sex. Dancing and some angry words. Not necessarily in that order. Not necessarily in each section. Final Book in SMM series.
“But I didn’t cry!” Changmin grumbled, hefting his half of the heavy futon up onto his shoulders. “I didn’t! Why am I helping them with this?”
“Because you’re the youngest,” Jaejoong replied, juggling the cloth shopping bags he’d lugged up the long flight of stairs. “Don’t drop that or you’ll hit the others with it.”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Minku,” Se7en muttered, grunting when the futon slid over his forearms. “I wasn’t even singing at the damned concert! Shit, this thing is heavy!”
“Hey, language,” Yunho snarled when Se7en bumbled backwards, striking the leader in the shoulder. He and Junsu were struggling with the second futon, the smaller man on the lower stairs shuffled, trying to keep the weight of the thick mattress steady. “Joongie, open the damned door already!”
“And he tells me to watch my language,” Se7en fretted then chuckled when he heard Min laugh in response. “BooJae, did you leave the keys downstairs.”
“Don’t call him that,” Yunho growled. “Mine.”
“What’s the hold up?” Yoochun asked, dragging plastic bags of pillows on the floor behind him. “These are heavy.”
“Oh shut up,” Min shouted back to him, grunting when the futon shifted dangerously and he was nearly forced down on one knee to keep it straight. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t started bawling like a baby. And why am I doing this again? I wasn’t even there when the bet was made!”
“Ah, here we go,” Jaejoong said gleefully, fitting the key into the door. It clicked and he swung the access door open, letting the late summer night breeze into the tight stairwell. “Come on. Shizu-chan said we can stay up here as long as we like tonight.”
“I don’t know about the rest of them but I intend to sleep in a bed tonight,” Se7en whispered to Min. “Preferably one with you in it.”
“Please to be remembering that you are a lot closer to me than you are to him,” Yunho muttered. “I don’t want to hear about your perverted plans for our younger brother.”
“Really?” Se7en replied, biting his lower lip as he gently eased the futon down to the ground. “I would have thought you’d want to take notes seeing as Jaejoong is looking a bit unsatisfied there.”
“Hey, none of that,” Yoochun stepped around Junsu quickly, placing himself between the two older men. “We’re on the roof now. Part of the bet was that everyone played nicely.”
“This is a sucky pay-off,” Min proclaimed. “Really? This is the best you can do, Joongie-ah? We have to be nice to each other and spend time on the rooftop? What kind of punishment is this?”
“Pretty bad one, I think,” Their leader unceremoniously dumped the futon down after warning Junsu with a nod. “The inside of my cheek is going to be raw from biting it if I have to be nice to Dong-Wook for more than ten minutes.”
“Being nicer might be easier if you worked more on opening the futons and less on grumbling,” Jaejoong said sweetly.
“Just be glad he didn’t drag us down to the river,” Yunho whispered to Se7en. “We could have been doing this on the wet grass and fighting the stray cats for our food.”
“How did you lost rock-paper-scissors to Jaejoong?” Se7en asked as he helped Changmin unroll the futon over the cement tiles. “Aren’t you supposed to be a master at it?”
“He cheats,” Changmin replied.
“How do you cheat at kai bai bo?” Junsu edged the futon he’d help carry over, struggling to pull its girth. Lining one corner up with the side Se7en was working on, he maneuvered around the other man carefully. “Did he read your mind?”
“He asked me how Se7en was in bed,” Changmin confessed, ducking his face when Se7en howled with laughter. “Don’t do that. You sound like one of the hyena brothers. And it wasn’t fair. I was doing fine before that. We were going three out of five and we were tied two-two when he said that. I threw rock. I never throw rock on the fifth round. Only children throw rock on the fifth round.”
Jae leaned against the retaining wall that ran around the sides of the building, watching the others tug and pull at the enormous futons he’d borrowed from their manager. Shizu readily agreed with the eldest’s plan, offering up the pillowed mattresses and cushions to Jaejoong as well as the keys to the rooftop. After clearing their excursion with the building supervisor, Shizu cleared the weekend for the group, leaving Jaejoong plenty of time to entrap the others with his plotting.
Yunho and Se7en grumbled and snarled at each other, the two alpha males among the men but the snapping was mostly air and often punctuated by laughter with some playful shoving. They’d fallen into a patois of their own, half insults and half admiration, grudgingly given but still admiration. Changmin hovered near by, unsure of who to be in the dynamics of the older men. On one hand, he was Se7en’s lover and equal but on the other, he was Yunho’s dongsaeng and a defiant one at best. Shifting from one side to the next, Min fretted with a pillow then dropped it, heading back downstairs.
“He probably remembered we haven’t brought the food up yet,” Junsu snickered.
“He lies when he said he didn’t cry,” Yoochun sniffed. “I saw him blink a lot then look away at Yunho. I think he teared up and doesn’t want to admit it.”
“Minnie-ah will never admit it,” His lover replied, picking up a pillow to plump it up. “He hates losing more than anything.”
Yoochun nodded in agreement, straightening up to stretch out his back. He met his best friend’s eyes and smiled, sharing the private moment. Jaejoong spent the hour he’d had free that afternoon hanging paper lantern strings up on the various poles and lines on the roof, carefully shielding the trails of cords with dark grey duct tape. Plugged in, they glowed with gentle reds and yellows, illuminating the barren roof top. A boom box played soft ballads from America, the slow, seductive rhythm and blues drowning out the distant sounds of traffic from below.
Standing in the hushed sounds of music and banter, Yoochun let himself relax, opening himself up the peaceful of his noisy family and their teasing. When Junsu patted him on the waist and told Chunnie he was heading downstairs to help Min with the food, the baritone could only nod, unwilling to trust himself to speak in case the sting in his eyes would dew into tears. Jaejoong’s voice calling out to him drove him over, and he felt a drop fall, hitting his cheek and rolling down to his jaw before splashing on the Domo-kun t-shirt he’d stolen from his best friend.
“Domo, konnichiwa,” Jaejoong teased, hooking his arm around Yoochun’s waist. “Don’t cry, Chunnie-ah. Isn’t it good to see Aniki-chi and Kuma-no-ko getting along?”
“Hah, wait until Minkurō comes back upstairs and we’ll see how that goes,” Yoochun said, wiping at his face. His tears were more common place than the stars over the Han river but sometimes, he wanted the illusion of his own dignity. “It’s nice up here. Reminds me of home.” Scanning the surrounding buildings lit up with swirling neon signs and flashing lights, he amended, “Except for all of the Japanese.”
“It’s our second home,” Jaejoong whispered into his friend’s ear. “Like this is our second family.”
“No matter what…” Turning his head, Yoochun let the glisten fill his eyes, weeping silver down his face. “I never want to lose this… them… us. Never, Joongie-ah.”
“You won’t,” Jaejoong reassured him, turning his friend around until they faced one another. Yoochun resisted the pull, refusing to let the others see him fall apart but the older man wouldn’t be deterred. Holding his friend close, Jaejoong rocked Yoochun as he wept into the crook of Jae’s neck, soaking the man’s shirt as he clung to his friend. “Remember, Chunnie? Hope to the end and always keep the faith… the faith in us.”
“This is what made me lose, baby,” Junsu said with a laugh, joining Jae and Yoochun at the edge of the roof. “When you cry, I cry. Don’t make me cry now. Not in front of Min. He’ll never stop teasing me.”
“He won’t stop teasing you anyway,” Yoochun replied with a hefty sniff. “He’s like a bee to a flower. Tears draw him like pollen and he won’t stop picking until he’s bloated with it.”
“Ah, but bees make honey,” Susu answered his lover, using his palms to wipe at Chunnie’s wet cheeks where he could reach. “Let him go, Joongie-ah. I need to kiss away the tears. My hands aren’t working.”
“Okay but he’s salty,” Jae warned. “Like a umeboshi.”
“Never,” Junsu said with a smile, wrapping his arms around Yoochun’s hips. “Umeboshi is sour in the middle. There is nothing but sweet inside of my Yoochun.”
“Only when we’re together,” The baritone whispered. “When we’re joined, then I’ve got sweetness in me.”
“Aish, they make me sick sometimes,” Changmin muttered as he laid a stack of bento boxes on a crate. “It’s like rolling in candy.”
“Candy is good,” Se7en said, coming up behind his lover.
“No, it’s too sweet and sticks to your teeth.” Min sidestepped Se7en’s reaching grasp. “Eh, no doing that here.”
“Why not?” He looked at the couple, swaying slightly to music only they heard. “They are.”
After months of listening to Min talk about people watching, he’d picked up a few things. Yoochun was definitely the romantic of the two, his eyes capturing the stars with a dreamy gaze. Junsu listened to the singer’s poetic murmur, the rise and fall of the baritone’s silky voice erotically innocent. Se7en could barely hear Yoochun’s words but they rang velvet smooth and rich, softened peals of love for the man he held in his arms. Under the soft lights, the couple would appear as shadows against the skyline, silhouettes of love trapped in the mirrored buildings.
“Suppose… the others… say something?” Changmin whispered hotly, glancing around. “I don’t want… they’ll tease me.”
“I don’t think they’ll tease you,” Se7en replied sagely. “I think they’ll believe you’ve found someone to love.”
“I duuunnnnoooo….” Min said in English, ignoring the little voice in his head that screamed at him to go over to Se7en.
“To quote a wise man I once heard; Come here, babe,” The older man said, grabbing Changmin by the belt loops of his jeans and pulled him hard, toppling them both back into one of the large metal condensers. The steel rattled slightly, singing and creaking as Se7en wrapped himself around Changmin, laying the tall young man back onto the cold metal and chewing at his neck. Growling, he left small nibbling bites along Min’s collar and apple. “Nom, nom…”
“No!” Min’s cool composure evaporated under the other man’s silliness, his aloofness burnt away by Se7en’s lips making squeaky noises against his skin. “Shichi! That tickles. Stop! Come on, stop! God, no!”
“Keep that up,” Se7en said against Min’s kiss-warmed skin, “And the others are going to think I don’t know what I’m doing over here.”
“You know what you’re doing,” The voice answered for him, spilling out in a seductive purr. Min clamped his mouth shut, slapping his hand over his lips. “Oh God…why… the… why do you do this to me?”
“Because I’m good for you, Minku,” Se7en replied, rolling slightly to the side and cradling his young lover against his body. They slid down together into the futon, a tangled mess of kisses and swearing. Laughing, Se7en waited patiently for Min to right his shirt, the sleeve caught in his elbow. Attempts to help only made the situation worse, especially when the older man pulled when Min was trying to tug himself free. With the shirt hem slid nearly all the way up his belly, Changmin roared slightly at Se7en, falling into laughter when the other man took the opportunity of a half-dressed Min to blow a raspberry kiss on his belly. Murmuring, he said softly, loud enough for only Min to hear, “And you are good for me, baby. So so good for me.”
“Love you, Shichi,” Changmin touched Se7en’s cheek with his fingers.
It felt strange, openly holding his lover among the others. The world was new again, sparkling bright and clean. Despite being in the middle of a city built high enough to scrape the sky’s belly and clouded with the noise of life, Changmin felt enveloped in a secret oasis of their own. With Se7en’s long arms around him, he grew shy, unsure of how to act in front of the other members. Being with his lover reassured him, bolstering up his confidence.
“I love you too, Minku.” The other man grew serious. “I have something for you. Something I want you to have.”
He dug into his pocket, coming up with a piece of golden tissue wrapped around something solid and small. Lengths of clear tape held the tissue shut, seemingly miles of it mummifying the gift. Laughing softly, Min picked at the edges, unable to find the end to open up the small gift.
“I’m going to have to chew through this,” Changmin muttered, looking up bashfully at his lover through his lashes. “Did you use all the tape on the roll?”
“Almost,” Se7en admitted. “I didn’t want it to fall out.”
Biting at the paper with his canines, Min tore apart a corner, shaking out the gift inside with a careful flick of his wrist. Catching at a spill of glitter with his other hand, he set the tissue tomb down between them and cautiously opened his fingers to stare at a simple gold cross strung on a chain.
While the chain was new, the slender marine style links a masculine serpentine curl on his palm, the cross was old. Its age showed in the shadowed pits along its edges and the worn Korean etched into its back. The calligraphy was elegant and obviously hand done, scratched deep into the soft metal. Curious, Changmin looked up at Se7en, unsure of what to say.
“I know you’re not…Christian,” Se7en said softly. “For me… for us, this isn’t a symbol of religion but rather of faith.”
Picking up the chain, the older man untangled the cross and held it up to dangle between them. “This… is… was my grandmother’s. She fell in love with a South Korean soldier during the war and since she lived in the North… right on the border… it was hard for them because they could not see one another. That man… was someone she loved so much that she snuck across the border to be with him at night, just to talk or sometimes drink. Before the war got really bad, he gave this to her and told her to have faith that they would be together. To always have faith.”
“What…happened?” Min touched the cross, sending it spinning into slow circles. “Did she see him again?”
“The war tore everything apart and one night, my grandmother was shot trying to get across of the border to see him. A Northern farmer looking for one of his goats found her and took her home but she was sick from the bullet and by the time she was better, the border was closed.” Se7en whispered, his deep voice saddened with his grandmother’s memories. “Because her family converted, they were being driven out by the Northern soldiers. She tried to reason with her father that her lover was somewhere close by and if she could only get a hold of him…tell him where they were going but my great-grandfather wouldn’t listen. Her love for this man endangered her…endangered the whole family and she was forbidden to see him.”
“When they arrived in Seoul, our family was poor,” He continued, closing his palm over Min’s fingers, trapping the cross in their joined hands. “And they had to live in one of the lower districts but they were alive, even if my grandmother’s love was now lost to her. A few years later, she was going to the market to buy rice for the family and a man called out her name.”
“Was it him?” Changmin asked, his mouth trembling with emotion. “Was it the man who gave her this cross?”
“It was,” Se7en replied softly, kissing the quiver from his lover’s lips. “He’d spent every day praying that he would find the woman he’d left behind and stole across the border after the war, asking anyone he could find if they had information about my grandmother and her family. It took him three years but he finally found our family in Seoul. My great-grandmother felt his love was so great, she told him where he could find her. That man… was my grandfather, Shim Changmin, a Buddhist who bought my grandmother a symbol of her faith so she would have something from him to hold onto until they could be together once more.”
“I…can’t… take this, Shichi,” Min murmured, losing his voice under the tightness in his throat. “It’s… so much…”
“I told my grandmother about you,” Se7en said softly, still holding Min’s hand. “Do you know what she told me?”
“No,” He whispered.
“She told me it was time that someone of my grandfather’s religion held onto a symbol of love and faith… a symbol that speaks of love separated by distance but never by more than a breath or a heartbeat.” Se7en leaned over, gently kissing the younger man. “That as long as this is near you, I am near you and that I will always return to it… because I love you. Not matter how far apart we are… my love will be as close as this cross is to your heart.”
Holding hands, they kissed, bound by their hands closed over an old love and a new chain.
A few feet away, Yunho watched the lovers, his eyes hooded at the sight of their youngest savouring the taste of another man. With an unreadable expression on his face, he turned to his own lover standing near the edge of the other futon and held his hand out to Jaejoong, a flick of his fingers urging the other man to join him. Jae sank down to his knees, then on all fours and leaned into Yunho’s mouth, taking a sip of the man’s waiting kiss.
“It’s…nice,” Yunho said, softly nipping at Jae’s bottom lip. Leaning back onto the scattered pillows, he waited as Jae made himself comfortable, arranging his long legs around Yunho’s until they were a sprawl on the futon. “Out here. It’s nice.”
“I thought you were talking about my kiss,” Jae teased. “I guess I’ll have to try again.”
He drank from his lover’s mouth. There was no other word for it, Jaejoong realized. Yunho’s lips were a heady wine for his soul, spinning away any hint of sobriety he might have had lingering in him. The subtle taste of man spread over his tongue, worked in hot by Yunho’s probing tongue. They fought briefly, the tips of their tongues licking and tasting each other’s heat but it was a languid battle, slowing down when the other needed breath or even sweeter, when one found an angle of body that rode the lust across each other’s skin.
“You are so much mine, Kim Jaejoong,” Yunho whispered. The young singer felt right in his arms, right against his body and slid in perfectly into the breadth of his hips. “I needed to tell you that. I think I need to tell you that every day.”
“Good,” Jae grinned. “I’d like to hear it every day.”
“Do you ever think about where we’ll be in a few years?” Yunho asked, staring up into the sky and wondering where Jae’s Han river stars had gone to. Lowering his gaze, he found them, shimming specks of lanterns caught in his lover’s natural brown eyes.
“I don’t care. As long as you are with me,” He said with a shrug. Yunho waited, listening for something that never came. Jaejoong looked up at his lover, expectantly and asked, “What?”
“I was waiting for you to ask me if I thought we’d be together,” He admitted. “You usually… you always used to.”
“Nope,” Jaejoong shook his head. “Not ever again.”
Stretching, he pushed Yunho onto his back then lifted himself up to lie on his lover’s belly and chest. Jae stroked at Yunho’s palms, silently asking the man to open his hands so they could touch. When his fingers were wrapped in Yunho’s, Jaejoong stole a kiss, inhaling the breath from his lover’s mouth and swallowing it, pulling in the man’s strength with a sigh.
“God, I love you, Joongie,” Yunho sighed, cupping the back of his lover’s head. “I don’t have the words to tell you how much. I wish I did. I wish I could give you enough stars to hold so you can feel how hot you make me…how much light you give me.”
“I don’t need poetry or stars or anything else to know one thing for certain, Jung Yunho.” Jaejoong stared down into the other man’s face, his lips skimming Yunho’s mouth in feather strokes as he spoke, leaving heart-skipping kisses along his lover’s sensual mouth. “I am yours. No matter if we’re sleeping on a wide bed or having to cuddle for warmth on an old red couch… I am your destiny. And you are mine. I love you, Yunnie. I am going to always love you, even when they lay us down into the dirt so we can sleep forever under it, I’ll still be loving you. You are…forever mine. Just as I am forever yours.”
I normally put a note at the top of the last chapter, something to thank you all for reading. In this case, I am putting it at the end because I don’t know how long this is going to be. I’ll try to keep it short but I can’t promise. You all know how silly-crazy I get with words.
God, thank you. All of you. Thank you. I know… it’s old but I can’t say it enough or strong enough. Thank you for trusting me with your YunJae and Yoosu and God, thank you for taking Min7en into your heart and letting our baby have a secret, smexy love. Thank you for letting me pour angst into your lives and hopefully I’ve given you enough sweetness and laughter to balance out a little bit of it.
Mostly, I wanted to say that I love you. I have been given so many friends over the past few years. People who have stumbled across of these stories and stayed. I can’t say I love you enough as well. I think it’s like a star that I touch and it burns away the silly specks of words that I toss at it because really, it’s that consuming.
You’ve been patient with me over these four books to let me build a world and tear it apart and then rebuild it again. If you will let me, I will continue to build but in smaller doses… much smaller doses and I hope you find it in your hearts to welcome the boys back into your world. Well, my version of the boys because I know you will never misplace the real ones that you hold so dear.
They are brilliant and talented young men whose faces I’ve taken and created characters for. While this is fiction… purely fiction… I hope it has given some enjoyment for you and has perhaps introduced you to some new friends as well. I know I cherish every one that I’ve made since So Much Mine first went up.
Once again, thank you… those are such little words for such a large feeling I have for all of you.
Saranghae. I love you…and domo.