Work Text:
Junsu’s Reality
Junsu’s phone rang in his pocket. He finished the series of dance steps with a flourish and reached for his towel. Wiping his hands and face dry, he pulled out his phone. Jae’s smiling face lit the display, and Junsu couldn’t help but smile in return. Jae was contagious—the jury was still out on whether that was a good thing or a plague likely to wipe out the planet—but his infectious smile and spirit couldn’t be denied.
“Hey, JJ. What’s up?”
“He broke up with me,” Jae announced without preamble.
Junsu took a deep breath and looked around for a corner away from the other dancers and staff. This wasn’t going to be a short conversation. He’d had variations of it dozens of times over the years he’d known Jaejoong. Jae led with his heart and rarely, if ever, saw the consequences. “What happened?”
Junsu could hear Jae’s pout through the phone. “He doesn’t like how much time I spend with Yoochun. They seemed to like each other at first, but lately it has been one complaint after another:Why does he call in the middle of the night? You talk about him constantly. Why does he walk into your apartment like he owns the place?”
“Um… hmmm….” Junsu knew his opinion wasn’t really necessary. Jae just needed a friendly ear.
“I mean, it’s Yoochun! How can anyone be jealous of Yoochun? It is like being jealous that I have an arm.”
Junsu rolled his eyes. Jae was right—separating him from Yoochun would be comparable to cutting off his arm, but he knew that no boyfriend of Jae’s was ever going to understand Yoochun. Hell, half the time he didn’t understand the mysterious chemistry between Jae and Yoochun. The thing he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was there was only one Mr. Right for Jaejoong and that was Yoochun, but the two idiots didn’t seem to see it, so he resigned himself to many more conversations like the one he was currently having.
~~~~~
Junho turned sideways in the booth, stretching his long legs out on the seat, his feet hanging over the end. It didn’t make any difference. They were tucked safely away in the private backroom of their favorite restaurant. No one but their server would be walking by.
“Three times!” Junsu said again, slamming his fist into the table top for emphasis. “Three fucking times!” His hand flew to his mouth as if trying to catch the words that had just escaped. “See! See what they do to me. I spend three weeks with them in the US, and I’m cursing like a sailor.”
“They cursed in front of you three times?” Junho asked, looking puzzled.
“No.” Junsu shook his head, exasperated. Usually his twin followed him better than this.
“Oh, you cursed three times.”
“NO! Damn it—” Junsu broke off making a gesture that said, “See. See what they do to me.”
“Bro, is it really worth being this upset over a little bad language?”
Junsu buried his face in his hands. “It isn’t the language—though it isn’t a little bad language. When the two of them are drinking, I have to go back to my room and wash my ears out, but that isn’t what I was talking about. Three times. Three times, they left me on stage... alone.”
When Junho didn’t immediately respond with support and suitable scathing remarks, Junsu continued. “Not once, not twice, but three times... they left me... during the comment section. Jaejoong got a little flustered with his English line and walked off stage, and Yoochun followed him! We didn’t even have a translator because Chunnie speaks English. Hell of a lot of good that did me when he ran off to comfort Jaejoong. I’m standing on stage with everyone looking at me. What was I supposed to do? Wave and say, ‘annyeong haseyo’?”
Junho still didn’t look properly outraged. “You could count to ten and they would scream for more. And if that didn’t work, just turn around and bend over.”
Junsu glared at his twin. “Maybe I should take up drinking. You’re supposed to be on my side, and speaking of bending over—”
Junho snickered.
Junsu glared harder. “Yoochun gave my ass to Germany!”
This time Junho snorted his tea. Choking and sputtering, his eyes watering, he grabbed for his napkin. “He what?”
“In Berlin they asked what JYJ wanted to leave for Germany, and Yoochun said they could have my ass.” Junsu’s eyes lost their focus as he remembered Jaechun collapsing into giggles so violent they had to hold each other up. “He never gives Jae’s ass away. Oh no, you better not even look at Jae’s ass or he’ll growl, but my ass is apparently the property of Germany!”
Junho grinned. “Asia will be sorry to hear that. I mean you’ve been Asia’s duckbutt for a decade. It will be missed.”
“I should have asked Mom to dinner,” Junsu muttered.
“She would have washed your mouth out with soap for cursing.”
“True, but at least she would have been sympathetic. I swear they are getting worse. Any time their eyes meet, they fall into this trance and completely forget where they are. In front of the camera, on stage, it makes no difference. I just babble until they snap out of it and remember what we are doing. I swear I may lose my mind before they just give in and kiss... oh shit, what if it happens on stage?” Junsu’s eyes were as big as saucers as he thought about all the times Jae and Yoochun had become lost in one of their Jaechun-soulmate-trances in front of an audience of thousands.
“The DVD will sell 46.8 million copies and none of us will ever have to work again.”
“Fuck you.”
~~~~~
Junsu lifted his head off his pillow, trying to place the incessant buzzing. His phone, he reasoned, just before it fell silent. Good. He closed his eyes.
The buzzing started again.
What time is it?
He picked his phone up off the nightstand and looked at the screen. Three a.m. and it was Yoochun calling. He accepted the call. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Three a.m.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“I need you to call Jaejoong.”
“Why don’t you call Jaejoong?”
“I’ve been trying to call him. He won’t answer my calls.”
Junsu sat up in bed and switched on the light, resigning himself to being awake for at least an hour as his best friends negotiated another crisis of cluelessness by pulling him into the middle. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you wear his new jeans without asking?”
“No.”
“Did you mess with the order of his skin and hair care products in the bathroom?”
“No.”
“Were you late when he was fixing dinner?”
“No.”
“Did you laugh at Jiji’s latest outfit?”
“No.”
“Did you go out with a girl?”
“Uh....”
Bingo. “When?”
“Well, tonight, but it wasn’t really a date. It was just a girl from the set—” Yoochun stuttered.
“Did you warn him about it?” Yoochun’s silence was Junsu’s answer. Jaejoong had sabotaged every relationship Yoochun had ever attempted, but he usually managed to at least appear supportive until he could figure out the best way to break them up... unless he was taken by surprise, and then he didn’t deal with it well at all. “How’d he find out?”
“He called to invite me over to drink, and I told him I was busy and I’d have to call him back.”
Aw hell, that meant Jae already had copious amounts of alcohol on hand AND was pissed at Yoochun. Junsu tried to come up with at way this night didn’t have to end by him climbing out of bed and getting dressed to go check on Jaejoong. “You have a key. Go talk to him.”
“I can’t. Every time he didn’t answer his phone, I poured another drink.”
“Stupid, clueless—” Junsu hung up on Yoochun as he reached for a pair of sweatpants.
Epilogue (Jaechun’s Reality)
Jae stretched to reach for his phone on the bedside table, careful not to disturb Yoochun dozing behind him. They’d worked in the studio all night on multiple songs, the tension building in them as it always did when they composed together. The teasing touches and provocative banter finally exploded in Jae taking Yoochun against the door just after dawn. They’d been heading to the bed, but it had been too far away, and they didn’t make it.
Round one in the studio led to round two bent over the sink in the bathroom, watching each other in the mirror. They’d just finished round three, and it was…. Jae glanced at the time on his phone. …just after ten. Oh, yeah, the phone. Jae remembered why he’d wanted his phone enough to risk disturbing Yoochun, who hadn’t slept in almost two days.
Holding his arm at an awkward angle, he took a picture of Yoochun’s hand resting on his hip, the dark tan of his fingers splayed over the white curve, the fingertips just brushing the peak of his hip bone. Turning the phone around, he looked at the image and sighed.
“No.” Yoochun gave sleepy grumble behind him.
“No?” Jae turned his head puzzled.
Yoochun still appeared asleep, eyes closed, body completely relaxed. “No, you may not post that picture to Twitter.”
“I wasn’t going—”
“Yes, you were. I could hear you composing the 140 characters in your head.”
“Weibo?”
“No, Jae. Everyone will recognize my hand the second you post it.”
“But….”
“No. Sleep.”
Jae pouted, but slid his phone back on the nightstand.
“When we get up later, send that to me,” Yoochun murmured, already mostly asleep.
Jae smiled and snuggled back into Yoochun’s warmth.
~~~~~
Jae sat beside Yoochun on the back deck, his eyes shielded from the sun by dark glasses. They’d slept until late afternoon, made love before making it out of bed, and fed each other leftovers from the refrigerator. They’d head back into the studio shortly, but both of them were feeling too lazy to do anything quickly, and the sun felt good on his face.
Jae reached for his phone. The sun reminded him of Yoochun’s tanned fingers on his skin. Holding his hand next to Yoochun’s, he snapped a picture.
Yoochun opened one eye and glared at him.
“Can I post this one?” Jae asked sweetly.
“Don’t get them mixed up,” Yoochun warned, closing his eyes.
Jae typed in a few words and sent the image with a smile. His phone rang almost immediately. He glanced at the screen and answered, “Hey, Su-su.”
Yoochun reached over and rested his hand on Jae’s thigh, stroking the velvety soft denim absent mindedly as he listened to half of the bright and bubbly conversation. When Jae put the phone down, he asked, “Is Junsu coming over?”
“No. I didn’t invite him.”
Yoochun opened his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I want to sing with you, play with you, and then PLAY with you, and he’d be in the way. I’ve had images of you bent over the piano all morning.”
Yoochun laughed. “Don’t you imagine he’s figured us out by now?”
“No. He might be the hardest working man on the planet, but when it comes to love, he’s stupid.”