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One second, Jaejoong is reaching up to adjust the position of his rearview mirror.
The next second, his body lurches forward and his head hits the steering wheel with a loud thud.
Damn faulty airbag, he thinks.
The third, fourth, fifth… seconds stretch into minutes into hours into days as Jaejoong rests, groggy and confused and struck dumb, against the steering column.
After what feels like forever, his door is being wrenched open and then there are bony hands poking at him and a loud voice in his ear saying, “Hey, man, are you okay? Oh my god, you’re bleeding; please stop bleeding.”
“Please stop talking,” Jaejoong groans, every word as painful as a nail being hammered into his skull. He lifts his head and glares at the guy balefully through squinted eyes.
“You’re alive,” the guy breathes with relief.
“No thanks to you,” Jaejoong more mouths the words than he actually says them, and tries to glare at the guy harder. But that’s painful too, so he gives up the fight and closes his eyes and lets his head fall sideways to be cradled by his seatbelt.
“Woah, no, you can’t fall asleep,” the guy says and the poking resumes.
“Go ‘way,” Jaejoong moans, feeling like he’s going to cry. “Wan’ sleep.”
“I know,” the guy says, his voice comforting, the poking becoming more like petting. “But you have to stay awake for me.”
“Why should I do anything for you,” Jaejoong asks hotly, the wash of anger giving him enough self-will to crack open his eyes.
“You could be concussed, and falling asleep could be bad for you. I want to make sure you’re okay,” the guy explains patiently.
Jaejoong opens his mouth to give the guy hell but his vision chooses that moment to clear a bit and he gets a glimpse of soft, warm, chocolate eyes and a cupid bow’s mouth and a small series of scars on one cheekbone and an angular jaw framed by hair the color of charcoal and his brain short circuits.
“Oh,” is all he says.
Minutes later, he’s being gently lifted from his car and stretched out on a gurney. One EMT presses a compress to his bleeding forehead while another covers him with a shiny blanket. He’s then loaded into the back of an ambulance. He’s thankful for the blanket because why the hell is it so cold, don’t they know it isn’t summer, why is the AC on? And he’s just about to complain when the guy hops into the ambulance after him and sits next to his gurney and reaches out to pat his hand soothingly and suddenly Jaejoong doesn’t feel so cold anymore.
-----
“I’m really sorry,” the guy says a couple days later.
Jaejoong shrugs, still a little morose. “It’s okay. It was a shitty day, anyway. What’s a car accident on top of everything else?”
Guilt flashes in the guy’s eyes. “I have really great insurance; I’ll pay for everything, even your medical expenses.”
Jaejoong shakes his head, horrified by the thought. “I can’t let you do that.”
“C’mon, it’s the least I can do,” the guy says.
“No,” Jaejoong says firmly.
The guy sighs. “At least let me make it up to you another way?”
Jaejoong perks up. “Yeah? What did you have in mind?”
The guy smiles and Jaejoong’s insides melt into a puddle of goo. “Let me take you out for coffee?”
Jaejoong nods and smiles, feeling a little giddy. “Okay.”
“Great!” The guy shouts. “Let’s go.” He grabs Jaejoong by the elbow and gently hauls him to his feet.
-----
“I still don’t know your name,” Jaejoong says.
“Yoochun,” the guy says, offering Jaejoong his hand.
“Jaejoong,” Jaejoong says and slides his palm across Yoochun’s and hopes he’s not the only one who feels a spark of electricity.
-----
“So,” Jaejoong says, after his first sip of coffee had been savored, “what happened?”
“I just wanted to see how my Mercedes Benz,” Yoochun deadpans.
Jaejoong rolls his eyes and reaches across the table to punch Yoochun on the shoulder.
Yoochun fends him off and says, laughing, “This is a piss poor attempt at revenge.”
Jaejoong kicks him in the shin.
-----
Jaejoong and Yoochun agree to meet for coffee every day.
-----
A week later, Jaejoong is in the middle of his shift at the restaurant. He’s busy preparing an order when Junsu barges through the kitchen doors, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Jaejoong points out.
Junsu ignores him. “So, you’ve been obnoxiously happy the last few days; spill,” he says without preamble as he grabs a knife to help Jaejoong cut up bell peppers.
“I met someone,” Jaejoong says airily.
“Excellent!” Junsu says. “Now maybe you’ll stop moping around like a kicked puppy.”
Jaejoong glares at Junsu.
“Just kidding, hyung,” Junsu says. “You know how much I love getting “I’m lonely~” texts at 3am. So, who is he?”
“His name is Yoochun.”
“And how did you meet him?”
“He ran into me with his car.”
Junsu rolls his eyes. “Only you would consider dating somebody who hit you with their car.”
“It’s not like I had any way of knowing the guy who rear-ended me would be so goddamn sexy,” Jaejoong points out.
Junsu guffaws. “A fair point,” he concedes. “And now you’re interested in a different kind of rear-ending, aren’t you?”
“I will wash your mouth out with soap,” Jaejoong threatens and Junsu leaves the kitchen, still laughing.
-----
A month passes before Jaejoong finally works up the nerve to ask Yoochun out on a date.
“Listen,” he starts, so nervous he feels like he’s going to throw up. “I was thinking we could, um-What I’m trying to say is-Well, I really like you and stuff, and I was wondering if-”
Yoochun cups Jaejoong’s face between his hands and drops a quick kiss on the tip of Jaejoong’s nose. “I would love to go on a date with you,” he says.
“Okay,” Jaejoong says and wonders if his smile is as dopey as he feels.
-----
They choose something simple: lunch, shopping, and a walk along the Han river at sunset.
And they talk.
Jaejoong tells Yoochun about his birth mother and about being adopted and his eight older sisters and innumerable nieces and nephews. He tells Yoochun about his stint as a trainee at a renowned production company, but how he hadn’t been able to handle the pressure and had gone back home. He tells Yoochun about his real passion: cooking, and about the restaurant he works in and how he is well on his way to becoming Head Chef.
Yoochun tells Jaejoong about living in America and his parents’ divorce and how, because his mother hadn’t been mentally well, he had had to live with his dad. He tells Jaejoong about moving back to Seoul, without his family, so he could pursue a career in writing songs. He tells Jaejoong a few of his songs had been bought by an up-and-coming artist and how he had saved almost enough money to bring his family back to South Korea so they could all live together.
As the sun sinks below the horizon, their words taper off and they continue their walk in easy camaraderie, their shoulders banging softly every few steps and their hands brushing together in the space between them.
Jaejoong’s throat is raw and his voice is shot and his calf muscles are straining from the amount of walking they’d done that day, but it’s all worth it because he’s never felt so close to another human being before and he feels happy, so happy.
-----
When Yoochun drops him off at his apartment, Jaejoong invites him in for supper.
“Homemade,” he says beguilingly.
“How could I say no to that?” Yoochun asks.
“You can’t or my feelings will be hurt,” Jaejoong teases as he starts to pull out pots and pans and knives and a cutting board.
“I would never,” Yoochun says with false gravity and sits down on Jaejoong’s couch to wait. He reaches out to pet Jiji and turns the TV channel to some romcom and kicks his feet up on the coffee table and Jaejoong is surprisingly unconcerned to realize how well Yoochun fits there, how right it all seems, like Yoochun is meant to be in his apartment and petting his cat and watching his TV.
-----
Yoochun practically inhales his food. “This is like a religious experience,” he says around a mouthful of noodles.
Jaejoong preens. “I’m really glad you like it, Chunnie,” he says.
Yoochun doesn’t even bat an eyelash at the nickname, just reaches across the table for a second helping, smiles at Jaejoong and offers him a slice of meat from the ends of his chopsticks.
-----
Jaejoong, loathe to end the date and send Yoochun home, shows him the coup de grâce: the white baby grand his family had pulled together to buy for him when he’d told them he wanted to be a singer. It’s a little used, a little old, and the paint had begun to chip off; but he is proud of it like he is proud of little else, and he knows Yoochun will appreciate it nonetheless.
Yoochun takes one look at it and his face lights up like a Christmas tree. He practically runs to it and sits on the bench, puts his hands on the keyboard and starts to play a quiet, whimsical melody.
“You said you sing, right?” Yoochun asks.
Jaejoong laughs. “Only in the shower, now. I’m afraid I’m a little rusty.”
Yoochun doesn’t laugh. He’s looking at Jaejoong with some unnamable emotion in his eyes. Jaejoong feels a shiver of anticipation creep down his spine.
“Sing for me,” Yoochun says.
“I don’t know what to sing,” Jaejoong says, suddenly feeling shy.
Yoochun smiles softly and switches to a ballad Jaejoong hasn’t heard in years but remembers instantly.
Jaejoong moves to stand at the end of the baby grand, cradled in the curve of its body, and begins to sing. He’s hesitant at first, but soon his old training kicks in and his voice grows stronger, following Yoochun’s lead as he moves through the notes, his gaze locked with Yoochun’s; and as the song builds, Yoochun begins to sing harmony, and they sound so goddamn beautiful together, and there’s a growing pain in Jaejoong’s chest, like his heart is swelling, and he briefly thinks, I’m in trouble, but he’s always been a glutton for punishment, so he continues to sing, trying to tell Yoochun with his voice and his eyes and his body: Want me want me want me as much as I want you.
-----
Jaejoong doesn’t remember how he and Yoochun went from having sex with their voices and their eyes to having actual sex, but he’s not complaining.
“What kind of black magic have you used against me?” Yoochun asks, his lips trailing a line of fire down Jaejoong’s jawline.
Jaejoong laughs and buries his hands in Yoochun’s hair and pulls him in for a kiss.