Work Text:
*
It's Seunghyun's fault.
He tells Yoochun, "I need some... acting advice," and it sounds equally polite and threatening, so Yoochun says, sure, okay, come on over, how much trouble could that possibly cause.
But Seunghyun brings Jiyong.
And Jiyong brings alcohol.
And the alcohol inevitably summons Jaejoong and then Yoochun's hotel room is kind of a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
The mini-bar is ground zero.
Ten minutes in, Jiyong is abusing it like it's two quarters a liquor store, one quarter a cigarette den, and whatever quarter is left has become a makeshift refuge where the kid's waxing poetic about the ever-changing, never-changing philosophy of music.
Fifteen minutes in, he's squatting by Yoochun's bed, untwisting a really expensive bottle of mineral water and soliloquizing about all the fucks he doesn't give.
Or get, apparently.
"—and then maknae bailed with, like, four of the chicks. They're probably in Tokyo by now."
"That's very sad," Jaejoong says and looks disgustingly sincere, curled around Yoochun's pillow.
Yoochun makes a face, mentally calculating his future invoice and coming up with plausible ways to justify things to his manager.
Oblivious, Jiyong glances at the TV remote, eyes glassy. "Can we order porn."
"—let's play a game," Seunghyun interrupts from the sofa with a deep mumbly grunt, casually flipping through Yoochun's script. "I'm gonna skip to a random page and you try to guess if there's crying."
"Of course there's crying," Jaejoong yawns, stretching across Yoochun's bed. He burrows under the covers and pokes his head out with a tiny adorable pout. "The missing you in the title is a reference to dehydration."
"Huh?" Jiyong asks with a nasally whine, squinting at the spinning ceiling fan.
Sadly, Yoochun understands the ~joke perfectly and sort of hates Jaejoong a little bit for it, so he swipes the script back and amicably smacks Seunghyun's knees with it, sinking into the sofa. "You need crying lessons?"
"No," Seunghyun says slowly. "We don't cry in my movie."
Yoochun tries not to feel envious.
Stoically, Jaejoong twists off the bed, lazily grabs a bottle of water from a dresser, and tosses it at Yoochun.
Yoochun catches it without looking up.
"Then what's up," he asks, genuinely curious. He takes a sip, placing a brotherly hand on Seunghyun's shoulder.
Looking sour, Jiyong snaps his head around, knees drawn to his chest.
"Yeah," he mutters bitterly, "what was so important on your one day off."
Seunghyun stills, giving Yoochun an odd look. "...I need a cigarette."
Yoochun really doesn't wanna tell the kid to take it outside just because he's trying to quit and because his manager will take one whiff in the morning and assume—
"Balcony," Jaejoong says.
A grin tugs at Yoochun's lips.
"Nah, there could be fans camping out," Jiyong warns, rising. "Bathroom. Do you want me to come w—"
"No," Seunghyun shuts him down and jumps to his feet.
"If you set off the smoke detectors again..." Jaejoong sighs, rolling over. His hoodie rides up.
Yoochun looks away.
"So... not to rush anyone," he says, "but I have lines to memorize..."
Seunghyun drags himself to the bathroom with a listless sigh.
Almost instantly, Jiyong flings himself on the bed next to Jaejoong.
"Check it," he says in English. The billion necklaces around his neck clink together as he shifts and bounces. He raises his bare arm up, examining an ugly blue bracelet. "Are you checking it."
Jaejoong scrunches up his face. "No English."
Jiyong ignores him. "No other language can describe my massive amount of s—"
"If you say swag, I swear—" Yoochun groans.
"—swag."
"Swag is for boys," Jaejoong mutters at the ceiling, folding his arms under his head. "Class is for men."
Jiyong ignores him harder.
"Did he read that off a fridge magnet?" he asks Yoochun in perfect English.
Yoochun tries to bite back a grin and stands up, stretching. "So, yeah, seriously, I don't wanna be rude or lame or whatever but I really need to—"
"Memorize your lines, yeah," Jaejoong mumbles, fluffs up the pillows, and leans against the headboard.
Sulking, he takes out his phone.
Next to him, Jiyong digs out a flask out of a vest pocket and chugs it.
Yeah.
So, they're nesting.
That can't happen. Not tonight. Not when Yoochun has filming in five hours and then the MBC awards and then the SBS awards and...
He needs to do something to expedite this disaster.
After all, he's a responsible actor now.
"As exciting as this... party is," he says, trying to tidy up.
"Why are you looking at cats," Jiyong asks obnoxiously, scooting up to look at Jaejoong's phone.
"I'm shopping."
Jiyong wrinkles his nose. "For cats?"
"Cat toys."
Jiyong purses his lips, back to English. "That's pretty gay, bro."
"He says he's more of a dog person," Yoochun translates, casting a wistful look at the bathroom. There's no smoke billowing under the door, so maybe Seunghyun's almost done and can drag his... whatever home.
"Is that a Hello Kitty cat... poncho," Jiyong asks slowly, focused on Jaejoong's screen.
Jaejoong nods, distracted.
"Wow, fuck that noise," Jiyong laughs. "That is straight up gay."
Yoochun scowls.
Jaejoong raises an innocent eyebrow. "What did he say."
Yoochun narrows his eyes, then gives a curt, "No idea."
Guiltily, Jiyong glances away.
Irritated, Yoochun wants to bust out some English, mostly the cussing parts, but Jaejoong closes his browser and aims his phone at Jiyong's face.
"Smile."
Jiyong blinks as the phone makes a loud shutter-snapping noise.
"For twitter," Jaejoong explains patiently.
Yoochun bites back a smile.
"He's not really gonna upload this, is he," Jiyong starts, fidgeting. "I'm not wearing any makeup—"
"Nah," Yoochun says, trying to read the same fucking paragraph for the seventeenth time. "It's too boring."
As if on cue, Seunghyun stomps out of the bathroom, looking hard-pressed.
"Hyung," Jiyong calls out and sits up with purpose, gaze fixing on Seunghyun's chest. "Hey, hyung, take off your shirt."
Obediently, Seunghyun reaches for his sweater and pulls four layers up before he realizes what the fuck he's doing and scrambles to cover himself.
Jaejoong's phone clicks.
Yoochun tries not to point out how pathetic it is to take orders from some kid but Jaejoong gives him a sly grin, beckoning him closer.
So Yoochun drops the script, sidles up to the bed, and plops down next to Jaejoong with an equally amused smile.
He aims his evil at a flustered Seunghyun. "If you find yourself having nightmares about Jaejoong losing his phone..."
"...or getting hacked..." Jaejoong adds, only half-joking.
"Upload it," Jiyong says, lips tucking into a vicious grin.
Yoochun cracks up.
Okay, maybe the kid's not a total douchewaffle.
Jaejoong glances at Yoochun briefly, then slaps the phone to Jiyong's palm.
Eyes widening with glee, Jiyong brings up the twitter app and loads the screen, shooting Seunghyun a challenging look.
Horrified, Seunghyun freezes then dives for the bed, tackling Jiyong into the mattress with a panicked grunt and—
The fire alarm goes off.
The sprinkler system kicks in and then it's raining inside. The lamps in each corner even form a messed up rainbow.
"SHIT, FUCK," Seunghyun shouts, scrambling off the bed and rushing for the bathroom, "CIGARETTE."
In turn, Jiyong falls off the mattress, using his hand as an umbrella and staring at the phone screen, totally horrified. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, I pressed upload, shit, fuck."
Bangs matted over his eyes, Jaejoong leaps across the soaked covers to verify. "WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT."
"THE FUCKING FIRE ALARM?"
Yoochun can't even process any of this so he bends across Jaejoong and quickly motions for the phone.
"Okay, okay," he reasons calmly, scrolling. "We can just delete it before anyone..." he trails off. "It's been retweeted four thousand times."
He feels stupid so he checks the actual photo and it's grainy as fuck but it's also very obviously a stripping Seunghyun and there's the back of Jiyong's head and Jaejoong's Hello Kitty socks and...
Yoochun exchanges a look with Jaejoong, shares a sigh, preemptively silences his own phone, turns off Jaejoong's notifications, and then there's frantic knocking.
Thirty minutes of hotel security and apologies and we can get you a different room and please send the bill to Yang CEO, and all four of them are sitting in the hotel lobby, shoved behind a line of fake palm trees.
"So..." Jiyong says, casually leaning on his knees. "Anyone up for some bball."
Traumatized, Seunghyun glances at his hands. "I'm up for some alcohol poisoning."
Yoochun really, seriously, absolutely needs to memorize his fucking lines but the script is fucking wet and his turtleneck is fucking wet and his scarf collection is fucking wet and alcohol poisoning sounds good.
Still damp, they roll out.
The valet gives them a confused look.
"Oh, right," Jaejoong says. "Whose car are we taking."
"Whoever's car we're taking has to stay sober."
There's an almost-harmonizing chorus of identical "NOT IT"s and then unyielding silence.
"Hyung set the hotel on fire..." Jiyong says and it sounds pretty logical.
"You're the one that uploaded the picture," Seunghyun argues, which sounds reasonable, too.
"Jaejoong started it," Yoochun finds himself saying.
Jaejoong gives him a broken look.
A deep ache tugs at Yoochun's heart.
"...I'll drive your car," he offers and Jaejoong beams at him.
It's really only when the heat's on full blast and they're thirty kilometers away, on their way to Seunghyun's old neighborhood, somehow, that Yoochun realizes Jaejoong is snapping pics of him from the passenger seat.
So Yoochun has a minor stroke and warns, knuckles white around the steering wheel, "Don't upload them! My drama—"
"No," Jaejoong says softly, pocketing his phone. "They're just for me. Sorry."
Yoochun keeps his eyes trained on the dark road ahead.
"Gay," Jiyong comments from the back seat, fiddling with an oversized beanie.
For a moment, Yoochun feels like the car is a sitcom about three ahjussis and a spoiled little brat of a girl but then Jaejoong gives an audible yawn, stretching like a sleepy kitten.
It's so fucking adorable Yoochun forgets to turn left.
"Since you forgot to turn," Jaejoong says happily, "can we grab some food."
"Yeah," Yoochun nods, mostly to himself, "we probably shouldn't be doing any of this on an empty stomach."
In the background, Jiyong says, "Mine's full. I had..." he sticks out two fingers, then three, then scales it back down to two again, "a couple of steaks today. I'm good."
He's bouncing around and restless and the kind of drunk that makes Yoochun worry about the upholstery, which makes him worry about being really fucking old, so he taps Jaejoong's knee and warns, "We don't have time for an actual restaurant."
Jaejoong purses his lips, displeased. "We can go back to my place and I can—"
"No time," Yoochun says firmly.
"Junk food is fine," Jiyong calls out, swaying so much Seunghyun's hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Jiyong stills.
"Okay, no," he amends thoughtfully, "hyung can't have junk food."
Yoochun perks up.
Okay. The kid's definitely not a total douchewaffle, then.
One totally biased game of roshambo later and they're pulling into a nondescript little joint in Seunghyun's sketchy old neighborhood. It seems pretty deserted on account of the impending blizzard and the late hour but the lights are on, so Jiyong drags Seunghyun out for a quick polar run.
"We'll be back in ten," Seunghyun says politely.
"Peace out, bitches," Jiyong adds, slipping on the ice and clawing at Seunghyun's back.
"Aw," Jaejoong smiles because Jaejoong finds the stupidest things adorable.
Yoochun kills the headlights.
"I'm not sure I like him," he mumbles.
"You like everyone," Jaejoong says fondly. He seems pretty sober when he launches into all the reasons why Jiyong is nice and why Yoochun is nice and why cats sleep and vomit on freshly folded laundry, so maybe he's not sober at all but his voice fills the car, warming Yoochun from the toes up.
Jaejoong's voice is the perfect salve to a ruined night full of Seunghyun's deep grumbling and Jiyong's nasally whining, and Yoochun likes this softness, this voice rough with sleep and laced with emotion. He likes it too much, probably.
Jaejoong doesn't need to know that.
No one needs to know that.
"Chun-ah..." Jaejoong starts carefully. "I..."
The back car door yanks open as though a tornado's running through it.
"No, never mind," Jiyong shouts senselessly as he leaps in, cheetah-like, "we gotta go, we gotta go right now."
"Wha—"
"Noooo, we seriously gotta fucking go," Seunghyun yowls, stressed. He tunnels into the backseat and slams the door and shouts, "HYUNG, GO."
Yoochun tears down the road, lights still off, and watches a gaggle of fangirls stampede after the car.
Through a blizzard.
Jaejoong rolls down a window to stare, then jerks back in, fluffy hair covered in snowflakes.
"They should put on some jackets," he tsks and Yoochun loses it.
"Where's our food," he asks with a helpless little chuckle because his DNA is about a third troll and because Seunghyun is holding one sad stick of butter and Jiyong has kimchi stains around his mouth.
"...you can't get alcohol poisoning if your stomach's full," Jiyong reasons, wiping at his face.
"I don't think that's how..." Seunghyun starts, then glances at the stick of butter. "What the hell am I doing. I have filming in a few hours."
After a solemn beat, Jiyong leans forward to tap Yoochun's shoulder. "There's a liquor store by where he used to live. Let's pick some shit up and get wasted and then I'll call us a cab."
Yoochun can't really argue with that, mostly because there's an end in sight and nothing's on fire, so he steers the car down narrow back roads, through a rough stretch of potholes, and finally, fucking finally, there's a tiny corner store.
The end is nigh.
"I should go alone," Jaejoong volunteers, unbuckling himself. "In and out."
Yoochun opens his mouth to protest but Jaejoong pulls up his hoodie, hops out of the car, skips around a big wet pile of snow, and darts into the store like an actual criminal.
Yoochun crosses his fingers and sends a quick prayer for his safety 'cause there's a pretty high possibility whoever's behind the counter might mistake him for a robber and fuck, maybe Yoochun should just go with—
"Hyung," Jiyong says and Yoochun turns around automatically, "I'm prettier, right."
What.
Confused, Yoochun's jaw goes slack, but Seunghyun answers instead.
"Yeah," he tells Jiyong out of the corner of his mouth.
Slowly, Yoochun turns his head back around, staring through the tinted windshield with a scrunched up face.
The blizzard's really picking up, shit.
"Hey, I'm prettier than Jaejoong-hyung," Jiyong slurs, kicking at Yoochun's seat.
"Yeah," Seunghyun mumbles.
Yoochun sighs, briefly catching his gaze in the rear-view mirror.
Poor kid. So young and already needs glasses.
"And I sing better, right," Jiyong probes, walking his fingers up Seunghyun's arm.
"Yeah," Seunghyun coughs, swatting him away with what Yoochun can only assume is his best constipated expression.
A bottle of some dark stuff magically appears between them.
Seunghyun takes a swig.
"Yah, I sing better than Jaejoong-hyung," Jiyong announces, kicking his ugly shoe up and catching it on one end of Yoochun's seat-belt.
"Yeah," Seunghyun says, busy looking anywhere but at the rear-view mirror.
Wow, Yoochun thinks. So young and already deaf.
"And I give better—" Jiyong starts.
"IS HE ROBBING THE FUCKING PLACE," Seunghyun snaps, unbuckles himself with impressive speed, and tumbles out of the car and into the dimly-lit store.
Jiyong leans forward, grabbing at Yoochun's hair. "Do you wanna know what else I'm better at."
"I really don't," Yoochun says, carefully disengaging. "Maybe we should—"
"I'm better at not missing people," Jiyong says, slumping back into the seat.
Yoochun's heart sinks around a heavy ache and he doesn't even know why.
So he nods and gives the kid a determined, "Okay, let's go," and drags him out into the blizzard.
If they're at all lucky, there's no CCTV in this neighborhood and the nearest sasaeng is a million miles away and no one at the store gives two shits about idols.
Or maybe they'll just literally have to set all of Seoul on fire and move to Chile.
"It's not opening," Jiyong whines, glaring at the door.
"It's not automatic," Yoochun sighs, pushing it open.
Wasted is not a great look on this kid.
On Jaejoong, it's fucking adorable somehow.
Weird.
"Yo," Jiyong salutes as they spill inside.
It's colder in the store than it is outside, so Yoochun mindlessly buttons up his coat.
The elderly store clerk gives them an unimpressed look, eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
His hands are hidden somewhere beneath the register which is pretty fucking menacing in this neighborhood so, sheepishly, Yoochun bows, slapping a hand to the back of Jiyong's neck and pushing him into a ninety-degree bow.
"Yo, man, check yourself before you—" Jiyong complains in English, wriggling.
Yoochun digs his fingers in harder. "Stop that. It's 2012."
Jiyong considers, straightening.
Luckily, they find Jaejoong and Seunghyun quickly.
Both are standing in front of a corner fridge, side by side, staring blankly at the display.
"So this is how you grew up," Jaejoong says mournfully.
Apologetic, Seunghyun dips his head.
"Yoochunnie," Jaejoong whines, turning around and pointing at the fridge as though it's a war criminal. "They don't sell alcohol anywhere."
Yoochun squints at the frosted glass.
"It's all milk," Jaejoong says to the ceiling. He points an incredulous hand at the sign that clearly says liquor, then gestures back at the collection of dairy products. "That's false advertising. Drive us to a police station."
Seunghyun cracks a lopsided smile and slowly steers Jaejoong away.
Jiyong bristles.
Yoochun's slightly... off, too.
So he ushers everyone out, bowing repeatedly at the old man behind the counter.
It's obviously time to drop everyone off wherever the hell they're sleeping tonight. Maybe he'll even get to squeeze in an hour of sleep before he shuffles off to the set. 'Cause seriously, nothing good can come out of this combination, especially not tonight, and—
Son of a fucking bitch.
"What," Jaejoong cocks his head and Yoochun's pretty sure he didn't cuss out loud, but fuck. Fucking fuck.
"I left the keys in the car," he groans, patting himself down.
Seunghyun makes a face. "You locked us out? In this neighborhood?"
Jiyong's face lights up. "We're shipwrecked?"
"How do you..." Jaejoong starts, frustrated, "ship... Yoochunnie, what language is he speaking."
A random cat pokes its head out of a snowy back alley to check things out.
Yoochun suddenly misses Junsu.
Normal, sensible Junsu who would never ever get himself into this kind of crap.
"It's fine," Jaejoong huffs, leaning on Yoochun and digging for his phone. "I have an app. I think."
At once, all four of them instinctively crowd around the driver's side, staring at Jaejoong's phone like it's a warm fire. In reality, it's a mess of applications and folders and missed phone calls and voicemails and Yoochun's itching to organize it in detail, but... priorities.
"Is that it," Jaejoong wonders, breath misting over as he scrolls around with unsteady fingers.
Without thinking, Yoochun rests his chin on Jaejoong's shoulder. "Yes, that's a calculator, very good... now maybe find the... okay, no, that's the world clock."
Jaejoong turns slightly, the tip of his cold nose poking at Yoochun's cheek. "It says it's noon in Australia... is that helpful, Chun-ah."
Yoochun's gut is a disaster, churning with affection.
"...I want a kangaroo," Jiyong says, yawning into the car's roof. His breath thaws a small patch of frost and he stares at it intently. "Yah, hyung, get me a kangaroo."
Completely serious, Seunghyun contemplates for a moment then nods and heads off down the street, presumably towards Australia.
Yoochun's the only sober one here so he should really shut this shit down and get some food in them and make them sleep it off but Jaejoong laughs softly into Yoochun's jaw and slips a hand into Yoochun's back pocket to warm up and asks Yoochun, "Can I get one, too."
And then Yoochun feels an urge to walk to Australia, or to stand here forever like this, and that's super fucked up because he'd either drown or boil alive or freeze to death, so he takes Jaejoong's phone, hands shaking, and flips through icons until he finds the right app.
He unlocks the door and remote-starts the car and calls out like a good, responsible adult, "Get in."
Jiyong lets out an unhappy little noise and makes grabby hands at a departing Seunghyun. "Yah, hyung, we're gonna drive to Australia."
Seunghyun stops in his tracks. With a nod, he turns around, and stalks back, pelted by a sudden thing of snowflakes.
Quietly, Jiyong stares for a moment, then slinks into the back-seat.
With an uneasy, gnawing feeling, Yoochun quickly stuffs Jaejoong next to the kid, then claims the driver's seat and waits for Seunghyun to plop down in front.
"How do we get back?" he asks and Seunghyun shuts his eyes and leans his cheek against the window, ostensibly consulting his internal compass.
"That way."
That way turns out to be a dead end so Yoochun swerves through someone's poor driveway and roundabouts his way down a bumpy, unpaved road, wondering if it's possible to end up in North Korea somehow and trying to decide whether that would cause an international crisis or reunification.
"Are we lost," Jaejoong sings.
"Nah, that tree looks familiar," Seunghyun tells the window, half-napping.
"We're going to die," Jiyong translates.
Jaejoong glances at him with a quizzical frown.
After a long moment of glassy-eyed staring, he frowns and tells Jiyong, "You're a terrible boyfriend. No wonder Hyunnie never brings you along."
Yoochun almost drives into a ditch. "What?"
"What?" Jiyong asks in much the same way.
Seunghyun sits up straight, eyes open wide, hands fisting in his lap.
Jiyong can only gape. "What?"
Jaejoong's frown deepens. "Uh. I... misread the situation." After a beat, he bites his bottom lip. "Is it a situation. No, the... what word am I looking for, Yoochunnie."
Yoochun tries not to plow through a snow bank on the side of the road.
Offended and suddenly pretty sober-sounding, Jiyong scowls. "There's no situation, hyung."
Jaejoong waves him off, focusing on Yoochun's eyes in the rear-view mirror. "No, of course not. Not situation. What word am I looking for, seriously."
"Relationship," Yoochun blurts out because he's an idiot.
Jaejoong's entire face brightens.
For a brief moment, Yoochun wonders what the symptoms of night blindness are and how hazardous that would be during a blizzard.
"There's no relationship," Jiyong says calmly. "We're not like you."
Yoochun's face heats up.
"What," Jaejoong says, wrinkling his nose.
Yoochun's not super close with the kid, but even he can recognize the hint of panic in Jiyong's voice as he puffs up in his seat. "Seunghyun-hyung and me are manly, alright. We get tattoos."
Jaejoong blinks incredulously.
"...more tattoos," Jiyong corrects, tugging his beanie down defensively. "I'm not like you, okay."
"He's not insulting you," Yoochun finds himself saying just as Jaejoong asks, "Is he insulting me?"
"Are you fucking telepathic," Jiyong snaps, unbuckling himself as though he's gonna open the door and bolt into the night.
Suddenly angry as fuck, Yoochun slams on the brakes and hydroplanes to a stop.
He unbuckles his seat-belt and snaps around to put this immature brat in his fucking place, because no one gets to talk to Jae like this, no one gets to make his face look so sad, no one gets to—
Jiyong's frozen in his seat.
His collarbones are exposed and scrawny and pebbled with cold. He looks like a kid who's wearing everything he owns at the same time. And maybe everything Seunghyun owns. Ugly expensive sunglasses atop the beanie, and shoes that belong on a child.
His nails are chipped and ugly and uneven and Yoochun can tell he's a nervous biter and all the mental berating he's prepared just dissolves.
"Go have a cigarette," he tells Jiyong softly, then turns to Seunghyun. "You, too."
Jiyong gives an exaggerated great big sigh that puffs up his cheeks but he twists the handle and steps out.
Quietly, Seunghyun joins him.
The door clicks shut after them.
"How... not awkward," Jaejoong laughs from the back and Yoochun squeezes past the seats and parks his ass next to Jaejoong's.
"Wanna eavesdrop?" he grins, patting Jaejoong's knee out of habit.
Jaejoong glances at his hand. "Do you think we're telepathic?"
Yoochun pauses.
"You want a cigarette right now," Jaejoong nods, lost in thought.
Yoochun's lips curl. "That's not telepathy. That's ten years of you bumming smokes off me."
Jaejoong grows quiet, serious.
"It's already been ten years, huh."
Yoochun's jaw clenches. "Yep."
"I haven't seen you in a long time," Jaejoong says, voice raspier than usual.
It's not easy, but Yoochun glances at him; really takes him in.
It's been, fuck, what, two weeks since they last hung out. And even that was brief and business-like and unsatisfactory.
And now Jaejoong looks tired and tragic and that particular brand of broken he's been cultivating since forever.
He looks...
"Hyung," Yoochun says.
"Don't call me that," Jaejoong mutters, face half-hidden by his bangs.
...he looks like Yoochun feels.
So Yoochun pats his knee again, and says softly, "Jaejoongie."
Jaejoong jerks at the contact.
"I missed you," Yoochun says.
Jaejoong scoffs, resting his head against the window.
"Okay," Yoochun allows, "bad choice of words considering my drama, but I really did miss you."
Jaejoong sighs. "You didn't."
Yoochun frowns. "What?"
Jaejoong leans back, bringing his hands up to cover his face. "It's just... you forget," he says quietly. "You can go into a crowded room and fill yourself with everyone there and you just... forget me. And Junsu."
Yoochun stills.
Jaejoong slumps into the seat and scrubs at his face, knees spreading gracelessly. "I go into crowded rooms and I never forget you. Or Junsu."
Yoochun's eyes hurt. He's exhausted and hungry and he's been crying on set so much his tear ducts are probably permanently damaged but he can't stop the sharp sting wetting his eyelashes.
Jaejoong lowers his arms and turns to look at him. "Don't," he says with a rueful grin. "You can't spare the moisture."
Yoochun chokes on a laugh and then his nails dig into Jaejoong's thigh so hard he feels the need to apologize.
But Jaejoong doesn't wince or pry Yoochun off.
"Yoochunnie," he says instead, sounding frustrated, "time's just... flying really fast." He pauses, clearly emotional. "I knew we'd outgrow each other eventually, but I'm not..." his voice breaks. "I'm not ready. I'm not ready at all."
Yoochun wants to say something, anything, to fix this because Jaejoong's wrong, totally fucking wrong, but his mouth won't open.
Jaejoong stares at him for a moment, then makes a strange, resigned noise.
"I know you care about Junsu and me," he sighs dramatically, reaching for the door handle. "But you know me." He steps out. "Occasionally, I need proof."
The door clicks shut.
Mouth dry, Yoochun blinks at the flashing seat belt sign.
What the fuck is wrong with his mouth. When the fuck did it get all stitched up. Why can't he say the right thing. Or any thing.
Heart pounding, he starts for the door, too, but something digs into his palm.
Jaejoong's phone.
Okay. Maybe if he fixes Jaejoong's phone, it'll be enough. It'll be proof.
Mindlessly, Yoochun runs cold fingers across the screen, unlocking it. He flips and drags things into folders. He groups icons by color because that's the way things make sense to Jaejoong. Blue icons next to other blue icons, gray next to gray.
He spends a good few minutes sorting through things and then he just can't stop himself.
He clicks on Jaejoong's photo album.
And then his heart sinks.
Yoochun's phone is as compartmentalized as his life.
Yoochun's contacts are sorted by agency, not last name. His apps are few. His albums are regularly cleaned out.
Jaejoong's phone is Jaejoong's life. There are a million selcas and pictures of people and things that have been warming him up along the way. It's a big messy jumble of crap and quality and then there's a neat little folder just for Yoochun.
It's got every picture Jaejoong's ever managed to save off all his old phones.
Yoochun powers the phone off.
There's no drifting.
There's an anchor; one inked above his heart and the other around it.
Before he can process the action, he's opening the door and bounding out of the car into the accumulating snow.
The three shadows leaning against a flickering street lamp turn to look at him. Seunghyun's wearing Jiyong's sunglasses, even though it's so fucking dark even the blindest of bats would get disoriented. Jiyong's eyeing the cigarette between his fingers. And Jaejoong...
Jaejoong's looking at Yoochun.
It's okay.
It's fine.
Jaejoong knows Yoochun will always be there, has to know.
There's no need to prove it. There's no need to show Jaejoong that he's not outgrowing him, that this... thing is just growing into something different, whether he likes it or not.
There's no need to do something super fucking dumb.
Worried, Jaejoong carefully walks over, hoodie slipping off his head. "Yoochunnie, is everything—"
Yoochun stalks off toward Jiyong and Seunghyun and their shared pack of cigarettes.
With a confused frown, Jaejoong leans against the car, looking lost and vulnerable.
It's fine.
Because, seriously, Yoochun has fought the urge to pounce on Jaejoong for ten fucking years.
And really, how much longer can he possibly live anyway. Fifty, sixty years? He can hang in there and fight this and be normal for just sixty more years. He doesn't need to ruin everything by proving Jaejoong wrong tonight.
He doesn't need to do anything.
It's just sixty more years.
It's fine.
With an unhappy little growl, Yoochun turns on his heel, snow crunching under his boots, and tackles Jaejoong into the car door.
He doesn't ~accidentally miss Jaejoong's mouth because Jaejoong's lips take up practically half of his stupid, beautiful face and Yoochun has spent so many years silently watching them turn up in smiles and down in frowns. He's watched them stretch around spoons and chopsticks and forks. He's watched them press against microphones and cheeks and foreheads.
He'd find them with his eyes closed even if he's never actually tried before.
So Yoochun presses a perfectly chaste peck to the exact center of Jaejoong's lips.
There.
Friendship saved.
In the background, Jiyong casually drops the cigarette and puts it out with his boot.
"I give it two stars," he comments, leaning against a peeling lamppost and crossing his arms.
"Out of how many," Seunghyun muses next to him, sunglasses askew.
"Ten."
Yoochun gives them an exasperated look. "This isn't the fucking make-out olympics, I'm just—"
Jaejoong grabs his face.
His lips slant over Yoochun's, warm and wet and perfect. He draws back, then angles his head and cups Yoochun's jaw with purpose, a slow simmering burn suddenly set ablaze. He slips his tongue between his lips and licks at Yoochun's, then takes a hungry, needy breath and goes for it, just latches on like it's a once in a lifetime opportunity but fuck, it feels like an appetizer filled with maybe arsenic or cyanide or lifetime commitment, and Yoochun can't—
"Okay, that one was, like... eight and a half stars," Jiyong says, voice a little high.
Jaejoong pulls away slightly, panting.
Awkwardly, Seunghyun holds up nine fingers.
Not that Yoochun can count at the moment. Or talk. Or think. He's just existing as a clump of cells floating through universe with no sense of direction or purpose. But he's got a shitload of gravitational force or orbit or whatever the fuck and it's all centered around Jaejoong.
"Proof?" he tries to say but it sounds like gibberish even to his own ears.
Jaejoong is smiling, though.
He's actually grinning with a helpless type of affection, sort of like what Yoochun suspects evil kittens would if this were an animated movie. Like he's not tired or cold or drunk or broken.
Like he's just... happy.
He hooks an insistent leg around Yoochun and traps him against his body and explains warily, "Only 'cause I want ten stars."
Yoochun wants to go and buy a couple of big-ass planets and maybe a sun or two, but he's suddenly painfully aware of everything. Aware of two-fifths of Big Bang staring at him. Aware of the dangerous chill creeping through his limbs and the contrast of Jaejoong's warm... everything.
And he's definitely aware of that stupid deep-rooted feeling, the one that started ten years ago, that miserable first time he had to wake up at four am after two hours of sleep and roll out of bed and shower in subzero dorm temperatures—that first time he stumbled into Jaejoong in the hallway and all the grumpiness and hostility just melted away when Jaejoong gave him that first sleepy smile and Yoochun smiled back.
And never really stopped.
"...so you're not dating each other," Seunghyun mutters, brows furrowed.
That's not a question, Yoochun thinks.
Jaejoong's hold tightens. The grin fades.
"So vanilla," Jiyong snorts in English, slipping his hands in Seunghyun's coat pocket.
But Seunghyun's too busy looking stunned to pay him any attention. "I really thought..."
Things are starting to click for Yoochun, way too fast, so he averts his eyes and reminds with a shaky exhale, "I have to be on set in two hours."
"Same," Seunghyun mumbles numbly, shaking Jiyong's hands out of his pocket.
Undeterred, Jiyong sways closer, mumbling. "Should we call a cab?"
"We have a car," Seunghyun points out, rooted in place, short-cropped hair dusted with a thick layer of snow.
Jiyong makes a face. "Yeah, but they look like they're about to fuck in it, so—"
Yoochun's suddenly burning like he's in hell already, so, wordlessly, he untangles himself from a protesting Jaejoong and scoots around the car, sinks into the driver's seat, and hides his face in the steering wheel.
Obviously satisfied, Jaejoong opens the passenger side and slips in, smugly calling out to the other two, "He's my favorite, you know."
"Yeah, never would've guessed," Jiyong drawls as he sprawls across the backseat. "Good job hiding it. You're very smooth, hyung."
Seunghyun piles in after him, lips twitching.
Jaejoong turns his head around to stare. "This is why we don't hang out."
"With me, you mean," Jiyong accuses, snatching Seunghyun's sunglasses off and breathing on them. He rubs at a wet smudge. " 'Cause you hang out with him all the fucking time."
Yoochun's still unable to form sentences so he just peels off, skipping gears and ignoring every single flashing warning light.
In comparison, Jaejoong's not speechless at all.
In fact, he can't shut up, still wearing a lopsided giddy smile.
"We hog him, you mean," he says happily. "Yeah, Seunghyunnie mentioned you don't like to share."
Instantly, Seunghyun kicks Yoochun's seat.
"It's his one day off," Jiyong says, deceptively calm. He tosses the sunglasses back at Seunghyun. "I don't see why he wanted to spend it with you guys. You're boring. I'm not."
"Stop talking before you say something you'll regret," Yoochun warns and burns up.
"You only regret things you don't say," Jaejoong says.
Yoochun shuts up.
So does Jiyong.
But Seunghyun steels himself and grips the door handle in a way that suggests he's gonna break it just enough to null the fucking warranty, then says, "Okay."
"Okay?" Jiyong asks suspiciously.
"Yeah. I. Fine, yeah, I wanted to hang out with hyung today, without you," Seunghyun says carefully and with so much awkward reserve that Yoochun feels the pain down to his bones. "I wanted to ask him... stuff."
Inappropriately curious, Jaejoong turns around. "Which hyung."
Seunghyun's grip tightens. "Yoochun-hyung."
Alarmed, Yoochun fixes his eyes on the speedometer, thinking don't fucking say it, don't say—
"—I thought," Seunghyun starts, voice deepening. He makes a vague gesture at the front of the car. "I was sure they were fucking."
Yoochun swerves over the median, rear tires catching on ice.
The car spins violently, then drifts into a fluffy snowbank with a gentle thump.
"What do you care if they're fucking," Jiyong demands as though they didn't just almost crash and burn.
Shaking, Jaejoong collects himself and turns to stare at Yoochun.
Yoochun hopes the car explodes within the next ten seconds.
"I wanted advice, shit," Seunghyun growls, irritated and apparently totally oblivious to the near fatal car accident.
Jiyong pauses. "About fucking."
Seunghyun finally turns to look at him. "About you."
Jiyong stares. "About fucking me."
Seunghyun groans, glancing away.
There's absolute silence for a long moment.
Even the engine quiets down.
And then Jiyong leans into his window and curls up on himself and says softly, cheeks dark, "...sorry for tagging along."
And then no one speaks for an eternity so Yoochun anxiously restarts the car, super self-conscious.
The tires spin uselessly, burning at the slush and someone should probably go out and sprinkle salt or go to town with a shovel or just end the world in general, but the wheels turn and then they're back on the road, dawn breaking behind them.
"They're asleep," Jaejoong whispers eventually.
"Or faking," Yoochun replies, focused on road signs.
So far, so good. No North Korean outposts spotted.
Jaejoong lets the silence descend upon them again until Yoochun's sure he's dozed off, too, but then Jaejoong says, dangerously, "I wanna take a picture of them."
Yoochun feels an automatic tug at his lips. "I'll testify in court for the prosecution. It'd be justifiable homicide."
Jaejoong's face is serious. "Either I do that or something even more stupid."
Yoochun can't imagine what could be stupider—
Jaejoong's fingers slide to his thigh.
"This is a brand new car, hyung," Yoochun says because he can't deal, "and I already destroyed the shit out of—"
"It's my car," Jaejoong points out, "and I don't care."
Hesitatingly, Yoochun eases off the gas. His right hand drops to his lap. His fingers twine with Jaejoong's. He means to pry them off, but ends up holding Jaejoong's hand like a lifeline.
"I don't," he says.
Jaejoong should look confused but doesn't.
"I don't forget about you in crowded rooms," Yoochun says quietly. "I want to."
Jaejoong's features soften. "I know."
Yoochun's heart feels like a broken furnace, boiling over and unbearably full. "And I—"
"I know."
"You're not gonna let me finish that sentence, are you," Yoochun grins.
Jaejoong gives him a smile so warm it suddenly feels like the middle of July. "Not with those two around."
"Gay," Jiyong mumbles, beanie pulled over his eyes.
The car splutters to a stop and Yoochun glances at the display, then laughs, long and hard and hysterically.
"Chun-ah?"
Yoochun turns bright eyes to Jaejoong and whispers, "We're out of gas."
Yeah, maybe maxing out the heat in a gas-guzzler wasn't the brightest idea Yoochun's ever had.
But he's not exactly full of bright ideas tonight.
His fingers lace through Jaejoong's again.
Jaejoong's mouth twitches. "Junsu would never let us run out of gas."
Yoochun nods. "Junsu's the normal one."
"And I'm not," Jaejoong smiles.
"Nope."
"And you're not," Jaejoong starts, way too tentatively.
"Nope."
"So maybe we should just—"
"FUCK ALREADY," Jiyong snarls, kicking at both of their seats.
"Drop me off on set before you do," Seunghyun mutters and rubs his face like a weary grandpa.
"Drop him off at my studio," Jiyong grumbles, stubbornly glaring out of the window.
"We're out of gas."
"Get out and push."
Maybe Yoochun's gonna push him off a cliff. Maybe he's gonna push everybody off a cliff.
Except Jaejoong.
Jaejoong, he's gonna keep for at least another fifty, sixty years.
Content, Yoochun opens his mouth to bicker with the little cockblocker in the back but his phone is vibrating.
He glances at the screen and beams.
"And how's our only sane member?" he greets.
Jaejoong leans over and breathes into the phone, and into Yoochun's face, "Junsu-yah, come pick us up~"
There's a beat and then Junsu laughs sheepishly.
"Yeah, about that," he says. "I kinda need you guys to come bail me out."