| Fan Fiction |
by Micah
Heebon’s jaws dropped in shock. The crowd shut up and Junsu pulled Yoochun away.
Yoochun silently followed. He reminded himself that he was mute. He couldn’t talk. No matter how much he wanted to speak. No matter how much he wanted to ask Junsu, ‘Did you mean that? Do you really not care anymore?’
He was afraid to ask. He was afraid of the answer.
But he still got the answer anyway.
When they stood alone in an isolated area of a park, Junsu stopped walking and released Yoochun’s hand.
“I appreciate your help,” the slightly shorter man finally spoke after an eternity of stretched silence. His back was towards Yoochun.
Yoochun had dropped his notebook and pen back at the scene. But then, what was there to say?
“Now you just go home and tell Micky that I defended you,” was the second time he spoke. Then he walked away.
Yoochun’s heart broke again. Every falling piece matched every step that Junsu took. Yoochun didn’t run after him, it would be useless; you can’t stop a heart from breaking.
‘Tell Micky that I defended you.’
To get on Micky’s good side. To let Micky know that Junsu was good to his brother. To make Micky forgive Junsu for nearly sending his brother to jail.
Did Junsu still think that ‘Micky’ was distant from him because ‘Micky’ was still angry about having his brother dragged to the police station?
Yoochun chuckled bitterly.
Junsu was wrong.
And Yoochun wanted so much to tell him.
■■■■■
“I’ve never seen Hyung cry before…not after Umma died,” Se7en murmured sadly as they walked away from Yoochun’s closed door.
They knew he tried to hold it in, but even through the doors, they could hear his sobs.
“He’s hurting,” Jaejoong sighed.
“He’s hurting because he loves Kim Junsu. He’s hurting because he can’t tell Kim Junsu. He’ll hurt if Kim Junsu rejects him. If he’s going to hurt either way…”
“He wants to stay beautiful in Kim Junsu’s heart,” Jaejoong murmured.
“I can’t understand.”
“It’s difficult to understand.”
“I just know that I don’t want to see him like this,” Se7en mumbled.
“There’s a way.”
“Do you have another one of your weird ideas again?” the younger man frowned.
“Do you want to keep seeing him suffer like this? Listen, what we have right now is a wound stabbed by a dagger. The dagger is still in and it’ll keep hurting, bleeding. If we pull the dagger out—force him to talk to Kim Junsu—then it’ll be like…like pulling the dagger out.”
“That’ll hurt too,” Se7en protested.
“It’ll hurt, but once the dagger is out, then the wound can heal. You want to give him the chance to heal, don’t you? It’s better to have a recovered scar than a forever hurting wound.”
The younger man closed his eyes and tried to think. He would have to betray his older brother.
He remembered all the sad expressions and pain that his brother had been carrying around for the past weeks. It hurt so much to see, especially in recent days when his brother couldn’t even fake a smile anymore.
His brother never used to be like this. He’d learn to fight back, to tell a crowd of people to ‘Shut the hell up’ when they insulted his scar. But because of Kim Junsu, his brother had lost that courage. Because of Kim Junsu, shallowness mattered again.
“Okay, fine, what do we have to do?”
Jaejoong patted his back and gave him an encouraging smile. “We push him to the edge and hope he won’t jump off.”
■■■■■
The photo shoot was moved to today. Last time, everyone had been too rattled by seeing Se7en nearly get hit by a car and was in no mood to take pictures. And last time, Junsu was too pissed off and too busy thinking he should be jealous/angry towards Changmin.
“Okay, the set is done. Let’s get started!” the photographer clapped.
The three men were in the changing room getting their suits on. Junsu was sitting outside waiting. He saw Yunho walk in to join the photo shoot. Changmin was nowhere in sight.
“What are you doing here?” Jaejoong was first to walk out of the changing room.
“That’s rude,” Yunho pointed out, because the question was directed towards him.
“It’s hard for me to be nice to you when I don’t like your friend,” Jaejoong directed a glance towards Junsu.
Junsu ignored him and walked over to Se7en and Yoochun. He ignored Yoochun, but pretended to fix Se7en’s bowtie. As if the touch would spark something, to give him a hint that this really was his Micky (or give him a hint that he was no longer in love with Micky).
No sparks.
“You look very handsome,” he complimented.
Se7en was looking pass Junsu to see Yunho. “Hey, your detective friend is here too. Where’s your doctor friend?”
Junsu didn’t exactly feel jealous as he replied, “I wish I knew.”
“Hello, I bought drinks for everyone,” Yunho greeted as he held up a bag of drinks. “I invited Changmin. He claims to be busy.”
“Oh,” Se7en murmured with a little too much disappointment in his eyes and Yoochun had to pinch his arm. “Ouch!”
“What’s wrong?” Jaejoong and Junsu chorused.
Se7en cleared his throat as he glared at his older brother, “Nothing. A bug bit me.”
They each picked out drinks from the bag. Jaejoong handed Yoochun his favorite: orange juice.
“Oh, oops, I only bought one orange juice,” Yunho apologized.
“That’s okay,” Jaejoong smiled at him and Yunho looked like he’d won the lottery.
“Did anyone else want orange juice?” Se7en asked, because Yoochun had signaled for him to do so.
“No,” Junsu replied and everyone else followed.
Yoochun went ahead and drank the orange juice, releasing a small burp right after. That was when it hit him: Junsu knew that Micky would burp from drinking orange juice!
With horrified eyes, Yoochun looked up at Junsu. Junsu was casually talking to Yunho.
Did he not hear the burp? Did he not remember this habit about Micky?
Or maybe…he was pretending to not notice, to not know?
“Is everyone ready?” the photographer shouted.
“Yes!” Jaejoong replied just as loud. He linked arms with Se7en and Yoochun and then ran towards the set. “Let’s get started!”
Jaejoong and Se7en were posing for picture after picture. Yoochun stood to one side, hair covering his face and wearing a cap that didn’t quite match his tux. Junsu and Yunho stood to the other side. Yunho was observing the other three carefully while Junsu was just too tired (lack of sleep) and too confused (still) to notice much.
“Join us!” Jaejoong suddenly shouted as he ran to tug Yoochun in.
“This hat doesn’t match, Hyung. Take it off, please?” Se7en begged.
Yoochun shook his head and made some hand gestures that only Se7en and Jaejoong could understand.
Yunho whispered to Junsu, “I’ve learned sign language before. That’s not sign language.”
Junsu blinked as he watched the three interact.
The two eventually convinced Yoochun to take off the hat, ignoring when other people stared in shock at the distortion of his cheek. One particular pose caught Junsu’s eyes.
Se7en and Jaejoong were silently scheming for this particular pose. Junsu saw their eye contacts. Before Yoochun could even react (and with the photographer just snapping away), the two brushed his hair out of the way and made kissing faces. Se7en stood to his left and Jaejoong to his right.
They each planted a kiss on Yoochun’s cheeks and it looked like the most natural thing in the world. Jaejoong’s lips touched his scar, but only the superficial people would notice. They switched sides and did the same thing.
The two continued to put Yoochun through weird poses and it no longer seemed like they were taking wedding pictures. They were just taking pictures for the fun of it.
But as Jaejoong said, they weren’t paying a cent for it so why not?
Eventually, Yoochun (being most mature) stopped them. He waved his hands ‘No’ and pointed at his watch. They didn’t have all day.
“Okay, fine, we’ll stop,” Jaejoong grumbled. Se7en stood next to him looking just as disappointed.
“Aren’t you going to take a picture with him?” Yunho spoke to Junsu, but loud enough for the others to hear.
“Oh, yeah! You two can join us! You’re paying, after all,” Jaejoong grinned cheekily. Yoochun was tugging at his sleeve again, but he ignored it.