| Fan Fiction |
by SleepiiDreamer
Even if I told you, Jae, would you be able to handle it? Would you be able to watch me go through my mood swings without a pang in your heart? Would you be able to feed me my medicine daily and not watch with a heavy heart, wondering if the medication could really work? Could you watch me get weaker day by day…and then eventually perish away? Because ultimately, it would lead to exactly that.
I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know anything. But I knew if it was the other way around, I would rather die than to see you in such pain. I knew that if it was you, I would not be able to deal with it. Call me selfish. Call me irrational. Call me whatever—I was only looking out for you.
I knew the virus was living inside me. It can’t kill me just yet, and it probably won’t. It would be the opportunist infections that would kill me. Maybe it was just me being paranoid, but every time I think about it, I feel weaker. Every second, I feel myself fading away, piece by piece.
I wonder if it was that way for Yoo Chun. If it was like this for me, I could only image how it would be for Yoo Chun.
-----
“Welcome to Insomnia Cookies!” A girl with a heart shaped face and curly shoulder length hair, which were pulled up into pigtails, greeted me. She bowed slightly as I stepped into the store, greeting me with her charming eye-smile. She must have been the girl that my boss hired to replace me.
She was dressed in the working attire of the store—the pink “Insomnia Cookies” apron and a white dress shirt underneath. As if the store wasn’t pink enough for its own being, the girl brought it to an extreme.
Her accessories were even pink. She had a pink bow in her hair, pink star-studded earrings, and even the leather wristlet on her arm was pink. I glanced down at her name-tag, which the letters were coated with the color—no surprise—pink. “Tiffany.”
Gee. This job must be perfect for her.
“Err, hi.” I started, clearing my throat. “I came here to see—”
“Fany ah, did you find were we put the walnuts for the next batch of cookies?”
Just then, Choi Siwon’s head popped out from behind and smiled warmly at the pink-obsessed girl. His eyes then rested on me and his eyes enlarged in surprise; his grin widened and his lips formed my name. “Long time no see!”
Tiffany turned to look at Siwon, her pigtails swinging cutely. “Oppa, is she a friend of yours?” She turned back to look at me and her smile widened. “Anhaesaeyo. You’re Korean, right? My name is Tiffany Hwang! You can call me Fany if you want! Everyone calls me Fany for short, even oppa here.”
She smiled brightly and her eyes turned into half crescent moons. I was taken aback by her charm and openness. If I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of my orientation because of my overwhelming love for Jae Joong, I would’ve wavered for this girl. I nodded awkwardly and bowed politely, introducing myself.
“Fany, she used to work here, with Ri In’s boyfriend, Junsu.” Siwon explained, dusting off his hands, which were coated with flour on his pink apron. I was surprised that he was wearing one too.
“Oh! So she knows Junsu oppa and Ri In too!” She said with a cute laugh, turning to look at me, her eyes sparkling like gems. “Aren’t they just the cutest couple?”
I smiled awkwardly again and nodded. “Speaking of them, where is Junsu?” I avoided looking into Siwon’s eyes. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I didn’t want him to see the dark circles under my eyes but I realize that maybe it was because I was paranoid of what he might see in my eyes. Maybe he would see the true me underneath it all.
Instead, I stared into Tiffany’s sparkling eyes. She smiled when she caught my eye and then I was, once again, captivated by her eye-smile. How did so much cute pack into one small girl? I bet she had made a lot of straight girls and gay guys question their orientation.
“Well, I’m here to help out because Junsu took Ri In out because they’re celebrating their anniversary today,” Siwon explained, and smiled sweetly at Tiffany, who grinned at him as if saying thanks for helping her out. I could somehow tell by the glint in his eyes when he looked at Tiffany that he was here not only because he was doing a favor for Junsu. He then looked up at me and tilted his head to the side. “You didn’t know?”
“Err…no, I didn’t. I wanted it to be a surprise so…” I said, lowering my eyes. “I didn’t call in advance to tell them that I would be coming.” In fact, I hadn’t been calling them at all. I felt guilty. Junsu was, after all, my best friend.
“I wish I could tell you something different, but I don’t think that they would make coming here anywhere near their priority on their agenda tonight,” Siwon said with a chuckle as his eyes followed Tiffany, who kneading the cookie dough to be polite and to stay out of our conversation. Siwon then glanced up at me and his face flushed as he realized he was caught.
“Oh, its okay.” I assured him with a smile and adjusted my bag strap on my shoulder as I got ready to leave. “I guess I’ll stop by some other time.” I bowed slightly at him and at Tiffany. “Thanks. See you soon!”
As I was about to open the door, Siwon called out my name. I turned around to see a weird look on his face.
“Hey, did you lose weight?” He asked, tilting his head to the side and examining me. I quickly tried to shift my body and shield myself from his gaze. “You must be studying hard for your finals. Don’t stress yourself ok? Look at those bags under your eyes. Eat healthy and get enough sleep.” Siwon’s forehead creased as he frowned at me disapprovingly.
Well, I haven’t been going much to any of my classes and had even missed some of my finals because of my treatments and my responsibility to spend time with Yoo Chun. But Siwon didn’t know that.
“Haha,” I chuckled nervously. “I understand, err, I’ll go now. Thanks, see you!”
“Hey, wait—”
CLANK!
Suddenly, a shriek emitted from where Tiffany stood and Siwon and I both turned to look at her. She had knocked over the flour and now the substance tainted the floors of the kitchen. She looked up and gave Siwon an apologetic look. Siwon must’ve melted from that look and his eyes totally soften as he told her that he would get a broom and clean up the mess.
I used this distraction as an escape route. I owe Tiffany Hwang one for this.
But as I was walking down the street, away from Insomnia Cookies, I felt a familiar pang in my heart and it ached. I placed my hand on my chest and frowned, as I know what had caused that dull ache to come back. It was the way Siwon looked at Tiffany—it was the same way Jae Joong looked at me.
-----
“Here,” Yunho said, handing a small package in his hands over to me in the car as he drove me back home. I looked blankly at the brown cardboard packaged, then at Yunho, and blinked.
“What is it?”
“Just open it, you’ll see.” Yunho said blatantly, holding the package over with one hand and his other hand still on the wheel, his expression not betraying anything.
I hesitantly took the package from Yunho and before opening it, shook it lightly and glanced at Yunho’s profile for any clue. “What is it?” I asked, amused, but I was half-talking to myself. As Yunho opened his mouth to give me a probably snarky and sarcastic answer, I was already done ripping open the package.
“Eh?”
“What? You don’t like it?” Yunho’s brow furrowed.
“Ah, no…” I quickly countered. “It’s not like that,” I reached in the package and pulled out the object. “It’s just…”
“Yah—don’t be so ungrateful, Shim Chung!” Yunho said as he took his eyes off the road for a split second to give me a nasty, yet playful look. “I saw that your model was getting old and I went out of my way to get you a better one.”
“But Yunho, it’s so expensive!” I delicately took the cell phone out of the box to examine it. It was the newest up-to-date model. It was the new Cooky phone that came out a few weeks ago, and was sponsored by the hottest girl group in Korea, and Yoo Chun’s favorite girl group, Girls’ Generation. I looked up at Yunho and narrowed my eyes. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion.” Yunho said with a shrug. “Your old phone just looked miserable. I want to put it out of its misery.” He gave me a big grin.
“I can’t accept this though.” I said, placing the cell phone back into the box.
“Oh you better darn well accept it!” Yunho snapped. “I haven’t given you a present in years and you’re going to reject it?”
“It’s too expensive.” I insisted.
“You seem to forget, Shim Chung, that I am a doctor.” Yunho said, clearing his throat and throwing me another look. “I can afford that thing in an hour’s work. You better accept it.”
The way his mouth curved down in a frown softened my stubbornness. “Fine,” I said, giving in. “But don’t get me any more presents. It’ll make me feel bad.”
Yunho’s mouth dropped and a smug expression spread across his face. “You think a guy like me would give presents to girls, just like that? You better cherish that darn thing too! It’ll be the last present you’ll get if you keep on giving me that kind of attitude!”
I laughed at Yunho’s words. They sounded so silly and childish—He sounded like the little boy I knew when I had first met him and not the doctor and professional he now was. It comforted me that we can still have conversations like these. I liked being like this—just joking around and being silly. It kept my mind off unwanted things.
Yunho pouted. He looked very childish and out of place with that expression on his face and wearing a dress shirt and glasses. Then, that expression slowly faded away as my laugh died down. He sighed. “You know, I like you better when you are like this.”
Even though his eyes were straight forward, looking at the road, I could tell that he was observing me through the corner of his eyes.
“I like it better when it’s like this too…” I said, looking up at him, but he shifted his gaze away.
It was like he knew. He knew that this was suffocating me, too. It was because most of the time, Yunho wasn’t acting like Yunho, my neighbor and childhood friend, but Yunho, my doctor. Yunho, the doctor, was concerned mostly about how to treat me and get me physically better, but was as a loss to how to make me better emotionally.
And Yoo Chun…
Yoo Chun never says much, but the way he looked at me, he looked like he would rather be dead than to see me in this state. It killed me inside
Maybe I need normality in all of this. I need something to keep me sane.
“Anyway, thanks for this, Yunho.” I said, gesturing to the cell phone. “It’s really nice. I needed a new phone anyway.”
Yunho nodded. “I’m glad you like it.” His tone was back to normal; carefree. It lightened up the mood instantly.
“You need to help me transfer my contacts and files though.” I said, “And do this mean I get a new number too? Or do I keep my old one?”
“Err—I think it’s a new number.” He said, but he scratched his head. “I don’t know for sure. Just activate it first then.”
I nodded.
“What kind of files you need to transfer anyway?”
My mind flashed back to all the pictures of Jae Joong I have in my phone. All those memories…
One side of me wanted to tell Yunho to never mind it. I didn’t want my files transferred. It would be too hard for me to cope if I kept those pictures. I didn’t want to remember all those memories if it would only bring unhappiness in the end.
But I was not that strong yet. I can’t live without Jae Joong in my life—not just yet. I was being selfish—still trying to hold on to a part of him.
“Just some pictures…” I said softly.
Yunho got the hint.
“Yeah, no problem,” He said quickly. “I would try to do anything I can to help.”
He said those words so intensely; I realized that he meant that in so many different ways. When I looked into his eyes, I could only see sincerity and concern. I knew that he truly cared for me. He wanted to be there for me because I had lost everyone whose important already—Jae Joong, Chang Min, Yoo Chun—to this situation.
I lowered my head down so he wouldn’t see my tears.
“Yeah, I know… Thanks, Yunho.”
Thank you for everything…
____________________________________________________________
woohoo. 51! dang, this story is getting long. HOW DID YOU GUYS PUT UP WITH ALL OF THIS? i would've given up by now, but you guys didn't, so thank you for sticking with me ^^
i went to rutgers and i ODed on buying all those hoodies/t-shirts. haha i have too MUCH school spirit. i really srsly cannot wait to officially become a scarlet knight & go dorm august. yay! i would show you a selca of me in my rutgers hoodie, but i looked horrible today because of my lack of sleep.
oh, and i am SO failing my AP test. thankyouverymuch.
and rofl, i had a dream of f(x)'s Amber yesterday & hankyung. that was random. :]
ask me questions? i will answer them individually.
http://onioning.com/eeereenahhs
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uhh... you want to look @ me reposting picture of snsd & dbsk?
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hehe peace~
sleepiidreamer