
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/779468.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ, So_Nyuh_Shi_Dae_|_Girls'_Generation
  Relationship:
      Shim_Changmin/Im_Yoona
  Character:
      Shim_Changmin, Im_Yoona
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-04-30 Words: 6097
****** Burnt in Between ******
by nikatsu
Summary
     Jaejoong loves Yoona as much as the sun rises from the east. Which is
     always because it is one of very few true things he knows. But
     Jaejoong loves BoA as much as dry earth craves water. It rejuvenates…
     it satiates. It brings him back to life.
Notes
     jaejoong-centric | feat. jaejoong/yoona, jaejoong/boa and changmin/
     yoona
     dark angst (au), 6099w, r. | trigger warnings: incest, rape, implied
     violence
     a/n: Please beware of the trigger warnings! Some themes here never
     happened to me, of course, but while I was writing this—they felt fit
     for the story. This is based on a recurring horrific nightmare I had
     when I was 10-13 years old, and is written for a very overdue
     aupairs@LJ prompt "hoodlums".
 “I think I finally get it.”
 
Jaejoong takes a long drag out of his cigarette, letting the smoke burn down
his throat and fill his lungs. The sun will rise in a couple of minutes, its
light threatening to swallow the shine out from its’ stars—switch off.
 
“Get what?”
 
Her grin is grim when she finally looks at him, her eyes usually bright despite
the dark circles under her eyes. It has been too long a day, and Yoona was all
too young to look so old. He let himself wrap her inside his arms, hoping that
it would be enough but knowing it would never be.
 
“I’m yours, aren’t I?”
 
“Always.”
 
She shakes her head. “No, not really,” she tells him and he hesitates.
 
“No,” he repeats because it’s only the truth. No, not really.
 
 
 
 
Jaejoong loves Yoona as much as the sun rises from the east. Which isalways
because it is one of very few true things he knows.
 
 
 
 
Jaejoong is ten when he meets a five year old Yoona, all gangly limbs and gap-
toothed smiles. His new adoptive parents are nice enough though their always
out, leaving him to watch over their daughter alone in a big, big house. Yoona
has about everything a little girl could want, dolls and books and clothes, but
all she seems to care for is the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he makes
over the counter because he (thinks) is old enough—smart enough—to handle a
knife (it’s a bread knife, but still a knife) without hurting himself.
 
“Yoongie, I already made you four sandwiches! You can’t eat mine!” he whines,
pouting. His cheeks are padded with bread crumbs and small dollops of jelly.
His plate is littered with crumbs as well, all thanks to Yoona munching on his
sandwiches as though they were her own and grinning (always grinning) at him
from her seat on the counter.
 
She is too happy a child, her feet dangling from the table, but Jaejoong likes
her that way. Likes her in the same way he likes his peanut butter with jelly.
Which is all the time because nothing pairs the spread better… and no one is
better with him than Yoona.
 
“Oppa! Your food is mine, ok!” She makes him promise, lifting her pinky towards
him and smiling that gap-toothed smile. And he relents because he’d already
decided that whatever was his was hers as well the second she’d come to his
life.
 
“Ok, Yoona.”
 
 
 
 
Jaejoong loves Yoona as much as the sun rises from the east.
 
 
 
 
Lies are toxic, but they flow so easily out of his mouth he starts to believe
them as truths.
 
My parents died when I was little so yours thought I should live with you
instead.His first lie is easiest to say because he’d hardly known any figure to
fill the spot of missing guardians all of his life. He was found in box outside
of a nursing home, taken in by the elderly and presented to nurses who didn’t
know what to do with him. Strung along a series of arms and homes for years and
years that were never completely willing to accept him into their world—
 
Until they found him, scratched up and bloodied after getting into it with
slightly older and tougher bullies in the block. Half-dead, he remembers, but
proud to have fought off enemies in his small size.
 
“We’ll help you find your parents,” one of them (Yoona’s mother) had cooed,
patting the dirt off his cheeks. “But for now, you’ll live with us.”
 
Her partner (husband, whatever) had only nodded in agreement, helping him up to
his feet and pulling him with them. Jaejoong becomes a part of a family he does
not know the very next day and suddenly it becomes too easy for him to lie.
 
It becomes easy to lie about his origins to his new little sister; about his
parents that don’t look anything like him to too curious neighbors peeking in;
about his protectiveness over his Yoona to those who adopted him, who took care
of him when no one wanted to.
 
It becomes easy to lie about what he knew of them; of their so-called jobs and
late night meetings. It becomes easy to lie about never being an orphan when
really he still was.
 
(But Yoona doesn’t know what it means to be an orphan and Jaejoong prays she
never will.)
 
 
 
Which isalways because it is one of very few true things he knows.
 
 
 
 
Yoona grows up too beautifully, steadily every passing year that it begins to
weigh him down.
 
He’d ignored it at first. He’d ignored the little pangs that pinched at his
insides whenever she greeted him with a sweet smile. He’d ignored the warmth
flooding his cheeks; the blood rushing through his head and heart and to other
organs that should not be reacting so boldly at her presence. It caused him
pain to play nonchalant towards her. To pretend that she had no effect on him
when she did—doesand always.
 
His resolve dissolves late one summer night after she’d turns fifteen and
Jaejoong creeps into her room to watch her sleep.
 
He thought he’d been silent when he tiptoed towards her, already aching at the
thought of her—and even more at the sight of her. His mind raced. Yoona, Yoona,
Yoona…
 
“Does it hurt?”
 
She asks so quietly he almost missed it.
 
Jaejoong watches her rise from beneath her blankets, letting the sheets pool
around her waist. His dimmed eyes trained on her tongue darting across her lips
in a worried manner—the unconscious act daring him, really, to come closer.
 
She waves her hand at him clumsily, her gaze lowered to her lap as she asked
again—a quiver evident in her tone.
 
The quiver excited him, and his mind—the rational side of him—turns off.
 
“Yes. Help me out, Yoona.”
 
She gasps at the force of his hands gripping her hands overhead and cries at
the sharp pain of filling her abruptly. And while he would have stopped—would
have been horrified of himself—he was neither as he finished, completely spent
in his desire of her skin.
 
“Yours is mine, always.” He tells her, brushing her cheeks.
 
It was statement rather than a question.
 
She watches the blood stain the cloth beneath her, stone-faced and monotone.
There could only be one answer.
 
“Always.”
 
 
 
 
Always.
 
 
 
 
(It kills him to see her.)
 
Yoona keeps her promise.
 
(So he starts to skip classes, joins gangs and fights.)
 
She doesn’t question his way with her. Rough, scolding and selfish.
 
(Her parents don’t know—or perhaps they do, but don’t care.)
 
She stays.
 
(He likes to think it’s because she loves him.)
 
She stays, but her eyes never look to his.
 
(He figures that lies are better than the toxicity of her truth.)
 
 
 
 
Always.
 
 
 
 
His adoptive parents are murdered; hung by the neck in the middle of the living
room one winter morning. Jaejoong isn’t surprised to see them lifelessly
dangling when he woke that morning, but he’d hoped it would have been done
elsewhere rather than in the middle of the only home he’s ever known.
 
The Korean mafia wasn’t famous for being discreet with their crimes. Actually,
little is known of them at all and Jaejoong thinks he should be careful of what
he does know.
 
Yoona screams when she sees them—lying lifeless on stretchers and being carried
away by all too-indifferent paramedics. Her legs giving out from underneath her
as she clutches at him, her pain evident in her doe eyes.
 
She screams until her throat is hoarse but doesn’t cry, and it is this that
bothers him the most.
 
 
 
 
He loves BoA.
 
 
 
 
Jaejoong meets BoA outside of the homeless shelter the police put him and Yoona
in for the time being. He is taking a (too long) drag from his cigarette when
she comes up to him from the corner, her brows knitted in concern at his
disheveled appearance.
 
He’s known of her for a while from school. Her name as popular as strawberry
milk in a convenience store. The privileged girl from the better side of town,
born into perfectly rich parents, pretty (extremely, he finds himself thinking)
and perfect. Jaejoong doesn’t understand why she would be hanging around in
such a dank place as a homeless shelter, but he finds that he doesn’t care as
much as he should.
 
If she wanted to be there, then fine, he thinks, she’s not of my concern.
 
“It’s rude to stare,” he tells her, flicking his burned out cigarette in her
direction. He lights a new one as she pauses for a moment, locking her bike to
the side. She kicks his cigarette with her sneaker, rubbed down and well-
worn—old, which surprises him because he’d always thought girls like her didn’t
care for anything not ‘new’.
 
“I wasn’t staring. I was observing,” she replies nonchalantly, stopping just
near enough to breathe his smoke. BoA doesn’t flinch as he purposefully exhales
too close. Instead she narrows her eyes at him and smirks.
 
She smirks as though she knows him, as though she could understand him. Ah, the
classic good girl wanting to reform a bad boy. The thought makes him laugh.
 
He acts and leans, towards her (so so close). Her eyes are wide when he does
but doesn’t move away—staying put, perhaps, to show that she was brave. His
gaze flickers towards her pink lips, glossed by her tongue shyly running along
it as she stared at him. Waiting for him to strike, to do something.
 
And he does. Jaejoong captures her lips in between his and kisses her fiercely,
pressing himself roughly against her on the wall. His hands pulling the fabric
of her shirt upwards before raking his fingers on her pure skin, pushing her to
give up, to run away. But instead, she moans—an impassioned sound, low in her
throat and fluttering off her heated lips and onto his.
 
It was pitiful, how a sound could make him feel so powerful. So weak. So
ruined.
 
“Girls like you shouldn’t be around here.” He breathes, pulling back to look at
his handiwork. Her shirt open under his gaze, her breasts spilling from their
confinement as she arches towards him—achingto be touched once more. “If you
wanted a little fun, I’m sure any guy from the baseball team from school would
gladly”—his breath tickles her ear and she shivers—“take care of you.”
 
Her eyes burn with a fire Jaejoong didn’t think she would have. “I’d rather die
than let any of those idiotstouch me.” She spits. Her hands find their way onto
his shirt, curling over the material in a possessive manner that amused him.
Her smirk tells him that she wanted to play and something in him twitches in
response.
 
“But you… You, I wouldn’t mind touching.”
 
Jaejoong laughs as he pulls her towards the room the shelter had provided him.
He sees Yoona in the lounge, talking to an abandoned elderly couple but doesn’t
stop on his way. He ignores the way her brows shoot up in concern, the way her
eyes glaze over in realization and acceptance—the way her lips stays arched
down in indifference.
 
BoA touches him so close that night, and the contact burns his thoughts away.
 
 
 
It rejuvenates… it satiates.
 
 
 
BoA wants it rough when they are together. Chafing and wild. Her fingernails
biting against his skin, their mouths swearing at each other as their limbs
tangle in knots across the sheets. She tells him so on a night he doesn’t feel
like throwing her out, burying her nose against the crook of his neck and
spelling out the words with her lips.
 
He wants it rough only because it makes him forget.
 
 
 
He loves BoA as much as dry earth craves water.
 
 
 
He slides into her slow one night, grasping her thigh hard against his hip.
 
BoA’s body illuminates in the dark. A drop of his sweat travelling down the
valley of her exposed chest as she throws her head back and cries out.
 
The door opens just as he picks up the pace, responding in the only way he knew
with a woman’s body so willing for him. She hisses “I love you, Jaejoong” as
her eyes close—her moans echoing against the walls.
 
Jaejoong says it back, but not to her—but to another pair of eyes (big and
round—doe-like) looking on from the background. He grins, hating himself when
she shrugs and turns back—coming in his release hard and sweltering.
 
A lock clicks shut.
 
The room is dank of their sex and Yoona’s absence.
 
 
 
Jaejoong loves Yoona as much as the sun rises from the east.
 
 
 
It isn't how he envisioned things to be. He hadn't wanted anything grand for
himself, but he had wanted much more for her. Yoona deserved more than what was
thrust upon them. She deserved more than to live in a dank one-bedroom
apartment, away from school and getting by from what he earns doing things she
would never approve of if only she knew.
 
Yoona doesn’t smile as much as she used to. Jaejoong misses the way her eyes
slant one way as a grin overcomes her features, but these days are darker than
most and she rarely smiles easy anymore. It’s as though she’s switched off that
bright part of herself that he’d loved in the first place, the part he wanted
and jerked to in BoA’s body.
 
“I’m meeting my boss today,” he tells her during breakfast. They’ve had runny
eggs and ham again today for the past six consecutive days in two weeks and he
doesn’t wonder why Yoona only pushes them around in her plate. “Apparently I’m
moving up in the business if it means meeting him after only three years with
the crew.”
 
“You’re only 21 years old,” she replies, her tone grim. She doesn’t mean
anything by it but to Jaejoong it meant everything. For him it means ‘You’ll
get yourself killed’. It means ‘Be careful’. It means ‘I love you, oppa’.
 
“Yeah, I am,” he says, shoveling the last of his food into his mouth. “And
you’re 16. What are you trying to say?”
 
Yoona looks at him then and he starts, consumed by the way her eyes shine with
unshed tears that never really seemed to seep through. Her lips part, pink and
moist and he stares at them, wondering how long it’d been since he’d tasted
them under his. Three years and fifty-eight days, his mind offers and he
chastises himself for unconsciously keeping count.
 
It’d been three years and fifty-eight days since he’d pulled them out of the
homeless shelter and joined a powerful (and dangerous) mob to sustain their
livelihood. Three years since he’d taken BoA to his bed and him into hers—three
years since Yoona had stopped smiling for him or anyone. Three years since he’d
tasted her and still wanted her even though it was so fucking wrong for him to
feel that way.
 
“Nothing,” Yoona answers after minutes of silence. She finishes her orange
juice and nothing else before standing, wrapping her plate of food in saran
wrap before sticking it inside their dingy refridgerator. Jaejoong knows she
won’t eat it until much later, once the egg has turned solid because of the
cold and the ham become tasteless. He doesn’t like it but he says nothing to
reprimand her.
 
He’d done enough to damage her. It seemed too much now if he were to scold her
even more.
 
She watches him wearily as he brought his plate towards the sink, wiping his
hands on a dish towel before throwing it over a chair to dry. Her eyes are
glazed over again, seeing nothing and everything at the same time. She doesn’t
need to say anymore to him now, Jaejoong already knows it’s pointless but he
wished she’d try.
 
Jaejoong bites back a bemused laugh. He thinks he doesn’t deserve her effort
either.
 
“I’ll be back by tomorrow night then.”
 
 
 
 
His love for her (her, them) consumes him.
 
 
 
The boss partners him with another man of his age to overlook a drug exchange
between their crew and a reclusive but deadly Japanese mafia. His boss tells
him he can trust Changmin—“he’s my best”—but Jaejoong thinks to himself that he
shouldn’t.
 
No one should ever trust a mob member. Let alone another who seemed almost
exactly like him.
 
“The drop-off is easy enough. It’s getting to the meeting place that’s going to
be a problem. The vicinity’s smack-dab in the middle of all five police
stations in the city.” Changmin says later, waving at a map with a cigarette in
hand. He grins in amusement as Jaejoong watches him with weary eyes. Changmin
is obviously educated, too tall for his own good and exceedingly charming. It
puts him off how someone like him could be mixed up in a business like theirs
but Jaejoong wasn’t one to judge. He didn’t have a right to.
 
“I’m actually pretty impressed that the Japs were smart enough to ensure the
exchange only troubles us since it’s in their area. Too bad they let pick where
exactly in the area—they can’t complain if we ask for the exchange in the
sewage line.”
 
“Think it’ll be safe?” Jaejoong finally asks after a minute or two. “The pipes
you’re suggesting we meet at are too close to three of those police stations.
Wouldn’t it be suspicious if men in tailored suits suddenly started climbing
down manholes?”
 
The smirk on Changmin’s face unnerves him and he grips his cigarette a little
too forcefully as he replies, “That’s why we’re taking another route to the
meeting place. The Japs can figure out themselves how to get there—but we, we
take the access chute in janitor’s basement room of the abandoned shopping
mall. It’ll take us to the meeting spot in less the ten minutes. I’ve already
got guys there clearing the place of any shit we might step on. It’s all been
covered, Im. You don’t have to worry.”
 
Jaejoong nods, stubbing out his cigarette with a grunt. He moves to light
another one up as Changmin takes his turn to observing him. He doesn’t even
want to think about what he might be judging about him. They were sitting
across from each other, both leaning back against their respective chairs and
cross-legged.
 
“I have two sisters, you know. I get why you would be cautious about this sort
of thing.” Changmin offers, tossing a lighter his way after his burns out. The
luminous flame is bigger than Jaejoong expected it to be when he lights his
cig, drawing shadows of his hand over the map splayed on the table between
them. Jaejoong waits, flicking his eyes towards him, bidding him to continue
before Changmin actually does, “One’s in second year of high school and a real
pest while the other’s in her middle school and in pigtails. I did my research
and I know you’re a protective brother like me, just trying to give my family a
fighting chance. This drop-off guarantees an excessive pay-off so don’t worry
about it falling out because it won’t. I made sure of it.”
 
They sit in silence and then Jaejoong speaks, “Anything else I should know
about?”
 
Changmin shrugs. “I think your girlfriend’s hot, if that means anything. Pity
you don’t love her enough to be honest. She’s not my type or anything but she
is hot so I’ll give you that.”
 
He laughs despite himself, unsurprised somehow that this person—his
partner—could know much more about him than he’d ever allow anyone to find out.
He realizes that he’d been right not to trust Changmin, but he was entertaining
at least—that he’ll give him credit for.
 
“You really are one of the best, huh?” he says after an obnoxiously loud laugh,
his eyes glittering dangerously as Changmin’s gaze meets his dead on.
 
Changmin smirks, exhaling a puff smoke to gather around him. “I amthe best.”
 
 
 
But he also loves BoA as much as dry earth craves water.
 
 
 
BoA gave him the keys to her apartment the second she bought it for herself.
She’s too smart for her own good, having able to establish herself quickly even
without the help of her father’s money. She was sexy and charming to business
partners, and they trusted her. It was just a shame that BoA only trusted him.
 
His lips skim the column of her neck that night he stops by, nipping at her
flesh as she tittered between sleep and wakefulness. It doesn’t take much for
her to whimper under his carress and Jaejoong thinks he likes that most of all
about her. He thinks it’s the only reason why he’s kept her around all these
years.
 
“I won’t be here tomorrow when you get back from work.” He tells her after,
their limbs strewn together under her Egyptian sheets. Her head on his chest
lifts as she turns to look at him, brow furrowing at his words. “I’m meeting my
boss at his villa to discuss a new project. Might take overnight.”
 
“Okay,” she replies, nodding her head, her tone unusually pleasant for someone
who’d been screaming herself hoarse less than a minute ago, “I’ll take Yoona
out for a girls’ then.”
 
“You don’t have to.”
 
“Why not?” BoA argues, raising an eyebrow at him. Challenging him to retort.
“I’ve never actually met her these past three years we’d been sleeping together
and I really think I should.”
 
Jaejoong hates that Changmin was right about her and how his body betrays the
anger he feels. BoA is beautiful and he loves her (so much or not enough?) so
his desire overshadows his rage. It’s all too cliché, really, how much he—the
anti-hero—could be so in love (and lust) with two women at the same time. He
hates the fact that he is nothing but that—a cliché. One that will most likely
die in the end of this tale.
 
“Jaejoong, why can’t I meet her?”
 
“Because I don’t want you to.” Jaejoong tells her roughly, flipping her over
onto her back—one hand braced on the left side of her head while the other
forced her knees apart. She looked at him wide-eyed in half-concealed fright,
mute now that he’d flourished his power over her once again. He dipped his
fingers between her thighs, spreading the wetness seeping there—watching the
fight in her ebb away as she threw her head back to cry out before pulling away
to straddle her thorax.
 
“Yoona is my business, not yours—so shut up about it and put your mouth to good
use.”
 
BoA’s eyes are lidded by the time her lips touch the tip of him and it takes
all of his strength (anger) to be gentle as he fucked her mouth. He comes at
the sight of her fearful gaze, tinged with all of the lust and love she felt
for him all these years, marking her as his alone without his meaning to.
 
He leaves her to lying on the bed, covered in his release without another look
back. If he had spared a glance, he wouldn’t have been able to forget the tears
shining in her eyes. Tears he wished were Yoona’s instead of hers.
 
 
 
 
His love consumes him.
 
 
 
The drop-off is a success and Jaejoong, for the first time since entering the
mob, revels in the benefits of its riches. He offers Changmin a meal—“My
treat.” he said—in celebration of their easy accomplishment at the diner where
he knows Yoona works at. It’s late and not much patrons are left eating at the
establishment when they arrive and Jaejoong thinks the timing was as perfect as
it should be.
 
He waves at Yoona from one of the corner booths, grinning unusually bright at
her furrowed brows and tight-lipped expression as she comes over with a notepad
in hand. “This is my sister, Yoona,” he introduces, pulling her down beside him
inside the booth—his arm possessively wrapped around her waist. The indignant
yelp of complete surprise isn’t lost to him but he ignores it anyway, only
pulling her closer than ever to smell the scent of peaches and bread wafting
from her form.
 
Yoona regards him with a soft hello and without thinking Jaejoong presses a
kiss on her neck. She stiffens in his hold almost instantly, her jaw tightening
at the gesture though her face remained as impassive as it was when she arrived
at their table. He’d think she was teasing him if it weren’t for the hard state
of her gaze, focused forward but empty.
 
His chest aches and his hold lets go. She breathes.
 
From his end, Changmin stares at them curiously but thankfully says nothing
about what he saw.
 
Jaejoong thinks he might like him a little better if he keeps his mouth shut
more.
 
“I’m Changmin,” he says a beat later, offering his hand to Yoona despite the
glare Jaejoong sends his way. “I didn’t quite catch your name. Is it Joo—”
 
“It’s Yoona,” She responds, correcting him meekly. The way she shyly meets
Changmin’s gaze as she collects herself, stands and asks for their order makes
Jaejoong’s stomach turn. He doesn’t miss the slight genuine upturn on her lips,
or the lingering glance Changmin throws her way throughout the night but he
keeps quiet instead.
 
He doesn’t pay for their meals, leaving him before the bill arrives and rushing
out the door to catch a cab over to the East side of the city as irrational
anger festers in his gut.
 
Jaejoong doesn’t think Changmin would care at all.
 
 
 
It consumes him.
 
 
 
BoA welcomes him with open arms—where he spends days buried in her. Sanctuary.
 
Always, she cries his name, whispering the devotion she feels onto his lips.
Devotion Jaejoong thinks he’s never deserved for all the days he’s spent in
her.
 
“I love you. I love you so much.”
 
He kisses her, apologizing because he knows his gut says the same but his heart
won’t allow it.
 
 
 
Consume.
 
 
 
Jaejoong cries his devotion for another’s name.
 
And then leaves as the heart who loves him shatters in its’ admission.
 
 
 
Jaejoong loves Yoo—
 
 
 
He slips under the covers with her that night, wrapping an arm around her torso
roughly. He can smell the change in her scent—no longer just the peaches and
bread he aches for but with something else. Musk and cigarettes.
 
His nails dig into her waist’s skin—his grip meant to hurt, to convey a
message.
 
You’re mine.
 
That’s how it is.
 
You’re mine.
 
Whore. Bitch. Slut.
 
You’re mine.
 
Don’t look at anyone else.
 
You’re mine.
 
I love you.
 
You’re mine.
 
“Let me go”is all she says but he doesn’t.
 
They stay awake, alert and unmoving as morning light comes to view.
 
 
 
It’s wrong.
 
 
 
Yoona is gone by the time he comes home from one of his projects. No note, no
nothing.
 
Jaejoong’s expected this, but it surprises him still how she was able to stay
so long.
 
 
 
It’s wrong.
 
 
 
BoA is gone too. Gone.
 
Her clothes, her scent, her everything erased from her apartment.
 
The sharp pain this realization brings hits him harder than he cared to expect.
 
 
 
Wrong.
 
 
 
“You’re a sick fuck.” Changmin tells him during another drop-off, his tone
direct and unassuming. He stands over him tall and sturdy but angry as he
speaks. “Blood-related or not, you just don’t screw your sister.”
 
Jaejoong laughs because it doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.
 
“Jealous I got to fuck her first?” he says after a chuckle, sucking in a deep
breath from his cigarette. The puff of smoke envelopes the space between them,
floating on the precipice of a tension so palpable he could almost taste it on
his lips. He laughs again, playing it off as nothing because he loves her and
that’s how he thinks a true brother shouldfeel.
 
“It wasn’t that great anyway, it being her first time. She was too stiff.” He
continues, inhaling another breath; watching as Changmin’s jaw tightens and his
fists curl at his sides. “Be grateful I got her ready for your sorry ass.”
 
“I’d put a bullet through your head right now if only she hadn’t told me not
to.”
 
He genuinely grins at this despite himself. “My sister loves me.”
 
“Yeah, she does,” Changmin deadpans, the anger suddenly gone from his features
and replaced with a unusually calm, calculating smile. He motions towards their
client up ahead and they both readily stand straighter as they approach side by
side, the air of professionalism overtaking the tension between.
 
“But not as much as she loves me.” The taller man breathes, loud enough for
only Jaejoong to hear before sirens wail at a distance and his body seizes.
 
His vision goes black just as Changmin dangles a police badge over his face.
 
 
 
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
 
 
 
“I didn’t want to get you involved in this,” Changmin begins, his hands buried
in his pockets as he smiles at him from behind steel bars, “but it’s the least
I can do for the woman I love.”
 
Jaejoong gets introduced to Changmin again but in a whole different way. He
learns that his full name is Shim Changmin and that he’d been an undercover cop
feeding information about the mob to the Federal Bureau for the past five
years. He finds out that Changmin had known about his adoptive parents’
involvement with the mob before their deaths and had helped keep them off radar
since he thought he’d be of use. He learns that Changmin had wanted to meet him
earlier on, but couldn’t because the boss was still too wary of him then. It
took some time but when they’d finally met, Changmin thought it was time to
reel him onto the right side of the tracks—the side where he could escape the
hoodlum life and actually live.
 
“Then why’d you hit me?” Jaejoong asks all was said, glaring at the taller man
from his seat on a grimy bench. Changmin shrugs nonchalantly and replies, “I
told you you were a ‘sick fuck’, didn’t I? It’s the least I can do for the
woman I love.”
 
“I’m assuming you mean Yoona, right?”
 
“Of course.”
 
“She alright?” Jaejoong asks, though he already knows the answer. Who else
smelt like musk and cigarettes but the man in front of him?
 
Changmin glowers at him, jaw tightening a fraction before relaxing. “She’s with
me. Of course, she is.”
 
“Now, listen…” He says, bracing an arm over the bars to peer at him seriously,
“I know there’s still some good fight in you. I know you can be better than
just some lost, angst-ridden criminal looking for a quick buck. You have a
heart somewhere deep inside of you and I want to appeal to its’ better nature
by guaranteeing you a life outside of this city—safe from any of this dirt
coming back to haunt you.”
 
“What exactly are you proposing?”
 
“Do this one last job we’ve rigged up for the boss.” The taller man answers
simply. He pushes a folder between the bars and Jaejoong cautiously takes it
into his grasp. “He already knows about it. The men with us the day I took you
down here were some of my own and I let them go back a little roughed up to
ensure the authenticity of that staged ‘arrest’. I’m going to let you go in
three days to swear revenge on us for the boss.”
 
Jaejoong snorts, throwing the folder onto the floor. “What makes you think
he’ll believe me?”
 
Changmin smirks. “Because he let you meet me. I’m his best gun,and that’s a
title the Korean mob boss doesn’t just give lightly. Who I trust, he’ll surely
trust as well. Tell him I got gunned and you managed to escape within a thread
of your life and had to lay low for awhile. He’ll eat that shit up.”
 
He turns to leave, pausing only for a second to pin him with a somber stare
before uttering, “Trust me.”
 
Problem is, though he believes everything he said, Jaejoong still doesn’t think
he should.
 
 
 
The sun rises
 
 
 
He dreams of peaches, white sheets and whispered devotions (I love you,
Jaejoong, I love you so much.) and then wakes in tears he didn’t know he could
still muster to create.
 
Jaejoong opens his eyes, keels over and vomits the pain that stabs him deeper
than before.
 
 
 
in the East
 
 
 
“Do you know where she is?”
 
“She’s at my apartment, waiting for me.” Changmin replies easily, throwing a
three of Clubs onto his stack. He doesn’t look at him and Jaejoong thinks it’s
better if he doesn’t. “I told her not to go to that diner anymore. The patrons
there got a little handsy.”
 
He throws a four of Diamonds onto his opponent’s stack.
 
“I didn’t mean Yoona.”
 
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
 
Jaejoong shrugs, staring down at an Ace of Hearts before pocketing it. “Don’t
you know everything?”
 
Their game of poker goes on for awhile until Changmin’s Royal Flush obliterates
his Straight in Diamonds.
 
“She’s in Japan, managing a small café in Osaka.”
 
He leaves before Jaejoong can ask for any more.
 
 
 
and sets in the West
 
 
 
Yoona visits him on the day of his release.
 
“I never got it.” She says, staring down at her linked fingers. Jaejoong
doesn’t move to ask why because he knows she’ll continue and he’s done trying
to force her into anything anymore. The broken pieces of what they are were
already to ragged to put back together. He’d lost her years ago, and even the
frayed seams of what he still held of her were breaking one by one.
 
“You always say that ‘Yours is mine’ but that hasn’t been the case since I was
five, huh.”
 
He shakes his head and she rambles on, “Since t-that night it’s been ‘You’re
mine’, hasn’t it, Oppa?”
 
“Yeah.” His voice is hoarse when he answers and when she tears up (her first
real cry in what seems like forever), he hangs his head, “I’m sorry.”
 
“He makes me want it.” Yoona starts beats later, finally returning his gaze.
The pang is sharp when she steps closer, a hand on a bar and her eyes
glistening with something real. “Changmin makes me want sex the way you wanted
it from me. He makes me want to fuck him all the time. He makes me want to
consume him and love him and—”
 
“You love him.” He offers simply and it kills (heals) him a little when she
nods.
 
His heart relents. Cop out.
 
It’s over. It’s done.
 
“Tell him I hope his plan is as foolproof as he says it is.”
 
 
 
He loves Yoona as much as the sun rises from the east. Which isalways because
it is one of very few true things he knows.
 
 
 
Sirens wail farther and farther into the distance as they watch the sunlight
slowly peek behind dark clouds. He is battered, bruised and she is too young to
look so old. The embrace they share is out of resigned comfort and nothing
more.
 
“I think I finally get it.”
 
“Get what?”
 
Her lips turn up grimly, shrugging. “I’m yours, aren’t I?”
 
“Always.”
 
She shakes her head, tilts it and plants a soft kiss on his cheek. And then
Yoona flashes him a genuine smile, at last. At last.
 
“No, not really.”
 
“No.” He agrees before releasing her to the man waiting patiently behind them.
 
This is goodbye.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The bell on the door dings as he steps inside.
 
He sits at a corner, running a hand through longer and lighter hair than she
remembers. His eyes unfortunately covered by thick sunglasses she swears were
from her from way long before.
 
She sits beside him, knees tucked in and breathes ‘Hello’.
 
He moves to take his sunglasses off and somehow, after, their fingers link, her
heart thrums.
 
 “I don’t mind being touched by you.” She echoes words from long before, and he
only smiles in response as he finally looks at her.
 
His eyes are bright. Alive.
 
 
 
Jaejoong loves BoA as much as dry earth craves water. It rejuvenates… it
satiates. It brings him back to life.
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