After a week or so, Jaejoong was ready to admit that the fanfiction thing had gotten under his skin a little. Not in a
bad way, just…it was interesting.
"What
are you scrunching your face all up like that for?" Yoochun asked,
flopping down beside Jaejoong on the couch, making Jaejoong startle his
gaze up from his laptop when the couch bounced a little. Yoochun
reached up to poke Jaejoong between the eyes. "Give yourself lines
doing that."
"Do you ever read this stuff? You know," Jaejoong
turned his computer to show Yoochun the page he was looking at, which
was incredibly pink, had a banner where Jaejoong and Yunho seemed to be
grabbing each other's asses, and also featured a lot of blinkies
cheerfully flashing "NC-17!" at them.
"Hey, they used that picture from the "O" extra photoshoot." Yoochun chuckled. "Kind of ironic."
"Yoochun," Jaejoong admonished, wriggling a little and frowning. "So do you?"
"Sure,
sometimes," Yoochun reached over and slid Jaejoong's laptop out of his
hands, then settled it in his own lap and started scrolling down the
page. "It's like googling yourself and finding well-researched porn."
Yoochun tilted his head back and gave Jaejoong an leer, one eyebrow
raised under his bangs. "You ever find some English stuff and run it
through a translator?"
Jaejoong swallowed his immediate
indignant reply of "Of course not!" because that was totally what he'd
been doing last night after the DVD he and Yunho had been watching on
his computer had finished, and Yunho had been dead asleep against
Jaejoong's shoulder. "Yeah, maybe."
Yoochun's grin widened. "Ask
Junsu to help you out with it sometimes. Oh, come on," he added when
Jaejoong pursed his lips skeptically, "what do you think he's
practicing his English with? Sesame Street?"
Jaejoong threw back
his head and laughed, and when he straightened back up, Yoochun was
clicking through some of the links. "Hey, what…"
"You
read this one?" Yoochun tilted the laptop up a little, and Jaejoong
skimmed the text, shook his head. "It's good. U_Know_Who's one of my
favorite authors. She makes Changmin sound like a high school
cheerleader, though…"
"She?" Jaejoong was struggling to
read over Yoochun's shoulder and process his acceptance of this
conversation at the same time. "How do you know?"
"They're
mostly girls." Yoochun shrugged. "Girls with a lot of free time. This
one even knows about Junsu's poetry. She imitates it pretty well, not
like Junsu's that hard to imitate…"
"You think it's weird?" Jaejoong asked, making Yoochun cock his head. "That people write stuff like this, like they know us?"
Yoochun
shrugged, handed the laptop back to Jaejoong. "Some of it's pretty
clever. We should use their stuff during interviews, save the PR guys
some work. Don't spend all afternoon reading this, huh? Rot your brain,
hyung."
Yoochun shuffled off, and Jaejoong looked back to the
fic he'd left on the screen and started reading. When he was done, he
hit page up a few times and started over, giggling at the part where
Changmin somehow tricked Junsu into wearing a shirt that read "Love
Monkey Justice" on stage, and reading very carefully through the part
after Yunho had slid his fingers into the back pockets of Jaejoong's
jeans.
He drummed his fingers lightly on his laptop keys. This didn't seem too hard.
*******
Jaejoong
was perched on his director-style chair, ignoring the flashes of the
camera off to the left. Even after they were through with Yunho's
shoot, there would still be all of Yoochun's shots to get through,
which meant that Jaejoong had a solid hour of time to kill at the very
least. The stylists had been and gone, and Jaejoong was under strict
orders not to do anything except let his hair curl delicately over his
cheeks.
It seemed like the perfect opportunity, so Jaejoong
had pulled his laptop out of his bag and, after a long look around
(Yunho on set, Yoochun on deck, Junsu examining his shots on the
computer, and Changmin pointing at something on the screen and
laughing) Jaejoong started to write.
It wasn't that
Jaejoong didn't like the shoots. He enjoyed being told he was gorgeous
and staring at himself as much as any other Korean idol, especially
since he didn't get all the conflicting directions from the
photographers like the others did. "Changmin, could you hood your eyes
but still look completely innocent?" and "Yunho, try not to be so very
tall, just authoritative" and "I said look smug, Junsu, not smirk."
All
Jaejoong had to do, it seemed, was smile and let his hair curl
delicately over his cheeks, and everyone was generally happy with him
so far as the shoots went. He didn't even mind being dressed like a
doll, or having his hair bleached until it crackled under his fingers,
or having to lean his head back at odd angles so the sweat from the
lights wouldn't make his eyeliner run. Shoots were kind of fun really,
if you thought about them like games of Simon Says, where whoever got
through their shoot with the least amount of shouting from the
photographer won.
Something was different about today, though.
"Whatcha
doing, hyung?" Changmin asked, draped over Jaejoong's shoulder
suddenly, making Jaejoong yelp and keysmash. "Junsu said I'm an
uncultured child and his outfit in no way looks like a potted plant."
"Nothing,"
Jaejoong said quickly, reaching up to shut his laptop before
remembering he hadn't saved yet. He pressed the hotkeys for it, but
that extra split-second was all Changmin needed.
"You're writing fanfjisns?" Changmin's snicker cut off when Jaejoong slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Shut up, huh?" Jaejoong glanced around, but the others were still all busy. "I said, it's nothing."
"Aw,
don't be embarrassed!" Changmin dropped into the chair next to
Jaejoong, but leaned way over to look some more. "It's cute! Like
Junsu's poetry."
"Okay, that's it." Jaejoong reached for the delete key, but Changmin slapped his hand away.
"Don't!"
Changmin bumped Jaejoong's shoulder with his cheek, and Jaejoong
frowned because he didn't want foundation all over his shirt. "Keep
going, I want to know what happens next."
Jaejoong stared at
Changmin suspiciously, but Changmin just grinned right back until
Jaejoong sighed and put his hands back on the keyboard.
Yunho's
shoot wasn't any different than usual, but today Jaejoong found his
gaze drifting over towards him over and over, instead of glued to the
monitors where he was supposed to be proofing his shots. His dark brown
eyes caressed Yunho's slim body, twisting sexily as the photographer
barked orders.
He was getting irritated with the photographer,
Jaejoong could see, but he was warping that irritation into smoldering
looks, emphasized by the thick, dark eyeliner that this stylist seemed
to prefer.
When his gaze caught Jaejoong's, Jaejoong had to
swallow hard, but couldn't look away, pinned like the zebra butterfly
that was painted across his shirt.
"Like a zebra butterfly?" Changmin asked, voice wavering with the effort of not laughing.
"I
googled it," Jaejoong grumbled, then turned to scowl at Changmin. "Get
lost, I can't do this with you watching over my shoulder like that."
"Sure
sure, hyung." Changmin laughed and slid out of his chair, stretching
with a ripple of his body. "And that's a Tiger Swallowtail on your
shirt, by the way. It's not fiction if it's actually happening, Jae."
Jaejoong
scowled at Changmin's back as he sauntered away, then scowled down at
the butterfly on his shirt. Then he looked up just in time to catch
Yunho staring at him from the set, eyes dark with eyeliner, and
swallowed hard.
*******
For the next few days, Jaejoong
worked steadily, writing whenever he had a few spare moments. The worst
part was trying to keep his bandmates from reading over his shoulder,
but after Jaejoong had snapped at all of them at least twice, Yunho
rolled his eyes and told them all that Mommy need a little me-time, and
that was the end of that.
It seemed to get easier the more
Jaejoong wrote; he wasn't hitting the delete key as often, and he was
getting the hang of pilfering snatches of his bandmates' conversations
to pad out his dialogue. He was also getting used to waking up in the
middle of the night with the next few lines set clearly in his mind.
"Mmm." Yunho rolled over and pressed his forehead to Jaejoong's hip, shielding his eyes from the lamp. "Again?"
"If
I don't write it down, I forget." Jaejoong tapped a few keys and
frowned. "Why aren't any of the names for body parts as sexy as the
parts themselves?"
Yunho laughed and brushed lips against
Jaejoong's skin. "Like any words are going to be sexier than your
parts." Jaejoong made a 'tcht' noise. "Jae, are you writing That Kind
of story?"
"Apparently not." Jaejoong shut his laptop and brushed fingers through Yunho's hair. "I'm gonna get a shower. Go back to sleep."
"Don't
stay up all night," Yunho warned, rolling back over. Then he picked up
his head just enough to look over his shoulder. "On second thought,
those interview girls always freak out when your eyes are all
heavy-lidded, so do whatever you want."
Jaejoong stripped off his pajama pants and threw them at Yunho's head, then padded down the hallway to the bathroom.
He
was halfway through his repeat phase of shampooing when suddenly the
perfect end to his story just popped into his head. Jaejoong was so
shocked that he froze in case he should forget any of it, then cursed
when soap ran in his eyes.
He rinsed himself off, threw a
towel on, and trotted down the hall to retrieve his laptop and pajamas,
then snuck back out of the bedroom, mouth quirking at Yunho's cute
little snores. He plopped down on the couch, opened his laptop and
started typing like an obsessed fangirl.
"Jae Boo," Yunho murmured (Yunho really had much better nicknames, but this was the one the fanfics all seemed to use),
running
his knuckles sweetly down Jaejoong's cheek, and Jaejoong was trapped
against the wall, barely able to hear over the pounding of his heart
and the beating of the rain against the window, "you shouldn't stay in
those wet clothes."
Jaejoong couldn't look away from Yunho's
chocolate brown eyes, and the tiny reflection of himself that he could
see looked terrified and beautiful, like he'd never seen himself look
in the reflection of a camera.
"Maybe," Jaejoong, ran his
tongue slowly over his dry lips and his breath hitched when he saw
Yunho's eyes track the slick pink muscle, "you could help me out?"
After
about a half-hour he realized he was shivering because he'd never dried
off properly, and distractedly yanked on the sweatshirt that Changmin
had left on the couch after dance practice, then went right back to
typing.
********
"Jaejoong, really," Jaejoong woke up
to Changmin leaning over him, a glass of orange juice in one hand and a
exasperated expression on his face. "You're worse than the fangirls.
And you're drooling on my sweatshirt."
"I'm done!" Jaejoong
grinned, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. Then, forgetting
his embarrassment in the flush of victory, he added, "Do you want to
read it?"
"Sure," Changmin looked over Jaejoong's shoulder, "but
we need to find your laptop cord first. I hope you saved before you
passed out."
"OH NO!" Jaejoong shrieked, nearly dropping the sleeping laptop on the ground and causing more damage.
After
the cord had been retrieved and the laptop revived, and Jaejoong had
been reassured that his genius ending had indeed been preserved,
Changmin sat on the couch next to him and read silently for a minute or
two. Jaejoong fidgeted the whole time.
"You know," Changmin said slowly, "I was really just going to make fun of you mercilessly… but this isn't half bad."
"Really?" Jaejoong tried to keep from sounding pathetically hopeful. Changmin's smirk informed him that he was not succeeding.
"Really. You should have Yunho read through it for you, help you clean up the grammar a little."
"Oh no," Jaejoong shook his head, "no, I definitely can't ask him. Would…would you do it?"
"Me?" Changmin blinked, then laughed. "Jaejoong…"
"Hey!"
Yunho's shout from down the hallway interrupted. "Why isn't everybody
moving? We've got an interview in an hour and a half!"
"Changmin, pleeeeeease?" Jaejoong had the pout in full force by the time Changmin looked back at him.
"Okay,
fine," Changmin gave in, handing the laptop back to Jaejoong. "Email it
to me, and I'll look it over. But I don't make any promises about the
quality of my grammar."
********
Jae—(the return email read)
I
had a really good time reading your story. It was sweet and funny, and
I really liked the way you imitated the over-the-top fangirl style (Jaejoong frowned at that, but kept reading).
I left comments in different colors: green is for things I liked, and red is for things that need fixed.
Don't forget about us when you become a famous fanfic author, okay?
Jaejoong
opened the file Changmin had attached and skimmed the contents. He was
pleased to note that the opening paragraphs had lots of green writing.
Then Changmin got a little more serious and started actually picking at
Jaejoong's run-on and adverb-filled sentences, and Jaejoong realized
that maybe he should actually open the original file and start fixing
things.
He was doing really well until he got to the confession scene, and scrolled down to find a sea of red text facing him.
Jaejoong sighed sadly. Being a fanfic author was hard. And what was wrong with the word "sexily" anyway?
********
Now
that he was finished and edited, Jaejoong unexpectedly ran into a new
problem: he needed a posting screenname. Not that there was anything
wrong with his usual screenname of PeanutChupa, but Jaejoong had the
sneaking suspicion that it would be a bad thing to use his real handle
when the fangirls descended.
It was also a problem that there
seemed to be eight million people trying for DBSK screennames.
ChooseyLover was taken. Tri-Angel and RisingYun were taken. JaeMissU
was even taken. Jaejoong was starting to think that he really was going
to get permanent frown lines as he stretched his creativity to its
limits and still could not find an sn that nobody else had.
Suddenly,
out of exhaustion, he typed International_Hug, and was shocked when it
came back unclaimed. Leaning forward in his seat, he pounced on that
thing like a stalker on Junsu's sweaty towel, and came away triumphant.
It wasn't until a few seconds later that he realized he'd
accidentally put an extra 'e' on the end of the name. He started at it
for a second, then shrugged. English had silent e's, didn't it?
Probably nobody would even notice.
Armed with a screenname and
a finished fic, Jaejoong carefully cut and pasted in his text, filled
in all his bold and italics tags, and hit post.
Panic set in immediately.
********
"Jaejoong,"
Yoochun leaned over during the commercial break, putting his hand over
the radio station's microphone, "are you okay?"
"Fine!" Jaejoong startled a little, then made sure his smile was in place before asking. "Why?"
Junsu
leaned over and put his hands over Jaejoong's, stilling his fingers.
"You've been drumming your fingers on the table since we got here! Got
somewhere better to be?"
Jaejoong scowled and yanked his hands
away, then twisted them tightly in his lap. Yunho reached over and slid
his hand into Jaejoong's, using the other to tilt Jaejoong's chin up.
"Fine really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Jaejoong opened his mouth, but just then the radio host and hostess interrupted.
"We're
back with our guests, the members of Dong Bang Shin Ki!" the woman
chirped, her violently pink sweater and bleached hair clearly the
reason she was in radio.
"Hellooo!" All five of them chorused in response, and Jaejoong shrugged at Yunho to say it didn't matter, it was nothing.
And
everything was fine until Junsu got going about some question the male
host had asked about their last PV, and Changmin took the opportunity
to lean over and whisper something in Yunho's ear. Jaejoong waved at
him to stop and made pleading eyes, but Changmin didn't pull away until
Yunho's face was lit in understanding.
Jaejoong dropped his
eyes and tried to pull his hand away, but Yunho held on tight, lacing
their fingers together. When he leaned closer to whisper in Jaejoong's
ear, the hair on the back of Jaejoong's neck rose.
"You ever gonna let me see this porn of yours?" he asked.
"It's not porn!" Jaejoong hissed back, making everybody in the studio turn to him.
"Jaejoong
has something to say apparently!" the hostess informed the world
helpfully. Jaejoong swallowed and shot Yunho, who was sitting back in
his chair with a smirk, a dirty look.
"I'm just so moved,"
Jaejoong smiled and dug his nails into the back of Yunho's hand, "by
the continued support of all our fans, both at home and abroad. Please
continue to support DBSK!"
When the radio show finally ended,
the others went to go stretch and take a bathroom break, but Jaejoong
grabbed Changmin's shirt and shoved him up against the wall.
"Don't shake me!" Changmin warned. "I have to go to the bathroom too!"
"What'd you do that for?" Jaejoong demanded. "Now Yunho's going to read it! It's embarrassing!"
"Aw,
come on, Jae." Changmin wrapped his hands around Jaejoong's wrists, and
Jaejoong let his hands be pulled off. "Like Yunho wasn't going to
anyway. He's the one who showed you the fanfic stuff in the first
place, wasn't he?"
"Yeah," Jaejoong admitted. Yunho had been the
one to suggest the subplot in the Dangerous Love episode, and he'd
brought the printout of the story they'd used himself.
"You're
just nervous about your first story, hyung," Changmin assured, wrapping
an arm around Jaejoong's shoulders and leading him to the vending
machine. "What's the matter, think the fangirls will eat you? Come on,
I'll buy you a coffee."
"
First story?" Jaejoong asked, mouth turning down, and Changmin laughed and shrugged.
By
the time their manager hollered down the hallway that it was time to
go, Changmin had teased Jaejoong out of his mood, assisted by Junsu and
Yoochun's impromptu thumb wrestling tournament.
"Hey, where's
Yunho?" Jaejoong asked, but just as he looked over his shoulder, Yunho
came sauntering up the hall, hands in his pockets.
"Time to
go?" he asked, slinging an arm around Jaejoong. "Ah good, you're in a
better mood. The children always do cheer you up."
"No thanks to
their lecherous father," Jaejoong retorted, but his grin was sneaking
out at the corners anyway, and he let Yunho hold the door for him.
******
Yoochun
and Changmin made a beeline for the computer as soon as they got in the
door that night, while Jaejoong covered his eyes with his hands and
moaned that he couldn't look. Junsu and Yunho exchanged glances, then
made themselves scarce.
"Ne, you have good reviews," Yoochun
said, reaching over and dragging Jaejoong closer by the sleeve. They
plopped him down on the couch and sat his laptop down on his lap, then
both stepped back to watch with crossed arms.
Jaejoong sighed and looked down at the screen, bracing himself for the worst.
Cute! You write the boys well, said HugUKnow.
It seems like you make up a lot of facts, but overall a fun read, said OhMickyYouSoFine.
Great banter! And the porn was hot!, said Hiyayayunho.
"Oh," Jaejoong breathed, looking up in relief, "this isn't too bad."
"Scroll
to the bottom," Yoochun said, grinning and nudging Changmin with his
elbow. Jaejoong stared at them for a second longer, then looked back at
his screen and hit page down.
Then he screamed like a little girl.
"U_Know_Who
read my fic!" he shrieked, looking from his computer to his bandmates
in disbelief. "She's really good! She wrote that fic that Yunho used on
the show!"
"We know," Yoochun laughed.
"Go on, read it,
read it!" Changmin chanted, and Yoochun wrapped him in a headlock and
teased that he was more excited than Jaejoong was.
I haven't seen you around before, the comment said,
so
I'll congratulate you on a very entertaining first DBSK fic. The
dialogue was funny, the boys were comfortable, and you've clearly done
some research. Your style is a bit rough, especially during the
confession and sex scenes (do you have a beta?), but overall it was a
fun and sweet read. Keep writing! I hope to see you around more.
–U_Know_Who
"She liked it!" Jaejoong found he couldn't
stop smiling, a grin that stretched from one delicate curl-brushed
cheek to the other, and he was wrapping his fingers tightly around his
laptop to keep from fist-pumping like a complete moron.
"Of
course she did!" Changmin said, still headlocked but grinning back. "It
was terrific! And funny! And really sweet! And you put in all my edits,
right?!"
"God, Changmin!" Yunho yelled from down the hall. "You sound like a high school cheerleader!"
Yoochun
and Jaejoong exchanged a glance, and then Jaejoong erupted into
laughter, and Changmin had to lunge forward to catch Jaejoong's
imperiled laptop once again.
*******
Yunho was sprawled on his bed when Jaejoong came into the room, looking very innocent.
"So do I get to read this story of yours?" he asked, hands laced behind his head.
"Well,
I've been told my style is a bit rough," Jaejoong answered lightly,
crawling onto the bed and throwing a knee over Yunho's waist to settle
on his lap. "But since I've read all your stuff, I suppose it's only
fair."
"I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it
out," Yunho said, letting his smile break free of his guileless
expression. "Who has printed out fanfiction just laying around?"
Jaejoong
pretended to consider that for a moment, then reached down and dug
fingers into Yunho's armpits, tickling him until he was thrashing from
side to side and begging Jaejoong to stop.
"Any ideas for your
next fic?" Yunho asked when they were curled up together, breath almost
back to normal and Jaejoong's shirt never to be seen again.
"Well,"
Jaejoong licked his lower lip, watching Yunho track the movement,
"apparently my sex scenes need work, but I do excellent research."
Yunho grinned lazily—
sexily, Jaejoong thought to himself—and ran his fingers up Jaejoong's spine. "Need a co-author?"
"Hmm, maybe…" Jaejoong let Yunho start convincing him with roaming hands and warm lips.
At least until Yunho called him "International_Huge" and Jaejoong shoved him off the bed.
Final AN: While looking up profile information
online, I found the comments that Yunho liked writing fictional
stories, and Jaejoong was interested in other people's relationships.
IT'S A SIGN.