Jaejoong doesn’t much like airports. No matter how many or how few countries he visits in a year, airports all blur into each other, an incoherent mess of lines and luggage and swarms of people in his mind. But Jaejoong finds that he’s never liked airports any less than he does today, as he dashes through the never-ending aisle of terminals and bathrooms and eateries, panicked heartbeats pounding in his ears.
Jaejoong eventually finds him sitting in a Starbucks a floor above their assigned terminal in Narita Airport.
“Yunho, what the hell? At least warn us ahead of time before you decide to disappear like that. And why did you turn your cellphone off?”
He doesn’t care that he sounds as irritated as he feels and cares even less that his small commotion is causing some of the female customers to recognize him; Yunho rarely ever acts this reckless, this stupid.
“Sorry, Jae. I just needed to think for a while.” Yunho doesn’t look at him; he stares unblinkingly into his barely-touched cup of coffee.
“Well, you could’ve thought back at the terminal,” Jaejoong snaps. He glowers at Yunho, daring him to meet his eyes. He doesn’t.
Jaejoong keeps his eyes on the other man as he flips open his cellphone and dials. “Yeah Junsu, I found him on the third floor… Don’t bother, he’s fine. We’re just at Starbucks… I don’t know why either…”
Yunho keeps his head down when Jaejoong’s phone clicks shut, but finally jerks up to look at him when he hears the chair opposite him scrape away from the table.
“I’m thinking with you.” Jaejoong sits and crosses his arms, still glowering. Yunho’s eyebrows furrow and he opens his mouth to argue, but Jaejoong’s glare intensifies and his mouth shuts on its own. Yunho mutters something under his breath (“you’re not my nanny”) and stares miserably at his cold coffee.
The two of them sit there, both crossing their arms and refusing to look at anything other than the tabletop, until Jaejoong eventually calms down enough to realize he’s thirsty. He reaches across the table and grabs the coffee, knowing Yunho wouldn’t complain; he smirks to himself a little when he finds that he’s right. He takes a sip, makes a face and reaches for a packet of sugar.
“If you add sugar to that, I’m not drinking it anymore.”
“You’re not drinking it anyway.” Jaejoong rips open the packet and pours its contents into the cup. “So I guess it’s mine now.”
Jaejoong stirs with a thin straw, watching the little molecules of sweetness disintegrate then disappear into the black liquid. When he’s sure all the sugar is invisible, he looks up to find Yunho watching him.
“…Jae?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…” He looks back down at the table. “Do you ever think about what you would do if all this ended one day? Like if we suddenly couldn’t be singers anymore.”
“No,” Jaejoong lies. He continues stirring, studying the coffee as it whirls around. “I live in the moment, remember?”
Yunho looks up at him again, seeming less reluctant now. Their eyes meet at last, and the connection sends a small shiver across Jaejoong’s skin. “Most people would probably expect me to study law, “ Yunho says, ” But to be honest… the lawyer thing has always been more of a fallback, I guess. I really can’t imagine myself as a lawyer. I can’t imagine myself as anything other than what I am now.”
Jaejoong stops stirring. He wonders how Yunho expects him to react to his confession; his expression gives away nothing.
“I can’t either,” Jaejoong admits and hopes the sincerity shows, “And that’s why I think we’ll be doing this forever.”
“Not literally forever.”
“Who really knows? We could be singers in our next life too. And the life after that.”
“Christians don’t believe in next lives,” Yunho reminds, but he’s finally smiling.
“Then we’ll be singers in Heaven.” Jaejoong smiles back.
They fall into silence. Yunho dumps a pile of sugar packets onto the center of the table and sorts them out as Jaejoong comments (“These packets are female because they’re pink,” he proudly announces to the other.) and watches him amusedly, slowly sipping the cup empty of its coffee. He glances at a clock on the wall and is surprised to see that their plane will already be boarding in fifteen minutes, as if the time suddenly sped up after a long, sluggish crawl.
“We should start heading back.”
Yunho glances at the clock too, and Jaejoong notices that the expression on his face is the same one he adopts when reminded of something unpleasant. “Yeah, I guess we should.”
Yunho stands up to leave and Jaejoong does the same. When Yunho is near enough to the door to grab its handle, Jaejoong moves close to his side and clasps his hand in his, making sure the gesture is kept hidden from the peering eyes behind him. Yunho stiffens for a moment, but quickly relaxes once Jaejoong lightly brushes his thumb over his skin. Yunho faces forward and speaks to him over his shoulder.
“Thanks.” Yunho whispers the word, as if it were a secret. Jaejoong barely catches it.
“Thanks for what? You sure are strange, Yunho.”
Yunho turns and smiles again, and it’s the brightest thing Jaejoong has seen in days. “Whatever you say, Jae.”
Jaejoong gently squeezes the other’s hand as they leave the store and return to the rush of people outside. He steps past the threshold and in his heart, he hopes for the both of them.
5. The future is less scary with you by my side.
