The rumors



The rumors


“I'm tired of rumors startin’, I'm sick of being followed
I'm tired of people lying, saying what they want about me
Why can't they back up off me? Why can't they let me live?
I'm gonna do it my way, take this for just what it is”

Lindsay Lohan “Rumors”



[ Every little thing was exaggerated to the point of ridicule, any bit of news was taken, twisted, turned inside out, given polish to and passed as a truth. Sometimes it was so absurd that sounded rather plausible. Once in awhile it got to the point when the object of the fruity rumors began to believe what was being said or published. ]

“Why are you doing this?” Yoochun asked him once, finding Jaejoong sitting on the floor of their balcony, a bottle of liquor in his hand.

But Jaejoong had no answer for him. He only took a mouthful of whiskey.

Yoochun crouched near him, watching Jaejoong’s throat muscles move as he swallowed. “It is not the answer. It won’t solve your problems.” He tried not to sound accusing or preaching.

“I’ve been there,” he added after a slight pause.

Feeling alcohol burn down his throat, Jaejoong leaned his head back on the wall, closing his eyes for a moment. No, it wouldn’t solve all his problems, he knew that perfectly well. The quitting would – but that wasn’t an option.

“I know,” he whispered.

[Anything they said or did – or not said and didn’t do – was interpreted the way they could never predict. It was becoming an every day battle to decide what to say to whom, how to answer on that and when to laugh and joke. The hardest was to remain yourself under all those layers of masks.]

This time it was Yoochun who was sitting on the balcony floor smoking and watching the stars, when Jaejoong came out. There was some kind of wildness about him, as he paced the small confines of their balcony. Yoochun kept looking at the stars, trying to ignore him.

“What did she say?” he asked finally.

“Nothing,” Jaejoong’s answer was curt and uninformative. Sighing he finally stopped moving and leaned on the railing looking up at the stars as well.

Yoochun didn’t buy that at the least. Sometimes with Jaejoong it was better to wait out. Silently he reached out his hand offering the remains of his cigarette to another. As Jaejoong was taking it, their fingers brushed and suddenly Yoochun realized that he was freezing. His fingers were ice-cold compared to Jaejoong’s.

“It’s over,” Jaejoong said inhaling the smoke, “we are over.”

Yoochun climbed on his feet, brushed off his pants. He looked into Jaejoong’s dark eyes and said trying to mean it, “I am sorry.”

But the way Jaejoong flinched just barely told him that he failed.

[ At the beginning of their career they painfully reacted to any sort of untruthful rumor about themselves. Indignation and pain at the unfairness of it all flared in their chests. But with the years that fire turned into a mere annoyance and a dull acceptance of their fate. Because it would have been even worse if the people didn’t talk about them at all. So they had to learn all about clouds and silver lining. ]

When Jaejoong first attempted to kiss him, Yoochun backed away in shock. The elder boy smelled sweetly of alcohol and shampoo and he was breathing too fast for Yoochun’s liking. The rise and fall of that smooth chest was really distracting. Suddenly Yoochun found himself shivering from cold, as the breeze swept past them.

Jaejoong’s eyes were dark and barely visible in the night. He licked his lips, wishing he had more of that liqueur left. Or anything. Just to shut this little voice in his head that kept telling him that he was making a mistake.

“What are you doing?!”

A question similar to the one he had asked just a few nights ago rang in the stillness of the night.

But thinking about what he was doing was the last thing Jaejoong needed now. What he need was to satisfy that lust singing in his veins, to make a move before he chickened out, to jump and think of the consequences later.

Backed up against the wall Yoochun wasn’t prepared for Jaejoong to move to him again and press his whole body to his and feast on his mouth as if he was starving. He was too surprised to protest, and too soon he found himself returning the kiss, fistfuls of dark locks in his hands.

The warmth was quickly pooling in his groin making him arch into Jaejoong’s body. It was wrong and inappropriate and they were outside for God’s sake. But all that fled out of Yoochun’s head when Jaejoong ground into him, his prominent member against his own.

“I want this!” Jaejoong hissed against his ear, his hips moving at irregular rhythm. His lips were hot and demanding against Yoochun’s mouth, his hands griping his buttocks. And then one hand snaked between them and grasped his cock and Yoochun could swear that he saw stars with his eyes closed.

[ Their lives were under the 24/7 surveillance. They didn’t know when or where a camera would appear and a picture would be taken. They stopped believing other people. No friend was fully trusted, no deep secret was shared. It was a lonely life, they learned, to be a star. In the end all they had was each other. ]

Next time when Jaejoong entered his bedroom, Yoochun knew what answer to give him.

“No,” he said, without raising his head from the music sheets. He could hear the elder boy close the door behind him, could hear the door lock click and the quiet footsteps approaching him.

“No,” he said again, “It has to stop, Jaejoong. You know it better than me. It is wrong.” But Jaejoong seemed to ignore his words as he draped arms around his shoulders and kissed and nipped his bare neck and a shoulder.

No matter how good it felt, it also felt wrong. Finally pushing his arms away, Yoochun tried to get up, but instead was pushed back into his seat. Jaejoong climbed into his lap, sliding his legs on each side and facing him. It made Yoochun acutely aware of the other’s state of arousal.

“It is wrong, Jaejoong. You don’t really want this. You don’t want me,” he paused there, his heart beating fast in his chest. “You only want sex,” he said looking into Jaejoong’s eyes.

“Is it a bad thing?” Jaejoong almost purred, moving his hips and creating a delicious friction between them.

“It is not what you want!” It was getting harder to think when Jaejoong was moving in his lap.

“What do you want?” came a soft reply.

Eyes closed in frustration, his hips involuntary moving against Jaejoong’s, Yoochun almost sobbed, “I want you to want me. Not sex!”

For a briefest moment Jaejoong was still as a statue, not moving but simply looking at the other’s flushed face. And then he was gone.

Yoochun’s whole body was shivering from the arousal and the variety of emotions bottled inside him. The deed was done and there was no turning back. His hand moved inside his pants, closing around his aching cock and quickly moving to bring himself to release.

He felt tears rolling down his cheeks, when he came.

[ They were used to keeping their masks in place not letting the true emotions surface. The words were carefully chosen, the smiles perfect to the point of artificiality, the touches brief. Only after the door was securely closed, the curtains drawn shut, the cell phones switched off they could relax in each others’ company. Only then the true emotions were shared, the exchanged smiles were genuine, the touch lingered. The inability to walk through the streets unnoticed, to show true emotions where somebody could see them, to freely wind down was eating away at them. Too soon they began to feel as if they were living two different lives. And which one of those two was the real one and which one was fake it was getting harder to tell. ]

They met at the balcony again. Yoochun smoking and looking at the stars, Jaejoong with a bottle of liquor in his hand. The articles of sin were exchanged and consumed.

“It can work out, you know,” said Jaejoong conversationally as if they were talking about the weather.

“Maybe. And maybe not,” Yoochun answered telling himself that it was too soon to hope.

They were sitting on the floor side by side, their shoulders and hips brushing. But it wasn’t sexual, although Yoochun was quite aware of the late hour and their state of half-dress. He was warm and felt more secure, simply sitting like this, together.

Jaejoong turned his head to him, his hair brushing the other’s skin, making him shiver.

“And what if we tried really hard? Like, really really hard?” He was looking tensely into Yoochun’s eyes.

With such close proximity of the elder boy’s face to his own it was hard to read his emotions. Jaejoong turned to him more, shifting and putting a warm hand on the other’s thigh.

“Can’t we try? It may work out.”

“You don’t love me. We are just friends.”

It was getting harder to breath.

“I can love you.”

And that was a lie.

“I love you.”

And that was the truth.

Jaejoong was looking at him for a long time, his eyes unreadable. For a second Yoochun feared that he would bolt away like last time. But he just sighed and finally Yoochun could see through his mask, could see the other’s uncertainty and fear. He reached out to touch his face gently.

Jaejoong leaned and kissed him. And Yoochun knew that he couldn’t say no, wouldn’t say it, even if he knew that it was a great risk and too many things could go wrong. He let Jaejoong press into him and slide them both onto the hard floor.

“There will be rumors,” he managed to gasp out, as Jaejoong moved over his body, kissing his neck and chest.

“I don’t care.” And again there was that wildness in Jaejoong’s eyes, that of a cornered animal. He looked scared and determined at the same time, as if there was no turning back. And there wasn’t any turning back, Yoochun thought.

Not now.

Not ever.

//


May 7, 2007