[2011]

Like a phoenix 

Wake up, open your eyes to the new day and tell me: what do you see?

Black, an ocean of black lights.
It’s strange though, he recalled them different: clearer. And brighter.
Maybe he has changed, or maybe something around them changed and changed both of them too.
 

Sometimes you need black in order to distinguish other colors.

He presses the button near the night stand and the room suddently lights up; for the first time, he finds the glare annoying.

He brings one hand to his face and suppresses a yawn while looking over the window, wondering which day it might be: maybe it’s Friday and the week is about to end, or maybe it’s Monday and the week has just started. He doesn’t remember. And if it wasn’t for the red crosses that Yoochun regularly signs on the calendar, he couldn’t even tell a month from the other, a season from the following one; the only difference would be the light, shorter in winter, leaving him alone in the dark for a longer time.

He doesn’t notice the cold either: seasons are all the same, the small line on the thermometer raises and lowers, but the stable shield that surrounds himself doesn’t move and he stays so, frozen inside.

Get up, the soldier that used to fight by my side, where did he go?

Jaejoong laughs, and suffocates the moans in the bitterness of his voice.
He smiles, holding back the tears.
He lowers his eyelids and the nightmares come alive again, ghosts trapped between fantasy and reality that scream at him, accusing him: they chase him everywhere and they manage to get even to the most hidden places of his soul, there where he thought nobody would have ever reached.
They spit insults, they hurt, and he picks them up, helpless, vulnerable, mistaking them for true. He squeezes his eyes shut and wallows in the deepest misery, obsessed by that word, stinging and precise like a needle: traitor.

He disappeared.

Find him back. I used to hide and you used to seek, remember?

No, he doesn’t remember.
He closed the window of the past long ago, since when he had started to see their backs instead of their faces.
There is no need to remember and dive in that devasted scenery again: the storming sea and the blowing winds, the huge waves rising from the seabed so much that they almost touched the sky, mixing with the freezing drops raining down from above. Water was everywhere, raging, moving from one side to the other without having a clear goal, and he recalls being in the middle of all of it, alone, lost in a hell of bluish flames.
The sky screamed and so did he, but, strong as they were, the thunders covered his voice, way too feeble to be heard.

You have always been a liar, but I loved you anyway.

The guy laughs again, louder this time: the more his voice raises, the more his hearbeats aren’t likely to be heard. The same heartbeats that stopped just to speed up at the mention of love.

Go away.

Jaejoong doesn’t want to hear that voice anymore: it hurts too much and he has suffered enough.

Jaejoong, what is love for you?

There was a time in which he would have answered “Yunho” without doubts; he would have smiled and he would have hidden in those hugs he used to love so much. But now it is different and “love” and “Yunho” don’t seem to have anything in common anymore.

Love is the person who saved him from destruction, who supported him during those moments of neverending sufference, keeping him close amd never letting him go.

Look around you, even in the deepest darkness you may find a light.

His gaze wanders beyond the skyscrapers built around the city, over there, where the world seems absorbed in a permanent peace: it’s dawn.
Colors have become brighter, turning into reddish shades so familiar as well as melancholic.
He feels something tickling his eyes, willing to get out, but a sudden knock on the door forestalls him, distracting him from his thoughts.

Choose, another time.

He gets closer to the door and opens it. He doesn’t need to ask to know who it is, he feels it’s him everytime even before his presence confirms it.
Yoochun is like that: an unexpected hurricane that makes no damage. 

He looks into the dark shades of his eyes and finds the typical dimming of those who get enchanted, lingering on the past too much and he knows its cause so damn well.
He recalls the program of the previous night: the stage too big for the two of them alone, the crowd too small and the expressions too sad for the song they were singing. 
He remembers his hesitation before saying those words that Jaejoong felt burning in his throat too, willing to get out. And then the melody went on, along with the screams and the lights and those balloons so red that they hurt. 
Cracks expanded on the surface of his heart, chasing deeper ones, and leaving invisible scars over the almost completely ripped flesh.

How does it still manage to beat, Jaejoong wonders everyday.

Now, however, he smells Yoochun’s perfume, a pair of strong hands ready to hold him and that lightness only a new love can bring, that serenety long desired during his sleepless nights.

Reflect, and find what you truly want.

Jaejoong moves to the side and lets him in.
They sit down on the counch and talk, and joke, and finally a smile comes back on his face, a real one, not forced.
The heaviness he was feeling goes away and slowly both of them cling to that new tranquility they only manage to find when they are together.
Maybe, together, they have discovered an escape route.

I’ll ask you again, Jaejoong, what is love for you?

Yoochun.
The answer is different now, but so is the rhythm of his heart: calm, not hurried anymore. 
Yoochun hugs him, leaving a soft kiss between his hair and whispering sweet words at the same time.
Jaejoong closes his eyes and feels two big hands getting closer, while a pair of muscular arms surrounds him, leaving him with the ephimeral beauty of an illusion.

Jaejoong.

Hearing his name whispered in the same sensual way he used to still gets him, but he blames it on the few hours of sleep and loses himself in the affections of the younger guy.

However, when he keeps on thinking about him instead of Yoochun, of his strong cologne instead of that sweet aroma, he moves away, sliding down the clear wall of the living room. When he reaches the ground, memories come alive again and they are set free inside of him like a flock of butterflies, filling the emptiness he used to be devoured by.

He looks back and feels the same emotions of those infernal months: the confusion, the hate, the resentment, the sufferance and then there it is, the loneliness, the most painful, the one that didn’t let him go for so long and the same one that he spit in the notes of those scores that he will manage to sing some day. 
Yoochun had been there when he had needed him, but he would have never been able to take his place. 
For how hard he tried not to want it, not to think about it, he was always there: on his body as well as in his soul, marked under that tattoo that everyday reminded him of keeping his faith, of believing in that love that for a while he thought of forgetting but that now was about to rise from its own ashes.

I’m sorry, but I am too selfish to let you go.

He sees Yoochun getting closer and there they are, those dimmings, again, because of him, this time. The guy closes his eyes before taking a deep breath and when he opens them again he’s smiling.
Jaejoong knows very well that he’s hiding his true emotions, just like when he had supported him, telling him everything was ok while their worlds were slowly breaking down; he knows that he probably hates him, but he gets down at his same level and caresses his shoulder, pressing a pair of white headphones on his ears, before starting the music and getting out of the house.

Jaejoong is sure of having hurt him, as he’s sure that if he went out, he would find him sitting on the stairs, thinking and regretting. 
But they have to gather their strenghts and go on, they both have to.

Forgive me.

A new melody breaks into his mind, first feeble, then stronger, while he starts recognizing the rhythm and the words come out whispered in petals from his rose mouth.

どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう？
Why did he fall in love with Yunho? He doesn’t know. Maybe it was because of his attentions, maybe because of his charisma or because of that feeling of protection he used to feel everytime he was getting hugged.

While the lyrics melts with his thoughts, he realises how much he has being missing him. Yunho, with his unreadable expressions, his neverending love and his eyes always searching for him.

He realises how stupid  he was to blame everything on him, when the only thing he did was trying to protect their dream.

Hug me, you have nothing to be forgiven for.

Wake up, open your eyes to the new day and tell me: what do you see?

The song comes to an end and he slowly raises his eyelids, enjoying for the first time in a while the light of the new day.
He takes out his phone and sends a message.
Red, an ocean of red lights.

Love me: it’s you and me, it’s the only way.

A ring surprises him soon after.

I love you too, stupid.