[2009 - 2010]

Nine

1.

Yunho was lying on his bed that night: eyes closed and arms stretching between the blankets, trying in vain to catch some sleep. It had been a tiring day, full of meetings and fights and yelling, and he just wanted to hide himself in the dreams realm, but for some strange reasons he wasn’t managing to.
It was past midnight when he received a message from an unknown number and listlessly he reached out his hand to check it.

The message contained a picture. It wasn’t in high quality and it took a while before Yunho could recognize the features of the street it contained. It was an alley behind the SM building: garbage spread everywhere at its sides, broken nightlights and poor buildings. He had used it sometimes in his training days, when he needed a shortcut for his part-time job, but he hadn’t seen the street in years.

There was something, however, that made the picture look vaguely familiar in a way he didn’t manage to explain. Something about its dim light and dark corners seemed to awake something else in his memory, but as he couldn’t figure out what it was, he guessed someone had just got the wrong number.

He deleted the message right after, but for some unknown reasons he decided to keep the picture.

2.

The second time Yunho received a message from un unknown number, he was with Heechul. They were laughing about a silly joke the older guy had just said, when his phone rang. They checked the text together and they were both as confused at the sentence they found written.

It’s too cold to sleep outside, tonight.
Take care.

They exchanged lost glances and wondered what the hell came through the sender’s mind: of course it was too cold, it was ing November.

Yunho looked outside the window and saw it was snowing, small flakes were falling from the sky, whitening the city. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt run over by a strange sense of melancholy he couldn’t explain.

3.

Yunho was sitting on a chair in front of one of SM meeting rooms, when he received a message from an unknown number again. It was already the third time. He arched his eyebrows and checked it to see if it looked familiar, but as always the sequence of numbers didn’t ring any bell.
He decided to open the message anyway, just to see what it said, but he found himself slightly out of place when he read the words it contained.
It was a question, actually, followed by a short statement.

Did you have any ramen tonight? It’s been a while.

Yunho struggled some moments trying to guess who the writer could have been, but when the manager called him in for the reunion and he still didn’t have any idea of who it could have been, he supposed someone had just got the wrong number and proceeded in deleting it soon after.

Surely, it was happening too many times to be random, but in that moment Yunho decided to just let it go.

4.

When Yunho received his fourth message from another unknown number, he decided something must have been pretty wrong. Enough was enough, and apparently somebody who had managed to get his number was having fun tormenting him. He decided to block the user, but he was shocked to realise that the four messages were from four different numbers.
Something was off, that was for sure, but he couldn’t really understand what.
Was it the same person? Or were they different ones?
Were the messages linked?
However, just as he was reading the latest one, he couldn’t manage to get the connection between them. They were just random questions and odd pictures, texts he guessed he wasn’t supposed to read, or if he was, he surely couldn’t read through.

Cola or alcohol? I choose alcohol!

But how could people get the numbers wrong so many times?
How come he was the one they were always writing to?

5.

When the fifth message arrived, Yunho wasn’t even surprised anymore not to recognize the number it had come from. He sighed and read the text while waiting for the coffee to be ready.
He was quite astonished to see the words it contained, though.

First kisses are meant to be remembered forever, aren’t they?

He unconsciously brought a finger to his mouth, touching his lower lip, and wondering once again about those strange messages he kept on receiving.

He suddenly remembered his first kiss too: a late autumn afternoon, a classroom, a girl he didn’t even liked that much. And he remembered his second first kiss too: an early winter morning, a bed room, a boy he happened to love too much.

Yunho let the memories flow away and deleted the message. How could be something so intimate being sent to someone it wasn’t addressed to?

6.

Yunho had been working hard those last few months, singing, and dancing, and exercising more then he had ever had. When he entered the apartment he still shared with Changmin, he didn’t wait a second and run straight to the bathroom, hiding himself under the warm feeling of the shower.

Peace was finally taking over his senses.

It wasn’t until later, when he finally came out of the shower, that he noticed a little blue light on his phone signalling that he had got a new message and as soon as he opened it, he couldn’t help sighing.

What was it, the sixth? Or was it the seventh unnkown number that had managed to crack his phone?

Yunho opened it and deleted it right after, shutting down the phone and falling asleep between the silk blankets.

A picture of the dreamed beaches of Bora Bora was lost somewhere in the cyberspace.

7.

It was February 5 when Yunho received the seventh message and as he opened it he wondered if they would have ever stopped. He hoped so. He had even changed number, but it turned out being useless as his phone kept on being cracked.
The text was short, no smiles or little hearts. No emoticons either.

Happy birthday.

The oddest thing was that it wasn’t even his birthday yet: few hours were still missing and he was sure none of his friends would have got it wrong. Not even the ones in different time zones.

However, an unexplainable feeling was still bothering him and the fact that he couldn’t understand what it was made him even angrier.

Those little texts were gonna drive him crazy.

8.

Yunho was visiting his sister Jihye when a whistle came from his phone welcoming him with another one of those mysterious messages he was starting to get obsessed with. There wasn’t anything specific he was actually mad at, as he didn’t know neither the sender nor the meaning they were hiding, but what was for sure was that they couldn’t be addressed to him. They just didn’t make any sense.

Look at the stars tonight.

Yunho was starting to believe he had fallen into in some sort of dramatic teenage romance with an unknown girl from some distant land. Separated lovers, connected by the same sky, linked by the hope they had in their eyes when they were lost stargazing in the night.

As if his life wasn’t dramatic enough.

9.

Yunho hadn’t been receiving strange messages for quite a long time now, so when the phone suddenly vibrated in the middle of the film he was watching with Changmin in their small apartment in Japan, he was pretty surprised.

It was the ninth text and the guy decided they had to stop, he decided he had had enough. For real, this time. However, as soon as he read the only word it contained, he found himself puzzled. It wasn’t the same lost feeling he had felt while reading the other ones: well, the feeling was there, but there was something else too. Something that scared him and attracted it at the same time. Something about that word that he knew it had to ring a bell, but that he couldn’t quite get.

Nine.

Nine, Yunho kept thinking. Nine what?
Nine tales, like the mythological creature?
Nine, as in the number of the album they were about to release?
Nine what, he wondered again.

Yunho was about to retrieve his phone in one of his pockets, but he suddenly stopped himself when a conversation from such a long time ago came back to his mind, crashing his already broken present.

“Where do you think we will be in nine years” Jaejoong had asked. It had been night, and they had been relaxing on the counch in the living room, playing games and chatting. His best friend had had his head on his lap, while he himself had been lying back with his eyes closed.

“Nine years from now? Why do they have to be nine and not ten?” He had replied.

“I don’t know, just answer”

Yunho hadn’t known what to say.
“Honestly, I don’t know, but I hope we will still be friends in nine years”
He had then passed a hand through his hair, combing them.

“Best friends” Jaejoong had replied, relaxing under the touch.

They had laid there for hours and Yunho had thought the older guy had finally fallen asleep when he had added “I will write you a song in nine years”
“To our friendship” he had whispered and Yunho hadn’t known yet that friendship wasn’t really what Jaejoong had been talking about.

Nine years.

Yunho could feel his eyes getting teary as he looked at his phone again and traced the imaginary line that linked all those messages he had been receiving for the past months.
He breathed out loudly. Once, twice, three times. But air didn’t seem willing to reach his lungs.
He coughed and was trying to calm himself down, when Changmin got closer.

“You ok hyung?” he asked, obviously worried.

“I’m not” he answered. No need to lie.
He breathed again, deeply, before making a request Changmin swore he had never thought the other guy would have ever made.
“Call Jaejoong” he said, the words coming out in broken whispers from his troubled lungs.

“What?”

“Call. Jaejoong.” he repeated, articulating every word.

He could suddenly see the line clear right in front of him, connecting every memory he had shared with him.

The corner in the dark alley where they had first met. The bridge they had slept under during so many freezing nights. The ramen shop where they used to eat in their training days. Jaejoong fainting because of drinking too much cola and his raising addiction to alcohol. Their first kiss which neither of them had managed to forget. Bora Bora and their fake honeymoon where even though they hadn’t been married, they had managed to enjoy their relationship in its richness. Their birthday, as in the day that divided the two of them, as in the only full day they had lived in different worlds. And nine, as in the song Jaejoong had promised to write.

Nine years of memories rushed to his mind from the deepest corners of his soul.
Nine years of love and hate and fights.
Nine years of struggling, of working, of compromising.
Nine years of Kim Jaejoong in every shape he could be taken.

When Changmin handed him the phone, he grabbed it with every little strength he had and when the dialing tone finally stopped, he said the only thing he could have said.

“Where do you think we will be in nine years?” He asked, trying to suppress his silent sobs.

Jaejoong held his breath on the other end of the line and thought about his words carefully.

“I will still be waiting for you”

Yunho didn’t speak for minutes but he knew Jaejoong wouldn’t just hang up. Not before hearing his answer.

“I” he started, uncertain, before clearing his voice.

“I will still be loving you”