Reply 1997: YoonHee - You're Not Here (But I Can't Stop Thinking About You)
yoonjae and joonhee give me life and there's a disturbing lack of this pairing in the world e n e what is this pairing name tho forreal
loosely inspired by b.a.p's where are you? what are you doing? and set shortly after joonhee moves out in the drama.
Yoonjae wakes to the sound of his alarm, beeping incessantly in his ear.
"Joonhee-yah," he grumbles instinctively, one arm shooting out from under his blankets to beat his alarm into submission, "why didn't you turn it off?"
When he's met with nothing but silence, he pokes his head out from under his blankets, his eyes squinty from sleep and his eyebrows coming ever closer to forming a single line across his forehead.
"Joonhee?"
Yoonjae pushes his body up, looking at the bed on the other side of the room that's conspicuously devoid of sheets and blankets. The air is silent, lacking the sound of the morning news and the sound of Joonhee making breakfast.
Oh, wait.
Joonhee moved out yesterday.
Yoonjae slumps back down in bed, remembering the last conversation the two of them had had before Joonhee walked out of his life.
Of course, he'd kind of had to move out, what with "bonding with his seniors" and all that crap, but who else was going to make Yoonjae meals and wash his laundry and be the voice of reason when he was going to do something stupid with Shiwon—
Oh, God.
He was ridiculously dependent on Joonhee and he didn't even know it.
"Damn," he mutters, finally swinging his legs over the side of his bed and walking heavily to the bathroom, kicking off his pajama pants and underwear before taking his morning shower.
He stands under the stream of hot water, making sure to wet all of his hair before reaching down to grab his shampoo, only to pause when he doesn't have to fumble for his shampoo amidst Joonhee's products—instead, his lone bottle of cheap supermarket sale special sits on the floor.
Grabbing it with more force than necessary, he pops open the cap and squeezes some into his palm, rubbing it through his hair and letting the water wash it all away.
He watches the white suds as they swirl down the drain, and the sight amuses him for some reason. No matter what color shampoo he happens to buy (this month it's pearlescent blue), it always ends up white.
Joonhee probably knew why, what with his medical chemical who-knows-whatever.
It was a good thing neither of them ended up in the Air Force, Yoonjae muses as he towels off and brushes his teeth. Joonhee's knowledge would have been wasted there. Even though Yoonjae had always ended up placing first in school, it was Joonhee who was truly the smarter of the two.
Ah, Joonhee.
Even though he’s not even there, he somehow manages to fill up all the empty spaces in Yoonjae’s mind.
Yoonjae spits into the sink, rinsing it out with the faucet, and returns to his (no longer his and Joonhee’s, he remembers, with some degree of bitterness) room to get dressed.
He pulls on his suit with practiced ease—navy with a white shirt, today—and hangs a tie around his neck, having no desire to strangle himself before he’s even had breakfast.
Breakfast.
Guess that means instant ramyun, now that Joonhee's off rooming with some hospital sunbae.
Yoonjae scoffs to himself, wondering if Joonhee makes breakfast for his new roommate as he walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge in the hopes that maybe he can scrounge up some vegetables or meat to make his instant noodles a little more substantial.
Instead, he finds neatly stacked Tupperware full of food, enough to last a week, and a sticky note.
Until you learn how to cook, here’s this. If you ever go to the hospital for high blood pressure, I’ll be sure to put you on a diet that forbids instant ramyun.
The note is unsigned, but it’s more than obvious who it’s from.
“Kang Joonhee, am I ever going to stop owing you things?” he sighs as he pulls out a container of dwaenjang jjigae and sets it on the counter before searching for the rice cooker and a pot to heat up the stew.
He eats in silence. It’s not unusual per se, since neither he nor Joonhee had been particularly chatty people in the morning, but eating while seeing a blank wall instead of another person just seems so empty.
And it finally hits him—Joonhee’s gone, and even though he’s no more than a phone call or a short drive away (or a hospital visit, Yoonjae supposes, but he’s not too keen on visiting the hospital anytime soon), there’s just so foreign about not living with someone else. Even when his parents had passed on and his hyung had worked long hours to keep the two of them going, there was always the promise of having someone to come home to, even if it meant hopping over to Shiwon’s house for the day.
Shiwon…
He laughs, dryly. Even though they’re dating after six years of playing stupid cat-and-mouse games, there’s something that just doesn’t sit quite right with him.
Sighing, he gets up and puts the dishes in the sink, deciding to wash them later when he came back home. He grabs his briefcase, checking to make sure everything’s in order, and plucks his jacket from the rack by the door. He pulls his arms through the sleeves, juggling his bag back and forth between his hands as he walks to the apartment’s garage, grunting as he unlocks the Onata and crawls in through the passenger side.
He starts the engine and pulls out, thinking the whole while not of the date he and Shiwon had planned for the evening, but instead of Joonhee, and how he was faring.
“You bastard,” he mutters, stomping on the acceleration to get the car moving, “you haven’t even been gone for a whole day, and you still won’t leave my mind?”
He turns on the radio, fiddling with the knobs to try and find a good station, only to find that they’re playing an old H.O.T song.
And somehow, that reminds him not of Shiwon, the die-for fangirl, but instead of Joonhee, and how he’d been a rare fanboy among the sea of girls, even going early to pick up and album and sitting in line for hours to get concert tickets.
You have a problem, Yoon Yoonjae, he tells himself, pulling into the parking lot of the courts and crawling back out of his car, locking it with a chirp and making his way to his office, greeting the people he passed on the way.
And as he sits at his desk, filing through the cases of the day, he wonders if the sunbaes at the hospital are treating Joonhee poorly, or if he’s remembered to eat, because he’s selfless to the point of self-destruction—
…he doesn’t have a problem.
…okay, maybe he does.
And it goes by the name of Kang Joonhee, and Yoonjae wonders if he’ll ever get Joonhee off his mind.
(But something tells him he won’t, not next year, and most definitely not in 2012…)
How many puppies can you see? Well, I can see three! Two of them are talking, and the other one is angry because he's jealous! Junhee-ssi, pay attention to Yunjae-ssi!
