adjaecent

[adjaecent]

- dreamers often lie (t) pt. 1/6

the 1996 Romeo + Juliet AU that wouldn’t leave my mind after this photoshoot and this interview

pairing: romeo!jaehyun x ofc!juliet 

genre/warnings: romance, tragedy, violence, tries to be a little geographically accurate and fails at it, no smut (sorry lol)

summary:  His fingers traced her cheek lightly, eyes dancing as if to say, “Well, now you have my attention, what are you going to do with it?”

The ringing of her alarm sounded hours after Juliet had already awoken. Her eyes stared blankly at the lacy canopy of her bed, her mind still trapped in the memory of her dreams. If she could stay trapped in those memories, if she could just drown in them all and never wake up again, she would be more content than she felt now. She could even be happy.

She heard the sound of their housekeeper and the woman who had practically raised her making her way down the hall. Chung-sook reached Juliet’s door and shouted loud and true that her young charge was slacking her day away and would be late for school if she didn’t hurry up. Then she cackled loudly, the only sound that could be heard in the entire house. Juliet raised her voice, if not her head, so she could be heard, “I’m awake, I promise! I’m sorry, I must be so distracted I forgot to turn off the alarm.”

Her voice trailed off as Chung-sook laughed again, “Oh, I know your tricks, Miss! You had best wake up right now, I have breakfast ready and I will be very sore if you leave in a rush without eating any of it!”

The housekeeper walked away, thoughtlessly humming under her breath and Juliet finally reached over to silence her alarm. Her dreams had already begun slipping away, slowly like water between her fingers. Yet, just like water, the feel of them remained even afterwards, her hands soaked in their metaphorical thoughts.

She had dreamt of him again.

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Her mind drifted as she buttoned up her uniform shirt, her fingers deftly moving up the garment. He had been bent over a book, his graceful fingers moving over a passage as his mouth moved to read the words. She had been sitting nearby, but he hadn’t noticed her. Even her dreams kept that consistency to her normal life. But unlike her real self, she had reached over in her dreams and she had plucked the book from his fingers so that when he looked up in surprise he would have to look straight at her.

His brown eyes were wide in their shock, the warm sunlight illuminating every speck of color. His face was puzzled before it had smoothed over to an amused and expectant look. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel the book start to slip from her twitching fingers and before she could set a goal, before she could act, he moved.

His fingers traced her cheek lightly, eyes dancing as if to say, “Well, now you have my attention, what are you going to do with it?”

She had woken up as his thumb touched her bottom lip, the words stagnant in her mouth.

“Everything, anything, please.”

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Juliet sat at the modern dining table, leaving space between her and her mother. Her father would typically sit between them most mornings, but he was currently in the midst of a PR disaster. Some of his shadier filings involving shops he owned in Itaewon had come to the media’s attention and they talked of illegal contracts and bribery. Nothing that wasn’t true, of course, but everything that should never be said out loud.

She knew only one family that would dare to sell information like this to the press. The feud between their families was ancient, something that went as far back as their time as merchant traders in the kingdom of Silla. Both families tried to ingratiate themselves to different sovereigns at different times, to appeal to different traders and foreigners, and to own the coveted trading routes at the Han river. Their last names were a symbol of their trading prowess at this time, political marriages made at different junctures to benefit their status–the strange Chos and Jeongs of Seoul.

Her own family had kept a tradition of naming their daughters using foreign names from the past. Juliet was used to the double take people made when they read her name and then actually saw her, their disappointment always keenly felt. She never lived up to the excitement or the poetry of the name she was given, even if she was expected to live up to the honor of the last name she never sought.

She stood after dutifully finishing her breakfast, making sure she left nothing on her plate so that Chung-sook would not worry. Her mother leans her cheek towards her for a perfunctory kiss, her fingers scrolling quickly on her phone, and Juliet left after her quiet goodbye was left unanswered.

Her family’s driver moved to open the door for her, his smile wide even as he stood in the slightly chilly morning air.

“Good morning, little princess. Ready for school?”

Juliet smiled at Mr. Park and shook her head, both an answer and an admonishment. The nickname was one spouted by her family and by her enemies alike and in her mind it was just another name she couldn’t hope to live up to.

They drove to her cousin’s home as was their normal routine to school. Rosaline walked demurely to the car, disregarding Mr. Park as he opened the door for her. She was older by two years and beautiful, her mind as sharp as steel and the focus of it honed over years. Rosaline was preparing to sit for her university exams this fall and she had already planned her future law career out to the next ten years. Nowhere in these plans was there room for either marriage or love and neither of them ever talked about how Rosaline was free to make this decision as the daughter of the youngest Cho son.

Juliet held no wishes like that for herself, she knew exactly what marriage meant for her and for the future of her family.

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The first time she had ever seen him was with Rosaline next to her. Her thirteenth birthday had just happened and Rosaline had taken her out to celebrate the gain of a little more of her freedom. They had been walking in Itaewon which was a neutral zone for both of their families. It held none of the expectations of tradition and of order that the Cho areas north of the Han river did for her and none of the animosity the Jeong areas south of the Han river did either. Here, hidden behind the tourists and the foreigners, she could almost escape all of it.

She had been dragging Rosaline towards a taiyaki stand, the fried dough one of her favorite treats when she was outside the house, when she heard his laugh for the first time. She had turned her head to see a boy making loud and angry sounds in the middle of the street, almost as if he was fighting a shadow. His movements were exaggerated and Juliet couldn’t help but laugh at one of his dramatic stumbles. She was amused watching the show until she heard the laugh again and this time her eyes wandered to another boy standing at the center of the crowd, his body leaning against the front of a shop as he stared at the funny display that was most certainly for him.

Juliet stared transfixed as his happiness spread on his face, the smile pulling at his face to end at the rivets of two symmetrical dimples. Every thought and every feeling was laid bare in his smile and she couldn’t imagine what that would have been like, to express so freely that your own face had certain tells for others to see. For happiness to be something so easy to find in your smile.

His eyes moved to them, most likely sensing her stare, but they quickly flitted past her to her cousin. She could see the recognition in his stare and the sudden excitement at seeing Rosaline, but her cousin only huffed before moving past her. She kept her hand on Juliet’s arm so she wouldn’t be lost in the crowd as she shoved through it. Juliet turned to glance at him one more time, to see his face fall as Rosaline ignored him. His eyes moved downwards and she caught his attention this time, his face curiously blank when he looked at her before Rosaline succeeded in getting through the crowd and the contact was finally broken.

Juliet felt that she might be able to breathe again now that the strange spell was broken, but she found that even the taiyaki her cousin had gotten them tasted like nothing in her mouth. Rosaline glanced at her before sighing, “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this.”

She looked up shocked at her suddenly whiny tone. Rosaline was always regal in the way she spoke, especially to her younger cousins.

“That was Jaehyun, a Jeong, and not just any one of them, but the one to inherit it all. He has this asinine idea in his head that he’s in love with me because I rejected him yesterday and that our family histories don't actually matter,” she scoffed, “The history between our families is one of the only things that matters as far as I’m concerned. He’s insufferable. God, if he would only use his brain for once.”

Juliet remembered the sheer breadth of emotions that she saw on his face before Rosaline pulled them away. She couldn’t imagine being so brave as to go against her family’s wishes. She couldn’t imagine being so brave as to put emotion and passion before logic or reasoning.

She couldn’t help but to admire him, even then.

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The gossip reached them even before they reached their school. Juliet was distracted with a kitty collecting game she’d downloaded to her phone, she found a lot of joy in feeding each cat that found its way to her little yard and would play it for hours embarrassingly enough. She heard Rosaline gasp at her social feed and suddenly had a new phone shoved into her face. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that there were multiple posts, some with video even, of a fight that broke out earlier this morning.

As she glanced at the images she could make out their other cousin, Johnny, clear as day. He must have gone after the Jeongs in retaliation for what they leaked about her father’s business dealings, but since they were all still so young, their fights had to be relegated between their fists instead of in boardrooms. For someone as logical and cool headed as their cousin, his actions frequently turned angry when it came to their family feud. Juliet scoffed and looked away from the last image, the Chief of Police himself showing up to end the brawl in the streets.

“I can’t believe he would be so stupid,” she muttered, “It’s his last year and this isn’t what he should be focusing on. This isn’t anything important at all! Why should this feud matter more than his future?”

There was silence before Rosaline spoke, “He’s fighting because of what those scum released to the media about your father, Juliet. I’m sure your father would appreciate the support.”

Juliet could see her face flinch in the window's reflection. Her father got himself into this mess with his less than ideal business practices, why would she have to defend his honor over this? If she had ever done something as embarrassing to the family, she knows they would have had no problems disowning her, only child or not. She glanced at Mr. Park and saw his eyes quickly glance away. His professionalism kept him silent, but she wanted to know just what he thought about her austere family and their terrible places in this city.

There would be no charges filed of course as neither family would want to invite them and the police themselves would ignore it so long as the bribes kept coming from the obscenely rich. Their feud had personally paid for most of the police equipment and cars, she was sure.

As they arrived in front of their school gates, Rosaline squeezed her arm before walking out of the car. Juliet knew what the gesture meant, they were now in front of the public and they would be scrutinized for everything that had occurred over the last week. To show weakness now would be detrimental to her family’s image.

They caught sight of Johnny waiting for them at the school’s entrance and Juliet couldn’t help the glare she shot him, even as she turned her face away so no one standing nearby would see. He dramatically rolled his eyes at her face, bringing his coffee up to his mouth as he ignored her. He never saw any problems with his behavior or his violence and the rest of the family would go along with it because he was the shining light of their family’s future as far as they were concerned. Even Rosaline only smiled at him and asked him just how much detention he was given for this new stunt and that she was sure to beat his score in the university exams now.

“Everyone in the fight has a month of detention for this, which is more fair than I thought it would be considering the Chief’s nephew was in the fight this time and on the Jeong’s side. I have no problems with Minjun, but his decision to be their friend is already a slight to our family that I can’t just ignore.”

At this, Juliet scoffed again and he moved to glare at her this time.

“Have you considered how this will affect your cram school? Will you be the one to let our tutor know or did it even cross your mind?”

She saw his face relax a little at this before he continued, “Well, obviously my dearest cousins will bring me the worksheets I missed and I’ll just have to work harder on the weekends to not fall behind in time for the exam. It’s all those Jeong’s fault, anyway.”

There was so much she could say then, how if he had also minded himself then the adults could have dealt with their business dealings by themselves and the children could be free to stay out of it, how it was not the younger Jeong’s faults that the head of their family decided to do this right when both families were fighting over a new development contract and just how dumb he was to phrase his request for his worksheets like that. They both knew Rosaline was never going to bring him his work.

Since she was in a lower grade than both her cousins, she started to walk past them to the school. She gave them a warning to not be late to class before heading to her designated locker to trade her books for her morning’s classes. There were already whispers around her, her name loud and clear in most of her classmates mouths. As much as she wanted to slam her locker and turn around to shout at them, she held herself back and gently closed her locker.

Her classroom sat at the back of the school, with wide windows that faced out into their private courtyard. It was an affluent school, known for getting its students into high ranking universities, and most of the students knew each other’s families because of their business or political relations. It was also one of the other few neutral zones for the Cho and Jeong families as neither would sacrifice the best education even for their feud.

Her assigned seat was right next to the window and she had selfishly coveted the desk since she received it. She could stare out directly at the large tree in the middle of the courtyard where most students mingled before classes and she could feel the sun stream in from the southern-facing windows. She reached her hand out to touch the window pane, the warmth of the glass warming her palm. There was a movement to her right and when Juliet looked, she had a chance to make eye contact with the same pair of eyes that had haunted her dreams this morning. With a curse, she quickly looked away, angling her body awkwardly in her desk so that she could be hidden from view.

Her heart was racing and she was reminded of how brave she was in her dream, how she not only wanted but commanded his attention there. With several deep breaths, she moved to look out the window again but he was gone and the courtyard was starting to empty. Her classmates started to filter into the classroom and Juliet shook her head in disappointment. She would do better next time.

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Their tutor was not pleased with the information she relayed, his strict admonishments falling on the ears of the one person not involved in any of this in the slightest. By the time she had finally gotten all of her cousins' worksheets the sun was starting to hang low in the sky and she knew she would be late getting home at this rate. Her father was throwing a fundraiser gala tonight, some good press to negate the bad he kept accumulating and she was expected to be there and on her best behavior. Her mother had already coordinated an extensively detailed look for her and it would take hours to get ready in a way that would satisfy them both.

Curse her stupid cousin!

When she reached the room where their detention was being held, she could hear the angry voices from outside the door. It did absolutely nothing to calm her anger.

Juliet shoved the door open, the shock at the interruption silencing the group of students inside and she spared a glance to see how they had divided themselves into different areas of the room. Each group was cleaning old instruments and sports gear, their physical tasks obviously meant to keep them occupied though it wasn’t doing them any good.

She could feel eyes staring at her from her left, the group of Jeong boys and supporters most likely shocked at both her appearance as well as her loud entry. She carefully avoided one specific set of eyes that wasn’t supposed to be there, but it seemed like he chose to stick by his troublesome cousins the same way she did. He must have been keeping them company during their detention and if Juliet had known she would have made sure to check her appearance at least once before coming in. And she also might have made a much quieter entrance.

Once her eyes set on her cousin, sitting next to a pile of basketballs he was wiping down, her previous anger overtook her nerves. She walked towards him with the worksheets in her fist and practically shoved the folder at him.

“Do you have any idea the absolute earful I just got from our tutor? I’m not even the idiot who got in trouble! You owe me so much for this, Johnny!”

She could hear snickering from behind her, but she pointedly ignored their audience, choosing instead to stare at how her cousin rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’m so sorry that you’re going to be late to your party, princess. We both know you don’t even like these galas.”

She crossed her arms in order not to shove at him, especially in front of their audience, “You know just how important this is to my dad right now,” she lowered her voice and finally he showed some remorse and Juliet wished the Uncle card wasn’t the only way to get through to him these days, “and you know I'll keep bringing you these worksheets because it’s important to me that you do well. This, your education, is important. Not what’s happening here…” She moved her arm to show the detention room, the pointed divide between each group. The audience behind them was quiet to this.

“But you have to tell our damn tutor that all of this was your fault anyway! I want them to leave me alone or so help me, I won’t be responsible for my actions after this.” She felt the urge to stamp her foot, but held herself back. She was already coming off petulant in her anger right now so it was best not to add annoying brat to everything else.

This caused Johnny to smile and he shoved at her to leave, “Alright, okay, make sure to tell your mom I’ll be right there after this. Go and get beautiful, we both know it’ll take a while.”

She turned to glare at him again, oh that jerk, but was interrupted by a voice from behind her.

“What is this, the Cho’s are hosting a big party tonight? And they forgot to invite me!” Minjun put his hand to his heart, acting every bit as dramatic as the time she had first seen him fighting his shadow in the streets of Itaewon all for Jaehyun’s amusement. She ignored the same boy hovering at the edges of her periphery, just like that first time as well.

“I’m sure the Chief was invited, Minjun. You’re free to come if you’d like,” her diplomatic answer betrayed her racing heart. If she could only just extend the invite to the others, if she could only have an excuse to see him outside of the confines of these walls for one night.

“But your friends are not invited.”

Juliet closed her eyes momentarily at the harsh response behind her. She moved to open her mouth before another voice spoke up. This time she had an excuse to finally (finally) move her eyes to him, giving herself the chance to drink in the picture he made without any worry that someone would catch her staring too long.

“You wound us, Johnny. I thought this detention was finally bringing us closer. You know I have no reason to hate you or your family,” Jaehyun smiled as he spoke, his deep voice calming the room.

He sat on top of one of the desks on their side of the room, the circle of people of him obviously arranged in a way that he was at its center even as Minjun held the most attention. He was still in his school uniform, but his white shirt collar was unbuttoned and his hair had been mussed up by his own hands. It was one of his nervous tells as whenever he felt the loss of control in a situation or in his emotions, his hands would move to touch his hair. His physical perfection was something he put so much thought to that to check on it was something almost ingrained in him. She wondered what about this situation made him nervous. Her own hands twitched at her side before she quickly closed them into fists. She saw his eyes flick to them and realized she must have shown a much more antagonistic picture than she meant to. She quickly relaxed her hands again, stretching out the tension and she watched as he stared at that, too.

“You know our families could never be like that,” was Johnny’s simple response behind her and it was only because she knew him so well that she could recognize the small regret in his tone. There was a time when this feud didn’t mean so much to him either, but as they’d grown older and he’d grown more attached to the family business and the family name, it had come to be the same bitter story as before. Now this feud mattered too much to him. With a sigh she turned away, she had already wasted too much time here and her mother was going to be even angrier at her accidental slight.

As she walked to the door, the boys behind her turned back to their tasks, most likely realizing they’d have to work much faster in order to leave their detention on time. She still felt one pair of eyes on her as she left, their owner left with nothing else to do but watch her leave.