"If you ask me, Kim Jongwoon is a vile being. But I will try to be as much detatched as possible while telling you what really happened between him and Ryeowook."

"Six years ago, while I quit school and moved my first steps in the fashion world as my mother's pupil, Ryeowook graduated from high school and started college as a normal eighteen-year-old boy. A friend of mine was hosting a party in the campus and invited me. I brought Ryeowook as well and tried to show him around as much as possible. I don't know if he's ever told you this, but up until then he's always had some weight issues, was constantly bullied and didn't really appreciate hanging out with people other than his family or Sungmin."

"However ever since he decided to train and lose weight, his life changed for good and well, at the party my baby brother was a huge success. Everyone had their eyes glued on the shy boy-next-door with the face of an angel and I was proud to have him there as a member of my family."

"Luck wasn't on my part though, because one person in particular had noticed Ryeowook among the others. That person was Kim Jongwoon, the young, new professor from the music department. No one knew whom he was, he quietly slipped uninvited to the party and nobody told him anything in particular. He was rather young back then and perfectly mixed up into the crowd."

"Anyway, I guess he must have noticed Ryeowook right at the party, but he made a move on him only on the following week, when Ryeowook started attending his music classes and discovered that the nice guy from the party was actually his professor."

"Sharing lots of things in common, the two of them clicked almost immediately and Ryeowook fell head over heels for Jongwoon, who kept showering him in constant attention, both at school and outside. Being that close for school reasons eventually brought them to be romantically involved with each other. Ryeowook hadn't ever had any love interest back then due to his insecurity, so he didn't understand why he was so attracted to Jongwoon. He was clumsy and clueless and perhaps that's what Jongwoon liked the most of my brother's personality: his naivety."

"Ryeowook kept a lot of things from me, thinking that I didn't have to know what was happening to him, because his growing relationship with Jongwoon was unacceptable. Hell, he was secretly dating his professor and no one had to know or they would have been both thrown out of the campus. However, it was this thrilling sensation of doing something that no one had to know, that gave out Ryeowook the most, at least to me."

"My brother has no secrets for me. And I busted him pretty soon. At the beginning I was highly against his relationship. Jongwoon was 28, ten years older than Ryeowook, but my brother was so cute in love, almost blind if I have to be honest, and his carefree attitude towards the man who loved him back hit me deep inside. I couldn't oppose any longer and helped him instead."

"I've never seen my brother happier than when he dated Jongwoon. He got to know more people, have more faith in himself and in his abilities, he wanted so bad to pursue his dreams to become a songwriter... and Jongwoon was his strength, or so Ryeowook used to tell me."

"Then, there was a period of time during which Jongwoon had taken various leaves of absence at school and often left Los Angeles. He told Ryeowook it was all about work, you know...courses and stuff like that. However, one day Ryeowook decided to fly all the way to Boston to make a surprise visit for him, but what my brother found wasn't his lover faithfully waiting for him. No. Jongwoon was acting the role of the lovibg husband and caring father."

"Ryeowook discovered with his own eyes that while they were dating, Jongwoon had had his legit family on the other side of the country for five years. His wife didn't know anything about Jongwoon having a secret lover, just like Ryeowook didn't know anything about her existence, nor the children's."

"I went over there with Siwon the same night. Ryeowook called me in a fit of tears, asking me to go a bring him home. I wanted to kill Jongwoon in the meanwhile, but Siwon stopped me, making me realize that I needed to stay closer to Ryeowook while he processed the pain of his first breakup ever."

"When Jongwoon returned back to Los Angeles, he found out that Ryeowook had quit his course and school in general. When he came to our house to beg him to talk to him, I took my revenge and finally hit him in the face. I only wish that fist could have left a permanent mark on his nose, though. Anyway, he begged my brother for forgiveness, saying things like he intended to leave his family at first, but then discovered that his wife had a severe illness and that she needed assistance and care, all the more because she was carrying their second child back then."

"Ryeowook gave him the only chance to explain things, but of course didn't accept the true nature of such a bastard, who was leading two different lives according to the places he was at. He locked himself up at home and waited for Jongwoon to disappear. When he did, Ryeowook had completely changed and began to mistrust people. My heart ached whenever I saw him getting more and more rebellious. He started going to the club more often, there he would meet people with whom hooking for a one night stand, and slowly, when he went back to university, changing major, he had managed to build himself the reputation of a playboy."

"This is also the situation in which you got to meet him. As you saw, he's got crowds of suitors lining up to enter his favors, but honestly this whole thing is scaring me. I'd like for him to stop screwing around like a and meet someone who could heal his heart..."

The conversation replayed in the back of his mind, Like a recorder incessantly echoing in his ears, annoyed by an absurd buzz noise that drilled his brain until it got unusable.

Kyuhyun lightly stirred under covers.

He moved his right arm out of the warmth of the comforter only to light the nightlamp on the drawer.

When the room had lost its darkness and acquired some dim, orange light, he glanced down at the petite figure peacefully sleeping in his arms. Ryeowook was nestled in his tight hold, cuddled up as he rested his head on Kyuhyun's chest, following the steady rhythm of this one's heartbeat, as it sounded in his ears like the reassuring motion of the waves in the silence, like the prettiest of lullabies.

That arm that before had lit the lamp, now was getting back on his rightful place, on Ryeowook's back, however something stopped Kyuhyun from tightening the hold and instead he decided to run his hand through Ryeowook's messy, ebony locks.

That wasn't the first time they slept together after the mutual decision of giving in to their feelings.

Kyuhyun had been secretly living his ghost-like life in Ryeowook's single dorm room ever since. And three days had already passed by.

Since the meeting with Jongwoon, he had never seen him around again, and even though Ryeowook had clearly told him the man's identity and the importance the man had withhold in his heart, Kyuhyun felt like being in need to answer more clearly his silent questions.

One afternoon, when Ryeowook was still attending classes, he decided to give a call to Heechul and, telling him a lie (that Sungmin had by accident slipped out the name of Kim Jongwoon in one of their conversations), he almost ordered the older Kim to tell him everything he knew about Ryeowook's past lover.

Without saying the last detail, of course.

So Heechul, as the biased brother he was, found it difficult to tell Kyuhyun who truly Jongwoon was to his loved Ryeowook without making his hate for the man that explicit, especially after the huge pain that that the latter had inflicted Ryeowook.

Kyuhyun couldn't help but uncomfortably dwell in those thoughts whenever he got to see Ryeowook's sincere smile and say that he was lucky, because even though he had suffered so much, his smile didn't appear the least stained.

Oh that smile... Kyuhyun swore the sparkling brilliance of that smile alone could keep him going for so long, if only Ryeowook was willing to direct it to Kyuhyun, and Kyuhyun only.

A low mumble snapped him out of his stream of thougths.

Ryeowook was lightly stirring in Kyuhyun's arms to get a more comfortable position. With eyes closed, he tried for a couple of times to nestle himself in that warmth once again without disrupting his sleep, and Kyuhyun, accomodating, was keeping his arms slightly open to let him find peace anew.

"Hey...hey, what's wrong?" he whispered in the silence, still glancing down at his new lover moving in disquiet.

Ryeowook then whined quite loudly, propped himself on both hands and pushed his body to sit upright against the cushions. Rubbing his face just like a little hamster could have done, he didn't see Kyuhyun playfully leaning on to his side and starting to poke him on the ribs.

"Oh! Stop it!" Ryeowook whined again, turning on the other side to shield himself from Kyuhyun's unexpected attacks.

"Why? Don't you like it?" Kyuhyun closed his arms around Ryeowook's waist and pulled him in a scooping hug, leanind forward to nuzzle his face and kiss him on the neck.

"I'd rather keep sleeping!" Ryeowook complained between suffocated laughs as he wriggled free "Did you really have to turn the lights on?" he mumbled "I could see it from behind my eyelids" the petite man stopped moving and acquired his privileged place against Kyuhyun's chest, fitting perfectly like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

"I'm sorry" Kyuhyun whispered. He slowly adjusted himself on the hip and propped his whole weight on an elbow, leaning over Ryeowook's body and gently tugging some locks of soft hair behind the man's ear.

"You weren't sleeping, were you?" Ryeowook's hoarse voice asked, as he basked peacefully in the softness of Kyuhyun's touch.

Kyuhyun sighed and didn't answer the question, which only confirmed Ryeowook's doubts: "Why?"

The taller man kept his religious silence, preferring not to bother Ryeowook with his useless worries, not now that the man in his arms had willingly accepted to give their love interest a serious try. 

"Kyu?" Ryeowook insisted, stirring in the hold and forcing Kyuhyun to unwillingly back off and let him go "Will you tell me what's keeping you from sleeping at 4am in the morning?" he asked as he turned to the man and looked up at him with sincere concern veiling his eyes, the olographic red light shaped into numbers on the digital alarm clock led screen reflected in his peripheric vision.

"Nothing important" Kyuhyun replied with a small smile curving his lips, his hand constantly playing with Ryeowook's locks as he himself found the practice relaxing to do.

"Really?" 

"Of course" Kyuhyun forced his smile to grow into a more reassuring one. He leant in and pressed a quick peck onto Ryeowook's forehead "It's just...you were in my thoughts, that's all"

"Oh...there, you see there was something bothering you after all!" Ryeowook scoffed, his puff made his own bangs funnily fly for a couple of seconds, before they could rearranged themselves in a slightly different and messier position.

"No! That's not it, Ryeowook..."

"Come on, since I'm now all awake, you gotta tell me everything" Ryeowook's head sunk more comfortably in the fluffy cushions as he lifted his head to look Kyuhyun in a better way. All the while his hands firmly gripped the man's white t-shirt and tried to pull him closer to his own chest.

"Ryeowook, really...it's not as important as you think" Kyuhyun looked down at him, noticing how his words weren't effective to buy the man's suspicion and erase it for good "Okay, I was...thinking about what's been going on between us. I want to know more about you"

"You're doing it, Kyu!" Ryeowook's hands briefly stopped from playing with Kyuhyun's t-shirt collar and he looked straight into the taller man's eyes, a little dumbfounded.

"No, no wait. I want to become your missing half, that's what I want. But you