The first thing I notice when I wake up is that Yoochun is sleeping peacefully on his back beside me, his hand still holding mine. Looking out the window, I can tell it’s only been a few hours, but we’ll probably have to get up soon anyway. Slowly, I try to move to the nearby chair, but as soon as I start to pull away, his grip tightens again. I sigh and instead scoot up so I can lean against the headboard. With my free hand, I reach out to brush a lock of hair from his face. As my fingertips graze his skin, Yoochun’s eyes flutter open.

“Hey,” I say softly when they stay open.

“_____?” he slowly mumbles, blinking a few times. “What’re you doing here?”

“Umm...”

Yoochun tries to rub his eyes but looks confused when the back of my hand touches his cheek. He stares at it for a few more seconds before he realizes it’s entwined with his. “Was...was I doing this all night?”

I nod.

“Mianhae,” he apologizes, quickly letting go and looking away.

“It’s okay,” I reply, bringing my hand into my lap. I hide it there and begin flexing my fingers, wincing a little as they protest the new movement.

“______...”

“Yes?”

“Was...did last night actually happen? I didn’t dream it, right?”

Sadly, I shake my head.

    The blank look returns to Yoochun’s face as he sits up, curls his legs up into his chest, and lets his head fall on his knees, hidden by his arms. Tentatively, I wrap an arm around his shoulder and lean my cheek against his shoulder when he doesn’t shrug me off. I listen carefully, but he’s not crying. Only his breath is unsteady.

As we sit there silently, someone knocks on the door. “Yoochun?”

    Yoochun and I look at each other for a millisecond before I scramble off the bed to hide on the other side. Although Mr.Choi knows we’re friends, I doubt he’d be pleased to find me in Yoochun’s room this early, let alone me being in his bed.

“Yoochun, you have to-Oh, you’re up,” I hear Mr.Choi say as he comes in the room. “Be in the second floor conference room in half an hour, arasso? It’s right by the elevators.”

“All right.”

I peek over the bed when I hear the door shut. Standing, I glance at Yoochun. Slowly, I say, “You don’t have to go. I can tell him you’re not feeling well. The others will back me up.”

“No.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “It’ll give me something to do so I don’t have to think of J-...what happened.”

“Ok. I guess...I better go get ready.” As I round the bed, I pause and go back to hug him. I pause again at the door. “Yoochun.”

He lifts his head to look at me.

“It’ll be okay. You’ll see. Just remember we’re always here if you need us.”

Yoochun just nods.

Biting my lip, I open the door and peer into the hall before running into my room to get ready.

“______?” Yunho calls quietly as I slip a new shirt over my head a little while later. “Are you in here?”

“Hang on,” I answer, adjusting my clothes before opening the door.

“How is he?”

“He didn’t want to skip out on today, so I’m guessing better than last night,” I reply, stepping out and walking with him down the hall. “I’m still worried about him though. He can’t have accepted it in just one night and be done with it.”

Yunho nods in agreement. “It’ll take him awhile, but maybe work will help.”

“What about Jaehwa though? What if she’s still here and he sees her?”

“Then we’ll have to make sure that happens, and by we, I mean us four guys.”

I look at him in surprise. “Why not me? I’m not going to hit her or anything...as much as I want to.”

“I know, but you’ve had to put up with her enough. From now, we’ll take care of her if we need to,” he replies presses the button for the elevator. “In the mean time, we’ll just keep an eye on Yoochun. You know he’ll hate it if we baby him.”

“I know,” I sigh, remembering the way he still looked so lost this morning.

“Hey,” Yunho says with a soft smile, giving me a one armed hug. “You doing all right? It’ll turn out okay in the end.”

I smile back. “I know. I just hope it’s all right sooner rather than later.”

    As the next few days pass, it seems we’ll be lucky if it’s later. Yoochun is mostly quiet, sometimes disappearing during our free time. He tries to act normal whenever Mr.Choi’s around and goes through all the filming and shoots with his usual professionalism, but it’s not the same. Seeing him that way, lacking that usual sense of life, makes me miss the carefree, laughing Yoochun I knew. By the time we have to leave Japan, he’s slowly becoming more like himself, joking around with us and smiling more.
    After we get back to Seoul, I make sure to text or call him every day or so so I’m not smothering him but he knows I’m still here. Admittedly, the number of times I do this increases when I find out SM’s decided the guys won’t need an interpreter from now on. I still talk with at least one or two of them every other day, but I miss them...and him.
 

As I sit in my office a few weeks after hearing the news, my phone rings. Seeing the name on the screen makes me smile as I accept the call. “Hey, ‘saeng. How’s it going?”

“I’m good, unnie,” Yejin giggles. “How about you?”
“I’m all right. Adjusting to doing normal work again.”

“Cheer up. Oppa said some of SM’s other groups might be doing activities in Japan soon so maybe they’ll use you again and you can see them all at work again.”

“Maybe.”

“_____ unnie...”

“Yes?”

She coughs before continuing. “Have you thought about...telling Yoochun oppa you love him? It’s been awhile since he and that witchy witch broke up.”

“I don’t know, Yejin-ah,” I sigh, rubbing my head. “It may still be too soon. Yoochun still seems a little off.”

“But maybe it would help him, knowing someone’s loved him like you have,” Yejin says.

“I really don’t know.”

“All right, all right. I won’t push it, but ____ unnie, would you be able to do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Oppa left one his games at my apartment and really wants to play it but I’m working late tonight. Could you swing by here to grab it and then drop it off at the dorm for me?”

“I get off in two hours, so sure,” I smile, glad to have an excuse to see them.


“Thanks! I think Junsu might’ve cried if you’d said ‘no.’” she laughs.

I giggle. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we?”

Game in hand, I knock on the dorm door four hours later, feeling incredibly happy.

Yoochun opens the door a few minutes later, looking pleasantly surprised when he sees me. “____? What’re you doing here?”

I wave the plastic box in my hand. “Yejin asked me to drop this off for Junsu since she was busy.”

“Oh, thanks. I’ll be sure to give it to him when he gets back.”

“Back?”
“Yeah, he and the others are out at a magazine reshoot. My edits are still being worked on so I didn’t have to go,” he explains. Glancing behind him and opening the door wider for me to come in, he adds, “I was just about to order some take-out. Wanna join me?”

“Take-out? Like I’d let you eat that when I’m here,” I answer. “Why don’t we make something instead?”

“But _____, I’m in the mood for greasy, delicious take-out chicken,” Yoochun pouts.

“What? My cooking’s not delicious?” I tease, pretending to be angry.

“It is, but I really want chicken and there’s none here.”

“All right. Let’s order this stuff then. I’m starving.”

“Excellent,” he grins, digging out his phone as he begins searching for the take-out flyer.

I smile as I watch him from my seat on one of the kitchen stools, happy to see him just being normal.

As soon as he finishes ordering, Yoochun comes over to me with another smile and envelops me in a hug. “I’ve missed you, ______.”

“Missed you too,” I reply, burying my face in his shirt and feeling a weight I hadn’t known I’d been carrying lifting from me. “You been doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “You?”

“All right,” I shrug.

“Missed us driving you crazy?” he laughs.

I laugh too. “You know it.”

“So, what do you want to do while we’re waiting?”

“Whatever.”

    We end up just sitting on the couch together with our legs crisscrossing each other, watching old made for TV movies and laughing at their melodramatic and overly done comedic tendencies. I sneak secret glances at him every once in a while. Yejin’s words from earlier ghost through my mind, but each time I dismiss them. It’s not the right time, not yet.

As the latest movie’s credits rolls, I look at my phone and sigh. “I better go. I’m supposed to meet one of our clients early tomorrow.”

“You really have to?” Yoochun asks sadly.

“Yeah.”

“All right,” he sighs, carefully swinging his legs off the couch. “The guys’ll be disappointed they missed you, but we don’t want you to get in trouble. I’ll walk you down to the door.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him as he grabs up my purse and hands it to me.

Yoochun shakes his head stubbornly. “It’s dark out. I can’t let you walk out there alone. I can watch you walk to the bus stop from the back door.”

“Thanks, oppa,” I smile, giving him a quick hug.

    He just smiles and opens the door for me. We chat about nothings as we walk down the stairs to the ground floor, stopping when we reach the back door.

“Oops.” Yoochun looks out at the pouring rain and back at me. “I’m guessing you don’t have an umbrella?”

“No,” I reply, looking out the door apprehensively.

“Just wait in here so you don’t get wet. You can see the bus from here.”

“Okay.”

We stand quietly side by side just inside the doors, watching rain drops hit the concrete.

“Do you think it’s even possible?” Yoochun suddenly asks, keeping his eyes on the rain outside.

“Do I think what’s possible?” I ask in reply, confused in his change of mood.

“Love. It never seems to stay. Just when you think you’ve got it, the true thing, either reality snatches it away or love fails you; leaving you alone.”

“Yoochun, don’t talk like that. You just haven’t found it yet. We have the rest of our lives-”

“Or maybe it’s just me,” he adds quietly. “Maybe I just need to stop trying to find it. Maybe something’s wrong with me, something-”

    Hearing that breaks something inside me. Without thinking, I use both of my hands to turn his face and bring it down to mine. Closing my eyes, I quickly press my lips against Yoochun’s before my sudden burst of courage fades. I feel him stiffen in response to the unexpectedness of the kiss.

Slowly, I pull back so I can look at his eyes. “Please don’t talk like that. It’s not true, Yoochun, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with you. In fact, you’re wonderful. Mianhae if this is too soon or something, but that’s why- that’s why I love you. Really love you.”

It takes him a few minutes to find his words. “You...love me?”

I nod. “For almost half a year, actually.”

“What?”

“I was too scared to tell you and then you were with Jaehwa so I couldn’t.”

Yoochun frowns. “But aren’t you with Julian?”

“No; I never was. Yejin told me you saw him kiss me, but that was it. He kissed me and I turned him down, because I love you.”

“But why?”

“Because you’re you! You’re cheesy and sweet and frustrating and funny and amazing. You’re my best friend who’s always there for me. Why wouldn’t I?” I reply, kissing him again to prove my point.

Yoochun looks at me like I’m something he’s never seen before when I break away again. “_____....”

I wait with my heart pounding in my chest, unable to decipher anything from his face.

“I...you...I can’t.”

With those words, that newfound courageous hope deserts me, leaving a gaping hole. I let my hands slip from his cheeks. “W-why not?”

“Because you don’t deserve someone like me. You need-”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” I exclaim. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It doesn’t matter who deserves who. I love you and the only other thing that does matter-....is if you love me back.”

“____...” Yoochun looks at me with sad eyes, making my heart drop again. “Mianhae, but-”

“Please don’t,” I say, my voice trembling. “That’s all you have to say.”


“______.”

With a shaky laugh, I say, “Mianhae for being so stupid. I should’ve known. Just forget I said anything.”

He tries to touch my shoulder, but I step out of reach, unsure if I’ll be able to resist crying if he touched me now.

“I’ll see you around,” I say quickly, running out the door.

    I ignore both the rain and Yoochun calling my name as my feet pound the pavement. What an idiot I was. What made me think he would...what if I lost him forever? It’d be easier to cut my heart out. Maybe I just need to leave....

=====================

Annyeong, lovelies! A late update, but that's because of a ton of uni reading I had to do this week. Well, that and studying for Chinese. Anyway, hope you like this and saranghae!

EhaaKevin: Not exactly the day after...but something did happen.

parksanghwa: To the rescue!

nar12345: Some fluff, some gloomy, but we shall see how it ends.

Doitworth: Hopefully he realizes it soon. It's good to be sentimental. ^^

the3wishes_t3w: *hugs you* It's ok. Ugh, I know, right? I want them to be my oppa friends too! Mianhae! Saranghae! *throws hearts at you* ke ke.

PurpleangelSJ: Exactly. I think it may take him a little longer...

minnie6002: Aw, thanks! *hugs you* Don't cry. It'll get better.

miss_vanma: Finally! And yes, hopefully he'll realize that...

Jun_KOI_Mi: Yes on all accounts.

hazelmarie_13: Quite possible...

Poison: *shrugs* Because that's how she is. Hopefully he'll do that soon...

ChinkyKayla: Ke ke, same thing would happen with my friends XD But at least she's finally gone, right?