“Eli Harrington is thought. Perhaps we should both aspire to be like him. Is he as big prick as his brother?” “Worse. Our house will be a complete fascist state when he’s the head of it.” More laughter.

                “so why did your parents send you here?” asked yunho. “it was my father’s idea. He wants me to do well. He thinks this school will help me become a success.” Yunho rolled his eyes.

                Jaejoong smiled. “ It’s a joke, isn’t it? But my father believes it. His family was very poor. My grandfather worked in a shoe factory. My uncles went into the factory too but my father was clever. He did well at school and went to work in a bank. He’s a bank manager now. I know that’s nothing compared to the fathers of the other people here, but it is an achievement. He’s done well, and he wants me to do well too. As soon as I was born he started saving money so that one day he could send me to a school like this.” “does he know that you hate it here?”

                Jaejoong shook his head. “ I couldn’t. it means so much to him, having a son at a public school. I don’t want to spoil it for him.” “can’t he guess? I mean when he visits you. Can’t he guess how miserable you are?” “he hasn’t visited me yet.”

                Yunho’s jaw dropped. “but you’ve been here over a year!” “my father lives down in London. He says it’s too long a journey.” “rubbish!” “that’s not a real reason. It’s my stepmother. My father married her a year and a half ago. She’s jealous of me. My father and I are close and she hates that. She doesn’t like seeing us together. She wants him to herself.”

                “but surely your father wants to see you. Why does he put up with her?” “because he’s made about her. She’s younger than him and very attractive. I’ve only met her once. The three of us went out to a tea. It was awful. My father kept giving her soppy looks and she made this big show of being nice to me but it was all false. She kept smiling at me but she didn’t mean it.” He shuddered at the memory.

                “what about your mother? Has she remarried?” “no” “where does she live?” “just outside. Leeds.” “so you spent holidays and stuff with her.” Jaejoong nodded. “you’ll spending half-term with her?” “no” jaejoong’s face lit up. “I’m seeing my father.” “how come? What about your step mother?” “she is going to visit her parents in Devon. Dad wrote and suggested that I go and stay with him. I was going to say no at first. Mum’s on her own. I know that she wants to see me too. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.  But she insisted. She knows I miss dad. She said I should go. I can’t wait! It’s been over a tear since I’ve seen him. There’s so much I want to tell him.” “you really love your parents don’t you?”

The question took jaejoong by surprise. “of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

                Yunho didn’t answer. He leant back against the trunk of the tree and stared up in the sky. A bird flew over head, flitting through the branches, half a dozen of dead leaves to drift down the ground.

                “ yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose they do.” He breathed out slowly. Questions began to form in jaejoong’s mind, but some instinct told him not to ask them, not yet.

                “you can’t accept this situation ,” yunho said suddenly. “I have to. There’s nothing I can do about it.” “yes there is. He’s your father. You have to make her understand that she can’t keep you apart.”

                Jaejoong shook his head. “I couldn’t do that. She’d never listen to me anyway.” “then you have to make her listen. I would. God, I’d never let anyone keep me from someone I cared about.”

                “but that’s you isn’t? I’m just not like you,” “you could be.”

                “You said that the last time but it’s not true.” “it is.”  He stared into yunho’s eyes; felt the power they generated. “not it’s not. You make it all sound easy but it’s not. Not for me anyway. We’re different. When you talk, people listen. When I talk they just talk over me.” “but if you don’t do anything she’ll win. She’ll take your father away from you.”

                “she couldn’t do that,” jaejoong said forcefully. “my father wouldn’t allow that.” “isn’t that what’s happening now?” yunho said softly.

                Jaejoong didn’t answer. This was a question he didn’t want to risk answering.

                They sat in silence, listening to birds. And when the conversation started again they talked of other things.

~~~~~~~

Quarter past five

                Shim Changmin mingled with the rest of Old School House as they filed out the junior common room. As always he was flanked by Choi Siwon and Kim heechul.

                “bastard!” he exclaimed.

                “careful!” hissed heechul. “Eli might hear you and it’ll get straight back to his brother.”

                Changmin’s face was suffused with fury. “I don’t care if it does! We stand for around over an hour and only then does he sends a message that he’s decide to go and play golf! What a prick!”

                They stood facing the corridor that led the fourth year studies; a row of boxrooms that were known as the stalls because they weren’t much bigger than toilet stalls and didn’t smell much better either. “comeback to mine” said heechul. “I’ve got lemonade and the rest of the cake that mom sent.”

                “but it’s supper now,” pointed out siwon. “im not eating that !” said changmin forcefully. “but I’m hungry.” “bugger off then! Stuart and I will have the cake on our own.” Heechul nodded and walked off to his study to get things ready.

                Siwon shuffled awkwardly from on foot to another, like an ape trying to pirouette. “I didn’t say I was going to go.”

                “I don’t care! Do what you want.” Siwon insisted that he wasn’t going to go. Changmin’s narrow little eyes scanned over the faces of the other boys who milled around him.

                Suddenly they widened.

                Kim Jaejoong and Jung Yunho were standing together by the front door of the house. Both were wearing coats, and their cheeks glowed from a combinations of cold and exertion. They too were watching the others. Yunho said something to Jaejoong and they both started to laugh.

                “we can get bread from the kitchen,” siwon was saying. “I hid a half loaf the kitchen.”

                Changmin ignored him, busy watching the unexpected scene.

                “so we could make sandwiches too. I’ve got that beef spread. There’s only a bit of mould on it.”

                Changmin indicated him to be quiet.

                Siwon moved off. Changmin stood where he was, watching Yunho and jaejoong. Jaejoong had just said something to Yunho and again they both laughed.

                He didn’t understand it. What was Jung Yunho doing with Kim Jaejoong? Yunho, who wanted nothing to do with anyone.

                Yunho, who wanted nothing to do with him.

                It was not through the lack of effort in his part. He had tried everything to attract Yunho’s attention. He was always the first to laugh when yunho stood up to a teacher, the first one to applaud when Yunho made one of them look small. And he made sure that he was always surrounded by a group of admiring friends when yunho was in earshot, cracking jokes were guaranteed a loud laugh so that yunho would be sure  to hear, and to realise  what a wonderful chap Changmin shim was.

                Because he wanted yunho as one of his group; had wanted it since he had first clapped eyes on him thirteen months before. Everything about Yunho marked him as someone to be pursued, cultivated, acquired. Changmin was very concerned with the image he presented to the world. Intimacy with someone like yunho would enhance that image.

                So he tried and tried, only to meet the same wall of indifference. And the longer the wall remained the more desperate he was to break through it, a desperation that was now increasingly born out of  secret yearnings, nature of which he could not admit even to himself.

                And now Yunho was with Kim jaejoong. Kim Jaejoong, a grammar school nobody.

                Kim Jaejoong, who had succeeded where he had failed.

                How could this ever happen?

                Yunho said something to jaejoong, who moved away towards the fourth-year corridor. He walked past Changmin, removing his coat as he did so. He would leave it in his study and then he and yunho would go supper together. The way friends did.

                How could this have ever happen?

                Yunho stood alone by the door, waiting for jaejoong. Changmin approached him, just as he had done some many times in the past.

                “hello, jung, We’re having so,e grub in heechul’s study. Why don’t you come?”

                Yunho didn’t seem to bother to look at him. His eyes stared at some point over changmin’s right shoulder.                “piss off Shim.” He said in a bored tone.

                A couple of third years passing by heard the interchange. They snigger and then hurried on.

                Changmin turned and walked away towards the fourth year corridor. He felt angry and humiliated, just as countless time before. But now he felt confused.

                As he entered the corridor he collided with someone who was hurrying in the other direction. Kim jaejoong . now with out his coat, off to supper with his new friend. “sorry” jaejoong cried before pushing on.

                Changmin stood and watched him go. Kim jaejoong, off to supper with Jung yunho. Jung yunho who still didn’t give him the time of the day.

It wasn’t until he left the washroom and walked towards his bed that jaejoong realised that he was being watched.

                 Shim Changmin was sitting up in his own bed, starring at him.

                 As soon as jaejoong recognized the stare, changmin smiled, nodded, and then buried his nose in the book he was holding.

                For a moment jaejoong was alarmed. Was changmin planning for something? Was he going to be the chosen target tonight?

                But then the alarm faded. Instinct told him that there would be no trouble that night. And he had spent enough months on his dormitory to know his instinct could be relied on.

                He climbed between the starched sheets of his bed and tried to find the page in his current library book.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

for my tired and worn out yanie and dongsaengs.......