Heechul quickly closed the brown box and put it behind the sofa as he heard a knock on the door. “Come in.” he raised an eyebrow as he saw who had just disturbed his reminiscent time. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, including himself, that he’d missed the man he’s now staring at. No one knew that every time the man came, he always retreated to his office and watched the cctv screens there only to look at the man closely without anyone knowing it. After that one time when he’d fainted, he never came again so Heechul casually asked Hyukjae about Donghae and his housemate. He felt relieved knowing that Leeteuk was fine but couldn’t stop himself from waiting for the man every day only to get disappointed again and again this past week.

“I have something to tell you.” Leeteuk announced as he stood in front of Heechul and leaned against the closet behind him. Heechul crossed his arms and legs as an answer so he just continued, “Just listen and don’t say anything until I finish talking.”

“What an attitude.” Heechul smirked but nodded anyways.

“Heechul-ah… I always want you to be happy; move forward and live your life happily, don’t hold on to me or the past. Just be yourself and be happy. You’ll be fine. I love you, Heenim.” Leeteuk choked the last part out.

“What the—“

“That was what he wanted you to know, I guess.” Leeteuk pushed himself off of the closet and stood straight. “I have Jay-ssi’s liver, Heechul-ah. Ask Hangeng if you want to know more.” And with that he left the room leaving a shocked Heechul silently wiping his tears.

***

“He’s not Jay…” again, Heechul repeated the same sentence Hangeng had told him few hours ago. To say that he’d been furious was an understatement. If it hadn’t been Hangeng but somebody else that told him the story, he doubted he could prevent himself from torturing that person both verbally and physically. Thanks God Hangeng was pretty immune to his foul words and evilish actions so they could finish the talk relatively well.

And now he was facing his own dilemma; deep inside he knew he liked Leeteuk a lot but knowing that the older had been acting under Jay’s influence or something along that line all this time, he questioned if his feelings were due to his longing for Jay or was it really something he felt towards the brown head. He threw himself to his bed and hissed as his elbow knocked something sharp which turned out to be one corner of a thick green book. His eyes softened as he opened the book and grazed his index finger over a familiar name written on it.

As a teenager, Heechul had always wanted to become a famous writer and so he was so determined to take Literature as his major when he entered college. During final year of his college, however, Heechul started having great interest in business and opened a joined small business with his friends. Long story short, he finally owned his own café with the help of Jay and Hangeng. But his passion for writing had never ceased. He always spent his free time reading lots of books. And this particular thick green book was a  translated self-motivation book that he kept reading during his hardest time after losing Jay. He developed great admiration not only towards the author and translator, but also the editor. Being an editor plus author for a large publishing company had been one of his dreams and this Park Leeteuk person was exactly that: a chief editor of non-fiction section and also the author of three sci-fi novels for the third largest publishing company nationwide.

Then he remembered Hangeng's review of his current situation; after his suicidal attempt and bitter brokeup, Leeteuk had resigned from the company where his ex also worked at and was now jobless without any family support. It turned out that Leeteuk had been disowned by his parents and left his hometown only to be with his lover who’d promised him a happily ever after together. In this new place, aside from few people from his office and that bastard—as Heechul loved to call him—Leeteuk only had Donghae who happened to be his closest childhood friend back in their hometown. And Donghae, though Heechul didn't know him personally, was a very close friend of Hyukjae, one of his loveliest dongsaeng.

Heechul sighed as he opened the pages randomly and stopped when he saw a line highlighted in yellow stabillo: 'You can't always have those you love but you can always love those you have.' He then quickly grabbed his jacket and rushed out of his apartment.

***

"Heechul? What are you doing here..?" Leeteuk asked groggily and glanced at his digital alarm clock that was flashing a big 23:41 in red. He closed and rubbed his eyes, still hoping it was just another dream of his but when he opened them again, black-haired Heechul was still there, sitting on his bed and pulling down his blanket as he tried to keep his bare body covered. The temperature had been warm and after coming back from H&J Leeteuk had just stripped down to his boxers and fallen asleep immediately.

"You forgot to tell me something and I can't wait until tomorrow to hear it from you." Heechul stated casually as if he hadn't just barged into someone-he-barely-knew's room in the middle of the night.

Leeteuk's still hazy brain worked slower and he just laid there staring at the beautiful face in front of him while his mind was working on making sense of what Heechul had just said. He was somewhere between recalling his conversation  with Hangeng and what'd happened after that when a sudden slap on his stomach brought him back to the situation at hand and he yelped in pain as the hand was oh-so-accurately landed on his still recovering stitch wound.

Heechul was about to throw some nasty comments of Leeteuk being sissy slowpoke as he retreated his hand but quickly and forcefully removed the blanket when he remembered something. He carefully touched the skin around the wound, "Does it still hurt?" He knew the pain a surgery left firsthand but his was long gone with lots of painkillers. Not to mention that Leeteuk had his stomach cut open which made the wound need longer time to heal.

"It's okay, I'm fine." Leeteuk scooted backward to free his body from Heechul's hand and pulled the blanket over his body again. "I've told you to ask Hangeng if you want to know about the details."

"Let's talk about it outside." Heechul scrunched his nose when he finally realized the awkwardness of place and position they were in. "I'll wait in your kitchen."

As soon as Heechul closed the door to his room, Leeteuk quickly got up and dressed himself in a pair of brown sweatpants and white sleeveless top. When he entered the kitchen few minutes later, he found Heechul sitting on one of the stools with a can of beer in his hand and another unopened can along with some snacks on the table.

“Making yourself home?” Leeteuk couldn’t help a chuckle as he saw Heechul tore open a chocolate bar and took a large bite of it.

“You’ve made me skipped my dinner.” Heechul accused after gulping down the whole beer and put the empty can with so much force on the table then continued to open his second can with another large bite of chocolate.

“I thought you only eat white choc—“ Leeteuk stopped midway and looked sideway as he realized what he’s doing. Again. He’d decided to forget everything about Heechul because that was Jay’s memories, not his.

“You haven’t told me about yours.” After a moment finally Heechul broke the silence between them. Leeteuk looked at him with questioning eyes so he continued, “What you told me earlier… that was what Jay wanted to tell me, right.” He swallowed a sudden lump in his throat after mentioning his name out loud for the first time since that accident. “Didn’t you have anything to say to me as yourself, Park Leeteuk-ssi?”

“I… this is my life. Though I didn’t really want it at first after that… incident, I thought I had another purpose when I kept seeing you in my dreams. But when I found out the truth and had done what he wanted me to do, I realized I still want my own life. I want…”

“What do you want?” Heechul inquired when Leeteuk kept silent again.

Leeteuk glanced up to see Heechul was looking back at him. You. His heart screamed but he knew he couldn’t say that. Heechul used to be Jay’s and wanting him would be contradicting his statement of wanting his own life. “It’s not fair for me…” he finally whined.

“Do you like me?” Heechul asked bluntly. Leeteuk’s jaw dropped and he gawked at the black-haired man like a total idiot making the latter snorted and added, “Coz I know I like you.”

“It’s not me, but himself inside me that you like.” Leeteuk pointed out bitterly.

“No, I really like you as Park Leeteuk. I’ve read all of your novels long before the accident and when I keep reading the self-motivation book that you edited, it is Park Leeteuk that I admire. That’s your own self, right? Your past life had nothing to do with Jay and I’d been liking you since then.”

“But now I’m no longer—“

“I know. And I come here to recruit you, actually.” Heechul said with a smirk. “I’m offering you the position of manager in my café.”

“But I don’t—“

“It’s alright, Jungsoo.” Heechul took hold of Leeteuk’s hands and squeezed them to calm him down. “Let’s start over with me. We can do it again from the start, together.”

“What did you just call me?” Leeteuk widened his eyes and Heechul quietly admitted to himself that he was so adorable like that.

“Jungsoo… I can call you that, right?”

Leeteuk felt his heart pounding in his chest and breathing suddenly became a hard thing to do when a warm feeling spread inside him hearing his real name being said again by someone after so long. “Heechul-ah…”

“I take that as a yes.” Heechul clapped his hands enthusiastically and grinned wide. “So I wouldn’t have to change the name of our café, it will stay as H&J.” He said dreamily, not even noticing that he’d called his café as our when he talked to Leeteuk.

-The End-

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I swear this story was wayyy better when it’s still inside my head… T.T did it confuse you much, you? I just hope it's still worth your time for reading it. :)

BTW, the transplantation and flashes of memories parts are inspired by Zhang Liyin feat. Xiah Junsu’s “Timeless” MV and its 2nd part in which Siwon and Hangeng (with Lee Yeonhee) starred in. Cool song, good acting and great MV. Maybe you'll understand better after watching that MV... or so I hope :D