I was nineteen, and I loved you.

Jaejoong has some questions about that. For example…is Yunho still nineteen? Is Jaejoong nineteen as well and somehow got shot by some hocus-pocus gun that made him a kid again like the people in that one American movie he watched some time ago?

And…and…does Yunho…

Jaejoong opens his mouth, but he quickly closes it again. It’s all too much, and at any rate, it’s not like he can say it anyway.

“Say it in your head,” Yunho says after a short period of silence. “I can read your mind.”

The hell? is Jaejoong’s immediate thought.

“I’m not lying,” Yunho replies. “I’ll explain later. So say what you want to say.”

Jaejoong’s not sure how his brain is still working after Yunho dropping something like that on him, but then again, he has been exposed to a lot of weird happenings, so his brain is still somewhat functional. Hopefully.

Were…were we happy?

He can almost hear Yunho’s amused smile. “Every free second we had didn’t amount to much and because Heechul died the emperor came to see you more often, and I had to watch it all…we were happy, I guess, as happy as we could be under such circumstances.”

And how long were we…happy? Jaejoong severely doubts that a relationship like the one Yunho described, no matter how clandestine it was, would go unnoticed for a long time.

Yunho’s answer takes longer to come this time. “A couple of months. But it’s not like you think. It didn’t end because anyone found out, though if we had carried on any longer than that we would’ve most likely been found out.”

So we broke up?

There’s a tremor is Yunho’s voice when he speaks again. “If only. No, we didn’t break up. Though it would have been easier if we did, because that way I could have gotten you back. A rebellion started in Gwangju, and out of fear that they would get to you, the emperor had you moved back to the main palace after disowning his queen. I went back with you, but I never saw you again. Life for me became the life I originally envisioned for myself...I got promoted, looked after my parents, did everything I was going to do before I went to Gwangju with you. I was lonely, but you existed, and that was somehow enough for me. Everything was normal for a couple of months…and then the rebellion reached Gaeseong.”

Gaeseong?

“Capital of the Goryeo dynasty.” Yunho chuckles. “Now that I think about it, Professor Kim was a little peeved at your history grades at the previous staff meeting.”

Jaejoong blushes fiercely, and mentally he thanks the darkness for hiding it. It’s strange, having something so…normal and mundane being inserted into a conversation on what sounds like the supernatural, but somehow, it fits.

And then? What happened?

“The rebellion reached the main palace, and to prevent them from taking him alive, the emperor locked you and himself up in his bedroom, and then he…he…” Yunho takes a deep breath. “He set fire to the room.”

It feels as though someone injected ice into Jaejoong’s veins. Did I…I mean… He can’t bring himself to think it.

“Yes,” Yunho says very softly. “Yes, you did. I survived the successful rebellion, but all they found of you and the emperor were two bodies charred almost beyond recognition.”

Jaejoong’s brain is numb, unable to process the information and form any remotely coherent thoughts.

“It killed me inside.” Yunho sounds like he’s trying very, very hard not to cry. “I didn’t want to leave my parents without anyone to take care of them, but…but I couldn’t live without you, Jaejoong. I just couldn’t.” His voice breaks at the last word.

Normally, Jaejoong would snicker if he heard anything so cheesy-sounding.

But now? He just feels like crying.

But like a horror fan who likes watching horror movies despite getting scared less every time, he can’t help but want to know what comes next.

“I worked very hard for a year,” Yunho continues. “It was difficult, but I wanted to make sure my parents were well provided for. They were already old, so it didn’t take too long to earn roughly enough to tide them over for the rest of their lives. And then I told them I was going on a trip and headed straight back to Gwanju…back to the forest I first saw you.

“I took out my dagger and...well, yeah, but before I could do it a hand gripped mine and forced me to drop it. It was the same boy that nearly killed you before. Part of my mind told me to kill him and let out some of my anger, but I was too overcome with grief to think of anything beyond dying and joining you. So when he let go of me, I immediately picked up my dagger to try again. But then he offered me something that made me change my mind.”

Immortality, Jaejoong mouths.

“Yes, but not as a vampire.”

Instead of elaborating, the light switches off and another one almost immediately appears, this time to Jaejoong’s left. Underneath it is a picture of a drawing of a mischievous-looking boy, not very detailed, but well-drawn enough for Jaejoong to recognise his own face.

“1498,” Yunho says. “I found you in Japan. There’s not much to say, you were ten years old, with a happy, relatively well-off family and eight sisters. You were the only son in your family, and your parents doted on you. But you wanted more than that…and I became that more. Even then, I still loved you…but you were too young for us to develop a relationship beyond that of best friends. I was the one you turned to to help you solve problems, to play games with you, to be the shoulder to cry on when things became too much. I was your everything…everything except your lover. Maybe I could have been that. But like I said, you were just ten, and anyway, your parents were so annoyingly traditional that there was no way they would’ve approved of a romantic relationship. So I waited. I planned on taking you away when you were eighteen, and we would live together the way we wanted to, all those centuries ago. But before I could, you died in an earthquake.”

The Nankai earthquake, Jaejoong recalls it’s called. Professor Kim always did overreact a little.

“Correct. We met again six times between then and 1900, but you either died young—religious persecution and the Black Death would do that to you—or you were happily married by the time I found you and I couldn’t bring myself to break up your marriage. I didn’t keep anything to remember you by at those times, but I did keep…this.”

The light goes off, and another comes on. It’s a real photo below it instead of a drawing or painting, the one Jaejoong had puzzled over to no avail.

1950 is the date Yunho names this time, and Jaejoong easily recognises it as the start of the Korean War.

“I really didn’t want to join. By then, I’d lived almost a thousand years and any number of wars, and believe me, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. But I was in South   Korea, so I got drafted. I met you six days after that, and a week later you were in love with me. But the fighting began—”

Jaejoong knows well enough by now how it ends to finish Yunho’s sentence. And I died.

“Your body was never the strongest.”

Considering Yunho’s story, he’s not inclined to disagree.

There’s one thought that troubles him though, a thought that popped into his head some time ago and has remained there since, only getting stronger the more Yunho spoke.

When Yunho spoke of his love for Jaejoong, it was always in the past tense.

So…did it mean…

“No,” Yunho says, voice laced with pain, and before Jaejoong can comprehend it Yunho’s body is surrounding him, arms on either side of him and pinning him down to the chair. “You’re wrong.”

There’s something Yunho once said to him, when he first killed Jaejoong’s father, when he first made Jaejoong an orphan, when he first gave Jaejoong the mark.

What was it again?

I’ve waited for so long…I can wait a little—

Yunho’s mouth crashes down on Jaejoong’s before his brain can finish the sentence.