A/N: hi, everyone! here's the next chapter!

thI hope you guys are up for some more drama, though. Because this chapter's one of the more dramatic parts. Actually, you know what, the whole story's meant to be filled with drama and tears, so let's all hang on together, shall we?

Anyway, I hope you all like this chapter! :)

Yoochun and Junsu entered the café, both of them unable to stop the rush of memories that flooded their minds as they stepped into the place that they haven’t been in for years. Memories of the times when they, along with Yunho and Jaejoong and the Super Junior members, would come here together to separate Changmin and Kyuhyun and prevent them from planning more evil against the world (and their members). And of the times when they came here to hunt down the two maknaes instead, when they’ve already pulled off yet another prank on their hyungs.

A waitress quickly walked over to them and led them to Changmin and Kyuhyun’s usual place in the café that Changmin had already called-in last night after talking to the two and reserved for them to use today. It was a lone booth in a secluded area of the café; much hidden and very private. Perfect for the unthinkable that was about to happen today: the meeting of a member of TVXQ and 2 members of JYJ. 3 former members about to meet each other again after so long and so much issues between their two different sides.

“Feels a bit odd to be back, doesn’t it?” Yoochun remarked as they sat down at the table, sitting next to each other at one side of the booth.

“It’s not just ‘a bit’,” Junsu shook his head.

They gave the waitress their order of drinks and she left with a quick bow to them. A few minutes later and she was back with Junsu's lattte and Yoochun's expresso (because Yoochun needed the caffeine since he wasn't able to sleep at all last night, though in hindsight, it might be not the best idea, since the caffeine wouldn't help his nerves one bit). They thanked the waitress and she bowed to them once more before leaving the two to themselves.

The two of them lapsed into a tensed silence, both of them pondering on what was about to happen. After Changmin’s phone call last night, neither of their minds were able to rest as they kept thinking about what might be going on with Changmin right now. And what exactly it had to do with them for Changmin to contact them.

“Have you been waiting long?” said a quiet voice from behind them, making Yoochun and Junsu jump in their seats.

“Ch-changmin,” Yoochun managed to mutter as they turned around to find their maknae the younger man standing behind them.

Changmin gave a slight nod before striding around the booth to sit opposite Yoochun and Junsu.

“How are you, Yoochun hyung? Junsu hyung?” Changmin asked politely. Formally even.

Too formal.

It was so different from how they used to interact with each other.

The atmosphere was so tensed and awkward that Junsu was thinking he’d rather just take again how Changmin used to bully him. That was way better compared to the awkwardness happening to them now. The closeness and fondness they had for each other before were now buried under all the issues brought to them by the lawsuit and their split.

“We’re doing… fine, Changmin-ah. Erm, what about yourself? And, uh, Yunho hyung? How are you two?” Junsu said, hesitation quite clear in his voice and in his expression.

Changmin half-nodded, half-shrugged.

“What’s going on, Min?” Yoochun asked concernedly.

“I’m sorry to have asked you to come here,” Changmin began formally. “I’m sure you’re both very busy-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Junsu immediately interrupted. “We have free time…”

“Either way, I’ll just get to the point and make it quick-“

Yoochun was the one who interrupted him this time. “You don’t have to rush yourself, Changmin. We’re here for you anytime you need us.”

Changmin narrowed his eyes at that statement. “Yes, except for the time when I needed you the most to stand by our side,” he said sharply.

Yoochun and Junsu both took sharp intakes of breath.

“You know perfectly well the reasons as to why that was so, Changmin. The three of us had explained them to you and Yunho hyung so many times in the past, trying to make you see where we were coming from,” Yoochun said, his rising temper manifesting itself in his tone.

That made Changmin’s eyes narrow even more, but as he opened to his mouth to answer back, Junsu butted in.

“Maybe now’s not the best time to go through all this again?” Junsu squeaked nervously. As much as he still stood with his, Jaejoong’s, and Yoochun’s belief that leaving SM had been the right thing for them to do, he also didn’t want to get into an argument with Changmin about it again right now. Not now when they were finally seeing him again after all this time. No matter how many differences had come between them, Junsu still missed their two former members greatly.

“We’re here to talk about what Changmin wants to discuss, remember?” he reminded Yoochun and Changmin.

Changmin took a deep breath, taking a few moments to compose himself again. When he spoke again, he sounded detached once more. “You’re right, Junsu hyung. No, this isn’t the time to go back to everything that’s happened to us in the past. Digging up all those things once again won’t help with that I’m trying to do at all. They're quite detrimental to what I want, even.”

“And what is it that you’re trying to do, exactly, Changmin?” Yoochun asked, distracted from his temper at Changmin’s mention of whatever it was that he needed their help with. “Why did you ask Junsu and I to come here? What is it that you want from us? What is that we can still even do for you now, after going so long without contact with each other?”

Changmin tilted his head a bit to the side, watching Yoochun and Junsu closely, as though measuring them. And this didn’t do anything to help make Yoochun and Junsu more comfortable with the situation they were in right now at all. It was a while before he spoke again-

“I need your help in making us reunite as a group of five again,” Changmin said coolly in a matter-of-fact tone, as though there was no big deal about what he was asking at all.

But judging from Yoochun’s and Junsu’s faces, it was a big deal.

A big, big, big, big deal.

“WHAT?!” Yoochun and Junsu shouted in perfect sync with each other when they regained their power of speech.

“I want us to come back as five again. But I’m going to need your help to do it, Yoochun hyung, Junsu hyung,” Changmin said quietly, nodding once each to both Yoochun and Junsu.

“You want what?” Yoochun asked again, his voice one or two octaves higher than usual.

“You heard me,” was all that the younger man replied calmly.

“You- you- but- but- how- that’s just- why-?” Junsu spluttered, his tongue not working properly to produce intelligible speech right now, shocked as he was.

“Yeah, that’s a good question to start with,” Yoochun said, breathing in and out to try and calm himself. “Why? Why do you suddenly want this now? Why now after all these years? What brought this on?”

“Well… It’s just that I’ve been thinking… We had always been our best when we were together as five, right?”

Yoochun and Junsu weren’t buying that as Changmin’s reason for one second. While that was indeed true, they knew that it wasn’t really what was making Changmin try to reunite them.

“No, really, why are you doing this, Changmin-ah?” Junsu persisted.

Changmin just shook his head and looked away again. Yoochun and Junsu realized that Changmin wasn’t willing to give them the answer for that question, and this made both of them frown.

“What does Yunho hyung say about this?” Junsu questioned timidly instead, after a few minutes of tensed and shocked (on his and Yoochun’s parts) silence.

“He-“ Changmin broke off, his perfect mask of composure suddenly slipping a bit off his face now. He swallowed and tried again, “Actually, he- he doesn’t know about this.”

“…what?” Yoochun and Junsu both asked the same time, confused.

“He doesn’t know what I’m planning to do. He doesn’t know anything about this. Heck, he doesn’t even know I’m in contact again with you two.”

“He doesn’t know anything about this? At all?” Yoochun said, his eyes wide and disbelieving. “Wait, wait, wait! Hang on a minute, Changmin-ah! Shocking us with your sudden desire to come back together as five is one thing. But for you to plan for this reunion without Yunho hyung knowing? How do you know if he even wants to reunite with us again?”

“I… I just know he does,” Changmin replied shortly, looking down.

The expression on his face was one that Yoochun and Junsu recognized at once, even if they haven’t seen it for years. They knew that expression all too well from their days back then when they were five. It was the expression Changmin wore when he knew that there was something… off?... wrong?... with what he was doing and that his hyungs knew it too.

“You can’t just make assumptions like that!” Yoochun chastised him exasperatedly, not able to help acting again like how he, Jaejoong, Junsu, and Yunho would in the past, when they were scolding Changmin for one mischief or the other. “For all you know, us coming back as five again is the last thing he wants right now!”

Junsu nodded in agreement with Yoochun. Both of them couldn’t understand what was going on in Changmin’s mind at all. Instead of getting answers, they were just becoming more and more confused by the minute.

“Kyuhyun told me the same thing yesterday,” Changmin said, looking back at them and smiling wryly a bit.

“Well, you’d do well to think about that idea and consider it seriously, then,” Yoochun stated firmly.

Changmin sighed, looking back and forth between Yoochun’s and Junsu’s expressions.

“You don’t understand, hyungs…”

“No, we most certainly don’t,” Yoochun agreed with that sentiment right away.

“The plan to get our group back together is… well, it’s not really my, for lack of better term, main goal.”

“I see,” Yoochun said slowly. “And what is your main goal, then?”

Changmin’s lips just tightened together into a thin line. And so Yoochun and Junsu knew that Changmin wasn’t going to answer that question, either.

“Changmin, you just can’t keep avoiding our questions like that!” Yoochun said exasperatedly, starting to get really impatient. “You can’t suddenly spring on us like wanting to come back as five again without giving us proper answers! Alright, so we know now that you want a reunion because it’s the way to get the thing that you really want. But what is it? What exactly are you trying to accomplish?”

Changmin still didn’t answer again.

Yoochun rolled his eyes. They were getting nowhere! He and Junsu were still as clueless about the whole thing as they were before they began talking with Changmin.

“Well, I still say you should talk to Yunho hyung about this first,” Junsu said uncertainly after a while.

Yoochun nodded firmly beside him. Yes, that was another thing. Yunho didn’t know anything about this at all. And something told him that this was crucial. There was something more about this and Yoochun had the feeling that this was why Changmin hadn’t said anything about his plan to Yunho.

And it was making Yoochun uneasy.

“Look, here’s the thing, hyungs,” Changmin said seriously. “If you do agree to help me with this, Yunho can’t know anything about what we’re doing at all-“

“But-“ Yoochun and Junsu started to protest, but Changmin interrupted them and continued on.

“-and neither can Jaejoong hyung.”

Yoochun and Junsu stared at him.

Yunho can’t know anything about this? And the same goes for Jaejoong?

Yoochun and Junsu glanced at each other. Yes, something was definitely up here.

“…and why is that, Changmin?” Yoochun said slowly, warily, as he looked back at Changmin. “Don’t you think we have to tell them at some point? I mean, let’s say Junsu and I agree to this. How the hell do you expect us to become five again without Yunho hyung and Jaejoong hyung knowing about it?”

“You misunderstood me, hyung,” Changmin said calmly. “Of course they have to know we’re reuniting. But they don’t have to know that it’s us behind it.”

That brought another layer of complication to this whole mess.

“What?” Junsu yelped. “We have to keep this planning thing a secret from them? But how are they going to think that our reunion came about, if it weren’t us working to achieve it?”

“They’ll be thinking that it’s our companies that decided to bring us back together. To combine forces and dominate the entertainment industry and all that,” Changmin replied.

“Now that’s a far-fetched story, if I’ve ever heard one,” Yoochun snapped. “Get real, Min! Jaejoong hyung would never believe that C-Jes would want to cooperate with SM! And we all know that if C-Jes is unwilling for a collaboration like this, multiply that feeling a thousand times for SM!”

“Jaejoong hyung and Yunho hyung would never believe that,” Junsu nodded his head in agreement with Yoochun, trying to make Changmin see sense. “And neither will anyone else, for that matter. The other idols. The staff. The media. The fans. They’ll never buy it. They know there’s too much hate between our two companies.”

“Yes, but they also know that they’re both power-hungry enough to have the burning desire to dominate the entertainment industry. Is it really that unbelievable that they would collaborate with past enemies if it means that they’ll be getting what they want? When we’re talking about huge sums of potential profit, do you really think it’s not believable that those greedy executives won’t look past personal issues?”

Yoochun and Jun