“My dearest Jaejoongie,

I hope that life has not been too harsh for you during this past month and a half. I will be returning to Korea in less than five hours. My first destination will be my studio room, where I still have papers to sort through before I head back to my flat. Although it has only been exactly six weeks since the day I boarded the plane to Japan, it feels as if I have been gone for six years without the gratification of seeing a trace of your flawless face and beautiful smile.

I heard from the Queen Elizabeth Competition headquarters that they have received your recording, and am quite pleased to report that they accepted you into the competition immediately regardless of the age limit. After all, you shall be sixteen and a half by the time the competition starts; if we take mathematical estimations into account, we would automatically round up that number to seventeen, making you perfectly legitimate to compete for grand prize. Please correct me if I am mistaken, by the way; unlike you, math was never my best subject at school.

I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the Queen Elizabeth Competition will start in a month, and would therefore advise you to prepare a list of your competition repertoire the next time we meet for a lesson. Choose carefully, as repertoire changes are almost impossible to request once they are confirmed. However, the sooner you choose, the better, as you would have more time to really concentrate on your selected pieces. I have also purchased the airplane tickets for the two of us to Belgium, which will be reimbursed in due time. I am incapable of purchasing more than three tickets at a time, so it would be easier if you were the one booking the tickets for the plane that heads back to Korea. Please let me know if this is possible for you or else I’ll create another arrangement.

I will be anticipating our next meeting as I sit idly by the window on the Japan Airlines.

With much love,

Yunho”

It was seven o’clock in the evening, and I made a quick calculation in my head and estimated that Yunho would arrive in Korea in exactly one hour.

Hardly able to contain myself, I ran to my suitcase, took out some clean presentable clothing, and ran to the showers. With a bar of soap in one hand, I scrubbed myself like I never scrubbed before until my skin turned red at the pressure. I washed my hair with strawberry-scented shampoo several times over to get rid of the oil and dandruff that accumulated after weeks of neglect, even taking the time to use some of the conditioner that I reluctantly let my mother pack for me. It seemed like a lifetime since I felt lukewarm water gently strike my back and travel down my pale skin.

After I emerged, I looked into the mirror behind the sinks and almost screamed at what I saw. I was expecting a young boy of sixteen with bright and smiley eyes to be staring back at me, looking as cheerful as if fate decided to give him the easy way of life. Instead, I found myself looking at a stranger with noticeably black eye bags surrounding pitifully tired eyes, topped with drastically sunken cheeks. My hair which used to be luscious and shiny in the light turned thin and dull over the course of the month, and I could have sworn that the lines and wrinkles on my forehead were not there the last time I looked into a mirror. All of the sorrow, loneliness, and anger that I experienced imprinted themselves onto my face, which made me look even older than I already did.

‘Changmin was right. I did look like .’

If my self-confidence was a bubble, it just about popped at that moment. I was practically a walking skeleton, and this was bad considering it was not even close to Halloween yet. My mother would have wept on the spot if she ever saw me like this.

In spite of the maladroit circumstances, I chose to ignore the fact that I looked like somebody from the Adam’s Family. Taking several steps back from the mirror, I looked at the rest of me and deemed it sufficient. I parted my hair neatly, squared my shoulders, flipped my collar right-side up, and smoothed out the wrinkles on my shirt. Aside from the atrocious look on my face that screamed out something along the lines of “INSOMNIA” or “MALNUTRITION”, I looked like a perfectly respectable gentleman that was ready for some serious business.

As it was, I had exactly ten minutes before Yunho would appear before his studio room.

I knew that I could always see him another time—he was my teacher, and hence either way I would have to bump into him eventually—but the pain of being separated from the one I loved for so long was overtaking my whole system, and the craving was becoming too much to bear.

I ran up the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding against my rib cage as if it, too, wanted to break free of the prison bones and see Yunho. When the studio door came in sight, I slowed to a walk and gulped excess saliva down my throat.

I checked my watch. Two minutes. My calculations were approximate, but I had forgotten that fact in the midst of all of my internal excitement. That explained why I jumped in surprise when I saw Yunho appear from around the corner one minute and thirty seconds before the premeditated show time.

Fixed to the spot, I watched as my piano professor, dressed in simple jeans and a brown jacket, put down his briefcase, took out his studio keys from his right pocket, and unlocked the door. As simple as his actions were, I thought he moved beautifully. He WAS beautiful. I wanted to speak out, to let him know that I was no more than ten meters away from him, but my voice failed me. Then a terrifying thought passed through my mind. ‘What if he doesn’t recognize me?!’

Destiny led Yunho to turn his head. He caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure from the corner of his eye, and quickly turned around. I held my breath as he studied me for a second. When he realized who it was, he broke into a smile. “Jaejoongie!”

I did not need to hear any more than that. That one word freed me from my locked form, and I fervently ran towards my professor with a feeling very close to desperation. In due time, I clashed into him and found myself lost in his arms, my cheek pressed against his chest with the top of my head resting comfortably under his chin. I felt his large bony hand my back in a circular motion and his heart beat steadily in my ear.

“I really missed you,” I whispered into his jacket, my voice barely audible.

Whether or not Yunho heard me, I knew not, but we just tightened our embrace as time seemed to stop around us. It was only me and Yunho, and somehow it felt right.

It was Yunho who finally broke our moment of intimacy. “It is really great to see you once again,” he said gently while looking fairly sorrowfully into my eyes. He brushed a strand of hair away from my face and my cheek with his thumb. “I hope that you have had a good time here so far.”

‘You have no idea,’ I thought as I smiled back at my professor.

“Why don’t you come in?” he opened the studio door and motioned me in. “We can talk for a bit while I sort out my stuff.”

I grinned, grateful for the chance to be near him once more. I swiftly skipped into the room before any doubts entered my mind. “How was Japan?” I asked lamely.

“The usual,” he answered just as lamely, flipping through a single ten-inch stack of paper. “Meticulous students, perfectly organized efficiency everywhere, preposterously small household appliances, you know, things like that.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Indeed. What about you? Are you doing alright here?” He looked up at me and I stifled a gasp. There was a flicker in his eyes, and I felt the urge to tell him everything, from my unbearable loneliness to severe paranoia. I felt that he WANTED me to tell him everything.

I didn’t.

“Everything is fine,” I replied almost solemnly. “I usually stay in the practice rooms, and sit in on lectures and master classes sometimes. Changmin just had a performance that he forced me to attend.”

Yunho laughed. “In the music world, having an audience is important.”

‘Unfortunately,’ I added in my mind. I hated performing in front of people, period. “Hard work is just as important.”

My professor did not respond and just kept flipping through all of the pages. He was about a quarter of the way through.

“May I ask what are you doing?” I asked, curiosity impeding my mind.

“Office work,” he responded amusedly.

I laughed. “I see that.” My laugh felt soapy and foreign to me, and I realized that I had not laughed even once ever since Yunho left. ‘Not a single laugh for six weeks,’ I marveled frightfully. “What kind of office work?”

“New students coming in, some students dropping out, admissions control,” he replied. He was already three quarters of the way down. “Luckily, I am not the one who has to read all of these papers; I just count them in order to double-check with my secretary.”

“Oh I see,” I almost whispered. Yunho’s splendor captivated me in a way no other person has ever done. His muscles contracted every time he took the corner of a paper in his hand and flipped it to the other side. His brow was furrowed together to convey a sense of sincere concentration. He had this habit of scratching the side of his nose once in a while, which I thought was absolutely adorable. He was perfect in my eyes.

“Done!” he stood up quickly, almost making me jump out of my skin. “There were exactly three hundred and thirteen papers, six of which were either duplicated by accident or canceled. That adds up to a net amount of three hundred and three.”

“Three hundred and seven,” I corrected him with a muffled giggle.

“Thank you,” he smiled. “You should do my secretary work sometimes. You would probably do it much more efficiently than I ever would.”

I shrugged.

“I am going to head home now,” he said softly. “You should probably go as well if you have some things to do.”

My face fell slightly, and I tried my best to hide my disappointment. “Oh. Okay.”

Yunho seemed to see right through me. He chuckled and ruffled my hair, his white teeth flashing out from his wide smile. “Want to come home with me?”

I blinked several times as I digest his words, apprehension building up in the pit of my stomach. “I-I wouldn’t w-want to intrude.”

My professor barked out a short laugh before ruffling my hair again. “You can come. It’s only a short walk from here.”

Unable (or unwilling, perchance) to find my voice to protest further, I followed my beloved professor out of the studio room, out of the blasted conservatory, and onto the grey gloomy streets. I would have tagged along either way: I was entirely willing to follow him everywhere he went until death parted us.

I walked a few steps behind my professor and watched as the cool wind calmly blew his hair around in a dreamlike trance. He was an angel: my guardian angel. I breathed in and out several times and picked up my pace so that I was walking alongside him. My heart pounding like a war drum in the prison of my ribcage, I mustered enough courage to slink my arm around Yunho’s elbow and move closer so that our shoulders were lightly touching.

I saw Yunho’s jaw tighten but then relax after a few seconds. We walked in that position for the rest of the promenade, saying nothing but feeling everything.

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Yay, Yunho returns!!!