“How was the conservatory?” my youngest sister asked. “Was it fun?”

“Yes, it was,” I lied, smiling artificially. “I learned a bunch of stuff there!”

“Then why did you leave?” my other sister inquired, a suspicious look on her face.

“I missed you guys! DUH!” My response triggered many chuckles and giggles, but I did not have the heart to join in.

Questions were fired at me quicker than they were answered. “Was Yunho nice to you?” “Did you go sightseeing?” “Did you get to try Belgium chocolates?” My head was spinning at how swiftly the conversations were moving.

Then my mother spoke up. “You said something about entering our neighboring university. Are you sure you want to do that?”

I nodded confidently. “I want to be able to study near home so that I can see my family all the time. I’ll apply next year.” It was a textbook answer, but it seemed to convince them.

“What about Harvard or the other Ivy leagues? Do you want to apply for those?” my father asked, hiding his excitement.

“No,” I shook my head. “I want to study at a university near home.”

“What major?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Science, maybe?”

“Not music?”

“Maybe on the side.”

My father nodded approvingly. Though he never said it, everybody knew that he was against having one of his children become a musician since it was 'too sketchy an occupation'. “Study hard.”

“I will,” I promised. “You are going to watch over me anyways since I will be living at home.”

“You won’t be living in dorms?” my oldest sister gaped. Independence mattered a lot to her. Her car? She bought it. Her house? She bought it. Her food? She bought it. Her clothes? She bought it. All by herself.

“No, the university is just half an hour away,” I shook my head. “And besides, living at home is most comfortable and I will study better.”

“Suit yourself,” she muttered.

After everybody else calmed down from my reappearance in their lives and excused themselves from the conversation, only my mother was left.

“Really,” she broke the silence between us. “How did you find the conservatory?”

I found myself smiling: my mother read me even better than Yunho did. It was a very comforting thought for me, having a mother who really loved you. “I hated it there.”

“That’s why you came back, correct?”

I nodded, though it was only partially true. “I’m not sure if I made the right decision, though. I got into the best conservatory in all of Korea, so many people would think I was crazy if they heard that I gave it all up just for the average university here.”

My mother snickered. “Just because it is the status quo does not mean that it is correct. It only makes it appear that way.”

‘That’s the same thing Yunho said to me,’ I thought.

“What might work for others might not work for you,” she continued explaining. “Just trust yourself to make the right decision.”

Trust?

After our little talk, I called Heechul up. After a bout of spazzing about how much he missed me, he insisted that we and our other friends have a get-together at the off-leash dog park behind our primary school where we used to hang out all the time. I walked there with a lighthearted feeling in my chest, and it only intensified when I saw my friends running towards me, ready to give me a group hug bigger than the one in the Guinness World Records. I almost broke my neck at the impact.

After greeting each other and enduring the hard slaps on my back, we settled down onto the grass and I started telling them about the competitiveness of conservatory life and how boring it was just sitting there practicing for ten hours a day.

“It was not fun,” I summarized, watching as owners played fetch with their furry companions nearby.

“That’s some intense right there,” Eunhyuk bellowed, while I frowned disapprovingly at his vulgar language. After Yunho scolded me about that, I never swore a word again.

Donghae laughed obnoxiously and draped his arm around Eunhyuk’s neck.

They informed me of all the things that had happened after I left, and I was surprised at how much they had changed. Eunhyuk and Donghae were officially in a serious relationship, which was a big deal considering the fact that all of us thought they were as straight as sticks. Heechul got a boyfriend as well, and although his homouality was not a huge surprise, his love interest was. I mean, who would have expected the fiery talkative Heechul to fall for Han Geng, the exchange student from China who hardly talked at all? What made me even more surprised was the fact that Jessica Jung, my ex-almost-sort-of-girlfriend, was by her abusive boyfriend and bore a child while I was away; she was fifteen at the time. I lastly heard of the state of my long-term acquaintances, and was deeply disappointed when most of them were said to be either drug addicts, alcoholics, party animals, or all three. Apparently, when high school students have too much time on their hands during school hours, things happen—terrible things. This made me realize how lucky I was to have succeeded in high school without corrupting myself with drugs or abusive boyfriends or serial killings.

When my friends asked if I met a girl (or guy) at the conservatory, I refuted the statement. Heechul was the only one who saw right through that lie.

Everything else was a blur. My friends talked and talked and talked, but I did not join in on the conversations like I used to. How could I? For all I knew, they could have been speaking German since I hardly understood a word they said! Questions like “Hey, have you seen the game last night?” would be answered with “What game?”. Phrases like “You got it goin’ fo sho!” would be replied with a “Huh?”. I was not on the same wavelength as them and it was painfully obvious that I was having a difficult time.

As a last attempt to reconnect with my friends, I steered the conversation towards my direction and started telling them about Yunho’s analogy of little birds and big birds. I watched in agony as their excited facial expressions started to distort in confusion and uneasiness.

“Wait a minute,” Donghae interrupted my story. “So little birds are kids?”

That was when I knew that I was not part of my circle of friends anymore. ‘They changed too much,’ I thought. ‘They are all different people now.’

After a while, it was nearing our curfew hours and my friends left one by one. Heechul was the only one who stayed.

“So who’s the guy?” he asked.

“Huh?” I spun my head around at my red-haired friend.

“You know, the guy you had a crush on at the conservatory.”

“I already told you, I did not like anybody there,” I uselessly defended myself.

My best friend rolled his eyes. “You’re getting better at lying, but you’re still terrible.”

I sighed in defeat. “Are you sure you want to know? It’s a bit surprising.”

Heechul slapped the back of my head and I took that as a yes.

“It’s Yunho,” I mumbled.

“REALLY!?!” he burst out, eyes sparkling in excitement. “YOUR OWN PIANO PROFESSOR!!?!”

I put my hand to his mouth, shushing him the best I could. “Heechul! Shut up!”

“Okay, okay!” he panted. “You just scared me a little bit.”

“Told you it was a bit surprising.”

My friend knit his eyebrows together. “Why though? Isn’t he like thirty or forty something?”

“I don’t even know how old he is. He always avoided answering when I asked. Even his resume does not state his birth year. Trust me, I checked.”

Heechul nodded. There was a comfortable silence between us for several minutes.

“You really have changed, Jaejoong,” Heechul sighed. “It’s almost as if I don’t know you anymore. It’s scary.”

I gaped at my friend. “How can you say that to me?!”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” the redhead retorted. “I’m just stating the raw truth.”

I frowned. “If anything, you and everybody else had changed. When you all were talking, I found your conversations difficult to comprehend.”

“I noticed that,” Heechul confessed. “And I only have one conclusion: you grew up.”

“Me? Grow up?” I gawked. “You are the ones who grew up! Jesus, Heechul, all of you guys are in serious relationships now. Even Jessica has a baby! What am I doing? I’m having stupid daydreams about a married forty-year-old man!”

“Jaejoong,” my friend scratched the top of his head. “We did not change. You did. And you grew up. Easy as that.”

I sighed. “How did you come to that conclusion anyways?” I dared myself to ask.

Heechul massaged his temples. “You had this regal commanding aura around you that you did not possess before you went to the conservatory. You gave off a feeling that you understood yourself and that you understood the circumstances around you. It was quite intimidating just how mature and grown-up you seemed. Didn’t you notice that Donghae and Eunhyuk did not look you directly in the eye?”

I nodded. I did notice that.

“Well, that sums it up. They subconsciously think of you as they would think of a police officer or a court judge: authoritative, elder, and superior.”

“You don’t think that way, do you?” I asked hurriedly, intent on getting a ‘no’ answer.

Heechul took a deep breath and then let it out sharply. “My mind tells me that you are still the young Jaejoong I have always known, but my heart tells me that you are a figure of authority.”

“Heechul!” I shouted, totally exasperated. “Look at me! Do I really look like a figure of authority!?! Do I really look that old!?!”

My friend eyed me closely and scanned me from head to toe. “Yes, Jaejoong. You do. From several months ago until now, you look as if you have aged ten years.”

I could tell that Heechul was saying that with all the seriousness in him.

“I am guessing that Yunho guy rubbed off on you,” Heechul smirked. “You act just like an old man.”

Unexpectedly, I laughed.

That was the last time I really talked to Donghae and Eunhyuk, and eventually they were just vague memories of a happy childhood. On the other hand, Heechul and I grew even closer after the roles in our relationship switched: I became the responsible elder brother while Heechul was the naïve younger brother; my best friend even started calling me Dad at one point or another.

```

Eight months later, while Heechul had one more year in high school, I entered university, eagerly turning over a new leaf of my life. I wanted a fresh start, and as a result forcefully pushed all that happened at the conservatory to the back of my memory bank, making sure that all my attention was on the present and not on the past. The only thing that I could not push out of my mind was Yunho. I never went a day without thinking about him. ‘How is he now? Does he miss me? Is he still married to Seulgi? Is his son a certified doctor yet? Did he find another young student to protect and teach?’ Those questions remained unanswered, and they always managed to torment me at the worst of times.

Otherwise, I just studied towards a Science degree, occasionally practiced the piano, and kept a healthy lifestyle with the help of my family. Because of my shy nature, I did not make new friends easily not to mention go on any dates, but it did not matter to me. Life is a lake that can be dried up at times, and during my undergraduate years my lake was filled with glistening water. Equilibrium was on my side for once.

That is, until six days before my graduation, when I found out that a certain Professor Jung Yunho was going to give a master class at my university. The one at which Heechul tricked me into performing.

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Yes! It works! I can update!!!