All these months, I thought that I had already gotten over Yunho. Sure, he was my first and last love; sure, I lost my first kiss to him; and sure, I still think of him every single day of my life; but it has been almost four years since I last saw him, for crying out loud! I thought that my love for him would have diminished over time.

Unfortunately for me, this was hardly the case. When I looked at the picture of him on that poster, my heart rate sped up by tenfold and my skin started crawling with excitement.

‘Did I still love him?’ I asked myself. ‘It couldn’t be.’

‘Oh, it could,” my conscious said to me. ‘You still love him and very much so for that matter.’

The first thing I did was call Heechul up to ask him for his opinion on what I should do and to yell at him for persuading me to attend the goddamn master class in the first place. I braced myself for a frenzied panic attack. With Heechul, freaking out was a must for any—and I mean any—situation. “Freak out about it first, deal with it later” was always his motto.

To my surprise, his panic attack never came.

“Happy Birthday!” Heechul yelled in the phone, sounding quite pleased with himself (as usual).

“What?” I made a face though I knew that he could not see me, totally confused.

“Your twenty-second birthday is coming up,” my friend explained. “So I decided to give you a surprise birthday present.”

I gaped. ‘He actually PLANNED this?’

I recalled that day I signed myself up for this hell. Heechul ran up to me and begged me on bended knees to sign a form for him, saying it was “like a life-or-death situation” and that he was “in dire need of a signature”. As I was in a hurry to catch my Biology class and since Heechul did not look like he would ever let go of me until I did as he demanded, I inadvertently signed the damn paper without reading the contents and ran off without another thought. It was only later when I realized what the paper I signed was for.

Slapping my forehead, I wondered why I never saw this coming. At that time, I thought that Heechul just wanted to play a prank on me; it did not occur to me that these things happen for a reason.

“Well, now what?” I asked, suddenly feeling tired.

“What do you mean, now what?!” he shrieked. “Aren’t you going to thank me for letting you see your true love again?”

My breath hitched. “You actually think that this reunion would HELP!?!”

“Uh, yah.”

“Yunho’s frigging married, Heechul! He has a son and a wife and a family! And now you’re thinking of bringing us back together?!? Are you out of your flipping mind!?!”

Heechul scoffed. “Oh please, it’s not as if you have any better ideas! You still love him!”

“Yes, well, I could have forgotten him if you hadn’t brought him back into my life!”

“Jaejoong, it’s been four years. Four! You’re not going to forget at this rate.”

I violently massaged my temples. “God, Heechul!”

A minute of silence. Heechul’s soft breathing was the only evidence proving that he still had the phone near his ear. “Okay, well, are you alright with this?” he asked tentatively. “With Yunho coming back and all?”

I exhaled sharply. “What do you think?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” my friend concluded. “Well, you still love him, right?”

Though in heavy denial, I nodded wearily, but then realized that Heechul could not see me over the phone.

Yet, my best friend knew me too well. “Thought so,” he said, as if we were talking face to face. “Well, have you told him?”

“Told him what?” I asked though I knew exactly what he was asking.

“Have you told him of your feelings? Ever?”

I pursed my lips. “No.” ‘I only stole a kiss from him,’ I recalled bitterly.

“Then use this chance to do so,” my friend advised. “I mean, it’s the past, right? It should not do too much harm if you tell him now, after four years.”

Heaving a sigh, I closed my eyes in worry. “Wouldn’t it be sort of awkward?”

“Confessions are always awkward,” the diva pointed out. “Duh, haven’t you ever watched any dramas?”

“But what if it is not the right time and place?”

Heechul groaned at my useless worrying. “Jaejoong, let’s make a deal. When you are at his master class, Yunho’s actions will decide your actions. If this Yunho guy wants to talk to you privately after the performance, you tell him that you love him. If Yunho only acts polite and leaves the building without you, you do not tell him. Is that a deal?”

I thought it over and deemed it perfectly reasonable. “Yah. Deal.”

```

I walked to the Music Building in a daze, the notice tacked onto the bulletin board never leaving my head. ‘RENOWNED PROFESSOR JUNG YUNHO TO GIVE MASTER CLASS TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ was the headline, with a picture of my ex-professor sitting in front of the piano with a handsome smirk on his face.

‘Just breathe,’ I instructed myself. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?!’ my conscious screamed back at me. ‘Of course there is something to be afraid of, you !’

‘I know that, stupid!’ I mentally yelled back, burying my face into my hands. ‘I must be delusional.”

‘You are.’

I slapped myself on the top of my head to shut my conscious up. ‘Little bugger.’

“Jaejoong!”

I looked up tiredly and forced a smile. “Hey Heechul. What are you doing here?”

“Going to see my best friend perform. DUH!”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you have a big test today?”

Heechul’s smile faded. “Oh right. Oops.”

I smacked my friend on the side of the head. “You don’t just forget about your tests, Heechul! You should know better.”

“Yes, Dad,” he sniggered. “But I’m already too late to take it. So I had might as well attend your performance and give you a cheer at the end.”

“Suit yourself,” I muttered, though I was glad that somebody was coming with me.

“Either way,” my friend pouted. “I miss Han Geng too much. I need something to do.”

I smiled sadly. Han Geng returned to China after his years on exchange were up, and while his departure was expected, it did not lessen the heartache Heechul felt when he digested the fact that the love of his life was going to leave him. The only thing that kept Heechul sane was the promise Han Geng made: that he would return to marry him. They had engagement rings on their fourth fingers that both had promised never to take off. It was like a drama, but I had my doubts about whether or not Han Geng would actually return.

“He’ll come back,” I told Heechul, though I thought nothing of the sort. “He promised you and bought you an engagement ring, right?”

My pretty friend grinned sadly and said nothing. I didn’t blame him.

We walked in silence until our destination came to view. “Wish me luck,” I broke the silence. “I’ll really need it.”

Heechul slapped my back. “Break a leg. You’ll do fine. I’ll be in the audience, screaming my lungs out for you.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” I muttered, smiling slightly.

I walked backstage into the Men’s dressing room, hoping to have some time to calm down before my performance. I did not have that privilege. Instead, I froze at the door when I saw a familiar tuft of brown hair. The man’s back was towards me, and he was in front of the mirror, smoothing out the collar of his coat and taming the stray strand of hair that rebelliously refused to quiet down.

“Yunho,” I whispered before bolting the opposite direction. Four years did nothing to diminish his handsomeness, and his age enhanced his regal composure. He grew several grey hairs, but those only added to his mature character. I fell in love all over again.

Still unable to face my past, I ended up changing in the janitor’s room, and almost gave the janitor a heart attack when I opened the door in his face.

‘This is not good,’ I thought to myself, shaking my head as I slowly walked towards the concert hall. ‘This is not good at all.’

```

I got through my performance adequately enough; it was the external events that took away from it. While I was not performing, Heechul clapped like a madman, much to my dismay and embarrassment; yet, when I was playing, his snores would be heard throughout the hall, embarrassing me further. The hall was jam packed with people, but I could tell that the majority were only there to prove that they support classical music (a “dying art form”, they called it), not that they enjoyed it in the least. While he was pointing out my mistakes and giving me suggestions on my playing, Yunho avoided eye contact with me the whole time, and I did the same. It was awkward enough that we were mere inches away from each other the whole time, and much more so considering the fact that I had not contacted him once ever since I left despite the emails that he kept sending to me.

Either way, I was glad to get over it. My goal was just to play through the performance, smile at whatever Yunho said, and pretend that our encounter had never happened. Of course, nothing ever went the way I wanted it to.

“Jaejoongie,” a soft voice called out behind me as I was gathering my stuff from backstage.

It was a soft voice, but it was a regal voice. It was quiet, and yet it rang in my ears louder than a Chinese gong. It was the kind of voice that made you stop in your tracks. I almost smiled at my old nickname.

I turned around and put up my best blank face. “Professor.”

“Yunho.”

“Yunho,” I repeated.

“You played well today,” he commented. “Much more mature than before.”

“Thank you,” I replied courtly with my face still blank but my mind spinning out of control.

There was an awkward silence between us for several minutes; we were just standing face to face backstage, unmoving, eyes darting everywhere but at each other.

“Jaejoong, where the hell are you? You said that you would—!” Heechul’s shrill voice was heard way before he appeared from around the corner. He saw me and Yunho standing together and shut his mouth abruptly. “Oh, I see you are in the middle of something,” he stated, a smirk painted on his lips. “Remember the deal.” Then he skipped off, cackling.

My face turned a bright red.

“You friend?” Yunho asked.

Reluctantly, I nodded. “He is usually not like this,” I lied.

“I see.”

“When did you get here?”

Yunho chuckled. “A couple hours ago. My flight back to the conservatory leaves in six hours.”

“So you’re only staying here for around ten hours?”

“Correct.”

After another bout of silence, I was about to mumble a lame excuse to leave, but Yunho beat me to the juice.

“Do you like coffee?” he asked out of the blue.

I looked up in surprise, and Heechul's hardly obscure reminder crossed my mind: ‘Remember the deal.’ Hesitantly, I nodded. “There is a coffee shop nearby.”

Yunho smiled softly at my subtle invitation, and took a step forward. I followed suit, unconsciously interlocking our arms like before. ‘I will tell him today.’

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There, a new update!
Thank you for all the comments, people ^^
And Jaejoong is healthy, to answer one of the readers' question lol.
Hope you like this chapter!