Jaejoong and Yunho were practically perfect for each other. They’d been together for quite a long time, always faithful, and quite literally always together. They were always in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, true to each other, and always showing little acts of puppy love. Of course, there was more to it than that, but they liked to keep things simple.

And things were simple for them, up until a little sliver of insecurity slipped under Yunho’s skin and stayed there, squirming and crawling.

“You wouldn’t leave me, right?” Yunho asked one day while on the couch with Jaejoong, sitting and cuddling while watching a show on the television. Jaejoong was shocked by the question, wondering how in the world a question like that could worm it’s way into Yunho’s mind.

Jaejoong turned slightly, keeping his arm around Yunho’s shoulders, looking at him curiously. “What makes you think I would?” He asked, tilting his head slightly.

Yunho squirmed under Jaejoong’s arm, clearly uncomfortable from the inquiry. “I.. I don’t know. It was just a fear, you know? I was only wondering, because it keeps going through my mind and driving me insane... I’m just afraid that you’d leave me.”

They both sat in silence, the only sound being the voices on the television. Yunho stared down and fiddled with his fingers, Jaejoong slowly shifted uneasily and pulled his arm away. Then, suddenly, the lights all went out, including the only thing keeping noise going in the entire room. So then the two of them sat in a stony silence, both staring straight ahead, not daring to look at each other.

“You really think I’d leave you?” Yunho didn’t have to look at him to know Jaejoong was speaking through clenched teeth, his eyes set staring forward with a ferocity that only came about him when he was hurt. “Fine. Maybe I’ll just leave then.”

There was a rustling, and Yunho felt pressure leave the couch as Jaejoong stood up and stalked out of the room. Yunho just sat there, his bottom lip trembling, and then after a few seconds he heard the door slam. He was left alone in the dark, empty house, left to his own thoughts.

Meanwhile, Jaejoong was stomping angrily down the street, mumbling to himself about how he had done nothing but love Yunho and he still got crap. In his haste to get away from the house, he shouldered someone, nearly knocking both of them over. He turned, opening his mouth to apologize, but once light shone on the face of which he walked into, he quickly clamped his mouth shut and decided against it. It was the know-it-all, the tear collector as people called him. Jaejoong hated him, he didn’t know why exactly, but he truly hated him.

“Don’t even open your mouth to me, Lee Hyunwoo,” Jaejoong said through his clenched teeth, balling his hands into fists. “I know you. You’re the one who’s always right there, ready to catch everyone’s tears when they’re hurt. But you, you can’t help me. This is a different kind of hurt. This is the type of hurt that only comes from loving someone so much and getting let down horribly from it. You don’t know what kind of love that is, because if you did, you wouldn’t walk in and out of people’s lives like it was nothing. So I don’t even want to hear what you have to say.”

It only took Hyunwoo a minute to process the words, and then anger he never experienced before flooded through his veins. He grabbed Jaejoong roughly by the collar with both hands, tugging him close, so close that their noses just barely brushed each other. They stood there like that for a minute or so, anger and resentment flowing through both of their eyes, anger more evident in Hyunwoo’s eyes and resentment more evident in Jaejoong’s. Then, Hyunwoo threw Jaejoong back, leaving him to stumble over himself.

“Don’t talk about things you don’t know a word about. My mother died when I was five, on the night of my birthday, because I was taking up all of her attention. She was staring at me, not watching where she was walking, and she didn’t see the puddle at the top of a simple flight of eight stairs. She fell to her death because of me. Then, my father moved out of the house we lived in and took me with him, tearing me away from the only memories I had of my mother. Every night he would sit in his office and cry, never realizing me. All of my birthdays, from year five to year twenty, were mourning days. No one celebrated. They mourned. Then, my dad died. He had a heart attack. He cried himself to his death, and he hardly ever spoke to me. So you know what I did? I took all of his stuff and threw it away. I threw it all in the dumpster by our house, and then I cried myself to sleep with my mom’s wedding picture. Then I ran off. I moved from Seoul to Busan, I left everything I knew. I figured to myself ‘hey, why not be the one person everyone needs in their rough times?’ I wanted to be the person that was there when no one else was, because I never had that in my life. No one comforted me, gave me advice. No one listened to a sad little five year old at his mother’s funeral, crying and wailing at his mother’s corpse because she wouldn’t wake up. They thought I was crazy. I didn’t have a life because everyone kept mourning and crying and forgot about happiness while I sat there hiding all my pain,” Hyunwoo spat words endlessly at Jaejoong, who just watched as the grown man began to cry. “I never learned happiness. I learned how to fake it.”

Finally, Hyunwoo paused, taking a long and shaky breath, letting it back out and looking up at Jaejoong with fire in his eyes. “So don’t you dare say something like that again.”

Jaejoong stood in silence, his mouth hanging open slightly, his fingers grasping at the hem of his shirt. They just stood like that for a while, staring at each other. Hyunwoo huffed and panted for breath, tears now sliding freely down his cheeks as he glared at Jaejoong. Jaejoong, meanwhile, had left that scene mentally. His mind was far off, thinking of Yunho back in their darkened house. The lights went out right before I left, Jaejoong thought. The power went out. Yunho’s alone.

As if reading his mind, Hyunwoo wiped his tears harshly and pointed from the way in which Jaejoong came from. “Go back and apologize to him. And if you’re really a good person, he’ll forgive you.”

Then he was gone.

⎛ end ⎠