Long after to the little ones had thoroughly soaked Jaejoong’s precious and pristine bathroom floor, Seungwoon and Moonbin sat in front of the quietly running television in the living room, sound asleep on the couch, while Jaejoong sat at the dining room table with a disappointed frown on his face and studied his editor’s latest revisions to his current manuscript.

“Sometimes…that man can be so ruthless.” sighed Jaejoong quietly as he looked at a paragraph he had been truly proud of and took in all the red marks and annotations the editor had left.

Scribbling down a few notes on how he was going to counteract such scolding and near childish revisions, and give his editor an earful in the process, the next morning, Jaejoong just sighed. He liked his job, and the people he worked with, but he never could understand why his publishing company wouldn’t just let him write what he wanted to. When he was writing children stories, he could just let his imagination run wild and his supervisors and editors loved everything. He could do no wrong. But when he was scheduled to write fiction for adult readers there was always something wrong with his manuscripts. Either it was too harsh here or too soft there, too cruel and raw here or too optimistic there, too pessimistic here or too antiquated there, and it stressed him out to no end.

All he ever wanted to do with his life was write and yet it always seemed like it was just this constant uphill battle to write what was in his heart. It was like his thoughts and feelings were just so foreign to others that no one could understand him like he was some alien from another planet, and he didn’t get it.

Why couldn’t they understand him?

Placing his pen on top of the small notepad, Jaejoong shook away the worrying and depressing thoughts peeking out from the shadows of his mind and stood up. He needed a break before he fell further into the realm of self-doubt. As he stood, his argumentative and deprived stomach began to gurgle and grumble within him again and Jaejoong suddenly felt a bit queasy. It had only been a few hours since dinner, but Jaejoong had spent most of that time listening to and talking with the children that he barely took in three or four bites of the only food he had really had all day, and now he was regretting it. He had never really had an appetite when he was younger and as he had gotten older it had never really improved. Food was just never something important to Jaejoong. There was always something far more important to do. A deadline to meet. A playdate to take Moonbin to. A doctor’s appointment. A school trip. He was, oftentimes, so busy that if it hadn't been for Moonbin and Jaejoong’s parental duty to prepare meals for the little one every day, he could easily go days without even a morsel of food.

“Alright…alright,” mumbled Jaejoong quietly as he patted his angry stomach.

Heading into the kitchen, he glanced around the room for a moment before opening the refrigerator, bending down, and spying the fresh carton of milk he had bought the day before.

“That’ll work.” he thought as he grabbed it.

As he stood upright and closed the fridge door, Jaejoong suddenly began to feel woozy as the room slightly spun around him. Clutching onto the edge of the counter and nearly slamming the carton of milk on its top, Jaejoong closed his eyes and tried to once again fight back that ever reoccurring feeling of vertigo that had been stalking his life for well over five years. As the room continued to spin, and his heart wildly bounced around in his chest, Jaejoong fell against counter’s edge and then dropped to his knees. Clenching his eyes closed tighter and taking long deep breaths, he bowed his head and tried to focus his mind on something that always made him feel calm in moments like this. His childhood home. The ocean at sunset. The scent blossoming cherry trees. The sound of a lonely piano crying into the night. His son’s smiling face. As each of those feelings and thoughts cascaded through his mind, Jaejoong’s world slowly began to find itself again and finally normalized itself just as one final image flittered across his mind.

“Yunho…” breathed out Jaejoong almost inaudibly as he clutched his chest in bewilderment. He had no idea why Seungwoon’s father had popped into his mind at that very moment and yet the feeling of calmness he felt because of it didn’t seem out of the ordinary either.

With his tiny world back as it should be, Jaejoong pulled himself up from the floor and with a deep breath, he reached out and grabbed a large glass from the cabinet. After filling it up to the very top, he gulped it down as fast as he could hoping that the richness of the milk would coat his aggravated stomach and give him some relief from the hunger pains that had been plaguing him most of the day. As the normally comforting liquid hit his stomach, and the pains began to subside, he felt a strange feeling echo through his body for a brief moment. It had hit him for only a second and then disappeared but Jaejoong knew exactly what it meant. A sense of urgency washed over him as he glanced across the hall. It was time. He needed to act quickly or nearly passing out on the kitchen floor would be the least of his problems.

With half a glass of milk still left, he made his way out of the kitchen and into the small half bathroom across the hall. Placing the glass on the counter near the edge of the sink, he reached up and opened the medicine cabinet. On each shelf, perfectly organized, sat a plethora of small brown prescription medicine bottles in varying shapes and sizes. Scanning the second shelf with knowing precision, he plucked out a small bottle labeled Klonopin 1.0mg. Opening the bottle and retrieving two small blue-colored pills, Jaejoong quietly placed them on the counter beside his glass with a sad look on his face. Closing up the pill bottle and putting it back, he repeated the same procedure four more times –pulling out one small round yellow pill from the bottle labeled Coumadin 5.0mg, one oblong shaped pink pill from the bottle labeled Lopressor 50mg, two triangle-shaped beige pills labeled Dilantin 50mg, and one oblong shaped green pill labeled Nortriptyline HCL 75mg.

Collecting all the medication from the little pile he had created pill by pill into his hand, he popped the lot into his mouth a few at a time and swallowed some of the milk to chase it down until all of it was gone. Sighing deeply, Jaejoong closed the medicine cabinet with a frown and stared at his reflection in the mirror for a few minutes as he waited to see if his stomach would eject his medication this time. Twenty minutes passed and when it looked like his medicine would thankfully stay down, Jaejoong flipped off the bathroom light and walk back into the kitchen to find his cellphone buzzing across the counter alerting him of a new text message.

[Seungwoon’s Dad]

I’m running late, will be there ASAP.
Sorry!
-Yunho-

“There you are…” sighed Jaejoong softly with a gentle smile.

Jaejoong had been wondering for quite a while when Seungwoon’s father would return to pick the little one up. The day had been relatively quiet, phone calls wise, but Yunho had taken the time to text him several times during the day to check on how his son was getting along with Moonbin. Jaejoong could tell that Yunho was worried about Seungwoon, that he really cared for the young boy’s safety and happiness, and in a way, Jaejoong felt a sort of kinship with the nice man because of it. Most fathers in this day and age were always so consumed with getting ahead, working all hours of the day and night to further their careers, that they had no time for their children –leaving their wives or household staff like maids and nannies to do their parenting for them. It was refreshing to see that there were still some upstanding fathers left in this world that made their children their priority as they should.

Leaning against the counter, with his phone in his hand, Jaejoong stared at Yunho’s message for quite some time. He wasn’t sure, consciously, why the man fascinated him so much but as time went on he couldn’t help but admit to himself that there was something about Yunho that made him want to get to know him better. Yunho seemed like such a good person but even Jaejoong could tell that there was something more to the man. He seemed somewhat reserved around strangers, sometimes even cold and ruthlessly distant, but when it came to Seungwoon he was completely different. It’s not unusual for someone to be a little closed off to strangers and yet open-hearted to those they love but to Jaejoong, his behavior seemed indicative of something he couldn’t quite place.  

Even though Yunho was polite to him once he had calmed down the day before, and even reluctantly trusted him with his precious child, Jaejoong could tell that the man was a bit wary of him and he wondered why. He had never really given the man a reason to mistrust him. He had been polite and caring as he would have been with anyone. And, yet, the mood between them seemed contradictory as if they were not only comfortable around one another but also awkward at the same time. It seemed so odd to find someone who obviously came from a very noble and well-to-do background that would so openly show their love and affection for their child in public and yet be so willing to trust someone they had just met with the safety and security of their precious son.

Truthfully, Jaejoong was grateful; for Moonbin’s sake as well as his own; that Yunho had felt some sense of trust in him but he wondered why receiving such trust made him feel uneasy as well.  Perhaps it was simply because they barely knew one another or maybe it was something more. He didn’t know. But even with the mounting uncertainty looming over the entire situation, Jaejoong was glad that he had met the two and deep in his heart he hoped that maybe one day, with time, he may come to understand the man that had so instantaneously perplexed him so.   

Walking into the short hallway that led from the front door and kitchen area to the rest of the apartment, Jaejoong made his way towards the living room. Stopping at the corner of the exterior wall that partitioned off the kitchen, Jaejoong sighed as his eyes fell upon Moonbin and Seungwoon. Cuddled under a plush blanket, with Seungwoon’s head snuggling deep within his chest and his arms wrapped lovingly around his new brother, Moonbin slept quietly with a contented smile upon his face under the soft glow of the television.

“Precious…” whispered Jaejoong softly as he leaned against the wall and continued to take in the beautiful and loving sight before him.

As the hands on the living room clock ticked by, minute by minute, Jaejoong watched to two little ones sleep as his thoughts slowly fell back to the days before his son was born. Their start had been a rocky one, full of perils and dangers not suitable for the beginning of life, but somehow they had made it.

He thought about Moonbin’s mother, JinJoo. A woman of impeccable character, with a heart so loving that she would give up her last dime or her last speck of food to those in need. She was selfless, compassionate, caring, loving, and so very loyal. To her, there was no such thing as a friend –the only family existed in her mind. The world was her home and everyone, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, were her family.  Her generous heart, loving spirit, and open-hearted mind made all that came before her forever grateful to be in her presence and the world was better for it.

She was his best friend and now she was gone.

Back then, Jaejoong had never really understood why he had felt so drawn to her. He had thought that it was merely just an impulse, an action done without thought or feeling, but as the years without her passed by he came to realize that there was something more to it. His life at the time was so chaotic, so painful, and somehow JinJoo became this beacon of light within his darkening world. Like a moth to the flame, he was drawn to her and though he tried to fight the compulsion to run to her, he had failed. He had crossed a line, the line that he; himself; had drawn in the proverbial sand.

And all because of HeeJun.

As the thoughts of the man who had ultimately ruined him so long ago flittered across his mind, Jaejoong suddenly began to feel afraid. Over the last three years, Jaejoong had fought to bury his memories of the monster that had so succinctly destroyed any hope that he had so desperately clung to during that time, the monster who had made his life a living hell. And yet, even to this day, even the slightest whisper of his name or a millisecond flicker of his face across the conscious mind, made Jaejoong shudder in fear. To think about him was given him cause to reappear so Jaejoong tried his best to forget everything that happened before the birth of his son –even though the scars on his heart, his mind, and his body, would never truly go away.

Jaejoong closed his eyes and tried to will away the thoughts of him as they immediately began to flood his mind with memories he had forever prayed would be wiped from his memory. First came the flickering of images and scenes of when they were together, the things the monster had done to him, and then suddenly an ever-so-familiar voice began ringing in his ears.

“You worthless !”

“How dare you talk back to me you pathetic ?!”

“You will ing do as I say you goddamn !”

“You belong to me, you ing !”

With Jiyong’s voice echoing louder and louder within his mind, Jaejoong’s panic escalated. Reaching up and covering his ears, he closed his teary eyes and tried everything he could to fight back the memories tormenting his every thought and feeling. Breathing heavily, on the verge of hyperventilation, he clenched his jaw and dropped to his knees in pain as a memory of Jiyong’s physical abuse slammed into his conscious thought.

So lost in the throes of his own, personal, living nightmare from the past, Jaejoong was no longer in the land of the present. He was lost, so very lost, with no way out.

“Jae?” came a soft and concerned voice from behind him as a gentle hand landed on his shoulder.

Suddenly, Jaejoong’s internal fight or flight mechanism kicked in and without even a thought, he stood up, spun around, reared back his fist, and swung at the monster behind him with eyes pinned tightly shut.

With cat-like reflexes, the man instantly caught Jaejoong’s errant right hook and looked at the panicked man before him in fear and worry.

“Jaejoong…It’s me!” he said desperately. “It’s...Yunho.”

Instantly Jaejoong’s eye shot open, revealing the terrified look they had been concealing. As he took in the man before him, the state in which Jaejoong was in, Yunho’s heart suddenly felt heavy.

“Jae…what’s wrong?” he questioned worriedly. “Are you alright?”

Moments of awkward silence fell between the two men standing in the dimly lit hallway. Yunho could not, for the life of him, understand why someone that has seemed so normal and so loving just the day before would be so suddenly unlike himself. His eyes, full of tears, held an unknown fear and pain that Yunho had never seen before and his frail body seemed to slightly shiver as if it had suddenly dropped twenty degrees in an instant.

“You’re ok…” reassured Yunho instinctively. “Everything is alright, Jaejoong.”

A few more tense seconds passed in dead silence until, without warning, Jaejoong closed his eyes and seemed to take a cleansing breath, before opening them once more and flashing a bright smile.

“I’m ok,” said Jaejoong softly.

“Sorry…” he apologized as he pulled his arm from Yunho’s grip. “You…you just startled me is all.”

“Startled?” questioned Yunho disbelievingly. “It didn’t look that way.”

“Are you alright?” he questioned worriedly.

“I’m good,” Jaejoong said as he forced a smile. “Right as rain.”

“You sure?” probed Yunho with concern.

“Yes.” hummed Jaejoong with a confirming nod.

“O…k...” answered Yunho hesitantly. “Where’s…”

“He’s sleeping on the couch with Binnie.” interrupted Jaejoong as he turned and pointed into the living room.

Following Jaejoong’s direction, Yunho walked quietly into the darkened living room. Coming to a stop at the end of the couch, he couldn’t help smile as the sight of the two precious boys sleeping peacefully together registered in his mind.

“How precious,” he whispered softly as he looked at his son’s face and noticed the peaceful smile it held.

“How long have they been asleep?” questioned Yunho softly, looking over his shoulder as Jaejoong walked up beside him.

“About three hours,” he answered with a gentle sigh.

“How was he today?” questioned Yunho with a questioning look.

“The best,” Jaejoong replied. “He truly is a remarkably wonderful little boy.”

“I’d hate to wake him up.” Yunho nearly whined as he walked up to where the two boys slept and frowned.

“You won’t,” reassured Jaejoong with a knowing nod. “They truly tuckered themselves out today. They are so dead to the world right now that a bomb could go off five feet from them and they’d never hear it.”

“You sure?” questioned Yunho as he reached down and patted his son on the head.

“Positive.” reiterated Jaejoong.

Jaejoong watched as Yunho slowly, yet skillfully, removed his son from Moonbin’s loving arms and lifted him up off the couch. Cradling the gently snoring bundle in his arms, Yunho smiled appreciatively at Jaejoong. It was the first time he had ever seen him so worn out and yet so palpably happy.

“Thank you for taking care of Seungwoon today.” offered up Yunho kindly.

“It was my pleasure, Yunho,” he replied with a smile.

“I hope that we can see each other soon,” he added somewhat awkwardly. “That the boys can play with each other again.”

“I think I’d like that,” answered Yunho, a bit nervously, as he flashed an uneasy smile at Jaejoong and suddenly corrected himself. “I think Seungwoon would like that.”

“I think…” added Yunho as he cleared his throat. “we should get going. Seungwoon has a lesson early in the morning and I need some rest.”

“Alright.” acknowledge Jaejoong as he turned and motion for Yunho to leave.

As they came to the front door, and Jaejoong opened it, he flashed one more kind and caring smile at Yunho before addressing the sleeping child in the man’s arms.

“Goodnight, Seungie,” he whispered gently, reaching out and patting the child on the head. “It was fun, little one.”

“Goodnight, Jaejoong,” replied Yunho with a smile as he walked out of the front door.

“Goodnight.” answered Jaejoong with a nod. “You two be safe going home.”

“We will.” nodded Yunho reassuringly before he turned and walked out of sight.