A/N: Thanks so much for the initial support! Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated since I'm still fairly new to the site, and once again, thank you thank you for reading!

WASURENAIDE

Auntie Minjung wasted no time in setting them to work. They woke up early the next morning and had to shower and eat quickly to be ready in time to head out and set up her area of the market. “Both of you aren't qualified to do anything in the garden yet, and you'd probably just wind up trampling everything,” she said sternly. “But if you do a good job with the grunt work, I might consider promoting you.”

Jaejoong hoped that day came sooner rather than later. “Grunt work” involved lifting crates full of vegetables and jarred herbs into a rusty truck that they were supposed to drive to the market in order to unload everything all over again. He wasn't that weak of a guy, but the crates proved to be awkward to carry and heavy, and Yunho wound up having to help Jaejoong with most of them. Despite being slender himself, Yunho had a fair amount of muscle on his arms, which was displayed quite nicely whenever he had to haul a crate up into the truck bed. Most of the guys Jaejoong knew from back home definitely paled in comparison.

“Aish, I hate driving this thing,” Yunho said, settling into the driver's seat of the truck. “I swear that Auntie must have picked it up at a junkyard. Be sure to hold on tight, the accelerator's really spotty.”

The ride to the market was lurchy and unpleasant, made bearable only by Yunho flicking on the radio and hilariously singing along to trot songs while he tried to keep the truck on the road. The market itself they arrived at was quite sizable for a smaller town. It hadn't opened yet, and everyone was still setting up, but Jaejoong could spot several different kind of food vendors unloading their stock, as well as a few people setting up homemade trinkets onto stands for the couples and friends who would stop by later.

“Nice, isn't it?” Yunho said, grinning at Jaejoong's awed expression. “Auntie has a really nice spot, too. Far away enough from the fish sellers to smell nice, and surrounded by ahjummas who like giving away their leftovers to good looking young guys.”

“You must get a lot, then,” Jaejoong said before realizing what he said could be misconstrued as flirting. “I mean-”

“Oh, you'll be getting much more, I'm sure,” Yunho said with a wink. “Let's get these crates down, all right?”

Several muscle aches and minutes later, they'd gotten all of the crates to their stall and could start setting up. Jaejoong was hot and sweaty and very much unused to this kind of work, but Yunho remained bright enough to cheer him up by whistling his earlier trot songs as they arranged the food based on the diagram Auntie Minjung had left them with.

“I'm sorry you got saddled into this,” Yunho said. “I mean, I'm glad you could stay, but it's too bad you're not doing something you'd rather do. Like writing songs somewhere with air conditioning.”

“That's what I do all the time,” Jaejoong said dismissively. “At least I'm doing something different here.”

“You say that today, but just wait until tomorrow when your back is killing you.” Yunho glanced at him curiously. “I keep thinking about your song, the one you showed me yesterday. I'm not bothering you, am I?”

“Huh?”

“The lyrics. Don't come here, this is my ocean. I was wondering if maybe you didn't like people disturbing you?”

“You're not disturbing me!” Jaejoong said quickly. “You saved my life, remember? It's just a song, anyways.”

“That's not really what you think, or else you wouldn't have been so attached to your notebook. Songs aren't just songs. They're like a part of your soul. I could feel that when I read your words.”

“Yeah... but what I wrote about in that song... it's not like I don't like people, or something. It's just that if they're going upset my world or tear it apart for the worse, I'd rather they just stayed away.”

“Ah. Well, that's reasonable enough.” Yunho opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more, but he was interrupted by a loud “AIGOO!”

Jaejoong looked up. The neighboring ahjummas from the other stalls that Yunho had mentioned had arrived and were looking the two of them up and down. “These were the workers Minjung-ssi was talking about? How handsome!”

“Thank you,” Yunho said, bowing politely. “I'm Minjung-ssi's nephew Yunho, and this is Kim Jaejoong.”

“What a pretty boy,” one of the ahjummas said appreciatively. “Kim Jaejoong, you said? I hope you're planning to keep him around for the summer. That will help us all work harder during such an unbearable heat wave.”

“That's the plan. Keeping him around, I mean.”

“He's so skinny, too! We'll all have to fatten him up. What kind of food do you like, Jaejoong-goon?”

“Er... I'm not that picky. I like dukbokki, but there's really no need-”

“No need? We can't have someone who sells food looking like he doesn't eat it himself! Aigoo!”

“T-thank you for your kindness,” Jaejoong said, bowing. Yunho snickered beneath his hands.

“Don't worry about it,” he said once the ahjummas had returned to their own stalls to set up. He'd leaned in to whisper into Jaejoong's ear, and Jaejoong felt his face instantly heating up at their close proximity. “They mean well, and they're all great cooks to boot. If they make something for you, you'll be thanking them later.”

“Do I really look that bad?” Jaejoong asked, glancing down at his skinny waist and legs. “It won't detract from people buying here, will it?”

Yunho laughed again. “You don't look anywhere close to bad, trust me.”

Before long, everyone was finished setting up and the market was ready to open. Jaejoong was at first nervous about dealing with the amount of people who streamed in for morning errands-- more ahjummas and grannies, noonas catching up on shopping after the work week, a handful of teenagers enjoying the time off from school, even a few ahjusshis here and there-- but Yunho stepped up nicely and greeted them all with a wide smile. Jaejoong followed his lead as best as he could, and it wasn't long before he started to warm up to the customers. Most of the girls who stopped by had a clear interest in Yunho, but he was somewhat flattered when at least one female patron looked a bit flustered when their fingers brushed as he accepted her money.

“You're getting the hang of this,” Yunho said encouragingly. It was getting to be near lunch time, and even more people were pouring in to grab ingredients or an afternoon snack. Their crowd at the veggie stand had thinned out in favor of vendors who sold grab-and-go meals, and Yunho took the moment to wipe down his face with a towel. When he was finished, he leaned over and brushed against Jaejoong's forehead and face, dabbing away the traces of sweat there.

“I could do that myself, you know,” Jaejoong said, a little bit annoyed. He appreciated Yunho's manliness and all, but he didn't like being treated like a woman. Plus, he wasn't sure what to do about the excess of skinship. Jaejoong usually jerked away from people who touched him, but the feel of Yunho's skin was warm and comforting, a sensation which disturbed him as much as it soothed him.

“Ah, sorry,” Yunho said. “I like it when people do little things like that for me, so I do it to other people sometimes subconsciously.”

“You like being taken care of? I wouldn't have guessed.”

“Hey, you had Auntie Minjung's cooking last night. After putting up with that for all your life, you'd want someone to take care of you properly, too.” He shuddered. “For someone who's so good at growing food, she completely forgot to look up how to cook with any of it.”

“I could help. I'm a pretty good cook.”

“You are?” Yunho's eyes lit up. “We can't really ask you to do more than you've already done for us, but maybe you slipped a meal in once or twice a week...”

“Who's slipping in a meal, hyung?” an unfamiliar voice came from the front of their stall. Jaejoong turned around and met the eyes of a guy so tall that he had to crane his neck upwards a little to look at his face properly. Like Yunho, he was good looking with his longish brown hair and slightly tanned skin, but he didn't have the same mischievous light in his eyes that Yunho did to make him look younger than his age. In fact, he looked a bit pained, as if he was only two seconds away from keeling over onto the ground, just as Jaejoong had the other day.

“Is someone hungry, Changminnie?” Yunho teased the new arrival. “You didn't stop for a snack on your way here?”

“Umma... only gave me enough... for the ingredients for tonight's dinner...” He looked longingly at the bowls of seasoned noodles and rice cake skewers the ahjummas had kindly donated for their lunch. “Hyung...”

“Better get what your mother wants instead of wasting her money. What'll it be?”

Changmin glared at him, but handed over the list he'd come to the market with. While Yunho began to bag up the items, he glanced over again in Jaejoong's direction.

“Are you the new... worker?”

“Um, yeah. Are you sure you're all right?”

“Don't worry about him, Jaejoong-ssi,” Yunho butted in. “Changmin probably ate three courses for breakfast, but the sight of all the food here in the market wiped his memory clean. We grew up next door to each other, so I'm used to having this act played on me.”

“It's not an act, hyung,” Changmin insisted, his eyes fixed on the skewer Jaejoong had in his hand. “I burned breakfast today, and Yoochun hyung won't give me anything free at his stall either...”

Jaejoong clicked his tongue. Even if it was all an act, Changmin did look genuinely starved. “Here, open up,” he said before Yunho could stop him. Changmin dutifully opened up his mouth, and Jaejoong slid the skewer in, which Changmin enthusiastically chowed down on.

“Oi!” Yunho folded his arms across his chest, his eyes narrowing. “You didn't have to do that.”

Changmin, on the other hand, smacked his lips in satisfaction. “Ah, that feels so much better. Thank you...”

“Kim Jaejoong. Try not to eat your groceries on the way home.”

“Hyung, this guy's so much cooler than you,” Changmin said, turning to Yunho with a glare.

“Yeah, well. Don't get spoiled by it, he's just a nice guy in general.”

Changmin rolled his eyes and hoisted the grocery bag over his shoulder. “Thanks for the rice cakes again, Jaejoong hyung. Don't let Yunho hyung be a bother to you.”

“Bother, my foot,” Yunho muttered under his breath when Changmin was out of earshot. “You shouldn't encourage him by giving him food. It made me jealous.”

Jaejoong's mouth fell open at Yunho's phrasing. “Jealous,” he repeated, half believing he'd completely misheard him.

“Yeah. When I said I liked people who took care of me, it was things like that I was thinking of.”

“So you want to...” Jaejoong picked up the remaining skewer of rice cakes. “Open up, then.”

Yunho lifted an eyebrow. “You're really going to do that?”

“Didn't you just say you wanted to?”

“Oh... ummm...” Yunho opened his mouth, and Jaejoong slid it in. Unlike with Changmin, he overshot just slightly, and the tip of his fingers brushed against Yunho's lips in the process. Oh god, don't think about it, he coached himself, but Yunho met his eyes as the rice cakes popped into his mouth, and the whole thing came across as so overwhelmingly y that Jaejoong couldn't help but think about it.

“Aaah, that sort of thing really is nice,” Yunho said when he'd finished chewing. “I think it would be better if you spoiled me instead of Changmin, after all.”

“Selfish,” Jaejoong muttered, and with the way his heart was pounding, he wasn't sure he should push it further than he already had.

0o0

In the later afternoon, Auntie Minjung came to the stall to relieve them of their shift. Instead of directly going back to the house, Yunho suggested browsing the other stalls for awhile since it was Jaejoong's first time at the market. Now that it was later in the day, there were a lot more couples out and about, and anyone not stopping to buy a snack seemed to be flocking to stalls that sold couples jewelry and other cute trinkets. Jaejoong wondered absently if Yunho had ever brought a girlfriend around this place, but decided it really wasn't any of his business if he had.

After a few rows of stalls, the air began to smell of fish, and Yunho's playful grin returned to his face as they approached the seafood vendor. “Looks like Junsu and Yoochunnie are still working. Is it okay if we stop and say hi? They're juniors from school.”

“That's fine.” Jaejoong was a bit disconcerted by how good looking all of Yunho's friends were shaping up to be. One of the guys behind the counter at the stall had an unpolished, devil-may-care look with his shaggy black hair which half hid his eyes, and the other one had an athletic body paired with an disarmingly angelic face. Jaejoong didn't have any particular inferiority complexes in regards to how he looked in comparison to other people, but as quite a few of his tormentors back at school tended to be blessed by the gene pool, he wasn't overly excited to meet more of their similarly blessed crowd. Yunho and Changmin turned out just fine, Jaejoong reminded himself, but then again, they don't know me. The real me. If they did, it might be different.

“Picked up a new friend, hyung?” the shaggy haired friend asked when they made it to the front of the line. Jaejoong had to wonder how he put up with the smell all day long, as well as the company of the blank eyed, slimy fish up for sale.

“This is Kim Jaejoong,” Yunho said, casually slinging his arm around Jaejoong's shoulders. “He's working for Auntie with me this summer.”

“Really? Isn't he a bit pretty for hard labor?”

“And didn't you say the same when I applied here, Yoochun?” the cute faced guy, presumably Junsu, asked. “Nice to meet you, Jaejoong...hyung, is it?”

“Nice to meet you, too”

“So you'll be in Yunho hyung's care, huh? I'm sure that will be... nice.” Junsu looked like he was trying not to laugh. “You actually look put together enough for it to be the other way around. Aren't those Yunho hyung's old clothes, though?”

“He's staying with us for the summer, and he needed work clothes,” Yunho said with the shrug. “By the way, Junsu-ah, you should stop by and visit sometime when you're not working. Jaejoong-ssi is a really good singer, and he's even written a few really good songs.”

“Hey, am I not invited?” Yoochun butted in. “I'm a good singer, too.”

Junsu ignored him. “You write? What kinds of songs? I used to do ballads at a club after work until they found out I was underage.”

“I have ballads,” Jaejoong answered. “A few rock-based and R&B songs, too.” When did it get so easy for me to talk about this?, he wondered. Where did the fear of being made fun of go? He felt Yunho's arm around him, realizing that it may have been because of his presence. Yunho had been so quick to accept that Jaejoong trusted in his friends to be the same.

“That's great. I'd love to sing together sometime. Yoochun's also not bad, but-” Junsu heaved a sigh, “-if you invited him over, you would have to put up with Yoochun...”

“Ah, don't be cute.” Yoochun reached out to ruffle Junsu's hair. “By the way, hyung, isn't it getting late?”

“Late?” Yunho echoed.

“Didn't you always mysteriously disappear somewhere around this time of day last summer?”

Jaejoong could have sworn Yunho's face paled a little when he looked at it. “Oh, um, that was...nothing.”

“Ah, so you upset Minhee so much over 'nothing'?”

“Yoochun,” Yunho said, his voice suddenly hard. “Drop it.” He turned to Jaejoong. “It is pretty late, though. We should head back for dinner, and maybe you can show off those cooking skills of yours?”

“Sure...” Jaejoong said, but he looked back at Yoochun out of the corner of his eye. Who was Minhee, and why had that name bothered Yunho so much? A girlfriend? An ex-girlfriend? It bothered him a bit that he didn't know much about Yunho, while everyone else seemed to. But of course he wouldn't know these things about him. He'd only run into Yunho by chance a day ago, and just because they'd struck up their bargain, it didn't mean they were best friends or anything. Yunho already had friends. It was Jaejoong who didn't.

He sighed to himself as Yunho walked him back to the truck. It would so much easier to put these stupid thoughts behind him and be normal again if Yunho would just drop his arm away from his shoulder, but up until the point where they reached the truck in the lot and had to split apart to get inside, he left it right where it was.

0o0

Jaejoong's mood improved after dinner. Yunho had liked his food so much that he'd spent almost the entire time he'd spent eating with a huge grin on his face, which had made Jaejoong feel proud of his work. After they'd finished and cleaned up, Yunho led him back up to his room, where both his acoustic guitar and Jaejoong's notebook were waiting.

“I want to run through Mine again, but I want to see a different song, too,” Yunho said with a sigh, strumming a few random chords. “But you only gave me permission to look at just one.”

“...you can see another, if you really want to.”

Yunho sat up straighter. “All right! I can turn the page then?” Without waiting for an answer, he flipped open to the second page.

“Ah-- I'll go to the bathroom-”

“Wait!” Yunho grabbed his wrist. “I can't read this, Jaejoong.”

“Is the handwriting bad?”

“No, but it's in Japanese...”

“Oh! I forgot.” Jaejoong sat beside Yunho on the bed. “Can you just not read written Japanese, or do you need me to translate the whole thing?”

“Eh? Are normal students supposed to know that much Japanese?”

Jaejoong laughed. “I guess not. I think I have my talent to blame for the fact that I was once accidentally locked in a storage room with my Japanese text book.”

“For real? I thought people ended up locked in rooms with their love interests? I guess that's just manhwa.”

“There were no 'love interests' around. It happened at home. I was storing my bike, and I guess my sister didn't realize I was in there, since she went ahead and locked the door on me. It took them forever to find me, but I learned a lot from my advanced Japanese textbook while I waiting.”

“Hah, that would be pretty useful. I usually end up studying Japanese with Changmin or Yoochun, so I mostly know words like 'tabemasu' and 'haraheta'.”

Jaejoong grinned. After meeting Changmin, he could definitely believe it. “As for the song... how about I read it in Japanese first, then translate? The meaning changes between languages, so it's good to hear it in its original form first, even if you don't immediately understand it.”

“Go on, then. What's the title say?”

“Wasurenaide. Don't forget me.”

“Wasurenaide,” Yunho repeated.

After clearing his throat, Jaejoong began to sing for him. This particular song felt odd to perform in front of someone else. It was such a romantic and desirous song, but he hadn't written it for anyone in particular. No, that's not quite right, he corrected himself. I wrote this song for the person I would one day meet. As much as he doubted himself and his heart, he had the faith that even someone like him would meet someone who he cared about beyond anything. But at the same time, his heart had already prepared itself for the loss of that person. Who would want to stay in love with me when it's hopeless? The world will reject us and laugh at us, and I can barely be strong enough for myself, much less someone else. He doubted most people wrote their very first love song so despairingly, but yet filled with so much longing that they wouldn't be forgotten, even if they had to be let go.

Yunho must have also felt it, because of instead of asking Jaejoong to sing again or figure out the proper chords on his guitar once Jaejoong had finished translating the Japanese lyrics, he simply looked into his eyes for awhile with a somewhat a torn look on his face.

“You've been in love like this before, Jaejoong-ssi?” Yunho asked finally. “To this extent?”

Jaejoong shook his head. “I was just thinking of what it would be like if I was.”

“I see. I haven't been in love like that either, but I would like to be.” Yunho ran his finger underneath the word Wasurenaide. “When you get together with someone, it's like you're always hoping that it will amount to this much love. And then when it doesn't happen, it's a disappointment. Or when that kind of love happens to one person and not the other. That's even worse.”

Jaejoong bit his lip. Clearly Yunho had much more experience in the actual 'getting together' part than he did. “I thought most people would think it was bad, in a way. Loving someone like this and then being broken after you lose them.”

Yunho shook his head. “But that's not what you're saying here. 'It's all right, even if I can't see you. I miss you, but just that feeling is enough'. I think knowing that feeling of real love would be better than never knowing, even if it's painful. So that even in your sadness, there's that small piece of happiness there because of there's someone in the world you love.”

Jaejoong smiled waveringly at those words. The mingled despair and longing of the song seemed to feel even more real to him now that someone else understood it, now that it wasn't just him. Of course it was sad, of course people would prefer to be together with the one they loved. But it was the wasurenaide that mattered. That want of not being forgotten, of waiting rather than giving up.

“What's the smile for?” Yunho asked lightly. “Is my interpretation wrong?”

Jaejoong shook his head. “No. It's perfect. I'm just happy you got it.”

“Man, I just wish I could understand the Japanese. The song's probably even better, that way.” Yunho picked up his guitar. “I don't think I'm good enough to sing in another language just yet, so could you sing it again for me? I want to hear your voice.”

My voice, Jaejoong thought to himself. Not just my song, but my voice.

He sang the words again, and though he knew he shouldn't give into the temptation, he held Yunho's eyes as he sang the love story he had once dreamed up for himself. Yunho may not have recognized what the individual words meant, but he surely remembered the general meaning of each of the verses and the chorus, the words that pleaded for understanding and affection. There may have even been something a little heated in Jaejoong's gaze, but Yunho returned it all the same as if to try to piece him together and place that little part of his soul into the strings he was strumming.

Something throbbed in Jaejoong's chest as he sang. If I don't stop, I'm going to lose myself to him, he thought. And I'm only going to regret it. But maybe that was fine. Even if he lost, maybe just having that feeling really would be enough in the end.

"Often on this road
I could feel your shadow
I close my eyes quietly and pray
As if that way you won’t disappear"