The shopping list Yunho had handed to their staff hadn't been a long one: ginger, lemon, honey, rice, and ingredients for chicken soup. What they dropped off at the flat two hours later was enough food to last the two of them for a week, even if they had the skills and dedication to cook and eat five square meals in every twenty-four hours and Changmin miraculously recovered from his cold the very next day.

"You're quarantined," Yunho was told. "This virus spreads very easily, so you might as well get it at the same time as Changmin. That will limit the overall downtime."

Yunho wanted to point out that a cold—even a severe one—wasn't the same as contracting chicken pox or mumps, but he bit his tongue and merely bowed. After weeks of intensive dance practice and video recordings mixed with too many promotional activities—the worst possible combination in his opinion—a week's downtime suddenly sounded blissful.

He took the bag of medicines the company doctor had sent for them and listened carefully to the instructions of how and what to take when, even though the doctor had included a lengthy note. Then he locked the door, moved the jumble of shopping bags into the kitchen and went to find Changmin, who was huddled on the couch, a picture of misery.

"Come on, Min," he coaxed, pulling the younger man up, and pushing the slightly damp, tangled hair from his face. "You're officially out of commission for a week. Let's get you to bed and feed you some drugs so you can sleep."

Quite unlike his usual assertive self, Changmin let himself be moved to the bedroom, stripped and put under the covers without a word of complaint. Not that he could have said much with his voice reduced to a dry, painful rasp, but he wasn't even making an effort to argue.

When Yunho touched the back of his hand to Changmin's forehead, he had his explanation. Changmin was burning up.

And he'd always hated being too warm.

Yunho found the pills his notes said to take to reduce fever and shook two out of the bottle, then bullied Changmin into taking them with some juice. Exhausted from as simple a task as sitting up and swallowing two pills and a few sips of orange juice, Changmin nevertheless tried to speak, thank him if the accompanying look was any indication.

Yunho waved the thanks away. "Don't talk. You could damage your voice and then where'd we be?" He pulled the blankets up around Changmin, as the singer buried into the pillows. "If you've got anything to say, try sign language.

Judging by the gesture he got in reply, Changmin wasn't quite dead yet. Or the pills had started to kick in.

Smiling widely, Yunho closed the door to Changmin's bedroom and went to inspect the bags of shopping their staff had dropped off for them, relieved that matters weren't as bad as they seemed.

***

A few hours later, Yunho was close to the end of his tether. The doctor's note said to give Changmin plenty of fluids like hot lemon with ginger and honey, and hot soup.

He'd managed the mug of hot lemon and honey. The ginger was a bit of a challenge. He remembered Jaejoong making him hot lemon and ginger, but he couldn't recall stringy bits of ginger root getting caught between his teeth and he had no idea how to avoid that.

Still, Changmin had drunk two mugs without complaint, but a lot of honey, and while his voice was still pathetically raspy, he was no longer shivering as if someone had dunked him into an ice bath.

Since Changmin was looking better, and the hot lemon drink seemed to be working as the doctor's note said, Yunho decided to make soup. It couldn't be that difficult, right? Jae would make soup all the time, even when they came home too exhausted to see straight. It never took too long, either.

So why was he staring helplessly at a counter full of ingredients half an hour later with no soup in sight? It was barely evening, yet his brain felt as if he'd just come off a seven hour dance practice, unable to memorise even one more step sequence. And yet, despite the tiredness, unease gnawed at the back of his mind, as it had always done in the past when one of them had been sick.

He knew he shouldn't, knew that it was stupid to even think about it, but he picked up his phone, found the number and typed:

How do you make hot soup?

He was too tired right then to even sit down. So he stood in the kitchen, leaning on a counter full of partially chopped vegetables, until his phone buzzed. The relief was instantaneous. Stronger than the surprise that it had taken such a short time for Jae to reply after almost a year of silence.

For a moment he was afraid to pick up the phone and read the answer, worried that Jaejoong would just tell him where to go, but then he drew a breath and thumbed the phone to life. A stream of emoticons denoting confusion danced across his screen, followed by

You heat it up?

No, idiot! Hot Soup with ginger like you made when I had the flu!

Oh. Who is sick?

Min.

Don't kill him.

You're so funny!

I so am. Your kitchen skills .

Guess why I'm talking to you.

Do you have ingredients?

Yunho listed everything he'd dumped onto the counter earlier.

So what is your problem?

Jae's voice came across in his texts as clearly it had always done. Yunho could hear each inflection as if they'd never spent any time apart, as if Jaejoong was standing in the kitchen right next to him. And he could picture Jaejoong, too. Right now he'd be running his hands through his hair in confusion, his eyes so wide they seemed to take over Jae's face.

I don't know what to do with them?

He wouldn't have admitted that to anyone else but Jaejoong. Jae, who had seen—and guided—his first attempts at cooking anything. Jae, who understood Yunho's burning need to take care of others, who'd often gone out of his way to make Yunho comfortable. Jae, whom he missed like a limb.

Right. Start with onions. Take the skin off—that's the outer two layers—then slice them as thinly as you can.

With detailed instructions and the occasional question back, Yunho prepared onions and beans, ginger and chilli, scallions and mushrooms, cabbage and radish. He moved slowly, his mind stuffed with cotton, sometimes having to read a text twice or even three times to understand Jae's instructions.

When the doorbell rang, he froze and stared in confusion. Now what? They didn't get visitors and the staff had told him earlier that they were on downtime. The walk to the front door seemed a mile long, and when he pulled the door open…

"I knew it." Jaejoong pushed past him into the hallway, yanking the thick grey scarf from around his neck and the matching beanie from his head. His hair was auburn right then, cut into choppy lengths that caressed his cheekbones and with red glints that made his skin glow like alabaster. "Shut the door, Yunho. And then go and SIT. DOWN. Preferably before you fall down."

That last was muttered under Jaejoong's breath as he kicked off his boots and disappeared into the kitchen.

The jumble of clothes in the hall, flung this way and that, left no doubt that what Yunho thought he'd seen was real. Jaejoong was here. In their apartment. In their kitchen, if the banging of pots and hiss of running water could be believed.

He locked the front door and stumbled back through the hallway, wanting to—no, needing to—see, hear and be close to the friend he'd thought he'd lost for good.

"How are you here?" were the first words out of his mouth when he rounded the corner and saw Jaejoong wrestling a chopping board full of vegetables.

"I came through the door?" Jae's grin was wide and his eyes were full of mischief. "Sit down, will you? Here." Jaejoong took three quick steps across the room, grabbed Yunho by the elbow and shoved him into a chair. Then he plonked a mug of hot lemon in front of him. "Drink."

Yunho still knew better than to argue when Jae got to the stage where he started to push people around. He sipped the hot lemon and found it strongly flavoured with ginger—and no stringy bits of root to catch on his teeth. Jae was wielding his magic.

"But why?" he asked, when he had drained the mug and answered enquiries about Changmin's condition, the doctor's instructions and what kind of food the staff had bought for them. The kitchen smelled like heaven by that time. Warm and inviting and… like home.

Jae smiled a little sadly at Yunho's question and stopped long enough beside Yunho's chair to run a hand through his hair. "You still don't realise you've got it too, do you? Your texts were barely coherent."

"But shouldn't you—?" Again, he had no idea what he really wanted to ask. And again, Jaejoong understood without having to be told.

"Stop worrying! I've just finished my tour, so I have a few days downtime. The least I can do is take care of you and Min until you're feeling better."

"Hyung?"

The voice was barely audible, but Jaejoong's head whipped around as if there'd been a bullhorn blaring in his ear. Seconds later he was by Changmin's side, wrapping him in a hug.

"Don't talk, you'll hurt your throat," Jaejoong ordered. Then the questions started. "Did you sleep? Are you cold? Do you want soup?"

The moment Changmin opened his mouth to answer, Jaejoong slapped a palm across his face, outrage in every line of his body. "Sign language! Don't you remember anything?"

The smile in Changmin's eyes was blinding and he hugged Jaejoong with an enthusiasm Yunho hadn't seen in weeks. An enthusiasm that wasn't even dimmed by a sudden coughing fit that had Changmin doubling over. Jaejoong's smile was just as bright, his hug just as enthusiastic. And Yunho had to laugh at the tornado of brightness that had overtaken their lives when they'd least expected it. All because he couldn't remember how to make hot soup.

They ended up on the living room sofa with bowls of sundubu jjigae and chestnut rice, snuggled under a thick quilt and eating in companionable silence. Yunho had insisted on putting Jaejoong between himself and Changmin and couldn't keep his hands off his friend.

"Why auburn?" he asked when they'd finished their comfort food, running his fingers through Jae's hair.

"You don't like it?"

"Well, its better than that wine colour they made you wear before," Changmin whispered, and Jaejoong put fingers across his lips again.

"No talking today, remember?

Changmin nodded and curled up close against Jaejoong's left side, while Yunho reached for the TV remote and did the same on Jaejoong's right.

They'd done that too many times over the years not to find comfort in the familiar. It hadn't always been Jaejoong in the middle. Whoever needed it most that day, ended up in the coveted spot. But even though they were both exhausted and battling a nasty cold, both Changmin and Yunho felt that Jae needed to be kept close.

"You're both idiots," Jaejoong whispered softly halfway through the movie none of them was properly watching. "I never changed my phone number."

Changmin flushed, aware that the nature of the complaint was just. He'd changed his number three times in the first seven months. Just because.

"You answered me right away, too."

"I didn't change my special ring tone, either," Jaejoong replied. "There's nothing I ever wanted more than another chance at this." Their hands lay joined across Jaejoong's lap and he raised them a fraction. "I was terrified that if that chance ever came, I'd miss it."

Now who's the idiot? Yunho wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. Their reunion was too new to challenge and he was too tired to fight. "And you were here the moment we needed you," he said instead.

Jaejoong huffed in annoyance and the sound was so familiar that Yunho couldn't help himself but smile. "I'll always be there when you need me. But it looks very much as if you needed me a lot sooner than that. Have you seen how skinny you two are? Do you eat at all?"

Yunho didn't remind him that he couldn't remember how to make hot soup. Neither did Changmin. They didn't talk about Jae's fluency in sign language, either. Instead, they both wrapped themselves around Jaejoong, feeling his arms tight around their waists and drawing strength from a friendship that went far deeper than politics. A friendship that might just as well be called by its real name: love.