He shouldn't be out that late. Not for a mere phone call, given that there was such a thing as a curfew and it was already well past it. But setting up the call had taken a little while and—for the first time since he'd gotten here—Kim Jaejoong didn't rightly care about keeping his head down, following orders and staying out of trouble.

It had been hard enough to face Yunho across the parade ground every morning for the last three weeks. Hard enough to deny the urge to cross the dusty expanse for something as simple as a smile, a word or a hug, things that had once been as natural to them as breathing.

He'd done it, though. Had held himself together and stuck to the rules they'd agreed to live by. Until matters were taken out of his hand— twice in one night. His CO had merely looked at him when he returned to his quarters, and had almost shoved him out of the door himself, the only admonishment to keep his voice down and not be forever.

"Ai, Jae," Junsu sounded entirely too chipper for the time the glowing green numerals of Jaejoong's watch indicated and he didn't mention how he had got past his own curfew. "Gimme a second to patch Chunnie in."

Jaejoong waited for the click and chirp that told him Yoochun was on the call with them. They'd gotten good at setting up three-way calls while they'd been scattered to the four corners of the earth, promoting solo albums and filming, meeting up only occasionally for a group appearance. Not only did it help to keep in touch, they also got more work done on their joint projects that way, sharing ideas, plans and snatches of music and lyrics in real time.

"Su-ah, how did you know?" Jae blurted, then made a face and scrubbed at the back of his neck, glad they weren't on a video call and none of the other two could see the telltale gesture. He had meant to ask about Junsu's day first, had meant to enquire how Yoochun was getting on and what they had him doing as part of his service, but being shoved into a room with Yunho so unexpectedly had left him feeling shaken.

"So you haven't killed each other yet," was Junsu's reply, cryptic as usual. "Did you start it?"

"Neither one of us started it," Jaejoong defended himself. "We both serve with interfering busybodies."

"Nothing new there, then." The chuckle coming over the line was Yoochun's, warm like a blanket or honey on soft cinnamon bread. "How does he look?"

"Good. Weird."

Hurt. Thin. Angry. Like family. Like Yunho. Like loss and heartache and love.

Words had never really been Jae's way to describe any of them. And with the buzzing in his head, it was harder than usual to remember what he'd seen in Yunho's eyes and what he had looked for in vain.

"What did you talk about? Come on, Jaejoong! This is like pulling teeth!"

"We…didn't talk," Jaejoong said finally. And they hadn't. Not in so many words. "He said…" Suddenly there was a lump in Jaejoong's throat, too big to swallow, almost too big to breathe around. And too little air out there, on the empty parade ground under the stars. "He said he didn't hate me."

"Could have been worse." Junsu's voice was strangely soft, with a lilt Jaejoong hadn't heard in a very long time. Not disappointed, exactly, but close.

"Do you work together?" Yoochun wanted to know and Jae was grateful for the distraction. If he started to worry about Junsu right now, his head would explode.

"No." They weren't just in different units. They ran on different schedules, too. "I only see him first thing in the morning. From afar."

"That's useful."

"What? Why?"

"Yunho's very much like a cat, remember? And your team mates are idiots, but they meant well. Don't yell at them, okay?"

"Chunnie-ah, you're not making sense."

Yeah. Thank you, Junsu. Jaejoong thought so, too. Nothing made sense since he'd seen Yunho's face somewhere that wasn't YouTube.

"I make perfect sense. Just wait." Sometimes, Jaejoong forgot that Yoochun had changed the most of them all since the split, like a flower kept in a cave that had been relocated into a sunny meadow. "Hey! Can you believe that they have me teaching kids?"

"Teaching. Kids." Junsu sounded incredulous. "Teaching them what? How to sleep in and OD on black coffee laced with too much sugar?"

"Sense of humour, Su-ah. Get one."

Jaejoong listened to the familiar banter, the insults that flowed with the ease of long familiarity. He learned that Yoochun was in Seoul, on call to support whatever project needed help. And that the teaching gig was actually fun, and involved a lot of music.

Junsu had been recognised by his team mates as quickly as Jaejoong, but being Junsu, he managed to turn the attention to his advantage. He'd gotten permission to form an out of hours dance group, very similar to the one he'd been in as a kid. Keeping up his training seemed to help him focus.

Both Junsu and Yoochun were making time to write and—after a few moments of hesitation—Jaejoong confessed that he'd started to write lyrics again. "Just bits, you know," he mumbled into the handset.

"But they feel…right?"

"Yeah." That last admission, on a soft breath, was answered by two deep sighs.

"Then it's good," Yoochun summed up and continued without drawing breath, "Jae, you need this. Don't think about it so much. Just… be."

Jaejoong couldn't have said whether Yoochun was talking about music, Yunho or the tiny piece of coal Junsu had handed him as a goodbye gift just then. It could have been either, or none of those things. Or something else entirely. All he knew was that disconnecting the call in the wake of Yoochun's words didn't bring the familiar feeling of isolation. Instead, it brought him peace.