I was upfront, grinning like an idiot. Aish~ Jaejoong can be so cute you know?

And he turns Yunho into something equally adorable >////<

From the driver’s front mirror, I could see Jaejoong grin at Yunho’s answer, finally getting it. He pecked Yunho on the lips loudly, making a cute ‘muah!’ sound. Yunho batted his eyelids at him, before pecking Jaejoong’s lips back, although this time silently.

I almost rolled their eyes at all their mushiness, but since I was so used to it, I let them be.

Jaejoong nuzzled himself on Yunho’s shoulder, pleased with himself.

“Jae Jae likes Yunnie lots and lots too!” He exclaimed, as he claimed Yunho’s lips once again.

“How much does Jae Jae love Yunnie?” I asked from my seat, not really taking my eyes of the road.

I didn’t really want to be mean, but there is a limit to PDA that I am able to take.

“Eh?” Jaejoong looked up from his kiss with Yunho, and I could have sworn Yunho pout when their lips parted. I was in Yunho fan-girl moment.

“Hmm…” I said, pretending to ponder, “How would Jae Jae express his love for Yunnie?”

“Like how much Jae Jae likes Yunnie?” Jaejoong asked as he leaned into the space between the two front seats.

It was basically the same question I just asked him, but Jaejoong’s mind works in strange ways. Sometimes he only understands something if he repeated it. Sometimes he solves impossible mathematical equations in his head, but he is unable to solve a simple equation written on paper.

But no matter how smart he was in school, he was somehow extremely innocent and naïve when it came to the outside world. Which I found dumbfounding, but at the same time extremely cute.

“Yeah,” I answered.

Jaejoong leaned back, resting against the car seat. “Simple,” he said, “Jae Jae loves Yunho THIS much!” He extended both his arms to their full length, end to end. I grinned and laughed, understanding what he was trying to convey. He was measuring his love for Yunho, by the length of his arms.

Like I said, innocent and naïve.

“And how much does Jae Jae love Chunnie hyung?” I asked.

Jaejoong’s grin faltered, and his arms dropped to their side. He was frowning now. I knew he was racking his brain searching for a worthy answer, but at the same time, he didn’t want to hurt neither me nor Yunho’s feelings with the comparison. Jaejoong can be really sweet sometimes.

After a few seconds of silence, Jae Jae finally answered me.

“Jae Jae loves Chunnie hyung like God loves Jae Jae,” he said thoughtfully, crossing his arms, seemingly satisfied with his own answer.

Yunho was looking at Jaejoong with a weird look on his face. He was…touched? Whatever it was, the soft look Yunho had when looking at Jaejoong at this moment was camera-worthy.

And me? I was touched too. In actual fact touched beyond words. I didn’t know how to answer. My belief in God was questionable. If this so-called ‘God’ was real, why did He make my life so hard? So tough? So dreadful and cruel?

But it was moments like these that made my belief a tiny bit more concrete. Jaejoong had a firm belief in God. None of us had a proper religion, and we were never raised with anything to believe in, but Jaejoong came to the conclusion that there was a God by himself. It was quite shocking really, when he had suddenly told me and Yunho that there was a God watching over us, and looking after us.

Honestly I found that hard to believe. But sweet, clever Jaejoong managed to win Yunho over with his ‘religious call’. I was yet to be properly convinced, but I think my belief was slowly getting stronger the longer I spent time with Jaejoong.

But still, to be compared equal to God’s love for Jaejoong was something.

“And how much does God love Jaejoong?” I asked. My voice had quieted down, still taken aback (in a good way) with Jaejoong’s answer.

Jaejoong straightened up. “God loves Jae Jae lots and lots!” He made his answer sound so obvious, as if my question was impossibly stupid.

“How does God show his love for Jaejoong?”

“Simple. If you think about it, God gave me lots and lots of things!”

“Such as?”

“God gave Jae Jae Yunnie and Chunnie hyung and Kangta appa and Yoona Umma, and Donghae hyung and Eunhyuk hyung…”

Jaejoong began to rattle off all the names of the people he knew, from everyone he knew in school, to the recruits at Nine, to his favourite foods, to simple things such as kisses and hugs and a complete body. I didn’t mind. He was only proving to me how sweet I thought he was by comparing me to so many people.

Jae Jae continued prattling, and somewhere in between, he had climbed into the passenger seat, riding shotgun . He was still rattling off names, and I listened, a smile playing on my lips. You will never understand how sweet Jae Jae is sometimes.

I forgot to tell him to put on his seatbelt.

As if on cue, a little boy about the age of five dashed across the road in front of me. I swerved wildly to avoid hitting him. We were so close to hitting him that I actually saw the shocked expression on his face on my side window as we swerved past. The car did a 270 degree drift as I fought to control it. Without really thinking, I slammed the brakes on.

The force of my brake made me hit my steering wheel hard and bounce back roughly against my seat. Jaejoong, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, bumped his head hard against the dashboard. I felt someone slam into the back of my seat and the sound of someone landing behind me made me look behind to check whether Yunho was okay.

“Yoochun…” Yunho practically growled, as he picked himself up from the car floor and dusted himself down. I gave him a cheeky smile in return, secretly glad when I saw he was unharmed, and apologized. I shifted my attention back to Jaejoong.

“You okay?” I said, as I patted his body down, checking for injury.

“Eh…?” Jaejoong stuttered. I placed both my hands on the side of his face, turning his head this way and that, to make sure he didn’t have any whiplash or concussion.

I parted his bangs, and sure enough, there was a considerable bump on his forehead. “Aish…” I sighed in frustration. Jaejoong was so fragile. I should have been more careful around him.

I rubbed the bump gently till it went down, blowing on it occasionally, as Jae Jae looked on weirdly. He probably didn’t feel any pain from it, but I couldn’t take any chances.

“There,” I said finally, covering his forehead again. “Better?”

Jaejoong nodded, smiling as he understood what I was trying to do, as he re-did his hair. “Yup. Thank you, Chunnie hyung.”

I smiled in reply as I looked up to continue driving. I froze as I looked at the view that greeted me.

We were INCHES from hitting a tree. I’m not even joking. The distance between the bumper and the tree was about a quarter of a foot. I was glad I had braked suddenly after all.

I reversed carefully, looking behind me, and we soon continued driving. We passed by the kid who was by now at the side of the road, being scolded severely by his mom. The mom noticed us driving by, and bowed deeply as a sign of apology. Jaejoong wound down his window and waved at them, but neither waved back, since the little boy had his head down and the mother was still bowing again and again.

“The mommy seems nice,” Jaejoong said suddenly as we had fallen into silence.

“How so?” Yunho asked.

“Well… The mommy cared enough for the boy to scold him to make sure he would never do that again.”

“Dash across the road?” I asked.

Jae Jae nodded. “Right.” He had a finger to his chin as he was pondering this. “If the mommy never cared for her baby she would not have scolded him.”

“So she is expressing her love for her child by scolding him.” Yunho added.

Jae Jae nodded again. “Right. It must be nice having a mommy, huh?”

“What are you talking about?” I cut in. “You do have a mommy.”

Jae Jae blinked. “I do? Who?”

“Yoona Umma!”

Jaejoong’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Right! Jae Jae has a mommy after all!”

Jae Jae leaned into his seat, satisfied. The rest of the ride was in silence, until we reached the ice cream parlour.

“We’re here~” Jaejoong yelled as soon as I parked the car.

He looked out the window, staring at the ice cream parlour. “Chunnie hyung, it’s huge!” he exclaimed.

It really was. It was the biggest and most expensive ice cream parlour in Seoul.

Heh. Nothing was too good for my Jae Jae.

We entered the parlour, and instantly the cold air hit us. A waiter came to us, and Jaejoong insisted that we had a seat by the window. As we were led to our table, I noticed that Yunho couldn’t help but stare at the people in the parlour. I knew he was assessing the situation, singling out the people who could be potential threats and figuring out escape routes and where the security cameras were located. In truth, I should be doing that too, but this was a public place. It would be literally suicide for anyone to ambush us here, even if there weren’t that many people around.

Since he was our team leader, I let him be. He should be relaxing instead, but this was Yunho. The word ‘relax’ probably didn’t even exist in his handbook.

We reached our table, and Jaejoong dominated a whole bench all on his own, so Yunho came to sit beside me.

“So, Jae Jae, what flavour?” I asked as the waiter handed us our menus.

Jaejoong opened the menu up and studied it for about three seconds before answering. “Everything.”

Yunho and I stared at our menus. There had to be about a hundred different flavours in here.

“Jaejoong, that’s too much.” Yunho said.

“You’ll get a stomachache,” I added.

Jaejoong whined. “But it’s my birthday…”

“Jaejoong…” Yunho sighed. He could never really argue with Jae Jae.

“Jae Jae, Kangta appa will get angry if you fall sick again,” I said.

“But… But…” Jaejoong teared up.

Yunho and I winced. We had better come up with something soon.

“Look,” Yunho said in a tone of voice as what could pass off as ‘gentle’ for him, “We’ll let you pick three flavours okay? And then after this we’ll go shopping for your present.”

Jaejoong pouted, as he slammed his menu on the table and rested his chin on it. He was quiet for a while, before he pointed out three flavours.

Chocolate Fudge Swirl, Butterscotch Caramel Delight and Marshmallow Sugar Bon Bon.

All filled with enough sugar to leave someone in a coma. I was going to argue against it, but I knew if I did, then Jaejoong would literally throw a hissy fit. He was already nearing a tantrum.

Besides, as he already said, it was his birthday. I bet he could get away with things once in a while. So I reached over and patted his head.

“Good boy,” I said.

Jaejoong stuck his tongue out at me, before continuing his sulk. I ignored it, and looked to the waiter for our orders. I ordered Cookies and Cream, while Yunho ordered Vanilla Raspberry Swirl.

As we waited for our orders to come, silence descended upon us. Jaejoong was busy sulking, so he would refuse to talk. Yunho was still staring at everyone. I was going insane with the silence.

As we sat in silence, Yunho’s eyes hit the window. I saw his eyes light up fractionally, as his eyes rested on the window, or rather, the scenery outside.

“Look, Jaejoong,” he said, “Snow.”

Jaejoong and I automatically turned our heads to where he was staring. It was true.

Snow. Beautiful, majestic, pure snow was gently falling down. Jaejoong’s eyes lit up at the sight, as he sat up and moved closer to the window, hand and forehead resting on the chilled glass.

“Wah…” he said, his sulk momentarily forgotten.

“Maybe it’s a birthday present from God.” I heard Yunho say.

Jaejoong turned to look at him, a smile on his lips, before he turned back to the window. He closed his eyes momentarily, clasping his hands together, in what looked like a prayer. He literally looked like an angel.

The prayer-like thing lasted for about ten seconds, before he opened his eyes. As if on cue, our ice cream came.

“Ice cream!” Jaejoong yelled, bouncing in his seat.

We fell into silence after that, all of us quietly enjoying our ice cream and being completely transfixed by the falling snow.

“What did you wish for, Jae Jae?” I asked when I finished my ice cream.

Jaejoong looked away from the window, spoon in his mouth as he tilted his head in confusion. “Hm?”

“When you clasped your hands together, weren’t you making a wish?”

“Eh…?” Jaejoong said, his eyebrows knotting to further accentuate his confusion. “Oh! No I wasn’t. I was thanking God for giving me such a nice birthday present.”  

I blinked, before reaching over to pinch both his cheeks. “Aigoo Jaejoongie is so cute~~”

Jaejoong only grinned, as he continued to eat his ice cream.

He soon finished his ice cream. “I wanna go to the restroom,” he said as he got up.

Yunho and I both looked up. “You need someone to go with you?”

Jaejoong shook his head, as he was already walking away.

There was nothing else for me to do, since I had finished my ice cream. Yunho was a little over halfway through his, so I took the opportunity to stare at him.

Seeing Yunho’s pace in eating was like watching a snail move. Slow. Boring.

But the good thing was Yunho always ate in a cute fashion, so at least that was entertaining. He noticed me staring, and as usual stared back, a passive look on his face, as if daring me to do whatever it was I was going to do.

I raised my fist at him, as if to hit him. Yunho reacted by bringing his spoon to his mouth, continuing to eat his ice cream.

“Kai.”

Yunho sighed.

“Bai.”

He brought his hands up to his temple as if he had a headache.

“BOK!” I yelled finally.

Without looking at me, Yunho raised Stone while I did Scissors. As usual he beat me without even trying to.

We continued like that, Yunho beating me each time, until I finally got bored. I proceeded to wait for Jaejoong to come out of the rest room.

One minute turned to two. Two turned to five. Five turned to ten. Ten turned to twenty. By that time Yunho and I were already concerned.

“Do you think we should…” I asked, as Yunho made a move to stand.

But he sat back down when we saw Jaejoong coming towards us. He seemed to be skipping as he made way to our table.

He slid into his bench, and I noticed that his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes held a hidden excitement in them that made me suspicious.

He was grinning wildly, and was very slightly out of breathe, as he drummed his fingers on the wooden table.

“Jaejoong?” Yunho called.

Jaejoong looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“What’s that on your hands?” Yunho reached over to take Jaejoong’s hands in his, and I saw that something was smudged all over them, as well as under his nails.

It was… It looked like… Oh no.

“Blood,” I breathed.

I looked at Yunho. Yunho looked at me. We both understood the situation.

We both got up at the same time, and calmly walked to the rest room, not wanting to grab any attention to ourselves.

“Jaejoong, stay there,” I ordered, looking behind me at a confused Jaejoong.

Yunho entered the restroom first, and I followed behind him closely. I placed the ‘Cleaning-In-Progress’ sign outside the entrance to make sure no one else got in. The restroom was thankfully empty when we entered. It was stark white, so that meant finding any stains, like blood, would be easier.

One by one, Yunho opened each bathroom stall door. Each one was empty, until we reached the last one. We stood outside the door, expecting the worst. Cautiously, Yunho opened the door with his foot.

The sight that greeted us was not pretty.

A man in his late forties wearing a shirt and trousers was slumped in the enclosed space, his back resting against the wall and his legs placed at an uncomfortable angle that would inevitably cramp up once he woke up.

If he was even alive.

He was bleeding heavily from a gash on his temple, and bits of his scalp had been ripped out, leaving bloody, empty bald patches on his head. There were deep scratches on his arms and neck and he looked like he had a dislocated shoulder.

I heard Yunho let out a hiss of frustration. This would be a lot to clean up.

Yunho entered the stall, and closed the door behind him. I honestly did not want to know what he was going to do in there, and neither did I care.

After ten minutes inside, I knocked on the door.

“Yunho?”

“What?”

“You need any help?”

“Yes. Disable the cameras and cause an internal crash in the security system. Make sure all the information is wiped out.”

I pouted. “Okay…”

I took out my iPhone and hacked into the system within seconds. Using a virus I created myself, I reversed the timeline back to three hours ago, before causing a massive internal glitch in the system which caused everything to crash and create a wipeout. This should erase any stored information in the memory. Now it would seem like there was a system error hours ago, which people seemed to miss.

“Done,” I announced. It took about twelve minutes. Not my best record, but I could pass. I pocketed my iPhone as Yunho climbed over the door and landed nimbly on his feet.

“Finished?” I asked.

Yunho had rubber gloves on, and there was an empty syringe in his hand. I knew what had happened. He had injected the man with an addiction drug. It would seem like the man had an accidental overdose.

“Did you kill him?”

The man on the floor had been cleaned up, the blood on the floor was now gone. He still looked like he had just experienced a chainsaw accident firsthand, but at least now it didn’t look so bad. The wounds looked a few hours old now, since Yunho had done God-knows-what on them. At least now, the police wouldn’t suspect anything had happened in the ice cream parlour.

“Yeah,” Yunho answered.

I frowned. “Did you have to?”

“He might have seen Jaejoong’s face.” Yunho answered curtly.

I knotted my eyebrows. This man had to die. It wasn’t really fair, when his only sin was that he had came across Jaejoong at the wrong moment. I really didn’t want to kill him, but we had to. We couldn’t take any risks.

“Yoochun.” Yunho said my name, bringing me back to attention.

I bit my lip as I nodded. “I know, I know. I was just… sympathizing.”

Yunho placed the syringe in the man’s hand, making it look like it was the last thing he had held before he died. He then got up and took off his rubber gloves, making his way to the sink to wash his hands.

“Sympathizing will get you nowhere,” he said, not even looking up from the sink.

I frowned. “I know… It was just a thought…”

Yunho looked up to stare at me through the mirror. “Yoochun.”

“I know, I know. It won’t happen again.” I said hurriedly. I didn’t want to be a bigger burden to Yunho.

Yunho turned to look at me seriously. “You never knew that man. That man has never affected, nor will affect your life. People die every day, Yoochun. One more person will not tip the scales. Don’t let his death be a liability to you. You are an assassin, designed and trained to kill. This isn’t even the first time you saw someone die. Don’t let this affect you.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Okay…” I said.

Yunho was right. As a person who killed on a regular basis, this shouldn’t affect me. I didn’t even know him, why should I have a guilty conscious then?

But still… I couldn’t help but look behind me at the closed stall door.

What had he done wrong?

If there was a God out there, then I hope He would listen to this one prayer I had.

Please make this stranger go to Heaven, for I was sure, whatever he did, he did not deserve this kind of death.