Synopsis:

Yunho was lost between the black and white keys while Jaejoong was the one who fell into the koi pond.  And Yoochun?  Yoochun was but a mere spectator.

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Epoch

Yoochun traces his fingers across the printed cover with a fond smile.  The word ‘epoch’ is written in an elegant cursive at the center of the photo album.  Something coils in his stomach as he flips the first page open. The first picture he sees is a fading photograph of two crying babies lying next to each other in an unusually large crib.  The smaller of the two babies held his arm out, hitting the other baby with the rattle on his hand, while both of them erupt in ugly cries.  It was a comical yet endearing sight.

The smile on Yoochun’s face widens.

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Yoochun had known Jaejoong ever since forever.  They had lived next to each other all their lives after all.  Their mothers were sisters and had decided to settle next to each other after marriage.  They even planned to get children at the same time (which in Yoochun’s opinion, were ludicrous.  Pfft, women).  However, Yoochun, strong-willed even before birth, decided to pop out early, a few months earlier than his due date, automatically giving him the privilege of being the older between them two.

So, on 31 January 1988 at exactly 2:14 am, a baby boy was born.  3 months later, another followed suit.

Jaejoong, to Yoochun, was like a sibling he never had.  To Yoochun, befriending Jaejoong wasn’t a desire, it was an obligation.  Their parents put them next to each other and just expected them to click.

So just imagine a 3 months old Yoochun sleeping quietly on his crib only to be awoken when he felt something being placed next to him.  It was a baby boy, quite smaller than he was.  Yoochun stared with curious eyes for a while, while their mothers cooed before them.

“Oh, just look at them.  How adorable.”

“Look at him, Yoochunnie.  His name is Jaejoongie.  And he is going to be your friend from now on.”  His mother had said even though she knew Yoochun didn’t understand her.

Yoochun continued staring for a while.  At least until the smaller baby smacked him on the face with a rattle.  It didn’t hurt, but Yoochun was a baby, so he cried.  Jaejoong cried as well, just harder, as though his lung was about to pop out.  So, all attention went to him.

Click.

From then on, his life with the devil’s-spawn that was Kim Jaejoong began. And that was 27 years ago.

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+Music+

The sound of piano keys being pressed haphazardly prompts Yoochun to look up.  The noise comes from their piano room, he guess his housemate must’ve fell into one of his mood swings again.

The melody was harsh for a moment, borderline violent, before it mellows into a wistful and melancholic rhythm.  Yoochun stares into thin air for a couple of seconds upon hearing that familiar composition. 

He gives a furtive glance at the door of the piano room as he exhales heavily.  The unpleasant feeling that has been lingering at the pit of his stomach intensifies as the music proceeds.

Nevertheless, he choose to ignore the burst of nostalgia he feels as he gingerly slides through the pages of the photo album.  His eyes skids past some photos, a few consists of candid shots of him alone, while the others with his parents or Jaejoong.

You can tell that he had been a quiet kid based on those photos alone.  That quiet, mousy Yoochun kid who always hung around at the background, only keeping to himself while other kids ran rampant in mischief.

His thumb stops at one photo of him and his mother.  Tears pool in his eyes, but he holds it in as he focus his blurry eyes on that snap.  His mother was looking at the camera with a wide smile while holding him from behind, while the teary 5-year old Yoochun looks away distractedly, staring dramatically at piece of painting scrunched up on his tiny little hand.  The 5-year old Jaejoong somehow photo-bombed them when half of his body appears at the end of the photo, his eyes crinkling happily as he smiled that gorgeous smile of his while holding a piece of blue crayon that had been snapped in half.

Oh Jaejoong.  Yoochun smiles endearingly at that photo and the bittersweet nostalgia behind it.

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Yoochun didn’t know what he did wrong to warrant the hate that Jaejoong harbored towards him. 

“How ugly.  Why is your aero-plane brown, like a poop?” a voice came from behind his shoulder.  Yoochun glanced behind and saw Jaejoong scrunching his face distastefully at his drawing.  Yoochun ignored the little critique and continued drawing.

Occasional shrieks and giggles could be heard since this was a birthday party after all – Yoochun’s mom’s – and all the neighbors nearby along with their kids had been invited.  The drawing that had been keeping Yoochun preoccupied itself was a gift Yoochun plans to give to his mother.

Jaejoong harrumphed, annoyed at being ignored.  He looked around for a while, looking a little lost, before he plopped down next to Yoochun, face still sour.  There was no other choice.  It’s not like he was friends with any other person here except for Yoochun.  His mom was too busy chatting with Yoochun’s mom in the kitchen, and when Jaejoong had clung to her skirt earlier while begging for ice cream, she scolded him and told him to bother Yoochun instead.  So now, here he was.

His curious little eyes fell on Yoochun’s colorful crayon set, and when nosiness kicks in and he leaned in to touch one of the crayons, Yoochun hissed and pushed his hand away, because Yoochun did not wish to be bothered, dammit.

His mother had looked so forlorn these days; his father too, and Yoochun wanted to do his best to make this birthday special for her. 

“You are such a ‘skuge’ !” Jaejoong huffed in disbelief. 

“It’s ‘scrooge’,” Yoochun corrected warily as he colored.  The younger had taken quite a liking to the word ‘scrooge’ lately, especially after he watched ‘A Christmas Carol’ the other day.  It was a pity he still couldn’t pronounce the word properly.

Yoochun leaned back and admired the painting once he finished coloring the airplane.  Great, all he needed to do now is to color the sky.   He picked out a navy blue crayon and used it as a paperweight before he heads over to the toilet to relieve himself, unlike Jaejoong, he was potty-trained.  Heh.

When he was on the way to the toilet, he passed by the kitchen and vaguely heard the conversation between his mother and his aunt that involved, hospital visits, chemo-something and something called cancer.  But then, everything was drowned by the sounds of children’s laughter that were being entertained by a clown in the yard.

‘How do you spell C-H-A-S-T-I-T-Y children?  Do you know what chastity means?’  asked Minnie Mouse, one of the clown’s companions.  The entertainers had been asked to conduct fun activities that were educational for the children.  It was his father's idea.

Yoochun tuned them all out and finished his business in the toilet.  When he got back to his previous spot however, he found something missing.  He looked around. 

Maybe it’s underneath the coloring paper. 

He lifted the paper and found nothing. 

Maybe it rolled off the paper and went under the sofa.  He crouched and peeked underneath the sofa.  There was nothing there, save for particles of dusts, hairs and a couple of coins.

Yoochun was close to crying now.  He was this close to finishing his painting, where on earth had his blue crayon gone to?

“Yoochun-ah, what are you doing there?”  Hearing his mother’s voice automatically made Yoochun cry. 

“I lost my crayon,” he sniffed as he lifted his coloring paper to show to his mother, “-all I need to do is to color the sky, but my blue crayon is gone.” 

Yoochun hardly cried as a kid; unlike a certain Kim Jaejoong, but right now he felt so wronged because that painting had been something he had worked so hard for.  

 He forced himself to swallow the tears, because his father once told him that a man should never cry, but trails of tears made it’s dramatic way off his eyes anyway.

His mother chuckled when she examined the painting.  “Ooooh, is this for me?” Seeing Yoochun crying somehow entertained her, because she’s laughing even louder now.  Or was she crying, because why were there tears coming out from her eyes.  “Our Yoochunnie is a grown up now.  Thank you so much for your gift, mommy will treasure it okay?”

Yoochun looked around, still not giving up on searching for the crayon.

‘Children, do you know what N-E-F-A-R-I-O-U-S means?’ Minnie Mouse had asked from outside.

‘No!’  A group of children answererd.

‘Well nefarious means something that is evil and mean,’ Minnie Mouse exaggerated when she pronounces the word evil, before she added, ‘You know, like a cat!’

‘You mean, like Jaejoong?’ one of the little girls outside had cautiously asked.

Jaejoong, who heard them from inside, huffed in dissatisfaction while Yoochun’s mother chuckled at his reaction. “Oh, Jaejoongie,” she shook her head at the little boy who had been suspiciously quiet and had been staring at them from a short distance.

Yoochun’s father entered the lounge, with an expensive looking camera in hand.  He was in charge of documenting this event, hence had been running around taking pictures and videos for keepsake purposes.

“Oh, you two are here.  Hey, why are you crying?”

“He lost his crayon,” Yoochun’s mother answered on Yoochun’s behalf.

“Oh, it’s just a crayon.  Stop crying.  And, hang on, let me grab a picture of you two.  Smile! “ Mr. Park was referring to his wife and son, but Jaejoong decided to be nosy and placed himself at the very end of viewfinder’s focus with a big smile.

Click.

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Yoochun laughs to himself.  The rest of the pictures on that page depicts the two families’ adventure in Lotte World a few months after the birthday party. 

After going through a couple of pages, Yoochun realizes that he hadn’t had any other same-aged friends to take pictures with other than Jaejoong.  Same thing goes to the latter. 

Yoochun had been too much of a recluse to make friends, while Jaejoong prefers to be by himself because that means he gets to get all the attention (Yoochun doesn’t count because he’s so quiet that Jaejoong gets all the a