Seven.

“Let me recap.” Kyuhyun twirls the marker in his hand. He taps the small white board before Changmin and Minho just the way he usually does in his private tutoring session. “From August to early November last year, you think you’re dating X.”

Kyuhyun bolds the long pointing line up to down. “Then you proposed X on mid November, planning to marry on mid January or early February.”

Changmin squints his eyes scanning the simple diagram drawn by Kyuhyun on the white board. “Yes.” He agrees.

“Then on the third week of December, you went to Insa for work for four days. You went back on the following week and…

“And from there he remembers Yoochun as his fiancé.” Minho facepalms. His head also gets dizzy following Changmin’s inexplicable memory.

“Too fast!” Kyuhyun glares at Minho. “You went back here on Monday afternoon, right?”

Changmin nods obediently.

“Your fiancé is?” Kyuhyun crosses his arms, exactly treating them like his object.

“Park Yoochun.” Changmin mumbles.

“You’re engaged to Y.” Kyuhyun circle the Y letter next to a big dot in the diagram line. “The question, where is X?”

Minho really wants to shout out that he’s graduated from school long time ago and he doesn’t give an effin f*** of anything related to Math however urgent the situation is. Screw Math to hell and never come back!!

“We miss the variable that changes X to Y.” Kyuhyun says. “Let’s widen the scope. We’ll zoom in.”

Minho groans in despair. Can’t Kyuhyun just help Changmin and skip this unnecessary torturing analysis?

“Your memory has quite funny angle.” Kyuhyun begins. “Do you notice three names constantly mentioned in it?” He walks around circling the two sitting males, hands kept behind his back. Minho doesn’t understand how Vicky could fall for this freak kyukyu. “Kim Jaejoong. Park Yoochun. Kim Junsu.” Kyuhyun keeps his firm explanatory tone. “In most events your memory displays to us, it’s either you see Kim Jaejoong and Park Yoochun, Kim Jaejoong and Kim Junsu, Park Yoochun and Kim Junsu. Only few events have one name involved.”

“err.. Kyu.. I think you make a mistake. Changmin mostly remembers Park Yoochun and Kim Jaejoong there. We complete his record.” Minho interrupts.

“Same different.” Kyuhyun ignores Minho. “Park Yoochun, a.k.a ‘Y’ or your fiancé from late last December onward, is your official fiancé. We were there when you announced you’re going to marry him. We got the invitation. We were personally involved in part of the preparation. We also had to witness your vomit-inducing mushiness and PDA.” Kyuhyun emphasizes on the last words. “So it’s slim chance that this X person is Kim Jaejoong or Kim Junsu since they were also there with us in most of your events. They are the inseparable JYJ trio.” He stares at Changmin. “However, we also admit that all of the sequences in your memory are true. We just don’t see what you see.”

Minho openly sends a bad warning glare at Kyuhyun.

Changmin keeps silent. He can’t disagree with Kyuhyun but he can’t agree with him either. The man he loves is real person, real feels, real touches, real emotions, real past. He doesn’t make things up.

“Let’s go back to January.” Kyuhyun pulls a chair next to the white board. “Yoochun is your fiancé. You both were preparing for the wedding. Can you recall anything about X?”

Minho turns his head a bit, anticipating Changmin’s answer.

“No.” Changmin negates. “All I see is Yoochun got busy. He went from Academy to hospital, Junsu’s house, Jaejoong’s studio and to academy again. We started to argue not long after he took the musical production offer.”

Kyuhyun taps his head with the marker. “Confirmed. No X. afterward?”

Changmin shakes his head. “We postponed the wedding after few days before February.”

“It was bad.” Minho can’t help commenting. “I’m glad that chaos drama is over.”

“No memory of X anymore till now?”

“No.” Changmin exhales. “All is filled with Yoochun.”

“Eleven months no trace.” Kyuhyun hinks. “But your memory suddenly decides to play dance two days before new year. That’s weird.”

“New year symptoms?” Minho suggests. “Some people have inexplicable syndroms against certain times of year.”

Kyuhyun deadpans. “Not helping, Minho. Thanks.”

“It’s not actually since yesterday.” Changmin corrects. “I see them since.. I went home from hospital.”

“Ah. I see.” Minho snaps his fingers. “You brought Junsu in Palgan central hospital three days ago.”

Kyuhyun crosses his legs. “Hopsital? You get your memory dance in hospital?”

Changmin wants to say it might start before that when Junsu came warning him not to break up with Yoochun in his secret hideout but he doesn’t want to bring the old abandoned swimming pool up before Minho and Kyuhyun. He didn’t see the images yet but he suddenly had this urge to confront Junsu again how Junsu could find him there. That’s all.

“Ahem.” Minho coughs.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Changmin sheepishly grins. “What did you say again?”

Kyuhyun gives him a look. “What trigger your memory dance?”

It takes a while for Changmin to answer. Should he tell them he kissed Junsu?

“We are trying to help here, sir.” Kyuhyun catches the doubt in his friend’s eyes. “I personally think this is ridiculous but since you insists this is emergency, I volunteer.” He reminds Changmin.

Changmin has no choice. “Jaejoong caught me doing something stupid. He beat me and told me to not ever be seen before him till I could explain myself.”

The other two friends have empty looks on their face.

“I went home by taxi. My head hurt on and on on the way back home and I fainted right before the door.” Changmin goes on. “When I woke up later on, the images began to pop up.”

“Kim Jaejoong hit you?” Minho repeats in disbelief. “He hit you?”

“It wasn’t frequent at first.” Changmin adds. “It popped randomly when I see small things related to the memory. Bakery, my motor, trees, door, road, just random things.”

“then?” Kyuhyun gives his full attention.

“I met Yoochun twice yesterday. The memory box went on like rain afterward. I can’t concentrate at work today. I went home since my headache got worse. Mom said I fainted again a while ago.”

“You did.” Minho says. “I went to your store before I went to your house. Your mom asked me to help her finding what’s wrong with you. I didn’t think I would see you that pale.”

Kyuhyun processes the information carefully. “Jaejoong hit you, you got headache, you met Yoochun, got bad headache again on the next day which is today and you think you have two fiancés.”

“Just one.” Changmin corrects. “But it’s different person.”

“You mean this X fiancé transforms into Y?”

“I don’t know.” Changmin pulls his hair. “I don’t know.”

Minho pats the confused man. “Easy. Don’t push yourself. It might be just weird syndrome like I said before.”

“You must have hidden some things from us.” Kyuhyun leans a bit forward. “There are few keys missing in your memory.”

“Like what?” Minho asks. “He has told his memory in correct chronological order. I don’t even think I could remember that much in a year.”

“We have been seen it from the X side. We haven’t crosschecked it with the Y side.”

“How?” Minho’s tone is bordering cynical. “Asking Yoochun to review this year memory?”

“A simple thing could do.” Kyuhyun waves off Minho’s remark. “Changmin thinks he’s engaged to X before to Yoochun but he is sure he is engaged to one person. He can’t propose to two people or get twice proposal from two people at the same time right?”
Minho turns to Changmin. “Kyuhyun is right. What do you remember, Min?”

Changmin’s forehead wrinkles as he sorts out the stored memory. Proposal? He did the proposal first. Indirectly though.

“It was.. drizzling.” He starts. “We were having meals in Ramyun cottage. You were sulking because Vicky had overtime work. Jonghyun kept rambling about his failed exam. Minho came later half soaked by the drizzle. He missed his bus.”

Both of Minho and Kyuhyun remember the sequence.

“Vicky called you. You left us to take her call. Minho went to bathroom to clean his jeans. Jonghyun said he would pour the hot ramyun broth on to me if I started to kiss my boyfriend or do anything similar to it. You came back from taking Vicky’s call. Minho showed up in the table.” Changmin frowns deeper.

The two friends wait in anticipation. Their own memory revived hearing the description.

“I joked at him. I said ‘I think we should marry soon so that nosy singles like Jonghyun or Minho couldn’t complain at us again when I kiss you.’ Minho sprinkled his warm green ocha at me for that.”

“Did he really say that?” Kyuhyun asks Minho in whisper.

“I remembered sprinkling my hot ocha at him.” Minho whispers back. “But I don’t really remember what he joked about.”

He chuckled. “Really, Min? you want to marry simply for silencing your friends?”

“They can’t complain anymore when I flash the legal stamp of ‘free to kiss’ paper in their face.” Changmin cooed.

Jonghyun made a face. “They start it. They start it. I’m leaving. I don’t wanna witness another sick romance kiss while I’m eating.”

“Stay, Jonghyun.” He held Jonghyun’s hand. “He might marry anyone he wants to kiss freely but I don’t”

Changmin elbowed the man’s rib. “You don’t want to marry me?”

“Nope.” He answered digging in his ramyun bowl. “I’ll find someone else after this.”

“I bet you can’t find someone who makes chicken stew better than me.”

“No problem. We can buy.”

Minho ignored the couple’s banter. “Do they have shrimp udon tonight?”

“You can’t find smarter person who is willing to deal with your slow dense brain.”

“Average person is good enough for me.”

Kyuhyun butted in. “Can you guys get your own table please?”

“I’m leaving.” Jonghyun declared. “I need to pee.”

Changmin got irritated. “It’s hard to find tall handsome kind generous man.”

“I might change my type.”

“You don’t even have type. You just fall for person who likes you first.”

“That’s good. I just need to find someone liking me first, right? Then I’ll marry that someone.”

“You can’t!” Changmin raised his tone. He threw his chopsticks harshly onto the table.

Kyuhyun and Minho exchanged cautious glances.

“Why are you so tense?” He frowned at Changmin. “We are still eating.”

“I’m still your boyfriend! You can’t marry anyone else but me!!”

The man rolled his eyes. “So much for teasing Jonghyun.” He picked another pair of chopsticks shoving them onto Changmin’s ramyun bowl. “Eat. We’ll talk later.”

Changmin was still upset. “I’ll buy a ring after this and slip it on your finger so you can’t marry someone else.”

The man resumed eating his ramyun. “You don’t even know my finger size.”

Changmin snatched his newly shoved in chopsticks in rising temper. “I don’t care the size of your finger. You’re going to wear my ring right after this no matter wha-

The man kissed Changmin.

Minho and Jonghyun vomited. Kyuhyun deadpanned hard.

“I’ll marry you.” He said in thick imperative tone. “Now eat!”

Changmin falls from his chair. His face is as white as the white board next to Kyuhyun.

“Oh my god! Kyuhyun! Kyuhyun! His nose is bleeding!!” Minho catches Changmin’s collapsing body. Kyuhyun freezes for some seconds before jumping and running to get help.

----

It’s new year eve.

People are crowding the streets and public places saying good bye to the last seconds of 2015 and welcoming the first tick tock of 2016.

Jaejoong watches the bursting fireworks in the sky from his studio. It’s closed of course. He still has a couple of work to catch up soon but for now, for short moments, he wants to thank last year for all the good and bad rides. He wants to welcome new days of the changing year with wide open arms and new steps to take. He’s going to forget Jung Yunho from his life. He is going to heal his heart well to make new space for anyone trying to get into his heart. He’s going to contact Shin Ae to know how bad Junsu’s condition actually is and he’s going to help as much as he can. He has a feeling that Yoochun and Changmin are not going to go further so he has to keep his shoulders and ears ready for Yoochun when it comes.

For Junsu, he just has two wishes. Get healthy and be happy with Jung Yunho. Junsu deser