I put memories or flashbacks paragraphedd in italics. Hope there's no confussion

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CHAPTER 2

Guilty or Not

It was supposedly a happy day, they were going to celebrate one of his friend’s birthday. Two of their friends were already late, one of them the birthday boy and the other was Hojun.

Yunho wasn’t happy and maybe he had begun to drink too early accompanied with one of the friends reunited there, then he was even more depressed. He was suppressing the urge to try to call once again. He had promised to himself that he wasn’t going to call again to that number after the first month of unanswered calls. He was hurting but still he wanted to be able to move on as it seemed the other had done.

“Then you’re still gonna be like this… I hate it man. I can’t stand seeing you act this pathetic. I swear…” the friend Yunho had been drinking with said, “while your sweet unfaithful lover must be happy playing on someone else’s bed… you’re still here-”

The friend couldn’t finish his sentence ‘cause Yunho sent him straight to the floor with a punch in the jaw and was ready to keep hitting him if no for the rest of the guests that after the initial shock of seeing him losing his temper, prevented them of going further with their fight.

Yunho was dragged to the master room of the apartment ant left alone there but the only thing he wanted to do after calming down was going home.

He heard people coming to the other side of the door, one being the friend he had punched.

“I don’t care if he hits me again… I need him to understand!”

“You're drunk and the only thing you’re going to get is anger him again… you know that his lover is an untouchable topic!”

“I just want my friend back… please…” he cried and Yunho could hear him whimpering through the door.

“You don’t know if what you want to tell him is even true…”

“It is… it has to be true. Tell me another reason for hiding from my friend then… there’s none. What if they are on another break, do you see Yunho, dating someone else? Have you seen doing something all these years? No, right? You can’t say the same of that-“

“Enough! There are still no proofs. You can’t try to poison his mind nor his heart more than he himself already does it. Let him solve this on his own…”

“No! He won’t do it… he’ll continue waiting for someone that clearly doesn’t give a damn for him…”

“Don’t say that! He could hear you…”

“I want him to hear me… I feel so regretful… it was my fault… he asked me an advice all these years ago and I told him to go for it, ‘if this is what your heart wants, just go for it’. That’s what I told him. I wanted him to be happy even when I was surprised he had fallen for a guy… I wasn’t expecting any of this… seeing him broken over and over again. I want him being his old self once again…”

The crying of his friend joined to his own. Yunho was crying too, over the floor with his back on the door thinking about how his life had turned that way.

He thought about his friend’s words, the only idea of his love being with another person was killing him once again. Many people had told him things and he was scared every time, scared that those things could be true. They said they had proofs, he rejected everything. He has defended his lover so many times and he was so tired and worse knowing that he wasn’t even his lover anymore; he didn't have any right to consider the other as his love anymore. They were over and it was time for him to accept it once and for all. It was time to move on, this time for real even when he felt shattered inside. But he was strong; he couldn’t leave that to take away the best of him so he stood up and after a while he went to the bathroom to wash up and get ready to face his life without Jaejoong.

It was like if the last thread joining them would have broken the precise moment he left the bathroom, at least he felt it like that. It was something he had experienced before convincing himself that everything will be alright without his lover but every time there was something still pulling him back. That time, that time he felt it as something definitive and he felt like taking a weight off his shoulders.

He needed to take some fresh air, so he quietly went outside of the apartment to the street avoiding the friends gathered in the place. It was a cold night and he felt the freezing breeze hitting his face even with the thick scarf covering the biggest part of his head. He was heading to a little park near there, when he saw Hojun getting out of a car. Yunho went to him just on time, to be introduced with the friend that brought him there. It was a girl that smiled at him so brightly that it made him smile in return in a way he hadn’t done it for the longest time. He understood, even with a broken heart, he still had many reasons to keep smiling.

……….………..

After leaving Jaejoong’s apartment, he doesn’t go straight to his own. He drives to a secluded area near the river to think. He cries because what happened earlier. Yunho remembers all the times he cried before for something related to his ex. It was tough every time but he just used to bury the bitter feelings and kept going because he loved Jaejoong so desperately that it hurt him. He wonders if the other loved him the same at least once. He need to believe that he did it.

He remembers when people used to tell him stories about his lover being with someone else but he chose to ignore them, to fight them even. For him, his love was totally reciprocally faithful, no questions at all.

……….………..

"He didn't answer your calls yet?"

"No... and honestly I don't think he's going to do it," Yunho smiled bitterly. "I don't even know why I am still trying. I was there too, a week ago, but he's totally busy hanging out with his 'friends'. Didn't you see the pictures?" He takes out his phone and shows him his gallery. "If you didn't, then watch these ones."

"They keep being sent to you?"

"As you can see. I don't know who or why, if is only one or if there are many senders... but I'm beginning to think that maybe is not from an enemy but a friend. What I can do about this anyway, I mean we’re not a ‘thing’ anymore so…"

"You know that they are his friends. You have many friends too..."

"Believe me, none of them has ever took me a photo on my bed let alone a bathtub. Not that I have ever done something like that." He sighed and sipped on his drink, "I know yourself lived with many friends in the past and I can't imagine them taking you that kind of photos or you taking them."

"You know that he-"

"Maybe I misunderstood, maybe what he felt for me in the past wasn't meant to last. Maybe he saw us just like a passing love and I was the only fool thinking in forever..."

"Don't say that, you know very well that he-"

"Maybe it was always me, maybe it's not him... I mean maybe it's me the one being too suffocating and it would be the same being him or any other person..."

"What's with all these 'maybes'"

"I don't know," Yunho chuckled. "I guess I'm sad and I'm trying to find a meaning to all this but well. I don't even know what I'm expecting, what I'm still hoping for... Guess I have to get used to my singleness..."

……….………..

If he would have accepted what was happening back then, maybe he could have avoided the pain that came with that.

He takes out a cigarette from a pack a friend left forgotten at his car, that’s till he remembers that he hasn’t a lighter with him, that brings him memories of her. She offered a lighter the second time he met her. He was trying to go unnoticed by the people in the nightclub when he wanted to smoke and she was the one who appeared with a lighter, she smiled ant told him it was a sign.

Yunho smiles before the memory, at the end, he didn’t even smoke that night. They spent the time chatting about all and nothing just for the pleasure of the mutual company.

……….………..

"Hey!" His friend huffed annoyed, "are you going to pay me any attention or you're going to stick to your phone all night?"

"Sorry, that was the last one. She's going to sleep now."

"You're spending much time with that girl and when not, you’re over your phone at every chance... this remind me of Jaejoong. I don't think he'll be pleased to know about her."

The playful expression Yunho had was whipped off his face. "He doesn't have any say in this or any other ing thing to do about me...”

“Chill… man. Are you still on a break? Just wait for him to come back and-“

“No, we’re not on a break. We broke up definitively.”

“Come on, Yunho. This isn’t the first time I’m hearing that so, let me tell you that I highly doubt it.”

“Then according to you I have to stay here waiting for him to come back home again -because he had already returned some times, none of them he had the time or the will to see me of course- and if he feels like seeing me then it's enough... I have to be happy."

"You know that's not what I mean…”

“I don’t know, my friend. Sometimes it seems like all of you see me as some kind of super human that never get mad or hurt… but I’m not, you know? I’m just the same as you, just so ing tired of always being strong… I want to be allowed to break down too without that being a reason for people to freak out.” Yunho drank his drink in one go. “But I understand you, you’re more his friend than mine so of course from your point of view it has to be me the one who always gives up…”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m your friend, for the both of you. I have seen your relationship practically from the starting so…”

“If you’re my friend then don’t talk to me about him anymore. You know? The other day I had a weird dream about me reproaching him about an affair… I woke up so angry but then, I realize that I don’t have any right to do so. There’s nothing left between me and him. He’s as single and free as I myself am.”

“You aren’t using her as a rebound, right?”

“Of course I’m doing it because that’s the kind of person I am. Did you have any doubt?” Yunho said with a cold tone sighing exasperated.

“Come on, man. Stop it! That’s not-”

“You know what… I’m leaving.” He stood up and left some money over the table taking his jacket and left the place despites his friend calling him and asking him to come back.

……….………..

He looks at the night sky, maybe later it will start to rain, and hopefully he will be at home by then.

The third time he met her was in a rainy day. She was trying to get a taxi and he offered to give her a ride, people around them where too busy running away from the rain like paying any attention to them, not even when she tripped and got her foot in a puddle. They laughed like crazy once in the car. She didn’t have her car that day and they shared a very nice moment in a deserted coffee shop with awful brownies. When they parted, she told him she was going to miss him. How long had been since Jaejoong had told him something like that?

He sighs supporting his weight on the hood of his car; the air doesn’t fell heavy in his lungs any more. Maybe some things in life are meant to happen only for a determined amount of time and you can’t do anything to stop its inexorable end.

The messages accusing his former lover even now, keep getting him. Were they true? He doesn’t know the answer and maybe it’s better like that. Perhaps not knowing the truth is something good now, maybe that could help him to rescue only the good memories because there were good moments, so many that he wants to treasure.

At what moment did Jaejoong stop loving him? Did he stop?

……….………..

"You keep losing weight. How many pounds already, 20?"

"So so," Yunho smiled, "I feel good. I've been going out with friends a lot lately. It's nice..."

"You mean, your new attitude with life?"

"What you're saying. I've been always like this," he grinned to his friend.

"Guess the difference is that you're showing this side of you more..."

"No, the thing is... It's easier to pay attention to the little changes nowadays. But I'm fine, I feel happy. I think that it shows then." He took his phone and answered a message smiling widely.

“I met her the other day. She’s really nice.”

“I know. I really like being with her…”

“Yunho, I know you asked me not talking you about him again… but I have to ask.”

He faked a smile, “he didn’t contact me at all if that’s what you want to know. He won’t do it, and I’m sure you already know that. The penultimate time we saw each other I felt so frustrated because he didn’t say he loved me… 'what a petty reason' you may say, but I really needed to hear it, ‘cause I didn’t felt it during our-” he smiles knowing his friend had understood if his wickedly smirk was something to say. "Then that last time I was expecting something that didn’t happen, I was annoyed and wanted to leave before something undue happens, and that’s when I accidentally spilled the last drops of my drink over a cushion. We ended screaming profanities and yelling to each other and he kicked me out of his place saying me he didn’t want to see me ever again. Can you believe it? He was the one throwing me out of his life and I was the one asking for forgiveness... oh gosh, how pathetic..."

……….………..

Yes, Jaejoong had stoped loving him. How long, Yunho doesn't know. At the end of the day, he can't force to anyone to feel something they don't.

Could it be any different if earlier Jaejoong had said something? Yunho is ashamed of knowing that deeply inside a tiny part of him was still hoping for a different result from his encounter with his ex. He knew it from the very first moment he decided to acknowledge his feelings for Jaejoong that his love was destined to stay a part of him forever. But now, to that tiny part of him still wanting him back, he's going to put it in the past.

The firsts drops are falling from the sky by the moment he gets in his car heading to his apartment. Life is full of decisions to take, some imply leaving something loved behind, it doesn't matter how painful because ultimately you'll get even more hurt clinging at something that isn't mean to be.

When arriving to his apartment, he receives a call and just reading the caller's name he feels suddenly happy. "It's the right choice", he says to himself. Still he has the time to think, guilty or not, I'll treasure how much I loved you and how happy I was... goodbye Jaejoong. He answers her call. She's part of his life now. Leaving everything behind, he lets his feelings for her flooding his being.

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