Though Yunho considered himself a man of average intuition and standard emotional depth, there still remained one feeling he just couldn’t quite grasp: the feeling of human guilt. That’s not to say that Yunho didn’t feel guilt. The absence of such a feeling would have been more than welcome rather than the alternative. The thing was, he felt it full well. Far too powerfully, in fact. And therein lay the problem. He felt it, to be sure, but he just didn’t understand it.

            Yunho, although he certainly would like to have been, was not as cold and unfeeling as he attempted to present himself. That creeping, sickening feeling found its home far too often within his gut, but he could never quite pinpoint the cause.

            Sometimes it was obvious - a simple wrongdoing or an occasional white lie provided the proper feeling of remorse that he had come to expect, but sometimes he just didn’t have a clue. Sometimes, and more and more frequently since the start of the persistent ‘problem’ he attempted not to dwell on, he felt it without reason.

            And as he drove home from seeing Jessica, he couldn’t think of a single justification for the guilt he felt growing stronger and stronger at every turn he made that brought him closer to home.

            He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had only seen a friend for an hour or two, nothing but a bit of mindless talk to distract him from any number of stresses that could have plagued him at whatever moment. He enjoyed seeing her, so what wrong was there in that? Perhaps, if he tried, he could attribute the jittery feelings to something else entirely, maybe an emergence of some sort of romantic feeling for her, but even he couldn’t make that work in his mind. After more than two decades of practice, he was incredibly skilled at relegating any sort of deeper emotion to something far more shallow, but it was too much of a stretch - even for him.

            He sighed as he turned his car off and snatched the keys from the ignition, deciding just to give up on further deliberation on something as arbitrary as an unknown source of an unnecessary feeling. Yunho was never the type to pursue any sort of answer out of a problem. He was an intelligent man, but more often than not his disinterest took precedence over his intelligence, and he decided to just leave it at that.

            The loud slam of his apartment door, for once, did not wake up a napping Yoochun on the couch. Only for the sole reason that he wasn’t actually there. Yunho surveyed the room quietly, not at all used to the sight of empty couch cushions before him. His neck went rigid at the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen, or, more specifically, the sound of Yoochun’s laughter.

            He scowled and rounded the corner with dramatic stamps of his feet, unapologetically storming as loudly as possible into the kitchen. “Welcome home,’” he hissed, directing the bitter phrase toward Yoochun, who had made himself conveniently absent the night prior.

            “Yunho! Hi!” Yoochun responded, quite obviously not picking up on Yunho’s beyond irritated tone. He noted Jaejoong, still dressed in his pajamas, sitting perched on the counter and swinging his feet over the ledge. He had rolled up his pants to his knees, and Yunho couldn’t help but think the action was more deliberate than anything, a chance to show his white, slender legs that curved and arched so delicately, so perfectly, Yunho was near convinced they had been carved by temptation itself.  “I’ve been talking to your little friend all morning,” he said with a laugh, gesturing toward an ever-quiet Jaejoong.

            Yunho had never quite figured out the strange fascination Yoochun had with the younger boy. As far as he could tell, their interactions were completely one-sided, predominantly made up of nothing more than just Yoochun’s words. They weren’t so much conversations as they were Yoochun talking at the boy, taking his silence as an invitation to continue his mindless chatter. Regardless of the strange nature of their interactions, Yoochun always clamored about how ‘hilarious’ the boy was whenever he discussed him with Yunho, which was far more often than he would have liked.

            “Is that so?” Yunho said rather disinterestedly, finding his attention inadvertently being drawn to the glow of Jaejoong’s legs – as much as he would never admit it.

            “Yep!” Yoochun answered, grinning and rapidly nodding his head up and down far more enthusiastically than what was required. “So, where were you?”

            “Not important,” Yunho scoffed, finding himself questioning just where Yoochun got the audacity to ask such a thing when he himself seemed to disappear at the most inconvenient of times. Besides, something in his gut was telling him that, for whatever reason, answering the question honestly would not sit well with the boy perched on his kitchen counter.

            “Seeing that girl?” Yoochun said with a smirk. Yunho could feel the hair on his arms stand at attention. It seemed that his attempt at caution was completely unnecessary, seeing as Yoochun wasted no time in answering the successfully, or so he had thought, avoided question himself.

            “…Whatever,” he hissed, scowling fervently in Yoochun’s direction in some misplaced attempt to get him to be quiet. Yoochun was never all that perceptive when it came to social cues, and, while Yunho knew this full well, it didn’t stop him from making a last ditch effort to silence his unwelcome words.

            Jaejoong finally lifted his head from the kitchen floor and spoke after what had been minutes of just listening to them talk. “That teacher? Is that who you saw?”

            Yunho couldn’t help but swallow thickly, perhaps audibly, at the question. Something within him, intuition or paranoia, which one not entirely apparent, made him think that the whole conversation was heading somewhere unpleasant.

            “Yes,” he answered honestly. He chose to ignore the feeling telling him it was a terrible idea, and instead conjured up a sense of hope that perhaps nothing would come of it. Jaejoong had no reason to be mad, after all, or at least none that Yunho could rationally think of. There were a few theories birthed out of the most outrageous of speculations, but Yunho had absolutely no inclination of entertaining such ideas, or even thinking of them any further.

            However, his disillusioned hope was shattered to pieces at the flaring of Jaejoong’s nostrils, a flash of anger erupting behind his eyes and tainting his already damaged face. “What were you two doing?” He hissed, avoiding eye contact with Yunho in his stubborn rage.

            Yunho scoffed and turned his nose up at the boy. He detested his tone, his habit of simply demanding things like Yunho owed him answers. “Does it matter?” He replied bitterly.

            A silence set over the kitchen as even the ever-talkative Yoochun could do nothing but watch along, victim to the harsh weight of the tension that had taken over the cramped room. Yunho could feel his palms turn cold and clammy at the stare he just knew was directed in toward him, even without his eyes confirming it for him.

            “Why… why her?” Jaejoong seethed, “just what’s so special about her?”

            “Jaejoong, what the hell are you talking about?”

            “You heard me. Just answer.”

            Yunho stood, dumbfounded, at the growing fury in the boy’s eyes, the sheer rage in which he uttered the strange question making his fingers tremble with fear. But most of all, he felt uncertain. He had not a single clue as to what the boy was getting at. What was so special about her? When had Yunho ever indicated such? At what point had he said something about her that required any sort of clarification?

            And just why would Jaejoong, of all people, want to know such a thing?

            “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he said, unable to form an answer besides one out of spite. 

            “Uh oh,” Yoochun started with a smirk, resting his chin on his hand and placing his elbows on the granite counter below him, “seems like your boyfriend is pretty pissed.”

            And in that moment, as powerfully as Yunho felt the sudden need to punch Yoochun in the face surging through his body, he felt something else.

            He felt understanding.

            Jaejoong’s face, slightly tainted with the blush of a long awaited answer on his cheeks, spoke more than anything the boy had ever said to him. All it took were a few careless words of a most likely intoxicated Yoochun for him to realize it.

            “J-Jaejoong – “ he started, searching for something to say to rid the awkward air of a realization even he knew he shouldn’t have been aware of from between the two of them. But before he could finish his sentence, Jaejoong jumped off the counter with a slam, his nearly weightless body making far more noise than he anticipated.

            “I’m leaving,” he snapped, heading for the hallway with heavy steps.

            “What do you mean you’re leaving?” Yunho called after him.

            “Better go after your boyfriend, Yunho. He seems angry,” Yoochun sneered, throwing his head back and laughing like it was the cleverest damn thing he had ever said.

            “Yoochun, for once in your life, could you just shut the up?!” Yunho shouted, casting one last glance over his shoulder before he raced down the hallway after the boy who had so furiously stomped out only moments ago. “Jaejoong, wait – “

            “What?!” Jaejoong snapped, whipping his head around with a look of rage that made tingles run like water down his spine. He had seen stubbornness, defiance, but straight anger was completely unheard of. And it terrified him.

            “Where are you going?” He asked tentatively, unsure as to if he wanted to hear the answer, or the rage-laced tone he was sure would be thrown at him.

            “Home.” He spat, continuing his heavy stomps toward the door.

            Since day one all Yunho had wished for was to just get the boy out of his hair. He had tried everything – harsh words, physical and emotional pushes, but all was useless. But now that he was so close to leaving, on the edge of disappearing, perhaps forever, from Yunho’s sight, he couldn’t bring himself to let him go.

            He just didn’t want him to leave.

            “Wait,” he said, lunging forward and grabbing Jaejoong’s thin wrist in his hands. “Don’t go.”

            “And why?” Jaejoong shouted, anger so heavy in his words Yunho was sure his previously iron grip was wavering, if only slightly, “you want me gone anyway, don’t you? Isn’t this what you want?”

            Yunho could see it clearly now – a few stray tears building in the corners of Jaejoong’s dark eyes, astounding in their beauty and infinitely deep. “You don’t have to.”

            “Yes, I do,” he yelled, wrenching his hand from Yunho’s grasp, “you don’t want me around.”

            “That isn’t true,” Yunho protested. As much as he wanted it to be true, and as much as he pretended it was, his feigned indifference and outright coldness doing nothing else other than to cater to that very thought, it wasn’t. His presence was unwelcome, but not for the reasons Jaejoong was so convinced of.

            And certainly not for the reasons Yunho wished that they were.

            “Then… prove it,” Jaejoong whispered, his angered tone suddenly turning soft and delicate, a subtle wisp that Yunho could just barely hear.

            Jaejoong stepped forward until he was just inches away from him, folding his arms and staring shyly at the ground. That shirt, his shirt, still hung far too low off of his shoulders, every glimpse of that pale skin making him slip further and further toward insanity –

            “Kiss me.”

            Yunho felt himself choke on his own tongue as he hacked up the remnants of whatever words of convincing he had carefully prepared prior to Jaejoong’s request.

            Because what was he supposed to say to that?

            What was he supposed to do to calm the shaking of his hands, the dryness of his mouth, the straight fear that shook in ever piece of him at the mere mention of such a thing?

            The request was confusion answered. It was months of uncertainty squashed with nothing but two words. It was every fear, every suspicion he had tried to cover with harsh words and less than rational reasoning made truth.

            It was, at its very deepest, the very thing he had been trying to avoid, but perhaps had known.

            Their relationship – if it could even be called that – was unconventional. Built upon some strange combination of hatred, and perhaps, from Jaejoong at least, what seemed to be the exact opposite. Their interactions were far from what was standard of an adult and a child, and Yunho preferred it that way. He was never one for maturity, and Jaejoong was never one to respond to maturity with any of his own. Unconventional was preferred, but right then, it was impossible.

            Right then he had to conjure up what reserves of maturity he had, if he had any at all, and follow the form of adult interaction.

            He hated it. The formulaic nature of reprimand that was far too familiar made him sick to his stomach, but it was his only option.

            “Jaejoong, I am your teacher,” he said, adopting a tone of not harshness, but formality. He had to communicate the sentiment as clearly as possible. Right then, there was no room for cruelty, or for the treatment he had become so used to. There was room for formal indifference, and nothing more. “I am nearly twice your age. This isn’t appropriate. You can’t say things like this. You can’t do things like this. Do you understand?”

            He exhaled quietly as the last of his little speech had been finished. Jaejoong wasn’t stupid – he was many things, but unintelligent, unfortunately, was not one of them. Such a manner of speaking, such a condescending sternness in his tone used to address a boy who was far too smart to be talked to in such a way felt like cruelty in itself. But what else could he have done?

            Jaejoong’s lips curled angrily before he spun around, throwing one last phrase over his shoulder before opening the door and running out of his sight.

            “I knew it.”

            And Yunho was left alone, heart pounding a drum line against his ribs as the boy’s words rang over and over in his mind.

            ‘Kiss me’, he had said, such a gentle utterance of the most dangerous words he had ever heard in his lifetime. But what was more dangerous, what was even more terrifying, was Yunho didn’t feel himself recoil at the words.

            His first inclination, rather, had not been refusal at all.

            And that, more than anything, made him sick to to even think of.

            That above all was the danger, the push toward the edge that seemed to grow stronger and stronger with every passing moment, the plummet that surely, without fail, would kill him if he slipped.

            He was hanging on, that much was certain.

            But his arms were growing tired. 

----------------

A/N- *cough*

I think... I'll just leave this here. 

Yeah, that sounds good. 

Tumblr and twitter are active as always. 

BYE. 

-Gelisi