Though he rarely stated it, and he was rarely ambitious enough to take the steps required for him to achieve it, Yunho did, in fact, like being in control of things. Since he almost never had the ability or inclination to take charge of matters, when things were completely and entirely at his command, he made sure to enjoy them to the fullest and grasp them while he could. If everything was beneath his fingers, then there was no room for the unexpected.

            And if there was anything Yunho had learned in the past month or so, it was that the unexpected was exactly what he needed to avoid.  

            With control came simplicity. It was exactly what Yunho wanted, the normalcy he had been craving for god knows how long.

            And sitting there at dinner, talking lightheartedly with one of the most beautiful women he had ever had the pleasure of seeing, let alone getting close to, was exactly the kind of ‘normal’ he needed.

            For the first time in a while, he felt it. He felt in control.

            And he loved every second of it.

            “I kid you not. He just picked it up and threw it right across the room.”  Jessica said with a laugh, waving her hands wildly like a child would as she told her story. Yunho couldn’t help but laugh right along with her, matching her vivid expression with one of his own, one that couldn’t hope to be even half as bright as hers. But he tried, nonetheless.

            “I don’t believe you for a second.” Yunho responded. Jessica, though young, had worked at the school for a fairly decent amount of time. Much longer than Yunho had, anyway. And she had stories that Yunho simply couldn’t believe had ever happened, let alone in a classroom.

            “It’s the truth!” She said, her eyes that seemed to get more and more gorgeous with every glance widening as she protested Yunho’s words.

            Talking with her like this – it was predictable. It was safe. He had placed himself in a situation that was under his control, and he delighted in it. For the first time in however long, there was no fear with every word that fell from his lips. There was no terror of the implications of his actions. There was no worry that every action, no matter how mundane, could be twisted or misconstrued in the eyes of a boy who was far too childish for him to be around.

            Control was good.

            It was simple.

            Jessica immediately cut him off when he reached for the bill the waiter had dropped onto the table, his fingers barely grazing the smooth leather holder before she snatched it out of his hands.

            “Let me pay.” She insisted, holding the bill just out of reach.

            “But I asked you.” Yunho said. Jessica merely shrugged.

            “I’d feel too guilty if I let you pay.”  She said, lips curved downward into a delicate frown. Yunho couldn’t help but be totally entranced by her every movement. Each small action came across with an intrinsic grace that simply fascinated Yunho.

            “We’ll split it, then.” Yunho insisted. Jessica sighed and eventually gave in, but only after much reluctance and much persuasion from Yunho.

            He suddenly noticed how long they had been just talking there. The restaurant was nearly abandoned, with only a few scattered patrons mingling around tables and talking in quiet whispers as they sipped the remnants of wine in their glasses. The workers had started cleaning up the tables and preparing for closing a while ago, and the atmosphere had settled into one of quiet calmness.

            Gentle.

            Predictable.

            Safe.

            “Shall we?” Yunho said, standing up and gesturing toward the door. He didn’t need to check his watch to know that it was incredibly late. Lost amongst laughter and chatter, it seemed that they had simply forgotten to keep track of time.

            “Let’s.”

            The cold air had gotten even more bitter as the winter continued to plague the town with its frigid wind. He buried his face into the collar of his jacket in an attempt to shield it out, the blistering wind nipping at his ears and nose, feet tapping the sidewalk as he shuffled quickly to his car and silently begged for the warm air of spring to return to him once again.

            They finally made their way to his car after what felt like hours, the freezing cold having successfully warped their sense of time.

            Yunho thought that after all the time they spent chatting during dinner they would have simply run out of things to say by then. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The entire car ride was spent doing just that, talking together, laughing together, finding out more things about the other that they had never known.

            This kind of connection with someone was a rarity. It was something that should have been cherished, something that Yunho should have had his attention on completely and totally. 

            But even he knew that that wasn’t the case.

            No matter how much he denied or pretended it wasn’t happening, he couldn’t ignore it. He was drifting. His attention was slipping. He’d miss a few words, then a few sentences, then entire conversations due to the wandering of his mind and the racing of his thoughts.

            It wasn’t normal. It was far beyond normal. And there was only one person he had to blame.

            He could say it wasn’t happening. He could make up a thousand excuses until he had exhausted every single possibility. He could whine and groan and wave it all away but the fact still stood that every time Yunho so much as blinked, he saw the boy’s face behind his eyelids.

            No matter what he said, or what he did, it couldn’t change the irrefutable act that he was thinking of him. He was alone, sitting in a car with the most gorgeous woman he had ever met, and he was thinking of the boy who, it seemed, truly never left his mind.

            This was not control. It was the exact opposite.

            He couldn’t stop the thoughts of him from springing up at every opportune moment. He couldn’t stop them because he didn’t even realize they were there anymore. He had become so used to their presence, it was no longer a surprise when they simply appeared.

            It was so far out of his control that he had merely accepted it as the norm.

            “Do you want to come in?”

            Yunho was snapped out of his daze by the sound of Jessica’s voice from the passenger’s seat. He should have been focused on her words, but the only thing he managed to think of was how her voice had that same gentle quality that Jaejoong’s had, though hers was slightly more high pitched.

            “I-I…” He stuttered, eyes darting from his hands to her expectant face.

            He should have been lunging at the opportunity. Her smile and her suggestive eyes made the invitation all too welcoming. Anyone would kill for the chance, and he certainly should have been doing so.  

            But for some reason he just wasn’t.

            For some reason, he wanted nothing more than to drop her off and just drive away.

            He jumped as his phone started ringing from inside his pocket, stomach twisting into knots the moment his eyes read the caller’s name on the screen.

            Fearful? Yes.

            But surprised?

            Not in the slightest.

            He knew who it was before he even glanced at it.

            “Hello?” He said, keeping his tone as polite as he could manage. He had made a habit of merely barking a curt greeting, if it even could be called that, to the boy whenever they spoke, but at the moment he didn’t want Jessica to get the wrong idea.

            There were a few seconds of silence, the sound of someone shifting, then a voice. The same voice that rang in his ears each time he so much as let his attention slip for just a moment.

            “Yunho?”  

            Yunho couldn’t help but cringe at the delicate sound that whispered his name. There was the usual beauty, that much he had expected. But there was something else beneath it that made his fingers unknowingly clench up against the hard plastic of his cell phone. Laced within, a slight hint that perhaps only Yunho could discern, there was a touch of fear.

            “What’s wrong?” Yunho asked despite himself. He had always tried to keep his distance from the boy, and ignoring all of his problems was one of the most fundamental aspects of maintaining such a distance. But this time, the words fell from his mouth without so much as a thought. The fear he had heard, subtle, but undeniably there, had shaken him.

            As much as he wanted to keep his distance, his own body simply wouldn’t allow it any further.

            “…I need you to come get me.” Jaejoong muttered. Yunho felt himself tensing up once again. The fear was now totally evident in his voice. No longer just a trace he had to focus to hear, but a screamingly clear indicator of the boy’s terror. “I…I know you hate me, but I didn’t know who else to call…”

            Yunho drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. This, it seemed, was the ultimate test of the so-called “distance” he had so adamantly tried to uphold.

            If he gave in, everything he had fought so hard to maintain would come crashing down around him.

            If he gave in, there really was no going back to the “normalcy” he had strived for.

            He gritted his teeth, sighing slightly before speaking again.

            “Where are you?” He said, the concern he was trying so hard to disguise much clearer in his words than he had hoped.

            Because that’s exactly what he was.

            Despite all of his pretenses, his feigned animosity, his outright refusals, he was concerned about the boy. He was supposed to be indifferent toward him, but he wasn’t.

            There was no distance. There was no control.

            There was nothing more he could do.

            “I’m outside my building…” Jaejoong whispered.

            “I’ll be there soon.” Yunho said before hanging up the phone and pressing it to his chin, suddenly sitting up straight as he noticed Jessica out of the corner of his eye. He had completely forgotten she was even there.

            She gave a questioning look to Yunho, who could do nothing but avert his eyes from her stare. He had no idea how to even begin explaining this to her, and he decided he’d rather not go into it at all. But his reluctance to do so didn’t eliminate the need for some kind of explanation on his end.

            “U-uh…” He started, not entirely sure what excuse he could invent that would sound at all believable. “There’s a bit of an emergency…” He finally stammered out, opting to be as vague as possible to avoid getting into details.

            “Is… is everything alright?” She asked, face drenched with worry and voice even further so.

            “Y-yeah, everything’s fine, I just…” Yunho scratched his head uncomfortably, trying to maintain a semblance of believability as he fumbled for the proper words. “I need to take care of something. I’m sorry.” He finally admitted. It wasn’t a terrible effective excuse, but it would work.

            She nodded sympathetically. “I completely understand.”

            “I had a great time tonight.” Yunho reassured her. He didn’t want her to think that he was leaving due to any fault of her own.

            “Me, too.” She replied. It was faint, but Yunho thought he could detect a slight tint of red that played upon her cheeks, a color that somehow made her look even more beautiful than she had just seconds earlier.

            Before Yunho could move a muscle, she reached up and placed a swift kiss to his cheek, smiling shyly and muttering a few goodbyes before walking back to her house.

            Yunho absentmindedly let his fingers trail upwards until they brushed against the tingling skin where her lips had been just a moment before. He felt a flutter in his stomach, a jump or two of his heartbeat, but most of all, more powerfully than either of those things combined, he felt a strange sort of guilt.

            And he had absolutely no idea why.

            He had no reason to feel the way he did. There was no justification for the almost painful feeling that had settled far beneath his skin, a feeling that was rapidly spreading itself through his whole body.

            There was no reason for it – but he just couldn’t make it stop.

            The streetlights flew by as he drove quickly to Jaejoong’s, their dim lights doing nothing to illuminate the sea of questions that were now cropping up in every crevice of his brain. They were questions that simply had no answer, confusion that had no solution.

            Problems he couldn’t dream of fixing with just a snap of his fingers.

            This time when Yunho saw him, he wasn’t taken aback by the usual beauty that never failed to stun him into an angry silence. This time, Jaejoong’s face had been tainted and marred with ugly bruises, swollen cheeks and bloody lips. His lackluster eyes met Yunho’s own as he got out of the car, taking a hesitant step toward the boy.

            He felt scared to even approach him. Like if he got any closer, the already fragile boy would just crumble into pieces before him.

            Jaejoong had always been on the smaller side, but he had never looked as weak as he did right then.

            His reddened lips were shaking form the cold, tears spilling silently from the corner of his eyes and dripping onto the ground beneath them, surely to freeze over in a matter of minutes.

            Yunho wanted to ask what had happened to leave the boy in such a disastrous state, but when he thought about it, what did it matter?

            Whatever it was, the end result was the same. Whatever it was wouldn’t change the guilt he already felt coursing through his veins. Whatever had happened didn’t make a single difference in the world. So it didn’t need to be asked.

            Nothing needed to be said.

            He placed his hand behind Jaejoong’s head, letting his fingers become entangled in the sea of black hair that seemed to shine under the faded glow of the half-lit lights around them, before pulling him to his chest and silencing his sobs in the fabric of his shirt. 

            He could feel Jaejoong shuddering beneath him, but whether it was from cold or his cries not entirely clear. And he felt it, not just the touch, but the warmth, as Jaejoong reached his arms around Yunho’s back and clung to him in desperation.

            He had never even imagined holding him like this. It had been deemed dangerous, so far out of the realm of possibility that he hadn’t even prepared himself for the onslaught of emotions that would no doubt come with such a simple action.

            But no amount of preparation could have gotten him ready for this.

            He felt so small, yet shockingly warm against his arms. As much as he wanted to let go, he just couldn’t. He could have pretended it was Jaejoong’s tight grip on his back preventing him from doing so, but what was the point?

            Even he didn’t believe that anymore.

            The only thing the blistering night could freeze right then was time. While the world around him stood still and cold, his senses numbed and his heart turned warm as he held him there, the bitter wind dying down and the heat settling in his body from the boy’s touch. The freezing chill had turned dull. Everything had slowed down.

            Yunho had always liked to maintain a sense of control. Though it came rarely to him, the times where things were under his jurisdiction were times he enjoyed to the fullest. The chances, slim though they were, he took up with the utmost eagerness.

            However right then, he couldn’t deny it any longer. Things had gone too far. Things were no longer in his control.

            But he truly, sincerely, wished that they were.

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

A/N - What? This isn't Sunday... 
Okay, quick announcement. This fic is no longer on a schedule. I feel bad if I keep saying I'll update on Sundays, then my updates are never actually on a Sunday. So from now on, I'm going to shoot for Sundays, but no promises. This also means that you might get more frequent updates as well. Basically, this story will update whenever I feel like writing it. So sometimes often, sometimes not so much. I'll aim for at least on Sundays but I don't want to get your hopes up about it. 

If you're ever curious if the update is going to be anytime soon, you can always ask me on twitter or tumblr. I'm not trying to myself out for followers here. I genuinely don't care if you follow me or not. Just if you want to know when I'm going to update next, that's where you should ask me. 

Thank you for reading, as always! (By the way, I had some hilarious guesses as to what Yoochun's job actually is. All will be revealed sooner or later. But keep them coming! ^ ^)

-Gelisi