Yunho met up with you and Jaejoong from his middle school and followed behind the rest of the way home. He was tired after spending an evening celebrating his entering the world of teenagers. The night was spent with you and Jaejoong teasing him to wits end about going hormonal crazy and how he would suddenly shoot up in height. You were playful enough to comment on whether or not his mouth would grow larger to hold his crooked teeth. His outburst of rage really drained him. The reaction you two received was too satisfying, and the feeling lingered well into the school day. Yunho couldn’t handle his dongsaengs anymore, “you two are so childish, start acting like twelve-year-olds.” In military-like precision with unified movement, you and Jaejoong mock saluted him. You were still technically eleven.

All jokes aside, there was a concern that hadn’t been fully addressed. Yunho had a strawberry cake; it was the type that your mother had bought. You probably would have had the same, but breaking promises was a no-no. Jaejoong graciously took on the task of pleasing your taste buds every year. The magic he created sent you high, you trusted him to make you crazy. Cake, who doesn’t love it?

“What type of cake do you want ------?” Jaejoong had been asking you everyday for the past month because for some reason, you honestly weren’t that decisive with these sort of decisions. How could you be? He made strawberry riper than an actual strawberry. Chocolate was so smooth and creamy, it literally melted in your mouth. Vanilla was always the most tantalizing; the smell of the cake lingered on Jaejoong weeks after the cake was devoured and you wanted to nibble on some part of him whenever he was around.

 When you reached your house you just waved him off.

“Surprise me!” He made a pout. He wanted to make it special, perfect, just what you desired. He sighed a little and shuffled to his home. It was an impossible task to please someone with so few dislikes. “As long as it isn’t burned,” you would say.

At home, Jaejoong went over the recipe books his mother kept. He had become a genuinely good chef over the past few years and felt delight with every compliment given. He continued skimming over the recipes until he found the perfect cake for you. “Umma! We need to go to the store for some of these ingredients!” He quickly wrote down the recipe and raced to the kitchen where his mother was.

“Umma?” She was sitting at the table, glancing at the clock every few seconds, tapping her nails away in anxious wait. “Umma, we need to go to the store,” Jaejoong said a little softer. Slowly, she turned and faced her son, trying not to appear too desperate for time to stop.

“So you finally decided on what cake to make. Well, let’s hurry; your father should get home soon. He is already late –I wonder if he was in a meeting…”

At the small, crowded market, Jaejoong quickly went through the aisles getting the things he needed for your perfect cake and throwing them into his shopping basket. He had one item left on his list. “Umma, I’ll be in the frozen food section.” His mother just nodded while opening her phone to accept a new call. She bit tenderly into her lip while her eyes frantically darted around, almost like bad news was being delivered.

Jaejoong looked through the glass freezers, searching for what he wanted before he saw the prize, cookies and cream ice cream, the perfect filling for your cookie cake. He opened the freezer and reached in. His hand was just to the handle when he felt something warm, not cold. He turned to see a girl, standing next to him, her hand on his, next to the ice cream.

She stepped back apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get in your way. You can have it, I’ll take this one.” She smiled and reached for the one next to the original. Jaejoong watched as her ribbon hair fluttered over her face as she bent down. He could hear her peacefully humming along with the droning music playing from the speakers.  

“I’m not going to eat it all myself, so it’s fine. I plan on stuffing it into a cake. Ah, maybe that wasn’t the right word to use. I plan on using it as a filling?” She giggled.

“I’m Lee Yooeun. I do plan on eating this all on my own for dessert.” Giggling more, she saw the list of ingredients in his back pocket. “Do you bake often? I actually love to cook, but sometimes people say I make too much for them to finish. I really hope to one day own a restaurant so I can cook as much as I want for a bunch of people.” She smiled angelically as she rambled on. Jaejoong felt his heart flutter. Her way of charmingly joking with him caused her cuteness level to rise. She had such a mature dream. Yooeun snuck into his heart.

He stared at her for a moment. “I would love to eat something you make someday.” He was about to ask Yooeun to your birthday party when his mother came running over.

“Jaejoong, Jaejoong! We need to leave right now. Put that back and let’s go!” Jaejoong looked at Yooeun flustered and embarrassed but he did what he was told. Not in front of the girl Umma! “Appa was –Appa was in an accident.”

Push

Your parents were in the Kim’s living room with the windows drawn so that no one would peek in and see the broken family inside. Maybe it shouldn’t be called a family at all. In a family everyone smiles right? Umma is there to comfort her child when they are sad and Appa is there to make every day fun. Where did Appa go? Why isn’t Umma there to help? Where did Umma go?

The widowed Mrs. Kim leaked onto Mrs. Jung’s shoulder, leaving tear stains on the fabric. Just one floor up, you and Yunho were in Jaejoong’s room mirroring the scene below. Jaejoong was curled up on his bed, his head resting on your lap while you felt the power of being a caring mother surge back.

You wiped away his tears as if you were taking away one of the beers from the drunk driver that killed his father. Every reminder about what life had become hurt Jaejoong. Everything halted. He saw his world breaking like glass. Things were starting to crash around him. He was afraid of what was happening. He was afraid of being cut by the falling glass.

Yunho was rubbing his back while Jaejoong continued to sob on your jeans. His pain started to seep into you. Things had been going so perfectly –so well. What had gone wrong? Every year things just got better and better. Your birthday wish always came true. Nothing bad really happened. Nothing could have happened to you or Jaejoong. Then you remembered what Jaejoong said to you every year since you turned seven. “Don’t tell me, or it won’t come true.” He had been right. After five years of excellent epoch, your karma ran out. Terrible events were finally starting to happen.

“Everything will be okay Jae. I’ll make sure everything is okay.” You wanted to fill his heart with anything –anything that would make him smile. Even if you had no idea how to make the sun shine again, there was some way it was going to. You had to make his life set in motion again –by doing anything for him –by sacrificing worlds to hear him laugh.  He filled you with purpose, and for that you loved him more than as just a mother or sister

You didn’t feel like celebrating your birthday anymore.

**********************

I'm rereading some parts, hating how terribly it is written, having reservations to changing it, and laughing at parts that seem similar to MidNightmare. This is a line from the original chapter... 15 pushes plus 3 pulls... chapter 18. Go ahead, bask in its MidNightmareness. Then go read MidNightmare, my other story.

“If you call crappy fights where ninety-nine percent of it was just trash talk. ‘Hey, you’re fugly.’ Where in real life will someone be with you long enough so you can have a decent trash talk? I swear, in a fight with me, I would not waste time saying , I would just beat your ing face in.”

Oh yeah, good times...

Comments are sort of motivation since this isn't my main priority~♥