Jaejoong doesn't like getting to school so early, but he is on a mission. Besides, it won't be long now.

He leans on the wall opposite from the gymnasium doors, tapping his shoe against the linoleum skirting in time with the J-rock song filtering through his earphones. The halls aren't full of students yet, but the crowds are trickling in.

After the first verse of the next song plays, the doors open.

He pulls out the earphones, and his target sees him immediately. He doesn't walk towards Jaejoong, though, so he waits for the team to say goodbye to each other before smoothly coming up to Yunho's side. "Why haven't you asked your girlfriend out on a second date yet?"

Yunho's eyes bug. He frantically looks around, which makes Jaejoong look around, so he is caught by surprise when he is tugged into the empty gym.

"What's the secrecy for?" He shakes Yunho's grip as soon as he gets his balance. "Your teammates know you're dating someone, and it's not like I said it was me."

The other student fidgets in a way that forebodes Jaejoong is not going to like what he hears next. "Um, not really."

"What?"

"They… don't really know," he murmurs with downcast eyes.

"What?!" It's been over a week already since their park date! "I told you to tell them! Did they know any of the other times you had a girlfriend?"

Yunho makes a half-and-half motion with his hand. The revelation causes an irrational pang of hurt to resonate in his chest, but Jaejoong ignores it very quickly. Most girlfriends, pretend or otherwise, would not be okay with being hidden from her boyfriend's friends. "Yunho," he starts seriously. "This behaviour is not cute, okay? Girls that like you are going to stop liking you if they think you're ashamed of them!"

"I'm not ashamed," Yunho argues. "It just feels like bragging. The team usually finds out from someone else, anyway. I've never had to say it myself before. I didn't know how to bring it up."

Jaejoong stares at Yunho with supreme incredulity before wiping a hand down his face. "I don't have time to unpack that right now, and I also kinda never want to because it's ridiculous. Listen up: your homework is telling your teammates that you're dating someone. Due by the end of the week."

Yunho clearly does not want to, but he nods anyway.

"Good. Next topic: why you haven't asked me on a second date yet." Something terrible occurs to him. "You did know you were supposed to ask me on a second date, right?" If Yunho didn't even pick up on that part, this tutoring situation was going to be a lot more difficult than Jaejoong thought.

Yunho collapses on a stack of folded mats. "I knew that, I promise. The thing I didn't know was what to do."

"You came up with the smooth cornering-me-into-a-wall move last time, but words would work just as well," Jaejoong says teasingly.

"No, I mean for the date. I don't know what to ask you to do with me."

He looks so genuinely forlorn about it that Jaejoong can't help but soften his approach. "You can say that too, you know."

Yunho lifts his head up, his next question obvious on his face. Jaejoong gets into lecture mode. "Typically the responsibility of planning is on the asker, but authenticity matters more. Just say something like, 'I really enjoyed our last date, and I want to see you again, but I don't really know what we should do together.' She'll appreciate the honesty and won't mind doing the planning."

The look on Yunho's face reminds Jaejoong of the time he first saw the ballgown quick change in the Cinderella musical, and Jaejoong can only smile in pedagogical assurance.

Yunho sits there, digesting the new knowledge and probably wondering how he can incorporate it into his studies. After a long enough silence, Jaejoong is kinda feeling like their conversation is done. He's about to say something about needing to stop by his locker before first period, but then he sees Yunho's demeanor change from contemplative to sardonic. He doesn't have to wait long until Yunho says, "You make dating sound so simple."

He considers this. Jaejoong is aware that dating requires effort, but he would never have called it 'complicated'. Maybe he's an idealist. Maybe he is simplifying it. He does believe one thing, in any case.

"The more you like the person, the simpler it gets."

The next day, Jaejoong leaves musical rehearsals exhausted. Dance practise didn't used to be this bad; but for this spring's musical, the faculty advisor asked the captain of the school dance team to come up with the choreography, and she's a complete perfectionist when it comes to her work. He generally respects her, but she called him out on his pirouettes three times, so today she's a .

He exits the auditorium along with the other tired ensemble members, one-upping each other on whose body parts will hurt worse by tomorrow. He willingly gives up his turn, though, when he finds Yunho waiting a little ways down the hall. Tiredness leaves his body to make room for anticipation.

He bids his friends goodbye with barely a backwards glance and bounds over to Yunho. "Hey!" he greets, probably a bit too loud and probably a bit too eagerly.

The other grimaces. "You look like you know what to expect. Are you going to make me wait to ask you?"

"Nah, not this time." He smiles though, because it really would be so funny if he did make Yunho wait.

Yunho understandably raises his eyebrows in apprehension, but after an encouraging nod from Jaejoong, he decides to try anyway. "Sorry I made you wait so long before asking you out again. I promise I was thinking about it the entire time."

Without even thinking about it, Jaejoong adopts a coquettish persona. (It doesn't help that he just got out of rehearsal.) "Do you not want to see me anymore?" He adds some fluttering eyelashes for good measure, and Yunho finally loses his tension as he fights to crack a grin.

"No, it wasn't like that at all. I definitely wanted to see you again," he replies, easy and earnest. Jaejoong is pleased; Yunho's saying all the right things. "I really enjoyed our last date, but I couldn't think of what to do together that would be as good. Do you have any ideas?"

When Jaejoong's grin grows so wide that Yunho can't help but smile back, that's when he breaks character. He slaps a friendly hand on Yunho's back and keeps it there, prompting them to walk down the hall. "That was great! You're good about taking my script and adding your own flair to it. I would suggest you join the drama club, but I don't need the competition."

Yunho visibly brightens at the praise. "I practised."

"Of course you did," Jaejoong says with affectionate condescension. "Did you drive to school today?"

"Yeah, why? Need a ride?"

"Nope, but you do. Our second date is happening at my house."

Jaejoong stops them and gestures to the locker they're beside. Yunho notices with mild surprise that it's his. He turns to Jaejoong with wide eyes. "Second date, and you're already inviting me to your house? Aren't we going too fast?"

Jaejoong is ready to deride the crap out of Yunho for his naivete, but he catches the joking glint in the other's eyes just in time. "You're annoying," he says plainly and without heat. "Hurry up because I still have homework to do tonight."

Yunho chuckles and opens his locker to pull out the second helmet Jaejoong learned he keeps in there just in case. He's sure Yunho never imagined an impromptu first date with a student he's never spoken to before being one of those cases, but Yunho is proof that it never hurts to be prepared.

"Can homework be part of a date?" Yunho asks with studious curiosity as they walk out the school.

Jaejoong frowns. "I guess, if you're both into that."

"I'm guessing you're not then."

At his prompting, Jaejoong offers Yunho his schoolbag so the other can pack it into a compartment on his motorbike. "Maybe later in a relationship?" Jaejoong hedges. "Early on, I would want to always present my best, most attractive self to my boyfriend—you know, remind him why he's with me—and the person I am while I'm struggling through Peninsular History short responses is not it. Besides, I don't need him witnessing how dumb I am first-hand."

Yunho stops helping Jaejoong put the helmet on properly and frowns. "You're not dumb."

Jaejoong gives a sardonic half-smile, but he's aware the effect is diminished by the way the inner lining of the helmet hugs his face. "Of course I'm not. I got oodles of emotional intelligence, but that won't help me pass the college entrance exam."

Yunho doesn't have an immediate response to that, but that's okay. Jaejoong didn't expect him to. He hops onto the passenger seat of the moped and pats the space in front of him where the driver sits. "Come on! The trip to Lotteria wasn't long enough to reach 50 kilometres an hour last time, and I have a need for speed."

Yunho looks like he wants to stay on the previous topic, but Jaejoong wouldn't even let him if he brings it up again. He's flooded with relief when Yunho puts his own helmet on at last. "We drive on residential roads."

Jaejoong pats his shoulder with condescending affection when Yunho starts the bike. "Spoken like a true guy-who-doesn't-want-to-get-his-license-revoked."

Jaejoong was able to tolerate uneven chopping of the garlic—it's just for flavour anyway—and ugly ripping of the cabbage—gochujang is nature's concealer—but does Yunho not know what a cube looks like? If the daikon aren't roughly the same size, they'll cook unevenly!

It was nice of him to offer to help make dinner, and he did provide a measurable amount of assistance, but Jaejoong needs this fool out of his kitchen ASAP.

"I need you out of this kitchen ASAP."

Yunho pouts. It says something that the knife he's holding in midair does nothing to make him look threatening. "I was getting better."

"I'm tutoring you in dating, not in cooking." Jaejoong is temporarily distracted as he inspects the beginnings of a stew boiling on the stove, but he remembers his train of thought quickly. "I don't owe you patience here. Go find my room and occupy yourself."

"You aren't even patient about the dating tutoring," Yunho mumbles spitefully. Still, when he finishes with the daikon he had been cutting, he doesn't move to start on another. Jaejoong believes in small miracles.

Just one thing left. He meaningfully glances between Yunho and the door that leads back to the rest of the first floor. The other rolls his eyes, but at least he takes the hint. Jaejoong turns to resume food preparation in peace, but then Yunho returns with a chair from the dining room table in hand.

"I thought I told you to wait in my room," Jaejoong complains as he measures out spices.

Yunho sets the chair out of the way and plops on it decisively. "Aren't we on a date? What kind of date is spent apart?"

Jaejoong tsks in remembrance. He's admittedly being a bad date right now. "Okay, yes, sorry, you're right. This works for me. I just didn't want you to get bored."

"It won't be boring if we're talking. Do you always cook for yourself?"

"Basically, yeah. Once we were old enough, my sister and I took turns—our parents work weird hours," Jaejoong explains as he works, "but she entered college this year."

"Ah, you have an older sister! I have a younger one. Do you guys get along?"

Their conversation continues like that over the course of the meal prep, made easier once the only step left to complete the stew was to let it boil. They could have moved to somewhere more comfortable for their learning-the-basics small talk; but with his weight leaned back against the counter and Yunho sitting cross-legged on the dining chair, his mildly cramped kitchen filling with the smells of one of his favourite meals feels like the most comfortable place in the world.

"You know, your conversational skills were never bad," Jaejoong comments non-sequitur during a lull. "I think it's really a matter of you feeling comfortable with the person you're dating. You've gotten pretty good at asking questions, too. Keep that up; she'll like that."

"You know, the more I learn, the more it feels like I'm learning how to date you specifically. Just how applicable are these lessons in other cases, anyway?" Yunho teases.

Unbidden and momentary, visions of what it would be like to actually date Yunho flicker through Jaejoong's mind. It doesn't look all that different from what they're doing right now but for the notable difference that Jaejoong gets to flirt a little and touch a lot.

He squashes them immediately. Second rule of practise dating is to not fall for the practise boyfriend, everybody knows that.

"If you have questions about the curriculum, you're welcome to take it up with the Board of Education."

"There's a governing body for dating classes?" Yunho laughs incredulously, but Jaejoong is saved from having to respond when the timer he set on his phone goes off.

"Plates are in that cabinet, cups are there, and chopsticks are in this drawer," he points respectively. "Mind setting the table while I handle the food?"

Yunho gets up to do just that, but Jaejoong notices he only stacks two plates in his hands. Whoops. "Actually, you need to set out two more places. My parents might eat with us."

Yunho almost drops everything he's holding. "What?!"

Just then, the front door opens, followed by two sets of footsteps into the house. His mom's voice calls out, "Honey! Do you have a friend over? I saw a motorbike by the garage."

"If it's actually yours, do you mind if I give it a spin?" jokes his dad.

Yunho runs to close the kitchen door in a panic. "Dude! You didn't tell me I'd be meeting your parents today!" he hisses.

"I forgot, I'm sorry!" He spares a moment to respond before raising his voice so his mom can hear him. "Yeah! And we're eating dinner early tonight!" He addresses Yunho again. "If it makes you feel any better, they know who you are," he says quickly as he grabs a heat-resistant mat for the stew pot and balances it over the lid.

"Okay, but do you mean they know that I'm your classmate or that I'm your boyfriend? Those are two different things!"

Considering where his mind was headed just before his parents arrived, Jaejoong doesn't have the wherewithal to answer that question right now. Both hands busy carrying the pot, he uses his head to ask Yunho to open the door for him, which the other does reluctantly. Jaejoong enters the dining room just as his parents walk in, both of them still wearing their coats. Their attention is directed behind Jaejoong, and he looks to find Yunho hovering uncertainly in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Dad, Mom: that's Yunho. Yunho, these are my parents," he introduces as he sets the pot down on the heat mat.

His mom's face lights up in recognition. "Oh! This is the boy you're teaching how to date, right?"

Yunho jerks up from the bow he was in the middle of executing. "They think I'm just your student?"

His dad raises an eyebrow. "Are you more than just his student?"

Jaejoong speaks up before Yunho escapes to run all the way back home, fueled by sheer embarrassment, and forgets his moped in their driveway. "Will you guys be eating with us? Why don't you put your stuff away, and join us whenever you're ready. Yunho and I are gonna go set the table." He hurriedly pushes Yunho back into the kitchen and shuts the door behind them, and Yunho slumps into the chair that he hadn't moved back to the dining room yet.

"What the just happened," he says dazedly.

"Okay, I definitely should have mentioned the nonzero chance that our date tonight would have overlapped with the time my parents come home," Jaejoong explains for damage control purposes, "but in my defense, you kinda slowed me down in the food prep department."

Yunho sends him a withering look.

"I was also excited to ride your moped again?" Jaejoong tries.

"Just tell me what they think our relationship is so that I can stop blurting out embarrassing things," Yunho demands with exasperation.

"I told them that you needed help in becoming a better boyfriend, so you're dating me for practise, and I'm providing real-time feedback for your improvement."

"Way to make me sound like a weirdo and also hide the fact that this weird idea was yours in the first place."

Jaejoong has no qualms about that. "Any more intense emotions we need to work through before you're ready to face them?"

Yunho sighs, but he gets up. "Not anymore. Let's do this."

"Atta boy."

Yunho grabs the chair as Jaejoong collects plates and utensils. When they emerge from the kitchen, his parents are already seated. "I was wondering where that chair went!" his dad exclaims.

Yunho blushes as he sets it down. For his sake, Jaejoong is grateful the vacant space is between his mom and the other empty seat.

"He was hanging out in the kitchen with me while I cooked," Jaejoong explains as he passes around chopsticks. He goes back and forth between the kitchen and the table for the side dishes and some cups, and the conversation continues on without him.

"Is this the first time you've had Jaejoongie's cooking, Yunho?" his mom asks politely.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're in for a treat, son," his dad says. "Our Jaejoong learned from tv shows and youtube videos. He knows what he's doing in the kitchen."

"Better than I do!" his mom compliments.

"I look forward to it," Yunho responds stiffly.

Jaejoong can't stand how awkward Yunho has become in front of his parents. It reminds him too much of that disastrous first date that started this whole situation in the first place. After so many hours spent in the presence of a charismatic and friendly Yunho, this reversion deeply unsettles him.

As soon as everything is placed, he slides into his seat and decisively addresses the elephant in the room. "So! As we know, I am tutoring Yunho in how to be a better boyfriend—"

Yunho's cry of "Jaejoong!" is ignored.

"—and these lessons manifest in dates. We're dating, but for practise. I am his practise boyfriend. Additionally, it has also come to my attention that it's important you know that this was my idea, but you raised me. It should come as no surprise to you."

It's for the better that Yunho's head is buried in his hands because Jaejoong's dad has a terrible poker face. His mom is a little more composed, but just barely.

"You can treat him like you do Sooyoung, though. It doesn't have to be weird."

"Jaejoong, this is so weird," Yunho despairs.

His mom lays a comforting hand on Yunho's shoulder, and Jaejoong could see the physical effort he puts into raising his head to face her, lest he be perceived as rudely ignoring her. He wonders about Yunho's parents, what they did to make a child that turned out like this, if Yunho's sister turned out the same way too.

"You may be his, erm, student, but this is good practise for Jaejoongie, too. He hasn't had a boyfriend before, you know," she comforts.

Jaejoong adopts an air of offense. "If he didn't happen to already know that, I would be quite offended you're disclosing that information to him."

"Come on, son. Look at how red the boy's face is. We're just trying to even the embarrassment playing field. Hey, Yunho, wanna see a photo album of Jaejoong's baby years?"

"Go ahead, show him. I'm an adorable freakin' baby."

"That won't be necessary, sir."

"In the spirit of your training, I invite you to call me 'Dad'."

"You can also call me 'Mom', if you'd like," his mom says with shy eagerness. She was the most excited to learn about the dating tutoring thing at first, and Jaejoong suspects it's because she has delusions about gaining a son-in-law from this whole experience.

Yunho throws him a stricken glance, and Jaejoong takes pity on him. "Now that we're one big family, let's eat. Yunho and I still have homework to do."

Everyone begins filling their own bowls with stew, and Jaejoong rolls his eyes when he notices Yunho's bowl is still half-empty when he begins eating. He gets the feeling this is another politeness/propriety thing, which is silly because they're all doing everything in their power to lower that barrier for him. Jaejoong fills Yunho's bowl with more food, ignoring his protests all the while.

When he looks up, he meets the discerning eyes of his mother, and he fights the blush that wants to paint over his cheeks. He isn't doing anything wrong.

His mom slides her attention from him to Yunho and tries to start another conversation. "So you're trying to learn how to be a better boyfriend, right? Who's the lucky girl that you're doing this all for?"

Jaejoong is ready to launch into an explanation of just how he coerced Yunho into this unusual arrangement, but his attention shifts to Yunho nodding with his hand over his mouth, rushing to finish chewing his food so he could respond. Jaejoong didn't realise there was an actual girl in mind, but he should have known. He really should have known.

"Her name is Kwon Boa."

Jaejoong spit-takes. "Kwon Boa?!"

"Jaejoong!"

He hurriedly wipes his face and the droplets on the table at his mother's admonishment, but his bewildered eyes never leave Yunho, who laughs. "I knew you'd react like that, which is why I never said anything."

"'Kwon Boa'?" his dad repeats. "Who's Kwon Boa?"

Jaejoong has to use every cell in his body to refrain from blurting out, 'A .'

He eyes Yunho again, reexamining him in light of this new information. Yunho has designs on the dance team captain, the one who has been drilling the musical theatre cast on her choreo, the most popular girl in school? He heard a rumour that the fellow second-year student had been scouted by all three of the big idol entertainment agencies and that she turned them all down so that she could graduate first. Their recruiters apparently still loiter at the gates of the school sometimes in case she happened to change her mind.

Mindful of how his parents are still waiting on an answer, aware Yunho is approximately four seconds away from fleeing, and deciding to indulge in his flair for the dramatics, he cryptically responds, "Let's just say Yunho has his work cut out for him."

The sun has set already by the time dinner ends, but Yunho assures his parents that he'll have no trouble getting home by himself. They offer to clean up the dinner table, leaving Jaejoong to walk Yunho out to his motorbike and say goodbye.

His driveway is illuminated by a couple of floodlights above the garage door, and it's enough to beat out the dimly lit suburban street.

"Thanks," Yunho says after a moment of the two of them just standing there in the twilight. "Not just for the food, but for all of dinner. I was so awkward, I know, but you really had my back in there."

Jaejoong snorts. "Dinner with my parents is not a battlefield… But it was a lesson. One you failed. Expect to repeat this module sometime in the future before you can graduate."

Yunho smiles at him amusedly, the apples of his cheeks even more pronounced by the glare of the lights. "Most people just say, 'We should hang out again.' No shticks or gimmicks required."

"Aw, but I love my shticks and gimmicks."

"I'm serious! I'll host. I'll even give you adequate notice before you meet my parents; five minutes should be enough time."

Jaejoong is too shocked to respond to the teasing. "You told them about practise-dating me? I didn't think you'd be okay with that… I didn't think they'd be okay with that."

Yunho only looks at him. "Um. I didn't."

"Then how am I supposed to meet them?" Jaejoong frets. "It's not like I can show up after you tell them you're inviting your girlfriend over."

"You can show up after I tell them I invited my friend over, can't you?"

Jaejoong blinks, steps back a bit so that the penumbra of the floodlights can hide his blush. "Right!" he says with a too loud, too high voice. "Right, yeah. That makes sense. That sounds fun. Send the DTL; I'll be there."

Yunho shakes his head with a fond smile, soon encumbered by the fit of his helmet. "See you at school, Jaejoong," he says with a salute.

Jaejoong waves soundlessly as Yunho drives off and tries to shake the ominous feeling that this really great evening is the beginning of the end for him.

A/N (4.12.2023): i"lL uPdAtE tWiCe A wEeK, it says. (In my defense, I was on vacation and had writer's block haha.) I fully intend on uploading the next one on Saturday, though!