As proof of what Jaejoong is choosing to call growth, the next time he hears from Yunho again, it doesn't make him regret all of his life choices and want to start over as a cat café part-time employee in Japan.

Hello, Jaejoong. I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out because Boa wants to meet my best friend. Believe it or not, that's you. Sorry you have to find out this way. Do you think the three of us could grab lunch this weekend? On me, of course. Whether or not you can make it, please let me know. Take care, Yunho

Jaejoong snickers when Sooyoung finishes reading aloud. "Doesn't it read like an email between coworkers, not a teenager asking another teenager to hang out," he jibes as he opens and closes drawers in her room out of boredom.

"Apparently, though, the pleasure-to-have-in-class with undiagnosed anxiety is your type."

"Shut up!" He grabs a random shirt to throw at Sooyoung, who laughs as she bats it out of the air. "My type is guys with duality."

"Yunho has duality! His defense mechanisms are conformance to social etiquette and hand-to-hand combat."

He can't even meet her deadpan gaze for three seconds before they both burst into laughter. Maybe for other people it would be weird to share an ex with your best friend, but for the two of them it just gives them a new inside joke to add to their banter repertoire.

"So are you gonna go?" she asks once she has the air to spare.

Jaejoong keeps his arms loose and flops them around like a child who doesn't want to do what he's told. "I don't want to. It's only barely gotten easier to see them together at school. How am I supposed to spend an entire meal around them? And she knows us, too; she'll want to know how we met! I can't just tell her I taught him how to date so that he could be a better boyfriend to her… But on the other hand, if he's asking me, that means the hapkido team isn't an option; and it's not like Yunho has other friends. He's too busy dating anyone who'll ask to form genuine connections with people," he grouses.

"I can see you've really gotten over the whole falling-for-the-fake-boyfriend dilemma. I'm proud of you."

He sends her a withering look, and she responds with an air kiss.

"What would you do, Soo?"

"Honestly, under normal circumstances, I'd go just to see whether the new girl is a downgrade," she says frankly, "but we already know Boa."

"For your sake, I'll call her a downgrade."

"Yours, too." They share another laugh, neither of them under any delusions about where they rank compared to Kwon Boa.

"I think I know how you can answer the best friend origin story, though," Sooyoung continues. "You both know me. You could say you guys met while he and I were dating, and you got along well enough to keep being friends even after we broke up."

Her words remind Jaejoong of something. "Oh my god, wait. While you two were dating, you mentioned me, right? Like, in the context of being your best friend."

"Of course! Maybe even every day."

"You know he didn't even recognise my name that first time in Lotteria?" he recounts incredulously.

She almost falls over laughing. "You're kidding! Was that the first lesson you taught him? 'Pay attention to the supporting characters in your girlfriend's life story'?"

"No, but it was on the list!"

"The list that you never referred to ever again, that list?"

Jaejoong doesn't deign that with a response and instead gestures to his phone still in her hands. "It's probably still in my notes app."

Her eyes light up, but before she can scour for their comedic content this afternoon, his phone buzzes with another message from Yunho.

Or we could do Friday after school, the park by the Lotteria? Hopefully you'll be more inclined to attend if it doesn't cut into your weekend

"It's like he's in a competition to see who can be the most considerate teenager in South Korea, and the only one he's running against is himself," Sooyoung muses after they read it.

Jaejoong flops his whole body onto the bed next to her and groans. "Tell him I'll be there."

"Really?"

"Really. At this point in their relationship, it'll be weird if she and the best friend don't meet." He rolls onto his stomach and tries to imagine a world where his life wasn't ironic and complicated.

"Well, he's just asking for a favour, but you don't owe him anything. Who cares if it's weird?"

She's right, of course. He knows it'll be easier for basically everyone involved if he denies Yunho's request the same way he's been denying the other all along, but the thing about choosing acting as a hobby is the acute understanding of one's role in a narrative. In this story, he has been cast as Yunho's tutor-turned-best friend, and the call to fulfillment is stronger than his self-preservation. Besides, maybe this can be good for him. If he can survive one lunch as Yunho's friend and nothing more, it bodes well for being able to move on.

He thinks about trying to articulate all this to Sooyoung, but he knows she's in drama club for the thrill of a live performance, not for the joy of bringing a story to life. Not in the mood to explain, he mumbles "Whatever" into his crossed arms.

After a moment, she pokes his spine. "You're being so mopey. Here, this will make you feel better."

He s behind him aimlessly for whatever she wants him to see, and she gives him his phone back. When he looks at the screen, he sees his chat with Yunho open.

he can be your best friend, but i'm his! 😚✌️ but lol yeah he'll be there on fri

Below that is a picture of Sooyoung recreating the same emoji pose in front of his prone body lying face down on her floral bedspread.

"YAH! CHOI SOOYOUNG!"

Jaejoong waits at the park entrance closest to Lotteria internally chanting a litany of reminders.

He will do this as a show of support for Yunho's relationship. He will be charming and cool, and Boa will never suspect he's in love with her boyfriend. He will not look Jung Yunho in the eye so as to protect these goals.

"Hey."

So much for that last one.

"Yunho. Hey. Where's Boa?" He makes it a point to look around, mostly because he needs any excuse to stop making eye contact, but also due to misplaced hope that the act of searching will make her appear sooner. He wasn't expecting them to come separately, but this is fine. He can roll with the punches. They practise improv in drama club.

The other fidgets in a way that forebodes Jaejoong is not going to like what he hears next. "Um, she's not coming."

"What?"

He at least looks Jaejoong in the eyes when he admits, "I lied about that to get you out here. It's been hard to see you alone lately, and I really needed to talk to you."

Jaejoong won't deny that. As much as he wants to be offended at the duplicity, it is effective. "Well, I'm here."

Yunho nods but doesn't begin any of the talking he claimed he needed to do. Instead, he fidgets some more, which makes Jaejoong fidget too. He lied about practising improv in drama club. He at improv.

"Can we walk?" Yunho speaks up eventually, gesturing to the walking path with jerky movements. Jaejoong nods simply because saying yes to everything is actually one of the few improvisational tenets he internalised, and now he's having difficulty decoupling this interaction from an acting exercise. All he can do is follow Yunho's lead.

They make it half a loop before Yunho says, "I need one more lesson."

Jaejoong's step falters. Is he serious? "Um, no you don't. You graduated. You've been graduated for almost a month now."

Yunho faces forward on their path ahead, but Jaejoong hasn't spent five weeks avoiding him to not know when Yunho's attention is on him. "You taught me how to start a relationship and keep it going, but not how to end one."

"What?" He does fully stop this time, and Yunho is still right beside him, still facing forward. Jaejoong watches his adam's apple bob, and he understands that he is not misunderstanding. "I get you dating the hottest piece in school, and you want to break up with her?! What the are your standards that even Kwon Boa cannot meet them?" He is genuinely so flabbergasted and, if he's honest with himself, kind of heartbroken all over again. If Boa can't keep Yunho, no one can.

Yunho looks down, as if to think, and Jaejoong is already unimpressed with whatever he comes up with. "Her cooking isn't the greatest."

Jaejoong snorts. "I'm pretty sure Sooyoung told you to get over that."

"And you?" Yunho faces him full-on, and it's Jaejoong's turn to look away. "What do you think?"

He tsks. "If it bothers you so much, ask her to get cooking lessons. You could take them together, even; heaven knows you need it." On the surface, it's an insult. One layer below that, it still is; but on the layer below that, there's jealousy. That would be a really cute date idea, actually, and he hates that he is still in a position where he cannot refuse to give Yunho relationship advice.

"And what about the fact that none of her jokes make me laugh later when I think about them?"

"Sounds like you should learn to appreciate your girlfriend's sense of humour," he gets out through gritted teeth.

"There's nothing about her I feel the need to learn," Yunho presses.

That's it. Jaejoong whirls on Yunho, full of hurt feelings and frustration and weeks' worth of angst. "Maybe that's because you're actually a ty boyfriend, and all the lessons in the world wouldn't fix that for you!"

As soon as he does it, he wishes he didn't. He's ed up.

He's fully face to face with Yunho now, looking him in the eyes despite how Jaejoong told himself he wouldn't, and he can't look away. He hasn't seen Yunho this close in ages; he hasn't allowed himself to be the sole focus of Yunho's attention in just as long. He has always known the other to be conventionally attractive, but like this—eyes tracking Jaejoong's every move, jaw clenched with bitten-back words, uniform sleeves rolled up to his elbows—he just may be the most heartrending image Jaejoong's ever seen.

He is so enraptured by the sight that when Yunho comes closer, he doesn't back away. His eyes widen, not with fear but with the need to take more of him in. This close, he catches a whiff of Yunho's cologne, something sweet yet grounded.

"She isn't brazen enough."

Yunho's voice breaks his daze, and he stumbles back to put some distance between them. "Huh?"

He takes just one step closer, not close enough to make Jaejoong panic but simply to reclaim some measure of closeness. "She would never walk right up to a stranger, insult his interpersonal skills, and force him to let her fix him."

The entire world goes silent at once, or maybe Jaejoong can't hear anymore. Maybe Yunho's clear, implicating words were so loud that he actually blew out Jaejoong's eardrums. Maybe this is all a dream—because no way.

There is absolutely no ing way Yunho is saying what Jaejoong thinks he's saying. He refuses to entertain the thought.

He turns on his heel and stalks away.

"Jaejoong, she isn't you!" Yunho exclaims as he catches up.

Jaejoong picks up his pace. "Shut up."

"I want to date you again."

"You don't know what you want."

"I think I've fallen in love with you—"

"—Do you even know what love is?!—"

"—and if I think about it some more, I think you've been avoiding me because you've fallen for me too."

"You should stop thinking!" Jaejoong stops and yells towards the ground. His legs twitch with the need to run away, but he won't even try to outrun Yunho.

He jerks away from Yunho's tentative touch on his clenched hands, and he refuses to feel anything but contempt for the pleading painted all over the other's face. He needs to end this, now. "You want a lesson in how to end relationships? Fine, watch closely. You and I? We're over. We were never anything to start with. You don't love me, you just miss me because apparently Boa isn't what you thought you wanted and it was easier with me, but guess what? Whatever we had together was a lie, and we're both stupid for believing in it. Don't go back to Boa if you don't want to, Yunho, but there's nothing left for you here."

Jaejoong expects a stricken look for his caustic comments, hopes for resignment or acceptance, but full-on amusement? It's so out of place that he has to comment on it. "What's that look for?" he bites out.

Yunho's smirk doesn't leave his face as he walks up to Jaejoong, invading his space and not letting up even once Jaejoong backpedals off the pavement and onto the grass. "Yunho, stop it," he demands once he's up against a tree.

"No."

Jaejoong does a doubletake. "'No'?! What do you mean, 'No'?" He didn't think Yunho even knew that word.

"No, I'm not going to stop. No, we're not over."

In any other context, the heat in Yunho's eyes and the confidence in his words would be Jaejoong's ultimate undoing, but he hasn't been able to take a single thing Yunho has said in the last ten minutes seriously. "Now is when you choose to assert yourself? You couldn't have done it months ago when I was cornering you in the Backstreet?"

Yunho shrugs, unaffected and self-assured. "I didn't have anything worth fighting for back then."

"You have nothing worth fighting for now," Jaejoong maintains, straightened posture and narrowed eyes.

His heart is beating so fast. There's sweat beading where his hairline meets his neck. His breathing is too loud. Yunho's is too, or maybe he can just tell because their noses are too close together. His body is so tense it aches, ready as he is to react as soon as the other makes his next move.

"I've won harder matches with worse odds," and then Yunho deals his killing blow.

All of the air escapes Jaejoong's body in a single breath.

His eyes fall shut; he completely loses awareness.

The entire world falls away until there is nothing left but the feeling of Yunho's lips on his.

A/N (4.26.2023): I gotta admit, this chapter is weird for me. I don't normally let the characters kiss lol.

Consistent readers may notice the naming convention of the chapters have changed in order to provide a little bit of a timeline to the story. Hopefully you find it helpful! Thanks to everyone who is reading, and even bigger thanks to those who are commenting. ❤