A:N/ No!!!!!!! After hanging around sick people for days (and in one case weeks) on end, it's finally happened.....I got sick too! Ugh my head hurts.....and my throat.... And I've still got 1 week to go until exam prep....I have awful luck.....

- -

Yunho knew that his idea to go on a short holiday with Jaejoong had been stupid and irresponsible. He knew that it wouldn't change anything that was going so horribly in his life. He knew it more than likely wouldn't fix the distance he could feel forming between Jaejoong and himself. He was sneaking off in the middle of the night all the time, and he knew Jaejoong had seen the marks Hiyeon had left on his skin at least once.

He had his suspicions that his secret relationship with Hiyeon; his being her little toy, to call upon whenever she chose, was the cause of that distance between them. He knew it, and yet there was nothing he could do about it. He was doing this to protect Changmin, and until he moved out of his parents’ home, he was still in need of that protection.

Telling Jaejoong would only have made Yunho feel embarrassed. Jaejoong would have been embarrassed for him, and tried telling him to stop, but he couldn't do that. Or, if he accepted that Yunho still needed to do this, he could only send him piteous looks, which would serve no purpose.

The fact was that he was still being intimate with someone else. He couldn't ever have the one he wanted, for as long as that was the case. Even after it was all over, he wouldn't be able to have Jaejoong. He'd been like this for so long. For years, he'd had to have with someone he didn't love. Someone like him didn't deserve to get someone like Jaejoong, at the end of it all.

When he was younger he'd feared betraying Jaejoong. Of starting something with the older boy who clearly adored him, when he couldn't be sure of his own feelings. He'd gotten so messed up back then; he'd started acting out, but he'd come so close to dragging Jaejoong into it too. When everything he was doing back then meant nothing to him, he couldn't be sure why he was doing what he did to Jaejoong. But the younger boy would have loved him. A situation like that could only have hurt him. But now, he wasn't that confused teenage boy, growing up far too quickly. Now he knew what he felt, but those years had left their mark. After all that he'd done, and everything he'd nearly done, he just plain didn't deserve Jaejoong anymore; he wasn't worthy of him.

His thinking that their little holiday could change any of that had been foolish.

Particularly when they'd run into Mrs Park there. She'd caused him so much trouble already, but her arrival only added to the tension between him and Jaejoong during their holiday. As if Junsu continuing to bug them until the day they left wasn't bad enough. The only relief, he could find was the knowledge that she hadn't followed them; that she hadn't hunted him down. That it was pure coincidence that she'd ended up there.

At least that gave him hope for his independence in the future.

The two of them had been so distant lately, that he was very concerned when Changmin informed him that both he and Jaejoong needed to attend a dinner at his parents place. They couldn't have chosen a worse time to need the two of them to act like a couple, than right now. After all that had taken place on that holiday.

He wasn't the least bit sure of how Jaejoong would take the news, but he'd only smiled, telling him that it would be fine.

How he hoped it wasn't a lie.

- -

Jaejoong breathed a deep, nervous sigh as he checked his clothing, in the mirror for what had to be the fifth time by now. He hadn't seen Yunho's parents since he was a kid, and it had never been under the guise of them being in a relationship together.

He just knew he shouldn't expect to see a single friendly face at this dinner.

Except for Yunho of course. And perhaps his brother, Changmin.

Just thinking of his name was enough to pull a sigh from his lips. He'd been going crazy ever since he saw the mark in the pool. He tried to say he was okay with it all, but he was starting to realise just how selfishly possessive he was becoming over Yunho. It wasn't enough for them to be around one another anymore; he had to be his, and the fact that he wasn't made him ache.

He tried to be friendly, but he had to make sure to maintain a certain distance between them, lest his fingers start wandering a little too far, to try and reassure himself that he was as entitled to Yunho's body as his imaginary girlfriend. He didn't know what would happen if he were met with Yunho's opposition to such an act.

The only way to prevent him having to bite off his own fingers, had been to drag Junsu around with them for the rest of their holiday. He'd told the younger male about his observations, and wailed about the inequality of life, but there had been this knowing glimmer to his eye, as he tried to calm his cousin down. He'd seemed so certain, even after this additional evidence that Yunho was madly in love with him.

How hard would it have been to take his side in the matter, honestly?

The traces of jealousy he could feel rolling off of Yunho in waves had been both his only reassurance that the other man still cared as of late, and the fuel to his desire to try and stake a claim on the younger male once and for all.

At least he wouldn't need help acting like he loved Yunho that evening.