A/N I am so sorry about the previous chapter taking so long.... I had the whole day off, and was doing notes for my test next Tuesday, and I kept thinking that I'd update when I finished the notes only..... that took a little bit longer than I was expecting... again, I'm so so sorry. Also, thanks to everyone who reads my story, seeing that people are reading it, always makes my day when I'm woken up at 6am. I start grinning insanely, while I'm freezing and half-asleep on my way to uni. It makes everyday a good day to know you like the story. Plenty more to come!

- -

Jaejoong's boxes fell into his line of sight, splayed across the floor as they were. He figured the least he could do would be to move them into the boy's bedroom. He flipped open the lid of the first one, confirming it was the one containing all of Jaejoong's books, and he quickly walked it the few remaining metres into the other boy's room.

He knew the room was pretty small, so it was hard to find somewhere to put it that wouldn't affect the other boy too badly. It seemed it would have to go on the bed, in front of the room's door or in front of the wardrobe the way the room was currently arranged. Yunho cursed himself slightly at having placed the furniture in the room so haphazardly when he'd gotten it. It hadn't seemed important at the time, and so huge portions of the room were not being used.

Stupid long and narrow room.

He realised that the contents of that box didn't really have anywhere they could be placed that would be out of the way. Jaejoong really did need a bookshelf in here, or he would probably end up tripping over the box and hurting himself; he could be so clumsy!

Considering what he'd do about that, Yunho continued the move he'd started, returning to collect the second box. He snuck a peek at this one, spying the DVDs. Initially he went to move that into Jaejoong's room as well, figuring the other boy would want to keep all of his things together, but then he reconsidered it.

They were room mates for an indefinitely long period of time. Surely they could mix their movie collection up a little, just as the other boy had when he was living with Yoochun. Still, actually doing it felt like he was trespassing; didn't Jaejoong have the right to keep his things to himself, or something like that?

Round and round the thoughts went to the point where Yunho decided it would just be easier to put it off for a little bit. How long could a shower take anyway?

He picked up the last box, confirming it was the one with the clothes in it. Without too much fuss he quickly deposited that box on top of the one containing the books, hoping that the tower was now too tall for Jaejoong to trip over. It would now be big enough for him to run into though, he realised with a start of concern.

He waved off that concern, hoping Jaejoong could handle it himself. He already had two pressing tasks to attend to for the moment, and they surely must warrant more concern than a future possibility of Jaejoong injuring himself. He didn't mean to make it sound unimportant, but inevitably Jaejoong would probably end up hurting himself again; he wasn't exactly graceful, after all.

It was when he was tossing up between the two options that there was a loud knock on his front door. He had startled flashbacks to the night Jaejoong showed up only a few days ago. That had been at least a little bit less out-of-the-blue and he had a strange sense of foreboding as he approached the front door.

He looked through his little peep-hole and that strange, unsettled feeling dropped like a ten tonne weight in his stomach. Maybe if he backed away from the door, she would leave. Maybe she'd assume he wasn't home, like he'd managed to convince her of countless times before.

He attempted to back away slowly, hoping she wouldn't realise he'd ever been that close to her. “Let me in Oppa! I know you're in there!” she hollered, in that cutesy high-pitched squeak of hers. It made his ears ring slightly, whenever she got excited, like she was now. She was finally going to get to share a word with him for the first time in months.

He shivered slightly at the thought he'd been caught, the dull sound of the water running in the bathroom becoming indecipherable in the cacophony her echo created as it reverberated in the hallway. He could only guess what some of his neighbours were going to say to him later.

He opened the door slightly, knowing that if he didn't block the opening with his body she would try and stroll into his apartment. It was bad enough whenever he was made to see her with his parents; she wasn't going to invade his personal space as well.

Her eyes clouded for a moment in displeasure, but she quickly donned another smile, the glitter in her pale pink lipstick making her lips sparkle in the artificial light of the hallway. She had been pleased to see him. He'd only seen her without makeup a few times, and they were always ones where she didn't know he'd be there. Whenever she knew they were going to see one another she would doll herself up as best as she could, hoping to appeal to his masculine interest in her, to make him like her more.

It wouldn't work.

“Oppa! Why are you always so mean? Anyone would think you didn't like me.” she fake-pouted, hoping to incur guilt in him for treating her so badly. He wondered if it was her mother that had taught that to her as a young girl to help her try and win him over, or if it was an addition contributed by her many, simple-minded friends.

Although he had to give them credit, when it came to getting the guys they wanted, they were anything but simple in some of their tricks. He wasn't sure about the success rate of those schemes, but the fact that they had actually managed to devise plans that were occasionally complicated, surely must count as evidence that they were probably smarter than they let on. In a very select field of knowledge of course.

He couldn't stop the momentary flash of the other boy that popped into his mind. Not everyone needed to resort to such schemes to get people to fall in love with them.

Maybe he could count himself in that group too? He pondered vaguely, not in the least bit interested in whatever had brought the younger girl to his apartment.

“Would they really?” then why don't you? he stated, tone sounding slightly more wistful than he would have preferred. She tended to squeal whenever he did anything showing that he was deep or intelligent.

She managed to contain herself this time, but he could see the twitching of her facial muscles telling him he'd only narrowly avoided the reaction he'd expected.

“What do you want Seohyun?” he queried, bored. He really wanted her to leave as soon as possible; he had other things to attend to, and he didn't want to have to tolerate her anymore than he already did. It was bad enough that his parents had told her where he lived.

At least here he could decide when she was or was not welcome.

She pouted slightly at the cold response, having hoped that this time they could start to become closer. Yunho always treated her like she was a pest, he wanted to be rid of. “I just wanted to stop in and see my favourite oppa.” she stated sullenly.

“Well if that's all that you wanted, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave.” he informed her calmly.

“But why Oppa? This is your apartment and we're old friends, why can't I come in and chat for a while?” she demanded, pushing at his door slightly to try and open up enough of a gap that she would be able to slip through so that he would have to invite her in.

Yunho resisted the urge to laugh at the comment that they were old friends. They hadn't been friends ever, to the best of his recollection, and he would hardly call their relationship old. They had only known each other for about 5 years. “Actually, no. I'm sharing the apartment with someone, and they'd rather it if I didn't have any guests at this hour.” he began.

Seohyun looked appalled at his words. He supposed it was probably something to do with him saying he had a room mate. People as wealthy as them normally didn't have them, not that it really bothered Yunho. He wasn't doing it out of his own financial hardship, and as far as he was concerned, it was none of her business what was going on in his home.

“Oppa, people like us don't have room mates, what are you talking abou—” she began, pushing Yunho aside just enough to get a view into the apartment.

What neither Seohyun or Yunho had realised was that by this point Jaejoong had come out of the bathroom. Jaejoong who wasn't exactly famous for his forethought, and had, in true form, not realised that he had nothing to change into until he was already soaking wet and hopping out of the shower. Jaejoong, who had thus been forced to leave the bathroom, clad only in his towel.

Seohyun's eyes widened in disbelief. What was Yunho doing with a man in his apartment? Correction. What was Yunho doing with a very attractive man in his apartment?

Yunho couldn't exactly say he'd been expecting to see that when he turned to see what Seohyun had been eyeing. But he could see a good opportunity when one presented itself. Making no attempt to clarify the situation, he pushed her back slightly, so that she was no longer in the doorway, and shut the door, quickly locking it.

In her astonishment she didn't even bother trying to pound on his door to get him to come and let her back in.

He crowed with laughter at the thought of what her face looked like right at that moment, while he tried to erase the image of Jaejoong's torso from his mind. Maybe if he did, the burning anger in his belly would evaporate with it. He had a sneaking suspicion that anger might actually have been jealousy that someone else had gotten to see Jaejoong like that, but he reprimanded himself harshly for it. What right did he have to want to keep that image of Jaejoong all to himself. Besides it was no different than how the boy normally looked when he went to the pool or the beach anyway.

Even so, delighted to have gotten rid of Seohyun even for just a little while he raced over, enveloping Jaejoong in a loose hug round his waist, which made the older man gasp in horror. “Yah! Yunho! Get off of me!” he squeaked, trying his best to bat the other man away while still maintaining a firm hold on the towel.

“I'm sorry but that was the best thing you could have possibly done right at that moment. You saved me!” Yunho exclaimed joyously, twirling around the place childishly as he made his victory lap over to the TV.

Jaejoong rolled his eyes at Yunho not really sure about what he'd interrupted and not certain he wanted to find out anymore if he judged by Yunho's reaction. Ignoring the other male, he stalked into his room, endeavouring to quickly get changed into his pyjamas.

After changing into them he found himself oddly nervous as he made his way back out into the lounge room. Yunho hadn't seen his pyjamas since he was a teenager, and he could recall the bubbling nerves and excitement wondering whether Yunho would tell him he looked pretty in this pair or that pair. Those same nerves seemed to burst forth once again, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that he didn't care whether Yunho thought he looked pretty or not in his pyjamas.

That argument quickly died when he felt warmth spread throughout his middle as Yunho's eyes fell upon him when he walked back into the room. Over his shoulder, Yunho had given him a quick look; up and down, and then flashed a bright smile which seemed to radiate the message 'I approve'.

Settling on the floor beside the younger man, he noticed one of his three boxes perched beside him. “What are you doing?” he enquired, eager to get away from the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind.

“I was going to add your movies to the collection down here. Do you mind?” Yunho questioned, as though Jaejoong might feel personally slighted by having his DVDs added to a communal area.

He threw the younger boy a look that he hoped told him that he thought the implication made him sound stupid and petty. He couldn't be sure whether Yunho received the message, but the younger boy did start stacking his DVDs without another word.

Jaejoong quickly began helping, losing himself a little in the monotony of the routine. Before long his thoughts had drifted away from the ramble of what Yunho thought, and what he wanted Yunho to think, and that noisy young girl from the front door re-entered his focus.

“Who was that girl?” he questioned, neither realising nor caring that his question had broken the silence that had surrounded their work up to that point.

“Seohyun.” Yunho answered without really thinking about it. The name dragged up something in Jaejoong's mind that he couldn't quite recall, from not long before he and Yunho stopped being friends. A vague recollection of some girl and something about her liking Yunho came to mind after much struggle, but the thoughts were so wispy he couldn't be sure if they were even real.

“Who?” Jaejoong queried, wondering if Yunho could give him anything that would confirm who she was for him a little better. “Seohyun. Her parents were friends with my parents, remember? She was that girl who used to follow us around at their parties when we were younger.” Yunho explained.

“Oh yeah.” Jaejoong commented, the words sounding more familiar, but he still couldn't really place a face to the name. “What was she doing here?” he enquired, not recalling Yunho having been too fond of her back then. Had that changed in the last few years? Were they closer now?

“Nothing important.” Yunho answered, not wanting to have to think about her now that she wasn't around. It was bad enough that he had to acknowledge her existence as often as he did because of his parents. She wasn't going to invade his conversation with Jaejoong, in their own apartment as well.

Jaejoong didn't say anything else, and they relapsed into silence.

- -

It was only when Jaejoong retired to bed that evening that the days events truly sank in to him. He'd been gushing and blushing (at least internally) all day. Without even realising it, he'd reverted back to how he always was before.

He wanted to kick himself. He'd been too relaxed; too at ease. No wonder Yunho had stopped talking to him after Seohyun showed up. That was exactly the way he used to behave before. What was he thinking allowing himself to get so comfortable that he let that shine through once again?

If Yunho had already left him once before for opening up to him so easily, for relying on him so much, he would do the same thing again without a moment's hesitation. He'd clearly noticed Jaejoong's transformation into a strong man who could hold his own in any situation. It was that Jaejoong he had so readily welcomed back into his life.

Not the one who depended on him all the time, the one that wanted to be open and honest about every little thing. That wasn't what he wanted from Jaejoong. And the moment they started talking that's exactly what Jaejoong had become, once again!

He knew talking was a bad idea.

But by the same token he couldn't, not talk to Yunho either. The younger boy would become convinced that he'd done something wrong, and would set out to try and make him talk about whatever it was so that he could fix it.

He could only imagine the sort of reaction he would get if he informed him that he was doing it to try and make Yunho like him again.

But then the thought that he was indeed doing it to make Yunho liked him irritated him even more. He didn't want to be so desperate for the other boy's approval. It was that very concept that went straight to the core of why they'd stopped being friends in the first place, hadn't it?