When Sumire came to Yunho with a form stating that her school had an exchange programme in London and had begged for his consent for 4 days straight, he finally gave in when she started a one-man demonstration outside of Blitz building, shaming both herself (she didn’t really care) and Yunho (who cared very much for his image as the owner of the Blitz empire).

“She’s going to be without supervision for 9 days.” Yunho frowned as he added a number of spices into the soup he was making in one of the cooking studios in Blitz’s HQ, with Jaejoong plastered onto the elder’s back like a koala.

“There are teachers, Yunnie,” Jaejoong chuckled at Yunho’s words, “Sumire will be fine.”

“Like real,” Yunho rolled his eyes and stirred the soup.

Jaejoong laughed and started tickling Yunho’s sides to distract him from spacing out, only to earn an irritated grunt from the elder, “Why so deep in thought huh?”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Jaejoong pouted.

“Okay. Fine. I’m really confused right now.” Yunho admitted as he switched off the stove and proceeded towards the sink to wash his hands, dragging along Jaejoong who was still stubbornly latching onto him.

“About a certain girl?” Jaejoong switched positions and was now snuggled against his elder brother’s chest, purring contentedly as he rubbed his cheek against the soft fabric of Yunho’s shirt.

“Stop fantasizing that you’re stuffing your face in your wife's chest.” Yunho drawled.

“Damn you,” Jaejoong pried his claws off the elder.

Yunho simply chuckled and handed Jaejoong his portion of piping hot soup.

“I need ,” Jaejoong stated when he was half done with it. 

Yunho raised a brow but didn’t say anything.

“That damned monster at home is such a er, and speaking of which, don’t you ever feel the need to?” Jaejoong studied Yunho closely.

Yunho shook his head.

“Your mother sure screwed your head up real badly didn’t she?”

“Jaejoong.” Yunho warned the other with a deadly tone.

“Oh come on, she’s long gone.” Jaejoong leaned back in his chair while sighing dejectedly.

Yunho got up to clear the used bowls and utensils before proceeding towards the sink to wash them all, “On my first day of school, I saw the other kids get kisses and cuddles before their parents sent them off into class. And then reality struck me- that the exact reason why I had always felt a huge void somewhere deep within me. I got home that day and asked why she never did those things to me. And you know what she said?”

Jaejoong shook his head hesitantly, for he knew it was going to be something painful to absorb.

“She went, ‘I never knew you had such a craving for attention’. It literally felt like a hard slap to the face. My whole life, I worked hard so as not to disappoint her, or my Father, hoping that one day, she would at least smile at me. And so, to cope with feeling so abandoned and helpless, I trained myself to see those children as weaklings, I looked down on them for their over dependence on their parents, drilled this false mentality into my brain that affection was just a want and not a need, and that people could live without it.

“Then a few nights ago, I dreamt of something which I viewed in my entire life to be taboo.”

Jaejoong thought for a while, “Erm…my guess would be…a wet dream?” Yunho glared at Jaejoong, who gulped and corrected himself immediately, “A harmless skinship session?”

“Close enough,” Yunho sighed, “And I told Louise-”

“Who then educated you-”

“And I got-”

“Scarred for life.” Jaejoong finished with a grin. Yunho slapped high fives with the younger, who was now laughing like a maniac, “Oh Yunnie, you are such an adorable late bloomer.”

“Shut up.”

“So cuteeeeeeee,” Jaejoong pinched Yunho’s cheek and the elder swatted the beauty’s hand off with an annoyed look on his face, “So now what?”

“I’ve been acting abnormally.”

Jaejoong chuckled, “That’s normal. But Yunnie, you should deal with it.”

“How?” Yunho was done with the washing up so he tugged Jaejoong by the arm and they were now proceeding towards the lift lobby.

“A date, that’s all I’m asking of you.”

“You sound like you’re the one who wants to go out with me.”

“Oh shut up,” Jaejoong playfully slapped his back, “I’m a very faithful husband okay…”

Yunho simply shrugged and pressed for the lift.

“Go on a date with that girl in your dream.” Jaejoong turned and pleaded with the cutest pout he could muster. The younger knew his Yunnie could never say no to him when he’s pouting.

Yunho groaned, “You cheater. Fine.” Jaejoong did a weird looking victory dance by shaking his (pretty) bottom, “Did you gain weight? Your behind looks a bit-”

“WHAT!? YOU!” Jaejoong cornered Yunho and started slapping him as soon as they entered the lift.

“I’m going home now,” Young Mi announced as she got up and slung her satchel across her body, “I expect the website to be up by tomorrow morning so I can start uploading the articles.”

“Yes, mam.” Kyuhyun was slumped on the table while he worked on the finishing touches of Blitz’s magazine-blog, “Good night.”

Young Mi proceeded out of the department pressed for the lift and checked her watch: 9.43pm.

When the lift door opened, her eyes widened when she spotted Yunho on the floor of the elevator, his clothes and hair all messed up, with the y diva of an Editor in Chief, Jaejoong, straddling the elder. It was awkward to say the least as the two men stared wordlessly up at Young Mi, while she fidgeted uncomfortably on the spot while stuttering, “I’ll j-just wait for t-the next lift.”

“We’re just…fighting,” Yunho tried to get Jaejoong off him.

“O...Okay?” Young Mi plastered a weak smile on her face as she pressed the lift door open so the 2 could exit.

“I’m very much straight.” Yunho stated as soon as he got out of the lift.

“Right.” She replied awkwardly, leaving a very much amused Jaejoong laughing loudly to the elder’s response in the lift while he remained sitting on the floor.

“Epic fail, Yunnie” Jaejoong managed to utter in between his fits of maniacal laughter.

Yunho gave Jaejoong a staring down before looking back at Young Mi, “Let’s go on a date.”

“W-WHAT!? I mean, what?” Young Mi gasped with wide eyes.

“Tomorrownightafterworkokaybye.” And Yunho disappeared.

Young Mi turned back to look at Jaejoong, who was still sitting on the floor, clutching onto his poor aching stomach for laughing too much, “Did you have something to do with this?”

“You make it sound like I have done something wrong,” Jaejoong pouted sadly, though his eyes twinkled with mischief.

Young Mi shook her head while chuckling, “Not entirely. And are you getting out of the lift?”

“My legs are numb right now, so go down to the 20^th floor and carry me like a queen back into my office then you may journey back to your humble abode.” Jaejoong ordered.

“Yes, your majesty.” Young Mi gave a tired sigh.

“Where does Young Mi like to go?” Yunho asked when he was done replying a few emails from the Financial Department.

Kyuhyun looked up with a surprised expression on his face, “You mean on dates?”

Yunho cringed but nodded.

He laughed, “Somewhere not too fancy would be ideal.”

“Noted. Thanks.”

“You asking her out?”

“Asked.”

Kyuhyun laughed again, “Wow, I never knew this day would come.”

“Shut up.”

Yunho was restless the next day at work, constantly drumming his long fingers on the desk as he read though the documents on his table and spent most of his time walking around the building catching skiving employees along the corridors and in printing rooms.

Back on the 38^th floor’s department, the magazine-blog was finally up, garnering an immediate response from the online fashion reading community. Young Mi and Kyuhyun did a short and quiet celebration by drinking champagne at their desks, and it evolved into a binge drinking fest when Jaejoong gatecrashed their ‘party’ by sneaking in hard liquor and moved the venue into the his own office’s private toilet.

When the workday ended, Yunho returned to an empty office, and he silently celebrated the fact that he could escape from that ‘date’ he had with Young Mi. He then came to realise that she didn’t agree to it in the first place. He hurriedly packed his things and was about to leave when a wobbly Kyuhyun almost fell on him but didn’t because the elder had stepped aside so the webmaster’s face was greeted by the colourful carpet beneath their feet, followed by a beaming Young Mi, who told Yunho to wait up so she could pack her stuff and leave with him.

“So the date’s still on…” Yunho groaned inwardly and felt like as if his life had shortened by half.

“I’m done, let’s go!” Young Mi chirped and Yunho wanted to wipe that happiness off her face by firing her, but settled on humming wordlessly in response and they both left the office.

“Don’t ask me why I’m eating udon at a Korean family restaurant.” Yunho stated when they were done ordering their food.

“You miss Sumire.” Young Mi chuckled.

“A bit.” Yunho replied.

“You couldn’t really be bothered with this whole date thing right?” Young Mi looked at him.

Yunho shrugged, “You caught me.”

“That’s quite alright,” Young Mi smiled, “At least I’m getting free dinner.” Yunho faked a hurt look and the younger laughed, “So cute.”

“Shut up.”

Young Mi ended up talking the rest of the time while Yunho ate in silence. She mostly shared about her love for food and that she would love to learn how to cook someday, but that would probably be realised only after she retired from her job.

The drive after dinner was silent, as the both of them simply listened to the songs on the radio, and Yunho let out a soft sigh when Super Junior’s song came on air. Young Mi took a quick glance at Yunho and patted his shoulder comfortingly, “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“I really hope so.”

Young Mi thought that Yunho was going to drive her home after the meal so she was surprised when the car drove past the highway exit that led to her house. She turned to her left to ask, “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere beneficial for you.”

Young Mi smiled, “Looking forward to it.”

“Hope I don’t disappoint...” Yunho muttered.

The car pulled up into an almost empty driveway of a modern looking 5 storey building. The both of them got out and Yunho led the way towards the entrance, where he whipped out an access card from his back pocket and tapped it on the card reader on the sidewall so it granted them access into the building.

“Mom, we’re here!” Young Mi gasped rather loudly when that word of endearment came out of Yunho’s mouth and did her best to maintain her composure when an elegant looking lady popped her head out of one of the rooms and beamed when she saw the both of them.

“Yun!” The lady half ran towards Yunho excitedly and hugged him tightly.

Young Mi’s heart fluttered when Yunho genuinely smiled and hugged the woman back.

“You guys are here way before the stipulated time,” she broke the embrace and looked at Young Mi before extending a hand, “Hello, you can just address me as Mrs. Jung.”

‘So she’s Yunho’s step mom, which means she’s…’

“Jaejoong’s mom?” Young Mi smiled when she saw some resemblance in facial features between Blitz’s Editor in Chief and the lady before her.

“Yes, I am.” She grinned, “Is he giving you a hard time at work?”

“No, but I did kind of hurt my back yesterday when he demanded me to piggyback him back into his office.” Young Mi joked.

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Jung now had a concerned look on her face, “Yun, could you please tell Jaejoong to behave appropriately? I know he as been trying to treat the employees better, but-”

“Mom, Jaejoong’s already a saint these days.” Yunho replied.

“I know you always protect your Jaejae, but-”

“Mom, I’ll feedback to him. Don’t worry.” Yunho patted Mrs. Jung’s arm with a look of assurance on his face.

Young Mi chuckled at the cute exchange between the two of them. 

“Alright then, let’s get the class started.” Mrs. Jung spun on her heels and beckoned for the 2 of them to follow her.

“What class?” Young Mi looked up at Yunho.

“You’ll know soon enough,” Yunho replied.

The three of them entered a large cooking studio/classroom, and Young Mi marveled at all the cool and sleek looking kitchen equipments and sparkling clean stainless steel kitchen tops.

“We’re going to-” Young Mi gulped before continuing, “cook?”

Mrs. Jung laughed, “Not exactly. You just had dinner, so we’ll be making dessert.”

Young Mi beamed, “Oh, cool. And what will that be?”

“Ice cream.”

“But Mom,” Yunho whined, “Can’t we learn something new?”

Young Mi blushed and hid her blooming red face in her hands.

Gawd, who knew Yunho could whine so cutely.

“How about cheesecake ice-cream then?” Mrs. Jung suggested.

“You mean fusing a cheesecake and ice-cream together?” Young Mi somehow recovered, but still had a slight flush on her face.

Mrs. Jung nodded.

Yunho kept quiet so the ladies just safely assumed that he was going to go along with making that as well.

Mrs. Jung and Young Mi worked on the ice cream part first, so Yunho sat out during the first half of the creation process, making full use of his time by checking last minute emails on his iphone and studying the stock markets.

“Okay, Yun, you can join the bandwagon now,” Mrs. Jung gestured for her stepson to come over and Yunho kept his phone before proceeding to wash his hands.

“What flavour do you guys want this to be?” Mrs. Jung looked at the couple.

“You can choose,” Yunho pushed the decision to Young Mi, who bit her lip and chose raspberry.

“You’re in luck,” Mrs. Jung came over a minute later and brought a medium sized tub of the said fruits.

Yunho looked at all the ingredients on the table before them and thought for a while, “Mom, I know how to make this cheesecake ice-cream thing already.”

“I’ll just leave you two to finish up while I tidy and lock up the other classrooms,” Mrs. Jung winked at Yunho, who face palmed and muttered something about ‘like mother like son’.

Yunho turned back to Young Mi, who was done mashing up the raspberries in the stainless steel mixing bowl. He got the food processor ready and tossed the granola biscuits into it to be finely crushed.

“Add the butter in, please.” Yunho told Young Mi, and she grabbed the bowl of said ingredient and slowly added it into the processor. Yunho dumped the mixture into another mixing bowl and looked at Young Mi, “Would you like to do the honours?”

“How?”

“Mix it up further with your hands.”

“Okay, not a problem, I’ll mess it up real good.” Young Mi joked and Yunho simply shook his head while smiling to himself.

While she did that, Yunho used an electric beater to smoothly beat the cream cheese and sugar on the sidelines, before pouring then contents in with the previously made ice cream and combined them. “You done with that?” Yunho looked over at Young Mi, who was slightly perspiring from all the work done so far and nodded, “Good, throw about 80% of that in here together with the crushed raspberries.”

“Whoops,” Young Mi accidentally brushed against Yunho’s hands while pouring the ingredients in.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” she smiled sheepishly, swaying like a drunk-happy while standing beside the taller.

Yunho could only chuckle as he folded all the added contents in the bowl before him, “We can only eat this after midnight.”

Young Mi groaned, “Whattttttttttt?”

“It needs to set,” Yunho laughed as he transferred the finished dessert into the ice cream tub, used cling wrap to go around it a couple of times before placing it in the freezer.

“Argh, I’m hungry after all that manual labour, you know…” Young Mi hoisted herself onto the opposite kitchen table and slouched on top of it.

“I saw some other stuff in the fridge just now,” Yunho walked over and opened the gigantic door, “Ahh, there’s tiramisu.”

“Me wants some.”

“As your employer, I am ashamed of your poor grammar,” Yunho walked back with the container of sweet dessert and Young Mi could only chuckle to herself.

Yunho watched in amazement as Young Mi gobbled up half the tub that was placed in between them. She looked up and found him staring at her, “What? Something on my face?”

“I could lie and insist that is so and…”

“Kiss me?” Young Mi blushed while continuing hesitantly.

“Yeah, that.” Yunho was surprised he could still blatantly look into her eyes. He really was an old ert.  

“So…” She looked down, dipped her finger into the container and dapped a bit of the dessert on the side of , “Now do I have something on my face?”

“You cheater, but yes, you do now…” Yunho was hoping that he would somehow get excited from this, but sadly, he didn’t even feel his heart race, “Jung Yunho, you’re not human…”

“What?” Young Mi chuckled.

“Just having a ‘me’ moment,” Yunho replied, “That aside, I’m sorry for acting so strangely the last few days.”
 

“It’s okay.”

“That’s because I dreamt of you and that you confessed to me and then I suddenly kissed you like a madman.”

Young Mi used her hands to cover as she giggled and blushed hard, “Are you serious?”

“I know, I was so…afraid for the first time in my life.”

“Am I that disgusting in your eyes?” Young Mi pouted.

“It’s not you, it’s me.” Yunho admitted, “I’m the freak.”

“You’re no freak, Yunho, you’re just a late bloomer.”

“That’s what Jaejoong always says.”

“And are you going to continue being a tease and keep staring at me at such a close proximity?” Young Mi challenged.

“Someone’s getting her hopes up.” Yunho taunted.

“I’m this close to making the first move,” Young Mi confessed as she flushed harder.

“That wouldn’t be very considerate of me now, would it?” Yunho closed the distance and the kiss started as a simple caress of the lips before he leaned forward even more, capturing her soft petals with his own.

A few second later, Yunho broke the kiss and jumped off the tabletop as he had a hand over his heart.

“W-What?” Young Mi stammered with a flushed up face.

“HOLY , I FELT SOMETHING!” Yunho exclaimed.

Young Mi laughed at Yunho's outburst and waited with bated breath for him to continue.

“It felt like a jolt…” Yunho muttered.

“So now what?” Young Mi asked softly.

Yunho looked up at her, “Let’s start my recovery process by dating.”

She gaped at him, “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

Yunho gave her a small nod.

“I would appreciate it if you could act all coy and stuff, but what the hell- OF COURSE I'LL BE YOUR GIRL!” Young Mi got off the table and stepped towards him, “Do I get a hug?”

“Sure, why not.” Yunho embraced her tightly.

“Lovebirds, school’s officially closed for the day, now go be lovey-dovey elsewhere,” Mrs. Jung came into the classroom to spoil the moment.

“Mommmmm…” Yunho whined.

I FEEL LIKE A PROUD MOTHER RIGHT NOW, SHEDDING VIRTUAL TEARS AND ALL.

MY DEAR YUNNIE HAS GROWN UP.

COMMENTS PLEASE.