Jaejoong woke uncharacteristically early.  The first thing he noticed was that Yoochun wasn’t in his bed.  Hopefully he would find this soul mate passed out in the living room.  But first he wanted to check on Yunho. 

Across the hall he cautiously opened the door just enough to peer in to find a body on the bed belonging to the leader.  He breathed a sigh of relief before heading to the kitchen.  It felt like an omurice morning.  However, breakfast would have to wait seeing that Yoochun wasn’t where he was expected.

“Omo, audi?”  There was only one place he could be and that was upstairs.  Supposedly their workspace had been installed yesterday.  Perhaps Chunnie had discovered the PlayStation and had Zelda’d himself to death – or fallen asleep and crashed his Mario Cart.  With that boy anything was possible.

He found the sleeping man in the farthest of rooms.  At first he was surprised to see Yunho’s jacket around Yoochun’s shoulders, but then realized that the leader would have checked on all of them when he returned home.  Waking Chun would have been as impossible then as it was now.

“Yoochun, wake up!”  Jaejoong shouted close to his ear. 

Chun swatted at what he thought was apparently a pesky bug in the room.

The elder gave up instantly.  There was no sense fighting with a stubborn mule.  Instead he took a peek at what his mate had been working on, seeing how it wasn’t video game related.

Upon first examination the notes showed promise.  There was a rhyme and reason to the haphazard scribbles all over the page.  Once Jaejoong made sense of it all, he erupted into a fit of giggles. The back of his hand covered his mouth as he tried to contain himself.  It wasn’t helping.  The more he thought about Yoochun’s concept, the harder he laughed.  It got to a point where he was on the floor howling and holding his stomach.

That was enough to cause the sleeping bear to wake.  Yoochun lifted his head, groaning at his stiff neck and shoulders.  He opened an eye and saw Jaejoong writhing on the floor.  Is he laughing or crying? Oh, did something bad happen with Yunho?  Stumbling to his feet, Yoochun approached Jaejoong, hoping to soothe the man.  But as he got closer, he realized it was a fit of hysterics of the laughing kind.

“What’s so funny?”

“You!”

Yoochun wiped the drool from his arm.  “Ha ha, I’m so funny.”  He swatted at the elder man.

“Yah!”  Jaejoong deflected his jabs.

“Stop laughing and make me some breakfast.”

Jaejoong’s eyes widened in fear.  “You sound just like Changmin.”

Now it was Chun’s turn to laugh.  “I’m going to wake him up!”  He ran out of the room with Jaejoong on his heels.

“Wait!  If you barge in, you’ll wake Yunho.”

Yoochun skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.  “He’s home?”

“Neh,” Jaejoong guided his dongsaeng by the shoulders to the bathroom.  “Grab your shower now before you fall back to sleep.”

“Arrasso,” Yoochun let himself be pushed down the hall.

“Hyung?”

“Mwo?”

“How does he look?”

Jaejoong thought about it for a few minutes.  “Uh, like Quasimodo!”

The hall was now filled with laughter.  Changmin wasn’t even the least bit annoyed by it as he exited his room.  What did irk him was the fact that his hyungs were blocking his progress towards the bathroom.

“Uh oh,” Yoochun stopped laughing as he was pushed aside.

“Yah, show some respect to your hyungs!”

“Yah, give some respect to my bladder,” the evil maknae called out over his shoulder.  He slammed the door in their faces.

About an hour later Jaejoong had managed to whip up a scrumptious breakfast and everyone but Yunho was awake and ready to head off for rehearsals.  After last night’s events, they were pretty sure their leader earned a pass on the morning part of the schedule at the very least. 

At seven sharp the manager arrived to chauffeur them off.  He looked like hell, but nobody was going to say it out loud.  As it was, Yoochun and Junsu had spent way too much time in contact lenses without sleep. Puffy faces and dark circles under their eyes were abundant.  The only person who actually seemed unaffected by it all was Changmin, who played smug through breakfast. 

“Did anybody actually speak with Yunho when he came home,” Jaejoong asked once they were all settled in the van.

“He was exhausted,” Junsu admitted.  “But he took a look at what I was working on, helped me clean up, and then went to bed.”

“Good thing he didn’t see what Chunnie was doing.”

Yoochun swatted Jaejoong playfully.

“So that’s why you both look like raccoons this morning,” Min said casually.

Yunho was not there to save him from the clawing hands that threatened to touch him until he submitted.

“Yah!”

The fierceness in the maknae’s actions and voice scared the others into stopping their onslaught.

“You’ve gotten scarier.”  Junsu put Yoochun between himself and the youngest member.

“I’ve had a lot of time to practice.  You guys left.  When you live in Yunho-hyung’s shadow, you either step up or fade away.  There was no way I was going to let him have all the glory.”

“You wouldn’t be talking like that if he was here,” Jaejoong pointed out.

“Ani.…”

“It was your choice to stick by him,” Yoochun added.

“You could have just as easily come with us,” Junsu needed to add his voice.

“Yeah, look how easy it was for you three.”

“It wasn’t easier for the two of you, either.”

Changmin stared out the window letting the conversation die there.  He and Yunho had decided long ago that there was no sense arguing a moot point.  What was done was done.  No amount of ‘what ifs’ or regrets would change it.

“Mianhae,” Junsu put a reassuring hand on Changmin’s shoulder. 

“Waeyo,” the maknae shrugged it off

“Because we never thought it would end the way it did….”

Changmin continued to ignore the topic and stared out the window.

They arrived at rehearsals, but it didn’t feel right with their leader’s absence.  Even thought there was now a small staff of people working in the other rooms, there was an ‘aloneness’ the four of them felt – as if somehow the rest of the people belonged to an ‘otherness’ that precluded them.

“I should have brought what I was working on last night,” Yoochun grumbled as he started stretching.  “I don’t feel much like moving around.”

“That’s what you—“

“Shut up, Min!”  Jaejoong was surly all of the sudden.  “So what if they stayed up and worked.  All you did was sleep.”

Changmin pasted a frown on his face.  “You slept too.”

“Not well…”

“Come off it, hyung—“

“How could you just ignore the fact that Yunho was injured?  He’s taken care of you—“

Changmin didn’t give Jaejoong a chance to finish.  He stood up abruptly and walked out of the room.

“What was that about?” Junsu was thinking he somehow missed something.

“I don’t like that he’s picking on you and Chunnie.”

“He does that all the time,” Junsu argued in Changmin’s defense.

“He needs to grow up and show some respect.  We’re not kids.”

“Hyung, neither one of us is insulted by him.  He’s just being himself.”  Yoochun stepped in to placate Jaejoong.  “I know you’re bothered by something; otherwise, you wouldn’t have been so rough on him.”

“Nothing’s bothering me,” Jaejoong retorted.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Yoochun patted his back.

“If you’re worried about Yunho, hyung, he’s going to be fine,” Junsu reassured him.

Jaejoong hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he was disappointed with Changmin.  If he could rest easy last night in the face of adverse events, how many other times had he not cared about Yunho when he might have been needed?
 

Changmin found a dead-end corridor and sat in the farthest corner.  He wrapped his arms around his shins and laid his chin on his knees.  He could feel himself pouting but just didn’t care.  Jaejoong was in a pissy mood, and he wanted no part of it.

A dark shadow appeared before him, and Changmin was almost certain it was one of them coming to apologize.  He nearly headed off the person with his own tirade when he suddenly realized it wasn’t anybody he knew personally.

“Kwenchanayo?”  Baek Chang Joo inquired casually.

Changmin glared up at him from under his brow.  “Neh,” it came out as a growl.

Chang Joo was unsure how to proceed.  “I saw you storm past where I was working.  I thought you might need something.”

“Kwenchana.  I just need some space.”

“Then I won’t bother you except to ask:  Is Yunho okay?”

“He seems to be.  I haven’t really talked to him.  I wanted to let him sleep.”

“That makes sense.  Let us know if anything is needed.  I’ll be going.”

Changmin watched JYJ’s version of Lee Soo Man walk away.  He wasn’t sure if he was glad the producer was concerned for the two members of TVXQ or if he should be suspicious. Damned Jaejoong for bringing up the past.

He had a choice – he could go back to the rehearsal room and do what he was expected to do, or he could stay in the hall and ponder other peoples’ motives. Only one of these options made sense.  He just hoped the eldest member had moved onto working instead of trying to lead.

Yunho had been able to get a few hours of sleep.  He woke to a house that was eerily quiet. It was almost as if he had been transported to another dimension.  Living with four other men, even when they were asleep, didn’t add up to this much silence.

He dragged himself out of bed, firstly to prove to himself that indeed he was somewhere familiar, but merely home along; and secondly, to relieve and replenish himself.  Hopefully Joongie has left me some breakfast. He was decidedly hungry.  Once he tended to his needs, he would call for a ride to rehearsals and join his brothers.

Fresh out of the shower, Yunho was greeted by a ringing phone.  He answered the emergency cell, knowing full well it could only be Lee Soo Man.

“Yeoboseyo?”  He listed for a few moments.  “Neh, kwenchana.  If you – ani.  I can.  Wae?  Arrasso.”

Within a matter of moments the decision was made for him.  He was to stay home and rest.  Tomorrow was another day.

But everyone knew the leader couldn’t sit still.  He was and always had been hyperactive.  Lounging around wasn’t his style.  The only thing he could do was snoop into Junsu’s project.  It was still rolled up where he left it.

Once the chart was taped down to the table, Yunho felt a little guilty.  He had no intention of doing much more than looking it over and perhaps critiquing what he saw.  But Junsu’s concepts were intriguing.  A smile stretched across his lips.  He really liked what he saw.  Any misgivings Yunho could have could possibly had about this tour were slowly being dispelled.