“Shall we do it again?”

“Sure. From the top,” I answered Yoochun.

We were at his practice room at home practicing our songs for the wedding two days from now. No, neither of us was getting married. It was their president’s daughter’s wedding and I along with Yoochun were requested to sing at the beginning of the ceremony.

“Do you think we should play this slow on Friday?” I asked him.

“Well, I guess let’s just see how long the entourage would be. But as for the song while the bride is walking, let’s keep it at that pace. The president told me they would really be walking slow,” he ended with a low chuckle.

“Looks like the bride’s father will cause delay on the wedding,” I added and laughed, too.

We played our two songs for one last time then called it a day. Soon the day of the wedding came.

We will now begin the ceremony. Let us now give way for the groom, his groomsmen, the bridesmaids, and their sponsors. That would be the signal for me and Yoochun to play “Flying Petals”—we played it as a piano duet, and since only one grand piano was brought to the venue, it was indeed a piano duet on one piano.

And now, let’s welcome the bride. With that Yoochun’s hands left the piano while I started to play a new tune. Yoochun stood up, reached for a microphone, then after we nodded at each other, he started singing, “Can I Love You?”—as the bride, along with his father, walked along the isle to meet her groom.

[Uhm, you can search in Youtube Can I l Love You by Yurisangja :)]

It was such a beautiful sight. And it was made more perfect by Yoochun’s heart-felt rendition of the song, along with my impeccable piano playing, of course. Hey, we didn’t practice for nothing.

As the ceremony went on, Yoochun and I went to our respective seats—he, beside Junsu and Jaejoong who were also invited and were requested to sing later at the reception; and me, beside Jine who somehow convinced my uncle to take him along and has no part in the ceremony whatsoever.

Jine has declared himself, though only to me and himself, as my “sidekick in being a hero to Cassiopeia.” That is because after he learned about that unexpected dinner with Yunho, Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun and Junsu, he said he had an epiphany and I quote him, “Raya-ah, I think you are the one who will make happen the miracle that all their fans are hoping for. It doesn’t seem to fit your character but I think you can help make TVXQ one again. And I think you will really need help so let me give you the privilege of having my aid. I will be your sidekick. But don’t call me that.”

So he was there beside me at the wedding bugging me.

“Yah. Are you good friends with Yoochun now? You played and sang well together earlier. I can see you enjoyed your performance together,” Jine whispered to me.

“We get along just fine,” I briefly replied. But then decided to add, “He really is a musician.”

“So you think they could play well along with us? I’m thinking we should first try to collaborate with them. Then maybe later on JYJ and TVXQ could also work together.” There he goes again with his so called brilliant plans. Sometimes I wonder if Jine is actually a TVXQ fanboy, a closet Cassiopeia. I never dared ask.

Oblivious to us, my uncle heard Jine’s “plan” and decided to give it a try.

Three months later the whole Kpop world were shocked, and driven either ecstatic or anxious, for a network’s year-end concert announced that it will have to perform on their stage JYJ, Shinee and ShijieShou along with other artists. It would be the first stage that JYJ will share with SM artists.

In the midst of the chaos of all imaginable and un-imaginable response from the fans to that was the strengthened hope that finally there could be a bridge to re-unite the divided TVXQ members. I for one gained hope, too.

It was a Friday night and opposite to last time, Yoochun was the one in my practice room at home. He had just ended a call with Jaejoong.

“Hyung will be here in an hour. He’s still at his sister’s. Junsu can’t make it because he has theater pratice,” he explained to me while making his way back to my keyboard.

“I see. Jine will be here in a minute. I’m not quite sure about Haru,” I answered back at him while randomly strumming on my guitar. “Let’s just play some until they come.”

“Will we be able to hear if someone knocks at the door? Aren’t we only the ones here now?”

“Don’t worry about that. Jine knows the passcode to our door. Even Haru does,” I told him. “My aunt thought its good that they know since we have plenty of days like this.”

“They are really like a family to you, right?”

“Of course. They are dear brothers to me.” Then we simply fell silent. Yoochun must have remembered something—just a random guess. I didn’t felt pressured to speak up because I’ve gotten used to this silent moments with him. It wasn’t awkward anyway and we just let our instruments sound in our behalf.

I started to strum “Falling Slowly”...

Okay, I really wanted to do that. Since Yonghwa and Seohyun played it together on a TV show I’ve envied them so much I really wished (on every wishing well and shooting star I’ve seen, and even on every eyelash that gets plucked out of me) to someday get to play it with Yoochun. I was a fan remember? And Yoochun was my bias—though just for his musicality and nothing more.

I looked at him and saw him trying to recognize the tune with his hands finding the proper keys on the keyboard. Seconds later he’s already playing along with my strumming.

This is totally opposite of how it was in the movie—guy on guitar, girl on piano, supposedly. Well, I don’t care. To my surprise and, yes, joy (xD), Yoochun started singing the song. So there came also my chance to harmonize with him.

We were nearing the end of the song when I began to worry what I should say after the duet. Then somebody came in.

It was Jine, pouting, eyes glaring at me. Then he walked towards Yoochun. “Yah! Yoochun-ssi, how did you make her sing that song with you?”

I laughed. I think I should be good to Jine this time. He saved me from a possible awkward moment with Yoochun.

Yoochun looked surprised at both Jine’s question and my reaction.

Jine turned to grab the guitar from me, pulled me from my seat then pushed me to the keyboard. Yoochun quietly went out of the way. Then Jine demanded, “Sing that song again, with me.”

I laughed again.

“Stop laughing at me. That’s my favorite song and you’ve always refused to play it with me. You really can’t say no this time.”

“Okay, okay,” I just said then nodded at him to start on the guitar.

Jine broke into a very wide smile, as if I’ve given him his favorite flavor of ice cream cake. This time, however, it was Yoochun who laughed at Jine’s childishness.

So we sang and played. We were in the middle of the song when Haru came in with Jaejoong. Yoochun waved his hand at them. Haru and Jaejoong, in response, held up what seemed to be the food they brought. Jine saw that and instead of going through another instrumental and chorus, he proceeded to end the song immediately.

Yoochun, Haru and Jaejoong clapped their hands for us. Jine responded with, “Are those food? What did you guys brought?” And that just cracked us all up.

“Jine, you’re such a glutton,” Haru commented. He answered, “Yeah, yeah. I’m the king of food here.”

“Really now. You just get to say that now. Wait til Changmin hears about this,” I carelessly said between my laughter. Which was the only sound left as soon as I said Changmin’s name.

“Okay, let’s just play music. Hey, Jae, what was that song you said you wanted to share to me? Let’s hear it.” Haru never fails to amaze me in knowing what to do.

With that Jaejoong played on the piano, Haru got the guitar from Jine, who went to ransack the food. Yoochun and I listened along. This was how it has been for the next months—we became close with JYJ. Aside from the random jamming that we do, we also get to barge into one another’s dressing room when we get to the same shows.

My uncle never said a word to me how all these were happening and I never dared to ask him—not even our manager or our president, for that matter.

Fans and media people, of course, wondered about this new “friendship” between JYJ and SM’s ShijieShou. Pictures, videos, random articles on the internet brought up and expressed various speculations, including ones which made me gain a bit more anti-fans. We, JYJ, ShijieShou and our respective companies, simply stayed silent about it.