A/N:

"speech"

'thoughts'

flashback

~dbsk~yunjae~aktf~dbsk~yunjae~aktf~dbsk~yunjae~aktf~dbsk~yunjae~aktf~dbsk~yunjae~aktf~dbsk~yunjae~aktf

“Hyung!”

“Jaejoong-ah!”

Upon the shout of his name, a male who was dressed fashionably with a trench coat over his slender form and a scarf around his equally pale slender neck, the bespectacled man named Jaejoong turns his head towards the direction of the shout.

“Changmin-ah!!”

With that, the man who had been waiting impatiently for his brother at the arrival terminal for the past hour, run towards his very much missed hyung who’s walking towards him.

When they are of touching distance, Changmin immediately engulf his beloved hyung in a long overdue bear hug.

“Hyung, you have no idea how much I missed you for these past 5 years.”

Despite upon contact, he felt Jaejoong tense up, he held on hoping that his hyung would just allow this once. He haven’t seen him in years let alone touch him. He smiles when he felt after a few moments, his hyung relax and even returns his hug.

“Me too Changmin-ah. And you’ve grown even taller. You’re even taller than me now.”

Releasing the hug, Changmin look down at his hyung and indeed he is a lot taller than his hyung now. If it was a few years ago, he would still be looking up at his hyung and not the other way round. His smile grew even wider when he saw his hyung's trademark aegyo pout.  ‘At least some things never change’, he thought to himself.

“Come on hyung. Mom is dying to see you. She’s at the terminal.” Eagerly dragging his hyung over to his mother who is waving with a few tears forming at the corners of her beautiful eyes.

Putting her hands around his white pale cheeks which has begun to flush upon contact, she smiles and said, “Jaejoong-ah, you’ve lost weight.”

Darting her eyes around his features and his body, she noticed with pain in her eyes of how much pain her eldest son must have endured while in the States.

“Ne~ um…umma.” It still feels awkward calling her that after all these years. After the untimely death of his own real mother.

“Come. The driver is waiting for us.”  Pulling Jaejoong by the wrist while flagging Changmin with her fingers to come along, towards the exit where their car with their driver was waiting.

“Hyung, I’ll help you with these.” Taking the trolley with his entire luggage away from him.

“Thanks Changmin”, replied Jaejoong while following behind his mother.

After loading all the luggages into the back of the car, all three of them got into the car with Changmin riding at the front with the driver.

Throughout the ride back to their home, the car was filled with conversation. Well, more like a one-sided conversation with Changmin firing off questions at 100mph about his hyung’s life in the states, with Jaejoong just smiling softly in nostalgia and nodding here and there and giving answers where appropriate. While this is going on, their mother just sat by the side of the car observing their eldest son.

While Changmin grew up to be an overly active and rambunctious young man, his brother grew up to be the complete opposite. Cool, quiet and mysterious were the few words to describe her eldest son. While putting on a smile, with a kind and polite manner, on the exterior, she can only imagine the kind of pain that must be going through behind those beautiful luminous doe eyes of his.

Sighing in her head, ‘well, who wouldn’t after going through the ordeal that he’s been through. ‘

She knew sending him to the States was both hers’ and her husband’s decision to help him overcome the tragedy that happened in Korea, but at the same time she can’t help but to blame herself that Jaejoong must get through all the pain by himself while sent to live in a foreign country all by himself.

‘Was it really for the best that we sent him away?’, she questioned herself. ‘Who can forget such a thing? Even I can’t.’

They thought that sending him away to a Western country, with their open and freer cultures, he himself would learn to loosen and open up himself. But after seeing him again after all these years apart, it’s like nothing ever changed. He is still the same quiet, shy boy that keeps everything to himself that left them after the tragedy.

Sighing once again to herself in her thoughts, she was startled when she feels a light pressure on her thigh. Looking down, she saw the white pale hand with long fingers of her son's on her thigh.

Looking up, her son flashed her a small smile.

“I’m fine, umma.”

She smiles softly back while placing her own dainty hands on top of his. 

It warms her heart to know despite the pain that he’s gone through or might still be going through, he still tries his hardest to comfort others.  The way he knows exactly what she must be thinking of makes her smile. The amount of empathy that this boy-now-turned-young man has is simply remarkable.  

‘At least I know deep inside that wall of his, somewhere, the old, kind and beautiful Jaejoong still exist. Some things will never change.'

“We’re home.”

And with that warm greeting from Changmin, they all knew that this could be the start of a new life or one where history may repeat itself, driving them to the point of no return with their already worn-out souls.

~TO BE CONTINUED~