I, I love it when you give me things
and you, you oughta give me wedding rings

-- Peter Gabriel, The Book of Love

 i. trust

She’s dancing her heart out on that stage. She sees him from the corner of her eye and moves closer. She spins and in a rare moment of distraction, she slips, but Jaejoong catches her without even a moment of hesitation. His arms are strong as they steady her. He’s there for her just as she knows he always will be.

"You can't just throw yourself at me, BoA," he laughs.

But the thing is, she can. There is so much history between them, such longevity in their relationship – she trusts Jaejoong more than anyone.

He would never let her fall.

ii. flowers

The first thing he ever gives her is a single orchid, a beautiful pale purple bleeding into white, handed over to her after their first-ever performance together.

"Here, BoA," he says, almost shy but mostly grinning, when he gives her that orchid.

Her cheeks, already pink from excitement at having the opportunity to perform for Britney Spears, feel even warmer. "Thanks," she whispers.

It becomes tradition, for the first couple years, flowers from him after every significant performance. When they get a little older she tells him to stop, and after some insistence he does, but not entirely. Occasionally when shes travelling, performing, she'll walk into her hotel room and find flowers waiting for her there. After BoA’s knee surgery – the one that could have potentially ended her career – Jaejoong presses a soft kiss to her cheek before handing her a beautiful bouquet of pink roses.

And when she realizes her dreams and debuts in the US, he gives her a single orchid.

iii. laughter

He makes her laugh in a way that must be good for the soul, in a way that conditions her to smile every time she sees him, in a way that lights up her whole world, has her wondering what it was like before she had Jaejoong, because for the life of her she can't remember.

Jaejoong lifts her up – figuratively, literally, all of it. His smile is a cue for her own. He makes faces, does impressions, tells jokes slowly like they're secrets that only BoA will ever have the privilege of knowing. It makes her cheeks ache, her abs hurt, her body tingle all the way down to the tips of her toes. He can get her laughing until she cries, until she can hardly breathe.

They develop their own secret language, full of silly code words and inside jokes that no one else will ever understand. It's made up of backstage whispers and sentences laughingly exchanged between studio hallways. No matter how long they are together or apart, no matter what they do or do not achieve, they'll always have their crazy jokes and they'll always have each other.

BoA notices it all, the speculation and the knowing looks and the way people say you make each other happy. But they are just friends, just labelmates, and yeah, they make each other happy – there's nothing wrong with that.

iv. mixed CDs

In their early teens, when it's cool, she and Jaejoong make each other CDs like it's going out of style (and they will soon learn that it actually is). Jaejoong's are full of songs-of-the-moment, you'll like track twelve, BoA and number four makes me think of you. Hers are similar, songs that she wants him to love, but she always sneaks in old Japanese ballads.

"You're going to force me to learn Japanese even if it kills me, aren't you," he groans.

BoA sits crossed-legged in the dance studio, her black harlem pants and messy ponytail a stark contrast to his dress shirt and skinny jeans. She grins. "It’ll help you in the future. I promise you.”

"C'mon, BoA," he pleads, complete with puppy-dog eyes. He rests his head against her leg. "Let's watch Happy Together

She touches his head gently, and presses play on his CD player again.
 

A couple months before she heads to America, Jaejoong presents her with a volume set of mixed CDs, each titled, complete with cover art. It's every song they've ever given to each other, romantic Korean ballads, R&B stuff, H.O.T., rap and everything in between.

"Seven years, BoA."

She presses her face into his shoulder. "Ready to admit that you like J-pop?"


v. soul mates

He is, undeniably, the other half of her. They mesh, they click, they work. People rave about their connection, their communication, their chemistry – but BoA and Jaejoong, they feel it. They can predict one another, it's all intuitive, it has been since they were teenagers.


And there are moments when BoAa truly believes that, not symbolically or coincidentally, but in her heart. She can't find the beginnings and the ends, only the in-betweens, when she and Jaejoong move together. They happen at the same time. She and Jaejoong don't miss each other, lose each other, or forget about each other.
 

He is the best thing BoA could have ever wished for, better than she would have dared to dream of. Whatever it is that binds them together delves much deeper than music; when there are rare moments of silence in her hectic schedules, she reflects a little nostalgically how empty and incomplete she would feel if she had never met Jaejoong.

When he catches her in these moments, he’ll smile at her, reach for her hand, and she's just glad that she has him, that she'll never have to wonder what it would be like to go without.

vi. water bottle

"Catch, BoA!"

She looks up from her crouched position, her hands flying out to grasp the water bottle he's tossed at her. "What's this?" It's a light green with geometric black lines, a never-ending design that she traces with the tip of her finger.

"A water bottle." Jaejoong grins at her, lets his unvoiced duh echo in the space between them for a moment before he adds, "The new kind, the safe ones. No MSG."

She laughs as she stands up. "BPA, you idiot."

Instantly, he adopts a wounded expression. "Hey, don't call me an idiot. I'm trying to keep you safe."

"I know you are." It makes her heart twist for just a second, the thought of him glancing at an article or hearing something on the news and buying her a water bottle because of it, wanting to keep her healthy.

She stands on her toes and kisses his forehead. "You're sweet."

vii. teddy bear

They go to a tanabata matsuri in the summer of 2009. A quick secret, and unbeknownst to them, their last moment of happiness.

With a small break in their Japanese promotional schedules, they go to the annual Star Festival in Japan, disappearing among the happy revelers in a sea of bright silk and lights. BoA can hear nothing but her own lightheaded laughter at the beautiful sights and she can feel nothing but Jaejoong's fingers threaded through hers as he tugs her through the crowd, onto the next sight

When she's dizzy and breathless from their whirlwind tour of the stands and the delicious food, she squeezes his hand; enough, enough for now, and he takes her to the small cluster of wishing trees.

He reaches for two slips of paper and hands one to her. Make a wish. She takes a pen from her little purse and starts to write. She glances over at Jaejoong but he bates her away.

“Wishes don’t come true if you tell them!” he teased.

She indulged him and quickly finished writing her wish. She folded the paper and tied it securely to the tree branch. Jaejoong followed suit with a smile.

“So, what did you wish for?”

BoA just laughs.

"Ferris wheel?"

"As you wish!"

He wraps an arm around her, leads her there. And his hand, it slips into the back pocket of her jeans for just a moment as they walk, and she doesn't mind, doesn't say a word, just pretends it's perfectly normal because that's how it feels.

They go up, up, up, her head resting against Jaejoong's shoulder.

He hands her a small charm. And she looks up at him, her eyes full of confusion.

“Omamori. It’s an amulet for your future lover,” Jaejoong says with a chuckle.
 

BoA death glares him but tucks it into her kimono anyway and asks softly, “Will that be you?”

And in a whisper like a breath his answer lingers. Yes.

They're at the top of the ferris wheel, suspended for just a moment in the air, and all she can see are the stars reflected in his eyes.

Saranghae

viii. comfort

No one, BoA is sure, no one in the world gets her like Jaejoong does. She thinks that makes her incredibly lucky, to have someone who can tell just from a glance or a touch what she's thinking and feeling.

When something goes wrong he's the first person she reaches out to. Always. Unconditionally. And (always, unconditionally), he is right there for her, intuitively aware of what she needs, catching her like it's choreographed, painted in the stars.

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes it just gets hard or it hurts and she starts crying before she can go home and crawl into her bed – things pile up, the netizens criticizing her every move, the boy who's broken her, the girl who's chasing Jaejoong, that one stupid part of her dance that she keeps messing up.

And he's always right there for her, always so protective of her, always willing to ignore everything else in favour of pulling her close to him and letting her sniffle against his shoulder. He whispers into her hair, soothing words until her breathing settles, then jokes until she finally lets a watery laugh escape.

He fixes her.

ix. hugs

Jaejoong gives the best hugs in the world. Hands down, no contest. BoA is so sure of this that once, buzzed on soju bombs, she'd told him that if there were a worldwide contest for best hugger, he would win.

He had laughed then, slightly drunk and pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, whispered right by her ear, his breath hot on her neck, I save the best ones for you, BoA.

He's got all kinds of hugs, ranging from hello to I'll miss you and everything that gets tangled in between, we did it and I'm sorry and I need you and you're amazing and that's my girl.

BoA loves each and every one, and all the things they carry with them. And she knows, at the root of each is I love you. Any way and every way, that's what they (the hugs, she's just talking about the hugs) boil down to.

I love you.

x. purikura

The unwritten rule was always no pictures. Because no pictures, means no evidence. But it was part of the teenage experience that BoA had always yearned for. So once, Jaejoong snuck into her room handing her a wig and ultra-thick glasses and a massive scarf.

“Come on,” he gestured urgently.

BoA almost screamed because she thought she was being kidnapped. Not only had Jaejoong done an excellent job of providing her with a disguise he had made himself almost unrecognizable. But he saw the mischief that glimmered in his eyes and she quickly donned the disguise.

They walked quickly through the freezing streets of Seoul to the nearest photo booth. Once inside, they took a set of pictures in their incognito selves. Funny faces and silly poses. After the first set she takes off the wig and the glasses and Jaejoong follows suit. She moves closer to him tentatively and he swings his arm around her. They aren’t a couple not really, but the pictures tell a different story.

On the last frame BoA hears her name and just as the flash goes off, Jaejoong presses his lips firmly against hers.

Pictures don’t lie.

xi. a sweater

He lends her his sweater, the warm, black one that she loves, the winter she’s eighteen and he's  and she has the unbeatable head-cold from hell she caught while filming an MV in Japan. She's all sniffles and tissues, gross hacking cough, lots and lots of citron tea. Jaejoong is very chivalrous about it; he barely makes a face when she accidentally sneezes on him.

He pulls his sweater off and holds it out so that she can slip it on instead. He rubs her arms gently, reaches around her to adjust the sweater. She leans back against him gratefully, feeling a little feverish all of sudden; he kisses the crown of her head.

"Feel better?"

"Mm. Thank you."

Ten days later, when she can breathe more normally and her nose isn't as red as it was before, she tries to give the sweater back (I washed it twice) but Jaejoong won't take it.

"You just don't want my germs," she jokes, hugging his folded-up sweater to her chest.

Jaejoong's eyes fall to her lips. "Don't be so sure of that."

"Ew," she says weakly after a moment of silence that lasts a beat too long.

His eyes focus on hers again, a little dark. He nods to the sweater. "It looks better on you."



xii. chestnuts and carp bread

Sometimes, when they're feeling a little rebellious and they need a break, they skip off workouts or beg to end practice half an hour early, and don heavy coats and scarves and sneak out onto the street to indulge in chestnuts and carp bread. It's not unhealthy, but it's not exactly healthy either, so it's a good treat.

It reminds BoA of when she was young and innocent, especially because Jaejoong still pays for them both, just like he used to when they were so much younger with his allowance. BoA tries to sneak change into his wallet, or send him off on some errand so she can buy for once, but it never works.

"It's tradition,” Jaejoong tells her insistently.

She her lips and frowns. "You're wasting money on me."

"Wasting?"

"You never let me pay you back!"

"Tell you what." He leans toward her. "If your new album makes it big, we'll be even."

"That makes no sense - "

"Sure it does. You just give me your Daesang and we'll call it even."

BoA punches him but she doesn’t disagree.



xiii. love

Jaejoong is her first, and her last, and in some ways, her only love.

"It just happened," is what she always says whenever she's asked why, why singing, why SM Entertainment – and that pretty much sums up the way she loves him, too.

And she knows that he loves her back in all the same ways.

It's as natural as breathing.



xiv. hand to hold

The other trainees used to joke that she and Jaejoong were attached at the hip, but in reality they were attached at the hand. If you were ever to look for either of them, it was likely that you'd find them linked to one another, in private, in secret.

They grew up holding hands. Sometimes he'd reach for her, sometimes she'd reach for him, and eventually they were so attuned to each other that they'd always meet in the middle.

It's the point where Jaejoong is her hand to hold, the one she wants, the one she always reaches for.

She likes it that way, and he certainly doesn't seem to mind.



xv. pepero day

With the exception of two years – once when BoA had a boyfriend and once when Jaejoong had a girlfriend – they had always observed Pepero day together.

The first time she is fourteen, and they don’t talk a lot but he makes her smile and they are (officially, technically) dating, so they exchange Pepero boxes when they have a break during dance practice.

Hers is homemade, ten slightly mismatched sticks. Jaejoong’s is from a store, made by someone else and mass-produced, but that's okay because it’s her favourite almond pepero.

She eats one, even though it’s against the diet rules; it tastes sweet, a little too sweet, like a wish and a promise all wrapped up tight together and tied with forevermore. She ducks her head, just like a shy little girl, looks down at sneakers, a flushed pink. And it's all right there in the aftertaste; she swallows it down and looks back up to his face and she knows it, in that moment.

She is his and he is hers.



xvi. kisses

They kiss a few times, one another's first kisses and second and third, still teenagers and still hesitant. Rare kisses and hand-holding constitute their "relationship.”

Well, the real kissing, the mouth-to-mouth stuff. Once in a moment of daring, Jaejoong kisses the back of her head once as they leave a year-end performance. And then he starts kissing her cheeks. And her forehead. And her knuckles and her nose and her temples and the top of her head and her shoulder. And her neck, a couple of times.

BoA reciprocates, kisses his cheeks and forehead too. There are a few occasions, when they're older and it shouldn't be as big of a deal, and she lets herself kiss him, her lips actually touching his, just grazing lightly, in a platonic way, so quickly that it's over within a heartbeat.

It's not some big romantic thing. They love each other and they're accustomed to touching each other; their kisses, of every kind, are just an extension and expression of that constant affection. And she likes it, the tendency Jaejoong has to whisper in her ear and kiss her cheek or temple tenderly when they are certain no one is watching

But sometimes, in small and stolen moments, she lets herself wonder what it would be like to kiss him, kiss him. He looks at her sometimes in this way that makes her heart jump, makes her think he might wonder about it too.

Kiss me, she thinks when his lips gently linger against her forehead. Kiss me, Jaejoong, let's just try it.

He's incredibly good at reading her body language, at instinctively knowing what's on her mind, but either he doesn't pick up on the signals she's sending, or he chooses to ignore them as he kisses her cheek again, plants butterfly kisses against her skin.



xvii. mittens

One day after a particularly brutal outdoor singing practice he takes her hands in his own, tugs off her utilitarian black gloves and hands her a pair of fuzzy yellow mittens.

She's sixteen, and she's used to Jaejoong, she loves Jaejoong, but he's leaning close and it's doing funny things to her breathing. She tilts her head, blinks at him as she waits for an explanation.

"These don't look very cozy." He waves her gloves in the air.

BoA smiles ( doesn't know how to do much else, not when he's looking at her like that). She snatches her gloves back. "I was aiming for functionality, not coziness."

He shrugs, half of grin lighting up his face as he wanders back towards the company building.

A moment later she catches up, slips her hand into his, fuzzy yellow mitten and all. She squeezes his fingers, shares the coziness. Thank you.



xviii. his heart

She can't define this one, can't place it on a timeline, can't pinpoint a moment. It's not like Jaejoong walked up to her at fourteen years old and handed over his heart. It happened slowly, the transfer, over the days of practice, the weeks of travel, the months of training, the years of togetherness.

She's aware that he puts her first; she puts him first, too. It must be part of the reason that none of their other relationships are as strong as the one they share. She is pretty sure that she knows Jaejoong better than anyone. She knows his biggest smile and his saddest eyes, his most secretive wishes and his crazy dreams, the thrum of his heartbeat at his pulse points, the exact feel of his hands. He has given all of that to her.

And she's given herself back, traded each piece of his heart for a fragment of her own, they are even exchanges; their symmetry is never offset.



xix. surprises

Jaejoong likes to make life – his life, her life, their lives – exciting, which is equal parts adorable and frustrating. He organizes the surprise party for her sixteenth birthday, which starts with balloons and the yelling of SURPRISE!, and she's sweaty and sore and a little self-conscious, but she can't help but love him for it.

He doesn't stop, over the years, surprise wake-up calls and breakfast in bed (he eats most of the waffles he makes her), a surprise shopping trip for matching rings where he rambles about their friendship and how he loves her until she cuts him off with a bone-crushing hug, surprise red bean buns before breakfast, surprise trips home.

"I'll never let you get bored," he teases one day when he sneaks up on her from behind and lifts her up off the ground.

She steps on his toes when he puts her back down, but she doesn't object, because never is tied to forever; just a few letters in the difference.



xx. engagement ring

He hands her the ring the day he files the lawsuit against SM Entertainment. He takes her hands in his and she can feel his hands shaking.

"Jaejoong..."

"Please wait for me." His gaze never falters but his eyes are solemn, searching hers, longing to find a yes. “I know this is selfish, but once this has all settled, and it will, I want nothing more than to have you by my side forever.”

"How do you know?”

He grips her fingers a little tighter; she's never seen him so uncertain in her presence. "Don't you?"

She gives him a sad smile. “They will not let you leave so easily.” Her eyes fall to the simple ring settled in the palm of her hand, and she struggles not to cry.

As much as she wants to slip on the ring and never take it off, she knows that she can’t. She closes her hand over the ring so hard she’s afraid that it would break. SM Entertainment gave her the opportunity to realize her dreams. The company no matter how harsh and cruel had been a part of her life for so long.

He looks at her clenched fist and lets go.

“You’re going to say no.” he says plainly.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry”

But her words come too late. Jaejoong is already gone, leaving behind nothing but empty air and broken promises.