Chapter 8

The grass crunched beneath his feet as he treaded the school grounds, halting in his step every few seconds to take an extensive scan of the area. 

"Jaejoong!" Yunho cupped his hands around his mouth as he called out, his throat already sore from the previous efforts. When he got no response after a few seconds he called again, even louder this time. "Jaejoong! Where are you? Come out please!" He paused when he noticed the infamous forest in his view, surrounding the whole left side of the school. 

'Maybe Jaejoong went in there?' he considered, but soon shrugged the thought off, thinking no one, not even Yunho himself would be brave enough to go in there.

'Jaejoong isn't stupid enough to go in there,' he concluded and walked past the forest, heading to the other side of the school.

"Jaejoong!!... Jaejoong?!" Yunho paused. He knew that Jaejoong wouldn’t come out just because he’s calling him, especially not after what he did. He knew that he would have to apologize, even if it did make him lose a little pride. Closing his eyes, he forced out the next two words. "I'm sorry!!" 

But he still got no answer. He opened them and looked around once more. "Please Jaejoong! Please come out!...” He called desperately. The guilt was eating him alive.

‘Damn, that stupid dog! If I didn’t have to go look for it I wouldn’t have gotten so mad! Plus I wasted all that time searching for him when he was just under the porch!’ Yunho groaned inwardly.

“Can you at least make a sound? Any sound?!... Anything at all so I know you are here? Maybe a 'go away!' or a 'shut up?'"

'I mean it's not like that's going to stop me from finding you and apologizing,' Yunho joked in his head. But there was still no answer from the other. 'Maybe he went home?' Yunho considered for a few seconds before running off the school grounds. 

It took Yunho about twenty minutes to get to Jaejoong's house, and by that time he was just barely able to stand.

"Why didn't I take my car?!" Yunho panted, with his hands just above his knees, holding himself up. He looked ahead of him and saw Jaejoong’s house. He walked up the few stairs to the front door, holding onto the railing on the side. Even though it was only three steps, to Yunho it felt like a full flight of stairs. Once he reached the door, he knocked, leaning his body against the railing of the stairs with his head tilting toward the sky and taking deep breaths of air into his burning lungs. He heard shuffling inside the house for a few seconds before someone opened the door. 

"Omo! Yunho-ah! What are you doing here?!" Jaejoong's mom gasped as she looked Yunho up and down. "You look terrible sweety! Here, come inside and rest a little bit. I'll go get you a glass of water," she said as she helped him inside and sat him on the couch. She quickly left to the kitchen to get Yunho some water as he tried to catch his breath. 

Yunho looked around the living room with a turn of his head, refusing to get up from the couch. He saw many pictures of Jaejoong from the time he was a baby up to his middle school graduation. 'He was so cute when he was a baby.' Yunho inwardly smiled. 

Turning his head to another direction, his gaze fixated on Jaejoong’s photos of his high school years. Upon seeing his freshman yearbook photo, Yunho was brought back to the first time he saw Jaejoong all the way up to their first meeting, where they actually talked to each other after a long time of just occasional glances.

Yunho wasn’t able to reminisce for long before Jaejoong’s mom came back with a glass of water in hand. Yunho chugged the whole drink down immediately, enjoying the cooling relief it had on his dry throat.

She sat down on the couch next to him before speaking. "So what brings you here Yunho? And in this state," she pointed out, worrying about the condition Yunho was in. 

"Jaejoong." Yunho swallowed the rest of the water in the glass, not letting a drop escape, before continuing. "Jaejoong, is he here?" 

"No, of course not." Jaejoong's mother laughed. "Yunho, school just ended half an hour ago. Jaejoong usually stays after school to study. He's very smart," she bragged with a proud smile. "I thought you knew that? You are best friends with Jaejoong, right?" 

'Best friends? Is that what he told her about me?' he thought, forgetting to answer Jaejoong's mom.

"Yunho?" she called, trying to get the other's attention.