A/N: Hi, guys! Sorry again for not updating last weekend, but like what I said, my update schedules would be a bit erratic until I'm finally on summer vacation. I had to spend the whole last weekend doing work for just one subject. Ugh. T.T

Anyway, thanks for your patience with me. Here's the next chapter and I hope you all like it :)

“L-Lee S-Soo Man,” I managed to stutter out. “A-as in the Lee Soo Man?!”

“I take it that you know who he is, then?” Jaejoong said, surveying the stunned expression on my face.

“Y-yeah,” I nodded weakly, my mind whirling at the information the boys had just sprung on me. “H-he’s your company’s president, isn’t he?” Then, I pressed my lips together in a frown, “He himself asked Yunho oppa to dinner?”

“Yeah, imagine our shock when the old wart himself turned up at the studio where we were having a rehersal,” Yoochun muttered in annoyance.

None of us even blinked an eye at how Yoochun called their president “an old wart”. We all knew Yoochun was incorrigible when it comes to expressing his distaste for the company and its executives.

“But why the hell is he doing this? He’s the company’s president; shouldn’t he be, like, busy being mad with you guys? Why the sudden dinner invitation?” I questioned out loud, though I was just mainly voicing my confused thoughts.

“It’s not exactly an invitation, like what Yoochun said,” Jaejoong rolled his eyes. “It’s an order. We may be filing a lawsuit against the company, but technically, right now we’re still under it. And you don’t just say no to Lee Soo Man.”

“What could he be saying to Yunho hyung now?” Junsu said anxiously.

“Nothing that’s not poisonous and vindictive, of course,” Yoochun snorted.

“What I want to know is how this will affect us,” Changmin muttered as he leaned against the wall. “Because you can bet that this move of the president will have some effect on our plans, one way or the other…”

Meanwhile, I was only vaguely listening to the boys’ conversation.

My brain was working in hyper speed.

There were lots of speculations in my time that Lee Soo Man had played a good part on why Yunho, and probably in turn, Changmin, did not leave with JYJ.

Is this it?

“But then, the timing would be all wrong…” I murmured quietly, my eyebrows furrowed together in concentration as I tried to make sense of what was happening now.

“The timing of what would be all wrong?” Changmin suddenly asked me, making me jump a bit in surprise.

I didn’t realize that he had noticed that I was lost in my thoughts, let alone hear what I had quietly said.

“Huh? Oh, nothing, nothing…” I said distractedly.

Jaejoong threw a look at me and said flatly, “My nerves are not in the mood for all this hinting and vagueness. Tell us.”

There was no arguing with the eldest. Especially not when he got like that.

“Well, it’s just that in my time… even if it’s already years after the split… well, there are still quite a few who think and speculate that Lee Soo Man had- had- well, they basically think that he had something to do with why Homin did not leave with JYJ.”

They stared at me for a second, before Junsu suddenly leapt to his feet and squealed, “WE’VE GOT TO GET YUNHO HYUNG AWAY FROM HIM!”

I rolled my eyes at his hysterics and pulled him back down to his seat before he could do anything else. “Calm down, will you? Let me finish first!”

“Are you nuts?” Junsu asked me incredulously. “Who knows what he could be feeding into Yunho hyung’s mind by now!”

“Yunho hyung is not stupid to not know when he’s being told something to manipulate him,” Changmin said sharply.

“But Junsu has a point,” Yoochun argued. “This is Lee Soo Man we’re talking about! Yunho hyung might not usually be easily fooled, but that man he’s with right now has the tongue of the devil!”

“Well, we don’t really think that Lee Soo Man just ‘convinced’ him, there were probably bribes and threats involved, most probably mainly threats… but anyway, that’s not my point-“

“THREATS?!” Jaejoong shouted. “ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT OLD MAN IS THREATENING MY YUNNIE RIGHT NOW?!”

He made to run out of the living room, but Yoochun blocked his way.

“Jaejoong hyung, you can’t just go rushing there-“

“I’ll be a pickled toad if I just stand here while Yunho’s being threatened!” Jaejoong said angrily.

“Oppa, calm down,” I said, alarmed by Jaejoong’s reaction. I was mentally cursing myself. Why didn’t I think before I spoke, knowing how Jaejoong’s prone to overreact when it comes to Yunho? “We’re not even completely sure if Yunho oppa was really threatened in my time! What part of ‘speculations’ did you not understand?”

“But you said-“

“Well, we’ve already established that Yunho oppa’s not a fool to believe just whatever lies Lee Soo Man would feed him, and c’mon, this is Jung Yunho we’re talking about, so bribes won’t work on him… so, that just leaves the option of threats and-“

“SEE?!”

“Will you please let me finish first?” I said loudly. God, I’m getting really frustrated here!

Okay, calm yourself, you’re all a bundle of nerves right now, I told myself.

“Even if Yunho oppa was threatened in my time, I’m not even sure if that’s exactly what’s happening now! The timing’s all wrong!” I tried to explain.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Yoochun asked quietly as he forced Jaejoong into an armchair.

“Yunho oppa and Changmin never even filed the lawsuit in my time. If Lee Soo Man had really threatened Yunho oppa, then that’s probably what stopped them from joining JYJ in filing the lawsuit... But now things are different. The timing is different. You’ve all already filed the lawsuit. So, even if he’s really trying to scare off Yunho oppa now, why just now, when the ‘damage’ has already been done?” I said, confused.

“Well, maybe he’s thinking that by scaring Yunho hyung, he can make hyung take it back? And that, even more, maybe he can make hyung to make us all take back the lawsuit claim?” Junsu suggested.

Well, that does have some logic in it... but still...

“The thing is that the lawsuit is already filed, and your grievances with your company are now known to everybody,” I shook my head. “If even just one of you suddenly retracts, people will be prone to speculate that SM made an underhand move. They already know you’re being treated unfairly; it’s just one small step from that to thinking that SM’s doing something to you guys again that would make you drop the lawsuit.”

“Or they might just think that we lost nerve?” Yoochun countered.

“And just the fact that you would lose nerve already says something about SM, and it’s something bad,” I pointed out. “The moment you filed that lawsuit, SM’s image can never go back to the way it was before. Regardless of whether you win the lawsuit or even if you actually continue it, it’s already tainted. If Lee Soo Man had threatened Yunho oppa before in my time, then that move I understand. It was a preventive move. He might have done it in my time in the hopes that it would stop you all from filing the lawsuit, or even just to lessen the blow to the company, since it would only be JYJ fighting against it. But now… the lawsuit’s filed. The damage is done… so, I really have no idea what your president’s up to, trying to ‘talk’ with Yunho oppa now…”

“Maybe he doesn’t care about anything else as long as we drop the lawsuit,” Junsu said fretfully. “Yes, there might be damage already done, but maybe he thinks that it can be dealt with later, as long as he stops us first from actually leaving the company…”

“Well, he can’t stop us,” Yoochun said firmly. “If he really is trying something foul with Yunho hyung right now, we’ll fix it and throw his threats right back at his face. Heck, better yet, maybe we can even use those as evidence of how that company’s going to the dogs.”

“I think we’re all getting a bit ahead of ourselves here,” Changmin butted in. “What’s the use of worrying so much when we don’t even know for sure what exactly we’re worrying about? Why don’t we just wait until hyung comes back and see what actually happened, before we start running around like chickens with their heads cut off?” he said rationally.

Huh, well, I guess he’s right about that.

Who knew Changmin could actually make a good point now and then?, I mentally rolled my eyes.

YH PoV

(A/N: again, lines of characters in italics are said in Korean)

Yunho squirmed uncomfortably in his chair as he glanced around the restaurant. The place was just too stuffy for his taste. But then again, even if the restaurant had been a warm and cozy one, he still wouldn’t have been able to relax, given who he was eating with right now…

“What about you, U-Know?” Lee Soo Man suddenly asked Yunho, as he finished giving his order for desert to the waiter. “No dessert for you?”

There was what seemed to be a very warm smile on the president’s face.

Too warm.

“N-no, thank you, sir,” Yunho tried to muster out a smile in return, but he thought what he only managed was a grimace. “I-I’m already full.”

“Such a shame, they make the best chocolate éclairs here, you know…”

The president had spent most of their car ride going to the restaurant and while they were eating their meal talking mainly about stuff like how the president was planning to go on a fishing trip soon and was deciding on which the best area for that would be. Trivial matters like that.

It had been making the leader uneasy all night long.

Because Yunho knew that this was not why Lee Soo Man "invited" him to dinner. This meal wasn’t just for “pleasantries”. There was something more to this than just that.

And it was making the leader feel nauseous with nervousness.

“So…” Lee Soo Man began softly as soon as the waiter went back to the kitchens with his orders for dessert, effectively leaving the president and the leader alone again.

Yunho thought his body couldn’t get any more tense than it was right now.

“Tell me… how’s your father, U-Know?”

That caught Yunho off-guard.

“H-huh?” Yunho managed to breathe out in confusion. This wasn’t what he was expecting at all. “S-sir, what-?”

“Your father, U-Know,” the president repeated lightly. “How is he doing these days?”

“G-good, I guess, sir…” Yunho just couldn’t see where the president was going with this.

“You’ve spoken to him recently?” the president seemed to inquire casually, pretending he was more interested in the wine that he was currently sipping.

“Uhm…”

The truth was that Yunho hadn’t spoken to his father since the lawsuit issue had broken out. True, they never really talked that often even before, since Yunho’s father hadn’t been approving of his choices (not to mention that he was furious that Yunho was with Jaejoong), but still, things got even worse when they filed the lawsuit. According to his mother and his sister, his father was raging hell again for the “embarrassment” that his son’s latest “scandal” had brought to the family name.

“I’d make a wild guess and say your father isn’t exactly very happy with what you’ve been doing lately, is he, U-Know?” Lee Soo Man said softly, his face no longer smiling, but with a blank, unreadable expression fixed on it instead.

That’s an understatement, Yunho thought to himself.

However, he voiced out no answer, and just looked straight back at the president. No, he wasn’t going to bend down to this. Whatever this was that their president was trying to play on him.

“Shame, shame, shame. All these… misunderstandings… in a family is always such a shame. A regret,” Lee Soo Man continued. “After all, family relationships are something… precious. Something that should be cherished… Especially the relationship of a father and a son… yes, there’s something very dear and important in a relationship such as that.”

“Sir?” was all tha