Trudging alone in the colorful district of cafés must be some sort of relief. This is it, he thinks to himself, I’m finally here. Life altering decisions come and go but the difference stays, and that difference is that at the age of twenty-three, he still doesn’t know what he wanted to do, what other people would expect him to claim as the purpose of his existence.

He doesn’t care, so why would others? All he knows is that he landed back in Korea to get the love of his life back.

At some point, when you’ve been too much of a free spirit, the rest of the world will envy you and it will take you down. And with the way the world sees it, when majority agrees, then most probably they are right. But more often than not, it’s a mistake to believe their .

Easy to figure out but its as difficult to get over lost time. Its human nature to want to make up for it.

There had been a time when all that surrounded Jaejoong was a positive energy that blew off into the darker messes of society. It pissed them off that such a life less seriously taken was better off than them. He was the brighter side of look-at-all-the-s-I-give and it irked the sanity of hundreds. He lived by, To each, his own, and it hasn’t taken a toll on him until Yunho, too, decided it was time for him to get real.

It would’ve been irrelevant – hell, he could think it that, but when it comes to the man he depended his disposition on, he could only curl in on himself and, for once, feel the worldly fact that all good things come to an end.

He knows that their break up wasn’t all that of a pretty acceptable goodbye. And he admits that in the last half decade, he had tried to get over it countless times but each was fruitless. That was how he had proven to himself that, apparently, he was right about him loving only one man and that all that was wrong when they first fell in love was time.

Time means everything. And this time (maybe) there’s plenty. Now the song’s playing and he wouldn’t wait until its over before he hopes to get a chance again.



The night was mercilessly cold. The city, quiet and seemingly empty. A few cars passed by and as he walked on the pavement, a stream of tail lights and neon signs were all he could make out in the blur of his tear streaked vision. Patches of bokeh formed a collage of colors that instilled in him the dullness of what’s to come for him when he wakes up alone the next day. He felt pathetic about pitying himself, but who would give a if he himself didn’t? If he was to be alone, then he will be damn good at it.



Three months. He’d been better, surely stronger, and no doubt busier. A fascination with color had him working on a few artworks in the past week. Today, as the sun was setting behind the ripples of the Han, he thinks up a little description, a wish, that would cater an understanding towards a splatter of colors conventionally formed to fit in between the lines of an Avant Garde masterpiece.

She is my dream girl.
Flaws make her my favorite
Reason to risk love.
– Kim Jaejoong


After sending off the same words with a mixtape to a certain Jung Yunho, he flies away and explores the other side of the world alone. Hoping he would understand that this was the beginning of what he had inspired him to do.



Kim Jaejoong was never one for pulling things off half assed. It makes up for his stubborn attitude, and the bit of arrogance he exudes when it comes to artistry. Nobody remembers that, anyway, after every successful exhibit.

What would a young man – an Asian kid lost in translation in the heart of Europe, have been doing out there? Most would have loved to find romance, some would love to rekindle young love. He just wanted to prove himself in every sense.



People. Be it heads, potheads, dickheads, human, plain old janes and joes, and many more you can’t really classify under a stereotype, they coaxed him to open up and speak up. He was the postman of indifference and cowardice toward the public that ignored the obvious – whether beautiful or ugly or terrifyingly unthinkable yet possible or just plain gross.

He thinks that people talk about reality too much that its become overrated and jaded in the minds of everyone who spoke of it. What would a person afraid to face his own reality know about it if he hadn’t seen it? No wonder religion sells. (a/n: pardon me if you find this offensive.)

People chose to be oblivious, stupid, ignorant because it was bliss, as some quote had stated. But is it really? Seven months away gets him a sudden feeling of homesickness so he goes back to stop himself from thinking too much.

Everything, he remembers vivid enough to be felt all over again but he fights it. It wasn’t what he came home for. He wanted to make amends, he wanted closure that would urge him to move on. He knew too well that all he could give Yunho was some sort of benefit of the doubt.



He sits outside an antique café. Lights a crooked stick from the pack of Mild Seven Lights in his back pocket and heaves a sigh as he exhales a thick blanket of white smoke.

“Last time, you were strawberry blonde. Your hair’s dead!” He talks as if it had only been a week since they last met. Jaejoong doesn’t even stand up to greet him anymore and just motions for him to sit down while he pushes the crushed carton of cigarettes to the other man.

“Well, from now on, you can stop me from going out to dye it again, I’m back here for good.” He replies, flicking off ash from the tip of the cigarette onto the ash tray.

“I was hoping you’d take me with you when you go away again.”

“You didn’t tell me you want to go somewhere.” Jaejoong laughs teasingly.



The beauty of the world might overwhelm him to live away from home but the comfort will never be the same. He sits back in the balcony of his own room at sunset, a book perched up front his nose, when a set of familiar foot steps sounded across from his bedroom door to where he sat.

Strange how it was the very person who broke you who would make you feel most welcome. He’d been hurt. The memory plunges the knife deeper and twists. Not knowing where the trouble started was like putting salt on that fresh stab. But seeing him again made him doubt he’ll soon find a reason to let go and stop hoping.

On second thought, he doesn’t want closure. He wanted a new door to open up for them. Or even a ing window he can and would climb into as long as Yunho will, too.



The thing with reality is that you know it best when you’re not into living it. Stay away, watch from afar, observe the knuckleheads get won over by the same thing again and again, and you’ll know that what s you over is what you don’t see, or rather, what you don’t WANT to see. The only way out of it is to acknowledge that one thing isn’t for you, that that will only break you, or that one of these days, something better is going to cross your goddamn miserable path. And then you’re okay, worst case scenario.



“I should’ve listened to you.” Jaejoong’s forehead creases, unknowingly. His reaction wasn’t what someone romantically swooped off his feet would show, “What?” He says indifferently. “You always knew better than everybody else,” Yunho continues, “When you told me a-”

“No, no, no, no,” Jaejoong interrupts, his hand lethargically waving left to right, “Stop that. It’s stupid –not you at all, really.” Yunho shuts up, meaning for him to go on, “We’ve talked about this even before- Yeah, well, the thing is that, if life doesn’t happen, we’ll never grow up. We’ll be stagnant as, well… The Stonehenge, maybe, and we’ll just keep deteriorating in time.”

“Maybe, its just how what people call reality is, but what is it? I don’t know, maybe I’m just like every other delusional kid out there, labeling what we have now as destiny, but even Gossip Girl will tell you that its losers who depend on that excuse – YOU make things happen for yourself.”

“Well, its not easy, we know that too well, don’t we?” Jaejoong smiles while at it, reaching for the other man’s hand, “Please, Yunho, don’t tell me you’re sorry about anything because there wasn’t supposed to be any regrets because we did what we thought was right at that time. Right? Okay?”

Yunho easily thinks Jaejoong is his favorite part of his so-called reality.



There’s definitely a window, alright, but thing is he… forgot. He only remembers it when someone smashed the panels with something. And then he feels like he's being played because as he picks up the solid brick that went through it, there’s a note attached saying, “Need window repair?”



Going forward into a new chapter in the story they’ve been writing for years felt as good as going back to when it all began. How long has it been since the last time he was effortlessly at ease, he doesn’t think too long and goes back to the now. It was a familiar feeling but this time he knows it is not entirely the same.

Five years and three months. All that time he spent only trying to figure out if he really wanted to be gone a while or for good. It wasn’t about knowing what he’s going to spend his life doing but of looking for any assurance that one day he’ll deserve a place where Yunho stood.



He comes back time and again, wishing for that one person who keeps him endlessly hoping, to see things the way he does. Dropping hints of the sole reason he flies home. Manning up the so-called weaker side of him that goes overboard with mischievous tendencies and living a fantasy of his own world.

He’ll never understand why all that was seen a weakness when it was all that kept him sane enough to not his own life over, stronger than most people he’d met, watched and known.

People on the same wavelength as him would see nothing wrong of it, albeit they’d see him entirely and uniquely creative, the epitome of individualism, even. When he sees rarely anybody ever affirming him, he realizes that maybe Yunho was right about the world not having another one like him.

Exactly why Yunho broke up with him but never telling him he doesn’t love him anymore.



Yunho had always ended up pondering on Jaejoong’s words when left by himself. Knowing the man, he’s got his way with words and most of the time he says it so simply that he finds himself reading between the lines. There was pure love, unadulterated passion, a consciousness to reality, a knowing hint to every guess of what ifs, might bes and why nots, and that push to the edge that would make one think of how what they’re doing now would affect them in the long run.

He was consistent. He is consistent. All this time, all he’d wanted of Yunho was to live every dying moment with him without expectations. Just them growing up together, achieving steps toward one end goal along side each other, getting over failures like how they’d get over achievements. A never ending learning process driven by what they are and not how they are what society dictates them to be.



“So- Jae, what exactly are we?” Yunho asks hesitantly, “You’ve been around for a couple of months, we see each other almost always, you tell me things I dismantle when I get home, I don’t want to assume anything, so I’m asking you.”

“You know what’s funny?” Jaejoong smirks, “You were the one who broke up with me and you’re the one asking me this. Isn’t this for you to decide? I’ve only always been waiting. Its all up to you. I’m just here waiting to tell you what I really feel when you’re ready to hear me out.”



Some time in a smooth-sailing relationship comes a huge storm that comes onto you without the stirring up winds, just a sudden downpour of everything that had been inertly piling up.

That time is when you’ve finally learned everything about the other person, every little detail, the passing mistakes, the bigger picture of his whole persona. And what troubles you is the value of the dividedness of all his sides. When he’s this and tends to be that when dumped bull at his feet, or on his shoulders, or over his head. Little things make a of a difference when someone gets aggravated.

That time is when you can accurately calculate everything he can do and not, and you’ve proven to yourself and him that you know each other best. You begin to feel little insecurities and mistrust crawling under your skin because, apparently, you’re not sure yourself if you can handle the wholeness of him.

That time is when you think things too much.

Why would someone like him love someone like me?
What does he even see in me?
When did everything start getting serious?
How will I stay deserving of him?

And then you explode of stupidity and assume instead of talking it out. Your doubts have overpowered all the years that you’ve known him.

Sometimes people think its over. Sometimes people take time away to see things from a distance. Sometimes people lose the power to think and all.



You gotta hit rock bottom to get it in your head, to learn it all and never forget. And then you’re all set. “So,” Yunho starts off, “Do you think, maybe, we could give us another shot at this?”

“Why not? I mean, you just made it in the nick of time.” Jaejoong’s face spelled mischievous and Yunho releases a lungful of breath before fitting the final pieces of the puzzle he’d been putting together since the artist had settled back in his life, “I was beginning to think we’re already out of sync.”



For what it’s worth, it wouldn’t hurt to accept that when life happens, one should be ready to go with it. Yes, it happens again and again that you just want to go back to reset everything. Maybe, it's better to just think that things are subsequent because you'll never move on if you try to think otherwise. Its not about going and doing it now, it's considering that you can learn to make things better for yourself, in due time.







Disclaimer: The title is a song by Cream but the story is no way connected to it nor inspired by it.

A/N: I unintentionally took a 2-hour bath because I was overthinking and the world has become so hot its getting harder to breathe unless I keep myself cool with lots of water. I should've just gone skinny dipping swimming, instead of staying under the shower.

AND! This might be the last of the fic spree I wrote over the sem break. So... I hope you appreciate it. Its time to get more serious about my thesis now... Its due in a little less than three months.