tvxq: boxers or panties?

[unlearned]

boxers or panties?
jaejoong/yoochun. sex swap. explicit. 10,626w.
originally for dbsk_bigbang (has been thoroughly edited since then). art by reallycorking. ♥



The consensus is that it's Jaejoong's fault. But come on, he'll say every time anyone brings it up, I didn't know calling him a girl would actually turn him into a girl.

Yoochun wakes up one day with boobs. He's shirtless so they're pretty obvious. Jaejoong watches from the doorway, brushing his teeth, as Yoochun rubs the heel of his palm against his eyes and looks down.

"In this dream, I'm usually already having multiple orgasms," he says with a yawn.

"I think this is real," Jaejoong says helpfully around a mouthful of toothpaste, because he has no idea what else to do. Yoochun's as skinny as he was before, but now there are softer curves in his geometry, not just fluctuating weight and birdcage bones. His hair is long, past his shoulders, messy after sleeping with it still wet. Jaejoong has always loved girls with long hair.

Wow, he thinks. I'm royally fucked.

Jaejoong swallows foam by accident. Yoochun hasn't stopped staring at his own boobs. "Shit," he finally says, and squeezes one experimentally. "I thought they'd be bigger."

*

So Yoochun's a girl.

"Changmin," Yoochun says into her customary mug of morning coffee, "quit looking at me like you want to take me into your secret laboratory and do unspeakable things to my body."

"There are so many things wrong with that sentence," Changmin says. He has his laptop on the kitchen table, and Jaejoong watches from over his shoulder as he types 'spontaneous female genitalia' into the search engine.

Junsu's voice carries from the hallway. "Yoochun's feeling really sick," he says into the phone. "He's all bloated, too."

Yoochun flips Junsu off over the kitchen counter. She's drinking her coffee black, keeping her eyes down. The novelty's fading off. Jaejoong thinks about how it'd feel, having a body that's pulled too tight around who you remember being. He tries not to think about the shape of Yoochun's calves under all that gray fabric, or the thin back he'd seen as he helped attach safety pins to her sweatpants so they'd stay up.

He takes a chair and wraps his arm around her, because Yoochun has always been receptive to touch. "Do you need anything?"

Yoochun shrugs, half-smiles. "My dick would be great."

It's still Yoochun in there. Jaejoong smiles back. "How do we feel about dick-shaped pancakes?"

"Yummy."

Yunho leaves to steal the phone from Junsu and negotiate something with management. When he comes back, it's been over an hour since this all began, and he looks like he's wondering if it's too early for alcohol. "I got our schedule cleared for today," he says, "so Yoochun won't need to be alone."

"What makes you think this is only going to be for a day?" Changmin asks. He pauses. "I found an article about a woman who suddenly grew a penis. Helpful?"

Yoochun answers around a mouthful of traditional blueberry pancake therapy, "My goal is status quo, not hermaphrodite."

"Super Hermaphrodite," Junsu says, circling the kitchen counter to join the group again. "This is like one of those superhero stories. Peter Parker wakes up with spidey senses and Park Yoochun wakes up with tits."

"You're not really helping," says Yunho.

"I think he's helping a lot," says Changmin.

Yoochun stretches her arms behind her back and everyone watches. "It's okay. Junsu's just jealous cause even when I have tits, I'm more of a man than he is."

"Excuse me," Junsu says.

"God," Yunho says, rubbing his hand down his face. "Yoochun has tits."

*

Being a girl doesn't stop Yoochun from smoking too much or listening to music too loudly when she's trying not to panic. After Jaejoong finds her on the bedroom windowsill, halfway through the usual number of cigarettes it takes for her to feel better, he goes back into the kitchen and fixes up a mug of white tea.

"How do things like this even happen?" Yunho asks, waiting with Jaejoong for the water to boil. "Have I not been watching enough of the recent news?"

"It's a celebrity epidemic," Jaejoong tells him. "Hyori has a dick now. I can't believe you didn't know."

Yunho's forehead wrinkles like he's trying to decide whether or not Jaejoong's kidding.

"I'm kidding," Jaejoong says.

"Jaejoong."

Jaejoong shrugs, tracing D-cup boobs into the kitchen floor with his bare toes. "I called him a big sappy girl yesterday, if that could've done anything."

"Only if Changmin turns into a goat in the next few hours too."

Jaejoong pictures Changmin sullenly chewing on a shoe. "That'd be hysterical." He adds: "And wrong and awful and I hope it never happens."

Yunho punches Jaejoong's arm, but Jaejoong likes to think it's ninety-nine percent fond. "Go give Yoochun his tea," he says. "Her tea. Whatever. I'm commandeering all of the leftover comfort pancakes."

"I made them shaped like Yoochun's lost dick. Just so you know."

Yoochun hasn't moved from the window, but she's stopped chain-smoking and her arm's hanging slack instead, her sleeve reaching past her knuckles. Nothing fits anymore: her shoulders are too narrow for her shirts, and the hem of her jeans cover her toes. It makes her look like a child playing dress-up in adult clothes.

"Hey, you," Jaejoong says. He sits down across from her and holds out the mug. Yoochun pushes her headphones down around her neck.

"Is it hard liquor?" she asks.

"If you close your eyes."

Yoochun takes it anyway. Her headphones stay where they are. Jaejoong sticks around too, until he hears something filtering through that he knows.

"Do you remember that time our hostel manager hulked out at us because of this song?"

Yoochun's voice is a little low for a girl's; it becomes full of air when she laughs. "You mean he hulked out because of how badly your Freddie Mercury impersonation sucked."

Jaejoong swats at any part of Yoochun he can reach. He ends up catching Yoochun's ankle, tugging it out from under the extra denim. Yoochun's toes wiggle hello at him. "Say that again after you make the air guitar championships."

"You're the one who fell on the lamp," Yoochun argues.

"You tripped me and I fell on the lamp."

"And then the electricity in the whole building went out, and remember how he came running in furious--"

"I really thought he was going to kill me!"

"You were still lying in broken lamp pieces and I was pretty sure you'd electrocuted yourself."

Jaejoong rocks back and forth with Yoochun's leg like they're slow dancing to the music, and Yoochun's held up on her elbows now, trying to push her foot into Jaejoong's face. "And you were just standing there," Jaejoong continues, delighted, "like you had nothing to do with it, you just looked at him and said--"

"Another one bites the dust," Yoochun says, and laughs even harder. Jaejoong blows a raspberry against the bottom of her foot.

Yoochun fiddles with her iPod afterwards, combs the bangs out of her face, the same habits on a different body. "Thanks," she says. "The tea was good." Jaejoong doesn't say anything when she scoots in and gives him a hug. It's a new, weird fit. But even though Yoochun's lost that extra millimeter of height over Jaejoong, she holds onto his waist like she's as tall as she was before, so Jaejoong wraps his arms around her shoulders and lets it happen.

*

Yoochun spends the rest of the day playing Super Smash Bros with Junsu, and beats him five times in a row, but only, Junsu says, because I'm a gentleman. The next day, nothing has changed, and Yoochun stays locked in the bathroom for a long time. Yunho takes a shot of soju and retreats into the workroom to make an hour of phonecalls. Jaejoong just calls Boa.

*

"Hang on," Boa says. "Give me a minute."

Jaejoong gives her a minute. He can hear her using it to laugh her ass off.

"You're kidding," Boa says once she comes back over the line. "Is this a mission? Which show is this for?"

"The Even Park Myungsoo's Sense Of Humor Isn't This Fucked Up show."

Boa doesn't respond right away. "You mean he's actually a girl?"

"Well he has the anatomical qualifiers, if you know what I mean."

"Oh," Boa says, hushed. "Wait, how? It just happened? Like, boom, girl-parts?"

Jaejoong mimes an explosion with his hands, his cellphone trapped snug between his shoulder and cheek. "Like, boom."

"And you can't boom his boy-parts back?"

"I'm not a genitalia fairy."

"Oh," Boa says again, this time more wicked. Jaejoong knows exactly what Boa's new nickname for him is going to be. "How's Yoochun?"

"He's being Yoochun. Only, you know, with boobs."

"The boobs do not make the woman. Or the man."

"So it's okay if his are bigger than yours?"

"That's what you used to say about Yunho," Boa accuses. "If there's any surpassing boobage, I want pictorial evidence."

"He'd kill me for that," Jaejoong says, and rubs the side of his palm into his eyes before he leaves his arm thrown over his face. "Um, she'd kill me? I dunno."

There's static, some background noise. Boa's at work. "How's everyone?" she still asks.

Jaejoong wishes he had a phone cord to play with. His hands don't have anything to do but compare touching the curve of Yoochun's elbow before and after. "We're dealing with it. Obviously she's got it the hardest."

"Have you told anyone?"

"Only the people who need to know."

"Is she cute?"

"She's pretty cute," Jaejoong answers, caught up in their game of twenty questions. He bites his tongue. "Uh?"

Boa powers forward mercifully. "Get Yoochun's new measurements for me, I can send her some clothes. And let me know ahead of time if the rest of you guys decide to join Team Estrogen next."

Jaejoong sticks his tongue out at the phone. Boa giggles, knowing him well enough to guess it.

"It's natural," she consoles. "We have all the cute shoes."

*

Yoochun gets back looking like the Antichrist just ran her over with a schoolbus, then backed up and ran her over again. She's taken off the sunglasses and hat that she wore to sneak out of the apartment. When she collapses onto the couch, she doesn't notice or care that Jaejoong's already there.

"Ow," Jaejoong says, and shifts around so Yoochun's elbow won't become permanently lodged in his body.

"Sorry," Yoochun says, without removing her face from Jaejoong's chest. "Long day."

Yunho comes in a few minutes later, another fine example of human roadkill. He slumps against the door once it's locked, and performs urgent hugging motions when Jaejoong mouths to him, What do I do?

"You should take a bath," Jaejoong says, hugging Yoochun on cue. He uses one of his hands to make covert Go prepare a bath signals at Yunho. "A super long and relaxing one. It'll smell good." He pauses, and adds just in case: "Even though you already smell good."

"The only thing I smell like is misery and despair," says Yoochun.

"You told me you'd stop using that cologne."

Yoochun's sigh sticks to Jaejoong's skin through his cotton shirt. She scoots up so her breasts aren't being shoved into his stomach anymore; now they're just being shoved into his chest. Jaejoong makes sure she's comfy, asking, "Wanna talk about it?"

Yoochun says a couple words into Jaejoong's shoulder. One of them is gynecologist and another is exam. Jaejoong really doesn't want to have that conversation.

"Get up," he says. "It's bathtime and you're going to smell like hope and marshmallows."

*

Hope and marshmallows turns out to be vanilla. Jaejoong balances on the bathtub ledge, trying not to watch Yoochun too much. Anything more than a few centimeters below Yoochun's shoulders disappears under the thick layer of bubbles, but her hair's messily tied up and it leaves her neck exposed. Jaejoong's first instinct is to kiss it; his second is to run away.

Yoochun sinks even lower into the water. "Fuuuck, this is good," she says. Jaejoong flicks water at her.

"Feeling better?"

"Starting to." The curve of her knees peeks out from the bubbles, and both of her legs are crossed on the opposite edge of the bath. Jaejoong stops looking altogether.

Junsu joins them later, and peels off his socks so he can soak his feet in the tub too. He sits on the ledge, his pants rolled up to his knees. "Yoochun doesn't have tits, he has 'the flu'," Junsu says, airquotes included. "We need to follow through with our schedules, but then management thinks we should hang back a little, go on break until this blows over. Yoochun's completely benched, at the least."

Yoochun slides down until the bubbles come up to her chin. She blows down the Eiffel Tower model that she's sculpted out of foam. "What if it never blows over?" she asks.

"We could fake your death," Junsu says, too enthusiastically. "Then you'll be the long lost twin sister taking his place. We can call you Minnie."

"It was a tragic boating accident," Jaejoong suggests.

Yoochun pushes away the rubber duck that Jaejoong's squeaking in his face. "Your bedside manner sucks," she says. Jaejoong and Junsu team up to force her the rest of the way underwater, and Jaejoong's a little jealous of how Junsu doesn't have any impulse to hold onto her longer than he needs to.

*

Jaejoong wakes up with Yoochun in his bed competing for more blanket room, her cold feet making her easy to identify. She feels even smaller and more exposed like this, when there's no light, and it's worse than the day Jaejoong caught her in a towel, staring blankly into the bathroom mirror and dripping all over the tiled floor.

Jaejoong yawns into his pillow. "What time is it?"

Yoochun stops moving. "Past four," she says. "I had a bad dream."

Jaejoong opens his eyes. "Come here," he says, and pulls her in, identifying by touch the old worn out shirt she's wearing. "Are you gonna be able to get back to sleep?"

"I think so," Yoochun says. "Just give me a minute."

"You can stay, I don't mind," Jaejoong says.

"No, it's okay," Yoochun says. But she doesn't go, even though she makes a few false starts. Jaejoong has shut his eyes again by the time she says, "No one recognized me. You know, in my dream."

There it is, the fear that now the world doesn't work the way it did before. Jaejoong runs his thumb up the slope of Yoochun's shoulder, waiting.

"And I kept growing new boobs. I had eight pairs by the time I woke up. I was a walking freak show."

"Old news," Jaejoong says, and Yoochun kicks him in the shin. "Ow. Anyway, Boa says the boobs don't make the woman."

Yoochun laughs, hoarse. "Thanks."

"Come on. You're Yoochun. You hate mornings. You have a mother complex the size of a small European country." He dares to stroke his fingers against the nape of Yoochun's neck. The way their proximity hits him like a slap in the face isn't anything new. "We'll still know who you are when you wake up."

There's no automatic answer. "Thanks," Yoochun finally says again, and yawns. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Jaejoong says.

He doesn't move towards her or away, doesn't move at all as he waits for Yoochun to fall back asleep. He tries to stay conscious and memorize every detail so he can keep them with him for as long as he can.

*

"Holy shit," says Changmin, looking into their room.

Yoochun holds up a lacy bra and says, "Help." Changmin gives her an encouraging thumbs-up and walks back the way he came.

Jaejoong lounges cross-legged on the bed, various other bras laid out in front of him. He picks one out, studies Yoochun's chest. "What size do you think you are?"

"Um," Yoochun says. "Let's do something else first."

There's a big cardboard box in the middle of an island of styrofoam. It had come with a pastel pink card that'd read, Congratulations, It's A Girl! Yoochun'd left a nasty message in Boa's voicemail before browsing curiously through all the underwear. Then she'd grabbed an armful of clothes and dumped it onto the bed to sort into categories like Yes, No, and No Fucking Way.

Boa has a bit of a sick sense of humor. Jaejoong lays claim to the tiara they find wedged between the two pairs of jeans, and Yoochun pairs a pink and black boa scarf with some kind of schizophrenic derby hat. Near the bottom of the box, they discover a pair of bright yellow hot pants with a fake cotton tail glued to the back.

Changmin brings company back with him, and Junsu's laughter is unmistakable from the hallway. "Those are cute," he says, motioning to the hot pants. Yoochun throws a bra at him. Junsu catches it and blushes. He passes it off clumsily to Yunho beside him, who holds onto it like he isn't sure what else to do besides look very awkward.

"Wow," Jaejoong says, when he finds the leopard print silk negligee. He reaches for his cellphone to snap a few pictures. Yoochun glares at the ceiling. For the rest of the evening, she makes them marathon Die Hard movies with her until she feels like one of the guys again.

*

It's early evening and Jaejoong's back early from his schedule. Junsu and Changmin are both taking advantage of the free time to spend a couple days with family, and the apartment's cold in the places where things used to be. Jaejoong has felt it for over a week already, when none of his clothes are borrowed in the morning, or when no one's fighting him for the bathroom mirror to shave.

Yoochun's playing the keyboard today, and it's expressive and slow, something that belongs on a piano, running through a red and gold recital hall instead of an empty high-rise apartment. Jaejoong watches from the workroom door as she moves from key to key, and wants to be that, her hands or the song.

"I'm still working on it," Yoochun says when she's done. "It's Debussy. The girl with flaxen hair."

Jaejoong sits next to her on the bench and does a glissando; Yoochun continues it to the end of the keyboard, the back of her fingers running against ivory.

"I haven't heard you play lately," says Jaejoong.

"I didn't know if I knew how to." Yoochun keeps her eyes on the keys as she begins a simple scale. Jaejoong plays opposite of her, contrarian motion, their thumbs meeting back at C.

"Is it really different?"

She spreads her thumb and pinky over an octave. "I can't reach some of the chords as well anymore, but all the muscle memory's there."

"Like riding a bike," Jaejoong says.

Yoochun smiles at him. "Yeah. Hey, I like your glasses."

The attention makes Jaejoong automatically shove his bangs from his face and adjust the black plastic frame. The glasses pull his eyes to Yoochun and the wall beyond her shoulders. They keep everything else along the border a little out of focus. The prescription's a few years old. "I ran out of time for contacts this morning," he lies.

"I already saw you dropping them down the sink," Yoochun says. Jaejoong gets ready to make another excuse but she's reaching up and stealing his glasses, her fingers brushing past his temples. She puts them on, resting them across the bridge of her nose, above the openness of her mouth, and asks, "Can you see me without them?"

The world softens. Jaejoong tells her, "I can always see you."

Watercolor vision muddles up everything physical, so all you can recognize people by is what's left. Jaejoong fills his lungs with her air and it's already enough like kissing that he shouldn't want to find out what kind of real kiss it would be: a behind the buildings kiss, a where are we going kiss, an I know you like a river across the palm of my hand kiss.

Jaejoong pushes a stray piece of Yoochun's hair back behind her ear, and the shock of skin goes through them both. She doesn't say anything. Behind Jaejoong's glasses, Yoochun's the ocean at slack water, waiting for a current. She wants him to kiss her, and it's that realization that makes the ground kick back in.

Jaejoong's hand hits the keyboard on its way down.

"I think," he says, feeling small, "I'm gonna make dinner today. What do you want?"

Yoochun swallows. Jaejoong watches her throat move, the absence of an obvious adam's apple. She takes his glasses off and gives them back. "Something really spicy."

"Yeah," Jaejoong says. "I mean, okay. Sure."

In the kitchen, he closes the refrigerator door too hard and spills water over the counter. He can hear Yoochun playing Debussy down the hallway again.

*

"Is something going on?" Yunho asks him the next day.

"Nothing's going on," Jaejoong says. "Why do you think something's going on? Did Yoochun say something? Does she think something's going on?"

"You're eating ice cream, so..."

"Ice cream is the food of the gods."

"You're supposed to be dieting," Yunho says, as patient as anything.

"Whatever. You're making me miss my infomercials."

Yunho drops onto the couch cushion next to Jaejoong, no longer blocking the screen. He slings an arm around Jaejoong's neck. "What are we watching?"

"Mighty Putty," Jaejoong says, feeding Yunho a spoonful of ice cream. "Repair fast and make it last."

"Repair, huh."

"Don't try to psychoanalyze me."

"I thought it was in my contract."

"No," Jaejoong says. "That was replaced with the new Will Take Off Shirt For Money clause."

There's a hint of color in Yunho's cheeks. "The point is."

"The point is, you keep taking off your shirt for money."

"That's the antithesis of the point."

"You're like an executive stripper."

"I heard stripper," Yoochun says. She walks out from the kitchen, though neither of them saw her walk into it. She's juggling an inexplicable armful of clementines. "Are we getting a stripper?"

"No," Yunho says, at the same time Jaejoong says, "Yes." He studies Yoochun for any cue that things are weird between them, but all Yoochun does is sit on the couch, legs folded up, knees tucked next to Jaejoong's thigh without hesitation. For the first time she's wearing the clothes that Boa sent, her hair let down in loose waves.

"Hey, it's Mighty Putty," Yoochun says.

"Repair fast and make it last," Jaejoong says, automatic.

"I'm just not on the same brainwave here," Yunho says.

Jaejoong peels clementines, Yunho thieves the rest of the ice cream, and Yoochun turns up the TV. They gamble house chores on how much each advertised item will cost (S&H not included). Jaejoong's going to be washing dishes for the rest of his life.

"My karma's fucked," he says, after he's stuck doing everyone's laundry too.

Yunho ruffles Jaejoong's hair sympathetically. Jaejoong makes an insulted sound. "Tell the truth, did you talk in the theater in your past life?"

"It's all that atheism coming back to bite you in the ass," Yoochun says. She opens her mouth up, and Jaejoong sticks a piece of clementine into it, forgets about the kiss that wasn't a kiss. He's missed how normal this entire thing feels.

"Phone," Yunho says, getting up to answer it, and catches the fruit that Jaejoong tosses in his mouth.

"It's not like you're best friends with religion either," Jaejoong tells Yoochun.

"I'm best friends with the guy peeling all the clementines."

"You only want me for my clementines."

"And your body," Yoochun says cheerfully.

Jaejoong elbows her, laughing, before holding out another slice.

This time Yoochun's mouth closes around the end of Jaejoong's index finger and thumb, and air pauses halfway to Jaejoong's lungs. She pulls back, those two seconds slowed down to feel like a hundred years, and Jaejoong's throat goes dry, curious how it'd be to suck the same sour-sweet taste from her tongue.

Yoochun says, "Sorry," really fast after she finishes eating. Jaejoong's fingertips are damp. He wipes them off on Yoochun's jeans as payback, gets back the oxygen he needs, and throws a clementine peel at her.

"Telemarketer," Yunho says when he's back on the couch. He eyes the enthusiastic bald man on TV. "I guess this week's vacuuming is mine?"

Jaejoong isn't listening, busy maneuvering Yunho into the middle, a little to escape how Yoochun's using clementines as projectiles in revenge, a little because his hands haven't cooled down and he can't remember normal at all.

*

Jaejoong spends fifteen minutes in the shower trying to fantasize about anyone who isn't Yoochun. He goes through ex-girlfriends and celebrity crushes, the models and actresses he's worked with, the men and women he makes up. He ends up on Boa, even if he feels bad about it, imagining her wired up and buzzed after performing when the leftover energy needs somewhere to go. Jaejoong breathes, shallow. This is working. This is good. She'd ride him until he was dizzy with it, her tan dancer's body, her strong thighs against his waist, hands on his chest. Boa's hands, soft, pretty. Her hands.

Jaejoong swears, his fist tight and slippery around his cock, and Boa's gone.

He pictures Yoochun's hands, longer fingers, sharper knuckles. If Yoochun ever touched him, slid her hand across his stomach, navel piercing, the flat of his hipbone. Yoochun's the type who would tease, not to be mean but to make sure she was wanted. She'd wrap her hand over Jaejoong's and guide each stroke and twist with a certainty that'd make Jaejoong wonder if this was how she used to touch herself.

Stop.

Jaejoong bites down on his other hand. The pain of it jolts him away from that image. He jerks himself off roughly under the thick stream of water around him. He tries not to imagine anyone, to just focus on the feeling, but staying in the steam this long makes him weak-kneed, and the old memory that floods through him makes it worse.

Yoochun at seven in the morning, drying off, his eyes bright and unclear as Jaejoong walked in on him in the bathroom. His hair dripped onto his collarbones. His skin was pink, glowing. Under all the shampoo and soap residue, Yoochun smelled like sex, and Jaejoong could see his thighs trembling a little. Good morning, Yoochun said, not awake enough to care, turning around as he pulled on a pair of boxers. Jaejoong watched the naked plane of Yoochun's back, the harsh cut of his spine, and said, Yeah, good morning.

Jaejoong thinks about Yoochun being in here with him, Yoochun's body pushed up against his own, slick and masculine under the heat of the shower, Yoochun's cock hard and rubbing between their stomachs. Yoochun's old voice, teasing and rough, and his old eyes full of the usual tired secrets. Jaejoong comes all over his hand, braced on the tiled wall, silent.

He finishes washing up mechanically, the guilt making his arms feel like lead. He turns the water on as hot as it'll go and stands under it for the last five minutes until his skin feels raw and clean.

*

Junsu's home the next morning, chatting nonstop about what he did with Junho and when and where. He talks about all the favorite dishes his mom made for him, but near lunch the conversation comes circling back to: "But, of course, Jaejoong's jjigae is still the best."

"Suck up," says Yoochun.

"At least I'm not a girl," says Junsu.

If Junsu actually sees Yoochun being a girl as any more than just another chance for mutual harassment, it never shows. Jaejoong's dull jealousy kicks up again.

He's been hiding out in the laundry room all afternoon so far, protected by the monotony of dirty clothes and two bottles of fabric softener. The chore has helped prevent him from doing anything really dumb so far, like go within a three meter radius of Yoochun.

Except that after the third load, Yoochun asks from the other side of the door, "Getting claustrophobic yet?"

Jaejoong, who's sitting on top of the dryer, smacks his ankle against the drum of it in surprise. "Um. No. Kind of, maybe."

Yoochun continues, "What're you doing in there?"

"I'm hiding," Jaejoong says. "It's top secret."

"It doesn't work if you hide in the same place every time. Can I come in?"

Jaejoong twists one of his shirts in his hands. "Yeah, okay."

Once she's here, Yoochun takes a seat on the washer, swinging her legs in sync with Jaejoong's. "Hi," she says.

"Hey," says Jaejoong, not ready for eye contact but making it anyway. There are columns of speedbumps between them, but Jaejoong has never known how to be cautious around Yoochun.

There's no way Yoochun doesn't know, but all she does is smile. "What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

Jaejoong flicks her cheek. "That line is so many levels of not okay."

"Your face is so many levels of not okay."

"Your mom's face."

Back-and-forths make it easy to act like nothing's wrong until Yoochun tucks her chin onto Jaejoong's shoulder. Jaejoong's stomach does a funny little jump. "Your grandma's saggy face," she says in return. "What were you hiding from, oppa?"

Jaejoong frowns. "What?"

Yoochun repeats, slower, "What were you hiding from?"

"You called me oppa."

"That's what girls do, right?"

Jaejoong shrugs her off. "Right, but you're not a girl."

Yoochun backs down, and she looks cornered against the same place Jaejoong is. "Okay," she says. "Sorry."

"It doesn't matter," Jaejoong says, climbing off the dryer to collect the finished load. "I just don't think you should be changing everything so easily."

"I'm not changing," Yoochun says. She hasn't moved. Jaejoong keeps cramming Yunho's clean clothes back into the laundry bag. "I mean, I'm trying to adapt a little. What if this isn't temporary? Shouldn't I be making some kind of effort to make this more normal for everyone?"

Jaejoong slams the dryer door shut. "You talking like that isn't normal."

"But me being the poster child of an identity crisis is a lot better."

"What identity crisis? If you know you're a guy, it won't go away just cause you've shaved your legs and put on some different clothes."

"You don't get to decide how I deal with this," Yoochun bites out. The way her temper works hasn't changed. She chains it back until it grows violent enough to attack the metal and anyone standing too close. There's no middle ground. Jaejoong wonders how far there is left to push if he wants to see her give in and get angry, tear at him like he thinks he deserves. He knows how well Yoochun can hurt him, and part of Jaejoong wants that.

"I'm not here to pick a fight," Yoochun says. Her bones are wound with a fuse.

"So why are you here?" Jaejoong asks, waiting for the detonation.

It doesn't come. Yoochun smothers her own anger, tugging out her messy ponytail so her hair is back down against her shoulders, reminding Jaejoong of walls as she jumps off the washer and lands hard on her feet. "Because I have to be the biggest dumbass in the world for believing that looking like a girl meant I suddenly had a fucking chance."

It sinks in kind of like a bullet. For a few seconds, the room is calm. Yoochun stays at the door like she's struggling with whether it's braver to walk out or stay.

"Hey," Jaejoong says. "Look."

"Forget it," Yoochun says. "If you don't like me, you don't like me, but don't go halfway and let me think this transformation shit has managed to push open a door."

"You think I wanted to kiss you because of your brand new boobs," Jaejoong says.

"And my winning personality," Yoochun says, still brimming with defenses.

"Yoochun, just stop."

Yoochun's hand drops from the doorknob. She tugs at her sleeves as she looks up at him. Jaejoong gets his heart lined up alongside hers on the shooting range so they're both playing fair.

"What if I've wanted to kiss you since a long time ago? Long like, spanning years and continents. Like being homesick - you know, when you don't let yourself think about it each second but it's always kind of there. Cause even if your boobs are great, they are, the boobs don't make the woman, and the body doesn't make the person, and are you really going to let me keep talking like this?"

Jaejoong shuts up but there's nothing to squeeze his fingers around to stop the panicked feeling that he's just spit out every little thing inside of him and now it's all floating around the room waiting for someone to take back in.

"You're a piece of work, hyung," Yoochun says after a long time, and rises to her toes to kiss him.

Her lips are soft, a little dry, moving only enough to test the waters. The kiss is a hotel affair, quick and rash and incomplete before she breaks it. Jaejoong's toes curl from the sheer terrifying buzz. He grabs her by the forearm before the doubt can take over either of them, and pulls her back in.

It's an I know you like a river across the palm of my hand kiss.

*

When Changmin comes home, Yoochun runs up and jumps onto him in greeting, feet dangling above the floor, arms around his neck. Changmin drops all his bags to make sure she doesn't fall, stumbling backwards into the door so he doesn't fall either.

"I missed you, you tall alien stud muffin," Yoochun says.

"I miss being able to breathe," Changmin says.

Junsu stops digging through Changmin's belongings for presents long enough to interrupt: "Why didn't I get one of those when I came home?"

Yunho and Jaejoong fly in as a unit to sweep Junsu into a hug. Jaejoong pinches Junsu's cheeks to be obnoxious. Junsu gropes Jaejoong's butt.

After dinner, Changmin gnaws on the rim of his glass thoughtfully and says, "Something's different."

While Changmin opts for the orange juice route, the rest of them take advantage of Jaejoong's liquor stash. The apartment's alive again. Jaejoong lies out across the couch, sabotaging Yunho and Junsu's video game battle by blowing into Yunho's ear until Yunho shoves a pillow in his face. Yoochun's had the same amount of alcohol as him, but she's already flushed and happy on the floor.

"What's different?" she asks, playing with the hem of Changmin's lounge pants.

"Something. I think there's a decrease of emotional tension in the air."

"I love the smell of emotional tension in the morning," Yoochun says cheerfully to Changmin's left foot.

Changmin finishes, "It's graduated to sexual tension now."

Jaejoong tries not to suffocate in Yunho's hair on accident. "What?"

Yunho twists his body around, maneuvering his go-kart back on the course. "What?" he echoes, distracted by Junsu's projectile banana peel.

Jaejoong turns red. "Nothing. Everything's fine. Everything's great. Changmin's drunk."

"Oh," Yunho says. "Did you spike his OJ again--god, Junsu, fuck you--"

"God is not on your side!" Junsu says, standing up as he mashes at his controller, racing into his last lap. Yunho's ability to play dirty increases with the number of drinks he's had; he looks back at Changmin, and Changmin clears his throat.

"Wow," he says, well-enunciated, "isn't that Thierry Henry?"

Junsu jerks away from the game. "Where?"

While Junsu runs off and Yunho and Changmin exchange an air high-five, Jaejoong feels a tug on his sock. He shimmies across the length of the couch and grabs Yoochun's hand in his own after a few tries.

"What's up?"

"I'm hungry."

Alcohol makes Yoochun crave weird things. Jaejoong remembers a few of the less horrifying recipes. "C'mon, I'll make you a sandwich."

"I think I see him!" Junsu shouts from the balcony. Yunho's go-kart crosses the finish line.

At the kitchen table, Yoochun slumps forward in one of the chairs, head in her arms. There's something peaceful about fixing up Yoochun's Nutella and peanut butter and banana and honey and marshmallow creme sandwich, listening to her drunkenly impersonate Elvis Costello while the other guys wrestle in the neighboring room. Jaejoong presents her sandwich cut diagonally.

"This is kind of gross, you know," he says.

Yoochun picks out a slice of mutilated banana and waves it in front of his face. "You want some?"

Jaejoong slaps her wrist away. "Be gross by yourself."

Yoochun takes a huge bite from one half of the sandwich, getting crumbs and spread all over her lips and fingers. She sends Jaejoong a broad, close-mouthed smile, and he pokes her cheek in response.

"Good?"

"Good," she agrees, licking her fingertips clean. "Good?"

"I'm not eating that," Jaejoong says, crinkling his nose.

Yoochun tears off pieces of the crust and arranges them in a smiley face on her plate. "I said, we're good?"

"Oh." Butterflies are the worst cliché in the world. Jaejoong thinks of it more as if you've just shot up with something hot and charged that fuses through your entire body, jerking you into someone else's gravity. "We're good."

Yoochun takes another bite. "Good," she says.

"You have got to be kidding me," Changmin says, rolling his eyes at them as he reaches for the fridge.

*

Yoochun says against Jaejoong's mouth: "I think they're home early." Jaejoong continues sliding his hand up her thigh and along the seam of her jeans, undeterred.

"What?"

Yoochun's leg un-hooks from Jaejoong's waist. "I heard the front door open," she says. "Do you want me to leave through the fire escape?"

"That's the wrong movie genre," says Jaejoong. "You should hide out in my closet."

"I'd get lost in how terrible your plaid collection is."

Jaejoong pinches her waist. "Sorry, I forgot you like your underwear to be in animal print."

From the other side of the bedroom door, Changmin interrupts, "Jaejoong's wanted out in the kitchen. Preferably not nude."

"Give us a minute, I'm taking his jeans off with my teeth," Yoochun says, and rolls out from under Jaejoong. Jaejoong stretches, straightens out his hair, before dipping back down to kiss the back of Yoochun's knee.

"Practice on your own jeans while I'm gone," he says.

Yoochun flips him off while her face is still buried in a pillow.

In the kitchen, Yunho's washing the dishes from last night, and Jaejoong grabs a towel on reflex to help dry.

"How was filming?" he asks.

Yunho makes a noise that sounds positive enough. He offers Jaejoong a damp bowl. "Long. We got a few questions about our elusive Micky Yoochun."

"He joined the circus," Jaejoong says.

Yunho chuckles, halfhearted. "He's dealing with important personal matters right now. What the hell is this?"

He scrubs at an unidentified substance that isn't coming off one of the spoons. Jaejoong inspects it from over Yunho's shoulder and guesses, "Disease?"

Yunho holds it by the stem gingerly as he drops it in the trash.

"I can finish up here," Jaejoong tells him. "You should take a break."

Yunho's hands hesitate with the rest of him. The water keeps running. Jaejoong should've seen this coming. "I need to talk to you about you and Yoochun."

Jaejoong twists the towel between his fingers, waiting for Yunho to say more so he can tell if he needs to begin his answer with an apology. Yunho simply says: "You're both capable of making your own decisions. But if this is going to be the equivalent of a summer fling, it's not worth it."

He passes Jaejoong another bowl and Jaejoong wipes it dry. "Got it."

"A lot can go wrong."

"We know how to be discreet, if that's what you're worried about."

"I don't only mean professionally."

"Got it," Jaejoong says again, after a while. The line of Yunho's body softens a little; his jaw un-tenses. He reaches over and musses up Jaejoong's hair. Jaejoong shuts his eyes, relaxing into Yunho's hand. "You're getting soap in my hair."

"I'm getting soap in your hair," Yunho agrees.

Jaejoong peeks an eye open. "Bros before hos?"

Yunho bumps his slippery fist against Jaejoong's. "Bros before hos."

*

A couple days later, a band meeting is held outside the bathroom.

"We're not going to freak out," Yunho says firmly. "We're going to handle this like calm, mature adults."

Junsu raises his hand, and waits to be called on before reciting: "As a painfully virginal young man who is unfamiliar with the darker side of the female body, I think I should be excused from this exercise."

"No. What? No," Yunho says, and pauses. "What?"

Junsu points at Changmin. Changmin balls up the cue card that he's been holding up behind Yunho's head, and chucks it at Junsu. He raises his hand next.

"Changmin?"

"Jaejoong has a zillion sisters. He should do it."

"I'm the oldest, I shouldn't have to do anything," Jaejoong says.

From behind the bathroom door, Yoochun makes another garbled noise.

The four of them look around the solemn circle they've formed. "Rock paper scissors," Yunho announces.

*

After the fourth ring, Boa's voice comes through the receiver. "Hello?"

"Have I ever told you that you're one of my best girl friends and I'd do anything for you?" Jaejoong says.

"Are you calling for advice, fun, or bail money?"

"I'm taking one for the team." Jaejoong tugs his hat down further as he loiters in a section of a small, 24/7 convenience store. The place has slow traffic and enough distance from the apartment. He's put on his country dialect again, the plainest clothes he owns, and sunglasses that take up too much of his face. "I'm in the feminine product aisle and I don't know what I'm doing," he continues. "Help me, Boa-won Kenobi, you're my only hope."

"Oh, right. Yoochun called me a few minutes ago," Boa says, somehow communicating both concern and schadenfreude in the same sentence.

"You're Yoochun's go-to too? We can't have to same go-to. How long has this been going on?"

"All sessions are confidential," Boa says serenely. "Describe the situation to me."

"Pads and tampons."

"Tampons. Trust me."

"Tampons, okay." Jaejoong scans the shelves for the boxes that are less likely to eat him alive. He picks up a blue and friendly one to study, and flinches as he reads some of the packaging. "You're gonna have to give me some more to work with."

Boa rattles on about brands, sizes, styles, and scents with malicious detail, destroying the over twenty years of ignorance that Jaejoong'd been able to preserve in less than five minutes.

"Please never say the word flow to me again," Jaejoong says. He tenses as a middle-aged woman walks past, and panics: "I'm getting them right now, baby, don't worry. I'll be home soon."

Boa's laughing at him on the other end. "Is this you trying to act? Get some painkillers too."

Jaejoong grabs an armful of tampon boxes from the shelf, blushing, his cellphone wedged between his cheek and shoulder. "Thanks. Call you later."

"Good luck, snookums," Boa replies, followed by the smack of a kiss at the speaker. "Flow."

*

Yoochun going through her period isn't very different from Yoochun going through one of her weird artistic weeks, so they learn to handle things the same way. In all the years Jaejoong's known Yoochun, she's always had to be looked after a little, with the way she needs an extra reminder to sleep or eat, or the way loneliness can suck her dry. Jaejoong buys her disgustingly unhealthy take-out when she's locked up in the workroom, and when she's gloomy and biting her nails, he takes her somewhere private to kiss the color back into her eyes.

By the fourth day, everyone realizes it's no big deal and stops editing 'flow' out of their vocabulary, even though Boa's still texting Jaejoong paragraphs of the same word every day.

On the seventh day, Yoochun climbs into Jaejoong's bed while he's listening to music, going through the script for an upcoming variety show appearance. She scoots up until she can steal one of his earphones and share his pillow. Jaejoong puts the script away and rolls over too.

"Jaejoong," Yoochun says.

"Yeah."

"Can we go somewhere?"

Jaejoong turns the volume down on his iPod and props his chin onto his palm. "You know you're not allowed to leave the apartment."

"I've been caged up for weeks," Yoochun says. "All I'm asking for is an hour."

"They said--"

She cuts him off, hugging the pillow closer. "Bleeding between my legs kind of freaked me out, okay?" she says into the fabric. "It's not like I can't sneak out alone, I just hoped you'd come with me."

They've always brought out something in each other, a thirst to say yes to everything. Jaejoong sits up and lays his palm flat against her back, shaking her into action. "Let's go. I know a place."

*

Yoochun does 110 down the small highway, taking them further and further from the city. They'd stopped at a forgettable gas station earlier, and Jaejoong'd paid for a slushie and a pack of cigarettes while Yoochun'd flirted with the boy at the register for kicks. Now the sun goes down behind them as Jaejoong tells her where to drive and attempts to blow smoke rings.

"Where're we going?" Yoochun asks, sunglasses pushed up into her windblown hair. Jaejoong's window is rolled down halfway and he can't hear her over the cold, rushing air.

"What?" he shouts.

Yoochun repeats, louder, "Where are we going?"

Jaejoong makes his seat recline further, letting another mouthful of gray smoke curl up against the car ceiling. "Remember what happened with my knee?"

Memory tightens Yoochun's fingers around the wheel. "Sure," she says.

Jaejoong tilts the cherry slushie towards her and she catches the straw clumsily in her mouth, which has already become an unnatural red color. "The first week I graduated to crutches, I snuck out and went driving. Turn left here."

Yoochun slows down as they reach a narrow, uneven dirt road. "You never told me."

It's not an accusation, so Jaejoong just says, "I'm telling you now. Turn up ahead."

He leads them to an abandoned stretch of train tracks, in the middle of nowhere and bordered by thick trees and tall grass. They park a dozen meters away and Jaejoong stubs out his cigarette. The wind's gotten stronger since they left the apartment, blowing his hair over his cheeks and into his mouth. Yoochun's wearing one of her own sweaters, too big on her, swallowing up her torso. She sits on the hood of the car, the engine still on and the stereo still playing, and holds up one of her hands to study.

"You know how people end up forgetting what they used to look like before something happened to them? Like after plastic surgery or a major haircut? How long do you think that usually takes?" she asks.

"I don't know. Are you forgetting?"

"Not really. No." Yoochun rubs her hands together, tugging her white sleeves over them to stay warm. "It's been a full month, though."

Jaejoong guides her up by the wrists, and wraps her into his jacket with him. "We can go do something manly if you want. You know, start a bar fight. Go to a strip club. Play laser tag."

Yoochun laughs as they rock together. "Hanging out around a crappy old railroad is okay."

"Shut up, this crappy old railroad has spiritual value."

"Strip clubs have spiritual value too," Yoochun jokes.

Jaejoong pulls her into a loose headlock and plants a wet kiss on her temple. "See, this is why the universe took away your dick."

Afterwards, Yoochun walks along the center of the tracks, kicking at the weeds growing between the sleepers, while Jaejoong follows on the left rail, arms spread out. She jumps up onto the opposite rail, taking Jaejoong's outstretched hand for help. They talk about entertainment industry gossip, who said what to who, everything Yoochun's missed. Eventually Jaejoong gets shoved off balance and stumbles off the rail, arms pinwheeling to catch himself before he goes after a triumphant Yoochun, who runs down the stretch of road until her back is small enough that she looks no different than she did a month ago.

*

The apartment heating is on the fritz and today's colder than usual. Jaejoong has on good authority that he looks like a turtle, bundled up in a fleece blanket as he lounges around the apartment.

"It's not that bad," Yoochun tells him, barefoot, in a long and loose t-shirt as she spins around in her desk chair, eating lychees out of the can.

"It's that bad," Jaejoong complains. "I think I was born cold-blooded."

"I think you're a robot," Yoochun says, revelatory.

"Robots don't have blood."

"So you admit you're knowledgeable about robots."

"Are we really talking about this?"

"I'm offering ten thousand won if you do a robot voice and say 'take me to your leader'."

"That's for aliens, stupid."

Yoochun makes an enlightened sound. "So you're knowledgeable about aliens too."

"Come here, I'm going to kick your ass."

Kicking Yoochun's ass typically requires little effort, but Jaejoong forgets to get free from his blanket first. It makes the wrestling go on a minute longer, Yoochun jumping on Jaejoong's back and trying out a chokehold that morphs into a forced piggyback ride. When Jaejoong finally traps her under him, the room has already begun to feel a couple degrees hotter. Yoochun's still laughing, unfocused, like she's just forgotten where they are. Their play-fighting has lined Jaejoong's body up with hers, and he can feel how thin she is, and how she's not wearing a bra.

"This is kind of cliché," he says. His elbows dig into the bed and his hair is getting in his eyes. Yoochun tucks it back behind his ear for him, and Jaejoong's eyes lower to Yoochun's mouth.

"Just go with the flow," Yoochun says.

Jaejoong shudders. "I thought we banned that word," he says, right before Yoochun leans up to kiss him.

Kissing Yoochun isn't really like kissing a girl at all, and the only way Jaejoong can categorize it is Yoochun, like how Yoochun only ever tastes like Yoochun, and the bitter hint of smoke that hides under everything else no matter how much fruit and syrup she's just had.

Each minutes restores a little more of the tongue-in-cheek confidence that Yoochun had in his old body. Jaejoong sucks on her throat as he works an arm under her, groping around for some kind of zipper.

"Buttons in the front," she tells him.

"That's so inconvenient," Jaejoong mumbles. "Why would anyone make clothes so inconvenient?"

Yoochun squirms up the mattress. The length of her skirt bunches so that Jaejoong can stroke his fingers over the back of her bare thigh. "Seriously, shut up," she says, and Jaejoong can feel her voice turn rough under his lips.

He gives up on the skirt and just pushes the rest of it out of the way. He slides his hand higher to run his thumb along the bottom of her underwear. There's color in Yoochun's cheeks, mouth, creeping down her neck. Jaejoong dips under the cotton material, nice and easy, finding a rhythm that she can get into, his fingers dampening as she rocks down to meet them.

She unbuttons her own skirt and peels it off. Her underwear catches around one of her ankles as Jaejoong pushes her knees further apart. He likes how he can feel the tension of her stomach as he moves his mouth to her belly button; against the flat of her hipbone; along the crease of her thigh; over her clit as he uses both thumbs to spread her open for his tongue.

Yoochun isn't very loud in bed, Jaejoong learned that early on, but she does things like fist the back of Jaejoong's shirt so hard that the seams of it dig under Jaejoong's arms, and curl and uncurl her toes, nails painted a glittery experimental blue. She tastes salty, sharp. Jaejoong's mouth feels too dry, full of cotton, as if he needs to drag his tongue around her in tight, rough circles to make it better. He rubs his middle finger against her cunt, slides it back inside and makes her come like that minutes later: sucking her clit, pushing into her with two fingers as she squeezes around him and almost knees him in the face, gasping for air like no amount of oxygen could ever be enough.

Jaejoong wipes the mess from his chin onto the back of his wrist. When he looks again, Yoochun's looking back, the inside of her thighs sticky and shiny, and Jaejoong remembers how hard he is, how he's been grinding his cock into the bed through his jeans.

Yoochun thumbs at the wet corner of Jaejoong's mouth, her skin still blotched pink. "Are you gonna take your clothes off or what?"

*

It's Yoochun's bed, so the condoms in the nightstand are Yoochun's too. "Vanilla?" Jaejoong says. "Really?"

"It's classic," Yoochun argues, tugging Jaejoong's jeans and underwear down to his knees. Jaejoong finishes kicking them off, and strips out of his shirt next, holding onto the condom packet with his teeth before he tears it open and rolls it on.

"It's clichéd," he replies, delayed.

Yoochun licks a wet stripe up Jaejoong's cock to shut him up. It works.

Jaejoong catalogues everything, the impatient way she arches her back, where and how hard she likes to be bitten. It makes him wonder if these things come from the person or the body, and how much he'll have to rediscover if Yoochun turns back. Jaejoong's cock presses snug against her belly, slick and cool with lube, and Jaejoong brushes his knuckles under Yoochun's chin, tipping it up.

"Hey," he says. Their mouths are close. The room feels small and humid. "So technically this is your first time, right? Now that you're a girl."

"Yeah," Yoochun says. "Park Yoochun's virginity. People have killed for this."

If she's cracking jokes, she's distant, over-thinking. Jaejoong guides his cock, sliding the head of it against the coarse hair between Yoochun's thighs, rubbing it against her cunt until she she twists under him and gives up on the bravado. He hikes one of her legs onto his shoulder, holds onto her hip as he pushes into her. Yoochun swears, stunned, and arches into it.

Her voice gets breathy and unchecked when he moves, her nails digging into the back of Jaejoong's neck, and Jaejoong's nerves start to short-circuit. He turns his face and bites the underside of her knee, something to anchor himself, something to stop him from giving up trying to impress her and make her shake again.

Yoochun pushes the sole of her foot against his ass and rolls her hips to meet him as he fucks her. When Jaejoong gets a hand between them, gets his fingers back on Yoochun's clit, Yoochun grabs his hair, yanking him into a kiss. She shudders when she comes her second time, her cunt contracting around him and making the oxygen stop halfway to his lungs. She looks soft and worn out under him, but her legs wrap tighter around him instead of letting go, and Jaejoong presses his mouth to her skin, takes it slower the rest of the way until his spine and belly are furnace-hot and and his thighs shake and he's tensing, coming against her, his lips moving against her shoulder without sound.

*

"If I were really a robot, I'd want to be a badass assassin robot," Jaejoong says, slouched against the headboard and sucking on a cigarette to mark off another cliché. The ashtray is balanced on a pillow and Yoochun is lying next to it, her hair in disarray, her body pliant under the white sheet. She's sleepy and transparent; Jaejoong can almost see the satisfaction running thick through her bones.

"I'd be a sex robot," she says.

Jaejoong grins and swats at her ass.

*

"Pancakes!" Junsu exclaims, scooting closer to the table so he can reach his food. "Did something happen to Yoochun again?"

"These aren't comfort pancakes," says Changmin.

Junsu's mouth is already full. "Mmglrph?" he asks attractively.

"In the breakfast world, there are celebratory pancakes, comfort pancakes, and post-coital pancakes. These are definitely post-coital pancakes."

Jaejoong slides another plate towards Changmin. "Shut up or they're going to be smashed-into-your-face pancakes," he says.

Yoochun shuffles into the kitchen, blurry-eyed and wearing Jaejoong's clothes for the first time in over a month, at the same time Junsu says, "Oh."

Jaejoong turns around and scrubs at his cheek furiously with his palm until he thinks the pink color's gone. "Morning," he says.

"Good morning," Yoochun answers, yawning. "Pancakes?"

Junsu continues, after a beat: "Ohhh."

"I hope you used a condom," says Changmin. "Because I experimented with your pictures and if you two have a baby, you're dooming it to lifelong bullying."

Jaejoong attacks with a handful of pancake mix. This starts a food fight that only ends when Yunho comes down the hallway, wielding one of their awards like a baseball bat because he's sleepy and thinks they're robbers. By now, Jaejoong's hair is dyed with syrup, Yoochun and Junsu are covered in splotches of batter, and Changmin's tan has disappeared under the flour.

Yunho rubs his eyes. "I'm just going to have waffles today."

*

The morning Yoochun turns back, Jaejoong only wakes up when he feels the mattress dip down as Yoochun climbs off and leaves the room. He doesn't move or follow right away, burying his face into his pillow to steal some more sleep. When fifteen minutes go by and Yoochun hasn't returned, Jaejoong frowns and stumbles out of bed, pulling on a pair of jeans.

It's an hour before anyone needs to be up. There's no noise coming from the other side of the bathroom wall. "Yoochun?" Jaejoong calls, knocking his elbow into the door. "You in there?"

A long second later, Yoochun answers, indistinct: "I'm here."

It's another one of those absence things, how Jaejoong couldn't have known how much he missed Yoochun's real voice until now. "Are you--?"

"I'm here," Yoochun repeats.

Jaejoong reaches for the doorknob, but Yoochun hasn't given any sign that he wants to be seen. He hooks his fingers through his belt loops instead. "Is everything where it used to be?" he asks.

"Uh huh."

"Are you going to come out?"

"In a minute." Jaejoong can picture Yoochun's face, his lousy shot at being okay. "What happens now?"

Jaejoong doesn't touch the door but he curls his fingers into his palm one at a time, counting out the things he hasn't done with Yoochun yet. "You come out and we wake everyone up. We call our manager so he can put a pin in his month-long aneurysm. Being back to normal is a good thing, remember? This shouldn't be that hard."

"This shouldn't be that easy," says Yoochun.

"Why not? Stop trying to figure out the entire direction of your life in two seconds, it's stupid."

"Don't call me stupid."

"Get your ass out here."

It takes another minute, but the bathroom door clicks open. Yoochun looks exactly like he did before, except a little rough around the edges, as if he hasn't finished climbing back into his skin and smoothing it back out. He's wearing the t-shirt he fell asleep in, but with his panties exchanged for boxers. The muscles of his calves are visible. His hands are slender and calloused, rubbing up and down his bare arms. It's like he's just come back from a long journey, cross-continent roadtrip, war. Hoping to find everything the way he remembers it.

Yoochun smiles, self-conscious. "Long time no see."

Jaejoong says, "No kidding," and kisses him slow on the mouth.

Maybe it's a test, to check if something is different or gone. It seems rougher and wetter than before, their bodies pushed together against the doorframe. Any yellow caution tape that Yoochun couldn't shed as a girl has been ripped down. Jaejoong lets his hand slide under Yoochun's shirt, against the small of Yoochun's back. At the core, it's the same private vulnerability, the same grasp at fearlessness. Yoochun still opens up a little first, and then all at once after he learns it's safe.

"It was always you, you know," Jaejoong says, a centimeter from Yoochun's mouth, which is kissed as red as hearts and lungs.

Yoochun's thawed down, eyes starting to crinkle around the corners. "I'm getting that."

Jaejoong leans their foreheads together. "Welcome back," he says.

*

"Welcome back," says Changmin.

"Stop talking to my crotch," says Yoochun, before he inhales his breakfast.

The previous stunt in the kitchen used up all the syrup, so Junsu's being generous with the honey instead, making a sticky mess as it drips all over the table. "These are the celebratory kind, right? They don't taste very different from the post-coital kind."

"Post-coital is celebratory," Yoochun tells Junsu with his cheeks full.

"Sometimes." Jaejoong sits at the table with the final stack of pancakes. "Sometimes post-coital is sad and self-loathing."

"Thus the invention of Pop-Tarts," says Yoochun.

"Is that why we ran out last week?" says Changmin.

"Honest to god, I will spank you with this spatula," says Jaejoong, and Junsu ducks in to pull the plates away before they can transform food into a weapon again.

Yunho gets off the phone and comes back to the table, with half an hour to go before their activities start up full-speed again like the past month never happened. "How did you turn back, anyway?" he asks.

Yoochun shrugs. "Who knows."

Jaejoong gets a strange, sinking feeling in his stomach. "I maybe possibly know," he says, and clears his throat when everyone looks at him. "Remember yesterday, after you, you know." He makes a fist next to his mouth and shoves his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

Junsu calmly covers one of his ears with his palm, and uses his other hand to continue shoveling his breakfast into his mouth.

Yoochun looks thoughtful. "And then I said look, no hands, and you said--"

"You're a real boy now," Jaejoong says. He wonders if the dishwasher is big enough to hide in.

There's a long pause. Yunho rubs the back of his neck. "So you did turn Yoochun into a girl."

"It could've been a coincidence!"

"Test it out, call him a girl again," Changmin says.

"No," Yunho says.

"Call Changmin a goat," Junsu says eagerly.

"No," Yunho says again, more hurried this time.

"Call Junsu a leprechaun."

"Shut up! Call me tall, dark, and handsome."

"Call me tall, dark, and handsome too. Only, wait, I already am."

Across from Yoochun, Jaejoong bumps their feet together under the table. "What do I call you?" he whispers, under the others' arguing.

"Big daddy," Yoochun whispers back, and laughs when the next bump is more of a kick. "Sorry. Yoochun. Just Yoochun."

"You watch too much James Bond." Jaejoong slides the last piece of his pancake into his mouth and raises his empty fork like a toast. "Just Yoochun?"

Yoochun smiles, and their forks meet with a metallic clink, like bells on a new year or just a clock ringing in the next hour of something that's been moving forward for ages. "Just Yoochun and Just Jaejoong."