Chapter One: The Innocent Boy Has Found his Innocent Girl

The worst day of Rhett’s life was when he realized that he had lost to his best friends in the game of love. Now, Rhett Jung was the second oldest boy in the household, being 25 years old, and so he believed that he could have never lost due to his age and other factors. It wasn’t as if his appearance and personality were unappealing to women. 

Even the boys came to a consensus that Rhett was the second most handsome fellow in their group due to his model-like height and broad shoulders. His mother would have described him as a gift from heaven, but that was what all mothers thought of their children. His sister, Jihye, would groan about how long his eyelashes were and how his nose was perfectly angled at the tip. Not to mention, she would always remember to comment on how small his face was. According to her, he was nearly “picture perfect” and if he were to refute, she would mope that he shouldn’t complain when he was blessed with “single eyelids that were neither small nor large and that even slanted upwards”. 


Rhett, however, never cared about those remarks. In fact, he would scoff at girls and their fanatical obsessions with beauty. What he cared about was that he had lost to Shim Changmin only by an inch or two. He would sometimes invest in shoes that made him tower over Changmin. 

This time, though, Rhett could not find an easy way to solve his problem. Simply put, he was the biggest loser now that his childish best friend had a girlfriend. He was the only one single. No, he was the only one that was still at that stage, where he never had a steady girlfriend and only had shabby dates. 

His eyes, thus, popped when Kim Junsu proudly announced, “Guys, I have a girlfriend.”

Luckily for Rhett, he had won, in terms of reacting normally to this statement. The others though were not so fortunate. Kim Jaejoong, the eldest, had dropped his favourite frying pan to the ground. Park Yoochun had broken a string off of his new guitar. Changmin had inadvertently tossed a large chocolate chip cookie about to be devoured by his jaws. That cookie then landed fatefully on Rhett’s cheek for he had been, unfortunately, sitting across from Changmin. It was already painful enough to hear this announcement and now he had to be hit by a hard cookie. In a fit of anger, Rhett jumped forward to strangle Changmin’s neck. Changmin, instinctively, pushed his chair backwards and fled to take a seat elsewhere. It was too dangerous to be beside a furious Rhett.

 “That damn kid.” Rhett’s fingers scrunched into claws. 

Then, he turned to find Junsu looking at him with doe-like eyes. This was typical of Junsu, to gawk at another person; this used to be an innocent stare, but now, all Rhett could feel was abhorrence. Rhett, therefore, shot Junsu a wicked look.

 It was all Junsu’s fault, everything.
 
“Rhett, are you okay?” Junsu approached Rhett to pat him on the back.

“Argh!” Rhett flung Junsu’s arm away. “Don’t touch me! Guys aren’t supposed to be touchy!”

“Why?” Junsu tilted his head sideways like how a dog would listen to its owner. “I thought you liked hugs?”

Jaejoong explained, “He’s just jealous that you have a girlfriend and man, he just sounded like Changmin.”

“Hey!” Changmin roared. “It’s not my fault that I think affection among guys is weird!”

“Anyways, we’re just shocked,” Yoochun interjected, still attempting to fix his guitar.

“Well, you’ll get your chance at love.” Junsu tapped Rhett’s arm instead.

Without much hesitation, Rhett walked past Junsu. Rhett had to leave before exploding at him, who had done nothing wrong. Rhett needed time by himself to think and to calm his enraged spirits. So, he shouted, “I’m going out for a jog! No one dare call me.” 

This was supposed to be a suave exit if he had not placed his hands in his pockets after slamming the front door. His pockets were supposed to contain his keys, and so he had to ring the door bell. He gulped a few times and hit his cheeks to eradicate the humiliation that was churning his stomach.

“Forgot your keys again?” Jaejoong raised an eyebrow before tossing Rhett the spare set of keys.   

“Thanks,” Rhett mouthed and hastily turned away to sprint.

“Oh, by the way, Rhett, I don’t think we’d be calling you because your phone is right there.” Jaejoong pointed to a black cell phone that lay on top of a rounded table.

Although a mound of swear words were echoing in Rhett’s mind, he still thanked Jaejoong. Now, that Rhett was fully prepared to leave, he, again, shut the door with as much force as he could possibly exert. A fine exit, indeed.

“Dude,” Changmin called out after hearing the second door slam, “what’s up with him?”

Standing behind Yoochun was Changmin, who had a habit of wanting to understand what everyone did. Perhaps, it was out of curiosity that prompted him to act this way, yet most of them believed that he was just plain meddlesome. A classic rascal. 

“Don’t ask me,” Yoochun replied. “I was out partying with Rena.”

“Who’s Rena?” Junsu chirped.

“A girl,” Yoochun muttered with his eyes still glued to his guitar.

Jaejoong rolled his eyes and returned to the kitchen to crack a few eggs into his oiled pan. “His new girlfriend for like two days.” 

“So, what’s up with Rhett?” Changmin asked again.

Jaejoong sighed while shaking his head, “It’s probably his moobs. They’re bothering him again.”

“Haha, moobs are sexy. They can be camouflaged as boobs,” Changmin sang a cheerful lullaby. 

Disgusted by Changmin, Jaejoong uttered, “We’re not here to listen to your fantasies! You know, I don’t get what people, girls especially, see in you, but then again, the ones that you attract turn out to be downright bimbos.”

“Oh, burn!” Yoochun looked up just to smite Changmin further.

Junsu gave Jaejoong a high-five and cheered, “Good one, Jaejoong!” 

Jaejoong just smirked, whereas Changmin furrowed his eyebrows. He couldn’t make a rebuttal because Jaejoong was cooking for all of them. If he were to offend Jaejoong now, then he would have to go through the day with an empty stomach. The last time he recalled having an empty stomach, he was at a staff meeting. His superiors had heard his stomach growls and all of them glared at him, but those weren’t what bothered him. What irked him was how he almost felt like fainting.

Before Jaejoong could make another joke, Yoochun asked Junsu, “So, when do we get to meet this special lady?”

Junsu clapped his hands. “Soon!”

“Why not now?” Jaejoong placed the scrambled eggs onto the plates now and proceeded to turn around to land the plates onto the granite table.

“She’s shy.” Junsu shrugged his shoulders.

“I thought you liked outgoing ones,” Changmin noted while shuffling his feet to receive his plate of food. As he was about to devour the eggs by sliding them down his throat, Jaejoong handed him a fork and a knife, along with a glare. 

Junsu sighed, “She’s shy at first, but once she knows you, she’ll open up. She’s quite bubbly in fact and I’m afraid . . .”

Yoochun interrupted, “What?”  

“Yoochun, eat some breakfast! You can worry about your guitar later! Stomach comes first!” Jaejoong ordered.

“F-fine,” Yoochun carefully set his guitar on the couch and then marched to his plate. Once he sat down, he repeated, “So, you’re afraid of what?”

 “I’m afraid that you guys will scare her,” Junsu noted.

There was a minute of silence. 

The three other boys were having trouble processing that thought in their minds. Why? Well, they all believed that they were the most friendly and approachable bunch. Junsu had already anticipated their reaction and he had to admit that they were frightening to the public. Sure, they were kind, yet Junsu had always recognized that when all five of them strolled down a street as a group, people always made way for them. This was partly due to the size of their group, but that wasn’t the root cause. They were unapproachable once in a group of five. That was not all though. It was difficult for the five of them to accept any other person into their clique. One person was bound to hate the new friend in some sense. Now, that . . . that was the issue.

“So,” Changmin questioned, “what makes us so scary?”

“Yeah!” Jaejoong shrieked, almost tipping over his frying pan. “How can we be scary? I mean that’s impossible right?”

“That’s right!” Yoochun hollered and forked the yolk of the egg.

Junsu took a deep breath and blurted as fast as he could, “Once she gets to know any of you, she’ll freak. Jaejoong, you’re too blunt. Changmin, you’re way too sarcastic. Yoochun, you’re too flirty and Rhett . . . seems nice at first, but he’s a weird ass himself.”

“But, your girlfriend has to love us!” Jaejoong slammed his fists onto the table. “If she doesn’t love us, I’m going to break you guys up!”

Junsu exhaled a deep breath. This was exactly why he had not wanted to introduce her to them, yet he couldn’t seem to contain the happiness to himself. Happiness, it seemed, had to be shared. It was too hard to mask such an emotion and it was also too easy to take pride in this sensation.

Author's Note: 
For those that have been following TFDL, I thank you first for your patience and for your support! I've decided to paste the revised chapters onto my blog, so new readers of TFDL on soompi or on asianfanfics won't feel that the whole piece is disjointed. When I am finished all of my revisions, I will probably update the asianfanfics one, but I cannot guarantee that. I can guarantee that I will finish editing and revising the chapters and I will post them here.
 
So, there should be one question in your head after reading this chapter. Where's Yunho and who's Rhett? Well, Rhett is Yunho. There's a reason that I'm not referring to him as Yunho for now. You will see why in the future. 

Also, I decided to make the setting Tokyo. I'm more familiar with Tokyo, so when I describe some places, I'm describing them from my memories. Speaking of Tokyo, I hope people who have suffered from the earthquake will receive the help they need. My wishes are to them.


PS. I will release chapter two tomorrow. I thought I'd give an early release. :D Thanks again!