Prologue:  He's the.... man?

A bunch of girls crowded around the school gym, screaming and giggling as they stood watching through the glass window.

“Kya~ Yunho-oppa is sooo cool!”

“I KNOW.  Look at those biceps and triceps! I feel like I’m going to faint!!!”

A loud sigh rang throughout the school hallways as they swooned over Yunho’s roundhouse kick.

“How can he be so perfect? Top of the class, student council president, black belt in taekwondo AND three year consecutive winner of the high school league kick boxing competition!!”

A blur of black and white filled the air as Yunho swung his opponent over his shoulder; the thudding sound of human flesh making contact with the floor declaring his victory.

“Omo! Did you see that? That was SO MANLY. WAH~”

“Totally!!”

“Ahh!! I—I think he just looked this way!!”

“No way!! Omo Omo! What to do? Omo! Yunho-oppa! Saranghae!”

Pretending not to hear them, Yunho wiped the sweat off of his forehead, bowing and shaking his opponent’s hand.

“Kumsamida, Yunho-hyung.” Jonghyun said sincerely, ears turning red with embarrassment when Yunho smiled and tapped him lightly on the arm.

Seeing Yunho leave, Taemin ran over to Jonghyun, tugging on his sleeve and whispering, “Jonghyun-hyung, you are so lucky to be able to compete with Yunho-sshi!! I was watching you guys the WHOLE TIME. He was just too cool! I wish I could be just like him!”

Jonghyun nodded in agreement. “Yeah, the manliest man ever…”

If only they knew… Yunho thought to himself as he walked into the change room, twisting the combination lock on his locker and looking around before opening it.

Making sure that no one else was in the change room, he let out a sigh of relief and withdrew a pink towel with frills and two bottles, one bottle of strawberry raspberry shampoo and one bottle of peaches and cream shower gel, out of the locker.

“Mmm… I just love this stuff!!” Yunho cooed, smiling as he inhaled the deliciously scented substance and walking into the shower room, taking off his smelly uniform and placing it neatly on the bench outside.

As hot streams of water trailed down his back and onto his long, muscular thighs, Yunho hummed Wonder Girls’ So Hot under his breath, scrubbing the sweat off of his body with a cute rose-shaped body scrubber.

His eyes suddenly snapped open as a thought crossed his mind. Placing a hand over his mouth, he gasped.

“Aigoo!~ I almost forgot! Today is the day that the next chapter to My lovely Yun-chan comes out!”

With that said, Yunho immediately scrubbed himself at a quicker pace and put on his clothes, rushing out of the school hurriedly.

But he didn’t get far, because a voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Go pick on someone your own size!!” The silky, velvet voice shouted angrily, making Yunho pause and turn around.

That voice is too beautiful to be used for yelling. Yunho thought to himself.  Who would anger such a sweet sounding person?

Eyes finally finding the origin of the commotion, Yunho saw a large crowd of students surrounding two slightly shorter men and three guys, who were known, by every one, as the school bullies.

The head of the gang smirked, lightly tapping his hand on one of the boy’s face. “Get your facts straight. We weren’t picking on him; he voluntarily gave us his money. So move aside, pretty boy, or else I’ll have to ruin that pretty face of yours.”

“YA! He told you to stop. Are you deaf or something?”

Everyone turned around to look at Yunho, some girls even squealed with delight at the sight, clutching onto one another’s school uniforms as they parted for the school stud.

Siwon raised one of his eyebrows, diverting his attention to Yunho.  “What did you just say?”

Yunho stood in front of Siwon, looking him straight in the eye, head up high. “I said, are you deaf?”

Scoffing, Siwon glared at Yunho, his fist coming around to hooker punch Yunho on the face.

Everyone gasped as Yunho’s hand shot out, catching Siwon’s fist in his own before it got a chance to make contact with his face.

Siwon was slightly taken aback by the fast reaction, gulping as he stared into those dark, endless orbs. No one had ever stood up to him, let alone stop his well-known knuckle sandwich.

“Stop. Picking. On. Them.” Yunho said in between clenched teeth, watching in satisfaction as Siwon and his gang ran off, shooting him dirty looks before disappearing through the school gates.

Turning around, Yunho said, “Are you guys alright?”

“Yes, thanks to you, we are.” The blond said politely while bowing, his other friend bowing as well.

Yunho inhaled sharply when a pair of large round eyes looked up, the sight of the blond’s smile and his pink luscious lips like an arrow shooting straight through his heart. The sunlight glistened against his hair, like gold, dazzling Yunho’s eyes and making his blood pump faster than he thought was possible.

“Um, uh, you—you’re w-welcome… It was no problem… really.” He scratched his head, laughing nervously, unable to look the blond in the eye.

No matter what happens, I have to behave like a man… No matter what…

A man with waves of luscious hair watched from the corner of the school, rubbing his thumb and forefinger over his chin and smiling to himself as he observed the hint of pink creeping onto Yunho’s face.

Scribbling down something in his notebook, he disappeared amongst the crowd.

However, the crowd didn’t part as Yunho had hoped it would.

Like a swarm of bees, the crowd of girls immediately surrounded Yunho, squealing and giggling, praising him for his valiant act.

But Yunho didn’t care about them, the only person that he had in mind was the breathtaking blond.  He tried to look over the numerous colors of bleached and black hair, but the blond was already gone.

Darn. And I didn’t even ask him for his name… Yunho thought to himself, shoulders sagging slightly in distress.

The sound of his cell phone ringing in his jacket pocket saved Yunho from the countless girls, apologizing and making his way out of the crowd and into a quieter area.

“Hello? Oh, Umma. Um, yes, I’m still at school. A couple of guys asked me to, uh… hang out with them. Where? Oh, you know, that new billiard place down the street…” Yunho winced slightly as his mother squealed with joy on the other line, assuring her that he would be home as soon as he finished.

Snapping his phone shut, Yunho sighed.

He didn’t want to lie to his mother, but if his mother found out what he really did after school, she would have a heart attack and probably yell at him until his eardrums broke.

Ah, well… what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her… Yunho thought to himself, feeling slightly better as he entered the petite shop, the dinging of the door chimes and the voice of the kind receptionist making Yunho smile.

This place was his haven, a place where he could release his inner self and not act all uptight and manly.

Of course, none of his friends would come to such a “girly” place, so he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone catching him in the cute shop.

Practically skipping over towards the shelves and shelves of dolls, beads, yarn and manga, Yunho felt his heart lift, as if a huge weight had been taken off of his shoulders…

☆☆☆

Yunho sneaked into his room, flopping backwards onto his bed as he stared at the bags and bags of items wrapped in pretty pink tissue paper.

He rubbed the palm of his hand over his face, groaning slightly in frustration.

If his mother saw the bags of yarn, sewing material, cloth, beads, string and stacks of shoujo manga he had just bought at La Chick, she would have a fit.

But they had all looked so tempting… calling out to him, practically seducing him when he had entered the shop…

His fingers inched slowly towards the bags, wanting to start making a teddy bear with the adorable hazel brown cloth he had bought, as well as stitching on that lovely pink rose accessory and purple jewel bead eyes.

But he snapped out of his dream like state before he got to them.

Shaking his head, Yunho told himself to stop.

He had tried so hard to restrain himself from doing such girly things for the past few weeks; and he had been so successful too, increasing his workout hours at the gym and buying books that would help increase his endurance and build up on his technique in both taekwondo and kick boxing.

But one look at that blond, who was cuter than any girl or boy he had ever seen, possibly even cuter than the girls in the shoujo mangas he read, had shattered the wall he had been building to block out his inner personality.

“Ergh… it’s all Appa’s fault…” Yunho grumbled, flipping over on his stomach and staring at the untouched manga and accessories.  “If only I hadn’t inherited his genes…”

==============================FLASHBACK======================

“Darling, where are you going?”

He turned around, his face scrunched up in agony. “I’m sorry… but I must leave you and Yunnie…”

She tugged onto his sleeve, tears in her eyes, lower lip trembling slightly. “Why? Do you… not love me anymore?”

Laying a hand on hers, he let out a sigh, eyes to the ground. “No, it’s just that…”

He gulped, looking down at Yunho, who was clutching onto the Bambi he had given him on his birthday, large round eyes so full of innocence and curiosity staring back at him.

“What? What is it then?”

He turned his attention back to his wife and took a deep breath before saying the words that would ruin Yunho’s future life, making him hide his seemingly embarrassing inner personality painfully.

“I’m… darling, I’m so sorry for telling you this now… but… It’s been killing me, keeping this a secret all along. To be honest, I want to be a woman.”

Yunho’s mother stopped crying, unable to process what her husband had just said to her.

“Wh-what? Is… is this some kind of… joke?!”

“No, I’ve always wanted to be a pretty woman… one that could walk down the street, with long glossy hair and wear mini skirts.” He said, waving a hand in the air, a dreamy look in his eyes.

She had just stood there, mouth wide-open, eyes large in disbelief as her husband waved goodbye.

==============END OF FLASHBACK====================

Yunho sighed again at the memory.

His uncle had told him that after his father had left them; he had immediately gone to a plastic surgeon and gotten a transgender change, then moved to Thailand, where sex changes are a common thing. He was probably living a pretty darn good life there now, surrounded by those who shared the same “interest” as his.

His mother had had a major breakdown due to this incident and Yunho had gotten the worst end of it. 

When she saw Yunho’s interest in dolls, sewing and cooking, she had immediately yelled at him, telling him to be more like a man and signed him up for numerous “manly activities”, such as taekwondo, kick boxing, soccer, light weight boxing, etc, to make sure her son didn’t turn out like his father.

Although Yunho still enjoyed reading shoujo, sewing and cooking, as well as frilly, pretty things, he loved his mother and didn’t want her to be upset, so he told himself to become more manly, excelling in all the sports he participated in and focusing all of his attention on his studies.

Looking down at his hands, which seemed to have a mind of its own and had been stitching the whole time he was reminiscing his childhood, Yunho squealed in shock at the sight of the completed teddy bear.

Flinging it away, as if it were a skeleton bone instead of a cute bear, Yunho pulled at his jet-black hair in frustration.

“WHY?!! ERGH!! And the teddy bear even turned out perfectly!! AHHH!!! WHY AM I SUCH A SISSY??!!!”

“Yunho? Is that you?” The sound of his mother’s voice made Yunho look up, hurriedly shoving all the bags into his closet and seating himself at his worktable.

When the door opened and his mother’s head popped in, Yunho looked up behind his thick-rimmed glasses, a pencil in one hand, the other flipping the page of his algebra textbook.

“Oh, hi Umma.”

“Yunho-ah, when did you come home? I didn’t even hear you enter the house…”

“Oh, it was just a few minutes ago. I saw you watching television, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Ah, I see. I heard you yelling… is everything alright?”

Yunho pushed the sliding glasses up the bridge of his perfectly straight nose and sent his mother a warm smile. “I’m fine. I just… had a rather frustrating question that I couldn’t quite figure out, that’s all.” 

“Oh. Okay. Well, don’t work yourself too hard dear. And dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Should I bring it up to your room?”

“No, it’s fine Umma. I’ll be down in a sec… after I finish this last question…”

“Alright then.” She smiled, glad that her son was turning out to be such a fine young man, and closed the door.

Yunho let out a sigh of relief, crawling down on his hands and knees to retrieve the teddy bear he had so hastily shoved under his bed and hugged it close to his chest, apologizing to it for being so mean.

Looking into the teddy bear’s adorable eyes made Yunho think about the pretty blond he had seen after school today, the corners of his mouth lifting upwards at the thought.

This blond… he was going to be the fall of him one day… the main reason his secret would be revealed out in the open…

( Chapter 1 )