When Jongin opened the door for Sohwan and she exited, his stomach sank and he knew he’d be walking on eggshells for the rest of the evening. His girlfriend’s heels clicking on the cemented walkway were the only things to be heard. Jongin followed her warily, tumbling apologetic words around in his head in search of the right thing to say. He walked behind her, his eyes looking first at her shoulder blades, tight and clenched as her arms crossed her chest. Then, he looked down at his feet, feeling ashamed even though he wasn’t even sure what he had done wrong yet.

By all accounts, the evening should have gone well. In celebration of their three-month anniversary, Jongin had made reservations at La Petite Maison, an extravagant five-star restaurant. He had picked Sohwan up at her house at precisely 7 PM, were seated at their table near the window at 7:40 after only three minutes of waiting. He had saved up his last three or four paychecks in order to buy her a necklace with a rose gold heart-shaped pendant. She smiled when he gave it to her. They both had steaks and drank exquisite champagne, he in his best suit and she in a stunning black dress. 

But at some time, somewhere in the middle of the night, Sohwan’s attitude changed. Her usual warm glow turned steely. turned into a straight line, and she wouldn’t look up at him. And it left Jongin wondering what in the world he had done to make her so upset.

“Alright, stop,” Jongin said, trying his best to keep up with Sohwan. She was practically speed walking back to the parking lot. She didn’t stop, however. She kept her arms crossed and her eyes remained fixed straight ahead. Jongin reached out to put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off. The night air was dry and cold, like the mist inside an ice box. There were only strings of lights wrapped around the trunks of trees to illuminate the walkway. 

“Sohwan,” Jongin said, catching up to her. “Sohwan, wait! Can you slow down at least?”  

Sohwan groaned. Jongin scoffed, becoming quickly fed up with her tantrum. 

“What? What did I do? Was it something I said?” he asked. Sohwan slowed down but did not turn to look back at him. She scoffed at his words.

“Was it something you said,” she repeated mockingly, hurting Jongin’s feelings a bit. Her boyfriend rolled his eyes. Jongin sped up his walking to match her pace. His brows furrowed in frustration. After all he had gone through to ensure the success of this night, he wanted to know exactly where the evening fell short. All the better to repair things, he thought.

“You can’t honestly be upset right now,” he grumbled. Sohwan rolled her eyes.

“Can’t I?” she asked sarcastically. Jongin ran a hand through his hair, exasperated.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he said. Sohwan muttered something to herself and distanced herself from him. Jongin sighed, trying to calm himself down and remind himself that they would get nowhere if they continued to accuse each other. He finally reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. 

“Sohwan, slow down,” he said, and Sohwan finally slowed to a stop. Jongin took a step toward her and tried to make her meet his eyes. “Can you please just talk to me? Tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I am sorry.”

Sohwan’s face was turned away but at the sound of his apology, she turned to him, finally. Her eyes were as angry as ever.

“Oh, so you’re sorry now?” she asked. Sohwan shrugged his hand off her shoulder and began walking toward the parking area again. Jongin, confused, ran after her a second time.

“What?” he asked. Sohwan was silent. 

“Okay, well, just say something, alright?” Jongin said. “Anything? Say anything to me, something?”

Sohwan stopped. She brought her arms down to her sides in clenched fists. 

“Like what?” she asked. “What do you want me to say? You want me to say it back to you? Like some high school football cheerleader, I say ‘what team?’ you say ‘wildcats’? Like some kind of game or something?”

Jongin was taken back by her reply. What was she talking about?

“Uh, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” he said. Sohwan walked past him once more. As her shoulders brushed his, Jongin began to think harder about what it was that could have upset her so. It had to have been something he did that night. He thought back on his actions and words throughout the night. He had been kind, charming, funny, his usual self. All they had done was talk a bit about their days, reminisced about how they met. This was an entirely new side of Sohwan that Jongin had never seen before in the three months they’d dated and the four years they’d known each other.

They had taken classes together in college. They had been friends and close acquaintances, but it wasn’t until they both accepted internships at a graphic design firm that they really began to know each other. They were both strong, silent types, the kinds of people who understood things without being told. This, Jongin had always believed, was probably why they went so well together. They understood each other. Or at least that was what he had believed until tonight. Sohwan wouldn’t even look at him and he couldn’t understand why. All he had said was well within the boundaries of normal conversation, he had even finally told her the he lov—

“You’re upset because I said ‘I love you’?” Jongin voiced aloud, realization hitting him like a bull. Sohwan stopped and turned to him, anger ablaze in her eyes.

“Don’t say it!” Sohwan said. “I swear to god, if you say it one more time—”

“But why?” Jongin asked, standing many paces away and shouting the question to her. His heart began to beat harder in his chest. Genuine confusion made his face twist into a frown. Sohwan huffed her breath, equally distressed.

“Oh don’t play stupid, you know exactly why,” she said. Jongin shrugged.

“God, Sohwan, is it really so bad that I do?” he said, taking a few steps toward her. “Because I really, really do, with every fiber of my—”

“Jongin, don’t! Just don’t do this right now, I really can’t,” Sohwan said, putting her hands up as though she wanted to slap a palm over his mouth. She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“You and I agreed, didn’t we?” she said. “Months ago, I told you, I would go out with you, I’d be your girlfriend, we’d go on a few dates before making it official, we’d hold hands, we’d kiss and all that, we don’t do nicknames, and we definitely would not say ‘I love you’ until we were absolutely ready and we absolutely meant it—“

“But I do mean it,” Jongin said, his voice cracking a bit. “I mean it! I love you, I promise I do.”

“Well, so what?” Sohwan challenged. Jongin stood there, stunned and speechless.

“So what? What… what do you mean ‘so what’?” he asked. He looked at Sohwan, at her face, and tried to think of what better way there was to convince her of his sincerity. Did she honestly doubt him? Why would she think he was making this up? He almost laughed at how hurt he felt. 

“D-do you have any idea how much I went through tonight, trying to p-pluck up the courage to say that to you?” he stuttered. “How long I thought and thought about this moment, right down to the inflections in my voice, how slowly I was going to say it, how much time I—”

Sohwan swallowed. Her eyes were glossed over, as though with tears. She shrugged, looking honestly apologetic.

“Well, then you wasted your time, Jongin,” she said. “You don’t have to think about these things, you just do it, and you do it when you’re ready and when you’re comfortable, don’t just spring it out on me when I’m unaware!”

Jongin ran his hand through his hair again.

“What is so wrong with that?” he shouted to her. “I realize you weren’t expecting it, but surprise, I wasn’t expecting this either! God, you are really all the romance out of this evening!” 

“Romance? Oh, you want romance do you? You want me to choke back tears of sheer joy and gasp for breath as I try to swallow that sickly sweet, romantic little confession of yours and then say it back to you? Okay, well fine, then, I love you. There, I said it. You happy yet?”

“What’s your problem?”

“I said I love you, already!” Sohwan shouted. “There, your daily dose of romance, now please wait another twenty-four hours before requesting another one."

She huffed her breath. Jongin fought the urge to curse aloud. Sohwan focused her hardened gaze on him once more. 

“You want romance, Jongin?” she said. “Real love has absolutely nothing to do with romance. ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean anything, really. What do you want? You want us to wake up one morning, ‘I love you’, brush our teeth, ‘I love you’, take coffee in the kitchen, you reading the paper and me doing our taxes, and right before you walk out the door, you say ‘I love you’ and then I say it back, and then at night, you say ‘I love you’ and then you turn out the lights and then we repeat it the next morning and the whole thing just becomes one, big, worn out routine, until ‘I love you’ doesn’t actually mean ‘I love you’? Until ‘I love you’ is just… noise?” 

Sohwan came closer, holding his eyes captive with the fiery look other face.

“Why do you love me, Jongin?” she asked. He fumbled for an answer, feeling uncomfortable in this conversation.

“Because I’m young, beautiful, smart, kind?” she asked. “That’s easy isn’t it? It’s always been easy to love young, kind, beautiful, smart girls, but what about when I’m being a , or when I’m lost, or when I’m stressed out and or when I’m old? It’s harder, then, isn’t it? It’s easy to tell a girl you love her when you’re at a fancy french restaurant and you’ve just bought her expensive jewelry and she’s wearing a nice dress. It’s harder to tell me you love me when I’m being like this, isn’t it?”

It was becoming harder to ignore the pain in his chest as he forced himself to look his girlfriend in the eye. He had always thought the reason they went so well together was because they had a deep, personal understanding of each other. It was only now that he began to realize that three months into their relationship, he still didn’t understand her as well as he thought. 

“It’s not just noise,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m… baring my soul to you right now. I haven’t said this to many other girls, Sohwan, I’m being genuine, I promise.”

Sohwan in a large breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been lied to a lot in my life, Jongin,” Sohwan said. “My father told me he loved me once, right before he abandoned me and my family. My friends have told me they loved me before stabbing me in the back. Other boys have told me they loved me even though they didn’t. Don’t you get it?”

Jongin swallowed. Sohwan shook her head.

“‘I love you’ doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “If you love someone, you don’t hurt them. But we all hurt each other eventually, because we’re human and we up again and again, so please, just don’t say it. Don’t say it anymore.” 

Sohwan turned and walked away, the sound of her heels clicking against the pavement matched the beating of Jongin’s heart as he sunk down into a nearby bench, his face falling into his hands. The clicking of her heels eventually disappeared and Jongin was alone in the dimly illuminated walkway. The unbearable pain from before had subsided, and all he felt now was numbness and brokenness. 

Was this the end, then? Four years of friendship and three months as a couple, was this the end of their story? He felt his heart clenching in his chest. Tears stung his eyes as he tried to imagine life without Sohwan. 

Was she right? Had it been too soon to tell her his true feelings? He had never doubted his feelings for her until now, and even now he stubbornly insisted to himself that he’d been nothing but honest this evening. But why had things turned out the way they did. Nearly drunk on sorrow, Jongin didn’t hear the familiar click of heels growing louder, and he only registered Sohwan’s return when he felt her sit down on the bench beside him. She took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut.

“Alright,” she whispered. Jongin sat up, wiping at his eyes.

“What?” he said. Sohwan kept her eyes forward, but she nodded slowly. 

“Alright,” she whispered again. “I’m going to give this a try.”

Jongin looked her up and down, confused for a bit. Sohwan still wouldn’t look at him directly. Her whole body was tense as she sat on the bench, her arms and legs drawn inward towards herself. was a straight line. He felt his heart rate picking up again, but he tried to force himself not to gain hope too quickly. She closed her eyes.

“You can say it again if you want,” she said. Jongin looked at her eyelids, his gaze attuned to every little move she made, from the flick of her eyelashes to the movement of as she swallowed. He was still hurt over what she had said to him earlier. He couldn’t believe she had doubted his feelings, called him a liar. But again, he arrived at his old thoughts about their intimate understanding of each other’s needs, their ability to know what the other could not or would not say. 

Sohwan had been hurt in the past, he knew. Too many loved ones had betrayed her trust and now, all she knew  was how to hurt the people who loved her in return. But in the years he knew Sohwan, he also experienced the girl she was before all the hurting had taken place.

Jongin held his breath for a moment. Then he spoke.

“I love you.”

Sohwan sat still for the longest time. Jongin waited and waited for her to react, but when she didn’t say a word, he placed his hand over hers.

“That’s all for now,” he said, leaning into her. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’m not pressuring you to return my feelings or say anything in reply. It’s enough for me just to let you know.”

She let out a breath. Jongin swallowed.

“I know you’ve been hurt,” he said. “But I think that somewhere deep inside, you want to believe me don’t you? You want to believe that people can still be trusted and as ty as humans can be, there’s still some people who mean what they say when they say ‘I love you’, right?”

Sohwan choked back a sob and the opened to speak.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jongin said. “Not until you’re ready, anyway.” 

Shown put her other hand over Jongin’s and then leaned against his shoulder. Jongin tucked her head under his chin and held her close. Rubbing her shoulders, Jongin silently promised himself that they wouldn’t be that couple that threw those words around carelessly; the couple that took each other for granted. They’d be the ones who promised to be sincere in all things, who promised to let their actions speak as loud as their words. 

As the night grew colder, Jongin suggested that they get going. He draped his jacket over her shoulders as he led them back to the car. He felt weightless, like the great burden of the first “I love you” had finally been lifted off his shoulders. Even though he didn’t get the reply he had hoped for, it was truly satisfying just to know that Sohwan knew. 

Even more satisfying was knowing that she believed him. They reached the car and Jongin let go of Sohwan’s hand for a minute to look for his keys. She pulled his jacket closer.

“I love you, too.”