Soojung has heard it all too often.

“When you break up and are still friends, you were either never in love or you still are.”

Each time she would shake it off with a smirk and vow that it didn’t apply to them. Being longtime childhood friends before deciding to become lovers and now back to friends again, they always begged to differ. But then there comes times like now when Soojung is riding in the passenger seat of his new car, windows rolled down as they cruise freely on an empty highway in the dead of the night with Ed Sheeran playing on the stereo, speeding right into a lane of unwanted nostalgia that makes Soojung doubt everything.

They sit in a silence filled with denial, unspoken secrets and the story of a hazy night filled with blurry downtown lights and endless confessions being told too late, lingering at the tips of their tongues. Neither of them bring it up and pretend that it’s been resolved and forgotten during the year they didn’t see one another, because time is supposed to heal everything but like the song playing, that night plays out in the rearview mirror, dancing along the white and yellow lines of the pavement passing them by at 60 mph.

Jongin talks lightly about the current track playing, completely and intentionally jumping over the fact that he use to serenade her with the gentle strumming of his guitar quietly accompanying the deep raspiness of his voice while he belted out the lyrics at her, whether it be through a crappy webcam or over the phone. Soojung plays along because that’s what they do best, walk along the blurry lines that poke at old feelings and constant denials of an unresolved love that doesn’t seem to want to die.

She listens to him talk about the new girl in his life, how she’s so perfect for him and how the previous one after Soojung herself was not the person he thought she was and Soojung congratulates him, wishes them nothing but the best as she remembers just a little over a year ago, he was holding her hand down these same streets, debating on the thought of choosing her again.

Soojung hates him for feigning ignorance when he knows he’s triggering everything that they use to be, could’ve been and everything that they couldn’t be. He knows he still lives in her mind and creeps in her heart because he’s always the one she calls during odd times of the night, when her words are slurred and she’s too intoxicated to stop herself. Jongin hears all the unspoken words she hides in the ones she carefully chooses to say and in the brown eyes that refuse to meet his. She hates the fact that he knows her like the back of his hand and accepts her as she is, flaws and all and Soojung hates herself for doubting that anybody new can do the same.

Jongin hates her pride. He’d talk about their past and she’d go along even though every word suffocates her because she refused to return to his side and admit that he’s what haunts her the most. She fears of creating an unhealthy cycle because too often does she see their friends break up, get back together a few days later to only repeat the process a thousand times over again but little does she know, they’ve already created their own cycle of whatever it is they’re doing or not doing. Neither really knows. But Jongin will always pick up her drunken phone calls because that’s when she’s all his again and he can pretend she won’t remember the little things he confesses to her under his breath before ending the call to hold his new lover to sleep. Jongin is the person he is today because of Soojung’s patience and understanding and that’s one reason he can’t let her go.

His car continues to zoom through the highway and Soojung keeps her gaze out the window, wondering if he remembers the way he cupped her face with his warm hands before kissing her on the forehead after she’d asked him to stay in a barely audible whisper. Soojung wonders if he remembers avoiding her gaze because he knew she’d swallowed up her pride to ask him just this one time but he couldn’t stay, because his foolish self couldn’t stop thinking of the other girl who was only toying with his tender heart.

They’re not lovers nor the friends they want to be but it’s too late now. He’s found someone new who Soojung can’t help that agree that she is good for him. Soojung doesn’t wish to be in her position, she just wishes she could stop loving him already like how he just wishes he can let her go. But still, neither of them bring up the events that unfolded that autumn night and instead they listen to the same Ed Sheeran track over and over again on this empty highway at two in the morning, pretending they are the only two in the world and it’s all theirs.

They reach her home far too soon for their liking because they’d meant to resolve everything that’s been lingering between them, but once again, they sweep it under the rug, hug for a little too long, make dry promises to hang out more often, wish her another happy birthday for the umpteeth time that night before he finally pulls away after she’s made he