(Kyungil POV)
...
It's been a week, eight days to be exact, but that doesn't matter because you're not counting. It's been a week since the last 'last time' and you've been keeping yourself away from the dorm as much as possible and he's just thrown himself into work again, because that's how you both cope with this, with everything that's happened over the past nine months. You're not ignoring him and you're trying not to treat him any differently than you did before, but your heart still aches when you see him and you still reach toward him before you can stop it and you sometimes find yourself staring at him a little too long for it to be considered normal. All things considered, things could be going worse. (Of course, they could be going better too.)

You're trying to maneuver situations so that you don't have to be alone together more than necessary, you spend as much time with your friends and even your other bandmates as you can manage, because you're liable to screw up again if you don't. He's not totally back to normal either, he doesn't look at you much and he doesn't ask questions just so he can talk to you and he doesn't laugh at your jokes or put his hands on you, like you were just a bad habit that he's broken completely. You know that can't be true, you know he's still hurting, you know his heart aches too, but he's always been better at accepting the way things are between you and you shouldn't be surprised that he still is. (You should probably accept that things will never be normal between you again.)

You're still thinking about the future, the future of your band, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't think of his future too, his future without you. You do realize, in order for him to have a future without you, he's going to have to meet someone else and kiss someone else and sleep with someone else, and you can live with that if you don't have to be around when he does. It's not like he's ready yet, he probably doesn't even know anyone he'd consider dating, but it will happen and you will hear about it and you will have to pretend that it's not a big deal, because you think it might be a big deal for a lot longer than you'd like. (Maybe forever.)

It's not like you haven't thought about it, asking one of your friends to set you up with someone, anyone, just so you can stop thinking about him, but that wouldn't really be fair to the other person and you haven't been on a blind date in a really long time anyway, you probably wouldn't know what to do or say. (Never mind the fact that you have absolutely no desire to date anyone your friends could come up with right now.) It's been a while since you actually dated someone, and it doesn't seem appealing anymore. 

One night, you get home much later than you planned and you think everyone must be asleep, but you notice the glow of the tv as soon as you walk in. You're not sure who would be in the living room at this time of night, but you're really not expecting it to be him until you see him lounging on the couch, watching some kind of documentary. You think about sneaking past him to your room, but he asked you not to avoid him or treat him like he's something fragile, so you decide to deal with it head on, you sit down next to him on the couch instead, leave as much space between you as possible. (It's not nearly far enough.)

"You finally managed to stay awake for an entire movie," you tease as the credits roll on the screen. "It's not the first time," he tells you, and your mind is overwhelmed with memories of a darkened theater and lips on skin. "The first time you've stayed up for a movie you were actually watching," you compromise. He looks away from you, picks up his phone and turns on the display. "You were out late," he points out. "Is that a problem?" He looks at you, hard, obviously thinking about how to respond. "Of course not," he finally says, standing up from the couch. "Good answer."

He sighs and walks over to turn off the tv, his eyes sleepy and swollen, and you think you finally understand what he's been doing, and you feel like an as.s for snapping at him. "Were you... waiting for me?" you ask. "It's almost four, I thought—" he stops, his face lit up blue by the tv screen. "I should have told you guys I'd be late." He shrugs. "No one cared but me anyway, it would have been a waste of time."

"It's selfish to make you worry about me. I'll make sure to tell you next time." He nods, turns off the tv, stumbles toward the hallway. "Will you tell me?" He turns back around and you can just barely make out his silhouette in the dark. "I'm never out this late," he reminds you. "But if you were," you explain, "would you tell me?" He hesitates longer than you thought he would before whispering, "Yes." He returns to finding his room in the dark and you lean further into the couch. It's never been this hard to interact with him, you always got along well, too well, and that's all for nothing now. 

You don't have a lot of schedules together at the moment, but you know there will be a few coming up, you know you have to keep working if you want to hold on to your recent success in the industry, and while that doesn't seem to be a problem for him, you're already tired just thinking about promoting again, because promoting means hotel rooms and alone time and loneliness and danger, and you won't break the rules, you won't go to him, but if he ever came to you, if he ever showed up in your space, you think you'd be helpless to resist. 

Sometimes you wish you could see into his mind, read his thoughts, figure out what he wants from you now, figure out how to make this easier on the both of you, but you suspect that he doesn't have any more answers than you, and you can't read his mind anyway. Basically, the whole situation suc.ks and it's not getting any better, or any easier, and sometimes it's really hard to remember why you were so convinced that ending this was the right thing to do, but you know you did it for him and that's a good enough reason. 

Sometimes you think he does things on purpose, just to frustrate you, just to make you regret giving him up. (He doesn't have to do anything to make you regret it.) Sometimes you really think he's going to die of exhaustion, and you don't really know what to do about it because you're trying not to cross any lines, and you're having a hard time remembering how you used to handle things, how you used to get him to eat or sleep, before your methods involved things like taking him out to dinner and locking him up in your arms and distracting him with your lips. (Your normal methods never worked as well as those.)

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the two of you do end up alone, sometimes in the dorm, sometimes at the company practice rooms, sometimes in his studio, and you think you might break, you think you might revert to your old ways, you think you might forget to think before you act, so you follow his lead, because you know his plans are always more effective than yours. He still looks depressed and you still feel depressed and if this is really the right thing for him, then why does he seem so different? You were really hoping everything could go back to normal, but everything still feels wrong, and you don't know if there is any way to make it right again. 

Another night, he finds you drunk-cooking at 2am while he's on his way to grab something to drink. He sits down at the table and watches as you burn various meats in a pan, watches as you messily chop up vegetables, watches as you accidentally slice open your hand, rushes to your side, hisses your name in anger. He makes you sit down at the table, grabs the first aid kit from the bathroom, tends to your self-inflicted wound. 

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks quietly, trying to stop the bleeding, pressing a little harder than he needs to. "I don't know," you mumble, "I couldn't sleep." He sighs, disinfecting your hand and calling you a baby when you recoil at the sensation. "Then you should have watched tv or something." He bandages up your hand, his fingers lingering against your skin as he smoothes down the adhesive edges, his eyes focused on his task. "It's not very deep, I think you'll survive," he mutters, avoiding your eyes, "but why did you get so drunk?" He looks up at you, but you know he's not really asking because he doesn't really want to know, so you shrug. "Bored, I guess."

"Well, next time you're bored and drunk, try to stay away from sharp objects." He packs everything back into the first aid kit and stands up from his chair. "Let's get you to bed," he says, reaching for your arm and pulling you to your feet. You balance your weight against his side, lean into his shoulder, allow him to lead you to your room. He helps you to your bed and sits down next to you, a little tired from supporting your weight, from always being there when you need him. (He's probably gotten used to it.)

Your head is fuzzy from alcohol and blood loss and him, mostly him because his hair is messy and his eyes are sleepy and he smells like soap and fabric softener and home and he hasn't looked at you for this long in ages and you feel it building, the words you aren't supposed to say, the words that only hurt him, the words that can't fix anything. You stop some of them, shoving them back down into your heart, burying them in your mind, but some of them are too strong for you, some of them escape before you can hold them back. 

"I want to kiss you so bad right now," you hear yourself say, and you know that's how you feel, but you don't even feel like you're the one who said it. He looks away from you and closes his eyes, opens them slowly. "Don't," he pleads softly. "I won't, I just want to," you explain, like that makes it any easier, like that makes it any less true. "Why?" he whispers, returning his eyes to you and you can tell that he already regrets asking, but you're going to answer him anyway. "I've kissed a whole lot of people, like a lot of people," you slur and he rolls his eyes like he should have expected this, "but I think you're the best."

He coughs and you know you're going to regret your honesty in a matter of hours, but it seems like the right thing to say right now. "You're drunk," he says, shoving your shoulder and standing up from your bed. "Sure, but I'm not lying." He starts to leave and you should let him, but you're not ready for him to go, so you stop him. "What about me? Where do I rank?" you say and he rolls his eyes as he starts to answer. "Bronze medal," he replies and you have to think for a second to remember what that means, count to three on your fingers. "Third place?" you confirm in horror and he chuckles softly. "Don't you want to know how many contenders you beat?"

"Not many," you mumble, flopping down on your back, radiating disappointment. "Enough. You beat out enough of them," he explains, but you've known him since he was practically a kid and you can't imagine that he's kissed more than a handful of people, so it doesn't feel like an accomplishment to you at all. "Did I at least outrank the girls?" He laughs again, for real this time, and tells you to "shut up and go to sleep," before he leaves the room. 

You wake up the next morning to find a bottled water and some Aspirin on your nightstand next to a notecard with a childish depiction of a gold medal scrawled on the front and it takes you a moment to remember that you're well on your way to screwing everything up again, so you leave again, you don't come back for hours, for days at a time. You avoid him even though you know it's not what he wants, even though you know he'll hate you for it, but this might be easier if he hated you, so you let him.

Eventually, you have to go back home and you have to sleep in your bed and you have to see him, you have to let him ask you questions and look at you and frown in concern for you, even if it makes you feel like you're dying. "Why were you gone so long this time?" You ignore him. "Did you... meet someone?" he asks nervously. "Maybe I did," you respond, because it's not exactly a lie, you could have met someone, you could have feelings for someone that's not him, you could be over him by now. "Oh," he says, "well, congratulations." 

He seems genuine enough and he turns away from you and it's like everything is ending all over again and it's too much to bear. "You don't care?" you blurt out and he turns around. "If you met someone that makes you happy, that's all that matters to me." He probably thinks he's being mature, generous, he probably thinks this makes him a good person, that he gets some sort of cosmic bonus points for his good deeds, but you think he's ridiculous, and more than that, you think he's lying. (Even if he's lying, you should pretend he's not.) 

"Yeah, right," you scoff. "What?" He looks confused, so you decide to explain. "You don't have to lie, I know you don't mean it. I know you don't want me to be happy." He rolls his eyes. "Then why do you think I let this end? Why do you think I didn't fight it? It's because it was what you wanted and because you were never going to believe that things between us could work out." You're stunned by his confession of sorts, and you know he can see it all over your face. "No, it's because I did it for you! I did it because it's what's best for you, because I can't make you happy and you deserve to be happy."

"But it's over and you ended it and I let you, and that's it! That's the end. Now you can be happy without me." You shake your head, feeling unsure of yourself, like you might have done the wrong thing. "No, now you can be happy without me." He walks closer to you, his expression hard and determined, and you're not sure where this is going, but you have no choice but to let him do it anyway. He looks you in the eyes and says, "Do I seem happy to you?" 

"Maybe not, but it's not my fault anymore." He looks away from you, clears his throat. "I was happy," he whispers, "weren't you?" You think it's your turn to lie, you think you're supposed to make sure that the two of you don't fall back into your old patterns, you think this is another chance to protect him from harm. (To protect him from you.) "I haven't been happy in years," you say, and his eyes snap back to yours, tears welling up in his eyes, and he must know you're lying, he must know you're making it up, but he looks like he might believe you. "Now maybe I can be happy again," you continue, brushing past him and walking down the hall. 

(This is how you protect him, this is how you take care of him, this is how you make sure that he gets the future that he deserves, and if that means destroying yourself in the process, then so be it.)