(Yijeong POV)
...
It's only been days since you last saw his name pop up on your screen, but something about this time feels different. He'd called you three times since he left. Once to tell you that he was okay and doing well in training, to listen to your breathing and lecture you about eating and sleeping enough. A second time to tell you some stupid story about his new buddies and the kind of pranks they tried to play on each other. Last time he called you to tell you he wouldn't be calling for a while because he wanted you to focus on your studies instead of him. That was two weeks ago. (You feel as though you've only slept for two hours since then.) You slide your finger across your phone to answer his call, hold the speaker to your ear and wait for him to speak. "I want to see you," he says, his voice low and determined. "Are you going home this weekend?" 

"I'm probably going to stay here and work," you answer truthfully, unsure if you should attempt to lie. "What about everyone else?" You shrug, despite the fact that he can't see you. "I don't know." He hums into the phone, thinking of a plan. "Do you want to see me?" You nod carefully. "Always," you whisper. "I'll be there tonight," he decides and you can't do anything but agree. 

He arrives a couple of hours later, sneaks in to your studio, startles you when he lands his cold hands on your shoulders as a greeting. You slide your headphones from your ears, turn around to look at him, lose your breath as your eyes search his. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says, a grin lighting up his features. "I just didn't hear you come in," you explain, point to the headphones that now rest around your neck. "So, I see nothing's changed since I left." You shrug. "It hasn't been very long yet." 

"Can you take a break?" he asks like you have a choice. "Yeah. What do you want to do?" He reaches for your hands, leads you to his room, which is sitting mostly untouched and vaguely dusty due to his absence. (Kind of like you.) He notices the vacant look in your eyes, waves his hand in front of your face after he close the door. "You okay? Are you sleeping enough?" You nod. "I'm fine. I just haven't been in here since..." you trail off because you don't want to lie. He doesn't need to know that you snuck in here in the middle of the night a week after he left to sleep in his bed, in one of the shirts he left behind. He doesn't need to know that you cried. He doesn't need to know that you can't sleep. "Me neither," he says, even though it's obvious. He sits on the side of his bed, motions for you to come closer, reaches for your hands. "Where is everyone?"

"I don't know." He sighs. "They didn't tell you?" You shrug again. "Are you upset with me?" he asks, looking up at you. "No, I'm not. It's just... hard." He looks down at the floor. "Do you want me to leave?" You shake your head, squeeze his hands. "Okay," he mutters, pulls you closer to him. You basically end up in his lap, your knees hugging his thighs, looking down at him slightly. "Your hair's getting longer," you mutter, your fingers ghosting along his scalp. "It's kind of a mess," he says, his hands against your hips, but you shake your head. "No, you look good. Are you... good?" He smiles softly. "I'm good. Better now." 

"Me too. I'm better now," you say, wrap your arms around his neck, press your face into him. "I miss you," you mumble, move your lips against his skin, feel a chuckle rumble up from his throat. "It's a good thing you said it because I honestly couldn't tell," he says earnestly. "You want me to prove it?" you say, and your heart feels fluttery and you haven't felt this nervous around him for a while, mostly because you haven't been around him for a while, but you ignore it, block out the logic circling around your head, and you close the minimal distance between the two of you, kiss him tenderly, remember why it's so hard to be without him. "I missed you too," he says finally. You take a deep breath, because he's here and he still seems to want you and you don't want to waste any more time. You swallow nervously, hope your voice holds steady. "So prove it."

An hour passes before you drag yourself from his arms, out of his bed, shiver slightly from the sudden change in temperature. "Where are you going?" You look around for the rest of your clothes, because you can't look at him and leave. "Back to work. Break's over," you say, get dressed, hear him get out of bed. "You're really not upset?" he says softly. "Not with you." You're upset with the situation for being so painful, with yourself for not getting over him yet, with the universe for being so unfair, but you're not upset with him. You can't be upset with him because he didn't leave you because he wanted to and he came back to you anyway. He walks in front of you, forcing you to look him in the eye. He's staring at your lips and it's kind of making you crazy, but you don't have enough strength to look away. "I'm starving," he says finally, "do you want anything?" 

"No, thanks," you say uselessly, because you know he'll order you food anyway. "Come on," he whines, "I'm not hungry enough to meet the minimum delivery amount." You sigh and you feel petty for refusing to eat, because you shouldn't take this time for granted. "Just order anything. I'll eat the leftovers." You try to sidestep him, but he slides his hand along your waist, stops you from moving past him. "Will you please just tell me what's wrong?" You bite your lip, because you should tell him because he deserves to know, but you've been bottling up your emotions for weeks and weeks and you don't want him to be around when you inevitably explode. "I told you. This is hard, but I can take it." He nods, dropping his hand back to his side. "If I could change it..." You wave him off. "It's not possible, so it's not worth saying. Eat something, I'm going back to work." You make it all the way to the doorway, your hand on the knob, but you hear his voice from behind you and your hand stills. "Are you done waiting for me?" 

"What?" you say, but you don't turn around because you heard him the first time and you don't want to break down. "Do you need to stop waiting?" You nod slowly, blink furiously, hope he doesn't notice the tightness in your voice. "Yeah. But not in the way you're thinking." You turn the knob and leave him behind, beg him silently not to follow, and he doesn't. You step into the bathroom, peel off your clothes, step under the shower head and try to erase him, scrub his touch from your skin and his words from your head and his face from your heart. 

You look in the mirror after you're done and you don't like who you see, because he's still in your heart and you don't know if he'll ever leave it, and you've should have stopped this, because you knew exactly how it would end, and that makes it your fault for letting it happen. You return to work, throw yourself in, don't think about him, don't think about his skin on yours, don't think about how much your heart hurts when he looks at you, don't think about the fact that he'll be gone again soon, don't think about the fact that he's here right now. 

He comes into the room half an hour later, a few minutes after you hear the doorbell ring. He starts to lay out an excessive spread of food on the floor and you don't really want to and you definitely aren't hungry, but you know he'll drag you out of your chair sooner or later so you stand up from your chair, sit down across from him. "Have you been going hungry?" you ask, and you wish you weren't so concerned. "Nah, I just skipped lunch." You nod and look down at the floor. He starts to eat, and you hope he's hungry enough not to notice that you're not, but he's too concerned about you for that. "Here," he says, picking up a dumpling with his chopsticks and holding it out for you. You sigh, but you eat it obediently, because you've already ruined this evening once and you don't have the energy to do it again. "Not bad, right?"

"It's good, I'm just not hungry," you explain. "Maybe I shouldn't have come back," he mutters before shoveling more food into his mouth. "I told you I wanted to see you and I did. I'm sorry..." He interrupts you, his mouth full. "Don't apologize." He swallows and sets down his chopsticks. "This is not your fault. I know you think it is, but I'm the reason things between us are hard and awkward. So you have nothing to apologize for." You bite your lip because this shouldn't be hurting you this much and he reaches out to rest a hand on your thigh. "I'm the one who should be sorry and I am, and I can't blame you if you don't want to see me right now."

You don't know why that does it, why that's the last straw, but suddenly the floodgates burst and everything you've felt over the past month or two or four is pouring down your cheeks, chest heaving with gasping sobs. You drop your head, stare at the floor, try to stop crying, try to start breathing, but you can't. Stupid, stupid, you think, but that only serves to make you cry harder. 

You can't see him, but if you could you'd see him move the takeout containers from the space between you and slide across the floor to take you in his arms. Your head nestles into his shoulder and he runs his hand across your scalp. "Shh," he whispers soothingly, drops his head to press gentle kisses against your shoulder, "you don't have to hide from me." You wish he was right, you wish didn't feel like curling under a rock and hiding from everything for the rest of your life, but this is all too much, this has been too much for you to handle for a year, ever since he looked at you like a stranger and denied his feelings for you, doubted your feelings for him. You've held it in, you've buried all that pain deep within your heart, but it's been rising to the surface since he left and you can't bury it again, not yet, not when he's here and he's trying to help you the best he can. (He can't help you now, and you're not willing to help yourself.)

"I'm sorry," you gasp, repeat it until your eyes are burning and your head is pounding. Your hands grasp at his shirt, trying to pull him closer and closer to you, because you don't know how to let him go a second time. "I won't come back," he says, "I won't do this to you again." You will the tears back, shove your emotions back under control, pull back to look up at him, still gasping for the air your lungs are aching for. "Don't leave," you beg softly, your throat beginning to ache, "I can take it, just don't leave yet." He looks at you with pity in his eyes and it hurts, it hurts so much. He reaches behind himself to grab a napkin, uses it to dry your tears as you sniffle and try to breathe deeply. "I'm not sure if staying is the right thing to do," he responds. "Do it anyway. Okay?"

"Okay," he agrees, and it occurs to you that you're not sure he can say no to you anymore either. Your head aches a little from crying, but his arms are still wrapped around your waist and he rests his forehead against yours, so you can ignore it for now. "I'll clean this up and store the leftovers. You should put on a movie or something." He starts to protest, but you shake your head, start to gather food containers. "I need a minute, okay? I'll come in when I'm done." For once, he's the one that's beginning to resemble a kicked puppy, and he stands up slowly, putting the last dumpling in his mouth. You can't look at him now, you look down at the leftovers and trash you have to gather and he walks out. 

You tidy up and wash your hands in the kitchen sink, lean your forehead against the cabinet above it, try to figure out why this is so painful, why you can't just put it all aside for one night, just one night. You rinse your hands and dry them before you can't stall anymore, you wander to his room and close the door behind you. He's laying on his bed, flipping through his Netflix queue to find the perfect movie and you feel your emotions bubbling up again. You stomp them down as he notices you standing there and throws back the comforter, motions for you to get in bed, his eyes sadder than they've been all day. (So is it sadness or pity? You can't tell anymore.)

It turns out to be one of the easiest decisions you've ever made, climbing into his bed, snuggling into his chest, letting him kiss your hair and run his hand up and down your back, letting him pull you even closer to him as he uselessly whispers that he's sorry. "Is this movie okay?" he asks, gesturing up at the screen. You lift your head from his chest, swallow hard, notice that your eyes still feel puffy and bloodshot. "As long as it's a movie you have no interest in actually watching," you say, and your voice wavers but your eyes don't leave his and you lean in to kiss him deeply. "Are you doing this for me or for you?" he asks as you break contact to his jeans. "For me," you say, climb on top of his lap, rest on your calves, one on each side of his hips. He presses play on the remote before he sits up underneath you and lets you pull his shirt off over his head. "Promise?" You nod. "I promise, so stop asking." He zips his lips with an imaginary key and leans in to kiss you like it's the easiest decision he's ever made. 

You wake up in the middle of the night, glance over at the clock, half past 3am. He has an arm tucked around your waist, and you reach up to touch his face, fingers ghosting across his forehead as your eyes adjust in the darkness. You dance your fingers across his face lightly, down his nose, along his lips, over the curve of his jaw. He is so beautiful and peaceful, and your heart is contracting painfully in your chest, but you've never let that stop you before so you don't stop, you watch him as he sleeps and you pretend for a minute, you pretend that this isn't going to end again and again and again, imagine a world where you don't have to keep giving him up. 

He stirs beneath your touch, lets out a sigh and pulls you closer to his chest, his arm wrapping tightly around you. You think he'll wake up, but he doesn't, he just holds you against him, makes vague noises in his sleep, and your heart is crumbling, you feel exposed and exhausted and you hate those feelings. (You don't have any other feelings lately.)

You shouldn't risk it, you shouldn't take the chance because you don't know what will happen if he hears you, but his eyes are closed and his limbs are wrapped around you and your heart beats faster and more painfully and you whisper those three words, the ones you're not supposed to say, the ones you shouldn't want to hear, the ones you're only hurting yourself by saying. (Because there is some part of you that thinks that love could still change something.)

You sneak out of his bed a couple of hours later, slide out of his arms and tiptoe to your own room. You flop down onto your bed, wrap your arms around yourself, bury your face in your pillows and fail to fall asleep. In the end, you manage to pass out for a few hours and when you wake up, you know he's already gone and he didn't wake you up to say goodbye. You can't really blame him for that (for anything), but it still stings. Everything is so wrong and you shouldn't miss him yet but you already do. You pick up your phone to find a text message from him sitting on your screen and you have to fight the urge to burst into tears all over again, because you're all alone and you're still in love with him and you can't keep yourself from hoping that things will change if he decides to come back to you for good. 

(The message reads, 'I'm sorry for making you cry, I'll try harder," and it might not seem like much, but all you've really wanted was for him to want to try.)