She’s been through quite a few things; being in Japan alone, not succeeding in Japan, breaking through in Japan, returning to Korea, making it big in Korea, sustaining it for a while in Korea, going back to Japan, doing Japanese things and hoping she’ll succeed again, returning to Korea and doing the same thing – it’s a vicious, vicious cycle that prepares her for nothing.

It doesn’t prepare her for courtrooms, or lawsuits, or the looks on the faces of the people who she used to call oppa and unnie and songsaengnim. They look at her as if she’s a monster, an ungrateful girl who doesn’t know what she’s in for. We made you, the looks say, how dare you do this to us?

She tries not to make eye contact, as she sits in the cold, cold courtroom and tries to convince herself that she is doing the right thing after all.

 
 
She’s so pale now, he thinks when he knocks on her door and she opens it, hair slightly wet. The veins under her skin stick out, a little, and he wants to hold her hand. But he doesn’t.

I’m okay, she tells him, I really am. She looks him in the eye and tells him that, tells him that his worries are unfounded and that he should be home now, with his numerous roommates and copious lack of troubles.

He hesitates.

“Just go,” she says, suddenly tired, “please.”

He does, this time.

 
 
Kyuhyun remembers the first time they met. Backstage, like all other cliché stories begin, and she’d won her first award. It was the Newcomer of the Year, and he remembers Siwon smiling and congratulating her, and the way she’d smiled and said thank you, a little figure in black.

They were the same age then. They still are, but things are different now. The years that he’s been with her and the years that he wasn’t haven’t been easy for her, but it’s not the same for him.

His path to stardom is smooth; he sings and dances and hosts and everyone claps, says that he does well and that he should try something else too, to add on to his long list of achievements.

She doesn’t have that sort of luck; she tries and tries so hard, works and collaborates and comes down with pneumonia in the course of her career and still doesn’t reach that level of fame that he attains within a single year after four.

Once when they’re alone, in the dark of his car holding hands and sharing the intimacy that they’re not allowed to have because he belongs to his fans, she smiles and says how nice it would have been if she’s a little more like what their country likes.

Tall, pretty, long legs, big eyes, you know the drill. She looks at him and he looks at her and they laugh. His is not genuine, but only he knows that.

Hers just sounds tired but he pretends not to know that as well.

 
 
She comes down with pneumonia, during her promotions and everything’s a mess; the company sends her to the hospital and then she wants out and then they agree and then they don’t again. It’s one horrid, grotesque circus when he arrives, speckled with rain and the concern of everyone else that live with him.

“He’s not supposed to be here!” There’s an outraged whisper (he’s not anyone to her, that is what the fans should know) from her manager, but he steps in and closes the door behind him so she can’t hear anything.

She sits up, and the IV drip moves, and the severity of the situation dawns on him but not on her. What the hell have they done to you? He asks, so angry he wants to rip through something but he cannot.

She shrugs like it doesn’t mean anything. “Nothing,” she says, “I just fell sick.”

It’s a gross understatement, he wants to yell at her, but he doesn’t because she’s smiling at him in that way again. The way she does when she tells him that it’s been another long day and the company wants so much more than she can offer. But it’s okay, because she can always try.

He looks at her, long and carefully. And then he sits down on the chair beside her bed and takes her hand, the one that hasn’t got the IV needle in it. He’s scared of them, she knows, so she tucks that one out of his sight.

“I’m worried,” he says at last, “I am so worried about you.”

She shakes her head like he’s said something silly.

 
 
She still performs and has to lip-sync because her voice just won’t come out perfect.

He watches one of her performances with Sungmin, and Sungmin’s the one who turns off the television in the end because it gets too painful to watch.

“You have to ask her to stop,” Sungmin picks at an unraveling thread of the cushion he’s holding, trying to sound as light as he can, “she’s going to self-destruct at this rate.”

He tries, he really does, but she just looks at him and then tells him the same thing over and over – I’m fine, I’m okay, I can do this, I can always try.

Try. It’s like an ingrained habit in her now, to perpetually try and try and try until she’s no more and all people see is the hardworking Younha who tries and therefore is worthy of their love.

“ this nation,” he says, finally, “ them all.”

Sungmin looks mildly surprised, but not really.

 
 
The lawsuit has pushed through. I’m okay, don’t worry.

She sends him this text message when she gives her lawyer the authority to sue her managing company. It’s for your best interests, her lawyer had told her, withholding your rightful earnings from you is unlawful.

It sounds rather nice, unlawful and for your best interests, but Younha knows better.

I’m close to being tired now, she tells the girl in the mirror, but I’ll be okay. This will be over and I will be okay, she repeats and repeats and repeats until she’s sure that it’s the truth and that she’ll be fine in the end.

 
 
“I heard about the lawsuit,” Leeteuk tells him one day when he comes up for dinner, “is Younha okay?”

Leeteuk was never supportive of his relationship with her, he recalls, but he just grits his teeth and tells him that everything should be okay. Leeteuk only thoughtfully nods and goes back to his stew and rice.

When dinner is over and Leeteuk has retreated downstairs for a meeting with the company, Ryeowook comes up to him and gives him a long, meaningful pat on the shoulder.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks, slightly irate, slightly touched, slightly of whatever emotion he’s supposed to feel when a friend gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

Ryeowook shrugs. Cheer up, he says, before he stands up and goes back into his room, ostensibly to read and to phone his parents in Incheon, to tell them that everything is okay.

Suddenly, Kyuhyun feels like that is what he should be doing. Phone calls to tell her that everything is okay, saying things to make her feel better even if they’re not true.

 
 
“It keeps getting pushed back,” she says over the phone, indistinct and weary, “they don’t want to settle out of court.”

That actually sounds familiar, he tells her, it’s happened four times here before. It’s supposed to be funny, and she even laughs a little just to be polite. But now he feels like , because talking about them to her is wrong.

They left and have never been able to see the light of day since then. She doesn’t deserve that, he thinks and reasons with himself, because she is worth so much more. To him, to them, to the nation that treats her like she is something and then not.

“It’ll be over soon,” he finally finds a good enough answer, “everything will be okay soon.”

It’s good enough for her too.

 
 
She settles out of court in the end.

It takes close to a year, but she finally does it. It’s a massive payout for both sides, but she doesn’t care anymore. Back comes her freedom, both creative and personal and she’s happy now, she really is.

Texts flow in, from Tablo to Seoyun to Yubin in the States. They all say congratulations and let’s move on together now and we’ll all be behind you and don’t worry. Gyuri’s even says I knew it would work out in the end.

Younha wants to laugh. And then she wants to cry. It keeps alternating until she’s in front of his dorm and Ryeowook opens the door in a yellow apron and flour-covered fingers.

“He’s in his room.” Ryeowook, kind, loving Ryeowook, shows her to his room door and silently slips away, maybe to tend to his cake or to just give her some privacy, which one she doesn’t really know.

She doesn’t knock. He’s tapping away at his computer when she enters and closes the door behind her, huge earphones separating the virtual world and reality from one another, back slightly hunched.

The room is dark and it’s what she’s used to, darkness and then a little light now and then. She’s dated like this forever; with the boy who likes computers and says it’s okay if it’s dark, I play like this in my room too.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, and he turns around, unsurprised and as good-looking as she remembers him to be. Has it been that long, she thinks, why does it feel so long?

He comes up to her, and holds her cheek. “Me too,” he replies.

This time it’s the truth, they both know, truer than anything that they’ve said to each other in the past year and then she’s ready to cry; she really, really is.

So she does.
 

 
 
He hugs her and she hugs him and it’s almost like she can see their future spread right in front of them now. There will be no more tears, she says, no more unless it’s of joy and happiness and nothing to do with grief anymore.
 


 
He says yes, and it’s not a lie.