“I'm sorry.” moved, forming syllable by syllable in slow motion; he couldn't hear her voice, but he could see, all too clearly, what she was saying.

He stood there dumbly, his arms going limp, his eyes burning with the dry tears, struggling to push them down. His heart was being shredded into little bits and pieces.

It wasn't that she was malicious about it—in fact, she had all the rights to be even irritated with him: it had been roughly a year since he'd confessed and she'd rejected, but like a wind-up toy, every morning, he couldn't help but walking over to her house, waiting on the front porch for hours, like a lost puppy, if nessesary; He'd do anything just to see her face again.

He needed to keep living in this dream; the reality was too harsh for him. “Yuna,”he murmured, reaching for her hand, a trancelike expression flitting over his face. “Promise me one thing.”

She flinched away, pulling her hands out of reach, her soft lips clenched shut. “Yonghwa,” she backed up one step—“stop. Please.”

She had on a pained expression, rather than of frustration; rather than of anger; the pained expression was interlaced with a pitying look, and he could see what she thought of him as.

“Yonghwa, no matter how many times you come—” her voice broke off suddenly, as if she'd thought what she was going to say would be too harsh. "I can't be with you." Her voice cracked softly on the last word; even that, he thought, was beautiful.

But it was as if she sliced his heart in half, so cleanly that he felt no pain; he simply no longer felt alive.

Cold blood seemed to course through his veins, stiffening his limbs, making his mind, his body, immobile. “Then—” he stuttered, searching for the right words. “Then... promise me that we'll still be friends.” He whispered, looking up at her sweet face, clouded up in worry.

“If- if it hurts you less—” she swallowed, not willing to meet his eyes. “—We will.”

He nodded, reassuring himself; now, at least, he could see her smiling, smiling to him—even if it was only friendliness.

She was soft-hearted; soft-hearted to the point that she never forgave herself for her rejection of him. She didn't love him, she didn't have even a speck of feelings left for him: it was only right to reject him. But no matter how she tried to ignore the fact that he was in pain, she simply couldn't.

No matter how many times she repeated the two words, I'm sorry, she couldn't get rid of the stabbing guilt that poked at her, burning her, unforgiving.

She stood a moment, her gaze lingering on Yonghwa, a new spring in his step as he grew into a dot along the horizon.

“Nana-yah? Is he gone?” Junhong, Yuna's boyfriend, pops his head through his car window, peering after Yonghwa worriedly. “I hope he's okay..”

Yuna sighs, stepping down the porch steps lightly, falling into Junhong's arm