"Have a nice day."

"You too," Haneul hands her the money as she takes both ice cream cones and heads back to where she had Jongin sit down.

"Is this how it's gonna work between us now?" he jokes while she gives him his flavor, "Alternating payments?"

"It's only fair that way, isn't it?" she winks with her first of the frozen dessert.

"I'm not letting you pay anymore," he laughs, "so just keep that in mind."

"Not much of a supporter of gender equality when it comes to dating, I see."

"Dating?"

"U-uh.. that..." she begins to cough up over realization of what she had just said, "I didn't mean for.. to sound like that, I--"

"It's okay," Jongin snickers, "I know what you meant."

She waits for him to look elsewhere to let out that sigh of relief, but it didn't stop him from hearing it.

The shop wasn't the roomiest with only four tables for two being able to fit, but it was kept at a cozy atmosphere to it; the glowing sunset light shining through the glass windows by the front.

Well, it was until seven other high school kids walked in and took up the other half of the store. Neither of them looked too thrilled at the company and they both knew it from each other's glares.

"You said you needed a break, right?" he tries to break through the murmur of the crowd filling the room.

"Hm?"

"Are you doing anything for the rest of the day?" he continues, and she answers with a shake of her head.

"Why?" 

"I want to show you a place."

He doesn't wait for a response as he pushes back the chair to get up, but he took her following his actions as an acceptance for his invite.

"Where are we going?" she takes her first bite into the cone as she strapped the seat belt on back in his car.

He finishes off the bottom of his cone before turning the key and letting the motor run. His seat belt fastens and he was headed for the highway.

"A place I like to call my own."

Haneul didn't seem to mind the adventure seeing as she hadn't questioned anything about their destination through the ride. Jongin glances at the time on the dashboard. It's been a 40-minute drive already and the sun had disappeared quite a while ago.

"You really don't mind the drive, huh?" he interrupts the quiet air that had been building up for a few minutes now, "It's pretty far."

He could see her shoulders bounce from the corner of his eyes while he kept them on the road.

"It's okay," she jokes, "as long as this isn't a kidnapping."

"It's not much of a kidnapping if you willfully agreed to come with me."

She waits to come up with a witty comeback but fails to do so, "Touché."

He chuckles at the victory, "We'll be there soon."

The car takes the next turn exiting the highway and a familiar neighborhood welcomes him. After a couple more turns, the two enter the neighborhood of a campus that physically resembled theirs back home. Only a little more to go until his destination. It was starting to get late. Jongin sighs at the free lots, thankful for a ride without traffic for the day.

"Hey, is that.." Haneul pulls herself up on her seat the more of the campus she had recognized, "Are we at Jeong Hee?"

"Mhm," he hums, "but that's not where we're going."

"You drove us all the way here?" her body plops back down on the cushiony seat, "Must be special, huh?"

He lets his breaths go and brings a smile back, "I want it to be."

The roads began to look emptier, and to started to look more countryside as he turned into smaller roads branching off the main ones. The path starts to slope up as the road turns to a curve leading them to higher ground.

"Okay, now I might start to question where you're taking me," her head turns in every which way examining the off-road surrounding.

"Just a bit more."

The winding road takes them two more turns until the path covered in tress lead to an open road, revealing a panoramic view of the rest of the town. Jongin pulls the car over to the edge of the empty road and takes the key from the ignition. Silence fills the air as the engine hushed down.

She takes the time to let her eyes wander around to study the new area then swiftly turns back to the sound of the driver's door opening.

"Here?" she calls out through the window on his side.

"It's at the edge of the city," he walks around the perimeter of the car to reach for her door, "You can see almost all of Seoul from up here."

He waits with the open door for her to step out but he could sense her hesitation to.

"Trust me," he sends her that smile that always caught her, "you'll like it here. I promise."

"A place to call your own?" the first whiff of cool wind felt quite nice as she stepped out.

"I like to," he scoffs, propping himself up on the hood of his car for a comfortable seat, "You're welcome on here."

"Thank you for your kind invitation," she teases before taking his hand to help herself up to a seat next to him.

"The atmosphere's great up here," he takes a deep breath, "It's the perfect spot when you need to get away from everything else. Just to take some time for yourself, probably what you need right now, right?"

She brings herself to laugh at the truth of the statement, "How'd you figure that out?"

"Lucky guess," he jokes, bringing his body back to lay on the windshield.

"How often do you come here?" she starts.

"Well it's a bit of a trouble now," he shrugs, "but I used to come here every summer night. Maybe even in the colder nights if I could handle it."

"That's a lot of time alone," she presses her thin lips together, "Don't you hang out with anyone up here sometimes? It must get boring."

"You're here now, aren't you?" he states with a know it all tone to it.

"I meant your other friends," she corrects with a roll of her eyes.

He waits for her subtle giggling to fade before he answered, "I don't have any."

"Don't lie," she blurts almost immediately.

"You're the first person I ever brought up here," he kept his expression straight and low, trying to refrain from much emotion as he spoke.

"Oh.." her expression starts to match his.

Jongin realizes the transition in her voice and shoots up with a more enthusiastic one to save the moment, "Of course I had friends at Jeong Hee."

Her face lights up a little more as she turned back to him.

He continues, "I just wouldn't say they were special enough to appreciate this place with me."

She pauses first, "And I am?"

He shies away from her question with a snicker but her eyes demand an answer. She kept her gaze on his face when he turned to face her again.

She's really waiting for me to say something, he murmurs to himself.

He looks really handsome under this moon light, she thinks.

Haneul hadn't realized the gaze she had been trapped under until he started to carry his body up from his resting position. He takes another lung full of the fresh evening breeze and lets his shoulders drop at his sigh. The slow exhale that escaped his thick lips took a hold of her attention as he slowly dragged his feet closer to his body, bringing his knees up for his elbows to rest on.

Not one moment had she taken her eyes off him with his every move. Was it the expression on his face or the soft slow breaths he took? Whichever it was, it made him look more fragile than ever. She couldn't manage to bring herself to say anything, afraid that even the slightest misuse of context would offend him. So she waits.

With every breath he took, he questioned the moment. Here he was, sitting on the hood of his car just like how he spent most nights during his med days, where everything he had in mind would come out in the open. He could feel her still eyes remain on him. He had two options.

Opportunity; to take this time to make everything right.

Or, beginning; to find his way to start over a new life with her.

I'll make it right, he says to himself, I'll make it all right with her.

Just not right now..

One more deep breath of air and Jongin breaks the silence.

"Do you want to hear a story?"

"About what?"

"About a girl," he breathes, "a girl I met a few years ago when I started studying here at school."

He didn't move his gaze away from the nothingness he had been watching, and he could feel from her presence that she hadn't moved her eyes either. So he continues.

"Our meeting was an accident. I don't think either of us expected much from that day we saw each other. It was just an ordinary day."

The car makes a slight sway as Haneul tucked her leg under the other. She was listening.

"But we became really close not too long after that. You could even call us best friends. We were with each other almost everyday, even if it was mostly at school.

She was someone special, not like any other friend a person would make in high school. Maybe it was because I never opened up to anyone else. She was the first person I ever felt comfortable with.

"Was she a med student, too?"

He presses his lips together to hold the truth, "No, but her field was offered at the same school."

"It made her happy knowing that I would be staying in the same school with her again," the memories bring him a smile, but this time it was full of pain.

"I don't think I ever made her that happy before."

His hushed laughter dies down and his head sinks with his next words.

"I was the only friend she had. That's why we were so close.. but that was all we needed. Each other. So we never took the effort to invite anyone else into our lives.

That's why she was so happy when I said I would stay with her."

Haneul adjusts her position again, still attentive.

"We were together for years, and in that time, I never told her what I should have told her from the beginning. I don't know why I didn't.. Maybe it was because I never really told myself, either."

When his voice stopped, every other sound did too. The silence was deafening.

She takes a breath, "What was it?"

"That she was perfect. That she was all that I needed in my life. That I would have loved to make her happy the way I did everyday. That her smile meant everything to me."

Another silence falls between the two.

"Are you going to tell her?" she hushes, and he sighs.

"I want to. I just.." he trails off to change his posture, "..need to apologize for hurting her the way I did."

Her attention started to fill with more sympathy and worry at his words, "What.. happened?

He doesn't answer for a while, and she could tell that he was getting lost in his thoughts now. All these memories were coming back to him the same way they did on his first night at the apartment.

"It's okay," Haneul whispers, "you don't have to tell me."

"I left her."

She stiffens with his sudden cold reply, staring at him once again.

"I didn't even warn her, or give her the news gradually. One day, I told her that I was leaving, and that was the end of it."

She was still speechless.

"I made a selfish decision," his breaths began to get heavier, "and I chose the path without her."

Another silence, bringing Haneul to speak again.

"Why?"

Jongin didn't have an answer, and his eyes told her so.

"Do you still.. want to go back to her?"

A few breaths pass before an answer does, "More than anything."

"She's really important to you, isn't she?"

"You have no idea," he whispers.

"Then you shouldn't have left."

Her sudden stone words broke his heavy gaze. Now she was the one looking out and he was staring. She could feel his uneasy eyes on him, knowing that he was waiting for more. 

Her head bows, "If she meant that much to you then you should have put her first."

She plays with her thumbs at his speechless reply, then looks back to admire the sea of lights scattered all around the city beneath them. His whole story about this girl; it touched her. Now that he had shared a life story with her, she couldn't guarantee that he would appear the same to her eyes when they meet again. Before today, he was simply a handsome face that wanted to become friends with her, but now every expression he made went way beyond everything she had been seeing.

But something in the back of her head feels different; something she couldn't put a finger on. She really couldn't explain the portion of her brain that felt otherwise, and minutes of the city sounds filled the spaces as the two disappeared within their minds. The soothing hum of the wind was relaxing in an environment like this, but the endless clutter of murmuring voices that took over both their minds had blocked out their purpose of being here in the first place.

He was first to regain his senses after who knows how long, and by reflex, pulls up his wrist watch for the time.

"It's getting late," he mumbles, "let me bring you back home."

His words don't seem to reach through to her ears as she continued to stare at the space.

"Haneul.." he calls, "are you okay?"

"Huh?" she returns, "Oh.. I'm fine."

He crawls off the surface and she does the same. They both step back in the car and drift off into thought again on the way back. The normal would make the trip back feel faster than it did on the way, but this definitely felt longer. Hours longer.

"Thank you," her smile was back as they neared her apartment, "for taking me there."

His smile finds its way back to his face as well, but the amount of pressure put into his lips was measurable, "Thanks for listening to my crap."

That got a little laugh out of her, "No problem. It was a good story."

He forces his smile wider, moving his eyes away from hers as she unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door.

"If it helps.." she leans in before slamming the car door closed, "I think she'll understand, then maybe things can go back the way they were."

Another thank you and a wave later, Haneul had disappeared out the car and into her apartment building.

That's exactly what I wanted to hear from you, he murmurs at the door's closing.

He takes the time sitting back comfortably on his seat, watching the lights through her window turn on as she entered her apartment. Her silhouette was visible from time to time while she wandered around the room, what he could only imagine as her getting ready to get to sleep. 11:54PM flashed on the dashboard, and in the next moment, the lights from the window flicker off.

Good night, Haneul.

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I'm sorry I'm getting confusing, I'm even confusing myself writing this @_@; 

Anyways, more Sehun in the enxt chapter! Yay Sehun? LOL