“Yongguk, it’s fine. They didn’t even get a photo of me so I can’t see why—”

“I don’t want our future conversation to be about…” Yongguk trailed off and clenched his teeth.

“About what,” Kana asked flatly. The silence was stifling in the car and he tugged at his collar.

Finally, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he pulled over and killed the engine. They were in front of an empty park and it annoyed him even more that the park lights were off; it was that late in the night.

She waited for him to speak and he did so without meeting her eyes.

“I hate this,” he began. He closed his eyes and continued, “I don’t want our future conversation to be about how we can meet secretly and how you should delete your existence from the internet.” He gripped the steering wheel, wanting to wrench it in frustration but the hard plastic held.

He knew what she was going to say before she even said it. “I’m sorry about tonight…” Why was she sorry that their "driving date" had turned out to be "dodge the paparazzi. 

“Don’t be sorry!” he nearly shouted. “It’s not your fault, those goddamn monsters won’t leave me alone and I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what I did at the concert only because they blew up your picture and all those comments…”

She took a shaky breath and tried, “Your PR already cleared it up, Gukkie. That ‘BangHim get married already’ poster was blown up bigger than my blurry face.”

It didn’t take long for the fancams and fantaken pictures to point out the girl who Bang Yongguk was staring at for a good fifteen seconds. It didn’t take long for them to find out who she was, what she did, and her possible relationship with Yongguk. The company had written it off officially as “reading a sign above her head”, which happened to read “BangHim Get Married Already!” It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision to break it off, he had thought long and hard about it. And this was the best way to protect her.

He risked looking at her and found her smiling genuinely back at him.

“I don’t want you to get hurt. You shouldn’t have to endure this. I can’t let you go through this for me…” The words came out and even the growing pained expression on her face couldn’t stuff them back down. He expected her to cry or pretend he was joking; he kind of hoped she did, so that he could take the words back.

Instead, “I understand. And if I told you that I never considered it to be as much of a burden as you think I did, would you believe me?”

“Kana, I…I’m sorry. I just don’t see how we can walk away from this without you getting hurt. I’d rather just…let it be once and…I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said quietly.

“Please don’t be…”

“It’s getting late; maybe you can drop me off at the next bus stop?” And that was the end of it; there was no way he could take those words back.

“Let me take you home.”

“It’s in the opposite direction as yours,” and when he was about to protest further, she added, “We don’t want to give the paparazzi a feast.” Not wanting to argue, he silently obliged, driving her to the closest bus stop to her house as she would allow and sending her off. He immediately drove off when they had said their good-byes but the realization that it may have been the last time that he dropped her off hit him full force in the chest. He hadn’t even hugged her as they normally did.

Speeding and weaving through the lanes, he did a complete circle around the block and barely caught sight of her stepping onto the green and yellow bus. He sped up so that the right passenger side windows were within his view. And there she was, eyes closed and leaning against the window. She stayed this way until the bus dropped her off a block from her condo complex.

He drove along the opposite side of the curb. If she was trying not to cry, she was doing a terrible job. Tears rolled down her cheek and she was either too tired or didn’t care to brush them off. He gripped his wheel as he watched her drag a weary arm across her face. Finally, he parked the car and just as he had gathered the resolve to walk over there, she had spotted him. He froze with his fingers around the door handle. Now what?

She crossed the street and he had no choice but to step out to meet her. They were already dry on her face but her eyes were still wet and pink.

“I’m going to be fine. This is natural,” she pointed to her eyes, all the while mustering a smile.

“I just wanted to make sure you got home safely…” he said.

“Thanks,” she made to leave but he had opened his arms. She stepped back. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Good night.” She nearly ran across the street and disappeared behind the gate. He slipped back into his car and leaned back on the seat, frustrated that he understood why. Why had he tried to make it the “last time”? Did he want to end it so badly? She wasn’t allowing him to linger on something he had made such a harsh decision on. She was doing this for him.

 “Hyung, I thought you were out with your friend,” Daehyun’s voice barely made it through the loud chatter in the background. Yongguk sighed silently and quickly told him to not bother and enjoy his time out with the other members. He drove to the studio and actually sat there for a while, trying to work, but eventually went home.

By the time the members returned that night, Yongguk was sleeping with his head on his arms on the dining table. When Daehyun attempted to drag him to his room, Yongguk woke and managed to slur out, “I didn’t want to do this… How can…how can she cry when I did this because I like her so much?” Daehyun pulled off his socks for him and tucked a blanket around him.

“Because she loves you more…” Daehyun said in a scolding voice. “Haven’t you ever thought about that possibility? You didn’t even consider her feelings. You basically told her you couldn’t handle it anymore.”

“What are you talking about?! I told her I was doing it because I didn’t want her to suffer.” Yongguk wasn’t as drunk as Daehyun had expected, but he was drunk nevertheless.

“If you didn’t, you would’ve done something to protect her. What you did was not protecting her. It was to hurt her.” Daehyun walked out, leaving Yongguk to wallow in his drunkenness. Why did he have to be right all the time?

A/N: Long hiatus was long! Long one shot was also long, so it's 2 parts. Please look forward to the next part! What will happen to our perfect couple?

I adapted this one shot from one that I wrote about TVXQ's Changmin. Check it out! ^^

Thank you all again for your patience, readership, subscribership, and awesomeness! Please put any comments, suggestions, or REQUESTS (you know you have some!) in the comments and I will appreciate them very, very much. <3