"This is the last time, Hyo. The last time."
"You can't say that."
The tone of her own voice was calm. Somewhere deep down, she felt it probably annoyed the angry girl in front of her. But she couldn't care, she was calm, after all.
"Yes, I can."
Hyo tilted her head and looked at Sooyoung.
"Why?"
Sooyoung didn't respond. She looked at Hyoyeon with an emotionless expression on her face. Seconds ticked by. Hyoyeon understood that she didn't have an answer.
Sooyoung lightly stomped her snow-covered shoe on the threshold to Hyoyeon's house.
"It's just the last time. You should understand that it is."
The wind pulled at the trees outside the door and brought in some of the mid-winter cold into Hyoyeon's hallway.
"Sooyoung, come inside so I can close the door. It's ing freezing outside."
She stepped aside and gestured to the other girl to come in, but Sooyoung didn't move.
"No."
"What?"
"I'm not gonna come in."
"Then why are you here?"
Sooyoung put her glove-clad hands to her face. She sighed, and Hyoyeon could see she was shaking a little from the cold.
"Because I had to tell you I won't be coming around anymore."
Hyoyeon tilted her head. She still felt calmer than she knew she should be. She had always known how to win Sooyoung over. She had used it a million times before.
"No, why are you really here? If you're not gonna see me anymore, why did you even have to come here?"
Sooyoung looked her straight in the eyes before breathing deeply and looking away, past Hyoyeon and into the messy home.
"Because I think that if I didn't get to see you one last time while I feel like I do now, I wouldn't even survive the night."
Hyoyeon's heart warmed up. Sooyoung was going to stay, she just knew it. There was no need for her to get herself worked up.
"But it doesn't change anything. I know you think you can control me, and in fairness that's what you've done in the past. But I'm not gonna stay this time, Hyo. It has to end."
Hyoyeon looked down and smiled to herself. Hearing Sooyoung call her 'Hyo' only fueled her belief that everything would work itself out.
"How are you going to live without us?"
Sooyoung shook her head.
"Why do you have such high thoughts of yourself?"
"Don't try to throw me off with insults that I know you don't mean" Hyoyeon said firmly. "Answer the question."
"You seem to have forgotten that I had a life before I met you."
"And what kind of life was that? You've told me so many times how I changed everything for you. What do you have to go back to?"
Sooyoung pushed Hyoyeon backwards and entered Hyoyeon's home. The snow on her shoes fell onto the floor as her angry steps echoed throughout the room. Hyoyeon took a small notice of it, and suddenly she felt, for the first time, anger rising up inside her.
"How dare you?" Sooyoung said in a lower voice than Hyoyeon had expected.
Hyoyeon shook it off.
"My point is just... why would you want to go back to that life? Why don't you stay with me, Soo?"
Sooyoung stared out a window at the opposite side of the room. The door was still open, and Hyoyeon dimly noticed the sound of the wind chime out on the porch.
"I know you love me."
Hyoyeon felt stubborn. This was taking too much time. They were supposed to have made up already, so why was it taking so long this time?
Sooyoung bit her lip with an unchanging furious look on her face, but she didn't argue. Hyoyeon took a step closer to her.
"You're making the wrong choice if you walk away."
Sooyoung looked at her.
"I'm the only one who can love you like this."
The taller girl walked up to her and grabbed the collar of Hyoyeon's shirt. Their faces were so close that for a small second, Hyoyeon naively believed Sooyoung was going to kiss her.
"I don't need you" Sooyoung spat.
Hyoyeon pushed Sooyoung's hands away.
"Like hell."
Sooyoung looked at her in disgust. She took a deep breath.
"You drive me insane."
Sooyoung started walking away. And for the first time, panic rose in Hyoyeon.
"Wait" she said and grabbed Sooyoung's arm. Sooyoung turned around and looked at her. "I love you."
The cold air still rushed in, and Hyoyeon felt herself shivering.
Sooyoung's angry expression slowly turned into one that showed exhaustion.
"After all this time" she whispered, "how do you expect me to believe that?"
Hyoyeon was lost for words. She was still silent when Sooyoung pulled her arm out of Hyoyeon's grip.
Hyoyeon felt herself weaken and desperately looked around the room.
"No, no, wait!"
She wanted to take back her cry as soon as she had let it sound. She hated showing other people her own weaknesses. She had never believed in openly honest relationships - showing your deficiencies always lead to people falling out of love with each other.
"You have to explain" she said when she couldn't come up with anything better to say.
Sooyoung raised her eyebrows at Hyoyeon. She took three quick steps back into the room and they were standing face to face again.
"Take a look at yourself" Sooyoung hissed. "Listen to everything you've said to me tonight."
Hyoyeon stared into her eyes.
"Maybe then you can understand why I'm walking away. How could anyone stay like this?"

Hyoyeon was still trying to process Sooyoung's words when the door slammed shut.
She could still hear the muddled sound of the wind chime, going crazy from the manic wind. She slowly looked around the dark room, wondering why everything suddenly was so silent. Wasn't her world usually filled with sound and color?
She awkwardly remained on her feet before realizing there was no point in standing up anymore.
The discolored couch made an uncomfortable, squeaky sound as she sunk down on it. An unnatural weight was trying to lay down to rest on her heart, but she shook her head. She wasn't going to hurt. Not now, not ever. She was strong. She was not going to become what she saw in everyone else.
When the tears filled her eyes, she still knew she was not going to cry. No. When the tears fell, she promised herself that she was never going to get caught in heartache. And when she lay down on her couch and noticed that her only blanket was just a liiittle out of her reach, she still pretended like it wouldn't be a long time before she would get up again.
She had arrived in her own world too late.