“Oppa! Sorry, sorry,” Luna panted as she raced up towards Onew. Bending, she gasped for air and panted. “The bus broke down so I just ran here. Have you been waiting long?”

                “Its fine,” Onew replied tautly. Luna looked up, and when he saw her staring at him with worry, his heart pounded faster. He felt guilt and felt so pained, but he didn’t show it. As Luna looked more closely at him, concern filling her eyes, Onew looked away.

                “Jinki-oppa must have been waiting a long time,” Luna gave him a smile. “I’m sorry, oppa. But, I’ll treat you to something to make up for it! Promise!”

                Luna reached out for his hand, but he took one step back so she couldn’t hold it. Onew saw her freeze when she saw his movement, but, as if nothing had happened, she reached for it again, and held his wrist. Lifting his hand and lifting her hand, she made them pinky promise. Onew bit his lip. He had to do this, for her sake. He had to be strong, even though it would hurt her.

                Yanking his hand away from Luna, he only realized a few seconds later that his sudden move made Luna stumble back. Steadying herself on her feet, she didn’t hesitate to lightly bounce to his side. He saw her hand reach out slowly as if she wanted to hold his hand but she faltered, and, instead, took a small step away from Onew.

                “Jinki-oppa must be so tired from training,” Luna said aloud, smiling widely at him. “I’m tired, too. I have to train every day. But, oppa is so cool. You train so hard. I know that when you finally debut, you’ll be a shining star, I’m sure of it. When I debut, too, we can be shining stars together. That’s my goal.”

                Onew clenched his fists and he felt like crying, but didn’t reply to innocent Luna. He didn’t know what to say, how he would say it. His mind was whirling with so many thoughts.

                “I know you’re tired, today, oppa, but we’ll have so much fun today. We haven’t had dates for a while now, ever since we started training,” Luna stretched her arms energetically, “ Today, we’ll do all the things you like to do, so you can relieve all your stress. We’ll eat chicken today, too! Ah, today’s going to be so fun-”

                “Let’s break up.” Onew blurted out. He stopped, and turned to Luna, who had stopped dead on her tracks, frozen. “No, we need to break up.”

                “Oppa-“

                Onew’s hands trembled and his heart felt like it was shattering into a million pieces. He opened his mouth and spoke lies after more lies.

“I don’t want to be in this relationship, anymore. It’s tiring to be with you when I’m almost going to debut. I need to focus on my new career. I don’t have time for this. I just don’t. We’ve been together for more than two years. Isn’t that enough? Aren’t we tired and sick of each other by now-“

                “-Oppa, Jinki-oppa,” Luna’s head was tilted, and tears fell down on her cheeks. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

                “I don’t lo-“ Onew didn’t want to say it, because it wasn’t true. He was slightly relieved when he saw that Luna had covered her ears furiously, unwilling to hear it.

                “I don’t want to hear it,” Luna was crying harder now, and Onew felt like he was going to burst into tears, too. It pained him so much, to hurt Luna like this. It wasn’t only until a few long moments later that he realized that she had released her hands from her ears and, instead, was clutching Onew’s hands, intertwining her fingers with his.

                “Just, this last time…” Luna managed to speak out. “…Can I just hold onto your hands? Just this once.”

                Onew drew in a sharp breath but gave a small, slight nod. Luna gave a pitiful smile through her tears.

                “Jinki-oppa’s hands are so cold,” Luna murmured, before letting go of his hands, leaving them lingering for half a second. Stepping a few steps away from Onew, she shut her eyes slowly and put her hands over them.

                “This was my first relationship, and this is my first break-up, Jinki-oppa. You’re right. Two years was more than enough.”

                Onew felt his whole body shaking as he walked backwards, his eyes still fixed on what once was his. Just seeing Luna so hurt, so pained, he wanted to rush up to her and explain. But, if he did that, she wouldn’t be able to debut. He would shatter her dream. He wasn’t worth it.

                Finally turning around, he stiffly walked away, not bothering to wipe away the tears that were blurring his vision.

-

                Onew woke up with a startled gasp. Breathing heavily, he gulped in air and panted for a while, clutching his shirt and blinking his eyes. After he calmed down, he ran his hands through his hair and sat in silence.  Onew’s head hurt. He hadn’t even thought of their breakup for a while, it was too painful to even think about. Angrily shaking his head, he got out of bed. As he reached for the door handle, he froze when he heard Minho’s voice coming from the bathroom.

                “Krystal, you should be sleeping,” Onew heard Minho say.

                Talking to Krystal in the middle of the night? How interesting.

                “Me? I couldn’t fall asleep, for some reason,” he heard Minho sigh deeply. “I have such a busy schedule…you, too? We were meant for each other!”

                Onew chuckled softly and he leaned forward to slip out of the room, he found himself hesitating. Instead, he decided to stay where he was and listen to Minho’s ‘love’ call with Krystal.

                “Okay, should we hang up now? I don’t want to tire you before your busy schedule. We’ll hang up at the count of 3…1, 2, and 3!” Minho burst out laughing but quieted down. “How should we do this? I don’t want to hang up first. You hang up! No, you hang up-“

                “-MINHO!” Onew flinched when he heard Key yell with his head in his pillow. “JUST HANG UP. YOU’RE KEEPING US ALL AWAKE. HANG UP.”

                That shut Minho up. He heard the light switch make a small click sound, and Onew sensed that Minho was about to open the bathroom door. Nimbly, he slid through the door crack and out to the living room.  With his back facing their living room, he sighed before turning around to face the sofa. Immediately, he stumbled back and fell on the floor. A figure on the sofa burst out laughing.

                “Jonghyun!” Onew got back up and walked up to the sofa. “You scared me. Seriously.”

                “You should have seen your face,” Jonghyun kept on laughing while imitating what was supposedly Onew’s scared face. “It was hilarious.”

                “Don’t scare me like that,” Onew punched him on the shoulder lightly. “You almost gave me a heart attack. Just like when Key yelled at Minho just now.”

                “Minho must have woke you up, too, right?” Jonghyun said sympathetically. “He woke me up around 15 minutes ago. You guys were all sleeping like snoring pigs. But I guess he finally got to you and Key.”

                As if on cue, the two boys jumped in startle when Key burst through their bedroom door. He had bed hair and he was holding his pillow. Marching towards the two of them, he smacked Jonghyun in the face before hitting Onew as well, both with that one pillow.

                “If you guys wake me up one more time, I swear, I’ll attack you both,” Key growled before turning around and returning to the bedroom, shutting the door. Jonghyun and Onew sat still, looking at each other. Then they broke into silent hysterics, laughing until their sides hurt. It felt good to relieve some of the bad memories he just remember, and Onew was glad.

                After they both calmed down, all was silent. For a moment, Jonghyun closed his eyes and at first, Onew thought he was sleeping. But he was just murmuring to some song.

                “Hey, I have a question,” Onew suddenly spoke quietly, so Key wouldn’t kill them.

                “Yeah?” Jonghyun opened his eyes and blinked. He turned his head to face Onew. “What is it?”

               “You know how you’re dating Se Kyung?” Onew bit his lip before speaking again. “Wasn’t it scary for both of you to, you know, announce that you two are dating?”

                Jonghyun stared at Onew intently, his eyes narrowed with curiosity.

                “Why are you asking?”

                “I’m just wondering. Since, I never really talked to you about Se Kyung ever since you guys started dating.”

                “Well,” Jonghyun seemed to believe the excuse. “We both knew it would be tough, especially on her, since of our fans. But we really like each other, and we thought it would be so much better to just let it out to the public and deal with it.”

                “So, you don’t regret it?”

                “Of course, not,” Jonghyun rubbed his chin. “Well, I did regret it a bit in the beginning. Seeing so much hate on her is unbearable, you know? But I’m glad people accepted us.”

                “Really…”

                “Yeah.”

                Again, the two were quiet. Then, Jonghyun spoke.

                “What’s your schedule tomorrow?”

                “Oh, I have some ‘Strong Heart’ appearance and I think that’s it. Oh, and also the MC thing. What about you?”

                “I barely have any. ‘Strong Heart’ appearance…I want to go, too,” Jonghyun puffed out his cheeks. “Luna’s going to be a guest, too, you know.”

                Luna?

                Onew started to fumble with his fingers, looking down, but suddenly, he glanced at Jonghyun.

                “You want to go the ‘Strong Heart’ thing because Luna’s going?” Onew asked, raising his eyebrows.

                “Well, yeah,” Jonghyun shrugged. “She’s really funny and cute, don’t you think? She always makes ‘Star King’ funny when we guest at the same time.”

                “Oh,” Onew felt jealous, for some reason. “I never really noticed.”