I was hanging out in the dorm room one morning, making breakfast. I the radio for some music but was instead brought to a Sukira interview starring none other than Infinite. Myungsoo was talking; I’d notice that voice anywhere.

            He was talking to some dude from FT Island, something about guessing his ideal type. The FT Island dude paused and guessed, “Suzy?” Myungsoo’s disgusting laughter echoed the dorm building in response, and I soon grew utterly sick of it.

            “What are the odds,” I asked myself, “that I turn on the radio to this channel and this particular segment?” Wish I hadn’t heard it because it’d almost ruined my entire day.

            “Naeun, you seem to be the type to bottle up your feelings a lot.”

            I took a sip of the beer in my hand. “Just a bit.”

            Jongin and I ended meeting up later that day, into the wee hours of the night. He suggested beer and I was more than happy to comply. We sat by the Han River, just talking. And drinking.

            “I know you’re still upset about the whole Suzy thing. You always are when it comes to him and her.” Jongin remarked.

            I shook my head in disapproval. “I guess he can’t help it. She’s beautiful.”

            “Yeah. But so are you.”

            I smiled. “Haha, very funny.”

            “Okay let’s try this then. Let’s pretend I’m Myungsoo. Tell me all the things that you want to tell him,” Jongin said.

            I gave him a look. “Are you sure?”

            “Try me.”

            I took another sip of beer, trying to recollect my thoughts. “Well, for starters, I hate you. I think you at acting. I hate how you think that you can just ignore me and expect things to be okay between us. I hate—

            Suddenly, Jongin and I heard some giggles.

            “Suzy and L are so cute together!”

            “I can’t imagine them with anybody else!”

            I rolled my eyes. It was hard enough for me to hear him say it. It was another story to hear tons of people actually support the pair.

            My outing with Jongin ended late that night, and I was driving myself home. I parked in the parking structure below the dorm building, then noticed a familiar figure standing by the elevator to the rooms.

            I rolled my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Kim Myungsoo leaned against the elevator door, his eyes a soft brown in the light. “Can we talk?”

            “What is there to talk about?”

            “You know exactly what I mean.”

            I was being stubborn and I knew it. But I was too angry about what I’d just heard on the radio to think about anything else.

His eyes stayed fixed on me as he said, “I want to make amends, Naeun.”

            I raised a brow. “Amends? Were we at some kind of war?”

            “I don’t know, were we? Because it sure seemed like it.”

            I crossed my arms, silent.

            “Naeun, you know why I ignored you all those times,” Myungsoo said. “I know you’re not stupid and that you knew the situation. We were forbidden in so many ways. I was going to become an idol. We’re stepbrother and sister. Things obviously wouldn’t have worked out between us so easily.”

            “So you admit it,” I said. “You feel something between us.”

            “It was evident from the moment we met.”

            “You made me this way then. I would still be liking Taemin right now if it hadn’t been for you and your actions. It was all your fault.”

            “I don’t deny that.”

            “How unfortunate,” I said, “that a person like me would, out of all people, fall in love with a person like you.”

            I made a move to get into the elevator, until he grabbed my wrist to pull me back.

            “Gatsby,” Myungsoo said, his voice rising, “aren’t I a lot like him? Loving someone so much but not being able to attain her?”

            I kept quiet, not saying anything. Myungsoo sighed and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

            “You know,” he said softly, gently now, “I don’t want to end up like him, all pitiful and vain and not being able to attain the girl that I truly love.”

            I still failed to truly believe his words. That is, until I heard his voice begin to break.

            “I never told you what I was going to become,” he said, “because I didn’t want you to know that soon, someday, I would be far away from you and my time with you would always be limited because of the hardships that come with being an idol. If I stayed with you any longer, I would’ve fallen too deep, so deep that I would never even be able to get out.

            “And if you’d known, and if you told me to stay…” he swallowed. “I would’ve stayed in a heartbeat.”

            I stayed silent, my eyes transfixed on him. “Have you ever…” I bit my lip, hesitant. “Have you ever thought about the possibility that I could’ve moved on from what we had?”

            His eyes pierced deep into mine, constant. “Every day.”