You.  My heart is fragile.  It took almost 2 years for the broken pieces to be mended back together.  Your love.  Loving you….is suffocating.  I don’t know if my heart can take it.  It might not recover.’ Shin Hye quietly whispered as each word lightly pinched her heart reminding her to distance herself from Min Ho as much as she wanted to pull him into her tight embrace.

'If I loved you I would walk down Myeongdong with you’ he repeated the line over and over again silently in his head while he held tightly onto her hands and tried to piece together his next words to her.

‘Me loving you is suffocating you’ he stared into her tear filled eyes hoping she would tell him it was not true.

‘You. Your heart. Can’t trust me.’ Min Ho released her intertwined hands and gently cupped her face with them softly shaking as he verbalized his new found theory.

‘Me.  My heart can’t trust you too.’ He closed his eyes hiding his pain readying himself to let her see through his eyes his most vulnerable state to date ‘You loving me is also suffocating’ the words calmly rolled out of his mouth.

‘Huh?’ Shin Hye scrunched her eyes in confusion and wondered if he had gone mad.

‘If you love me, you should trust me…but you can’t.  If you love me, you would be happy when I’m around you…but you’re not’ He continued to verbalize his rationale, like he was linking pieces of a puzzle together, ignoring her interjection.

‘If I love you, I should allow you to be happy.’ He slowly opened his eyes to see a stream of tears rolling down her porcelain face.

‘If I love you, I should stop suffocating you.’ His two thumbs gently wiped her tears away.

Before Shin Hye could respond, Min Ho securely wrapped his arm around her and pulled into a tight embrace.  He took a big inhale and drew in her sweet scent to give him all the courage he needed to pull through and execute on the last part of his theory.

‘If I love you, I should let you go’ he whispered softly into her ear.

‘Without me around you will be happy.  I just want you to be happy…even if I’m miserable’

Min Ho gently pushed the strand of hair dividing Shin Hye’s soft face around her ear so that he can plant one last kiss to imprint her into his heart.  He slowly approached her inch by inch moving his trembling lips closer to her and delicately placed a soft kiss on her cheek.  His lips stayed still for a few seconds as if he was debating what to do next, after what seemed like eternity his head turned slightly left and softly pressed his lips on top of hers.

‘I can’t be selfish anymore, you should be happy…anneyong Shin Hye’ his lips moved like a feather against hers as he delivered his last words before abruptly releasing her from his tight embrace.

Min Ho swiftly turned around like a bolt of lightening and opened the door bringing in a gust of wind awakening Shin Hye from her drunken state.  As her mind began to register everything he was saying to her, desperately trying to decode the underlying meaning, the driver side of the car closed tightly shut.

****************

‘It’s getting late, it’s been over three hours’ Grace glanced at her watch with a worried expression plastered over her face.

‘They have to wait for their engine to cool down, it’s takes time you know’ Woo Bin tried to assure her everything was all right.

‘Woo Bin ah, they should be here by now’ Grace turned to the open road watching expectantly for Min Ho and Shin Hye’s car to arrive to the cliffside where the rest of the crew were setting up shop for the last outdoor shoot for the filming.

‘Perhaps, did we go too far with our plan?’ her voice began to tremble.

‘Grace, don’t worry they are grown people they can take care of themselves.’  Woo Bin fished for his phone in his back jean pocket ‘If it makes you feel better I’ll give hyung a call to make sure, ok?’

Grace softly nodded while Woo Bin’s fingers tapped away on his phone getting in contact with Min Ho.

‘Hyung, I hope I’m not disturbing you guys.  Do you need our help?’  Woo Bin spoke into his phone as it connected to the other line.

‘What, turn around? We didn’t see a car coming up the cliff a few seconds ago.  How….’ he stopped mid sentence as he caught Min Ho’s shadow protruding from the curve of the cliff leading up to where the filming crew was setting up.

‘Hyung!’ Woo Bin immediately began to run down the dirt road towards a sweat drenched, huffing and puffing Lee Min Ho. 

‘Why are you walking up here? What happened to your car? Where is Shin Hye?!’

Min Ho stopped in his tracks when Grace and Woo Bin approached him.  He had been power walking up the steep incline of the mountain to the filming site for the past 2 hours.  His heart was pounding against his rib cage from the strenuous exercise, beads of sweat were dropping from his forehead as a result of his hard work.  He needed exerted all his energy to refocus his body, mind and soul on anything other than Shin Hye.  If he had thought about her during 2 hours of peace, without a second thought, he would regret his decision to leave her and immediately run back to her begging and groveling for her forgiveness for his harsh words and pushing her again for a second chance. 

But he knew this time it was different, it wasn’t about forgiving and forgetting.  It was about her happiness.  And after hearing her raw confession, he realized he brought her more tears and heartbreak than smiles and happiness.  It was time for him to be selfless and let her go, for her happiness.

Min Ho raised his hands creating a barrier between him and them.

‘Hajima’ he puffed away breathing in as much air as his airways would allow him to ‘just give me a minute to recover’

‘Where is Shin Hye? Wasn’t she with you? How could you leave without her?’ Grace ignored him and began to interrogate him worrying about her safety.

‘She’s fine’ he used the back of his arm to wipe the sweat off his brow ‘She wanted me to leave her alone’

‘What?!’ they cried in unison.

'If I loved her I would have held her hand and walked down Myeongdong with her‘ Min Ho began to mindlessly deliver his theory to them.

‘Huh? Hyung did something happen to you two? Woo Bin grabbed onto his shoulder worried that the walk up the cliff made him crazy.

‘Me loving her…her loving me…is suffocating for her’ Min Ho pulled Woo Bin’s hands off of him.

‘Shin Hye, where is she?’ Grace began to wave her hands in front of his face to grab his attention.

‘Shin Hye can’t be happy if she’s suffocating…if me being around her is suffocating…I must let her go for her to be happy.’ He ignored her and finished the last assumption of his theory that was running through his mind in an attempt to convince his heart what he did was 100% right even though it made him feel like the most miserable human being in this world.

‘Yah! Where are you going’ Woo Bin and Grace yelled to the back of a sprinting Min Ho who was running to the filming site completely ignoring their existence.

‘Did we go too far with the plan?’ she turned to Woo Bin looking to him for assurance that intervening into Min Ho and Shin Hye’s relationship was more beneficial than detrimental.

Woo Bin gently glided his hand over hers offering her a comforting squeeze to tell her that everything will work itself out if it’s meant to be.  He brought his phone to his ear as it connected.

‘Ill Woo ah, where are you?’

  *********************************

Shin Hye crossed her legs into a sitting position and continuously raked her hands through her hair trying to digest everything Min Ho threw at her.  She didn’t expect their heart to heart exchange to be so raw, she thought he would ask for them to get back together and she would refuse yet again buying her some time to talk to Joong Ki.  But not in her wildest dreams did she imagine he would walk away from her and push her to Joong Ki so she could be happy. 

‘Shin Hye ah, what have you done’ she whispered to herself frustrated at how things unfolded between them in the last hour.

‘I just need some time to reset things’ she turned her head