The following week, you stayed at Hanna's. It was extremely nice of her to take in a whining, wretched, broken-hearted girl that cried the whole day without even dressing or brushing teeth in the morning. She was always kind and comforting to you but you could feel that her patience would come to an end soon.
You could understand her, especially since she had something exciting going on with Kris and wasn't really able to see him, since you were at her place the whole time and he lived in a dorm with 10 other men, having no privacy at all. You figured that the things Hanna and Kris did required privacy.
Which made you even more miserable.

You hadn't picked up any clothes or other stuff of yours from your place in order to avoid Jongin. But all you really wanted was to see and touch him and feel his strong arms around you. You wanted it so much that every thought of it hurt like you were being strangled to death. You couldn't find anything to distract you from thinking of him and every hour that passed without him made you tear up over and over again.

It was the next morning, your long hair was hanging from your head in greasy streaks and your breath smelled awful. You hadn't eaten nor sleep; the dark circles under your eyes and your bony cheek- and collarbones told the story for themselves.
The door bell rang and sleepy, you walked over to the PA system. Hanna was long gone off to work, as she always started early in the morning.
Jongin was standing in front of the door, at 8 am. He rang and rang again while you stood there, paralyzed staring at the screen.

You then rushed into the bathroom, hastily put your hair into a messy bun and brushed your teeth without toothpaste. A second later, you almost ran to the door and opened. Your heart was beating so fast that you were scared of getting a heart attack. You stood there, waiting for your boyfriend to come upstairs. And it took long. Too long.
You went out in the hallway and as soon as the elevator doors opened and you saw him stepping out, you let out a cry that had been supressed way too long. It sounded desperate and broken and almost made you fall down on your knees, unable to bear the emotions any longer.

Jongin saw you too and his face showed horror and relief at the same time, as he started bustling towards you. An instant later, you finally had his arms around you again, where they belonged. Now crying boisterously, you crawled your fingers in his back and hid your face in his shirt. He held you so tight that it was almost impossible to breath, while he your unwashed hair. You could hear him sobbing too while his body was trembling.
"I missed you so much", you said in a cracked voice and weakly started pounding your fists on his chest. All the anger you had felt during the terrible last week was gone when you saw that he was just as in much pain as you were, as his face was now drenched in tears, his gaze searching for your eyes.
He softly stopped you from hitting him further and once again hurled you into his arms, his chin resting on the top of your head. Both you waited for the intense emotions to tumble down a bit before you eventually went back inside.

An awkward silence formed when you put a cup of coffee in front of Jongin, as both of you sat down on the opposite sites of the table. You didn't want to have the need of talking, but you still couldn't let this matter go without discussing it. Both of you had swollen eyes from the tears and looked truly terrifying.
Jongin didn't even look at the cup, as his gaze followed every single movement of you. He then examined your face and body quickly and his face turned into sorrow. You admitted that he didn't look well either, but he definitely looked better than you at the moment.
"Have you had breakfast this morning?', he asked worried. You shook your head. "Did you eat anything yesterday?", he went on. You shook your head.
"The days before that?"
You slowly shook your head again. You saw Jongin's lip trembling, but he quickly bit it in order to supress the guilt he felt.
"Why are you here?", you asked quietly. Jongin snuffled and looked down on the table, thinking.

"I've had a lot of time to think the last week while I was at home on my own", he started. "And ... what I said to you last time was wrong and it was not what I meant either." He paused and looked up to you with a fathomless look. "I realized that it was my dream to become an idol and to dance and sing and have awesome guys by my side. I never even thought that the fame or the fans could be any kind of trouble for us, I just thought that they could love me as an idol, but leave me some privacy too. But all of this has gotten out of hand and I can't even believe what the fans did to you and that you can't even go to your classes anymore, even worse, that they are hurting you." His gaze was intense, as he reached over the table to grab your hands.
"I don't want my profession to come between us, but it still happened. And now, I want the trouble to leave us alone so we can stay together and have a future together. There has never been anyone besides you in my life and I can't imagine seeing someone else by my side either. You're the woman I want to be with and you to be the one that wants to be with me. I'm willing to give this up for you."

His words startled you. Of course, you had hoped for him to say this, but now that he had, should you say that he really had to chose one dream over another?
This didn't seem fair as you saw him giving up something huge for you while you freaked out over girls that - indeed - aggrieved and hurt you, but where would he turn? He had finished school but hadn't attended any college. What kind of profession, after leaving the music industry, would he have?
You also doubted that you alone could make him completely happy. Your love on both sides was immense, but he'd work a lot of the time too and if he hated that, what kind of life would that be and what would he have in mind while looking at you, seeing you as the destroyer of his dream.

You sighed aggregated and tightened the grip on his hands. His lip was still trembling and his gaze went around the table surface, unable to look at you. A almost unnoticeable whine escaped his lips, when you knew that his sacrifice he just promised was something unimaginably hard for him.
It crushed your heart into pieces once more seeing him like this. After all, this man was your other half and you knew that he returned your feelings completely and without any doubt. It was not something between you two that hadn't worked the past few months, it were exterior influences. Your boyfriend hadn't changed and you hadn't either, it was just the situation that made things unbearable right now.
You realized that Jongin had done nothing wrong, and you also hadn't. It was simply the executives' fault to be ruthless and destructive.
And you knew that you didn't want the end. You still had hope in the relationship. You didn't need nor wanted to break up.

You lifted his chin fondly with your hands, leaned over the table, and placed a gentle, but intense kiss on his lips. You then cupped his face with your hands and looked into his deep, beautiful eyes while caressing his skin with your thumbs.
"It's not something that's not working between us. It's their fault. I don't want to give up, and I don't want you to give up your dream either. We should prove everyone that being an idol and having a relationship are not things that need to be seperated. Let's show them."