She had been browsing the spice aisle at the local grocery store when she heard the choir of screams. Her trained ears recognized them instantly as those of celebrity worshippers, rolled her eyes and glanced out the window and gasped audibly before ducking down and feigning interest in the multitude of available curries. ‘It couldn’t be’, she thought to herself as her eyes darted back and forth. ‘Anyone but him’, but then she heard the unmistakable voice and fell to her knees in a silent prayer to not be seen. An older employee discovered her and asked quietly, “are you a fan of Xiah? Would you like to meet him?”

     Her head shook furiously without having heard the question, the only sound she could hear was the shortness of her own breath and the echo of her blood pumping in her head. She clutched her shirt tightly as the hole in her heart burned. It was the onset of a panic attack and she knew that she had to get out of there as soon as possible. She tried to calm her breath and noisily dropped the few items she had in her arms before darting toward the exit. The confused employee watched with wide eyes before cursing her luck to have run into such a careless customer. Now she would be responsible for returning the items to their rightful place.

 He was crowded with fans, but Junsu happened to look up just as he saw a mass of chestnut hair fly through the neighboring aisle, ‘Could it be her?’ he thought to himself before he noticed the bag she was carrying and his suspicions were confirmed. He took a deep breath and continued attending to his fans.

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It had been two years since she last had contact with Junsu, and languished in the fact that he still made her feel this way. He used to make her heart fly, but now the place he used to occupy was just a hole that had yet to heal. She still teared up when she thought of the last time she saw him and he left her alone. She had dressed up in her nicest dress, complimented with the brand new bag that he had gifted her for her birthday two weeks before. She hadn’t seen him since then, due to both of their busy schedules, but had carved out a few hours for each other on this night. She practically skipped up the driveway to his home and held tightly onto him as he opened the door. She frowned now, noting that she should have realized then that his whole demeanor had changed. If she hadn’t been so clueless, she could have seen it coming and maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe she could have moved on.

Dinner that night had been wonderful as usual. Junsu had impeccable taste in cuisine and she was never disappointed while dining with him, but his silence as she chattered on should have been sign #2. She never noticed at the time. She remembered his curious eyes and the way that they had lost the shine they once had, but instead looked faded and tired. Of course, she had stupidly dismissed it as jetlag or feeling overworked. Now it seemed clear that he had completely lost interest not in her conversation, but in their relationship.

After dinner, she joined him on the couch for the coffee that they had shared a hundred times before, but now his eyes began to move awkwardly around. This was sign #3 and the one that she had noticed. She fell silent as he cleared his throat and stood up, “I have something that I need to say.”

“What is it, babe?” she asked innocently.

“Please,” he sighed, “Don’t be this way.”

“What way? What’s wrong, Junsu?”

“Let’s break up.” He stated mechanically.

“What?” she asked as her eyes shot open. He said nothing. “I don’t understand. What did I do wrong?”

“Don’t.”

“You’re not going to tell me how to fix this? I love you. I’ll change. Any way you want me to. You just have to say it. I don’t want to break up with you, babe.”

“I said, don’t.” he said quietly.

“We’ve been together for three years. Do you want to throw all of that away? We can fix this, just tell me what to do.” She pleaded, tears starting to stain her perfectly made-up cheeks.

“There’s someone else.”

“What?” she said, rising to her feet.

“There’s someone else. I don’t know how or why it happened, but I’m in love with someone else.” Her hand flew up to her chest, the same place she had grasped in the grocery store, and felt a hole burning in her heart. The hole widened as he continued to speak, “I still care a lot about you. I think you’d like her…”

As the hole burned within her, the sound of his voice sounded more distant and was replaced with pounding in her head; she didn’t even notice as her hand struck his cheek. Junsu didn’t try to avoid the impending slap, rather, he braced himself for it, knowing that it was she couldn’t have seen any of this coming. It was true that he still had feelings for her and didn’t want to hurt her, but he had stronger feelings for someone else and couldn’t lie to her about it anymore. As the sound of the slap bounced off the walls and her eyes looked into his, he swore that he saw them burn red instead of the usual soft brown. “How can you even think of something like that?” she spat, “Three years and you cheat on me and tell me to be friends with your mistress?”

“I never cheated on you.” He offered.

opened in reply, but found that the words were stuck in . There was nothing left to say and no reason to stay. She closed , picked up her bag and disappeared from his home in a flurry of chestnut hair.

As she made it out to her car and she fumbled with her keys, she slumped down against the driver’s side door and let out a sob in her nice dress on the driveway. The truth was that, after three years, she had felt ready to marry him, and had found herself completely blindsided by his confession. How could such a thing happen? This couldn’t be real, yes, this was a dream…

Junsu stood at the window and watched her collapse outside her car door. Instinct told her to comfort her and bring her back inside, but he forced himself to stay inside. He had no right to say so, but he felt a burn in his heart. She held a certain part of his heart and he was sad to see her go, but felt even sadder that he had hurt her. He had no right to ask her to stay, though he desperately wanted to. He sighed instead knowing that he might never see her again.

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Things had once been so good between them, she often wondered in their time together was a dream. It was absurd to think that a huge star like Xiah Junsu had been the one to pursue an ordinary girl like herself, or that she would ever actually agree. Before him, she had hated the idea of celebrity and would never have considered dating one, but there was something in him that she could only describe as innocence that had made her forget his social standing. Although they had kept their relationship quiet the entire time they had been together, it hadn’t deterred her from accepting the secrecy and letting herself fall completely for him. Although they had been together for three years, she was sure that she loved him before they reached their first.

The evenings when they would just lay in bed and look at each other were her favorite. His hand reached for hers, played with her fingers, and silently compared their size to his own hand before threading their fingers together palm-to-palm. “I love you,” he said simply, as if he were stating the color of the sky.

It was the first time he had said so and her eyes widened in surprise and squeezed his hand in response. “Will you still love me if I cut all my hair off?”

“Of course, I’d still love you. Your hair isn’t what makes you beautiful or what makes me love you.”

“Will you still love me if I get fat?”

He smiled, “Yes. You’d just be softer and have more for me to touch.”

“How long will you love me?”

Even now, she blinked away tears remembering that night. It was funny how his heart still seemed to be beating in the grocery store, by his declaration, he should have dropped dead the moment he fell for someone else. She laughed to herself over her ridiculousness. ‘That was a long time ago,’ she said to herself, ‘it’s been two whole years. Why do you still think of him like this?’ she whispered to herself alone in her apartment. Gulping down a glass of water and exhaling loudly, she sat down on the couch and a movie. It didn’t take long before she fell asleep clutching her couch pillow and muttering in her sleep. She dreamed of him again and awoke on top of a tear-soaked pillow. She sighed to herself again and changed before deciding on a walk. Maybe some fresh air would help her forget about him and the previous day’s events. She had managed to go two years without seeing him once, if she were lucky, she’d be okay if they saw each other after another two.

However, she had no such luck. She settled on a park bench with a book when she perceived an onlooker staring at her. She tried to ignore the feeling, but curiosity won out when she glanced over the top of her book to see him standing just a few feet away from her. Instinct told her to run, but she couldn’t deny that she had seen him. Their eyes had locked and she was sure that he wouldn’t pretend to have not seen her. She gulped and placed her book down in her lap with steadier hands than she suspected she possessed.

He approached her suspiciously before sitting down next to her. He was equal parts relieved and surprised when she made no move to discourage or outright refuse him. He sighed and gathered his courage before choking out, “Jagiya.”

She turned to look at him with surprised eyes, before narrowing them again, “Excuse me. You must have the wrong person.”

He looked over her face before dropping his gaze down to her hands curled around her book in her lap, “No. I know my jagi when I see her.”

She scoffed at his forwardness, “No, you’re wrong. You lost the right to call me that a long time ago. What about that other person? She must be your jagiya.”

“It didn’t work,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She interjected, perhaps a little more smugly than she should have.

“She wasn’t you.”

“Few people are, Junsu.”

“Please. Listen to me.”

“Why? Give me one reason that I should sit here and listen to what you want to tell me? I told you that you have the wrong person.”

“Don’t be like this.”

“I’m waiting for a reason.”

He wordlessly reached into her lap and retrieved her right hand, placing it over his chest, “My heart still beats for you. I’m still in love with you.”

She snatched her hand back and turned her whole body to face him, “I’m even sorrier to hear that. I was wrong before, you didn’t lose it, you gave up the right to say these things to me two years ago. Two years, Junsu.”

She made a move to stand and leave, but he caught her wrist, “Please. Let’s start over. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you; I’d do anything to take back what happened between us.”

“Why?” she asked, “Because it didn’t work out with the other girl? The truth is that I don’t love you anymore.” It was a lie. “I haven’t been sitting around waiting for you to come back.” It was another lie, but a subconscious one. “I’m not interested in getting back together.” This was the truth and she felt relieved to have realized it.

He gripped onto her wrist tighter with each revelation and looked into her eyes for a sign that it was all a lie, but felt the familiar burn in his heart when he couldn’t find it. He didn’t want to believe it, but it really was over and he had been defeated. He wanted to pull her close to him and prove his love for her with a powerful kiss, he wanted to tell her that he had been searching for her for a year and a half and felt his heart soar when he had finally seen her in the grocery store, but knew that he couldn’t hurt her any more than he already had. If he really loved her, then he’d have to let her go this time. He really loved her and let her wrist fall from his grip. “I truly am sorry. I truly do still love you and I truly will still love you until my heart stops beating.”

“Goodbye, Junsu.” She stated clearly before turning around and leaving him behind. As she gained ground, she smiled slightly as she felt the hole in her heart burn less than it had before and actually begin to heal. It wasn’t that she wanted to hurt him back and was sorry that it had to come to this, but had finally attained the closure that they desperately needed. Although she knew how it felt to be left behind as she had just left him, she could finally escape the cage called heartbreak that she had endured for two whole years; she could finally move on and the skies were already looking much more beautiful.