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(February, 2019)

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    It's Saturday and Aleni should be home, still be lounging around her apartment and probably picking up Suho's things that had accumulated after his numerous stay-overs and visits over the last few months.

    But here she was, in the hospital. All because Minseok had to go and try to cook, ending up with a badly cut hand that had to be stitched.

    "You are the clumsiest person I know, I swear." she mumbles as she helped Minseok out of the emergency room. "How are you going to live now? You've practically slashed your hand open! How did that even happen? Why would you deliberately cut your hand when you can't even use them properly with both of them in good condition?"

    "Mom, stop nagging. Please!" Minseok made a face. "I'm hurt already, see?"

    "If I was your mom, this is not all the nagging you'd get. For that sole reason, I should go and call her right now and tell her how much of a nuisance you are!" Aleni glares without real heat. No one could be angry at Minsoek when he has that sullen face on.

    "Please don't call her. I'll let you nag me into the next day, just don't call her."

    Aleni shook her head defeatedly. Once they were near Minseok's car, she held her hand for the key.

    "You are not driving my car, Aleni." Minseok stated matter-of-factly. "I drove here just fine while my hand was bleeding. I think I can manage now that its bandaged."

    Aleni took out her phone, "I've got your mom on speed dial."

    Minseok threw his key towards Aleni and got inside the car, grumbling about nosy friends and how they're capable of dangerous blackmails if you let them get out of hand.

    Aleni grins as she got into Minseok's car. She started the engine and sped away from the hospital's parking lot.

    "This is not the way to my apartment." Minseok says a few moments later.

    "Who says we're going to your apartment?" 

    "Uh, duh? I need to go rest somewhat, right? Besides that, I need to call my secretary to tell her that I need her to lessen the paperwork for me because I can't freaking use half of my upper limbs--"

    "I'd call her and tell her that you need to have a two-day leave so that cut won't be aggravated and that your paperwork will be sent to my office in the meantime. We're partners, Minseok, and on top of that, you're my friend. So, naturally, I'd be taking you to my apartment so I can properly take care of you."

    "No." Minseok deadpans.

    "Yes. And don't argue with me or else my feet might slip and step on the gas and then we'd swerve a little because I can't control the wheel  at such high speed and I just might end up breaking the front fender or scratch the paint or maybe break the side mirrors--"

    "Okay, stop! Stop! Just don't hurt my car! Okay?! I'll let you kidnap me for the weekend!" Minseok all but yells, face draining of color as Aleni rambled on about wrecking his car. His beloved car.

    Aleni grins even wider, pulling to a stop on a red light. "Good boy, Minseok."

    "I'm not a dog."

    "No. You are not a dog." Aleni agrees. She pinched his cheeks playfully, ignoring Minseok's horrified squeak. "You're a really cute puppy!"

    Aleni was still laughing at Minseok's pouty face as he rubbed at his abused cheeks when her eyes got caught by a familiar person a few meters from where they were waiting for the light to change.

    He was wearing a simple tee with faded jeans, something different from the usual suit and slacks he wears to work. A grocery bag was in his arm while he was holding a boy's little hand with the other.

    She could see the gold glint of a wedding ring. The early afternoon sun shines over it, radiating splash of gold on that fair skin she was so familair with.

    "Joonmyun, look at what your son is doing!" a woman laughs. "He's certainly better at dancing than you are."
    
    It's like everything is playing in slow motion. Aleni watched as Joonmyun placed the grocery bag in his car (it's different from the sleek black Lexus he drives around Aleni in) and then turn to look at the other boy who was dancing around the woman, a pregnant woman to be exact, bending over to carry the boy who's hand he'd been holding earlier. The two boys were alike enough to be twins, the two of them giggling happily. The woman laughs even more, her own wedding band glints on the sunlight when she caressed the boys's hairs affectionately.

    At the sight of such happiness, Aleni's whole world breaks.

    She didn't know how she even managed to drive back to her apartment, it had all seemed to be a blur. She was driving numbly through traffic one moment, she might have heard a couple of cars honking at her or Minseok offering to drive, she's not really sure, the next thing she knew she was opening her front door and telling Minseok to go and make himself comfy.

    Then Minseok was enveloping her in his arms and running his hands through her hair. She could feel her cheeks, they were wet. Is she crying? Oh, yeah, she was.

    She didn't know what words can describe the way she was feeling at that moment. The way Joonmyun's eyes had widened in shock when he saw her watching him from a distance is still engraved inside her mind, the memory still so vivid that she could picture his expression whenever she closes her eyes. The pain... it's too much that she felt numb.

    "Shh... it's okay. I'm here." Minseok tells her. "I'll always be here."

    Aleni should be the one taking care of Minseok, not the other way around. He was the one injured for heaven's sake.

    But why is she the one who felt broken beyond repair?

 

~0~0~0~

 

    Aleni is sitting on her usual chair in the kitchen. He was standing on the middle of the living room. The apartment is small enough, silent enough, that even if they whisper, they could hear each other.

    "I'm sorry." Suho says, eyes rooted on the ground.

    It's Sunday.

    It's the first time that Suho had ever came to her apartment during the weekend.

    Aleni stays silent. She's looking at that small smudge of dirt on the glass of her dining table, the stain that Minseok had left last night because he was just clumsy enough as he tried to persuade her into eating the food he made. Minseok is so sweet and caring and Aleni felt that she doesn't deserve him but she wants him there, desperately.

    She would never know what to do if she's alone.

    "Is it why you're never here on weekends?" she asked. She's a little surprised at how steady her voice is, even beneath the turmoil inside of her. "Or why you can't stay the night?"

    "Aleni..."

    "I waited for you..." she cuts him off. "Was it that hard to wait for me?"

    She wished Minseok was stubborn enough not to leave when Suho all but beg him to give him a chance to talk to Aleni. 

    She wished she was strong enough to ask Minseok to stay instead of giving him the permission to leave her alone with Suho.

    "It was all for the company." Suho says weakly. "Luna's family would have gladly helped us but my parents wanted to repay them... by having me marry her."

    Suho refused to sit down and Aleni somewhat didn't want him to. She didn't want to remember all those times that Suho sits down on the couch while her head was on his lap, the two of them talking about anything and everything, the past, their present... and what could have been the future. It all seemed possible back then but now... it just hurt to even recall.

    "Do you love her?"

    The question hangs in the air, suffocating.

    Aleni helds her breath.

    She didn't know what she would do, whatever answer Suho gives. Even if she knows that she will be hurt eventually, either way, she wants to hear his answer.

    "Luna..." Suho says after a few minutes of silence, "She's a wonderful woman. She's kind, understanding. She... loves me."

    Aleni doesn't understand why she still wants to hear it. She's already broken enough, she didn't have to let herself break into even smaller pieces.

    But a part of her still hopes that Suho... that somehow Suho is still hers. That even if he's bound to somebody else, she still has a hold in his heart.

    "Do you love her?" she reiterated.

    "She's my wife." Suho answered.

    Aleni doesn't cry. She can't. Not in front of Suho. She needed to be strong enough to let him go.

    "Then, shouldn't you be at home? Not here?" she said past the lump on .

    "Aleni--"

    "This is wrong, Suho. We both know that." she saw him flinch when she didn't call him on his real name like how she had been doing in the past few months. "Go home."

    "I love you."

    Tears gathered behind her eyelids but she refused to let them fall. Not even when Suho scaled that few feet between them and kneeled in front of her, hugging her torso and burrying his face into her chest.

    "Go home."

    "I love you." Suho says again.

    "Suho! Please, don't make me do an even greater mistake! This is all so wrong. Just... please leave."

    "You don't know how I go crazy everyday, seeing you, holding you, kissing you, being with you, only to go home every night and live the role of the perfect husband! You don't know how torn I feel each day--"

    "You said it yourself, Luna loves you. She's a wonderful woman. You have a family with her, Joo-- Suho. I refuse to break a home. I refuse to be the reason that your own children would hate you. I don't want to be the reason for you to regret your life."

    "I love you."

    "But they need you." she said, the tears finally pouring, unbidden, "They need you much more than I do."

    "Don't you love me, Aleni?" Suho asked askeed, and Aleni could feel a wet patch on her shirt where Suho's face was pressed into, "You said it yourself, you waited for me. Can we just be selfish? Just this once!?"

    "We can't."

    Aleni desperately wants to be selfish. She's angry. Angry at herself for ever letting go of Suho back then. Angry at Suho for ever giving her a glimpse of a future of them together when they were all lies. Angry at fate for playing with them like this. She's angry, and hurt.

    "Aleni..."
    
    She wound her arms around him, holding him tightly only to push him away the next second. The vision of the twin boys and Suho's wife's pregnant belly plays inside her head, making the guilt in her stomach churn painfully.

    "You need to leave, Suho."

    Suho kept kneeling on the floor as Aleni made her way to her bedroom. She waited inside for the telltale sign of the door opening as Suho let himself out.

    The moment it closed, Aleni broke down crying beside her bedroom door.

 

~0~0~0~

 

    "Are you sure about this? You really don't want me to be assigned back together with you?" Minseok asked as he wheeled the luggage behind him.

    "I'm sure. You need to take good care of the branch here while I'm gone, okay?" 

    "Aleni..."

    "I need some time, Min. Just... I need time to be alone."

    "Are you sure? You've been sickly these days. I can just ask for a replacement to take care of the branch here. I'd go with you--"

    "Minseok." Aleni hugs Minseok reassuringly, "I'll be fine. Okay?"

    Minseok sighs, relenting. He gave Aleni her luggage as the last call for her flight airs over the airport speakers.

    Aleni leans up to kiss him goodbye on the cheeks. "Thank you. For always being there for me."    

    "You know I'll always be here." Minseok smiles. "That will never change."

    Aleni couldn't help but to ask herself, and if there was really a higher power up there, why she can't just love this person instead. She can't help but to ask why, as she made her way towards the gates, she's still looking back, not to see Minseok for the last time before she leaves, but for a familiar face she's hoping would come and at try to stop her from leaving. Or at least tell her goodbye for the last time.

    Minseok waves at her, a small smile on his face.

    She didn't notice.

    Because Suho was running through the crowd behind Minseok and calling for her.

    She didn't care about the eyes looking there way as Suho enveloped her into fierce embrace, knocking the air out of her lungs. It doesn't matter that it was hard to breathe, what with the tight space between them, or the way her eyes stung because of relentless tears that were falling even though she thinks she had already dried up her tears in the last few days.

    "Aleni, you can't--"
    
    "I have to." she sobbed onto his chest. "I have to go. It's the only way."

    "You can't leave me. Not again." Suho gritted out.

    Aleni had to stiffle her own cries when she felt hot teardrops falling into her hair.

    She pried Suho away from her, reluctantly. She doesn't want to, she hates it, but she had to. She had to let him go. With trembling hands, she reached up to cup his face, taking in his features, that beautiful face that had captured her years ago, those kind eyes that were just as puffy and swollen as hers with pain and regret, she memorized each bump and every little imperfection that made this man him. It's the last time she'd be allowed to touch him like this and claim him as hers. Because she never had the right, she let that go when she took that flight more than five years ago.

    With unsteady but determined will, she leaned on her tiptoes and kissed him. It was filled with tears but she didn't care. Suho was sobbing too, and she didn't want to end this kiss. But in the end she had to. 

    He is not hers. Never will be.

    She let him go and took a step away. "I love you..."

    "Don't..." Suho says, eyes pleading, holding her hand tightly.

    "I love you enough to let you go." she takes another step away.

    "Aleni..."

    "In this lifetime... let's try to never meet again." Aleni smiles through her tears, "My Joonmyun."

    As the plane takes off, Aleni clutches her chest, feeling each piece of her heart turning into dust, never to be whole again.

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