For a person in love, waking up next to your lover might just be the most beautiful thing in the world. The soft morning sunlight hitting your eyes making you wake up seeing your lover beside you with his beautiful smile and you kiss him to wake him up; then both of you will share a smile and a couple more minutes cuddling in bed.  Never mind the morning breath or the bed hair. It’s still perfect nevertheless.

But for Kim Youngwoon, it’s a little different. His mornings start off with the blanket being harshly pulled off of him; the cold air from the air conditioner hitting him and making him grab the blanket back starting a tug of war between him and Sungmin, who doesn’t like losing. If ever he wins, he gets a kick out of the bed courtesy of his lover telling him to wake up. After which he gets his morning kiss.

It’s not how he pictured his morning with the love of his life, but it’s still perfect nevertheless.

This morning was a bit different. Instead of the usual tug of war in the morning; he was woken up by one of their songs, Mamacita. Realizing that it was not his phone moments before throwing it into the nearest wall, he stops himself abruptly and thought about how pissed the owner of the phone would be if he finds out that his phone was ruined; a pissed off Sungmin means there will be no cuddling; and Kangin wouldn’t want that. He tries to look at the caller ID to see who was calling at an ungodly time of 7:00AM at a Saturday morning without much success because the number was unknown. Thinking that it might be an important call or just a fan that got hold of his lover’s mobile number, he wakes up his lover, who amazingly was still asleep despite the volume of the ring tone, to deal with it.

“Minnie, wake up. There’s a call for you.” Youngwoon whispers into Sungmin’s ears which elicits a soft moan from the aegyo prince. But it didn’t wake the younger up so the racoon decided to put the ringing phone closer to his lover’s ear, which did the trick. Sungmin’s eyes slightly opened to look at the caller id of his phone and he immediately woke up and answered the phone. Seeing as how serious Sungmin’s face was when he was talking to whoever was on the other line, he assumed that it was important and thought nothing more of it. He gets off the bed to prepare for his day since he had a shooting and dance lessons that day.

Little did he know, that phone call was his calm before the storm.

Lee Sungmin has always been a mystery. Only showing what he wants to show everyone but sees what most people don’t. He is one of the sharpest members of Super Junior and is one of the most misleading. It takes a trained eye to see through Lee Sungmin, and Kim Youngwoon has those eyes.

From what he could see, ever since that day Sungmin got that phone call, he has been acting strange.

It never escaped Youngwoon how Sungmin would always leave the room to take phone calls; or how his shoulders would slightly tense whenever Kangin comes from behind to give him a hug; or how he would slightly avoid his eyes whenever they talk but quickly regain composure to look at him again in the eyes. For the other members, it might’ve seemed normal; but Kangin knows something was wrong. He just had to find out what it was.

He was never the one to try the roundabout approach. Last time he used that, he ended up avoiding the person he loved, went to the army to run away from his problems, only to find out that everyone, sans his parents, were supportive of his romantic inclinations. Nope, the direct approach has always been good. He always faced his problems head on, and so far it worked well for him.

Until now, it seems.

He asked Sungmin that afternoon over dinner if something was wrong and he was answered with Sungmin lying to his face; if the younger avoiding eye contact and the abrupt change of topic was any indication. Of course, Youngwoon was hurt that Sungmin would lie to him, but he won’t let it end there. Every time Sungmin would be in a pensive mood, he would ask what was wrong and would watch the younger lie, repeatedly.

It’s been days and he was running out of patience.

“Minnie-ah. You’re out of it again.” Youngwoon whispers to the younger while giving him a back hug. He once again caught his lover drifting off into his thoughts. Thoughts that he has no clue about. He wants to find out so badly what his Minnie was trying to avoid that he’d resort to outright lying, and Sungmin rarely lies to him; unless it was about something big.

“Sorry, I was… thinking.” Sungmin answers, still looking out the window of their room. There was something different about Sungmin this time. Unlike the past few times, he didn’t tense or even deny that he was spacing out. This seemed like a good sign for Youngwoon.

“You know you can tell me anything.” Kangin kisses the back of his lover’s neck; making the younger shudder out of pleasure. He was never the one to pass up an opportunity to cling to his lover like the koala that he was. He feels like he was going to get something out of this. He pats himself at the back for going with the direct approach.

Sungmin was silent for a while and it seemed like he was really deep in thought.

“I’m sorry, Youngwoon-ah.”

Youngwoon had already expected that it was something bad. But from how the younger sounded, bad apparently was not a strong enough word to describe it. But he wanted to know, so he’s going to see it through.

“About what? I’m sure it can’t be that bad.” He still believed that whatever it was, it wasn’t as bad as it really is. But really, that was just him trying to convince himself.

“Sorry, but I can’t tell you right now.”  Sungmin tries to pry himself out of his lover’s embrace.

Kangin grabs Sungmin by the shoulders and turns him around. He was getting really nervous about all of this. It was like the time when he confessed his love to the younger that he felt this feeling; the feeling of possibly losing someone. His anxiety was getting to him; and it was slowly devouring him.

“What is it that’s so important that you can’t tell me?” He impatiently asks.

Youngwoon was gripping Sungmin’s shoulders so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. He only loosened his hold when he felt his lover slightly shaking. He immediately calmed down when he felt it. Even if the younger was looking down, Kangin knows that Sungmin was on the verge of tears.

“I just can’t. Please. Not right now.”

He couldn’t do anything but watch his lover walk out the door.

Of course, this will not go unnoticed. Just the fact that the two were not near each other was enough to say that something was up. Youngwoon couldn’t take the sympathetic looks that his bandmates were giving him so he opted to just go for a walk. He was just about to swing by his room when he heard voices.

One of them was his lover’s uncharacteristically distressed voice.

“Hyung, help me. I can’t do this to him.”

In the nine years that he has known and loved Sungmin, he can count on his one hand the times that he has heard the younger one as panicked as this. One was when Donghae almost committed suicide by jumping off their apartment rooftop because of his father’s death; the other one was when Kyuhyun almost died because of the accident that happened several years ago. The third was when he confessed his love to the younger because of fear that their careers might be over.

The quietness of the room only made the voices clearer.

“You better tell him soon. You’re only hurting him; and you’re hurting yourself more” Heechul’s voice reverberating through.

“I know, but I don’t know how to say it.” Sungmin’s voice was getting weaker.

“What are you, stupid? Of course it’s going to hurt. But he won’t be able to do anything about it.” Heechul answered back.

All of the negative thoughts that he as desperately trying to hold back ever since that day were now let loose. Piecing together how his lover was acting these past few days and how the two were talking inside; Youngwoon’s blood ran cold.

Sungmin was breaking up with him.