We met in the summer of 2007 at a bar in downtown Seoul. It was in one of the shadier areas of Seoul, so it was no surprise when we had gangsters infiltrate the bar every now and then for supplies. Jongin was purchasing shipment from the gangsters and I was a waitress at the bar. It was a dark bar and I had accidentally collided into him. He grabbed onto me, making sure I didn’t fall either.

            It was then when I fell for him (literally), as he liked to joke around.

            At first, I was unaware of his substance dependency. After all, I had just gotten out of high school and wanted to work a few jobs here and there to fund my college education. I was an orphan so I didn’t have parents who I could depend on to pay my bills for me. No, parents didn’t exist in my dictionary, but dirty jobs did. I was an innocent, unfeigned lamb who didn’t know what to expect out of the relationship from Jongin.

            When Jongin and I first started going out, it was nothing much. We would have skinship here and there, squeezed in a few make-out sessions but that was it. We went out for physical desires, but things changed when I saved him from one of his episodes of substance dependency. It was scary, I had to admit. He was having a convulsion in his chair; his eyes were rolling to the back of his head; it was everything I dreaded the most. Eventually, I found his stack of substances before handing him a suitable amount