Krystal did not realize that she had started crying. Upon hearing Amber's unexpected suggestion that they take a break, Krystal's mind went blank from the shock. But perhaps her heart took over, causing the tears to fall even though her brain had not caught up yet.

As soon as Krystal realized that her cheeks were once again wet with tears, all she could do was stupidly think to herself, "Ah, I'm crying again. Why am I always crying?"

Amber stretched out a sleeved arm and gently wiped Krystal's tears. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Well what'd you expect me to do after you break up with me, stupid?" Krystal responded bitterly, pulling away.

"I'm not--"

"Is it because I've been sad so much lately?" A dull ache of pain built up in her stomach and exuded to the rest of her body. She began to think about all her flaws and reasons why Amber no longer wanted to be with her. "I'm not gonna be sad forever. Don't give up on me, Am."

"It's not like that," Amber insisted. "I don't want to break up with you, that's not what this is."

"Then what is it? Am I not fun enough for you anymore? Is there someone else you like better?"

Amber managed the smallest of smiles at the ridiculousness of Krystal's assumptions. "You need to stop guessing and let me explain. Your theories are getting worse and worse."

"Well you better talk fast because I'm thinking a hundred different things and none of them are good."

Amber gently tugged on Krystal's wrist. "Come here," she said softly, motioning for Krystal to sit sideways in her lap. 

Krystal eyed her suspiciously. "Are you breaking up with me or not?"

"Not," Amber replied, but the sadness in Amber's face left Krystal still feeling dubious.

"Then what the hell is a 'break' and why do you look so sad?"

With a heavy sigh, Amber wordlessly reached over and lifted Krystal onto her lap. The younger girl gasped in surprise, but provided no resistance as Amber sat her on her lap and hugged her tightly, protectively. With the way that they were sitting, their bodies intertwined in a complete hug, Krystal would have felt wholly safe if not for Amber's "break" suggestion earlier.

"I don't want to break up with you," Amber said, speaking softly into the crook of Krystal's neck. "I love you with all my heart, every day for over six years, and the last thing I want is for us to break up."

"Then why did you say it?" Krystal asked mirroring the softness of Amber's voice. The initial shock and pain had worn away after hearing Amber's sincerity. Now she was just confused and searching for a reasonable explanation for the situation, but the contradiction in Amber's words was not helping her to understand.

"Because I don't know how to make you happy. I thought about it a lot after you left my place yesterday. I couldn't think of anything else to do but this."

"And you thought that breaking up with me would make me happy?"

"No." Somberly, Amber shook her head in the negative. She pulled away from Krystal just enough so that they could see each other without letting each other go. Krystal had never seen Amber look so sad since the days before their debut when Amber had worried if coming to Korea and becoming and idol was the right path for her. Despite her own sadness and confusion, Krystal put a gentle hand to Amber's face and caressed her thumb against Amber's cheek, trying to comfort the older girl.

"Then why did you say it?" Krystal asked again. Krystal rested her forehead against Amber's, trying to put Amber at ease enough so that she would talk. "You said you wanted to explain, so say something. Start from anywhere and I'll listen patiently. Just tell me, why do you think we should take a break?"

"Because I took a break from you in the past." Amber's odd confession hung in the air between them. Krystal looked at her in confusion, but Amber looked down and offered no further explanation. With that little piece of information, Krystal tried to understand.

"How have you already taken a break from me?" Krystal asked. "We only started dating two months ago, and we've been together the whole time."

"Do you remember when I twisted my ankle a few years ago and went back to the US for six months to recover?"

Krystal nodded, remembering Amber's long absence following their "Nu ABO" promotions during mid 2010.

"I never told anyone," Amber admitted softly, "but my ankle healed in about two months."

"What? You said it was a bad sprain," Krystal slowly remembered. "You were still healing even after you came back to Korea."

"I know, it's called lying. Try to keep up," Amber said weakly, attempting a joke.

"But why did you lie?"

"Because after I went back to L.A. for a while, I suddenly felt like I could think again. When I was with you in Korea, I was happy and anxious and confused and a million different things all at once. I knew that I liked you a lot at the time, but I couldn't really understand yet that I was in love with you."

"Did I make things hard for you?" Krystal asked softly. She put a hand on either side of Amber's face and her cheeks gently. "I'm sorry that I hurt you."

"I wasn't hurt," Amber said firmly, "And me being confused wasn't your fault either. It was because I wasn't able to understand my own feelings for you. Being away from you for a while helped to give me perspective. It gave me a chance to think about my feelings without having to deal with my heart exploding whenever I was with you, which was basically all the time."

Krystal wrestled with how to handle the information. Guilt was at the top of her list, along with regret. "It makes me feel really bad when you talk like that," Krystal admitted.

"Don't apologize, and don't even feel bad," Amber said, smiling gently at the remorseful girl. "I've never felt this way about anyone in my life, guy or girl. No one's ever made my heart race like this before, and I hope no one else ever does. But when I realized that I was in love with you, I... I didn't know what to do. It felt really weird being in love with a girl, for starters. And I was ashamed of that for a while. I know I'm a tomboy, but I had only ever had crushes on guys before you. And to have fallen in love with someone who was as beautiful and perfect as you, who was way out of my league, it felt surreal for the longest time."

A soft smile crosses Krystal's lips as Amber called her "perfect". It brought back a fond memory. "You said I was closest to your idea of a prefect women in one of our first interviews," she recalled fondly. "I can't believe I never realized how you felt all this time." She kissed Amber's forehead gently. "So what changed after 6 months? What made you come back to Korea?"

"More than anything else, time made me realize my love for you wasn't so strange. Even though it was weird to admit to myself that I loved you at first, each day that passed as I thought about it made it seem not so weird. And each day that passed without you made me miss you more and more to the point where I realized that I didn't need you to love me back to be happy. I just needed to be with you and to be able to see you smile. And so I came back."

"That's so sweet..." A humbled expression played on Krystal's face. Amber's heart was more pure than Krystal had ever imagined. She was so selfless and kind that, in many ways, Amber was too good to be true. Krystal was grateful to have earned Amber's love even though she felt that she didn't deserve it. "How were you able to fall in love with someone selfish and spoiled like me?"

Amber laughed gently and turned the question around. "How were