Every couple has problems, after all not everything can be rosy, but lately I've been feeling that things between me and him are not working. The love is still there, intact, just as intense, but I feel that this is not enough to stay beside him. I'm not ashamed to admit that the one who starts all the fights is me. I cannot help it, recently I find myself hating all the little "mistakes" he commits. Everything he does bothers me and I can’t find a logical and rational reason to explain this. But the story doesn’t stop here, because there are times in which his actions hurt me so much –for no apparent reason– that I cannot help but cry for hours. And in those situations Jongin always tries to apologize to me. He always tries to stay calm and hear me in silence in order to wait for his turn to say something. He always apologizes first, it is him who always takes the initiative to fix things. However, I always end up yelling at him that he's a fool and that he doesn’t love me well enough…I know, I'm being really immature and stupid, because I more than anyone know about the love he has for me. If he didn’t love me he wouldn’t be the first one to apologize, if he didn’t love he wouldn’t be so patient when dealing with me and if he didn’t love me he would have gone from my side long ago, because this past few months I have been behaving like a real , even I myself must admit it. I really try to control myself, but I can’t, it's as if my tongue were moving by itself. But in my defense I must say that I’m not the only culprit of all this mess, because Jongin also has some of the blame. Is it too much to ask him to lower the toilet lid? Is it too much to ask him to leave the towel in the bathroom after using it instead of leaving it on the bed? Is it too much to ask him to text me back? Is it too much to ask him to give me some attention? Is it too much to ask him to bring me a damn ham when I want to eat one?

“How many times I have to repeat the same, Kim Jongin?!” I hissed, trying to keep calm the beast in which it had become my anger.

My boyfriend looked at me with a bored expression, as if he were tired of dealing with me. He opened his mouth to say something, anything that might calm the whirlwind of emotions that I was feeling at this moment, but before he could speak, I cut him off, for the simple fact of feeling in control of the situation.

“I've told you a million times to leave the ing clothes in the laundry basket! It is so damn hard to understand?! How is it possible you cannot do that for me?! Are you deaf or something? You treat me like your freaking maid, Kim Jongin! Why don’t we change roles for a day so you can see how disastrous you are?!...”

Believe me, it was quite a long list, I had much to say to this man, but I couldn’t finish what I was saying because Jongin had dared to interrupt me. That piece of…

“Oh my God, just stop! I'm sick of hearing your bull, Sora!” He said losing his patience. The patience he had worked so hard to keep these months.

“Now you're sick of hearing my voice?! Imagine yourself having to deal with a man who doesn’t even appreciate what his girlfriend does for him! That really must be exhausting!” I yelled back.

I just had to see his face to realize that he was really at his limit. He had dilated pupils and clenched his jaw to try to control his anger. His gaze was yelling at me how much he was hating me right then and to be honest I didn’t care, because right now I was hating him too. If I had the courage I would have gotten rid of the remains of my sanity to throw at him any object I had around me.

“I have had enough of your . You've been unbearable lately and I don’t know what else to do to deal with you.” He said quietly, but I could palpate the contained anger he had.

“Now is all my fault?” I said in the same tone of voice he used with me, but I didn’t bother to try to hide my anger.

“Obviously. You had never been bothered by my lifestyle before and now you criticize everything I do, what the hell is wrong with you?” He said with a challenging look, with a subtle hint of coldness in his brown eyes.

What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t have a freaking idea, I only know that his presence annoys me.

“Just do what I say and everything will be fine.” I retorted with unnecessary arrogance.

He scoffed, totally disgusted by my irrational behavior. “I don’t know what else to do with you, Sora.” He said in a resigned sigh.

Suddenly all my anger was gone, replacing it with concern. I was worried not only about the resignation with which he said those words that sounded so horrible for me but I was also worried about my own behavior…what the hell is going on with me really? I didn’t understand myself, I didn’t know what I wanted…I only know that I’m confused and hurt.

I was about to open my mouth and apologize, but before I had a chance to collect my thoughts, his cellphone rang. Funny how from one second to the next one, his expression changed to one of a total nuisance to an expression of tranquility, as if he were grateful for the timely interruption. When he answered the call I saw how his face lit up, and there ladies and gentlemen I understood with whom he was talking to. Unfortunately for me, Jongin was a social butterfly, so he had a lot of friends, but that wasn’t the problem, what made me angry is that most of his friends are girls. I’m a normal girl, I've never been an extremely jealous person, but lately I cannot stand the fact that whenever he has free time he has fun with his girls friends. And it doesn’t help that these girls were clearly throwing themselves into his arms, plus there is a specific girl who I just cannot stand because she clearly has a crush on my boyfriend since like forever. And my intuition told me that he was talking with this girl right now. Normally I just would give him privacy, but not now, not these past few months. I stood there, hearing his conversation like an obsessive girl who knows no limits.

I saw how he smiled every time the other girl said something through the device attached to his ear, I saw how from time to time he laughed for something she had said and I saw how his face and his eyes had changed. I no longer saw the coldness and discomfort with which he had looked at me. I felt really sad. Why is he smiling like that? Why he can't smile at me like that too? The truth is that he hasn’t smiled at me in months and that worries me, I'm not going to see his smile ever again?

I don’t know for how long I had been immersed in my thoughts, but I think it had been for several minutes now, since Jongin was looking at me with confusion and concern, his cellphone now lay forgotten in his right hand. I could hear how the other girl across the line called my boyfriend for his name, trying to attract his attention, but his attention was on me and I didn’t know why until he spoke.

“Why are you crying?” He asked me with a calm voice, with a little of tenderness too, but I could feel the annoyance in his voice. He was sick of me and that saddened me even more.

The truth is that I hadn’t noticed that little detail and when I touched my face to confirm his words, there it was…my cheeks were soaked with tears. Why was I crying? Simple, because I can feel the distance between us, a distance that has been responsible for destroying all the hope that I had left. And the worst part of all this is that I stood in the sidelines, watching how the distance grew little by little, without doing anything.

“Do you smile when you talk to her, but not when you talk to me?” I said between sobs.

I expected him to smile gently and told me that he was sorry. I thought he would come to me and hug me, comforting me as he always did when I cried. I expected him to say that he loved me and me only, that he wasn’t interested at all in that friend of his. But I didn’t expect him to look at me with so much hassle, as if I were a burden on his shoulders, as if he were really tired of me. I was sad and hurt, how could I not be when the man I love is clearly sick of dealing with me?

“J-Jongin…” I started to say shakily, still crying. I wanted to tell him not to hate me. I wanted to tell him that I love him and that it wasn’t my intention to be a nuisance. I wanted to tell him how much he means to me, but I couldn’t say what I wanted, because the man talked before I could do so.

“No, Sora! I’m done with your nonsense! First you yell at me as if there were no tomorrow and now you're crying because you're jealous.” He said frustrated. I could feel the stress in his voice. He was angry, very angry. “I tried to be patient with you these last months for our relationship’s sake, but I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know what to do.” He said harshly.

I felt how every word embedded in my heart as if they were needles, piercing my already stressed and confused heart. I knew he felt that way and it was totally understandable, I didn’t make things any easier after all. But to hear him say those words in my face made me realize of the severe of the situation in which we saw ourselves cornered. We are two people clearly in love, but we are slowly moving away from the way. We are two people who have shared much, but we don’t know if we're meant to be together. And that scared me, because I don’t want him to leave me, although I must admit that part of me did want to get away from him, because I don’t want to be in a relationship in which the only thing we do is fight. We've been through a lot together, we've been together for many years, but it seems that our roads are gradually setting apart…just when I thought I would spend the rest of my life with this man.

And without further delay and without even looking at me, he left the room, leaving me there alone and with tears still coming out of my eyes. I felt sad and frustrated at the same time. If he wants to leave, so be it. If he wants us to become strangers, that's fine by me. If he wants to hate me, so be it, I no longer care. And if he'd rather be with that friend of his, good for him too. However, despite having said all those things, I felt empty and sad, because that afternoon he didn’t return.

I was in bed with the lights off, my eyes were wide open. I was waiting for him, knowing that maybe he wouldn’t go back tonight. My mind was already working on possible scenarios, and a part of me believed fervently that he was with Minah, that's her name. My boyfriend has never cheated on me, I know because he would be incapable of doing something like this…he loves me too much to make something so low and awful as that, but at this point I no longer know what to think. And although I didn’t want to think about that possibility, a part of me believed that at this moment he was in bed with Minah, kissing her and touching her as he did with me.

“I swear to God that if you're with her right now I’m able to kick you out of the house, Kim Jongin.” I hissed through clenched teeth, furious all of a sudden.

Just when I thought I was having a mental breakdown I heard how someone opened and closed the front door. Immediately my eyes fell on the clock that rested quietly in my nightstand…it was three a.m. for crying out loud and I was ready to shout it on his face. I got up from the bed to the speed of light, which made me a little dizzy, but once I steadied myself, I went to the living room.

“Do you have any idea what time it is, Kim Jongin?! Where the hell were you?!” I yelled at him.

My boyfriend was back to me, so I couldn’t see his face. He had one hand on the wall, as if he were leaning on it. I called him several times, feeling really offended by his silence, since he didn’t responded to any of my calls. So with a frown and ready to yell in his face, I stepped to put me in front of the man. However when I saw his expression my anger faded…now I was speechless. Jongin was clearly drunk and he had tears in his eyes, soaking his cheeks. I felt a wave of guilt, knowing I was the culprit that he were in this state. He doesn’t like to drink, he just does it when he is really stressed, when he really needs a break from the world and it hurt me to know that I was the one who incited him to do this.

“J-Jongin…” I whispered in a trembling voice, on the verge of tears.

What we were doing with our relationship? What was I doing with our relationship? I’m to blame for everything, what is my problem? With a heavy heart and a lump in my throat, I cradled his face in my hands while I wiped the tears in the process. I looked into his eyes gently and kindly, saying with my gaze that I would behave, but I doubted he could fully understand the message considering that he was drunk, but it was worth a try.

“Jongin, why are you like this? Why did you drink? Talk to me, my love.” I said softly. I didn’t need answers obviously, because I knew exactly what was happening, but I wanted him to vent his anger on me, like I always do with him…it was his turn to do so and this time I would try my best to remain silent.

The man looked me in the eye with uncertainty, like a little boy looking for his mother, he was so confused. He opened his mouth to say something but at the end he didn’t say anything, he just stood in silence, looking at me as if he were staring at me for the first time in a long time. He looked so vulnerable.

Unable to endure it any longer, I put my arms around his neck and pulled him to my body, hugging him tightly. He leaned –because he was much taller than me– and hugged me by the waist, burying his face in the crook of my neck. I could feel how the tip of his nose made contact with my skin, smelling my neck in the process. He always did that when he embraced me, he always smelled my skin, since according to him it’s his favorite smell in the whole world. And only when I had him in my arms I realized of how much I had missed his warmth. We haven't hugged each other for several months now and I didn’t know how I could have endured all this time without having him near me.

“I’m so sorry, Jongin. It’s all my fault…it’s all my fault.” I sobbed squeezing him in my arms.

He said nothing, he just took care of giving me little kisses on my shoulder and neck…I had missed his soft and delicate lips so ba