You walked out of the Cube building that day, your head held high, no signs of weakness in your confident walk. You reached in your purse for your car keys and as you were taking them out of the bag, the small plastic framed purikura made your heart quiver in pain. Hyunseung was hugging you tightly while making a kiss face, while you had an enormous smile that made visible the love you felt for the man. The man who had just said such vile and cruel words to you, thing you never believed he could do. As you entered into your lime green Kia Picanto, the barrier you had built was slowly crumbling, a wave of emotion endangering its structure. You locked the car’s door and drove away, holding it all in. After that, your mind went to a distant place. You were driving unconsciously , destination unknown. Memories had locked away your attention, the heartache making it impossible to escape.

            ‘Oppa, don’t run so fast, I can’t get to you!’ You yelled, running at your top speed. You and Hyunseung were having a race; the winner would decide the dinner’s location. Since he had a habit of choosing awkward places, you really weren’t too happy with the way things were going to happen. Thinking of a master strategy to win the competition, the answer came to you. It’s simplicity shocked you. As you came to a sand covered part of the ground, you pretended to slip on the faulty ground. Unfortunately, the consistency of the ground ended up making you slip for real, and you plunged to the ground face first. With your hands covering your face, you hit the hard asphalt, scraping your sensitive skin. As you were wearing light clothes, only shorts and a frilly t-shirt, scrapes covered your hands, arms, knees and legs. You cried as blood appeared from your wounds. The burn was all over your body, so the pain made you whimper. Not hearing your desperate remarks, Hyunseung turned back to see your location, only to find you sitting on the ground, crying and bloodied. He felt his heart accelerate in worry, and ran full speed to you. Panicking, he held your crying self princess style, and while running, carried you to his car. ‘Oppa, it hurts, but I don’t want to dirty your car.’ You managed to say between whimpers. He drove an expensive BMW, and you felt in your being how much he must have worked hard to be able to afford such a car. ‘________-ah! Do you think I care more about the car than you?! You’re my girlfriend! I love you and you’re the thing I care about the most!’ He laid you on the back seat, running to the driver’s seat and driving away towards your apartment. When you arrived at the company’s apartment complex, he hurried you out of the car, helping you walk inside. Moments later, you were sitting on the kitchen’s orange plastic counter, and Hyunseung was disinfecting and bandaging your wounds. The situation had him sweating, and you were focusing on the beads of sweat falling from his hairline. ‘Oppa, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to get hurt…’ You said, tears of guilty assaulting your eyelids. ‘What do you mean by that? It was an accident, not ________-ah’s fault.’ He smiled, lightly kissing your knee. You whimpered at the soft touch, and he mouthed a soft ‘sorry’. ‘But oppa, I was going to fall on purpose… I was tired of loosing all the time, and I wanted to eat what I wanted tonight… So I tried to cheat, but ended up falling for real.’ You cried, feeling your nose running. He handed you a tissue, and you cleaned your tears and blew your nose before looking at him again. When you did, he was controlling his laughter. ‘Oppa! It’s not funny! I feel really guilty… I’m sorry…’ You fidgeted with the dirty tissue, feeling shame for your childish act. ‘I’m the one who is sorry, _______-ah. I should have just let you chose. To think you would cheat in such a childish way… It’s funny. But promise oppa you won’t do it again. I would rather give up my perfectionism and competitiveness for a moment than make you suffer. I love you to much to ever make you hurt.’

            LIAR. If you really meant those words, how could you ever had said that? You knew. You broke me. It hurts more than any flesh wound, oppa. And there is no one to fix it.

            Another memory climbed up towards your mind; this time, a more recent one. You were both seating on your orange love sofa. You were clinging onto a lemon shaped cushion, watching a re-run of the drama ‘You’re Beautiful’. You were making weird crying faces when Go Mi Nam watched her lover Hyungnim, Hwang Taekyung, kiss Yoo He Yi in their ‘fake’ relationship. You nudged the concentrated Hyunseung, who was creating the choreography for their new track. ‘Oppa, you wouldn’t do that to me, would you?’ You looked at him with puppy dog eyes, doubt and fear breezing through you due to the drama. He took of his ear-phones in an irritated manner, and looked you deep in the eyes. ‘Neh, ________-ah! Can’t you see I’m busy? What kind of idiot thing are you asking?’ he said in a loud voice. You could understand his reaction. The pressure he was feeling was probably overwhelming. He was in charge of the whole dance routine, dancers and singers. ‘I was only asking oppa, if he would leave me because another girl used something to manipulate oppa into dating her, in order for oppa to protect me…’ You quietly said, not wanting to infuriate him further. ‘Oi, don’t you think that is a stupid question?! That’s something that only happens in dramas.’ With that, he got up from the couch and went towards the main door. You ran after him and grabbed his arm. ‘Oppa, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you!’ You cried, the feeling of failure haunting you. The situation at the company made you feel alone, weak, untalented, worthless. You were too vulnerable to endure loosing Hyunseung right now. So you were willing to let this one fight pass unnoticed. ‘I’m sorry, _______-ah, but I’m going through a hard time. I’ll talk to you when I cool down okay? I need to go somewhere quiet to work. I love you.’

            LIAR. Even at that point, you hurt me with your words and I let you go. You apologized and promised to never do it again. Then why that?

            You didn’t know how, but you ended up making it to your apartment complex. You had recently moved out of your Cube apartment, since it was needed for new trainees. You were now living in a small one bedroom apartment in the Jung-gu district. As you unlocked the door, the pain regained control of you. All the bits and pieces that belonged to that person made it to hard to bear even entering. Right at the doorstep were the slippers you had bought together at the shop only a block away. Couple slippers, how silly that looked at this time. You took control of your mind, and repressing the pain you felt, you moved towards the buildings entrance and grabbed a few empty cardboard boxes. ‘Neh, ________-ah, what are you doing with all those card boxes?’ An old neighbour asked. ‘Halmeonim, I’m just doing some clean up…’ You said with the little strength you had left in you to speak. You slowly walked away, limp shoulders giving hints of your inner sadness. ‘But you just arrived… Aish, this youth…’ The old lady said, grumping while returning to her home.

            You carried the boxes to your door, and started by picking up the slippers and throwing them harshly inside the box. As they said, after sadness, comes the rage in the scorned woman. You took the box with you, as you entered the apartment. ‘Everything must go.’ And with that said, everything did go. The couple dinner set you had bought during your first break as a couple, thrown at the box and smashed into bits of lime green ceramic. His toothbrush, gone. His jacket, gone. His gifts, gone. His presence, gone. The only thing that you couldn’t bring yourself to dispose of was the photo album you gave each other in your 2^nd anniversary and the couple rings you shared. You took it off, the silver cold to the touch, even if it was in your hand during all this time. You promised yourself you would give it back, in the right moment.

            Succumbing to your weakness, you sat on your bed, staring emptily at the other side of the couple bed. You lied down, and got under the sheets, without even taking your clothes off. Your insides were mixed with so many different feelings, that you just felt like screaming, giving up and just die, ending what seemed like a god-forsaken life. You knew you didn’t really feel that, it was just the pain that made you have those thoughts. Deep inside, you knew you had to live everyday with a new goal, and it was not revenge, but retribution. By revenge, you would be injuring him in some sort of way. But no. You wanted to make Hyunseung regret. Regret ever saying those words and regret ever belittling you. Then, to your surprise, his smile came into you mind. And then, you finally realized what really was under the anger, the scorn, the pain. It was the cause for all of them. It was the love you felt for him. You couldn’t stop loving the man you were planning to commit your soul to in just a finger snap. And that was what hurt the most. The lost of his love, that made the love you felt for Hyunseung slowly break, grieve, hurt, and you hoped it would eventually die. With that feeling of emptiness and missing, you hugged the pillow he used when staying over, while falling asleep with that familiar scent. His scent.

            You woke up later on, to the sound of your ringtone. Another sharp stab of pain hit your heart, as you reached for the small green phone. The ringtone was Hyunseung singing you a parody of ‘Fiction’, their latest song, where he switched the lyrics words for ‘Pick up the phone, I said, Pick the Phone.’ It went on, but you didn’t even want to remember what came next. You quickly picked up the phone, only to hear a deep male voice saying ‘Is this _________?’ You took a quick glance at the digital clock with the shape of a diamond that blinked 10:04PM. ‘Yes, who is it?’ You asked, intrigued by who would call you this late. ‘I’m YG Entertainment CEO, Yang Hyun Seok. I have talked with your manager, and you have an appointment at our company tomorrow at 9:30 A.M.. Please, do not be late. That is all. Excuse me’. And with that the call that would give a 180º degree turn in your life yet again, ended.