A/N  Hey guys.  I was originally going to post this in 3 parts but after thinking it over, I feel like it would flow better if I posted it as one very looooong one-shot.  Also I am not a Jongkyung hater.  I just felt weird writing him with someone else.  I, in no way, wish for her death. Again, I am very new to this and this is my first fanfic.  I would appreciate if you gave me some tips.  Thanks and I hope you enjoy this.

P.S - Italics are flashbacks and the bolded text is in Jonghyun's point of view.

It was a rainy day in January; the kind where all you wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep, ignoring all of the troubles in the world.  Two people were standing in the park, both soaking wet but neither of them looked like they were going to move anytime soon.  The man looked at his feet, shoulders slumped and eyes on the verge of tears.

"But, why?  What did I do wrong?" he says.  His brain is hurting from trying to figure it out.  They didn't have a fight right? Did he forget her birthday?

"You didn't do anything.  It's not you . . ." she starts off.

"It's me, right?  That's what you were going to say.  That's what they all say.  But really it is you.  Really it's because you weren't good enough." He cuts her off.

"I'm so sorry.  I really am.  I never meant to hurt you like this."  Now she is crying and her tears are mixed in with the rain.

"It's okay.  I understand.  Just . . . be happy." He replies and leaves; leaving her alone to grieve for her own losses and to pray that this was the right choice.

"BEEP! BEEP!" the sound of my alarm brought me back into the real world. 

Sitting up, rubbing the sleepiness out of my eyes, I look around my dark room.  I still had the picture album she made me and somewhere in my underwear drawer (where no one would find it) I buried the couple rings I bought, the ones she returned to me that day.  It's been about a 3 months since she broke up with me and my heart still aches with every thought of her. 

We were the perfect couple, both smart, both bright, both with blossoming careers; I was majoring in composing music and she had a growing acting career.  We both went to the same school and met at the orientation on the first day.

"Umm . . . is this seat taken by any chance?"  A young Shin Se Kyung walked up to the young Kim Jonghyun.  It was the first day of class and they had an all school orientation.  She was late that morning and the only seat was in the back next to a very intimidating looking person.

"Nope, you can sit here if you want." The guy replied.  He had a very friendly voice for his image and the edge of his lips curved into a heart-warming smile that reached his eyes.

That was the moment she knew she had fallen for him.

We spent a lot of time together and learned that we were in all of each other's classes, except for when she left for acting and I went to music class. We had a lot in common and I felt so at ease with her.  Before long we were going out on late-night dates and holding hands in the hallway.  I was there when she needed to vent about her acting coach, and she was there when my younger brother, Taemin, got into an accident.

"Yoboseyo? Ah, Jonghyun Oppa!"  Se Kyung answered cheerfully.

"­­­­­­­Kyungie-ah.  Can I cancel our date tonight? Taeminnie was in a car accident with his friend Key and he is in the hospital right now."  Came Jonghyun's strained reply.

"What!  Is he okay?  Which hospital are you at?"

-30 minutes later-

"Excuse me, miss." Se Kyung rushed into the emergency room and ran straight to the nurse's desk.

"Yes, how can I help you tonight?"

"May I please have the room number for Lee Taemin" (they have different last names because they are half-brothers)

"Sure, he is in room 349B"

" Kamsahamnida!" She said as she quickly bowed and headed for his room.  When she got there she found Taemin fast asleep in the hospital bed.  His head was wrapped in bandages and his left arm was in a cast. Jin-ah, his girlfriend, was sleeping with her head on his bed.  As she entered the room, Jonghyun's head shot up and their eyes met.  He had bags under his eyes and he looked like he had been crying.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I made you guys some porridge and . . . I didn't want you to be alone.  I remember when my sister broke her arm I felt terrible and I just wanted someone to tell me it was all right."

She walked over to him and gave him a hug. He was so tense and she could tell just how weary he was. 

"It'll be okay.  It wasn't your fault.  Stop blaming yourself."

"I'm not." He replied stubbornly.

"Yes, you are.  I can see it in your eyes.  Now stop arguing with me, and let's go to sleep."

Everything seemed so perfect that when she broke up with me, it was so unexpected. And then a week later she already had a new boyfriend.  I guess it would've been better if she started dating someone I didn't know, but she decided to date Minho, the only guy in school she knew I couldn't stand.  I didn't even get enough time to fully recover.  Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time letting her go.

"Jonghyun-hyung! You're gonna be late!   We have to leave right now."  Taemin's voice echoed throughout the empty apartment.

"Hold on! I'll be right there."  I rushed around, dressing myself in my best suit and almost forgot to grab the sheet music off the desk, along with a worn out envelope. 

Although now that I think of it she had started acting weird about 6 months before she actually broke up with me.  I think it was after she went to the doctor's office in May.  I remember because that was when we had our first big fight.

"Where were you?  You were supposed to pick me up from the doctor's office an hour ago!"  She yelled at him when he finally showed up at the hospital's front steps.

"I'm sorry. Class ran late and then there was a major accident on the freeway.  It's backed up all the way out of town!"  he retorted.

"You could've at least called and let me know! So that I wasn't standing out here the whole time.  I thought something happened to you!"

"Well thanks for your concern," he said sarcastically.

"Whatever.  Just take me home."

They didn't speak for the rest of the way.  Jonghyun didn't really think it was that big of a deal but I guess you never know.  What he failed to notice was just how pale she was and how weak she was getting.

I got into the car with Taemin and we drove to Jin-ah house.  The ride was silent and we were both lost in our own train of thought.  After picking her up, we drove to the church and I walked out.  I remember it like it was just yesterday . . . 

She stopped coming to school and I was getting worried.  After the third day, I decided to call her house.  I know we broke up but I'm allowed to be worried right?  Right before I was going to dial her number, Minho walked around the corner.

"Hey, Minho!"  He turned around, slightly startled by being called by me. "Can I talk to you?"

"Ummmm . . . sure. But it has to be fast.  I'm going to be late to soccer practice."

"Yeah, no problem.  It'll only be a minute.  Have you seen Se Kyung lately?"

" . . . "  His face had turn a sickening shade of grey and he looked like he had just been caught committing a serious crime.

"Minho-ssi? "

"What's today's date?"

"The 6^th of February?  Why?"

"Well I guess this is going to be more than a minute."

That day he told me why Se Kyung broke up with me, along with why she hadn't been coming to school. 

He dragged me to a secluded spot in the back of the school and turned so that he wasn't facing me.  The sun was out after a week of rain and everything was so pretty.  The world seemed to be celebrating something and I felt a lot lighter somehow.  A movement to my right caught my eye.  Minho was fishing out a neatly folded white envelope from his bag.

"She wanted me to give this to you."  He said extending his hand.

"What is it?" As I reached out and grabbed the envelope, a feeling of dread was slowly making its way from my chest, causing my whole body to freeze over. 

It was heavy in my hand and you could tell that it was written on expensive white paper. On the front of the envelope, printed in her delicate curling handwriting, were the words "To my dearest, Jonghyun".

"Make sure you read this.  She would've wanted that."

"Minho-ssi.  Why aren't you answering me?"

"She said to wait until the 6^th.  That way you couldn't have stopped her."  He said almost as if he were talking to himself, listing the things he had to remember one by one.

"MINHO-SSI! Just tell me what's wrong, God-damnit!" 

I grabbed his shoulders and made him look me in the eye.  Looking back it seemed kind of harsh, with this being our first civil exchange of words.

He took a deep breath and looked away from my face.  His voice was soft and he mumbled but the words were very clear.

"She's at the hospital right now.  She's having a surgery, as a last ditch effort. The doctors said she probably wouldn't make it through.  But she wanted to try just in case." 

I let go of his shoulders and stepped away from him.

He then looked up, his brown eyes boring straight into mine.  The previous coldness in them was gone, replaced with sympathy and warmth. 

"Jonghyun-ssi.  Se Kyung has cancer."

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

I froze for a moment as my jumbled brain tried to process the words he just told me.  The world seemed too happy all of a sudden and my vision began to spin. It went faster and faster and right before I was about to fall, Minho caught me.  I felt sick to my stomach I could feel the fragments of my broken heart piecing my chest.  Everywhere I looked it seemed that the Earth was mocking my pain.  The sun was too bright and the sky was too blue.

"Are you okay?  Sorry I didn't tell you sooner.  She made me promise to keep it a secret."  Minho's voice sounded muffled and distant. "You should read her letter though.  I think it'll make you feel better."

Minho told me that she wanted to make me hate her, so that I wouldn't care when she died.  She tried to be strong and push me away, even though it was killing her slowly inside.  She wanted me to forget her, to move on . . . It didn't work.

Before I knew it I was running.  We still had 3 more periods until the end of the day but I didn't care.  I held the letter in my hand being careful not wrinkle it.  I looked down and ran my hardest.  But no matter how fast or how hard I ran it felt like I was staying in place.  I never thought I would make it to the hospital.

"Jonghyun-ah!  There you are."  Onew, my best friend, ran up to me and pulled me into a tight hug.

"I'm really proud of you.  I'm glad you showed up. "

"Yeah, wouldn't have missed it for the world.  Just wish it was me in there."

When I got to the hospital I took the elevator to the floor that she was staying on.

"Excuse me, Miss." I asked to a nurse who was passing by.

"Yes?  How can I help you, sir?"

"Do you know which room Shin Se Kyung is in?"

"Oh.  She just went into surgery half an hour ago."

" Jonghyun!"  I turned around and say Se Kyung's mom walking over to us.

"Well, I'm going to go get a seat.  Stay strong. Fighting!"  Onew said before ducking into the chapel doors.

Everyone was in his or her best clothes and the chapel was decorated gorgeously; there were flowers everywhere and the mood was set with candles lit all throughout the room. It was a small reception, just like how she wanted it.  I couldn't help thinking about how she always wanted to get married here.

Mrs. Shin pulled me into a bone-crushing hug and I realized she was crying.

"You have no idea how much this means to me.  I always knew she loved you."

"Do you know when she'll be out?"  I asked.

"Sorry, I'm not sure.  But all is going well so far.  The surgery is going as planned.  You can wait in the waiting room if you want."

"Okay. Thanks."

I waited for 3 hours.

It was the longest 3 hours of my life.

While I was waiting I couldn't help but think positively.  The nurse had said that all was going well so maybe Minho was wrong.  And that also meant they weren't really dating so if she was okay then we could get back together and everything would be okay.  My heart lifted just a little.

And then the doctor came out.

By the time the doctor walked out of the surgery unit, I had succeeded in building my hopes up.  I convinced myself that everything was going to be okay and that we would live happily ever after.  I was wrong.

"Are you here for Ms. Se Kyung?" A man in a white lab coat asked Jonghyun.

"Yeah.  How is she?  Can I see her now?"

"Umm . . . about that.  You should sit down.  Is any of her family here with you?"

"No, her parents are out of town for a business trip.  And she's an only child."

"Okay. Well the surgery went as planned but she will have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days just to make sure."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.  It was like this great weight was lifted off my shoulders and the pain in my chest was slowly receding, back into the depths of my brain where it would soon be forgotten.

I spent that whole week practically living in her hospital room.  She woke up a couple of hours after the doctor took me to her room and when she first saw me she started crying.  She apologized and I told her it was all right.  After all, she only did that because she loved me too much to see me get hurt.

Everything was falling into place and I could finally relax.  I even started to get along with Minho and I couldn't be any happier.  I didn't read the letter but I kept it just in case.  Something told me that I would have to read it sooner or later.

"Jonghyun oppa!  Are you going to enter the composing competition next week?"  Jin-ah said.

She and Taemin were taking a break from their dance practice and had met me in the school's practice room.  She was currently lying down with her head in Taemin's lap, while he absent-mindedly played with her hair.

"I'm not sure.  There was this one piece I was working on but it just doesn't feel right."

"I'm sure you're figure it out. You should enter it.  I think you'll have a good chance of winning.  Don't you think so, Taeminnie?"  She looked up at him with her big eyes and dared him to contradict her.

"Yes, hyung.  I think you could win."  After that they were silent.  Half an hour later, I finally looked up from my sheet music and saw that they were both fast asleep.

"RING! RING!"  My phone went off, cutting through the silence and startling Jin-ah and Taemin awake.

"Sorry, guys.  Go back to sleep." I said as I grabbed my phone and headed out the door.

" Yoboseyo?"

"Is this Jonghyun-ssi?"

"Yes, who is this, may I ask?"

"This is Dr. Kim.  I am the surgeon that worked on Se Kyung-ssi.  You were listed as one of her emergency contacts." 

"Oh yes.  Is everything all right?  I'm not supposed to pick her up for another 2 hours."

"Umm . . . You might want to come in now."

Everything was not all right.  They said she was getting better and was responding very well to the treatments.  But something went wrong when they were preparing her to leave.  Her heart had stopped and they couldn't get it to start back up again.

When we got back from the hospital, I couldn't feel anything.  Taemin had dropped Jin-ah off at home and then met me at the hospital.  He drove us home after that because he said I wasn't in a physical state to drive. 

It felt like the world had stopped turning and that fate was enjoying my suffering.  Why else would it lead me to believe that everything was going to be okay, and then do this to me?  My poor heart was tattered enough.  I had already suffered through the thought of losing her before, but actually losing her was an infinite amount of times worse.  Couldn't fate just have cut me a little bit of slack?

For weeks after that I could barely pull myself together enough to get out of bed.  At night I would lay awake asking myself what my life could've been if she hadn't died.  Maybe if I had gotten there sooner, she might've lived.  It got to the point where I wasn't eating and my younger brother had to step in.

"Hyung, I know that you're sad.  And I can understand you're pain.  But this has gone on for far too long.  Please, I miss my old hyung that would smile whole-heartedly, and brighten up everyone's mood by just being in the room."

"Taeminnie, do you think I'm a bad person?"

"Huh?  Of course not, hyung.  What would make you think that?"

"I'm trying to figure out why life hates me so much.  What did I do to deserve this?"

" . . ." He was silent.

"You are so selfish, hyung!  Do you think you're the only one that's been affected by this?  Can you imagine how her parents feel?  Do you know how I feel?! It's killing me to see you like this.  You're supposed to be the older one.  You are supposed to take care of me! Not the other way around. Se Kyung noona wouldn't have wanted you to sit around and feel sorry for yourself!"  He screamed.  His face was covered in tears, and a lump was forming in my throat. 

He then took a deep breath and said in a very quiet voice . . .

"I’m very disappointed in you, hyung."

He stormed out of the apartment that day, slamming the door, causing my bag to fall off of the table. 

I guess fate wasn't that cruel after all.  It pushes you on the ground but gives you the things you need to get back on your feet.  I know this because if Taemin hadn't slammed the door, my bag wouldn't have fallen off of the table.  And if my bag hadn't fallen off the table, spilling its contents all over the floor, I wouldn't have seen the letter.

Jin-ah was right.  I used what happened to me as inspiration for songs.  I liked one in particular, and entered it in the composing competition.  It was one I started way back before all of this happened, back when Se Kyung and I were still happily together.  It started off happy and slowly slipped into a darker theme, ending on a hopeful note.  I won the competition, and it got turned into a hit song. But more importantly, I played it at her funeral.

That day I got closure, along with learning a very valuable lesson.  People are put in your life for a reason.  Some stay longer than others and cause happiness and sadness. And there is no such thing as wasted love.  I believe Se Kyung was put in my life to show me that it is possible to love someone more than life itself and that sometimes it's not holding on that makes you stronger.  Sometimes it's letting go that does.  And in the end, no matter what happened in your life: who you loved, who left you, what you did, how you lived, all that really mattered was that you were happy.

A/N - So how was it?  Let me know what you thought.  Please! No silent readers :( Comments are love.  Thanks for reading <3