Mondays are slow no matter what industry you work in. Everyone is either coming down off their weekend high, or they’re waiting to crawl into bed after their weekend grind. For Kiko, Monday nights are an opportunity to take a step back and regroup. Yoko had people over for drinks, smart little cocktails they mixed themselves with the help of internet tutorials on their phones and the spattering of bar tending knowledge they shared between them. If they didn’t taste quite right, well, at least they had fun making them.

It was getting late, coming up fast approaching midnight, and she was just beginning to try to decide whether she should have her manager come pick her up on spend the night in the guest room. She had a shoot in the morning, but it wasn’t like Yoko didn’t have to be there, too.

Her phone chimed in her pocket, and she couldn’t help the rush of annoyance she felt when she saw who the text message was from. She huffed, glaring at the notification like she could make her phone take it back or something.

“What?”

Shun stood in front of her, paper umbrella between pursed lips.

“What?”

“I asked you first. Who is it?” He asked, nodding towards her phone.

“Guess.”

“. Seriously? It hasn’t even been one day yet.” He stepped closer, tucking his chin over her shoulder to peer at the screen. “What does it say?”

“I haven’t opened it yet. Maybe I should just delete it...”

“Let me see it.” Kiko handed her phone to Shun, watched his face closely to try to gauge his reaction to the text.

His eyebrows raised and he held the phone out so she could see. “He says ‘how are you?’ He’s kidding, right? ‘How are you?’ How does he think you are?”

Kiko shook her head, “Just ignore him.” She took her phone back, tucked it into the pocket of her blazer, and turned back to join the rest of the guests in the den.

She had just found her seat when she heard the chime again.

Shun blinked at her, “Seriously?”

She pulled her phone out and let out a long suffering sigh. “It’s him again. He says ‘I miss you’.”

“Who misses you?” Yoko asked, sitting on the couch next to her. She peered at the open text on her phone and pulled back, alarmed. “Oh, no. Honey. Tell him to get lost.”

Her phone came to life in her hands. “He’s calling.”

Yoko snatched the phone from her hands and rejected the call. “No, he’s not.”

The phone immediately started ringing again and Shun laughed, “Let me answer it. I’ll tell him to off.”

“Maybe I should just see what he wants...”

“You know what he wants.”

Kiko shook her head, she felt like she did that a lot when the topic of the elusive ‘him’ came up.

She stepped into Yoko’s bedroom, closing the door behind her for good measure. She could already hear someone, probably Shun, shuffling up to the  door. She could picture him now, ear pressed to the wood trying to catch a part of the conversation.

She accepted the call just before it would have gone to voice mail.

“Hello?”

“Kiko!” He sang out, giggling through his words.
She cringed, and then felt a flush of anger flare to life deep in her chest.

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m trashed, babe.” He laughed again and she knew this was trouble, the manic edge creeping into the sound had her immediately wary. She took a deep breath before she asked,

“What do you want, Jiyong?”

“I told you, I miss you.”

“Now he misses me.” She muttered to herself, her thumb and forefinger finding a home along the bridge of her nose. She squeezed, using the pressure to organize and restrain her thoughts.

“Are you busy?” He was saying, “Can I come see you? I can be there tomorrow.” He prattled on, something about dinner and shopping, half-formed thoughts she wasn’t sure he was even aware he was saying out loud. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea..” She cut through his words, raising her voice a bit in order to be heard.

“What? Why not?” She could feel his pout from across the ocean, she swore she could.

“Jiyong... we broke up, remember?” It would be just like him to get drunk and forget.

“...I remember.” Or maybe he hadn’t forgotten. He was just looking for the reset button, wanting to slam his fist down on it for the thousandth time. Not this time.

“Then why are you calling me?” She asked, there was a crackle of annoyance there now, a sharpness to her words that she tried to dull before she cut him too deeply.

He didn’t answer for a moment, then;

“I don’t want to be alone.”

The sorrow in his voice was enough to pierce the cloud of ire she’d been attempting to wrap herself in. Of course she had seen the news. She’d seen the photos and she’d even sent Seunghyun a text wishing him well. His decision to enlist so soon after their tour had ended had come to a surprise to everyone, but she was shocked. It wasn’t even six months ago that he’d stood across from her in her suite at the Shilla and told her that he and Seunghyun were going to try again, that he really thought they’d make it this time. His usual platitudes, how he never intended for her to get hurt, how he really enjoyed the time they spent together... Seunghyun suddenly enlisting in the military didn’t sound like things were going well for the couple. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been expecting a call like this, but this time, she had a different answer for him.

“Jiyongie,” Kiko said, her words soft and delicate, “You know I love you right?”

“I know..” He murmured, and god, she did. She had never intended to love him. The whole thing was one giant mess. A cover gone too far. A convoluted relationship born where there was suppose to be nothing but friendship and fondness. She took a deep breath and made herself go on,

"But I'm more than done with this. I'm done with being your second choice. I knew when we started this.. whatever this was.. that you loved him. But you said you loved me, too. I've spent the last three years watching you run to him every time he called, picking you back up after he dropped you again. This time he didn't just drop you, he pushed you off a skyscraper, and I can't do it anymore, Jiyong. It hurts." She gasped, choking back tears that burned in the space behind her eyes. She did her best to ignore the mirrored gasp on the other end of the line, the following sniff of him holding back his own tears.

“He’s gone.” He said, and the pain she heard in those two words was enough to bring her to her knees. She sunk down on the edge of Yoko’s bed, clutching her phone to her ear as he implored, “Kiko, we can start over. We can try again.”

“Stop.” She shook her head, the motion jerky and pointless since he couldn’t see her anyway. "I don't want to try again. I know he's gone. This is just another refrain of the same song the two of you have been singing all your lives. Things were finally getting serious between the two of you again and you left me. You didn't need me to be a placeholder in your life anymore. Now he's gone and suddenly you want me back? I know you, Jiyong. I probably know you better than anyone outside that dysfunctional group you call a band. You don't want me, you just don't want to be alone. You hate being alone. You always have."

“I love you, Kiko. I swear I do.”

A thousand kisses, and thousand soft touches, a myriad of nights she wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

"Baby, I know you do, but you don't love me the right way. I get it. I was convenient. I knew about you and Seunghyun, you could talk to me, and I was there. It was natural for our relationship to turn.. physical. I get it. I'm your constant. I listened." If she sounded bitter, it’s because she was. She took a deep breath and finished what she’d started, "I'll always be there for you, Jiyongie, but not like that. Not anymore."

She waited, waited for the begging, for the anger, for the tantrum she was sure was to come but there was nothing. Silence. Maybe the occasional hiccup, but no words.

“Are you still there?”

“Kiko, please..”

And that was her limit. She couldn’t do this to him anymore, if she stayed on the phone, if she let him talk, she’d cave.

She loved him, but that wasn’t enough. Not anymore.

"I'm sorry, Jiyong. Please, take care of yourself."

She tore the phone from her ear and ended the call. Panic welled up in her chest and she immediately thought about calling him back. Instead, she settled for throwing the phone across the bed like it was suddenly radioactive.

She curled up on her side in the bed and finally let the angry tears she’d been holding in our of pride for the past six months go.

The door swung open and Shun shuffled inside. He crawled onto the bed next to her and wrapped a steadying arm around her waist.

“You did the right thing, sweetie.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Just because it’s the right thing, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.”