Word Count: 10,804

---

After Jinah’s minor breakdown, she wakes up from her emotionally-drainage-induced nap to find that thankfully, Chanyeol has not run away and is very much still by her side. She stirs and he acknowledges her immediately, combing a hand through her hair, which has come undone from its bun during her slumber. He then brings his hand down to cup her face, amazed once again by the size difference. She blinks once, twice with sleepy eyes before tilting her chin up to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, “I’m sorry about earlier…I don’t know what came over me. I guess the thought of the future just…scares me.”

“Shhhhh, it’s ok, babe,” he assures her, “I shouldn’t have brought up marriage out of nowhere, it’s my fault.” Jinah looks ready to protest, but Chanyeol doesn’t want to fight about it anymore. “Let’s just forget it happened, ok?”

“I—“ Jinah opens again, but closes it after seeing the stern look on her boyfriend’s face. He really isn’t going to budge on this. “Okay.” And so for one week, two weeks, and longer, they go on with their lives as though nothing had happened that day, as though there wasn’t a giant elephant in the room that they both know exist but refuse to acknowledge.

It isn’t until close to Seollal, the Lunar New Year, that Chanyeol feels brave enough to breach any topic that is remotely close to marriage or long-term relationship commitments. He is a few weeks into his final semester at Uni, and things are starting to ramp up with his capstone projects, which means more and more time in the studio. He feels lucky he even has time to visit home for Seollal.

It is about a week before Seollal, and the couple is hanging out in Chanyeol’s studio in the music building at school. Jinah is sitting cross-legged on the couch and has her nose buried deep in a self-help book, “The 8 Cylinders to Success: How to Align your Personal and Professional Purpose.” Her thick-framed glasses have slid halfway down her nose, but she doesn’t seem to notice as her eyes dart across the page, occasionally making highlights with the hot pink marker in her hand.

Chanyeol had stopped working on his composition long ago, instead opting to observe his girlfriend’s reflection on the computer monitor. “Noona,” he calls her.

“Huh?” she responds, not looking up from her book.

“What are you reading so intently?” he asks.

“I am learning how to fix my vehicle,” she replies.

Her boyfriend arches an eyebrow. “Um…is it broken?”

Jinah laughs before telling him, “Not my actual car. My metaphorical car aka my life.”

Chanyeol turns his chair to face her and motions for her to come closer. She obeys and goes to sit on his lap, book in tow. “So, tell me about why you think your vehicle aka life needs to be fixed.”

“It’s just…work, mostly. I feel like I work my off, but I am going nowhere. I don’t know what my purpose is, what my impact is, why anything I am working on matters. Jullien says in here that we spend so much of our life working that if we don’t find a career that aligns our personal purpose with our professional purpose, we will never truly be happy,” she explains to him. “What is my life purpose?”

“Hmmmmm…” he ponders for a moment before answering, “I think your life purpose is to love me.”

Jinah groans. “Oh my God, stop. I was trying to have a serious conversation.”

Chanyeol chuckles at his girlfriend’s reaction and advises her, “I think you should give it a couple more months. See if you can work on some different assignments to change things up, and if you are still unhappy, you should quit.”

“But what else could I do?” she asks him, voice laced with worry. “Journalism is all I know how to do professionally.”

Chanyeol takes the book from her hands and waves it in front of her face, replying, “This Jullien guy seems to know what he is talking about. Finish reading his book and see if that is helpful at all. You are an incredibly smart and motivated woman—you are capable of achieving anything that you put your mind to. We’ll figure it out together.”

Jinah thanks him for the compliment and tosses the book back onto the couch before focusing her attention on mapping his face with her fingers. “How is your composition progressing?”

“Well, it’s not progressing currently…my beautiful muse is being a distraction,” he complains. Laughing melodically, Jinah makes a move to stand up, but her boyfriend is quick to catch her by the waist. “Hey, hey, hey, I never said I didn’t like it.”

Settling back into position, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and next busies herself with massaging his scalp. He closes his eyes and rests his head against her chest, sighing in contentment. “Are you planning to go to your parents for Seollal?” she asks him.

His eyes instantly pop open. “I—I am planning to, yes,” he hesitates before cautiously continuing, “Do you want to come with me?”

Jinah hums agreeably. “I’d like that.”

Chanyeol pulls away from her with a twinkle in his eye before excitedly pointing out, “You can meet Toben!” And he is quick to whip out his phone to show off the pictures and videos that his mom has sent him of their new family puppy. Jinah has seen all of these things before, but she lets him show them all to her again anyway, just to see how happy it makes him.

The day they leave for his parents’ house, they plan for her to stop by his apartment to get him, since it is on the way to the train station. Jinah arrives a bit early and rings the doorbell, not surprised that she is let in by a tall, lanky kid with rainbow-colored hair that is smashed down with a beanie. “Hey, Sehun,” she greets him comfortably. Sehun is another student in the music school, two years Chanyeol’s junior, who Chanyeol has lived with for almost two years now. Sehun has an unfortunately bad case of RBF that has a tendency to scare people off initially, but as Jinah has gotten to know him, she has found him to be an amicable companion, albeit of a mischievous brat.

“Hey noona,” he greets her back, while making himself comfortable back on the couch. “Hyung is still showering, I think, so it might be a while.” Jinah is about to settle in next to Sehun, when a stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink catches her eye.

Rolling her eyes, she goes to the kitchen and turns on the faucet, watching the clean water fill up the dirty bowls and overflow into a watery brown mess. “Honestly, Sehun,” she scolds him, “Do you guys ever actually wash these? How do you ever have dishes to eat off?”

Instead of the monotone voice she is expecting to hear a reply from, she is instead answered by a low voice close to her ear and damp arms wrapping around her shoulders. “We eat out of the takeout containers, duh.”

Jinah jumps and elbows him hard in the stomach out of reflex. “Chanyeol!”

“Ow, noona!” he complains, stepping away to rub at the spot where she just hit.

“You startled me, ok? And go put a shirt on!” she reprimands him.

He raises an eyebrow at her and asks skeptically, “Are you sure you want me to go put a shirt on?”

Before she can even respond, Sehun calls from the living room, “Hey. Kids. No y time in the kitchen while I’m here.”

“YAH! BRAT!” Jinah yells, while Chanyeol is doubled over in laughter. She turns her attention back to Chanyeol and hisses, “Seriously. Go put on a shirt—we need to leave!”

By the time they ring the doorbell at the Park residence, it is very nearly dinner time. Chanyeol knocks on the door and loud scuffling can be heard from inside before the door opens. Mrs. Park tries to usher them inside quickly, but her attempts are for naught, as a tiny, black, curly-haired puppy bounds between her legs and pounces on Jinah.

“Toben, no!” Mrs. Park tries to scold the dog, but Jinah has already stooped down to cradle the pet into her arms.

“Hey Toben,” Jinah coos. “It’s so nice to meet you, I’ve seen so many of your pictures and videos, I feel like I know you already!” She looks up and sees Mrs. Park and Chanyeol looking fondly at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. Hi, Mrs. Park, it is nice to see you again.”

Mrs. Park brushes off the apology and embraces Jinah in a tight hug, requesting that she call her mom. “We know each other well enough by this point that you are essentially a part of our family.”

They make their way to the kitchen to greet Mr. Park, who comments, “I see our Toben already has you wrapped around his little paw.” Chanyeol makes a joke about Toben not being the only Park that has Jinah wrapped around their little finger, which earns him a scowl from his girlfriend and chuckles from his parents.

That night, they only have dinner with Chanyeol’s parents and his sister, but the rest of the weekend is spent with the entire extended Park family. Jinah and Chanyeol, as expected, get many questions about when they are going to get married and start adding babies to the family tree, but they just smile politely and divert to any other possible topic of conversation.

The weekend passes quickly and before they know it, they are back at their respective apartments, dreading having to go back to their normal routines. Between work starting to pick up again at the office for Jinah, and Chanyeol becoming busier and busier with his composition projects, it is no surprise that the couple sometimes goes days, even weeks, without hearing from each other. They make it a point to have dinner for Valentine’s Day and White Day (he gets her a bracelet and flowers, she gets him an electronic toy puppy that looks like Toben), but other than that, they seem to have trouble ever being in the same place at the same time. In a flash, Winter has turned to Spring, and the two finally find themselves together in Jinah’s apartment.

“So…I took your advice,” Jinah tells him, “I gave my current job another chance, worked there for a few more months to see if anything would change…and it hasn’t. I’m still unhappy with it—I work too many long hours, with little to no gratification from my bosses, and I have forgotten why I even wanted to do journalism in the first place. I don’t even know anymore whether I am unhappy with my company, or if I just don’t even want to work in this field anymore. I want and need to try something totally different to figure out what I want to do with my life now.”

Chanyeol sips his mug of hot chocolate before nodding, “It seems that way to me too; you have still had the same complaints over the last few months as you have had before. I support this life change. I want my happy, smiling, not-stressed-out girlfriend back. Do you have something else in mind that you want to pursue?”

Jinah nods. “Yeah, so I have been thinking about it a lot and well, I think I want to apply for a job where I can be in charge of keeping things organized and on schedule…like an administrative assistant or something. Maybe at a music company?”

Her boyfriend’s face lights up at the prospect of them working in the same industry, but he tries to hide it. “Oh yeah? Do you have somewhere picked out already?”

“I was browsing job search sites this week and it looks like BigHit Entertainment is looking for another administrative assistant. With how crazy popular BTS has been getting recently, they need some more help,” she explains.

Chanyeol chokes on his beverage and starts pounding on his chest. Once he recovers, he asks her, “Seriously? You know I am going to start as a songwriter at SM in a few weeks, right?”

She blinks at him. “Yeah? And? That’s you, not me.”

He looks completely perplexed that she doesn’t understand what his issue is. “Noona. BigHit and SM are direct competitors. You are literally wanting to go work for the enemy.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Yeol. It’s not like I am taking your job away,” she brushes him off.

His eyes bug out as he raises his voice, “Yes you are! If my songs can’t sell because BTS is all-killing the charts, I don’t get royalties! Fans only have X number of dollars, and if they are spending it on BTS, they are not spending it on my music. I don’t know why you don’t get that.”

Jinah gapes at her boyfriend, completely flabbergasted. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Do I not sound like I am serious?” he asks her. “Besides, I don’t know why you would want to go work for such a small company when there are big labels that you could work for and do the exact same thing.”

“Working at a small label is not necessarily a bad thing, Chanyeol,” Jinah seethes, trying to keep her cool. “I can have more of an impact there, instead of being just a number in a crowd.”

Chanyeol scoffs, “Wow, ok. Are you saying that at SM I am going to be just a number, faceless in the crowd? Thanks, Jinah.”

Rolling her eyes, Jinah brushes him off, “Don’t twist my words, you know I didn’t mean that.”

“Whatever,” he says. “Besides, if you came to work at SM, we would be able to spend more time together, like driving to work in the morning, eating lunch together, driving home—“

Jinah cuts him off with a snort. “I doubt that working at the same company is going to fix our relationship issues.”

Her boyfriend tenses, knuckles white against the table. “What relationship issues?”

“What, you haven’t noticed that we are too busy to ever see each other? Too busy to even text or call? That when we do manage to be in the same place the same time, all we do is talk about how we never see each other?” Jinah spouts, unable to hold the words back any more. “But obviously neither of us cares enough to choose to do something different with our lives so that we can be in an actual relationship.”

“Which one of us is the one who cares less, Jinah? Huh?” Chanyeol challenges her. “I am still in school, things have been crazy busy with projects and applying for jobs—all things that I have to do that are out of my control, that I am doing to prepare for our future together. But what about you? You claim that you hate your job and you work too many hours, yet you make the choice to stay there and work those long hours that preclude us from being able to spend more time together. It’s almost like you are doing it on purpose.”

Jinah’s eyes widen in shock at the accusation, and her eyes fill up with tears that threaten to fall. “Chanyeol,” she whispers, “What are you trying to say?”

“Don’t look at me like you are the only one who is hurting,” he tells her, eyes also watery. “I feel like you have been half way out the door ever since we met, and I have had to convince you to stay. Do you know how it feels to be the one who is loved less? What it is like to feel like the inferior one in this relationship because you are older and professionally successful, and here I am, this college kid that you can’t even bring with you to half of your work functions because I won’t have anything to talk about with your coworkers? I am hurting, too.”

“I’m glad we have never had this conversation before in the 2 ½ years that we have been dating. I’m glad to know that I am such a terrible girlfriend that makes you feel like crap on a daily basis and I am just so used to it that it doesn’t even phase me anymore,” she throws back at him sarcastically. “Do you think I feel good about how much I work? About how I have had to cancel plans to attend your showcases because an emergency came up at the office? It makes me feel like the worst girlfriend in the world. Because you have always made time to come to things that are important to me. I feel like I don’t deserve you. Every day that passes by, I feel like I deserve you less and less, and you deserve more and more. That is the entire reason why we are having this conversation! I have recognized that I need to make a change, and me looking for a new job that will be fewer hours is the first step. I told you about it and asked you for your advice because I love you and you matter to me and I thought you would be happy—I thought you would understand that I am doing this not just for me, but for us, but you have taken this whole situation and turned it around and thrown it in my face.” She pauses for a second and continues once she sees nothing but a blank face from Chanyeol. “I should have known things would end up like this eventually.”

That statement draws a reaction from her boyfriend, who snaps back, “Yeah, that’s what you said in December, too. You know, when I casually mentioned that I see myself marrying you and loving you forever and you freaked out? Have you been trying to prepare me for a break up this entire time?”

“What the heck, Chanyeol! I never said anything about breaking up!” Jinah protests, angry that he seems so hellbent on making this argument her fault.

Chanyeol stands up and puts his hands on his hips. “So what exactly did you mean by ‘I should have known things would end up like this eventually,’ huh? You don’t have to say the exact words; I understand the meaning quite clearly.”

“I was just saying that these arguments are common when couples stop making time for each other! Besides, you don’t seem to be putting up much of a fight if you really think I am suggesting that we break up,” Jinah points out. “I guess the thought of breaking up with me really doesn’t bother you very much.”

“God, Jinah, you are infuriating, you know that?” Chanyeol yells, throwing his hands up angrily. “If neither of us cares so much, maybe we should just break up. That’s what you want, right?”

“Do whatever you want,” she replies. “You always do anyway.” And with that, Chanyeol storms out, slamming the front door behind him. The noise makes her burst into tears, and slides to the floor, curling into a ball, arms wrapped around her knees. She lays there for God knows how long, laying in an endless puddle of her own tears. And then she gets mad.

Jinah picks up her cell phone from beside her and presses speed dial #1. After a few rings, a familiar voice answers, “Hey girl, what’s up?”

“That asshat Park Chanyeol is what’s up,” she replies angrily. “Do you have a couple hours?”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you at the usual?” Yoonji asks.

“See you there,” Jinah confirms before hanging up. She rushes to her room, and pulls on the first sweatshirt she can find that isn’t Chanyeol’s, all the while cursing him for leaving traces of himself all over her apartment. On her way out, she notices that in his haste to leave, her boyfriend has left yet another jacket hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. With a snarl, she grabs it and tosses it onto the floor; but after a second thought, she sighs and hangs it up in the coat closet by the door.

Within minutes, she is in line at her favorite coffee shop, about to order from her favorite barista in the world. “Hey, Jinah, what a surprise!” Minseok greets her, already punching her order into the cash register. Upon closer inspection of her face, he frowns and asks, “Is everything ok? You look like a wreck. Do I need to beat someone up?”

Jinah smiles tiredly at her long-time friend and admits, “I’d tell you, but I think it’d be breaking some kind of bro code if you took action on my behalf, oppa.”

“Ah, something must have happened with Yeollie, then,” Minseok guesses, as perceptive as ever. “I don’t know the details, obviously, so I won’t take sides; but I will say that if there is anyone who can work through an argument, it’s you two. I’ll have your drink out to you in a minute.” He gives her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before turning his attention to the espresso machine.

Jinah has always appreciated her friendship with Minseok; they don’t always keep in touch often, but they are there for each other when necessary, no questions asked. Minseok is a great listener and wise beyond his years, so he always gives sage advice, even when it isn’t always in Jinah’s favor, which she needs. Between Minseok and Yoonji, she doesn’t feel the need to have many other friends.

It isn’t long after she settles into the corner booth that Yoonji slides in across from her, asking, “So, what did that asshat Park Chanyeol do this time?”

“Wemayhavebrokenup,” Jinah mumbles, not meeting Yoonji’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, you what? I didn’t quite catch that,” her friend says.

Jinah takes a deep breath and restates, “We may have broken up.”

Yoonji gasps, “No you didn’t, there’s no way. You guys love each other too much to even suggest it. And even if it was brought up, you are both too stubborn to allow it to happen.”

“Well, turns out we are neither of those things,” Jinah snorts. “Apparently neither of us cares about this relationship enough to say, ‘Hey, maybe we should just cool down for a day or two and then revisit this topic.’”

Temporarily withholding her response and greeting Minseok as he slides their drinks onto the table, Yoonji resumes, “I am going to need you to give the full play by play.” And so Jinah does. She recaps every word that she can remember sharing with Chanyeol, while Yoonji listens intently, not saying a word until it looks like Jinah is done talking.

“He is a jerk for trying to tell you what to do; if you want to apply for BigHit, he does not get a say in it,” Yoonji assesses.

“I know, right?” Jinah fumes, “He is trying to be a total control freak. It is none of his business where I work.”

Yoonji laughs. “Don’t think that you are totally off the hook, though.”

“Wait, what?” Jinah asks.

“I think you are too preoccupied with thinking that he is trying to control you that you aren’t seeing the issue from his perspective,” Yoonji tries to reason with her friend.

“Um…I am not sure that I follow…” Jinah admits.

“BigHit is the home of BTS, right? Hottest boy band in the world right now?” Yoonji asks.

“Yeah, so?” Jinah confirms.

“Don’t you think that by being an assistant there, it is likely that you will have more than a few run ins with the band?” Yoonji inquires. Jinah thinks she knows where Yoonji is going with this, and she does not agree.

“Is he seriously concerned that if I work there, I will meet BTS, fall madly in love with one of the members at first sight, and leave him in the dust while I go live happily ever after? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” Jinah scoffs. “Besides, has he seen himself? He doesn’t even have a stylist or a make-up artist and he is more attractive to me than BTS Jin.”

“Ah, so Jin is your bias, huh?” Yoonji teases her friend.

“Shut up, that has nothing to do with this! Anyway, if he is going to get in a tizzy about me potentially working with BTS, how am I supposed to feel about him bumping into Red Velvet? f(x)? SNSD? BoA? You don’t see me trying to get him to find a job somewhere else just because he could possibly work with beautiful women,” Jinah huffs. “Jealousy doesn’t look good on him.”

“Although that may be true, and his fears may be completely ridiculous, I am just trying to get you to see things from his point of view. He loves you and he doesn’t want to lose you to someone else, however unfounded those insecurities are. In my opinion, you both said some things that you don’t mean and need to apologize to each other about. Your relationship is stronger than this, Jinah, and instead of fighting about this, you guys should be reassuring each other of your love and commitment,” Yoonji urges Jinah.

She knows her best friend is right, but currently Jinah is too wrapped up in her own feelings to admit it, be the more mature one in the relationship, and call Chanyeol to come over for a talk. The wound is still too fresh. “I guess,” she says, “But I am not going to call him first.”

“…are you still in high school or something?” Yoonji sighs. She loves her best friend to pieces, but sometimes she is a little too set in her ways of what is right and wrong. “You know that by prolonging this, nobody wins—you are both just going to suffer.”

“Which one of us is more in the wrong here, Jiji? If I cave and say I’m sorry first, he will think that he really was right, and that this kind of behavior will be acceptable in the future,” Jinah tries to convince herself more than she tries to convince Yoonji.

Rolling her eyes and standing up from her seat, Yoonji leaves her friends with these words: “You aren’t training a dog, Jinah. Look, I can’t tell you what to do, but I think it would be foolish for both of you to let these negative feelings fester. I have to go, but let me know how things turn out, ok?”  She stoops to give her friend a hug and then walks away, but Jinah isn’t alone for long, as Yoonji’s vacated seat is filled by Minseok.

“Hey, Jinah, you feeling any better?” he asks her, slice of lemon pound cake in hand.

Jinah tries to smile while admitting, “Still not great, but I’ll be fine. You didn’t have to do this.” She motions towards the pastry.

Minseok brushes her off, saying, “I have to take care of my little sis! Besides, if this has something to do with my friend…” Jinah cuts him off before he can go any further.

“No, nope, I am not dragging you into this. This is between Chanyeol and I, and I am not going to let whatever this is affect your friendship with him,” she says resolutely and pushes him away by the forehead. “So stop being nosy!”

“Okay, okay! I won’t ask any more questions,” Minseok concedes, putting his hands up defensively. “But eat the cake,” he demands, as he pushes it towards her.

Jinah crosses her arms and pouts like a child. “I don’t want to eat the cake.”

“Eat the cake, Jinah,” he repeats, tone threatening.

“You can’t make me, oppa,” she refuses again.

Minseok picks up the plate and pretends to shove it in her face. “EAT. IT.”

Before Jinah can retaliate, a voice calls out, “Yah! Kim Minseok!” Jinah peeks over his shoulder and sees a semi-tall young woman with short blonde hair giving them the side-eye. Probably his boss.

Jinah takes the plate from Minseok’s hands and says sheepishly, “Okay, I’ll eat the cake,” before shooing him back to work. She mindlessly browses the internet and SNS while she eats, trying to avoid anything that will remind her of her boyfriend. Her attempts are futile, however, because it seems like anything she looks at is a trigger. She finally gives up and stuffs the last bite of pound cake into before standing up and heading for the door. She catches Minseok’s eye and waves on her way out.

Once home, she busies herself with preparing for the week ahead, although her movements are slow and lethargic compared to her usual pace. Jinah mentally scolds herself—is she really this much of a mess without Chanyeol? Does she rely on him this much for her happiness? She asks herself the questions but refuses to answer them, because she knows what the truth is. After spending another worthless hour in front of the TV, Jinah decides to call it an early night. Maybe she will wake up tomorrow and the whole day would have just been a nightmare.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinah hasn’t seen Chanyeol in three weeks since they had their argument about Jinah wanting to apply to work at BigHit. She stubbornly maintains that it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to work at the same company, and he maintains that she is just trying to avoid him. It has been a rough few weeks at work for Jinah, with deadline after deadline and everyone taking notice in her sour mood. Once the final article is approved, she wants nothing more than to spend the weekend curled up on the couch with her boyfriend, marathoning the Harry Potter films, but yet again, her stupid pride won’t let her pick up the phone to call him first. After spending five hours slouched on the couch on Friday after dinner, Jinah lets out a defeated sigh and starts getting ready for bed; maybe tomorrow will be a better day. She has halfway massaged cleanser onto her face when her phone starts playing his ringtone—his cover of John Legend’s ‘All of Me’—for the first time in weeks. Selfish pride aside, she picks up because she is genuinely concerned that something may have happened.

“Hello? Chanyeol?” she asks uncertainly, not sure what to expect.

There is a pause on the other end of the line before a very unexpected female voice replies, “Um…hello. Are you Park Chanyeol’s girlfriend?”

Completely shocked, Jinah pulls her phone away from her ear to check that it was indeed Chanyeol’s number that had called her. “Yes, I am…who am I speaking with?” Jinah hears a voice yelling in the background that sounds suspiciously like her boyfriend, extremely inebriated.

“My name is Park Sooyoung, and I am a one of Chanyeol’s classmates in the music school. I know how this must appear, but I assure it isn’t what you think. A group of us went out for dinner and drinks after working on our final projects tonight and…I think Chanyeol had a bit too much to drink and he keeps yelling about how ‘I really messed things up with Jinah noona and now she is going to leave me and I am going to be alone and miserable for the rest of my life,’ so…” Sooyoung trails off. “Would you mind coming to get him? He won’t budge for any of us and we want to go home.”

Jinah stares at herself in the mirror, face half washed, ready to go to bed and tells Sooyoung, “Of course, I’ll be there.” She extracts their current location from the college girl, and within minutes she has washed her face, thrown on the closest clothes she can get her hands on, and caught a taxi to the street-side food tent where her boyfriend and his friends are gathered. His friends all have one arm on the table, propping up their heads while they silently browse their phones; they look bored out of their minds. Chanyeol, on the other hand, has his arms crossed on the table, forehead resting on top; at first glance he appears to have fallen asleep. As she slowly approaches their table, she starts to hear him loudly ask his friends, “Guys. Guys! Why don’t any of you care about my relationship with Jinah?! I thought we were friends—why don’t you want me to be happy?”

As soon as his friends spot her coming, they take their leave as quietly as possible. They hop up from the table and file past Jinah, bowing formally to her as they pass. Chanyeol is too far gone to notice that his crew has left him alone and continues to ramble to no one about how much he misses his girlfriend and just wants to apologize to her. Jinah crouches so that their eyes will be level and runs a hand through Chanyeol’s currently-permed hair. He swats at her hand without looking. “Guys, stop it. Stop trying to trick me into thinking she is here and let me wallow in my sorrows.”

Jinah’s heart hurts for the young man, but she also feels a rush of affection at how much of a mess he seems like without her. She’s glad to see he needs her in his life as much as she needs him—it makes her feel a little less pitiful at how lethargic and generally lifeless she has felt the last few weeks. She runs another hand through his hair, this time alerting him, “Chanyeol…it’s me…”

He turns his head to look at her with bleary eyes and stretches an arm out towards her face. “Are you real, or am I hallucinating?” She places a hand on top of his and he smiles at the touch. “I guess you are really here, huh?” His words are slurred and she can tell that he has spent the evening drinking himself to oblivion.

Jinah drags a stool over and sits down next to her boyfriend. “What happened to you?” she asks him. Chanyeol sits up and drags his hands down his face.

“I said things to you that I didn’t mean. I upset you. I keep messing things up. You are mad at me. But I am sorry. I am so sorry. I don’t want you to leave me. I need you. I miss you. I love you so much.” The words spill out of his mouth in a constant stream of consciousness and he looks close to tears.

“Chanyeol…” Jinah’s heart breaks and suddenly she can’t even remember the reason why they were fighting in the first place. She pulls his hands away from his face and replaces them with her own, wiping away the stray droplets that manage to escape his eyes. “Why can’t you say any of these things to me when you are sober?”

“Because I’m stupid,” he states simply. “I’m a complete idiot.”

Jinah smiles wryly and says, “Well, I guess I’m an idiot too, because I like someone who is so dumb.”

Chanyeol scoffs and glares at her. “Shut up, noona, you are not an idiot. You are the smartest person I have ever met in my life. The smartest, and the prettiest, and the nicest…”

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” Jinah scolds him, one eyebrow arched.

“Bu-but I complimented you afterwards, so it’s ok, right?” he tries to defend himself. Jinah flicks him on the forehead and stands up, dragging him to an upright position as well.

“Let’s just get you home before you fall asleep here,” she says, wrapping one of his arms across her shoulders in an attempt to help him walk.

“I live really close to here, you know…we can just go sleep there,” he reasons, voice close to her ear as he leans on her to support his weight.

“Ha! Yeah right. I will take you home and you will sleep there alone and reflect on how your friends had to call me out in the middle of the night to come get you—don’t think that I’ve forgotten about that,” she says. “We can talk in the morning when you are sober, can speak without slurring your words, and can stand up straight on your own.”

Chanyeol whines, but accepts her conditions, and they quietly amble the short walk back to his apartment, the silence being periodically pierced by Jinah’s complaints of how heavy and smelly her boyfriend is. They arrive at his doorstep shortly thereafter, and Jinah pokes Chanyeol in the cheek to wake him up from the slumber that he had miraculously fallen into within the last five seconds. “Yah. Wake up and open the door; I don’t remember what your passcode is.”

He smiles with his eyes still closed. “I am sure you know it, noona. Don’t get it wrong too many times, though, because it locks you out after three incorrect attempts.”

“You are a brat, you know that?” Jinah snarls, but proceeds to try her luck with the door. Her first two attempts are unfruitful, as neither of their birthdays yields the results she is looking for.

“You only have one more chance, noona, before we are stuck out here,” Chanyeol taunts her.

She laughs, “You mean one more chance before you are stuck out here, and I go home?”

“Just think about it, noona. The answer is obvious,” he tells her. “It is so obvious.”

It has to be their anniversary, right? Jinah keeps her fingers crossed as she punches in the numbers, because she honestly doesn’t know what she is going to do if she is wrong. To her relief, the door swings open and they are able to go inside. Chanyeol kicks his shoes off and Jinah helps him to his room. She tucks him into bed and tells him, “You shouldn’t sleep without washing your face,” before going to retrieve a face wipe from the bathroom. When she returns, she has both the wipe and a bottle of facial lotion in hand.

Sitting next to him, she holds his bangs back with one hand and wipes the day’s sweat and grime off his face with the other. He watches her intently with sleepy eyes that he is forcing to stay open while she is still here. She then squeezes one pump of lotion onto her hands and rubs them together before spreading the lotion onto his face. It seems like it has been so long since she has felt the contours of his face under her fingertips, so she takes her sweet time with the task. Chanyeol, also relishing the gentle touch he has been deprived of, closes his eyes and smiles. “There’s that handsome face I remember,” she praises when she is done, but then frowns and assesses, “You haven’t been sleeping enough.” Her thumbs trace the dark circles under his eyes.

“I’ve been working really hard on my project, and then I stay awake at night thinking about how I upset you…” he confesses. “It’s been tearing me apart.” Jinah wants so much to tell him that everything is fine and everything is forgiven, but she knows that they still have some major underlying issues that they need to talk through and figure out before everything can go back to normal in their relationship.

“I know, Yeol, I know…” she murmurs. “We can talk about it tomorrow, ok?” Jinah stands up and turns towards the bedroom door.

Chanyeol reaches out to her and grasps her wrist. “Can’t you stay?” he pleads. He is afraid that if he lets her go, tomorrow will never come.

She looks at him sadly and replies, “Not yet, Yeol. We have things we need to sort out before we can go back to how things were…I don’t think we can go on acting like that argument didn’t happen.”

“Jinah…” he gives one last futile attempt, grip not slacking on her hand.

She slips out of his grasp and gives him one final pat on the head. “Call me in the morning when you wake up, and don’t forget to take some aspirin or something. Goodnight, Chanyeol.” And she lets herself out of his apartment. The words ‘I love you’ leave his lips, but she doesn’t hear them.

Jinah is deep in thought during the cab ride home; she can’t get the image of how sad his typically-bright eyes were when he was word vomiting about why he drank too much, how defeated his voice was when he asked her to stay. ‘I did this to him,’ she thinks to herself. ‘But he did this to him, too.’ When she gets home, rather than going to sleep in her bed, she retrieves the pillow and blanket that Chanyeol always uses when he stays over, and opts to sleep in his spot on the couch instead. She can faintly smell traces of him around her, and although she was the one who pushed him away, it gives her the solace she needs to fall into slumber.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Saturdays are typically the one day of the week that Jinah allows herself to sleep in. She doesn’t set an alarm and wakes up whenever her body feels like it. It isn’t uncommon for her to sleep in past noon. Despite the stressors of the previous night, Jinah sleeps like a baby until early afternoon the next day. She is woken by bright streaks of sunlight shining into her eyes, which is odd because she draws the curtains to her balcony sliding door each night. Squinting into the sunlight, once her vision clears, she is met with an equally blinding sight in the form of her boyfriend’s mega-watt smile and a yipping toy dog. Apparently, he has taken the liberty to let himself into her apartment and has crammed his cross-legged body between the coffee table and the couch.

Groaning, she pulls the blanket over her head, complaining, “Chanyeol. You were supposed to call before you came over here.”

“I did call, though,” he explains, still smiling and waving her phone in her face. “I called, texted, and rang your doorbell…I did everything short of calling the police to see if you had been kidnapped.” Jinah takes her phone from him and unlocks it. Sure enough, she has five missed calls and five text messages. Oh, right. In addition to not setting an alarm, she also sets her phone on silent so that notifications cannot wake her either. She should’ve known that at some point this would backfire on her.

She sits up and yawns widely, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “How long have you even been here?” she asks him.

Glancing at his phone he replies, “About two hours.”

“Dear God,” she groans in disbelief. “How are you even awake right now? Aren’t you hung over?”

“I’m still young, it doesn’t take me long to recover,” he explains nonchalantly, handing his girlfriend her glasses. She mutters some thanks and perches them high on her nose, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and stifling another yawn. Chanyeol is still staring at her intently from the floor and comments, “God, you are beautiful.”

Jinah sighs, brows furrowed. “Chanyeol…” She can’t let herself get into simply forgiving him because of his sweet talking. Plus, she knows that she looks like a mess, and he is saying things just to appease her.

“I know, I know, we have things that we need to talk about. But can’t I just look at you for a while? We haven’t seen each other in weeks,” he pouts.

Jinah rolls her eyes. “We saw each other last night, if you recall.”

Chanyeol turns sheepish and drops his gaze to his hands, apologizing, “I’m sorry about last night, noona…”

“You were a mess,” she states blatantly. “Like, the sloppiest I have ever seen you. I know you were upset because of our fight, but are you going to cope like that every time we have an argument? I can’t come to your rescue every time you do this; it completely defeats the purpose of being in an argument.” He looks ashamed, and she can tell her words are cutting him like a knife. Softening her voice, she asks, “Do you understand where I am coming from?”

“I…know that I shouldn’t have had so much to drink last night,” Chanyeol concedes, “I just—Myungsoo mentioned something about his girlfriend, it triggered me, and I lost it. I started thinking about the things I said to you last time we spoke, and I regret it. I regret all of it, and I wish I could take it all back, but I’ve already said the words. These are not good excuses but…I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

Jinah’s fingers pull at a stray thread in her blanket. “I’m not trying to discourage you from expressing your thoughts and your feelings, you know that right?” she asks him. “We need to talk about how we feel because if we bottle it all up, we are just going to keep fluctuating between depression and explosions like we have been, and that isn’t healthy. That being said, we need to be respectful of each other’s thoughts and express concerns and opposition in a way that doesn’t involve us yelling at each other and saying things that we can’t take back. I am just as guilty in this, and I am sorry too.”

Chanyeol reaches out to hold her hand, the one that was playing with the stray thread. He looks hopeful as he cranes his neck to meet her downcast eyes. “Can we try talking about those things again? The things that we argued about last time?” His girlfriend worries her bottom lip for a few moments before nodding. “Where should we start?”

“You applying for BigHit,” he responds immediately. “I’ve thought about it a lot…and if it is what you want to do, I think you should go for it.”

“Chanyeol…” Jinah says carefully, “Even if you say that, you know I won’t do anything that I feel like you won’t agree with, right? There are a lot of other places I could apply.”

The young man’s eyes shine with sincerity as he tells her, “I really really want you to follow your dreams—yours. Even if it means working at a rival company, I don’t have the right to hold you back and tell you what you can and cannot do. That’s selfish and unfair, and I can’t believe I ever thought that I could do that to you. I am so sorry about the things I said to you that day…Can you please find it in your heart to forgive me?” He swoops and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “And will you submit your application next week, then? Please?”

“Chanyeol,” she addresses him again, softer this time. “You aren’t saying this just because you think it’s what I want to hear, right? You aren’t saying this just because you think that if you keep pushing me, I’ll leave?” His smile falters for a split second before recovering, but she sees it. “Because I’m not going to leave over this, you know that, right?” Chanyeol hums a response and rests his cheek on her knee, eyes closed. Jinah runs a hand halfway through his hair and scratches at his scalp like a puppy. He has permed his hair since she last saw him; he looks very much like he is Toben’s dad, and she tells him so.

Her boyfriend chuckles. “I sent a selca to my mom and she said the same thing.” He abruptly sits up and rests his elbows on her knees, fists propping up his face. “Actually…I have something else that I want to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” she asks, suddenly becoming nervous. “What is it?”

“So I started orientation at SM this past Monday…you know, like a songwriting boot camp before I fully start working,” he explains. Jinah nods in comprehension, urging him to continue. “I’ve been going in the afternoons after my morning classes are over. Well, before this week, they had really only heard my work through recordings that I submitted, but in this boot camp, it was actually really intimidating, they sat and watched me for five hours a day to evaluate my creative process. I had to write a new song from beginning to end just this week! Isn’t that crazy?”

Jinah can see the passion and enthusiasm in her boyfriend’s eyes, and she can’t help but to be filled with a sense of excitement as well. “A week?! Doesn’t it usually take you at least a month to write a song to your level of perfection?”

Chanyeol nods eagerly and replies, “Yeah, it usually does, but it really helps the process along when there is a team of famous seniors breathing down my neck! Besides, I had a lot of fuel for my writing. Do I still have one of my guitars here?” Jinah nods and points to the corner by TV, where his guitar is propped up like it belongs there. He untangles his limbs as he stands up, one or two joints creaking as he does so, and retrieves the instrument before sitting next to his girlfriend on the couch. He strums a few times and tunes the strings, clearing his throat in the process. “I am going to play you the song I wrote this week, ok?” Jinah only nods again because she knows if she tries to say anything, the lump in will make its presence known. Then he begins to play:

A mystery came to me

with a face of an angel

Your warmth

The only one who loves you,

staying by your side

Is that me?

 

In the cold winter morning

And a bit lonely in the night

We’re here together

The darkness has changed

to light with you, tonight

An unbelievable miracle

 

Today, hugging you tightly

Giving you my heart and soul

Because you’re my everything in life, for life

Even if I’m born again

I can’t be with anyone but you

 

A thousand words are not enough to express my mind, for life

 

When you are tired or have a hard time

I’ll be the person

you want to lean on

A person that’s like a Christmas tree

with lots of presents

which I dreamt of when I was young

 

Life is a long harmony

We can be more beautiful

as we’re melted in it

Silence has changed (Silence has changed)

to a song called you, tonight (To a song, tonight)

I want to listen to it forever

 

Today, hugging you tightly

Giving you my heart and soul

Because you’re my everything in life, for life

Oh even if I’m born again

I can’t be with anyone but you

 

I only want to look at you forever

 

Everything isn’t going to be easy

But I’ll protect you, for life

This love, this love

It will never end

 

Oh, never gonna let you go

Giving you my heart and soul

Because you’re my everything in life, for life

Oh even if I’m born again

I can’t be with anyone but you

 

I only want to look at you forever

I only want to look at you forever

For life

When Chanyeol finishes the final chord, Jinah bursts into tears, just like she knew she would. She pulls the blanket over her head to hide her face, and she is quickly wrapped into a tight embrace and easily pulled into her boyfriend’s lap. “I’m sorry too, Yeol, I’m sorry too,” she mumbles inside the blanket, but he quickly shushes her running his hand up and down her back.

“No, babe, you have nothing to be sorry for,” he assures her. “I wrote this because I am sorry. I want to work harder for you, be better for you. Because I don’t want to do anything to push you away again. So please, can I stay?” As a silent response, Jinah wraps her arms around his torso and buries her face into the side of his neck, breathing in his distinct scent that had almost completely faded from his belongings in her apartment. Chanyeol pulls the blanket away from her face and cups her cheeks in his hands. “Baby, don’t cry,” he murmurs, kissing away her tears, before kissing her tenderly on the lips. She can taste the saltiness, but she doesn’t care, because he is back; they are back.

After several hours of cuddling on the couch, Jinah is reminded of what Chanyeol had mentioned earlier. “Wait, was there more to the boot camp story?”

“Ah, yes,” he confirms. “There is more.” Something about his brief response sparks another round of worry in Jinah’s chest.

“Are you…going to tell me about it?” she asks.

“Yeah, so…” Chanyeol hesitates. “When we were wrapping up the second day, an unfamiliar manager from SM came in to the studio and he made a …proposition.”

Jinah stops the mindless patterns she is tracing into his skin. “What kind of proposition?”

“He said that management had been discussing my skills and my looks and well…they asked if I would be interested in being a trainee instead of just a songwriter,” Chanyeol tells her. Jinah pulls back and looks him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry, they what?” she asks.

“They asked me if I would be interested in being a trainee, to become a Sam Kim-Yoo Seung Woo type of guitar-singer-songwriter or leader of the next CNBLUE, instead of a behind-the-scenes songwriter for the time being; apparently, they think the public will like my voice, and with some work, they will like my look as well,” he clarifies.

“I like your look just fine,” she tells him, earning a kiss on the nose. “Are you going to accept it? W-when do you have to decide by?” She has a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that although she just got him back, she is about to lose him again.

“I need to have an answer for them first thing Monday morning,” he tells her. “I haven’t decided yet, and I didn’t want to decide anything until I talked to you. So...help? Please?”

Jinah worries her bottom lip, deep in thought. Her first thought is, ‘Holy crap. He is going to be a star.’ Her second thought it is, ‘Holy crap, we are doomed.’ She is awakened from her reverie when he brushes her hair away from her face.

“Babe, are you with me?” he asks.

She refocuses on his face and tells him honestly, “I think you have an amazing talent and an amazing gift that would be incredible for you to share with the world, if performing is where your heart is. I also think that you are being given an amazing opportunity that some people devote years of their lives for, but never receive. I believe in your skills, and your drive, and your passion, and I will always support you if that is what you want to do.”

Chanyeol blushes at her words, but immediately frowns, familiar with his girlfriend’s penchant for having an objective view of most situations and giving it to him straight. “But…” he coaxes her.

“But you do realize that will be the end of us as we know it, right?” she finishes, voice barely above a whisper. Chanyeol shakes his head vigorously and tries to console her that no, it doesn’t have to be the end, that they’ll find a way to make it work. “Chanyeol, who do you think we are going up against? This is SM we are talking about. They are notorious for their slave contracts, dating bans, grueling schedules…even for their trainees. They aren’t going to make an exception for us.”

“I have looked through the contract with a fine-toothed comb, and there isn’t anything in there about a dating ban,” he reasons with her. “They probably don’t have those in the contracts until an artist debuts, which I might not even get to—“

Jinah cuts him off. “Why is failure even a possibility in your mind?”

“I am being realistic, Jinah,” he says. “Not every trainee gets to debut, and with getting such a late start…it doesn’t help my chances.”

“If you decide to sign that contract, I don’t want you to go into this with any thoughts of failure in your mind. I don’t want you to go into this and give anything less than your best efforts because you know that if it doesn’t work out, it’s no real loss because you can just come home to me. If you are really going to do this, I want all of your thoughts, efforts, and focus on training, not on me,” she tells him. He gets that kicked puppy look on his face again. “Don’t look at me like that! And I know this goes against everything that I just said, but I don’t want you to think of this as having to choose between me or your career. If your dream is really to perform, I don’t want you to give up that dream just because you want to stay by my side. In the same way that you want me to pursue my dreams at BigHit, I want you to pursue your dreams at SM, too, whatever those dreams may be. It is up to you to decide if you really want to perform or if songwriting behind the scenes is your calling. I will support you no matter what you decide.”

Chanyeol mulls over her words before asking cautiously, “You won’t feel abandoned by me?” Although it does cause a pang in her heart, she still smiles and shakes her head, brushing a thumb across his cheekbone. “Don’t be silly. You just have to promise you won’t forget me.”

Her boyfriend looks a bit offended that she would even suggest such a thing. “I could never—“

Jinah laughs, “I’m joking, I’m joking. I know I have hit you too many times and left too many scars for you to do anything without being constantly reminded.”

Chanyeol doesn’t take the bait and gazes at her seriously, declaring, “I am not going to give you up until they specifically tell me that I absolutely have to.”

“Don’t get in trouble with them, Yeol, they hold your future in their hands,” she warns him.

“No, they don’t,” he replies. “My future is already in my arms right now.”

Jinah wrinkles her nose at the cheesiness, but ends up bursting into laughter anyway. “You are so greasy,” she tells him.

“But you love this greaseball,” he states, and she can’t argue, because where is the lie? She loves him more than she wants to admit, and the last three weeks without him have been the most miserable of her life. Smart, selfish Jinah would have told him to forget becoming a performer, that he should stick with his current job and come home to her every night. But she can’t find it in herself to be selfish and hold him back, especially after the argument they just had about him trying to dissuade her from applying to BigHit. So she bites her tongue, holds on tight, and pretends that nothing is going to change between them; all the while knowing that nothing can possibly stay the same.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day, Jinah and Chanyeol spend the whole day together, just enjoying each other’s presence and trying to figure out how they are going to make their relationship work once Chanyeol starts training full time. They tentatively plan to meet up for drinks at their favorite coffee shop on Friday afternoons, with promises to text and call as much as possible in between (because, you know, that has never fallen through before).

On the first Friday, Chanyeol is ten minutes late. Most people wouldn’t notice, but because it is Jinah, she does. Luckily, because the coffee shop isn’t too busy at the moment, she passes the time catching up with Minseok. Chanyeol rushes in, hair askew and red in the face, as if he just ran three miles to get there. He looks like he tried hard to arrive on time, so Jinah lets it slide.

On the second Friday, Chanyeol is thirty minutes late. Jinah mindlessly browses SNS on her phone while she waits. She looks calm, but inside, she is beyond annoyed. When he arrives, she has half a mind to tell him off, but he spouts off an excuse about practice running late and looks truly apologetic, so again, she lets it slide.

On the third Friday, Jinah should have known better than to come to the coffee shop at the agreed time. She has her job interview at BigHit late in the afternoon, and she should have cancelled her date with Chanyeol; should have spent the time preparing for her interview. But she tells herself that after the last two times, surely, he would make a concerted effort to make it on time, especially since she will need a pep talk before her interview. But once again, Jinah finds herself waiting on her boyfriend. At least this time, she had the sense to bring a book to distract her while she waits.

Jinah is mid-sentence when she senses a presence across from her at the table. She peeks over the pages of her book and spots her boyfriend standing there looking somber in his all-black attire, and rightfully so, seeing as how he is an hour late. She doesn’t hesitate to call him out on it.

“You’re an hour late, Chanyeol,” she says, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“Babe, I’m sorry,” he sighs, throwing his backpack on the floor and sitting across from her. “I was caught up at the studio. You know that it’s really hard for me to…”

“But, you promised,” Jinah complains, as she closes her book and furrows her eyebrows. It is taking all of her will power to keep calm and not raise her voice. “This is the third week in a row. You know that I’m busy with work, too. But I make it my priority to communicate.”

“I’ve been slacking, I know. Jinah, let me make it up to you,” Chanyeol slides his wallet out of his pocket. “I’ll get you anything you’d like.”

“I’m not hungry,” Jinah says, glancing at her phone. “My interview starts in about thirty minutes. I should probably go soon.” She wonders if he even remembers that she has an interview.

Chanyeol frowns. “Sorry I’m wasting your time.”

Jinah sighs; she doesn’t mean to make her boyfriend feel that way. “I don’t think you’re wasting my time necessarily…” she pauses and bites her lower lip. “Our lives are just too busy. We barely see each other anymore…” This conversation feels all too familiar.

“Jinah…” Chanyeol says gently. “Don’t say that. Please, don’t.” There is a pleading tone in his voice that breaks her heart and makes her want to take the words back, but she can’t help how alone she feels.

Jinah, not sure what else she can say to him, opts to stay silent and stare at her closed book on the table, unaware of the longing gaze that lingers on her.

“We can make this work,” he says, “Things are just really crazy right now, but they won’t stay this way for forever.”

Jinah looks at him, a sad feeling overcoming her heart. “I know,” she says, quietly. “I know things won’t always be like this.” Whether things will change because they get better, or because they fall apart, she isn’t sure. She grabs her book and her purse and stands up. “I have to go now.” She looks to her left and makes awkward eye contact with a random guy biting his straw, who is sitting with an equally awkward guy who is balling up napkins. Have they been eavesdropping on her conversation with Chanyeol this entire time? No matter, she doesn’t have time to worry about it right now.

“I’ll tell you how my interview goes, okay?” she kisses Chanyeol’s forehead, and he is quick to grab her arm before she can walk away.

“I’ll make everything up to you, I promise. You’re going to rock that interview,” he smiles at her, and she smiles back. Jinah leaves Chanyeol behind at the café, and for some reason, she feels like she is leaving behind a part of her life as well.