"Ji Soo," is the only thing that came out of his mouth as soon as he registers that we're both really standing in front of him. The only thing I could hear is the beat of my heart pumping in my chest and the sound of it echoing in my ears. Why is he here? I inhale deeply as if I could go through all of this just by holding it in. My mind is in complex tangles and my words are twisted on the top of my tongue. "Sung Kyung," he breathes as if he didn't want the other people around us to hear how he might be pleading for something—how he might be yearning for something. I didn't realize until now how much I've missed the sound of his voice. I look deep in his eyes, wondering if there's something there that should give me some sort of hope, but all I see are blank specs of color and dark bags under them. Unshed tears gloss over my eyes but they remain intact, not daring to fall down my cheeks. So the best that I could do is clear my throat and compose myself.

     "Nam," I go with a smile that seems to be a little too forced on my part. He smiles a sad one, not wavering from staring back at my gaze. His name from my lips seems foreign because I've never uttered it until today. I'm not allowing my mind to think further into this because I know that I'll end up disappointed in a way that impacts me more than what I expect. I need to learn to walk away from this. Maybe not now, maybe not by the next two minutes, but someday.

     "We need to talk," is all he says in a tone that made shivers run down my spine. I nod and climb in just as my manager exits the car and Ji Soo closes the door. I've never felt so claustrophobic in my entire life. My chest is tight and my lips are sealed because I'm not sure what I could say to him, and when I do decide on the words, he might not like them. Silence drifts around the atmosphere of the car's interior as I try to control my breathing. Why do I seem too out of breath these days? My eyes catch him moving to face me and I prepare myself, building up walls made of unbreakable steel. "How have you been?" He says it as if I'll break if he does it a bit more forcefully and somehow, that hurts my pride—how I'm hurting more than him.

     "I've been better," I reply, looking at everything except directly at him. I'm scared. I'm scared of how I'll remember everything in waves crashing on to me if I look at him; if I show him through my eyes how much I've missed him. My heart aches and there is no cure to this virus called Nam Joo Hyuk that's spreading all through out my body, killing me in the slowest way possible. "What do you want to tell me?" I ask. "I'm a bit busy since I went somewhere for a few days." I decide to make it look like I'm nonchalant and I find it quite difficult.

     "Oh, yes, of course," he looks at the floor, looking like he's trying to recall what he wants to say. He purses his lips, making me remember the feel of them against mine as his hand plays with the ends of my hair. I close my eyes shut, hoping that this feeling of nostalgia would leave my system. "It's about—" he pauses for a moment and the curiosity consumes me. "—about what happened back then," he leans back on the leather seat and runs a hand through the strands of his hair. His breathing is deep and I know that his anxiety level is rising in sync with mine. I know him like the back of my hand and yet, he didn't even notice it before he left me the decision to walk away first.

     "What about it?" I clutch my chest, feeling the pain there. His eyes divert to my hand fisted atop my shirt and his eyes close shut the way that I did earlier. He opens them and looks directly at me, making me feel like he knows what this hand over my heart could mean—trying to convince me that he feels the same. He scoots closer when all I want to be is far from him. "I—"

     "I know you don't want to talk about it," he exhales as tears form in the corners of my eyes. "But we have to," his voice is shaky and it took everything in me not to embrace him the way that he does to me when I'm in the same position as him at this moment. It took everything in me not to tell him that it'll be okay while running my hand down his back in silent comfort. It took everything in me not to just throw myself at him like the first time he told me he loved me. "What I did—" he swallows the lump in his throat. "It's been a year and I can't help but let my thoughts wonder about you," I can't cope with him being like this. "I can't help but think about how you are or if you're happy—" he says, his mouth turning to a frown. "—without me." He clears his throat, his hands balling to fists, making him look like he's holding something back. I want nothing else but to let him tell me what he's so scared of. But in the silence that surrounds us, the