You were the one to ask for the break up. You asked him five times on five different occasions. The first one had been a terrible attempt at a joke which was on you. That you of that time had no idea that you would be getting what you asked for since he had agreed to it that last final time.

There had been many things building up to it. To that very second when he agreed to it and you asking for it in the first place. The only thing was that the entire ordeal had all been nonverbal.

You both knew that it was coming and that it was due.

Now that you thought back to that moment, you two were rather diplomatic when it got down to it. There were no feelings lost then and now, that was for sure.

At that time you both had been consumed in your separate lives. You both were getting more serious about your sports but more so him. You had had no idea just what you were committing yourself to when you dove into the world of Jung Taekwoon. Soccer and soccer. As your relationship with him progressed, you felt the presence of the sport like multiple slaps to your face. He had dedicated so much of his life just to play. He fed himself to play. He woke up to play. He got good enough grades to play.

And then he used you to play. That first time you saw him play, he did so to impress you. He scored goal after goal for you in each official or unofficial game, competitive or friendly. He mustered up all of his strength to show you how he played and just how well he did so. He laughed with you so much when he taught you how to dribble the ball up and down whatever surface was provided to him. He kissed you so hard when you completed around-the-world that first time after countless hours of practice. He found your eyes first after every game, home or away, that you were able to make. Every lingering embrace you cocooned him in when he lost that left you cold. He recovered after that horrible incident during a game with your aid and encouragement only with the end goal to continue playing.

For you, for you was all he said.

You often said the same thing whenever you scored a block or the satisfying aces but it wasn’t the same. Your words lacked the depth his held. That deep heart wrenching meaning his words contained was at a level of comprehension you desperately tried to grasp. It was one of the reasons you had been elated your team qualified for nationals because you figured you were getting there. You were getting closer to him.

But it was well beyond your ability of understanding. His sister, Jieun, had told you so upfront. The sister you were closest to, Jihee, had also said the same thing but with less of a bite. Soomi, the oldest and ever wisest, had her knowing glances whenever she was around and that hadn’t been very encouraging. Basically, they knew. His parents knew and it was his father that let you know first. He had actually beat Jieun to the punch in letting you know specifically that you weren’t that good of a fit for him. That was a conversation that had taken a toll on you and you had never told Taekwoon what it was exactly about. Though he had got the gist of the conversation from Jihee anyways. That had been one of the bigger factors.

The Test was another thing. Much like students all across the nation, you invested yourself to getting a good enough score if not a perfect score because even then you had your aspirations to one up Nunji in getting into a top school. With a scholarship. That was already setting your standards high much to the delight of your mother and father when they had sat you down and asked you what your plans were and what you wanted to do at the beginning of third year.

Your time was pretty much split between volleyball practice and studying. Tutoring had even taken a larger part of your time as it became another way of studying since you reviewed material with your students. And Taekwoon wasn’t left with much of your time in the end as he had been set up with a private tutor of his own to make up the precious class time he was often absent for.

He was generating talks of private practices with bigger fields and bigger players at the beginning of that year. He was often being excused from school and even games to head to practices that were private enough he couldn’t divulge much of anything even to his friends and you. He was putting it all into soccer.

And in the end, when it came down to it, you chose the Test and your own future. A future that would take you from him. And he had agreed to such a future with his own plans in place.

It was a future you were brokenly living now and it was a well-deserved one. The pain and your aspirations combined was a mess for you live with much less a life without him and his warmth. And you had coped with it to get to this point.

You were enduring the heartbreak you inflicted on yourself. And him? You didn’t know. Obviously he was living on with his own future and you were too much of a coward to find out anything yourself but prey on the scraps Suho threw you. Oh, how far you have fallen.

You weren’t going to stop living as you had to prove to him and yourself that you didn’t smite this pain upon you both for nothing. You were at the top of your class in your department for your year not for nothing. You weren’t going to intern for a big wig of a professor for nothing. Because anything less isn’t deserving of the love you missed out on. Or to be more specific, it isn’t worth it if you were not making an impact of your own or striving toward a future you dreamed for yourself.

Taekwoon had a different, and more importantly, a separate path. This was what you had convinced yourself of. It was something you argued about with him until the end.

For you, for you was all he said.

For you, for you was what you said back.

And now, after all this time apart, after the break up, he’s still saying it’s for you. He has the audacity to say such a thing for it to be recorded in print and shared until it ultimately reached you.

You were so close to snorting at the absurdity of it all but didn’t want to wake up Jimri who was snoozing in your bed.

The article was now on its way to the landfill as you and Jimri had drunkenly disposed of it personally to the dumpster in the back alley of your apartment building when you miraculously remembered that the day was trash day.

Jimri had dropped another bomb on you that day. She avoided looking you in the eye as she relayed that she had been keeping up with his career on her own. She was on the verge of tears as she guiltily admitted to it. That had earned her a dead glare which was all you could muster and she looked stricken at the sight of it. She let it all out after that, all that she had kept from you.

It wasn’t the first he had mentioned you. There had been other articles and interviews that alluded to you. None so direct as this article she had encouraged you to read just a day ago but also the very same article Nunji had steered you toward weeks ago.

Why was everything so against you? You asked yourself this with all the dramatics required.

You didn’t know what to feel as she shared with you these things she had kept hidden from you. No, you weren’t angry or even upset with her. She had every right to do whatever she wanted and that included keeping tabs on him of her own free will. If you had a healthier mind set concerning him, you would be doing the same and cheering him on in his endeavors.

But as it were, you didn’t. You still found it pathetic to still be scared of it, of him but yourself especially.

So you were now at a standstill with your phone beeping every hour with a new message from Suho. Another unwanted thing you didn’t want to deal with at the moment which was mean of you to feel since Suho has been nothing but kind to you. What with taking you on these little one-on-one meetings that you didn’t even know you needed. He just made that ache in you recess just enough.

With a look at the peaceful Jimri, you picked up your phone to see what his latest message read. ‘Hey Mikyungie. Did you see the clouds today? Would you like to get something to eat today with me?’

The wording seemed awkward but genuine. That about summed up all of his texts since your breakdown in his presence. Before, the text conversations between the two of you largely consisted of very platonic topics that bordered on constant overpolite weather observations. It was just the tidbits of your old schoolmates that slipped in between the cracks that you picked up on.

You considered texting back but figured he must have some clue as to why you had yet to respond. After all, it wasn’t every day a girl breaks down in front of him. But that assumption was based of what little you did know of him. For all you knew, he was the shoulder to cry on for many others and he surely must be because the way he took care of you only showed his competency in it.

He quickly led you away from prying eyes into a small alcove that allowed you to compose yourself in peace. He actually had a tissue pack and that was a big giveaway in his proficiency in breakdowns. So he gave you that and you thought about whatever questions or comments he may make, good intentions or not.

When he finally spoke after it was just your sniffles in the tense silence, he brought you down even lower in the pit self-constructed.

“Did you want to see Leo? I’m sure I’m not the right person to take care of you.”

He really didn’t know.

That realization was a tad bit late because all of this time you were sure he had some semblance that you and Taekwoon weren’t together. Whether it was your refusal to give any response linked to him and your very avoidance of the topic. You didn’t think yourself manipulative or controlling of your projection enough to give him the idea that you two were still together.

Or was it that your mask was so impetrative enough to come off as sincere? No.

He knelt down next to you to peer up at you through your wall of hair. You swept it aside in a quest for confidence but that shattered as he continued to talk.

“We can go see him now if you want. I have my car and I think he probably doesn’t have a game. I just have to ask N to let him know we’re coming.”

You blinked at him before shaking your head.

“Are you sure? I’m sure he’ll make you feel better.”

Regaining your footing, you gave a resolute shake of your head. You felt his eyes trace over your features but there was nothing lacking in you that would travel the distance for Jung Taekwoon. Even if Suho’s words held some sliver of truth in them. If you were ever to stand in front of Jung Taekwoon again, it would only be done without your permission.

Your trust in each other was absolute until the end. It made you two listen to each sigh, scoff, grunt, laugh, moan and cry from the other. It got you this far in your life and it will keep you both going. Where? Who knows.

Well, it looks like Nunji has an idea about it. Jimri too. And even Suho. Nunji who had given you that shove over the edge and Jimri who jumped with you. Suho who tossed you a rope that’s just not long enough and he hadn’t been the first to do so. N, Ken, Hyuk, Hongbin, Ravi… Eunkwang, Minhyuk too. They all pleaded with you at one point or another.

‘Leo is different. Leo isn’t the same. Leo needs you. Leo loves you.’

It was always about their precious friend which just proved how invested they had been in you two’s relationship. Just about as invested as you and Taekwoon had been with your different paths.

Sure, you could have stuck with him through all of that. After all, you had gone through much together before the break up. The rumors had gotten pretty nasty at one point before and after breaking up which Doona had mentioned. There had also been the boy and girl who had tried to get in between you two. That girl being Glaring Girl and the boy being Yoohyuk.

You always had that feeling about Glaring Girl and in a way the same could be said for Yoohyuk but it was Glaring Girl who stuck through the year with her distaste for you and anything to do with you. And then she struck and well, it was her and her friends that had been caught. So that was over with and she hadn’t done anything else afterwards for the rest of the year after learning her lesson.

Yoohyuk had been quite a surprise before he had fallen for Jimri. He, too, was soon disposed of. He had actually been the reason you asked for a break up the second time. Your heart hadn’t been fully into that particular request and Taekwoon had seen right through it. The two of you had taken a break(?) after that, though it had lasted maybe two days before you were back together and stronger than before.

The thing leading to that break up request had been Taekwoon’s jealousy and possessiveness. He was always both of those things and you accepted it but when Yoohyuk tried to, awkwardly and ineffectively and not to mention pointlessly, break you two up, Taekwoon was furious. It was nothing you had ever seen before for you and those surrounding you two. N had told you as much while Ken had downplayed the attack as proof of how much you meant to his friend.

The black eye Yoohyuk sported lasted almost a whole month and charges weren’t pressed as Yoohyuk had apologized for ever attempting anything. It was a twisted way of confessing to you and if not for Jimri, you would never have kept any sort of contact with him.

You had made Taekwoon apologize as well, full of fear that the incident would affect his future and chances in advancing his soccer career. It was something you felt he resented you for because that had led to a very big argument. Probably the biggest. If not, it was in the top five. But after you had asked for the break up, he had given in and apologized to Yoohyuk. That was the time he refused to speak to you for weeks and not the same way he would refuse to speak. It was on a whole different scale. It was a silence you feared above all and put things into perspective in regards to how much you cared for him and any fear of losing him.

That was when you told him you loved him.

The way his eyes had glazed over and then hardened was still clear to you because he had been waiting for those words from you for so long. He had told you he loved you months before you could share your feelings with him verbally. All throughout the duration of your relationship with him, you were both showy people. Man and woman of action more than words. If you missed him, you would hold onto him extra tight because you knew you would miss him when he left. He would do the same with his own feelings showing more often than not in his eyes.

During that black hole in your relationship, it was his eyes that showed you his frustration and anger after the forced apology incident. For so long, you believed it was directed at you but after you had told him your love for him and after that short period of letting him cool down, he came back around to you. With a letter. It was more of a reflection letter and in it was written text about how ashamed he had been of his insecurities about your relationship. He touched on how hurt he had been when he felt you had taken Yoohyuk’s side or how he perceived the situation.

You had written him a letter in response and you were back together with your level of communication more enforced thanks to you telling him just how much he meant to you. It appeased you both and it brought back all of the squirming and fluttering feelings that you had felt fading for just a second. The third and fourth time had never reached or touched the scale of that torturous time until the last one.

The certain anguish had been so prevalent that you felt yourself becoming consumed in the vast pain of your own doing. That last request hadn’t even been verbalized. He just knew it was the end and that had hurt you the most.

At that point in the relationship, all you two had to do was look into each other’s eyes to get an accurate read on the other. Ken and the boys liked to play games on you two due to that and often joked about telepathy. N described it as two way empathy that was solely between Jung Taekwoon and Choi Mikyung.

At your separation from each other, you couldn’t do anything but resent that connection even more than you were capable of at that very moment. It was too much to relive even as a memory and was one you were terrified to even think about much less have a nightmare centered around.

Your first and only heartbreak. The one event that left you in broken and jagged pieces that slowly but consistently smoothed down to less harmful curves but with no chance of being whole or fitting the same way ever again.

The people around you had done a good job in shaping the person you were now all throughout the events that composed of your life. But none so effectively as Taekwoon. You’d been right to fear the love and care you devoted to him when you felt your feelings escalate to heights unknown. As they say, the harder the fall was as things plummeted but it was an experience you chose to deal with.

The decision to break up wasn’t the wisest one as you felt the full brunt of it within his proximity those last months of school. Graduation was a day you had been waiting for and dreading. It was the day you expected to see the last of him and in a way you had been right. It was the last time to look into his eyes a final time before he was whisked away for training at a disclosed location, at least to you, and his family following him, save for Jihee and Soomi.

It was when you finally got a phone as a graduation present which your found ironic. By that you meant that as one communication pathway was opened, another shut down with a deserving clang.

There had been multiple times you both could have reached out to each other before graduation and there had been so many moments you wanted to bridge the gap. But your self-preservation was enduring and withstanding of such wishes and fantasies. You had been the one to ask for the break up so, in your mind back then, you would only lose more if you crawled back to him.

Your reasons had been so sound at the time. He was a prodigious soccer player and he had been playing all of his life with the goal of going professional all that time. You didn’t want to get left behind in his pursuits as the ending was coming closer and closer until that scout approached him after that one game.

Your sharp eyes had long since taken to following him around every game and he had been on his way back to you but fate’s call was beckoning him. Then it lured him in and barred him from you. It was one of the reasons you took on more students in tutoring until you both had gone too deep in your areas and nothing was left for you two to come back to.

But it had been one key moment at the end that bolted all doors. It had been a rare time for you two to have time alone and you felt a foreboding distance that had not been there before. No, that wasn’t true. The distance had been growing. Centimeters at a time.

When you saw each other, you’d both gone through the motions that had become second nature. You would trail your eyes up and down his form to make sure he wasn’t limping or favoring a leg over the other. You’d check for new bruises, scratches, scrapes, anything new to his appearance that wasn’t there when you last saw him. When your assessment of his body’s health seemed fine, it was then you would reach out to him with your eyes by meeting his. He met your eyes with the familiar smoldering fire that simmered just below the surface but it was out of place, flickering a new flame. He had been tired, you remembered that. At that point he was getting used to new training exercises that were on the strenuous end and he was often snoozing through lunch without eating anything you packed for him.

Throughout that Saturday, you got the feeling he wasn’t all there in the moment with you considering you were beside yourself to see and be with him one on one. You had been hesitant to even hold his hand but had pushed through such frivolous fears of him pulling away. It had been you holding onto his hand at the beginning that time with a force that you felt was needed since it seemed as if he wasn’t holding onto you in the same comforting way as before.

You had rambled about mundane things. Oh, how much you had talked. If anything, that was a big indication of where things were going. Neither of you would have let the other feel the need to ever talk any more than necessary even at that point in your relationship when you two would and could actually discuss topics for a length of time.

No. What you had done, was a desperate call for something he wasn’t about to give. Or he wasn’t capable of giving it to you.

But you couldn’t help it. Anything to fill that silence, a silence that was way worse than the Yoohyuk thing. But one thing you avoided doing was asking questions. Even questions about how his practice was going because you feared for that silence. That he wouldn’t even answer you. It was as he let you do that when you felt the impending separation. Because he kept looking at you. He hardly reacted to what you were saying with such a stoic and frozen expression in place. You couldn’t get anything out of him. And that hurt more than anything.

The very thing you took pride in your relationship was the ability to tell how he was feeling or get an idea of what was going on through his mind. He had closed himself off from you that day.

It was toward the end of the day when you finally shut up and let that silence take over and swallow you whole. You didn’t reach for his hand after that but chose to keep at least a meter distance between you two. You let his long legs take their usual stride without waiting for you or shortening his steps. The only thing you could do was follow.

And he still didn’t react.

You weren’t looking at him at that point as he led you onto your bus. You took the free seat at the front of the bus and let him walk to the back of the bus probably expecting you to follow him but you didn’t. You hadn’t looked for his reaction as you stared straight forward out the front window. He probably had the same expression he had on the whole day wherever he chose to sit or stand in that bus.

That was something you did your best not to think about. The unknown or missing things you may have overlooked that ended your relationship or led to it. With Sanghyun, it had been straight forward. He stood you up multiple times, over and over again, for his friends until you had enough and ended things.

With Taekwoon. Things had been going on a decline. You didn’t know what, where or how. But the results spoke for itself.

It was at your bus stop when he looked right into your eyes and he knew. But that event had taken time as you had stepped off the bus first and considered just walking away. Because at that point, you knew what you were going to do. You knew what was about to happen and if he miraculously didn’t have a clue, then you would have to speak. For yourself and for him. You would have to enunciate and put to use your father’s teachings much like you had done with Sanghyun just two years before.

Your mind and body had been so numb. Your heart had been pounding, filling in what you needed to know that you were there.

It was a feeling that left you as empty as holding his hand earlier that day. It was a feeling that tore up your insides in a frenzy. It was happening.

And you knew the two of you could have stopped it from happening. And that was probably what hurt most of all.

Either one of you had to fight for the other or even better, you two could have fought for the other together.

You may have been wrong. Things may not have been at a decline at all but rather an incline. And you had given up on trekking up it. Taekwoon did as well when he had a hand in ending the relationship.

And that was that.

Or so it would seem.

So sorry about how late I am.