It’s hard to look Minjoo in the eye, but she knows she has to. It takes every ounce of her being to stare straight into those eyes, ones that normally were so bright and cheerful… now the exact opposite because of her.

Because of me.

She doesn’t know how much time passes as their gazes stay locked, but the stillness is broken by Minjoo’s eyes flickering and her rushing to her father.

“Dad!” She cries desperately, hurriedly assessing the damage. Things don’t look too bad, but he definitely needs medical attention as soon as possible. It’s much worse than before.

“Hey, sweetie,” he tries to smile but is interrupted by coughing fit.

“I--”

“I’ll live, don’t worry. Something like this could never take me down,” he grins.

“I’ll get help,” she says quickly as she pulls out her phone and calls for help. Panic rises as her father appears to pass out, but she feels a bit of relief when the operator says that the ambulance will be there in a few minutes.

Surely enough, they arrived within the promised time frame, but those minutes felt like years.

She could feel Chaewon behind her, watching her, as she sat beside her father. It was silent except for his labored breathing, yet the silence was monstrously deafening. She felt like she was suffocating, drowning--she wasn’t the one that was assaulted, but everything hurt.

Minjoo doesn’t dare to spare another glance at Chaewon as she boards the back of the ambulance with her father.

She knows she doesn’t have the strength.

~~~

“You’ll be okay?” She asks for the hundredth time since her dad woke up. As soon as he did, he insisted she go home and get some rest.

“Yes, I promise. Your mother is coming soon too,” he rolls his eyes jokingly at his worried daughter.

Minjoo sighs quietly and squeezes her dad’s hand lightly.

“Okay.”

Finally, he laughs to himself. That girl could really worry.

“But--”

“What?”

“... What happened back there?”

He suddenly grows silent.

“I don’t know.”

That’s the best answer she gets before she says farewell to her father for the night and heads back towards home.

Somehow, she knows that she won’t be the only one there.

~~~

She feels no surprise when she sees the figure sitting on the stairs to her house. Chaewon hadn’t left; she was still here, staring up at the stars. With the way her head was tilted up, Minjoo couldn’t quite catch the look in her eyes.

“Why?” Minjoo whispers once her feet stop right in front of the other girl. Her mind tried to wrap around different explanations, but none really made sense. She wanted to believe that it wasn’t Chaewon, that it was all just some elaborate set-up, but why wasn’t she saying anything? Why was she sitting there, quietly, staring at the stars as though she hadn’t assaulted her father just a bit ago?

It infuriates Minjoo a little bit that Chaewon doesn’t even look her in the eye. Her gaze remains locked to the stars above even as she begins to speak.

“Boss’s orders. I’m sorry.”

This time, she closes her eyes and only opens them once they’re looking at the ground in between their feet. She still refuses to meet Minjoo’s eyes.

“You’re sorry?” She starts quietly.

“You’re sorry?!”

Her voice quickly rises in volume, her anger not able to be contained.

“You mean this isn’t some sick joke? This isn’t all some planned out thing?”

Minjoo laughs bitterly.

“So what about all that from before? Everything I’ve learned about you, everything I’ve experienced with you… what was that, Chaewon?”

Her voice lowers to a whisper once more.

“What happened…?”

Chaewon sighs; the words sound strained as she begins to speak softly.

“I don’t know, Minjoo, I don’t. I thought I could do better, I really did. But I can’t, not like this. I can’t refuse orders like that, not from the boss; I just can’t. I have a job to do, and I don’t know what else to do.”

And like that, Minjoo snaps.

“Don’t, don’t call my name anymore. I can’t believe I even held on to the tiniest hope that this wasn’t you, that this wasn’t your fault. I really believed in you, Chaewon.”

“I really did.”

Chaewon’s gaze remains locked on the pavement.

As the moments pass, she thinks of Yujin. Yujin, with her cute smile, her kind personality, her caring nature. She makes her feel safe and protected--everything she wasn’t feeling now. The stark contrast between the two only heightened her anger and frustration.

“You’re terrible, awful, selfish--” She screams with balled fists.

She can’t help it, she really can’t. She put so much of her heart into Chaewon, so much time and love and all of it is just--it’s gone. For it to end like this? It tore her apart.

“I hate you, I hate you…” she whispers angrily.

As she turns her back to Chaewon, she says one last thing.

“You really are dangerous.”

~~~

Perhaps her mind hadn’t quite wrapped around what had happened. Perhaps she couldn’t fathom that things could end so quickly, so suddenly. The confrontation that shattered a lengthy bond lasted but a minute. What started with a burning glare escalated into screaming and yelling and finally broke the dam that was threatening to fall all this time.

It was a very long time before she tore her gaze away from where Minjoo had disappeared ages ago. She had brought up her gaze only when Minjoo had already turned her back, walking away and out of her life. For a while she just stares and stares, wondering how things turned out this badly.

She was a fool for allowing herself to become a pawn in her father’s game. She was a fool for messing up time and time again. She was a fool for letting herself be trapped in a corner. She was a fool for allowing Minjoo to get this close to her. She was a fool to allow any harm near Minjoo.

She was a fool for loving her so strongly and dearly as she did.

As much as the denial and frustration raged within her all this time regarding these unfamiliar emotions, it appears that this was the final straw.

At that same moment Minjoo turned her back to her, it suddenly occurred to her that every step the other girl took away from her would tear away at her piece by piece.

She had become a part of her.

In that moment, for the first time, she really allowed herself to acknowledge the truth.

I guess I love you, huh?

“But that isn’t enough, is it?”

She whispers to an empty street, cries to a darkening sky, and bears her emotions to the world that wasn’t here to listen.

Finally, after all this time, she feels herself cry, and she believes herself to be the loneliest person in the world.