"They want me to sing what?" he asked incredulously. 

 "Taemin..." his manager replied in a pleading tone.

 "No, please repeat it. To make sure that I have heard you right the first time." the young idol demanded.

His manager took a deep breath and said, with a pitying look in his eyes "That I was once by your side. They want you to sing and play along on the piano." 

Lee Taemin, a veteran idol of the KPop industry, let out a quivering sigh and raked his trembling hands through his outgrown ashblonde hair. He was clad in a comfortable black shirt and casual blue jeans, a thick woolen sweater wrapped around his muscled shoulders. To anybody only knowing the entertainer, he looked a bit exhausted but fine. To his longtime manager he looked endlessly tired.

Lost.

And broken. 

 "Taemin..." he tried once more. "They don't know. How could they?"

 "Like he'll they don't. Millions of people saw me singing it in national television five years ago. They saw my face. My tears. That I sung it for..." at that he stopped, his hands balling into fists on each side of his body as he stood in front of his floorlength iving room window, the winter rain pelting against it. 

"For Naeun." his manager finished quietly. 

At the mere mention of her name, Shinee 's maknae visibly flinched, his face contorting for a few seconds, before he gained back control. The slight sheen in his hazel coloured eyes could not be hidden though.

 "It's been seven months, Tae. You need to get over this. " the other man said forcefully.

At that Lee Taemin choked back a sob, his hand flying to his mouth, the rosary ring on his thumb gleaming in the incoming lights of Seoul city. 

 "ONLY seven months, you say? " he murmured, tears pooling in his eyes.

 "Tae, need I remind you? You broke up with her after nearly six years together."

 And at that the tightly coiled control snapped. The dam just broke.

With an agonizing shout Taemin slammed his balled fist into the wall, blood squirting over the white surface.

 His manager yelped in shock and took a few steps towards the distraught singer.

 But Taemin blatantly growled at him.

 "Don't touch me. I deserve this. I deserve this pain. What is it compared to what I have caused my Naeun?" he tonelessly whimpered.

 "Your Naeun?" the older man calmly inquired, his eyes on Taemin"a bleeding hand. 

Silence.

Until Taemin's leg just have out and he sank down on his white fluffy carpet, his back against his comfortable big couch. 

Naeun had picked out both. 

His head hung low, his bangs covering his eyes. 

 "Manager-nim. Have I ever told you why I broke up with the love of my life? Why I left the woman I desperately love and want to marry? Why I ing smashed her heart into pieces, obliterating mine in the process as well?"

Taemin's manager looked surprised. Taemin had never told anybody what had happened. After six obviously blissfully happy years with Son Naeun by his side, everything's suddenly changed. Naeun had stopped wearing the rosary bracelet Taemin had gifted her a long time ago. Her clothes and other personal things had disappeared from her boyfriend's house.

Nobody had dared to ask until one day in autumn 2018 Key and Minho had gone to their maknae's house after not hearing from him for days.

They had found him sprawled out on the living room floor, empty soju bottles scattered around him. He had not uttered a single word, his eyes fixated on a picture of him and Naeun at a friend's wedding. Naeun was smiling at the camera, while Taemin only had eyes for her. 

It was obvious that Naeun had been gone for days. 

But nobody knew why or what had happeend. 

 "Then tell me what happened, Taemin." his manager gently said and crouched down in front of the idol. 

Taemin lifted his head, his eyes black with pain. His voice was barely audible when he started to talk. 

 "In my arrogance I wanted to do what was best for her. Protect her. After six years hidden in the darkness of my life, there was no change. Fans kept hating on her. On the idea of us. No official relationship. Total public avoidance. Constant denial of any dating history during interviews. I could not support her publicly in any way. Not for Apink's comeback nor her modelling career. I jetted around Asia, touring, promoting, charming fangirls left and right, talking about how I wasn't ready for marriage or settling down. And in the end.....I started to believe my own lies. I heeded to my fears and insecurities, polarizing them on my Naeun-ah. I kept pushing her away until she couldn't take it anymore. I called her weak and told her to leave, because it would be better for both of us. In the end, I only thought of myself. She left. " 

Taemin remembered her sobs like it had been yesterday. Her incredulous eyes. But she had not begged for his love. His Naeun never bowed to anyone. With red rimmed eyes she had pulled off the rosary bracelet. He had expected that she would throw it at him but with visibly trembling fingers she had gently laid it on the table in front of him. 

 "I wish you happiness, Taemin-ssi. I am sorry you have not found it with me." and she had turned around to walk out of the door of his house.

 Her formal use of his name had cut him like a knife and suddenly it was dawning on him that he was making a horrible mistake and he stretched out a hand towards Naeun's retreating back.

But before he could utter a word, she had whispered a soft goodbye and the door had fallen shut behind her.

 "Naeun."  Taemin had whispered. " Naeun-ah. No. " 

He had stumbled to the door and ripped it open. It was raining, thunder and lightning ripping the sky apart. 

She was nowhere to be seen. 

He took a few steps outside, the rain drenching him immediately. 

In a childlike voice he had whimpered her name.

 "Naeun? Jagiya?" 

 Nothing.

 "NAEUN!"

 Silence. 

And in that moment he had realized that a moment of arrogance and fear had cost him his beloved. 

His manager looked at him with wide eyes when Taemin uttered the last words of his story. He had known that Taemin had deve