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Her blood pulsed like a volcano about to erupt. All the blood surging, crashing into each other. Splashing against the interior threatening to overflow.

Dread heightened over her as the airport came closer and closer. Towering over her like a magnificent being. The automatic doors whooshed open for a woman welcoming her husband home; their baby held between them. Cooing and babbling.

Her feet turned into heavy weight. Namjoo hesitated to go inside, where Jonghun was waiting alone for Jongin. He had texted her earlier. Namjoo had ended up saying she was on her way when she was still at home, so now she was really on the way.

Namjoo didn’t know if she was ready to see Jongin again. How was she supposed to greet him home? How was she supposed to look him in the eye and say it’s good to see you again?

Her nerves tingled.

Over the years she tried constantly not to think of him. Imagine that he was sad and yearning for her. They would reunite someday. Maybe she might even grab a ticket and go find him impulsively.

Scotland. Jonghun had told her. That was where he was studying.

“Want to go visit him?” Jonghun had joked once and her heart rate had spiked. That night she had tried not to cry as she slept.

Fact was always that Jongin was long gone. People change as times do. He was most likely a different person now. Did it matter if she saw him?

“Namjoo!” Jonghun stood up from where he had been sitting, waving ecstatically. The flight board was just in front of him. “How was the drive?”

“Ok,” she answered in a low voice.

“Jongin should be landing right about now.” He happily exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see him. I bet you feel the same way. I know you two were close.”

Namjoo just felt dead inside. She couldn’t smile. She couldn’t be excited. She could welcome Jongin back as a friend, Jonghun’s fiancée, or the Namjoo who had struggled to move past him.

Honestly…she didn’t want him back home at all.

It distorted everything she had built. The walls. The steadfast goals she had lain in place. To marry and live a nice life with Jonghun. Jongin doesn’t want to come home, Jonghun told her once, he extended his stay for another year; maybe because of a girl. It was a joke, but Namjoo learned that when men and women were in one picture, it was never a joke.

Like her mother constantly searching for love, but she never joked about it. Jumping from one man to the next was just a joke to her. It was a game she played quite seriously from time to time.

She decided then, it doesn’t matter anymore. Jongin could stay where he was.

She thought of the day Jongin came to find her the morning of their graduation ceremony. For a while she had really hung on to the fact that they’d never said goodbye before parting. But that day…that was Jongin’s goodbye.

How he wanted to end it with her.

There were no more ties between them.

These troubled thoughts swirled through her mind. She didn’t know. She had no idea what kind of person she could be to him in the present. Knowing this made her sad. It hurt. It shouldn’t be bothering her, but it was and it was wrong.

It wasn’t an easy journey coming to be where she was. Right beside Jonghun. She had struggled much with herself. Her feelings. Her train of thoughts. Telling herself it could be different. She still had choices.

Throughout those years no one else had been by her side. Only Jonghun stuck there like glue. Until he kissed her. Hugged her. Gave her all that she lacked. Filling the void that had grown so deep inside her.

Time could never be turned back.

Namjoo had returned to the capitol for him, because he wanted to be closer to his family. Coming back meant facing her memories. The cruel past when she was told she would never be good enough. To overcome the words that always haunted her.

Here she was, about to face another nightmare head on.

“Actually,” Namjoo spoke up, “I don’t think I can wait with you.”

“What? Why?” Jonghun turned to her.

“I just forgot, I left something at the office,” Namjoo lied. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave first.”

“Really? Alright then,” Jonghun nodded. “Call me?”

Nodding her head Namjoo backtracked and picked up her pace the second she reached the front doors. Unlocking her car, she jumped inside as her heart hammered. Clutching onto the steering wheel Namjoo mentally gave herself a pep talk.

She’d already signed her life away. Putting the rest of it into Jonghun’s hands. No cowering right now, because he was the one for her. She had made her choice when she said yes.

Namjoo didn’t drive off. She sat in her car staring at the airport entrance. Until Jonghun walked out with Jongin. Wheeling only one suitcase with him. Namjoo struggled to steal a better glimpse of Jongin. Feeling her heart pump faster with yearning, sadness, and sorrow.

One close look would have been ok. It would have satisfied her heart.

Then they disappeared from her angle of view leaving her empty and famished.

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His father was sitting alone in the kitchen when Jongin came down. The old man hadn’t remarried. Though Jongin had heard from Dami there had been plenty of women around.

“You’re awake? Are you hungry?” His father had aged. His dark hair was speckled with white. The lines around his eyes and mouth deeper. His once smooth skin looked sand papery, dried out from being outside often. He had shrunk around the edges. Slimming down dramatically. If he was ill Jongin hadn’t heard.

“I’m not,” Jongin answered pouring himself a cold glass of water. Pulling a chair out he sat down across from his father.

More than once he had imagined a moment like this. Always looking forward to when this would go down; how it would happen; what kinds of things and the exact tone he’d use to speak.

Finally an adult now he could sit face to face with his father like an equal. Was no longer a teenager who couldn’t fight for his way. Could stand up for himself. For others. At last he could do the protecting. Never once forgetting how powerless he’d felt five years ago. Having deploringly accepted reality that he had just been a child.

Now he had grown up.

Jongin could be his own person.

He had every right to decide his future.

No one person could ever stand in his way again.

On the plane that brought him farther away from Namjoo, he had promised himself he would come back for only one thing.

“I’m going to move out,” Jongin announc