[ C H A P T E R   F I V E ]

The night wasn’t exactly that painfully cold, yet there was a slight crisp chill that got to them. Sitting in one of their soul food restaurant, they took in the warmth it provided hoping to ease the rather chilly night. Maybe it was from the steaming pot, or maybe it was from the spicy rice cakes that they ate, but it would always helped them recovered from whatever was eating their moods away before.

But, it didn’t seem to work tonight. 

Her thought was still pretty much on the same topic they left unanswered the other night, and she knew he was still thinking about that as well. They both watched as the pot in front of them remained boiling on its own, their plates and chopsticks remained clean — neither agreed to meet today to just eat, they knew they both agreed to come here with another intention. 

And, they both knew for a fact that the only reason they chose to come here was to at least hope that they could take in some comfort from their soul food, but now they had a slight feeling that even spicy rice cakes can’t help them anymore. 

They were both being equally quiet as if they already had an idea of what was going to happen tonight. There were so much to say and so much to talk about, but both found themselves exchanging turn to just open and close their mouths as they failed to get anything out of their mouths. 

They said a relationship failed when something went wrong, but nothing went wrong for them and they both guessed that was why it hurts even more. They love each other, they found the comfort they were looking for in each other, but it was going nowhere. 

    “Am I the only one who felt this way?” She asked, her voice small and lost. “Am I the only one who felt like nothing is going forward?”

    Eric looked at her, but she refused to look at him in the eyes for fear that she’d cry if she looked at him right now. “Yong—”

He wanted to say something, but Eric knew at this point it was almost pointless to argue because he was the one at fault. He was never the type to cut people off straight away, not even got rid of things he received from others straight away and he knew at one point, this bad habit would led him to something like this — he has broken up with his ex, Eric could have sworn right here and then that he had never even saw her in the same way as he used to anymore ever since they broke up, but he also knew with how this situation has turned to be, Yongsun would never believed him for that.

    She smiled, it carved bitterly on her face. “It has always been her, hasn’t it? This whole entire time, I feel like you're only here with me physically.”

    “I don’t know what exactly happened, and I don’t know how exactly did she hurt you like this, but I hate that she could still had your whole attention even when after all these time.”

    “Yong, she doesn’t have my whole attention. She never has my whole attention ever since we broke up. Look, I admit she's always on my phone, all these crazy texts and stuff but you know I never replied to those.” 

    She looked at him, and as stupid as she thought the question would be, she asked anyway. “Have you ever, for at least one moment, really love me?”

    “Yes.” He looked at her. “It was never for one moment, I genuinely love you and I’m sorry things had to come this way. I never wanted our relationship to be haunted by a third party, and I know it’s my fault for not completely settling on that matters for once and for all, but I’ve never, even for a moment, considered you my second choice. It’s just—”

If it was for anything today, she was just thankful that they’re sitting in a private room where no one would be listening to their whole conversation or see her on the verge of an emotional breakdown. 

    “This has been a very hard decision, and I’ve been thinking about it almost twenty times a day, but I want us to be happy.” She looked away from him when she felt her tears threatening to fall. “And, we can’t both be happy if this matter still lingered around us like this.” 

She wanted to cry out loud, she wanted to just bawl out loud, but she didn’t want to make it even harder for both of them. She knew they both can only be happy when they no longer felt like another party was looming around in their relationship, and as cruel as it could sound, a relationship is for two and now she wasn’t sure if she felt like she was invaded, or if she invaded them. 

Perhaps they fell in love in the wrong timing.

    There was a long silence, and she held herself back from breaking down in front of him. “I guess, it’d be better for us to take a break until we no longer felt like we’re just hurting each other by being together.” 

She hates that it has to end this way when they still love each other, when there are still so many moments to share and memories to make together. She hates that once she walked out, they would never be able to see each other or hold each other in the same way anymore. This thing called destiny was mean and painful — for a moment, it made them smile and the next moment, it wrenched their hearts into pieces. 

    “Good bye.” 

Her farewell came in a small whisper, and she got up because she could no longer hold herself back from breaking down. Pulling her cap down towards her face, she left and hid by a quiet alley besides the restaurant. Her legs gave out, and Yongsun sat and cried her heart out — she no longer cared if anyone is going to see her, or if anyone is going to recognize her anymore but it was too painful for her to hold it all in anymore. 

She felt a figure next to her, and a familiar pair of arms wrapping around her shoulder. Yongsun didn’t need to look up to know it was Eric, but she lets him helped her up anyway because she was too exhausted to even argued anymore. 

    “Let me take you home.” He said, his voice was just as exhausted as she was. “Please.” 

Neither of them utter a single word the entire ride, Eric tried as much as he could to focus entirely on the road instead of on the crying woman sitting next to him. She had her back facing him, her eyes looking out into the distance of the window and she just silently cried without a word. He wanted so bad to stop the car and pulled her into a hug, but he didn’t want to hurt her even more. She needed spaces for now, and he respected her decision because he knew this was entirely his fault things have came down to this. 

When his car stopped in front of her house, Yongsun muttered a quiet thank you and left. He watched until she disappeared into her building, but he couldn’t leave. He stared at the entrance that she walked into, hoping she’d at least come back even though he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Yongsun hid behind her curtains and looked at him from her window. She watched as his car stayed where it was for a good twenty minutes. Her heart torn between forcing herself to accept the reality or running back down just so she could hold him for the last time, but she decided against it thinking it'd just make everything harder for themselves.   

    “I love you.”

They both whispered quietly. That was it, they had the good byes to their hello and both couldn’t be more devastated than this, but decision was made and they knew they had to move on respectively. It might take a few months, or perhaps even a few years, but they had to because they chose this. They were everything each other has ever wanted, they loved each other more than they both could ever respectively thought, they were each other’s right person, but unfortunately they were in the wrong timing and there was nothing they could do about it.

Yongsun threw herself on her bed and cried as loudly as she could, emptying all the pain and emotions she had been holding a few hours ago. 

Eric drove away, his foot on the accelerator and he had no idea how fast he was going or where exactly he was going, but he just wanted to drive to nowhere until the painful ache inside his chest vanished.