When Niel walks out of his apartment Jonghyun does nothing to stop him. There are times when he knows that intervening is the thing to do, and times when he knows that Niel has to work through whatever it is he needs to work through on his own. 
If it was anyone else other than Niel he knows that he wouldn’t have the patience needed to deal with all the ups & downs, the ons & offs, and the rounds & rounds of this relationship. But he thinks that he has known for a while that despite everything that has happened between them & their career that Niel is the one. Smiling a wry smile he wonders if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but he has no regrets about it. 
He knows that this will not be the last time he gets to be with Niel. He just has to be patient. 
—
In the meantime, Jonghyun lives his life. As if there was anything else he could do. He livestreams for his fans, embarks on projects, enjoys being with his family, and slowly prepares for enlistment. Even if they’re on the rocks relationship-wise Jonghyun is sure that they will be enlisting at the same time. 
It isn’t something that they have talked about implicitly lately but it was something that they were sure would be their life path when they got older and the due date for their service reared its patriotic head. 
That is why when he inadvertently learned that Niel wanted to enlist at an earlier date he was surprised. That definitely wasn’t something that Niel had talked about with him at any time in regards to wanting to go in for his service without him. 
He understands what people say about love needing to be hard but after being in love with one person for so long he really doesn’t know a way that it could be truly easy. He doesn’t enjoy it especially in moments like this when there’s a chance he could have missed the chance to enlist with his “friend” (at the moment and nothing more) and would have to serve on his own. 
Reaching out hadn’t really gotten him a satisfactory answer as to why he had to find out the way he did, but at this time they were more on friendly terms than anything deeper. 
At one point, he wondered if they should go on another trip with less “guests” invited than the trip they had taken before. Taking time to just focus on who they were as two people together & apart usually helped to smooth over any rough parts that came up when they were so used to being separate. 
As intense and exhausting as being an active idol was he preferred it to the laissez-faire lifestyle he was living now. Even though it would be very different given the global situation he would have enjoyed it just as much as he did during their 10th anniversary comeback. He was able to be with Niel & s, and put out new music. He missed it all.