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     “We should break up.”

     The words slipped casually from my lips as I took a sip of my cup of coffee, my fingers hugging the mug casually as my eyes slipped slightly shut. The world of caramel cappuccino flooded my tongue and for a split second I had forgotten what I’d just said.

     That is...until I’d heard the clatter of a mirror breaking over the table.

     “What?” his voice was slow and uncertain.

     I opened my eyes slowly and let out a soft sigh as they followed the mug I was placing so calmly onto the table. Once there, I looked up to find widened eyes, parted lips, and an overall shocked demeanor surrounding him. Well, that along with pieces of what used to be his personal mirror littering the table and floor.

     “Your mirror,” I began softly as I stood up, “It’s broken.”

     I immediately walked to the counter and grabbed a paper towel, but just as I’d stood beside him and began gathering the reflective shards onto the napkin, he grabbed a hold of my hand and stopped me.

     “What did you say?” this time, as I looked into his eyes, I could see hints of what I recognized as panic blooming deep inside of him.

     I instantly felt guilty.

     The only other time I’d ever seen him look so upset was in his trainee days when he had begun to doubt his own skill. It was back when he had failed so late into his audition period, when his dreams had seemed so close before being pulled away like a rug from under his feet, when he ended up leaving his old company on a whim thanks to a friend’s suggestions and going to a completely new and different place where he had to start all over again from scratch, when he thought he hadn’t worked hard enough or suffered enough or simply wasn’t good enough to debut.

     In those days I had hugged, kissed, and cuddled with him on the couch in the next room, softly rocking him back and forth while whispering words of encouragement and urging him to continue.

     “Don’t worry, you’re Jjang so you’ll definitely debut,” I had said, watching him smile at my corny play on words. “Just hold on a little more. Hold out for a little longer.”

     But who would be the one to comfort and encourage him after I was gone? 

     “Don’t worry about that right now,” I airily brushed away my thoughts and feelings, pulling my hand away as I collected more and more shards as I spoke. “First we have to clean this up before someone gets hurt.”

     “How can I not worry?” he began as he ruffled his hair in alarm, the strands twisting and turning at odd angles between his fingers. “Can’t you see that it’s already too late for that?”

     Ignoring him, I dumped the collected shards into a trash can before moving back to collect more and, out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he grew even more frustrated with my feigned disinterest.

     “Yah!” he yelled, trying to gain my undivided attention. “Kang Siyeon, listen to me!”

     I picked up a few more shards and stood up to dump them in the trash before suddenly finding myself spun around completely, the back of my hips pressed into the table as he held both my wrists in place in the air and stared me directly in the eyes. His moment of frustration made his hair look worse than I’d previously anticipated but what really surprised me was the amount of fear that coated his features.

     “Before I dropped my mirror and while you were drinking your coffee,” he now began in a much calmer voice. “What did you say just then?”

     I stayed silent, too mesmerized by the raw emotion swirling amidst the dark pools of his eyes to find the words I was too stunned to speak. He took my silence as a cue to continue.

     “You tell me not to worry, but how can I not?” he asked, his voice sounding more and more fragile as he continued. “If what you said is what I think you said then it’s already too late for that, so please stop using this as a distraction and tell me honestly what you mean.”

     He looked truly and utterly scared and I could see my own look of genuine sadness and guilt being reflected in his eyes. As I opened my mouth to speak, my right hand unconsciously clenched and a searing pain ran through my arm.

     I gasped as my hand instantly unclenched to reveal a moderate-sized slash adorning the center of my palm, a rather large shard of mirror instantly hitting the kitchen floor. Blood streamed out of it in beads before forming full-fledged chains and I found myself hyper-ventilating to keep from crying out in pain.

     His hands instantly left me as he spoke hurriedly, words I was too numb from pain to process, and rushed to the bathroom. I slowly sank down to the floor, too shocked by the sudden pain and blood loss to channel any type of rational thought.

     He came back with the first aid kit as I was caressing the injured hand with the uninjured one and clenching my fist closed, trying feebly to stop the blood flow on my own.

     “Yeon-ah,” he cooed the shorter, cuter version of my name he usually used as a persuasion tactic in an attempt to calm me down as he helped me up from the floor by my forearms, pulling out a chair for me before forcing me to take a seat.

     “It hurts,” I gasped as fat tears rolled down my cheeks, my voice lowering to a pained whisper. “I-it really hurts.”

     “I know, I know,” he whispered as he pulled out a chair next to me and sat down, immediately opening the kit and laying out everything he needed on the table before softly pulling the clenched right hand from me.

     Instinctively I resisted until hearing his next word.

     “Yeobo,” and every muscle in my body seemed to shut down. “How am I supposed to make it better if you keep pulling away?”

     I looked into his eyes and he spoke again.

     “Give me your hand.”

     Hesitantly, I allowed him to pull my wrist toward him and slowly unclenched my fist, focusing more on his knitted brows and nimble fingers than the blood he cleaned from the creases of my hand or the antiseptic he wiped onto my wound. He looked so concerned and concentrated that I barely realized when he had finished bandaging up the wound.

     “There,” he spoke more to himself than to me as he lightly ran his finger over the securely fastened cloth. “Does it still hurt now?”

     His eyes darted upward, searching for my own when I looked away, my eyes now focusing on the red cross adorning the now closed first aid kit.

     “No,” I answered softly, sniffling once before wiping at the tear stains I knew would be lining the areas underneath my eyes. No matter how many times I’d cried in front of him in the past, I still felt ashamed.

     Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a slow smile spread across his face and froze as the warmth of his fingertips brushed against the hills of my cheeks, creating a mass movement of color everywhere he touched. Even now he still found ways to make me blush.

     “Good,” his voice had lowered to a soft murmur and, without looking, I felt him sliding closer.

     Soon the same fingertips that had slid against my cheeks were now pushing my wavy hair behind my ears, moving to lift and tilt my chin at an all-too-familiar angle. On the outside I tried to play cool, calm, and indifferent, but on the inside I was frantic.

     He was going to kiss me and, as much as I loved it when he did, I knew I couldn’t let him. Not this time. Not unless I wanted to pretend that I had never said the three words I had started this conversation with.

     He leaned in, his eyes calm and slowly shrinking as the space between his lids and our lips grew smaller, and I froze as my mind fought with my heart.

     ‘One last kiss wouldn’t hurt anyone,’ my heart tried, becoming increasingly insistent as he came closer. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad.’

     ‘True, it wouldn’t be so bad or hurt anyone...’ my mind feigned agreement before claiming a decisive victory. ‘...well, no one except for him.’

     It was this last thought that made me turn away at the last moment, forcing his lips to meet my cheek and his eyes to snap open. I couldn't hurt him, not anymore than I would already. He pulled away slowly with a confused expression on his face before I stood up and finished cleaning the floor, pretending as though that tiny bit of rejection had never happened. When the last piece of broken mirror had been disposed of and I glanced once more at the floor with assessing eyes to be sure that the mess was fully taken care of, I found my eyes meeting his and had to stop myself from shivering at their intensity.

     He sat in the exact same chair against the table studying my every move for the past few minutes with a hurt and almost angry expression on his face while thinking intensely about something and waiting patiently for me to take notice of him. Now that I had, he stood and moved to speak, but I took the coward’s way out.

     I turned away and left the room.

     Walking to the living room coffee table, I gathered my backpack and camera bag, deliberately checking both to make sure all of my necessities were in each before glancing at the man who stood a couple yards away from me with mixed emotions marring his features.

     “Hyunseung-ah,” I finally said his name as I stood upright and faced him head-on for the first time that morning, book bag discarded on the couch and camera strap held limply in one of my hands. “Let’s break up.”

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Thanks for your time and I hope you enjoyed it.

Stay Safe,

[ - ] DoMeSi