I was breathing hard, like I’ve ran a hundred miles when all I did was just to stand here, staring at the door she left.

It’s becoming so hard, harder for me to take all this.

I’ve never fallen in love. I refuse to.

The idea of girls liking me is all too pleasing for me, but that’s just that-- them liking me, not me liking them.

Jinhan liking me-- no, loving me is much to my dismay was the most pleasing of all and I never thought I’d feel this happy in my entire life.

I stared at the walls surrounding me, feeling like their compressing me, trapping me.

I wanted to cry, but I can’t. It’s hard, very hard.

Everything is so hard for me to take, and I keep ignoring this tight feeling in my chest.

Everything is so painful, from what I’m feeling and seeing her cry out all her tears just because she loves me.

I tried to ignore it at first, thinking it’s just like the others- but now I can’t. It’s different.

I can’t cry. Crying is not even enough for all these.

I thought real men don’t cry, my father taught me so.

But I’ve seen a lot of people cry from the different rundowns in their lives, and that included men.

Real men don’t cry, those words from my father were all marked in brain that from that day he told me that I've tried not to cry. I stood those words from him, he told me not to cry to whatever it takes.

I've been blinded by the saying of real men don’t cry, I was still a kid who would cry out loud when another kid would steal my candy, my toy car, my ball, my car toys, and whenever I would trip down the floor and will have my knees scared- and I believed what elders would always tell us kids, being a kid I was, I would always do anything that would make me proud and brave, and that is not to cry-- it was my father who told me so and until now, I don’t even know but I’m still having a tight hold on that belief.

“Crying is weakness,” my father told me. Crying is showing your weakness and so, “you must not show anyone your weakness.”

“Showing them your weakness would gain them their vantages towards you, and that would be the end of it.” My father has told me, I admire my father so much and yes I’ve never seen him cry and with that I had him as my role model.

He never showed me his weakness, or to anyone that I even thought if ever father does have a weakness. I’ve never seen him worried either, and I also doubt if he ever gets- my mother got sick yet he showed me nothing but to keep on thinking positive. It was stupid of me to even think if father stopped loving mother, and started acting as if he doesn’t care but there were times I’d see him with mother, just staying with her as my mother sleep. He’s always with mother. Since mother got sick, I couldn’t stay with her as much as I want- father didn’t allow me. But I kept my eyes on them, when father knows I’m not around the stressed face would always be drawn back on his face, and when with me. . .it was nothing but being calm. Father has showed me what a man should be, keeping up his word he told me of being the real man.

I thought he really is the real man, but not until that one day happened. And after that day, I believe there wasn’t a day where he wasn’t not crying.

It was my father, who told me not to cry-- yet he’s that only man I’ve seen in my entire life who has cried a lot, and a lot isn’t even enough to set the amount of it.

My mother died, I cried. I cried out, bawling my tears out. But it didn’t even match to my father.

The feeling of losing my mother was too bad, too bad that it’s hard to believe she’s already gone but I’ve accepted it, my father told me to accept it. Yet again it was my father who couldn’t accept it.

Since my mother passed away, I’ve lived with a stranger in the house. My father has never been the same. I could’ve taken it if he’s being all in work, all too strict on me, all too everything but not the way he is being at.

Every day, father is being mad but not with anger, but with grief.

Every day, father is being crazy but not insanity, but sorrow.

Every day I would see him cry, kneeling beside their bed, hugging the bed like my mother is still there lying.

Every day, I would see him staring blankly in the sky tears running down in his cheeks.

Every day, I would hear him sobbing while doing paper works on his office.

Every day, it was a painful sight for me to even bear.

And that one day when I couldn’t even take it, I asked my father why is he crying. . .and I regretted asking it.

He squatted in front of me, crouching down my height, guarding my shoulders to be brave. Father stared at me in the eyes, and I know tears are at the back of his eyes are warning to spill he told me. . .

“I love your mother so much; I don’t think I could take it that she’s now gone.”

And he hugged me so tight, crying in front of me. Crying out so much that my clothes drenched just after seconds.

Crying because of too much love, of too much loving.

With that leaving my mind that, loving someone too much could cause pain, too much pain for even a real man could endure. . .couldn’t take.

The idea of pain scared me too much, it would always remind me of my father’s horrendous state and I never wanted it to happen again.

But with Jinhan. . .my feelings are getting more certain, getting clearer, getting so sure and it’s hard to deceive.

The fact that she lied to me didn’t even help my feelings to waver, but wanted me to know her more. Her reasons why, her explanations, even if those take a day for her to tell me, I’d listen.

I’m falling, falling when I thought I’d never fall.

It was an attraction getting more emotional, and I hated it.

I kept myself in the kind of attraction that deals with physical bond. I thought everything was about physical. Love could be physical; , touching, kissing, everything physical. It was never eating together, talking together, laughing together, not cursing with each other, staring at the sky together, driving together and that treasured silence with each other. I never thought love could be gained from those simple stupid things together with her. I was wrong.

Everything about her has been emotional, that attraction I’ve been keeping myself away of.

I tried ignoring, denying all these intense feeling but it hurts so much.

I’m falling, I know. I’m not gonna deny it to myself, but I’m falling harder.

It never happened before. If I find myself falling in love, I’d push that person away, and I have never pushed anyone away. Just now, and I never thought it’s this hard.

If she’s in pain, I’m feeling more pain.

If she’s hurt, I am more hurt.

I feel everything she feels right now more than how she feels it, it’s a hundred times worse-- and I’d rather take it, than her.

It’s not that I don’t want to feel the pain, like I’m going to lose her if I take the risk and tell her I love her too. It’s not.

If only the situation is that easy, I could take that kind of pain in the future if it’s with her, but the situation is not.

It’s the image of her feeling the same pain my father has gone through that scares me.

Every day, she is being mad but not with anger, but with grief.

Every day, she is being crazy but not insanity, but sorrow.

Every day, she would cry, kneeling beside our bed, hugging the bed like I’m there still lying.

Every day, I would see her staring blankly in the sky tears running down in her cheeks.

Every day, I would hear her sobbing while doing paper works on her office.

Every day, it was a painful sight to even bear.

And when asked why, the same reason my father gave me would do her explaining.

I don’t want her feeling that kind of pain. That kind of pain that could kill me seeing her in that kind of grief, I know she loves me so much that the day I’ll die, history will repeat on her.

And I can’t take that, her in too much pain because she lost me. And she’s gonna lose me whether she like it or not.

I don’t want to hurt her, Yixing knows. He warned me, and I didn’t take it seriously. And I don’t know what the hell Yifan and Myungsoo knows, I’m sure they know nothing but there they are warning me, and it was my father to warn me last. The man who felt the pain, which he knows I wouldn’t like Jinhan to feel what he’s been through. He knows it so much, and he didn’t want it to happen, not on her when father knows my feelings on her. My father knows me so much, that it's no use of denying it on him- Yixing does too.

If I take the risk, and run after her and tell her I love her-- I don’t know how long we could be together, and I’m sure not going to miss every single second of it. The short happiness it could give the both of us will be paid off with her crying out all her tears for me. I’m not taking the risk.

The moment I realized I loved her, I was too excited that I started planning for the impossible future I’d have. I had my futures planned if the situation would please me, everything with her- it’s all planned in my head.

Marrying her.

Having kids with her.

Family with her.

Dying together with her.

That Happily Ever After ending with her.

Everything with her.

But the doctor, not just one but almost a hundred of doctors have told me the same fcuking sentence. . . “You’re lucky if you even reach the age thirty.”

I thought it was still a long way to go, but now I think it’s too short-- too short for me to even breathe.

“But let’s not give up,” the doctor smiled. “Let’s keep our hopes up, I know you’ll make it pass thirty,” the doctor encouraged me and my father. “But after thirty, it’s impossible to even reach forty.”

It was this con heart disease I got from my mother. . . I refused acknowledging.

I’m going to die, if not now. . .later, maybe tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, sooner, no one knows, but I’ll die.

And I can’t risk her feeling the pain, that too much pain from loosing me.