Warning: PG-13 for language.

Chapter 11

Onew paced about.

He had never done a confession before.  He had never even thought of doing a confession of love to someone before. 

But now, he had finally stopped trying to trick himself.  He had finally stopped trying to talk himself out of what he was feeling.  Yes, he was a celebrity, but he was human too.  He was allowed to love and express that love should he so choose.  There were no clauses in his contract that said that he couldn’t date or anything, so he was going to do it.

He was going to tell Lex what he felt.

So why did he feel so miserable?

His stomach churned about worse than it had before his debut performance.  He didn’t know how she would react, but he felt like he had to say it anyway.  He’d go crazy if he kept this in any longer.

There was a tentative knock on the door.  “Onew?”  Lex’s voice carried.

“Come in,” he croaked. 

She walked in, shutting the door quietly behind her, “Your manager said you wanted to talk to me?” She had her casual carefree smile on her face, she had no idea what was coming.

“Could you…” Onew reached out a shaking hand and pulled Lex over to the couch that lined the side of the room.  “Could you sit down, I have something I need to tell you.”

Lex furrowed her brow for a moment but took a seat.  “Are you alright Jinki?” she asked, concern flowing from her eyes as she glanced the singer up and down. 

“I’m fine…I promise, I’m fine.  I just need to tell you something.”  Onew swallowed and took a deep breath.  “You know, this is harder because you don’t like flowers or jewelry or anything…”

Confusion crept over Lex’s face.  “Jinki…what?”

For some reason the fact that she was calling him Jinki gave him heart.  At least she didn’t see him solely as Onew.  At least some of the sense of close companionship and camaraderie that he felt from her wasn’t solely a production for the show.

“Lex, I like you.”  He blurted out, hand’s clenched together behind his back as he physically braced for her response.

“I like you too Jinki,” Lex responded, and his heart skipped.  But the way that it was said, told Jinki that she didn’t mean it the way he did.  She had missed the context. 

“No Lex, like, romantically…” Onew squeezed his eyes shut and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

An eerie silence crept into the room. 

He peeked open one eye and saw that Lex was staring down at her lap, unmoving. 

He knew he should let her process, but the silence was killing him.  “I have for a while…I think about you all the time, I want to call you all the time.  That day we took the wedding photos?  I’ve had dreams of you in that dress ever since…getting married…to me…”

Lex had glanced up and Onew was surprised by what he saw.  He didn’t see the return of his feelings, nor did he see condemnation of them by the literal girl of his dreams – he saw fear. 

She was afraid, and he didn’t know why.

His mind was telling him to shut up, to just stop and say that it was a dare from the guys, try and save some face.  His mind was telling him to shut up, but his mouth wouldn’t listen. 

“I never thought that I would want this, something like this, but as we’ve grown closer I’ve started to think that…”

Fear turned to terror and Lex’s face contorted a bit as she physically shrank in on herself.  

She interrupted him, “No.  It’s all in your head.” She shook her head at him, one arm raised between them almost as a barrier, with a scared look on her face.  “You’re letting the show get to your head.  We’re not married Jinki!  We’re not even dating!  It’s all fake!”

“But it doesn’t have to be.” Onew implored, taking a step closer to the girl that he had grown to adore over the past few months of filming.

“But it is!” Lex stomped her foot before jumping up off of the couch, maintaining the chasm between her and Onew. 

Onew felt his heart wrenching once again in his chest.  “Why are you being like this?”

“Because I don’t want this!”  Lex shouted, hands thrown in the air and a couple of frustrated tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. 

Her breathing shook as she fell into the puffy oversized arm chair that was the only thing left between her and the wall, burying her face in her knees. 

“I can’t do this…I just…I can’t…”

Onew dragged a chair over and sat down across from her, a sad look in his eyes.  This was more than her not liking him.  This was something else, a fear of relationships that had absolutely nothing to do with Onew.

He knew that she had dated in the past.  And he knew that past wasn’t necessarily a happy one, but what could result in this response?  “What did he do to you?”  He raised his hand, as though to touch her shoulder to comfort her, but retracted it quickly after better thought.  She wouldn’t want him to touch her right now.   

She rolled her head back, staring up at the ceiling, her lower lip trembling.  “I loved him.  I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone.  I thought he loved me.”  She let out a humorless laugh, “And some sick part of me still does love him I think, at least a little.”

Onew wanted to say something, but he couldn’t move.  He knew that she had a rough break up in her past, something he had only gleaned from overheard conversations between stylists and other actors and people she had worked with, but never from Lex herself.  He could never get her to say anything about it the few times he had tried to bring the subject up.  She had always steered it around to something else rather than have to reveal her own past.  If she was willing to talk about it now, he wasn’t going to stop her.

“I was going to marry him.” 

Onew stopped up short, his heart skipping a few beats in his chest.  The way she had said it – it didn’t seem like she was saying that she had imagined it and hoped that it would one day happen.

“We were engaged.  We had planned the wedding.”  She shook her head and Onew saw her eyes for a moment, they were hollow, lost in a memory.  “I even had the dress…” she smirked, “Actually, I still have the dress.  How twisted is that?”  He didn’t think she was talking to him anymore.  It was all just spilling out. 

She hugged her knees and it killed Onew to see her hurting. 

“And then one day I came home early.  By the grace of God we actually finished filming early and I was able to head home and make myself a real dinner, not order something in or microwave something up real quick.”

She sighed, “I knew he was in the apartment as soon as I got in, because his coat was hanging on the peg by the door.  He had the code to my apartment and sometimes he would come over to cook because I had an oven and his apartment didn’t.” She smiled in a way that might have been considered wistful if her voice wasn’t filled with sorrow, “Sometimes he had planned a surprise for me.  But this time…”

She paused, seemingly unable to get the words to come out.  worked but no words came.

“This time…he was using my apartment…to entertain another girl…’cause my place was nicer than his.”

Onew had to ask, “Was he…?” but how did he ask?  How to you ask someone if their fiancé was sleeping around behind their back?  Especially when they are already in so much pain... 

She snorted; “Was he what?” her voice was harsh, “Was he ing around on me?”  Her words were coming faster and rising in pitch.  She didn’t usually swear, but she was dropping a dozy now.

Her eyes, usually so warm and full of laughter just waiting to spill forth, were instead as sharp as knives as she stared at a vision that Onew couldn’t see. 

“Yes.  The bastard was screwing another woman.  In my apartment.  In my bed, the son-of-a-.”

Onew stared.  How could he have known?  She wouldn’t talk about it.  But then again, that was the kind of person that she was.  Just like him, she didn’t want to dump her troubles on anyone else; she wouldn’t want to add to another’s burden.  Instead she takes on the burdens of others and tries to help them, and all the while she is suffering this burning pain deep inside, that is festering more and more as she tries to hide it. 

Her voice became small, almost childlike, “It was only a month before we were supposed to get married…”

She began to cry in earnest.  Onew wondered if she had ever really let herself do it before.  It would be just like her to push her own pain aside and keep going on with her work.  He bet she didn’t even call off a day sick just to come to terms with the awful turn her life had suddenly taken.  He stood and squeezed himself into the gap between Lex and the arm of the seat, pressing him tightly against her, intimate but not ual.  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to himself, tucking her head into his neck, grateful when her hands came up and curled into his clothing, pulling him impossibly close, because it meant that she wasn’t pushing him away again.

Onew alternatively patted her head and rubbed circles on her back.  He didn’t know what else to do.  Crying women baffled him, just like they do men around the globe.  But he had to try, and so he stayed there, even though the arm of the chair was digging uncomfortably into his ribs.  He stayed there, even though these clothes were sponsored and she was getting make up all over them and he was going to have to pay the company that had loaned them to him.  He stayed there and held her and let her cry out her grief.

“How could he?”  She whimpered after some time.  “I loved him, he said he loved me…how could he…?”

“Because he was a bastard,” Onew said harshly.  If Onew ever saw him he thought that he would go postal.  Even if he didn’t like Lex the way he did, to see someone who is always doing everything to help others, who just wants to make the people around her smile, in such pain because of one ignorant and stupid prick of a man, it made him want to wring the other man’s neck. 

“Come on,” he said gently once her tears had quieted.  “Let’s get you home.” 

He pulled her up and met little resistance. 

“Sorry ‘bout your clothes…” her voice thick, almost like she had a cold.  She gestured vaguely towards the mascara marks that were smeared across his collar. 

Onew shook his head, grabbing Lex’s jacket and draping it over her shoulders.  “It doesn’t matter.  Now come on.”

He took her hand in his own, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders and tucking her into his side, he led her from the room.

She mindlessly followed along, letting Onew take care of her for once.