He’s back at Dara’s house. He can’t help it. The sort of loneliness that swallows him again and again each time he shuts his eyes makes him squirm.

He couldn’t bear being alone without her.

Song beats pound in his ears, but they are the beats to her favorite songs.

Designs litter his desk, but they are the designs the two of them have designed before.

Even the clothes he was wearing are the clothes that she loved.

 I’m sorry but I love you.

He sits blankly on Dara’s seat, his hands tapping gently against the table where she always sits. He was waiting.

His eyes catch on the unique liquid paperweight on her desk then, clamping down a stack of paper. His hands reach for the paperweight, but knock the papers askew in that moment.

He sees the card on the table.

Wedding Planner.

 He lifts the card up to the light, his eyes widening slightly as he comprehends the meaning. .

The door opens then, and Dara steps in. She sees the card in his hands and her hands shake, tremble as he turns questioningly to her. The file she was cradling drops on the floor then, and the presentation, planning slides drop on the floor, scattering and fanning out.

Wedding Invitation.

**********************************************************************************

He swipes off his sunglasses—Chae doesn’t like it when he wears sunglasses, it reminds her too much of HIM.

He chuckles then, a bitter chuckle. It doesn’t seem to stop her from wearing her shades though, and he knows why.

She can’t forget him. No matter what happened… she won’t.

He was her best friend… and he still is.

He knocks on the door, reading from his phone. He checks the address, straightens his collar as he waits for the door to be opened.

*click*

The door opens and he smiles. The woman he was waiting for blinks her eyes blearily, and he stifled a laugh. She must be having an afternoon nap.  

“Tabi?”

He smirked. He was only going to be here for a day or two for a press conference, but that wasn’t going to stop him from crashing into his friend’s house.

**********************************************************************************

He never drove this fast before; speeding past the streets that were so familiar, every twist and turn of the road. His mother and Dara’s words are spinning like lightning in his brain, repeating like an echo in his mind.

He was getting married, and he doesn’t even know it.

“All the invitations are already sent out,” Dara whimpered, fingers digging in his skin.

“Nothing has been left undone, Jiyong. The wedding invitations are sent, the wedding planner hired… I figured you needed a little push. You do like Dara, don’t you, and she likes you, so why don’t the two of you get settled?”

He had forgotten how his mother had a knack for getting things her way, by hook or by crook.

 “Like isn’t everything you need to get married Mom! I like Dara, but I love someone else!”

He storms out and leaves, ignoring Dara who sat down in shock, her hands releasing his. The tears that stream down, the fragility that he thought he once loved, suddenly didn’t mean a thing.

His mother calls after him to come back, but he doesn’t.

He understands what love is now. The precious, beautiful emotion that causes passionate, burning pain.

He reaches the house, and his gaze was drawn downwards to the single pair of man’s shoes resting outside the door.

“All the invitations are already sent out,” Words that haunt him.

He hesitates, clenching his fist, before ringing the doorbell.

**********************************************************************************

The doorbell rings, and she steps away from the living room to answer the door. She forgets about checking the eyehole, and regrets it immediately.

“Jingyo.” She says, paling, and T.O.P’s head spins straight to the door, catching the gaze of Jiyong, who grits his teeth, his fists at his side as he tears his eyes away to flit from Chaerin to T.O.P. 

“Hunchae.” He manages the bitterest smile she had ever seen, the kind of smile that doesn’t light up his eyes with the sparkle she loved but dimmed them with the dullest emptiness.

Silence chokes them, two looking at each other, their other half, so close, yet so far, avoiding each other’s eyes.

They long for each other, long to throw themselves into each other’s arms, but they don’t.

She thinks of memories, and he thinks of memories… but different memories.

She remembers how he locked hands with Dara, he remembers the closeness they used to have, laughing in the office.

She remembers the wedding invitation, he remembers the words she says in the phone to another before entering the house.

Love so innocent and pure marred by misconceptions that pain.

“I…” Both start at the same time, and both trail off at the same time.

“Congratulations.” She speaks first, the word stilted and foreign. Void of emotion, tired, and lost.

Tired of fighting.

“No… It’s not going to—“ She doesn’t want to hear him explain. She wants silence, she wants it to stop.

She wants her heart to stop beating.

“Really Jingyo Oppa… I’m really happy for you, when are you going to invite out to celebrate? I haven’t seen this bride of yours, and I’m your best friend! How sad is that!” She tries to change the topic, but her voice cracks a little, and she bits her lips.

“Really… sad, best friend.” He whispered. Did she give up on him so easily?

She was a little shocked at his voice, so defeated.

He raises his head and meets her gaze, unwillingly. The questions, words, and answers are passed in that moment, and neither looks away. Regrets, Wishes, Hurt. Heartbreaking pain.

Love.

“Congrats Hunchae. Your first boyfriend.”

“ Thanks… Jiyong… Oppa. You too. For finding the one.”

That isn’t me. The words that both thought were never spoken out.

Silence still.

She gestures to T.O.P. who was listening in to their conversation while sitting on her couch, where he had been the only one there before.

He nods once, cracking into a weak smile. She gets ready to shut the door, but was pulled into a brief hug. They almost collapse then, she almost snuggling in and he threatening to break out in tears.

Warmth. Bitter-sweet warmth.

He withdraws and then nothing.

 The door shuts.

He leans against the wall and whispers I love you.

She’s collapsed against the wall, crying with heart-wrenching sobs that got T.O.P. on his feet and gathering her in an embrace.

They both think they don’t feel the pain each other feel. The truth is just that cruel.

Best. Friends.

**********************************************************************************

The pristine whiteness of the hospital walls scares her. Everywhere she sees, it is white, pale white that claw at her. It seemed such a drab place, she muses, as she walks towards the hospital’s reception desk. She looks unbelievably calm on the outside, her coffee cup dangling loosely in her grasp, but inside, her heart was palpating horribly, twisting in horror and shock.

“How may I help you?” the perfected smile the receptionist gave her very much mirrored her own brittle smile as she played with her fingers, picking at her nail polish very unprofessionally.

Yes, you can help me; I need an aspirin, someone to wake me up from this nightmarish dream, and my best friend beside me right now.

Her eyebrow quirked up at that thought, she almost imagined Jiyong beside her, his weight leant casually against the polished marble of the desk, one of his hand entangled in hers, squeezing her hand gently, comforting her. Hurriedly, she shoved the thought aside, she knew she could have gotten Jiyong to go with her, but somehow, her finger couldn’t press that call button.

Deep inside her, she knew, seeing him would just make her break down in tears right into his embrace—and she couldn’t bear that right now, not the physical connection, not the emotional attachment.

“Yes, may I know which room number is Mrs Lee Jaekyung staying in? She suffers from lung cancer. I am her daughter.”

Daughter? She’s got no daughter… I have no mother. So why am I here now?

The receptionist replied with a brisk nod, before clicking around on her computer as she taps her fingers gently against the marbled desk, each second tick of the clock sounding like poison in her ears.

“Room 452, it’s on the 4^th floor. The lift is on your right. Anything else, Miss?” Her heartbeat ceased to sound; in fact, it didn’t feel like it was beating at all.

“No, thank you.” She picks up her coffee cup and heads for the lift, barely hearing the standard “Have a nice day” being mumbled after her.

She drops the coffee cup in the dustbin, still half-full. She suddenly didn’t feel like drinking coffee anymore.

Who would?

She was meeting the person who abandoned her so long ago for another man, her mother.

**********************************************************************************

A guy, a well-known researcher  hacker  blinked, his eyes feeling the strain from staring at a computer for too long. Really, Mr T.O.P. had just so many scandals, even with his skills; it was difficult to sieve out the correct information.

He sighed, cracking his knuckles as he skimmed past information, finally tuning in into a more reliable source. Briefly skimming through info, his eyes widened and his mouth opened in a gasp, making him look like a gob smacked fish.

He rapidly clicked on new information, drinking in each word, before standing abruptly from his chair. The chair pushed back and hit the wall with a thud, as he grabbed his phone.  Punching in a number, he raised it to his ear, speaking briskly, “Yo, Jiyong. I’ve got your info. He does have a girlfriend,”

“Who?”

“Park Bom.”

The line went dead suddenly.

**********************************************************************************

Words, cruel bitter words sting at her eyes, stabbing at her heart.

She stumbles home and throws herself on the bed, a twisted portrait of despair and wretchedness.  

She clutches her hand in her hands as she tries to crush every single vivid memory of what happened less than an hour ago, but she can’t. She sees everything in her mind eye, how her mother manages to break every single last bit of her with scathing words that hit bull’s eye each time.

It was meant to be a civil meeting. It was all she would give her mother. Her last kin, after her father dies of heart disease.

The kin that abandoned her. The one that hated her.

She’s awake on bed, her blood red nails sharp against the white blanket. Her face, clean of the make-up she loves to cake on, still retains the flat, cruel beauty that’s she remembers so well.

“I see your living well.” Drawled words, in that raspy, dripped in honey like voice.

“I am.” She manages to sound relatively calm.

“No more mother, my darling daughter? I thought you loved me.”

A brief tightening of jaw, no response to her claim.

“I see that I got it wrong. You still love me, how pathetic. Don’t worry, I’d never love you back, daughter. You are not deserving of love.”

“You’re my mother. I…” She doesn’t have the courage to spit back into the face of her mother.

She was still her mother.

“No-one ever said that I had to love the I gave birth to. When you were born, I gained nothing. Nothing. You’re worthless you know. He wanted a guy, he always wanted a guy.”

She knew that of course. How her father had wanted a guy, and how her mother had never loved her, her parents have never loved her.

“Mother… I just-“she was trembling now, her words escaping in little whispers of despair, hurt. But her mother cut her off, her eyes crazed and with the overwhelming desire to hurt the little girl in front of her, the one that weighed her down.

“You want to know why I left you, dear Chaerinnie? It was because you were not loveable. You aren’t pretty enough, you aren’t skinny enough, and you aren’t smart enough. You aren’t adorable; you didn’t have even a bit of you that made you likeable. You were crap at the back of my shoes, and if I don’t leave you’ll weigh me down. I don’t want to be weighed down by such a useless weight. If you were pretty I could use you, if you were skinny you might have been a model. But no, you were nothing.”

“So don’t blame Umma here for leaving you, it is your fault for not being loveable. Your ing fault. You brought your family down, you know that right?”

She begins to shake her head violently, her eyes filling with tears. Worthless tears. “Jingyo…” opens and gasps, she wishes he was here. She longs to feel his comforting hands comforting her; she longs to be in his arms.

She longs for love.

Her mother let out a laugh, a bark that sounds so evil. “Even your Jingyo doesn’t love you, Rinnie? You know you never deserve love because no-one gives you love! Your father doesn’t love you, I don’t love you, your friends don’t love you, your “Jingyo” doesn’t love you. Poor, pitiful wench…”

She spins on her heels to leave. She was already crying, so hard, she was shaking.

No-one really loved her in the end.

Before she could step out of the room, her mother goes in for the killing blow. “You just need to give me my funeral money and get the hell out of my life. Not that there is much of it left but get the out of it, I don’t even want you in it for the few months left, the poor little girl that no-one loves, Lee Chaerin.”

She breaks.

**********************************************************************************

A sob breaks out, a heart-breaking sob that breaks everyone.

Does hopelessness feel like this?

Her fingers find her bag, delve in and find the hard backing of her phone. It grips it tight like her lifeline and calls speed-dial 1.

Kwon Jiyong.

Before it connects, she disconnects the call.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t love me as well.

Her fingers touch the silver crinkle of aluminum, counting each and every single medicated pill.

 “You just need to give me my funeral money and get the hell out of my life, the poor little girl that no-one loves, Lee Chaerin.”

She tilts the sleeping pills in her hand. She just needs one swallow.

Guess love’s the downfall of all man.

**********************************************************************************

A/N: Last few chapters, dear readers. I missed a lot of your comments recently, and well… take these last few chapters, and comment and subscribe loads and loads!  (I shall spare you guys the longgggg author’s note today and wait till the last chapter… XD) In this chapter, I wanted to show, no matter how unrealistic, that love is painful and that all the love is painful (yes, 1234567891’s comment! :D). CL has suffered tremendously in the affairs of the heart, and I’m really hoping Jiyong will manage to save her from herself.

Whoever that said Love is cruel didn’t have half of it correct. Love kills. :P

Haha. I had a longer author’s note in mind, but I shall save it all for the last chapter. :D Y

Please subscribe and comment… due to lack of comments that’s why this chapter came so late XD Just joking~ not. *puppy eyes* Thank you. :)