don't go.

It was wordless as Miyoon and Myungsoo sat there in front of the enflamed wood. All that occupied Miyoon’s mind was Hoya. She could tell he wasn’t happy about her decision in speaking with Myungsoo privately but she had to do it. He needed closure and she was willing to provide it to him.

Hoya would simply have to trust in her like he had been doing from day one.

“You two looked pretty cozy,” Myungsoo pointed out, spitefully. His tone was harsh and filled with disgust. Yet he was grimacing as he watched the fire flicker before his eyes. The heat it was giving off was burning hot just like the anger swelling up inside his being.

He hadn’t meant to come off so rude but once he saw Hoya and Miyoon holding hands he lost it.

Miyoon swallowed, not sure at what she would say. For a moment, she thought she had her reply but quickly lost it as she heard him laugh dryly and almost regretfully. It was an odd gesture, causing her to turn her gaze to him. His head was tilted up to the sky and she could do nothing but stare at him with confusion written all over her face.

“The person you fell for is him, isn’t it?” Myungsoo looked at her, a smile formed by his lips. However, as she locked eyes with him, she could tell that the answer he wanted to hear was no. That the man she had fallen head over heels for these last few months was not Lee Howon. And the smile currently dressed on his face was a synthetic and insincere product.

But because Miyoon could not supply him with the answer he yearned to hear, she stayed mute.

She returned her eyes to the fire as she fiddled with her fingers resting on her lap. From the corner of her eye, she could see the smile on Myungsoo’s face dimming as he nodded, understanding the answer in her silence.  “God, I know it’s selfish of me to say this, Xia, but couldn’t you have waited for me? I mean you’ve waited for ten years, would a few more weeks have killed you?”

His words were indeed selfish and not to mention insensitive. They stabbed Miyoon’s heart as she whipped her body around to face him with an offended expression.

He sounded so malicious. She didn’t know what to think of it. Right now, this Myungsoo did not sound like the one she had known and loved for years.

It was like he was a whole new person.

She suddenly felt lifeless and weary as she opened to reply. “Yes, Myungsoo.” He looked at her and she continued. “Waiting for you would have killed me. At least the part of me that still believed in love and happiness.”

“Was loving me that burdening for you?” he asked with his voice softer.

“I’m not sure what to describe it as, but I know that it was useless. Because no matter what I did, no matter what I said to you, you were always unresponsive to my emotions. Unresponsive to me. And that was all I needed to know that your feelings for me were not mutual.” She described the situation as she had remembered and felt a weight being lifted off of her chest.

“It was never, Wu Xiazi. It was always Ok Maerah or Jeong Yunhee for you. But for me, never once did I question myself. For me it had always been Kim Myungsoo.” Miyoon closed her eyes and exhaled.

She had to do this.

She couldn’t spare his feelings the same way he hadn’t spared hers.

If she wanted to send him a message as clear as daylight even Neanderthals could comprehend it, she had to be merciless and strong.

Not the pushover she had been all those years.

“You were the only one for me,” Miyoon glanced at him and saw a sliver of hope which she knew she would have to crush. “That’s what I believed but I was wrong because now I see that there is someone else and he isn’t you.”

The chirping of crickets skipped all around them and Myungsoo’s blood went cold. He felt all warmth and hope fleeing his body. He had come to try and convince Miyoon that they could still work things out between them but he had obviously arrived too late. His hands transformed into tight fists as he glared into the fire.

If he had the capability to perform telekinesis, the fire would have definitely enlarged and consumed the entire forest within a matter of seconds.

“Why? Why is it no longer me?” he gritted, feeling his eyes getting watery.

Miyoon reached her palms out to the fire and let the heat bounce off of her skin as she sighed sluggishly. “Because when I was hurting over you, he was there helping me back to my feet.”

“So he’s a rebound,” he his teeth, incensed.

The woman shook her head and started to feel antagonistic listening to Myungsoo speak in such a sadistic manner. “Stop talking like that.” She demanded, appalled by his resentful behavior.  But her voice wasn’t loud and aggressive. It was pleading. “Hoya is not a rebound. He has showed more affection and attention towards me than you ever have and you know what? He makes me happy.”

“Affection and attention? Is that all you want?” Myungsoo abruptly seized her by the shoulders and bore his eyes into hers. If it were any woman, they would have faltered but Miyoon wasn’t just any woman.

She was a woman who had learned to stand up for herself and she wasn’t going to let Myungsoo have the upper-hand or take advantage. Not any more.

She shrugged him off and plastered on a neutral expression. One where he would not be able to decipher what she was feeling or thinking. “Do I seem like that kind of person to you?”

Agitated, he raked his fingers through his hair before he stood on his feet. He paced back and forth, clawing at his own scalp while Miyoon got up as well.

“I like Lee Howon and Lee Howon alone. Not just because he displays his affections towards me. Not because he makes me happy with his sappy words but because he managed to pick up and put back together the pieces of my heart you, Kim Myungsoo, had so generously shattered. And you know what else? He has been able to do things you could never do and the list into what made me fall for him only expands. After the time we’ve spent together here, I know there isn’t anything anyone could do, even you that could split us apart. So now that we’ve talked, would you mind leaving?”

Miyoon was quite nonchalant about chasing him out but Myungsoo still had one option left.

It was his last resort and seeing that he had already lost Miyoon, he figured why not give it a shot. He had stopped clawing at himself as he marched up to her and stared at her dead in the eyes. “Are you positive that there isn’t anything anyone could do that would change your mind? Because I really do love you, Xiazi. Can’t you just come back to my side?”

“How could you even say these things when Maerah sunbae is waiting for you in the car? How could you still be so thick-skinned and hardheaded about this kind of stuff? Why did you even bring her with you if you wanted to win me back?” she reprimanded, seething.

It looked like Myungsoo was still the same dense boy he was after all.

“I didn’t ask her to come, she tagged along on her own. But answer my question. Are you absolutely sure that there isn’t anything I could do to change your mind?” he asked, changing the topic back to the previous one.

“No for the last ti—” but before Miyoon could finish her answer, Myungsoo had forcibly yanked her in kissed her.

It was like a bad nightmare as she looked at him with his eyes closed shut.

She didn’t know what to make of the situation. It didn’t seem real at all. It felt fake and at the same time, like nothing.

Miyoon had imagined what it would feel like if she ever received the chance to taste Myungsoo’s lips but as she was doing so now, it was nothing like she had expected.

She thought she’d experience a lot of sparks and fireworks. That her heart would beat crazily as her stomach knotted up in a billion different places and butterflies and tingles invaded her entire body. But instead she felt empty. The complete opposite to how she felt every time her lips met with Hoya’s.

Because Miyoon wasn’t able to tell if this was all part of reality or not, she closed her eyes.

She tried focusing on his lips but it was as if she was kissing the air. It was at that instant, that she was a hundred and fifty percent sure that she no longer possessed any romantic emotions for Myungsoo. It was because of this action that she was sure her whole heart was invested in Hoya.

That she loved him to her heart’s extent and nothing could ever sway her. Not even the man who had owned her heart for the last decade.

Her eyes sprung wide as Myungsoo retreated slowly with his lids drooping lowly. His heart was going insane and due to the fact that Miyoon hadn’t shoved him away or slapped him, he assumed that he had won her over. He stepped closer to her with a smile on his face and as his hand reached to her cheek, Miyoon moved back.

He was startled by the cold response as she turned to settle her gaze on the fire. “Please don’t ever do that again.” She condemned with conviction in her voice. “I don’t want people to misunderstand. I will take that as a farewell and if that is all, I will be going to sleep now.” Miyoon, without even batting a single lash, spun on her heels and began walking to her tent. Just before she entered, she glanced over her shoulder and spoke, “I told you no one could change my mind about him and that included you.”

As she slipped inside, she took a seat calmly. She touched her lips and the corners of her lips tugged upwards. “I. Love. Lee. Howon.” She enunciated slowly and cautiously just so that she could hear the words perfectly. They voiced out her deepest secret and Miyoon couldn’t be happier.

Outside, Myungsoo was paralyzed as her words replayed over and over like a song on repeat. He stumbled back, disparaged. Whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted it or not, he had lost the battle for Miyoon’s heart and had to accept it. Because it was not rocket science to see that Miyoon really did mean everything that came out of .

All those years of her being unselfish as she witnessed him chasing after other women, now he had to do the same for her. He had to let her find love even if it wasn’t with him.

That was the least he could do for her.

The woman who had stuck by his side no matter what.

The woman who had always been there to cheer him up.

The woman who had loved him unconditionally.

She deserved true happiness and someone that sincerely loved and cared f