If there is something Jieun knows about love, it is that love can work with either baby steps or great leap and still be love. These baby steps they were taking, slow and careful, will eventually get them somewhere. And these days, she dared to dream. She dreamed of happily-ever-after and crinkled smiles and grey hairs and always. This love made her brave.

These were her favorite moment: waking up next to him in the morning, curling up on the couch when it’s raining outside, cooking late-night dinner with him. She loves the cheeky ones too: stealing kisses on the street, sharing shy glances backstage, and that pat on her back that means so much more than just a pat. But most of all, she liked coming home to him. He was home. He was warm, comfy, and safe.

The thing is… when you start dreaming, you become delusional. The world becomes a very beautiful place and you become young and fresh and ambitious. Nobody can take you down.  Then, you become happy and soft and weak. And when your nightmare comes back, you’re unprepared.

Lee Ji Eun had always been prepared, except this once. And she was so disgusted with how this love had broken down her walls.

***

‘There’s too much blood,’ her mind screamed. All she could see was blood dripping from the corner of his lips and down his nose. The floor was red with streaks of blood and the wall was crushed. He was laying on the floor, eyes rolling back, and chest gasping for air.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

She stood there frozen and all she could think about was the blood she saw and how that much blood shouldn’t be possible. Her head was pounding. In the back of her head, she could register the tension, the anger, and the hatred. She could hear the punches but all she could listen to was her own inner thoughts, saying that she brought this upon him, and she was the one to blame.

‘He was my sunshine and I was his darkness,’

‘Why?’ ‘WHY?’

And the next thing she knew, she was screaming out his name with so much anguish, and ripping him away from that man. That man she used to love so much.

“Luhan!” she scrambled to get to him, forced her feet to move and ripped him off that evil man. “Jongin stop! Jongin stop!” She was half crying and her voice was hoarse with how loud she was screaming.

But Jongin wasn’t listening. He grabbed the unconscious Luhan by the collar and landed three more punches to his face. She would be surprised to see the hatred, anger, and jealousy he carried in his eyes, but she didn’t care. Jongin was taking away everything she had ever wanted. Jongin was taking Luhan away from her.

“Jongin stop! I’m begging you!” She scratched and pulled and pushed and hit, yet he didn’t bug.

And then, when she saw how much anger was reflected in his eyes, she ducked her small body and covered Luhan. Jongin was too angry, too far gone to notice, so when his fist hit her, it hit her with such a force that she became dizzy and gasping for breath. She could feel something warm running down her nose and the numbness that spread from her face to her entire body.

“Jieun!” she registered his voice in the back of her head. “Jieun, wake up! I’m so… so sorry!”

“I hate you,” she whispered and it was the last thing she remembered before the numbness overwhelmed her.

***

She dreamed again. In this dream, she sat alone by the sea and watched the waves come and go. She didn’t felt lonely. Instead, there was something serene and peaceful about the sea. She didn’t think she had ever felt so content and so complete before. She could feel bits of happiness brewing inside her. Everything was perfect.

Then, a man appeared by the sea. His footsteps light as he strolled by the beach, leaving his footprints behind. She couldn’t see his face. All she caught was the color of his hair – dyed blonde and glimmering under the evening sun.

A man whose face she didn’t see. A man whose name she didn’t know. But it was him, who looked so familiar, that took away all the serene peacefulness she felt. And now, she felt incomplete, as if some part of her had always been missing.

And now… after seeing him, she didn’t know if she could be happy on her own again. It is as if she needed him to complete a missing part of her. As if he was her happiness.

She blinked and he was gone.

Now, all she felt was sadness and longing for a man she didn’t even know.

After him, she didn’t know how to be happy again.

***

She woke up with a gasp, followed by a painful moan because her cheek was throbbing painfully and her nose felt uncomfortably numb. Her eyelids felt heavy and numb. Waking up was a pure torture.

“Water,” she croaked. Someone rushed to her side, offering a glass of water.

When the pain became bearable, she started to register the white surroundings and the strong smell of antiseptics. Hospitals, she thought. And the next thing she remembered was blood and Luhan and Jongin and pain. In a swift movement, she jumped off the bed and ran along the hallway searching for Luhan. In her head, the scene of him bleeding and unconscious replayed itself again and again.

She had never been so afraid.

***

He suffered from a severe concussion and broke several of his ribs. His nose and his jaw were dislocated, but the doctors had taken a good care of it. They should worry about the concussion. It will determine how long it would take before he wakes up and how severe the fight would result. When he wakes up, he would have to go through recovery. Even then, it would take a long time before he could get back to work. The recovery will be a painful process.

She sat by his side and held his hands. His hands were warm, even in such a state but it pained her to feel how lifeless his grasp was. She had never held his hands without him holding hers back. Tears welled up in her eyes when she saw the bruises on his face and the bandages on his head.

The group was quiet as they watched her grieve. But Jieun could see the weariness in their eyes. She understood. There had been too much drama in their group, all caused by this one petite girl. They had enough and the weariness had started to seep deeper in their bones. This time, they might not forgive her.

Jongin was not there. Jieun wondered if he was hiding somewhere or if he was already taken away by the police. Either way, she couldn’t really bring herself to think about him. It hurt too much.

To her, this felt like losing two people she loved most at the same time. To her, this felt like losing everything all over again.

She wondered if she was cursed. She always lost everyone.

Did I do this to you?

***

After three visits, she stopped coming. It was too much. The steady beeping was deafening. She was afraid it might stop right then, right there. The weariness etched in their eyes was too much for her. She knew there was no more forgiveness and she was the one to blame.

She locked herself in her room – the old rotten apartment of hers. There were four bottles of liquors on the table, all still filled to the brim. She sat on the bed, watching those four full bottles, as if weighing whether she would plunge back to darkness or rise above everything.

But then, how could she be happy without Luhan?

***

Four days later, she received a phone call.

“He is awake,” they said.

When she looked up, all she saw was the remnants of a girl who was once truly happy. Where was she now? Inside that mirror was a reflection of a sad, tired, and weary woman.

The four bottles are still full to the brim.

***

He was caught and detained in a nearby police station two days ago. Inside, she silently hoped he rot there, yet at the same time, she would like to set him free. She spent her days wondering what went wrong. She didn’t have an answer. Would he have one?

People gasped and there was a little ruckus when she arrived. The police scrambled around to make sure she was alright. The bruises and scratches are still visible. Sometimes, her right eye throbbed painfully and her nose felt uncomfortably numb at night. When she tried to sing, her voice came out weird and it saddened her even more.

“I… I want to see him,” she said with a low voice. Thank God, they understood her.

In a whirlwind of a minute, she was guided away from the office, eyes staring at her, and then she was locked inside a room. The room was so white and plain. There was a screen separating her and him. When she turned around, a policeman was watching.

He was dressed in orange. The color looked bad on him. She realized she had never seen him wore orange before. The color didn’t match well with his tanned skin. He looked tired, guilty, and sorry. There were regrets in his eyes and the way he walks showed how weary he was. Bitterly, she thought: wasn’t everyone?

He looked up and the shock was so obvious in his eyes. She smiled bitterly. She wanted to hate him, yet why was it so hard to hate him? Instead of hating him, instead of burning with range, she settled for something else. This something else she felt deep in her bones, a kind of weariness that made her so tired.

“Do you… mind?” she asked to the policeman behind her. When he didn’t budge, she looked at him straight in the eye and asked, “please?”

She must have looked so tired and sad and pathetic. The policeman must have pitied her, for he walked away without any question. Or was it this man in front of her? He looked so tired and so guilty. Did he turn himself in?

“Ji –“ he scrambled to reach for her when she shut him up.

She touched his hands and the way they fit together still brought back so many memories it hurt: the softness of her touch, the calloused fingertips of his. Her wrist was bandaged thickly.

Distance and sadness grew between them once their eyes met. Even then, being with him was somewhere between a short comfort and a torment.

“I… I was happy, but I think it’s time to stop being happy,” she said. “So I stood there, wondering if I should go back drinking, lose myself drunk, or hold myself back. I choose not to drink, but I might have lost my sanity anyway.” I tried to end it all remained unsaid.

And there was only one reason she didn’t end it all. She couldn’t stand all the blood dripping down on the floor. So, she screamed her lungs out, asking for someone to wipe away the blood.

“I hate you, Jongin. I hate you so much. But even then, it takes so much love to hate you. I’m just so so tired. I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to love you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore.”

“Jieun, I’m so… sorry. Please.”

“I love you so much. I don’t think I’ll ever love someone else like I love you. But we… we are not worth it. I’m giving us up.”

She scrambled to take her hands away from him and he scrambled to keep her. When she looked up, he was a blurry figure hidden by the tears. She felt wetness dripped onto her fingers. She wasn’t the only one crying.

“I wish you happiness, Jongin. This is goodbye.”

She didn’t think she had ever been this tired before. The weariness drained her deep to her bones.

***

She stood by the window, watching the man she loved so much trying to sit up. He groaned, low and guttural, as the nurse scrambled to force him stay put. He asked for her, she knew, yet she didn’t have the strength to go inside and look at him in the eye.

The others are just watching her with this sort of weariness and blame. In a blink, the commotion died down as they put him to sleep. He was back unconscious, sleeping so peacefully. Only then, she stepped into the room.

How cruel, she knows.

She clenched her fist, hit her chest twice, and tried to ease the painful squeeze. This is enough. She couldn’t take it anymore.

A bouquet of flowers was placed next to his bed. A note tied to it said goodbye.

There are other ways for you and I to be happy. Goodbye.

She walked away.

Author Note:

Epilogue up next! Sorry for the super late update.