The smell of tomato paste and well-cooked meatballs fills the kitchen, along with a thin smoke that rises from the frying pan atop of the kitchen stove. The mouth watering aroma comes from the half-cooked spaghetti, currently being stirred by a woman on her early twenties. Her long, black hair is tied in a loose French-braid on her right side. She is adorning a dark red apron over her plain, white blouse and crème, cotton knee-length A-skirt.

“Sweetheart, what are you cooking?”

A warm, familiar low voice is heard on her left ear. The man who owns it nuzzles his nose on her pale neck while wrapping her waist with his arms, effectively giving her a back hug. A soft smile appears on the woman’s full lips.

“Dinner, Luhan.”

Luhan chuckles, sending vibrations down her neck as his lips are still ghosting on it. “I know, Jinri. I meant, what is it for dinner?”

“Can’t you see it already?” Jinri wittily answers without averting her attention from the hot pan in front of her.

Luhan melodic laughter takes a crescendo and fills the room. “I see you are making my favorite,” he says contently as he rests his head on her nape and takes a full-view of her cooking. “Anything you cook will be my favorite though. Eating like this for the rest of my life—I’m surely going to be really fat soon,” he adds nonchalantly.

It is an innocent and casual remark that probably comes out of his mouth unthinkingly, but the impact of what it implies freezes Jinri on her spot. She nervously gulps her saliva down before she laughs along with him. Although she doesn’t want to mind the simple statement too much, she can’t help but pondering what is going on in Luhan’s mind. ‘Eating like this for the rest of my life’—what is he thinking? That she will always be by his side for good? It is true that they are somewhat dating, but their three-months relationship isn’t exactly sailing smoothly right now. It hasn’t been a week since Luhan accused her of trying to make a distance with him and now he pretends as if they are in a long-running relationship. Is he blind of what happen in their relationship or is he pretending to be?

Jinri feels Luhan’s weight is lifted from her and his arms detangle themselves from her waist. She isn’t sure why, but she is relieved by the lost of bodily contact. A part of her is worried that Luhan notices her uneasiness around him, but the other half of her wishes that Luhan actually realizes that their relationship is in danger.

However, suddenly Jinri feels a cold, thin, metal chain is gently dropped above her collar bone. She looks down and saw an expensive-looking, diamonds-studded necklace is being draped around her neck. With a soft click, the necklace is firmly locked. Jinri is stupefied for a split second, registering what is happening to her brain, before she reacts.

“What is this, Luhan?” she asks warily while turning off the stove.

“Something interesting that I saw yesterday. I thought it will suit you,” he whispers on her left ear while circling his arms around her waist, again.

“Do you like it?” he asks as he unwinds his arms from her to let her empties the pan into an oval-shaped porcelain plate and brings the spaghetti to the dining table.

She bits her lower lips apprehensively as she unties her apron and hangs it at a nearby stool. “It looks expensive,” she murmurs while examining the necklace on her neck. The platinum chains is  decorated by at least two dozens of small diamonds, aligned in two parallel lines with a much larger diamond placed at the center.

“Only the best for the best woman,” Luhan chirps cheerfully. He has scurried across the room to open his wine storage. With an old, dusty bottle in his hand, he marchs back to the dining table. He pours the content in two tall glasses: for her and him.

Jinri can’t help but giggles at his cheesiness. “Okay. I love it, Luhan. What’s the occasion, anyway?” she questions playfully before she sits on the dining chair.

“Oh, I can’t simply give my girlfriend a gift?” Luhan mocks, feigning surprise as he slides into the seat in front of her. He hears her giggles again and smiles; his eyes crinkle into beautiful, gentle crescents that she has been really used too. Oh, how much she loves those eyes which always radiate warmth to her whole being. “Besides, it’s always good to invest on jewelries. They are eternal,” he adds with unpretentious merriness.

Eternal. Jinri stiffens on her seat. That is the last straw for her.

“Luhan, we need to talk,” Jinri starts, looking up from her plate and sees him straight in the eyes. Except that she can’t because his eyes are still crinkled.

“Aren’t we already?”

Despite of the innocent tone that he utilizes, there is a clear wish of closure in his voice as he knows where their conversation is heading to. The smile has never left his lips, yet there is subtle change in the aura surrounding him. With such simple statement, the temperature of the room has gone down a couple degrees. The warm Luhan has gone suddenly, replaced by a distant man with a sweet facade.

Jinri blinks. Luhan, paying no heed to Jinri's sudden silence, only keeps on smiling while helping himself with a serving of the spaghetti. Jinri's trained eyes follows his every movements, even to the minuscule. She watches how he gracefully winds the spaghetti with his fork, how he keeps his lips slightly tugged upwards as he eats, how he savors every chews, and how he wipes his mouth every onnce in a while with the plain napkin. All of his gestures are painfully familiar to her eyes but at the same time, she feels that there is more than just the table to separate them.

“Luhan, I don't understand you anymore. You have changed," she blurts out the words that has been dying to be let out since months ago.

His smile falters; hurt is written all over his face before he perfectly masks it with a knowing, yet poignant, half-smile, as if he has predicted it all along. “Have I, really?” He asks her softly, with the gentleness that has always been his character. He puts down his dining utensils and tears his gaze from his meal before he bores his eyes into hers with tenderness that is too familiar for her liking, reminding her that he is still the same Luhan whom she left in Seoul years ago.

Jinri stares back at him in utter confusion. He is still the same tender and caring Luhan, so why does her feeling to him differ?

Well, maybe because he sports a rebelling red hair instead of the friendly dirty blonde engraved in her memories. Maybe because he doesn't want to be called 'Oppa' like how he used to be. Maybe because they immediately jumped to bed on their first reunion instead of sharing sweet nothings and innocent kisses like how she has always expected from him. Maybe because Luhan smokes like a locomotive when she thought that he was a clean person. Maybe because Luhan loves to get himself and her drunk before he beds her passionately while she dreams of slow, romantic love making with him. Maybe because it finally hits her that Luhan doesn't want anyone--not even a lover--to pry deeper into his life when in the past she thought that he would eventually open up to her when they are closer; or maybe they simply aren't close enough, she would never know.

Whatever that is, she has enough.

"Yes, Luhan, you have. I can hardly recognize you anymore."

An amused weak upward twitch appears on his lips, in contrast of the forlorn gaze in his eyes.

"Are you sure? Or is it because I turn out to be not as perfect as 'the prince charming' you imagined me to be?"

"What?" Jinri isn't sure if she has heard it right. The words that was spoken by Luhan are nothing that she has expected.

Luhan sighs wistfully. "I knew it," he mutters to himself before he looks back at her with determination gleaming from his orbs. "Jinri, it seems that you have fallen for the wrong person."

Jinri's jaw drops at the absurdity of his statement.

"What?"

An eyesmile is formed on his face--his signature expression she knows he will always use when he tries to cover his feelings.

"The 'Luhan' that you fell in love with; he left so much to imagine, right? What you see right now is what is supposed to fill all those gaps, Jinri. I've never really changed; you just didn't know me yet."

Disbelief is painted on Jinri's pale face. Is Luhan implying that he has always been like this all along and it is her fault that she feels uncomfortable around him now? She is an observant person; there is no way she would miss such details about him.

"What are you trying to tell me? That I got you wrong all this time?" She says, with fury seeping through her gritted teeth.

A solemn smile decorates Luhan's thin lips. He doesn't say anything, but he indeed doesn't have too as his eyes already affirm her questions. Jinri hates the way he looks at her, as if she was someone to be worried of and pitied.

"Well, you never let me know you! You always push me back whenever I try to understand you more! Don't you trust me?" Jinri has finally blown up; her voice is raised dangerously.

"It's not that I don't trust you, Jinri!” he yells back in frustration, “It's just that, I... The time is... Damn."

Luhan curses while running his slender fingers through his red locks. He bits his lower lip as he averts his gaze from her. Although his tone was getting higher, his eyes are showing a mixture of repent and anguish, making him seems vulnerable. Jinri hates it; she is too habituated to see the strong-willed, matured Luhan so that seeing him being frail breaks her.

"Luhan..."

"Do you regret this? Us? Choosing me over him?" Luhan cuts Jinri off while focusing his stare back at hers. There is sincere inquisitiveness gleaming in his dark orbs.

 Jinri stares back at him blankly. If Luhan had asked the same question when they were back in Seoul, she would undoubtly answer with a definite 'No', but now, she finds herself unable to say anything. There is an uncomfortable silence between them before Luhan breaks it with his heavy sigh.

"If you're not feeling like continuing what we have, we can call it a quit."

It takes Jinri some momments to fully comprehend what Luhan has just proffered her.

"Are you breaking up with me, Luhan?" she asks carefully, as if walking on a thin ice.

"If you want to," comes his indecisive answer. That smile, that freaking annoying, deceiving eye smile, is plastered again on his face. Jinri is already sick with it.

"Okay, then. Let's stop this."

Jinri's heart is about to stop as the words roll smoothly from her tongue. However, she also feels that her breathing has become easier all of a sudden, as if a huge burden has just been lifted off her chest. She closely scrutinizes Luhan’s reaction and saw his features subtly hardened as he clenches his jaw while preserving his trademark smile. A suffocating stillness enters the small space between them, elongating every seconds into unbearable eternity. The soft tickling of the wall clock becomes the only sound heard in the dining room. It feels like forever before Luhan clears his throat, taking Jinri’s attention back to him.

“If you say so,” he says, nodding as an acceptance to her choice. Jinri nods as well—not as an agreement to anything but rather a simply echo of what he has just done. There is another awkward pause before Jinri reaches the back of her neck, intending to open her newly acquired necklace.

“Don’t,” Luhan warns when he sees her fingers fiddle with the hook of the necklace. Jinri shot a questioning look at him and he continues, “Would you keep the necklace, please? Make it my parting gift for you.” He chuckles afterward but there is no mirth in it. Only hollowness and plain bitterness is detected in his low voice. The warmth is gone, substituted by acrid coldness. His lips are forcefully contorted into another smile, but it is empty—it is simply a well orchestrated simultaneous contraction of his facial muscles. Jinri doesn’t realize that her breaking up with him will affect him that bad since he hasn’t been clear enough about his feelings for her—save the love confessions  he made as he groans into her skin in their lustful nights—making her wondered whether he still loves her or not during the past three months. However, now it is clear that she has completely broken him.

Jinri stands up from her seat, unable to watch the damage she inflicts on him any longer. “I guess I’ll leave now, then,” she says as she bows at him. “Thank you for the dinner,” she adds when she has no idea of what to say; which is ironic, as she hasn’t touched her meal—that she cooks—or her wine. Luhan nods unthinkingly as he also rises from his place. He walks her to the front door quietly; hands secured in the pocket of his dark black jeans.

She stops in front of the door and turns back, only to see him smile gently and poignantly at her. Jinri bits her lower lip, almost thinking of taking back her words. However, when she eyes the cigarette in the upper pocket of his plain, red polo shirt, she knows she shouldn’t step back. This Luhan is not the one I fell in love with, she reminds herself.

“Thank you for the necklace,” she says, remembering that she hasn’t given him a proper gratitude for the expensive gift. He answers with a curt nod. She grips his door knob tightly. “Thank you for everything,” she says, puzzled with the tremble in her voice that comes out up out of nowhere. It’s ironic, she realizes, since she says the exact same phrase when they parted years ago. She doesn’t know what kind of respond Luhan gives out to the familiar sentence—and she chooses not to find out—as she already turns the door knob and walks out of his apartment.

TBC

AN:

Please do note that I still write "To be continued" on the end of this chapter and that this hasn't been marked completed yet. The story is still going on, guys...

Thank you to all 52 subbies and many comments. and votes. I love you guys. T_T

with many-many thankful love, 

himalayancat

Here's my reply to the comments:

@enjoythemayo21: you'll see soon as the story unfolds. Here's the update ^^

@akogulh: you'll be able to infer it in this chapter as well as upcoming chapters ^^

@shiningtaelli23: you'll see as the story goes. ^^

@theeastsea: ahahaha.. I don't know if I can. It depends on the plot bunny residing in my brain. Is this chapter long enough? kekeke...

@jannet: my, my, curious, aren't we? We'll see it soon.

@DraconianGem: yes, it is ^^

@PerfectionstOmma: does he actually change?