Chapter 1

            Starr unlocks the door to her and Han Geng’s apartment, and sighs in disappointment when she sees that it is empty. He’s busy recording with Super Junior again; Han Geng had promised that he would be home tonight. She shakes her head, her ponytail swishing in the air. Starr flips the light switch and walks to their room, stopping to admire the view from the penthouse apartment window. Even after moving in with Han Geng for two months, she still wasn’t use to the luxurious resources and views that his apartment offers to her.

            She opens the door to their walk-in closet, not even bothering to turn on the lights and starts pulling a random set of pajamas from the hangers. She slips into the connecting bathroom and slithers out of her simple jeans and t-shirt. Starr strips and jumps into the shower and turns the water to a scalding hot temperature, just the way she likes it.

            After her shower, Starr hops out and quickly slips on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. As she pulls on her top, Starr realizes that she had accidently grabbed Han Geng’s shirt in the dark when she was getting her clothes. She shrugs and slips the shirt on anyway; he won’t mind, if he was coming home at all tonight. She steps out of the bathroom and throws her dirty clothes neatly into the hamper. Starr shivers at the cold air circulating around the empty apartment and moves to crank up the heater. She walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge, examining the contents to see what she could possibly concoct for dinner. Starr grabs the kimchi and decides to make kimchi jigae.

            As she fishes out the last ingredients, her cellphone rings, playing the all too familiar song, Super Junior’s “It’s You”. She runs and grabs it from the table in their hallway. Hurriedly, she flips it open and answers, “Yoboseyo?” A rich, warm voice replies to her question with, “Starr, its Ki Bum oppa.” She slumps dejectedly against the cream colored wall and asks the handsome man on the other line,” Oppa, what’s up?” Starr walks slowly back to the kitchen and pulls out the necessary tools to make dinner. She hears loud clanging and laughter in the background, and her heart twitches, knowing that Han Geng was with Ki Bum oppa and the guys, wherever they were. The male says, “The guys want to eat at your house, but Han Kyung hyung said that he didn’t want to and that he wanted to eat out, but majority rules. So they told me to call to you ask if it was okay for us to go to your house.” Starr swears her heart stopped beating for a second when she realizes that Han Geng had not wanted to eat with her and had deliberately told the others that he wanted to eat out. She feels her heart cracking. “That’s fine oppa. When are you guys going to get here?” she replies softly.

            “Hmmm, about half an hour, maybe?” Ki Bum says distractedly.  She mutters, “Okay, kimchi jigae is on the menu for tonight oppa, just a heads up for the other oppas about dinner tonight.”, and she hears a faint “bye Starr” before a beep signals the end of her call. She sighs for the umpteenth time that night and begins to cook dinner for the 15 boys headed to her current location.

            Starr is notified of the oppas’ arrival when she hears loud laughter and animated chattering.  She heads out of the kitchen and is greeted with the sight of 15 laughing men.

            “Hey Starr!” Dong Hae oppa is the first to notice her silent presence and quickly runs over to hug her. Starr smiles back brightly, her mood increased by the appearance of her fifteen loving oppas. “I’m so hungry!” Shin Dong oppa announces before walking past her into the kitchen, but not before he pats her head and pinches one of her cheeks. Starr pouts and rubs her cheek, earning laughter from the large cluster of men before her. Sung Min oppa is the second to greet her with a hug and exclaimed, “You’re so cute!” The others followed suit with hugs and warm greetings for their favorite dongsaeng until there was only one other person with her in the living room…Han Geng. She stares softly at the ground, and silence is so deafening that Starr has the sudden urge to bolt from the room and join the 14 other oppas in the kitchen, but she stays put. As they stand awkwardly facing each other, Starr thinks about the first few months of their relationship.

            They had started out wonderfully; she had met Super Junior at the mall and had helped them when they needed a place to hide from the paparazzi. As cliché as it sounds, it was love at first sight for her, though she was a big fan and had already seen them on T.V. and such. As she and the idol group became even more acquainted with each other, her love for the silent, Chinese male grew until it became painfully obvious, and he had confronted her. That had ended with them becoming a couple. She remembers the first date he took her on. Han Geng had romantically booked out an entire restaurant for them and had lovingly danced with her. Starr reminisces back to the moments when Han Geng’s love for her was prominent. He would take her out whenever possible and always greeted her with a soft kiss to the lips in the morning. She misses how they would spend hours on the couch, just enjoying each other’s company, how he used to sing her to sleep at night, how he always her hair softly before murmuring a soft “I love You”, how he wrote songs about her and their love, and most of all, she missed the way he looked at her, full of love and affection.

            Starr still feels sparks when he looks at her, and still has butterflies at the slightest contact, but she wonders if he feels the same. The old Han Geng would always put her before anything else, even before Super Junior themselves. Now, Han Geng would find every excuse not to spend the day with her. The old Han Geng would never break his promises…not any more. Tears stung at her eyes as she recalled the incident that happened just yesterday.

Flashback:

                She had stayed up the entire night to wait for Han Geng, who had disappeared with- out a word. No texts, no calls, no nothing. Starr felt her heart crumble a little bit more when she found the apartment empty. She discovered a note on the kitchen table, saying, and “I’ll be back tonight, I promise.” Starr has a sense of deja vu as she had received a note similar to this one a few days ago, and Han Geng hadn’t come back.

            She decides to break the silence first and what comes out of surprises her. “Han Geng, let’s break up.”