Stepping through the doorway, I patted him on the back.  “Sorry.”

            He left his hand over his heart.  “Jae Hyo’s brooding in his room.  He’s pissed.”

            I rolled my eyes.  Damn it, Jordan.  “Great,” I mumbled, kicking off my shoes bitterly.  Ji Hoon touched my shoulder.

            “Are you really going to leave?” he asked quietly.

            Seriously now.  How could I leave my life here when it was so good?  And about to get better.  “Would you leave if you were me, Ji Hoon?” I asked instead.

            He shrugged.  “Depends.”

            “On what?”

            “On what I really wanted,” he replied simply.  I nodded.

            “I’m going to go talk to Jae Hyo.”  He stayed still a second and then smiled a little, one corner only of his mouth, and nodded.

           I hurried down the hall to his room.  I heard giggling coming from the room I knew was Yu Kwon’s.  Beki was here again?  That girl, I swear.  But I smiled to myself.  They were too cute for words.  So were the others.  So were me and Jae Hyo, I told myself stubbornly.  It was a valid point.  How could I leave?  I had made the right decision.

            Without knocking, I pushed Jae Hyo’s door open slowly.  He was alone.  Sitting at his desk.  I closed the door quietly behind me and then shuffled over to him.  I had to use all my might to spin his chair around so he would face me.  I whipped his chair around and dropped myself into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck so he couldn’t throw me off.  He grunted when the full force of my weight hit his lap.

            But his arms remained on the arms of the chair.

            “I know you’re mad at me, Jae Hyo, but you have to believe me when I tell you I would have never left without saying goodbye to you,” I confessed, my face pressed to his neck.

            He still wouldn’t touch me.

            “So you are leaving,” he sighed.  I lifted my head to tell him what I’d done, but he spun the chair back facing his desk.  He reached behind his laptop and pulled something out and waved it at me.

            It was an Italian flag.  I touched his hand.  “What’s this for?”

            “I’m supporting you,” he mumbled, still waving the flag, completely dejected.

            “You want me to leave?” I asked, incredulously.  I sat up in his lap, my legs still hanging over the side of his.  He pouted out his lower lip.

            “Of course not,” he snarled as he glared angrily at the flag still waving in his hand.  “But I want you to be happy.  This is a…”  His eyes narrowed more at the flag, the target of his anger.  “Really good opportunity.  You should take it.  I-if it’s what you want to do.  You’re an awesome English teacher and you’ll kick in Rome.”  He held the flag up to my face and waved it a little more.  “So whatever you want, I’m with you.  All the way on the other side of the world, alone and miserable.  Missing you.  Hey, maybe if I’m consumed with depressed loneliness, I’ll be able to write some good ballads.”

            I smiled at him and his hand with my fingertips.  “So you’d let me go?”

            “I wouldn’t stop you from doing anything you wanted to do, Amelia.”

            “I thought you wanted to marry me,” I reminded him.  His empty hand finally came up off the arm of the chair and rested on my shoulder, pushing me gently into his chest.  His fingers tangling in my hair while he continued to wave the flag at me.

            He scoffed after a second though.  “Baby, I’d marry you right now.  But if you insist of running off to become some super awesome English professor in Italy, then I’ll wait.  We already agreed on waiting until later anyway.”  He shrugged and twirled the stick of the flag between his fingers.  “So later will be farther away, I can wait.  I love you so much, I wouldn’t break up with you, so I’d wait.”

            Tears stung my eyes.  “I’m not going, Jae Hyo.”

            His fingers halted in my hair and the flag tilted to the side.  “What?”

            “I’m not going.  I don’t want to go.  My friends are here, my family is here, I love it here.  You’re here.” I remembered Dong Hoon’s words.  “I don’t want to be away from you, Jae Hyo.  I love you.  I love being with you.  I’d be so unhappy without you.”  I smiled thinking of all the good times I’ve had with him.  I touched his cheek and turned his face to me.  “I’ve been with you for seven years.  It doesn’t feel like that long.  Time goes by so quickly with you, but without you, it would drag on painfully.  I’d rather time sped by with you than slow down without you.”

            Jae Hyo just stared at me.  “I shouldn’t be the reason you pass up some great opportunity,” he whispered.  His eyes were filled with hurt.  I pecked his lips slowly.

            “It’s not only you.  I have more reasons to stay than to leave.  I really don’t want to leave.  It’s my life.  For a while, it felt like everyone thinks because I’m so quiet and timid, they can decide what’s right for me.  Well, I’m not letting that happen anymore.  I know what’s best for me and I’m going to do it.  And whoever doesn’t like it can bite me because I’m done.”

            “Hmm, I kind of like you feisty,” he joked.  I pushed his face away from me.  He chuckled and curled his arm around me more.  “Your parents are going to think I’m keeping you from this and they’re going to hate me.”

            I shook my head.  “Jordan’s mom got me a job at her university.  I’m set.”  I encircled his neck again and settled against him.  “I’m not passing up on this internship for no reason.  I have good reasons to pass it up.  Plus I have a back up plan.”  He tilted his face closer to mine and kissed my temple.  “And oh yeah, I already talked to my parents,” I told him as-a-matter-of-factly.  His face lit up, but then his eyelids lowered in confusion.  “It’s why I took so long to get here.  I went home to talk to my parents.”  The confusion dissolved into excitement and the brown in his eyes lightened.  “My dad really likes you.  He thinks you’re funny and good for me.”

            “Seriously?” he chirped.  I nodded.

            “And my mom thinks you’re handsome.”

            Jae Hyo’s expression turned smug.  “Well, I am,” he replied.  I giggled until he leaned forward again to kiss me.

            He pulled away and then threw the flag across the room before he scooped me up and dropped me on his bed.  I laughed and cringed toward the wall when he jumped up to belly flop on the bed too.  He landed with a bounce next to me and then rolled on top of me.

            He held my hands in his up by my head.  “So you’re really not going?”  I nodded.  He smirked.  “Good, let’s get married then.”

            I rolled my eyes.  “Jae Hyo,” I whined.

            He began kissing my neck.  “Ok, fine, I know, I know,” he conceded between kisses.  “Then let’s just celebrate,” he suggested, one hand creeping under my shirt.  My cheeks quickly flushed pink.

            Squirming, I began to laugh harder when his caressing fingers turned ticklish as he gripped my sides.

            Definitely, definitely, made the right decision.  Life was so good.  How could I leave this?