Another few days go by, and the last day of school approaches. Your life has calmed down a little, and you’ve gotten the hang of working a job and being in school. You enjoy your time with EXO and SNSD and Taemin, but there’s no fun activity or good food that can fill the empty hole in your soul while Kai’s gone.

On a particularly calm day, you’re relaxing on the couch, flipping through pictures of you and Kai on your phone. You had just finished eating some fried chicken, because chicken always makes you think of Kai, and you tend to torture yourself like that. You’re happy the last day of school will be in a few days, because then you can have more time to do whatever you want, since you won’t have school stress. You’ve already kicked back, ready to relax since all of your classes have winded down and you don’t have much else to do.

You get up and go into the kitchen, cleaning it up for the tenth time this week. The apartment is lonely a lot of the time, and you have nightmares each night because the whole apartment is intimidating when it’s only you. You’ve never lived by yourself, and now your husband is all the way across the ocean, and you’re all on your own.

You have your EXO brothers and your SNSD sisters, and SHINee visits often, but nighttime gets lonely and you haven’t slept well at all for months. You’re living simply on this Saturday afternoon, hair in a messy bun, a thin smidge of black eyeliner, one of Kai’s black t-shirts and bright pink spandex. You desperately hope no one from SHINee or EXO decides to drop in today, because you don’t believe you’re presentable at all.

You switch on the song “Miracles in December,” a demo Kai had showed you a few months ago when his hyungs had just finished recording it. It truly is a beautiful and relatable song to you now, and you regret not being there for Kai as much as you should have been.

The song plays, and you sing along with it, emotionally.

I try to find you, who I can’t see
I try to hear you, who I can’t hear
Then I started to see things I couldn’t see, hear things I couldn’t hear
Because after you left, I received a power I didn’t have before

You sing, pouring your heart into the song, feeling each word stab you in the heart like a knife.

I stop time and go back to you
I open your page in my book of memories
I am there inside, I am with you

You sing the song with more emotion than you’ve ever sung before, and cry at the memories that come flooding back.

-----------Flashback------------

“Really, __________, this is an amazing song! You have to hear it before we turn it in for our project!” Kai interjects, with excitement. “The hyungs worked so hard!!!!”

You smile and switch on the song as you and Kai sit together on the couch. The first note played, you’re hooked. D.O’s beautiful voice clearly sounds through the speaker, and you’re engulfed in the world of the song. Kai is overjoyed at your reaction, and stands up and holds out his hand.

“Beautiful lady,” he says with a sweet grin, “may I have this dance?” You’re so transfixed in the song, you don’t respond at first.

“Yah!” he says “dance with me!” You laugh at him, processing what he’d just said and marveling at his sweet gentleman-ness. Okay not that gentlemanly after you ignored him, but the initial gesture was beautiful.

You stand up and he leads you to the middle of your living room. The song goes on, and you lean your head against him, and he holds you around the waist firmly as you wrap your arms around his neck. You dance slowly to the song, and the only care in the world you have concerns Kai. His brown eyes with the light in them that you love so much look down at you with adoration.

“You’re a beautiful human being,” he tells you, gently your hair with one of his hands while the other is still holding you close to his body around your waist.

“You’re quite a fine specimen of the human form as well,” you say, with a giggle.

“I love it when my girl talks dirty,” Kai smirks.

“Jongin,” you roll your eyes, “that wasn’t even---“

“Sh.”

You dance, words unnecessary to show each other the love you feel for one another.

This is how it’ll be for the rest of my life, you think blissfully. Just me and my perfect Jongin.

-------------Present Day-------------

Hot tears fall fast, and you wipe them away furiously, not wanting to start crying again. Once you start crying these days, there’s almost nothing that can make them stop. In the past, all you need is a hug from Kai to make every worry in the world melt away.

Now, the problem is every worry in the world revolves around your absent husband. You give up fighting the tears, and cry for a good five minutes, Miracles in December on replay. The tears are worse than usual this time, sliding faster and faster down your cheeks. You know they won’t stop until your eyes physically cannot make more tears.

Knock knock.

Great, you think, now really isn’t a good time. But if I don’t answer they might think I did something stupid or something and worry. So I guess I have to answer the door looking like a mess.

You try to wipe the tears away, which of course doesn’t work. With a deep breath and one more attempt at hiding your tears, you open the door.

“Hi.”

You instantly drop to your knees, shocked to see the figure of your (what feels like) long-lost husband.

“H…hi,” you say, tears overflowing from your eyes faster than you can wipe them away as you look up at Jongin.

Kai hears Miracles in December playing, and tears begin to roll down his face too.

“Is it really you, Kai? Is it really you?” You hide your face in your hands, still on your knees on the floor, face wet with the tears that won’t stop flowing.

“It really is, __________. I missed you. I love you. I’ve done stupid things, I’ve said stupid things, and I’ve made stupid decisions and had stupid ideas, but I love you. Being away just proved my knowledge that I can’t live without you.”

You don’t look up, face still buried in your hands, sobs coursing through your whole body. You feel Kai next to you even before he touches you. He grabs your hand gently, and pulls them away from your face. You look over at him, sitting on the floor next to you, red-eyed and exhausted, but definitely alive and definitely the Kim Jongin you know and love.

“Please don’t cry, my angel,” he says, voice cracking with emotion. He cups your face in his hands, and wipes tears away as they fall with his thumbs. “Words can’t describe how sorry I am. I won’t leave you ever again, and I haven’t regret anything in my life more than I regretted hurting you. Every single tear that you shed feels like a gunshot wound, because it hurts so much to know I’ve caused you pain.”

He looks you in the eyes, and as you feel his touch and meet his gaze, your stomach is filled with butterflies and your heart does flips in your chest.

“I…I love you so much,” you say, still sobbing. Miracles in December is still on replay, not helping calm the emotional hysteria of the moment.

Kai grabs your hand, and tenderly helps you up.

Finally, after months of feeling empty inside, your heart is filled with love and joy when Kai faces you and pulls you into the Jongin hug that you’ve been craving with your whole heart for months. You feel the beat of his new heart; strong and steady, and not the same one, but one that now belongs to Kim Jongin, and one you know belongs to you. His warmth feels like sunshine at the end of winter; the kind that melts the ice of the world and replaces it with warmth and new life. His strong arms hold you as close to him as possible, and his chin rests on your head gingerly, just the way you like it to.

You feel weird. You feel a feeling you haven’t felt in months. You feel safe. You feel…happy. You feel like finally, after feeing hopeless and dead at heart for too long, that everything in the world is right. You feel perfect. You notice the tears have stopped, and that him hugging you is an instant energizer and renewal of your strength.

You notice now more than ever, you’ll never be okay as long as you don’t have Kim Jongin.