"Uhh yeah," comes Jongin's nervous laugh as she hooks her hands around his neck. She tries not to let her embarrassment show as the photographer gives her instruction about the pose.

A love that’s not quite there is what they’re portraying, could be lovers, are they or aren’t they? Soojung knows the situation all too well. Past memories resurfacing, shaking her up and hitting right in the heart. Pull yourself together, she reminds herself, this is work. She repeats it so many times until she doesn’t believe it.

“Where do I put my arms?” Jongin’s long limbs hover around her, still so far away even with the proximity she had closed. The photographer tells him to put it around her waist and he reluctantly asks permission.

“Yeah,” she answers, taking a deep breath to prepare her mental state.

It is cruel how the weight of his touch sends electricity throughout her body. She imagines a different pair of hand settling in the curve of her hips, whispering sweet nothings to her ear and seeing stars from butterfly kisses. Soojung chastises herself for remembering.

They are closer now but still not intimate. A reenactment of her once upon a time fairytale with a boy who dreamed high and fell twelve stories high.

“Hold him like you don’t want him to go,” directs the photographer.

Soojung does so but commits a mistake of catching his eyes and grasping his apologetic expression. She doesn’t want any of it. With her heart roaring and threatening that it would catapult itself of its cage, she masks her face devoid of any emotion and steels her eyes into a blank daze.

She has to remain professional.

Now they are seated on a bench, his arm slung over her back. She keeps a fair distance away.

“I know about you and,” Jongin starts but just one look from Soojung shuts him up, “uuuh yeah.” But it doesn’t stop him from trying. “You’re uncomfortable, right?”

She doesn’t answer although she is sure he knows just by her body language.

“If I brought back some memories or made your feel… something,” his voice shakes, Soojung looks over to him and sees a boy with brown disheveled hair, a plaster on his right cheek and eyes that are sincere and lacking nothing in truth. “I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

Her eyes flutter shut, fighting the tears she knew would come. When she opens them, she loses her restraint and finds her resolve. “Yeah,” gaining comfort when she rests her head on his shoulder.

For the first time since he arrived, Soojung realizes that Jongin is not the same boy.