Can U Smile

Can U smile by Infinite                                                                                                

For: nanie92

 She watched him with a wavering heart. Part of her wanted to cry from the painful suffocation she felt in her chest, the other wanted to laugh with them the way she always had.

So she smiled with tears in her eyes knowing he wouldn’t notice.

 He watched her from the corner of his eyes as he continued to mess with the other members jokingly. They were all laughing at his antics, completely unaware of her pain.

But he could see the wetness behind her eyes as she laughed along.

 Nanie closed her eyes so he couldn’t see them roll as she took a deep breath.

He was just being playful like always but for some reason it just wasn’t as endearing to her as it had been in the past. It was the first time in weeks that they got to see each other and he was already making her angry over something stupid. They were picnicking near a secluded area in the mountain park with the others and the guys were all laughing and goofing off, finally able to take a short break before promotions started back up. She sighed again as she watched him run around dodging Sung Jong and Hoya, keeping the football away from them as they played touch football, and she thought about their relationship.

One year had passed since they had started.

One year of secret meetings and late night phone calls, of sneaking around and stealing kisses. They had even developed a code to use so the public wouldn’t find out about their relationship. It had been nearly ten months since the other members had found out about them and they had all become close.

But she was tired. It was getting too hard to meet anymore and they hadn’t been able to even speak each other for over two weeks before today. The phone calls just tapered off since Infinite was busy preparing for their new stage and it hit her suddenly that she had talked to Woo Hyun more than her own boyfriend. Sung Yeol had been too tired to call and she found that it didn’t bother her as much as it should have. In fact she really didn’t notice the time at all as she went about her business. She shook her head and frowned, the thoughts making her brow crease. She never even noticed Sung Yeol’s gaze lingering on her, his own eyes filled with regret for putting that expression there in the first place.

That night Sung Yeol laid in bed thinking about his secret girlfriend once again.

He recalled the beginning of their relationship and how thankful he had felt that he had found her, how she filled his days with her silent support and cheered him after every bad day. He remembered when the guys had found out about them, the ribbing they’d given him for weeks after about not being the innocent one anymore and how shy Nanie had been around them at first.

Soon her personality won them over and they hung out often at the dorm together. He loved being with her like that where he could always watch her smile.

Then came the days that she stopped smiling and it became more of a chore to be together.

She began to get upset at the smallest things, nearly every move he made was the wrong one and they slowly grew apart from each other in the group.

She didn’t like the fact that her friends couldn’t meet him; her parents too were pressuring her about meeting a nice man and start dating. They had even set her up on blind dates and took her around their business functions.

It had upset him when she told him about it but he’d played it off as a joke. That didn’t sit well with her and they had argued. It was their first big fight, but it had started something between them.

She started to become jealous of the female idols Infinite had to work with. Especially when she found one of their numbers saved to his hand phone. Everything began falling apart and they stopped hanging out as much due to the tension that followed.

He hardly saw her anymore, and when they did meet they would almost always end up arguing.

The members had noticed and though they couldn’t really do anything about it they tried to talk to him about it, but he just brushed them off. There wasn’t anything he could do. He knew when she stopped smiling next to him that the end was coming.

She was becoming insecure because he couldn’t say he had a girlfriend, and he couldn’t come forward to keep her family from pressuring her.

Sung Yeol recalled the last conversation they had that day and frowned. Nanie had lectured him for nearly an hour about how he paid so little attention to them as a couple. They hadn’t even been on a real date yet.

He began to develop a short temper as well and he had snapped at her, stunning her into silence until she had left with tears in her eyes. He grimaced and rolled over in his bed, clutching his pillow tightly trying to erase the sight of her hurt expression.

She hadn’t picked up when he called to apologize, but moments later he had overheard Woo Hyun talking to her from the front stoop of the house when he’d went to get some air. He had silently closed the door and went back to his room with a lump in his throat.

It was too much; he couldn’t bear to see her light just fade out because of him. He knew he had to let her go.

  Nanie looked at him with tears glimmering in her eyes. Sung Yeol just smiled, not letting his emotions surface. It was for the best, he knew it, and he had prepared himself.

“Are you serious right now?” she asked in a whisper.

He could only nod, gripping the back of a chair so hard his knuckles turned white. The orange plastic dug into his skin helping him to focus. His other hand was deep in his pocket desperately clutching the couple ring he had removed from his necklace just moments before she had showed up at the empty café he’d rented out that day. They had eaten and smiled and now… he was setting her free.

He watched the emotions flash across her face and felt pain when he saw the slight hint of relief before sadness painted it away.

He braced himself and told her “I will always be here for you if you ever need me, but I think we should… just be friends from now on.” He forced that last part out over the lump that had formed in his throat.  

Nanie looked down at her feet and tried to think. Why was he suddenly being this way? She looked back up into his eyes and saw a quick flash of pain before he smiled brightly at her. Her breath hitched in her chest and her heart hurt as the tears spilled over, glittering down her face to the floor.

“Sung Yeol” she breathed out.

His smile faltered for only a moment.

“Nan gwaenchanh-da.” He said becoming serious and she wiped away the traces of sadness.

“Sung Yeol-ah, you won’t regret this?” She asked with a shaking voice.

He stared at her for a long moment before answering.

“Can you do me a favor? When you leave, when we see each other after this, can you smile?”

Nanie curled her hands into fists tightly letting the nails bite her palms as a smile spread over trembling lips. She could see the tension ease slightly from his shoulders and she drew in a steadying breath.

He was letting her go so she could find her happiness, she knew this. So she would do the same and let him go, even if it meant ripping her heart in two.

She nodded and turned away from him. Straightening her shoulders, she gripped the strap of her bag tightly and walked away, smiling through the tears.

“Nanie…” he whispered watching her leave, his own eyes blurring.  “…Saranghae.”