One day her best guy friend Dylan Chiu burst through her bedroom door, ready to take charge. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked bluntly. “Have you noticed that you’re getting skinnier and your grades are slipping?”

She looked up him. She was looking at pictures of when she was in Korea. She just flipped through a picture of her and Dae Sung, waving their hands around the air, doing a silly dance.

She smiled sadly. She flipped to the next one: Seung Ri and her backs were turned to the camera as they sat at the dock, their legs in the sea. That day was fun. She remembered the time she pushed him into the sea and he had dragged her down with him. Then they came out and dragged everyone else down with them. They were all shviering by the time they got back because none of them expected to take the unexpected swim in the sea.

“Lia, earth to!” Dylan snapped his fingers in front of her face.

She blinked, coming back to reality. “Huh? Mwo?”

He sat down, frowning thoughtfully. “Lia, you miss them a lot, don’t you?”

She nodded, sighing as she put the album away. “I think I’m going crazy, Dylan. I miss them so much sometimes I think I hear them. I think I’m hallucinating.”

“You’re homesick,” Dylan said softly, an aching feeling in his heart. Lia shouldn’t feel like this. She belonged in Melbourne.

She shrugged. “I want to go back,” she said. “But I don’t want to leave you guys.” She began to cry. “I miss Ji Oppa so much.”

Dylan hugged her. “You still talk to them, right?”

She shook her head. “Not as much. They’ve got a concert coming up so they don’t have time to chitchat even just for a few minutes. They’re always so busy.”

“Let’s take your mind off things,” he said gently. He pulled her up. “Come on; let’s go to the park.”

“The park . . . I used to walk their dogs at the park,” she said, remembering.

Dylan sighed, sitting back down. “The cinemas?”

“Ji Oppa and I once watched Juno in his room, pretending we were at the cinema while eating bags of chips.”

“Ugh. Okay, what about we head off to school? We can sneak in and walk around.”

Lia shook her head sadly. “Big Bang and I once sneaked into the YG Entertainment to use their dance studio on closing days. 2NE1 who had snuck inside to use the dance studio too like us was there as well. It was cool, getting to know them and talking to them.”

“Aaaaahhhh,” he cried in frustration. “This is hopeless. Is there a place they didn’t take you, where it doesn’t remind you of them?”

She shook her head. “Anni, I think they pretty much took me around the place,” she replied.

“Anni?” he repeated.

“It means no in Korean,” she explained. “Sorry. You tend to kick the habits of saying certain Korean words after staying there for three weeks total.”

He shook his head. Might as well go live in Korea, he thought grumpily.

Lia looked out of the window, playing with the bracelet, thinking far away again. He knew she was thinking of Big Bang again.

Meanwhile, in Korea, Ji Yong was staring at his computer screen. His wallpaper was of him and Lia, where Lia had her arms wrapped around him and they were smiling so happily. He could see the dangling chains of the two bracelets. He looked down to his own bracelet.

“I wonder if she’s still wearing it,” he said to himself. He picked up his phone. He wanted to call her, but he knew in five minutes time he had to get off to go to a photo shoot.

It was hard, not being able to hear her voice. And when he does, she sound so sad. He missed her and he knew she missed him. He knew she wasn’t happy. He had seen her wall on Facebook. Her friends had posted on her wall, asking why is she so down all the time. Why is her grade dropping? Why doesn’t she want to hang out with them anymore like she used to?

“Lia, what are you doing to yourself?” he whispered, looking at her smiling face on the computer. “Don’t be sad. Be happy. Smile, like in this picture.”

Knock, knock.

“Oh?” he called.

The door opened and TOP wandered in. “Ji Yong, we have to go now.” He saw that Ji Yong was staring at his computer screen. He leaned against the door. “You missed her, don’t you?”

Ji Yong groaned. “Have you seen her Facebook wall?!”

He shrugged. “I can’t. She’s blocked me.”

“What?” He looked up, startled. “You’re serious? She blocked you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, she hates me,” he said. He folded his arms. “But I have to ask you, do you love her?”

Ji Yong didn’t even need to hesitate. “Yes, I do. I love her. I don’t want her to be unhappy.”

“Then I think you should do whatever you think it’s best for this relationship to work and for her to be happy like before, because long distance relationships usually never lasts,” he said and walked away.

Ji Yong frowned, unsure of what he meant. But then it hit him. His frowned deepen. “Oh.” He sat back in his chair, lost.

Could he really do it?

Should he?

A few weeks later Lia’s behavior didn’t improve. She was still sad. But the only thing that kept her going was that Ji Yong’s career was getting even more successful as the concert creeps closer.

One day she was out at lunch with the Four Seasons when her phone rang. Her eyes lit up. Ji Yong was calling!

“Yeobasaeyo?” she said happily. “How are you?”

“Lia.”

Lia noticed his voice sounded different. Like, it sounded hard and as though he was . . . “What is it?”

“I want to break up,” he said.

Lia froze. Her friends stopped talking and looked at her. “What?”

“I want to break up,” he repeated, this time more slowly.

“But . . . why?” She couldn’t understand it. They were going so well, everything seemed to be perfectly fine. And now this? “Is it because of the long distance?”

He laughed coldly. “No, you silly girl,” he said harshly and she shuddered with chills. “It’s because I can’t get satisfied with you. So I don’t see any point in continuing this fake relationship with you when I can get what I want with other girls.”

Lia was completely speechless. This wasn’t what he said a month ago when he told her he didn’t want to hurt her, when he asked her to be his girlfriend. “Okay.”

There was a pause and Lia heard a sharp intake of breath.

Click.

He’d hung up on her.

“What is it, Lia?” Shervonne asked her. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. She needs to get out of here. She stood up. “I have to go,” she said faintly.

“What is it?” Paige asked. “Hey Lia, where are you going?”

But she was already out of the door. The moment she closed the door behind her, she ran. She ran and ran and didn’t look back. Her vision blurred as tears stung her eyes. But she kept running. She didn’t care. Her senses were sharp so she would know when she was about to bang into something.

She ran home and ran all the way to the back door, out to the stables, past her adoptive brothers’ calls.

She opened the door to a horse’s stall and went inside. She took her black mare Midnight out and led her out. She used the footstool to get on her and she rode off to the field. She changed Midnight’s gait to a gallop. She jumped over the fences out into field where she just felt the rushing wind fly past her face.

She’s not going to cry. She’s going to be fine. She’s not going to cry. . . .

She’s not going to cry.

Ji Yong slumped in his seat the moment they hung up. He tried to blink back tears but they came anyway.

“Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!” he screamed in total frustration. He threw his phone on the bed and out of anger, he swiped all the books off from his table, letting them fall to the ground with a loud thud.

He flung himself on the bed and buried his face in the pillow when the door flew opened. “What the hell happened here?” TOP asked.

Ji Yong didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. But he knew he should. “I broke up with Lia,” he said, his voice muffled.

“What?” TOP came inside the room. “Why did you do that? I thought you love her.”

“That’s why I’m doing this,” he muttered. “I want her to be happy, but she won’t be happy as long as we’re together.”

“Won’t she just tell you that you guys could make it work?”

“I lied to her. I lied to her, telling her I want to date other girls and I didn’t want to waste my time on her.”

TOP shook his head. “Ji Yong, I don’t want to tell you what to do. But, do you honestly think this is for the best?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“What I mean is that, is this what you want to do?”

“No, obviously. But it’s something I need to do. She’s better off this way. She deserves better than me,” he said. “She deserves some lucky guy who can always be there for her, someone who can hold her and let her know he’s there for her. I can’t give that to her, not when I’m here and she’s there.” He shrugged. “If you love someone that much and you know they’re hurting because of you, you can’t be selfish. You have to let them go so they can be happy.”

TOP sighed. “Well, it’s your decision, I guess.” He looked around. “You better clean this place up.” He stood up and left. When he closed the door, he sighed heavily. He didn’t know what to feel. Even though he still wasn’t sure how to feel about Ji Yong dating his sister, he didn’t think breaking up with her is a good idea but Ji Yong is a grown man. He has to learn things for himself.

TOP just hoped that his sister is okay.