[To: Young Youngjae]

[From: Jiwoo Jiwoo]

3:23pm*

Can we see each other at your place? At 4? I asked Daehyun to give us some private time. He said he’ll be back in two hours.

[To: Young Youngjae]

[From: Jiwoo Jiwoo]

3:42pm*

Please don’t be late this time. I’ll be waiting…

Instead of focusing on his Economics notes, Youngjae had sunken deep into himself for the last two hours. Going over everything in his mind. Everything that had forced his and Jiwoo’s relationship, to this cliff parade.

What he had done. What she had done. Whether standing at the edge of this cliff, was a new hope, or just the end.*

In truth, Youngjae was the corrupt one. He was the worst screw up, the worst jerk he could have been. He hadn’t played his part, hadn’t been the man, the boyfriend he should have been.

He felt like an idiot. Like a coward. How he’d refused to even ponder, the fact that every ticking minute that went by with Jiwoo, alone, waiting for him, had probably been a pricking needle against her feelings for him.

When he counted up all those hours, and thought about all the times that she had forgiven him, had accepted his apology, he realized just how much she cared for him. Just how much she loved him.

And when his phone lit up at 3:42pm, and he understood that she was already there, waiting for him yet again, Youngjae grabbed his belongings and sprinted toward his apartment the whole ten minute distance.

She was sitting on the couch, hugging her legs, chin nestled between her knees. She didn’t have any makeup on, and normally Youngjae’s insides would have jumped at how beautiful she was without any makeup, but the halted hourglass expression of her face made him stop in place.

With his shoes half off, his backpack thrown down near the shoe rack, his jaw hanging open, he froze there. It was as if his conscious had known to brace itself for the oncoming hit.

Her voice cracked when she spoke.

“My heart is telling me to do this. And it makes it hurt so much more because of that… I love you, Youngjae, but we have to end it. I can’t just sit here, forever, and wait for you to change. I really… I have my own life too… and we have to end it here, now, because I have no place to go and no place to hide, and no more will to fight… and neither do you.”*

Frozen there, rigid, Youngjae could bring nothing out of his mouth. For what seemed like an endless few seconds, the room went wild, spinning, taunting him with a whirlwind of dizzying motions. And then, when he was finally able to make sense of up and down again, he saw Jiwoo. Sitting there, tears at her eyes, watching him break.

His vision blurred and the tears began, one, two drops at a time.

“You have to forgive me, Youngjae… I’m not strong enough, I’m not patient enough to wait for you. So I have to leave you… I know I’ll regret. A lot. And more than often, it’ll hurt like hell. But I won’t… I won’t put up any pathetic excuses to defend myself. This is all I am… a weakling that gave up.”

Youngjae didn’t become aware that he was shaking his head, stubbornly, back and forth, until the tense muscles at his neck pulled at him in strain. He tried to open up his fingers, but the clenched fists by his sides refused to budge. He felt like cement, hardened to the spot.

Moments passed in which Youngjae’s vision passed from darkly blurry to slightly visible. It wasn’t until he felt warm hands, wiping away at the torrent, that he regained himself.

Jiwoo’s face came into view. Beautiful, but crying too.

“Tell me it’s a joke.”

He croaked, barely audible, his voice thin, hoarse, and far away.

“Tell me you’re kidding. That you’re… pranking me. You succeeded, Jiwoo, big time… can’t you see how I’m sobbing like a baby..?”

Jiwoo’s face crumbled as she fought to speak clearly. She pulled her hands away from his face, and the chill of that emptiness, the missing touch, brought a whole new torrent right to the core.

“Youngjae… I meant it…”

“No. You’re lying. It’s all lies. I know you, Seo Jiwoo, I know you better than any other being on this planet. We loved each other… we love each other too much for this… we’re ing twenty-two years old but we love each other… damn it…”

He kicked his shoes away in frustration, unable to withhold his voice from shaking, from revealing how broken and lost he was. He tried to take a few steps but his legs wouldn’t let him, and in the end he just collapsed. Down on his knees, reaching out to Jiwoo, not finding her there only to realize she had backed away from his reach.

With swirling guilt and sorrow, she swallowed, her glittering eyes never leaving him, and lowered herself to his level. Still a distance away, still out of his numb limbs’ reach.

“You’re afraid you won’t be able to forget me, aren’t you..? You can’t be sure of yourself… because… because… you’re lying to me, right? You just said all these things, because… you hate the self-centered jerk that I am, you hate the screwed up excuse of a boyfriend that I’ve been to you… you don’t wanna see a hair on my head because it’ll make you so angry… so you just said all those things out of frustration.”

Jiwoo shuddered, broke down, and covered her face in her hands. Just like he’d seen her do so a thousand times, every date that he showed up hours late to, every fight they had where she would yell until her voice was gone.

She pulled back her hands, and the slightest, miniscule ray of hope darted across Youngjae’s mind for a split second. To no avail.

“Why can’t you get it in your head, Yoo Youngjae?! I don’t want to wait anymore! I don’t want you anymore!!”

Jiwoo was yelling at him again. Crying, and yelling at him. But not hitting him, not fighting back against his arms that were just trying to calm her, not like those other times.

Where had it gone wrong? It was all his fault. It was all so, so wrong.

And because she wasn’t hitting him, because the Jiwoo who was always a burning iron rod was now so cold, he felt farther away from her than ever. He couldn’t dare touch her. If she could just take his hand as if nothing happened, just once, if she could let him feel the perfect grip of her hand in his, then he would do anything to heal all of those flesh deep scars in her heart.

“… I can’t let go of you, Jiwoo… I don’t think I’ll be able to… without you… Don’t leave me…”

For the millionth time, Youngjae watched Jiwoo’s pretty face in ruins, by the weight of all of his faults and mess ups tolling back to her. And she drew back on the sobs wracking her, fumbling, using all the energy she had to hoist herself back up.

“I can’t do this anymore… I can’t be here, Youngjae… I’m sorry… please forgive me, when you can… I’m really sorry…”

The precious moments that he watched her trudge past him, footstep after slow footstep pounding on his chest mercilessly, Youngjae threw away the last of his pride, his whole self. And he called after her, in his broken, cracked voice.

“Don’t go, Jiwoo… don’t go… I love you… Jiwoo… I’ll do better, I’ll change…”

With a trembling hand on the doorknob, Jiwoo didn’t look back as she whispered, barely audible.

“If you could have changed, you would have already tried, wouldn’t you..? Or was I not worth even that…”

Youngjae crawled so he could face the chilling reality of her back to him, clicking the door open.

“I’ll come back to you. I know it’ll take some time for you to forget about me. Before that, before that happens, I’ll make sure to come back to you. I’ll make sure to fix everything about myself to repay you for all that you were for me… keep it in the back of your mind, Jiwoo. I’ll go back to you.”

She finally turned, craning her neck to give Youngjae one last look at the beautiful face, and the tears covering it. And the last little tear on her face, was him. He had brought it on her. He should have been right by her side, that empty space to her right.*

“Good luck with that… Youngjae… goodbye…”

-

(I apologize on behalf of both myself and B.A.P for the cringingly cheesy lyrics. For the sake of this story's concept, I had to translate it all exactly as it is ^^;)

*1_ 3:23pm is the song length for Stop It

*2_ 3:42pm is the song length for It's All Lies

*3_ Nell - 'Cliff Parade'

*4_ Nell - 'Conversation With Afternoon'

*5_ B.A.P - 'Easy'