Sungjong couldn’t even look at Hyera. He didn’t know what to do. He was distressed; his insides were swirling as if he were being into a black hole. He couldn’t do this. What was he supposed to say? Thanks for the good memories, have a good rest of your life?

“Sungjong-ah,” Hyera spoke up, startling Sungjong, “Can you teach me another dance routine?”

He managed to turn toward Hyera and stare into her eyes, always glittering, always full of glowing light brighter than any surrounding her. “What?” he croaked.

“Can you teach me one more dance routine? Since you are my dance teacher,” Hyera said.

Sungjong knew the feeling that was building inside him, all too well. The feeling of getting lost in those deep brown pupils of hers. “You know, we never got to finish TVXQ Sunbaenim’s song,” he muttered.

“Yeah… but today, I’d like to learn something that we can finish up… in one day. Since, you know…” Hyera remarked, blinking a few times.

Sungjong was nodding his head. He didn’t think it was possible, but his brain was functioning on its own, surfing through the dances he knew to find one that he could teach Hyera for their last meeting in the practice room.

“Okay. I know a recent one we can learn pretty quickly. Do you mind Sistar’s So Cool?” he suggested.

“Great!” Hyera nodded cheerfully.

She was so bright the whole time they learned the So Cool dance, way too bright for Hyera. Surprisingly, her giddiness did well to help her get the right feel for the choreography, which was perky, bubbly, and full of girlish flare. When Sungjong got to the part of the chorus named ‘the tail dance’, Hyera burst out laughing. She claimed that the dance resembled someone who had just farted and was trying to fan the smell away. Sungjong couldn’t help it; however ridiculous her claim was, it made him laugh along.

He had no idea how Hyera had gotten so much better at mastering choreographies so fast, but in a matter of 45 minutes, the two of them could run through the complete So Cool routine side by side. Maybe it was the dance that was just really simple.

“Nice Hyera!” he said, when they finished their final run-through, “You’re practically ready to debut now!”

“Well maybe if I’d been a trainee with Sistar’s company, they could’ve been a five-member group!” Hyera joked, “They don’t have spectacular, private dance teachers like you though, I bet!”

The giggles she let out after that seemed a little forceful to Sungjong. He didn’t like how dreary the mood was, even in the wake of their success. If his pupil herself was claiming that she had mastered dancing from him, shouldn’t he deserve a pat on the back?

“So…” said Hyera, not giggling forcefully anymore, just smiling shyly, with her deep eyes glittering profoundly, “this is it, huh?”

And Sungjong could feel himself getting lost again, unable to do anything to fix this imminent turmoil on his way... “Listen Hyera-yah… I’m sorry I started this whole thing with you… if it wasn’t for me…”

“Don’t be,” Hyera interrupted, “Don’t be sorry. I don’t regret anything.”

Hyera was stronger than Sungjong. He could never be that certain. He was just so broken, from the fact that he may never be able to share such private moments with this girl again, share an embrace with her again, share a kiss with her again…

“Jiae told me a lot… about the risks of this situation. Probably in the same way that Myungsoo oppa talked to you, right?” Hyera continued, her voice so calm and controlled.

Sungjong couldn’t afford that controlled luxury. He just nodded his head and let her go on.

“Jiae told me… that you weren’t going to ask me to wait. And it’s pretty obvious, that we’re both going to be in situations where we can’t possibly think of being involved in relationships, for a very long time. Infinite’s success… is on the rise. You guys are going to be so famous. I just hope when we debut, we’ll be able to live up to the company’s name, like you guys…”

Sungjong couldn’t control himself any longer. He felt a layer of moisture forming over his eyes, and cursed himself for being so weak. He couldn’t imagine how dull things would be, when he stopped messaging Hyera about every little thing that happened during his day, when he stopped dreaming about her and the most beautiful and magical eyes of hers.

“Just promise me, that we’ll both work as hard as possible, for as long as we can, alright? I’m not going to forget you, but we’ll both just have to leave these memories in the very back of our minds, and focus on our goals and dreams. Right?” Hyera asked. She had stepped closer to Sungjong now, but still a rather safe distance away, as if she were watching for him to make sudden movements toward her.

“I promise,” Sungjong choked out. And the sobs erupted. He was such a fool, for spilling out such tears in front of Hyera. She had come up to him and was patting his back gently, but Sungjong wanted her closer. He drew her in with his arms, and kissed her tenderly, the idea of it being their last kiss making him anxious.

If Hyera had been holding back her sorrow, her regrets, her tears, whatever else, she didn’t hold back now. She kissed him back fervently, and for a long time, until Sungjong tears stopped flowing and his cheeks were dry.

For some reason, when Sungjong finally returned to his dorm room and fell into his bed, he slept without a single dream.

When Hyera returned to her bed on the floor of the girls’ room, she shed all the soundless tears she’d been holding back for Sungjong all night, the watery drops just flowing down the sides of her face slowly and sorely.

*****

Jiae hugged every one of the Infinite members before they all piled into their van, to head to their new apartment dorm. Myungsoo held her for so long, Sunggyu oppa had to yell at them to stop. Before moving onto Woohyun oppa, Jiae flashed Myungsoo her charm bracelet, to which Myungsoo smiled and nodded, satisfied. Sungjong was difficult to send off. She hugged him tightly and patted his back sturdily, hoping everything had been okay, that he and Hyera had ended their relationship on good terms. A pang had shot through her heart that morning, when she woke and saw the tear stains next to Hyera’s eyes. If any of the other girls noticed, they didn’t ask about it.

With the Infinite boys gone to their nice new dorm, it was back to endless practice again, for the girl trainees. They still didn’t know anything about their debut. Nothing had been set, not their group name, not their actual numbers, not their official debut date, anything. But none of the girls had even a squeak of complaints. Jiae knew that it was going to work out. That she would debut, as Infinite’s company hoobaes. And when Jiae worked hard enough to let her group be known, Myungsoo would step up and announce that they were dating. It was all planned. All Jiae needed to do, was continue to garner encouragement from Myungsoo’s charm bracelet, with its Japanese charm, which told Jiae, “Success”.

*****

Sungjong did not delete Hyera’s number from his phone. They just never texted each other. It would have been too much to do so.

He never stopped dreaming about her. In the first few month in their new dorm, in truth, Sungjong had had some trouble sleeping, dreaming of Hyera and all the things they’d done in their practice room, dancing, making fun of each other, kissing… all the things he could not help but miss so much. But then, after a while, the dreams began to change. Instead of reminding him about everything he missed, Hyera just began to appear before him, with her dazzling eyes and a beautiful light illuminating her, just reminding Sungjong of her in herself. Those dreams actually soothed Sungjong when he was overly tired from Infinite’s abundance of schedules.

The only thing that Sungjong couldn’t help but complain about was that unlike Hyera, who could know exactly how he was doing and where he was every day, he knew nothing about what she was doing. All Hyera probably had to do, if she wanted to and found the will to, was to look up Infinite’s schedule or watch their most recent performances. But Hyera was so under the surface to Sungjong, he worried he wouldn’t even know if she all of a sudden decided to quit being a trainee and left the company or not. Well, that, was over-exaggerating things. Still, it was unfair, that he couldn’t observe her, like she could him.

*****

The Infinite members were gathered in Sunggyu and Woohyun’s hotel room, watching the debut performance of Woolim’s new girl group on the music show, M!Countdown. Myungsoo commented on how Jiae was the worst dancer. Hoya grinned from ear to ear, saying how proud he was, and how good it felt to have their own company’s hoobaes.

Sungjong said a silent apology in his head to the other girls, and assured them that soon, he would watch them thoroughly too. But for this very first debut performance, he could only have eyes for Hyera. She was doing great, dancing like a natural, not just smiling in that plastic way that female idols tended to do, but actually expressing the words and the dance moves with her face. Sungjong decided to give himself credit for that.

After watching the girl group’s debut video clip, the members settled down for the night – it was a comfortable 11p.m in the evening – to watch a movie. They were watching “A Chilling Romance” with the actor Lee Minki and actress Han Yejin: not a very recent movie, about a year old, and about a girl who could see ghosts and a guy who falls in love with her.

“Yah, you guys have absolutely no guts, you know that?? It wasn’t even that scary, and all of you were practically going nuts!!” Sunggyu exclaimed, when the movie was over.

Dongwoo was still clutching Hoya, even though the scary parts of the movie had ended about 20 minutes before the actual ending. “I admit, I’m a pretty big wimp. No denials here,” he admitted.

“I don’t care about the scary parts, I’m just jealous that the couple actually got together in the end! When are we ever gonna have a chance to have relationships like that, huh? I’d rather have a relationship with a girl who can see ghosts, than not have one at all!” Sungyeol complained loudly.

“Oh forget it,” Woohyun snapped, “You’re not getting anything close to a relationship for another 5 years, at least. Maybe when people start seeing Infinite as nation-wide friends, like the Shinhwa sunbaes, then you might have an inkling of a chance.”

“An inkling!?! Ahhh!!!”

Sungjong chuckled at Sungyeol’s outburst. He glanced over at Myungsoo, sitting next to Sungyeol, smirking, with a gleam in his eye. Somehow, Sungjong had the feeling that he had something cooking up in his sleeve, that he wasn’t telling any of the Infinite members. He was still the only one who knew about Myungsoo liking Jiae. He wondered if Myungsoo had some kind of solution, to the problem Sungyeol and the rest of the Infinite members were so deprived of.

Not that it mattered to Sungjong, all that much. The good thing about watching Hyera finally debut with the new Woolim girl group, Sungjong realized, was that he finally felt like he could watch over her and observe her. It was almost like they were just in a long distance relationship. They could even see each other from time to time, on music shows, and maybe in the future, they could even have a Woolim family concert together. Now that Hyera was somewhere, where Sungjong could at least reach him, he felt better. He wasn’t sure if after years and years of him being a member of Infinite and Hyera being a member of the Woolim girl group, that they could end up together again, but at least he was okay, for now.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Hi all~

I know I didn't even give any hints about this at all, but guess what? Obsession is finished!!!

I hope you all enjoyed the story, and reading about our lovely Sungjongie~~

As always, thank you so much for reading. I hope we can all be connected by being Inspirits forever and ever!! (Cheesiness overflow!)

Oh, and have you guys seen that new video clip from Woolim's Youtube channel?? I'm really curious to find out if it really is about the Woolim Girls and their upcoming debut!! I was really reluctant to try to give the girl group a name in the story, or their concept or style or anything for that matter, because I really don't know what to expect from them!! But I really hope they debut soon!!!

Please always be healthy and well♥

I'll leave off with a little GIF... ^^

Infinite Fighting! Woolim Girls Fighting!

-Jellyfriedgreen7