You glance at your watch for what feels like the hundredth time that evening. He’s over an hour late at this point. You look down at the dishes laid out on the table before you. The intricately prepared shrimp scampi linguini has long gone cold and the candles you had lit are burning low.

You fidget uncomfortably and check your phone. Still no messages. Your fingers itch to call him, but you resist temptation. You know he’s working hard in the studio, as always, and you hate to interrupt his creative process.

Another half an hour passes and irritation begins to eat at your nerves. You remind yourself that this isn’t entirely his fault—how could he have known that you had planned a surprise romantic dinner for him? But you can’t help but feel agitated. Finally, you snap and pick up your phone to call him.

Your anxiety grows as the phone continues to ring, but a second before the line is directed to voicemail, he finally picks up, “Hello?”

He sounds so tired that you feel your anger dissipate at once, “Yoongi-ah? Is everything alright? You were supposed to be home over an hour ago.” You try to make your voice gentle to prevent from sounding too accusing.

“Oh, . I forgot.” He sighs and you hear the sound of his nails dragging through his hair, “Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be home tonight. I have too much to work on, jagiya.”

Your heart sinks a little, but his use of the term of endearment makes your insides clench with happiness, even after all these months, and you can’t bring yourself to feel too upset, “Really? That . Well, give me half an hour and I’ll head over to the studio and keep you company.”

“That’s really unnecessary.”

“Nonsense,” You say with as much cheer as you can muster, “I’m on my way now!”

He doesn’t say anything in response and you take that as your cue to pack up your things and slide the dinner you spent all afternoon preparing into a Tupperware container.

You skip into the studio a few minutes later, excited just to see your boyfriend after such a long time. “Yoongi!” You exclaim, a bright smile on your face.

He lowers his headphones and turns in his chair to look at you, “Oh, hey… You really shouldn’t have come all the way out here. It’s so late.”

“Don’t worry, I came prepared this time,” you say, proudly pulling a quilt and a pillow from your bag and laying it across the couch in the corner of the studio. You turn to grin at him, expecting a hug and a good-natured pat on your head at the very least. Instead, Yoongi remains in his seat and stares at you with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“You really don’t have to be here.”

“I know… I want to be,” you uncomfortably reply, sensing that something is off here. But his stare is cold and for once, you feel too nervous to question him. You clear your throat, trying to dispel the tension in the air, “Anyways, I brought you some pasta! It’s a bit cold now, but it’s your favorite and I—”

“I’m not hungry.”

You are taken aback by his curt reply, but quickly catch yourself, “Oh… Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“Don’t worry about me, just eat by yourself.”

You are about to respond and maybe coax him to eat some, aware of how he tends to skip meals when he worked, but then Yoongi was turning around again and slips on his headphones, cutting off all further conversation with you.

You are silent for a few minutes, staring at the container in your lap. Negative thoughts invade your mind, but you sternly shake them off and reach for a fork to begin eating. You can barely taste your food, and you eat quickly, just to get it over with. A minute later, you put your fork down, your appetite lost. You put the container on the counter, hoping that Yoongi might see it in the middle of the night and actually eat something for once. Then you fiddle around for a few moments, looking for something to do, before you give up and settle for watching your boyfriend as he works.

Yoongi’s back is turned to you as he works on his music, completely engrossed as always. The other times you have come to visit, he let you sit on his lap and listen to what he’d been working on. He loved showing you his creations and rapping lyrics he’d been working on for you… Or at least he used to. And you used to love showering him with kisses while he worked and trying to distract him.

You continue to stare at his back. His entire posture is rigid and his shoulders are tense. Normally, you would never think twice about walking over and draping yourself over him, loosening his tight muscles with a neck massage, but this time, something has changed. You don’t dare touch him now.

You lie down on the couch and curl up under the blanket. You close your eyes to try to distract yourself from your anxieties and fall into a stiff, fitful sleep.

***

When you wake up, you feel even more tense and exhausted than before you fell asleep. You feel the sense of eyes on the back of your head and look up to find Yoongi staring at you. There is no trace of a smile on his face and the deep bags under his eyes only make his gaze more chilling. Your heart clenches.

Neither of you speaks for a moment, and you feel like trapped, like a deer in headlights.

Finally, Yoongi sighs and says, “You really shouldn’t have come here.”

You can’t find anything to say and simply stare back with wide eyes.

“You should go home.” And then he’s turning back to the computer monitor, his headphones back on.

“Ok,” you croak, but the sound falls to deaf ears. You mechanically get up and begin shoving your things back into your bag. You notice that Yoongi hasn’t even touched the pasta you left out for him and you try not to let it affect you.

Your things packed, you stop and hover in the doorway. You aren’t sure what you’re expecting, but Yoongi doesn’t acknowledge you. You stand there for another few seconds, shivering despite the early morning sunlight that streams into the room.

You walk out the door and shut the door firmly behind you. Yoongi never even turns around.

***

That day, you try your best to distract yourself. You engross yourself in your classes and spend your entire evening at the library. You get all your work done for the week, and only when you’ve completed all your readings for your media studies class for the entire semester, do you run out of things to do, and are forced to return back to your apartment.

You set your things down in your dark apartment and check your phone for the first time since leaving Yoongi’s studio that morning. No calls, no messages, just as you should have expected, but it still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Without bother to undress, you lie down on your bed, on top of the covers and close your eyes tightly. All at once, all the thoughts you had been trying so hard to repress swarm into your mind. You muse over the past six months of your strange relationship with the idol. You’ve always known that you were the lucky one in the relationship—that you had shot for the stars and hit the jackpot while he had simply settled, but you had been trying to overlook that fact for the last few months. You had managed to trick yourself into believing that he cared for you, too; that he was just as invested in the relationship, but it was obviously just a lie you created to help yourself sleep better at night. You know that you love Yoongi much more than he could ever love you (if he even loved you, that is), and it was time to face the truth.

You remember back to the very start of your relationship with Yoongi. You had only been an intern at Big Hit, working with the boys with their social media relations. At first glance, Yoongi had caught your eye, and you had written it off as a stupid crush, but over the months the silly crush had grown to an intense, almost obsessive love for the boy. You had fallen head over heels for every aspect of the boy—from his talent, to his blunt honesty, to even his sarcastic sense of humor. Your heart raced every time you saw him, and having to work with him on a daily basis made your palms sweat and your entire body flush red. It had been driving you insane, and you knew that you had to get it out of your system or else you’d never get over him.

So on the very last day of your internship, before the summer ended and you returned to school, you pulled Yoongi aside and confessed your feelings. It had been a terrible, dreadfully awkward encounter—by far the most embarrassing moment of your life, as you trembled and stumbled over your words, as red as a tomato, while Yoongi simply stared at you, his expression blank. You hadn’t been expecting anything. Maybe a kind rejection at best. You just wanted to get this over with so you could go on with your life. You were definitely not expecting him to accept with a raise of the eyebrows, pull you by the hand to the café down the street for a cup of coffee and have your first date right then and there.

It had been like a dream come true. You were so enraptured, so in love, that your relationship with Yoongi felt like a fairytale ending. So what if he never had time to see you and that you saw him more on your TV screen than in real life? So what if he couldn’t be seen with you in public and that all your dates were either in your apartment or in seedy cafes in the middle of the night? The fact that you even got to see him at all filled you with such happiness that it didn’t matter. And if he never said he loved you, except that one time when he was drunk off his and had no idea what he was spewing out of his mouth, no matter how many times you repeated that phrase to him, well, that didn’t matter either because you had enough love for the both of you.

But now, something was definitely wrong. You had been holding on for so long, and it wasn’t fair. It was time to let go.

You jump upright in bed, your heart pounding in your chest. You hesitate for a moment, thinking about how easy it would be to simply lie back down and forget about everything and continue living in your sparkly land of make believe. You grit your teeth and get up to put on your shoes. It would be like ripping off a band aid. Quick and painful, but necessary.

You rush out of your room, not stopping a moment to even grab your coat. You know he doesn’t have a schedule today, so there is only one place he could be.

You make it to his studio in record time and burst through the door. Yoongi spins around in his chair in surprise, frowning at the sight of you standing there in only a t-shirt and jeans, despite the time of night, panting and wild-eyed.

“___-ah?” he breathes your name, tugging off his headphones. “What’s going on?”

You are quiet for a few moments, focusing on catching your breath. You scan his appearance, and as always, his beauty hits you like a ton of bricks. Even simply sitting there in his outfit of a hoodie and sweats, with dark bags dragging his sleepless eyes down, he is beautiful. You are attracted to him like a moth to a flame and for a wild second, you think that it’s not too late. You’ll throw yourself in his arms and tell him that you love him and pretend it doesn’t hurt when he doesn’t say it back.

But you can’t do that to yourself anymore. You inhale deeply and dig your nails into your palm hard enough to draw blood. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He frowns, “Are you feeling alright? What are you talking about, jagiya?”

You almost break with the use of that one little word. Instead you square your shoulders and look him in the eye, “This relationship, Yoongi. It’s not working out. I can’t do this anymore.”

He is quiet for a few moments. “I don’t understand.”

You can’t help it. You los