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It's a bit easier to sleep nowadays.

You thought that it would get harder, especially with your anxiety surrounding your evaluation, but after Hoseok took you to that dance circle, it's almost as though he ignited the beauty, the passion you used to find in art. It made you feel almost whole again, complete. That even while the world may change and your life isn't completely in your control, this love for music will forever stay true. It's a comfort, and while the nightmares haven't completely gone away, it's easier.

Just a little bit easier to sleep.

However, if anyone else was in your shoes and heard someone moving around in their kitchen at six am in the morning when you weren't expecting anyone, and you have the only copy of your key...

It would be quite jarring even if your sleep was peaceful.

Your heart pounds violently within your chest, you swallow hard as you gingerly pull yourself out of bed, making sure to make no noticeable noise. Once your feet touch safely on solid ground, you let out a small breath, before freezing once more as you hear footsteps begin to walk slowly toward your door. Frantically searching for a weapon, anything to defend yourself with, you hardly have time to grab a curling iron from your desk before the doorknob begins to turn, and a male voice beginning to sound from the other side.

But before he can get even a word out, you're already poised and ready for the split second your eyes catch sight of his face, a mere blur of pale skin and tousled black hair before you're swinging the curling iron with as much strength as you can muster.

The good thing is, your aim wasn't so far off, even though your eyes were closed tightly shut. It was enough to knock the intruder to the floor, a platter clanging violently beside him.

The bad thing is, the intruder isn't an intruder at all.

"Ah, Yen, what the hell?!"

And as you open your eyes, and catch sight of him lying on the floor, egg yolk trickling down the side of his face, grape jam and butter spread all over his pajama pants, and bacon hanging over his eye in its greasy glory. Which he takes quick care to remove before fixing you with the same glare he's been wearing ever since you hit him.

"Jaejin?!"

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Jaejin wishes Namjoon wouldn't find as much joy as he does at the sound of his friend's utter pain and humiliation. It only prompts him to tighten the current eyepatch he wears over his eye, hoping that could at least tame the shameful feeling but to no such luck.

"So she's the one who gave you that shiner?"

Jaejin rolls his eyes, turning his face from his friend in blatant disapproval.

"Shut up."

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Namjoon leans back in his chair, peering through the window to the recording area. "I mean, you kind of deserved it."

"Funny, that's what she said." Scoffing, Jaejin follows his gaze, settling on a table in the back of the small studio. "'Payback for leaving' she called it."

Yen stands on the other side, laughing as she prepares to practice for the day, Jungkook cracking jokes at her expense. Jin watches contently in the back, piping in every once in a while with his two sense, which is very much needed. Jaejin can't help but notice how happy she looks, how free. Compared to the way he left her, she almost seems to have found some form of peace while he was gone.

He should be happy.

So why does this strange feeling erupt at the sight of her standing so close to him?

"Why are you back Jaejin?" The question causes Jaejin to freeze up, and he avidly avoids Namjoon's glance his way as he turns away from the soundboard to face him. "And where's Mijeong?"

The name sends a stabbing pain to his gut, a memory he had wished he wouldn't have to relive too soon. Broken promises and lingering regret, and yet it is something he cannot change.

These are the same words Yen asked him when he returned, and just like right now, in this moment, they are the same words he finds he has no answer for.

Because he cannot bear to tell them the truth.

So instead, he decides to focus on something else, someone else.

"She didn't need me as much as she thought she did."

Namjoon knows he's avoiding the question, that for some reason talking about Mijeong has created an icy barrier between their communication, so instead, he is deciding to change his focus. However, Namjoon can also tell that there's something he's hiding about Yen. That look in his eye, that isn't something only reserved for friendship. There is something deeper rooted in their history that makes it so easy for Jaejin to forget about anything else and only focus on her.

"Are you going to tell me why you returned early?"

Jaejin smiles at Namjoon's persistence, but he should know he's not going to give in that easily. He'll tell him when he feels he's ready, but those emotions from that night, that trip; they're all too much for him to bear as he is right now. So he'd like to ignore them, forget them. If only for a little while.

After all, hanging on to memories won't keep them alive, now will they?

"So, how is she?"

Getting the memo, Namjoon sighs almost hopelessly as he plops himself on the edge of the table right next to Jaejin, watching as Yen chases Jungkook around the booth to try and retrieve a hat that was hiding unkempt hair.

"I think she's okay." Jaejin looks at him, and at the sight of his confusion, Namjoon shrugs his shoulders. "I mean, she puts on a brave face, but she's been through a lot this past month. Not to mention the stress she's undertaken, considering your absence and her new position...A lot is riding on her, a lot of pressure and expectations." Namjoon can't help but wonder how quickly it would be before that smile on her face is taken away. If her strength can be so easily depleted as it was given back. "So who knows what she hides behind her smile?"

Jaejin can't help the worry as it builds up within his heart, expressing itself in his furrowed brow, and his pursed lips.

"Oh yeah, perhaps that very person may be you."

Jaejin turns to RM and finds that it's not so surprising to see he's not even looking his way. Instead, his eyes are fixed on Yen, with the same worry and trepidation Jaejin had felt only a moment ago. However, there's something deeper in his eyes, something Jaejin can recognize almost as easily as he can find the starry freckles that dot Mijeong's nose. And at the sight, he feels that same tug at his heart.

For how can he stand to see his dearest friend cherish her in the same regard he does?

Isn't it strange? How love can be so endearing and cruel in the same breath?

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"Will you tell her?"

Jaejin freezes at the question.

It is the first time Mijeong has spoken since he told her he was leaving, and while he can hear the snot and tears so thick on her voice, it's clear she is trying her best to maintain her composure. Jaejin would be lying if he didn't feel the same. He has refrained from talking as he packs his things, for fear that he would break down at the thought of leaving her.

But it isn't fair, not to her.

So when he turns to her, he forces the tears back down his throat. He refuses the urge to cry, to show his vulnerability. To reveal just how much he does love her, how much he needs her.

Why that is the exact reason he has to say goodbye.

"The real reason?"

Mijeong is shaking, but she's trying so hard to remain strong, to show her anger, her frustration at the situation. The fact that she wasn't enough, that she couldn't make him forget about her. That his feelings, though they may be true did not belong to her. At least, not to her alone.

And the fact that he just stands there, looking at him, his throat moving up and down that lets her know he's trying hard not to cry and tells her he's doing it so she doesn't feel guilty, is worse than he can imagine, and hurts more than if he was being selfish. Because at least then she could justify her anger, at least then she would have a reason to shove him out of that door.

"Even after all this time, even after what we've been through, you still won't tell her?"

But she doesn't.

Because the worst part of it was he loved her, and he loves her even now.

Mijeong scoffs at the cruelty of it all, at the twisted game love seems to play, and wonders at how she got roped into it. Why the one person who could not give his all, had to be the one person she could not live without.

"I'm sorry."

Instead of consoling her, he keeps his distance, because maybe that would make it easier. Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so much when he walked out that door, saying his final goodbyes.

"I know."

But nothing can make this better, nothing can ease the pain they both feel the pain that inflicted itself on the pair of them the first time Mijeong walked up to him and said hello.

"But it doesn't change anything, does it?"

For when a heart breaks, it's never clean. It's messy and broken, and pieces are scattered in trails that not even you nor anyone else can reach. Once a person has found their way in, a part of them always stays.

And that is what they have become.

A small speck of a former memory, that was once a part of a future they had created together.

Now shattered beyond repair.

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Jaejin wishes Mijeong was wrong.

That they broke up because his feelings changed, they became too different, and it was too hard to continue pretending. He prays that it wasn't because he was still in love with the girl who lived next door to him all those years ago. Who gave him his first kiss, who showed him what it meant to live, who broke his heart whenever he saw her cry, and even more when she confessed her secrets, and completely shattered them when she had to leave him behind.

But he knows as well as Mijeong that this is a lie.

Because even though he loves her, he also loves Yen, and that much is evident as he watches her from afar, just like he always has. Two steps behind the girl who shone like a star.

"Did you miss her?"

Namjoon asks him, and Jaejin can't help but once more find himself mesmerized in those eyes as she glances towards the glance, and finds him within the dim lights.

"I never stopped."

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this chapter is a bit of fresh air from our last heartbreak, but i'm sure many of you are surprised or a bit annoyed at the amount of admirers Yen is getting AND I'M SORRY but not really heh. I guess we'll have to see what this new revelation means for this pair and for Mijeong