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At the door slam, Jaejin can't help but jump.

Almost hesitantly, he peers around the corner to see you sitting on the step by the front door, fumbling with the laces on your shoes.

"Hey, are you doing okay?"

Without much of a word, you turn slowly and give him a glare of the highest degree before throwing your shoe across the small space between the step and the door, a startling clatter of noise causing Jaejin to flinch as it falls. Jaejin smiles nervously before slowly leaning back and trying to focus on stirring his batter for his cookies. But he can't help but peer at Yen from the corner of his eye as she pulls off her other shoe and practically stomps to her room, muttering incoherent things under her breath.

And successfully leaving Jaejin in bewildered silence.

That is until a high-pitched laugh from his phone cuts through the insufferable quiet. Rolling his eyes he tries his best to mask his smirk as he resumes his stirring, Mijeong practically keeling over from laughter just behind his screen.

"Seriously, what could be funny?" Jaejin sighs. "She might as well hate me now."

"Oh come on, Jaejin. She doesn't hate you."

"Oh yeah? Then what was that just now?"

Now it's Mijeong's turn to roll her eyes.

"You don't know how to deal with emotions, do you?"

Jaejin gasps in high offense at the insinuation and Mijeong can't help but smile at his dramatics.

"It's not that at all."

Mijeong raises her brow before disappearing from the screen for a moment as she reaches for something in the distance. When she speaks next, her voice is muffled, almost as though she were speaking from miles away.

"Oh really. Then what is it?"

Jaejin hesitates before speaking next, and when Mijeong reappears she's able to catch a glimpse of his conflicted expression before he buries it behind the growing tendrils of his hair, focusing on the batter instead.

"I just don't understand how to comfort her."

Mijeong knows why he won't show her his expression. And at the thought, she can't help but smile bitterly to herself.

As if she hasn't seen that expression before.

As if it hasn't torn her heart to pieces thousands of times over.

"It's not like before. I mean, she's different, changed."

Pushing back the rise of bile in her throat, Mijeong leans back, pulling her knees up to her chest as she looks up at her phone screen.

"Well you guys haven't been together for a while, and you hardly saw her when she arrived. It's natural for things to be different no matter how close you were before."

Jaejin sighs, setting down his spoon and turning to find a pan to lay out the batter.

"I suppose you're right."

"Plus, she's gone through a lot of things this year. First, her breakup, her job at BigHit, becoming a trainee, and now her mother's accident? It's got to be a lot, especially for one person to handle."

Jaejin can't help but pause a moment at the mention of Jocelynn. Mijeong can feel it too, the instant sorrow, the way she cannot bear to even say her name without something twisting in her gut. Jocelynn is dear to all of them, no one can imagine losing her, least of all Yen.

And Jaejin knows Mijeong is right. He knows that Yen has been through hell these past couple of months, not to mention the past year, but it still hurts to know that she might not need him as much anymore. That he's expendable.

Pulling his head out of the cabinet he pulls out his desired pan and turns back to Mijeong, placing the tray on the counter with a satisfying thud.

"You have to be careful about that information, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone she was a trainee."

Mijeong rolls her eyes at the quick switch in the conversation but is also thankful for it.

"God, I know I realize that it's like top secret."

Jaejin manages a slight smile at her exasperation and she chuckles a bit before catching herself at the jump in her chest. Swallowing hard, she looks away from the camera, hoping that Jaejin hasn't noticed, but he did. Because of course, he did.

And it makes him feel like shit all over again.

But he would never let her know.

Because even after everything, he knows his feelings do not matter. Not if they mean hurting her.

"I'm glad we can still talk like this though." He murmurs instead, spraying the pan so that the cookies won't stick.

Mijeong smiles over the phone, once again thankful.

Even now he's still taking care of her. Being considerate of her feelings, putting them above his own, and making sure she is not hurt.

Can you blame her for falling for him?

"Hey, I broke up with you, remember? It would be weird if we couldn't at least talk like we used to." Sighing, she sits up, placing her phone down so she can stretch from her formally reclined position. "Besides I knew your feelings before we even started dating. It's not like I didn't know where your heart lies."

She intentionally turns her face away from the screen, so that this time he is unable to see the sadness that sparks anew in her eyes at the next phrase.

"I just wish that I could have swayed your heart even a little bit."

However, the very same phrase makes Jaejin pause ever so slightly as he sets down his mixing bowl.

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know that he still loves her, that leaving her was the hardest thing to do, and that the only reason he did was because he didn't want to hurt her anymore. He couldn't keep pulling her on a strand of hope if he couldn't forget about someone else. That wasn't fair to her, it wasn't fair to him. So even if it's hard, it's probably the best that she doesn't know. Because if she can find someone better than him thinking that he no longer loves her, maybe she can find peace without someone breaking her heart over and over again.

And because he loves her, that would make him happier than anything else.

"Have you told her yet?"

Taking a deep breath, he tries to put his thoughts out of his mind as he picks up the pan and walks over to the oven, his body out of sight for Mijeong for a moment.

"Told her what?"

"Jae..." Mijeong rolls her eyes in exasperation, almost wishing she could reach through the screen so she could smack some sense into him.

"What?!" Jaejin shouts, much too loud, but thankfully the sound is muffled by the oven his head is currently stuck inside. It's hard for Mijeong not to crack a small smile at the image, even if she's not witnessing it. But that tiny second of happiness is quickly replaced by the bitterness she refuses to acknowledge.

"Even if you don't confess, you still have to tell her we broke up." Mijeong knows this situation is not Yen's fault. That she's not to blame for her current heartbreak. "I mean what did she think when you showed up without me there?"

But some part of her can't help but accuse her. Some part can't help but despise Yen even if she has done no wrong. And perhaps it is her own selfishness or hurt, but at this point, she cannot find it within herself to be the bigger person. To care whether she's right or wrong. To recognize that if Yen had known she would have been on Mijeong's side. At this point, Mijeong is tired of being understanding. For just a moment she wants to know how it feels to let go of her maturity. To get angry, to allow the bitterness to fill her up.

"Well, for one thing, she gave me this shiner."

When Jaejin comes back to the screen, displaying his black eye to her proudly, Mijeong is caught off guard. There's something in the comical display of the eye, and the blank face he wears, almost as though he were upset at the situation, that makes Mijeong forget. And for a moment, she's brought back to before they were in love.

Before she was in love.

And so she breaks out in laughter.

Jaejin frowns at the reaction, immediately pulling away and brushing his hair so that it somewhat shadows the shiner.

"You're kidding!" Mijeong manages to say in between her gasps of laughter, and Jaejin scoffs rolling his eyes.

"No. She smacked me straight in the eye with a curling iron." Somehow, that small detail is enough to send Mijeong over the edge and she keels over cackling. Jaejin pouts, annoyed at how amusing this is to her. "Told me it was payback for leaving."

Sighing as she recovers from her laughing fit, she fixes Jaejin with a practical stare, to which he responds with an incredulous one.

"You kind of deserved that."

Mouth agape, Jaejin nearly throws his phone in his exasperation.

"Oh come on! Not you too!"

Mijeong rolls her eyes, smiling to herself at his childish behavior as she leans back.

"Jae, you're her closest friend. Besides Kalli, you're probably her best friend and you've been there for her ever since that incident with her father." Jaemin opens his mouth to retort, but at Mijeong's hard stare, he falls quiet fast. "Some part of her will always need you, it always has. Which is why you can't let go of her, and why it hurt her so badly when you left her alone."

Jaejin is shocked by her words, and Mijeong finds that she is as well.

What is she doing?

She just told herself it was okay to be upset with them, that she needed the time and space away from them in order to find a way to be okay on her own. That she was no longer going to play a part in whatever twisted game of love they have created.

So why did she say anything?

Taking a deep breath, and chuckling almost as if to ease the tension, she promptly changes the topic. "Speaking of Kallista, I got a call from her again yesterday saying she still couldn't get a hold of Yen. It made me wonder, has she even talked to Melody yet?"

When Jaejin shakes his head in response to the question, Mijeong sighs, as Jaejin struggles to forget what Mijeong has just said. He was doing so well pretending everything was fine, or perhaps he just wished he could continue to lie to himself for a little longer. Perhaps he isn't ready to face the truth.

"Melody isn't going to like that, I mean Jocelynn is her mother too."

Jaejin gives in to the escape from the uncomfortable situation Mijeong offers, and nods in agreement, heading to the couch to settle amongst the mess of blankets and pillows.

"Tell me about it, you don't know the kind of spam I've gotten from that kid just begging me to force Yen to talk to her. I don't think she's contacted anyone from back home." Biting the inside of his cheek, he ponders the situation silently between his furrowed brows. "You know she left things rocky at best, I think it's just another argument she hasn't had the strength to topple."

Although Mijeong isn't in such a stable place herself, Yen is still her friend and she can't help but worry about her. Yen has been hurting for a long time, and these past couple of months haven't exactly been easy on her. Mijeong can't help but wonder how many beatings a person can take until they finally break. But then she wonders, has Yen already broken long before anyone could notice?

"But she needs them, they're the ones who understand her and have been there for her even when they didn't agree with her choices."

Jaejin nods, glancing towards the dark hallway, Yen lies behind her bedroom door. "She knows that, but I think she's afraid. Afraid of losing another person in her life that she's unwilling to let go."

Perhaps Jaejin was just guessing. But even so, he's not too far from the truth.

And as Yen lies alone in her cold, dark room, bundled to the chin with her covers, tears streaming down her cheeks but her expression cold and numb; she stares at her phone screen intently. Her room is in a disarray, and she's stripped half naked, but she doesn't care. She's full of too many confusing thoughts, her mind scattered and in disarray, so much so that she is unable to focus, unable to think past that which she sees on her screen.

So after a moment's hesitation, she moves her thumb slowly to press the picture of one of her contacts before sitting up and shakily calling them. As she watches the phone ring, part of her wishes no one answers, and another part, perhaps the most frightening part, hopes desperately that it does. That someone can actually be there to hear her cry.

So when the voice speaks a meek "hello" from the other line, she can't help it as her tears begin to pour, her voice choking up as she answers.

"Melody...yeah it's me." Taking a deep breath, she clings to her phone as she curls in on herself, the tears growing too much to stop. "I-I'm sorry, but...it's about Mom. There's something...something I need to tell you."

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my hiatus still isn't over but I wanted to update as a present for my mom since it's her birthday, and she's been supporting this little project of mine for a while. so happy birthday mom! tysm for being such an amazing parent and support in my life I don't know what i'd do without you.