in the best way, you'll be the death of me. (2/2)

[junfhongs]

Joonhee receives the call in the middle of class.

They all question why she stands up all of a sudden, but the professor lets her leave. Kim Joonhee always has her reasons.

The rush to Seoul Medical is too slow and too fast in Joonhee’s opinion. She feels like she’s drowning in her mind. She feels like this is a nightmare, one that she wants to wake up from before it starts getting more and more real.

But when she bursts into the emergency room and she sees her mother crying beside a bed, holding her father’s cold hands, she knows it’s real.

The next few days are a blur of tears and condolences and Joonhee’s insistence that she doesn’t want any of her friends to visit her. She needs to go through this alone or with her mother only.

At the third day of the wake, of the empty stares and dark clothes, Joonhee sits at the very back of the room, staring at the coffin holding her father’s dead body. Her mother hasn’t been eating well and neither has she, but she feels nothing. There’s no hunger or thirst or need for anything. Maybe she wants to die. Maybe she wants to die with her father so that she can be with him again.

She hasn’t cried in a while. The tears have all dried up, and there’s no point. Crying won’t bring him back.

But then there’s a presence beside her, a warm hand on her shoulder, sliding across her back to pull her against a man’s chest, and that’s when Joonhee allows herself to break down.

She told them all not to go, but of course Yifan would disobey her. Of course he would want to hold her hand and let her cry on his shoulder and kiss her forehead and wipe her tears. Of course he would want to pay his respects to the man who told him to make his daughter happy, to assure that nothing wrong will ever happen to her. Of course she should have expected him to do this, but no matter what, she’s still thankful for him.

He takes her home for the first time in days. He forces her to eat and holds her tight all night, assuring her that he’s here, I’m here, I could never leave you.

Joonhee sleeps fitfully, but when she wakes up and remembers that they’re going to bury her father today, she only lets out a shuddering breath. She dons her black clothes and washes her face and tells herself that she will stand straight and be strong today. She’ll be strong because she can’t bear to crumble down again.

Ever since her father’s death, Joonhee has been spending more and more time on her drawing table by the window, writing and erasing and scrapping again and again and again. It’s her way of coping: drawing houses and destroying it when she grows bored of the idea in her mind.

They’re all empty houses to her, no one occupying it, leaving it abandoned and lonely. What’s the point of making a house, building a home, if no one’s going to make a life there?

And then she thinks of a large empty lot. She thinks of herself. She thinks of Yifan.

And the drawing grows and grows until Joonhee has an entire skeleton of a house in front of her. She thinks of large windows in the living room and dining room, of a counter in the center of the kitchen, of matching the carpet with the walls.

“What are you drawing again?” Yifan suddenly asks. Joonhee jumps, hiding the house plan from his view. He cocks an eyebrow, holding her arm up so he can see.

“Whose house is it this time?” He has a dejected tone to his voice, as if he’s tired of seeing Joonhee like this. Then he sees “clients: Wu Yifan, Kim Joonhee” and his smile grows so wide, it almost looks like his face is splitting in half.

He pulls up a chair. “Is this… our house?”

“Yeah,” she weakly answers. “I just thought of drawing up a house for actual people this time.” Joonhee blushes.

“This is… wow. This is our dream house now, isn’t it?” Yifan thinks of her in the kitchen, attempting to cook. He thinks of the pictures they would display in the hallway, the family photos they have with their parents and the ones that they’re going to have with… their children.

And then he thinks of a room with a soft, carpeted floor and child-safe electricity plugs. He thinks of wind chimes hanging in the porch, the sound tinkling and welcoming him into his home with her, his wife.

“You know, it would be nice to have a balcony somewhere. Or do you think the porch would be enough?” he asks.

“I was thinking of scrapping the porch, to be honest.” There goes the wind chimes idea, Yifan muses.

“It would give us more space for the backyard, if you want to have one.” Joonhee’s startled by the soft look in Yifan’s eyes.

“Do you want…” he trails off, hesitating on his words. She’s afraid that he’ll ask about kids because she doesn’t know if he wants them, but she does. She wants the whole package with him.

“What?” she asks.

“Do you want a dog?”

She starts chuckling at her own paranoia. “Why are you asking?”

“The dog would have a lot of space to walk around and play in the backyard. And I’m sure the kids would love it!” He grins at her, but it fades away when he realizes that he just said what he’s been so afraid of asking about for months now.

“Kids?” Joonhee asks softly. “You want kids?”

“I d-do.” He looks into her eyes, and they mirror the same softness, the same longing for something like this.

“We’re graduating in less than a year,” she reminds him. There’s the fear that they’re going too fast. She knows that they’re way too young to be planning something big like this, but what can they do if they really want it? What can they do if they’re both on the same page?

“I know.”

“These things… If we really want them, do you really think we should start thinking of them right now?”

“Do you want to move fast? Do you want this?”

Hearts beat. Minds wander. The world keeps on turning, but Joonhee’s and Yifan’s stop for just a moment when she says “Yes.”

Yifan gets a job offer before he even graduates. It’s strange; SM, the top engineering and architectural firm in the country, doesn’t usually request undergrads to go to their building for a job interview, but here he is. The suit’s itchy and he feels bad for having to skip one of his last classes for this, but SM rarely ever gives second chances. It’s already a miracle that he’s here; he doesn’t want to push his luck.

The interview goes well. Yifan is the perfect combination of confident and charming, making his initially stern interviewer to laugh often and smile at Yifan more. Thank god my two left feet decided not to act up today, Yifan thinks to himself.

He remembers the soft kiss that Joonhee left on his cheek before he left. She looked more nervous than he did, and Yifan only laughs at her.

“Come on, Joonhee. You’re acting like you’re the one who’s going to be interviewed here,” teases Yifan. She swats his shoulder, brushing off an imaginary speck of dust from his coat.

“Shut up. I just want you to do well.” Yifan pulls her in for a long hug, winding his arms around her waist tightly. “Do your best, Yifan.”

“I promise.”

His best earns him a spot in their team of engineers, and all he needs to do is pass his licensure exam and they can talk about his contract with the company. They all celebrate on their usual Thursday dinner, eating cake and laughing about how Yifan managed not to embarrass himself during the interview.

“Well, you never know. He might trip on air on his very first day on the job,” jokes Chanyeol, and the fact that it’s terribly possible makes Yifan laugh with them too.

Joonhee’s quietly seated beside him, seemingly distant even if she laughs with everyone and jokes around with Minhee. Yifan knows her well. Something’s wrong.

He tugs on her hand and they say their goodbyes to everyone. As Yifan drives home, he notices that she still isn’t talking much.

“Is there something wrong?”

She shakes her head and smiles at him. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Why aren’t you talking much then? I know you, Joonhee. Don’t lie to me.” She shakes her head. “Tell me.”

The force in his voice is strange. Joonhee hasn’t heard that from him before.

“I just got a call from SM yesterday. They want me to go in for an interview tomorrow.” Joonhee doesn’t know what to feel about the smile on Yifan’s face.

“That’s… exciting.” Yifan looks at her when the light turns red and he has enough time to reach over and squeeze her hand. “I’m excited for you, Joonhee.”

“I’m excited for this too.”

“My first day is a month after graduation,” Joonhee announces to her mother. She smiles at her daughter, eyes flitting at the empty seat at the end of the dining table. If he was still here, he’d be ecstatic for his daughter, but the only thing that her mother can offer is her polite smile.

“That’s good to hear,” she says. Joonhee nods. This is the farthest she can go.

She doesn’t know why she still insists on having dinner with her mom, like what she promised her father before. What’s the point? It only emphasizes the silence and emptiness of their lives without him.

Joonhee never wants to make her mother feel alone though. She’d rather bear with the pain than make her mother feel like she doesn’t care about her anymore. Joonhee is the only one that she has left since her son has already left the country.

“How’s Yifan?”

“He’s good. He’s studying for his licensure exam in a while so he’s pretty busy. He has to pass this or else SM won’t take him in.”

“SM? Are you saying you two could work in the same company together?” her mother asks incredulously.

“Well, you and dad owned a company together so I don’t know why you’re complaining or anything.”

Dad. Why did she have to mention him?

Her mother doesn’t seem to mind though, going back to her food as if nothing even happened. “Owning a company together is very different from simply working together.”

“Exactly. Owning is much easier than having to force yourself to be with him.” Her mother finishes her meal, waiting for Joonhee. “You should go home, Joonhee. I’m sure you’re tired.”

“Mother, I’m fine. I can stay with you a bit longer.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t stay with me out of pity. Stay with me if you truly want to.”

Joonhee hugs her mother and walks with her to her bedroom, the one that she used to share with her husband once upon a time.

She goes home with a heavy heart, thinking of all the times that she’s caught her mother silently crying when she thinks that no one can find her. The city passes by in an instant, and she gets off the bus to walk back to their building.

Yifan’s still at the dining table, reading over one of his old books to review himself. Joonhee hangs her coat and is surprised to see him right in front of her when she turns around.

“Hey,” she says tiredly, tiptoeing to kiss him on the cheek.

“Where have you been?” he asks her. There it is again, the deep tone of his voice sounding rougher and more possessive and it scares Joonhee. Since when has he been like this?

“I visited my mom. We had dinner.”

“Just your mom?”

“Yes. Just my mom.” She narrows her eyes and walks past him. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to sleep. Turn off the lights when you’re done here, alright?”

After a quick shower, Joonhee scrubbing away all the irritation she felt towards Yifan in that one moment, she pads down the hallway towards their room. She sees the framed picture of their dream house. It seems so surreal that they’ve gotten that far in their imaginations. She’s… excited and scared, all at the same time. She always feels like that when they talk about their future.

Yifan’s under the sheets when she arrives at the foot of the bed. He looks peaceful and tired and all Joonhee really wants is for him to be happy. She climbs underneath the covers and kisses the back of his neck. Yifan doesn’t rouse, and that’s okay. Joonhee needs to rest alone too.

Graduation day is a big blur of tears and the feeling of accomplishment. There are cameras and parents and togas swishing around and making others trip and embarrass themselves in public. Still, it’s a big joyous occasion, and Joonhee sees her mother genuinely smiling at her for the first time in months.

Yifan doesn’t look around. He knows that his mother won’t be here, so he focuses on going up the stage without tripping on the way. He shakes the dean and the president’s hand, bowing on stage and grinning when he sees Joonhee on her seat, tears streaming down her face.

He takes his seat with the rest of his fellow graduates, and they sing their university’s anthem before they throw their caps into the air and start cheering and crying. Yifan lets all of his blockmates hug him, allowing them to wet his toga with their tears and sweat. He steps out of the crowd, not wanting to be suffocated with all the people around him.

Yifan feels someone tap on his shoulder, and he expects it to be Joonhee. He doesn’t expect to see his mother smiling up at him, tears welling up in her eyes as she observes her son. He hugs her tightly, thanking her for everything, every little thing, that she’s done for him. And she thanks him for being a good son, for always doing his best, for always aspiring to be a better man.

Joonhee walks over to them with her mother in tow, and she kisses Yifan while their mothers are introducing themselves to each other. “Congratulations,” Joonhee whispers against his lips.

“You too.” He smiles at her, arm around her waist. He turns towards their mothers. “Let’s have lunch?”

They choose a relatively well-known restaurant in the area, and their mothers talk to each other through the course of the meal. They look like they’re getting along well, and Yifan’s extremely pleased.

“This is fun. My mom seems to be okay with yours,” he says quietly while the two ladies went to the comfort room.

“Yeah.” She’s uncomfortable all of a sudden, and Yifan squeezes her hand under the table. Joonhee raises a finger to shush him right away. “I’m fine, Yifan. There’s no need to ask me anything.”

“But you’re thinking of something. I’d like to know.”

“I just graduated, Yifan. I have dreams and hopes about what I want and I’m going to think about that on my own, okay?” She doesn’t mean to sound rude, but he’s been acting like he has a right to know each and every one of her thoughts for the past few weeks. She just needs some space.

“You two seem tense,” Yifan’s mom observes. They shake their heads, going back to the food.

“Ah, what did I say about lying, Joonhee?” her mother admonishes.

“We’re fine, mom. Please, just enjoy the food.”

Yifan drives his mother to her hotel, apologizing for not having enough space for her at their apartment. The drive back home is quiet and awkward.

“What’s happening to us?” Joonhee asks.

“I don’t know. But we’re okay, right? We have occasional arguments, but that’s normal. Right?” Joonhee nods, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb as she cups the side of his face.

“We’re alright.”

Cold air greets her as she opens the door. Yifan was left at the office, finishing off a project with one of the senior engineers. “I’ll see you tonight. Don’t wait up for me,” he told her.

She takes this as her opportunity to relax at home without Yifan telling her to clean up or turn off an electric fan because it’s a waste of electricity or any of his other nagging traits. Joonhee understands why though; they’re seriously thinking of marriage and weddings are expensive so they have to start saving now. It’s strange to get married all of a sudden, but they don’t care. They’re in love.

That doesn’t mean that Joonhee isn’t allowed to complain about Yifan once in a while. She calls Baekyeon and Minhee up so they can finally talk after so long. It’s been over three months since graduation and they’ve all been too busy with work and other things to focus on each other. Thursday evenings are still dinner nights, but it’s not the same as how they used to be.

They eat greasy burgers and drink whatever Baekyeon brought with her on the living room floor. Joonhee hasn’t relaxed this much in so long.

She’s surprised to hear the front door opening. It’s Yifan.

Baekyeon and Minhee say their goodbyes at the sight of Yifan’s passive face. Joonhee doesn’t really care. Yifan starts scolding her for not taking care of herself, for drinking on a Tuesday night when she knows that there’s going to be work tomorrow and for a bunch of other things that Joonhee isn’t really listening to anymore.

She stumbles into their bedroom and hides under the covers, trying to go to sleep even if Yifan is still talking. He climbs on top of her lump under the blankets, and she tries to roll out from under him, but he has her trapped in his arms.

“Joonhee. Joonhee, come on,” he pleads. Joonhee pulls down the covers until only her body is cocooned by the blankets. Yifan smiles and kisses her. He moans when their tongues meet and he still tastes a bit of alcohol on her. Joonhee shrugs off all the blankets and pulls him down until they’re pressing against each other. He uses all of his self-control to pull away and look into her eyes. And then he kisses her again.

Much later, Joonhee is lying down in Yifan’s arms, finding it hard to fall asleep. She’s looking at the house again, and she’s expecting so much from it. She’s expecting so much from them.

Joonhee isn’t the jealous type. Really, she isn’t.

But when Yifan is too friendly to the new girl in the office, Joonhee finds herself angrily drawing her designs, skipping lunch because she can’t bear to look at Yifan flirting with Jessica or whatever her name is.

A salad is placed on her desk. It’s obviously Yifan, but she’s too “busy” to look up at him right now. “Sorry, I’m working.”

“Joonhee, come on. Skipping lunch is bad.” Joonhee looks up at him and glares.

“Well, flirting with someone when you have a girlfriend of nearly four years who you’ve lived with for the past year is bad too, but I don’t see you stopping yourself from doing that.” She sounds way too jealous for her liking, but it is what it is. So what if she’s jealous? It’s his fault anyway!

Yifan scoffs. “Really, Joonhee? This again?”

“What do you mean ‘this again’? I’m just telling you my opinion on things.” She rolls her eyes and pushes the salad away. “And I’m just not hungry, Yifan. Leave me alone when I’m working.”

He takes the lunch box from her desk. “I just want to take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself, Yifan.” Her voice is firm, stubborn but also pleading for Yifan to let her take care of herself.

He goes back to the pantry with the others, and Joonhee briefly sees him talking to Jessica again. It makes her feel sick, sick enough to grab a chair and hit Jessica and Yifan with it. She hates this, so she tears her eyes away from them. Yifan is looking at her, she can feel that, but she forces herself to keep working. She needs to keep moving.

Yifan is happy. He has a girlfriend who he loves and a job that he does well in and a good future. What more can he ask for?

Maybe he can ask for a little more money though. He wants to be able to buy himself luxurious things every now and then. He wants to be able to buy Joonhee something that would show her that he loves her so much, and that hasn’t changed over the past few years.

Maybe he can ask for a little more time in each day. He feels like he isn’t living enough. He feels like every time he closes his eyes and sleeps, he’s wasting precious minutes of his life instead of going somewhere or doing something or being someone. There are so many things he could choose to do, but he sleeps instead.

Maybe he can ask for a little more happiness for his mother. He sees how tired she is. He sees it with every movement that she makes. He hears how tired she is. He feels it with her, and he wants to make it all better. She’s weary after years of raising him alone and being alone and never having anyone to bear the burden with her. He wants to be a better son, and he wants to make her happy.

Maybe he can ask for a little more understanding from and for Joonhee. It’s like he barely knows her now. It’s like they’re starting to build walls between each other, and it’s so strange. They used to do everything together. She used to be okay with that. Now it’s like she’s sick of it, sick of him. He wants to understand her, to know her again, to fix things before they get even worse. He wants to be the best man for her because the life that they’re going to have together is something that he’s been dreaming of for so long. He wants her future to be with her. She is his future.

“Thank you for this wonderful design, Mister Shim. I’m sure our head will approve of this and we can talk to your partners in engineering?” The representatives from the to-be-built condominium stand. “Could we request for the plan to be redrawn cleanly before we present it to our boss? And we still need the scale model for the presentation to the board.”

“Of course,” Changmin says. “Joonhee, could you redraw my design?”

She fixes her expression into a polite smile and nods, taking the paper from the clients. Joonhee makes a move to leave the room, but Changmin asks her to stay. He shakes the hands of the two representatives and sends them off. Changmin closes the door behind him.

“What was that? They just complained that it looks too messy because you refusedChangmin’s design.

She looks up and sees her picture with Yifan staring at her, the one they took right after graduation where they’re both smiling and happy and so, so naïve. She can’t imagine being that girl anymore.

Joonhee thought that being in SM would start her career and give her the boost she needs to do well. What actually happened is her losing all hope that she could ever love what she’s doing when she isn’t even recognized for her own work.

When they go home that night, Yifan holds onto Joonhee’s wrist before she can hide somewhere away from him. She stares up at him defiantly, but he sees those tears in her eyes. He pulls her in for a hug, and she starts crying, frustration and anger finally exploding after having to hold it in for so long. She’s so tired and so angry and she wants out. She wants to quit right now, but she can’t.

“You can’t leave,” Yifan says softly. “You can’t leave me to support the two of us all by myself.”

“I know, Yifan. I know I can’t leave. I know I should just do my best with what I have, but I can’t take this anymore. I’ve been here for barely even a year, but every day, I find another reason to want to leave.”

He kisses her, the desperation to have her hold on a little longer shining in how he holds her face. He’s scared of losing this life that they have, but he doesn’t want to see her unhappy all the time.

“Please hold on, Joonhee. Please try harder. You can do this.” He peels off his shirt and goes to the bathroom to take a shower. Joonhee starts crying fully against the kitchen counter, holding onto the cold marble and trying to hold onto her own sanity while staying in a place that she hates too much. She won’t survive like this. She knows that.

But when Yifan tells her to hold on, she has to hold on, even if she hates it.

Yifan goes out with Chanyeol, Sehun and Jongin for the first time since graduation. It’s been over half a year since he got the job, and he’s exhausted too. But he’s doing well and he has to keep working to provide for their wedding, the tentative one that they don’t even know if they can handle all by themselves.

“How are you, man?” Chanyeol asks, beer bottle in his hand and his arm around some girl’s waist. She looks like she’s more interested in her phone than in Chanyeol, but that’s okay. Girls have always seemed like accessories to Chanyeol; he doesn’t know how to stay with someone for more than a few weeks or a month or so.

“Tired, but I’m mostly okay.” Yifan takes a long sip. He misses drinking with the boys.

“And how’s Joonhee?” Jongin asks. He looks uncomfortable without Minhee, but he manages to keep his eyes away from his phone screen for a few minutes at a time.

“Joonhee’s… alright. More exhausted than I am, but I think she’s managing.”

“You think? What happened to knowing each other like the backs of your hands?” Sehun teases. He doesn’t expect Yifan to hide his face behind his hands and wipe furiously.

“I don’t know either, Sehun. She barely tells me anything and that’s the farthest that our ‘fights’ go.” He finishes a bottle and takes another one from the case that they ordered. “It’s tiring.”

“Have you ever thought of giving her space?” Jongin suggests. “Sometimes I get too clingy with Minhee and she just tells me that she needs space. When we’re ready, we go back to being normal. Maybe you should try that with Joonhee.”

“But she needs to trust me with her everything! I need to know her if we--” He cuts himself off, afraid to reveal that they’ve already been planning for marriage. “I need to know her if we really want to be happy while living together. We need to understand each other.”

“To be honest, Yifan, you sound like you’re being clingy and you’re not giving her enough space. I would understand why she’s been upset recently,” Jongin remarks. And then he stops, eyes wide as he realizes what he just said.

“What do you mean with ‘recently’? Are you telling me that she’s been talking behind my back?” Yifan’s eyes narrow into dangerous slits.

“She talks to Minhee and Baekyeon. I would understand; they are the best friends after all,” Chanyeol says as calmly as possible. Yifan looks like he’s about to explode in anger, and none of them want to see that. He clenches his fist and takes long, deep breaths. “Relax, Yifan. This is a normal thing. You don’t have to be so alarmed about it.”

“Maybe it’s because you’ve never been in a serious relationship,” Chanyeol glares at him, “but it’s not easy to always be calm about everything. I just want to fix things, whatever the problem may be.”

“Maybe you can’t solve all of her problems,” Sehun mumbles under his breath, and Yifan tries to ignore it.

“The scale model looks good,” their client says. Joonhee huffs in her mind. It better look good, she thinks to herself. She spent day and night working on that, even bringing some materials home so she could work on a few smaller parts and details. Changmin looks like he’s in a good mood.

Joonhee bows as they leave the room. Changmin leaves her to clean up the conference room by herself. She doesn’t complain. At least he didn’t claim that he made the model and the presentation. She cleans up quickly, wanting to go back to work as soon as possible.

When she does go back to her desk, she doesn’t even look at Yifan. They’ve been like this for days, and none of their officemates care to ask if anything’s been going wrong. None of them care about each other; this is a business-only area. It makes her dread going here, not really having any friends except for Yifan. Joonhee wants to try and approach others in her team, but they treat each other like competition. It gives her another reason to want to leave.

It’s lunch time and everyone’s filing off to the pantry or to eat somewhere else. Joonhee isn’t in the mood today, so she stays behind her desk to organize her old projects.

She doesn’t expect Yifan to turn her chair around and stand in front of her, sheepishly smiling. He leans forward to kiss her, hand behind her neck to guide their mouths firmly together.

They don’t ever do this. Everyone is aware of their relationship, but they still keep their displays of affection to themselves. Joonhee loves the way he moves against her, and it makes her forget her irritation towards him for just a little while.

“I love you,” he whispers against her lips. Joonhee nods, too stunned to say it back.

“I love you,” Yifan repeats. She squeezes his forearm and motions for him to pull up a chair beside her.

They spend the rest of their lunch break staring at the computer and feeding each other bites of the sandwich that Yifan bought and Joonhee falls in love with him again as he smiles at her and holds her hand and tells her repeatedly, as if he wants the words to wash away the tired soul that crept up in Joonhee’s mind, that he loves her. I love you.

Joonhee hands him a leather box while he’s watching TV on a lazy Sunday morning of slow sex and bacon frying on a pan. Yifan smiles at her, pulling her down to sit beside him. He opens the box, and it’s the watch he’s been eyeing for months, waiting for his thirteen-month bonus before he buys it for himself.

“You didn’t forget,” he murmurs, kissing her temple.

“I never forget, Yifan. Happy anniversary.” They spend a few minutes making out, Joonhee lying down with her head on the arm of the couch while Yifan stays above her with his arms supporting his weight.

Joonhee turns her neck to give him space to leave marks on it when she feels something hard connect with her head. She pushes him away, sitting up as she looks for whatever gift Yifan hid for her.

It’s a box too, but it’s slightly bigger than what she got him. She’s a little apprehensive to open it, but Yifan urges her on with his nose against her neck. He leaves a soft kiss on her collarbone and pulls away so that he can see her reaction when she opens it.

Joonhee’s jaw drops when she sees the diamond ring hanging from a silver chain. “Th-this... Is this--”

“We said that we’d announce it on our fifth anniversary, but I wanted to give you the ring now. I know that it would be too obvious if you wore it on your finger, so I thought of buying a chain so that you can wear it as a necklace.” He holds it up and motions for her to turn around. He puts the chain around her neck and links the clasp together, the ring falling right in the middle of her chest.

When she turns around, he sees Kim Joonhee, his future wife. And he’s so in love with her.

The bacon is definitely burned and they only stop kissing and touching and giggling and spilling a few tears when the alarm goes off, but it’s okay. They’ll be okay.

A long sigh falls from Yifan’s lips as he sees the construction site that he has to manage for the next few weeks. It looks like their clients are unhappy with the material choice that he made, even if his boss already approved all of them. They say it’s too costly, and Yifan isn’t considering their budget. He got a five-minute long scolding from Donghae when he found out that the representatives emailed Yifan, but it doesn’t matter as long as Yifan fixes it.

So now Yifan runs the risk of making this condominium look cheap and substandard, but that’s fine. It’s what the clients asked for by asking him to revise everything he thought of because they’re too pressed on the budget.

Hands find their way to his shoulders and knead hard, causing him to moan in pleasure. Joonhee always knows how to unwind him, and he always looks forward to her massages. She leans her chin on the top of his head and kisses his hair.

“Joonhee?” She hums in response. “Do you have something to tell me?”

Joonhee hugs his neck from behind. “My mom… was admitted to the hospital.”

Yifan suddenly turns around. “What? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was only yesterday, Yifan. She started coughing out blood and they rushed her to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and she’s taking her antibiotics there.” Joonhee looks tired. She sounds tired. “I need to visit her and take care of her.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Yifan moves to stand up, but Joonhee shakes her head.

“I’ll just go alone. I’ll be fine, Yifan. You still have work and I want you to focus on that.”

“You have work too, you know.”

That’s where Joonhee bites her lip and looks away from him. “About that, I was thinking of taking a leave for a few days until I can make sure that she’s starting to recover and then--”

“Joonhee, you’ve used up all your paid leaves. You have to keep going to work. What about the wedding? How are we going to save up for that?” Yifan says calmly.

“This is my mother, Yifan. I don’t care about the wedding if she doesn’t get to watch me walk down the aisle in the end,” she hisses at him.

“How will your presence help her get better?” She huffs.

“I can’t believe you. I absolutely cannot believe you.” She turns around and grabs her bag, walking out of the apartment. Yifan stares at where she was just a few moments ago, and he can’t forget the anger directed towards him in her eyes. It’s hard to unsee that.

He contemplates on chasing after her; maybe visiting her mom with her will calm her down. He does care, but time is precious and they need to work. It’s hard enough to save with all of their expenses, but not working for even a few days could cut back some of their pay.

Yifan sighs. He’d rather stress over work than over Joonhee and her changing moods.

“How are you?” her mother asks. Joonhee sighs, holding her mother’s hand as she lies her head down on the side of the bed. “Tired?”

“I’m so tired, mom. I’m so, so tired.”

“And Yifan? How is he?” She can feel how Joonhee stiffens. “Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing. I just… I feel like he’s not giving me enough control of my life,” she whispers, as if she’s afraid to admit it. She loves Yifan, she really does, and she doesn’t want her mom to think that she’s staying with him just because it’s what she knows or it’s what’s expected of her.

“Joonhee, look at me.” She sits up and sees her mother’s tired eyes staring at her. She’s been coughing non-stop for a while now, but she’s taking the time to talk to her daughter for a while.

“It’s going to be hard. You’re not going to want to be with him for a while, and you’re going to want space. He’s going to think that it’s over for the two of you, and you’re going to think that maybe it’s the best thing. But before you make that choice, think of yourself before he came into your life. Think of all the changes that happened when you were with him. Think of your life before him and imagine what would have happened if he wasn’t there. Do you think you would be who you are now? Do you think you would find the happiness that you found with him? Do you think you would have found someone who could make you happier, who could love you more, who could defy the flaws that you’re seeing in him right now?”

Joonhee starts crying, holding onto her mom’s hand like it’s her lifeline. “I don’t know, mom. I love him so much, but I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid of thinking about everything you told me to because I don’t know who I would be, who I could have been, without him. I feel like even with him in my life, I still don’t know who I am.”

She cries as her mother drifts in and out of consciousness, and when she falls asleep, she dreams of life without the color that Yifan brought into it, without the nightly dates and the lame jokes and the small gifts that they always find time to look for and give to each other. She dreams of life without him and she sees a completely different Kim Joonhee, and it scares her so much that she wishes she knew who that girl was before she let Yifan change her forever.

Joonhee goes to work a few days after. Yifan watches as her boss scolds her inside his office, and he doesn’t gloat or react when she goes back to her desk in front of his. He wants to hold her though. He wants to tell her that he cares about her mother. He wants to tell her that he cares about her, and nothing’s going to change that. He wants to tell her that he loves her too much to watch her struggle, and that’s why he tries his best to help, to make things work, to fix things.

She doesn’t pay attention to him all day. When it’s finally time to clock out, she goes straight to her own car, the one that her father never told her he bought for her until they opened the will and Joonhee took forever to learn how to drive.

Yifan doesn’t want to follow her. He doesn’t want to seem like he’s being “too controlling” again. He’s tired of hearing that from Joonhee. But he does care about her and her mother and he wants to make sure that they’re both okay.

“How will your presence help her get better?” His own words bite him. How will he help her there? Can he even do something? Or will he just make it worse for them?

Yifan wants to be persistent though. He’s not a quitter. He’s not going to let this boil and grow between them. If he’s going to fix things, he’s going to fix them now.

He follows until she enters her mother’s room, and after that, he stays at the seats outside the room. He looks like a lost child, he knows. He looks like he doesn’t really belong here, and he doesn’t. He shouldn’t be here.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

It’s Joonhee. It’s the first thing they’ve said to each other all day, but Yifan doesn’t care. He stands up and reaches forward to hug her--

But then she slaps him.

“Yifan, get out. In that room, my mother could die. She could fall asleep and never wake up. I don’t need you here. I don’t need you to fix things. I need you to go home and give me some space while I stay here and pray that nothing bad happens to the last person I have in my life. I need you to get out.”

He tries to say something, but Joonhee looks so tired and she’s about to cry and Yifan feels it. He feels the anger and the desperation in that one hit. Yifan turns around and gives her the space she needs. It hurts that they’re like this, but if Joonhee needs it, then he has to give it to her. He loves her too much to watch her struggle.

Maybe Joonhee cries herself to sleep that night, and she tells her mom that she’s okay, that she’ll be okay, and her mother doesn’t believe her, and she doesn’t believe herself either.

Maybe Joonhee is in so much pain, but she doesn’t know why it hurts so much and why she can’t fix things and why things have to be this way, and every time she thinks about it, a part of her heart breaks because she loves him so much and she never wants to live without him but she can’t live this way.

Maybe Joonhee has a hand holding her phone, waiting and wishing that Yifan would be persistent enough to call her and tell her that he loves her because that would help, even if Joonhee says she wants him to give her space.

Maybe Joonhee wants him to go back.

Maybe Joonhee wants everything to go back to how it used to be.

Maybe Joonhee is so tired of this life that they’ve been living, and she’s scared that he might be the root cause of it all.

Maybe Joonhee’s just afraid of life without him, so she holds on while wanting for him to let go.

Maybe Yifan lies down on their bed in their apartment, smelling her scent on their sheets.

Maybe Yifan feels the tears in his eyes, and he feels weak because he can’t stop them from flowing.

Maybe Yifan doesn’t understand anything because he just wants to be happy with her, and she’s not giving him a chance.

Maybe Yifan feels selfish for asking for too much from her, for asking for all of her.

Maybe Yifan so lost in this relationship that he feels like nothing will ever go right for them, even after all this time.

Maybe Yifan feels like they’re holding onto each other while they’re crashing to the ground, and they say they want to let go, others might say they need to let go, but they can’t.

Maybe Yifan is just as afraid as she is to live without each other, so he holds on with the very real fear that she might be the first one to let go.

Joonhee packs some of her clothes into a bag, trying to hurry before Yifan comes home. She’s surprised when the bedroom door opens and Yifan’s staring at her like his heart’s breaking right where he stands.

“Joonhee--” His voice cracks and it scares Joonhee more than she’d like to admit. She slings the backpack over her shoulder and walks towards him. Hesitantly, she takes his hand.

“I’m just taking some of my things so I can spend more time with my mother in the hospital. I’ll be like this for the next two weeks or so, and after that I’ll stay with her at the house just to make sure that she’ll be okay. I’m going to work and I’m taking care of myself, Yifan. Don’t worry about me.”

He hugs her middle and tucks her head under his chin. “Please don’t leave me,” he whispers.

“I won’t.” Maybe not now.

She walks away from him, and the desperation in his voice is sealed into her memories. He needs her. He’s scared. He misses her and he needs her so much and the thought of losing her would break him.

She’s not the only helpless one in this relationship.

Joonhee drives to the hospital, breathing deeply to hold back her tears. When she walks into her mother’s room, she’s surprised to see someone else there. The man turns around, and it’s her brother.

“Joonho!” she whispers, hugging him tightly. He looks tired, and his eyes are red and puffy. She wipes away his tear tracks, leaning her head against his chest.

“How are you, Joonhee?” he asks, taking her bag and placing it on the couch. They sit closely together, huddling for warmth and a little bit of comfort.

“I’m… I’m okay. I’m trying my best to be okay.” She notes the circles under his eyes, the tight way his lips are pressed into a thin line. “And you?”

“I’m busy with work. Handling the company has been hard since,” his voice cracks, “dad passed, but I need to go here to be with mom.” They hold hands and sit in silence.

“Tell me, Joonhee. How are you, really?”

She doesn’t expect herself to start crying right away, but she does, and Joonho’s awkwardly forced to comfort her. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Is it because of work? Your boyfriend?”

“It’s Yifan, I think.” Joonho looks like he’s about to kill someone, so Joonhee holds him down with her hands gripping his wrists. “But it could just be me, Joonho. I could just be making a normal situation seem horrible in my mind because I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want this life anymore, Joonho. I’m so tired. I’m so tired of going to work and having my designs stolen and taken credit for by other people. I’m so tired of having the same routine and living this life where I obey people wordlessly because I don’t know how to take my life into my own hands. I’m so tired, Joonho. I can’t live like this anymore.”

Joonho takes a deep breath. He looks like he pities Joonhee, but he also understands some of her frustrations.

“Joonhee, I know it’s hard. Sometimes you don’t want to wake up because you’re going to have the same life as usual. Everyday, you’re going to struggle like this. Others will tell you to hold on, but I’m telling you to let go of whatever’s pulling you down. Free yourself of what’s stopping you from being happy. Don’t let anything bring you down. Don’t let yourself bring you down.”

“So should I just quit? Where would I work? What would I do?” She sits back and wipes her face with her palms. “I can’t just do that. I can’t survive.”

“Sure, you’re going to survive by staying in that job, in that life that you’re in right now. But are you living, Joonhee? Are you living a life that you’re going to be proud of when you pass away? What are people going to say about you when you’re gone, that you lived a boring life where you became no one?”

Joonho’s words hit her hard. And it makes her want to take the risk, to jump and let go of what’s safe and hope that something’s going to catch her at the end.

It’s a Thursday. Yifan goes home and watches Joonhee leave him. Even if she tells him that she’s not going forever, it still feels final, like she’s starting to shut the doors to her life from him.

He goes to their usual Thursday dinner with a smile plastered on. They ask about Joonhee and he tells them about her mother. They talk about visiting her, but Yifan tells them that Joonhee would like to keep it as quiet and peaceful as possible.

Baekyeon looks at him oddly from the other end of the table. Actually, they all look at him like he’s done something wrong, and he feels infinitely guilty for a reason that he still doesn’t know.

He sits on the bench outside the restaurant, beer bottle in his hand. Chanyeol follows him a few minutes later, bringing a few more bottles with him. They sip in silence, and Yifan is almost happy like this. It’s a peaceful moment. He hasn’t had many of those moments in the past few weeks.

But Chanyeol has to talk to him, he knows that. “Joonhee hasn’t been talking to anyone recently.”

“Yeah, her mother is--”

“She hasn’t been talking to you either, has she?” Yifan stiffens. “It’s obvious. You look worried and sick and tired. We’re worried too. You two are our friends. We want you guys to be okay.”

“We’re okay. I’m sure we will. The situation is just too terrifying right now; I want her to focus on taking care of her mother for now.” Excuses. He’s pulling out every excuse that he can find, and it’s pathetic. He knows that.

“Of course, Yifan. That’s it. That’s exactly why neither of you has really been paying attention to everyone else for the past few months. That’s exactly why we’re afraid that you two are going to cut yourself from the entire world that you have because it means that you’ll still be living in the same world as each other.”

“Well, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that I don’t know how to fix things between me and my girlfriend. I’m sorry.” He stands up and stomps back to his car, not caring about leaving the others so suddenly. He doesn’t have to be reminded of his own failure everywhere he goes. It’s like they can’t even hide their own problems and it makes Yifan feel like he’s never doing enough. He’s never going to be enough.

Joonhee wakes up to her phone beeping in her hand. She opens it and finds herself smiling at Yifan greeting her with a cute “Good morning”. It makes her want to go back to him right now, and maybe she’ll cook breakfast and he’ll shower and when they’re done eating and kissing and possibly messing around a little, she’s going to rush to the shower and they’re going to rush to work. Everything would be perfect and easy and alright, but that’s not how things really are.

“Good morning, mom.” Joonhee smiles and sits beside her mother, already being fed breakfast. “How are you?”

She nods in reply. Joonhee doesn’t force her. She takes clothes from her bag and showers quickly in the bathroom, changing to her work clothes and brushing her teeth. She briefly thinks of Yifan staring at her sternly, telling her to eat properly.

Joonhee shakes her head, focusing on moving as fast as she can. The faster she moves, the more time she has to think about herself and not about others.

Yifan greets her at her desk, and she tries to smile, looking at her list of projects instead of him. It’s a good thing that she has something to do today; she’d rather be busy than have enough time to think about him or talk to him.

The day passes by uneventfully, except for the time that they were alone in the elevator and Yifan pulled her in for a kiss and she couldn’t stop herself from placing her hands at his nape to push him closer. They pull apart right before the door opens, and Joonhee really does her best to not look back at him, to prevent herself from admitting that she misses this excitement from him.

She goes to the hospital and Joonho is there again. They talk a little and he leaves to attend to some more work and she sits there and holds her mother’s hand and prays that one day, everything will be better.

Yifan breathes a sigh of relief when he hears that Joonhee’s mother fully recovered from the bacterial pneumonia and she could go home already. Joonhee came home with a smile on her face and kissed him before he could say anything else. Things were good. Things felt good.

And then Joonhee started packing two bags full of clothes. “I have to stay with my mother for a while. I just want to make sure that the recovery really follows through.” She leaves him with a peck on the cheek and he wants to think that she isn’t leaving him forever, but it feels like forever. It feels like this is the first step to the end.

The closet is emptier. He sees the empty spaces, the smaller tower of clothes, the fewer blouses and shirts hanging.

The house is quieter. He’s probably supposed to be used to that, but it still feels strange to know that she won’t be coming back for a while.

The world is different. And she is his world.

The world is very, very different.

Her mother sighs for the nth time in the past few minutes. “Is there something wrong?” Joonhee snaps at her mom, and she’s surprised by the force of her own voice.

“Stop pacing and doting on me like a mother hen. That’s my job,” she says. Joonhee smiles and lies down beside her on the bed. Her mother strokes her hair gently. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Mom, there’s nothing. You know I’ve always been anxious.”

“Oh really? Maybe you’re just tired, Joonhee. You should get some more sleep. I’m sure the maids will take care of me just fine.”

Joonhee nods weakly and goes back to her old bedroom. It feels weird to sort-of move in again. It’s like she’s going back in time, to a point in her life when she was still forming who she wanted to be.

“Why am I like this?” she asks herself. “Why can’t I be content?”

You can’t be content because you don’t really know anything about what would really make you happy.

“Yifan makes me happy.”

He only makes you happy when you don’t feel like he’s choking you into this life that he’s dreaming of.

She suddenly remembers the chain around her neck. Her hand trails down to touch the ring, and it makes her want to cry. He bought this for her because he thought they had a future together.

She wants to have a future with him, but not like this. She wants her own life without him leading hers.

Joonhee sighs. These are always the hardest thoughts.

“What is your problem? All you had to do was copy the design properly! Why do you always have to edit and change things that others have already deemed alright? Why do you always assume that you know what’s best for the design?” Changmin scolds her again. Joonhee hangs her head low.

“I want you to copy this again, without changing a single detail. I want it to be the exact way I drew it before. And make the scale model for the hotel before the clients demand us for a presentation.” Changmin waves his hand to tell her to leave. She stands up and walks out of the room, taking her lunch from her table and going to the pantry.

Most people are already done, and of course she had to be stuck with Yifan. Joonhee sits at the corner of the room, eating her chicken sandwich as quickly as possible.

“You should have just followed his orders, you know. Changmin hates it when others change his designs,” Yifan says quietly. Joonhee glares at him.

“What? So you know how to do my job now, huh? You know how to run my life? Let me tell you this, Yifan: you don’t. You don’t know anything about what I want to be. I am sick and tired of watching him steal my designs and treat me like a lackey instead of an actual architect too. I am done with all of your attempts to control me!”

Joonhee’s tearing up and she knows that her voice was too loud and some would have heard it from outside, but she doesn’t care. She walks out of the pantry and takes her bag and clocks out of the office, claiming that she was sick.

And she is sick. She really is sick of this.

Yifan feels like he needs to help her. He needs to do something, to fix things. He feels like it’s his responsibility to take care of her career if she can’t take care of it by herself.

He doesn’t expect to see her shaking Changmin’s hand and walking out with a dignified stare. She starts packing her things in a box, and Yifan stands up abruptly, trying to stop her.

“Hey, hey, hey! Joonhee! What are you doing?” he asks, trying to put some of her things back on the desk. He’s starting to panic, heart beating faster at the thought that she’s starting to walk away, she’s starting to leave him. Joonhee forcefully takes her things back from him and shoves them in the box.

“I’m leaving, Yifan. I’m tired of this. I’m done.”

It seems so sudden. It seems like she cut him off, just like that, and he can’t do anything about it anymore. He feels like everything is slipping in between his fingers, and he’s so lost, and she’s trying to find her way without him.

She’s holding the picture frame of the two of them. Joonhee looks at it, and then she puts it down. It’s nothing to her now.

“Joonhee, wait.” He corners her in the elevator. “What about the past few years? What about everything we’ve been through together? You’re going to waste all of that? Really?”

“It’s done, Yifan. I’m not going to stop from doing what I want, from being who I want to be, because of you.”

“The wedding, Joonhee. The house, the kids, the life we planned together; you’re going to drop it all?” He knows that he’s going to cry soon. He knows that he looks vulnerable and lost and he is. “You said you wouldn’t leave me.”

“I said that before. And I’m doing it now.”

The doors open and she walks into the parking lot, opening her car and tossing the box in the passenger seat. She starts the car and ignores the way he stares at her while she drives away.

Yifan feels his world crumbling down, just like that. And as the smoke in front of him vanishes, he feels the fire of their relationship die and blow away.

a/n: this is unbeta'ed; all typos and mistakes are mine
title from ingrid michaelson's "wonderful unknown" and cut from her song "ready to lose".

again, thank you for everything. let's all stay strong.