Jeongin's POV

She froze, but then she quickly recovered, probably hoping that I wouldn't notice. She lifted up a hand and stroked my cheek with her thumb, the rest of her hand cupping my face. She crawled closer to me and sat between my legs, so that my legs would wrap around her, and put her legs around me.

"When?" She said the word quietly.

My heart was pounding because I knew how sad the news was for us, for her. I knew that Felix and Jason were also having this conversation tonight. The official announcement would be coming out tomorrow on our social media, so it was finally safe for us to tell our partners.

It was always sadder for the person who was left behind.

I lifted my hands and cupped her face, tightening my legs around her, bringing her closer. I saw her eyes slowly water.

My heart aches. "In a month...for 9 months."

She sniffled ever so slightly, and exhaled. A single tear leaked out of her eye, and she quickly swiped it away.

"9 ...months?" A corner of her mouth tried to smile, and ended up just twitching. "I'm sad, but I'm proud and happy you guys can finally go do concerts for your Stays around the world."

She leaned into my chest and wrapped her arms around me. I reflexively did the same to her. There was no part of us that wasn't touching now.

She mumbled into my chest, "9 months, and you leave in one month."

We sat in silence. I could feel her heartbeat, as I'm sure she could feel mine. Our breathing synced. The clock in the corner ticked softly, the only indication that time continued to speed by when we wanted it to stop.

"I get every Wednesday off leading up to the comeback though," I told her, trying to cheer her up. "We can spend more time together, we can go to those historic Korean villages that you wanted to see, and I can go with you to work and eat lunch with you and dinner with you and—"

"Okay okay," she mumbled. I can feel her smiling in her voice. "You promise?"

"I promise."

I looked at her, and wiped a small tear from her eyes. I cupped her face, and leaned in to give her a slow and deep kiss. She pressed her lips more desperately against mine, as my hands wandered to her waist, to her chest, massaging every inch of her torso. She reached her hands up to my hair, ran her fingers through the damp strands, both of us became more heated, our passion fueled by the sadness...and so began the most physical month of our relationship.

The month went by in a blur of rushing to the studio early every morning to practice, to film, to record. Every night I tried my best to get home before Yeona went to sleep. We spent time talking and eating, before we would transition to a more physical conversation, always competing to satisfy each others' bodies to no end, just to start again and again. Though I was usually tired the next morning, I would be awoken by Yeona, teasing me to play again; no complaints there — who doesn't like a natural alarm clock? It always ended with me rushing to the company.

At this point, my apartment was barely in use anymore since we both slept at her place. In fact, my things were slowly moving into her apartment. Once the tour started, I planned on just cancelling the lease for my apartment. I was even considering buying a bigger, more secure unit in Hannam for Yeona to live in while I was away. I hated that I was going to be leaving her for more than half a year. I had to do something to make sure that she would be safe. Not that she couldn't defend herself. But still.

I brought it up to her during one of our Wednesdays, and we finally agreed, on the condition that she would pay some rent ("I'm not going to leach off of you at this young age— let's wait until I'm old and poor for that, okay?"). So, with that, technically, we were moving in together! Exciting! I was just sad that we wouldn't get to celebrate the move until I got back as she would be moving in after the tour started. It wasn't convenient, but that was the only time the apartment would be ready for move in.

The final Wednesday before the comeback started, we were doing a simple delivery dinner at her place so that she could help me pack up my things for an easier move.

As she put some things into a box, she casually said, "So, I saw your tour schedule for locations."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, and I noticed that I'm a software engineer."

I furrowed my brow slightly at the random tangent.

"What?"

"What I'm saying is that I'm a senior software engineer."

"Okay, we already agreed that you would be able to pay rent, you know, I get it, you earn a living." I laugh and roll my eyes. I continue to wrap things in bubble wrap before placing them into boxes.

"What I'm saying," she huffs and smiles at me. "Is that I am going to come to some of your tour stops."

I freeze and my jaw drops, and I whip around to face her. "Really??" I ask her excitedly. "Wait, what does being a software engineer have to do with that?"

"I can go wherever I want because I can work wherever. And since I'm a senior on my team, I have a bit more flexibility to do what I want, since I'm a ~valued~ employee," she says haughtily.

"No WAY!" I stride over to her and hug her tight. I kiss her head a million times, until she pulls away, saying, "ugh stop it, I'm not coming if you keep doing that."

I grab her arm and spin her back into my arms, rubbing my cheek lovingly into her hair, sprinkling her with more kisses.

"Okay, I'm not coming," she says, words muffled by my chest.

"I can't hear you, so just let me know when you visit me on tour, okay??"