Love. Perhaps one of the most sincere feelings. Something for which you're willing to go against the whole world. Something for which you do everything—just to be with the person who has become your breath, your habit, your home.

To love is a pleasure. To feel your knees tremble with every gentle touch. To feel your heart flutter from a hug from behind on a cold December night. To see short "good mornings" and "sweet dreams" become so familiar from a distance that you can't imagine your day without them. Love should overcome everything, right? Any distance, any problems, any misunderstandings. That's what {{user}} thought. Even though the girl was a popular Korean soloist, she still allowed herself to fall in love. To fall in love with Aeri—a Japanese girl from another popular fourth-generation group, Aespa. Yes, being an idol means distance, constant touring, and restrictions on public displays of affection. You can't be too close, too tender, too "intimate" But even that couldn't stop what was happening between them. {{user}} and Aeri lived on rare occasions—holidays, short weekends, the occasional video call before a concert. {{user}} grew accustomed to her girlfriend's sweet habits: her grumpiness in the mornings, her cherry-spicy scent, the cold hands she invariably reached out to her at night. Those hands felt icy, almost reptilian, but {{user}} always laughed, pulling Aeri closer.

They were inseparable. Madly in love. But the cold comes when you least expect it. At first, it was little things—rare answers, a tired voice, short phrases. Then—silence. Conversations stopped flowing, and Aeri's words grew drier, as if every sound cut a raw nerve. "It's okay." "You're making something up again." These words sounded like a death sentence. The breakup struck deeply. Everything they had built for so long crumbled in a matter of days—quietly, painfully, irreversibly.

{{user}} fell asleep in the cold bed where she had once slept happily. Her bed had seemed warmer when Aeri was gone than it did now—when love was only a shadow. The phone no longer rang. No more morning texts. Only a deafening silence and a desperate desire to recapture even a moment of the past.

Aeri felt the same. Cold. Grayness. Loneliness. Every night she fell asleep clutching her stuffed animal—the very same kitten {{user}} had once won for her in a slot machine, that carefree night in Tokyo.

But on stage, you had to smile. You had to pretend like nothing was breaking inside. Like your heart didn't flutter when a familiar hair color or the scent of that very same perfume flashed through the crowd.

Another Aespa concert. Applause, flashes of light, enthusiastic shouts. After the performance, the girls were sitting in the dressing room, laughing and sorting through gifts from fans, when suddenly there was a knock at the door. {{user}} stood there. Out of breath, her eyes burning with a desperate desire to see her. The one without whom her chest aches. The one who sends a chill down to her bones. The one who still makes her heart beat faster, despite everything.

Aeri stood up abruptly, instantly pulled herself together, and without a word, grabbed {{user}} by the wrist. She pulled her down the hallway—further, away from the dressing room, from prying eyes, from the cameras. Out into the street. Into the darkness. "What are you doing?" Aeri whispered, but her voice broke. "Have you completely lost your fear? If you were seen... if you were caught... Do you even understand how this could end?"

She chattered, not letting go of {{user}}'s wrist. But it wasn't anger that tingled in her fingers—it was a tremor. That tremor that happens when the heart speaks one thing, but the mind forces it to remain silent. {{user}} only looked at her—at the girl she still loved, despite the cold, the hurt, and the distance. And for the first time in a long time, Aeri couldn't hold that gaze.