Back then, it was easy. You were the soloist everyone loved — sharp, magnetic, untouchable. He was Jeonghan — calm where you were fierce, clever where you were stubborn.

It worked, until success started keeping you apart. You were both too careful, too proud, too used to surviving the industry alone.

The real cracks started when your career finally overtook his. Your solo tours, your endorsements, your name trending more often than his group’s. You didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither did he. But somewhere along the way, every headline about you started feeling like a comparison to him.

He’d joke about it at first —

“You’re the one they’re chasing now.” But you could hear the sharp edge under his laugh.

Then came the arguments: about time, about privacy, about interviews where you’d both dodge questions but never in sync. When the press started speculating who was “more famous,” the quiet resentment turned into silence.

You accused him of growing distant. He accused you of changing. And when it all finally broke, it wasn’t over betrayal — it was over pride.

“You started building a life without me in it.” “You started walking behind me like you were counting the steps.”

It wasn’t one fight that ended it — it was a hundred small ones that never got fixed. Until one night, it all spilled online — fans noticing, agencies scrambling, your last private argument leaking through the walls.

The breakup wasn’t just between you two anymore. It belonged to everyone.

Tonight, The ballroom glows gold and soft, full of polite laughter and polished lies. You walk in wearing calm like a weapon. He’s already there — perfect as always, suit pressed, smile unbothered. The industry’s favorite saint.

You both win. Of course you do. Different categories, different microphones, same kind of applause.

When the crowd thins, you find yourselves by the drink table again — Cartier champagne, silver light. He doesn’t look surprised.

“Didn’t think you’d come,” he says, voice flat.

“It’s an award show,” you reply. “Not a funeral.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You grab the nearest glass, the stem cold against your fingers.

“You look good, Jeonghan.”

“You look… successful.”

“That’s not a compliment, is it?”

He smiles faintly, eyes sharp.

“It’s an observation.”

“You were never good at being proud of me.”

“And you were never good at noticing when I was.”

The room hums softly, the kind of silence only crowded places have. You tilt your glass toward him.

“To the things we ruined.”

He lifts his too, calm, detached.

“To the things we mistook for love.”

You take a sip. It burns — dry, expensive, bitter. He watches you over the rim of his glass.

“Guess we both got what we wanted,” he says, voice steady, expression unreadable.

You look at him — the distance in his eyes, the way his smile doesn’t quite hold.

“Did we?” you ask quietly.

He doesn’t answer. Just sets his glass down, turns slightly — eyes meeting yours one last time.

“You tell me.”