November 2025

Jongjin nodded, as if wishing Nara good luck, before closing the door of Mouse Rabbit. Nara was still sitting at one of the tables inside the establishment, even after it had closed. The dim lighting didn't help, even though the intention was to make the environment more comfortable; in fact, it did the opposite, forcing her to use her vision more and increasing her senses. She could feel her heart beating fast in her chest. 

She clasped her hands on the table, chipping her nail polish. Then she saw Yesung's tattooed hand and wrist place a coffee on the table. It was for himself; Nara had refused. She was too nervous to drink coffee, but it seemed to calm the older man, so she waited for him to do so after they closed the restaurant. 

They sat there for a few minutes without looking up. Nara stared at Yesung's hand, at how his fingers played with the cup, and he did the same, seeing how nervous she was as she picked at the skin beside her nail. 

“I'm going to tell you everything, okay? You deserve to know everything...” she said, a little quietly, trying not to stutter but knowing that her voice was no longer as strong as before. “I'm going to ask you not to interrupt me because this is going to be one of the hardest things I'll ever do...” she added. 

Yesung could only shake his head. Nothing came out of his mouth; he was as nervous as she was. After all, what did “everything” mean? What was he going to hear? They had been fighting for months... or rather, he had been making her life difficult for months, only to realize that he had also been wrong in recent months. Even so, he didn't take the initiative. Nara came to talk to him... which meant it was important. 

Yesung knew even before she spoke. They were talking to end that fight; she and Kyu were getting married. That's why they were there talking. His eyes filled with tears when he realized this, and he was grateful that she wasn't looking at anything but his hands. 

He looked ahead. He studied her; he studied her nervousness, the way her hair was tied back in a ponytail but a few strands remained loose, how beautiful her neck was and how her lips moved as she spoke. It would be the last time he would be able to do that. Nara was getting married. 

“When we were young...” she began and then looked up. He looked away immediately. “I thought you were the most handsome, hardest-working trainee in all of SM,” she said. It was the first time she had spoken those words aloud. “When I heard that you might not debut, I was devastated. I wanted you in the band, with me... I wanted you with me,” she said, and he looked back at her, his eyes frightened. 

It was the first time in more than 20 years of history that they had together, the first time he realized, after so long, that teenage Nara had always been in love with him. She was younger at the time and he didn't even think of her as a possible suitor, but then that strange behavior was... teenage passion? She wasn't laughing at him, she wasn't throwing it in his face that she would be in Super Junior and he wouldn't? She wasn't trying to belittle him. She wasn't trying to be his friend. She was flirting. 

Nara told him everything, eliciting more frightened looks from Yesung, his eyes wide and his jaw locked as if she were commenting on crimes and attacks against the government. That day she brought coffee for everyone just so she could give him coffee? Or when she sat next to him in the warm-up circles? She told him all the things she had done to get closer to him but that, for some reason, only pushed him further away.

Yesung's hand was shaking. He had never seen things that way. 

“And when we finally became friends... before the kiss. Do you remember that I barked at you?” she says and laughs, now a little embarrassed by the memory. “I was nervous around you,” she revealed. Even after yelling at him at the hospital, she still got nervous when he was too close. 

“Na-la,” he whispered. She looked up at him.

“Let me finish,” she asked, and he nodded. 

"When you pretended we hadn't kissed, I felt rejected. Very rejected,“ she sighed, remembering the pain in her chest that she carried for so long, every time she saw Yesung. How could she sleep thinking about that... ”In the beginning of the group, you hated each other, remember?" she asked, and he nodded, looking away. "That competitiveness in the industry destroyed us when we were just young... and I'm not blaming you, just asking you to understand that I became so insecure after that... I wanted to be the best and rejection began to terrify me. I wanted to erase any trace that I had ever been rejected. It was awful. Leeteuk knew I had been rejected and I cried about it... what if he thought I was worse? That I was pathetic? It stopped being just about you and became about rejection," she took a deep breath, swallowing hard. "I wondered if you didn't like how I dressed, how I looked, or my personality... and that I was stupid for thinking you could like me. I should be grateful that you were my friend, after hating me for so many years, right?“ she said and looked at his glass, at Yesung's hands, trying not to let him see the tears forming in my eyes. ”I compared myself a lot to the girls you dated... to a lot of girls, in general." Nara gave a weak laugh. “We always knew how much the other hated their own appearance,” she recalls. They were confidants of anorexia and self-hatred.

“I'm sorry” was all he could say, in a low whisper, not wanting to interrupt her but feeling guilty for everything.

“It's not your fault. I was very young when I entered the industry and it shaped my way of thinking, my competitiveness, the way I dealt with situations...” she sighed. “Even the way I dated, since I was interested in Kyu for months and didn't say anything. I waited for him to come to me and ask me out, I pretended I liked the traditional way, just because I was afraid of being rejected again.” She smiled a little, not wanting to talk too much about Kyuhyun during their conversation... but it was impossible. 

Kyuhyun was ingrained in Nara in the same way that she was ingrained in him. They were best friends, lovers, soulmates. He always saw Nara as more than the industry had made her out to be. He knew she reacted in certain ways because she had been hurt more deeply, differently from Kyu because she was a woman, differently from others because she was younger... he saw through that and loved her. He forgave her because he knew it wasn't her, but rather the defense mechanisms she had put in place over the years. 

“I wasn't going to try again. I had managed to settle for our semi-platonic friendship... with the touches that never went all the way but always took too long, with the words that had double meanings,” she sighs.

“I was afraid you regretted it,” he whispers. "The kiss. That first kiss. After all, you always kissed Heechul, and I thought you did it because you were drunk... but I spent years thinking about it. About how your lips felt against mine,“ he says and brings his fingers to his mouth, as if he can still feel them. ”It would have been better if you had never let me taste that again, if you had never let me love you," he says in reference to sex, the expectation of a relationship, everything... 

“It wasn't to hurt you, it wasn't because I wanted to,” she tried to defend herself, but started stuttering again. “This is hard to say, but I think it's true...” She takes a deep breath, preparing to say the words that would end them both, or turn them into friends again. "Heechul, it's that I was succumbing to my teenage desires... that when I was with you, I wasn't the 36-year-old Nara. I was living as if I were still a trainee and you had finally given me a chance, as if I could go back in time... but we couldn't go back in time," she sighed, wiping her eyes with her hand to clear away the tears. 

“I know. I also went back to 2008, to that kiss,” he said, as if now all their actions made sense. “I know... I was angry for a long time, but now I understand. There was no way we could have predicted it,” he sighs. "And I was indeed a terrible friend to Kyuhyun. Everyone knew he was still in love with you... I knew”

Yesung looked up and Nara looked back at him, both eyes filled with tears that couldn't fall, their faces contorted, unable to control their feelings. 

“We were both assholes, weren't we?” Yesung says quietly, and Nara nods in agreement. “How do we fix this?” he asks, now a little louder, trying to show that he wants them to be friends again, or at least something like that. 

“We'll need some time... but we'll be friends again. Not like before, but maybe it's better that way,” she said, equally quietly.

They remained silent for a while longer. When they realized it, they had been silent for half an hour, not looking at each other, just lost in their own heads thinking about the whole situation. 

Then Nara got up, and Yesung walked her to the door. They hugged, and she left.

“I'm going to have to stop loving you... and imagining what it would have been like if we had worked out,” he sighed and locked the door. “We're three fucked-up people,” he whispered before turning the door handle again.

𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ.ᐟ 𝐼 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝟶 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑓 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 — 𝐼 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦.