What Does That Spell?

It’s silent. It’s awfully silent.

Between the pounding of your heart and the cracks in her breath amidst the empty VIP lounge, with each passing minute, you both can feel it—the tension. The ticket lodged between the glistening folds of her Japanese passport flash you the time of departure like a taunt. Ten-thirty-five. Barely three hours after their concert. Barely two hours after you had gotten to see her again in person for the first time in years. Barely an our after she said she wanted some time to ‘just talk’.

Barely a minute since she hit you with that question.

You stare at her dry lips, at the way it quivers inwards like she’s pulling back a thought. You can imagine her asking you that damn question again in your head.

“Do you think … this is going to work out? For … for us? In the future?”

The thought of it alone is more than enough to freeze the blood in your veins. You still get stiff when you recall the way your face warped from relief after seeing your girlfriend again in the flesh, then into confusion when you began to wonder where this was all coming from, and finally into dread when you finally realized where this discussion might be headed.

What was that supposed to mean? What does that spell for your relationship?

You wish it was that easy. You really wish it could be that simple. To just talk to her. To just ask her directly about it. To confront her and her unspoken fears and insecurities about your long-distance relationship.

But the words don’t come out. You can’t find it in you to scrape them from the pit of your chest and lay them bare before her. She doesn’t seem like she wants to breach the subject either—not again. Whenever your eyes met since she popped the question, you could tell from the way she darts her gaze away within milliseconds that she just wanted to instigate. She was hoping you would progress it.

Did she really think you—let alone anyone—could have prepared for something like this?

You’re happy enough as it is. You have many things to be thankful for.

You’re glad you managed to save up enough money to attend their concert tonight—SVIP tickets. Bougie little shit. She offers to not just get you a free ticket to the soundcheck, but also a special backstage pass so you could hang out with her and the other members during the breaks and lulls of their performances. But you told her some cheesy and cringey spiel about wanting to ‘earn your way’ to be by her side when she’s on the stage. So she let you do it your way.

You’re relieved that your little gambit after the concert paid off. The moment she told you that the flight was almost immediately after their concert, you began planning for a means of escape. You knew it would be difficult to reach her, so you pulled some strings, which included buying a cheap ticket to South Korea, bribing the staff in charge of the lounge areas, and sending her a script meant for her manager to allow her to be excused for a moment before their departure. It was hard enough for her to come up with bullshit reasons for her other members, but you’re just glad it worked.

But most of all, you’re glad that she’s with you. Really with you right now.

Leaning into your stiff body planted firmly against the soft padded cushions of the lounge couch, she’s pressing her cheek between the folds of your lap, holding onto the stretch of leg between your hip and knee, allowing you to caress the stray strands of her hair away from her face, Naoi Rei acts as if nothing had just happened between you two.

As if you two hadn’t soft-launched your break up.

There’s a whole self-service buffet in front of you two: pastries, all-day breakfast, specialty items from the local cuisine, finger foods, light snacks. There’s even a cocktail bar stocking one of her favorite drinks. But she doesn’t budge. And neither do you.

You know you should probably get some food for her—even feed her if you have to. You didn’t want to bring it up before whenever you two got on video call, and you weren’t even sure if it was real or if it was all just in your head, but you couldn’t help but notice the amount of weight she’s losing. One of your hands crests over her bare thighs and squeezes it in comfort. Your other hand dangles just above her laying face and pokes a finger into her cheek to test its plushness. Thankfully she hasn’t gotten too skinny, but it concerns you. Greatly. And you should probably be a decent boyfriend anyway and get her a bite or two to help her recharge after her concert.

And yet, you still find yourself motionless by her side, halfway between wanting to embrace her tightly and helping her sit up so you can walk out and run as far away from the airport as possible.

You shut your eyes and let out a sigh so deep that it rumbles in your stomach, alerting her.

She shifts, swapping from her previous fixation—the F1 race on one of the TVs that she knows absolutely nothing about—and instead now looks up at you. 

You try your best not to look at the sulk in her eyes, at the pale of her cheeks, at the longing in her pout. You feel your pettiness bubble up to the surface. She was the one who hinted at breaking up, so why should you feel any pity towards her?

But who are you kidding? One glimpse of her and your knees buckle. Soon, you find yourself staring right back at her from above.

You don’t know what to say, and that’s probably part of the problem. You gather she doesn’t know what to tell you either. You’re not really a person of many words. You were never verbose nor well-spoken enough growing up. You just let things happen and left the thoughts alone to simmer in your head. So what were you supposed to do now? What were you supposed to say now?

Should you circle back to the topic? Bring it up again? Raise your concern? That seems very risky. Maybe she already forgot about her break up idea. If so, then reminding her about it would just place it back into the forefront of her mind and develop the thought further.

Should you maybe break the ice somehow at least and try to lighten the mood? Whether or not she’s still actively thinking about the question she asked you—and your lack of a decent intelligible response—you should at least try to support her right? Try to support her? You can only imagine how physically exhausted she must be right now. The setlist they had for tonight’s concert was insane and afforded Rei and the other girls little to no breaks. Maybe being silly for a bit to lift her spirits isn’t such a bad ieda.

Should you maybe just … let it be?

Among the multitude of thoughts swimming around in your head, you let that line of thinking simmer the longest before entertaining it further.

You avoid her gaze for this one, and you swear to god you could hear her whine because of it.

What if you just let it be?

The last time you saw Rei in person was back in 2024, when she came to your area for a second time following their group’s first world tour. You two were more lovestruck back then. More carried by passion. More limited through the view of each of your own rose-tinted glasses. You didn’t care if she was only around for two days. You didn’t care if you could only have her for an hour after their fan meet on the evening before the concert proper. You didn’t care about what you’d both do, or say, or profess to each other when you could finally meet again. You just let your emotions take control and wash over you, and you both found yourselves forming the treasured memory of nearly falling down the stairs of her hotel’s fire escape because she wouldn’t let go of your face to stop kissing you for even just a second—even if it could cost her her life.

And now?

Now you had more time. More leeway. More comfort. More freedom. And yet you both have done less with each other this year than you did two years ago. Hell—you could even argue that you both have done way less together tonight than you normally did over voice or video call. You swear you had everything planned down to a tee, calculated everything for your plan to be executed successfully, refined all the different scripts you had in mind for what you’d finally tell her once you were with her again face-to-face. But none of it mattered in the end, did it? She came into tonight with something else on her mind.

So what if you just let it be?

What if you just allowed yourself a final moment of respite with her? One last chance to just hold her intimately like this—like you are right now—in the silence of the lounge. No cameras. No fans. No overprotective manager or nosey members to be wary of. Just the two of you. Not as idol and fan. Not as random strangers who matched on a whim using a silly dating app. Not as oppa and dongsaeng. Just boyfriend and girlfriend.

What if you just let her go?

You wanted this relationship to last. You really did. You still do, in fact. Even after all the doubt that she casted deep within the well of your being. It shattered you. Collapsed you into yourself. Weighed down on you from start to finish. But you held onto hope. You believed that one day, your monthly photo-journal compilations on Google Drive would turn into a collage of physical photos scattered across the space of your soon-to-be shared apartment. That one day, your weekly dates across the screen would spill over into reality, and you could finally take her out around the fancier parts of town for Saturdates or Sundates—whenever she was more free. That one day, your nightly calls in bed that lasted until someone passes out or cries themselves to sleep would culminate with you both falling asleep and waking up next to each other in the same shared bed. 

But as those words echo in your head like the toll of the dead, you can’t help but wonder if those memories? Those wishes? Those hopes and dreams of yours? Were all just a veil for you to hide from the reality of the situation.

She’s an idol. She’s meant for the stage, and the limelight, and the fame. She’s meant to be loved by many—more than just you. And you? You’re just a normal dude trying to live paycheck to paycheck. Just outrunning life before it starts to get ahold of you. Just … trying to chase after her and finally merge onto her path as well.

But who are you kidding? That’s never going to happen. Rei’s never giving up on being an idol. And you are never going to be within her league in your lifetime.

So, you return to the thought. That damn ever-present thought.

What if you just let her go?

It’s easier that way, isn’t it? After all, it saves you the impending heartbreak that’s looming over you like a hurricane in the horizon. It saves you all the messy bits. It saves you from taking longer to move on.

“Move on?”

You flinch, glance slowly back down at her until you’re staring at her similarly confused expression, and raise a brow. “What did you say?”

“Move on?” she asks again, tapping a finger now against your knee. “You were writing it. On my body. ‘Move on’.”

You didn’t notice it, but Rei’s right. The hand that you unknowingly moved down towards your waist had its pointer stretched forward as if it was tracing something against her skin.

“Sorry, I was just … thinking. About things,” you feign, opting to go with the first option—to not talk about it.

Rei nods, cheek grazing gently against your jeans. “Can you guess what this spells?”

With her own finger, she mimics your writing and actually attempts to write something across your thigh. At first, you couldn’t really tell what it is. But after the third attempt, you stopped comparing it to morse code and instead tried to treat it like brushstrokes of a pen.

“Con … -cert?”

Rei nods again with a smile, clapping her hands in small flits. “That took a while, but that was good. Ok now, your turn!”

You aren’t really in the mood to be playing games, but you indulge her. It’s the least you can do to decompress.

“Bes … No, beau …? Beau … Ah! Beautiful!” she completes with a roll of her eyes. In the same vein, she writes out her next word for you.

“Back? Back ga … Wait is this even in English anymore?”

The smirk she pulls when you ask this is enough to confirm it. You furrow your brows and try to focus on the strokes, on the way they see a bit more rounded on the curves and sharper against the edges. When the ‘Eureka moment’ finally strikes you, you thank the heavens for blessing you with enough patience to study Japanese on the daily ever since you started dating Rei.

“Baka? Hey now!”

Burying her face into your lap, she does a little wiggle to try and ignore you. Either that or she was just unknowingly being adorable once again. You want to smile. You want to caress the side of her face. But the bitter taste of her words blossom once more at the back of your tongue, so you hold yourself back.

“Your turn. Write me something. Anything. And I’ll guess it again.”

You scratch at the nail of your pointer with the tip of your thumb. Like you’re sharpening it. You use this moment to think.

“Re … Rei! Rei-chan … wa … totemo … kawa … kawaii? Rei-chan wa totemo totemo kawaii, nee!”

“Ok you clearly added more things to that, but sure,” you tease, earning you a pinch to your cheek. “Go on, it’s your turn now.”

She palms over your thigh like she’s erasing her previous message before writing anew with her finger, leaving you to guess what it is again.

“Moo … moo …?”

Rei is bawling, hair fanning out behind her on your lap as she clutches her stomach to try and relieve herself from the manic laughter. “You sound just like a cow—I should have recorded it.”

You bite your lip. “Hey, I’m trying my best, alright? Wasn’t fair that you shifted the game to your mother tongue.”

She nods, gesturing towards you with her chin, inviting you to finish what you started.

“Moo … moogenkai?”

She’s at her limit? At her limit for what?

At first, you figure that she might just be hungry. That she might just be hinting at you to go get her something to eat already. To stop being a coward and treat your girlfriend right. But when you motion like you might stand up, she pushes hard against the joint of your knee as if to stop you from your idiocy.

When she looks into your eyes this time, you can tell something’s changed. She continues writing on your lap.

“Gan …  Ganbatteru yo ne? Demo … demo …”

The moment your mind translates what she’s trying to tell you into English, you freeze. You don’t say it out loud anymore. You simply voice it out in your own mind.

Ganbatteru you ne? Soredemo mada fujubunda.

Watashi no tame ni.

Anata no tame ni.

You feel knot after knot starting to tighten in your guts. But Rei doesn’t look away from you—even when you do. She knows you understood what that meant word for word, and the way she’s gazing right up at you right now feels like she’s waiting for your response.

I’m trying my best, but it doesn’t feel enough.

Not for me.

Not for you.

Suddenly, it’s gotten quite difficult to breathe. You’re certain the AC in the room hasn’t changed in the slightest, and you haven’t had the faintest bit of contact with the different food offered before you two to have triggered one of your many allergies. But you find yourself, nonetheless, both breathless and speechless to the point that just the simple flexion of your throat muscles feels like you’re swallowing shards of glass.

How do you tell her?

How do you tell her that, because of her, you’ve found meaning in the smallest pleasures? That you always keep your phone charged in case she ever wanted to call? That you always check her Bubble, her Instagram, her Twitter to make sure you never missed a post or message? That you always carve time for a few minutes—just a few moments—every hour amidst your daily schedule to write out your thoughts about your long-distance relationship together in your journal, hoping you might one day read them to her? How do you tell her that seeing her smile after a long day of work—even it’s a bare-faced one, or a tired one, or a silly one—feels more refreshing than any ounce of sleep you can get? That you play her voice messages on repeat in your earphones, every train ride to work and every bus ride home, just to hear her voice again? That you dream of her, every single fucking night, to the point you spin fantasies in your head about future dates, vacation plans, and even your fucking wedding just to state your unbridled and overflowing love for her?

How exactly are you supposed to tell Naoi Rei that you are unapologetically, maddeningly, and absolutely in love with her? That she could even slit your throat with the butter knife sitting nineteen feet away from you, and you would still thank her, and instead apologize for bleeding all over her?

How exactly are you supposed to tell Rei that she is enough? 

For you?

So you do the only thing you can think of in the moment.

You throw away the letters you’ve written her and memorized by heart. You shred the romantic and cheesy lines you forced yourself to gobble down and stow away for whenever you might need to say something profound to her. Hell—you don’t even consider quoting some of her favorite poems or favorite lyrics and songs even if you know that’s guaranteed to cheer her up.

Instead, you let the little voice in your heart do the talking.

So you tuck the final lock of her sugar brown hair behind one ear, lean forwards to press your lips against the side of her temple, take a deep breath, take in the scent of her skin and sweat and cologne, and plant the longest, warmest, and likely final kiss you will ever give your girlfriend.

And then, you write it down across her body.

And then, through bated breaths, she mutters it out.

“A-Ai … shi … tte … r-r-ru …?”

One drop. Then two. Then three. Soon, a whole garden of tears begins blooming across your jeans. 

Clutching your hand against her clavicle, tucking her chin in as if to trap your wrist and all your fingers so you can never leave, she begins to write in reply across the stretch of your palm. But you don’t say it out loud—you keep in locked up in your heart.

Zutto … soba … ni … itai …

Her phone rings. She doesn’t even need to check it to know who it is.

Rei pushes up from her laying position and keeps her head down, now sitting inches away from you. Your pinky lifts, then twitches, then reaches out, but it never leaves its position. Her thumb raises, then circles the air, then jerks towards you, but it never meets you where you are.

“It’s been great. Wonderful really … b-being your girlfriend … Even from afar. I’m glad we could end—.”

You throw yourself onto her so hard that you knock the wind right out of her sails. But you embrace her harder than that as you begin scribbling into her back.

She never says it out loud. She never looks to you to verify what she thinks you’ve written. Instead, Rei just detaches herself from you, slides off the couch, and bows down deeply to her waist.

“Then I’ll be holding out for you until then. I … I can’t make any promises. And I don’t want to hurt you, o-oppa, but … but if you want this … then I will.”

And that’s all you could ever ask from her.

Between the unsteady cadence of her leaving footsteps and the tears she’s trying to stop flowing down her cheeks, with each passing minute, you can both feel it—the relief. The fingers that slip over the promise ring you gifted her two years ago sparkle into your eyes like a renewed vow. Ten-thirty-two. Barely three minutes before she’s rushing down the airport hallways to try and catch her flight by the skin of her teeth. Barely two minutes before she’s coughing up explanation after explanation for her members on being late, bursting into tears, and learning a new language. Barely one minute before she’s settling into her seat, looking out the airplane window, and counting the days until the next time you both get to meet in person again. 

And in your solace, you don’t even find it in you to fall to your knees and wail. You know what this—all of this—spells now.

The way she leaves you? The way she’s gone? It’s silent.

It’s awfully silent.