Maybe love isn't actually as magical as everyone says it is. Maybe it is all a hoax. Or maybe it isn't love at all. Dahee's doubts are right all along, and out of the three mentioned prior, it is the latter that turns out to be true. She didn't really fall in love with Jisung─far from it actually. He was the only one who fell; her feet are still on the ledge.
Love is a deep mutual connection one has with another, a bond so intense it makes you think you are born for each other, but she never felt that. All she ever felt were the heart-flutterings and that warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach, and feeling those didn't necessarily mean she loves him. He did make her heart erratic and caused butterflies to swarm her stomach, but the butterflies have turned into moths and everything he made her feel turned out to be anything but love.
How can she tell him that after saying those three words, thinking she felt as strongly as he does, back? She can't, but she has to.
"Ji," she utters and he hums in response. "Can we stay for a little longer?"
"You sure?" He asks. "You look sleepy."
"I have two more weeks to get all the sleep in the world, skipping it tonight won't be a loss." She says dismissively, rubbing her tired eyes, and leans her head on the wall beside her. She lets a few seconds of silence pass, trying to find the words to start the conversation, and finally speaks again. "How did you... how did you know you fell out of love with Rose?"
He looks surprised by the unexpected question, but answers nonetheless, "The love just faded. I don't really know how to explain it, I don't even understand until now how it happened. One day, everything I ever felt for her just... disappeared. Gone like it was never even there in the first place."
"So, love just fades?" She asks.
"For me, it did, but I know for some people their love for their significant other stays for the rest of their life." He says and a smile slowly appears on his face as he takes her hand that is resting on the table in his. There is a fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach, but it isn't butterflies this time; it is dread. "Love doesn't have an expiry date, and I am certain ours doesn't. I know it's too early to say this... but I don't think I can imagine a future with anyone else but you."
"I'm sorry." She says in a whisper, withdrawing her hand from his hold.
"What are you sorry for?" He questions, confused.
"I didn't give too much thought into it─into what I truly felt for you─and I only started doing that the past week," she finally admits and swallows to push the lump in her throat back down. "I realized that these feelings I have for you isn't what I thought it was."
"What is it then?" He asks almost inaudibly, but she manages to hear it in the silence of the diner.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," her eyes are filled with remorse as she looks into his hurt ones. "It just happened so fast, and I rushed myself into thinking this is love─that I love you. I don't... I don't love you, I love how you made me feel."
She nibbles on the skin of her bottom lip as he is trying to process everything she said. The silence is awful, and she has never felt so terrible. She was initially so scared that he would break her heart, but she is the one who breaks his instead. If she had known it would end like this, she would've continued walking to her flat and never stopped to ask him for help with her essay. But she did, and there is nothing she can do about it now.
