‘Kim Joonmyeon’, I smiled. For a few seconds I felt how my entire body responded to seeing him again after all this time. He received my bags, left them aside, and while my brother entered the kitchen, Joonmyeon hugged me tight. ‘It feels like such a long time since I haven’t had you here’, he said softly, while we were embraced. ‘Yes, but it hasn’t been that much time, you know that’, I answered, trying to sound detached. 

It’s like nothing had ever happened. 

‘Did you have a safe trip?’, Joonmyeon asked, as he and my brother heated the lunch they had been preparing for me. ‘We spent a long time making kimchi for you’ Yejoon interrupted, shaking the bowl with pickled cabbages. ‘Yes, I think I slept a little because I didn’t remember it that long’. 

- You might have, your eyes are swollen and that’s how you get when you wake up after napping too hard – My ex boyfriend smiled

- Yeah, probably – I smiled: he remembered of all the times we took naps and slept together 

- You look just like your brother when you have your eyes swollen– Joonmyeon chuckled 

- I wonder why – I laughed. Yejoon and I are twins. 

Lunch was ready, we ate. We talked about the things they’ve done, they work together now, they have been living together for 4 months now. They wanted to know why I was here, what was my plan for the future. ‘I have to rent a place near my job’, I answered. That’s when my brother offered me to live with them: they had a spare room and all, but I wasn’t very much interested in spending my days next to the one I once had planned my entire life with. 

‘I can take you to see some places to stay’, Joonmyeon offered, ‘I can do that today, if you’re not too tired, we just gotta tell the boss I won’t be able to make it in the afternoon’, he said, winking at my brother, who just shrugged. ‘As long as you finish your paperwork tomorrow then you can leave’. So my brother was his boss. 

I shrugged. ‘I just have to visit my new workplace first’. 

- Where is it located? – Yejoon asked

- Gangnam – I said – I asked EF for a work transfer but they didn’t have any spare spots here. So they sent me to Lexis language school. I don’t really know what’s cool about it but it’s a job. 

- You’re teaching English still? 

- Yes. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to find a job on what I majored in, but I also have to eat and pay rent – I explained. 

- That’s true. Listen, I gotta hit the office – Yejoon said, looking at his watch – I’ll tell mom you’re here and then we can pay her and dad a visit this weekend

- Alright – I shrugged. My parents live in Busan, they got tired of the buzzling life of Seoul. 

- Alright – He repeated, and turned to Joonmyeon – Take her to see places in Gangnam. Price doesn’t matter, she’ll pay part of it because our parents say so. So don’t listen to her when she says she wants something cheaper. For us it’s great that she’s back here so we don’t want her to feel bad at all. 

I tilted my head and rolled my eyes in discomfort. Everyone likes to live at peace, but I’d like to pay for my stuff for the one time. I’ve always been safeguarded by my parents. I was born in a wealthy family, but it’s not like one of those dramas in which my family lives in a ma