She later found out that she bought a train ticket to a little town called Hallstat in the west part of Austria as her final destination of her sudden impulse when she decided to leave Paris. By being in this place, at least Eungi still be able to breathe easy in her stressful time from enjoying the beautiful surrounding around her. This place is a perfect place if she wants to heal herself and definitely much safer than Paris for her.

The early weeks were the time when Eungi still hoped Kyuhyun would somehow come and find her in a little town where she’s at right now. She knows she tries her best not to leave any trace or clue for him to track her down but a part of her insisted that Kyuhyun is one of the best stalker she knew and he should be able to find her not long after she’s missing.

If he ever wanted to find her.

Eungi got out of her hotel and looked out for a rental apartment that she can use for months until her permit to stay in the EU ended since she didn’t have enough courage to return to South Korea yet. She kept on checking her phone, waited for a call she knows would never come and some of the time she felt the urge to just leave Hallstatt and returns back to Seoul. At least she knows where he lives and that way she can knock on his door and ask for his explanation. But whenever she’s ready to book a ticket back home, a little voice in her keeps telling her that she shouldn’t be the one that chase after him. After all its him that left her and she needs to remain in this safe place—to safe her own pride and to secure what still remains of her heart.

She’d spent each morning waking up with a bunch of hatred towards Kyuhyun, she can make a full list of what she’s about to say to his face when she meets him one day, but when the night comes Eungi will break into cries because she missed his presence all over again and she found excuses to forgive what he’s done to her and she’d fall asleep in his clothes that she accidentally grabbed when she packed her luggage in a hurry back in Paris to conquer her longing of being with him.

The first months is the moment where Eungi lost herself to the momentary comfort alcohol could give her, she left all of her projects altogether and just hold on to the bottle all day in her rental apartment. This were the time when she couldn’t differentiate night and day since she would start her breakfast with dabs of Vodka and goes back to sleep with a whole bottle of wine in her hands. She doesn’t give a damn anymore to herself, the pain that’s killing her from the inside is enough to trigger awful thoughts for her to end her life at some point and only a tiny part of her conscience—and her debt of life to Siwon that she’s always aware of—that kept her away from doing the stupid thing.

There were times during the night when she would break down and cries her heart out and those time are usually the moment when she missed Kyuhyun the most. Somehow she can’t blame the man completely for leaving her, he was wrong to leave her without notice but it’s not entirely his fault.

Eungi’s aware how much he tried to change to adjust himself to her in their relationship, she knew she hasn’t given her best to him since she’s still torn in between two men and she completely understood if Kyuhyun gave up in the end because he’s too tired to continue to follow her into the shady part of her life. She gave enough reasons for him to leave her but at the same time she wanted to be selfish and blame all this mess on his shoulder.

Because she tried too.

She tried her best to see their future together and she helplessly fell in love with him along the way. Beside the sadness that dominated her heart, anger also came along to complicate the battle in her mind. She’s mad because he gave her a taste of comfort that she needed, mad because she let her guard down and allow him to be a part of her life—a very important part, mad because he didn’t fight harder to stay by her side, and she mostly mad because she still loves him.

Who in the right mind would still lingers in this kind of heartache? Any normal person would have tried their best to move on from the pain instead of reminiscing each sweet moment they shared. Eungi didn’t even have enough courage to erase his pictures from her phone because she’s afraid that it’s the only evidence left of their story and she’s not ready to throw them all out. As angry as she was to him, a little part of her heart still wished for a final gesture from Kyuhyun. She believed herself as a great judge of characters and she wanted to believe that she didn’t misjudge him when she said there’s a big potential in himself and that Kyuhyun is actually a great person stuck in an evil stereotype.

By the second month after he left, Eungi enters the stage of denial, she would find reasons to encourage herself, saying that she didn’t need anyone by her side to make her happy. She found less comfort in alcohol as she began to spent her time watching old movies and old TV shows. She enjoyed this in a way because she could allow herself to cry in the sad scenes she found in the form of entertainment—just to make her felt less pathetic for crying with no reason at all.

The third month was the time when she tried her luck in finding some news about the man that has left her. With her remaining access to her previous campus portal, Eungi checked if Kyuhyun is enrolling in the next semester and whether he’s attending his class well the way he promised her. She felt the rage dominated her heart when she noticed that he actually enrolled and hasn’t missed a class at all in the four early weeks of the new semester. So he could keep that promise to finish his school but couldn’t keep his vow to be by her side, with that thoughts alone, Eungi fell one more time to the comfort of alcohols.

Her permit to stay in EU expires by the fourth month and she had two choices: return to Korea or get out of EU to the nearest country to prolong her permit, she picked the latter option and packed her luggage to Edinburgh in UK. During her early days in the new town, she kept on thinking of how nice it’d be if she could share the beauty of this city with Kyuhyun. With that sentiment in mind, she forgotten her anger over him and begins to bargain to just forgive the man and throw her pride to the trash before she runs to him and beg him to stay.

By December, she had to endure celebrating Christmas all alone—as usual—in a foreign town that has one of the best medieval Christmas scenery. While other people were spending times in their warm houses with their love ones, Eungi chose to walk across the city to stroll in the old town while she can completely absorb the serenity the Christmas carol brought from the old church. The narrow pavement constructed by cold stones was a great property for her to broke down and cried while she fought back the rush of memories that struck her when she saw a Korean couple in the distance that reminded her of how she and Kyuhyun were before he abandoned her. She ended her Christmas night by getting wasted in a pub beneath her rental apartment with a whole bottle of whiskey in her hand.

Six months after he left was the time when she decided to put it all behind her and get her life back on track. She walks around to give her proposal to book publishers across Edinburgh and finally found a purpose of living after one famous book publisher agreed to look at her draft—which she hasn’t touched for months. This is also the time when Eungi received a call from her old campus in Delft, the Netherlands that tells her about the grants she received to continue her post-doctoral studies there. Eungi politely refuse the enrollment for the semester and bargained if she could start next semester instead because she’s currently busy writing a book and still in her long sabbatical—the campus gladly postponed her enrollment and waited for her presence next semester by August 2017.

Her determination to stay strong quivered by February when she noticed the circled number 3 in her calendar. It’s his birthday and all the fortress she made to barricade herself from the memories rush back in with no mercy. Eungi was mad at herself for being so weak and pathetic because she wished the impossible to happen. She still kept their memories safely in her phone and laptop and she doesn’t have enough courage to erase all those. She loved once and her love died while protecting her and she was lucky to be able to loved again after that. Kyuhyun probably was the meanest and cruelest person in her life but she can’t lie to her own heart on how much she still missed his presence and how much she’s dying to curl herself in his arm for the comfort she’s been longing.

Her birthday came a month after that by the eight months of her runaway. She celebrated it the way her father always prepared her birthday for her back then, with a chocolate muffin topped with one tiny candle. Those were the only cake he could afford for her back then, and even when she could afford any cake she wanted these days, Eungi stick to the tradition to remember her beloved father in her every birthday this way. She got out of her rental apartment and bought a chocolate muffin from her favorite bakery in town