After a long day at work, he ed the first two buttons of his light blue shirt. She didn’t want it to be obvious that she was looking at him so she only stole brief glances.

It was dark outside but the streetlights shined through the car window and lit half of Chanyeol’s face.

It was warm and both of them were quiet, the comfortable type of silence. A tattoo shop caught Sarang’s eyes. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was focused on the song playing on the radio.

We keep this love in a photograph

We make these memories for ourselves

When Sarang glanced back at him he looked different. He was wearing a black sweater but she could swear he was wearing a light blue shirt just a moment ago.

Everything else was different. It wasn’t dark anymore and they were no longer in the car but going between the aisles of the store.

For some reason she was laughing out loud with him as he pushed the cartwheel, only now realizing she was sitting inside of it.

Then, it was so sudden to the point she began to feel scared, it was all dead quiet again.

There was absolutely no sound other than Chanyeol’s steady breathing as his chest, where Sarang laid her head, rose and fell evenly. He was deep asleep, shirtless, his hair messy, and his arms holding Sarang close.

“That wasn’t a dream!” Yoonseul suddenly yelled, “You are married to one hell of a handsome man, Sarang-ah, or should I say Mrs. Park?” she laughed.

Sarang woke up with a loud gasp. She felt too warm, droplets of sweat formed on her forehead. She breathed heavily feeling scared and confused.

She ran her fingers through her hair with frustration when she realized it was just a dream.

She was only dreaming but it didn’t feel like a dream. Those images in her mind were too vivid, even after waking up they weren’t blurred or unclear.

She could still feel his skin against hers and the natural smell of his body.

The scenes she saw weren’t related to each other. They weren’t a defined story but she knew what they were.

They were some of her scattered memories.

“Oh my god,” she breathed as she removed the blanket off of her and got up.

She headed downstairs to the kitchen since she was desperate for some water to hydrate her dry throat. After drinking, she rubbed her eyes and looked around, only now realizing it was still dark outside, probably too early in the morning.

“Why does it feel like this,” she whispered, hugging her own body as the cold floor sent shivers through her bones.

Sarang took a step, wanting to run back to bed, but her feet froze when she felt a sudden sharp headache.

“Ahh!” she winced as she dropped down to the ground slowly. She held her head and tried to pressure it so the pain would go but it wouldn’t.

“T!” she heard Chanyeol yelling, his voice too loud it increased her headache.

She could see flashes running quickly in her mind. He was angry. His foot was covered with blood and so was the floor around it. The pieces of glass must have painfully scratched his skin.

“Ch-Chanyeol,” she managed to call his name, barely audible, but there was no answer and then suddenly there was no blood or glass or even Chanyeol.

The headache gradually disappeared after bringing her one more memory.

~

“I don’t know about that,” Yerim thought for a moment. “Of course there are a lot of things I don’t know about. You lived together for a long period of time, how can I know everything you went through?”

Sarang nodded, “Yeah I know, I just saw the scenes flashing in my mind and I think I’m getting some of my memories back,” she bit her lip, “So I thought I’d ask you.”

The two were sitting in a coffee shop near the university. Yerim took another sip of her hot coffee before speaking.

“All I know is he really loved you, Sarang-ah, I know you were mad at me for not telling you but I couldn’t. Your mom made it a huge deal and I couldn’t go against her. But for all I know is that despite the problems that happened, both of you were happy together.”

“Then why is mom so… protective when it comes to this issue?” Sarang asked with frustration, “Why does she hate him so much?”

“Honestly, Sarang, I don’t think your mom would have told you this but your accident…” Yerim sighed, “She thinks you were trying to commit a suicide.”

“What?” Sarang gasped, “S-Suicide?” she asked, already thinking whether it could have been true or not.

“You weren’t…” Yerim shook her head, “I’m sure you weren’t. You were never that type, and on that day in particular we spoke and you were going to fix it with Chanyeol. You even called him and told him you wanted to meet him and tell him something important. You were going back to him.”

“This is crazy…” Sarang rubbed her forehead, feeling a light headache. “I don’t remember any of this.”

“Look, I’ll tell you exactly what happened,” Yerim started.

Yerim started the story with Sarang’s marriage to the stranger Park Chanyeol. She liked him before she even spoke to him but Yerim always judged her and even him. She couldn’t understand why Sarang would fall in love with someone who was so cold and rude, but as time passed by, the cold and rude man changed gradually.

He liked Sarang. He smiled around her. He spoke louder and laughed harder. He loved her, you could see it in his eyes, by the way he looked at her when she wasn’t looking, and you could tell he was happy even when he wasn’t talking or laughing because his face expressions made it obvious that he was.

It wasn’t easy to get to his heart because he had been heartbroken before, badly, but once she did reach his heart she realized it was all worth it. He treated her like a princess and it showed on Sarang’s face that she was happy.

However, his old girlfriend, Hyojung, got back and with the help of Hwasoo she tried to cause problems between Sarang and Chanyeol. The two girls succeeded in their plan and they broke Sarang and Chanyeol’s trust, but with the help of Yoonseul’s sister, Yoonseul and Yerim were able to find out the truth.

Chanyeol never cheated on Sarang.

But unfortunately, before they could tell her what they had found out, the accident had already happened and from that time Sarang didn’t even know who Chanyeol was anymore.

“Oh god,” Sarang buried her face in her palms. “How did all that happen?” she groaned, on the verge of tears.

“Yeah it was a mess,” Yerim Sarang’s shoulder, “But, Sarang-ah, when you saw that girl in the supermarket,” she said, referring to Hwasoo, “Why didn’t you talk to Chanyeol about it? Maybe he would have found this the right chance to explain things to you. I mean it would have been fairer to give him a chance to explain himself instead of judging based on your mom’s side of the story only.”

“I was going to…” Sarang sighed, “But he wasn’t answering his phone because he was busy. He had already told me that morning that he was going to pick up his friend from the airport, and since it had been a long time that he hadn’t seen him he probably wasn’t paying attention to his phone.”

Yerim caught her breath, “W-What friend?” she asked.

Sarang looked at her with confusion. What kind of question was that?

“Uh, Lay,” she said, “He’s Chinese.”

“Lay is back?” Yerim whispered, already feeling her heartbeats hammering against her chest.

“You know Lay?” Sarang asked, genuinely confused.

Another story was told by Yerim about her and the special man she loved. Yerim explained with both passion and heartache, ignoring Sarang’s continuous “Oh my god!”s and “What!”s.

They were only supposed to mess around but they ended up liking each other, missing and needing each other. She loved him. No, she still loves him.

“If he never did anything wrong then why on earth did you let him go?” Sarang almost yelled.

Yerim sighed, “He’s actually perfect,” she said, “Really, he is honest, respectful, very handsome, could be very naughty but genuinely warmhearted, he would never lie or yell or speak rudely. And on top of that, he has a decent job and his own place. You don’t know Sarang, he’s too good I thought such men never existed in real life,” she was now trying to suppress her tears.

“Yerim-ah… this brings me to the same question again: Why the hell did you dump him?”

Yerim sighed, her breath came out shaky.

“My parents hate him although they don’t really know him but when we first started going out I got a little carried away and I used to sneak out of the dorms sometimes and my grades had started to drop but I took control soon enough. You know I can’t lose my scholarship and they think he was nothing but trouble and that he wouldn’t love me. They thought he just wanted to mess around with me and then maybe leave to China, and they kept being so obsessed like mom would call me daily, more than once, to tell me that “This Chinese boy will get you pregnant and ruin your life and leave you with a child to support alone” and that ,” Yerim hated it whenever she remembered those awful phone calls that ruined her mood every single day.

“But he wasn’t like that,” Sarang tried to catch up.

“No, he isn’t like that,” Yerim half smiled, “I never doubted him, and of course I wasn’t going to get pregnant. We were just like any other couple, we loved each other. I don’t know why they made it such a big deal. But maybe it’s because my grades dropped, or just because he’s Chinese? I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should have stayed with him.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “But he deserved better. He deserves someone who would fight for him, who would shut her parents up because she knows they are wrong. I just felt like he wasn’t obliged to deal with that and with me being paranoid and my mood being down the whole time. He deserved being happy and I’m nothing to be happy about.”

Sarang opened her arms and pulled Yerim to her chest. She didn’t know much about the story so she didn’t want to judge. The only thing she could do was try to comfort her best friend.

***

There was a spot on the sidewalk that belonged to Sarang and Jongin, maybe not officially, but since they were little they’d always sit there.

They’d sit down right next to each other and extend their legs to compare their lengths. At a certain point Sarang’s legs used to be longer, but that was when they were seven or so.

Now they were sitting in that position, Sarang’s legs were noticeably shorter.

“It seems like the only thing that haven’t changed throughout this year is you and Yoonseul,” Sarang glanced at him and smiled, “You two have the most solid relationship I have ever seen.”

Jongin’s smile widened.

“How come you never fight?” Sarang asked with genuine confusion.

“It’s not that we don’t fight,” he shook his head, “We just don’t complicate things,” he shrugged.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Well, we say the things we want to say directly,” he said, “And we listen to whatever the other has to say, and most importantly we believe it. Like, if I’m mad at her I directly tell her and when she explains herself I listen and try to understand. I never consider that she’s lying or that she had bad intentions. We trust each other.”

Sarang nodded. It must feel awesome to trust your partner, but in her case she didn’t know whether she should or not.

“I wish I could trust Chanyeol this easily,” she sighed