Gaeul walks down the hallway towards the blood donation center. Every Monday, Gaeul needs to receive blood circulation because her heart doesn’t have the capacity to produce regular flow of blood. Like every other week, Gaeul grabs a novel and heads towards the center. While walking down the hallway she greets the nurses and patients.

As she approaches the center, she notices Dr.Byun sitting at the front desk. He seems to be organizing some charts as he searches through the files. Gaeul also notices a girl sitting next to him, who is staring at him with hearts shooting out of her eyes. Gaeul halts as she realizes that she has seen that girl somewhere else.

She looks familiar…oh, isn’t she…she’s the girl who was hugging Dr.Kim. Why is she looking at Dr.Byun like that? Isn’t she Dr.Kim’s girlfriend?

While arranging the files, Baekhyun looks up and notices Gaeul walking towards to the center. He smiles brightly and waves his hand. Gaeul also returns the smile and wave, but her eyes are focused on Sohee.

Sohee, noticing Baekhyun waving, raises her head and to her disappointment sees Gaeul. Gaeul and Sohee make eye contact, but Sohee quickly looks away disgusted.

“Gaeul-ssi, are you here for the blood circulation?” Baekhyun asks

“Baekhyun-ssi, of course she is. Don’t ask useless questions.” Sohee tries to break the conversation. She didn’t want Gaeul to come near Baekhyun at all.

Baekhyun glances at Sohee and frowns. “Sohee, I was asking Gaeul.”

Sohee glares at Baekhyun. She didn’t understand why he wanted to talk to Gaeul! She needed to make it clear that he was hers.

“Well darling, I’m your fiancée. I should make sure…make sure you don’t make a fool out of yourself.” Sohee emphasizes the word ‘fiancee’ and peeps at Gaeul’s face through the corner of her eyes.

As expected, Gaeul looks a little surprised. Sohee feels relieved that she made it clear right now. 

“You’re Dr.Byun’s fiancée?” Gaeul asks confused.

Then why were you hugging Dr.Kim?

Sohee, mistaking that Gaeul was interested in Baekhyun nods vigorously. Through her eyes, she tries to communicate the ‘don’t-touch-my-man-’ look.

Is she cheating on Dr.Byun behind his back?!

Gaeul, worried that Sohee was cheating on Baekhyun bites her bottom lip. Her mind was spinning with questions. She wanted to tell Baekhyun, but at the same time she didn’t want him to get hurt.

This was all stupid Dr.Kim’s fault! That time when he cried…oh my god…he cried because he wanted this girl…he’s a …oh my god…he’s a man-!!

“he’s a man-.” Gaeul whispers her thoughts out loud.

Baekhyun and Sohee’s eyes widen. They look at each other with surprise. ‘Did she just call me a man-?’ Baekhyun’s eyes ask Sohee. ‘I think she did’ Sohee answers back with her eyes.

“Gaeul-ssi, I think-“

“Sorry doctor, I have to go to my circulation appointment. Let’s talk later.” With that, Gaeul disappears with the wind.

           “Gaeul-ssi, today Dr.Kim is going to come in to observe your heart beat during the circulation treatment.” Nurse Won tells Gaeul as she lifts the blood pack and starts the circulation.

Gaeul looks at Nurse Won with surprise. “Dr.Kim??” She asks again for confirmation.

Nurse Won smiles and nods. “He’ll be here any minute.”

“I’m here.” Jongin walks into the room and closes the door behind him.

Gaeul immediately closes her eyes to avoid him. She didn’t even want to look at this man- right now.

Jongin looks at down at Gaeul who has squinted her eyes shut.

“Hi Gaeul-ssi.” Jongin whispers into her ears deliberately. Noticing that Gaeul was avoiding him recently, Jongin wanted to talk with her. He didn’t understand why she changed, and…he wanted to fix his wrongdoings so that they could laugh and joke with one another again. He didn’t know why, but without Gaeul he felt like he was missing out on a small part of his life. A small part that he refused to admit was happiness. 

However, Gaeul keeps her eyelids tightly sealed. She also refuses to greet him.

Nurse Won looks at the two curiously. “Then, I’ll be on my way. Dr.Kim, please remember to remove the empty blood packet and return it to the front desk.” Nurse Won leaves the room, leaving only Gaeul and Jongin.

Jongin sighs and takes a seat next to Gaeul. “So you’re not going to talk to me?”

Gaeul nods determined. She will keep her eyes and mouth sealed. If she could she would have also sealed her ears!

“I’m not sure why you’ve been avoiding me. I don’t think I did anything wrong in particular-“

“Nothing wrong?!” Gaeul blurts out accidently. Her sealed eyes open too as she glares at Jongin.

He shrugs. He was sincerely lost. “I don’t think so…I mean is there something?”

“Of course there is! You’re a man-!” Gaeul exclaims.

Jongin is startled. He didn’t understand what he did that suddenly made him a man-. And when did she start having these ideas? He shakes his head vigorously. “I don’t think I’m someone that fits the man- title.” He tries to explain.

However, Gaeul who adamantly believes Jongin is a homewrecker, shakes her head too. And both, shaking their heads at each other look like lost chickens in a farm.

“Look stop shaking.”

“You stop!” Gaeul says angrily.

Jongin rolls his eyes at Gaeul’s foolishness. He grabs her head between his palms and forces her to stop shaking her head. He leans in towards her, minimizing the distance between the two, to the point that he can almost feel her breathe.

Gaeul freezes as her eyes widen, startled by the proximity. She stops breathing and squints her eyes closed. This was her first time coming into such proximity with a guy.

Realizing that Gaeul has stopped breathing, Jongin asks, “hey, why aren’t you breathing??”

However, Gaeul keeps her eyes shut and mouth silent, trying to focus on holding her breathe. Her heart starts to race, but she doesn’t know if it’s because of the proximity or because she’s out of breath.

“Gaeul, you need to breath!” Jongin exclaims as Gaeul refuses to breath.

Gaeul, unable to hold her breath further, pushes Jongin away from her face. “Then move, so I can breathe!” She shouts frustrated.

“You’re crazy.” He didn’t know if Gaeul was stupid, weird or innocent. Right now, she seemed like all three of those adjectives.

Gaeul looks at him angrily. “And you’re a man-.” She tells him bitterly.

“Look, where are you coming from? Why am I suddenly a man-?!” Jongin demands angrily too. She was giving him no context as to why she was slandering him.

“Because you are a homewrecker! The girl you hugged in your office is Dr.Byun’s fiancée!” Gaeul tells him matter-of-factly. She didn’t understand why Jongin didn’t know his own faults.

Jongin, shocked at Gaeul’s response, freezes and stares at her. Gaeul stares back at him defiantly.

Yes, you’re a homewrecker.

She confirms her thoughts at his bafflement. But an overwhelming sense of disappointment surrounds her. She had hoped her assumptions were wrong. She had hoped Jongin was not some homewrecker as she imagined.

The two stare at each other silently, and the atmosphere in the room is colder than Alaska. However, the circulator beeps as the blood packet comes to an end, breaking the silence in the room. Gaeul sighs. She pulls the needle out of the wrist and unhooks the empty blood packet.

“I’ll return this.” She tells him coldly and opens the door to leave the room.

But Jongin swiftly holds onto Gaeul’s wrist, stopping her from leaving the room.

“Wait.” He tells her. “Give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain that your story isn’t about adultery, but love? No matter-“

“I loved her. I loved her for a very long time…until I realized it wasn’t love but an obsession and dependency issue.” Jongin starts to explain. He speaks in a soft voice. A voice so soft that it feels fragile and vulnerable.

Gaeul looks at Jongin who is talking while timidly keeping his eyes to the floor. For the first time, Jongin looks like a little baby, scared to open up to a stranger. When he cried, he looked like an adult scarred by life, but today he feels like a fragile glass already scratched, and seconds away from cracking.

“I’m not exactly a homewrecker, because I loved Sohee even before she knew Baekhyun. Maybe even before we knew what the meaning of love was. She knew all along, and I don’t blame her but she used me because she knew my feelings. The conclusion of this story is…I admit two wrongdoings. One, I loved her even after she was engaged to Dr.Byun…and two, I let Sohee use me so much so that I’ve created…a monster.”

Gaeul tries to comprehend the whole story. “So conclusion, this Sohee girl is a mean, mean, very mean person.”

Jongin laughs. “Usually girls would just call her a , but sure. A mean, mean, very mean person.”

“Who is she…” Gaeul mutters softly. Who was she and why was she so attractive to Jongin? Why was he so in love with her for such a long time?

She’s your half-sister. Jongin replies silently. But I hope you never know.