Word count: 2937 words

The Ignorance

Jongdae had finished his final revision for the thesis, and officially finished with his studies a week after his defense. He officially left Kyunghee, leaving me all alone in Suwon. Sehun also left Suwon on the same day as Jongdae as it was his last day of internship, but it was not like I felt that Sehun was in town for the past few weeks anyway. Yet one week after that, Sehun texted me out of nowhere, saying sorry because he was indeed busy during the last weeks of internship, and he had just submitted his internship report, thus was only able to text me then. However, it was not even the same anymore after that. We still kept in touch, still contacted each other sometimes, but it was so rare- it was almost as if the past few months after he broke up from Aeri was all in my dream. He also never brought up the topic when he told me that he would come to Suwon just to have a meal with me and I would not feel alone- which he never did even up until when I finished my internship two months after him.

On the other hand, in that two months when I was somewhat alone in Suwon, Jongdae took me out for a meal whenever he dropped by Kyunghee to settle some final documents for graduation- which was quite often, and had me wondering if he really had that many documents to finalize. On other days, either my sister or my brother would come too, some days only one of them, and some rare days they would come together- which usually meant they had a business to do in Suwon. I figured then that Jongdae had told my sister what happened between me and Sehun, and my sister in turn told my brother, because I never really talked about the topic with my siblings- I did not even know what exactly was going on between me and my so-called best friend anyway. And I think they did not tell our parents, to which I was thankful for. While it would not jeopardize any business relations with Kia as my family was not that petty and can separate personal and business matters well, I just knew that my parents would probably went extra and made sure that Sehun and I would have very little chance to meet- seeing that forbidding us to meet was definitely impossible as we went to the same university, in the same major, and even in the same class.

However, there was someone else that I did not expect at all to hang out with me in Suwon; Kim Junmyeon. We were quite close, but it was nowhere near my closeness with Jongdae, so what he did was a surprise for me. On some other days when my siblings and Jongdae did not come to Suwon, Junmyeon would call me, saying that he was on his way to Suwon, and asked me to have either lunch or dinner with him, depending on what time it was when he called me. Most of the times though, we would have dinner on Friday nights, and it all ended up with him driving me back to Seoul, and one of my siblings drove me back to Suwon on Sunday night, and if neither were available, my parents would. Due to their impeccable schedule, at one point, I suspected that both my siblings, Jongdae, and Junmyeon had a meeting or something, or at the very least worked on some sort of a schedule to accompany me in Suwon- because more often than not, when they came to Suwon, they did not have any business agenda and only hung out with me for a bit, which spoke a lot of things. I was really thankful to them of course, it was clear they did not want me to feel sad nor lonely, especially with Sehun literally out of the picture- but on the contrary, what they did only reminded me of what Sehun did- or did not do. At that moment I honestly did not know who he was to me anymore, I did not think he could be called as my best friend anymore.

I could finally relax a little bit around two weeks after I finished my internship. It was the day I submitted both my internship report and final draft of my thesis, which meant that all that I have left was to prepare for thesis defense, which would be in another two weeks. It might be a short preparation time, but at the very least I could relax after months of squeezing my brain out. On that very same day when I submitted both papers, was also the day when Junmyeon departed for the US. I was very exhausted due to pulling an all-nighter the nights before to finalize all revisions for both papers, but I also would not miss sending Junmyeon off for the world. I really appreciated what he, my siblings and Jongdae did in the past months, and this was just something small I could do to repay him. Of course, he scolded me upon seeing my tired face at the airport, but like I said, I would not miss it for the world.

Junmyeon was going to fly with their private jet, obviously, so that night, his parents, Jongdae, my sister and I were gathered at Incheon Airport’s VIP Lounge to send him off- we were the only ones he told about his flight schedule. Oh, my brother too, but unfortunately, my brother could not come since he had an urgent meeting at the office just when we were about to go to the airport. My sister should be attending the meeting too, but they decided that just one of them was enough, because they would not let me drive that night for my very apparent exhaustion. I could not even bring myself to protest, which would have happened in normal occasions.

It was about an hour before Junmyeon was supposed to board the plane, when a yawn escaped my mouth. I was sitting with my sister, a few feet away from the Kim-s, who seemed to be having a serious conversation. “I’m going to Starbucks,” I told my sister, “I’m going to need a cup of coffee to last until we get home,” I yawned again. “Ok, let’s go-”

“It’s fine, I’ll just go myself,” I stopped her, “Anything you want?” I asked. “You sure?” she pursed her lips and raised a brow at me, to which I nodded my head. “Fine, just get me hot Caffe Mocha.” I nodded again and started to walk away from her, “Got it.”

Stepping out of the lounge, I immediately spot where the Starbucks was. Thankfully midnight flights were comparatively less than day flights, so the line was not that long. I was already sitting down and playing with my phone while waiting for my orders to be done ten minutes later.

“Choi Seoyeon?” a very familiar voice called out. I looked up, and surprise, I did not expect him to be the one who was standing in front of me, “Oh Sehun?” He smiled and I felt my heart skipped a beat. “I didn’t think I would meet you here, what are you doing?” he sat down on the chair across mine. I subtly gulped, hiding my nervousness and hoping that my voice would not come out shaky. “I’m just sending someone off,” I smiled back. “And you?”

“Picking a relative up,” he