I didn’t bother counting the days and before I knew it, a year had already passed. The months went by with nothing special happening in between. Sunggyu and I treated each other like acquaintances, albeit closer. In a way, I guess I could say we’ve stepped up to another level and became friends.

The both of us agreed to swerve away from anything which would make us talk about Woohyun, and this made each day more bearable than the last. We became more open with one another, and I realized the more we talked, the more informal we became. We would laugh together and have plans of watching movies or going to amusement parks from time to time.

He would tell me about the condition of his family if we were in the mood. So far his mother was still receiving therapies for her schizophrenia, and the strained relationship he had with his father was still under construction.

“But it’s getting there,” he would always tell me.

Sometimes I’d talk about my family, too. How my mother would always be away, and how I have these tiny urges of tracking down my father, who abandoned us back when I was still an infant.

“If you ever see him face to face one day, what would you do?” he asked me one autumn afternoon, while we were conversing beneath the cherry tree found in our school ground.

“I’m hoping when that day comes, I’m already successful,” I answered. “So I’d be able to ask him, ‘are you proud of me?’”

“Why would you do that, Hana?”

“Because I want to know if he’s ashamed of me or not,” I said. “It is merely for that reason.”

He stared at me. “Don’t you…hate him?”

“I did,” I admitted, smiling a little. “But he’s as good as a stranger to me. It’s not worth it.”

<:>

The early autumn wind seemed to blow regularly, and it would always carry the refreshing scent of the crimson leaves and tree barks. Out of a habit, I would visit Sunflower Café regularly. It was a Tuesday morning, and the golden rays of the sun were already streaming through the shop’s clear glass wall. I proceeded to sit in the corner, and Sungyeol called out, “The same one?”

“Yes,” I answered, smiling a little. “Thank you.”

I took out a book from my bag, which was ‘After Dark’. I turned to the page I was reading, and started to immerse myself in the author’s own world, once again. I got distracted by my phone vibrating. I took it, only to see I received an anonymous message in my blog:

Oh, did I find you?

My eyes widened as that familiar voice resonated inside my head. It was so familiar it felt like home. With a slight smile playing on my lips, I replied:

Fancy meeting you here, Clover.