Jong Kook learns not to call Ji Hyo anymore after that rainy day because she never answers them. Or some days, he’ll get lucky and she’s already picked up before reading the caller ID. In which case, she’ll keep her responses to a three-word maximum and politely decline his invitations for “revitalizing” kale powershakes with a sorry excuse he can see right through but entertains nonetheless.

He figures she has a legitimate reason to suddenly cut off ties with him because the real Ji Hyo wouldn’t shut him out like that like that. He refuses to believe that the bond they shared earlier was all a figment of his one-sided infatuation. One day, she’ll emerge from that cocoon, and it will be back to silly jokes and harmless tussles. He knows it.

He blames it on marriage jitters and an premature case of cold feet. Maybe she doesn’t want Chang Joo to start getting funny ideas if she’s always hanging around the beefy man. His mind is a tangled web of conflict, but one sure thought cuts straight across and shoots through his heart—she’s getting married and he…well, he’s still single. It’s a stubborn reminder that he likes to torture himself with even though he knows that the sinking despair never dwindles no matter how many times he resurrects it. He wants to wish it away, exercise it away, eat it away—do something to make it disappear. It’s as if the pain is an alarm that something’s gone wrong, but it’s not like he didn’t already know that months before.

He continues to stare at himself in the gym mirror as he lifts weights, at the way his muscles contract and release, at the growing sweat patches that decorate the collar and arm holes of his gray sleeveless shirt, at the glistening beads of perspiration that catch the harsh fluorescent lights trickling along his skin. He takes in his large build. He looks like a beast, an animal—aggressive, powerful, and resilient. He focuses on his own face and watches his mouth grit in exertion, but catches the disappointment in his eyes. For the image he works so hard to upkeep, he’s a walking contradiction. He’s a complete wimp at heart.

He’s been in love with a woman for so long he doesn’t even remember when it started, and he was slowly, slowly, telling himself that one day, he will confess. One day. And now that one day is over before it even started because she won’t ever be his anymore and it won’t do anyone any good to tell her now.

Within the hazy, stuffy air, he sees the image of the pitiful, wet woman desperately chasing after a car speeding away from her—as if the driver could hear her screaming, as if the driver would stop, as if the driver would even care. The puddles splash up to stain her dress with a gray rim of dirt, while the rain pours down to dye her dress a darker shade, and yet she charges forward without care, blinded by sheer determination. Jong Kook internally berates the delusional woman. His momentary lapse in concentration sends his right barbell slipping from his grip, and he flies away from it seconds before it lands with a booming thud inches from his foot. His heart is racing. He can’t tell if it’s the haunting woman or if it’s his close brush with a possibly deformed right foot.

The lights start to flicker, signaling closing time. He looks around cowardly, hoping for other gym members also in attendance so he could dodge the staffs’ hawk eyes. He could feel the glare trained as his back as they impatiently waited for the gym to empty out so they could close up and head out. Much to his disappointment, it’s empty save for him and the gym personnel, and he lets out a huff of defeat. He doesn’t know why he does bothers to look every day either. He’s always the last one to leave. Always at the only one at closing. Everyone else has a life to attend to except him, and he’s the only one who can afford to spend hours on himself like this.

And for what purpose exactly? To be chased down and attacked by everyone on Running Man? Sure he’s fit and he’ll live a million years, but the prospect of immortality didn’t improve his outlook if he was going to have to live with this empty feeling inside. Bodybuilding could only take him so far in motivations, and he wanted something else. He remembers the time Ji Hyo had a sincere talk with him during filming about accepting himself and not resorting to physical strength to disguise his insecurities. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to see that kind of Ji Hyo again. The one with stars in her eyes and a sunbeam for a smile. He wants her back.

He’s kind of terrified of her and wants to leave her be, but at the same time, he knows that she isn’t going to see the light anytime soon. Dejected, he pulls on the hood of his jacket and tugs at the drawstrings with a bit too much force. He feels like his skull might burst. He walks out the gym looking like an eskimo.

----

Ji Hyo finds herself scrolling through a long list of text conversations on her phone as she waits for pedestrian sign to change to “walk”. Her thumb rests on Jong Kook’s text from a month ago, still unread. She contemplates whether it’s worth even responding to anymore, but she knows it’s down to either replying or deleting it. She can’t let it sit there on her phone anymore. The guilt has been compounding each day and burns into her.

Weeks before, she had told herself that despite the initial discomfort, she’d grow to tolerate it and eventually, immune. This a breakup, like with any other relationship, and she’s had her fair share of it. She knows how it works. It takes a nosedive down before gradually rising through turbulent air. But this time, it cuts so deep she doesn’t think she can hold out much longer. It’s because she doesn’t believe there should be a reason to break up this friendship anyway. Even though she was the one to start it, she wants to take it all back now. She’s close to just telling him everything one day—complete with tears and profuse apologies.

She probably took the news of moving away too harshly, she ponders. Maybe easing the pain from an inevitable parting didn’t require such drastic measures. He’s not the only one she’ll miss. She’s aggressively finding time to meet with her other friends and colleagues to fill up her bank of memories so that she has something to live off of while she’s overseas. But with him, she ignores him completely.

She’s leaving for the great unknown and this is a reality that she not completely willingly agreed to. Ji Hyo feels trapped, like fate is out to get her and she can’t escape. Just when her career was starting to kick off in Korea, this comes to completely stomp it out. She just doesn’t want to regret this decision to abandon what she has now for hope that she’ll make better in a whole new society. She tells herself that she wouldn’t ever know unless she tried first. Nevertheless, it’s an unsettling feeling that in case things don’t work out, well, there is no backup plan. She’ll have to figure it out when it happens, and she doesn’t like not knowing beforehand.

And when would she be able to return to Korea? By then, would people still recognize her? Would she be worth any news coverage, or would she had already fallen so far and become a plebian? Would she have to start over in the industry? Was all her work for naught?

---

Ji Hyo never ventures into this part of Seoul. It’s too pretty for her—too clean, too perfect. She needs the dirty streets and noisy traffic. Despite her opinions of the location, she spots a café at the end of the block. She can never say ‘no’ to a sweet, creamy iced latte, and dips in for a quick treat. Hell, she’s been through a lot these past few months. The woman takes up post at a wooden table by the window to watch passersby in their perfectly pressed clothes and rich hues, as she sips intensely on her drink. A loud gurgling sound signals that her cup is empty, but she remains sitting and chewing on her straw.

She pulls out a magazine off a nearby rack. It’s one of those with bright colors and an overly thin and pasty woman on the cover. The unamused actress flips through the pages, glossing over the endless tips on beauty and dating and rolls her eyes so hard each time she’s scared they’ll get stuck in the back of her head. She could write those sorry excuses for content in her sleep, she tells herself. Nevertheless, she finishes the periodical, forcefully flipping each page, hoping to “accidentally” rip one while thumbing through, ignited with the bite of feminism.

She is nearly done with her tenth magazine and a straw sufficiently gnawed to a scrawny stub when she hears a deep voice echoing in the restaurant. It breaks the spell cast by the soft indie music that droning on about stars and the moon. It’s a voice eerily similar to that of the man she’s been trying to detach herself from.

There was only one way to find out. Shrinking into her seat, she slowly peeks out from behind the pages and sure enough, there he was—with a gym bag slung his shoulder asking for what she figures is a protein shake with extra shots of protein. Two blenders whirl to life in the background.

She watches him look around the café as he waits for his order. Seeing his head turn towards her direction, she retracts instantly and takes cover behind the pages again, squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip in hopes that her cover wasn’t blown.

She didn’t really want to see him outside of the filming set because it blurred the line between colleagues and genuine friends. He had always existed in her “work” bubble. Whenever she interacted with him, it was always under the pretense of work and she maintained a semi-professional version of herself. Behaviors were self-contained because when she returned home, she could turn off that switch and be her normal self—a much more insecure version of that persona.

But this was different encounter was confusing because it would be so obviously manufactured if she were to work her faux-personality in this relaxed setting. He would seriously think that there was something wrong with her. But at the same time, she couldn’t let her guard down because she had already gone so far in trying to close him out and suddenly rejecting all that and trying to restore some friendliness as she always wanted would be very awkward.

This was real life and she didn’t think the real her could deal with seeing the real him.

She sheepishly waits for him to go, scowling at the fact that he’s taking so incredibly long, chatting with the young peppy barista. She feels antsy both at the sight of him interacting so freely with another female, not her, and that she had set up these boundaries that he was no longer allowed to cross and yet, she wants to reach over and yank him over to her side, even for a little bit. She wants a quick taste of the forbidden.

Ji Hyo was also peeved at the fact that he still wasn’t leaving, so she couldn’t let her down quite literal cover and her arms were getting a little sore. The burning sensation running through her forearms were her punishment for behaving so naively about this all, she told herself.

Her vision fades out as she stares at the blurry text laying against her nose. Her mind drifts off, but it doesn’t travel far because it falls to the man standing fifteen feet away from her. She watches him laugh heartily with the barista, a reminder that he’s perfectly fine without her and a pang vibrates through her heart. She realizes how silly it was of her to place such high importance on herself as a female friend of his, when he’s just as available to anyone else. She is always alarmed by the amount of females even ten years younger who are interested in dating him.

Ji Hyo doesn’t know why she treats him differently. Well, she does know. She has an inkling, a very strong inkling, but she knows life would be easier if she feigned stupidity and didn’t delve into it. Ignorance is bliss in this case, because this was a Pandora’s Box and she was sure nothing good would come out of it.

In time she’d get over this separation and she’ll look back and think laugh at herself for being so overdramatic about it all. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any benefit for her choosing to go. There was a legitimate reason. Any sane person would probably think it a wonderful opportunity to follow her fiancé overseas. So why was she feeling pits in her stomach every time she thought about it? Like a dark hand was slowly crawling up her neck and squeezing it with an iron grip.

With relief, she finally hears him bid goodbye and exit the café. Her body relaxes and she stretches her neck, rolling it from shoulder to shoulder. Now that the adrenaline has dissipated, she reflects on her childish reactions, bitterly her straw in an empty cup. Even two months ago, she would’ve greeted him with a friendly slap to his back, but now, she was hiding, wanting to give off the image that she didn’t want anything to do with him, but at the same time, boring her eyes into his retreating figure outside, hoping that somehow he would feel them and turn around and she’d get a chance to seem his face again. And he’d flash her a smile that’d forgive all she’s done.

Ji Hyo, pabo-ya, she scolded herself, jumping off the stool in frustration and throwing the cup along with magazine into the trash can. She doesn’t bother retrieving the trashy magazine.

The more she walks away from the shop, the more she tries to dissect if he saw her or not. She’s sure he did since she was the only one in the cafe. He must have ignored her because he was upset at her. This conclusion weighed down on her moreso than her struggles with how to interact with him. The latter was something she could change by herself, but she couldn’t force him to change.

As he exited the cafe, Jong Kook pulled out his phone from his pocket, tempted to send her a teasing text, but then he deleted it and replaced his phone. He had seen her the entire time, but she had made it clear weeks back for him not to bother her, so he refrained from any confrontation. Ji Hyo looked troubled and he promised himself he’d try to help her out, even if it meant a crazy screaming woman pulling at his hair. He knew this was not the real her. He was going to help find herself.