Yi Jung couldn’t sleep and had been a little distant from her lately; Ga Eul was feeling tensed that all was not right between them.

“Is everything okay?” Ga Eul asked him one night while preparing for bed

“Yes, why do you say so?” Yi Jung asked

“You seem tense nowadays” she said as they settled into the quilt

“Just exhibition problems, nothing else” Yi Jung said assuredly and scooted close to her and hugged her

Yi Jung nodded and kissed her. “Good night” he said to her and switched off the bedside lamp.

The next day, Ga Eul decided to cheer Yi Jung up with a lunch box. So she prepared a refreshing lunch box for him and went to his workshop, where he had said he was working. But when she reached there, the door was locked. She called him up on his cell.

“Yebeseyo?” Yi Jung said from the other end

“Yeabo, where are you?” Ga Eul asked

“I’m working on the exhibition, why do you ask?”

“I brought lunch for you, but you are not at your workshop”

“Oh, yeah, uh, um, I’m working at the venue right now. There were some problems with the lighting, so I was checking that” Yi Jung said nervously.

“Oh, then I will come there” Ga Eul said

“No!” Yi Jung shouted “I mean you don’t need to come, I, uh, already had lunch” he said

“Oh, but I wanted to see you”

“I’ll meet you at home in the evening okay?”

“Okay” Ga Eul said sadly as she ended the call, but she thought she heard a woman in the background.

The next day at work, in the recess, a fellow teacher contacted Ga Eul.

“Oh, hello Miss Kim” Ga Eul greeted her

“Ga Eul-ssi, you didn’t tell me you broke up with your boyfriend. He was such a nice catch”

“What? Who told you that?”

“So, it is true?”

“No, it’s not true. Why do you say that?”

“Oh, I guess then I must have been mistaken”

“What are you saying? Can you please tell me clearly?”

“Your boyfriend is the famous potter So Yi Jung, right?”

“yes”

“Well I saw him yesterday, in the market, in a restaurant with a very beautiful girl. And they seemed quite close. I just thought that you might have broken up with him and that was his new girlfriend or something.”

“Oh, I’m sure that was an old friend or something” Ga Eul smiled at her colleague and went to back to her classroom, without eating her lunch.

The wheels started turning in her head. ‘Could it be true?’ she thought. She asked herself if Yi Jung could do this to her. ‘Looking at his history…… no what am I thinking? He would never do this to me’ and she closed the matter at that

“Yeabo?” Ga Eul decided to talk to Yi Jung that night at dinner

“Hmmn”

“Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, between us; everything is okay, right?”

“Jagiya, why are you having such thoughts?”

“It’s just that today a colleague of mine told me that she saw you yesterday in the market…”

“Yeah, I was getting some paint material for my pots”

“At a restaurant” Ga Eul completed

“Yeah, I had lunch outside. I told you when you called yesterday that I had already had lunch”

“With another woman” she added

“Oh yeah, I bumped into a, uh, um, old friend. So we decided to eat lunch together; no big deal” he said not looking up from his plate.

“Ok” Ga Eul said weakly as she picked at her food.

That night, while going to sleep, Ga Eul heard Yi Jung whispering to someone at the phone “We have to be more careful from now on”.

Ga Eul didn’t understand what he was talking about, but she had her theories and doubts.

“Unnie, I think he is cheating on me” Ga Eul shared her doubts with Mandy the next day.

Mandy tried to convince Ga Eul that all was ok.

“But I’m surprised you didn’t want to talk to Jan Di about this first”

“Jan Di is already always ready to kill him, if I shared my doubts with her, she would kill him first and then ask for explanation from the corpse” Ga Eul chuckled lightly

“But don’t worry; everything is fine” Mandy said

“Thank you unnie” Ga Eul said as she took her leave

Mandy dialed Yi Jung’s number.

“I’m going to kill you” Mandy said as soon as Yi Jung picked up the phone.

“What happened, what did I do now?”

Mandy explained him about Ga Eul visiting her.

“You are making me lie to her; I don’t like this Yi Jung” Mandy expressed her displeasure.

“It’ll all be fine in a few days, I promise” Yi Jung said from the other line and hung up the phone.

“It better be” Mandy muttered

Over the days, Yi Jung got more and more distant from Ga Eul and she started up dying on the inside a little, when her theories took shape of something real in her mind.

“Ga Eul?” Yi Jung said

“Hmmn” she had decided that she would take in as much of him as she could in however time was left and then walk out of his life, with his memories embedded on her mind and heart forever.

“Nothing, good night” he said and turned his body away from her as he settled into the quilt and slept in that direction the whole night.

‘I guess the time is near now’ Ga Eul thought sadly and laid down on the bed, but she couldn’t sleep. After 4 hours of silent crying, Ga Eul finally fell asleep.

The next day, Yi Jung was gone even before Ga Eul woke up. There was only a note on the bedside table that said that he had gone to look over the exhibition preparations.

“How long are you going to hide behind this excuse?” Ga Eul said aloud and got ready for work.

The whole day she was upset and couldn’t even concentrate on her teaching properly.

When she got off her shift, Yi Jung was standing outside the school.

“We need to talk” he said with a serious face.