— Pause, Rewind, Go —

When it ends, the day is as beautiful as it should be. The sun is out and the flowers are in bloom. It’s not too cold or hot out—the weather absolutely perfect for a nice walk or a picnic at the park. He awakes on the day with a smile on his face, limbs still a bit heavy from sleep but alert nonetheless as the sun flittered through the curtains he’d left partially open on the night before. The day felt like a new beginning, though to what he still wasn’t sure of.

His conscience kicks in and hisses in his ear. Who wakes up happy after another night of sleeping away from one’s wife? He could imagine a tiny version of his arrogant 30-year old self glaring at him on his shoulder. The version of himself from years before that had chosen this path because he thought he was mature enough to know better.

He doesn’t, of course, and he’s starting to think he’ll never be mature enough to actually know.

Changmin has taken to sleeping in a lonely single bed in the last few months, moving a few of his belongings from the master bedroom to the little cabinet they kept in the guestroom. It wasn’t that he’d been banished from his wife’s side. On the contrary he and Qian had been trying to work things out for close to a year and a half now and would try to end each day in the same bed. It wasn’t entirely his or her fault that his body would refuse to sleep next to her warm body. Changmin would lay awake for hours after they’d shut the lights before giving up and tiptoeing out of the room and collapsing elsewhere. He sleeps better alone now than he ever has before and it’d been too long since he’s wanted to this much.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes, Changmin sits up and squints at the sun streaming into his window. He has to review his associate’s research on a corporate case by eleven AM today and yet he doesn’t feel inclined to move out of bed. A quick glance at the watch he’d left on the nightstand tells him he has an hour and a half to get ready and drive to work but he feels no rush at all. As it goes, Changmin doesn’t feel as urgent to go to work as he used to. He tries not to think that it started around the same time his marriage began to lose its shiny luster.

(He tries even harder to think if it actually did shine the way he remembers thinking it did. Even that was neither his fault or hers.)

@IAmImYoona followed by @CMSHIM218

@IAmImYoona Landed in Netherlands for a conference on the apparent fiscal crisis looming over the global economy. Not entirely sure if I should be here.

@IAmImYoona I don’t know much about these kinds of things. I read but I’m not the radical politically opinionated person most of my peers paint me as.

@IAmImYoona But… I wouldn’t change a thing though. About my life.

“Would you come back early tonight?” Qian asks him after setting a plate of bacon and eggs in front of in on the kitchen table. She’s biting her lip the way she used to during their Law classes: eyes down, cheeks slightly flushed and with her bottom lip being chewed against the top row of her teeth. Changmin feels a wave of affection go through him when he sees her like this, looking younger than he actually feels. He’ll always think of her as beautiful inside and out, even with barely noticeable crows’ feet lining the edges of her eyes and the quiet tension in her tone.

His gaze on her softens and she catches him doing with a look that makes him want to simultaneously laugh and frown at the same time. He schools his features though, giving her a small smile just as Qian manages not to roll her eyes, and returns his grin with one of her own. She gets why he’s not so surprised by her sudden inquiry. Of course she understands. The smile fills her gorgeous face and in that moment Changmin recognizes her then as Victoria Song—his best friend from Law School. She gets it because they are friends first and always. And it’s this thought that shutters him back to reality and to really listen to her next words.

“I think it’s time we talked.”

“Alright,” He nods, spearing his eggs into his mouth and looking at her thoughtfully. Changmin has expected as much, after all a talk was overdue. Months overdue even. They shouldn’t have to be at this standstill any longer. He waits another beat before adding, “What’s for dinner?”

And Vic—Qian laughs and shakes her head, the slight tension in the moment disappearing quickly as it had come. He’d always been good at diffusing an argument, it was no wonder it would be even easier when there was none to go on. She rests her on her palm, her elbows hitting the wood of the table with a barely audible tap as she watches him eat his breakfast. It’s so easy really, to be domestic with her. His wife. Victoria.

“Sweet and sour pork,” she answers, grinning as Changmin grunts appreciatively. “I’ll make sure to make extra helpings. I think we’ll need a few bowls after tonight.”

“Eating our problems away,” He quips and feels a little guilty for the flash of pain in her eyes as he stands up to grab his coat and bag. Neither of them had thought their vows meant for any of this but it’s happening all the same. The pain in her eyes that mirrors his tells him so.

Qian kisses him on the cheek, swift, sweet and chaste and steps back as he opens the door. Changmin pauses just to look back at her and opens his mouth to say—“I’ll be back by 5.”

It isn’t want he means to tell her but she gets that. His best friend knows him better than he knows himself.

@IAmImYoona I need 8k more words and I am done! #pushforvacation #NatGeo

@IAmImYoona I graduated with a degree on Anthropology and a minor in Journalism. It fits me, no?

He leans back on his seat and reaches for his phone, tapping on a few apps before settling on one that reminds him that it’ll be the 30th of May very, very soon and Changmin feels his insides churn at the thought. The feeling isn’t entirely unpleasant but it’s still there despite his best intentions to dampen it over the years. It makes him feel full and starved at the same time, aggravated and calm—about 20 in a 42-year old’s body.

He sighs, rubbing his fingers against his forehead. Almost a decade and a half later and he still feels a little useless by the churn in his gut. But it doesn’t stop him from looking for ways to feel it over and over again.

He hasn’t spoken to her in years. She had politely refused his invitation and set off to travel the world to study and write. He only knows enough about her through news articles and Social Media—the latter of which forced to him by their common friends thinking it wouldn’t be awkward to follow your ex on Twitter because you’re married Changmin, that ship has sailed and sunk.

Except it hasn’t and probably won’t ever. Because he keeps it docked in the dark recesses of his mind when he’s feeling particularly lonely and bereft. Because he can’t help himself when it comes to her and everyone (Qian, their friends, himself) knows it.

Because Shim Changmin is a ing masochist when it comes to Im Yoona and it’s so ed up.

“You’re an idiot, Shim,” he chastises himself and tosses the phone to across the wood, sending it bouncing almost off the desk and to land very close to the edge. He stares at the gadget for a full minute, whether willing it to ring or not was hardly something he wanted to acknowledge, before standing up to go about his day. Qian wants him home by five for dinner and to talk and he was going to do just that because he loves her, his frie—wife.

Changmin practically runs away when it pings, shutting the door behind him before he surrenders to impulse to check and succumb to that stomach-churning feeling again.

@IAmImYoona Home in a few weeks! Can’t wait!

@IAmImYoona There are faces that I miss. You know who you are!

@IAmImYoona Korea, wait for me!

His marriage dissolves over sweet and sour pork, special fried rice and five bottles of Soju.

Qian grins at him from her seat on one side of the couch, her feet up and under her as he nurses to his Soju bottle at the ot