"It's over. I'm sorry."

"How could you do this to me when we've been through so much together?"

"You'll live, Changmin. Good luck with everything."

"Beep beep, Wake up! Wake up!" The alarm by Changmin's bed rang loudly. However, instead of getting up immediately, he turned it off and fell asleep again. About half an hour later, he woke up instantly when he realized, ", school starts today..!" He quickly started to get ready. He furiously brushed his teeth with one hand and styled his hair with his other hand. He changed into his long black slacks and white collared shirt, ensuring he had everything he needed in his briefcase.

Right before he was going to leave, he fed his dog Mangdongie. But as he put the food away, he banged his foot on the bottom of the counter. "Damn it! This is going to be a bad day...Ow... Mangdong, please don't laugh at me." Mangdong looked like she was mocking him.

Changmin grabbed his keys, his iced coffee from the fridge, and his briefcase and left his apartment. He got in his car and sighed. *Another year of teaching...* It's been two years since he started teaching, and he's currently 25 years old. He didn't imagine that he was going to become a teacher. He thought he would be an engineer or a police officer. But after going to college, a lot of things changed his perspective. Changmin found that teaching others made him happy. It motivated him to live despite the troubles he had been going through.

He was an English teacher. Changmin enjoyed learning English, and it motivated him to teach others. He taught the seniors at Mideum High School, and he used to like his workplace. Until his ex-girlfriend started to work there as well, so now he's dreading it.

Changmin was stuck in traffic and decided to watch the people on the streets as he waited. "I'm already late for the teachers' meeting; this traffic is making it worse." He sighed. He continued to observe the myriads of people that crossed the streets, people talking on the phone, and the couples walking around.

*What the hell? It's a weekday, and it's only 8 in the morning. Why are all these people here?*

Changmin noticed students who went to Mideum were getting ready to go on the bus. But there was one girl that was riding her bike instead. Classes didn't start until 8:30 am so she wouldn’t be late. *Is she trying to stay fit? She probably enjoys riding it. I miss riding my bike now...* Finally, the cars started to move, and Changmin approached the school ten minutes later.

As he quickly rushed to the teacher's office, he saw the girl on the bike arrive. *What the heck? How'd she get here so fast?* He didn't want to waste time thinking about that and entered the room. All the teachers stared at him. One teacher he noticed was Song Gayoung, his previous lover.

"Sorry, the traffic was horrible," Changmin murmured awkwardly.

"It's alright. You didn't miss much, but from now on, if you are late, you have to text or call beforehand." The principal stated.

"Okay..." He stood next to his good friend and former roommate, Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun taught algebra and pre-calculus. They started teaching simultaneously when they both got the job offer.

"Hey. You wanna go for drinks this weekend?" Kyuhyun whispered.

"We'll see," Changmin replied. The teachers' meeting lasted about ten more minutes, and all the teachers were getting ready to go to their classrooms.

As he headed into room 302, he saw the girl again. *So she’s in my class.*

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Mr. Shim. I hope this will be a good semester for all of us. I'll be taking attendance now." He went straight to the point. He wasn’t the type of teacher to talk about his life or anything of the sort.

He scanned the faces of the classroom to see if he recognized any of the students. When he first began to teach at Mideum, he taught first-year students, and now those freshmen were seniors. He remembered a couple of girls and about five boys.

"Kim Eunbi, Kwon Minhee, Lee Jaehwan." Changmin was in the middle of reading the names. They were all there. "Lee Sooyoung, Lee Minwoo, Moon Donghyun, Oh Saemi. " They were there as well.

*So her name's Oh Saemi.* He didn't know why he wanted to find out her name. Changmin contemplated whether or not to ask her how she got to school around the same time as him.

The first day of school was simple. The teachers typically go through the syllabus and talk about their class expectations. Changmin, however, wanted the students to be interactive.

"Get out your cellphones and follow the directions on the screen. Text how you feel about English to this number, and then your texts will appear on this word collage."

Some students were hesitant about it, while others did it immediately—particularly the students Changmin had before. After seeing responses they could relate to, all the students sent texts. Changmin started to read the answers.

"English is hard." "I hate English." "English is important to learn." "I hope I'll get better at English." "English is pretty cool." etc.

"The reason I made you guys do this is so you know that many of your classmates have similar opinions about English as you. Hopefully, those that said they hate English will be able to tolerate it by the end of this semester. There are only five minutes left of class, so I'll let you guys out early. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

The students bowed and left happily. Changmin heard a student say, "That thing he did was pretty cool." "Yeah, technology is awesome."

Changmin was getting ready for his next class when he noticed Gayoung walking past his room through the window. But she turned around and went back to his door and knocked.

"Come in." He said as he wondered, *What does she want to talk about?*

They dated throughout their college life. They were a campus couple that was well known. Others thought the two would get married after graduating and finding stable jobs. But it was different for Gayoung. She broke up with him just moments after graduation and disappeared. And to this day, Changmin is still trying to understand why they separated. He didn't hate her, but he just hated that he had to see her every day now. *It's been three years. I won't develop feelings for her again, right?*

"Hey, Changmin, it's been a while. I didn't know that you were teaching here." Gayoung said as if they were good old friends.

*That's a lie. When you first introduce yourself to the principal, he shows you the directory of all the employees here.*  "Yeah. I didn't know you would teach here. Did you teach somewhere else before you came here?"

"Umm, it's hard to say, but you could say I was teaching before." She claimed. "We should catch up with each other later."

"Sure. Bye." Changmin didn't mean to sound rude, but it was hard not to be when your ex wanted to be friends after so long. *Because exes can never be just friends, right? You're either going to like each other again or become strangers.* He sighed, and soon students came in like a stampede.

After his second class was lunch, Changmin planned on eating with Kyuhyun, but he was busy flirting with a couple of the new female teachers. So Changmin decided to sit by himself in the courtyard instead of the canteen, where all the students and teachers ate.

As he was eating his sandwich, he saw Saemi with a boy. They seemed like they were arguing, and eventually, the boy couldn't stand it anymore and yelled, "If you never suggested it, then it wouldn't have happened! This relationship is over! I'm done trying to work things out!" And he left without looking back. Then, Saemi just sat on a bench, looking broken inside.

*They must have broken up.* Changmin felt pity for her.  *Should I comfort her? Teachers are supposed to be there for their students when they're going through tough times, right?* So he took the last bite of his sandwich, gulped down his drink, wiped his mouth, and went to where Saemi was sitting.

"Hey, I saw what happened. I’m sorry. Are you okay?" Changmin said softly as he sat down next to her. She didn't even look at him. Saemi shook her head and sighed as if her soul was trying to leave her body.

"We dated since we were freshmen. But near the end of junior year, I told him I wanted a break because it would be our senior year, and I knew we would be really busy with exams and applying for college and stuff. But he told me that he didn't want to. So we continued to date, but later on, he told me he was starting to get stressed. So over the summer, we stopped going on dates and only texted each other occasionally. But then, one day, I saw him walking around with a girl. I didn't want to assume because I'm not the jealous type. I was hoping that she would be a relative. In the end, I saw them kiss." She paused momentarily as if she was holding back her tears and didn't want her voice to crack.

"You should let it all out. Crying helps a lot, believe it or not." Changmin knew it himself. Gayoung was the only girl to have made him cry himself to sleep.

"No, I'm not gonna cry on the first day of school and in front of my first-period teacher too." At this point, she grinned and turned to look at Changmin.

"Anyway, continue with what you were saying. What happened after you saw that?"

"I didn't confront him. I waited until today. I pretended like it never happened. I talked to him like normal, and a couple of weeks before school started, we went on one date, and I didn't mention the girl at all to see how he would act. And it was ridiculous. He acted completely normal, hugging me and holding my hand like I was the only one he would do it with. So I realized that perhaps, I was oblivious this whole time, and he could have been dating that girl while he was with me."

"What a freaking jerk." Changmin was seriously mad about it.

“If he’s in any of my other classes, just know I’ll give him a hard time.”

“Thanks, Mr. Shim.” She laughed, wiping away a tear falling down her cheek.

“I’m serious. I haven’t dated in three years because I still have a mild case of heartbreak.” Changmin stared at the students playing soccer on the field and started to talk.

“There was this girl I fell hard for in college. We were acquainted thanks to a mutual friend of ours. So eventually, as we became friends, I became more courageous and asked her out. She surprisingly said yes, and we dated until our senior year. I was in love with her. I had planned out my future with her. I had a proposal ready and everything. But as soon as we graduated, she broke up with me and disappeared. So it may have been three years since then, but I’m unsure if I’m completely over her.”

“Wow. That’s so bad compared to my relationship... I’m so sorry. Did you ever try to contact her?”

“No… Never could. But I talked to her today. She’s a teacher here now.” Changmin uttered. *Why am I telling her unnecessary details? I shouldn't have said that!*

“I hope you can figure out where you stand with her in your relationship.” Saemi started to get up. “There are only five more minutes of lunch, so I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Shim. Thanks for talking with me.”

“No problem. It’s what us teachers do.” Changmin grinned at her, and she gave a small smile back.

Afterward, Changmin had three more classes until school was over at 3 pm. As he exited the school building, Gayoung was waiting for him near the gate.

“Changmin, let’s go get coffee. The place around the corner?” She stated as she started to walk in that direction.

*She didn’t even let me say yes or no…* Changmin silently complained as he followed her.

It was an awkward and quiet walk. Neither of them said a word and enjoyed the scenery around them instead. When they arrived at Cafe Tree, Gayoung told the barista their order.

“One small caramel macchiato and one medium black americano, please. You still drink that, right?”

“I guess,” Changmin muttered. *She still remembers that…*

When they got the drinks and sat down, Gayoung decided to talk.

“You must have hated me since I left like that without an explanation. I know this is a ty thing for me to tell you three years later. but it’s better now than never, right?” Gayoung seemed nervous. Changmin didn’t say anything but nodded, acknowledging her to continue.

“Well, I discovered I was sick the month before we graduated. It wasn’t cancer or anything like that but it was still a big deal.” Gayoung waited a couple of seconds to see Changmin’s reaction.

“Go on,” Changmin said softly, knowing that the reason for them being apart must have been severe.

“I found out that I couldn’t remember things as easy as I used to anymore. It turned out that I had dissociative amnesia, meaning I would forget something I did yesterday, what I ate for breakfast, or even who my friends were. I was afraid that I could have developed a dissociative fugue, meaning I could have completely forgotten who I was and made up a new identity for myself. So because I didn’t want to forget you, I decided to get treatment in Japan and figure out if I would be okay. But in the end, I just hurt you.”

“You didn’t-” Changmin started to say, but he didn’t know how to fathom his thoughts in words that would make Gayoung understand. He wanted to tell her he could have been there for her and how hard it must have been dealing with that alone. How scary it must have been, knowing that there was a possibility of losing yourself.

“I know. I was stupid back then for not telling you. I made things so much worse than it could have been. But that’s why I’m talking to you now. I also know that you won’t be able to forgive me, and it’s okay. I totally deserve it. The disorder I have isn’t permanent as I thought it was. It was only temporary, so I overthought it as if I were in a drama.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that by yourself,” Changmin murmured as he absorbed all this. He felt so bad because the theories he had thought were so stupid. He thought she was selfish and wanted to travel the world alone. Or that she had run away with her new boyfriend.

“I’m extremely sorry that I broke up with you so selfishly like that. I’ll never be able to make it up to you, but I hope you know I still care for you.” Gayoung looked into Changmin’s eyes sincerely.

“Do you mean that you want to start anew?”

“No. To tell you the truth, I’m engaged.” She showed off her ring that glistened from the sunlight-filled window that Changmin failed to notice earlier.

“Ohh…” Changmin was disappointed. But he decided that at that moment, he would finally be able to move on from this painful relationship. “Well, congrats.” This was the closure he needed.

“I think I would be asking too much of you if I said I wanted to be friends still. But I hope we can get along as co-workers now.”

“That’s fine. Thanks for being so honest. I don’t hate you. But I was hurt from that time until now. So it might take a while… but I think we’ll get along.”

“Awesome. If you ever want to get coffee again, let me know. I have to get going. Again, I’m sorry.” Gayoung started to get up.

“Alright. Take care.” But Changmin stayed in his seat.

“Bye, Changmin!!!” She rushed out the door. Changmin watched her go and stayed at that table for quite a while, just thinking about all that information. *Now, I can move on. There’s finally an answer. We won’t get back together, but that doesn’t mean we must be strangers. Co-workers. We’re co-workers now…*

Eventually, Changmin started to walk back to the school parking lot so he could go home in his car. He noticed Saemi along with a friend. The friend was in his first class as well. So he waved to the two girls, and they waved back. Saemi flashed a big smile at him.

*I guess she feels better now. I hope she’ll be alright.*

A few weeks passed, and Changmin was only late to school four more times. His students began to like English more than they used to because Changmin made the class more enjoyable than their previous English teachers.

Saemi and Changmin became closer compared to other student-and-teacher relationships. They talked often during lunch and started to know more about each other.

“Mr. Shim, I don’t know if this is inappropriate, but I wanted to say that you’re like an older brother to me."

“Oh really? No, it’s not inappropriate.” Changmin claimed. But for some reason, he didn’t like being compared to an older brother. He had two younger sisters but didn’t see Saemi as a younger sister.

*She’s two years older than Soyeon. There would be quite an between the two of us… Wait, am I seriously thinking about an between me and a student?*

“Oh, okay. I think it's cool how I can talk to you about anything. It’s like you’re not even my teacher. You give great advice and have interesting stories to share. You’re like a neighborhood oppa, haha I don’t know. But you don’t seem like the teacher I thought you would be on the first day of school.”

“How did you think I would be?” Changmin asked, curious about her response.

“I thought you would be strict and boring and make all the students fail.”

“No way. I want you guys to succeed and love English like I do.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re my favorite teacher.” Saemi smiled sincerely.

*If she smiled at me like that all the time, I might seriously fall for her.*