Sora didn’t see Jongdae again before he went back to Busan to meet up with his girlfriend, Mikyung, a few weeks before the next term started. She was grateful for this. The lack of contact with him, which would have bothered her a great deal just a few weeks ago, was now relieving. Not seeing him helped her pretend that it had never happened.

School started up again halfway through August, which gave Sora an excuse not to see him when he left.

“But he won’t be back again until Christmas,” Dr. Cha pointed out when Sora flat-out refused to go see him off at the train station with the rest of them. Her confusion was justifiable, Sora knew. Before, she had always been jumping at the bit to go anywhere with him.

But this time she shrugged, carefully relabeling all her textbooks even though it was a useless task she never would have bothered with before. “I’ve got to get ready for school,” she explained lamely.

Dr. Cha still seemed curious, but she let the matter drop and she, her husband, and Dami went with Jongdae’s family to see him off.

Though normally Sora wasn’t very academically inclined, the start of the next term did help her keep her mind of Jongdae. Slowly, slowly, the memory of what had happened between them faded. It was always present, lurking at the back of her mind like a ghost, but she was able to push it from the forefront more and more often.

Her friends seemed stunned by her sudden interest in schoolwork and taking notes during class, but her teachers seemed pleased by it. They even phoned her mother to let Dr. Cha know her daughter was doing exceptionally well that semester.

The phone call from the school turned out to be a blessing. Having a psychiatrist for a mother had always been a bit of a drawback, as she could always sense when something was troubling Sora – and she could usually guess what the problem was without Sora even explaining it. This was one thing that Sora didn’t want to share with anyone, and the phone call from the school praising her sudden interest in academics tricked her mother into a false sense of security and she quit worrying so much about Sora. That was one less problem for Sora to worry about.

She was sitting at home halfway through the week, working on homework – Dami even came over to check her forehead to see if she had a fever – when her phone vibrated with a message. She checked it, then nearly dropped her phone. It was from Jongdae.

You wouldn’t believe how crowded this place is even though school starts back in a few weeks, the message said. You can’t even walk along the beach because there’s so many people. And the couples bathing suits! You would have really laughed at a few of them!

Sora couldn’t help but smile. This message, the same sort of message he used to send her before, made it much easier to pretend like nothing had happened.

She quickly typed a reply. And you didn’t take any pictures? Pictures or it didn’t happen.

Almost instantly her phone blew up with picture after picture of various couples in their matching bathing suits. Sora couldn’t help but laugh.

Pick your favorite, was Jongdae’s next message.

Sora felt a little bit better when she went to bed that night, like maybe things really could go back to normal. She was still hurt by what had happened, a little scar on her heart that she’d probably always carry, but she could move on from it. She was a strong person.

Things got even better the following night, when she got a video call from Jongdae. Before he had come home for summer vacation, he had called her at least a couple of times a week on video chat. He would make her howl with laughter at whatever escapades he and his university friends had gotten into, and more times than not her dad would stop by and remind her with a smile to keep it down since her mother was working in the office down the hall. It was a bit of normalcy that she had secretly worried might never happen again.

Jongdae, when his face popped up in the screen, was smiling and rosy, just the way it always had been. He told her how he and his friends had gone to the beach that day and pretended to be eaten by sharks. They’d gotten in trouble from the lifeguards, and many of the mothers there had told them off for frightening the children, but it was so funny when he told it that Sora couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re going to get arrested one of these days,” she laughed, propping her elbows on her desk.

He laughed too. “That’s okay. You’ll come bail me out. Right?”

She sighed, but she was smiling. “Yeah, I probably would. I’d have to rob a bank to do it, though.”

“Nah, you’re too clumsy to rob a bank,” Jongdae cracked. “At my party the other night you couldn’t even pick up a bottle without falling down!”

It was the first time they had mentioned the party in casual conversation, but it didn’t hurt her the way she thought it would. There was a slight constriction in her chest, but then she said, “That’s not fair! I was drunk!”

“Don’t blame it on the alcohol,” he chided playfully. “You’re always clumsy. Don’t you remember last summer when you broke your toe because you tripped and you were wearing those really stupid shoes?”

She pouted. “Now you’re just being mean!” she wailed.

He laughed again. “I would never be mean to you, Sora.” Someone called to him from off screen, and he looked away. Sora had to swallow the sudden lump in ; the someone had sounded distinctly female. He nodded at the unseen person and then looked back at Sora. “I’ve got to go now. Stay out of trouble, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”

She forced a fake sort of smile. “Yeah, see you later.”

When he called her the next night, his female visitor was nowhere to be seen and their conversation was longer and even less awkward. The night after was even better.

Sora allowed herself to hope that maybe she really could put everything behind her. Already things were starting to fall back into place again. She could do it, she thought in a moment of confidence. She could get over this.