A chilling breeze made Sunjung shiver as she stood in the balcony, waiting for the colours of sunrise to light up the sky. She had awoken at four in the morning and in spite of all her efforts, hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. A warm mug of milk had not helped and reading hadn’t helped. So she now found herself standing outdoors on a cold November morning.
As she had expected, the apartment felt undeniably barren when Lu Han wasn’t around. He wasn’t there to about her anger, she had no one cook for and…she had no one that she could look forward to seeing every day.

Pulling the thin blanket tighter around herself, she couldn’t help but think back to that night. She had been doing so often since it had happened. And every time she had done so, she had felt a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had not been able to figure out if it was welcome or not, if Lu Han’s kiss had been welcome or not.
Unconsciously, her hand rose up to touch her lips and she could almost feel the pressure of Lu Han’s lips on them again.

Sunjung hadn’t known how to react when it had happened and she feared that it had shown in her behaviour.
She had pushed him away despite her instincts telling her to kiss him back and to let him pull her closer.
The voice inside her head that told her to push him away had been so much stronger.
She had been distant the next morning, not being able to bid him a proper farewell because of the awkwardness hanging in the air. She feared that although she hadn’t meant to, she had pushed him away.

In spite of the mess in her mind, Sunjung found herself smiling as dawn finally broke. She couldn’t see the sun, just the top of the surrounding buildings really but the sky had become a brilliant blue and the clouds dotting it had taken on a pinkish hue.
Taking a deep breath, the woman stepped back into the apartment and slid the door shut. The silence was too loud yet again.
She missed him...but she was secretly glad that she didn’t have to face him just yet.

Sunjung’s day was a flurry of meetings, time consuming calls and reading till her eyes watered but she was happy with it. She had busied herself with work every time Lu Han stealthily crawled into her mind, giving her the brightest smile ever and almost forcing her to think about their kiss.
She’d found herself getting into long conversations with other people and for the first time, she lunched with colleagues she didn’t really know.
At the end of the day, Sunjung was exhausted but satisfied. She had finished up a lot of work and more importantly, she hadn’t let her mind wander.

It was past working hours and Sunjung was still in her small office, massaging the back of her neck when her phone buzzed, signalling a new text message.
Her heart almost leaped to when the possibility of the text being from Lu Han crossed her mind. She didn’t know if she wanted it to be him or not.
Nevertheless, her hand flew to grab the device. She relaxed considerably when she realised it was just Joonmyun.

‘Are you free? Let’s have dinner together. My treat.’

Sunjung’s lips curved up in a small smile when she read the text. Joonmyun was always treating her to something or the other.
But then she suddenly remembered the last conversation she had had with Lu Han about him. The smile turned upside down.

Joonmyun had always been the trustworthy one even as a kid. Her parents would allow her to go anywhere, do anything if it was with Kim Joonmyun.
To think that her responsible friend had cheated (was cheating?) on his girlfriend made her very upset. Sunjung felt like she didn’t know him anymore. And once again she found herself thinking about how everyone was hiding so much from everyone else.

Sunjung almost rejected his offer but realised that it wasn’t fair. He was her friend; she couldn’t do that to him. She wondered if confronting him about the matter would be possible but decided against it since it was Lu Han who had told her about it and not Joonmyun himself.
She decided to make her reply short.

‘Pick me up outside my workplace.’

Joonmyun looked happy when he picked Sunjung up fifteen minutes later. The soft melody of an indie band filled the car as Joonmyun tapped the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song.
Meanwhile, Sunjung was fumbling with words in her mind. She wanted to act like she didn’t know anything because she didn’t want to get Lu Han into trouble but seeing Joonmyun look so carefree made her want to ask him what had happened.

“Joon—” she couldn’t complete her sentence.

“How have you been?”

Sunjung took a deep breath and decided