*Pict belongs to Park Sora

They’re post honeymoon moment are one of the best time in their life. Weeks after the trip he finally managed to find a male assistant to do his dirty works for him and it resulted in more time he can spend with Sera. They both act like teenagers in love one more time when they spent their times together, they watch movies again, they go on a midnight date to the Namsan tower, they walk hand in hand in crowded places and one night they even entered the state of denial when they tried to mingle with the youth crowd in a club in Hongdae—bad idea and they came out only after one drink.

During the day Sera will try to spend her times doing positive things that will take her mind out of her husband and by six o’clock she’d always wait patiently for him to walk through their door and greets him with the biggest smile on her face. Kyuhyun secretly has been enjoying the free times he has and he can’t be happier to be able to put back the smile on her face. She’s now more upbeat and look less lonely than she was a few weeks ago.

He can’t believe how much he missed her when he spent his time working in his office. Most of the times he can’t begin to wonder why people are coming to him to get help to end their marriage, why would some people want to ruin something they decided to do so—in better or worse, though the thick and thin, in sickness and health—how could they toss those vows down the drain when they said those beautiful promised to each other. He can’t imagine his life without Sera and the longer they’re married the stronger his love for her grew and the more he laughs in his own daily job that’s contradictive to his own love life.

He knows how she actually misses the little gesture he did for her back when she was sick, that time he’s almost always available for her and he’d always take home something sweet to cheer her up—and he’s thinking to redo it all over again for the sake of her happiness. Tonight his dessert of choice is the classic lemon meringue pie from her favorite bakery near his office, Kyuhyun proudly lifts the bag in front of her when she greets him in front of their door.

“I miss you.” She spreads her arms and wait for him to hug her.

Kyuhyun pecks her on the forehead and hugs her, “Got you lemon pie.” He shakes the dessert bag in front of her.

Her eyes glisten happily, “Thank you, I made rotisserie chicken. It’s my first try so I hope it cooked all the way through.”

“We can always fry it in case it fails.” He takes off his shoes and change into the room sandals, “How was your day?”

“Meh, so-so. How was yours?”

“Hard time at the court, my client is still struggling with her demands.” He sits and takes the glass of water she prepared for him.

“Sorry to hear that.” Sera begins to cut the chicken in the middle of the table. “Potatoes?”

He nods, “I heard you’ll go with my mom tomorrow? Didn’t you have enough of her annoying friends already?”

Sera chuckles, “Tomorrow I’ll just go together with her for our monthly grocery shopping, not meeting her friends—no way I’ll do that again, she even forbids me to go to her gathering.”

He cuts into the meal she prepared for him and puts it in his mouth. “Woah Han Sera, this is really good!”

“Really? Not too salty for you?” She takes a bite into her own meal, “I think it’s way too salty.”

He shrugs, “Taste good for me.”

He quickly finishes his first portion and goes for another one in no time at all while Sera is struggling to finish her own meal. She drinks so much water to help her gulp down the salty chicken and actually wonders if Kyuhyun just pretending to like her food—but he takes a big second portion so she thinks it must be okay for his taste.

Kyuhyun helps her to put out the dirty dishes before he opens the dessert he bought for her. Sera waits for him to finish cutting the pie before he places it on her plate then she doesn’t bother to wait for her husband to start eating the pie.

The look of the pie and its taste in are surprisingly contradictory. It looks like the soft and flowy meringue pie with the perfect touch of tardiness judging from its pale yellow color, but when Sera puts it in , she quickly cringes her face.

“What? You don’t like it?” He’s surprise by her reaction.

“It’s very sweet. Did you get it in the usual place?”

He nods, “It’s supposed to be sweet, Sera-ya.” He takes a bite of the pie on her plate and taste it himself, “It’s okay, nothing changed from the usual.”

“Huh, really?” She curls her brow, “Well, I kinda wish it’ll go to tardiness side instead of the sweetness, it’s lemon after all, not sugar pie.” She mumbles to herself but continues to spoon her dessert into .

*

Kyuhyun mother’s picks her up the next morning after Sera finished cleaning up their breakfast dishes. A day out with her daughter-in-law is always the day she looks forwards to, this is her way to connect with her and the way she can actually digs up about Kyuhyun’s life since he’s never been the kind of son that speaks up his mind so much. His mother appreciates what Sera has done to her son and she even bowed to Sera once when she knew Sera agreed to married Kyuhyun. She knows how stubborn and annoying her son really is and she didn’t have much hope for her son to find someone that wants to spend the rest of her life with him—and also because Kyuhyun declared a long time ago that he doesn’t want to get married ever.

Another thing she likes about Sera is the fact she’s like the daughter she never had. The way Sera treats her and how she’s always delighted to accompany her around makes her feel less lonely with the life as the housewife in the Cho household. The old Mr. Cho is just the same as her son, being too busy taking care of their business even when he reached the age of retirement and often forgets to attend important stuff in their mile stone. Having Sera next to her is a major comfort, since it helps to reduce her loneliness and her needs to have a real friend to talk to.

“So you’re saying his behavior changed after the trip?” Mrs. Cho asks excitedly after Sera says how much her marriage life improved for the better.

Both ladies now spend their lunch time in and Italian restaurant next to the supermarket they went to earlier.

Sera nods excitedly. “It’s almost like when I was sick oemoni, he gets home on time and always brings something along with him.”

“Ey, I envy you.” She pats Sera’s hand. “I’m really happy to hear that.”

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

“As if! if it weren’t for you, I’ll never know what’s going on in his life.” She takes her iced tea and sip it gracefully with the straw provided, “And what about that problem? Has he changed his mind?” She indicates the taboo talk to Sera.

Sera bites her lips and shakes her head, “Not a chance oemoni. I think I should adopt a dog instead, at least I have something to play with during the day.”

“We can hang out every day.” Mrs. Cho offers her, “If you feel lonely you can always call me and I’ll pick you up to hang out together like this.”

“That’s very sweet of you, thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” Sera smiles, “I promised him not to bring the matter up to the surface anymore and I think slowly I begin to be able to live with it.”

Their foods arrive at their table and the talk is forgotten for a while once both ladies busy messing their pasta and give it a taste.

“Mm, it’s as good as its recommendation.” Mrs. Cho widens her eyes, impressed with the food she chose.

Sera takes a bite into her lasagna and she quickly puts her fork down then gulps her water instead.

“Are you okay, Sera-ya?”

“Ne, it tastes weird for me.” She takes another gulp to get rid of the taste.

“It’s so unlike you to order a colored pasta, you usually go with the creamy sauce.”

“I just thought the tomatoes will taste good, but nope! Wrong choice.” She slides her plate away from her.

Mrs. Cho takes a bite into her lasagna and she can’t taste anything wrong with it, in fact she’s thinking of ordering that menu in her next visit.

“It tastes just fine for me, but if you don’t like it, why don’t you order something else?” She lifts her arm and calls for the waiter to come to their table.

“Is there a problem costumer-nim?” The waitress kindly asks them.

“No, actually it’s fine.” Sera waives her hand in front of the waitress, “Can I order the fruit salad instead?”

Minutes later her new order come and Sera finished her bowl of fruit salad just fine. She ditched her main course and go straight to order the famous tiramisu in the restaurant and once again get disappointed by the extra sweetness she tastes in the cake.

Mrs. Cho notice something strange from her daughter-in-law’s behavior but she shrugs the thoughts, judging from how up-tight her son is with his planned life, she’s certain there’s no way something is happening inside of Sera. She’s just having a change of appetite and reacting weirdly over the food they have.

The next week Mrs. Cho got a call from Sera, she’s wondering if her mother-in-law is willing to stroll along together with her in the shopping center to get rid of her loneliness—Mrs. Cho arrives less than an hour to pick up Sera and goes straight to Dongdaemun for their girl’s day out.

Since Sera picks quilting as her new hobby other than cooking, she’s been collecting a lot of fabrics in every pattern she could find and her favorite place to shop is located in Dongdaemun. They enter the building and the smell of processed cottons greets them. Sera goes straight to the fourth floor where she knows her favorite shop is located and Mrs. Cho just follow her from behind while trying to adjust herself to walk comfortably in the small alley in between the shops. Many of the sellers place their products on the walkway and it makes them harder to walk through the rolls of fabrics.

Sera is taking many deep breaths to get rid of the headache she feels, crowded and small space is a perfect condition to make somebody feels stuffy and they got there by lunch time so the sellers begins to order up different kinds of food from the delivery so they don’t have to leave their shops. Sera was busy picking some new fabric for her collection when one of the delivery guy pass by with the strongest smell of fermented kimchi soup. The steam from the hot boiling soup arises and attack her sense of smell and immediately make her feel like something has stir her stomach and makes her nauseous. Sera places her hand to cover as she feels the urge to puke and she quickly pinches her own nose to get rid of the annoying smell of the kimchi soup.  

“Sera-ya, are you okay?” Mrs. Cho comes to pat her back, intrigued by the sight of her daughter-in-law being affected by a kimchi soup.

Sera nods but covering still, she begins to break a sweat on her forehead and temples as she begins to feel powerless. “I’ll pay this up first.” She turns to the ajjushi and takes her piles of garment.

“Let me bring that for you,” Mrs. Cho takes the plastic bag from her hand, “You look like you’re about to faint anytime soon.”

“I need fresh air.” She agrees.

Mrc. Cho holds her hand as she opens up the crowded walkway to get themselves out of the market. She’s trying to find the closest exit but they need to take stairs to get to the nearest one. She remembers how her son reminded her a millionth time for not making Sera work-out too much so she chose the longer route to take her down by the escalator.

Sera’s face has lost its color once they’re out on the street again. Mrs. Cho asks her to sit on the public benches provided on the pavement while she’s going into the mini market to get a chilled water for them.

“Thank you oemoni.” Sera takes the bottle from Mrs. Cho and gulps down half of its content.

“Will you be okay? Is there something wrong? I never seen you this pale Sera-ya. Let’s go to a doctor, you scare me.” She takes out a handkerchief from her purse and taps Sera’s sweaty forehead carefully.

Sera shakes her head, “I’m fine oemoni, it was too stuffy inside and the lack of oxygen affected me this much. I’m fine, we don’t have to visit a doctor—I hate hospital.”

“I’ll tell Kyuhyun..”

“Please don’t.” She places her hand on top of Mrs. Cho’s. “Don’t tell him about this, he’ll freak out and he’ll begin to tell me to get my health check up again and I’m tired of being treated like a sick person.”

“If you feel like this one more time, promise me that I’ll be the first person you call, ne?” She pats Sera’s shoulder, “I’ll keep this a secret from him only if you promised me that.”

Sera smiles and nods, appreciating her mother-in-law’s cooperation.

“Shall we get something to eat now?”

“I feel like eating stir fried vegetables, oemoni.” She suggested an idea.

“Okay, let’s find a Chinese restaurant then.” She helps Sera to get up.

*

Sera and Mrs. Cho are both sitting in silence as they hear the result of Sera’s newest medical checkup. Ear