Chapter 1

“Excuse me, are you living here? I’m looking for the owner of this apartment, her name is Won Mi.” I moved toward to this direction and asked if he knows about where is Auntie Won Mi with a friendly smile. Yet, instead of answering my question, what he did was to look at me from head to toe.

He scanned me from head to toe, which caused me a bit of uncomfortable for being scrutinized by a stranger. I cleared my throat as pretending to stop him from his action and successfully to get him back to his composure.

"Are you the new tenants coming from Jeju by any chance?!"

"Yes, I am! Em, may I ask you how do you know that?!" His word surprised me with confusion. I'm pretty sure that friend Umma mentioned before was a lady, how come he knows about me?!

According to his outlook, he must be in his mid-age, or maybe he was the husband of Auntie Won Mi by chance?! As I know, Auntie Won Mi was on her 30s now. That will be made more sense for things.

"I'm also the owner of this apartment. Come with me, your unit is on the fourth floor. I was just tiding up the room for you moments ago."

He unloaded the boxes and put it down on the floor. He was one of the owner here, so I made a correct guess?! He and Auntie Won Mi were couple.

"The acreage of this unit is not big, 400 square foot. But still, we got you one living room and bath room, and two average size of bedroom." Someone called in and we got disrupted as Mr. Owner showing me around of my soon to be apartment.

And the caller was Auntie Won Mi and she must be asking about my presence by listening to their one-sided conversation beside.

"Oh, she was here few minutes ago. We are now inside the flat, the door is unlocked." Shortly, he ended the call and put his phone back this his pocket. Then he turned his head to me with his poker face.

"She is coming up. I’m going to put your stuff inside your room. You can waiting her right here."

From the beginning, I merely saw him showing me his smile. It was useless to be told that he was a gentleman as he helped me out to carry my luggage from downstairs to my unit even though we were taking the elevator, but still that was nice of him for doing that.

However, isn't it tired to keep that straight face for every single second?! Soon after I'm thinking to myself, Auntie Won Mi had arrived to the unit and greeted me with her big smile and hug.

"SoEun ah, you are finally here! I'm sorry for keep you waiting?! I've been rushed to here as soon as I received the call from your mother."

"Where is Bin?! Didn't he just talk with me on the phone not long ago?!"

Still having her arms around me, Auntie Won Mi immediately asked for the whereabouts of Ahjussi when she let go of me from the hug. At the time that I was trying to give her response, Ahjussi made his way out from my room and answered it by himself to show his presence.

"SoEun ah, does Bin he disfavor you?! I understand that not everyone be able to stand his unsmiling face which he does not thinks that as a matter. I've been telling him for up to million times that people prefer a friendlier face no matter how good looking you are. However, he just never listened to me."

"No, Ahjussi he helped me out a lot. Even though he doesn't show me any smile, it doesn't mean that he is rude to other. Both of you are well-disposed husband and wife, I shouldn't be asking too much."

 “What did you say?” After I assuring my sentence, Auntie Won Mi and her husband both yelped in surprise. Moreover, they made eye contacts with each other as well as stared at each other up to down with indissoluble expression.

“Are you out of your mind? How could we two are husband and wife? She was my Noona in biological.” Speechless expression was the only thing could be seen in Ahjussi’s face now. Er, actually, Auntie Won Mi’s brother!?

“Pardon me?!”

“That’s right, SoEun ah! What make you think that we are couple? Bin is my brother; he is five years older than me. His full name is called Won Bin.”

“What? I’m sincerely sorry about that! I didn’t mean to offend or anything. I, just, it just popped in my mind, I’m sorry!” Embarrassment and humiliation were no more than sufficient to describe the current atmosphere caused by me. I quickly apologized to Auntie Won Mi as amend as soon as I found out the real truth.

Yet, on the other hand, Auntie Won Mi took the misunderstanding with much nonchalance. Instead of that, she found something interesting by telling me the current relationship status.

“Even though my silly brother has a handsome appearance that captured the hearts of countless girl, but this is somehow an implausible fact that he is still in single.”

"It’s not all your fault by making mistake, SoEun ah! I won't blame on you to be honest." I waved my hands in front of chest in order to show her disagreement with Won Mi as embarrassment arose from the event. Moreover, it caused me finding some hardship to look at Won Bin.

Won Mi showed a nice smile to SoEun while talking to her as she planned to put SoEun at ease. However, it did not help anything but made SoEun to shake her head harder for denying.

----------------------------------------End of SoEun’s POV-------------------------------------------

After settling down, Won Mi invited SoEun to come over to have dinner with them in Won Bin's place. At that moment, SoEun found out she and Won Bin were neighbors, where Won Bin actually lived at the flat across hers and there were only two units in their floor.

After dinner, SoEun went directly to her bedroom and began to decorate her room for some exercise. As she taking out her stuff from the luggage, a photo frame stopped her from everything. Inside the frame, it was a photograph of her whole family, which also her graduation photo her parents took with her while attending to her MBA graduation ceremony.

In the photo, her father was the happiest one instead of SoEun herself and she knew it very well that she was the reason why.

"I made you to fulfill your hopes for me, but on the other hand, I am the one who disappointed you by pursuing for my own dream. Sorry, Appa, I'm truly mean it!" Holding the phone frame tightly, solitude of silence hung around SoEun. The cloudy night rolled in and covered the twilight sky.

The next morning

The morning sunlight poured into the room through the window pane. The cellphone vibrated SoEun awake. She brought her hand down on the cellphone with her drowsy face. After reaching for it, SoEun held the bright screen to her squinting face and stopped the alarm.

Then, SoEun rolled out of her bed and stood up and stretched in the direction of the sun just shining its warmth golden light over the mountain.

"Good Morning, Seoul!" SoEun energetically greeted her first day in Seoul as she stretched her lazy body in front of the French sash inside her room.

After freshening up, SoEun made herself a simple breakfast and finished her eating in a pace. Then, she quickly got into her bedroom and grabbed the blue folder that placed on top of her dresser.

Shortly, SoEun left the house by running; yet, something outside the apartment stopped SoEun's movement. Shifting the sight to her left, the familiar vehicle came into SoEun's view as the incident happened outside the station resurfaced in her mind.

"That's the car that ran over my phone yesterday!" SoEun moved toward the black five-passenger Jeep vehicle and took a peek through the tinted window from the driver side. Nothing was to be seen. As time ticking away, SoEun pulled out a piece of rough draft of her illustration design work from the binder she held in her arm from this morning.

"This one would not be used!" SoEun made sure the artwork was the unwanted one, and then she turned the paper to the blank. SoEun jotted down her contact information and asked for compensation from yesterday's accident.

Right then, SoEun clamped the paper with the help of the windshield wiper before heading to the interview meeting. On the way, SoEun put back the pencil and noticed that she was running out late as she glanced at the wristwatch on her left hand.

"Oh my goodness!" Without any hesitation, SoEun speeded up her pace as she walked down the residential road to the main road.

Meanwhile, she decided to double check if she brought all the correct stuff for the interview. She crossed the road with her lowered head and failed to notice the car coming in her direction after the sound of car horn honking from the front.