- 020 -

It's true when they said 'life begins outside your comfort zone'. When Jisoo broke up with Sehun to marry Yeonseok, all she had in mind was that it was the end of her life. She was very pessimistic in moving on since Sehun used to be her world, and without him in her life, it didn't feel like she could stand above the ground anymore. But she began to see that her thoughts were not completely right in seeing how hard Yeonseok was trying to win over her. It wasn't an easy job, but he had proved himself to be a better arm to lean on as he once promised her. As she boarded on this new ship called marriage with him, she started to see a new light in a new day. And eventually she realized, in the course of her inconvenience over this new life, Yeonseok became her new comfort zone. And he did a great job in putting their relationship into a more steady pace the more days.

And as time passed, he became her blessing in disguise. He made her happy.

Jisoo never had a wild imagination nor a high standard when it comes to falling in love. She never expected a bucket of roses for any-versaries, she prefered Peonies though, or imagined romantic surprises her significant other would throw just to make her happy. She only wanted to love and to be loved genuinely, and uncoditionally. In fact, what more could a girl ask for?

He was the main reason who played the big part in her moving-on. Because forgeting was a great challenge, and there was really no shortcut to do it in easy way.  He helped her deal with this devastated breakup very sensibly and patiently.

Days passed along with the melting ice through the winter. It was the end of February when Jisoo found herself sitting at the theatre hall after attending her seniors' graduation ceremony. This was where she met Sehun the first time in their first year. She took the exact chair where she sat at the first meeting of the Personal Psychology class, glanced to her right was where he sat when they got paired for their first project in the university.

The classes were over by the end of the semester, Jisoo found the theater was quiet and decided to enter and spent some time alone, recalling every detail about him and the memories they shared in here. Here was where they stole each other's glances, and exchanged smiles secretly when they sat far apart. Here was the place where Sehun always made her hold back the laughter when he commented on what Professor Hong said quietly. Here was where they whispered to each other, where Sehun played with her fingers when he was bored, when he fell asleep because he was too tired after the boys night with his friends.

Every word, smile and laugh, Jisoo then caught them with her clutching hand in the air, then she erased all that memories by rubbing them with her other hand in circular motion. And again, it was true when they said that 'the new beginnings often disguised as painful endings', because lately enduring the pain of missing him was more effective rather than resisting the feeling. It helped her to realize that to let him go didn't mean that she had to forget him. It would never easy to forget someone who had given you so much to remember, and she had learned the best just to let the time do all the jobs. It's been two months after he left, and for some reason, the absence of communication between them had been a big help to fill the blank space in her heart for a new hope to build a new happiness.

A ring of notification tone in her phone broke into her reverie, Jisoo fished it out from her coat pocket and found Jongdae's message, telling her that he had been waiting at the student lounge with Lisa. She replied him with a short 'OTW' before she tucked it back to her pocket and took a deep breath. It's the last memory of him she had to let go. And after this, she's ready to move on, wholeheartedly, irrevocably.

"Jisoo! here! here!" Lisa called her out as she walked into the main door of the student lounge. She plumped herself down onto the couch right next to her cousin's beloved girlfriend, then leaned herself to her right as the girl stretched her arms into the air to take a selfie with her phone.

"Did you submit your application for the professional practice next semester?" Jongdae asked as Lisa was done with the selfie session.

"Yeah, I just did. They approved my internship report in the States so I have my professional practice complete. It saves me four months to graduate in advance."

"That's good to hear."

"Hey, look." Lisa circled her arms on hers, "Jongdae and I are going to karaoke. Come with us, we'll be having dinner with steak tonight."

Jisoo pursed her lips. Jongdae had told her about their plan this morning, and Jisoo also had given him her answer about the offer. As much as her longing to hang out with them, she needed to skip it today since she had had another plan to do. It's unfortunate though, since she always loved to listen to Jongdae's singing voice. She could say that her cousin's voice was one of the most beautiful ones she had ever heard in her life. He had a naturally high tenor voice and had the best sense of pitch in adlibing the song he sang. He was very talented, it's just a pity that he never had any interest to show it off on stage.

"I've told Jongdae this morning that I had a plan to visit my dad today. Can you guys reschedule? I really want to go with you guys." she pleaded.

"We've booked a room in Kkaebsong for two hours already." Lisa replied her with a regretting tone, "But we can always have another session if you like it, just let us know when you're available." Jisoo raised her thumb happily as the response.

Glancing at her watch, Jisoo decided it was her time to leave. So she excused herself and rose from the couch.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drop you off?" Jongdae asked her again to make sure. He had offered her a ride when she told him about her plan this morning, but as she felt like to be alone today, she turned down the offer. After promising them that she would give them a call later on, she then made her way to leave. The long corridor was quiet, few students were wandering around to clear their locker or merely having some chats with the others when she took a glance into a certain compartment which was used to belong to him. Some sticky notes were taped on its door, written on them were supporting messages like how his friends would miss him when he's away or how they wished he would stay healthy during his duty in the military and everything.

Jisoo decided to stop by. She fished out a sticky note and a pen from her pencil case, wrote a message and sticked it on top of the others before she made her move to leave.

Written on her sticky notes was,

'the universe supports you in every way.'

It was an hour ride to the graveyard sites. She stopped by to a supermarket on the way there to buy some pears and wine, then bought two buckets of white lilies and white chrysanthemum for her parents each. The taxi driver helped her to bring her stuffs seeing that she had too many things in her hands, and Jisoo paid him a double charge for being so grateful, especially because her parents sites were quite uphill. After arranging the pears on each grave and pouring two glasses of wine, she stood at the middle of her parents graves, gave them a deep bow to the ground three times before she seated herself on the grass ground. It was her dad's wish to be buried next to her mom, and even if it felt so sad, for some reason she was kind of relieved that her dad was finally reunited with the love of his life.

Being there with her parents suddenly made her emotional, and before she knew it she had sobbed miserably for missing them so much. Luckily she was alone at the time, if Jongdae or Yeonseok was with her there like those man had offered her earlier, she would make a very unsightly scene. It took her about ten or twenty minutes until she managed to control herself and wiped away her tears before she chuckled to herself.

"I'm sorry for only making the time to visit you both today. I have no excuse." she sniffed as inisiating the monologue. "So, as you, Mom, can see that I am married now." she said to her mom's grave. "And I have the feeling that you might have been part of the inisiator with this old man." 

She brushed her hair from her forehead backwards, now that she sat there she realized that the winter breeze was hideously freezing that she pulled her scarf upward to hide her chin. She then smiled as she turned to her dad's grave.

"I used to think that I wished you had told me much earlier about Yeonseok oppa, so I could avoid all the messy dramas that came with it. Four months ago I still thought that if you had told me much earlier about him, I wouldn't have dated Sehun or perhaps just kept away from him at all. But these days when I think about it again, I don't have any regret that I've met Sehun, because he is one of the best things that have happened in my life. And now I have Yoo Yeonseok, and he's just, like what you said, Dad, a very very good man and I'm lucky that I have been a part of his life. So thank you, for all the things you guys have done to me. I am blessed to be a daughter of yours, and I will always be proud to have you both as my parents." she sniffed again as the tears started to run down to her cheek the second time. "It's a pity that you're not here because I could use some of your magic words in this situation. I was told that love grows, so I am confident that I can love the man you've chosen sincerely, so don't worry. I am happy now, and I believe he will make me happier every day."

She then fell silence. The meeting she had with her mother in law two months ago was back into her mind and she couldn't help herself to smile at their deep heart-to-heart conversation. It was about three days after Sehun came for a visit to say goodbye, she found her mother in law standing in front of her door. Yeonseok didn't say anything about her visit, so she was quite surprised to see her there. She didn't see her often since her mother in law mostly spent her days at their family's villa in Jeju, but Jisoo did have some good talks with her over the phone. Since she was there, she then took her out  to have a ladies' date to a beauty salon where she was one of the VIP customers in Cheongdam. Apparently they had themselves a reservation of a full-body treatment for two which meant a day of relaxing massage and warm-water bath.

"Yeonseok told me that you're kind of stressed out these days, so he reserved this for us so we can be the queen for a day." she remarked as the attendant took them to their private chamber. Knowing that her husband had inisiated the spa for both of them had touched her again for the umpteenth times. Of course he knew, it was just his typical treatment she could almost never get used to. It took them two hours of relaxing body massage. There was only silence when Jisoo slowly fell asleep as the masseuse stretched her tense muscles over her legs.

"You know, I was just like you." her mother in law said when th