"What makes it hard to let go, is that you don't want to let go."

~.~.~.~

      One thing Wendy didn’t like was when she had visitors while she wasn’t ready and her apartment unit was a mess. Her hair was tied up into a messy bun because she hadn’t showered for days. She had visible bags under her red, puffy eyes and her wrinkled and dull-looking shirt and sweatpants shouldn’t have been the one to greet a guest. But she also didn’t expect a guest at three in the afternoon.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Wendy panicked and rubbed the nape of her neck out of embarrassment. Bae Joohyun tilted her head and looked at her in puzzlement. “Why?” The shorter girl’s face flushed and she bit her lower lip. “You had to see me like this-” Wendy gestured to herself, hoping that the woman in front of her didn’t see the mess inside her unit. More like the mess that is her unit.

      Wendy hoped she hadn’t crept out her new neighbor. “I’m usually a clean person.” She sheepishly continued. A smile found its way on Joohyun’s soft-looking lips, and she let out a small chuckle. “It’s okay. I just moved in earlier this morning, and you must’ve been busy. I was going to apologize for the noise that I made.”

The resident who lived there longer must have gone deaf, then.

“It’s okay, I didn’t really hear anything.” She admitted.

      “On the other hand, thank you for saying hello or else I wouldn’t have known I had a new neighbor. I tend to be late on the news. Just across me, no?” Wendy hadn’t spoken this casually in a long time, as she glanced behind Joohyun to see the room number.

R43.

“Yes, and thankfully I wasn’t that noisy for you to be bothered.” A sigh of relief escaped , and Wendy tried to return a smile. “Don’t worry. I’m in my own world a lot, so I tend to tune out any other noise.” Now that she realized it, this is the first time she’d seen and talk to another human being this week. Did her voice sound okay? Was it not hoarse from crying these past few days?

Joohyun didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she ignored it. She stuck out her arm for a handshake and grinned. “You still haven’t told me your name.” Wendy blinked and took the other woman’s hand after a beat. “Oh. Oh yeah! My name is Wendy.” She felt the woman pause.

“…Foreigner?” Joohyun asked with a careful tone.

      Wendy shook her head. “I migrated to Canada when I was young. I came to South Korea after I graduated three years ago. Wendy’s my english name if you’re wondering.”

“You’re very fluent.” Joohyun whispered. She peeked over Wendy’s shoulder where she saw the television still and filled the unit with advertisements of some shampoo. “I must have kept you from watching. Apologies, Wendy-ssi.”

“No worries, Joohyun-ssi. I needed someone to talk to anyway.” Wendy muttered the last sentence. If her new neighbor had heard her, she didn’t show any signs. Joohyun only answered with a nod. “Well, it’s nice to see that I have a nice neighbor.” She rubbed her arm before she bowed and Wendy returned the gesture.

A short conversation that distracted Wendy from her thoughts would do her good.

“I’ll be seeing you around then.”

~.~.~.~

      “I can’t do this.” Irene placed the folder of Son Seungwan on Tiffany’s desk. Tiffany eyed her wearily before she sighed. “This is the first time you refused.” Irene pursed her lips, eyes unreadable. “Unnie, all my clients in the past knew the contract. The rules. Everything. Won’t I be hurting her more if she finds out that I was just hired?

”

“Joohyun, you’re there to help her.”

“In what way? By being her girlfriend? I don’t know how to handle a problem like this, I’m sorry.” Irene shook her head.

“You already agreed. And nobody said a girlfriend is the only thing you can do to heal her. A romantic relationship isn’t always the answer to loneliness.”

“Then you’re saying I should act as her friend?”

Irene suddenly felt worst.

      Tiffany paused for a moment as her eyes examined Irene’s. “That’s up to you. Just do what you can. You can only do so much. The person has to heal herself.”

Irene looked down. “You’re placing a burden on me, Tiffany.”

      Her boss quirked a bitter smile. Her eyes hardened, and she turned her chair away from Irene. “Carrying people’s problems are the hardest. You don’t know what to do with it when it’s too heavy. Makes you wonder why they come to us instead of going to see counselors and psych graduates.”

      She somehow wondered about that too.

      Irene had gone and asked the company to buy her a unit in front of her client to execute her non-existent plan. Yes. She only had three steps figured out. Step one, transfer and be the client’s neighbor. Step two, introduce herself. Three, somehow get closer to her.

How will she achieve step three?

On second thought, she only had two steps figured out.

Which is bad.

Joy wasn’t looking at her. They sat in the corner of a cafe that Irene had deduced to be the very one where Son Seungwan was supposed to propose. She blew on the hot chocolate Joy had decided to treat her. Seulgi had taken her time ordering sweet, baked goods and stayed talking to the employee at the front of the cafe. They looked like they were catching up on things.

“To be honest, I barely know anything about the company that you run.” Joy dipped the last piece of donut in chocolate and waved it around. “Can you elaborate?” It was either Joy was young and foolish to be hiring from companies she didn’t know a lot about, or she just didn’t care because she could handle it if something bad happened.

It’s been a day since Irene had met two of her client’s friends.

“Well, we are hired to accompany lonely people.” She started. “For example, if someone were alone for Christmas, he or she could hire us to be their companion. Or if someone doesn’t want to get married, we could pretend to be their spouse in case their parents want them to marry off and started arranging plans. It could also be even during Valentine’s day.”

“But you don’t offer ?” The question was so blunt that it made Irene’s ears heat up.

“No. I-I think that would be up to us. But we’re a legal company so that is out of the question.”

How did Tiffany started this? It was a wonder. She felt a bit ashamed not asking when she was the closest to her boss.

A memory flashed through her mind where someone had handed a resignation letter to Tiffany because he had fallen in love with his client. Irene never really understood why. “Most of the time, they had agreed with everything stated in the contract in a business manner. But if you were to base on me, I’ve only been an ear to listen to for the broken-hearted.”

With that, the tall girl thought for a moment. She bit off half of the donut and chewed, her brows furrowed. “Five months. I think that’s enough time for you to help her.”

Irene tried to be polite by ignoring the churning of her stomach that signaled she was hungry. “I think that’s a lot of time.” The older replied curtly and tapped on the tabletop anxiously. Joy took a sip of her own black coffee, and smiled lazily afterwards. “You sound confident. Five months is very long.” The shortest time Irene had spent with her last client, a woman that wanted to experiment, was three months. It was a neutral feeling. It felt like a long time, so what more, five months?

Certainly, someone like her would have already experienced simple things like a kiss and holding hands with both genders. Unfortunately, (for those people) they only reached that stage. So needless to say, Irene knew enough.

“To get a point across, you don’t have to act as her next suitor or something.” Joy examined the folder that held the background information of Son Seungwan. It was as if she had read Irene’s mind and shot all of her ‘experience’ down. “But isn’t love the cure?” Irene hesitantly questioned.

“You know, you sound inexperience with these things.” Joy looked baffled.

            Irene fidgeted under her gaze. She internally thanked the heavens when Seulgi came back that moment, stuffed with cream puffs as she carried a tray of ice cream and bread. Joy turned her attention to her, unamused. “You definitely look like a bear right now. C’mon, sit down.” She scooted over and rolled her eyes when Seulgi happily did so which made Irene giggle. Seulgi shot her an eye-smile.

            The eldest of the three took a piece of cinnamon roll and chewed on it gingerly while Seulgi just swallowed the cream puffs after a minute and let out a satisfied sigh. “So, what were you talking about?” One thing Irene noticed about Seulgi was that when someone spoke, she listened carefully. After she was filled in, Seulgi turned to Irene, a small smile on her face.

“Love is quite complicated. I don’t think Seungwan would want someone knocking on her door and suddenly go head on from there. She’s the type of person who wouldn’t use another person to move on. So I think that’s not a good choice.” She advised and for some reason, Irene was designated to listen.

“If you don’t mind me asking, did you help your clients by acting as their girlfriend in the past?”

Irene’s silenced answered for her.

“Well, this is a nice experience then. If we go by that way, then it’ll only hurt Seungwan if she finds out.”

She already knew that.

“Maybe this is a lesson for you too.”

She slumped in her sofa and massaged her temples. She had friends back in high school. She has friends at work. This should be easy.

But it wasn’t.

She pushed the feeling of guilt in the back of her mind. Irene inhaled and got up to go to the kitchen. She took out a brand new pot and the noodles provided for her. This was nostalgic. Memories of her college days flashed in her mind where she lived in the dorms.

“I hope I still remember how to boil noodles.” She muttered to herself as she tore the wrapper off.

~.~.~.~

            It was ten in the evening when Wendy had herself cooped up in her room. She sat in front of her work desk, her eyes on the blue, glowing glass lamp that was the only thing that lit up her dark room that radiated of brokenness and an aura of depression. Pens and pencils were scattered beside her and a notebook with torn pages laid open in front of her.

I hope you’re happy. But you know that thing that people say about how, ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy?’ Why do we spout such nonsense? We’re breaking into bits and pieces and we don’t know how to mend ourselves. Where do we get the missing chunks now?

I’m still hopin