It was on your way back to your apartment did you lament about the tumultuous rollercoaster the weekend had cast you on. It had mainly been on a high thanks to Mieun who, like you anticipated, was waiting for you on the porch holding her grandma’s hand. She was soon in your arms while Nunji complained about you babying her as you carried her inside.

You planned on not letting anything regarding him faze you. Which was incredibly stupid and naïve of you to actually pull off because of how much he affected you. How your time with him was as everlasting as you wished it would be. But was only torture now.

So you didn’t venture far beyond your mother’s lawn as a precaution. There was a small part of you doubting what Nunji told you since it wouldn’t be a reach to say she would take advantage of your disinterest in anything regarding soccer to get you to stay at your mom’s house to say, babysit Mieun. But Nunji stayed at home with you. She kept getting mad at you for continuing to carry Mieun around but Hwangin only had to comment on your lack of time with her as a reason for Nunji to calm down. But you still took her complaints in and refrained from picking up Mieun as often as you wanted to which didn’t sit well with the toddler. You did spoil her as she expected you to often pick her up and she put up a fuss when you didn’t relent. So there was an hour or so when she was upset with you. But you survived that so things were good.

You caught up with what your mom and the couple were up to but it was nothing out of the ordinary. Hardly anything changed since you moved out except Mieun’s things finding their way into your room but your mom explained that Mieun often spent her time in there playing with her toys. You didn’t mind since you took whatever that you needed and deemed important enough back to your apartment. She could do whatever she wanted to your room for all you cared.

As the days winded down until you had to get back to your apartment because there was no way you were going to head back on Monday because that was just asking for trouble. Namely, Nunji’s road rage since you’d have to leave pretty early just for her to get back in time for work and you for your classes. That had been done and you knew better than to let your homesickness get the better of you again and cause another disaster.

It was with a heavy feeling to pack up again though you took more containers of side dishes back. That was one of the reasons you took this suitcase home even though you would get there with it barely half full, you’d return to your apartment hauling it back up full to the brim. It was like that every visit home and you really appreciated it because there was no way you’d ever make your own as good as your mom’s.

Once back in the car but with Hwangin driving, Nunji in the front passenger seat and Mieun in her car seat next to you, it was a nice drive back to your studio. The one bad thing was that Hwangin preferred a certain route than the one Nunji usually took. This was one that drove by a certain person’s old apartment. Nunji had long since refrained from eyeing you whenever the building came into view and you no longer felt a pang throttle your insides. You only blankly looked at the building for a second before it was soon behind you.

Mieun was kind enough to show you her favorite page in her book at that moment. You spent most of the time mustering a few illustrative reactions for your niece when appropriate since she appreciated the effort. You did have to deal with the mushy conversation your sister and her husband constantly had where Nunji would be upset about something and Hwangin would have no problem trying to get her to respond to him. It was so overdone you and Mieun developed a bond in rolling your eyes at their display. Something Nunji didn’t forget to condone you for teaching her daughter such a thing to do.

Hwangin was soon pulling into the side street your apartment could be found and even helped you haul your suitcase from the trunk. A gesture you would never count on your older sister to ever do for you. It earned him a thank you smile from you while Mieun spared you a few more kisses before they were gone around the corner.

You didn’t linger long on the road. You didn’t have much problem lugging your one suitcase up to your apartment and settle once more in a routine that consisted of taking out the trash and cleaning the room up a little.

However, it was as you were unpacking when you got a surprise only Nunji was capable of producing. As you ped the carrier, you got a sudden foreboding feeling in your gut that was unexplainable. And then it was explainable. When you flipped the top over, there was the newspaper.

You felt the air escape your body as you got a close up view of the front cover and he was staring back at you. There was nothing but a ringing in your head that prevented you from taking anything else in other than what you were seeing. With a snap in your wrist, you escaped his eyes by closing the suitcase once more.

Stupid Nunji. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was just so stupid how a single picture of him got you like this. The shaky hands and the pang in your chest. You slumped against your bed as your feet pushed the suitcase away. Well, damn.

Only Nunji would do this. It was only because she was your sister that you would deal with her underhanded methods like this. Her devious plans. Because it would only take a demon like her to pull something like this on you. And you could never hate her for this. Because there was some kind of Nunji reasoning for this. There always was.

But you didn’t want to find out. No way.

Your eyes remained trained on the offending item containing something you hadn’t faced in quite a while. The world (Nunji) was letting you know you couldn’t always avoid anything related to him. And its presence has only proven its effect as you regained your bearings and drew up the resolve to toss the offending piece of paper away. Forget recycling that piece of trash. It was going straight to the landfill.

Yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to draw closer to where it was being held. Now, this was beginning to get ridiculous. Here you were, toeing the line of an edge that you felt you had cast yourself off of but it’s only turned out that discarding feelings consisted of pushing yourself to the extremes. It was such torture.

He had been your everything. You reason to wake up, as dramatic as that was. It’s been two years since you last saw him but he remained in your thoughts. Through the fractured memories your mind begrudgingly let pass, your days tended to vary. So when you hadn’t seen or heard anything about him this weekend Nunji let slip he would be in the same part of the city as you, you were so relieved. Relieved to the point of gratefulness you hadn’t felt a speck of wanting to see him.

You were broken like that. But you were only broken with cracks here and there. They were deep jagged lines but you had your healing balm found in your school, your future and of course your family and friend. You had reasons to live on as made evident by the picture you took back with you to your apartment. It was a mess of scribbles that Mieun claimed was a dog but it did so much for you and your paranoid mind. You’ll live on and although the thought did not come without any strong doubts, you would find love again.

You were just having a hard time putting the feelings for him to rest. And you had gradually let go. Small things at a time. It was just the core memoires that were the ones hard to dispose of. But then again, you didn’t want to let them go as they were some of your best moments in life, from the first kiss to your last one.

It was with that state of mind that you got to this point although a certain part of your mind thought it pathetic to hold onto something like that. But there was no way around that and you were fine with it. The only thing was that the people around you wanted to push you along faster. Jimri with her offers of blind dates, Nunji with shoving you into random guys on the street, and your mom’s tentative offer of introducing you to a friend’s son. You’d only taken Jimri’s propositions on only because she didn’t know your type and there was no chance she would ever have high expectations of any of those meetings.

In the middle of the week, she brought along a friend from one of her classes with her to visit you on campus. This male friend of hers set off a lot of warning bells because you recognized him. And he recognized you.

“Kyungie! I’m sorry we’re late.” Jimri quickened her pace as she called out to you, prompting the guy to do the same next to her. She immediately noticed the frown on your face when you saw her tag-a-long. “Oh, sorry I didn’t let you know I would bring someone extra.” She gave you a knowing look which basically said she knew you wouldn’t meet up with her if she had let you known beforehand. “But I owe him lunch for helping me study and this was the only time we could meet up.”

“Actually, that isn’t necessarily,” Jimri subtly elbowed him in plain sight. “Right. This was the only time.” Suho gave a nervous chuckle which was basically staged. He had caught on to what was happening. Or what Jimri hoped would happen but was the furthest thing you wanted at that moment.

“Let me introduce you guys before we go eat.” She smiled at you both but you all knew she would be making some dire excuse that needed her attention. But she plowed on.

As she made the unnecessary introduction, you caught Suho’s eyes and he somehow caught the cue to go along with the situation. If Jimri knew you two already knew each other, then it would give her the slightest of hope because he wasn’t a stranger to you. That alone was a major plus in her eyes since she knew you didn’t like to deal with strangers and the getting to know each other stage.

When she made her exit, Suho smiled pleasantly at you. “Hello again, Mikyung.”

Your eyes were trained on Jimri’s exit to make sure she didn’t stay behind to spy on you two because she had done that one or five times. While you kept your eyes on the door she left through, you nodded at him to show you heard him.

He chuckled, “It was a nice surprise to see you as the friend Jimri was so excited to meet. Coincidences sure have a funny way of happening, isn’t that so?”

You nodded again but let your eyes flash to his. They were as open and warm as you remembered them.

“So, you made it into Korea University? That’s quite an accomplishment but then again, N did like to brag about your high standings in the tests back in high school.”

Now that it has been a minute or so without Jimri poking her head back in, you turned your full attention to the boy across. You didn’t let the familiar name of your classmate shake you. “Yes, he did.”

His smile got a little wider when you responded. “Have you settled here comfortably? It is a nice campus from what I have seen so far.” He looked out the window as if to illustrate this compliment.

He was a showy kind of person you pegged him as. Not as in a bragging sort of way but a man of action that was prone to using his body as he spoke.

“It is.”

He looked back at you with a shining effect to his smile. “I hope you’re not too busy to entertain my rambling.”

You shook your head and to add to this, you dropped your bag on the floor next to your chair making his smile changed once more to an encouraging one. “Nope.”

“Great, let’s order. But before we order,” he raised a hand at you to catch your attention just as you raised the card of a menu to look through the smoothies list. “Let me just say that I’ll be paying so feel free to order anything you want.” His eyes earnestly met yours to get the issue of paying out of the way which, in a way, you appreciated if not to waste time later on deciding.

“Fine.” You returned your attention back to the list.

He chuckled a hearty chuckle. “Great.” When an appropriate amount of time was spent on perusing the offering of Jimri’s favorite café, he signaled a worker. “We’re ready to order.”

The worker was a familiar face if anything as he lingered his eyes on you. “Would you like the usual?”

You shook your head. “Mango smoothie.”

He quickly wrote your order down before turning to Suho who smiled up at him. “And you sir?”

“I’ll have an iced Americano.”

“And would you be interested in any food to go along with your drinks?” His eyes settled on Suho after you shrugged.

Suho looked at you, “Did you want a dessert of some kind, Mikyung?”

You sighed before looking down at the menu once more. It had been a while since you had something sweet so you decided to take him up on his offer. “Sugar cookies.”

There the waiter went, frantically adding to the order as he turned to Suho once more who had been looking down at the menu. “And I would like to have the devil’s food please.”

“Your orders will be out as soon as possible.”

Suho thanked him and he was gone. “I can see why Jimri recommended this place. The service is superb.”

You gave a noncommittal sound.

“I must say, you are more vocal than the last time we met. Not that there’s anything wrong with then or now but it is a pleasant surprise.” His laugh was a genuine one. Almost like Mieun’s but then again, nothing could ever compare to your niece’s sparkling laugh. He continued on, “Can I ask you something?”

Figuring he knew better than to bring up anymore of your past classmates, you gave him permission.

“Are you only responding to me now because it is just the two of us?”

You nodded.

“And if say, Jimri, was with us, you would let her hold the majority of the conversation?”

You nodded.

“But what if Leo was here?” The look and expression on his face didn’t falter. You could only hope the same could be said for you. Not seeming to notice how that question struck you, he elaborated further. “You two sure are an odd couple. I don’t mean any offense to that but you both prefer not to share your thoughts as freely as others so here is my question: would you be letting Leo do more of the communicating if he was here?”

You were wrong. He didn’t know better. But you needed to answer his question so as not to give into the internal war within your mind. “Yes. He would.”

He gave another laugh. “That would be something. Leo hasn’t changed much and you haven’t changed much since third year. But then again, I haven’t really spent time with just Leo like we are spending time together right now. Though, I suspect should something like that ever happen, he would only humor me by discussing soccer and little else.” He shook his head as he continued to smile pleasantly. “Now I am just wondering what else we would communicate about together though I’m sure N would invite himself to join us. And Ken too since he just got done serving. I doubt there is little else that could stop those two from spending time with you and Leo.”

You were really wrong but the news did ease whatever questions or thoughts you subconsciously had about them if anything. You made another noncommittal sound.

“Sorry, sorry. I let my imagination get beyond me although it wouldn’t be wise to discard such a possible meeting of ever happening.”

The waiter brought your order to you as he said that.

You tasted your smoothie as Suho thanked the waiter once again before returning his attention to you. Attention you didn’t want. Sure, you had thought this meeting would only be about the whole former-acquaintances-getting-caught-up on a few things but you hadn’t thought far about what would be caught up on.

As your former classmates were all that you and Suho really had in common, you should have expected this turn of events. But then again, it wasn’t really a turn of events since you suspected Suho had no clue you and your ex were now exes. That begged the question of whether your former classmates had let Suho know about the current state of things or if it was never brought up by them. If the latter, you could understand given how close they were. It was like how you and Jimri were as far as not ever mentioning what happened. It could be the same for them.

“How is your smoothie? Is it to your liking?”

You nodded.

“This really is a nice café. I’m glad Jimri gave us a chance to catch up with each other.” He started in on his slice of cake so you took a bite of one of your two cookies. “But I must admit, I was wondering if it would have been wise to let her know we know each other. She seemed to have some expectations.”

Now this was a better topic. You shrugged.

He swallowed before saying, “Have you known each other long?”

You thought about the right answer to give because you didn’t want to be the one to tell him why Jimri had those expectations. After all, Suho was more their friend than yours so they should be the ones to let him know. “We have.”

“But she doesn’t know about you and Leo?”

That was hard to maneuver around. “Jimri wants me to meet more people.” You made sure your tone wasn’t anything but open for interpretation. You were counting on his good countenance and kind perception of people to make sure he didn’t think bad about Jimri setting you two up on this sham of a blind date without being the one to tell him you weren’t dating anyone.

He frowned for the first time and you could see his thoughts running around. He took another bite of his cake. He pondered your words before a smile overtook his face once again. “I see. Jimri only wants you to meet people.” He chortled. “Can I say something? It’s nothing offensive.” Of course not. It didn’t seem he was capable of saying anything offensive to anyone but you still nodded for him. “I only say that I understand her going to this extent to getting you to know others due to your quiet tendencies, am I correct? This is more of a push to expand your friends circle?”

Satisfied that he understood what you wanted him to understand, you answered, “Yes.” Now there was no way he would question Jimri about it but you needed to worry about Jimri taking this meeting out of proportion because you knew she would definitely be questioning him about it. Then again, if Suho told her just how you two knew each other, she would cross him off her list. Because she knew you. And you would never date someone associated to your high school times.

“That’s nice of her. So how have your classes been?”

You shrugged. “Fine.”

He gave you a secretive sort of smile. “Which only implies you’ve kept up your academic performance from high school.” He was just about done with his slice while you felt little appetite for your remaining cookie. “Do you know anything about our other friends? The younger ones?” With a shake of your head, he frowned once more. “I would think you would be getting letters from them at least. But then again, I don’t get any letters from Sehun or Kai.” His new smile was a bemused one. “They do get more and more independent as they get older.”

The waiter returned. “Is everything okay?” he asked you.

Suho answered him, “We’re fine.” The waiter spared him a glance while Suho smirked at you. “If only Leo was here, right? I still remember that time we got pizza and only the female workers were brave enough to come within five feet of you two. I think it was the second or third time we all got together when one of the workers had to be saved when he gave you that napkin right? The one with his number?”

You couldn’t share his merriment as he laughed. You couldn’t even assemble a resemblance of a smile or anything close to one.

“I did enjoy our time together a great deal. It’s too bad those times are far and few in between as everyone finishes their service. But I expect them to pick back up when everyone is back in Seoul when that is out of the way.”

He expected some sort of an answer from you so you nodded.

“I expect N to set something up soon since Ken and Minhyuk are out now. We’ll probably keep having a party held for each of our friends as they get discharged one by one.”

You started to zone out after that as none of those plans concerned you.

Your former classmates and their friends should only remain as so. But you had to give it to them. They had tried. They tried to keep up a friendship or some kind of connection with you after things had ended. But there had been a teeny tiny part of you that had felt betrayed when they resolutely stood by their friend. That wasn’t so smart of you to expect anything from them. After all, you had been jealous at times of how close they were with one another and there was nothing that would ever come between them and their bond.

So as Suho continued to mistakenly include you in future plans, you felt yourself closing off. It was a sign of the gods that he got a call to cut him off. “One moment Mikyung. I have to take this call.” He gave you an apologetic smile before he stepped away. When he returned, he still looked a bit sorry for the welcomed interruption. “Just my mom. But it looks like I have to leave to run an errand for her. So here,” he started to write down his number on a napkin. “Please don’t mind the irony,” he laughed as he handed it over to you.

Within you, there was a short dilemma about whether to accept it or not because should you accept it, it meant you had forged a connection to your past. But you didn’t think you had it in you to refuse him right now. He apologized once more before he left but assured you he would take care of the bill. And he did. He left you with the napkin crushed in your hand.

Another relic to add to the stupid newspaper under your bed.