I halt my movements in front of the door. What should I do? Should I come in? I should, I’m afraid something is happened to her. I grit my teeth and I can feel my hand gets sweaty as I hold the doorknob. I swing the door open, and find Jangmi kneeling on the center of the bed with her hands planted beside her body, her head hanging down.

          “Jangmi? What’s wrong?”

          She looks up to me, and her previously polished, beautiful face is smeared with tears. The view makes my chest drumming and hurt at the same time, and I hurriedly approach her side. She continues crying, and I climb the bed to hold her. She shows no resistance.

          She buries her head on my arms, and her sobbing slows down. My breaths are short, nervous. We stay like this for approximately five minutes until she’s completely silent, and she moves to sit and lean her back to the headboard.

          “I’ll get you some water.” I leave the room to get two water bottles from the kitchen and go back, this time closing the door. Jangmi is wiping her face with a sheet of tissue. I sit on the edge of the bed, and offer the water but she refuses.

          “Jangmi… What’s wrong?”

          She stares emptily into space, and pulls her hair back in irritation. She takes a deep breath twice, and blink. “It’s my husband.”

          “What happened?”

          She glances at her phone, and swings her hand at it to push it away. It almost falls of the bed if not for the footboard.

          “He doesn’t love me.”

          I look at her empty eyes which are staring down at the bed. “Why… how?”

          “He just doesn’t love me.”

          I swallow. "Is he being violent to you?" I lower my voice cautiously.

          "No, but he ignores me, and it hurts just as much... You'll know when you get pregnant... You crave attention, you want to be loved, to be cooed." Jangmi puts a hand on her baby bump. "But you know... My husband is busy. I’m afraid when my baby is born he will completely ignore me.”

          “Of course not… I heard husbands will love their wives more after childbirth.”

          Jangmi shakes her head. “Yuna… I’m going to tell you something.”

          I look at her, and Jangmi lets down her head. “My husband is not the father of this child.”

          My head suddenly hurts. “What?”

          “Earlier this year, I had a boyfriend. Long story short, I got pregnant but when I revealed it to him, he ran off with my money. I went to an ob gyn clinic for checkup, and met my husband. A month after our first meeting, he proposed to me. He said he’d take care of me and the baby, as he’d always hoped for a wife and a child... You know, he’s much older than us. A week later, we got married.”

          I listen intently, and the bed cover below my hand feels rough.

          “It’s been a month, and I was far from happy. He apparently only married me to please his old mother, who always wanted a grandchild. He doesn’t like me as a person. He cut our honeymoon shorter. My mother in law lives with us and she detests me, saying I can’t do household chores properly. I mean, I’m pregnant—I’m—this is stressing me.”

          Tears brim on her eyes again, and she starts shaking. I swallow, and put one hand above hers.

          “What if—what if later he’ll take my baby and abandon me? What if I’ll be left alone again? What if—"

          Jangmi bursts into tears, and I’m stunned for a second before pulling her for a hug. She’s sobbing on my shoulder, and I blink repeatedly to hold back tears. My chest feels tight. Han Jangmi, who I thought always got what she wanted, hides this behind her seemingly perfect life. I feel bad for having hard feelings for her. On another side, I never faced anything like this. What should I do? What should I say? Will anything I tell her be a consolation?

          I reach for a water bottle on the table beside the bed, and open it. “First, drink… Mind your baby. Jangmi, it wouldn’t happen. Your husband might just need some adjustment.”

          Jangmi sips a bit of water, and coughs a little. “I can’t handle them. I can’t handle all of this… I want to stop all of this.”

          “Jangmi.” I wipe her traces of tears with my fingers. “Don’t say that. Take a deep breath.”

          She complies, and closes her eyes. I look at her quietly, and rubs her back.

          There’s a knock on the door. “Jangmi? Yuna?”

          I walk to the door, and open it just so my face can show. Minseok appears, looking concerned. “Um… What’s wrong?” I ask.

          “That’s the thing I want to ask you.” he whispers.

          I bite the insides of my lip. “She’s feeling unwell. I’ll come out later.”

          Minseok looks a bit doubtful, but he affirms and I close the door. Jangmi moves to lie down, and I cover her legs with a blanket.

          “He called me some time ago, before you entered.” Jangmi says. “He says he wouldn’t come here because I was going to turn this place into some kind of high school jock party… He said ‘are you going to flirt with your male friends while pregnant? Are your friends going to have in my family’s property? You should’ve just stayed home and taken care of your mother-in-law’.”

          The room is completely warm, but my hands are cold.

          “I just want to meet my friends... Be happy outside that damned home.” she stares at the ceiling. “I know how many people talk behind my back… Yet I still hang out with them… Because I think that friends like that are better than no friends at all.”

          I feel a pinch in my heart.

          “I’m glad you came, Yuna… You are the least nosy. We should meet more often… You’re always baking.” she laughs wistfully.

          I grit my teeth as I feel my eyes getting watery. “Later, call me anytime. I’ll come.”

          Jangmi touches my arm, and she takes a deep breath. “This must be because I’ve done so many evil things in the past.”

          “What do you mean?”

          She hesitantly looks at me, and her lips tremble. “I did wrong… I hurt many people in the past… To you… That time… Jaehyo was going to ask you to prom but I did everything I could to not make it happen.”

          I freeze. I try to say “What?” but I’m even too taken aback to mouth it.

          “I got jealous… I couldn’t accept that a popular guy like him would go to the prom with you—I mean, there was nothing wrong with you, you were pretty and smart—maybe that was the reason, I was envious. I didn’t want you to be happy.”

          I use all my might to digest all of this. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, I knew what happened to some extent—but to hear this directly, a whole ten years later, makes me feel strange. Combined with Minseok here, everything from the past seems to come back at once.

          “I did wrong to you… I did wrong to Minseok… I did wrong to Hyeyoung, the high school kids… The ones in university… Then—I’ve just committed so many sins.”

          I furrow my brows for a second when Minseok was mentioned. What did she do to him? I don’t have the heart to ask further right now, but it’d be awkward to ask Minseok later… Maybe I’ll just stay quiet.

          “Yuna… I’m sorry.”

          I inhale inaudibly, and swallow. “It’s all in the past. Don’t be stressed because of this. That was when we were young.” I slip a little laugh. “About the prom—well… Jaehyo and I couldn’t be counted as anything, so…” I shrug.

          Jangmi weakly smiles. “I envy you, even until now. You get to do what you want, your pretty little bakery… So do the others, like Minseok, he’s a professor now… I try to look like I’m way better, but behind all that…”

          I look at the floor, then hold her hand. “Everything will be okay. Let’s have fun today, you arranged all this for us, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

          “Thank you, Yuna.” Jangmi squeezes my hand and sniffles. I get reminded of something.

          "We're going to the ski slope tomorrow, right? Minseok got the tickets. By the way, is it safe for pregnant women to—?"

          "Oh, I just wanted to go there to take photos for my Instagram."

          We both laugh, and I feel calmed to see Jangmi smiling. I pat her shoulder, and stand up. "Go rest for now, I'll call you when dinner is ready."

          Jangmi nods.

          I come out from the bedroom, and Minseok is preparing the grill on the veranda with the darkening sky as his background, wearing a grey coat and maroon beanie hat. He really looks young, the same as he did ten years ago. He notices me from the window as I walk towards him, and I give him a small smile.

          “How is she?” Minseok asks.

          “She’s resting.” I answer. “I’ll prepare the food and table.”

          My body is preparing the vegetables and warm up some side dishes, but my mind is somewhere else. My heart still feels heavy.

          After I set the table I take out the ingredients for the bread pudding, and collect my determined spirit. Let's at least have a nice dinner. Since Jangmi doesn’t like sweet things, let’s make this light and simple with vanilla and raisins…

          “Yuna.”

          Minseok enters the kitchen, and stands beside me.

          “Is there anything I can help?”

          “Oh, I’m almost finished.” I say as I pour the egg batter to the bread pieces on the baking dish. I open the oven door, and Minseok reaches for the dish.

          “Let me put it inside.”

          I let him do it, and he laughs in satisfaction. “Is Jangmi’s husband coming?”

          I swallow. “Honestly… I’m not sure. The same goes with our friends.” I eye the empty notification of our group chat.

          Minseok looks vacantly at the tinted oven window. “Well… Let’s just have fun even if it’s the three of us.” he declares. “I’ve got games I usually do with my students. Should we try?”

          I chuckle. “Sure.”

          Some time later the table is filled with numerous delicacies we prepare, and Minseok and I sit facing each other admiring our work. The master bedroom’s door is open, and Jangmi appears, more color on her face than before. “My husband is coming. He’s about to leave from his clinic.”

          I silently think of how awkward it would be. This is not the new year’s eve party I imagined. Can we even play games with her husband?

          An hour passed since Jangmi announced it, and I yawn inaudibly. Jangmi is inside her room, and Minseok and I wait in the living room. We had small talks, but he starts to look sleepy too. Seriously, how am I going to survive two more days here?

          We hear a car pulling up when I’m letting out my biggest yawn of the night, and I feel both relieved and uneasy. Jangmi comes out, and walks to the entrance. Minseok and I follow behind her, and she opens the door, Her husband, an ob gyn doctor twelve years her senior, shows up looking exasperated with a brown coat with wrinkled white shirt beneath it and a postman bag on one of his shoulders.

          I attempt to greet him and smile naturally. I knew from the wedding that there was quite an , but that time he didn’t look this… Old. He looks like he can be on his early fifties now.

          “Are there only you two?” he asks, looking a bit puzzled. We nod, and we head straight to the dining table which is set beside glass partition next to the veranda. As Minseok grills the meat, I sit facing the married couple, and Jangmi’s husband is opening a wine bottle he took out from a hidden cellar in the kitchen. “So, not really a ‘party’, eh?” he asks.

          I just laugh slowly. Minseok soon joins us at the table beside me. “Thank you for letting us stay at this beautiful villa.” Minseok says.

          The doctor asks about our occupations, and the formal atmosphere feels like we’re having dinner with a friend’s father. Can we ask him to go light fireworks at midnight later? The talk dies down, and I try to open a topic.

          “This villa is so nice. I think it’s perfect for family vacation. I can imagine you two playing in the water on the pool with your baby.”

          “Ah—yes.” the doctor responds flatly. “Oh, by the way, are you two married too?”

          “No.” I shake my head and laugh awkwardly.

          “Dating, then?”

          “Maybe soon.” Jangmi answers instead. She laughs, and I just follow along. Minseok smiles without saying anything.

          “Anyway, if you two went well, come to my clinic. The first checkup is free.”

          My eyes widen. “Wha—?” I can’t even finish my word, and I feel my face getting hot. Minseok says nothing beside me, and instead he gulps his wine empty and refills the glass.

          The doctor’s phone rings, and his brows furrow to see the screen. “Hello? What? Why? How is she now?”

          Jangmi’s eyes pierce through the air towards her husband, and she turns stiff.

          “We’re heading there.” the doctor hangs up, and turns to Jangmi. “Mother is sick. The maids are taking her to the ER. Pack your things. It’s a good thing I haven’t touched the wine—”

          I panic inside. Are they going to leave? What about us? I look at Jangmi, and her face turns scarlet. She gets up, and runs to her bedroom. I follow her, and she’s frantically reaching for her bags.

          “It’s—just—an act!” Jangmi roars as he throws her belongings back to the bag. “It happened before! When I was hanging out with a friend! That woman made a scene so I couldn’t have fun!”

          I anxiously stand a few feet beside her, making sure the door is closed. “Jangmi, calm down. Your husband looks so worried, it may be true—”

          “Wanna bet that she’s actually okay?” Jangmi turns to me with a weird smile, her nostrils flaring. “They might have planned this together! She’s going to keep me beside her, doing errands!”

          Despite her outbursts, she packs all of her things in a flash and I carry her suitcase outside. “We should just go home too.” I say to Minseok who is standing next to the doctor.

          “Can you drive, Yuna-ssi? Minseok-ssi drank quite much, I think he wouldn’t pass the alcohol test. You two should just stay, you can bring my wife’s car later.”

          My shoulders drop. I can’t drive. Minseok looks apologetic, and my head is full of ‘what am I going to do?’.

          The doctor warms up the car, and Jangmi sits on the passenger seat silently. I can see she’s trying hard not to cry.

          Jangmi’s husband rolls down the car window. “Thank you, Minseok-ssi, Yuna-ssi. Please enjoy the remaining time here.”

          We watch the car speed up towards the dark street, and it soon disappears beyond the thick lines of trees. I glance to my side, and Minseok leans to the other side of the entrance with unreadable expression. Now what?