The house feels empty without Yuna.

Eunbi sits on the couch and glances over the living room where all is still. A feeling, seemingly deja vu, clouds her mind as she recalls the quiet, solitary nights before the summer. Yet, the lonesomeness is a newcomer; Eunbi knows it’s Yuna she misses and the time they spend together every night in the home they share. 

Her eyes land first on the clarinet case near the piano. An unrelenting voice at the back of her head (Eunbi isn’t sure if it sounds more like herself, her first clarinet teacher of her professor in the conservatory- but is too accustomed to it to question) informs her of her lack of practice for three days. She purses her lips together and releases a sigh through her nostrils.

Eunbi’s face brightens when an idea appears. She recalls Yuna’s instructions on how to sign up for auditions for HSE’s performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and decides to follow.

I’m going to practise hard, she tells herself with a determined smile, I’ll do this for both Yuna unnie and myself.

"You should be going back to Seoul soon, right? Don’t miss too many schedules,” her mother casually brings the suggestion up as she sets the sheets on the bedroom floor. 

Yuna turns to her mother with a frown. "I don't want to," she says sulkily.  

Her mother gives her an untelling expression. "You know you have to," she answers rather plainly.

"Are you chasing me out now?" Yuna only regrets her words when she realises how terrible they sound upon hearing them loudly in her own voice. 

A momentary silence blankets the pair of mother and daughter.

"Choi Yuna!" her mother shrieks. Yuna knows she is in the wrong, but knows nothing about salvaging the situation. She looks at her mother’s flabbergasted face for a second before looking away in overwhelming shame.

Yuna feels tears welling up in her eyes, but doesn’t find crying a solution or a replacement for an apology.

“I’m sorry, umma,” she manages to say, though without bringing her head up. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she adds, softer this time.

Her mother leaves the room with no sign of a response.

The next morning, her mother wordlessly sends her off after a silent breakfast. Yuna had woken up to find her bags tidily packed, and in them an envelope which she suspects contains a considerable portion of her mother’s savings. 

She gives her mother a tight hug. “I don’t want to go,” she murmurs.

“We’ll see each other soon,” her mother states without much emotion.

“Please come see me in Seoul,” her suggestion sounds more like a plea, which unexpectedly brings a small smile on her mother’s face.

“My good daughter, have a safe trip back to Seoul,” she says while tenderly Yuna’s hair.

“I miss you so much,” Yuna’s voice begins cracking.

“Pabo yah, you’re still here,” her mother (very gently) refutes her.

 “And halmeoni,” Yuna adds.

Her mother shakes her head. “Now go, don’t think about bad thoughts. We’ll talk on the phone soon enough.”

Eunbi runs up to the entryway and throws her arms around Yuna even before Yuna gets to remove her shoes. She wraps Yuna in a warm embrace, her eyes closed and her lips wide in a smile that shows her teeth as she relishes once again Yuna’s scent she has missed. 

Eunbi’s touch reminds Yuna of her reluctance to leave Ilsan. “I shouldn't have moved to Seoul. I should have stayed at home with halmeoni.” Yuna chokes on the sob stuck in and begins to weep. 

“Unnie, don’t say that,” Eunbi uncontrollably takes offence in Yuna’s words because they both know and understand what they imply. Her arms retract and the smile on her lips fade as she takes a step back. Eunbi feels selfish, but she resents Yuna’s thought of comparing their time together with time with her grandmother. 

Yuna sees the hurt that she has inflicted on Eunbi. She remembers, also, her mother’s words “The old must go, and they leave happy,” nagging at her in the back of her head, and remembers understanding them completely but never once finding them easy to acknowledge. Despite that, she remains defiant. 

“I would be with her for a longer time,” Yuna manages to say, somehow rather clearly. “No," she shakes her head. I would've been with her for a longer time."

“Yuna unnie,” Eunbi’s voice hardens, as do her eyes.

“Unnie-” Eunbi calls again, placing her hands on Yuna’s arm but is slightly nudged aside by Yuna who struggles out of Eunbi’s hold and enters their home.

The tears fall from her eyes as she looks down and says, “I want to be alone.”

Yuna wakes up the next morning to the whole apartment in silence. Eunbi had deliberately left earlier when Yuna was still in her slumber. It isn’t exactly the first morning she’d expect to face being back in Seoul, but Yuna figures that the space might just be helpful for the two of them. Yuna remains at a loss for a resolution to her hurtful words towards Eunbi from the previous day. She releases a distressed sigh realising how spiteful her speech has become, how pessimistic her thoughts have become ever since the passing of her grandmother. Guilt then overcomes her as she points herself to a suspicious question: am I just putting the blame on others to make myself feel better? 

Yuna returns to her bedroom to begin her preparations for the day. When she emerges again to the undisturbed living room, her eyes land on small but a purposefully wrapped gift bag placed on the dining table with a card pressed below it. Yuna does not reach to touch it nor move it from its position; she bends over and identifies a “Happy Birthday” wish from the visible portions not covered by the gift bag above it. At the bottom left-hand corner, she finds the characters “Eunbi” and a heart shape neatly drawn.

Yuna shakes her head. Her lips tremble as her pair of almond orbs finally start to show their first emotion of the day. Eunbi, she wants to call out but finds no voice, Eunbi, I’m sorry. 

Her mind brings her through her memories of all her times with Eunbi, both merry and sorrowful. A lingering feeling runs in her fingers as they remember how Eunbi had once warmly and firmly held them. An enveloping warmth shows Yuna their tender embrace before the summer’s last setting sun, and the bittersweet ones during their parting and reunion where there seemed to be so much barrier in communication. 

Yuna knows she has missed Eunbi while they were apart. Yuna finds herself a fool for her behaviour. Her legs weaken, the same moment when her eyes have reached their fill of her tears. 

Eunbi pauses when she sees a pair of Yuna’s shoes lying at the doorstep, likely the one the latter had worn for the day. Unnie’s home, she thinks. Eunbi doesn’t care to interpret the caution she feels in her beating heart. 

With timid, mindful footsteps, Eunbi enters on the tips of her toes and looks around while putting her belongings down. She hears the sound of the shower and the operating water heater. 

Eunbi catches from a corner of her eye a familiar gift bag and card lying on the dining table. She whips her head in its direction to get a clearer look. In Eunbi’s mind, the image of the position Eunbi had left them in that morning flashes like a photograph. 

Eunbi remains standing before the table. Her breaths go through a few cycles of inhalation and exhalation, while her mind maintains its collectedness. She finds her fingers rolled up in fists, though her eyes display no intensity.

Her focus is disrupted when she hears a buzzing and sees the lighting up of a mobile phone screen, just beside the birthday gesture she had set up for Yuna. She immediately recognises it as Yuna’s.

Eunbi does not budge, not for a sufficiently long moment.

The phone continues ringing. Eunbi takes a deep breath and decides to answer it. 

“Yeoboseyo?”

“This is our Yuna’s phone, right?” the voice reveals its owner's confusion. 

Eunbi blanks out for a millisecond before finding an answer, “Yuna unnie’s in the shower! I’m sorry.”

A silence makes Eunbi second-guess her own decision to pick this call up. 

“Are you Hwang Eunbi ssi?” the question throws her off. 

“Omoni, do you know me?” she softly responds with a polite question. 

“Ah, our Yuna’s housemate! Am I right?” the endearing voice on the other side of the line fills Eunbi with a sweet warmth that resembles honey. “I'm sorry I couldn't greet you last week. Thank you for coming down from Seoul, I heard you had to rush back to Cheongju for Chuseok,” the mother's gracious words allows Eunbi to now see it in Yuna that it must have been in the way she was brought up by such a mother.

“No! It's alright!” Eunbi immediately denies. 

“How is Yuna?” Eunbi instinctively grimaces upon the question, recalling Yuna’s ice-cold attitude since her return to this home. She thinks again about the gift and card on the dining table, untouched.

“She’s…” Eunbi searches in her mind for an appropriate answer but finds nothing favourable. “She’s okay.”

“She's guilty, for being happy away from home and then such a misfortune happens at home. But she needs to know, I want her to know, she deserves to be happy too. I haven't heard anything like her voice until the phone calls from Seoul in this year's summer, and that enough has been the biggest encouragement for me. Thank you, Hwang Eunbi ssi, for giving her a home like this and making her happy. She's happy with you, I know. Please continue looking out for her, I'd be very grateful if you do, ensure she remains living happily,” a lump forms in Eunbi’s throat as she listens attentively to the earnest request, each word provoking the tears in her watery eyes. 

“Is that my phone?” Yuna’s voice suddenly sounds like the winter has come early. Eunbi jumps as she brings the mobile phone down from her ear, swiftly and anxiously.

Frozen, Eunbi turns to Yuna with startled eyes. Yuna, standing still before her with her long black locks drenched and the water dripping on a towel draped around her shoulders, has never appeared so intimidating to Eunbi before. “I-” she struggles to respond, “I didn’t mean to pry, your phone was ringing- it’s your mother,” Eunbi regains composure and stands before Yuna with an outstretched arm to hand the mobile phone to its owner.

Lifting only a single arm, Yuna expressionlessly retrieves the item in an intentional, unrushed manner. 

Eunbi doesn’t know how her initial alarm has disappeared, but something in her evokes a hostile and malicious intent. “I’m sorry,” she says in a chilly tone that matches Yuna’s; Eunbi knows she doesn’t mean it but believes there is nothing she ought to be apologising for.

Yuna knows Eunbi isn’t at any fault. 

Yuna remains still with her fingers tightly gripping onto the smartphone as Eunbi turns away for her bedroom. 

a/n: i'm still not quite satisfied with this chapter, but i figured you guys have waited long enough, so here's the update (a longer one for you guys) even though it's in the middle of the night and i may further edit it. i'm sorry this took long i was busy and i'm sorry again that i'm not sure when will the next update come because life is starting to kick in ㅠㅇㅠ i finally ended teaching last friday! so now i'm all focused on going back to school and piano and yes i'LL BE SEEING GFRIEND IN THREE DAYS!! been enjoying the comeback too much with the abundance of mainline moments initiated by yuju (you would've see me go crazy on twitter for the past two weeks) and i can't wait to see the girls irl but so unprepared asdfghjkl after three years ;-; anyway i hope you like the update even tho i don't like it that much HAHA OTL and wow that was a good four chapters with zero mention of music and even in this chapter it was for a bit lol. well see you guys the next time please leave some comments hehe <3 thank you for the support always and keep loving gfriend!!