Breathing heavily, Baram was bored to her wits, not really interested in the meeting taking place at the moment. The series had finished airing and the beach location they used in Busan had even become a popular tourist spot. The mayor of Busan actually made a special mention of the series on his SNS. All this however was not of much interest to Baram. As far as she was concerned, her job ended the moment the final script was submitted and accepted. Whatever happened after was none of her concern.

Searching for a form of distraction, Baram started doodling in her notebook, her mind in a daze. When she finally looked down on what she drew however, she had to bite back a curse. A rough sketch of a flower that heavily resembled a chrysanthemum was etched across the page, drawn using none other than a red pen.

Harshly flipping the page over to hide the drawing, Baram turned to look out of the window, her brows furrowing together in a frown. Mark’s surprise visit after the sting resurfaced from the depth of her mind; how his eyes roamed around her flat in search for the red chrysanthemum, the myriad of unasked questions swimming in his eyes, and the ones that Baram consciously ignored and refused to answer. What had she gotten herself into again? Baram knew that she could spend hours, days, weeks, months and years even, wasting time over-analysing the situation, trying to make sense of everything as if she was completing a puzzle without knowing what the final image would look like. The bigger question was: was it worth her spending so much time on the matter? Or should she simply leave the pieces on the floor and just move on, never to turn back again?

“To wrap things up, Jin has a very important announcement to make.” Junmyeon announced, clapping his hands together.

Forcibly pulled out of her internal monologue, Baram had to stop herself from covering her ears with her hands in order to physically block out the sound of Jin’s voice. If there was one thing that Baram had realised over the course of the last few weeks was that Jin was the past and it was about time to stop desperately clinging on the eroded puzzle pieces that no longer fit together. Baram had previously cradled the remaining few pieces that somehow still stuck together, fooling herself into thinking that one day they would form pieces of fond memories, ignoring the pain they induced the tighter she held onto them.

“So yes, I will be flying off to the UK to work on a co-production.” Jin’s words echoed in Baram’s ears, causing her to snap her head in his direction. “It saddens me to leave such an amazing team behind, it was an honour to work with such a talented director, group of actors actors and of course writer.”

At the last mention, Jin’s eyes fleeted towards Baram’s direction before he continued talking.

“However I am also excited to embark on my next journey. I will be leaving next month.”

“Guess you’ll finally have the time to attend an Arctic Monkey’s concert,” Junmyeon quipped, throwing a playful punch against his shoulder.

“Don’t get to comfortable without me around,” Jin replied, returning the playful punch. “If the co-production environment doesn’t work out for me I’ll be back here, so just find someone to keep the seat warm for me while I’m away.”

“Well aren’t you cocky, going around assuming that I will want to work with you again.”

The room was soon filled with soft laughter and random questions about the project that Jin was embarking on next while Baram remained silent like always, conflicted towards the turn of events. Should she be ecstatic that the source of her nightmares and pain will be out of the picture? Or fear that she will not get the chance to confront her fears properly and move on?

・・・

“Best of luck to Jin and his British adventures!”

Everyone raised their glasses in cheer while Baram barely lifted her glass from the table. Suddenly she was reminded of another reason why the period following the completion of a series was never her favourite: the sheer number of social gatherings and celebratory meals. This time however, she could not have done anything to predict Jin throwing a surprise bomb like that, giving everyone one more chance gather all together and drink until they dropped.

“Why the gloom face?” Baram tensed as she felt heat emitting from the male who was leaning uncomfortably close to her, breathing into her ear. “Sad at the realisation that I will be fully out of your grasp soon?”

Leaning away from Jin, Baram sipped on her drink, hoping that the male would get the message and leave her alone. But then again, who was she fooling? When did Jin ever step back without being forced to?

“You can always try and follow me there you know. Catch me if you can,” Jin mused, tracing a