The next day turned out to be the same: she went to work, got off at 5 pm, went quickly home and then she reached the beach with her backpack and her towel, breathing in the air and exhaling calmly.
The weather was nicer than yesterday, but she didn't fully trust it yet and she brought a denim jacket with her just to make sure.
Just like the day before she heard the voices of the two girls approaching and she opened one eye to look at them while laying down, seeing the two talk seriously about something. She couldn't ear and honestly she didn't want to this time, it seemed something rather personal based on their expressions and it was none of her
business, so she closed her eyes and listened to the sea instead.
In the darkness behind her eyelids she tried to concentrate and make a mental note about all of the things she had yet to do that week: she had to call her parents and check up on her sister who had just come back from her honeymoon, she had to go grocery shopping and she also had to buy another bed because the one she had was causing her backpains.
She still couldn't believe that her sister was married; even if she was older than her and for the stereotypical korean marriage she was already a bit late, Yongsun couldn't wrap her head around the thought of them sharing a small apartment two years prior and Yonghee living now with a man and probably trying to have kids.
She instantly sat up shivering at the image of her sister with children, the mere thought of it was literally giving her chills. Her sister was just so carefree, so indipendent, while marriage and family seemed so final, so restrictive and suffocating.
Just like the day before she searched her bag to find the food she had prepared, naengmyeon this time, and her loyal can of kimchi, still thinking about her sister and her parents. While opening the lid of the small box she remembered the last time she saw her parents and she started noticing things she hadn't noticed back in the moment, like all the comments and little hints they threw her way about following Yonghee's path and finding a man to "make her life complete" like they said.
She started munching on her food frowning, suddenly upset about her parents' behavior: she understood where they were coming from, but why was marriage that important? She had made a life for herself, and even if it wasn't what she had planned and she wasn't really the happiest person in the world she was still proud of what she had accomplished. Why couldn't her parents recognize that?
She was slurping up the noodles while frowning, her eyebrows were knitted and incredibly her mind was working faster than , but a deep and brief laughter caught her attention and she turned her head slightly towards the two girls. Her eyes locked for just a moment with the ones of the dark-haired girl, who looked at
her, smiling, before looking away hastily, like she had been caught red handed.
Yongsun raised an eyebrow confused but smiled to herself nonetheless as a reflex before refocusing on the food in front of her, this time without her previous concerns.
The rest of the night went as usual and when the air started to get chilly she put on her jacket and packed everything up, leaving the beach with the same sensation of being observed that she had the night before.
Her house wasn't really that far away, if she walked with a fast pace she could reach it in 10 minutes top, but she was feeling fairly tired that night and her mind was elsewhere; she didn't really know where, but she was used to it now. Sometimes her thoughts wouldn't let her live, they would run around in her head, overlap, and
get deeper by the second, and the ultimate result of this process was her mind going blank, totally empty.
She thought of it as a defense mechanism, because everytime that happened she could feel a sense of anxiety bubbling up and the only way to feel better was to just breathe and not think about anything, to let her mind wonder for a bit and reorganize everything later.
She kept her head empty for the rest of the walk home, humming some tunes once in a while and reaching for her keys once in front of her building.
She opened the door and a few seconds after her phone began to ring, her mother's name on the screen.
"Mom? Is everything ok? Why did you call at this hour?" Yongsun started worried, leaving her backpack on a stool next to the counter and heading to her room to change. Her house was fairly big: 134 square meters, five rooms and a balcony with a little table where she usually had breakfast, two chairs and a grill.
"Yongsun-ah everything is fine, don't worry, I just wanted to talk to you, are you outside?" she said with a sweet voice.
"No no I just came back from the beach, you?"
"I'm with your father, he's watching a film", there was a little pause and the blonde started to undress placing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, "Are you doing anything this weekend? Do you want to come over? Yonghee will be here as well" her mom asked calmly.
"Really? By the way I shouldn't have anything planned for this weekend so I can come" she smiled taking her pajamas out of the drawers and wearing it, "I missed you, and Yonghee too of course".
"We miss you too Yongsun-ah, you never come to visit us, it's been more than a month now" she said with a not really serious scolding tone.
"I'm sorry but these days I have so many things to do that I don't even know where to begin, I promise I will try to come more often"
"I'll let this slide for now, just because you give us a good allowance with your work" the blonde could hear the smirk in her mother's voice and they both laughed at that.
"You finally revealed yourself for who you are, you only love me for my money" she said dramatically.
"Of course, you still didn't know? By the way I'll prepare all of the things that you like, so don't cancel last minute"
"I won't mom, don't worry" Yongsun said while heading to the kitchen to make some tea.
"Ok then, we'll wait for you, I'm going to hang up now, goodnight sweetie"
"Goodnight mom" she hung up and shook her head; the relationship with her mother was like that, they joked around a lot and they were considered the funny ones of the family because Yonghee and her father had the opposite personality, more serious and logical.
She took her things out of the backpack and her thoughts wondered back to the two girls on the beach; they seemed really interesting and she kind of wanted to talk to them but she didn't want to intrude or be inappropriate in any way.
She shook her head: they probably wouldn't want a stranger to talk to them, in particular a weird one.
After taking a teabag and putting it in the hot water she sat at the kitchen island, deep in thought about her work and totally absorbed in her house's silence.
A year had passed since she had moved to Busan and even if she enjoyed living by herself and she did not dislike the job, she couldn't shake the feeling of something missing: she worked for a software company as a computer engineer, her job was stable and she had studied engineering, so it fell right into the scheme of how her life should go... except it didn't.
She liked engineering but it wasn't her passion, she wasn't satisfied, she was just playing it safe like she had always done in her life, not going out of her confort zone and risk something certain for something maybe absurd.
She got up and after cleaning the kitchen and brushing her teeth she went straight to bed, putting her thoughts aside and hoping to leave her worries out of her dreams.

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I'm so excited to publish the first chapter I'm gonna combust *puppy face*.

It will be Byuli's birthday soon and I'm so happy, I'm really looking forward to it, I think she's planning something ^^.

Btw I hope you liked this chapter and I hope y'all are having a great day, remember to drink water and stay safe during these hard times!

- Red