It was a sweet Sunday for Irene. After days of alternating between working at a lanky newspaper company—who only seems to have eyes for the male employees—and being a single mother, it feels like a cold glass of water on a summer afternoon as Irene walks leisurely along the neighborhood park with Mina, her daughter. With a vanilla ice cream cone on hand, she plants herself on the lopsided part of the seesaw, shoes digging in the thin sand decorating the park, gazing upwards—the sky neither too sunny nor too gloomy, somehow ominous, but she figures: it won’t rain any minutes later. She keeps note of her daughter playing by the Merry-go-rounds.

She enjoys it for a while—the cool and moist air, the gloomy silence—it would’ve been depressing if it weren’t for the fact that Irene would take a detested rainy day than any weekday. Just as she was about to close her eyes and let herself be absorbed into the lazy Sunday’s tranquil confines, a sigh of relief ready to escape her body, she hears a sharp wail penetrate the silence. She sighed heavily. She would’ve had ignored it, would’ve—if the wail doesn’t sound so much like the wail that kept her up every wake of the night. She pried her eyes open, ready to glare at anything at all—so much for a lax free Sunday, she thought. At the bottom of the Merry-go-round, her daughter lies on her wailing—somehow with a hint of anger and petulance for somehow who fell by herself—but as she sees a boy towering her daughter, she needs no second to stomp her way into the mess, ice cream was long forgotten.

“I’m so so sorry.”

“…”

“You see, Jiro pushed it a little too hard.” She gulps. “and… it wasn’t intentional?”

Irene stares scornfully at the ‘assailant’s’ mother. A bitter taste already at the tip of her tongue as her child continues to wail hiding behind her coat. She looks around the playground and unto the ‘destroy my Sunday’ duo—she named after seeing their matching monolid eyes and orange sweaters (too bright for the backdrop but Irene keeps her complaints at bay). Brows furrowed, she leers at them, until the air grows too tensed for a mere children’s fight that not only the duo gets frightened but also her daughter. She feels small hands reach for hers and her thoughts pause for a while. She sighs.

“Whether it was an accident or not, my daughter still got hurt.” She started coldly. For a moment she feels like a teacher reprimanding her trouble-maker students as everyone eyed her fearfully. (She almost found the mother’s monolid eyes adorable). She continues. And like a teacher reprimanding their students, nobody spoke, only nods now and then, gulps, and eyes that want to dart around but stays for fear of being accused of ignoring her. It should’ve ended there, a little reprimanding and another string of apologies but she continues unforgivingly reprimand the mom. Every contempt from the past few stressful days amalgamated into something vicious and unstoppable, which she, unfortunately, released on the other woman. She feels herself grow angrier even though a warning sign rings loudly in her head reminding her how erroneous it was to be too hostile for something so little.

She would’ve had continued on and on until she releases all sorts of stress clogging every space in her body, but a sniff cuts her off, making her return to reality than the anger-induced one. She looks beside her. Her daughter only seems to stare at the source of sniff, as another sniff goes off. She internally smacks herself, an apology already writing itself in her head. She plants her eyes on the boy, Jiro as her mother referred him as, but strangely there are no tears nor sniffing—only a concerned glance directed at her—mother.  

Not knowing what to do she gapes at the other mother trying to hold back her tears—but her efforts are futile as Irene’s stare only seems to mush the other lady’s heart more. She looks around, totally not in the mood for onlookers thinking she made someone cry. There was a cat glaring at her as if her offense against the feline eyed girl was an offense to the whole cat community.

“You made my mother cry!”

Returning to the scene before her, she finds herself in a situation more than she could manage. Looking at her daughter for help, her daughter only rolls her eyes as if Irene was the one who put them in trouble! The other child just shakes his head in response. Resolutely, Irene takes calculated steps, as if approaching a stray puppy. She reaches her hands to pat the woman’s hair only for the other girl to flinch in response. She looks warily at Jiro, he raises his chin to her mother—signaling to continue. She sees Mina beside him, a warning gaze trained on her. This kid… she scoffs. She feels the other raise her head, and as Irene meets with the most adorable and innocent tear-filled eyes she’s ever seen, she can’t help but engulf the other girl in her arms, saying soothing apologies and reassurance.

The girl’s taller than her, she realizes, as she needed to guide the other’s head to duck on the junction between her neck and shoulder. She hears the kids giggle but she pays them no mind, only focused on the girl gradually coming down from her tears. She feels the soft rumble on her skin quiet and the once erratic breaths slowly straighten. She ignores the hair rising on her nape as lips accidentally graze her neck. Waiting for the other girl to raise her end so she can express her apologies eye-to-eye, Irene continues to caress the other’s hair—except, it doesn’t happen.

“She fell asleep.”

Eyes wide, Irene gapes at the boy who cheekily rubs his hair.

“She falls asleep when she cries.”

The chortle of her child doesn’t help at all.

“How long?” Irene struggles to whisper as much as her tightly compressed lungs can.

“Hm?”

“How long does she sleeps.”

“An hour or two.”

Pausing at the steps, she drops the sleeping girl on the landing as she catches her breath. Looking at good for nothings their ice scream, she reaches for the water bottle daggling on her daughter’s stomach and chugs as if she just drank the first time after entering Sahara dessert. Room 197, Fifth floor, she recalls. Only two more floors left till their unit-- the elevator just have to choose this opportune moment to break down. The more steps she takes, the more heavy the girl feels like—Seulgi, as her child inserted, tired from her scornfully muttering of “your mother”. And little Seulgi here had the audacity to snore. Can you at least wait for your bed! Opening the door to their house, Irene dropped Seulgi unceremoniously on her bed, Seulgi bouncing a little from the force—but nothing seems enough to pry her awake—Irene rolls her eyes. Immediately, she makes a beeline to the kitchen, grabbing a pitcher from the ref and pouring herself a full glass of cold water, the children joining her afterward eating silently on the chair.

“So, two hours?”

Jiro nods, and everyone sighs.

               Dusk came, 3 hours have passed, and it seemed like Seulgi will not wake up anytime soon. After her complaint, Jiro just smiles nervously in response saying that her mother has the most affinity to sleeping. Just the thing Irene needed! Aside from looking out for her child, here comes another one—or two. As Irene prepares an early dinner she hears shuffling from her open bedroom door, hoping to see someone finally emerge—but none. She sighs. They ate sujebi peacefully with conversations now and then—more on the children’s side—about some cartoon or anime, Irene couldn't tell the difference-- the last kid's show she watched was that hamster with an orange blotch when suddenly, a creaking prickled the soft silence and made them expectantly turn their heads towards the noise.

In her glorious bed hair and drool drying her chin, Seulgi drags herself and plops on the chair in front of Irene. Not entirely awake she stares at Irene—well, at her but more on beyond her. Irene glares at her, but before she could open , she sees slender fingers climb their way near the sujebi pot. Smack! Just right in time, she grabs Seulgi’s hand pulling it away from the pot.

“Wash your hands and please... wipe that drool off your face.”

               As Irene observes the table, she finds a foreign feeling bubbling on her stomach. No, it isn’t quaint— in fact, it almost feels natural, domestic even. Irene shakes her head. Seeing the other girl reach for the pitcher, she offered to pour a glass for the other girl, only for her to point at her child’s glass, and Irene was happy to comply. She should’ve found it obtrusive—in fact, she never allowed anyone aside from her close friends or family enter her humble abode—much more waltz into her Sunday rest day! But strangely, she feels content. With laughter finding its way through their used to be silent dinner, she zooms away from her thoughts and surrenders herself to the joy blanketing their house, filling it a warmth that made her fingers tingle and her chest giddy. And as sees Mina’s eyes crinkling in joy, much like hers, she couldn’t ask for more.

So when she stands before her door, ready to bid them goodbye, she almost felt like the warmth leaves her house, the coldness she didn’t know existed creeping at her feet. And with this strange string pulling her like a magnet towards the other woman, she won’t let that happen. She remembers Wendy, her best friend's incessant: You should try to go out once in a while, and she decides, this is it. Thus here comes her new dilemma. Should I ask for her number? Another meeting? Perhaps, I could apologize formally another time… 

“Irene?”

What if she denies… Is she… Is she… Single?

“Irene??”

Well, Jiro did mention it was only two of them inside the house… But maybe she’s already dating someone... What do I say?? Isn’t it too cree—

“Irene!”

“I’m single.”

Silence engulfed them for a while until the devils in the form of a child erupt in laughter. Irene feels her ears warm, a part of her brain already reprimanding her. She hears the other woman join the laughter—and maybe, making a fool of herself isn’t that bad at all.

“I’m single as well.” – or maybe not. Irene thinks she can add this to her ‘the most embarrassing things I did’ list, topping the ‘slipping on a banana in front of school’. Her face flushes more.

It felt like a blur. Them, exchanging numbers, Mina and Jiro teasing them endlessly until they kept them inside the house to talk outside peacefully, and Seulgi leaving with a huge grin on her face assuring that this will not be the last time they’ll meet. And her,

“Then Ms. Bae, I expect you to remain single until our next meeting!”

With batted breath and sleep not coming to her anytime soon, with a foolish smile on her face—she feels her cheeks aching—she thinks this Sunday was sweeter than she bargained for.