SONG JOONG KI

I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing. I checked the clock beside my bed to see that it was already 12am. Who on earth would call me at this hour? If this is Kwang Soo, I'm gonna kill him.

My mind was still hazy from just being woken up from my sleep. I blindly searched for my phone, ready to scream at the person who was calling, but one look at the name flashing on my phone screen had me jolt up from my sleepiness. 

Hye Kyo

I immediately answered. 

"Hello?" 

She was silent for a few seconds, but I could hear her rustling on the other line. 

"Hey, sorry for calling you so late. But Ruby is here at my apartment. I was just wondering if I can fulfill that favor you wanted?"

I stared at the clock beside my bed. 

"It's 12am." I trepidly said. 

"Oh. Right. Sorry, I was....I just....nevermind. I'm sorry I bothered you. You can go back to sleep." I hear her breath hitch as she spoke. 

I thought about it for a few seconds, do I really want to let go of the chance to see Hye Kyo? Was using Ruby as an excuse alright? Well, in the first place, why would she call for me to see Ruby at 12 am?!

My mind was in a mess as I find my voice to answer. "No, I'm coming over. I want to talk to you too." 

I quickly hung up before she could protest. I dressed, fixed myself and ran out the door in record time. My heart was beating fast as I drove all the way to Hye Kyo's condominium building.

Is this the perfect opportunity for me to confess everything? She wouldn't have called me this late if her intention was for me to just visit Ruby. There must be something else too, right?

My heart leaped and raced as my thoughts ran wild at the assumptions I'm having. 

I've always used to have a hard time trying to decipher Hye Kyo. For all the years that I've known her, she has always been calm. Just calm. No matter what happened, no matter what I told her, she never let her calmness crumble in front of me.

The day I told her that I was filing for a divorce swallowed my thoughts as I continued to drive to her house. 

....

I just got home from a long day of work, it was exhausting. But coming home was even more exhausting. 

I went inside the dark house with a sigh. How long has it been since I've arrived home and she's there to welcome me?

Our marriage is not how it looks like on the outside. We portray a couple that loves each other dearly and holds each other in such high regard, but behind closed doors, we are as distant as one can be. 

I don't know how it came to this, but one day, we just started to resent each other.  We'd have fights everyday and the reasons for our fights were too scattered and too minimal to even cause a huge rift between us, but it did. 

At first, it was because of work. We were too busy to be together. When one of us was having a hard time, the other one can't even make time to comfort the other. On some days we blame it on being insensitive, on being annoying, on being needy and inconsiderate. We blamed it on things like our jobs, our commitments, our jealousy of each other's time for other people but lack of for each other. We blamed it on the pressure to be perfect, the pressure to deliver what the public wants from us, and the pressure to be happy. We couldn't fail, as individuals, and as a couple. I also had this burden that I kept inside me, the burden that I've been carrying since I felt the pressure to prove myself worthy of being called her husband. To prove that I was deserving to be standing next to her.

I looked around the still empty house that we live in. No sign of her anywhere, not that it was a surprise to me. She was so busy that we can't even see each other at home and it's not as if we want to either.

After I took off my coat and got changed into much comfortable clothing, I settled myself on the sofa and stared at the empty space before me.

No married couple thinks of each other as enemies from the beginning. Couples begin acting as strangers starting from one incident. From that point, it turns into a habit. And now we have come to this.  

Hye Kyo continued to rise after we got married. She had opportunities left and right and she took them all. I was happy for her, at first. But as I saw her flourish, my mind dived into thoughts of poison. 

As humans, we tend to get plagued by thoughts that are poison to us--no matter how trivial or irrational it may seem, it was still poison. This particular poison slowly ate away our marriage. 

I knew that it was my fault. It was my fault for having these insecure thoughts swim in my mind. She had been too far for me to reach from the get go, but I felt that gap in our careers widen even more as we stayed together. 

In the beginning, I never had these thoughts because I simply relished in the fact that I want her and that she wants me too. I had been contented with just being able to live my life with this one person, but contentment is such a fickle feeling. When other things are factored in, especially in our line of work, contentment is not a reliable reason to staying together as one would suppose.

The sound of the front door opening broke my train of thoughts. 

"Oh. You're home." She said as she entered the living room. Her face was devoid of any emotions. It was just her usual calmness that surfaced. I just gave her a small nod. 

"Have you had dinner?" She asked, making her way towards the kitchen. 

"I already did. You?" 

"Me too." She simply said as she placed her bag on top of the table.

"I'm leaving for Thailand tomorrow. I have a photoshoot, then I'll be heading straight to China to do promotions for Sulwhasoo." She continued. 

I just gave her another nod. This was nothing surprising, her commitments had her traveling everywhere and since I always had work to do in Korea too, there was no assumption there that she was asking me to come along with her. 

I stood up and made my way inside my office. Breathing in frustration as I grabbed the papers that I have looked over a thousand times in the past days. I gingerly walked out just as she was just getting herself a glass of water. 

"I have something to talk to you about." I said. She just gave me a nod and proceeded to sit down at the dining table.

I grit my teeth as I took my own seat, facing her. As I placed the papers on the table, her face registered no hint of surprise, but she was staring intently at them. 

"Let's get a divorce." I said, avoiding her eyes.

"Okay." She simply said. I looked straight at her in disbelief. How can she just say 'Okay' without even protesting?

She had a calm look on her face as she stared at me. I see no hint of any feeling at all.

How have we come to this?

"I'll have my lawyers review the paperworks. Let's settle this as quietly as we can." She simply said with a small smile then stood up and walked inside our bedroom, the sound of the door being locked echoed around the house. 

I was left alone sitting at that dining table dumbfounded. I knew asked for this but I never predicted that this is how she was going to react. I was ready to hear screams and shouts and be engaged in a quarrel, maybe even a slap or two or three or no matter how many, but none, absolutely none of that prepared me for this indifference. 

She was indifferent. 

She was just....calm. Unnervingly calm. 

...

Hye Kyo's calmness was something I loved about her, but after that day, that calmness and indifference had struck me differently. The first time she had shown a crack in that calmness was when I saw her at the park, but that time her calmness was replaced by hatred and contempt for me, and that was during a time I was already having confusing feelings for her again so I didn't put much thought into it.

She had returned to her usual calm self when I saw her again at TMI and at the reunion party, but those moments were also the start of us being friends again, so I didn't notice it much.

But now, I've realized that Hye Kyo uses her calmness as a weapon. A shield. A wall. 

She uses her calmness to protect herself during moments wherein a situation calls for a reaction. 

But tonight, another crack at her calmn demeanor had shown. 

Her calling me in the middle of the night only to tell me that Ruby was around was not a usual thing a calm Song Hye Kyo would do. This was not her shielding her emotions from me.

I smiled at the thought.

I took a deep breath outside Hye Kyo's front door. I was trying to relax myself but the anticipation and excitement I felt was just too much for me to contain. Oh well. Nothing would change if I just stand out here.

I carefully pressed her doorbell and smiled as I looked at the camera. After a few seconds, I heard a beep, signaling that the door was now open. I gingerly pushed it open and walked inside. 

She was standing in front of me with what seemed like an uneasy smile. She was hugging an obviously ecstatic Ruby to her chest. 

"Hey." I greeted her as I took off my shoes. 

"Hello." She smiled. "I'm so sorry, my mind was elsewhere when I called and I didn't really notice how late it was." 

"It's fine." I smiled back, inching towards her as I reached out for Ruby. 

The dog immediately wagged her tail and my face as Hye Kyo handed her to me.

"I missed you." I said, hugging Ruby. 

"She missed you too." She said back with a smile as we walked towards the dining area. 

"I was talking about you." I said, carefully looking at her to see her reaction. 

She smiled warmly as she replied. "I was talking about me too." 

I chuckled as I saw her blush a little. 

"So you missed me?" I teased. 

"Well, it's been a long time since I last saw you. It's been a crazy month." She laughed as she took out two cans of beer out of the fridge. 

"Sorry, I only have these to offer as drinks. But there's water too if you want." She said as she placed the beers on the table.

"No. These are just perfect." I replied, thinking that alcohol would be a huge help for my courage. 

She sat in front of me as she fidgeted a little. 

"Why do you look nervous?" I said as she averted her eyes. 

"I'm not!" She exclaimed as she drank from her can of beer.

"You are." I said, laughing. 

"I'm not nervous. It's just that it's been a long time since I've seen you in this particular setting and it's not really a memory I'm fond of." She replied as she continued to fiddle with the lid of the can. 

 Ah. Right. The last time we were sitting like this in her house was that day we decided to get a divorce.

"Hye Kyo I'm so---"

"No. Don't apologize. That's all in the past. And we've already decided to forgive each other, right?" She said as she smiled. 

I smiled back at the warmth I felt at what she said. "Right." 

"Anyway, I must've startled you since I called you so late just to see Ruby, but as I've said, I didn't notice the time. You must've been sleeping, you could've come tomorrow...or later when the sun has risen." She laughed as she looked over at the window that showed the darkness of the night at 1am.

"Well, as I've said, I missed you so I came right away." I replied. 

She just gave me a small smile as she bowed her head to hide the slight flush on her cheeks. 

"You said you have something to tell me?" She asked. 

I stopped mid-way of my drinking as I averted my eyes.

"Um...yeah. The thing is---" 

For the first time since entering her home, I noticed the emptiness of the space. The furnitures I saw that time I took her home after drinking at TMI where nowhere to be found, instead, there were piles of boxes in place of them. I scanned the room to see that the remaining furnitures in her living room was a single couch, the television, and one coffee table. I looked over at her kitchen to see that the appliances that used to be on the counters where also gone. The place seemed so bare without the decorations that used to adorn her house. 

"Are you moving?" I found myself asking. 

"Oh. Yeah, I am." She replied. 

"Why?" 

"Um...it's just that it's been so long since I lived here. I felt like I needed a new place." She said trepidly.

She needs a new place? But this house held so much of her memories with.....Oh. 

It was just a few months back when I felt happy when I learned that she still kept my things here in her house, now she's telling me she's moving because she needs a new place. She probably meant she needed a place that didn't hold our memories.

The happiness I felt at the assumptions I had as to why Hye Kyo suddenly called for me to come over and the slight assumption that I had that there was probably something more to it than just seeing Ruby was all washed away.

I was pitifully holding on to that one fact that she still lived here in this house that held so much of our memories together and that she still kept my things as my driving force to not give up on my feelings for her. I had thought that these things was some kind of proof that she still held a speck of feeling for me, but I guess now that she's moving to a new house, that must mean she didn't really have any lingering feelings for me anymore.

"When?" I asked after a while.

"The new house will be ready in two days, so I'll be moving in then." 

"Where?" I asked. 

"Huh?" She asked, looking over at me in confusion. 

"Well, since this isn't the last time I'm visiting Ruby, I hope." I lied through my teeth. I couldn't admit to her that I was actually curious to where she's moving and if that place was further away from where I am.

"Oh. It's at UN Village in Hannam-dong." She replied. 

UN Village....that's only 5 minutes away from my house. I couldn't help but grin.

"Why are you smiling?" She asked. 

"You're nearer." I said, still trying hard to stop myself from grinning widely. 

"Right. Your house is at Hannam-dong too. I forgot about that." She mumbled. 

"Why? Planning to change neighborhoods?" I asked.

"No. I didn't mean that." She frowned. 

"I'm just kidding. But I guess, I'll be seeing more of you now. We might bump into each other when you go for walks with Ruby." I said. 

"Don't you run around this neighbo