“I’m sorry that I keep messing up,” Woohyun told me later that evening when we met up at his house. It was raining again, and the air smelled sweetly of fall and damp earth outside. Raindrops pattered against the roof, a distant rhythmic drum. In the dark of his living room we sat facing each other.

I had not intended to come here in the first place; my mind was in too much a muddle that I couldn’t begin to think straight let alone spend time with my lover. But when Woohyun called me and begged that we met, I had no choice but to agree. A part of me wanted this to end, for everything that I had with Woohyun to be over so I didn’t have to lie to anyone anymore. On the other hand I needed his comfort. I needed his warm smiles and kind words, I needed him to hold me through the night and make me feel loved again. Above everything else, I wanted him to assure me that everything Hyejoo had said wasn’t true, that he was a man that I could leave Sung Gyu for. 

“I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?” He went on, apologetically holding my hand. “I keep breaking your heart”

I didn’t think he had broken my heart yet. I didn’t even know if he even had my heart to break. He did have something of mine; a part of it, maybe, not the entirety of it. He was yet to earn that for himself.

“I can forgive you, and I will,” I told him, scanning his eyes. “But only if you tell me the truth, Woohyun-Ssi”

Something dark crossed his eyes. “What truth?”

I took a deep breath. “About your ex-wife, your family, everything that you had kept from me”

He smiled, quite uncomfortably so, one that hardly reached his eyes. Yet he squeezed my hand. “I told you, it's in the past, I’ve moved on from them so it no longer matters-,”

“Just because it's in the past doesn’t mean that couldn’t happen again” I interjected him. “So help me please, Woohyun-Ssi! Prove to me that you’re worth leaving my husband for, that you will love me and my child, that I’m not going to be just another fling you would leave when you’d had it”

I had thought long and hard about it, if I was going to confront him about it or if I was going to toss it under the carpet, taking it as just another office rumour. But the truth is, I believed Hyejoo. Despite her quirks, she was my only friend and she had never intended to do anything that could harm me. She was younger but had been on the floor of Joongang-Ilbo for longer than I had, she would have seen and heard things that had happened before me.  The concern and horror in her eyes wouldn’t lie. 

And I wasn’t going to go to Woohyun on my own, if I ever did. I was going with my four year old child, her future and her life ahead. I couldn’t possibly put them in jeopardy just because I couldn’t tell apart a good man from bad.

“Eunji-ah” He started after a while, the look in his eyes unreadable. He reached out and touched my hair. “You know that I love you right? I love you, and I would never do anything to hurt you”

My heart leapt to my throat when he said that. Sung Gyu never said that he loved me. It echoed in my head, a blatant reminder. Only that one time, drunk over his head, lost and found at the foot of my apartment, breathing against my lips he had said that he loved me. Sung Gyu wouldn’t say that in so many words, otherwise. Perhaps, never again.

“Like I told you, it was in the past…” He continued quietly. “I was married to a woman who couldn’t love me for who I was, who took away my freedom and made me feel trapped in a marriage until I felt I no longer wanted it. We parted ways, I let go of the son that I loved, and that was that…”

“Was it the chief editor of ‘The Celebrity’?” I asked, referring to the magazine that Hyejoo worked for.

Woohyun nodded. “She was a marvelous woman, and I loved her. But being with her was suffocating after a while. Nothing broke my heart more when I had to leave my little boy”

“But they say that you cheated on her” I went on, recalling what Hyejoo had said.

“Who?”

I said nothing.

“Your friend from work? Hyejoo-Ssi?”

Still I remained wordless, not willing to give names away. He let out a sigh, moved away and dragged a hand down his face. “It’s true,” He finally admitted. “But it wasn’t what it sounds like”

“Then what should it sound like?” I pushed on.

“She was coming after me. And me who was in an unhappy marriage, waiting for an escape,  escaped with her. She made me happy, I made her happy-,”

“But you were cheating!”

He pulled his lips into a straight line. “I did exactly what you do now, Eunji” He reminded me, and when I frowned, he smiled and rubbed my hand. “I did exactly for the reason that you do. I wanted to be happy. I deserved to be, just like you do now”

“What happened to that girl then?” 

“Got married to someone else” Woohyun replied, his eyes lowered as if he recalled a memory that hurt him. “I thought we had something great going on. But she was a young girl, she had more obligations to her parents and one was that she couldn’t marry a divorcee...so it ended there...and a few months later, I met you”

I opened my mouth to respond, but I didn’t know what to say. In my moment of speechlessness, Woohyun moved closer and cupped my face in both his hands. “I met you, Eunji, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I want to make you happy and be happy with you...you deserve the world, and you’re yet to be given the world, he had not given you the world...so if you let me, if you leave him for me, I promise you wouldn’t have to do it ever again”

It was his words, always his words that drew me to him. Sung Gyu was incredibly intelligent and that was his charm; he knew so much, talked so much, an ocean of knowledge and excitement overflowing in the depth of his eyes. He spoke of peace and war and better ocean regulations like he were reciting fairy tales which often left anyone mesmerized. But that was a charm which could soon outglow, whereas with Woohyun, he charmed not with his intelligence but with his flirtatious words and smiles that dragged women to him like a magnet. And that’s how he had me in his embrace, hurting and vulnerable, and he was giving me exactly what I wanted. He was giving me the world in all its brilliant colors, and I could not resist.

So that night, I said nothing else. I let him quietly make love to me on the sheep skin carpet of the living room floor as rain pattered outside and a million thoughts filled my mind. I didn’t know if he had really penetrated into my head yet as much as he did into my heart, but he had definitely done something, and it felt better than anything that I had felt in a while.

As he helped me dress up afterwards, I watched his deft fingers working on my buttons and thought of so many things. Maybe this was what I wanted to live with, maybe this could be something I could live with when I had risks that I must take. Sung Gyu made a great friend as much as he made a good husband in our better days. I could leave him and I could help him heal. I could go back to him as a friend when he was ready for that kind of thing, when he no longer got angry and no longer forgot things, when he finally had his brighter days. Divorced couples did that all the time, we wouldn’t be the only ones.

“What are you thinking about?” Woohyun asked me as he pushed back my hair. He kissed me, his lips lingering, and I stared at his eyes. 

“We’re going to get divorced” I found myself telling him once he pulled away, my words flowing out before I could stop myself. “Sung Gyu oppa wants to. He found out about you and I, and he thinks I would be happier with you”

Woohyun was quiet for a while, but something about his gaze had definitely changed. “Oh sweetheart” He muttered, moved in and hugged me again. “I’m so sorry, but it's also great news” He gently caressed my cheek. “Was it you who asked him? Or did he-,”

“He said it himself” I replied and swallowed hard, recalling that fateful night, and looked down at my hand. “He’s...sick. He knows this too. It could be something psychological, and he wouldn’t get himself treated as long as he had Yulhee and me”

“Why?” Woohyun asked.

“Because we’re his responsibility” I merely replied. I had thought about his reasons and I had understood him. He grew up the only child, losing the adults of his life one after the other. He had seen death so many times and he hadn’t had anybody to run to. It couldn’t be an illness that would give him the same fate as his parents and grandparents, but he still had that fear that Yulhee and I would have to live with the knowledge of loss on our way. I wanted him to heal too, for it was difficult for the both of us, for Yulhee too, to live like this. It was for the best. He had said himself, and I believed so too. It was for the best.

But Woohyun needed to know only so much. His enthusiasm was more than enough, for soon, Yulhee and I would be Woohyun’s responsibility.

“I’m sorry…” Woohyun said again, moved in and held me in his warm embrace. “He’s a good man, and I hope he gets better. But it's time that you leave him, Eunji. You have done what you could”

I blindly nodded into his shoulder and closed my eyes. “Divorce him, and tell me when you’re ready. I’m more than willing to take your hand and make you mine”

♡♡♡

Day six passed by fast. During the entirety of that sixth day, I was pretty much floating through work, my mind buried in thoughts of what lay ahead. I had thought telling Woohyun of our parting would make things simpler, but it only made them even more complicated with all that I had started to feel. It was akin to the emotion when you had decided on one thing, given the word and that sharp hit of realisation that you probably didn’t want it anymore; something that you were desperate to have, and once you had it, its worth was gone. 

I sat at my table, staring at our family portrait in its gleaming frame, rethinking my choices again. Just because Sung Gyu had asked me to leave, was it really right to? Just because I had someone else to run to, did that make it the right choice? As of now, on the sixth day with just one more left before I made my final resolve, I was standing on a balanced scale, placing all the reasons I had to leave and to stay on its either end. They were evenly balanced out now, and I had the liberty to fall onto any side that I wished to. I realised what I truly wanted was imbalance. I wanted something to strongly imbalance that scale, give me a better reason to leave or a bigger reason to stay. I was waiting for time to do that for me before Sung Gyu arrived and I was put in the place to share my verdict with him, to decide what we did next.

It was also on the sixth day that I realised I terribly missed him. He and I hadn’t done much the past few days. We didn’t talk, we didn’t cook together, we didn’t have impromptu date nights in front of the world news with his lips slowly snaking down my neck. We were just two people tossed into the same living space, the only thing we shared being a child and a bed. But still Sung Gyu had been there,  dark and quiet as a ghost. 

When I returned home that evening to a sombre, empty apartment, I missed the sight of him standing in the backdrop of the city lights on the large window panes, in his silken dark pajamas and dressing gown undone, shimmering in colors as the world reflected in his eyes. I missed him calling my name, smiling and saying softly that I was home as if it was a quiet reminder to himself. I missed him following me into the kitchen, complaining and even getting angry over things that I didn’t even do. I just missed him.

It didn’t subside when Yulhee and I made dinner on our own. It was evident that Yulhee felt the same  as she looked over her shoulder every then and there as if her father would emerge from the dark like a hawk and gather her in his strong arms. Food didn’t taste like food anymore, not when a chair was empty, not when the table was only for two. Yulhee asked of her father again as we got ready for bed. She was sleeping beside me like she had done for the past few days. I asked her if she missed him, She nodded, curled up in my arms and buried her face in my neck. I realised that it was like this we would live when we finally left him. Lost and depressed as if we were waiting for the sun to shine again. Would Woohyun be able to replace that shine? I wondered as I ran my hand through Yulhee’s soft curls. What would we do if he couldn’t?

Yulhee drifted off to sleep, her head cradled in Sung Gyu’s pillow, breathing in the scent of him. I left her at that, walked around the vast expanse of our house, running my hands along the short walls and glass screens, the open planned space that we had both agreed we loved so we could see each other, we could run to each other whenever we needed to. The kitchen opened up to the living room, just a few steps away and so did the dining room, all parted by nothing less than the distance and short steps. When we had first moved in together, we had millions of dreams tucked away in our hands, in the depths of his eyes. He had flown out right after, and I felt lonelier than I ever had, to the point I broke into tears the moment I saw him again three days later. He laughed as he held me but I did not want him to promise me that he wouldn’t leave again because he would, and he’d always come back to me.

Never had I thought there would be a day when he would leave with the intention of never returning again.

I walked around as night fell darker until city lights went to sleep, missing every piece that I wished we were and that we used to be. I lied down in Sung Gyu’s makeshift bed in his study at some point, just to see if it was comfortable as it was where he had slept multiple nights. It wasn’t; it was stiff and small and the leather was cold on my skin, it didn’t help putting the soft blankets over me, although they smelled strongly of him, like I was being folded in his embrace. Sung Gyu had slept here like this so many times, after our fights, when he couldn’t stand me, and tears sprang to my eyes. How did he fit in? Was he ever even comfortable? Why did I let him?

Yet, much to my surprise, I fell asleep in the cocoon of his blankets, my head on the hand-rest, dreaming of things that I had never dreamt before . It was soon morning and I felt a hand on my ankle. Drunken with sleep, I fluttered open my eyes to the sun, blinds wide open, the brilliant rays seeping in. I looked behind me, and then held my breath. It was Sung Gyu in his silk pajamas and dressing gown. His hand was on my ankle, and he touched the small of my leg.

“When did you come back?” I asked him, looking at him through the bright of the sun.

“Just now,” He said. “Why are you in my room?”

“Because I missed you” I said, sat up and reached for him. “I missed you so much”

He laughed, put his arms around me and kissed me on my forehead. “You wouldn’t miss me Eunji” He said in his low, resonant voice. “Not anymore”

“Omma!”

Yulhee’s voice, distant but close, and I woke up with a start. I was still in Sung Gyu’s study, but there was no Sung Gyu at the foot of his beat old Sofa. It was Yulhee instead. Yulhee in her pajamas, her face red as a berry, cheeks stained wet. It was morning, sun sneaking through the thin partings of the closed blinds. I quickly sat up and reached for my child. She must have woken up to an empty bed, no mother, no father. I would have cried too.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry baby….I’m so sorry” I rocked her side to side, but no comforting word I could say would have made her feel better. Six days without her favorite person, not a word from him. How much more conviction did I need? Despite what I would do now, however, it was evident that he had moved on.

It was day seven that I had woken up to; the day of the verdict, my final decision. 

In all honesty, Sung Gyu did not leave me with a choice. He just expected me to think about what was already decided; he was leaving me, I was leaving him. There was no verdict that he expected upon his return tonight, although I intended to give. I waited for one reason to imbalance the scale, one reason to come to me tonight where either Woohyun would prove to me if he was capable of loving my everything, or I would run back to Sung Gyu with my arms open wide .

On Sundays like today, we usually worked half-day unless we had important deadlines to meet. I hadn’t any, except for editing a few articles before they could go on print for the sunday paper. I completed them while I occasionally stared at the family photograph on my table, thought about my crying child whom I’d left with my mother with the warning that she’d miss her father and cry, like she was glass to ‘-Handle with care’. Yulhee was a strong girl. But then again, she was only four. She hadn’t experienced change that much, except for changes of plans, like going to Jeonju for Sung Gyu’s family’s wake in the spring instead of summer. Change of father was a massive change that I was uncertain she would take well. And on top of that, my mother who loved Sung Gyu the most; how on earth was I going to break it to them?

Usually, on days like this I would finish off my work and leave during lunch hour, but Hyejoo trotted over to my desk and begged that we stay for a while. “Let's get lunch, dessert and then coffee, then go shopping” She listed out to me as we left the main entrance of the Seobuk Commercial towers and down the busy street. 

“It's Sunday, Hyejoo, I have places to be” I reasoned out to her, shaking my head. “I can’t go out shopping like you young girls”

“Is it babysitting?” Hyejoo asked with a pout. “I like your daughter, she’s really smart, and she’d probably like shopping too”

This made me laugh. “You clearly don’t know my daughter then,” I kept out the part where she got cranky on shopping trips like she was a hungry velociraptor. Cake and milkshake could calm her momentarily, but she only liked watching news on the TV and listening to her father. She wasn’t going to grow up into an ordinary girl.

“What plans do you have then?” Hyejoo pushed on as we neared our destination, the chinese restaurant which made the best fried rice in the world.

I lifted my hand and started folding my fingers with each. “I have to clean the house as my house keeper’s not working Saturdays, I have a daughter to go back to and a very angry mum” I dropped my hand and let out a sigh. “And Sung Gyu oppa is coming back from Manila tonight”

We slid into our usual seat, the one that was overlooking the bustling street outside. Hyejoo reached out and laid a hand on mine, and our eyes met. “Are you okay?” She wanted to know.

I thought back to the dream that had woken me, his words, his embrace, Yulhee’s sorrowful cries. I thought of what I would be living with if I decided to stay with Sung Gyu even longer, the fights and accusations, devoid of affection, devoid of love. I thought of Woohyun too, all the many stories that felt like white lies, the thought in the back of my head that he’d leave me, one day, for a young woman who had no child.

“No” I replied in the end.

We ordered our usual dishes and chatted about things, my life, her life, what she would do if she were in the same situation as I. What was more sensible? Living with a man whom you already knew despite the difficulties, or living with a man full of promises whom you weren’t certain you could trust?

By the end of that lunch, I felt I was even more confused. A few hours until Sung Gyu returned, a day or two before I had to pack up and leave. What was it going to be?

I was driving home through the serpentine Seoul roads when I received a call from Woohyun, his name flashing across the screen. On any other day, a call from him was exciting; a secret, an adventure. But at that moment, I felt a sense of involuntary dread.

I picked up the call, we shared pleasantries and he asked what I was doing tonight. I clenched my hand around the wheel. A reason. An imbalance.

“Nothing in particular” I lied. I could have gone home and cleaned up the place a bit for Sung Gyu’s return. But he was leaving me, why did it matter?

“Perfect,” Woohyun replied, and I imagined his cheeky grin on the other end. “Then we’re going on a date tonight, a real date”

My heart did the kind of a flip which I didn’t know if it was of excitement or dread.

“Okay” I found myself telling him while deep underneath, a voice chanted; what’s the point? What’s the point? “Where to?”

He mentioned a restaurant that I barely recognised (As Sung Gyu and I weren’t the fancy restaurant dinner type; at least he wasn’t) and sent the coordinates of the place on a text. I drove home afterwards, my hands gripping the wheel so hard until my fingers were imprinted on the sleek grey leather. At home, instead of arranging the closet or making dinner, I found myself listlessly running through my closet in search of a nicer dress. Instead of preparing for my husband’s return from a seven day long trip, I was getting ready for a date. In my head, it sang again; it's all over, what’s the point?

Woohyun once told me that I looked good in red. He said it accentuated my complexion, went well with the color of my eyes. Sung Gyu never told me anything, he didn’t care about what I looked like as long as I liked it on myself. I thought about Woohyun more. It was him I decorated myself for. I pulled out a sleek red sweater dress, one I had bought a few falls back and put away as it looked unflattering on my post natal body. It looked fine on me now, showing a generous amount of curves. I did my hair, did my lips a deep red and thinly lined my eyes. And I was ready, not for the night I would probably leave my husband, but for a date with the man whom I’d leave my husband for.

I called mum to check on my previously crying child and was glad to hear that she was doing a lot better and had watched the same documentary on her computer on repeat. I told her I was busy until late, no reason in exact details and rang her off. Later I drove off to meet Woohyun and pulled into the car park of a restaurant, the name of which I couldn’t even read. Sung Gyu would have done well with his dodgy picked-off-the-streets french. Only if he still remembered it.

Woohyun was waiting at a table for two. It was on the top floor, overlooking the street as a gentle rain poured upon it. He looked up at me, his eyes wondrous, gleaming like clusters of stars. When he smiled, my breath caught up. He looked at me as if he was looking at the most beautiful woman in the world, and that left me feeling things that I had felt never before.

“You look so beautiful, Jung Eunji, I think I might cry” Woohyun muttered as I slipped into the chair before him. He reached out, squeezed my hand, his eyes carrying the shine of a thousand stars. Sung Gyu never told me that I was beautiful. The voice in my mind sang again. He never looked at me like Nam Woohyun did.

But the devil’s advocate played its part, contradicting the thoughts, an inevitable comparison. He never said I was beautiful, but he picked the finest cashmere scarves that complimented my skin like nothing else. He never looked at me in the mystifying way that my lover did, but he bought rare gemstones that glimmered in the sun because he thought they were like my eyes.

I gripped my hand under the table and took a deep breath. It is over now, it’s over, what’s the point?

“What would you like?” Woohyun asked, and we ordered. 

Until the food arrived, Woohyun was telling me things I hardly followed. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me, but the moment he said something about him cutting down the carbs to lessen his caloric intake, something snapped and I was right across the city, somewhere in Incheon, thinking about all the planes that would land. 

What if Sung Gyu wasn’t in any of them? An ill thought appeared in my mind. What if his assistant bailed out on him? What if he missed his flight? What if he forgot? What if he lost his way somewhere in Manila on one of his impromptu out-of-work trips to buy me and Yulhee little mementos?

What If he never came back?

The dishes of medium rare steak, grilled vegetables and gravy arrived. It smelled scrumptions, the air was warm with its aromatic steam. As I cut into it, my knife slid in like butter, but as I chewed I felt like it was sand. Woohyun was talking, I responded. He told me about his meal plans and suggested ones that I should follow. When he thought I was bored, he backtracked, apologised and said with a grin that he was a gym freak, obsessed about keeping healthy and in shape not only himself but people in his life as well. 

Sung Gyu never did that. The thought appeared in a flash. On lazy Sunday mornings after tiring long workdays, we would sometimes lie upon each other, watch old movies and eat junk food until our stomachs bloated with fat. If Woohyun the health freak had witnessed us he would have retched.

“You’re smiling” He voiced out, his words interrupting my thoughts, and I didn’t realise I was. In my mind, the image of a heavily pregnant me and chubby, fluffy cheeked Sung Gyu lying in bed eating cheese balls over a 1980s movie filtered away. Instead, there was Woohyun, gazing at me.

“You’re so pretty when you smile like that” he commented and had a drink of his wine. “Did you know that Jung Eunji?”

I smiled, tucked my hair behind my ear, and realised that I never did know.

Sung Gyu never said I was pretty when I smiled. That voice in my head again. But he always put in the effort to make me smile.

By dessert, I was agitated. I didn’t know if I could take it anymore, the flip in my stomach the more I thought about it; empty planes devoid of Sung Gyu, landing on the rain stained runway one after the other.

“The cream caramel would be lovely if it didn’t have all that sugar,” Woohyun was muttering under his breath, “but the matcha ice cream is also good,” he looked up at me. “Would you like that, love?”

“I’m fine with any” I told him, trying to smile.

He sighed and closed the menu, then he smiled as well. “It’s good to have cheat days,” He said to me or the waitress, I was unsure, and he ordered two of the creme caramel. I slipped out the phone from my bag and looked at the time. According to what I found written on one of Sung Gyu's notes in the trash, the plane was to land at nine fifteen. It was past nine ten, now. He would land any moment now.

“How are you enjoying dinner?” Woohyun asked me, reached out and took my hand. “Our first actual date, no secrets, no hiding” He stared at my hand and gently rubbed my skin where my wedding band would have been. “Things are changing, aren’t they? We can finally be together…”

It was with a pang that it hit me. The divorce.

“It feels unreal, and it's all I’ve been thinking about for the past two days” Woohyun was still talking, still staring at my hand. I stared at him, perplexed, my mind in a whirlwind. If it was any other day, I would have admired the things I was seeing; the slight tinge of red of Woohyun’s hair, neatly brushed up, a stark difference to the usual boyish mess. The dark blue of his suit complimented the glimmer of his eyes in a princely splendour. He was handsome, Woohyun was.

So was Sung Gyu. Said that voice again. On the day that you first saw him, presenting his paper on stage; the artistic way his hands moved over the podium, his slick dark hair pushed back, the sharp black suit, the prim and proper Sung Gyu that I instantly fell in love with, not knowing he would later cross the hall towards me and change my entire life. 

The creme caramel arrived, but neither Woohyun nor myself paid attention to it. He was still gazing at me, still holding my hand.

“Nothing’s going to change my mind now. I can feel it in my heart” He went on telling me and slowly threaded his fingers through mine. “I had never been surerer. This is the most certain that I’ve ever been, Eunji. So I think it's time I did this”

It was then that the night took a twisted, unexpected turn. Woohyun’s free hand emerged from under the table, and in his hands was a mint green box that I easily recognised. He stared at it for a second, his lips pulled into a thin line and snapped it open. A brilliant silver band was soon glaring back at him under the dim yellow lights.

“Woohyun-Ssi…”

Sung Gyu never bought me a ring when he proposed. He didn’t even propose like that. ‘Just marry me’ He had told me on the day before he left on his first mission to Taiwan, and I had agreed.

“I didn’t want to rush it, nor did I want to push it back, Eunji, now is time” Woohyun continued and pushed the box across the table towards me. The ring glimmered and glared like a little silvery fire.

“Will you marry me?”

I stared at the ring, I stared at Woohyun, my head in a muddle. I had told him the news just two days ago, and we hadn’t even-,

“-divorced yet…” I told him in a quiet voice and met his eyes, my whole body shaking. “It’s-it’s too soon, Woohyun-Ssi, how can I-?”

“People change, Eunji. Hearts change” He explained, slowly moving to take the ring from its hold. “So we should grab onto what is ours while we can…”

Sung Gyu would never say that to me. The voice, more rational now, and louder. He would rather let me go…

My phone rang the same instant, vibrating under the napkin on the table where I had laid it aside. Woohyun’s hand froze, staring at the blinking screen across the table, the ring in his hand. I retrieved mine and reached for the phone. My eyes fell on the screen and my breath hitched, tears sprang. Everything fell into place again, and I knew.

“Please,” I begged Woohyun as I reached for my jacket, my bag. “Just this once”

He sighed heavily, and the ring hid in his palm. He said nothing before I crossed the threshold of the restaurant and out into the pouring rain. Then I picked up the call.

“Oppa…”

“Eunji” His voice crackled on the other end, then silence. 

“Oppa?” I asked again, sensing something as my skin went cold.

“Eunji-ah” he called again, but his voice, I realised, had started to break.

“Oppa?!?” I called, startled, my hand gripping the phone.

A sob, an unmistakable sob, and my heart fell. “I don’t remember” His voice whispered into the phone. “I don’t remember the way back home, Eunji. I don’t remember how to come back to you…”