I was probably overreacting. That was what my mother said when I went to her place and broke into tears, telling her everything. People forgot all the time, she said, even the young and smart ones when they had too much in their minds. She reminded me of the times that she’d forgotten to pick me up from school and the times when she had accidentally left me behind at the supermarket because she had to raise my brother and me all alone. But nothing she could say or do made me feel any better; in fact, it just made my worries increase tenfold. What if Sung Gyu forgot to pick up our daughter from school as well? What if he accidentally left her behind in the park, in a shopping aisle, at the doctors, waiting in one of those plastic chairs in an empty corridor, small and vulnerable and confused. Would I be able to forgive him then? Like he would forget where he’d last put his flash drive?

My mum wanted me to talk to him again. Not now, she said. Not tonight. “Talk to him when you feel better” she advised me warmly, her hand on my arm. “There’s probably more to it than we think”

But I believed otherwise. With his constant blamings and insensible accusations, I didn’t think he had any other problem except for a new found resentment that he had started developing towards me. It wasn’t the first time that he accused me of stealing his work, or for putting something he owned somewhere else as if I intentionally played with his mind. It was either me or Missus Lee who had lost his important documents, and he was always irritated at something or the other, as if the sheer existence of us was the centre of all his problems. Sometimes he’d walk into a room and just stand there, looking around as if he had been put there against his own will, or tell me the same things again and again until I was tired of hearing him. He was bringing work frustration and venting it out on me, blowing things out of proportion on his own. There was nothing else to the problem than there already was, and I was done.

“Where are you going to go?” He asked me for a second time that night as I haphazardly threw my clothes into a suitcase. Shirts, pants, underwear, everything else that I need. I had already answered him once and I didn’t think there needed to be a second time. But he was getting impatient again, pushing the same question on and on until I gave in.

“To mum’s” I replied for a second time and dropped the bag by my feet. “I’m going to mum’s okay? Yulhee and I would be much happier staying over at mum’s. She’d be safer at least, nobody’s going to forget her and leave her behind”

Sombreness clouded his face, then deep apology and remorse. Yet there was nothing he could do to make me stay, nothing that could make me forgive him now, and he probably knew this too.

“I just….I just forgot, Eunji, I don’t know how or why….but I swear it won’t happen again” He told me, but the uncertainty in his voice at that moment was more than enough implication that they were not words he intended to keep. “It won’t happen again”

“You would say exactly that when it does” I shot back, crouched down on the ground and proceeded to arrange my shirts at the bottom of the bag. When they slipped and messed up, when my hands shook and eyes blurred, I gave up trying. I turned to him. “How can I possibly trust you with my child, oppa? What if you left her behind at school? At a park? At a grocery store?”

“You know I would never do that” He replied sternly, and I could see that determination as well, as he gently caressed the hair of our daughter who was sound asleep in his arms. There was regret, there was also uncertainty. The man that sat on my bed, gazing down at the child we’d made together was not the same man that I had known and loved. He would never have that wavering tone to his voice, he would never be so forgetful, irresponsible. He had changed so much and I didn’t think I could trust him anymore. 

“I don’t know, oppa, I don’t know” I went on as I proceeded to fill the bag with whatever I could find. “I don’t even know if I know you anymore. You’re not the same, and I don’t know how I felt about that” He was quiet even as I rambled on, even as I stood up and returned from the bathroom, all my toiletries in a travel bag. I dropped it in together with the rest of the clothes I’d packed, and once done, feeling no energy left in my body anymore, I slumped down onto the carpet floor.

It scared me, the possibilities, the bleak, darkened future that lay ahead. What had become of us? How did it happen? When did it happen? What would we do now? Had it been only him and me, this parting would have been so much easier. I would have simply packed my bags and walked away with no future to think about. But with Yulhee, everything became more complicated than just packing up and leaving. Where would we go from here? What would we do? The questions filled up my mind, possibilities endless, one worse than the next. I looked up and gazed at my little family, my husband, my daughter, and felt a sharp stab in my heart.

“Do you think we can carry on like this?” I found myself asking in the end. I wasn’t sure whom the question was directed to, if it was him or myself. But Sung Gyu looked at me, his eyes opaque, lips in a firm line. He heaved a long breath and stared down at Yulhee as her soft, dark hair slipped between his fingertips.

“What do you want to do, Eunji?” He asked me after a while. I felt a skip in my heart, a cold shill under my skin. When he looked up and met my eyes, I didn’t know what to say? What did I want? Was there really anything that I wanted?

Deep, deep down in my heart, I already knew what decision I had made. A better, happier life, with or without him. Just happier.

“Anything that makes things better” I replied after a sharp breath.

He nodded, looked away and allowed silence to come between us. We had fought like this before; many, many times. He had demanded that I left him alone and I had slammed doors on his face. He had picked up his keys and driven away to god knows where, I had gone to my lover while at work and made myself feel anything but that guilt and resentment, pretending to be anyone but myself. Yet we had never gone to this length, we had never gone to the length of talking...possibilities, and now it terrified me.

“Where would you go?” Sung Gyu asked, yet again, for a third time. I didn’t lose my temper because I understood his words in a different sense now. It wasn’t only where Yulhee and I would go in person, where we would stay, where we would live. What direction of life was I about to take from this point, was what he wanted to know. A part of me already knew the answer to this as well, while the other part was still in denial, hoping for a change.

I shrugged, played with the strings of the carpet. “To mum’s” I replied once more. “We will live at mum’s”

“And then?” He pushed on.

“I don’t know,” I sincerely replied. “Frankly, oppa, I really don’t know. All I know is that I want to leave right now, I don’t want to be here with you. I would go to mum’s, I would think about it, then I would come back and tell you what I think”

There was silence as he nodded and absorbed the sense of my words. There was that elephant in the room that we both refused to acknowledge at that time, for even talking about it would complicate things even further. For now, separate ways would have to be done, staying away from each other was the only way to give our minds and hearts time and space to heal. I needed that, perhaps Sung Gyu did too. When we both felt it was time, whenever it may be, we would probably talk again, we would probably figure out what the rest of our journey was. 

I picked myself up again in his silence, went to Yulhee’s bedroom and packed a bag of her things. I hadn’t thought it would be the hardest part of our seperation. Every part of her room carried something of great sentiment from our better days. Yulhee was the quintessence of our love and life together. She carried all our hopes and dreams in her tiny clenched hands, in the stars in her eyes, in the joy of her smile. The time before her was us counting the days to finally see her, hold her and shower her with all the love that we had. I could still remember vividly as ever the smile on his lips, the glimmer in his eyes the moment we found out we were about to become parents. It shaped and defined our lives entirely; becoming parents, becoming family, a unit, a team. Four years ago I wouldn’t have even dreamed of this becoming the fate of us, parting ways after a few happy years and unhappy months together.

When I returned from Yulhee’d bedroom, Sung Gyu was no longer lying in bed with her. I panicked momentarily, imagining he had forgotten her and wandered off again. I sat on our bed beside her where his scent still lingered and took in my hand the smaller one of hers. Relief settled in only after I heard him in the bathroom, the sound of his feet as he crossed his way into the closet. I did not know what he was planning, what he was trying to do. When he finally stepped out of the closet, his silk pajamas replaced by jeans and a beat old T-shirt, I wasn’t too sure what I felt. He stared at me across the room, his eyes gleaming behind his wire framed glasses. A part of me still recognised him as the man who once loved me. But there was not enough conviction left, not enough reason to love, to stay. I hope he understood this too.

“Stay, Eunji” he told me, giving a faintest sad smile. “Stay here with Yulhee, I will leave instead”

I couldn’t find my words; it was a turn of events that I hadn’t expected. In my silence, he proceeded to take things out of my bag. He was quiet as he filled a bag of his own, taking things out of the drawers, the cupboards, rolling them up and filling the space in the bag. He appeared mindless, as if he was unsure what he was doing. I wasn’t sure what purpose he had in taking rolls of silk ties if he wasn’t taking any suits or dress shirts, nor could I bring myself to ask him. He was annoyed when he couldn’t find proper pairs of socks, and opted to toss in just a pair or two into his bag. A pair of sneakers followed, and then his own bag of toiletries. It was a while before he stepped out into the room again, a heavily packed duffle bag in hand, a cap on his head, a jacket on his arm. It didn’t feel any different from the times he had left the country for work, and a part of me expected him to come back home again, just like he did after all those trips, carrying a little momentum or two from his journeys for me to cherish.

“Where will you go?” I asked him as he dropped his things at his feet. He merely shrugged, said nothing else before he crouched down on the ground, reaching close enough so he could kiss his daughter goodbye.

Sung Gyu loved Yulhee. She was his world, she was his everything. He spent the most time with her as I had longer hours at work, and he raised her beautifully, perfectly in a way that I knew I couldn’t. I knew that he hadn’t meant to do what he had done. Sung Gyu would never intentionally forget her, leave her behind. Even as he prepared himself to leave her again, which he hadn’t done for a very, very long time, my heart constricted with pain. Yulhee would miss him. She would run all over the house, calling for him, sit hours in his office, scribbling on things that he would never complain about, waiting for him to return and carry her in his arms again. I wouldn’t know what to tell her after this, or how to. The knot that formed in my throat was hard to swallow when he moved away. There was moisture in his eyes when he laid a hand in her hair.

“I’ll call you” I told him quietly, words that carried little sense. He nodded, didn’t meet my eyes and picked up his bags. I tried not to think too much about the time that laid ahead of me. Instead, I tried to retrace my way back in time. I was twenty five again, Sung Gyu had come to stay over in my flat for the weekend and he was going away, flying off to another conference, a part of another delegation which would talk about ruling the world. He would come back to me after a week, his eyes still brilliant, his smile still warm, he would present to me a bundle of silken scarves, a little iron replica of the eiffel tower, candles that was scented of roses from far east, worlds that I had never known to exist, and we would be fine again, we would be fine. It was all that I could wish for.

Long after he had gone, I stayed in our bedroom, crying quietly into my arms. A part of me had waited for this to happen just so that weight would be taken off my shoulders. I hated all the fighting, I hated the harsh words that was all we had to exchange. We didn’t kiss anymore, we didn’t hug or make love anymore. We were becoming complete strangers, bound by obligations and the responsibility of a child that we both loved. Deep inside, I knew it was just for the best that we went separate ways, for his sake, for mine, for our child’s. But I hadn’t thought of the part where I wasn’t prepared to take that leap. I never was. I had never imagined a life without him. Now that it had happened, a part of my heart was ripped away, and so I cried out that pain and remorse, holding onto lost hopes. 

Once I had cried and cried, I did rounds around the flat, I went on to clean up the dinner that we haven’t even had. Without Sung Gyu, I hadn’t the appetite to eat anymore, therefore I transferred everything into tupperware boxes and stored them to be eaten the next day. It was when I pulled the small compartment to store the grilled chicken that I found it, left in the cold, frozen and forgotten; Sung Gyu’s missing flash drive in the fridge.

♡♡♡

“I bet he’s cheating on you,” said Hyejoo as she slipped into the cushioned seat beside me. We were at lunch after long hours of work, seated in one of the food court restaurants of Seobuk Commercial towers, the one that we frequently visited and also sold apparently the best bibimbap of the town. I preferred the dish as it was Sung Gyu’s favorite, representing the days from his hometown, and all things considered, the restaurant did serve a fairly scrumptious bibimbap, just to fit my taste.

I looked at Hyejoo, at the way she concentratedly mixed her lunch while I merely played around with my own. Hyejoo was the only friend I had among the hundreds of colleagues that I worked with. Assigned into different papers and different divisions, it was no easy feat to find someone whose mind was parallel to mine. I wouldn't say that Hyejoo and I had brains and thought processes identical to each other; in fact, she was often the complete contrast of me. But the two of us got along fine. She also worked in the celebrity section of one of the women’s magazines the company managed, so she was also my daily source of secretive juicy celebrity news.

“What made you think so?” I asked her cautiously. I hadn’t had the same doubt about Sung Gyu, I never did. Sung Gyu was the kind of man who’d charm anybody just so easily, yet wouldn’t be easily charmed. And if there was anyone cheating anyone in our relationship, that most undoubtedly would be me, which Hyejoo didn’t really know.

“Simple” Hyejoo started, in her eyes was an impression that seemed to say I should have always known. “If guys are always distracted and forget things like birthdays and anniversaries all the time, then boom! You have it. They have other things to worry about”

Sung Gyu did have other things to worry about, a lot of things; like the continuing rivalry between the two koreas and his student’s upcoming exams. He and I never really cared about birthdays and anniversaries, they always came and went like any other day. 

I stared at my food thoughtfully, entertaining her assumptions anyway and shook my head. “It's not a birthday or an anniversary that he forgot, Hyejoo-Ssi, it was his daughter” I replied, albeit with a heavy heart. The events from last night were yet to fully sink into my mind. As of now I was just convinced that Sung Gyu was on just another work trip,  giving speeches on world politics to a curious multinational crowd.

“Maybe he was out with a lady friend,” Hyejoo pushed on with her illicit affair agenda. “Maybe they were doing the kind of things that they do, you know, and he forgot”

I just shook my head. It was hard to imagine the stern, polite and forever professional Sung Gyu engaged in a secret affair. That was just unlike him, and I was surprised by my own confidence in him. It was as if the very act of ‘Infidelity’ was never in his list of things to do.

“I don’t know…” I told her in the end, or to myself, perhaps, with a deep sigh. The weight of the broken marriage was heavy on my shoulders, keeping me chained to one spot, rolling in my mind like a broken wheel. I thought I would finally feel better when I had left him, but the repercussions made me even more upset. 

“It’s just...him, you know” I went on, staring at the burnt rice that remained stuck to the bottom of the stone pot. “I understand that he was doing no easy job. It's not just one job to begin with, it was a lot of things and maybe the stress is finally taking a toll on him…” I lifted my head and looked at my only friend. “But is it even fair, Hyejoo-Ssi? My job isn’t easy either, but he’s the only one taking it out on me”

Hyejoo took a mouthful and looked at me with sympathetic eyes. “Maybe you should take it on him too, you know, do the exact same things that he did”

“He says I steal his work for mine” I went on, still feeling incensed by his accusations. “He works in international politics, so I guess he thought it was kind of work that a reporter would feel inclined to steal”

When Hyujoo stared down at me, there was a glint of innocent curiosity in her eyes. 

“What?” I asked her.

“Haven’t you, like, ever wanted to steal anything from him?” She proceeded to ask me. “You know, for someone who worked in that arena, your husband must be exposed to lots of material that would make up a really good story”

If I was to be completely honest, there had been no instance where I had felt that way. His work was important just as mine, yet there hardly came a point where they intervened in our household. We were two individuals engaged in two individual careers, both successful and content in them. In that sense, I could never begin to understand how that whole assumption had come into his mind.

“No, not really” I let out a heavy sigh. “He work hard for his research, I did the same for mine...I have no idea why he felt what he did, but I had genuinely never really felt that way”

Hyejoo had a long drink of water, staring at me over the rim of her glass all the while. She set it down on the coaster and gave me a long look. “It makes no sense really,” Hyejoo told me with a slow shake of her head. “Yours sounds like the perfect marriage to a perfect husband with a perfect child. How could that possibly end up this way? This is making me question, is love even real?” She stared ahead, out at the busy corridors, at strangers passing by, “Nothing about this makes sense to me, Unnie, nothing”

Hyejoo’s words rang in my head for the entirety of the day. She was right, although I wouldn’t say so to her myself. Nothing about our ending marriage made sense, as if it wasn’t supposed to end. Anyone who’d have seen our love story unfold from a third eye would never believe it if I told them that we’d decided to go separate ways. They wouldn’t take it very well in the first instance, would have a hundred different questions and still wouldn’t accept that we had begun nonsensical fights. 

Sung Gyu and I had known each other for a very long time. We first met at a college symposium, still university students, still bright and young and happy, and we found solace and contentment within each other. We did have our ups and downs like any long-term dating couple, but none to the extent of breaking our relationship. We were always civil enough to talk things through and attempt to understand the different perspectives, remaining together until things worked out on their own. More often than not, they actually did, and every argument we’d had would be a memory long lost in our past. How would it make sense then? That we could no longer tolerate each other? How would it make sense then? Even after we had had a child?

The thoughts rang in my mind so much that I wasn’t even feeling it in my secret little rendezvous in the archives that afternoon, as my lover traced my shoulder with his lips. I had realised by then that this ploy of mine probably played a bigger part in breaking our relationship, but I still haven’t figured out how I really felt about that. I needed this, I needed whatever that my lover and I were having no matter how twisted and disgusting it was. With him, I could feel more of myself. With him, I felt content. He was able to give me the things that Sung Gyu now seemed to be incapable of delivering, and therefore I was selfishly demanding for more.

He stopped at the point he realised that I was too distracted to enjoy his company that day. He pulled up the straps of my undergarments, buttoned my shirt and held my face in his hands. He kissed me, his lips tenderly fumbling mine, but I couldn’t even kiss him back. Something was stopping me, something that I didn’t even know. He asked me if I was doing alright, and there was only so much I could say in response. Was I really alright? Doing this? Hiding away? Making love to a man who barely even knew me? I realised then, that I might carry this increasing weight for the rest of this course, not an end in sight.

When I returned home that evening, to say that I was baffled was an understatement. I was nonplussed, yet there was nothing that I could possibly say. The husband that had packed up a bag and left me the previous night was inside our home again, with our daughter sitting beside him, watching the olympics opening ceremony together. He had a conference that afternoon, this I knew. But how he had decided to return home after that was beyond me. I couldn’t even question him about this, not in Yulhee and Missus Lee’s company. 

I gave Sung Gyu a curious look who appeared unperturbed and indifferent, who just waved at me to acknowledge my presence and informed Yulhee that ‘omma’ was home. Watching the Olympics opening ceremony with Yulhee was exactly the kind of thing I would have expected from the Sung Gyu I knew, and it was almost as if nothing had changed.

“When did my husband come home?” I asked Missus Lee in a lowly tone as I joined her at the kitchen counter. She was busy preparing dinner for us, and was fairly surprised to see me return home early.

“Not very long ago, miss,” Missus Lee replied.

“Did he...did he tell you anything? Or bring a large bag with him?” I pushed on cautiously, looking at the two in front of the TV in case they heard me whispering away.

“No, not really. He didn’t have a bag with him” Missus Lee looked over at me, confused. “Why would you ask, Miss?”

I glanced over at Sung Gyu who was animatedly talking to Yulhee, and felt dread gnawing at me. It wasn’t likely that he’d return home just like that after he left since what could have been the biggest fall out in our lives. All I could assume was that he had come in peace with himself and maybe intended to have the talk with me later today. Maybe he had missed Yulhee too much and wanted to see the opening with her before he told her of our parting and told her goodbye. It was nothing that I could question while the mood in the house was like this. It was an ambiance so pleasant that I couldn’t possibly bring myself to destroy, as if for once, we had gone back to being ourselves again.

I went on to change from my work clothes, and when I stepped out, on the TV in the olympics opening ceremony, countries and their sportsmen had started to pour out with their flags. Missus Lee was busy grating carrots and potatoes which I took over from her, and with a warmly inflated heart, I watched my daughter from across the floor.

At the tender age of four years old, Yulhee was incredibly quick witted and intelligent. She spoke well worded and complete sentences, with not a hint of mispronunciation, incredibly articulate and knew a little too much of the world than a child her age ideally should. She grew up with Sung Gyu, the renowned International Politics scholar of a father so it was no surprise that she had an ample amount of knowledge about the world that she lived in. Even at that moment as country after country came out with their flags held high, excited little Yulhee was able to recognise many of them, yet many she got wrong too which her father would gently correct for her.

“That’s China!” Yulhee exclaimed as the easily recognizable red flag with yellow markings passed, and was delighted by herself when the announcer confirmed her finding.

“Good girl!” Sung Gyu cheered for her and handed her a peeled piece of apple that he’d been cutting for her. “Did you know that China is the country with the most number of people in the world?”

“I do!” Yulhee replied. “It's millions and billions and trillions!” She demonstrated the size with her arms held wide, which made Sung Gyu laugh, and my heart dropped, unable to laugh along with him.

“It's One-point-four billion. Do you know how big that is, Yulhee?”

Yulhee gaspd and looked up at him curiously, interested to learn something more. “One point four Billion! That is a lot of people!” She exclaimed.

“A lot” Sung Gyu agreed and wiped the apple stains from her cheek. “And do you know another country that has a lot of people?”

Yulhee looked up at her father curiously, a piece of apple held to her lips. She probably knew this too, at least she would get close enough. While parents of other children of her age sat them down and played cartoons and video games, Sung Gyu watched the world news with her, taught her things of every part of the world that little Yulhee, bless her heart, would eagerly absorb like a sponge. I didn’t know if she would grow up the same way, if she would remember these things that she learned when she was old enough to learn things on her own. But right now, with how her father had raised her, Yulhee had grown up to be a brilliant child.

“Umm…” Yulhee went on, distractedly staring at the TV as a few lesser known countries passed by. “Korea!” She replied.

“Well, Korea does have a lot of people too,” Sung Gyu accepted her response without trying to change her mind. “But you know what country has just as many people as China?”

An unrecognizable flag passed by, one that Sung Gyu probably knew. Yulhee shook her head.

“India,” Sung Gyu replied. “India has a lot of people too. Just as many as China does”

Knowing this new fact delighted her, so much so that she screamed the name of the country on top of her lungs, giggled and laughed as Sung Gyu laughed along with her. That was the Sung Gyu I knew and recognised, and the weight of my heart grew even further that I couldn’t bear watching him anymore. I picked up the grated carrots and potato and made my way towards the kitchen cabinets again.

“Oh, there comes another flag, what is that?” Sung Gyu was asking as I went.

“Mm…” Yulhee hummed thoughtfully and I stopped to look over at the TV. 

“Prance?” Yulhee exclaimed

It was an easily recognizable flag, and Yulhee had indeed gotten close. 

Sung Gyu appreciated her attempt, caressed her head.

“Good try, sweetheart but that’s-,” He started, but then, all of a sudden, silence. 

I waited for Sung Gyu to correct her, waiting to hear that warm, tender way he would teach her things that she would promptly absorb to her little mind. But to my surprise, he didn’t continue from there. Sung Gyu just stared at the TV, his eyes widened and opaque, lips parted, completely bewildered as if his world had glitched. I crossed the room towards them as mild panic settled in and Yulhhe stared at her father expectantly, waiting for him to respond.

But he didn’t. For some  strange reason, he couldn’t. It was impossible, and it may have been that I was imagining it, but….it was almost as if Sung Gyu couldn’t recognise the flag. Kim Sung Gyu, advisor in International Security, scholar in International Politics and with years of experience travelling the entire world talking about peace and power, couldn’t recognise the German flag.

“Appa?” Yulhee called out in a quiet tone, and in that very instance, the TV announced the country as well. 

“Oh…” Yulhee pressed her hands to , a little disappointed that they couldn’t beat the announcer. “Is that Germany, appa?”

Sung Gyu seemed to come to, but the sheer excitement in his eyes was no more. Instead there was confusion, trepidation, even as he looked down at his child, completely muted that I had to intervene and answer for him.

“Yes it is, Yulhee, it’s Germany”

Sung Gyu turned around and looked over at me, and for once, I saw a look on his face that I barely recognised. Was it fear? Was it uncertainty? I couldn’t really tell. Whatever it was, it had everything to do with the flag that he couldn’t recognise, and I didn’t know what I could say.

By dinner, things seemed to have settled down a bit. Sung Gyu was quiet, yet he was more or less back to himself. The opening ceremony had long ended and Missus Lee had left to catch the next bus home. It was bright and loud in the dining table as Yulhee jovially enthralled her parents with tales from kindergarten. Sung Gyu asked her questions, Yulhee most willingly answered. She could work her training chopsticks and spoons very well and managed to eat on her own. She had quite an appetite, which I was really happy about. She politely asked for more servings that Sung Gyu would serve for her, deboned the fried fish for her and prompted her to wipe her cheek when she messed up. Yulhee was an independent child like that.

And all through this, I carefully watched them. I watched him, specifically, his meticulous and tender fatherly ways. He had brought up Yulhee wonderfully. Anyone who’d met her for the first time was baffled by her wit and her charm, and I took pride in telling them that she took after her father, and she indeed did. What would happen if I were to raise her without him? I found myself wondering as that same heavyweight settled in the bottom of my heart. Would I be able to manage that? Would Yulhee still continue to be the same? She was just four, she was learning from what she saw, what she was told, and the moment her mentor and surroundings changed, she would change too, and I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted. Maybe for her I could stay in an unhappy marriage, try not to get agitated by his sudden erratic bursts. But, as it appeared now, it wasn’t all that I had to think about.

Something has shifted, something has changed, and drastically as well which has shaken me to the core. I tried not to think too much about the German flag. It could be nothing, it had to be nothing. People, even the smartest ones who worked with countries and flags every day probably forgot them too. Sung Gyu did have so much in his mind; he had conferences to prepare for and attend to, papers and books to write, researches to present, students to teach, organizations to consult for. Working in his field, I supposed, anyone was bound to get such sudden glitches of mind, sometimes I did too, and that had to be fine. But nothing explained the flash drive that I had found in the freezer last night. Nothing did, no matter how many times I tried.

After we were done with the meal, Yulhee announced that she wanted to go to bed, and Sung Gyu accompanied her. On the days that I worked late, it was him who usually did it for her. His work was mostly stationed at home and was flexible unless there were places where he had to be, while a number of conferences and discussions he did from home, on his computer, wearing half a smart suit. So it was routined for him to help Yulhee to bed, and I believed it was something he enjoyed too.

It was strange, and I hated it. I was seeing more and more reasons not to leave him while I had an equal inclination to leave. The day had been odd for me, from beginning to the end, from the emotional rollercoaster of waking up the day after my husband and I had separated, to coming home to find him here again. We didn’t talk about it yet, we hadn’t had the chance to. What had me wondering, however, was how indifferent he appeared in my presence whereas I expected him to be awkward and perturbed whenever he had to speak to me. I took the fall out last night badly enough that every time he looked at me, a part of me died inside. All through that, how could he sit across from me on the table and appear as if nothing even happened?

I was by the kitchen sink, simultaneously  cleaning the dishes and laying them out in the dryer when Sung Gyu quietly crept out of Yulhee’s room. Yulhee was a heavy sleeper, and fell asleep with no trouble at all, something I supposed she had gotten from me. I remained quiet, trying not to notice his presence as he approached me in the kitchen. I couldn’t see his face, I couldn’t feel his movements nor read his thoughts. Yet, I expected him to apologise, bring up last night again, tell me the reason why he decided to return without a word. Yet, none of it came. Instead, he wordlessly joinet in washing and drying the dishes, me washing them, him laying them out in the dryer. I held my heart in my throat, an impossible calm before the storm until we were down to the last dish. He closed the dishwasher, turned it on as I dried my hands on a kitchen towel. I was moving slowly across the kitchen floor, waiting for Sung Gyu to start the conversation. I despised the silence, I despised the waiting. But Sung Gyu wasn’t someone who did quick and impulsive much, not to the extent that I did. The perks of his job had made him meticulous and calculative. It was when I had idly looked into the fridge and picked up a bottle of water for the lack of better things to do, that Sung Gyu finally spoke to me.

“I have something to tell you, before I forget,” he started, and my heart leapt to my throat. I realised I’d much rather not bring it up again, moved on like it never happened until it happened again.

“Yes?” I called and had a long slug of water. Sung Gyu leaned against the kitchen counter, his fingers curled against the dark marble, and he regarded me over the rim of his specs. It occured to me in a flash, then. Sung Gyu didn’t look like someone who’s about to talk about why he’d returned to the wife he had once decided to leave.

“It's nothing serious, really” He shrugged, and my heart calmed a little just for a moment, before it spiked up again. I had so many questions, so many, yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask even one.

“Okay” I sighed. “Go on”

“I met Dong Woo at the conference today, do you remember Dong Woo? My friend from college?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. There were thousand scenarios that I had imagined he was going to talk to me about, everything along the line of him and me, everything along the line of our marriage that stood at a knife's edge. The last thing I expected him to bring up was his long time best mate.

What about last night? I wanted to scream at his face on the top of my lungs. Last night when we decided to separate? Have you really forgotten it or are we pretending it never happened?

Yet, as much as I wanted to bring our break up to the surface again, I couldn’t bring myself to. Sung Gyu had his eyes on me, expectant and waiting for my words. It was very rare that he looked at me like this, and whenever he did, I just didn’t want him to stop. Last night be damned, I thought and I played along with him.

“Dong Woo? Yeah, I remember him” I replied and put the bottle back inside the fridge. “How is he doing?”

“Yeah he’s doing great” Sung Gyu nodded with a tight smile. “It was nice meeting him again, after all this time”

Silence fell afterwards as we both stared at each other for a while. I couldn’t help noticing things about him, things that I hadn’t realised before. I thought about what Hyejoo had told me that afternoon and tried to relate that behaviour to the Sung Gyu I had here now. Was he really cheating on me? Did he really have another woman in his life? Was that why he forgot to pick up Yulhee from my mum’s? Was that why I found his lost flash drive with important documents in the freezer? Why did he never bring up our break up again and even momentarily forgot the German flag?

Just how badly distracted one could get by a secret love affair that they’d forget things to the extent that he did? As someone who was in fact cheating on my spouse for real, I couldn’t even begin to find that relation, and it worried me. Whatever it was, for certain, Sung Gyu was not cheating on me, although a part of me wished it was the truth.

I couldn’t bear the silence for even longer, for he wasn’t initiating what he had probably meant to say. So I started it out for him.

“So, what did he say, Dong Woo?”

It seemed to have lightened a bulb in his mind. He looked lost for a flash a second, and he knocked a wrist cutely on his head. “Oh right, yes. He just sent a message to remind me. He’s moving to Canada, apparently. He’d gotten a fellowship there. Since he’s leaving soon he wanted to invite us out for a meal”

He had received a text that reminded him. That was why he had talked to me about it. I didn’t know why that gave me a sense of apprehension, what about his words, his behaviour had stood out as odd to me, but I continued to go along with him.

“That’s lovely! Great opportunity for him” I tried to smile. “Where is he inviting us to? And when? I have to see if I could take the time out to meet him”

“About that” He winced and twisted his clenched fist, something that he did so often when he was embarrassed, when he was uncertain what to say. “Well, he had sold his flat and he’s staying with his in-laws, as it happened. So I invited him for dinner at ours, tomorrow night” He looked down at me. “Would that be fine? I already told Missus Lee”

I shrugged, giving him the green lights with a smile. I first met Dong Woo before back when we were still dating during college days. He was loud and bright and always happy, and he didn’t change much as a working adult, always happy and considerate. He was one of Sung Gyu's closest friends before work and life obligations drifted them apart, so I was actually quite happy that they were meeting again.

“As long as Missus Lee is cooking” I told him, and my heart dropped when he smiled. 

I didn’t know what had happened, if he’d genuinely put it behind for Yulhee or if he had actually, genuinely forgotten it. The latter had no explanation whatsoever, not one that sounded rational at least. So I made up my own stories, made up my own excuses. Sung Gyu was finally making an effort then, to keep our marriage afloat, and I appreciated that. Although not much had changed, although we would most certainly decline at some again, for now, it was fine.

Sung Gyu cleaned up the rest of the counter as I quietly wiped the table top. We were done for the day, we would hit the covers soon, to wake up to another uncertain day. Before that, I remembered, I still had one more thing to do. It was still on top of the refrigerator, exactly where I left it. Sung Gyu was wiping his hands off a kitchen towel when I approached him.

“Here, I found this” I told him as I opened my palm. He looked at my hand, then back up at me. “Where did you find it?”

I lifted his hand and laid the drive in his palm. “The meat compartment in the refrigerator”

When he looked at me, I saw it. That confusion, that panic and that fear cross his eyes again. He looked genuinely bewildered as if things were happening in his life without even his knowledge. I didn’t know what it meant, or why, or how it had happened. But the incident with our break up, with Yulhee,  the German flag and the flash drive has started ringing warning signals in my head.

That something just didn’t feel right.