When I returned home that evening, I felt like I was partially floating on my feet. Woohyun’s words had wrapped themselves around my brain, and that somehow planted that seed of needing to leave my husband again. There were the doubts of course, so many of them. It was something about Sung Gyu’s erratic behavior, everything that had happened the past few days and then Yulhee. There were so many things that seemed to be begging for me to stay while many others were still giving me reasons to leave. And that day, at the foot of the door to our flat, I found yet another. Another reason to stay, another reason to leave

Sung Gyu was by our front door, smartly dressed, his suitcase dropped at his feet. The first thing I noticed was the frown in his brows, and how he continuously entered the passcode which he must have typed in million times for the past six years. That familiar uneasiness was stirring in my heart again, and I had to fight the urge to intervene and make him stop. But there had to be a good reason why the passcode wasn’t working for him. There had to be.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him the first thing without offering to put in the number for him. It would have maddened him, and the last thing I wanted was to step inside after a fight.

“It's not working” Sung Gyu muttered, wiped the dark screen with his sleeve and haphazardly entered a number combination which was declined.

“Did you change it?” I asked him, albeit mildly lest I stepped on a bad nerve again.

“No” He replied distractedly and tried again.

“It should work, then. There is no reason why it shouldn’t”

He groaned, tutted under his breath and when his next attempt did not work, Sung Gyu lost his patience. 

I shifted on my feet and gazed up at him in trepidation. It was the German flag all over again, the flash drive in the fridge. The growing sense of dread that I had about him was hard to ignore at this point. There was no other explanation to this, Sung Gyu had forgotten his pass code as well.

“Did you forget it?” I asked him, knowing fully well I was asking something I ideally shouldn’t.

He tried again and it didn’t let him in. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair as if he hadn’t even heard me.

“Oppa, did you forget it?” I tried once more, gripping my hands. He was quiet for a moment, then slowly he turned to me. The look in his eyes seemed to say it all. It was happening again.

“You changed the passcode, didn’t you?”

I stared at him, my eyes widened in bewilderment. A part of me had expected him to draw that conclusion; after all, it wasn’t even the first time, while the other part was agitated and affronted by his accusations, in complete disbelief.

“What?” I echoed, shaking my head. “Why on earth would I?”

“Well, why doesn’t it work then?”

“Because you obviously put in the wrong pass code!” I fought back and moved his hand away from the door. “It's One-nine-eight-four, your birth year!” I punched the numbers in demonstration, and ever so easily, the lock came undone. 

I looked up at him, searching in his gaze for that flames of anger and accusations. He stared back, and in his eyes was something that I hadn’t expected, something that made my heart pain. 

It was that expression yet again, the way that he had looked at me when he realised he couldn’t recognise the German flag. Whatever it was, it had happened again; his brain stopped, it had glitched, it had skipped and he’d felt it too. You’re stressed. I wanted to tell him. You’re just frustrated. I thought back to what my mother had said the other day. Little, little things. He messed up just little, little things; and one day, it would all go away.

Missus Lee was already inside, cooking up a storm, the dining table already set for the guests. I had had so much in my mind that I’d forgotten we were hosting a dinner for Sung Gyu’s long time best friend. I wondered if he had forgotten this too, for some reason, but he thankfully hadn’t. He muttered something or the other about ‘Dong Woo going to be there soon’ as he hurried his way to our room to get changed. I joined Missus Lee at the kitchen, carried the dishes to the table and cleaned up as we went. By the time Sung Gyu stepped out, dressed warmly and casually for the night, I was on a call with my mum, Yulhee gleefully greeting me on the other end. 

As soon as she saw Sung Gyu emerging in my background, Yulhee let out a high pitched squeal. “Appa!”

Sung Gyu heard her voice across the room and I tried to get him into the frame as well.

“Hi, Yulhee, how are we getting on over there?”

Sung Gyu spoke to Yulhee not in the way one would talk to a four year old child. He made her feel like a friend, an equal, which made their bond even stronger.

“Grandma bought spicy tteokbokki for me and we are watching the games together!”

“That’s nice” He laughed and I tried to hold the phone even closer for him, getting him more into the frame. Yet, when he pulled me to him just so we were both fairly visible to our daughter, and when his hand remained carefully on my waist, for a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath. “How are the games going? Did we win any gold today?”

“We were watching-,” Yulhee flinched and looked at her grandmother who recalled the sport for her. “Ah right, long jump, and there was the-,”

For the next few minutes, Yulhee went on in a long account of the Olympics which she had been religiously catching up on since yesterday, and slowly, without making too much fuss, I left my phone with Sung Gyu and moved away. His hand fell from my waist, and he didn’t even look at me when he took the phone from me. It had to be the closest we had been for the past few days, not counting the times we slept in the same bed together. It felt so foreign and unfamiliar to me now, his warmth, his touch, his gaze, that it no longer gave me the comfort that he used to. I realised with a pang, then, that that comfort had been replaced by somebody else.

Somewhere into that evening, once we had finished setting things up for the night and once Missus Lee had left, the guests of the night arrived. Dong Woo had changed very little from the last time we met. His smile was just as bright, his words were still eloquent, his presence was still warm. He was accompanied by his wife, a small pleasant woman not much older than me with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes. We chatted for a bit, caught up on our lives and Sung Gyu politely led them to our neatly prepared dinner feast. 

The meal was quite pleasant where Dong Woo continued to be the life of the table. He spoke a lot, laughed so much and he even pushed Sung Gyu to serve himself more as if the role of the host and the guest had switched. Sung Gyu was of very little words although his smile remained unwavering, he had been so since the incident with the door lock. At one point, he was playing with his food, mindlessly stirring his bowl of soup as he concentrated on his friend’s words. More often than not, I was watching him, listening to him, monitoring him closely for anything else that could be amiss. In all honesty, I was unsure of what I was expecting to see. One more reason to leave, perhaps, or if he was lucky enough, one more reason to stay.

Through the main dish until dessert, we talked about work. We briefly brought up the case of the serial murder that I’ve been working on, shared thoughts and opinions, political and social perspectives, then we moved onto a different topic altoegther. We talked about the conference that Sung Gyu had been attending yesterday and today, the topics that it had been on, their discussions and new findings. At some point, they were talking about the country’s trade agreements, the pros and the cons, a whole lot of political jargon some of which I couldn’t even understand. Sung Gyu was impartial in everything and even deified Dong Woo’s claims on negative impacts of Korea’s possible trade deals with the MERCOSUR. 

As the conversation progressed, as Sung Gyu continued to express his opinion, I realised that there was something alarmingly amiss with what he was saying. MERCOSUR was, in my understanding, an open market based in South America. While Sung Gyu continued to mention its name along with the terms ‘trade’ and ‘open market’, something just didn’t seem to fall into line. Dong Woo seemed to have felt it too, coming from the renowned scholar who talked about open markets and free trade on a daily basis. It made no sense whatsoever, that Kim Sung Gyu was getting the MERCOSUR mixed up with a different free trade agreement in the ASEAN, or that Kim Sung Gyu was convinced that New Zealand was a part of the MERCOSUR. Yet Sung Gyu kept rambling on. His sentences were jumbled and disconnected, making little sense. He spoke about taxes and tariffs and ambiguous agreements while Dong Woo and his wife watched him uncomfortably, all until I took it upon myself and took a stand. Sung Gyu hadn’t realised it yet, that his brain was doing it again. I reached out and gently laid a hand on his arm. He looked up, annoyed, and I tried to smile.

“New Zealand isn’t in the MERCOSUR, oppa” I reminded him quietly, and this alone was enough to make his face dark again.

“It isn't,” Sung Gyu replied in a stern voice, finding offence in me correcting him. “But New Zealand is in the AANZFTA which was what we were talking about” He smiled, a fruitless attempt to be playful, unperturbed.  It had never really happened before. Sung Gyu didn’t mind me correcting him. He wasn’t a man like that. But the angry flicker of irritation in his eyes seemed to say otherwise, that a lot of things had certainly begun to change. 

A long moment of quietness followed, during which Sung Gyu was glaring at me, angry red flames dancing in his eyes. It was the start of something bad, I could sense it in the air around us. He was about to explode again, and we were in that crucial moment where the time slowly ticked away. I pursed my lips, gave our guests an apologetic smile and climbed up on my feet. “Well, let me clean this up so we can get some coffee ready”

“Fantastic!” Said Sung Gyu, not so much enthusiasm in his tone. I ignored him and proceeded to collect the plates.

“Oh, let me help, please,” Said Dong Woo, forever considerate even when I was adamant to let him help. I looked over at Sung Gyu for support, hoping he would politely decline his friend’s plea to help, but Sung Gyu appeared disheveled, lost in his own thoughts, blankly staring ahead. I felt the weight in my chest growing in magnitudes. However was I supposed to go on living with this? How much more do I have to suffer?

In the end, there was no putting Dong Woo off so I just let him help. His wife got Sung Gyu engaged in a conversation, scholar to scholar about both their respective PhD thesis while Dong Woo helped me by carrying the dishes to the sink.

“Dong Woo-Ssi, you don’t have to...” I tried again politely and took the plates and bowls from him.

“Oh no it’s fine” Dong Woo replied with a pleasant laughter. “Dad of the family, I do it all the time!”

I gave him a smile in return, thankful for his kind words. I glanced at Sung Gyu behind me, distractedly engaged in a conversation, nodding and shaking his head as he responded to the other. He was the dad of the family too, one that took his role to his heart. He never left me to do things on my own. We partnered, we shared our work. Right now, although he was still pretty much all of that, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was now living with a stranger.

“Hyung was telling  me that you have a daughter now” Dong Woo started conversationally as he pulled his sleeves up, ready to help. “We haven’t been able to meet each other for so long, it's hard to believe we haven’t spoken for five years!”

I gave him a tight smile. Sung Gyu wasn’t the most sociable man out there. Because of the perks of his work, always traveling, never in the same place, it was hard for him to keep a friend. “We do have a daughter now, yes. She’s four years old now”

I pulled out my phone and showed him my wallpaper, a photograph of the three of us, squashed together under an umbrella in the snow. It was from last January when Sung Gyu was only slightly better than now. Dong Woo took the phone and looked at us closely. I panicked for a moment, worried that he’d see right through our pretentious smiles. He handed it back to me.

“She’s just about the age of our second son” He replied. “He’s three and a half. The oldest is five”

“You have two children?” I asked him enviously, to which he responded with a chuckle. “Both boys, little rascals,” A fond smile appeared on his lips as he carefully placed the plates in the dryer. “But they become your whole world, don’t they? It's funny children come out of nowhere...and they just change your whole life”

I couldn’t agree more, and I told him just that. Before Sung Gyu and I had Yulhee, we had deep and long conversations about children. He wasn’t certain in the beginning as he was yet to complete his PhD. He was also involved in diplomatic work which meant he had a lot of traveling to do. In the end, we decided to let life take its course. The first time was a failure, ending with a miscarriage at just four weeks; the second time was about a year or more later, when I conceived Yulhee as a surprise. Our lives did indeed change after then. Sung Gyu had his own little daughter to teach all the marvels in the world to, and I had one more person to worry about. The first two years were of many ups and downs; taking care of her on my own, hospital visits, child rearing and tackling a full time job at the same time. But I had to say that Sung Gyu was immensely supportive throughout that time, taking raising his daughter as his biggest priority. I didn’t know when things started changing since then, or how. But right now they just weren’t the same, leaving us no hope of a second child.

We were quiet for a while afterwards, and Dong Woo helped me with fetching mugs for the coffee as if he was not the guest but the host. I tried again to send him back to his friend, continue their conversations, but something about Dong Woo’s adamance seemed to say something, as if we had something more to talk about.

And it came when I had started pouring hot coffee into the mugs.

“Eunji-Ssi,” Dong Woo called me and moved closer, as if we were to talk of something that he intended to keep between us. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something”

Something about his tone made my heart tighten. “Go on, Dong Woo-Ssi” I replied.

He looked at his wife and Sung Gyu over his shoulder who were now on Sung Gyu’s laptop computer, talking about something seemingly important. He turned back to me.

“Sung Gyu hyung, does he take medication for anything?”

I furrowed my brows, baffled by the unexpected question. I had thought he was going to ask me about a palpably deranged married life, but he wasn’t. 

“He doesn’t,” I shook my head. Except for vitamins and supplements which he often forgot to take, there was no other medication that he was on. 

“Then...then any head injuries that he had?”

I was growing overly concerned at this point, I shook my head.

Dong Woo nodded. “Then maybe he’s having personal troubles at work or home…”

It was evident that Sung Gyu may be having troubles of both kinds. Yet I wasn’t about to admit that to his friend whom we hadn’t met in five years. 

“Why-why would you ask?” Therefore I questioned him cautiously.

Dong Woo shook his head. “No, it’s just…” He hesitated, looked down at his hands. “When we met at the conference the other day, he had trouble remembering how to operate his phone, you know, how to save my number, how to make a call...I thought it was just a momentary thing, but then-,” He heaved a sharp breath and looked up at me. “When he was doing his speech at the conference, he got stuck in the middle, he couldn’t remember his words. It's not unusual, of course. It happens to the best of us especially when we’re talking to a big congregation like that, but…” He wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “He then started talking about something else entirely. The speech was on recent troubles in the South China sea, but then he was suddenly talking about Operation Gratitude in 1945. He went 75 years back in time”

The awful familiarity of the events that I had faced myself were blaring warning signals in my mind. Then it had been not only me who had noticed his odd behaviour, it had been not only at home. I haven’t thought about it much in terms of work, for I was under the impression that all the troubles he had at work he was bringing home, stewing and bubbling away in his mind, being the root cause of his constant frustration. But there was only so much that I had witnessed of his state myself. 

I had this sudden inclination to tell him everything that I had seen as well; the flash drive, the german flag, the passcode and him never bringing up the time we went separate ways. I looked up at Dong Woo, saw the concern in his eyes and I didn’t know what I really felt about it. If it was due to struggles at home, what could I possibly do? If it was about work, there was only so much that could be done on my part. There was so much that I wanted to tell Dong Woo, the only other person who had witnessed the odd behaviour of my husband. But the time and the place just wasn’t right. Soon, Sung Gyu was calling me across the kitchen floor, asking if the coffee was ready, and that was that.

Dong Woo and I didn’t get to talk about it afterwards. He and Sung Gyu disappeared into his study after they fetched their coffee and I made friends with Dong Woo’s wife. We talked about our children and work for a while. Soon, it was sometime close to midnight, Dong Woo exited the room carrying some of Sung Gyu’s recent publications, having received free copies from the writer himself. We shared pleasantries, wished each other good luck with our lives, congratulated Dong Woo with his fellowship and before he left, Sung Gyu held Dong Woo in a long, warm embrace as if he was too dear to let go.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t talk to each other for a long time” He told him into his shoulder. “I have no excuse for that”

“It's alright, Hyung,” Dong Woo replied warmly and patted him on his back. “We’ll keep in touch now, I’ll call you when I can”

Sung Gyu laughed as he moved away. “I can’t make promises, but-,” He sighed and buried his hands in his pockets. “We’ll try”

We saw them at the door, and as we passed, Dong Woo reminded me of our previous conversation and subtly mentioned that I should keep an eye on him. That was all we could talk about, although I wished we had talked more just so I could get the insight of someone who understood the situation better. But it was only after we’d left that I came to understand it that we shouldn’t have had that conversation at all.

Sung Gyu was livid, it was all I could say. He was at it again, throwing loose words in every direction, making baseless stories and accusations, making me sound like the villain of the tale.

“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” He asked me as I stood behind the dining table, utterly bewildered. “To teach me in front of them the very thing that I had spent half my life on, do you think you’re better than me?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I replied, flabbergasted by his claim. “When did I even say anything like that?”

There wasn’t one occasion in my life that I had ever thought any less of his abilities. Sung Gyu was intelligent and capable beyond his age, and I’d always thought there wasn’t anyone more brilliant than him. I may have been often envious of him, but never had I imagined that I would hear this accusation. He had never been egotistic of himself like that, not until now.

“You question my intelligence in front of them, Eunji. Of course I know what I was talking about!” He went on and slammed a hand on the table in emphasis. “I spent months and years reading and researching up on them while you were running around with your little mic, pestering people, I do not want to hear about bloody MERCOSUR from you!”

With that, he most certainly stepped a line. We had never talked about our occupations. I had always known he was never a big fan of reporters. He despised mainstream media, how it operated, how they never served the purpose that they were created for, as he claimed, which was spreading the information that people like him made. We’d had our occasional disagreements in perspectives of a reporter and an academic scholar, but they have never been personal, never went beyond that boundary line. But tonight, he kicked me exactly where it hurt. I was much dumber than him, he exclaimed in not so many words but in a way that I could clearly understand. I was a dumb little reporter with a dumb little mic who went around pestering people to make a living unlike haughty, egoistic scholars who believed they were better than anyone. He let that distinction come between us, he forced that impression on me, pushing me further and further away from him. 

“Fine” I muttered, resigned, letting him have his way. “ I’ll take it, I’ll agree. I’m your stupid wife with a stupid job, thank you for reminding me why I had married you”

He stared at me, eyes widened, outraged. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” I returned, feeling my hands shaking in rage. “I’m your dumb wife with a dumb job, dumb enough to marry a man like you”

Sung Gyu took a step back upon this, then another, looking as if I had slapped him across his face. “Fine, whatever” He replied, moving further and further away from me. “Take it however you wish, Eunji, I’m done”

I swallowed hard, the lump that had formed in my throat. ‘The father of the family’ echoed in my mind as I watched him leave me behind. 

Little, little things... Make you happier...I’m done….run away

The door to Sung Gyu’s study slammed close, the sound of it echoed through the bleak quietness of the house, rang in my mind. 

We were done.

That’s what we were at that point, there needed to be no more indication and I needed no more conviction. Whatever was wrong with Sung Gyu, whatever was wrong with his mind,  there was nothing that I could possibly do. I was done trying, done taking the punch and breaking apart every single day. I was done carrying the emotional load for him, done hoping things would possibly ever change. I’ve stayed here long enough, I’ve tolerated as much as I could. But now it's over, all over. Now it was time for me to run away. 

♡♡♡

In retrospect, I had always waited for a reason to leave him. It wasn’t only the pain of our broken marriage, the weight of living with an emotionally unstable man. It was because I had a place to go away to, a man whom I believed was better, whom I could leave him for. So that night after Sung Gyu disappeared into his study and locked himself away, I finally came to a resolve. It wasn’t going to be an easy feat, it was a decision that I couldn’t take on a whim. But I decided to lay the cornerstones, search for a better start. I wasn’t sure if I did what I did on the spur of the moment, or if it was because it was the most sensible decision at that time. Whatever it was, I could care so little, and only one resolve was in my mind. I picked up my coat, gathered my keys, called my mother and informed that Yulhee would have to stay the night with her and gave her no explanations. I got into my car and called the only other person that I had in my mind before I drove away.

True to his words, Nam Woohyun lived in a dainty little house in a corner of a pleasant grove somewhere little further from the city. There was no hustle and bustle of the town in that end, no honking cars, blinking siren lights, loud yells and laughter. It was just the wind and rustle of the leaves, the pacifying silence and a line of serene little houses. His was at the very end, tucked away like a little secret. When I pulled into the lane, Woohyun was standing outside his gate, hands in his pocket, hair dancing in the wind. 

“Hey,” Woohyun greeted me, and in his eyes was that playful glimmer that I was yet to get accustomed to. I crossed the length towards him, my heart in my sleeves and fell right into his arms. Words couldn’t explain what I felt at that moment; the relief, the warmth, the gratification. When he slowly rocked me side to side and placed a chaste kiss on my head, I found peace again.

“Are you okay?” He asked as he led me into his home. It was small, certainly not as big as the high-end condominium that we lived in, but definitely warmer, brighter, more homely. It smelled a little like detergent and lavender, a hint of the scent that I’d caught from Woohyun’s shirts. I looked up at him and smiled. I wasn’t okay before I came here, but now I thought I certainly was.

He offered to make me coffee, and I let him. Sitting in the small, quiet kitchen, we had our coffee and we talked a little bit. I told him of my husband, the mess of his mind, the things he said, the things he made me feel. Woohyun promised me that he would make me happier, a promise that I was desperately wishing he would keep. There was little trust I had, seeing how Sung Gyu destroyed everything for me after years of a life that we shared together. But to Woohyun, I gave that benefit of doubt, that liberty of consolation, and when he took the lukewarm mug of coffee from my hand and intertwined our fingers together, I let him. I let him lead me up to his room, my heart pounding, my head in a complete whirlwind. I let him open the curtains, lead me to his bed, lay me down and kiss me. I let him make love to me that night; for long, tenderly and freely. For once we were not hiding in the dark, with no walls closing up on us, not holding back our hums and murmurs, not trapped by limited time. For the first time in my life I laid in the bed of a man who was not my husband and let myself feel things that I was desperate to feel. I made up my mind that night. A better life,  happier life, with or without him.