Seong-Li pushed her front door shut with her foot and unceremoniously dropped her backpack of grading in the foyer with a solid thud. "Naomi, I swear to every god and goddess in the world, if you're still moping in your pajamas, I will throw you out the window," she said into the silence of the apartment. She waited for a moment for any sound before sighing and slipping off her shoes. "Naomi? Are you here?" The heat in the floor was turned low, and she felt the sore muscles in her feet relax as she walked through the silence and pushed open the door of Naomi's room. "Oh, Naomi…"

The American teacher was curled up on her lofted twin bed, covered in a blanket so she looked like a lump of pillows. A scattering of used tissues littered the floor around the foot of the ladder, having missed the trash bucket there. A bag of school work had been dumped in the desk chair under the bedframe, and Seong-Li could faintly hear the sounds of a meditation mix playing from the MP3 speakers on the desk. She backed out of the room and closed the door. Her hand shot into her pocket, and the phone call she made was ringing before the phone itself touched her ear.

"Yobosaeyo[1]?" answered the male voice she expected.

"She's still not answering me," Seong-Li reported, her voice shaking a little. "She hasn't responded to anything I've said in two days. I arranged for sick days for her, and Min-Hyo and Eun-Hwan have been by with homework for her to grade, but she's like a zombie. Whatever went wrong with them, we need to fix it soon. It's a little scary seeing her like this."

"Don't worry," Youngbae answered and pressed a little harder on the accelerator. "I'm on my way there now with Hyung. We'll get this cleared up. See if you can drag her out into the living room."

"I will. How far away are you?" Seong-Li could hear the deep rumble of T.O.P in the background but couldn't make the words out.

"Ten minutes at most," he answered. "See you soon, Seong-Li."

"Ten minutes," she agreed softly and hung up. Loneliness had a sound, she thought as she dropped her hand to her side. It wasn't tears or sobs; it was like the silence following a clap of thunder, when the rain seemed to drop off and wait with baited breath. She had lived with that silence for two days, and enough was enough. She put her phone on the coffee table and walked back to the smaller of the two bedrooms. She rapped lightly on the door before opening it.

"Naomi," she wheedled softly. "You need to eat something. I'll make kimbap[2] for you. Or I can try the recipe for Vietnamese noodles you found. Anything you want?"

Naomi sat up slowly, a stuffed animal flopping off the side of the bed. It looked like a dragon to Seong-Li. Naomi swayed a little and slid her legs over to rest her feet on one of the ladder rungs. "I guess you're right," she said quietly. "I haven't eaten anything today… and I'm getting kinda nauseous…"

Her friend walked over to the loft and helped her down. "I told you that you would." She gathered a change of clothes and put them in Naomi's hands. "Here. Get changed and brush your hair. I'll start dinner. What would you like?" She gently smoothed back a tangle of hair and looked at Naomi with loving concern.

"I think I want kimbap," Naomi answered as she wandered out toward the bathroom. "I don't want a lot."

"I'll start on it."

When the doorbell rang, steam was rising from the rice cooker in the kitchen, and Seong-Li rushed across the apartment to answer the door. "Come in," she told Youngbae quietly and nodded to Seunghyun behind him. "She's still in the bathroom changing. I started on dinner since she hasn't been eating." She stepped back to let them in.

Seunghyun was stepping out of his shoes when the bathroom door opened. Naomi was clutching her pajamas to her chest and staring at him like he was a ghost. As soon as his feet were free, he walked over to her and embraced her, dirty clothes and all. The clothes landed on the floor silently when her arms reached around and clutched tight to his shirt. She shifted her bare feet slightly and swiftly pushed herself up closer into the hug.

"Seunghyun…"

"I missed you," he said quietly. He buried his face in her hair and tightened his grip around her until he felt the muscles in his arms begin to burn.

Youngbae glanced around briefly and took in the teachers' apartment to give the pair a little privacy. The foyer was a step down from the main floor and neatly cluttered with sensible work shoes and a pair of sandals that had dried raindrops on the leather straps. Honey-colored wood flooring spread like sand on a beach throughout the whole apartment, down the little hall that separately the living room and kitchen from the bedrooms. Two small computer desks were set up along the kitchen-living room partition, one neatly ordered with papers and folders, the other haphazardly heaped with the detritus of grading. A laptop stood powered off on this latter desk, its black screen like a large empty eye. A number of Japanese prints - some on canvas and others one glossy paper - decorated the cream colored walls, and Youngbae recognized The Great Wave Off Kanagawa[3] among them. And L-shaped sofa wrapped around a small coffee table littered with black and blue books without dust covers, two vinyl-covered ledgers, and scattered pencil stubs and pen caps.

"Sit down," Seong-Li invited, running the tips of her fingertails over her bare forearms. She looked uncomfortable with the lovers' reunion across the room, and Youngbae couldn't really blame her. Naomi was shaking as if trying not to cry, and Seunghyun was crushing her to him like he wanted to absorb her into himself. Youngbae chose to ignore them and walked over to the sofa while Seong-Li scurried to gather up the mess from the coffee table. She deposited it on the messier of the desks as he sank into the cushions.

"I think the four of us need to have a talk," he said slowly as the embracing couple finally disentangled themselves.

Seong-Li set down a large plate of kimbap before settling herself beside him. Her folded knees touched his. "We do," she said quietly. She gestured to the plate. "Naomi, eat something before a stiff breeze blows you away." Her friend blushed faintly at the admonition. Seong-Li's hands shook a little as she twisted a paper napkin in her lap. "You two… You've both been moping for the past few days, and frankly, it worried us."

Youngbae removed the napkin from her hand and replaced it with his own. Seunghyun could have laughed if it hadn't been directed at him and Naomi; it reminded him a little of the addiction inventions the Americans were so fond of. "Daesung has more tact that to say so," Youngbae said, "but he's pretty annoyed with both of you for being so stupid. It would be obvious to anyone who saw you together that you're head-over-heels in love. Whatever the hell happened between you needs to be fixed because the tragic lover act doesn't work for either of you."

Naomi looked abashed and let Seunghyun guide her over to sit as well. Her long fingers snatched a piece of the snack without disturbing the others, and she nibbled at the black seaweed for a moment before her neglected appetite roared and she ate it in one bite. "It wasn't Seunghyun," she said quietly. Her voice shook at the edges. The words seemed to all other sound out of the room. "It was Jiyong."