Yoorin played around with the food on her plate before saying, “So what are you doing back here after all this time?”

“My brother is getting married,” came his reply that was just as awkward.

“Oh,” she looked up and blinked at him, “well I guess I’ll have to tell him congrats.”

“You look really different, you know?”

Yoorin let out a small incredulous laugh, “What do you expect? It’s been two years.”

He nodded, “I know.”

They looked at each other briefly, then their gaze repelled like equal polarities. Yoorin sighed and looked out the window with a blank gaze. The awkward feeling was so strong it was pressing down on her like a boulder. She felt suffocated, as if she couldn’t breathe if she wasn’t to leave the room any second now. She clenched her fist on the table and her feet started tapping under the table.

“Hmm,” Minwoo stabbed his fork into the piece of meat and stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing it without much purpose, he swallowed loudly and then looked for a glass of water. But he couldn’t find any so he stood up and walked around the table to the kitchen. “Yoorin, where do you guys keep your cups?”

“Ah,” she shot up, feeling immensely relieved that there was a reason for her to talk and do something. She turned around and saw him struggling and figured since he was the guest and she was the host, she should help him out. “You want a drink? I’ll get it for you.” She stood up and followed him to the kitchen. Going on her tip toes, she opened a cabinet and pulled out two glasses.

Minwoo noticed that she had armfuls of bracelets and bands around her both of her wrists. She never was really into accessories and the things she was wearing didn’t look like they were just for decorations. Then as she settled the glasses down onto the counter the countless numbers of her bracelets moved and Minwoo saw something that quickly made him shot up. Step forward he grabbed her wrist and then turned it towards him. The action was not possessive or angry; it was more of curiosity and worry.

“What are these?” He said quietly, pointing at the marks on her wrist running halfway up her forearm.

She pulled back and hugged her wrist to herself. She brought it down and traced the scars with dazed eyes. “These are from my battle,” she whispered.

He stared at her for the longest time, “Battle against what?”

“Myself.”

The both of them turned quiet. But this silence was different to the one they had just moments ago; there was no awkwardness lingering in the air. But there were definitely things there. Feelings. Emotions. And all those awful stuff just like that.

“You know,” Yoorin began, taking in a deep breath and tears clouding her vision as the things that she wanted to say started to bring back memories and things that she just didn’t want to remember. “I was okay before you came back. Actually, I was more than okay. I was freaking happy and loving life! And now you’re back and everything in my head is all messed up again.” She looked down, avoiding his gaze and also using this time to blink away the tears; the signs of her weakness. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be here. With you. Having this conversation. But I guess if I really want to get better and move on completely then I have no choice.”

“Yoorin, it’s okay.” He moved forward slowly and touched her shoulders.

She shrugged away and let out a mixture of a scoff and a laugh, “Please don’t touch me.”

He took a step back and nodded.

“If you would just let me talk then I can go back to living my life again. I want you to just listen. Just stand there and listen while I pour my heart out; something that you did not give me the chance of doing when I needed it the most.”

He gave her a pained look and clenched his hands into fists as he watched her struggle for her words.

“I’m sorry,” she began and let out a long breath, as if she was getting ready for a race. “What I did was wrong. It was really wrong. But back then, none of my feelings for you were fake. Everything was completely and utterly real. I felt it. It was the first time for me to feel something like that. I was just so confused and I didn’t know what to do, so instead of fa