And so it became a routine for Seunghyun to go up the hills and watch the woman who lived there. He went before going to work. He went when everybody else in his family was occupied with something. He went when he was bored. He went when his mind started pondering about the thousands of questions, particularly about what the woman had to do with his family. And he had a hunch that his mother knew.

No, scratch that. He knew that she knew. Maybe his father too.

As for Taecyon, he wouldn't put it past the man to be hiding something either. It was likely that his mother wasn't aware of Taecyon going up the hills daily, but then the woman didn't exactly keep a close eye on someone brooding like Taecyon. The man had an uninviting air about him.

Nevertheless, Seunghyun continued to venture up the hills and look at the woman almost every morning. Her routine was the same: watering her plants, reading on the porch, taking a walk, washing the blankets, and welcoming Taecyon. Seunghyun hid himself carefully, and observe the two interact as if they were old flames. 

The more he looked at the woman, the more radiant she seemed. Despite living up here with practically no one but herself, she had a cheerful demeanor. She always wore floral sundresses, and let her long hair flutter in the breeze. She never seemed sad by herself, and someone might even say she was content by the way she hummed when she was watering her plants. But after all the careful observations he made, he noticed that she did appear rather melancholy. Like how her smiles didnt always reach her eyes, or how her eyes looked distant sometimes as she gazed off into the blue sky. 

He didn't exactly know what the heck he was doing, stalking a woman when he was already married with child. His relationship with his wife was normal, but he was slowly beginning to suspect that she too was hiding something. 

Something about the woman compelled him; something that was as elusive and as mysterious as her presence itself. The woman was beautiful, he admitted, but his fascination with her went beyond that. He just couldn't pinpoint what it was, but she had a familiar feeling about her as if he was supposed to know her.

Whatever it was, it kept him coming back up the hills. He did so discreetly and cautiously, because the last thing he wanted was for his mother to find out he and been snooping around. 

Seunghyun also noticed something else that was bizarre about the woman: she never left the hills. She stayed there, outside or inside her house, 24/7. He never saw her walking down the hills into town, or even walking far out into the edge of the hills that overlooked the lake. He reasoned that this was why his mother and Taecyon had to go up themselves to see her, and that it was also why the rumors about "the Ghost of the Choi household" floated around town. 

No matter how he tried to make sense of his mother's visits to the woman, he couldn't. Her and the woman always disappeared inside the house when his mother came, and whatever they did or talked about remained a great mystery that he was itching to answer. 

One thing was for sure, though. Everything wasn't