“Hi Seunghyun, it’s been a long time.”

With the woman’s acknowledgement, Seunghyun’s body went soft with relief for a nanosecond - Eunyoung hadn’t forgotten him.

This assurance was short-lived - Eunyoung had no intention for a reunion. Sidestepping to convey her refusal to make eye contact, his ex-girlfriend tapped a foot with impatience.

Every move the woman made and every word she said was done so to inflict maximum damage.

Six years ago, the then-21-year-old was an open book. Time had erased all the words - the 27-year-old Liu Eunyoung was a complete stranger. Despite her distant air, Seunghyun was determined to know answers to the questions that had haunted him for so long.

“Eunyoung, when did you come back to Korea?” A few years ago, his family had moved nearer to Seoul and he ran out of excuses to return to their small hometown. There had been nary a whiff or whisper of the younger Liu daughter’s homecoming amongst his old friends.

Raking her fingers through the short crop - she had finally cut her hair like she wanted and boy could she pull it off - her voice was bored when she stated, “My name is Amber now. This isn’t a good place to reminisce, TOP.”

The shot that went straight to his heart truly unrattled him. Full throttle anxiety caused the normally smooth man to blurt out when the woman started to walk past him, “Haven’t you forgiven me?”

An imaginary barrier caused the woman to halt and with reluctance, Eunyoung finally turned to look straight at him, “Why do I need to forgive you? Don’t tell me you still remember that?”

How could he forget? How could a man not keep close to memory what had to be one of the best things to happen to him? What had happened to the girl, his Eunyoung that had loved him almost as much as he had loved her? Who was this woman, the grown up Liu Eunyoung - no, Amber? He would understand that if she hated him, any emotion would give him a glimmer of hope.

This indifference was killing him.

Desperation lead to his brazenness.

“Why are you with Seungri? Don’t you know he’s a womanizer?”

That took the trick. One step forward and Eunyoung’s pupils bore into his, with zero affection - his arms that had been aching to hold her dropped like deadweights.

“TOP. I am no longer the girl you used to know.”

__

No one could tell that the woman was trembling inside. Storming through the tunnel, almost tripping over a drunk fellow slumped against the wall, Eunyoung was suppressing her natural reflex to flee.

You can’t run away, her pride repeated the nth time in the last few hours. Not tonight. No matter how lousy she felt, how uncomfortable she was, no matter how she didn’t want to be in the buzzing club, she had to stay put.

To prove to herself – and Choi Seunghyun - that she had put the past behind her.

Could the world be so small? Out of all the number of bodies crammed into the VIP booth, Eunyoung had to come face to face with the last person she wanted to see.

Was this a night for an emotional rollercoaster? To think it had started off with a good buzz.

Not that anyone else needed to know but her head had spun from Seungri’s sudden confession earlier on. A good type of adrenaline rush, the kind she associated with butterflies in the stomach, the romantic sort. Something she had thought she