“Good morning, Cha Soeun.” The psychiatrist gestures Soeun into his office. She makes her way to the couch and plops onto it comfortably. This wasn’t the first time she had been in this office, and from the way things were going, it seemed like it wasn’t going to be the last, either.

            “Morning, doc!” She fidgets on the couch, looking for a comfortable position to lie in.

            “Did you have a good night’s sleep?” The doctor asks.

            “Nope!” She emphasized the ‘p’ and made a plopping sound at the end.

            “Will you tell me why?”

            “Nope!” She said exactly the same exact way as before.

            “Let’s talk about Park Chanyeol today.” The doctor daringly but cautiously says the taboo name. Cha Soeun’s careless demeanor is gone, and she’s now staring intently at the doctor. All her attention is on him and the one name he mentioned.

            “What about him?” She finally responds. This is the first time she was ever interested in talking to him about something actually relevant to her case.

            “Tell me about him.” The doctor says, eager to acquire new information.

            Cha Soeun thinks about his request carefully, and for the first time ever, reveals a little bit of what she knows the doctors have been fishing for.

            “Park Chanyeol is…the love of my life.” She breathes out.

| | | | | | | | | |

            “Bye, thank you so much for coming!” Chanyeol generously thanks the last of the guests goodbye, and walks Joohyun’s parents back to their car. After he watches them drive off, he goes back into the funeral home to clean some things up.

            “Has everyone already left?” A voice resounds behind him, scaring him.

            “Oh, God, you scared me.” He chuckles as he holds his chest.

            “I’m sorry. I just came back from the bathroom and no one was here, so.”

            “No, no. I’m sorry. I thought everyone had already left.” Chanyeol apologizes.

            “Oh, I wouldn’t have left without saying anything.” She says.

            “Okay, I know I’m apologizing a lot, but I really am sorry. Uh – what’s your name again?” He furrows his brows, trying to remember her name. “I met a lot of people today and the names all just –“ Chanyeol made an exploding gesture with his hand.

            “Cha Soeun.” She says, a little disappointed. How could he forget her? She was the first one here, so he should have at least remembered her.

            “Right, right! Joohyun’s old friend, okay. Again, I’m sorry.” He chuckles, trying to relieve the awkwardness he feels between them for forgetting her name.

            “It’s okay.” Soeun suddenly smiles, forgetting the whole thing even happened.

            “It’s late, are you taking the taxi home?”

            “No, I’ll probably walk.” Soeun shrugs.

            “Then let me take you home!” Chanyeol suggests out of courtesy.

            “No, it’s okay.” Soeun reluctantly declines. She doesn’t want to come off as some moocher.

            “It’s fine, I can take you home.” Chanyeol insists. “In exchange for forgetting your name.”

            “Okay. Sounds like a good deal.” Soeun answers easily after she realizes that this would be a good opportunity.

            Once Joohyun’s body was taken away, and Chanyeol made sure everything was turned off and ready to leave, he brought Cha Soeun to his car, and even opened the passenger door for her like the gentleman he was. Though Chanyeol smiled, Soeun could see how red his eyes were from crying, and how swollen his cheeks were from constantly drying them. Seeing him hurt made her hurt.

            After getting onto the main road, Cha Soeun told Chanyeol where to make all the turns to get to her apartment, but Chanyeol notices that the roads they’re taking are the same exact roads he would take to get to his own home.

            “You live around this area?” Chanyeol asks, intrigued by the familiar milieu.

            “Yep.” Cha Soeun answers giddily.

            “That’s interesting.” Chanyeol comments.

            “Why?” She asks as she glances at Chanyeol at the corner of her eyes.

            “I live around here, too.” He says as he takes a second look around the neighborhood he thought he was familiar with.

            “That is interesting.” Soeun nods, as if she didn’t already know.

            “Now which building is it?”

            “That one.” She points to a tall building.

            “Really?” Chanyeol asks for confirmation.

            “Yes, why?”

            “I live in that one!” Chanyeol exclaims out of surprise, as he points to the building across from the one that Soeun pointed to.

            “That’s funny.” Soeun giggles at how surprised Chanyeol is. He looked like a child who just found out that he was getting rewarded for doing something well.

            “How about I just go park the car, then I can just walk you to your building?” Chanyeol suggests.

            “I’m fine with whatever you want. You’re the driver.” Soeun smiles.

            Chanyeol drove his car into the underground garage and parked in his designated parking space. Both Chanyeol and Soeun exited the car and walked out into the breezy summer night.

            “How long have you lived here?” Chanyeol inquires once they leave the garage.

            “I just moved in, actually.” Soeun answers.

            “How interesting.” Chanyeol nods to himself, still intrigued by how close she lived to him.

            “Right? It’s almost like fate.” She comments.

            “What?” Chanyeol asks, taken aback.

            “Maybe we were meant to be friends.”

            “Ah,” He laughs to himself, “Maybe.”

            “Do you believe in fate?” Soeun asks Chanyeol.

            “Not after what happened to Joohyun.” Chanyeol confesses. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

            Soeun was taken aback by Chanyeol’s sudden question, but answered anyway.

            “Yes, I do.” And she only did because it happened to her with Park Chanyeol.

            “Well that’s how it was for me when I met Joohyun.” Soeun’s patience shortened every time Chanyeol said Joohyun’s name, and she felt as if she was shrinking – as if she was becoming nothing.

            “That’s nice. Joohyun was a nice girl.” Soeun says, even though it hurt to say Joohyun’s name.

            “She really was. I don’t know how this happened to her.” Chanyeol looks to the ground, starting to feel the loss of Joohyun again.

            “Hey!” Soeun exclaims as she grabs Chanyeol’s left hand into both of hers. His hand is cold and he’s shaking.

            “Uh –“ Chanyeol tries to pull his hand away, but Soeun’s grip tightens.

            “Everyone loses someone at one point, Chanyeol.” She says, rubbing her thumb back and forth on top of Chanyeol’s hand. “I did.” Soeun reveals, “I lost my mom when I was seven, and my father when fourteen. My aunt died when I fifteen, and I never even met any of my grandparents.”

            “I’m – I’m so sorry.” Chanyeol starts to feel bad. If he already felt this much pain with just one person, how much pain did she feel?

            “Don’t look at me so pitifully.” Soeun snaps. “Look at me as a strong person. A person who survived, and look for me when you feel weak, because I can’t guarantee it, but I will try to bring you up when you’re down.”

            “Thank you.” Chanyeol oddly felt enlightened by Soeun’s aggressive attitude.

            “You are always welcome, Park Chanyeol.” Soeun said sincerely. Chanyeol gulped, at a loss for words. He was thankful that someone like Soeun showed up.

            “Thank you.” Chanyeol said even more sincerely than before. That was the only thing he could think of to say.

            “I guess this is me.” Soeun said once they reached the glass doors to her building. She smiled and let go of Chanyeol’s hand she unknowingly held onto.

            “I guess so.” He said as Soeun began walking inside. “Soeun!” He called out right after the glass doors shut. Soeun looked back, surprised by hearing Chanyeol call her name for the first time tonight. “I wish Joohyun could have met you, too!” He waved happily before turning around to leave.

            Soeun furiously walked over to the elevators and pressed the ‘up’ button multiple times out of frustration. When the bell chimed and the elevator doors opened, Soeun walked in and pressed the button for the sixth floor.

            “Can you hold the do-“ A fellow tenant reached for the elevator doors, but Soeun made no effort to hold the door.

            Like usual, Soeun made her way inside her apartment, and slipped out of the dreadful heels she forced herself to wear all day at the funeral, and walked over to the window. Carefully, Soeun opened the blinds and looked across the way to the opposite building, six windows up from the ground, and perfectly adjacent to Soeun. Though the blinds of the apartment across from her were closed, the lights behind them switched on, to which she smiled upon.

| | | | | | | | | |

            “That was how you first met Park Chanyeol?” The doctor asked.

            “God, no. Just the first time I talked to him.”

            “So did you happen to just see him in passing?”

            “Something like that.” Soeun smiled at the memory of seeing Chanyeol for the first time.

| | | | | | | | | |

            Soeun never liked associating herself with anyone. Everyone in her life had either abandoned her, or died, and everyone knew. No other relative wanted her, nor did she want them. When she was of age, she moved out of her dead aunt’s house, and into her own apartment.

            It was always hard for Soeun to make friends. She talked, of course, but because she had no mother, all the other kids ostracized her. Soeun was different from a lot of people in many ways. She wasn’t as talkative, and she wasn’t as active as the other kids. Soeun was never interested in the same things. She did, however, make one friend, but that friend moved away, and Soeun was alone again – but it was nothing new to her.

            If Soeun was ever close to anyone, it was her aunt – not her mother, or her father. She was too young to remember her mother, and her father was never really around. Even when her father was alive, she always stayed at her aunt’s anyway. Her aunt was the only one who really understood her. She never urged Soeun to go out and make friends if it seemed like she was always home, and she never made Soeun do anything that she felt uncomfortable with. Soeun’s aunt was just simply there for her, and she was there for her aunt. It was only too bad that brain cancer got the best of the only person in the world that gave her a reason to be someone important. No matter how much she loved her aunt, it was as if she had become numb to death, after her aunt was gone.

Soeun became even more antisocial afterwards. Every time neighbors came over to introduce themselves, she slammed the door in their faces. She wanted nothing to do with anyone. It could have, perhaps, been a fear of intimacy, or just plainly because that’s how she was, but it was highly unlikely that it was the latter, and more likely that it was the former and even more.

Time passed and she did the same thing every day. Every day, she woke up at 7 o’clock in the morning, ate breakfast alone, worked until lunchtime, ate lunch alone, worked until dinner, ate dinner alone, then either read a book, or painted alone until 10 o’clock at night, where she went to sleep alone. Every day was a routine until one spring day when her window was open, and there seemed to be a commotion outside. Annoyed, Cha Soeun got up from her computer where she analyzed the stock market for businesses, and went to the living room window.

There, she watched a man, the size of an ant from her view, carry a box into the building, and another man, almost as if he had been duplicated, followed him in. She looked up when something caught her eye; someone had opened their shades. Directly across from her in the opposite building, Cha Soeun saw the most magnificent being, smiling brightly as he looked down to check on the progress of the movers. For the first time, she felt the most pleasant of feelings she had ever felt before – or that she could remember. At that moment, something happened to Cha Soeun. The gears in her head turned, and some things clicked into place. For the first time, Cha Soeun wanted to be the first one to reach out to that man. For the first time, Cha Soeun wanted to talk to someone else. For the first time, Cha Soeun fell in love. It was also the first time that Cha Soeun had felt so envious of another woman – the woman who came up behind the man and hugged him.

It wasn’t long until Cha Soeun changed her routine. For a week straight, she woke up at 4 o’clock and observed the apartment adjacent to hers. She checked for when the lights – which meant he was awake – and for when they turned off – which meant he was going to sleep. When the blinds were open, she discreetly watched them, observing the man’s perfect smile. The way he looked at the other woman made Soeun feel envious because she wanted the man to look at her that way – not the other woman. She watched the man happily eat breakfast and then leave. Soeun even got to watch the man eat dinner sometimes, when they left the blinds open.

After a week of observation, she concluded that the man woke up at 6 o’clock in the morning, and left the house by 7. Every day, he came back at 7 o’clock, and ate dinner by 8. Sometimes after dinner, he would read with the other woman, and some nights, he would watch TV. They were most likely watching the soccer game because they were both dressed in red and waved around red flags. Every time she saw the man doing something, she would do the same – that way, it would feel like she was right there with him.

Cha Soeun changed her schedule so it would correspond with the man’s. She woke up at 6 o’clock in the morning and ate breakfast. She would begin work by 7 o’clock, and then she would have her regular lunch hour. After lunch, she would go back to work, but then end work at 7 o’clock, when the man came back home. Cha Soeun ate dinner at the same time as he did, and by the time she was done cleaning up, she would check the window to see what he and the other woman were doing. Whatever they did, she did. If the blinds were closed, Soeun would proceed to do the activities she did before; she either read, or painted, but she didn’t go to sleep until the lights in the other apartment turned off.

Soeun couldn’t help it. She had to see what he was doing, or else she had no other way of knowing. Watching him, she had completely fallen in love with this man, though she didn’t even know his name. Soeun couldn’t help it even more that she began to envy the other woman more and more each day.

            It wasn’t until a couple weeks later when Soeun was bringing out her trash that she heard a couple behind her, also bringing out their trash.

            “Hey, Chanyeol! Wait for me! Can’t you carry the heavy one?” A woman complained.

            “Joohyun! Quit whining, you beautiful crybaby!” A man replied to her.

            When Cha Soeun turned around, she shied away from attention by putting her hood up and walked as close as she could to the wall. Although it was only a quick glance, Cha Soeun knew that was the man she had been observing. So the perfect man’s name was Chanyeol and the other woman was Joohyun.

| | | | | | | | | |

            “So Joohyun was Chanyeol’s girlfriend?” The doctor asked.

            “Was, yes.” Soeun answered.

            “So then who was Joohyun to you?”

            “The girl I used to wish I was.”