the one that got away | cloy

Chapter 01: Stuck On You.

He has a mind of his own, chopping up the vegetables and gathering the herbs and spices he'll be needing for today's pasta he plans to make. He makes sure to be as slow as possible; it gives him time to not only watch out for the food but also think about his pathetic life; a life which could've been beautiful had Yoon Se-ri been with him.

It was pitiful to even think of some other woman when you were married, but Yoon Se-ri wasn't any other woman, she was, is, and will always remain the love of his life. How can he forget the strangest way she crashed into his life— quite literally. The moments they had shared, the passionate kisses, the sexual tension-ridden eye contacts, the promises of a future together; how could anyone expect him to just move on?

When you love someone as deeply as he had loved her, there was no going back, there never was.

Another 45 minutes of dwelling on his disastrous life, Ri Jeong Hyeok is finally done. He dishes out a serving of pasta for himself, filling half of the white plate to precision before he puts the rest of the food in a plastic container and into the fridge. If Dan wanted to come, she would've have by now. There was no point in waiting for something that would never happen.

He chews his food in silence, washes down the remaining fettuccine with a glass of water. Breakfast was the only time he properly saw Dan as they both had to leave for their respective works; Ri Jeong Hyeok as a piano teacher and Dan for her cello teaching classes at the same school, a prestigious music institute in all of Switzerland. To this day, they didn't know how they had both managed to get jobs there. Around seven in the morning, both of them would come downstairs, into the kitchen and start preparing their own breakfasts after exchanging an awkward good morning.

They'd eat at the same table for the sake of simplicity (or maybe because either of them was too poised to sit on the couch with food). With their eyes focused on their plates, they'd avoid conversation, only to get up on their own as they left for the music school together. Sometimes they took his car, sometimes hers, but it had been months since they were going separately now. Even the other teachers at school could never tell they were actually married given their lack of responsiveness towards each other.

Lunch was eaten at school, in their respective offices. When they came home around four, they'd go their separate ways towards their own rooms and then, meet for dinner which was even more awkward than their breakfast together.

No one could tell they were married. If it wasn't for the rings on their fingers, or one of them awkwardly telling that they were indeed, a married couple, people didn't believe them.

Nothing about them, nothing at all, screamed married.

But it hadn't always been like this.

When they had been put together by their parents, both of them knew that the only way out of this misery was pretending so they did; faking smiles and kisses until they convinced their family members of their love but could not bring their own hearts to accept the fact.

Oh, the irony!

They had slept in the same bed for almost two years; walked hand in hand to every event, professional or personal. They had even even shared a handful of kisses but what had started out as a pushover was bound to end up in a disaster sooner or later.

There was a point when Seo Dan was in love with Ri Jeong Hyeok, she loved him more than anything else in the world but that was before another man decided to charm her socks off with his boyish grin.