Unlonely

The Next Few Days

Seri smiled. "Gu Seung Jun is just a friend. I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable."

Jeong Hyeok looked surprised at this.

"Hae-Soo told me. I'm just so sorry that I didn't notice it myself."

He hung his head. "Don't be. It's my insecurity that needs work."

Seri nodded. "Fair, but I'll still try to be more conscious. You'll have to be more open with me though."

He agreed. "Let's go home."

*

The constant togetherness was ideal for a new couple. However, the longer they lived and worked together, the more conflicts started to arise.

As Jeong Hyeok noted previously, their work styles were different. With the deadlines looming in the next few weeks, they found that they were arguing quite often recently.

"Can we discuss the security at the store? I need to know if the installation is done. We're launching in a few days and I wish to focus on the displays," Seri called over the phone.

"I'm working on a programming design for my game. I'll talk to you later," he replied.

"No, I need a reply now."

The following days were more of that. "I have to be home early because I have an online competition tonight. Will you be able to take home your work?"

"No, you go ahead."

"Okay, will I see you for dinner?" he asked.

"I thought you had a game anyway?"

Her curt reply surprised him. "I was just asking."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"Fine."

She wanted to apologise for her attitude. She didn't mean to sound abrupt and dismissive but there were so many things that she was looking at. However, seeing that he was still in his game, she chose to no longer bother him and headed to her room to sleep.

The following day, he was out of the house by the time she went out for breakfast. "He had an early morning meeting, Ma'am. He left two hours ago."

That meant he left at six in the morning, which was too early. Taking out her phone, she sent a message: "Heard you left early. I hope there was no emergency."

"Big problem. Will talk to you later." Came his short response.

They went a week without seeing each other or speaking.

Seri eventually found out that the game design he and his team had been working on for months was saved in a file that was eventually corrupted and it took days for the team to try to restore back ups so that all that effort would not go to waste. As that was happening, running Man Bok's business was left to Seri on top of looking after her own work.

By Saturday night, they were both tired and all the pent up anger came to a head. "I needed help, too!" Seri said to him. "I understand that things were dire with your game but you just dropped me unceremoniously."

"I wish I could do what you but I can't," he told her. "The problem took so much of my time that I could not think of anything else."

"I had so much on my plate, too. I didn't even mean to take you away from your business but to not hear from you for days?"

"Seri. Work," was all he said as if that explained everything. He didn't like confrontations and this was tough for him. He knew one-word answers were infuriating but at this point it was taking all of his strength to not skirt from this.