The Flowers We Saw

The Best Of

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"Wasn't that Kihoon's dad?" Eunkyung wondered in a low voice when they left. "Is that his girlfriend?"

Namjoo just smiled. Over her shoulder Junhee shook his head for her not to ask. Sealing her lips, Eunkyung returned to her spot by the register. Namjoo went back to the oven where she was baking pastries. Gone quiet, because she didn't know what to think.

Sehun hung on her mind like a disease.

Sehun.

Seol.

Were they really dating?

Would she ever date again?

Namjoo didn't know.

She couldn't think about it. Imagining herself holding hands with another man. The picture was foggy in her head. Would she want to be intimate with another person?

Will Sehun be the first to go? Date again. Get married again. Possibly, have another child.

The thing was, it wasn't difficult to see him with Seol. They must see each other every day at work. Seol was a beautiful woman. Even her male customers noticed her.

If Sehun wanted her, who was she to say no?

They were divorced.

She was the one who had asked. Positive there would be no regrets leaving that kind of life.

"Sehun should have just married that girl," his mother always muttered around her. To always lower her esteem. Make her guilty. Tell her to her face she wasn't good enough and no matter how hard she tried; she would never reach their standards.

Who that girl was, Namjoo never asked.

Hearing that constantly was more tiring than a person thought. Namjoo had felt like a hard rock worn down by the onslaught of eggs. Too many of them and eventually you break.

It had been even harder because of her postpartum depression. In those early days after giving birth the only kind soul she knew was that of Sehun. There for her thirty minutes in the morning and late in the evening when he came home. Hiding behind him. Seeking comfort beside him. Snuggling up to him in his sleep whenever Kihoon finally stopped wailing.

He had been her solace.

Her only haven from the rough sleet and winds.

The husband exhausted from work. Driving around in his car to meet clients and returning to the office to meet urgent deadlines. Rushing everywhere through his hectic life for her and Kihoon. Tending to the crying baby at night because she was beat. If his mother irritated, she'd come stomping down the hall muttering what incapable parents they were. Then she'd take Kihoon with her into her room and lull him to sleep.

It had been very hard for them.

When he was gone during the day and she was left with his mother she sometimes cried alone in the bathroom. Hugging Kihoon closely because she was pretending to bathe him.

She never saw her parents until Kihoon turned one, and when she saw them for the first time, she cried very hard in her mother's arms. The both of them alone in the women's restroom. That was on his birthday.

"Why are you so thin?" her mother had cried. Cradling her face in her hands. "What happened?"

But Namjoo couldn't tell her mom what she had been going through. Those ordeals were hers, because she had chosen to give birth to Kihoon.

Memories are demons.

"The bread is burning." Junhee called out.

Turning around into a waft of smoke Namjoo panicked. Pulling the oven door open on instinct she reached inside. Yelping when her hand burned.