PRESENT DAY

Waking up in the morning has always given you a good feeling.

Choosing this flat had been a good idea. You feel this each time the warmth of the morning sun falls perfectly in place to wake you up, not too hot and not too bright, and you barely ever need a thick set of curtains to cover the windows and block the sunlight away.

But the one thing that you love the most is the fact that all you have to do is push yourself up the bed to be able to look out the window each morning to see the perfect view of the park and the river nearby, just across the street from your flat. It serves as the perfect sight to relish on as you prepare yourself to work. Watching people doing their morning runs and passing by the side of the park to go about their day is uplifting in its own way.

Though it only works that way in the morning or daytime, because looking out to that side of the street at night are often too scary and too dark that you always keep all the curtains closed tight.

It doesn't take you long to get ready for work.

Just an hour later, you are locking the door to your flat and ready to walk down the street, giving short greetings to your friendly neighbours as you walk past by.

Then, just like always, you find yourself taking a quick detour right after you got off the subway instead of heading straight to the small art gallery you are working at to have your quick breakfast.

A smile grows on you as the diner comes into sight. You cannot exactly remember what it was that had pulled you in to visit the diner on that first morning. You had been walking down these streets for months without even giving a glance at this place until it happened, your legs pulling you to enter this place as your stomach begged to have its morning fill.

But you do remember the reason why you keep coming back.

Stepping into the diner has somehow made you feel like you are coming home. You cannot tell why, though you figure it might be due to the way its interior is set up, making it look more like a family-friendly place instead of just a regular diner for city workers and townspeople.

And then there is the food and their signature black coffee that will always remind you of home-of your mother's cooking, to be exact. Their pancake and sausage meal deal and their bacon and eggs have always smelled delightful. They taste just as wonderful as well. But your favourite would be their waffles, mixed in with their in-house yoghurt, the one choice of menu which had the waitress raising her eyebrows the first time you ordered it.

Living in the city and away from your family has always made you feel homesick, but you have found that this place helps you a lot to make you feel better about it. Sitting in the booth you regularly choose each morning, you look out the window. People watching has always been a thing that you love doing, for some reason. Not knowing anything about the people you see leaves you wondering about their lives, about what places they are going to or where they are coming from, and what stories they carry with them. It always helps to fill the void that you have constantly been feeling whenever you do these things.

You are grateful for what you currently have as you live alone in the city. You love living in your small flat, you love your new job in the gallery, and most of all, you love the comfortable life that you have here. Yet, for some reason, you cannot help but feel like there is something missing. As if your life is incomplete.

And no matter what you do, you cannot seem to figure out what it is that your soul seems to be searching for.

"Where do you want this?"

You had just finished mixing the salad for dinner and turn to your mother for your next instruction. Weekends are usually spent lounging in your flat, alone, binging TV series that you have missed out on during your busy days. Except for this weekend, when your mother had called you to come home to celebrate your sister's engagement with a simple family dinner at home.

Your mother turns from the stove where she has been fixing the soup, making a quick check on your work before nodding her approval. "Place it in the middle of the dinner table then come back here to check on the chicken in the oven."

"Right, gotcha."

The voices coming from the living room becomes louder as you walk into the dining room. Everyone is currently watching a sports game on TV, something that your father enjoys doing and everyone else seems to share the interest to join him each time. Your sister's fiancé is probably there with your father, as he-surprisingly-shares the same interest in sports like your father and your younger brother. Meanwhile, your sister is still on her way home after her late shift in the hospital, leaving you to take the job of becoming your mother's assistant in the kitchen.

Soon enough, once the game on TV is done and all the food have been served on the table, everyone in the house gathers together for the celebration dinner. Your sister barely has time to change out of her scrubs before she finally sits down with her fiancé, all while complaining how her feet were killing her after the long hours of work in the hospital today.

In place of your date-for being the only one single left in the family, when even your younger brother, Yeonjun, had invited his girlfriend for dinner-you had invited your best friend, Joohyun to sit with you at the table.

"So, _______, how's your job in the gallery? I heard you are getting another promotion this month?" your sister suddenly asks you, changing the subject after talking about the engagement and sharing how her fiancé had popped the question during the main course. She has her brows raised and her eyes are expectant for your response, and you know that she is only placing the attention on you just so her future in-laws-who are sitting across your parents-would stop asking her about the unplanned wedding date.

You look over between your sister and her fiancé. "Oh, right. Yes. I am, uh-I have been promoted as the assistant curator and will be in charge of choosing art pieces and will be in touch directly with the artists and the clients that we're representing instead of just handling the administration. And I'll get to arrange my working hours so I can find time to work on my own artworks."

Your sister beams with pride as she nods her head in approval. "Congratulations! That's good news!"

Her enthusiasm makes your smile. You have taken the news quite well when they informed you about it, but having someone in the family actually being happy for you is even more rewarding. But Soyeon has always been supportive of your choices ever since you left home for college, more than anyone else.

With your Dad working as a contractor and your older sister working in the town's hospital as a nurse and now marrying a doctor, and your brother Yeonjun now studying pre-med in college, everyone has been questioning about your choice of taking an art major in college then diving into the art business.

Perhaps they feel apprehensive about it simply because everyone had been expecting for you to sell your own paintings and artworks, instead of somebody else's works. It took them about a year to finally be cool about it. Especially your Dad.

Which is why it surprises you when your parents look up and appear terribly excited about it.

"Why didn't you tell me you were getting promoted? This is good news. We should have gotten some extra cake or drinks to celebrate," your Mom suddenly says, looking at your Dad. "Isn't it?"

Your Dad nods, looking more interested than he usually does when he talks about your job. "Yes, it is. Congratulations, sweetheart," he says, smiling at you before he turns back to continue his chat with Soyeon's future father-in-law.

"Um-thanks," you exchange a surprise glance with your sister once your parents look away.

The attention given to you has made you feel somewhat giddy, though you are also curious. For the past year, things have been quite interesting between you and your family. It seems that everyone has been treating you nicely. Really nice, in fact, that you sometimes feel like they are doting you on purpose for some reason as if you are still everyone's little girl.

Shaking your head, you brush it off and tell yourself that maybe your family had decided to support your choices. Not that they had never been supportive at all. It's just that they have always been able to find things to comment on about your choices.

First, it was on your choice of college major. Then, it was about your move to the city years ago and then about getting the new job at the art gallery after you had been working in a different company for years. And now, with your sister being engaged, you had come home this weekend expecting to have someone commenting-or asking-about your love life. Or lack thereof. But nobody seemed to mind when Joohyun made an appearance and sat by your side to join dinner.

Nobody from your side of the family, at least. Because once the subject of the new upgrade in your job has passed and the wedding date planning forgotten, your sister's future mother-in-law suddenly starts showing her interest in you.

"_______, why aren't you with a date tonight, dear? I'm sure so many guys in the city would have been smitten by you already. I'm not convinced that you are truly single," she says, making your face flush in flames.

You can feel Joohyun coughing beside you before she takes a hefty drink from her glass of wine.

"I, uh-I'm not in any kind of relationship at the moment," you respond to her bashfully. "I want to focus on my career first since it hasn't been long since I started working in the city's main gallery, and being in a relationship would distract me from getting to the top."

"She always says that," Soyeon waves her hand dismissively. You can tell that she is holding back from rolling her eyes when she adds, "Seokjin and I had tried to introduce her to our friends before but nobody seems to be able to catch her eyes. Jin had gotten to know a few young doctors at the end of his residency which we thought would get along with _____, but-" she stops and makes a dramatic shrug.

"Oh, well-but we all know that she's always so stubborn about picking her males," she jokes with a wink.

When you respond to her, you don't even bother to stop yourself from rolling your eyes. "Though I really do appreciate your concern and eagerness of getting me into the dating scene, I really don't think that it's really the right time for me to get involved with anyone. And I already told you guys that I couldn't find anything in common with your doctor friends. I need someone who I can talk to for hours, not someone who gets me clammed up and sneaking phones under the table so I can Google what on earth they are talking about."

You can feel your face pinched with annoyance when you think back at those double dates that your sister and her fiancé had taken you to in the past. Seokjin, your sister's fiancé, had once warned you about young doctors who love talking about their work and what they do when they are meeting with a new person, and that they tend to do it to either make them look more interesting or to simply get laid in the end.

Neither has ever worked on you.

You would eventually get bored and lose interest so quickly. Having to pull out your phone in the middle of a conversation where you were supposed to get to know each other really pulls the fun away from dating. Not to mention, no matter who good the person they try to introduce you to is, you will always feel like they are not good enough. That something is amiss.

"You should give your sister a break, Soyeon," Seokjin pulls your sister close to him taking her attention away from you while the annoyance on her face dims to his touch. "One day, the right man will come her way and it doesn't have to be us who are responsible for making it happen."

"I know. I just want the best for my baby sister, that's all. And I know that living alone in the city can be lonely," your sister sighs, her nose scrunching for a moment with a concerned look in her eyes before she lays her head on Seokjin's shoulder.

Watching them together and hearing her words tugs something inside your heart. In a way, she is actually right about something.

You have been feeling quite lonely, though it doesn't simply mean that you want to force yourself to meet someone just to fill in the void. But when you look at them together-to see the way Seokjin is looking at her and how a smile can easily grow on her face each time they exchange gazes, you do realise that you want it. You want to feel what they feel and have the same thing they are having.

But somehow, thinking about finding someone to fill that gap still feels-wrong.