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Nia wasn’t really sure how to go about starting a conversation with Moon after the first day they’d met.  She seemed…different.  Maybe Nia had changed too.  But Moon just seemed overly excited about everything.  And she’d been teasing Nia non-stop about Taehyung. 

Nia wasn’t ready to be in a relationship again just yet.  She wanted to get to know Taehyung again.  She didn’t want to jump into a relationship and then realize she had no romantic interest in him.  Sure, they’d dated eight years ago, but feelings could change, right?  And she didn’t want to hurt anyone.  That was the one regret she’d had with Hobi.  Surely, she’d broken his heart.  He’d seemed like he was really in love with her.

“Hey!  Nia!  Want to grab dinner?”

Nia looked up from her desk to find Sua leaning over it.

“My husband is out of town this week, and you seem like you need someone to talk to.”

Nia smiled. “All right.  You’re right, I do need to talk to someone.”

——————–

“Are you ok?”

It had been the first thing Sua had asked after they left the office.  Nia was still considering her answer.

“Honestly…I’m not sure what to do with Moon.”

Nia didn’t continue her thought, so Sua asked another question.

“Do you feel uncomfortable around her?”

Nia nodded hesitantly. “I know…she was my best friend in high school, but now that she’s here again, I’m not sure how to be friends with her.  We both seem so different, and…she keeps mentioning how Tae and I used to date…it’s just…awkward?”

Sua nodded. “Have you tried telling her that?”

“Uh…no.”

“Maybe try that first then.  She might stop if she knows it’s making you uncomfortable.  And who knows, maybe having another someone around from your past will help you remember more things.”

There was a long beat of silence between them before Sua spoke again.

“I’m surprised, you know, about you and Mr. Kim.  He’s always been so reserved.  But thinking back, I suppose I should’ve seen it coming.  The day you came in for an interview, he instantly warmed up.  I thought he was ill.  He spent that entire day completely zoned out.  And then after you started working, he seemed calmer.”

“Really?” Nia asked.

Sua nodded. “You really have an effect on him, Nia.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just shock?  He did think I was dead, after all.”

“No…he can hide shock well.  I’ve seen him do it.  When you work with someone for so long, you start to notice things about a person that other people don’t notice.  I’d never seen him act anything like he did the first week you were working with us.  I’d wager…he’s in love with you.”

Nia choked on her drink.  She spent a few seconds trying to catch her breath before asking, “in love with me?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?  You two dated, right?  I don’t think he got over you.  Losing someone to death has more of an emotional toll than someone rejecting you does.  You know you’ll never see them again, and you know they loved you.  And on top of that, Mr. Kim lost both you and his mom within six years of each other.

“If you two hadn’t been all he had…I think it would’ve been different.  But in the near six years I’ve known him, he’s always been a loner.  He spent most days working from before sunrise until after dusk.  I tried inviting him out to dinner with me and my husband a few times, but he always told me he had more work to do.

“Around the time his mother died, it got better.  Slightly.  I think he realized that the time he’d spent overworking had taken away from time he could’ve spent with her.  I recommended he get a dog.  My brother used to live down in Daejeon, and he had severe depression.  None of us could go down to see him very often, but getting a dog helped him be less lonely.  I thought it would help Mr. Kim too.

“After he got the dog, I didn’t really notice a change in his attitude, but he definitely cut down his work schedule a bit.  He started coming in later in the mornings.  I like to think it helped him, but I can’t be sure.  But now that you’re here, he’s totally different.  It’s like he realized life was really worth living.”