#i would tweak this a bit but otherwise it's perfect for kit

[pika2482]

AOTD 2/8/2024 - Good Faith (Madeon)

[All albums are rates subjectively based off my own enjoyment] 8.5/10

This album is about as solid as a California Redwood. From it's deepest roots, it's thick, firm, and tall trunk, all the way up to it's finest branches, this album delivers on everything it's got with absolutely no faltering. From the Compositions, the Production, the Sound Design, the Performances, and just those little tweaks that just pull the listeners ear in a liiiiitle bit more, no song was ever More or Less than Madeon designed it to be. No frills, no points, no pillows, look at it it looks like 4 synths and a kit (reference). This is, by my definition, a Near Perfect Album.

So, why only an 8.5?

Well, welcome to my album thread. If you missed the disclaimer at the top of all my reviews, it reads "All albums are rated Subjectively based off my own enjoyment". While I could fully appreciate, and at times get into this album, due to the nature of my tastes, I was unable to get into it as much as I would have liked. I had the same problem with the last electronic album, Random Access Memories, and I have it again here. For Me specifically, there's just not enough "Physicality" for me to get hooked in; The sweat droplets on the snare, the dead skin between the guitar strings and pickups, the smell of beer on the microphone, and the blood on keyboard, it's that type of Rigidness and Realness that my ears need to latch onto to get my heart thumping, and that just wasn't there for me in this album, nor is it for most electronic music I've heard. This is a fundamental problem for my enjoyment of the genre, that unfortunately, I am not past at this point in my life.

On the topic of Realness, my favorite of this album is Heavy with Hoping, sporting a One-Take Recording for the Lead Vocals. The vibrato and inflections in his voice were high tier not just for the genre, but for my music library as a whole. The percussion is minimalist, only doing exactly what it needs to do to keep the pulse going, and the Production and Sound Design was mwa, as the rest of the album was; never once more than it needed to be. My favorite moment in the album happened here as well: Toward the second half, the vocals start to increase in intensity, showcasing their Barritone fantastically, when all of the sudden the instrumentals just… drop out for a second as he launches up to grab a belted Gb4 right as the instrumentals come back in with a crash. Even with my fundamental distaste to Electronic, I may end up coming back to this song to start my shuffles off.

Overall, this album was Solid all the way through. Absolutely no duds. To my more Electronic inclined friends, this album is going to earn a Mainstay Recommendation. But otherwise, all I could do was appreciate Madeons technical prowless in composition, sound design, and production.

Favorite Songs: Nirvana, No Fear No More, Heavy with Hoping Least Favorite Songs: N/A

Dream Dream Dream - 8.5/10 All My Friends - 8.5/10 Be Fine - 8/10 Nirvana - 9/10 Mania - 8/10 Miracle - 8.5/10 No Fear No More - 9/10 Hold Me Just Because - 9/10 Heavy With Hoping - 9/10 Borealis - 9/10

[pollylynn]

“And that’s why I want to marry you.” 
—Kate Beckett, For Better or Worse (6 x 23)

Title: Travail Rating: T WC: 1500

The Four Stages of Rogan O’Leary are quite the rollercoaster ride. It’s enough—more than enough—to make him hate the fact that he ever suggested getting married on a rollercoaster.

At first, he sort of loves the idea of him. Or, rather, he thinks that at literally any other moment in time, he would have loved the idea of him, because Kate Beckett’s drunken, drive-thru chapel husband? The notion has considerable appeal.

Not because he wants to take her down a peg or anything. Somewhere around the ten-seconds-after-meeting-her mark, he knew two things with absolute certainty: One, she was out of his league in every way, and two, he’d give anything to be with her. And the moment the idea of Being With Her took on capital-letter status, he accepted—welcomed—spending the rest of his life with someone so very far out of his league.

So it’s not about the fact that Rogan O’Leary is, apparently, a dirtbag’s dirtbag. It’s not about the fact of him . . . humanizing her or something, though he’d be lying if he said the Early Onset Dork in his past wasn’t a little relieved to find that there are some dark corners of her adolescence and young adulthood that aren’t all tight leather, motorcycles, romances with European Nobility—Not Otherwise Specified, and poetry slams.

His early enchantment with the idea of Rogan isn’t about that at all, though. It’s about the fact that there’s nothing he wouldn’t give to know anything of her before that January night. He loves her—loves all of her—entirely and without exception or qualification. He would change nothing about her. Even when she’s grappling with the demons that make her so reckless with herself, even when she is being the epitome of stubborn and holding herself to impossible standards, even when she’s beating him at Scrabble, there isn’t the smallest thing he would change.

But he wishes he could catch a glimpse, just once, of the young woman who was the kind of reckless eighteen-year-olds are supposed to be—the kind who’d head to a drive-thru Vegas chapel like that, even as she set her sights on the US Supreme Court. He wishes he could see her in all glory—strong and self-respecting, not hardened and terrified of loss—as she kicked the compulsive liar to the curb without batting an eye.

His romance with that facet of Rogan ends abruptly, though, when the seriousness of the situation sets in. When he sees how genuinely miserable she is at the prospect of her youthful whim derailing the wedding, it crashes down on him how monstrously unfair it is that her past should rear up to snatch away the happiness she’s only just been able to truly wrap her hands around, because they just fucking finished beating back her painful past.

In Stage Two of Rogan, he spends more time than is probably healthy—and certainly more time than he will ever admit in his outside-his-head voice—wondering what it would take to put a contract out on her not-nearly-erstwhile-enough husband.

But murder for hire is probably impractical, so he throws money at Stage Two. He throws his very good lawyer at it, and reluctantly agrees to her divide and conquer plan, because she’s . . .  embarrassed. She feels like she needs to do penance and clean up the mess on her own, and okay, maybe he’d make that one small tweak to his otherwise perfect goddess-cum-future-wife if he could, but in the mean time, he agrees to stay behind.

He holds in reserve the idea of paying out for a time-sensitive hit. He reviews all the guys he knows who know those kinds of guys and revisits the possibility every time she calls and she sounds a little bit smaller, a little bit more desperate. Eventually, he chucks out the idea of summary execution entirely, and instead decides that the man needs to suffer—really suffer—just as soon as he signs the divorce papers.

Laying the groundwork for Rogan’s post–Beckett pain is uppermost in his mind when he hits Willow Creek after a more or less sleepless night, but then they meet Tildy. Then they meet Tildy’s mother and Sapphire and the myriad women of Willow Creek who look at her with wounded black anger behind their eyes and tell her Let him go. Then his relationship to Rogan O’Leary changes again.

He’s disgusted by the man. He’s fascinated and amused by him on the surface of things. And, okay, he’s amused well beneath the surface about the dirtbag genius of Coma Wife, but it’s genuinely awful that this guy—this ridiculous, low-rent con man—has managed to do so much real damage. It’s genuinely awful that he’s still doing real damage right this very second, and in Stage Three of Rogan O’Leary, he’s terrified that he’s no better.

He thinks back to three years ago. He thinks of Damien Westlake and his halting confession. Without him, I’m a lawyer, a grifter, a rodeo clown. He despises his own trick of the trade, tucking away the most likely outcome between two absurd alternatives. He thinks of the people he’s hurt in the course of cultivating his bad boy image, in the course of insulating himself from any real human interaction. He thinks of the ways he’s hurt her over the years, how recently he’s reverted to type and hurt her.  

He’s terrified and sick with amorphous guilt when she hears about the dress, and on top of the fire and every single Rogan-related problem, it’s too much for her. All of a sudden, she’s citing him, chapter and verse, about Signs from the Universe—the most versatile tool in the con-man’s arsenal. All of a sudden, she is worn down and devastated and sure that she somehow deserves this disaster.  

His relationship with the idea of Rogan doesn’t change then. He’s still disgusted. He’s still terrified in his heart of hearts, but in a dizzying reversal, he’s the one talking about work. He’s the one arguing for effort and persistence and working at this great love of theirs, because he will not—will not—let one more person on this earth, including and especially this dirtbag who might be a Mirrorverse version of himself,  take one more damned thing from her.  

Meeting Rogan—entering the final Stage—is an odd combination completely irrelevant and a blessing. He’s such a nonentity. He’s nothing but a doofus stuck in the past. He calls her Kit-Kat and lobs insults that aspire to high-school level wit. He is a relic.  

He doesn’t have a kid, a mother, an avocation that means something. He’s never had anyone or anything he’s had to step up for until maybe now. Until maybe Tildy, and in yet another twist, he turns out to be a victim himself. He’s harmless and he might even be worthy of some exasperated measure of sympathy if he weren’t cursed with the worst luck in the world. If he weren’t about to get them all killed.

But Rogan doesn’t get them all killed. Inspiration strikes at the critical moment, and he doesn’t care if it’s the Universe looking out for them or the culmination of all the work they’ve done. He doesn’t care who or what it is that snips the strings that tether them to cold feet and the stupid, stupid past. He only cares that they’ve managed to kick free and now they can get on with it.

He sends her on her way to the Hamptons. That’s how the Rogan Denouement begins.

“Go,” he tells her, kissing her hard in the middle of the street. “Sort out the dress with Lance. Rest up and do all your . . . girlie beauty stuff.”

“My girlie beauty stuff?” she laughs and hangs around his neck, but he can feel the tension thrumming through her. He can feel the tug-of-war between what she wants to do and what she thinks she should do.

“Not that you need it.” He brushes his lips over each cheek in turn. “Go, Kate. Spend some time with your dad. Let me do the paperwork for once.”

“The paperwork!” She laughs at that. It rolls over him like a cool, silvery wave crashing in sunlight, and he knows he’s won the day. “You think you can make up for six years with one grand gesture, don’t you?”

“No. No grand gesture.” It comes out a whisper. He’s choked up and overwhelmed. He wants to marry her right then and there, whether he’s good enough or not. He wants to marry her in front of everyone who loves her and him and both of them together. He wants to get them over the finish line to their perfect day. “Just a start on the rest of my life. The rest of our lives.”  A/N: Thank you again to all of you reading and following me through this silly journey.

images via homeofthenutty

[eagle-eyez]

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Price: Rs 28,999

Realme recently launched a couple of Ultra HD TVs in the Indian market to make its smart TV line-up look more rounded. The new 43- and 50-inch TVs both boast features such as a 4K display, support for Dolby Vision and hands-free voice control. Of the two, we got the 43-inch variant for review. Time to figure out how it performs.

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - Design and connectivity: 7.5/10

The Realme Smart TV 4K is easy on the eye, with a bezel-less design on three sides and a thicker bottom bezel. The trapezoidal chin under the company logo hosts the voice assistant indicator LEDs and IR receiver, among other things. The TV can be wall-mounted or placed on a desk using the bundled stand. The wall mount kit, however, isn’t provided in the package and probably needs to be purchased separately.

The necessary screws are bundled along with a wireless remote control and a pair of AAA batteries. In the connectivity department, you get three HDMI ports – one for ARC support, two USB 2.0 ports, optical audio out, A/V in and a LAN port, all placed along the left edge of the rear module. The ports are located more towards the centre of the TV than nearer to the edge. Since this is not a large screen TV, the ports may not be so hard to reach even if you wall mount it, but I always prefer them closer to the edge for easy access.

You also have a couple of wireless connectivity options with Bluetooth 5.0 to connect to wireless speakers or headphones and dual band Wi-Fi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. A notable absentee here is any kind of analogue audio out, like a coaxial A/V out or a 3.5 mm headphone jack. So, if you plan to connect external speakers or a sound bar, make sure they either have HDMI ARC, Bluetooth or optical input.

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - Features and specifications: 8/10

The Realme Smart TV 4K 43 has a 43-inch VA panel with an Ultra HD resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, a 60 Hz refresh rate and can display over a billion colour shades. It supports all popular HDR standards such as Dolby Vision, HDR10/10+ and HLG. You do not get the SLED backlighting that was present on the 55-inch model. This TV is powered by a Mediatek chipset that has a quad-core processor with four ARM Cortex A53 cores and Mali-G52 GPU. The CPU cores can go as high as 1550 MHz. You get 2 GB RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, a chunk of which is taken up by the official Android TV 10 OS; you are left with about 10 GB of storage for your apps and data.

Sound output is rated at 24 watts RMS with support for Dolby Atmos and DTS. Like all certified Android TVs, this one, too, has Chromecast built in and lets you cast content to the screen from compatible apps on your phone or tablet. You get the usual Realme wireless remote control that I’m quite fond of. It is compact and clutter-free but doesn’t lack any important keys. The remote here has dedicated keys for settings, input selection and mute, along with the usual navigational keys, volume control and hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube.

Build quality is average, but otherwise, this is one of the better remotes you get with Android TVs, with just the right number of keys covering all necessary functions. It operates via both IR and Bluetooth. The power button on the remote communicates with the TV using IR when you switch it on, and everything after that operates via Bluetooth. The remote is voice-enabled, so you can summon the Google Assistant by pressing the corresponding key and issue voice commands; it works smoothly. You can issue voice commands even without the remote, courtesy of multiple microphones present on the TV for hands-free voice control. More on that a little later.

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - User interface: 8/10

This Realme TV runs official Android TV 10 and has a near-stock user interface that you see on most official Android TVs without a third-party launcher. However, certain settings have been shuffled around. The UI is simple and easy to use with the usual row of your favourite installed apps, the shortcuts for which you can add, remove or shift around. Other rows display last played or suggested content from various OTT platforms. The TV comes preloaded with apps including Netflix, Prime Video, certain popular Google services and a few more. There’s also Google Play Store for accessing thousands of other apps.

Unlike older Realme TVs where the dedicated settings button on the remote did nothing (unless you were in HDMI or USB input modes), here, it brings up the quick settings menu irrespective of the source or app being used or even from the Home screen. This is a welcome addition, and something I was personally looking forward to. The translucent overlay for the menu looks cool, too. Pressing the button gives you access to various options including Picture and Sound pre-sets and settings using which you can fine-tune the video and audio quality. In fact, that’s the only way to access Picture and Sound options, as they have been moved out of the main Android TV settings on this TV.

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - Picture quality: 6.5/10

Overall picture quality of this TV is a mixed bag, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the panel. It is more about the way it has been tuned out of the box, or probably about the Chroma Boost Engine that claims to increase brightness, contrast and colour. Colour reproduction is a bit too vivid for my liking. The colours are noticeably boosted, and you need to drop saturation to make the picture seem closer to natural. While most colour shades come within acceptable levels of vibrance, the reds simply cannot be reined in. While you do not get a red tint on the overall picture, anything that’s red on the screen appears blown out; so much so that even the Netflix logo appears overly red.

Another issue I faced was in the white areas of the screen, which are quite harsh on the eyes, and there’s a significant loss of detail in certain bright zones in the picture. There is also a noticeable flickering in high-contrast scenes. One way to address these issues is to set the colour temperature to Warm and alternate between Dark and Middle gamma settings. The normal colour temperature here leans a lot towards the cooler side, and the ideal option would have been right between normal and warm. Unfortunately, this TV does not let you manually adjust the white balance or colour temperature. Strangely, the Hue slider is also inaccessible.

This Realme TV does offer you certain basic options to fine-tune the picture, ranging from brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness to pre-sets for noise reduction, colour temperature, gamma and more. There are no motion adjustment settings, and that brings me to my next issue with this TV. Quite often, the picture feels jittery, irrespective of the resolution or dynamic range of the content. In certain cases, you can clearly see motion artifacts and ghosting. Quite strange, given the TV has a 60 Hz refresh rate. Technically, the company should be able to fix all the above issues via an over-the-air update, which was due earlier this month, but hasn’t arrived yet. If and when that happens, the rating on this front can go higher.

Despite the issues I’ve mentioned, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Realme Smart TV 4K. Overall contrast is decent and black levels are rather good for the segment. Unlike the bright zones, details in darker areas in high-contrast scenes in our test videos were clearly visible. Picture sharpness is also quite good, and after a lot of tweaking and tuning, the picture does look lively, especially when it comes to 4K content. If you are too lazy to play with the manual picture adjustments, use the Movie pre-set for the most acceptable settings; however, remember they’re not perfect. Similarly, use the Dolby Vision Dark pre-set when watching Dolby Vision content.

While 4K HDR and SDR content looks sharp on this TV, 1080p (Full HD) videos don’t look soft either and have ample detail. 720p videos were perfectly watchable, too. However, anything lower than 720p looks washed out. Viewing angles are quite good, and there was hardly any colour shift when watching the TV from wider angles. Unlike older Realme TVs, sound and picture adjustments are available on the fly here, irrespective of the input or app, which is a big plus. All you need to do is press the settings button (the one with three horizontal lines).

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - Audio quality: 7/10

Two pairs of bottom-firing speakers (rated at 24 watts RMS total) deliver an above-average audio output. Each speaker module has a full-range driver to take care of mids and lows, as well as a dedicated silk dome tweeter to handle high frequencies. Audio output of the Realme Smart TV 4K, though not the best in the segment, is better than that of its predecessors. The speakers are tuned well out of the box, and you have a good amount of sound adjustment options to tweak the audio further.

The output is perfectly audible around the 30 percent volume level, and I rarely had to go beyond 50 percent. There is a bit more warmth in the sound now, and vocal clarity is good for the most part. However, in sequences with heavy bass or a loud background score, the vocals get noticeably masked. There could have been a better balance here, or an option to enhance dialogue clarity. The speakers are compliant with Dolby Atmos, but it needs to be manually enabled via the sound settings. Better to leave it on all the time because the overall audio sounds better irrespective of whether the source audio is compliant with Atmos or not.

Strangely, the bass and treble sliders are disabled once you enable the Atmos option. Don’t expect miracles from these TV speakers even when playing Dolby Atmos content, though. These speakers are good enough to take care of most of your general audio needs – from watching news, sports and the odd web series, to listening to music. If you crave the extra thump, you have a handful of audio outputs on this Realme TV including HDMI ARC, optical out and Bluetooth to plug in a sound bar or a speaker system.

Realme Smart TV 4K 43 - Overall performance: 7/10

The TV takes about 35 seconds to boot up when you switch it on from the mains, which is slightly quicker than most Android TVs. Post that, if you switch it off and on using the remote, the TV comes back on in just a couple of seconds from standby mode. The TV displays the Dolby Vision and HDR logos basis the content being played. However, I wish it could flash different logos for HDR10 and HDR10+ content; currently, it’s just HDR. The preinstalled media player is good and managed to play almost all videos with various codecs I threw at it. You always have the option of using a third-party player such as VLC, in case you don’t like it.

As I mentioned earlier, this TV has multiple microphones present for hands-free voice control. All it takes to activate them is for a user to utter the words “OK Google” or “Hey Google”, and issue a relevant voice command. It works surprisingly well and is almost as good as using the microphone on the remote. If you are concerned about the TV eavesdropping on you, there is a dedicated button at the back of the TV to turn off the microphones. Other than the picture tuning issues I spoke of earlier, almost everything works smoothly on this Realme TV.

Realme Smart TV 43 - Price and verdict

The Realme Smart TV 4K 43 can be purchased on Flipkart as well as on the company’s website for Rs 28,999, with a one-year warranty for parts and two years for the panel. That’s a standard price point for most 43-inch 4K Android TVs currently, and there are some established players in the segment to contend with. This TV will face stiff competition from the likes of the Hisense A71F, Thomson Oath Pro, Kodak CA and certain VU models. All these models are Dolby Vision-compliant, too. The Realme TV does have a neat design and some cool extras such as hands-free voice controls, but in order to pose a real threat, it needs to fix the one thing that matters most – picture quality.

source https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/realme-smart-tv-4k-43-review-promising-tv-that-may-reach-full-potential-with-an-update-or-two-9742831.html

[lubdubsworld]

The unfaithful Wife ( Jimin /OC)

Chapter 2

I stopped short in front of my apartment, dread rising up inside me like a living thing as i stared at the man in front of my door. I swallowed nervously. How dare he come here? I pulled Jin Soo closer and hoisted him up into my waist , before walking over to the door. Lee Taemin straightened up from where he was leaning against the wall of the door and I resisted the urge to be physically sick. He disgusted me.

"Min Hee yah... Oppa has been waiting for such a long time... Were you held up by something?"

"What do you want?" I swallowed.

"Can't I come visit my favorite girl? Jin Soo, say hello to uncle.." He said to my son, who dutifully whispered, " Hello uncle."

"Jin Soo, come here..." I opened the apartment door and sent my son in , " Mama will be right there.. Why don't you go set up your truck.. We can play ??" I smiled and he nodded eagerly, rushing in to find his toy. I shut the door carefully before rounding on Tae Min.

"Stop chasing me. I don't want anything to do with you..." I snapped. Tae Min ignored me and reached out curling one finger around a lock of my long hair, yanking sharply. I shoved him away but he grabbed my wrists, pulling me flush against his chest. His grip was so strong I could feel a whimper build up inside my throat but I swallowed it.

"Leave.. before I call the cops..." I spat out and he rolled his eyes.

"We both know you aren't going to do that... Did you hear about your wonderful Jimin? He's getting married now. I think you can drop your penance now and come to me. " He said angrily . I yanked my hand away hard, although it hurt like hell and he let go.

"Get out. " I said, voice trembling.

"Your son is the rightful heir to the Park empire. Do you really want him to grow up like a pauper while some other child takes his place? Come to me and he can have everything he's supposed to have. Everything he deserves. Don't be foolish , babe. " He said warningly.

I glared at him.

"He will have everything he deserves and it doesn't have to be from you or anyone else. I can damn well give him the life he deserves. Get the hell out of my face.." I snarled.

He grinned at that.

"You're delusional if you think you're little cup-cake business is going to turn you into a freaking millionaire. Listen to sense, woman. Park Jimin is getting married. He's not going to forgive you or take you back..."

I snorted.

"You're an idiot, if you think I want to go back to him... I hate him almost as much as I hate you..."

"Really? ... So you don't mind the fact that I told him you're my mistress...."

I froze in place.

"What?" I whispered in disbelief.

"He came by the office earlier looking like death. And that bird-brained fiancee of his was yelling at him about you. i decided to bring some peace by letting him know that you were with me now, so he needn't worry. What's wrong? You should be happy.... At least you can have some pride in case you run into him... "

"You're disgusting..." I turned around to leave, reaching for the door knob but he yanked my hand away.

"I'll leave... but you know what always amazed me? How quick Jimin is at believing anything I tell him about you... I mean five years ago, he believed that I slept with you and today he was just as quick to believe that you're still sleeping with him. He doesn't trust you an inch, does he?" He said , sounding amused.

I pulled my hand away , my entire body shaking in violent rejection. It hurt so damn much because it was true. Jimin had never trusted me. When I'd needed him the most, he'd abandoned me. But he'd known Taemin since childhood. Even though they were business rivals, they were best-friends . So when Taemin had assaulted me, tried to hurt me in the worst way possible , Jimin had believed his rediculous story of me seducing him. Apparently he still believed it.

I shook my head resolutely. I would not let Park Jimin into my head again. What was done, was done. I couldn't go through that again.

"Make your choice wisely, Min Hee. One of these days I'm going to stop asking and I'm just going to take what I want." Lee Taemin warned as I slammed the door shut on his face.

~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm sorry about last evening." I said and Mrs . Min waved it off.

"I'm very familiar with how these society brats act, Ms. Kim. I'm not one to lose good talent because of some hysteric and insecure female. You're welcome to work with me, because you're good at what you do. " She said with a cheerful smile and i felt my respect for the woman grow tenfold. I wasn't used to acceptance. In the early days of my divorce, when the scandal and my face was fresh in everyone's mind, no one had wanted to give me a job. I shut away the old memories and smiled cheerfully at Mrs. Min.

"Thank you so much. You won't be disappointed." i said resolutely.

We spent the next few hours discussing the menu for the upcoming wedding and I had a very bitter revelation. No matter how long it had been, no matter how much I ought to hate the man who had failed me, I couldn't really bear the thought of him with another woman. It was a shameful realization , one that made me hate myself.

It was almost evening by the time I packed everything up, a blueprint and a timeline framed. There were two dozen different recipes to be perfected and tweaked and i could see a few sleepless nights ahead of me. I glanced at the clock and felt a little bit of elation. Mrs. Min had offered me an advance which would likely cover my rent and Jin Soo's daycare fee. It was also just a little past five which meant i could take Jin Soo to the park ,give ourself a little treat. i hadn't been out with him in over two weeks, weighed down by work. My mood perking up considerably, I slowly walked the few dozen blocks to the daycare.

In the beginning I hadn't been able to afford public transport everywhere. So I'd learned to walk. But now, it was more habit than anything else. I enjoyed walking in the fresh air. kit helped clear my head and brough a modicum of peace in an otherwise turbulent life. But today there was no peace to be found. Tears stung instead.

I still felt upset although the initial bitter anger that I'd had for him had now faded into a dull ache, a sort of hopeless acceptance really. Some relationships, I'd convinced myself, were only meant to reach a certain level. Maybe we were just one of those couples who were never meant to be together at all. It was easier to think of it that way, rather than to endlessly nurture hatred and anger for a man, who would probabaly never accept that he had been the one in the wrong.

But , stunningly, it was the good times we'd shared that were harder to forget. The late night ice cream runs, the walks, the shared dreams and the endless nights of passion. I hjad been young, but I'd truly loved him and in his own way he had loved me too. I was sure of that.  

But it had all changed when Lee Taemin had come into our life. He was Jimin's best friend , almost like a brother and they'd grown up together before Taeming had moved to Busan. He had been working in Busan before moving back to Seoul, about four months after our marriage. I'd always noticed the way he looked at me but I'd been a naive eighteen year old. Too embarrassed to bring it up to Jimin. It was the worst mistake of my life. Maybe if I'd confided early on, the events that followed would have gone differently.

One night, about a year into our marriage,  when Jimin had been working late. Taemin had come home. I'd been nervous , had texted Mirae to call Jimin.... Because I couldn't do it in front of Tae Min who looked drunk as well as dangerous. But that had just been another huge mistake on my part.

In the end my husband had walked in on Taemin pinning me to the couch, and to my complete and utter horror he had taken Taemin's side. I'd been furious and angry that he would suspect me , had walked out on him with dignified anger.

But what i hadn't known back then was that Mi Rae had always resented that I had managed to land the most eligible bachelor in all of Korea. So she took the opportunity to completely wreck my marriage. And hurtfully, Jimin fell for her little ploy. It took me a few weeks to realize that Mi Rae had told Jimin that I was cheating on him with Taemin and if he left at once he could catch me in the act. I'd been horrified and determined not to let a silly misunderstanding come between us. But it was too late and the damage had been done.

And i had begged. Shamelessly. on my knees, i had begged Jimin to believe me. But all he'd done was throw a cheque on my face and ask me to get out.

I stopped short when I realized that I'd somehow managed to walk past the Daycare center, lost in thought.

"Mommy!! You came fast..." Jin Soo threw himself into my arms and I melted a bit, the sweet smell of baby powder clinging to him . He was such a well-behaved kid, I always felt blessed. I may regret a lot of things about my life but I would never regret marrying Jimin. Simply because it had given me this wonderful boy in return.

"What say, we go to the park? Blow some bubbles, get some dukbokki..." I grinned and Jin Soo's face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Yes.. Yes.. Park!!" He squealed and the caretaker, Ms. Lee gave me an amused smile.

"He's so happy when you come early. " She smiled. I nodded.

"I'll try to be early more often. " i said sincerely.

When I stepped out of the daycare , I got a genuine heart attack.

Park Jimin stood at the entrance, a shiny black Porsche parked near the curb as he stared up at the sky , seemingly lost in thought. He didn't seem to be there on purpose. So it was all just a hideous coincidence, that he'd somehow managed to stop right in front of the daycare when i was taking Jin Soo out. He was dressed in a simple white t-shirt and jeans and I swallowed  nervously. He looked even better than I remembered and I had a disturbing flashback to how he used to wear the same white t shirt and faded jeans on weekends that he would spend, wrapped up on the couch with me. I had to drag myself to the present, remind myself of all the reasons he couldn't see me now, with Jin Soo.

Just as I tried to make up my mind if i ought to just run. he turned around and I froze in my tracks , his gaze pinning me to the pavement.

And then I actually made the mistake of turning and running. Jin Soo cried out in shock as I held him closer.

I barely reached a few steps before Jimin managed to come ahead, holding both arms up as he stared at me.

"Min Hee, what the hell.."

"What are you doing here???" I hissed, panicking.

"What the hell a re you doing?" He rasped out. His eyes finally focused on Jin soo, who was staring at him in wide eyed terror, trying to burrow closer to my shoulder. I stepped back a few more steps and Jimin stared at me in disbelief .

"Jimin... You should leave.." I said desperately.

" He looks like me... Just like me... Fuck, Min Hee....  Tell me it's not what I think. You wouldn't hide something like that from me, would you??" He snarled.

I sobbed out a protest. " You kicked me out of your life, you have no right..."

"Like hell i don't.... Tell me the truth..." He demanded and I looked away from him, panting. We were in a public street and people were starting to stare.

"Let's... Let's talk about this like civil people..." I begged.

His eyes narrowed and then widened when Jin Soo burst into tears. His gaze softened and he looked torn. I quickly pulled Jin Soo close and shushed him.

"It's okay... baby.... This is a friend... Momma's friend.. Don't worry... He's an.. uncle.." I said helplessly . Jimin gave me a look that was impossible to decipher.

"Like Taemin uncle?" Jin Soo sniffled and both of us froze. Jimin's face slowly turned black and hard and I shut my eyes in despair.

"Yes... " I choked out." Like Taemin uncle.."

"We need to talk.." Jimin said fiercely and I stared at him. There was no sign of the man I'd once loved. He looked hard and unforgiving , like he wouldn't stop at anything to get what he wanted.  

I nodded bleakly.

"I.. I can meet you tomorrow. After dropping my ... After dropping Jin Soo off." I said quietly.

"Good. And don't even think of running away again. Now that I know what you've been hiding from me, I'll chase you to the depths of hell if you try to get away from me. you're not getting away from me this time." He whispered.

And then suddenly, chillingly, he reached out and brushed a strand of my hair away from my forehead.

The touch of his fingers to my skin made my entire body seize up.

"Jimin..."

"Tomorrow."

And then he turned and walked away.