Is this considered cheating?

If someone was to reach out to their ex one year into their new relationship to seek forgiveness is it considered cheating?

Some factors to consider:

\- they called their ex and when they were called out for being in a relationship they said that they are no longer in one and are single

\- they hid that fact that they reached out to their ex to their partner

\- they texted their ex twice before calling them (without getting a response) asking once how they are and twice how they came across old texts

\- they did it “solely to ask for forgiveness because they didn’t want any grudges or negative feelings from another person to affect their current relationship in a bad way” in other words implying karma or evil eye

Just looking for some opinions from different people to see if this would be considered as cheating or not. It may not be wanting a relationship with another person or getting with someone else however is morally wrong, does it still fall under cheating?