SHINee Duets 2012: royalwisteria & sansunparapluie (part one)
Title: Memories of a stranger
Authors: royalwisteria & sansunparapluie
Pairing: het!Onew/Minho; Onew/Jessica
Rating: PG-13 for language
Warnings: none
Authors’ Notes: So, we’re both prone to verbal diarrhea, which means by putting us together, there is only ever too much to write. This story has turned into a two-shot and here is part one! (Thank you mods for being lenient about this.) Part two will be posted later to our individual journals. This being the first ever collab experience for both of us, we spent a lot of time planning everything. Hope you’ll enjoy~ Comments will be much loved. <3
It is the middle of July and the wood of the park bench burns against the back of her knees. Minjung slouches down further and absently pulls on the hem of her shorts, squinting against the sweltering heat. Then suddenly her back straightens and she leans forward, her double chocolate swirl tipping dangerously over the edge of the cone. But her attention stays with whatever it is that has caught her eye; she doesn’t even notice until a drop of melted ice cream hits the strap of her flip-flops and works its way in between her toes.
Someone waves a piece of tissue in her face and she takes it, bending down to wipe the sticky stuff off her foot. But before she gets a chance to, gravity is beckoning eagerly to the rest of her ice cream and it lands messily on the grass.
She hears a snort.
Minjung knows what’s coming so she turns to her companion and hurries to say: “I am not a klutz!”
“Whatever you say.” The little girl licks the last raspberry smudge off her lip and tugs on one of her pigtails. “I’m not the one who wasted my entire ice cream cone. If you weren’t gonna eat it you should have just let me have it.”
“Gwiboon, stop pulling on your hair. You’re messing it up! It’s crooked now and you know it took me forever to get it-”
“Can I take the pins out? It’s itchy. And you braided everything too tight.”
“Tightly. And I did not-”
Gwiboon ducks away from Minjung’s hand and cranes her neck in the direction that Minjung has been staring in for past ten minutes. “So what are we looking at? Or who?”
Minjung feels her heart flutter a little and her mouth stiffens. She stares down at the empty cone in her hand with its coat of brown chocolate for a good three seconds before catching Gwiboon staring at her with bright curious eyes. With a sigh, she lifts her head and squints off into the distance again, between the pedestrians, beyond the cars, all the way across the street. Gwiboon presses closer to her and together, by tacit agreement, they wait.
She imagines she can hear the bell tinkle as the door opens again and silently, she points.
It’s a man. White T-shirt, navy shorts. Average height. Healthy tan. A little on the lean side. He has one hand on his lower back as he shields his eyes with his other and talks to the worker at the top of the ladder, fixing the store sign.
For a while, neither of them says anything and just watches.
“He’s cute.” Gwiboon concludes sagely.
Minjung feels the heat crawling up her neck.
“You should go talk to him.” She takes the forgotten tissue out of Minjung’s grasp and wipes her own fingers on it. When Minjung fails to reply, she pauses and looks up at her. “Or I could. I mean, if you’re too shy about it and stuff.”
“No!” Minjung snatches the tissue right back and bends down to wipe her foot.
“Why not?” Gwiboon pulls the offending hairpins from her scalp and unties the pigtail that she’s been tugging on.
Minjung freezes before slowly straightening up and folding the tissue into a neat little square. She doesn’t even notice that her masterpiece is now undone and Gwiboon is combing her fingers through what’s left of it.
“You...you shouldn’t talk to strangers.” She mumbles, head lowered.
Gwiboon raises a judgmental eyebrow at the statement before going back to observing the man, who now has his back to them and is gesturing something to the worker. She gathers her dark locks into a new pigtail as she wonders out loud:
“Do you think he makes good pancakes?”
“What?” Minjung blinks. “No...” The answer comes reflexively.
Gwiboon shoots her a curious glance and sets to work on her other pigtail.
Minjung lifts the soggy ice cream cone to her lips and nibbles on it as her eyes wander back to the man in the white T-shirt. A smile makes its way onto her lips. “It’s always a disaster when he tries to make breakfast. He can’t even fry an egg to save his life. And if it weren’t for the person who invented sliced bread, he’d probably have no fingers left by now...”
“So you know him?”
“Nope.” Minjung shakes her head and tosses the barely eaten cone into the garbage can next to the bench. “He’s just a stranger.”
Before Gwiboon has a chance to ask her why she has that glimmer in her eyes, a bag settles down in the space between them and a familiar voice says, “Am I late? I’m not, right? After the conference finished I had a hard time finding the right bus.”
“Auntie Minhee!” Gwiboon exclaims and is quickly smothered by the laughing woman. Minhee’s hugs are probably the only ones that Gwiboon won’t fight off as if her life depended on it.
“Oh I’ve missed you so much. You’ve really grown haven’t you?”
Minhee picks her up and over the back of the bench and then twirls her in circles. Minjung watches the two of them with crinkled eyes.
“Oof.” Minhee sets Gwiboon down and wipes a hand dramatically over her brows. “And you’re getting heavy too. Don’t think I can do this the next time I see you.”
“Then come visit more often!”
“Maybe you should convince Minjung to take you to Korea more often!” Minhee looks at her sister meaningfully before hugging her. “If I didn’t have this conference thing I probably wouldn’t have seen you guys till Christmas.”
“Unnie, I have work...” Minjung mumbles into Minhee’s shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah.” The older woman dismisses her excuse.
Rubbing circles into Minjung’s back, she murmurs. “How are you doing these days? Hm?”
Minjung pulls back with a bright grin adorning her face. “I’m good!”
Minhee looks slightly skeptical and so she gives her hand a small squeeze, turning up the wattage even further until the light is pouring out of her eyes.
“I’m good, honest.”
…
The bicycle sways precariously for a second and she curls her fingers into the sides of his backpack, careful to lift her feet away from the spokes of the wheel.
“Are you tired?” she ventures.
He hums a little, sweat matting the ends of his hair to the dark skin at the back of his neck and soaking through the white collar of his shirt.
“I’m sorry. I’ll walk,” she offers.
The lines of his shoulders lift in a small shrug. He mumbles something. I’m fine, she thinks he says. She chews on her bottom lip, still worried, but she can’t help the insistence with which the corners of her mouth tug upward. Peaking around him, she sees something that makes her eyes light up.
“Let’s get patbingsu.”
He sighs. It’s a good sort of sigh, she figures.
It’s a small store tucked between a barbershop and a dry cleaner’s. He leans the bike against the utility pole and leads the way in. There is no A/C but two Jurassic ceiling fans are struggling along, attempting to stir the heat out of the humid air. With their heads together, they dig around their pockets and pool together their change. She meticulously counts out the wrinkled bills and the slippery coins, coming to the conclusion that they are a hundred and fifty won short of two servings of patbingsu.
“There’s enough for a large, right?” He wipes a finger across his sweat-beaded upper lip.
She nods carefully.
“Coffee flavor then.” She can’t tell if he ends that with a period or a question mark, but as soon as she catches half of the grin that he flashes in her direction (before aiming it at the bored-looking ahjumma running the store), everything is alright. She knows he knows she abhors bitter things just as she knows coffee is his most recent obsession, but she figures it’ll come with enough fruits.
Or she hopes so, anyway.
A new song comes on the radio sitting behind the counter and suddenly he is singing along to it, full of enthusiasm, knowing every quirk with which the disembodied voice filtering through the static handles the notes. But try as she might, the words are alien to her and the tune remains, at best, vaguely familiar.
“Do you know this song?” he asks as he finishes the chorus.
She hesitates, but then shakes her head.
He looks incredulous for a second.
“It sounds nice though,” She quickly amends. “What’s it called?”
He opens his mouth as if to answer, but then it’s time for the bridge and he just launches right into the music. The ahjumma - significantly less bored-looking now - praises his voice to the skies as she sets down their order in front of them. He smiles and thanks her and it’s suddenly as if they were mother and son.
She quietly picks up her fork and puts a slice of strawberry into her mouth.
She winces. It’s sour.
(But half a minute later, he’s nudging a can of peach Milkis closer to her elbow.)
…
Minjung is reminded, once again, that she means to change her ringtone as her phone goes off. Setting down her mug of coffee on the counter, she winces at the obnoxious sound as she flips it open.
“Hello?”
“Minjung! How’re you doing?” Minhee’s voice is a bit tinny and loud as always.
“I’m almost done unpacking everything,” she says, eyeing the last two boxes that she has stuffed into a corner of the tiny barely furnished apartment. “So, you know, good. The usual.”
“Good to hear,” Minhee says, tone a little distracted, and Minjung can hear people talking in the background and glasses clinking. She wonders if Minhee heard her at all.
“Where are you?” She asks, more to make conversation than anything.
“Some bar with coworkers.”
“Oh.”
Their conversation dwindles into silence and Minjung feels lonely in this pigeonhole of a place all by herself (though claustrophobia might be more appropriate). It isn’t her first time on her own, but Korea has always been a world of familiarity, filled with people and things that she has known for years and years. There was the big loud family next door and the argumentative couple two doors down and she could see shops - shops whose owners she all knew by name - and a noraebang place outside her window. There is no loud family next door here, and it’s not noraebang. It’s karaoke.
“Hey, did you hear?” There is a subtle change to Minhee’s tone and everything seems a little quieter on the other end.
“Hear what?” Minjung asks, frowning at Minhee’s habit of obscurity.
“About Jinki?”
Minjung bursts out laughing; what flashes past her eyes though is anything but amusement. “Are you drunk?”
“Honestly, do you know?”
Minjung is silent for a few moments.
“He’s-”
“Look, after our break-up, it’s not as if I’m gonna be inclined to go searching for every little detail about his life,” Minjung cuts her off testily, picking her mug up and taking a sip. “Why should I? Who is he to me?”
“Calm down, geez. Sorry for touching a nerve. I just thought that...you know, mom might have told you something. Like, where he lives for example.”
She feels a slight tremor run down her spine at the sudden premonition. “Oh.” Fuck. “He doesn’t live in Tokyo too, does he?”
“I thought you kn...that’s why you...I...” Minhee pauses to gather her thoughts. “Auntie told me. He moved the winter that he graduated.”
“I didn’t know,” Minjung said faintly, dipping her upper lip back into her coffee.
“I know you don’t like me saying it, but you need to stop closing yourself off,” Minhee accuses. “Loosen up and actually let it all go.” In the background, someone shouts for Minhee to get off the phone already and join the party. Minjung is, for a moment, jealous as all hell. It’s easy for Minhee to say that, isn’t it? It’s easy for someone like Minhee.
“I’ve gotta go,” Minjung says stiffly, fingers curling tight around the handle of the mug. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wa-wait! Minjung! There’s-”
Minjung hangs up without caring. She doesn’t. Really, she doesn’t. Whatever it is that Minhee wants to tell her has no meaning. Except that Minjung realizes that it is probably about Jinki and she can’t convince herself that she can not care about him.
He’s Jinki, after all.
…
They are walking with his friends today so she doesn’t ride in the back. He’s in front with two boys from his class and she follows a short ways behind, placing her feet in the exact same spots that he does even though neither of them leaves behind any marks on the well-worn cement.
She’s easily the tallest girl in the neighborhood and so his strides are the same size as hers, more or less. She carefully tucks away her smile by biting down on her bottom lip. One step, two step - it’s easy to keep up.
The boys are loud and brassy, their words riding on the rhythm of their eagerness and their laughter rolling against her eardrums like shorebound swells on the ocean. Before she knows it she has her eyes closed and is picking out his voice. It has never taken much effort, not really, not when they’ve grown up within earshot of one another. She figures she has heard him speak on more occasions than her own father, give or take a few business trips’ worth absence on the older man’s part.
It’s a little deep but not too deep. It’s clear. It’s vibrant. It’s got every inch of sunshine that has ever left the sun.
He’s a star, she thinks.
He’s visible from light years and light years away. He’s got planets and comets and all sorts of things orbiting around him. And to the little people on this planet, it’s not that he means to be their compass, their guide; he simply is, and the rest just falls into place.
Man, Park caught me reading manhwa in English class.
Is that why you’re late going home today? He gave you detention?
Well not exactly. He kicked me out of class and told me to stand outside for the rest of the afternoon-
And you snuck off?
To watch the girls do track and field. Hey, it’s a legitimate reason!
So Hwang caught you?
And took me back to Park, the bitch.
You’re stupid for sneaking off when Park’s the one telling you to stand outside.
Nah, Park’s only a douchebag when he catches you, but he never checks if you stay there the whole time. This guy here is an idiot for getting caught, and by Hwang of all people.
I had to run laps for an hour! Yah, be a good friend and give me a ride home. My legs hurt like-
Hey, get off! He jerks his bike forward before his friend has a chance to sit in the back. I don’t take passengers, you know that.
Asshole...
Get your own bike if you’re too lazy to walk.
I live on the top of a hill. What’s the point if I’m the one pedalling? But I’ll forgive you for being a jerk if you help me out with the essay that Park is making me write. I can’t understand a word of that gibberish.
Tell Doojoon to help you.
He can’t even speak Korean properly-
Yah Yong Jaesoon! I’m right here!
He skilfully parries their flying arms and drops back to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Besides, what makes you think I’m good at English?
Dude, all you listen to is English music and you know all the lyrics. The boy twists back in the midst of avoiding a headlock. I bet even when you sing in your sleep you’re singing in English.
He laughs. I plan on being a famous musician one day, but that doesn’t mean I understand Shake-what’s-his-name.
She is back to copying his steady footsteps over the weathered pavement. One step, two step. But she keeps on peeking up through her lashes-at the dusty gray rubber of the skinny back wheel, at the crude metal frame sitting over its mudguard, at his hands, resting over the handlebars.
She lets her heart swell a little.
…
It isn’t a conscious decision of hers. (At least for the most part it isn’t.) It is one of those things that just sort of, you know, happens. But whatever the reason, Minjung knows that there’s no going back now. Because you know, here she is, a twig in the midst of a flood, and all at the mere thought of seeing him again.
She imagines wriggling her toes deeper into the sidewalk as she stands, feet shoulder-width apart, and stares at the apartment complex in front of her. It’s one of half a dozen lookalikes, members of a neighborhood nicer than her own, and she wonders if it’s nicer on the inside too. She wonders on which direction Jinki’s apartment faces and what sort of furniture he has. Are his walls white? Is his countertop made of wood? Granite? Tiles? What does he eat? Is his fridge full? What’s his hair like now? Is it in the same, short cut that he had in high school? Is it the longer style he sported during college, brown bangs side swept and all? Is that brunette coming out the front door right now his neighbor? Has he borrowed sugar from her? Has she studied the geometry of his smiles?
Minjung wonders if he’s changed. If he still loves the same old songs, if he’s any good at Japanese, if he’s stopped playing the guitar, if if if. Then she wonders if she’s changed.
If she’s changed, now that she doesn’t wear her hair in a ponytail anymore.
Now that she has an empty Starbucks cup in her hand.
…
Don’t you worry? She wants to ask him.
Don’t you worry about me, about us.
But she doesn’t ask. Not because she doesn’t mind that he doesn’t seem to have thought that far about leaving town. Not because she’s got her heart set and knows they can be half a planet apart and she’ll still never betray him. No. She doesn’t ask because she’s got him lying in her arms.
Angry footsteps and angry voices pound their way down through the ceiling like too-long nails, hammering past the wood, the insulation, the silence. Something crashes into the floor above, once, twice, and she hears more than just wood splintering. The body she’s holding onto flinches and rolls off her lap, pressing into the wall. She thinks he’s trembling and she pulls free the half of the comforter that she’s sitting on to settle it over his shoulders.
Don’t. He grits his teeth and shakes it off.
She worries her lip and glances at the ceiling. She knows what they are all angry over. He wants to be a star. He’s going to a music college. Uncle thinks it’s just a fickle fancy, something stupid that he’s bound to - and he’s got to - grow out of, and the man has said just as much. You can’t eat music, dress yourself in music, make a home out of music. You can’t feed a family with that garbage. She thinks she knows how sharp a knife those words make. Because that’s who he is, isn’t it? Because that’s his heart.
The noises in her own home startle her and it doesn’t even take a blink of the eye for her to jump off her bed. She locks her door and takes her chair and jams it under the doorknob the way she has seen it done in movies. She backs away and her knees are trembling, but the pleading glance she throws in his direction goes unanswered.
Before long her mother is knocking on her door.
Honey? Open up.
The doorknob rattles and she throws herself forward, hands braced against the wood. She has never done something this ridiculous (heroic?) and she knows she can’t barricade the two of them (a Prince and his knight) inside her room forever, but no! No, she won’t open up. They’ll hurt him but she’ll love him. She’ll love him enough for the rest of them.
I’m tired, mom. I’m going to sleep.
Honey, unlock the door.
We know he’s in your room.
Go away, go away. Let her keep him for however long she’s got.
Because he’s a star and, well, she isn’t sure what she is.
She turns away from the door and climbs back into bed. He shifts a little further away from her, but she plucks up the courage and grabs his hand. She hears their voices - the adults - and there are more attempts at negotiation, more knocks on her door. The anger and frustration wear down into something softer, duller, but even then she doesn’t give in. She’s going to protect him! She’s going to protect him and his dream and everything else that he’ll ever end up wanting. She’s going to make sure that he gets his way. Even if that means he’ll be going somewhere she can’t see. Because that’s okay.
She doesn’t let go. And neither does he.
You’re a star, she thinks, you’re a star and I’ll be your sky. We’ll never change, we’ll never change...
…
One day, at work, the smell of coffee makes Minjung think of things other than caffeine and late nights in college, friends insisting she just get a cup already and stop bitching about how exhausted she is. (Their words, not hers.) She debates calling Minhee later that night, once she’s crashed in her tiny, tiny apartment, but Minhee’s far too intuitive. She’ll pick up on Minjung’s slightest inflection at the end of ‘hello’ and go on a spree with it, somehow getting at least half of everything right. Which is a lot, going on a simple hello.
Instead she calls her mom.
She’s sitting cross-legged on her futon, in her pajamas. It’s only nine-thirty, but recently Minjung’s been a bit of an early sleeper. (She doesn’t quite know what to do with herself after work and so she sleeps as much as she can.) The phone rings and rings and she’s scared that her mom won’t answer, because that’s certainly happened multiple times in the past. But then someone picks up and she sighs in relief as she hears the familiar yeoboseyo on the other end.
“Hey, mom. It’s Minjung.”
“Minjung! How have you been doing?”
“I’m good! I’m...I’m good. Yeah, good,” she murmurs, glancing out the slightly dingy window she has. It probably needs to be cleaned.
“You don’t sound so good. Have you been eating properly?”
Minjung smiles. “Of course I have! You worry too much.”
“Then why are you calling me? You’re not like Minhee; you don’t call on a whim.”
Minjung is silent for a moment. “Mom...”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t know Jinki was in Japan.”
Her mom is silent. “I know.” Her voice sounds heavy and Minjung’s throat constricts.
Of course she has known all along. Of course. Auntie is her best friend.
She asks in a choked whisper. “Then why didn’t you tell me? You’ve had years to do it!”
“What, did you want me to tell you?” She hears the frown in her mother’s voice. “You never asked about him and I thought you wouldn’t want to know! How can you make this out to be my fault?”
“I didn’t want to know, but you could have told me before I let myself get convinced into taking this job,” Minjung hisses. “All this could have been avoided.”
“I’m sorry then, Minjung.”
Like that makes it all better. “But now I know and, god, mom it’s screwing everything up! I’m supposed to be branching out here, making a new me or something, but now I can’t.”
“Minjung,” her mother softens. “You’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Minjung resists the urge to ask, will I?
“You’ll probably never run into him. Last I’ve heard, Tokyo is a pretty big place. There’s no need to be worried. And even if you do, oh I don’t know, punch him if it makes you feel better!”
“Mom.”
“What?”
Minjung half-smiles. “Thanks.”
“Other than that, you’re doing well?”
She nods, more out of a reflex than anything. “I’m doing my best. It’s not easy, but I’m getting through it. I’ll adjust.”
“That’s my daughter. You’ll be speaking Japanese to me in no time.”
“Probably not.” Though she hopes that she will.
Even though it’s nothing like Korea and all her neighbors are far too quiet, (most of them being holed up on their own inside 1K units like hers,) Minjung is starting to appreciate that more. She likes the calm; she likes it when she makes a pot of coffee at six-fifteen in the morning and sits there and is in just utter silence. It’s nice. It’s not something she’s especially used to, but it’s something she’ll gladly get used to.
And then her coffeemaker beeps, and the person next door steps on his spring doorstop, and the first ohayō gozaimasu drifts through her window as the boy who delivers the newspapers passes the old man who’s setting up his breakfast stand, and the city beyond her doorstep wakes up for a brand new day.
…
Senior year is a busy period for most people; she devotes much of it towards staring at her phone.
Time spent with him has been realloted towards time spent thinking about him, time spent wondering how he is, and time spent imagining what he is doing. She feels almost guilty when her mother hands her extra pocket money. Take the bus home, her mother tells her, you’ll have more time to study that way and you won’t have to stay up as late. She ducks her head and lies by omission.
And so instead of trying to find his footsteps on the sidewalk, she begins searching for his name written in the condensation of her breath against dark glass. It’s a time-consuming sort of adventure, she discovers. Thus by the single drop of rebellious blood in her veins, she doesn’t take the shortest route home.
Time spent talking to him over the phone has gradually trickled into time spent waiting for his call. As the weather warms, she falls asleep more often to the sound of silence and wakes up more often to an empty list of missed calls (and an empty inbox too).
But it’s a good thing that she stores away all the details of his last call, and the one before that, and the one before that even. The anatomy of his sentences, the geography of his pauses, rhythm and meter-her ear faithfully records it all. She feels like a cow with four compartments to her stomach, regurgitating the same memories and ruminating on them again and again.
It is another Friday night and as usual, she’s folding and refolding the dog ears of her calculus textbook while inconspicuously eyeing her cell phone. As she stares, she wonders:
Maybe he’s out with his friends again.
Maybe he has practice with his new band.
Maybe they’re playing a gig that he forgot to tell her about.
Maybe this is why Junghee broke up with Kibum when he said he was going to America.
She shakes her head at the last one and glances at her calendar. It’ll be summer soon and once they’re on break together, everything is bound to get better. With that, she smooths back a loose tress of hair and returns her attention to all those limaçons and lemniscates.
…
“One more round?”
Minjung is tired; she can feel it in the loose grasp of her fingers and how she barely notices the slipping strap of her bag. “I...I gotta get home,” she somehow manages to say, her syllables running into each other. It’s a good thing that she is out drinking with her Korean colleagues as well as her Japanese friends or she’d never get the chance to leave without seeming rude. Her struggling comprehension of Japanese goes down in response to how much she drinks.
She stands, almost stumbles, and the person sitting next to her stands with her and catches her. “Want me to take you back?” He asks, a hand readily placed against the small of her back and, well, that just irritates her. (Does Minhee get this when she goes to bars?)
“I’m good,” she mutters, edging away from him. “Thanks though.”
He looks a little off put, but Minjung couldn’t care less. She’s a little tipsy (maybe more than a little) and she doesn’t want to deal with a guy who is taking far too much liberty in being physical with her. She didn’t want that hand on her; what right did he have to put that there?
She almost trips as she exits the bar, the change from the smooth varnished wood to concrete startling her feet. In a moment Minjung rights herself, self-consciously tucking a curl of her hair behind her ear. A glance up and down the street shows her that everyone is too busy with their own work to notice her poor balance. Though, she thinks with a silly smile, she’s also probably not the only one with poor balance at the moment.
Minjung walks to the curb, looking both ways. She needs to hail a taxi but the exact details of how to are somehow escaping her. Has she actually ever done this before? She ponders the question for a moment, cataloging her outings in college and all those family gatherings. Because she doesn’t think she has. Not really. Someone else always does it instead. It almost makes her wish she’d taken the offer from that man. She just wasn’t thinking too clearly back then. (Or maybe that better describes her state right now.)
“Need a taxi?” Someone says behind her, in Japanese that’s accented.
“I do,” she replies, a moment later realizing she answered in Korean. Well...whatever? Minjung gives the person a dazzling, drunk smile and a nod. “I do. Please.” She says, this time in Japanese.
There’s a second of silence.
“Minjung?”
She freezes slightly. “Do I know you?” She mutters. His face is a little blurry and she blinks a few times before everything clicks and she recognizes him. She should panic, she should be afraid, she should be freaking out, but instead-“Ah, it’s Jinki! My old best friend.”
Then a giggle bubbles out her throat.
Jinki’s smile wobbles a bit at her overly enthusiastic tone and he takes a small step closer to her. “Have you been drinking?”
“Can you smell it?” Minjung asks, wrinkling her nose.
“I-Not really.”
She pouts. “Are you sure? Are you sure I don’t smell?”
“You don’t smell at all.”
Minjung smiles. “That’s good.”
There’s a small awkward silence as Jinki steps towards the street and starts waving his hand. Oh, Minjung thinks as a taxi from a distance turns on its hazards. It’s that simple.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Jinki asks, making small talk.
“Six years. Wait, five. Or seven?” Minjung laughs, eyes on the taxi. “And I’m supposed to be good at math! But, you know, no big deal or anything. Didn’t even know you were in Japan until a few weeks ago! Crazy, huh.”
Jinki coughs and the taxi pulls up to the curb. The door opens and just when it’s about to close, he suddenly grabs her wrist. Minung stares at him, her eyes widening in her subconscious effort to appear pretty. Guys always told her they love her large, round eyes. Wouldn’t that mean Jinki loves her eyes too? He’s a guy. Don’t guys all like the same thing? Something like liking big boobs or something.
“Can I have your number? Now that you’re here it’d be nice to keep in touch.”
Minjung laughs, throwing her head back. He wants her phone number. That’s gotta be good. “Of course Jinki. Let bygones be bygones or whatever.” Then she squints at him, wondering if he’s actually swaying a little or if that’s her. “I think I’m drunk,” she whispers to him, looking at him with big eyes once more.
Apparently part of this appeal is looking up. She has to look up through eyelashes, keep her face a little demure and open those big brown suckers as wide as she can. Keep her eyes on his and maybe, if their eyes meet, to lower them slowly and maybe have a look of defeat. Apparently this is supposed to work, but Minung had never cared to flirt much before.
There’s a beat of quiet between them. Minjung is looking at him and Jinki is keeping the door open. Then he sighs, has a look that is not defeat, but something else Minjung will puzzle over later when she is more sober (if she remembers the expression, the curl of his lips and the slant of his eyebrows). “Move over; I’ll take you home.”
A smile lights Minjung’s face. “Really? Really really? Are you sure?”
Jinki smiles softly in response. “Just move over.”
She squeals a little as she scrambles to make room for him. “I would say it reminds me of old times, but we never took a taxi before. It was always us walking. Or very rarely a bus. Or that bike of yours. Or, or...” She trails off and frowns. “You know, sitting on that thing hurt my butt.”
Jinki shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”
For a moment her heart skips. It skips again. A long time ago? A long time ago? It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago. How can he say that? She still remembers, with all the clarity of someone desperate, the way his guitar-callused hand felt in hers. She remembers the smile he gave her when he thought she was acting cute, the length of his arm as he wiped down the chalky blackboard, and that damned bus! That damned bus, and her standing there like an idiot, sending him off with a smile when he was never coming back.
“I guess,” she replies and then tells the taxi driver her address.
She hates herself for letting him get away with it, but she’s let him get away with more than this. Why start now, she asks herself. Why start being brave.
“So let me get your number,” he repeats, taking his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t want to forget.”
Minjung fumbles with the phone in her purse and the moment she’s got it in her hand it slips to the floor. She stares at it and wonders how it got there. She’s curious if she’s still happy she met Jinki and then backtracks a bit to questioning why she was happy.
“I’ll get it it,” Jinki says, placing his hand just above her knee as he bends down and her breath catches at how warm his hand is. He opens her phone and then records his number himself and Minjung leans against his shoulder in one daring moment. He stiffens at the weight but eventually relaxes and hands her phone back. She probably mumbles a breathless thanks, but she can’t exactly remember.
He murmurs something and Minjung can feel it vibrate through his body. She says something in response. They’re talking about Minhee, about her latest boyfriend and where she’s living. Then they move to her parents, their health and when she last talked to them. It’s like he is trying to fill in a gap of intimacy which their lack of contact had created. But she doesn’t ask questions, merely whispers answers and breathes in his scent.
He doesn’t smell the same. There’s a lingering trace of something sweet and probably his cologne. He doesn’t smell of faint sweat and youth and brashness anymore and his hands probably don’t feel like he’s got his guitar carved into his flesh.
Jinki helps her out of the taxi and she’s awake enough to slip Jinki a bill to cover her share of the fare. “Thanks,” she murmurs, pressing a butterfly kiss to his cheek. “Call me.”
She wakes up hungover, her arm sprawled along the floor and the blanket tangled around her body. She blinks at her wall and wishes that she could draw. She wishes she could use her hands to create something that would last of him, because he comes and he goes and the only thing she has are memories. But memories wash out with time and she can’t recall that expression from last night. From right before he entered the taxi.
It might be guilt and Minjung wonders why.
Part Two