Day 4: A Song for Hae Soo.

Surely time must be playing a trick on her. Every time she looks at her wristwatch, only a minute has passed. It has to be a mistake. She's positive that she's been waiting for him at the café for at least half an hour, but her watch insists on saying it's only been ten minutes. Hae Soo pouts, sips her coffee, and effectively burns her tongue.

He arrives while she's still nursing herself; the tip of her tongue is out of her mouth when he enters her line of vision, breathless chuckles coming out of him as he recovers from his little run to her table.

Allowing her eyes to take him in, Soo discovers that he's everything she expected him to be and better. She's already familiar with many sides of his profile from pictures, but the way his eyes turn small and shiny when he smiles is new. She had been too shy for video chats but he knew her every word, her every worry and fear, words spilled in the dead of night, voice messages left at brave moments during a bath, her voice echoing inside the bathroom walls, breaking in giggles half-way through a song. He had been her confidante and they had only met by chance, through the friend of a friend, connected by favorite books and songs and a love for historical dramas. She was studying to be a nurse; he was a civil servant with the entire world as a dream, all the stories it could tell. Soo had always frowned upon online dating, had always dreamed of bumping into someone and discovering her love in scattered papers on the sidewalk, Oh I love that book too!, a moment where all her worries and timetables would be forgotten and they'd walk together to the nearest café. But what was the difference? Didn't distance make her bold enough to talk about herself? Didn't the pictures on his Instagram show her that he did watch her favorite summer movie at the same weekend she did because he had been waiting a long time for it? And weren't they sitting together in a café right at that moment?

Her thoughts spiral out of control as he sits down, expectations clashing with wishful thinking and crashing with his eager eyes, eyes that beg her to say anything, but she keeps remembering things she had said to him that she had never said to anyone and every word makes her small, a shrinking violet.

"Soo," he says. The timber of his voice touch her with the familiarity of a hundred phone calls.

She looks up at him, really looks up at him. He has kind eyebrows raised, waiting, and a brush of red on his cheeks that makes him look away, look down, then look back at her. Soo realizes that he looks just like the friendly guy she met a year ago, someone who listened after her aunt passed away, who calmed her down when her cat when missing, who talked about the real history behind a drama with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl ranting about her idol. She tucks her hair behind her ears and rests her chin on her palms and both laugh. The song playing in the background is one they both like.

"Are you ready to show me everything around here?" He asks and she nods through the butterflies dancing in her stomach, not at all ready to be a tour guide, not at all sure that she could be interesting enough to keep his attention. As their feet bring them away from the café, she feels her carefully planned daydreams falling out of her grasp, but Soo marches on. She owes him that much; she owes herself that much.

They walk with their arms brushing close together, visiting an antiques shop, stopping by street vendors, eating ice cream. Soo tells him a story about beating up a boy in a park and every laughter, every teasing eases the knot inside of her, brings color to her eyes. She feels his hand touch hers more than once, and when they arrive at the beach, she can't tell for how long he has been holding her hand.

"How long are you staying?" She asks, her shoes in her free hand, seafoam at her feet. He has thin legs and a hundred different mannerisms and details that cameras couldn't properly convey, like the smell of his aftershave and the cute mole on his cheek that she couldn't seem to look away from.

"How long do you want me to stay?" He asks back. With an intake of breath, Soo kicks water at him, dropping his hand when he lets out a startled yelp, both leaving footprints on the sand, on the sea, the wind carrying them as they run after each other.

The house he's staying at has been in his family for generations, and the regal sight of it makes Soo think it's not surprising that he loves historical things so much. She watches the warm lavender color of dusk from his porch, her little feet dancing back and forth before she lies on the wooden floor, waiting for him with her eyes closed, waiting for him to take her away from the life she knew, from her city, if he could. From everything. Maybe they could meet the world.

"Are you tired?"

She rolls on her back and she's staring up at him, trapped between his arms. His hair, longer than she's seen men of his age use, falls towards her, gravity pulling him to her, and she doesn't know why it makes her giggle but it does. She's had very little alcohol so maybe it's something else that intoxicates her, maybe it's the routine she's thrown out the window, maybe it's his presence that she has craved for so long and their shared knowledge that they like each other a lot, but spent the entire day acting as if they didn't.

He moves so she can lay her head on his lap and she thinks their positions are flipped, but when he starts petting her hair, his long fingers caressing her temples, her scalp, running through the short length of her hair, she doesn't care.

"So," she says, just to say it, just to call him. He leans close to her and tells her a story about his childhood in that very house, about his brothers, about being scolded and running from one room to the next, all through the porch they're in and all through her yard, his voice low against her cheek. When the story ends, he goes silent and it makes her look up at him.

"You haven't been saying much," he says.

He leans back on his hands as if to give her space, as if to give her a chance to walk away.

"I like hearing you talk. I'm the one who usually talks in our conversations."

So looks at the night sky that slowly covers them in darkness, and Soo looks at the shadows cast on his face. She touches the back of her hand against his chest, grown fond of contact with him, it's been so long since she was so close to anyone. He takes her hand in his, his eyes blinkling slowly, and he asks,

"Sing for me?"

Soo closes her eyes, her heart traveling the distance between them, and what has once been miles upon miles is only centimeters away, it's impossibly close, his presence cast upon her.

Tonight, I'll send the glow of a firefly
to somewhere near your window
It's that I love you

Every verse shakes her voice with emotions, with longing and care, but it's okay, it's okay because he saves her from herself, he saves her with a kiss and a promise. every movement of his mouth against her is a vow, that the distance between them will never be farther than a kiss. I will stay, it says.

I will stay.