'tis the season. I could break this up into chapters, but it's a lot of work. Feel free to take a break at the line breaks, which I have used most egregiously.

(Also, thank you for the very nice comments. Sometimes I think I take the present tense and purple prose too far, so it's very nice to know that I can still yet abuse it.)

I don't own anything, apart from grammatical mistakes and horrific formatting.

Stagnant. She supposes if there's ever one word to describe her, that would be it. Others would use nicer terms – solid, constant, reliable – but she's never really been one to dress up her flaws and parade them around in fashion shows.

Months after the hurtling alternation between anxiety and the strange euphoria of Jan Di and Jun Pyo's on-again-off-again relationship, Ga Eul is right back where she started: working in the porridge shop, attending the same school with the same uniform, only she's now down a best friend. She supposes that she's always just been the supporting character, anyway. But that's being unfair to Jan Di, who's off somewhere in a quiet corner of the world with Jun Pyo for the one week they'd managed to squirrel away.

After the guy has gotten the girl, after she's let her own heart go, everything has fallen back into the same practiced rhythm. Some days, she's not even sure of her own memories of the dark, glittering world that she'd been dragged into by sheer virtue of her existence in Jan Di's life. But Woo Bin and Ji Hoo don't drop by anymore, caught up in their own lifestyles and not invested enough in her to play at catch-up with her. And Yi Jeong's off in Sweden, nursing a broken heart and a broken hand, steadily ignoring her messages and emails. She knows she seems like one of those roly-poly toys in the shop windows, but she's entitled to her own pride too. And if the comet has come by, pushing and pulling her moons and suns into different arrays but neatly missing her in the end, then she'll just have to take stock of her situation, and continue spinning on. Most days, she can't decide if she's relieved or disappointed.

She sighs inwardly as she wipes down menus absentmindedly, stacking them neatly in a corner for the next day. She always gets melancholic at this time of the year, watching the leaves change colour as the trees prepare themselves for the next cycle. But it's just another reminder that she doesn't change, not really, and that you'd think she'd learn her lessons and move on and evolve, but there's a particular sheen of atrophy painted over that part of her brain. Or is it the heart, that's supposed to change? She's not sure.

She has an hour left to the end of the shift, when the door opens and lets in a gust of cool air from the street. She stands automatically, her brain sifting through everything she has to do before she locks up for the day, and goes into a bow.

She stops halfway through, though, because she swears she's seen the shoes on the tiled floor in another lifetime. And sure enough, when she looks up, Ji Hoo is neatly framed by the evening sun, his white suit gleaming and brown hair glowing.

"Ah…" she says, for lack of a better response. Did Jun Pyo not brag to his friends where he was going to be, and who he was going to be with? "Jan Di's not here."

"I know," he says, in that calm, easy tone that she's always appreciated. "I'm here for you."

"Me?" She squeaks out, eyes darting around, trying to pare down her remaining chores to the bare essentials. "Did something happen to Jan Di? Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Ji Hoo says with a slight frown, and her heart stops trying to race to the finish line as if there's a herd of stallions chasing after it. "I actually just wanted to stop by and ask you for a favour."

"… Okay?"

"You're pretty proficient in the kitchen, right? Do you think you'd be able to teach me how to cook?"

She blinks at him, and he stares back, like it's an entirely normal request to make of an acquaintance-of-a-friend. That you haven't seen in months.

"It's okay if you're too busy," he adds, looking slightly disappointed, feet already poised to escape.

The part of her that is sick of the drudgery of her life and wants to evolve and move on wants her to let him slip out the door, but another part of her nags at her in an entirely too smug tone, because she already knows that she's going to do what it says anyway.

"Wait, sunbae," she says, and is that even the right term to use with him?

"Ji Hoo," he says, slipping his vowels neatly to her.

"What kind of dishes are you thinking of?"

He smiles, and she doesn't know if she's imagining the relief in the lines of his eyes. She tells herself she is, anyway, and takes a seat at the booth he sits himself at.

He tells her that his grandfather is getting on in years, but is still doggedly determined to keep up with his daily schedule. Which would be fine, except he refuses to eat the simple fare their cook makes, and insists on going out to eat almost every night. So Ji Hoo figures the only way to actually be able to monitor and control his grandfather's menu would be to guilt him into eating food his only grandson has cooked just for him, but for that to happen he would need first learn how to make edible things without burning down the kitchen.

Ga Eul grins at him, forgetting the overgrown distance between them. "Who knew that you could be just as crafty as the rest of them?"

Ji Hoo laughs, a warm baritone, and shrugs in admission.

They agree for her to drop by his place on Friday evenings, when his grandfather would be out for his weekly gossip session with his friends, where she would teach him the basics of not burning the kitchen down.

Before he leaves, he hesitates in front of the door.

"Do you need a ride home?"

She laughs, although the amusement is tempered with a strange twang of nostalgia and bitterness. "No, my shift isn't over yet. Thank you, though."

He nods in understanding, and waves before strolling off, and the lights overhead are still just as drab as they were fifteen minutes ago. Ga Eul sighs and resumes her work, the menus slightly sticking to each other as she shifts them to the countertop.

She shows up, punctual as ever, outside Ji Hoo's modest home on Friday, already half-regretting the arrangement. It's been a long week, and she's tired, and there's nothing more she wants to do than go home and curl up under her blankets and forget that other people exist in the world. Still, when he opens the door and welcomes her in, she finds that her smile is not as forced as she thought it would be.

She's never been into a rich person's kitchen before, so she doesn't know what to expect, but she's not in the least surprised to find that one of his knives costs more than twice the entire set of knives in her own home. She asks him to get out the chopping board first, and some root vegetables. He stares blankly back at her.

"You have to learn to cut up the ingredients first," she says, thinking he expected to just be able to throw things into a hot pan and get a dish out of it.

"No, I know that," Ji Hoo says. "But I don't know where they are."

So the first lesson is spent with them poking around his kitchen, and identifying where the cook stores his various utensils and ingredients. She draws up a floorplan of his kitchen for him, and labels everything neatly. He's vaguely aware that this is a sly dig at the ridiculousness of the situation, but truth be told, he's too grateful for the map to feel any offense at all.

They end up ordering takeout, though, and they eat across the wooden kitchen island as he tries to guess, with increasingly bad answers, the ingredients of the dish they're eating.

"Cinnamon?"

"Cinnamon? Why would there be cinnamon inside fried rice? Do you even know what cinnamon tastes like?"

"… Not like this?"

He likes how he can render her speechless with the stupid things that come out of his mouth. It's a nice change from rendering people speechless with his name and reputation.

Five weeks into their lessons, Woo Bin drops in unexpectedly. Ji Hoo's front door slams open and shut unceremoniously, which is all the warning they have before he strolls into the kitchen without so much as a greeting.

"I didn't think he'd ever take me up on the offer," Ji Hoo says apologetically to Ga Eul, who has the vague shell-shocked look of the fish sitting on the butcher's block. "He's usually very busy on Friday nights."

For his part, Woo Bin just grins at her. "I'm just here for the free food. I can't believe Ji Hoo would deprive me of home-cooked meals by arranging your lessons to be on Fridays," he says, with a false look of innocence and hurt on his face.

Privately, Ga Eul doubts he's ever been deprived of anything, but she just tells him he's a little too early too eat yet. Then she pushes the fish towards him, and orders him to fillet it. She's pleased when he complies without putting up too much of a fight, though she winces as he hacks into the poor, delicate flesh. She feels sorry for the fish who had to die for this. Ji Hoo tries to cut in and nag him about his technique, which turns into a very drawn-out squabble over who knows anatomy better: a doctor-in-training, or someone who provides the bodies for the training?

Ga Eul has a pleasant time every Friday night, and sometimes she's surprised to realise she's even had fun, but the squabbling between the two of them is vibrant and livens up the atmosphere. They don't even realise it when she retracts the fish from the two of them and finishes the job herself.

After that night, Woo Bin disappears for another 3 weeks, but then he texts her one Thursday. It's just a picture of jjamppong, with a single-word caption: tomorrow. Then he follows up with "?" and ":-)", and she has to scoff a little at his nerve. Ji Hoo texts her then, all indignation and bluster at how Woo Bin only showed up once, like a month ago, and now thinks he can dictate what they're going to be cooking.

So no jjamppong? She replies, tapping her fingers on the cool surface of the porridge shop's counter.

Ji Hoo [16:44:05]

It's the principle of the matter

!

Ga Eul [16:44:38]

Principles don't feed us, Ji Hoo

They also don't get us out of jail in the middle of the night

Ji Hoo [16:45:01]

That was ONE time

Also, I wasn't technically doing anything wrong

If I want to pick the locks to my own clinic, I have the right to do that

Ga Eul [16:45:21]

Okay, so no jjamppong?

But you know he's just going to pout the whole night

Ji Hoo [16:45:54]

Okay FINE jjamppong

Can't believe how he still acts like he's five sometimes

Ga Eul thinks they both act like five sometimes, but it's probably not something she should convey via text. It would be more fun to do that in person, so she can watch the five stages of denial march resolutely across his face, while Woo Bin cackles and fakes indignation in the same breath.

After the jjamppong, Woo Bin starts to turn up most Fridays, lounging around in the kitchen and sometimes taking too much glee in listening to Ga Eul boss Ji Hoo around. Sometimes she forces him to pitch in too, but he has an uncanny way of doing exactly what she tells him to for the complete opposite result. So he ends up washing the dishes most nights, complaining in a half-hearted manner.

(The first time she made him wash the dishes, he didn't get half the grime off. She made him redo it until she could see her own reflection in all the dishes, and he never half-assed the job again. She takes pride in being a good teacher.)

She asks him, once, about the girls that no doubt feel lonely now that F4's infamous Casanova and Don Juan aren't around on Friday nights anymore. He peers back at her, surprised, and informs her that Casanova had retired way back when, after the worst date in the history of anything when he'd gotten so drunk that the girl he'd pissed off had to come back, open the door to his studio, and drag him onto one of the workbenches. Ga Eul reels a little at that, but decides to staunchly take it in stride of her own revolutions, and tucks that piece of information away neatly.

"And Don Juan?" She asks, the foreign words stilted and awful on her tongue. It tastes like pretentiousness.

"Well, they know I'm with my favourite girl," he reaches out to muss her hair, as she ducks and sticks her tongue out at him. "Anyway, I much prefer seeing you rather than hearing from my men that you're doing good."

"Your men?" She pauses, and she's vaguely aware of Ji Hoo at the stove, making ridiculous hand gestures at Woo Bin to stop.

Woo Bin ignores his friend, grabbing her calloused hand in his own. "When Yi Jeong left, he told me to keep an eye on you. But I thought that maybe you wouldn't want to hang around us, because of everything, so I just did it from a distance. Until you started hanging out with Ji Hoo again." He pauses, then in a hurt, put-upon voice, "I've missed you too, you know."

She shoves him lightly, cracking a smile at the last part. Haven't they always had her back when she'd needed it, and haven't they always been perfectly willing to go along with her antics?

"Maybe you should ask next time," she says. "Assuming makes an ass out of you and me."

"He thinks he knows girls," Ji Hoo supplies from his position, already bracing to duck from any potential flying projectiles.

"Haven't you heard a watched pot never boils?" Ga Eul reaches over and pulls him to where they are. "Come chop the chicken while you wait. At least now you have a knife to defend yourself with."

The trees change, and Ga Eul stops waiting with baited breath for them to edge out of her life again. They hang out on Fridays, mostly with home-cooked food and ice-cream afterwards, but sometimes they just order in pizza and play board games together. There's always an open invitation for Jan Di to join, and that she sometimes takes them up on, but most of the time she's too busy studying and working. Ga Eul gets the feeling there's something more than that, but she lets it go without question. Second guesses are, after all, supposed to come from yourself.

There are no expectations of anything. She celebrates their birthdays on the Friday of the week with them, with cake she bakes and a painting of their favourite sceneries in Seoul. They celebrate hers by bringing a lump of burnt batter out of the oven and setting off the smoke alarms, before making it up to her with copious amounts of high-end ice-cream (because she can drag them to all the cheap shops her little commoner heart desires, but they would still always go back to what they know and love). She brings them flowers she'd accidentally bought too much of, and shows them the design of a tattoo she's thinking about getting (Woo Bin's eyes had widened when she'd told them she was getting it on her butt – she's not – and he had expressively forbidden it).

Sometimes they ask her about her non-existent dating life – suspiciously, she thinks, when she's had to let another guy down easy. But she just waves them off. To be honest, even she does not know what she wants. She thinks a part of her will always be pining for Yi Jeong, for the man she always thought he could be. Would be, even, because sometimes Woo Bin does tell her things about him. (She never asks, but how pathetic is it that she still find herself subconsciously straining her neck for bits of news passed down from different sources?)

She thinks she should want to move on, because that's what normal and mature people do. She's sick and tired of playing will-he-won't-he with herself, but she can't imagine letting go either. She thinks it might be because of how stubborn she is – three years, now, hanging on to him, and letting it go will be the final confirmation the whole world needs to know that she'd wasted all that time.

Ji Hoo, of course, thinks otherwise. He's even more of a romantic than she is, but he has a calm, level-headed disposition that lends credit to him. It's why she finds herself listening to him when he says, while stirring the stew in the pot, that she can't move on because she hasn't exhausted all her energies and hopes yet. She hates that she's expected to give up everything just to prove to herself that something is dead and gone, and maybe has never been alive in the first place. Through this, Woo Bin remains tellingly silent, just tracing the woodgrains on the countertop. The problem is, Ga Eul doesn't know what he's trying to say.

So she just pushes it to the back of her mind, and avoids thinking about it. The months slowly trickle by, and she declares Ji Hoo proficient enough in all the dishes she's familiar with. Woo Bin suggests they try baking next, and he's surprisingly skilled in it (lucky, Ji Hoo grouses) when he's not busy flicking flour at the other two. Ga Eul laughs, carefree, and sets Ji Hoo to clean up the mess in his own kitchen. Neither of her boys tell her about the conversations they have with Yi Jeong, 7,386 kilometres away.

(It happens like this: one day, after Ga Eul is securely tucked in the guestroom for the night, Ji Hoo and Woo Bin continue in their quest to finish all four bottles of wine in a single night. At around the middle mark of the final bottle, Ji Hoo, in a moment of indignation and well-placed anger for his friend, dials Yi Jeong's number while Woo Bin mumbles his encouragement next to him, fingers idly playing with Ga Eul's Monopoly top hat.

"Hello?"

"Yi Jeong," Ji Hoo mutters, and Woo Bin sends his greetings with a wine-tipsy wave towards the screen.

"… Are you two drunk?"

"Just happy," Woo Bin says, and Ji Hoo nods in agreement before he remembers, with a struggle, why they are very not happy with their friend.

"Are you happy?" He asks instead, peering blearily at a bemused Yi Jeong.

"No more than I usually am."

"That's a no," Woo Bin slurs, pointing a shaky finger in his direction.

"Good," Ji Hoo says, and even he's surprised to hear the vehemence in his own voice. "'cause you don't get to be, not before Ga Eul is."

"That's right," Woo Bin half-yells, forgetting for a moment that said girl is just a room away, where they'd tipped her after she'd finished drinking an entire bottle on her own for their worthy cause.

The two of them mumble a few more threats that make it very clear that they are not happy with him right now, before telling him goodnight, and that they loved him, and that he was making them proud. They're not even sure he hears their best attempts at parenting ever, because he hasn't moved a muscle ever since Ji Hoo mentioned Ga Eul's name.

His loss, they decide, and finish up the last half of the bottle. Ga Eul finds them draped across each other in the morning, and she takes pictures to set it as their chat group's display picture before she hauls them awake.

Yi Jeong calls them on the following Saturday, and all the Saturdays after that. He doesn't tell them about the fat stack of letters he's written and stuffed and locked inside his desk drawer, because when push comes to shove, he's always been a coward.)

He appears in the doorways of her classroom on a Friday afternoon. The first words he says to her are that she still puts too much pressure in her wrists, and she bites back a retort that she hopes that he feels the pressure when she backhands him across his stupid little face. Instead, she smiles at him, angry at the traitorous little flip her heart gives when she finally looks up at his face. She thinks she might kill Woo Bin and Ji Hoo. She thinks about sneaking rat poison into the flour tonight.

Her students ask her who she is, but lose interest in him as rapidly when she tells them he's an old friend, and brings out more clay for them to play with. She wants to tell him to go out to the hallway, or the school foyer, or all the way back to Sweden where he should be. (She should know; her mental calendar tells her very decidedly that he's only due to return in 4 months and 23 days.) But she knows who he is and what he's like (and she hates that she knows this), so instead she points him into her seat at her desk, and pretends like her focus is wholly on her students, and that she can't feel his feather-light gaze on her back.

She's wholly surprised when he stands up and starts to interact with her students too, even reaching forward to guide a few more ambitious ones in their projects. She supposes it must be a nice change, having girls that do not swoon over him when he's all up in their personal space like that. She has to fight a smile back, though, when one of her more recalcitrant boys pushes him away and pointedly asks her for help. She gives him an extra candy at the end of the school day.

She packs up in silence, and he stands in the doorway, quiet, fidgeting. And therein lies the crux of their relationship, or whatever it is the two of them have. Too well-practiced in the art of waiting, patient, expectant for the other to lay all their cards on the table. Too well-guarded, even from themselves, to be able to do that in the first place.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, shouldering her bag, filled to them brim with childish scrawls for her to wade through and find value in every piece of paper. She's good at that, though.

"Fulfilling a promise," he says, and the air is thick, and she can barely breathe.

Instead, she tells him he's early.

She swears she sees his face drop slightly, and maybe she's petty, but the guilty triumph takes root in her chest and doubles down tight. She tries to tell her heart to behave, but all it does is scream things like hello?! Are you crazy?! when he tells her that he'll wait. Then, "I've spent the last 4 and a half years running after you. I'm sorry it too so long."

I'm sorry too, she wants to say, but she's not sure if she really is. Instead, she lets him take her bag from her shoulders, and she follows him to his car. It's midnight black – sleeker, and far more understated than the hideous orange monstrosity she'd willingly bundled herself into on more than one occasion all those years ago. Her fingers trail across the impeccable paintwork, but when she slides into the passenger seat the smell of leather and clay is so stunningly familiar she almost feels her heart breaking again, for Ga Eul 4 years ago.

Her hands are still small, clenched, in her lap, and he asks her where she wants to go.

"Home," she says, quiet, all plans of her appearing larger-than-life in front of him 4 months down the road extinguishing in a painful shudder.

He swings the car out of the parking lot smoothly, one hand loose on the console next to him, his palm facing up. They don't say anything on the ride back, and she almost falls asleep swimming in the nostalgia that threatens to spill over and out the windows. She wonders if Korea still recognises him.

When they reach her apartment, he walks up the 5 flights of stairs up to her apartment without complaint, his footsteps comforting and solid behind her. He hands her bag over to her, and she murmurs her thanks. Everything is swirling around, like oil in the whiskey Woo Bin loves so much, and she clutches on the hideous coat-rack Ji Hoo had bought for her in a flea market a year ago.

"Ga Eul," Yi Jeong says, and her name on his lips is low and reverent.

She turns, and he hands over a stack of papers to her.

"This isn't a recycling point," she quips, but she reaches out to take it anyway, the both of them watching her shaking fingers as she grasps it.

"I know," he says. "But I'm done running away now."

Silence, and her breath catches in her throat. It feels like the beginning of an end, or just the beginning of something, period.

"I'm running to you now," he says, and she can't help the way the corners of her mouth tilt up every so slightly.

"Okay," she nods, and he smiles. She watches as he leaves, again, but this time he looks right back at her, right before the turn. He waves, and she does, too.

Hello Ga Eul

I've just landed in Sweden and I'm overwhelmed at the things I have to do before

Hi Ga Eul

I'm sorry I haven't replied to your messages and emails. I thought writing letters would be easier for me to

Ga Eul

It's 2 in the morning now but I can't sleep because all I can think of is how I should reply you without it being awkward now

Ga Eul

You stopped writing messages and emails, but I know you're doing okay. I'm glad you're moving on.

Ga Eul

My instructor told me to stop lying to myself today. He meant that I shouldn't lie and pretend that my hand doesn't hurt as much as it really does so I can rest it properly, but I thought of you anyway. I think you might be the type of person to

.

I'll never send these out. I don't think anyone will ever read them.

.

Is it stupid that I still write these? I don't know why I'm writing them. We both know I'm too much of a coward to do anything. Sometimes I think it would be better if you were the chaebol instead, because you have the determination to carry out whatever you want to do.

.

The sky outside was nice today. I went out and took a few pictures. I think I understand you a little better now.

.

Sometimes I think a lot of people in this world will be better off without me. Then my friends call, and everything is okay again. Do you ever get that? Was I, at one point, one of the people who could make things okay? You always were.

.

Ji Hoo and Woo Bin called me today to scold me. I didn't know you were close to them, but I'm glad you are. I think they need you, and I like to think you need us too. But I don't think you need anything.

.

I'm glad you're doing well. I wanted to call you today when I heard you got the job. But Ji Hoo told me not to do anything stupid, and not to call unless I was sure that I would make you happier than before. I still don't know if I can do that.

.

If I try, is it enough?

.

My instructor says my hand is improving faster than he'd expected. You'd probably say something like, it's the power of love, or something cheesy like that. Or maybe not. You sound like you've grown up. I hope you're still you, though. I think you're stubborn enough to be.

.

I wrote somewhere, years ago, that I don't think anyone will ever read it. I hope you will.

She drops him a text before she goes to freshen up. She's a little early to meet her boys, but she knows Ji Hoo won't mind.

Ga Eul [16:43:13]

Monopoly at Ji Hoo's place, 6pm.

It's only when she reaches Ji Hoo's red-bricked home before she realises that he could be out, now, with Woo Bin and Yi Jeong. She's gotten too used to having them around, constant and dependable fixtures, and she panics a little. She wonders if she should go back home and wait for them to call like they do when she's running late, or if she should just bite the bullet and cancel it so they don't feel bad about doing it. Then the door opens, and Ji Hoo's face pops out, concerned.

"Hey. Why are you just standing out here like a nut?"

She flushes, caught in the middle of thinking bad things of her friends. "Nothing. I just thought you might not be home. I'm early."

"You have a phone," he reminds her, swinging the door open wider to let her in.

"I'm stupid sometimes," she mumbles, tracing the familiar route to his living room.

He nods emphatically, and dodges the swing of her arm.

"I thought you guys might uh, be out with Yi Jeong," she says in a rush before she loses the courage to do so.

"No," he says, his eyes so understanding that Ga Eul wants to poke them out with chopsticks. "We're meeting tomorrow."

"I might have invited him to come later," she wrings her hands in anxiety. "But he didn't reply."

"So we'll just cook for four, and I'll have lunch tomorrow if he doesn't come," Ji Hoo calls over his shoulder, already on his way to the kitchen. "Tofu stew?"

He comes, in the end, and Woo Bin claps a hand over his shoulder mostly in welcome, but with a thinly veiled threat interlaced in it. He's not so good with words, Ga Eul thinks, amused, but his actions get the point across smoothly and concisely.

She's glad he's here, with his friends, and her, as they bicker over the rules of the game for the fiftieth time. She wins the argument, for the fiftieth time, and she sticks her tongue out at him as she collects rent and leaves Woo Bin in debt.

"Cold-hearted," he accuses her, and she kicks him in response. On the other end of the board, Yi Jeong watches their interactions with an affection so open she almost forgets to buy the last piece of property on the board before rolling the dice again. She smiles at him, though, when he catches her eye, and his answering grin is so bright it almost hurts.

They continue like that, their group comfortably expanding to include him now, and Woo Bin complains that he gets to enjoy the spoils of Ji Hoo's cooking without having to go through dishwashing bootcamp. Ga Eul punishes him for calling it a bootcamp by having him wash and dry all the dishes that night, then makes Yi Jeong help with the gutting of fish. Woo Bin's disgusted when he equates the texture of fish guts to that of wet clay.

Yi Jeong texts her, constantly, and she replies them when she feels like it. When she's in a bad mood, though, she pushes the phone away from the table and huffs at it, muttering choice obscenities under her breath. On those days, she'll open the door to find a piece of strawberry shortcake hanging from it, or a sprig of wildflowers. He doesn't ask her about his texts, and never pressures her for more.

She's still not quite where he is, yet, she thinks. In the 4 and a half years he's been trying to play catch-up, he's severely overestimated her. But now, she can see him in the distance, his back against the sun as he waits for her, holding a hand out to help her to where he is.

When her supervising teacher praises one of her lessons after her formal observation, she calls him directly. He picks up on the first ring, warm and comfortable.

Months down the road, when she collapses laughing into him, rather than Woo Bin or Ji Hoo, no one says anything about it. His arms come up around her, solid, and she can feel the vibrations in his chest as he laughs along with them. That night, she doesn't go home. Instead, she directs him to the Namsan stairs, still unchanged after all those years.

She's reminded of a song, where the lines go something like, how many times have lovers looked at the moon together? And how many times has the moon seen people forgetting, or becoming flustered?

They walk up the stairs together, and at some point she catches his hand in her own. He doesn't otherwise react, but she can feel it, warm and slightly clammy, but that just makes her tighten her hold on him. She would be stupid, she knows, to ever let go again.

At the top, she shivers lightly, and he hands off his coat to her, just like he did all those years ago in the ice-skating ring that she still can't quite bring herself to go back to. They stand there in silence, except this time it's not ringing in her ears, and his coat is warm. He looks out at the sprawling city beneath them, but she can only look at him.

"Yi Jeong," she says, and when he directs the full force of his attention on her, it's all she can do not to wither into a pile and wave him off. But she gathers her commoner nerves and determination, betrayed only by her hands fiddling with the edges of his long coat. "Are you still running?"

"Yes," he says, and his long fingers remove her own from his coat.

She twines them together. "Okay," she says. "Good."

And he's smiling a self-satisfied smile in front of her, eyes warm and bright and knowing, and she squeezes his hands until it hurts and he snatches it out of hers just because she can. Then he folds his arms around her, and the years stretch out in front of them, ready and waiting.

She thinks she maybe expected the weight of the past five years to fall off, for her stepping into his arms to light up a symphony of fresh starts and untainted promises. But she's also glad that it didn't, because they'd both needed the lessons they'd finally learnt, and she needs those years to not mean nothing at all, in the end. He tightens his hold around her, like he knows what she's thinking, and she leans back with a comfortable sigh.

The moon looks brighter than ever in the sky. The world keeps spinning on.

The song, if anyone is interested, is 修炼爱情 by JJ Lin. It's great.