*

HONG KONG, 2007.

Take a leap, his heart tells him. Hold back, says his brain.

Jinyoung looks at the plane ticket in his hand, then at himself in the mirror. He replaces the ticket on the smooth varnished wood of the vanity where he found it, then gets up to stand at the window. He watches the boats crossing the bay, their lights blinking in the night. He counts down a minute on his watch. Pulls the curtains shut and leaves.

SEOUL, 2003.

Suzy stretches as she walks out of the club, the beats from behind her flowing through the undercurrent of the night every time someone opens the door. She breathes in frozen air and exhales in a cloud of condensation, and smiles in the aftermath. Okay, so it’s 10pm on a Friday night and she hadn’t exactly planned on going home alone tonight but she’s just about ready for a hot shower to wash the remnants of tonight off of her. Being crushed like a sardine between strangers she can handle, but what she can’t take is feeling someone’s hands on her where there shouldn’t be. Suzy shivers, but it isn’t from the cold.

She walks down the street, the thumping bass from the various clubs around her sending a continuous heartbeat through Hongdae. She smiles every time she blows steam into the air. Maybe she’s a little drunk. She walks past an odeng cart with a few customers littered around steaming bowls of soup, and realizes that she’s also very hungry.

She sits on a plastic stool beside the cart, clutching her bowl with cold hands when someone takes a seat opposite her. She looks up and spies shiny dark hair, a blue scarf around his neck. He can’t be that much older than her, she suspects. He catches her eye, and shoots her a tentative smile; a harmless one meant for strangers like her. She lowers her eyes. Chews on a fishcake. Thinks about that hot shower that she’ll have soon. The thought warms her up a little more.

“It’s cold isn’t it?” she says aloud, sending a furious cloud of condensation up into the sky. He looks up from his own bowl, surprised she’s talking to him. She smiles back.

“Uhh, yeah,” he nods. He has a nice enough face, she thinks a little hazily. His eyes are a little cynical and he doesn’t look like he quite trusts her, but he doesn’t move away when she scoots her stool in a little closer. One point to her.

“Don’t cold nights like these make odeng even better?” she asks, looking pointedly at his bowl. He blinks at her like he doesn’t quite know what she’s on about, but nods again, this time with a warmer smile, and tilts his bowl slightly towards her.

“Did you want some of mine?” he asks politely.

Suzy stares at him for a few seconds before laughing so hard that the other customers and the cart owner turn to look. The boy looks confused, but cold nights have a strange way of bringing people together and laughter is contagious, so it isn’t long until he starts chuckling with her.

Suzy buys two more fishcake sticks and dumps them unceremoniously into his bowl. Their fingers brush against each other once when they both go for the same stick, and she swears she feels tingles running through her skin. After half an hour she’s convinced that tonight, she’s a little in love with him.





They fall in a tangle of sheets and half undone clothes before he’s even fully closed the door to their room. Suzy’s hands are in his hair, his lips are on her neck. They have 3 hours before they get kicked out - more than enough, Suzy thinks in a rush when he untangles himself from her long enough to lock the door. She hopes it’ll be enough when he climbs back into her waiting arms and kisses her roughly.

She stops thinking as she reaches out and tugs his t-shirt up over his head. Tonight, like all the other nights she’s done this, she’ll let her body do the talking.





“What’s your name?” Suzy asks as she watches him get dressed. His pale skin glows slightly in the dim light, and she wonders how guys always manage to stay so lean. It isn’t fair. He turns at the sound of her voice, then manages a half grin and comes to sit on the bed beside her, still shirtless and only in his jeans. He looks down at her. She feels a little short of breath.

“Jinyoung.” He stretches, shows off every taut muscle in his back. She rolls her eyes and scoffs, clutching the bedsheet tighter to her chest. Boys. She’s too wired to take a nap, and she wonders what he might be feeling at this moment. They still have 2 hours on the meter, but the last train home leaves in 45 minutes. She traces a little circle on his back, feels him shiver. Smiles.

“I’m Suzy.” She props herself up, holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

He manages a short, breathy laugh and shakes it before flopping down next to her. “Usually people tell you their name before they sleep with you,” he turns to look at her with a mischievous grin. “Gives you something to hold on to when you can’t think of anything else, you know?”

She laughs then. “Well maybe you should have introduced yourself first.” She quite likes the sarcastic tilt of his mouth, the cynical sparkle in his eyes. She didn’t dislike his fingers running across her skin either. “Could you maybe throw me my underwear?” she asks.

He colours slightly, but gathers them from the floor without protest and passes them to her. “Do you do this often?” he sits on the edge of the bed and doesn’t turn around while she dresses herself. She grins to herself. She hadn’t really pegged him as gentlemanly.

“Not a lot,” she admits. “Just sometimes… when I feel lonely. Jeans.”

“Were you lonely tonight?” Jinyoung throws them at her.

Suzy pauses as she plays with a loose thread in in the blanket. “Not anymore.” Her eyes flit to Jinyoung, but he still doesn’t turn. She watches his back expand and retract for a few breaths, then starts pulling on her clothes.





He gives her his number when they part ways at the train station. She promises to call.

She deliberates for a while after his train leaves the platform, thinking of the way the skin around his eyes scrunched when he smiled. Thinking of that same smile pressed to her lips.

She drops the tissue paper into the small puddle at her feet as her train pulls into the station, watches the inky blue numbers bleed into the black water. There are some people who can only belong to the night.

TOKYO, 2004.

In a small izakaya off the bustling streets of Shinjuku, Jinyoung pinches the bridge of his nose and heaves a sigh as he takes another sip of his beer. Outside the pavements are slick with rain, and the summer humidity hangs heavy in the air. He pinches another edamame, pops the beans into his mouth.

“Good weather tonight,” grunts the old man sitting beside him, picking at some fermented beans. “A good time for rebirth.” He isn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but Jinyoung nods all the same. Five months since coming over for his university’s exchange program and he’s still learning that although Tokyo is nothing like Seoul, strange people never change.

He pays his bill as the rain slows to a halt and makes his way back to the train station, smiling and bowing slightly every time somebody apologizes for bumping into him with their umbrella. Maybe he’ll never call Tokyo home, but he knows he’ll miss its politeness when he returns to Seoul. Girls here don’t make him believe that they’ll call him back after a one night stand, at the very least.

As he rounds the corner, he finds himself thinking about that girl from last winter. Suzy. He wonders how old she was. What sort of life she had. Was she a student like him? What was she thinking that night? Did she lie awake for weeks after, thinking about seeing him again the way he had? Or had he just imagined the charge in the air every time their eyes met? A year and almost a half later and he still cannot completely keep her from invading his thoughts.

300 meters from the station, the sky opens up and rain buckets down in large, almost painful drops. Jinyoung makes a dash for the nearest building and takes shelter in the entrance of the Shinjuku Flags building with several other people, already soaked to the bone. Curses himself for forgetting his umbrella and is grateful that he decided to leave his camera at home in equal parts. He’s just brushing water off his skin as best as he can when someone bumps into him with a wet umbrella. “Ah, I’m so sorry…” the person breathes in slightly accented Japanese. Then: “Oh.”

He looks up and straight into Suzy’s eyes.





“I’m here on holiday,” she explains, sipping on a caramel frappuccino. The rain has stopped and the crowd that had taken refuge in Starbucks is beginning to thin out, and suddenly Jinyoung isn’t sure if he can handle being alone with her.

“Alone?” he asks, cradling his affogato in his hands. He can’t really look at her.

“Yeah, just a quick solo trip while uni is still on break.” So she is a student like him. A sense of relief floods through him, though he can’t tell why. She looks at him and smiles around her straw. “What about you? Are you here alone too?”

“Actually I’m here on exchange,” he takes a sip to distract himself. Her gaze is stifling. “I’ll be heading back in a couple of weeks. How long are you staying for?”

“Two more days.” She looks at her watch then. “Sorry, I’m actually meeting a friend in a bit but…” she hesitates, suddenly looking unsure. He convinces himself that he sees some kind of hope in her eyes.

“Want to have dinner tomorrow?” he finds himself asking. Suzy’s smile widens, and he thinks he’ll be able to forgive her for all the sleepless nights and continuous questions if he can just see her smile like that one more time. “I know a good oden place.”

She laughs a little awkwardly, and he doesn’t miss the slight blush that colours her cheeks. “That sounds great.” She pulls a pen out of her bag, and scrawls a number on to the serviette in front of her. Slides it across the table with a grin that speaks of shared secrets and a night that he never forgot. “That’s my hotel and room number. I’ll be in tomorrow morning.”

Jinyoung promises he’ll call her.





“Sorry.”

He looks down at her as he holds the door open. She’s the perfect height for him to kiss her on the forehead without having to tiptoe. He lets one corner of his mouth tilt. “What for?”

She doesn’t say anything. Her eyes say you know what for.

He knows he’ll regret this.





“You were right,” Suzy slips her arm through his as they walk down the street. He tries not to stiffen too much from the feel of her skin on his. “That was some pretty good oden. I didn’t think it’d be so good chilled, but now I think I’m a convert.” She laughs, and her arm around his tightens.

“I’ll miss this place,” Jinyoung says aloud. It sounds like a confession. Over dinner she’d been the image of the perfect date, telling him little generic details about her life, like how her name is Bae Suji but she prefers Suzy because it’s more “international”, how she’s studying journalism and is in her last year (like him) and has no siblings (unlike him). No mention of the night they met, or why she never called him. He hears the faint rumble of thunder, and decides that he has nothing to lose. He stops walking and unwinds his arm from hers to face her. “Why didn’t you call me?”

She has the decency to at least look a little apologetic. “I lost your number on the train,” she admits. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” He looks at his shoes. “So you would’ve called me if you hadn’t lost it?”

Suzy puts her hand on his arm. Her eyes look like honesty to him. He so desperately wants to believe that she isn’t out to break his heart. “I would definitely have called you.”

They stand like that for a while, her hand on his arm, his own yearning to reach out and touch her face. The thunder rumbles a little louder, and she looks up to the sky with a slight wrinkle of her nose. Jinyoung has one wild moment of suddenly wanting to grab her and kiss her. “Sounds like a storm.” Her fingers press a little harder into his skin. He swallows.

“This old guy I met once told me weather like this was good,” he offers. She looks back at him, faint curiosity tugging on the corners of her lips. “It’s supposed to mean it’s a good time.”

Her eyebrows lift a little but she smiles. “A good time for what?”

“Rebirth,” Jinyoung says, and kisses her just as the first drops begin to fall from the sky.





They fall asleep in a mess of bedsheets and damp skin with one and a half hours left on the meter, Suzy’s head on his bare chest, his arm around her bare shoulders. When Jinyoung wakes to the sound of his alarm ringing in his ears she’s already gone, the impression of her rain-soaked hair on his skin and a few 1000 yen bills all that she leaves behind. When he runs outside, the rain has already washed all traces of her away.

Jinyoung calls her hotel, but Bae Suji has already checked out.

HONG KONG, 2006.

Suzy pulls back the heavy, slightly musty curtains and stares out her hotel window over the shimmering water of Victoria Harbour. Okay, so maybe the second-rate travel magazine she’s working for is a little skimpy when it comes to accommodation, but she can’t really complain about the view. She can’t really complain about most of the things that have happened to her in life, she’s beginning to find. She just happens to have the worst luck.

But maybe, she muses as she wanders around Tsim Sha Tsui and finds herself on a bustling street filled with people and food stalls and neon lights so bright that they hurt her eyes, maybe it isn’t really down to her luck. Her life at the moment - she shakes her head at a street vendor who brandishes a live crab at her as she walks past - is really a culmination of all her mistakes.

She settles on a small, cramped noodle stall in the corner and watches the people milling past while she waits for her food. She notes the smiling people seated at the haphazard tables littered around the stalls and compares them to the stern, closed faces of those hurrying past. Why is it that people are only able to relax when they’ve reached their destination? Suzy treated all her journeys as destinations. It was probably why she had never been able to settle on anything; dreams, people, places. The vendor places a steaming bowl of wonton noodles in front of her and accepts her money. Maybe she was just meant to drift around forever, alone.

Her attention wanders as she picks up a slice of barbecued pork with her chopsticks, and her eyes end up unintentionally following the young man walking right past her table. He has shiny black hair and although in profile he has the same stern look as everyone else, there’s a less serious air around him as he pushes through the crowd. Suzy tilts her head to one side. He reminds her of a boy she once left behind in a dodgy love hotel back in Tokyo.

The man seems to feel her eyes on him because he turns and gives her a quizzical look. Suzy quickly looks away. His is a face she has never seen before, but the damage has been done. The man disappears into the crowd. Suzy slurps down her noodles.

For the rest night she wonders if Jinyoung ever found out how to mend a broken heart.





Suzy spends the next few days wandering around Hong Kong and talking (or in her case, miming) to locals to find out hidden gems only they know of. She wakes early to walk among the harsh cries of vendors at the morning wet markets, meanders down back streets, listens to the faint underlying hum of the city around her. At night she types up everything that she’s seen, felt and heard, then pours herself a glass of wine before she goes to bed. Not because she particularly likes drinking, but because somebody once told there was something romantic about drinking alone.

She usually goes to bed without finishing the glass.

“How’s it going?” Junho, the editor, rings her up one night after she’s sent him a draft. “It looks like it’s coming along great. One thing though, we probably need some better pictures. Yours aren’t doing your words justice.”

Suzy flops on her bed and stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t know any photographers here.”

“Nayeon says she has a friend there who does photographer work on the side. He’s got a good folio. Here, I’ll give you his contact details. We’ve already contacted him, just get in touch and send him the draft so he knows what to look for.”

“Thanks,” Suzy notes it down. After she hangs up, she stares at the name, email and number that she’s scrawled on the scrappy hotel notepad (all of two sheets of paper). Park Jinyoung. She scoffs in disbelief and looks back out over the water. There are a hundred Jinyoungs all over Korea, she tells herself. And she never found out his last name anyway.

She types up a quick email and sends it out. This time she finishes the glass of wine.





She’s pleasantly surprised when a day later Park Jinyoung sends her some snaps that seem to only enhance what she’s written. She wonders how anyone could ever capture moments so perfectly in a photo as she scrolls through the email. Words are her territory; words aren’t permanent and she can always go back to fix something that doesn’t seem right. She finds it ironic that she can’t seem to do the same about her life.

You’re very good with words, she finds under all the photos. I don’t mean to intrude, but if you are interested I’d be happy to show you around some other places that you haven’t been to. I should be free the whole day tomorrow. – Park Jinyoung.

Suzy chews on her lip for a few seconds before tucking her hair behind her ear.

That sounds great, she types out. Here’s my hotel and room number. Shall we meet at 8.30?

She’s aware of how strangely familiar these words are.






She waits for him on the lumpy couch in the hotel’s small, stuffy lobby, inspecting her nails and trying not to look up every time she hears the doors slide open. What if it really is him? He would know it was her, wouldn’t he? Her name isn’t very common and she vaguely recalls telling him her last name too. Unless she hadn’t and she’s just paranoid. But what if he did know? Why would he want to see her again? Would he try to do something to her? What if this was some sort of sick revenge?

She shoves her hands under her thighs and crosses her legs. Probably a good thing that she wore jeans and trainers instead of a dress and flats. Easier to run away in.

The doors slide open again just as she’s bending over to double knot her laces, and a pair of white Converse Chuck Taylor’s appear in her vision. She straightens up and looks straight into the face of Park Jinyoung.

“Long time no see.” He smiles, and his eyes scrunch in the corners just like she remembers. She can feel his smile on her lips. His face is more angular and less boyish than the last time she saw him but he still looks as attractive as when he first sat across from her at the odeng cart in Hongdae back when they were both 20 and in need of some company. She tries to find the right words to say. I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing here? How have you been? Maybe even ”Sorry.” His smile wavers slightly in her silence, and she catches a glimpse of what he might have looked like when he woke up to find her gone.

She manages a smile despite the guilt beginning to swirl within her like the waves lapping against the underside of boats down in the harbour. “It’s been a while, Jinyoung.”





He offers only polite small talk and a lot of silence as they walk. He takes her to alleyways, to less glitzy neighbourhoods, to small hidden coffee shops where men lounge in white singlets and ed shirts and dirt lurks in every corner. He speaks almost perfect Cantonese, she finds out early. Just like how he spoke almost perfect Japanese.

“I thought you were heading for a life in finance,” she remarks as she sips on some intensely strong black coffee that comes in a mug. “How did you end up in Hong Kong doing photography?” She adds in a heaped teaspoon of sugar.

“I needed a change,” Jinyoung looks at her over the rim of his own mug. “Photography lets me hang on to moments that I might never be able to hold on to again. I guess that’s why I decided to go down that path after graduation.” He shrugs, and stirs his coffee.

“Was it me?” she asks.

He gives a cynical grin but doesn’t meet her eye, fingers still tracing the handle of his mug. “You weren’t that important.”

It hurts more than it should.





He takes her to a hidden noodle stall for dinner, his favourite he tells her. They descend the narrow stairs into an equally narrow alleyway, tables pushed to one side and the stall leaning against the other. Suzy closes her eyes. She breathes in sweat and pork broth and damp concrete, hears the clanging of the soup ladle into the giant pot simmering on the portable stove and the slurp of noodles into mouths, and tells herself that she has never felt more alive.

Jinyoung grasps her on the elbow to move her out of the way as a couple push past them on their way out. She pretends not to notice.

“I’ve got one favour to ask you,” he says when she picks up a dumpling from the plate that he’d ordered to share between them. She pauses, chopsticks hovering in mid-air.

“What?”

“Don’t write about this place.” It seems less threatening when he’s being so calm about it. “It’s one of the few places here that I like to think only I know about.” Suzy looks around at the other tables, notes that only half of them are taken up. She nods. “Thanks,” he smiles. It’s the first time the whole day that she spies something dead behind his eyes.




“Thanks for today,” she tells him when they arrive in front of the sliding doors of her hotel. “It was amazing.” She half wants to hug him, half wants him to leave. She settles for a smile. “You’re almost like a local, aren’t you? Will you ever go back to Korea?”

He returns an easy grin. “Who knows? Life takes you wherever it wants to.” They slide into a silence that Suzy cannot tell is uncomfortable or easy. She supposes that this is the definition of their relationship. He rubs the back of his head. “Well, good luck with the article. Let me know if you need more pictures.”

“Jinyoung.” She grabs the sleeve of his shirt as he turns to go. “It…” she retracts her hand. “It was nice to see you again.” She means it. He looks like he doesn’t quite trust her, but he nods anyway.

“You too,” he says quietly. Then he’s gone.



She finds herself wandering back to the underground noodle stall most nights for dinner. Tells herself it’s for the food and not anything else. She almost believes it until she runs into him on the stairs as she’s leaving and he’s arriving.

“What are you doing here?” he asks a little incredulously, pulling her to his side as a man pushes past.

“Well the dumplings were really good so I had to come back,” she tries. He scoffs and releases her. “Have a good dinner,” she calls after him. He sends her a wave without turning around, but it’s enough to keep her smiling to herself for the rest of the night.





She bumps into him a few more times at the noodle stall, whether as she’s getting takeaway or exiting or arriving or still eating. He stops looking so surprised after the next two meetings and starts shaking his head with a scoff and a cynical tilt of one side of his mouth. But if she’s still eating he sits at the same table as her and asks if she wants to share dumplings. If she’s arriving he tells her if the noodles are too goopy or if the soup is too salty. If she’s leaving he tells her to have a good night.

Suzy begins to think that she’s tired of running from the feeling she got when their fingers brushed for the first time.





Their next meeting at Victoria Harbour is purely coincidental, and they end up snacking on egg waffles wrapped around ice cream as they watch the boats sweep across the bay. “I’m going to miss this place,” Suzy admits as melting ice cream runs down her fingers. She at them and smiles at him. “I like it here. It’s not that cold and the streets are steep and I can sit in the bay and watch the boats all the time.”

“I liked Tokyo,” Jinyoung pops the last bite of his egg waffle into his mouth. “But I couldn’t stay.” He wipes his fingers on a tissue and pops it into his jacket pocket before leaning back on the bench.

“Was it me?” Suzy asks.

He glances at her. “Why do you think you had that big an impact on my life?” She doesn’t say anything. He gives a short, breathy laugh that reminds her of dim hotel lights and watching his back expand and retract as he breathes. “But maybe one part of it was you.” He looks back out over the waves. “You’re very good at ruining places for people, you know.”

She tears off a piece of her waffle and squashes it between her fingers. “I’m very good at ruining them for myself too.” She drops the smushed piece to the ground and watches a little girl run past, her hair in pigtails and a red balloon in her hand. A younger boy – her brother by the looks of it – struggles to keep up with her. She’s keenly aware that Jinyoung’s eyes are trained on her face.

“Wouldn’t it be great if it suddenly started raining?” he asks with a wry grin, and she recalls that moment they had in Tokyo right before he kissed her and she ruined everything again. She glances at him. He isn’t looking at her anymore.

“I’ll need a typhoon,” she says.





She calls him the next day, hair dripping wet from her shower. She watches the setting sun on the other side of the island paint the early autumn sky with streaks of fiery orange across the bay, and she wishes she could watch this sunset for the rest of her life.

“Will I ruin this place for you when I leave?” she asks when he picks up.

He’s silent. She hears him breathing quietly down the phone, muffled with slight static. She cannot tell if he’s deciding to tell the truth or hurt her, or if the truth will hurt her anyway. Then, “I don’t know.”

“I loved Tokyo more when I found you in it,” she admits. The orange takes on a more pinkish hue, the blue fading to pale indigo. “And I love this place because I found you here again.”

“I loved Tokyo before I met you again,” Jinyoung’s voice travels through cables and wires and ends up spearing her through the chest. “But I hated it after you left. I loved Hong Kong before I found out you were here, but I can’t say if I’ll hate it after you leave.” He pauses. Suzy listens to him breathe. “Why do you keep making me hate the things I love?”

“I’m sorry,” Suzy crosses her arms protectively across her chest. The indigo deepens, the pinks beginning to dissipate into the sky. “I’m sorry.” That confused silence again. “Don’t you think it’s sad how I love cities when you’re in them and you hate them when I leave?”

She hears him sigh slightly through his nose. “I’m leaving soon,” she says softly. “Tomorrow at midnight, actually. I…” She takes a leap. “I have an extra ticket.” He still doesn’t say anything. “I’m going to leave it in my room. I’m going to tell the receptionist to let you in. If you come. If you want to come. I hope you’ll come.”

Static crackles down the line. Then, “Why did you choose me, at that odeng stall?”

“Because I was lonely,” Suzy whispers.

“Are you still lonely?”

“I’ve always been.” The sky is a deep, dark blue. She closes her eyes.

“I’ll call you,” he says.





He doesn’t.

SEOUL, 2013.

Jinyoung breathes in icy cold air and releases it in a stream of condensation into the night. He shoves his hands into his thick winter jacket’s pockets and curses himself for forgetting his gloves. Living in Hong Kong for so long had made him forget how cold winter in Seoul could be, and despite being back for a week he’s still trying to acclimatize.

8 years he’s been away, and somehow Seoul has managed to become a more exaggerated version of what it used to be. Bright neon lights glare from every corner, pop music fills the streets. It’s all a little too similar to Tokyo for Jinyoung, and he’s glad he’s only back here for a few months for his brother’s wedding and his solo exhibition. The timing couldn’t have been better.

He passes a girl with long hair and bright eyes and wonders for a brief second if Suzy is back here. The thought fades as soon as it comes. It’s taken him the better part of 7 years but he’s finding it easier to treat her as what she should have been from the start: a memory.

Sometimes he thinks he should have taken that ticket. Gotten on a plane with her. Lived happily ever after with her. Would that have happened? Was she really in love with him the way he was in love with her? Could you really trust someone who convinced you they needed you and then ran every time? Jinyoung is no stranger to running away, but he’s still in Hong Kong even after she left. He still doesn’t know if he hates it.

He comes across the odeng stall quite by chance. He hadn’t even realized he was wandering down the same street he had wandered down ten years ago until he smells the hot broth tinged with too much flavor enhancer in the air. He stops, watching the people picking sticks of beancurd and fishcakes from the piles. His hands feel frozen in his pockets.

He’s just reaching out for a stick of fishballs when someone goes for the same one at the exact same time. “Sorry,” he starts, glancing at the woman beside him. She stares back, wide eyed. He feels like he’s been catapulted ten years into the past, and he’s 20 years old picking up a late night snack on his way home from the library when a pretty girl sitting across from him remarks that it’s cold.

“Jinyoung?” Suzy breathes.

“Suzy,” he says through numb lips. They stare at each other for a long time, their hands still holding on to the same fishball stick.





She’s still single, he finds out. She’s running her own travel blog and does freelance articles for big magazines and the occasional newspaper and is back in Seoul for a break. She doesn’t mention the plane trip and he doesn’t either. There are some things that can only belong to the past.

“How about you? Are you married?” she asks delicately. The brightness in her eyes has faded a little and she no longer looks like teenager but he thinks she’s still as beautiful as the day he met her.

He shakes his head. “There aren’t many single Koreans in Hong Kong and the local girls lose interest when they find out I have no money,” he laughs. His hands are warming up slightly now that he’s got a hot bowl of soup in them.

She laughs too. He wonders if he’s imagining the relief in her face. “I’m sure you’ll find someone here. You’re back for a few months, aren’t you?” He nods. She gracefully changes the subject before the silence grows. She never did that before. “So how’s Hong Kong? Is the noodle stall still there?”

Jinyoung plays with a stick in his bowl. “The old man passed away a few years ago and prices have really skyrocketed. It hasn’t really been the same since. I still go most of the time though. Out of habit.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “Well, if it’s any consolation, at least this time it wasn’t me who ruined it for you.” Her smile is bright. He wishes she wouldn’t.

“Most people try not to bring up things that hurt them,” he says carefully.

Her smile fades a little but is still there as she looks down at her bowl. “Sometimes you have to learn when to stop running away,” she swirls around what’s left of her soup. He ends up watching it lap against the sides. It reminds him of the boats in Victoria Harbour. She blinks at him, then leans forward. “Did you want some of mine?” she asks politely, offering him her bowl.

He laughs like he hasn’t laughed in years. He doesn’t even care when the other diners turn to give them quizzical stares. He hasn’t felt this warm inside for a long time, not since the day he ran into her at the harbor and had egg waffles wrapped around ice cream.





“I have to go now,” Suzy gets to her feet. She looks at him like she doesn’t quite know what to say, and he doesn’t either. “I… it was nice to see you again. Really. And I’m sorry. For everything.”

He catches her hand as she turns to go. Looks up at her. “Are you still lonely?” he asks quietly.

She opens . Closes it. “I’m learning that it’s okay to be.”

“Good,” he says. Her palm is warm in hers. “I’m sorry too. For everything.”

They stay like that for a few more minutes, his hand in hers, her eyes locked on his. Then she smiles, and it is both warm and heartbreaking at once. “Goodbye, Park Jinyoung.”

He releases her hand. “Goodbye, Bae Suji.”

He watches her walk down the street until the bustling crowd swallows her up in its darkness. Right on cue, it starts to rain.

*