∞

Fortuitous — it means to happen by accident or chance and not by design. Myungsoo’s never been one to put much basis on something like chance, on something as unreliable and inconsistent as fate. That’s not to say that he has not experienced the random, oftentimes unplanned things that happen to him — when his coworkers submit the report he expected to be delayed, or when he fumbles for change for the taxi, expecting none, only to find some — but these aren’t the things that you’d read in a life-plan book, or see on social media posts that try to be inspirational. He doesn’t see life working like that – you just go do the things you need to do, and that’s pretty much it. He’s never understood how some people could look at life in rose-tinted glasses – that’s not to say that he is a pessimist – and not be disappointed when things don’t go their way. Optimism is fine, Myungsoo honestly thinks that, but optimism paired with a naïve sense of idealism was impractical and, to be honest, stupid. Why would you want to set your hopes on something that just isn’t realistic? Myungsoo, sometimes, wonders about that – about what makes people hopeful enough to hope for something unrealistic, or perhaps, something incredibly idealistic. All his life, he’s been taught to work, to sacrifice to get the things that he wanted – you have to set everything right, his mother would say, and you’ll make a wonderful grown-up when you do – and he’s had to cram every night, spend every break studying to get high grades in school, because that’s what life is all about. There’s an order to everything and, frankly speaking, putting too much stock into hoping wasn’t the way to get things done.

Hard work, Myungsoo thinks. Hard work, the right connections and a good image – that’s how you succeed.

“What about happiness? What about dreams?” Woohyun asks, quietly. “What about the hopes and the wishes you hold deep inside?”

And Myungsoo doesn’t have an answer because, looking back, he’s never had the courage to ask.

∞

Woohyun is a dreamer. He is on the right side of short, with fluffy chestnut hair and a mischievous glint in his eyes. Myungsoo meets him outside his office, on what should have been another common Tuesday in his life.

Myungsoo’s life is a series of routines – it’s how he gets by. He wakes up during the day, not at the exact same time for each consecutive day but somewhere near that, rounding off six-thirty and seven in the morning. He wakes up, looking up at the generic white ceiling of his apartment, feeling the cool breeze of the March air and he stands from his bed, blinking away the sleep that still tempts him to come back. He sometimes wakes up before the alarm, or sometimes with it – regardless, he does the same thing: he sets his feet on the ground and gets ready for the day.

Breakfast varies from day to day, but it’s always the same set – a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee and maybe an apple or a banana to stave off the blandness. It all falls under the same order, the ticking of the wallclock sounding distinct in the background – he lives by routine, it sets his entire day.

Myungsoo’s never had the need to disrupt it. Everything was better when there was order.

He walks to work, dressed up to the nines, briefcase in one hand, the other swinging by his side – in time with the cadence of his feet – and along a multitude of others, joins the flow of the early Seoul morning. Even the mass of people congesting in sidewalks, in an almost symbiotic movement, has a cadence of order to it – and the order soothes him, reminds him of certainty and surefootedness.

When he catches sight of Kim-Jang & Co, CPAs, engraved on stone by the foot of a steel-lined skyscraper, Myungsoo breathes, prepares himself for another day of numbers, reports and paperwork. Accountancy was safe – each digit always the same, nine is nine and two is two and the order that flows is similar. Mathematics operates on the principle of equality and equity – and Myungsoo knows numbers the way he knows the pacing of his own breathing.

He’s climbing up the steps, impeccable black shoes glinting in the morning light when the squeak of rubber shoes on stone reached his ears – he’s only given a moment to look up and wonder, when something (or someone) collides into him and pushes him back to the person behind him. He hears a sound of surprise, a curse and warmth on his shoulder.

Bright wide eyes under fluffy chestnut hair greets him, and Myungsoo blinks as the woman behind him glares at them in askance – her cup of coffee, half on the ground, half on Myungsoo’s coat.

“I am so sorry!” The stranger says, bowing, but the woman hisses and stalks off and Myungsoo becomes the recipient of an apologetic gaze.

“I’m really sorry, sir, I slipped and I didn’t mean to.” He says, and Myungsoo’s raising a hand, waving away the man’s stammered apologies as his focus is distracted – the coffee was going to leave a stain on the white dress shirt he had under – and he pulls out his handkerchief from his backpocket.

The stranger sees what he’s doing and, Myungsoo sighs tiredly to himself, decides to pull out his own handkerchief and start wiping on Myungsoo’s sleeve.

“You don’t have to do that, it’s fine.” Myungsoo says, or lies – it’s not fine, it really isn’t but he doesn’t have a choice — and tries to stop the man from touching him any further. He’s somewhat become uncomfortable at the thought of strangers touching him and he slightly steps away from the stranger.

“I really am sorry.” The man relents, standing back, and Myungsoo sighs again. He looks repentant enough, handkerchief crinkling in his hands as the stranger stares at his sleeve and back at his frowning face. Myungsoo wants to get angry but getting angry would take too much energy and, frankly, he just wants everything done and over so he can get back to business and the rest of his day. “I can make it up to you, I’ll buy you a new shirt? Yes, I can do that!”

“Honestly,” Myungsoo raises a hand, and he catches sight of his watch and – ! He has a minute left before he’s officially late. Courtesy threatening to disappear, Myungsoo grits his teeth and bites out. “Just. Stop. I have to get to work, please excuse me.”

The man jumps, once more apologetic, and he’s fumbling for something in his pocket. Myungsoo is about to step around him and run up the stairs – something he’s not used to doing but is considering just so he can get back to his usual order – when the man brandishes a pen and a tissue paper and decides to write something on it. He finishes, and forces the paper into Myungsoo’s free hand.

“Please, I have my number there – call me or anything, I want to make it up to you.”

Desperate to get him away, Myungsoo nods and stuffs the paper in his pocket – he steps to the side and runs up the stairs, ignoring the man’s trailing apologies.

When he reaches the company entrance, he takes out the paper from his hand and, crushing it in his fist, throws it into the trash bin by the lifts.

∞

It’s thirty minutes past eight in the evening when he leaves the office, exhausted and hungry. Myungsoo has had a long day. The lower floor’s junior executives miscalculated and sent in the wrong numbers on the report: there was some backlash, and his floor was tasked to pick up the slack (on top of their usual day-to-day audits) by the small-eyed President. As the senior executive, Myungsoo had to stay back and double check everything – make sure that all their numbers were in, including the lower floor’s report (their senior executive, who was on leave, called him up to apologize and frankly, Myungsoo’s had enough apologies for one day, if the snappy “I’ll see you next week, Howon” was anything to go by) and close the floor up — at this point, he’s not even sure if he wants to sleep or eat or do both at the same time.

When he reaches the lobby, the evening security guard smiles at him and Myungsoo merely raises a hand, waving, too tired to do anything more – Sungjong looked young, and Myungsoo usually has a smile for him, but he doesn’t care if he looks downright rude right now  - and after having his bag checked, walks out of the office and into the chilly breeze of the March night.

Reaching the taxi lane, Myungsoo walks to the nearest available one and pops the door open, setting his bag in first, closing the door after himself.

“Twenty-sixth street, Cheongdam-dong. Take the street by Garosu-gil, please.” He says flatly, leaning his head back on the arm of the couch. He peeks at the driver, wondering why the car isn’t moving, when he catches sight of the rear view mirror and feels dread in the pit of his stomach at the sight of familiar mischievous eyes under chestnut – almost black in the nighttime – hair.

“Sir!”

“Oh, no.”

The stranger turns in his seat, staring at him. “What are the chances, yeah?”

“Yes,” Myungsoo bites out – and if this was the silver lining in his day, he wasn’t seeing the humor in it.. “What are the chances indeed.”

“You didn’t call me, or text me.” The man says, slightly teasing, but he still looks a bit apologetic. “I’m Woohyun, by the way.”

Myungsoo exhales loudly.

“Please, just get me home.”

Perhaps hearing the bite in his voice, or maybe seeing the frown lines on his face, the stranger purses his lips and turns back, starting the car up. It takes only a second before Myungsoo hears the familiar hum of the car engine and he relaxes, breathing easier when the car starts to move and join Seoul’s flow. The cab smoothly sails into the flow, backed on all four sides, moving with the rest. The driver – Woohyun – is blessedly silent and Myungsoo lets the tension in his body relax, eyes drooping tiredly, the reflection of passing lights from the street-lamps and moving cars streaking across his eyes. Crowds of people flock the streets, under neon-lights and the capital’s unceasing noise, and there’s something comforting about how normal it all is. It looks chaotic, but even its chaos, there was still a slight semblance of order to it.

He may have misjudged his own exhaustion, as Myungsoo feels his eyes droop and close, lulled to slumber by the subtle engine hum and the dancing, flickering city lights.

∞

Myungsoo is seven years old, and he’s standing in the kitchen of his mother’s home. In one hand, he has a newly-drawn picture of him, his eomma and his appa working in ‘Kan-a-da’, a crayon in the other. He stops in his tracks, watching his mother stand by the sink.

He doesn’t know what she’s doing, but her shoulders are shaking, trembling, and she’s sniffling – he sometimes gets that, especially when he’s sick or when his allergies kick up – and he wonders? Why is mother crying?

“Oh, Myungsoo, you’re there.” His mother exclaims, hurriedly wiping her eyes and turning to the dining table, setting plates down. "Go get ready for dinner.”

“Eomma,” he says and he raises the picture, wanting to cheer her up. She always liked his drawings, and Myungsoo remembers showing them to her a long time ago.

Her mother turns to him for a second, down at the paper, and back to the table, placing spoons by the bowls. “Have you studied already? I told you to study, right? You have an exam coming up.”

Myungsoo’s hand slowly comes down, picture in his hand. He was meaning to study, but he wanted to draw first. Maybe he should have studied first, he doesn’t want to disappoint his mother.

“Get ready for dinner, and when we’re done, you’re going to study. No TV for tonight, not until exams are over.” His mother says, still sniffling. “You need to study really well, Myungsoo. You need to be a good grown-up because mommy’s not going to be around all the time.”

She turns to him, and Myungsoo looks up, still silent. “You get that, right?”

He never noticed it then – never noticed the tired eyes, the exhausted look on his mother’s face – all he noticed then was the picture trailing by his side, and him nodding, responding in a quiet voice. “Yes, eomma.”

The hand-drawn picture is left by the living room side-table, half atop, half-threatening to fall into the trash bin below, as Myungsoo runs up the stairs and gets ready for supper.

∞

A car honk, and Myungsoo awakens with a start – sitting up, feeling blood rush into his right cheek and realizes that he had fallen asleep against the car window. He looks for his bag, groping for his wallet to pay the driver when he takes note of his surroundings and realizes that he’s not home yet.

“Where—?” He asks, eyeing the driver with bleary eyes. The man – and Myungsoo remembers his name is Woohyun — turns and shrugs his shoulders.

“East Apgujeong.”

“Apgu—that’s not what I said. I said Garosu-gil.” Myungsoo replied, confused and somewhat annoyed. Woohyun shrugs again. “Cheongdam-dong by Garosu-gil, that’s what I said.”

“I did!” Woohyun answered back. “I mean, I was there but traffic was heavy because of this accident with a bus—“

“What?” Myungsoo exclaims, more to himself, sounding disgruntled.

“—so I routed to Apgujeong so at least we can get there, even if it would take a while longer, but then apparently all the routes in Garosu-gil were routed here and, uh, we’ve been stuck here for two hours.”

Two hours? Honestly?

“Honestly? Two hours?” Myungsoo groans quietly, and his head flops back against the car window. At this rate, he would rather have just taken the subway and walked the rest of the journey back home and would have been at home by now. But no, this had to happen.

His stomach growls, and Myungsoo feels a headache coming in. Looking around, he spies a few restaurants amidst Apgujeong’s high-fashion boutiques and decides to just stop here. If this is how it’s going to be, he could at least do it with a full stomach.

Another growl, but it’s not from Myungsoo and he turns to see the driver looking embarrassed. Myungsoo frowns, and Woohyun speaks out. “Didn’t grab lunch, now I’m regretting that decision.”

It’s honestly not his problem, Myungsoo knows that, it honestly isn’t.

But he takes a look at the growing frown on the driver’s face and the quiet sighing and, taking a look around their surroundings, knows that the restaurants around cost more than what a taxi driver would earn for a week’s wages. Sighing – and maybe some part of him has grown exhausted from snapping all day – he makes up his mind and turns to Woohyun.

“Just…just park here and let’s grab dinner. I’ll pay.”

Woohyun jumps and turns to him, and Myungsoo notices how young the other looks – with his hair and his eyes and that small nose – and the driver’s face flushes red. “I, um, I’m fine. It’s not a problem. I can just drop—“

“Look,” Myungsoo says firmly and Woohyun quiets. “I’m tired and sleepy and hungry. Can we please just go with this?”

Woohyun opens his mouth, probably to argue, and Myungsoo just decides to give up and opens the door when the driver blurts out.

“I know somewhere better!”

Myungsoo half-turns. “What?”

Woohyun smiles, a little unsure. “I know somewhere better? If, you know, that’s fine with you, sir.”

He takes a look at the driver’s hopeful, earnest gaze and closes the door back, raising a hand. “Fine, fine, just go already.”

“Thank you, sir! I promise, you won’t be disappointed, sir!”

“Myungsoo.” He mutters. “My name is Myungsoo.”

And Myungsoo ignores the way the other says his name under his breath, as if memorizing it, and watches as they make a U-turn and run down a quieter road. They’re moving away from the packed streets, and down quieter lanes, where buildings are more set apart compared to the main districts, and Myungsoo ignores the questions in his head at the situation – mostly the question wondering why he’s going with a stranger for dinner.

It’s not something he’s used to – and, to be honest, he doubts it’s anything anyone would ever get used to – but his focus goes elsewhere when they come up to a little food booth, and Myungsoo sits up in his seat, watching the shimmering reflection of the moon on the Han River’s smooth surface. The taxi skids to a stop by the stall, and an elderly man walks out the back of his stall, waving a hand at them. Myungsoo’s brows furrows, eyeing the stall and the river and he thinks, or says aloud rather—

“Is that even legal?”

Woohyun chuckles as he unclasps his seatbelt. Myungsoo looks at him and Woohyun turns back a little just to wink.

He frowns even further.

“Come on, Myungsoo. You’ll love it, I promise.”

He highly doubts that, but Myungsoo’s too hungry to argue and steps out of the cab, closing the door after him. He hears the quiet gushing of the river, and the caws of the evening birds and he goes around the car and follows the other.

“Ah, Woohyun! My favorite customer!” The elderly man, Myungsoo guesses he’s the owner, exclaims.

Woohyun laughs. “More like your only customer.”

The ahjussi chuckles, a little raspy, and takes a look at him. “That doesn’t seem to be the case tonight.”

Myungsoo gives him a polite smile, even though he doesn’t really feel like it, and bows a little. Woohyun turns a bit to him and smiles. “He’s a customer, pops, but we hit a gridlock and got hungry and we’re here, so serve us some of those spring rolls.”

The ahjussi escorts them to the stall’s seats, and he makes a humming sound at Woohyun’s chatter. Myungsoo looks around, taking a look at the assortment of food on display and, he has to admit, it does smell good, if not a little toogood.

He recalls Woohyun’s words, and turns to the driver. “Your father?”

Woohyun turns to him, a little surprised, and smiles. “Nope. But he’s old enough to be one. Nah, he’s just this really cool ahjussi selling food without a health permit.”

“Pfft,” the ahjussi snorts. “If you cook it hot enough, it’s fine.”

Myungsoo’s deadpan glare had Woohyun chuckling. “I see. Lovely.”

“No, seriously,” Woohyun consoles, patting his arm and Myungsoo is, once again, the recipient of a small twinkle-eyed smile. “You’ll like it. Trust me.”

The driver is looking at him in hope, maybe somewhat earnest, and Myungsoo sighs – for the nth time – and sets his briefcase down. “Fine.”

The ahjussi swings into his vision, and grins at him warmly. “You won’t regret it, boy, trust me.”

A bowl of ramen is placed before him and Myungsoo inhales the scent and pauses.

∞

Myungsoo runs down to the kitchen, feet padding against the wooden floors. He’s nine, and his mother had left him a note that she’s gone to work – busy as usual – and he hurries down for breakfast.

Still feeling a little sleepy, he raises a fist to rub against his eyes when he reaches the dining table and sees the box on it, and the bowl of ramen left atop the table.

He walks to it – inhales the scent of ramen, his mother’s own recipe, wafts of sweetness and spice reaching his nose – and he looks at the box.

It’s plain, tan, with a FRAGILE sticker on its side and he carefully opens it.

Nestled amidst the styrofoam is a snow globe, and Myungsoo takes it out – in careful, tender hands – feeling the cold glass under it. Setting it on the table, the movement causes the artificial snow to rise and cover little Toronto nestled inside it in a sudden wintry storm.

There’s a post-it note on the side, and with a finger on the edge of the paper, he reads off “Love, appa” and looks back to the snow globe. He has five more snow globes in his room, all on a shelf for him to look at before he goes to sleep. One for each birthday.

He feels incredibly lonely, with a mother too busy at work to make time for him, and a father, worlds away, too far for him to talk to.

It was March 13. It was his ninth birthday.

∞

“Well, dig in.” Woohyun said, and Myungsoo is brought away from his memories. He looks at the other, and watches him start on his food and Myungsoo relents – picking up the spoon set by the bowl.

It tastes exactly how it smells – a tinge of heat down his throat to stave away the cool evening air. He grabs a cut of meat from the tray the ahjussi placed in between them, and his mood slowly starts getting better.

It’s a bit later – when he’s halfway through his bowl and his stomach starting to feel a lot better – that he broaches conversation. He’s even a little surprised himself – he’s not one to make small talk with strangers (not that that opportunity arises much).

“How long have you been a taxi driver?” He asks, curious – or maybe just feeling a bit awkward. Damn it, he’s not used to this. Numbers and equations yes, but questions born out of a need to know threw him off his own tracks.

“Hm?” Woohyun looks up, a noodle strand disappearing from between his lips. “Oh? A year? Almost a year, I think.”

He really looks at Woohyun then – and is reminded of the other’s youth. Myungsoo’s not one to discriminate based on profession, but he can’t help but think that most, if not all, of the taxi drivers he’s seen are more or less of the older age spectrum, like the ahjussi handling this stall (he still thinks that it’s somewhat illegal to even set-up here without a permit). Woohyun looks young enough, young enough to even still be in college, maybe as a senior. Myungsoo suddenly feels old in his age, seeing the vitality of the other’s youth.

“Was it—“And Myungsoo pauses, unsure on how to word it out. It’s funny, because he can find the right words to talk to the right people, but in something casual like this, he falls short. “Was it because you needed the money, or—?”

And maybe his awkwardness comes through, because Woohyun looks up and smiles at him. He doesn’t look offended at Myungsoo’s unintended slight. “No, not because of the money. Well, it does help from time to time.”

Woohyun sets his spoon down, and he looks deep in thought. Myungsoo lets him be, even with his curiousity rising, the sizzling of more meat cuts almost quiet in the background. “It might be a little weird, but being a taxi driver – you meet a lot of people, strangers and I like the experience of talking to different people everyday.”

“But it was your choice, right? To be a driver? To do what you want to do?”

“Yes,” Woohyun grins, voice lilting up a notch. “It is. My friends used to ask me – ‘why would you want to be a taxi driver? Why give up your degree and settle for that?’ and I get why they’re confused, because it’s not the kind of profession someone our age would want in this time – but I do. I do want this profession, I want to meet people, I want to meet strangers and even if it sometimes makes it hard to get by – it’s something I like doing, and I’m happy it’s like that.”

And Myungsoo doesn’t understand it – because all his life he’s been taught to always aim high, to aim for success. You have to be a good grown-up, his mother had repeated throughout the years, you have to have your life set out because it’ll be difficult to carry on without a plan. You’ll be alone, and no one will be there to help you – so you have to help yourself, make sure everything is set and that you’re not coming blind.

Childish dreams have to be set aside, because dreams can’t feed you, and dreams can’t keep a roof over your head and dreams can’t pay the bills.

And here is a stranger, telling him that he had disregarded a possibly set future in favor of something that interests him. It’s the kind of thing he expects to see in some self-help magazine, or the kind that he sees on a social media post intended to be inspirational but ends up sounding trite and fallacious to him. He doesn’t get it.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Myungsoo frowns. “Isnt’t that difficult, isn’t that scary? To give up on a reliable future and go after something…something so unsure?”

“You know what?” Myungsoo raises a brow at Woohyun’s question. “I don’t blame you for thinking that. That’s the same kind of question my friends used to raise up, and I don’t blame you for making that same assumption. It’s true – it is a weird choice, especially when I could have graduated with a degree in political science and maybe get a job in the government or something like that – but, you know that feeling, when you wake up one day and think about your own life, how short it is and what you want to do with it?”

Myungsoo nods, still a bit lost, but he understands that part at least. He was once in that mindset, a long time ago – but that was in the past, and he doesn’t have the time to dwell in it anymore like he used to.

“It’s like that,” Woohyun follows, a hand under his chin, lips quirked in a small smile. “I just thought to myself, about what I want to do and realized that it’s not going to make me happy. I understand what it cost me – I could be in an office right now, working a nine-to-five job and getting benefits, but it’s just not for me. I can’t see myself being like that, working enclosed, and whiling my time away.”

He takes a look at Myungsoo’s coat. “Not that I judge you for your choices. Which reminds me, I’ve still yet to make it up to you for ruining your jacket.”

“What?” Myungsoo blurts, confused. Then he remembers. “Oh. Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Really?”

And Myungsoo thinks same – because it’s not like him, not like him at all to let go of something that ruins his routine but today has been a day of weird things, of unplanned moments, and for once, it’s not as nerve-wracking as he thought it would be. He’s still a bit bothered, and his curiousity is surprisingly more than what he’s used to, but there was something magnetic about Woohyun’s idealistic words – something that should have sounded naïve; should have sounded honestly childish – but the brightness in his eyes, and the wisdom glowing in them has Myungsoo thinking otherwise. Experience sometimes does that to people – makes them more introspective and detached from the normal order of things. Myungsoo thinks it’s something Woohyun may have experienced, something that made him really believe in his own words and, oddly, the thought is nice – even if he can’t really understand it past the surface.

∞

“I spent ten years in Canada, working my off, and he doesn’t even make it?!”

“It’s not his fault! Why would you blame him for it? Myungsoo did his best, I know he did.”

“He failed the entrance examination! What part of it doesn’t make it his fault?! Did he even study – or did you just baby him all the time like you always do?”

“He’s your son, how can you say that? It’s not the only school in the country. He can still try out for a differen—“

The ringing voices of his parents, arguing, cuts even through the walls. Myungsoo sighs, and continues to scribble on the side of his English Literature book.

He smiles to himself, a little, as he draws a small dog barking, and maybe includes in a little boy, with a treat in his hand.

“Where is he? I need to get him straightened out.”

“No, you are not talking to your son like this. He’s only twelve years old.”

Myungsoo adds in a few stars over their heads, and a little moon. A few clouds, here and there, cutting through the text of his book – but he ignores it. He knows his mother will be angry to see him vandalizing his book, but he doesn’t pay it any heed right now.

“And what? This is going to go on his record. How’s he going to make it for college? You tell me, since you always baby him like he’s still two, how is he getting into a good school?”

He adds in two more figures, small smile slowly disappearing, and he ends the drawing with two curves. Myungsoo rests the pen by the side of the book, and watches through blurred tears at the proud smiles of the stick-parents he’s drawn, at the little cozy family by the side of his textbook.

“He is a disappointment.”

∞

Even at a distance, the gentle rushing of the river reaches their ears. They’ve moved to the bank, sitting on the grass and Woohyun holds a bottle of soju in his hands. Myungsoo has one, too, nestled by his legs. The March wind drifts again, and the faint scent of leaves hit his nostrils. It smells nice, just the right breeze after winter – the smell of grass and leaves, far-away from Seoul’s smog-filled air. It’s entirely unique, now that Myungsoo thinks about it, because the borders of the river run right through most of the major city districts. It’s rare enough to find a spot without a few vehicles, or crowds of people running through.

The Han river is wide, cutting through most of Seoul. In the daylight, its surface would often be tinged in a deep green, reflecting the sunlight off its surface in a scatter of glitters. In the night time, it looks gargantuan, and maybe even a little ominous, at how large it is, and Myungsoo has to squint to locate the end of the nearest bridge in the nigh darkness.

“It’s really big, isn’t it?” Woohyun notes, pointing with the bottle at the river’s expanse.

“Yeah,” Myungsoo agrees. “But you never really notice it when you’re smack in the middle of heavy traffic.”

The other laughs. “That’s true. Sometimes, traffic gets so heavy, it’s hard to even see the road before you. Sometimes, when I’m driving around passengers and we hit a lock, and you can’t help but feel like you’re lost somewhere.”

The driver exhales and settles on the grass slope, looking up at the sky. Myungsoo follows the other’s gaze and sees the night sky. There are a few stars, twinkling here and there, and the moon half-hidden by clouds. Even at night, the sky looks bright and huge – lit by the glow of Seoul’s mechanical lights.

“What kind of passengers do you get?” Myungsoo asks, turning to the driver. On the surface, it sounds like an insipid question but he is genuinely curious.

“A lot, and they come in so many amusing packages.” Woohyun answers. “There’re the businessmen-type like you – in their fancy coats and briefcases, always on their phones - and then there’s the drunk partygoer at four in the morning that would often threaten to puke on the carseat, and there’s the college student running late and that passenger that doesn’t even have cash to pay me – and trust me, I get that one a lot, too!”

“Sounds stressful.”

A grin. “It can be, but I like being there – sometimes talking to those people, or just being near them and getting to know who they are, just for that moment. There are passengers who talk to me, they make conversation and we end up laughing.

It’s funny, if I think about it. I get a lot of passengers, but not one of them is the same. There’s always that difference to them – you get the silent ones, and the ones that talk about anything and everything under the sun. There are also some that end up crying in the back, mostly heartbroken or the ones leaving for airports and their kids are outside and waving and, man, that just kills me sometimes.

There are some passengers who don’t even look at me, but I’m used to that. There are some passengers that look down their noses at me because I’m just a taxi driver and there are those who make so many demands, swinging them here and there, getting into the middle of a gridlock but hey, people are people and a bunch of rotten eggs don’t make for the entire barn, right? Or something like that, anyway. Not everyone’s gonna be nice. Why bother getting yourself down for it, right?”

“It’s not easy for some people.” Myungsoo mutters, a little too honest and a little too unexpectedly for his taste. “For some people, it stays with them. Sometimes, for years. Others don’t take rejection well. Others hold on to it, and it changes them.”

“Yeah,” A puff of air. “I understand. It’s not to say that I disregard people’s dislike or apathy of me, or anyone else for that matter, but sometimes – you just have to look up and wonder at how long you plan to keep it to yourself, how long you let it change you and adapt you to it. Sure, it’s easier to maybe just keep your head down and have people trod all over you and let it go on but, if you think about it, it’s hard to light a candle, and easier to curse the darkness instead. Some people let the damage set in, and others – well, for some, they accept it, they feel it and they let it change them. For the better.”

“How?”

And that’s the big question Myungsoo wants answered. How do you let yourself go? How do you allow yourself to let go of the things that have haunted you – to let yourself freely fall and believe in things that can’t even offer up any semblance of proof that it will be worth it? Why invest in the nonexistent, and better yet, why invest in something that he has never experienced?

Why invest in something that could hurt him again?

“How what?” Woohyun asks, and Myungsoo bows his head, lets the hair cover his eyes. He feels somewhat vulnerable – even in his office clothes, the usual reassurance they hold on him, that he’s doing well, that he’s being a good grown-up — and he whispers his question instead.

“How do you hope? How do you settle with that?”

Woohyun is silent, and Myungsoo feels the slight bravery he’s built to ask slowly start to crumble, settling that it’s a question he’ll never have answered.

“Hope, huh?” Woohyun repeats, and it’s more to himself than to Myungsoo. “Hope…is a funny thing.”

“Not everyone starts off with a plan,” Woohyun says, breaking the silence. “Not everyone has a life plan to follow, to have a back-up plan in place in case their first plan goes up in smoke. For some of us, we put our hopes on one thing – invest so much of our time, our energy and our faith in that one thing – and when it blows up in our faces, we have no idea how to go on. We’re left with nothing but rocks, and we can’t help but wonder how we’ll build it all back up.

Because it’s understandable – how do you go on from the only thing you had? That kind of thing can stagger people, and can leave them empty. I get it, I really do. How do you tell yourself to get up, to try again, and reach for it even after knowing that you can fall and get hurt again? Nobody wants to be hurt, and you can’t blame other people for wanting to feel safe, to feel reassured.”

Woohyun brings his hand up and Myungsoo watches him grasp for the sky. “It’s hard to hope, harder to hope again but I think it’s hardest to not even hope at all. I asked myself – can you go, without looking up? Can you go on living, not even giving your happiness a chance – to wonder if there’s possibility? Can you live with not knowing, with letting the currents take you away?”

“That’s the thing about hope — it asks you, and you don’t ask it. A lot of people think hope is something you get – something you earn. Maybe it is, who am I to say it’s not? But, in my experience, hope is something you create yourself. It’s something you make, and something you become.

Hope is what you make of it. It’s far bigger and brighter than anyone can ever imagine, and I really think it’s spells something far better for us, far better than what we could ever make of ourselves and that’s the good part – that it’s always aiming for something better, for something that would make you pause and think and for something that would make you realize – what I could have thought of myself was nothing compared to this.”

His hand drops, and Myungsoo follows the trail from sky to grass, and he takes in the glimmer of moonlight across the slope of Woohyun’s nose. He meet’s the other’s eyes. “Can you get by with never wondering? Can you live with that, knowing you’re passing on something that could change things for the better?

And, Myungsoo, lost in thought, doesn’t have an answer.

∞

Minus two by minus three six Y, you end up with five x plus three Y times two XXY, rewrite equation 1

“Are you excited?” His mother asks, smiling and Myungsoo nods, can’t help but smile as well.

“I am too, baby. We’ll see daddy soon. Do you miss him?”

Myungsoo nods, lets the pencil fall from his hand and ignores the Algebra book before him. His mother is sitting across him, cutting vegetables for dinner.

He’s eleven, and appa was coming home next year. He hasn’t seen his father in a long time, save for the Skype videos they do every Friday, or the e-mails his mother tells him about. He’s excited to see him again, a stash of drawings waiting in his bedroom and even when his friends tell him it’s lame to draw for your parents when you’re eleven, Myungsoo doesn’t stop.

“You’ll do well for your collegiate exams, right? You promised appa you’ll do well.”

Myungsoo nods. “I will. I’ll do my best.”

His mother smiles bright at him, and Myungsoo likes that she’s happy now that appa was coming home. Sometimes, Myungsoo wants her to smile like that when it’s just him – but looking at it now, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s him that makes his mom smile or it’s the thought of his father coming home. He just wants his mother and father to be happy. He’ll do them proud. He will.

∞

“I don’t understand it.” Myungsoo finally says, and Woohyun looks at him – in question.

“I don’t understand how easy it is for other people, to hold on to something that will not always be there. This is why we have plans and we have order. Putting everything to chance is just risky. It’s not practical. People should understand that.”

“People do understand that.” Woohyun answers, and Myungsoo’s brows furrow.

“Then why? Why do people still hope?”

“Maybe it’s because they should. Maybe they should hope, and dream and wish and pray. Maybe it’s impractical, maybe it’s even stupid – but people should hope, should they not? To exceed further than what you could ever imagine for yourself? Is that a bad thing – to be more than whatever you should or could be?”

“But—“

“Have you ever wanted to be something far larger than what you are now, Myungsoo?”

And that’s the first time Woohyun said his name in a while, and Myungsoo feels a shiver run up his spine at the sound of his name on Woohyun’s lips, but the question staggers him.

There are a million things he had wanted to be – a million nights spent dreaming and wanting, wrapped in cartoon-print blankets, lit by an amber colored lamp in the small of his childhood bedroom. A million times he’s paused, in a daydream in school, a scribble by his notebook, moments he’s paused in filling out equations on a testpaper where he stopped to wonder for more than this.

“Once, and I can’t remember anymore.” He whispers, even when he does remember every sliver that it made him feel.

Woohyun’s voice is soothing when he responds. “Maybe it’s about time that you do.”

∞

He’s seventeen.

He’s graduating.

He walks to the stage, and bows to the school director. He takes hold of the diploma, and the director calls for his parents.

His mother stands beside him as the school photographer readies his camera.

His father is back in Canada.

∞

“I wasn’t always hopeful.” Woohyun says, bottle empty beside him.

Myungsoo looks to him, and the driver shakes his head.

“The thing is — people have this idea in this head that hope belongs to the hopeful, that it’s there for people who have the capability to hope. It’s not. It’s there for everyone.”

“It’s there for those who haven’t even began hoping again.”

“Sometimes, hoping again is the challenge. Sometimes, dreaming is the most difficult thing you’ll have to do, but it can be worth it. It really is.”

“What happened?” Myungsoo asks, and Woohyun exhales.

“What do you think? A political science drop-out from a good university working as a taxi driver because he wants to meet people? What do you think happened?”

It’s not sarcastic, not even pointed or angry, but Myungsoo feels, rather than hears, the tender spikes of the words.

“Your parents didn’t want that, did they?”

Woohyun is still when he responds. “How are you going to make a living off that? How are you going to succeed? Why would you settle for that? Why would you waste our hard work and sacrifice for something like that?”

And Myungsoo understands – he finally does – that Woohyun wasn’t always hopeful, that Woohyun was just the same as anyone else, getting by, swimming in the currents, the same words repeated across his life. He’s forgotten that no one is born hopeful, no one is born with that deep-seated reassurance. Everyone gets lost, everyone gets torn and hurt.

“The hardest part,” Woohyun’s voice goes raw, and Myungsoo wants to reach a hand out. “the hardest part was never seeing them again. My parents, they’ve held a large part of my life – a part that I can’t and will not forget. They couldn’t understand it, they did everything they could to change my mind – ground me, punish me, threaten to disown me.”

“But they disowned you, didn’t they?”

A laugh. “You think that would be the case, but they didn’t. I left before they could.”

A pause. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to hurt them any further. The thing is, Myungsoo, everyone can hope. Everyone can be hopeful, and everyone can dream but not everyone will understand that. Not everyone will hear your thoughts and look at them the way we do. Not everyone understands the way others work, and how could they? Everyone is unique – individuals are unique – they have their own beliefs, their own motivations and their own experiences.

My parents weren’t able to understand that. They wanted me to live my life according to their beliefs, their own idea of what success and happiness was. The thing was, what makes other people happy isn’t necessarily the same thing that makes us happy. It’s not something absolute, like numbers or equations. I can’t fault them for that – because that’s all they know, that’s their belief of what happiness is.

Can we fault the people we love for wanting the best for us, even when they don’t necessarily see that it’s not what’s best for us? Can we fault our family for wanting us to be safe, to be secure and to be taken care of – even when doing so would mean that we’re stuck doing things that don’t interest us, things that chain us down? They’re my parents. They only want me to be happy, and to never beg for anything else.

I can’t fault them for that, Myungsoo. I can only hope, and pray and continue to love them – to the best of my ability, to the best that I can do, even if they don’t want to hear it, even if they don’t see it.”

Myungsoo nods along, watching the light glint off the planes across Woohyun’s face. “And you? How do you deal with the pain?”

“And I,” Woohyun smiles at him, eyes dark. “go on. I go on hoping. I go on living. The best I can do is to be the happiest I can, to live out my dream – it’s the best I can do for my parents and for myself.

I still reach out to them, even now. No matter how much time passes between us, no matter how many Christmases and New Years and birthdays pass and I celebrate by myself, I still try my best to reach out. Because dreaming doesn’t mean letting go – and just because things have changed, doesn’t mean what I feel for them has to. It hurts, yes, I understand that. It’s plain as day. It hurts to see the fireworks on New Years and know I’m watching it by myself, or to drive passengers to Christmas dinners. It hurts to fetch sons from airports, and it’s even worse when I pick a whole family up and I hear their laughter in the back. I can’t tell you how many times my heart has clenched the moment I wake up on my birthday and hear nothing from there.

It hurts and I don’t pretend it doesn’t. The pain is there to be felt, it’s there as a reminder.

Every time it hurts, I remind myself to hope even more. Every time I feel like stopping and crying, I tell myself to dream some more. Every time I see those fireworks, I tell myself that my parents are watching the same thing. Every time I wake up on my birthday alone, I know that my parents wake up and think the same thing – and knowing that they think of me, even for that one moment, is enough.”

Woohyun smiles, and his eyes are shining and Myungsoo’s own are stinging with the other’s heartfelt words. “Every day, every second of every day, I hope. I hope, and I pray and I dream — for something bigger, for something bright and for something better than I can ever make of myself. I hope for the better, and I keep on hoping, until it does.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Myungsoo can’t help but ask, voice straining with the fears and the worries he’s hidden all these years. “What if it never does get better?”

“Then I don’t stop hoping.” It was simple as that.

∞

The ride back to Cheongdam-dong is silent, the streets blessedly sparse now, and Myungsoo takes a peek at his watch – sees time running close by to midnight – and he sighs, tired but no longer hungry. The streetlights whizz past the car windows in silence, and Myungsoo absently takes note of the familiar streets, the lines of stores and boutiques, the streetlamp with the chipped off paint, the pile of garbage by the alley in-between Gucci and HBA, that one dilapidated looking building smack in the middle of the newer ones.

Woohyun is quiet, but Myungsoo finds the silence soothing, the engine hum lulling him to a drowsy state – the buzz of the soju earlier gone down his system.

As Woohyun turns the cab around a corner, Myungsoo takes the time to look at the other and notes his profile. Funny – today had been the most unusual day he’s had, drifting out of his routine. Myungsoo feels that even today, of all days, was fortuitous by itself and he doesn’t use that word often. It used to sound too hopeful, too idealistic for him – always been used to the same thing over and over again, to what works – but now, he might start to think that he sees the appeal in it, and he can finally understand – maybe by just a sliver – why people want to hold on to something as tenaciously finicky as hope and fate.

Fortuitous – in the way that, of all people he had met today, it had to be this taxi driver, far younger than most that he’s seen, but with eyes glowing with a wisdom Myungsoo had yet to experience. Wise beyond his years, and words still holding to that glimmer of hope and dreams, and Myungsoo realizes that he may not understand it completely – how people could hold on to something like that fully and completely – but he feels like he’s beginning to.

When his apartment comes into view, Myungsoo feels a swell of security come up, even as he feels a bit down at the thought of this journey with Woohyun ending. When he quietly points out to his stop, Woohyun remains silent, quietly parking his car before the apartment steps.

It’s quiet inside, and Myungsoo doesn’t want to move, to fumble for change to give Woohyun. Handing the change would mean the end – and call him selfish – Myungsoo doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want this ride to stop. Woohyun’s words had lit a flam inside, and its embers glow weak, but they do glow and Myungsoo can’t make out the words itching to run up his throat and out of his lips, settles on silence – the familiar, the known.

He looks up the rear view mirror and sees the other looking at him. His eyes are still twinkling, even when they look a bit sad as well.

“Promise me?” Woohyun asks. A thousand and one words come up to his mind, a million promises that has left him reeling and Myungsoo recalls buckling under the weight of such words – but Woohyun’s are light, soothing and even with that familiar fear spiking, there’s something there, maybe it’s reassurance, or instinct, but it tells him of something far deeper than childhood fears could ever reach.

Myungsoo doesn’t even think about his response when he blurts it out. “Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll remember what I said? About how it’s time for you to remember what it’s like to dream?”

“I…” and Myungsoo pauses, because all his life he’s known how to do everything right, set everything with a plan and promising on chance was something entirely new, entirely different – but can he? Can he let himself try? Can he finally let himself look up and dream?

Days spent wondering the same thing, maybe in passing or when in the middle of work – but the thoughts do pass and the questions remain unanswered. Maybe it was time that they did.

“I can’t promise you I’ll remember,” Myungsoo says and Woohyun nods, smile turning sad. “but I can promise you that I’ll try.”

A bright grin, shining under Seoul’s artificial streetlights and Myungsoo feels blinded. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what to make of the brightness of the smile, the gleam of happiness with a glowing warmth that reminds him of home. “That’s enough.”

Thanks, that’s what Myungsoo wants to say – but he feels it’s too trite, too fabricated-sounding to express what meeting Woohyun today had meant for him. With his heart in his throat, Myungsoo ducks and looks for payment when Woohyun turns in his seat.

“Hey,” Woohyun says and Myungsoo looks up. “It’s on me. Thanks, for today. Meeting you was wonderful.”

Unable to do more than nod, Myungsoo exits the taxi – before he could stop himself, before he could do anything else - bringing his briefcase with him. Woohyun is silent, following him with his tawny gaze and when Myungsoo closes the door after him – it takes him a full minute before the taxi starts and backs to the driveway. Myungsoo watches Woohyun drive away, taillights trailing away. They flash, dimmed, in the dark and he watches as they disappear into the current of taillights and streetlamps, blinking and shining, lost in Seoul’s manmade stars.

∞

A cold shower clears the exhaustion away, and when Myungsoo sits on his bed, towel on one end and his phone in his hand – he remembers Woohyun’s words.

It’s a familiar situation – this, even the position of his body recalls years of memories.

He can’t count how many times he’s done this, sit on the bed – phone on his hand. He can’t count how many times he’s felt this way – on the brink of doing something totally outside his routine – but his routine is there for a reason, and he’s always been afraid to break that.

He remembers promising Woohyun to try but he can’t help the fear that climbs up his throat, the fear that chills his hands and has him tightening his grasp on his phone, feeling the sides cut into his hand.

How many times had he put everything on faith and had it thrown back in his face? How many times had he placed himself out there, only to get hurt? How many times – he’s lost count, and he’s lost count of the many times he’s had to piece himself back together –

An absent father.

A nostalgic mother.

Crumbling under expectations and conditions, and he can’t even remember the last time he’s ever felt happy, the last time he’s ever felt like he’s done something good – something worth being proud of – and he realizes: he hasn’t been happy in a really long time.

He’s become so used to routine, to setting everything up to order because then, if he does the same thing, if he does what’s normal, if he sticks to what he knows – he won’t get hurt. It never mattered if he was happy, just as long as he was never hurt. It wasn’t a good way to live, and frankly, Myungsoo finds it hard to think on how he should be living at all.

∞

A hand is pressed to his cheek, and Myungsoo blinks away tears as he takes in his mother’s sad countenance, her red eyes, the furrow of her brows and the strands of her hair.

“You have to do well,” she says, and her voice is heartbroken and angry and everything Myungsoo can’t pinpoint, everything he can’t fathom because his ears are still ringing with his father’s words and he can’t help but bite his lips, holding the choking cry in. “You have to do well, so you can live a good life and be a good grown-up.”

A kiss on his forehead and he holds on to his mother’s blouse.

“One day, you’ll grow up and you’ll have to survive on your own. You have to be able to take care of yourself, so that you’ll never have to ask for help from other people. You’ll never have to chain yourself to other people and be at their mercy. One day, you’re going to have to fly and you need to fly away, so far away.”

He doesn’t understand his mother’s words, but he understands the sorrow in her voice, and he presses his nose against her , smelling her lilac cologne and, for a second, forgets his father’s disappointment.

“You’ll be okay, I know. You’ll be okay, but you have to learn to grow up first.”

∞

He presses the numbers in and brings the phone to his ear. If he had given the time any thought, he would think it was inappropriate – to call when it’s past midnight – but giving anything as mundane as time any thought now would have distracted him, and he would have backed out, relent and return to safety.

But he has to do this – he had to.

He promised.

He doesn’t hear the ringing, but he hears memories rushing back, all running through his mind. Like a film strip placed over his eyes, he remembers holding on to a picture in his right hand and a crayon in the other and he remembers reaching out to his sad mother.

A click, and a groggy voice comes up on the other end. “’ello?”

Myungsoo pauses, a thousand words on the edge of his tongue but fear clogs his throat up, and he closes his eyes tight, tears stinging. He shouldn’t cry, a part of Myungsoo reminds him, that he’s old already, that he’s grown and grown-ups shouldn’t cry, but he wonders – who told him that it was not okay to cry? That it was not okay to feel the pain? Pain’s there for a reason, pain is there to remind – and maybe, the saddest part of growing up is forgetting what was important.

Sadness – nostalgia – maybe even a childish, or childlike, need for assurance bubbles up and he can’t help but struggle, unable to get the words out.

“Hello?” And something softer, far softer than curiousity, bordering on the edge of dawning hope and fear, fringes on the edge of the last syllable and Myungsoo gasps, chokes out the next few words.

“Mom?” He says, whispers, voice small – filled with everything he can and can’t name. “Mom? It’s me.”

He breathes, and pushes on. “It’s me, mom.”

“Myungsoo?”

And he laughs, or cries, he doesn’t know which but it doesn’t even matter anymore. He’s thought about this, but it’s completely unlike everything he thought it would be. “Yeah, mom. I’m here. I’m here.”

“Myungsoo?!” And his mom’s voice breaks on his name and he feels warmth streak down his cheeks, reminding him, grounding him.

“Hi, mom. It’s me.”

He wants to tell her – he wants to tell her everything, everything he’s done, he’s felt, the things that he’s done to get by, the memories he holds on to (the memories he tells himself that he’s not holding on to), the nighttime fears that come calling at more nights than he wanted, the days spent at work wondering if it’s what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, waking up and, for that one second, unsure of his ownself, meeting Woohyun and realizing that he wasn’t living, just existing.

He wants to tell her everything and nothing, wants to blurt out a million words, a million reasons and he wants to keep his mouth shut, letting himself be grounded in the sound of her voice.

And he doesn’t know how long he sits there, phone pressed against his cheek, sniffling as he repeats the same phrase over and over, and lets his mother’s voice wash him in a wave of memories and recalled hope.

∞

Fortuitous — it means to happen by accident or chance and not by design. Myungsoo’s never been one to put much basis on something like chance, on something as unreliable and inconsistent as fate. Chance was finicky – you never know what you’ll get when you bet on it. More often than not, it spells hurt; and maybe, on some rare occasion – born out of a semblance of its own order – chance leads you to something good, or something better. Myungsoo finds that hard to believe. Maybe it’s because he’s spent most of his life avoiding chance, riding out the waves of routine because what he knows is what’s safe, and safe will never hurt him. It never really mattered if he was happy, and he’s not even sure if it was a right way to live at all but now – he thinks – it may not have been the best choice but it was an experience he wouldn’t trade away for anything. When he looks back at it now, Myungsoo realizes he would have never understood – seen hope for what it was in its entirety – had he not gone through what he had. Maybe those social media posts that try to be inspirational does have some trace of truth in them, and maybe – just maybe – fate does operate on the same basis of hope, that if you’re just brave enough, it’s there, waiting.

It was hard to hope, harder to hope again and maybe, he thinks, it was hardest to not even hope at all.

He doesn’t know how long he had sat there, phone pressed to his cheek and listening to his mother cry (and maybe he cried a bit, too) but ten years with no contact was a long time – a decade of locked bitterness and spite – and maybe it was time to start bridging that distance back.

How many times had he been hurt and responded to that hurt with even more pain? He’s old enough, he’s grown and growing up made him realize that being an adult doesn’t mean routine, doesn’t mean living by what he knows and what’s safe. He had grown up, holding on to the belief that growing up means having to go with the flow, to let yourself be molded by what others ask of you. He had learned to be content with that because, in some way or other, he had molded that idea into an inkling of what happiness should be – even when it wasn’t necessarily what he thought made happiness as it is.

Growing up was learning to dream again, to see things farther than what the world could ever put you in. Growing up was remembering, recalling what was important – and he’s forgotten that: that what was important wasn’t in the responsibilities he held, but maybe it was in his own actions, the dreams and wishes he’s made, in holding on to the things that he had so easily let go. He’s not there yet, he hasn’t gone that far, but he’s starting to know, he’s starting to step in the right direction. He’s still a little unsure, but just a miniscule part, maybe even just a sliver unsure, on whether he’ll ever get there – on whether he’ll ever have the magnanimous courage to hope completely and wholly, without fear, without doubt. Yet, somehow, he also feels grounded in the idea that the mere fact that he’s started, that he’s begun, tells him that he’s done enough. That he’s taken the first step. It’s that – taking a step, moving – that makes him feel like it’s all beginning to be worth it, because a cycle of routine was no better than being stuck in one place, watching and waiting and wondering, seeing life and everyone else pass by.

And meeting Woohyun had taught him that it doesn’t really matter if it’s one step forward or a thousand steps back, the more important thing was taking that chance to even move in the first place.

Myungsoo can’t say he’s hopeful yet but he’s no longer hopeless, and perhaps that, more than anything, is what makes him proud of himself.

His phone rings, and when he takes a look at who it is, he smiles to himself and presses it against his ear.

“Hi, mom.”

“Happy birthday, honey,” His mother croons, and he’s reminded of six and eight and twelve, the faint scent of ramen and spice, the feel of the crayon in his hand and her lilac cologne. He laughs. “Thirty! My baby’s a big boy now.”

“Mom,” He grouses, but there’s no heat and when Myungsoo takes a look at the mirror on the way out, the smile on his face is heartbreakingly bright, still a little unused to it but he’s getting there. He makes a face at his own reflection. “I’ve been a big boy since I was twelve.”

“Pish-posh,” Rolling his eyes good naturedly, Myungsoo locks the door after himself. “twelve or fifty-seven, you’re still going to be my big boy. My wonderful, wonderful big boy – and you’re still going to be my big boy no matter how old you pretend to be.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckles, walking down the steps, echoing in the empty staircase.

“I’ll see you at the restaurant, alright? Your father’s already there, you know. He left me here at home while I was still dressing, the nerve.”

“Seriously? That’s really unlike him.” Myungsoo notes, voice calm, a little surprised, a little pleased. His mother sighs on the other end.

“It is, but he’s doing his best. He loves you, even if it’s sometimes hard to see.”

“I know, mom. I love him, too.” It’s a step – he can never forget that feeling, that spike of disappointment and hurt in every mention of his father, but he’s learned to take it as it is and let it mold him to be something better than spite and bitterness could ever make him become and Myungsoo knows that one day it’ll get better. The image of his father, old and nearing seventy, sitting in a booth at the restaurant, waiting for him, comes to mind and if the painful clench in his chest is any indication, he stands by that belief, by that hope. He knows it vividly. “I’ll see you later, alright? I love you.”

“I love you, sweetie.” And the line clicks.

Myungsoo pockets the phone, sighs, and lets out a quiet breath. He’s at the landing, and looks up at the bright azure sky – clear, almost invisible clouds trailing across the expanse – and he hears the clucks and chirps of the pigeons nesting on the doorway’s arch.

It was a beautiful March day.

A taxi comes into the lane and Myungsoo raises a hand, waving it down.

He watches it slow down and settle smoothly against the lane, climbing down the steps and reaching for the cardoor. Myungsoo settles on the backseat, closing the door after himself.

He looks up and, after pausing for a moment, smiles.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Woohyun asks from the driver seat, hand on the wheel, tawny eyes twinkling in mirth.

Myungsoo smiles. “I sure hope so.”