She was late. 

Jinyoung checked the time on his phone and sighed. It was almost 1 pm and there was still no sign of Jisoo. Typical. He should have expected that she’d be a no-show. Served him right trying to depend on her. He sat alone at a table in the middle of Heather’s, a trendy, sunny sandwich bistro that had just opened up halfway between Eastern University and Southern Technical. There was lunch rush going on and the waitress had come to check on him twice already, so there was a crowd of people around to witness him being stood up.

Stop. He mentally scolded himself for thinking in those terms. He wasn’t being stood up. This wasn’t a date. This was just a favor he was doing for a dead man, but he supposed even that wasn’t happening anymore either.

Jinyoung sighed. He reached down into his backpack and pulled out a library book about cognitive disorders and opened it up to a dog-eared page. He supposed that as long as he had the reservation, he may as well have lunch on his own and get some studying in before his lab later. 

He pressed his lips into a thin line and concentrated on the words in the book. He hated that he felt disappointed at Jisoo no-showing him. Since when did he care what Jisoo did or didn’t do? He turned a page and kept reading, only looking up once in a while, hoping to get a waiter’s attention so he could place a lunch order. When one finally walked past him, though, he didn’t speak loud enough to be noticed.

That was when he saw her. 

Jinyoung didn’t have to try very hard to remember the very first time he saw Jisoo, which was nearly ten years ago. Walking into Heather’s, she wore a white shirt and a wide-eyed, slightly worried look on her face. Jinyoung thought she looked much the same now as she did that first day of school when he first saw her:

Beautiful.

Jisoo was looking above people’s heads. When she finally spotted him from the doorway, she stopped and stared at him for a minute with a look of surprise. Then the expression disappeared and was replaced by a grimace. Jinyoung sighed as he dog-eared the page he left off of. Of course, this was Kim Jisoo. A beautiful face ruined by a poor attitude. He knew that well enough from middle and high school. Here it goes.

Jisoo crossed the length of the restaurant. As soon as she reached his table, Jinyoung said:

“You’re late. The reservation was at 12:30.”

Jisoo narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re the one who didn’t give me a chance to say anything before you hung up yesterday,” she said. “You said 12:30, but my lunch break isn’t until 12:50, and I’m not crossing my boss on your account.”

“Whatever,” Jinyoung said. “Have a seat.”

She pulled the chair out and sat down on the other end of the table. A waiter finally came by to take their orders. Jinyoung noticed a lot more about Jisoo now that she was sitting in front of him. She had slimmed out since high school. Not that she was ever a big girl, but the stubborn baby fat that clung to her cheeks as a teenager had gone. She had tidied up a bit, too. He remembered her coming to school with daisy-chains on her head and dirt crusted under her fingernails. Now, her hair was smooth and smelled faintly of strawberries and her nails were manicured.  

“I think you have something that belongs to me,” she said after the waiter left. Jisoo was eager to get to the heart of their meeting today. Jinyoung reached into his bag again and pulled out the envelope with Jisoo’s name on it. She ripped it open and pulled the stationary out as soon as she had it in her hands. 

Dear Jisoo, the letter read. She read the letter, savoring every word her old teacher had written. The words took her back to middle school, to those days she spent sitting in Mr. Hong’s classroom, growing her vocabulary and slowly but surely planting the seeds that would blossom into her dream of becoming a writer. The letter briefly recalled a meeting between Jisoo and her teacher.

It was the day after their essays were due. They were asked to write up to 1000 words on what they wanted to be when they grew up. At that point, Jisoo had no idea. She had always liked books and coming up with fanciful stories, but her father had discouraged her from thinking of it as a serious job. Mr. Hong, after reading her essay, called her to his desk after school one day and praised her essay.

Jisoo had written about her mother’s death when she was eight, and how the loss of a single person made her realize that life was unpredictable. It could be long or short, smooth or rocky and oftentimes, a combination of both. In the grand scheme of things, a person’s lifetime would comprise just an infinitesimal speck in the history of the universe. Therefore, she believed that the best she could ever hope to be when she grew up was happy. Happiness, that’s all. 

Jisoo tried to hold in her tears as she read the closing words of Mr. Hong’s letter: “I hope you’re happy, Jisoo. If not, then I hope you’ll find happiness. And when you do, I hope you’ll have the courage not to let it go.”

In his post-script to her, Mr. Hong wrote: “Please, try to get in touch with Park Jinyoung. I wanted to have lunch with the two of you before I passed, but since I won’t be here much longer, I’ll trust the two of you to meet up without me.”

Jisoo folded the letter back up gently and then looked at Jinyoung. He’d been watching her while she read the letter and there was a curious expression on his face. Jisoo cleared . 

“He really did want the two of us to catch up over lunch,” she conceded with a sharp tone. Jinyoung didn’t appreciate that.

“Why would I lie about that?” he said. Jisoo narrowed her eyes at him.

“I don’t know,” she said, putting the letter down and crossing her arms. “People lie about all sorts of different things, you could be a liar, too.”

Jinyoung scoffed. “No,” he said, leaning forward. “That’s you.”

Jisoo rolled her eyes. 

“Look, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to actually enjoy my lunch break and remember my favorite teacher fondly. We don’t always have to be fighting.”

Jinyoung shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

A waiter came by to fill their glasses with water and deliver a basket of bread as an appetizer. She promised their food would be out soon and then left them alone to converse.

“Since when do you go to Southern Tech?” Jisoo asked, grabbing a breadstick. Jinyoung took a drink of water.

“Since four years ago,” he answered.

“Let me guess,” Jisoo said, half full of bread. “You’re studying to be a litigator or something.”

“A doc