Their first kiss had been on the night train to Daegu.

In that moment, everything had seemed to stop, frozen in time. He’d forgotten the fight he had with his parents, forgotten how alone he felt all the damn time because in that moment, none of that mattered. All that mattered was her and the feeling of her lips on his. Even now, he could remember the sound of the raindrops pattering on the window and the ground moving swiftly beneath their feet. And then when she pulled away, she smiled at him in the way that made his heart jump.

He hated it.

He hated how he couldn’t seem to string together any coherent sentences when she did that. He hated that his mind went blank whenever her eyes met his.

He especially hated that he loved her.

ღ

It had been two months since the last time she’d thought about him. It was a funny thing, the little things that reminded her of him.

Like the little ice cream shop where they’d shared a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone that day when the sun was beating down in the middle of summer.

Or the street they’d walked down the night of their first date when it had felt like there had never been so many stars in the sky before.

Sometimes when it rained just like it had rained on that night of their first kiss, she found herself crying, cuddled up on the sofa next to the window in her dorm room. It wasn’t always those moments of joy that she remembered, though. Some days, something would remind her of the last time she saw him. You couldn’t even really call it a goodbye, though. At least, it never felt like one. All it did was hurt. All the time. On good days she would forget but then it would hit her all of a sudden like an avalanche. A flood of emotions and feelings and memories of slamming doors and tear stained nights. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on it for too long at a time, busying herself with work. And for two months the busy work had helped.

But now, she found herself alone with her thoughts. And the inevitableness that was the memories of him.

ღ

Three.

No matter how many times he’d thought this through, nothing could have ever prepared him for the moment he saw her. 

She hadn’t changed at all.

Her eyes were still piercingly beautiful and warm, making him forget whatever it was that he was thinking. Her smile was still as bright and she was every bit as breathtaking as he remembered.

Two.

She saw him before he saw her. She’d known it beforehand that he’d be there, but she hadn’t planned on being so affected.

She hadn’t planned on not being able to focus on giving their awards speech in front of thousands of people, thinking only about the fact that he was sitting right there, a few rows ahead of her. And once the speech was over and she’d miraculously made her way over to her seat without stumbling, she couldn’t help but look in his direction.

Even though she’d berate herself and turn her attention to the group performing on stage every few seconds, her eyes would wander over to the table a row over.

He looked even more handsome than she remembered. Maybe it was the lighting, or the clothes, or maybe just the atmosphere, but he gave off an air of confidence that hadn’t been there before.

One.

It was just for a moment, but when the show was over and he was bowing to the other groups, his eyes met hers.

It really shouldn’t have hit him as much as it did. All of a sudden, he was much too conscious of himself and the mere distance between them.

He hadn’t expected it to hurt as much as it did, either. A part of him had wanted her to acknowledge him, let her glance linger on him a second longer. Something so that he wouldn’t go crazy thinking he was the only one affected by it. But she bowed swiftly and made her way through the crowd without sparing him a second glance.

Hours later, it was still the only thing he could think about, sitting in his dorm room, his night lamp the only light on throughout the quiet dorm. Usually he would’ve been the first one to drift away into blissful, dreamless sleep. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop letting thoughts of her float around in his head. Her smile. Her dress. Her eyes. The way she’d hurried past him. How she still had the same effect on him, two years later.

ღ

Back at the dorm, she could feel the eyes of her members on her as she hurried to her room. But she ignored their questioning looks and stares. They didn’t know why she was acting the way she was and she didn’t have the heart or courage to tell them.

So she sat next to the window, just like she had done so many times before, bringing her knees up to her chest and letting her hair fall around her. Though she didn’t want to think about anyone or anything at all, her mind wandered to the events of the night. She wished she’d been a little more composed when it came to him, but the moment he looked at her, her knees went weak and she couldn’t breathe. It was too hard to pretend like he was just another fellow artist at a music show. Because no matter how many times she tried to trick herself into thinking that way, she was reminded that he wasn’t. So she had run. Or at least gotten out of there as fast as she could have.

The worst part of it all was that she’d realized she missed him. The kind of missing that made her heart ache every time she thought about him. Seeing him in person again had only made her miss him more. At least when it was only sporadic, fleeting memories of him it was the wistful kind of longing. But seeing him made him so much more real, to the point that it hurt more than she thought it could.

By the time she finally dozed off, the sun had begun to rise, a soft glow emerging at the edge of the horizon.