For the week she’s been here, Tzuyu decides that Seoul and Tainan are simply two different worlds that she cannot reconcile with the other. 

It’s been haunting her wherever she goes, thinking about how different she is here: how she is neither one thing or the other, how she’s so sure that if an aerial photograph of Seoul were to be taken, she’d stick out immediately- an outlier, a foreigner- amidst the millions of people in the city. 

Tzuyu fiddles with her fingers, thinking about home. There’s a pang of regret whenever she does. Her unsettlement must be her mistake because she hasn’t really given Korea much thought prior to flying here. This is the reason for my unbelonging here, she thinks. 

Tzuyu starts her morning with these thoughts vaguely floating in her head, concludes that the unwavering discomfort she feels hovering around her all the time is her inability to keep up with the quick whirlwind that is Seoul.  

Suddenly, the dreadful sound of her alarm pierces through the air. 

Right. Her first day of work.

Tzuyu walks to the subway hearing unfamiliar jargon that she’s only ever heard in her head, from her eyes tracing the lines of Hangul on Korean self-study textbooks that she had bought in the local bookstore back at home. Seoul is a strange sight to take in; the streets look awfully familiar and home is only less than 3 hours away in flight, yet Seoul is still an entirely different entity that Tzuyu feels she can’t quite grasp.

Although she has gotten good at memorizing walkways and routes from one place to another, and even routines, so at least there’s that. She’s approximately timed it the past week she’s been here to warm up to the foreign city: her apartment is a ten to fifteen minute walk to the subway she must take to work, and it takes her approximately forty minutes to prepare herself in the morning. The precise timing of her daily routine is a mechanical habit from home that she’s proud to bring all the way to Korea.

Still though, there’s excitement glowing in her eyes and a sense of eagerness that fills her lungs when she arrives at the subway. She’s ridden the train countless times before, back in Taiwan with family and friends, but the sight of overwhelming pedestrian traffic here suddenly makes it all the more real. The realization that today is her first work in a foreign city settles in, and there’s a jumping feeling in her ribs that she can’t quite pinpoint. 

The confusing, slightly dooming feeling sticks to the walls of her ribs, the jumping feeling now faster when she suddenly remembers that she still doesn’t know how to load her transportation card for the subway now that she’s here. She stands frozen in front of the loading machine. She was never taught this in her textbooks that she’s spent hundreds of dollars on; they’ve equipped her with the knowledge to ask for directions, for simple conversations, and for basic exchanges of information… but to load a card? 

“Hey, you’re kind of blocking the way,” A voice comes from behind. Tzuyu faces back and she sees a girl looking up at her, a somewhat fascinated, yet confused look on her face. “Do you need help?”

Tzuyu lowers her head as her cheeks redden in embarrassment. After all the months of preparing for this city, she seriously can’t be having this problem… but mistakes are normal, she tells herself, and she gathers the courage to finally look the girl in the eyes. 

“Sorry, I just need to load my transportation card.” Tzuyu tells her in slow and practiced Korean, her fingers tracing the edges of the card in anticipation and anxiety. 

The girl mutters a quiet oh under her breath as she sticks out her palm to Tzuyu. A sudden thought of putting her hand on it crosses Tzuyu’s mind, but it disappears as soon as the girl says she can help. Tzuyu hands her the cash bills instead. 

She briefly tells Tzuyu what to do, but it’s in such casual Korean that the words simply pass through Tzuyu like thin air. Tzuyu nods anyway. She tries to look as determined she can, watching the girl’s fingers tap on the machine, jumping from one point to another, until she notices a pair of lips peeking out of the girl’s cardigan sleeve.

Tzuyu momentarily wonders whose lips those belong to because it’s all she can do, dumbfounded. Maybe it’s hers. She looks at the girls’ own, the feeling almost coming naturally to her, and notices the beauty spot below her lower lip. Tzuyu almost lifts her arm with the intention of pressing her fingers against the mark, as if out of instinct, but she stops herself before the girl speaks again. 

“Is that alright?” The girl asks. 

Tzuyu’s somewhat at a loss for words, everything she’s studied now jumbled up in an indecipherable string of gibberish in her head. Perhaps it’s the desperate, excited attempt to start a conversation in a foreign city to validate Tzuyu’s slow but sure belonging here that causes her brain to short-circuit. She wants to thank her, but at the same time explain that this is her first time using the subway, but she ultimately goes against it, because, right, strangers don’t really care anyway.

“Um, sure, anyway, I better get going,” The girl smiles at her. Tzuyu notices the spot beneath her bottom lip lifting up as she smiles. 

Tzuyu finally tells her a simple thank you, and the girl vaguely nods and walks past her. And like a lot of things in Seoul, she is there, and then gone the next second. 

Seoul is different in all the ways Tainan is, and Tzuyu can’t keep up. And although she’s just gotten here, she already feels time slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. She takes a few deep breaths and the jumping feeling she’s gotten familiar to in Seoul is suddenly gone.

Tzuyu dreams about the girl from the subway station a lot, the girl whom she feels that is completely, entirely for her. She doesn’t quite understand it, but she often dreams that they meet again, and properly this time: in a coffee shop, while waiting for her order; or at work, the girl as a new intern. The dreams often stop when Tzuyu finally instinctively leans forward to place a chaste kiss on her lips, or on the beauty spot underneath it. Tzuyu would then jolt up at the sound of her alarm, disoriented from the sheer clarity of the dream. 

Lately though, the dreams have stopped, and the face of the girl now seems like a blurred with memory in her head. And after weeks of paranoia about her incompetence with Seoul’s public transportation, she finds that the subway ride to work is a short one, at least. 

Tzuyu boards the train with the same persona she uses with her colleagues and acquaintances: calm and cautious. She secures herself a spot amidst the crowd of people inside the coach, alone, and she looks at the men, women, and the flickering images of scenery outside the window long enough that her carefully crafted persona starts to slip away. 

Perhaps it is the influence of the ambient, cradelike rocking of the train that causes her mind to aimlessly wander, but before she knows it, it’s her time to leave. She steps out of the train and joins the moving sea of people. 

She blinks, and a pair of lips vaguely appears in her head, but the image is there for a moment, and suddenly gone the next. 

Tzuyu shakes her head and ignores it, continuing the 5 minute walk to work. If there’s anything else she’s learned beforehand in Taiwan, it’s the ability to navigate her way through bustling pedestrian traffic anywhere, too.

Soon, she leaves the subway station the same way she had entered it.

Dahyun, the other junior consultant that she is eventually introduced to at work, is loud. 

She banters a lot and makes it a hobby to bother Tzuyu on the daily, but that’s okay, because she makes work so much less tedious. She also makes it easier to talk to the other older colleagues in the department that Tzuyu has always been intimidated by, even for no good reason. There’s a minor task Tzuyu has been assigned to do: ensure that the cash flow records match, but Dahyun stops her from doing it and says she should “relax”, because “Jihyo’s gone anyway”. 

She grabs Tzuyu’s hand before Tzuyu can pick up the pencil on her desk, smiling genuinely. “You work too much. C’mon, tell me, why did you decide to move?” 

Dahyun asks out of friendliness and doting, but it’s so sudden that Tzuyu is momentarily taken aback. The silence is kind of overwhelming, too, now that the other girls in the workplace are looking at her with eager eyes. Sana, Jeongyeon, and Nayeon… they all look at her with enamourment. The attention makes Tzuyu squirm in her seat but she’s thankful nonetheless. She knows there’s no malice in their intrigue, because they’ve all looked out for her at some point.

Tzuyu sighs and answers Dahyun, or the rest of the audience now, anyway. She tells them all about Tainan and how closed off it is, doubts that they’ve even ever heard of the small town in her country. Tzuyu felt that she knew everything about her city and the districts in them like the back of her hand. And that in Tainan, time moves so strangely that nobody even notices the years go by because everything’s too easy. An hour back home is sluggish and drowsy, while an hour in Seoul is gone in a sip. She ends her monologue with saying that moving to Seoul was reconciling her own comfort with growth. 

“That’s so cool…” Jeongyeon whispers.

Tzuyu doesn’t really expect anything from telling them, but then Nayeon is attentively jotting down messy bullet points on her notebook as Tzuyu speaks, exaggeratedly nodding. Finally, she says, “I should send this to the publishing press now, right?” Tzuyu quietly laughs while Nayeon gets a light smack on her head from, presumably, Sana. “She’s trying to be serious!” Tzuyu hears Sana whisper. 

“The summary of the book should be kinda mysterious, you know, just like Tzuyu is,” Dahyun says, “like, ‘Tzuyu never liked easy.’”

They all laugh, but the familiar and distant thumps of Jihyo’s footsteps from outside and the initial sound of the door opening rushes them to orderliness, and suddenly the room is quiet again.

The notebook is soon forgotten as it makes its way somewhere in Nayeon’s bag. 

Tzuyu finds that she adjusts to Korea quite well. She waits for her order at her favorite cafe just 5 minutes away from her workplace. She does so calculatingly, trying her best to look and sound like a local, just so it saves her from the occasional, strange looks of curiosity and intrigue. She looks like she’s from here but she’s not? She tugs at the sleeve of her summer dress self-consciously. She reminds herself that in here, she is a product of her environment. She belongs. 

“One iced latte, please.” Tzuyu tells the woman at the cashier when it’s finally her turn. She tries to make herself sound as casual as possible, but it always comes out slow and awkward, even through numerous attempts of mimicry in front of the mirror, after she had seen Nayeon order the exact same thing. It’s embarrassing to think about.

She decides to snuggle into a cozy armchair while she waits for her order. She observes the customers coming and going from inside the cafe, half the reflection of her face translucent on the glass window. But her ambience is immediately cut short when she feels something vaguely sharp poking at her ankle. She bends down to reach for it- whatever it is- and finds that it is a cardboard pocketbook, its pages weathered and wrinkled as if it had been mistakenly mixed with laundry.

Tzuyu’s name hasn’t been called for the orders yet, so she takes her time and opens it. On the first page, she sees words, barely decipherable and written in small, rushed Hangul: Son Chaeyoung.

She opens the pocketbook, all the shame and hesitance of touching something that isn’t hers now overruled with curiosity. She flips through the pages, somewhat greedily, as she waits for her order. 

The commute home is grueling. It’s kind of dehumanizing, being jammed in the corner of the train by a crowd of people until she can barely see her feet on the floor. There’s another woman adjacent to Tzuyu awkwardly wedged between people, her face blank and expressionless, and Tzuyu knows she looks the same. Tzuyu sighs, her voice doubling, echoing, bouncing off of people’s heads and the train intercom, traveling through a route on the way home, but no one hears it. 

The commute home is the worst, but the subway ride is short, at least, Tzuyu repeats to herself.

Suddenly, she hears her phone ring, the faint sound coming from somewhere beneath the avalanche of miscellaneous objects in her bag. She doesn’t want to answer it, but the little sense of responsibility left in her today tells her it might be important, so she half-heartedly attempts to fish it out. Really, though, she just wants to know if it’s insignificant enough so she can withhold (ignore) it, but she finds that it’s Dahyun calling, so she decides to pick it up anyway.

“Hello?” Tzuyu whispers, her head down.

“Tzuyu, do you want to go out? Tonight? Please? There’s a really nice bar I want to check out just down the street that I heard had really good performers, but nobody wants to go with me and-“

“Dahyun-“ 

“Please, Tzuyu? Please?”

Tzuyu tiredly sighs on the other line of the phone. “Not tonight, I can’t. Sorry.”

“Why not? I can introduce you to some people there, it’s going to be so much fun, I swear, I met a fun girl last week, she’s really cute, her name’s Chae-“

“Dahyun, it’s okay,” Tzuyu laughs. A blurred picture of the girl from the subway station a few months ago faintly appears in her head. “Really, it’s fine. I’m not looking for anything right now.”

Tzuyu hears Dahyun sigh in defeat. Dahyun finally accepts Tzuyu’s refusal and ends the call after she tells Tzuyu to rest well. 

Tzuyu stares at her blank phone, and for a moment, an image of a woman’s chiseled back appears. She blinks and finds that it’s clad in an oversized tank top. She blinks again, and the image is gone. 

Tzuyu ignores it, as she always does. She forgets about her persona- whatever it is she was even thinking about in the first place- and finds herself unable to concentrate anymore, her mind in a fuzz. She picks up the pocketbook from her bag as she returns her phone, and continues her read again. 

Ever since her discovery in the cafe, she somehow couldn’t take her eyes off of the pages, the words on it magnetic, electrifying. Tzuyu doesn’t quite understand them; sometimes she has to read passages twice, or thrice, but the stanzas talk about fate and destiny, sometimes love and infatuation. It’s most likely a diary, Tzuyu thinks, the words so loaded and powerful that she can’t seem to stop reading it.

The robotic voice that spells out her designated stop startles her and she frantically keeps the notebook inside her bag, worming her way through the crowd of commuters before the doors, alighting from the train somewhat feeling adrift.

She walks through the same dark alley on the way home on auto-pilot. She feels her persona cracking, disassembling when she changes into her pajamas and takes her makeup off from the day. She looks at the mirror and there’s a missing feeling inside of her. Something’s different, but she ignores it, again, and calls it a day.

Lunch break at work starts exactly at noon. It’s only Dahyun and Tzuyu in the office place this time, because everybody else had gone out to get lunch outside. Tzuyu had prepared lunch last night, and she takes out two lunchboxes from her bag and slides one to Dahyun. She had promised to bring Dahyun lunch today, after losing a bet with her last week.

Dahyun’s face lights up when she opens the box. Tzuyu rolls her eyes, but now Dahyun is clinging onto her while whispering words of endearment into her ear because… that’s just who Dahyun is. Tzuyu softly tries to pry her away, telling her to cut it out. Tzuyu pretends to have prepared the lunch out of force, but really, she had spent hours last night making sure the chicken was soft enough and that Dahyun had enough rice in her container. But of course, she’d never tell her that.

“Dahyun,” Tzuyu whispers after a moment, even if they’re both alone in the office, “Do you believe in soulmates?”

Dahyun cuts her eyes at Tzuyu. “Is this about that girl from the train?”

“No, that’s not it.” Tzuyu forces herself to say. But she herself has no idea what this is about, so she’s unable to distinguish whether she’s even lying or not. “It’s just that I’m reading a book, that’s all.” This time, it’s half true.

Dahyun is quiet for a moment. She’s probably dropped the conversation, because really, it’s a silly question to ask, and Tzuyu feels like she’s fifteen all over again. A helpless teenager. She looks down at her food to resume eating, but then Dahyun faces her. 

“I don’t know about soulmates, but I believe in connection. Like if you meet somebody and think, wow, they’re definitely The One, then that’s probably it, right?”

“No, I mean, what about destiny and all that stuff? Like, coincidences?”

Dahyun snorts this time. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Don’t you think everything’s just so routine that anything that relatively sparks excitement is suddenly supernatural? Then people cling to it because it makes them feel something.”

“I mean- maybe. I guess.” This isn’t it. “You’re right.” 

Dahyun returns her focus to her lunch. The answer doesn’t quite resonate with Tzuyu, but she decides to keep quiet. She doesn’t really blame Dahyun though, because she’s told her about the girl countless of times. It’s not Dahyun’s fault that this is all so strange and she wouldn’t understand.

“There’s someone I can’t stop thinking about,” Tzuyu confesses one time as they pack their things, about to go home.

“Huh? Who? Where’d you guys meet?”

“The subway. Dahyun, I think this might be real. I swear I felt something,” 

There’s a confused look on Dahyun’s face. “Are you sure?”

Tzuyu still isn’t sure. Nevertheless, it scares her: it’s all she can think about, but at the same time, it’s something she doesn’t quite understand. She doesn’t know the girl, but it pains her to think that she won’t ever see her again. The closest thing she has to examining it is the weird, jumping feeling in her chest that appears from time to time whenever she thinks about it: if soulmates are real, then is fate real, too? 

Tzuyu shivers from the cold until she wakes up. The air-conditioner has again; this is Tzuyu’s indicator, alternate to her alarm, to wake up in the middle of the night. 

The power shortages from the sweltering summer heat is troublesome, and it’s thrown Tzuyu into a bizarre routine. Because electricity comes back just short after one in the morning, she’s taken to doing chores and errands in the wee hours. She strips the comforter of her bed back and steps onto the cold floor. It feels like she’s on one of those planets in the Little Prince: doing the laundry, ironing her clothes- all underneath the light of the moon. 

She returns to her bed at around three in the morning, and blames her tiredness on the inevitable ruin of her circadian clock. For a while, she feels sorry for herself, before she ultimately closes her eyes, preparing for the day she’ll have in a few hours.

Menial paperwork: if there’s anything that Tzuyu hates, it’s tedious and meaningless work. 

Today, she sits on her office chair robotically, arranging files alphabetically. Beside her, Dahyun does the same on the computer, because the files had somehow gotten corrupted. Dahyun feels the same about the work. Tzuyu was probably only ordered to do the most menial task because she’s the youngest person in the workplace. But still, she whispers in Dahyun’s ear and mocks her, I don’t believe in coincidences!

“Shut up,” Dahyun says weakly, weary-eyed and sluggish from staring at the computer screen for too long. “You’re going later, right?”

Right, the company outing in some bar in Hongdae that she had almost completely forgotten about. 

“Maybe,” Tzuyu says impassively. 

Dahyun pouts in response, but Tzuyu pretends not to see it, because she has nothing left to say. She grabs the pocketbook in her tote just to divert her attention to something else, and starts where she had left, the receipt from the drink she had bought the day she had found the notebook as a flimsy bookmark. 

Tzuyu has never been a fan of alcohol: Jihyo knows this. Tzuyu had revealed her distaste for it last week, when Jihyo had brought up the prospect of the seniors of the company treating all the subordinates to drinks. Unsurprisingly enough, now, here she is, with a barely alcoholic citrus drink she doesn’t recognize in her hand- so, this is good. 

She had only agreed to join the company outing earlier only because of Dahyun’s begging, and it’s hard to say no to Dahyun sometimes, so it should be good. Dahyun is nowhere to be seen, last spotted hours ago, talking to Myoui Mina, another junior. But it’s okay, because Tzuyu chats with a senior from the other department today- Hirai Momo, if she remembers correctly. She’s nice and charming, and Tzuyu has fun talking to her, especially when they both talk about moving to Seoul. At the far corner of the bar, Tzuyu hears a man’s hushed yet angry voice, and a woman’s: an argument. She can’t help but eavesdrop, eventually watching past Momo’s left ear. 

“You swear to god you can’t perform today?” 

“I already told you, I can’t. I don’t have it with me. I’ve told you this weeks ago.” The girl says. 

Tzuyu can’t quite see her, the girl facing the same way Tzuyu is. She can only see a glimpse of the bridge of her nose when she turns to an angle, shaking her head in what seems to be slight disdain. The man is quiet before he leaves shortly after. Momo is still talking about her dogs at home. Tzuyu excuses herself, leaves her drink, and tells Momo that she needs a bathroom break. Momo happily tells her it’s fine. 

Tzuyu can’t stop watching. She starts to walk towards the bathroom, but it’s only then that she realizes that her profound intrigue isn’t out of curiosity, but recognition. This is the girl from the subway a few months ago. 

No way. Tzuyu makes up her mind a few steps from the bathroom’s entrance. The girl is right here, right now, and it can’t possibly be real, right? 

Tzuyu wants to know for herself how real this is, how real she is. She musters up the courage to approach the girl from behind. “Hey.”

The girl faces back, her straight black hair brushing against her bare shoulders when she turns her head. She looks exactly the same as she did a few months ago. At some point, Tzuyu was convinced that this girl might have been just a figment of her imagination, a mere remnant of her first memories in Seoul so blurred that she would never be able to recall exactly what happened again. But here she is, and the image of the girl is clearer than ever. “Oh! It’s you!” 

And this time, she isn’t just a memory anymore. 

“Yes, it’s me?” Tzuyu replies nervously. The jumping feeling in her ribs from the first few weeks she was in Seoul has suddenly returned, which causes Tzuyu to stammer, “Y-you recognize me?” 

The girl smiles at her with gleam. “You have no idea. This is kind of hilarious,” She meekly says. For someone who speaks so timidly, that Tzuyu has to pay full attention to what she’s saying lest she misses anything, she does seem so sure of what she has to say. It’s refreshing. 

Nonetheless, Tzuyu feels her chest squeezing with anticipation. She wants to laugh because she kind of feels the same, she just doesn’t know what to say in reply. She simply stares at the girl until it all starts to make sense. 

The jitters in Tzuyu’s chest hurts so good; it’s the familiar jumping feeling she’s grown to know in Seoul, where everything passes by her and is gone the next second, although this time it’s a bit different, but in a good way. Neither of them are going anywhere this time. She is right here, right now, and Tzuyu has learned to retain the grains of sand in her palms that used to slip through the gaps of her fingers. 

“I was kind of convinced you’re the one.” Tzuyu says after a while, after much thought. “Actually, I still do think so.” 

“Seriously?” The bold admission doesn’t seem to faze the girl at first, and there’s an unreadable look on her face. “This is so funny. I should be the one saying that. In fact, I thought about you so much these past few months that it’s pathetic. Falling in love with a stranger? A foreigner who doesn’t know how to use the subway? Really?”

Tzuyu smiles. “Really.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,”

“I’m not. Everything’s just been so much-” Tzuyu pauses to find the right word in Korean. Better? Lovelier? She can’t decide. “...different, ever since I met you,”

The girl giggles at the word ‘different’. She doesn’t pry, just nods understandingly. Then she looks at Tzuyu’s hand for a moment when they’re both silent. Tzuyu follows her eyes, and she uncharacteristically takes Chaeyoung’s hand in hers. If this is what it takes to hang onto her, Tzuyu will do it. 

“What’s your name?” Tzuyu asks. Holding a stranger’s hand before asking for their name is wrong, but she doesn’t care anymore. This feels right.

Meanwhile, the girl’s eyes flash with elation when Tzuyu’s hand holds her own and when Tzuyu asks. This time, they’re going to introduce themselves to each other, finally, like the countless times Tzuyu has dreamt of. “Son Chaeyoung. What’s yours?” 

Tzuyu repeats the name in her head, inside-out, and it takes a while for Tzuyu’s mind to reach comprehension, disoriented from overwhelm. Son Chaeyoung. Now it makes sense. She’s definitely the voice in her head these past few months, Tzuyu’s sure of it.

But she doesn’t explain her realization just yet. This is her only chance with Chaeyoung and she doesn’t want to ruin it. Instead, Tzuyu answers Chaeyoung curtly, “Chou Tzuyu.” 

“Tzuyu, why do I feel like we’ve met somewhere else?” Chaeyoung asks innocently. Tzuyu can’t tell if she’s taunting her or if she’s serious. 

“Maybe we have?” Tzuyu’s only half-joking, looking at Chaeyoung expectantly. 

Still, it’s hard to tell if Chaeyoung believes her. “If we have, that’s going to be so annoying because all I did the past few months was pine over you. And I should have asked for your name. If we did, why didn’t I. I’m stupid.” Chaeyoung exasperatedly sighs.

“It’s okay, now I’m here.” And you are, too.

“And I am, too.” Chaeyoung softly says this time.

Tzuyu smiles as widely as she can because she can’t help it. It’s now or never, so she asks, with much composition, “Do you want to go somewhere else?” The sentence is so oversaturated in her head because she has dreamt of this so many times.

“Yes. Please.” Chaeyoung replies without hesitation. 

They leave the bar without thinking of the people they’re going to leave behind. And in the blink of an eye, they get into a taxi. Tzuyu’s apartment is only 15 minutes away, but the entire ride feels like forever. It’s dark all over, and they don’t look at each other, let alone speak; the driver in front is quiet and so are they. All Tzuyu can do is bask in Chaeyoung’s presence because finally, she’s here, and they’re here, together. They don’t look anywhere else but forward, and Tzuyu’s jaw is kind of numb from forcing herself not to look at Chaeyoung. 

Tzuyu feels like she’s on a tightrope: one wrong step, and she might lose Chaeyoung again. And that’s the last thing she wants. 

Tzuyu inches her hand between the narrow, calculated space between them, just to get closer to Chaeyoung more than anything, but Chaeyoung grabs her hand in the dark once she feels Tzuyu’s skin on hers. It’s out of Tzuyu’s comprehension and it startles her. Tzuyu looks at Chaeyoung but Chaeyoung’s head doesn’t even move. But under the light of the moon, Tzuyu sees the slightest lift of her lips from the side. Chaeyoung is smiling. 

They hold hands in the dark like it’s some sort of secret even when nobody knows them. But Tzuyu likes it, feels like they’re in the strange, gray gap in between the shadow and the soul- with nobody else and just them. She subconsciously tightens her grip on Chaeyoung’s hand. 

Everything after Chaeyoung’s acceptance to her invitation happens way too quickly, like the way the entire way to her apartment feels like a blur: holding Chaeyoung’s hand in the dark, letting go when she pays for the cab; holding Chaeyoung’s hand going up the stairs, letting go again when she punches the security pins for her apartment. 

Tzuyu opens the door for the both of them, and Chaeyoung steps inside, taking her heels off instinctively before Tzuyu even tells her to make herself feel at home. It’s strange seeing Chaeyoung in all the places that Tzuyu had imagined her in: going up the stairs of her apartment, walking inside her tiny living room, holding her hand, holding her hand beside her... It’s unbelievable how quickly things had escalated, because in a span of a few hours, all Tzuyu had wished for these past few months has finally appeared, closer and closer to her, until Chaeyoung is a mere few feet away from her.

“Maybe next time we can get coffee, or something?” Tzuyu suggests when she faces the door to make sure it’s locked- unnecessarily so, just because Chaeyoung is her secret. She purposely implies that they’ll see each other again.

Chaeyoung is quiet, seating herself on Tzuyu’s couch. She just lightly nods, whispering a vague hmm under her breath. She’s nervous, Tzuyu can tell. The atmosphere is tense but Tzuyu wants to play it off as a first date, but if she’s telling the truth, this feels nothing like a first date. She’s never felt this way before, the agitation in her chest as deafening as ever. 

She sits beside Chaeyoung to ease the trembles. But before she can calm down, Chaeyoung asks, her tone indicating determination, but also preparation. “Can I kiss you?” 

“Yes.” Tzuyu almost whines in relief. 

Chaeyoung is adorable and ethereal. This is the only thing she thinks about throughout the whole night. They stare and touch each other like the world is ending soon, months and months of longing squeezed into a single night. Chaeyoung’s hair lightly brushes against her chest and her hands are on Chaeyoung’s shoulders; they pause to look at each other and there’s a strange mix of yearning, wander, and anger, because why didn’t we do this earlier? 

After that, Tzuyu genuinely wonders whether she’ll see Chaeyoung again. It hurts thinking that it might be the last time, but if she can’t have Chaeyoung, then tonight should have been enough. It’s enough knowing that only she has gotten to see Chaeyoung this way. 

The night before had seemed like a dream. Tzuyu’s still puzzled at the whole reality of it, but she just knows it’s real. It happened. 

In retrospect, it’s understandable how lacking she felt a few months ago. She could not help but grow selfish, always wanting; wishing for a shorter subway ride, better electricity, a change of scenario. And now it intrigued her, how the word ‘want’ was nearly synonymous with the word ‘lack’. It’s true, what she had surmised: although entirely different, the two words were so easily interchangeable. We are always craving for something, as if there is an insatiable creature endlessly gnawing at our insides; we want, because we lack; and we lack, because we want.

Hence, the jumping feeling in her stomach has stopped whenever she thought about Chaeyoung. She realizes that she had let Chaeyoung leave without giving her a phone number, and ironically, her address. But it doesn’t upset her so much, knowing it was inevitable, because they were too engrossed with each other. If she was meant to see Chaeyoung like that the last time, then so be it. Tzuyu doesn’t regret it. Maybe fate isn’t real, after all: just coincidences.

Tzuyu walks to the subway after a long day at work again, but she doesn’t feel so tired today. After months of living in Seoul, Tzuyu finally grapples with the fluidity of time. Time in Korea is gone in a few sips, but she’s learned to cherish it nonetheless. She has learned to do so in the little moments: lunches with Dahyun, morning walks in her neighborhood, when Jihyo offers to drive her home from work. It’s the kind of passive realization that floats by her mind in the train.

She also realizes that the subway ride isn’t actually that short, but that’s okay, because she has gotten used to the moments in transit. They’re aimless, but not harmfully so, the window of time between work and home. This time, she enters the subway, rides the train, and exits the subway all the same.

She feels like she can walk the subway stairs with her eyes closed, and even load her transportation card without a single thought going through her head. She walks to the loading machine, but she sees a familiar figure at the corner of her eye. Someone’s already there. Tzuyu unknowingly smiles to herself while she walks towards her, poking her on the small of her back just to startle her.

“Hi.” Tzuyu greets her smugly. 

Chaeyoung’s eyes widen in surprise, but she calms down at the sight of Tzuyu. “That’s not funny.” She pouts lightly. 

“It is to me,” Tzuyu decides that she likes to tease Chaeyoung just because it’s fun getting her all worked up. 

“Well,” Chaeyoung takes out a familiar tiny notebook from her bag, the one from her workplace a few months ago. Nayeon’s. “Too long to use for song lyrics, but your life story was an interesting read.” Chaeyoung says, looking at her expectantly.

Tzuyu’s quite impressed. How it ended up with Chaeyoung, she has no idea, but she doesn’t doubt or ask anymore; after all, fate does work in mysterious ways, she has learned that the hard way these past few months. 

Tzuyu slips the notebook in her bag and replies after much thought. “But it’s not like I can use your lyrics for my office job either, thank you very much.” She reaches for something inside her tote until she takes out Chaeyoung’s weathered notebook. 

The dumbfounded look on Chaeyoung triggers a series of memories in Tzuyu’s head: the man in the bar, the heated argument about how she could not perform... it all makes sense now. Tzuyu almost feels bad but Chaeyoung eventually smiles anyway, slightly shaking her head. At this point, it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

Rush hour is coming soon and Tzuyu remembers the call she promised to give the board in an hour, for her promotion. She hates that this is more important than anything else, and looks at Chaeyoung one last time, apologetically. “Chaeyoung, I’m sorry, but I really have to get going,” 

“It’s okay. Me too.” Chaeyoung says, knowing this wouldn’t be the last time she’ll see Tzuyu. 

They take the first step away towards the same direction. It makes both of them laugh, until they continue walking again: this time, beside each other.

“Don’t you hate it when you say bye to somebody and you end up going the same way?” Chaeyoung asks, smiling up at her. 

“Yeah, I’m just lucky it’s you.” 

Tzuyu smiles at Chaeyoung back. It was like meeting Chaeyoung all over again, but in all the right ways this time. Chaeyoung holds her hand out, the familiar pair of lips peeking out again, and Tzuyu finally follows her instinct, the feeling familiar from the first time at the same place, and takes Chaeyoung’s hand in hers. They enter the same coach without letting go. The train doors close and suddenly, rapidly, they are meters away from the loading machine. 

And somewhere beneath the surface of Seoul, Tzuyu tells Chaeyoung that she wants to see her again even if nothing’s wrong, and Chaeyoung laughs when Tzuyu tells her that she’s not letting her get away again, says that she should be the one saying that instead. Tzuyu just watches her. Chaeyoung’s laugh doubles, echoes, and bounces throughout the train, and Tzuyu thinks she can feel the slight vibrations on her palm. 

“You know, I still can’t believe you took my notebook.” Chaeyoung says afterwards.

Tzuyu looks at Chaeyoung’s eyes: round, but crescent in laughter and joy, gleaming with contentment. They were eyes that you could get lost in. Tzuyu decides that’s just what she wants to do as she tightens her grip on Chaeyoung’s hand. This time, she’s never letting go. 

Perhaps fate is real, after all.