[08] Streets
Santa Quaranta
Jongin comes back earlier. Even though he said he visits on weekends, he sends a text to Haneul on Tuesday, asking if they can hang out.
“What brings you to Santa Quaranta out of the ordinary?”
“We didn’t get to finish our last talk. I thought it was kinda rude,” Jongin says and smiles at that.
Haneul scoffs. She knows the rules of tourists staying in Santa Quaranta, but if Jongin thinks it was rude to leave an unfinished conversation, then she can give him the benefit of the doubt.
“And to answer your question from last time, I feel like I’ve been caught by midnight one too many times.”
“Probably with the someone you’re looking for.”
“Could be. There’s only one way to find out.”
Haneul is silent.
“I just have to find her,” Jongin says matter-of-factly.
“Good luck with that,” Haneul doesn’t mean to sound bitter, but that’s how she feels her words came out. It's a girl he's looking for. She should have guessed.
Jongin doesn’t say anything for a while. He stares at her side profile and she looks at the road ahead of her. “Isn’t it pitiful?”
“What?” Haneul answers with a question, turning to look him straight in the eyes.
“This entire situation. Me not remembering what I’m supposed to remember.”
“Maybe you’re not supposed to remember,” Haneul quips. “Otherwise, why would you forget?”
“I don’t think I had a say in it,” Jongin answers her, his sight now lost somewhere on the horizon. “It was never up to me to decide. But I just know I always feel like I’m missing something.”
“Is there anything at all that you remember?” Haneul asks him, trying to help. It must be someone very dear to him, if he's willing to find her even in this situation.
“I heard her sing a song once.”
“Do you remember how it goes?”
“Something about waves crashing on the shore. I’m sure I must have written it down somewhere,” Jongin searches his memory.
Haneul freezes for a moment. She knows the song. How could she not know, when she is the one who wrote it? It was such a long time ago though, when she was still a teenager. She wrote a poem after dreaming of a boy who disappeared with the sunset. She added a melody to it through the years until it became her lullaby. She vaguely remembers having sang it one night at the beach, but she doesn’t remember if anyone else was with her. Maybe Jongin’s confession is enough to confirm her earlier suspicions. That he was the boy she had met. It couldn’t have been a dream. How would he know the detail of the song otherwise? But if that is true, does that mean she is the girl Jongin keeps coming back for?
“Do you know of such a song?” Jongin asks her, noticing she has spaced out.
Haneul shakes her head to a lie. “I don’t know.”
Another moment of s
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