As Soobin was walking through Achasan Park, he remembered how it had been to come here almost every day, to sit on the same bench, at the same hour to read. It would be the same book until he finished it and picked another one in his own bookshelf. He had always thought he’d meet someone there at some point, just like it always happened in the books he read. He was a romantic at heart and believed in faith, in the fact that everybody had someone waiting for them, somewhere in the world.

Soobin also remembered that summer day when, instead of going to Achasan Park to read, he had decided to go get an ice cream at this little ice cream shop near his house. He had entered, shivered because of the freezing aircon and gotten into line. When his turn had come, he’d looked up and been rendered speechless. A beautiful guy around his age looked at him, his skin glowing with sweat despite the aircon. His smile was dazzling to Soobin and it took him a few seconds and the guy asking him ‘Are you okay?’ for him to come back to his senses. He had placed his order, paid, almost fainted as his hand brushed the guy’s hand and patiently waited for his ice cream. When the guy – Yeonjun read his nametag – had given him his ice cream pot and wished him a good day, Soobin had decided to make this shop his new go-to place. Five minutes later, as he had been about to threw his paper pot, he’d noticed numbers written under it. Under the numbers had been written ‘text me – Yeonjun’ and Soobin had hurried to add the phone number to his contacts before going back home and do as he had been told.

Soobin had always been alone coming to Achasan Park but never lonely. However, when he looked at his hand holding Yeonjun’s and how beautiful he looked, he wondered how he could have been so lucky to meet him. The Yeonjun he knew would never have set foot in this park unless Soobin was the one leading the way.

“What are you thinking about, love?” Yeonjun asked, squeezing Soobin’s hand.

“About you. About us. About how lucky I am to have met you.”

Yeonjun leaned to softly kiss Soobin on the lips.

“The golden string?”

“The golden string,” Soobin confirmed.