your name
your name
your name
(drabble stuff)
It's you, again.
You're here again today.
How patiently you stand there, as I walk up to key open the door. How gently you shake your head to refuse my offer to let you in first. How quietly you motion with your hand so I may head in before you, and how you always end up holding the door for me, instead. Is so very characteristic of you.
And you stay for awhile. A very long time. Because, I count, some days, how many people frequent the morning shift, and while you are nearly always customer number 5 (though I don't particularly understand why you aren't customer number 1 what with the way you greet me every morning at 7:15am―and I think it should be the other way around, me greeting you), it seems you don't leave until I, at the very least, have seen customer number 62.
Every day I come to work, I expect to see you. If ever you were not there must mean something in the world has gone horribly wrong, because your presence at the door means that today is Tuesday or Thursday and it is 7:15am, (and while you haven't missed a day since―well, I can't remember a day you've ever missed―) and it's as if I rely on your existence to even know what day or time it must be. Or I would be lost―terribly confused to the point where I would probably wonder if the world stopped spinning, if the Sun no longer shone, if the world's glaciers and icebergs finally melted and we were all going to drown in our own earthly negligence within a matter of hours or days.
Our meetings at the counter (if you could call such a brief exchange of professional words a meeting) go often uninterrupted, as if you know the perfect time to come up and order, and as I hand you your tea, I notice how you linger around as if you want to say something more (and I notice that you are the only customer who calls me by anything other than mister or sir or hey you―Minseok, you say, and my name sings out prettily from your lips), but eventually turn and leave back to your table, to your laptop where you must be working on something much more important than staying to speak with me.
Although sometimes, when I glance over to you on your screen, it seems as if your gaze instantly turns elsewhere―were you looking at me before? No, I must be imagining things―that can't be right... right? And I have to ask myself, Do I know you? Do you know me? Because―
Dear beautiful stranger, I know not even your name.
So on this frosty December morning, you were waiting as I run late (I couldn't find my jacket, and eventually had to leave without it or I'd be much too late), and you rush over to stop me as soon as I lay foot upon the sidewalk and ask incredulously, "What are you wearing?"
And before I even have the time to so much as open my mouth to explain, you strip the coat from your back and place it around my shoulders, and it's drenched in your scent, your pleasant scent that smells sweetly a faintly virile mixture of cologne and coffee.
The apple of my cheeks grew warm as the tip of my nose colored red as a rose too, and while I stare hard into the ground because I can't meet your gaze, you say, "I'm sorry for yelling, Minseok," restraining yourself from touching me, I can see, because you just moved your hand closer to my face, but instead balled a fist, squeezed it, and retreated it away.
"Thank you, mister..." I draw out the last word, and you finally catch on.
"Oh, um, i-it's Lu Han," you frantically stutter, "my name is Lu Han." You grin sheepishly and it's the brightest smile I've ever seen from you and it's blinding―pure and bright like beautiful, freshly fallen snow in the winter, yet with the warmth of a thousand suns and just as captivating, too.
"Lu Han," I repeat, because I finally know your name, and we smile to each other for a moment until I realize that I'm on shift and haven't even opened the doors yet. "Lu Han, I have to―"
"Oh, of course, go ahead―"
"Sorry," I say sheepishly, "and I'll return this as soon as―"
"Wait," you grab my hand, and I turn back to face you fully. Your hand on my wrist trembles and I just figure that you must be cold now, but the way your voice croaks as you ask me, "I was thinking maybe that, today we could―that is―I mean, are you free?" tells me otherwise.
I―laugh, because it's funny how sweetly shy you are (but only for me), and I tell you, "My last class is over at six-thirty tonight," you blink widely, "so we can meet up at seven?"
"I don't have your―"
"Right," I blink, and ponder a moment before maneuvering your hand on my wrist into my own grasp to pull you inside.
And I think I'll never forget your smile, that pretty curl of your lips, when I place a strip of paper inked with my number into your palm.
"So, tonight," I say, smiling back at you, "call me?"
(And maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me for a second there, but, for some reason, it seemed like, if not for the fact that the counter was right behind you to catch your fall, you would have fallen straight to the ground...)
sequel, kind of. but you didn't exactly have to read i wonder to understand what lu han does here. (lolol i just wanted to point out, that the laptop is a facade, ofc, so lu han can stare at minseok, so creepy.)
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