“Let’s run away,” he suggested, watching her face to gauge her reaction.

“Sure. Let’s go tonight,” she agreed with a laugh and a teasing light in those beautiful brown eyes of hers.

“I’m not joking. We could do it. We could wait till they fall asleep and go,” he said, his habitual smile gone.

“Just l-leave?” She only stuttered when she was nervous or excited and right now he guessed it was a little bit of both.

“Just leave, babe,” he affirmed.

“Where would we go? How would we live?” She questioned with knit brows.

“We could go to Seoul. I know you’ve always wanted to. I have to go there anyways cause I got a call from YG. They want me to be part of a group,” he answered confidently, “I’m going to be an idol. We’ll have more than enough money.”

“You didn’t tell me they called you!” She exclaimed, punctuating her words with a weak punch that barely hurt.

“I was waiting for the right moment and I guess this was it. We’d be fine,” he smiled.

“Congrats, oppa. I’m glad you finally got around to letting me know you’re going to be a big famous rock star,” she sighed and continued, “and I can’t be the one to get in the way of that. Ever since we were little you loved performing. You were blessed with that voice and this break is God saying “yo, go for it, bro!” You gotta do it.”

“So if I show up outside your window at midnight you won’t come with me?” he looked at the floor because he knew if he looked into her eyes she’d see how desperately he wanted to find a way for her not to have to go away. She’d see how much he needed her to be close. She’d see how much he needed her, period.

“I would consider it but in the end I wouldn’t do it. We can’t run away together. We’re kids, Bae, kids. We’re not equipped to live with anyone other than our parents. We’re especially not equipped to live together. What would we eat? I can’t cook anything. I even burn water,” she said, pausing only to take his bottled water from his hand and take a slow sip of it, “It sounds like it would be really cool right now but in a month we’d be at each other’s throats. You’d be off doing idol things and I’d be…I’d be what? Sitting on the couch in our crappy apartment counting the hours till you came back. That’s not what I want. I know you meant well but you have to admit that I’s not what you want either.”

“I – okay, I have to admit you have a point. I don’t want that. What are we gonna do?” He watched her play with the thin silver bangles she wore and waited for an answer.

“The only thing we can do – nothing. I’ll go off to America and go to college and come back eventually. You’ll go live in Seoul and get famous and forget all about me,” she said, sliding six bangles this way then back.

“I won’t forget about you. I could never forget about you, ever.” The moment he said it, he meant it with every fiber of his being.

“You better not,” she laced an indirect threat through the trio of words.

He laughed and pulled her into his lap, content to just hold her and feel her solid warmth. Waves crashed on the rocks in front of them, creating a mist of salty water. They savored the fragrance of it and of a thousand other little things that would form the picture of this moment in their memories: the whisper of the wind in the trees, the cool embrace of the air around them, the way the graying light played on their faces, the feel of the sand beneath their feet and the sweet thrill of a short kiss that felt long enough to reach the end of time.

“Are you sure about what you said earlier?” he asked as they walked beneath the starlit sky to her house.

“I am. We have to let it happen, Bae,” she took his hand and laced her fingers with his.

“You’re so sure. How come you’re not freaking out about this? You’re the one going to a completely different country where you’re part of a minority? Shouldn’t you be worried?”

“I’m a little worried about that part of it. I know it’s going to be hard and scary at times but I just have to trust that it’ll be worth it in the end.” She tilted her head to look at him.

“I hope you’re right,” he mumbled.

“I was more scared about going someplace where you wouldn’t be,” she admitted with a little smile.

“Was?” He questioned.

“Yeah, I got over it.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “’I got over it?’ Just like that?” His voice mirrored the hurt in his face.

“Aww, don’t be like that. That did not come out how I meant it.”

“How did you mean it?” An eyebrow rose and he stopped walking, turning to face her.

“The best way I can explain how I feel about going away and leaving you behind is to say ‘Que sera, sera’.”

“Que who?” He scrunched his eyebrows together.

“It’s Spanish. It means “What is to be will be.” I figure that if we’re meant to be together in the long run we’ll find our way back to each other,” she said, her voice filled with such a beautiful assurance that he had no choice but to believe that her words and the emotions behind them were genuine.

“Damn. That’s a lot to leave up to fate but I don’t think we have a choice so..” he let his words trail off and leaned into to claim her lips with his.

Under a streetlight that flickered like a candle in the wind, Youngbae felt hope and faith and trust beyond words twine together in his heart and blossom there. That night he said goodbye to his best friend and went home and packed his bags for the trip to Seoul. When the sun came up in the morning she whispered a prayer for him and his from her window seat as her flight lifted off the ground and into the endless possibilities that flittered through the air.

+++

Taeyang took on last look at his hair in the mirror. He turned his head from side to side and touched a trembling hand to the thick curls that hung over his ears. He was going to miss these. With that thought he squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his hands together so tightly that his fingernails cut into his skin. He heard the buzz of the razor and cringed. He was going to end up bald. They were going to screw up and have to cut everything off to fix the mistake and he was going to leave here bald. He’d been almost bald before and had strongly disliked it. He’d get a wig. He refused to be fully bald. He’d wear a wig if he had to.

“Sir?” The hairdresser’s voice cut into his internal conversation.

“Sir, I’m done. You can open your eyes now.” There was laughter in the man’s voice as he spoke.

Taeyang eased one eye open and surveyed the damage. His hair looked okay. He opened the other eye and leaned into the mirror. His fingers unlatched themselves from each other and his head, feeling odd when they came in contact with the recently shorn parts. His eyes disappeared in upturned slits as he grinned at his reflection.

After paying the man for services rendered Taeyang strolled out of the barber shop and down the sidewalk to a little flower shop he’d noticed on his way in. It was a one room store with flowers in boxes attached to the wall, flowers in pots hanging from the ceiling, flowers in long boxes that ran along the bottom of three walls, flowers in vases and even a single red hibiscus tucked behind the ear of the girl at the counter to the left of the doorway. He spotted roses, lilacs, daisies, violets, lilies, tulips, dahlias, orchids, carnations and goodness alone knew what other types whose names he either didn’t know or couldn’t recall. He walked around, poking a bud here, lifting a petal there. His mom loved flowers. She had a garden that she spent all her free time in and it was a rainbow of blooms and fragrances.

“May I help you?” The question startled him – he hadn’t known there was anyone near him.

“I’m just looking,” he responded with a slight smile.

“Oh. Okay. Cool. I just wondered. We don’t get many guys walking around looking at our flowers,” she gave a smile of her own and started to leave.

“Um…I actually grew up surrounded by the damn things. My mom is like obsessed with them so when I walked in here I remembered her.”

“You sound so sad when you say that,” Hibiscus girl threw the comment over her shoulder as she moved to the counter to ring up some guy’s African violets.

“I miss her. Haven’t seen her in weeks,” Taeyang replied when the dude with the violets had left.

“That . You should send her a bouquet so that she knows you’re thinking of her,” a grin accompanied the words. “We are in a flower shop, after all.”

“Dang, I didn’t notice the perennials hanging off every available space,” he teased and was rewarded with a smile that showed beautiful teeth.  “But I don’t think I want to get my mom introduced to any new flowers. We’re running out of space for the ones she grows. New ones are just asking for trouble.”

“Cool,” Hibiscus girl said, distracted by a pair of teenagers who were trying to touch one of the hanging flowers with the tips of their fingers.

“You should probably get over there before they break something.”

“Or each other,” she eased past him and marched over to them.

Taeyang turned to go, caught sight of himself reflected on the windowpane and pressed down a stray strand of hair. That’s what he was doing when a girl walking outside grabbed his attention. He rushed through the door and down the street after her, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. Her walk, her hair, the tattoo on her right shoulder blade – it was all familiar. It was as if she sensed someone was following her through the crowded streets because when she got to a clear space she turned around and paused, hand on her hip.

A sparkle of recognition lit in her eyes as he closed the distance between them and then he was holding her, slipping his hands around her waist and pressing his fingers against the silken curls that hung past the middle of her back. He breathed in the scent of her, letting it fill the spaces deep inside him that he hadn’t even known had been empty. A million shared moments drifted across his mind and he smiled, pulling away from her to look her over. She was almost his height now, her head reaching his shoulders. He grinned, leaned in and kissed her lips. She reached up, took his face in her hands and made it a French kiss. Right there on the sidewalk in broad daylight. And neither of them cared.

+++

“I got back this morning,” she explained, bringing their entwined hands to her lips and kissing the back of his, “I was on my way to the YG building. I called your mom the moment I stepped off my plane and she told me you were staying there this week.”

“What would you have done if I wasn’t there?” He asked, toying with her hair with his free hand.

“I’d have looked for T.O.P. You know he’s my bias,” she baited.

“Yah!” He narrowed his eyes, “I’m supposed to be your bias.”

“But he’s just so dark and mysterious-looking. I can’t help it,” she whined.

“Go marry him, then,” Bae responded, shifting her off his lap and lowering her onto the couch gently.

“I would but there’s this pesky matter of me being in love with this guy named Dong Youngbae,” she trailed a finger down the length of his chest.

“That’s good because I think he’s in love with you, too,” Bae said with quiet confidence.

“I told you it would all work out,” she reminded him with a smile that made him feel all warm and tingly, “and it did.” He looked at the white gold band on her ring finger and nodded because she’d been right. Not seeing each other for years hadn’t dimmed their feelings for each other and neither had months of going without communicating.

“I guess we were fated,” he whispered later that night when the moon silvered her skin with its light as she slept.