Jong waits nervously by a bike stand in Han River Park. It’s already twenty minutes past five and Ji Hyo is nowhere in sight. He anxiously eyes the setting sun. It looks like it’s sinking faster by the second.

Ji Hyo takes hurried steps into the park, suddenly slowing to a halt when she sees in the distance, the silhouette of broad shoulders against the backdrop of the fading day. She watches him, taking in the lonely figure playing with his zipper jacket.

She reaches down to touch the ring on her finger. She wore it intentionally today to anchor herself. Just to serve as a reminder. Just in case.

“Hey”, Ji Hyo greet calmly.

Jong Kook jumps in surprise at her presence, nearly dropping the kimbap he brought for their dinner.

“Sorry for scaring you.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“No problem.”

There’s a lull in the polite conversation. Ji Hyo looks back at Jong Kook and for the first time in a long time, she can’t read him.

“Why did you invite me here?”

“I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

Ji Hyo may be thinking too hard, but she feels a hint of something she’s not ready to confront. She casually tucks some hair behind her ear with her ringed hand. The actress watches his eyes flicker to it.

“What did you bring?”, she points to the bag in his hand, hoping to distract him from her blatant rejection seconds before.

“Some dinner”, Jong Kook opens the bag to show her, “kimbap”. He doesn’t look back up for fear of seeing something else from her that’ll break his heart.

“What did you want to do?”, she looks at him curiously.

“I wanted to see the sunset.” With you.

“Can we walk around instead?”, Ji Hyo didn’t think she could survive in an environment where his attention was entirely on her.

With a hum, Jong Kook walks towards the trail. The woman soon joins him afterwards, maintaining a careful distance as she steps to walk beside him.

In the waning light, the other couples wandering around glow with adoration, surrounded by entangled arms and sweet nothings whispered like secrets.

Ji Hyo suddenly feels like a sore thumb being the only disconnected pari and itches to fit in. She takes a peek at Jong Kook’s arm on the left side, calculating if there’s enough space to seamlessly slip her arm through his. She observes his furiously pumping arms for an opening.

She counts his cadence in her mind. It’s as if she’s timing a jump rope. She goes for it in 3--2--1...

As soon as she makes contact, the actress feels him repel back and release his arm from her hold. He stares down at her, eyes swirling with anger and betrayal. Ji Hyo looks back with innocent eyes because honestly, she’s not really sure what she did wrong.

“Don’t touch me”, he nearly hisses before he continues walking without her.

The completely sour mood is suffocating and Jong Kook wonders if this was all just a terrible idea of his and he should just call it off altogether. They walk silently down what now seems like an endless maze. At this point, he’s grateful that she hasn’t left on her own yet.

The orange rays from the sky remind him of his mission and he stops by a small grassy hill before walking up it. Ji Hyo follows mindlessly, copying his gestures, standing beside him and observing the golden sky.

“Do you want to sit?”, he asks, suddenly seated on the hill.

Ji Hyo huffs that he didn’t inform her earlier and had let her stand there  by herself for who knows how long. She takes unwilling steps towards him and sits a body length away.

“Here, kimbap”, he hands over naturally.

She takes it graciously but doesn’t unwrap it yet. She watches him eat before gingerly taking a bite herself. He’s been very moody today and she’s not completely sure what he’s up to.

“Is it good?”, he asks with eyes forward, staring into the sky.

She nods in response.

He doesn’t follow it up immediately with another comment, so they settle with quietly devouring their dinner.

Jong Kook has finished his two rolls but continues to look outward at the scenery. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Ji Hyo picking at the grass on her left side, completely bored.

He’s really regretting asking her out now, but he tries his hardest to keep the conversation going.

“Do you want to go?”, he asks carefully, fearing the worst.

“But we didn’t even see the sunset yet”, she retorts, sending a fresh wave of butterflies washing through him. He’s touched that she still remembers.

“Well, it didn’t seem like you were too interested, at least from that bald spot of grass beside you”, he shoots back.

She throws him a dirty look.

His eyes bug out when he watches her scoot closer to him. “Here, let me watch with you. Happy?”

He attempts to return a nonchalant smile, only it comes out with too much teeth and eye crinkle.

He can smell her faint perfume as she sits a foot away from him, with her chin propped on her arms that are resting on her knees. She looks so lonely and Jong Kook wonders if he should try that old trick of stretching to wrap his arm around her shoulders.

Nah, she’d probably kick him where it counts once she sniffed it out.

He’s just so glad to be in her company, so grateful that she finally let him in once, if even for a brief moment. And, especially during these desperate moments of his life where he felt each second could determine which fork in the road he would take. He wishes--

“I’m scared”, Ji Hyo whispers so faintly, he thought he’d imagined it.

He jerks to attention. His eyes are trained on her now, as she remains staring at the turf below.

“I’m not ready”, she continues, not waiting for his response. He’s embarrassed to be eavesdropping on what seems to be an intimate soliloquy.

“Half of me doesn’t want to go. No, most of me doesn’t want to go. I don’t know why I’m leaving everything here for the unknown”.

She stops talking after that, but he catches her lifting her head to take a glance at him.

“I’m sure Mr. Baek will take great care of you”, he tries to comfort, but each word cuts him deep as they roll of his tongue. It feels like he’s bleeding.

“I don’t know”, she replies almost like an afterthought.

Jong Kook’s brows wrinkle in concern.

“I’m not ready, not matter what he says or does for me. What if this is all a huge mistake?”

“I don’t think there are any bad choices. It all depends on how you respond to the situation. But I know you. You’ve overcome so much here. I’m sure you’ll survive there.”

“But I don’t want to just survive. I want to flourish. I want to feel alive. And I feel alive here in Korea. I don’t want to leave behind everything I’ve worked so head for over the years. I don’t want to let any of it go”, she looks up for a brief second and their eyes meet.

His heart is now lodged in his throat.

She continues, “I don’t think going over there will get me better off than where I am now. I’d only be going for the career opportunity.”

“But think about it. Not that many people will ever get that chance”, he counters but immediately notices a frown appear on her face. He realizes that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted someone to convince her to stay.

Ji Hyo quiets down now and resumes picking at the grass. Jong Kook instantly feels guilty. He fidgets nervously with his kimbap wrapper.

“Sometimes, he makes me feel so alone”, she buries her head further into her arms, “my brain is telling me ‘yes’, but everything else is screaming ‘no’. I don’t know what to do.”

“You can always tell him ‘no’”, he suggests.

He watches her swallow hard.

“It’s a little too late now”, she interjects.

Jong Kook feels sudden courage to continue lecturing her.

“No, it’s not too late. You’re not on the plane yet, so you can still back out.”

“But I already told him--”

“You don’t have to keep every promise you make, Ji Hyo. Sometimes, promises are meant to be broken.” His volume increases, which draws Ji Hyo towards him. Her back lifts and she turns to give him her undivided attention.

“You’re the one who’s going to have to live with the decisions you make in your life”, he speaks, looking straight into her eyes, “whenever regrets you end up having, you’re the one who’s going to live with them. Not anyone else. Do whatever you think you’ll be able to live with.”

She looks at him stunned, never having seen him so forceful before. He rides off this momentum to continue.

“You’ll hurt some people along the way, but do what you think is best for you. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Tell him ‘no’ .”

He notices her alarmed expression.

“I’m not angry, Ji Hyo. I just want to help you.”

She breaks his intense eye contact. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I already told him I would. He already bought plane tickets and is speaking to some of his friends in the US about opportunities for me. He’s already purchased an apartment.”

Jong Kook tries to remain unaffected, but each detail Ji Hyo shares is another nail to an already nearly shut coffin. It’s obvious the entire arrangement has been carefully thought out and executed. Everything is already set up for her. All that’s left is for her to physically move there.

He hesitates before continuing his argument. He wishes things were just as easy said as done, but he wants her to be happy, he wants to free her, so he continues, even when he knows it’s a losing battle.

“What will happen if you say ‘no’ ? ”

She pauses to think before rattling off, “He’ll lose the cost of the plane ticket, he’ll have to tell his friends not to look for positions for me anymore, and well, he’ll be living in that apartment by himself which will now be too big for him.”

There’s a critical element he’s noticed she missed.

“Do you think he’s going to take the job in the US regardless of your decision?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“So, then pretty much what you say isn’t going to have too much bearing, at least on his future.”

“But what about me? Where am I in his future?”

Those sobering words grinded his wishful thinking to a halt. He’s at a loss for words. How silly of him to assume that she didn’t want to stay together with him. He glances at the ring on her finger. It’s still there, as plain as day. He kicks himself. How incredibly naive of him.

“Where do you want to be?”, he asks, fearing the answer with each passing millisecond as he watches her lips move to respond.

She gives him a look he can’t quite decipher but doesn’t say a word--anger, sadness, and regret with a pinch of hope, swirling in her dark brown eyes. He takes it as a signal to end the dialogue.

Unexpectedly, Ji Hyo leans over onto his right side without warning, as if it’s the most natural thing on Earth. They sit in silence to admire the view.

“You know, sometimes I wish Chang Joo were you”, she says against his shoulder.

His breath hitches and his heart threatens to escape from his chest. Jong Kook looks down at her, catching her on her spot against his shoulder, glancing up at him with parted lips. He bites his lower lip to fight the urge to kiss her right then and there.

“You actually listen to me. I appreciate that in a man.”

This time, she’s looking ahead as she rests unmoving against him. He wonders if she’s sending him subliminal messages. He’s scared of taking the wrong step and destroying it all, so he lets her be and just breathes in her presence. He can hear her soft breaths beside him and it feeds life into him. She’s real, she’s real, she’s real. She’s still here with him.

“Beautiful”, she gasps, watching the glistening specks of coral, peach, and purple flicker across the water, under a brilliant orange sun.

He peeks down at her carefully, not wanting her to slip off his shoulder. A warm glow across her face highlights the innocent wonder in her eyes. They are lost in a euphoric spell.

Studying her face, he thinks this is the most perfect moment. Her, the love of his life, and him, like a fairy tale ending, together under the sunset. He just wants to be with her. He just wants her to choose him. He just wants her to need him. He wishes she would stop worrying about her future. Whatever it may be, he knows they will work it out together. He just wants her to enjoy the present with him. That’s all there is to life.

“Sometimes the simplest things in life are the most magnificent”, she chimes.

He looks down at her with a sad smile as she looks ahead into the sky.

He was going to miss her.