Goo Jae Hwan, South Korea’s head of the defense, arrived at the Seoul Central Museum at 5:45, fifteen minutes before he was due to give his speech. He had been called there on behalf of the President to give a speech on the nuclear weapons development. After exiting the limo that he arrived in, Mr. Goo walked up the stairs to the podium mounted right in front of the entrance to the museum. He placed his folder down, adjusted the microphone, and looked out over the sea of people that had gathered here to hear him speak. Jae Hwan’s chest swelled with happiness and pride, now knowing that all the work he and the President had put in over the past eight years would now be worth it.

Then, at exactly 6 o’clock, right when he opened his mouth to speak, a shot was heard.

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Jessica Jung waited for Donghae at the subway station. Completely annoyed, she couldn’t stop herself from tapping her foot impatiently and checking her phone for the time every other second. He’d left a crackly message on the answering machine that morning saying he’d be coming in on the afternoon subway. There were two, one at 1:20 and the other at 3:30, but of course he didn’t specify which one. That was like him. Jessica had spent too long staring at the bus schedule, trying to divine his meaning.

With some amount of self-hatred, Jessica had first drove out to the subway station for the 1:20, knowing perfectly well that he wouldn’t be on it. She’d looked only vaguely at the faces as they emerged from the vehicle, assuring herself that she wasn’t expecting anything. She had sat with a book on a bench at the periphery so she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.

For the 3:30, she bought a Coke and a chocolate-and-sprinkle covered doughnut at a nearby gas station. The next stop after that wasn’t until 6:10 and, well, Donghae couldn’t claim that one was in the afternoon. When the 3:30 came and passed and he didn’t arrive, Jessica sighed, knowing that she should’ve known better. This was Donghae, after all. It wasn’t like he had anything even resembling a watch and, if she remembered correctly, he had always found pleasure in making her suffer.

When her phone read five o’clock, Jessica fought the urge to get up and leave right there. She was missing work to sit around doing nothing? But then she forced herself to calm down, reminding herself that this wasn’t just any regular old person she was waiting for. It was Lee Donghae. After three years of not seeing his face, the least she could do was wait an hour or two to pick him up.

As she settled down to wait again, she realized two things. The first was that she could no longer picture his face. She couldn’t even guess what his current hairstyle might be. She had known him for almost over half her life and it was ridiculous that she couldn’t even conjure up his features. The second thing was that she was always waiting for him. There were countless times when she had been forced into waiting for him in the past and now, here she was, waiting for him yet again. For some reason it was always Donghae that came and went, and Jessica the one who waited for him to come and leave. Sitting there on her bench, she decided that she didn’t like it one bit and vowed to change it as soon as possible.

But, of course, Jessica Jung had never been able to manage her impatience (rather, it always seemed to control her) and she found herself doing all sorts of things to keep from going insane. She listened a bit to her iPod, tied her hair up in a ponytail, and went to buy another Coke. She did jumping jacks and ran in place. She even painted her nails.

When none of these things worked to pass the time fast enough, she leaned back against the bench and promptly fell asleep.

She awakened to the sound of the metallic whoosh of a subway. She sat up straighter and stretched, arching her back. She squeezed her eyes shut against her hope, just in case she had asked too much of whoever was in charge of good fortune. Would this be him? Would he finally be here?

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Donghae sat between a middle-aged man and a small boy of probably around seven or eight years old. The clock on his phone read 6:07. And everything was silent.

Or maybe that was just the way it seemed to him. Perhaps he was too lost in his own thoughts to notice the rest of the world going by, turning without waiting for him to catch up. But even his thoughts were muted. Every time his mind seemed to light on one, he quickly muffled it, as if it were a small candle that, if knocked over, could burn down a whole forest.

Coming back to Seoul had really blown his mind. Everything was the same, yet nothing was quite as familiar as it once was. He recognized that street, those stores, that park. But they didn’t seem to even see him, as if he simply wasn’t there. Had he really been gone for that long?

Then, just then, he felt the subway jolt to a stop. It seemed to shatter the peace around him and everyone jumped up, crowding towards the doorway. But it was a good thing, since it also forced all of his thoughts right out of his head.

Donghae stood, searching out of the subway windows for any sign of Jessica. His gaze lighted on one particular girl with her back turned towards him, slim and of average height, before shaking his head mentally. Of course that wasn’t her; that girl’s hair had been bright red. What about that other girl, over there? Could her hair have gotten as dark as that? Or that girl, way over by the directory? Could her shape have turned into that?

No and no, obviously. As Donghae stood there, he realized that you knew a person by her posture, by certain unnamable qualities. His mind quickly jumped to conclusions. Maybe Jessica hadn’t come. Maybe she wasn’t even in Seoul right now.

Then he turned his head slightly and saw a figure standing off to the side, half covered in shadow. And it was unmistakably her.

As he stepped off the subway he paused. For a few moments, both frantic and calm, he watched her carefully, feeling a tingle in the old, blocked-off passageways. He felt the neurons firing in the part of his brain responsible for present perception but also in the part devoted to memory.

Maybe that was why a strange overload took place just then, when he recognized her and didn’t recognize her at the same time. Ideas and feelings rushed in that he might have rather kept out.

Donghae took a step in her direction and, as she lifted an arm and waved, he felt his stomach sink. Had he made the right choice in coming back here? Maybe he should’ve waited another year or so.

Looking at Jessica’s smile, he asked himself the question that was really on his mind: should he have never left in the first place?

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“Hey,” he said to her.

She hugged him, her chin on his shoulder and her face toward the escalators. Jessica realized just how strange it felt to hug him after three years. His body was now a stranger to her. She gestured to his bag. “Is that everything?”

“That’s all that’s on me,” he told her. “I got everything else shipped to my house.”

“Is it heavy?” she found herself saying. She hated the fact that she had no idea how to act around him anymore. This was just Donghae. But…was it really? She had intended to feel cold towards him this time for leaving so long and forgetting her and the rest of the agents in the KIS. But it had been three years. There were bound to be things, unspeakable things that Donghae had gone through.

“No, it’s fine,” Donghae said, and Jessica could’ve sworn that she heard the seed of a laugh in his voice. She fumed silently. Was he already going to laugh at her in the first five minutes of his return to South Korea? She her heel and forged ahead and felt him following her.

She didn’t really know what she had expected once he returned, but it definitely wasn’t whatever was going on right now. She had been planning to yell at him for making her wait and not specifying a time, but she couldn’t seem to force her vocal chords to work. Jessica felt like there were suddenly boundaries that she couldn’t cross. The only problem was, she had no idea where they started or stopped and it kept her from saying anything at all.

Thankfully, they were both saved from the almost guaranteed awkward silence of the car ride by Jessica’s ringing phone. She looked at it quizzically before pressing ‘receive’ and holding it to her ear. She pressed down on the gas pedal and eased out of the parking lot as she heard Yoona’s voice reach her ears.

“Jessica?” Yoona asked. In the background, Jessica could hear the tapping of computer keys and the voices of some other agents.

“Is there a problem?” she asked, easing around a sharp curve in the road. It was only a few minutes from the subway station to Donghae’s house.

“Actually, it’s an emergency. We need you at the headquarters as fast as possible.” Yoona paused to listen to someone else speaking quickly in the background. “Jessica? Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Bring Donghae.” 

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*author's notes:

Please enjoy the chapter and thanks to linaaak3, lana_iu_jaesica, SarangheMiyu, munchtgrl, JaesicaIsReal, magic04soong, and yoonhae28 for the comments ^-^ For those of you that really want haesica, I'm sorry because this story has been set as jaesica since  I first started writing it. BUT, there will be a lot of haesica moments, as well as yoonhae. And for the person that mentioned winglin, yup, I started this story on there but winglin's down at the moment so I decided to post this story on here as well :)