_{She runs away one night, when Myungsoo's fast asleep, at two o'clock in the morning. She has one bag, a duffle bag, packed full of clothes and any necessities and the money she had saved up from her job at the restaurant.}

_{(When she quit the day before, he had asked her why. "You said it was good pay though!"}

_{"I just need a change of scenery," she remembered saying, though he probably thought she meant a new job, a new part of the city.} 

_{Not another city altogether.)}

_{Suzy keeps her phone on airplane mode the whole time, even when she's hopped off the plane and is in a taxi to a random hotel in a random city in England. The only thing she uses her phone for is music, songs that she stole off of Myungsoo's laptop before she left, wanting to keep a piece of her best friend with her even though she can't stand that city.}

_{Two days later, she's on a train, her phone is still on airplane mode and she's heading to Paris, the city of love.} 

_{It isn't until her second day in Paris that she turns her phone on and deletes the messages and notifications that brick the lockscreen of her phone, ignoring all of them in favor of calling Myungsoo.}

_{"Hey," she says, when he picks up on the fifth ring, heart in . She's done this so many times, from New York, from Toronto, from Tokyo.}

_{(But it still somehow feels like the first time she ran away.)}

_{"... Where are you right now?" He says after a long pause, and she knows he's fighting down the hurtful words he wants to scream at her for worrying him, for not telling him, for ignoring her phone for a week. She can hear it in the way his voice is so steady, but also in the way that he had to breathe for a bit at her voice, knowing that he had probably been waiting for her call, jumping every time his phone rang, hoping it'd be her voice on the other end of the line. She just knew.} 

_{"Paris, the coffee here really is better than Seoul. I didn't think that was possible."}

_{He laughs, the strain in his voice noticeable and Suzy briefly worries if he's been sleeping properly. She knows he didn't that last time, or the time before that, and she suddenly feels bad for doing this to him.}

_{"Drink some for me, alright?"} 

_{"I already have." And she hangs up.}

_--

_{She picks up smoking as a joke, wondering if the addiction was something that was as really hard to fight as everyone who was addicted made it seem.} 

_{(Maybe it was like her addiction to coffee, the way she craves it when she hasn't had it within an hour of her waking up, the way she automatically closes her eyes to inhale the scent of it as it floats towards her whenever she walks past a coffee shop that someone has just left, the lingering smell of it following her as she continues on her way.)}

_{Cigarettes weren't nice-tasting, they were foul, they tasted like , but she keeps smoking them anyway. Enjoying the way the smoke filled her lungs, causing her to want to retch but letting it infect her anyway.}

_{She learns how to blow smoke rings from a random guy on the sidewalk, outside of another cafe.}

_{Their fingers brush when she pulls out her lighter to set fire to the tip of the Marlboro he offered her, and she blushes, fumbling with her own case of them. She was never one for skinship, hating even when her own parents had touched her, always shifting away.}

_{Nothing happens though, there's no spark, she doesn't want to stay in Paris any longer.} 

_{But she can blow smoke rings now. If that means anything.}

_{(It doesn't.)}

_--

_{Myungsoo says, "No one's here to eat the strawberries on my cheesecake," and she hears, I miss you, please come back.}

_{But she replies with, "The cheesecake here doesn't taste as good as yours," and means, I'll be back soon, just wait a bit longer.} 

_--

_{She gets sick of the city she's in after three weeks and two days, sick of the people speaking French until it's a blur in her ears, sick of the cute little dogs being walked by the beautiful women dressed as though their lives depended on it, sick of the lights of the Eiffel tower shining through the window of her hotel room, where she's too lazy to close the blinds.}

_{(She's not sick of the coffee but that's besides the point.)}

_{So Suzy leaves. Gets on a bus to the airport and buys the cheapest, earliest flight back to Seoul. It's slightly daunting, seeing as she's only spoke to Myungsoo three times since she left, and all three times, she's been the one to call him.} 

_{But she knows he's as much her home as Seoul is.}

_{When she arrives, she takes her time getting her luggage. Standing there and watching her lone suitcase, one she bought in Paris, go around and around and around and around on the conveyor belt as she stalls. Suzy's not too sure why she's stalling. It's late, she needs a job, she's already missed the sunset.} 

_{Maybe it's the jetlag.}

_{She stalls until it's one of the last ones left, going to grab it and then leaving almost immediately, hopping on the train and hoping to all the gods that no one she recognizes gets on the same car as her. The only person she wants to see is the person she wants to avoid.}

_{(She stops by her favorite cafe, dragging her luggage in behind her, duffle bag slung over her shoulder and orders two coffees. One black, one with as much sugar and cream as they were allowed to put in it, a couple muffins, before walking the rest of the way home.)}

_{Walking up the steps to the apartment building, before getting in the elevator seems like routine. Something she's never liked but something that seems comforting and familiar right now.}

_{And she walks past the doors of her neighbors, stopping at her, his?, apartment.}

_{She rings the doorbell.}

_{It's 3 o'clock in the morning, it's late, he has work tomorrow, she knows that her key is where she always puts it, that she could pull it out and walk in and pretend that she never left. But she doesn't.}

_{Myungsoo opens the door after 6 minutes, she knows, she counted, and she stares, open-mouthed, at his tousled hair, the dark circles under his eyes, how skinny he looks.}

_{"I bought coffee and muffins," she says, trying for a smile, but she hopes he hears I'm sorry for leaving, but I'm back now because that's what she's trying to say.}

_{He stays silent, and she can see the way he's looking at her, like as if he's wondering if he should let her in or not, before he walks away and into the kitchen, the door wide open behind him.}

_{"I saved you some cheesecake," he says instead, sitting down at the table and indicating she should hand him the coffee she's holding. And she does, hearing I missed you, I'm glad you're back.}

_{They sit in silence for a bit, him drinking his sugar-saturated coffee and eating the muffin she had bought him and her drinking her black coffee, munching gleefully on the cheesecake he had made and saved her. She had stabbed the fork through a strawberry, her favorite, and taken a bite out of it.} 

_{"Your cheesecakes are my favorite," Suzy says, trying for a smile and she sees the ghost of one on his lips.} 

_{I'm glad to be back.}

_{"I know."}

_{I'm glad you're back.}

_--

_{Their routine falls back to normal after a week, and they're back to teasing each other, making fun of how she at cooking, and him cooking and her drinking tons of coffee.}

_{She gets a job at a bookstore and she likes it.}

_{She can tell by the way that Myungsoo looks at her though -- the hard line of his mouth and the unreadable expression in his eyes and the furrow on his forehead when he thinks she's not looking -- that he's waiting for her to get up and leave again. Leave him behind again and never look back this time. Maybe.}

_{Sometimes she wishes she could bring him along, to take him with her on her little adventures but Suzy knows it's impossible.} 

_{She leaves to get away from everything, from everyone, no matter how short of a timeline it is, because even though she longs to disappear, to start a new life and be by herself, to have a new beginning in a new city where no one knows her name, she can't.}

_{(She wants him to know though, by the way that she tries to cook for him even though she can't, by the way she knows how he likes his coffee and leaves him a cup every morning before she goes to work, by the way she leaves little Post-Its around the house to remind him, how she lets him choose the cereal they eat and the chips they snack on, that if he wasn't there, she would never come back.}

_{Because as long as she has him to come home to, she'll always come back.)}