She missed him most when it’s autumn.

She didn’t miss him as much when it’s summer, spring and winter because… well, she had no memory of him and any of those seasons.

But autumn

He and autumn always went together.

It was on the last day of autumn of four years past when Shim Changmin first kissed her for the last time and said goodbye.

It’s just a fling. They said. Autumn is the new summer. They teased.

Maybe it was.

Maybe she should think of it as an autumn fling so it wouldn’t matter so much.

But damn, life and her heart knew how to her over and here she was, still living in autumn of four years past.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“One day, three autumns.”

The rather vague, four-word phrase from her best friend snapped her out of her thoughts, finding his tall frame standing by their table. “I’m sorry, what?”

“One day, three autumns.” Kris Wu repeated as he slid onto his seat across from her, handing her one of the two Starbucks frappuccinos in his hands. “It’s a Chinese idiom.”

Choi Sooyoung arched an eyebrow. “And it means?”

“We awesome Chinese use it when one misses somebody so much that one day feels as long as three years.”

She rolled her eyes. “Corny.”

“Sure.” Sarcasm colored his tone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t you still miss him?”

Sooyoung fell silent; her drink suddenly becoming the most interesting thing in the universe.

She knew she didn’t have to say anything. Kris knew. That’s why he’s her best friend.

~*~*~*~*~*~

She first met him on the twenty-second of September, year 2009.

The day of the spring equinox

The first day of autumn

She, out of her fondness for rewards that could be eaten and the bribing skills of one Seo Joohyun, volunteered in one of the local libraries. The job wasn’t at all complicated – just arranging books, assisting the librarians and the public, manning the counters and so on. Besides, it’d keep her busy until the Holiday season, until the new year would arrive with her new, more stable and more permanent job.

It was on that day – the first day she was assigned to the front desk – when she met him.

His name was Changmin. Shim Changmin.

A boy born of Korean parents but born in Japan, it was his first time in his parents’ native country and the first day of his three month-long stay, or so he explained through his broken but relatively comprehensible Korean. He was in the country for research, he told her when he approached the front desk with a lost, confused expression on his face and a sheepish smile gracing his long lips. He was an aspiring professional photographer, he said, and he thought that his motherland would make the best subject for his first exhibit.

“So what kind of books do you need? Korean photography? Korean architecture? Korean tourism?” Sooyoung asked in Japanese, noting how his face lit up. Thank the heavens for Lee Sungmin and his frequent boredom that made him learn the language, and then teach it to her. “I can help you find them.”

“I… Uh…” In a way that looked uncharacteristic of the seemingly shy, stoic man, his face flashed crimson. “I don’t know where to start.”

Sooyoung had nearly raised both her eyebrows at his reply but she kept them down no matter how much they twitched on her forehead. It shouldn’t have surprised her though. Korean as the blood that ran through his system may be, he still was, essentially, a foreigner in his own country. Where did one start when it came to something he or she had no idea of? How in the world was she going to help someone like that?

But being the girl b with bright ideas that she claimed herself to be, she came up with an idea.

“I know!” Her voice went a note too high and she was immediately shushed by the librarians surrounding her. Embarrassed, she leaned closer to him and staged whispered, “Can you wait for an hour and a half?”

“An hour and a half?” He repeated. “Why?”

“Because my shift ends at that time and I can help you with your problem by then.” Sooyoung grinned. “So… will you? Or do you want me to load you with books you might not understand?”

Changmin thought about it for one moment and not another longer. “Sounds good.”

He did end up waiting for an hour and a half, but she still dumped an armful of guidebooks of South Korea on his table just to keep him busy.

“Where are we going?” He asked as followed two steps behind the seemingly excited brunette as she basically hopped down the front steps of the library.

“You want to take the best pictures of Korea, right?” Sooyoung whirled around to face him once she reached the bottom step. “Reading books won’t help you with that, you know. To know Korea, you have to see Korea.”

The Japanese-born man just stood for a while, just staring at her, so much so that she actually contemplated hurling her purse right smack at his head to get him to move. But then, a sudden, genuine smile slowly crossed his face before she could consider the idea with all seriousness and well, the damn smile pretty much took her breath away.

“Where do we start?”

Fast forward to a few minutes after the words left his mouth.

“The subway?”

“Yup!” She answered proudly, popping the ‘p’ and then rolling her eyes at the expression on his face. “What’s that look for?”

“Are you serious?” A beat passed. “The subway?”

“O, ye of little faith.” Sooyoung waved off his incredulity with a gesture of her hand. “How do you expect to see Korea if you don’t know how to get anywhere?”

“I could always take a cab.”

“Smartass.” Mumbling the word under her breath, she gave him not time to protest as she took his hand and dragged him after her. “Well, not all Koreans are as rich as you so the subway it is. Besides, when you want to get to know a country, you must get to know the people.”

On that first day of autumn, the spring equinox, Changmin’s first day in his native land, they spent their time in the subway, reaching as many stations in Seoul as they could.

Sooyoung knew that the rapid pace of the people, the switching of lines that she insisted on doing to see the other stations and the unfamiliarity of it all confused him to a great extent… but it had been worth it, just by how Changmin babbled on and on and on about the people they came across with, the many stations they reached and all the ideas he had in mind as she walked him to the house of his foster family for the duration of his stay.

It turned out to be the family of one Jung Yunho.

Small world

After the initial shock had faded and explanations had been made, including how Yunho and Sooyoung had been friends for majority of their lives, how Yunho had met Changmin in Japan and how Sooyoung and Changmin met earlier in the day, it was concluded that well, things really must do happen for a reason. With that in mind, numbers were exchanged, side comments from Yunho had been ignored and plans to meet up the next day were made.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Yunho stood outside his house; his eyes trained on the trees across the street, watching as leaf after leaf danced along with the wind before it kissed the ground. The colors of nature were slowly but surely changing. The feel of it had too. It was colder yet still quite warm at the same time. Was it really possible? It really was autumn again.

“It’s been four years.” He whispered to himself. “Did I say the right thing to her back then?”

He might never know.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was one of those many cool autumn late nights he and Sooyoung spent just sitting on the steps outside the gate of his house; Changmin already snoring away in the guest room, exhausted from the day’s activities. The day’s activities in question happened to be a whole day spent in Garosu-gil, Gangnam, the so-called Soho of Seoul. Sooyoung had brought Changmin to one of Seoul’s flea markets the day before and she wanted a change of pace and brought him to the place famous for its sidewalk cafes, boutiques and a