It was a day like any other day. I was listening to my iPod and watching the numbers on the panel of the elevator go down.

Four… three… two…

I would have continued watching the bright red numbers, as if under a spell, if not for that something that put me off. A smell. A fragrance. And it was sweet.

I looked to my left and saw a guy standing beside me. When had he entered? Surely not long ago, but the one thing I was sure about was that the fragrance I had sensed moments ago came from him.

Apparently, the young man had felt me staring at him for he turned toward my direction, and after eying me for a second, he smiled.

It was weird. Nobody smiled at a perfect stranger —for starters, I was sure I wouldn’t—, and most certainly not with the intensity that he had smiled. His smile literally sparkled.

Ding!

I subconsciously thanked the sound that indicated our arrival to the selected floor, because it brought me back to reality from my trip to pretty-smile-planet. We had arrived at the first floor, and I watched as the black haired young man went out into the huge hall of the library of the first floor. First floor… So little time had gone by since the last time I’d looked at the panel? It seemed to me as if I had spent hours there, inside the elevator, with that man.

To be honest, it was my first time going through something like that. I usually did not pay attention to unknown people —let alone stare at them—, but that guy had something… different about him. The problem was that I could not put my finger on what it actually was.





The event had disappeared from my mind when I saw him once again. It never occurred to me it could happen, but sometimes life just surprises you.

It all started the day my sister called me practically begging for me to pick SunJi —my niece— up from kindergarten, and to take care of her for a few hours because she had some important meeting to go to.

If it had been any other time, I would have said ‘no’, that she could ask some of her friends to do it, but I ended up going along with her request, simply because I had nothing else to do that day and it wouldn’t harm me to spend more quality time with SunJi, who had recently tuned five years old.

That day, after my classes had ended, I went to the address that my sister had given me. It was a really nice day and the sun was shining brightly in the sky, so I decided that after I picked SunJi up, I would take her out for ice cream.

I was so lost in though that I hadn’t noticed I had arrived at the kindergarten. It was a small place that gave out a cozy feeling. It had a broad garden, and you could see some kids running around and playing.

I walked up to the front door and entered the building. Once inside, I asked a girl about SunJi, and, after staring at me for some time —which I ignored— she told me to take a seat while she went look for her.

I did just that. I sat on one of the reception’s sofas and stared out the window at the bunch of kids playing and running around. There was a boy running to one of the trees, one little girl was jumping the rope, a boy tripped and fell… and I felt it again. That sweet smell that, for an instant, plunged me back into that morning’s elevator and into that smile. 

I shook my head a bit to get rid of the images flooding my mind and turned my head to the direction from where the fragrance was coming from. And there was SunJi happily talking with a young man. The young man from the elevator, I recognized him right away.

While looking at them, all sorts of questions filled my mind. What was that man doing in the kindergarten? Why did SunJi seem to know him?

I decided that the most sensible thing to do would be to walk over to where they were first. I would then figure out what to do next. So I got up and slowly made my way to where they were standing and stood beside my niece. She lifted her head to look at me and a bright smile lit her face. Immediately after, she hugged my leg.

“Uncle Kyuhyun!” she practically yelled while hugging my leg. “It’s been so long since I last saw you!”

I looked fondly at her. Only when I was with her did I realize how much I had missed her.

“How are you, little baby?” I said, trying to bother her, which I accomplished because she immediately let go of my leg, her expression changing into one of annoyance.

“I’m not a baby! Now I’m…” and she started counting with her fingers until she showed me five little fingers. “I’m five.”

“Sure, of course. I had forgotten you were almost of legal age” I said, poking fun at her once again. My niece really brought out my most childish side.

SunJi puffed out her chest, clearly proud, and smiled widely. She had obviouslly not picked up on the sarcasm dripping from every one of my words, and I was about to explain to her that, no, she was not of legal age yet, and that yes, she was a still a baby, when I heard a giggle.

Great. I had forgotten about him.

I looked up from SunJi to him and stared for a moment before talking.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Cho Kyuhyun and I’m SunJi’s uncle”, I said while trying to look like the serious person I really was. “You are…?”

“Ah! Sorry. My name is Lee Sungmin. Nice to meet you, too”, he said with a smile. “SunJi is always talking about you.”

I looked down to her just in time to see her shaking her head from side to side, trying to get the man to acknowledge her. It seemed to me that she did not want for me to find out about me being her favorite topic of conversation. Well, too late, I thought, grinning.

In spite of her efforts for Lee Sungmin to see her, said man didn’t even spare her a glance —he seemed quite dense— and just smiled.

It was weird. That smile gave me a feeling impossible for me to describe. I was not used to those feelings and therefore, I did not like them. At that very moment, I suddenly craved for ice-cream; anything just so that I no longer had to be standing there.

“Well, I think it’s time for us to leave” I said while taking my niece by the hand. “Say goodbye, SunJi.”

“See you tomorrow!” she chirped, beaming like mad. It was quite obvious that she liked the guy a lot.

“See you tomorrow, SunJi” he answered, smiling back just as brightly.

Once again that feeling. Once again that fragrance. And once again that tiny voice inside my head that whispered ‘escape’.

And so I did.

I turned around and made my way to the front doors, leading SunJi by the hand.

Once outside, I reckoned that the word ‘escape’ seem a little exaggerated. Cho Kyuhyun did not escape. For everybody, I was a cool, unabashed person, to which I agreed. Taking this into account, I came to the conclusion that I had not escaped; I had merely stepped out of the range of that perfume and that smile. 

Sure, that was what I did. I had not escaped.

That was that. Period.